South Africa: Africa Month to revitalise indigenous languages South Africa has dedicated the month of May to commemorating Africa Month, which government is using to promote the African unity, deeper regional integration and recommit Africa to a common destiny. The theme for the month is Celebrating 25 Years of Democracy: Building a Better Africa and a Better World and will culminate on 25 May when the continent marks Africa Day. Africa Day is celebrated annually on 25 May within the African continent to mark the formation of the Organisation of African Unity on 25 May 1963 and the African Union in 2002, which was created to promote unity in Africa. The day, which is celebrated across the continent is used to acknowledge the progress that Africans have made, while reflecting upon the common challenges faced in a global environment. Government says the focal point of this years Africa Month programme is to promote and support the preservation and revival of indigenous languages, and to create discussion platforms for South Africans, in particular local communities, to engage in conversations on Africas past, present and future, to foster solidarity and to build unity. In protecting indigenous languages, government believes it will ensure everyone is free to fully communicate and express themselves effectively. In the same vein, indigenous languages have the potential to promote equality, understanding and greater human dignity. South Africa will also be reaffirming its support for the African Unions Agenda 2063 and commit the country to playing its role within the AU to ensure the successful implementation of the vision and plan to build a better Africa. In support of Agenda 2063, South Africa believes the continent can foster unity amongst all Africans across the continent as it will rejuvenate social, economic and politics of Africa. With regards to peacekeeping, South Africa continues to contribute in post-war reconstruction and development efforts on the continent, while playing a key role in the economic development of the continent through the growing private sector investment in many countries within the continent. The celebrations in South Africa coincides with the commemoration of 25 Years of Democracy, 23 years of existence of the Constitution as well as the inauguration of the new President, which will usher South Africa into the sixth administration. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. China's Chang'E 4 mission discovers new 'secrets' from far side of the moon A lunar lander named for the Chinese goddess of the moon may have lessened the mystery of the far side of the moon. The fourth probe of Chang'E (CE-4) was the first mission to land on the far side of the moon, and it has collected new evidence from the largest crater in the solar system, clarifying how the moon may have evolved. The results were published on May 16, 2019, in Nature. A theory emerged in the 1970s that in the moon's infancy, an ocean made of magma covered its surface. As the molten ocean began to calm and cool, lighter minerals floated to the top, while heavier components sank. The top crusted over in a sheet of mare basalt, encasing a mantle of dense minerals, such as olivine and pyroxene. As asteroids and space junk crashed into the surface of the moon, they cracked through the crust and kicked up pieces of the lunar mantel. "Understanding the composition of the lunar mantel is critical for testing whether a magma ocean ever existed, as postulated," said corresponding author LI Chunlai, a professor of the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). "It also helps advance our understanding of the thermal and magmatic evolution of the moon." The evolution of the moon may provide a window into the evolution of Earth and other terrestrial planets, according to LI, because its surface is relatively untouched compared to, say, the early planetary surface of Earth. LI and his team landed CE-4 in the moon's South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, which stretches about 2,500 kilometers-about half the width of China. CE-4 collected spectral data samples from the flat stretches of the basin, as well as from other, smaller but deeper impact craters within the basin. The researchers expected to find a wealth of excavated mantle material on the flat floor of the SPA basin, since the originating impact would have penetrated well into and past the lunar crust. Instead, they found mere traces of olivine, the primary component of the Earth's upper mantle. "The absence of abundant olivine in the SPA interior remains a conundrum," LI said. "Could the predictions of an olivine-rich lunar mantle be incorrect?" Not quite. As it turns out, more olivine appeared in the samples from deeper impacts. One theory, according to LI, is that the mantle consists of equal parts olivine and pyroxene, rather than being dominated by one over the other. CE-4 will need to explore more to better understand the geology of its landing site, as well as collect much more spectral data to validate its initial findings and to fully understand the composition of the lunar mantle. ### This work was supported by the Chang'E-4 mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. Other contributors from the Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration in the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences include LIU Dawei, LIU Bin, REN Xin, LIU Jianjun, ZUO Wei, ZENG Xingguo, TAN Xu, ZHANG Xiaoxia, CHEN Wangli, WEN Weibin, SU Yan, ZHANG Hongbo, and OUYANG Ziyuan, who is also affiliated with the Institute of Geochemistry. HE Zhiping, XU Rui, and SHU Rong of the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics also contributed. About the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC): The National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) was officially founded in April 2001 through the merger of observatories, stations and research center under Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is headquartered in Beijing and has four subordinate units across the country: the Yunnan Observatory (YNAO), the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology (NIAOT), the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) and the Changchun Observatory. NAOC conducts cutting-edge astronomical studies, and operates major national facilities including The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope (LAMOST), the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) etc. NAOC's main research involves cosmological large-scale structures, the formation and evolution of galaxies and stars, high-energy astrophysics, solar magnetism and activity, lunar and deep space exploration, and astronomical instrumentation. NAOC has seven major research divisions in the areas of optical astronomy, radio astronomy, galaxies and cosmology, space science, solar physics, lunar and deep space exploration, and applications in astronomy. This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The second shipment of medical aid from China arrived at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, May 13, 2019. The 71 tonnes of aid mainly consists of medicines and medical supplies. The first batch of medical assistance from China, made up of 65 tonnes of medicines and medical supplies, arrived in Venezuela in March. (Xinhua/Marcos Salgado) CARACAS, May 13 (Xinhua) -- The second shipment of medical aid from China arrived in Venezuela on Monday at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas. The medical assistance represents the friendship of the Chinese people to the Venezuelan people, said Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela Li Baorong at the handover ceremony. The 71 tonnes of aid mainly consists of medicines and medical supplies. Li voiced the hope that this shipment of medical aid will help alleviate the impact of sanctions on the lives of the Venezuelan people. China believes that the Venezuelan people are capable of achieving peace and stable development, Li said, adding that China will continue to play a constructive role in promoting peace and stability in Venezuela and provide support and assistance to the South American country within its capacity. Venezuelan Health Minister Carlos Alvarado expressed gratitude to the Chinese government for providing medical assistance to the Venezuelan people at the ceremony. The first batch of medical assistance from China, made up of 65 tonnes of medicines and medical supplies, arrived in Venezuela in March. 3 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Jill Weinlein If I could turn back time, if I could find a way these are the first two lines in Chers hit song from her 1989 studio album "Heart of Stone". I think of these words sometimes when I look at my face. My skin is beginning to show some age spots, sagging, and my lines and my wrinkles are getting deeper. Recently I was invited to the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills to experience a luxury $1000 Liquid Surgery facial. This is one of the most expensive and luxurious facials offered in Los Angeles. Checking into the fourth floor Four Seasons Spa, a spa attendant led me into the womens locker room and assigned me a locker. Slipping into a plush robe and white slippers, I had full privileges in this area featuring a shower, eucalyptus steam room and hot dry sauna. Outside of the spa is a sparkling pool and FOLIA pop-up restaurant serving healthy fare by celebrity chef Matthew Kenney. The name Folia means from the leaves in Latin, and Kenney is a leading plant-based chef. Under Kenneys guidance the Four Seasons chefs have created a flavorful menu for guests to enjoy on the terrace near the outdoor pool. I sat in the quiet relaxation lounge sipping fruit infused water, while nibbling on dried pear and walnuts before my treatment. Kathy the spa's lead esthetician, led me to one of the eight newly-refreshed treatment rooms . The comfortable room offered a heated bed, plush sheets and soft blanket. Before I crawled under the covers for a 120 minute experience, I filled out a one page form about my health, previous spa and medical treatments, and my desired outcome. Kathy entered the room and described the various steps and procedures of this extravagant procedure. As a massage therapist and lead esthetician, she has worked at this spa for 17 years. While applying a double cleanser and tingling enzyme peel, she informed me this preparation allows the Liquid Surgery Serum to penetrate into my pores and skin. Made by German skincare brand Medical Beauty Research, the serum contains viper venom and real gold particles to promote collagen production. It also contains liquid oxygen to encourage cellular rejuvenation by plumping and stimulating the skin. When I inquired about the viper venom, she shared Its not from a real snake, its synthetically made in a lab and offers Botox-like results without a needle, said Kathy. After cleaning and nourishing my face and neck, Kathy applied a hydrating treatment toner, and hyaluronic acid serum to stimulate and rejuvenate all the skin layers. Then, with two instruments she gave me a micro-current lift to help tone, lift and firm areas of my face and neck. While doing this 20 minute treatment, Kathy shared how she graduated UCLA in Kinesiology and went to Chiropractic school. In her twenties, she developed acne and got her first facial. Soon she changed career paths and became an esthetician, and loves her job. When she applied a nourishing and cooling, rubber mask and algae elixir, she performed a relaxing deep tissue massage on my arms, hands, neck and shoulders to encourage lymphatic drainage and relaxation. Peeling the mask off, she applied a moisturizer on my face, lips and eye cream. When my treatment was over Kathy handed me a mirror and pointed out my skins firmness and reduction in wrinkle depth. What surprised me the most was my neck and under my chin. It's firmer and looks more youthful. After three days, the appearance continues to appear fresh and tighter than before. It's subtle, yet I notice. Before leaving, I learned the spa is launching a new Bonne Vie weekend package to help travelers and guests restore their physical and mental well being. Starting May 24, 2019, the package includes staying in a specially designed Wellness Room or Suite. Guests receive a 50 minute Surrender Massage, and a welcome juice from multi New York Times bestselling author Kimberly Snyders Solluna juice bar. Guests also receive a copy of Snyder's newest New York Times bestseller Perfectly Imperfect, book. The package also includes a group helipad yoga session with a top Alo Yoga Ambassador, a group meditation session with Audrey Slade, truffles by Matthew Kenney, and a Sleep Kit from LATHER. The Bonne Vie package has a two-night minimum starting at $1,100. An option to upgrade to a Studio Wellness Suite is an $125 per night, or a California Wellness Suite for an additional $300 per night available upon request. For reservations, call (310)273-2222 or book online https://www.fourseasons.com/losangeles/offers/bonne-vie-wellness-package/. Jill Weinlein Spa guests have privileges to the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. Jill Weinlein The Spa at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills has a luxury boutique. Jill Weinlein There are eight recently refreshed treatment rooms at the spa. When I speak on college campuses, I ask students to write the amount of debt they anticipate graduating with on a slip of paper. In a recent class of 25 undergraduates at Boston College, just eight will graduate without debt, either because of full scholarships or family wealth. For the rest, an imposing debt looms $40,000 on average, but with six reporting more than $150,000. Can you imagine being 22 and having $150,000 in debt? This is generational abuse. Previous generations were propelled forward by free or very low-cost higher education at land-grant universities and robust free college systems in states like California and New York. Entrepreneur Dariel Garner attended both undergraduate and graduate school at University of California, Berkeley, free between 1968 and 1975. I got a world-class education for free, he told me. Within decades, hed amassed a multi-million dollar fortune from several enterprises. Garner blames the withdrawal of state support for public higher education as a driving factor for the ballooning debt of todays grads. We used to tax the rich and invest in public goods like affordable higher education, said Garner. Today, we cut taxes on the rich and then borrow from them. Overall state funding for public colleges has fallen $7 billion below its 2008 level. Colleges have cut faculty and increased tuition and fees, effectively shifting the bills onto students and their families. Many students drop out, unable to finish their schooling due to rising costs. Putting tens of millions families into debt servitude serves no economic or societal purpose. Its damaging not only to individual finances but to society and the economy as a whole. A mountain of research shows that student debt is tripping up the next generation, just as they attempt to hit their earnings stride. Student debt delays household formation, discourages entrepreneurship and public service, and thwarts homeownership, among other forms of wealth building. No wonder a shrinking percentage of college graduates feel their degree is a ticket to the middle class, according to a long-running survey of U.S. social attitudes. According to the Federal Reserve, monthly student loan payments increased from $227 in 2005 to $393 in 2016. More than 44 million households are saddled with student debt averaging in excess of $37,000. The total student debt burden of $1.5 trillion now exceeds total credit card debt, and is only second to consumer mortgages. One in five of these loans are in default. And those who attended predatory for-profit institutions are disproportionately likely to fall behind on their student loan payments. The only beneficiary of this debacle is a parasitical student loan industry a leech on the economy. Nearly all Democratic presidential candidates have put forward plans to address the issue. There is more consensus about the need to go big on college affordability than ever, observed Mark Huelsman, a policy researcher at Demos. Senator Elizabeth Warren has a comprehensive plan to reduce existing student debt and establish universal free public college. The enormous student debt burden weighing down our economy isnt the result of laziness or irresponsibility, she said. Its the result of a government that has consistently put the interests of the wealthy and well-connected over the interests of working families. Warrens plan would cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for households with income under $100,000 and provide some debt relief for households with incomes up to $250,000. She also proposes a new federal investment in public higher education that would eliminate the cost of tuition and fees at every public college, splitting the costs with states. The one-time debt cancellation plan and universal free tuition going forward would be paid for by a 2% annual wealth tax on households with fortunes of more than $50 million. Students in California have put forward a similar plan to restore Californias estate tax, a levy paid only by households with wealth of more than $5 million, to reduce tuition for 2.2 million California students at public institutions. These are good ideas. Ending the generational abuse of student debt will expand educational opportunity, unburden our young people, and boost the economy for all. Chuck Collins directs the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits Inequality.org. Hes the author of Born on Third Base. He wrote this for InsideSources.com. Job Title: Accountant Organization: Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders Initiative for Community Action on Health and HIV at the Local Level (AMICAALL) Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda Reports to: Finance Manager About US: The Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders Initiative for Community Action on Health and HIV at the Local Level (AMICAALL) is a continental Association of Urban Local Authorities (City, Municipalities and Town Councils), Mayors and other Urban Leaders committed to support sustainable solutions to local urban health challenges. AMICAALL Uganda is registered and operates as an NGO. The Mission is To support the building of an effective and coordinated urban health and HIV&AIDS response. In line with our Strategic Program Priority Area Leadership, Policy, Advocacy and Social Mobilization; AMICAALL Uganda has secured funding from the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) to implement an 18-months Strengthening Democratic Governance within Urban Authorities Project. Job Summary: The Accountant will manage the finances of the Governance project. The Accountant works closely with the Finance Manager in compiling project financial reports income and expenditure, balance sheets, cash flow statements, project reports as part of the cash management activity of the donors grant agreements.. Key Duties and Responsibilities: for the inclusion in the periodic reporting to the Donors and the Annual Audit of the Secretariat; Prepare receipts and expenditure Statements and Summary Schedulesfor the inclusion in the periodic reporting to the Donors and the AnnualAudit of the Secretariat; trends affecting budget needs Assist in periodic review of operating Project Budgets to analyzetrends affecting budget needs adjustments are made in accordance with Programme changes so as to facilitate long-term planning; The incumbent will consult with Programme Managers to ensureadjustments are made in accordance with Programme changes so as tofacilitate long-term planning; Qualifications, Skills and Experience: Finance or Business Administration majoring in Accounting. The ideal candidate MUST hold a Bachelors degree in Accounting,Finance or Business Administration majoring in Accounting. professional accounting qualification like ACCA, CPA (U). The jobholder should also be partly qualified or completed aprofessional accounting qualification like ACCA, CPA (U). management managing donor funds, working with a Non-government entity. A minimum of five years of relevant experience in grants and Financemanagement managing donor funds, working with a Non-government entity. and accounting packages such as QuickBooks. Advanced computer skills in MS Office programs, particularly Exceland accounting packages such as QuickBooks. The applicant should have ability to work with minimal supervision. How to Apply: All candidates should deliver their applications via email, registered mail/courier or by hand in an envelope clearly sealed and labeled with the position you are applying for. Please ensure you have also enclosed a resume indicating names of 3 recent professional references and copies of relevant Academic documents/testimonials to. Originals of testimonials will be required during interviews. Write to: The Country Director, AMICAALL Uganda Chapter, Plot 1658, Clovis Road, Kampala, P.O. Box 26323 Kampala, Uganda or Email to: procurement@amicaalluganda.org and amicaall@amicaalluganda.org Deadline: 24th May 2019 by 4pm For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline Job Title: Program Engineer Organization: Engineers Without Borders USA Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda About US: Engineers Without Borders Canada was founded in 2000 by CEOs, George Roter and Parker Mitchell on a napkin in a coffee shop. Engineers Without Borders creates change by supporting social innovations in Canada and Africa that can break the systems that sustain poverty. We promote policies to foster more equitable development. We invest in leaders who enable others to reach their full potential. Key Duties and Responsibilities: chapters/program staff for conformance with our vision, mission, principles of development, and policies. Review project reports submitted by individual EWB-USAchapters/program staff for conformance with our vision, mission,principles of development, and policies. regarding project plans. Exercise engineering judgment to make sound technical decisionsregarding project plans. projects are of a high-quality technical level, and can be sustained by the partner community. Work with various experts in the field to ensure that the proposedprojects are of a high-quality technical level, and can be sustained bythe partner community. reviews. Work with and manage external technical reviewers on projectreviews. Review of reports for conformance with our M&E System. through the review process and provide feedback on their project. Communicate with the EWB-USA chapters/program staff to guide themthrough the review process and provide feedback on their project. process approvals in a timely, efficient manner, and within budget. Manage programs to move high quality projects through the projectprocess approvals in a timely, efficient manner, and within budget. student and professional Provide technical and community development expertise to assiststudent and professional culturally and technically appropriate projects. EWB-USA members in the assessment, design and implementation ofculturally and technically appropriate projects. conferences and in the development of education and knowledge sharing resources. Support educational and training activities for EWB-USA members atconferences and in the development of education and knowledge sharingresources. resources and project processes. Support the country office through the development of technicalresources and project processes. request. Coordinate with the Country Office staff to address chapter/programrequest. Support other EWB-USA programs in Uganda as needed. Qualifications, Skills and Experience: The applicant must hold relevant qualifications Water and Renewable Energy solutions Expert Five years of experience working as an Engineer/Program Director,Water and Renewable Energy solutions Expert How to Apply: All candidates are strongly encouraged to send their cover letters and updated CVs to info.uganda@ewb-usa.org Deadline: 17th May 2019 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline Job Title: Procurement Assistant Organization: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Duty Station: Uganda Grade: SC5 About US: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is the United Nations frontline agency against world hunger. It is the largest and longest serving humanitarian agency in Uganda. Currently WFP focuses on three priority areas: Saving lives in Emergencies; Building Resilience through Predictable Safety Nets; Improving Nutrition & Mother-and Child Health; and Supporting Small Holder Farmers to Access Markets. WFP has operations in various parts of the Country. Job Summary: The Procurement Assistant will perform and apply appropriate processes, procedures and policies that support the efficient and effective procurement services. Key Duties and Responsibilities: efficient manner, to support Professional staff in the acquisition of goods and services for efficient field operations. Carry out administrative procurement activities in a timely andefficient manner, to support Professional staff in the acquisition ofgoods and services for efficient field operations. successful procurement programs and operational activities, (e.g. issue tenders, evaluate offers and negotiate/award contracts), ensuring standard processes are followed. Compile data, prepare and distribute documents, to supportsuccessful procurement programs and operational activities, (e.g. issuetenders, evaluate offers and negotiate/award contracts), ensuring standardprocesses are followed. supporting documentation is received, and funding is available, to enable the procurement of goods and services. Review, record and prioritize purchasing requests, ensuring allsupporting documentation is received, and funding is available, to enablethe procurement of goods and services. verifying receipt and inspection of deliverables, and performing follow up actions to ensure supplies reach HQ and field operations. Coordinate and monitor the delivery of procurement requisitions,verifying receipt and inspection of deliverables, and performing follow upactions to ensure supplies reach HQ and field operations. enable informed decision-making and consistency of information presented to the stakeholders. Research collate and present information in standard formats, toenable informed decision-making and consistency of information presentedto the stakeholders. ensure the information is accurate, organized, and available for others to access, and supports reporting requirements. Update, manage and maintain relevant databases and records, toensure the information is accurate, organized, and available for others toaccess, and supports reporting requirements. procurement activities with wider programmes and ensure a coherent approach to meeting food assistance needs. Liaise with internal counterparts to support the alignment ofprocurement activities with wider programmes and ensure a coherentapproach to meeting food assistance needs. staff, to assist them in completing standard tasks to agreed standards and deadlines. Provide technical support and/or allocate work to other supportstaff, to assist them in completing standard tasks to agreed standards anddeadlines. quickly respond and deploy food and needed resources to affected areas at the onset of the crisis. Follow standard emergency preparedness practices to support WFP toquickly respond and deploy food and needed resources to affected areas atthe onset of the crisis. Perform any other duties as required Qualifications, Skills and Experience: (WFP) Procurement Assistant job placement should hold a University degree in any of the following disciplines: Procurement, Logistics, Supply Chain, Finance, Business Studies, Economics or any related field is highly desirable; The ideal candidate for the United Nations UN World Food Programme(WFP) Procurement Assistant job placement should hold a University degreein any of the following disciplines: Procurement, Logistics, Supply Chain,Finance, Business Studies, Economics or any related field is highlydesirable; Supply Chain; At least four years working experience in Procurement, Logistics, orSupply Chain; Experience in Procurement/Logistics work routines and methods; Experience in Vendor management Proficiency in both written and oral English Fluency in the local languages used in in South West Uganda Prior experience in conducting analyses and developing reports. basis. Experience working with suppliers or other third party on day to daybasis. Competencies: Tendering and Contracting: contracting/tendering implementation at WFP by collecting necessary information. Displays basic understanding of processes to support thecontracting/tendering implementation at WFP by collecting necessaryinformation. Vendor Management: Leverages basic understanding of business needs to define vendor requirements and selection criteria. Leverages basic understanding of business needs to define vendorrequirements and selection criteria. Commodity and Product/Service Intelligence: based on an understanding of sources, technologies, properties, and public procurement principles/practices. Appropriately handles products/servicesbased on an understanding of sources, technologies, properties, and publicprocurement principles/practices. Systems & Reporting Corporate Operating System and processes to execute daily tasks. : Utilizes basic understanding of data sources, procurement systems,Corporate Operating System and processes to execute daily tasks. Ethics and Compliance: standards to increase ease of response to basic audit queries. Maintains accurate records of activities in line with compliancestandards to increase ease of response to basic audit queries. NB: Female applicants and qualified applicants from developing countries are especially encouraged to apply How to Apply: All candidates who desire to join the United Nations World Food Programme are encouraged to submit their applications online at the link below. Click Here Deadline: 26th May 2019 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline MARGARET WEEDEN, Chariho, Girls Track, Senior; Weeden won two events for the Chargers in the first meet of the season. Weeden was first in the high jump (5-0) and the long jump 15-1. ANNE DRAGO, Stonington, Girls Basketball, Senior; Drago scored 39 points in three games as Stonington started the season 1-2. Drago had 16 in a loss to Fitch, 12 in a win against Griswold and 11 in a defeat to Ledyard. SYDNEY HAIK, Westerly, Girls Basketball, Sophomore; Haik scored 14 points as the Bulldogs opened the season with a victory over Cumberland. Haik had three 3-pointers, five assists and five steals. ZANE BREWER, Wheeler, Boys Basketball, Freshman; Brewer scored 21 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the Lions season-opening win over Grasso Tech. Brewer followed that with 18 points and five rebounds in a loss to Hale-Ray. Vote View Results If all European motorists switched to electric cars it would barely put a dent in the world's carbon dioxide emissions, an industry expert warned this week. Roberto Vavassori, president at CLEPA, the European Association of Automotive Suppliers, said CO2 outputs would fall by just 0.4 per cent if all vehicles in Europe were replaced with pure electric models overnight. The suggestion will do little to appease motorists in some of the continent's major cities, who face new rules that include driving restrictions and additional costs to use their older petrol and diesel cars - such as London's recently introduced Ultra Low Emissions Zone. Little impact: Roberto Vavassori, President at CLEPA, said the impact of every European motorist switching to electric cars overnight would be a nominal 0.4% decrease in global CO2 emissions Registration figures show that there are almost 300 million vehicles on European roads to date. Of these just 800,000 are fully electric. While that figure is rising each year, it means that zero-emissions cars make up just 0.27 per cent of the current market. Yet while people might expect there to be a substantial reduction in pollution if all 300 million European vehicles were electric, it would have a nominal impact on world's carbon footprint. Vavassori told the Financial Times Future of the Car summit on Tuesday: 'Europe is responsible for 10 per cent of worldwide CO2 emissions, while China, USA and India represent 66 per cent. 'So we know that seven per cent [of global CO2 emissions] is the CO2 emissions of light vehicles if by chance we electrify all of Europe overnight we will save 0.7 per cent of CO2 emitted globally every year.' However, Vavassori said the reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity at the moment would see the emission-reducing effects dwindle further, down to 0.4 per cent. Europe is responsible for 10 per cent of worldwide CO2 emissions, while China, USA and India account for two thirds between them The Ultra Low Emissions Zone was introduced in London in April and will be expanded in 2021 Motorists in major cities, such as Hamburg, Paris and London, are already incurring higher ownership costs and restricted car use due to low emissions zones designed to reduce vehicle pollution. That said, London's ULEZ - introduced last month and due to be expanded in 2021 - has been introduced to reduce harmful NOx emissions that are believed to be at the root of millions of premature deaths each year, rather than CO2. Transportation, the generation of electricity and industry are the three largest contributors to global CO2 emissions, research shows. UK registrations of electric cars not on par with Europe Demand for electric cars in the UK is far behind that in the rest of Europe, according to market insiders. In a report published by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) last week, it said the UK is severely lagging behind other EU nations when it comes to uptake of plug-in cars. Britons bought a total of 15,510 fully electric cars last year, which was a 13.8 per cent increase in registrations in 2017. That's significantly slower than the average growth across the continent, which was 48.2 per cent, rising to 53.2 per cent for EU member states. Half as many electric cars are sold in the UK compared to France and Germany. Three times as many EVs are purchased in Norway than in the UK To put the differences into perspective, drivers in France and Germany bought twice as many plug-in vehicles in 2017, acquiring 31,095 and 36,216 electric cars respectively. VW received 15,000 reservation requests for new electric car within a week Volkswagen confirmed it has received more than 15,000 reservation requests from around Europe for the all-electric ID.3 after order books opened just a week ago. The launch version became available for pre-order in the UK on 8 May 2019, requiring a pre-booking fee of 750. The German car maker said it had taken more than 10,000 deposits in the first 24 hours of being available. You can find out more about the new Volkswagen I.D.3 in our report. Norway leads the way with a staggering total of 46,143 being purchased, despite the country having a much smaller population. One of the reasons for this lack of demand in the UK - according to the report and recent comments by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders - is the lack of government grants to help with the purchase of expensive new EVs. Last year the UK Government reduced the Plug-in Car Grant to help people buy fully electric cars from 4,500 to 3,500 and removed incentives for plug-in hybrids entirely. Another stumbling block was the UK's lack of charging infrastructure to cope with an increased network of plug-in vehicles. ACEA Secretary General, Erik Jonnaert, said: 'Besides investing in charging infrastructure, governments across the EU need to put in place meaningful and sustainable incentives in order to encourage more consumers to make the switch to electric.' With the French election out of the way and the safe choice of Emmanuel Macron elected, is it time to invest in Europe? Recent data has shown some economic improvement across the region, companies have been doing well and share prices are on the up. But, while short-term he believes there are profits to be had, European leaders are in danger of forgetting how grave Europes problems still are, says Psigma Investment Management's Tom Becket. He joins Simon Lambert, of This is Money, and Richard Hunter, of Wilson King, on the Investing Show to discuss what those problems might be and whether investors and governments are being too complacent including in the UK. Becket also outlines where in the world he thinks better opportunities lie, including some lesser considered emerging markets. Meanwhile, in the other part of the show, Richard takes a look at the health of UK PLC after a slew of British firms released results recently. And Nick looks at whether investors should be worried by the VIX index's low level. For more than a decade buy-to-let seemed the ideal option for Britons who found themselves with a lump sum burning a hole in their bank account. The pull of buying a property, letting it, and profiting from the rise in house prices and rent paid by tenants along with the perceived security of bricks and mortar was a strong one. But then the rug was pulled out from under the market, as a previously accommodating tax regime was changed, with the specific aim of deterring buy-to-let. The buy-to-let market has sunk in the wake of a tax hike but will it rise again? First came the 3 per cent stamp duty surcharge on buy-to-lets and additional homes and next came the hacking back of full mortgage interest tax relief for landlords against their rental income. The buy-to-let market has seen a marked slowdown following a rush to beat the deadline before the stamp duty surcharge arrived. So has this permanently dampened the market or are there still plenty of investors coming through? On this episode of the investing show we delve into Britains love affair with buy-to-let with Andrew Montlake, of mortgage broker Coreco, to discuss what next for buy-to-let. Is it still worth buying property as an investment and who is doing it? What are the attractions that these people still see in investing in property? Can investors justify the relatively low yields and high prices of property if they look to the long term? Are investments more attractive outside of London? Will house prices keep on rising? Watch the Investing Show below. Can company profits keep share prices rising? In the other part of this fortnight's show, we discuss the all-important earnings side of the price-to-earnings ratio. The US market is riding high while the UK stock market has stuttered recently, but is the all important element of company profits strong enough to keep shares afloat - and rising? Richard Hunter, of Wilson King IM, and Nick Batsford, of CoreLondon, join Simon Lambert, of This is Money, to discuss it. Warren Buffett is the worlds most famous investor and he didnt get there without knowing a thing or two about buying good companies. So what would happen if you applied his school of investing to a UK investment fund? Thats what the CFL SDL UK Buffettology fund has done and manager Keith Ashworth-Lord has made the approach deliver for its investors. Over the past five years, the fund is up 148 per cent compared to the UK All Companies average of 69 per cent. It holds only about 30 different companies, but has managed to beat the market every year but one in five. Keith says: There are very few great businesses around and when youve found one make it work. Invest heavily in it. So whats Buffettology about, how do you find these good companies and what are ways to identify the right ingredients for the secret sauce. Keith joins Simon Lambert, of This is Money, and Richard Hunter, of Wilson King IM, on the Investing Show to tell us more. Last year was a good one for investors and 2018 has started promisingly, but should we beware being overly optimistic? Investors have been buoyed recently by markets in which everything seems to be going up, but that doesn't mean that they should not be more choosy about where to put their money in the year ahead. Ben Kumar, of 7IM, discusses the best places to invest for 2018 with Simon Lambert, of This is Money, and Richard Hunter, of Interactive Investor, on the latest Investing Show. He explains why Europe, Japan and the UK look promising - and looks at how value, growth or momentum strategies differ. Meanwhile, in the other part of the show we look at why the FTSE 100 has hit a series of record highs at the start of 2018 and whether it can continue the strong performance. After a decade distorted by emergency rates and quantitative easing, investors need to rethink their strategy for a world where they can no longer simply rely on cheap money boosting returns. That is the view of David Miller, investment director at Quilter Cheviot, who, in addition to using funds to invest for his clients, is also a committed stock-picker and believes buying individual company shares is still a route to success. Its a question of working out whos got a good business model, who makes a profit, whos borrowed too much money and has a balance sheet that will evaporate at the first sign of trouble, he says. Those are judgements that are now having to be made after that longish period when much of a muchness seemed to be ok. David joins Simon Lambert, of This is Money, and Richard Hunter, of Interactive Investor, on the latest Investing Show to explain how he finds good companies. He discusses what investors should look out for and highlights some of the opportunities he sees at the moment in the UK stock market, particularly those in the FTSE 250 going after the big guns business. One company that he highlights as having profited from a successful business model, despite being in a tough sector, is retailer B&M. Britains companies have seen a slight resurgence in interest from investors recently, having been out-of-favour for some time, but David says that he believes its important to dig deeper than countries or sectors and instead identify the companies that have carved out a successful niche and are capitalising on that. What's the problem with a trade war? Stock markets have stumbled on Donald Trump's tough stance on tariffs and fears of an international trade war. But what is the problem with protectionist tariffs, why are investors worried and how big of a threat is a trade war to portfolios? Simon Lambert, Richard Hunter and Nick Batsford, of Core London, discuss it on the second part of this fortnight's Investing Show. In the six months to 31 March, the Tui's losses rose from 148m to 261m Bookings in its package holiday business for this summer fell by 3 per cent The grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircrafts, last year's hot summer, this year's late Easter, Brexit uncertainty and rising competition in Spain have all taken their toll on Tui's latest results. In the six months to 31 March, the holiday group's losses swelled from 148million to 261million. ADVERTISEMENT Bookings in its package holiday and airlines business for this summer fell by 3 per cent, while selling prices rose just 1 per cent amid tough market competition. The company has issued warnings over its profits twice so far this year, blaming the one on the UK market and another on the grounding of the Boeings, but it has still held firm on profit guidance for the year. Tui chief executive Fritz Joussen said: 'Tui is on track, both strategically and operationally, and is well positioned. That is why 2019 will be another solid year. 'Our core businesses with our own hotels, cruises and destination experiences and activities remain strong and currently deliver around 70 per cent of our earnings. 'Tui will emerge as a stronger, more efficient and more profitable group from the current consolidation of our sector in Europe.' In March, Tui warned that the grounding of Boeing's 737 Max planes could cost the group up to 261million and today confirmed the issue had eaten into its profits. The planes were grounded in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March which killed 157 people, months after the Lion Air crash in Indonesia which killed 189 people. Tui's fleet, which comprises around 150 aircraft, currently includes 15 grounded 737 Max planes for the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. A further eight 737 Max aircraft had been on order. The firm also said the results reflected the knock-on impact of last summer's heatwave, a shift in demand from Spanish holidays to eastern Mediterranean destinations and uncertainty surrounding Brexit. ADVERTISEMENT But, turnover rose 1.7 per cent to 5.8billion as it hailed a strong performance by its hotels and cruise ships business. Tui chief executive Fritz Joussen said: 'Tui is on track, both strategically and operationally, and is well positioned' Shares: Tui's share price is up 0.22 per cent or 1.80p to 807.00p this afternoon Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'Expectations have been very low for holiday companies in light of lower bookings across the sector as consumers worry about how Brexit might impact flights and their own personal finances. 'Fortunately pushing back the Brexit deadline has given a nice lift to the leisure sector as the public regains confidence in wanting to buy their two weeks in the sun. 'Tui's results are far from a disaster which explains why the shares are up on the news. Parts of the market remain in oversupply such as Spain which is having an impact on prices and therefore its margins. It has also had to contend with the impact of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft being grounded. Yet there is some good news.' He added: 'Investment in cruises, hotels and experience holidays is paying off and differentiated content is helping to make Tui stand out from the crowd, which helps to drive up the number of people taking its breaks and ultimately should lift the price they pay. 'While earnings could take another hit if it cannot resume flying 737 MAX aircraft by mid-July, Tui's management are doing their best to reshape the business to thrive over the longer term. They just need to navigate what is likely to be a bumpy journey.' ADVERTISEMENT Tui's share price is up 0.22 per cent or 1.8p to 807p. 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. 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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.) 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(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.. Natures Fare Markets is excited to announce their partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada as part of the organic retailers plastic bag reduction strategy. Pictured areMichael Curns from the Nature Conservancy of Canada (left) and Natures Fare director of marketing Alexa Monahan. Intu owns and manages some of the best shopping centres, in some of the strongest locations, in the UK and Spain. Our UK portfolio is made up of 17 centres, including eight of the top-20, and in Spain we own three of the country's top-10 centres, with advanced plans to build a fourth. We are passionate about creating compelling experiences, in centre and online, that make our customers smile and help our retailers flourish. We attract around 400 million customer visits and 26 million website visits a year offering a multichannel approach that truly supports retail strategies. Our strategic focus on prime, high-footfall flagship destinations, combined with the strength and popularity of our brand, means that intu offers enhanced footfall, dwell time and loyalty. This helps our tenants flourish, driving occupancy and income growth. We are committed to our local communities, with our centres supporting nearly 130,000 jobs (representing about 3 per cent of the total UK retail workforce), and to operating with environmental responsibility. We have already met or exceeded a significant number of our 2020 environmental targets. Read More 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. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form In this picture released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting with governmental officials in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Khamenei said his country won't negotiate with the United States and there will be no war between the two countries. A portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini hangs at rear. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP) SCHOHARIE Newly released court documents in the criminal case against Nauman Hussain, the operator of the limousine company involved in a horrific crash in Schoharie last October, show that the state Department of Transportation had cited the business for safety violations more than a year before the disaster. Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery revealed in a May 8 court filing that she intends to use records from three DOT "violation proceedings" that were presided over by attorney Alicia McNally, an administrative law judge for the DOT. Such hearings are automatically scheduled after a commercial vehicle owner receives a so-called "notice of violation" letter from the DOT outlining safety problems that need immediate correction. If a vehicle owner fails to attend the hearing, they are fined a pre-determined amount, which can run up to $5,000. The first DOT hearing was held on Oct. 6, 2017 exactly one year before the crash. The last one involving Prestige was held on Oct. 5, 2018, the day before the company's stretch Ford Excursion careened into the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Country Store just outside the village of Schoharie, killing two pedestrians. The limo crashed into a ditch, leaving all 17 passengers and the driver dead of blunt-force trauma. DOT spokesman Joseph Morrissey told the Times Union in November that Prestige, which Nauman Hussain operated on behalf of his father, Shahed Hussain, had been issued three notices of violation before the crash. "The company neither corrected the problems nor appeared at hearings to dispute the problems," Morrissey said. "As a result, we fined the company in their absence." Mallery's May 8 court filing is the first time the public has learned details about this aspect of DOT's interactions with Prestige: The agency has never made the notices sent to the company public or explained when they were sent out. (A Times Union request to view the notices sent to Prestige Limousine or Nauman Hussain is still pending before the DOT.) Mallery was not available to comment on Tuesday. Nauman Hussain, 29, pleaded not guilty to 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter and 20 counts of criminally negligent homicide at his arraignment in April in Schoharie County Court. He is scheduled to go to trial in September. Mallery claims in court documents that Hussain knew the vehicle, which had failed two DOT inspections in the months leading up to the crash, was unsafe and that the driver was not properly licensed to drive passengers in a limo that large. The 34-foot-long 2001 Excursion could seat 18, including the driver, qualifying it as a bus under DOT regulations and requiring a semiannual DOT inspection that Prestige never had done. Hussain's attorney, Lee Kindlon of Albany, said, "For strategic reasons, we're not going to comment on how individual pieces of evidence fit into our larger theory of defense. We think it's best to wait for the courtroom." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Mallery's recent filing also reveals that she will argue that Hussain's criminal intent began in July 2016 when he purchased the vehicle from another limo company and registered it improperly as a livery vehicle with the state Department of Motor Vehicles. By doing so, Hussain was able to evade the DOT inspection protocol and get the limo inspected at DMV-licensed inspection stations in 2016 and 2018. DMV records obtained by the Times Union show that in May of last year five months before the crash the Excursion received an inspection sticker from the Mavis Discount Tire store in Saratoga Springs, even though stretch limousines are not allowed to go through the DMV inspection process and instead are required to submit to DOT inspections. Albany attorney Sal Ferlazzo, who is representing the family of limo crash victim Amanda Rivenburg in a civil lawsuit against the Hussains, said the illegal inspection at Mavis could end up playing an important role in both the criminal case and the civil lawsuits. Ferlazzo said that other local attorneys who represent victims' families are increasingly focusing their investigative efforts on the discount tire chain and why it issued a DMV inspection sticker to the Excursion. "People are circling the wagons," Ferlazzo said. A spokesman for Mavis did not return a call for comment on Tuesday. SCHENECTADY Construction is expected to begin this week on a rainbow pride sculpture of wooden frames and education panels highlighting the LGBTQ equal rights movement. A guided tour of the newly renovated Gateway Plaza, where that artwork will be on display, is planned for 6 p.m. Thursday. But the fate of another sculpture the 8-foot-tall Statue of Liberty replica remains a mystery. The statue adorned the park years ago before it was taken down and put in storage to make way for the park to be redesigned. Mary Moore Wallinger, the designer of the project who will also serve as the tour guide on Thursday, said she didn't know if Lady Liberty would end up back at the park or at another location in Schenectady. That decision is up to Mayor Gary McCarthy, she said Tuesday. "I know it's in storage. I know it's going to cost a lot of money to make the repairs that need to be made, but I also know it is not my decision," she added. McCarthy did not return a call Tuesday seeking comment. He has previously told the Times Union that the new Gateway Plaza design was "not conducive for the statue." David Giacalone, who lives in the historic Stockade neighborhood near the park, has led the charge to get the statue returned to the park. He and others consistently cite language in the Gateway Plaza implementation plan adopted by City Council members in 2013 stating that the statue would return to the renovated park. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Giacalone is urging people to show up to the tour to learn about the evolution of the plan and let their voices be heard on the matter. Some alternate sites that have emerged to relocate the statue include Steinmetz Park on the city's north side, the corner of Union Street and Erie Boulevard, and the island on Iroquois Lake in Central Park. Located at the corner of State Street and Washington Avenue, Gateway Plaza is near Schenectady County Community College and Western Gateway Bridge that leads into and out of Schenectady. Chad Putman with Schenectady Pride previously told the Times Union that the group plans to mark the 50th anniversary in June of the Stonewall riots in New York City, a milestone in the gay rights movement. He said the Gateway Park sculpture would "send a powerful symbolic message to the larger Capital Region that Schenectady is welcoming and affirming place for the LGBTQ community and we want that community to be part of our future." A bipartisan group of regional lawmakers expressed concern that the transfer of hundreds of Customs and Border Protection officers from the northern border to assist at the southern border may hurt commerce and the flow of people at the New York-Canada border. A total of 731 CBP officers are being sent from ports of entry nationwide including from New York state to southern border patrol sectors where an influx of Central American migrants seeking asylum has "overwhelmed Border Patrol capabilities and facilities," a CBP spokesman said. But as Canada's Victoria Day weekend approaches, followed by next week's Memorial Day weekend, natural delays at the northern border where 400,000 people and $1.6 billion in goods pass daily could be compounded by the reduction in personnel, according to a letter signed by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik and 12 other U.S. lawmakers and sent to acting U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. "CBP's consistent inability to attain its statutorily established minimum staffing levels and the reduction of service hours at several land ports of entry along the northern border, coupled with further reduction of staffing due to this deployment, will cause excessive delays at crossings, expose the nation to security risks, and highlight key vulnerabilities," read the letter, which was also signed by Democratic New York Reps. Brian Higgins and Joseph Morelle, as well as Republican Rep. Chris Collins. "The decision to deploy northern border CBP officers to the southern border makes it increasingly more difficult for the agency to meet their core mission requirements at the border," the letter reads. But CBP officials said they've so far seen no increase in northern border wait times, and said any increase in waits that people crossing the border may experience will likely be a result of increased holiday traffic, which is two to three times greater around this time of year, according to Aaron Bowker, a CBP spokesman. "This is nothing new for us. We support temporary details all the time, and we're used to adjusting operations," Bowker said, adding that CBP most recently reassigned agents to assist in hurricane relief efforts. "This happens 365 days a year, year after year." Bowker declined to comment on the letter that lawmakers letter sent to McAleenan, and business leaders on the ground in Plattsburgh, near the Champlain Port of Entry, have expressed concern that this could reestablish a precedent of taking resources from the northern border to handle problems at the southern border. "For decades, we never got any attention at the northern border. All the attention was at our southern border. Staffing was raided constantly, resources were raided constantly," said Garry Douglas, president of the North Country Chamber of Commerce in Plattsburgh. "Our concern is going back to the bad old days of always having the southern border look for the northern border to meet its needs," he said. "If (the migrant influx) becomes worse and you set a precedent that what you do is 'well, lets take someone away from the north," you start to get on a slippery slope." Douglas expressed support for CBP agents staffing the border crossings near Plattsburgh, but said he's concerned that the agency having to unexpectedly deplete officers' overtime hours to fulfill staffing could present challenges "down the road." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Stefanik, meanwhile, has suggested that CBP hire more agents, rather than transfer them across the country. Logistics firms in the Capital Region and regional tourism organizations said they haven't yet seen a significant impact in shipping times or border crossings caused by the agent reassignments. Bowker said that any potential increases passengers or commercial vehicles may see in the coming weeks will likely be negligible. "Anytime we have officers out of the port, it could potentially lead to longer wait times," Bowker said, and added that a port with a typical 20-minute wait time may see that wait rise to 25 minutes, for example. "You could see an effect. Is it something most people are going to notice? Probably not," he said. But Douglas said that, with no definite end to the heavy flow of migrants many of whom are seeking escape from poverty and violence in Central America arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, it's difficult to say how impactful the agent reassignments could become in time. "There comes a point in any operation that, if you lose beyond a certain number of personnel...you can't help but have some impacts," Douglas said. "We just can't slide back to the days of robbing Peter in the north to pay Paul in the south." Hudson River Coffee House in Albany closing Sunday Hudson River Coffee House in Albany, which has opened and closed several times in the past couple of years as a result of financial trouble, including a significant tax liability, will close permanently after business on Sunday, according to owner Anton Pasquill. His brother Lucas, who has been managing the shop, hopes to open a similar cafe of his own in Albany's Pine Hills neighborhood, perhaps in the same location, at 227 Quail St., but those plans remain tentative. In the most recent development, the business was seized in April for an outstanding tax bill of more than $279,000, according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance. It reopened the following week, though Anton Pasquill predicted it would be only through the end of this month. Hudson River Coffee House first opened nine years ago. Anton Pasquill blames the financial difficulties on Delaware Trolley House, another coffee shop in Albany, which he opened in late 2015 and closed less than two years later. Dominic's Caramella Shop offers candy, coffee, more in Albany Dominic's Caramella Shop Candy & Coffee opened late last week at 352 State St., a basement retail spot in a condo building at the corner of State and Lark streets. Offerings include truffles, fudge, hard candies, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and coffee and espresso drinks. Hours are listed as 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, but a note says they are subject to change. Call 518-729-3005. The Bishop in Albany names head chef, sets June opening The Bishop, which describes itself as a "bourbon and beef bar," is due to open in early June at 90 N. Pearl St. in downtown Albany, home of the Merry Monk until it closed in August. The head chef will be Matt Hughes, whose resume includes New World Bistro Bar, Savoy Taproom, Vintage and the former The Capitol, the Wine Bar on Lark and McGuire's, all in Albany. The Bishop is a collaboration of four longtime bartenders and managers who are making their first venture as owners: Dean Bilpuh Jr., Raymond Hatlee, Scott Pugsley and Evan Shults. Shults managed Cafe Hollywood in Albany for many years, and the others were colleagues at Graney's Stout in Albany. Post Wine Bar opens Friday in Albany basement space Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Post Wine Bar + Kitchen, which has taken over the cozy, beloved basement and back-patio space at 200 Lark St. in Albany, has its soft opening on Friday. For the first week, until the grand opening on May 24, there will be a full bar and limited menu, with the full menu being rolled out as the week progresses. Post will offer "a wine focus complemented by a tight spirits list, six focused craft beer lines, small plates and select entree options," according to the opening announcement from the trio of owners: August Rosa, who owns Pint Sized, a bar and bottle shop with locations on Lark Street and in Saratoga Springs, and business partners Craig Dutra and Nicholas Warchol, who co-own the D.P. Dough calzone franchise in Albany. Hours for the first week will be 4 p.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday, 4 to 10 p.m. Sunday. Starting on May 24, hours will be 4 p.m. to midnight Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to midnight Saturday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, with a brunch menu available Saturday and Sunday. The space became a restaurant in 2002, when the owner of 200-202 Lark St. renovated two adjoining basements to create Antica Enoteca Old World Wine Bar. It later was the Wine Bar and Bistro for seven and a half years and, more recently, Lark & Lily Wine Bar & Kitchen for 20 months and Mio Posto for less than 16 months. Compiled by Steve Barnes. Items to be considered for publication must be submitted to sbarnes@timesunion.com. Visit his blog, blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping. ALBANY - Nearly 40 nonprofits were collectively awarded over $146,000 in grants last year by the Albany County Legislature for various programs and items, but a new resolution would put a cap on how much is doled out each year by legislators. Now each of the 39 legislators will get about $2,000 to send to the nonprofit of their choosing and can pool their allotments to provide a larger grant to one entity collectively, according to the resolution sponsored by Cohoes Democrat Gil Ethier. The legislature earmarks $75,000 annually for its special programs budget line, but the last three years legislators have handed out more than $100,000 to entities. While the audit and finance committee gave the resolution a negative declaration, it passed the full legislature Monday with two amendments that it would take effect in 2020 and has a provision to establish a policy on eligibility requirements. It was approved 21-16, with two absentees. Legislators Peter Crouse and Patrice Lockart were absent. Legislature staff Tuesday couldn't provide a breakdown of the vote. The procedure we have right now will still be in effect, Ethier said before the vote Monday. Im not trying to change the procedure at all, Im just trying to ensure that each district receives the same share. If were going to have a program, this is the fairest way to have it. Member items, like the legislatures grant program, often are criticized as a misuse of taxpayer money and a way for elected officials to garner votes with constituents. Few local governments conduct similar programs, and even the state curbed its old member item system at the beginning of the decade. While many say the program benefits needy nonprofits in local communities, its been a target for reform in recent years. Legislative Chairperson Andrew Joyce, who vowed to create a written procedure for the grant program, said the application is more detailed and demanding, and criteria for applicants has been outlined. There is no written procedure at this time, however. The Albany Democrat said the latest revisions approved by the Legislature strips that merit-based and need-based process and was one of the 16 legislators who voted against the measure. My concern is if we continue to do the grants program and we distribute all the funding across all the membership, its no longer based on need, its just evenly distributed, he said. At any given year at any given time the need is not the same in our districts. Supporters pointed to how it depoliticizes the process and puts every legislators district on the same playing field. People come and say we have programs in need, and thats true, Latham Republican Todd Drake said, rising in support of the resolution. Its in the eye of the beholder. Preference is given to applications that address urgent needs, assist disadvantaged people and places, has matching funds from other sources and has support from more than one legislator. Awards should not exceed $3,500 per legislator supporting the applicant, the applications stipulate. The legislative chair, majority leader and minority leader then review the applications and determine what entity gets funds. But even with criteria outlined, the Legislature awarded the African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region $12,900 last year, the largest grant since at least 2014, to purchase a new boiler. Its unclear how many legislators sponsored the grant. The center also had received $3,500 from the Legislature in 2016 to fund a youth theater program, which in the past would disqualify a nonprofit if funding was received in the last three years. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Joyce has said an exception was made in that case because it was an emergency. But a Times Union review of the 2018 applications shows the criteria outlined wasnt always adhered to. The Capital District Pop Warner Angels received $4,500 for uniforms and travel expenses, but it was only sponsored by one legislator Minority Leader Frank Mauriello. Two other entities South Colonie Babe Ruth and The RED Bookshelf, Inc. received $3,500 without any legislative sponsors listed on their respective applications. Joyce couldnt account for the deviations but suggested there might have been sponsors attached to the applicants later. All of the 39 applicants received some funding that was requested. Albany Democrat Samuel Fein, who also voted against the $2,000 cap per legislator, defended the program. I think its a good system where we base it on merit, he said. The funding should be distributed to those in most need. With the latest measures on the program approved, Joyce said hes considering scrapping the grant program altogether. I dont see how this process we approved has any scrutiny. It just introduces a host of problems, he said. The process we had in place was transparent, fair and defendable, and this plan is not. ALBANY Despite the rain, an energetic crowd of vaccine skeptics and their children gathered in West Capitol Park on Tuesday to rally against government mandates and hear from prominent figures in the anti-vaccination movement, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As the number of measles cases in New York continues to climb and lawmakers scramble to address the public health crisis legislatively, the movement opposing mandatory vaccination is gaining traction across the state. Kennedy, an outspoken environmentalist, has traveled to statehouses across the nation lobbying against vaccination mandates, and promoting the widely discredited notion that the shots are to blame for autism and other conditions. "How can we as a society, as a government, be mandating a product for our children when we can't tell them the risks?" Kennedy told the crowd. His controversial stance has prompted three members of his famous family to pen an op-ed in Politico last week, calling their brother and uncle "tragically wrong" about vaccines. "I love my brother. Please do what he did, not what he says. Vaccinate your children," tweeted his sister Kerry Kennedy, linking to the piece. Other well-known "anti-vaxxers" were in attendance, including Del Bigtree, producer of the documentary "Vaxxed" and host of a popular YouTube show promoting the notion that vaccines are harmful. Speakers cited recent cases of in which the pharmaceutical industry has been accused of promoting the sale of drugs such as opioids and products that were later deemed harmful to consumers. "The pharmaceutical industry lies to us constantly," Bigtree declared. "We have gone from 12 percent chronic illness to 50 percent chronic illness in America. ... You are making this nation sick, and until you figure out what's doing it, stay away from me and my children!" State law currently allows parents to opt out of vaccination requirements for religious as well as medical reasons. Anti-vaxxers are protesting proposed legislation that would end the religious exemption, and a bill permitting children as young as 14 to be vaccinated without their parents' consent. New York City and Rockland County have recently declared public health emergencies in the wake of record measles outbreaks, which are primarily concentrated in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. The city has resorted to closing schools that do not comply with vaccination requirements. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Sen. Brad Hoylman, who sponsored the first bill, noted that the majority of cases are concentrated in areas where non-medical vaccine exemptions are growing. "Just a few decades ago, we assumed measles was defeated, but now it's roaring back," Hoylman said. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo the ex-husband of Kerry Kennedy has argued that any religious exemption for school vaccine requirements can be trumped by a public health emergency. "You have a right to freedom of religion and we protect it desperately," Cuomo said in a radio interview last week. "But as governor of New York, I am also concerned about the public health and your child's public health and my child's public health." There are 772 confirmed cases of measles in the state so far. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children get two doses of measles vaccine. It says the vaccine is 97 percent effective. ALBANY Amendments may be in store for a proposal to make New York City-style rent regulations available to upstate communities. As the Assembly examines an expansion of the Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA), which regulates rents in buildings larger than six units that were constructed before 1974, upstate members say the downstate law is not workable for the rest of the state. Currently, the opt-in program is only available to New York City and three suburban counties: Westchester, Suffolk and Rockland. Specifically, a requirement that county officials appoint a regulatory board could create conflicts for upstate communities that are not always politically aligned with county leadership, according to Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, D-Albany. "I want to make sure we are not applying a downstate solution on upstate," she said. Rochester Assemblyman Harry Bronson, one of few upstate Democrats backing ETPA, said he is pushing to amend the legislation so that municipalities can self-regulate. "If it's a town that opts in, they ought to have the right to pick their own board," Bronson said. "Because this is really about local control. ... It's not a dictate or mandate." In the largely Democratic city of Rochester, the current statute would require oversight from a board appointed by the Republican leadership of Monroe County. With downstate rent regulations expiring in June, the Assembly leadership has backed an ETPA expansion, along with eight other tenant-friendly bills impacting regulated units in New York City. But rank-and-file members have yet to coalesce behind the package, which was the focus of a lengthy internal discussion Tuesday evening among Assembly Democrats. "The opposition is many and varied," an Assembly Democrat said. Many members representing districts north of the Hudson Valley have expressed concern that imposing any rent guidelines will chill development. At an Assembly hearing on rent regulations and tenants rights in Albany last week, advocates described an abundance of evictions in the Capital Region. Under ETPA, tenants in regulated units would be guaranteed lease renewals and protected from retaliatory evictions. Assemblyman John McDonald, D-Cohoes, said his district needs more investment and better code enforcement, not rent regulations. "When I listened to that hearing, it may have been about bad landlords and bad tenants, but it was really about bad living conditions," McDonald said, citing thousands of blighted and boarded up houses in the region. The Senate has scheduled four hearings on the topic this month. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, who sponsored the ETPA expansion in the Senate, said in a radio interview Wednesday that there is much misinformation about the program. "It scares people at first blush, but in order to be part of it, you must opt-in," Breslin said. "There has to be a lot of public debate ... for everyone to become aware of what it is." He noted that the legislation's reach is limited in places like the Capital Region, where few buildings would meet the stringent qualifications. "I view Saratoga Springs as an example," Breslin said. "(Built before) 1974, six units; I don't think there's anything to worry about in Saratoga Springs." The statute offers some flexibility for municipalities to narrow the scope of the program. Of 18 communities in Westchester that have adopted ETPA, some have elected to apply the program to buildings larger than 10 or 20 units, and in one case, larger than 50 units. A heated ongoing battle between landlords and tenants in the village of Ossining, Westchester County one of few communities to approve ETPA since the 1970s has some lawmakers wary of turning housing policy into a political issue. After one member of Ossining's five-person village board was replaced by an ETPA critic, the village leadership voted to repeal and replace the program with a more limited version, angering tenants and activists. Westchester Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, citing the fallout in Ossining, said he thinks the original statute can be improved. "I believe that once you opt in, a community may not opt out again before they tried it," Abinanti said. "It's unfair to people to have one vote switching in an election, and it changes the entire course." SARASOTA, Fla. A well-known Boston-area academic couple with local roots died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their home after they apparently left their keyless car running in their garage. Noted equine photographer Barbara Livingston of Malta said that her father James D. Livingston, and his wife, Sherry H. Penney, died last week in their Florida home. The couple who met as neighbors in East Glenville were married for 34 years. Livingston, 88, worked as a research physicist at General Electric. Penney, 81 and a pioneer for women in academia, was a Union College and University at Albany professor and was the first woman vice chancellor for academic programs, policy and planning for the State University of New York. The two "lived a life that few ever will," Barbara Livingston wrote in a tweet. "Helping countless thousands through their life's efforts." The two were found Friday, May 10, by a cleaner in a house filled with carbon monoxide, the Boston Globe reported. The newspaper also reported that their Toyota Avalon was out of gas and its battery was dead. The New York Times recently published an article about keyless cars headlined: Deadly Convenience: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll, Livingston noted on Twitter. "We believe they died overnight on Tuesday because they put out their trash on Tuesday night and did not pick it up on Wednesday morning," Barbara Livingston said when reached on Tuesday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, where the Preakness will be held Saturday. Livingston said they were a rare couple. Penney was 4-foot-10 and 80 pounds, and her father was 6-foot-1. She said she never saw them fight. "She would jump in his lap at the drop of a hat and she was still doing that when she was 80," she said. "He would call her his little cute young bride. They never disagreed or if they did, they had too much integrity to argue about it." Barbara Livingston said that her father and stepmother were last seen on the night of Tuesday, May 7, at the Florida's Suncoast Chapter of the International Women's Forum where Penney spoke. She said she was told that her father and stepmother "were as delightful as always." Linda de Mello, president of the organization, said she called Penney a friend. "I think if Sherry had realized she was presenting her last lecture on Tuesday night, she would have included precisely what she told us ... that progress in achieving women's rights had required courage and intelligence of women working together, marching together and confronting injustice," she wrote. "May Sherry's life and work continue to inspire us." According to jamesdlivingston.net, Livingston was Brooklyn born. He studied physics at Cornell University and received his Ph.D. in applied physics at Harvard University in 1956. After leaving General Electric to follow Penney who went on to head the University of Massachusetts, Boston, went on to teach at MIT for two decades. He was recognized by numerous national awards and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He was also the author of several books on science and history including "Glenville: Past and Present." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. He married Penney in 1985. They collaborated on several writing projects together including three articles on Martha Coffin Wright, an early feminist and abolitionist, which led to their biography of her, "A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women's Rights." Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman called their book "wonderful." Penney was the first woman to serve as the chancellor of UMass Boston from 1988 to 2000. The longest-serving chancellor of UMass Boston, she also served as interim president of the UMass System in 1995-1996. In 2000, she founded the Center for Collaborative Leadership and served as its director until 2012. Lisa DeAngelis, director of the Center for Collaborative Leadership, said that Penney was a visionary. "Sherry believed that each of us had an obligation to step into our leadership and pushed us to do just that," DeAngelis said in a statement. "She will be sorely missed, but the impact of her legacy will be felt for generations to come." Penney also served as associate provost at Yale University and the first woman president of SUNY Plattsburgh. She received honorary degrees from Albion College and Quincy College. She received several awards including the lifetime achievement award from Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the New England Women's Leadership Award, the Distinguished Citizen Award for Racial Harmony from Black/White Boston , the College Club Award and the Abigail Adams Award from the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus. "They were the best," Barbara Livingston said. "They were spectacular." Moscow Russia and the United States remain far apart on Iran, election interference and a host of world crises, the nations' top diplomats made clear Tuesday, despite President Vladimir Putin's expressed hope that the end of the special counsel's investigation would clear the way for fully restored relations. In the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described their discussion as "frank," often diplomat-speak to describe disagreements verging on testy, and they bemoaned the state of affairs between the two nations. "It is clear that our relations have seen better times," Lavrov said. During a news conference, Pompeo had sharp words on Russia's election meddling, telling his counterpart that "interference in U.S. elections is unacceptable, and if the Russians were engaged in that in 2020 it would put our relationship in an even worse place." Much of the world's attention is riveted on the Persian Gulf region, where the Trump administration is pressuring Iran with harsh economic sanctions and military deployments, and where mysterious attacks have been reported this week, raising fears of a coming violent conflict. But at least publicly, Lavrov and Pompeo gave the impression that Iran was not at the top of their agenda. "We're looking for Iran to behave like a normal country," Pompeo said, one that does not sponsor terrorism and assassinations and develop offensive weapons. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Pompeo, making his first visit to Russia as secretary of state, addressed this week's events near the Persian Gulf only briefly, and in response to a direct question from a reporter. Lavrov indignantly denied, once again, that Russia had meddled in the 2016 U.S. election. He and Pompeo later met with Putin, who said he expected the publication of the report by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, would allow for greater Russian-U.S. cooperation. "You need to give him credit," Putin said of Mueller during a brief news conference before he met with Pompeo. "In the whole, he carried out an objective investigation and confirmed the absence of any evidence of conspiracy between Russia and the current administration." Putin said that from a telephone conversation with Trump a few days earlier, "I had the impression the president is set on restoring Russian-American ties and contacts." He added, "I hope now we have the necessary conditions for this." Do you have $10 bucks to spare for two new tulips for a Saratoga Springs celebrity? A GoFundMe campaign is under way to raise $10 to replace two flowers stolen from the mansion of Saratoga Springs socialite Michele Riggi. The two forlorn tulips limp and wrapped in plastic were returned to Riggi on Tuesday. Police acted as the middlemen, carrying a letter of apology from the thieves, to Riggi but she remains angry that someone would steal flowers from her yard. Riggi posted a picture of the sad flowers on her Facebook page Tuesday. The story has generated headlines. On Wednesday, a writer, tongue planted firmly in cheek launched the GoFundMe page, calling it a way to begin the healing needed in Saratoga Springs and affixing #RiggiStrong. "Palazzo Riggi is barren without these two beautiful tulips, but you can help If we raise $10, we can begin to rebuild as a community. Let's donate two new bulbs and turn this tulip tragedy into a new bloom! " Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. The writer promises that any leftover funds will be donated to the Skidmore Scholarship Fund. Riggi has suggested that the thieves are Skidmore students. The Times Union's Kristi Gustafson Barlette can kind of understand Riggi's outrage read her blog here. Washington Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday will introduce legislation to force the Environmental Protection Agency to set maximum levels for the class of chemicals involved in drinking-water contamination in Hoosick Falls and other sites in New York. The measure would require the EPA to set maximum levels for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS for short. The EPA would have two years to do it. In February, the EPA issued what its top official termed an "all-encompassing plan" on PFAS but sidestepped setting maximum levels. The agency, which under President Donald Trump has been in the forefront of rolling back pollution regulations, promised to look into setting new levels. Currently there is no maximum established for PFAS, but the EPA has established a health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) in drinking water. Gillibrand's bill, co-authored with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., reflects the skepticism of health and environmental advocates who say they doubt the EPA will buck the chemical industry's lobbyists. "It is the EPA's job to protect Americans from highly toxic chemicals like PFAS, but they have failed to do what is necessary to help ensure our families in New York and across the country are no longer exposed to dangerous levels of PFAS in their drinking water," Gillibrand said in a statement. "This is a widespread crisis that is putting the health of millions of Americans at risk." Gillibrand has been alternating periods of legislative activity on Capitol Hill with appearances on the campaign trail in her bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Toxic levels of a variety of PFAS were found in the drinking water in Hoosick Falls in 2014, the result of filtration from a nearby plant producing chemicals for nonstick plastics in cookware and other products. The levels discovered in Hoosick Falls in 2014 ranged from 180 ppt to 540 ppt. Health and environmental experts and advocates say the advisory level of 70 ppt is too high. In December, the New York Drinking Water Quality Council recommended a "maximum contaminant level" of 10 parts per billion for the two PFAS chemicals found in water in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh, Newburgh and elsewhere in the state. They are PFOA perfluorooctanoic acid and PFOS perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. But the recommendation has not officially been adopted by the state Department of Health. If it were in force, it would be the most stringent state standard in the nation. The chemical industry has gradually withdrawn PFAS from the market, putting in place substitutes like GenX. But advocates have pointed to studies casting doubt on industry claims that GenX and other chemicals like it are much of an improvement. The industry generally has been supportive of efforts to fight contamination, including specific ceilings for PFAS. But they warn against what they see as overkill. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. "The weight of scientific evidence does not support some of the proposed policies that are currently under consideration," said John Banovetz, a senior vice president at 3M Corp. "In fact, no public health agency in the world has found that PFAS cause harm to human health at past or current exposure levels." He added: "Legislatively dictated, predetermined outcomes that don't follow the science would undermine the integrity of the regulatory process going forward." The discovery of toxins in drinking water turned Hoosick Falls into a ground zero of sorts for chemical pollution in water. PFAS do not dissipate once they infiltrate ground water. Studies have linked the chemicals to kidney, breast and testicular cancer. The EPA designated parts of the village as Superfund cleanup sites, and its drinking water is now filtered by equipment supplied by the plastics manufacturer blamed for causing the pollution, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, a multinational corporation based in France. The village of Hoosick Falls has been involved in legal action against Saint-Gobain and Honeywell International, another operator of a factory in the area. Gillibrand and Capito are both members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which will hold a legislative hearing on chemical pollution next Wednesday. In addition, the House Energy & Commerce subcommittee on environment and climate change, chaired by Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, will hold a hearing Wednesday on 13 House bills also aimed at reining in PFAS pollution. Among them is one authored by freshman Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, which would require EPA public reporting of PFAS releases. Among the witnesses testifying will be Emily Marpe, a mother and community member from Petersburgh. COLONIE When "American Idol" sent its finalist Madison VanDenburg back home Tuesday, her hometown threw a pep rally, parade and performance thronged by cheering crowds, all filmed to air in the show's finale Sunday. There was only one catch. Other than transportation VanDenburg's flight from Los Angeles to New York and a stretch SUV to get around town the ABC show didn't pay for anything. So who did, and how much did it cost? The town received less than $400 of direct costs for materials and about $5,500 in direct donations from corporate sponsors, Colonie Comptroller Chris Kelsey said. The town only paid for printing tickets and buying a plaque to present to VanDenburg, each to the tune of around $100. "When we asked for sponsorships, we weren't sure what would come through," Kelsey said. "We thought we would have more costs." The steepest cost was providing security for the hundreds gathered Tuesday at The Crossings. Colonie Police Chief Jonathan Teale said overtime hit $9,696. "We will use (extra) funds to offset the park's staff overtime and internal overtime," Kelsey said. The police department's budget, he added, covers overtime for community events, and VanDenburg's appearance will come out of that allotment. Donations will offset the rest. Chris Crucetti, spokesman for the North Colonie School District, said Shaker High did not spend money on its pep rally honoring VanDenburg, a junior. The school received $2,000 in donations. This does not include donations the town received. "There really were no district expenses for the event. Any financial expenses were offset by some sort of donation," Crucetti said. A list of 23 corporate sponsors included construction and car businesses, waste management and health care companies, grocery stores, law offices and Laborers Local 190. The Times Union was listed as a sponsor on the program because the business promoted the event, but it did not give money, Crucetti said. CDTA ran nine buses and four trolleys from 2:30 until 7 p.m. and brought in extra drivers to transport crowds for the special event. CDTA spokeswoman Jaime Watson said they were surprised to learn late in the day that "American Idol" didn't pay for anything. "When this was all coming together, nobody really asked that question. ... When we got the call from North Colonie schools, we definitely wanted to participate," Watson said, calling the service a "community partnership." ACES Inc. of Troy provided the stage and sound system for VanDenburg's concert for about $2,400 half of what it would normally charge. Anjo Construction Company in Colonie covered the cost. All U, Inc. in Albany made T-shirts, which were purchased by Shaker High's student government and sold for $10 to offset costs. Stewart's Shops served free ice cream. Lipton, an official sponsor of "American Idol," gave out iced tea and also donated tents and trash cans. Colonie used a tent it already owned for VIP guests. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. In her "American Idol" audition in October, VanDenburg told the judges she hailed from Cohoes. The teen lives in Latham but has a Cohoes mailing address. VanDenburg attended North Colonie schools: Boght Hills Elementary and then Shaker High. The town and North Colonie school district received word last Wednesday that they could host VanDenburg's homecoming, but didn't get confirmation until she won enough votes Sunday to make it to Sunday's finale. The next two days were a whirlwind for volunteers, most of them employees of the town and school district. On the big day, an "American Idol" film crew from Los Angeles hovered around VanDenburg as she paraded into The Crossings. At times, the crew directed the crowd to move to one side of the red Corvette carrying the young singer, or to cheer for the cameras. "This is Hollywood, so it's slightly scripted," said Shaker High music teacher Brian Austin as he hyped up the crowd before VanDenburg took the stage to sing five songs. Colonie Supervisor Paula Mahan said the town and school district were fortunate to have two dozen corporate sponsors make the event possible. "It was important for Madison. It was so important for the whole community. ... To have one of our students realize a long-time dream like that is an incredible journey that she's been on," Mahan said. Media contacts for "American Idol" did not respond by deadline to an email asking why the show didn't fund such visits by its contestants events that provide ABC with valuable content and how a town without resources or corporate sponsor contacts might be able to host such an appearance. When Mahan was asked whether "American Idol" should have contributed, she said she couldn't speak for them. "That's the way it's done," she said. Sandra Lee has a message for Page Six: "Knock it off!" The New York tabloid published a story Tuesday afternoon reporting that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Lee "are living apart amid breakup rumors." Hours later, the Food Network star and longtime partner of Cuomo, shot back with a post on Facebook. "Andrew and I are still very much together after 14 years. We share three beautiful daughters that I helped raise and a beautiful home, Lily Pond, where we live," Lee wrote. "We keep our lives as private as possible the exception of breast cancer and that is only to save other peoples lives!" She added that she is not pregnant, is not getting married and does not have terminal cancer. Lee is a breast cancer survivor. Later Tuesday, Lee told the New York Times that she does plan on selling the New Castle, Westchester County, home that the couple has shared since 2008. The 1950s Colonial, which she has nicknamed "Lily Pond," is expected to be listed for $2.3 million on Friday, the Times reports. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Lee told the newspaper that the couple decided to downsize because Cuomo's three daughters are now adults. Lee owns the home but Cuomo has said in the past they share living expenses. "Lily Pond is probably the most beautiful, perfect house on this planet, and that is the truth," she said. "It's a family home and it should be loved and cherished by a beautiful family that deserves it." NYS DEC PETERSBURGH A father and son face more than a dozen tickets in New York and Vermont for illegally hunting along the state border, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said Wednesday. Someone called Environmental Conservation Officer Brian Canzeri on May 3, to report two people hunting turkeys from the road in Petersburgh, Rensselaer County, near the Vermont border. Canzeri arrived, found the suspects' vehicle and pulled them over, the DEC said. The Saratoga Springs tulip caper has finally ended. Socialite Michele Riggi posted on Facebook Tuesday that the two young women who allegedly had taken the flowers from the ground near her lamppost had returned them with an apology note and the Saratoga police officers had delivered them to her. Their excuse for the deed was that they thought the flowers were pretty and wanted them for Mother's Day. Riggi wasn't buying it. "They stole them at 8:15 Mother's Day night!!!My children sent me my Mother's Day flowers the day before Mother's Day and brought them to me on Mother's Day I highly doubt they were going to see their mother at 8:30 Mother's Day night.Pathetic just pathetic!" she wrote on Facebook. Riggi added that she was still seeking revenge against the duo, saying it was the last straw in a series of perfidious pilfering by Skidmore College students from her mansion, which she calls Palazzo Riggi. "I'm not done with them yet they are totally going to have to pay for what they did one way or the other .. this time I'm fed up and they're going to have to answer to me!!!" Riggi's reaction inspired someone to create gofundme page to raise $10 to replace the two flowers. Using the hashtag #RiggiStrong, the tongue-in-cheek fundraiser notes "Palazzo Riggi is barren without these two beautiful tulips, but you can help." The effort promises that any excess money would be donated to the Skidmore Scholarship Fund. It's unclear what actions Riggi expects to take. It is also not clear why she suspects the flower thieves are from the nearby college. She added that she was disappointed that the college did not do more in the aftermath of the stunning act. "And it would've been really nice if the head of Skidmore reached out to me with an apology for this nonsense for their children at their highfalutin school to be doing this to residence on their street of the college!" she wrote. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Riggi, the director of the National Museum of Dance, enlisted her social media followers to help track down the sticky-fingered students. That included a former star of the "Dog the Bounty Hunter" reality show. Beth Chapman, who is the wife of Duane "Dog" Chapman, ran the Idaho license plate numbers for the car that allegedly fled the scene Sunday night and then publicly posted a link to Facebook page of the girl she believed was behind the brazen deed, writing, "let the shaming begin." The girl's Facebook page has since been deleted. Riggi refers to her stone mansion at 639 North Broadway as "The Palazzo," where she cares for what she calls her "posh pups" about three dozen small dogs that share her home. State Police say they need the public's help finding a driver who hit a pedestrian with a car last year. Gabriel N. Truitt is among the people listed in this week's Warrant Wednesday effort by the troopers. Truitt, 33, is wanted by State Police in Oneonta on charges of third-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and leaving the scene of an accident. State Police said Truitt struck a person with a vehicle in December of 2018. Homeil D. Rose, 35, is wanted by State Police in Malone on felony marijuana and drug possession charges. Troopers said they caught Rose with more than 10 pounds of marijuana and over a gram of an undisclosed hallucinogenic substance during a April 6, 2018, traffic stop in the town of Burke. Delbert J. Shaw, 62, is wanted by State Police in Pulaski on a charge of petit larceny that accuses him of failing to go to court after he was arrested on Jan. 3. Kyle B. Dapson, 31, is wanted by State Police in Schodack on a stolen property charge that accuses him of selling stolen property at a scrapyard. Dapson is wanted on a warrant issued in Albany City Court. Adam P. Cruz-Farwell, 25, is wanted by State Police in Rhinebeck on a burglary charge that stems from a 2017 arrest. Michael Wake, 36, is wanted by State Police in Rochester on a misdemeanor drug possession charge that stems from a December 2018 traffic stop in Rochester. Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Jermain D. Chapman, 38, is wanted by State Police in East Meadow on a misdemeanor drug possession charge that accuses him of possession an unidentified substance on April 25, 2014. Brandon Goldsmith, 30, is wanted by State Police in Catskill on a charge of unlawful dealing with a child. Troopers said the charge against Goldsmith stems from allegations he gave alcohol to a child under the age of 21. Christopher A. Parker, 29, is wanted by State Police in Syracuse on an aggravated driving while intoxicated charge that alleges he was driving drunk on the Thruway when troopers said they stopped his car on April 13, 2014. The first Apollo Truck Tyre Zone (ATTZ) has been opened in Malaysia. This one stop solution center will provide a range of services to commercial fleets in the region. Satish Sharma, president of Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa for Apollo Tyres, said, Apollo is committed to bringing the best of its products and services to its customers. This state-of-the-art truck service center brings together Apollos extensive experience in truck and bus radials along with Sin Chu Hins 80-year long local experience, in a range of services and solutions for fleets in Malaysia further cementing our steadfast commitment to the Malaysian automotive industry. ') } // --> ') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // --> ') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write(' ') } // --> ') } else if (width >= 425) { console.log ('largescreen'); document.write('') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // --> In addition to offering application-based tire recommendations, the ATTZ is equipped with facilities including a computerized truck tire alignment machine, automatic tire changer, and nitrogen inflator. The services provided by the center will ultimately help customers to reduce maintenance costs and fuel consumption. The ATTZ also has a training center to guide consumers through the purchasing process. We see a vast opportunity in Batu Pahat, which is a thriving business destination at the tip of Peninsular Malaysia, specially for our truck radials. The ATTZ is in fact the first of several truck service centers we are planning to open in partnership with our business partners in the ASEAN region, added Shubhro Ghosh, group head, ASEAN, Middle East and Africa region at Apollo Tyres. [May 15, 2019] Cadence Bancorporation Holds Annual Meeting, Announces Re-Election and Election of Board Members Cadence Bancorporation (NYSE: CADE) recently held its 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders at the Westin Galleria in Houston, Texas. It was announced that J. Richard Fredericks and Virginia A. Hepner were re-elected as Class II Directors to serve for three-year terms expiring at the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. In addition, Kathy Waller was elected to the board as a Class II Director to serve the same three-year term. Robert K. Steel retired from the board of directors of Cadence Bancorporation effective May 8, 2019. "On behalf of Cadence Bancorporation, I would like to extend our most sincere appreciation to Bob for his 10 years of service and for the invaluable insights and guidance he provided over those years," said Paul B. Murphy, Jr., chairman and CEO of Cadence Bancorporation. At the meeting, stockholders also approved: An advisory vote on the compensation of Cadence Bancorporation's named executive officers. An advisory vote on the frequency of future votes on the compensation of Cadence Bancorporation named executive officers for every one year. The ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP to serve as the independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2019. About Cadence Bancorporation Cadence Bancorporation (NYSE: CADE), headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a regional financial holding company with $17.4 billion in assets as of March 31, 2019. Cadence operates 98 branch locations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, and provides corporations, middle-market companies, small businesses and consumers with a full range of innovative banking and financial solutions. Services and products include commercial and business banking, treasury management, specialized lending, asset-based lending, commercial real estate, SBA lending, foreign exchange, wealth management, investment and trust services, financial planning, retirement plan management, business insurance, consumer banking, consumer loans, mortgages, home equity lines and loans, and credit cards. Clients have access to leading-edge online and mobile solutions, interactive teller machines, and more than 55,000 ATMs. The Cadence team of 1,800 associates is committed to exceeding customer expectations and helping their clients succeed financially. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005908/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] CallTower Selects Colo Atl for Offering 'Best Colocation Service' in Atlanta ATLANTA, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Colo Atl , an American Tower company and the leading provider of carrier-neutral colocation, data center and interconnection services at 55 Marietta Street in Atlanta, announces today that CallTower , a global leader in delivering cloud-based enterprise-class unified communications and collaboration solutions, has selected Colo Atl for colocation and interconnection services. CallTower headquarters in South Jordan, UT and resides in data centers across the US, including South Jordan (UT), Chicago (IL), St. Louis (MO), Dallas (TX), San Francisco (CA), Ashburn (VA) and now its newest and fully redundant data center at Colo Atl in Atlanta, GA. Delivering the world's most advanced unified communications solutions and collaboration services, CallTower sought to expand within the Atlanta region, ultimately selecting Colo Atl as its new colocation provider due to its prime location, reliability and responsiveness to customer needs. "As CallTower continues to expand in North America and internationally, Colo Atl was the absolute best colocation service option in the region of Atlanta for us," explains Brandon Watts, Chief Technology Officer of CallTower. "The company is reliable, responsible, and offers personalized customer service and attention to our needs. This level of customer service is superior to other competitors; the Colo Atl team will always pick up the phone to address our needs and questions." Additionally, Colo Atl offers CallTower the ability to easily interconnect with strategic carrier partners and key business partners at 55 Marietta, with no monthly recurring cross-connect fees within the Colo Atl meet-me-area (MMA). "We are honored to welcome CallTower to our Colo Atl Family, and assist the company in growing its presence here in Atlanta," states John Ghirardelli, General Manager of Colo Atl. "By providing premium data center and interconnection services, complete with our hands-on, personalized customer service approach and no monthly recurring cross-connect fees within the Colo Atl Meet-Me-Area, we are proud to hep CallTower stay true to its commitment to provide the resources and unified communications solutions to deliver the best experience for its clients," adds Tim Kiser , Advisor and Founder of Colo Atl. CallTower provides, integrates and supports industry-leading, cloud-based, Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions, including Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Microsoft Skype for Business, CT Cloud Voice, CT Cloud Boost and Office 365 for business customers.? For more information on Colo Atl, visit http://www.coloatl.com . About Colo Atl Colo Atl, an American Tower company, is the leading provider of carrier-neutral colocation, data center and interconnection solutions at 55 Marietta Street in the global telecom hub of Atlanta, GA. Colo Atl provides superior carrier-neutral colocation, data center and interconnection services at an affordable rate. Colo Atl is a carrier-neutral environment that allows all types of network operators to securely and conveniently cross connect within a SSAE 18 certified facility. Colo Atl has no monthly recurring cross connect fees between tenants within the Colo Atl meet-me-area (MMA) and provides exceptional customer service. Colo Atl is also home to the Georgia Technology Center (GTC), a live laboratory for network equipment vendors to highlight their optical and electrical hardware and operating systems, and the Southeast Network Access Point (SNAP), which provides next-generation Internet Exchange (IX) solutions, including SDN peering, testing, collaboration and implementation. Visit Colo Atl online at: www.coloatl.com and follow us on Twitter @ColoAtl and LinkedIn . About American Tower American Tower is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of wireless and broadcast communication real estate. Our global portfolio includes over 170,000 communications sites and is experiencing steady growth. In addition to leasing space on towers, we provide customized collocation solutions through our in-building systems, outdoor distributed antenna systems and other right-of-way options, managed rooftops and services that speed network deployment. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, American Tower has operations across the United States and in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa and Uganda. About CallTower CallTower exists to enable people to easily connect to transact business communications. Since its inception in 2002, CallTower has become a leading provider of cloud-based, enterprise-class Unified Communications solutions for growing organizations worldwide. CallTower provides, integrates and supports industry-leading, cloud-based, Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions, including Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Native Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams, CT Cloud Voice, CT Cloud Boost, CT Cloud Meeting powered by Zoom and Office 365 for business customers.? CallTower enhances our clients' strategic and operational capabilities by integrating VoIP service, mobile applications, email hosting, unified messaging, instant messaging, audio, web and video conferencing, collaboration tools, contact center, cloud services and global networks solutions into one reliable platform. For more information contact [email protected] . View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/calltower-selects-colo-atl-for-offering-best-colocation-service-in-atlanta-300850188.html SOURCE Colo Atl [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] CompStak Raises $12M Series B Funding to Fuel Growth and Accelerate Expansion NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CompStak, the leader in commercial real estate transaction data and analytics, recently raised $12 million in its Series B Financing round, which will help accelerate the company's rapid growth. IA Capital led the investment round with participation from existing investors Canaan Partners, RealPage, Inc., and 500 Startups. The investment brings CompStak's total funding since its launch in 2012 to $28 million, including a strategic investment from Moody's in 2017. "IA Capital's fund, backed by major insurance companies, is a terrific strategic fit for CompStak as we continue to expand our relationships with financial firms and insurance companies," said CEO and co-founder Michael Mandel. "They fully understood our market vision, and it was clear that IA Capital could help us achieve that vision." The funding will be used to continue to accelerate growth into new product segments, expand the Exchange platform member base, acquire top talent, and propel revenue and customer growth on top of the solid foundation the company has already built. This funding nnouncement comes on the heels of a tremendous year for CompStak, which began with its game-changing partnership with Moody's Analytics, and included the rollout of CompStak's Sales Comp platform, the launch of CompStak Analytics, and recent partnerships with DealPath and TransitScreen. "We have been incredibly impressed by the robustness of CompStak's platform and the quality of their proprietary data," said Matt Perlman, Principal at IA Capital, "CRE is a massive industry with a palpable demand for new solutions and CompStak's growing list of marquee clients is a testament to how well the team has executed. We are excited to help them expand to new markets and use cases in CRE finance, insurance and beyond." About CompStak: CompStak creates transparency in commercial real estate markets by gathering information that is hard to find, difficult to compile, or otherwise unavailable. Since 2012, CompStak has delivered this unmatched insight to a network of tens of thousands of members and clients, including Tishman Speyer, Wells Fargo, Vornado, Boston Properties, and every major brokerage nationwide. About IA Capital Group: Founded in 1992, IA Capital Group Inc. is based in New York City and has a 19-year track record of managing insurtech and fintech venture capital funds. The firm manages dedicated capital from leading insurance companies to make strategic insurtech investments in North America. Contact: Michael Mandel [email protected] 646.278.1522 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/compstak-raises-12m-series-b-funding-to-fuel-growth-and-accelerate-expansion-300851051.html SOURCE CompStak [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] ENERGY STAR Canada Recognizes Leaders in Energy Efficiency OTTAWA, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ - One of the greatest opportunities for Canada is the shift toward clean growth. Energy efficiency can save Canadians money, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a clean economy that includes good, middle-class jobs. Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, today recognized the winners of the 2019 ENERGY STAR Canada Participant Awards for helping Canada build a clean energy future and address global climate change. The ENERGY STAR Canada Participant Awards now in its 16th year recognize organizations that have demonstrated excellence in promoting the most energy-efficient products and new homes in Canada. They represent the utilities, manufacturers, retailers, associations and homebuilders that are helping Canadian consumers and businesses save money while also addressing climate change. With the value of the energy efficiency market expected to grow to $550 billion by 2035, Canada has the opportunity to promote energy efficiency and deliver economic growth through investments in innovation. Through the voluntary leadership of businesses and organizations, Canadians can see the transition to a low-carbon economy in action. The following companies were honoured for their exceptional achievements in promoting and improving energy efficiency: ENERGY STAR for Products Advocate of the Year: Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care Branchton, ON Energy Efficiency Program Administrator of the Year: efficiencyPEI Charlottetown , PEI , PEI Manufacturer of the Year Appliances: Samsung Electronics Canada Mississauga, ON Manufacturer of the Year Commercial: True Refrigeration Canada O'Fallon, MO (USA) Manufacturer of the Year Electronics: Ricoh Canada Inc. Mississauga, ON Manufacturer of the Year Windows and Doors: Centennial Windows & Doors London, ON Manufacturer of the Year Heating and Cooling Equipment: Venmar Ventilation ULC Drummondville, QC Manufacturer of the Year Lighting: L'Image Home Poducts Inc. Montreal, QC Promoter of the Year ENERGY STAR Most Efficient: Daikin Industries, Ltd. Markham, ON Most Efficient: Daikin Industries, Ltd. Promotional Campaign of the Year: Rheem - Brampton, ON Recruit of the Year: HP Canada Mississauga, ON Recruit of the Year: Restaurants Canada Toronto, ON Retailer of the Year National: The Home Depot Canada Toronto, ON Retailer of the Year Regional: GEM Windows & Doors Toronto, ON Special Recognition: Veritas Technologies LLC Halifax, NS Sustained Excellence: Whirlpool Canada LP Mississauga, ON Utility of the Year: Hydro One Networks Inc. Toronto, ON ENERGY STAR for New Homes New Homes Builder of the Year Small: Naikoon Contracting Ltd. North Vancouver, BC New Homes Builder of the Year Mid-size: Doug Tarry Homes St. Thomas, ON New Homes Builder of the Year Large: Activa Waterloo, ON New Homes Promotional Excellence: Activa Waterloo, ON ENERGY STAR Canada a voluntary partnership between the Government of Canada and organizations in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to promote energy efficiency makes it easy for Canadians to make energy-efficient choices and save money on energy bills. Quote "Using less energy is not something that affects climate change on the margins it is something that strikes at its very heart. I am proud to recognize these organizations for their leadership in improving energy efficiency in Canada. Investing in the energy efficiency of our homes and buildings is one of the easiest ways to combat climate change while delivering concrete social and economic benefits to Canadians." Amarjeet Sohi Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Quick Facts ENERGY STAR Canada is an 18-year energy efficiency success story. The program is a voluntary partnership between the Government of Canada and more than 1,500 organizations working to use our natural resources more wisely through greater energy efficiency. The program is administered and promoted by Natural Resources Canada. is an 18-year energy efficiency success story. The program is a voluntary partnership between the Government of and more than 1,500 organizations working to use our natural resources more wisely through greater energy efficiency. The program is administered and promoted by Natural Resources Canada. Behind each ENERGY STAR label is a product, home, building or industrial facility that is independently certified to use less energy and cause fewer of the emissions that contribute to climate change. ENERGY STAR is Canada's simple choice to save energy and money and protect our environment. Related Information ENERGY STAR Canada ENERGY STAR for Products for Products ENERGY STAR for Homes Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan); @ENERGYSTAR_CAN (https://twitter.com/energystar_can). NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available at www.news.gc.ca. SOURCE Natural Resources Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] ExxonMobil and Employees Donate More Than $1.5 Million to Oklahoma Colleges and Universities ExxonMobil and its XTO Energy subsidiary employees, retirees, directors and surviving spouses contributed more than $413,000 to 10 Oklahoma colleges and universities, the company said today. Those individual donations were matched by more than $1.1 million in unrestricted grants from the ExxonMobil Foundation as part of the foundation's 2018 Educational Matching Gift Program. ExxonMobil's program matches individual donations to accredited colleges and universities in the United States. The American Indian College Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund and United Negro College Fund are also eligible to receive donations as part of the matching gift program. While ExxonMobil's grants are unrestricted, colleges and universities are encouraged to designate a portion of the funds they receive to math and science programs supporting student engagement. "Supporting higher education, particularly in the areas of engineering, math and science, is ritical in improving individual livelihoods as well as driving broader societal growth," said Kevin Murphy, president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. "We've long supported programs that improve educational outcomes and provide teachers with the tools they need to inspire our next generation of leaders and innovators." More than 800 accredited colleges and universities in the United States will receive a total of $50.4 million as part of the ExxonMobil Foundation's 2018 Educational Matching Gift Program. Nearly 4,000 ExxonMobil employees and retirees contributed more than $17 million to institutions of higher education in 2018, which will be matched with over $32 million in unrestricted grants from the foundation. ExxonMobil has donated nearly $700 million to American institutions of higher learning since the program began. ExxonMobil and the ExxonMobil Foundation also support programs that encourage students, particularly women and minorities, toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math, as well as teacher training initiatives. About the ExxonMobil Foundation The ExxonMobil Foundation is the primary philanthropic arm of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) in the United States. The foundation and corporation engage in a range of philanthropic activities that advance education, with a focus on math and science in the United States, promote women as catalysts for economic development and combat malaria. In 2018, the ExxonMobil Foundation, together with Exxon Mobil Corporation, its divisions and affiliates, along with employees and retirees, provided more than $211 million in contributions worldwide, of which over $75 million was dedicated to education. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005743/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Hunton Andrews Kurth Partner Lisa Sotto Joins US Delegation to Brazil to Address Cybersecurity and Data Policy Standards Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP partner and chair of the global privacy and cybersecurity practice, Lisa Sotto, was invited by U.S. government officials and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to travel to Brazil as a member of a delegation that met with Brazilian government agencies and industry representatives in the process of considering the country's cybersecurity strategy. Sotto is recognized as a thought leader on privacy and cybersecurity matters and she and her team, in coordination with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, recently issued a report proposing a framework for effective data breach notification legislation across the globe. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005712/en/ Lisa Sotto, partner and chair of the global privacy and cybersecurity practice at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, traveled to Brazil as a member of a U.S. delegation to address cybersecurity and data policy standards. (Photo: Business Wire) In addition to offering insight on U.S. data and cybersecurity policy, Sotto participated in a roundtable organized by the Cyber Defense Command in Brazil focused on implementing the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity framework in critical infrastructure sectors such as finance, communications, nuclear and energy. During the trip, she also met with the country's National Telecommunications Agency and its Ministry of Justice and Public Security. "Given the ubiquity of data and the fact that a single incident can impact information about individuals from around the world, there is an urgent need for international alignment on guiding principles related to cybersecurity and data policy standards," Sotto said. "Effective cybersecurity standards, for instance, enable companies to operate efficiently in a global environment," she added. "I am pleased to have joined this esteemed delegation to promote this awareness and to provide guidance and assistance toward that end." Hunton Andrews Kurth's privacy and cybersecurity practice has been ranked as a leader in its field. The firm has been ranked by Computerworld magazine as the top law firm globally for privacy and data security in all its surveys. Chambers and Partners also ranked Hunton Andrews Kurth for privacy and data security practice in its Chambers Global, Chambers Europe, Chambers USA and Chambers UK guides. About Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP Hunton Andrews Kurth is a global law firm of more than 1,000 lawyers handling transactional, litigation and regulatory matters for clients in myriad industries including energy, financial services, real estate, retail and consumer products and technology. Areas of practice focus include capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, P3, labor and employment, public finance and infrastructure, and privacy and cybersecurity. With offices across the United States and in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, we are aligned with our clients' businesses and committed to delivering exceptional service. For more information, visit HuntonAK.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005712/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Windy and becoming cloudy during the afternoon. High near 50F. Winds SE at 20 to 30 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low 32F. SSE winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 20 mph. [May 15, 2019] Item 9 Labs Corp. CEO Sara Gullickson Named Top Influential Businesswoman of the Cannabis Industry PHOENIX, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Item 9 Labs Corp. (OTC: INLB) (Item 9 Labs or the Company), a leader in comfortable cannabis health solutions for the modern consumer, today announced CEO Sara Gullickson was selected by Industry Leaders Magazine as one of the top influential businesswomen in the cannabis industry. The magazine provides a global business platform highlighting entrepreneurs and companies driving worldwide economies. The accolade is one of several the well-renowned CEO has received. Gullickson was recognized for her nine years as a progressive cannabis executive and recent leadership at publicly traded Item 9 Labs. In addition, Gullickson was recently selected by the Phoenix Business Journal to judge their Top 40 Under 40 Award applications. Gullickson received the award in 2018, joining an exclusive club of more than 680 other Top 40 Under 40 alumni. I am honored to be recognized on a mainstream level for my work within the cannabis industry, stated Gullickson. I want to inspire other women to become leaders in the cannabis space because diversity breeds success. Headquartered in Phoenix, Item 9 Labs is bringing best industry practices to markets from coast to coast through cultivation, dispensary, and processing operations, as well as licensing services, and medical cannabis product suites. In other news, Gullickson shared the Item 9 Labs mission and her vision in a live interview with Follow the Money Investor Group, a financial portal that provides essential content and information to navigate ever changing capital markets. The feature discussed how the Company is advancing the cannabis industry and future expansion plans. Item 9 Labs currently has distribution and processing operations Strive Wellness of Ohio and Strive Wellness of Nevada, as well as dispensary Strive Life North Dakota. The Company intends to manage facilities in six to ten U.S. cannabis markets by the end of 2019. For information visit Item9LabsCorp.com. About Item 9 Labs Corp.: Item 9 Labs Corp. (OTC: INLB) creates comfortable cannabis health solutions for the modern consumer. The Company is bringing best of industry practices to markets from coast to coast through cultivation and production, distinctive retail environments, licensing services, and dierse product suites catering to different medical cannabis demographics. Item 9 Labs Corp. is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, with medical cannabis operations in multiple U.S. markets. Item 9 Labs Corp.s asset portfolio includes Dispensary Permits, Dispensary Templates, and Strive Life. These assets provide services specific to different stakeholder groups. Dispensary Permits is the Companys consulting firm specializing in strategic license application and compliance. Dispensary Templates, a subdivision of the firm, is a technology platform with an extensive digital library of licensing and business planning resources. Strive Life is a turnkey dispensary model for the retail sector, elevating the patient experience with consistent and superior service, high-end design, and precision-tested products. It is currently being implemented in Arizona and North Dakota. In addition, Item 9 Labs Corp. is advancing the industry with its dynamic product suites. The Company has created complementary brands Item 9 Labs and Strive Wellness to channel consumer diversity. Propriety delivery platforms include the Apollo Vape and Pod system, as well as a pioneering intra-nasal device. The Company has received multiple accolades for its medical-grade flower and concentrates. Item 9 Labs Corp. intends to manage cultivation, processing, distribution, and dispensary operations in up to ten U.S. markets by the end of 2019. Current facilities include distribution and processing operations Strive Wellness of Ohio and Strive Wellness of Nevada, as well as dispensary Strive Life North Dakota. For more information, visit Item 9 Labs Corp. at www.Item9labscorp.com . Forward-Looking Statement: This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, risks and effects of legal and administrative proceedings and governmental regulation, especially in a foreign country, future financial and operational results, competition, general economic conditions, proposed transactions that are not legally binding obligations of the company and the ability to manage and continue growth. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual outcomes may vary materially from those indicated. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make in this news release include the introduction of new technology, market conditions and those set forth in reports or documents we file from time to time with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to revise or update such statements to reflect current events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Media Contact: Neko Catanzaro Proven Media [email protected] (401) 484-4980 Investor Contact: Jeffrey Rassas Item 9 Labs Corp. [email protected] (602) 463-4246 A video accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b79b1f2c-3fb4-4d4c-97fc-b710389624ef [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Mobile Klinik Completes CAD $27.5 Million Series C Financing Made-in-Canada retail chain secures significant investment TORONTO, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Mobile Klinik Professional Smartphone Repair, Canada's largest and fastest-growing professional smartphone and tablet repair business, has successfully closed an equity capital funding raise of CAD $27.5 million. The financing was led by a number of investment funds and includes a minority investment by the Canadian Business Growth Fund (CBGF), as well as private individuals, including several of the company's founders and early-stage investors. The investment brings total funding for Mobile Klinik to date to CAD $44 million. Mobile Klinik will use the $27.5M funding to complete its planned rollout of 200 Canadian stores by 2022. "We're committed to meeting Canadians' needs for professional, warrantied, while-you-wait smartphone and tablet repair, care, sales and service from coast-to-coast-to-coast," said Tim McGuire, CEO, Mobile Klinik. "This investment is a significant recognition of Mobile Klinik's leadership in the Canadian smartphone repair market and the growth we will achieve as we extend our network across the country." The CBGF provides patient minority capital to ambitious Canadian entrepreneurs with talented management teams and solid expansion plns. The CBGF launched its CAD $545 million fund in 2018, with the backing of 13 of Canada's largest financial institutions, focused on investments in established and high-growth Canadian businesses. "Mobile Klinik represents the kind of Canadian business growth story that the CBGF was designed to support a market-leading company with a significant potential for growth across the country," said George Rossolatos, CEO, CBGF. "We're proud to partner with the Mobile Klinik team in helping them execute their business plan which has the potential to create hundreds of new jobs in the Canadian retail technology sector." Origin Merchant Securities Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor and Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP acted as legal counsel to Mobile Klinik on the financing. Mobile Klinik Professional Smartphone Repair is a Canadian startup, launched in September 2015 by four Canadian wireless and retail industry leaders: Rob Bruce, former President of the Rogers wireless and cable businesses; Ken Campbell, former CEO, WIND Mobile; and Alain Adam and Naaman Zorub, entrepreneurs who operate a number of wireless retail stores and other businesses in Ottawa and Gatineau. Mobile Klinik operates locations in major shopping malls and other high-traffic retail locations. Tomorrow, on May 16, Mobile Klinik will open its 50th location overall and its first store located inside a Walmart Supercentre. The Mobile Klinik store inside the Scarborough West Walmart in Toronto, Ontario, is part of a multi-store roll out for Mobile Klinik locations inside select Walmart stores in Canada. More stores will open soon. About Mobile Klinik Mobile Klinik is Canada's largest and fastest-growing professional while-you-wait smartphone and tablet repair, care, sales and services retail chain with 50 stores, as of May 16, 2019, in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador. Visit us on Facebook or Twitter @MobileKlinik, or go to www.mobileklinik.ca. Images available at: https://mobileklinik.ca/en-gallery/ SOURCE Mobile Klinik [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Nurse Call System Market Size Worth $2.38 Billion by 2026: Grand View Research, Inc. SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global nurse call system market size is expected to reach USD 2.38 billion by 2026, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is projected to expand at a CAGR of 9.9% during the forecast period. Increasing support for digital healthcare, government penalties for hospital readmissions, and demand for resident and patient safety are expected to drive the demand. Key suggestions from the report: Wired communication equipment led the market in 2018 owing to the early adoption of technology and continuous innovations such as integration Wi-Fi cordless telephone, IP DECT, and radio pocket pager for greater efficiency and safety Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market owing to the huge population base, high technology adoption rate, and government funding for digital health. The demand for real-time nurse call systems is increasing owing to the need to offer better patient response time and avoiding patient falls Market participants are constantly evolving the traditional systems and are incorporating newer techniques and devices. In January 2019 , the Hill Rom launched its LINQ mobile application for an improvement in communication between the patient and caregiver formerly in U.S. and Canada with further expansion to Europe Some key players in the nurse call system market include Hill-Rom Holding, Inc.; Tyco SimplexGrinnell; Ascom Holding; Honeywell International, Inc.; Rauland-Borg Corporation; TekTone Sound & Signal Mfg., Inc.; Stanley Healthcare; Azure Healthcare; West-Com Nurse Call Systems, Inc.; and Critical Alert Systems LLC. Read 140 page research report with TOC on "Nurse Call System Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Technology (Wired Communication Equipment, Wireless Communication Equipment), By End Use, And Segment Forecasts, 2019 - 2026" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/nurse-call-system-equipments-industry In addition, continuous technology advancements to bring in a new level of communication enabling the widest range of applications configuration to home cares, hospitals, or residential facilities are also expected to upsurge the demand for nurse call system. In April 2015, Mircom launched MiCare wireless nurse call system, designed t enable its integration with cloud technology. Hospitals have a major share of the nurse call system market owing to the patient flow and increasing chronic and emergency case patients. Moreover, researchers are filing patents for technologies that offer uninterrupted communication. In December 2018, Ascom Holdings AG has received the approval certificate from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as class II 510(k) for Digistat Smart Central software solution increasing the scope of the Ascom Healthcare to expand their presence in the U.S. hospitals. North America was the largest regional market owing to the establishment of separate certification and coding system and introduction of new integrated solutions by key players. For instance, in October 2018, Tunstall Healthcare acquired Kanayo Software Inc., and EWII Telecare to expand its Connected Health solutions. The acquisition provided Tunstall with expertise in Software and App products in health and social care. Grand View Research has segmented the global nurse call system market on the basis of technology, end use, and regions: Nurse Call System Technology Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2026) Wired Communication Equipment Wireless Communication Equipment Nurse Call System End Use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2026) Hospitals and Clinics Outpatient Departments (OPDs) Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs) Ambulatory Care Services Skilled Nursing Facilities Nurse Call System Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2026) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany U.K. France Italy Spain Asia Pacific Japan China India Australia South Korea Latin America Brazil Mexico Argentina Middle East & Africa & South Africa United Arab Emirates (UAE) (UAE) Saudi Arabia Find more research reports on Medical Devices Industry, by Grand View Research: Medical Bionic Implants Market Growing geriatric population base coupled with rapid advancements in the technology is the major driving factor the medical bionic implants market. Growing geriatric population base coupled with rapid advancements in the technology is the major driving factor the medical bionic implants market. Refurbished Medical Equipment Market The rising prevalence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases are the major factors driving the refurbished medical equipment market. The rising prevalence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases are the major factors driving the refurbished medical equipment market. Metabolic Testing Market Rising prevalence of lifestyle based diseases coupled with increasing geriatric population with high susceptibility towards developing chronic diseases such as cancer and kidney disorders are some major factors driving the metabolic testing market. Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports About Grand View Research Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead. Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc. Phone: +1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Plymouth Rock Assurance to Transform the Home Insurance Market with a Revolutionary New Product: Easier than Making a Sandwich Plymouth Rock Assurance has today introduced homeowners to a revolutionary new way to protect their properties. Homeowners can now buy insurance from the company's elite agency force - or for themselves online - in just minutes. After two years of testing in Pennsylvania, the insurgent product launches today in New Jersey and is expected to launch in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut later this year. The new product is a rebellion against the traditionally lengthy process for obtaining a quote and buying a policy. Plymouth Rock rejects the concept of having to answer dozens of detailed questions, complete lengthy processes, inspections and underwriting steps, only for the customer to see the price change after multiple reviews. Plymouth Rock will allow buyers and agents to obtain an accurate quote in seconds, enabling them to check their current coverage and price quickly, even when they aren't in the market for a new home insurance policy. While many insurance companies are experimenting with faster and easier processes, none are backed by the expertise and financial strength of the Plymouth Rock Group of Companies, which now writes and manages $1.4 billion in premium. Few companies offer the broad coverage or history of storm recovery assistance provided by this leader in the Northeast market. "Only 12 percent of homeowners shop for a new policy each year," said Bill Martin, who leads the efforts of Plymouth Rock's Home Insurance Group. "This may be because it is more fun to do something else like make a sandwich. Many of our competitors collect data to prove their insurance applicants' answers wrong. We use the data to make customers' lives simpler and avoid playing 'gotcha.' We decided getting an insurance quote should be easier, more interesting and fun than making a sandwich." Known for extremely complex requirements, long phone calls and confusing questionnaires, home insurance quotes are time-consuming and often frustrating for consumers. Plymouth Rock intends to solve those problems with a product that is simple, fast and reliable. Martin continued: "When you can get a quote in seconds - especially when it comes from a company you know will be there for you when it's time to pay claims - you don't have to have a reason to get a quote. We encourage all homeowners to quote, whether their policy is up for renewal, they're moving or just for fun. You may be able to save hundreds of dollars by getting a quote from Plymouth Rock right now - in seconds." Product Features Plymouth Rock's innovative product combines a fast and simple quoting process that can be completed in seconds simply by entering an address and selecting coverages, discounts and a pay plan. Harnessing the power of data from trusted, publically available sources, Plymouth Rock has pre-rated nearly 93 percent of properties in each of its states. This enables homeowners and agents to quote - and buy - a home insurance policy in just minutes. The product's speed and ease of use are combined with flexible coverage options and unique offerings tailored to the modern property owner, including: Home Sharing Coverage designed to protect homeowners - and home renters - who use home sharing services Home Systems Protection to insure home essentials like furnaces, air conditioners and refrigerators when they break down Utility Service Line Coverage to protect against damage to underground pipes or utility lines between your home and the street Identity Theft Resolution and Prevention Services to resolve an identity theft incident, identity monitoring services to prevent ID fraud, and reimbursement of expenses incurred in resolving an ID theft event. "We plan to shake up the home insurance buying process," said Martin. "Making it easy for everyone to quote and buy home, condo and renters insurance - and offering the kinds of coverages today's property owners need. We're thrilled to be launching in New Jersey and look forward to future launches in our other states." About Plymouth Rock The Plymouth Rock Group of Companies was established to offer its customers a higher level of service and a more innovative set of products and features than they would expect from an insurance company. Taken together, the group's companies now write and manage more than $1.4 billion in auto and home insurance premiums across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Plymouth Rock's approach to insurance puts customers' convenience and satisfaction first, giving them the choice to do business the way they want - online at plymouthrock.com, using a mobile device, by phone or with one of Plymouth Rock's agents. The Plymouth Rock Group of Companies is a trade name used by a group of separate companies that write and manage property and casualty insurance in multiple states under a variety of marketing and brand names, including the brand names and service marks Plymouth Rock and Plymouth Rock Assurance. The Home Insurance Group is a name used for convenience and in marketing to refer to a grouping of property and casualty insurance products sold or serviced in multiple states through legally separate underwriting and managed insurance companies. The Home Insurance Group is not a legal entity. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, home insurance is underwritten by High Point Preferred Insurance Company and Palisades Property and Casualty Insurance Company. Each underwriting and managed insurance company is financially responsible only for its own insurance products and actual coverage is subject to the language of the policies as issued by each separate company. Some discounts, coverages, payment plans, features and benefits are not available in all states and companies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005872/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Sheppard Mullin Washington, D.C. Expands Intellectual Property, Antitrust and Healthcare Practices Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP is pleased to announce that partners Robert M. Masters, Jonathan R. DeFosse and Bevin M.B. Newman have joined the firm's growing Washington, D.C. office. Masters and DeFosse join the firm's Intellectual Property practice group from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Newman joins the firm's Antitrust and Competition and Healthcare practices from Jones Day. These three new partners continue the firm's successful expansion in Washington, D.C., which includes the recent additions of former FTC (News - Alert) Deputy Chief Trial Counsel, Tom Dillickrath; FDA/Life Sciences partner Allison Fulton; and International Arbitration partner Joseph LoBue. Since January 2018, the office has added 27 attorneys bringing its presence to 100. "Expanding our Washington, D.C. presence with superior talent is a key strategy for us. Rob, Jon and Bevin bring a wealth of knowledge in their respective practice areas and are great additions to the office and firm," said Guy Halgren, Sheppard Mullin's chairman. David Douglass, Washington, D.C. office managing partner added, "Rob and Jon's extensive experience handling significant IP litigation matters in courts throughout the U.S. and before the ITC and PTAB and Bevin's experience handling high stakes regulatory and investigative matters for large healthcare organizations, including academic medical centers, underscores our focus on expanding our core practice groups to broaden our ability to protect and defend our clients' valuable IP and advise on the ever-changing regulatory landscape facing the healthcare industry. We're thrilled to have them join us." About Sheppard Mullin's New Washington, D.C. Partners Robert Masters has served as lead counsel in all phases of patent, trade secret, copyright and trademark/trade dress litigation matters in district courts throughout the United States and before the International Trade Commission (ITC) and the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). He has represented clients on matters involvin a wide range of technologies, including consumer electronics and semiconductor design; hardware, software and apps for computers and smartphones; secured internet/network communications and protocols; telecommunications; medical devices; financial services and technology (Fintech); and sporting goods, among others. In addition to his litigation practice, he regularly advises clients on intellectual property licensing, negotiations, due diligence investigations, portfolio management and monetization, counterfeiting issues, best practices for corporate intellectual property legal departments, and on intellectual property issues arising in mergers and acquisitions. Masters earned his J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law and his B.S. in electrical engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Jonathan DeFosse focuses on intellectual property litigation involving clients in automotive technologies, consumer electronics, telecommunications, website design, cloud computing and medical devices. DeFosse regularly appears in federal courts throughout the United States and before PTAB in connection with post-grant review proceedings. DeFosse also has substantial experience with inter partes review proceedings, and has represented companies in petitions challenging the validity of patents concerning light-emitting panel displays, pattern recognition systems, telematics units, wireless communications systems, crash avoidance systems, hybrid engines, adaptive cruise control systems, and tail lights. DeFosse earned his J.D., with highest honors, Order of the Coif, from The George Washington University Law School and his B.A. from The University of Toledo. Bevin Newman is a strategic adviser to globally recognized academic medical centers and health systems in cutting edge affiliations and collaborative arrangements. She has substantial experience advising and defending healthcare providers, payers, and pharmaceutical companies undertaking significant transactions, including mergers, joint ventures, intellectual property licenses, and a variety of innovative affiliations and collaborations. She regularly advocates for clients before the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general on complex antitrust matters. She also has extensive experience coordinating the merger-control, foreign direct investment (CFIUS) and regulatory reviews of multijurisdictional transactions for U.S. and foreign clients in the pharmaceutical, medical device, technology and energy industries. Newman earned her J.D. from Columbia University and her S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The firm's Intellectual Property practice includes more than 100 attorneys firmwide; the Antitrust and Competition practice includes more than 30 attorneys firmwide; and the Healthcare practice includes more than 150 attorneys firmwide. About Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP Sheppard Mullin is a full-service Global 100 firm with more than 850 attorneys in 15 offices located in the United States, Europe and Asia. Since 1927, industry-leading companies have turned to Sheppard Mullin to handle corporate and technology matters, high-stakes litigation and complex financial transactions. In the U.S., the firm's clients include more than half of the Fortune 100. For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005161/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Sinequa and Aurexia Join Forces to Deliver AI-Driven Insights to Improve Data Management and Customer Experience for Financial Institutions Sinequa, a leader in cognitive search and analytics, and Aurexia, a leader in business consulting for financial services, today announced a partnership to deliver AI-powered technologies that provide financial institutions with maximum protection and control over sensitive customer data, and deliver a smarter, more robust customer experience by delivering contextual insights. Financial institutions collect massive volumes of data, which can be a double-edged sword. Maintaining significant amounts of customer and portfolio data can provide tremendous opportunities for increased revenue and reduced risks. Yet organizations must comply with stringent regulations such as Dodd Frank (US), MiFID II (EU) and the GDPR (EU). These major regulatory changes heighten the pressure on financial organizations to organize and secure sensitive Non-Public Information (NPI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). "A majority of financial institutions are under-exploiting the volumes of unstructured data, and specifically available data about their clients, that can be helpful for risk & compliance purposes and improved customer service," said Charles Bain de la Coquerie, partner at Aurexia. "In our view, explicitly mining this content to identify and capture contextual insights using Sinequa's platform provides tangible business benefits to financial organizations." Located in London, Paris, Luxembourg and in Asia, Aurexia operates exclusively in financial services and provides a business consultancy through its dedicated practices: Capital Markets, Transaction Banking, Securities Services, Asset Management, Private Banking, Retail Banking, Finance, Risk and Insurance. Aurexia's expertise is also focused on supporting the digital transformation efforts of banks using Sinequa's AI-powered search & analytics platform to uncover insights to improve client management servics, mitigate risks, accelerate compliance with regulatory mandates and more. "We continue to expand our footprint in the financial services industry, and we are excited to partner with Aurexia, an established leader in the space, to advance that progress," said Patrick Metaireau, director, Channel Sales EMEA at Sinequa. "Together, we provide customers with powerful intelligence solutions that extract value from financial data and surface actionable information across all business functions, so it can be used to improve things like customer service, risk management, investment banking, regulatory compliance and asset management." For more information about how Sinequa helps Financial Services Organizations unlock the potential of their data, please visit: https://go.sinequa.com/whitepaper-finance.html. About Aurexia Founded in 2006, AUREXIA is a business management-consulting firm, committed to helping clients within the financial services industry achieve substantial and lasting improvements in their organizations. With consultants based in 5 different countries, Aurexia can bring unparalleled value and expertise to clients globally and help them to take on challenges involving the re-structuring of their business model, re-shaping of operations and processes all within an increasingly restrictive regulatory framework. Aurexia's commitment to research and development is materialized with the Aurexia Institute insights production on all financial services business topics. Aurexia continues to further develop its capabilities in digital transformation by setting up the AUREXIA FINLAB which manages all dimensions of our innovation clients' needs including working with external innovative providers such as Sinequa. For more information, www.aurexia.com. About Sinequa Sinequa is an independent software vendor providing an AI-Powered Search & Analytics platform for Global 2000 companies and government agencies that connects people with the information, expertise and insights necessary for organizations to become information-driven. For Sinequa customers, this means actionable information presented in context to surface insights, inform decisions, and elevate productivity. The platform has been forged by experience in projects for large organizations in complex environments with large and diverse sets of data and content. Sinequa's unified platform is fully integrated and configurable to support current and future needs around becoming information-driven. For more information, www.sinequa.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005092/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] State Street Appoints Amelia Fawcett as Independent Lead Director State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT) today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Amelia Fawcett as independent Lead Director following its annual review of its governance structure. Fawcett most recently served on the Board's Executive Compensation, Risk and Technology and Operations Committees and is a former Chair of the Risk Committee. As Lead Director, she will represent the Board in discussions with shareholders and regulators and preside over meetings of the independent directors. "Amelia has brought rich experience and thoughtful insights across our Board's discussions of corporate strategy, operations, risk management and governance. I am pleased that State Street and its shareholders will further benefit from her leadership and active engagement, as she assumes the vital role of Lead Director," said Kennett (Ken) Burnes, whom Fawcett succeeds in the role. "The independent Lead Director is an important role in State Street's governance," said Amelia Fawcett. "I am eager to work with the Board and management in this expanded capacity to help State Street implement its vision to be the leading asset servicer, asset manager and data insight provider to the owners and managers of the world's capital." Fawcett, who was born and has lived in Boston and is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, has extensive and diverse global financial services experience. She is Chairman of Kinnevik AB, a Swedish listed investment company, serves as Chairman of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments and previously served as a Non-Executive Director of Her Majesty's Treasury and a Member of the Court of Directors of the Bank of England. She also previously served as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of European Operations of Morgan Stanley, where she had responsibility for business strategy, including business integration, and oversight of operational risk functions, infrastructure support and corporate affairs. Fawcett was aarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) and a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II, in both instances for services to the finance industry, and in 2018 was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for services as Chairman of The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation. She is also a Trustee of Project Hope (UK). About State Street Corporation State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) is one of the world's leading providers of financial services to institutional investors, including investment servicing, investment management and investment research and trading. With $32.6 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $2.8 trillion* in assets under management as of March 31, 2019, State Street operates globally in more than 100 geographic markets and employs approximately 40,000 worldwide. For more information, visit State Street's website at www.statestreet.com. * Assets under management include the assets of the SPDR Gold ETF and the SPDR Long Dollar Gold Trust ETF (approximately $33 billion as of March 31, 2019), for which State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC (SSGA FD) serves as marketing agent; SSGA FD and State Street Global Advisors are affiliated. Forward-Looking Statements This News Release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States securities laws, including statements about leadership structures, transitions and governance practices and roles, responsibilities and opportunities with respect to State Street's Board of Directors, as well as about corporate strategies and priorities. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by such forward-looking terminology as "will," "expect," "believe," "look forward," "vision," "priority," "objective," "plan," "strategy," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "seek," "may," "trend," and "goal," or similar statements or variations of such terms. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, are inherently uncertain, are based on current assumptions that are difficult to predict and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed in those statements, and those statements should not be relied upon as representing our expectations or beliefs as of any time subsequent to the time that this News Release is first issued. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by any forward-looking statements are set forth in our 2018 Annual Report on Form 10-K and our subsequent SEC (News - Alert) filings. We encourage investors to read these filings, particularly the sections on risk factors, for additional information with respect to any forward-looking statements and prior to making any investment decision. The forward-looking statements contained in this News Release should not by relied on as representing our expectations or beliefs as of any time subsequent to the time that this News Release is first issued, and we do not undertake efforts to revise those forward-looking statements to reflect events after that time. State Street Corporation One Lincoln Street, Boston, MA 02111-2900. 2019 State Street Corporation - All Rights Reserved View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005995/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 14, 2019] Whale Cloud and China Telecom Win the "Outstanding Customer Centricity Award" at the TM Forum Excellence Awards 2019 May 14, 2019, NICE, France /PRNewswire/ -- Whale Cloud and China Telecom announced today they were chosen as a 2019 TM Forum Excellence Awards winner. They were honored with the Outstanding Customer Centricity Award for China Telecom new retail boutique transformation project. This award recognizes companies who have made a truly outstanding contribution to improving customer experience. Awards were presented at the Excellence Awards gala dinner in Nice, France last night organized by TM Forum. China Telecom new retail boutique transformation is a collaborative project between China Telecom and Whale Cloud for telecom store transformation.The joint project aimed to provide customer with seamless and innovative service experience, and increase sales both online and offline through analytics-driven customer insights, innovative business models and customer services. AI technologies are applied to situations where a robot can offer customer services like recharing, invoice printing, and service inquiry. The technology improves the context of engagements for individuals and their friends. Furthermore, the new retail project not only focused on customer experience but also is an important milestone for telecom companies' transformation towards a digital era. "The winner provides seamless and innovative customer experience combining both online self-service and offline store, which significantly improves revenue," said Sandra De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer at TM Forum, who presented the award at the gala dinner. "Our sincere congratulations to Whale Cloud and China Telecom for accelerating digital transformation and their commitments to the Forum, our members and the industry as a whole." "We are beyond proud and honored to receive this award. We are determined to serve our customers with the best experience and to deliver new and innovative solutions," said Fu Jianjun, Chief Marketing Officer of Whale Cloud International, " Our partnership with Alibaba allows us to fully integrate Alibaba's transformation strategies, approaches and technologies. As a global supplier, we will continue to help service providers in their digital transformation process." About Whale Cloud Whale Cloud is a subsidiary company of Alibaba Group, providing Cloud, Analytics and AI-based software solutions to Telecom operators, Industrial enterprises and Government sectors in more than 80 countries. With more than 20 years of experience in the industry, Whale Cloud can offer solutions to support digital transformation across multiple industries. https://dtw.tmforum.org/the-event/digital-world-awards/ View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/whale-cloud-and-china-telecom-win-the-outstanding-customer-centricity-award-at-the-tm-forum-excellence-awards-2019-300850376.html SOURCE Whale Cloud [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 14, 2019] UrtheCast Reports First Quarter 2019 Financial Results VANCOUVER, May 14, 2019 /CNW/ - UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) ("UrtheCast" or the "Company"), a leading provider of information-rich products and services in the geospatial and geo-analytics markets, reported its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2019. All financial figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. As a result of the planned sale of Deimos Imaging or its assets, the operations of Deimos Imaging have been classified as discontinued operations for the three months ended March 31, 2019 and the associated comparative prior period. The financial information in this press release is based on the Company's continuing operations unless otherwise noted. Q1 2019 Financial Results (in millions of Canadian dollars) Q1 2019 Q1 2018 Revenue $ 4.4 $ 3.3 Operating costs 7.2 7.6 Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations1 (0.8) (3.5) Net loss from continuing operations (1.4) (3.9) Net loss from discontinued operations (5.1) (7.2) Net loss (6.5) (11.1) 1 Non-IFRS earnings measure. See reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to Net Loss under "Non-IFRS Earnings Measures"in the Company's Management Discussion & Analysis for the period ending March 31, 2019 "Our near-term focus continues to be on strengthening and streamlining our current business lines while advancing towards the build and launch of the UrtheDaily Constellation, a global change detection system that will transform the way we observe our planet. Indications of market demand for our unrivalled UrtheDaily service offering remain robust and widespread," said Donald Osborne, CEO of UrtheCast. "Additionally, our ongoing restructuring activities are beginning to yield positive results, most notably in the form of a significantly reduced fixed cost base, and we have enhanced UrtheCast's strategic focus, resilience, and ability to translate growth opportunities into positive cashflow. We continue to make progress towards delivering a positive run-rate EBITDA for UrtheCast by the end of 2019 and have already begun to see a positive EBITDA contribution from our recently completed acquisition of Geosys, a provider of world-class geo-analytics solutions for precision agriculture." Mr. Osborne continued, "The Geosys acquisition furthers our vertical integration strategy and moves UrtheCast up the value-chain into geo-analytics, a high-margin and rapidly growing market segment. The combination of daily imagery data from UrtheDaily with the innovative analytics capabilities of Geosys is going to provide insights that will revolutionize the agriculture industry." Revenue in the first quarter of 2019 was $4.4 million and was comprised entirely of geo-analytics products and services revenue resulting from the acquisition of Geosys and the commencement of a 13-year services contract with Geosys' former parent company, Land O'Lakes. The Company did not recognize any engineering and value-added services revenue in the first quarter of 2019, compared to $3.3 million in the first quarter of 2018, due to progress delays incurred by its key subcontractors in completing milestones under its engineering and value-added services contract. The decrease was also due to revenue being recognized on contracts for the provision of space hardware in the first quarter of 2018 which were completed during 2018. Operating costs of $7.2 million in the first quarter of 2019 decreased by $0.4 million compared to the first quarter of 2018, due to the impact of cost reduction initiatives and a decrease in engineering subcontractor costs related to the decrease in engineering services revenues. These cost reductions were partially offset by the consolidation of Geosys operating costs from the acquisition date. Operating costs from continuing operations, exclusive of Geosys, have been reduced by more than 60% since the first quarter of 2018. Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations of negative $0.8 million in the first quarter of 2019 improved by $2.8 million compared to the same quarter last year due to lower corporate and engineering services related costs and a positive EBITDA contribution from Geosys. The net loss of $6.5 million in the first quarter of 2019 improved by $4.6 million compared to the net loss from the first quarter of 2018, primarily due to higher revenue, lower operating costs, and a smaller net loss from discontinued operations. Outlook & Going Concern We refer you to the Company's consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 2019 and the related Management's Discussion & Analysis for further details relating to the Company's liquidity position. The Company has continued to take steps subsequent to March 31, 2019 to ensure that it is able to continue as a going concern and that it has adequate liquidity in the near term. SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION The following table provides selected financial information of the Company, which was derived from, and should be read in conjunction with, the consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 2019. All financial information is in thousands of Canadian dollars, unless otherwise noted, and except for number of shares and per share amounts. Three months ended March 31, 2019 2018 Revenue $ 4,425 $ 3,251 Other operating income 331 195 4,756 3,446 Operating costs Direct costs, selling, general and administrative expenses 5,237 6,670 Research expenditures 294 306 Depreciation and amortization 1,417 160 Share-based payments 229 441 7,177 7,577 Operating loss (2,421) (4,131) Net finance costs (1,636) (158) Gain on derivative financial instruments 3,475 227 Foreign exchange (loss) gain (1,093) 212 Loss before income taxes (1,675) (3,850) Income tax recovery (expense) 253 (26) Net loss from continuing operations (1,422) (3,876) Net loss from discontinued operations (5,053) (7,182) Net loss (6,475) (11,058) Other comprehensive income 163 2,256 Comprehensive loss $ (6,312) $ (8,802) Loss per share basic and diluted $ (0.05) $ (0.09) Loss per share from continuing operations basic and diluted $ (0.01) $ (0.03) NON-IFRS EARNINGS MEASURES The following table reconciles our Non-IFRS earnings measures to Net Loss prepared in accordance with IFRS. Three months ended March 31, 2019 2018 ADJUSTED EBITDA: Net loss from continuing operations $ (1,422) $ (3,876) Add back (subtract): Depreciation and amortization 1,417 160 Net finance costs 1,636 158 Income tax (recovery) expense (253) 26 EBITDA from continuing operations 1,378 (3,532) Share-based payments 229 441 Gain on derivative financial instruments (3,475) (227) Foreign exchange loss (gain) 1,093 (212) ADJUSTED EBITDA FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS $ (775) $ (3,530) ADJUSTED EBITDA FROM DISCONTINUED OPERATIONS (1,293) (2,534) ADJUSTED EBITDA $ (2,068) $ (6,064) About UrtheCast UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based company that serves the rapidly growing and evolving geospatial and geo-analytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. UrtheCast is a Big Data services company specializing in satellite imaging, data services and geo-analytics. The data the Company collects from its satellites and third parties fuel powerful cloud-based analytics platforms at the leading edge of the AI and machine learning revolution. The insights gained from the Company's imagery, cloud-based processing chain, and algorithms allows its customers to identify potential adverse events quickly, track long-term trends, monitor change, reduce intervention times, uncover opportunities, and take targeted, strategic actions to better serve their customers and fulfill their missions. Key markets served are agriculture, forestry, environment and defense and intelligence. UrtheCast has designed and proposes to build and launch a satellite constellation designed to capture high-quality, medium-resolution optical imagery of the Earth's entire land mass (excluding Antarctica) everyday, called UrtheDailyTM, and has developed advanced synthetic aperture radar technology for satellites, called OptiSARTM. Subject to UrtheCast financing the build and launch of the UrtheDaily Constellation satellites in a timely manner, the Company currently expects the UrtheDaily Constellation to begin operations in 2021. UrtheCast has entered into multiple agreements for the sale of imagery from the UrtheDaily Constellation once UrtheCast begins delivering data to customers. In January 2019, UrtheCast also acquired Geosys, a digital agriculture company that provides a suite of geo-analytics products and services to agribusinesses around the world (see "Business Highlights Geosys Acquisition"). The acquisition of Geosys positions UrtheCast as a fully vertically-integrated geo-analytics solution provider for the precision agriculture market, able to integrate satellite imagery services with analytics. The Company currently owns and operates two Earth Observation ("EO") satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2. Imagery data from these sensors is continuously downlinked to ground stations around the world and distributed directly to partners and customers in multiple markets. UrtheCast also processes and distributes imagery data and value-added products on behalf of the PanGeo Alliance, a network of seven EO satellite operators with a combined 13 medium- and high-resolution EO sensors, led by Deimos Imaging, S.L.U., a wholly-owned subsidiary of UrtheCast. During the first quarter of 2019, the Company committed to a formal plan and commenced a bid process to sell all or substantially all of the assets of Deimos Imaging. For more information, visit UrtheCast's website at www.urthecast.com. Non-IFRS Financial Measures The Company prepares its financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS"), as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. This release includes certain non-IFRS financial measures, such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations. The Company uses these non-IFRS financial measures as supplemental indicators of its operating performance and financial position. These measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and therefore are unlikely to be comparable to the calculation of similar measures used by other companies and should not be viewed as alternatives to measures of financial performance calculated in accordance with IFRS or considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures should be read in conjunction with the Company's financial statements and accompanying MD&A. An explanation of how the Company calculates these measures is set out in the Company's MD&A under the heading "Non-IFRS Earnings Measures" for the period ending March 31, 2019, a copy of which is available on the Company's SEDAR profile and website. Forward Looking Information This release contains certain information which, as presented, constitutes "forward-looking information" or "forward-oriented financial information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that relate to future events and often addresses expected future business and financial performance, containing words such as "anticipate", "plan", "explore" and "expect", statements that an action or event "may", "should" are "going" to occur or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions and includes, but is not limited to, statements relating to: UrtheCast's expectations with respect to its ability to raise capital and to continue as a going concern and management's plans to improve the Company's financial position; expectations regarding achieving a positive run-rate EBITDA by the end of 2019 expectations regarding UrtheCast's ability to meet its obligations and satisfy its liabilities under its existing indebtedness; expectations underlying the Company's financial statements, including that they have been prepared on a going concern basis, meaning that the Company will be able to realize its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of operations; expectations regarding a proposed and/or planned sale or other monetization of all or substantially all of Deimos Imaging and its related business; UrtheCast's expectations with respect to its ability to raise proceeds from a debt or equity offering, achieve the required leverage and contracted value ratios and otherwise satisfy the conditions of its indebtedness and business needs generally; UrtheCast's ability to fully integrate Geosys into the Company's other operations and achieve the expected synergies and other benefits therefrom on an ongoing basis and to complete the second closing of the acquisition of Geosys on the terms set forth in the definitive purchase agreement or at all, as well as the Company's ability to service and obtain additional revenues from the Service Level Agreement with Winfield, a subsidiary of Land O' Lakes; UrtheCast's ability to meet its obligations and satisfy its liabilities under its existing indebtedness; UrtheCast's ability to satisfy the conditions precedent to certain contracts related to the purchase of imagery data from the UrtheDaily satellite constellation; expectations regarding monetization of the OptiSAR technology and related intellectual property developed by the Company; new product functionality and suitability; projected operating expenses and ongoing efforts to reduce fixed costs and capital expenditures; UrtheCast's ability to secure additional customer contracts for the planned UrtheDaily constellation in a timely manner or at all; and UrtheCast's ability to secure financing for the planned UrtheDaily constellation on acceptable terms, in a timely manner, or at all, and the related expectations regarding its build, launch and operations;. Such statements reflect UrtheCast's current views with respect to future events, and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by UrtheCast as at the date of this press release, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors could cause UrtheCast's actual results or performance to be materially different from expectations that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others: the Company's ability to rectify its current cash constraints and to continue as a going concern; the Company's ability to enter into alternative financing for the UrtheDaily satellite constellation, and any delays or failures in the design, development, construction, launch and operational commissioning of the such constellation; the Company's ability to comply with debt and repayment obligations and avoid the exercise of lenders' rights, including with respect to seizing secured assets; unexpected increases in fixed or variable costs; lower than expected revenues from Geosys or the Company's other products and services in the remainder of 2019; the loss of key personnel due to the Company's financial position and/or market factors; the Company's ability to fund its future operations, which is contingent on its efforts to raise additional financing and/or sell certain assets of the Company; an adverse outcome in the Company's litigation with Eastwood Capital Corp and William Holland, or additional claims made by lenders, shareholders or suppliers of the Company in connection with its operations and/or performance; the Company's ability to successfully complete a sale or other transaction involving Deimos Imaging on commercially reasonable terms, or at all; UrtheCast's ability to fund the remaining two installments for the purchase price of the Geosys transaction or otherwise successfully complete the second closing of the Geosys acquisition; loss, reduction in scope, termination, failure to satisfy conditions precedent or decline in general of the Company's agreements or relationships with its key partners, including Land O' Lakes, Inc. and purchasers of advance data purchase subscription agreements for the data expected to be provided by the UrtheDaily constellation ; risks related to the government funding received by UrtheCast and risks arising from breach or default of obligations under the related agreements with certain government agencies; delays or disputes with customers regarding the payment milestones under the Company's data imagery, value-added services or engineering services agreements, which often include complex criteria and/or performance by third parties to successfully complete the contract and obtain payment; legal and regulatory changes, or the Company's failure to comply with listing requirements and other rules of the TSX and/or regulations of applicable securities authorities in Canada; and; as well as those factors and assumptions discussed in UrtheCast's Annual Information Form dated March 29, 2019, which is available under UrtheCast's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. UrtheCast cautions readers that such factors and uncertainties are not exhaustive and that should certain risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying estimates or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results, performance or achievements may vary significantly from those expected. There can be no assurance that the actual strategies, results, performance, events or activities anticipated by the Company will be realized or, even if substantially realized, that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.. SOURCE UrtheCast Corp. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 14, 2019] Huawei Defines Digital City Needs with Maslow Model and Supports their Transformation with Digital Foundation SHENZHEN, China, May 14, 2019 /CNW/ -- The 2019 Shenzhen Smart City Forum with International Friendship Cities opened on Tuesday with the theme "ushering in a bright future for smart cities". The forum brings together Shenzhen officials, Huawei executives and smart city experts, UN-Habitat experts and scholars, delegates from cities around the world with smart city experience, as well as high-tech enterprises to share their latest development concepts and practices. The forum aims to promote communication and cooperation in building smart, digital cities. Global City Leaders Gather in Shenzhen to Explore the Future Together Ai Xuefeng, Deputy Mayor of Shenzhen, hosted the opening ceremony with Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, Xie Yuan, Deputy Chair of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and Frank Ross, Lord Provost of Edinburgh speaking at the forum's opening. Guest speakers included Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman of Huawei; Ugo Valenti, CEO of Smart City Expo World Congress; and Rui Costa dos Santos, Governor of the State of Bahia, Brazil. Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, delivered a welcome speech: "This year witnesses the 70th anniversary of People's Republic of China, and also 40 years since the establishment of Shenzhen city. Shenzhen reflects the historical achievements China has made, serving as a window to display China to the world. We hope to make more friends with an open heart taking the opportunity of this forum, and together contribute wisdom and power for a common human community." "Huawei is dedicated to building a smart city digital foundation that enables integrating, exploring, analyzing, and sharing data, by using ubiquitous connectivity, a digital platform, and pervasive inteligence," said Guo Ping in a speech entitled 'Building a Maslow Model for Smart Cities'. "More importantly, we develop a digital brain for cities in hand with application partners, building a common ecosystem with mutual advantages. This brain will provide advanced ways to help cities make informed development decisions and will allow e-government, transportation, and policing domains to go digital. In doing so, we hope to build smart cities featuring smart administration, more benefits for residents, and prosperous industry development." In his speech 'A New World of Smart Cities', Ugo Valenti said: "Innovative technologies, including 5G, IoT, AI, and cloud, are disruptively renovating how cities are governed and managed. By nurturing Public-Private-People Partnerships, a co-creation model among government, corporations, and citizens, smart cities will facilitate a more open decision-making process, and bring a people-centric new world." High-end Digital Economy Dialogue, Empowering Development with Top-level Design The highlight of the opening ceremony was a high-end dialogue. It attracted attendees from government departments, enterprises, and the academic community. The panel explored emerging technologies, how to construct big-data-based city ICT infrastructure to safeguard public security and order, and how to enhance modern city governance, public welfare, and economy by leveraging digital services and a disruptive digital brain. The result will be better smart cities with active smart economies. "The usage of digital technology has become one of the criteria to assess a city's intelligence level. Future smart cities will have five new infrastructural platforms, namely cloud, IoT, data lake, AI, and a video surveillance network. These five platforms will form a foundation for us to achieve ubiquitous connectivity, realize pervasive intelligence, and streamline heterogeneous ICT systems. Huawei uses its cloud as the basis to integrate various new ICT technologies, such as AI, IoT, big data, converged communications, video, and GIS, to build a comprehensive digital platform," said Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise BG. "This platform provides technical enablement for government and enterprise customers, helping them easily cope with complicated technical issues. In addition, Huawei built 12 OpenLabs around the globe to conduct customer-oriented joint innovation with partners. Building a smart city is a long and constantly evolving process. Based on Huawei's digital platform, cities will be like organic life. New applications will emerge and grow through iteration, and eventually achieve overall prosperity," continued Yan Lida. "The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include one on sustainable cities and communities. We hope to drive the realization of SDG through smart city endeavors with confidence. We are to face the challenge from smart city construction, but also embrace its unlimited potential. From the perspective of the UN, international cooperation is significant. We see a very good platform here today for cities to share experience," said Atsushi Koresawa, Director for UN-Habitat Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. This event is hosted by Shenzhen Municipal People's Government and organized by Shenzhen Foreign Affairs Office. As a co-organizer, Huawei is a global leading Smart City and Safe City solution provider. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/huawei-defines-digital-city-needs-with-maslow-model-and-supports-their-transformation-with-digital-foundation-300850448.html SOURCE Huawei [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Photo taken on May 14, 2019 shows the United Nations Security Council holding a meeting on the situation in Sudan and South Sudan, at the UN headquarters in New York. The United Nations Security Council Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) until Nov. 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) until Nov. 15, 2019. Apart from the mandate renewal, resolution 2469 decided to reduce the authorized troop ceiling to 3,550 and also decided that as of Oct. 15, 2019, the authorized troop ceiling shall decrease by a further 585 troops. As the troop ceiling will reduce, the resolution also decided to increase the authorized police ceiling to 640 police personnel, including 148 individual police officers and three formed police units. According to the Secretary-General's most recent report, as on April 8, the mission contained only 40 individual police against the authorized total of 345 decided on in the former resolution. The failure to deploy the additional police was due to delays in Sudan's issuance of visas, the report said. In this regard, resolution 2469 expressed "deep concern that the Government of Sudan has not promptly issued visas to support the deployment of personnel critical for the mandate of UNISFA." The Security Council first modified the UNISFA mandate in December 2011 to add tasks of supporting a Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism of Sudan and South Sudan, which gained independence from the former in July 2011. [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] [May 15, 2019] Toyoda Gosei Invests in IMUZAK Inc., a Startup Specializing in Optics Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. has invested in IMUZAK Inc., a startup located in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, with strengths in optical design and assessment, to accelerate its development of interior and exterior modules for the age of autonomous driving. The evolution of autonomous driving technology is expected to increase the need for parts equipped with sensing functions to recognize the surrounding environment, such as nearby vehicles or pedestrians and road configuration, and human-machine interface functions for communication between vehicles and people. Given this trend, Toyoda Gosei is integrating sensors and other electronic components into its exterior and interior products such as front grilles, cockpits, and steering wheels, where it has been a leading supplier for many years. The modular products it is developing with this new technology will combine functions for safety and comfort with attractive design. Toyoda Gosei's investment in IMUZAK will give it access to that company's proprietary findings in the field of optics for the creation of new value as it develops exterior products that are transparent to infrared light using LIDAR* and interior products that use light in equipment operation. This investment is the first to be made by Toyoda Gosei's newly established Corporate Venture Capital Dept., started in January 2019 as a dedicated organization for corporate venture capital. The amount of the investment is 50 million yen, which will give Toyoda Gosei an equity stake of 19.1% in IMUZAK. * Light Detection and Ranging, a sensing method that measures distance and direction by the time it takes emitted infrared laser light to reflect off of an object and return. Compared with millimeter wave radar, a sensor using the similar mechanism, LIDAR uses electromagnetic waves with a shorter wavelength, and so is characterized by high spatial resolution, or ability to detect objects in detail. Outline of IMUZAK 1. Name IMUZAK Inc. 2. Location 2-2-1 Yagata-shi, Yamagata 990-2743, Japan Yamagata Prefecture Advanced Technology Research and Development Center Unit 103 3. President Kazumi Sawamura 4. Established January 21, 2015 5. Capital 13 million yen About Toyoda Gosei Established in 1949 and headquartered in Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, Toyoda Gosei is a leading specialty manufacturer of rubber and plastic automotive parts. Today, the Toyoda Gosei Group provides a variety of high-quality products internationally, with a network of approximately 100 plants and offices in 18 countries and regions. Through its flexible, integrated global supply system and leading-edge technologies, Toyoda Gosei aims to grow as a global company that acts flexibly and swiftly in today's dramatically changing business environment, delivering the highest levels of satisfaction to customers worldwide through safety, comfort, well-being and the environment. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514005028/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Huobi Launches Regulated Fiat-To-Crypto & Crypto-To-Crypto OTC Service For High Volume Traders NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and others looking to make high volume digital asset trades now have a better path forward. Huobi Group is happy to announce the launch of Huobi OTC Desk, a fully regulated service built on Huobi's Gibraltar FSC-issued Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) license. The service supports both crypto-to-crypto and fiat-to-crypto transactions, including those made in US dollars (USD), British pound sterling (GBP), and euros (EUR) for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and other cryptocurrencies. "We see a lot of appetite out there from players in more established financial markets when it comes to digital assets, but many are still uncomfortable jumping into unregulated trading environments," said Jeff Adams, Senior Sales Manager for Huobi Global. "We also see an unfilled need for services aimed at those looking to make large volume transactions. Huobi OTC Desk is a big step forward to filling both of those needs." Adams announced the launch during a Huobi breakfast meet up in New York City. The addition of Huobi OTC Desk advances Huobi's evolution as a full-service market facilitator in digita asset trading. OTC has long been one of the key trading activities in the traditional finance world, and now it is an integral part of Huobi's trading solutions for professional, institutional, and high net worth clients. Huobi's DLT license was among the first batch of licenses awarded by Gibraltar, which is the first jurisdiction to introduce a purpose-built DLT regulatory framework. What are Huobi OTC Desk's key advantages? Trading on exchanges can be complex for high volume transactions and users may not know their final execution price before a trade actually takes place. When trading on Huobi OTC Desk, however, users are provided with a real time quotation which also effectively serves as their execution price. Competitive pricing and excellent liquidity for large volume transactions. Huobi OTC Desk users gain access to dedicated support teams. Huobi OTC Desk is not intended for users in the United States. How is Huobi OTC Desk different than Huobi Global's retail OTC service? Through Huobi Global's retail OTC service, users trade with other users, whereas Huobi OTC Desk is a service provided by Huobi Gibraltar with a license under Gibraltar's DLT regulatory framework. To learn more or to apply for a Huobi OTC Desk account, users can email [email protected] About Huobi: Consisting of ten upstream and downstream enterprises, Huobi Group is the world's leading blockchain company. Established in 2013, Huobi Group's accumulative turnover exceeds $1 trillion. It proudly provides safe, secure, and convenient cryptocurrency trading and asset management services to millions of users in 130+ countries. Find out more at www.hbg.com For media enquiries please contact: Jiayi Li, [email protected], +65-92295769 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/huobi-launches-regulated-fiat-to-crypto--crypto-to-crypto-otc-service-for-high-volume-traders-300850488.html SOURCE Huobi Group [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Boom Supersonic and Dassault Systemes Partner to Advance the Development of Overture, History's Fastest Commercial Airliner Dassault Systemes (Paris:DSY) (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that Boom Supersonic is deploying the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to accelerate the design and development of Overture, its Mach-2.2 commercial airliner, with an aim to make supersonic travel mainstream and affordable. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514005440/en/ (Photo: Dassault Systemes (News - Alert)) Boom Supersonic is using Dassault Systemes' "Reinvent the Sky" industry solution experience based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to support product development from concept through manufacturing and certification. By using this industry-leading solution, Boom Supersonic can cut development time of its first prototype in half and improve product quality by reducing program complexity, inefficiency, costs and resources, thus lowering the barriers to market entry. "Overture takes new advances in aerodynamics, materials, and propulsion and uses them to revolutionize long-haul commercial airline travel. We need powerful design tools to deliver our vision of a supersonic future, and that is exactly what Dassault Systemes provides," said Joshua Krall, co-founder and VP, technology, Boom Supersonic. "As a startup, we aren't constrained by legacy software systems and aim to keep IT costs low. We quickly and easily deployed Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform and expect to scale up to hundreds of users as our project matures." In response to increasing passenger travel and demand for new products and services, aerospace startups, new market entrants and small original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are shaking up traditional aviation industry dynamics with new and emerging aircraft design concepts that aim to overcome technical challenges of the past. Tailored for product innovation by small OEMs and startups, "Reinvent the Sky" offers scalable access to digital design and simulation applications in a single, secure, and standards-based environment. Boom Supersonic's engineers, program managers and chief test pilot can collaborate in real time to define requirements, access and reuse common processes and parts with full traceability. "Aerospace companies are working to deliver faster, lighter, more efficient aircraft withoutsacrificing passenger comfort," said David Ziegler, Vice President, Aerospace & Defense Industry, Dassault Systemes. "Smaller innovators need tools for their product development programs that offer them the infrastructure of more established companies yet allow them to stay nimble and incur minimal IT-related expenses. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform delivers this support. Boom Supersonic can create the next generation passenger experience with digital applications that have long been at the core of the industry's major milestones." Boom Supersonic is currently building XB-1, its two-seat demonstrator aircraft, to prove key technologies for supersonic flight. Once operational, the company's flagship airliner, Overture, will become the fastest commercial airplane in history, flying Mach 2.2 from New York to London in 3.25 hours and from Tokyo to San Francisco in 5.5 hours. Joshua Krall will be speaking at Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE FORUM North America, held May 13-16, 2019 in Las Vegas. The annual event brings together leaders from across all the company's 11 industries, including aerospace and defense. Dassault Systemes will be attending this year's International Paris Air Show (June 17-23), booth D170 (Hall 2B) and Chalet B161 (by invitation only). Social media: Share this on Twitter (News - Alert): [email protected] deploys #3DEXPERIENCE to accelerate the design & development of world's fastest supersonic airliner @Dassault3DS Connect with Dassault Systemes on Twitter Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Connect with Boom Supersonic on Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Instagram For more information: Dassault Systemes' industry solution experiences for the aerospace & defense industry: https://ifwe.3ds.com/aerospace-defense Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform, 3D design software, 3D Digital Mock Up and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions: http://www.3ds.com ### About Boom Supersonic Boom Supersonic is redefining what it means to fly by building Overture, history's fastest commercial airliner. Boom's vision is to bring families, businesses, and cultures closer together through supersonic travel and make the world dramatically more accessible. The company is backed by world-class investors and has 30 aircraft on pre-order from Japan Airlines and Virgin Group. Founded in 2014, Boom has assembled a world-class team of over 130 full-time employees who have made contributions to over 40 air and spacecraft companies. For more information, please visit https://boomsupersonic.com. About Dassault Systemes Dassault Systemes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, provides business and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations. Its world-leading solutions transform the way products are designed, produced, and supported. Dassault Systemes' collaborative solutions foster social innovation, expanding possibilities for the virtual world to improve the real world. The group brings value to over 250,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries. For more information, visit www.3ds.com. 3DEXPERIENCE, the Compass logo and the 3DS logo, CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, ENOVIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA, GEOVIA, EXALEAD, 3D VIA (News - Alert), BIOVIA, NETVIBES and 3DEXCITE are registered trademarks of Dassault Systemes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514005440/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Dialpad Expands to Tap EMEA Cloud Communications Market, Opens New London Office Office opens with seasoned channel sales team and plans to aggressively scale presence in Europe LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Dialpad , the only AI-driven, cloud-native business communications platform, today announced an aggressive expansion of its global presence, opening a London office with new channel sales leadership, expanding partnerships with ScanSource and Avant, and a new extended digital based footprint. The company's London team will specifically focus on building channel sales momentum to meet the growing demand for cloud communications solutions in Europe. According to IDC Research, the overall cloud market in Europe will grow at a 22% rate over the next three years. Through its cloud-based suite of team collaboration, sales enablemen and customer support tools, Dialpad gives any company the ability to have a global cloud-based communications platform, all powered by its industry-leading Voice Intelligence (Vi) technology. Dialpad opens its new London office with key hires across field facing organization with plans to further expand the team by the end of the year. "London represents a massive opportunity to scale Dialpad across all regions of the country and throughout Europe," said Craig Walker, CEO of Dialpad. "Dialpad is the only true, pure-cloud provider that can deliver the world-class service and scalability the European enterprise market requires." By expanding the channel partner program to Europe, Dialpad is building upon its exponential growth and commitment to over 400 channel partners providing UCaaS services and distributing the company's business communications product lines. In 2018, the company saw 289% channel revenue growth and 358% new channel customer growth. Over the past two years, Dialpad has significantly strengthened its indirect sales channels, with early program participants experiencing over 450% increase in revenue. Dialpad expects EMEA direct sales and self-service sign-ups to be available in August 2019. Channel Team Expansion Joining Dialpad's team as Channel Managers out of the new London office are Jeremy Slater and Russel Bigg. Slater is based in London and will manage Sales and Indirect Partnerships. He joins Dialpad from Zoom, and prior to that BlueJeans, where he built a track record of growing UCaaS revenues. Russel Bigg joins Dialpad from Pexip and prior to that West Corporation, where he led the channel team and partner ecosystem to 70% growth in 1 year. Biggs, also based in London, will build out Dialpad's Europe specific partner program. About Dialpad Dialpad's mission is to make business communications great. Built on the Google Cloud Platform for unmatched security, reliability and scale, Dialpad's product suite covers the full range of modern business communications needs with Talk, Sell and Support, and UberConference all powered by Voice Intelligence. Today more than 58,000 of the world's most innovative businesses use Dialpad and its seamless integrations with Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 to be more productive. Customers include WeWork, Uber, Motorola Solutions, Domo and Xero. Investors include Amasia, Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis Ventures, GV, ICONIQ Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Scale Ventures, Section 32, Softbank, and Work-Bench. Visit dialpad.com for more. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/340863/Dialpad_Logo.jpg [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Infobip Enables Banking Services Over the World's Most Used Chat Apps and Channels Enhancing Customer Experience of Kenyan Banks and Fintechs NAIROBI, Kenya, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Infobip, a global cloud communications company for businesses and leader in omnichannel engagement is enhancing its presence in Kenya. By using Infobip's omnichannel solution, Kenyan businesses can choose the optimal communication channels for specific types of messages, all available on a single communication platform. Businesses can design targeted promotional campaigns and provide transactional traffic by including, for example, notification codes, account balance changes, bonus calculations on member cards, and payment reminders. The channels include SMS, and a number of chat app channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger, RCS, Push and more. "Banks have to meet the customer needs of its competition. Maintaining customers long-term will require impactful engagement through omnichannel communications over the channels they use and prefer. Infobip is a provider that can truly address these pain points, helping banks throughout Africa improve their financial service offerings and ultimately enable every Kenyan with a bank account to be powered by mobile technology," said Ali Hussein Kassim, co-founder, and CEO of FinteXX. Infobip's enablement of WhatsApp Business API allows enterprises in over 180 countries to communicate branded and rich content, such as high-res images, video, and files to its customers over WhatsApp, the chat app trusted and used by 1.6 billion people worldwide. A financial institution can for example offer banking services such as personal account verification information, account statements, banking transaction alerts or help customers find the closest branch. H.F. Group, an integrated property and financial solutions provider in Kenya believes tailored dialogue is key in building long term relationships with their customers. ''It is imperative to listen to your customers and interact with them on digital channels. Our recently launched mobile app, for example, increased our customer base by 150 percent in only seven weeks, but USSD service is still very much in demand in Kenya. With the support f Infobip, we implemented our USSD solution in less than two months, and we can already attest to great results customer-wise," said George Njuguna, Chief Information Officer, H.F. Group. Infobip has partnered with several financial and telecommunications companies across the region, bringing financial solutions to the unbanked and helping banks and fintech enterprises meet the growing competition from the expanding FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) communications sector. A major shift in mobile money and financial services trends are evolving across Africa. Other companies using Infobip's A2P communication technology in Africa include the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), the largest privately-owned bank in East Africa. "We are constantly trying to find new, innovative ways to optimize our processes and interactions with our customers to increase satisfaction with our bank. CBA is utilizing Infobip's platform for A2P SMS communication, but our goal is also to expand our cooperation with additional channels such as email, chat apps and push notifications for example," Dennis Volemi, Head of IT at CBA. Kenya tops the list of African countries with ease of access to financial services thanks in part to its high uptake of mobile money, placing the country ahead of economic giants such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana. Other key drivers of this development include mobile adoption and internet connectivity. 84 percent of Kenya's population has access to the Internet. 91 percent of Kenya's total population has a mobile phone, compared to the average of 80 percent mobile penetration in all of Africa.[1] ''Infobip is expanding its operations in Africa. It is a region that is changing and improving rapidly when it comes to mobile money and financial services. Kenya, being one of the more progressive and developed nations in Africa, presents great potential and sets an example in truly diminishing the unbanked. With Infobip's messaging solutions, banks can effectively build customer engagement, trust, and loyalty that is so important in Africa's evolving banking industry," said Rachel Njiru, Infobip's MD Kenya & Director OP Africa About Infobip Infobip powers enterprises to deliver messages across any channel, any device, at anytime and anywhere worldwide. Infobip's technology creates seamless mobile interactions between businesses and people as well as simplifying the integration of almost all communication capabilities. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to include more than 60 offices on six continents offering in-house developed messaging platform with the capacity to reach over six billion mobile devices in 190+ countries connected to over 800 telecom networks. The company serves and partners with leading mobile operators, messaging apps, banks, social networks, tech companies, and aggregators. [1] Jumia Kenya Mobile Report 2019: https://www.jumia.co.ke/mobile-report/ Contact: Tina Loncaric Global Public Relations Director Infobip +54-9-11-5764-5396 [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/infobip-enables-banking-services-over-the-worlds-most-used-chat-apps-and-channels-enhancing-customer-experience-of-kenyan-banks-and-fintechs-300848904.html SOURCE Infobip [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] OpenGate Capital Completes Acquisition of Silicon Carbide Division from Saint-Gobain OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced today that it has acquired the silicon carbide division from Saint-Gobain S.A. (EPA: SGO). The business will soon be renamed Fiven A/S ("Fiven"). Financial terms were not disclosed. Fiven is a leader in Silicon Carbide ("SiC") grains and powders, a material that offers unique properties of hardness, thermal resistance, wear resistance, thermal conductivity and chemical inertness. Fiven products are used in a wide array of applications including metallurgy, refractory materials, filtration products and technical ceramics. Fiven has a global manufacturing footprint across Norway, Belgium, Brazil and Venezuela, and will be headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Fiven products are sold to a diverse customer base across Europe, South America, North America and Asia. Partner at OpenGate Capital Sebastien Kiekert Le Moult, who led the transaction commented, "OpenGate's investment in Fiven marks an exciting opportunity at a time that the business continues to benefit from its position in a fragmented market and power-related product applications which ae experiencing robust growth." Julien Lagreze, OpenGate Capital's Partner based in Paris, stated, "We are incredibly proud to have completed this transaction with Saint-Gobain, a highly regarded corporate transaction partner. Not only is Fiven another exciting, cross-border investment for our firm, this also represents the hallmark of OpenGate's strategy to partner with corporations in complex, cross-border, carve-out transactions." Fabien Marcantetti, Managing Director at OpenGate responsible for transaction execution in Europe, stated, "The transaction with Saint-Gobain reflects OpenGate's strategy to acquire businesses that will benefit from a new owner who collaborates with management to drive the next era of growth." Also commenting was Marc Veillas, Managing Director at OpenGate overseeing the operations of the firm's European investments. Veillas stated, "We are looking forward to collaborating with the team at Fiven in the years ahead and building the full potential within a well-established business." Fiven is the first investment completed within OpenGate Capital's second institutional fund. The firm also signed agreements to acquire Sargent and Greenleaf from Stanley Black and Decker in the US, and SMAC from Colas Group in Europe. About OpenGate Capital OpenGate Capital is a global private equity firm specializing in the acquisition and operation of businesses to create new value through operational improvements, innovation and growth. Established in 2005, OpenGate Capital is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with a European office in Paris, France. OpenGate's professionals possess the critical skills needed to acquire, transition, operate, build and scale successful businesses. To date, OpenGate Capital, through its legacy and fund investments, has executed more than 30 acquisitions including corporate carve-outs, management buy-outs, special situations and transactions with private sellers across North America and Europe. To learn more about OpenGate, please visit www.opengatecapital.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005250/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] NEXTracker Furthers Market Reach in Europe Company sales expansion to support European solar renaissance with recently contracted projects totaling over 400 MW MUNICH and FREMONT, California, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NEXTracker, a Flex company, announced today that the Company is bolstering its sales efforts in the region to respond to the renewed growth in PV projects slated to be developed in Europe over the next few years. With greater physical presence in the region, NEXTracker will support the 400 megawatts of solar tracker projects it has won in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Greece. According to the global PV Installations Tracker report published by IHS Markit, demand for solar is surging in Europe as PV technology is becoming competitive with other sources of power and countries across the region seek to meet near-term goals for clean energy and emissions reduction. "There is a tremendous pipeline for utility scale solar projects with solar trackers," said Senior Analyst for Solr & Energy Storage at IHS Markit, Camron Barati. "We're projecting that by 2023, PV tracking systems will account for 43% of Europe's installed ground-mounted capacity annually." "We are excited to be fully engaged with our European customers with a deeper presence in the region," said Dan Shugar, NEXTracker CEO. "We have successfully built our supply chain, operations and sales efforts in what are now thriving solar energy regions across the globe, and we see Europe as a promising market. After solar's many years on hiatus in Europe, we're excited to bring our latest energy yield technologies to this renewed market." "After extensively reviewing multiple competing offers, we chose NEXTracker for our two landmark subsidy-free projects in the Northwest of England," remarked Toddington Harper, CEO of GRIDSERVE. "With the shackles of subsidies finally a thing of the past, European solar projects are now on the rise, and we're building them smarter, with yield improvement advancements such as NEXTracker's bifacial and TrueCapture control system technologies. Our heartfelt congratulations to NEXTracker on this geographic expansion." "Our sincerest congratulations to NEXTracker on their strategic move for geographic expansion," said Grupo Ortiz. "We have successfully executed projects in Latin American large-utility scale projects and we look forward to witnessing their growth on the European front." About NEXTracker NEXTracker, a Flex company, advances the power plant of the future with smart solar trackers, energy storage systems and TrueCapture advanced control software that yields additional energy, optimizes performance and reduces costs for project and plant owners. As the number-one tracker supplier worldwide with over 19 GW delivered or under fulfillment, NEXTracker is globally recognized for delivering smart and connected energy systems for hundreds of projects across five continents. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company has offices in Mexico, Australia, India, Latin America, and Europe. For more information, visit NEXTracker.com and follow the company on Twitter and LinkedIn. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887382/NEXTracker_on_connected_3_MW_site_of_Tsilia.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/506736/NEXTracker_Flex_Company_Logo.jpg [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Egress Delivers GDPR Compliance to the Benelux Market Using AI-Powered Data Security Egress, the leading provider of people-centric data security solutions, today announced its official launch into the Benelux market. The company, which helps organizations receive, manage and share information securely, has selected Amsterdam as the location of its mainland Europe headquarters due to the city's reputation for technical innovation and access to an ecosystem of top data security specialists. "Egress' success over the past five years has been underpinned by our market-leading security tools that have helped customers in the UK and North America mitigate the considerable compliance and data security risks associated with sharing sensitive data," Egress CEO Tony Pepper said. "Inevitably, as we continue to grow and expand, we find ourselves working with enterprises across mainland Europe, something that has been accelerated by the introduction of GDPR 12 months ago. For industries such as government, financial services, healthcare and professional services, there is increasing pressure to comply with data privacy and security regulations, while managing a heightened security threat. The stakes have never been higher!" "As part of this expansion, it was hugely important that we selected the right location to drive our European growth. With its investment in technology and the innovation community it is fostering, Amsterdam represents the ideal center for this," concluded Pepper. With 95% of C-level IT professionals concerned about insider threats, staff causing data breaches both intentionally and unintentionally pose a significant risk to organizations. Recognizing this, Egress has developed an intelligent, people-centric data security platform that uses machine learning to understand the potential risk of a data breach in order to apply the necessary levels of security to shared information. In addition, powerful auditing and reporting capabilities enable business administrators to identify and report on data shared across their email networks to ensure compliance with GDPR. As a result, Egress experienced significant growth in 2018, increasing new SaaS (News - Alert) subscriptions by 64%, with a 93% renewal rate-demonstrating the loyalty of the company's customer base, and the strength and trust in its people-centric platform. In December 2018, the company received $40m in Series C funding, led by private equity firm FTV Capital, to support its rapid growth. "Having demonstrated the value of our solution in the UK and North America, it is inevitable that demand for our technology in mainland Europe will increase," stated Axel van Drongelen, Egress General Manager for Benelux. "As in the UK, the introduction of GDPR means European organizations are increasingly balancing greater demands for regulatory compliance with managing the sophisticated risk of insider threats. Egress' track record and reputation for delivering innovative data security solutions across other existing markets demonstrate we are well-positioned to support them in meeting these challenges and achieving their business goals." About Egress Egress takes a people-centric approach to data security - helping users receive, manage and share sensitive data securely to meet compliance requirements and drive business productivity. Using machine learning, Egress ensures information is protected relative to the risk of a data breach and reduces user friction to ensure smooth adoption. Trusted by enterprise organizations and governments around the globe, Egress' award-winning platform provides email encryption, secure file transfer and online collaboration services, as well as risk management, accidental send prevention, and compliance auditing and reporting. Egress is headquartered in London, with regional offices in the UK, the US, Canada and the Netherlands. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005215/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Hong Kong Science Park Leads Start-Up Delegation to North America's Fastest Growing Technology Conference in Toronto HONG KONG, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation ("HKSTP") today announced that it is leading a delegation of 14 start-ups to Collision, one of North America's leading technology conference, to be held in Toronto, Canada from May 20 - 23, 2019. Leveraging on HKSTP's comprehensive support for their development, the start-ups will be seeking new investments, potential collaboration and market expansion in North America. Hong Kong's line-up at the conference is made up of companies coming from the key technology focus areas of AI and Robotics, Biotech, Fintech and Smart City. They include Accukit Technology, Applied Technology and MedEXO Robotics in Medtech; BACHcode, BinoViz, Lambada Sense and RaSpect Intelligence for AI-powered solutions; eMALI.IO and Pecutus in blockchain and Fintech; CHAIN Technology, King City Technology and Pokeguide for Smart City; as well as Mictronics and Light Up Technology. Hong Kong's representation at the Collision is yet another strong signal of the city's position as an international innovation and technology (I&T) hub, and the result of the thriving and vibrant I&T ecosystem and talent in the city. The companies stand to gain from showcasing their solutions to an international audience, with opportunities to apply their innovations within key industries and some of the largest companies in North America, as well as exposure to potential new investments. Peter Mok, Head of Incubation and Acceleration Programmes of HKSTP, said, "We are committed to supporting our incubatees and partner companies, from crystallising their ideas into solutions, to helping them seek new markets for commercialisation. With this delegation to Collision, and our successes at international start-up competitions, it sends a message to the world of Hong Kong's stature as an international I&T hub. We are not only bringing our home-grown companies and solutions out to the world, but we are also a destination for international companies and talent to seek new opportunities too." Partnership with leading venture capital firm to bring global tech start-ups to Asia Alongside leading Hong Kong's participation at Collision, HKSTP is also announcing a partnership with Saltagen Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, to help global incubated start-ups seek new opportunities in Asia, with Hong Kong as their landing base. The Checkerboard Landing programme will be incorporated with HKSTP's Global Acceleration Academy, one of its longstanding and successful business acceleration programmes in Hong Kong. This programme will bring over 10 global start-ups to Hong Kong in September for an intensive programme of workshops and networking meetings as its first cohort. The workshops will be curated by HKSTP, Saltagen Ventures and business mentors from Canada, Hong Kong and mainland China focusing on topics to help participants to build a strong foundation to start their business in Asia. Topics include IP protection and knowledge transfers, sales and marketing channels, finance and capital flows and manufacturing know-how. They will also be connected with investors, industry and corporate partners and I&T ecosystem communities of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. "The Checkerboard Landing programme is about how we can collaborate and help each other's start-ups grow and succeed. By leveraging on our vibrant I&T ecosystem, we help to ensure the start-ups get a perfect 'landing' in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area," Peter added. "Hong Kong is one of the fastest growing tech markets and has become a preferred destination for some of the top tech companies in the world. The programme is an ideal platform to forge new partnerships, showcase top talent and connect the global innovation community to our inclusive and vibrant I&T ecosystem." First cohort of the Checkerboard Landing programme will start in September this year till January 2020. Follow-up trips will be arranged for these start-ups, depending on their individual needs and their mentors' advice. HKSTP Park Companies taking part at Collision Conference are: No. Company Name Innovation Highlight 1 Accukit Technology Limited (stand no. A451, May 23) Portable Therapeutic Device is a smart rehabilitation medical device, jointly developed by Accukit and the Faculty of Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Having a core therapeutic algorithm and feedback, a patient's knee degenerative symptoms and sub-health problems are alleviated through LLLT stimulation, thermal excitation and deep tissue percussion. It could relieve pain, promote blood and lymph circulation, tissue regeneration, and improve musculoskeletal strength. 2 Applied Technology Group Limited (stand no. A444, May 23) ClinicOne is a one-stop healthcare diagnostic platform for precise medical treatments, seamless clinic operations and secured electronic health record management for the smart clinic. Powered by Health-Me2, a personalised health care app to maintain connections between patients and doctors, it is compatible with multiple devices and accessible anytime and anywhere. 3 BACHcode Co. Limited (stand no. A343, May 23) ReHealthier is a personalised healthy eating analytic platform. It consolidates information from widely-adopted nutrition diagnosis guidelines and food nutrients and correlates them to user chronic health and eating habits. ReHealthier collects information from healthy eating apps, smart devices, and other health apps and the information is fed into its analytics platform, where machine learning and AI algorithms are used to create users' chronic health profile for classification and analysis, thus guiding users with personalised healthy eating suggestions and targeted health improvement advice. 4 BinoViz Limited (stand no. A339, May 22) BinoViz Limited, founder by a professor and a post-doctor student from Chinese University of Hong Kong, innovates and develops the world's first Binocular Video Tone Mapping (BVTM) algorithm. Through tone mapping the different precepts received by left and right eyes, the technology can enhance the quality of visual perceptions, allowing people to "See Better, Live Better". The innovation is applied in two core areas: 3D enhancement in the film-making industry and colour-blind rectification in the ophthalmologic sector. An AI-based self-learning mechanism is invented and embedded within the framework to optimise visual satisfaction and viewing comfort. 5 CHAIN Technology Development Co. Limited (stand no. A148, May 21) Hybrid Reality Platform (HRP) combines the best of Building Information Modelling (BIM), Reality Modeling, and other 3D data. Being a geo-intelligent collaborative platform, HRP helps manage the real-time IoT data of any objects in the precise and photo-realistic 3D models. HRP has facilitated seamless 3D asset management, construction progress monitoring, safety training and predictive behaviour which in turn saves the time and budget of construction projects. CHAIN's solution has made DIGITAL TWIN possible in modeling and information aspect, by leveraging its expertise in BIM, Reality Modelling, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Management. 6 eMALI.IO Limited (stand no. A464, May 21) Digital Identity Solution is the electronic equivalent of who you are as a real person, used exclusively by you, to receive valued services and to carry out transactions with trust and confidence. It confirms that "you are who you say you are" in an online context. The solution consists of EMALI Passport (mobile), EMALI Passport (web), EMALI Platform and EMALI Network. 7 King City Technology Limited (stand no. A452, May 22) King City's radar sensor is the art of integration of the millimeter wave antenna, radar transceiver frontend and the baseband signal processing unit. The radar sensing technology can enable different detection schemes and identify different gestures, human body movement or vehicle by distinct reflected radar signal. 8 Lambda Sense Limited (stand no. A302, May 22) Lambda Sense focuses on machine-learning-based Continuous Authentication by People's Gait Pattern and Inertial Measurement Unit, which helps provide a real-time management for monitoring and detection. 9 Light Up Technology Group Limited (stand no. A138, May 22) Launched in 2018, "Mobiwhere" is a mobile app that syncs its smart lights with anything and everything that is set on organisers' computers. 10 MedEXO Robotics (Hong Kong) Company Limited (stand no. A460, May 21) MedEXO's walking aid system targets Parkinson's patients with freezing gait, who find it difficult to start walking, turning and crossing narrow spaces. It consists of three components to help users maintain stable gait and balance: One laser device provides a visual cue, a pair of insoles provides tactile cue, and an app for setting and data visualisation. 11 Mictronics Company Limited (stand no. A243, May 22) Mictronics's concealed fan coil unit with mFCS PMS Motor could save 50-80% of electricity consumption with 15 years of functional operations. 12 Pecutus Technologies Limited (stand no. A453, May 21) ReadySwap-Intelligence Engine powers a series of Ready products to facilitate Peer2Peer Fx Swapping, enabling retail point acceptance of up to 80 kinds of currencies and fingertip management of personal currency assets providing a comprehensive range of payment options to complement current financial institutes. 13 Pokeguide Limited (stand no. A242, May 23) Pokeguide app advises tourists how to go from places to places by public transportation in Asia, much more accurate and broader coverage than any existing providers. For metro information, it even advises you which door to board the train, so that you can take the shortest possible route inside the station and won't get lost inside complicated metro stations in Asia. Pokeguide has already ventured out of Hong Kong and landed in Taiwan, Macau, and more to go in Japan, Korea and North America. 14 RaSpect Intelligence Inspection Limited (stand no. A348, May 23) RaSpect is the Big Data that integrates professional inspection experiences from all over the world and offers services including pattern recognition, structural analysis, building diagnosis, inspection prediction thermal inspection, data visualisation and facility management. About Collision Known by Inc. Magazine as the "fastest growing tech conference in North America". Now in its fifth year, Collision has grown to over 25,000 attendees and is in for a big change in 2019. Following three sunny, jazz-filled years in New Orleans, Collision is moving to Toronto, Canada. The event will be held from May 20-23 at the Enercare Centre. About Saltagen Ventures Saltagen Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm that invests in science and technology based start-ups with an investment strategy focusing on the verticals of edtech, biomedical technology, AI & machine learning and media technology. We look for start-ups that have strong defensibility and patentable technology. These start-ups can benefit from our deep networks in specific verticals and expertise on both sides of the Pacific provided from our experienced investment team and ecosystem partners. We empower startups to grow their business and develop efficiencies across the border via Canada and Hong Kong as a strategic base. More information about Saltagen Ventures and the Checkerboard Landing Program is available at www.saltagen.com. About Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation Comprising Science Park, InnoCentre and Industrial Estates, Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) is a statutory body dedicated to building a vibrant innovation and technology ecosystem to connect stakeholders, nurture technology talents, facilitate collaboration, and catalyse innovations to deliver social and economic benefits to Hong Kong and the region. Established in May 2001, HKSTP has been driving the development of Hong Kong into a regional hub for innovation and growth in several focused clusters including Electronics, Information & Communications Technology, Green Technology, Biomedical Technology, Materials and Precision Engineering. We enable science and technology companies to nurture ideas, innovate and grow, supported by our R&D facilities, infrastructure, and market-led laboratories and technical centres with professional support services. We also offer value added services and comprehensive incubation programmes for technology start-ups to accelerate their growth. Technology businesses benefit from our specialised services and infrastructure at Science Park for applied research and product development; enterprises can find creative design support at InnoCentre; while skill-intensive businesses are served by our three industrial estates at Tai Po, Tseung Kwan O and Yuen Long. More information about HKSTP is available at www.hkstp.org. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hong-kong-science-park-leads-start-up-delegation-to-north-americas-fastest-growing-technology-conference-in-toronto-300850571.html SOURCE Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] KBR Awarded FEED Contract for Oman LNG's Debottlenecking Project HOUSTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- KBR, Inc. (NYSE: KBR) announced today it has been awarded a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contract by Oman LNG L.L.C for the debottlenecking of their facility at Sur in the Sultanate of Oman. Under the terms of the contract, KBR will provide FEED services for the debottlenecking project to increase production at its world-class plant in Sur. This FEED stipulates KBR performing full FEED services including licenser and vendor management and associated services. "This project builds on KBR's extensive track record of developing and implementing LNG projects and providing solutions to complex developments around the world," said Jay Ibrahim, KBR President, Energy Solutions - Services. KBR will act as an extension to Oman LNG's project team and help manage the overall execution of the project including the management of the supply and ensure all areas of compliance and safety are adhered to. The contract underpins Oman LNG's robust commitment towards knowledge sharing and boosting staff competency in dealing with such complex projects, while enhancing Oman LNG's enriched In-Country Value (ICV) efforts. "We are excited to be a part of this important project and to continue to grow and maintain our presence in Oman," continued Ibrahim. "This indicates KBR's strategic commitment to deliver our differentiated services and develop our presence and long term commitment to Oman, support its in-country value initiatives and to develop a highly skilled in-country engineering capability." A pioneer in the LNG industry, KBR has designed and constructed one-third of the world's LNG production. About KBR, Inc. KBR is a global provider of differentiated professional services and technologies across the asset and program lifecycle within the Government Solutions and Energy sectors. KBR employs approximately 37,500 people worldwide (including our joint ventures), with customers in more than 80 countries, and operations in 40 countries, across three synergistic global businsses: Government Solutions, serving government customers globally, including capabilities that cover the full lifecycle of defense, space, aviation and other government programs and missions from research and development, through systems engineering, test and evaluation, program management, to operations, maintenance, and field logistics Technology Solutions, including proprietary technology focused on the monetization of hydrocarbons (especially natural gas and natural gas liquids) in ethylene and petrochemicals; ammonia, nitric acid and fertilizers; oil refining and gasification Energy Solutions, including onshore oil and gas; LNG (liquefaction and regasification)/GTL; oil refining; petrochemicals; chemicals; fertilizers; differentiated EPC; maintenance services (Brown & Root Industrial Services); offshore oil and gas (shallow-water, deep-water, subsea); floating solutions (FPU, FPSO, FLNG & FSRU); program management and consulting services KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe to provide technology, value-added services, integrated EPC delivery and long term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results. At KBR, We Deliver. Visit www.kbr.com Forward Looking Statement The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding future financial performance, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the outcome of and the publicity surrounding audits and investigations by domestic and foreign government agencies and legislative bodies; potential adverse proceedings by such agencies and potential adverse results and consequences from such proceedings; the scope and enforceability of the company's indemnities from its former parent; changes in capital spending by the company's customers; the company's ability to obtain contracts from existing and new customers and perform under those contracts; structural changes in the industries in which the company operates; escalating costs associated with and the performance of fixed-fee projects and the company's ability to control its cost under its contracts; claims negotiations and contract disputes with the company's customers; changes in the demand for or price of oil and/or natural gas; protection of intellectual property rights; compliance with environmental laws; changes in government regulations and regulatory requirements; compliance with laws related to income taxes; unsettled political conditions, war and the effects of terrorism; foreign operations and foreign exchange rates and controls; the development and installation of financial systems; increased competition for employees; the ability to successfully complete and integrate acquisitions; and operations of joint ventures, including joint ventures that are not controlled by the company. KBR's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K, any subsequent Form 10-Qs and 8-Ks, and other U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss some of the important risk factors that KBR has identified that may affect the business, results of operations and financial condition. Except as required by law, KBR undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kbr-awarded-feed-contract-for-oman-lngs-debottlenecking-project-300850325.html SOURCE KBR, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Latest PubMatic Research Finds Mobile Advertising Reaching New Milestones as 5G Presents Game Changing Possibilities for Video Ads REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premium digital technology company, PubMatic, today released its first Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) of 2019. The report includes key trends, providing both advertisers and publishers with insights around mobile advertising, leading to smarter programmatic strategies and future mobile opportunities. In the US, digital ad spend recently passed $100 billion due to dominant increases in mobile advertising and video ad spend. As mobile advertising continues to evolve, its imperative for advertisers and publishers to both understand and prepare for these changes. PubMatics Q1 2019 QMI report reveals the top four trends to watch: Due to Video, Mobile Ad Spend Accelerates The promise of 5G has the potential to bring powerful and interactive content and experiences, changing the way and speed at which video is consumed. The promise of 5G has the potential to bring powerful and interactive content and experiences, changing the way and speed at which video is consumed. Mobile In-App Header Bidding Still Needs Time to Grow - Despite recent popularity and publishers pressure to optimize mobile in-app header bidding, lack of knowledge has led to new obstacles in adoption. - Despite recent popularity and publishers pressure to optimize mobile in-app header bidding, lack of knowledge has led to new obstacles in adoption. Safety Practices Take Center Stage as Fraud Rises The majority of additional programmatic display dollars over the next year will go to private setups like PMPs. The majority of additional programmatic display dollars over the next year will go to private setups like PMPs. The Opportunity for Growth in APAC is Massive Marketers in APAC are becoming more knowledgeable in programmatic strategies, illuminating the need to adapt automated ad strategies in other parts of the world. For the first time, consumption across mobile devices will overtake television, as video viewing habits continue to impact the fight for attention. This has led marketer to spend $ 29 billion globally on mobile video advertising. The appearance of 5G makes focusing on mobile all the more important, as the expectations arise that consumers, advertisers and publishers will see a dramatic change in how video is consumed. This will lead to more seamless, complex video ad experiences for mobile users. Mobile advertising continues to see monumental increases in spending, while still making strides towards greater transparency and returns, which is hugely important for publishers and advertisers. That said, the industry is only now learning how to properly take advantage of in-app header bidding, which has led to more obstacles, explained Paulina Klimenko, SVP, Corporate Development and GM, Mobile at PubMatic. In order to find success, app publishers should consider the differences in header bidding between desktop and in-app and how the implementation efforts will impact their dev teams. Despite mobile advertisings massive growth, spend within Android apps is down 17% year-over-year, while iOS has seen an increase of 68%. Most recently, Google blacklisted 6 apps from a major app developer for large-scale fraud, reflecting a trend of ad fraud schemes targeting GooglePlay apps. To avoid fraudulent apps and sophisticated invalid traffic impressions, marketers tactics have shifted inventory to in-app PMPs. Programmatic, the automated buying and selling of digital media, is an intrinsic aspect of the advertising industry in North America and Europe, but theres still room for growth in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. As mobile connectivity and mobile phone users has grown in APAC, the regions advertisers and agencies are seeing the benefits in targeting mobile-first consumers through automated buying, though at roughly different paces. With 359 million new mobile users coming in the next half decade, there is a greater urgency to adopt automated ad buying strategies in other parts of the world. Download the full Q1 2019 Quarterly Mobile Index Report here . QMI Methodology By analyzing over 13 trillion advertiser bids flowing each month through PubMatics platform, we can observe real-time developments in the mobile space that may allude to broader digital industry trends. We can then compare this information to other published data to further understand changes in the mobile landscape. At PubMatic, we are committed to providing best-in-class mobile tools and services, and believe that information sharing is crucial in aligning the digital industry towards best practices and, ultimately, growth in mobile advertising. Note that directional data might not be comparable with prior reports. About PubMatic PubMatic is a digital advertising technology company for premium content creators. The PubMatic platform empowers independent app developers and publishers to control and maximize their digital advertising businesses. PubMatics publisher-centric approach enables advertisers to maximize ROI by reaching and engaging their target audiences in brand-safe, premium environments across ad formats and devices. Since 2006, PubMatic has created an efficient, global infrastructure and remains at the forefront of programmatic innovation. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, PubMatic operates 13 offices and six data centers worldwide. Press Contact: North 6th Agency for PubMatic 212-334-9753 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] One Madison Corporation Announces Additional Earnout Provisions for Sponsor's Founder Shares, Private Placement Transaction, and Extension of Redemption Deadline for Shareholders to May 23, 2019 One Madison Corporation (NYSE:OMAD, OMAD.U, OMAD.WS) (the "Company") today announced, in connection with its previously announced business combination (the "Ranpak Business Combination") with Rack Holdings Inc. and Ranpak Corp., that: The Company has entered into an agreement with One Madison Group LLC (the "Sponsor") that subjects 100% of the Sponsor-owned Class B ordinary shares (the "Founder Shares"), to an earn-out provision, with 50% of the Founder Shares held by the Sponsor, or 3,397,500 Founder Shares, subject to a $15.00 threshold and 50% of the Founder Shares held by the Sponsor, or 3,397,500 Founder Shares, subject to a $17.00 threshold; The Company has entered into an agreement with its anchor investors that subjects all 3,750,000 Founder Shares held by the anchor investors to a $12.50 earn-out condition; and The Company has entered into a subscription agreement with a new institutional investor for the sale of Class A ordinary shares, at a purchase price of $10.26 per share, in a private placement which will result in aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $20 million; and The Company intends to extend the deadline for the Company's shareholders to exercise their redemption rights to 5:00 p.m., Eastern Time on May 23, 2019, and adjourn its announced Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders until May 28, 2019. Upon the consummation of the business combination with Ranpak, the Company intends to change its name to "Ranpak Holdings Corp.," and apply for the continued listing on the NYSE of its Class A common stock and warrants under the symbols "PACK" and "PACK.WS," respectively. About One Madison Corp. One Madison Corp. is a special purpose acquisition company launched in 2018 for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses. One Madison began trading on NYSE in January 2018 and its Class A ordinary shares, units and warrants trade under the ticker symbols OMAD, OMAD.U, and OMAD.WS, respectively. One Madison is sponsored by One Madison Group LLC, an investment firm founded by Omar Asali, formerly President and Chief Executive Officer of HRG Group. One Madison's investors and strategic partners include JS Capital and Soros Capital (the family offices of Jonathan Soros and Robert Soros, respectively), as well as entities managed by Blackstone Alternative Solutions L.L.C. On December 12, 2018, One Madison entered into a definitive agreement with affiliates of Rhone Capital, pursuant to which One Madison will combine with Ranpak. About Ranpak Corp. Founded in 1972, Ranpak's goal was to create the first environmentally responsible system to effectively protect products during shipment. The development and improvement of materials, systems and total solution concepts have earned Ranpak a reputation as an innovative leader in e-commerce and industrial supply chain solutions. Ranpak is headquartered in Concord Township, Ohio and has approximately 550 employees. Caution About Forward-Looking Statements The information in this press release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our or our management team's expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the pending transaction among One Madison Corporation (the "Company"), Rack Holdings L.P. and Rack Holdings Inc. ("Ranpak") and the transactions contemplated thereby, and the parties, perspectives and expectations, are forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to estimates, projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "possible," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "would" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of hese words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, for example, statements about: our ability to complete our initial business combination; our expectations around the performance of the prospective target business or business; our success in retaining or recruiting, or changes required in, our officers, key employees or directors following our initial business combination; our officers and directors allocating their time to other businesses and potentially having conflicts of interest with our business or in approving our initial business combination; the proceeds of the forward purchase shares being available to us; our potential ability to obtain additional financing to complete our initial business combination; our public securities' potential liquidity and trading; the lack of a market for our securities; the use of proceeds not held in the trust account or available to us from interest income on the trust account balance; the trust account not being subject to claims of third parties; or our financial performance following this offering. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on our current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on us taking into account information currently available to us. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting us will be those that we have anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks include, but are not limited to: (1) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could result in the failure to consummate the initial business combination; (2) the possibility that the terms and conditions set forth in any definitive agreements with respect to the initial business combination may differ materially from the terms and conditions set forth herein; (3) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against the Company, Ranpak or others following the announcement of the initial business combination and any definitive agreements with respect thereto; (4) the inability to complete the initial business combination due to the failure to obtain approval of the stockholders of the Company, to obtain financing to complete the initial business combination or to satisfy other conditions to closing in the definitive agreements with respect to the initial business combination; (5) changes to the proposed structure of the initial business combination that may be required or appropriate as a result of applicable laws or regulations or as a condition to obtaining regulatory approval of the initial business combination; (6) the ability to meet and maintain NYSE's listing standards following the consummation of the initial business combination; (7) the risk that the initial business combination disrupts current plans and operations of Ranpak as a result of the announcement and consummation of the initial business combination; (8) costs related to the initial business combination; (9) changes in applicable laws or regulations; (10) the possibility that Ranpak or the Company may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and (11) other risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in filings made with the SEC (News - Alert). Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, they could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. We are not undertaking any obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You should not take any statement regarding past trends or activities as a representation that the trends or activities will continue in the future. Accordingly, you should not put undue reliance on these statements. No Offer or Solicitation This press release is for informational purposes only and shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities pursuant to the proposed business combination or otherwise, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which the offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act. Additional Information In connection with the proposed acquisition, One Madison filed a registration statement on Form S-4 (File No. 333-230030) (the "Registration Statement") with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which includes a proxy statement/prospectus, that is both the proxy statement to be distributed to holders of the Company's ordinary shares in connection with the Company's solicitation of proxies for the vote by the Company's shareholders with respect to the business combination and other matters as described in the Registration Statement, as well as the prospectus relating to the offer of the securities to be issued to the Company's equityholders in connection with the Company's proposed domestication as a Delaware corporation in connection with the completion of the business combination. The Registration Statement was declared effective on May 2, 2019 and the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents have been mailed to One Madison's shareholders as of May 6, 2019, the record date for the extraordinary general meeting of One Madison to be held in connection with the business combination. One Madison's shareholders and other interested persons are advised to read the definitive proxy statement/prospectus included in the Registration Statement as these materials contain important information about One Madison, Ranpak and the business combination. Stockholders may obtain a free copy of the proxy statement/prospectus (when available) and any other relevant documents filed with the SEC from the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. In addition, stockholders will be able to obtain, without charge, a copy of the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents (when available) at One Madison's website at http://www.onemadisoncorp.com/corporate-governance--investor-relations.html or by contacting One Madison's investor relations department via e-mail at [email protected]. Participants in the Solicitation One Madison and its directors, executive officers and other members of its management and employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from One Madison's stockholders with respect to the proposed acquisition. Information about One Madison's directors and executive officers and their ownership of One Madison's common stock is set forth in One Madison's filings with the SEC, including (i) the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, which was filed on February 28, 2019 and (ii) the Proxy Statement and Prospectus each filed on May 2, 2019. Stockholders may obtain additional information regarding the direct and indirect interests of the participants in the solicitation of proxies in connection with the proposed acquisition, including the interests of One Madison's directors and executive officers in the proposed acquisition, which may be different than those of One Madison's stockholders generally, by reading the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents regarding the proposed acquisition, which will be filed with the SEC. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005195/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Eaton Named to 100 Best Corporate Citizens List for 12th Consecutive Year by Corporate Responsibility Magazine Power management company Eaton (News - Alert) today announced that it has been named one of Corporate Responsibility (CR) Magazine's "100 Best Corporate Citizens" for the 12th consecutive year. "Being a good corporate citizen guides our everyday decisions, both big and small," said Harold Jones, executive vice president, Eaton Business System and Sustainability, Eaton. "Our inclusion on this list is a true honor and speaks volumes to our commitment to improving the quality of life and the environment. While a lot of work remains to be done, this acknowledgement validates that we're on the right path." CR's 100 Best Corporate Citizens list, now in its 20th yea, recognizes the standout environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of public companies across the United States. The list ranks the companies on the Russell 1000 Index and focuses on performance measures gathered from publicly available information in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy and community support. Eaton is a power management company with 2018 sales of $21.6 billion. We provide energy efficient solutions that help our customers effectively manage electrical, hydraulic and mechanical power more efficiently, safely and sustainably. Eaton is dedicated to improving the quality of life and the environment through the use of power management technologies and services. Eaton has approximately 99,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than 175 countries. For more information, visit Eaton.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005084/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Voorhees Pediatric Facility and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital First New Jersey Pediatric Facilities to Adopt New Innovative Patient Monitoring & Connectivity Hub Technologies NuVision Management, a pediatric and adult healthcare consulting company today announced that two of its pediatric facilities,Voorhees Pediatric Facility in Voorhees, New Jersey, and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital in Marlton, New Jersey, are the first pediatric care facilities in New Jersey, and two of only a few in the United States, to adopt and utilize the latest versions of the Root and Patient SafetyNet medical systems, with expanded capabilities, to monitor patients in near real-time and integrate retrospective data to help facilitate the best outcomes for patients and standardize care. Both Root and Patient SafetyNet are manufactured by Masimo. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005197/en/ Root. Root's plug-and-play capabilities allows Voorhees Pediatric Facility and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital clinicians to simplify patient monitoring by bringing together all of a patient's vital signs (respiration rate, pulse rate, oxygen saturation, end-tidal CO2, temperature and blood pressure) into one easy-to-interpret, customizable display empowering our clinicians with important information for making patient assessments. (Photo: Business Wire) Root is a powerful expandable bedside monitoring platform and connectivity hub that integrates an array of non-invasive medical technologies and medical devices to provide multimodal monitoring and connectivity solutions in a single, clinician-centric platform. Root's plug-and-play capabilities allows Voorhees Pediatric Facility and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital clinicians to simplify patient monitoring by bringing together all of a patient's vital signs (respiration rate, pulse rate, oxygen saturation, end-tidal C 2 , temperature and blood pressure) into one easy-to-interpret, customizable display empowering our clinicians with important information for making patient assessments. Root, working in conjunction with Patient SafetyNet, also automates the transfer of patient data, including vital signs, early warning scores and other physiological parameters directly to electronic medical record (EMR) systems. Patient SafetyNet is a remote monitoring and notification system which allows patient monitoring data that is gathered and integrated at the bedside to display near real-time information on a supplemental central viewing station. When changes occur that may indicate deterioration in a patient's condition, Patient SafetyNet automatically alerts clinical staff enabling them to respond quickly to patients in potential distress. "We're very excited about how these systems and technologies are proving to be a great fit into our organizations," said Trish Cunningham, RRT, Clinical Director of Respiratory Care at Voorhees Pediatric Facility and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital. "We can now determine if a patient is improving or deteriorating quickly and Root allows us to take immediate action to put the proper protocols in place to help our patients." Voorhees Pediatric Facility has 120 Root units, one for each patient resident, and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital has eight units for more medically-fragile patients. Every patient with monitoring needs has their own Root unit, eliminating the need to share monitoring equipment, thereby increasing infection control. Come summer 2019, both Voorhees Pediatric Facility and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital will integrate their mechanical ventilators into the Masimo system, utilizing the system's enhanced monitoring capabilities. They will also functionalize Root's Early Warning Score calculation, which in addition to helping clinicians identify patient deterioration, will enable customized messages based on protocol to prompt next steps, resulting in timely escalation of care. The organizations are already noticing improvements in patient care and will be working together to share outcomes. Mike Rosiak, Chief Operating Officer of Voorhees Pediatric Facility and Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital said, "We aim to provide the best possible care for our children. Masimo's Root and Patient SafetyNet medical systems allow us to best serve our medically-fragile children and enable them to reach their full potential." About Voorhees Pediatric Facility Voorhees Pediatric Facility is a nationally recognized pediatric specialty care center that offers 121 in-patient beds and the largest freestanding pediatric ventilator program in the country. Our mission and vision is to advance the full life potential of medically fragile children and to set the national standard for excellence in pediatric long-term specialized care. Voorhees Pediatric Facility has expanded its offerings to include: The Bancroft School at Voorhees Pediatric Facility, an on-site private school for medically fragile/technology dependent children; Voorhees Pediatric Facility Medical Daycare for children with skilled nursing needs and Voorhees Pediatric Rehabilitation Services (VPRS), providing educational based therapy to local school districts. About Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital Weisman Children's Rehabilitation Hospital is a highly-acclaimed community-based pediatric specialty organization consisting of an acute rehabilitation hospital, outpatient rehabilitation centers and medical day care centers; focused solely on the needs of infants, children, teens and young adults in South Jersey and the Greater Philadelphia area. Weisman Children's is known for delivering an individualized and unique family-centered approach to patient care. With a holistic approach to treatment, we give our patients every opportunity to reach their fullest potential. By including family and caregivers, our extraordinary team of pediatric specialists form a community of support and care around each patient which is essential to their success. This approach reinforces our belief that anything is possible. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005197/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] CSI Announces ICBA's Rebeca Romero Rainey as a Keynote Speaker for Its Annual Customer Conference Computer Services, Inc. (CSI (News - Alert)) (OTCQX: CSVI), a provider of end-to-end financial technology solutions, announced that community banking leader Rebeca Romero Rainey will deliver a keynote presentation at CSI Customer Experience, its annual customer conference, this fall. A third-generation community banker from Taos, New Mexico, Romero Rainey serves as president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America. In her role, she leads the organization's mission of creating and promoting an environment where community banks flourish. Prior to joining ICBA, Romero Rainey was chairman and CEO of Centinel Bank of Taos, New Mexico. She served as ICBA chairman from 2016-17 and as the first chairman of ICBA's Minority Bank Council. Additionally, Romero Rainey has served on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) Advisory Committee on Community Banking and the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank's Community Depository Institution Advisory Council. As ICBA's top executive, Romero Rainey speaks frequently on behalf of community banks and has delivered speeches before the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and FDIC. She has testified before Congress and has met with President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama to discuss the needs of community banks. She has been featured on C-SPAN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR (News - Alert) and in other media outlets. Leveraging her persnal story, unique methodologies and distinct perspective, Romero Rainey will provide CSI's conference attendees with insight on leadership, business model modernization and brand building. She also will share her knowledge of "telling your story" effectively and the importance of writing the next chapter for community banking. "Regardless of industry, all leaders aspire to create a progressive, profitable environment that enables their organization to have a permanent, noteworthy impact on their employees and communities," said Steve Powless, CSI's chairman and chief executive officer. "We are thrilled to have a powerful, thoughtful leader like Rebeca share her personal experiences with attendees and engage them in discussions about the future of community banking. Our attendees can expect to leave the conference with greater insight into strengthening fintech relationships and creating successful, sustainable futures within the communities they serve." CSI Customer Experience 2019 will take place Sept. 4-6 at the Marriott Marquis Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. During this event, nearly 1,000 banking executives, technology practitioners and thought leaders from across the U.S. will gather to discuss the latest trends affecting the financial services industry. More information and registration details regarding CSI Customer Experience 2019 can be found at www.csiconf.com. About Computer Services, Inc. Computer Services, Inc. (CSI) delivers core processing, managed services, mobile and Internet solutions, payments processing, print and electronic distribution, regulatory compliance and treasury management solutions to financial institutions and corporate customers across the nation. Exceptional service, dynamic solutions and superior results are the foundation of CSI's reputation and have resulted in the company's inclusion in such top industry-wide rankings as the FinTech 100, Talkin' Cloud 100 and MSPmentor Top 501 Global Managed Service Providers List. CSI's stock is traded on OTCQX under the symbol CSVI. For more information about CSI, visit www.csiweb.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005074/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Clarivate Analytics Reports First Quarter 2019 Results LONDON and PHILADELPHIA, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Analytics Plc (NYSE: CCC, CCC.WS) (the "Company" or "Clarivate"), a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation, today reported results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019. First Quarter 2019 Financial Performance Revenues decreased 1%, to $234.0 million in the first quarter of 2019 from $237.0 million in the first quarter of 2018 in the first quarter of 2019 from in the first quarter of 2018 Adjusted Revenues increased 1%, to $234.2 million in the first quarter of 2019 from $231.8 million in the first quarter of 2018 (2% on a constant currency basis) in the first quarter of 2019 from in the first quarter of 2018 (2% on a constant currency basis) Net loss of $59.3 million in the first quarter of 2019 compares to a net loss of $77.0 million in the first quarter of 2018 in the first quarter of 2019 compares to a net loss of in the first quarter of 2018 Adjusted EBITDA decreased 6%, to $59.3 million in the first quarter of 2019 from $63.3 million in the first quarter of 2018 in the first quarter of 2019 from in the first quarter of 2018 Cash flow from operations increased 11%, to $42.5 million in the first quarter of 2019 from $38.2 million in the first quarter of 2018 in the first quarter of 2019 from in the first quarter of 2018 Standalone Adjusted EBITDA increased 2%, to $312.0 million for the twelve month period ended March 31, 2019 from $305.9 million for the twelve month period ended March 31, 2018 Adjusted Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures used by management to measure operating performance. In addition, we are required to report Standalone Adjusted EBITDA pursuant to the terms of our credit agreement and indenture. These terms are defined elsewhere in this release. Please see schedules appearing later in this release for reconciliations of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. For a definition of Annualized Contract Value ("ACV") please refer to our Registration Statement on F-4, along with our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Subsequent Events Completes merger with Churchill Capital Corporation On May 13, 2019, the Company completed its previously announced merger with Churchill Capital Corp ("Churchill"), following the receipt of stockholder approval at Churchill's special meeting of stockholders. Comments from Management "We are delighted to have completed the merger earlier this week with Churchill shareholders voting overwhelmingly in favor of it," said Jerre Stead, Executive Chairman of Clarivate. "We chose to merge with Clarivate because of the quality of the business, its competitive position, and attractive global portfolio of market leading, business-critical information and technology solutions that support its customers. Having completed the merger, expanded the number of our board members, and improved the capital structure, our focus is to enhance both growth and profitability. As Executive Chairman, I look forward to working closely with the Clarivate team and sharing my experience, as we position the company for future growth." Jay Nadler, Chief Executive Officer of Clarivate said, "We couldn't be more excited to have Jerre Stead join our company as Executive Chairman. Jerre's vision, leadership, experience, and successful track record, with a career that spans more than 40 years, are tremendously valuable to our company." "Separately, we are pleased with our financial results for the first quarter, which were in line with our expectations," Mr. Nadler continued. "Adjusted revenues increased 2% on a constant currency basis, while Annual Contract Value (ACV) of subscription-based license agreements increased 4.6% compared to the prior year quarter, and revenue renewal rates remained solid at 93.4%. Having successfully completed our separation from Thomson Reuters six months ahead of schedule, and our merger with Churchill, Clarivate begins the next chapter of its transformational journey. Going forward, we'll continue to invest in our market-leading brands and products while reaping the benefits of our previous investments to drive greater efficiency. Our investments will allow us to bring new products to market and to expand in key geographies so that our customers may transform the way that they bring innovation to life." First Quarter 2019 Business Developments Science Group Launched an advanced predictive analytics tool, Cortellis Analytics Drug Timeline and Success Rates (DTSR), enabling continuous and dramatic improvements in drug pipeline forecasting and R&D investment decisions Launched Cortellis Cloud, an integrated, scalable technology platform that serves as a single point of access to Cortellis to enable greater interoperability, connectivity and collaboration across the drug development lifecycle in order to accelerate R&D innovation. Cortellis supports the entire drug development lifecycle that spans across regulatory, clinical trials and commercial intelligence Launched a Life Science Alliances Program to provide drug and medical device developers with a new way to significantly advance their R&D and commercialization initiatives. The accredited global program combines Clarivate's solutions with those of world-class technology and service providers such as Accenture, Bioinfogate, Vitrana and Waters Corporation Announced that Norway's UNIT (the Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research), working on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Research, has chosen the Web of Science as its sole data provider for a new national research evaluation project UNIT (the Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research), working on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Research, has chosen the Web of Science as its sole data provider for a new national research evaluation project Partnered with the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB), the government's digital library and online knowledge hub, to launch Converis and implement a national research management system. Hosted by the Egyptian National Science and Technology Network (ENSTINET), Converis, a research information system for managing complex research teams and projects, enables Egypt to manage research funding and curate researcher profiles across research organizations in the country Intellectual Property Group Launched TM go365 for Industrial Designs by CompuMark to simplify and significantly reduce the time-intensive process of researching industrial designs with AI-based image recognition technology from TrademarkVision, which CompuMark acquired last year Released the latest Derwent Top 100 Global Innovators 2018-19 report. Now in its eighth year it identifies and celebrates the world's most innovative organizations who successfully develop valuable patented inventions First Quarter 2019 Revenue Performance Revenues, net decreased by $3.0 million, or (1)%, from $237.0 million in the first quarter of 2018 to $234.0 million in the first quarter of 2019. Adjusted Revenues, which exclude the impact of the deferred revenues adjustment and revenues from the IPM Product Line prior to its date of divestiture, increased $2.4 million, or 1%, to $234.2 million in the first quarter of 2019 from $231.8 million in the first quarter of 2018. On a constant currency basis, Adjusted Revenues increased 2% in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the first quarter of 2018. The following table presents the amounts of our subscription and transactional revenues, including as a percentage of our total revenues, for the periods indicated, as well the drivers of the variances between periods. Three Months Ended March 31, Deferred Revenue Adjustment Divested IPM FX Impact Ongoing Business Total Variance (in millions, except percentages) 2019 2018 Subscription Revenues $ 192.3 $ 194.1 $ 1.3 $ (6.0) $ (1.9) $ 4.8 $ (1.8) 1 % (3) % (1) % 2 % (1) % Transactional Revenues 41.7 42.9 (0.7) (0.6) 0.1 (1.2) 0 % (2) % (1) % 0 % (3) % Total Revenue $ 234.0 $ 237.0 $ 1.3 $ (6.7) $ (2.5) $ 4.9 $ (3.0) 1 % (3) % (1) % 2 % (1) % Subscription revenues from ongoing business increased due to price increases and new business. The following table, presents our revenue by Group for the periods indicated, as well the drivers of the variances between periods. Three Months Ended March 31 Deferred Revenue Adjustment Divested IPM FX Impact Ongoing Business Total Variance (in millions, except percentages) 2019 2018 Science Group $ 129.1 $ 125.9 $ $ $ (0.8) $ 4.0 $ 3.2 0 % % (1) % 3 % 3 % Intellectual Property Group 105.1 105.9 (1.7) 0.9 $ (0.8) 0 % % (2) % 1 % (1) % IPM Product Line (1) 6.7 (6.7) $ (6.7) 0 % (100) % % % (100) % Deferred revenues adjustment (2) (0.2) (1.5) 1.3 $ 1.3 (87) % % % % (87) % Total Revenues, net $ 234.0 $ 237.0 $ 1.3 $ (6.7) $ (2.5) $ 4.9 $ (3.0) 1 % (3) % (1) % 2 % (1) % (1) Reflects three months of revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2018. We sold the IPM Product Line on October 3, 2018. (2) Reflects the deferred revenues adjustment resulting from purchase accounting attributable to the 2016 Transaction. For definition of these terms, please refer to Exhibit 99.1 of our Form 6-K filed with the SEC concurrently with the issuance of this earnings release. Science Group: Revenue increased by $3.2 million, or 3%, from $125.9 million in the first quarter of 2018 to $129.1 million in the first quarter of 2019. Exclusive of foreign currency translation effects, revenue would have increased by $4.0 million, driven by subscription revenue, which increased mainly due to new subscription business and net price increases on our subscription revenue products across our Product Lines, reflecting our product and sales strategy to enhance our subscription product offerings. Transactional revenues remained relatively steady. Intellectual Property Group: Revenue declined by $0.8 million, from $105.9 million in the first quarter of 2018 to $105.1 million in the first quarter of 2019. Exclusive of foreign currency translation effects, revenue would have increased $0.9 million, driven by subscription revenue, which increased mainly due to net price increases on our subscription revenue products and new subscription business across our Product Lines, partially offset by lower transactional revenues, reflecting our product and sales strategy to enhance our subscription product offerings. Reaffirm Outlook for 2019 (forward-looking statement) For the year ending December 31, 2019, Clarivate expects: Adjusted Revenues in a range of $962 million to $995 million (% YoY Growth between 1.2% and 4.6%) to Adjusted EBITDA in a range of $290 million to $310 million (% YoY Growth between 6.3% and 13.6%) to Adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 30% We expect that annualized run-rate cost savings, net of actual cost savings realized, related to restructuring and other cost savings initiatives undertaken during 2019 (exclusive of any cost reductions in our estimated standalone operating costs) will approximate $12 million. Additionally, we expect the difference between our actual standalone company infrastructure costs, and our estimated steady state standalone operating costs for 2019 to approximate $23 million. The above outlook assumes no further currency movements, acquisitions, divestitures, or unanticipated events. See discussion of non-GAAP financial measures at the end of this release. Conference Call and Webcast Clarivate will host a conference call and webcast to review the results for the quarter on Wednesday, May 15th at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The conference call will be simultaneously webcast on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Interested parties may access the live audio broadcast by dialing 1-888-317-6003 in the United States, 1-412-317-6061 for international, and 1-866-284-3684 in Canada. The conference ID number is 5065159. An audio replay will be available approximately two hours after the completion of the call at 1-877-344-7529 in the United States, 1-412-317-0088 for international, and 1-855-669-9658 in Canada. The Replay Conference ID number is 10131395. The recording will be available for replay through May 29, 2019. The webcast can be accessed at https://services.choruscall.com/links/clarivate190515.html and will be available for replay. Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures Non-GAAP results are presented only as a supplement to our financial statements based on U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). Non-GAAP financial information is provided to enhance the reader's understanding of our financial performance, but none of these non-GAAP financial measures are recognized terms under GAAP and should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. Definitions and reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures, such as EBITDA, and Adjusted EBITDA, to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are provided within the schedules attached to this release. This communication also includes certain forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures. Clarivate Analytics is unable to present a reconciliation of this forward-looking non-GAAP financial information because management cannot reliably predict all of the necessary components of such measures. Accordingly, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this information. We use non-GAAP measures in our operational and financial decision-making. We believe that such measures allow us to focus on what we deem to be a more reliable indicator of ongoing operating performance and our ability to generate cash flow from operations. We also believe that investors may find these non-GAAP financial measures useful for the same reasons, although investors are cautioned that non-GAAP financial measures are not a substitute for GAAP financial measures or disclosures. None of these non-GAAP financial measures are recognized terms under GAAP and do not purport to be an alternative to any other GAAP measure. Non-GAAP measures are frequently used by securities analysts, investors, and other interested parties in their evaluation of companies comparable to Clarivate, many of which present non-GAAP measures when reporting their results. These measures can be useful in evaluating our performance against our peer companies because we believe the measures provide users with valuable insight into key components of GAAP financial disclosures. However, non-GAAP measures have limitations as an analytical tool. Because not all companies use identical calculations, our presentation of non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies. They are not presentations made in accordance with GAAP, are not measures of financial condition or liquidity, and should not be considered as an alternative to profit or loss for the period determined in accordance with GAAP or operating cash flows determined in accordance with GAAP. As a result, you should not consider such performance measures in isolation from, or as a substitute analysis for, results of operations as determined in accordance with GAAP. Forward-Looking Statements This communication contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements, which express management's current views concerning future business, events, trends, contingencies, financial performance, or financial condition, appear at various places in this communication and may use words like "aim," "anticipate," "assume," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "forecast," "future," "goal," "intend," "likely," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "see," "seek," "should," "strategy," "strive," "target," "will," and "would" and similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements we make regarding: guidance and predictions relating to expected operating results, such as revenue growth and earnings; strategic actions such as acquisitions, joint ventures, and dispositions, the anticipated benefits therefrom, and our success in integrating acquired businesses; anticipated levels of capital expenditures in future periods; our ability to successfully realize cost savings initiatives and transition services expenses; our belief that we have sufficiently liquidity to fund our ongoing business operations; expectations of the effect on our financial condition of claims, litigation, environmental costs, contingent liabilities, and governmental and regulatory investigations and proceedings; and our strategy for customer retention, growth, product development, market position, financial results, and reserves. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on management's current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy, and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Important factors that could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are more fully discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Registration Statement on F-4, along with our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). However, those factors should not be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. Unlisted factors may present significant additional obstacles to the realization of forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements, are based only on information currently available to our management and speaks only as of the date of this communication. We do not assume any obligation to publicly provide revisions or updates to any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws. Please consult our public filings with the SEC or on our website at www.clarivate.com. About Clarivate Analytics Clarivate Analytics is a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. We have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including Web of Science, Cortellis, Derwent, CompuMark, MarkMonitor and Techstreet. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company, on a bold entrepreneurial mission to help our clients reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit www.clarivate.com. Interim Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited) (in thousands) March 31, December 31, 2019 2018 Assets Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 28,045 $ 25,575 Restricted cash 9 9 Accounts receivable, less allowance for doubtful accounts of $14,971 and $14,076 at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively 343,113 331,295 Prepaid expenses 41,487 31,021 Other current assets 19,745 20,712 Total current assets 432,399 408,612 Computer hardware and other property, net 19,328 20,641 Other intangible assets, net 1,911,160 1,958,520 Goodwill 1,283,275 1,282,919 Other non-current assets 22,826 26,556 Deferred income taxes 12,767 12,426 Operating lease right-of-use assets 95,551 Total Assets $ 3,777,306 $ 3,709,674 Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 43,729 $ 38,418 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 149,250 153,849 Current portion of deferred revenues 461,928 391,102 Current portion of operating lease liabilities 26,077 Current portion of long-term debt 30,345 60,345 Total current liabilities 711,329 643,714 Long-term debt 1,928,440 1,930,177 Non-current portion of deferred revenues 17,987 17,112 Other non-current liabilities 18,102 24,838 Deferred income taxes 38,937 43,226 Operating lease liabilities 71,758 Total liabilities 2,786,553 2,659,067 Commitments and Contingencies (Note 14) Shareholders' equity: Share capital, $0.01 par value; 2,000,000 shares authorized at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018; 1,646,223 shares issued and outstanding at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively 16 16 Additional paid-in capital 1,680,670 1,677,494 Accumulated other comprehensive income 1,588 5,358 Accumulated deficit (691,521) (632,261) Total shareholders' equity 990,753 1,050,607 Total Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity $ 3,777,306 $ 3,709,674 Interim Condensed Consolidated Statement of Operations (Unaudited) (in thousands) Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Revenues, net $ 234,025 $ 237,027 Operating costs and expenses: Cost of revenues, excluding depreciation and amortization (89,267) (105,170) Selling, general and administrative costs, excluding depreciation and amortization (92,296) (95,327) Share-based compensation expense (3,176) (4,180) Depreciation (2,051) (1,401) Amortization (56,106) (57,131) Transaction expenses (10,270) (593) Transition, integration and other related expenses (1,161) (19,479) Other operating income (expense), net (5,617) 362 Total operating expenses (259,944) (282,919) Loss from operations (25,919) (45,892) Interest expense (33,101) (30,799) Loss before income tax (59,020) (76,691) Provision for income taxes (240) (346) Net loss $ (59,260) $ (77,037) Per Share: Basic $ (36.00) $ (46.84) Diluted $ (36.00) $ (46.84) Weighted-average shares outstanding Basic 1,646,223 1,644,827 Diluted 1,646,223 1,644,827 Interim Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited) (in thousands) Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES Net loss $ (59,260) $ (77,037) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by operating activities: Depreciation and amortization 58,157 58,532 Bad debt expense 689 671 Deferred income tax benefit (3,946) (3,295) Share-based compensation 3,176 4,180 Deferred finance charges 2,099 2,155 Other operating activities 5,440 (1,173) Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable (13,362) 5,226 Prepaid expenses (9,813) (6,574) Other assets (1,507) (5,286) Accounts payable 4,942 2,344 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities (9,049) (10,947) Deferred revenue 68,929 70,986 Operating lease right of use assets 5,696 Operating lease liabilities (5,750) Other liabilities (3,988) (1,604) Net cash provided by operating activities 42,453 38,178 CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES Capital expenditures (5,957) (13,059) Acquisition, net of cash acquired (3,497) Net cash used in investing activities (5,957) (16,556) CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES Repayment of principal on long-term debt (3,836) (3,834) Repayment of Revolving Credit Facility (30,000) (30,000) Issuance of common stock, net 1,014 Net cash used in financing activities (33,836) (32,820) Effects of exchange rates (190) 2,016 Interim Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited) (in thousands) Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents, and restricted cash 2,470 (9,182) Beginning of period: Cash and cash equivalents 25,575 53,186 Restricted cash 9 24,362 Total cash and cash equivalents, and restricted cash, beginning of period 25,584 77,548 Cash and cash equivalents, and restricted cash, end of period 28,054 68,366 Cash and cash equivalents 28,045 50,430 Restricted cash 9 17,936 Total cash and cash equivalents, and restricted cash, end of period $ 28,054 $ 68,366 SUPPLEMENTAL CASH FLOW INFORMATION Cash paid for interest $ 21,023 $ 19,248 Cash paid for income tax $ 7,789 $ 5,408 Capital expenditures included in accounts payable $ 6,836 $ 2,473 Reconciliation to Certain Non-GAAP Measures Adjusted Revenues Three Months Ended March 31 Variance (in millions, except percentages) 2019 2018 $ % Revenues, net $ 234.0 $ 237.0 $ (3.0) (1) % Deferred revenues purchase accounting adjustment 0.2 1.5 (1.3) (87) % Revenue attributable to IPM Product Line (6.7) 6.7 (100) % Adjusted Revenues $ 234.2 $ 231.8 $ 2.4 1 % Adjusted EBITDA Three Months Ended March 31 (in millions) 2019 2018 Net loss $ (59.3) $ (77.0) (Benefit) provision for income taxes 0.2 0.3 Depreciation and amortization 58.2 58.5 Interest, net 33.1 30.8 Transition Services Agreement costs(1) 5.3 21.3 Transition, transformation and integration expense(2) 2.5 22.3 Deferred revenues adjustment(3) 0.2 1.5 Transaction related costs(4) 10.3 0.6 Share-based compensation expense 3.2 4.2 IPM adjusted operating margin (5) (1.3) Other(6) 5.6 2.1 Adjusted EBITDA 59.3 63.3 (1) Includes accruals for payments to Thomson Reuters Corporation and certain of its controlled entities ("Thomson Reuters") under the Transition Services Agreement ("The Transition"). For definition of these terms, please refer to Exhibit 99.1 of our Form 6-K filed with the SEC concurrently with the issuance of this earnings release. These costs are expected to decrease substantially in 2019, as we are in the final stages of implementing our standalone company infrastructure. (2) Includes costs incurred after the 2016 Transaction relating to the implementation of our standalone company infrastructure and related cost-savings initiatives. These costs include mainly transition consulting, technology infrastructure, personnel and severance expenses relating to our standalone company infrastructure, which are recorded in Transition, integration, and other line-item of our income statement, as well as expenses related to the restructuring and transformation of our business following the 2016 Transaction, mainly related to the integration of separate business units into one functional organization and enhancements in our technology. (3) Reflects deferred revenues fair value accounting adjustment arising from purchase price allocation in connection with the 2016 Transaction. For definition of these terms, please refer to Exhibit 99.1 of our Form 6-K filed with the SEC concurrently with the issuance of this earnings release. (4) Includes consulting and accounting costs associated with acquisitions and the sale of the IPM Product Line. (5) Reflects the IPM Product Line's operating margin, excluding amortization and depreciation, prior to its divestiture in October 2018. (6) Includes primarily the net impact of foreign exchange gains and losses related to the re-measurement of balances and other one-time adjustments. Required Reported Data Standalone Adjusted EBITDA We are required to report Standalone Adjusted EBITDA pursuant to the reporting covenants contained in the Credit Agreement and the Indenture. Standalone Adjusted EBITDA is identical to Consolidated EBITDA and EBITDA as such terms are defined under the Credit Agreement and the Indenture, respectively. In addition, the Credit Agreement and the Indenture contain certain restrictive covenants that govern debt incurrence and the making of restricted payments, among other matters. These restrictive covenants utilize Standalone Adjusted EBITDA as a primary component of the compliance metric governing our ability to undertake certain actions otherwise proscribed by such covenants. Standalone Adjusted EBITDA reflects further adjustments to Adjusted EBITDA for cost savings already implemented and excess standalone costs. Because Standalone Adjusted EBITDA is required pursuant to the terms of the reporting covenants under the Credit Agreement and the Indenture and because this metric is relevant to lenders and noteholders, management considers Standalone Adjusted EBITDA to be relevant to the operation of its business. It is also utilized by management and the compensation committee of the Board as an input for determining incentive payments to employees. Excess standalone costs are the difference between our actual standalone company infrastructure costs, and our estimated steady state standalone infrastructure costs. We make an adjustment for the difference because we have had to incur costs under the Transition Services Agreement after we had implemented the infrastructure to replace the services provided pursuant to the Transition Services Agreement, thereby incurring dual running costs. Furthermore, there has been a ramp up period for establishing and optimizing the necessary standalone infrastructure. Since our separation from Thomson Reuters, we have had to transition quickly to replace services provided under the Transition Services Agreement, with optimization of the relevant standalone functions typically following thereafter. Cost savings reflect the annualized "run rate" expected cost savings, net of actual cost savings realized, related to restructuring and other cost savings initiatives undertaken during the relevant period. Standalone Adjusted EBITDA is calculated under the Credit Agreement and the Indenture by using our Consolidated Net Income for the trailing twelve month period (defined in the Credit Agreement and the Indenture as our GAAP net income adjusted for certain items specified in the Credit Agreement and the Indenture) adjusted for items including: taxes, interest expense, depreciation and amortization, non-cash charges, expenses related to capital markets transactions, acquisitions and dispositions, restructuring and business optimization charges and expenses, consulting and advisory fees, run-rate cost savings to be realized as a result of actions taken or to be taken in connection with an acquisition, disposition, restructuring or cost savings or similar initiatives, "run rate" expected cost savings, operating expense reductions, restructuring charges and expenses and synergies related to the Transition projected by us, costs related to any management or equity stock plan, other adjustments that were presented in the offering memorandum used in connection with the issuance of the Notes and earnout obligations incurred in connection with an acquisition or investment. The following table bridges Adjusted EBITDA to Standalone Adjusted EBITDA, as Adjusted EBITDA reflects all but two of the adjustments that comprise Standalone Adjusted EBITDA for the periods presented: Twelve Months Ended March 31 2019 2018 (in millions) Net loss $ (224.4) $ (267.5) (Benefit) provision for income taxes 5.5 (19.5) Depreciation and amortization 236.9 231.0 Interest, net 133.1 138.3 Transition Services Agreement costs(1) 39.7 79.4 Transition, transformation and integration expense(2) 49.4 90.6 Deferred revenues adjustment(3) 1.8 27.2 Transaction related costs(4) 12.1 2.8 Gain on sale of IPM Product Line (36.1) Share-based compensation expense 12.7 19.9 Tax indemnity asset (5) 33.8 IPM adjusted operating margin (6) (4.6) (5.7) Other(7) 8.9 6.1 Adjusted EBITDA 268.8 302.6 Cost savings(8) 11.7 8.6 Excess standalone costs(9) 31.5 (5.3) Standalone Adjusted EBITDA 312.0 305.9 (1) Includes accruals for payments to Thomson Reuters under the Transition Services Agreement. These costs are expected to decrease substantially in 2019, as we are in the final stages of implementing our standalone company infrastructure. (2) Includes costs incurred in connection with and after the 2016 Transaction relating to the implementation of our standalone company infrastructure and related cost-savings initiatives. These costs include mainly transition consulting, technology infrastructure, personnel and severance expenses relating to our standalone company infrastructure, which are recorded in Transition, integration, and other line-item of our income statement, as well as expenses related to the restructuring and transformation of our business following the 2016 Transaction, mainly related to the integration of separate business units into one functional organization and enhancements in our technology. (3) Reflects deferred revenues fair value accounting adjustment arising from purchase price allocation in connection with the 2016 Transaction. For definition of these terms, please refer to Exhibit 99.1 of our Form 6-K filed with the SEC concurrently with the issuance of this earnings release.. (4) Includes consulting and accounting costs associated with acquisitions and the sale of the IPM Product Line. (5) Reflects the write down of a tax indemnity asset. (6) Reflects the IPM Product Line's operating margin, excluding amortization and depreciation, prior to its divestiture in October 2018. (7) Includes primarily the net impact of foreign exchange gains and losses related to the re-measurement of balances and other one-time adjustments. (8) Reflects the estimated annualized run-rate cost savings, net of actual cost savings realized, related to restructuring and other cost savings initiatives undertaken during the period (exclusive of any cost reductions in our estimated standalone operating costs). (9) Reflects the difference between our actual standalone company infrastructure costs, and our estimated steady state standalone operating costs, which were as follows: Twelve Months Ended March 31 (in millions) 2019 2018 Actual standalone company infrastructure costs 160.7 118.0 Steady state standalone cost estimate (129.2) (123.3) Excess standalone costs 31.5 (5.3) The foregoing adjustments are estimates and are not intended to represent pro forma adjustments presented within the guidance of Article 11 of Regulation S-X. Although we believe these estimates are reasonable, actual results may differ from these estimates, and any difference may be material. For definition of these terms, please refer to Exhibit 99.1 of our Form 6-K filed with the SEC concurrently with the issuance of this earnings release. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clarivate-analytics-reports-first-quarter-2019-results-300850673.html SOURCE Clarivate Analytics [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] SENSORO AIoT Services Secure Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) BEIJING, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 15, the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), hosted by China, grandly opened in Beijing. As an AIoT smart security services provider, SENSORO was selected as the technology partner for the security work of the news center. Meanwhile, SENSORO is providing visitors with interactive tech experiences. Whether you are passing by or stopping to take a look, your facial data including age, gender and emotion will be presented in real time on the screen. Besides, a 24/7 remote warning service system supported by SENSORO smoke sensors has been deployed in the venue, which helps cut down on labor intensive tasks such as traditional inspection work, provide scientific data support for venue environment optimization and create a comfortable working environment. As one of the world's leading IoT tecnology service providers, SENSORO has implemented AIoT smart security services in many regions and countries. In Cambodia, for example, SENSORO's service is highly praised by the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense. They have reached an in-depth consensus on the cooperation and security service application in Cambodia. SENSORO will bring impressive science and technology to the urban construction and development of this time-honored ancient country. In addition, from mining sites' remote data monitoring in Australia, cold chain and cold storage detection in Singapore, to urban safety monitoring in Manchester, UK, SENSORO has established cooperative relations with more than 65 countries and regions, covering 40 countries along the "Belt and Road Initiative". Integration and upgrade of the end-to-end IoT product line and AI technology is the key to SENSORO AIoT smart security remote warning service. Under normal circumstances, SENSORO AIoT system will be monitoring for risks of smoke, combustible gas and electrical fire in real time, and can intelligently analyze the flow density and personnel distribution, to determine whether it is necessary to raise the protection level. As soon as potential hazards occur, front-end sensors will perceive dangers in real-time. Then, signals and data will be transmitted to the base station up to 10km away via wireless IoT network. Thus, alert messages can be sent to the relevant personnel within seconds via phone call, SMS and APP notifications, and others to guarantee the best rescue opportunity. Moreover, with the built-in positioning system and AI analysis, coupled with the offline service team and emergency departments, people and property safety can be guaranteed to the greatest extent. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sensoro-aiot-services-secure-conference-on-dialogue-of-asian-civilizations-cdac-300850675.html SOURCE SENSORO INC. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] InMoment Receives Strategic Growth Investment from Madison Dearborn Partners InMoment, a leader in customer experience management, today announced that it has received a strategic growth investment from funds advised by Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC ("MDP"), a leading private equity firm based in Chicago. MDP has acquired a majority ownership position in InMoment from existing shareholders, with Peterson Partners, an independent investment firm that first invested in InMoment in 2013, retaining a minority ownership position in the company. MDP's investment serves as a strong endorsement of the company's vision around the future of feedback. MDP's sponsorship will enable InMoment to accelerate its growth strategy, which is focused on increasing market adoption and expanding the capabilities of InMoment's Experience Intelligence (XI) Platform, as well as continued geographic expansion in the large and growing customer experience and analytics market. The XI Platform is unique in its ability to synthesize disparate information from across an enterprise's first- and third-party data sources to drive high-value business decisions and foster strong relationships for companies with both customers and employees. Andrew Joiner, InMoment's CEO, and the rest of the company's current management team will continue to lead InMoment. "The new investment partnership with MDP will accelerate our momentum, and help us achieve our ambition of disrupting the CX market, which has been under served by both metric-heavy and market research led approaches," said Joiner. "MDP is the ideal partner for InMoment at this stage in our history - they have a long track record of success across their portfolio and, most importantly, their vision aligns soundly with our own strategic goals." With the recent launch of its next generation XI Platform, including the Customer Experience ("CX"), Employee Experience ("EX"), and Market Experience ("MX") Clouds, InMoment continues to differentiate its offering, which has been lauded by analysts as game-changing in the industry. The company has also expanded significantly, including a larger footprint in North America, Europe and new locations in Asia, and achieved strong growth in market segments such as automotive, energy, retail, hospitality, healthcare, banking and nsurance. Scott Pasquini, a Managing Director at MDP, commented: "InMoment's XI Platform offers the customer experience management sector a truly innovative approach, one that enables companies to seamlessly collect and connect first- and third-party data sources to provide unique insights into the experience and sentiment of their customers. InMoment excels at taking customer understanding beyond the survey, and we are excited to support InMoment's strong momentum as it continues to deliver best-in-class analytics and services to companies globally." Concurrent with MDP's investment, InMoment has appointed John Lewis, former Global President of Nielsen Holdings PLC and current Executive Partner at MDP, as Executive Chairman of the company's Board of Directors. Lewis is a proven technology executive with extensive experience in the data and analytics market. With a track record of success across a variety of business situations, including with globally scaled businesses and start-ups, Lewis most recently oversaw Nielsen's global "Buy" business and its ex-North America "Watch" business, leading each of these segments to both accelerated revenue growth and enhanced profitability. "MDP's investment in InMoment represents the culmination of two years of work alongside John Lewis to identify and execute an attractive investment in the customer data and analytics sector," said Zaid Alsikafi, a Managing Director at MDP and the Co-Head of the firm's Telecom, Media & Technology Services team. "Our work with John has deepened our conviction that the customer analytics sector will see outsized growth in the coming years as companies look to improve their customers' experiences to drive both top- and bottom-line growth. We look forward to helping the InMoment team capture the commercial opportunity afforded by delivering transformational analytics to corporate enterprises." Union Square Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to InMoment throughout the transaction and DLA Piper served as its legal counsel. Stifel Nicolaus (News - Alert) served as financial advisor to MDP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP provided legal counsel. About InMoment InMoment is a leader in customer experience management. Its Experience Intelligence (XI) Platform transforms metrics into meaning to drive high-value business decisions and relationships for companies with both customers and employees. The Company's cloud-native XI Platform is engineered with data science at the core, and specifically architected to harness intelligence from across the entire experience ecosystem to deliver clear business value. The platform features three clouds that all work seamlessly together to give companies a comprehensive understanding of the most important factors impacting their bottom lines, including: Customer Experience (CX) Cloud, Employee Experience (EX) Cloud, and Market Experience (MX) Cloud. InMoment's approach of providing strategic technical, best practice and thought leadership support ensures that its nearly 500 brands across 95 countries realize maximum business impact. About Madison Dearborn Partners Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC ("MDP"), based in Chicago, is a leading private equity investment firm in the United States. Since MDP's formation in 1992, the firm has raised seven funds with aggregate capital of approximately $23 billion and has completed over 140 investments. MDP is currently investing out of its most recent fund, $4.4 billion MDCP Fund VII, in businesses across a broad spectrum of industries, including telecom, media and technology services; basic industries; businesses and government software and services; financial and transaction services; and health care. For more information, please visit mdcp.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005232/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Esri Announces Significant Expansion in St. Louis to Serve Rapidly Growing Geospatial Market Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, today announced that its St. Louis office intends to triple its current professional services staff to support a growing user base. The expanded office will serve as a central hub for Esri to support users in the St. Louis area and across the US. The decision to create expanded capabilities in St. Louis emerged from the area's recent growth and transformation into a strong center of professional excellence and innovation in the GIS sector. While the Esri team already includes a mix of leading geospatial technologists across many disciplines, growth in demand for consultation, geospatial strategy, and implementation support across the GIS user base has made it necessary to increase staff to serve those needs. The central US location also makes it easier for Esri to support customers across the country. "When we looked at the best location to support our rapidly expanding user community, St. Louis was the obvious choice," said Brian Cross, director of Esri Professional Services. "We are happy to serve the vibrant geospatial community in this area and continue our mission to drive impact by supporting our users throughout the region and the US." The new staff will join a thriving team of leading geospatial professionals, located in two offices in the St. Louis metropolitan area. The team is part of the Esri Professional Services group of over 700 experts working across the US In particular, these new hires will address the growing needs of local government, commercial, agriculture, utilities, and defense and intelligence. They will support Esri's entire customer base, including one of the company's biggest federal customers, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), whose future campus will be only a five-minute drive from the Esri office. "We are excited to significantly grow our team in St. Louis," said Matthew Harman, head of the Esri Professional Services team in the Midwest, based in St. Louis. "The area is a global center for geospatial technology, and by combining new staff with the incredible professionals who already work on the team, we will be able to support our users at an entirely new scale." Esri intends to partner closely with local universities to create opportunities to help students access the latest technology and cutting-edge applications, and to create employment opportunities with the market leader in GIS software and services. To find out more about Esri employment opportunities in the St. Louis area and beyond, visit www.linkedin.com/company/esri/life/stlouis. About Esri Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping, offers the most powerful geospatial cloud available, to help customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969, Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations including 90 of the Fortune 100 companies, all 50 state governments, more than half of all counties (large and small), and 87 of the Forbes Top 100 Colleges in the U.S., as well as all 15 Executive Departments of the U.S. Government and dozens of independent agencies. With its pioneering commitment to geospatial information technology, Esri engineers the most advanced solutions for digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics. Visit us at esri.com. Copyright 2019 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, the Esri globe logo, The Science of Where, esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005247/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Imagga Releases AI-Powered Visual Search to Help Customers Bring Visual Discovery to The Next Level SOFIA, Bulgaria, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Imagga announced the beta release of its Visual Similarity Search API , enabling companies to implement image-based search into their software systems and applications to improve product discoverability and decrease shopping cart abandonment. Visual Search expands the core capabilities of Imagga's powerful Image Recognition API , helping companies to maximize the searchable potential of their visual data. "The visual search technology represents an exciting opportunity for fashion, home decor and furniture online retailers helping them to improve product discoverability, increases conversions, and decreases shopping cart abandonment while also offering rich media experience to users," said Georgi Kadrev, Co-Founder of Imagga. "Imagga visual similarity search technology can be applied to any visual dataset regardless of the industry or the use case." Features include: Search by Iage - Visual Search makes product discoverability easier by enabling users to search for similar items within companies' product inventory by uploading an image from the web or one they took themselves. Product Recommendations - The functionality is often used for the display of similar products offering bigger choice or alternatives to products out of stock. High Visual Search Accuracy - To achieve the highest precision rate, Imagga's expert machine learning team helps customers customize the features relevant to their image database. Scalability - Imagga Visual Search API features a scalable infrastructure capable of serving large amounts of requests within extensive search pools. How Visual Similarity Search Works - The technology is based on deep learning and extraction of visual and semantic features during categorization that is used as matching criteria during the search. After extracting metadata from the image, it digs through the index of images and retrieves the best results based on semantics, color, category or functional similarity. Use Cases Visual Search has extensive application in retail and e-commerce, pricing comparison, intellectual property, and security. About Imagga Imagga is a pioneer and a global innovator in the image recognition technology. Its Platform-as-a-Service Image Recognition API helps businesses understand and monetize image content in the Cloud and On-premise. Founded in 2008, Imagga has offices in Bulgaria and South Korea. For more information, visit: imagga.com. Press Contacts: Imagga Ina Toncheva +359886464687 [email protected] www.imagga.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/imagga-releases-ai-powered-visual-search-to-help-customers-bring-visual-discovery-to-the-next-level-300850700.html SOURCE Imagga [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] eMazzanti Shares Essential Wireless Network Security Tips for Small Business HOBOKEN, N.J., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A NYC area IT security consultant and managed services provider shares useful tips for small business leaders to ensure wireless network security in a new article on the eMazzanti Technologies website. Wireless networks pose an increased security risk that must be addressed, the article asserts. The informative article encourages small business leaders to secure wireless routers with five simple precautions. The author, an experienced network engineer from Venezuela, also encourages the use of strong encryption protocols and limiting network access. Finally, she strongly recommends a layered approach to wireless network security. "The increased productivity benefits of wireless networks make them useful for small businesses," stated Jennifer Mazzanti, CEO, eMazzanti Technologies. "However, small business leaders should take the necessary steps to secure them." Below are a few excerpts from the article, " Essential Wireless Network Security Tips for Small Business ." "In an age dominated by smartphones and tablets, wireless networks have become an increasingly attractive option for many small businesses. With a wireless network, team members can easily collaborate on mobile devices and laptops from anywhere in the office. Employees can join the network or change locations without any wires to manage." Protect the Router "The wireless router directs traffic between the internet and the internal network. The router sends a signal through the air, allowing devices within range to connect to the network. While this is essential in enabling employee access, proper router setup is critical to ensure that hackers within range do not also infiltrate your network." Limit Network Acess "Instead of letting anyone connect to the network as long as they have the correct password, you can limit access to your network to only certain devices. Each device is identified by a unique Media Access Control (MAC) address. You can configure your wireless router to only allow access to devices with MAC addresses that you specify." More wireless network security tips >> Layered Approach Essential to Wireless Network Security Whether businesses use a wired network or a wireless network, a defense in depth strategy is essential to keeping critical business data safe from malicious attacks. A single breach of the company network can cripple a business with lost productivity, loss of reputation and even legal action. Increase wireless network security with proper router setup and strong encryption protocols. Limit access to known devices and implement security policies to maximize mobile device security. The security professionals at eMazzanti can help small business leaders design a multi-layer cyber-security strategy to protect vital business information assets. Related resource information: Security needs to take priority for connected devices eMazzanti Technologies Cyber-Security Cloud Simplifies Scalable Security Services, Strengthens Customer Security About eMazzanti Technologies eMazzanti's team of trained, certified IT experts rapidly deliver increased revenue growth, data security and productivity for clients ranging from law firms to high-end global retailers, expertly providing advanced retail and payment technology, digital marketing services, cloud and mobile solutions, multi-site implementations, 247 outsourced network management, remote monitoring and support. eMazzanti has made the Inc. 5000 list eight consecutive years, is a 3X Microsoft Partner of the Year, the #1 ranked NYC area MSP, NJ Business of the Year, 5X WatchGuard Partner of the Year and one of the TOP 200 U.S. Microsoft Partners! Contact: 1-866-362-9926, [email protected] or http://www.emazzanti.net Twitter: @emazzanti Facebook: Facebook.com/emazzantitechnologies. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/emazzanti-shares-essential-wireless-network-security-tips-for-small-business-300850410.html SOURCE eMazzanti Technologies [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] POLYTECH Welcomes Statement by US Food and Drug Administration FDA Opposing Ban on Textured Breast Implants DIEBURG, Germany, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- POLYTECH Health & Aesthetics GmbH, a global leader in breast aesthetics, welcomes a recent statement by the FDA that textured breast implants will remain available in the US market, In opposition to the recent decision by the French health authority ANSM (Agence Nationale de Securite du Medicament) to ban 'macrotextured' and polyurethane coated implants from the French market. "The FDA's argumentation is in line with our view", commented Wolfgang Steimel, CEO of POLYTECH Health & Aesthetics, applauding the decision. "Because there is still no sound scientific proof regarding how BIA-ALCL arises and develops, nor of a connection with the implant surface," Steimel elaborated. Alongside POLYTECHa leading international breast implant manufacturer and the only manufacturer in Germanythe International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) also agrees with the FDA's position as the world-leading professional association for licensed aesthetic plastic surgeons. The FDA made its recent statement following the public consultation of its Advisory Committee in March 2019. Having examined all available evidence and data on the safety and risks of breast implants, the United States Food and Drug Administration has concluded that there is insufficient data-based evidence to justify a ban on textured breast implants. Candid dialogue and transparent education POLYTECH CEO Wolfgang Steimel added: "As manufacturers, we have an ethical obligation to patients, which is why we remain in fully candid dialogue, promoting transparent education regarding this topic. Nonetheless, out of our commitments to both patient safety and satisfaction, we are pleased that the criticisms of textured and polyurethane foam/PU-coated implants have again been refuted by others." Thus, in addition to their silicone-surface implants available with a smooth shell and with two different microtextures and to the novel Lightweight B-Lite implants, the company will continue to offer its polyurethane foam/PU-coated implants, which many scientific clinical studies have shown to be safe, with a demonstrably lower complication rate, particularly concerning capsular contracture. In an official statement, Dr. Dirk Richter, President of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), agreed with the FDA's position. Dr. Richter added:" We believe that a ban on textured and polyurethane-coated implants is an improper decision in terms of overall patient safety, when based on the currently available data." About POLYTECH With a global footprint in over 75 countries, POLYTECH Health & Aesthetics GmbH is an international leader in the development and production of silicone implants. Founded in 1986 in Dieburg, Germany, the company focuses on breast implants, used in both reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgery. POLYTECH is the only German manufacturer of soft tissue implants. All products are developed exclusively at the company headquarters in Germany, and are manufactured under clean room conditions. The company employs over 250 people. For more information visit https://polytechhealth.com/en View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/polytech-welcomes-statement-by-us-food-and-drug-administration-fda-opposing-ban-on-textured-breast-implants-300850709.html SOURCE POLYTECH Health & Aesthetics GmbH [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Worldwide Acceptance of Digital Securities Grows While tribeOS Sees Exempt Exchanges as Next Big Move HAMILTON, Bermuda, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- For digital securities to successfully navigate the waters of global finance, new territory is charted daily. And yet, a Titanic-sized obstacle remains: the widespread and often negative belief that digital assets are high-risk, unproven and unregulated. tribeOS, which launched the first federally approved Digital Security Offering (FIRE), continues its momentum in establishing a more accurate narrative. tribeOS CEO and co-founder Matt Gallant, pulled no punches, "Investors traumatized from their losses and still licking their wounds from the ICO bear market beatdown are seeking refuge from the storm. They want stability and security first and foremost. This isn't the Wild West anymore. The Crypto Cowboys are being run out of town. In their place are digital securities like FIRE, dividend paying equity tokens that help build a real company and are fully compliant with all laws. Smart investors won't repeat the same mistakes in the next blockchain bull run." Market timing was critical to tribeOS, a fully transparent digital advertising marketplace built on blockchain. The company launched its FIRE digital security only after the "Crypto Cowboys" had been exposed. This move helped tribeOS gain "first mover" advantage as the first federally approved Digital Security Offering in the world. The current landscape remains a challenge on many levels. Media coverage of digital assets often lumps all offerings into the same basket, whether they're Initial Coin Offerings [ICOs] or Digital Security Offerings [DSOs]. In reality, the two asset classes differ dramatically in many ways. The "Crypto Cowboys" leveraged unregulated ICOs, many of which were naked money grabs with no actual tech or project behind them. However, the rigorous disclosures required by Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Business (KYB) for any DSO review makes an approved digital security without a legitimate product or service virtually impossible. The tribeOS marketplace is set to launch later this year. In fact, the global regulatory environment is evolving as federal governments across the world examine and debate ways to embrace blockchain innovation while regulating digital assets. Some countries, such as South Korea have overreacted and actually banned ICOs . In the US, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), in attempting to define digital securities, offered its first framework of digital assets . This is such a hotbed issue with the SEC they recently published a new job position of "Cryptocurrency Specialist" . In addition, an updated "Token Taxonomy Act" has been reintroduced by US Legislators in Congress. tribeOS CEO Matt Gallant talks digital securities across the globe To expand awareness for tribeOS while highlighting the inherent advantages a digital security offers potential investors, Gallant and fellow co-founder James Wallace were co-presenters at the Security Token Summit II , which was held in Bermuda. Gallant shared the tribeOS Bermuda success story with attendees from 14 different nations. In addition, Gallant was also a recent guest on the "Crypto Daily" video podcast hosted by Randy Hilarski. To inquire on Matt Gallant's upcoming speaking availability, contact tribeOS here . To learn more about investing in the tribeOS digital security FIRE go here now . ABOUT: tribeOS, is a blockchain-based digital advertising marketplace designed to help advertisers and publishers run secure, ad fraud-free campaigns online via a fully transparent platform. The tribeOS mission: create the fairest, most transparent, most profitable digital advertising marketplace in the world by ending ad fraud, increasing accountability, and ease-of-use for advertisers and publishers. http://www.tribeos.io/ MEDIA CONTACT: Marc Harty, Public Relations Director, tribeOS [email protected] 469-879-5323 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/worldwide-acceptance-of-digital-securities-grows-while-tribeos-sees-exempt-exchanges-as-next-big-move-300850554.html SOURCE tribeOS [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Flexential Strengthens Growing Atlanta FinTech Market with Massive Data Center Expansion CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Flexential , a leading provider of hybrid IT and data center solutions, will now provide additional speed, security and services for the fast-growing financial technology (FinTech) industry with the completion of a 70,000-square-foot expansion to the company's Atlanta colocation facility. The expansion is the Atlanta region's largest this year, bringing Flexential's national data center footprint to 3.1 million square feet, and representing its continued commitment to providing secure, high-density power, and cost-effective data center solutions to customers in financial services, technology and data intensive industries. Atlanta and the surrounding Transaction Alley are the third-largest FinTech hub in the U.S. with more than 70 percent of all credit card transactions now processed through the Atlanta metropolitan area, according to the Atlanta Small Business Network. These data-intensive companies need secure, reliable, and scalable means to gain access and transport the data without loss of connectivity. Recognizing the demand for data management and IT strategy solutions this market creates, the new Flexential expansion increases the company's capacity in Georgia to more than eight megawatts of power and a total of 175,000 sq. ft. One of Flexential's longest standing financial services customers, Delta Community Credit Union, depends on the Alpharetta location to quickly and securely serve its nearly 400,000 members. "As Georgia's largest credit union, we gain tremendous confidence and benefits through the geographical placement of Flexential's connected data centers, which deliver the highest level of security and reliable service for our members," Chad Jaenke, Vice President, IT Operations and Technical Support, Delta Community Credit Union said. "Every person we work with at Flexential is knowledgeable, responsive, and genuinely cares about the success of our business." More than 120 FinTech firms are headquartered or have a significant presence in Georgia with the top ten generating an annual revenue of $72 billion. The industry is a significant driver of economic growth both locally andglobally, employing 37,000 people within the state and 130,000 throughout the U.S. "Companies are experiencing a data tsunami, with an increased need to store, process and access data securely, efficiently and strategically," said Mike Fuhrman, Chief Product Officer, Flexential. "Atlanta is a perfect example of a market with exponentially growing demand for secure, enterprise-grade, cost-effective, and resilient data management solutions. Expanding our facilities footprint and interconnectivity in vital metropolitan areas is a key component of our growth strategy. We're proud to offer our customers increased flexible and essential access to capacity in the Southeast with the confidence of security and availability." A recent IDC Global DataSphere study predicted that the worldwide datasphere will balloon to 175 zettabytes by 2025a truly staggering number. IDC Senior Vice President David Reinsel notes that, if stored on Blu-ray discs stacked atop one another, 175 ZB of data would reach the moon and back 23 times. IDC predicts that by 2025, the majority of this data will be stored in the core, with data center capacity increasing to match the expansion of cloud-based storage, ensuring that major data hubs like Atlanta will continue to serve as a focal point for data services in the fintech industry and beyond. Flexential will host an Open House for its newly expanded Atlanta data center on May 21. If you are interested in learning more about the event or a data center tour, please contact [email protected]. For additional information about Flexential's Atlanta location, click here, or here to fly over the Flexential facility. About Delta Community Credit Union Delta Community Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative with a mission of providing better service and value on the products consumers use to manage household expenses and save for the future. Founded in 1940, Delta Community is Georgia's largest credit union with more than 394,000 members, three out-of-state branch locations and 26 branches in metro Atlanta. It welcomes anyone living or working in metro Atlanta as well as employees of more than 140 businesses including Chick-fil-A, Delta Air Lines, RaceTrac and UPS. Visit www.DeltaCommunityCU.com to learn more about opening an account at Delta Community or follow the Credit Union on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/DeltaCommunity and Twitter at @DeltaCommunity. About Flexential Flexential offers flexible and essential services that help organizations optimize their journey of IT transformation while simultaneously balancing cost, scalability, compliance and security. The company is committed to building trusted relationships and delivering tailored solutions that suit the individual needs of its customers. Utilizing its people, values and reliable performance, Flexential is deeply invested in the success of its customers, who trust it to deliver core data center solutions of colocation and connectivity, as well as cloud, managed solutions and professional services. Flexential's robust suite of assets spans 21 markets and comprises 40 highly redundant and connectivity-rich data centers. For more information on Flexential, please visit www.flexential.com. Follow Flexential on LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and YouTube . Contact: Lori Stafford-Thomas Senior Director, Corporate Marketing [email protected] Liz Schulte For Flexential [email protected] 971-245-4004 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/flexential-strengthens-growing-atlanta-fintech-market-with-massive-data-center-expansion-300850669.html SOURCE Flexential [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Sitehands Appoints Steve Venezia as Head of Global Operations CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sitehands, the company defining the next generation of IT field services, has announced the appointment of veteran technology leader, Steve Venezia, as Head of Global Operations. With a magnitude of experience in enterprise technology, Venezia will be responsible for leading the continuous evolution of Sitehands' operations at global scale. "This role is essential in helping us ensure operational excellence and continuous improvement as we advance into our next stage of growth," said Sitehands' Founder and CEO, JP Rosato. "Venezia has a strategic mindset, is skilled in aligning teams across an organization and has a passion for delivering results. It is a tremendous privilege to have him on our leadership team." Venezia joins Sitehands from Wells Fargo, where he was the SVP of IT Service Delivery. He has spent 30+ years advancing business management disciplines across enterprise technology infrastructure, including long-term investment strategy and implementation, workforce location optimization and the technology enablement of business functions. Prior to joining Wells Fargo in 2016, Venezia was part of Bank of America's execuive team for 20+ years. In his last role at Bank of America, Venezia served as Managing Director, responsible for Global Technology & Operations. He has also sat on the board of Habitat for Humanity and served our country in the United States Navy and Reserves. "I am excited and eager to help further Sitehands' mission and success," said Venezia. "The team has incredible synergy and the company's passion for transforming the IT field services space is contagious." Sitehands has a unique platform model to automate, orchestrate and oversee the delivery of all IT field services. The company's global platform integrates more than 15,000 technicians worldwide. All technicians are deeply vetted, certified, fully trained on platform and follow a standardized methodology to deliver services, allowing Sitehands to guarantee their customer's outcome and satisfaction every time. Taking operations to the next level of scale and operating efficiency, Venezia will play an instrumental role in helping Sitehands further its outcome-driven global delivery model. About Sitehands Sitehands, the world's first IT Field Services Marketplace, has bridged the gap between people and technology to create Field Services 2.0. With a global network of 15,000+ vetted and certified field service technicians and support for clients in more than 100 countries and 4,000 cities, Sitehands performs work for the largest Financial Institutions and Fortune 500 companies. While Sitehands is built for enterprise scale and compliance, Sitehands OnDemand is built to serve the unplanned and short-term IT needs any company encounters every day. To learn more, visit www.sitehands.com. Contact Jaimie Anzelone, Director of Marketing and Communications 646-430-1674 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sitehands-appoints-steve-venezia-as-head-of-global-operations-300850620.html SOURCE Sitehands [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Global Transaction Monitoring Solutions Market 2019-2023| Emergence of Advanced Technologies to Boost the Market| Technavio A new market research study by Technavio on the global transaction monitoring solutions market projects the market to grow at a CAGR of close to 15% during the period 2019-2023. This research report provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue, top drivers and emerging market trends. It also includes detailed insights and forecasts for all the market segments across different geographies. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005322/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global transaction monitoring solutions market from 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) Need for protection against online frauds With a rising number of people becoming digitally connected and the growing adoption of online transactions, personal identity and data control have become a primary concern for online retailers. Moreover, the number of cyber thefts by cybercriminals and hackers is growing at an alarming rate. Such cases are frequently reported across the world and cost retail customers several billions of dollars each year. The high risks of identity theft can be eliminated with the use of a decentralized identity such as transaction monitoring solutions for identity management. Thus, the growing need for protection against online frauds will fuel market growth during the forecast period. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. The emergence of advanced technologies in transaction monitoring The transaction monitoring solutions market is witnessing the development of advanced technologies that aim to enhance these solutions. Vendors are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in transaction monitoring solutions to make services smarter and more secure. Smart AI-based transaction monitoring solutions have features such as network threat detection, intrusion detection, object classification, and behavioral analysis. Thus, the integration of technologies such as AI and blockchain with transaction monitoring solutions will drive the market growth during the forecast period. According to a senior analyst at Technavio for IT services, "With the number of fraudulent activities increasing every year, and frauds are becoming more sophisticated, the number of government regulations are increasing, which must be complied by financial enterprises to tackle frauds. Thus, the need for compliance with government regulations will increase the demand for transaction monitoring solutions, which help enterprises control and monitor data movement." Lack of efficient security solutions Cyber threats and malicious attacks have been increasing significantly in terms of both frequency and intensity. Security attacks such as spyware and viruses are evolving into more complex attacks, making them more challenging to be detected and controlled. Thus, identifying and preventing transaction threats is one of the most challenging factors in the market. However, with technological advances and innovations such as AI and blockchain, the efficiency of security solutions such as transaction monitoring solutions will improve significantly over the years to come. Top players in the global transaction monitoring solutions market: ACI Worldwide Inc. BAE Systems (News - Alert) Plc NICE Ltd. Oracle Corp. SAS Institute Inc. Some of the key topics covered in the global transaction monitoring solutions market include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. It provides detailed market research reports that provide clients with actionable insights to help them identify market opportunities and design effective strategies to optimize their market position. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio boasts of an extensive report library comprising of over 10,000 reports, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than a hundred Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets. Technavio helps companies to assess their competitive position within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005322/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] The Acquirers Fund (ZIG) Begins Trading on the NYSE The Acquirers Fund (ticker: ZIG), a deep value ETF that will hold long positions in deeply undervalued, fundamentally strong targets for activists and buyout firms, and short positions in overvalued, financially weak companies, begins trading on the NYSE Arca (News - Alert) this morning. "I am very excited to be announcing the launch of ZIG," said Tobias Carlisle, founder of Acquirers Funds, the firm behind this new ETF, and author of the best-selling books The Acquirer's Multiple, Deep Value, and Quantitative Value, which set out the philosophy underpinning the fund. "In 2019, after one of the most prolonged growth rallies ever, value spreads are widest since the run-up to the Great Depression and the Dot Com bubble.1 Historically, the base rate for investing in value after it has disappointed and spreads are wide has been extremely attractive.2 As a concentrated, 130/30 long/short deep-value fund, ZIG is designed to maximally exploit this rare opportunity." "Previous attempts to bring a long/short value strategy to the broad investment marketplace have had a number of key shortcomings, including high fees, which in some cases were in excess of three percent; were mere value "factor" funds, which have seen the outperformance arbitraged away; were too broadly diversified to deliver outperformance; or included what we feel are useless metrics like profitability for marketing purposes, resulting in diluted portfolios that couldn't capture deep value opportunities," added Carlisle. "We begin our investment process with the 'acquirer's multiple,' the measure financial acquirers such as activists and buyout firms use to find potential targets," he continued. "We take a holistic approach to valuation, examining assets, earnings, and cash flows3, to understand the economic reality of each company. An important part of this process is a forensic-accounting diligence of the financial statements, particularly the notes and management's discussion and analysis, to find information that may impact investment decisions. We find most of our short positions revealed here. That type of thinking and research is what we've looked to build into ZIG, so investors of all types and sizes can now add the same approach to their portfolios via a liquid, low-cost ETF." ZIG is a 130/30 long/short deep-value strategy that is designed to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of The Acquirer's Index. For both long and short positions, a stock must be listed in the U.S. and have a market cap in the largest 25 percent of all companies by market cap. From that universe of equities, ZIG's rules-based index will hold the 30 most deeply undervalued, fundamentally strong stocks in the "long" portion of its portfolio, while its short portfolio will consist of the 30 stocks deemed to be most overvalued and fundamentally weak. "There is no shortage of value-factor ETFs available today, but value-as-a-factor and value-as-a-philosophy are two very different things," said Carlisle. "Any company with a seemingly depressed stock price can make it through many value screens, but truly undervalued stocks are much more than 'cheap'; they also have strong, liquid balance sheets, and a robust business capable of generating free cash flows4, and more. Looking at the fund landscape of the past several years, it's no surprise that many investors may have been disappointed in their 'value' investments, but with ZIG, they now have the opportunity to augment that part of their respective portfolios with a true deep value approach that's designed to uncover real opportunities, not just low-priced stocks." ZIG trades on the NYSE Arca with an expense ratio of 0.94 percent. That expense ratio is well-below the Morningstar category average for alternative, long/short equity of 2.17 percent and far below the average "1.6 and 19" fee model charged by alternative, long/short equity managers. For more information, please visit acquirersfund.com About Acquirers Funds Acquirers Funds, LLC is a deep-value investment firm located in Los Angeles, California managed by Tobias Carlisle. An investor should consider the Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. The Prospectus contains this and other important information about the Fund and are available by clicking here or a hardcopy can be obtained by calling <800#>. Please read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing. Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. The Fund is non-diversified and may invest more of its assets in a single issuer or smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund. The Fund is not actively managed and may be affected by a general decline in market segments related to the index. To replicate the index's short positions, the Fund expects to sell securities short. Short selling may amplify changes it her Fund's NAV since it may increase the exposure of the fund to certain securities. The Fund relies heavily on proprietary quantitative models as well as information and data supplied by third parties (Models and Data). When such Models and Data prove to be incorrect or incomplete, the Index and Fund may not perform as expected. The Fund invests in securities included in, or representative of securities included in, the Acquirer's Index, regardless of their investment merits. Because the Fund employs a representative sampling the Fund may experience tracking error to a greater extent than a fund that seeks to replicate an index. Shares of any ETF are bought and sold at market price (not NAV) and may trade at a discount or premium to NAV. The NAV is the value of each share of a fund as determined by the value of its underlying holdings, including any cash in the portfolio. NAV is calculated by dividing a fund's total net assets by its number of shares outstanding. Shares are not individually redeemable from the Fund and may be only be acquired or redeemed from the fund in creation units. Shares of the ETF may be sold throughout the day on the exchange through any brokerage account. However, shares may only be redeemed directly from the Fund by Authorized Participants, in very large creation/redemption units. There can be no assurance that an active trading market for shares of an ETF will develop or be maintained. The Acquirers Fund is distributed by Quasar Distributors, LLC It is not possible to invest directly in an index. The Acquirer's Index is composed of the 30 most undervalued, fundamentally strong stocks listed in the United States selected from the largest 25 percent of all stocks (equivalent to a market capitalization greater than approximately $2 billion). The Index is also composed of 30 short positions of the most overvalued, fundamentally weak stocks in the same universe. The Index is constructed with a 100% net equity exposure (130% long, 30% short) _______________________________ 1 "Bernstein Quants See Historic Divergence Favoring Value Stocks": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-06/bernstein-quants-go-rogue-and-tout-decade-losing-stock-strategy 2 "Value Investors Are Vexed": https://www.morningstar.com/articles/922787/value-investors-are-vexed.html 3 Cash flow is the net amount of cash and cash-equivalents being transferred into and out of a business. 4 Free cash flow is the cash a company produces through its operations, less the cost of expenditures on assets. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005557/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] HighPoint Names Jim Bottorff As Chief Financial Officer HERNDON, Va., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HighPoint Global , a leading provider of federal IT and customer experience (CX) solutions, announced today the appointment of Jim Bottorff as Chief Financial Officer. Bottorff will oversee all financial/accounting operations and strategy for HighPoints ongoing growth in developing and delivering digital and CX solutions. HighPoint is well-positioned to take a leading role in supporting the governments evolution into a digital enterprise with a citizen-service focus, said Bottorff. I look forward to working with the team to implement short and long-term plans that allow us to develop and deliver solutions that the government needs today. Bottorff brings almost 30 years of experience in financial operations, strategic planning and growth, and management at businesses supporting Federal, Civilian, and Defense customers. He most recently served as the Chief Financial Officer of North America for Idemia, a leader of secure identity solutions. Prior to that, Bottorff spent twelve years as the Dvision CFO for the Federal and Civilian Division at General Dynamics Information Technology, a global aerospace and defense company. He also held management roles at Anteon before it was acquired by General Dynamics, including Sr. VP of Financial Operations, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, and Director of Pricing. Were extremely excited to add Jim to our executive team, said Ben Lanius, CEO of HighPoint. His extensive knowledge and expertise managing strategic financial operations will benefit our long term-business and financial planning as we look to design innovative solutions that benefit our clients and the people they serve. About HighPoint HighPoint helps government agencies elevate experiences by improving the touchpoints through which customers interact with government. From contact centers and employee experience to digital and data services, our team works with government agencies to more efficiently integrate the people, processes and technology that help government deliver on the needs of citizens and employees. HighPoint delivers services for 15 government clients including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Comptroller of Currency, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Department of State and Defense Logistics Agency. HighPoint is a privately held company founded in 2006 with 300 employees across offices in Indianapolis, Indiana; Baltimore, Maryland; and Reston and Herndon, Virginia. For additional information about HighPoint, visit www.highpointglobal.com . Contact: Kim Miller [email protected] 703-935-5010 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ea4807b7-a62e-4ebf-9daa-d890430d4da7 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] New Ricoh research finds generational divide in the workplace to be a myth MALVERN, Pa., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh USA, Inc. today unveiled the findings of new research that shows the reality of multi-generational relationships to be more collaborative than past perceptions of conflict. According to new research commissioned by Ricoh,1 which included 1,500 respondents across the United States and Canada, 71% find a cross-generational workplace an asset to a company and 76% of those same workers enjoy working alongside colleagues of different ages. Additionally, today's workforce is more united than ever in its demand for a seismic change in the way we all conduct business in the future. It's no longer enough to measure just financial success, with employees from across the generations2 calling on businesses to be a force for good and drive positive change in the world. The reason? The line between our personal and professional worlds is blurring as technology frees us from the traditional 9-5 office set-up. The choice of our profession and how we decide to work is increasingly becoming a defining factor of who we are as individuals. This is driving employees of all ages to recognize each other's' strengths and weaknesses. For instance, more than three out of five respondents believe that a four-day work week will be more likely due to Generation Z's use of technology to be more efficient. "Today's workforce is unique, as was the workforce 20 years ago, and 20 years before that," said Donna Venable, Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Deputy General Manager, Shared Services, Ricoh Americas. "The truth is today's current workforce, which consists of more generations than ever before, is unified. We're seeing a greater understanding that no action is too small to contribute to the bigger picture and therefore a realization that the collective impact businesses can have will be significant to helping ensure a better future for generations to come. In a time of often unpleasant news, this unification is a positive statement." Other findings include: An average of 72% across all generations believe in their company's values and ideals across all generations believe in their company's values and ideals Employees are personally invested in their workplaces, with an average of 59% across all generations viewing their work as a key factor in defining who they are as a person across all generations viewing their work as a key factor in defining who they are as a person An average of 68% across all generations think the way the world does business will change dramatically in the next five to 10 years across all generations think the way the world does business will change dramatically in the next five to 10 years 65% of workers agree sustainability needs to be at the center of business and product strategies in the next five to 10 years 66% agreeing technology should play a central role in helping them work to the best of their abilities. Meanwhile, 74% believe that the best workplaces invest in digital technologies for upskilling staff. Venable adds: "It's not just the younger generations who want businesses to act. We're seeing all age groups coming together with a collective demand to incorporate more sustainable and responsible working practices, something we hold in great regard at Ricoh. This involves operating in harmony with the environment, demonstrating respect for your people as well as the wider societies in which a business operates. At Ricoh, we're doing this by embracing and taking action to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including a commitment to reducing our CO2 emissions to zero by 2050. As business leaders, we have a duty to listen to our workforce and we're hearing them loud and clear when it comes to the bigger picture." Find out more at www.ricoh-usa.com/multigenworkplace. 1 This report is based on a survey of 1,500 office-based employees across North America. The survey was conducted by Coleman Parkes and commissioned by Ricoh. 2 For reference, generations were defined by year of birth as below: Baby Boomers: 1946 1964 Generation X: 1965 1980 Generation Y: 1981 1995 Generation Z: 1996 Today | About Ricoh | Ricoh is empowering digital workplaces using innovative technologies and services enabling individuals to work smarter. For more than 80 years, Ricoh has been driving innovation and is a leading provider of document management solutions, IT services, commercial and industrial printing, digital cameras, and industrial systems. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in approximately 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ended March 2019, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,013 billion yen (approx. 18.1 billion USD). For further information, please visit www.ricoh.com 2019 Ricoh USA, Inc. All rights reserved. All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies. Contacts: John Greco Ricoh USA, Inc. (973) 882-2023 [email protected] Tracey Sheehy Breakaway Communications for Ricoh (212) 616-6003 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-ricoh-research-finds-generational-divide-in-the-workplace-to-be-a-myth-300850720.html SOURCE Ricoh USA, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Global Intelligent Pigging Market 2019-2023 | Advances in Pipeline Inspection Technologies to Boost Growth | Technavio The global intelligent pigging market is expected to post a CAGR of close to 5% during the period 2019-2023, according to the latest market research report by Technavio. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005433/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global intelligent pigging market from 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) Pipelines are the most widely used medium for the transportation of oil and natural gas and are highly essential to maintain high operational standards. Thus, many regulations, guidelines, and laws have been introduced that mandates the regular inspection of pipelines to prevent accidents, hazards, and groundwater contamination. In the US, the Federal government is primarily responsible for issuing, developing, and enforcing pipeline safety regulations. Pipeline safety laws provide states with intrastate inspection, regulatory, and enforcement responsibilities under an annual certification. Such regulations for frequent inspections of oil and gas pipelines will propel the demand for intelligent pigging during the forecast period. As per Technavio, the increasing innovations will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This global intelligent pigging market 2019-2023 research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will affect market grwth over 2019-2023. Global intelligent pigging market: Advances in pipeline inspection technologies Since the past few decades, pipeline safety has been a critical aspect of the pipeline industry. Although inspections are being done on most of the pipelines, some of them are unpiggable and inspections often fail to detect small amounts of metal loss, corrosion or minute cracks. As a result, researchers have been conducting R&D activities, which has resulted in the emergence of many innovations to eliminate this issue. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are one of those innovations that allow operators to detect problems and act before the occurrence of a significant fault event. Some of the operators are also adopting cloud technology that reduces the vast amounts of data generated through intelligent pigs into graphs, diagrams, and charts. This allows pipeline operators to run pipeline inspections smoothly and effectively. Such technological advancements will propel the growth of the intelligent pigging market during the forecast period. "Apart from the advances in pipeline inspection technologies, factors such as the increasing cross-border pipelines, growing demand for oil and natural gas, and the additional applications of intelligent pigging over traditional pigging will drive the growth of the intelligent pigging market during the forecast period," says a senior research analyst at Technavio. Global intelligent pigging market: Segmentation analysis This market research report segments the global intelligent pigging market by application (oil, and gas) and geographic regions (APAC, EMEA, and the Americas). The APAC region led the market in 2018, followed by EMEA, and the Americas respectively. The market growth in APAC can be attributed to the presence of regulations mandating periodic pipeline inspections and numerous oil and gas pipelines present in the US and Canada, that require intelligent pigging for inspection. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005433/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Katipult Announces Board Secretary Addition VANCOUVER, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Katipult Technology Corp. (TSXV: FUND and FRA:K10) ("Katipult" or the "Company"), provider of an industry leading and award-winning cloud-based software infrastructure for digitizing and automating private placements, is pleased to welcome Michael D. Sharpe as Board Secretary. "We are excited to strengthen our team with Michael whose extensive leadership experience in the financial services industry will be invaluable in our growth strategies. We look forward to leveraging his unique skill-sets as we continue to build value for our shareholders." said Brock Murray, CEO of Katipult. Michael D. Sharpe Michael is a Securities Industry Consultant located in Toronto, Ontario and has been Corporate Secretary of Solium Capital Inc. Since 2011. Mr. Sharpe was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Richardson Partners Financial Limited, an independent wealth management firm, responsible for Legal, Compliance, Credit and Internal Audit functions from 2003 to 2009. Mr. Sharpe was Vice-President, Head of Canada Compliance at CIBC from 1999 to 2001 and was responsible for all Canadian compliance functions including trading foor compliance and wealth management compliance (discount brokerage, CIBC Wood Gundy, mutual funds and trust company compliance). Mr. Sharpe was the Director of Compliance and Corporate Secretary of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and was responsible for global compliance at RBC Dominion Securities from 1991 to 1999. He joined RBC Dominion Securities in 1988 as Corporate Secretary and became Chief Compliance Officer in 1991. Mr. Sharpe was called to the bar in 1980 in Alberta and Ontario and practiced securities and corporate law in Calgary and Toronto. In connection with the appointment, the Company has granted Mr. Sharpe 40,323 restricted share units ("RSUs") in accordance with the terms of the Company's RSU Plan. The grant of RSUs is subject to approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. About Katipult Katipult (www.katipult.com) is a proprietary cloud-based software infrastructure to digitize and automate private placements, while providing best-of-breed standards for eliminating transaction redundancy, enhancing investor experience, and accelerating deal flow. We provide unparalleled adaptability for regulatory compliance, asset structure, business model, and localization requirements. We have compliant platforms in over 20 unique regulatory environments. NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS PRESS RELEASE. THIS PRESS RELEASE, REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE CANADIAN LAWS IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES, AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO SELL ANY OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN IN THE UNITED STATES, THESE SECURITIES HAVE NOT BEEN, AND WILL NOT BE, REGISTERED UNDER THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES ACT OF 1993, AS AMENDED, OR ANY SECURITIES LAWS, AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED OR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES OR U.S. PERSONS UNLESS REGISTERED OR EXEMPT THEREFROM. SOURCE Katipult Technology Corp. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] CrowdStreet Appoints Award-Winning FinTech Innovator Donna Wells to its Advisory Board PORTLAND, Ore., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CrowdStreet, Inc., a technology provider with an online marketplace for direct equity investment in commercial real estate (CRE), today announced the appointment of financial technology entrepreneur Donna Wells to its Advisory Board. The news comes on the heels of the company passing the $500 million threshold in total online investments with a record number of new individual investors. Most recently President and CEO of Mindflash Technologies, Ms. Wells was previously founding CMO for two category-defining FinTech innovators: Mint.com and MyCFO Wealth Management. She also brings to CrowdStreet her experience with four Fortune 500 companies: American Express, Charles Schwab, Intuit and Expedia, where she led US marketing for the then 3rd largest ecommerce marketplace on the internet. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of two FinTech trailblazers, Betterment and Happy Money, and on the Board of Advisors of Mitek Systems, a global leader in digital identity verification. Ms. Wells' teams have won multiple Webby Awards and recognition as a Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in Davos. She was named a Top 25 Women in Tech to Watch by Accenture, a Marketing Executive of the Year finalist by The Wall Street Journal and a Business Rol Model of the Year finalist by Information Age in 2018. "The financial services industry is rapidly democratizing," said Wells. "We're seeing it in the equity and lending markets and it's time for Commercial Real Estate, as the third largest asset class, to also become more efficient, transparent and accessible. I believe that CrowdStreet is going to be the driver of that change - making it possible for accredited investors to better diversify their portfolios with highly curated CRE investments or funds. I'm looking forward to helping the company realize its full potential as the leading online real estate investing marketplace." The Portland-based company recently made headlines for its record $75 million quarter, for reaching $11.9 billion of property value transacting through the Marketplace since inception, and for raising more than $14 million in just 24 hours for a new office development listed by developer J. Jeffers & Co. on the CrowdStreet Marketplace. "It's critical to our company's ambitious mission and vision that we have access to the top strategic minds in our industry," said CrowdStreet CEO Tore Steen. "Donna's experience is unmatched and we know her involvement will help propel CrowdStreet to market leadership in CRE and within the FinTech space, more broadly. Her track record in successful product design and marketing to high net worth women and Millennials will be particularly relevant as we continue our drive to make institutional-quality CRE offerings available to a wider group of US investors." CrowdStreet recently took home first place in the 2019 "Rising Star" Category in the annual Oregon Technology Awards. About CrowdStreet CrowdStreet operates an award-winning online commercial real estate investment marketplace that gives accredited investors access to institutional-quality offerings, allowing them to diversify their portfolios and better distribute risk. CrowdStreet technology allows sponsors to raise capital through online syndication and manage their investors, both on the Marketplace and with a SaaS solution. CrowdStreet is helping to create a community where individual accredited investors and CRE firms can work together to build wealth through commercial real estate. For more information, please visit www.crowdstreet.com. PR Contacts: Melissa Hourigan (National) Fabric Media [email protected] 720-608-1919 Cary Brazeman (Real Estate) CRELIX Marketing [email protected] 310-205-3590 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/crowdstreet-appoints-award-winning-fintech-innovator-donna-wells-to-its-advisory-board-300850408.html SOURCE CrowdStreet [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] National Geographic Unveils Exclusive, Investigative Report on the Dark Side of the Global Wildlife Tourism Industry National Geographic today has unveiled a special investigative report that takes an in-depth look at the thriving global wildlife tourism industry and exposes how the industry takes advantage of people's love of animals, often exploiting wildlife for profit from the moment they are born or captured until they die. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005608/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) "The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism," featured on the cover of the June issue of National Geographic magazine and funded by the National Geographic Society, takes readers to a number of wildlife tourism encounters around the world, offering a look behind the curtain of an industry that has long presented itself as an animal lover's fantasy. National Geographic uncovers that the reality the animals experience when the photo-snapping crowds head home can be one of extreme suffering and solitude. In reporting the feature, National Geographic writer Natasha Daly, along with photojournalist Kirsten Luce, traversed the globe to secure a behind-the-scenes look at this lucrative segment of the booming global travel industry, visiting wildlife tourism facilities in Thailand, Russia, the U.S. and the Amazon. In many of these locales, wildlife tourism attractions leverage an increased demand for riding elephants; posing with tigers, bears and sloths; and more to lure visitors from around the world - and it's working. International travel has doubled over the past 15 years, and social media is setting the wildlife tourism industry ablaze. "The wildlife tourism industry clearly caters to people's genuine love of animals, and the industry's economy depends largely on people believing that the animals they're paying to watch, ride or feed are having fun too," says Daly. "But what we found in our reporting is that this is rarely the case. Instead, many businesses that have been bolstered by an increased demand for animal encounters seek to maximize their profits - and to do so, they're exploiting animals from birth to death." Well-meaning endorsements from friends and trendsetters - especially on social media - legitimize potentially harmful and unethical attractions before travelers even arrive at these businesses that profit on the suffering of animals. At the same time, selfies of tiger encounters, elephant rides and more offer viral advertising for attractions that tout up-close exotic animal experiences - so much so that from 2014 to 2016 the number of wildlife selfies posted on Instagram alone nearly quadrupled. But, for all the visibility social media provides, it rarely illustrates the animal abuse that often happens beyond the view of the camera lens. "Nowhere is humans' profound love of animals more apparent than at National Geographic, where photos of animals are among the most 'liked' by our social media followers, stories about animals drive significant traffic across our website and animals are prominent in the pages of our magazine," says Susan Goldberg, editor-in-chif of National Geographic. "But, as our reporting found, too often this industry takes advantage of people's love of animals. In sharing this reporting, we hope this complicated but important topic gets the attention it deserves." National Geographic's reporting includes practical advice for travelers who want to experience close encounters with wildlife, but in humane and ethical ways. See "How to Do Wildlife Tourism Right" from the June issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine, available online HERE, offering practical guidelines for travelers. To accompany "The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism," National Geographic has produced a 13-minute documentary, "Inside the Dark World of Captive Wildlife Tourism." The behind-the-scenes footage illustrates Daly's reporting and reactions in real time as she witnesses firsthand the animal abuse often facilitated by the industry. View the documentary HERE. The documentary will also be available on set-top box video on demand and TV Everywhere platforms, including the Nat Geo App and on NatGeoTV.com. In addition, National Geographic will be enacting a social media campaign, encouraging audiences to help educate others about these wildlife tourism practices and make informed choices. Follow along using #NatGeoWildlifeTourism and see our social toolkit for more information, including a shareable photo, HERE. Instagram Stories will make use of the new donation feature recently introduced on the platform, allowing fans to help fund the journalism that brings issues like the exploitation of wildlife to light (donate.ngs.org/wildlife-watch). The story was reported by Daly for Wildlife Watch, an investigative journalism project funded by the nonprofit National Geographic Society that reports on wildlife crime and exploitation. By covering critical topics in the illegal wildlife trade, this project shines a light on the commercial-scale exploitation of wildlife and other valued resources, identifies weaknesses in national and international efforts to protect wildlife, and empowers institutions and individuals working to save at-risk species. "Wildlife Tourism" is available online now at natgeo.com/wildlifetourism and on print newsstands May 28. FOR MEDIA: ***Interview and visuals available*** Link to National Geographic magazine "The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism" cover story Link to mini-documentary Link to "How to Do Wildlife Tourism Right" guide Link to Editor-in-Chief Susan Goldberg's editor's letter about the cover story Link to media toolkit here ABOUT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between Disney (News - Alert) and the National Geographic Society, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographic's media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children's media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 131 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers and reaching millions of people around the world in 172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005608/en/ [May 15, 2019] Northleaf Expands Business Development Team with the Addition of Sophia Damianou as a Managing Director in London Northleaf Capital Partners (Northleaf), a leading global private markets investment firm, is pleased to announce the appointment of Sophia Damianou as Managing Director, Business Development, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). In her new role, Sophia will lead Northleaf's business development and investor relations activities from the firm's London office, further developing relationships with institutional investors, consultants and advisors across the EMEA region. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005273/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) "We are delighted to welcome Sophia to the Northleaf team," said Jeff Pentland, Managing Director and Head of Business Development at Northleaf. "As our first London-based business development executive, Sophia brings the content-driven, consultative fundraising and relationship-building expertise that will be integral to the ongoing expansion of our activities in Europe." Prior to joining Northleaf, Sophia was most recently with CapeView Capital, a London-based alternative asset manager, where she was Director of Marketing with gloal sales coverage responsibility across all of the company's products. Previously, Sophia managed the business development strategy for new markets in the EMEA region at Mesirow Financial, an international financial services firm. Sophia began her career on the capital introductions team at Credit Suisse. Sophia holds an MBA (Finance) from Columbia Business School and an M.Sc. (Law and Economics) from the London School of Economics. Northleaf recently announced that it had raised additional capital for its global private mid-market investment program and now manages more than US$12 billion in private equity, private credit and infrastructure commitments on behalf of institutional and family office investors in Canada, Europe, the United States and Asia. Northleaf's team includes more than 130 professionals across offices in Toronto, Montreal, London, New York, Chicago, Menlo Park and Melbourne. Northleaf's global portfolio includes more than 350 active investments in 34 countries, with a focus on mid-market companies and assets. "I am excited to further develop Northleaf's footprint in Europe and the Middle East, and to execute the firm's customized, high-end client servicing strategy," said Sophia. "This is a very compelling opportunity to enhance Northleaf's position as a top-calibre institutional asset manager worldwide." About Northleaf Capital Partners Northleaf Capital Partners is an independent global private markets fund manager with more than US$12 billion in private equity, private credit and infrastructure commitments under management on behalf of public, corporate and multi-employer pension plans, endowments, foundations, financial institutions and family offices. Northleaf's 130-person team, located in Toronto, Montreal, London, New York, Chicago, Menlo Park and Melbourne, is focused exclusively on sourcing, evaluating and managing private markets investments globally. Northleaf's portfolio includes more than 350 active investments in 34 countries, with a focus on mid-market companies and assets. Northleaf currently manages seven global private equity funds, two specialist global private equity secondaries funds, three global private credit funds, three direct OECD-focused infrastructure funds and a series of customized investment mandates tailored to meet the specific needs of institutional investors and family offices. For more information on Northleaf, please visit www.northleafcapital.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005273/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Tecore's Managed Access System To Replace Cellular Jamming In New Zealand Tecore (News - Alert) Networks, a global supplier of innovative wireless network infrastructure, announced that its iNACTM Managed Access System (MAS) has been selected by Spark New Zealand for the provision of a "Managed Cellular Communication" service to combat the use of contraband cell phones in New Zealand correctional institutions. After extensive evaluation by Spark industry experts, Tecore's existing Maryland-based MAS deployments served as a test-bed and case model in efficacy leading up to this contract award. Under the New Zealand (NZ) Corrections Act it's an offense for an inmate to use an unauthorized cell phone. NZ's wireless carriers were requested to identify and propose a solution to detect and prevent illicit use of cell phones within the country's correctional institutions. To date, cellular jamming has been the approach of choice. However, cellular jamming is no longer reliable in today's wireless landscape due to out-of-band interference and the inability to manage changes in cellular bands used by wireless carriers. Spark, one of the largest companies in New Zealand and the leading provider of fixed line, mobile network, and internet coverage, has been selected to provide its proposed Tecore's iNAC Managed Access System. The deployment of the iNAC system epresents a collaborative effort between Tecore and Spark to provide a more effective and intelligent Cellular Interdiction System than the legacy jamming system. "It's rewarding to know our technology is being used internationally in partnership with world-class wireless carriers. Through Spark's forward thinking leadership, the implementation of our modern approach against contraband cell phones is sure to provide the more robust and flexible solution that is needed to combat this persistent issue," said Jay Salkini, Founder and CEO of Tecore Networks. "When we initially developed MAS, it was offered as a legal alternative to cellular jamming in the United States for use in correctional institutions. As the efficacy of the iNAC MAS has been proven across wireless technology generations and frequency bands, we continue to receive interest from countries that have used jamming, which is a testament to the effectiveness and added benefits of MAS technology." Tecore's iNAC MAS addresses many of the known issues of cellular jamming and micro-jamming systems while preventing unauthorized communications. The iNAC: Provides a targeted radio frequency (RF) umbrella over the facility, limiting the risk of interference with the commercial spectrum and general public's rights and lawful usage of their mobile devices. Provides enhanced communications for emergency services including E911 and authorized personnel; Provides the system operator the ability to obtain device and call information for forensic analysis, consistent with applicable law; Provides comprehensive and consistent coverage of 2G, 3G, 4G and is 5G-ready to support deployments by incremental remote and on-site system updates; Tecore Networks looks forward to partnering with wireless carriers like Spark NZ to provide this best in-class solution to combat the pervasive contraband cell phone epidemic. To learn more about Tecore's iNAC Managed Access Solutions please visit: www.tecore.com/managed-access/ About Spark New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited (formerly Telecom New Zealand (News - Alert)) is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed line telephone services, a mobile network, an internet service provider, and a major ICT provider to NZ businesses (through its Spark Digital division). It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Telecom New Zealand was formed in 1987 from a division of the New Zealand Post Office and privatized in 1990. About Tecore Founded in 1991, Tecore Networks is a global supplier of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G-ready wireless network infrastructure and the inventor of Managed Access technology. Today, Tecore delivers innovative and game-changing products as one of the largest manufacturers of government and public safety deployable wireless solutions. These robust hardware and software platforms have integrated into numerous critical government environments and communications systems creating secure mobile networks. Tecore Networks is ISO 9001 certified. For more information, visit www.tecore.com Copyright 2019 Tecore, Inc. All rights reserved. Tecore Networks, Tecore and the stylized Tecore Networks logo are registered trademarks of Tecore, Inc. INACTM is a trademark of Tecore, Inc. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005619/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Seasoned Product Management and Marketing Executive Joins Markel Corporation Markel Corporation, the leading industrial technology manufacturing company making fluoropolymer-based products, today announced John Coogan as the company's Head of Product Management and Marketing. In this newly defined role, Coogan leads all strategic product and marketing efforts, with an emphasis on market growth and profit optimization. He is focused on identifying new opportunities to expand the product set to meet customer needs across a variety of industries. Coogan joins Markel from The Neat Company where, in his role as Director of Product Management, he redefined the market strategy and product roadmap to bolster the company's strategic pivot from hardware devices to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) small business solutions. In prior roles, Coogan was a product management and marketing leader at several business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) technology companies including Universal Instruments Corp., Motorola (News - Alert) Inc. and CertainTeed Corporation. "Finding a product leader was one of my highest priorities when defining Markel's strategic plan and direction," said Jon Kirchner, President and Chief Executive Officer at Markel Corporation. "Finding one with John's credentials and experience was spot-on for our needs and opportunities. A practitioner in the industries in which we serve andpartner, he is uniquely adept at understanding our customers' challenges and needs. John has had a big impact on our business in a very short period of time with his approach to customer and market engagement." Headquartered in Pennsylvania, the company is a subsidiary of Alliance Holdings and is an employee-owned business. Markel is an industrial technology manufacturing company making PTFE and other fluoropolymer-based products for global customers in the automotive, heavy machinery, transportation, aerospace, electronics, telecommunications, chemical separation and fluid filtration industries. A pioneer in the use of high-performance fluoropolymer solutions, Markel has combined proprietary manufacturing processes and patented technology to become a solution-oriented partner to a global customer base. "Markel is best known for delivering high quality, fluoropolymer-based cable and wiring solutions to the automotive industry, but that just scratches the surface of what we offer from a total portfolio perspective," said Coogan. "In addition to automotive, our product offerings address critical needs across many other industries and end-product applications. Our goal is to grow our core business with best-in-class products, while concurrently expanding to emerging markets by leveraging our core competencies." About Markel Corporation: Markel Corporation reimagines manufacturing. Established in 1922, Markel Corporation is an industrial technology manufacturing company making PTFE and fluoropolymer-based products with a long legacy of product innovation with more than 50 patents. Known for exceptional customer service, Markel serves customers in over 20 countries, from its corporate headquarters in Plymouth Meeting, PA, and dedicated locations across Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.markelcorporation.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005094/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Forney LP names Scott Grumski to key platform development post PITTSBURGH, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Forney LP, the premier supplier of construction material testing equipment, has appointed Scott Grumski Vice President of Platform Development. (Quote from Jeff Dziki, CEO): "ForneyVault is sensational new technology that improves productivity and provides surety to the construction materials testing process. It's been well received by the marketplace, and it represents the future of material testing. Therefore, I'm happy to announce that Scott Grumski, formerly our Chief Engineer, has agreed to assume the duties of Vice President of Platform Development. In this role, he'll be responsible for all aspects of this automated, integrated platform: customer facing, test equipment and third party software access and integration. Scott played a key role in the development of our automatic machine line, as well as ForneyVault. I can think of no one better qualified to lead this effort. " Construction material testing is critical and often time sensitive. Tests must not only be performed properly, to protocol, but at the right time. Laboratories employ homegrown, laor intensive methods to assure compliance, but those methods can breakdown, and definitely aren't scalable. They usually provide little beyond hand written documentation to verify that compliance. ForneyVault provides an auditable, unalterable record of test results: assuring end users, AND, providing critical authenticity for the test lab. ForneyVault isn't simply a standalone package. Owing to the unique, platform nature of its design, ForneyVault can interface with market leading LIMS and ERP systems, support diverse needs of manufacturers like precast or batch plants, and integrate with other test protocols like concrete maturity test methods. To date, ForneyVault is supporting or developing interfaces with eight 3rd party software systems, with more continually added. To learn more about this and other fascinating technical advances at Forney contact us at 1.800.367.6397 or [email protected] or visit us at www.forneyonline.com About Forney LP: Forney LP is a material testing equipment innovator and distributor based in Zelienople, PA with additional facilities in Aurora, CO. Forney focuses on material testing equipment for cementitious materials like cement, mortar, grout, and concrete for the construction industry, downhole cement and proppant materials for oil and gas industries, and general metals testing. Forney sells to over 75 countries worldwide. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/forney-lp-names-scott-grumski-to-key-platform-development-post-300850728.html SOURCE Forney LP [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Laser Sensor Market Worth $863 Million by 2024 - Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets CHICAGO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report on the "Laser Sensor Market by Offering (Hardware & Software and Services), Type (Compact and Ultra-Compact), Application (Manufacturing Plant Management & Automation and Security & Surveillance), End-user Industry, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2024", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Laser Sensor Market is estimated to grow from USD 535 million in 2019 to USD 863 million by 2024; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.0%. Major factors driving the market growth include the advent of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, increased government initiatives toward automation, and high demand for laser sensors in the food manufacturing industry. Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=22322685 Hardware & software segment to hold largest share during forecast period Manufacturing inspection applications require sensors to solve demanding measurement and quality control tasks, whereas previously, inspection applications required the simple presence and absence detection of an object. Laser sensors can be used on multiple materials, reflective surfaces, and colors, allowing manufacturers to collect continuous measurements involving applications with moving processes, stamped or machine parts, and soft or sticky parts across multiple end-user industries, such as transportation, food & beverages, aviation, and electronics manufacturing. The laser sensor market has been gaining momentum majorly due to the increasing focus of players on smart and miniature products, coupled with the designs responsive to modern production techniques, which helps improve the overall product reliability. Manufacturing plant management and automation application to witness fastest growth during forecast period The major application of laser sensors is automation and production control, as well as measurements of displacement, distance, and positioning, etc., which led to high adoption of laser sensors across manufacturing plant management and automation applications. The reason behind the increased adoption of an iproved and enhanced range of laser sensors in the automated plants of automotive and food & beverages industries is to ensure high accuracy in measurement of dimensions such as height, diameter, and thickness. Laser sensors are also useful in monitoring and measurement tasks in factory automation, electronics manufacturing, and vehicle construction. APAC is expected to hold the largest market size of laser sensor market during forecast period APAC is estimated to account for the largest share of the market in 2019. The region has been dominating the laser sensor market by accounting for the largest market size due to the increasing demand from the automotive sector, and the region has plans to have advanced integration capabilities and reach digitization levels approximately up to 80% by 2020. As a result, it would enable increased levels of automation, implementation of Industry 4.O in the automotive sector in the region. Browse in-depth TOC on "Laser Sensor Market" 71 Tables 52 Figures 149 Pages Request Sample pages of the Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=22322685 Key players in the laser sensor market include KEYENCE CORPORATION (Japan), Micro-Epsilon (Germany), ifm electronic (Germany), Rockwell Automation, Inc. (US), Panasonic Corporation (US), OMRON Corporation (Japan), SmartRay GmbH (Germany), Schmitt Industries, Inc. (US), Banner Engineering Corp. (US), Baumer Electric AG (Switzerland), and LAP GmbH Laser Applications (Germany), among others. Please Explore Relevant Reports: IO-Link Market by Component (IO-Link Masters and IO-Link Devices), Application (Machine Tool, Handling & Assembly Automation, Packaging, Intralogistics), Industry (Discrete, Hybrid, and Process), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023 Optical Sensing Market by Industry (Aerospace & Defense, Utilities, Oil & Gas, Medical, Construction, and Consumer Electronics), Application, Method, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023 About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/laser-sensor-market.asp Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Great American Life Expands Registered Investment Advisor Support with Customer Relationship Management Integration and Electronic Delivery Great American Life's commitment to make annuities easily accessible to registered investment advisors (RIAs) remains strong with the launch of two new technology solutions. The latest solutions include Client Relationship Management (CRM) integration and the electronic delivery of contracts. The new CRM capabilities allow advisors to import client information into the company's electronic application system with ease. Electronic delivery further expedites the new business process by delivering annuity contracts within 24 hours of activation. "One of the biggest challenges with integrating annuities into the RIA market is the perception of complexity. That's why, at Great American, we believe success comes from simplicity. We are making processes easier and more streamlined for advisors and their clients," said Tony Compton (News - Alert), Divisional Vice President of Broker/Dealer and RIA Sales, Great American Life. "It's imperative to provide technology and support that allow the products to seamlessly integrate with a fee-based portfolio. Additionally, advisors want transparent products with strong guarantees and no surprises." Compton continued, "We're making all of that happen, and we'll continue our mission to be a leader in developing new technology that brings annuities to the RIA world." Since launching the industry's first fee-based annuity in 2017, Great American Life has introduced several other technology solutions to support RIA needs: State-of-the-art tools and resources Thousands of advisors have visited GreatAmericanRIA.com to explore innovative tools and resources that illustrate the potential benefits of including a fee-based annuity in their clients' portfolios. One of the site's most popular features is a Portfolio Simulator, which allows advisors to build a hypothetical portfolio and analyze the impact of adding a fee-based annuity. Streamlined new business process Quick AppSM is Great American's electronic application system that was designed specifically for RIAs. It allows advisors to quickly complete the application process, pre-populating information and providing real-time alerts to help eliminate the chance of errors. Expansive data integration Knowing the importance of reporting and data in the RIA space, Great American has built relationships with many of the top financial planning, portfolio management and reporting software companies, as well as data aggregation platforms, including Orion, Quovo, eMoney, EnvestNet, Tamarac and more. These relationships allow advisors to receive detailed annuity values within the same software they are already using to manage client portfolios. About Great American Insurance Group The annuity operations of Great American Insurance Group (GAIG) offer retirement solutions through the sale of traditional fixed, fixed-indexed and variable-indexed annuities in the retail, broker-dealer, financial institutions, registered investment advisor and education markets. Annuity subsidiaries include Great American Life Insurance Company and Annuity Investors Life Insurance Company. GAIG's roots go back to 1872 with the founding of its flagship company, Great American Insurance Company. The members of GAIG are subsidiaries of American Financial Group, Inc. (AFG). AFG's common stock is listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFG. AFG is a Fortune 500 Company with assets of approximately $65 billion. Learn more at GAIG.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005636/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Monroe Expands Ride Control Coverage for More Than 375,000 Passenger Vehicles MONROE, Mich., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Automotive service professionals and consumers can now rely on Monroe Quick-Strut assemblies and other premium Monroe ride control components when repairing an expanded range of Ford, Lincoln, Nissan and Subaru models. Monroe now offers 10 additional Quick-Strut assemblies, one new OESpectrum shock absorber and a Monroe suspension conversion kit that together cover more than 370,000 registered passenger vehicles across the U.S. and Canada. The latest premium Monroe parts include Quick-Strut assemblies for 2013 Ford Focus (front), 2013 Nissan Sentra (front) and 2002-2003 Subaru Impreza (rear) model; and an OESpectrum rear shock for 2011-2017 Nissan Leaf models. Assembled in Paragould, Ark., Monroe Quick-Strut assemblies feature the precisely engineered components necessary to complete a high-quality strut replacement. These include a premium Monroe strut technology tuned and tested for original-equipment (OE) style ride and handling; vehicle-specific coil spring technology featuring U.S.-grade steel and corresponding OE-equivalent spring design; premium, OE-style upper strut mount and bearing plate; and other high-quality components. Monroe OESpectrum shocks feature the company's latest global OE valving technologies and are designed with the right technology specific to each application for added control and reduced ride harshness. The new Monroe conversion kit enables customers to convert the rear air suspensions on 1997-2002 Lincoln Continental models to mechanical coil spring suspensions. The kit includes the detailed instructions and necessary parts and hardware for a superior fit and trouble-free installation. "Monroe offers leading-edge technologies combined with outstanding coverage of domestic and import vehicles," said Joe Robinson, director, Ride Control Product Management, Americas. "Our aggressive investment in new-product coverage underscores our commitment to the success of the thousands of front-line professionals who specify and install Monroe on a daily basis." Monroe premium ride control products, including Quick-Strut assemblies and OESpectrum shocks and struts, are covered by the brand's limited lifetime warranty and "Feel the Difference" Guarantee money-back consumer offer. Visit www.monroe.com for details. To learn more about Monroe ride control products, visit www.monroe.com or contact a Monroe supplier. Connect with Monroe at Facebook.com/MonroeShocks, Twitter.com/MonroeShocks and Instagram.com/MonroeShocks. About DRiVTM - the future Aftermarket and Ride Performance Company Following Tenneco Inc.'s (NYSE: TEN) expected separation to form two new, independent companies, an Aftermarket and Ride Performance company (DRiV) as well as a new Powertrain Technology company, DRiV will be one of the largest global multi-line, multi-brand aftermarket companies, and one of the largest global OE ride performance and braking companies. DRiV's principal product brands will feature Monroe, Ohlins Walker, Clevite Elastomers, MOOG, Fel-Pro, Wagner, Ferodo, Champion and others. DRiV would have 2018 pro-forma revenues of $6.4 billion, with 54% of those revenues from aftermarket and 46% from original equipment customers. Safe Harbor This release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements relating to our plans to separate into two independent public companies. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those described in the forward-looking statements, including the possibility that Tenneco may not complete the spin-off of the Aftermarket & Ride Performance business from the Powertrain Technology business (or achieve some or all of the anticipated benefits of such a spin-off); the possibility that the acquisition of Federal-Mogul or the separation may have an adverse impact on existing arrangements with Tenneco, including those related to transition, manufacturing and supply services and tax matters; the ability to retain and hire key personnel and maintain relationships with customers, suppliers or other business partners; the risk that the benefits of the acquisition of Federal-Mogul or the separation, including synergies, may not be fully realized or may take longer to realize than expected; the risk that the acquisition of Federal-Mogul or the separation may not advance Tenneco's business strategy; the risk that Tenneco may experience difficulty integrating all employees or operations; the potential diversion of Tenneco management's attention resulting from the separation; as well as the risk factors and cautionary statements included in Tenneco's periodic and current reports (Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K) filed from time to time with the SEC. Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. Unless otherwise indicated, the forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date of this communication, and, except as required by law, Tenneco does not undertake any obligation, and disclaims any obligation, to publicly disclose revisions or updates to any forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding these risk factors and uncertainties is detailed from time to time in the company's SEC filings, including but not limited to its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. CONTACT: Karen Shulhan (Federal-Mogul Motorparts) 248.354.4383 [email protected] Drew Shippy (Pinnacle Media) 330.688.3500 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/monroe-expands-ride-control-coverage-for-more-than-375-000-passenger-vehicles-300850793.html SOURCE Tenneco Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Class Action Seeks to End Illegal and Abusive Restraints and Seclusion Practices Used Against Children with Disabilities in California Four elementary school children with disabilities and their parents and guardians filed a class action lawsuit Monday against the California Department of Education (CDE), directors of the Contra Costa County Office of Education, and staff at Floyd I. Marchus School to challenge the illegal and abusive use of restraints and seclusion in non-emergency situations. The children assert that these abuses are the direct consequence of the state of California and the CDE's failure to meet their constitutional responsibility for public education by their lack of oversight, intervention, and enforcement of these dangerous interventions. "No child - particularly ones with disabilities - should be restrained and secluded by their school, as it traumatizes them," said Michael Steinberg, a partner at the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP that is representing the students and families pro bono. "This lawsuit is about stopping illegal and abusive restraints and seclusion in our schools and to hold accountable those who permit the practices to occur." This class action, the first of its kind in California state court, is brought by current and former Marchus students on behalf of themselves and a class of similarly situated students and their guardians. While attending Marchus, the elementary-age Plaintiffs were repeatedly subjected to abusive, dangerous, and trauma-inducing restraints and seclusion in non-emergency situations, including being thrown against the wall, pressed into the floor, and routinely subjected to inappropriate and punitive segregation. The use of extreme behavioral interventions and dishonest record keeping at Marchus has resulted in these young students suffering from physical harm, severe emotional distress, developmental disruption, educational deprivation, and reputational consequences. "My daughter was picked up and thrown against a wall with her legs pulled apart and her head bent towards the floor for throwing a half-empty water bottle in the general direction of a Marchus staff member," said Elyse K., parent of two of the representative Plaintiffs. "This reality is not only horrifying, but unmistakably present and heartbreakingly real at Marchus. There are so many parents who do not even know that schools like Marchus are still using what is essentially corporal punishment. I plead for all parents to think about their children and demand more from our state to end this abuse now." "Our Plaintiffs have been segregated in a school that promises to correct student behaviors, but instead subjects them to controlling, punitive restraints that set students back further," reminds Arlne B. Mayerson, Directing Attorney of Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF). "Attempting to control behavior through restraint, seclusion and fear is dangerous, ineffective and counterproductive. It must be exposed and stopped. DREDF's work over four decades, advocating for disabled children and their families, has never been more critical to ensure that disabled students receive equal educational opportunities." This lawsuit asks the court to hold the Defendants accountable for allowing these young students to be subjected to these practices, and to ensure that these students receive the education to which they are entitled, in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their needs, free from the threat of assault, battery, and trauma. "There should be no safer place in the world for children than their school. But in California, for all too many children with disabilities, their schools are chambers of pain and terror, where unregulated practices of restraints and seclusion do grave physical and traumatic harm," said Mark Rosenbaum, Director of Opportunity Under Law, the impact litigation team at Public Counsel. "The state of California lacks any program of oversight, intervention and enforcement to effectively detect and stop such practices, resulting in not just denial of equal educational opportunities, but the endangering of the lives and well-being of children who all too often internalize the barbaric acts against them as statements from adults that they are deserving of the abuse to which they are subjected. Our suit is filed to rid all California schools of these brutal practices that place children in physical or psychological fear." Physicians, educators, and government officials have long condemned the use of restraints and seclusion on children, identifying them as ineffective and warning against their traumatizing and dangerous effects. A 2009 report from the United States Government Accountability Office documented hundreds of cases of the use of abusive restraints and found that at least twenty of these cases resulted in the victim's death. Further, these restraints disproportionately affect students with disabilities. According to a 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Education, students with disabilities represented just 12 percent of the national student population, but accounted for 58 percent of those placed in seclusion and 75 percent of those subjected to physical restraint. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education announced that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), in partnership with the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), will provide technical assistance and support to schools and their districts to oversee any inappropriate use of restraint and seclusion in schools. The complaint is available here: http://www.publiccounsel.org/tools/assets/files/1169.pdf ABOUT About the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF): Founded in 1979, DREDF is a leading national civil rights law and policy center directed by individuals with disabilities and parents who have children with disabilities that works to advance the civil and human rights of people with disabilities through legal advocacy, training, education, and public policy and legislative development. Learn more about DREDF's work at dredf.org About Public Counsel: Public Counsel is the nation's largest pro bono law firm - advancing impact litigation, pursuing legislative change, and providing direct legal services that reach more than 30,000 people every year in California and across the nation. Founded in 1970, Public Counsel strives to achieve three main goals: protect the legal rights of disadvantaged children; represent immigrants who have been the victims of torture, persecution, domestic violence, trafficking, and other crimes; and foster economic justice by providing individuals and institutions in underserved communities with access to quality legal representation. Learn more: www.publiccounsel.org View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005290/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Shrinking Student Loan Debt: MassMutual Introduces Student Loan Repayment and Management Programs for the Workplace As student loan debt reaches epidemic proportions, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) is introducing a new student loan repayment and management program for the workplace as part of a broader financial wellness initiative. MassMutual is making a student loan program available to employers through Tuition.io, the leading platform for student loan contributions, to help workers better manage and reduce their indebtedness. The student loan program is available through MapMyFinances, MassMutual's new workplace financial and benefits planning tool, to help workers assess and balance their short- and long-term financial needs. "More than 40 million Americans are burdened by a total of $1.5 trillion in student loan debt1, which amounts to an average of $37,000 in outstanding indebtedness per worker upon graduation2," said Tina Wilson, Head of MassMutual's Investment Solutions Innovation. "Carrying such a heavy debt burden makes it difficult for many people to address other financial needs, particularly saving for retirement." "Companies that want to attract the newer generations of workers should consider that 51 percent of young employees said help with student loan repayments would be their most important benefit3," said Scott Thompson, CEO of Tuition.io. "A student loan benefit can also encourage employees to stay at the company longer, and build stronger company loyalty." The Tuition.io program provides two levels of support for student loan indebtedness, both of which help borrowers better manage their student debt, including one that allows employers to provide financial assistance to extinguish debts. The student loan repayment option available through Tuition.io is called "Student Loan Contributions" and allows employers to make payments towards an employee's student loan indebtedness. Some employers elect to provide student loan repayment assistance to employees with the goal of enhancing their employees' overall financial wellness and freeing up money for longer-term financial goals such as saving for retirement, according to Thompson. Employers can also choose to make payments towards student loans that parents have taken out for their children, known as Parent PLUS loans. Additionally the Tuition.io student loan wellness section of the portal helps borrowers manage their debt by creating a consolidated summary of all student loans for each participating employee by pulling in data from multiple loans and loan servicers. The Tuition.io platform works with every US loan servicer - including both federal and privately held loans -- to generate automatic real-time updates whenever loan payments are made. With all loan data available in one place, employees can more easily model different loan repayment options as well as determine if paying extra to cerain loan providers can potentially save on the amount of interest paid in the long run. Employees can also more easily assess whether refinancing makes sense for their personal situation. The student loan wellness section of the portal can be made available to eligible employees' family members as well to provide the same loan management tools and capabilities. Once the Student Loan solution has been elected by an employer and implemented through Tuition.io, MassMutual integrates the program as part of its MapMyFinances financial wellness tool. Employees can use the tool to add student debt repayment to their financial "To Do" list and use an actionable link to Tuition.io's employee online experience, leveraging single sign-on from MapMyFinances. The student loan program has a cost associated with it. Tuition.io helps employers project both the program and loan repayment potential costs, and weigh them against the projected benefits. "The thousands of dollars in student loans that many Americans shoulder is proving to be a real barrier to financial wellness, both in the short and long term," Wilson said. "MassMutual is introducing Tuition.io to workplace customers as part of our overall mission to enhance the financial wellness of all Americans." About Tuition.io Tuition.io is the nation's leading employee benefit platform empowering employers to better attract, retain and engage their next generation of talent who are saddled with stifling student debt, by helping their employees reduce and better manage their student loan burden. Tuition.io works with companies of all sizes, from Fortune 500 companies such as Live Nation, Staples (News - Alert) and Estee Lauder Companies, to healthcare companies including Children's Hospital & Medical Center of Omaha and Mosaic Life Care, as well as public entities such as the City of Memphis. Tuition.io is on a mission to provide an impactful solution for employers and employees across the country. For more information, visit www.tuition.io or follow us at @Tuitionio. About MassMutual MassMutual is a leading mutual life insurance company that is run for the benefit of its members and participating policyowners. MassMutual offers a wide range of financial products and services, including life insurance, disability income insurance, long term care insurance, annuities, retirement plans and other employee benefits. For more information, visit www.massmutual.com. 12018, Student Loan Debt Statistics in 2018: A $1.5 Trillion (News - Alert) Crisis, https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-loan-debt-statistics-2018/#153e84c57310 22017, Population Distribution by Age, https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-age/ (US Population in relation estimate of number of people between 22 and 65 in relation to the 44 million figure above) 32017, American Student Assistance Study, https://d9jmqzwnxk1s1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/14141823/asa_young_worker_and_student_debt_survey_report-1.pdf Tuition.io is not intended to be part of an employee benefit plan covered by ERISA and is not related to the employer's retirement plan. Tuition.io is a separate benefit for an employer to implement that can be integrated into MassMutual's Financial Wellness experience. Student loan "contributions" represent additional loan payments made from the employer to the employee's loan provider, and in no way relate to contributions to a retirement plan. RS-46817-00 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005586/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Financial Services IT Management Expert Kim Bozzella Joins Protiviti MENLO PARK, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kim Bozzella has joined global consulting firm Protiviti as a managing director and leader of technology consulting for the financial services industry. Based in the firm's New York City office, Bozzella also leads the firm's Technology Strategy and Operations practice. She brings more than 25 years of deep financial services sector experience, including managing large global organizations and implementing multi-phased programs across IT management, operational risk management, business transformation and organizational design. Prior to joining Protiviti, Bozzella served as global head of technology risk management and head of technology in the Americas at UBS. Her previous roles at UBS included serving as CIO of Corporate Technology, COO of UBS Group Technology and global head of IT Security and Strategic Programs. Earlier in her career, Bozzella was a partner in the financial services practice of Accenture. "Our financial services clients are currently facing unprecedented levels of change, especially in the IT function, and are looking to Protiviti t provide advanced and innovative solutions for managing the adoption of new technologies and inherent risks," said Ron Lefferts, managing director and global leader of Protiviti's Technology Consulting practice. "Kim's wealth of expertise provides invaluable guidance in helping clients transform their business to meet the demands of their customers and shareholders." Bozzella holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Lehigh University. About Protiviti Protiviti (www.protiviti.com) is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach and unparalleled collaboration to help leaders confidently face the future. Through its network of more than 80 offices in over 20 countries, Protiviti and its independently owned Member Firms provide clients with consulting solutions in finance, technology, operations, data, analytics, governance, risk and internal audit. Named to the 2019 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list, Protiviti has served more than 60 percent of Fortune 1000 and 35 percent of Fortune Global 500 companies. The firm also works with smaller, growing companies, including those looking to go public, as well as with government agencies. Protiviti is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Half (NYSE: RHI). Founded in 1948, Robert Half is a member of the S&P 500 index. Protiviti is not licensed or registered as a public accounting firm and does not issue opinions on financial statements or offer attestation services. Editor's note: Photos available upon request. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/financial-services-it-management-expert-kim-bozzella-joins-protiviti-300850596.html SOURCE Protiviti [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Tianjin to host the third World Intelligence Congress to explore smart new era TIANJIN, China, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ -- The third World Intelligence Congress (WIC) will be held in the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in north China's Tianjin Municipality between May 16 and 19. The four-day event themed "Intelligence New Era: Progress, Planning and Opportunity" includes a series of activities such as forums, exhibitions, competitions, and intelligent experiences, and will showcase the city's smart solutions and application scenarios. The congress will be open to professional visitors for the first two days and open to the general public for the last two, according to the municipal government. Positioned as a high-level, mainstream, international and unique event, the congress has invited over 300 international guests from 40 countries an regions including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan, who will attend the congress' two main forums and 16 sideline ones. Five competitions will be held during the WIC, including the World Intelligence Underwater Robot Challenge, the World Intelligence Driving Challenge, the China (Tianjin) Industrial App Innovation & Application Competition 2019 and the China Hualu Cup Open Data Innovation and Application Competition. Participants can also enjoy intelligent activities such as robot interaction, smart city experience scenes and self-driving car test rides during conferences, exhibitions, and contests. Image Attachments Links: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=335922 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tianjin-to-host-the-third-world-intelligence-congress-to-explore-smart-new-era-300849377.html SOURCE Tianjin Municipal Government [May 15, 2019] Wyoming Virtual Academy to Hold Commencement Ceremony on May 18 Wyoming Virtual Academy (WYVA) will celebrate the 45 members of its Class of 2019 at an in-person commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 18 in Lusk. A tuition-free online public school program of Niobrara County School District #1, WYVA is available to students across the state. "Graduation is an incredible time for our students, and their families," said Joseph Heywood, WYVA's Academic Administrator. "We are honored to have provided them with an online learning platform that met their needs, and they should be proud of all they have done to accomplish their academic and personal goals." WYVA graduates earn their high school diplomas in an online, personalized learning environment. Following graduation, members of the Class of 2019 report plans to enroll in two- and four-year colleges and universities, enter military service, or join the full-time workforce. Senator Affie Ellis will deliver the commencement's keynote address. "Congratulations to the Wyoming Virtual Acdemy Class of 2019," said Senator Ellis. "Your high school diploma recognizes all of your hard work, and by graduating from an online public school, you represent every student in Wyoming who has benefitted from having access to the school of their choice." WYVA students access a robust online curriculum in the core subjects and a host of electives, and attend live virtual classes taught by state-licensed teachers. WYVA also offers student clubs, field trips and social outings to foster a sense of school community, such as this week's graduation celebration. Details of the ceremony are as follows: WHAT: Wyoming Virtual Academy 2019 Graduation Ceremony WHEN: Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. WHERE: Niobrara County High School, 702 W 5th Street, Lusk, WY 82225 About Wyoming Virtual Academy Wyoming Virtual Academy (WYVA) is an accredited full-time online public school that serves students statewide in kindergarten through 12th grade. A public school program of Niobrara County School District #1, WYVA is tuition-free to Wyoming students and gives families the choice to access the curriculum provided by K12 Inc. (NYSE: LRN), the nation's leading provider of K-12 proprietary curriculum and online education programs. For more information about WYVA, visit wyva.k12.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005729/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] FICO Hosts Canada Digital Decisions Conference Executive Seminar Focused on Using Analytics and Digital Decisioning to Accelerate Canadian Business Takes Place Today in Toronto TORONTO, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ -- HIGHLIGHTS: Canada Digital Decisions Conference taking place today at the Fairmont Royal York. Scott Zoldi , FICO, and Mike Gualtieri , Forrester Research, are keynote speakers. are keynote speakers. Conference presentation topics include why experts are advising self-disruption, operationalizing machine learning and artificial intelligence models, and analytics as drivers of disruption. Today, analytic software company, FICO, is hosting the Canada Digital Decisions Conference at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto. Scott Zoldi, FICO's chief analytics officer, and Mike Gualtieri, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, are the keynote speakers. There will also be presentations by Bill Waid, general manager of Decision Management Software, FICO; and Kevin Deveau, vice-president and managing director of FICO Canada and head of FICO NORAM Insurance. "To improve customer engagement and business agility, companies need to operationalize their data, analytics and artificial intelligence," said Waid. "At today's Digital Decisions Conference, FICO has an opportunity to share our expertise and insights with Canadian companies that want to uncover new ways to use analytics to move their businesses forward." The event will draw professionals from the financial services, analytics, insurance and other industries to learn about how Canadian organizations will be impacted by current and future challenges in analytics and digital decisioning. For more information, please see here. About FICO FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 190 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time. SOURCE FICO [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Postal Workers March behind Foodora Couriers Delegation shows support for bike and car couriers at Foodora who are unionizing with CUPW TORONTO, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Postal workers and their allies took to the streets of Toronto this afternoon, marching to Nathan Philips Square, to support Foodora bike and car couriers who are fighting for their rights as workers. "Postal workers stand here today in solidarity with Foodora couriers," says Mike Palecek, CUPW National President. "Together, we will fight to protect the unprotected, to organize the unorganized and to set important precedents for gig economy workers and labour rights." Bicycle and car couriers in the Toronto area working for Foodora, an app-based food delivery company, announced at the beginning of the mnth their plans to unionize with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). The couriers are fighting for better health and safety protections, fair compensation for they work they perform, and for the right to join a union. Foodora, like most food delivery companies, operates under the premise that couriers are independent contractors, and therefore, workers are not entitled to the rights and benefits of full-fledged employees. "They are taking advantage of us," says Ivan Ostos, a Foodora bike courier, who was injured on the job last year. "We make a lot of money for this company. We are not machines and we deserve to be taken care of if we get injured doing this job." "In Ontario, we have a PC government that doesn't care about workers, a PC government that is continually attacking worker rights," said Ontario Federation of Labour President Chris Buckley, who spoke at the march. "Workers in this province are a united power of many and will resist until corporations in Ontario and across Canada respect their workers." For more information about the unionization campaign and worker rights, visit: https://www.foodstersunited.ca/ SOURCE Canadian Union of Postal Workers [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Nuts.com Eyes Exponential Growth with Migration to the commercetools Platform for its B2C and B2B Operations commercetools, a leading commerce platform for next-generation commerce, has signed a multi-year software license agreement with Nuts.com - a 90-year-old retailer of specialty nuts, chocolates and other high-end pantry items. Nuts.com will consolidate its entire B2C, B2B and wholesale businesses within the commercetools API-based commerce platform. The pure play online retailer has already begun to migrate off its monolithic in-house platform to commercetools, which will deliver better control over thousands of unique products and more agility to add segments, channels and brands as Nuts.com continues to grow. The business that began as a family-owned New Jersey storefront in 1929 has evolved into a go-to online destination for nuts, dried fruit, superfood and a variety of snacks, with a staggering 4,000 unique SKUs sold to a growing audience of fans around the globe. Nuts.com takes pride in selling only the highest-quality products by running its own supply chains and distribution centers and by producing a large number of SKUs in-house. "We pride ourselves on the quality of our products and the excellent customer service we deliver," said Alex Shiferman, vice president of technology at Nuts.com. "To continue serving our customers and accommodating the growth we anticipate, we needed a commerce technology platform with agility, resiliency and future-proofing. Moving to the commercetools commerce platform gives our technology, merchandising and arketing teams the foundation they need to continue to grow our business." The company built its own commerce platform when it first went online 20 years ago, but over time the platform became cumbersome and difficult to modify quickly. Modernizing the Nuts.com commerce platform became a necessity in order to compete with online giants like Amazon who already utilize APIs and microservices to deliver speed and agility in their commerce platforms. The cloud-native, API-based commercetools platform appealed to Nuts.com because it would allow the company's engineers to make updates and releases significantly faster, which ultimately will allow it to expand the current core business, as well as drive future business needs. "To keep up with online leaders like Amazon, retailers must be fast and flexible to launch offers and connect with customers across all channels," said Dirk Hoerig, CEO of commercetools. "The transition to a modern commerce architecture will allow the Nuts.com tech team to make updates and releases faster; thus enabling expansion of their current business. We look forward to accompanying this traditional retailer along the path to next generation commerce," added Dirk. Mr. Shiferman will share how Nuts.com continues its transition from a small family business to multi-million-dollar online retailer by modernizing not just its technology, but the entire organization in an upcoming webinar on May 16th titled: "Who's Minding the Digital Store? How to align teams when technology is in charge." Alex will be joined by Jeffrey Liss, Director of Connected Commerce at KPMG. Register here> . About commercetools commercetools is a next-generation software technology company that offers a true cloud commerce platform, providing the building blocks for the new digital commerce age. Our leading-edge API approach helps retailers create brand value by empowering commerce teams to design unique and engaging digital commerce experiences everywhere - today and in the future. Our agile, componentized architecture improves profitability by significantly reducing development time and resources required to migrate to modern commerce technology and meet new customer demands. It is the perfect starting point for customized microservices. Visit www.commercetools.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005819/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Honda Conducting Research with American Electric Power to Develop 2nd Life for Used EV Batteries TORRANCE, Calif. and COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its ongoing effort to reduce CO 2 emissions from its vehicles and operations, Honda is conducting research with Ohio-based electric utility American Electric Power to develop a network of used electric vehicle (EV) batteries that could be integrated into AEP's electricity system. The project seeks to address multiple challenges related to the expansion of EVs, including the repurposing of used EV batteries, the expected impact of EV demand and renewable energy on the nation's utility operators and the integration of EV batteries as a storage solution for the electric grid. The increasing volume of EVs has the potential to strain the power grid, including spikes in demand during early evening hours when drivers plug in their EVs after work. Storing additional power in used EV batteries can help utilities meet demand by using renewable energy resources. "Together with AEP, we are exploring opportunities to use the 2nd life battery to improve energy security, reduce CO 2 and prepare for broad scale electrification of the transportation ecosystem," said Ryan Harty, manager of Connected and Environmental Business, American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "Neither automakers nor utilities can address these complex technical, policy and business issues alone." Honda will provide used Fit EV batteries to AEP, which will study integrating the batteries into the utility's electricity grid. "AEP is focused on building a smarter, cleaner energy grid and putting in place new technologies that will benefit our customers. We are excited about the possibilities of this collaboration as we work to create the energy system for the future," said Ram Sastry, AEP's vice president of Innovation and Technology. AEP and Honda will jointly gain knowledge and expertise from the pilot project that will help both companies to develop technology and standards for future vehicle grid integration, as well as new business models to improve the value of EVs. The Honda Fit EV launched in 2012 with a fuel economy of 118 MPGe. he lease-only vehicle gained a loyal following among passionate EV customers. Although replaced by the Honda Clarity family of electrified vehicles, including the Clarity Electric, the Fit EV's durable battery will continue to support Honda's efforts to reduce CO 2 emissions through its 2nd life in the vehicle grid integration project. Honda has set a voluntary goal to reduce CO 2 emissions from its vehicles and operations by 50 percent by 2050 compared to the year 2000, and toward this goal has announced plans to electrify two-thirds of its fleet by 2030. In addition to producing zero emission vehicles, the company is developing vehicle grid integration solutions, including the beta Honda SmartCharge TM program, which incentivizes Honda EV customers to charge their vehicles when more renewable energy resources are online. At CES 2019, Honda introduced its prototype Wireless Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) bi-directional energy management system that has the potential to reduce CO 2 and create new value for Honda customers. About Honda Based on its vision of "Blue Skies for Our Children," Honda is working to advance technologies that address society's environmental and energy concerns. In North America, the Honda Electrification Initiative will see Honda's electrified powertrain technologies applied to an expanding portfolio of cars and light trucks in the years ahead. Honda's electrified vehicle lineup today includes the Clarity series of vehicles, featuring fuel cell, battery electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains, along with the new Accord Hybrid and Honda Insight. Honda is focused on reducing the environmental impact of its products throughout their life cycle, including reducing waste, emissions and further improving the energy efficiency of producing, distributing and selling Honda and Acura products in North America. This includes a 93 percent reduction in waste sent to landfills from Honda plants in North America. Seeking to further minimize its carbon footprint, Honda is actively deploying renewable energy throughout its operations, including wind and solar. Through its "green purchasing" and "green dealer" initiatives, the company also is committed to promoting more environmentally responsible business practices with its more than 650 original equipment suppliers and 1,300 retail dealer partners. About AEP American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions to our customers. AEP's approximately 18,000 employees operate and maintain the nation's largest electricity transmission system and more than 219,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.4 million regulated customers in 11 states. AEP also is one of the nation's largest electricity producers with more than 32,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including more than 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy. AEP's family of companies includes utilities AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana, east Texas and the Texas Panhandle). AEP also owns AEP Energy, AEP Energy Partners, AEP OnSite Partners, and AEP Renewables, which provide innovative competitive energy solutions nationwide. For more information, visit aep.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/honda-conducting-research-with-american-electric-power-to-develop-2nd-life-for-used-ev-batteries-300850613.html SOURCE Honda [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Canon Business Process Services Continues to Expand its Business Processing Center Operations NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With the recent addition of a 10,000-square-foot Eastern regional facility in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Canon Business Process Services (Canon) continues to expand the capabilities and reach of its Business Processing Centers. The facilities are designed to help clients with their digital transformation initiatives. Together with Canon's Western U.S. and Philippines-based operations, the Pennsylvania location extends the company's national and global capabilities to better support client business objectives. Clients can access a seamless workflow delivered onsite, onshore and/or offshore with the ability to leverage different time zones. Canon's processing centers support critical business functions ranging from invoice and claims processing to document imaging and electronic discovery services for corporations and law firms. Highlights include: workflow and forms design; digitization of hard-copy documents; search-enabed images; historical or vital records preservation; indexing/coding and transactional processing. Another feature of Canon's Business Process Centers is security. The facilities underscore Canon's commitment to ensuring that client data is reinforced by the highest levels of confidentiality, integrity and ease of access. To support this goal the Business Processing Centers utilize technology and processessuch as dual physical authentication and third-party application penetration testingto meet relevant industry standards. The processing centers currently have accreditations that include: AICPA SOC 1 and SOC 2; HITRUST/CSF certified; PCI compliant; HIPAA compliant and GDPR Ready. "Organizations increasingly are launching digital transformation projects because these initiatives enable them to better concentrate on their core business while containing costs and improving operational efficiency," notes Joe Marciano, president and CEO, Canon Business Process Services. "With our extended business processing capabilities, Canon can help clients meet these important goals." About Canon Business Process Services (Canon) Canon Business Process Services helps enable business agility and digital transformation. We accomplish these goals by applying our workforce management expertise, Six Sigma methodologies and best-in-class technology. With professionals across the US and in the Philippines, we have been named a Global Outsourcing 100 leader by IAOP for 13 straight years. Canon Business Process Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc. Learn more at cbps.canon.com and follow us on Twitter @CanonBPO. All referenced product names, and other marks, are trademarks of their respective owners. Press Contact: Ken Neal, [email protected] Canon Business Process Services 2019 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/canon-business-process-services-continues-to-expand-its-business-processing-center-operations-300850899.html SOURCE Canon Business Process Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Weki Meki members pose for a "locked" version of their characters, meaning they are "locked" inside "good girl" personalities. Courtesy of Fantagio Corp. By Jung Hae-myoung A long queue of fans were spotted at the press showcase for the release of Weki Meki's second album "Lock End LOL" at Hannam-dong, Seoul, Tuesday. Weki Meki, a girl group with two members from the audition program "Produce 101," released the new album with the lead single "Picky Picky," a song with a fast beat, strong base and addictive hook. Playing with the term "rock 'n' roll," the group tries to convey the idea of girls "locked" at school but rebelling after school. The timing of the album release was awkward as the CEO of their agency Fantagio Corporation was arrested in China on suspicion of fraud. For this album, the eight members of Weki Meki each play different archetypes of female high school students, ranging from teenage rock star to school president. At the showcase, members presented the new single "Picky Picky," wearing bright neon clothes and dyed blonde or orange hair. This was different from the group's previous "girl crush" concept. "The school crush concept is developed from the group's original concept as teen crush, and focused more on the music video's narrative context happening in high school," said Lua, sub-vocalist of Weki Meki. Weki Meki members pose for the "LOL" version of themselves, showing each member's characters liberated from their locked selves at school. The photo concept is members of an after-school band. Courtesy of Fantagio Corp. [May 15, 2019] OUTFRONT Media Announces Billboard Partnership With Shepard Fairey in Detroit NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- OUTFRONT Media Inc. (NYSE: OUT) today announced the unveiling of creative from American contemporary street artist, graphic designer and activist, Shepard Fairey, in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. By showcasing artwork from such a globally renowned artist, OUTFRONT will highlight its artistic contribution to the city of Detroit by placing iconic imagery in significant locations across the city. Strategically located on 20 static billboards across Detroit and surrounding interstates, locals and tourists alike can experience one of five different designs by Shepard Fairey throughout the month of May. These thought-provoking billboards aim to not only showcase the power of out-of-home but also inspire meaningful conversations and actions. The creative splashes bold reds, yellows and blues and touts impassioned words, including "Equality," "Amazing, Portable, Powerful" and "Amplify your voice." "When it came to this installation, we knew we wanted to tap into the tremendous diversity and growth of Detroit and bring it to life in meaningful locations," said Shepard Fairey. "Detroit has a long history of pushing the limits in music and art, and through this partnership with OUTFRONT Media, we were able to not only capture the same fire and fight Detroit embodies, but also empower Detroiters to see graphic art as a meaningful part of the cityscape." Now more than ever, people need to feel a sense of community as they are immersed in advertisements on their phones. According to eMarketer predictions , adults in the United States will spend roughly more than three hours per day on mobile devices in 2019. With out-of-home advertising, companies are able to build campaigns in real-life that amplify the community and become part of the local culture. In doing so, brands are also able to increase brand recognition, drive web traffic and ultimately meet brand business goals. "As out-of-home advertisers, we have a responsibility to the communities we serve," said Jodi Senese, Chief Marketing Officer at OUTFRONT Media. "We were inspired by Detroit's positive energy and growth and recognized the role art plays in bringing beauty to cities. We knew then that we wanted to spark the interest of local artists in the best way we know how - a larger-than-life outdoor gallery." OUTFRONT Media has executed similar programs in other areas, having previously collaborated with Shepard Fairey in Orlando in a bid to encourage environmental responsibility. Now the company is excited to continue its efforts to enhance local landscapes by embracing the unique qualities of each city, and displaying campaigns that truly exemplify these communities. About OUTFRONT Media Inc. OUTFRONT leverages the power of technology, location and creativity to connect brands with consumers outside of their homes through one of the largest and most diverse sets of billboard, transit, and mobile assets in North America. Through its ON Smart Media platform, OUTFRONT is implementing digital technology that will fundamentally change the ways advertisers engage audiences on-the-go. Contacts: OUTFRONT Investors: OUTFRONT Press: Gregory Lundberg Carly Zipp (212) 297-6441 (212) 297-6479 [email protected] [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/outfront-media-announces-billboard-partnership-with-shepard-fairey-in-detroit-300850971.html SOURCE OUTFRONT Media Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Linux Foundation Supports Community Development to Improve Mobility, Transportation, Safety and Infrastructure with New Urban Computing Foundation SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the formation of the Urban Computing Foundation to accelerate open source software that improves mobility, safety, road infrastructure, traffic congestion and energy consumption in connected cities. Initial contributors include developers from Uber, Facebook, Google, HERE Technologies, IBM, Interline Technologies, Senseable City Labs, StreetCred Labs and University of California San Diego (UCSD). As cities and transportation networks evolve into ever-more complicated systems, urban computing is emerging as an important field to bridge the divide between engineering, visualization and traditional transportation systems analysis. However, these advancements are dependent on compatibility among many technologies across different public and private organizations. Urban Computing Foundation will provide a neutral forum for this critical work, including adaption of geospatial and temporal machine learning techniques and urban environments and simulation methodologies for modeling and predicting city-wide phenomena. To contribute to this work, please visit the Urban Computing Foundation website. "During moments of both technology disruption and opportunity, open development is critical for enabling interoperability and speeding adoption," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "The Urban Computing Foundation is poised to provide the compatibility tools and resources for developers to create software that can map out and operate technology services in any given urban area, ensuring safety and equitable access to transportation." The first project hosted at the Foundation is https://kepler.gl/ , an open source geospatial analysis tool created by Uber for building large-scale data sets. Kepler was released in 2018 to help make it easier to create meaningful visualizations of location data without the need for coding. Kepler.gl is used by developers, data scientists, visualization specialists and engineers around the world to explore and analyze a variety of scenarios that include transportation patterns and safety trends. Some of the companies using Kepler.gl include Airbnb, Atkins Global, Cityswifter, HERE Technologies, Limebike, Mapbox, Sidewalk Labs, Uber and UBILabs, among others. "As a founding participant with the Urban Computing Foundation, Uber is honored to contribute Kepler.gl as the initiative's first official project," said Travis Gorkin, Uber Data Visualization Lead and Urban Computing Foundation TAC contributor. "Technologies like Kepler.gl have the capacity to advance urban planning by helping policymakers and local governments gain critical insights and better understand data about their cities." The Foundation will use an open governance model being developed by the Technical Advisory Council (TAC), which includes a variety of technical and IP stakeholders in the urban computing space. Project inclusion will be determine by a review and curation process managed by the TAC. TAC contributors include: Drew Dara-Abrams , principal, Interline Technologies , principal, Interline Technologies Oliver Fink , director HERE XYZ, HERE Technologies , director HERE XYZ, HERE Technologies Travis Gorkin , engineering manager of data visualization, Uber , engineering manager of data visualization, Uber Shan He , project leader of Kepler.gl, Uber , project leader of Kepler.gl, Uber Randy Meech , CEO, StreetCred Labs , CEO, StreetCred Labs Michal Migurski , engineering manager of spatial computing, Facebook , engineering manager of spatial computing, Facebook Drishtie Patel, product manager of maps, Facebook Paolo Santi , senior researcher, MIT , senior researcher, Max Sills , attorney, Google The Urban Computing Foundation aims to provide open access to tools and platforms for developers in both public and private organizations who are building connected solutions for mobility, reducing congestion and pollution and increasing access; safety, new technologies to create a world where it's safe and easy for everyone to get around; and insights, anonymized data from citizens that can help urban planning around the world. Founding Participant Comments Facebook "We find the Urban Computing Foundation's mission to be compelling in that it not only has the potential to minimize pollution, congestion and consumption but to ensure that technology has a positive impact on the urban landscapes. We are pleased to join the Urban Computing Foundation as a founding contributor," said Michael Cheng from the Facebook Open Source Team. Google "Civic organizations and citizens alike need ready access to data about their cities to make better decisions about transportation, construction and energy consumption. The Urban Computing Foundation's mission to make that possible is closely aligned with Google's approach to open data. Making it easier to access, visualize and process these kinds of large data sets is indeed at the heart of Google Cloud. We are excited to join the Urban Computing Foundation as a founding contributor and work on our shared goal of improving the world we live in," said Chris DiBona, director, Open Source and Science Outreach, Google Cloud. IBM "The 'sharing economy' is continuing to find new opportunities for consumers and businesses to connect in amazing ways. We believe the Urban Computing Foundation's mission of providing a transparent and fair way for appropriate urban data sharing will foster open development and rapid innovation. For over a decade, we've focused on helping to build the latest open source projects and communities, and sharing in the work under open governance. We are pleased to continue this tradition with the Urban Computing Foundation and look forward to overall benefits the community will produce together," said Todd Moore, vice president IBM Open Technology and Developer Advocacy, IBM. HERE "HERE Technologies is excited to join the Urban Computing Foundation as we work together on the urban transportation and mobility challenges of today and tomorrow. The interoperability of software and access to data are essential to gaining insights from disparate sources of information, and the Linux Foundation serves as the ideal organization for this cross-industry effort. Through this collaboration and services like HERE XYZ, we are proud to help build the data specifications and open source technology to improve urban mobility," said Oliver Fink, director of HERE XYZ Interline Technologies "Joining the Urban Computing Foundation is an easy decision for Interline Technologies. The focus areas are like ours: transportation and mobility. Similarly, we already rely upon and contribute to opensource software, open datasets and shared data specs. The Linux Foundation as a venue is ideal," said Drew Dara-Abrams, principal at Interline Technologies, and head of mobility products at Mapzen. "Interline is pleased to also participate in the Mapzen Foundation under the same umbrella. Finally, and most importantly, Interline and Urban Computing Foundation have similar goals: useful collaboration between organizations across the private, public and academic sectors." Senseable City Labs "For over 10 years, the MIT Senseable City Lab has been doing cutting-edge research on how to use big data to better understand cities. The Urban Computing Foundation initiative is extremely promising to us, as it aims to give open and standardized access to an ever-growing number of urban datasets. We look forward to contributing to its success, as it could help leapfrog urban science," said Carlo Ratti, director, MIT Senseable City Lab, and Paolo Santi, research scientist, MIT Senseable City Lab. StreetCred Labs "StreetCred is excited to join the Urban Computing Foundation to work on open urban mobility. Working with the Linux Foundation through Mapzen has been a great experience, and I'm happy to see it branch out into other critical areas for collaborative innovation," said Randy Meech, CEO, StreetCred Labs and Mapzen Foundation. University of California San Diego "The Urban Computing project is a natural fit for UC San Diego's efforts to develop a smart campus with autonomous transportation options. With almost 70,000 people on campus every day, we have all the needs of smart city. The UC San Diego campus is a natural testbed for the Urban Computing platform, and UC San Diego researchers and students, working in their own backyard, will be able to contribute to the project and its results. The Urban Computing project engages the Halicioglu Data Science Institute led by Prof. Rajesh Gupta and the Contextual Robotics Institute led by Prof. Henrik Christensen," Todd Hylton, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. About the Linux Foundation Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org. The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of the Linux Foundation, please visit our trademark usage page at https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Media Contact Jennifer Cloer reTHINKit Media [email protected] 503-867-2304 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/linux-foundation-supports-community-development-to-improve-mobility-transportation-safety-and-infrastructure-with-new-urban-computing-foundation-300850978.html SOURCE The Linux Foundation [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] SymphonyAI Group Acquires Azima Global, a Leader in Machine Condition Monitoring & Reliability Solutions for the Process & Manufacturing Industries LOS ALTOS, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SymphonyAI Group announced today its recent acquisition of Azima Global, a provider of machine condition monitoring and asset reliability solutions across several industrial verticals. SymphonyAI is building a group of leading companies that use artificial intelligence to transform business enterprises across several markets, including the industrial, retail, consumer, healthcare, financial services, and media sectors. At the core of this is SymphonyAI's artificial intelligence platform, eurekaAI, which drives actionable insights by applying machine learning to large datasets, and on which SymphonyAI has already been developing applications focused on industrial predictive maintenance and process optimization. Over the past decade, Azima Global has built a suite of cloud-based machine diagnostic and analytic solutions, supported by a team of deep domain experts, that together deliver highly accurate and timely visibility into the condition of industrial assets at scale. The company has been providing these solutions to leading companies in the oil & gas, chemicals, food manufacturing and other industries. In joining the SymphonyAI Group of companies, Azima Global, renamed Symphony AzimaAI, will develop industry-pioneering products that (i) leverage one of the largest dynamic mechanical fault mode datasets and (ii) combine automated machine condition diagnostic data and plant-level process data, to deliver enterprise-level AI-driven predictive asset health and performance management solutions. Customers will realize both strategic and economic value through reduction in unplanned downtime, maintenance and capital expenditures, and improvements in machine reliability and throughput. These next-generation solutions represent a new paradigm in industrial IoT and will redefine performance benchmarks in a market segment that has been stalled by the limitations of traditional ERP and CMMS systems. "Azima has spent over a decade building an industry-leading position in the delivery of effective and scalable machine health diagostics," said Burt Hurlock, CEO of Azima Global. "It was only a matter of time before we merged with a leading AI platform to develop integrated predictive maintenance and process optimization solutions. We are excited about the incremental value we can now deliver to both our existing and prospective customers." "SymphonyAI has built industry-leading AI-driven companies in sectors such as retail and life sciences, and we have also been actively developing AI-driven solutions for the industrial sector," said Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman of SymphonyAI Group. "The acquisition of Azima brings over a decade of deep condition monitoring experience and comprehensive equipment data that, in combination with our AI capabilities, will allow us to deliver cutting edge industry-leading solutions that will meaningfully increase the value proposition delivered to customers. We are very excited to have the Azima team join our group of companies, and we look forward to a successful journey ahead at Symphony AzimaAI." "We are actively looking to grow Symphony AzimaAI through both organic growth as well as strategic add-on acquisitions," said Pradyut Shah, Investment Partner at SymphonyAI Group. "We are actively seeking to acquire companies that expand the depth and breadth of our solutions, both from a product capabilities and equipment coverage standpoint, as well as from an industry coverage and geographic expansion standpoint. We look forward to working with the Symphony AzimaAI team to execute on our comprehensive global vision for the company." Oppenheimer & Co. advised Azima Global on the transaction. About Symphony AzimaAI Symphony AzimaAI provides machine condition monitoring, diagnostic and analytic solutions that maximize industrial productivity on a global scale. The company combines accurate data, advanced analytics, and the judgment of a deep bench of experts to deliver value-added solutions that reduce unplanned equipment downtime and maintenance. Symphony AzimaAI is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with locations and experts across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.azimadli.com. About SymphonyAI Group SymphonyAI Group's mission is to transform the business enterprise through artificial intelligence-driven solutions. The firm is harnessing the power of a $1 billion investment and the capabilities of over 100 entrepreneurs, operators and AI technologists, all under the leadership of one of Silicon Valley's most successful entrepreneurs, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, to build systems of actionable intelligence across the enterprise. The firm incubates, builds, transforms, and invests in companies that make the business enterprise grow faster and perform better through AI. SymphonyAI is headquartered in Los Altos, California. For more information, please visit www.symphonyai.com. Media Contact: Jason Williams [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/symphonyai-group-acquires-azima-global-a-leader-in-machine-condition-monitoring--reliability-solutions-for-the-process--manufacturing-industries-300850997.html SOURCE SymphonyAI [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Cryo Innovations Receives the Nation's First U.S. Government GSA Contract for Whole Body Cryotherapy-Offering Military Personnel and Veterans Fast and Safe Relief for Chronic Pain U.S. military personnel will now be able to experience safe, drug-free muscle recovery and chronic pain relief due to a new government contract with Cryo Innovations. The Newport Beach company is the first cryotherapy manufacturer to be approved for a Federal General Services Administration (GSA (News - Alert)) contract to supply the U.S. Military, and any government facility, with whole body cryotherapy. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005869/en/ The XR full body cryotherapy chamber has been designed from inception to be the safest, most technologically advanced, and profitable cryotherapy chamber on the market. It is the only chamber to combine biometrics thermal imaging and 8+ on-board safety features to ensure client safety and minimize owner liability. (Photo: Business Wire) "We are pleased to partner with V.P. International Supply to provide the U.S. government, military and veterans a safe, affordable cryotherapy solution. We've seen the results of the XR on hundreds of athletes. Now, our service men and women will have a serious competitive advantage," says Cryo Innovations CEO and founder, Keith Scheinberg. Known for its many health benefits, the cryotherapy whole-body treatment is used to reduce inflammation and promote recovery from tissue damage. When the body is exposed to minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit temperature, it reacts by releasing anti-inflammatory proteins and endorphins, thus supercharging the blood. Following a whole body cryotherapy treatment, individuals often experience immediate relief from joint and muscle pain, improved energy, better sleep quality and increased flexibility that lasts for hours, even days. Other benefits can include a reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression and skin rejuvenation. About Cryo Innovations Founded by Keith Scheinberg in 2015, Cryo Innovations, Inc. has quickly become the industry standard in Cryotherapy-providing the safest, most technologically advanced cryotherapy chamber on the market. Launched in 2017, the revolutionary "made in the U.S." XR Cryotherapy sauna runs on a cloud-based Android (News - Alert) tablet with a built-in Point of Sale, dual-fingerprint authorizations, a tablet and a web-based portal that can accommodate up to 1,000 storefronts. Each chamber is self-regulated by 8+ safety features-including an emergency shut-off, oxygen sensor, head sensor, fingerprint authorization, and operator-required operation. Cryo Innovations is one of the nation's leading suppliers of Cryotherapy chambers to gyms, salons, chiropractors, and other facilities. The company is based in Newport Beach, California. For inquiries or to purchase, please call (888) 431-2796 or visit www.CryoInnovations.com. For media inquiries, please email Ethan Domino at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005869/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] IFG Companies Hires Stephanie Winter Yocum as Chief People Officer IFG Companies (www.ifgcompanies.com) is pleased to announce the addition of Stephanie W. Yocum as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer. Stephanie, who will be reporting to Christopher M. Lewis, Chief Executive Officer, will join the executive leadership team and oversee all aspects of human resources for the company. Stephanie will be located in Hartford, Connecticut. "Our people have been and will always be are our greatest resource and building a world class leadership team requires attracting talent like Stephanie from outside of the insurance industry, where broad knowledge, culture, speed and agility are vital and integral to success", said Robert D. Linton, Chairman of IFG Companies' parent, International Financial Group, Inc. "Stephanie will bring a wealth of knwledge and experience to our leadership team that will be critical as we continue to build a dynamic and collaborative culture designed to compete in a fast changing economy," said Chris Lewis. Just prior to joining IFG Companies, Ms. Yocum was the Chief Human Resource Officer for Numotion in Nashville, Tennessee. Stephanie also held key leadership positions in human resources at such companies as ISO New England, M/I Homes, Inc., The Scotts-Miracle-Gro Company and Polyone Corporation. She started her career at Accenture (News - Alert) after graduating from Ohio State University with Masters' Degrees in Educational Policy and Leadership and Labor and Human Resources. Prior to these, Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Duke University. About IFG Founded in 1985, IFG Companies is one of the largest privately held insurance groups in the United States. IFG Companies provides property-casualty insurance on both a non-admitted basis and an admitted basis throughout America. IFG Companies has two principal underwriting groups, the Bind Division and the Brokerage Division. Bind provides general liability, garage liability and property coverages through select contracted producers. Brokerage focuses primarily on mid-sized or more complex accounts and includes the Primary Casualty, Excess/Umbrella Liability and Property underwriting units. Coverages are underwritten by IFG's affiliated insurers: The Burlington Insurance Company, First Financial Insurance Company, Alamance Insurance Company and Guilford Insurance Company. All hold a financial strength rating of A (Excellent) from A. M. Best Company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005870/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Ooma to Present at the 21st Annual Credit Suisse Communications Conference, June 4, 2019 SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ooma, Inc. (NYSE: OOMA), a smart communications platform for businesses and consumers, will be participating in the 21st Annual Credit Suisse Communications Conference, which is being held on June 4-5, 2019 at the Credit Suisse Office in New York. Ooma CEO Eric Stang and CFO Ravi Narula are scheduled to present on Tuesday, June 4 at 4:25 p.m. Eastern time. The presentation will be webcast as live audio and available for replay from the Events & Presentation page of the Investor Relations section of Oomas website, www.ooma.com. About Ooma Ooma (NYSE: OOMA) creates powerful connected experiences for businesses and consumers, delivered from its smart cloud-baed SaaS platform. For businesses of all sizes, Ooma provides advanced voice and collaboration features that are flexible and scalable. For consumers, Oomas residential phone service provides PureVoice HD voice quality, advanced functionality and integration with mobile devices. Oomas groundbreaking smart security solution delivers a full range of wireless security sensors and an intelligent video camera that make it easy for users to protect their home or business. Learn more at www.ooma.com. CONTACT: Investors Matthew S. Robison Director of IR and Corporate Development Ooma, Inc. [email protected] (650) 300-1480 Media Mike Langberg Director of Corporate Communications Ooma, Inc. [email protected] (650) 566-6693 [May 15, 2019] Glowpoint Announces First Quarter 2019 Results DENVER, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glowpoint, Inc. (NYSE American: GLOW ) (Glowpoint or the Company), a managed service provider of video collaboration and network applications, today announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019. First Quarter Financial Results: Cash of $1.6 million, working capital of $2.3 million and no debt as of March 31, 2019. Revenue of $2.6 million, net loss of $0.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA (AEBITDA) of negative $0.1 million. AEBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure. See Non-GAAP Financial Information below for additional information regarding this non-GAAP financial measure, and GAAP to Non-GAAP Reconciliation later in this release for a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to net loss. Stockholders equity of $6.2 million as of March 31, 2019. Recent Highlights: As previously announced, in April 2019 the Company regained full compliance with the NYSE Americans continued listing standards. As previously announced, in April 2019 the Company and SharedLabs, Inc. mutually agreed to the terminate the previously announced Merger Agreement. SharedLabs has agreed to work with the Company in good faith to reach a resolution with respect to the Companys rights in connection with the termination of the Merger Agreement, including the payment by SharedLabs of fees and expenses in connection therewith. To the extent it is necessary, the Company expects to utilize available legal remedies in order to pursue the payment by SharedLabs of any such amounts. We are pleased to have recently regained full compliance with the NYSE Americans continued listing standards. We maintain a clean balance sheet with $1.6 million in cash and no debt as of March 31, 2019. We remain focused on implementing certain infrastructure cost reductions in our efforts to improve adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow. We are encouraged by recent capital markets activity and heightened market awareness in both video and unified communications and intend to use our expertise, along with an excellent reputation for delivering managed services to the Enterprise, to explore potential opportunities for growth in this sector. We are actively exploring potential merger and acquisition and/or business development initiatives and are confident that we can leverage our strong reputation with our large enterprise customers, our investments in R&D during the past two years and our existing intellectual property to increase shareholder value, said Peter Holst, President and CEO of Glowpoint. Glowpoints results from operations and financial condition are more fully discussed in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2019 on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC). Investors are encouraged to carefully review the Companys Form 10-Q for a complete analysis of its results from operations and financial condition. About Glowpoint Glowpoint, Inc. (NYSE American: GLOW) is a managed service provider of video collaboration and network applications. Our services are designed to provide a comprehensive suite of automated and concierge applications to simplify the user experience and expedite the adoption of video as the primary means of collaboration. Our customers include Fortune 1000 companies, along with small and medium sized enterprises in a variety of industries. To learn more please visit www.glowpoint.com . Non-GAAP Financial Information Adjusted EBITDA (AEBITDA), a non-GAAP financial measure, is defined as net loss before depreciation and amortization, income tax expense, stock-based compensation, impairment charges, merger expenses and interest and other expense, net. AEBITDA is not intended to replace operating loss, net loss, cash flow or other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Rather, AEBITDA is an important measure used by management to assess the operating performance of the Company and is used in determining achievement of performance-based stock awards. AEBITDA as defined here may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies due to differences in accounting policies. Therefore, AEBITDA should be considered in conjunction with net loss and other performance measures prepared in accordance with GAAP, such as operating loss or cash flow provided by (used in) operating activities, and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for GAAP measures, such as net loss, operating loss or any other GAAP measure of liquidity or financial performance. A reconciliation of AEBITDA to net loss is shown in the attached schedules. Forward looking and cautionary statements This press release and any oral statements made regarding the subject of this release contain forward-looking statements as defined under Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, that address activities that Glowpoint assumes, plans, expects, believes, intends, projects, estimates or anticipates (and other similar expressions) will, should or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Glowpoints actual results may differ materially from its expectations, estimates and projections, and consequently you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, forward-looking statements contained in this press release include statements regarding the Companys financial performance, the effect of the termination of the Merger Agreement, the pursuit by Glowpoint for the payment of damages by SharedLabs as a result thereof, the Companys future compliance with the NYSE Americans continued listing standards, and opportunities for the Companys future growth. The forward-looking statements are based on managements current belief, based on currently available information, as to the outcome and timing of future events, and involve factors, risks, and uncertainties that may cause actual results in future periods to differ materially from such statements. A list and description of these and other risk factors can be found in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ending December 31, 2018 and in other filings made by the Company with the SEC from time to time, including the Companys Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2019. Any of these factors could cause Glowpoints actual results and plans to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, Glowpoint can give no assurance that its future results will be as estimated. Glowpoint does not intend to, and disclaims any obligation to, correct, update or revise any information contained herein. INVESTOR CONTACT: Investor Relations Glowpoint, Inc. +1 303-640-3840 [email protected] www.glowpoint.com GLOWPOINT, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (In thousands, except par value, stated value and shares) March 31, 2019 (unaudited) December 31, 2018 ASSETS Current assets: Cash $ 1,589 $ 2,007 Accounts receivable, net 1,442 1,371 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 619 547 Total current assets 3,650 3,925 Property and equipment, net 610 728 Goodwill 2,795 2,795 Intangibles, net 467 499 Other assets 89 15 Total assets $ 7,611 $ 7,962 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 207 $ 222 Accrued expenses and other liabilities 1,159 910 Total current liabilities 1,366 1,132 Stockholders equity: Preferred stock, Series A-2, convertible; $.0001 par value; $7,500 stated value; 7,500 shares authorized, 32 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $323 and $308 at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively Preferred stock, Series B, convertible; $.0001 par value; $1,000 stated value; 2,800 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $0 at March 31, 2019 and 75 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $75 at December 31, 2018 Preferred stock, Series C, convertible; $.0001 par value; $1,000 stated value; 1,750 shares authorized, 475 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $475 at March 31, 2019 and 525 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $525 at December 31, 2018 Common stock, $.0001 par value; 150,000,000 shares authorized; 5,173,900 shares issued and 5,040,500 outstanding at March 31, 2019 and 5,113,700 issued and 4,981,200 outstanding at December 31, 2018 5 5 Treasury stock, 133,400 and 132,500 shares at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively (497 ) (496 ) Additional paid-in capital 185,008 184,994 Accumulated deficit (178,271 ) (177,673 ) Total stockholders equity 6,245 6,830 Total liabilities and stockholders equity $ 7,611 $ 7,962 GLOWPOINT, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS and GAAP to Non-GAAP Reconciliation (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Revenue $ 2,594 $ 3,474 Operating expenses: Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization) 1,675 2,147 Research and development 213 250 Sales and marketing 33 177 General and administrative 1,112 898 Impairment charges 650 Depreciation and amortization 159 232 Total operating expenses 3,192 4,354 Loss from operations (598 ) (880 ) Interest and other expense, net (405 ) Net loss (598 ) (1,285 ) Preferred stock dividends 15 3 Net loss attributable to common stockholders $ (613 ) $ (1,288 ) Net loss attributable to common stockholders per share: Basic and diluted net loss per share $ (0.12 ) $ (0.28 ) GAAP to Non-GAAP Reconciliation: Net loss $ (598 ) $ (1,285 ) Depreciation and amortization 159 232 Interest and other expense, net 405 Income tax expense EBITDA (439 ) (648 ) Stock-based compensation 29 50 Merger expenses 261 Impairment charges 650 Adjusted EBITDA $ (149 ) $ 52 GLOWPOINT, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited and in thousands) Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Cash flows from operating activities: Net loss $ (598 ) $ (1,285 ) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities: Depreciation and amortization 159 232 Bad debt expense (recovery) (4 ) 5 Amortization of debt discount, net of gain on extinguishment 104 Stock-based compensation expense 29 50 Impairment charges 650 Changes in assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable (67 ) (80 ) Prepaid expenses and other current assets (72 ) 19 Other assets 24 Accounts payable (15 ) (28 ) Accrued expenses and other liabilities 136 (139 ) Net cash used in operating activities (408 ) (472 ) Cash flows from investing activities: Purchases of property and equipment (9 ) (48 ) Net cash used in investing activities (9 ) (48 ) Cash flows from financing activities: Principal payments under borrowing arrangements (1,832 ) Proceeds from Series C preferred stock issuance, net of expenses of $223 1,527 Purchase of treasury stock (1 ) (53 ) Net cash used in financing activities (1 ) (358 ) Decrease in cash and cash equivalents (418 ) (878 ) Cash at beginning of period 2,007 3,946 Cash at end of period $ 1,589 $ 3,068 Supplemental disclosures of cash flow information: Cash paid during the period for interest $ $ 316 Non-cash investing and financing activities: Accrued preferred stock dividends $ 15 $ 3 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Byline Bancorp, Inc. Announces Bruce Lammers to Retire from Byline Bank Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: BY) ("Byline" or the "Company"), the parent company of Byline Bank ("Bank"), announced today that Bruce Lammers, Executive Vice President of Byline Bank and President for the Byline Small Business Capital ("SBC") team, will retire on May 28, 2019, bringing an end to a long career in government guaranteed small lending in the private sector. Thomas Abraham, currently Senior Vice President, SBA Sales Manager of SBC, will succeed Lammers in leading the Bank's government guaranteed lending business. "We are grateful for the opportunity to have worked with Bruce since our acquisition of Ridgestone Financial in 2016 and to have benefited from his leadership, vast experience and knowledge," said Alberto Paracchini, President and Chief Executive Officer of Byline. "Bruce's passion for and commitment to helping small businesses grow will leave a mark on this Company and the industry as a whole." "Retirement for me is a bittersweet moment," said Lammers. "I've had a rewarding career, and having the ability to work with inspiring entrepreneurs and business owners to help them build their dreams is something I will truly miss. I have been fortunate to work alongside respected colleagues with whom I share a common commitment to our customers and our mission." Lammers shared that he looks forward to new challenges and said he will be moving on to a new opportunity in the public sector in Washington, D.C. which will be announced at a later date. Lammers joined Byline Bank in September 2016 as part of its acquisition of Ridgestone Bank, where he served as President and CEO since 2006. Lammers has been a passionate advocate for the U.S. small business community and the government-guaranteed lending industry throughout his career. Lammers and his team were instrumental in building a business recognized consistently as a Top 10 SBA Lender nationally and chieved #1 SBA lender status in Illinois and Wisconsin annually. He has held positions on the board of NAGGL (National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders) and is an established leader throughout the SBA and USDA. Thomas Abraham is currently a Senior Vice President, SBA Sales Manager of the Byline Small Business Capital team with 30 years of industry experience. He worked closely with Lammers since the early days of Ridgestone in 2006 and was instrumental in building the government guaranteed lending framework for loan originations, credit processing and closing footprint as well as sales generation, back-end operations and portfolio servicing. "I look forward to working with Tom and his team to continue to grow our government guaranteed lending business nationally," said Paracchini. "His depth of knowledge, passion for small business lending, knowledge of internal processes and culture will serve our business well." About Byline Bancorp, Inc. Headquartered in Chicago, Byline Bancorp, Inc. is the parent company for Byline Bank, a full service commercial bank serving small- and medium-sized businesses, financial sponsors, and consumers. Byline Bank has approximately $5.3 billion in assets and operates more than 60 full service branch locations throughout the Chicago and Milwaukee metropolitan areas. Byline Bank offers a broad range of commercial and retail banking products and services including small ticket equipment leasing solutions and is one of the top 10 Small Business Administration lenders in the United States. Forward-Looking Statements This communication contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements concerning plans, estimates, calculations, forecasts and projections with respect to the anticipated future performance of the Company. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as "may," "might," "should," "could," "predict," "potential," "believe," "expect," "continue," "will," "anticipate," "seek," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "projection," "would," "annualized," "target" and "outlook," or the negative version of those words or other comparable words or phrases of a future or forward-looking nature. Forward-looking statements reflect various assumptions and involve elements of subjective judgement and analysis which may or may not prove to be correct and which are subject to uncertainties and contingencies outside the control of Byline and its respective affiliates, directors, employees and other representatives, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those presented in this communication. No representations, warranties or guarantees are or will be made by Byline as to the reliability, accuracy or completeness of any forward-looking statements contained in this communication or that such forward-looking statements are or will remain based on reasonable assumptions. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements contained in this communication. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we assume no obligation to update any of these statements in light of new information, future events or otherwise unless required under the federal securities laws. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005979/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Entravision Appoints Karl Alonso Meyer as Chief Revenue and Product Officer SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Entravision Communications Corporation (NYSE: EVC), a diversified global media and advertising technology company serving Latino consumers, today announced the appointment of Karl Alonso Meyer as Chief Revenue and Product Officer, effective immediately. Based in Los Angeles, Mr. Meyer will be responsible for leading all of Entravision's sales and revenue strategy and initiatives. "We are delighted to welcome Karl back to Entravision. With his vast experience, strong leadership skills and extensive knowledge of the company, he is the ideal candidate to drive our sales and revenue initiatives," said Walter F. Ulloa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Entravision. "Entravision is like a second home to me, so having the chance to rejoin the company in this critical role is an exciting opportunity. I couldn't be more thrilled to be back and working again with the talented Entravision team. The media landscape is constantly changing and I look forward to bringing a unique perspective that will help the business to continueits success," said Meyer. Mr. Meyer is a 30-year broadcast media veteran with extensive radio, television, digital and advertising agency experience. Mr. Meyer previously worked for Entravision, first joining the company in 2004, and during his ten years he held a number of positions, including Vice President, General Manager of Entravision's Los Angeles radio market and later as Entravision's Executive Vice President, Integrated Marketing Solutions, Western Region. About Entravision Communications Corporation Entravision is a diversified global media, advertising technology and data analytics company that reaches and engages Latino consumers in the U.S. and other markets primarily including Mexico, Latin America and Spain. Entravision's portfolio includes digital media properties and advertising technology platforms that deliver performance-based solutions and data insights, along with 55 television stations and 49 radio stations. Entravision's digital and technology businesses include Headway, a leading global provider of mobile, programmatic, data and performance digital marketing solutions, as well as Pulpo, the top-ranked online advertising platform in connecting businesses with U.S. Latinos. Entravision is the largest affiliate group of both the Univision and UniMas television networks, and its Spanish-language radio stations feature its nationally recognized talent. Entravision also operates Entravision Solutions, a national sales and marketing organization representing over 300 owned and affiliated radio stations, radio networks and digital media platforms, and Headway's audio advertising platform, AudioEngage. Entravision shares of Class A Common Stock are traded on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: EVC. Learn more at: www.entravision.com. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/entravision-appoints-karl-alonso-meyer-as-chief-revenue-and-product-officer-300851104.html SOURCE Entravision [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Forty Seven, Inc. to Present Initial Safety and Efficacy Data from Phase 1b Clinical Trial of 5F9 in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Myelodysplastic Syndrome at 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting -- Forty Seven to Host Investor Event and Webcast on June 3, 2019 -- -- Forty Seven Management to Participate in MATTER Panel, The Current and Future Wave of Immuno-Oncology Therapies, on May 30, 2019 -- MENLO PARK, Calif., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Forty Seven, Inc., a clinical-stage, immuno-oncology company focused on developing therapies to activate macrophages in the fight against cancer, today announced that promising initial data from its Phase 1b clinical trial evaluating 5F9 as a monotherapy and in combination with azacitidine for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) will be presented in a poster discussion session at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, May 31-June 4, 2019. Presentation Title: The first-in-class anti-CD47 antibody Hu5F9-G4 is active and well tolerated alone or with azacitidine in AML and MDS patients: Initial phase 1b results Session Title: Hematologic MalignanciesLeukemia, Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and Allotransplant Session Date & Time: Monday, June 3, 2019 from 4:30 p.m. 6:00 p.m. CT (5:30 p.m. 7:00 p.m. ET) Abstract Number: 7009 Location: Poster Board #384, Hall A, McCormick Place The accepted abstract is now available online on the ASCO website: https://iplanner.asco.org . Forty Sevens Phase 1b clinical trial evaluating 5F9 as a monotherapy and in combination with azacitidine for thetreatment of AML and MDS is funded in part by a research grant awarded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Investor Event and Webcast Information Forty Seven will host an investor event on Monday, June 3, 2019 beginning at 6:30 p.m. CT (7:30 p.m. ET) in Chicago to review the initial clinical data presented at ASCO for 5F9. The event will be webcast live and can be accessed under Events & Presentations in the Investors section of the Forty Seven website at www.fortyseveninc.com . A replay of the webcast will be available approximately two hours after the event and will be available for 30 days following the event. MATTER Event and Webcast Information Forty Sevens Chief Executive Officer, Mark McCamish, M.D., Ph.D., and Founder and Vice President, Clinical Development, Mark Chao, M.D., Ph.D., will present on the Companys approach to drug development at an event hosted by MATTER on Thursday, May 30, 2019 beginning at 6:00 p.m. CT (7:00 p.m. ET). The event, titled The Current and Future Wave of Immuno-oncology Therapies, will be webcast live and can be accessed under Events & Presentations in the Investors section of the Forty Seven website at www.fortyseveninc.com . About Forty Seven Inc.: Forty Seven, Inc. is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company that is developing therapies targeting cancer immune evasion pathways based on technology licensed from Stanford University. Forty Sevens lead program, 5F9, is a monoclonal antibody against the CD47 receptor, a dont eat me signal that cancer cells commandeer to avoid being ingested by macrophages. This antibody is currently being evaluated in multiple clinical studies in patients with solid tumors, acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, ovarian cancer and colorectal carcinoma. For more information please visit www.fortyseveninc.com or contact [email protected] . For journalist enquiries please contact Sarah Plumridge at [email protected] or phone (312) 506-5219. For investor enquiries please contact Hannah Deresiewicz at Stern Investor Relations Inc. at [email protected] or phone (212) 362-1200. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] A view from the top of a two story building in Fagatogo village overlooking the Port of Pago Pago, as the North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, docks at the main docking section of Pago Pago Harbor, Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. AP-Yonhap The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it has no comment to make regarding North Korea's demand for the return of a U.S.-seized cargo vessel. A North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson earlier denounced the seizure of the Wise Honest as an "unlawful and outrageous act." In a statement to state media, the official said the U.S. should "ponder over the consequences its heinous act might have on the future developments and immediately return our ship." An undated surveillance image provided in a U.S. Department of Justice complaint for forfeiture released May 9, 2019 shows what is described as the North Korean vessel Wise Honest being loaded with coal in Nampo, North Korea. Reuters-Yonhap [May 15, 2019] Media Invited to SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch of Four NASA Missions WASHINGTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Media accreditation is open for SpaceX's third Falcon Heavy launch, targeted for Saturday, June 22, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Four unique NASA technology missions that will help improve future spacecraft design and performance are among the two dozen spacecraft aboard the U.S. Air Force Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission. Members of the media who are foreign nationals and interested in covering the launch must fill out this SpaceX media accreditation form and provide a photocopy of their passport and valid visa to [email protected] by no later than 5 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, May 21. Members of the media who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and interested in covering the launch must fill out this media accreditation form by no later than 5 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 13. The NASA technologies aboard this mission including a small spacecraft, pair of CubeSats, payload and testbed of instruments will help better equip and support the agency's future exploration plans, including returning astronauts to the Moon in five years. The (GPIM) is NASA's first attempt to use a new non-toxic fuel and propulsion system in space. The technology replaces conventional chemical propulsion systems and offers simplified prelaunch processing, increased payload mass, enhanced spacecraft maneuverability, and longer mission durations. A successful demonstration of this capability on a Ball Aerospace spacecraft will benefit future missions by providing safer propellant options for spaceflight. The Enhanced Tandem Beacon Experiment (E-TBEx) explores "bubbles" in the electrically-charged layers of Earth's upper atmosphere, which can disrupt key communications and GPS signals that we rely on down on the ground. Such bubbles currently appear and evolve unpredictably, making them difficult to characterize from the ground. Increasing our understanding of them will help us prevent the disruption of the many radio signals that pass through Earth's upper atmosphere. The two NASA CubeSats on this mission will work in concert with the six satellites of NOAA's COSMIC-2 mission . Varying orbital positions among the eight spacecraft will give scientists chances to study these bubbles from multiple angles at once. A new kind of atomic clock aims to let spacecraft conduct precise navigation on their own, instead of waiting for trajectory information from Earth. This versatile technology also has science and exploration applications. The Deep Space Atomic Clock can be used to study planetary gravity fields and atmospheres, or could even enable a GPS-like capability on the surface of the Moon. The technology demonstration mission, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is the primary payload on General Atomics' Orbital Test Bed spacecraft. Space Environment Testbeds (SET) works in the harsh radiation of near-Earth space to gather data on the very nature of space itself, which is constantly shaped by the Sun. Energetic particles can spark sudden computer problems or memory damage in spacecraft, and degrade hardware over time. Hosted on the Air Force Research Lab's Demonstration and Science Experiments spacecraft and equipped with a space weather monitor and three circuit board experiments, SET will study this space radiation and how it affects instruments. This information can be used to improve spacecraft design, engineering, and operations in order to protect spacecraft and the work they do from harmful radiation. STP-2 is managed by the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The Department of Defense mission will demonstrate the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy rocket while delivering satellites to multiple orbits around Earth over the course of about six hours. To learn more about the STP-2 mission, visit: https://www.spacex.com/stp-2 To stay updated about the NASA technology aboard this launch, visit: www.nasa.gov/spacex View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/media-invited-to-spacex-falcon-heavy-launch-of-four-nasa-missions-300851140.html SOURCE NASA [May 15, 2019] Baron & Budd Investigates Potential Lawsuit Regarding Falsified Fuel Economy Ratings for the 2019 Ford Ranger Today, the national law firm of Baron & Budd announced an investigation of vehicle manufacturer Ford (News - Alert) Motor Company concerning falsified fuel economy ratings for the 2019 Ford Ranger truck. On April 26, 2019, a criminal investigation was launched by the Department of Justice into Ford's emission certification process. According to news reports, "Ford has said that its own employees raised concerns about its emissions certification testing, the results of which also are used to calculate a vehicle's EPA gas mileage ratings." Baron & Budd is now investigating whether Ford used the claims of fuel efficiency to sell its vehicles, and whether Ford deceived consumers by misrepresenting the factors used in its vehicle certification testing to get better results. While the alleged cheating would be great for Ford's profits, it could depreciate the value of the vehicle creating a bigger loss for the consumer. "Lying to consumers for more profit is never acceptable," said Baron & Budd partner, Roland Tellis. "We are investigating this claim in an effort to keep holding automakers accountable for defrauding consumers and to promote more ethical behavior." Baron & Budd has a dedicated history of protecting the rights of people in the arena of auto safety. The law firm represented vehicle owners in the Volkswagen emission fraud lawsuit, which resulted in a class action settlement of approximately $14 billion. Baron & Budd also helped secured a $1.5 billion class action settlement in the Takata Airbag Litigation. If you bought or leased a 2019 model year Ford Ranger vehicle, you may qualify to take legal action. Please call the national law firm of Baron & Budd at 1-800-222-2766 to learn more. Baron & Budd has the experience, support staff and resources to seek the most compensation for your damages. About Baron & Budd, P.C. Baron & Budd, P.C., is among the largest and most accomplished plaintiffs' law firms in the country. With more than 40 years of experience, Baron & Budd has the expertise and resources to handle complex litigation throughout the United States. As a law firm that takes pride in remaining at the forefront of litigation, Baron & Budd has spearheaded many significant cases for hundreds of entities and thousands of individuals. Since the firm was founded in 1977, Baron & Budd has achieved substantial national acclaim for its work on cutting-edge litigation, trying hundreds of cases to verdict and settling tens of thousands of cases in areas of litigation as diverse as dangerous pharmaceuticals and defective medical devices, asbestos and mesothelioma, environmental contamination, fraudulent banking practices, motor vehicles, employment, and other consumer fraud issues. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515006015/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [May 15, 2019] Open Source Summit to Include Embedded Linux Conference, Bring Together Both Technical and Leadership Programs Under One Roof SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the keynotes and program for Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference in North America. The event takes place August 21 - 23, 2019 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. Early bird registration is open through Monday, May 20, 2019. This year for the first time Open Source Summit North America combines with Embedded Linux Conference North America (ELC). For more than a decade, ELC has been the premier vendor-neutral technical conference where developers working on embedded Linux and industrial IoT products and deployments gather for education and collaboration. Open Source Summit brings together developers and open source professionals to collaborate and learn about the latest technologies shaping the world around us. Formerly known as LinuxCon + CloudOpen + ContainerCon, the event is a technical summit and leadership summit in one. "Open source development fuels the software industry, and people fuel open source development," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "Creating spaces where these individuals - developers and leading technologists - can come together in community to advance software development is core to The Linux Foundation's mission. Events are a fundamental component to community building and sustainability and for giving developers and open source professionals the tools and resources they require to do their important work." The Linux Foundation has been building and extending its events program to serve a growing and diverse set of communities and technologies for more than a decade. The organization exists to serve the open source community, identifying and being responsive to developer and technology leader needs. More than 35,000 of the world's leading technologists attend these events annually to share in community, surface new ideas, learn and collaborate. Keynote speakers confirmed for this year's Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference in San Diego include: Dr. Nicole Forsgren , Researcher & Strategist, Google Cloud and Co-Author of "Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations" (IT Revolution) speaking on DevOps . , Researcher & Strategist, and Co-Author of (IT Revolution) speaking on . Jeff Clune , Harris Associate Professor - Computer Science, University of Wyoming & Senior Research Manager (Staff Scientist), Uber AI Labs speaking on AI . , Harris Associate Professor - Computer Science, & Senior Research Manager (Staff Scientist), speaking on . Christina Dunbar-Hester , Faculty Member at USC's Annenberg School for Communication an Journalism and Author of the forthcoming book "Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures" ( Princeton University Press) speaking on Diversity . , Faculty Member at for Communication an Journalism and Author of the forthcoming book ( Press) speaking on . Kairan Quazi , Student & Research Collaborator, Intel Labs' Anticipatory Computing Lab speaking on AI and ACAT. , Student & Research Collaborator, speaking on and Michele Gelfand , Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland and author of "Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World " (Scribner) speaking on community culture . , Distinguished Professor at the and author of " (Scribner) speaking on . Greg Kroah-Hartman , Linux Kernel Developer and Linux Foundation Fellow speaking on the Linux Kernel . , Linux Kernel Developer and Linux Foundation Fellow speaking on the . Chris Wright , vice president and CTO, Red Hat. The event will feature 19 tracks with more than 300 sessions across three days, covering the following areas: Open Source Technical Program & Embedded Linux Conference Linux Systems Security & Safety Cloud Infrastructure & Automation Embedded Linux Automating Compliance Open AI Open IoT Networking & Edge Emerging Technologies & Project Highlights Open Source Training Fundamentals (Cloud Administration Essentials, Embedded Development Essentials & Linux Administration Essentials) Open Source Leadership Program Growing & Sustaining Open Source Communities Diversity Empowerment Open Source Program Management/TODO Best Practices for Open Source Development To view the full program, please visit: http://bit.ly/ossna19program Additionally, numerous co-located events, tutorials and workshops will be offered on the two days prior to the event, including an Open Source in Gaming Day , Tracing Summit , Linux Security Summit , OpenPOWER Summit , State of the (LF) Edge workshop and Machine Learning Summit. The event also includes activities for attendees outside of conference content, including an attendee reception on the USS Midway, morning activities including a 5k Run, the annual Kids Day, Speed Mentoring, Speaker Office Hours and much more. Linux Foundation members and LF project members receive a 20% discount on registration pricing. Academic, student, nonprofit and group discounts are also available. Email [email protected] for discount codes. Applications for diversity and needs-based scholarships are being accepted now. Event sponsors include Diamond sponsor Intel; Platinum sponsors IBM and Red Hat; and Gold sponsor VMware. About the Linux Foundation Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org. The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of the Linux Foundation, please visit our trademark usage page at https://www.linuxfoundaton.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Media Contact Jennifer Cloer reTHINKit Media [email protected] 503-867-2304 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/open-source-summit-to-include-embedded-linux-conference-bring-together-both-technical-and-leadership-programs-under-one-roof-300851244.html SOURCE The Linux Foundation [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] If you've got a Titan Security Bundle from Google, you might have to replace the wireless Bluetooth/NFC keyfob device that came as part of the package. Google is offering replacement keyfobs for free. (Image credit: The Titan security key bundle. Credit: Google) That's because a flaw in some of the keyfobs' Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) software could let an attacker within about 30 feet of you hijack the key-registration or device-pairing processes, Google warned in a blog post today (May 15). If so, the attacker's own wireless security key, not yours, could be used to log into your Google and other online accounts. (The USB security key that is other half of the Titan bundle is not affected.) To see if you qualify for a replacement Titan wireless key, go to https://myaccount.google.com/replacemykey on a browser on which you're signed into your Google account. You can also check the back of the keyfob, at the bottom, to see if a tiny "T1" or "T2" is printed into the plastic; if so, you qualify and should email replacemykey@google.com for further instructions. MORE: You're Probably Doing 2FA Wrong: Here's the Right Way At least this solves the mystery of why Google's Titan security-key bundle was missing from the Google Play store for several months. It's back in the store today for the same price of $50. Google's security keys are a part of two-factor authentication, the system whereby you are asked for an additional form of authentication when logging into an online account from a device you haven't used before. The security key is the second factor; without it, even someone who has your username and password won't be able to log in. Physical security keys are much more secure than texted temporary codes, which can be intercepted over the air. Users can also be tricked into divulging codes by phishing websites. Who's affected and why If you use an iPhone and have a vulnerable wireless Titan keyfob, it will no longer work once you update to iOS 12.3, so don't log out of your Google account on your iPhone until you get a replacement key. For Android users and anyone using iOS 12.2 or earlier, Google recommends not using an affected Titan wireless security key in any location where strangers could be within Bluetooth range about 30 feet. That rules out most offices, cafes, libraries and other crowded places. Google also recommends that you immediately unpair your wireless Titan security from your Bluetooth-enabled device after using the key. Yubico was right about Bluetooth This flaw vindicates the somewhat controversial decision a year ago by rival security-key maker Yubico to not manufacture Bluetooth-enabled security keys. "We decided not to launch the [BLE security key] product as it does not meet our standards for security, usability and durability," Yubico co-founder Stina Ehrensvard wrote in a blog posting in July 2018. "BLE does not provide the security assurance levels of NFC and USB, and requires batteries and pairing that offer a poor user experience." Google's keyfob uses NFC (near-field communications) as well, which is stronger and safer than BLE, but iOS devices don't work well with NFC-based security keys, with the exception of Yubico's latest keys. Google's use of Bluetooth is a way around that. NFC has a much shorter range than Bluetooth, on a scale of a few inches rather than 30 feet. Makers of NFC-enabled security keys recommend holding the key right up to your smartphone when using the key. Most Yubico USB-based security keys also include NFC, and you can get a combination USB-NFC security key from Amazon for less than $20. Update 6:03 pm ET: Apple posted a support page with instructions on how to disable hyper-threading to fully protect your Mac from ZombieLoad, but warned that doing so could decrease performance by up to 40%. For more information, read our guide on how to disable the feature. There's a good chance your laptop is powered by an Intel CPU. If so, then you'll need to update your computer immediately, after a class of vulnerabilities was discovered that allows attackers to steal data directly from your processor. The so-called ZombieLoad bug and three related vulnerabilities were unearthed by some of the same researchers who brought the critical Spectre and Meltdown flaws into the spotlight, and it shares many similarities to those bugs. ZombieLoad and its kin affect every Intel processor made since 2011, which means all MacBooks, and a large majority of Windows PCs, most Linux servers and even many Chromebooks are in the crosshairs. The bugs can even be used on virtual machines in the cloud. But AMD and ARM chips do not appear to affected by these latest flaws. (Image credit: Intel) Intel, which calls this set of flaws Microarchitectural Data Sampling, or MDS, says select 8th Gen and 9th Gen CPUs are already protected against the flaw, and that all future CPUs will include hardware mitigation. (The researchers who discovered the flaws disagree with Intel and insist those chips are still affected.) "Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) is already addressed at the hardware level in many of our recent 8th and 9th Generation Intel Core processors, as well as the 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processor Family," Intel said in an official statement. How the Attacks Work Like Spectre, Meltdown and several other flaws discovered since, these four new distinct attacks -- called ZombieLoad, Fallout, RIDL and Store-to-Leak Forwarding -- exploit weaknesses in a widely used feature called "speculative execution," which is used to help a processor predict what an app or program will need next in order to improve performance. The processor speculates, or tries to guess, which requests for operations it will receive in the near future (i.e, the next few milliseconds). The processor carries out, or executes, those operations before they are requested in order to save time when the requests are actually made. The problem is that by carrying out operations before they are actually needed, the CPUs put the results of those operations -- i.e., data -- in their own short-term memory caches. In various ways, Spectre, Meltdown and these latest four flaws all permit attackers to read that data directly from the processor memory caches. There's a technical breakdown of the four new attacks here. An alarming proof-of-concept video shows how the ZombieLoad exploit can be executed to see which websites a person is viewing in real time. The vulnerabilities also open the door for attackers to nab passwords, sensitive documents and encryption keys directly from a CPU. "It's kind of like we treat the CPU as a network of components, and we basically eavesdrop on the traffic between them," Cristiano Giuffrida, a researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam who was part of the teams that discovered the MDS attacks, told Wired. "We hear anything that these components exchange." (Image credit: Michael Schartz/Twitter) Update Right Now There is some good news. Intel, Apple, Google and Microsoft have already issued patches to fix the flaws. So have many makers of Linux distributions. But you're not out of danger until you've updated all of your Intel-based devices and their operating systems, which we strongly recommend doing right away. Read our guide on how to check for updates on your Mac or follow these steps to update your Windows 10 PC. Intel admitted that the security patches will impact CPU performance by up to 3% on consumer devices and up to 9% on data-center machines, and Google is disabling hyper-threading (a method that splits cores to increase performance) in Chrome OS 74 to mitigate the security risks. But don't let that dissuade you from manually forcing the update. Apple posted a support page explaining that the only way to fully mitigate the flaw is to disable hyper-threading, but that by doing so, you risk decreasing system performance by a staggering 40%, according to internal testing. Most people won't need to take such extreme measures to protect their computers, but certain at-risk users, like government employees and business executives, might want want to take the precaution. If you fall into these groups or want extra reassurance, read our guide on how to disable hyper-threading on macOS (for Mojave, High Sierra and Sierra). Bottom Line Unfortunately, researchers believe that vulnerabilities related to speculative execution will continue to surface far into the future. We can only cross our fingers that these flaws are quickly patched, but once they are, it's up to you to make sure your devices have all been updated to the latest, most secure versions. (Image credit: Arm) Arm announced today a new display processor for VR headsets. The Mali D-77 is said to be optimized for 3K resolution VR experiences at 120 frames per second without creating motion sickness. The processor also promises support for small and large LCDs, as well as OLED displays with HDR capabilities. Arm Mali-D77 Display Processor The new VR capabilities of the Mali-D77 differ from other display processors on the market. For instance, it enables the offloading of specific compute functions from the GPU to the display processing unit (DPU), which Arm said leads to both higher quality visuals, as well as the elimination of motion sickness. Freeing the GPU from having to power up the display itself means that the GPU is free to use its resources for gaming or other more GPU-specific tasks. Other Mali-D77 features include: Lens Distortion Correction (LDC) - a capability that pre-distorts images so that they counter the distortion effect of the VR headset lenses. Chromatic Aberration Correction (CAC) - similar to LDC, the CAC feature pre-separates the color channels in the opposite direction to counter the blurring effect caused by the lenses. Asynchronous Timewarp (ATW) - this feature re-projects the virtual scene based on the latest position of the headset in the 3D space. Mali-D77 Bandwidth and Power Savings In order to enable lighter and untethered VR headsets, the display processor needs to be both powerful and efficient. According to Arm's announcement, when the VR composition and processing is done by the Mali-D77, the system can see a 40% reduction in bandwidth in typical VR uses cases. In addition, Arm said the chip brings a 12% power saving for VR workloads, which means developers can either choose to use that savings to enable higher quality visuals or free up GPU cycles. Arm noted that the Mali-D77 display processor is versatile enough to be used in System-on-Chip (SoC) platforms that can then be integrated into all sorts of devices that use displays. A newly formed smart city consultancy has developed a replicable model for identifying, planning and resourcing smart city solutions for communities of all sizes. B2 Civic Solutions is founded by Bob Bennett, the outgoing chief innovation officer (CIO) for Kansas City, where he oversaw its smart city programme described as the "world's most connected". AS READERSHIP FADES, THE PITCH DABBLES WITH THE OCCULT!!! THAT SH*T IS THE DEVIL!!! WILL THE 'BLACK MAGIC' COVERAGE DOOM THE PITCH TO AN EVEN MORE GHASTLY DEAD-TREE MEDIA DEMISE?!?! What's behind the surprising resurgence of KC's metaphysical community? Emma Olson Sometime in the last year or so, my friends all started turning into moon witches. These were women in their late twenties and early thirties. Women with graduate degrees who vaccinated their children, who read more than just the headline, who could spell "teleological" and use it in a sentence. The Kansas City alt-mag has quickly faded from relevance and is now nothing more than a blog and a really sketchy scheme to use sponsored content and social media to back up an otherwise boring event planning biz. However, here's the question for TKC inquiring minds as this blog not only serves to inform the public but also to save the soul of Kansas City.And so we ask . . .We report on the tragic descent into darkness with a heavy heart because the publication was formerly one of our favorites and now irresponsible leadership has plunged the local alternative institution into the abyss. Here's the reference but we DO NOT encourage anyone to read more: Community Outreach Push Back Sparks fly during meeting over "nuisance" property KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A neighborhood meeting at KCPD Metro Patrol descended into chaos Tuesday night, all over a property neighbors have been battling about for nearly a decade. The house, located on East 80th Street, became such a source of frustration that the Marlborough East Neighborhood Association reached out to 41 Action News for help. Rock Chalk Traffic Tragedy KU student killed in Lenexa K-10 wreck returned from semester in Spain one week ago Westbound K-10 was closed at Ridgeview Road following a fatal accident on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Dylan Garnett had only been back for a week from a semester abroad in Spain when he was killed in a wreck on Kansas 10 highway. Kansas City Crooks Love This Truck Group tracking metro auto thefts says F-250 pickup trucks popular among thieves RAYTOWN, Mo. -- Dave Brucker created the Facebook group Stolen KC when he had his Ford F-250 stolen. Now he says the site seems to be seeing a rash of thieves targeting the specific "Super-Duty" truck series in the metro. "There must be a new generation or new group that's learned how to steal these trucks," Brucker said. Buggy Rain Postscript Recent rain leaving homeowners tackling mold, bugs JOHNSON COUNTY, Kan. - Recent rain caused historic flooding throughout the Kansas City metro area. Many people are still dealing with its aftermath with things like mold and bugs. "Bugs want a place to live," Cat Heisler, General Manager, Pete's Pest Control, said. "They want to food to eat and they need water." Urban Planning Golden Ghetto Shawnee looking for input to 're-imagine 75th Street' between Switzer and Quivira SHAWNEE, Kan. -- Shawnee wants to make some big changes along 75th Street, but it wants the public's input before anything happens. On Tuesday, the city held an open house for the revitalization project it's calling "Re-imagine 75th Street." The Mid-America Regional Council gave the city a grant to study the 1-mile stretch between and Switzer and Quivira Road. Low Rent Vacay Advice Kansas City magazine calls Wichita 'the perfect weekend getaway,' maps stop-by-stop visit (FILE VIDEO) Wichitan Tyler Engle and a friend shot some footage with a drone in April 2016 and made a quick video for his Facebook page. You'd think Martin Cizmar was a Wichitan, so perfectly has he mapped out a dreamy weekend in the ICT for the Kansas City magazine he edits. Summer Sneak Peek Today Temps in the 80s for Wednesday A random pop-up thunderstorm is possible Tuesday evening. The low will only drop to 59 degrees. Wednesday will be mostly sunny, with a high near 82 degrees. First, a reminder that social media status isn't just about goofy photos poseur politics, it's about getting paid for it:Closer to home, these news links start our morning . . .is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . . MO businesses waiting to apply for medical marijuana license KANSAS CITY, Mo. - One business owner describes the race to get a license for a medicinal cannabis facility as the wild west. At least 510 organizations have pre-filed their applications in Missouri, but only 388 licenses will be granted . The state will grant 192 licenses for dispensaries, 60 for cultivation facilities, and 86 for manufacturing facilities. The cost of pushing this drug has always been high but now local taxpayers are on the right side of the equation and legislation looms. Read more: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attend a joint news conference after their talks in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, southern Russia, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. AP-Yonhap U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday he emphasized the need to maintain sanctions on North Korea in talks with his Russian counterpart. Pompeo met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi to discuss cooperation on various issues, including Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. At a joint press conference after the meeting, Pompeo said the two countries agree on the goal of North Korea's denuclearization and will continue to discuss it. "I underscored that we must maintain full implementation of the U.N. sanctions until the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea is achieved," he said. "Our two teams have been working very closely together on this in a very productive fashion." Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during their talks in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, southern Russia, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. AP-Yonhap The U.S. and Russia have demonstrated gaps in their view of how denuclearization should be achieved, with Washington insisting on continued pressure and Moscow advocating an easing of U.N. sanctions in exchange for denuclearization steps. Senators end 27-hour filibuster, handing Parson victory on incentives for Wentzville GM plant JEFFERSON CITY - A bloc of Republican senators ended a 27-hour holdout Tuesday, giving Gov. Mike Parson a victory in his bid to deliver a $50 million incentive package to General Motors. Republican soul searching decided that job creation and some tax bennies for a company that loves dreamers and building cars in Mexico is still good for the local bottom line. Take a look: Missouri looks at fetal heartbeat law with no exceptions for rape, incest JEFFERSON CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Some Missouri lawmakers are looking to join other states in banning abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. The Missouri bill would be one of the nation's most restrictive if enacted. It's similar to "heartbeat" bills signed into law in Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio and Georgia. The debate over abortion is about to get real in Missouri as Red State leaders flex on progressives in KCMO & STL who debate about choice but mostly opt out of tougher questions about stopping a beating heart. Read more: Missouri Attorney General: Felons Will Go Free If Public Defenders Have Their Way Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt says a proposed deal to reduce public defender workloads doesn't protect the interests of the public, and he wants permission to intervene in the case. Schmitt said Tuesday that the deal, which sets maximum caseloads for the state's 500-plus public defenders, "would allow untold numbers of alleged felons to avoid criminal prosecution." It's not the cons who will suffer . . . Instead, innocent people on the outside will confront criminals who should have been locked up but were let go on a technicality. Take a look: Porsches crazy about its history. The German company has built its reputation via winning races - much like Ferrari has - and it cant stop reminding everyone about its landmark moments. There are multiple events dedicated to the history of Ferdinand Porsches company, such us Luftghekult or the Rennsport Reunion. If you arrive in Stuttgart, the first thing you stumble across is the Porsche Platz, and there, on one side of the roundabout at the entrance of the city, theres a futuristic-looking building. Thats Porsches own museum thats filled to the brim with everything Porsche both new and old. But Porsche doesnt currently own this car, the Type 64 chassis #38/41. It was designed by Ferdinand Porsche as a marketing ploy to showcase that you can extract genuine performance from the unassuming platform of the Beetle. If Porsche wants it back, itll have to join the crowd at the RM/Sothebys auction in Monterey, California, thats scheduled for August 15th through to the 17th. When you think of the first Porsche, you probably have in mind the 1948 Porsche 356/1 also known as the "Porsche No. 1". Indeed, that was the first car to wear the Porsche badge, but youd have to go back almost a decade to find the first Porsche-named car, and that is the streamlined vehicle that stands before your eyes now. Its called the Type 64, and three were built precisely 80 years ago of which two survive now, and only this one has the original sheet metal on it. Mechanically, it is a strengthened and tuned Beetle but, as far as looks are concerned, it has the 356s DNA written all over it. Now, its up for auction, and if somebody other than the Porsche Museum buys it, Ill be shocked. The 1939 Porsche Type 64 looks futuristic even today Usually, if you want to buy a highly significant car from a companys history, you either have to scoop up an uncountable amount of money or, in some cases, you have to forget about it altogether. Want to but a genuine Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Ulenhaut Coupe? You cant. Mercedes-Benz owns both of them, and its not about to sell you one no matter how much money you wave in its face. Want to buy the first Porsche 356? Porsche has it and, again, it wont sell it to you. But if you want the first Porsche you can actually put up or shut up. If you don't have at least $20 million, though, it'd be wiser to shut up already because you won't leave the Monterey Peninsula in the Porsche Type 64 if you don't have that kind of money in your account. But, hey, its amazing that this opportunity even exists, to begin with. The history behind the 1939 Porsche Type 64 Considered by many as the greatest car engineer of the 20th century, Ferdinand Porsche is the man behind many firsts (the first rear-engined, RWD car, the first mid-engined car, the first hybrid car, and many others in between) as well as the driving force of some of the most recognizable names in the automotive business: one of them is Volkswagen, and the other is the one he created when he realized no other car was quite up to his standards, and thats Porsche, of course. In 1934, Porsche bagged the contract with the German Automobile Industry Association to design a cheap, economical, and practical car for the German people. The name of the car suggested its mass appeal as it was baptized Volkswagen. Porsche won the job because hed been actively working to develop a car like this for about three years by then. He designed the Porsche Type 12 for Zundapp in 1931 that used Porsche's air-cooled flat four mounted in the back. Three prototypes were built in cooperation with Zundapp who also equipped the prototypes with its own five-cylinder radial engine at one point. Also, Edmund Rumplers swing axle rear suspension setup was employed. In 1932, a fourth prototype was built for NSU who was also taking a look at the market for small cars. All of these early creations were similar in design in that Porsche went away from the standard, boxy design of the day and, instead, proposed a streamlined body to improve fuel efficiency. Chrysler pulled a similar trick with the 1934 Airflow although work on aerodynamic designs had been ongoing for over a decade by that point. In 1933, a year before officially getting the contract to build what would become the Beetle, Porsche met with Adolf Hitler himself to iron out the details of the new peoples car. The leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party wanted a car that could seat two adults in the front and two children in the back, proved sturdy enough to be in use year-round, offered 40 mpg without a hitch, and would feature an air-cooled engine since most Germans did not have a garage to store their cars in. Also, the soon-to-be dictators wanted the car to cost no more than 1,000 German marks, a third of the price of a cheap American car in the early '30s. Porsches team of consultants and engineers (Ferdinand had already established his own consultancy firm which is how he was able to work with a variety of big names in the business and was even offered the chance to mastermind Russias engineering revival) got to work right away and, by 1935, the first running and driving had already been built at Porsches own workshop near his villa in Stuttgart. Porsches own son Ferry was tasked with test driving these early prototypes that were internally known as Porsche Type 60. The first batch of 30 near-production prototypes was built in 1937 in cooperation with Daimler AG and, in 1938, the renamed KdF Wagen was ready. KdF were the initials of Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy), a State-run leisure organization set up to showcase the advantages of the National Socialism. Around that time, the idea of the Berlin-Rome rally emerged. It shouldve taken place on September the 27th 1938 under the guidance of the National Socialist Motor Corps, but it never happened due to rising tensions in Czechoslovakia as Germany was keen to annex to its territory the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia inhabited by a large number of German-speaking people. Two days after the rally shouldve taken place, a meeting in Munich, Germany, between representatives from Germany, Italy, France, and the U.K. took place which settled the ongoing crisis. Effectively, the Western powers allowed Germany to annex the region, ignoring Czechoslovakias sovereignty - although it all came about as a proposal from Italys Mussolini. In spite of all the turmoil, the Berlin-Rome rally wasnt ditched for good, and it was rescheduled for 1939. KdF was keen to take part in motorsport-related activities (as evidenced by the fact that the organization had previously bought from Porsche the plans for a V-10-engined race car commonly referred to as the Porsche F-Wagen (Porsche Type 114). Renamed the KdF R-Wagen (also known as the Porsche Type 116), it was supposed to sport a 1.5-liter engine mounted behind the cockpit, like in the case of the Auto Union P-Wagen also designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Sadly, the water-cooled R-Wagen was never built, but the special KdF car for the Berlin-Rome (from one end of the Axis of Steel to the other) rally did materialize. It used the underpinnings of the KdF Wagen with parts from Porsches Type 114 project. The body design name was Type 60 K10 which referred to the fact that the design of the body was the 10th to be mounted on the Type 60 chassis. As the cars used 1938 KdF chassis, the chassis numbers started with 38. Three examples, all slightly different in appearance, were built (chassis #38/41, #38/42, and #38/43) after Ferdinand Porsche arranged with Major Adolf Huehnlein (the head of the ONS, the organization responsible for overseeing motorsport-related activity in Germany) that the race would make use of Germanys highways. With this detail in place, the work began on the body. It had to be streamlined since the engine was barely modified: the 1.1-liter (or, according to other sources, just 1.0-liter), air-cooled, flat-four put out no more than 40 horsepower on a good day. Designed by Erwin Komenda, the cars were to be equipped with two spare tires in a cargo compartment in the front, as laid out by Karl Froehlich. This meant that the fuel tank had to be moved which, in turn, saw the cabin shrink in size as the seat was moved further towards the middle of the car (thats why the car has the narrow bubble look to it). Again, sources conflict as to how fast the Type 64 really was. Some say it could happily travel at 80 mph on the bit of highway between Stuttgart and Berlin where the first chassis was tested while according to Porsche Road & Race, it could reach as much as 107 mph at 4,000 rpm, a lot more than the 95 mph top speed quoted by Stuttcars.com. In any case, the car was very fast, given its puny little engine. Thats also because it was very light. The body, for instance, was built by Karosseriewerk Reutter from 0.5 mm thick aluminum alloy sheets that were beaten by hand to create that teardrop shape. The first car was ready on August 19, 1939, but it was to no avail as, on September 1st, 1939, the Second World War officially commenced and, as such, all racing had to be abandoned. In fact, the final pre-War race was the 1939 Belgrade Grand Prix, the highlight of which was the GP race that took place on September 3rd of that year. Whats amazing is that, by then, both the Hungarian and the French teams had withdrawn, but the German Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union decided to keep going regardless of what was going on in Poland. Only the five Silver Arrows took part in the race around the Kalemegdan Park in the Yugoslavian capital. Tazio Nuvolari of Italy won piloting an Auto-Union Type D. The Type D, powered by a 3.0-liter V-12, was designed by Dr. Robert Eberan von Eberhorst as a follow-up to the Ferdinand Porsche-designed Type A, Type B, and Type C (that had been successful in 1936 with Bernd Rosemeyer becoming European Champion in the AIACR-organized Grand Prix series). Now, going back to the Porsche Type 64 from another historical interlude, you may be wondering what happened to the cars since the race did not take place. Well, all three did get built (the second in December of 1939 and the third in 1940) and lived very interesting lives thereafter. The first example was gifted to Bodo Lafferentz, "a member not only of Germanys national trade union, but he was also a board member of the newly formed Volkswagenwerk," according to Porsche Road & Race. Lafferentz crashed the car, but the car was salvaged and repaired although, during the years of WWII, the body of the third car built sat on the chassis of Lafferentzs car for reasons unknown. This third car was used by Ferdinand Porsche himself while the second car saw action as an experimental vehicle. During the war period, the second and third chassis were saved by Porsche as he fled to Gmund, Austria where he set up an impromptu headquarters at a villa in Zell-Am-See. As Americans arrived to liberate Austria, the appearance of one of the Type 64s, namely chassis #38/42, was intriguing enough to prompt them to seize it. They drove around in it for a while before chopping the roof off and driving it some more until the engine let go. At that point, the car was scrapped although some parts that were salvaged such as the front axle, much of the chassis but almost nobody parts. The third car was driven by Ferry and Ferdinand Porsche and upgraded a number of times after the War (included some restoration work done to the aluminum body by Pinin Farina in Turin). In 1948/1949, Ferry even added the Porsche letters on the nose of the car above the rounded grille and across the crease that traverses from the windshield down over the hood (as I said, all three Type 64s were slightly different as they featured different taillights or different grilles or even a more raked windshield in the case of #38/42). Whats important to underline is that, by 1949, Porsche had already built the 356/1 so the Type 64 was seen as a relic by Ferdinand, a man always looking ahead and not behind. Luckily, the chassis #38/43 (the only one to survive the War in earnest) was not scrapped and, instead, it ended up in the hands of Swiss racing driver Otto Mathe who also took with him some parts from the second car. RM/Sothebys is selling this third car As mentioned because there was a chassis/body swap that happened after Lafferentz crashed chassis #38/41, the third car ended up being a hybrid. Thats why, now, RM/Sothebys is selling a car with the serial number of the first Type 64 built and the engine ID of the third car built. But, for what its worth, its a highly original car. Mathe bought it in 1949 and did not intend to baby it at all. A former motorcycle racer (before a crash in 1934 rendered his right hand paralyzed), Mathe converted the car to right-hand-drive so he can drive it with his left hand. He also equipped it with more modern hydraulic brakes (it originally came with cable-actuated brakes). Otto Mathe, was one of the first, if not the very first driver, to use Porsche products for racing, said Oliver Schmidt of the Prototype Museum in Hamburg, quoted by Porsche Road & Race. The Prototype Museum was the cars de facto home for years, but it probably will no longer be after the sale. "Between 1949 and 1953, Mathe competed with the Porsche in around eighteen different events including the Coppa Dolomiti in Northern Italy, Osterreichische Alpenfahrt, Stella Alpina, Straenrennen Meran and Korneuburg, Krems, Linz, Gmund, Innsbruck, Eifelrennen, as well as several circuit races." In 1950, Mathe won in his class in the Austrian Alpine Rally. Come the end of 1950, Mathe dismantled the car, repaired it from end to end and then put it back together, also taking time to respray the interior and exterior in turquoise. It wasnt until the 70s that Mathe decided to repaint the car in its original silver/green color and he never sold it. Mathe (said to be Niki Laudas first idol in the Austrian F1 World Champions childhood) died in 1995 at the age of 88 and, two years later, it ended up in Dr. Thomas Grubers possession. In 1998, it was converted back to left-hand-drive by Barbach in Austria before being sold, a decade later, to the Schoerghuber company. It is now sold by Schoerghuber as the most important piece of Porsche history thats not owned by Porsche. You see, the polished hovering Type 64 in the Porsche Museum is a replica with an aluminum body made by a well-known bodywork specialist, Karosseriebau Drescher. That car doesnt have any of the parts salvaged from chassis #38/42 as those went into the recreation commissioned by the Prototype Museum in Hamburg. The story about rebuilding car number 2 starts for us when we had problems with the gearbox of the Fetzenflieger (the third car)," said Oliver Schmidt, quoted by Porsche Road & Race. "When we took the gearbox out we saw the number 38/42 on it, and at first we didnt know what it was, but later we found out that this was the number of the second Berlin-Rome car. And then we found more parts stamped with 38/42 and finally we also found the almost complete chassis and the front axle. One of the door handles we found in a box full of aluminum ski bindings, and so we also had many other parts for the car, but not the body." Nostalgicar of Neuss, Germany, built a brand-new aluminum body that was placed on the salvaged chassis and everything else that was saved (and was taken by Mathe) was mounted on this rebuilt car. The car is painted black with black headlight covers as it wouldve had during the war. Im certain that the ex-Mathe Porsche Type 64 (With its black Tyrolean numberplates and all the rust and dents in the right places) will sell for a lot of money since its the most original example out there while taking into consideration that it also has components from the first chassis built. Of course, the Prototype Museum's rebuilt #38/42 is also valuable, but it will never sell for as much money due to the fact that the body is new. Thats not to say that Mathes car features all the original sheet metal, not at all. The Swiss racer often had incidents driving it in Hillclimb or rally events, so many parts got replaced or straightened out during its post-War competition life. Still, its the most original Type 64 out there and, again, Porsche would be a fool not to throw as much money as it has to in the direction of the Schoerghuber company to acquire its missing link. Further reading Read our full review on the 1948-1965 Porsche 356. Ultra Rare Porsche 356 Prototype for sale Read our full review on the 1938 Porsche Typ 64 Source: RM Sothebys The start of production of the 2020 Tesla Model Y next year will result in a battery cell shortage, according to reports from the Gigafactory 1 factory. Panasonics CEO, Kazuhiro Tsuga, wants to discuss the topic with Tesla . For the production of the Model Y, Tesla has yet to declare which factory it will use. Also, Tesla has not confirmed any battery supplier for the production of the Model 3. Tesla Model Y and Model 3 Battery Shortage Automakers planning mass production of electric vehicles are always concerned about a supply shortage of battery cells. Over the last few years, because of the strong partnership between Tesla and Panasonic in expanding production of Gigafactory 2, the EV carmaker never had to worry about battery cell supply shortage. Lately, Tesla declared that it is still deciding between its Fremont factory in California and Gigafactory 1 in Nevada for the production of Model Y, which is scheduled to kick off in fall of 2020. However, Gigafactory 1 is saying that the start of Model Y production next year will result in a battery cell shortage at the factory. Panasonics CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga said : Batteries will run out if Tesla starts to sell the Model Y and expands its business next year. What will we do then? Its one of a few topics to discuss with Tesla, including battery [production] in China. Also, Tesla has not yet confirmed any battery supplier for the production of the Model 3 which is supposed to start later this year, at the new Gigafactory 3 factory in Shanghai. Should we worry about Tesla facing a battery cell shortage in the near future? Well, I dont think so. Hopefully, Tesla is already negotiating with Panasonic for a new investment to significantly expand the production at Gigafactory 1. It is time for Tesla to make this battery supply issue clearer to all of us. Further Reading Read our full review on the 2020 Tesla Model Y. Read our full review on the 2018 Tesla Model 3. Whether its track action that tickles your senses or you happen to crave an open-air drive through the Alps in a convertible, then youve come to the right place. So, get on reading and choose your poison. Thats why we selected a handful of enticing automaker-provided customer driving experiences bound to create those ever-lasting memories we all long for. Every true petrolhead wants to explore the depths of his or her favorite car brands ethos, the core values, and direction that allowed it to build incredible machines. In our book, theres no better way of interacting with a car manufacturer (other than buying its products, of course) than meeting the people behind it and getting a taste of what the cars can actually do outside the public road. Master MASERATI Maserati is one of those carmakers that know how to spoil a customer. The Italian carmaker offers an assortment of driving experiences, but the cream of the crop is Master Maserati a program that has been rolling for two decades. Besides getting to drive every Maserati model in the lineup, theres this icing on the cake: those enrolled in the program can hop on behind the wheel of a Maserati GranTurismo GT4 race car and experience hot laps with three-time GT1 world champion Andrea Bertolini on the Varano de Melegari circuit near Parma, in the heart of the Italian countryside. Moreover, know that the brand also sets up driving experiences based on a particular model and winter events that highlight every Maseratis handling abilities on snow and ice. Prices range from 650 to 6,300. PORSCHE Experience The Porsche Experience program is split into four standalone categories: Travel Experience, Track Experience, Ice Experience, and Racing Experience. Perhaps the most spectacular choice, the Porsche Ice Experience takes place at the carmakers driving center in Levi, Finland, just north of the Arctic Circle. You can get a glimpse of it in the video below: In any case, if drifting 911s and 718 Caymans on ice in temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius is not your thing (how can it not be, really?) then you can opt for the Travel Experience which will take you to places with stunning scenery and superb driving roads. After all, youll be grabbing the wheel of a Porsche, so theres no point in taking the straight road here. Or maybe you prefer pushing your limits on the track, which is also something Porsche can arrange on Istanbuls Intercity Park circuit. Prices range from 1,200 to 8,690. LAMBORGHINI Accademia and Esperienza LAMBORGHINI Lamborghini likes to keep things simple with two driving experience-oriented programs. Those are called Esperienza Lamborghini and Lamborghini Accademia. The former is a tailor-made experience that starts at the Lamborghini factory in SantAgata Bolognese. Those enrolled get to visit the Huracan and Aventador production lines and the exquisite Collezione Lamborghini boutique. For the second part of the program, participants are invited to the Autodromo di Imola race track where theyre provided with Lamborghini Accademia cars and get schooled by Lamborghini Squadra Corse instructors and race drivers. Besides the driving part, Lamborghini Accademia events up the ante with even more exclusive experiences night driving, ice and snow driving (as part of the Lamborghini Winter Accademia program), five-star accommodation on the Riviera Romagnola, and courses on the Misano World Circuit in Rimini. Prices range from 350 to 6,900. MERCEDES-BENZ Driving Events Mercedes-Benz offers various experiences behind the wheel that touch on sporty driving, travel events, and guided tours. Apart from the summer and winter training programs that involve both on-road and off-road action, the Germans can the so-called Fascination Mercedes-Benz experience. This comes packed as either a course or a tour, with highlights like driving the Mercedes-AMG S 63 cabriolet, but also getting dirty inside the iconic G-Class on muddy trails. What wed take in the blink of an eye, however, is the Classic Car Travel bundle, which lets you drive a historic Mercedes-Benz SL in select settings like the Cote dAzur, Rhone basin, Tuscany (Siena and San Gimignano), or Lake Maggiore. Or, you could just as well retrace the famed Mille Miglia race in a classic Mercedes-Benz. Prices range from 140 to 1,995. BMW Driving Experience BMW runs its driving programs through the BMW Driving Experience umbrella. What does that mean? In essence, the Driving Experience is tailored to cover a wide range of courses and experiences for all sorts of needs and desires. For example, through the BMW Academy Experience, you can take part in safety training courses, drift training with BMW M models, or workshops on alternative powertrains where youll get up close and personal with the BMW i3 and i8. In case youre looking for something a tad more extreme, then youd be better off with one (or all) of the following: M Race Track Experience (including laps on the Nurburgring Nordschleife), Winter Experience, Tour Experience, and Professional Driver Experience. Prices range from 115 to 5,490. Also, note that the Winter Experience is a massive hit among customers and all courses are currently fully booked. Pure MCLAREN and MCLAREN Lifestyle Pure McLaren is the carmakers official track driving program. We like how McLaren cuts right to the chase and offers customers the opportunity to drive its supercars where theyre supposed to be driven: on the race track. The courses are split into several workshops designed to suit every drivers skills, including Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Multiple. The latter is suited for all customers regardless of the level of skill theyve amassed but requires them to bring their own McLaren. The piece de la resistance of McLarens driving experiences remains the Lifestyle Calendar. Revolving around VIP hospitality, scenic routes driven behind the wheel of a supercar and exclusive packages, the programs schedule includes packs such as the McLaren Drive and F1 Grand Prix experience. Prices range between 1,095 and 16,995 (1,260/$1,420 to 19,560/$22,000). Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten, , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei, , holidays in Turkey, , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas, This site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, at a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. Safari booking and Mount Kilimanjaro climbing travel website has been redesigned to provide the reader with the comprehensive destination information, travel deals and catch the contents easily. Among destinations covered are Mount Kilimanjaro, Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire, Lake Eyasi, Selous game reserve and cultural tourism places. (TRAVPR.COM) TANZANIA - May 15th, 2019 - Kilimanjaro safaris website redesigned has Travel layout and holiday style booking online forms. The introduction includes slogan of the Tour Operator and the main topics of the company. Main topics are Destinations, Company Profile about us, Contacts and activities such as Kilimanjaro trekking, wildlife safaris, rock climbing cultural tourism, historical tours, Hotel booking, flights bookings, Maasai Boma tours, and beach holidays. Activities are divided into Leisure holidays and active adventures. Leisure holiday activities are wildlife safari Tanzania, beach holidays to Zanzibar and cultural tourism. Leisure holiday activities are arranged in travel plans also known as Tanzania safari itineraries. Tanzania safari itineraries vary in duration from 3 days Tanzania safaris, Southern circuit safari Selous game reserve, 4 days wildlife safaris Tanzania, 5 days safari, 6 days up to 9 days and more. Accommodation options safari explained are Lodge safari and tented camps safaris, these vary in price. Tips for preparing and booking African safari are also provided at the site. Active adventures organized by Kilimanjaro Tanzanite Safaris Ltd is Mount Meru climbing and Kilimanjaro trekking. Travel packages in Mount Kilimanjaro are divided into trips according to Kilimanjaro route you choose. So each Kilimanjaro route is a complete travel package which can take from 5 days to 9 days and lead you to Kilimanjaro summit. Kilimanjaro climbing trip journey duration begins from ascending up, summit and descend down to particular Kilimanjaro gate again. Services fit every person needs from Vegetarian, Vegan, Halal, Kosher food, etc. Moreover, there are best seller packages pointed out depending on how many time tourists book them. Also, there are latest deals, tour offers, and discounts section where visitors will get updated information. Reviews and Testimony are the most important aspect on Trustworthy of the DMC and peace of Mind for Travellers. Past clients opinions at TripAdvisor travel review site show their experience about destination and Tour Operator in General. Last but not least are articles about destination travel tips and useful ideas for planning an African safari holiday. The website covers most information about vacation travel planning and booking. This is complete to enable the holiday goer to get important details to begin trip booking, after that a serious traveler need to inquire and get more specific travel information to fulfill his/her interests. Travel tips covered are how to fly to Tanzania, cheap flight tickets from almost everywhere in the world. Hotel booking can be done directly online at Airbnb or booking.com or hotels.com. Air Tanzania has introduced affordable flights to Johannesburg, Mumbai, Hahaya, Guangzhou, and while El Al Israel Airlines, KLM, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways etc fly daily to Kilimanjaro Airport. Kilimanjaro Tanzanite Safaris Ltd (KITASA) is a local Tour Operator and DMC in Tanzania. KITASA deals with Safari holiday booking, Kilimanjaro trekking adventures, Mount Meru Climbing, tented camp safaris, car hire, conference coordinators, destination management ground handling travel services and lodge safaris experts in Tanzania. Name: Andrew Mseri Company: Kilimanjaro Tanzanite Safaris Ltd Phone number: +255784811095 Email: info@kili-tanzanitesafaris.com Website: https://www.kili-tanzanitesafaris.com/ ### Treehugger and our third-party partners use cookies and process personal data like unique identifiers based on your consent to store and/or access information on a device, display personalized ads and for content measurement, audience insight, and product development. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Treehugger.com, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, click below. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. List of Partners (vendors) While Unesco has asked Peru to limit visitors to the famous site, the government is making it easier for people to access. Machu Picchu is one of the most famous archaeological sights in the world, located 8,000 feet above sea level in the Andes mountains of Peru. It is a stunning place that, in recent years, has attracted ever-increasing numbers of tourists so much so that Unesco threatened to put it on an endangered sites list, which led to the Peruvian government implementing a daily quota for visitors and limiting entries to four hours. So, if too many tourists are bad for the ruins, then how could the government possibly be justifying construction of a new international airport right near Machu Picchu? Indeed, it has already begun, with trucks clearing ground in the old Incan town of Chinchero and companies from Canada and South Korea bidding on the job. Traveling to Machu Picchu Currently, travelers must fly into Cusco and make their way to Machu Picchu from there. Cusco's airport has a single runway and, according to the Guardian, "is limited to taking narrow-bodied aircraft on stopover flights from Perus capital, Lima, and nearby cities such as La Paz, Bolivia." Cusco is only 75 km (47 miles) away from Machu Picchu, but there is no road that goes directly, "only train tracks and long and winding paths to travel by foot." The new multi-billion-dollar airport will drop people off much closer to the site, just 20 minutes away from the Sacred Valley, essentially carrying tourists "directly to already fragile Inca citadel." Criticism of the New Airport From the Guardian: North Korea suffers from serious droughts that led to reduced grain production and dried-up rivers, according to an American charity group that visited the country. gettyimagesbank North Korea is suffering from serious droughts that have led to a sharp drop in grain production and the drying of many rivers, a U.S. charity group said in a report after a trip to the impoverished communist nation. Christian Friends of Korea (CFK), a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, sent an 11-member team to North Korea from March 18-April 8 to check on the distribution of its assistance and treat hepatitis patients in medical care centers across the country. The organization posted a report on its website detailing the team's trip. "Throughout our travels, we heard from many care centers that the 2018 corn crop sustained heavy losses (40-50 percent reduction) due to the drought and prolonged high temperatures last summer," the report said. So someone explain to me why walking with a phone is a problem. All kinds of kids, old people, even short people, get killed in the roads in New York State. But now the politicians are going after the real problem: People who cross the street using electronic devices. Not just texting, like Gothamist suggests, but "any electronic device that can be used to input, write, send, receive or read text for present or future communication." Using means just about anything, probably including my internet connected hearing aids. You can use it to call the cops or an ambulance in an emergency, but not your lawyer or Gersh at Streetsblog. "I have gotten more than my share of complaints from constituents about the problem and the suggestion that there ought to be a law. Including from parents who don't want their kids texting while they're walking, much less while they're crossing the street," Senator Liu told Gothamist, in explaining his support for the bill. I have written a lot about this subject, trying to figure out what the problem is that these people have with people looking at their phones while they cross the street. After all, the assumption is that they have the right-of-way; the issue seems to be that they are not moving as fast as drivers would like. This has actually been proven to be true in a study that concluded: Results show that pedestrians distracted by texting/reading (visually) or talking/listening (auditory) while walking tend to reduce and control their walking speed by adjusting their step length or step frequency, respectively. Pedestrians distracted by texting/reading (visually) have significantly lower step length and are less stable in walking. They sure don't look like they're Snapchatting. Garry Knight/flickr /CC BY 2.0 But so what? They are still probably walking faster than Mom pushing a stroller or Grandma with a walker. There is no requirement or expectation that everyone has to hop to it and run across the street. There is a huge and growing percentage of the population that is naturally distracted or compromised, and they get hit and killed all the time. Should they also be banned from crossing the street? Should I be because I wear hearing aids and glasses? Older people, like that person looking at the phone, have compromised senses. Their vision is not as good, needing three times as much light to read, having less peripheral vision, a harder time focusing. Their hearing isn't as good. Nearly 25 percent of those aged 65 to 74 and 50 percent of those who are 75 and older have disabling hearing loss and note, that is disabling hearing loss. They are not as mobile and do not move as quickly. An English study found that the vast majority of people over 65 years old in England are unable to walk fast enough to use a pedestrian crossing. So tell me again what is wrong with crossing the street with the right of way with a phone in your hand? I like to quote Brad Aaron of Streetsblog about this issue: "If your transport system has zero tolerance for anyone who isnt a fit adult, the system is the problem, and ... By casting blame elsewhere you assume everyone is like you can see, hear, walk perfectly. Arrogant & extremely unhelpful. It should be assumed that everybody crossing the road is distracted or compromised. Walking while old is walking while distracted. Drivers should be driving on the assumption the person in the road is not looking or seeing them, because they might not be able to. Let me put my cards on the table. Im pro-union. My daughter is the Manager of Membership and Administration of the New England Office of SAG-AFTRA. I believe that strong unions are one of the most effective means available to level the playing field in America. Im concerned that the gap between the rich and the poor will grow even wider if union membership continues to decline (now half of what it was in 1983). Make no mistake about it the partisan 5-4 June 27, 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus vs. AFSCME, which allowed public sector workers to opt out of mandatory union membership dues, was a major setback for workers rights. It will significantly reduce the amount of dues a union collects. For many years, the compromise had been to make non-members who would otherwise free-ride on collective-bargaining agreements pay agency fees the share of union dues that go to non-political operations and overhead. In the Janus decision, conservative jurists on the Supreme Court cited the First Amendment and overturned agency or fair share fees. Judge Alito wrote that agency-shop agreements violated the free speech rights of non-members by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern. The ruling affects only public sector unions, those which play a disproportionately large role in the modern American labor landscape (public employees have a 34.4% unionization rate in 2017 vs. 6.5% for private sector). Now all public-sector workers covered by a union have to opt-in and consent before paying anything. Unions reduce inequality in three fundamental ways. First, they do it through their engagement in the collective bargaining process and their continuing efforts to make sure that management lives up to the provisions and requirements set forth in collective bargaining agreements. The result is better wages, working conditions, and security for their members. More specifically, trade union members earn on the average 10% more than non-trade unionized members and they stay on their job an average five more years than non-unionized workers. Both of these outcomes help to reduce the income inequality gap. Second, many unions are actively and aggressively involved in political lobbying, typically for progressive causes and Democratic candidates. For decades, unions have been a countervailing force to the donations supplied by big business. However, the combined effect of the Supreme Courts ruling in Citizens United and in the Janus case has been to reaffirm corporations rights to contribute to political campaigns and reduce the ability of labor unions to do likewise by eliminating agency fees from those who opt out union membership. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court struck down the law prohibiting corporations and unions from spending money from their general funds to influence federal elections through independent expenditures or electioneering communications. Previously, they could use money given voluntarily from their members and employees to their political action committees for political spending. Unions spent $1.713 billion during the 2016 campaign with the vast majority going to Democrats and corporations spent $6.5 billion divided across parties to candidates who support the agenda of big business. The third way that unions reduce inequality is by providing rank-and-file grassroots boots on the ground support to primarily Democratic candidates. Many a phone bank is manned by union supporters. And most importantly, GOTV Election Day efforts are generally heavily staffed by donated union labor. This is the case in Mercer County, and in most cities in New Jersey, where Democrats traditional do extremely well. Not only do New Jersey labor unions provide manpower they also provide significant financial support to Democratic County Committees throughout the state. Without the continued significant support of labor; New Jersey Democrats would be big trouble. Recently, the President of Mercer Countys Central Labor Council, Michael Maloney, flexed his considerable political muscle when he indicated publicly that he was upset at Mercer Democrats. More specifically, he indicated that This whole county is exploding with work and we dont even do 10 percent of it. Its all being done with out-of-the state area contractors. Maloney added that local workers should be used because they spend what they earn locally They are going to go to the bakery. They are going to the local barbershop. While Im not sure of Mikes exact numbers, I get what he is saying. I would like to see New Jersey enact an In-State Contracting Preferences law like the one in Connecticut that established a preference for hiring-in state workers for state construction projects. By law firms (1) must make every reasonable effort to hire in-state workers as mechanics, laborer, and workmen and (2) cannot knowingly employ nonresidents if qualified residents are reasonably available. The law subjects firms to a $200 per week fine for each week they violate the requirement. The provision does not apply in all cases where the preference would cause the state to lose federal revenue. For example, it would not apply to most major transportation projects, as these are often funded at least in part by federal revenue. Im not sure if the majority of residents of Mercer County would favor such a law in New Jersey. My suggestion, lets have a county-wide referendum on this question with a clear interpretative statement that spells out the pluses and minuses of an in-state preferences policy. The results of the referendum would provide our state legislators with a clear indication of where the public stands on this important issue. Its not race. And its not religion, gender, income inequality, or socio-economic standing. The single-greatest threat to American peace and prosperity, and the number one reason that the gulf in this nation is as wide as its ever been, is the mainstreaming of double standards. Call it what you will hypocrisy, inconsistency, unfairness the result is the same: America is being ripped apart by the forces of intolerance in their unrelenting push for dual standards: Those that fit their agenda (when convenient), and those for everyone else. The only thing worse than this purge of civility is the silent majority who, despite abhorring such actions, refuses to stand up and be counted. On every issue this column tackles, from immigration to education to foreign affairs, solutions are always offered. But given that the intolerance is growing at breakneck speed, and the left one-ups itself on a weekly basis, there appears to be no way out of this situation until someone is pushed too far. At that point, it is possible, and perhaps even probable, that America may experience another Civil War, in whatever form that may take, all because weve forgotten how to respect others opinions and disagree civilly. Heres a look at just a few recent double standards that have people fuming, yet are done deals with no repercussions: 1) At a rally for presidential candidate Joe Biden who has been in lukewarm, if not hot, water over allegations that he touched multiple women inappropriately a female supporter yelled, You can hug and kiss me anytime, Joe! According to NBC News, the crowd roared in approval. So in the span of a few seconds, a Democratic woman, and thousands around her, completely obliterated much of the #MeToo movement and, in doing so, invalidated the genuine harassment so many women have endured. How ironic, since many Democrats politicized the #MeToo charge, and attempted to steamroll any Republican whom they viewed as a harasser, lack of evidence notwithstanding. So it was acceptable for them to destroy Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughs reputation over unsubstantiated claims from three decades ago, and condemn anyone who didnt automatically believe a woman over a man, but when its their favored politician on the hot seat, they not just look the other way, but openly joke about it and discredit his accusers. And the media is no different, as the women on The View gave Mr. Biden a free pass on his documentable offenses, when they excoriated Republicans for a whole lot less. Too bad so few care about the value of looking in the mirror. Not calling out your own when they go off the reservation is a disservice to everyone especially yourself. 2) Pennsylvania Democratic state Rep. Brian Sims videoed himself harassing peaceful prolife protestors in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic, including bullying young girls and elderly women. Sure, there was outrage, but mostly from Republicans, as Mr. Sims party and his abortion constituency refused, for the most part, to call him out. Should he resign, as some demand? Absolutely not, since the decision to remove an elected official should always remain with the people. And should charges be filed, as some suggest? Not a chance and those advocating such are being the very snowflakes they so love to criticize. But its the hypocrisy that is so alarming. Former Republican state Rep. Nick Miccarelli was effectively forced from office by advocacy groups and his own colleagues for sexual harassment allegations. Not only were those accusations unsubstantiated at the time, but they ultimately turned out to be nothing, as no legal action was ever taken. This author blasted those who condemned Mr. Miccarelli without affording him due process including his own GOP leadership but his fate was sealed. Yet in the case of Rep. Sims, where we have documentable evidence of egregious behavior, his actions were effectively condoned by the left, and he was given political cover, simply because he suited their agenda. 3) Liberal black actor Jussie Smollett was prosecuted and that word is used very lightly by a liberal black States Attorney for numerous crimes that would have, by virtually all accounts, resulted in a slam-dunk conviction. But instead of justice, Mr. Smollett had all charges dropped despite the prosecutors office stating that it believed he was guilty. Does anyone really believe the result would have been the same had a conservative actor lied about being assaulted by black Obama supporters? Not a chance, as the book would have been (correctly) thrown at him. But this isnt just a political double standard, as most average blacks, had they lied to the police and made them engage in a massive and expensive wild goose chase, would have faced the music. The take-away lesson is that if youre rich and famous, you get special treatment. And if not, too bad. 4) The principal at Sabold Elementary School in Springfield has stopped saying God bless America after the Pledge of Allegiance because a single person complained, and garnered the backing of a liberal organization that demanded the change. Rather than fighting the preposterous charge, the school district solicitor caved while citing a wholly incorrect legal opinion resulting in yet another tradition being scrapped. Yet the lefts intolerance is highly selective. They have no problem burning the flag and eradicating God Bless America despite Congress starting each session with a prayer, and In God We Trust being prominently featured on our currency, among countless other non-denominational references to God but they dont hesitate banning Columbus Day, Confederate monuments, the General Lee car from The Dukes of Hazzard, college mascots, tag in school, and even Valentines Day. And locally, its the same. First, it was the statue of legendary Mayor Frank Rizzo being dumped from City Hall. Now the iconic statue of Kate Smith has been unceremoniously removed from by the Philadelphia Flyers, with Ms. Smiths legacy forever tarnished with the racist label all because one disgruntled individual was offended. Its bad enough that the Flyers ownership displayed such cowardice and lack of backbone, but worse is that the storied life of Ms. Smith from her patriotism selling war bonds to the incredible strides she made in mending race relations is now relegated to the dustbin of history. Rather than practicing restraint and tolerance, the left continues its march toward not just revising history, eliminating that which it doesnt approve of from our history books. 5) When blacks are targeted by law enforcement simply because of their color, including the use of stop and frisk, the result is heightened animosity between that community and police. And no matter whether a white police officer shoots a black suspect, or a black suspect kills a white officer as just happened, with the alleged perp smiling for the cameras the immediate reaction should not be one that invokes racism, especially when facts are few. But far too often, police are immediately condemned by agenda-driven activists as being racist before even the slightest information is known. Playing the race card is never a winning hand, but it is increasingly the go-to tactic favored by the left to the detriment of everyone. Wittingly or not, leftists are winning because by protesting anything and everything, it is inevitable that some of their agenda will stick. And they are sophisticated enough to know that their opponents not just the right, but most of Middle America will either only whisper disdain at the water cooler, or express outrage for a few days before moving on with their jobs and lives. The result is the same: Their aggrievements from banning God bless America to toppling statues are catered to by weak, appeasing leaders who prefer hoisting the white flag rather than fighting back. But as usually is the case, the extremists will push it too far. In doing so, they will awaken a sleeping giant tired of double standards being shoved down its throat. And at that point, we may be in for a war that will be anything but civil. Chris Freind is an independent columnist and commentator. His print column appears every Wednesday. He can be reached at CF@FFZMedia.com. A teacher washes the foot of a student in a Teachers' Day ceremony at Youngshin Elementary School in Daegu. The school has celebrated Teachers' Day this way since 2010 to encourage teachers to have the attitude of serving students. Yonhap President Xi Jinping (L) holds a welcome ceremony for Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People before their talks in Beijing, May 14, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua] The Belt and Road Initiative and the proposal to build a community with a shared future for mankind are aimed at promoting exchanges among different civilizations and boosting cooperation between countries, President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday. Xi made the remark while meeting with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Pavlopoulos is making a state visit to China from Sunday to Thursday. He will also attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. Noting that Greece is an ancient Western country, Xi said that the Greek president's visit has great significance to promoting exchanges of a cultural and civilizational nature between Asia and Europe. Xi said that Chinese civilization has developed in an inclusive rather than exclusive manner since ancient times. Through the Silk Road, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Mediterranean culture, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam all entered China and blended and coexisted with Chinese culture, Xi said, adding that China has never had civilizational conflicts and religious wars with other nations. When Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and admiral Zheng He led his powerful fleet to distant shores some 600 years ago, he brought silk, tea and porcelain rather than war to the world, and he did not occupy any land along his navigation route, Xi said. Since ancient times, Chinese have considered national interests a top priority, Xi said, adding that the happiness of individuals is based on the country's unification and prosperity. Chinese people have a high degree of unity and firm resolution in safeguarding national unity, interests and sovereignty, Xi said, adding that socialism with Chinese characteristics is a choice made by both history and the people. He said China would like to enhance practical cooperation with Greece and jointly build the Belt and Road with the European nation. Pavlopoulos said that the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations has great significance in promoting exchanges of different cultures. It is wrong for some people to advocate the theory of civilizational conflict, and different civilizations can learn from each other through dialogue and exchanges, he added. He spoke highly of Xi's thought on world civilizations, the Belt and Road Initiative and the proposal of building a community with a shared future for mankind, adding that China has kept its promises in international affairs as a responsible major country. The Greek people admire China's great developmental achievements, and Greece would like to take the historic opportunity of jointly building the Belt and Road and promote cooperation with China, he added. National Tax Service (NTS) Commissioner Han Sung-hee, left, shakes hands with his Polish counterpart Marian Banas at a meeting in Warsaw, Poland, May 14 (local time). They discussed ways to boost cooperation in efficient tax administration. During Han's six-day trip from May 14, he also met with tax chiefs in Hungary, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Courtesy of NTS editorial@tribune.com NEW DELHI: Assets worth Rs 483 crore of a Kolkata-based group have been attached by the ED in connection with an alleged multi-crore bank loan fraud case, the agency said on Tuesday. It said they have provisionally attached immovable properties comprising commercially diverted land of 2,70,374 sq ft along with shopping mall in Nagpur worth Rs 483 crore of KSL and Industries Ltd, Mumbai under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in a bank fraud case. KSL and Industries Ltd is one of the group company of the Tayal group of companies, it said. It said the group and its four firms had availed loans of Rs 524 crore from the Bank of India and Andhra Bank in 2008 which was allegedly defrauded by it using a maze of shell or illegal companies. TNS editorial@tribune.com Mumbai, May 14 Grounded carrier Jet Airways chief executive officer Vinay Dube resigned from the post today, a day after its deputy chief executive and chief financial officer (CFO) Amit Agarwal quit the company. An Indian-American, Dube had joined Jet Airways in August 2016 after serving various roles at Delta Airlines, Sabre Inc and American Airlines in the US, Europe and Asia. We wish to inform that Vinay Dube, CEO, has resigned from services of the company with immediate effect due to personal reasons, Jet Airways said in a regulatory filing today. Dube had stepped in the position after almost 15 months of the departure of then chief executive Crammer Ball. During the period, Agarwal was acting CEO. Earlier in the day, Jet Airways informed exchanges of Agarwals resignation from the company on personal grounds. We wish to inform that Amit Agarwal, the deputy chief executive officer and CFO of the company, has resigned from service due to personal reasons, with effect from May 13, Jet Airways said in the filing. PTI Crisis deepens editorial@tribune.com Sandeep Rana Tribune News Service Chandigarh, May 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modis election pitch today was more for phir ek baar Modi sarkar than for party candidate Kirron Kher. During his nearly 40-minute-long address, he did not mention Khers name even once. Modi did not even ask the public to vote for the BJP candidate. All he said was, Your vote on kamal will go to Modis account. His speech revolved around national issues and attacking the Congress. Rather than making it a Kher versus Pawan Kumar Bansal battle, it seemed to be a Modi vs Bansal battle in the city. On the other hand, Bansal has been raking up local issues while campaigning. During his address, Modi targeted Bansal over Railgate. A former Railway Ministers kin is caught in a corruption case, but for the Congress, its hua toh hua, said Modi. Record crowd at rally, claim leaders City BJP leaders claimed that over 30,000 people attended Modi rally and it broke the record of his 2014 election rally. City BJP president Sanjay Tandon said, Over 30,000 people came for the rally. There were more people outside the venue than inside. I had got an LED installed outside the venue so that those who fail to find space inside can watch the address there. People were seen on terraces, trees and outside gates to have a glimpse of the PM. The record of the 2014 rally of the PM has been broken, both in terms of size and josh, he said. Cong workers sell pakodas editorial@tribune.com Sandeep Rana Tribune News Service Chandigarh, May 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who remained a kshetriya sangathan mantri here from 1995 to 2000, turned nostalgic during his visit to the city for an election rally today. Besides sharing his connect with the city, he also caught up with his old colleagues. During his stint here, Modi used to live in Sector 7, Panchkula, and frequented the party office, Kamalam, in Sector 33 here. I have lived with you in Chandigarh. As much as you know me, nobody else does, Modi told to a cheering crowd as he spoke from the dais at a jam-packed Sector 34 ground. The BJP leader outlined his personal and emotional association with the city and its people. After the rally, he posted on his Twitter handle, Coming back to Chandigarh is about several memories and familiar faces. After todays rally, I met Madan ji, who was an integral part of the BJP office when I lived here. Enquired about his health and well-being. Happy to see the same level of passion and positivity in him. Modi recalled that from arranging tea to ensuring a neat and well-organised workspace for party workers and office-bearers, Madan handled everything with a remarkable efficiency. Madan was thrilled to meet Modi again. Party leaders said Madan used to be a chowkidar-cum-attendant at Kamalam and used to serve and take care of Modi. The PM also enquired about the well-being of his other old mates. Sources said in a lighter vein, Modi asked BJP leader Raj Kishore, at whose residence he used to put up then, kya baat baal safed ho gayeRaju oh tu treasurer ban gaya. He reminded city BJP vice-president Hari Shankar Mishra that they had got him contest the MC elections during those days. He also spoke to BJP leader Raghubir Lal Arora, who is known to him since nineties. The PM told him that he met his children in France. He met his old associates at the rally venue. Meanwhile, city BJP president Sanjay Tandon said, This exhibits the sentiments with which he (Modi) meets party workers. Though he has reached such a high position from a being a kshetriya sanghtan mantri here, he speaks to common people so well. PM had nothing to talk about Kher, says Bansal Congress candidate Pawan Bansal said even PM Narendra Modi knew about non-performance of MP Kirron Kher due to which he did not make any mention of her during an election rally here. Bansal said Modi had nothing to talk about Kher during his speech. It shows that Kirron Khers tenure was a disappointment for city residents and she failed to do anything for the development of the city, the Congress candidate said. City Congress president Pardeep Chhabra termed the rally as a flop show. He added, They even brought people from Punjab and Haryana but still the rally was a flop event. Sidelights Dekho dekho kaun aaya, Bharat Mata ka sher aaya. This was the slogan BJP leader Ramvir Bhatti raised from dais while asking people to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi Few women were in attire with BJP colours and symbols As Modi arrived on stage, people in the crowd switched on the flashlights of their phones to welcome him During his address, Modi had to pause several times as crowds shouted Modi, Modi. On one occasion, the PM had to say, Ab main bolu kya. The crowd responded with a cheer. A number of school buses were parked on the rear of the Sector 34 market. The buses were used by BJP leaders to ferry people to the rally venue Traffic woes Traffic was diverted from roads leading to the rally venue in Sector 34, putting commuters to inconvenience. People had to take a detour to reach their destinations. Long queues of vehicles were seen on the road separating Sector 34 and 21. editorial@tribune.com Amit Sharma Tribune News Service Chandigarh, May 14 India will witness riots similar to those that took place in Afghanistan and Syria if BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are re-elected and again form the government at the Centre, said senior AAP leader and Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia while interacting with mediapersons at the residence of the party candidate, Harmohan Dhawan, here today. Sisodia said Modi and Shahs jodi is the biggest threat to the nation right now. The BJP foments trouble among Hindu and Muslims in the country and it is necessary to defeat its leaders, he said. Questioned over AAPs stance after the elections, Sisodia said they would support any non-BJP government to keep Modi and Shah out of power. Sisodia failed to answer to a question as why city residents should vote for AAP, as the party leaders and workers did not show up here after losing the election in 2014. AAP is contesting the election in the city on the basis of works done by Dhawan, said Sisodia while urging the electorate to vote for the party to bring a change in the city. Having a dig at MP Kirron Kher of the BJP, the AAP leader said she didnt do anything for the city as she was busy with her shooting assignments. Meanwhile, Sisodia did not campaign for Dhawan in the city. After addressing media, he left for Mohali to take part in a roadshow there. amansharma@tribunemail.com Sanjay Bumbroo Tribune News Service Marrawala (Pinjore), May 15 A stepfather allegedly killed his two daughters by slitting their throats with a sharp-edged weapon after they came to know about his attempt at molesting their younger sister, at Marrawala village in Pinjore block of Panchkula, in the wee hours of Wednesday. The victims have been identified as Aashia (20) and Shifa (18). The accused, Habib, is on the run after committing the crime. The 16-year-old youngest daughter played smart by not only saving herself but her younger brother as well from the onslaught of her stepfather. While she sent the boy to rooftop, she locked herself in the washroom. The matter came to light when the mother of the victims raised the alarm at about 6.30 am after she saw her daughters lying in a pool of blood. Hearing her shrieks, her youngest daughter came out of the washroom and narrated the entire incident. Meanwhile, the people living nearby gathered and informed the police. Pinjore SHO Mukesh Kumar further informed Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Kamal Deep Goyal who along with other police officials and a forensic team reached the spot. After collecting the evidence from the crime scene, the bodies were sent to the Kalka civil hospital for post mortem. The bodies were later handed over to the family. DCP Kamal Deep said as per the preliminary investigation, accused Habib was a widower and had married the mother of the victims, whose husband had died 12 years ago. Habib, a native of Bijnore city in Uttar Pradesh, had shifted to Marrawala three years ago. He said he had started the business of selling vegetable in a shop adjacent to the house where they had shifted three months ago. Ruling out the murder due to financial constraints, DCP Kamal Deep said the financial condition of the family was comfortable as both the victims Aashia and Shifa were working in a company at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh and were earning Rs 6,000 to 8,000 per month. He said their mother was also doing the stitching and other works and was earning about Rs 7,000 per month, while Habib was a vegetable vendor. The elder boy of the family was working in Mumbai, he added. The DCP said there was an altercation in the family over some issue during past few days. He said the accused today sent his wife to purchase chewing tobacco from a nearby shop. After this he allegedly carried out his nefarious designs and fled the spot, the DCP added. The Pinjore police station have registered a case under Section 302 of the IPC and POCSO Act against the accused. Radhika Ramaseshan Radhika Ramaseshan Senior journalist On May 23, when the Indian electors pronounce their verdict on who will rule the 17th Lok Sabha, the performance of the federal parties will be keenly watched. In states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, these entities or coalitions of entities that emerged and grew on their distinctive ideologies or provincialism seriously challenged the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) instead of the Congress. Indeed, if the regional forces outnumber the BJP on their respective turfs, their combined output may unlock the space for putting together a federal front, although Indias experience with similar experiments in the past was not a happy one. So far, no glue to bind the disparate parties is visible, not even secularism that served as an expedient fig leaf in the recent past. Some, like Bihars Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Tamil Nadus Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Karnatakas Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S), fought the poll in tandem with the Congress, while the others went solo, although, with the exception of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), they identified the BJP as their principal adversary. Its fair to infer that UPs gathbandhan, comprising the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), or the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will not become part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). They would rather do business with the Congress in a post-poll scenario. A state party that could rue its decision to go it alone is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The AAPs success in the 2013 and 2015 Assembly elections spurred its founder and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals aspirations to spread his wings the country over, but these were clipped sooner than he realised. The AAP and the Congress were locked in protracted discussions over contesting the Delhi Lok Sabha poll together but the talks ran into issues that arose from Kejriwals ambition to extend the prospective alliance to other states, which the Congress refused. The negotiations eventually failed. In the first-past-the-post system that India inherited from the Westminster model, an important corollary of the simple majority norm is the index of Opposition unity. The more fragmented the Opposition, the easier it is for the incumbent to buck anti-incumbency and remain in power. Kejriwal must be watching the developments in next-door UP where the gathbandhan is giving the BJP leviathan a run for its money, despite the gathbandhans manifest lack of resources and a somewhat disorganised campaign. Had the AAP and the Congress teamed up, the BJP might have been denied a repeat of 2014 when it won all seven seats in the national capital. From all accounts, the Congress was ready to cede three seats in Delhi, but Kejriwal sought an alliance in Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh as well. When the exercise fell through, Kejriwals response was that an alliance was unnecessary because the Congress was any way not placed to swing a single seat in Delhi. His logic was that it made sense for the AAP to fight all seats independently. Kejriwal harked to the past to shore up his arguments, saying that his party was birthed by opposition to the Congress corruption, but added superciliously that now was the time to come together to defeat the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo. Run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He concluded his case with the averment that he was prepared to back a non-BJP formation at the Centre, provided it granted Delhi full statehood. The statement seemed more like an effort to quell the speculation that he played into the BJPs hands by rebuffing the Congress. Even a federacy of state parties needs a ballast at the Centre to keep a modicum of stability and ensure that the potential contradictions and conflicts do not keel over. The Congress or the BJP have played anchors in the past, the Congress less effectively than the BJP. Notice how even the larger regional parties handle one or both the mainstream parties tactfully. After blowing hot towards the Congress, Mayawati, the BSP president, eventually offered support to Rahul Gandhi, the Congress president, when he most needed to level a bitter fight with the BJP in Amethi. The TRS president, K Chandrasekhar Rao, is trying to warm up to the Congress. In India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation, political scientists Stanley A Kochanek and Robert L Hardgrave noted, The rise of the BJP in the 1990s, its success in cobbling together a diverse coalition of caste and regional parties that ruled for six years from 1998 to 2004 (and now since 2014) and the formation of the Congress-led UPA government in 2004 may indicate that the Indian party system is entering a new era of bi-nodal coalition politics organised around the two largest national parties: the BJP and the Congress (I). In other words, Kejriwal who accused the Modi government of relentlessly harassing him and thwarting his governments working but dismissed the Congress as unworthy of his hand will have to make peace with one of the two, come the new Lok Sabha, unless, like the BJD, he keeps an equidistance from the Congress and the BJP. Theres a more substantive reason for the AAPs solo act. Delhi goes to the polls in early 2020 and the AAP has the highest stake in keeping power. If Kejriwal loses the only territory he sits over, he means little, regionally or nationally. It serves his political intent to tell the cadre that it will have to gear up for a hard fight on its own, without leaning on a crutch. Had he gone with the Congress in the parliamentary elections, extending the partnership to the Delhi poll might have been the next logical step. A thought Kejriwal will not countenance. However, he came a little closer to seeking a toehold in Haryana, where the AAP partnered the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and got three of the 10 Lok Sabha seats to contest. Like most regional bosses, Kejriwals politics is about saving his turf, but unlike some of them, he yet refuses to compromise with the mainline parties. rchopra@tribunemail.com Singapore, May 15 An Indian national has been jailed for two weeks for falsely accusing two people of forcing her into prostitution as she did not want her husband to find out how she was earning a living in Singapore. Kalaiselvi Murugiyan (24) made a police report last year claiming that a man and a woman had forced her to become a prostitute, The Straits Times reported on Tuesday. She pleaded guilty to giving false information to Police Inspector Mohamed Raffiq Mohamed Ishak of the Central Police Division. Court documents did not say what she was working as in Singapore. The court heard that Kalaiselvi went to the Rochor Neighbourhood Police Centre on November 1 last year to make a report. She was referred to the Central Police Division to have her statement recorded. The Specialised Crime Branch then investigated the case. Deputy Public Prosecutor Grace Goh told the court that Kalaiselvi lied to Inspector Raffiq while giving her statement at the Police Cantonment Complex on November 1. The man and woman were later arrested. Kalaiselvi owned up to her lies at around 2.30 pm the next day. Kalaiselvi, who was not represented by a lawyer, told District Judge Christopher Tan on Tuesday that she did not want to go to jail. She pleaded for forgiveness and said she had to take care of her family in India. Before handing down the sentence, Judge Tan stressed that two persons had been falsely implicated and arrested as a result of her lies. Valuable police resources were wasted, he said. For giving false information to a police officer, Kalaiselvi could have been jailed for up to a year and fined up to SGD 5,000. PTI By Lee Gyu-lee A man who pretended to be a police officer to rape a young prostitute is now in custody, police said Wednesday. Gwangju Bukbu police said the suspect, 28, allegedly raped the victim, 19, in a car in Bukgu, Gwangju, on April 29. They got to know each other through a dating app and met for "compensated dating" a term referring to prostitution in Korean internet communities. When they met, the man introduced himself as an undercover cop and threatened to arrest her if she refused to have unpaid sex with him, according to police. The suspect also attempted to extort 500,000 won ($420) from the girl in return for not reporting to police, they said. But the girl told police after finding him suspicious. Police have sought an arrest warrant for the man. harinder@tribunemail.com With the Rajasthan school boards social science books for classes VIII to X set for an overhaul, students will, from the next session, study a diminished version of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as one who filed mercy petitions to the British government after being tortured in jail. They will be introduced to the valuable contributions made by Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi to the nations freedom struggle. The Congress government in the state had, in February, set up a review committee of experts to look into the existing text and these are some of the changes it has suggested to correct the history taught to the young children. Expectedly, the BJP is crying hoarse over the distortion of facts. Just as the Congress had cried saffronisation of education in 2016 when the then BJP government in the state had gone on a chopping and churning spree, and rewritten school textbooks to reflect the RSS view. Incidentally, among other revisions, it had stressed on eulogising Savarkar as a great patriot while shrugging off Nehru and Gandhis roles. Troubling as they are, sadly such brazen instances of politics and bias creeping into school curricula have been increasing. In 2017, the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education dismissed the chapter on Mughal history as irrelevant and replaced it with one on Shivaji. Last month, on the pretext of the HRD Ministrys order to rationalise curriculum, the NCERT sought to whitewash certain ills of society related to caste conflict by deleting those sections. This seesaw resulting from frequent tinkering with the syllabus to suit a particular political ideology is not desirable. The students, who are at an impressionable age, must be imparted wholesome lessons so that they get a balanced understanding of events. The bodies responsible for devising curricula should be made autonomous so that they are not subject to the whims and fancies of changing governments. This will prevent the children from becoming sitting ducks of a deliberate downplay, or undue championing, of certain aspects of study. The onus of settling this sensitive issue lies with the policymakers. editorial@tribune.com Bhartesh Singh Thakur Tribune News Service Chandigarh, May 14 After Haryana cadre IAS officer Sanjeev Verma threatened to sit on satyagraha outside the Chandigarh Police headquarters for delay of over a month in registration of an FIR into Rs 3.5 crore post-matric scholarship scam in the state, the police registered a case within hours on Monday. Verma, as Director of the Department of Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes, lodged a complaint with the Chandigarh Police on April 12. The Tribune broke the story Rs 3.53-cr post-matric scholarship fraud in Haryana, 4 suspended on April 6. The embezzlement took place by changing the Aadhaar numbers of beneficiaries, resulting in payment to forged Aadhaar-linked accounts. The scholarships are given to SC and BC students studying in educational institutes located within the state and outside. As the police were delaying the FIR, Verma sent the first reminder on April 18, second on April 23, third on May 1 and fourth on May 9. In the fifth letter, dated May 13, he wrote, I have not been informed why the FIR is being delayed. The victim students, who did not get scholarships due to this scam, are running from pillar to post. It is affecting their education. For injustice done to the poor students from the Scheduled Caste community, provisions under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, should be invoked. He claimed that the delay in the FIR despite sending reminders and making requests showed the insensitive attitude of the Chandigarh Police. Now I do not have any other way left except sitting on satyagraha, as shown by Mahatma Gandhi, he added, stating that he would start satyagraha outside the Chandigarh Police headquarters on May 15. Within a few hours of sending the May 13 letter, I started getting calls and the FIR was registered, he told The Tribune. The first payment involved Rs 1.71 crore for 170 students on February 13 and second Rs 1.81 crore for 182 students on February 19. The treasury passed a bill for Rs 3.53 crore on March 8. The inquiry committee of the department had held that names of institutes and courses and students Aadhaar numbers were changed, while names of 170 students and their fathers remained the same. A large number of candidates were shown having the same numbers. For instance, mobile number *****37396 had 44 names, *****42438 had 28 names and *****85237 had 24 names. In case of 182 students, for whom Rs 1.81 crore was sanctioned, it was found that Aadhaar numbers had been changed. The police complaint was submitted against accountant Surender Kumar; District Welfare Officer in Sonepat Surender Kumar; Deputy Director (Training) RS Sangwan, who was re-employed; assistant Bilandar and Deputy Director, Planning and Drawing and Disbursing Officer, Anil Kumar. Verma had requested investigation against three more officials. Vineet Kumar, SP (economic offences wing), denied any delay in the FIR. There is no such case of delay in FIR. The case is under investigation, he said. uttara@tribuneindia.com Tribune News Service Rohtak, May 15 Haryanas Minister of State for Cooperatives Manish Grover booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code and Representation of People Act on Wednesday, after the Congress accused him of voter intimidation during the sixth phase of general elections. Grover was booked under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of IPC and Section 131 of Representation of People Act (Penalty for disorderly conduct in or near polling stations). Also on Wednesday, a Rohtak court denied bail to his aide, Ramesh Lohar, who is a history-sheeter and one of the several people accused of accompanying Minister Grover to polling booths. Lohar was arrested after Congress made the accusations, and released on bail, but re-arrested later. The developments come a day after senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad wrote to the Election Commission of India accusing Grover of voter intimidation at certain polling booths in Rohtak town on May 12. A Special Investigating Team is probing the allegations. The Congress has been accusing Grover of forcing his way into polling booths with 50 goons and intimidating voterscomplaints that led election officials to restrict the ministers movements until voting ended. Haryana voted in the sixth phase of general elections on May 12. editorial@tribune.com Ravinder Saini Tribune News Service Jhajjar, May 14 Farmers of four villages in the district are unhappy with the compensation sanctioned for their damaged wheat crop that was gutted last month. They say Rs12,000 per acre is too less to compensate for the damage. They demand Rs50,000 per acre relief. The farmers threatened to launch an agitation if the district administration failed to fuflil their demand by May 30. The state government has sanctioned Rs36.65-lakh compensation for 272 acres (Rs12,000 per acre) for crop loss in Mandhothi, Matan, Silothi and Mehandipur Dabauda villages of Bahadurgarh sub-division because of short-circuit in high-tension electricity wires. Ramesh Dalal, chief of the Bhoomi Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, said: Electric engines and fodder stock were also damaged in fire. The Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) is to blame for the damage. As farmers have no other source of income other than their crop, they are facing crisis of survival. Many of them are unable to pay off their agricultural loans. A relief of Rs12,000 per acre is not sufficient. Jhajjar Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Joon has written to Pankaj Yadav, Commissioner, Rohtak Division, urging him to sanction Rs38,000 per acre more from the UHBVN, he added. Of the Rs36.65 lakh released by the state government, the state has contributed Rs17.78 lakh. The rest of the amount is from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF). editorial@tribune.com Campaigning is in its last leg and candidates are leaving no stone unturned to woo voters. Lalit Mohan spoke to BJP candidate from Kangra Kishan Kapoor to know his poll strategy and how he plans to deliver on his promises Why should people vote for you? I am seeking votes so that the Modi government comes back to power. The issue of national security is at the forefront. The way the Prime Minister has worked to strengthen the security of the country and given a befitting reply to Pakistan after Pulwama attack is commendable. I see Modi as a strong leader and someone who can safeguard the interests of the people. What are the main poll issues you are harping on? Kangra is a land of soldiers. There are about 60,000 serving and retired soldiers. Their families are concerned about the proposal in the Congress manifesto to repeal the Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA). The BJP, on the other hand, has worked for giving due honour to the soldiers in the country by implementing their pending demand OROP. If elected, I would continue to work for the rights of the soldiers. Why are you being accused of being arrogant by your political opponents? I am a simple man, who has been into politics for over three decades. I am serving the people of Dharamsala as an MLA for the fifth time and the state as a minister for the third time. I am a straight-forward person and want officials to serve the people. For that, I may have pulled up some officials at times. Moreover, this arrogance tag has been given by Congress leaders. I am among a few ministers who is accessible to the people. What you intend to do for Kangra if elected? Kangra and Chamba districts have a vast potential for tourism promotion. Tourism can provide employment to the youth in Kangra. I will strive to improve the infrastructure for promotion of tourism in the area. Chamba district faces connectivity issues. The Modi government has already selected Chamba under the Aspiration District scheme and approved a grant of Rs 85 crore. I will ensure that the money is spent properly for the development of Chamba district. I will also try that a cement plant comes up in Chamba. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Shimla, May 14 Actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar addressed a Congress rally in support of party candidate Dhani Ram Shandil at Theog on Tuesday. Senior party leader Anand Sharma, former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kuldeep Rathore were also present. Addressing a gathering, Babbar lashed out at the BJP regime for its alleged failure to fulfill promises made during the 2014 General Elections. Rather than replying to the unfulfilled promises he had made in 2014, PM Narendra Modi is trying to divert the attention of the people from core issues, alleged Babbar. He urged the voters to support the Congress so as to defeat communal forces such as the BJP that were indulging in divisive politics. The senior party leaders present on the occasion also sought answers from Modi on the unfulfilled promises of generating two crore jobs every year, bringing back blackmoney and adverse impact of demonetisation and the GST. Earlier, party vice-president Priyanka Gandhi was to address a rally and hold a roadshow at Theog. With the Special Protection Group not giving the nod for the venue, the programme had to be cancelled. However, the top brass of the party still held a rally to garner support for their candidate Dhani Ram Shandil. editorial@tribune.com Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, May 14 A CRPF man, who saved the lives of many CRPF personnel injured in the deadly Pulwama bombing on February 14, is winning hearts for feeding a differently abled child in Srinagars old city. For this humane and selfless act, the Director General of the CRPF has decided to award Havildar Iqbal Singh with the Disc and Commendation certificate. A video of the act has gone viral on the social media, though it is not clear who recorded the video. Havildar Iqbal Singh of the 49 Battalion of the CRPF was deployed in the Nawakadal locality of Srinagars old city on law and order duty on Monday when he noticed a child asking him for food. Two of our companies were deployed in downtown on Monday. When we got our lunch during the duty hours, I noticed a child was asking me for food. I offered him my lunch but saw that he was unable to eat himself. I realised the child was paralytic. So, I fed him, Havildar Iqbal Singh said, adding that while he was feeding the boy, someone had shot the video which had now gone viral. In the video, Havildar Iqbal Singh can be seen cleaning the childs face, who is sitting on the metal stairs of a shop. The CRPF man is also seen giving him water. There are voices in the background in Kashmiri. Initially, it was believed that the security man feeding the child was a policeman. The CRPF man has got a lot of praise on the social media for the gesture. It is not for the first time that Havildar Iqbal Singh has won accolades from his seniors. He was driving a vehicle in the CRPF convoy which was attacked by a local suicide bomber of the Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pulwama in February. Iqbal Singh played a crucial role in saving the lives of many CRPF personnel injured in the (Pulwama) attack. The bus he was driving was near the one which came under attack. He was one of the first respondents to evacuate the injured from the site, Inspector General, CRPF, Srinagar, Ravideep Singh Sahi told The Tribune. rchopra@tribunemail.com Ishfaq Tantry Tribune News Service Srinagar, May 15 The Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Wednesday took a suo motu cognizance of the alleged rape of a three-year-old girl in Sumbal of Bandipora district. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Tashi Rabstan, in its order, directed the Inspector General of Police to file the status report of the investigation. The incident has led to widespread anger across the Valley, with north Kashmir witnessing violent protests since the incident came to light on May 8. Chief Justice Gita Mittal asked the police to file a report by Thursday. However, senior government lawyer Bashir Ahmad Dar pleaded that the police be allowed to file a fresh status report by Friday. This was granted by the bench with directions to the IGP to file the same by 10 am on Friday. The girl was allegedly raped at Tarigam village of Sumbal on May 8 by a youth in her neighbourhood. There has been widespread outrage and violent protests in parts of Kashmir over the incident. The administration has closed colleges and other educational institutes in many districts as a precautionary measure. The police have arrested the accused, a resident of the same village. As the protests spread, J&K Police constituted a SIT to probe the incident. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 The special cell of the Delhi Police has arrested a wanted terrorist of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Abdul Majid Baba, a resident of Sopore, said the DCP (special cell) Sanjeev Yadav. In 2007, the Delhi Police special cell had apprehended four terrorists of the JeM, Shahid Gafoor, a resident of Sialkot, Pakistan, Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, Fayaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majid Baba, all residents of Jammu and Kasmir, after a brief encounter at Deen Dayal Upadhayay Marg, Delhi. Highly explosive material, weighing 3 kg, four detonators, a timer, six hand grenades, a .30 bore pistol, a magazine with two live cartridges, currency worth Rs 50,000 and fake US currency ($10,000) were recovered from their possession, the DCP said. During interrogation, they revealed that they were active members of the JeM and, along with Haider, a resident of Pakistan (district commander Sopore of the JeM), and others, had hatched a conspiracy of a big terrorist attack in Delhi on the directions of their mentors based Pakistan. Accused Shahid Gafoor revealed that he had illegally crossed over to India twice in 1998 and 2002. On both occasions, he was launched into India along with other Pakistan militants through forward Kota, Pakistan-Poonch, India sector. He remained in J&K and carried out the ghastly attack on the Rashtriya Rifles camp, he said. In 2013, a court convicted Shahid Gafoor and acquitted Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, Fayyaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majid Baba. On appeal against their acquittal, the High Court of Delhi convicted all three terrorists, the DCP said. After being convicted, accused Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, Fayaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majid Baba did not surrender before the High Court of Delhi and evaded their arrest. Non-bailable warrants were issued against them several times since 2014, but none turned up. A reward of Rs 2 lakh was declared by the Delhi Police upon the arrest of each of the absconding three accused persons, he said. On March 25, one of the three accused Fayaz Ahmad Lone was arrested by this team of the special cell in Srinagar. After the arrest of accused Fayyaz, efforts continued to arrest the two other terrorists, the officer said. With the arrest of Fayyaz Ahmad Lone, accused Abdul Majid Baba got extra conscious and started continuously changing his hideouts to dodge the police net. Finally, on May 11, inputs were received that accused Majid would visit the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in the Soura area of Srinagar. Following this, a trap was laid near SKIMS where the luck of the accused finally ran out and he was arrested. He has been brought to Delhi on transit remand for legal proceedings. Further investigation is on in the matter, added the DCP (cell). editorial@tribune.com Rifat Mohidin Tribune News Service Srinagar, May 14 While the Valley continued to be on the boil for the third consecutive day over the rape of a three-year-old girl in Bandipora, another rape case was reported on Tuesday. A minor was reportedly raped in Ganderbal by a resident of the same district, triggering further outrage. Ganderbal Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Abdul Gani Poswal said the accused had been arrested after the family of the victim filed a complaint. The incident happened on Sunday evening and the accused was arrested on the same day. As part of the investigation, the victim has been medically examined. The victim is 15-year-old and the accused is in his 20s. A special team has been constituted for fast-track investigation into the case. The accused will be produced before the court, the Ganderbal SSP said. On Tuesday, the administration had ordered the closure of schools and colleges in district Ganderbal and Anantnag to prevent violence from spreading but clashes continued outside education institutions in Srinagar city. Clashes were reported from outside Amar Singh College and Bemina Degree College in Srinagar, where forces had to use tear gas shells to disperse the demonstrators. Traffic was hampered for hours as the youth clashed with the forces stationed outside the college gates. Protests were also witnessed at the University of Kashmir, where students rallied in support of the victim. The investigation is going on and after a week, we will be able to share more details with the public, Bandipora SSP Rahul Malik said. Another official from Bandipora said they were waiting for the forensic report of the victim. While the Valley continued to be on the edge over the incident that took place on May 9, Governor Satya Pal Malik has promised justice to the victim. Meanwhile, residents feared that there was an attempt to create a sectarian divide in the Valley, even as authorities continued to appeal for maintaining calm and harmony. On Monday, over 50 people, including 47 security personnel, were injured in clashes on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway as protesters damaged dozens of vehicles, blocked the highway and pelted the security personnel with stones. Commuters were stuck on the highway for hours. Residents of north Kashmir said the traffic on the highway continued to be affected for the fourth consecutive day as protesters refused to calm down. Students vent ire On Tuesday, clashes were reported from outside Amar Singh College and Bemina Degree College in Srinagar, where forces had to use teargas shells to disperse the demonstrators. Traffic was hampered for hours as the youth clashed with the forces stationed outside the college. Protests were also witnessed at the University of Kashmir, where students rallied in support of the victim. Huawei advertising is displayed on a street in Shanghai on May 10, 2019. AFP-Yonhap By Owen Churchill, Nectar Gan Huawei Technologies is prepared to include provisions in its government contracts not to facilitate "back door" espionage by Beijing, the chairman of the Chinese telecommunications giant said on Tuesday. "We are willing to sign no-spy agreements with governments, including the UK government, to commit ourselves to making our equipment meet the no-spy, no-back-doors standard," Liang Hua said at a company-sponsored business conference in London. The concession from the smartphone maker comes as the US seeks commitments from its allies to not use Huawei as they build their next-generation 5G telecommunications infrastructure. Washington, which has already banned the use of Huawei devices by its own governmental agencies, claims that the company is a national security risk because it might accede to demands from Beijing to allow access to networks and private users' data. Huawei's founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, has vociferously pushed back against accusations that the company has installed back doors, and, according to Tim Watkins, Huawei's vice-president for western Europe, has vowed to close the company should the Chinese government insist that it hand over user data. Signage is seen at the Huawei offices in Reading, Britain, May 2, 2019. Reuters-Yonhap "[Ren] has made it very clear that he has never been asked to hand over any customer data or any information," Watkins told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday. "He's made it very clear if he was asked, that he would refuse and if it was attempted to be forced he would shut the company down." Such defences have fallen on deaf ears in Washington, with one senior state department official telling lawmakers on Tuesday that, under China's ruling Communist Party, no Chinese company has the agency to resist orders from central government, in part because there is no independent judiciary through which appeals can be issued. "No company can object and say 'I don't want to follow the mandate of Xi Jinping,'" Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary of state for cyber and international communications and information policy, said at a US Senate hearing on the national security implications of 5G technology. "It's one-party state, Communist rule and they have to follow the dictates of that government," said Strayer. Deputy assistant secretary of State for cyber, international communications and information policy Robert Strayer testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on '5G: National Security Concerns, Intellectual Property Issues, and the Impact on Competition and Innovation' on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, USA, May 14. EPA-Yonhap As Washington seeks to convince partners to follow suit in its campaign against the telecommunications company, Strayer said that the US would reconsider its security relationships with those countries that decide to enter contracts with Chinese vendors such as Huawei. "We have to protect our information," Strayer said. "If there's a high degree of risk, which we think that these vendors create in the system, then we will have to reassess how we're sharing that information in the future with our partners." Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implored the British government to refuse Huawei participation in the construction of its 5G network. "The US has an obligation to ensure the places where we operate places where US information is, places where we have national security risks that they operate within trusted networks and that is what we will do," Pompeo said in London following talks with UK prime minister Theresa May and foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt. Strayer confirmed that while no American company is currently building the radio component of 5G technology, the four main carriers in the US AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile had all committed to rejecting Huawei as they construct their 5G networks. Chinese employees work on the smart phone metal-outer-parts automated assembly line at Everwin Precision Technology Company's manufacturing factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, on May 10, 2019. UPI-Yonhap Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said at Tuesday's hearing that the threat of cyber espionage and attacks from China against a country relying on telecoms equipment from Chinese companies like Huawei or ZTE Corp could be three-pronged. First, Krebs said, "the quality of the engineering is not great, and so there are a number of vulnerabilities that are left open on the box, so China and other capable actors - Russia, Iran, North Korea - could exploit the vulnerabilities". The second threat, he said, was the lack of oversight concerning Huawei's roll-out of updates. "The third is, the way they manage this equipment tends to be by shipping out Chinese nationals to the host country for hands-on [maintenance], so you have a physical, insider threat as well," he added. The US has prohibited government departments and government contractors from using Huawei since last August when US President Donald Trump signed the Defence Authorisation Act into law. A Chinese couple browse their smartphones as they walk by the new Huawei P30 smartphone advertisement on display inside a subway station in Beijing, Monday, May 13, 2019. AP-Yonhap rchopra@tribunemail.com Srinagar, May 15 Amid calls of hanging of rapists, students continued to clash with police, so authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday shut down most educational institutes in the Valley. Fearing further spurts in violence as the protests took centre-stage after two consecutive rapes were reported in Bandipora and Ganderbal districts, colleges in Srinagar city, Baramulla, Sopore, Bandipora, Ganderbal, Anantnag, Kupwara, Badgam and other districts were ordered to remain shut. Even the higher secondary schools were closed in many towns with vulnerable law and order situation. The protests were further fuelled on Tuesday after reports of the Ganderbal rape incident surfaced even as the valley was already seething over the May 9 Bandipora case. Police said the Ganderbal incident happened on Sunday. The students of different educational institutes demanded justice to the victims and stern punishment to the accused as they clashed with the security forces. Students of Amar Singh (AS) College, Srinagar, carrying placards and banners, staged protests on the college campus. They have been demanding death penalty to the accused. The students of Kashmir Law College, Nowshera, also took out a protest rally. The MBBS students of SKIMS Medical College in Bemina assembled on the premises and staged protests. They demanded death penalty to the accused. The students of various departments of University of Kashmir also took out a peaceful protest rally inside the campus on Tuesday, so did students of Boniyar Higher Secondary School in Uri in north Kashmir. IANS editorial@tribune.com Sumit Hakhoo Tribune News Service Jammu, May 14 Agrarian distress and politico-land mafia nexus in Jammu and Kashmir is leaving a devastating trail behind as conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes continues at an alarming rate, making the state further dependent on food imports to feed its 1.25-crore population. As per government data, about 50,585 hectares (10 lakh kanals) of fertile cultivable land was converted into residential and commercial property in the state during the past one decade alone. The trend continues, without enforcement of any laws to stop such a practice. Commercial and residential colonies are coming up across villages and towns of J&K. The situation is more catastrophic in the two capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar, which are eating up land in their surrounding villages to meet the demands of expanding population and development needs. Land Revenue Act and J&K Agrarian Reforms Act, Prohibition on Conversion of Land and Alienation of Orchards Act have been misused. The government has failed to check the blatant violation as revenue department, the nodel agency to implement the laws, district administrations and policy makers have deliberately turned a blind eye towards arresting such practices. In 2011, The J&K Prohibition on Conversion of Agricultural Land for Non- Agricultural Purposes Act Bill was introduced by the then Agriculture Minister in Congress-NC government, Ghulam Hassan Mir, to make bureaucrats and civil servants accountable in their respective areas. The Bill was met with resistance and was not passed by the Legislature. It was referred to a select committee but got lapsed after the new PDP-BJP government took over the reins in 2015. Till bureaucrats and politicians are not made accountable, conversion cannot be stopped. I dont want to name anybody but the Bill was never taken seriously by my colleagues, MLAs and even ministers. Existing laws have a lot of loopholes, said the former Agriculture Minister. Senior officials in the agriculture department revealed that the conversion could be more as in a majority of cases, the land had been declared barren in revenue documents, making it easy for the land mafia to circumvent the rules. Shrinking farmland is contributing towards states dependence on imports of food grain to meet requirements. It has even affected the horticulture sector, said Altaf Aijaz Andrabi, director of agriculture, Kashmir. As per the assessment of the agriculture department, the state is expected to face foodgrain deficit of up to 50 per cent by 2030-31. Shrinking farmland could further worsen the situation. There is easy money in selling land. The young generation in rural areas does not want to indulge in farming anymore because of less returns and the failure of the government to introduce technology in production. Big builders and property dealers are taking advantage of the agrarian distress to acquire land. Developmental projects have also increased the land prices, said Tejinder Singh, a farm activist. Alarmed by the violation of rules, previous PDP-BJP government has ordered all deputy commissioners in J&K to strictly implement the existing rules, but it remained just rhetoric. shriaya.dutt@tribuneindia.com Tribune Web Desk Chandigarh, May 15 Bollywood divas rained down upon the Cannes Film Festival. TV actress Hina Khan, all pretty in pink, teased her fans and followers with only glimpses of her day look. The TV star was spotted soaking up the sun and enjoying Cannes vibes on the streets of the French Riviera in her Instagram story. Before Hina makes her debut at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, the popular TV actress and her beau Rocky Jaiswal spent some romantic moments at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. She took to Instagram to share a photograph of herself posing in front of the tallest structure in Paris. "Just be... Restoring my energy. Before it begins," Hina wrote. Hina will not only walk the red carpet at Cannes but also be a speaker at India Pavilion of the 72nd edition of the festival, which will run from May 14-25. Besides her, others making an appearance are Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut, and global icon Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who's a debutante at the festival. PeeCee has left US for France. Deepika is expected to walk the red carpet on May 16, Sonam may appear on the red carpet on May 20-21. Aishwarya is likely to reach Cannes by May 19. Kangana will make her red carpet appearance at the 72nd edition of the festival. Another regular who will again be seen at Promenade de la Croisette is Mallika Sherawat. The 'Murder; actress took to Instagram to share photographs and videos of herself gearing up for the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, which begins here on Tuesday and will run till May 25. Mallika shared the video and captioned it: "Preparations begin for the Cannes film festival. Tony Ward couture, Festival de Cannes." In one video, she can be seen twirling in a stunning off-shoulder powder blue gown. In 2018, the actress did her bit to ensure the issue of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children is heard on a global platform. The talk will be followed by the first look launch event of her film Lines, which is set in the backdrop of the Kargil war. Although there are no Indian films in the main categories, there are several short films being screened at the festival that is being held between May 14 and May 25. Music maestro AR Rahman screened six minutes of his VR film, Le Musk at the film festival on May 14. shriaya.dutt@tribuneindia.com Tribune Web Desk Chandigarh, May 15 The fight between actors Aditya Pancholi and Kangana Ranaut has turned very ugly. According to media reports, Kanganas sister, Rangoli Chandel, has filed a complaint at the Versova police station, saying her sister was exploited and abused by actor Aditya Pancholi at least a decade ago. Pancholi, countered the complaint with another application in the same police station, stating Ranauts lawyer threatened to file a rape case against him. We have asked both of them to record their statements. We will conduct an inquiry before registering an FIR, said a senior officer from the police station. For the ones unaware, Kangana through several interviews in 2017 had accused the 'Race 2' actor of sexually and physically abusing her when she was new to the film industry. She added that he kept her locked in the house, and that she had to escape by jumping off the first-floor window. After the allegations, Pancholi filed a defamation case against Ranaut. Pancholi said on Tuesday reacting to the defamation case, "Kangana, Rangoli and their lawyer, Rizwan Siddique, decided to file the complaint. Siddique even threatened me with a rape case on January 6, 2019. Pancholi claimed he had a number of videos and phone recordings that purportedly show Siddique threatening him. His statement was recorded on Sunday. I submitted my application with the police against Siddique, Kangana and Rangoli earlier this month. I have submitted the video in the police station and court. Rape is the worst kind of crime that can happen [to any woman], he said. When approached for a comment, Siddique said the complaint submitted by them at Versova police station was confidential and he could not speak about it. Rangoli said: I dont want to talk about the complaint right now. Sources say, Rangoli filed her complaint last month, she added that Pancholis wife, actor Zarina Wahab, was aware of about the also incidents between Ranaut and Pancholi. gspannu7@gmail.com London, May 15 Daniel Craig, who was injured on the sets of Bond 25, is reportedly expected to resume shooting on the film within the week. The new James Bond film hit another roadblock after Craig fell while sprinting on the films sets in Jamaica last week and was flown to the US for X-rays. The shooting, which was scheduled to take place at Londons legendary Pinewood Studios, was suspended till further notice. According to The Sun, the actor will be able to resume production while being careful not to aggravate the injury. Citing an unnamed source, the publication stated that Craigs injury was not as bad as initially feared. Things were deemed to be a disaster at first. But the injury is not as severe as believed, and he will be able to film while not over-exerting his ankle. He will be back on set within the week, the source told The Sun. The new film in the Bond franchise has had a tumultuous journey. It was previously set to be directed by Danny Boyle with a release date of November 8, 2019. After Boyle dropped out of the project over creative differences, along with frequent collaborator, screenwriter John Hodge, the films release date was moved to February 14, 2020. Cary Joji Fukunaga is now attached as director, with Scott Z Burns hired by MGM studio to pen a new script. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have already drafted a version of the script but it is being reported that the studio is unhappy with their story. Recently, Fleabag creator-actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge came on board the movie to polish the script of Bond 25. The release of the film was recently pushed back to April 8, 2020. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com Manpriya Singh From flying kites with the PM to having him as a guest at the wedding reception, Bollywood cosying up to Modi government is quite a contrast to Hollywoods disapproval of Donald Trump. Everybody knows what George and Amal Cloooney think of Trump, right? On the other hand, just as many have spoken against the current regime; on issues right from intolerance to financial ones. Cinema and politics is a happy barter of power and glamour. Without jumping in the fray, several Bollywood celebs were out to subtly sway the public opinion. One way or the other. March ahead, sister Sanjay Dutt for sister Priya Dutt Starting with the ones who have a direct stake in the current Lok Sabha elections. Considering his biopic Sanju made well over Rs 300 crores, its clear that the public has truly forgiven his dark past, thereby making him morally fit to campaign for Priya Dutt, who is contesting from Mumbais North Central. Right from the filing of papers to rallying around, brother dear has been there for sister senior and how. March ahead and win thats what I want to say to her. I wish her all the best for this exam as well. Good daughter Sonakshi Sinha for mother Poonam Sinha Ahead of voting in Lucknow, like a dutiful daughter, Sonakshi Sinha set out in a blue and white suit to campaign for mother Poonam Sinha contesting from Lucknow as a Samajwadi Party candidate. I appeal to you all to vote for my mother. She will live up to your expectations, she chose to strike a chord in as simple a way as possible. It must be noted that she vocally supported her father Shatrughan Sinhas decision to quit BJP and join Congress, as well, by saying, He should have done it long time ago. Hubby dear Anupam Kher for wife Kirron Kher Anupam Khers loyalty to PM Modi is known to even those who take little interest in political affairs. Unlike, of course, Twinkle Khanna and Akshay Kumar, whose political ideologies dont match, this husband wife duo is on the same page. Well, at least politically. Ready to campaign for @kirronkhermp for all the good work she has done in the last 5 years. A political leader who has committed herself to the welfare of the people of Chandigarh. Full support Shabana Azmi for Urmila Matondkar Their political association goes back to the day when the two ladies turned up at Azaad Maidan to support Anna Hazare movement. As for their cinematic association, well, that goes back to 1984 when Urmila Matondkar played Shabanas child in Masoom. Shabana Azmi has been supporting the Congress Mumbai North candidate not just through words on Twitter but by actually accompanying her on two of the rallies. Urmila Matondkar Congress candidate for North Mumbai takes to campaigning like a duck takes to water. I was witness to huge crowds in and around Madh Island. Voice over Swara Bhasker for Atishi Marlena Opinionated, on top of that vocal and, above all, as bold as unapologetic! Swara Bhasker is somehow more suited for the new wave of politics than even movies. Wherein she has been more than active by the way, right from her criticism of BJP and their ideologies. Not to forget by campaigning for more than one party and hence more than candidate. In return, BJPs IT cell ensures that she is trolled generously. In this elections, weve seen the actress actively campaigning for AAPs East Delhi candidate Atishi Marlena. I am campaigning for the values of our Constitution she has said in a by now quotable quote. manpriya@tribunemail.com editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Ludhiana, May 14 The Nobel Prize Series India 2019 will be organised at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) on September 10 this year. The event is a part of the five year collaboration between the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India; and Nobel Media, Sweden. The Nobel Prize series is an annual initiative that brings together nobel laureates, experts and eminent scientists to stimulate innovation and creative thinking among scientists, teachers and students across the country. This is the third edition of the series and PAU has been chosen as the host. The first two editions were held in Gujarat and in Goa in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Lena Abrahamsson from the Nobel Media Foundation, Sara Larsson of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce India and the Nobel Media of Sweden held a meeting with officials of the PAU regarding the preparations for the mega event. Larsson said the series would include an array of conferences, lectures, roundtables and exhibitions, besides panel discussion with nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, medicine and peace. In his opening remarks, the PAU Vice Chancellor, BS Dhillon, expressed delight at Punjab being selected as the host. He said the faculty and students would benefit from the programme. editorial@tribune.com Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, April 14 Home Minister Rajnath Singh today asserted that the BJP would win more seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections than in 2014 and added that the party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would get a two-third majority. After addressing more than 110 rallies, I have reached to a conclusion that the BJP will win more seats than it won in 2014 (282, a figure that dropped subsequently due to by-poll defeats). A two-third majority for the NDA also cannot be ruled out. In 2014, people were looking at Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a hope which was now into belief and confidence in him, he said. The former BJP chief said, Last time, it was Modiji versus Sonia Gandhi/Manmohan Singh. This time it is Modiji versus whom? It is unknown. There is a certain undercurrent in these elections and a belief that he should be given another chance to serve the country. He said the Modi government had been successful on all accounts economic, containing price rise and poverty, curtailing corruption while giving the country a safe and secure atmosphere. The Opposition should tell who will lead the country in case they claim that they are forming the government, the minister asked. Referring to Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyars latest remarks against the PM, he said the kind of personal attacks PM Modi had to brave in these elections was unprecedented. Abusing someone cannot be categorised as freedom of speech, he added, asking the Congress to explain its stance on Aiyars views. On the prospects of the SP-BSP-RLD coalition in Uttar Pradesh, he said winds have been taken out of the sails of the mahagathbanbdhan. We got 73 LS seats in 2014, it will not be surprising if we get 74 in these elections. Jo khud doobe hain wo kaise keh sakte hain kiski naiyya doob rahi hai (How can those who are themselves are sunk predict who is sinking) he said on BSP supremo Mayawatis statement that the Modi governments naiyya (boat) will sink in these elections. shalender@tribune.com Aditi Tandon in New Delhi Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh spoke exclusively to The Tribune on a variety of issues. Excerpts: The term of the NDA government is drawing to a close. How do you rate PM Narendra Modis tenure? India will be immensely relieved as the Modi government is shown the exit door. The sordid saga of uninterrupted trauma, disruptive policies and malgovernance, which the current government so notoriously embodies, shall hopefully end. Five years of the Modi government have created a sense of deep despair. Massive unemployment, rampant rural distress, soaring losses of our small and medium businesses, snatching the rights of our deprived sections and colossal corruption without accountability, coupled with incessant attack on our institutions, have been the miseries inflicted by this government. Damaging our social fabric and silencing the voices of dissent by pasting them with ludicrous agenda-driven labels has been the modus operandi of the BJP. This is being propagated as the New India. Grace and decorum have become things of the past. Nauseating noises, endless loud rhetoric and a crass narrative have unfortunately lowered the dignity of discourse. This is being primarily propagated right from the top echelons of power in this government. The office of the Prime Minister embodies gravitas and an onerous responsibility, making it an example for the others to emulate. Sadly, Modiji refuses to comprehend or understand the restraint and dignity the office enjoins. This is hurting Indias image as a vibrant democracy. Event-driven propaganda has only ushered superfluous cosmetic change. Real issues of the people like unemployment, farm crisis, economic mismanagement, social empowerment remain untouched and unresolved. People have seen through this charade and will give a befitting reply. You term Modi governments tenure as devastating. Which decisions in your view caused devastation? Multiple decisions have led to the current policy paralysis. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehrus motto used to be Baatein kam, kaam zyada. The biggest undoing of this government is the publicity blitz bereft of any concrete delivery. The monumental failure of demonetisation alone has set the GDP back by close to 2%, causing a loss of Rs 3 lakh crore to the economy. It was a deliberate attack on the savings of small and medium businesses, informal sector, farmers and housewives. What did the nation gain? Neither was Rs 3 lakh crore black money confiscated as claimed before the Supreme Court on November 10, 2016, nor was fake currency checked. The implementation of a flawed GST has proved to be a double whammy. The Congress had envisaged GST as a single, moderate, standard rate of tax on all goods and services. The BJP instead has pushed through a multiple taxation regime with numerous forms, making the entire compliance process complicated and cumbersome. The unending notifications and changes have also caused needless confusion. Farmers are also bearing the brunt of taxation of essential articles like pesticides, fertilisers and agricultural tools due to GST. Also at a time when the economy has slowed down considerably despite favourable global macroeconomic conditions, the fear of tax terrorism has eroded the confidence of businesses to invest. Midnight knocks by the taxmen at the door of ordinary businessmen have become a norm. Fresh investments are at a 14-year low. Private Corporate Investments are at a seven-year low. Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) have withdrawn almost Rs 1 lakh crore from our markets in 2018 alone. Even the manufacturing and vehicles sales are touching a new low pointing towards sluggishness in the consumer spending in particular and economic cycle at large. All this has created an atmosphere of economic despair and hurt the livelihoods of vast majority of our people. How will you describe Mr Modi, the politician and Mr Modi, the person? I would not like to comment on Mr Modi, personally. Mr Modi, as a leader, has failed India. I believe the role of the leader is to listen to the pain as also the aspirations of the people and act to alleviate them. Consensus is the essence of democracy. If you force and inflict your whims and fancies unilaterally, and expect everyone to adhere submissively, there is bound to be chaos. The PM has said theres no proof of surgical strikes under UPA regime. Description of the military prowess of our Indian Armed Forces as video games by Mr Modi is a grave insult to our nation. No amount of arrogance and self-glorification should blindside anyone to question the successive military operations by mocking our armed forces. Our armed forces were always given a free hand to respond to any threat across the border. Many decisive military operations were undertaken during previous governments, including the Congress-UPA government. Former Chiefs of armed forces and other rank officers have revealed operational details of these strikes. The Congress has also set the record straight on previous surgical strikes. National security experts and those who follow the region know these facts very well and have even reported some of these military operations. There is an unwritten convention to maintain confidentiality on such issues. More often than not, it is a strategic decision. But this convention was broken by the Modi government because they wanted to flaunt it as Modijis achievement rather than the success of our armed forces. Our esteemed armed forces protect the country, but the BJP is using the Indian soldiers to protect its political interests. This is unacceptable. What is the dominant narrative in this election: Nationalism or development? Nationalism is embedded in the hearts and minds of every Indian. The hardworking farmer who toils in the fields day and night to feed the country and was betrayed by the Modi government is a nationalist. The student who burnt midnight oil to become a professional but was denied employment is a nationalist. The housewife who saved money but bore the brunt of demonetisation is a nationalist. Everyone who contributes in building India everyday is a nationalist. How can one individual or party claim to be the sole flag-bearer of nationalism? In fact, those who are targeting the life and livelihood of toiling Indians, yet claiming to serve the country are nothing but pseudo-nationalists. The only narrative in these elections is the issue of bread and butter. Rest is a fabricated illusion. How can anyone say that jobs or rural distress or livelihood issues are interchangeable with national security? Truth is that Modiji promised two crore jobs a year but his disruptive policies snatched over four crore jobs from the youth. Unemployment is at a 45-year high of 6.1%. It was 2.2% during the Congress-led UPA in 2011-12 (NSSO Report, 2017-18). The BJPs political distress stems from its failed track record of promising everything and delivering nothing. No wonder, Modiji had to search for a new narrative everyday in this election. This reflects the bankruptcy of a vision for the country. Mumbai terror attacks killed over 170 people but the UPA government didnt react with force. Did you as PM ever contemplate use of force against Pakistan at that time like the BJP government did after the Pulwama terror attack? The dastardly attack in Mumbai was unpardonable. I disagree with the insinuation that we were not ready with military punitive actions. We were. We did contemplate the use of force, but the geo-political situation was evolving in our favour then. We responded diplomatically and swiftly in isolating Pakistan. Our response was to isolate and diplomatically expose Pakistan as a terror hub besides rallying the international community for decisive action against terrorists. We succeeded too. Within 14 days of the Mumbai attacks, we got China to agree to declare Hafiz Saeed as a global terrorist under the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee. The Congress-led UPA ensured that a $10m bounty was placed on the head of the Mumbai attacks perpetrator and the founder of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Hafiz Saeed by the US. Another mastermind David Headley was convicted to 35 years of prison during our government in 2013. Top LeT members involved in Mumbai attacks were kept under sanctions lists as terrorists by the UNSC due to our unrelenting diplomatic efforts. Result is that LeT per se has become ineffective today. We made counter-terrorism cooperation in the international community against the LeT more effective. Countries like Saudi Arabia and even China co-operated to a great deal. Several terrorists were arrested and deported to India, as they travelled outside Pakistan. Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, handler of the 26/11 attack and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) chief of operations for India, was subsequently picked up in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and brought to Hyderabad and formally arrested in January 2010. Zaibuddin Ansari (aka Abu Hamza/Abu Jundal) was arrested at the Delhi airport in June 2012 after he was deported from Saudi Arabia. Post Mumbai 26/11 attacks, the Congress-UPA government strengthened coastal security and mooted a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) but then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi unequivocally opposed the idea. We also conceived the NATGRID, an integrated intelligence grid connecting databases of core security agencies of the Government of India to collect comprehensive patterns of intelligence that could be readily accessed. But the Modi government has put NCTC and NATGRID in cold storage. In 2014, the BJP secured full majority after three decades. Do you think the era of coalitions is over? Democracy is about cohesion, cooperation and cohabitation. Democracy entails building a consensus out of divergent viewpoints in national interest. Hence, democracy, per se, is a coalition of ideas. We have had coalition governments in the past that have accelerated Indias growth trajectory that many absolute majority governments couldnt. Under the Congress-UPA, the average GDP growth in 10 years was 8.1%. The BJP, despite its strong numbers in Parliament, could not achieve this robustgrowth in the past five years. The social welfare and accountability measures of the Congress-UPA government like MGNREGA, Right to Information Act and Food Security Act were possible because opinions of a wide range of stakeholders were taken into consideration. This is missing now. There are continuous checks and balances in a coalition government and decision making is more democratic and cautious. Under the present BJP government, it has been witnessed that even Cabinet Ministers are not informed about crucial decisions, let alone coalition partners or Opposition. What is even more worrisome is that the institutional integrity of our long-cherished institutions like the Supreme Court, the RBI, Niti Aayog and others is being systematically eroded. This is dangerous for our democracy. Your assessment of poll results on May 23? I am hopeful that a progressive, liberal and truly democratic government at the Centre will assume the reins of power in which the Congress will play a leading role. Congress manifesto says NYAY scheme will be rolled out through rationalisation of spending and only targeted subsidies will continue. Will all other subsidies discontinue? Nearly 70% of Indians were poor when India attained Independence. With sound policies adopted by successive governments, poverty levels have declined to about 20% now. It is time to renew our pledge to wipe out the last remains of poverty by implementing NYAY Nyuntam Aay Yojana. It is a powerful idea to restart stalled economic activity. Under NYAY, the poorest 20% of Indian families will be given an annual income support of a uniform amount of Rs 72,000 for each family. NYAY will ensure a basic level of dignity for every Indian family. The Congress is also committed to fiscal discipline. NYAY scheme will cost between 1.2% and 1.5% of the GDP at its peak. Our nearly $3 trillion economy has the fiscal capacity to absorb this expenditure. There will be no need for any new taxes on the middle class to finance NYAY. The economic stimulus that NYAY will provide will further help in fiscal discipline. Just as we brought in a new paradigm for Indias development with the de-licensing regime in 1991, a rights-based approach to governance, including the Right to Work, I am confident a Congress-led government in 2019 will implement NYAY successfully and usher in a new model for social justice and prudent economics. I believe that NYAY has the potential to catapult India into the club of poverty-free nations and I hope to be able to live to see our nation achieve this historic milestone. How do you rate economic growth under NDA? The Modi governments gross economic mismanagement has derailed Indias economic growth story. Institutions like the RBI, NSC, Planning Commission (Niti Aayog), which commanded autonomy, have been surreptitiously taken over by stealth and have been undermined. Serious questions about data have clouded Indias credibility in the global economic space. In the past 70 years, there has been no question mark on the credibility of Indias statistical institutions, but last few years have seen a global debate on the veracity of our data. How did it happen? Why are job surveys being brushed under the carpet? Given the brute majority the Modi government enjoyed, it was expected that they would have accelerated the process of reforms, but they failed completely. The half-baked reforms implemented by this government have only complicated matters and have no proper vision or strategy behind it. When the history of Indias economic progress would be written, the Modi governments period would be counted as a dark spot marred by adhoc decision making, gross mismanagement and non-performance. The biggest failure of the Modi government is on the employment and agrarian fronts. What in your view is the biggest foreign policy failure of this government? Entire foreign policy paradigm of this government is centred on an individual instead of Indias strategic and economic interests. Foreign policy entails gravitas, a sense of diplomacy and restraint, sensitivity towards the concerns of the host nation and ultimately furthering the interests of India. Regrettably, this governments foreign policy is founded upon anything but a mature comprehension of diplomacy. I would give you one major example which speaks volumes of how the foreign policy under the present government has faltered and deviated from continuity. For the first time in 70 years, Indias time-tested ally Russia lifted the embargo on sale of arms to Pakistan. Russia even sold Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan and signed a military cooperation agreement with it besides participating in a joint naval exercise hosted by Pakistan in 2017. There is absolute lack of clarity on our foreign policy, be it with our neighbours or with other important countries. Doklam impasse should easily be counted as one of the biggest foreign policy failures of this government. The turbulent relationship with our neighbours and lack of coherence in dealing with specific issues in international arena has marred the foreign policy of the present government. What is Congress doing differently this time? The Congress has fought these elections decisively and aggressively under the leadership of Congress president Rahul Gandhi. We recently formed liberal, progressive and inclusive governments in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, besides Punjab and Karnataka earlier. We have laid down a solid, realistic and implementable vision for the country in our manifesto, which has been appreciated. India is a developing country aspiring to be a middle-income country by 2030. Wealth creation and the welfare of our people are our two principal goals, which the Congress has presented for the people of India. Congress has been accusing PM of corruption in Rafale but charges havent been proved. Is that not a setback to your strategy? Rafale scam is perhaps the biggest defence scandal of recent times in which the topmost echelons of power in the current government are involved. There are several unanswered questions which the Congress has raised and hundreds of pages of documented material which prima facie prove the charges of wrongdoing, crony capitalism, violation of mandatory provisions of Defence Procurement Procedure, sacrificing national interests and even endangering national security. All this has been deliberated in the public domain. We have demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe of the same since serious policy matters and issues requiring examination of documents and evidence are involved. But the Modi government sought to brazen it out. If there is nothing wrong, why is it scared of facing a JPC? Why are journalists being threatened with jail for exposing Rafale corruption? Why is government scared of clarifying the serious issues of impropriety? These fears of the government and attempts to stifle every person asking questions expose their guilt. Sam Pitrodas remarks on 1984 anti-Sikh riots have reopened old wounds. What do you say as the first Sikh PM of India? His comments were completely unwarranted, unacceptable and hurtful. Congress President Rahul Gandhi himself has admonished him publicly. You didnt campaign in 2019 polls. Will you continue in public life? I am in public life and as long as my health permits I would like to remain active so as to serve the country to the best of my ability and capacity. shalender@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 Ahead of the final phase voting this Sunday, Congress veteran and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh today said his successor Narendra Modi had failed India and the country would be immensely relieved if he was shown the exit door. The sordid saga of uninterrupted trauma, disruptive policies and malgovernance, which the current government so notoriously embodies, shall hopefully end. Five years of Modi government have created a sense of deep despair The biggest undoing is the publicity blitz bereft of any concrete delivery, Manmohan Singh said in an exclusive interview to The Tribune. The 86-year-old Rajya Sabha MP, whose term ends on June 14, said he was not hanging his boots just yet. Days after PM Modi attacked his late predecessor Rajiv Gandhi as Bhrashtachaari no. 1 raking up his INS Viraat holiday, Manmohan Singh launched an unprecedented attack on the PM, saying grace and decorum had become things of the past. The office of the Prime Minister embodies gravitas and an onerous responsibility, making it an example for the others to emulate. Sadly, Modiji refuses to comprehend the restraint and dignity the office enjoins. This is hurting Indias image as a vibrant democracy. Event- driven propaganda has only ushered superfluous cosmetic change. Real issues remain untouched and unresolved. People have seen through this charade and will give a befitting reply, he said. By Lee Min-hyung North Korea's ambassador to the U.N. Han Tae-song editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar returned to haunt the party on the eve of last phase of elections today with his familiar anti-Narendra Modi rant which the grand old party condemned and the BJP flagged as a mindset issue with the Congress. Modi will, in any case, be ousted by the people of India on 23 May. That would be a fitting end to the most foul-mouthed prime minister this country has seen or is likely to see. Remember how I described him on 7 December 2017? Was I not prophetic? Aiyar said in a blog which was picked up by PM Modi who attacked the Congress leaders for attacking and abusing him. Aiyars prophetic reference was to his neech kism kaa aadmi comments about Modi on the eve of 2017 Gujarat elections which the BJP won narrowly. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had at the time suspended Aiyar for his out of line remarks only to reinstate the leader after polls. Congress media head Randeep Surjewala condemned Aiyar's remarks on Modi today and said the proper forum in the party will take cognisance of what had been said. As the Congress dissociated with Aiyars off the cuff comments which have often hurt party prospects, including in the 2014 General Election, Surjewala also said the PM had lowered the level of political discourse by using below the belt remarks for political opponents. Meanwhile, Aiyar, holidaying in Shimla, said he would not comment anything beyond what he had said in his blog about Modi. I am a fool, but not such a big fool, he told reporters who approached him for comments there. Aiyar's chaiwallah jibe at Modi ahead of 2014 LS polls had placed the BJP at a definitive advantage as PM Modi turned the swipe around crafting a poll campaign titled Chai pe charcha. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 The Centre today issued a notification extending the ban on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) for another five years under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), saying the activities of remnant cadres, dropouts, sympathisers, supporters, who have their presence in Tamil Nadu, pose threat to countrys integrity and its peoples interests. In the notification the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has emphasised that the LTTE has not abandoned the concept of Eelam, a separate homeland for all Tamils, even after its military defeat in May 2009 in Sri Lanka and has been clandestinely working towards that goal by undertaking fund raising and propaganda. India banned the LTTE after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The ban on the outfit was last extended for five years in 2014. It has now been extended for another five years under sub-sections (1) and (3) of Section 3 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, with immediate effect. editorial@tribune.com Jitendra K Shrivastava Tribune News Service Patna, May 14 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Congress ego was at its peak these days, similar to what it was during the Emergency. Addressing a public rally at Sasaram, Modi said: It was due to the ego of the Congress that great personality like Jai Prakash Narayan bore the bruises of lathis and Babu Jagjivan Ram had to desert the party after facing grave humiliations. It was also the Congress ego that strived hard to erase names of likes of Baba Saheb Ambedkar from the history. However, to save itself, the party was now seeking votes on their names. Lashing out at the Opposition, he said: They believe in hua to hua over corruption, scams and loss of the poor. But the country is saying ab bahut hua. He dared the Opposition to prove that he had amassed any assets or kept money in any foreign bank. The PM said he had promised to make New India. If new India has to be made, the sun of development, in the real sense, will rise from East India, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Assam. That is why the stress was laid on development from East India during the past five years of his regime, claimed the Prime Minister. Modi promised pukka houses for all when India would be celebrating its 75th year of Independence. Ram Manohar Lohia had dreamt of Pani and Paikhane (water and toilet), about 10 crore toilets have been constructed across India during his regime. shalender@tribune.com Tribune News Service Kolkata, May 14 BJP chief Amit Shahs massive roadshow in north Kolkata today was marred by violence as students affiliated to West Bengals ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) tried to show black flags to him at the entrance of the Calcutta University campus. Members of the ABVP, student wing of the BJP, also gathered at the site and the two sides clashed soon after Shahs cavalcade passed by. The events took a serious turn at Vidyasagar College in the same locality where several motorcycles parked outside were vandalised and set ablaze. Shards of broken glass littered the lobby of the college where a bust of Bengali writer and philosopher Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was smashed, prompting the TMC to seek a meeting with the EC. There was an attempt by TMC hooligans to attack me. Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal CM) tried to provoke violence. But I am safe, Shah said. Banerjee hit back: Is Shah God that no one can protest against him?... They (BJP men) are so uncultured that they destroyed the bust of Vidyasagar... Those who insulted him wont be spared. Shah said he was told by the police that the permission for the roadshow ended near the college and that he would be taken to the ancestral home of Swami Vivekananda on Bidhan Sarani. They (police) deviated from the planned route and took a way where there were traffic jams, he said. Calling Shah a goonda, Banerjee said: If you lay your hands on Vidyasagar, what will I call you other than a goonda? (With PTI inputs) rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, May 15 A fire broke out at a garment shop in outer Delhis Nangloi area, Delhi Fire Service (DFS) officials said on Wednesday. The fire department received a call about the blaze at around 9.55 am after which four fire tenders were rushed to the spot. The fire was brought under control by 10.40 am. No injury or casualty had been reported, a senior fire official said, adding that the cause of fire is not known yet. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 India has conducted an important exercise to land parachute-borne troops on a remote island and is now planning an event in August in the deserts that will include Russia and China. A tri-services team of paratroopers was airdropped on Teressa island in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. The exercise called bullstrike was to mimic the need of landing men on an island to counter the enemy and also possible terrorists. The air drop included some troops dropping in a free fall from a plane called combat free fall in military parlance. The exercise was done on May 9 and not made public. India fears a threat from sea to several of its islands and has a role as dominating the Indian Ocean where some of the islands are vulnerable. Separately, delegates of eight countries, including Russia and China, arrived in Jaisalmer today to plan out what will be the fifth International Army games to be conducted in August. This will be first multi-nation participation by China in India. India will be hosting for the first time and will showcase military potential. Other countries participating today and also in August will be Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe. Barring Zimbabwe, the others, including India, were considered by the US and its allies as part of the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War (1945-1991). The event in August will be over five stages and see the participation of some 250 personnel. Though called games, it will have specialist military activity like checking infiltration and laying an ambush. It will have obstacle course. It see troops doing night infiltration and survival exercise. Weapons to be used are AK-47 and INSAS both rifles. Draganov sniper rifles and infantry carrying armoured vehicles. shalender@tribune.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered immediate release of West Bengal BJP Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma, who was arrested for sharing the morphed picture of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook. However, a Vacation Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna ordered that at the time of her release, Sharma will tender an apology in writing for putting up/sharing the pictures. Sharma, 25, who was arrested on the basis of a criminal complaint by a TMC leader, was on Saturday produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Howrah, who sent her to 14-day judicial custody. This order is being made in the special facts and circumstances of this case and shall not operate as a precedent, the Bench said, while keeping open the issues raised in the petition challenging the BJP activists controversial arrest. Directing the petitioner to serve a copy of her petition to the counsel appearing for the State of West Bengal for filing a formal response, the Bench posted the petition for hearing after summer vacation. Initially, the Bench made Sharmas release subject to the young BJP leader tendering an apology, but later it called back senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, representing the petitioner, and clarified that she has to be released immediately. This is wrong... your right to free speech ends where another persons begins, it said. But is sharing a meme enough for that (arrest)? This is something like caricature, Kaul submitted. We do not see that there should be any difficulty for you in apologising for your post on social media. We are not asking you to apologise for others. Let her tender an apology, we will forthwith grant bail. You take instruction. Since you are a member of the BJP, the insinuation is different. The other side may have taken it differently. Had you been a common person, then maybe it could have been no problem, the Bench said. Referring to the courts 2015 verdict in Shreya Singhals case in which it declared Section 66A of the IT Act unconstitutional, Kaul said Sharma has been arrested by the police under the scrapped provision as well. You are a member of a political party. Elections are going on. We understand all these things, the Bench said, adding, You cannot put anybodys face on anybody... It is wrong. Kaul said such an apology would have a chilling effect on free speech as tomorrow West Bengal Police can arrest anybody for four days for giving a statement and then demand an apology. If you say sorry, it does not bring you down. We are not going on the angle of freedom of speech and expressions, the Bench said. rchopra@tribunemail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 15 The Supreme Court on Wednesday threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against the West Bengal government after the counsel for BJP Yuva Morcha activist Priyanka Sharma--arrested for posting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees meme--complained that she hadnt been released despite its order. Pulling up the state police, a vacation bench headed by Justice Indrani Banerjee ordered that Sharma be released immediately. On behalf of Priyanka Sharma, senior counsel Neeraj Kishan Kaul said before her release Sharma was asked to sign an apology letter prepared by West Bengal Police undertaking that she would not post such meme again. Twenty-five-year-old Sharmawho was arrested on the basis of a criminal complaint filed by TMC leader Vibhas Hazra--was on Saturday produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Howrah, who had sent her to judicial custody. On Tuesday the Bench ordered Sharmas immediate release. However, it had asked her to tender an apology for circulating the meme. Terming Sharmas arrest as prima facie arbitrary, the Bench on Wednesday said any further delay in her release would invite contempt action. If she is not released, we will issue contempt notice (to the state of West Bengal), it said. The courts remarks came after Kaul made an urgent mentioning before the vacation bench that Sharma had not been released so far. Kaul wondered where was the question of apology when the state police themselves had sought to close the case. The Bench will take up her plea for action against the state police in July after the summer vacation. The Supreme Court had on Tuesday ordered immediate release of Sharma who was arrested for sharing the morphed picture of CM Mamata Banerjee on Facebook. However, the vacation bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Sanjiv Khanna ordered that at the time of her release Sharma would tender an apology in writing. It is made clear that this order is being made in the special facts and circumstances of this case and shall not operate as a precedent, the Bench said while keeping open the issues raised in the petition challenging the BJP activists controversial arrest. Directing the petitioner to serve a copy of her petition to the counsel appearing for the state of West Bengal for filing a formal response, the Bench posted the petition for hearing after the summer vacation. vermaajay1968@gmail.com Sandeep Dikshit Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 India today told Iran that any decision on purchasing oil from it will have to await the next government. India has turned off imports of Iranian oil from early May despite being its second biggest importer following a US diktat aimed at squeezing the Iranian economy. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swarajs message to visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif came on a day when India for the second time decided to postpone retaliatory tariffs on US imports. India also sought to dispel the notion that it had sought the meeting by stating that the visit of Iranian Foreign Minister took place at his own initiative. Swaraj told Zarif that any decision on purchase of oil from Iran will be taken keeping in mind Indias commercial considerations, energy security and economic interests. A report by an Iranian news agency quoted Zarif as saying that Iran and India had designed a special financial system to augment trade and economic cooperation. Besides oil trade and JCPOA (the pact between Iran and six nations) which have been the staple of Zarifs recent conversations with Russia, China, Iraq and Turkmenistan, talks in New Delhi also touched on the operationalisation of the interim contract on Chabahar Port. Zarif also acquainted Swaraj with Irans plan to partially withdraw from the JCPOA after European signatories to the pact have developed cold feet in standing up to the US. Swaraj remained noncommittal by asking all signatories to the JCPOA to continue to fulfil their commitments. Saudi shuts pipeline after drone attacks rchopra@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 15 Accusing Mamata Banerjee-led TMC of rioting during his Tuesday roadshow in Kolkata, BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday alleged that the states ruling party workers were part of a conspiracy to vandalise the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. He asserted that the gate of the Vidyasagar college had been shut till the conclusion of the roadshow, while asking as to who opened the door where the statue had been vandalised. Claiming that the TMC is headed for a resounding defeat in West Bengal, Shah said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had been rattled with the rise of the BJP in the state. He also showed photographs to allege that TMC workers indulged in stone-pelting and arson, which were aimed at him and he could come out unharmed only because of the CRPF personnel protecting him. Shah alleged that the Election Commission had been a mute spectator to the attempts of rigging in West Bengal. Historysheeters across the country are put behind bars during elections. Such criminal elements are freely indulging in political violence in the state. Why has the EC not acted against such historysheeters? he asked. Questioning the silence of the EC over Banerjees open threat to BJP workers, the BJP chief said the partys campaigners, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, had been restrained from campaigning in West Bengal. Shah said the TMC is contesting elections on 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, while the BJP is in the contest on much higher number of seats across the country. If the BJP is indulging in violence, then why there is no such incident like seen in West Bengal in any other parts of the country. It just means that the TMC indulges in violence, he said. The BJP chief also asserted that the party cadres wouldnt be deterred by filing of an FIR against him. Seven of the BJP workers had been killed in the state as part of the TMC-staged political violence. We wouldnt be deterred. People in the state will answer with ballot in the seventh phase of the election, he said, while stating that the TMC had been practising the culture of threatening the political rivals. Shah asserted that the BJP would sweep the elections in the state and would win at least 23 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 in the state. Members of Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea stage a protest in front of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. They called for a thorough investigation over how the money South Korea paid the U.S. military from 2014 to 2018 under their defense cost-sharing pact was spent. The group later submitted a formal request signed by 614 people to the BAI. Courtesy of Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea By Jung Da-min A civic group has asked the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) to investigate how the money South Korea paid the U.S. military from 2014 to 2018 under their defense cost-sharing pact was spent. Over the five years, 95.42 billion won ($8.03 million) was used for maintenance of military equipment that did not belong to the United States Forces Korea but to the Japanese military, according to a recent press release from the office of Rep. Chun Jung-bae of the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace, citing statements from the Ministry of National Defense. On Tuesday, civic group Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea staged a protest in front of the BAI headquarters in Seoul, calling for a thorough investigation. It later submitted a formal request signed by 614 people. The civic group said the Special Measure Agreement (SMA) budget should solely be used for the USFK presence in South Korea and it was a violation of that agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Seoul and Washington if the budget was used for other purposes for overseas U.S. forces in this case. The defense ministry told Chun's office that there was an exception that the budget could be used overseas with the agreement of South Korea and the U.S. if it was to support the joint operations plan in case of a North Korean invasion. Most of the 95.42 billion won budget used overseas supported maintenance of U.S. forces military equipment in Japan, including F-15 fighter jets and HH-60 fighters, according to the ministry. shalender@tribune.com Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, May 14 Indias elite unit of commandos drawn from all three armed forces has started functioning with the Ministry of Defence today appointing a Major General from the Army as its first commander. He will be in the rank of General Officer Commanding (GOC), a rank used in field formations. Named the Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD), it will have special forces of the Army, Marine Commandos (MARCOS) of the Navy, and Garuda commando force of the IAF. The three forces have operated together but this will be first effort to bring them under a common command and control structure, an important step in integration of the three forces. It will also reduce costs of training besides logistics and administrative costs. The government had approved in December last year the setting up of this division and also the creation of a Defence Cyber Agency (DCA) to be headed by a Navy officer of equivalent rank a Rear Admiral. On May 1, Rear Admiral Mohit Gupta was appointed the first head of the DCA. Also, separately, work is on to set up a space agency to be headed by an IAF officer for space-based missions. All three are to be tri-services divisions. The Armed Forces Special Operations Division will start functioning with a small team of commandos. This division will have around 3,000 trained commandoes to carry out warfare in jungles, at sea and attack or rescue helicopter operations. The teams will be responsible for conducting missions that include targeting strategic installations, high-value targets in terms of terrorists and crippling the war-fighting capabilities of the enemy. These three units will function under the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS). The Naresh Chandra Committee in 2012 had recommended setting up three commands Special Operations, Cyber and Space to deal with new challenges facing national security. The committee was asked by the government to give recommendations on fine-tuning higher defence management to enable the armed forces to fight in a fast-changing warfare scenario. gspannu7@gmail.com New Delhi, May 15 The Indian Air Force has given new shoulder patches with titles Falcon Slayers and AMRAAM Dodgers to Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthamans MiG-21 Bison squadron in a tribute to his bravery in shooting down a F-16 jet of Pakistan during the aerial combat on February 27, officials said. The new patches given to the 51 Squadron of IAF depict a MiG-21 in the foreground along with a red-coloured F-16 with Falcon Slayers written on top and AMRAAM Dodgers written at the bottom of it. A fleet of Pakistani fighter jets had unsuccessfully targeted various military installations in Jammu and Kashmir on February 27, a day after India carried out air strikes on a terrorist training camp deep inside Pakistans Balakot. The IAF foiled the Pakistani retaliation, and in the dogfight, Varthaman downed an F-16 fighter jet of the Pakistan Air Force, showing grit, determination and bravery. Soon after he brought down the F-16, Varthaman was captured by the Pakistani Army as his MiG-21 Bison jet was hit. Varthaman was released on the night of March 1 by Pakistan. The IAF had said the Pakistani F-16 fighters fired AMRAAM beyond visual range air-to-air missile during the aerial combat. After he was captured, Varthaman showed courage and grace in handling the most difficult circumstances for which he was praised by politicians, strategic affairs experts, ex-servicemen, celebrities and people in general. Varthaman became the face of the military confrontation between the two countries. Last month, he was shifted out of Srinagar and posted to a frontline air base in the western sector. The IAF is recommending wartime gallantry medal Vir Chakra to Varthaman. PTI shalender@tribune.com Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh does not mince words. Be it his critiques within the party or outside, he spares none. In an exclusive interview to The Tribune reporter Rajmeet Singh, he talks on a range of issues as he leads the Punjab Congress to accomplish Mission 13. Excerpts: What is your take on the Congress position in Punjab? We are doing very well on all 13 seats. Where I initially thought we were weak, we are now going strong. Enthusiasm among the people says it all. Is the nationalism hype post-Balakot strikes resonating in Punjab? Any time a war breaks out, Punjab would be affected the most. People here do not want war. As far as Balakot is concerned, the Punjabis support the Indian armed forces response, but it is not an election issue. PM Modi took a decision under the Defence Services Act. With six phases of polls over, what is your take on Congress performance at the national level? Though its a subject matter of the All-India Congress Committee, from what I hear, the party is doing well everywhere. The mood is upbeat. UPA-III is going to form the next government with its allies at the Centre. Do you think it is tougher for you this time? If there is anti-incumbency for the Modi government, it is the same for your government. Your comment? Our test will be in 2022 when we fight the Assembly elections. Today it is Modis test. He has to prove what he has done in his five years of rule. I will prove to people how I have performed in 2022. Do you see a resurgence of the SAD? Sukhbir Badal seems confidant of winning Bathinda and Ferozepur. There is no question of the Badals winning Bathinda and Ferozepur. The fact is that people are not allowing Harsimrat Kaur Badal to enter villages in Bathinda. Black flags are being shown to Sukhbir wherever he goes. People are fed up with AAP too. Things are being played up to project Sukhbir as a great leader. He will come to know in a few days. Bargari has completely demolished the Akali Dal. Sukhbir accuses you of using the sacrilege issue as a shield against anti-incumbency. Your response? Sukhbir Badal must know that I will strongly hit back wherever there are incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib, the Bhagavad Gita, Quran or Bible. Those destroying the secular image of the country and the state will find me their biggest enemy. The Akali Dal is accusing you of hobnobbing with radicals. What do you have to say? These unfounded and baseless allegations only go to show the depth of their desperation. Now that SIT probe into sacrilege cases is nearing completion, they stand to be exposed for their acts of commission and omission. If anyone has been hobnobbing with radicals, it is most likely to be the Akalis, who have always used religion as a tool to further their political interests. Do you feel that stakes are high for the party in Bathinda, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur and Sangrur ? Competition is everywhere, somewhere more, somewhere less. I do not think it is going to be a walk-through. By and large we have overcome opposition. People are asking questions to candidates. Do you think is its healthy trend in democracy? Absolutely. It will strengthen our democratic structure, which unfortunately has seen much erosion in recent years. I dont know about other parties, but we in the Congress have taken questions from the people on public platforms. SAD-BJP is playing up the 1984 riots issue. Congress is talking of Godhra. Is it a poll gimmick? What I have been saying is that if Modi is trying to put the blame on us for various issues, we can put the blame on him that he was the CM when Godhra took place. Modi cannot be making sweeping statements. In case of sacrilege incidents in Punjab, I am not saying Sukhbir did it. I am saying that he is responsible as he was then Deputy CM holding the Home portfolio. I think, people have the right to know who all were involved and why those in power did not take action. Sidhu had been missing from Punjab. He claims you did not call him. It is not my job to call him, nor anybody elses job to call him. It is his responsibility to campaign for the party here. Does he need a special car to pick him up? He is campaigning in whole of the country, what prevents him from coming here? Read also: (As directed by Amarinder, Sidhu not to campaign for Cong in Punjab, says wife) The only issue he has is that he was not allowed to speak at Rahul Gandhis Moga rally on March 7. It was an official function where Cooperation Minister was the stage secretary. Only Rahul Gandhi, the PPCC chief and myself were on the list of speakers. A leader as senior as Rajinder Kaur Bhattal too did not give a speech. Had it been a political function, it would have been different. I have nothing to do with denial of ticket to Navjot Kaur Sidhu for the Chandigarh seat. The Congress decided on Pawan Bansal as he was the best suitable candidate. Many in the Congress say its time you assumed a bigger role in the party, may be as PM. Your take? Not at all. I have no such ambition. On becoming MP, I realised that it was not my cup of tea. There are many capable people in our party. It is for Rahul Gandhi to decide, whether he becomes the PM or decides on someone else. shalender@tribune.com Sandeep Rana Tribune News Service Chandigarh, May 14 Launching a scathing attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said the country was now opting for India first over family first and development over dynasty. Addressing a rally in favour of BJPs Chandigarh candidate Kirron Kher and SADs Anandpur Sahib nominee Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra, he said the nation was electing a strong government and not a helpless one. One that hits terrorists in their den and not the one that got scared by empty threats of Pakistan, he added. He said DBT under the NDA government meant the direct benefit transfer scheme, while it stood for the direct bicholiya transfer scheme earlier. Modi said his government had identified eight crore fake bank accounts and saved taxpayers money that used to go into the pockets of middlemen and fake beneficiaries. The PM also lashed out at the Congress for shifting IPL tournament venues outside India during the Lok Sabha poll previously. Then the government showed helplessness saying the IPL and LS poll cannot be held simultaneously. What if there is a bomb blast, what will happen to Manmohan Singh? Thus, IPL matches were shifted to other countries. See the 2019 government of a chaiwala and the magic of a chowkidar. Elections and IPL were held simultaneously, he said. He also used Sam Pitrodas hua toh hua remark to attack the Congress. vermaajay1968@gmail.com Chandigarh, May 14 Congress leader Navjot Kaur Sidhu stoked a controversy Tuesday, alleging that it was Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and party general secretary in-charge for Punjab Asha Kumari who ensured that she was denied the Lok Sabha ticket from Amritsar. Captain Sahib and Asha Kumari think Madam Sidhu does not deserve an MP ticket. I was denied the ticket from Amritsar on the ground that I could not win in the aftermath of the Dasehra train tragedy in Amritsar last year, she told reporters in Amritsar on Monday. Kaur, wife of Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, said the chief minister thought that he was alone capable of leading the party to victory in all 13 seats of Punjab. Look, Amarinder Singh is our junior captain. Rahul Gandhi is our senior captain. Our junior captain has said he would win all 13 seats by himself," she said, indicating that she might not campaign for the party in the state. Captain Sahib will do the campaigning. Asha Kumari is also a star campaigner. Sidhu sahib will go wherever Rahul asks him to go, the disgruntled Congress leader added. PTI editorial@tribune.com Arun Sharma Tribune News Service Ropar, May 14 The warning of the Chief Minister to his party colleagues against factionalism seems to have no impact on Congress leaders in this area. Two groups of the Congress one led by district Congress president Brinder Singh Dhillon and another by Punjab Speaker Rana KP Singh organised separate rallies at Nurpur Bedi on Monday and Tuesday. In order to keep both the factions in good humour and avoid damage to his prospects of winning, party candidate Manish Tewari had to address both the rallies within 24 hours in the same village. It was yesterday that district Congress president Brinder Singh Dhillon, who had contested the Assembly election on party ticket unsuccessfully, organised a public meeting in the village. Though Manish Tewari reached there to address the gathering, none of the Congress leader from the Rana group, including local MLA Amarjit Singh Sandoa, who has defected from the AAP to Congress recently, attended the meeting. A day after it, today Tewari, accompanied by Punjab Speaker Rana KP Singh, addressed another public meeting organised by Sandoa and other Congress leaders in the village. Even the pictures of district Congress president Dhillon were missing from the banners displayed by the organisers on the occasion. Senior Congress leader and former Cabinet minister belonging to the area Ramesh Dutt Sharma was also ignored by both the factions apparently due to his deteriorating health. When contacted, Sharma said though he was unable to go to such meetings due to ill health, his family members would like to participate. They, however, were not even being informed about the partys rallies. uttara@tribuneindia.com Aparna Banerji Tribune News Service Jalandhar, May 15 Punjabi songs blare from loudspeakers as a cavalcade weaves through Jalandhars central areas such as Model Town and Urban Estate. Its a week before Punjab votes, and the Aam Aadmi Party has despatched its leaders from Delhi to rally support for the partys state unit. Delhis Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is in the city to campaign for AAPs Jora Singh, a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. His campaign agenda remains largely focused around the Bharatiya Janata Party, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but he also mentions the Congress. BJP ke liye ek hi mudda haiPakistan. BJP mein na rozgaar mudda bacha, na vyappar mudda bacha. Unke liye mudda haiPakistan (BJP has only one issue Pakistan. For them neither employment nor trade is an issue), Sisodia tells reporters before his roadshow. False nationalism is how he describes BJPs, and Narendra Modis, campaign. The country is strengthened by education and unemployment. Can suspending trade, strengthen the country? Vote against this farzi rashtravaad (false nationalism), he says. About the Congressa party with which AAP had unsuccessfully tried negotiating an alliance these electionshe says its issue is largely centred on the claim that they were the primary opposition, and therefore the only alternative to the BJP. But the AAP talks about education, health and employment. These are the real issues, he says. However, point out to the dwindling crowds at AAPs rallies, and he remains defiant, saying they were doing better that it was in 2014. In 2014 also everyone laughed at us. They called us a 4-month-old party and made fun of us. AAP graph has gone up now. The party will claim 13 seats in the state. His words for rebels in the partys Punjab unit, including some sitting members of parliament, are harsh. People dont forgive those who quit a party before elections. Such people are viewed as traitors. People had trusted them as AAP candidates, they will not be forgiven. Ask him if, in the light of the latest incident of sacrilege reported from Sangrur, it was once again an issue in the state, and he avoids a direct answer, calling it a local issue and deflecting the question towards the candidate, Jora Singh. Beabdi kabhi bhi koi bhi karevo mudda hona chahiye. Beabdi mudda hai sthaniya muddon par vo jawab denge (Whoever does desecration, it should be an issue. It is an issue. It is local issue (pointing to) Justice Jora Singh can give a better reply on the issue), he says. Former high court judge Jora Singh probed incidents of sacrilege in the state as one-man commission during the previous SAD-BJP regime. Punjab votes in the last phase of general elections on May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23. gspannu7@gmail.com Bargari (Punjab), May 15 Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday contrasted Manmohan Singh who led the UPA government and Narendra Modi, saying the prime minister wouldnt have destroyed the economy if he had taken advice from his predecessor. Modi used to make fun of Manmohan Singh. But after five years now, Modi ji does not make fun of Manmohan ji. Today the country is making fun of him, Gandhi said at an election rally here. Accusing Modi of destroying the economy with his two decisions, he said had the PM taken the advice of Manmohan Singh he would not have rolled out demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Gandhi referred to it as the Gabbar Singh Tax. He claimed that the former PM had rightly predicted a fall of two percentage points in the countrys GDP due to demonetisation. The Congress leader targeted Modi for likening the countrys economy under the Manmohan Singh as sleeping elephant, and asked where he was when the hard-working Punjab farmers ushered in the green revolution. Modi has often called the Manmohan Singh government as one run by remote control, suggesting that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was the one who wielded real power. During this election campaign, Manmohan Singh has hit back through media interviews. At the rally in Faridkot districts Bargari town, Rahul Gandhi also attacked the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab over the 2015 desecration of religious texts, which still remains an emotive issue in the state. He promised strict action against the perpetrators. Punjab goes to the polls on Sunday, the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections. PTI vermaajay1968@gmail.com Ruchika M Khanna Tribune News Service Anandpur Sahib, May 14 Voters in Anandpur Sahib, the birthplace of the Khalsa, seem to have decided to let go of Panthic issues in favour of development. Consequently, the contestants have been forced to change track. Prem Singh Chandumajra (SAD-BJP), Manish Tewari (Congress) and Bir Devinder Singh (SAD-Taksali) are all talking of more jobs and an industrial belt to help the area grow economically. Darshan Singh Grewal of Phulpur Grewal village, who runs a youth club, says: We have had enough politics on the 1984 riots. That issue is over. The people here want to know who were the people behind the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib and why has the Congress not done anything to arrest them. We dont care about river waters, transfer of Hindi-speaking areas to Punjab or federalism, as mentioned in the Anandpur Sahib resolution. Our concern is unemployment, poor economic growth and weaning drugs. Residents of Mogul Majri and Phulpur Grewal have put up boards at the village entrance, asking candidates not to lure voters with liquor and other intoxicants or they will be boycotted. Boards have been installed with three queries: why have those guilty of sacrilege not been arrested; what has been done to deal with unemployment and where all have you ended drug addiction. Jatinder Singh, a mechanic from Chatamla village, claims a majority of youths in the constituency is jobless. Even the educated are forced to open small shops. There are a few industrial units here, but they prefer to employ non-Punjabis. We want our political representatives to tackle this issue, he says. Gurdeep Singh, a panch of Mogul Majri, says political leaders must realise the people have moved on from the Panthic agenda to real issues. We have told the candidates they may come and seek votes only if they are willing to address our concerns, he says. Contestants take PS Chandumajra (SAD-BJP): Religious issues are still important. Voters are happy at my efforts to have the Sikh black list scrapped and the NDA role in bringing to book those behind the 1984 riots. I have worked towards economic uplift. I will ensure excess water doesnt go to Pakistan. This will increase the flow in Dashmesh Canal, Bist Doab Canal and Kandi Canal, which will help raise farm productivity. I will bring a cargo hub project to Mohali. Manish Tewari (Cong): Our focus is job generation. We will try to get Rs 50,000 crore worth investment from the Centre and private investors. I have requested the Punjab Government to create an industrial zone dedicated to sunrise sectors in semi-hilly areas on the lines of Baddi and Nalagarh, to revitalise the Kharar- Kurali industrial hub and diversify Mohalis ancillary heavy industrial base. The aim is to create 5 lakh employment opportunities. Bir Devinder Singh (Taksali): The key issue is economic upliftment. My first priority will be to ensure that the Centre takes over the Rs 1.75 lakh crore Punjab debt. I will be moving non-official resolutions in Parliament on this as a step towards putting Punjabs finances back on track. This will result in more jobs and infrastructure. Will ensure a defence university. Without the Centre taking over the debt, what other contestants are promising is like Palle ni dhela, kardi mela mela. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Amritsar, May 14 The SAD (Taksali) today released its manifesto, which focuses on providing solution to serious issues such as water shortage, drugs, unemployment, agrarian crisis, and sacrilege incidents. The 12 page manifesto was released by party president Ranjit Singh Brahmpura in the presence of senior vice president Dr Rattan Singh Ajnala and general secretaries Sewa Singh Sekhwan and Manmohan Singh Sathiala. SAD (Taksali) is contesting only one seat, Anandpur Sahib from where it has fielded Bir Devinder Singh. It had withdrew the candidature of Gen JJ Singh from Khadoor Sahib in favour of Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) candidate Paramjit Kaur Khalra. Brahmpura said on other 11 Lok Sabha constituencies, the party members and supporters had been appealed to cast their votes to any appropriate candidate contesting against the Congress or SAD-BJP alliance candidates. Spelling out their vision, Brahmpura said their motive was to include Chandigarh and other Punjabi speaking areas in Punjab, ensuring subsidy and free power for tubewell to address the agrarian crisis, curbing drug abuse and sacrilege incidents. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon speaks during a seminar held by the Korea News Editors' Association at the Press Center, Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap By Park Ji-won Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon urged Japan Wednesday to accept the South's position over historical issues in order to build future-oriented relations between the two countries. Citing President Moon Jae-in's proposal urging Tokyo to separate historical issues from others and wisely deal with the situation so that Korea-Japan relations can be normalized. Lee said, "Japan is not accepting the idea. From that perspective, I gently suggest Japan accept it and join hands together to come up with wise ways to tackle things including the North Korea nuclear issue." "In the past, the government tried to improve Korea-Japan relations in diplomatic and political ways. For example, in the 1990s, the Asian Women's Fund was created, but it failed. Later, the government tried to improve the situation in a diplomatic way, but was also unsuccessful after failing to get the victims' approval. If the two countries understand their nature, it is impossible to hastily come up with a political and diplomatic solution. I hope Japan can understand this," Lee said during a seminar held by the Korea News Editors' Association, Wednesday. His remarks came amid worries that the strained relations between the two countries could largely influence the South's economy and politics. Since last October when the South's court ordered Japanese firms to compensate Korean forced laborers who worked during the Japanese colonial rule, politicians from the two countries have been exchanging barbs, blaming each other over several issues such as a military spat caused by Tokyo's claim that a Seoul warship locked fire-control radar on its patrol aircraft. Lee, who leads a special taskforce on the forced labor issue, has been reiterating the government's stance that Seoul respects Korea's judicial sovereignty and is pursuing a two-track strategy of separating historical issues from economic issues while Japan insists all matters concerning the allegations of forced labor were settled by a 1965 agreement that normalized the two countries' relations. Meanwhile, Lee hinted at the possibility of holding the summit between the leaders of the two countries at the international summit in Japan next month. "I hope that the two countries can sign a basic agreement at the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka in June." He also said he has a positive view on Naruhito, Japan's new emperor who took the throne this month while stressing that it is hard to ask him to reveal his position on the matter. "I had a chance to have a one-on-one meeting with Naruhito during the World Water Forum in Brazil in March last year. At that time, I had a positive view on him after listening to his thoughts on the history and South Korea." "We should be cautious about asking him to say his stance as there is a limitation [on his role] as it is subject to the Japanese Constitution." editorial@tribune.com Perneet Singh Tribune News Service Bathinda, May 14 Cabinet Minister and Congress star campaigner Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was missing from the poll scene in Punjab, entered the election campaign with a bang. Accompanying Priyanka Gandhi and Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, Sidhu was greeted with a loud cheer from the crowd. Sidhu said he would hold 10 rallies on May 17, if Congress candidate Raja Warring asked him so. He told the crowd, If you will defeat the Badals in Bathinda, you will save the coming generations of Punjab. In his trademark style, he said, Here comes Sidhu on May 17, bhag Badal bhag. I promise Rahulji, Priyankaji and Captain Saab that I would return to Bathinda and demolish the Badals. He said he would expose both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and SAD chief Sukhbir Badal during his campaign in Bathinda. Sidhu said if he could not ensure punishment to the perpetrators of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib, his soul would never rest in peace. He went on to pledge, I will quit politics, if I cannot uphold the honour of Guru Granth Sahib. He said generations after generations of Punjab were getting ruined first due to terrorism, then to drug abuse and now to brain drain. He said the elections were fought for next generations and not for the next elections. During the rally, Sidhu was spotted interacting with Priyanka as well as Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, although he didnt share a word with the Chief Minister. Incidentally, Sidhus arrival at the rally and his announcement to garner support for Raja Warring in Bathinda on May 17 came as a surprise to many, as he hasnt campaigned in the state till now. Moreover, a statement released by his office yesterday stated that he would campaign in HP on May 15 and Madhya Pradesh on May 16-17. harinder@tribunemail.com NEW DELHI, May 14 (PTI)Intelligence reports of the Union Government have indicated that sizeable amounts of foreign money have been received on a selective basis by individuals and organisations, and that possibly funds obtained from foreign sources were used in the last General Election. The Union Home Minister, Mr. Y.B. Chavan, giving this information to the Lok Sabha today, listed the following steps which the Government proposed to take to prevent the use of foreign money for objectionable purposes: Comprehensive legislation would be brought forward to impose restrictions in receipt of funds from foreign organisations, agencies or individuals otherwise than in the course of ordinary business transactions. The Government would consult leaders of the Opposition in this connection. Foreign organisations about whose sources of funds the Government had the slightest doubt (like the Asia Foundation) would not be permitted to function in India. harinder@tribunemail.com NEW DELHI, May 14 (PTI, UNI)The PM, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, told the Lok Sabha today that Indias policy not to use atomic energy for war purposes remained unaltered. Replying to questions, she said it was true that some countries that had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would like India to do the same but no specific suggestion for such a step had been made. Mr. Hem Barua asked whether the Governments policy not to go in for nuclear weapons was conditioned by the fact that the Canadian Government, which helped India to erect the Apsara reactor in Bombay, categorically asked India not to make such weapons. She said such a consideration did not govern Indias policy. pardeepdhull@gmail.com New York, May 14 Alabamas state Senate passed a Bill on Tuesday to outlaw nearly all abortions, creating exceptions only to protect the mothers health, as part of a multistate effort to have the US Supreme Court reconsider a womans constitutional right to an abortion. The countrys strictest abortion Bill was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign but is generally a strong opponent of abortion. The law, which passed 25-6, would take effect six months after being signed by the governor, but is certain to face legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups which have vowed to sue. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time. Those performing abortions would be committing a felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison, although a woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The Republican-controlled Alabama Senate also defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape and incest. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa passed last year. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life of the unborn child transcends other rights, an idea they would like tested. Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss, arguing in favor of the Alabama bill, said the whole point was so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe versus Wade. The high court, now with a majority of conservative justices after Republican President Donald Trump appointed two, could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision establishing a womans right to an abortion. Just this year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have outlawed abortion after a doctor can detect an embryonic heartbeat. Opponents call the heartbeat legislation a virtual ban because embryonic cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks, before a woman may be aware she is pregnant. Democratic state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison called the Republicans hypocritical for advocating small government that ought to stay out of private matters but now you want in my womb; I want you out. All 27 Republican senators are men. The group Physicians for Reproductive Health said the near total ban on abortions would have a disastrous effect on healthcare. Physicians will be unwilling to help patients in need, even when continuing pregnancy is detrimental to a patients health, or potentially fatal, out of fear of being scrutinized by the criminal justice system, Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board member and ob/gyn, said in a statement. The National Organization for Women (NOW) denounced the ban as unconstitutional. This is a transparent effort to drum up political support for anti-abortion candidates in upcoming elections and serves as a direct threat to womens health, autonomy and pursuit of happiness, NOW said in a statement. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano has called for a sex strike under the social media hashtag #SexStrike in response to the campaigns against abortion rights, urging women to refuse sex with men until we get bodily autonomy back. Reuters pardeepdhull@gmail.com Kathmandu, May 15 A 49-year-old veteran Nepali Sherpa has scaled Mount Everest for the 23rd time, breaking his own record in reaching atop the worlds highest peak, media reports said on Wednesday. Kami Rita Sherpa, who summited Everest 22nd time last year to set record of most summits on Mt. Everest, stood on top of the 8,850-metre peak together with other Sherpas on Wednesday morning, the Himalayan Times reported. Kami Rita Sherpa from Thame village of Solukhumbu district successfully climbed Mt Everest at around 7:50 am from Nepal side breaking his own record for most summits on the roof of the world, Mingma Sherpa, Company Chairman at Seven Summit Treks, was quoted as saying by the paper. Rita has been climbing Mt. Everest since 1994. He couldnt climb the Everest in 1995 after his client got sick on the way to summit, My Republica, another prominent daily in the Himalayan nation, reported. In 1995, he abandoned the summit bid after the deadliest avalanche killed expedition teams. In 2017, Kami became the 3rd person to climb Mt. Everest for 21 times, equalising the achievement of Apa Sherpa and Phurba Tashi Sherpa, both of whom have since retired. Kami broke record for set record of most summits on Mt. Everest in 2018. PTI gspannu7@gmail.com Lahore, May 15 The Pakistan government is going ahead with its plan to create the new South Punjab province by bifurcating Punjab and would move a Bill in the National Assembly, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced on Wednesday. Punjab is Pakistans second largest province by area after Balochistan. It is also the most populated province and politically influential. In the run-up to the 2018 general election, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party led by Imran Khan had promised to bifurcate Punjab province to form South Punjab. The South Punjab province will comprise Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan districts, Qureshi told reporters in Multan, Punjab. The Punjab Assembly seats will be reduced to 251 from the current 371 while 120 seats have been proposed for the South Punjab Assembly in the Bill. Qureshi said that certain constitutional amendments have to be passed for the formation of the new South Punjab province. The region will turn into a province when amendments to Articles 59, 51, 1, 106, 158 and 218 of the Constitution are passed. The word South Punjab in the first paragraph of Article 1 will be inducted, and the territories that will be part of South Punjab have been named in the proposed Bill, he was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. The province will come into being through Article 51, it calls for the separate formation of the assembly. South Punjab will also get representation in the Senate, he said. On Monday, PTI lawmaker Sami-ul-Hassan Gillani tabled the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2019 before Parliament, calling for the creation of a separate South Punjab province, Geo News reported. The planned South Punjab province will be the sixth province of Pakistan after Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Gilgit Baltistan. Qureshi, a senior leader of the ruling PTI, said that the National Assembly Speaker will formulate a special committee for consent on the Bill. We require co-operation of different parties for a two-thirds majority, said Qureshi. Qureshi said that he had held a meeting with Pakistan Peoples Partys (PPP) leadership. I request them to support us as it is in our joint interest and also a part of the PTI manifesto. We believe it strengthens a federation, and have decided to hold political dialogue with like-minded political parties, he said. Qureshi also requested the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to support the Bill. I am hopeful they will review their attitude over it, he said. The National Assembly, Pakistans lower house, has a total 342 seats, which means the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf needs 228 votes to get its way. The PTI has 157 lawmakers. The Pakistan Muslim League-N has 84 members and the Pakistan Peoples Party has 54 lawmakers in Parliament. There are four independents. To get the South Punjab Bill approved, the PTI would only need the support of the PPP, if the PML-N opts to stay out of the vote count, Geo News reported. The PPP support will also be needed in the Senate where the party has an upper hand, the report said. Meanwhile, PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal said Qureshi was fooling people on the name of South Punjab. Iqbal said the PML-N had already presented a Bill in the National Assembly for the formation of the South Punjab and Bahawalpur provinces. But the Bill was opposed by the PTI then, he said. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com Colombo, May 14 Nearly 24 persons were arrested on Tuesday even as parts of Sri Lanka were under indefinite curfew after a man was killed by majority Sinhalese mobs who set on fire Muslim-owned shops and vehicles and vandalised mosques in an escalating backlash following the Easter terror attacks. The government on Tuesday relaxed nationwide night curfew in all areas except the northwestern province where the Muslim man was killed by a mob on Monday. Sri Lanka Police imposed island-wide curfew on Monday as anti-Muslim violence broke out in the northwestern province spread to other areas in the country as well. Majority Sinhalese mobs set fire to Muslim-owned shops and vehicles. Homes and mosques were also vandalised by large groups of people armed with sticks and weapons. The government also reimposed a ban on social media following the violent clashes. PM Ranil Wickremesinghe said the military had been asked to quell the anti-Muslim riot and sought public cooperation. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Washington, May 15 After a deadly crash in Indonesia, American Airlines pilots called a meeting to press Boeing executives for safety changes to the 737 MAX aircraft, US media reported on Tuesday. The call for changes, which could have required the best-selling aircraft model to be temporarily grounded, were reported by The New York Times and CBS News after they obtained an audio recording of the November 27 meeting between the American Airlines pilots union and officials from the aircraft manufacturer. The 737 MAX 8 is currently grounded worldwide after the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 that killed all 157 people onboard and drew scrutiny to the new Boeing models anti-stall system, which investigators believe may have brought the jet down. But the meeting shows that pilots were already worried about the safety of the model following the October 2018 crash in Indonesia of a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 that left no survivors of the 189 people onboard. According to the reports, the pilots were particularly concerned about the MCAS anti-stall system that investigators in both Indonesia and Ethiopia have blamed for the crashes. No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane, Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett told the meeting. The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one, he said later in the meeting held four months before the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. Meanwhile, the pilots in the meeting said they felt they werent told enough about the MCAS system, which was new to the 737 MAX 8. These guys didnt even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else, said Mike Michaelis, head of safety for the pilots union. Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing had issued additional instructions to pilots in case they faced a malfunction of the MCAS. But in a letter obtained by AFP, Michaelis said the instructions werent sufficient for pilots to know how to handle malfunctions with the anti-stall system. The New York Times said Michaelis asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8 -- which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time. Airlines and governments worldwide ordered the 737 MAX 8 to stop flying in the days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing has been working on a software fix for the flight system and hoping for quick approval from regulators, but it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season. AFP pardeepdhull@gmail.com Riyadh/Dubai, May 15 Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on Tuesday, two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates, and the US military said it was braced for possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq from Iran-backed forces. The attacks took place against a backdrop of US-Iranian tension following Washingtons decision this month to try to cut Irans oil exports to zero and to beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats. Tuesdays attacks on the pumping stations more than 200 miles (320 km) west of Riyadh and Sundays on four tankers off Fujairah emirate have raised concerns that the United States and Iran might inching toward military conflict. However, US President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that US officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran. Its fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that, Trump told reporters. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there would not be war with the United States despite mounting tensions over Iranian nuclear capabilities, its missile program and its support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. There wont be any war. The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance, he said in comments carried by Irans state TV. He repeated that Tehran would not negotiate with Washington over Irans 2015 nuclear deal with major powers. The US military cited possible imminent threats to its troops in Iraq and said they were now on high alert. The US was responding to comments from a British deputy commander of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State remnants in Iraq and Syria who said there had been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia. The comments run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region, said Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman at the US militarys Central Command. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal a year ago and has sharply increased economic sanctions on Iran. Under the accord negotiated by Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, Iran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, in return for sanctions relief. No hard evidence The Trump administrations sanctions are designed to choke off Irans oil exports in an effort to force Iran to accept more stringent limits on its nuclear and missile programs as well as to rein in its support for proxy forces in the region. US national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have sabotaged the tankers near the UAE rather than Iranian forces themselves, a US official familiar with the latest US assessments said. The official said possible perpetrators might include Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran-backed Shiite militias based in Iraq, but Washington had no hard evidence. On Monday, a US official said Iran was a leading candidate for the tanker sabotage but the United States did not have conclusive proof. Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that extremist individuals in the US government were pursuing dangerous policies. A senior European diplomat voiced skepticism that Trumps maximum pressure strategy would force Iran to capitulate. Iran is not falling to its knees, said the diplomat on condition of anonymity, saying Iran could resume its nuclear work and leave Washington with no option but military action. Does Trump want to go to war with Iran especially during an election campaign year? he asked. Democratic Party candidates are already campaigning ahead of the November 2020 US election aiming to stop Republican Trump being re-elected. Houthi TV claims drone attack Houthi-run Masirah TV earlier said the group had carried out drone attacks on vital Saudi installations in response to continued aggression and blockade on Yemen. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis for four years in Yemen to try to restore the internationally recognised government in a conflict widely seen as a Saudi-Iran proxy war. The Houthis have hit Saudi cities with drones and missiles, but two Saudi sources told Reuters this was the first time a facility of the state-run Aramco had been attacked by drones. Aramco said it had temporarily shut down the East-West pipeline, known as Petroline, to evaluate its condition. The pipeline mainly transports crude from the kingdoms eastern fields to the port of Yanbu, which lies north of Bab al-Mandeb. The energy minister of Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest oil exporter, said the latest attacks caused a fire, now contained, and minor damage at one pump station, but did not disrupt oil output or exports of crude and petroleum products. Oil prices rose on news of the attack on the Saudi pumping stations. Brent futures gained $1.01, or 1.4 percent, to settle at $71.24 a barrel. Saudi Arabias cabinet said the terrorist attack against two Saudi oil tankers near the UAE reflected poorly on regional and international security, Saudi Press agency reported. It quoted the cabinet as saying it was the international communitys shared responsibility to preserve maritime safety and oil tankers security in anticipation of any effects on energy markets, and the danger of that on world economy. The UAE has not blamed anyone for what it called sabotage on the vessels. The UAE said the other tankers hit were a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker near Fujairah, one of the worlds largest bunkering hubs just outside the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of global oil consumption passes through the strait from Middle East crude producers to much of the world. A UAE official told Reuters the UAE was working with local and international partners from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Norway and France - which has a naval base in Abu Dhabi - to fully investigate the incident and to identify the people or entities responsible. Reuters pardeepdhull@gmail.com Khartoum, May 15 Sudanese army rulers and protest leaders Wednesday agreed on a three-year transition period for transferring power to a full civilian administration, a general announced. We agreed on a transitional period of three years, Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, a member of the military council that took power after the ouster of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir, told reporters. Atta said a final agreement on the sharing of power, including the forming of the next ruling bodythe sovereign councilwill be signed with the protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, within 24 hours. We vow to our people that the agreement will be completed fully within 24 hours in a way that it meets the peoples aspirations, Atta said. He said of the three-year transitional period, the first six months will be allocated to signing peace accords with rebels in the countrys war zones. The army generals had initially insisted on a two-year transition period, while the protest leaders wanted four years. Atta also said that during the transitional period, Parliament will be composed of 300 members, of which 67 per cent will be from the Alliance for Freedom and Change and the rest will be from other political groups. AFP Kim Yong-chang, a former intelligence agent for the U.S. military, stands inside a deserted boiler room where he alleges bodies of killed protesters were incinerated during the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1980 during a visit to the site of a former military hospital in Gwangju, Wednesday. Yonhap By Jung Da-min Some conservative politicians have echoed a far-right researcher's claims that North Korea secretly sent troops to Gwangju in 1980 to instigate a "riot" against then-Army General Chun Doo-hwan, who seized power in a coup in late 1979. In February, some lawmakers of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) even organized a forum at the National Assembly to "re-evaluate" the Gwangju Democratization Movement, in which researcher Ji Man-won reiterated such claims, saying North Korea's involvement in the incident is a clear fact. However, recent testimony by Kim Yong-chang, a former intelligence agent for the U.S. military, suggests there was an attempt by Chun's camp to use North Korea as a pretext for their deadly crackdown on the city. Kim, who was in Gwangju at the time to gather intelligence about the popular uprising, claimed hundreds of "plainclothes" South Korean soldiers were operating undercover among the protesters. He presumed that their role was to incite violence as agents provocateurs, thus making a military crackdown look justifiable. vinaymishra188@gmail.com Washington, May 14 US President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his trade war with China as tensions escalated and markets extended their losses, promising a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping soon, even as fears escalated about a protracted battle. In a string of early-morning tweets, Trump kept up his America First agenda in support of hefty tariffs and called on US companies to back him by shifting their businesses away from China. But he also softened his tone on soybeans and other agricultural products, appealing to Beijing to act. When the time is right we will make a deal with China, Trump said. It will all happen, and much faster than people think! Hopefully China will do us the honour of continuing to buy our great farm product, the best, but if not your Country will be making up the difference, he wrote in post addressing US farmers directly.Last week, the head of the US Department of Agriculture said more aid was being planned for US farmers but gave no details. World stock markets hovered near two-month lows on Tuesday, although slightly more optimistic comments from US and Chinese officials on trade brought some comfort a day after equities suffered their worst sell-off so far this year. A day earlier, Trump said he would talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping at a G20 summit in late June in Japan, and on Tuesday praised his respect and friendship with Xi. Both sides had appeared close to finalising a deal in recent weeks before Trump last week hiked up tariffs to 25 per cent from 10 per cent on $200 billion worth of goods imported from China. He has also threatened further duties of up to 25 per cent on a further $300 billion worth of Chinese imports. China, in turn, has proposed tariffs on more than 5,000 American products. Trump said on Tuesday he could make a deal with Beijing now, but would not be burned again and criticised China for scuttling a recent close deal with a last-minute attempt to renegotiate. We are in a much better position now than any deal we could have made, he said.Reuters US puts Chinese, Pak firms on entity list pardeepdhull@gmail.com Washington, May 15 The US State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Erbil, as tensions mount between the United States and Iraqs neighbour Iran. Washington has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days, accusing Iran of planning imminent attacks in the region, and bolstering the American military presence in the Gulf. Numerous terrorist and insurgent groups are active in Iraq and regularly attack both Iraqi security forces and civilians, a travel advisory warned. Anti-US sectarian militias may also threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq. The US last year shut its consulate in the protest-hit southern Iraqi city of Basra, blaming indirect fire by Iran-backed forces and warning its rival of retaliation for any damage. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week paid a surprise trip to Baghdad in a move to bolster ties with Iraq as it pushes ahead with its maximum pressure against Tehrana US arch-rival, but an ally of Iraq. He told reporters he had made the trip because Iranian forces are escalating their activity and said the threat of attacks were very specific. Pompeo met with Iraq President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, and spoke to them about the importance of Iraq ensuring that its able to adequately protect Americans in their country. The Pentagon said it was sending several massive, nuclear-capable B-52s to the region in response to recent and clear indications that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were making preparations to possibly attack US forces. Both Pompeo and Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have this week played down fears that their countries were seeking conflict. But National Security Advisor John Bolton warned Iran that Washington would respond with unrelenting force to any attack by Tehran, including by its regional allies. Blasts involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) occur in many areas of Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, the advisory added. Erbil is the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, in northern Iraq. AFP FOR a second year the occupancy rate at hotels in Tobago over the Christmas holiday seems to be low, as a result of the ongoing battle with the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking with the Express yesterday, Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association president Christopher James said, while he does not have the figures from the various hotels, villas and guest houses as yet, the reports the association has been receiving are that bookings are slow. A CHRISTMAS Day shooting on Independence Square, opposite the Brian Lara Promenade in Port of Spain, has claimed the lives of two men. A third man was injured in the attack and remained in serious condition at the Port of Spain General Hospital last night. The incident took place around 3.45 p.m. in the vicinity of New City Mall, said investigating officers. Employees of Korean Air and Delta Air Lines plant trees in the Baganuur district of Mongolia, Tuesday. Korean Air has been planting trees there since 2004 in an effort to tackle desertification, and this year Delta staffers took part in the campaign to mark the one-year anniversary of the two airlines' joint venture. / Yonhap During World War I, on December 24-25, 1914, an impromptu ceasefire took place, where warring nations had their guns silenced. As then, we too now face a war of epic proportions, not only from the Covid-19 pandemic but also within many areas of our society. Officials from other countries learn techniques for checking water leaks during a training program of K-water at the corporation's facility in Daejeon, in this September photo. / Courtesy of K-water By Kim Jae-heun Water is an important resource not just in daily life but also for a nation's economic development, and improving water-related infrastructure and fostering experts in the sector are key to its effective management. The Korea Water Resources Corp., better known as K-water, said Wednesday it has been sharing its skills and knowhow in water management with developing countries. In 1982, K-water established a human resource development institute and has operated education programs taught by its 1,400 experts to an average of 40,000 local and foreign officials in related professions every year. The corporation's education and training programs on water management technology and business administration have attracted 2,600 people from 97 countries since 1997. Its programs are devised in cooperation with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and international organizations such as the World Bank and UNESCO, to offer courses tailored to meet different countries' unique needs. In March, the corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to exchange educational courses and personnel, aiming to promote cooperation with international organizations in Asia. It also held a meeting with ADB and Dhaka Water Supply & Sewerage Authority in Bangladesh to support establishment of an education and research center in Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka. In April, K-water invited Danish Ambassador to Korea Thomas Lehmann to its water management facilities and sought cooperation with Denmark in water management systems. "I learned techniques related to water resources and observed Korea's excellent water management facilities during the field trip," El Yazid, vice director of the Algerian Ministry of Water Resources who also took part in a program in April, was quoted as saying by the corporation. "When I return home, I want to share Korea's water management skills to improve the water resources facilities there." Based on its 20 years of experience, K-water developed a "flagship course" comprised of education and training for techniques that are generally required for improving water management in developing countries, with the participants receiving field training at the corporation's various facilities. In September, 18 foreign officials took a course on water loss induction, and 42 people from three countries will take three courses this year on the same topic and water resources development and supply management. "As climate change brings serious problems worldwide including disasters related to water, we have to cooperate and prepare for them. In this sense, sharing skills and knowhow in water management is essential," said Kang Woo-kyu, director general of K-water Academy. Rapper Khaligraph Jones recently left his fans in awe after sharing quite an unusual throwback picture of himself in his humblest element. It is no secret Khaligraph has come a long way since the days he used to release underground music since no one was willing to listen to his style of music. READ ALSO: Former Machachari actor Almasi spotted with Caucasian male and fans believe they are dating Throwback photos of the rapper as a struggling artist are littered all over the web but very little is seen of him before he actually decided to take a stab at music. He, however, took to Instagram on Tuesday, May 14, to try change that as he shared an uncharacteristic photo of himself back in the day when he was in the countryside. Khaligraph Jones is currently the hottest rapper in Kenya. Photo: Khaligraph Jones Source: UGC READ ALSO: Rapper Khaligraph Jones new buff look weeks after hitting the gym leaves fans in awe In the photo accessed by TUKO.co.ke, one would have easily mistaken the rapper for a clueless countryside boy whose only hope would have been farming at the time. Khaligraph explained in the caption that the photo was taken at a time when he decided to take a break from trying to make it in the big city Nairobi. The 28-year-old resorted to the countryside to recollect himself before trying his luck in music once again. These were the days DJ Pinye did not want to play my music on The Beat. Life was so tough I had to go back to Bondo to ride these black bicycles and sell Rabuoni, he explained. It was quite an unbelievable sight and fans typically took to the comment section to show their awe at the fact that the rapper we all know and love today was also a struggling twenty-something year old not too long ago. Do you have a life-changing story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Raila Odinga's die hard fan: Source: TUKO.co.ke Newspapers in the country on Wednesday, May 15, continue to report widely on the gold scam involving top leaders in Dubai and Kenyan fraudsters. READ ALSO: Kwale: Pastor in court over KSh 10k fake money The dailies also report on fear and tension that has gripped KRA following investigations linking some of its staff to tax aversion claims. Photo UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: DusitD2 attack: Police arrest woman suspected to be Veronica Kemunto 1. Standard The Standard reported that a boda boda operator in Kitise, Makueni county helped save the life of an expectant woman whose water broke at the gate of a health facility. Virginia Munene developed labour pains on the night of Monday, May 13. She sought transportation from a boda boda rider who left her at the gate of Kitise health center. The hospital was closed and there was no one to help. She was left to writhe in pain for the greater part on the chilly night. Early on Tuesday, May 14, a boda boda rider identified as Peter Muteti who was ferrying pupils at school came to her rescue and performed initial midwifery work. Muteti later sought for help and the facility was opened. Munene and her newborn baby boy were admitted in the clinic for medical attention. The boda boda sector has been tainted with many ills among them abetting crime but Muteti's actions showed that good riders also exist. The Standard reports that a boda boda operator in Kitise, Makueni County helped save the life of an expectant woman whose water broke at the gate of a health facility. Photo: Standard Source: UGC READ ALSO: Former Machachari actor Almasi spotted with Caucasian male and fans believe they are dating 2. People Daily The IEBC has continued to push for approval of a proposal seeking to see presidential and county elections convened on different dates. The poll agency insists that elections will be more credible if staggered. It argues that separate dates will reduce pressure and fatigue from electoral officers. This came to the fore when IEBC commissioners appeared before the Senate where they also sought extension of time of filing presidential election petitions from the current 14 days to 30. The commissioners were, however, challenged by Siaya Senator James Orengo. Orengo sought to know why the expensive poll technology had not helped to reduce pressure and improve credibility. READ ALSO: Kenyan newspapers review for May 14: Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula denies allegations linking him to KSh 400m gold scam 3. Star The daily reported that the ongoing spirited crackdown on gold scam was ordered by President Uhuru Kenyatta. This is after top United Arab Emirates (UAE) government officials complained to him that they were conned by Kenyan fraudsters. According to the daily, suspects in the syndicate used a fake CS Fred Matiang'i to dupe and gain trust of their victims. Opposition leader Raila Odinga's name has also been roped in the case but the move appears to be unsuccessful. The daily reports that the ongoing spirited crackdown on gold scam was ordered by President Uhuru Kenyatta. Photo: Star Source: UGC READ ALSO: Kwale: Wakenya watamani 'kutapika' kwa kuziangalia picha za Shule ya Tumaini 4. Taifa Leo Leaders allied to Team Kieleweke have accused DP William Ruto of political discord witnessed in Mount Kenya region. The leaders claim that the region used to dance to one political tune but Ruto has resulted to formation of an anti Uhuru team that is already campaigning for 2022 polls. Among leaders who have pointed fingers of blame to the DP are nominated MP Maina Kamanda, Kiambu Women Representative Gathoni Wamuchomba and Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambungu. The Swahili daily reports that leaders allied to Team Kieleweke have accused DP William Ruto of political discord witnessed in Mount Kenya region. Photo: Taifa Leo Source: UGC READ ALSO: Kwale: Wakenya watamani 'kutapika' kwa kuziangalia picha za Shule ya Tumaini 5. Nation Nation reported that fear has gripped staff at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) following a string of investigations seeking to unearth a tax evasion syndicate. On Tuesday, May 14, DCI raided KRA offices in Mombasa where they made some arrests. The purge that has been going on for almost one week now was made possible after the taxman hired DCI sleuths disguised as interns. Though coast region KRA boss Nicholas Kinoti assured that normalcy had resumed, tension still appears to be rife. Some of the employees who suspect could be next of the chopping board are on the run and detectives have vowed to hunt them down. Nation reports that fear has gripped staff at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) following a string of investigations seeking to unearth a tax aversion racket. Photo: Nation Source: UGC Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Raila Odinga's die hard fan Source: TUKO.co.ke - National Police Service said al-Shabaab have a history of striking the country during Ramadhan - The Service stated it had deployed officers to man the Kenya-Somalia border and other areas of interest - Civilians have been asked to share with the police any information that may help avert such attacks Police have affirmed their readiness to avert any terror attacks that may ensure during this year's Ramadhan. National Police Service (NPS) has taken note of al-Shabaab's history of infiltrating the country and killing innocent civilians during such times. READ ALSO: Rapa Khaligraph Jones apakia picha yake ya kushangaza mtandaoni akiwa amefilisika Police on high alert over terror threats during Ramadhan. Photo: National Police Service/Twitter Source: UGC READ ALSO: KMPDU report shows ailing Kerugoya hospital is acutely sick In a statement released on Wednesday, May 15, NPS stated it had beefed up security along the border of Kenya and Somalia and equally deployed officers in areas prone to such attacks. "For peaceful Ramadhan and subsequent Eid festivities, security agencies have deployed officers around areas of interest within our cities and in areas near Kenya Somalia border. More officers have been dispatched to enhance patrols," read the report READ ALSO: Kenyan newspapers review for May 15: Makueni boda boda rider helps woman in labour to give birth The Service has also taken an initiative of protecting places of worship particularly mosques to to allow Muslims conduct their night prayers peacefully. The statement noted that the history of al-Shabaab striking the country during Ramadhan prompted police to take precaution and put necessary measures in place to avert a repeat of the same. "In the Ramadhan of June 2014 alone, 150 lives were lost when al-Shabaab fighters infiltrated the country and conducted heinous attacks in villages within Lamu and Tana River counties," said the police Following the recent attack and killing of over 300 people in Sri Lanka, a heinous act that al-Shabaab's terror counterpart, Islamic State, claimed responsibility, security agents in the country have remained alert considering the history that resulted to the attack. "al-Shabaab has also vowed to avenge the over 50 Muslims killed in the Christchurch mosque white supremacist attack in New Zealand. The recent attack in Sri Lanka was a revenge mission meted by al-Shabaab's terror counterparts, Islamic State,"stated the police Civilians have been asked to partner with the police and share any relevant information that may help avert the attack. The Young Girl Surving on an Oxygen Tank I Tuko TV Source: TUKO.co.ke SemCAMS Midstream and Keyera Corp. announced plans this week to build a natural gas liquids and condensate pipeline system in Canada. SemCAMS Midsteam is a subsidiary of SemGroup, a Tulsa-based midstream company. The new pipeline system will connect the Montney and Duvernay production areas of northwestern Alberta to the fractionation and condensate hubs in Fort Saskatchewan and provide producers additional and alternative transportation solutions to meet growing needs. We are pleased to partner with Keyera on this critically needed transportation solution for customers, said Dave Gosse, president of SemCAMS Midstream. As Albertas low-cost natural gas plays continue to develop, customers are searching for competitive options to move NGLs and condensates from the production and processing areas in field locations to the Fort Saskatchewan market. Our well-capitalized and expanding midstream infrastructure platform makes SemCAMS Midstream the logical partner on this project, further advancing our Canadian growth strategy. Retired U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Carroll Harris, former Owasso VFW Post 7180 commander, was honored in a special way this week. The local veteran was presented with a prestigious Quilt of Valor at Owasso Community Center Wednesday morning honoring his years of service to his country and community. The Quilts of Valor Foundation, founded in 2003, strives to cover combat veterans impacted by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor. Each quilt is created by loving hands joining bits of fabric together once piece at a time. Harris received his own from Roberta Jorgenson, who devoted five days to personalizing the piece with a picture of an eagle surrounded by red, white and blue starts and strips. (Carrolls) very deserving of the quilt, Jorgenson said. Hes done many years of service for our country, and hes helped a lot of people along the way, so that alone is a very good reason. Harris spent 23 years serving in the Air Force before dedicating the next two decades to working as a mechanic for American Airlines. In retirement, he has served at the helm of Owasso VFW giving back to the community. Charles Page High School student Jaiden Salazar recently came back from New York City after competing as a semifinalist in the English-Speaking Unions 36th-annual National Shakespeare Competition. Salazar won the regional ESU Oklahoma City and Tulsa branch Shakespeare Competition earlier this year to qualify for the National competition. She competed with 50 students from across the country at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center Theater as part of the national competition commemorating William Shakespeares birthday. Students perform a monologue and recite a sonnet from Shakespeare in front of judges as part of the competition. Charles Page High School drama teacher Andrea Campfield accompanied Salazar to the competition. It was a privilege to be able to be a part of such an amazing event. The talent of these young people tackling Shakespearean language with such fluency was inspiring and incredible, Campfield said. I appreciate the opportunity and have nothing but respect (for) the English Speaking Union for extending such life-changing experience to our students. A Sand Springs man was reportedly arrested May 13 after his deceased wifes body was found in his car during a traffic stop in Eloy, Arizona. Eloy, Arizona, Police Sgt. Kristie Barnette said officers were called about a naked couple in a car at a fast-food restaurant in the city 50 miles northwest of Tucson and stopped Rodney Puckett, 70, near Toltec Road and I-10 and found the woman, Linda Puckett, 74, in the passenger seat of the car. We immediately became concerned about the (woman) because of her positioning, Barnette said. (They) found she was deceased. She said Rodney told detectives Linda died in an El Paso, Texas, hotel during their trip and he moved her to the vehicle to continue to California. Rodney was reportedly arrested on complaints of abandonment or concealment of a body. Barnette said officers confirmed the pair stayed at an El Paso hotel May 12 and footage later appeared to show Rodney leaving the room with his wife on a luggage cart. She said the Pinal County Medical Examiners Office determined Lindas body had signs of blunt-force trauma, but was unable to determine an official cause of death as of the evening of May 14. The City of Wagoner released its annual times and costs for the city Waterpark located in Maple Park during the May 6 city council meeting. The pool will open Saturday, May 25 and close on Sunday, Aug. 11. There will be extra time to swim this year as Monday and Thursday will see the pool remain open until 8 p.m. The pools operating hours will be noon to 6 p.m. with the Monday-Thursday exception on the closing time. Admission for all ages is $3.29, tax included. On Monday after 5 p.m. admission is $1.10. An individual season pass is $49.41 and Family pack of 4 is $148.23 with each additional family member at $20.59. Private parties are still available, too. A two-hour pool party is $329.40 and each additional hour is $164.70. For additional information, call 918-485-6788. In other council business, council members approved: By Arthur I. Cyr "The happy and powerful do not go into exile," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant visitor from France who struggled to understand the dynamic new American nation nearly two centuries ago. His 1830s visit to the United States, and the book that resulted, "Democracy in America," speak directly to our highly emotional, politically driven controversy over illegal immigration. This current mean debate reflects an ugly streak in American history, but that is only one part of our heritage. Bellicose White House posturing, and lack of sustained work with Congress, shows the cynical motives involved. Undocumented workers perform a large share of difficult and unpleasant manual labor that others in our great country tend to avoid today. Events only a few years ago provide a responsible example of how to address reform. This recent history contributes some useful clarity. In January 2013, President Barack Obama publicly praised the cooperative initiative of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to update our tangled and disorderly immigration laws, regulations and practices. Obama spoke in Las Vegas, a rapidly growing city with a large immigrant population, both legal and illegal. Substantial numbers of immigrants work in the hotel and related service industries, one of the few sectors of the American economy where union strength is growing. U.S. Senators passed legislation that increased border security, penalties for employers hiring illegal immigrants and an orderly path toward legal residence and citizenship to help undocumented residents "get on the right side of the law." Obama rightly termed this approach "common sense." In the Senate, Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, spearheaded immigration reform. Rubio, a presidential contender in 2016, is a conservative with strong Tea Party support. Florida has been pivotal in recent presidential elections, especially in 2000. Schumer is now Senate Democratic leader. His prominence underscores the bipartisan character involved, plus adding geographic diversity, joining the Northeast of the country with the Sunbelt. The earlier effort died in the Republican House of Representatives, but Democrats are now the majority. The U.S. Latino population is growing rapidly and, while heavily Democratic, shows variability. In 2012, the Obama-Biden ticket received an estimated 71 percent of the votes of that ethnic group. By contrast, in 2004 the Bush-Cheney ticket secured an estimated 44 percent of the Latino vote, a modern record for Republicans. The Bush family sponsors a long-term sustained effort to court this population, beginning with the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush. A responsible Republican approach to immigration could again attract this population. John F. Kennedy quotes Tocqueville early in the book "A Nation of Immigrants," published when the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts was campaigning hard for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1960. This important volume, generally overlooked today, was republished posthumously after the Kennedy Administration submitted major immigration reform legislation to Congress. That bill significantly opened up new immigration opportunities to people anxious to come to the United States from many foreign nations. President Lyndon B. Johnson brilliantly drove the legislation through Congress. He deserves great credit for this and many other important reforms, including in civil and voting rights, education, medical care, poverty alleviation and more. "A Nation of Immigrants" emphasizes the exceptional diversity of the U.S. populations. Kennedy also makes the point early that the only "original" residents of our country were the Native Americans who greeted the first Europeans to arrive. Arthur I. Cyr (acyr@carthage.edu)is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War." Tulsa Drillers: The Tulsa Drillers return for home games this week at ONEOK Field. Tulsa will host Arkansas at 7:05 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 1:05 p.m. Sunday. Stay for a post-game fireworks display Friday. For tickets and more information, visit tulsadrillers.com. Tulsa International Mayfest: Tulsa International Mayfest, the annual arts festival featuring juried artists from across the country, live music, food vendors and more, returns this weekend. In its 47th year, Tulsa International Mayfest will move from the citys central business district downtown to the Tulsa Arts District. The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. For more information, visit tulsamayfest.org. Gathering Place Wellness Days: Presented by OU Physicians Tulsa, Gathering Place will host a four-part series of wellness events to raise awareness of major health risks, including diabetes, vision, obesity and mental health. The first event will focus on diabetes prevention and is set from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday on the QuikTrip Great Lawn at Gathering Place. For more, visit gatheringplace.org/events. Tovar has sang since he was a kid, but he said he never took singing seriously until he moved to Tulsa and developed a desire to be part of the music scene. I had always loved that old, classic country style, and I knew I could sing it really well and I thought, man, Im going to start doing that, he said. Then, through Paul Benjaman and Jared Tyler and all my friends in Tulsa, all these musicians that I was going out and listening to, eventually they just get you up on stage and you just start doing it. Tulsa is where I definitely started my music career and where I hope to keep it. I plan on staying here. I love Tulsa. I love the music scene here. But I need to get out and do more. I need to be playing outside of Tulsa a lot more and probably in Texas a bunch more. Tovar said he has attended The Hop Jam in the past to support other local music artists and try a few new beers. Me being a musician, I go to a lot of events to support the music scene, he said. I love everything Tulsa does for the artistic community. The craft beer aspect of The Hop Jam requires a ticket (thehopjam.com), but the music portion of the festival is free. Main Stage acts will begin at approximately 3 p.m. In addition to Tovar, music acts will include Duncan Fellows, Joshua & The Holy Rollers, Wilderado, The Weeks, Phantom Planet and Hanson. Runners-up in the opening band contest will play on the Park Stage at Guthrie Green. Runners-up include Lone Wild, Dane Arnold & the Soup, CLIFFDIVER and VanRiss. Jimmie Tramel 918-581-8389 jimmie.tramel@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @JimmieTramel 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. OKLAHOMA CITY Opticians and optometrists could be operating inside Walmart and other big box retail stores in the states two largest counties by the end of the year under legislation headed to the governors desk. Senate Bill 100, by Sen. Kim David, R-Porter, passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives 90-0 on Wednesday, a few days after receiving Senate approval. The bill is a negotiated settlement between the states optometrists and the large retailers behind last years failed ballot initiative to make optical care part of the state constitution. Current law essentially prohibits optometrists from practicing inside other retail establishments. SB 100 would allow optometrists to occupy a separate room or area within or adjacent to a retail store as long as they remain financially and professionally independent. The room or area would have to be defined by walls and be accessible from outside the main store. It could also be accessible from within the store. The law would become effective Nov. 1 for counties with at least 300,000 residents and be phased in for the remaining 75 counties over the next 23 years. Not until Nov. 1, 2042, would counties of less than 50,000 currently 61 of the 77 counties be included. That figure is likely to change after the 2020 and subsequent censuses. Randy Krehbiel 918-581-8365 randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @rkrehbiel 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. It is a very fluid operation so drivers definitely need to be careful, she said. Mitchell said of the new pavement that has been completed so far on the IDL, Its quite a difference. Weve already heard from drivers of how much better it is. Were glad to hear that. For those planning to attend Mayfest, Hop Jam and other festivals and events that draw thousands of people, Mitchell said in a previous story that the best way to get to downtown is via I-244 from the east. Or taking (Interstate) 44 to (U.S.) 75 (from the west) up and around, she said. Motorists traveling east and north to downtown from I-244/U.S. 75 can use the Seventh Street or Detroit Avenue exits. Those traveling west on the south leg of the IDL from the Broken Arrow Expressway will also be able to exit at Cincinnati Avenue. Well have several access points to downtown that will remain open, she said. Under questioning from Assistant District Attorney Katy Hamstra, she detailed how Hursh burned her arms and legs with cigarettes, kept her restrained to a bed and forced her to use sex toys and perform oral sex. The cigarette burns formed the basis for the maiming charge. Hamstra said during her closing argument that even though the woman struggled to recall certain details of her experience, her demeanor on the witness stand made it clear that she had experienced significant trauma. Hamstra reminded jurors that a sexual assault nurse examiner had testified about documenting injuries on both women. The second woman, who was staying in central Oklahoma at the time, said she agreed to stay at Hurshs home and pay him $100 per month in rent while she looked for work or set up her disability benefits. She said the two first met on a dating app. But she said Hursh became aggressive shortly after she arrived and took her cellphone after he realized she had spoken with her daughter. The Tulsa County Sheriffs Office is investigating a deputy after she was captured on a Facebook Live video using a racial slur while working off-duty as a security officer at an area IHOP. Casey Roebuck, spokeswoman for the sheriffs office, confirmed the agencys internal affairs division is investigating potential discipline against the deputy. In a Facebook Live video posted Sunday, the deputy, who was not identified in a statement from the sheriffs office, can be seen arguing with several customers. The deputy uses the racial slur about 2 minutes into the clip. The Tulsa County Sheriffs Office has a no tolerance policy, which prohibits language and/or conduct relating to a persons race, color, nationality, or other legally protected status, Roebuck said. The employee in this video regrets her comments, as they do not accurately represent who she is as a person, nor the values of the Tulsa County Sheriffs Office. The slur and other confrontational remarks by the deputy toward customers led to a call for the deputys firing from We The People Oklahoma. A freedmen descendant who was disqualified from the ballot for Cherokee Nation principal chief has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to have her name put on the ballot or the election postponed so she has time to meet residency requirements. Rhonda Leona Brown Fleming argued in a prior federal lawsuit that she would be irreparably harmed if she relocated to within the Cherokee Nation boundaries only to be disqualified from candidacy because of the nations citizen by blood requirement, which she said is unconstitutional. The latest lawsuit doesnt call the residency stipulation unconstitutional but suggests that it may be discriminatory. It instead alleges that the section of law under which that requirement falls is unconstitutional because it also stipulates that a candidate must be a so-called blood Cherokee to be principal chief, contrary to a federal judges recent decision. In 2018 Senior Judge Hogan determined that the citizenship and voting rights of Cherokee Freedmen are coextensive with those of blood Cherokees, the lawsuit states. The Cherokee Defendants have not revised or otherwise amended the Cherokee Constitutional provision that limits eligibility for election as principal chief to blood Cherokees. Last year, employees received on average $1,600, Stitt said. The plan calls for using $20 million for prosecutors offices. And we are going to be fully funding our district attorneys so they dont have to rely on fines, fees and court costs anymore, Stitt said. This is going to take away any kind of perverse incentive that could contribute to debtors prison. It also includes $10 million for Smart on Crime programs through the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services; $1.5 million for Women in Recovery, a prison diversion program; and $1.7 million for the increasing demand for mental health services. The plan calls for two trooper academies, one funded by the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority and one with the funds from the sale of the state airplane, which recently sold for $1.2 million. The budget calls for $1.7 million to create the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency, a key agenda item for Senate Republicans. It also includes $700,000 for more auditors in the State Auditor and Inspectors office. The budget includes $575 million for the road and bridge program, Stitt said. Georgia Pacifics emergency response team attempted to extinguish the forklift but abandoned the effort in favor of evacuation after finding the lifts propane tank getting too hot. ODell said the explosion occurred after the evacuation. About 65 employees had been in the portion of the plant where the fire began. Fire Department officials sounded the general alarm that night, meaning all off-duty personnel were called in to fight the fire. All of the departments fire engines were dispatched to the plant. Fire trucks remained at the scene for much of Tuesday as the building still smoldered. Strother said that until the fires hot spots are extinguished, Georgia-Pacific crews will be unable to assess the extent of the damage. ODell said rolls of paper were still burning and would kick up flames like a campfire when the wind blew. That area remained inaccessible to firefighters. ODell said that at that point, with the fire contained to a single building, it was more prudent to observe than to continue to attack the blaze. Georgia-Pacifics fire brigade remained to continue the observation. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia, on Monday. [Photo/Agencies] World market confidence dampened by escalation Consultations between China and the United States are not a one-way street, and should be conducted amid a spirit of equality, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday in Russia. Wang said that it is pointless for one side to blame the other, or even to absolve themselves from responsibility. Wang stressed if one side is trying to place extreme pressure on the other, it will cause a legitimate counterattack. "The measures from us are not only to safeguard China's own rights, but to protect the basic rules of the current multilateral trading mechanism," Wang said. Wang made the remark in a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during his visit to the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi. Experts warned that the rising US tariffs on Chinese imports risks a full-blown trade war, which will bring harm to both sides. Major Wall Street stock indexes declined more than 2 percent on Monday, following China's announcement of countermeasures in response to Washington's latest tariff move. Wei Jianguo, a former vice-minister of commerce, said US businesses and consumers will pay the cost amid hefty levies, which will eventually add significant pressure on the US economy. The US government's moves risk sparking a full-blown trade war with China, and China is fully prepared for any possibility, Wei said. Economists at Goldman Sachs said in a research note that recent data showed the costs of Washington's tariffs on China last year had fallen "entirely" on US businesses and households, with no clear reduction in prices charged by Chinese exporters. The bank said that US consumer prices are higher, partly because Chinese exporters have not lowered their prices to better compete in the US market. In addition, some US producers "opportunistically" increased prices in response to protection from Chinese competitors, it said. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang urged the US government on Tuesday to consider the costs it would bear through raising tariffs. He reiterated that China will never capitulate under any external pressure and hopes the US meets China halfway. The US has no need to "worry about" China's affairs, Geng said at a daily news conference. The country has made progress in improving its foreign investment environment and has become a popular investment destination, he said, citing the expansion of US-based Exxon Mobil Corp and Tesla Inc in the market last year. Geng stressed that China welcomes foreign companies to increase investment in the market and will continue to establish a more stable, fair, transparent and predictable investment and business environment. China and the US started tit-for-tat tariff exchanges in July, when the first round of tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods took effect. There has been strong opposition to the tariff measures from the US side. Joe Biden, a Democratic candidate for US president, said on Monday, "The only people paying the price are farmers and working people right now". "Raising tariffs will hurt both the US and China economies, plus more importantly, they will hurt US farmers, consumers and businesses," tweeted Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a major soybean-producing state. The world's two largest economies have intensified their consultations to iron out differences on existing trade issues. An 11th round of high-level talks was held in Washington on Thursday and Friday. Wang said the Sino-US trade talks have made important and substantive progress thanks to efforts from both sides. Meanwhile the talks face some serious problems which need to be resolved. The top diplomat said that as long as the negotiations meet the general direction of China's reform and opening-up policy, adhere to China's basic needs about high-quality development and serve the common interests of the Chinese and US people, the negotiator teams from both sides could have the capability and wisdom to settle their reasonable demands and eventually achieve a win-win agreement. Wang said China insists on upholding national sovereignty, safeguarding the interests of its people and defending national honor when negotiating with any country. According to the General Administration of Customs, trade between China and the US in the first four months stood at 1.1 trillion yuan ($160 billion). Confucian academies recommended for World Heritage Site Confucian academies of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, or "seowon," are certain to gain worldwide recognition. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) of UNESCO has recommended nine of the existing academies to be listed as World Heritage Sites. The World Heritage Committee of the U.N. organization will make a final decision on the recommendation in its regular meeting June 30 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Experts expect the committee to accept the ICOMOS suggestion, given past cases. If seowon successfully make it onto the World Heritage list, the nation will have a total of 14 World Heritage sites, including Bulguk Temple in Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom, and Changdeok Palace in central Seoul. Seowon were established to honor renowned Confucian scholars and educate young people. The nine academies include Sosu Seowon in Yeongju, Namgye Seowon in Hamyang, Oksan Seowon in Gyeongju, Dosan Seowon in Andong, Pilam Seowon in Jangseong, and Museong Seowon in Jeongeup. The expected addition of seowon to the UNESCO list means that the value of the nation's diverse historical and cultural remains are being recognized globally one after another. This indicates that we have to better preserve and hand down to the next generations these cultural assets. ICOMOS already asked the nation to come up with comprehensive plans to preserve the nine Confucian academies scattered across the country. It cannot be overemphasized that the related authorities, including the Cultural Heritage Administration, have to work out better programs to preserve the historical sites on the basis of thorough research, while learning from previous failures in preserving historical sites. The Confucian academies, if put on the World Heritage List, will attract more foreign and local tourists and boost the tourism industry. The government and the local administrations are required to introduce diverse programs to turn the historical sites into education centers for young people to experience the spiritual culture of Confucian scholars. The case is Oklahomas fourth in two years and the fifth since 2015. Oklahoma had three confirmed cases in 2018, and a 2015 case in Stillwater was the first since 1997. Measles is reportable on suspicion to the department of health, and the state considers one case an outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers an outbreak three or more cases. The Centers for Disease Controls track of an ongoing measles outbreak shows nearly 840 confirmed cases in 23 states, but no confirmed cases in Oklahoma in 2019. The total in 2019 has already surpassed the number of cases in 2018. Although Oklahoma saw 88 cases in 1990, with the exception of 1992 and 2018, the state has not seen more than one case of measles since, according to Oklahoma State Department of Health data. Symptoms can begin anywhere from one to three weeks after exposure, with a mild to moderate fever, runny nose, red eyes and cough being the first indicators. A few days after onset, a rash will appear and spread to the rest of the body, coupled with a fever that can approach 105 degrees. The disease can cause serious problems in pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems, according to the release. Stetson Payne 918-732-8135 stetson.payne@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @stetson__payne Kelsy Schlotthauer 918-581-8455 kelsy.schlotthauer@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @K_Schlott 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. OKLAHOMA CITY A conversation picked up by a microphone prior to a Capitol news conference was not an admission he witnessed wrongdoing, state Rep. Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee, said Tuesday. My comments have been taken out of context and were only in response to a question directed toward me, Fetgatter said in a written statement. I apologize if my remarks in any way trivialized the serious nature of sexual assault. To be clear, I have never seen anything inappropriate happen or sexual harassment occur during my time in the House of Representatives. A conservative activist, Al Gerhart, alleges Fetgatter saw two other members of the House, Rep. Chris Kannady, R-Oklahoma City, and Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, behave inappropriately toward an unnamed female member of the House. A special counsel is investigating the matter. Kannady and McDugle have denied wrongdoing. Prior to Mondays news conference with Gov. Kevin Stitt and the House Republican caucus, a microphone picked up Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, asking Fetgatter so are you part of this now? The two were within feet of reporters and surrounded by colleagues, including several women. OKLAHOMA CITY Oklahoma City firefighters made a quick rescue Wednesday morning of two window washers who took a wild, glass-smashing ride near the top of the 50-story Devon Tower. Benny Fulkerson, spokesman for the Oklahoma City Fire Department, said it was a very tense and scary situation before firefighters rescued the workers by lowering ropes from the roof. The window washers secured the ropes to the basket, which stabilized the platform before the men were rescued. Fulkerson said there was no indication of how the basket became loose. It swung broadly, breaking windows, and glass fell onto Sheridan Avenue, which had to be shut down near the building during the downtown morning rush hour. A few weeks ago my wife and I attended a meeting on Medicaid expansion at the Eastern Oklahoma Food Bank. It was a wonderful, well-conducted meeting and clearly it was a classic no brainer regarding the option. It was like advising someone to look both ways before crossing the street. If that needs further explanation, it is hard to know where to start. We are looking at a population that is the least likely to be able to obtain insurance and the most likely to benefit from it. Since the majority of states have taken the opportunity to expand Medicaid, data now exist to show clearly the predictably favorable cost-benefit results. I was glad to see the panel had done the research and was able to very clearly present that data. If there were any semireasonable concerns, surely these were dispelled via previously published editorials in the Tulsa World. Although from my standpoint, Medicaid expansion would be a small step forward, it would be a great step for those whose very lives may be saved by way of receiving timely medical care. 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. Unlike many people who were able to spend Christmas at home with their families, medical pro A researcher of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) poses with nurse robot MyBom in this photo provided by the institution, Monday. / Courtesy of KIST By Baek Byung-yeul Research institutes and companies are rushing to develop care robots for a growing number of senior citizens suffering from dementia to ease the burden on family members who take care of them, according to industry officials Tuesday. The state-run Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) said Monday its robot research team developed a nurse robot that can assist patients who are in the early stages of dementia. KIST researchers said the robot, MyBom, is the industry's first artificial intelligence (AI) technology-based dementia care robot. The researchers said it started to develop the nurse robot as 59 percent of dementia patients are diagnosed with "mild" dementia. Even though it is possible to slow down the progression of the disease with proper care, many patients and their family members experience difficulties as the country lacks caregivers and support. They expect the robot to independently take care of mild dementia patients for at least two hours at a time. "With the country becoming an aging nation, the government has been operating a state program to support dementia patients. The development of nurse robots, utilizing our AI technology, can help the patients and their family members who also experience stress and physical illness," Park Sung-kee, principal researcher and head of the Convergence Research Center for Diagnosis, Treatment and Care System of Dementia at KIST, told The Korea Times. Korea's population is aging rapidly and about 800,000 elderly people are living with dementia. The Ministry of Health and Welfare forecasts the number of dementia patients to grow to 2.71 million by 2050 and the disease has become an increasingly serious social issue because it harms not only the patients themselves but also family members who have to take care of them. As the disease is incurable and untreatable, there has been increasing focus on risk reduction such as early diagnosis and proper care. The principal researcher said the MyBom robot could become a viable solution for both patients and their families. "While nurse robots developed in Japan or European countries have put a focus on educational features to improve cognition of dementia patients and help them fight off memory loss, MyBom can provide assistance in their daily lives," he said. Park added MyBom has advanced technology compared to other healthcare robots as it "uses artificial robot brain intelligence (ARBI) technology so that the device can carry out various intelligent tasks." For instance, the robots can recognize when their patients fall out of bed and make video calls to their caregivers. The robots are also able to have patient-oriented conversations as the AI technology enables them to understand and learn the personality of the patients. In addition, they can sound an alarm if they detect that a patient is leaving the house; remind patients when it's time to take their medicine; and offer interactive programs to improve cognitive abilities of their users. To commercialize the robot product, the research team set up a startup. After going through a testing period of about a year, the MyBom will be able to be released in the market in the second half of 2020. Park said the price of the robot has not been decided yet. Besides the state-run institution, private firms are also speeding up to develop care robots for elderly people to capitalize on the growing dementia care product market. The National Institute of Dementia estimated the average expense for taking care of one person with dementia cost 20.95 million won ($17,605) in 2018 and Koreans are expected to spend 106.5 trillion won for dementia care by 2050. Samsung Electronics announced its Samsung Bot Care robot at the January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The firm said the AI-powered robot can provide assistance to elderly people and help them maintain their health as it regularly checks users' blood pressure, heart rate, breathing and sleeping patterns. Local robot startup Wonderful Platform also rolled out a care robot Dasomi in February. The 1.5-kilogram-weight robot offers a voice command feature and allows caregivers to monitor the users. In January-March 2019, the agricultural products turnover between Ukraine and the European Union made up $2.6 billion, which is by 20% more compared to the relevant period in 2018. The press service of the National Scientific Center Institute of Agrarian Economics (IAE) reported this with reference to IAE Deputy Director Mykola Puhachov. "In January-March 2019, the trade turnover of agricultural products between Ukraine and the European Union grew by 20%, to $2.6 billion. The positive balance for our state exceeded $1.1 billion, Puhachov said. According to him, in the first quarter of the current year, there was an increase in imports to $735 million (+ 10%), while exports grew up to $1,882 million (+ 24%). The expert also reminded that the top six trade partners of Ukraine in the EU remain the same: the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Italy, Germany and France. Their total share in the agricultural products turnover made up about 70%. The key export items supplied to the European Unions markets were grain (mostly corn), oilseeds (soybeans and rapeseeds) and sunflower oil and the remnants of the processing industry. In turn, Ukraine imported from the European Union countries mostly corn and sunflower seeds, various food products, chocolate, tobacco and alcoholic beverages. In January-March 2019, domestic exporters fully used duty-free quotas for supplies of honey, apple and grape juice, corn (main and additional quotas) and sugar, as well as quarterly quotas for poultry meat. iy The U.S. administration and the Kremlin have different views on the process of resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, despite the desire of Donald Trump's administration to bring relations closer with Russia. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said this during his visit to Sochi on Tuesday, May 14, according to an Ukrinform correspondent. "We have places where we just have very different views. You mentioned Ukraine. Look, we have different views on how Ukraine ought to proceed," Pompeo said at a meeting with journalists, the transcript of which was published by the U.S. Department of State. He stressed that the initiative to improve U.S.-Russia relations is "about trying to find solutions, compromises, places where there is overlapping interest so you can make progress at unlocking some of the most difficult problems that are facing us." Pompeo held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Tuesday. op On September 11, 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will consider Ukraines lawsuit against Russia regarding human rights violations in Crimea. Deputy Justice Minister of Ukraine, Commissioner for the European Court of Human Rights Ivan Lishchyna informed this on his Facebook page. "The Office of the ECHR Commissioner has just received a letter, which we have been waiting for since February of this year. The courts hearing on the admissibility of the application no. 20958/14 (regarding Crimea) is scheduled for September 11, 2019. Keep our fingers crossed so that this time the hearing takes place, Lishchyna wrote. He also posted a photo of a part of the received letter. Ukraine International Airlines will increase the frequency of flights and the number of passenger seats on the route Kyiv-Toronto-Kyiv in peak summer season. UIA will operate up to four flights a week between the capital of Ukraine and the largest city of Canada on Boeing 777-200ER, the Center for Transport Strategies reports with the reference to the airline. Starting from May 15, Kyiv-Toronto flights will be operated on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Starting from June 13, UIA will fly from Kyiv to Toronto on Thursdays also. In March, the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine allowed Ukraine International Airlines to increase the frequency of flights on Kyiv-Toronto route up to 5 flights per week. ol Ending poverty and protecting our planet demand urgent action across borders, sectors, and silos, as well as large-scale financing. Through our new SDG Impact initiative UNDP aims to help leverage a sea change in capital markets and the private sector in ways that harness trillions of dollars to achieve these goals. Heres how: Enterprises and investment firms that prioritize sustainability are big business. And theyre not just growingtheyre thriving. In the 12 years since the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) was launched, the number of investment firms committed to sustainability grew from 63 with US$6.5 trillion to 1,715 with US$81.7 trillion in assets under management. They arent sacrificing performance. Researchers at Harvard Business School have found that firms with processes in place since the early 1990s to benchmark and communicate on sustainability issues outperformed a carefully matched control group over 18 years. Other studies have found positive correlations between investment performance and commitment to environmental, social, and governance issues. Several important factors are driving these trends. First, the private sector sees opportunity and is pivoting to client and customer demand. Second, citizens and consumers, eager for faster change to address environmental, social, and governance challenges, are increasingly looking beyond government for solutions, including to companies and those who invest in them. Third, millennials, raised on transparency, are increasingly holding public and private entities to account for their performance on a range of social and economic issues. This wired, widely networked generation wants its money, and its voice, to make a difference. Thats how we at UNDP see things too. In the worlds least developed economies, the private sector accounts for 60 percent of economic activity, 90 percent of jobs, and 80 percent of capital inflows. By 2030, global investment activity will likely amount to US$25 trillion, two thirds of it in developing countries. Businesses that make smarter use of resources such as water and energy will gain efficiency and save money, while those that treat workers equally and well will enhance their reputations and effectively tap the broadest possible markets and talent pools. But how can investors and corporations set goals, measure performance, and gauge their impact toward advancing the global good? One major obstacle up to now: Benchmarking, reporting, and auditing of corporate commitment to sustainability are neither standardized nor mandatory. To us, the way forward is clear. In 2015, all 193 United Nations Member States came together to endorse the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)17 specific, time-bound targets aimed not simply at halting or mitigating threats to people and planet but at creating a better world for all. These global goals represent a to-do list for government and business alike. They can inform new data-driven tools and standards to direct capital flows in ways that truly leave no one behind. The SDGs give us the targets we need to achieve concrete, positive impact across a wide spectrum. We have the financial resources to achieve the SDGs. But as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, investment just isnt yet going where its needed most. And governments cant fund their SDG priorities with public capital alone. Despite growing recognition of the SDGs as drivers of long-term business performance, we still lack a widely accepted definition of what constitutes an SDG-positive investmentand thats a major barrier. It means huge limitations on sustainability data, including non-existent data, inconsistent reporting and accounting, and sustainability metrics with limited correlation to finance. UNDPs SDG Impact aims to address these gaps. In partnership with the Impact Management Project were developing global standards, metrics, and opportunity maps for investors and enterprises to measure progress toward achieving the SDGs. This will help countries mobilize private investment to achieve their SDG priorities, such as providing clean energy, safe drinking water, or adequate nutrition for all. Were also creating an SDG Impact Seal to certify private sector adherence to an agreed set of standards. These will serve as a basis for country-level SDG fora and policy dialogues to help connect investors with sustainable investment opportunities, with pilots in China, the Philippines, India, Turkey, Armenia, Egypt, Jordan, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, and Nigeria. Through our partnership with the Oslo-based Business for Peace Foundation we plan to pilot these SDG-enabling standards with an elite group of investors in Nordic countrieswhere commitment to achieving the Global Goals is high. In another major step forward, our blue-ribbon SDG Impact Steering Group will hold its inaugural meeting in New York in June to chart a course forward and promote widespread adoption of SDG Impact. We invite investors and enterprises to join us in this vital work, and we invite you to join the conversation on effectively investing for the global good. Top Nordic investors will pilot new SDG-enabling tools OsloUnited Nations Development Programme Administrator Achim Steiner called on business leaders and investors to scale up efforts to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), saying private sector engagement is vital to achieving the global targets. More needs to be done to create the transformational and systemic changes that achieving the SDGs will require, Steiner said. We need the union among business, society, and government. The truth is we cannot succeed in isolation of each other. Global poverty has fallen by more than one third since 1990, and many more people have access to education, health care, and opportunities. But conflict and climate change have worsened hunger and forced displacement, with 68.5 million people now displaced worldwide. More than 2 billion people still lack basic sanitation, and land degradation threatens the livelihoods of more than 1 billion people. Governments must act to strengthen enabling environments, reduce investment risks, and require transparency and disclosure of impacts on sustainable development, but without the engagement of the private sector, the SDGs are unattainable, Steiner said. A new enabling initiative Steiner met here with leading Nordic investment firms EQT, Summa Equity, and LGT at the Business for Peace Summit to launch the Nordic Springboard of UNDPs SDG Impact initiative. SDG Impact aims to enable private sector investment in advancing the Global Goals by providing investors and businesses with tools, training, data, and market intelligence to support and certify their contributions toward achieving the 17 globally agreed targets. In partnership with the Impact Management Project, SDG Impact is devising global standards, metrics, and opportunity maps for investors and businesses to measure impact toward achieving the SDGs and creating an SDG Impact Seal to certify adherence to agreed standards. Nordic investors will pilot these SDG-enabling standards through UNDP and the Business for Peace Foundation. Anna Ryott, Chair of Summa Equity, is among 10 recently announced business and investment leaders named to the SDG Impact Steering Group, which will hold its inaugural meeting in New York on 20 June. The business and economic case The private sector generates 60 percent of gross domestic product, 90 percent of jobs and 80 percent of capital flows in the average developing country, providing innovation and generating much-needed tax revenue. But private investment in developing economies remains low, with the worlds 47 least developed countries receiving just 2 percent of foreign direct investment in 2017, or US$26 million. Research has consistently shown, further, a strong business case for private sector engagement in achieving the SDGs17 specific, time-bound targets aimed not simply at halting or mitigating threats to people and planet but at creating a better world for all. Developing products and services for underserved markets leads to new customers, jobs, and market opportunities while companies that use resources more efficiently will save money and those that treat workers equally and fairly will improve their reputation and be able to tap the widest possible labor and customer pools. This September, Heads of State and Governments will gather at UN Headquarters for an SDG Summit for the first time since all 193 UN Member States agreed to the 17 targets in 2015 and committed to achieving them by 2030. According to the OECD, official development assistance (ODA) was US$146.6 billion in 2017. By comparison, foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing economies totaled US$671 billion in the same year, quadruple the figure for official aid. The Business Commission on Sustainable Development at Davos estimated last year, further, that up to US$12 trillion in new economic opportunities could be generated through investments in areas such as agriculture, cities, energy, and health. Niyonkingi Esperancia, her husband and their six children returned to Burundi after living in Nduta refugee camp in Tanzania for three years. But their return home has not been easy. We are now facing hunger, says the former refugee, who is nearly in her fifties. She explains that the food they received when they arrived did not even last them a month. This is partly because Niyonkingi felt the need to share her returnee package with close family members she left behind when she fled, who are also struggling. The small cash assistance component of the package went quickly too, used for transport to her home and to buy seeds and farming tools. The house they live in is covered with a leaking plastic sheet, distributed by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, on her arrival. Many of the Burundian returnees are in a similar situation to Niyonkingi. We need more support from donors to mobilize a robust reintegration program Several lamented they had been forced to leave their farming tools behind in Tanzania. And those without their own farms in Burundi have had to rent agricultural land or work the land of others and take only a portion of the harvest. They came back with shockingly little from refugee camps, where economic activities have unfortunately been severely restricted. We need more support from donors to mobilize a robust reintegration program with other UN and NGO partners, said Catherine Wiesner, UNHCRs Regional Refugee Coordinator for the Burundi Situation, while on a visit to meet returnees in Burundi. She added that increased support was necessary to ensure sustainable returns and integration of the returnees into the society. We also need to invest in social cohesion at the community level, which will require both immediate humanitarian assistance and progressive development initiatives, she explained. Burundian returnee in Kinazi transit center, Burundi, waiting to board a bus to return to her village. Bernard Ntwari Burundian returnee in Kinazi transit center, Burundi, waiting to board a bus to return to her village. Bernard Ntwari Since the beginning of the voluntary repatriation operation in September 2017, UNHCR has facilitated the return of more than 67,000 Burundian returnees, the vast majority from Tanzania, with smaller numbers assisted to return from Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Additional refugee returns from Rwanda and Uganda have been nearly all self-organized. Returnees receive an arrival package that includes food, household supplies and a small cash component - all of which returnees say is incredibly important but doesnt last long. Havugiyaremye, 40, recently returned to Burundi in a convoy of buses that arrived at Kinazi transit center in northern Burundi. He lived in Tanzanias Mtendeli refugee camp for four years. Due to land litigation in the family, he cant return to his native village in Murema in Muyinga Province. He has opted to live in Giteranyi, a small town in the Northern Province of Muyinga, where he plans to rent a small house and start a small business as a motorcycle taxi driver - the job he was doing before he fled to Tanzania. His wife, Matilde, is good at dressmaking and hopes to get support to obtain a sewing machine. We have the strength and the skills, but we do not know how to go about our plans due to lack of means, says Havugiyaremye. UNHCRs Wiesner explains that for returns to be sustainable, more investment in areas where refugees are returning is desperately needed. While UNHCR is not promoting refugee returns to Burundi at this point in time, UNHCR and partners are providing assistance to those who indicate they have made an informed choice to voluntarily repatriate. The situation in Burundi remains complex and while returning home now presents an important solution for some refugees, many others feel the situation is not yet conducive. We need continued solidarity to meet the basic needs and protection for the majority of Burundian refugees who are not yet ready to go home and live in overcrowded camps with limited opportunities to support themselves and their families, she adds. The Burundi refugee response and return operation are running on a very limited budget. UNHCR and partner agencies have through the Burundi Regional Response Plan for 2019-2020, appealed for US$ 296 million this year. Only 10 per cent of the financial requirements have been received. A US$ 78 million Joint Refugee Return and Reintegration Plan has also been developed with UNDP and other partners in Burundi to address the immediate humanitarian and longer-term resilience and reintegration needs of Burundian refugees choosing to return voluntarily. The emphasis is on improving the absorption capacity and economic opportunities in communities of return. Naftogaz has planned to pump additional gas volumes into underground storage facilities by the heating season, 3 billion cubic meters more than usual. This will be a kind of insurance if Gazprom from January 1, 2020, blocks the transit through our territory. But are there enough stocks and how can we pay for them? Naftogaz of Ukraine has launched an ambitious plan in case Russias Gazprom terminates transit through the territory of our country after completing the existing contract on January 1, 2020, to increase gas injection into underground storage facilities to 20 billion cubic meters. Negotiations on a new contract have stalled. Ukraine demands that it be signed on the European principles, which are already implemented in the energy sphere of our country, and also suggests that Gazprom reserve the capacity of our GTS for a long time, approximately 10 years, in the amount of 60 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Russia, on the other hand, is demanding that the current direct gas transit agreement be extended, otherwise, it threatens to leave Ukraine without gas supply, that is, there will be no reverse flow from Europe. Taking into account the goodwill of the northern neighbor, Naftogaz decided to enter the next heating season with a strategic reserve. For the passage of last winter without risks, a little more than 17 billion cubic meters of gas was accumulated in the USFs, and the remainder was over 8 billion cubic meters. From the beginning of April, by May 11 of the current year, reserves increased by 15% to over 10 billion cubic meters. That is, the loading is in full swing. Head of Naftogaz considers the plan to accumulate 20 billion cubic meters technically feasible, but for several reasons this move lacks financial resources. The most important factor is the obligation to sell gas through private intermediaries. They already owe us about $1.3 billion. We expect that this year, the debt will increase to $1 billion. We plan to buy 3 billion cubic meters more compared to the usual volumes. In addition, we have laid out in the financial plan the payment of dividends to the state in the amount of 90% of the profits and repayment of loans, said Kobolyev. According to him, despite this problem, now Naftogaz is working on the opportunity to take a loan to purchase additional gas. Otherwise, it is impossible. Kobolyev believes that the position of Russia on transit will not change, the Kremlin will hold its ground, so we should not rule out that the gas crisis will be provoked. The Russians are doing everything they can to prevent the new contract from being signed, to blackmail Europe and implement its Nord Stream 2 project. Therefore, it is important that Ukraine is prepared for the next winter. Will there be enough 20 billion cubic meters of gas to Ukraine if Gazprom blocks the transit, and will there be funds to purchase additional volumes of blue fuel? Risks and opportunities Mykhailo Honchar, President of the Center for Globalization Strategy XXII, believes that 20 billion cubic meters of gas is enough to pass the heating season without risk. It is necessary to take into account the fact that Ukraine has more than halved gas consumption, compared with 2009, when Russia completely cut off the supply of blue fuel. And we still survived. For the last four years we did well with around 15-17 billion cubic meters of gas in our underground storage facilities. Now it is important to accumulate more volumes. It is also necessary to take into account the factor that gas supplies to Ukraine from Europe may be reduced or even stop. There could be some extreme case when Russia blocks the route through Ukraine. And this will create a shortage of gas in the European market. Moreover, negative weather conditions cannot be ruled out winter can be cold. All of this is Gazproms dream to leave us without gas. They already tried to do this in 2015, but there was some extra gas for Ukraine in the EU. In such conditions, we will have to deploy our gas transmission system in reverse to lift gas from the underground gas storages and direct it to the center and east of the country. Technically, it is possible, as was the case in 2009 when this saved the situation, and Ukraine survived. So we can, if necessary, repeat this. Everything should work out. There are five months ahead for gas injection, and a sufficiently large amount has remained since last winter. Ukrtransgaz can pump 200 million cubic meters per day, the expert noted. In his opinion, it would not hurt the government to be more pro-active in relation to other market players, so that they also create gas reserves. And such actions should become traditional. Strategic resources are crucial. The latest example with the Druzhba pipeline has already demonstrated this. For fifteen years, we haven't been able solve this problem. Each market operator must have a reserve. And here the clear position of the government is important, Honchar said. As for funds for the purchase of additional gas, according to Honchar, in this case the loan is a traditional international practice. It is also beneficial for Naftogaz it does not spend its own funds, and it is beneficial for banks the system is proven and fast. However, there is another risk: that's if, as a result of presidential and future parliamentary elections, the holders of government offices change and someone has a brilliant thought to replace the leadership of the largest state-owned companies in the energy sector, including Naftogaz. This, according to Honchar, can deliver a blow to the industry. "This shouldn't be done. Five years of war have shown that these people are in the wrong places. Our energy structure, energy supply electricity and gas both to the households and enterprises were being provided. Therefore, the possible thoughtless intervention in the process is disturbing. This is the most realistic risk. And all the technical and financial issues are completely solvable. The past five hard years have demonstrated this. Moreover, we had long been aware of the risks of winter and spring of 2019-2020: Russia will do everything to provoke a gas crisis and present Ukraine as the 'main culprit', thereby speeding up the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project, says the expert. However, according to him, it is worth taking into account the fact that the U.S. Senate registered a sanctions bill against Nord Stream 2: It is absolutely the right approach this does not affect the companies participating in the project, including the German partners of Gazprom. It affects contractors who build the pipeline. But Russia, of course, will not stop it. We need to be ready for this. Director of the Center for Energy Research, Oleksandr Kharchenko, also believes that piling up a gas volume in storage at the level of 20 billion cubic meters is the right decision, especially considering the possible blocking of transit by Russia, which means an automatic termination of the reverse flow. "In January-April the heating period will definitely see enough gas for Ukraine. Money will be a traditional loan. Most likely, it will be provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), while OPIC can also help out. Naftogaz is already working in this direction. So far there is no reason to worry," Kharchenko emphasized. Energy expert Valentyn Zemlyansky adheres to a slightly different opinion: Additional injection of gas volumes will do nothing. Expanding the system from west to east in the event of a transit halt will not work out it's a purely technical problem. Experts at Ukrtransgaz are saying this. And Europe, in such a situation, will not provide additional fuel. But Russia will not stop the transit. After the situation with the Druzhba pipeline, for them this is another reputational risk. They would thus create a crisis in Europe, and do they need to expose Germany, their main partner, to such a blow? The transit will not be blocked even if a new contract is not signed. In addition, Ukraine is a signatory of the European Energy Charter. Therefore, no one will interfere with continued transit. In his opinion, Nord Stream 2 today is not an alternative to the Ukrainian GTS for the supply of Russian gas to Europe. The signing of the contract can be dragged for long parties can sit at the negotiating table and just keep talking. There is an example gas flew through Georgia to Armenia, but the contract was not being signed for a long time. But it is impossible to delay the process indefinitely. Everything will be signed, as usual: in an emergency mode and to our own detriment, said the expert. Regarding the purchase of additional gas volumes, Zemlyansky says we are talking about a loan: We will need approximately $1 billion. Kobolyev has already stated that the company does not have such funds, although Naftogaz has huge profits. All Naftogaz accounting is essentially virtual. The next round of gas transit talks should take place at the end of May. At least, this was stated by Vice-President of the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic, after he discussed the main issues of the future discussion with Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak and with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. However, Sefcovic did not specify the details. But they will be made public very soon. For Ukraine, the main thing is not to lose this gas battle with the Kremlin. Nana Chornaya Ukraine's central bank to keep number of forex restrictions 13:00, 15.05.19 988 This is due to the critical dependence of the Ukrainian economy on external market conditions, while the country's international reserves remain inadequate. Ukraine imposing mirror economic sanctions against Russia 13:40, 15.05.19 7336 A specific list of products is set out in the annex to the decision. LG Chem researchers check the firm's battery for electric vehicles at its plant in Ochang, North Chungcheong Province. / Courtesy of LG Chem By Jun Ji-hye LG Chem has signed a long-term battery supply deal with Swedish carmaker Volvo. The European company is launching electric vehicle (EV) models under Volvo and its sub-brand Polestar, the nation's leading battery and chemical company said Wednesday. Under the deal, LG Chem will supply lithium-ion batteries over the coming decade for next-generation Volvo and Polestar models. The Korean firm did not disclose details of the supply deal, citing confidentiality. In 2017, Volvo Car Group announced a plan to transform itself into an EV maker, saying, "Every new Volvo car launched from 2019 onwards will be powered by electricity." The Swedish carmaker also said EVs will make up 50 percent of its total sales by the end of 2025. Since the announcement of the plan, eyes have been on which companies will be selected as EV battery suppliers for the project. Commenting on the multi-billion dollar battery supply deal, Volvo said LG Chem is a renowned battery manufacturer that has a long and successful track record of supplying lithium-ion batteries to the global automotive industry. The Korean battery maker's technology, supply chains and competitive costs met Volvo Cars' strict sourcing guidelines, it said. LG Chem said taking the latest contract as an opportunity, it will enhance its cooperation with Volvo Car Group and solidify its leading position in the EV battery area. As an increasing number of global carmakers are moving to develop future EVs through their own module platforms, LG Chem will be able to win further EV battery deals, the firm said. LG Chem has already signed a massive battery contract with German automaker Volkswagen for the latter's modular electric drive matrix-based EVs. "The latest contract is a significant achievement for us, resulting from our consistent investments in R&D for about 30 years since the early 1990s," an LG Chem official said. "We will continue to solidify our position as a leader in the battery market." Along with LG Chem, CATL of China has been selected as one of the two EV battery suppliers for Volvo. "With today's agreement, we effectively secured our battery supply for the upcoming decade," said Martina Buchhauser, senior vice president for procurement at Volvo Cars. "By having two suppliers available in each region we also ensure that we have flexibility in our supply chain going forward." Ukraine to offer EU Association Agreement revision Vice PM 14:20, 15.05.19 5986 Kyiv will for the first time have the opportunity to bring up the issue. Ukroboronprom to name executor of financial audit in 10 days MP Groysman 14:40, 15.05.19 3929 The Company shall report on the audit conclusion. Clearly, a nuclear option would risk long-term damage to Russia's gas business with Europe but at the same time it carries tempting short-run gains. Vladimir Putin is noted for taking surprise action, which confronts his victims with a fait accompli. They must then either accept the new unfavorable status quo or react in a way that they would consider too risky. Putin has employed this playbook in Georgia, Crimea, East Ukraine, Syria, on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea and to prop up the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Putin's potential targets should put themselves inside Putin's head to anticipate his next hostile move in order to avoid again being caught off guard with few good options, Paul Gregory, Cullen Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of Houston, wrote in an article for Forbes. Putin loves the unexpected; so beware. On paper, this would be the worst time for Russia to act up in its European gas market. Russia's Gazprom just narrowly saved its key project the undersea Nord Stream 2 pipeline directly to Germany despite almost universal opposition in Europe. Read also"Gas" plans: What will Ukraine do if Russia stops transit Gazprom faces new unfavorable (unacceptable) regulations: On April 5, 2019, The European Parliament and European Commission adopted a new gas directive that requires Gazprom to unbundle delivery from production. Moreover, Germany's Angela Merkel has promised Ukraine that, Nord Stream 2 or not, Russian gas will continue to flow through Ukraine. That's not all: With the threat of competition from American LNG, Russia would strive to emphasize the reliability of its deliveries to its massive European market. Finally, LNG competition would surely constrain Putin from taking hostile action that jeopardizes Russia's European gas revenues. "We can add one more factor that should temper Gazprom's behavior with respect to its European gas market: According to Gazprom's own reports, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will not be completed as planned by the start of 2020. Denmark has not issued construction permits and has requested that Nord Stream change its route. According to European authorities, the delays could be substantial," the author said. With Nord Stream 2 delayed (its capacity is 85 percent of Ukraine's transmission capacity into Europe), Russia would seem to have no choice but to make substantial use of Ukraine's pipeline. Despite these factors, Ukraine's gas company, Naftogaz, worries that Putin is preparing to launch what amounts to a "nuclear gas option" that will push Ukraine into recession and create gas shortages throughout Europe. Russia's move, they think, will take place on or around Jan. 1, 2020. Ukraine gas experts point with some alarm to Gazprom's accumulation of gas in European storage facilities. As they fill up, Gazprom leases more storage facilities. The gas in storage, the Ukrainians think, is being accumulated to meet Russia's minimum contractual deliveries to Europe while bypassing Ukraine's pipelines in total. Read alsoNaftogaz works out scenario for Russia's possible gas transit halt from 2020 If Gazprom were not planning to bypass Ukraine, it would be negotiating a transit contract with Naftogaz, but Ukraine sees no move by Russia in this direction. In fact, Ukraine has yet to receive the relatively small volume of Russian gas for which it prepaid. Russia's Gazprom, in addition, continues to refuse to pay Ukraine a $2.6 billion fine levied by Stockholm arbitration. The author offers to consider the effects of such a nuclear option: With no gas coming through Ukraine, Gazprom will only be able to meet its minimum contracts to Europe, even with the gas in storage. Gas prices, in such a scarcity situation, will increase, compensating Gazprom in part for the smaller volumes of sales. Ukraine, which has been buying Russian gas from Europe, will literally be left out in the cold. Europe will not have enough gas supply to back flow it into Ukraine. With a struggling economy and Azov seaports quasi-blockaded by the Russian navy, Ukraine would lose the $3 billion in transit revenues, which constitutes some 3% of its GDP. Deprived of these revenues, Ukraine could slip into a recession, in new President Volodymir Zelensky's first year in office. Russia could hope the besieged Zelensky will cave and seek accommodation with Russia on Crimea and East Ukraine. Whether or not Putin deploys the nuclear option depends on his calculation of short and long-run costs and benefits. In the short run, the nuclear option could destabilize the Ukrainian economy, a top priority for Putin. He would deprive Ukraine of essential transmission fees and create gas shortages during Ukraine's bitter winter. He might be able to convince Ukraine's new political leadership to play ball with their powerful neighbor. With a general shortage of gas in Europe, Putin might be able to split Europe by playing favorites and punishing enemies. Maybe he could even force those countries that are delaying Nord Stream 2, either through permits or gas directives, to get behind completion of the project. Clearly, a nuclear option would risk long-term damage to Russia's gas business with Europe. It would promote the construction of LNG terminals throughout Europe and drive European buyers into the clutches of American LNG. Europe could not afford to gamble with Russia's unreliability as a supplier of such a key resource. But the nuclear option carries with it tempting short-run gains. It would remove Ukraine from the gas delivery business. Russia could destabilize the new administration of a young and popular president. Russia could again play king of the hill and split Eastern Europe from Western Europe, not only with cyber-attacks but with the more potent weapon of energy. On Tuesday, pipeline operators from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other countries held crisis talks in Bratislava but the meeting yielded no concrete agreement. Exports of clean Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline, interrupted due to contamination, will be fully restored in late May or early June, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday. Piped exports of Russian crude have been disrupted since late April after high levels of organic chloride were found in oil sent via Druzhba to the Baltic port of Ust-Luga, Reuters said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said last week his country had faced "enormous" costs due to the contamination and expected compensation from Russia, although the mechanism for any redress and who would pay remained unclear. Read also"Gas" plans: What will Ukraine do if Russia stops transit Novak said the cost of damage from contaminated oil in the Druzhba pipeline was less than $100 million and Russia may sell the poor-quality oil at a discount, RIA news agency reported. The disruption of exports from Russia, the No.2 crude exporter after Saudi Arabia, has sent shockwaves through global oil markets and forced Moscow to cut its oil production to an 11-month low of around 11.16 million barrels per day. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak will on Thursday discuss a resumption of oil supplies along Druzhba with his Belarusian counterpart Igor Lyashenko, Kozaks aide told reporters. Belarus is a major transit route for Druzhba (Friendship). The Belarusian Mozyr oil refinery is a hub along the pipeline which splits there in two legs, one leading to Poland and Germany, another going south to Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia. On Wednesday, Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft said deliveries of clean Russian oil via the northern route of the pipeline to Poland and Germany were expected to start "in the near future." Transneft also said clean oil would be delivered via the pipeline to Slovakia on May 21-22 and on May 23-24 to Hungary, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. On Tuesday, pipeline operators from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other countries held crisis talks in Bratislava but the meeting yielded no concrete agreement. Talks will continue at a later date in Moscow. NABU Director Sytnyk was summoned for questioning as a suspect in criminal proceedings for his possible abuse of office over probable interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko insists that citizens of the United States based in Ukraine rather than Ukrainian citizens meddled in the U.S. elections in 2016. Speaking at a briefing in Kyiv on May 14 about U.S. media reports alleging that Ukrainians meddled in the U.S. electoral process three years ago, Lutsenko said: "I would not agree." "My point of view is that the interference in the American elections came from the territory of Ukraine, but it was officials and citizens of the United States holding different posts in Ukraine," he said, according to an UNIAN correspondent. Read alsoClinton-Ukraine collusion allegations 'big' and 'incredible,' will be reviewed, Trump says media Ukraine's chief prosecutor agreed that the U.S. citizens who tried to impact on the course of the presidential election campaign in the U.S. engaged citizens of Ukraine in their activities. "Yes, that's true that they engaged our citizens who were favorites of the U.S. Embassy in their campaign to smear one of the presidential candidates. But these are U.S. law enforcers who should address this issue," Lutsenko said. As UNIAN reported earlier, Prosecutor General Lutsenko told The Hill that the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU) and NABU Director Artem Sytnyk had allegedly meddled in the U.S. presidential election in 2016. According to Lutsenko, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) of Ukraine launched a probe into the "leaks" of financial reports relating to Donald Trump's ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort during the 2016 presidential campaign with a view to allegedly influence the election in favor of the other presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. NABU denied such allegations, emphasizing that NABU agents did not collect or share any evidence of Manafort's allegedly unlawful activities because this is outside their authority. On May 10, Sytnyk was summoned for questioning by the PGO as a suspect in criminal proceedings for his possible abuse of office over probable interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The prosecutor general claims the ambassador was "too subjective in dividing people into friends and foes." Yuriy Lutsenko, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, believes that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, during her term in office, was biased in assessing the work of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. "Unfortunately, it so happened that the U.S. ambassador, now ex-ambassador [media reports say Yovanovitch will be recalled in May] did not always report objective information about the situation in our country, in particular, regarding law enforcement," Lutsenko told a Kyiv briefing Tuesday, Ukrayiniska Pravda reports. He said, "the ambassador was too subjective in dividing people into friends and foes." In particular, she allegedly had the embassy's "favorites," who were always right, and also "bad" people. According to the PGO chief, among the embassy's favorites were MP Serhiy Leshchenko and National Anti-corruption Bureau Director Artem Sytnyk. At the same time, the prosecutor general claims that NABU, the watchdog supported by the U.S. ambassador, has not become an effective investigative body. Read alsoU.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovitch to be recalled media "The only argument can be results. While the PGO and our colleagues sealed 2,800 category B corruption-related verdicts, NABU had zero category A verdicts over the past three years. While we had UAH 112 billion of funds recovered, NABU had half a billion over the three years. I think this is the argument proving that someone has been working efficiently, while someone is close to be diagnosed with impotence," Lutsenko said. Speaking about his contacts with Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the prosecutor general noted that he wanted to use the acquaintance to ensure that "the U.S. President had a stable channel of information about Ukraine." At the same time, he refuted claims, earlier voiced by MP Serhiy Leshchehnko, that he had been in contact with Giuliani to enlist U.S. support and remain in office. As UNIAN reported earlier, in early March, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, in an interview with Hill.TV, stated that during his first meeting after appointment with U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, she allegedly handed him a list of "do-not-prosecute" list. In the same interview, Lutsenko complained that his agency had never received $4 million of the promised U.S. aid. Later, Lutsenko walked back his "do-not-prosecute" list accusations against Ambassador Yovanovitch. After the prosecutor general announced plans to charge the deputy with disclosing criminal investigation data, the deputy offered that his interrogation be live-streamed. Ukrainian MP Serhiy Leshchenko on Tuesday, May 14, called on Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko to immediately submit to Parliament a motion on depriving him of parliamentary immunity. The statement came Tuesday as Leshchenko commented to reporters on Lutsenkos claims regarding his intention to charge Leshchenko with disclosing pre-trial investigation data in the case of the "black ledgers" case involving the former Party of Regions, ousted ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, and, among other figures, Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort. Leshchenko said he demanded that the motion be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada "today" or "tomorrow," an UNIAN correspondent reported. Also, the deputy urged Lutsenko to conduct an investigation "as soon as possible and to stop using this case as a means of maintaining his authority as prosecutor general." Read alsoZelensky being pulled into domestic political conflict in U.S. media Leshchenko called on the prosecutor general to stop "a political show, behind which stand his narrow, cheap, and corrupt interests as prosecutor general." The deputy urged the top prosecutor not to fuel the conflict that is being fomented between the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. "If he is interested in my historical role in these events, I urge that the interrogations in the Party of Regions 'black ledgers' case be live-streamed, so that the whole country could hear and see what had been happening," Leshchenko stressed. At the same time, during his testimony, he promised to answer questions on merits and not use the occasion as a PR stunt. The deputy also said that he was ready for a probe into his alleged disclosure of investigation data in the "black ledgers" case, adding that this should happen "in conjunction with another case where Yuriy Lutsenko himself can become one of the targets." Read alsoLutsenko: U.S. citizens based in Ukraine rather than Ukrainians meddle in U.S. elections in 2016 At the same time, Leshchenko did not elaborate, only noting that Lutsenko "in parliament headquarters personally told me about a pre-trial investigation in one of the highest-profile cases of the last five years, which concerned Ukraine's top leadership and which led to a conflict within the coalition and serious political consequences in Ukraine." "I believe Yuriy Lutsenko is well aware what case I'm talking about," Leshchenko said. The deputy stressed his readiness to testify in this case as a witness. As UNIAN reported earlier, in August 2016, Leshchenko said U.S. political consultant Paul Manafort, journalist Larry King, and Svoboda Party in Ukraine received money from the so-called black ledgers"of the pro-Yanukovych Party of Regions. On December 12, 2018, the Kyiv District Administrative Court declared unlawful the actions of Artem Sytnyk, Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau, and MP Serhiy Leshchenko on disclosing data on Manafort, who at the time when such data were disseminated, led Donald Trump's campaign headquarters. Read alsoNABU refutes allegations of attempts to influence U.S. presidential election in 2016 On May 14, Lutsenko said that Leshchenko would be summoned for questioning on the fact of disclosing investigation data on the "black ledgers" of the Party of Regions. Also, the Prosecutor General accused the deputy of interfering in the American elections in 2016 with the aim of helping one of the presidential candidates. Peskov once again called the occupation of Donbas "Ukraine's internal problem." Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov says U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has not called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "reach out to Ukraine," and this topic was allegedly not discussed at all. "Mr. Pompeo didn't call on President Putin to do this [to reach out to Ukraine's new government]. Maybe he somehow did this indirectly, but the topic of Ukraine was not discussed at the meeting with the president yesterday," he told journalists, as reported by an UNIAN correspondent in Russia on May 15. At the same time, Peskov stressed that such appeals could be commented in such a way: "Russia has never been a supporter and initiator of the bilateral relations destruction." Read alsoU.S. Secretary of State Pompeo in Sochi calls on Russia to free 24 Ukrainian sailors "Our president always speaks of the preservation of the special nature of relations between the peoples of the two countries. This approach is well known. We know that there is a very serious Ukraine's internal problem in the south-east of the country," he said. At the same time, he called Russia "the guarantor of the Minsk agreements," which must be implemented by Ukraine. "We expect that there will be some new elements in Ukraine's approach that will bring us closer to the implementation of the Minsk agreements," he added. Read alsoPompeo to Lavrov: Trump Administration doesn't recognize Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea As UNIAN reported earlier, after talks with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sochi on May 14, Pompeo said, "I urged Russia to reach out to Ukraine's new president [Volodymyr Zelensky] to demonstrate leadership by taking step towards breaking the stalemate." Shaptala was appointed chairperson of Ukraine's Constitutional Court on May 14. President of Lithuania's Constitutional Court Dainius Zalimas has welcomed Natalia Shaptala's appointment as Chairperson of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU). She was elected CCU head on May 14, following the dismissal of Stanislav Shevchuk from the position of a Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, who had previously held the position of the Chairman. "I am pleased that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has succeeded in resolving the issue of its leadership quickly and effectively, thus dispelling doubts as to whether the preconditions will be created for the inauguration of the elected President of the country. I congratulate you on taking this step to make your Court's activities more transparent and effective, and to contribute to the restoration of public and international partners' confidence in the Court," Dainius Zalimas emphasized when speaking on the telephone with Shaptala. Read alsoYanukovych-appointed judge Shaptala tapped to head Ukraine's Constitutional Court Zalimas congratulated the new Chairperson on his behalf, on behalf of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania, and on behalf of the Association of Constitutional Justice of the Countries of the Baltic and Black Sea Regions (BBCJ), whose presidency this year is held by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania. "Let me ... express confidence that you will enhance the determination of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to defend the traditions of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law and strengthen the Western geopolitical orientation of the country. As the Acting President of the Association of Constitutional Justice of the Countries of the Baltic and Black Sea Regions, I express hope that your election will contribute to the renewal of the judicial dialogue in the spirit of the aims and principles of this Association, including the joint initiatives on the European level," Zalimas said in his letter of congratulation. As UNIAN reported earlier, CCU judges on May 14 dismissed Shevchuk from office of a CCU judge under Clause 3 of Paragraph 2 of Article 149(1) of the Constitution of Ukraine (due to a gross violation of discipline, misuse of duties, and failure to perform them properly, which is incompatible with the status of a judge). CCU judge Shaptala was tapped to head the court. The Chairperson of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is elected by secret ballot by the judges of the court where the consent of at least half of all the judges is required. Twelve judges voted for Shaptala. He says the new head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is not fulfilling agreements reached during the Unification Council in December last year. Honorable Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) Filaret urged Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Epifaniy to "do nothing in the church" without his consent. According to Filaret, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is facing "separation, diarchy, which can lead to sad consequences." He accused Epifaniy of abandoning the agreements reached during the unification council on December 15, as reported by the Radio Liberty's Ukrainian Service with reference to Filaret's statement. "In order to rectify the situation, and it can be rectified, it is necessary to fulfill the agreements that were reached before the council in the presence of President Poroshenko and with the bishops. This means the primate is responsible for the external representation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), and the patriarch is responsible for the internal church life in Ukraine, but in cooperation with the primate. The primate shall do nothing in the church without the consent of the patriarch. The patriarch chairs the meetings of the Holy Synod and the UOC meetings for the sake of preserving unity, its growth, and affirmation," Filaret said in a statement. He added the Kyiv Patriarchate does not need to be restored since it "was and will exist." "The Kyiv Patriarchate does not need to be restored because it existed, and will exist. Patriarch Filaret remains the hierarch. He has his own diocese the city of Kyiv, [he is] a permanent member of the Holy Synod. And if there is a standing Patriarch, i.e. there is the Kyiv Patriarchate. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) remains registered with state bodies. In particular, the Kyiv Patriarchate remains registered. This means the Kyiv Patriarchate continues to legally exist," the statement says. In his statement, Filaret adds the giving up on the Kyiv Patriarchate was the demand of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to hold a unification council of the Ukrainian Orthodox churches and get a tomos of autocephaly. "Why did the Ecumenical Patriarch demand that we give up on the status of patriarchy? That's because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the status of patriarchy cannot be part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. But it was necessary for the UOC to theoretically become part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. What were we supposed to do? To give up the theoretical accession to the Patriarchate of Constantinople? Then the Ecumenical Patriarch would not have had a canonical right to provide a tomos for the church that is not part of his. To get a tomos, it was necessary to first become the Kyiv metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople," the statement says. Filaret said that in this regard, the Ecumenical Patriarch had requested and put forward a condition that "I do not put forward my candidacy for the post of primate, and Metropolitan Emmanuel, chairman of the council, asked me not to put on the patriarchal cowl during the council." At the same time, Patriarch Filaret was asked to nominate any bishop for the post of primate. What was Patriarch Philaret to do under these conditions? Refuse for the sake of preserving church leadership or go for humiliation to get a tomos. Patriarch Filaret chose humiliation. Therefore, we have a tomos of our autocephaly," the patriarch added. Read alsoPatriarch Filaret admits split in newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine "Therefore, the giving up on the status of patriarchy was purely situational. Only the Local Council of the church, which created the Kyiv Patriarchate, may cancel the decision to establish the Kyiv Patriarchate. No such council has been convened. This means the Kyiv Patriarchate remains in place and continues to operate, especially since it is registered with state bodies," the patriarch said in a statement. "We may be objected that during the Local Council at Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral on December 15, 2018, we gave up on the status of the Patriarchate. Indeed! It was during the Council, but that was not a council of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, but the one of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople," Filaret added. He also noted that incumbent President Petro Poroshenko had played a big role in obtaining the tomos. "But now Poroshenko has retreated from the agreements reached and actually agreed to liquidate the Kyiv Patriarchate," Filaret said. He also denied accusations of lust for power and authoritarianism. Read also"Discord gift for Kremlin": Activists rally outside Filaret's residence calling for church unity "Had I served the church for the sake of power, I could have become a [pro-]Moscow patriarch. But I prayed to God so that his will was accomplished on me, and I never became the Moscow patriarch," Filaret said. He added that, without the Kyiv Patriarchate, "there would have been no discussions on the issue of the tomos". As UNIAN reported earlier, on April 27, Patriarch Filaret declared he was not satisfied with the OCU's status as a metropolis. "The OCU is officially recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch. But there is the Kyiv Patriarchate in Ukraine. That's because we are unhappy with the status of the metropolis. We have been around for over 25 years as a patriarchy. And it was the people who elected patriarchs. I am the third patriarch. And Patriarch Volodymyr, Patriarch Mstyslav were here before me. They were patriarchs! Therefore, we are a patriarchate for Ukraine. And for the outside world, i.e. for the Orthodox world, we are the Kyiv metropolis," Filaret said. On May 14, Filaret invited the OCU's hierarchs to the traditional UOC-KP prayer celebration in honor of holy martyr Makariy to St. Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kyiv. Invitations were sent on the UOC-KP's blanks and signed by Filaret. Only four of 60 clerics invited to attend showed up. Earlier, Filaret refused to recognize the UOC-KP as "liquidated" as a result of the creation of the OCU. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture assures that the UOC-KP was liquidated on December 15, 2018, during the Unification Council. Jung Eun-seung, president of Samsung Electronics' foundry business, speaks during the Samsung Foundry Forum in Santa Clara, Calif., Tuesday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics By Baek Byung-yeul Samsung Electronics introduced next-generation semiconductor engineering technology and a chip design tool for fabless companies to challenge the foundry business leader TSMC, the firm said Wednesday. The company hosted its annual Samsung Foundry Forum in Santa Clara, California, attended by 800 officials from its partner firms in the artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, fifth-generation (5G) and internet of things (IoT) sectors. At the event, Samsung showcased a process design kit using the 3-nanometer Gate-All-Around (GAA) process, in which the firm elaborates that fabless firms can improve the performance of their chips and save energy compared to the chips using the 7-nanometer process. "Compared to the 7-nanometer technology, the new process technology is designed to provide up to a 45 percent reduction in chip area with 50 percent lower power consumption and 35 percent higher performance," the firm said adding that the new process is expected to be widely adopted in next-generation semiconductors which can be used for AI and IoT. Samsung, the world's largest memory chip maker, has been trying to expand its presence in the non-memory sector to diversify its business portfolio. The foundry business refers to contract-based chip manufacturing for companies that cannot afford their own facilities and the company recently announced its goal to become a leader in the sector by 2030. Currently the firm has been placed second following TSMC of Taiwan, which had a market share of 48.1 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to data by industry tracker TrendForce. Samsung had 19.1 percent. "Samsung Electronics fully understands that achieving powerful and reliable solutions requires not only the most advanced manufacturing and packaging processes as well as design solutions, but also collaborative foundry-customer relations grounded in trust and a shared vision," said Jung Eun-seung, president of the firm's foundry business. "This year's Foundry Forum is filled with compelling evidence of our commitment to progress in all those areas, and we're honored to host and converse with our industry's best and brightest," he added. To boost the chip engineering process of its customer companies, Samsung also launched a new cloud platform. "The platform will provide customers with a more flexible design environment through collaboration with major public cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, as well as the leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, including Cadence and Synopsys," the firm said. Today all "anti-Ukrainian" forces have joined effort to destroy the Kyiv Patriarchate in Ukraine, he says. Filaret, a long-standing top cleric in Ukraine, who has achieved a title of the honorable patriarch of the newly-formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine, says the fact that Moscow has not been showering criticism upon Epifaniy, head of the OCU, is rather telling. In an appeal to believers, delivered via Facebook, he complained about his actual removal from control levers in the church. Filaret said there an attempt had been made to remove him from service and arrange his retirement at the very first meeting of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Read alsoTomos of church autocephaly cannot be revoked Poroshenko's adviser "In his statements to the clergy and to journalists, he speaks of unity and cooperation, while doing the opposite. He threatens us with the revocation of tomos, but in fact, he is doing everything to make it happen. If this, God forbid, happens, he will cease to be a primate and become an ordinary bishop," Filaret said. According to the patriarch, today all "anti-Ukrainian" forces have joined effort to destroy the Kyiv Patriarchate in Ukraine. "There is a conviction of Ukrainian bishops not to support the existence of the Kyiv Patriarchate in Ukraine. At the next meeting of the Holy Synod or the Bishops' Council, they intend to arrange Patriarch Filaret's retirement, and thus to resolve the issue of the existence of the Kyiv Patriarchate in Ukraine," he said. "Such a decision will be illegal and non-canonical, because the patriarch was elected not by the Holy Synod, not by the Bishops' Council, but by the Local Council for life. In addition, the charter of the OCU (UOC) adopted at Kyiv's St. Sophia Cathedral on December 15, 2018 provides for the life-long election of bishops to the bishop's department," the patriarch added. Read alsoFailure of Filaret's "coup"? Only 4 bishops accept invitation: BBC Filaret notes "Moscow is satisfied with the state of affairs in the UOC (OCU). What they could not achieve through various efforts, they are now achieving through the actions of the OCU head." "We hear no criticism of Metropolitan Epifaniy. This means such leadership suits Moscow. The transition of parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church slowed down or even halted, while there were no transitions at all of the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate after a tomos of autocephaly was received. Therefore, Moscow can rejoice," Filaret said. One occupier was wounded on Tuesday, intelligence reports say. Russia's hybrid military forces in the past 24 hours mounted 11 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as killed in action, and another two as wounded in action. "One Ukrainian soldier was killed in action and another two were wounded in the past day. Each enemy provocation saw an adequate response. According to intelligence reports, one occupier was wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in an update posted on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on May 15, 2019. Read alsoUkrainian military repel enemy Russian infantry attack on newly gained positions in Donbas (Video) Russian occupation forces opened fire from 122mm artillery systems, 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, as well as sniper and small arms. Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the villages of Lebedynske, Vodiane, Shyrokyne, Pavlopil, Shumy, Novo-Oleksandrivka, Novozvanivka, Mayorsk, and Luhanske. "From midnight on Wednesday, Russia-led forces attacked Ukrainian positions near the town of Maryinka, and the villages of Pavlopil and Hnutove, using 120mm and 82mm mortars, automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms. There were no casualties among the Ukrainian military [on Wednesday]," the report said. The national anthem of the Czech Republic was played when the Czech MP arrived. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Tomas Petricek has condemned a recent visit of Member of Parliament from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Zdenek Ondracek to Russia-occupied Donbas. "MP Ondracek tarnishes the Czech Republic. That visit was not official representation of the Czech Republic. Except for the video with that 'achievement,' I don't know what other purpose of that journey was," Petricek said on Twitter on May 15. Read alsoCzech MFA on Russia's "passports move" in Donbas: "Attack against Ukraine sovereignty" The Czech Foreign Minister made this statement when commenting on the shared video where Ondracek is being met by one of the leaders of the "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR") Denis Pushilin on the red carpet rolled out for the MP during his visit to the Russia-occupied city of Donetsk. The national anthem of the Czech Republic was played at the time of his arrival. In turn, Ukrainian Ambassador to the Czech Republic Yevhen Perebyinis thanked Petricek for condemning Ondracek's "visit" to the occupied territory. "It is offensive when someone violates international law and hides behind the friendly flag and anthem of the Czech Republic, which is a friend of Ukraine," Perebyinis said. The ambassador expressed the hope that the Czech parliament would also condemn Ondracek's actions. A Kremlin spokesman later said Putin would be open to a new meeting with Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after a joint news conference of the U.S. official with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sochi, Russia, on May 14, said he hoped to "fully restore" ties between Moscow and Washington, and said he thought that U.S. President Donald Trump genuinely wanted to do the same. Putin also praised Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe, which did not find evidence that Trump or his associates sought to conspire with Russian officials to sway the 2016 U.S. election, but also stopped short of clearing Trump of allegations he obstructed Mueller's work, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported. Putin called it "quite an objective investigation." "We've said many times that we also want to fully restore our relations. I hope that the necessary conditions for that to happen will now be created," Putin said. A Kremlin spokesman later said Putin would be open to a new meeting with Trump if a formal proposal is made. Yuri Ushakov also said Putin's meeting with Pompeo had not yielded any breakthrough, but had been held in a business-like atmosphere. At the news conference in Sochi, which was held after some three hours of talks, Lavrov said Moscow was open to a Trump-Putin meeting, but did not confirm one was planned, echoing earlier remarks from a Kremlin spokesman. Read alsoPompeo to Lavrov: Trump Administration doesn't recognize Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea Both countries needed to dispel "suspicions and prejudices" and to "start building a new constructive framework," Lavrov said. Pompeo said he warned Russia not to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election something that U.S. authorities have said was possible and he said Moscow needed to demonstrate it had halted such efforts. If Russia interfered, "it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been," Pompeo said. Lavrov, meanwhile, accused the United States of funding Russian nongovernmental organizations, with the intent of interfering in Russia's elections. The U.S.-Russia talks also covered the conflict in Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, and other matters. Trump should curb his hawkish aides and take that course before it is too late. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt concisely described the two big dangers embedded in the growing tensions between the United States and Iran. There is, he said Monday, "the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict." And there is also the possibility that Iran will be put "back on the path to renuclearization." What he didn't say was this: Both those dangers result directly from the Trump administration's escalation of pressure on the Iranian regime in recent months a policy with no evident end goal and thus no plausible positive outcome, the Editorial Board of the Washington Post wrote in an article on May 14, 2019. President Trump and his top aides insist they are not seeking war, but the measures they have adopted in the past month including an attempt to shut down all Iranian exports of oil, as well as steel, copper and other products appear to have brought them perilously close to it. Facing an economic crisis, the Islamic republic has predictably responded by threatening to resume high-level enrichment of uranium the most dangerous activity stopped by the nuclear deal that Mr. Trump unwisely scrapped. Read alsoPentagon offers White House to deploy 120,000 troops to Middle East media According to U.S. officials, Tehran also may be preparing strikes against U.S. forces in the Middle East or against commercial and military ships in the Persian Gulf. Attacks on four oil tankers near the mouth of the gulf on Sunday have not yet been attributed to Iran; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday they were still being investigated. If Tehran is deemed responsible, Mr. Trump will come under pressure to deliver on threats of "a bad problem for Iran if something happens," as he put it Monday. The Pentagon has dispatched additional forces to the region, and the New York Times reported that plans have been drawn up to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops. The Times also reported on U.S. intelligence that Iran may be seeking to provoke Mr. Trump into a military action. If so, it's not hard to see why. The United States is poorly prepared for another conflict in the region; it has the support of none of its NATO allies, not even as Mr. Hunt made clear Britain. The use of force probably would not stop Iran from resuming its nuclear program or force a change of regime, short of a full-scale military invasion. That would find scant support from Americans, and for good reason: Until Mr. Trump began his escalation, Iran was observing the nuclear deal and did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. Read alsoSaudi Arabia says two oil tankers damaged in "sabotage attack" off UAE coast Mr. Trump says he's interested in negotiating with the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but it's not clear his top aides agree with him; they have laid out a series of demands they know Tehran will not meet. Mr. Pompeo conceded the other day that the U.S. strategy was unlikely to coerce Iranian leaders into concessions, but suggested that "what can change is, the people can change the government." But the United States has been waiting in vain for a popular revolution in Tehran for decades. Mr. Trump is in danger of being cornered into choosing between a counterproductive use of force and allowing Iran to cross red lines. The way out is to return to diplomacy, in concert with European allies. The president should curb his hawkish aides and take that course before it is too late. Renault Samsung plnat in Busan / Courtesy of Renault Samsung By Nam Hyun-woo The Renault Samsung union has threatened to go on an all-out strike, unless management meets its demand for better "forward-looking" working conditions The move is seen by industry analysts as apparent brinksmanship in their collective bargaining talks that began last year, as it will seriously undermine the company's competitiveness. The union said Wednesday that it will launch an all-out strike from May 21 for an undetermined period unless negotiations with management show progress. It said the company has been "stalling in the past 27 rounds of talks for an agreement, and so its walkout is an ultimatum." Renault Samsung's union and management have been trying to reach an agreement since June 2018, as both sides have shown a stark contrast in base pay, outsourcing, employees' repositioning and several other labor issues. Reportedly, the two sides are close to reaching an agreement on salaries, but not on other issues. "We are currently in the 28th round of talks and working on realizing a positive outcome," a Renault Samsung official said. A Renault Samsung assembly line at its Busan plant is halted due to a strike in this undated file photo. 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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 LS Cable & System Chairman Koo Cha-yub, center, cuts a ribbon while celebrating the opening of the firm's cable and battery components manufacturing plant in Dzierzoniow, Poland, Tuesday, with local government officials. / Courtesy of LS Cable & System An artist's concept of SK Innovation's battery manufacturing plant in Hungary, which will begin mass production starting 2020. The firm said Wednesday it will construct a battery manufacturing plant in China, its second in the country. / Courtesy of SK Innovation By Baek Byung-yeul SK Innovation has decided to build a second battery manufacturing plant in China, the energy and chemical arm of SK Group said Wednesday. The company said its board of directors approved a plan to invest 579.9 billion won ($488 million), Tuesday, to construct the second battery plant in China it is currently constructing its first plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. "The construction is to meet growing demand for EV batteries as the firm has been receiving increasing orders from global carmakers," a spokeswoman for the firm said. The firm said its Chinese partner for the second plant has not been decided yet and the details such as the site and the manufacturing capacity will be announced later. "Under our China Insider strategy which aims to seek mutual growth with China, we decided to construct another battery manufacturing plant in the country following the Changzhou plant," the firm said. SK Innovation has been actively expanding its battery capacity with an aim to have an annual output equivalent to 60 gigawatt hours (GWh), which is enough to power 2 million EVs, by 2022. The firm is now constructing battery plants in Hungary, the United States and China with a total investment of 5 trillion won. Its accumulated order backlog is estimated at 430 GWh as of March. Currently, its Seosan plant in South Chungcheong Province has an annual battery production capacity of 4.7 GWh. The firm began constructing the Changzhou plant in August 2018 under a joint venture with Beijing Electronics Holding and BAIC Motor. The plant, which will begin mass production starting the first half of 2020, will have an annual battery production capacity of 7.5 GWh. In Hungary, the company is building two battery manufacturing plants in Komarom, near the Slovakian border. The plants will have a battery production capacity of 7.5 GWh and 9 GWh respectively. Its Georgia plant in the U.S., which will start mass production in 2022 will produce 9.8 GWhs of battery output. Yuyu Pharma CEO Robert Yu speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the firm's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, Friday. / Courtesy of Yuyu Pharma By Nam Hyun-woo Yuyu Pharma has been a mid-tier pharmaceutical company for 78 years. As far as being a dynamic and growing entity, its sales have never exceeded 100 billion won. But with its new CEO Robert Yu taking the helm, the firm is looking for a turning point in its history by introducing new drugs and embracing innovation. "I usually emphasize to our employees that Yuyu is a 78-year-old startup," Yu said during an interview with The Korea Times. "This is to emphasize that the company has to be open to new technologies from outside so we can reach a turning point toward faster growth." Yu, 45, is son of the firm's Chairman Yu Seung-pil and grandson of founder Yu Teuk-han. Before inheriting the family business in 2009, he worked for pharmaceutical giant Novartis and then leading investment bank Merrill Lynch. Yu was appointed as the company's co-CEO with his father on April 2, in what appeared to be a major step toward inheriting ownership. As the new leader of the drug maker, he is seeking to raise the company's profitability. Despite being a well-known pharmaceutical firm in Korea, thanks to its long history and steady seller Yupan C vitamin supplements, the firm posted 83 billion won in sales and an operating profit of 5.3 billion won, making it No. 53 among Korea's listed pharmaceutical firms. "I don't believe the company's 78-year history will guarantee a bright future," Yu said. "The history may be a basis, but it does not provide a growth engine for the future. Our future hinges on how we make a turning point from now on." To boost the company's reputation, Yu is focusing on developing new drugs for treating enlarged prostates and dry eye syndrome, which he said will be "the new cash cows for Yuyu." Currently, Yuyu Pharma is preparing for phase three clinical trials for YY-201, a drug to treat enlarged prostate glands. The drug contains the components of two widely used prostate drugs, but the tablets have been reduced in size so patients can take them more easily, according to the firm. The company is pinning high hopes on the drug's success, given the stable growth in the market. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the domestic market for prostate treatments was worth 200 billion won in 2018, and the global market is expected to grow by 8 percent every year to reach $4.5 billion in 2024. "The drug was approved for phase three clinical trials, with its patent pending overseas," Yu said. "We plan to finish recruiting patients and begin trials this year." The dry eye drug, YDE, is in a preclinical stage, and the company said it confirmed the new drug does not have side effects such as irritation or diminished sense of taste, while it has improved lubrication and anti-inflammatory properties. Last month, Yu attended this year's annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in Canada and announced the new drug's functions and plans for global clinical trials. "Unlike artificial tears, there are only three dry eye drugs available in the global market," Yu said. "The market is huge and we have high hopes for the success of YDE." Given its size and growth, the dry eye drug market is also deemed lucrative for the firm. The domestic market was worth 160 billion won in 2016, while globally it is expected to reach $6.1 billion by 2027, growing 6.4 percent annually from $3.1 billion in 2017. "To accelerate the two projects, we are highlighting open innovation by forging ties and partnerships with startups and outside experts and embracing their innovative ideas," Yu said, adding the firm is investing 5 percent of its revenue into R&D. As part of this, Yuyu Pharma signed a deal with a biopharmaceutical venture company, IMDPharm, to use its technology in making small tablets for the prostate drug. "Along with prescription drugs, we will continue expanding our over-the-counter medication and health supplements," Yu said. Currently, 76 percent of its sales comes from prescription drugs. "The government is introducing favorable policies for supplements these days, and these are easier for customers to purchase than prescription drugs," he said. "Enhancing the supplement business will help the company have a better balance in sales." Yuyu Pharma plant in Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province / Courtesy of Yuyu Pharma A total of 413 Chinese peacekeepers on Tuesday departed Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, for the western African nation of Mali for a one-year United Nations peacekeeping mission HARBIN, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th May, 2019 ) :A total of 413 Chinese peacekeepers on Tuesday departed Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, for the western African nation of Mali for a one-year United Nations peacekeeping mission. The peacekeepers, consisting of a guard unit of 210 personnel, a sapper unit of 140 and a medical unit of 63, are the seventh group to be sent to the country. They will take on a number of tasks, including providing security and medical services, as well as road and airport construction. The peacekeepers have undergone special training to be better prepared for anti-terrorism and anti-riot operations, as well as the high temperatures in the region. They have also studied UN peacekeeping regulations, diplomatic protocol and local customs. BUENOS AIRES (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2019) Argentinian police received a phone call bomb threat against the presidential palace Casa Rosada and the Chamber of Deputies building in Buenos Aires, local media reported on Monday. According to TN tv Channel, a special group for bomb disposal was dispatched to the buildings. One of the Argentinian lawmakers Carlos Gaston Roma told Sputnik that the Chamber of Deputies building had been evacuated. The person who called the police threatened to blow up a bomb in a car, according to other media reports. The incident came right after a man was arrested earlier in the day while trying to enter the presidential palace with a Magnum gun asking to see Argentinian President Mauricio Macri. It is not the first time Buenos Aires faces bomb threats. Similar cases took place ahead of a G20 meeting last year. (@FahadShabbir) The leaders of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party and the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria called for dialogue with Damascus on Wednesday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th May, 2019) The leaders of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party and the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria called for dialogue with Damascus on Wednesday. A joint statement, released after their meeting, said that the two agreed "to make every effort to achieve peace and security... and rely on dialogue with the central government in Damascus." The parties referred to the military option for Syria as a failure and suggested calling a nationwide conference to agree a road map for peace, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. The Kurdish parties said it was time to join forces in the fight against what they called "political islam," whose military wing is made up of Islamic State and al-Qaeda terror groups (both banned in Russia). The two parties also said they would demand Turkish military pullout from Syria. Turkey sees Kurdish militias in Syria as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdish Worker's Party, which seeks a sovereign state in parts of the Turkish territory. Gunvar Lenhard Wie, director of the NSC for the Korean and Japanese markets and Counsellor at the Norwegian Embassy in Korea, speaks at a press conference at The Plaza Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Norwegian Seafood Council Published: May 14, 2019 University of Tampa Graduate Students Win Collegiate Start-Up Competition University of Tampa graduate students Emilia Meo and Zac Herman recently won first place in the 2019 Statewide Collegiate Start-up Competition in Orlando, sponsored by the Florida Venture Forum. Meo and Herman beat teams from 10 other Florida universities and will meet with investors in Tampa next week to discuss funding the growth of their company. Meos and Hermans company, SEED Classroom, is a mobile application that allows teachers to utilize mobile devices as a tool for education, while ensuring that students are on task. In this application, teachers are notified when students have left the SEED app and have opened a new one. This holds students accountable throughout the day. Additionally, SEED functions as a live hall pass. The app is meant to create a productive learning environment and ensure students are engaged in the classroom. The Florida Venture Forum is the preeminent statewide, member based, private equity, venture capital and angel capital organization in Florida. Both Meo and Herman are students in UTs masters in entrepreneurship program, and Spartan Accelerator participants in UTs Lowth Entrepreneurship Center. The University of Texas at Arlington is strengthening its global partnerships by signing a five-year agreement with Taiwans National Chung Hsing University, allowing NCHU students to earn accelerated masters degrees in civil engineering from UTA. Officials from UTA and Taiwans National Chung Hsing University sign an agreement that would allow NCHU students to earn an advanced degree in civil engineering. This agreement establishes a strong partnership between two leading universities and will result in high achieving students from the National Chung Hsing University benefitting from the knowledge and expertise of our world renowned faculty in the Department of Civil Engineering, UTA President Vistasp Karbhari said. I commend Professor Ali Abolmaali, Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, and Peter Crouch, Dean of our College of Engineering, on their proactive stance in developing such partnerships that further our mission of ensuring that we have global impact while providing the highest levels of education to our students. I look forward to further growth of this partnership into areas of joint research and scholarly collaboration. NCHU President Fuh-Sheng Shieu said the agreement will benefit both institutions. We are the largest research university in Taiwan, he said. We must cultivate our young talent, and this agreement does just that. The agreement also seeks to Promote institutional exchanges in teaching methods, research activities and professional development Execute joint research projects Organize symposia, conferences, short courses and meetings on research issues Exchange information pertaining to developments in research at each institution U.S. Rep. Ron Wright of Arlington also praised the agreement. This is a great moment for both universities, said Wright, who serves on the House committees on education and labor and on foreign affairs. Forging educational partnerships helps build and maintain our great relationship. Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said UTA has a huge impact on quality of life for the citys residents, who hail from more than 100 countries. We welcome, invite and encourage that diversity, Williams said. Its exciting learning from different cultures. The officials praised local engineer William Tsao, who earned degrees from both NCHU and UTA, for help in bringing the universities together. Tsao is president of Lakeview Parkway Partners and on the advisory board of UTAs Department of Civil Engineering. UTA has enhanced its global impact through international partnerships. In addition to the agreement with National Chung Hsing University, UTA also has an executive MBA program in Taiwan. Kenyas Bishop of Lodwar, Dominic Kimengich, whose diocese is hosting more than 200 000 refugees from South Sudan, has called on South Sudanese leaders and their people to heed Pope Francis call for lasting peace in their country. Rose Achiego Nairobi, Kenya Last Month, Pope Francis pleaded with South Sudans President Salva Kiir, and Opposition leaders, during a spiritual retreat in the Vatican. He urged them to work together and seek lasting peace in their country. Diocese of Lodwar is hosting over 200 000 South Sudanese refugees I hope that Popes kissing of South Sudanese leaders feet will bring peace in that nation. We are hosting over 200,000 refugees in Kakuma from South Sudan, and now a (new) settlement camp is being opened meaning there is continued conflict, he said. Bishop Kimengich was speaking during the celebration of Holy Mass to mark the opening of the 6th annual Inter-Diocesan conference on cross-border peace and evangelisation that officially started on 14 May 2019 at St. Theresa Pastoral Centre in Lodwar. Inter-diocesan conference seeks to promote peace joint cross-border programmes The conference aims at promoting cross border peace and reconciliation towards peaceful co-existence among neighbouring communities and joint cross-border programmes that improve the socio-economic conditions of the nomadic communities in the region. Participants at the meeting include Bishop Virgilio Pante, I.M.C. of Kenyas Maralal Diocese. Bishop Pante is also the Chairperson for the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) Commission for Refugees Seafarers and Migrants. Others at the meeting are representatives from the Episcopal Conference, KCCB; the regional Bishops secretariat, AMECEA; dignitaries from the national governments of Kenya,South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia; ; as well as Government officials from these neighboring countries; local and international development partners, faith-based organisations and pastoralist communities of the region. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at a banquet in honor of guests who are in Beijing to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), May 14, 2019. Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan hosted the banquet in Beijing on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan hosted a banquet Tuesday evening in honor of guests who are in Beijing for the upcoming Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC). When delivering a speech at the banquet in the Great Hall of the People, Xi said the CDAC is held in line with the general trend of cooperation and development in Asia and the expectations of people of all countries for exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. The conference, to kick off on Wednesday, will serve as an exchange and mutual learning platform for the common development of various civilizations, Xi said. Noting that Asia is a major birthplace of human civilization, Xi said Asian civilizations have exchanged amid openness, grown together thanks to inclusiveness, and developed through innovation, to become splendid on the world stage. China adheres to the protection and inheritance of its fine traditional culture, promotes exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations, and contributes to the progress of human civilization, he added. Chinese President Xi Jinping (7th L) and his wife Peng Liyuan (8th L) pose for group photos with guests who are in Beijing to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), on May 14, 2019. Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan hosted a banquet in Beijing on Tuesday evening in honor of the guests. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) If Senate Bill (SB) 330 is passed in its current form, keeping La Jollas coastline from scraping the sky will be up to the San Diego City Council and no longer to the voters (not directly, anyway). A provision not clearly stated in the bill gives either the San Diego City Council or the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors (whichever has jurisdiction) the sole power to overturn Prop Ds 30-foot coastal height restriction established by public vote in 1972 on a project-by-project basis. The Light learned of the provision during an update given by Mathew Gordon, representative for Assembly member Todd Gloria, at the May 7 Bird Rock Community Council (BRCC) meeting. The latest version of the bill https://bit.ly/2VpGMJV makes no mention of city councils or boards of supervisors. What it does say, under Sec. 13, is that any requirement for a public vote to overturn Prop D is hereby declared against public policy and void. Therefore, overturning Prop D height limits would be a matter for city councils or boards of supervisors to decide case-by-case, explained Robert Gammon, communications director for State Senator Nancy Skinner (Democrat, representing the East Bay), who introduced the bill in February. Sources behind the scene tell the Light that the thinking behind outlawing a direct public vote is to expedite the process of getting height-limit exemptions passed. When asked to comment on the City Councils potential new charge, District 1 Council member Barbara Bry said: Im opposed to any legislation that tampers with the 30-foot coastal height limit that was approved by the voters of San Diego. Many have misinterpreted SB 330 as overturning that limit. (Realtor and community volunteer James LaMattery gave a presentation at the May 9 La Jolla Town Council meeting stating exactly this.) Gammon admitted that the language of the bill caused enough concern and confusion to justify adding another amendment to clarify that this section shall not be construed to void a height limit established by the electorate of an affected county or an affected city on or before Jan. 1, 2018. SB 330 has already passed the Senate Housing Committee (8-2), as well as the Senate Governance and Finance Committee (6-0). As the Light went to press on Tuesday, May 14, it was scheduled to be heard by the Senate Appropriations Committee. (If it passes there, it will go to the Senate floor later this month.) While addressing the BRCC, Gordon explained that SB 330 could potentially shed this or any other provision by the time the full Senate votes and that it will be subject to additional editing when it gets vetted by the Assembly. We dont know which way the wind is going to blow on it, Gordon said. Thats why Assembly member Gloria has not provided a position on it yet other than hes wary of overturning the will of the voters outright, since (the 30-foot height limit) is what San Diegans voted for. SB 330, dubbed the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, would suspend specific local rules and regulations that are recognized as obstacles to housing production, according to an initial statement from Skinner. In other Bird Rock Council news Rebuttal dispensed: Audrey Gans, human resources director of Sorrento Valleys Torrey Holistics cannabis dispensary, provided a rebuttal to the presentation made by Bird Rock resident Laura Bertagnolli at the March 5 BRCC meeting, during which she complained about the marijuana billboards lining Turquoise Street Torrey Holistics in particular being seen by young children on their way to and from school. (The story, which appeared on the front page of the March 15 Light, also ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune. ) I cant defend the billboards, because I am getting very tired of looking at them as well, Gans said, attempting to break the ice. Then she explained: I grew up with the egg and the frying pan and the teacher saying Just say no. Obviously, I have come a long way and I have learned the science of this plant and I am very passionate about changing minds. However, neither Bertagnolli nor two other residents who complained about the billboards on March 5 were present, so Gans provided her contact information for anyone who had a question, then relinquished the floor. Audrey Gans, human resources director of Sorrento Valleys Torrey Holistics cannabis dispensary, provided a rebuttal to the presentation made by Bird Rock resident Laura Bertagnolli at the March 5 BRCC meeting, during which she complained about the marijuana billboards lining Turquoise Street Torrey Holistics in particular being seen by young children on their way to and from school. (The story, which appeared on the front page of the March 15 also ran in the ) I cant defend the billboards, because I am getting very tired of looking at them as well, Gans said, attempting to break the ice. Then she explained: I grew up with the egg and the frying pan and the teacher saying Just say no. Obviously, I have come a long way and I have learned the science of this plant and I am very passionate about changing minds. However, neither Bertagnolli nor two other residents who complained about the billboards on March 5 were present, so Gans provided her contact information for anyone who had a question, then relinquished the floor. Refuge island correction: A conceptual diagram provided by the City of the refuge island to replace the southbound left-turn lane on La Jolla Boulevard at Mira Monte published in the April 10 La Jolla Light was preliminary and contained inaccuracies. An updated diagram, published below, shows a smaller island shifted 20 feet further south. (A resident concerned about her access being jeopardized expressed her concern to BRCC after seeing the original diagram in the Light.) Construction should begin shortly, Council member Barbara Brys representative, Mauricio Medina, told the BRCC. In this updated City diagram of the traffic refuge island (Figure 5) to be built on La Jolla Boulevard at Mira Monte, the island appears much smaller. Roundabout roundup : All five La Jolla Boulevard roundabouts were recently repaved to correct the job done last May, said BRCC secretary Barbara Dunbar. The roundabouts are expected to be re-striped by mid-May BRCC has reported the pedestrian-crossing signal pole missing from the La Jolla Boulevard pedestrian crossing just north of Camino de la Costa and expects the problem to be fixed soon. The pole was taken out during a February 4 hit-and-run accident, and the situation is dangerous for people trying to cross there Dunbar described the results of the latest three-hour inspection of the Bird Rock Maintenance Assessment District (MAD) as overall good despite damage caused by hit-and-runs, vandals and cars and pedestrians traveling through the roundabouts instead of around them. : All five La Jolla Boulevard roundabouts were recently repaved to correct the job done last May, said BRCC secretary Barbara Dunbar. The roundabouts are expected to be re-striped by mid-May BRCC has reported the pedestrian-crossing signal pole missing from the La Jolla Boulevard pedestrian crossing just north of Camino de la Costa and expects the problem to be fixed soon. The pole was taken out during a February 4 hit-and-run accident, and the situation is dangerous for people trying to cross there Dunbar described the results of the latest three-hour inspection of the Bird Rock Maintenance Assessment District (MAD) as overall good despite damage caused by hit-and-runs, vandals and cars and pedestrians traveling through the roundabouts instead of around them. Bird Rock Visioning: will take place 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wed., June 12, tentatively at the Masonic Lodge, 5655 La Jolla Blvd. Architect/coordinator Trace Wilson described it as getting in one room to brainstorm what we think the issues are and to identify what we want Bird Rock to look like in 20 or 30 years. Lunch will be served. will take place 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wed., June 12, tentatively at the Masonic Lodge, 5655 La Jolla Blvd. Architect/coordinator Trace Wilson described it as getting in one room to brainstorm what we think the issues are and to identify what we want Bird Rock to look like in 20 or 30 years. Lunch will be served. Parade theme: This years Bird Rock 4th of July Parade, sponsored by the Murfey Company, will have a Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places Youll Go theme. To contribute to defraying Murfeys costs, gofundme.com/2019birdrockparade Bird Rock Community Council next meets 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 4 at Bird Rock Elementary School, 5371 La Jolla Hermosa Ave. birdrockcc.org When the Apostolic Vicariate of Siam was created in 1662 with territories taken from what was then the Apostolic Vicariate of Cochin, it officially marked the establishment of the Catholic Church in what is Thailand today. The Vaticans top official overseeing the Catholic Churchs missions worldwide sets out on a visit to Thailand on Thursday to join in the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the establishment of the Apostolic Vicariate of Siam, that officially marked the beginning of the Catholic Church in the southeast Asian nation. Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, arrives in the Thai capital, Bangkok, on 16 May, in Bangkok. The following day, Friday, he will visit the Assumption Cathedral where he will meet the countrys bishops. On Saturday he will travel to Sampran, about 30 kilometres west of Bangkok, to preside over a solemn Eucharistic Concelebration to mark the 350th anniversary of the Apostolic Vicariate of Siam. In the afternoon he will meet the men and women religious, seminarians and catechists in the church dedicated to Blessed Father Nicolas Boonkerd Kitbamrung (1895-1944). Beatified by St. John Paul II in 2000, Fr. Nicolas died in prison, accused of espionage, at the end of a life dedicated totally to Christ and to the announcement of His Good News in the land. On Sunday, 19 May, Card. Filoni will travel to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, where there is a strong presence of tribal populations, and will be welcomed by the Lanna and Akha ethnic groups. There, he will meet priests, religious, catechists and senior village leaders and will celebrate an evening Mass. The following day, Monday, the cardinal will meet the Karen ethnic groups in the Mae-Porn missionary village and celebrate Mass for them. On Tuesday, May 21, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples will visit the Church of St. Joseph and the Portuguese village, where the missionaries sowed the first seeds of the Good News in Ayuthaya, the then capital of the Kingdom of Siam, considered the birthplace of the Vicariate of Siam. Card. Filoni will then visit the historic ruins of the ancient city, with important Catholic and Buddhist remains. (Source: Fides) An Introduction to Doing Business in Vietnam 2018-19 will provide readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Vietnam.... There is no question of compulsion to obtain documents like this for export. However, if it is required by the importer, we must make it available. Certificate of Origin is just like our Birth Certificate. This provides proof to the effect that the particular product is manufactured in India. This document can be collected from the website of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) under Product of India classification. This certificate can be taken for a particular product which is meant for export. Members of FIEO are required to pay a fee of Rs150/- while non-members have to pay Rs.250/- for getting this certificate. Born 1919 in Cincinnati, Ohio, American film, stage and radio actor Tyrone Power went to Hollywood in 1936 after appearing in few movies and some Broadway plays.From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include, and. Power's own favorite film among those that he starred in wasThough largely a matinee idol in the 1930s and early 1940s and known for his striking looks, Power starred in films in a number of genres, from drama to light comedy. In the 1950s he began placing limits on the number of films he would make in order to devote more time for theater productions. He received his biggest accolades as a stage actor inandPower died from a heart attack at the age of 44. He is the 21st most popular male film star of all time.For Power's contribution to motion pictures, he was honored in 1960 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that can be found at 6747 Hollywood Blvd.These fabulous photos that captured portrait of Tyrone Power during his career. Solar projects are rushing to begin commercial operations before the June 30 deadline Photo: Le Toan Vietnams BIM Group and Philippines-based AC Energy have energised three solar power plants with 330 megawatts of cumulative capacity in the central province of Ninh Thuan. The initiatives are located at the BIM solar power plant complex, making it the largest solar power plant in Southeast Asia. The work took around nine months to complete, with a power purchase agreement (PPA) being signed with state-run Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) at the end of last year. The BIM solar power plant complex was connected to the grid earlier this month. Doan Quoc Huy, vice chairman of BIM Group, said, BIM Group aims to become the leading pioneer investor in renewable energy in Vietnam by 2022, and the total clean energy capacity supplied by BIM Energy will reach a total scale of 1,000MWp of solar and wind power. The inauguration of a cluster of our three plants with the largest capacity in a short period of time is testament to BIM Groups long-term commitment to clean energy, Huy added. This is a positive movement from the local private companies in the context that applications for solar energy projects in Vietnam have risen dramatically over the past year, but few of them are yet to come online. The Vietnamese governments Decision No.11/2017/QD-TTg on mechanism to encourage the development of solar power provides tariffs of 9.35 US cents per kWh to solar plants that reach their commercial operation dates (COD) before June 30, 2019 with application limited to a period of 20 years from COD. Similarly, as an early bird in the wind power sector, local energy and real estate conglomerate Thanh Thanh Cong Group (TTC) said it plans to build as many as 20 solar parks with a total capacity of 1,000MW by next year. The group previously executed a number of clean energy projects using sugarcane waste before moving into the solar sector. TTC also teamed up Thailands Gulf to carry out three solar projects and one offshore initiative. They include two solar power schemes (TTCIZ-01 and TTCIZ-02) in the southern province of Tay Ninh, and a solar project and wind scheme in neighbouring Ben Tre province, with the total installed capacity of 460MW. TC Green Energy Investment JSC, an associate in which Gulf indirectly owns 49 per cent, operates the first of the two schemes, which commenced the sale of electricity to EVN in March, according to Gulfs latest report. The TTCIZ-01 solar power project is located in Trang Bang district, with an installed power generation capacity of 68.8MW and the total investment capital of around $65 million. TTCIZ-02, meanwhile, in which Gulf indirectly holds 90 per cent, has installed power generation capacity of 50MW and will supply electricity to EVN under the same terms as the first project. To date, construction on the second initiative has proceeded as planned and is expected to commence commercial operation as scheduled this year. Although both foreign and local investors remain concerned about the PPA model and the capacity of the nations power grid, these movements are providing encouragement to others. Vietnam is witnessing a wave of investment in renewable energy. The sheer number of projects approved shows that the field is currently very attractive, said Cao Quoc Hung, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, at a recent forum on renewable energy in Hanoi. Under the 2011-2020 National Power Development Plan, Vietnam plans to cut back coal-fired projects to 26,000MW by 2020, from the 36,000MW planned in 2011. Renewable energy would grow to 9.9 per cent of the countrys total electricity production by 2020, to 12.5 per cent by 2025, and to 21 per cent by 2030. According to John Rockhold, vice country director of Elumis Foundation, the government could consider PPAs, improving transparency, upgrading transmissions, and creating a mixed power master plan in order to create a market for renewables that is attractive enough to encourage developers to build new projects. As current PPAs come as a take it or leave it option, it increases risks for developers. PPAs could become a key factor in opening the doors to capital investment and start the country down the path of developing a strong renewables industry, said Rockhold. Bringing Siemens tech to healthcare, source: Siemens Healthineers With a system of 1,400 hospitals and 180,000 beds nationwide, Vietnam served more than 10 million patients in 2018. The countrys healthcare system has made tremendous progress in recent years, but the reality remains that the system still faces overcrowded hospitals, shortage of qualified medical experts and staff, lack of sufficient equipment and facilities, and financial shortages for service upgrades. The sustainable development of the countrys healthcare system requires a much larger investment than that of the national budget, thus the publicprivate partnership (PPP) model has received great attention from government and policymakers, as well as many other healthcare organisations and providers, as one of the key pillars of momentum for healthcare system development in the near future. According to Pham Le Tuan, former Deputy Minister of Health, investment under PPP will help hospitals to expand and upgrade their infrastructure and facilities, equip themselves with state-of-the-art technologies, and develop human resource capabilities which will ultimately benefit patients. Vietnam has proven it has great potential in this field, providing an increasing personal income and high value healthcare delivery. Together with overcrowded state-owned hospitals, private healthcare facilities are handed big opportunities. Up until now, joint ventures and socialised projects in medical equipment investment between public hospital and private ventures have called for VND3.2 trillion ($139 million) of investment. However, the lack of a legal framework and a comprehensive policy in PPP has hindered the attractiveness of this model to many private investors. Ensuring expertise Leveraging technology and innovation is essential to build capacity, streamline programmes, and further impact in successful PPP. This can be carried out in two ways: through the use of technical tools and platforms, and through the use of technical knowledge to ensure expertise and innovative practices are applied uniformly and consistently to community investment strategies. In the Industry 4.0 era, German-based Siemens Healthineers is seeking more co-operation opportunities in Vietnam with domestic partners in a bid to expand presence in a country boasting great potential. With strong co-operation with many hospitals such as Bach Mai, Hanoi Medical University Hospital, Viet Duc, Cho Ray, and University Medical Centre, and with many other partners such as the Hanoi Peoples Committee, Vingroup, Vietnam Japan Medical High-Tech Development JSC, and Viet Cuong Medical Investment Ltd., Siemens Healthineers is now looking for more partners in order to expand its presence in the country. Siemens Healthineers, with over 170 years of global experience, has a long history in Vietnam as a technology provider, service provider, and education partner. The company is pioneer in artificial intelligence development for more than 20 years and new deep learning technology now enables us to automate complex diagnostics and support optimal treatment. More than 500 patent families related to machine learning and over 125 patent families thereof are related to deep learning owned by the company. Possible pre-requisites It has been suggested that there should be government incentives to attract funders, for example in a value added tax (VAT) recovery model similar to the UKs MES projects. Currently in Vietnam the VAT is higher on services as compared to equipment in healthcare, so there is now a counter-incentive for services which are usually the base for PPP projects. There have also been calls to define the PPP model best suited for Vietnam, from groups such as Siemens Healthineers. Siemens points out that, as situations can differ from country to country, there must be some working groups between private sector and governments to define a model which works for Vietnam and is attractive for private investors, enabling them to bring global practice with some adaptations. Furthermore, Siemens believed it is necessary to have a transparent procurement process with clear tender requirements. This can be quite complex as the outcome based type of contract is very new to Vietnam. Moreover, long-term contracts are required to be enforceable over a long term period of decades and more due to the very heavy investment from private sectors. For example, a contract cannot be changed because of a change of government or hospital director. This is important to be secured to reduce risk for the private sector which will ensure their participation in the PPP. The security of payment/payment guarantees is also one key pre-requisite to boost the confidence of private investor. Last but not least, the system and the leaders from government and hospital side need to value performance and cost of non-performance which result in mindset shift from pay for an asset or fee-for-service towards value-based healthcare. The launch of Chubb Tower II building in Ho Chi Minh City The new premises offer a spacious office environment and training facilities for nearly 1,600 sales managers, representatives and employees in Ho Chi Minh City. The convenient city location, modern open-plan design and comfortable environment will also help create a better customer experience. Lam Hai Tuan, chairman and country president of Chubb Life in Vietnam said, We are investing in our presence in Ho Chi Minh City with the opening of a new sales office to better meet the growing demand for financial protection in Vietnams largest and most dynamic market. This is the 14th anniversary of our operation in Vietnam and we remain as committed as ever to providing superior products and services to meet the needs of the people of Vietnam and to supporting the local community, he added. Over the past 14 years, Chubb Life has demonstrated its commitment to the community by providing financial support for school and university students in Vietnam. To date, it has contributed around VND23 billion ($1 million) to meet the educational needs of young people, from building schools to providing scholarships to 1,200 university students in need. Lam Hai Tuan, chairman and country president of Chubb Life in Vietnam Chubb Life is one of the top life insurance firms in Vietnam with more than 80 sales offices and over 30,000 sales managers and representatives across the country. Its new premises in Ho Chi Minh City are located at 369 Nguyen Trai Street, Nguyen Cu Trinh Ward, District 1. Chubb Life is the international life insurance division of Chubb. In Asia, Chubb Life operates in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, and participates in a joint venture in China. Chubb Life has been in Vietnam since 2005 and launched its Fund Management Company (Chubb Life Fund Management Company Limited) in 2014. To meet the financial protection and security needs of its broad range of customers, Chubb Life in Vietnam (Chubb Life Insurance Vietnam Company Limited) offers a range of life protection, health, savings, and investment-linked insurance solutions through its agents, banks and its network of more than 80 offices Business has transformed in Vietnam over the years. The conversation technology providers like us have with enterprises is wholly different now. A few years back, we had to address a lot of fear and doubt, which is very normal to any new business adopting technology. The big questions we had to answer were Why cloud?, What are the benefits of the cloud?, How security on the cloud is run?, and What are the latencies? Now it is all about How? because they now see evidence for the gains in digital business in the industry leaders who have adopted with great success. The conversation has turned from Why do I need the cloud? into What is the best way to adopt technology? and that is only with traditional businesses, there is not even a conversation with digital native businesses because most of them were already born in the cloud. Similar to most markets in the ASEAN, we see tremendous change in Vietnam and we entered the market knowing full well that the first one or two years will be about producing concrete gains, executing our promises, and creating cases of success because each and every real business helped and issue solved talks volumes more about the benefits of the cloud than simple words. Vietnam and the region We have actually seen pretty similar patterns across the ASEAN. There may be some slight differences but many of the countries have only started down the path to technology adoption two-three years ago with some of the digital natives. These are the type of customers who were born in the cloud and most of them are trying to disrupt the market. Initially, there were a lot of concerns and uncertainties, and large enterprises have a very complex internal process and existing technology, but what we have seen in the past two or three years throughout the ASEAN, including Vietnam, is that businesses and customers now demand a lot of new services and new user experiences. These are driving enterprises to adopt technology faster. In order to allow them to build and continue competing with both the Digital Native Businesses and others, we have seen different segments of industries adopting technology in the past few years, with financial services, telco, manufacturing and retail, as all good examples. These are probably the top three to four industry sectors that are most actively looking at adapting Amazon Web Services (AWS) a trend shared in many markets. Another similarity is that within each of these industries there are always what we call the innovators and early adopters of technologies. For Vietnam, we have customers like Vietjet, VPBank, Masan or VTV these are the enterprises that have adopted technology first and have been leading their industry peers because they are gaining a lot of advantages over technology. A lot of times customers approach things that they do not know or do not understand with care and reservations. We are investing heavily in the Vietnamese market in order to try to increase our coverage, so that we have the team here to help and support customers. Nothing speaks louder than an actual case of success of a customer who has gained agility, availability, security, and a lot of cost savings in order to contribute to building new ideas to their business. We do not break down the market to the size of each country, but I could say that overall, for the past three years we have seen each of the ASEAN countries growing at very similar paces. Vietnam is the latest country where we have established market presence, but we are very happy with our contributions to our Vietnamese customers, and we are very glad to be working with each of these big customers in order to help them through the transition from older technologies to new technologies. Source: Asia Cloud Computing Association Ideas from growing demand People are looking at Vietnam as a market full of opportunities, this allows us to work even closer with Vietnamese customers because we believe that even though you have regional or global services, each of the countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, has a uniqueness. The more Vietnamese businesses grow, we are going to see a lot more ideas coming in, and a lot of these ideas will originate from Vietnam and grow outside of the country, instead of ideas created outside of the country and coming to Vietnam. That will be something very exciting for us. We work with our customers, listen to what they do. We do not come to the customers and sell them specific product solutions. Instead, we listen to their business objective. What do you want to do? What types of experiences they want to create? What are the challenges that stand between their ideas and reality? We work with them and then we bring many of our solutions and technologies to help them bring the idea into reality. We can only do this if we have a very strong local team, both people who are responsible for the business-side of the communication with the customer and people for the technical conversation. There are some Vietnamese businesses who found a lot of success in the country and then continued to find a lot of success outside of it. FPT is a good example. FPT was the first Vietnamese partner to achieve AWS premier status in the ASEAN. The company then leveraged the acquired skillset to expand their business outside of Vietnam. I believe FPT is now running business in Europe, the US, and other countries in the ASEAN as well. This is just one example. Nowadays in this industry, executives are getting to see and hear from their peers and maybe some executives from other industries and their new ideas. Banks in Vietnam are listening to banks in Singapore and Thailand and the US, looking at what they are doing in mobile banking, payment gateway, all of these new ideas. But then, Vietnam also has a lot of things that are unique that require these ideas to be customised, to fit the Vietnamese consumers preference. Grab is the other example that proves the way we work with our customers. Grab has operations in so many countries and they have been with AWS for a long time and we are glad to be working very closely with them as they are expanding their business through the region. The fact that they are doing well in Vietnam is very positive for us, not just because they are growing faster but because they are delivering new customer experiences for the Vietnamese consumers. The fact that Grab is another success case shows that if you have an idea and you can deliver a new user experience to customers, then there is business can be made. That is very positive because it encourages more people, both inside and outside Vietnam, to continue coming up with new ideas. If you can deliver better experiences for the consumers, there are always business opportunities. It helped create excitement and business opportunities in Vietnam because Vietnam has 90-100 million people, even more than Thailand. This represents tremendous opportunities for this business. Technology is there for you. Last year we created 1,957 new services and features and put them onto the cloud. If you divide it by 365, this is about five new capabilities per day. It does not matter if you are in Vietnam, in South Africa, Brazil, or even Sri Lanka you can access them. Now, are you willing to learn, are you committed to try and test it? If you are, we have people in Vietnamese who can help you with it. At its meeting at the Riford Library on Wednesday, May 8, the La Jolla Village Merchants Association (LJVMA) announced the results of a study it recently commissioned from five MBA students at San Diego State University on how to attract more tourists to La Jolla. One result was a shocker. When 300-plus visitors to either the La Jolla Open Aire Farmers Market or Ellen Browning Scripps Park were asked if they thought of La Jolla as an arts and culture destination, zero percent said yes. Zero percent. That would be a really expensive undertaking for this group to turn around, said LJVMA secretary Julie Wright, so we have to work with what weve got. The path of least resistance is to leverage what theyre already coming here for. According to the survey, thats La Jollas scenic beauty/nature and its dining, the top two answers. LJVMA executive director Jodi Rudick mentioned a big, bold idea the study suggested that plays into the first answer: connecting La Jolla Shores with The Village. If it were possible, she said, if there were a nice sea walk with connected pathways and trails down our coast, they thought this would make this destination more attractive, and a place where you can spend all day and do everything. When surveyed about whether they planned to shop or eat in The Village after visiting The Cove or farmers market, 55 percent of respondents said yes and 45 percent said no. However, 62 percent said they would if there were some incentive. How do we get people to walk up the hill from The Cove? Rudick asked, suggesting possible solutions including signage and loyalty programs. The two main obstacles to more frequent visitation were identified as distance and traffic, with 79 percent of respondents noting they would return more if La Jolla didnt take as much time to get to.And they didnt mention the smell! Rudick said, addressing her puckish comment toward the Light for its Return of The Cove Stench May 1 cover story, which she made no bones about disliking. The study results can be viewed at slideshare.net/lajollavillagemerchants Parking up the wrong tree Wright noted something the tourists in particular didnt complain about: La Jollas parking situation. Only the locals did, she said, noting that we are our own worst enemy here. This dovetailed into a presentation delivered by Brad Elssas, director of San Diego operations for Ace Parking, about a study conducted by his company. It showed that La Jolla currently has 6,745 total parking spots including 2,456 free on-street spaces, 4,089 garage and lot spaces (figuring in ACE, LAZ and the other parking companies) and 200 valet spaces.We are not out of parking, Elssas said, explaining that, at any given time on any given day even the busiest days an average of 142 spaces are available at Ace lots alone. (Even during the La Jolla Concours d Elegance, Elssas said, Ace lots were only 50 percent full.)Theres parking in the village, Elssas said. We just have to figure out how to market it. Rudick suggested forming a parking committee that would gather during an open public meeting and decide on how to tackle that problem. What we want to look at first is some of the lower-hanging fruit, such as signage, she said. Media plan approved The board voted unanimously to approve its media plan, which this month spent $4,000 on advertising its May 11 Enjoya La Jolla street fair in local newspapers, including the Light and the San Diego Union-Tribune (which owns the Light). Rudick said $20,000 more is available to spend by December 2019, adding that LJMVA is test-marketing a co-op plan involving some presence in higher-end publications. Were going to measure whether any of this is working for us, she said. Sales people are wonderful people, but we really want to see what works. Its your money. Thanks to a gift from an audience member, the La Jolla Village Merchants Association (shown: secretary Julie Wright, executive director Jodi Rudick and president Brett Murphy) is now the only double-gavelled community group in town. (COREY LEVITAN) In other merchant news Violations of "made-in-Viet Nam" labelling would be strictly handled. - Photo tienphong,vn The order came amid a reported flow of foreign-made and counterfeit products labelled as made-in-Viet Nam, especially consumer and fashion goods, which was causing a loss to the State budget revenue and damage to consumers as well as negatively affecting domestic export firms. Fighting origin fraud was essential to protecting brands and the rights of consumers, as well as creating a healthy business environment, the committee said. Focus would be placed on tightening supervision at border areas and strictly punishing violations related to trading of counterfeit products and products which were made in foreign countries but labelled made in Viet Nam. The US raised tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 per cent to 25 per cent, effective on Friday, as the trade dispute between the two countries deepened. Experts warned that the escalating US-China trade war would have significant impacts on the global economy. As the Vietnamese economy was largely dependent on trade, with exports equivalent to more than 100 per cent of the countrys gross domestic product, and the country also running a large trade surplus with the US, experts worried that Chinese goods would flow into Viet Nam and be labelled as made-in-Viet Nam to be exported to the US and other countries to avoid paying high tax rates. This would badly affect domestic production, especially when the US might consider raising tariffs on Vietnamese products. According to Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of the Viet Nam Institute for Economic and Policy Research, in the US-China trade war, Chinese producers might shift their products which were subject to high tax rate when directly exported to the US to other countries, especially ASEAN member countries. This would badly affect made-in-Viet Nam products, Thanh said. Ha Long Bay (Source: VNA) Customers can book the countrys first helicopter ride-hailing service through the FastGo app. The service uses a Bell 5050 helicopter which is a new model from US Bell manufacturer. Its cabin is covered by glass to ensure wide vision for visitors. All of the Ha Long Bay scenic tour has insurance for customers. Two helicopters will always be at Tuan Chau heliport to serve customers at any time without earlier announcement. Customers could have three options for their trip including 12, 25 or 40 minutes with different journeys to meet their demands. The service packages includes sightseeing tours, charter flights, A-B transfer tours, aerial survey tours, event tours, wedding photography and filming tours. At the launching ceremony, the Northern Vietnam Helicopter Company signed a cooperation agreement with the FastGo Vietnam Joint Stock Company. Under the agreement, the co-branding project will provide customers with a helicopter ride-hailing service through an app named FastSky. Responsible investment gains ground, photo Shutterstock As a global trade dispute reaches new levels, Vietnam has enjoyed a bit of spotlight as the next big production base for the ASEAN, poised to welcome scores of investors shifting production away from China. A recent Maybank survey showed that a fifth of China-based manufacturers are rushing to Vietnam to avoid high tariffs set by the United States. Foreign direct investment in the first quarter of 2019 jumped 86 per cent on-year, with flows mostly into electronics, textiles, garments, and consumer goods production. However, at last weeks Invest Asia 2019 conference held by Maybank Group in Singapore, experts and investors emphasised that if Vietnamese businesses do not pay close attention to sustainable development, they will not be able to join the global supply chain, attract major foreign investors or retain consumers. As the next manufacturing hub, Vietnam might want to avoid a similar fate as China, where pollution is becoming a dear cost to quick manufacturing growth, said Nicola de Loisy, president of Hong Kong-based advisory SCMO. South China Morning Post cited a Chinese University of Hong Kong study stating that air pollution from smog-inducing ozone and fine particles may be shaving an estimated 267 billion yuan ($38 billion) off the Chinese economy each year in the form of early deaths and lost food production. Melissa Kang, founder and managing partner of Jupiter Impact Partners, a Singapore-based firm in favour of sustainable investment, told VIR that Vietnamese consumers are also becoming more informed about sustainability and demand it from businesses. Thanks to a number of environmental scandals and social media, consumers, especially the younger generation, want businesses to be responsible towards the environment and community they operate in. Sustainability isnt something simply nice to have anymore. If companies in Vietnam want to stay in business, join the global supply chains, and keep customers, they must invest in sustainable development, said Kang. She spoke from her experience as a former investment officer of the International Finance Corporation and Morgan Stanley, and a close observer of Vietnams sustainability practices. Two months ago, a survey conducted by Oxfam and partners showed that 81 per cent of Vietnamese consumers have at one time or another boycotted a product due to poor business ethics, with environmental and social responsibility making up a prominent part. At the Invest Asia event, financiers also discussed how the financial industry can push sustainability practices in Vietnam. Efforts usually come from international investors, stock exchanges, and banks. The message is that if local companies want to receive funding from financial institutions or join the stock exchange, they should pay close attention to sustainability. When we talk with companies, we dont want the glossy sustainability reports. Well have discussions with executives to see whether this is an integral part of their strategy, because these efforts have to come from the top, said Munib Madni, CEO of Panarchy Partners. The investor said that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are increasingly used by investment funds that look for companies with not only growth prospects, but also a good impact on the environment and wider society. Last month, the ESG Global Survey 2019 showed that a quarter of European investors and 20 per cent of those in the Asia-Pacific already adopt ESG for more than half of their investment decisions. Investors in Asia in particular strongly believed that companies with ESG are more likely to outperform those without it for long-term, and this safeguards the reputation of both investors and their businesses. In Vietnam, there are already initiatives to push ESG by regulators and overseas investors. One example is Dragon Capital, who oversees $3 billion in assets and quickly realised that previous investments mostly failed due to ESG problems. To continue raising capital from major investors from across the world, the group has adopted an ESG standard and declined to invest in any Vietnamese companies that do not meet these requirements. Another strong advocate of ESG investing is Vietnam Holding, who have partnered with sustainability organisations and held annual forums on ESG best practices. Were a sustainable investor and are driven by shareholder value and the goals of ESG principles. Our investment system includes 36 specific criteria, and our evaluations compare an investee companys ESG improvement over time, said the investment fund. Market regulators are promoting ESG via legal documents such as Circular No.155/2015/TT-BTC on sustainability, and Decree No.71/2017/ND-CP on corporate governance. The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange has also introduced the Vietnam Sustainability Index for listed companies with the highest ESG scores. When asked whether Vietnamese companies can comply with regional and global ESG benchmarks, Rajiv Vijendran, regional head of Investment Banking and Advisory at Maybank Kim Eng, said that this is a common problem in frontier markets across Asia, and that opportunities to invest in ESG-compliant businesses are still limited, especially in listed ones. That said, the trend towards ESG is clear, especially with the push from institutional backers. As more investors put sustainability goals in their portfolios, companies will have to follow if they want to look for funding, Vijendran told VIR. Spurring US investment into new phase, illustration photo The American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi (AmCham), the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry last week hosted the annual Vietnam-US Business Summit, attracting 250 government and industry leaders from both countries, including leading American firms like Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Facebook. The event was created to build on current the momentum of bilateral economic relations and to address the areas where inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and unfair practices persist. American companies have invested billions of dollars here, integrating Vietnam into the global supply chain, creating quality jobs for Vietnamese workers, and opening a new market for US goods and services, said Amcham chairwoman Natasha Ansell. American companies have an interest in Vietnams continued success and AmCham continues to support the governments efforts to grow the private sector here. During the event, participants focused on the top issues of enhancing the digital economy, addressing energy development needs, promoting a creative economy, and looking at global trade dynamics and competitiveness, all of which are important to Vietnams economic development. The two sides also looked into methods to further enhance bilateral relations to create both long-term economic and social values. At the event, the US Chamber of Commerce recommended launching an initiative to intensify commercial engagement under the auspices of the existing Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). Under the initiative, the two nations would elevate the level of TIFA discussions to more senior officials, with Vietnams Government Office and the United States Trade Representative being recommended. The chamber released a blueprint that outlines a series of recommendations for enhancing the commercial relationship. It called for intensifying work under the existing TIFA between the two countries, with specific agreements in areas such as digital trade, customs and trade facilitation, energy infrastructure, intellectual property rights, and technical barriers to trade. To achieve the goals, the chamber suggested that the two sides initiate discussions and conclude agreements on specific initiatives in time for Party General Secretary, State President Nguyen Phu Trongs expected visit to Washington later this year, or on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Chile or another convenient venue. Following signature, the two sides should immediately begin work on the various initiatives, with the first meeting under the intensified TIFA to be held in spring 2020, and a second meeting to be held in the fall surrounding the APEC meeting in Malaysia. Experts hope that once the blueprint is completed, bilateral trade and investment ties will enter a new chapter of development. Economic relations between Vietnam and the US have grown exponentially since the two countries restored diplomatic ties 25 years ago. Since 2003, the US has always been among Vietnams largest export markets, while Vietnam has consistently been among the US export markets with the fastest growth. Last year, US exports to Vietnam rose by 46 per cent on-year. In terms of funding, US investment has continued to increase. As of last month, the US invested over $9 billion in Vietnam, ranking 11th among all countries and territories having investment here. Our members are very focused on Vietnam, and are optimistic about the potential for growth in this market, said Charles Freeman, senior vice president for Asia at the US Chamber of Commerce. We continue to believe that the long-term goal for the US and Vietnam should be to have a free trade agreement between them. At the same time, we recognise the nearer-term realities and we have therefore outlined a series of steps which we believe are practical, achievable, and realistic. These will facilitate greater trade and investment, and form the building blocks of an eventual agreement. Evidently, American investors are ready for new plans in Vietnam and now look for barriers to be broken and paths to be smoothed out in order to make bold next steps. US investors are heading to Southeast Asia with new policies to shore up markets amidst the trade dispute between China and the US, and to benefit from the American governments recent announcement of the US-ASEAN Smart Cities partnership. The move is aligned with Vietnams new foreign direct investment attraction strategy towards 2030 and shows its ambition to lure large-scale projects from US investors that have strong expertise in the precise fields the country requires investment in, such as technology, renewable energy, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. These include transnational corporations named in the Forbes Global 2000 list. The relationship between Vietnam and the US has been enhanced over the past 25 years, said Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung. Vietnam wants to further strengthen ties with the US, with trade and investment being one of the key pillars. Vietnam encourages American investment, especially in the fields the US has strong expertise, for example renewable energy, infrastructure, banking and finance, education, and high technology. Serena Williams won her first round match after two months out with a knee injury. (AFP/Andreas SOLARO) Svitolina - who had a first round bye as fifth seed - held a match point at 5-2 in the third set before slumping 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 to Belarus Victoria Azarenka in a 2hr 14min battle at the Foro Italico which was twice interrupted because of rain. Serena earlier announced she was withdrawing having just returned after two months out injured, before she was due to play her older sister Venus for the first time in 21 years in Rome. The 37-year-old had eased past Sweden's Rebecca Peterson in her first round match on Monday, but a day later could not continue "due to pain in my left knee". "I'll be concentrating on rehab and look forward to seeing you all at the French Open and next year in Rome," Serena said in a statement. Her withdrawal sends Venus, the 1999 winner, through to a third round meeting with either Britain's Johanna Konta or US seventh seed Sloane Stephens. There are now doubts whether Serena can target a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam title in Paris, having played just nine matches this year, and one on clay. Her last Grand Slam singles title was won at the Australian Open in 2017, where she was pregnant, breaking a tie with Steffi Graf for the most, and she is just one short of Margaret Court. The three-time French Open winner revealed getting back to fitness has been tougher than she had expected. "I haven't been able to train or practice a lot, I was out much longer than I expected," she explained. "I feel like I'm taking it one day at a time." Nevertheless, last year she arrived at Roland Garros without any clay-court warm-up and still reached the last 16 before retiring before her match against Maria Sharapova, also because of injury. Svitolina and Azarenka battled late into the night at the Foro Italico before former two-time Australian Open winner Azarenka won through. Svitolina came back after the rain break to drop the second set but rolled off the first three games in the third, before being broken when serving for the match at 5-2 in the third set. Azarenka saved match point and took the next game for love, rolling off five in a row to set up a meeting former French Open winner Garbine Muguruza or Danielle Collins for a place in the third round. Collins advanced past former world number one Caroline Wozniacki who retired with a lower leg injury, after losing the first set 7-6 (7/5). Czech fourth seed Karolina Pliskova eased through to the third round along with Australian Ashleigh Barty, the eighth seed. ZVEREV HORROR SHOW In the men's competition, world number five Zverev, the 2017 winner and runner-up to Novak Djokovic last year in Rome, extended his terrible clay-court run, falling 7-5, 7-5 to Italian wild card Matteo Berrettini in the second round. "The match that I played was horrendous," said Zverev, who has won just four matches on clay this season, including a run to the quarter-final of the Madrid Open where he was the defending champion. "I've lost my voice screaming, I'm overjoyed. This is a victory that charges me," said 33rd-ranked Berrettini. Belgian David Goffin rallied from a set down to beat former French Open champion Stan Wawrinka 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 to set up a meeting with Argentine seventh seed Juan Martin Del Potro for a place in the third round. Ninth seed Marin Cilic beat Italian wild card Andrea Basso 6-1, 7-5 as Australian Nick Kyrgios struck 15 aces and 41 winners to get past Russian 12th seed Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. "I knew it was going to be tough today because I haven't played much on clay," said Kyrios, who next plays Norwegian qualifier Casper Ruud. Portgual's Joao Sousa saved four match points in the deciding set to battle past American Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/4). Sousa, who also trailed 1/4 in the deciding set tie-break, will play third seed Roger Federer in the second round. Eight-time Rome winner Rafael Nadal will start his tournament against Jeremy Chardy on Wednesday, after the Frenchman beat compatriot Richard Gasquet 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 in a match suspended overnight on Monday. US President Donald Trump told reporters that the escalating battle with China on trade was "a little squabble". (AFP/SAUL LOEB) And although he said he has an "extraordinary" relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Trump insisted he will not sign onto any deal unless it is a good one. "We're having a little squabble with China because we've been treated very unfairly for many decades," Trump told reporters at the White House. Last week, Trump moved to more than double the punitive duties on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese merchandise and the latest round of US-China trade negotiations ended without a deal. Timeline of US-China tariff hikes. (AFP/Gal ROMA) On Monday, China hit back, announcing a sharp increase in duties on thousands of US agricultural and manufactured goods in retaliation. And the US has begun the process of carrying out the Republican president's threat to hit all imports from China, extending tariffs to another US$300 billion worth of Chinese merchandise. "We're looking at that very strongly," Trump said. He said the tough US stance is working and Beijing wants to make a deal, but he also blamed the Chinese leadership for the setback in the negotiations. "We had a deal that was very close and then they broke it. More than renegotiate, they really broke it. We can't have that happen." WORLD'S PIGGY BANK Trump launched the trade war last year to extract profound economic reforms from Beijing and reduce the US trade deficit. He accused China of seeking to dominate global industries through massive state subsidies and theft of American technology - in violation of commitments it made upon joining the World Trade Organisation in 2001. The United States and China have so far exchanged tariffs on more than US$360 billion in two-way trade. Since last year, the trade war has gutted US farm exports to China and weighed on the manufacturing sectors in both countries. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump pledged to help hard-hit American farmers caught in the middle of the escalating trade war. The administration last year offered US$12 billion in compensation to American farmers and has vowed to do more, using the revenues from the new tariffs - which he incorrectly claims is paid by China rather than US importers - to buy crops and support prices. "This money will come from the massive Tariffs being paid to the United States for allowing China, and others, to do business with us. The Farmers have been 'forgotten' for many years. Their time is now!" Trump tweeted. "We're the piggy bank everybody likes to take advantage of or take from. We can't let that happen anymore," Trump then told reporters. He has made the US trade deficit a key focus on his policies, taking the unusual view that Americans lose money by buying products from abroad. Economists are nearly unanimous in saying trade benefits companies and consumers by providing products from countries that make them more efficiently and cheaply. Trump said consumers can get around the tariffs by buying from other providers, or companies can move to the United States to manufacture their goods. "That's what I really want. You want to know something? We always win. We always win," he said. The annual general shareholders' meeting of Vietnam Airlines Speaking at the meeting, Nguyen Thi Phu Ha, vice chairwoman of the Committee for State Capital Management (CMSC), said: Vietnam Airlines (VNA), as the national airline, has made great efforts to fulfil its plan, contributing to the overall development of the domestic aviation industry. During the four years of operations as a joint stock company, VNAs production and business results were always higher than in the previous year. In 2018, VNA has also achieved its targets. Pham Ngoc Minh, VNA chairman, said: Although the aviation market continues to have many challenges, 2019 is an opportunity for VNA to confirm its position in the aviation market and in the business community. We will focus on implementing the tasks assigned by the AGM, ensuring safe operations, continuing the programme of reforming our aircraft fleet, and improving business administration towards sustainable growth. Pham Ngoc Minh, chairman of VNA VNA shareholders discussed and voted to approve important issues such as the company's report on the business results in 2018 and main targets of production and business plan in 2019, audited financial report for 2018 and plans to distribute profit and dividend, plan to strengthen the Board of Control as well as developing the fleet in 2021-2025, the investment policy to buy 50 narrow-body aircraft in the period 2021-2025, and some other important contents. Duong Tri Thanh, general director of VNA The shareholders appreciated VNAs many achievements in 2018. Consolidated revenue was at a record, reaching VND98.95 trillion ($4.3 billion), up 1.9 per cent compared to the plan. The aviation company also achieved the largest consolidated pre-tax profit so far with VND3.3 trillion ($143.5 million), exceeding the plan by 36.8 per cent. In particular, the parent company contributed VND73.227 trillion ($3.18 billion) in revenue and VND2.418 trillion ($105.13 million) in pre-tax profit, exceeding the target set by the 2018 AGM by 23.4 per cent. The debt to equity ratio has reached 2.58, lower than at the beginning of 2018 and the set target. In 2018, VNA successfully performed over 141,300 flights, safely transporting nearly 22 million passengers, maintaining four-star international service standards and its on-time performance (OTP), with improving labour productivity, income, and welfare for workers. With good business and production indexes, VNA has been rising on the UPCoM and is appreciated for its high liquidity and large market capitalisation at approximately $2.6 billion. Since May 7, 2019, VNA has completed procedures to officially list HVN shares on HSX. The listing on HSX created favourable conditions for the corporation to improve its reputation, transparency of information, increase the liquidity of stocks, and access many sources of new capital. Previously, VNA also completed the plan to offer shares to shareholders to increase its charter capital. As a result, the companys capital value increased by VND1.9 trillion ($82.6 million), bringing its charter capital to VND14.18 trillion ($616.5 million). VNAs efforts to improve and enhance its brand continue to be recognised by the domestic and international community through a series of prestigious awards. This is the third consecutive year that Skytrax, the international air transport rating organisation, recognises VNA as a four-star international airline. With the brand value of $416 million, according to Brand Finance, VNA also advanced one rank among the Top 10 strongest and most valuable brands in Vietnam in 2018. With such impressive business results, VNA will pay 10 per cent dividends for 2018 in cash (equivalent to over VND1.418 trillion $61.7 million), 2 per cent higher than in 2017. This ratio is consistent with the business results of 2018 and the regulations of the state, ensuring the balance of cash flows and financial balance for the expanded investment, production, and business activities of the corporation in 2019 and the following years. Regarding the 2019 business and production plan approved by the AGM, VNA strives to reach the target of 24.9 million total passenger transport volume. The consolidated revenue target is more than VND111.7 trillion ($4.86 billion), in which the parent company reached over VND82.5 trillion ($3.59 billion). The consolidated pre-tax profit target is nearly VND3.4 trillion ($147.83 million), of which the parent company expects to reach nearly VND2.7 trillion ($117.4 million). In the first quarter of 2019, VNAs business activities continued to be positive, with total consolidated revenue of nearly VND26 trillion ($1.13 billion), consolidated pre-tax profit of VND1.58 trillion ($68.7 million), reaching 45 per cent of the whole year plan. The parent company reached VND19.3 trillion ($840.52 million) in revenue, up 5.5 per cent over the same period and VND1.28 billion ($55.61 million) in pre-tax profit, up 36.6 per cent over the same period. Women-led SMEs in Vietnam to be supported by new financing The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has just received $20.2 million fromthe Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) to support women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (WSMEs) to access critical financing and training in Vietnam and the Pacific. The grant, the second that the ADB has received from WE-FI, will finance the Women Accelerating Vibrant Enterprises in Southeast Asia and the Pacific (WAVES) programme, which aims to promote inclusive and sustainable growth and development through womens businesses and entrepreneurship. Approximately 5,000 women-led SMEs from Vietnam and the Pacific will benefit from the five-year programme. Womens businesses play a crucial role in the Asia and Pacific regions efforts to achieve inclusive and sustainable development, but social and economic barriers will have to be addressed for women to realise this potential, said the ADB's social development specialist for gender and development, Keiko Nowacka. For ADB, We-Fi is an opportunity to help accelerate progress on gender equality and challenge the entrenched status quo that prevents WSMEs from flourishing, added she. The programme will improve WSMEs access to finance through innovative financial approaches including performance-based pricing in Vietnam and the first gender bond in the Pacific. This is important given that the Asia-Pacific has one of the largest global SME financing gaps, with 59 per cent of the gap attributed to credit constraints faced by WSMEs. In Vietnam, the gender financing gap is estimated by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) at $1.19 billion. National partners, including government agencies, civil society organisations, and womens business associations, meanwhile, will be mobilised to support the design and implementation of gender-responsive regulations, policies, and action plans to foster a more conducive environment for women-led businesses to thrive and expand. The WAVES programme will focus on developing womens capacity through financial literacy and business acceleration programmes, mentorship, and networking opportunities, with a view of equipping them with the necessary skills to run and expand their enterprises. Last, WAVES will contribute to strengthening evidence and data on WSMEs in order to better inform policies and interventions moving forward. Women-led businesses comprise about 60 per cent of all micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises in Asia and the Pacific. However, these enterprises face capital constraints, which hamper their growth and development, while the women heading these businesses have limited access to business training and to targeted government support. The WAVES programme will address these constraints by focusing on the three areas of WSMEs development access to finance, capacity development, and enabling environment. In April 2018, the ADB received a $12.6 million grant from WE-FI to promote women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka.The bank has been investing in womens entrepreneurship in the Asia and Pacific region, as part of its commitment to advancing womens economic empowerment, which is one of the operational priorities of its newly adopted Strategy 2030. By 2030, it is expected that 75 per cent of all ADB projects will promote gender equality. We-Fi is governed by 14 founding contributing countries and is managed by the World Bank. It aims to mobilise more than $1 billion in commercial and international financial institution finance to afford women entrepreneurs access to debt, equity, venture capital, insurance products, and other opportunities to link with domestic and global markets. The aim is to improve the business environment for women-owned or led SMEs. During a public forum on future transportation options at the May 9 La Jolla Town Council (LJTC) meeting, deep frustration was expressed with the lack of any dedicated shuttle service planned from The Village to the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Mid-Coast Trolley. Scheduled to open in Fall 2021, its nearest stops with dedicated parking garages will be either at La Jolla Village Square Mall (4.3 miles from Vons, 7544 Girard Ave.) or at Balboa Avenue near Morena Boulevard (5.8 miles from Vons). Its in the La Jolla Community Plan, its in the Coastal Plan, said panelist and La Jolla Traffic & Transportation Board (LJT&T) chair Dave Abrams. There just doesnt seem to be any money for it, and we think were being ignored. echoed panelist and LJT&T trolley committee chair Dan Allen: Were spending billions on this trolley, billions, and its going to zoom right past La Jolla without much benefit to us. Following the forum, LJTC president Ann Kerr Bache floated a motion to ask the City for additional funding for a shuttle, which the LJTC passed unanimously. Its very clear with the current plan, theres no way we can match La Jolla residents and businesses effectively with the trolley without additional resources, the motion said in part. Also on the panel was District 4 County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, so Kerr Bache asked him if the County could help provide those resources. No, the County of San Diego doesnt pay for transit, Fletcher replied. This is what MTS (Metropolitan Transit System) does, this is what San Diego does, this is what SANDAG does, this is what the State of California does. I think, between those entities and jurisdictions, if we can find a few billion dollars to build a trolley line, it seems like we can find the money to have a shuttle to connect people to transportation centers. Fletcher said that MTS, on whose board he sits, is looking at a lot of things as we move forward about how we connect these things in a system that actually works. Fletcher then gave a 12-minute speech about the philosophy behind the trolley, as if to rally demoralized troops. He said that California is now far off its 2030 climate goals, and getting farther off track. We are increasing our greenhouse gas emissions as a state, almost exclusively due to the fact that we are massively increasing our vehicle miles traveled, he said. In San Diego, weve added a billion vehicle miles traveled in the last decade. In addition, due to lower-income housings proximity to air pollution from the freeways where these miles are traveled, Fletcher said, a child born today in Barrio Logan is eight times more likely to have asthma than a child born in La Jolla. And thats wrong, he said. Thats morally wrong. We have to fundamentally rethink what were doing. Fletcher said a transit-only ballot issue is being prepared for San Diegans to vote on in 2020. As a region, are we going to live in the past or are we going to move forward into a better future? Fletcher asked. And change is always hard, because youre disrupting the way things have always been done. But when I look at the issues surrounding transportation, I dont think we have a choice. We have to change. Most people in the audience, and on the panel, applauded the speech. SANDAG is building its Nobel dEIVE trolley station and parking garage on land it seized from the La Jolla Village Square shopping mall parking lot in an ongoing eminent-domain lawsuit. (COREY LEVITAN) Sandbagged by SANDAG? Also during the forum, SANDAG regional planner Marisa Mangan was placed in the hot seat by audience member and La Jolla resident Will Cooper, who asked repeatedly about how SANDAG plans to deal with the increased traffic caused by the 600-space parking garage and Nobel Drive trolley stop that its currently building on a portion of La Jolla Village Squares parking lot. The access into that area is very bad already, and its just going to be a complete disaster if nothing is done to properly deal with that, Cooper said. The fact that youre building a 600-parking-spot location tells me that youre planning to have a lot more vehicles in there. But that junction just isnt big enough to handle the amount of traffic from people parking their cars for the trolley. There just is no way to get off of I-5 conveniently to park your car for the trolley. SANDAG filed an eminent-domain lawsuit in 2017 against the owner and tenants of the mall to be able to seize that particular construction area. Given the lawsuit, any kind of strategies weve been thinking about for the immediate station area, weve been very limited to just kind of the trolley platform and the structure, Mangan said. Were going to be doing our very best to encourage folks to not drive there and not necessarily add to the congestion. In other Town Council news Cambodia and Nepal are discussing joint steps to promote direct flights between the countries and to open the embassies in their capitals in order to strengthen bilateral cooperation, a government spokesperson said. Nepals Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli is on an official three-day visit to Cambodia this week and held bilateral talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen. Together they also addressed a Cambodia-Nepal Business Forum in Phnom Penh, which was attended by businesses representatives from the two countries, and they urged greater trade and investment between their nations. Council of Ministers spokesperson Phay Siphan said the meetings had resulted in a commitment to try to establish direct flights between the countries and to open embassies, though he could not confirm when either of the plans would be implemented. Diplomatic work is good communication and international cooperation. And in principle, Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen has been integrating with the region as well as other countries around the world, he said, using the premiers full honorific titles. Cambodia and Nepal established diplomatic relationship began in 1964. During Cambodias decades of civil war, relations were cut starting in mid-1970s only to be reestablished in 1999. Chheang Vannarith, president of the Asian Vision Institute in Phnom Penh, said the countries could test whether there was enough demand for a direct flight, though he added that daily flights were unlikely to be feasible. He said the opening of embassies would help strengthen trade and investment, and cultural exchange, while smaller countries such as Nepal and Cambodia can also benefit from greater diplomatic cooperation in the international arena. Trade between the countries remains very small, however. From 2014 until the first six months of 2018, bilateral trade between the two countries totaled just $170,000, according to Cambodias Ministry of Commerce figures. Like Cambodia, international tourism is a major industry in Nepal, but the Himalayan country lacks large garment or manufacturing industries. The ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China is having an impact on most farmers across the country. Their corn and soybean crops are subject to tariffs and increasing competition from other suppliers. As VOAs Kane Farabaugh reports, U.S. farmers arent just concerned about their bottom lines this year. They're also worried about the long term consequences of a trade war on the only business many have ever known. Press freedom is under attack in France as three journalists face an inquiry over the leaking of a classified report on the use of French arms in Yemen, rights groups are warning. The three journalists -- Geoffrey Livolsi and Mathias Destal from the Disclose website and Radio France's Benoit Collombat -- have been summoned to a hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday at the domestic intelligence agency DGSI, which is leading investigations into the leak. The inquiry was "an unacceptable attack on press freedom and the protection of journalists' sources", said a letter signed by 17 rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights and Sherpa. Investigative new media outlet Disclose obtained a military intelligence dossier, classified as confidential, dating from September 25 that details the French tanks, artillery and ships in Yemen. The information "is of essential public interest", the rights groups said, urging the French interior, army and foreign ministries to "cease intimidation against the press and respect the secrecy of sources". The 15-page dossier, which Disclose published last April 15, details weapons sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who have led a bloody campaign against Huthi rebels in Yemen. Under pressure for years by rights groups over the sales, Paris has always insisted the arms are only used in defensive circumstances to deter attacks by rebels. French President Emmanuel Macron last Thursday defended the arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with a new shipment expected to leave from the northern port of Le Havre. Some 10,000 have died in the Yemen war and millions have been forced to the brink of starvation. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law Wednesday a near-total ban on abortions in her state. "To the bill's many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God,'' the Republican governor said in a statement. Lawmakers in the southeastern U.S. state had passed the legislation Tuesday, sparking a legal fight over a measure that becomes the nation's most stringent abortion law. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America vowed Wednesday to challenge the legislation in court. "We have no choice," said President Leana Wen. "We are talking about the rights for generations to come." WATCH: Alabama Passes Near Total Ban on Abortions The Republican-dominated Senate voted 25-6 to make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison for the abortion provider, although women seeking or undergoing an abortion would not be punished. The only exception would be when the woman's health is at serious risk. Senators rejected an attempt to add an exception for rape and incest. Supporters said the bill was designed to spark litigation that could lead to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion. "Roe v. Wade has ended the lives of millions of children," said Alabama Republican Sen. Clyde Chambliss. "This bill has the opportunity to save the lives of millions of unborn children." Action by other states Emboldened by the Supreme Court's new conservative justices, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. And abortion opponents in several other states are seeking to challenge abortion access. "This is a plan by the Republican Party, make no mistake, to overturn Roe v. Wade and turn back the clock on women's reproductive civil and human rights," U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a Democratic presidential candidate, said in an interview Wednesday on CNN. Another Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, said the current law should not be declared unconstitutional. "Roe v. Wade is settled law and should not be overturned," Biden said. "The choice should remain between a woman and her doctor." A Pew Research Center poll conducted late last year found that 58 percent of those surveyed said abortion should be legal in almost all cases while 37 percent said it should be unlawful. The European Parliament is expected to be a different legislature after next week's election, and leading Czech conservative lawmaker Jan Zahradil is hoping that voters embrace the idea of a scaled-back European Union. Zahradil is a moderate critic of the bloc, not a firebrand like French euroskeptic Marine Le Pen, and he is campaigning for a more flexible EU. "I'd call it a multi-speed European Union with more space for the national governments and parliaments," Zahradil told The Associated Press in an interview. "We want the European Union to simply do less and to do it better." Zahradil is leader of the group known as the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, which is the third largest in the European Parliament. His group is unlikely to win the ballot in the May 23-26 elections. But he wants to contribute to reforming the EU and attract those critical of its policies with a promise of a more pliable and downsized Europe in the future. The majority held by the center-right European People's Party and the center-left Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament is expected to evaporate. And Zahradil is hoping that European conservatives will fill the void after decades in opposition. Zahradil said his main objection to the EU is "a permanent effort to transfer the solving of all problems [from the national] to the European level, even though it's not effective." "The European Commission, together with the European Parliament, uses every opportunity to gain more powers, to create an impression that we can't do without the EU. In many cases, it doesn't work." Zahradil is a European Parliament member for the conservative Civic Democratic Party. He is also his group's candidate to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. He wants to replace the current EU mantra of "one size fits all" with a looser model of European integration. Zahradil said that in the multi-speed Europe, it would be possible for the member states to unite their policies according to their wishes and needs. "For example, if Germany and France agree to harmonize their taxes, that's fine but they should not force the others to join them," he said. The group also wants the currencies in the countries outside the eurozone to become official EU tender alongside the euro, and doesn't want a majority vote in the EU to replace the unanimous vote in foreign affair issues because "it would only further increase tensions and divide the European Union rather than unite it." In the European Parliament elections, the conservatives are aiming for more than the 76 seats they currently have in the 751-seat EU legislature. Speaking about potential coalition possibilities, Zahradil said his group has a similar approach to the economy as the European People's Party , the biggest political group in the European Parliament or the liberals, known as ALDE. On the contrary, the radical euroskeptics, such as the Europe of Freedom and Nations group that includes France's National Rally led by Le Pen, is an unlikely partner. "It's difficult to imagine cooperation with those radical euroskeptics because they are against free trade and that's something what we on the contrary support, and at the same time they are for us too conciliatory with Russia, and that's another obstacle I can see for our cooperation." A government spokesman in Niger says at least 17 Nigerien soldiers were killed and another 11 are missing after an ambush by unknown attackers Tuesday. The attack took place near the village of Tongo Tongo in western Niger. It is in the Tillaberi region where attackers killed four U.S. special forces troops and four Nigerien soldiers in 2017. A security source told the French news agency that Tuesday's ambush is believed to be a terrorist attack. A group affiliated with Islamic State took credit for the 2017 attack. The area where Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso come together is the scene of frequent militant activity. The Boko Haram group and a splinter group from Islamic State are headquartered in Nigeria and conduct cross-border attacks. The U.S. government plans to replace barriers through 100 miles (161 kilometers) of the southern border in California and Arizona, including through a national monument and a wildlife refuge, according to documents and environmental advocates. The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday again waived environmental and dozens of other laws to build more barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Funding will come from the Defense Department following the emergency declaration that President Donald Trump signed this year after Congress refused to approve the amount of border wall funding he requested. Barriers will go up at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a vast park named after the unique cactus breed that decorates it, and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, which is largely a designed wilderness home to 275 wildlife species. The government will also build new roads and lighting in those areas in Arizona. Environmental advocates who have sued to stop the construction of the wall say this latest plan will be detrimental to the wildlife and habitat in those areas. The Trump administration just ignored bedrock environmental and public health laws to plow a disastrous border wall through protected, spectacular wildlands, said Laiken Jordahl, who works on border issues at the Center for Biological Diversity. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has typically not said much about construction plans. Crossings, drugs dwindle at national monument At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, row after row of cactuses decorate 516 square miles (1,336-square kilometers) of land that once saw so much drug smuggling that over half the park was closed to the public. But illegal crossings in that area dropped off significantly in the past several years, and the government in 2015 reopened the entire monument for the first time in 12 years. While Arizona has seen an increase in border crossers over the last year, most are families who turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents. The number of drugs that agents seize in the state has also dropped significantly. But the government is moving forward with more border infrastructure. The waivers the department issued Tuesday are vague in their description of where and how many miles of fencing will be installed. The Center for Biological Diversity says the plans total about 100 miles (160 kilometers) of southern border in both Arizona and California, near Calexico and Tecate. From waist-high fence to 30-foot barriers In Arizona, construction will focus on four areas of the border and will include the replacement of waist-high fencing meant to stop cars with 18- to 30-foot (9-meter) barriers that will be more efficient at stopping illegal crossings. The government has demolished refuge land in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and construction is set to begin any day. On one section of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, crews have used heavy construction equipment to destroy a mix of trees, including mesquite, mulberry and hackberry. Those trees protect birds during the ongoing nesting season. According to plans published last year, the cleared land will be filled in and a concrete wall will be installed, with bollards measuring 18 feet (5.5 meters) installed on top. One refuge off limits After months of public outcry, Congress forbade U.S. Customs and Border Protection from building in the nearby Santa Ana wildlife refuge or the nonprofit National Butterfly Center. But it didnt stop money from going to wall construction in other refuge lands, nor did it stop the government from building in otherwise exempted land because of the emergency declaration, said Marianna Trevino Wright, the butterfly centers director. Theyre going to have to protect us in every single spending bill going forward, and they have to protect us against the state of emergency, Wright said. And this administration has made it clear ... that they dont want any exemptions. The administration of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has canceled a United Nations climate change workshop to be held in the city of Salvador in August, reaffirming its lack of interest in participating in international efforts to fight global warming. The far-right Bolsonaro has made clear he intends to make major changes to Brazil's environmental policy, including opening the globally vital Amazon rainforest to development and agribusiness. His environment minister has called climate change a secondary issue. Here's a look at some of the key measures taken by Bolsonaro's administration, which took office Jan. 1. Indigenous lands During the campaign, then-candidate Bolsonaro vowed that if elected, not a centimeter more of land would be demarcated for indigenous reserves. Within hours of taking office, he issued a series of decrees that critics said would benefit his allies in Brazil's powerful pro-development rural caucus. Bolsonaro transferred responsibility for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry, which one lawmaker described as letting the fox take over the chicken coop. The decree also transferred the agency for indigenous affairs, known as FUNAI, from the Justice Ministry to a newly created Ministry for Family, Women and Human Rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor. FUNAI oversees health care, housing and language preservation for indigenous groups. Cabinet appointments Bolsonaro's ministerial appointments are in line with his campaign promise to help businesses expand operations in Brazil, including into its protected areas. His agriculture minister is Tereza Cristina, who was part of the powerful agribusiness caucus in Congress' lower house and has opposed requests from indigenous communities. The environment minister, Ricardo Salles, believes talks around climate change are too ideologically charged. He wrote in 2018 in the online publication Medium that agribusiness in Brazil was under threat. Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo has written on his blog that climate change is a dogma used by the left to foster China's growth, and said he wanted to help Brazil and the world liberate itself from the globalist ideology. UN 2019 climate change summit In November 2018, after the new administration was elected but before it was sworn in, Brazil's foreign ministry decided to withdraw its offer to host the 2019 United Nations conference on climate change. The ministry cited current fiscal and budget constraints, but activists and environmental groups considered it a nod to Bolsonaro, who had already mentioned the possibility of withdrawing Brazil from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Paris climate agreement During the campaign, Bolsonaro said he would follow the footsteps of U.S. President Donald Trump and leave the Paris climate accord. But just before the election, he backpedaled and said he would remain as long as Brazil's sovereignty in the Amazon was not threatened or challenged. The South American nation holds about 60% of the Amazon rainforest, the preservation of which is seen by scientists as crucial in the campaign to slow climate change. Efforts by Brazilian authorities to reduce deforestation rates received world recognition a few years ago. But recently, groups monitoring illicit harvesting have reported a double-digit increase in deforestation in the Amazon region. Brazil's commitment to other aspects of the Paris accord is unclear but environmental groups say either way, Bolsonaro's plans to open the Amazon to greater development would make it impossible for Brazil to meet its reduced emissions targets in the coming years. Oil exploration Bolsonaro's government plans to auction several offshore fields in the country's northeast that had been earmarked as highly sensitive areas by Brazil's environment institute. An institute study said oil spills in these blocks could lead to the destruction of the Abrolhos islands, an area of 353 square miles (913 square kilometers) that is home to a marine national park. Critics say the government's decision to ignore the recommendation and include the fields in the auction shows the new administration is determined to bring investors to Brazil despite environmental costs. The deployment this year of a second aircraft carrier and construction of a third will allow China to position one of the carriers in the contested South China Sea, maritime policy experts believe. A carrier known only as Type 001 has been tested in China for formal use by September. Another is being built for a launch in 2022, the China Power Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a May 7 research note. China is likely to base one carrier in the South China Sea, position one in the East China Sea, and let the third travel the world, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. I dont think that they will actually go attack people, but of course just the show of force is quite impressive, he said. Deterrent effect China has the worlds third-strongest armed forces. It has more overall firepower than five other countries that compete for sovereignty in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea. The others are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The U.S. Navy has passed ships though the sea 10 times under U.S. President Donald Trump as a warning to China to share the waterway. Beijing calls the U.S. passages violations of Chinese sovereignty. China, through its aircraft carrier program, wants to improve air-to-air capabilities so it can head off any third party that gets too close, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan. I think basically it will be East China Sea and South China Sea, because they are enhancing their power projection and so-called the active defense strategy through the first-island chain, he said. The first-island chain usually refers to Japan, Taiwan and major Southeast Asian archipelagos. China and Japan contest part of the East China Sea. Beijing also claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which lies about 160 kilometers away from the mainland and also has a stake in the East China Sea. The self-ruled island is building up its own forces to resist China. Last week it broke ground on a shipyard to develop its first diesel-electric submarine. Second and third Chinese carriers The first Chinese carrier, a former Soviet vessel, began plying the seas near Chinas east coast in 2012 under its new name, the Liaoning. Built in 2017, the Type 001 vessel started trials last year. Chinas official Xinhua News Agency said in November that shipbuilders had kicked off work on the new generation third carrier. Other Chinese media say the third carrier may be bigger and stronger than the previous two. CSIS' China Power Project has collected satellite images over a Shanghai shipyard, which shows a bow and main hull section of a large vessel. It calls the carrier Type 002. Chinese weapons enthusiasts and foreign observers have long asserted that China has begun to build its third carrier at China State Shipbuilding Corp.s Jiangnan Shipyard Group in Shanghai, speculating that it will be bigger and mightier than the Liaoning and the second carrier, the state-run China Daily news website said in November. Chinese carrier technology still needs a lot of improvements in terms of technology and handling carrier-based fighter jets, Yang said. Chilling effect offshore But a carrier fleet of any kind, especially with planes parked on the mothership, would alarm the other countries, the experts say. China would see its carrier in the South China Sea as a counterbalance against the U.S. Navy ships that pass off the west coast of Taiwan near the same sea, said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapores public policy school. Normally, the Chinese flex their muscle after the U.S. makes a move, he said. A U.S. aircraft carrier, if sent to the South China Sea as well, could easily end up facing off against the Chinese vessel, Singapore Institute of International Affairs' Oh said. Other Asian countries with claims about 90% of the entire sea -- will probably do little if a Chinese carrier stays low key, Araral said. That could mean sticking to undisputed South China Sea tracts near the Chinese coastal province of Hainan, he added. Reaction would come when the aircraft carrier would be patrolling regularly and along (with) a fleet of other vessels, he said. Then its going to rattle the nerves in the neighborhood, because they would be misreading what this is. Sending a carrier to the South China Sea would compel other Asian maritime claimants to seek U.S. government help, solidifying a Western-allied, anti-Chinese alliance of countries, said Fabrizio Bozzato, a Taiwan Strategy Research Association fellow. Those allies might in turn send massive naval forces including their own carriers to the sea, he said. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. After Turkish-backed rebels attacked their homes in Afrin, in northwest Syria, Kurdish Christians were forced to flee. They sought refuge in a nearby region, and have built a church to continue their religious life. VOA's Nawruz Rasho reports. The political party formed by Colombia's former Marxist FARC rebels on Wednesday accused the far right of assassinating its members, but pledged to continue the process of reintegration. The statement by the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force (FARC) came a day after the shooting death of Jorge Enrique Corredor, the highest ranking former FARC commander to be killed since a peace deal was signed in late 2016. "We won't hesitate to point the finger at right-wing and paramilitary sectors closely linked to state security agencies, who are behind these murders," FARC Senator Pablo Catatumbo told a news conference, without revealing evidence of what he called a "dirty war." At least 139 former FARC rebels have been killed nationwide since the signing of a peace deal with then-President Juan Manuel Santos, which brought an end to the FARC's part in a five-decade conflict that left more than 260,000 dead and millions displaced. "Without a doubt, there are sectors that want to bring the peace agreement to a crossroads and a new cycle of violence, with incalculable consequences for the entire nation," said FARC party President Rodrigo Londono. "Colombia must know that those of us who signed the peace agreement on behalf of the insurgency will not falter in seeking the path that leads to reconciliation and peaceful coexistence," Londono added. Under the terms of the agreement some 13,000 members of the rebel group, including more than 6,000 combatants, handed in their weapons and formed the FARC political party. The FARC has repeatedly raised concerns that they may be assassinated by right-wing paramilitary gangs or drug traffickers, in a replay of more than 3,000 targeted killings during the 1980s, when the group first attempted to form a political party. Meanwhile, a tribunal charged with prosecuting war crimes committed during the conflict ordered the release of former FARC leader Seuxis Paucias Hernandez, better known by his nom de guerre Jesus Santrich. Santrich was indicted over a year ago by a U.S. grand jury for allegedly conspiring to export 10 tonnes of cocaine, worth $320 million in street value, to the United States. He was detained by Colombian authorities pending his possible extradition. All crimes committed during the war fall under the purview of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which wrote on Twitter that the evidence presented by the United States did not establish a date for the alleged crime. A four-judge panel voted unanimously Tuesday to release former President Michel Temer from being detained while he faces an investigation into alleged corruption, the latest development in a series of contradictory rulings. Justices on the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice in Brasilia found that the circumstances did not justify the use of preventative custody for the 78-year-old politician, who has been detained twice since leaving the presidency Jan. 1. Although the decision was provisional, with the four justices to deliver a final verdict later, their vote will allow Temer to return home. A judge at a criminal court in Rio de Janeiro has to sign off on the decision before Temer can leave the Sao Paulo police headquarters, where he has been detained for nearly a week. Temer is being investigated for allegedly taking bribes from the Engevix construction company in exchange for a government contract to build a nuclear power plant in the city of Angra dos Reis, in the southern part of Rio de Janeiro state. He denies any wrongdoing. In the superior court deliberations, Justice Antonio Saldanha Palheiro argued that the seriousness of the alleged crimes corruption, money laundering and criminal organization "is not an argument in itself to justify" holding someone before a trial. Justice Rogerio Schietti Cruz said the presumption of innocence "assured the defendant the right not to be treated in the process as if already convicted." Temer, who was president in 2016-2019, was first arrested March 21, but released five days later. He was detained again May 9 under an order from another court. The judges on Tuesday also freed a close Temer associate, Col. Joao Baptista Lima Filho, from detention. In March, prosecutors said an Engevix executive had claimed in a plea bargain testimony that he paid more than $300,000 in 2014 to a company owned by Lima. The investigation is part of the wider "Operation Car Wash" probe that began in 2014 and has ensnared many of Brazil's top politicians and business executives. Another former Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is currently serving a sentence of eight years and 10 months. Australians vote in a general election on Saturday. The management of the economy has been central in the campaign. It has not been in recession since the early 1990s, but the economy is showing signs of slowing down. The environment is another key concern for voters as the campaign enters its final days. Money is being pumped into this election campaign like never before. Cash-infused minor parties, including one backed by a billionaire mining tycoon, are competing with the two dominant players: the center-right Liberal-National coalition and the Labor opposition. We are seeing expensive elections, said Stewart Jackson from the University of Sydney. "We have been seeing them for some time. I actually think you will see the expenditures go up considerably at this election. There is an awful lot of television advertising, but then also onto Facebook and onto Twitter and onto Instagram and the social media platforms. Scott Morrison, the Liberal Party prime minister, is asking voters to trust his management of the economy that is based on a simple philosophy. My family story is not uncommon in our country," he said. "Australians quietly going about lives with simple, decent, honest aspirations. Get an education, get a job, start a business, take responsibility for yourself, support others, work hard. The economic focus of the opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten is major tax reform. We have said that we want multinationals to pay their fair share," he said. "I announced yesterday a new scheme to stop some multinationals treating the Australian tax system as a doormat, which they wipe their boots on coming in and out of Australia. For many Australians the environment is their number one concern in this election. A lightning rod for conservationists is the Carmichael mine in Queensland that is proposed by the Indian company, Adani. It would be one of the biggest coal mines in the world if it goes ahead. Mary Carroll, who runs a tourism agency in the city of Rockhampton, says the region needs the resources industry. Theres seven mines at the moment," she said. "Theyre all going through their approvals process at the moment and I think one of the fears out there with all of the talk about one particular mine, the Carmichael mine, is that if it doesnt proceed, perhaps the others wont. But a Queensland voter, Rochelle Rodier, says the Indian-run project must be rejected. Adani is just no! No! No! If Adani opens up, the whole Galilee Basin opens up. Terrible. Disaster for Australia, disaster for the world, she said. Australias Climate Council, an independent campaign group, is warning that if left unchecked, global warming could wipe more than $2.5 trillion from the domestic economy over the next 80 years. The councils chief executive, Amanda McKenzie, says the situation is already dire. What this report shows us is that there is a real cost to failing to act. In the last four years, pollution has gone up and up and up in Australia," she said. "At the same time, we have seen mass bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, we have seen nearly 50 C [Celsius] days in some parts of Australia, fruit cooking on trees. There are real costs of failing to act on climate change and that is what we have tried to quantify in this report. Sixteen million Australians are eligible to vote. Many yearn for political stability and an end to party infighting in a country where its been more than a decade since a prime minister served a full term in office. Catholic clerics in four northern European countries have taken the unprecedented step of urging their congregations to back pro-European Union parties in continent-wide elections later this month. The Catholic bishops from France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg have put themselves squarely in opposition to nationalist populists. Praising the principle of solidarity and collaboration among nations, they warn that the EU is under threat. The bishops urged Europeans to vote in the May 23-26 elections for the 751-seat EU parliament in a show of support for European unity and to promote "dialogue and integration between peoples." Analysts say this month's election is possibly the most consequential since 1979, when Europeans first began casting ballots for a European parliament. The continent's new breed of nationalist populists is eschewing pocketbook issues in campaigning and focusing on issues of national identity. The bishops' statement added, "The EU is threatened today by various economic, political, demographic and ideological crises but we are convinced it has tools to overcome them." The Church leaders said, "Some seek to oppose the EU and resort back to independent nations. We are certain solidarity and collaboration between nations is the most fruitful response we can offer." Signatories to the appeal include Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, president of the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, and a dozen other prelates. Hollerich told a German Catholic news agency, "Brexit, populism and nationalism" pose a threat to Europe. Populist parties The appeal has drawn the ire of nationalist populists who accuse Church leaders of meddling in politics. It has become the latest flashpoint in a rhetorical battle between populists and church hierarchies in several European states. Church leaders say they felt compelled to issue the appeal because of a surge in support for anti-establishment populists. Populist parties, especially in Italy, Poland, Hungary and France, expect to make major gains in the elections. Pollsters are predicting euroskeptic populists will capture a third of the European parliament's seats. Pope Francis has spoken frequently against some aspects of the current surge in nationalist populism and recommenced instead a Christian populism. During an outdoor Mass last month, he told a crowd of 100,000 that "the only possible populism" is a Christian one that "listens to and serves the people without shouting, accusing, stirring up quarrels." 'At war' over migrants The editor of L'Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, has accused Matteo Salvini, the firebrand leader of Italy's far-right Lega party, of being "at war" with the Catholic Church over the treatment of migrants. Marco Tarquinio's accusation followed a new anti-migrant law that aims to deny undocumented migrants access to shelters. The law also doubles the time undocumented migrants can be detained, and eliminates humanitarian grounds for granting asylum to migrants unless they're specifically fleeing political persecution or war. "In Italy, the war against solidarity networks, large and small, is becoming more bitter and aggressive each day," Tarquinio wrote in the editorial, in which he condemned what he called the Italian government's "hostility" toward charitable organizations. On Monday, a close aide to Pope Francis drew Salvini's ire by climbing through a manhole to reconnect the electricity supply to an abandoned government-owned building occupied by hundreds of homeless people, including migrants and children. Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who distributes the Pope's charity funds, broke a police seal to re-connect the electrical circuit. Rome's left-leaning Ia Repubblica newspaper dubbed Krajewski "The Pope's Robin Hood." The building had been without power since May 6, when the circuits were cut because of more than $300,000 in unpaid bills. "Defending illegality is never a good sign," Salvini told reporters. "There are many Italians and even legal immigrants who pay their bills, even if with difficulty. People can do what they please, but as interior minister, I guarantee the rules." Nationalist populists do have supporters among prelates, especially in central Europe. A former Polish secretary-general of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, Msgr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz, told the Catholic News Service recently that some "anti-establishment parties" had "sensible reform ideas," and could be instrumental in encouraging EU institutions to adopt a "more conservative attitude to religion, family life and national identity." Taking the hours-long journey to what is believed to be the deepest point mankind has visited in any ocean was a complicated one, and for Victor Vescovo, it meant being constantly alert as he monitored his state-of-the-art vessel. But when he reached 10,928 meters into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean, Vescovo took the advice of the man whose record he just broke, Oscar-winning director James Cameron, and took 15 uninterrupted minutes to take in the view and the enormity of the moment. Cameron told him hed be busy, of course, but noted that few if any people have seen what youve seen so deeply appreciate how fortunate you are to see it, Vescovo recalled in an interview. Deepest ocean depths Last months groundbreaking mission was filmed as part of an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary series that will chronicle Vescovos trips to the furthest parts of the worlds waters the Atlantic Ocean, the Southern Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Ocean. He has done all except the Arctic plunge, which is set for the fall. The entire journey took nearly 12 hours: four hours to descend, four hours spent at the bottom, and then about four hours to ascend again. Vescovo, a businessman and amateur pilot who has also traversed the highest mountain peaks, including Mount Everest, said the goal of the expedition was not to best Camerons mark in the ocean, but to go to areas that were unexplored. I was stunned to discover when I did my research that of the five oceans, four had never had a visitation to their bottoms, he said. I thought it was about time that someone actually did that. For his journey, Vescovo traveled in a vessel called the SDV Limiting Factor, a titanium craft that is billed as the ultimate submersible and the only one able to travel to such depths. It was outfitted with high definition cameras that documented everything, including creatures unknown to man. New species and plastic Thereve been numerous new species thought found on this expedition. The scientific group is thrilled with the things that have been brought back for additional analysis. Its really great, he said. He saw a very unusual jellyfish in the Indian Ocean but there was also an unsettling find trash, particularly plastic, in the deepest part of the water. The discovery of plastic in such far reaches proves the need for more vigilance to protect the oceans, said Andy Sharpless, CEO of Oceana, which describes itself as the largest worldwide group in the world with the goal of saving the oceans. Vescovos discovery of plastic in the deepest part of the ocean is disturbing but not surprising because plastic is found throughout the water column in our oceans, he said in a statement. Thats why it cant be easily cleaned up. We need to focus on reducing the use and production of plastic in order to really protect our seas from plastic. Crucial ocean exploration Patrick Lahey of Triton Submarines, which made the vessel that transported Vescovo and also followed Vescovos dives to the Challenger Deep, said the missions show why more exploration of the oceans are critical for sciences benefit. These are large swaths of the oceans that weve never seen that really we know virtually nothing about. I think its important for us as human beings to study these areas, Lahey said. The ocean is the life force of our planet. I think this is a great opportunity for us to learn more about it and to try to use this tool that weve developed for that purpose. The visiting room at Kerobokan Correctional Facility in Bali is usually full in the morning until noon on weekdays, when families and friends are allowed to visit. About 15 inmates were standing from behind bars and talking to their guests on the other side. Amalia, not her real name, was visiting her son to bring him lunch on Thursday last week. He was recently incarcerated for getting into a fight in Denpasar, the capital of Bali. She complained that the Kerobokan Prison is overcrowded. I think they have too many prisoners, but other than that the condition is alright. My son said the wardens are friendly, she said without disclosing her sons name for security reasons. Kerobokan prison now hosts more than 1,700 people in a facility that was designed for 323 inmates. The Governor of Bali, I Wayan Koster, told the media during a visit to the prison at the end of April that the government is trying to find a solution. I think we need to relocate, this is no longer feasible, he stated. Meanwhile in Cipinang Correctional Facility in Jakarta, there are more than 2,900 inmates in a building that is supposed to accommodate only 880. Other facilities suffer from the same condition, according to the Directorate General of Correctional at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights, there are 265,574 incarcerated people while the facilities across Indonesia only has the capacity for 126,963. Drug cases as biggest contributor According to Genoveva Alicia, a researcher from the Institute of Criminal and Justice Reform (ICJR), overcrowding in prisons in Indonesia can be categorized as extreme and the problem occurs in almost all provinces in Indonesia. Its not only a problem in the big cities, on average the overcrowding is more than 99 %. Only in six areas, including Yogyakarta the problem is not as bad, she said. Alicia cited one of the reasons for the overcapacity of correctional facilities in Indonesia is because in the judicial system, it is easy for people to end up in jail and stay less than one year. But the biggest contributors of the prison population are those who were involved in a drug case. Ade Kusmanto, the head of Public Relations at the Directorate General of Correctional, said drug cases make up around 48 percent of all criminal activities. There are more than 127,000 incarcerations due to drugs. Out of that number 75,000 are dealers and 51,000 are users. Im hoping the politics of law will change in dealing with drug cases, so that users will not be sentenced to jail. It can be alternative punishment such as rehabilitation or community service while they are being rehabilitated, he told VOA. Drug crime in Indonesia is regulated under the law no. 35/2009 on drugs. While the law stated that users should be rehabilitated, oftentimes they end up in jail for drug possession. Kusmanto mentioned it was also because rehabilitation for drug users has not been fully applied, law enforcement usually resorts to a prison sentence. If these (drug) users are given alternative sentencing, other than prison, imagine how many of them would be out of jail, he added. Alternative non-custodial sentences Alicia said to solve the problem of prison overcapacity, the government should be prepared to give alternative punishment other than prison time. She believes that Indonesia already has a system for non-custodial sentences, such as fine, probation or community services, which can be applied to less severe crimes with no victim. But the problem is, these alternatives are not being utilized. We have a problem in resources, with the institutions, and also with technical regulation, she told VOA. The only thing that has been running well for the law enforcement is jail sentencing. Thats why in their minds, you can only punish people by putting them in correctional facilities, Alicia added. Kusmanto admitted there is a lack of human resources which would make it difficult for the law enforcement to give out alternative punishment. He gave an example with probation after serving prison time. The parole officers have to cover such a big area with too many parolees that it becomes difficult for them to supervise everyone. We have limited number of officers, meanwhile there are a lot of parolees they have to visit one-by-one. Make sure they are behaving well, he said. Revitalization of correctional facilities Kusmanto said the Indonesian Minister of Law and Human Rights, Yasonna Laoly, issued a ministerial decree no. 35/2018 on revitalization of correctional facilities in Indonesia. The Directorate General will also reduce overcrowding by evenly distributing the number of inmates from one facility to other neighboring facilities that are less full. And we will focus on changing the behavior of inmates and provide them with services such as counseling and guidance, to prevent them from going back, he explained. Kusmanto added that with the new decree, other institutions including the law enforcement and other ministries will work together to find a solution. But Alicia said the problem cannot be solved if the government does not start to think about non-custodial alternatives. Were talking about input and output, even if all region has a facility, if we dont regulate the input the number will never be reduced. The government should think about the alternative, she said. The Islamic State group says it has established a "province" in Pakistan, days after the terrorist organization used the name "Hind Province" for an attack it claimed in the India-ruled portion of the disputed Kashmir region. Both of the divisions formerly fell under the "Khorasan Province" or ISKP the name the Middle East-based terrorist group uses for its regional operations launched in early 2015 from bases in the border region of Afghanistan according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist threats. The "Islamic State Pakistan Province," in communiques issued via its global propaganda mouthpiece Amaq News Agency, took credit for killing a Pakistani police officer this week in Mastung, and it reported shooting at a gathering of militants linked to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban militant group in Quetta. Both the districts are located in violence-hit Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. Several separatist Baluch groups and sectarian organizations also are active in the province. There was no immediate reaction available from the Pakistani government. Islamabad maintains there is no "organized" presence of IS in the country. Pakistani military officials say an ongoing nationwide military-led "intelligence-based operation" is primarily aimed at denying space in Pakistan to extremists linked to any terrorist groups. The group released no details about the boundaries of the territory it is now claiming. In previous Islamic State propaganda, all of Afghanistan and most of Pakistan, parts of modern Iran and Central Asia make up the so-called Khorasan Province. IS also has spoken about creating its own chapter for the Indian subcontinent. Marketplace expolsion IS also took responsibility for last month's suicide blast in a marketplace in Quetta city that killed 20 people and left nearly 50 injured. The targets of the attack were members of the ethnic Hazara Shiite Muslim community. On Friday, IS declared in a statement via Amaq the creation of "Hind Province," while taking responsibility for clashes with Indian forces in Amshipora in the Shopian district of Kashmir. IS has increased attacks lately in the region, including taking credit for the group's Easter Sunday first-ever bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people. Observers say altering its provincial structure and fragmenting the "Khorasan Province" by IS could be aimed at bolstering its credentials after losing its "caliphate" in Syria and Iran, where the terrorists at one point used to control thousands of miles of territory. "As ISIS [one of several acronyms used for IS] seeks to build and restructure foundations of insurgencies across the globe after its losses in Iraq and Syria, it is attempting to recruit also from Pakistan, a country with an existing jihadi militant population," tweeted Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Intelligence Group. The suspected rebranding of ISKP comes as the United Nations earlier this week designated the Khorasan Province as a global terrorist, noting the group was formed in January 2015 by former members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who pledged allegiance to Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, leader of the ISIS/ISIL. The United States has already blacklisted ISKP as a foreign terrorist organization, and American troops are conducting regular airstrikes against the groups bases in Afghanistan with the help of local forces, killing thousands of militants. Analysts say American counterterrorism airstrikes and clashes with the Afghan Taliban have prevented ISKP from expanding its regional influence and the rebranding strategy could have stemmed from those challenges. Khorasan chapter has been struggling to establish a footprint in Afghanistan and the region in general, and they may be following al-Qaidas strategy to create regional affiliates, says Muhammad Amir Rana, who heads Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Peace and Studies (PIPS). Mexico is closing in on a deal to repeal U.S. President Donald Trump's punitive tariffs on steel and aluminum, a senior Mexican official said Tuesday, potentially moving a step nearer to the ratification of a major trade deal struck last year. "We are, I think, close to negotiating the lifting of the tariffs," Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez told Canadian broadcaster CBC after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Toronto. "We're having very fruitful conversations on lifting the tariffs not only in the U.S. but also here in Toronto." Adam Austen, a spokesman for Freeland, said the minister noted on Tuesday that it was unwise to predict how long a negotiation would take. He declined to comment further. Mexico and Canada imposed tariffs on various U.S. products last year in response to Trump's metals duties. The Mexican government says it could soon swap out some goods from its list for others to spread the pain across the U.S. economy. Earlier, Marquez said a new target list of U.S. products had been completed, and only needed approval from other officials, including President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. That process would likely take at least two to three weeks, she said. U.S. Democrats Her remarks, and those of a business leader involved in efforts to lift the tariffs and secure passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), suggested there may be scope to resolve the spat before fresh tariffs are imposed. Mexico's push to have the metals tariffs lifted has become bound up with its efforts to secure U.S. ratification of USCMA, which was signed by the three countries' leaders on Nov. 30 to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexicans lobbying for USMCA approval have focused their attention more on Democratic lawmakers since Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Mexican official said any revised retaliatory tariffs would lean more than before toward Democrats' districts to impress on them the need to lift the metals duties, and pave the way for USMCA ratification. When asked in a news conference if Mexico would target Democratic constituencies to encourage more U.S. lawmakers to argue for an end to the metals duties, Marquez said the new measures included economic and political components. Democrats have said they will not ratify USMCA unless Mexico delivers on a pledge to enact stronger labor provisions. Mexico's Congress passed a law that strengthens the rights of trade unions near the end of last month. U.S. Republicans U.S. Republican lawmakers have already signaled that Trump will need to drop his metals tariffs to pass USMCA. U.S. Republican Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said last month there was no chance of ratifying the new trade pact until the tariffs were gone. Participants in the process see progress. Moises Kalach, a leader of the CCE business lobby, which represented Mexico's private sector in the USMCA talks, told Reuters the original retaliatory tariffs were having the desired effect and saw no need to apply a new round of measures yet. "You don't want to ... make a major change to retaliatory tariffs only to end up reaching a deal a couple of weeks later," he said, adding he saw signs of "light" in breaking the impasse. Canada's Freeland said she would hold talks in Washington on Wednesday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, as well as Grassley. Palestinians on Wednesday marked the 71st anniversary of their mass displacement during the 1948 war around Israel's creation with protests across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Thousands of people streamed to the Gaza-Israel frontier as the militant Hamas group, which controls Gaza, announced a general strike, closing schools and public institutions to allow for a large turnout. For a year, Hamas has staged protests every Friday along the perimeter fence dividing Israel and Gaza, demanding an end to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. More than 60 Palestinians were killed at last year's demonstration, which coincided with the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem. This year's demonstration, however, comes two weeks after a cease-fire was reached to end a fierce two-day round of fighting. A Qatari envoy, who has been helping mediate the cease-fire, has urged Hamas to keep Wednesday's demonstration restrained. The demonstrations were marking what is known as the "nakba," or "catastrophe," in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the war surrounding Israel's establishment. Today, there are an estimated 5 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. The fate of the refugees is one of the core issues of dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel rejects demands for a mass return of refugees to long-lost homes, saying it would threaten the country's Jewish character. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds of people marched from the grave of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to a rally downtown, demanding the right to return to lost properties in what is now Israel. "We will return, no matter how long it takes" read one of the signs. Sirens also wailed across the West Bank at noon, and smaller demonstrations took place, in expressions of sadness. Loud explosions and billowing smoke filled the air above the national stadium in the highly militarized capital of Panghsang in Myanmar's Shan state but it wasn't what one might expect in a region known for its heavily armed troops. The powerful United Wa State Army (UWSA) was celebrating 30 years of autonomy last month, with heavy security posted around the city stadium and big guns on parade inside. The celebration was held to commemorate the ousting of leaders of the Communist Party of Burma during a coup in April 1989, followed by the formation of the United Wa State Army and a bilateral cease-fire agreement with the Burmese army, signed on May 9, 1989. About 18 ethnic groups from the region were included in the military-controlled performance and senior officials from other ethnic armed groups attended the three-day event. For Kachin dancer and former Communist Party of Burma soldier Bauk Doi, it was a time to reflect on the big changes in the rugged mountain region. "In the past when I lived in Wa state area, the children and adults were very far behind and kids didn't know how to put their clothes on so I had to teach them. The condition of the houses was not strong and they only had bamboo to build their homes. But now, 30 years later, they are developing very fast and I'm happy for them," said the 60-year-old. Chinese leverage Much of the development has come from Chinese investment, a fact punctuated by China's special Envoy for Asian Affairs, Sun Guoxiang, who sat next to Wa leader Bao Youxiang during the parade and fireworks display. While the China-backed UWSA aren't directly involved in the current peace talks, they have a strong influence in the narrative, serving as the chair of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC). Seven ethnic organizations are part of the committee, including the United League of Arakan whose army is active in Rakhine state and aware of China's leverage. "China is a major power. Our neighboring country. It has a lot of influence in terms of investment politically, economically in many arenas, so yes, they can help," said Maj. Gen. Tun Myat Naing of the Arakan Army. Tun Myat Naing also says the Arakan people are suffering, much like the Rohingya crisis. "It is the Arakan people. We are also suffering from the war crimes being committed by the Myanmar army. So I would like to request to the international communities, please don't turn a blind eye on the suffering of our people too," Tun Myat Naing added. Unity vs. autonomy Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese military chief Min Aung Hlaing did not take up the invitation to attend the ceremony, although Union Minister U Thein Swe did and read a statement on behalf of ASSK and the National Reconciliation and Peace Center. While the statement acknowledged the successful peace and stability within Wa No. 2 Special Region, it also signaled the government's desire to have all ethnic groups sign the National Ceasefire Agreement, which focuses on unity rather than autonomy. The content of the agreement has remained a contentious issue that has caused several of the strongest ethnic armed groups to walk away from the bargaining table in recent years. "Only after signing the NCA Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement would we be able to convene the political dialogues which would result in reduced armed conflicts for maintaining durable peace, efforts for monitoring and conflict resolution, ethnic rights, equal rights and achieving unity," the statement read. Upcoming projects Upcoming peace talks in Chinese border towns further exhibit the strong influence of Chinese investors and the growing desire for stability as planned infrastructure projects are pushed ahead of genuine peace and trust-building. Myanmar and China have agreed to build an Economic Corridor from Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, but the the current instability is preventing the construction from being completed. The economic corridor route is set to be built through Shan and Rakhine state, also areas of instability. "We have a long time relationship with China, because we are the ethnic group in China border and the Chinese are our brothers. ... In the future, we are going to be united in China," said Zhao Guo An, vice-chairman of the UWSA, on the sidelines of the ceremony. Despite three decades of peace, Guo An and the UWSA senior officials are still wary of the government forces' intentions. "We have to trust each other, but there is still a long time to go. It's been 30 years without the war flame, but we are still negotiating to keep the peace," he added. The VOA Horn of Africa service's Girmachew Kebede contributed to this report from Addos Ababa. Ethiopia. In a dozen countries across Africa, governments have enacted laws or policies that "improperly constrain" nongovernmental organizations and imperil civil society, the democracy watchdog Freedom House says in a new report. Curbs on NGOs have "a serious impact on the capacity of organized civil society, and citizens, to hold governments to account and to protect human rights," said Godfrey M. Musila, author of the report issued Tuesday by the independent, Washington-based organization. He added that governmental limits "are of course accompanied by other measures to restrict other kinds of freedoms" and to bolster control by the state or strongmen. "Freedoms Under Threat: The Spread of Anti-NGO Measures in Africa" looks at efforts since 2004 to restrict civil society, especially groups working on human rights and governance issues. Measures such as complicating registration or limiting foreign workers and financial aid have been implemented in a dozen countries: Algeria, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. (Ethiopia eased those limitations in February.) The report says anti-NGO measures are pending or possible in Egypt, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan and Zambia. Restrictions have been introduced but "abandoned by the executive, rejected by the legislature, or invalidated by the courts" in six countries: Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Ethiopia Ethiopia in 2009 had imposed what Musila described to VOA as "draconic" restrictions such as barring rights groups from doing any advocacy but rolled them back after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in April 2018. The country's Civil Society Proclamation, drafted with input from NGOs and the public, was adopted in February. "We've heard the political statements that civil society is welcomed and is expected to play a really constructive role as Ethiopia continues on its development journey and we're very much supportive of this opening," Leslie Reed, Ethiopia director for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said last week in Addis Ababa. The Horn of Africa country offers a bright spot. But in most of the 20 countries studied in the report, measures have been, or are being, overhauled "to not only starve the [civil society] sector of resources, but also establish more effective government controls," Musila wrote. Demand for democracy In a phone interview Tuesday with VOA, the Kenyan-born Musila cited a particular vulnerability for African democracy. "Democracy as a system of governance that emphasizes liberal qualities, limited government and human rights has been an ongoing experiment on the African continent and only began to take root in the early 1990s," he said, speaking from his home in a Maryland suburb of Washington. So constraints "would have a greater impact [here] than they would in much more developed democracies such as the United States and Europe, because they go to the root of the capacity of NGOs." A Pew Research report released in late April found discontent with aspects of liberal democracy, though also noted broad support for its ideals. For instance, 83% of Nigerians who see the current economy as bad are less content with how democracy is working. The poor West African country has a mixed market economy and, as the continent's largest crude oil producer, has suffered with the sector's low prices in recent years. Musila also said other countries on the continent and beyond can negatively influence the demand for democracy. Beginning around 2005, he said, "a number of countries began adopting measures that began systematically undermining freedoms. This coincides with the entry of China and the prominence more recently of Russia on the African continent." Recommendations Freedom House's report gives advice to combat restrictions. The appendix proposes a framework for civil society groups to work with courts and legislatures. It urges groups to deepen their roots in local communities to counter "pernicious accusations" that they are foreign agents. "We also make very strong recommendations for governments to protect their commitments to the right to assembly and other freedoms [of] expression, in particular," Musila said. He added that Freedom House encourages the United States, the European Union and others in the international community to raise concerns about restrictions and to "condition specific forms of assistance on reversing these repressive measures or adopting more progressive legislation." A U.S. carrier strike group deployed to the Middle East may be on a collision course with Tehran, following U.S. intelligence reports that Iran is planning attacks against American targets. Iran rejects the claims as "fake intelligence." Greta Van Susteren speaks to experts about what all this means for a region that controls nearly one-fifth of the world's oil supply. Russia is to free captured killer whales over the next month, but will not return them to their original habitat despite expert advice, a scientist said Wednesday. The animals will instead be released from their pens in Russia's Far East and may "disrupt vacationers" at resorts nearby, said Vladislav Rozhnov, who was involved in talks over their fate. Nearly 100 belugas and orcas were captured last summer and kept in small pens by commercial firms who had planned to deliver them to aquariums, including in China where the industry is booming. Ten killer whales, or orcas, will be released "in late May to early June," Rozhnov said during a briefing at the Russian environment ministry. He said it would be more ideal to transport them to where they had initially been captured, as Russian and foreign scientists have advised, but this was deemed too costly. Instead they will be freed in the bay where they have been held near the town of Nakhodka more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) south from where they were actually caught in the Sea of Okhotsk. There is a risk that the whales will "stay near the pens where they were fed" and bother humans, he said. "Science gives recommendations, but the decision is taken by government authorities," said Rozhnov, who heads the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Environment and with other agencies is part of a council on the fate of the whales. "We hope that the released animals will go north and return to their native waters," he said. Time constraints The environment ministry said in a statement that transporting the animals to the Sea of Okhotsk could injure the animals and cause stress. Constructing rehabilitation enclosures at a faraway release site would be too complicated, it added. "Due to constraints of time, the realization of this is difficult," the ministry said. Russian officials last month met with U.S.-based conservationists Jean-Michel Cousteau and Charles Vinick, who visited the facility with the killer whales and 87 beluga whales, also captured last year. Rozhnov said there was no precise decision on the beluga whales, but that scientists now were looking into genetic evidence of family ties between the captured juveniles and known beluga groups in the wild. 'Aggressive' orcas In a statement Wednesday, Cousteau's team warned that releasing the killer whales near the facility where they were being held carried a "high number of significant risks." They included potential conflict with people and boats in the area due to "aggressive behaviours observed in some of the orcas." Such a release "leads to likely long-term costs and diminished potential for survival," the team said. They said the whales should be taken to where they were captured following an "acclimatization period" in remote enclosures. Russia is the only country still catching wild orcas and belugas. The controversial trade of marine mammals has boomed in recent years together with the aquarium industry in China, which uses Russian animals in its new marine parks. Although some fisheries officials have defended the capture as a legitimate industry, scientists argue it threatens the species' populations. The editor-in-chief of a Saudi newspaper is urging Palestinians to keep an open mind toward a Mideast plan being devised by President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. Faisal Abbas wrote in the Arab News on Wednesday that while the cards have been stacked against the Palestinians, Kushner's plan just may reverse the situation and make peace more possible. The column ran as Palestinians hold protests to mark the 71st anniversary of the "nakba," or "catastrophe," which commemorates their mass displacement during the war that led to Israel's creation. Abbas wrote there's a "strong counter argument that it is time to think outside the box" and added: "The Palestinians should negotiate hard, and then take what they can to secure a nation state for future generations." Sri Lanka said on Wednesday hardline Buddhist groups were likely to blame for a wave of anti-Muslim riots that swept the island this week in apparent retaliation for Easter bombings by Islamist militants. The April 21 attacks, claimed by Islamic State, targeted churches and hotels, killing more than 250 people and fueling fears of a backlash against the nation's minority Muslims. In the anti-Muslim unrest that started Sunday, mobs moved through towns in Sri Lanka's northwest, ransacking mosques, burning Korans and attacking shops with petrol bombs, residents said. Authorities have arrested some 78 suspected rioters, including three described as Sinhala Buddhist extremists who had been investigated for similar actions in the town in Kandy district last year. "These are organized attacks on Muslim business houses and premises," Navin Dissanayake, minister of plantation industries, said during a government news conference about the security situation. Asked who was organizing the attacks, Dissanayake said: "I think these organizations that Amith Weerasinghe, Dan Priyasad, and Namal Kumara [are heading]," referring to the three Buddhist extremists arrested on Tuesday. Local media reported on Wednesday that Priyasad was released on bail on Wednesday while Weerasinghe was remanded until May 28. The status of Kumara was not clear. A police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment on the arrests. Muslims make up nearly 10% of Sri Lanka's population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Indian Ocean island was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government. The government stamped out the rebellion about 10 years ago. In recent years, Buddhist hardliners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or "Buddhist Power Force" have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying Middle Eastern influence has turned the community more conservative and insular. In the same press conference, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, minister of public administration, said the group behind the attacks had political aims. "This group is trying to tarnish the government's image and show the government is unable to handle the situation," he said, without naming the organization. Authorities said the island was calm again, with no anti-Muslim violence reported on Wednesday. Army probe Also on Wednesday, Sri Lanka's army said it was investigating a video posted on social media that showed a man wearing what appears to be an army uniform walking away seconds before an anti-Muslim mob attacked a building this week. In the video, the man stands outside the building and then leaves. Seconds later, about two dozen people, including young men wearing motorbike helmets, run over and throw stones at the building. Reuters could not independently verify the video. "The attention of the army has been drawn to a video clip where a person dressed in uniform similar to that of the army was watching while a group of violent saboteurs were in action in the general area of Thunmodara," the army said in a statement announcing the investigation. Two residents of Thunmodara, a town to the northeast of the capital Colombo, told Reuters that a mosque and some Muslim-owned shops were attacked. In over a dozen interviews in the hard-hit Kurunegala district northeast of Colombo, Muslims said attacks took place despite the presence of security forces. One police source who declined to be identified told Reuters they did not have enough officers to handle the rioters. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera on Tuesday rejected allegations that police had stood by. The Taliban captured a district center Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 13 government soldiers. The fighting comes as Russia asserted the Taliban is getting stronger and called for increased efforts to reach a negotiated settlement to the 17-year-old war. Local officials and insurgent sources reported Taliban fighters assaulted Shamulzayi in Zabul province before dawn, forcing Afghan security forces out of the district center and also overrunning the regional office of the government intelligence agency, NDS. A provincial security official requesting anonymity confirmed to VOA the fighting killed at least 13 personnel of the Afghan National Army. The Defense Ministry announced a counteroffensive was underway in to retake the lost ground, claiming the insurgents suffered heavy casualties in the process. Afghan air forces are in the area. Taliban [fighters] are on run from district, the ministry said in a statement. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi acknowledged fighting was raging in the area because some enemy [government] posts were still offering resistance. He rejected official claims of retaking the district center from the Taliban. The Zabul council chief, Atta Jan Haqbayan, confirmed to VOA the fall of Shamulzayi district headquarters to the Taliban, saying government forces had retreated to a nearby major army base. Russia: Taliban 'getting stronger' Washington has engaged the Taliban in direct peace negotiations in a bid to persuade insurgents to participate in an intra-Afghan dialogue process to end years of hostilities in the country. The dialogue has not achieved any significant breakthrough, however, nearly a year after it started, nor has the Taliban responded positively to cease-fire appeals by Afghan and international stakeholders. The latest insurgent battlefield advances come a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Taliban were gaining strength, although he acknowledged finding a negotiated settlement to the Afghan was rather a complicated issue and a difficult task. At the same time, the positions of the Taliban are getting stronger. So we need to step up cooperation and try to achieve the balance of power in this country, Putin said in a meeting with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to the Russian media. Moscow maintains overt contacts with the Taliban and says it supports the U.S. peace initiative. In its bid to push peace and reconciliation efforts in the war ravaged country, Russia arranged a first-ever informal intra-Afghan meeting in February where Taliban representatives and Afghan opposition politicians, civil society groups, as well as tribal elders, exchanged views on how to end the war. No Afghan government representatives attended the gathering, though, due to opposition from the insurgent group. Moscow says it is trying to organize another such meeting. British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday said it was "utterly shocking" that Iran had sentenced a British Council employee, believed to be Aras Amiri, to 10 years in prison for spying. May told MPs that the government was "deeply concerned" while the British Council said it was "dismayed" by the news. Ciaran Devane, Chief Executive of the British Council, said Tuesday: "It sadly seems likely that our colleague Aras Amiri is the Iranian national who has allegedly been sentenced by Iranian authorities. "We are dismayed by this reported sentence and are profoundly concerned for Aras' safety and wellbeing, which has been our absolute priority throughout her detention since early 2018," he said. The cultural and educational organization, with branches around the world, said it "firmly" refutes the spying accusation. "The British Council does not do any work in Iran and Aras did not travel to Iran for work," said Devane. 'Infiltration' projects Iranian judiciary news website Mizan Online reported the sentencing Monday, saying the suspect "made a straightforward confession." Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili added that the suspect had been tasked with drawing up and managing cultural "infiltration" projects. Amiri was arrested in Iran in 2018 during a trip to visit relatives. Iranian authorities shut down the British Council's office in Tehran more than a decade ago for what Esmaili described as "illegal activities." The sentencing comes amid tensions between Iran and Britain over the fate of British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was arrested by Iranian authorities in 2016 as she was leaving Tehran. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was put on trial and is now serving a five-year jail sentence for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government. In a move expected to ratchet up tensions, Turkey is holding a major naval exercise amidst an escalating row over energy exploration rights in Cyprus. The dispute is adding to existing tensions between Turkey and its Western allies. "Our aim in military exercises is to show that the Turkish Armed Forces are extremely determined, committed and capable of ensuring the security, sovereignty, independence, maritime rights and benefits of Turkey," Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday. Involving more than 130 ships, the two-week long Operation Seawolf exercise is set to be Turkey's largest, with much of the naval deployment close to Cyprus. "We take all necessary measures to protect the rights and the law of our country in the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Cyprus," added Akar. Ankara and the Greek Cypriot Administration are embroiled in a dispute over search rights for hydrocarbons in the waters surrounding the Mediterranean Island. Turkey insists it has the rights to search for natural gas reserves along with the Turkish Cypriot administration. Greek Cypriots reject Turkey's demands and insist theirs is the only internationally recognized administration. The Island has been divided since 1974 after a Turkish invasion to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority, following a Greek-inspired coup. The energy dispute escalated this month, with Turkey sending its Fatih exploration ship to search for hydrocarbons, in waters designated by the Greek Cypriots as an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). "Cyprus might be tempted to send its ships to the Faith [ship] where it's drilling, all options are open, I am afraid," said political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Athens University. Turkey's increasingly robust stance is causing alarm among its Western allies. "The United States is deeply concerned by Turkey's announced intentions to begin offshore drilling operations in an area claimed by the Republic of Cyprus as its Exclusive Economic Zone," said State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. "This step is highly provocative and risks raising tensions in the region," he added. "We urge Turkish authorities to halt these operations and encourage all parties to act with restraint." "The EU stands united behind Cyprus and expects Turkey to respect the sovereign rights of EU member states," EU Council President Donald Tusk reiterated on May 9. Fredericka Mogherini EU foreign policy chief went further, accusing Turkey of an "Illegal act." "This is not just rhetoric because the EU considers this as an open attack on the sovereign rights of a member state," said Aktar. "Top EU officials have said the EU is ready to retaliate with appropriate measures, which can be sanctions. This is serious, as this will hit even more the Turkish economy." Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusolgu dismissed such warnings, announcing a second exploration ship may be sent to the contested Cypriot waters. Former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, suggests that beyond the harsh rhetoric, Turkey has a legitimate case and a compromise needs to be found. "There are no realistic projects in that part of the Mediterranean without the coordination with Turkey," he said. "Yet more and more we see that the U.S. coordinates Israel, Egypt, the Greek administration on Cyprus and Greece, apparently more pressure on Turkey." Washington has helped facilitate energy exploration and development cooperation between Israel, Egypt, the Cypriot government, and Greece. Turkey, which has strained relations with all the countries, has criticized such diplomatic moves. Domestic politics Turkish domestic politics could further exacerbate the dispute over Cyprus. Erdogan suffered a major political setback by losing the mayorship of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. A re-vote is scheduled for June 23rd after Turkey's High Electoral Board controversially upheld Erdogan's claims of voting irregularities. "The government can resort to provocations ahead of the [June] vote inside, but also outside Turkey," said Aktar. "Cyprus is definitely one of them, Syria is another along with ongoing tensions with Greece. Cyprus is the most concrete one as the Turkish vessel is now drilling openly in the EEZ in the south of the island, that is indeed quite dangerous "It would be good for [Greek-Cypriot President Nikos] Anastasiades to remember 1974 and keep it fresh in his memory," warned AKP spokesman Omer Celik in a news conference, referring to Turkey's Cyprus invasion. For Turkish nationalists, the Cyprus invasion is heralded as a great victory. Erdogan too is stepping up the rhetoric. "The legitimate rights of Turkey and the Northern Cypriot-Turks over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean are not open to argument," he said. "Our country is determined to defend its rights and those of Cypriot-Turks," he said at an Istanbul NATO gathering this month. "We expect NATO to respect Turkey's rights in this process and support us in preventing tensions," he added. Erdogan is likely to be disappointed in his calls for support, with international criticism building against hid country. Analysts warn the dispute threatens to further isolate Turkey in the region. The U.N. envoy for Yemen confirmed Wednesday that Houthi rebels have moved their military forces away from the critical Red Sea port of Hodeida, in a positive first step toward easing hostilities in the country's four-year-long civil war. "The military forces of Ansar Allah have now left the three ports of al-Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa," Envoy Martin Griffiths told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, using the official name of the Houthi movement. The redeployment, which was agreed to at intra-Yemeni talks in Stockholm in December, had been repeatedly delayed, but the first phase was finally put in motion between Saturday and Tuesday. Griffiths said the U.N. team monitoring the withdrawal said the Houthis were "fully compliant" and "very cooperative" during the process. The pullback is significant, as Hodeida port has been a flashpoint in the conflict. Hodeida is the main point of entry for all commercial and aid supplies entering the country. Yemen imports 90% of all of its food. Hodeida has been under Houthi control. Under the redeployment, the U.N. will now have full access to the ports, allowing its monitors to check ships docked there for any Houthi arms imports, which would be a violation of a U.N. arms embargo. They also hope it will make it easier to import food and other vital items. Griffiths said the U.N. plans to improve productivity and efficiency of the port and will send teams in to upgrade berths and demine the outer perimeter of the port. "This moment is significant, but this is only the beginning," Griffiths told the council. "These redeployments must be followed by concrete actions of the parties to deliver on their obligations under the Stockholm Agreement." He said that would include implementing subsequent phases of the mutual redeployments in Hodeida and ensuring that the U.N. will be able to increase its role in the ports. Over the past days, the Houthis unilaterally withdrew from the ports, but the government of Yemen will also pull back some of its forces to areas outside the city once Phase One is in full implementation mode, Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, the head of the U.N. committee overseeing the withdrawal, told reporters in a video conference from Hodeida on Wednesday. The United Nations plans to expand its monitoring and verification presence in Hodeida. Currently there are around 15 monitors, but Lollesgaard said 30 more are waiting on visa approvals from the Houthis, who are the de facto authorities in Hodeida. The world body hopes that real progress in Hodeida could be the confidence-building measure needed to get the parties back to the negotiating table to discuss a political transition and ultimately, an end to the war. Violence continued Thursday with airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in the Houthi-held Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Those strikes came two days after the Houthis claimed responsibility for drone attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. There were also reports of clashes Wednesday in Hodeida, where a tenuous cease-fire is in place. Lollesgaard said he knew of the reports, but added, its not an alarming number. Griffiths, however, cautioned violence has intensified in other parts of the country, including the south. The humanitarian crisis in the country has also not eased significantly. The U.N. says 14 million people are in acute need and another 10 million require some form of humanitarian assistance or protection. Yemen is the U.N.'s largest aid operation in the world and it has appealed for $4.2 billion to fund it this year. Only 20% of the money has been received, putting some programs in jeopardy. Millions of those in need are children. "Each day, another eight children will be killed, injured or recruited to the fighting," UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore told the council. "Every 10 minutes another child will die of a preventable cause." She appealed to the security council to protect Yemen's 15 million children. "Please help them. They need peace." A Saudi Arabian-led coalition began bombing Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels in support of Yemen's government in March 2015. Since then, the U.N. estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed, mostly due to coalition airstrikes. The Democratic-led U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday unveiled a probe of the Trump administration's moves to curtail the federal government's role in scrutinizing police shootings. In a letter to Attorney General William Barr, Chairman Jerrold Nadler and other committee Democrats requested documents and updates on how the Justice Department has addressed shootings and other cases of excessive police force since President Donald Trump took office in early 2017. The lawmakers cited statistics, including media reports, that show nearly 1,000 people were shot and killed by police in 2018 and that at least 265 others have met with the same fate this year. The numbers include cases of unarmed shooting victims that have drawn international criticism. "Despite continuing concerns from civil rights and community-based organizations, the department has sharply curtailed its statutory role in identifying and eradicating civil rights abuses by law enforcement," the lawmakers' letter said. Justice Department officials were not immediately available to comment. Among the documents sought by the Democratic lawmakers are memos written by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who implemented policies that critics say sharply curtailed the ability of Justice Department civil rights attorneys to rein in unconstitutional policing. The lawmakers gave Barr until June 5 to comply with their request. U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday the transfer of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem a year ago was the fulfillment of a key promise of his election campaign. Today marks the one-year anniversary of the opening of the United States Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel, Trump said in a celebratory tweet highlighting the move. Our beautiful embassy stands as a proud reminder of our strong relationship with Israel and of the importance of keeping a promise and standing for the truth. Trumps move of the embassy from the Israeli commercial hub of Tel Aviv to the seat of its government in Jerusalem, which he recognized as Israels capital in December 2017, was a major U.S. foreign policy shift cheered by the Jewish state. But, the transfer was opposed by leaders of Arab and other Muslim-majority nations who warned it would provoke regional violence and threaten international security. The U.S. embassy milestone drew no reported street protests or denunciations from leaders in the Middle East on Tuesday, one year after its opening on May 14, 2018. International media coverage of the anniversary was scant, with the Associated Press and the New York Times being the only major outlets to file a report specifically on the topic. Trump had made transferring the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem a key part of his foreign policy platform as a candidate for the 2016 presidential election, vowing to follow through on a move that several of his predecessors also had pledged to make as election candidates but declined to execute once in office. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the anniversary by attending a ceremony at a Jerusalem hotel, organized by a prominent U.S. Christian evangelical pro-Israel activist who founded the Friends of Zion Museum in the Israeli city. Speaking to an audience that included U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Netanyahu reiterated his view that Israel has had no better friend in the White House than Trump. Prior to the U.S. move, no other country had recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital and placed its embassy there, preferring instead to wait for Israel and the Palestinians to resolve its status in a peace deal. Palestinians claim the predominantly Arab eastern sector of Jerusalem, captured by Israel from Jordan in 1967, as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel annexed that sector to what it called its united and eternal capital. Referring to Trump having broken the international consensus on Jerusalem, Netanyahu said: Nobody moves the embassy, and nobody recognizes Jerusalem until someone comes, [someone] who is politically incorrect, brash and unabashed, and one day, out of the blue, says, that's right. Jerusalem is Israels capital and I recognize it. And that is what President Donald Trump did. The Ramallah-based Palestinian governments WAFA news agency posted a Tuesday report saying its longtime chief negotiator Saeb Erekat met an American delegation in Ramallah and criticized U.S. and Israeli policies as consolidating the occupation and apartheid regime a reference to Israel. In another article published Tuesday, WAFA called the U.S. embassy move an appalling decision, noting that it happened on the same day as a deadly confrontation between Israeli forces and 40,000 Palestinian protesters in Gaza, which is ruled by the Hamas militant group. Urged by Hamas to protest the U.S. move and join a March of Return to Israeli territory the group claims as Palestinian, the demonstrators rallied near the border with Israel on May 14, 2018, with some approaching the fence, throwing stones, hurling firebombs and trying to breach it. Israeli snipers opened fire from the other side of the fence, killing about 60 Palestinians, including several children, and wounding hundreds. A Hamas official later said 50 of those killed were Hamas activists. Human rights groups accused Israel of violating international law by using lethal force against what they said were unarmed protesters. Israel said its forces opened fire to prevent a mass border breach by rioters and in response to a shooting attack by Hamas gunmen in the area. Washington said Israel had a right to protect its border. While Gazans have staged almost weekly and sometimes violent protests at the Israeli border and carried out several rounds of rocket strikes on Israel over the past year, there have been no similar and frequent mass anti-Israel protests or attacks originating in other Arab nations. It just shows that the Arab world wants to move forward with Israel and toward peace, said Elad Strohmayer, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington, in a VOA Persian interview on Tuesday. We had a historic visit of our prime minister to Oman [in October 2018] and we are looking forward to enhancing our relationship with the Arab world, he said. Israel, which has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, has been increasing its contacts with other Sunni Arab states who share its concerns about Shiite-majority Irans efforts to gain regional influence through support of proxy militias. Israeli leaders had expressed hope that more countries would follow the Trump administration in transferring their embassies to Jerusalem, but only Guatemala has done so and kept its mission in the city. Paraguay moved its embassy to Jerusalem in May 2018 but withdrew it in September. Leaders of some EU nations, Brazil and Australia have expressed interest in moving embassies to Jerusalem in the past year, but none have followed through. However, Hungary broke with a European Union consensus in March by opening a Jerusalem trade mission that it calls an extension of its embassy in Tel Aviv. It was the first European mission with diplomatic status to be opened in Jerusalem in decades. This article originated in VOAs Persian Service. Afshar Sigarchi contributed from Washington. Nike Ching contributed to this report from the State Department; Carla Babb contributed from the Pentagon. CAPITOL HILL The United States on Wednesday ordered its non-emergency employees to leave Iraq, as American lawmakers worried openly about a potential march to war with Iran. The drawdown of personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and Americas consulate in Irbil came as the Trump administration warned of potential threats against American forces in the Middle East from Iran or Iranian-backed proxies. "This threat stream, let me tell you, is real," said a senior State Department official on Wednesday. "This is an imminent threat to our personnel." WATCH: Trump's Military Brinkmanship, Reluctance to Enter Conflict "I've seen all the intelligence because I have people on the ground. I have political officers in Syria, I have people going in and out of Iraq working with our military there. So I'm concerned, as it is all of us," added that official. Another senior State Department official said the threats were "directly linked to Iran multiple threat streams directly linked to Iran." The move sparked sharp reactions on Capitol Hill. There are only two reasons for ordering their departure: We have credible intelligence that our people are at risk, or in preparation for military action in Iran, the Senate Foreign Relations Committees top Democrat, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, said. The Trump administration has not provided any information to this committee on the intelligence behind their decisions or what they plan to do in Iraq or Iran. Menendez demanded the Trump administration bring the panels members up to date on any plans to go to war with Iran. A senior State Department official said the Trump administration was not aiming to launch a war with Iran. "I would say every single contact I have had with the most senior people in the U.S. government indicates that there is absolutely no desire or interest in a military conflict with anybody," he said. Responding to top European Union officials' concerns about whether the U.S. may be stumbling into war, a State Department official said Washington was asking its European allies to help to calm the situation, a message requested by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his recent meetings with foreign ministers from Britain, France, and Germany. "We asked them to use their influence with the Iranian regime to explain that they need to de-escalate.That's the message, that was the request," said a senior State Department official. On Capitol Hill, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch of Idaho said he'd been briefed on the unfolding situation in the Middle East and that a briefing of the full Senate was "in the works." The United States is not alone in curtailing activities in Iraq. Germany and the Netherlands said they were suspending military training operations in the country, although Berlin said it had no signals of its own that a threat against Western interests in Iraq was imminent. The Dutch government cited an unspecified security threat in curtailing its training operations. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday rejected a report that he was considering sending 120,000 troops to counter Iran, but didn't rule out deploying "a lot more" soldiers in the future. "I think it's fake news," Trump said of a New York Times report that the White House was considering a plan to send 120,000 troops to the region. "Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Trump said. On Wednesday, the president took to Twitter to reject what he said were reports of "infighting" regarding his Middle East policy. "All sides, views, and policies are covered. I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon," he tweeted. The Pentagon has already dispatched an aircraft carrier and nuclear-capable bombers to the region in the last few days, with a Patriot missile battery and a landing platform dock ship on the way. The Patriot system offers protection from aircraft and missiles, while the LPD carries Marines and the aircraft, hovercraft or boats needed to put them ashore to fight in distant places. But a major U.S. ally in the region, the United Arab Emirates, said it would show "restraint" in the face of Iranian aggression. The U.S. suspects Iran was behind the sabotage of four foreign vessels Sunday off the UAE coast. Two Saudi oil tankers were among those damaged. "We need to emphasize caution and good judgment," UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said Wednesday. "It is easy to throw accusations, but it is a difficult situation. There are serious issues and among them is Iranian behavior." But he said the UAE would not publicly speculate about who was behind the sabotage while the investigation was under way. Meanwhile, a senior officer in the U.S.-led military coalition combating Islamic State said Tuesday that he had seen no greater recent threat to its troops in Iraq or Syria from forces backed by Iran. "There's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika told reporters at the Pentagon in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad. "We're aware of their presence, clearly, and we monitor them, along with a whole range of others, because that's the environment we're in." The statement was in contrast to comments from the Trump administration and the Pentagon, who have asserted for more than a week that they have detected potential Iranian threats against U.S. forces in the Middle East. Such assertions face increasingly rigorous scrutiny from lawmakers. This seems like an escalation with no endgame, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said, describing the pressure campaign on Tehran as ham-handed. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said nearly two hours of meetings Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about "nearly every issue facing our two countries" were productive, though there appeared to be no major breakthroughs. The United States and Russia both have interests in a number of ongoing global issues. But they often find themselves on opposite sides, even if they share a stated basic goal. WATCH: Pompeo's visit to Russia One such situation is the conflict in Syria, where Russia has supported President Bashar al-Assad's forces, while the United States has backed rebels who want to see Assad out of office. U.S.-Russian efforts to bring a U.N.-brokered end to the war that began in 2011 fell apart in 2016. But Pompeo told reporters Tuesday he thinks U.S. and Russian officials "now can begin to work together" in a way to begin the process set out in a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for a Syrian-led political transition with a cease-fire, new constitution and elections. "I'm not sure we have all the capacity of that, but I think we now have a common understanding of the places where we were hung up, which I think we can work our way through," Pompeo said after the talks at Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi. He also expressed hope the United States and Russia can work toward what he says he believes is a common objective of a denuclearized North Korea. Other topics for Tuesday's meeting included Iran, Ukraine and Venezuela. At a joint news conference with Lavrov following the talks, Pompeo said the United States is willing to rebuild its relationship with Russia, but it expects its Russian counterparts to act on it with all seriousness. "President Trump's made it clear that his expectation is that we have an improved relationship between our countries. This will benefit each of our people. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in this direction," said Pompeo. Putin said he had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump several days ago, and he got the impression that Trump indeed "intends to rebuild U.S.-Russian relations and contacts in order to solve the issues of mutual interest." "On our behalf, we have said it multiple times that we also would like to rebuild fully fledged relations, and I hope that right now the conducive environment is being built for that," Putin said to Pompeo. Putin then brought up the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference by calling it "exotic work." Putin denied any collusion between his government and the current U.S. administration. Earlier, during the joint press conference after talks with Lavrov, Pompeo issued a few stern warnings to Russia, saying it should refrain from interfering in the 2020 U.S election, free captured Ukrainian sailors and try to make peace with Ukraine. He also said the two sides disagree on Venezuela and urged Russia to end its support for President Nicolas Maduro. The United States and 50 other countries have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader. Experts said the meetings in Sochi demonstrated that even in cases when U.S. and Russian interests overlap in certain parts of the world, it should be viewed as a mere coincidence, rather than a pattern. "We are talking about some situational convergence, and not about a unified vision of the global picture," said the head of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrey Kurtunov. Pompeo's trip comes a few weeks ahead of a Group of 20 summit meeting June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, with both Putin and President Trump expected to attend. Trump said on Monday he will meet with Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit. A resident of Virginia is the subject of a lawsuit accusing him of human rights abuses while he was a high-ranking officer during the brutal reign of former Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. A civil trial began this week in a U.S. federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, against Yusuf Abdi Ali, in a suit brought against him by Farhan Mohamoud Tani Warfaa, who says he was tortured and nearly died in 1988 at the hands of Ali. The lawsuit says Ali was commander of the Somali army's Fifth Brigade, which patrolled the breakaway region of Somaliland. Ali allegedly rounded up Warfaa and other young men in late 1987 for interrogation over a missing water tanker. Warfaa says he was detained for several months, during which time he was regularly stripped naked and beaten. In the last interrogation, Warfaa says, Ali shot him several times and ordered his soldiers to bury him, believing he was dead. But the soldiers realized he was alive and smuggled him to his family in exchange for a bribe. Ali fled to Canada after Barre's regime was toppled in 1991. He was deported to the United States after his alleged war crimes were revealed in a television documentary. He has been living in Virginia for more than two decades, working at one time as a security guard at a Washington-area airport. His lawyer has denied the charges. The lawsuit was brought on Warfaa's behalf by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, which seeks to bring alleged war criminals to justice A similar lawsuit brought a $21 million judgement against former Somali Prime Minister Mohammed Al Samantar, who had also taken up residence in Virginia after the fall of the Barre regime. Venezuela's opposition-controlled congress has returned to its chambers a day after security forces prevented its members from entering the National Assembly building for a debate. Opposition leader Juan Guaido and other legislators on Wednesday gave speeches denouncing the government of President Nicolas Maduro, who has accused them of conspiring with the United States to stage a coup. The National Assembly has come under increasing pressure from Maduro since the opposition appealed in vain for a military uprising on April 30. The assembly's vice president, Edgar Zambrano, was arrested May 8. He is among 14 lawmakers placed under investigation for alleged treason and other crimes since the failed rebellion. On Tuesday, police sealed off the National Assembly, purportedly to search for any hidden explosives. Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies joined a dozen countries in a global pledge Wednesday to step up efforts to keep internet platforms from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast attacks. World leaders led by French President Emmanuel Macron and tech executives gathered in Paris to compile a set of guidelines dubbed the Christchurch Call, named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in a March attack on mosques. Much of the attack was broadcast live on Facebook, drawing public outrage and fueling debate on how to better regulate social media. Facebook said before the meeting that it was tightening rules for livestream users. The Christchurch Call is a global response to a tragedy that occurred on the shores of my country but was ultimately felt around the world, said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern, who has played a leading role pushing for globally coordinated efforts to eliminate online extremism. Fundamentally it ultimately commits us all to build a more humane internet, which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes, she said at a joint news conference with Macron. The French and New Zealand governments drafted the agreement a roadmap that aims to prevent similar abuses of the internet while insisting that any actions must preserve the principles of a free, open and secure internet, without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms. The call was adopted by U.S. tech companies that also included Amazon, Microsoft and YouTube, along with France's Qwant and DailyMotion, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Countries backing France and New Zealand were Britain, Canada, Ireland, Jordan, Norway, Senegal, Indonesia and the European Union's executive body. Several other countries not present at the meeting added their endorsement. The White House said it agreed with the overarching message of the Christchurch Call, but didn't want to endorse it. The meeting in Paris comes at a pivotal moment for tech companies, which critics accuse of being too powerful and resistant to regulation. Some have called for giants like Facebook to be broken up. Europe is leading a global push for more regulation of how the companies handle user data and copyrighted material. The tech companies, meanwhile, are offering their own ideas in a bid to shape the policy response. Unlike previous official attempts to regulate the internet, the Christchurch Call is different in that it associates all actors of the internet including the tech companies themselves, Macron said. He said he hopes to get broader support for the agreement in coming months, with technical questions to be discussed by June. In Wednesday's agreement, which is not legally binding, the tech companies committed to measures to prevent the spread of terrorist or violent extremist content. That may include cooperating on developing technology or expanding the use of shared digital signatures. They also promised to take measures to reduce the risk that such content is livestreamed, including flagging it up for real-time review. And they pledged to study how algorithms sometimes promote extremist content. That would help find ways to intervene more quickly and redirect users to credible positive alternatives or counter-narratives. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter issued a joint supporting statement, outlining in further detail actions they would take individually or together to combat abuse of technology to spread extremist content. They include making it easier for users to flag up inappropriate content, using enhanced vetting for livestreaming and publishing transparency reports on material that's removed. Facebook, which dominates social media and has faced the harshest criticism for overlooking the misuse of consumer data and not blocking live broadcasts of violent actions, said separately it is toughening its livestreaming policies. It's tightening the rules for its livestreaming service with a one strike policy applied to a broader range of offenses. Activity on the social network that violates its policies, such as sharing an extremist group's statement without providing context, will result in the user immediately being temporarily blocked. The most serious offenses will result in a permanent ban. Previously, the company took down posts that breached its community standards but only blocked users after repeated offenses. The tougher restrictions will be gradually extended to other areas of the platform, starting with preventing users from creating Facebook ads. Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it's investing $7.5 million to improve technology aimed at finding videos and photos that have been manipulated to avoid detection a problem the company encountered with the Christchurch shooting, where the attacker streamed the killing live on Facebook. Tackling these threats also requires technical innovation to stay ahead of the type of adversarial media manipulation we saw after Christchurch, Facebook's vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, said in a blog post. The Christchurch Call was drafted as 80 CEOs and executives from technology companies gathered in Paris for a Tech for Good conference meant to address how they can use their global influence for public good for example by promoting gender equality, diversity in hiring and greater access to technology for lower income users. Ardern and Macron have insisted that the Christchurch guidelines must involve joint efforts between governments and tech giants. France has been hit by repeated Islamic extremist attacks by groups who recruited and shared violent images on social networks. Free speech advocates and some in the tech industry bristle at new restrictions and argue that violent extremism is a societal problem that the tech world can't solve. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while a higher level of responsibility is demanded from all of the platforms, it is necessary to find a way to not censor legitimate discussion. It's a hard line to draw sometimes, he said. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Swedish prosecutors announce they are reopening the rape case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange following a request from the lawyer of one of the alleged victims. Assange was arrested last month in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London Facebook toughened its livestreaming policies Wednesday as it prepared to huddle with world leaders and other tech CEOs in Paris to find ways to keep social media from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast terror attacks. Facebook's move came hours before its executives would face the prime minister of New Zealand, where an attacker killed 51 people in March and livestreamed parts of it on Facebook. The CEOs and world leaders will try to agree on guidelines they will call the "Christchurch Call,'' named after the New Zealand city where the attack on a mosque took place. Facebook said it's tightening up the rules for its livestreaming service with a "one strike'' policy applied to a broader range of offenses. Any activity on the social network that violates its policies, such as sharing a terrorist group's statement without providing context, will result in the user immediately being temporarily blocked. The most serious offenses will result in a permanent ban. Previously, the company took down posts that breached its community standards but only blocked users after repeated offenses. The tougher restrictions will be gradually extended to other areas of the platform, starting with preventing users from creating Facebook ads. Facebook said it's also investing $7.5 million in new research partnerships to improve image and video analysis technology aimed at finding content manipulated through editing to avoid detection by its automated systems a problem the company encountered following the Christchurch shooting. "Tackling these threats also requires technical innovation to stay ahead of the type of adversarial media manipulation we saw after Christchurch," Facebook's vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, said in a blog post. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern welcomed Facebook's pledge. She said she herself inadvertently saw the Christchurch attacker's video when it played automatically in her Facebook feed. "There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook has taken additional steps today... and look forward to a long-term collaboration to make social media safer," she said in a statement. Ardern is playing a central role in the Paris meetings, which she called a significant "starting point" for changes in government and tech industry policy. Twitter, Google, Microsoft and several other companies are also taking part, along with the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia, Jordan and the European Union. Officials at Facebook said they support the idea of the Christchurch appeal, but that details need to be worked out that are acceptable for all parties. Free speech advocates and some in the tech industry bristle at new restrictions and argue that violent extremism is a societal problem that the tech world can't solve. Ardern and the host, French President Emmanuel Macron, insist that it must involve joint efforts between governments and tech giants. France has been hit by repeated Islamic extremist attacks by groups who recruited and shared violent images on social networks. Speaking to reporters ahead of the meetings, Ardern said, "There will be of course those who will be pushing to make sure that they maintain the commercial sensitivity. We don't need to know their trade secrets, but we do need to know what the impacts might be on our societies around algorithm use." She stressed the importance of tackling "coded language" that extremists use to avoid detection. Before the Christchurch attack, she said, governments took a "traditional approach to terrorism that would not necessarily have picked up the form of terrorism that New Zealand experienced on the 15th of March, and that was white supremacy." Pro-government statements are the norm in Chinhoyi, the hometown of former president Robert Mugabe. But that was not the case at a public meeting Saturday, as Zimbabweans grappling with poverty amid the flailing economy are using every chance they can to voice to their anger. Doug Taylor Freeme, a former leader of the predominantly white Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, was among those who spoke. "When the president came into power, he made an appeal: 'Please, can all those financial institutions come into Zimbabwe and bring investment here.' Our president has no need for him to be traveling all over the world looking for the money. It's here. We just need the right documentation so that we can put the right security in place and I can promise, overnight, there will be a huge change," Freeme said. When he speaks of documentation, Freeme is talking about giving farmers the legal right to their land. Most white commercial farmers were pushed off their land in the early 2000s by the government and replaced by black peasant farmers. Those new farmers have no guarantee they will be allowed to stay, and no collateral to use to borrow money from banks. Without those, Freeme argues, the farms cannot be productive. Even blacks who benefited from the land reforms, like tobacco farmer Ronnie Masango, say unless the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe addresses chronic shortages of cash and finds a way to preserve the value of the local currency, the bondnote, the southern African country's economy will not recover. "I hear people keep on saying parallel market, parallel market" he said, referring to a black market. "Where is that money coming from? At the banks, I cannot access my money. But in the streets I see people using cash. ... We want cash in the banks. Not in the streets. So you will soon see commotion in the streets since the traders show off. Parallel market is the source of our economic problems. That is where corruption starts." Ziyambi Ziyambi, Zimbabwe's justice minister, says only patience will help as the country goes through what President Emmerson Mnangagwa calls "austerity for prosperity" measures to reverse years of recession under former president Mugabe. "To be fair to the reserve bank, the reserve bank does not create a parallel market. A parallel market, or black market, is caused by shortages," Ziyambi said. "So what we are coming up is austerity measures. The moment we have a scenario where our production increases, we kill the parallel market. We have to acknowledge [that] we had 20 years or so where there was no development." It remains to be seen if the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe can assure citizens that the economy will stabilize, but the opposition has indicated more protests will materialize unless the situation improves. Ive been so grateful for me to be able to begin my city council career with you by my side, Barefield said. So many times, I have listened to you all do business and make things happen and how to make a path, because thats what you do. To be able to sit with you and do that again in this period of time has been such a blessing to me. Councilman Dillon Meek said Rodriguezs experience and institutional knowledge after 24 years were indispensable and could not be matched. It was practically helpful, but there is also so much wisdom that you carry, Meek said. You are a fighter for your district. You always fought for the people because you love the people, and it was an honor to see, and to learn from you in that regard. Meek said she also helped create an environment and culture that make the council feel like a second family. Rodriguez was first elected in 1991, took a break from the council from 2001 to 2005, then returned. After Tuesdays meeting, Rodriguez said she is sad this chapter is coming to an end but is excited about what the future holds for her. Skies may be sunny, but water is rising at Lake Waco and the Brazos River through Waco, closing parts of the riverwalk, lake parks and boat ramps. Lake Waco was 16.3 feet higher than normal Tuesday and expected to rise as recent rainfall works its way down the North Bosque River upstream of the lake. All the lake boat ramps and parks will be closed for several weeks except for Midway Park campground, part of Reynolds Creek Park, the dam trail and the spillway area at Bosque Park. At more than 478 feet above sea level, the flooded lake was releasing water Tuesday at the rate of 2,700 cubic feet per second, contributing to rising levels in the Brazos at Waco. Lake Aquilla was about 11 feet higher than normal and releasing 876 cubic feet per second toward the Brazos. But their impact on the river was eclipsed by Lake Whitney some 30 miles upstream of Waco. At 22 feet above normal, the lake was releasing 20,912 cubic feet per second into the Brazos. At Waco near La Salle Avenue, the river was flowing at more than 20,000 cubic feet per second, having risen more than 10 feet since Sunday to 17 feet. The National Weather Service predicted the river would reach 19.1 feet Wednesday morning. I live in the Hampton Roads area of coastal Virginia. Its an area that is loaded with young men and women who serve their nation for a living. I see these people up close, sacrificing every day to protect our nations freedoms, and we have much of which to be proud. They deserve every tool we can give them to protect America and protect themselves. How hard is that? Well, because of (yet another) lobbying fight in faraway Washington, D.C., its made harder than you think. The current lobbying battle I refer to is between one interest supporting replacing an old fleet of F-15s and another one supporting the stealth F-35 for the U.S. Air Force. Both are scheduled to be bought by the Department of Defense, yet lobbyists have instigated a fight to get a bigger slice of the contracting pie, mucking up the works in the process. First off, lobbyists should never determine what military hardware makes it into the field of battle. The proponents of the F-35 are reluctant to acknowledge that this program has been estimated to be the most expensive in U.S. history at well in excess of $300 billion. That is why they are pushing so hard for more contracts. Money pit The man who shot Trooper Allen (on Thanksgiving Day) was out on bail after ramming a deputys car at high speed, Rep. Kacal said. He had two prior convictions for assaulting peace officers, but the man was released after posting just a $1,500 cash bond. Decisions on setting bond are incredibly difficult and they carry with them life-altering consequences that affect the safety of all Texans. The goal of a magistrate in setting bail is to set restrictions, financial or otherwise, to ensure that each defendant has an interest in showing up in court and not committing another crime. Pressing this issue hard in a 2018 stop in Waco, Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that only state district judges or associate judges not justices of the peace set bail in cases involving defendants with violent pasts. The House bill falls short of the governors vision, instead mandating justices of the peace (many of whom lack law degrees) get four hours of continuing education so that, to quote amendment author Andrew Murr, these folks understand the consequences of their decisions. We dont see this sufficiently addressing a problem with some (though not all) JPs. HB 2020 would also benefit from more muscular protections for poor individuals held in jail for non-violent crimes before trial. Hopefully, the Bail Advisory Commission to be manned with appointees made by the Legislature and governors office can highlight problems as this bill becomes law and propose fixes. Thats assuming the Senate doesnt improve the bill before the session ends this month. Senators such as John Whitmire offer excellent ideas. Most teachers went into education because they wanted to teach the whole child not teach to a test. They didnt go into the field for the money but in spite of the money. What should bring them joy is getting dried up by state overregulation. The rule of first do no harm is being violated by the committee substitute of House Bill 3 that has come out of the Texas Senate. How can we continue to allow this to happen? Mary Ann Gonzales, Austin A voice in the matter Who are the people affected by a pregnancy? Certainly the pregnant woman should be the chief decision-maker. There also has to be a male husband or sexual partner. Both the womans and the mans extended families may care about the pregnancy. And lets not forget the baby in the pregnant womans womb. Suppose the woman is deciding whether to end the pregnancy. Who is most affected by an abortion? Few would argue its the husband or sex partner or the extended families. Many persons believe its the pregnant woman because her body is holding the baby in-utero and she faces her own future and that of the baby. Others think the baby is most affected because he/she faces a life-or-death situation. WAHOO An open invitation has been extended for a Wahoo Public Schools Facility Study meeting on Thursday, May 16. Heartland Center for Leadership Development, the independent consultants hired by Wahoo Public Schools to assess and engage community input, will hold the meeting from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at the Wahoo Senior Center. Heartland Co-Director Milan Wall said this will be an opportunity for anyone who wants to offer input to come and do so. A question/answer and discussion format will both be used for the meeting. Wall said the objective of the meeting is to gather feedback on the school and the community as a whole. Heartland Centers services were retained by the Wahoo Board of Education after voters turned down a proposed construction project last November. Heartland was asked to gather information about what the community believes could or should be done to solve district facility needs. Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a welcome ceremony for Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People before their talks in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday held talks with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who is on a state visit to China and will attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing. Xi spoke of the significance of Pavlopoulos's visit to promote exchanges and mutual learning of civilizations in Europe and Asia, as well as dialogue among civilizations in the world. Xi underscored the inclusiveness of Chinese civilization since ancient times, noting the entry of ancient Greek civilization, ancient Roman civilization, Mediterranean civilization, as well as Buddhism, Islam and Christianity into the country through the ancient Silk Road. There has never been any clash of civilizations or any religious war in China, Xi said, adding that the Chinese nation does not have a tradition of aggression. The Chinese people, Xi said, have long upheld the devotion to the country, believing that the country always comes first, before the family. They are convinced there would be no individual and family happiness without a strong unified nation. He said the Chinese people remain rock-firm determined to safeguarding the national unification and territorial integrity, as well as protecting the national interests and the state dignity. China will firmly follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics despite all sorts of hardship and obstacles, Xi added. Describing people of all countries as living in a global village destined to swim or sink together, Xi stressed the need to promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and win-win cooperation of various countries to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity. Pavlopoulos said the "clash of civilizations" argument drummed up by certain people in the international arena was a huge mistake. He said different civilizations should respect each other, enhance mutual learning through dialogue and exchanges and draw upon each other's strengths, which is the way to guarantee lasting peace of the world and harmonious co-existence of humanity. Greece highly appreciates the Xi-proposed outlook on world civilizations, the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative, and the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity, Pavlopoulos said. Greece also highly commends China on upholding multilateralism, honoring its words and keeping its promises in the international arena, Pavlopoulos added. An exhibition at the Colosseum traces the Roman empire's last period of greatness under the 40-year reign of the Severans. A new exhibition at the Colosseum pays tribute to the Severans, Romes fourth and final dynasty which ruled from 193-235 AD and which was arguably its most controversial. The catalogue hails the Severans as reformist, displaying in papyrus the Edict of Caracalla, or Antonine Constitution, conferring universal citizenship upon the empire's subjects. Yet the 18th-century English historian Edward Gibbon blamed the Severans for imposing a militarised monarchy whose 40-year rule eroded the powers of the senate. With 111 of the senate's number liquidated or dispossessed 18 per cent of their 600 total in the senate the political balance shifted to the often unruly, ever more costly legions. Post-Severan emperors would tumble like nine-pins as army factions promoted their man or just as often did away with him if he failed to do their bidding. When one evening in 1764 Gibbon sat in the ruins of the Capitol and first had the idea of writing the citys history, the arch of Septimus Severus would have been foremost in his line of vision. The dynasty animates Gibbon's perhaps most dramatic chapter (VI) in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the Colosseum exhibition the Severans' illuminated heads throng the atrium with a gamut of character types to satisfy the most demanding of script-writers, from the severe Septimus Severus, the dynasty's founder, to the depraved Eliogabalus to Alexander Severus, in Gibbons version almost too virtuous for his own good. Domna Julia, from collection of Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. First on display, however, is Septimus's amiable Syrian-born consort, Domna Julia, the tragic super-matriarch. Here she stands in the guise of Ceres, goddess of agriculture and grain. It was grain from her husband's home region of Tripolitania, now part of Libya, that provided Rome with its seven-year surplus. Two curls of her own hair peeping out below her wig, she was a style-setter for other Roman matrons. Large eyes, long nose, high cheekbones was this the inspiration on which Gibbon, mind-reading the marble, based his loving portrayal? First male statue in the exhibition is Marcus Aurelius, the penultimate Antonine into whose imperial family the comparatively low-born Septimus would self-adopt. The neatly-trimmed hair and Greek-philosopher-type beard of Marcus Aurelius are shared by Septimus his attempt to confer authority and due continuity on what would in modern parlance be termed a military coup. Indeed in his first speech to the senate, Septimus declared Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, a god, in front of the very dignitaries Commodus (of Gladiator fame) had threatened to decapitate. Marcus Aurelius, from collection of Capitoline Museums. Photo Zeno Colantoni. The Antonines, Gibbons all-time favourites, had until Commodus, the last of the dynasty, used the adoptive system: succeeding emperors were chosen for their fitness to govern. By contrast Septimus, an ailing monarch, elevated his squabbling sons, Caracalla and Geta, to joint Caesars, sparking a sibling rivalry smacking of Cain and Abel. One bust is of a childhood Geta. Glaring sideways, Caracalla, who had Geta murdered, boasts two busts. Geta was then erased from public memory, his likenesses pulverised or, in a family fresco, reduced to an anonymous smudge. Caracalla, Gibbons enemy of mankind, would also have an untimely end, killed in a plot involving Macrinus, head of the Pretorian Guard. Geta. Collection Monaco di Baviera, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek. After an interim under Macrinus, who had risen through the imperial household and was proclaimed emperor on the death of Caracalla, the Severans were back by 218 AD. Faced with Macrinuss pay-cuts, the army in the east was discontented again. Long-suffering Domna Julia, on the death of her second son Geta, had starved herself to death; Julia Mesa, her sister back in Emesa (todays Homs in Syria), took over as dynastic matriarch. Quickly she persuaded her elder daughter, Julia Soema, respectably married to one Varius Bassanius, to feign a past affair with Caracalla. Thus the 14-year-old son, Eliogabalus, switching fathers, could directly claim the emperorship. Arriving in Rome a year later, the youth would become a cross-dresser, husband to first a series of women, then to a charioteer, then to a vestal virgin. This between suffocating dinner-guests with rose-petals and forcing senators to attend ceremonies anything but traditionally Roman. For damage limitation, Julia Mesa persuaded him to share the throne with her other grandson, the strictly Roman 13-year-old Alexander Severus who, in a further sleight of alternative fact, was also passed off as a son of Caracalla. Marble bust of Heliogabulus, circa 220 AD, from the collection of the Capitoline Musuems. Photo Zeno Colantoni. Initially Eliogabalus agreed to his grandmothers arrangement, but his wayward nature soon returned. After an outrage too far, the senate cried enough. Eliogabalus went the way of his two predecessors, his body then being thrown into the Tiber. Counselled by the wise Uplian and others, Alexander, then a callow youth, developed into the most conscientious of emperors. From busts to buildings: models of Leptus Magna, Septimus's home town, then of his triumphal arch in the Forum, virtual imagery enabling the visitor to examine closely the scenes too high up on the real thing. Those triumphs against the Parthians, their captives lined in chains below, didnt last. In an early example of imperial overstretch, the Persian Sassanids were waiting in the wings to win back lands from the Romans as the empire began to collapse, while in the north of England guerrilla tactics by the local tribes drove the legions back behind Hadrians wall. During a rest in campaigning against the Caledonians (or Scots), Septimus died in Eboracum (York) in 2011. Outdoing plastic casts are the Urban Landscape sections 3D videos: Admire Eliogabaluss temple (in the Roman Forum) and then Septimus's Septizodium with all its statuary and fountains. Theres also a drones-eye view of Severuss Arch topped by a golden seven-horsed chariot. A second video pieces back together part of the Forum Urbis, the marble map once attached in 150 slabs to the Templum Pacis, the area now largely occupied by the S. Cosma e Damiano church. Only 15 per cent 1,186 chunks survived depredation following Romes fall. The wall-holes still perforate the SS. Cosma and Damiano church facade. From stone, via Egypt, to papyrus. The anachronistic-sounding Antonine Constitution is explained on video by Caracalla. The constitution conferred universal citizenship rights, yes. But also the responsibility to pay taxes to support the burgeoning military and the massive building and restoration projects following Commoduss fire-prone rule. As the catalogue mentions, plagues and smallpox in previous decades had drastically eroded the tax-base. Here, at one stroke, was a means of widening it. Bust of Caracalla from collection of Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. Photo Luigi Spina. Lastly, trade. Another wall-map makes our own EU seem small. Metal from Britain to Dalmatia. Marbles from Greece and Lower Egypt. Wine from Ephesus or Gaul. Fish-sauce from the Black Sea. Olive-oil from Cordoba. Proof of the Severan trade boom is Monte Testaccio: the district just north of the Tiber is founded, both etymologically and archaeologically, on shards of 53 million amphorae, jug-eared teste, mostly from the Severan period. The stamps on the handles bear out how the dynasty established something of an imperial monopoly on the import/export business, with the names of individual entrepreneurs tending to disappear. And luxuries? Indicating how seriously Romans took their pleasures, from New Yorks Met Museum comes a tray-handle engraved with the triumph of Bacchus. With the potential to inflate cocktail prices, from Germany calyxes, cups and beakers demonstrate glassware as an art form which our mass technology has lost. More down-market is some Tunisian earthenware, but whose cupids, birds and a musical monkey combine to make drinking cinematic. Poster from exhibition Roma Universalis For one ticket this might seem enough. Yet, along the Forum, Romuluss temple hosts 33 artefacts washed back into the present, following Professor Panellas recent excavation of Eliogabaluss Baths (between the Arches of Titus and Constantine). In a video, Times Vortex, archaeological layers unfold Iron Age huts, an early imperial eating complex, Severuss then Eliogabaluss baths. Gibbons History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a brilliantly grotesque if majestically worded helter-skelter of events, can read like a fiction; here in recently or not-so-recently excavated marble and travertine is its confirmation as fascinating fact. By Martin Bennett The White House has not said whether it will sign the document, and a spokesman declined to comment Tuesday. Behind the scenes, though, Trump administration officials said they have been actively negotiating with French and New Zealand officials over the documents text. While the administration supports the documents goals, it fears some of its language would run counter to the Constitutions First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, according to two people familiar with the deliberations but not authorized to discuss them on the record. LeBron James finished with 39 points, nine rebounds and seven assists Saturday, but the Lakers couldn't finish an improbable comeback and lost to the Nets. (Ashley Landis/AP) The Lakers, losers of five games in a row, are still searching for a way to climb out of the doldrums that have plagued them going as far back as the offseason. Sarah Morgan grows up part of a close-knit, wealthy family in Louisiana whose fortunes are unraveled by the Civil War, devastated by the loss of one male family member after another. It was Hals death which taught the Morgans that what they had always taken for granted was not theirs. They did not possess it, Robinson writes. Fortune, healthy children, a stable life. Whatever you have you think is yours. You believe youre entitled to it. But you will come to learn that you are entitled to nothing. Robinson may be writing about those undone by the Civil War in 1865, but her words resonate amid the cultural and political fault lines of America in 2019. Much of what follows could be described as zany or madcap. After offering a nights lodging to an unwanted visitor to his country manor White Ladies, Berry gravely adds: You shall have the haunted room. The ghost is a large blood-stain. Your starting eyes watch it spread over the ceiling and down the walls. As it reaches your bed. Later, an insufferably boring tourist who isnt quite what he seems invites himself to dine with the much-enduring Berry, saying We want to get together, dont we? To which Berry replies, Oh, rather in the tone of one who is subscribing to a suggestion that he shall be burnt alive. The Smithsonian Institution has drawn a similar distinction regarding the branches of the family and the source of their wealth. The Smithsonians Arthur M. Sackler Gallery opened in 1987, months after its benefactor died and years before OxyContin came on the market. Arthur Sackler donated 1,000 objects and $4 million to the museum, and the Smithsonian is contractually bound to keep the family name on the Asian art museum, according to a spokeswoman, who added that future donations are not in the works. The lesson here isnt just that religious life drew on many different sources, though that is definitely true. Rather, it tells us something about the psychology of the day, that people clearly felt little dissonance in the diversity of religious belief, aesthetic style and cultural identity that was common to these lands. From our vantage point, defined by centuries of bloody-minded monotheism and nationalism, this diversity looks like a mess that needs sorting out. Its tempting to believe that for those who lived within it, the richness and range of aesthetic and spiritual material felt like a happy superabundance. If your gods can look like polished boxes with abstract faces, or Greek youths with perfect, muscled bodies, you have options, not just in whom or what to worship, but in how you conceive your relationship to divinity. Hes always had this clarity in the way that he plays, Metheny said. People talk about blues guitar and you kind of have this image in your mind of B.B. King and Son House, and Kenny is connected to that in a very deep way but in a very different kind of way. The cleaner kind of sound. Theres not really any string bending going on. Each performer doubles in supporting roles, and Gamble has one of the most resonant multiple tracks as she pivots from playing Mary to an officer in Elizabeths court. Ivania Stacks modern-dress costumes (lots of jeans and trendy boots) encourage a kind of grounded, appealingly offhand streak in the acting. The occasional addition of Elizabethan elements, though a kerchief here, a ruff there makes it seem as if the show hasnt quite decided how it wants to balance the eras, despite a particularly striking costume choice near the end. The scenic design by Loewith and Richard Ouellette is mainly a shiny floor, a shadowy chamber that gets a sinister air from Colin K. Billss lights. Its a terrific atmosphere in which to act, and the acting is what carries this show. Their focus has been just on the political debate and the political investment for a wall and no other immigration investments for border security, Lujan Grisham said. They leave states like ours in really precarious positions, and were showing folks we can lead and problem-solve. We figured out a way to get 55 folks out of Las Cruces and to Denver. Were going to continue to do everything like that that we can in the short term. Long Bridge Dr., 300 block, 5 p.m. May 5 to 9:20 a.m. May 6. Cash was stolen from a business entered by force. The council must take a final stand on the issue as part of its last budget vote this month and could strike a deal on Banneker. Bowser has been an outspoken supporter of moving Banneker to Shaw. Her administration said Tuesday it would spend the next weeks explaining to the community and council why it views the council proposal as ruinous. They keep us locked down 24 hours a day in seg (the hole) & its not fair & its unhealthy for the mind, he writes in one. Im just sick & tired of all this mess, & mental health dont do checks but once a month, and I sometimes just want to die. I already been thru more than enough in this life as it is, so I dont know how much more I can take I dont deserve this kind of treatment. Im not a slave & Im not an animal so why am I being treated like one? If convicted, the defendants each face a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life. Prosecutors say one of the accused also faces gun charges. All the defendants except one have been arrested and are in federal or state custody. Over the next two years, the funding will pay for school-based health centers, grants for schools where at least 80 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, raises for teachers the state will provide a 1.5 percent raise if the local district gives 3 percent and grants to improve teacher standards. Maxwells courage was what held us together, Cyril F. McColl, a technician fourth grade, later told Colliers magazine. The machine-gun fire was just clearing his head, but he sat there taking pot shots at everything that moved. Our wall was beginning to crumble, and I was thinking how nice it would be to get out of there, when a grenade came over the chicken wire, and hit the cement floor right at our feet. These were among incidents reported by the Prince Georges County Police Department. For information, call 301-772-4710. Since April 30, anti-Maduro protesters have patrolled the buildings entrances and exits, at times physically blocking attempts to enter or deliver supplies. Each side has accused the other of violence. Police have arrested at least 10 people, many of whom were charged in connection with throwing missiles in many cases, a reference to food items launched past police barricades and the raised hands of Guaido supporters. The issue of eating on Metro and the law against it became the subject of public debate last weekend after a rider photographed an African American Metro worker eating on a train and tweeted the image, tagging Metro and the Twitter account of a vocal critic of the agency with her complaint. The backlash on social media was swift, with people accusing the complainant, who is Jordanian American, of publicly shaming a black woman and trying to get her fired. Residents in Northern Virginia began a serious push to change the highways name after the Charleston church shooting in 2015 led to the removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolinas statehouse grounds. Two years later, the violent and deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville over an effort to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee caused Virginia, home to more Confederate monuments and memorials than any other state, to reassess its schools, streets and other public landmarks named to honor the Confederacy. Several board members said that the memos claims would be concerning if true but added that they are wary of the way they have been shared. I dont really like anonymous accusations, because you dont know what the agenda is, said Supervisor John C. Cook (R-Braddock). Carroll Foy, 37, a criminal defense lawyer, was among the Democrats who won seats held by Republicans in 2017, nearly wiping out the GOP majority in the House of Delegates. Republicans hold each chamber by two seats. Carroll Foy said her new Virginia for Everyone PAC is aimed at helping the party gain control of both the House and the Senate in elections this fall. Both suspects, dressed in jail uniforms, appeared separately in a courtroom that included the family of Kendrick Castillo, the 18-year-old student who was killed in the shooting at the suburban Denver school when classmates said he lunged at a shooter and helped stop the attack from escalating. Neither Erickson nor McKinney spoke beyond quietly answering the judge with yes or no. Ivey said she recognizes that the bill might be unenforceable because of Roe v. Wade, and she said that we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions. She said the sponsors of the bill believe that it is time, once again, for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur. The Alabama bill, which passed 25-6, is even more restrictive than prior state-level abortion laws, and it includes a penalty of up to 99 years in prison for doctors who perform abortions. Six of the Senates Democrats voted against the bill one abstained and they staged a filibuster into Tuesday night after debating the bill for more than four hours, with senators discussing the role government should play in legislating what a woman can do with her body and the definition of life. Aranda was arrested moments after the attack as he waited to board a light-rail train at the mall, and police say he quickly admitted to the crime. A criminal complaint filed soon after the attack said Aranda told police he was angry at being rejected by women at the mall and was looking for someone to kill when he went there that day. For years, transplant hospitals generally had first claim to organs donated in their areas. The new policy offers livers to the sickest patients as far as 500 nautical miles from the donor. It was approved after a lawsuit was filed in New York by patients who said they were waiting longer for livers than less-ill people in other parts of the country. The government, concerned that the policy in place was illegal, ordered transplant authorities to consider another approach. The legal opinion from the Justice Department this month sides against the FDA and with Texas. It says that drugs intended for executions are different from any others, noting that they exclusively inflict harm and are not intended to produce any benefit for the end user. It expressly highlights the narrowness of our conclusion, saying that it does not address whether the FDA has jurisdiction over drugs intended for use in physician-assisted suicide. Both suspects, dressed in jail uniforms, appeared separately in a courtroom that included the family of Kendrick Castillo, the 18-year-old student who was killed in the shooting at the suburban Denver school when classmates said he lunged at a shooter and helped stop the attack from escalating. A memorial service was held later in the day for Castillo, who would have graduated this spring. Pilot inexperience may well have played a role in the crashes after the infamous MCAS stabilization system malfunctioned. But that doesnt negate the fact that screwups by both Boeing and the FAA put the faulty aircraft in the air in the first place. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that senior FAA officials failed to review key safety assessments of the MCAS system and that Boeing failed to label the stall-prevention system as a critical component whose malfunction could be catastrophic. MCAS wasnt even originally mentioned in the planes manual. In addition, Boeing had disabled a safety feature designed to warn pilots about malfunctioning sensors related to the system but it allegedly didnt inform airlines. Boeing didnt inform the FAA until 13 months after it discovered it had offered the safety feature as an add-on option instead of standard. Lawmakers who were old enough to have been fans were always thrilled to hear from her, Pacelle said. She was one of the biggest celebrity names in the 20th century, and her guileless approach on animal issues won her so many admirers and fans. She was part of the process of making animal welfare a mainstream issue. She is like Jane Goodall in being above the fray and was almost impossible for apologists of animal cruelty to attack. For many people with a felony conviction, who completed their terms of incarceration, probation and parole, this means finding a lawyer, determining the amount of the long-forgotten costs and fines, and then working and saving enough to pay it back, or asking the court for other relief. The legislature loaded up a vote-restoration process that was very streamlined. The new process could take years for some returning citizens to complete, and many will never be able to pay the fees back in their lifetimes. The Republican-led legislature is not concerned about these added burdens, and the governor has said he will sign this legislation. With good reason, protest leaders have demanded that a new civilian government with democratic principles take over. The gritty determination of the demonstrators has forced the military into talks that seem to be bearing fruit, including the promising agreement on a three-year transition. The generals have also tentatively agreed to give the opposition alliance two-thirds of the seats on a 300-seat transitional legislative council, and the remaining seats would go to other opposition parties. Whats not yet clear is the composition of an 11-member sovereign council, which would be the highest authority in the land. The demonstrators and the military have each insisted on having a majority. The civilians should hold fast for control of this council to ensure that real change and, eventually, democracy are able to flower. According to U.S. officials, Tehran also may be preparing strikes against U.S. forces in the Middle East or against commercial and military ships in the Persian Gulf. Attacks on four oil tankers near the mouth of the gulf on Sunday have not yet been attributed to Iran; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday they were still being investigated. If Tehran is deemed responsible, Mr. Trump will come under pressure to deliver on threats of a bad problem for Iran if something happens, as he put it Monday. The Pentagon has dispatched additional forces to the region, and the New York Times reported that plans have been drawn up to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops. The challenge, of course, is to keep from sliding into the kind of harsh discrimination that is now pushing Christians and Jews from many Muslim-dominated countries in the Middle East. Thats a challenge Israel hasnt always met; I first encountered Mr. Khalloul on the site of Biram, a Maronite village Israel evacuated and destroyed more than 50 years ago, and which he is now fighting to get rebuilt. But then, such tolerance is always a challenge, which is why even the United States, a country that espouses tolerance as a prime virtue, has recently been struggling with how far to accommodate ancient and obdurately illiberal faiths as when we catapulted almost immediately from legalize gay weddings to force Christian bakers to make their wedding cakes. Just about every administration, given the option, will try to hold the media at a distance. Shortly after her husband was inaugurated in 1993, then-first lady Hillary Clinton proposed booting reporters to the Old Executive Office Building and reclaiming the old swimming pool that Nixon had given up. It was an idea she got from her predecessor, Barbara Bush, who advised the incoming administration to show the press whos boss right from the start, according to a memoir by then-White House aide George Stephanopoulos. The crucial question is who bears the burden of the higher prices created by the tariffs. According to Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, U.S. consumers ultimately shoulder most costs. The tariffs simply get embedded in the products final prices. Hufbauer estimates that if $500 billion in Chinese exports are hit with a 25 percent tariff, the annual cost for a three-person household would be $2,200. The existing tariffs cover about half of that. Hufbauers estimate also assumes that, shielded from import competition, U.S.-based firms would raise some domestic prices. The BDS movement seeks to compel individuals, private corporations and even entire countries to refuse to invest in or do business with Israeli firms. At its root, it is an effort to weaponize grievance politics and attack Israels sovereignty under the guise of defending the Palestinian cause. BDSs real aim is to exclude, isolate and delegitimize Israel. It undermines direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority by placing all the blame on the Jewish state. And it echoes a long, dark history of anti-Semitic boycotts visited upon the Jewish people since well before the establishment of the modern state of Israel. Enter Kiron Skinner, the State Departments director of policy planning, who seems to be more on Trumps wavelength. Speaking at the New America Foundation, she harkened back to Samuel Huntingtons famous essay The Clash of Civilizations to describe U.S. relations with China. The Soviet Union and that competition, in a way it was a fight within the Western family, Skinner said. It was a really important Western concept that opened the door really to undermine the Soviet Union, a totalitarian state, on human rights principles. Thats not really possible with China. . . . Its the first time that we will have a great- power competitor that is not Caucasian. Consovoys argument was so aggressive, it seemed Trumps lawyers expected defeat in the lower court and were looking for a higher court to reinterpret the law in Trumps favor or, more likely, for the appeals to stretch until after the 2020 election. Consovoy sought delays for discovery and more arguments, saying it would be a disservice if I did not go into depth. But Mehta brushed off these attempts, saying he would close the record this week. And the judge flatly rejected Consovoys exotic argument that Mehta should preemptively declare unconstitutional any hypothetical legislation Congress might come up with related to its probe of Trumps finances. I do not doubt that Congresss investigatory oversight function is important, legitimate and firmly grounded historically. The presidents response that we will fight all subpoenas is unprecedented and ominous. Getting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify is a valid and important objective. And although it appears to me that most of the redactions were justified in the first instance, Congress is entitled to see most or all of them particularly those in Volume One that would offer the most complete possible understanding of Russias influence and hacking operations. As the House resolution recommending contempt against Attorney General William P. Barr explains, without this detailed information Congress is unable to fully perform its responsibility to protect the impending 2020 elections and thus our democracy itself from a recurrence of Russian interference. One provision of the law would prohibit doctors from performing an abortion if the woman is choosing the procedure because of the fetuss gender or race, or because of a diagnosis or potential diagnosis of Down syndrome or any other disability. It requires doctors to inform women of these prohibitions. Another part of the law requires that the remains of an abortion or miscarriage be buried or cremated, as required of other human remains. During his short political career, Trump has been successful in using abortion to solidify his support among evangelical voters initially skeptical of him. Though he had described himself as an abortion rights advocate for much of his life, he was the first Republican nominee to openly promise to appoint antiabortion justices to the Supreme Court. He said during the 2016 campaign that his appointees would overturn Roe automatically if he were elected. Lindsey also came prepared Tuesday with his own research on Trumps character, telling Republican lawmakers that he had asked two psychologists to evaluate the president from afar. The professionals found that Trump was a 10 out of 10 narcissist, Lindsey told the Republicans, according to a GOP aide present at the talk who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The cast of characters behind the scenes spewing misinformation is revealing, Keating said. Cultural warfare to benefit bank accounts. Corrupt intent for personal gain, all in the form of a racist tweet. And some members of this body are eager to let him get away with it but not me, not my co-sponsors and not the majority of this House. The White House is making the outrageous claim that a president cannot be held accountable in any way to the American people, he said, adding: This is ridiculous, it would make the president above the law, and of course we totally reject it. We will subpoena whoever we have to subpoena. The slogan for Lugars failed run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 was nuclear security and fiscal sanity, and he was widely seen as too low-key for the GOP base, even then. Lugar later struggled to deal with the new head winds in the Republican Party that emerged early in this decade, and was defeated by a tea-party challenger during his 2012 Senate primary race. In his remarks, Trump highlighted the slaying of Cpl. Ronil Singh of the Newman, Calif., Police Department during a traffic stop in December. The man charged in the case is an undocumented immigrant who authorities say crossed into Arizona from Mexico a couple of years ago and had been working as a farm laborer in Californias Central Valley. Hes in his own little world, said one individual familiar with the discussion in the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe the session. He didnt give many details about what was in [his plan]. . . . And there were a number of instances where people had to step in and answer questions because he couldnt. If you read the Mueller report, there was tons of evidence that they knew the Russians were interfering with the election on their behalf, Nadler said. They welcomed it, they wanted it, and they coordinated with it. Colluded, in a word. Theres no question about that. According to the suits, an NAR rule prevents buyers from unilaterally altering the split stated in the listing contract. Say, you are a seller of a $500,000 home and agree at the listing to pay a total 5.5 percent commission, allocating 3 percent to the listing agent and 2.5 percent to the buyers agent. If the house sells for the full asking price of $500,000, that would mean the buyers agent would be due $12,500 at closing. If you thought this was more than you wanted to pay especially given that you knew part of the buyers agents job was to help your buyer obtain a lower price for your house you might not be happy about having to shell out the $12,500. Shouldnt the buyer pay this fee? She married at 18 in an arranged match between families of the same caste. Her husband, Sudhakar, liked to cook everything from vegetable dishes to fried sweets and they had two children. One month after the birth of her second child, a girl, via C-section, Yede was convalescing at her parents home in a nearby village. Her husband came to see her one morning and told her he wasnt feeling well. It was the last time she saw him. Cengiz said she had met Khashoggi at a conference last year and that the two soon made plans to wed. She said that he sometimes voiced concerns that Saudi Arabia would retaliate for columns he wrote that were critical of the government by seizing his passport or other means but that he did not fear for his safety. Nevertheless, the increasing tension has fueled concern that the two countries might accidentally slide into conflict. The comments from Khamenei and Pompeo came several days after ships belonging to U.S. allies were attacked near the Persian Gulf, an act for which U.S. officials suggested Iran may be responsible. The incident followed a series of U.S. steps designed to isolate Iran, including the designation of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and a raft of new sanctions after the White House decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Such listings are considered extreme steps taken in consultation with intelligence and national security officials, but Trump has signaled in the past that these sorts of decisions can be used as bargaining chips in broader negotiations. Last year, Xi personally requested that Trump remove a similar listing against the Chinese company ZTE, another telecommunications giant. Trump said he would do it as a personal favor to Xi, and after several weeks of discussions, the U.S. government allowed the company to survive with new limitations. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, who is in China to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, who is in Beijing to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC). Expressing China's strong condemnation of recent terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, Xi said China is ready to stand alongside the Sri Lankan government and people, support Sri Lanka in combating terrorism, and help the country enhance its counter-terrorism capacity building to safeguard national security and stability. China stands ready to work with Sri Lanka to constantly push forward their strategic cooperative partnership that features sincere mutual help and long-term friendship, Xi said. He called on the two sides to maintain regular high-level communication, firmly grasp the general direction of friendly cooperation, and staunchly support each other. The two countries should steadily advance the joint construction of the Belt and Road, promote cooperation in major projects, and accelerate livelihood projects to benefit the people of Sri Lanka, Xi said. He called for deepening security law enforcement cooperation and jointly addressing non-traditional security threats including terrorism. Xi expressed hope that Sri Lanka would make good use of the CDAC as a platform to showcase its time-honored Buddhist civilization and colorful and diversified cultures. Sirisena spoke of the significance of the China-proposed CDAC for the region and the world, saying it's also important for Sri Lanka. Thanking China for its long-term support, Sirisena said Sri Lanka always regards developing relations with China as a priority, and is willing to work with China to enhance Belt and Road cooperation, and deepen development and security cooperation. The two leaders attended a ceremony for the signing of bilateral cooperation documents after the meeting. The decision marks a turning point in an election campaign that has been wild, even by Central American standards. A quarter of the 24 initial presidential hopefuls face allegations of wrongdoing, and before Wednesdays ruling, four had been excluded from the race. One was accused by U.S. authorities of seeking millions of dollars in campaign funds from the Sinaloa drug cartel and help in assassinating political rivals. (The candidate, Mario Estrada, who was arrested on a visit to Miami, has pleaded not guilty.) But a burst of tweets against a congresswoman at one point, he implied she was a prostitute proved too vulgar for Brazils legislators, and in 2017, he was ordered to delete the offensive tweets. So, in characteristic response, he tore the order into pieces and rubbed them on his genitals in a video that went viral. The State Department issued a partial departure order Wednesday for many employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, a process that typically takes a few days to complete. The facility is one of the largest in the world, and even after the staff is whittled down, there will still be a large number of Americans working there. Cars / Yachts Pioneering builder Dynamiq has targeted growth in Asia by appointing superyacht specialist Central Yacht as its brand ambassador for the region. May 15, 2019 | By Yacht Style Monaco superyacht builder Dynamiq has appointed Central Yacht as its brand ambassador for Asia. Dynamiq produces the fast, efficient Gran Turismo Transatlantic (GTT) range of aluminium superyachts, first showcased at the 2016 Monaco Yacht Show with the 39m Spring (ex- Jetsetter). A 35m GTT 115 hybrid designed with Porsche was shown at Monaco in 2017 before the yacht had sea trials and at Cannes and Monaco last September, while the builder has sold the first GTT 135 and is now developing a new explorer range. Dynamiq yachts are conceived and designed in Monaco, engineered in Holland with hydrodynamic specialists Van Oossanen, and built in Italy to semi-custom requirements on a platform of 30m, 35m, 41m or 50m. Dynamiq also offers prospective clients full-custom builds designed either by a designer of their choice or in-house. Complying with Large Yacht Code so increasing charter potential RINA Comfort Class and RINA Green Star, the yachts are constructed with marine-grade aluminium in a customised yard in Massa, one of Europes yacht building capitals. Captain Paul Brackley and Greg Dagge are the principals of Central Yacht, which has either sold, designed or managed multiple yachts over 50m in Asia including the technical support of one of the most sophisticated ever built the 65m diesel-electric ABB Azipod Ambrosia. Others include the 56m Lady Candy, 55.85m Genesis 2, 53.8m Nonni 2 and the 51.8m Jade 959 (interior work). Dagge said: Dynamiq has broken with the traditions of yacht engineering and come up with something not just new but really advantageous in terms of comfort, safety and performance and wrapped it up inside truly gorgeous Italian styling. I am now delighted they have teamed up with Central Yacht, the most capable superyacht company in Asia, to deliver unparalleled sales and after-sales support in the region. We fit very well and can support the builder and its yacht owners due to our Asian presence, experience, technical and practical support. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Central Yacht has its own design and engineering team, so can work directly with Asia-based clients on design, to supervise builds, and deliver and maintain yachts while in the region. The company has developed a refit facility in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, encompassing 110m of dry dock and wet berths for maintenance or modifications, now available to Dynamiq yachts based in the region or visiting. www.bedynamiq.com www.centralyacht.com Waterford's newest restaurant, Everett's scooped three awards at Monday night Irish Restaurant Awards at the Clayton Hotel Burlington Road. Peter Everett picked the chef in Munster award before the restaurant itself was named the best newcomer in Munster and later the best newcomer in Ireland. Over 1,100 guests sat down to a black-tie gala dinner to celebrate and honour the hard work and achievements of those working in the Irish restaurant industry over the last 12 months. Attendees were treated to a black-tie gala dinner prepared by previous winners of the Irish Restaurant Awards. The Chef Team is handpicked by the Irish Restaurant Awards, with chefs representing each region of Ireland. Loam Restaurant in Galway was named All-Ireland Best Restaurant 2019, while Graham Neville of Dax Restaurant, Dublin, was named All Ireland Best Chef. All Ireland Pub of the Year went to Doheny and Nesbitt in Dublin. Speaking at the awards, Chief Executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland Adrian Cummins commented, This is the 11th year of the Irish Restaurant Awards, and it has been the biggest year for the awards to date. Over 90,000 nominations were received from the public in January, and over 2,000 restaurateurs attended the Regional Awards, which were held in Kildare, Monaghan, Limerick and Sligo. The standard for judging this year has been very high." "Ireland may be a small country, but it boasts everything from fine dining to high-quality gastropubs, from the comfort of traditional Irish food to exploring the world through exotic world cuisine, the Irish restaurant industry has much to offer. We have an appreciation for what we eat and where our food comes from, as well as the dedication of those working in the food industry." Sigma Healthcare chairman Brian Jamieson will step down in the next 12 months as investors delivered a strong vote against the company's remuneration report at its shareholder meeting, and questioned the rejection of a takeover bid by rival Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API). The company told investors it remains on track to deliver on its earnings guidance and cost-cutting targets after a tumultuous year in which it walked away from a new deal with Chemist Warehouse that triggered a share price plunge and a halving of its earnings guidance. "We understand the frustration from the outside looking in," said Mr Jamieson on Wednesday, when asked when Sigma's share price would match the 68.6 a share offer in December from API at a time when its shares were trading at 40. Sigma chairman Brian Jamieson acknowledged investor frustration at a share price which is significantly below the offer price from rival API. Credit:Glenn Hunt API retains a 13 per cent stake in Sigma whose shares closed 1 higher at 54 on Wednesday. Widespread drought has forced Australia to make a rare purchase of Canadian grain its first wheat import in more than a decade. An Australian importer was issued a permit to ship bulk wheat from Canada, the Australian Department of Agriculture & Water Resources said on its website on Tuesday, after local crops were ravaged by the lack of rain. The permit is for a single shipment, which is expected to arrive in six to eight weeks. Australia is starting to import some wheat as its crop has been impacted by the drought. Credit:Erin Jonasson While Australia does import small quantities of specialty wheat grades each year, a bulk shipment like this is significant because its so rare. It comes after east coast prices rose as high as $450 a tonne last year, making it among the most expensive markets in the world. Prices closed Tuesday at $300 a tonne. Wages policy is shaping up as a possible last-minute vote decider for small business, with warnings founders are "very concerned" about possible legislated pay rises of more than 10 per cent under a Labor government. "The opposition have been quite vocal about the fact theyre going to really work to see real increases in minimum wages ... small business owners that I have spoken to are very concerned about that," says chief executive of small business accounting firm MYOB, Tim Reed. MYOB CEO Tim Reed said payment time continues to be an issue for small business. Credit:Jessica Hromas After canvassing the views of the company's user base, Mr Reed said small business owners are torn between a desire for stable leadership following a period of turbulence under the Coalition, and a worry that wages under Labor may outstrip what they can afford. Speaking to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald after addressing the Future Work Summit in Melbourne, Mr Reed said many key small business issues like tax cuts had been addressed by both parties. A former worker at the NSW Hunter Valley's largest black coal mines has slammed Bill Shorten over a pledge to fix casualisation, saying the Labor leader's election campaign glosses over the mining union's role in the rise of labour hire in the industry. Mr Shorten, who has made wages a central focus of the final days of his union-backed election campaign, has promised to crackdown on labour hire firms that employ casuals on lower wages than their directly-employed colleagues. But for Simon Turner, a labour hire worker who lost his job at BHP Billiton's Mount Arthur mine following a workplace accident, the Labor-union narrative reeks of hypocrisy. Simon Turner, former Mount Arthur mine worker. Credit:Meredith O'Shea Mr Turner is the lead claimant in a $40 million class action against labour hire firms TESA and Chandler Macleod, alleging the companies misclassified workers as casual. Cars / Yachts When the Empress of China sailed from New York to Canton in 1784, it was the most ambitious journey of the period and marked the start of US-China trade. May 15, 2019 | By Stuart Heaver With recent headlines frequently dominated by China-US trade negotiations, its worth remembering that the long-standing commercial relationship between the worlds two biggest economies all started with an epic sailing voyage by the Empress of China. When the Empress of China became the first American ship to sail for China in 1784, it was the modern-day equivalent of a space mission to Mars. It required hand-picked people, months of planning, lots of capital investment and the most advanced technology. The three-masted sailing vessel slipped from New York harbour on the freezing-cold morning of February 22, coinciding with George Washingtons birthday. As the ship marked its departure with a 13-gun salute in the East River, she was about to embark on a six-month, 18,000nm passage from New York to Canton (now Guangzhou). It was a private commercial mission but it also carried the hopes of a newly independent nation, desperate to establish new trading links with China. The daring venture was backed by Americas prominent founding fathers like wealthy financier William Morris. The backer of the Empress of China were all the signatories of the Independence agreement, so they knew what they wanted. This was a private enterprise but a national priority, says Libby Chan Lai-pik, Assistant Director of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum (Curatorial and Collections). THE DRAGON AND THE EAGLE The museum features that historic first voyage in its special exhibition about the formative days of China-US trade called The Dragon and The Eagle: American Traders in China, A Century of Trade from 1784 to 1900. At 104ft in length and with a 28ft beam, the ship commanded by Captain John Green was slightly smaller than the Star Ferries that traverse Hong Kongs harbour but its passage was significantly more challenging. Without the benefit of GPS, modern telecommunications or even a reliably accurate chart, the Captain and 42-man crew of the Empress of China embarked on its ambitious mission with only the wind as a means of propulsion and with little hope of rescue should disaster occur. Green, then 46, was well qualified for the job. The giant, highly- respected Irish sea dog was a veteran of the War of Independence against imperial Britain and had been made a prisoner of war for his efforts. The large hardwood sea chest he took with him for the voyage is one of the exhibits at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, as is the original sea letter from the US Congress, authorising the voyage. START OF US-CHINA TRADE The ship was loaded with a cargo of ginseng, lead, Spanish silver coins and woollen cloth. It was notoriously difficult to source goods that were in demand in a largely self-sufficient China, but the Americans had done their market research carefully. In charge of all commercial transactions including the buying and selling of the ships cargo was a 29-year-old US army artillery officer decorated for gallantry in the War of Independence and appointed as the ships so-called Supercargo. Samuel Shaw from Boston had very little commercial experience, no knowledge of Asia, no training in negotiating and no foreign language skills. He went on to be the first US Consul to Canton. While the modern deals being hammered out by trade experts and politicians in Washington DC and Beijing will dictate the future of a trade relationship totalling over US$700 billion, in 1784, as Shaw waved goodbye to the cheering crowds lining the East River, the total trade figure between the two nations was zero. It was not a non-stop voyage. That would have been impossible due to the need for fresh food and water. The first port of call was the Cape Verde islands, followed by a challenging 9,000nm passage south to round the Cape of Good Hope, then northeast across the Indian Ocean. Almost five months after leaving New York, they sighted Java Head in Indonesia and anchored in the Sunda Straits near modern-day Jakarta, where natives in canoes offered fish, fowl, turtles, fruit and coconuts for sale. By chance, the experienced Captain of a neighbouring French ship embarked in the China trade offered to accompany Empress of China to the China coast. Captain Green was not a nervous skipper by any means, but he accepted the offer with alacrity. He knew the waters off the Java Sea were pirate infested and although the ship carried four six-pounder guns, Green knew from hard-bitten experience that there was additional safety in numbers. STARS AND STRIPES WELCOME It took a further month to reach Macau in the Pearl River estuary and embark a Chinese pilot before sailing for the Whampoa anchorage, some 12 miles downstream from Canton, on August 23. On anchoring, the American flag was raised in Chinese waters for the first time. Shaw, Green and the crew of the Empress of China enjoyed a warm welcome in Canton where they were referred to as the new people or the flowery flag devils, a reference to the stars-and-stripes flag. According to records from the time, Chinese merchants found the new American traders honest and easy to deal with. They seemed less stuffy and patronising than their European counterparts, with less heavy-handed methods of negotiating. Their light touch and popularity smoothed the passage for hundreds of American ships and merchants after them. The Chinese were very indulgent towards us, wrote Shaw in his journal. The Empress of China left Canton on December 28, 1784, and arrived in New York on May 11, 1785. She carried 800 chests of tea, 20,000 pairs of nankeen trousers and a huge quantity of porcelain. Newspapers announced her return and crowds of excited New Yorkers lined the quayside to welcome the ship home. The sale of Chinese export goods to Americans was established as a profitable form of business at a time when the countrys silks, porcelain and art were considered the height of luxury, sought by Presidents, and tea was considered an essential drink for American households. China was regarded as romantic, attractive, desirable and fashionable, says Chan. All told, the voyage earned a 25 percent return on investment. It was less than forecast, but the voyage of the Empress of China was much more than a profit-making venture. It laid the foundation of all future US-China trade. Later the Americans resorted to the illegal sale of opium to China, which soured a commercial relationship that has endured many highs and lows since that first epic voyage. This article first appeared in Yacht Style Issue 46. Email subscribe@lux-inc.com for print subscription enquiries or subscribe to the Magzter version at: www.magzter.com/SG/Lux-Inc-Media/Yacht-Style/Fashion/ Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Tanya Plibersek is holding court with an intimate gathering of Labor faithful: "I can picture it," she tells them. "The feeling of an extraordinary win in a seat like this." The Deputy Opposition Leader's rapt audience is at the campaign headquarters of Fiona McLeod, the prominent barrister vying for the blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Higgins. "Who remembers the feeling of election night 2007? It was amazing to see the back of a conservative government and to have that hope for the future." Later in the night, she tells campaigners in the seat of Macnamara: "I want to feel that joy again." Plibersek a progressive idol with two decades of parliamentary experience now under her belt is on a mission. And if Bill Shorten leads Labor to victory on Saturday, it will be due in no small part to the deputy who has been at his side since the party began rebuilding in 2013. Tanya Plibersek warms up the crowd at the Labor campaign launch in Brisbane. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer As a senior figure of the party's left faction, Plibersek has been a key part of the relative unity and stability that has underpinned Shorten's leadership. She has also been significant in the development of the opposition's bold and risky policy platform. Advertisement On the campaign trail, Plibersek's strengths as a communicator and standardbearer have put her in demand across the country. Four weeks in, she had visited 42 electorates and attended at least 76 events. Plibersek set herself two goals when she became deputy after the 2013 election that saw Labor wiped out punished for the instability of the Rudd and Gillard years. "One was about our culture," she says. "To build a culture that was healthier, where people argued out positions not through the media but through discussion and debate within the party. Where good work was acknowledged and supported. And I think we have achieved that really well. Bill's very good at including people." Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek after the budget reply speech. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The second was to develop a "good, strong, bold" policy agenda to offer voters. "And I think we have done that especially the bold part," she says, with a hint of acknowledgement that some of those policies have introduced risk to the Labor election effort. As deputy prime minister in a prospective Shorten government, she wants to drive the implementation of policy, believing that a "good idea is not enough" and must be backed up by good process. Advertisement In the education portfolio, Plibersek sees an opportunity for major social change. If elected, Labor will be busy across early childhood education, schools, universities and TAFE. As the daughter of Slovenian migrants who had a tough upbringing, she says education is key to opportunity. Loading "People who have been denied an education, lived in poverty, I think see that it is key to not living a life that's hard, physical struggle or unemployment," she says. "If we throw people on the scrap heap when they are three or four years old, what a tragic waste of opportunity that is for us as a nation." There is something of the school prefect about Plibersek, now 49. Or the school principal. Idealistic, earnest, warm, polite, firm, no nonsense, Dux of the school which she was, of course, back in the day. According to her husband, Michael Coutts-Trotter, you can't understand Tanya Plibersek unless you understand that Elinor Dashwood is her favourite Jane Austen character. Advertisement Elinor, the "sense" in Sense and Sensibility. The stoic, honourable, restrained Dashwood sister. Not the emotive and impulsive "sensibility" of Marianne. "She [Elinor] feels deeply but she doesn't feel that those emotions need to be on display all the time," says Plibersek. "So I like her." After the rout of 2013, Plibersek was an obvious leadership option. But she did not put her hand up and was instead elected deputy, unopposed. Deputy Labor leader pictured at Parliament House in Canberra. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Labor colleagues from across the right and left factions say she has been a unifier and peacemaker who has deftly handled the deputy role, advocating for the priorities of her wing of the party but also working hard to avoid destabilising battles. "A key part of leadership is managing your party and Bill has been a master of that but I think it's fair to say that, without her assistance, he couldn't have achieved that," says a right-wing figure. "She has been very loyal to Bill and I think on those occasions when people have thought we might have to change leader, she has been very supportive of him. He hasn't had to keep one eye on his back. She has been looking after him and she sees that as one of her roles." Advertisement "There's no question she absolutely understands that unity is everything and she has been determined the whole time to do everything she possibly can to unify the team, with others," says retiring Labor stalwart Jenny Macklin, who is close to Plibersek. Insiders generally agree she is not overly engaged in the factional manoeuvrings of the party and doesn't necessarily play an active role as a powerbroker of the left. Other players Anthony Albanese and Mark Butler to name a couple are arguably busier in that space. For her part, the deputy leader says she has learnt lessons from the "difficult times" and long spells in opposition. She now views division as a waste of energy. "I think I find it easier than ever not to focus on personality who I like, who I don't like and just to focus on what needs to be done. That's liberating. It gives you so much more time in your life." Asked about the potential for Labor to implode again should the going get tough, Plibersek insists the party has learnt its lessons. "Quite a few of us have been around for a while and we know that disunity is death. And that what matters is doing a good job for the people who put you there, not focusing on yourselves," she says. "What amazes me is that the Liberals didn't learn that from our period of disunity. It's like they weren't there." Advertisement The Morrison government will unveil a new round of budget savings to pay for at least $1.2 billion in spending promises as Labor intensifies its campaign against cuts to services. The government has chosen the last days of the election campaign to reveal surprise savings to cover the cost of the promises it has made over the past five weeks, but it is ruling out a tax increase to fund its program. Bill Shorten will focus on climate change while Scott Morrison will urge voters to reject Labor's "big spending agenda" in their last major speeches of the election campaign. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Prime Minister Scott Morrison will use a major speech on Thursday to urge voters to reject Labor's "big tax, big spending agenda" as he campaigns on the economy through to the close of polls on Saturday. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will counter with a focus on climate change during an address in western Sydney where he will frame the election as a turning point for the next generation of Australians. Although Christian Porter admits he isn't out of the woods yet, he says his bid to retain the seat of Pearce is in far better shape than his opposition gave him credit for a year ago. It will take a 3.6 per cent swing for Labor to shoehorn the Attorney General out of the seat and, in an indication the result will be tight, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten landed in Pearce on Wednesday morning with front bench heavy hitters Chris Bowen and Penny Wong in a last ditch attempt to shore up their vote. Pearce MP Christian Porter with cafe owner Mandy Smith. The Attorney General was campaigning at a prepolling station near his electorate. Credit:Nathan Hondros Labor is pouring unprecedented resources at the outer suburbs seat in the dying days of the campaign in an attempt to match Mr Porter's campaign spend, which will total many hundreds of thousands of dollars. The number of voters casting early votes in Pearce is also much lower than elsewhere in the state, which may suggest there are still many undecided voters. Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has warned the coalition between the Liberals and Nationals is at stake as a civil war erupts over Senate voting just days before the election. The Nationals took the "extraordinary" step on Wednesday of advising members to ignore Coalition how-to-vote cards and instead vote below the line to support the National Party, after renegade Liberal senator Jim Molan stepped up his own below-the-line campaign. Barnaby Joyce has taken aim at Jim Molan as a Coalition civil war rages in the Senate race. Credit:AAP/Alex Ellinghausen Senator Molan - who was relegated to the unwinnable fourth spot on the Coalition's joint Senate ticket - is asking supporters to ignore the Liberal Party's directives and instead give him their first preference below the line. The Coalition is running a joint ticket in NSW with Liberals filling the top two spots, the Nationals' Perin Davey in the difficult third position and Senator Molan fourth. Two former staffers who claim they were bullied in the office of Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt say they were ignored by Prime Minister Scott Morrison when they contacted him for help. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have also learnt a claim has been lodged by a former adviser seeking taxpayer-funded compensation for the psychological stress she says she suffered as a result of her employment in the office. Minister Aged Care Ken Wyatt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The two staffers sought help from Mr Morrison after leaving Mr Wyatt's office, emailing their concerns separately in September 2018 and April this year. But they said they were either ignored or made to feel like an inconvenience. One of the former staffers also contacted the Coalition's campaign spokesman, Simon Birmingham, but his office also did not address their claims. Notorious backpacker serial killer Ivan Milat has been transported from his cell in Goulburn's supermax prison to a public hospital in Sydney, where he is undergoing tests. A spokeswoman for Corrective Services confirmed that a 74-year-old inmate is currently being treated at a Sydney hospital. Ivan Milat in 1998. Credit:Darren Pateman The Sydney Morning Herald has confirmed Milat was checked in to a secure, inmate-only annexe at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick on Monday afternoon, where he is to undergo a diagnostic procedure. NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin told Seven News the annexe is jointly staffed by Corrective Services NSW and NSW Health. "The broader strategy is again to identify all of the doctors who work in aged care and target them with educational material ... We're thinking of even targeting them with short sharp video messages from me that point out to them that, you know, what, if they are continuing to prescribe in a manner which is not based by the evidence and if they're not getting proper informed consent, they are exposing themselves significantly to allegations of inappropriate and unprofessional practice," he said. The commission also heard from Dr Peter Foltyn, the Visiting Dental Officer, from St Vincents Hospital, who called for better oral care in residential settings, as infections caused by poor dental hygiene were often misdiagnosed as something else. He said the government spent $3 million on developing a thorough guideline for geriatric oral health in residential aged care facilities. "The problem I have is that this came out in 2009, most residential aged care facilities don't know it exists. So the information is available but it's not being provided and therefore not passed down the line to the assistants in nursing that are providing the daily management for their residents," he said. "Unfortunately, in Australia we have one of the highest turnover rates of staff in aged care facilities and consequently within a few years most who had done the training were no longer at that facility and that knowledge was lost. And the relationship between oral health and deterioration of residents was missed. "My big area of concern is that oral health is not part of ACAT [Aged care assesmment] ... GPs don't know everything about the mouth," he said. The uncertainty gripping Britain in the face of Brexit could have an unexpected silver lining for the Australian medical community, with talented professionals potentially looking Down Under in favour of Britain. Professor David Waugh late last year moved his whole family from Northern Ireland to Brisbane to take a position as the Head of the School of Biomedical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology. He said Brexit played a large part in his decision. Anti-Brexit activists protest as they deliver a pile of medical supplies in cardboard boxes to the Department of Health and Social Care in London. Credit:AP That was one of the things which was a big concern for me, and also in large part has affected the ability of UK institutions to attract significant global talent to them, Dr Waugh said. A mystery motorist who stopped at the scene of a deadly police shooting in 2013 is being urged to come forward after the State Coroner learnt investigators never spoke to the driver. Vlado Micetic was driving along Union Street in Windsor with a female passenger when he was pulled over during a routine traffic stop by then Senior Constable Timothy Baker, about 10.43pm on August 25, 2013. The car believed to be a green Hyundai is seen on the right in this footage released by the Coroner. The experienced traffic officer believed the car's number plates were false and arrested Mr Micetic, but as handcuffs were being tightened a physical struggle ensued and the 44-year-old was shot three times and died. But during recent discussions ahead of the Coroners inquest into Mr Micetic's death it was revealed an unidentified person, who was caught on dash-cam footage passing the highway patrol police vehicle as gunshots were fired, had stopped to offer help. A local council trying to ban new places of worship being built in the Swan Valley has had its decision to reject a spirituality centre overturned by the State Administration Tribunal. After a five-year battle with the City of Swan, Radha Soami Satsang Beas Australia has won its legal fight to practice spirituality and meditation at a centre in Middle Swan, near Oakover Wines. Radha Soami Satsang Beas Australia has won its legal fight to practice spirituality and meditation at a centre in Middle Swan. First established by a guru in India, members of the spiritual group can be of any religion, and are encouraged to be vegetarian, not smoke or drink alcohol, and to actively volunteer and contribute to their communities. The council's Indian-born community has grown in the past decade from 1162 people in 2006, to 4190 people in 2016, according to the Census. Style / Fashion To pay homage to 5 couturier who have devoted their ingenuity to fabricate our kaleidoscopic apparels, LUXUO hopes to shed light on the little known early days of these pioneers and their characteristic styles May 15, 2019 | By Leon Ngiam 5 European couturier of 20th century: their lives and their enduring styles Fashions fade, style is eternal, Yves Saint Laurent, the couturier known for his monochromatic palette and edgy design, once famously said. It is the profound reverence afforded to the brands heritage that gives haute couture its distinctive definition. To pay homage to 5 couturier who have devoted their ingenuity to fabricate our kaleidoscopic apparels, LUXUO hopes to shed light on their little known early days and their characteristic styles. 1. Christian Dior (1905-1957) The luminary expressed his intention to pursue the arts early on in life but was thwarted by his familys reluctance. After a family tragedy, he closed his art gallery and sold fashion sketches to make ends meet. Yet, his brilliance broke a silver lining when he was scouted by the prevailing couturiers of the time, Robert Piguet and Lucien Lelong, to design womens apparels. Dior stormed the Paris fashion stage in 1947 by introducing the New Look in light of the inveterate vestiary austerity of WW2. This was inspired by Diors desire to return to the 20s pre-WW2 days of extravagant femininity by designing tight-fitting jackets with padded hips, petite waists, and A-line skirts to accentuate the voluptuousness of womens contours. Well regarded by the high society, the House of Dior has expanded to a comprehensive collection to accessorise and adorn both men and women. Within its wide provision, Diors invariable signature lies in those ornate, elegant and sophisticated garments that chisel womens femininity and mens virility. 2. Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019) At the young age of 14, Karl Lagerfeld (born Karl Otto Lagerfeldt) moved to Paris from his hometown of Hamburg. His talent was realised in the 1954 International Woolmark competition where he emerged as the winner for the coat category. He then worked for Pierre Balmain before designing for Chole and eventually helming LVMH owned Fendi (2017 profit of 800) and Channel (2017 profit of 1.35 billion) while simultaneously managing his eponymous brand. Kaiser Karl, a man of many talent, also dabbled in architecture, interior design, fashion photography and interestingly, in game voice over. The fashion meister once said, I design like I breathe. Across his numerous fashion engagements, his virtuosity varies from haute couture in Fendi and Channel to the rock and chic urbanity of his ready-to-wear namesake brand. 3.Yves Saint Laurent (1936 2008) Saint Laurent had a difficult childhood due to his unpopularity in school and he was constantly bullied for being effeminate. After Saint Laurent won the Woolmark Prize in 1954, he met Michael de Brunhoff (editor of French Vogue) in 1955 who, utterly amazed by Saint Laurents sketches, said, I have never in my life met anyone more gifted. Impressed, Brunhoff then introduced Saint Laurent to Dior who immediately hired him. In 1957, when Dior unexpectedly died of a heart attack, he took over Dior at 21 years old as the worlds youngest couturier. The former protege of Dior launched his atelier with his partner and lover, Pierre Berge, in 1961, after a bitter legal battle with Dior over his unjust dismissal. Amongst his creations, Saint Laurent was most credited for revamping the tuxedo (Le Smoking Jacket) to adapt to the female anatomy. Today, the House of YSL, helmed by Anthony Vaccarello, is a force to be reckoned with for mens and womens wear and is recognised by its elegant but edgy, provocative yet sophisticated monochromatic design language. 4.Giorgio Armani (1934 present) Spotting a neatly parted white tuft hair, the 84 year-old fashion icon, Giorgio Armani, was born in the northern Italian town of Piacenza. After he dropped out of the University of Milan and conscripted into the army, he worked for the Nino Cerruti company to design menswear while freelancing for other atelier simultaneously. The namesake brand we know today as Armani was the fruit of the extensive collaboration between Sergio Galeotti, an architectural draftsman, and the designer himself. The shrewd entrepreneur-cum-designer had amassed a wealth of $9 billion to date and is best known for his trademark of revamping traditional business suits to create a more masculine look for women (aptly called power suits) and a unstructured look for men. Known for his characteristic clean cut lines and neutral colours, Armani introduced his haute couture line, Armani Prive, in 2005 and had fastidiously expanded his label to include undergarments, mens, kids and womens wear, accessories. 5. Hubert de Givenchy (1927 2018) Born to an aristocratic family in Beauvais, in northern France, then 17 year old Givenchy took up an apprenticeship with couturier Jacques Fath while he studied at the esteemed Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts. His brimming artistic flair led him to work for Robert Piguet, Lucien Lelong, and Elsa Schiaparelli before founding his namesake Maison on Rue Alfred de Vigny in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Adored for his elegant evening gowns, feminine hats and tailored suits, Givenchy also possessed a trend-setting prescience. To embrace youth culture, he favoured shorter hemlines and straighter contours in his sketches. The revered designer was also known for his strong affiliations with the British movie icon, Audrey Hepburn, whose countless engagements he took on as his personal devotion. As we know, fashion is a metamorphosing social construct that is intertwined with contemporary matters of the day. The articles that we choose show our standings, beliefs, values, aspirations and, perhaps, idiosyncrasies as well. Every creation is inherently risky; it mandates the designers careful, visceral calibration and prescience of cultural trends to intersect with our fashion appetite. Too flamboyant and it becomes absurd; too mundane and it becomes lacklustre. These luminaries, along with other designersmale or female, celebrated or otherwise, not only bestowed us the capacity to express ourselves, but more vitally, the audacity to dream bigger and, in their footsteps, take the road less traveled. Online NAPLAN testing will continue on Wednesday despite thousands of students across hundreds of WA schools struggling to complete their assessments due to a technical issue. Schools had been encouraged to complete the national standards testing online, with 50 per cent of facilities choosing to do so, compared to just 15 per cent the previous year. Thousands of students struggled to complete the first day of NAPLAN testing online. The large number of children logging in to complete assessments caused country-wide glitches, with thousands of students being repeatedly logged out, or having work deleted. Radio 6PR Perth Live presenter Oliver Peterson spoke to a number of students about the glitches. When a child is hit by an airstrike or a landmine in a war zone, their bones bend more than those of an adult, so they are more likely to suffer long-term, incurable deformities. They are thrown further and harder away from the site of the blast. They have less blood to lose so their injuries are more catastrophic. And if they make it to a hospital, their special needs as victims are less likely to find a surgeon capable of treating them in the stretched medical facilities in war-torn countries. From left, Omar, 12, with his father Mohammed and brothers Ahmed, 10, and Abdul, 9, bear the scars of war. Credit:Save the Children According to Save the Children, these factors lead to the "devastating toll" on children of war zones that last, in some cases, many years after the "hot" war has ended. In conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Nigeria, three in four child casualties are caused by explosive weapons, with children at heightened physical and emotional risk. Crude Oil Price Fails At Critical Fibonacci Level Crude Oil recently rallied up to the $63 level and failed. This level is a key Fibonacci price level based on our proprietary adaptive Fibonacci price modeling system. It represents a Fibonacci Long Trigger Level that would suggest that a new bullish price trend could setup if and when the price of Crude Oil rallies and closes above this level. The fact that Crude Oil rallied above this level early on Monday, May 13, and failed to hold above this level suggests this is a failed price rally and a failed attempt to rotate higher. The failure of this price move suggests that Crude Oil may fall below current support, near $61, and begin a new downside price leg over the next 10+ trading sessions. This Daily Crude Oil chart highlights the narrow price range, between $61 and $64.75, where a range of support and resistance levels are found with our proprietary Fibonacci modeling system. The fact that this failed price rally cleared the $63 level, then fell sharply afterward suggests that support for any upside price rally in Crude Oil is very weak. We would expect the price to rotate lower and retest the $61 level before breaking this level and moving much lower to find ultimate support. We continue to attempt to reinforce one basic Fibonacci theory price rule for all of our followers to understand: Price must ALWAYS attempt to establish new price highs or new price lows at ALL TIMES. We want to continue to push this message out to our followers so they can begin to understand how this price theory rule actually works in real-time application. This failed attempt to break the Bullish Fibonacci price trigger level is/was an attempt to establish a new price high. Failure to establish this new price high suggests that price will attempt to establish a new price low. This weekly Crude Oil chart highlights the key Fibonacci trigger price levels that are located in a very narrow range near $63.25. The failed move higher, suggests a new price low will be attempted and ultimate support is currently near the $52.25 level. With the US/China trade new still hitting the news cycles, we expect some extended volatility in the markets as well as currency price fluctuations in an attempt to mitigate the trade/stock market volatility/pricing. Additionally, we expect commodity price levels to come under continued pressure for two main reasons: A. the US Presidential election cycle continue to draw attention away from economic activity, and B. the global economy is already showing signs of economic and manufacturing weakness. This US/China trade issue will certainly put more pressure on commodity prices while creating a renewed level of FEAR in the markets. As weve been warning everyone for the past 5+ months get ready for some really big moves in 2019 and 2020. This type of market is a skilled traders dream come true. Big moves, big rotations, and big profits. Also, if you have not read our Recent Gold Bottom article be sure to read that now. This is proving to be an incredible trading year for traders who follow our trade alerts newsletter. For active swing traders, you are going to love our daily trading analysis. On May 1st we talked about the old saying goes, Sell in May and Go Away! and that is exactly what is happening now right on queue. In fact, we closed out our SDS position on Thursday for a quick 3.9% profit and our other new trade started Thursday is up 18% already. Second, my birthday is only three days away and I think its time I open the doors for a once a year opportunity for everyone to get a gift that could have some considerable value in the future. Right now I am going to give away and shipping out silver rounds to anyone who buys a 1-year, or 2-year subscription to my Wealth Trading Newsletter. I only have 4 left as they are going fast so be sure to upgrade your membership to a longer-term subscription or if you are new, join one of these two plans, and you will receive: 1-Year Subscription Gets One 1oz Silver Round FREE (Could be worth hundreds of dollars) 2-Year Subscription Gets TWO 1oz Silver Rounds FREE (Could be worth a lot in the future) I only have 13 more silver rounds Im giving away so upgrade or join now before its too late! SUBSCRIBE TO MY TRADE ALERTS AND GET YOUR FREE SILVER ROUNDS! Happy May Everyone! Chris Vermeulen www.TheTechnicalTraders.com Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better. His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility. He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect. Chris Vermeulen Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. In Defence of Marxism is committed to safeguarding your privacy. At all times we aim to respect any personal data you share with us, or that we receive from other organisations, and keep it safe. This Privacy Policy (Policy) sets out our data collection and processing practices and your options regarding the ways in which your personal information is used. This Policy contains important information about your personal rights to privacy. Please read it carefully to understand how we use your personal data. We may update this Policy from time to time without notice to you, so please check it regularly. 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Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns whatsoever about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing the Data Protection Manager at webmaster@marxist.com Current Mary Lynch Pre K students play and learn with Jamie Soper, Special Education Director for Kimball Public Schools, who has accepted her addition position as the Principal of Mary Lynch Elementary starting July 1. Soper will continue to serve the district as the Special Education Director as well as the new principal. Pictured left to right are Laivyn Morgan, Laurel Norberg, Jamie Soper and Able Kuhns. In addition to her love of children, Jamie Soper will take on an additional fulfilling task come mid summer. Beginning July 1 Soper is set to replace the retiring Mary Lynch Principal Mike Mitchell as well as continue her position as Special Education Director for the district. An email sent to Kimball Public Schools staff Superintendent Dr. Owens expressed Soper's impressive educational background, with a Bachelors in Elementary Education K-8 and Special Education K-12, a Masters in School Counseling PreK-12 and a Masters in School Administration PreK-12. Soper has been serving the Kimball Public Schools and the district for nearly twenty years in the positions of a special education teacher, school counselor and director of special services. Owens continued to express the leadership roles Soper has provided on many educational committees and organizations, some of which include the School Improvement Committee, the Curriculum and Assessment Committee, Teacher's Association President, Crisis Team Chair, Preschool Committee Chair, Response to Intervention Coordinator, ELL Coordinator, and Western Nebraska Comunity College Early Childhood Advisory Council member. "I wanted to expand my career path because I am very passionate about children. I always say that I have the best job in the entire world," said Soper. "We have a very dedicated elementary staff, when the opportunity to be a part of this team became available, I could not pass it up, I am very excited about the future!" With her love of children and her desire to heighten their success, Soper is highly driven to help to continue to provide the best learning environment possible. "One of my focuses will be to maximize every minute of our school day to make sure our students are prepared for their future." "I also want to bring the fun back into learning by adding an After School Program at Mary Lynch. It will be called ELITE (Empowering Longhorns Inspires Tomorrows Excellence). It will run from 330 to 600 Monday-Thursday starting next school year. We (KPS staff) are very excited about all the possibilities for student with this program." Soper added that she is very excited about the opportunity to work with the Mary Lynch Elementary staff to provide excellent education to all students. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, who is in China to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, who is here to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC). Noting that China cherishes its special friendship with the Cambodian royal family, Xi said China will continue to support Cambodia in pursuing the development path suited to its own national conditions, and work with Cambodia to push their comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation to a new level. The two sides should well implement the action plan for building a community of shared future for China and Cambodia to deliver benefits to the two peoples, Xi said. China and Cambodia should set an example for countries to respect each other's cultural diversity and promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, he noted. Sihamoni said the Cambodian people will stand firmly with the Chinese people under any circumstances. Cambodia congratulates the People's Republic of China on the tremendous achievements it has made since its founding 70 years ago, appreciates the important role China has played in international affairs, and firmly supports the joint construction of the Belt and Road, the king said. The CDAC proposed by President Xi will play a major role in promoting cultural exchanges and mutual understanding among countries, Sihamoni noted. 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. Canada needs to be building more homes to meet demand which is greater than official figures suggest. Thats the view of CIBC Economics which has looked into whether the number of new homes being built is correct. The simple equation is housing units completed divided by household formation, which should end up as just above 1 to allow for factors including demolition and secondary home demand. However, the CIBC team says there is a key factor in housing demand that is not accounted for. Looking at figures from Statistics Canada and CMHC, the economists found that between 2001 and 2016 StatsCan data shows evidence of overbuilding while CMHCs data suggests balance. But this is due to methodology, specifically that CMHCs figures are adjusted for census undercounting while the StatsCan figures do not. The report also notes that the way data is collected about student housing also underestimates demand. Thats because the census information is based on permanent residences and while students may return to their parents homes in the summer, demand for accommodation during the academic year is higher. Overall, the report estimates the underestimation of housing demand at around 300,000. The Ontario government has stopped publishing statistics about the tax it imposes on foreign property buyers. Officially known as the non-resident speculation tax, the 15% levy was put in place by Kathleen Wynnes government in 2017 to try to cool the housing market in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. The provincial government published figures showing that non-residents bought about 1,400 homes in the first 10 months of the tax, generating $172 million for the province. Those statistics were last published in April 2018, and since Doug Fords PCs were elected last June, no new figures have been released. CBC said that it has requested more recent numbers from the provinces Ministry of Finance twice in the past six months. However, on both occasions, officials said, There is no further update at this time. When asked why the foreign buyers tax figures are no longer being publicized, Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli said that he didnt know. "I'm not aware that there's any changes," Fedeli said. "I'll have a look at where they are being published." When asked if the provincial government is committed to keeping the tax in place, an official in Fedelis office didnt give a direct answer. "In order to address Ontario's housing crisis, our government is focused on building more homes that are affordable through our Housing Supply Action Plan," said Clint Thomas, Fedeli's communications director. Meanwhile, James Cohen, executive director of corruption watchdog group Transparency International Canada, believes that those statistics ought to be available. "The Ontario public has a right to know," Cohen said. "It's not a good trend to be moving away from stats that the public needs to see. The more eyes on this, the better." Toxic Materials Technician, Seibersdorf, Austria Organization: IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency Country: Austria Field location: Seibersdorf, Austria Office: IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency in Seibersdorf Grade: G-5 Closing date: Thursday, 6 June 2019 Organizational Setting The Department of Managementas Division of General Services (MTGS) provides support functions to the IAEA through its five Sections, namely the Archives and Records Section (ARMS), the Commissary Management Section (CMS), the Facilities Management Section (FMS), the Transport and General Support Section (TGSS), and the Seibersdorf Laboratories Services Section (SLSS). Among the five Sections, the Seibersdorf Laboratories Services Section (SLSS) provides site operation technical and administrative services to the work of the IAEAas laboratories. SLSS services include facilities, technical, engineering, property and transport management, and site security through its management of the Seibersdorf Protective Force (SPF). The Section has a diverse complement of 35 staff, including technicians, drivers, procurement assistants and IT support. The armed SPF provides around-the-clock security for the site.Among the five Sections, the Seibersdorf Laboratories Services Section (SLSS) provides site operation technical and administrative services to the work of the IAEAas laboratories. SLSS services include facilities, technical, engineering, property and transport management, and site security through its management of the Seibersdorf Protective Force (SPF). The Section has a diverse complement of 35 staff, including technicians, drivers, procurement assistants and IT support. The armed SPF provides around-the-clock security for the site. Main Purpose Under the quidance of the the Supervisor, Facilities Group, the Toxic Materials Technician (TMT) orders, receives, ships, stores, monitors flow and disposes of all toxic products handled by Agencyas Laboratories, in Vienna and Seibersdorf. The TMT maintains the General Waste Management Plan according to Austrian Regulations and applicable Agency procedures. Functions / Key Results Expected According to established standards and procedures identify, isolate, sort, record, store, distribute within Laboratories, all toxic materials as well as maintain an inventory control system database. Log in information into and maintain database of toxic and general waste disposal, for further reporting purpose. Provide a yearly report of the transactions and inventory; Williamson, WV (25661) Today Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. PARIS - Canada is offering softwood lumber and steel to help with the reconstruction of Paris's famed Notre Dame Cathedral, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday after touring the iconic monument that was partially destroyed by fire in mid-April. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Paris, France on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Trudeau is in France to attend the Tech for Good Summit. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld PARIS - Canada is offering softwood lumber and steel to help with the reconstruction of Paris's famed Notre Dame Cathedral, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday after touring the iconic monument that was partially destroyed by fire in mid-April. Not long after arriving in Paris, Trudeau visited Notre Dame alongside the cathedral's rector, Patrick Chauvet, and French Culture Minister Franck Riester. He said it was an honour to be able to exhibit some of the solidarity Canadians feel toward their French cousins. "Canada will stand with France and ensure we offer all the support whether it's steel or wood or whatever help we can," Trudeau said. "This is truly a piece not just of French history but of world history that needs to be preserved and we will be there to be part of it." Restoration Project Chief Architect Phlippe Villeneuve gives Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Rector-Archpriest of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral Patrick Chauvet a tour of the remains of the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral in Paris, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld A fire devastated the 12th-century cathedral on April 15, with the dramatic blaze playing out live on television across the globe. Firefighters finally managed to gain control the blaze after several hours. The main structure and relics were preserved, but the cathedral's roof and its famous spire were destroyed. Philippe Villeneuve, the architect responsible for the church's restoration, explained to Trudeau the extent of the damage and what it will take to bring the building back to life. "This was a terrible, terrible fire, but you can't help but marvel at how so much was saved even as we did lose so much," Trudeau said Wednesday. The Canadian Steel Producers Association and the Forest Products Association of Canada have already indicated their support for the government initiative. 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 a letter sent to French President Emmanuel Macron this week, Trudeau said Canada was proud to support France in the reconstruction. "The success of these sectors reflects the talent and hard work of Canadians, and we will be happy to put these assets to work for France," Trudeau wrote. Trudeau was in Paris to take part in a series of meetings in the fight against extremism and online violence, some two months after an attack at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, left 51 dead. Alongside Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Trudeau attended the Christchurch Call to Action summit and adopted the "Christchurch Appeal," which is a plan to stop the spread of hate online. He is also scheduled to speak Thursday at the VivaTech summit, an annual event celebrating innovation that brings together startups and industry leaders. Trudeau also has several bilateral meetings scheduled with the leaders of Jordan and Norway on Wednesday and France and New Zealand on Thursday, when the two-day visit wraps up. OTTAWA - Conservative leader Andrew Scheer says his party's climate plan will aim to hit Canada's promised greenhouse-gas emissions targets but the party will not say whether that means all of the emissions cuts it wants to count will actually happen here. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer will release his climate plan next month. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press) OTTAWA - Conservative leader Andrew Scheer says his party's climate plan will aim to hit Canada's promised greenhouse-gas emissions targets but the party will not say whether that means all of the emissions cuts it wants to count will actually happen here. Scheer intends to release his climate plan next month and he said Wednesday it will be based on Canada's targets under the Paris climate-change accord, but says Canada has an obligation not just to reduce our own emissions of climate-changing gases but also to help other countries cut theirs. "We don't do the world a favour if we see marginal reductions of emissions here in Canada and massive expansions of emissions in other countries because investments and jobs get displaced to those types of jurisdictions," Scheer said Wednesday. Under the Paris Agreement, each country in the world has to commit to reducing its own greenhouse-gas emissions by a specific amount. However, the accord allows for what are called "co-operative mechanisms," which means as long as two countries agree, emissions reductions in one country can be counted toward meeting the targets of another country. That could happen if, for instance, Canada signed an agreement with another country to finance a new solar farm to replace a coal-fired electricity plant, in exchange for Canada's getting credit for some or all of the emissions reductions that result. A Conservative spokeswoman said Canadians will have to wait for the release of the party's climate plan in June for any details about how emissions reductions in other countries will be incorporated into the Tory vision. Scheer also intends to try to amend a Liberal motion in the House of Commons declaring a climate-change emergency to include a recognition of "Canada's obligations in the global context." The motion is not a binding law but a broad declaration of MPs' collective will. The Liberal motion declares climate change a national emergency that means Canada must first meet the Paris targets for emissions cuts and then exceed them to keep the world from getting catastrophically hot. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna brought the motion in part to force the Conservatives to either commit to the Paris Agreement or vote against it. A competing NDP motion declaring a climate-change emergency, which was debated Wednesday, is a non-starter for both the Conservatives and Liberals because of its additional calls for the government to walk away from the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and fossil-fuel subsidies immediately. McKenna said some subsidies are helping keep life affordable, such as those keeping diesel prices down to reduce electricity costs in Canada's North. Scheer said Conservative support for the Liberal motion depends on whether the Liberals accept his planned amendments, such as an acknowledgment that the Liberals' existing climate policies are failing to meet the Paris targets. He said Conservatives believe climate change is a real and urgent problem. But he called out the government for wasting time in the House of Commons with a motion he says is a clear attempt to distract from Liberal scandals. 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. He called Trudeau a "high-carbon hypocrite" who churns out emissions flying around the world on a private plane while imposing carbon taxes on regular Canadians, which Scheer says will have no impact on Canada's emissions. The Liberals last year produced an analysis suggesting at $50 per tonne of carbon dioxide, a national carbon price would reduce emissions between 80 million and 90 million tonnes a year. That is almost half of what Canada has to cut from annual emissions to reach its Paris targets. The country's total emissions in 2017 were 716 million tonnes, according to the federal government. Catherine Abreu, executive director of the Climate Action Network Canada, said there are no rules yet for how cooperative mechanisms would work. She also said that they were introduced with the idea that countries such as Canada could achieve more ambitious targets down the road by helping other countries, not use the mechanisms to meet existing targets. She said she won't comment on the Conservative plan until she sees it but that any party that tries to meet Paris targets without making a serious dent in Canada's own emissions cannot be taken seriously on climate change. "I am an only child but if I had a brother, I couldn't tell him to clean up his room if I didn't clean up my own," she said. Canada is among the top 10 biggest emitters globally, and because of the oil industry and our relatively small population, Canada has the highest per-capita emissions, she said. MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama's Republican governor has signed the most stringent abortion legislation in the nation, making performing an abortion a felony in nearly all cases. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama's Republican governor has signed the most stringent abortion legislation in the nation, making performing an abortion a felony in nearly all cases. "To the bill's many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God," Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement after signing it into law on Wednesday. Sen. Rodger Smitherman speaks during a debate on HB314 in the senate chamber in the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday May 14, 2019. Alabama lawmakers are expected to vote on a proposal to outlaw almost all abortions in the state, a hardline measure that has splintered Republicans over its lack of an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via AP) The law's sponsors want to give conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court a chance to gut abortion rights nationwide. Democrats and abortion rights advocates criticized the legislation as a slap in the face to women. "It just completely disregards women and the value of women and their voice. We have once again silenced women on a very personal issue," said Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, a Birmingham Democrat. The abortion ban would go into effect in six months if it isn't blocked by legal challenges. CORRECTS LAST NAME TO HARTLINE INSTEAD OF HARDLINE - Bianca Cameron-Schwiesow, from left, Kari Crowe and Margeaux Hartline, dressed as handmaids, take part in a protest against HB314, the abortion ban bill, at the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Ala., on Wednesday April 17, 2019. (Mickey Welsh/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP) Coleman-Madison said she hopes the measure awakens a "sleeping giant" of women voters in the state. But Republican pollster Chris Kratzer noted that there is no congressional district and likely no legislative district in Alabama with enough swing voters to put Republicans at serious risk. "The people who are outraged about this are not the people who are electing these guys, generally speaking, especially when we're talking about the primary," he said. Kratzer also argued that there aren't enough potential swing voters and disenchanted Republicans to make the issue any kind of advantage for the lone Democrat elected to statewide office, U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, who scored a surprise win in a 2017 special election. Jones upset Republican Roy Moore, in part on the strength of GOP-leaning college graduates abandoning the controversial Moore. But Kratzer said that was more about Moore's long history of flouting federal courts as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and accusations that Moore sexually harassed teens when he was in his 30s not Moore's hardline stance on abortion. The legislation Alabama senators passed Tuesday would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison for the provider. There is no exception for pregnancies resulting for rape and incest. The only exception would be when the woman's health is at serious risk. Women seeking or undergoing abortions wouldn't be punished. Legal abortion supporters fly a banner reading Abortion is OK over the Alabama State Capitol building in downtown Montgomery, Ala., on Wednesday May 15, 2019. Alabama HB314, the near-total ban on abortion bill, passed the Alabama legislature on Tuesday. (Mickey Welsh/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP) Rep. Terri Collins, the bill's sponsor, said she believes the measure reflects the beliefs of the majority of the state electorate. The vote came after 59% of state voters in November agreed to write anti-abortion language in the Alabama Constitution, saying the state recognizes the rights of the "unborn." Ivey acknowledged Wednesday that the measure may be unenforceable in the short term, and even supporters expect it to be blocked by lower courts as they fight toward the Supreme Court. "It's to address the issue that Roe. v. Wade was decided on. Is that baby in the womb a person?" Collins said. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia recently approved bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. Missouri's Republican-led Senate voted early Thursday to ban abortions at eight weeks, with no rape or incest exceptions. The Alabama bill goes further by seeking to ban abortion outright. Abortion rights advocates vowed swift legal action. "We haven't lost a case in Alabama yet and we don't plan to start now. We will see Governor Ivey in court," said Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast. Evangelist Pat Robertson on his television show Wednesday said the Alabama law is "extreme" and opined it may not be the best one to bring to the U.S. Supreme Court in the hopes of overturning Roe "because I think this one will lose." "God bless them they are trying to do something," Robertson said. One mile (1.6 kilometres) from the Alabama Statehouse down the street from the Governor's Mansion sits Montgomery's only abortion clinic, one of three performing abortions in the state. Clinic staff on Wednesday fielded calls from patients, and potential patients, assuring them that abortion remains legal, for now. 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. Dr. Yashica Robinson, who provides abortions in Huntsville, said her clinic similarly fielded calls from frightened patients. "This is a really sad day for women in Alabama and all across the nation," she said. "It's like we have just taken three steps backwards as far as women's rights and being able to make decisions that are best for them and best for their families." But Robinson said the bill is also having a galvanizing effect. With phone lines jammed, she said messages came streaming across their fax machine. "We had letters coming across the fax just asking what they can do to help and telling us they are sending us their love and support our way," Robinson said. ___ Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report. VANCOUVER - A drug expert says a powerful opioid that was never intended for human consumption is becoming more common in British Columbia's illicit drug supply and its "tremendous profitability" means the situation may get worse without intervention. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. VANCOUVER - A drug expert says a powerful opioid that was never intended for human consumption is becoming more common in British Columbia's illicit drug supply and its "tremendous profitability" means the situation may get worse without intervention. Dr. Evan Wood of the BC Centre on Substance Use said carfentanil is an elephant tranquilizer that is 100 times more potent than its cousin fentanyl, the primary culprit in the province's overdose crisis. But the cost of producing and moving carfentanil is so low relative to its sale value that fighting its spread will require a broader look at the drug trade, he said in an interview. "The tremendous profitability is what makes this a game changer," Wood said. "We're going to be playing Whack-A-Mole until we come to the acknowledgment that because of prohibition and the intense profitability of this, it's going to drive increasing toxicity in the drug supply." Wood made the comment after the BC Coroners Service released new figures on suspected illicit drug deaths Wednesday, the same day that the B.C. government announced a public inquiry into money laundering, which Premier John Horgan said was linked to the overdose crisis. The coroners' figures said fewer people are dying overall from overdoses and Wood said it brings some encouragement to front-line workers who have been in the trenches fighting the crisis. The monthly average for suspected illicit drug deaths between January and the end of March was 89, down almost one-third from the same period last year when the average was 132 people a month, the BC Coroner Service said. But carfentanil was detected in nearly double the number of deaths in the first quarter of this year than it was for the entirety of last year. By the end of March, the synthetic opioid was found to have been involved in 64 deaths compared with 35 for all of 2018. Fentanyl and its analogues, including carfentanil, were detected in almost 85 per cent of suspected illicit drug deaths in the first quarter of 2019, a rate slightly lower than last year. Carfentanil began appearing in the Canadian drug supply around 2016, the same year the Canada Border Services Agency staff seized a package containing one kilogram of carfentanil that came from China, enough for millions of doses. It has also appeared in Toronto, Winnipeg and other jurisdictions. Chief Const. Mike Serr of the Abbotsford Police Department, who also chairs the drug advisory committee for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said quantifying the profitability of opioids is difficult since they are typically cut with other drugs rather than sold "pure." For comparison, he said one kilogram of pure heroin typically costs $70,000 and would be added to a cutting agent to produce two kilograms worth of drugs for street sales. Seer said one kilogram of fentanyl costs roughly $12,500 but can be mixed with 100 kilograms of a cutting agent for street sale because it's so potent. Estimating that profit is difficult because it may be sold under several different drug names with different concentrations, and in much smaller quantities than one kilogram at a time, but $1 million isn't out of the ball park, he said. When you consider carfentanil is significantly more concentrated than fentanyl, the profit margins are exponential. "If someone said 10 years ago, can you make the perfect drug, carfentanil and fentanyl would be unfortunately the drug because it's cheap, it's much easier to import, it's easier to source," he said. The primary source of both fentanyl and carfentanil is China, although some other Asian countries are also involved. Transactions typically occur on the dark web and the drug is delivered in small quantities through the mail, Serr said. Given that a dose the size of a grain of sand can be fatal, Serr said that even a very skilled anaesthesiologist couldn't produce a safe mix of the drug. "The fact that this is being put out on the street the risk is just enormous. It is such a potent and dangerous drug that there's no way someone can safely say they could mix it into street drugs and someone could have any sense of safety when they take it," Serr said. Wood emphasized the importance of for drug users to have their supply tested at an overdose prevention site or pharmacies that offer the service free and anonymously. 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. Vancouver Coastal Health and the BC Centre on Substance Use are also collaborating on a new research project providing drug users with take-home testing kits to determine if the kits can be used safely. The overall decline in overdose deaths suggests that testing and other interventions, including safe consumption sites and education initiatives are working, Wood said. There were no deaths at supervised consumption sites or drug overdose prevention sites, the coroners' data shows. But Wood said there aren't many other jurisdictions to follow in preventing the spread of carfentanil. He has reviewed data from Ohio, where fentanyl use was followed by carfentanil, then other drugs like crystal meth. "I think we're girding for that here and seeing that already to some extent, but I think we're on the forefront of harm related to this," he said. "I think British Columbia really is the tip of the spear." Travel-technology provider Sabre said a glitch that prevented some airline travellers from checking in for flights on Tuesday was caused by a problem at one of its network suppliers. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. 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. Travel-technology provider Sabre said a glitch that prevented some airline travellers from checking in for flights on Tuesday was caused by a problem at one of its network suppliers. Sabre spokeswoman Cassidy Smith said the issue affected airlines that connect with Sabre through CenturyLink's network. Smith declined to identify the affected airlines. Some JetBlue customers complained they were unable to check in for flights. CenturyLink spokeswoman Courtney Morton said activity during scheduled maintenance caused the disruption, which lasted for about two hours. She said the company was reviewing the incident to add safeguards that could reduce or eliminate future incidents. FlightAware said 2,400 U.S. flights had been delayed by early evening on the East Coast, although it's unclear how many are related to the Sabre failure. About 24% of JetBlue flights were late, by far the highest percentage among the six largest U.S. carriers. Sabre suffered a similar outage that affected several U.S. airlines on April 29. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, left, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin walk on Pennsylvania Avenue back to the White House on Thursday, May 9, 2019, in Washington. A top Trump administration cabinet member says the end of punishing steel and aluminium tariffs on Canada and Mexico is close at hand. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Jon Elswick OTTAWA - Close, maybe, but no cigar. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland came and went from Washington on Wednesday, shifting diplomatic gears and jetting to Havana on a day that saw early hope that the end of the Canada-U.S. tariff dispute was close fizzle in a puff of figurative smoke. "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had said in Congress, prior to Freeland's meeting with Trump trade czar Robert Lighthizer. Mnuchin was testifying before the U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee, where he was asked why those two countries continue to face a 25-per-cent duty on steel and 10-per-cent levy on aluminum exports to the United States. Freeland had no new developments to report as she emerged in the morning from the headquarters of the United States Trade Representative. She said she had a "good meeting" with Lighthizer. "And we made the case, as we have been doing for some time, that the best outcome for both Canadians and Americans would be to lift those tariffs and to have free trade between our two countries," Freeland said. Freeland met later with the influential Republican chair of the Senate finance committee, Chuck Grassley, who had said earlier this week that the tariffs might soon be lifted. After that, she expressed optimism over incremental progress, though she refused to speculate publicly on whether a resolution of Canada's trade dispute with the U.S. is close at hand. "One meeting closer to achieving a great outcome," Freeland said. And then: "OK, I think we need to leave for Cuba soon." Freeland will be pressing Cuba's foreign minister over his country's steadfast support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Canada and its Western Hemisphere allies in the Lima Group, as well as the U.S., view Maduro as a dictator who has impoverished his people and should relinquish power. "My sense is that we're making progress but there's obviously more work to be done," Finance Minister Bill Morneau said of the tariff situation in Ottawa Wednesday. Morneau said he brings up the tariffs with Mnuchin every time they talk, including in a telephone call last week and face-to-face meetings last month in Washington at World Bank and G20 finance ministers' meetings. "I'm regularly putting forward the point of view that these tariffs are not only not helpful to the Canadian economy to either the producers or buyers of steel but they're also damaging to the U.S. economy," said Morneau. President Donald Trump imposed the tariffs during contentious continental trade talks by using a section of U.S. law that allows the president to tax imports on national-security grounds. The three countries' negotiators ultimately reached a new deal that the Americans call the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Mnuchin acknowledged to the senators what business leaders in all three countries, as well as U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the political divide, have been saying: that the tariffs must be lifted for the newly negotiated North American free trade deal to be ratified by legislators. "I can assure you that Canada and Mexico are the priority," Mnuchin said. "The president has instructed us to try to figure out a solution, and this is a very important part of passing USMCA, which is a very important economic agreement for two of our largest trading partners." 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. Freeland's visit comes after what she described as "a couple of good conversations" between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in telephone calls on consecutive days late last week. She, Trudeau and others in the Canadian government have derided the tariffs as absurd, illegal and insulting. Lighthizer planned to meet House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday to discuss the Canada-Mexico tariffs and the broader U.S. tariff war with China. Pelosi and fellow Democrats in the House have raised concerns about ratifying the new trade deal because of concerns over labour rights in Mexico, among other things. Freeland discussed workers' rights in her meeting with Lighthizer, and filled him in on her talks on Tuesday in Toronto with two visiting members of the new Mexican government, which is embarking on major labour reforms to meet its obligations under the new trade deal. "We discussed ways Canada can support Mexico in this important effort, which is good for workers in Mexico, good for workers across North America," she said. "Canada is a real supporter of union rights and we're happy to be discussing that important issue with our Mexican colleagues." NEW YORK - Broadcaster CBS is pushing the boundaries gently next season, as it and other networks navigate the rise of streaming. A change-of pace sitcom from "The Big Bang Theory" creator Chuck Lorre and a drama starring Edie Falco of "The Sopranos" glory will join a lineup that also brings former CBS stars back into the fold. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - This Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018, file photo shows the CBS logo at the entrance to its headquarters, in New York. CBS is unveiling its fall 2019 prime-time schedule on Wednesday, May 15, 2019, and will host a presentation to advertisers with some of its top talent describing their newest shows. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) NEW YORK - Broadcaster CBS is pushing the boundaries gently next season, as it and other networks navigate the rise of streaming. A change-of pace sitcom from "The Big Bang Theory" creator Chuck Lorre and a drama starring Edie Falco of "The Sopranos" glory will join a lineup that also brings former CBS stars back into the fold. Among the comeback kids is Billy Gardell, who played opposite Melissa McCarthy in CBS' "Mike & Molly" and stars this fall in Lorre's "Bob Hearts Abishola." Gardell plays a Detroit compression sock salesman who falls for his Nigerian-born cardiac nurse. His co-star is Nigerian actress Folake Olowofoyeku, whose credits include "Transparent." CBS Corp. executive David Nevins described the sitcom as "a different flavour" for Lorre but true to his brand, which includes CBS' "Mom" as well "The Big Bang Theory," which departs Thursday after 12 seasons. "Bob Hearts Abishola" is about "two adults in middle-age who are sort of unexpected," Nevins said, and resonates with what he called "Norman Lear-ish themes," a reference to the groundbreaking producer of "All in the Family." This image released by CBS shows, from left, Pauley Perrette, Jaime Camil and Natasha Leggero in a scene from the sitcom "Broke." (Sonja Flemming/CBS via AP) "When it comes to finding new voices, CBS will take a chance on anyone who is already on CBS," the network's late-night host Stephen Colbert joked in a brief set for ad buyers who gathered Wednesday for a presentation of the 2019-20 schedule. "As you can see, despite Lindsey Graham's advice, I honoured my subpoena to be here today," he said, throwing one of the political barbs that are a regular feature of his top-rated "Late Show." Other familiar CBS faces: Pauley Perrette, a former "NCIS" fan favourite, goes for laughs in the midseason sitcom "Broke"; Patricia Heaton ("Everybody Loves Raymond") stars as a late-blooming medical intern in the comedy "Carol's Second Act," and Marg Helgenberger ("CSI: Crime Scene Investigation") is part of the courthouse drama "All Rise." The latter two are fall entries, along with "The Unicorn," a comedy about a widower (Walton Goggins) who's stepping gingerly into dating. Falco, who played a mobster's wife in "The Sopranos" and a drug addict in "Nurse Jackie," shifts gears in midseason's "Tommy," playing a former NYPD officer who becomes the first female police chief in Los Angeles. HOUSEHOLD NAME PRODUCERS 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. Lorre isn't the only high-profile producer contributing to CBS' lineup next season. Fall drama "Evil" is from Michelle and Robert King, the husband-and-wife team behind former CBS hit "The Good Wife" and the CBS All Access series "The Good Fight." The psychological mystery examines the root of evil "along the dividing line between science and religion," the network said. Producer Dick Wolf, who supplies a veritable warehouse of shows to NBC with his "Chicago" franchise and "Law & Order: SVU," could be trying for the same at CBS. He's following up the drama "FBI" with midseason's "FBI: Most Wanted," with stars including Alana De La Garza and Keisha Castle-Hughes. SAY GOODBYE Not every revival sticks the landing. "Murphy Brown" with Candice Bergen was one season and done, and joining cancelled series that include "Happy Together," ''Fam" and "Life in Pieces." It remains to be seen whether the end of "Murphy," a hit for CBS back in the '80s and '90s, puts a damper on the revival-reboot trend. Among its successes are "Will & Grace" and "The Conners," salvaged from the "Roseanne" reboot put into jeopardy by its namesake star's racist tweet. MEXICO CITY - A federal labour official said Tuesday that a majority of Mexico's union contracts are probably fake, pro-company deals that provide only minimal wages and benefits. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Assistant Labor Secretary Alfredo Dominguez speaks during an interview in Mexico City, in Mexico City, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Dominguez said that a majority of the countryAos union contracts are probably fake, pro-company deals that provide only minimal wages and benefits. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) MEXICO CITY - A federal labour official said Tuesday that a majority of Mexico's union contracts are probably fake, pro-company deals that provide only minimal wages and benefits. But the unions behind those contracts are so weak they will probably disappear once the country's new labour reform goes into effect, Assistant Labor Secretary Alfredo Dominguez said. "Protection contracts may constitute between 67 and 90 per cent of the union contracts, depending on the region" and other factors, Dominguez said. "You can go to any store or hotel and ask workers, and they'll tell you they haven't seen their union contract; they don't know their union bylaws; they don't even know who their union leader is." The labour reform approved in April requires secret-ballot votes to elect union leaders and proof of workers' consent for contracts. The overhaul was needed to win approval of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which was negotiated to replace the old NAFTA accord. U.S. and Canadian legislators, angered that Mexico lured auto manufacturing plants with low salaries, have demanded that Mexico change labour laws that encouraged wages as low as $1 or $2 an hour at some plants. While the rules are an improvement, many critics of the current system worry that old-guard union leaders will try to protect their dominance of the labour movement. Dominguez, however, predicted that many of the leaders will simply disappear. "Our understanding is that many of the protection contracts don't even have a real union behind them," he said. "We think there are (union) representatives who are just the friends or relatives of some lawyer or company owner, and they're probably going to fall of their own weight, so to speak, because they have no real life as a union." The old system, in which union leaders often belonged to the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, was so antiquated and slow that workers' complaints often took four or five years to be resolved. 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. "By the time they are resolved, many of the judgments against employers can't be enforced. ... They have taken so long the companies named in the complaints no longer exist," Dominguez said. While Dominguez expects wages to rise, he said he doesn't foresee a new wave of wildcat strikes like the ones that hit about four dozen export plants in the border city of Matamoros in January. "There may be more strike notifications, but because we have set up clearer, fairer, more flexible rules ... we are betting these will be resolved through agreements," he said. The Matamoros strike movement has been criticized because outside labour lawyers and activists got involved. Dominguez said labour solidarity and advice from outside union activists would be allowed under the reform, but not direct participation in strikes or negotiations. At the same time, he said, the government doesn't favour using police to try to break wildcat strikes, as happened on a couple of occasions in Matamoros. "We feel that in many cases the use of force, far from helping, is actually counterproductive," he said. PHILADELPHIA - The company that makes OxyContin did not stop pitching the powerful opioid painkiller to doctors even when its sales representatives raised concerns that they were prescribing the drug inappropriately, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office said in a lawsuit announced Tuesday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference in Philadelphia, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Shapiro filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the company that makes OxyContin of fueling the opioid epidemic, making it at least the 39th state to make such a claim against Purdue Pharma. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) PHILADELPHIA - The company that makes OxyContin did not stop pitching the powerful opioid painkiller to doctors even when its sales representatives raised concerns that they were prescribing the drug inappropriately, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office said in a lawsuit announced Tuesday. The lawsuit against Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma was filed on May 2 under seal and announced on Tuesday. It made Pennsylvania at least the 39th state to sue the company seeking to hold it responsible for the toll of opioids, which have been killing more people in the U.S. and Pennsylvania each year than car crashes. The suit says Purdue drug representatives have made 531,000 detailing calls on doctors in the state since 2007, when the company settled with Pennsylvania and 25 other states agreeing to stop identifying illegal diversion of its OxyContin and to promote it only for federally approved uses. Only California doctors heard from the company more, the state says. The suit names several doctors whom the state says the company continued to call on to promote opioids despite signs that they were prescribing to addicts or worrying pharmacies with their prescribing levels. The complaint singled out one Philadelphia doctor Jeffrey Bado as one of the nation's biggest prescribers of opioids. The doctor lost his license in 2013 and was convicted in 2016 crimes including causing the death of a patient. The state says the company stopped calling on Bado at points because of concerns over his prescribing practices but kept returning again to promote the drugs. Purdue said the company denies the allegations. "The complaint is part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system," Purdue spokesman Robert Josephson said in a written statement. Attorney General Josh Shapiro did not rule out future legal actions against Purdue sales representatives and executives. He said he decided to sue because the company after two years of serving as a leader of a multistate investigation into the opioid industry and negotiations with companies on a settlement. "It has become clear that just one company, Purdue Pharma, has not been willing to negotiate in good faith," he said at a news conference. Josephson disputed that, saying the company is in complicated negotiations with state attorney generals, local governments and others. Around 2,000 local governments, including several in Pennsylvania, along with unions, hospitals and Native American tribes have also sued various industry players including Purdue and other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacies. Purdue, a privately held company based in Stamford, Connecticut, earlier this year publicly threatened bankruptcy as the litigation mounts. Some states have also started suing members of the Sackler family, which includes prominent philanthropists and owns the firm. In March, the company and the Sacklers settled a case with Oklahoma for $270 million. The company settled with Kentucky in 2015 for $24 million. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. For 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tallied a record of nearly 48,000 opioid deaths. In Pennsylvania, the state Health Department said that more than 4,200 people died of overdoses involving any drug last year, down from nearly 5,600 in 2017. ___ Associated Press reporter Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this article. ___ Follow Geoff Mulvihill at http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill A new 10-year federal government commitment to fund Metis education and training marks a significant improvement from past funding arrangements that both the president of the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) and the Federal minister of Labour said were ineffective. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A new 10-year federal government commitment to fund Metis education and training marks a significant improvement from past funding arrangements that both the president of the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) and the Federal minister of Labour said were ineffective. Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour was in Winnipeg on Wednesday at the MMF headquarters to announce funding of $325 million over five years for starters, and $67 million per year ongoing for at least 10 years, dedicated to the Metis Nation Labour Market stream. The money is part of the $2 billion the Liberal government earmarked in its last budget for Indigenous education and training. The new Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) Program, takes over from a previous program called Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy (ASETS), that had been in place since 1999. Hajdu said the federal government disperses money to the provinces and territories every year for skills training that they can spend as they wish with very little accountability but did not fund Indigenous programming the same way. "That money (to the porvinces and territories) kept going up, of course, because the cost of living goes up, rents go up, salaries go up, the cost of education and training goes up," she said. "Here's what was happening to ASETS... it was staying the same. Not one increase. And really what that means was it was worth less because every dollar had to go further. "Right there I saw the systemic racism," she said. Hajdu said increasing the budget for Indigenous education and training was the first thing that had to happen to address that "systemic racism" and then the Metis and First Nation and Inuit communities had to have more flexibility. "The provinces and territories have complete control over how they spend the money but the ASET program did not," she said."They were on very short term contracts and they were rigidly guarded in terms of what they could spend money on and how they accounted for the money. And there was no certainty. You did not really know if the program would exist in the next two-to-three years." The new funding will provide much more flexibility both in terms of what kind of programs the MMF's Louis Riel Institute and other institutions can offer and the kind of support Metis students are able to receive. For instance, David Chartrand, president of the MMF said in the past there were limits on how much money could be spent on one specific client and for how long. The new program will allow for wrap-around funding if that makes sense, for instance paying for day care for a single mother looking to go back to school. It will allow for a continuum of support of skills development, from essential skills to skills upgrading. "We will be able to go a step further and deeper to actually be able to invest in family to make them stronger," he said Although the new program creates significant new opportunities for support and program development, Chartrand said that the Metis efforts in the past have surpassed government targets. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. But he said, "For too long this program has been treated like a bureaucracy with paternal oversight on us because we are not skilled or educated enough to run our own affairs." Chartrand said the 10 year commitment means there will be more certainty all around, allowing training courses to be lined up with a longer time line in mind as well as providing certainty even to the staff at Louis Riel Institute. The objective of the Metis Nation Labour Market Strategy is to support Metis in developing employment skills and helping students enter the workforce with the ultimate objective of closing the employment and earning, and skills gaps between Metis and non-Indigenous people. Hajdu, who has run homeless shelters in her previous career, said, the whole idea is trying to establish the means to prevent families from falling behind. "The cost of keeping people under is way more than the cost of lifting them up," she said. martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca The parent company of Tim Hortons plans to grow its three fast-food chains to more than 40,000 locations around the world over the next eight to 10 years. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Burger King and Tim Hortons signs are displayed on St. Laurent Boulevard in Ottawa on Monday, August 25, 2014. Restaurant Brands International Inc. says it plans to grow to more than 40,000 restaurants around the world over the next eight to 10 years. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick The parent company of Tim Hortons plans to grow its three fast-food chains to more than 40,000 locations around the world over the next eight to 10 years. "Forty thousand restaurants worldwide will put us amongst the largest restaurant companies in the world," said CEO Jose Cil at the company's first investor day in New York on Wednesday. Restaurant Brands International Inc., which also owns Burger King and Popeyes, currently has about 26,000 locations. "If you ask us, we're still in the early days of this exciting growth journey," he said. The goal requires RBI to add about 1,400 restaurants annually for the next decade, said chief operating officer Josh Kobza, and it opened over 1,300 new locations in each 2017 and 2018 mostly Burger King stores. The company says it is opening the equivalent of a new restaurant every seven hours. For Tim Hortons, it sees China as a good opportunity for growth. The company opened its first shop in China in February and has since opened three more along with its master franchisee partner. It plans to open more than 1,500 coffee shops in the country over 10 years. "It's a huge consumer market where per capita coffee consumption is growing about 15 per cent a year," Tim Hortons president Alex Macedo said. In addition to its growth plans, the company also announced it is jumping on the plant-based protein trend. Tim Hortons started a pilot Wednesday with select locations offering the Beyond Meat plant-based breakfast sausage patty in three new menu items a breakfast sandwich, a wrap and a vegan sandwich. It hopes to roll out the products nationally by the end of the summer, depending on the results of the pilot. Try our Dish The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Dish arrives in your inbox every other Friday. See sample. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The company piloted the Impossible burger, another plant-based offering, at some U.S. Burger King locations and plans to expand the Impossible Whopper offering nationally. The new options comes as restaurants across the industry look to increase their plant-based protein options. Burger chain A&W started selling American-based Beyond Meat plant-based burgers last year and breakfast sandwich patties earlier this year. Last week, Recipe Unlimited Corp. announced it would launch a plant-based burger from Beyond Meat competitor Lightlife Foods in June. The Lightlife burger will be available at 70 Kelsey's Original Roadhouse locations starting June 3. Follow @AleksSagan on Twitter Companies in this story: (TSX:QSR, TSX:AW.UN, TSX:RECP) San Francisco supervisors voted Tuesday to ban the use of facial recognition software by police and other city departments, becoming the first U.S. city to outlaw a rapidly developing technology that has alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/5/2019 (957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This photo taken Tuesday, May 7, 2019, shows a security camera in the Financial District of San Francisco. San Francisco is on track to become the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition by police and other city agencies as the technology creeps increasingly into daily life. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) San Francisco supervisors voted Tuesday to ban the use of facial recognition software by police and other city departments, becoming the first U.S. city to outlaw a rapidly developing technology that has alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates. The ban is part of broader legislation that requires city departments to establish use policies and obtain board approval for surveillance technology they want to purchase or are using at present. Several other local governments require departments to disclose and seek approval for surveillance technology. "This is really about saying: 'We can have security without being a security state. We can have good policing without being a police state.' And part of that is building trust with the community based on good community information, not on Big Brother technology," said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who championed the legislation. The ban applies to San Francisco police and other municipal departments. It does not affect use of the technology by the federal government at airports and ports, nor does it limit personal or business use. The San Francisco board did not spend time Tuesday debating the outright ban on facial recognition technology, focusing instead on the possible burdens placed on police, the transit system and other city agencies that need to maintain public safety. "I worry about politicizing these decisions," said Supervisor Catherine Stefani, a former prosecutor who was the sole no vote. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a non-profitthink-tank based in Washington, D.C., issued a statement chiding San Francisco for considering the facial recognition ban. It said advanced technology makes it cheaper and faster for police to find suspects and identify missing people. Critics were silly to compare surveillance usage in the United States with China, given that one country has strong constitutional protections and the other does not, said Daniel Castro, the foundation's vice-president. "In reality, San Francisco is more at risk of becoming Cuba than China_a ban on facial recognition will make it frozen in time with outdated technology," he said. It's unclear how many San Francisco departments are using surveillance and for what purposes, said Peskin. There are valid reasons for license-plate readers, body cameras, and security cameras, he said, but the public should know how the tools are being used or if they are being abused. 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. San Francisco's police department stopped testing face ID technology in 2017. A representative at Tuesday's board meeting said the department would need two to four additional employees to comply with the legislation. Privacy advocates have squared off with public safety proponents at several heated hearings in San Francisco, a city teeming with tech innovation and the home of Twitter, Airbnb and Uber. Those who support the ban say the technology is flawed and a serious threat to civil liberties, especially in a city that cherishes public protest and privacy. They worry people will one day not be able to go to a mall, the park or a school without being identified and tracked. But critics say police need all the help they can get, especially in a city with high-profile events and high rates of property crime. That people expect privacy in public space is unreasonable given the proliferation of cellphones and surveillance cameras, said Meredith Serra, a member of a resident public safety group Stop Crime SF. "To me, the ordinance seems to be a costly additional layer of bureaucracy that really does nothing to improve the safety of our citizens," she said at a hearing. The city of Oakland is considering similar legislation. LONDON - British Prime Minister Theresa May will try again next month to secure Parliament's backing for a Brexit deal so that the U.K. can leave the European Union this summer, May's office said Tuesday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - In this Thursday, April 11, 2019 file photo, British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a media conference at the conclusion of an EU summit in Brussels. Brexit talks between BritainAos Conservative government and the main opposition Labour Party are resuming with little sign of progress, with the two parties far apart on terms of the U.K.Aos departure from the European Union. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File) LONDON - British Prime Minister Theresa May will try again next month to secure Parliament's backing for a Brexit deal so that the U.K. can leave the European Union this summer, May's office said Tuesday. Downing Street said May intends to ask lawmakers to vote on a withdrawal agreement bill starting the week of June 3. Parliament has three times rejected the divorce deal May and the EU struck late last year, laying out the terms of Britain's departure from the bloc. Brexit, long set for March 29, has been delayed until Oct. 31 while Britain's politicians try to break the deadlock. May's office said in a statement that if lawmakers passed the bill, the U.K. could still leave the EU "before the summer Parliamentary recess," which is likely to start in late July. But it is far from clear how the government plans to persuade a majority of lawmakers to back May's EU divorce terms, since few legislators on either side of the Brexit divide seem prepared to change their positions. Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn launches his party's European election campaign at the University of Kent in Chatham, Thursday May 9, 2019. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP) And approving the bill, which implements the terms of Britain's departure, does not remove the need for Parliament to separately ratify the thrice-rejected EU withdrawal deal. The government calculates that if a majority of lawmakers can be persuaded to approve the legislation on Brexit terms, they will then back the deal as well. Ministers also hope that the process of debating and potentially amending the bill will help lawmakers reach a form of Brexit a majority can support. But that looks like a longshot. May's Conservative government has held weeks of talks with the opposition Labour Party in an attempt to reach a compromise on some of the major sticking points, but so far without signs of much progress. The two sides do not agree on how close an economic relationship the U.K. should have with the EU after Brexit. Both May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are under strong pressure from their party members not to make concessions to their rivals. However, neither side wants to be the one to pull the plug on negotiations. May and Corbyn met for face-to-face talks Tuesday. Downing Street said the meeting was "useful and constructive." Their representatives are set to continue the talks Wednesday. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. But Labour sounded pessimistic about the chances of a breakthrough. The party said in a statement Tuesday night that Corbyn expressed concerns to May "about the prime minister's ability to deliver on any compromise agreement." Labour said Corbyn "raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments." The party fears any promises from May could be undone by her successor. The prime minister is under immense pressure from Conservative lawmakers to quit because she failed to lead Britain out of the EU on schedule. May has said she will resign once a Brexit deal is approved and make way for a new leader to guide the U.K. through the next stage talks with the EU on future relations. Many Conservative lawmakers are pressing her to be more specific and to name a date for her departure. ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit Onex Corp.'s purchase of WestJet Airlines Ltd. has prompted Moody's Investors Service to place two of the carrier's credit ratings under review for possible downgrade. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A WestJet plane takes off from Vancouver International Airport in Vancouver on Monday, May 13, 2019. Onex Corp.'s purchase of WestJet Airlines Ltd. has prompted Moody's Investors Service to place the carrier's credit rating under review for possible downgrade. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward Onex Corp.'s purchase of WestJet Airlines Ltd. has prompted Moody's Investors Service to place two of the carrier's credit ratings under review for possible downgrade. The rating agency says it expects Onex to download some of the $5-billion acquisition cost, which includes debt, onto WestJet when the deal closes. Such a move would increase the airline's adjusted leverage, though WestJet has no room in its current rating for any increase, Moody's said Tuesday. The review will examine WestJet's capital structure and any change in business strategy. The all-cash deal, announced Monday, will see Toronto-based Onex take WestJet private after 20 years on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Onex managing director Tawfiq Popatia told The Canadian Press yesterday that the private equity firm plans to stick to WestJet's current trajectory, with no major strategy shifts in the works. On Tuesday, WestJet chief executive Ed Sims told reporters that going private would relieve the Calgary-based company of the constant scrutiny that attends publicly held companies. "I compare it to a farmer whos constantly pulling up his or her radishes, wondering how well theyre growing, and then wondering why theyre not growing on a sustainable basis," Sims said at WestJet headquarters Tuesday morning, before news of the Moody's review broke. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "We now have the ability to focus on our long-term strategy to deliver against the lifetime of our assets." Sims reiterated that none of WestJet's 14,000 jobs would be on the chopping block as a result of the purchase. "What we are clear on with Onex is that they have not spent $5 billion on this entity to try to shrink their way to prosperity," he said. As to the origins of the deal, he said: "Onex called us." Moody's said its review will wrap up around the time the transaction closes later this year or in early 2020. Companies in this story: (TSX:WJA) VICTORIA - Premier John Horgan launched a public inquiry into money laundering Wednesday, saying the depth of the criminal activity in British Columbia runs far deeper than previously believed. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Premier John Horgan is joined by Finance Minister Carole James and Attorney General David Eby as they announce a decision to move forward with the public inquiry in light of recent findings on money laundering in the province during a press conference at Legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito VICTORIA - Premier John Horgan launched a public inquiry into money laundering Wednesday, saying the depth of the criminal activity in British Columbia runs far deeper than previously believed. Money laundering has distorted the provincial economy, infiltrated casinos, fuelled the opioid overdose crisis and increased the price of real estate, he said at a news conference flanked by Attorney General David Eby and Finance Minister Carole James. The impact of money laundering in B.C. was highlighted in two independent government-commissioned reports released last week that connected the practice to real estate and concluded more than $7 billion in dirty money was laundered in the province last year, said Horgan. "It became abundantly clear to us that the depth and the magnitude of money laundering in B.C. was far worse that we imagined when we were first sworn in," he said. "That's why we established the public inquiry today." Horgan's New Democrats formed a minority government in the summer of 2017 after 16 years of B.C. Liberal governments. One of the reports by former deputy attorney general Maureen Maloney said $5 billion was siphoned into real estate in 2018, forcing the costs of homes up by at least five per cent. It said that figure could be significantly higher upwards of 20 per cent in Metro Vancouver. The second report by former deputy RCMP commissioner Peter German said the infusion of illicit money into the B.C. economy led to a frenzy of buying in real estate. A previous June 2018 report by German found Metro Vancouver casinos were used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit money. Horgan said a public inquiry will give an understanding of how the problem reached this point and how to eradicate the crime. "We sat down as a cabinet and said, 'how can we ensure that the people of B.C. see consequences for the actions of criminals and criminal activity in B.C.,' " he said. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen was appointed to lead the inquiry and can compel people to testify, seize records and obtain search warrants. Cullen's inquiry is expected to deliver an interim report within 18 months and a final report is due by May 2021. Among the inquiry's terms of reference is an examination of how the acts or omissions of regulatory authorities or individuals "have contributed to money laundering in B.C. and whether those acts or omissions have amounted to corruption." The New Democrats, including Horgan, James and Eby, have often said revenue from B.C.'s booming real estate market contributed to consecutive balanced budgets for the former Liberal government. "Perhaps other governments were intoxicated by the revenues that kept coming in," Horgan said. Michael Lee, the Liberal attorney general critic, said the party will co-operate with the inquiry. But he did not say if that would include voluntarily providing confidential cabinet documents that may be related to money laundering. Rich Coleman the Liberal party's solicitor general who said he reformed gambling laws during his tenure as the minister responsible for gaming said he agreed with calling a public inquiry and will testify. Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair said money laundering is a complex issue and all levels of government and law enforcement must work together as he promised co-operation from the federal government. 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 a statement, Blair said Ottawa will "continue to work collaboratively" with Eby and German "on intelligence gathering and information sharing." Prof. Tsur Somerville, an expert on the impacts of money laundering on real estate at the University of British Columbia's Sauder school of business, said the public inquiry will examine regulatory oversight on the real estate industry. "It sends a general statement that there's going to be a closer supervision of the industry in terms of what findings are coming, from where and how they are being used," said Somerville, who was one of the expert panel members for Maloney's report. Maloney's report said money laundering is a Canada-wide issue. It said B.C. ranked fourth for the crime among a division of six regions in Canada, behind Alberta, Ontario and the Prairies collectively Saskatchewan and Manitoba for the years 2011 to 2015. It also said B.C. only accounted for 15 per cent of the $47 billion laundered across Canada last year. James said the B.C. government tabled legislation this spring aimed at preventing tax evasion and money laundering by shining a spotlight on anonymous real estate owners hiding behind shell and numbered companies. City councillor Kevin Kleins call for a complete overhaul to the City of Winnipegs budget process which he believes will save taxpayers millions and millions of dollars has passed its first hurdle. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. City councillor Kevin Kleins call for a complete overhaul to the City of Winnipegs budget process which he believes will save taxpayers "millions and millions of dollars" has passed its first hurdle. At a special meeting of the Assiniboia Community Committee Tuesday afternoon, Klein (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood) tabled a motion seeking to immediately stop the multi-year budget process currently underway. "The motion has to go forward so we can stop what were doing. Im not opposed to multi-year planning. I think we should do that. But Im opposed to using our current template," Klein told the Free Press. "The current process is broken, it lacks detail, theres no drilled-down line items to base your decisions on. Its not an inclusive budget. It doesnt include all members of council." Once that multi-year budget process is halted, Kleins motion calls for an immediate "core services review" and the implementation of a "zero based budget system." Committee chairwoman Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverly West) supported Kleins motion, saying she agrees the current budget system is broken. The motion passed unanimously with her support, since the only other member of the committee Coun. Scott Gillingham (St. James-Brooklands-Weston) had an excused absence. The matter will now go to the executive policy committee for another vote. If passed at that level, it would then move onto city council for a final vote. Lukes bemoaned the fact that the current budget process leaves the members of council not on the mayor's executive policy committee in the dark. "When youre not involved in the process, its very difficult to come back and face the taxpayers and explain why this is being done," Lukes said. Klein said a zero based budget has proven itself in "city after city after city." He noted the City of Calgary has reported saving more than $55 million after switching to that system. "Zero based budgeting is not new, its part of the best practices that many cities follow across Canada. Everything has to be justified, so youre wiping the slate clean and starting anew. That way you understand where every dollar is going and why its required," Klein 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. "What normally happens is youll find efficiencies. There are going to be some areas of spending where we might not really need to (spend) what were spending on." Under the current system, the previous budget is used as a template every year when a new budget is set, Klein said. By contrast, under a zero based budget, you start from scratch and justify each expense anew. The city is currently planning its first ever multi-year budget for 2020. Klein stressed that hes not opposed to long-term planning, but thinks embarking on a multi-year budget under the current system would be a disaster. He also doubled down on past claims the city "doesnt have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem," saying hes not the only member of council with a "legitimate concern for the citys financial future." ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @rk_thorpe OTTAWA A federal judge has rejected calls by a First Nation evacuated during the 2011 Interlake flood diversion to have Ottawa provide double the number of houses that were washed away. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA A federal judge has rejected calls by a First Nation evacuated during the 2011 Interlake flood diversion to have Ottawa provide double the number of houses that were washed away. In a ruling obtained by the Free Press, a federal judge said First Nations can expect Ottawa only to restore a reserves housing supply to make it comparable to the time of a natural disaster, instead of rectifying long-standing issues such as overcrowding. "I am not suggesting that an inadequate situation should be used as a yardstick," ruled Justice Sebastien Grammond on May 9. "However, where budgetary resources are limited, it is not unreasonable to allocate them where the needs are most important first." The case is part of a series of litigation borne out of the 2011 flood, in which the Assiniboine River put Winnipeg at risk of a major deluge. Officials diverted the river toward the Interlake, so the flood would affect fewer people. That meant evacuating 3,000 residents from 18 reserves, with a pledge to replace damaged homes and schools. Some 234 evacuees from Dauphin River First Nation had been mostly living around Winnipeg and receiving federal housing stipends until late September 2018, when Ottawa deemed enough housing to be available on the reserve. At the time of the flooding, the reserve counted 53 houses, an occupancy rate of about 3.8 people per home. The reserve now counts 70 homes, with an occupancy rate of 3.3 band members per home or 2.2, when counting only those who have actually moved back. A new home at Dauphin River First Nation. The band argues it is entitled to 45 more homes, largely due to family changes over the seven years of living in exile. (Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press files) The band argues its entitled to 45 more homes, largely due to family changes over the seven years of living in exile. That includes teenagers maturing into adults and starting their own families and divorced spouses wanting to live separately. Ottawa feared 'false evacuees' Click to Expand OTTAWA The federal government and officials from Dauphin River First Nation both noted issues with the list of evacuees in the 2011 flood. The band noted some households are clearly missing relatives names, while Ottawa found six pairs of people who seemed to be living together in 2011 now marked as 12 single heads of households. Emails disclosed in court show federal bureaucrats at Indigenous Services Canada feared the potential of a large number of false evacuees on the list, as well as people who no longer wish to return to the reserve. Dylan Robertson Indigenous Services Canada pegged the cost of 45 more homes at around $11 million. The First Nation argued that Ottawa acted unfairly in ending its housing stipends in late September, rejecting the community's argument that everyone deserved a house on the reserve before losing the federal stipend, which ranged from $800 to $3,000 per month, based on family size and location, and was administered by the Canadian Red Cross. In affidavits, some band members said they were "couch surfing" with friends or family, and wouldnt be able to afford housing once their stipend dried up. Ottawa said it provided housing based on the reserve's occupancy rate. Grammond ruled "it was reasonable to rely on" such a metric, given that there were no legislated guidelines for making such a calculation. The band also argued Ottawa never made it clear whether members could appeal the end of their stipend, though the judge noted none tried to do so. "There was certainly room for improvement in this process," Grammond conceded. The bands lawyer, Harley Schachter, said he had no comment Tuesday. 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. "Were just reviewing the decision to determine our next steps," he said, which could include asking the Federal Court of Appeal to review the decision. The breach in the dike at the Hoop and Holler bend is seen along the Assiniboine River outside of Portage La Prairie in May 2011. Officials diverted the river toward the Interlake so the flood would affect fewer people. (Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press files) Ottawa tried to get the entire case quashed, arguing housing benefits were not subject to judicial review; the court noted that almost everything the federal government does can be appealed in court. The reserve is still in a separate, ongoing spat against both Ottawa and the province over whether band members received adequate compensation for having their community flooded. Dauphin River First Nation sits at the mouth of that body of water as it flows into Lake Winnipeg, making it one of the hardest-hit communities in the 2011 flood. It is located roughly 240 kilometres north of Winnipeg. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca Winnipeg architect and Free Press columnist Brent Bellamy has been honoured by his peers with a national award for his advocacy. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Winnipeg architect and Free Press columnist Brent Bellamy has been honoured by his peers with a national award for his advocacy. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada announced Tuesday Bellamy was the recipient of its Advocate for Architecture award, which is presented every two years, celebrating an architect who has made a public contribution to architecture without actually doing architectural work. 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. Bellamy, an architect at Number TEN Architectural Group has written a column in the Free Press since 2010 pushing for sustainable city buildings and human-focused design. "His passionate advocacy for architecture is responsible for a strong public appreciation of architecture within his community and beyond," the RAIC jury said. "His influence has spread far beyond Winnipeg and helped raise national attention to critical issues of urbanism and design." The jury also noted that in 2014 Bellamy was a key organizer of Winnipeg's first mayoral candidate debate on architecture and design issues. As well, during the 2018 civic election he became a leader of the Vote Open side in the public debate about opening the intersection at Portage and Main to pedestrians. "As a writer and columnist, he underscores the importance and impact of architecture in everyday life and promotes innovation in architecture and design," said the three-member jury, which included former governor general Adrienne Clarkson. "Brent illustrates the idea of the architect as civic leader; his vocal advocacy for the role of design is approachable to the general public and inspires all readers, architects included, to seek design that uplifts the human spirit." The Pallister government is moving to ensure that tobacco prices in Manitoba do not fall after the PST is reduced to seven per cent on July 1. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Pallister government is moving to ensure that tobacco prices in Manitoba do not fall after the PST is reduced to seven per cent on July 1. Reacting to public pressure, Finance Minister Scott Fielding introduced a bill in the legislature Tuesday to boost tobacco taxes in order to offset the upcoming price reduction. Under Bill 31, the Tobacco Tax Amendment Act, the tax per cigarette would rise to 30 cents, up from 29.5 cents. The tax on fine-cut tobacco would increase to 45.5 cents per gram from the current 45 cents, while the levy on raw-leaf tobacco would rise to 27.5 cents per gram from 27 cents. "We are pleased to follow through on the advice we received from the Canadian Cancer Society and its partner agencies to maintain the retail selling price of tobacco," Fielding said in introducing the bill. Last month, several anti-smoking groups, including the cancer society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Lung Association of Manitoba and the Manitoba Tobacco Reduction Alliance, pressed the government to make the change. The groups had lobbied the government on the issue in advance of the March 7 budget, but Fielding said Tuesday that their petition came too late in the process to make changes. He admitted that government hadn't considered that the PST cut would lower tobacco prices, calling it was an "unintended consequence." A tax increase of $1.15 on a carton of cigarettes would keep the price at about the same level as it is today, the cancer society said. Fielding emphasized that smokers won't pay more as a result of Bill 31. "They just won't benefit from the reduction in the PST," he 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. Sarah Hawkins, health policy analyst with the cancer society, said her organization is pleased with the bill. "We think the government is taking a good, proactive step to protect Manitoba youth," she said. The longtime decline in smoking rates is waning, Hawkins said, and anti-smoking groups are already concerned that with new nicotine products emerging there is potential for an increase in tobacco use in the future. "There's potential for backtracking if we don't keep steady on our tobacco-control programming and continue to fund and work towards tobacco reduction," she said. Meanwhile, Manitoba's Opposition parties vowed to back the bill. Both the NDP and the Liberals said the government should have listened to the concerns of anti-smoking groups earlier. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca There is a sea change happening in Canadian politics. There is a green tide coming in, across the whole country. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion There is a sea change happening in Canadian politics. There is a green tide coming in, across the whole country. Prince Edward Island is leading the way, just as it did with Confederation. The recent provincial election swept out the red (Liberals), narrowly elected the blue (Conservatives) and, for the first time in Canada, the official Opposition is the Green (party). Political swings on the Island are not new but they have see-sawed for 150 years between red and blue, never orange (NDP). This time, the reds were washed away by the surging Green tide. But if Green is the new orange in P.E.I. and I suspect elsewhere, given the byelection win for the federal Greens in British Columbia that gives them a second MP what does this mean for the future of the New Democratic Party, the perpetual alternative? First, the name is unfortunate. The NDP were new once, but not in the lifetime of anyone under 50. Second, their main slogan is no better looking at the policies and rhetoric of their leadership, "Todays NDP" is really "yesterdays" instead. Apart from the work of some outstanding individuals (including Transcona MP Daniel Blaikie, a Red Seal electrician with an MA in philosophy), the federal NDP has floundered for decades. Across the aisle, the Progressive Conservatives were erased by the blue wave of Reformers from Alberta, but there has been nothing progressive in the federal Conservative party since Joe Clarks short-lived government fell in 1979. There used to be a wing of red Tories that promoted centrist, socially responsible government. Today, the only red Tories in leadership are angry ones. Yet, among the rank and file, I suspect there are lots of red Tories left. The partys policies and hierarchy dont align with them, but they are still not likely to vote either Liberal or NDP. All of this opens the way for a Green tide perhaps even in Alberta, despite the decidedly blue-hued result of its recent election. We are headed further into economic and environmental uncertainty. Old answers (and players) arent working, and there is a limit to the number of times the same old thing can be repackaged or rebranded. Real change becomes the only sensible and practical alternative. The Social Credit Party surprised everyone by winning the Alberta provincial election in 1935, when voters decided red and blue had nothing more to offer. From these roots, the Alberta spin on Conservative politics (including the Reform Party) eventually spread across the country when the money to be made in Big Oil appealed to Bay Street power brokers, and replaced the traditional federal conservative party with its own shade of blue. 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. Similarly, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation also got its start in Alberta, in 1932, and then moved east to form government in Saskatchewan in 1944. It only became a national party when Prairie farmers allied themselves with trade unions elsewhere, and so the CCF morphed into the NDP in 1961. Both Alberta blue and Saskatchewan orange began as alternatives, therefore, in a time of great economic and environmental crisis, and then grew. P.E.I. Green could do the same again, as we move further into a deeper global economic and ecological crisis. As we have seen recently in Alberta and Saskatchewan, it is easier to start a new party than remake old ones. While the "new" Manitoba Liberals seem greener than their opponents, its still a red/green show at the core, I fear not the true renewal of a third option in Manitoba politics. That leaves the Green party, at provincial and federal levels, as we contemplate at least one election this year. Reducing federal politics to repetitive verse, the Liberals are the party of old money and privilege; the Conservatives are the party of new money and profit; the NDP are the party of no money and need. The Green party is still in search of its own poetic definition, but it has amazing potential. As a clear alternative, the Green party could stand for social justice, fiscal responsibility and ecological engagement. It could deliver the decisive action that our world so desperately requires, right now, instead of offering platitudes to greenwash the guilty consciences of those who could change, but find it personally inconvenient, and so dont. It could take all the old colours and combine them into that New Green Deal for Canadians that those of us who are worried about the future young people will inherit still hope to create. And it would be a New Green Deal, not the Green New Deal of the United States, because we do things our own way, here and dont intend to apologize for it. Peter Denton is an activist, author and sustainability consultant based in Manitoba. Haley is hoping to schedule at least 10 visits at different dairy farms this summer and into the fall once more of them learn about the program. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that can be transmitted between humans and mainly dairy cows, but sometimes involves other animals like deer, goats, swine and more, Haley said. The most common way to contract it is by eating or drinking contaminated dairy products including unpasteurized milk. Drinking unpasteurized milk is a common practice in countries including Mexico, the native country of many dairy farm workers in Sauk County Tuberculosis is either active or latent, with the latent form of it being more common, Haley said. But the latent form of tuberculosis can convert to an active form of the infection, at any time, if the body gets stressed. Tuberculosis is treatable, but it can be a very serious illness, Haley said of the sometimes deadly infection. Treatment for it is elaborate and very costly. Republican leaders appear to be split over how to use the newfound one-time revenue. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, in a statement, said members of his caucus are interested in floating a new tax cut, growing the states rainy day fund or paying down debt. Now is not the time to go on a spending spree with one-time revenues, Vos said. We refuse to spend in a way that we cant afford. Meanwhile, Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, told reporters he wants to put the entire amount into the rainy day fund in case of a future economic recession. Its not fun, but its the reasonable and responsible thing to do, Nygren said. But Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, suggested Republicans in his chamber may be more open to using at least some of the funds for investments in infrastructure. We find ourselves in a great position to cut taxes, make smart investments in infrastructure, and maintain a strong closing balance, Fitzgerald said in a statement. Connor said when trains break down, railway executives are already sending flurries of emails within minutes as engineers try to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Whenever a train is stopped, it means the trains are losing precious time and money. If the wheels arent turning, theyre not earning, Connor said. The subject of prolonged train stops came up again Monday morning during a Columbia County Public Safety Committee meeting. They dont want the train sitting any longer than we want it to, Columbia County Emergency Management Coordinator Kathy Johnson said. Columbia County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Dan Drew said he has sometimes avoided long train delays by changing his route. On multiple occasions, hes driven through Pardeeville to get to Portage and still arrives faster than he would have otherwise by going on County Highway P. County Board Supervisor and Public Safety Committee Chairman Barry Pufahl said long train crossing delays could pose issues for firefighters. Pufahl said he appreciated a brief recap from Johnson, who relayed that railway police suggested county officials keep citizens up to speed on the subject and continue to share community members input. Follow Brad on Twitter @BradMikeAllen or call him at 608-745-3510. 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. Sauk County Historical Society Executive Director Paul Wolter will present the second session in a two-part series on the history of the Ho-Chunk Nation at 7 p.m. May 23 in the librarys community room, 370 Vine St., Reedsburg. The series is a collaborative project of the Reedsburg Historical Society, the Sauk County Historical Society and the Reedsburg Public Library. In the first session, the history of the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin prior to and immediately following European contact, was explained by speakers Patty Loew and Janice Rice. In the second session, Wolter will give details about the effect that federal treaties had on the local Ho-Chunk population in Sauk County, as well as the reaction of tribal leaders and local community members. The Ho-Chunk had been adversely affected from the time of the first European contact, but were severely encroached upon with the 1820s lead rush. A treaty forced upon the tribe in 1832, demanded the surrender of all lands between the Rock and Wisconsin Rivers in exchange for territory west of the Mississippi. In 1837, Chief Yellow Thunder, along with Chief War Eagle and Elder Dandy were summoned to Washington, where they were effectively held hostage until they ceded all remaining Wisconsin Lands. The Bank of Wisconsin Dells announces the retirement of Connie Suemnicht, vice president and commercial lender, on May 17. Suemnicht joined the bank in March 2011, with 42-years of prior banking experience and a purpose to strengthen the banks relationships in both the Reedsburg and Baraboo markets. The Bank of Wisconsin Dells is a full-service financial institution with branches in Wisconsin Dells, Lake Delton and Portage. For more information, visit dellsbank.com or call 608-253-1111. Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is in China to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is here to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. Xi said China and Armenia, both having a long history of civilization, should promote mutual learning that will serve as a strong support for consolidating long-lasting friendship between the two countries as well as jointly building the Belt and Road, to inject new impetus into regional cooperation and development. China stands ready to push forward bilateral cooperation and achieve more tangible results in various fields including trade and investment, mining, metal smelting, renewable energy as well as infrastructure construction, said Xi. The two sides should strengthen cooperation on anti-terrorism, law enforcement and security, and jointly combat "three forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism, Xi said. Pashinyan said Armenia treats bilateral relationship from a strategic perspective and is willing to actively participate in the joint building of the Belt and Road. Armenia is firmly committed to fighting terrorism, he added. Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial property is focused on London Offices and Retail around the UK. We own or manage a portfolio valued at A13.7bn (British Land share: A10.3bn) as at 30 September 2020 making us one of Europe's largest listed real estate investment companies. Our strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of our customers and respond to changing lifestyles - Places People Prefer. We do this by creating great environments both inside and outside our buildings and use our scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them. This expands their appeal to a broader range of occupiers, creating enduring demand and driving sustainable, long term performance. Our Offices portfolio comprises three office-led campuses in central London as well as high quality standalone buildings and accounts for 65% of our portfolio. Our Retail portfolio is focused on retail parks and shopping centres, and accounts for 31% of our portfolio. Increasingly our focus is on providing a mix of uses and this is most evident at Canada Water, our 53 acre redevelopment opportunity where we have plans to create a new neighbourhood for London. Sustainability is embedded throughout our business. Our places, which are designed to meet high sustainability standards, become part of local communities, provide opportunities for skills development and employment and promote wellbeing. In April 2016 British Land received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success for economic, social and environmental achievements over a period of five years. Read More Canadian Western Bank provides personal and business banking products and services primarily in Western Canada. The company offers current, savings, cash management, US dollar, and chequing accounts, as well as organization, strata solution/condo, general trust, and trust fund investment accounts. It also offers commercial lending and real estate, and equipment financing and leasing products; loans and mortgages; secured and unsecured lines of credit; registered retirement savings plan; consolidation, vehicle, and recreation vehicle loans; and credit cards. 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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 iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF's stock was trading at $39.49 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, IEUR stock has increased by 46.1% and is now trading at $57.68. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares MSCI EAFE ETF's stock was trading at $56.05 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EFA stock has increased by 40.1% and is now trading at $78.51. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares National Muni Bond ETF's stock was trading at $114.45 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, MUB shares have increased by 1.7% and is now trading at $116.44. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF's stock was trading at $170.68 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, IWO shares have increased by 72.5% and is now trading at $294.40. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Storm Resources has only been the subject of 4 research reports in the past 90 days. According to analysts' consensus price target of C$5.98, Storm Resources has a forecasted upside of from its current price of C$0.00. Storm Resources has received a consensus rating of Buy. The company's average rating score is 2.60, and is based on 3 buy ratings, 2 hold ratings, and no sell ratings. 4.9 Community Rank Outperform Votes Storm Resources has received 174 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Storm Resources has received 63 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Storm Resources has received 73.42% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Storm Resources and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe SRX will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe SRX will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next 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. 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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. Toachi Mining Inc. engages in the mineral exploration activities. It holds an option to acquire 60% to 75% interest in the La Plata gold-rich copper-zinc-silver-lead volcanogenic massive sulphide project located to the southwest of Quito, Ecuador. The company was formerly known as Ferrum Americas Mining Inc. and changed its name to Toachi Mining Inc. in March 2016. Toachi Mining Inc. was founded in 2010 and is based in Toronto, Canada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Valero Energy: AIR BP-PBF DEL PERU SAC, BELFAST STORAGE LTD, CANADIAN ULTRAMAR COMPANY, COLONNADE TEXAS INSURANCE COMPANY LLC, COLONNADE VERMONT INSURANCE COMPANY, DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY LLC, DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY OF CANADA INC., DIAMOND GREEN DIESEL HOLDINGS LLC, DIAMOND GREEN DIESEL LLC, DIAMOND K RANCH LLC, DIAMOND OMEGA COMPANY L.L.C., DIAMOND SHAMROCK REFINING COMPANY L.P., DIAMOND UNIT INVESTMENTS L.L.C., DSRM NATIONAL BANK, ENTERPRISE CLAIMS MANAGEMENT INC., GCP LOGISTICS COMPANY LLC, GOLDEN EAGLE ASSURANCE LIMITED, HAMMOND MAINLINE PIPELINE LLC, HUNTWAY REFINING COMPANY, MAINLINE PIPELINES LIMITED, MAPLE ETHANOL LTD., MICHIGAN REDEVELOPMENT GP LLC, MICHIGAN REDEVELOPMENT L.P., MRP PROPERTIES COMPANY LLC, NECHES RIVER HOLDING CORP., NORCO METHANOL LLC, OCEANIC TANKERS AGENCY LIMITED, PARKWAY PIPELINE LLC, PENTA TANKS TERMINALS S.A., PI DOCK FACILITIES LLC, PICKARD PLACE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, PORT ARTHUR COKER COMPANY L.P., PREMCOR USA INC., PROPERTY RESTORATION L.P., PURE BIOFUELS DEL PERU S.A.C., PURE BIOFUELS HOLDINGS L.P., Parkway Pipeline, Premcor, Pure Biofuels Del Peru, SABINE RIVER HOLDING CORP., SABINE RIVER LLC, SAINT BERNARD PROPERTIES COMPANY LLC, SUNBELT REFINING COMPANY L.P., THE PREMCOR PIPELINE CO., THE PREMCOR REFINING GROUP INC., THE SHAMROCK PIPE LINE CORPORATION, TRANSPORT MARITIME ST. LAURENT INC., ULTRAMAR ACCEPTANCE INC., ULTRAMAR ENERGY INC., ULTRAMAR INC., Ultramar Diamond Shamrock, V-TEX LOGISTICS LLC, VALERO (BARBADOS) SRL, VALERO (PERU) HOLDINGS GP LLC, VALERO (PERU) HOLDINGS LIMITED, VALERO ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO ARUBA ACQUISITION COMPANY I LTD., VALERO ARUBA FINANCE INTERNATIONAL LTD., VALERO ARUBA HOLDING COMPANY N.V., VALERO ARUBA HOLDINGS INTERNATIONAL LTD., VALERO ARUBA MAINTENANCE/OPERATIONS COMPANY N.V., VALERO BROWNSVILLE TERMINAL LLC, VALERO CANADA FINANCE INC., VALERO CANADA L.P., VALERO CAPITAL CORPORATION, VALERO CARIBBEAN SERVICES COMPANY, VALERO COKER CORPORATION ARUBA N.V., VALERO CUSTOMS & TRADE SERVICES INC., VALERO EAST BAY LLC, VALERO ENERGY (IRELAND) LIMITED, VALERO ENERGY ARUBA II COMPANY, VALERO ENERGY INC., VALERO ENERGY LTD, VALERO ENERGY PARTNERS GP LLC, VALERO ENERGY PARTNERS LP, VALERO ENERGY UK LTD, VALERO ENTERPRISES INC., VALERO EQUITY SERVICES LTD, VALERO FINANCE L.P. I, VALERO FINANCE L.P. II, VALERO FINANCE L.P. III, VALERO FOREST CONTRIBUTION LLC, VALERO GRAIN MARKETING LLC, VALERO H2 PIPELINE COMPANY LLC, VALERO HOLDCO UK LTD, VALERO HOLDINGS INC., VALERO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC., VALERO LIVE OAK LLC, VALERO LOGISTICS UK LTD, VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY (PANAMA) LLC, VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY COMPANY, VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPY INTERNATIONAL LTD., VALERO MARKETING IRELAND LIMITED, VALERO MKS LOGISTICS L.L.C., VALERO NEDERLAND COOPERATIEF U.A., VALERO NEDERLAND COOPERATIEF U.A., VALERO NEW AMSTERDAM B.V., VALERO OMEGA COMPANY L.L.C., VALERO OPERATIONAL SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO OPERATIONAL SERVICES DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO OPERATIONS SUPPORT LTD, VALERO PARTNERS CCTS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS CORPUS EAST LLC, VALERO PARTNERS CORPUS WEST LLC, VALERO PARTNERS EP LLC, VALERO PARTNERS HOUSTON LLC, VALERO PARTNERS LOUISIANA LLC, VALERO PARTNERS LUCAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS MCKEE LLC, VALERO PARTNERS MEMPHIS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS MERAUX LLC, VALERO PARTNERS NORTH TEXAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS OPERATING CO. LLC, VALERO PARTNERS PAPS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS PORT ARTHUR LLC, VALERO PARTNERS SOUTH TEXAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS TEXAS CITY LLC, VALERO PARTNERS THREE RIVERS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS WEST MEMPHIS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS WEST TEXAS LLC, VALERO PARTNERS WYNNEWOOD LLC, VALERO PAYMENT SERVICES COMPANY, VALERO PEMBROKESHIRE LLC, VALERO PEMBROKESHIRE OIL TERMINAL LTD, VALERO PLAINS COMPANY LLC, VALERO POWER MARKETING LLC, VALERO RAIL OPERATIONS DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO RAIL OPERATIONS DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO RAIL PARTNERS LLC, VALERO REFINING AND MARKETING COMPANY, VALERO REFINING COMPANY-ARUBA N.V., VALERO REFINING COMPANY-CALIFORNIA, VALERO REFINING COMPANY-OKLAHOMA, VALERO REFINING COMPANY-TENNESSEE L.L.C., VALERO REFINING-MERAUX LLC, VALERO REFINING-NEW ORLEANS L.L.C., VALERO REFINING-TEXAS L.P., VALERO RENEWABLE FUELS COMPANY LLC, VALERO SECURITY SYSTEMS INC., VALERO SERVICES INC., VALERO SKELLYTOWN PIPELINE LLC, VALERO TEJAS COMPANY LLC, VALERO TERMINAL HOLDCO LTD, VALERO TERMINALING AND DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, VALERO TERMINALING AND DISTRIBUTION DE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., VALERO TEXAS POWER MARKETING INC., VALERO ULTRAMAR HOLDINGS INC., VALERO UNIT INVESTMENTS L.L.C., VALERO WEST WALES LLC, VRG PROPERTIES COMPANY, VTD PROPERTIES COMPANY, WARSHALL COMPANY LLC, and ZELIG COMMERCIAL INC.. Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF's stock was trading at $46.36 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, VGK shares have increased by 45.9% and is now trading at $67.63. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. UTICA, N.Y. -- A Utica City Court judge has issued an arrest warrant for Oneida County's former STOP DWI coordinator, who was scheduled for a 'virtual arraignment' Wednesday morning. Oneida County's former STOP DWI coordinator, Tom Giruzzi, is charged with DWI-drugs after an Oneida County sheriff's deputy pulled Giruzzi over in Utica back in March and allegedly found cocaine in his car. Giruzzi is currently in a treatment facility in Florida. He was supposed to have a virtual arraignment Wednesday and plead not guilty to all charges, but his attorney was unable to coordinate a video conference type connection, and asked to do the arraignment on a conference call-audio only. The judge said no, and issued an arrest warrant for Giruzzi. If he pulls out of the rehab, he will lose that bed. All of the money that he has spent, personal money out of his pocket to get the treatment he's needed will be lost. He will no longer have the bed down there and he will have to try and re-enroll, said This warrant doesn't necessarily mean Giruzzi will be pulled out of rehab in Florida, arrested and brought back to Central New York before his treatment is over on June 28. The court would now have to enforce the warrant and dispatch police or marshals to go pick him up in Florida. The state burn ban is no longer in place. The DEC had a burn ban in place through Tuesday, May 14. Historically, open burning of debris is the largest single cause of spring wildfires in New York state. When temperatures are warmer and the past fall's debris, dead grass, and leaves dry out, wildfires can start and spread easily and be further fueled by winds and a lack of green vegetation. Although the ban is now over, state officials still encourage residents to be safe. UTICA, N.Y. - There were scathing accusations and passionate denials Wednesday between the Republican candidates in the race for Oneida County Executive. The challenger, Dave Gordon, stood outside the Oneida County Office Building Wednesday afternoon, detailing an affair he claims happened between the incumbent, Anthony Picente, Jr., and a former staff member. Gordon claimed the affair happened in the County Executive's office, saying Picente is morally unfit to occupy it. "In one of the biggest coverups in Oneida County history, Picente immediately demanded that Caitlin move to Charleston, South Carolina to hide evidence of the affair. For 15 months McCann would live in South Carolina, pregnant with Picente's child, away from her own family," said Gordon, referring to former county employee Caitlin McCann. An indignant Picente responded to the accusations for what he vowed would be the first and last time. "There's not one truth in any of the accusations, any of the statements that he made, any of the issues that he brings forth," said Picente. "This is a man who has abused one woman that we know of and now has abused two others: my wife and Ms. McCann." Gordon offered no photographic or irrefutable proof of an affair, but provided the names of Oneida County Sheriff's Deputies he claims had knowledge of the affair. "These two individuals, sheriffs, witnessed the affair between McCann and Picente right here in this building. It's time for the media to start doing some investigative reporting. I'll give you the names," said Gordon. One of the deputies, Leslie Dean, told NewsChannel 2 "I don't know what he's talking [about]. I haven't ever had a conversation with him. I don't know Caitlin McCann." Gordon said the deputies might be afraid to speak, fearing for their jobs. However, Dean is retired. "There's no proof in here. There's nothing. You know why? Nothing happened," said Picente. Mohawk Valley Health System, McCann's current employer, issued a statement. "Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) is outraged by the false allegations about one of our employees, Caitlin McCann, made by Dave Gordon today. It is clearly an act of desperation by a political candidate to sully the reputation of a political opponent and a professional young woman. Dave Gordon should be ashamed of himself for these mistruths and the harm he is causing these individuals and families," said MVHS President/CEO Darlene Stromstad in a statement emailed to NewsChannel 2. New York State GOP Chairman Ed Cox also issued a statement regarding Gordon's allegations. "Dave Gordon is a Bernie Sanders supporter who not only has no business in a Republican primary, but he is also totally unfit for public office. His record of domestic violence and outlandish smear campaign should be deeply concerning to the people of Oneida County and voters of all parties should reject his candidacy." This article has been updated to properly attribute the statement from MVHS. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Longtime U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar was hailed for being a peacemaker as a two-day tribute began Tuesday with a military honor guard leading his flag-draped casket into the Indiana Statehouse Rotunda. A couple hundred people gathered with Lugar's wife, Charlene, and other family members for the Statehouse ceremony after which he was to lie in repose for 24 hours ahead of his funeral on Wednesday. Lugar was a leading Republican voice on foreign policy matters during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate, with his leading achievement being his work helping spur the dismantling of thousands of former Soviet nuclear weapons after the Cold War ended. Lugar, who was Indianapolis mayor for eight years before his first Senate election win in 1976, died April 28 at age 87. "In his love and through his courage, Richard Lugar helped bring more peace to an increasingly dangerous world," Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said. "He did so in every nuclear, chemical and biological weapon disarmed." Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Hogsett placed wreaths with sashes reading "Indiana" and "Indianapolis" next to Lugar's casket as public viewing began in the Statehouse. Vice President Mike Pence will be traveling to his home state for Wednesday's funeral. Pence said in a Twitter post that Lugar was "an American statesman whose contributions to our nation are countless." The former Indiana governor said he would deliver a eulogy for a "great man who inspired so many in public service including me." Hogsett, a Democrat, extoled Lugar for his willingness to work across the partisan divide and alluded to the senator's cerebral and soft-spoken nature. "He fought hatred, he did not court it," Hogsett said. "He calmed fear, he did not attempt to use it. He extinguished violence, he did not countenance it." Lugar was a reliable conservative vote in the Senate, but he worked closely with Democratic Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn in the early 1990s to launch the program under which the U.S. paid to dismantle and secure weapons in the former Soviet states. The Nunn-Lugar program led to about 7,600 Soviet nuclear warheads being deactivated and the destruction of more than 900 intercontinental ballistic missiles by the time Lugar left office in 2013, according to U.S. military figures. Lugar worked with Barack Obama after the future Democratic president entered the Senate in 2005, taking Obama with him to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan to visit weapon dismantlement sites. Lugar's cooperation with Obama, however, became a political handicap as his Senate career ended with a 2012 Republican primary loss to a tea party favorite. Obama awarded Lugar the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, soon after he left the Senate in 2013. Obama praised Lugar after his death as exhibiting "the truth that common courtesy can speak across cultures." "In Dick, I saw someone who wasn't a Republican or Democrat first, but a problem-solver an example of the impact a public servant can make by eschewing partisan divisiveness to instead focus on common ground," Obama said. Indiana's governor on Tuesday credited Lugar with a long life of service to his state and country. "As we gather to say goodbye, it's our job to carry that torch that this mighty man lived," Holcomb said. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) The need for nurses is continually growing in the country. It's growing so much the Bureau of Labor says from 2016 to 2026 the expected growth is by 15 percent. That's compared to seven percent growth across all occupations. The Greater Lafayette area and Purdue University are working together to stay ahead of the curve. "What we're looking at is nurses who are meeting the needs of the community," said Dr. Nancy Edwards. Edwards, who is an associate professor in Purdue School's of Nursing, said to meet those needs the university has decided to accept more applicants. Typically 1400 students apply and around 100 are accepted. In 2016 the school of nursing pushed that number up to around 200 and hopes to keep the numbers roughly the same for the future. The accepted nurses need to be multi-faceted. "Nurses who not only have the technical skills they need in nursing but also what we call the soft skills," said Edwards. It's the art of nursing, which is showing compassion, being a good listening and having a steady work ethic. Even with all of that the shortage is startling. "By 2030, RN's would increase from 2.8 million to 3.6 million," said Edwards The nursing shortage is intensifying due to the aging baby boomers. More than 1 million RN's will retire by 2030 and Purdue University is doing everything it can to combat that. "We're going into public health, community health and rural health," said Edwards. "We are in all of the areas now, not just the hospital." Being a nurse is so much more than it used to be with the expansion of health care. The growth of opportunities has contributed to the nursing shortage and RN's and students experience that first hand. "I didn't really realize it when I started working but once you start working you definitely feel the effects of having low staffing numbers." said RN Mariah Scheker. "That affects you personally as a nurse and it affects patients too." "You do feel those affects and our patients feel those as well," said RN Nachel Rhoades. The affects will keep piling on. But Purdue and community partners are striving to do the best they can. "We find new avenues what nurses can do," said Edwards. "Our goal is to try to keep up with it the best we can and to prepare the nurses in the widest realm." The American Associate of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) reported baccalaureate nursing programs increased 3.7 percent in 2018. FRANKFORT, Ind. (WLFI) A national traveling suicide prevention exhibit has made its last stop in Frankfort on Tuesday. The exhibit hits 30 cities across the U.S. The "Send Silence Packing" showcase was created to help end the silence surrounding mental health. More than 1,000 backpacks were laid across the Frankfort County Fairgrounds, each with a story written by families affected by suicide. Two Frankfort families donated their stories to this exhibit. Healthy Communities of Clinton County Coalition sponsors the event. The Director of Operations Kathy Martin said this exhibit is timely because it hits so close to home. It's important, especially for our youth, said Martin. We've lost five young people in our community just over the last three years to suicide, so it is okay to not be okay, it is okay to reach out and we especially want to reach that message to our young people. 1,500 highschoolers from Rossville, Clinton Central, and The Crossing took a trip to the exhibit. The Crossing highschoolers say it was a powerful sight to see each backpack and its message. At first you think it's just this line and then you look over into the grass and there's at least over a hundred, said student Desiree Robbins. I felt emotional because people do different things to their selves kind of because they're depressed, said student Bradyn Zink I liked being able to know that there are people there for me if I needed anything like that, said student Sadie Linscott. Spokespeople from Community Behavioral Health, BoilerWoRx, National Alliance on Mental Health, Healthy Communities of Clinton County, Four County, Sycamore Springs, and Mental Health America were all represented at the end of the exhibit. 1-800-273-8255 is the number for The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is available 24/7. You can find more information here. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Malachi Burnett, 7, of Prince Georges County, Maryland, who had this vehicle named after him after winning a school contest presented by the National Society of Black Engineers, checks out the vehicle during the kickoff of the Little Roady Autonomous Shuttle Project at the Statehouse Tuesday. Ukraine is the largest country wholly in Europe and the second largest country in Europe after Russians European part. It is located in Eastern Europe and covers an area of approximately 233,062 square miles (including Crimea), making it the worlds 46th largest country. Ukraine and Russia are currently in a territorial dispute over the Crimean Peninsula. The country has a population of about 42.5 million people (excluding Crimea), making it the worlds 32nd most populous country. The population is multi-ethnic with the majority (78%) being Ukrainians while Russians are the largest minority. Ukraine is a member of several international bodies including the UN, OSCE, Commonwealth of Independent States, Council of Europe, and GUAM Organization. Economy Of Ukraine The economy of Ukraine can be described as an emerging free market, meaning that it has similar characteristics as a developed market. It is still considered a developing country, ranking 88th in the Human Development Index. The country has the 2nd lowest GDP per capita in Europe. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the GDP of Ukraine fell sharply for 10 years and only begun to grow rapidly from 2000 to 2008. The economy was again affected by the 2008-2009 Ukraine final crisis as a result of the worldwide Great Recession. Today, the country has the lowest median wealth per adult in the world. Ukraine also suffers from a high poverty rate and corruption. Ironically, the country has thriving industries, accounting for about 26% of the total GDP (2012). Here are some of the biggest industries in Ukraine. Fuel Ukraine is one of the countries with the largest natural gas reserves in the world, estimated at 1.1 trillion cubic meters. In 1975, it produced an average of 68 billion cubic meters of gas. However, since then the production has been on the decline and has stagnated at around 20 billion cubic meters. Between 2011 and 2015, Ukraine raised gas production levels in the Black Sea from 1 billion cubic meters to 3 billion cubic meters. About 90% of the oil used in Ukraine is imported, mainly from Russia. Russia also owns and operates most of Ukraines refining plants. However, the country supplies its electricity and also exports some to Russia and other European countries. Electricity is mainly generated from nuclear power and dams. Mining Ukraine is among the largest mineral producers in the world, boasting of over 7,500 different deposits containing some 90 individual minerals. Of the several minerals found in the country, 20 are profitable. More than half of the known deposits are currently under exploration. Ukraine has about 47 billion tons of coal reserves and domestic demand for coal fuel of approximately 100 million tons per year. About 85% of the demanded coal fuel can be met through domestic production and the other 15% is mainly imported from Russia. Ukraine also has large oil and gas fields are able to meet approximately 10% of its oil and 20% of its gas consumption. The countrys natural gas reserve is approximately 39.5 trillion cubic feet but only 20% is met, meaning that Ukraine is still not producing to its capacity. Other important minerals in the country include iron ore (approximately 28 billion tons), chalk and limestone (1.5 billion tons), and manganese ore (3 billion tons). The mining sector has been slowed by the constant energy shortage. Aircraft And Aerospace Ukraine has a complete cycle of aerospace production. It designs and produces passengers and transport aircraft and also has the capacity to repair aircraft and has companies that are involved in the recovery of helicopters and military planes. Currently, Ukraine is producing the An-148 aircraft with 35 units produced since 2009. The gross production of aircraft in the country is less than 200 units annually. About 1,000 units of paragliders and hang-gliders are produced annually, most of which are exported to the countries such as the US, New Zealand, the UK, Australia, and France. Since the 2013 Ukrainian Crisis, revenue from the aerospace industry has dropped by about 80%. Agriculture Although the economy of Ukraine mainly relies on manufacturing, agriculture still plays an important role in the countrys economy. The agricultural sector accounted for about 8.3% of the GDP in 2008 and grown by 2% in 2012 to 10.4%. In the same year (2012) the sector accounted for US$ 40 billion of the economic value added. Ukraine is one of the top ten producers of variety of crops including corn and wheat. However, it still ranks 24th in overall agricultural production. It is the leading producer of sunflower oil, one of the major producers and exporters of grain, and also a global player in the sugar, dairy, and meat markets. Ukraine is also among the leading nut producers. No country in Europe produces high quality and quantity of natural honey than Ukraine. About 1.5% of the countrys population is currently engaged directly or indirectly in honey production. With 30% of the worlds richest black soil, Ukraine has a great potential to grow its agricultural industry. Tourism Ukraine is Europes 8th most popular destination, attracting over 20 million visitors every year (2012). However, since 2014, the number of tourists visiting the country has declined to about 10 million. Most tourists come from Eastern and Western Europe as well as Israel and Turkey. The tourism industry is mainly considered underdeveloped but plays a crucial role in supporting the countrys economy. In 2012, the sector accounted for 2.2% of the GDP and 1.7% of the workforce or 351,000 jobs. Some of the major attractions in Ukraine include the Carpathian Mountains, beaches along the coast of the Black Sea, vineyards, churches, and mosques. Other cities are also well known for tourism such as the old city of Lviv and the harbor town of Odesa. Other Notable Industries Other industries that also play a significant role in the development of the economy of Ukraine include chemical, automotive, and shipbuilding industries. There are about 50 shipbuilding companies in Ukraine that are capable of building a wide range of vessels. There are 12 automobile companies in the country where the automotive industry mainly produces diesel locomotives, trucks, and tractors. The cave of Altamira is located in Santillana del Mar in northern Spain. Altamira was inhabited for thousands of years and therefore contains the remnants of the daily activities of the population. The cave is renowned for the ancient polychrome paintings and charcoal drawings of the local fauna. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1985 and is considered one of the twelve treasures of Spain. Discovery In 1880, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and Sanz de Sautuola published research detailing the possible source of the cave, but archaeological experts disagreed with the publication on the grounds that ancient humans could not gather sufficient abstract thought to create such paintings. Similar findings in the Franco-Cantabrian in the early 20th century strengthened the position of the two researchers and brought an end to the controversy. Description of the Cave Altamira is about 3,300ft long and consists of twisting chambers and passages. It was formed by the collapse of rocks of Mount Vispieres. Occupants of the caves took advantage of the wildlife in the valley and the marine life in the neighboring coastal areas. About 13,000 years ago part of the mountain collapsed, and a rock sealed the entrance of the cave preserving the contents. Occupants of Altamira preferred living close to the cave mouth, but paintings stretch across the entire length of the cave. Artists used hematite, ochre, and charcoal to draw images often mixing and diluting pigments to create variations in intensity. The most impressive drawings are those of the extinct steppe bison, a doe, two horses, and what looks to be a wild boar. Age of the Paintings There is no defined age of the paintings and archaeological artifacts recovered in the cave, but scientists agree that it was inhabited during the upper Paleolithic period. A uranium-thorium dating conducted in 2008 showed that some of the paintings were completed over 20,000 years. Drawings of the steppe bison that became extinct 30,000 years ago indicate that some of the paintings could be much older. Threats From Tourism In the 1970s and early 2000s, water vapor and carbon dioxide produced by the tourists created a damp environment that damaged the paintings. It was closed for renovation in 1977 and reopened in 1982 but with limited access. In 2002, some of the paintings exhibited signs of green mold prompting authorities to shut the cave completely. In 2001, a replica cave museum was built nearby with similar art. There are also replica collections in museums in Madrid, Munich, and Japan. In 2010, plans to reopen the cave were shelved by the Spanish Ministry of Culture after experts revealed that conservation conditions improved after the closure. Patagonia is one of the few places in the world with coasts in 3 oceans (the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean). It is a semi-arid plateau that is situated at the southernmost end of South America. The region is made up of grasslands, desert, and pampas to the eastern side and Andes Mountains to the south. The regions name is derived from the name "Patagon" which Ferdinand Magellan used to describe the native tribes in 1520. Its believed that the tribes Magellan referred to as Patagons were the Tehuelches. Political Divisions of Patagonia Patagonia is situated inside two nations: 90% in Argentina and 10% in Chile. These two states have organized their Patagonian territory into various administrative subdivisions (communes, provinces, and regions in Chile and departments and provinces in Argentina). The Argentine Patagonia is divided into 5 provinces (Rio Negro, Chubut, Tierra-del-Fuego, Neuquen, and Santa Cruz). The southern part of Buenos Aries (Argentina) is also in Patagonia. Magallanes and Aysen regions are the only Chilean regions that are situated entirely in Patagonia. Palena province is also located in the Chilean Patagonia. The Chilean Patagonia also includes parts of Los Rios and Los Lagos regions and the Chiloe Archipelago. Geography Patagonia occupies an area of about 402,734 sq miles and has over 1,999,540 residents. The Barrancas and Colorado rivers form the northern boundary of Argentine Patagonia. These two rivers flow from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. Numerous historians and geographers believe that the Huincul Fault is the northern border of Chilean Patagonia. The Argentine Patagonia has a steppe-like plain composed of a series of thirteen abrupt terraces. These terraces are covered by vast beds of the shingle. The shingles are replaced by basalt lavas, granite, and porphyry in the Chilean Patagonia. Plants become more luxuriant and animal life more abundant in the Chilean Patagonia. Some of the depressions found in the region include River Deseao, the Senguerr, Valcheta, Maquinchao, and the Gulichu. The volcanic eruptions that occurred during the Cenozoic era in the central region of Patagonia left the land covered with basaltic lava-caps. Basaltic massifs are the main features in some parts of Patagonia. The coastal parts of the area are composed of high cliffs that are separated from the ocean by a narrow coastal plain. Some of the lake basins in Patagonia like Lake Fagnano, Lake Argentino and numerous coastal bays like Bahia Inutil were excavated by the ice-streams. Fauna The most characteristic mammals in the region include Magellanic tuco-tuco, Patagonian hog-nosed skunk, cougar, guanaco, and the Patagonian fox. Patagonia is the last home for the lesser rhea and guanaco which the Tehuelches hunted for their skin. Patagonia is home to various bird species including green-backed firecrowns, Austral parakeets, upland goose, Chilean flamingo, and southern caracara among others. The Andean condor (one of the worlds largest birds) can be spotted in Patagonia. The freshwater fauna in this region is restricted as compared to other places in the southern hemisphere. The Argentine Patagonia is home to twenty-nine freshwater fish species. Eighteen of these freshwater species like temperate perches, catfish, osmeriform and characiform among others are indigenous. Other freshwater species include the aeglid crustacean. We are publishing the speech of Alice Summers, a representative of the International Youth and Students for Social Equalit y (IYSSE) in the UK, at the May 12 public meeting in London in defence of jailed WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange and courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Alice Summers speaking at the meeting The arrest and incarceration of Julian Assange is a travesty of justice, an event which will go down in history as one of the first great political crimes of the 21st century. The images of an ill publisher being forcibly dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy by British police as one of them grinned will haunt millions of people across the world for years to come. The overwhelming majority of workers and youth feel enormous sympathy for Assange, a courageous journalist and publisher persecuted and reviled by the ruling elite for the supposed crime of telling the truth. His inhumane treatment at the hands of the US, UK and Ecuadorian governments, in contravention of international law and United Nations rulings, speaks volumes about the brutal realities of class society, all too familiar to working people on every continent. Alice Summers' speech at the meeting. Video taken from the livestream published by Gordon Dimmack, available at: https://youtu.be/Sjo3tpe3xLk The persecution of the WikiLeaks founder is a concentrated expression of the turn towards authoritarianism and the drive to war by the global capitalist class. My generation came of age to the sound of US and coalition bombs raining down on defenceless civilians. Our formative years were shaped by relentless attacks on living standards, rising economic insecurity, imperialist violence and corruption. For many, the first political events we would have been conscious of were the criminal imperialist invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Since then, the war on terror has dominated political life in the United States and Europe, claiming millions of innocent lives across the Middle East and central Asia and devastating entire societies. Endless conflict and imperialist destruction have been the constant for all our lives. Julian Assange is being held because he published leaked information exposing before the world these imperialist atrocities. He has committed no crime. He is being targeted for revealing details of illegal wars, mass surveillance operations and the daily diplomatic conspiracies of the US and its allies. In doing so, he has performed an invaluable service to working people and youth the world over. Assanges record as a journalist is unparalleled. Among WikiLeaks most important exposures were the Iraq and Afghan war logs, released in 2010. The Afghan war logs comprised over 90,000 incident and intelligence reports from the US military, from January 2004 to December 2009. The documents detailed at least 195 civilian deaths at the hands of NATO troops, previously hidden from the public. They exposed the existence of a secret black unit within the US military, tasked with illegally assassinating suspected Taliban leaders and opponents of the occupation. The Iraq war logs documented the deaths of almost 110,000 people, including more than 66,000 acknowledged by the US military as civilians. This included 15,000 civilian deaths known to the US authorities, but publicly suppressed. The logs detailed brutal US military attacks on unarmed civilians at checkpoints and elsewhere and recorded incidents of torture by US troops, and their Iraqi proxies, and the refusal of military high command to investigate such war crimes. These exposures left a deep mark on popular consciousness, earning WikiLeaks, and its editor-in-chief, the respect and gratitude of millions across the world. Among workers and young people, Assange was rightfully viewed as a hero. But for the corporate media, the ruling elite and their pseudo-left hangers-on, Assange is seen as a dangerous and subversive voice that must be silenced. As bogus allegations were concocted to discredit Assange, Britains largest fake left groups, Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party, echoed the propaganda of the liberal media, that Assange must be extradited to Sweden. Not once did they warn that the allegations of sexual assault were part of the efforts of the United States, Britain, Sweden and other governments to silence him and destroy WikiLeaks. Instead they took full part in repeating the allegations on campuses across the UK by student organisations beholden to identity politics, including the National Union of Students (NUS). As Assange languished in the Ecuadorian Embassy, in conditions described by the United Nations as arbitrary detention, a concerted campaign to ban him from speaking at universities across Britain was launched. Its aim was to isolate Assange politically, more surely even than the British judiciary and the police were isolating him physically. The efforts to silence Assange were part of the no platform policy adopted by the NUS, to enforce the dictates of gender and identity politics. In May 2016, the Student Union at Sheffield University attempted to ban Assange from speaking via a video link at an event sponsored by the Festival of Debate. Trampling on the presumption of innocence, the student executive voted unanimously to deny Assange a platform based on a zero tolerance policy toward sexual assault and of providing a safe space on campus. In an indication of the popular support for Assange, this decision was overturned after consultation with students and around 300 people turned out to hear him speak. The previous year, in November 2015, a similar attempt to block Assange from speaking at the Cambridge Union debating society was overturned. In Sheffield the pseudo-left groups were the campus police. At Cambridge the unions president, Oliver Mosley, had previously worked for the Conservative under-secretary of state for prisons! He called a student referendum to decide whether to ban the WikiLeaks founderthe first in the Unions 200-year history. The student union womens officer said that the invitation to Assange had alienated women and minorities. Students, however, voted overwhelmingly to host Assange with 76.9 percent voting yes. The result of the NUS no-platform movement is to transform universities into institutions of state-sponsored propaganda and repression. These reactionary efforts have sown enormous confusion among studentsincluding on Assange. Against this anti-democratic manoeuvring and slander campaign, the Socialist Equality Party and its youth movement, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, have fought to establish the broadest possible support for Assange among students and young people. We have opposed the right-wing efforts to dirty Assanges reputation. We have explained the immense political dangers posed by the attempt to criminalise critical journalism. Now more than ever, with Assange jailed in Belmarsh prison and facing imminent extradition to the United States, the IYSSE will redouble our efforts to build a mass movement of young people and students in Assanges defence. University students and young workers must turn to the working class, the only social force capable of defending Assange from US extradition and possible charges under the Espionage Act. Despite the vicious right-wing campaigns against him, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks enjoy growing sympathy from workers and youth across the world. But this sympathy must be turned into active support. WikiLeaks performed an invaluable service to the international working class in exposing the atrocities of world imperialism. However, it is not enough to expose imperialist crimes. They must be opposed politically. For that, a mass socialist movement of workers and young people must be built, in opposition to all of the parties of capitalist reaction and to the capitalist system itself, to free Julian Assange, to fight for an end to imperialist war and for genuine democracy. This is the programme fought for by the IYSSE, the SEP and the International Committee of the Fourth International. I urge you all to join this fight. PART ONE| PART TWO This is the second article in a two-part series drawing a balance sheet of five years of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The first part was posted on May 14. Cost-cutting or profiteering? The capitalist media portrayed the Flint water crisis as the result of an attempt to reduce expenses and ease the citys financial crisis. In fact, it was part of the drive by powerful financial interests and their political mouthpieces in both parties to exploit the collapse of the economic base of deindustrialized cities such as Detroit and Flint, whose position was further undermined by the Wall Street crash of 2008, in order to plunder public assets, claw back whatever remained of the past social gains of workerspensions, health care, education, etc.and repay with interest the losses suffered by the financial elite in the financial meltdown. The model for Flint was the 2013 forced bankruptcy of Detroit, which was backed by the Obama administration. The former world center of auto production was thrown into bankruptcy by a state-appointed emergency manager, Wall Street lawyer and Democrat Kevyn Orr, in a conspiracy to monetize the citys main assets, including the world-class Detroit Institute of Arts, the pension and health care funds of retired city workers, and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, one of the largest municipally owned and operated water systems in the country. Water had become a lucrative avenue for capitalist speculation. Private water companies such as Veolia and American Water and bottlers such as Nestle Water, Pepsi and Coca Cola were expanding their operations, and municipal water systems such Detroits were targeted for privatization. Part of the bankruptcy operation was the splitting up of the DWSD and the creation of the regionalized Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), which took over delivering water to Detroit suburbs, allowing the new entity to do an end run around legal protections against profiteering provided by the City Charter. An orgy of profiteering followed, using public-private partnerships to subcontract operations to private companies employing low-wage workers and terminating some 80 percent of the DWSD workforce, including skilled workers. At the same time, the state utilized the emergency manager dictatorship to compel Flint to take on new debt to finance the construction of the KWA pipeline and sever its 50-year relationship with the Detroit water system. The whole water-switching operation was a conspiracy, criminal in every sense of the word. It served no useful social function at all. Proponents of the KWA, including Wright and Jewell, falsely promised that the scheme would lower the exorbitant water rates paid by Flint residents. The existing DWSD pipeline was designed to accommodate the citys growth beyond its peak in the late 1970s, so with GMs abandonment of the city it was functioning well below its capacity. The construction of the new raw-water pipeline was a scheme by fat cats to make money at the expense of the people of Flint, whom they look upon, with a mixture of fear and contempt, as objects for exploitation. Technically, the KWA is a public water utility, but private entities profit from the scheme in three different ways: The fabrication of the pipes and the construction of the pipeline was done by private enterprises. Maintenance can be outsourced to private companies in much the same way as was done in Detroit. The servicing of the $240 million in bonds is a lucrative investment for speculators. As has been noted, Flint is still liable for about 35 percent, even though the city wont be utilizing the KWA. (This is being paid by the Great Lakes Water Authority as part of its 30-year contract to supply water to Flint.) Despite the suffering of the Flint population throughout the ordeal, there was never any question that the bondholders should be paid off in full. Sales of KWA raw water to private corporations such as Detroit Edison, which will use three million gallons a day for cooling purposes, will generate substantial revenues. The KWA also stands to gain from the potential reopening of hydro-fracturing (fracking) natural gas sites in Michigan. The fracking process requires the injection of huge quantities of fracking fluidmostly waterdeep into the earth to create fissures in the gas-bearing layers of rock. Access to a vast supply of water is critical for these environmentally dangerous operations. The Democratic Party and the racial narrative At the height of the scandal, a flood of celebrities, candidates, media talking heads and assorted scoundrels descended on Flint to gain notoriety and burnish their careers by posturing as advocates of the Flint residents. Their main function was to cover up the fundamental political and class issues in the water crisis. In 2016, celebrities associated with the Democratic Party, including filmmaker Michael Moore and Jesse Jackson, visited Flint to proclaim that Snyder and his administration were solely responsible for the crime against Flint. Obamas appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, made a late appearance to declare the federal body she headed bore no responsibility for the catastrophe. Liberal television host and commentator Rachel Maddow broadcast a program from Flint to denounce the Republicans. Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton made a February, 2016 campaign visit to Flint, feigning outrage and injecting a toxic racial interpretation of the catastrophe. Clintons comments opened the floodgates for a campaign in the capitalist media arguing that racism was at the root of the crime against Flint. Racial and identity politics became a central plank in Clintons program, serving to obscure the reactionary character of her pro-war, pro-Wall Street policies. The most disgusting Democratic intervention in Flint was the May, 2016 visit by President Barack Obama. Shut up and drink the water, was his effective message. Saying that as a child he ate paint chips and he turned out okay, he dismissed the seriousness of the lead poisoning. The kids will be just fine, he proclaimed, after sipping what purported to be a glass of Flint tap water. Since then, numerous supposedly left organizations have moved into Flint to promote insular protest and identity politics aimed at channeling social anger and opposition into the dead end of the Democratic Party. The United Auto Workers, which has carried out betrayal after betrayal of autoworkers, has funded and worked with organizations such as Michigan United and Black Lives Matter to promote a racialist agenda and pro-capitalist Democratic Party politics. Flint itself gives the lie to the racial interpretation. It is, by some measures, the poorest city in the US, with a poverty rate of over 40 percent, while the child poverty rate is 58 percent. Black, white and Hispanic residents fought a united struggle to defend their right to clean water from the beginning. The city has a mixed population: 54 percent African-American, 40 percent white and 6 percent other. Many of the officials who presided over the disaster and lied to the population were black, including Snyders urban affairs initiatives director Harvey Hollins, Emergency Manager Darnell Early and Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft. What is the situation in Flint after five years? Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha wrote in an April 25 editorial in the Washington Post: In the medical community, we still recommend that Flint residents drink only filtered tap water or bottled water, as the city is in the last phase of a massive public works project to replace the old lead pipes. This infrastructure work has the potential to disrupt more lead in the water system, and we dont want to risk exposing more people to lead. In less than a year, when those lead service lines are completely replaced, Flint residents shouldnt have to worry about getting a glass of clean tap water. But even then, there are reasons not to declare the water safe. It is no compliment to say that Flints water has the same lead levels as other communities. Across the United States, our regulations never intended for us to drink lead-free water. Instead, the standard sets a non-health-based action level of 15 parts per billion, which is hopelessly outdated and allows a water system to get a passing grade even when testing reveals dangerously high levels of lead in 10 percent of sampled homes. The regulatory framework is set up like Russian roulette, with the future of children at stake. In answer to the question of whether things have improved in Flint, residents answer in the negative. Connie Faith Vaughn posted on Facebook: Well we cant get homeowners insurance and our homes are only worth about a fifth of what they would be if they were located anyplace else. Hmmm.. No! My hair is falling out, my skin is ripping in painful places because I have to shower and these water bills are a JOKE! Shelley Reaves Thorn said: No... I'm still buying water and I still get pissed remembering the $1,200 pipe bill I had to pay. Oh yes, a sky high monthly water bill for unusable water. Flint residents still wait in long lines to obtain free bottled water from the last remaining source, provided by Nestle Water. After five years there can be no return to normalcy, as establishment figures like the newly elected Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer are fond of promising. Compensating the victims of this crime requires paying medical bills, water bills, loss of home values and upgrading plumbing inside their homes. Instead, officials have attacked residents saddled with the highest water rates in the US by ending water subsidies, cutting off water and lights because of unpaid bills, terminating bottled water distribution and foreclosing on homes. The Flint water disaster: A crime of capitalism What has been done to the people of Flint is a particularly graphic expression of the social counterrevolution that has been carried out by the financial-corporate elite and both capitalist parties for decades. Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, the coal regions of Appalachia and many other parts of America have been devastated by the relentless drive for profits. Corporate downsizing, wage-cutting, union-busting and whipsawing have pitted worker against worker and created intolerable conditions for masses of people, while the oligarchs have amassed unfathomable levels of wealth. All of this has been carried out with the indispensable collaboration of the pro-capitalist unions. The assault on workers has been relentless. Natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, tornadoes, floods and wildfires have exposed the decay of basic social infrastructure and the existence of widespread poverty. They have also revealed the indifference and incompetence of the ruling elite and its successive governments. Flint joins a long list of man-made disasters, including the Hinkley, California hexavalent chromium groundwater contamination by Pacific Gas and Electricity in the 1950s and 60s and the 1970s Love Canal disaster in Niagara Falls, New York, where an entire working-class housing complex was built on top of a toxic landfill. Residents of Martin County, Kentucky are still battling for water, almost 20 years after a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy Company spilled hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic slurry into the local rivers, killing all life in them. These disasters are the product of the reckless drive for private profit. They are rooted in the class character of the capitalist system. The notoriety of the Flint crisis has drawn attention to the widespread character of the lead-in-water danger. Lead pipes were used throughout the country as late as 1987 due to the powerful lead industry lobby. The measures, such as corrosion control, mandated by federal regulations are merely band aids covering up disasters waiting to happen across the country. Yet spending on water infrastructure has been slashed by close to 80 percent since 1977, overseen by administrations of both Democrats and Republicans. The social counterrevolution is an international phenomenon. All across EuropeGreece, Spain, Britainas well as Asia, Africa and Latin America, there is massive growth of social inequality, as society is increasingly dominated by a thin layer of super-rich oligarchs. There is no local or reform solution to the devastation inflicted on the workers of Flint by the American ruling class. The Flint disaster demonstrates the incompatibility between capitalist private ownership and control of the means of productionincluding water and electricityand the most basic needs of the vast majority of the populationthe working class. The crisis can be addressed only through the fight to build a new revolutionary leadership of the working classthe Socialist Equality Party in the US and the Fourth International internationallyto unite and mobilize workers and youth in opposition to all of the parties and politicians of the ruling class, in order to put an end to capitalism and establish a socialist society based on social equality and the satisfaction of social needs, not the insatiable greed of corporate speculators and exploiters. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) attended a Meet the Candidates forum held last Wednesday for the Hunter electorate in New South Wales (NSW). The forum revealed the importance of the principled campaign waged by the SEP in defence of Julian Assange and democratic rights. The event was held in the Church under the Trees Uniting Church in the suburb of Morisset. All House of Representative candidates were invited to introduce their program and policies, followed by a Q&A session with members of the public. The audience of more than 100, was comprised of young people, students and the elderly. SEP candidate Max Boddy addressing Hunter electorate meeting The candidates present included the incumbent Labor Party MP Joel Fitzgibbon, whose family has held the seat since 1984, as well as Greens candidate Janet Murray, and Nationals candidate Josh Angus. The SEP representative was Max Boddy, a member of the SEP National Committee and secretary of the partys Newcastle branch. In his opening remarks, Boddy stated the SEP is fighting to build a revolutionary movement of the working class based on a socialist program, adding that the elephant in this election campaign is the deafening silence on the persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. They have committed no crimes, Boddy continued, Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a true journalist, exposing the criminal wars and interventions by the United States and its allies. Manning is a courageous whistle blower who helped expose many of those crimes. The current litmus test of any political partys defense of democratic rights is their support for Assange and Manning. None of the other candidates raised the question of Assange or Manning in their opening speeches. Even when directly questioned from the audience, Fitzgibbon refused to answer and remained completely silent on the issue. Greens candidate Murray said, Assange should be returned to Australia, however if the rape charges in Sweden do resurface, he will have to face the music. Boddy said in reply: I note the silence from the Labor Party on Assange and lies from the Greens. Assange was never charged with rape, and the allegations against him were dropped. He reiterated that Assange was a litmus test on democratic rights and these parties have been very clear on where they stand on this issue. Another member of the audience asked why the Greens continued to support the 2011-2013 Labor government of Julia Gillard after it reintroduced the Pacific solution, a criminal policy whereby asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat are forcibly sent to prison camps on the tiny island nation of Nauru, and Papua New Guineas Manus Island. Kept in squalid conditions for indefinite periods, the policy is aimed at brutally deterring asylum seekers, and is regarded as a model by governments all over the globe. The claim to defend immigrants has been one of the core stances historically associated with the Greens. Murray responded by saying With the benefit of hindsight I think it was a hideous mistake. I dont think there was an anticipation that these camps would end up the way that they did. And I dont think any thinking person would have expected that outcome. She concluded by saying: I would like to think we have seen the error of our waysWeve made an apology to stolen generations and other groups, well have to apologise for these refugees as well lets just bring them here and help them get over it. Boddy pointed out that the Greens were avoiding the answer, noting that the detention camps were reopened by the Gillard Labor government. The evidence was there, he continued, under the Liberal/National coalition of the horrors that refugees and asylum seekers faced. Boddy explained that the unending US-led wars, backed by successive Australian governments, had created the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. He continued: The treatment of refugees is shameful and barbarous, but it is above all linked to the nation-state system that lies at the root of capitalism. The issue here is that the Greens fundamentally agree with the nation-state system. The idea is that people are locked off by borders so that individuals are assessed before entering. Capital has no borders and goes all over the world exploiting the labour of the working class. Fitzgibbon, speaking last, repeated the lie of the Greens candidate, stating: No-one could have envisaged at that time, that what should have been transitional facilities, have now turned into long term places of incarceration. An audience member asked if Labors fraudulent promise of a 20 percent wage increase for childcare workers could be prevented from spreading to other workers. Fitzgibbon enthusiastically replied: Can we quarantine it to childcare? Yes, I think we can. He then added: Across the economy more broadly we need to get wages going again, everything is going up except wages. Boddy pointed out Fitzgibbon made the promise tonight that any increase in pay for childcare workers will be quarantined, in other words, it will not spread. The Labor party made an open pledge to isolate this limited pay increase. The mechanism that the Labor party will use to enforce this quarantine is the anti-working class Fair Work legislation, introduced by the Rudd Labor government, with the complete support of the unions. These laws effectively ban all strike activity and are designed to directly target militant workers. The forum was a confirmation of what the SEP warned in its election statement: This election will be characterised by lies and diversions, as the parties of the political establishment, together with the corporate media, work to cover over the real situation facing working people. The responses of their candidates are an indictment of all the major parties and their policies. It indicates, above all, the necessity for workers to break from the Labor party, the trade unions and the Greens, and to build an independent movement of the working class to fight for socialism. Authorised by James Cogan for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000. Audience members at last Sundays meeting in London defence of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, called by the Socialist Equality Party, spoke to reporters from the World Socialist Web Site. Luis, a musician, said, I think defending Assange is vital. There will be a cost if we do not do so, suffered by many others. Luis Its important to remember that Assange has won many, many awards. Hes not just a journalist, hes one of the most significant journalists of all time. We are talking about someone that has influenced the way information spreads. Its massively important, especially in the context of the censorship of the internet, which we cannot allow to happen. We need to spread the message because people will only know about these issues if we talk about itthe media are not going to. If we dont do anything, the slander against Assange will be allowed to take hold. It was encouraging to see an MSNBC poll asking whether Assange should be prosecuted in the US and 92 percent of people said No. I do feel like theres a big movement building. You know I actually think we can get him free, and soon. Louise said the meeting clarified a lot of things. I came out of curiosity and found it very enlightening ... I thought the links made between war and the issue of Julian Assange were very interesting. Assange and WikiLeaks helped us see things in a different way; theyve opened our eyes to a lot of issues. Unfortunately, people seem to have gone silent and have forgotten about them. But it needs to be continued: we need to talk about it, think about it, write about it. Mayra said, The meeting has been fantastic. It is the only organisation that has been at the front of defending Julian Assanges rights. His human rights are being violated, not only by the British government but by the American government They are trying to bring back a form of colonialism in the 21st century. But we are in the 21st century and people like Trump need to respect peoples rights. People need to know the truth, and Julian Assange has told us the truth about what is happening in the world. We need to know what theyre doing: killing innocent people for resources. Mayra I wanted to take this opportunity to tell Trump: hands off Venezuela! We have to say to the American government to leave people in South America alone. We are not your backyard. I am from Ecuador. I also have to say to [Ecuador President] Lenin Moreno: stop being a puppet. He must have more independence and autonomy about decisions made about Ecuador. We must free Julian Assange! Sara, from Italy, said, Ive been a journalist for most of my life and I think the real mission of a journalist is to make people aware of reality. If you look at what Julian Assange did, you can see that this is precisely his purpose with WikiLeaks. And he put his own life at risk to carry it out. So, it is very important to take action for a man who took such a very important step. Because being aware of what is really happening is the first step toward building a fair world. Sara What we all share in this moment is a feeling of urgency, of the need to defend Assange. Jeff works in London and is a long-time supporter of WikiLeaks who attended the recent protests defending Assange at Southwark and Westminster courts. He said, I think this was a very informative meeting. It shows there are people all around the world who are very concerned about what is going on with Julian Assange. We had several speakers, including one who came from Germany and was very interesting about the history of his party. The campaign is going to continue until whenever it is that the court decides to extradite or not extradite him to America. Jeff Citing Assanges description of WikiLeaks as objective but not neutral, Jeff said, Objective journalism is not about drawing a perfect line between a geologist on the one side and a flat Earther on the other. If one side is right and the other is wrong, if human rights abuses are being committed and people are denying they have been committedand we know for a fact they have been committed [against Assange]. Objectivity means reporting the facts. You have to lean towards wherever the truth is and who is making the factual claims and our media havent. They havent even been reporting in the middle when it comes to Assange and WikiLeaks. They have been leaning towards the narrative of the security state and the established power. Statements read out at the meeting from workers and young people around the world showed WikiLeaks is actually really popular. One of the speakers said that the workers in America are sympathetic to Assange. The speaker from Germany said his taxi driver was sympathetic! There is a huge disconnect between masses of working people, everyday people, on the one hand and the established power and politicians on the other. And included in that bubble of power is the mainstream media. Referring to the 50-week prison sentence imposed on Assange, Jeff said, At Westminster Magistrates Court we werent even allowed into the public gallery, where we know there was standing room. Its outrageous. Isnt there a slogan that for justice to be done, it has to be seen to be done? Jeff said of the resolution passed at the meeting, It was passed unanimously. It was very well worded and strongly worded. Everyone here supports what it had to say. Mimi Mimi, from Romania, said, I support Julian Assange and this cause. I saw Assange on TV years ago and I have followed him since. He is for freedom of speech and that is what we want. We need a global movement to free Assange and we have to be united against the torture of Assange and Manning. Peter Peter from London is a long-time reader of the WSWS. He said, The meeting was strong and inspiring. Most of all it put the onus on one thingit is only the international working class that is powerful enough to free Assange and Manning. All the rest is delusional really and that is the strength of the World Socialist Web Site. Jane, who lives in London, said, We are here today because we are seeing the truth of what Assange and Manning have exposed to the world. Without them we would still be left in the dark. We are here to make sure they are freed and can live their lives without being prosecuted or hunted down by stooges and CIA operatives. I think WikiLeaks has achieved a great deal and done what no other journalists have done. Theyve blown the whistle and revealed what even top-secret agencies have hidden from people. It was a productive meeting today. I think it has mobilised everyone together. If everyone here has three or five contacts, they can spread the word and fight for truth and justice. I was so impressed that there were speakers from different countries here. The governments not the people have turned their backs on the whistle-blowers like Assange, Manning, [Edward] Snowden and many more. The masses now know the corporate media is bought. They should be on Assanges and Mannings side. On Monday the Philippines held midterm elections contesting thousands of positions, from city council and mayoral posts to the national legislature, including 12 senatorial seats. At the center of the election was the bid by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, now three years in office, to consolidate the hold which he exercises through his allies over Philippine politics. While the election results are still being officially tallied, the unofficial results reveal that the ruling class opponents to Duterte have suffered a historic defeat, securing not a single seat in the Senate. Since his election in 2016, Duterte has, through a series of party alliances, secured the support of a majority of the Philippine political establishment, including the backing of a supermajority in the House of Representatives. As Duterte launched a fascistic war on drugs, which has now claimed the lives of tens of thousands of poor Filipinos, murdered by police or vigilante death squads, the ruling class in near unanimity lined up in support of his administration. The one body where the minority opposition still exercised significant sway was the upper house of the legislature. Organized in the Liberal Party, the political apparatus of former President Benigno Aquino III and of current Vice President Leni Robredo, they were able from their position in the Senate to serve as a check on some of the measures which Duterte sought to implement. The Liberal Party opposition organized its 2019 senatorial bid in alliance with the right-wing party of former military coup plotters, Magdalo, and the pseudo-left organization, Akbayan, naming their slate Otso Diretso (Straight Eight). Based on the current unofficial counts, all of the available 12 seats in the Senate will go to allies of Duterte. There is an outside possibility that Bam Aquino, an Otso Diretso candidate, might secure the 12th slot. Every prior midterm election in Philippine history has seen a swing in favor of the opposition party. The defeat of the ruling class opposition by Duterte is unprecedented. At the heart of Otso Diretso's defeat is the character of the campaign which they ran. Dutertes fascistic policies, martial law and death squads are a sharp expression of a global trend. Confronting the crisis of world capitalism and the growth of social opposition in the working class, the capitalist class is everywhere preparing the apparatus of authoritarian forms of rule. There is no democratic opposition to these dictatorial maneuvers in any section of the bourgeoisie. They are all of them committed to the suppression of the working class. The opposition to Duterte within sections of the Philippine bourgeoisie is not mobilized on the basis of defending democracy, but rather in support of the interests of Washington, the country's former colonial master. Over the past three years Duterte has, in a volatile fashion, reoriented Manila's diplomatic and economic relations away from Washington and begun to cultivate deeper trade and political ties with Beijing. Otso Diretso made this the focus of their campaign, denouncing Duterte as a stooge of China, decrying him for being unwilling to go to war with Beijing in the South China Sea. Among the candidates fielded by Otso Diretso were Mar Roxas, scion of a political dynasty, former New York based investment banker and failed presidential candidate. A representative above all of American finance capital, Roxas outspent every other candidate and still failed to secure a seat. Other opposition senatorial candidates included Gary Alejano, a former military officer guilty of multiple coup attempts, and Florin Hilbay, Solicitor General under the Aquino administration responsible for bringing Manila's case against Beijing before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. They spearheaded the Otso Diretso campaign to demand Duterte take an aggressive stance against China. Four Otso Diretso senatorial candidates in late April attempted to travel to the disputed Scarborough shoal in the South China Sea to plant the Philippine flag as a culminating gesture of their campaign. The opposition cultivated the worst forms of anti-Chinese chauvinism, denouncing Chinese workers in the Philippines, speaking of a Chinese invasion, and posting images on social media of printed Chinese language material in the Philippines as evidence of Dutertes service as a puppet of Chinese imperialism. At the same time, Otso Diretso demanded and secured censorship on Facebook and other social media platforms. Taking their cue from demands raised by the Democratic Party in the United States, they spoke of weaponized social media and secured from Facebook a ban on over 200 Facebook pages, one of which had over 3.6 million followers. Facebook stated that the accounts were removed because of coordinated inauthentic behavior. In a word, Otso Diretso opposed Duterte from the right. Current tallies show that 45.8 million people voted in the midterm elections, approximately 72 percent of the registered electorate, an average turnout for a midterm election in the Philippines. The only precincts that cast a substantial majority of ballots for the Otso Diretso candidates were bastions of the extremely wealthy. Forbes Park, Ayala Alabang, Greenhills, White Plainsthe gated communities of the richall voted for the opposition. Among the top vote getters were Cynthia Villar and Grace Poe. Villar, who is an incumbent senator and wife of a former presidential candidate, represents real estate money and is from one of the wealthiest families in the country. Poe is a former presidential candidate, whose husband was an intelligence contractor for the CIA a decade ago. Two new faces rose to win seats in the Senate, both on the basis of their ties to Duterte. Bato dela Rosa was installed as the head of the Philippine National Police when Duterte took office and was directly responsible for implementing his war on drugs. Bong Go was the special advisor to the President, and more than any other figure was the author and implementor of the right-wing policies of his administration. The new ruling coalition in the Senate is not as stable as might at first appear. The leading candidates in Dutertes alliance are established politicians who have attached themselves to his presidency out of a political expediency that may shift. While it lasts, however, Duterte has stated that he intends to use this supermajority to attempt to reinstate the death penalty, to lower the age of criminality to nine, and to remove term limits on the presidency. A portion of the support for Duterte's candidates stems from the support which his right-wing populism has among some poor layers of the population. The Philippines is a country with an immense and impoverished petty bourgeoisiesmall shopkeepers and owners of micro-businesses. In the absence of an independent movement of the working class, the President's foul-mouthed denunciations of the elite and of the Catholic church have found wide play. This is expressed in the collapse of the long-standing political dynasty of Joseph Estrada, the former movie star who pioneered a milder form of populism during his rise from mayor to president. His brand of posturing as a man of the people has now been supplanted by the right-wing lumpen populism of Duterte. In the 2019 election, his entire family lost all of their political seats, in the senate, in the Manila mayoral race, and in their home base of San Juan. Like Dutertes war on drugs, his fascistic program and policies are fostering the growth of extreme right-wing groups which will inevitably be used against growing opposition to deteriorating living standards. The top political party to secure congressional seats under the party list system was the Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Communist Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) party. Associated with the Tulfo family of shock journalists, whose fascistic rants in the newspapers and television are closely tied to Duterte, ACT-CIS secured twice as many votes as the second highest party list group. ACT-CIS is an organization founded by former police chiefs dedicated to creating vigilante organizations with government funding, and among its leading legislation is the "community informant reward act." The party list organization Duterte Youth won over 350,000 votes, not enough to secure a seat. The organization seems consciously modeled on the Hitler Youth. Its members wear black uniforms with red armbands and advocate violent anti-communism and mandatory military training for high school and college students. Their election statement published on May 6, addressed itself to allegedly "communist" youth, declaring We will finish you on the streets along with your rapist, criminal and terrorist comrades." The head of Duterte youth is a member of the Duterte cabinet, head of the National Youth Council. These far-right organisations, while not yet a mass movement of the type that emerged in Germany in the 1930s, constitute a warning of the police state methods that will be used against workers amid a worsening economic, social and political crisis. Only the development of a movement of the working class independent of all factions of the ruling class and their Maoist allies, and fighting for a socialist and internationalist perspective, can counter this danger. Quebec Solidaire is being hailed by the entire Canadian pseudo-left milieu as the real opposition, in Parliament and in the streets to Quebecs right-wing populist CAQ (Coalition Avenir Quebec) government. In reality, Quebec Solidaire (QS) is a party of the privileged middle classes that has already demonstrated its hostility to any genuine working-class challenge to capitalist austerity. It assisted the trade unions in politically derailing the 2012 Quebec student strike and in suppressing the mass opposition, spearheaded by public sector workers, in 2015-16 to the Couillard governments draconian social spending cuts. Internationally, it is allied with other new left parties like Syriza in Greece, Spains Podemos, and the Left Party in Germany that have formed or joined governments that have mounted sweeping attacks on the working class. Moreover, for more than a decade QS has played a politically pernicious role in abetting the Quebec and Canadian ruling elites in their promotion of anti-immigrant, and especially anti-Muslim, sentiment. In Canada, as around the world, the bourgeoisie is promoting xenophobia and Islamophobia as a means of diverting popular anger over mounting economic insecurity and social inequality; splitting the working class; rallying support for imperialist aggression in the Middle East; and emboldening reaction, including the far right. Yet QS consistently characterized Quebecs twelve-year long, right wing-incited furor over excessive accommodations to religious minorities, and the ensuing campaign to ban public sector workers from wearing religious head coverings and other religious symbols, as legitimate and necessary. QS itself repeatedly championed discriminatory proposals, from banning state employees in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols to barring access to public services to the tiny number of devout Muslim women in Quebec who wear the niqab or burka . Now, however, under conditions where the new CAQ government has tabled a discriminatory law targeting religious minorities and especially Muslim women, Quebec Solidaire is attempting a political makeover. The CAQs Bill 21 or state secularism law prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by teachers and state employees in so-called "positions of authority, deprives fully veiled Muslim women of essential public services such as health care, and invokes the notwithstanding clause, which enables governments to run roughshod over the rights constitutionally guaranteed under Canadas Charters of Rights and Freedoms, so as to ensure that it cannot be struck down by the courts. On March 30, Quebec Solidaires National Council voted to repudiate its decade-long support for a ban on religious symbols only slightly less extensive than that in the CAQs Bill 21, and initiated a campaign to recast QS as an opponent of anti-immigrant chauvinism and defender of Quebecs religious minorities. This is a fraud. Quebec Solidaires volte-face has nothing to do with a principled stand in defence of democratic rights. Nor does it constitute a shift to the left as the ostensibly socialist wing of the pseudo-left in Quebec and English-Canada claims. Within hours of the QS National Council vote, senior party leaders signaled their continued support for barring fully veiled women from all public and para-public sector jobs. Moreover, the entire QS leadershipfrom the partys current coleaders, Manon Masse and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, to their predecessors, Francoise David and Amir Khadirhave all sought to downplay the significance of the change in QS policy, steadfastly denying that QS has contributed to the growth of anti-immigrant chauvinism and Islamophobia. For their part, groups like Fightback and Gauche Socialistewhich at times criticized the previous QS position as an unfortunate concession to chauvinism and the righthave hailed Quebec Solidaires change in position, holding it up as proof that QS is amenable to left-wing pressure. Like the QS leadership, the pseudo-Marxist groups are determined to cover up and obscure the significance of Quebec Solidaires role in legitimizing and propagating extreme Quebec chauvinism. Towards this end, they exclude discussion of the global political environment in which Quebecs so-called secularism debate emerged and evolved, and the intimate connection between the whipping up of Islamophobia and imperialist policyincluding Canadian imperialisms participation in a series of US wars in Central Asia and the Middle East and the promotion of human rights imperialism. Several of these wars, including the Afghan War and the 2011 NATO assault on Libya, it need be emphasized, were supported by QS leaders. Quebec Solidaire's newfound opposition to the Quebec nationalist-led campaign to hypocritically and cynically invoke secularism to justify discrimination against Muslims and other religious is a tactical maneuver. It is above all a tacit admission that, while the privileged middle-class layers for whom QS speaks have been marching relentlessly to the right over the past decade, the working class is moving in the opposite direction. On a global scale, the past two years have witnessed a dramatic upsurge in the class struggle. Mass protests have erupted in France and Algeria, strikes in the US have reached their highest level in three decades, and workers around the world have begun rebelling against the right-wing, nationalist union bureaucracies, most notably in the strike earlier this year by tens of thousands of manufacturing workers in Matamoros, Mexico. All of these struggles have underscored the fact that for millions of workers globally, the decisive issue is not race, ethnicity, religion, or language, but social class. Exploding QSs bogus Quebec independantiste perspective, which at its heart asserts that workers in Quebec have more in common with their French-speaking bosses than they do with English-speaking workers across Canada and North America, the class struggle has also intensified in Canadas second most populous province. Major strikes involving hundreds of thousands of public sector workers and construction workers erupted in 2015 and 2017. At the same time, the emergence of Trump as US president, the neo-Nazi AfD as Germanys official opposition, and far-right parties like Italys Lega at the head of governments in more than half a dozen European countries has served to highlight that everywhere crisis-ridden capitalist elites are vomiting up reaction, and that anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim chauvinism has played a pivotal role in incubating such forces. Under these conditions, QS feared that to continue to so openly associate itself with the explicitly right-wing and antidemocratic Quebec chauvinist campaign to ban religious symbols would irreparably damage its credibility among workers and young people. This, in turn, would prevent it from playing the decisive role it seeks to perform on behalf of Quebec capital: trapping leftward-moving workers and young people in the blind alley of parliamentary protest politics and the reactionary program of Quebec separatism. Following its more than doubling of its share of the popular vote to 15 percent in last Octobers Quebec electiona distorted expression of a political radicalization among working peopleQS decided that a cosmetic readjustment of its policy on religious symbols was necessary, as a means to both cover its own tracks and bolster its fraudulent left-wing credentials. This cynical maneuver cannot disguise the fact that QS is a pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist party, a purveyor of nationalism and chauvinism, and an implacable opponent of the struggle to unite workers in Quebec with their class brothers and sisters in English Canada and internationally in the struggle for workers power and socialism. The remainder of this article will document the role Quebec Solidaire has played in legitimizing and stoking the Quebec chauvinist right, then return to a consideration of its recent volte-face. The manufactured 2007-08 "reasonable accommodation" crisis In 2007, the big-business media, especially the tabloids owned by Quebecor boss and future Parti Quebecois leader Pierre-Karl Peladeau, and the right-wing populist ADQ (Action democratique du Quebec) manufactured a crisis with their relentless denunciations of "unreasonable or excessive" accommodations to cultural and religious minorities. The provincial Liberal government responded by setting up the Bouchard-Taylor commission, named after its two co-chairs, which then served as a platform for right-wing elements to vent their prejudices against religious minorities, particularly Muslims. In its report, the Bouchard-Taylor commission established that the mass media and forces such as the ADQ (which was subsequently absorbed into the CAQ) had inflamed tensions by whipping up a furor over a handful of petty disputes. But in its recommendations, the commission not only adapted to this chauvinistic campaign. It fueled it by advocating a ban on the wearing of religious symbols by government employees deemed to be in "positions of authority. This opened the door to the advocacy of a whole series of antidemocratic measures aimed at immigrants and minorities. For example, the PQ (Parti Quebecois), which the ADQ had supplanted as the official opposition in the 2007 election, responded to its relegation to third place by turning toward the promotion of unvarnished Quebec chauvinism. It called for a "Quebec citizenship" bill that would deprive newcomers to Quebec of key political rights, including the right to stand in provincial and municipal elections, if they failed a French proficiency test. Founded in 2006 as an ostensible left alternative to the ruling duopoly of the twin big-business parties, the federalist Liberals and the pro-independence PQ, Quebec Solidaire played a key role in legitimizing the Quebec ruling elites turn to anti-immigrant chauvinism. Instead of denouncing the debate over reasonable accommodation as a right-wing provocation, it claimed that it was motivated by legitimate concerns. It then went on to endorse the Bouchard-Taylor Commissions call for a ban on religious symbols for state functionaries in "positions of authority, painting such a measure, which would only pave the way for further discrimination, as an appropriate response to a real societal problem. QS provides a "left" cover to the PQs Charter of Quebec Values In 2012, QS helped to bring the PQ back to power in the wake of a powerful province-wide student strike that at its height threatened to become the catalyst for a working-class counteroffensive against capitalist austerity. While the union bureaucracy worked night and day to isolate and divert the student revolt behind the reactionary objective of replacing the Liberals with a PQ government in the coming elections, the QS proposed an electoral alliance with the PQ. Then just a few days before the September 2012 election, it gave a further boost to illusions in the PQ, by pledging that if it held the balance of power, it would extend unconditional support to a minority PQ government for at least a year. Barely brought to power with the joint support of the unions and QS, the PQ government of Pauline Marois went on to impose drastic cuts in social spending and introduce its Charter of Quebec Values to ban the wearing of so-called ostentatious religious symbols (excluding discreet Christian crucifixes) by all public sector employees. This ultra-reactionary measure threatened hundreds of Muslim women employed in Quebec's hospitals, schools and other public institutions with dismissal, as well as Jewish men who wear the kippah and turbaned Sikhs. QS responded by welcoming the "debate" provoked by this antidemocratic PQ bill. What actually followed was a spike in hate speech against immigrants, and even physical attacks on Muslim women by right-wing extremists. Although QS complained the PQs Charter went too far, it insisted that the Charter could not be described as xenophobic and was, at root, well-intentioned. Francoise David, then co-spokesperson of QS, solemnly declared: "I am not saying at all that... the people of the Parti Quebecois are Islamophobic: under torture, I would not say that. With two seats in the Quebec National Assembly, QS was able to introduce its own bill on "Secularism of the State" in early October 2013. Largely inspired by the Bouchard-Taylor report, this symbolic bill was a milder version of the PQ's Charter of Values that limited the prohibition on religious symbols to government employees in a position of authority such as judges, police officers or prison guards. Significantly, it also included a new attack on the rights of religious minorities by denying fully veiled Muslim women access to essential public services such as health care, except in an emergency. Two weeks later, the CAQ, which then held 19 seats in the Quebec Parliament, also introduced a symbolic bill entitled "Charter of Secularism", which included the same elements as the QS bill, with the proviso that teachers and school principals would also be considered as persons in positions of authority. The differences between the PQ's Charter of Values and the respective QS and CAQ bills were only a matter of degree. All three parties agreed to restrict in one way or another the democratic rights of religious minorities in the name of "secularism." The de facto coalition between the PQ, CAQ and QS on this issue continued under the Couillard Liberal government, which came to power in April 2014 by exploiting popular hostility to the PQ's austerity measures and its antidemocratic Charter of Values. After the Quebec City massacre: QS intensifies its attack on minority rights On January 29, 2017, the Quebec City mosque, which had received numerous threats in the previous months, suffered a bloody terrorist attack by a right-wing extremist. Alexandre Bissonnette opened fire on dozens of worshippers, killing six people and injuring eight, including six seriously. Bissonnettes attack was manifestly political: he had made extensive xenophobic comments on social media and proclaimed his admiration for Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump. QS responded to the Quebec City atrocity by seeking to cover up the culpability of the entire ruling establishment in stirring up anti-Muslim prejudice and creating a noxious political climate conducive to chauvinist violence. It conspicuously failed to denounce the campaign of the mass media and corporate politicians stigmatizing Muslims as a threat to Quebec valuesa campaign that certainly encouraged Bissonnette to commit this horrible act. Instead, in the name of "calming things down," QS gave succor to the chauvinist right by intensifying its call for a ban on religious symbols for some government employees. And when the PQ and CAQ agreed to support the QS stance, putting temporarily aside their own calls for a more extensive ban, QS hailed this as evidence of a broad consensus to supposedly ease interreligious tensions, conveniently ignoring that this easing was to be accomplished by acquiescing to the demands of the chauvinist right, widely promoted by the Quebec establishment, to curtail minority rights. QS opposes the Liberals Bill 62 from the right The Couillard Liberal governmentfor its own reasons, having to do with fears of losing its traditional electoral constituency among the provinces cultural minoritieschose not to go as far as demanded by the PQ, the CAQ and QS. Yet in October 2017, the Liberals adopted Bill 62, a law that explicitly targeted Muslim women, by stipulating that people wearing a facial veil (niqab or burka) would be deprived of vital public services such as education, public transport or health care. This demonstrated once again that no section of the ruling elite, federalist or Quebec sovereignist, is ready to defend minority rightsincluding Trudeaus federal Liberal government, which is complicit in Trumps anti-immigrant witch hunt and has now moved to further restrict the rights of refugee claimants. Quebec Solidaire voted against Bill 62 from the right, bemoaning the absence of any ban on religious symbols. As for the clause depriving veiled Muslim women of essential public services, QS expressed doubts about the governments ability to apply it, noting that the bills wording (which sought to cover up its discriminatory intent with language about public security and transparency) was ambiguous. But QS failed to raise any principled objection. This is not surprising, since this reactionary measure was first proposed by QS itself in October 2013. QS offers to work with the right-wing populist CAQ Throughout the 2018 Quebec election campaign, Quebec Solidaire continued to accommodate to, and cover up for, chauvinist reaction. At the beginning of the campaign, QS co-leader and candidate for Quebec premier Manon Masse said her party would be ready to consider supporting a minority government led by the right-wing populist CAQa party notorious for its advocacy of privatization, deregulation, sweeping cuts to public services, and further tax cuts for big business and the rich. Realizing that such a right-wing socioeconomic program could not win broad popular support, the CAQ sought to downplay it in the run-up to the 2018 elections. Instead, it focused on a right-wing populist appeal, trumpeting a host of chauvinist measures. These included a 20 percent reduction of immigration to Quebec, the expulsion of new immigrants who fail a French language and "Quebec values" test after three years residence in Quebec, and a ban on the wearing of religious symbols by teachers and government employees in a position of authority. As the campaign progressed, there was an increasing public outcry against the CAQs chauvinist positions. QS, however, continued to make gestures toward the CAQ. Rather than pointing to the parallels between the positions of the CAQ and those of the AfD, Le Pens Ralliement national, and similar far-right forces and warning that its chauvinist agitation was aimed at splitting the working class, Masse came to the CAQs defence. In the middle of a televised leaders debate, Masse insisted CAQ leader Francois Legault is not racist. QS has remained largely silent on the two bills Legault and his CAQ government have introduced to implement their right-wing populist program: Bill 9, which reduces the number of immigrants accepted in Quebec and opens the door to racism and Islamophobia by adding "cultural" criteria to the selection process; and Bill 21, which violates the rights of religious minorities. Organically opposed to the independent political mobilization of the working class against the CAQ government and Quebecs capitalist elite, QS systematically minimizes the danger of right-wing populism. It invokes the climate change crisisits current preoccupationnot to indict capitalism and the nation-state system; but rather to justify its parliamentary protest politics, including repeated appeals to the big-business CAQ government, while working closely with the pro-capitalist unions to suppress the class struggle. Why QS has abandoned the Bouchard-Taylor compromise As the above has documentedand it is far from a full account of Quebec Solidaires insidious role in Quebecs phony secularism/religious accommodation debatethe party of the Quebec pseudo-left long facilitated the rise of anti-Muslim chauvinism. The QS National Council vote opposing restrictions on public employees wearing religious signs in no way constitutes a shift towards a principled defence of the democratic rights of minorities. And this is not only because the leadership continues to defend the foul role QS has played for more than a decadeas exemplified by Khadirs declaration in the wake of the March 30 vote, lauding, yet again, Bouchard-Taylor as an honourable compromise. A principled defence of the democratic rights of minorities can only be based on the independent political mobilization of the working class against the root cause of social inequality, imperialist war and the assault on democratic rights: the global capitalist system. Such a socialist program is furiously opposed by QS. Quebec Solidaires change of position is a tactical adaptation. It is an attempt to cover its tracks under conditions where it was increasingly being discredited as an accomplice of the far-right, and in the midst of a resurgence of class struggle and growing political radicalization in Quebec, Canada and around the world. From its very origins, it was obvious that Quebecs accommodation/secularism debate was a right-wing campaign. But everything that has happened in the past 12 years in Quebec and internationally has confirmed thisfrom the Quebec mosque massacre and the activities of local far-right groups such as La Meute, to the emergence of the fascistic AfD in Germany, Trump in the US or Bolsonaro in Brazil, and more recently the anti-Muslim atrocity in Christchurch, New Zealand. Quebec Solidaires repositioning on the secularism/accommodation debate is aimed at better placing it to contain and derail the growing movement of the working class, above all to ensnare it within the reactionary Quebec nationalist/ independantiste perspective. QSs project for a capitalist Quebec republic represents the interests of a section of the Quebec ruling class that seeks its own nation-state as a lever to improve its geopolitical position on the world stage and increase its political domination of the working class, by suppressing the class struggle in the name of "national unity." The left nationalism promoted by QS is consciously aimed at preventing workers in Quebec from joining forces with workers in the rest of Canada and internationally in a common struggle against capitalism. In the 1960 and 1970s, it was used as a mechanism to quarantine the explosive struggle of Quebec workers and politically subordinate them to the big-business PQ. Today, under conditions of capitalist breakdown, the eruption of trade war, the surge in global geopolitical tensions and the attempts of ruling elites to stoke ethno-religious and other differences to undermine the fundamental class unity of workers, Quebec nationalismlike its ideological twin Canadian nationalismwill prove to be the incubator for the vilest chauvinist politics. Significantly, Quebec Solidaires international allies share its complicity in the rise of chauvinist forces. In Germany, the Left Party considers "free movement and immigration as the main source of increased competition for low-paying jobs. In Spain, Podemos has welcomed measures taken by an Italian government made up of a coalition in which Matteo Salvini's neo-fascist Northern League plays the leading role. In Greece, Syriza has imposed more drastic social cuts than its predecessors, attacked refugees, and for years was in a governmental alliance with the Independent Greeks, a right-wing nationalist party with close links to the army. The defence of the rights of minorities, an essential element in the defence of the democratic rights of the working class as a whole, must be based on the rejection of all forms of nationalism and identity politicsincluding Quebec Solidaires attempt to resuscitate the largely discredited Quebec independantiste program. It requires instead the political mobilization of French, English and immigrant workers throughout Canada in a common struggle against capitalism, in the closest collaboration with their class allies in the US, Mexico and around the world. Last months terrorist bombings have compounded the mounting problems of the Sri Lankan economy. The government is seeking to impose the burden on the backs of the workers and poor, on top of the austerity measures prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Exploiting the suicide bomb explosions on April 21, President Maithripala Sirisena imposed a state of emergency and deployed thousands of military and police personnel. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the government will use the sweeping anti-democratic measures to push through harsh attacks on social and living conditions. Sunday Times columnist Nimal Sanderatne wrote last week: [T]he cumulative impact of the current terrorism would be to destabilise the economy and slow economic growth. This would impact adversely on the balance of payments, external financial position and fiscal outcome and increased external vulnerability would be the most serious consequence. The LMD-Nielsen Business Confidence Index published last week noted that business confidence in April fell to its lowest in over a decade and it is likely that confidence will fall further in May. The new problems have come on top of the mounting economic difficulties produced by the global downturn. According to the 2018 Central Bank Annual Report, issued last month, economic growth declined to 3.2 percent in 2018, from 3.4 percent in the previous year. Per capita GDP (gross domestic product) fell from $US4,104 in 2017 to $4,102 in 2018. At the same time, foreign debt repayments this year rose to a staggering $5 billion. Out of that amount, the government paid $1.5 billion by raising loans from India, as well as China. The government raised another $2.4 billion in March by selling sovereign bonds to shore up declining foreign reserves. The Sri Lanka rupee has depreciated by 1 percent since the terrorist attacks, after depreciating by 16 percent last year. The immediate concern of big business and the government is the impact of the bombings on tourism, the countrys third largest source of foreign exchange earnings. Earnings from tourism last year totalled $4.4 billion, but that could decline by $1.5 billion this year according to Sanath Ukwatte, president of the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka. The April 21 attacks targeted three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo. At least 50 foreigners, mostly tourists, were among the dead. According to media reports, many hotel and resort bookings have been cancelled until October. Tourism employs nearly 400,000 workers, many of them casuals whose employment is now under threat. Tens of thousands of small shopkeepers also have been affected. Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera declared last week that tax concessions would be granted for investments in the tourist sector, while banks announced a one-year moratorium on loan repayments. Samaraweera urged foreign investors to go ahead with their plans and not reverse or abandon them. He vowed: We will quickly restore the status quo of 20 April and our resolve has become stronger. Other foreign investments could be affected. Finance Ministry Secretary R.H.S. Samaratunga told the Ceylon Today there was a risk of portfolio investment outflows, particularly in the rupee-denominated Government Security Markets. A 10 billion-rupee outflow of portfolio investment has been recorded so far this year, including 3.3 billion rupees after the bomb attacks, according to Central Bank data. The government has allocated 393 billion rupees for defence expenditure this year. This figure will increase as tens of thousands of military personnel have been deployed for house-to-house search operations for the first time since the end of communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May 2009. Finance ministry officials told the Ceylon Today that the focus must be on military intelligence and targeted surveillance. This may require some investments in technology. But this expenditure could be managed within the budget by the realignment of spending priorities. This realignment means the government will give priority to military expenditure, at the expense of social programs. During the 26-year war against the LTTE, successive governments imposed wage freezes and slashed welfare programs, including price subsidies, as well as expenditure on education and health, to prioritise war expenditure. A day after the April 21 bombings, IMF Sri Lanka mission chief Manuela Goretti declared she was deeply saddened by the Easter Sunday bomb attacks in Sri Lanka but said there would not be any let up in implementing the IMFs demands. Goretti reiterated her praise for the governments budget and insisted that revenue-based fiscal consolidation was important to shore up market confidence given Sri Lankas high debt and refinancing needs. IMF press conference transcripts show that in May it decided to extend its fiscal deficit cut targets until June 2020 and to spread its final $500 million loan instalment into three parts. This means the IMF will keep a longer-term whip over the government. The IMFs conditions for the $1.5 billion loan, approved in mid-2016, include cutting subsidies for workers and the poor, and the privatisation and commercialisation of state-owned enterprises. During last year, real wages in the public and private sectors declined by 2 percent and 3.5 percent respectively, according to the Central Bank Annual Report. Now that government revenue is expected to decline significantly, Reuters predicted that budget targets agreed with the IMF may have to be reviewed, although the government is expected to resist pressure for any spending cuts before elections expected later this year. The Central Bank Annual Report insisted that implementing the IMF prescriptions was a priority. It declared that economic performance has fallen below expectations in recent years impacted by the continued delays in the implementation of the required structural reforms. In its efforts to justify spending cuts, the government has adopted the slogan: national security first. It will seek to use the military-police repression and anti-Muslim campaign to suppress workers struggles. A Texas police officer shot and killed a 44-year-old African-American woman Monday night at an apartment complex in Baytown, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Police later identified the woman as Pamela Shantay Turner. According to family members, she had two children and three grandchildren. Video recorded by a bystander and posted to Snapchat quickly went viral overnight, prompting widespread outrage at the horrific killing. The video begins showing a single officer attempting to arrest Turner, who protests, shouting, Im walking! Im actually walking to my house! As she attempts to free herself, she repeatedly yells, Youre actually harassing me! The officer, who remains silent throughout the video, then seemingly fires a Taser at Turner, who falls to the ground. As he nears and tries to restrain her, she pleads, Why? Why? I didnt do nothing to you, and then shouts, Im pregnant! After a brief struggle, the officer pulls back several paces and immediately begins shooting, firing five times in rapid succession as Turner remains on the ground. Police Lt. Steve Dorris said Turner was struck by at least one of the shots and was subsequently pronounced dead at the scene. According to police, the officer had previously had exchanges with Turner and attempted to arrest her Monday night allegedly knowing that she had active warrants. Dorris and the department have cynically attempted to justify the shooting by claiming that Turner grabbed the Taser away from the officer and turned it on him, which is not at all evident from the video. Dorris told the media that Turner actually tased the officer, which forced him to fire multiple rounds at her. At the same time, he admitted that the officer did not require hospital treatment for any injuries. The department has made clear its anger that Turners killing was independently videoed and shared on social media. Dorris has issued thinly veiled threats, saying that they are searching for whoever filmed it and denouncing them for posting the video to social media. Its unfortunate that somebody takes a tragic incident like this and starts posting it on social media, he said. Thats extremely disrespectful for everybody involved, but that's the day and age we live in with social media. The officer involved, who is Hispanic and has been placed on three days of paid administrative leave, has yet to be identified by the Baytown Police Department. Police have indicated that he was wearing a body camera, but as of yet have refused to release the footage. In a further effort to justify the killing, the department has rushed to claim that an autopsy by the Harris County medical examiner showed Turner was not pregnant. However, a spokesperson for the medical examiners office itself declined to comment to the Associated Press. Antoinette Dorsey, Turners sister, told local KPRC-TV that Turner suffered from mental illness and had been on medication for schizophrenia. She added that Turner had previously complained about the officer harassing her, and said he lived in the same apartment complex. Jonathan Little, a neighbor, said all she did was walk her dog and pick up trash. She didnt mess with anybody. Another resident, James Edison, told KPRC, If you know she has mental illness, why not ask for backup first before you try and detain her? He got up and she was barely getting up off the ground and he shot her like a dog. Thats wrong. And he needs to pay for it. Protesters demonstrated outside the Baytown Police Department Tuesday, holding signs reading, Harassed and Executed, Disgraceful, and 5 Shots and She Died. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas issued a statement calling for the release of the officers body camera footage. The escalation seen on bystander video from a simple stop to the use of brutal deadly force is shocking and raises serious concerns, the statement said. Not counting Turner, there have been at least 323 people killed by police in the US in 2019, according to killedbypolice.net. Thirty-eight of them have been killed in Texas, second only to California, where police this year have already slain 41. Last week, an inquest in North Wales recorded a verdict of suicide in the case of an 81-year-old woman left virtually penniless after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) froze her pension payments. Joy Worrall had received an inheritance in 2014 and informed the DWP. In 2017, the DWP re-assessed her pension situation. Instead of only freezing her pension credits, the DWP froze her state pension as well, leaving her with no income. The inquest heard that she was too proud to tell her family of her financial difficulties. She lived on her savings. When Joy had just 5 left to her name, she threw herself into a 40-foot quarry. In a letter to the inquest, Suzanne Mitchelson of the DWP wrote that the two pension payments should have been de-combined, saying I am sorry that due to an administrative error this did not happen. After the hearing, her son Ben said the DWP was guilty of a failure of duty of care. He described her case as a disgrace, and worried that this could happen to someone else. The DWPs unreserved apology for the error and its pledge to learn the lessons of Joy Worralls death are hardly convincing in the face of the brutalisation taking place daily in the benefits system. Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has announced an end to three-year term welfare benefit sanctions, declaring that it has been counterproductive and ineffective. However, the apparent softening over sanctions policy is no such thing, with Rudd reaffirming a punitive policy towards the poorest and most vulnerable layers of society. Even as she abolished three-year benefit sanctions, she endorsed the continued use of six-month sanctions and a better targeted vindictiveness towards the poorest. The three-year sanction was unnecessarily long and its additional incentive was outweighed by the unintended impacts to the claimant, she said. The DWPs position is that the six-month sanction already provides a significant incentive for claimants to engage with the labour market regime. Under sanctioning, unemployment benefits can be reduced or withheld on the grounds of alleged infringement of rules, or whenever the DWP decides that a claimant has failed to comply with the requirements of specific aspects of a claim. The minimum sanction period is four weeks, the loss of around 300. Sanctions are imposed arbitrarily, for failure to attend an appointment at a jobcentre or with a work programme provider, or if the claimant has been deemed not to be looking for work actively enough. In one case, a claimant who had carried out 60 job searches was sanctioned for missing one that matched his profile. A 2015 report by the Trussell Trust highlighted the way in which sanctions were used to reduce benefit payments for those in need of them. One claimant was sanctioned for missing an appointment because he was at hospital with his partner, who had just given birth to a stillborn child. Another missed an appointment because his brother had died that day. He tried to ring and explain but could not get through, so he left a message which was not passed to the right person. One man was sanctioned for missing an appointment because he had been hospitalised that day with a suspected heart attack. In a case reported from an Essex foodbank, a claimant was sanctioned because, although he had turned up in good time, the length of the queue in the jobcentre meant he failed to keep his appointment. An Oxford University study in 2015 confirmed that benefit sanctions have led to an increased use of foodbanks. Last month, the Trussell Trust reported that it has distributed a record 1.6 million food bank parcels throughout the UK, including 500,000 to children. Three-year sanctions were introduced in 2012 under then Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, and then Employment Minister Chris Grayling. They were to be applied against three or more serious breaches of work-related requirements. The capricious reasons given for sanctions meant this was just another opportunity to turn the screw. Sanction numbers rocketed. Over one million were issued in 2013. Official figures point to 32,647 claimants issued with sanctions longer than six months since 2012. Two-thirds of them were on the governments hated Universal Credit (UC). Under Duncan Smith, the government took a bullish line defending sanctions, even as report after report condemned them. A five-year study of welfare conditionality led by the University of York reported last year that sanctions were not only ineffective in their stated aims of getting the jobless into work, but were more likely to lead to poverty, ill-health and desperate resorts to survival crime. Two years earlier, the National Audit Office (NAO) concluded that there was no evidence that sanctions worked, and that ministers had no interest in finding out their effect on claimants. The NAO revealed that the government was spending more on assessing whether people were fit to work than would have been saved in benefit reductions. All reports noted that the most disadvantaged were hardest hit. The NAO concluded that sanctioned disabled people were less likely to find work. Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, expressed the hope that Rudds announcement would see a review of the sanctions system overall because it is overly harsh and counterproductive for claimants. The brutality of Rudds language gives the lie to that wish. The dismantling of social provision, at the expense of the most vulnerable first, remains the governments programme. There are almost daily reports of the savage human toll of the austerity agenda. Days before Rudds announcement, it was reported that a young woman with a two-year-old child in south Wales had been left virtually destitute when her benefits were stopped following the death of her fiance. Melinda Hornyak came to Britain in 2015 from Hungary. She fell in love, and moved to Abertillery with David Brooks, where their daughter was born in 2017. He died in March. It is believed he took his own life. After his death, all Hornyaks state welfare payments stopped apart from 20 a week child benefit. While the local community is supporting her as best it can, she is struggling with private rented accommodation. The DWP have told her that because she has only lived in the UK for four years, rather than five, she has no entitlement to other welfare benefits. The DWP have told Hornyak that she should look for work. As she has pointed out, if she did go out to work, she would have to pay childcare costs in any case. New Life Community is a church group supporting Hornyak. Project manager Louise OConnor told local press that they are also helping a Polish gentleman who has been here for more than six years and isnt getting any benefits. The DWP said that eligibility for certain benefits is based on a permanent right to reside. The European Commission has criticised the application of the additional right to reside test as a means of refusing benefits to European Union nationals, who under current rules are entitled to social security. The author also recommends: UK: Liverpool man dies after being declared fit for work and denied benefits [30 April 2019] UK advice worker Terry Craven speaks on the terrible death of Stephen Smith [1 May 2019] Exhibitsshowing on display The Splendor of Asia: An exhibit of Asian Civilizations, which opened on Monday May 13 at Beijings National Museum of China. Photo by HeLuqi from Peoples Daily online An exhibit featuring 451 cultural relics from 47 Asian countries and Greece and Egypt opened on May 13 at Beijings National Museum of China ahead of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), which organizers said aims to highlight the time-enduring communication and harmony in diversity of different civilizations. Organized by Chinas National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT), the exhibit, with the theme, The Splendor of Asia: An Exhibit of Asian Civilizations, is part of a series of cultural activities in the run-up to the CDAC starting on May 15 in Beijing. Among the relics is a religious statue as part of the collection of Indias National Museum. Forty-six diplomatic gifts from Asian countries to China are also on display, such as a painting called Silk Road sent by Uzbekistan, according to a press release the NCHA provided to the Global Times. The exhibits scale is unprecedented in terms of participating countries, number of relics on display and fineness of the treasures, which can be called an Olympics of relics, the statement said. Organizers and Chinese observers lauded the exhibit, which provides rich evidence of how civilizations communicated and learned from each other. Liu Zheng, a member of the China Cultural Relics Academy, told the Global Times that ancient relics, carrying the spirit of civilizations, tell people stories of how our ancestors communicated in a most vivid and convincing fashion. Greece and Egypt, which represent two ancient civilizations, were also invited to the exhibit, which is a great opportunity for visitors to see the cultures that have close ties with Asia through the ancient Silk Road trading routes, Liu said. These artworks taught us that clashing was never the mainstream when civilizations make contact, said Liu. Different civilizations could coexist and harmony in diversity calls for concerted efforts, which will lead to the prosperity of human civilization, he said. The event would not have been possible without the close cooperation of different departments from various countries, Liu said, noting that Chinas progress in archaeology and relics restoration has won Asian countries trust to handle their ancient treasures for the special exhibit. Aside from the exhibit, the Asian civilization week also features cultural events during the CDAC, which include parades, cultural performances, and the Asian Film and TV Week, MCT said on its website. Geng Shuang, spokesperson of Chinas Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on May 13that China holds the CDAC in hopes to through such platform showcase Asian civilizations, boost exchanges and mutual learning between different civilizations and promote cooperation between different countries. Respect for the diversity of civilizations is an important prerequisite for safeguarding world peace and harmony. Conducting a dialogue of civilizations is an important guarantee for the peaceful coexistence of all countries in the world, Geng noted. Liu said the holding of the exhibit in itself is a concrete example of cooperation among Asian countries, especially those along the Belt and Road Initiative on culture protection. The core values of Asian civilizations displayed in this exhibit, dialogue and mutual learning are also seen in the BRI, a framework for economic and cultural cooperation and exchanges, Liu noted. Exhibits showing on display The Splendor of Asia: An exhibit of Asian Civilizations, which opened on Monday May 13 at Beijings National Museum of China. Photo by HeLuqi from Peoples Daily online The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) demanded that the distribution of European Union funding should be carried out by an independent European institution. Klara Dobrev, who leads DKs list at the European Parliament elections, cited a recent survey by Median of 1,200 people which suggested that 65%, including half of ruling Fidesz supporters, wanted EU resources to be distributed by an independent European organisation instead of the government in order to quell corruption. Dobrev told a press conference that DK had prepared several proposals to this end in the past three years. In the next EU budget period, a prerequisite of granting EU monies will be the introduction of anti-corruption measures and meeting constitutional requirements, she added. This may endanger Hungarys economy, Dobrev said. Asked to comment on Mondays meeting of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and US President Donald Trump, she said Trump had already met all other EU leaders so Orban was last in line. The meeting will not have any consequences for the future of Hungary or Europe, Dobrev added. Ruling Fidesz said in response that Dobrev, the wife of former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany and a former official overseeing the distribution of EU support, was personally responsible for Hungarys losing part of the funding from Brussels. One-third of EU monies was stolen and taken abroad under corrupt, previous left-wing governments, Fidesz said in a statement. If it were up to Gyurcsany and Dobrev, and the other pro-migration politicians in Brussels, migrants would receive more EU money and Hungarians less, Fidesz said, adding that those politicians sought to financially punish countries that reject migrants. MTI Photo: Mathe Zoltan Gripen fighters of the Hungarian Armed Forces, together with Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets of Britains Royal Air Force, intercepted three planes in the Baltics, the defence ministry said. The fighters were scrambled to identify an IL-22 aircraf t accompanied by two SU-27 fighter jets. The Russian military jets had been flying in international airspace but had failed to establish contact with air traffic control. The Hungarian Gripens and the British Eurofighter Typhoon jets identified the Russian planes before returning to their base, the ministry said. On Monday, the Hungarian Gripens were scrambled for the first time since starting their airspace patrol mission of the three Baltic states. They intercepted a Russian AN-26 military plane which had entered the airspace unannounced. From May 1, the Hungarian Armed Forces is leading the airspace patrol mission of the Baltic states in partnership with Spain and Britain under NATO command. Hungary will carry out the mission with four JAS- 39 Gripen aircraft and some 100 soldiers for four months. The meeting between US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has opened a new chapter in bilateral relations, and proved that Hungarian-US ties entered a new dimension, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said. The Monday meeting was rich in gestures showing mutual sympathy between the leaders, Szijjarto said. The 40-minute closed-door meeting was much longer than the ten minutes or so usually allotted to such talks, he said. In a rare gesture, Trump also showed his guest all the way to the White House exit afterwards, he said. The talks were held in a relaxed, sincere atmosphere, Szijjarto said. The minister, who attended the closed-door meeting as well as the subsequent plenary talks, said that Trump had been very interested in European affairs. Orban and Trump discussed issues regarding Ukraine at length and agreed that Volodymyr Zelensky, the countrys recently elected new president, may give hope for Ukraine renewing its relations with the European Union and Hungary. Trump appreciated Hungarys recent economic achievements, Szijjarto said. Albeit on different scales, the two countries economies show similarities in their falling unemployment rates - the numbers of job holders are at a peak in the US and the highest ever since the fall of communism in Hungary, he said. Those numbers demonstrate that Trump and Orban both have successful economic policies, Szijjarto said. The leaders agreed that that data has made many jealous, as it can be gleaned from the attacks of the international press, Szijjarto said. However, they established that both of them have their respective peoples trust, he said. MTI Photo: Koszticsak Szilard A 15-year-old Illinois boy has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter after he fatally shot a 13-year-old boy at a sleepover. In the early morning hours of May 4, police in Centralia, Illinois, received a 911 call. Officers responding to the scene found 13-year-old Jaden Krauss with a gunshot wound to the head. He died later that morning. The 15-year-old was charged, but the four other juveniles at the home were questioned and released. The teen pleaded guilty in juvenile court on Tuesday. Because he is a minor, no additional details will be released on the plea. He has been remanded to the Franklin County Detention Center until his sentencing on June 26. PEOPLE was unable to find the name of an attorney authorized to speak on his behalf. Authorities tell KSDK they are still investigating the shooting and that charges are possible against the other teens who were at the sleepover. 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. Theres still things we want answers to, Police Chief Brian Atchison told the Belleville News Democrat. This is still very much an active investigation. Jadens mother, Jaianna Grant, told KSDK that she believes that the 15-year-old did not act alone. Theres other people that are responsible that also need to be investigated, she said. I want answers, I want answers. Grant also told the station her son didnt usually hang out with the teens at the party, but that he knew them from school. Jaden was a student at the Centralia Junior High School, where he enjoyed running track, the family wrote in an online obituary. He also enjoyed playing video games, live streaming, and making videos for his YouTube Channel. Jaden had a passion for cooking and listening to music. He loved spending time with his girlfriend, Haylee, his family and friends. Jaden had a big heart and would accept anyone for who they were, the obituary continues. His legacy will live on through the organ donor recipients. The family has established a GoFundMe account to help cover expenses. Update: Kenneth Howard, the 22-month-old boy who vanished from his family home in Kentucky on Sunday, has been found alive, the Kentucky State Police announced Wednesday. Kenneth was found in the area of a strip mine in Floyd County, which is on the border of Magoffin County, from which the boy disappeared, according to the release. Kenneth was transported to a medical facility for examination and treatment if needed, the release states. The investigation into his case remains ongoing, according to the release. Authorities are searching for a Kentucky toddler who vanished on Sunday, and the boys father speculated he might have been abducted. Kenneth Howard, who is 22 months old, vanished from a Magoffin County residence on Sunday, according to a news release from the Kentucky State Police. Trooper William Petry of the state police tells PEOPLE that Kenneths father told authorities he was in the front yard with the boy, who then went behind the house. When the dad then looked for Kenneth behind the house, the boy was gone. Its just like he disappeared. No sign, no nothing, the father, Elden Howard, told WKYT. Thats the reason [Ive] started to think, if we cant find him, somebodys picked him up. Petry says there is a wooded hillside behind and around the boys home, and that search crews have been challenged by the terrain, which is steep and covered by trees and brush. The search, which is ongoing, has included helicopters, drones with thermal cameras, off-read vehicles and dogs. Petry says the temperature was in the 40s the night the boy disappeared and he didnt have a jacket on, putting him at risk for hypothermia. He added there are coyotes, bears and red foxes in the area, saying, We have a large amount of wildlife that could be a danger to the child. The father told the station he has offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who returns the boy, no questions asked. Story continues I would just like to see him come home safe, he said. 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. A Facebook post by the Magoffin County Sheriffs Office states, There is no limit to the effort being made to find this sweet child. WKYT reports vigils were held Tuesday night to show support for the boys family. Kenneth is described as having blonde hair and blue eyes and was last seen wearing red jogging pants, sandals and a gray Avengers t-shirt. The Kentucky State Police are asking anyone who has information on the child to call (606)-433-7711. On one level, you could take Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles Bacurau as a serious political work about the exploitation of rural communities, the callous indifference of government and the damaging role of America around the world. Or you could forget about that stuff and take it as a garish, bloody shoot em up, an exercise in the Western genre where the wild west is actually northeast Brazil and the rising body count tends to obliterate whatever thoughtful points the films co-directors may be making. In fact, Bacurau is all of those things at once. It makes points about community and exploitation, and then it splatters those points with blood, sets them to blasting sci-fi music and dares you to remember what those points were in the first place. Its disturbing and messy, a fever dream for a disturbing and messy time in Brazil. And occasionally, its a lot of fun, too. Also Read: 'The Dead Don't Die' Film Review: Star-Studded Zombie Flick Runs Out of Steam Bacurau made its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and so did Mendonca Filhos last film, 2016s Aquarius, when he and his cast held up signs on the festivals red carpet denouncing the removal from office of left-wing president Dilma Rousseff as a coup. Since then, the government has veered further to the right with the election of Jair Bolsonaro, who has launched a crusade against what he calls cultural Marxism in the arts. Given that atmosphere, its hardly a shock that Mendonca Filho, collaborating with his longtime production designer, Dornelles, would have serious things on his mind. Whats surprising is the way hes chosen to express himself, in a far pulpier manner than his previous films. Aquarius focused on an elderly woman (Sonia Braga) who is the last resident of an apartment building targeted to be torn down by a construction company looking to build a modern high rise, while Mendoncas previous film, 2012s Neighboring Sounds, quietly observed the anxieties of urban living. Story continues Also Read: 16 of Cannes' Hottest Directors, From Pedro Almodovar to Celine Sciamma (Exclusive Photos) But theres not much quiet or understated about Bacurau, which screams genre movie from its opening credits. It starts with the funeral of a 94-year-old woman in the remote town of Bacurau, but even that sober moment is interrupted by a drunken tirade from a local doctor, Domingas, played by Brazilian icon Braga. Meanwhile, theres a flying saucer hovering overhead from time to time or is it a drone? The music suggests UFOs, but one character says its a drone, and hes right. But the drone is there for a purpose more sinister than an alien invasion because it turns out that a group of Americans are heading to town for some gruesome sport. One underlying theme, in a way, is the richness of small-town life that is deemed dispensable by outsiders; another is the ability of marginalized communities to stand up for themselves. But when the filmmakers up the body count and throw in the psychotropic drug that seems to be a local specialty, what you get is a feverish Panavision bloodbath that delights in the trappings of genre. Also Read: 10 Best Cannes Films of the Last 10 Years, From 'Melancholia' to 'Amour' (Photos) It also delights in an array of colorful characters, from Bragas doctor to Udo Kiers calmly psychopathic tour group leader to Silvero Pereiras gay gangster Lunga. They all clearly have a blast chewing the scenery as their directors have a blast staging this gleefully violent exercise. Now, what was the point again? Read original story Bacurau Film Review: Bloody Brazilian Fever Dream Has More Than Gore on Its Mind At TheWrap IWCriticsPick In some respects, Kleber Mendonca Filhos Bacurau can be seen as a logical continuation of the Brazilian critic-turned-auteurs two previous features. Much like 2012s revelatory Neighboring Sounds, for example, Bacurau is a patient and sprawling portrait of a Brazilian community as it struggles to defend itself against the dark specter of modernity. And much like 2016s unshakeable Aquarius, Bacurau hinges on an immovably stubborn woman who refuses to relinquish her place in the world who wont allow our blind lust for the future to bury her meaningful ties to the past. In some respects, however, Bacurau marks something of a departure for its director (who shares his credit here with Juliano Dornelles). Whereas Neighboring Sounds relies on acoustics to weaponize the 21st century against its characters, this film opts for actual weapons. And while Aquarius is a grounded character study about a retired journalist who refuses to sell her Recife apartment to a predatory development company, Bacurau is a gloriously demented (and lightly psychedelic) Western that starts in outer space, ends with Udo Kier being hunted by a ghost, and spends the rest of its runtime blending everything from Seven Samurai to Hostel into a bloody and unapologetic fuck you to anyone who thinks that cutting edge technology entitles them to see the world as their own personal slaughterhouse. So yeah, maybe its also a slight change of pace. Related stories 'Beanpole' Review: A Brutal and Achingly Beautiful Drama About Post-War Trauma -- Cannes 'Atlantics' Review: Mati Diop's Dazzling Ghost Story About the Refugee Crisis -- Cannes Although, that isnt so apparent at first. When Bacurau comes down to Earth, opening in the stars before zooming in on an unlit stretch of land in the isolated flats of northeastern Brazil, the camera focuses its attention on a man and a woman driving along a highway in a water truck. She is Teresa (Barbara Colen), a native of the remote and fictional village that lends the film its title. He is one of the many semi-relevant supporting characters who lend that village a robust sense of life. And the splintered coffins they find strewn about the road should be our first clue that Bacurau is steering towards Western territory; in hindsight, it could only be more obvious if a dog ran across the screen with a severed hand in its mouth. But in the moment, given the less fantastical nature of Filhos previous work, it seems more like a typical arthouse flourish (or maybe the first of several broad swipes at Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro) than a toe-dip into the waters of genre storytelling. Story continues That feeling remains in place for much of the first 30 minutes or so, as Teresa arrives in the tiny but vibrant Bacurau in time to help bury the 94-year-old village elder. Sure, its strange that an old man pops a psychotropic substance of some kind into Teresas mouth as she walks down the street, but the moment passes so fast that it almost feels subliminal. And the funeral that follows appears normal enough, as it teems with the kind of small town eccentrics that youd expect to find in the impoverished Brazilian equivalent of Stars Hollow. Aquarius star Sonia Braga is sensational as ever as Domingas, the alcoholic local doctor who loudly calls the deceased a whore. Shes joined by a coterie of oddball personalities who include but are not limited to a toothy troubadour, a sweet prostitute, her red-haired pimp, a reformed gangster who cant figure out what his civilian name should be, and a jolly DJ of sorts who projects YouTube videos on a mobile screen in the center of town and blasts live news alerts through his speaker system for all of Bacurau to hear; the town isnt big enough to require a radio station. There are a few subdued hints about the state of things (e.g. the supply routes are closed due to regional violence, the food is rotting, and the lecherous mayor whos running for re-election is trying to bribe the locals with boxes of free prescription drugs), but the gentle resiliency of this place and its people seem capable of providing enough drama to sustain the rest of the film. The museum in the center of town may not attract many tourists, but it stands as a proud monument to a town with a long memory. And when Teresas school teacher father wakes up the next day to find that Bacurau has been wiped off the maps he finds online, it seems less like a glimpse into The Twilight Zone than it does a wry comment on the digital worlds tendency to write over its indigenous people. Thats when a UFO flies into the picture, with Udo Kier not far behind. It would ruin the fun to reveal how things develop from there, but suffice it to say that the films time period its set a few years from now grows harder to ignore as the story opens up and Dornelles and Filho start to bulldoze through the bumper lanes of staid arthouse cinema. Jarring by design, that transition into genre territory can be an awkward one. Thats partially because the sudden uptick in violence that comes with it is shepherded by the arrival of a half-dozen American actors (the most recognizable of whom might be Support the Girls bit player Jonny Mars), whose homicidal squabbles smack of an obviousness thats seldom felt in Filhos work, and distract from the wealth of wonderful personalities that are waiting for us back in Bacurau. But the film is able to survive its embarrassment of riches, as Filho quickly adapts to the epic scale of this canvas when it becomes clear that Bacurau is in imminent danger, and that its citizens will have to band together against an invading force in order to reassert their spot on the map and preserve the memories associated with it. Screen wipes, slow fades, and other expressive inflections help ease Bacurau out of its starting register, playfully moving the story forward with a wink to the past. The most indelible of Dornelles and Filhos delirious compositions hooves stampeding through tungsten light, a museum wall stripped of its exhibits, a dehumanized prostitute in flashy spandex pants cradling her arm like a child as she walks down the towns dirt road after an unwanted encounter sustain an arresting friction between the world that Teresas people are fighting for, and the world that theyre eventually forced to fight against. At once both more forceful and more inscrutable than Filhos previous work, Bacurau plunges deeper into midnight territory as its core ideas take hold, its ghosts become literal, and its heroes take up arms. From the very beginning, the village of Bacurau has found a way to straddle the past and the future; they are as modern as they need to be, and no more. Over time, this unmoored and deeply unexpected mash-up assumes the sharp-toothed defiance of Cinema Novo classics like How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman?, and clarifies why Filhos movies often feel like veiled threats to those who believe the new world can only be paved over the ruins of the old one. That threat has never been this much fun before, nor have the consequences of ignoring it ever been this gruesome. Grade: B+ Bacurau premiered in Competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Launch Gallery: The 20 Craziest Movie Posters at Cannes 2019 Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti is no stranger to film festivals. The artist a long-time New Yorker cover artist and onetime Lou Reed and Michelangelo Antonioni collaborator has designed posters for past editions of Venice and Cannes, and has contributed to films that played in Toronto and Rome. This year, however, he experienced the festival rush from a whole new angle, as he brought his directorial debut, The Bears Famous Invasion of Sicily, to Cannes and Annecy. The film screened at this weeks MIA market in Rome. More from Variety Adapted from a cult 1945 childrens book by Italian poet Dino Buzzati, the film uses hand-drawn 2D to spin a fable-like tale about a group of benevolent bears that descend the mountains of Sicily to bring some sense to the human world. Pathe International is handling world sales. Youve worn many hats in your career. For how long have you wanted to direct? Oh, the desire was always there. I tried a few times over the years, and it always fell apart. I did a few shorts and some TV work, but often with a bit of remove. I figured if it worked out, that would be great, and if not, Id just continue my other work. I never fought to get something made. I knew how hard it could be, and didnt want the headache [until this project came along.] One of the appeals was in adapting Dino Buzzatis book. Did the text mean a lot to you growing up? I dont remember when I first read that specific book, but I grew up reading Buzzati. He was a painter, an illustrator, an author of comic books and novels, and I took influence from all that he did. He wrote fables full of symbolism, very strange and mysterious. His paintings dealt with legends and mythology as well, and all of his work very metaphysical. It affected me from a very young age, and in fact I think that my previous short [which played in the Fear(s) of the Dark anthology film] was also a very Buzzati-influenced work. Story continues Illustrators tend to work alone, keeping their own pace. What was it like jumping into the more collaborative and slow-moving world of production? It was very strange! I really enjoyed the teamwork aspect, because I took this project specifically to work with a team. I wanted to put my own choices into question maybe I knew myself too well, gotten too comfortable in my methods so I thought it would be good to have outside collaborators. However I really did not know how much work it would take. Features, especially those with larger budgets, are very complicated to make, and the work goes on for a long, long time. The process taught me a lot, both about my own self and how to work with others. I wanted to have this kind of experience for a long time, and I think that more four decades as an illustrator helped me better work with the many animators and designers on our team. Why did you choose an adaptation for your first feature film? The fact that the story already existed in another form, and that Buzzati had already done drawings, it really helped. Honestly, I think it would have been more difficult to start from a blank slate. I didnt have to invent everything from scratch, I could take certain designs and graphic approaches that were already there, and was very happy to do so. I could also bring a lot of my own ideas to the project, like the color schemes and compositions, without any anguish about changing the source material. Adapting somebody elses work gave a kind of freedom, that I dont think I would have had with material that was originally my own. The film has an exuberant visual approach. Could you speak about the choices you in made in color and style? I didnt want to make a film aping Buzzatis style; the film had to find its own, unique voice. From a graphic standpoint, I wanted to avoid crayons and pastels that would evoke the texture of the page, because I wanted the film to feel airy and tied to nature. Materials used on the page could make the film feel claustrophobic, whereas I wanted the images to breath. I also knew the film had to be a symphony of colors. I told our team to not fear color, because color is energy and life! The story is divided into several distinct situations, so we took the opportunity to shade each one with different motif. For a story that was more intimate or contained, wed have had to settle for a calmer style, but this is an inventive, fantastical world, so we could have a lot of fun onscreen. We played with the warm colors of classic animation, while avoiding anything with a metallic or futuristic sheen, in order to give a very classical and even timeless look. If somebody watches it in twenty years time, I hope they wont be able to tell in what era it was made. In terms of design, the film draws a lot from la Commedia dellarte and Italian visual culture. Thats there, absolutely. The character of Gedeone [who frames the film as a storyteller] is modeled on Commedia dellarte figures like the Harlequin or Pulcinella. Hes like a Baroque-era mountebank, telling fantastical stories. I modeled certain situations and designed certain characters to evoke theatre masks and marionettes, and in terms of iconography, I made sure to avoid any touches of English gothic style. The main city couldnt feel dark and Tim Burton-esque; it had to be Mediterranean, bathed in strong light and filled with Roman arches. Buzzati came from the north of Italy, from the Dolomite Mountains that were practically Austrian, so he played with a lot of Mitteleuropean inspirations. In terms of its vertical layout and the various perspectives they offer, I think the main city in the film shares a lot with Prague and Trieste as well. Those two storytellers are newly invented characters. How did they help you in the adaptation process? I wanted to keep that narration aspect of the book, where you felt the narrator was talking directly to you. It felt like the narrator was in dialogue with the reader. At the same time, we realized we needed a strong female figure, so we created the characters of Almerina and Gedeone, two wandering storytellers very much out of Sicilian tradition, who could present the film as a story. They could also help us resolve certain structural and story issues. The first half of the film is tied to source text, but the second half is more invented. The film is really about the pleasure of storytelling, the art of storytelling. Which is the same pleasure we took as screenwriters, and the same pleasure that animated Buzzati as well. Do you change your style based on your intended audience? Obviously the public for this film will be very different from those who read The New Yorker My goal was to make a film for children and families, but I dont try to anticipate what other children might want; I just make the work for myself. However, I often think back to what I liked as a child and what I would have liked to see. Working on this project, I would remind myself that this was film for families, and to keep that in mind. [At the same time, you have to be true to yourself.] I wasnt going to make something with a lot of irony or comedic bite; my style is not very gag-driven. Im not a fan of those big musical numbers from classic Disney films, so here the bears dont sing, but they do dance the Tarantella. Indeed, I thought the colors, the fantastical imagery and the lively characters could be very appealing for children. I think the film has a lot of wonder in it, and wonder can go a long way. [Whats more,] I wasnt interested in making something too highbrow, because I do that work all the time. I still publish my own books, and follow my personal artistic pursuits every single day, so I have no frustration in that regard. The big risk here was to make something mainstream. To see whether it would be possible to make something personal, original and stylistically different, and still have it appeal to the widest possible audience. Im sixty years old, and I figured, its now or never. Time to give it a shot! Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There are no zombies on the red carpet of the Croisette, a reporter told Bill Murray after the world premiere of his latest film The Dead Dont Die, which opened the Cannes Film Festival Tuesday. Says you, Murray (un)dead-pans in response. During the press conference following Jim Jarmuschs zombie comedy, Murray said he finds Cannes frightening, and its hard not to come away with that assessment when The Dead Dont Die managed to bring together an unusual assemblage of art-house darlings and global pop stars for the occasion. Jarmusch donned his trademark sunglasses on the red carpet and received a (expected) standing ovation as the screening was began, and he was joined by the films diverse crop of stars, including Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny and even Selena Gomez, who were all in attendance. Also Read: Jim Jarmusch's 'The Dead Don't Die' Splits Cannes Audience: 'Winningly Eccentric' or 'Invasion of Cliches' And the film itself is a nonchalant, hipster commentary on people sleepwalking through the modern age as well as the Trump era. A red hat worn by Steve Buscemis character in the film that read Make America White Again was a popular talking point among critics after the first screenings in the Grand Theatre Lumiere and the Sally Debussy theater next door. And its not unusual for this generally tough Cannes crowd to be fairly mixed on the splashy opening night film, even for someone as respected as Jarmsuch. Its the self-awareness that really hurts it, TheWraps critic Ben Croll wrote in his review. Jarmusch knows that his audience wants to see Murray and Driver riff in deadpan and that the image of Swinton strutting down the street wielding a katana will set the internet ablaze, so he offers them as much, without ever feeling the imperative to go a step beyond. Also Read: 16 of Cannes' Hottest Directors, From Pedro Almodovar to Celine Sciamma (Exclusive Photos) Story continues Cannes Jury Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Cannes Jury Press Conference Touches on Diversity, Netflix and the Border Wall Elle Fanning, filmmakers Kelly Reichardt and Alice Rohrwacher, and Senegalese actress Maimouna NDiaye are among the women serving on this years Cannes main competition jury led by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. The group represents one of the most diverse juries the festival has ever had, with 21-year-old Fanning the youngest jury member the festival has ever had. And while the festival has been committed to striving toward 50/50 gender parity, the women on the jury would very much like to move past the same questions about being a woman filmmaker. I look forward to a time that will come when we dont have to say women directors or as a woman,' Reichardt said at the press conference Tuesday. But its odd when were asked this question, Rohrwacher added. Its sort of like asking someone who survived a shipwreck why hes still alive. Everyone is on the beach Why are you still alive? Why are you asking us? Well, ask the person who built the boat, who sold the tickets, the schools. People have said there havent been enough women, but its not enough to talk about at the end [of the chain]. We have to look at the beginning of the chain. Also Read: Cannes Market Preview 2019: What Are Buyers Looking for This Year? Splashy International Deals The Cannes marketplace is also just kicking off at the festival, but select international deals are already in place for some of the competition films. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions nabbed select territories to Sally Hawkinss Eternal Beauty, according to The Hollywood Reporter, excluding the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the U.K., China, Japan, South Korea and the Middle East. And Focus Features acquired the international rights to Robert Eggerss film The Lighthouse, which A24 already has domestic rights to distribute. Read original story Cannes Report, Day 1: The Dead Dont Die Star Bill Murray Calls Fest Frightening At TheWrap 4X4 (Television Abierta, Mediapro) A Cannes Market screener, the solo feature debut from Mariano Cohn concerns a thief who breaks into a high-end 44, not realizing its a trap. Big fest potential. Sales: Latido Films COURAGE (Magoproduccion, Apapacho Films) Pitching at Los Cabos Goes to Cannes, this Mexico-Catalonia co-production directed by Ruben Rojo Aura is about an aged actress coping with the return of her alcoholic son. Related stories Dua Lipa and Tom Jones to Perform at amfAR's Cannes Gala (EXCLUSIVE) Cannes Film Review: 'Bacarau' DUO (Polar Star Films, Manufactura de Peliculas, Paraiso Pensilvania) The sophomore feature from Meritxell Colell is co-produced by Chile, France, Argentina and Spain. Pitching at Malaga Goes to Cannes, the film tracks a cross-border van trip of a contemporary dance couple between Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. THE GIRLS (Inicia Films, BTeam Prods) From the producers of Carla Simons Summer 1993, Pilar Palomeros debut tells the story of a 12-year-old girl educated in a small-town convent who questions its established values. Sales: Film Factory JE TE TIENS (Advanced Music) Directed by Sergio Caballero, Barcelonas Sonar Intl. Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art co-director, this short is competing in Directors Fortnight. During a road trip, a mother tries to persuade her daughter not to commit suicide. LIBERTAD (Lastor Media , Avalon, Snowglobe) Long-awaited directorial debut from screenwriter Clara Roquet about a privileged teen girl who comes of age under the influence of the wild daughter of the familys Colombian maid. Sales: Playtime LIBERTE (Andergraun Films, Rosa Filmes, Ideale Audience, Lupa Film) Playing Un Certain Regard, Albert Serras film is an exploration of the limits of liberty, set in 1774 as three libertines flee France to pursue amoral desires. Sales: Films Boutique LITUS (A Contracorriente Films/Alamo Producciones) Litus death unearths deep secrets and dormant feelings among his closest friends in a relationship dramedy from Dani de la Orden (Barcelona Christmas Night). Sales: Latido Story continues LOVE ME NOT (Luis Minarro, Piano) Minarro allies with Mexican producer Julio Chavezmontes to direct this spirited take on gender and sexual politics, set in an imaginary military camp in 2006 Iraq. Sales: Reel Suspects MADRE (Arcadia Motion Pictures, Amalur Pictures AIE, Malvalanda, Caballo Films) Feature follow-up to last years Oscar-nominated short of the same name. Rodrigo Sorogoyen, recent winner of the Goya Award for directing and screenwriting, directs. Sales: Le Pacte LA MAMI (Gadea Productions, Cacerola Films) A Mexico-Spain co-production from first-time director Laura Herrero, this documentary depicts Mami, the womens changing room caretaker of the legendary Barba Azul (Bluebeard) Cabaret in Mexico. SINJAR (KaBoGa) Chosen for Cannes Atelier, this ambitious third feature from Anna Bofarull is a study of three women and armed conflict. SIX ORDINARY DAYS (Distinto Films) This humorous documentary captures the dynamics of a makeshift bricklayers gang. Neus Ballus third feature. STAFF ONLY (El Kinograf, Ikiru, Les Films Hatari) Ballus also directs this culture-clash drama, starring Sergi Lopez, about a 17-year-old Spanish girl who falls in love with a Senegal tourist photographer. Sales: Film Factory TAXI TO TREASURE ROCK (Atresmedia Cine, La Terraza Films, Ikiru Films, AZ Films) Argentine writer-director Alejo Flah offers this crowd-pleasing comedy about a cab driver, an ex-con and a bride teaming to discover lost gold in Gibraltar. Sales: Film Factory THE PARAMEDIC (Zabriskie Films) Cannes 2019 Producer on the Move Carles Torras is set to direct this thriller about a paramedic who, following an accident, is left using a wheelchair. He decides to get even with those who in his eyes have betrayed him. Sales: Filmax Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Laureled abroad and lauded at home, a young generation of women Catalan filmmakers started breaking through two years ago, led by Carla Simons 2017 Berlin first-feature winner Summer 93. Since then a bevy of female directors have emerged, making intimate character-driven dramas rich in observational psychological detail, some drawn from personal experience. The ranks of women Catalan helmers have swelled substantially with, in various states of production, Clara Roquets Libertad, Belen Funes A Thiefs Daughter, Angeles Hernandezs Isaac, Lucia Alemanys Innocence and Pilar Palomeros Girls. Related stories Dua Lipa and Tom Jones to Perform at amfAR's Cannes Gala (EXCLUSIVE) Cannes Film Review: 'Bacarau' Its remarkable the impact that so-called small films have had on festival circuits, says Roquet, whose Libertad won the Arte Kino Intl. Prize at San Sebastians Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum in September. Many, like Simon, whose Alcarras was a Berlinale Co-Production Market winner in February, are onto their second or even third feature. Women are exploring new terrain, in both the geographical and cinematic senses. Meritxell Colells Duo takes place in the Andes; Neus Ballus Staff Only, which premiered at Marchs Malaga Festival, is set in Africa. Women are also exploring multifarious genres, from mainstream comedy as in Carol Rodriguez Colas Chavalas to Alice Waddingtons Sundance-selected Paradise Hills, a sci-fi drama-thriller set on a Pacific Island correctional center for girls. Selected for this years Cannes Cinefondation Atelier, Sinjar, by Anna Bofarull (Barcelona 1714) would be the first Catalan film to tackle the subject of Islamic extremism. The film weaves three womens stories a middle-age woman in search of her son who recently joined the extremists; a Yazidi slave being held captive with her children in Syria; and a young woman who escapes captivity and joins the Kurdish militias. Story continues The female presence is strengthening, and expanding its point of view over the human condition, Colell says. Female characters are ever more and more complex. Their new Catalan films arent all about vindication exactly, theres no single direction. These directors arent just exploring the female condition, but always come from the condition of being female, Ballus says. But the women are still somehow perceived as possessing a risk factor, as not entirely established newcomers, she adds. Many of Catalonias young female directors are merely taking on the lessons of Barcelonas prestigious film schools such as the Escac, which encourages students to experiment across a broad gamut of styles. Alums include Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdoms J.A. Bayona. Productions led by women can also look to extra funding from the Catalan Institute for Cultural Cos. (ICEC), its main public sector agency. Over the past two years, 45.5% of the projects to receive grants have been female-driven, according to ICEC sources. The consolidation of a new generation of female filmmakers isnt the only encouraging trend in Catalonia. Genre movies, which helped put a turn-of-the century industry on the map, are enjoying a renaissance. With offices in Mexico and Barcelona, BTF Media has in post-production Ramiro Garcia Boglianos vengeance-thriller Expansivas, about two sisters seeking justice after their mothers murder. A thriller adapting Eva Garcia Saenz bestselling book, Daniel Calparsoros Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City is set up at Rodar y Rodar and Atresmedia Cine; Academy Award-nominated for the short of the same title, Rodrigo Sorogoyens Madre is tipped for a fall festival run. The main challenge is now financing. After Spains Constitutional Court annulled a governmental regional levy on telecoms, ICECs annual funding plunged 41% from 20.9 million ($23.5 million) in 2017 to $13.9 million last year. Hanging over the head of regional pubcaster TVC, the co-driver in the past decade of Catalonias film and TV industry, are claims made by Spains Ministry of Finance that it owes a total $170 million in Value Added Tax. TVC co-produced Catalan movies to the tune of $7.6 million in 2015, but $4.8 million last year. John Hopewell contributed to this report. Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Facebook is introducing a new one strike rule to crackdown on who can use its livestreaming feature, two months after the deadly mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, was livestreamed for about 20 minutes on the social network. Moving forward, Facebook users that violate the companys most serious policies will be hit with a 30-day suspension from using its Facebook Live feature, according to a Tuesday blog post from VP Guy Rosen. What those policies are, though, remains vague. Rosen pointed to one example in his post, saying someone who shares a link to a statement from a terrorist group with no context will now be immediately blocked from using Live for a set period of time. Also Read: Inside Facebook, YouTube and Twitter's Struggle to Purge Video of the New Zealand Mosque Attacks When reached for a more examples of policy violations that would lead to a 30-day ban, a Facebook rep pointed to the companys rules against dangerous individuals and organizations. Under the policy, Facebook said it will take action against users involved in the following: terrorist activity; organized hate; mass or serial murder; human trafficking; organized violence or criminal activity. The rep said the changes, if theyd been in place in March, wouldve blocked suspected gunman Brenton Tarrant from broadcasting the shooting, where 51 people were murdered, on Facebook Live. The rep did not specify what rule or rules the gunman violated leading up to the attack. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million attempts to reshare the video in the 24 hours following the shooting. Facebooks decision comes as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden is set to lead a meeting, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, in Paris calling for major tech companies to sign a pledge, called the Christchurch Call, to block violent content online. Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg Strikes Back at Critics: Says Breakup of Facebook Wouldn't 'Help' There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook have taken additional steps today alongside the Call and look forward to a long term collaboration to make social media safer by removing terrorist content from it, Arden said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. Read original story Facebook Says Violation of Most Serious Policies Will Lead to 30-Day Livestreaming Ban At TheWrap Now that ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and The CW have made their final choices on renewals, cancellations and series orders for the fall 2019-20 TV season, the big five broadcast networks have started to drop trailers for all the brand-new shows coming later this year.Were gathering them all in one place so you can get your first look at each new series, including ABCs Mixed-ish, Foxs Prodigal Son, NBCs Bluff City Law, CBSs Evil and The CWs Batwoman. Well keep updating the list as more trailers come in.Watch the trailers and read descriptions for the shows below.Also Read: 'Batwoman': Ruby Rose's Kate Kane Broods Over Gotham City in First Teaser (Video)FOXNOT JUST ME Executive producer Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood) and writer Annie Weisman (About A Boy, Desperate Housewives) bring you the story of an unusual family formed through extreme odds. Exploring such hot-button issues as identity, human connection and what it truly means to be a family, this unconventional dramedy taps directly into the zeitgeist, harnessing the emotional complications that new generations of IVF-bred children all face. Only child JULIA BECHLEY (Brittany Snow, the Pitch Perfect franchise, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) finds her life turned upside down when her father, LEON BECHLEY (Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton, American Crime, Leverage, Ordinary People), reveals that, over the course of his prize-winning career as a pioneering fertility doctor, he used his own sperm to conceive upwards of a hundred children. Reeling from this explosive revelation, Julia discovers two new sisters her former best friend, EDIE PALMER (Megalyn Echikunwoke, The Following, 90210), and an ex-Olympic athlete, ROXY DOYLE (Emily Osment, The Kominsky Method, Young & Hungry). As these three young women begin to embrace their new reality, Julia must figure out what life is like without Leon by her side; Edie comes to grips with her burgeoning sexuality, as her marriage falters; and Roxy faces adulthood out of the spotlight. Against all odds, the three women will attempt to form an untraditional bond as sisters, even as they must welcome a tidal wave of new siblings into their rapidly expanding family.PRODIGAL SON From Emmy Award-nominated executive producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter (Riverdale, The Flash) and writers Chris Fedak (Deception, Chuck) and Sam Sklaver (Deception, Bored to Death), PRODIGAL SON is a fresh take on a crime franchise with a provocative and outrageous lead character and a darkly comedic tone. MALCOLM BRIGHT (Tom Payne, The Walking Dead) has a gift. He knows how killers think, how their minds work. Why? Back in the 1990s, his father was one of the best, a notorious serial killer called The Surgeon. Thats why Bright is the best criminal psychologist around; murder is the family business. He will use his twisted genius to help the NYPD solve crimes and stop killers, all while dealing with a manipulative mother, annoyingly normal sister, a homicidal father still looking to bond with his prodigal son and his own constantly evolving neuroses. Meet the happy family. DR. MARTIN WHITLY (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Michael Sheen, Masters of Sex, Frost/Nixon) is intelligent, wealthy and charismatic, and also happens to be a predatory sociopath who killed at least 23 people. Brights mother, JESSICA WHITLY (Bellamy Young, Scandal, Criminal Minds), an elegant and WASPy New Yorker, wields sarcasm like a samurai sword and has an opinion on every aspect of Brights life. Perhaps Brights only ally is his sister, AINSLEY WHITLY (Halston Sage, THE ORVILLE), a TV journalist who wishes her brother would take a break from murder and have a normal life. Unfortunately for his sister, the only way Bright feels normal is by solving cases with the help of his longtime mentor, NYPD Detective GIL ARROYO (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Lou Diamond Phillips, Longmire, Stand and Deliver). Arroyos one of the best detectives around, and he expects no less from his team Detective DANI POWELL (Aurora Perrineau, The Carmichael Show, Jem and the Holograms), a headstrong no-nonsense cop who quickly becomes impressed with Brights work; and Detective JT TARMEL (Frank Harts, The Path, Billions), a born-and-bred New Yorker who questions whether Bright is a psychopath himself. So much for normal.BLESS THE HARTS Created and executive-produced by Emmy Award winner Emily Spivey (The Last Man on Earth, Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live), BLESS THE HARTS is a new half-hour animated comedy that follows the Harts, a Southern family that is always broke, and forever struggling to make ends meet. They one day hope to achieve the American dream, but theyre already rich in friends, family and laughter. JENNY HART (Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids, Saturday Night Live) is a single mother supporting her family working as a waitress in the small town of Greenpoint, NC. While Jennys the head of her family, shes often at odds with, or scheming with, her lottery scratcher-obsessed mother, BETTY (Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Maya Rudolph, The Good Place, Bridesmaids), and her witty, creative daughter, VIOLET (Emmy Award nominee Jillian Bell, Workaholics, Fist Fight). Jennys doting, eternal optimist boyfriend of 10 years, WAYNE EDWARDS (Ike Barinholtz, Neighbors, Blockers), is the love of her life and a surrogate father to Violet. Hes a charming dreamer who may never hit the big time, but hes not going to give up the fight. In the end, the Harts may not have much, but they may just have everything they need.And here are Foxs new midseason shows:DEPUTYFrom writer/executive producer Will Beall (Aquaman, Gangster Squad) and director/executive producer David Ayer (Training Day, End of Watch), DEPUTY blends the spirit of a classic Western with a modern-day attitude and emotionally driven, visceral storytelling. Featuring an ensemble of ambitious and complicated human beings who wont rest until justice is served, DEPUTY brings a gritty authenticity to the modern cop drama. The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department is one of the largest police forces in the world, but when the elected Sheriff dies, an arcane rule in the county charter, forged back in the Wild West, suddenly thrusts the most unlikely man into the job. That man is BILL HOLLISTER (Stephen Dorff, True Detective, Star). A fifth-generation lawman, Bill is only interested in justice; his soul wears a white hat. The bad guys dont stand a chance, but neither do the politicos in the Hall of Justice. Under Bills command is a county-wide crew of LAs finest, including Deputy CADE WARD (Brian Van Holt, Cougar Town), a former Marine stationed in Afghanistan, eight years sober and one of Bills few confidantes; Deputy RACHEL DELGADO (Siena Goines, Andi Mack, Chase), Walkers partner, a meticulous officer who is knee-deep in a nasty divorce; Deputy BREANNA BISHOP (Bex Taylor-Klaus, Arrow, Voltron), the whip-smart, sarcastic driver in charge of Bills security detail; and Deputy JOSEPH BLAIR (Shane Paul McGhie, What Men Want). The dangers associated with the job often lead the police to LA County General Hospital, where Bill buts heads with Dr. PAULA REYES (Yara Martinez, Jane the Virgin, True Detective), the hospitals chief trauma surgeon and his wife. Given a job he never wanted, in an unfamiliar sea of politics, Bill quickly learns that doing what is expected and doing what is right are two different things, and that his innate, dogged pursuit of justice is the only skill the job truly requires.FILTHY RICHFrom writer/director Tate Taylor (Ma, The Help, The Girl on the Train) comes FILTHY RICH, a southern Gothic family drama in which wealth, power and religion intersect more correctly, collide with outrageously soapy results. Meet the Monreauxes, a mega-rich Southern family famed for creating a wildly successful Christian television network. On the cusp of launching a digital retail arm of the company, the familys patriarch, EUGENE (Emmy Award winner Gerald McRaney, This Is Us, 24: Legacy), dies in a plane crash (or so we think), leaving MARGARET (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City), a now-Oprah to the religious and Southern communities, to take charge of the family business. Not surprisingly, Eugenes apparent death greatly impacts the Monreaux children: ERIC (Corey Cott, The Good Fight, Z: The Beginning of Everything), the couples ambitious son, who assumes he will now run the show; and daughter ROSE (Aubrey Dollar, Battle Creek), a budding fashion designer, who constantly struggles to evade the vast shadow cast by her mother. If that wasnt enough, the Monreauxes are stunned to learn that Eugene fathered three illegitimate children, all of whom are written into his will. Now, Margaret must use her business savvy and Southern charm to control her newly legitimized heirs, whose very existence threatens the Monreaux family name and fortune: GINGER (Melia Kreiling, Tyrant, The Borgias), the tough-as-nails daughter of a Vegas cocktail waitress, whose life was virtually destroyed by Eugenes rejection; ANTONIO (Benjamin Levy Aguilar, Straight Outta Compton), a single dad and boxer from Queens, NY; and JASON (Mark L. Young, The Comeback, Were the Millers), another scion, who is not what he seems to be. With monumental twists and turns, not to mention lies, deceit and shade from every direction, FILTHY RICH presents a world in which everyone has an ulterior motive and no one is going down without a fight. The series is based on the New Zealand format created by Filthy Productions Limited.NEXTFrom creator and executive producer Manny Coto (24: Legacy) and executive producers and directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (This Is Us), neXt is a propulsive, fact-based thriller about the emergence of a deadly, rogue artificial intelligence, a series that asks us to look closely not only at our relationship to technology, but to one another. Silicon Valley pioneer PAUL LEBLANC (Emmy Award nominee John Slattery, Mad Men, Veep) built a fortune and legacy on the world-changing innovations he dreamed up, while ignoring and alienating the people around him, including his own daughter, ABBY (Elizabeth Cappucino, Jessica Jones, Deception), and his short-sighted younger brother, TED (Jason Butler Harner, Ozark, Ray Donovan), who now runs Pauls company. After discovering that one of his own creations a powerful A.I. called neXt might spell doom for humankind, Paul tried to shutter the project, only to be kicked out of the company by his own brother, leaving him with nothing but mounting dread about the fate of the world. When a series of unsettling tech mishaps points to a potential worldwide crisis, LeBlanc joins forces with Special Agent SHEA SALAZAR (Fernanda Andrade, The First, Here and Now). Having escaped crime, poverty and a deadly criminal father to remake herself as a force for good, Salazars strict moral code and sense of duty have earned her the respect of her team a talented but contentious group held together by her faith in their ability to defy expectations and transcend their differences, including GINA (Eve Harlow, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Heroes Reborn), a high-strung cybercrime agent; BEN (Aaron Moten, Disjointed, Mozart in the Jungle), a straight-laced, buttoned-up hard worker, who is boring to the point of being interesting; and CM (Michael Mosley, Ozark, Seven Seconds), an ex-con hacker with a genius IQ. But the demands of Sheas challenging job have taken their toll on her home life, where Salazars young son, OWEN (Evan Whitten, THE RESIDENT, Mr. Robot), has been raised primarily by his father, TY (Gerardo Celasco, How to Get Away with Murder, The Haves and the Have Nots), a recovering alcoholic. Now, LeBlanc and Salazar are the only ones standing in the way of a potential global catastrophe, fighting an emergent superintelligence that, instead of launching missiles, will deploy the immense knowledge it has gleaned from the data all around us to recruit allies, turn people against each other and eliminate obstacles to its own survival and growth. Marrying pulse-pounding action with a layered examination of how technology is invading our lives and transforming us in ways we dont yet understand, neXt presents us with a villain unlike anything weve ever seen one whose greatest weapon against us is ourselves.OUTMATCHEDFrom writer/executive producer Lon Zimmet (LA to Vegas) comes OUTMATCHED, a multi-camera family comedy about a blue-collar couple in Atlantic City trying to raise four kids three of whom just happen to be certified geniuses. For most parents, parenting is hard. But for CAY (Maggie Lawson, Lethal Weapon, Psych), a caustic, take-no-prisoners casino pit boss, and husband MIKE (Jason Biggs, Orange Is the New Black, the American Pie franchise), a handyman and uncultivated guys guy, parenting may as well be advanced calculus. Dealing with the demands and egos of three high-IQ children would be tricky for any parent, but its especially hazardous for two working stiffs who barely got through high school. Mike and Cay are committed to bringing some normalcy to their kids hectic, unconventional childhoods, but these geniuses dont make it easy. Leading the charge is BRIAN (Connor Kalopsis, The Grinder), a condescending and pretentious 16-year-old math whiz, who thinks he already knows more about the world than Mike and Cay ever will, even though hes never actually been out of New Jersey. His 15-year-old sister, NICOLE (Ashley Boettcher, Lost in Oz), is a deceptive and fiercely competitive language prodigy who can manipulate her parents into getting anything she wants. The youngest and most recently anointed child prodigy is MARC (Jack Stanton, The Mick), a 10-year-old music savant. Introverted and idiosyncratic, he just wants everyone to leave him alone, so he can become the next Beethoven in peace. The only child not driving their parents crazy is eight-year-old LEILA (Oakley Bull, Beautiful Boy), who is decidedly not a genius. In fact, she might be kind of dumb. Shes the only kid Mike and Cay even remotely understand. OUTMATCHED takes an honest and heightened look at every parents worst fear that theyre ruining their kids. When you have children with the type of gifts that can change the world, the pressure is really on. Raise them right, and these kids could cure cancer, stop global warming or invent time travel. But screw it up, and you could unleash three new super villains into the universe good luck!Also Read: Jimmy Kimmel Says 'Blame Channing' for ABC's 2018-19 Shows, and His Other Best Jokes From Disney's UpfrontABCEMERGENCEA character-driven genre thriller, Emergence is about a police chief who takes in a young child she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, and the childs identity is at the center of it all. The series is written and executive produced by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. Paul McGuigan directed the pilot and is an executive producer. Emergence is produced by ABC Studios. The series stars Allison Tolman, Alexa Swinton, Owain Yeoman, Ashley Aufderheide, Robert Bailey Jr., Zabryna Guevara, Donald Faison and Clancy Brown.STUMPTOWNBased on the Stumptown graphic novel series, Stumptown follows Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders) a strong, assertive and sharp-witted army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt and a brother to take care of in Portland, Oregon. Her military intelligence skills make her a great PI, but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police. Writer Jason Richman produces the series with Ruben Fleischer and David Bernad of The District, Greg Rucka (author of the Stumptown graphic novel series), and Matthew Southworth and Justin Greenwood (illustrators of the Stumptown graphic novel series). James Griffiths is an executive producer and directed the ABC Studios pilot. Cobie Smulders, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus, Adrian Martinez, Camryn Manheim and Michael Ealy star.MIXED-ISHIn Mixed-ish, Rainbow Johnson recounts her experience growing up in a mixed-race family in the 80s and the constant dilemmas they had to face over whether to assimilate or stay true to themselves. Bows parents Paul and Alicia decide to move from a hippie commune to the suburbs to better provide for their family. As her parents struggle with the challenges of their new life, Bow and her siblings navigate a mainstream school in which theyre perceived as neither black nor white. This familys experiences illuminate the challenges of finding ones own identity when the rest of the world cant decide where you belong. Peter Saji and Kenya Barris are writers and executive producers along with Tracee Ellis Ross, Randall Winston, Brian Dobbins of Artists First, Laurence Fishburne and Helen Sugland of Cinema Gypsy and Anthony Anderson. Anton Cropper directed the pilot. The series is produced by ABC Studios. The comedy stars Arica Himmel, Tika Sumpter, Gary Cole, Christina Anthony, Mykal-Michelle Harris and Ethan Childress.NBCBLUFF CITY LAWComing from a famous Memphis family known for taking on injustice, brilliant lawyer Sydney Strait used to work at her father Elijahs celebrated law firm until their tumultuous relationship got in the way. After barely speaking to him for years, Sydney is suddenly thrust back into the family fold when her philanthropist mother passes away unexpectedly. In the wake of her loss, hoping to reconnect with the daughter he loves, Elijah asks Sydney to rejoin his rm. She agrees because despite her lingering resentment and distrust, she knows that working alongside her father is her best hope at changing the world if they can ever get along. The cast includes Jimmy Smits, Caitlin McGee, Scott Shepherd, Barry Sloane, Michael Luwoye, MaameYaa Boafo, Stony Blyden and Jayne Atkinson. Dean Georgaris will write and executive produce. Michael Aguliar and David Janollari will executive produce. Bluff City Law is produced by Universal Television in association with David Janollari Entertainment.PERFECT HARMONYBradley Whitford stars in this comedy about finding inspiration in the most unlikely places. When former Princeton music professor Arthur Cochran unexpectedly stumbles into choir practice at a small-town church, he finds a group of singers that are out of tune in more ways than one. Despite the ultimate clash of sensibilities, Arthur and his newfound cohorts may just be the perfect mix of individuals to help each other reinvent and rediscover a little happiness, just when they all need it most. The cast includes Bradley Whitford, Anna Camp, Tymberlee Hill, Rizwan Manji, Will Greenberg, Geno Segers and Spencer Allport. Lesley Wake Webster will write and executive produce. Jason Winer will direct and executive produce. Bradley Whitford, Adam Anders and Jon Radler will executive produce. Perfect Harmony is produced by 20th Century Fox Television and Small Dog Picture Company.SUNNYSIDEGarrett Modi was living the American Dream. As the youngest New York City Councilman ever, he was rubbing elbows with the political elite, attending star-studded parties and was the pride of Queens. But instead of spending his time in ofce helping the people that got him elected, he lost his way amidst the power and glamour of politics. When his downward spiral got him busted for public intoxication (and downright stupidity), it was all caught on tape and ended his career. Now, Garretts crashing with his sister, Mallory, and wondering where it all went wrong. That is, until hes hired by a diverse group of hopefuls who dream of becoming American citizens and believe he can help giving him a new sense of purpose and a chance for redemption, as long as he remembers where he came from. The cast includes Kal Penn, Diana Maria Riva, Joel Kim Booster, Kiran Deol, Poppy Liu, Moses Storm and Samba Schutte. Kal Penn and Matt Murray will write and executive produce. Michael Schur will be supervising executive producer. David Miner and Dan Spilo will executive produce. Sunnyside is produced by Universal Television in association with Fremulon and 3 Arts Entertainment.CBSALL RISEA courthouse drama that follows the chaotic, hopeful and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process. Among them is newly appointed Judge Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick), a highly regarded and impressive deputy district attorney who doesnt intend to sit back on the bench in her new role, but instead leans in, immediately pushing the boundaries and challenging the expectations of what a judge can be.The cast includes Simone Missick as Lola Carmichael, Wilson Bethel as Mark Callan, Marg Helgenberger as Judith Benner, Jessica Camacho as Emily Lopez, J. Alex Brinson as Luke Watkins, Lindsay Mendez as Sara Pratt and Ruthie Ann Miles as Sherri Kanski.Greg Spottiswood, Len Goldstein and Emmy Award winner Michael M. Robin are executive producers for Warner Bros. Television. Robin directed the pilot from a script by Spottiswood.EVILStarring Luke Cage star Mike Colter and Manhattan star Katja Herbers, Evil has a logline that looks like X-Files meets The Exorcist. The series follows a priest-in-training, a skeptical psychologist, and a carpenter who investigate the Churchs backlog of unexplained mysteries, including supposed miracles, demonic possessions and hauntings. Their job is to determine whether there is a logical explanation for each case or if theres a supernatural force at work. Along the way, they begin to examine the nature of evil itself.BOB HEARTS ABISHOLAFrom award-winning creator, executive producer and writer Chuck Lorre, Bob Hearts Abishola is a love story about a middle-aged compression sock businessman from Detroit who unexpectedly falls for his cardiac nurse, a Nigerian immigrant, while recovering from a heart attack and sets his sights on winning her over. Undaunted by Abisholas (Folake Olowofoyeku) lack of initial interest or the vast differences in their backgrounds, Bob (Billy Gardell) is determined to win Abisholas heart, in this comedic examination of immigrant life in America. The cast includes Billy Gardell as Bob, Folake Olowofoyeku as Abishola, Christine Ebersole as Dottie, Matt Jones as Douglas, Maribeth Monroe as Christine, Vernee Watson as Gloria, Shola Adewusi as Auntie Olu, Barry Shabaka Henley as Uncle Tunde and Travis Wolfe Jr. as Dele. Chuck Lorre, Eddie Gorodetsky, Al Higgins and Beth McCarthy-Miller (pilot only) are executive producers for Chuck Lorre Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. McCarthy-Miller directed the pilot from a script by Lorre, Gorodetsky, Higgins and Gina Yashere.CAROLS SECOND ACTEmmy Award winner Patricia Heaton stars in Carols Second Act, a comedy about a woman who embarks on a unique second act after raising her children, getting divorced and retiring from teaching: pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor. At age 50, Carol is a medical intern and must sink or swim with peers who are half her age. Its her enthusiasm, perspective and yes, even her age, that may be exactly what will make her second act a great success. The cast includes Patricia Heaton as Carol Kenney, Kyle MacLachlan as Dr. Frost, Ito Aghayere as Dr. Maya Jacobs, Jean-Luc Bilodeau as Daniel and Sabrina Jalees as Lexie. Lucas Neff guest stars as Caleb. Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins; Patricia Heaton, Adam Griffin, David Hunt and Rebecca Stay (Four Boys Entertainment); Aaron Kaplan and Dana Honor (Kapital Entertainment); and Pamela Fryman (pilot only) are executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Fryman directed the pilot from a script by Halpern and Haskins.THE UNICORNA single-camera comedy about a tight-knit group of best friends and family who helps Wade (Walton Goggins) embrace his new normal in the wake of the loss of his wife one year ago. As a sometimes ill-equipped but always devoted single parent to his two adolescent daughters, he is taking the major step of dating again. To Wades amazement, hes a hot commodity with women, and his friends explain that hes the perfect single guy a unicorn: employed, attractive, and with a proven track record of commitment. With his daughters and best friends rooting him on and hoping hell find happiness again, Wade and his healing heart are ready to try life and love again. The cast includes Walton Goggins as Wade, Rob Corddry as Forrest, Michaela Watkins as Delia, Omar Benson Miller as Ben, Maya Lynne Robinson as Michelle, Ruby Jay as Grace, and Makenzie Moss as Natalie. Bill Martin, Mike Schiff, Aaron Kaplan, Dana Honor, Wendi Trilling, Peyton Reed, and John Hamburg (pilot only) are executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Hamburg directed the pilot from a script by Martin and Schiff.MIDSEASONFBI: MOST WANTEDA high-stakes drama that focuses on the Fugitive Task Force, which relentlessly tracks and captures the notorious criminals on the Bureaus Most Wanted list. Seasoned agent Jess LaCroix (Julian McMahon) oversees the highly skilled team that functions as a mobile undercover unit that is always out in the field, pursuing those who are most desperate to elude justice. The cast includes Julian McMahon as Jess LaCroix, Alana De La Garza as Isobel Castille, Keisha Castle-Hughes as Hana Gibson, Kellan Lutz as Crosby, Roxy Sternberg as Sheryll Barnes and Nathaniel Arcand as Clinton Skye. Dick Wolf, Rene Balcer, Arthur W. Forney and Peter Jankowski are executive producers for Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television in association with CBS Television Studios. Fred Berner directed the pilot from a script by Balcer.TOMMYMultiple Emmy Award winner Edie Falco stars in Tommy as a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. A true blue New Yorker, Abigail Tommy Thomas (Falco) uses her unflinching honesty and hardball tactics to keep social, political and national security issues from hindering effective law enforcement in the Southland. Equal parts political, procedural and family drama, Tommy comes from Paul Attanasio, the creator of the acclaimed series Bull, House M.D. and Homicide: Life on the Street. The cast includes stars Edie Falco as Abigail Tommy Thomas, Michael Chernus as Ken Rosey, Adelaide Clemens as Blake Sullivan, David Fierro as Buddy Boyardi, Russell G. Jones as Aurelius Looper, Olivia Lucy Phillip as Kate Jones, and Joseph Lyle Taylor as Treat Dudik. Paul Attanasio, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey and Kate Dennis (pilot only) are executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Kate Dennis directed the pilot from a script by Attanasio.BROKEA comedy about Jackie ( Pauley Perrette), a single suburban mother whos shocked when her estranged sister, Elizabeth (Natasha Leggero), her sisters outrageously wealthy, big-hearted husband, Javier (Camil), and Javiers fiercely loyal assistant/driver/friend, Luis (Izzy Diaz), land on her doorstep in need of a place to live after the couples money dries up. Though class differences may separate the women, and the size of the house and the number of people living in it will test the limits of family ties, the familial bond of sisterhood might be the catalyst they need to restore their relationship. The cast includes stars Jaime Camil as Javier, Pauley Perrette as Jackie, Natasha Leggero as Elizabeth, Izzy Diaz as Luis and Antonio Corbo as Sammy. Alex Herschlag (Will & Grace, Modern Family), Jennie Snyder Urman (Jane the Virgin), Joanna Klein, Ben Silverman, Jaime Camil, Guillermo Restrepo, Gonzalo Cilley and Maria Lucia Hernandez are executive producers for CBS Television Studio/Sutton Street Prods./Propagate, with creative partners RCN TV and Resonant TV. Victor Gonzalez directed the pilot from a script by Herschlag.The CWBATWOMANKate Kane (Ruby Rose) never planned to be Gothams new vigilante. Three years after Batman mysteriously disappeared, Gotham is a city in despair. Without the Caped Crusader, the Gotham City Police Department was overrun and outgunned by criminal gangs. Enter Jacob Kane (Dougray Scott) and his military-grade Crows Private Security, which now protects the city with omnipresent firepower and militia. Years before, Jacobs first wife and daughter were killed in the crossfire of Gotham crime. He sent his only surviving daughter, Kate Kane, away from Gotham for her safety. After a dishonorable discharge from military school and years of brutal survival training, Kate returns home when the Alice in Wonderland gang targets her father and his security firm, by kidnapping his best Crow officer Sophie Moore (Meagan Tandy). Although remarried to wealthy socialite Catherine Hamilton-Kane (Elizabeth Anweis), who bankrolls the Crows, Jacob is still struggling with the family he lost, while keeping Kate the daughter he still has at a distance. But Kate is a woman whos done asking for permission. In order to help her family and her city, shell have to become the one thing her father loathes a dark knight vigilante. With the help of her compassionate stepsister, Mary (Nicole Kang), and the crafty Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson), the son of Wayne Enterprises tech guru Lucius Fox, Kate Kane continues the legacy of her missing cousin, Bruce Wayne, as Batwoman. Still holding a flame for her ex-girlfriend, Sophie, Kate uses everything in her power to combat the dark machinations of the psychotic Alice (Rachel Skarsten), whos always somewhere slipping between sane and insane. Armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, Kate soars through the shadowed streets of Gotham as Batwoman. But dont call her a hero yet. In a city desperate for a savior, she must first overcome her own demons before embracing the call to be Gothams symbol of hope. Based on the characters from DC, Batwoman is written by Caroline Dries, who executive produces with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Geoff Johns, David Nutter, and director Marcos Siega. Batwoman is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.KATY KEENEA Riverdale spinoff, Katy Keene follows the lives and loves of four iconic Archie Comics characters fashion legend-to-be Katy Keene (Lucy Hale), singer/songwriter Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), performer Jorge Lopez/Ginger (Jonny Beauchamp), and It Girl Pepper Smith (Julia Chan) as they chase their twenty-something dreams in New York Citytogether. Katy designs clothes for anyone she can, including her friend and roommate Josie, whose singing talent catches the attention of Alexander Cabot (Lucien Laviscount), a CEO who hopes to reboot the record label division of his fathers corporate empire. But Alexanders dream of signing Josie to a recording contract meets resistance from Cabot Medias powerful senior vice president Alexandra (Camille Hyde), who also happens to be his twin sister. Josie and Katys roommate Jorge works at his familys bodega and has his eye on Broadway, but after a series of rejections, he hopes to take his drag performance career as Ginger to the next level. The mysterious Pepper Smith plans to open her own version of Andy Warhols Factory. She has the connections, but no one seems to know where she got her money or if she really has any at all. Katy struggles to manage the pressures of her day job at Lacys Department Store and her very demanding boss, Gloria (Katherine LaNasa), who is a legendary personal shopper. But Katy has the support of her longtime boyfriend, KO Kelly (Zane Holtz), who has his own dream of becoming a professional boxer. As these aspiring artists take on the runway, the recording studio, Broadway, and the NYC social scene, they will find more than just a career in the big city theyll find long-lasting friendship.Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Michael Grassi write, while Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Archie Comics CEO and Publisher Jon Goldwater executive produce along with director Maggie Kiley. The Riverdale spinoff is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios.NANCY DREWNancy Drew (Kennedy McMann) is a brilliant teenaged detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine until her mothers untimely death derails Nancys college plans. Devastated by her mothers passing, Nancy swears off crime-solving while crossing off the days until she can re-apply to college. But when a socialite is murdered, Nancy finds herself a prime suspect in the crime, along with a group of other teens present at the scene: Nancys nemesis from high school, George Fan (Leah Lewis); a rich girl with a mysterious past, Bess Marvin (Maddison Jaizani); Nancys secret boyfriend, Ned Nick Nickerson (Tunji Kasim), and amiable burnout Ace (Alex Saxon). The five of them must team up to clear their own names encountering emotional entanglements and even more mysteries along the way. Nancys reawakening brings her into conflict with her widowed father, Carson Drew (Scott Wolf), who is dating Detective Karen Hart (Alvina August). And, when a supernatural presence begins to haunt Nancys investigation, she discovers that the current crime has an astonishing connection to the unsolved murder of a local girl. Whether the ghost is here to help, or hinder Nancy remains to be seen, but one things for sure: Nancys going to have to unravel the clues from both the living and the dead to solve the crimes.Nancy Drew will star newcomer Kennedy McMann, and Scott Wolf player her father, replacing originally cast Freddie Prinze Jr. Noga Landau, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage write and executive produce along with Lis Rowinski. Melinda Hsu Taylor is also an Executive Producer. Director Larry Teng co-executive produces. Nancy Drew is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Fake Empire.Read original story Fall TV 2019: Watch Trailers for the New Broadcast Shows At TheWrap Now that ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and The CW have made their final choices on renewals, cancellations and series orders for the fall 2019-20 TV season, the big five broadcast networks have started to drop trailers for all the brand-new shows coming later this year. Were gathering them all in one place so you can get your first look at each new series, including ABCs Mixed-ish, Foxs Prodigal Son, NBCs Bluff City Law, CBSs Evil and The CWs Batwoman. Well keep updating the list as more trailers come in. Watch the trailers and read descriptions for the shows below. Also Read: 'Batwoman': Ruby Rose's Kate Kane Broods Over Gotham City in First Teaser (Video) FOX NOT JUST ME Executive producer Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood) and writer Annie Weisman (About A Boy, Desperate Housewives) bring you the story of an unusual family formed through extreme odds. Exploring such hot-button issues as identity, human connection and what it truly means to be a family, this unconventional dramedy taps directly into the zeitgeist, harnessing the emotional complications that new generations of IVF-bred children all face. Only child JULIA BECHLEY (Brittany Snow, the Pitch Perfect franchise, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) finds her life turned upside down when her father, LEON BECHLEY (Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton, American Crime, Leverage, Ordinary People), reveals that, over the course of his prize-winning career as a pioneering fertility doctor, he used his own sperm to conceive upwards of a hundred children. Reeling from this explosive revelation, Julia discovers two new sisters her former best friend, EDIE PALMER (Megalyn Echikunwoke, The Following, 90210), and an ex-Olympic athlete, ROXY DOYLE (Emily Osment, The Kominsky Method, Young & Hungry). As these three young women begin to embrace their new reality, Julia must figure out what life is like without Leon by her side; Edie comes to grips with her burgeoning sexuality, as her marriage falters; and Roxy faces adulthood out of the spotlight. Against all odds, the three women will attempt to form an untraditional bond as sisters, even as they must welcome a tidal wave of new siblings into their rapidly expanding family. Story continues PRODIGAL SON From Emmy Award-nominated executive producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter (Riverdale, The Flash) and writers Chris Fedak (Deception, Chuck) and Sam Sklaver (Deception, Bored to Death), PRODIGAL SON is a fresh take on a crime franchise with a provocative and outrageous lead character and a darkly comedic tone. MALCOLM BRIGHT (Tom Payne, The Walking Dead) has a gift. He knows how killers think, how their minds work. Why? Back in the 1990s, his father was one of the best, a notorious serial killer called The Surgeon. Thats why Bright is the best criminal psychologist around; murder is the family business. He will use his twisted genius to help the NYPD solve crimes and stop killers, all while dealing with a manipulative mother, annoyingly normal sister, a homicidal father still looking to bond with his prodigal son and his own constantly evolving neuroses. Meet the happy family. DR. MARTIN WHITLY (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Michael Sheen, Masters of Sex, Frost/Nixon) is intelligent, wealthy and charismatic, and also happens to be a predatory sociopath who killed at least 23 people. Brights mother, JESSICA WHITLY (Bellamy Young, Scandal, Criminal Minds), an elegant and WASPy New Yorker, wields sarcasm like a samurai sword and has an opinion on every aspect of Brights life. Perhaps Brights only ally is his sister, AINSLEY WHITLY (Halston Sage, THE ORVILLE), a TV journalist who wishes her brother would take a break from murder and have a normal life. Unfortunately for his sister, the only way Bright feels normal is by solving cases with the help of his longtime mentor, NYPD Detective GIL ARROYO (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Lou Diamond Phillips, Longmire, Stand and Deliver). Arroyos one of the best detectives around, and he expects no less from his team Detective DANI POWELL (Aurora Perrineau, The Carmichael Show, Jem and the Holograms), a headstrong no-nonsense cop who quickly becomes impressed with Brights work; and Detective JT TARMEL (Frank Harts, The Path, Billions), a born-and-bred New Yorker who questions whether Bright is a psychopath himself. So much for normal. BLESS THE HARTS Created and executive-produced by Emmy Award winner Emily Spivey (The Last Man on Earth, Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live), BLESS THE HARTS is a new half-hour animated comedy that follows the Harts, a Southern family that is always broke, and forever struggling to make ends meet. They one day hope to achieve the American dream, but theyre already rich in friends, family and laughter. JENNY HART (Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids, Saturday Night Live) is a single mother supporting her family working as a waitress in the small town of Greenpoint, NC. While Jennys the head of her family, shes often at odds with, or scheming with, her lottery scratcher-obsessed mother, BETTY (Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Maya Rudolph, The Good Place, Bridesmaids), and her witty, creative daughter, VIOLET (Emmy Award nominee Jillian Bell, Workaholics, Fist Fight). Jennys doting, eternal optimist boyfriend of 10 years, WAYNE EDWARDS (Ike Barinholtz, Neighbors, Blockers), is the love of her life and a surrogate father to Violet. Hes a charming dreamer who may never hit the big time, but hes not going to give up the fight. In the end, the Harts may not have much, but they may just have everything they need. And here are Foxs new midseason shows: DEPUTY From writer/executive producer Will Beall (Aquaman, Gangster Squad) and director/executive producer David Ayer (Training Day, End of Watch), DEPUTY blends the spirit of a classic Western with a modern-day attitude and emotionally driven, visceral storytelling. Featuring an ensemble of ambitious and complicated human beings who wont rest until justice is served, DEPUTY brings a gritty authenticity to the modern cop drama. The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department is one of the largest police forces in the world, but when the elected Sheriff dies, an arcane rule in the county charter, forged back in the Wild West, suddenly thrusts the most unlikely man into the job. That man is BILL HOLLISTER (Stephen Dorff, True Detective, Star). A fifth-generation lawman, Bill is only interested in justice; his soul wears a white hat. The bad guys dont stand a chance, but neither do the politicos in the Hall of Justice. Under Bills command is a county-wide crew of LAs finest, including Deputy CADE WARD (Brian Van Holt, Cougar Town), a former Marine stationed in Afghanistan, eight years sober and one of Bills few confidantes; Deputy RACHEL DELGADO (Siena Goines, Andi Mack, Chase), Walkers partner, a meticulous officer who is knee-deep in a nasty divorce; Deputy BREANNA BISHOP (Bex Taylor-Klaus, Arrow, Voltron), the whip-smart, sarcastic driver in charge of Bills security detail; and Deputy JOSEPH BLAIR (Shane Paul McGhie, What Men Want). The dangers associated with the job often lead the police to LA County General Hospital, where Bill buts heads with Dr. PAULA REYES (Yara Martinez, Jane the Virgin, True Detective), the hospitals chief trauma surgeon and his wife. Given a job he never wanted, in an unfamiliar sea of politics, Bill quickly learns that doing what is expected and doing what is right are two different things, and that his innate, dogged pursuit of justice is the only skill the job truly requires. FILTHY RICH From writer/director Tate Taylor (Ma, The Help, The Girl on the Train) comes FILTHY RICH, a southern Gothic family drama in which wealth, power and religion intersect more correctly, collide with outrageously soapy results. Meet the Monreauxes, a mega-rich Southern family famed for creating a wildly successful Christian television network. On the cusp of launching a digital retail arm of the company, the familys patriarch, EUGENE (Emmy Award winner Gerald McRaney, This Is Us, 24: Legacy), dies in a plane crash (or so we think), leaving MARGARET (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City), a now-Oprah to the religious and Southern communities, to take charge of the family business. Not surprisingly, Eugenes apparent death greatly impacts the Monreaux children: ERIC (Corey Cott, The Good Fight, Z: The Beginning of Everything), the couples ambitious son, who assumes he will now run the show; and daughter ROSE (Aubrey Dollar, Battle Creek), a budding fashion designer, who constantly struggles to evade the vast shadow cast by her mother. If that wasnt enough, the Monreauxes are stunned to learn that Eugene fathered three illegitimate children, all of whom are written into his will. Now, Margaret must use her business savvy and Southern charm to control her newly legitimized heirs, whose very existence threatens the Monreaux family name and fortune: GINGER (Melia Kreiling, Tyrant, The Borgias), the tough-as-nails daughter of a Vegas cocktail waitress, whose life was virtually destroyed by Eugenes rejection; ANTONIO (Benjamin Levy Aguilar, Straight Outta Compton), a single dad and boxer from Queens, NY; and JASON (Mark L. Young, The Comeback, Were the Millers), another scion, who is not what he seems to be. With monumental twists and turns, not to mention lies, deceit and shade from every direction, FILTHY RICH presents a world in which everyone has an ulterior motive and no one is going down without a fight. The series is based on the New Zealand format created by Filthy Productions Limited. NEXT From creator and executive producer Manny Coto (24: Legacy) and executive producers and directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (This Is Us), neXt is a propulsive, fact-based thriller about the emergence of a deadly, rogue artificial intelligence, a series that asks us to look closely not only at our relationship to technology, but to one another. Silicon Valley pioneer PAUL LEBLANC (Emmy Award nominee John Slattery, Mad Men, Veep) built a fortune and legacy on the world-changing innovations he dreamed up, while ignoring and alienating the people around him, including his own daughter, ABBY (Elizabeth Cappucino, Jessica Jones, Deception), and his short-sighted younger brother, TED (Jason Butler Harner, Ozark, Ray Donovan), who now runs Pauls company. After discovering that one of his own creations a powerful A.I. called neXt might spell doom for humankind, Paul tried to shutter the project, only to be kicked out of the company by his own brother, leaving him with nothing but mounting dread about the fate of the world. When a series of unsettling tech mishaps points to a potential worldwide crisis, LeBlanc joins forces with Special Agent SHEA SALAZAR (Fernanda Andrade, The First, Here and Now). Having escaped crime, poverty and a deadly criminal father to remake herself as a force for good, Salazars strict moral code and sense of duty have earned her the respect of her team a talented but contentious group held together by her faith in their ability to defy expectations and transcend their differences, including GINA (Eve Harlow, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Heroes Reborn), a high-strung cybercrime agent; BEN (Aaron Moten, Disjointed, Mozart in the Jungle), a straight-laced, buttoned-up hard worker, who is boring to the point of being interesting; and CM (Michael Mosley, Ozark, Seven Seconds), an ex-con hacker with a genius IQ. But the demands of Sheas challenging job have taken their toll on her home life, where Salazars young son, OWEN (Evan Whitten, THE RESIDENT, Mr. Robot), has been raised primarily by his father, TY (Gerardo Celasco, How to Get Away with Murder, The Haves and the Have Nots), a recovering alcoholic. Now, LeBlanc and Salazar are the only ones standing in the way of a potential global catastrophe, fighting an emergent superintelligence that, instead of launching missiles, will deploy the immense knowledge it has gleaned from the data all around us to recruit allies, turn people against each other and eliminate obstacles to its own survival and growth. Marrying pulse-pounding action with a layered examination of how technology is invading our lives and transforming us in ways we dont yet understand, neXt presents us with a villain unlike anything weve ever seen one whose greatest weapon against us is ourselves. OUTMATCHED From writer/executive producer Lon Zimmet (LA to Vegas) comes OUTMATCHED, a multi-camera family comedy about a blue-collar couple in Atlantic City trying to raise four kids three of whom just happen to be certified geniuses. For most parents, parenting is hard. But for CAY (Maggie Lawson, Lethal Weapon, Psych), a caustic, take-no-prisoners casino pit boss, and husband MIKE (Jason Biggs, Orange Is the New Black, the American Pie franchise), a handyman and uncultivated guys guy, parenting may as well be advanced calculus. Dealing with the demands and egos of three high-IQ children would be tricky for any parent, but its especially hazardous for two working stiffs who barely got through high school. Mike and Cay are committed to bringing some normalcy to their kids hectic, unconventional childhoods, but these geniuses dont make it easy. Leading the charge is BRIAN (Connor Kalopsis, The Grinder), a condescending and pretentious 16-year-old math whiz, who thinks he already knows more about the world than Mike and Cay ever will, even though hes never actually been out of New Jersey. His 15-year-old sister, NICOLE (Ashley Boettcher, Lost in Oz), is a deceptive and fiercely competitive language prodigy who can manipulate her parents into getting anything she wants. The youngest and most recently anointed child prodigy is MARC (Jack Stanton, The Mick), a 10-year-old music savant. Introverted and idiosyncratic, he just wants everyone to leave him alone, so he can become the next Beethoven in peace. The only child not driving their parents crazy is eight-year-old LEILA (Oakley Bull, Beautiful Boy), who is decidedly not a genius. In fact, she might be kind of dumb. Shes the only kid Mike and Cay even remotely understand. OUTMATCHED takes an honest and heightened look at every parents worst fear that theyre ruining their kids. When you have children with the type of gifts that can change the world, the pressure is really on. Raise them right, and these kids could cure cancer, stop global warming or invent time travel. But screw it up, and you could unleash three new super villains into the universe good luck! Also Read: Jimmy Kimmel Says 'Blame Channing' for ABC's 2018-19 Shows, and His Other Best Jokes From Disney's Upfront ABC EMERGENCE A character-driven genre thriller, Emergence is about a police chief who takes in a young child she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, and the childs identity is at the center of it all. The series is written and executive produced by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. Paul McGuigan directed the pilot and is an executive producer. Emergence is produced by ABC Studios. The series stars Allison Tolman, Alexa Swinton, Owain Yeoman, Ashley Aufderheide, Robert Bailey Jr., Zabryna Guevara, Donald Faison and Clancy Brown. STUMPTOWN Based on the Stumptown graphic novel series, Stumptown follows Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders) a strong, assertive and sharp-witted army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt and a brother to take care of in Portland, Oregon. Her military intelligence skills make her a great PI, but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police. Writer Jason Richman produces the series with Ruben Fleischer and David Bernad of The District, Greg Rucka (author of the Stumptown graphic novel series), and Matthew Southworth and Justin Greenwood (illustrators of the Stumptown graphic novel series). James Griffiths is an executive producer and directed the ABC Studios pilot. Cobie Smulders, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus, Adrian Martinez, Camryn Manheim and Michael Ealy star. MIXED-ISH In Mixed-ish, Rainbow Johnson recounts her experience growing up in a mixed-race family in the 80s and the constant dilemmas they had to face over whether to assimilate or stay true to themselves. Bows parents Paul and Alicia decide to move from a hippie commune to the suburbs to better provide for their family. As her parents struggle with the challenges of their new life, Bow and her siblings navigate a mainstream school in which theyre perceived as neither black nor white. This familys experiences illuminate the challenges of finding ones own identity when the rest of the world cant decide where you belong. Peter Saji and Kenya Barris are writers and executive producers along with Tracee Ellis Ross, Randall Winston, Brian Dobbins of Artists First, Laurence Fishburne and Helen Sugland of Cinema Gypsy and Anthony Anderson. Anton Cropper directed the pilot. The series is produced by ABC Studios. The comedy stars Arica Himmel, Tika Sumpter, Gary Cole, Christina Anthony, Mykal-Michelle Harris and Ethan Childress. NBC BLUFF CITY LAW Coming from a famous Memphis family known for taking on injustice, brilliant lawyer Sydney Strait used to work at her father Elijahs celebrated law firm until their tumultuous relationship got in the way. After barely speaking to him for years, Sydney is suddenly thrust back into the family fold when her philanthropist mother passes away unexpectedly. In the wake of her loss, hoping to reconnect with the daughter he loves, Elijah asks Sydney to rejoin his rm. She agrees because despite her lingering resentment and distrust, she knows that working alongside her father is her best hope at changing the world if they can ever get along. The cast includes Jimmy Smits, Caitlin McGee, Scott Shepherd, Barry Sloane, Michael Luwoye, MaameYaa Boafo, Stony Blyden and Jayne Atkinson. Dean Georgaris will write and executive produce. Michael Aguliar and David Janollari will executive produce. Bluff City Law is produced by Universal Television in association with David Janollari Entertainment. PERFECT HARMONY Bradley Whitford stars in this comedy about finding inspiration in the most unlikely places. When former Princeton music professor Arthur Cochran unexpectedly stumbles into choir practice at a small-town church, he finds a group of singers that are out of tune in more ways than one. Despite the ultimate clash of sensibilities, Arthur and his newfound cohorts may just be the perfect mix of individuals to help each other reinvent and rediscover a little happiness, just when they all need it most. The cast includes Bradley Whitford, Anna Camp, Tymberlee Hill, Rizwan Manji, Will Greenberg, Geno Segers and Spencer Allport. Lesley Wake Webster will write and executive produce. Jason Winer will direct and executive produce. Bradley Whitford, Adam Anders and Jon Radler will executive produce. Perfect Harmony is produced by 20th Century Fox Television and Small Dog Picture Company. SUNNYSIDE Garrett Modi was living the American Dream. As the youngest New York City Councilman ever, he was rubbing elbows with the political elite, attending star-studded parties and was the pride of Queens. But instead of spending his time in ofce helping the people that got him elected, he lost his way amidst the power and glamour of politics. When his downward spiral got him busted for public intoxication (and downright stupidity), it was all caught on tape and ended his career. Now, Garretts crashing with his sister, Mallory, and wondering where it all went wrong. That is, until hes hired by a diverse group of hopefuls who dream of becoming American citizens and believe he can help giving him a new sense of purpose and a chance for redemption, as long as he remembers where he came from. The cast includes Kal Penn, Diana Maria Riva, Joel Kim Booster, Kiran Deol, Poppy Liu, Moses Storm and Samba Schutte. Kal Penn and Matt Murray will write and executive produce. Michael Schur will be supervising executive producer. David Miner and Dan Spilo will executive produce. Sunnyside is produced by Universal Television in association with Fremulon and 3 Arts Entertainment. CBS ALL RISE A courthouse drama that follows the chaotic, hopeful and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process. Among them is newly appointed Judge Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick), a highly regarded and impressive deputy district attorney who doesnt intend to sit back on the bench in her new role, but instead leans in, immediately pushing the boundaries and challenging the expectations of what a judge can be. The cast includes Simone Missick as Lola Carmichael, Wilson Bethel as Mark Callan, Marg Helgenberger as Judith Benner, Jessica Camacho as Emily Lopez, J. Alex Brinson as Luke Watkins, Lindsay Mendez as Sara Pratt and Ruthie Ann Miles as Sherri Kanski. Greg Spottiswood, Len Goldstein and Emmy Award winner Michael M. Robin are executive producers for Warner Bros. Television. Robin directed the pilot from a script by Spottiswood. EVIL Starring Luke Cage star Mike Colter and Manhattan star Katja Herbers, Evil has a logline that looks like X-Files meets The Exorcist. The series follows a priest-in-training, a skeptical psychologist, and a carpenter who investigate the Churchs backlog of unexplained mysteries, including supposed miracles, demonic possessions and hauntings. Their job is to determine whether there is a logical explanation for each case or if theres a supernatural force at work. Along the way, they begin to examine the nature of evil itself. BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA From award-winning creator, executive producer and writer Chuck Lorre, Bob Hearts Abishola is a love story about a middle-aged compression sock businessman from Detroit who unexpectedly falls for his cardiac nurse, a Nigerian immigrant, while recovering from a heart attack and sets his sights on winning her over. Undaunted by Abisholas (Folake Olowofoyeku) lack of initial interest or the vast differences in their backgrounds, Bob (Billy Gardell) is determined to win Abisholas heart, in this comedic examination of immigrant life in America. The cast includes Billy Gardell as Bob, Folake Olowofoyeku as Abishola, Christine Ebersole as Dottie, Matt Jones as Douglas, Maribeth Monroe as Christine, Vernee Watson as Gloria, Shola Adewusi as Auntie Olu, Barry Shabaka Henley as Uncle Tunde and Travis Wolfe Jr. as Dele. Chuck Lorre, Eddie Gorodetsky, Al Higgins and Beth McCarthy-Miller (pilot only) are executive producers for Chuck Lorre Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. McCarthy-Miller directed the pilot from a script by Lorre, Gorodetsky, Higgins and Gina Yashere. CAROLS SECOND ACT Emmy Award winner Patricia Heaton stars in Carols Second Act, a comedy about a woman who embarks on a unique second act after raising her children, getting divorced and retiring from teaching: pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor. At age 50, Carol is a medical intern and must sink or swim with peers who are half her age. Its her enthusiasm, perspective and yes, even her age, that may be exactly what will make her second act a great success. The cast includes Patricia Heaton as Carol Kenney, Kyle MacLachlan as Dr. Frost, Ito Aghayere as Dr. Maya Jacobs, Jean-Luc Bilodeau as Daniel and Sabrina Jalees as Lexie. Lucas Neff guest stars as Caleb. Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins; Patricia Heaton, Adam Griffin, David Hunt and Rebecca Stay (Four Boys Entertainment); Aaron Kaplan and Dana Honor (Kapital Entertainment); and Pamela Fryman (pilot only) are executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Fryman directed the pilot from a script by Halpern and Haskins. THE UNICORN A single-camera comedy about a tight-knit group of best friends and family who helps Wade (Walton Goggins) embrace his new normal in the wake of the loss of his wife one year ago. As a sometimes ill-equipped but always devoted single parent to his two adolescent daughters, he is taking the major step of dating again. To Wades amazement, hes a hot commodity with women, and his friends explain that hes the perfect single guy a unicorn: employed, attractive, and with a proven track record of commitment. With his daughters and best friends rooting him on and hoping hell find happiness again, Wade and his healing heart are ready to try life and love again. The cast includes Walton Goggins as Wade, Rob Corddry as Forrest, Michaela Watkins as Delia, Omar Benson Miller as Ben, Maya Lynne Robinson as Michelle, Ruby Jay as Grace, and Makenzie Moss as Natalie. Bill Martin, Mike Schiff, Aaron Kaplan, Dana Honor, Wendi Trilling, Peyton Reed, and John Hamburg (pilot only) are executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Hamburg directed the pilot from a script by Martin and Schiff. MIDSEASON FBI: MOST WANTED A high-stakes drama that focuses on the Fugitive Task Force, which relentlessly tracks and captures the notorious criminals on the Bureaus Most Wanted list. Seasoned agent Jess LaCroix (Julian McMahon) oversees the highly skilled team that functions as a mobile undercover unit that is always out in the field, pursuing those who are most desperate to elude justice. The cast includes Julian McMahon as Jess LaCroix, Alana De La Garza as Isobel Castille, Keisha Castle-Hughes as Hana Gibson, Kellan Lutz as Crosby, Roxy Sternberg as Sheryll Barnes and Nathaniel Arcand as Clinton Skye. Dick Wolf, Rene Balcer, Arthur W. Forney and Peter Jankowski are executive producers for Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television in association with CBS Television Studios. Fred Berner directed the pilot from a script by Balcer. TOMMY Multiple Emmy Award winner Edie Falco stars in Tommy as a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. A true blue New Yorker, Abigail Tommy Thomas (Falco) uses her unflinching honesty and hardball tactics to keep social, political and national security issues from hindering effective law enforcement in the Southland. Equal parts political, procedural and family drama, Tommy comes from Paul Attanasio, the creator of the acclaimed series Bull, House M.D. and Homicide: Life on the Street. The cast includes stars Edie Falco as Abigail Tommy Thomas, Michael Chernus as Ken Rosey, Adelaide Clemens as Blake Sullivan, David Fierro as Buddy Boyardi, Russell G. Jones as Aurelius Looper, Olivia Lucy Phillip as Kate Jones, and Joseph Lyle Taylor as Treat Dudik. Paul Attanasio, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey and Kate Dennis (pilot only) are executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Kate Dennis directed the pilot from a script by Attanasio. BROKE A comedy about Jackie ( Pauley Perrette), a single suburban mother whos shocked when her estranged sister, Elizabeth (Natasha Leggero), her sisters outrageously wealthy, big-hearted husband, Javier (Camil), and Javiers fiercely loyal assistant/driver/friend, Luis (Izzy Diaz), land on her doorstep in need of a place to live after the couples money dries up. Though class differences may separate the women, and the size of the house and the number of people living in it will test the limits of family ties, the familial bond of sisterhood might be the catalyst they need to restore their relationship. The cast includes stars Jaime Camil as Javier, Pauley Perrette as Jackie, Natasha Leggero as Elizabeth, Izzy Diaz as Luis and Antonio Corbo as Sammy. Alex Herschlag (Will & Grace, Modern Family), Jennie Snyder Urman (Jane the Virgin), Joanna Klein, Ben Silverman, Jaime Camil, Guillermo Restrepo, Gonzalo Cilley and Maria Lucia Hernandez are executive producers for CBS Television Studio/Sutton Street Prods./Propagate, with creative partners RCN TV and Resonant TV. Victor Gonzalez directed the pilot from a script by Herschlag. The CW BATWOMAN Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) never planned to be Gothams new vigilante. Three years after Batman mysteriously disappeared, Gotham is a city in despair. Without the Caped Crusader, the Gotham City Police Department was overrun and outgunned by criminal gangs. Enter Jacob Kane (Dougray Scott) and his military-grade Crows Private Security, which now protects the city with omnipresent firepower and militia. Years before, Jacobs first wife and daughter were killed in the crossfire of Gotham crime. He sent his only surviving daughter, Kate Kane, away from Gotham for her safety. After a dishonorable discharge from military school and years of brutal survival training, Kate returns home when the Alice in Wonderland gang targets her father and his security firm, by kidnapping his best Crow officer Sophie Moore (Meagan Tandy). Although remarried to wealthy socialite Catherine Hamilton-Kane (Elizabeth Anweis), who bankrolls the Crows, Jacob is still struggling with the family he lost, while keeping Kate the daughter he still has at a distance. But Kate is a woman whos done asking for permission. In order to help her family and her city, shell have to become the one thing her father loathes a dark knight vigilante. With the help of her compassionate stepsister, Mary (Nicole Kang), and the crafty Luke Fox (Camrus Johnson), the son of Wayne Enterprises tech guru Lucius Fox, Kate Kane continues the legacy of her missing cousin, Bruce Wayne, as Batwoman. Still holding a flame for her ex-girlfriend, Sophie, Kate uses everything in her power to combat the dark machinations of the psychotic Alice (Rachel Skarsten), whos always somewhere slipping between sane and insane. Armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, Kate soars through the shadowed streets of Gotham as Batwoman. But dont call her a hero yet. In a city desperate for a savior, she must first overcome her own demons before embracing the call to be Gothams symbol of hope. Based on the characters from DC, Batwoman is written by Caroline Dries, who executive produces with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Geoff Johns, David Nutter, and director Marcos Siega. Batwoman is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. KATY KEENE A Riverdale spinoff, Katy Keene follows the lives and loves of four iconic Archie Comics characters fashion legend-to-be Katy Keene (Lucy Hale), singer/songwriter Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), performer Jorge Lopez/Ginger (Jonny Beauchamp), and It Girl Pepper Smith (Julia Chan) as they chase their twenty-something dreams in New York Citytogether. Katy designs clothes for anyone she can, including her friend and roommate Josie, whose singing talent catches the attention of Alexander Cabot (Lucien Laviscount), a CEO who hopes to reboot the record label division of his fathers corporate empire. But Alexanders dream of signing Josie to a recording contract meets resistance from Cabot Medias powerful senior vice president Alexandra (Camille Hyde), who also happens to be his twin sister. Josie and Katys roommate Jorge works at his familys bodega and has his eye on Broadway, but after a series of rejections, he hopes to take his drag performance career as Ginger to the next level. The mysterious Pepper Smith plans to open her own version of Andy Warhols Factory. She has the connections, but no one seems to know where she got her money or if she really has any at all. Katy struggles to manage the pressures of her day job at Lacys Department Store and her very demanding boss, Gloria (Katherine LaNasa), who is a legendary personal shopper. But Katy has the support of her longtime boyfriend, KO Kelly (Zane Holtz), who has his own dream of becoming a professional boxer. As these aspiring artists take on the runway, the recording studio, Broadway, and the NYC social scene, they will find more than just a career in the big city theyll find long-lasting friendship. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Michael Grassi write, while Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Archie Comics CEO and Publisher Jon Goldwater executive produce along with director Maggie Kiley. The Riverdale spinoff is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios. NANCY DREW Nancy Drew (Kennedy McMann) is a brilliant teenaged detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine until her mothers untimely death derails Nancys college plans. Devastated by her mothers passing, Nancy swears off crime-solving while crossing off the days until she can re-apply to college. But when a socialite is murdered, Nancy finds herself a prime suspect in the crime, along with a group of other teens present at the scene: Nancys nemesis from high school, George Fan (Leah Lewis); a rich girl with a mysterious past, Bess Marvin (Maddison Jaizani); Nancys secret boyfriend, Ned Nick Nickerson (Tunji Kasim), and amiable burnout Ace (Alex Saxon). The five of them must team up to clear their own names encountering emotional entanglements and even more mysteries along the way. Nancys reawakening brings her into conflict with her widowed father, Carson Drew (Scott Wolf), who is dating Detective Karen Hart (Alvina August). And, when a supernatural presence begins to haunt Nancys investigation, she discovers that the current crime has an astonishing connection to the unsolved murder of a local girl. Whether the ghost is here to help, or hinder Nancy remains to be seen, but one things for sure: Nancys going to have to unravel the clues from both the living and the dead to solve the crimes. Nancy Drew will star newcomer Kennedy McMann, and Scott Wolf player her father, replacing originally cast Freddie Prinze Jr. Noga Landau, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage write and executive produce along with Lis Rowinski. Melinda Hsu Taylor is also an Executive Producer. Director Larry Teng co-executive produces. Nancy Drew is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Fake Empire. Read original story Fall TV 2019: Watch Trailers for the New Broadcast Shows At TheWrap Photo credit: Getty Images From Esquire Time is going to honor Adam Serwer for defining in simple fashion the Republican Party that has been built in this country over the past five decades, and for summing up in a sentence the ultimate manifestation of the prion disease that has been eating away the party's higher functions ever since Ronald Reagan fed it the monkeybrains in the late 1970s, that ultimate manifestation being the current presidency*. The cruelty is the point. In Alabama on Tuesday evening, the state senate voted to approve a measure that would ban virtually all abortions in that state, a measure that its own sponsors admit was designed to force a final challenge to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. From the good people at AL.com: The bill passed exactly as it was introduced by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, about six weeks ago. It includes only one exception -- to allow abortions in cases of a serious health risk to the woman. The goal is to trigger a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade. I would say that were all very pleased to have this done, Collins said at a press conference after the vote. Were excited about the possibilities that it could mean. Its been difficult at times, and then at times its been really good. I felt really good about it all the way through. Amendments that would have carved out exceptions in the law in cases of rape and/or incest were resoundingly defeated. As is typical of this kind of law, and of the kind of politicians who would support it, there's a whole layer of complete chickenshit at its heart. Under the bill, a woman receiving an abortion would not be criminally liable. The doctor would be charged with a Class A felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison. See? A lot more women vote than do doctors. And it achieves the same outcome. Also, this is guaranteed to drive more doctors out of a state that's already second only to Mississippi in its infant mortality rate, so that's a thing. Story continues And, lastly, there's this cat, Clyde Chambliss, the Pride of Prattville, who was one of the prime movers of the law, and who was asked whether in vitro fertilization clinics that discard embryos could be criminally liable under this new law. Of course not, Chambliss replies. After all, people Chambliss knows might need to use those. "The egg in the lab doesnt apply. Its not in a woman. Shes not pregnant." Photo credit: Getty Images Game? Given away. This wasn't about protecting god's little embryos. It was about asserting control over women, taking away their physical autonomy in the most intimate fashion. Are you a victim of rape? Chambliss has an answer for that, too. Figures questioned Chambliss about the opposition to the rape and incest exception and its effect on victims of those acts. To take that choice away from that person who had such a traumatic act committed against them, to be left with the residue of that person, if you will, Figures said. To have to bring that child into this world and be reminded of that every single day. Some people can do that. Some people can. But some cant. But why would you not want a woman to at least have that exception for such a horrific act? Chambliss said, Because I believe that when that unborn child becomes a person that we need legal guidance on when that is." But that is not your business, Figures said. You dont have to raise that child. You dont have to carry that child. You dont have to provide for that child. You dont have to do anything for that child. You want to make that decision for that woman that thats what she has to do. I want to make the decision for that child, Chambliss said. Chambliss, of course, is a Penis-American in good standing, so why shouldn't his judgment prevail over those of thousands of Alabama women who he'll never meet? He is a Republican, full in the flush of the prion disease, and so were all 25 state senators who voted for this act of oppressive cruelty. And so is Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who has not yet said whether she will veto it, but which way are you betting? In any case, the legislature could override a veto by a simple majority vote of both houses of the state legislature. Overlooked in the sensation surrounding the Alabama bill was a decision by the Department of Justice aimed at making it easier for states to kill people in grotesque fashion. From CNN: "We conclude that articles intended for use in capital punishment by a state or the federal government cannot be regulated as 'drugs' or 'devices' under the (Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act)," Steven A. Engel, the head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in a 26-page legal opinion signed May 3. "FDA accordingly lacks jurisdiction to regulate such articles for that intended use." This was in response to an FDA crackdown on the substances used to poison inmates to death, and to an injunction granted by a federal court in 2012 aimed at blocking the importation of these drugs on the grounds that they were "unapproved and misbranded" for use in killing people. The DOJ now has said that the FDA has no authority over any drug that can be used by the government to kill people. The FDA, the Justice Department said, can't regulate an article that's intended for capital punishment in the US. "FDA did not expressly assert the authority to regulate articles intended for use in executions at any time before 2017, and we believe that such an assertion cannot be reconciled with the [Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act] and other federal law." The Department of Justice simply does not care how barbaric a state might want to be in its efforts to kill people. The cruelty is the point. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) At their lavish wedding at a Utah resort, heiress Andi Potamkin and celebrity hairstylist William Jordan Blackmore exchanged rings and said, I do. Their friend and yoga instructor, Dana Rizer, officiated and pronounced the couple married during the November 2015 ceremony. But the wedding was a sham, Blackmore, 35, alleges in a federal lawsuit obtained by PEOPLE, since the couple were never legally married because Andi allegedly told Rizer not to become ordained. The lawsuit claims this elaborate ruse was concocted by Andi, 30, and her multi-millionaire car dealer father, Alan Potamkin, 70, who was concerned that Blackmore would not sign a prenuptial agreement (which he ended up signing). It all came out after Andi told Blackmore in December that she no longer wanted to be together. The truth was that Andi never wanted to marry Jordan; she just wanted a lavish wedding experience, a public-relations stunt and the attention that came with it, according to court papers filed in Brooklyn. Guests were flown in by private jet and included the actress Elizabeth Olsen and actress Alexis Nichole Smith, according to the New York Post, which first reported about the suit. During the celebratory weekend at the Amangiri resort, there were guided walks, zip-lining and yoga classes; frequent outfit changes were encouraged, and a high-end fashion magazine that covered the event described it as [t]he dreamiest desert wedding youve ever seen, according to court papers. RELATED: Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries Wedding Was 7 Years Ago: Remembering Their 72-Day Marriage Blackmore a New York City-based hairdresser whose clients he says have included Marc Jacobs, Leighton Meester, Andre Balazs, Elizabeth Olsen, Brian Atwood and Selena Gomez is suing Andi and her father in excess of $2 million for fraud and seeks to nullify the prenup and have a jury trial, according to court papers. Story continues Blackmore has also filed documents to get the wedding recognized in Utah, according to the lawsuit. And so has Andi, according to a statement emailed to PEOPLE by her lawyer, Jennifer Altman. Both parties agree that they had a beautiful destination wedding, that they were very much in love, and that they lived together as husband and wife, the statement says. Indeed, both parties have filed to recognize the marriage in the state of Utah, Altman adds. There is a prenuptial agreement signed by both parties that sets forth the terms under which the assets will be distributed upon divorce. While it is unfortunate that the marriage has ended, the failure of a marriage does not justify Mr. Blackmores use of the legal process as a manifestation of his disappointment. RELATED: Fake German Heiress Found Guilty of Stealing $200,000 From NYC Elite in Massive Scam However, in January, Andi apparently emailed Blackmore a draft separation agreement describing their wedding as a symbolic ceremony that did not constitute a legally binding marriage, according to court papers. And since they were, in fact, never married to each other, the prenup was never in effect, Andi allegedly wrote, according to the lawsuit. Blackmores attorney, Matthew Coogan, tells PEOPLE in an emailed statement, Andi and Alan Potamkins current change of position is all too convenient an effort to distance themselves from the Machiavellian fraud perpetrated on Jordan Blackmore for over three years. The falsity of their current statement is made explicitly clear by their own words and documents, Coogan continues. It is highly unfortunate that the Potamkins are apparently incapable of owning up to their wrongdoing and have forced Mr. Blackmore to pursue legal remedies. Santas Mailbag Audio Article Dear Santa, Hi it is me, Ryder. I have been bad and good this year. For Christmas, I would like a Nintendo Switch, a game, a Beyblade arena, and a Minecraft Lego set. I hope you have a safe trip! I will leave a gingerbread house for you on Christmas... Malta-McConnelsville Rotary, family friend remember Doc Richmond Audio Article Last week, The Herald released a series of statements from family, friends and community members remembering local titans Doc and Sally Richmond. The pages of last weeks paper could not contain the incredible outpouring of love for these two individuals. Here are two other statements The Herald received. First, the... Morgan students give various presentations at December board meeting Audio Article The December meeting of the Morgan Local School District Board of Education took place on Monday, Dec. 13, and featured several students providing details of recent school-related trips. After the meeting was called to order and the minutes from the November meeting approved, the meeting moved onto staff presentations. High... IT Director deals with phone issues and records retention Audio Article This is the November 2021 report from Jeff Babcock, IT Director Several changes were made to the Clerk of Courts voicemail setup. Somehow, the office voicemail was set to go to a nonexistent email address. This issue was resolved, and voicemail is now working normally. Changes were also made to... BBB Scam Alert: Receive a text with a surprise offer? Dont click that link! Audio Article Everyone loves a deal including scammers. Con artists often offer too good to be true discounts in the hope that price-conscious consumers will jump on these deals without doing their research. Recently, BBB Scam Tracker has seen numerous reports of scammers impersonating well-known companies and offering discounts, some of... WSCC student motivated by family to persevere Audio Article Like many adult learners, Washington State Community Colleges (WSCC) Student of the Month, Megan Boyd, enrolled in college to set a good example for her children. Greater still, she felt compelled to earn her degree to provide her family with security as they face an uncertain tomorrow. Boyds decision to... The 145th Kentucky Derby was a wild ride, and now jockey Luiz Saez is suspended for 15 days following his performance during the competition. Saez was riding Maximum Security, who was first named the winner of the Derby before, minutes later, an inquiry ruling named Country House as the official champion. The reversal came after jockey Flavien Prat filed a riders objection claiming Maximum Security had impeded the path in the final turn. The objection was upheld following an extensive review. It was the first time in Derby history that a horse who crossed the finish line first was disqualified due to a race riding incident. RELATED: Country House Wins the 145th Kentucky Derby Over Maximum Security in Historic Reversal Now Saez is suffering the consequences as well, suspended for failure to control his mount and make the proper effort to maintain a straight course thereby causing interference with several rivals that resulted in the disqualification of his mount, according to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. His attorney, Ann Oldfather, told ESPN that they plan to appeal the decision. If the appeal is not successful, Saez will be barred from riding on any track for 15 racing days, which includes May 23-27, May 30-June 2, June 6-9, and June 13-14. Fifteen days, in my opinion, is making a statement by the stewards of Kentucky, seventh-place finisher War of Will trainer Mark Casse told ESPN. He explained that a typical suspension is usually three to five days. RELATED VIDEO: Cost of Attending the Kentucky Derby During a film review session on May 10, Oldfather presented a video to the Churchill Downs stewards claiming that War of Will and his jockey Tyler Gaffalione were the ones responsible for the incident, not Saez and Maximum Security, ESPN reported. While some racing fans may have hoped to see Country House try to pull off the Triple Crown winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes all in the same year he will not be competing in Preakness, which is scheduled for May 18. The daughter of Norways king and queen has found love with an American shaman to the stars. Earlier this week, Princess Martha Louise of Norway shared an Instagram post confirming her romance with Shaman Durek (a.k.a. Derek Verrett). When you meet your twin flame, you know. I have been lucky enough to have met mine, she captioned a series of snaps. @shamandurek has changed my life, like he does with so many. He has made me realize that unconditional love actually exists here on this planet. He embraces all of me without question or fear. He makes me laugh more than anyone, has the most profound wisdom to share and all the bits in between from the diversity of his being. The 47-year-old royal, whose parents are King Harald V and Queen Sonja, continued, I feel so happy and blessed that he is my boyfriend. Thank you my love, for including me so generously into your family. I love you from this eternity to the next. Durek describes himself as a spiritual guide and gifted healer, according to his website. He has gained a celebrity following, sharing photos on social media with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Nina Dobrev and James Van Der Beek. Origins is a recurring feature that provides artists a chance to pull back the veil on the various inspirations behind their latest song. You can learn a lot when youre both a member of Neil Youngs backing band, Promise of the Real, and the son of Willie Nelson. Not only do you have the chance to learn some of their musical tricks, but you get to absorb wisdom from two of the most important minds in Americana. Micah Nelson, who happens to be have had these privileges for most of his life, is putting all those lessons to good use on his latest album as Particle Kid, Window Rock. Due out July 26th via OAR, the record finds Nelson turning his future folk microscope onto the existential crises plaguing our world. Together with co-producer Harlan Steinberger, Micah employed recording techniques that blend analog tapes with modern mixing tech, something he picked up from his work with Young. He recorded with his touring band drummer Tony Peluso and bassist Jeff Smith in Venice, Californias Hen House Studios. The results are as intimate in their psychedelic vastness as they are warm in their bedroom tones. Lead single Stroboscopic Light, for example, has a sense of chaos in the tumbling layers of sound, but threaded throughout is a hopefulness winding its way between the cacophony. Its an appropriate mix of madness and optimism, as Nelson says the track tackles our oversaturated post-modern age of narcissistic extremism and hyper-normalization. Take a listen to Stroboscopic Light below via its accompanying video, which Nelson describes as an abstract portrait of an extraterrestrial detective sent to Earth to investigate and document what the hell happened, but who discovers only madness, the fracturing of reality, and a planet in moral crisis, where the lines between good and evil have become blurred and undefined. Get ready for a trip: Story continues Pre-orders for Window Rock are going on now. Particle Kid will tour behind the effort throughout summer, including dates with The Flaming Lips, Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real, and Claypool Lennon Delirium. Check the schedule and then head here to snag tickets. For more on the depths explored on Stroboscopic Light, Nelson has broken down the songs many existential Origins. Alan Watts Taoist View of the Universe: Taoist View of the Universe particle kid origins The idea that the concepts of good and evil are not universal truths, but human projections is something I think about often. This might come off to some as a form of cosmic pessimism however depressing and hopeless some of my songs may seem, they should not be mistaken as pessimistic or misanthropic without any constructive solution. The solution is the song itself, the act of making art from a sense of futility of turning the impulse of apathetic hopelessness into something, anything. Music is what feelings sound like. In my experience, cosmic pessimism is just a gateway drug to Taoism or maybe it is Taoisms evil twin! Just kidding. Im not misanthropic Im just not a human-supremacist. John Lennon and Yoko Onos Bagism: John Lennon has been in my consciousness since before I can even remember. Ive always appreciated his no-bullshit approach just gimme some truth!! Even when it came to total psychedelic nonsense I always believed what John Lennon was singing. One of my favorite records is Plastic Ono Band its so refreshingly raw and painfully real and perfectly imperfect like a private cathartic journal. I remember really digging that record while writing a lot of the songs for Window Rock. Sonic Youth and Neil Youngs Alternate Tunings: Stroboscopic Light is in an alternate tuning called C Modal. Actually all the strings are tuned a half step down from that, so I guess its actually B ModaI I love alternate tunings Ive been experimenting with them for years. Neil Young has been a great mentor to me and has taught me some cool tunings and weird chords that have given him some of his greatest songs. Simply detuning a string or two on the guitar opens up a whole other dimension of sonic and emotional possibilities and can make an otherwise boring two chord song take on a new uncanny cinematic depth. The band I probably admire the most especially when it comes to alternate tunings is Sonic Youth. They may never know it, but they definitely helped me write this song. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein: the shock doctrine particle kid origins When I was a kid growing up the world always seemed to be ending tomorrow from Y2K, to 9/11, to the bullshit Iraq war, Dick Cheney raping America, 2012, climate change, etc Even being as lucky as I am to have had a great childhood, the world was still terrifying as fuck, and it seems to keep getting scarier. Its so easy to get the fear just reading the news every day on yer phone but giving in to the fear makes us more susceptible to manipulation and control that is why art and humor (and lots of good coffee) will probably save us all (if we let it!). When I was 15 my mom was reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. My mom has always been an outspoken activist. She would take me and my brother to protests in Washington as teenagers. One year we spent mothers day at a 24-hour war protest outside the White House during the Cheney administration. We were in the midst of the Iraq war, post 9/11, Cheney capitalizing off of the nations suffering, Citizens United hammering the final nail into the coffin of democracy. And this book The Shock Doctrine nailed the whole situation on the head. It traces the origins of disaster capitalism back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which created many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence seems to permeate Washington now. I understand that there may actually be no ultimate meaning or purpose to anything Im doing or singing about, but it doesnt matter because it makes life way more tolerable and interesting! All we have is now. Adam Curtis HyperNormalisation: The corporate media in the US funding these neo-extremist political voices on both ends of the spectrum have made us all victims of hypernormalisation. The major head fuck frosting on the top of the cake is that we are all aware of it at this point and the ones perpetuating it dont even try to hide it, in fact they want us to know it. It keeps us stuck in a sort of Foucault-ian prison where the guards have no faces and the prison bars are invisible and we pick a side and try to stand for some sort of cause only to realize our cause was a lie and the ground under our righteous ideology crumbles because it was designed and funded to divide and control us in the first place by the same people who designed and funded the opposing extremist movement. We are basically already living inside The Matrix or at least the shitty prototype model!! I cant help but write and sing about what I observe in this world and I see a lot of corporate culture profiteering from the suffering of people and planet, trying to dominate every corner of everything until nothing is wild or free and art is dead. That doesnt mean we cant have a great time rebelling against it! It also doesnt mean singing a song about it will make a difference, but that isnt the point. Protests in general dont tend to make an immediate difference, but that is missing the point too. Haskell Wexler once said something about how protests matter because its people coming together around a cause, and regardless of whether the politicians or rulers even notice them and change the law the next day, more importantly the people are able to recognize each other and know they are far from alone. I believe that ultimately change comes from within each of us. There are many things nature has already given us on the outside and inside to heal ourselves and let go of the things that keep us stuck in the Matrix transcendental meditation, psychedelic plants brain scans have shown both of those tools to wake up the entire brain in the same way I believe that knowing ourselves, our truest selves beyond whatever role we happen to be playing at any given time by taking the time to familiarize ourselves with the deepest subtlest realms of the subconscious mind, is the most potent way to bring positivity into the world, while knowing that while we are here in this temporal dimension, stuck in time and duality, there cannot be positivity without negativity, and to reconcile that is to know peace and balance within ourselves and lots of good coffee helps too!! Emily Manley, of Iowa, says she never imagined that taking time off from work to give birth would lead to a hefty bill. Manley, who has a 3-month-old son Jettson, says her former employer is forcing her to pay over $2,600 after she switched jobs following her paid maternity leave, according to WHO-TV. She said the employer demanded the payment in full right away. (Manley has asked to keep the companys name private.) It was kind of a shock. I wasnt prepared for it. I wasnt ready for it, but I knew it was a possibility, Manley, 30, told the station. I didnt know it would happen that fast and that I would have to pay it back that fast. She said the employer sent her the bill when she gave her two weeks notice, with the document stating that she owed the company for healthcare costs and the paid time off she was required to use, according to WHO. The company did not offer paid maternity leave, according to Yahoo. So, the new mom turned to the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which entitles some employees to up to 12 work weeks of leave in a fiscal year. However, in order to utilize the FMLA, Manley had to use all of her paid time off offered by the company, according to WHO. As part of FMLA you are required to take all of your [paid time off] prior to the unpaid portion of leave, she told Yahoo. Manley added to WHO: They had a policy that you had to burn through all of your [paid time off] prior to taking leave, so really you didnt have a choice, you had to take it all before you could start leave. RELATED: Heiress Scammed Celebrity Hairstylist Into Lavish Wedding & Sham Marriage as PR Stunt: Lawsuit So thats what she did. She used her paid time off from her company for about a month before beginning her FMLA leave in February. During her time off, she received a job offer that, she said, seemed too good to be true. Story continues While on leave I saw an opening with a company that I had worked with previously and they offer benefits that are much better for a young family, she told Yahoo. This new position is healthier for me, our son and my family. She took the job and began working with the new company in April. She said her former employer told her she has until the end of June to pay up. Its a lot of money to us. We did our best to save when we got pregnant, knowing that we had bills coming, and did our best for that, but its kind of hard to prepare, she told WHO. I can understand the companys point of view, but at the same time, to do that to a young family is really difficult to be on the other side of it. RELATED: Why Prince Harry Is Not Taking Paternity Leave After Birth of Son Archie However, company officials told WHO that the deadline is completely fair given the length of time that has already elapsed since first starting maternity leave that was covered by FMLA on February 11th. Manley told Yahoo that fees from taking any legal action would cost more than the bill. Now, Manley said she is sharing her story to warn other families. Im not here to ask for money or give a poor me story, I am sharing my story in hopes if other women are out there on leave and looking for a new job, and dont think that their company would do this they might! Manley said. Having a child really makes you think about your job, whats important in life and what you want out of a job. In the end, Im glad I switched and now work for a wonderful company that respects me as a mother and employee. Rapper Kodak Black was denied bond and will not be released from jail anytime soon. Federal prosecutors scored a big win Wednesday by getting a decision reversed that allowed Kodak to bond out. A judge ordered the rapper will not be allowed to pay his way out of jail, for now. As we reported, Kodak [] Kodak Black Kodak Black may never even get to taste freedom after he bonds out of federal custody, because officials in South Carolina have already moved to revoke his bond in an ongoing sexual assault case. According to court records, officials in Florence County, South Carolina filed a motion Wednesday to revoke bond after the rappers arrest in Miami. Kodak was arrested back in April after allegedly forcing a high school girl into bed and committing sexual battery. She later reported the alleged attack to her school nurse, and also claimed the rapper bit her on the neck and on the breast. The girl, who was over 18 when the act allegedly occurred, was also given a rape kit after she reported the incident. The rapper eventually bonded out of jail for $100,000. Kodak put up his house for collateral Wednesday in federal court, after he had been accused of lying on applications for firearms. It appears officials in South Carolina want his bond revoked after learning of the federal charges. Were told officials have up to 48 hours to release the rapper or appeal the bond he was given, and his legal team is unsure if or when he will get out. The post Officials Move to Revoke Kodak Blacks Bond in South Carolina Sexual Assault Case appeared first on The Blast. The Who just launched their Moving On! Tour, an expansive 25-date outing which will see Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend perform nightly alongside a full orchestra, with support provided by Liam Gallagher, Reignwolf, and more. However, for all of that to go on without a hitch, Daltrey has one special request: please do not toke up at the bands concerts. As we learned during The Whos previous world tour, Daltrey is very allergic to pot smoke and the mere presence of it causes his voice to shut down. In fact, he almost walked off the stage mid-way through a concert in Long Island after the smoke became too overwhelming. It seems some Who fans didnt get the memo, as Daltrey once again came face to face with the mary jane during The Whos tour kick-off in New York on Monday night. All the ones smoking grass down in the front there, Im totally allergic to it, Daltrey told the crowd at one point. Im not kidding, whoever it is down there, you fucked my night and you made me really Im allergic to that shit and my voice just goes [slurps]. So fuck you! (No wonder Jenny Lewis didnt get an invite to open a show.) The Whos tour continues tomorrow in Noblesville, Indiana, and tickets are still available via LiveNation. You can also get them on the secondary market here. Photo credit: Mike Kim From Esquire Update: If you missed out on the last restock, dry those tears: The Q Timex is back once more. Don't hesitate to pick one up, though. This watch has already sold out in less than 24 hours on two separate occasions. And if you like to learn more about how the watch came to be, check out our original piece on it from May 15, 2019, below. SHOP NOW Timex was founded way back in 1854, which means the brand has a whole lot of history to work with. And for the past couple of years, the Connecticut-based company has been pushing hard to show watch fans just how valuable those extensive archives can be, reissuing classic timepieces and letting vintage designs inspire new ones. "When you go to the archive, it's a joy. It's discovery," says Timex designer Giorgio Galli. "Every time, I would like to reissue everything I see." Of course, Galli and the rest of the team can't actually reissue every watch. So it all comes down to choosing styles that are as relevant to the brand's history as they are to modern tastes. The newly reissued Q Timex delivers on both frontsand we've got the exclusive ticket for you to shop it a full day early. Originally released in the 1970s, the Q was a major step forward for Timex. It represented the brand's entree into the quartz revolution, when mechanical movements gave way to more-accurate, quartz-driven ones. From the modern perspectiveat a time when quartz is an affordable standardthis might not seem so shocking. But at the time it was a huge deal. Now, Galli explains, having an automatic movement is a selling point for discerning watch fans. "In those days, it was quartz." To pay homage to the era, Timex kept the original "Q" logo for the watch, situated just under the 12 o'clock marker. And that's not the only element that's true to the archival version: The 38mm case size, woven metal bracelet, and functional battery hatch on the caseback are all in line with the first iteration of the Q Timex. Story continues Photo credit: Mike Kim "We fell in love with it immediately," Galli explains. "The 1970s style was speaking well to what we have on our line right now. It fits what we're doing, and it fits what we've done so far." Of course, this being 2019, the watch is updated with a modern quartz movement and a stainless steel case and band. The idea isn't to simply recreate an old watch, but to channel its DNA into something that works right now. "We're trying to take the brand to the future, not just use our past," Galli says. "But the fact that we have such a great historyexpertise, craftsmanshipit's vital for a watch brand. At our price point, there arent that many brands that can say they have such a great past." Photo credit: Mike Kim About that price point: The Q Timex costs just $179. In the world of watcheswhere things can easily tick into the quadruple digitsthat's a damn steal. Especially when you consider the throwback styling and the history behind it. The Q isn't a dive watch, exactlymore of an "urban diver," as Galli says. But the red-and-blue bezel, the hits of gold, and that distinctive bracelet are hallmarks of that design tradition, and enough to catch pretty much anyone's eye. It's been fascinating, discovering this American icon," says Galli, whos based in Milan, and part of the Italian Timex team. He doesn't underestimate the power of having pieces like the Q in the archives. "To be able to work on this and shape some of the brand's future, it's definitely exciting." You Might Also Like The producers behind Southern Charm are asking a judge to let them out of the assault lawsuit brought by Thomas Ravenels former nanny, saying the woman signed away her rights when she appeared on the reality show. According to court documents obtained by The Blast, the shows producers, along with Bravo, are asking to be [] Thoams Ravenel Southern Charm The producers behind Southern Charm are asking a judge to let them out of the assault lawsuit brought by Thomas Ravenels former nanny, saying the woman signed away her rights when she appeared on the reality show. According to court documents obtained by The Blast, the shows producers, along with Bravo, are asking to be let out of the case brought by Dawn Ledwell. The producers point to two releases that Ledwell signed to appear on Southern Charm as an unpaid voluntary participant. They claim she even signed one release after the alleged assault by Ravenel. Bravo and producers claim the releases are specific in saying that any issue will be heard in arbitration in New York and not in South Carolina court. They want the entire case dismissed as a result. Last year, Ledwell sued the reality star for an alleged sexual assault that went down in 2015. She added the producers and Bravo as defendants, claiming they should be partly liable for her damages because she believes they failed to provide adequate security for her and other people who appeared on Southern Charm. RELATED Southern Charm Star Thomas Ravenel Seeks Kathryn Dennis Medical Records in Custody Battle Ledwell also claimed the producers and Bravo created and encouraged plot lines that focused on alcohol, sex, and the concept that male cast members, including Defendant Ravenel, suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome and they are the Lost Boys and Charleston is their Neverland.' In the suit, she claimed to have told the network about the alleged assault and they failed to investigate her accusations. She sued seeking unspecified damages. Ravenel has denied all allegations of assault by Ledwell. 'Southern Charm' cast photos The post Southern Charm Producers Want to Be Let Out of Thomas Ravenels Nannys Sexual Assault Lawsuit appeared first on The Blast. The Late Show host Stephen Colbert took the stage at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday for the late-night hosts annual tradition of mocking CBS at the networks own upfront event.In a five-minute monologue, Colbert ran the gamut with jokes ranging from political to self-referential, though he only made one mention about disgraced former CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves. When his eye turned toward the network itself, Colbert instead went for the reliable target of CBSs aging viewership or the imminent loss of The Big Bang Theory.Read all of Colberts best jokes below.Also Read: CBS Fall Schedule: 'Young Sheldon' Gets 'Big Bang Theory' Time Slot, 'Unicorn' to FollowAs you can see, despite Lindsey Grahams advice, I honored my subpoena to be here today.Todays about you advertisers, you folks work so hard. This is your chance to sit back, relax and let us sell to you. And because I respect you, Im not going to destroy tonights show by interrupting it with commercials. Those things are awful.Before I came here today, I received a massive document from the network, full of details about how well CBS performed this year. Now, I did not have the time to get through it all, so I just read Bill Barrs four-page summary. Turns out, Les Moonves, totally exonerated. I did not see that coming.Were number one, baby! Woo! We won TV! We can stop now. [Pause.] Im being told we cannot stop now, Im sorry.Weve been number one for 11 years. Do you know what that means? That means that there are a lot of old people who dont realize that the TV in the basement has been on for over a decade. No one tell them, please.Also Read: Why CBS Put That Annoying Heart Emoji in the 'Bob Hearts Abishola' TitleWhy is CBS number one? Because were always innovating. Next season well have shows from young up-and-comers like Chuck Lorre.When it comes to finding new voices, CBS will take a chance on anyone who is already on CBS.CBS has some of the highest-rated crime dramas on TV For some reason these days, Americans really want to watch people who obviously committed crimes go to jail for them.Were currently tied first among adults 25-54. Of course, Fox News is still winning toddlers aged 72.Speaking of the demo, two days ago I turned 55. And I just want to thank you for all the years you gave a damn about what I watched Now Im off to Well, again, you dont care.All of our numbers this year were impressive. Even our show numbers, 60 Minutes, Hawaii Five-0, Magnum Pi. That show never repeats itself. I know it seems irrational, but it never does. You dont need Big Bang, I can make math jokes!Also Read: Top CBS Exec on Why 'Bull' Got Renewed After Michael Weatherly Harassment SettlementThe Late Show isnt just number one in late night, were also number one in the 18-49 demo. Tonight we have the Korean supergroup BTS on the show. That brings in the 18-year-olds and the 49-year-olds desperate for something to talk about with their 18-year-olds.Thats just TV, I havent even talked about CBS All Access. Something I have in common with most Americans.I love the new Twilight Zone. Its full of dark, twisted stories from a nightmare reality. Im sorry, thats actually the plot of the CBS Evening News, I read that wrong.Read original story Stephen Colberts Best Jokes at the CBS Upfront: Late Show Host Mocks Trump, CBS All Access and Chuck Lorre At TheWrap The Late Show host Stephen Colbert took the stage at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday for the late-night hosts annual tradition of mocking CBS at the networks own upfront event. In a five-minute monologue, Colbert ran the gamut with jokes ranging from political to self-referential, though he only made one mention about disgraced former CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves. When his eye turned toward the network itself, Colbert instead went for the reliable target of CBSs aging viewership or the imminent loss of The Big Bang Theory. Read all of Colberts best jokes below. Also Read: CBS Fall Schedule: 'Young Sheldon' Gets 'Big Bang Theory' Time Slot, 'Unicorn' to Follow As you can see, despite Lindsey Grahams advice, I honored my subpoena to be here today. Todays about you advertisers, you folks work so hard. This is your chance to sit back, relax and let us sell to you. And because I respect you, Im not going to destroy tonights show by interrupting it with commercials. Those things are awful. Before I came here today, I received a massive document from the network, full of details about how well CBS performed this year. Now, I did not have the time to get through it all, so I just read Bill Barrs four-page summary. Turns out, Les Moonves, totally exonerated. I did not see that coming. Were number one, baby! Woo! We won TV! We can stop now. [Pause.] Im being told we cannot stop now, Im sorry. Weve been number one for 11 years. Do you know what that means? That means that there are a lot of old people who dont realize that the TV in the basement has been on for over a decade. No one tell them, please. Also Read: Why CBS Put That Annoying Heart Emoji in the 'Bob Hearts Abishola' Title Why is CBS number one? Because were always innovating. Next season well have shows from young up-and-comers like Chuck Lorre. When it comes to finding new voices, CBS will take a chance on anyone who is already on CBS. Story continues CBS has some of the highest-rated crime dramas on TV For some reason these days, Americans really want to watch people who obviously committed crimes go to jail for them. Were currently tied first among adults 25-54. Of course, Fox News is still winning toddlers aged 72. Speaking of the demo, two days ago I turned 55. And I just want to thank you for all the years you gave a damn about what I watched Now Im off to Well, again, you dont care. All of our numbers this year were impressive. Even our show numbers, 60 Minutes, Hawaii Five-0, Magnum Pi. That show never repeats itself. I know it seems irrational, but it never does. You dont need Big Bang, I can make math jokes! Also Read: Top CBS Exec on Why 'Bull' Got Renewed After Michael Weatherly Harassment Settlement The Late Show isnt just number one in late night, were also number one in the 18-49 demo. Tonight we have the Korean supergroup BTS on the show. That brings in the 18-year-olds and the 49-year-olds desperate for something to talk about with their 18-year-olds. Thats just TV, I havent even talked about CBS All Access. Something I have in common with most Americans. I love the new Twilight Zone. Its full of dark, twisted stories from a nightmare reality. Im sorry, thats actually the plot of the CBS Evening News, I read that wrong. Read original story Stephen Colberts Best Jokes at the CBS Upfront: Late Show Host Mocks Trump, CBS All Access and Chuck Lorre At TheWrap Student Who Died Trying to Stop Colo. School Shooting Is Honored with Procession of Jeeps Kendrick Castillo's Hearse Escorted by Procession of Jeeps Kendrick Castillo, 18, lost his life last week after lunging at one of the gunmen at the STEM School outside of Denver, Colorado, in an attempt to stop the shooting. Today, his community came together to commemorate Castillo at a celebration of life service. In a show of support for the Jeep-loving teen who had reportedly been saving up to buy a new ride himself the area was packed with hundreds of 4x4s accompanying his hearse to the church. The unique procession was organized by a group called the Colorado Jeep Girls, which originally spread the word on Instagram as more and more Jeepers vowed to show up in solidarity. When the Jeep community started posting that Kendrick was a Jeep enthusiast, I saw the need to get something together to honor him, as well as support his family, Catherine Fanaro, president of the Colorado Jeep Girls, tells PEOPLE via email. Fanaro says she reached out to various administrators of local Jeep clubs, then connected with Castillos family, who approved the Jeep convoy. She hasnt yet received the final count on how many rigs were on site today, but it appears to be a lot, and Fanaro says the presence was incredible and touching. The Jeep procession for Kendrick Castillo | David Zalubowski/AP/REX/Shutterstock According to CNN, Castillos own Jeep was scheduled to be part of the procession, as well as a Jeep belonging to his best friend, Charles Burroughs Jr., who told KCNC, The main thing that we really bonded over was the Jeeps. RELATED: School Shooting Victims Dad Told Him You Dont Have to Be a Hero Castillo was one of a handful of students who allegedly rushed the shooters when the tragedy occurred at his school on May 7. Brendan Bialy, who also tried to lunge at one of the shooters, told NBC Nightly News that Kendrick heroically sprung into action that day: He charged the shooter and was immediately on top of him; complete disregard for his own safety. He was immediately there to respond. He was immediately there on the shooter, and he was ready to end the threat. Story continues A memorial for Kendrick Castillo | David Zalubowski/AP/REX/Shutterstock Another classmate, Nui Giasolli, also told several outlets about Castillos bravery. Kendrick lunged at him and he shot Kendrick, giving all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe and to run out across the room to escape, Giasolli told the Today Show. RELATED: One Student Dead, 7 Injured at Colorado STEM School Shooting Castillo was the only fatal victim in the incident, while eight other students were hospitalized. The two suspects in the shooting, who are 18 and 16 years old, have been charged with 48 counts of murder and attempted murder in addition to other crimes, according to NBC News, CNN, CBS and other outlets. Im proud of our community for stepping up to support his family and honor Kendrick; we are proud to call Kendrick our Jeep family, Fanaro says. A highway in Indiana got a whole new understanding of the term sticky situation. After a semi haul overturned while on Interstate 80/94 in the Hoosier State, some of the 41,000 lbs. of amber honey it was carrying spilled all across the road, mixed with leaking diesel fuel. Ann Wojas, the Indiana State Police Public Information Officer, revealed the news in a series of tweets, where she also explained that the overturn blocked the left 3 lanes from other drivers getting through. Well the semi that has rolled over blocking 3 left lanes east bound at Calumet is hauling syrup which is leaking as is the semis diesel fuel, she tweeted. Expect long delays and closure. Seek alternate routes. Indiana State Police Several hours later, Wojas sent out an additional tweet, explaining that while one lane was opened, the remaining two were still closed. I know I never have good news, she tweeted, including a Bugs Bunny crying meme. BUT we do have 2 lanes opened EB at Calumet. Now the bad-the left 2 lanes are still closed and will be for undetermined time. INDOT out containing, cleaning that honey/diesel up before they can reopen. Long delays and backups! seek alternate routes. RELATED: Hersheys Redesigns Its Chocolate Bar for the First Time in Over 100 Years to Include Emojis According to the Chicago Tribune, the driver of the semi was not injured, and eight more containers of honey were still inside the trailer after the overturn. Police stated that the driver he had just fueled up the tractor-trailer when five containers of honey spilled from the box trailer, followed by the vehicle leaking diesel fuel. The crash resulted in an extreme build up of traffic. Officials also said that both the authorities and the Indiana Department of Transportation were assisting in the cleanup efforts and would be fully inspecting all the lanes before traffic reopened. Comedians often mine their own lives for a good joke, but Kulap Vilaysack bared her soul for a very different purpose. The actress and director set out to explore her family history in her new documentary Origin Story, available on VOD now . The film, which just won the Special Jury award at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Fest, follows as she finally decides to seek out her birth father after decades of pushing the hard truth down. I found out my dad wasnt my real dad when I was 14 and I just didnt ask any questions after that, Vilaysack, now 39, tells PEOPLE. I really just did put it away. And once I said that I wanted to have a family, that just changed for me. Vilaysack decided to bring a camera along as she asked these questions, which became more urgent after she and fellow comedian husband Scott Aukerman started trying to have a family. I think having a camera was like having an unbiased witness to kind of be my second pair of eyes, because memory is so tricky and a lot of the film is about that, she explains. Origin Story | Courtesy Origin Story Vilaysack also says the cameras helped her family open up, including her mother and father, who had never talked about the past while she was growing up. The documentary eventually took her back to her native Laos, where her family is from. Her parents fled the war-torn country during the Vietnam War, when the U.S. military dropped countless bombs into the bordering country. Vilaysack was conceived in a refugee camp and born in Washington D.C. before a Minnesota family sponsored hers and relocated them to the northern state. Decades later, Vilaysack returned as an adult and finally found her past. Though it wasnt an easy journey, and the documentary shows how much she went through emotionally, Vilaysack says shes glad she went through it and found the answers shes always craved. I do have a sense of a weight being lifted off of me, she admits. I feel a sense of freedom that I didnt have before because Im not defining myself by a story that wasnt true or not complete. I really am better off that I was at the beginning of that journey because I have so much more information. And while I thought it was going to go a different way, the way it went was the way it was supposed to. Story continues Origin Story | Courtesy Origin Story She continues, Growing up I always thought I wanted the past to be different than it was, and going through this process, I realized you cant cherry pick the things that happen to you. You cant pick the good stuff. You, as a person, are the sum of all that has ever happened to you and you cant deny certain parts of it just because theyre unpleasant. The type of person who I am, and I am proud of who Ive become, is somebody who has been tested and Im stronger for it. Origin Story is available to stream on Amazon Prime . Woody Allens latest movie will play in theaters in France after U.S. distribution was canceled by Amazon Studios. A Rainy Day in New York starring Timothee Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning and Jude Law will screen in French cinemas starting Sept. 18, Mars Films, a French theatrical distribution company said, according to France24. The movie, which was shot in 2017 and originally set to debut in American theaters in 2018, was indefinitely pushed back by Amazon after sexual assault allegations against Allen became controversial again following the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal. The 83-year-old director was accused in the 90s of sexually assaulting daughter Dylan Farrow when she was 7, though he has repeatedly denied the claims. RELATED: Woody Allen Sues Amazon for $68 Million for Backing Out of Movie Deal Allen sued Amazon for $68 million earlier this year, claiming the streaming giant backed out of four movie deals due to the resurfaced allegations. Allen claims Amazon refused to release A Rainy Day in New York, alleging the streaming company gave vague reasons for dropping the project and his three other movies from development. The streaming giant defended its decision by saying the director sabotag[ed] efforts to promote his films by repeatedly weighing in on the #MeToo movement and the allegations of sexual abuse put forth by Farrow. Woody Allen directing A Rainy Day in New York | James Devaney/GC Images Amazon and Allen signed a four-film agreement in August 2017, just months before Allens son Ronan Farrow published an article in the New Yorker exposing allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein. Just Law, who stars in A Rainy Day in New York, previously told The New York Times its a terrible shame the film was shelved. Id love to see it. People worked really hard and put a lot in, obviously himself included, he said. The Annie Hall director has been defended by those close to him, including his wife Soon-Yi Previn who told New York Magazine in September, Whats happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust, in regards to the backlash he received following Farrows allegation. Witness in Delphi double murder likely afraid to come forward, investigator says Witness in Delphi double murder likely afraid to come forward, investigator says originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com It's been more than two years since young Abby Williams and Libby German were found dead in Delphi, Indiana, but investigators believe they're close to finding their killer. "We are one tip away from success," Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter told "Good Morning America" in an interview airing Wednesday. Carter said his team has received more than 42,000 tips since friends Abby, 13, and Libby, 14, went missing in 2017. The girls, both middle schoolers, vanished after going hiking at Delphi Historic Trails in Indiana on Feb. 13, 2017. Their bodies were found the next day about a half mile away from where they had been dropped off. PHOTO: A sign in Delphi, Indiana, for Abby Williams and Libby German, who disappeared Feb. 14, 2017 and were found dead near a hiking trail. (Lindsey Jacobson/ABC News) Authorities have not released information about how the girls died, but Carter said he believes the killer is hiding within the close-knit Delphi community. He said someone knows who the killer is but is afraid to come forward. (MORE: Teens' unsolved killings are 'open wound' for grandfather on anniversary of mysterious deaths) "If somebody knows something, they need to tell us. I think they're afraid too," he said. "Somebody knows who that person is." Police issued a new sketch last month, showing a male suspect thought to be between 18 and 40 years old. Investigators had previously released a different composite sketch that was "based on a previous witness," according to Carter. "Somebody that commits a horrific crime like this against two little girls probably has shown signs of violence in the past he didn't just all of a sudden decide to do this one day," Carter said. PHOTO: Indiana State Police released a new sketch of the suspect in the unsolved murders of two teen girls. (Indiana State Police) PHOTO: Photos of Abby Williams, left, and Libby German, right, at police headquarters in Delphi, Indiana. (Lindsey Jacobson/ABC News) He said it could be a family member, friend or some other person "that knows something happened after that day" and noticed a change in the suspect. (MORE: Mom hopes composite sketch will help crack unsolved killings of Indiana teens) Story continues Carter said he believes the killer lives in, works in or frequents the Delphi area, but he declined to elaborate on why he believes that. "One day I'll be able to tell you. I can't wait for that day," Carter said. "We are doing everything within our power and when we run out of tips, we're going to start over again." Police arrested an Indiana man in September 2017 that authorities initially said could be related to the killings. Daniel Nations, 31, was taken into custody in Colorado after threatening people near a hiking trail with a hatchet, police said. Investigators later revealed that Nations was not someone "they care a whole lot about" in relation to the murders. Police previously released a photo of a suspect that shows a man wearing blue jeans, a blue coat and a hoodie. Authorities also released audio of a male voice saying the words "down the hill," with hopes that someone might be able to identify the suspect's voice. (MORE: Mystery surrounds Indiana murder of 2 teen girls: 'We cannot fail on this case') The voice recording was taken from a video found on Libby's cell phone, police said. Carter said the case keeps him up at night. "We're going to continue to push and push and push until we get that final piece of information," he said. "We know significantly more [information], but we're not going to talk about that because the only other person who knows that is the killer." ABC News' Emily Shapiro and Mark Osborne contributed to this report. Ciao, Harry, and arrivederci, Archie! It's been just over a week since we welcomed little baby Archie into the world, but it seems new dad Prince Harry is planning on passing up paternity leave for the foreseeable future, and jetting off to Italy for a few days of sports. Juggling his parenting duties with his royal engagements, Prince Harry will travel to Rome in two weeks for the Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup, Buckingham Palace announced on Tuesday. On May 24, the Duke of Sussex will travel to Rome to play polo for the Sentebale St. Regis team against a U.S. Polo Association team, according to royal correspondent Rebecca English. Sentebale, the nonprofit that provides support for children suffering from AIDS that Harry began back in 2006 and for which he is patron, holds the polo match for charity every year. At last year's charity polo match in Berkshire, Meghan Markle made a surprise appearance in a Carolina Herrera denim shirtdress and presented the trophy to her new husband with a kiss on the lips (in public!). The news comes a week after Markle and Prince Harry introduced the world to their newborn son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. By the time Harry leaves for Rome, the little royal baby will be nearly 3 weeks old. Mamma mia! We better enjoy his baby moments, because Archie's going to be old enough for the Italian vino before we can say "buon viaggio!" RELATED: Is Prince Harry's Ex-Commanding Officer the Real Inspiration for Archie's Name? Attorney General William Barr has enlisted the help of the CIA to investigate whether the FBIs surveillance of the Trump campaign was motivated by partisan bias, CNN reported Tuesday. CIA director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and FBI director Chris Wray are all participating in the investigation, which Barr first announced publicly during a congressional hearing last month. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday evening that Barr has tapped Connecticut U.S. attorney John Durham to help examine the origins of the FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election, which served as the pretext for Special Counsel Robert Muellers appointment. The investigation was launched in response to long-held Republican concerns that the FBIs surveillance of the Trump campaign was politically motivated and relied on dubious opposition research. These concerns were in part fueled by the revelation that the FISA warrant obtained to surveil Trump campaign national-security adviser Carter Page was based on information provided in the unsubstantiated Steele dossier. Barr drew the ire of top Democrats last month when he confirmed that he believed the FBIs surveillance of Page and other campaign officials constituted spying, though he stopped short of asserting the surveillance activity was not properly predicated. I think spying did occur, Barr said during a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. But the question is whether it was adequately predicated and I am not suggesting that it wasnt adequately predicated. . . . I am not suggesting those rules were violated, but I think it is important to look at that. And I am not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly. Barr went on to defend his use of the term at a subsequent hearing, telling lawmakers that spying is a good English word that accurately captures the FBIs behavior. More from National Review On Tuesday, in an impassioned tweetstorm, Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren told Fox News that she was taking a "hard pass" on its invitation to do a town hall on the network. "I wont ask millions of Democratic primary voters to tune into an outlet that profits from racism and hate in order to see our candidates," she said, calling the network a "hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists." Her announcement came just one month after Vermont senator Bernie Sanders appeared on his own Fox News town hall, despite progressive calls on him to avoid the network. (New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand and South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg are scheduled to do their own later this year.) Sanders outlined his rationale in an interview with The Daily Show's Trevor Noah last month. "I think it's important to talk to those people and say, You know what? I know many of you voted for Donald Trump, but he lied to you,'" said Sanders. "I think it's important to talk to Trump supporters and explain to them to what degree he has betrayed the working class of this country." Sanders had moments of triumph. He was able to commandeer the stage from the hosts, and draw applause from the audience for progressive policies like Medicare for All. It was a rare opportunity for a Democrat to speak directly to viewers of the country's most-watched news channel alongside more even-keeled political anchors like Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, instead of having their views misrepresented by inflammatory nightly commentators like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. But Warren took a hard line, referring to Fox News as a "hate-for-profit" machine three times in a seven-tweet thread. Her argument was that her participation in a town halland the participation of others like herallows Fox News to assure would-be advertisers that their products will appear on a legitimate news outlet, and not on a platform that doubles as one of the most destructive forces in modern politics. (After all, if it weren't legitimate, would an honest-to-goodness presidential candidate grace it with its presence?) Given that Fox News is "struggling" as wary sponsors "pull out of their hate-filled space," she says, she would be doing Americans a disservice by lending it her credibility. Story continues Warren isn't wrong about the state of Fox News income streams. In 2017, advertisers bailed on Hannity after he spent months pushing a despicable conspiracy theory about murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, forcing Trump's favorite talking head to take an abrupt "vacation," and the same year, serial sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly departed for what he assured viewers was a long-planned tripand then got fired shortly thereafter. Ingraham earned the boycott treatment last spring after she called Parkland survivor David Hogg a "whiner" on Twitter. Ad revenue for Carlson's show has fallen by nearly 50 percent over the past two years, as activists publicly urge sponsors to spend their money on someone less racist. Of the 22 Democrats now vying for the White House, Elizabeth Warren consistently staked out the most detailed and ambitious policy positions, and her approach to navigating the conservative media landscape is no less thoughtful. As Warren notes, Fox News viewers can still watch her other town halls, and the network's reporters are welcome to attend her campaign events and ask her hard questions. An earlier version of this post stated that Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar would appear on a Fox News town hall later this year. Her town hall occurred on May 8. Originally Appeared on GQ Chris and Heidi Powell might seem like they have it all together, as their careers have them focused on helping others transform their bodies, minds and ultimately, their lives. But the two fitness fanatics had a lot of soul searching to do before they could become the dynamic duo that they are. In fact, both Heidi and Chris tell Yahoo Lifestyle that they were experiencing different hardships in their own lives when they first met at a self-improvement seminar. I was a single mom of two, had a decade-long eating disorder, Heidi explains of her own life at the time. Chris adds, I had just moved out of my car, had been living out of my car for the last six months. I had lost everything. I was in over $200,000 of debt. And although it wasnt time for either of them to get into a romantic relationship, they were immediately intrigued by one another and the similar pre-prepped meals that they brought, which led them to believe that they had a lot in common. I started going over to his house to help him clean up his debt and to clean up just his life in general, Heidi explains. We were best friends first, truly. It ended up being a joke between the seemingly-platonic friends that put them on a more romantic course. Chris explains it as a practical joke toward one of his roommates, where he and Heidi would pretend to kiss when Chriss roommate, David, walked in the door. I went back to my seat. I was like, That was not a joke, Chris recalls. That was amazing. One year and seven months later, the couple ended up tying the knot. However, as with the rest of their relationship, both Heidi and Chris admit that their wedding was less than conventional. They got married at 6:43 a.m. in a strip mall in Portland, Oregon. It was amazing and no one was there except Chris, myself, my two kids and both of our parents, Heidi says. Story continues But the early morning nuptials werent as random as they may seem. Chris shares that his mom consulted her astrologist for the perfect time and location. He said thats the best time that would bring us the most prosperous and happy marriage, Chris says. Despite being best friends, Heidi and Chris share that even their marriage has its ups and downs which is why they decided to embark on the 30-day sex challenge, something that Heidi says has saved marriages. For 30 days, you have sex every day no exceptions at all, she says. And every time we did, without fail, at the end were like, I friggin love you. The couple, who are successful entrepreneurs and have two children together along with Heidis two kids from a previous relationship, have come a long way from when they first met. Its been a really wild ride, Chris says. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. CANNES, France Its five hours before the opening ceremony of the Cannes International Film Festival and Luka Sabbat one of the worlds hottest influencers, with 1.8 million followers on Instagram is desperately seeking a suit. Sitting nearby, his father or dadager Clark Sabbat, looks concerned. Related stories Born on the Beaches of Tulum, Caravana Grows Up Retail's Latest Disruptor: The Resale Industry Kenzo Takada Celebrates U.S. Book Launch at FIT, Talks About Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly Seated on the roof terrace of the 3.14 hotel, with views on the Croisette and sparkling Mediterranean, Sabbat, who plays a zombie in the nights film Jim Jarmuschs The Dead Dont Die his first feature film, is at a welcoming party in his honor, red vintage Dior aviators in place. I changed the lenses. Life is so much more grim without color, I only wear tinted glasses, he explains. Hosting the event are La Journee and Bodvar House of Roses, but Sabbat, dressed in a Celine suit with a vintage T-shirt depicting some old wizard guy and marked with the words Just passin thru doesnt drink. Hes in town for one night before flying to Japan for a mystery personal project something so brand new, its visual, its audio, he teases. Here the multihyphenate talent, who ended up buying a womens Celine suit to wear on the red carpet, paired with a ruffled tuxedo shirt, talks hanging with Selena Gomez, being covered in goo, and mentors. WWD: Youre still looking for a suit. Do you not work with a stylist? Luka Sabbat: No. Most of the time I am the stylist. WWD: What are you looking for in terms of attitude? L.S.: Just sleek and serious. Youthful. WWD: So, how was it working with Jim Jarmusch? L.S.: Jim Jarmusch is tight, and mad calm. He just trusts the actors, asks us how we feel about takes and if we want to do another one. And if everybodys, like, Were good, [its wrapped]. Of course, sometimes he wants something very specific. Story continues WWD: How did you research your role? Did you watch Thriller? L.S.: I love Woody Harrelson so I just watched Zombieland, which is a completely different kind of film. WWD: Did it involve hours in the makeup chair being covered in slime? L.S.: Something really bad happens to me in the film, I was covered in blood. Its gross, this weird goo. Those makeup people make the craziest stuff. I was in the trailer when they were making some peoples zombie outfits and makeup, blending the plastic prosthetics with the makeup. WWD: Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Iggy Pop its quite the cast. Who were your scenes with? L.S.: We were a group: its me, Austin Butler and Selena GomezBeing in Woodstock [for the filming], we kind of had nothing else to do, so we just chilled, hung out by the bonfires. WWD: Has it whet your appetite to do more films? L.S.: Definitely, Im reading a few scripts, but its about finding something thats feasible for my lifestyle. With the show I film in L.A., Grown-ish, so much of my time has to be allocated to that, and I also have Hot Mess, my company, then there are all the fashion schedulesIm busy all days of the year. WWD: Youve starred in campaigns for brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas Originals and The Kooples. What feeds your personal style in terms of inspirations? L.S.: Watching movies in Natural Born Killers, Woody Harrelson wears these red circular glasses which inspired me to get these red glasses. There are a lot of red scenes in that movie. Boot-cut suits because of No Country for Old Men A lot of my inspiration comes from feelings and experiences. I got a lot of inspiration when I went to Durango, Colo. Or traveling the world, especially going to Japan, you see all these crazy things. Also, just doing archival research on my favorite designers Raf Simons, Haider Ackermann, Rick Owens, [Martin] Margiela. I have a big archive of clothes in New York; the third floor of my house is all my clothes. WWD: How do you store them? Are you quite meticulous? L.S.: No, Im a hot mess. I lose st all the time, I find them months later WWD: The Elton John biopic is premiering here later this week. Are you into his style? L.S.: His style is tight. WWD: Your archives, is this because youre building up to having your own label? L.S.: I would never have a brand. Theres enough good clothes out there. I like consulting and working with people that make clothes, though. There are already so many brands that I like, Cactus Plant Flea Market, Kiko, Jacquemus. Having a brand is a lot of work. WWD: In terms of what you want to specialize in, would you say your generation is very much about not being confined to one thing? L.S.: Yes, hopping around and trying all these things. This whole scene is basically all the same people. Fashion has merged with music and film, so I never feel unwelcome or alienated because it doesnt feel too far from home. Youre always two people away from someone you know. WWD: Do you have any mentors? L.S.: Virgil [Abloh] is one of my mentors; Ive known him for eons and hes definitely one of the most inspirational people right now. I always knew he was going to be huge, but Im also excited for where hes going. I dont think he has limits right now, hes the first of his kind. Designing for a new generation that has a new way of thinking, in a new political and media climate. Its a new blueprint. I love Shayne Oliver from Hood By AirThere are so many inspirational people. WWD: The Dead Dont Die has environmental messages. Would you say its one of the biggest challenges for your generation? L.S.: One of them, for sure, besides ignorance. I did a gallery show with the NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council] and I do believe that climate change is a real thing. Im 21, I have a whole lotta life to live on this planet. I want kids and st. WWD: Do you believe in a future life on Mars? Would you go on one of Elon Musks space trips? L.S.: No. One, I dont trust it. Two, we have this! Its like, why are you looking at other places? Just fix this st instead! Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. To overrule Roe v. Wade, the Courts five conservatives will first have to explain why theyre setting aside a 46-year-old precedent. A separate case decided this week provides hints about how theyll do it. In this column, erstwhile attorney and GQ staff writer Jay Willis untangles the messy intersection of law, politics, and culture. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, in which the Court's five-justice conservative bloc determined that state governments enjoy sovereign immunitythat is, they cannot be sued as a matter of lawin both their own state's courts and in the courts of other states, too. This case is notable not only because of its implications for the future of litigating certain interstate civil claims. To reach its conclusion in Hyatt, the majority first had to overturn a 40-year-old Supreme Court case that reached the opposite conclusion, over the vociferous protestations of the four-justice liberal minority. At a moment when anti-choice activists are working diligently to get a case before the Court that will allow its five conservative justices to overturn the 46-year-old precedent of Roe v. Wade, thereby gutting abortion rights in this country, Hyatt functions as a tidy preview of that coming showdown. And the result should make pro-choice advocates very nervous. When issuing opinions, judges (generally) adhere to a principle called stare decisis, which refers to the notion that they should rule in a given case according to the rulings they (and other judges) issued in similar cases in the past. This reliance on precedent provides simple, common-sense benefits: It leads to consistent and predictable judicial outcomes, reduces the number of disputes that result in actual litigation, and allows for the coherent, long-term development of law. (Imagine how useless the legal system would be if, for example, every judge resolved every case based only on their feelings about the facts at hand, and without any relevant points of reference.) Since the Supreme Court established in Roe that the Fourteenth Amendment protects a woman's right to choose, it is stare decisis that has protected this ruling from decades of attacks mounted by the conservative movement. To date, the Court has declined every opportunity to overrule itself, which means that lower-court federal judges hearing abortion caseseven judges who quietly find the anti-choice argument to be more convincingmust uphold Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision that narrowly affirmed Roe, too. During his confirmation hearings last year, Brett Kavanaugh dutifully acknowledged that Roe is "settled and a precedent of the Supreme Court," and is "entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis." Story continues In Hyatt, however, this Court's five conservative justices lay out a clear framework for when they might feel it appropriate to abandon precedent. Stare decisis, writes Justice Clarence Thomas, is "not an inexorable command." (Kavanaugh's proclamation, you will note, acknowledges the existence of settled law but makes no promises about how he would treat it as a Supreme Court justice.) Next, Thomas's opinion lists the factors that, he says, justify overturning precedent in Hyatt and in similar cases: When the old opinion's reasoning is of dubious quality, for example, and inconsistent with related decisions, and has been affected by subsequent matters that have come before the Court. Again, the application of these factors to interstate sovereign immunity does not make for especially compelling reading. But it is easy to see how the same justices might use the same list to overturn Roe and Casey or, at the very least, to render those cases' promises meaningless. Liberals and conservatives alike have long criticized Roe as a sloppily written opinionan example of judges arriving at their preferred conclusion and then reverse-engineering a legal explanation for it. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has referred to Roe as an episode of "heavy-handed judicial intervention" that, she believes, galvanized the anti-choice movement and made it more difficult for pro-choice activists to secure abortion rights via the legislative process. Applying this logic, the Court's conservatives could declare Roe to be legally unsoundtoo awkward and unwieldy to function as precedent any longer. The existence of intervening changes in factual circumstances, too, provide a clear pathway for conservatives to dispose of Roe. In Georgia's "heartbeat bill," which prohibits abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy, state legislators explained that they felt compelled to act by "modern medical science, not available decades ago," which purportedly "demonstrates that unborn children are a class of living, distinct persons." If the bill's proponents can one day convince five justices that Roe and Casey do not comport with the scientific understanding of human life, it will be much easier for the Court to publicly explain its decision to overrule itself. In the strongest hint yet that the Court's members now see the abortion battle looming on the horizon, in his dissent in Hyatt, Justice Stephen Breyer singles out the majority's treatment of stare decisis for his harshest critique. The majority, he wrote, did not even bother trying to set forth any "special justification" for changing its mind. And of all the landmark cases he could have chosen to illustrate the importance of upholding precedent, he just happened to pick Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In an environment that prizes civility and comity as much as the United States Supreme Court, this is about as ominous as a warning gets. It is one thing to overrule a case when it def[ies] practical workability, when related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine, or when facts have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application or justification. Casey, 505 U.S., at 854855. It is far more dangerous to overrule a decision only because five Members of a later Court come to agree with earlier dissenters on a difficult legal question. The majority has surrendered to the temptation to overrule Hall even though it is a well-reasoned decision that has caused no serious practical problems in the four decades since we decided it. "Today's decision," Breyer concluded, "can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next." He's not really wondering, though. Neither is anyone else. Update: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Georgia's "heartbeat bill" prohibits abortion as early as six weeks from conception; it prohibits abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy. Originally Appeared on GQ Photo credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Ted Daigle From Popular Mechanics The U.S. Air Force has returned a B-52 bomber retired eleven years ago to active duty service, only the second time in history that has happened. The bomber, nicknamed Wise Guy, was brought out of storage at the aircraft Boneyard in Arizona, refurbished, and returned to service at Barksdale, Louisiana. The bomber could easily spend another two or three decades on active duty. Wise Guy, a B-52H bomber, was retired in 2008 and sent to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monathan Air Force Base in Arizona. The facility, known as the Boneyard, is home to over 4,000 military aircraft in various states of storage. The hot, dry air of the southwestern desert prevents stored aircraft from developing rust or other corrosion issues. Some aircraft are stored for quick recall, while others are in pieces and slowly stripped of parts to support active duty planes. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Perry Aston Wise Guy was stored for a relatively quick return to service if needed. The War Zone blog states that the bomber will replace a B-52H that crashed and burned in 2015 at Andersen Air Force Base, on the island of Guam. Bringing the bomber back from Arizona will boost the B-52 fleet back to the desired number of 76 aircraft. According to a local Baton Rouge, Louisiana news report , the bomber is destined for the 307th Bomb Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit that flies both the B-1B and B-52 bombers. Not all B-52s are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but it appears Wise Guy will operate in the nuclear role. The report states that the 307th includes nuclear certified combat squadrons, and the B-1B no longer carries nuclear weapons. A recent Federation of American Scientists report says the B-52H no longer carries nuclear gravity bombs but still carries the Air Launched Cruise Missile armed with the W80-1 thermonuclear warhead . The W80-1 has a variable yield of 5 or 150 kilotons explosive force. According to The War Zone the bomber was flown back from Arizona to Louisiana with the same MT tail code that it had when retired in Minot Air Force Base in 2008. The aircraft missed some upgrades in the eleven years it has been out of service and will need to be brought to the latest configuration before going back onto active duty. The bomber also sported some graffiti left behind by the previous crew or maintainers when the giant bomber was retired. Story continues Photo credit: USAF photo by Master Sgt. Theodore Daigle. Wise Guy is only the second B-52H ever brought back into service, with Ghost Rider leaving the Boneyard and joining the 307th Wing in 2015. An estimated dozen or so B-52Hs remain in Arizona, ready for re-enlistment if necessary. You Might Also Like Update, May 15th, 2019, 6:46 a.m. ET: On Tuesday, May 14th, the Alabama state Senate passed the below draconian abortion bill. It now must merely be signed . y Over the past few years, pro-life conservatives have gotten bolder in their attempts to challenge Roe v. Wade. Some of the most blatant efforts have been the heartbeat bills introduced in several states (which would ban the procedure at around the six week markbefore many women even know theyre pregnant). And now, Alabama lawmakers are pushing for an even more draconian abortion ban. NBC News reports that on April 2nd, Alabama introduced legislation that would make it a felony for doctors to perform abortions at any point in a pregnancyeven in cases of rape or incest. The only exception to this would be if the patients life is in danger. The bills main sponsor, state Representative Terri Collins, did not mince words about her intentions. She told AL.com that the bill criminalizes abortion and explicitly said that she hopes to challenge Roe v. Wade. undefined Alabama just filed a bill to make abortion a criminal act two weeks after conception. This one upmanship using women's bodies and lives is something to behold. Georgia #hb481 has set off a chain reaction and only we can stop it. https://t.co/eM9hAOr4Yp ilyse hogue (@ilyseh) April 2, 2019 Staci Fox, president of Planned Parenthood Southeast, told the Associated Press that Collins bill was a death sentence for women across this state. undefined Two outright abortion bans, House Bill 314 and Senate Bill 211, were just introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives. These bills would ban all abortion in the state, even in cases of rape and incest. pic.twitter.com/MDTNdv2KGB Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates (@PPSE_Advocates) April 2, 2019 This is the most restrictive abortion bill to be proposedand now passedso far, which makes us even more concerned about the future of reproductive rights. If you live in Alabama and feel strongly about this bill, contact your elected officials to let them know. And if you live outside of Alabama but still feel strongly about this, consider donating to organizations like Planned Parenthood if you are able. Alabama lawmakers late Tuesday passed the strictest abortion ban in the nation. The move will test whether the Supreme Court's longstanding prohibition on such measures will withstand the addition of conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The law makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion at any point during a pregnancy, punishable by up to 99 years in prison. Alabama lawmakers late Tuesday passed the strictest abortion ban in the country. The move is expected to test whether the Supreme Court's longstanding prohibition on such measures can withstand the addition of President Donald Trump's two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The law, which now requires the signature of Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion at any point during a pregnancy, punishable by up to 99 years in prison. Attempting to perform an abortion can lead to a sentence of 10 years. The legislation provides an exception for cases in which the procedure is necessary to prevent a serious health risk, but not in cases of rape or incest. People who receive abortions do not face punishment under the law. The measure was approved by the Alabama state Senate 25-6 on Tuesday after passing in the lower chamber last month. "This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn, because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection," said Rep. Terri Collins, who sponsored the legislation in Alabama's House of Representatives, according to the Alabama Political Reporter . It is not immediately clear whether Ivey will sign the legislation. A spokesperson for the governor told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Ivey plans to "withhold comment until she has had a chance to thoroughly review the final version of the bill that passed." Fighting the bill Groups that defend abortion rights, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, have already pledged to fight the bill in court. Story continues Those who drafted the law expected those challenges, and welcomed them, hoping that the case eventually winds up before the nation's top court. It's a strategy that has been adopted by a number of other state legislatures. But the Alabama legislation marks the latest, and most brazen, effort by a conservative state to goad the Supreme Court into reviewing Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that held that the constitutional right to privacy applied to abortion access. Many of those efforts have culminated in so-called heartbeat bills that ban abortions after six weeks, a time frame so restrictive that critics say it effectively bans abortions for most people seeking them. This year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have passed such legislation, though none of the laws has taken effect yet. The flurry is directly related to the addition of Trump's two appointees. During the presidential election, Trump pledged to nominate justices who would "automatically" overturn Roe. "Now is our time," Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life in Columbus, told The New York Times for an article published in April. "This is the best court we've had in my lifetime, in my parents' lifetime." Virtually every Democrat running for president condemned Alabama's move, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner, who wrote in a post on Twitter that "Roe v Wade is settled law and should not be overturned." While both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch said during their nomination hearings before the Senate that Roe is settled precedent, both their critics and defenders questioned whether those pledges would translate into votes to protect the precedent once confirmed. Fending off challenges Abortion rights groups have vowed to fend off the challenges. After Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed his state's six-week abortion ban earlier this month, the chief counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, Elisabeth Smith, said that Georgia's "intentions are clear: they want this law to make it up to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade. They see new justices on the court and think it's possible." "But the composition of the court has changed many times in the 46 years since Roe, and the Supreme Court has continuously reaffirmed that women have the right to decide to have an abortion," Smith said. The Supreme Court, which will issue the last of its decisions for the current term in June, is not expected to take up any challenge to the slew of new abortion restrictions until at least next year. Neither Kavanaugh nor Gorsuch has ruled on a significant abortion case since joining the nation's top court. In February, both men were in the minority of a 5-4 decision that blocked a Louisiana abortion law from going into effect, though Kavanaugh penned a dissent that suggested his vote was based on narrow, technical grounds. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's liberals. In December, Kavanaugh sided with Roberts and the court's liberals in an order, on its face not related to abortion, that dealt a setback to states seeking to defund Planned Parenthood. WATCH: Trump responds to abortion question during final 2016 debate More From CNBC South Florida Sun Sentinel FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. The Holbrook family of Michigan stepped off Royal Caribbeans Odyssey of the Seas frustrated and angry after the cruise ship they were on returned to Port Everglades from its eight-night voyage. Christopher Holbrook, 49, tested positive for COVID-19 while aboard and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in his room in isolation. It was the worst Christmas, Holbrook said ... Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday emphatically declined a town hall invitation from Fox News in a string of tweets that ripped the network as a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists. The Massachusetts politician, who is running for president, kicked off her Twitter thread by explaining that while she loves town halls and has participated in dozens of them since January, shed be giving Fox News a hard pass. The network, she wrote, is designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption thats rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class. A spokeswoman for Fox News did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment. Warren argued that Fox News had ulterior motives in bringing her on: Hosting a Democratic town hall would be the networks way of trying to prove itself a safe space for potential advertisers who might otherwise be hesitant to be around polemical commentators. RELATED: One of Trumps Favorite Fox News Shows Apologizes After Calling 3 Central-American Countries Mexican In defense, the network says it draws a bright line between its mainstream news content, from journalists such as Brett Baier and Chris Wallace, and its conservative opinion content from Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others. The latter group has repeatedly weathered controversies and calls for advertiser boycotts. Host Jeanine Pirro was briefly suspended earlier this year after questioning whether a Muslim lawmaker had anti-American beliefs because of her religion. Hate-for-profit works only if theres profit, so Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that its a reputable news outlet. Its all about dragging in ad money big ad money, Warren tweeted on Tuesday. Story continues But, she added, Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors its safe to buy ads on Fox no harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: Its not). Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracistsits designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption thats rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class. Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 14, 2019 But Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it's safe to buy ads on Foxno harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: Its not). Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 14, 2019 The network has seen various companies pull ads from controversial shows, such as Pirros Justice with Judge Jeanine, which lost at least four corporate advertisers in March after her comments about Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Warren, who announced her 2020 campaign in December, said she would not force Democratic primary voters to have to watch Fox News to see her, which could in turn hand them a profit by boosting ratings. Heres one place we can fight back: I wont ask millions of Democratic primary voters to tune into an outlet that profits from racism and hate in order to see our candidates especially when Fox will make even more money adding our valuable audience to their ratings numbers, she wrote. Warren concluded her Twitter thread with a summary of the hundreds of interviews and town halls shes already done, and invited Fox News to cover her events just like any other outlet. But a Fox News town hall adds money to the hate-for-profit machine. To which I say: hard pass, she wrote. RELATED VIDEO: 5 Things to Know About Sen. Elizabeth Warren The Democratic National Committee previously criticized the channel in March by refusing to allow it to host any 2020 presidential primary debates due to the networks allegedly inappropriate relationship with President Donald Trump and his administration. RELATED: Elizabeth Warren Announces Run for President: This Dark Path Doesnt Have to Be Our Future In response Fox News Washington, D.C., bureau chief reportedly said: We hope the D.N.C. will reconsider its decision to bar Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, all of whom embody the ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism, from moderating a Democratic presidential debate. They offer candidates an important opportunity to make their case to the largest TV news audience in America, which includes many persuadable voters. Unlike Warren, other 2020 Democratic candidates have taken the network up on town hall offers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who participated in April, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who did one last week. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is set to appear in a Fox News town hall moderated by Wallace on Sunday. The Federal Aviation Administration expects Boeing (BA) to submit its formal and final application as early as next week for a software update to the 737 Max 8, grounded worldwide since March 13. Based on what they give us will determine whether the prohibition order will be lifted, Daniel Elwell, acting administrator for the FAA, told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructures subcommittee on Aviation on Wednesday. All Max 8 aircraft were grounded following the second of two similar crashes. 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. Both crashes killed all passengers and crew on board. Workers stand near a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliner being built for American Airlines prior to a test flight, Wednesday, May 8, 2019, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Elwell did not say how long the FAAs review of the proposed software fix would take, but said the agency plans to host a meeting with civil aviation authorities from around the world on May 23 to discuss the FAAs activities toward ensuring the safe return of the 737 max to service. How did that get cerfified? Wednesdays testimony largely focused on the Max 8s controversial MCAS system, known to have been activated in both crashes. Representatives probed Elwell and regulators from the NTSB on whether the feature and the way it was introduced by Boeing were responsible for the fatal crashes. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., speaks during a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Is the MCAS a safety-critical system in your opinion? Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) asked. I didn't make that designation, but it seems to me that yes it is, Elwell said, though he disagreed with DeFazios suggestion that MCAS, as originally installed, was too reliant on pilots as a backup for MCAS failures. The argument is pilots are supposed to correct the system, DeFazio said, pointing out an additional critique of MCAS in that Boeing failed to accurately represent MCAS-related features in aircraft manuals. Until after Lion Air, pilots didn't know the system was installed. Is that correct? Story continues Yes sir, Elwell responded. Representatives also pointed out that in an audio recording obtained by CBS news, American Airlines (AAL) pilots reportedly raised concerns about the MCAS system between the two crashes. Boeing has said some Max 8 planes were delivered to airline customers with angle of attack (AOA) sensor display software that didnt meet the companys requirements. Data from the planes AOA sensor, which was designed to feed data to MCAS, was linked to an AOA indicator in such a way that disabled the AOA disagreement light in the airplane cockpit for customers that did not also purchase the indicator. Boeing first notified customers of the issue after the Lion Air crash, even though its engineers identified the software discrepancy more than a year beforehand. Boeing knew for more than a year before that crash that the disagree light didn't work unless you bought their optional package, DeFazio said. How did that get certified? Boeing has maintained that neither the indicator nor the disagree alert are necessary for the safe operation of the airplane. Elwell urged the committee not to make the issue. Elwell acknowledged that he was not happy with the 13-month delay between Boeings knowledge of the software anomaly and the FAA receiving notice of it, though he emphasized the agencys position that it did not cause a safety issue. The AOA disagree light is an advisory, he said. And the AOA disagree light would not have changed in either accident. I want to make sure everybody understands: Don't don't make something that isn't a critical safety item, a critical safety item, because there are enough critical safety items for us to focus on. When asked whether regulators would require comprehensive simulator training for pilots to fly the potentially re-certified Max 8, Elwell said that was yet to be decided. We need to wait for the Boeing application of the fix, Elwell said. Once we have the official application of the fix we will be able to determine if and exactly what sort of training will be required for max pilots. 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. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn,YouTube, and reddit. As tension escalates over a controversial abortion bill in Georgia, the state film office has called off a Los Angeles celebration touting its industry ties, numerous individuals familiar with the event set for next week told Variety. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is pushing that event, dated for May 22 at West Hollywoods Sunset Tower hotel, and his previously reported meetings with top studio executives to the fall, an individual with knowledge of his plans said. The changes come as show business weighs boycotting Georgia as a production hub, following Kemps signing of HB 481 a bill that seeks to outlaw abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat. Related stories Georgia Calls Off Hollywood Event, Governor Pushes Studio Meetings to Fall Amid Abortion-Bill Tension (EXCLUSIVE) 'Vampire Diaries,' 'Hunger Games' Fuel Peachy Georgia Production Scene In the meantime, Kemp will pivot to local strategy, the insider added, by embarking on a tour of state production facilities and vendors in efforts to reaffirm his commitment to the industry. In a statement last week, the MPAA estimated that film and television production accounts for 92,000 jobs in Georgia. The May 22 event was to mark an annual cocktail party, known as Georgia Night, in industry circles. Georgias film office rescinded invites to studios including Disney, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and Netflix. Former governors including Kemps predecessor, Nathan Deal, have attended the mixer in previous years. Representatives in offices for Kemp and the Georgia Department of Economic Development had no comment on the matter. C-suite executives do not typically attend Georgia Night, one insider added, rather heads of production and other vendors who have enjoyed Georgias generous 30% production tax rebate for years. While Georgia made the move to call off the event, another knowledgeable insider said the studios have been struggling internally over supporting the state. Story continues Outspoken creators in Hollywood view the legislation as threatening to womens reproductive rights, like producers Christine Vachon and Mark Duplass, and actors like Alyssa Milano (a vocal proponent of womens issues, who is living in Georgia on the set of her Netflix series Insatiable). Producers J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele will remain in the state to film their HBO series Lovecraft Country, but will donate their producer fees to charitable causes supporting the suppression of HB 281 becoming law, which is set for Jan. 1 lest a higher court strike down the measure. Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Dubai (AFP) - Four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, were damaged in as yet unexplained "sabotage attacks" at a time of Gulf tensions triggered by a bitter US-Iran standoff. Amid rising fears of a conflict, here is what we know about Sunday's attacks off the Emirati coast. - What happened? - A United Arab Emirates government official said the Saudi oil tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad were attacked off the emirate of Fujairah along with the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory and a UAE ship, the A. Michel. The Andrea Victory's managers, Thome Group, said the tanker had a hole in the hull area "after being struck by an unknown object on the waterline". The crew were unharmed and the ship was not in any danger of sinking. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the kingdom's two tankers suffered "significant damage" but there were no casualties or any oil spill. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have yet given details on the exact nature of the attacks. Adding to the tensions, Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that two pumping stations on a major east-west oil pipeline had been hit in a drones' attack. Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said earlier they had hit several vital Saudi targets. - Who was behind ship attacks? - There has been no claim of responsibility, and neither Riyadh nor Abu Dhabi has pointed a finger of blame. The UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, has said the Emirates would probe the "deliberate sabotage" of the ships. Asked whether Washington believed Tehran played a role, Brian Hook, the US special envoy for Iran, declined to comment, saying only US authorities would be assisting the investigation at the UAE's request. - What has been the reaction? - Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional arch-rival, condemned "the acts of sabotage which targeted commercial and civilian vessels", a foreign ministry source said. Story continues "This criminal act constitutes a serious threat to the security and safety of maritime navigation and adversely impacts regional and international peace and security," the source added. Without accusing Tehran, US President Donald Trump warned that Iran would "suffer greatly" if it does "anything". "I'm hearing little stories about Iran," Trump said at the White House. "If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake. If they do anything they will suffer greatly." Britain warned of the danger of conflict erupting "by accident" in the Gulf, as Tehran distanced itself and called for an investigation into the "alarming and regrettable" attacks. The United Nations urged restraint from all sides. "We are concerned about the heightened tensions in the region. We call upon all concerned parties to exercise restraint for the sake of regional peace," said UN spokesman Farhan Haq. - What is significance of location? - Fujairah port is the only Emirati terminal located on the Arabian Sea coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, through which most Gulf oil exports pass. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in case of a military confrontation with the United States. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), 35 percent of the world's seaborne oil transits passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil transit was disrupted in 1984 during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) when more than 500 vessels were destroyed or damaged in a "Tanker War". In 1988, an Iran Air flight from Tehran to Dubai was shot down by missiles fired from a US Navy cruiser patrolling the strait. All 290 people on board were killed. The crew of the USS Vincennes said they mistook the Airbus for an Iranian fighter. - What are the stakes? - Washington's dispatch to the region of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group, an amphibious assault ship, a Patriot missile battery and B-52 bombers has sparked fears of possible military clashes. The increasing tensions come after Tehran said last week it has stopped respecting limits on its nuclear activities agreed under a 2015 deal that has since been abandoned by Washington. US national security advisor John Bolton has said Washington's military buildup was "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force". 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. WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - There has been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia against U.S.-led coalition forces battling remnants of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a senior British officer in the coalition told a Pentagon news briefing on Tuesday. British Major General Chris Ghika, the coalition's deputy commander for strategy and information, said his remarks did not represent a divergence from increasingly heated warnings coming from Washington, where officials see a growing threat from Iran. "No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because that is the environment we are in," Ghika said. (Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart) WASHINGTON (AP) An American military team's initial assessment is that Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies used explosives Sunday to blow large holes in four ships anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. official said Monday. The official said each ship has a 5- to 10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line, and the team's early belief is that the holes were caused by explosive charges. The team of U.S. military experts was sent to investigate the damages at the request of the UAE, but American officials have not provided any details about what exactly happened or any proof as yet about the possible Iranian involvement in the explosions. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Gulf officials have characterized the damage to the tankers as sabotage. Two Saudi oil tankers, a Norwegian-flagged vessel, and a bunkering tanker flagged in Sharjah, one of the UAE's seven emirates, all suffered similar damage Sunday. The U.S. has warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and America has moved additional ships and aircraft into the region. The incident comes after months of increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, which the U.S. accuses of threatening American interests and allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Philadelphia was the early capital of the United States after the Constitution was ratified, but on May 14, 1800, the nations capital moved to Washington. Here's a look behind the deal that changed the face of American government. The City of Brotherly Love became the ex-capital for several reasons, including a deal between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, and a compromise over slavery. And some rowdy actions in 1783 by Continental soldiers in Philadelphia, and the reaction from the state militia, didnt help arguments to keep the capital in Pennsylvania. Until then, Philadelphia had been the hub of the new nation. Important decisions were made there, and it was equally accessible from the North and the South. The Confederation Congress was meeting in Philadelphia in June 1783 at what we now call Independence Hall. However, there were serious problems afoot: The government had problems paying the soldiers who fought in the war against the British for their service. The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 was a crisis that literally forced the Congress to focus on its personal safety and pitted the federal government (in its weakened form) against the state of Pennsylvania. Unpaid federal troops from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, marched to Philadelphia to meet with their brothers-in-arms. A group of about 400 soldiers then proceeded to Congress, blocked the doors to the building, and demanded their money. They also controlled some weapons-storage areas. James Madison noted that the soldiers were pointing muskets at the State House and appeared to be imbibing spirituous drink. Congress sent out one of its youngest delegates to negotiate with the troops: Alexander Hamilton, a former soldier himself. Hamilton convinced the soldiers to back down so Congress could meet quickly and reach a deal about repaying the troops. Hamilton did meet with a small committee that night, and they sent a note to Pennsylvanias state government asking for its state militia for protection from the federal troops. Representatives from Congress then met with John Dickinson, the head of Pennsylvanias government; Dickinson discussed the matter with the militia, and the state told Congress it wouldnt use the states troops to protect it. Story continues That same day, Congress packed up and moved temporarily to Princeton, New Jersey. It traveled to various cities over the following years, including Trenton, New Jersey; Annapolis, Maryland; and New York City. Delegates agreed to return to Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the current U.S. Constitution, while the Congress of the Confederation was still seated in New York City. Part of the new Constitution addressed the concerns caused by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783. Article I, Section 8 gave Congress the power to create a federal district to become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful buildings. When Congress met in 1789, two locations were proposed for the capital: one near Lancaster and another in Germantown, an area just outside Philadelphia. However, Hamilton became part of a grand bargain to move the capital to an undeveloped area that encompassed parts of Virginia and Maryland, receiving some help from Thomas Jefferson along the way. The Residence Act of 1790 put the capital in current-day Washington as part of plan to appease pro-slavery states who feared a northern capital as being too sympathetic to abolitionists. In turn, Hamilton received a commitment to reorganize the federal governments finances by getting the southern states to indirectly pay off the war debts of the northern states. A twist in the deal was negotiated by Robert Morris. Until the new capital was built on the Potomac, the capital would move back to Philadelphia for 10 years. During the following decade, Philadelphians lobbied hard for the capital to stay in Pennsylvania. They offered President Washington an elaborate mansion as an incentive to stay. Instead, he and his successor, John Adams, lived in a more modest house near Congress. A yellow fever epidemic hit Philadelphia in 1793, raising doubts about the safety of the area. And native Virginians like Washington, Madison, and Jefferson were actively planning for a capital near their home. So one May day in 1800, Congress ended its business in Philadelphia and started the move to the new Federal District. President Adams also left Philadelphia in April and moved into the White House in November. There is no more normal in California, says Kenny Belov, the owner of Two X Sea, a seafood restaurant and wholesaler on San Franciscos waterfront. Hes not talking about the states wildfires or housing pricesalthough he certainly could be. Instead he means California fish: People will drop their gear in the water, but there is no guarantee that they will bring something up. When it comes to seafood harvested from the Pacific Ocean, whats familiar may not be sustainable. And whats sustainable may not have mass appeal. But thanks to a determined group of fishermen, purveyors, and foragers in California, that may be changing. It just may not be changing fast enough. Thanks to human activity, the water off of Californias coast is warming. Last August, the surface of the sea surface off San Diego reached the highest temperature ever recorded. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, average sea surface temperatures on Californias Pacific coast rose a degree to a degree and a half Fahrenheit since the beginning of the 20th century. Climate change has already pummeled an industry that reached $196 million in revenue in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available. In 2015, an outbreak of toxic algae that may thrive in warming waters triggered the closure of most of the years Dungeness crab season. Climate change is expected to cause moderate to severe declines in salmon populations across California and the Pacific Northwest. And the habitat of species like the spiny lobster has been pushed northward. General scene of commercial fishing boats in San Francisco Bay. | The Washington Post/Getty Images To be sure, not every indicator is negative. In March, Christopher Free, a postdoctral scholar at the University of California,Santa Barbara was the lead author on a paper in Science that estimated the effect of climate change on fisheries. Although the global maximum sustainable yield dropped 4.1% from 1930 to 2010, the decrease was not evenly distributed. In the California Current, a Pacific Ocean current moving southward along the western coast of North America, Free tells me, fish populations havent been strongly impacted by warming. Its probably the result of good management. For each of the species that Free and his coauthors analyzedwhich included sardine, lingcod, and rockfishthe estimated effect of warming in California was statistically indistinguishable from zero. Story continues But past successes do not guarantee future ones. For Belov, the problem is easy to state and hard to solve: The things we want are the things we shouldnt be eating. What to Eat Next Its depressing. What do Americans eat? The number one seafood consumed in North America is shrimp, adds Kirk Lombard, a friend of Belov and the founder of Sea Forager, which gives coastal walking tours and sells sustainable seafood. For Lombard, the most sustainable seafood to eat live at the bottom of the food chain: The gospel of small fishes, he says. Its one thing to realize that wild salmon or bluefin tuna isnt the most sustainable option. Its quite another to convince consumer to substitute them with unfamiliar seafood like purple urchins, which tend not have the same amount of roe as their more commonly eaten cousins, or spiny lobsters, which lack the big claws that American eaters prize. Kirk Lombard, founder of Sea Forager | Courtesy of Kirk Lombard Lombard proselytizes fishes like herring, which are plentiful in the San Francisco Bay, but not consumed here as they are in cities like Amsterdam, where the Dutch snack on them like hot dogs. But unlike legally-tolerated marijuana, that innovation has failed to catch on in the United States. In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available, just $196 worth of herring was caught commercially in Californiaall of it in Los Angeleswhile $14,884 worth of herring roe was harvested in San Francisco. Those are rounding errors compared to the states major fish industries. By contrast, market squid landings totaled $68 million in revenue, Dungeness crab $47 million, Chinook salmon $4.8 million, swordfish revenue totaled $3.9 million, and bigeye tuna $3.5 million. Californias seafood, in other words, might as well swim in two different oceans, says Dave Colpo, senior program manager at the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. On the one side, there are industrial-scale trawlers that catch things like whiting and pollack destined for the freezer aisle and fast food sandwiches. You cant imagine how much gets pumped off those boats. On the other are the mid-scale boats that fish for Dungeness crab and salmon, as well as the smaller outfits that catch everything else. Urchin is not the McDonalds of fish, he says with a laugh. Is Seaweed the Next Big Thing? And if urchin is boutique, what does that make seaweed? For Catherine OHara, its the next big thing. In 2017, she and two other women founded Salt Point Seaweed, harvesting wild seaweed from the Mendocino Coast and selling it to restaurants and directly to consumers. They gather kombu, wakame, and noriseaweeds that OHara thinks pass a tough test: Theyve been around for long enough in mainstream culture that preschoolers are hooked on them. The numbers bear her out. In 2015, the most recent year for which the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has data available, the commercial edible algae harvest reached 27 metric tons. In 1997, when the state began keeping that data, the amount was less than five metric tons. In addition to wild harvesting, OHara is exploring farmed seaweed. This year, she completed a pilot project with Hog Island Oyster Co. in Tomales Bay, in which she grew red algae similar to that served in poke bowls, alongside the cultivated oysters. Turns out that farming the two species together can bring significant benefits. One of the big threats to shellfish from climate change is ocean acidification, the decrease in pH caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the water. When the water turns too acidic, it can eat away shells, killing oyster larvae before they develop. Enter the seaweed. Just like most plants on earth take out of the air, seaweed takes carbon and nitrogen out of the water, says OHara. In the water right now, theres too much carbonic acid. Over the last year, their experimental plot of seaweed pulled some of that carbon out of the water, lessening the damage to the oysters. Its an alternative model of how seafood might be harvested from the Pacific Ocean in the future. Now all that remains is to see whether consumers will catch up. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (AP) Nearly 2,000 people turned out Wednesday for a memorial service to honor the Colorado teenager who was killed while charging one of the two gunmen who opened fire inside a high school and shot nine people just days before graduation. A line of Jeeps and trucks stretched along a Highlands Ranch roadway ahead of the service for Kendrick Castillo, 18, who was a Jeep and off-road vehicle enthusiast. His casket was draped with yellow and blue flowers that represented the colors of the STEM School Highlands Ranch, and the stage of the church where the service was held was adorned with symbols of his passion for science, the outdoors and his faith. His father, John Castillo, said it was no surprise to him and his wife, Maria, that their son acted as he did on May 7, when he and two classmates disarmed one of the suspects. He urged those in attendance to be more like his son and put love and compassion for others first. "We love our community," Castillo said. "We're a family of three and a little dog, but you know, I feel the love of thousands." Speaker after speaker praised the young man, focusing on his character and the accomplishments of his short life. References to the shooting were few, including one by Dakota Mann, who was on the school robotics team with Castillo. "He died for us. Now it's time for us to live for him," Mann said. Earlier Wednesday, the Castillos attended court hearings for the two teenagers accused of killing their son and wounding eight other students. Investigators say the accused assailants, 18-year-old Devon Erickson and 16-year-old Alec McKinney, opened fire with handguns. They were arrested at the school. Erickson and McKinney appeared in court to face dozens of criminal charges that include murder, attempted murder, arson and theft. While court documents are sealed, the charges against the teenagers were listed in electronic court records. Prosecutors said both will be tried as adults. McKinney's attorney, Ara Ohanian, said he would seek to move McKinney's case back to juvenile court. Story continues Judge Theresa Slade denied the prosecution's request to make some of the documents public but said she would address the issue at the next hearing on June 7. Erickson appeared more involved in Wednesday's proceedings compared with his initial court appearance last week. His face was visible, and he looked forward toward the judge while attorneys discussed the case. He wore a jail uniform and was kept shackled at his wrists and ankles after the judge denied a request to remove them. McKinney appeared in court after Erickson. He glanced back several times during the hearing toward the bench where his mother was sitting. Castillo's father stared at both defendants during their hearings. "It would have been easy for them to say, 'I'm not going to make it to court today because in less than two hours we're going to have a memorial service for our son,'" District Attorney George Brauchler said of Castillo's parents. "But from the word go they have made it clear that our intention is to be here for every single hearing." Brauchler also revealed that he has asked an outside prosecutor to investigate whether charges should be filed against a private security guard who has been credited with apprehending one of the suspects in a hallway. Brauchler did not explain why the security guard would face charges. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press last week that the guard, a former Marine who has not been named, fired his weapon during the shooting. Two news organizations citing anonymous sources reported that authorities are investigating whether the guard mistakenly fired at a responding sheriff's deputy and may have wounded a student. Brauchler did not directly address those reports. "This is a witness in the case, and I felt like in the abundance of caution that a decision about the facts related to the security guard needed to be addressed by a separate prosecutor," Brauchler said. The security guard's attorney, Robert Burk, said last week that his client acted to protect the children at the school. Burk did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Wednesday. Castillo and classmates Brendan Bialy and Joshua Jones were credited with helping minimize the bloodshed by charging at one of the suspects in a classroom. According to Bialy, Castillo sprang into action against the shooter "and immediately was on top of him with complete disregard for his own safety." Jones said he was shot twice in the leg during the ordeal. Bialy said he was able to take the attacker's weapon. Jones, 18, said Tuesday that he is recovering quickly from his wounds, but said emotionally he's "still in a bit of a funk." All of the wounded students have been released from hospitals. The shooting happened nearly three weeks after the neighboring town of Littleton marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School attack that killed 13 people. The two schools are separated by about 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Denver. ___ Associated Press writer Thomas Peipert contributed to this report. Paris (AFP) - Researchers in Germany have unearthed a new species of flying dinosaur that flapped its wings like a raven and could hold vital clues as to how modern-day birds evolved from their reptilian ancestors. For more than a century and a half since its discovery in 1861, Archaeopteryx -- a small feathered dinosaur around the size of a crow that lived in marshland around 150 million years ago -- was widely considered to be the oldest flying bird. Palaeontologists from Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich and the University of Fribourg examined rock formations in the German region of Bavaria, home to nearly all known Archaeopteryx specimens. They came across a petrified wing, which the team initially assumed to be the same species. They soon found several differences, however. "There are similarities, but after detailed comparisons with Archaeopteryx and other, geologically younger birds, its fossil remains suggested that we were dealing with a somewhat more derived bird," said lead study author Oliver Rauhut from LMU's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. They called the new bird-like dinosaur Alcmonavis poeschli -- from the old Celtic word for a nearby river and the scientist who discovered the fossil, excavation leader Roland Poeschl. The study, published in the journal eLife Sciences, said Alcmonavis poeschli was "the most bird-like bird discovered from the Jurassic". As well as being significantly larger than Archaeopteryx, the new specimen had more notches in its wing bones that pointed to muscles which would have allowed it to actively flap its wings. Significantly, this "flapping" trait found in Alcmonavis poeschli is present in more recent birds, but not in Archaeopteryx. "This suggests that the diversity of birds in the late Jurassic era was greater than previously thought," Rauhut said. The discovery is likely to fuel debate among dinosaur experts over whether birds and dinosaurs developed the ability to flap their wings from earlier gliding species. "Its adaptation shows that the evolution of flight must have progressed relatively quickly," said Christian Foth, from the University of Fribourg, and a co-author of the research. Rome (AFP) - German charity Sea-Watch reported rescuing 65 migrants in distress off Libya on Wednesday, sparking an immediate warning from Rome to stay away from Italian waters. The Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 had found the migrants, including 11 women, two babies, 13 children and a handicapped person in international waters some 30 nautical miles off the coast of Libya. Many among the group were dehydrated and exhausted, Sea-Watch said in a statement, adding "In the Mediterranean there are fewer witnesses but not fewer departures" by people trying to reach Europe. In Rome, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini issued a snap directive banning the Sea Watch vessel from entering Italian territorial waters, saying "our ports are and remain closed". Last January Sea-Watch 3 picked up 47 migrants who then had to spend 12 days at sea before being allowed to disembark at Catania in Sicily after a deal was struck with several European countries to take them in. Salvini called for the ship to be seized for aiding clandestine immigration and the vessel was blocked for three weeks in Catania before being allowed to leave without charges. Sea-Watch 3 went on to Marseille in France and ended up blocked in the port for three months as it battled attempts in the Netherlands to limit its work. The vessel finally sailed again on Saturday with the non-profit organisation saying it was now the only civilian rescue ship in the central Mediterranean as other charity vessels remain caught in administrative and legal red tape. Over 60 migrants rescued at sea by the Italian navy and a charity ship disembarked in Italy last Friday, despite Salvini's "closed ports" policy, while three died and dozens more went missing after another migrant boat capsized off Tunisia Rome's populist government has taken an increasingly hard line on migration, and Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant League party, last month banned charity vessels from rescuing migrants off Libya. Charity ships have drawn fire from Rome by attempting on occasion to stop migrants being taken back to crisis-hit Libya, which human rights organisations say is not safe for repatriations By Stephen Kalin, Alexander Cornwell and Dahlia Nehme RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Attacks on Saudi tankers and other vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates this week expose vulnerabilities in the security of a key oil-shipping route amid rising tensions between the United States, Iran and Gulf Arab states. The operation near the Strait of Hormuz appeared designed to test the resolve of the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies without triggering a war, after Washington tightened sanctions on Iran and beefed up its military presence nearby. The UAE has not characterized the sabotage or blamed anyone, but U.S. national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have been behind it, a U.S. official has said. Tehran has distanced itself from the incident, which no one has claimed. "This is a pin-prick event, a little needle-like jab at the maritime trade going into the Strait of Hormuz," said Gerry Northwood, chairman of risk management and security firm MAST. The attack took place off Fujairah emirate, just outside the Strait, a narrow waterway separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula where a fifth of global oil consumption passes from Middle East producers. Two days later, Saudi Arabia said armed drones had hit two oil pumping stations in the kingdom, an attack claimed by the Iran-aligned Houthis in neighboring Yemen. The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet is tasked with protecting commercial ships in the area. The British and French navies maintain a presence, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE have high-tech naval capacities. But Gulf Arab states are struggling to build an effective system to defend against drones and low-tech sabotage attempts, Eurasia Group said in a note. "There are hundreds, if not a few thousand, small boats moving in that area every day. Many of these vessels are smugglers operating between Iran and the Gulf states," said Norman Roule, a retired senior U.S. intelligence officer. "This will make it difficult, but not impossible, to trace any small vessels which may have been involved in the operation." Port security in Dubai, the region's trading hub, was unchanged, a spokeswoman for the government media office said. But the UAE may still face pressure to increase patrols. "The UAE needs to send a signal to reassure the shipping industry that Fujairah is safe and this is not going to happen again," a Western diplomat in Abu Dhabi said. QUESTIONS REMAIN More than three days on, little information has been provided on where the ships were when they were attacked, what sort of weapon was used, and who did it. Navigational data indicated at least some of the ships may have been within nine nautical miles of the shore, well within UAE territorial sea. Saudi Arabia's energy minister has said at least one of them was further out, in the UAE's exclusive economic zone where international law largely applies. Reuters and other journalists taken on a tour off the Fujairah coast saw a hole at the waterline in the hull of a Norwegian ship, with the metal torn inwards. A Saudi tanker they viewed showed no sign of major damage. Maritime security sources told Reuters that images suggest the damage was likely caused by limpet mines attached close to the waterline with less than 4 kg of explosives. One source said the level of coordination and use of mines were likely to rule out militant groups such as al Qaeda. "It's not those guys seeking publicity, it's someone who wants to make a point without necessarily pointing in any given direction," said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East and Africa editor for Jane's Defence Weekly. "It's below the threshold (for war)." Jean-Marc Rickli, head of global risk and resilience at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said the attacks could be a message that Iran has means to disrupt traffic. Saudi state oil company Aramco said output and exports were not disrupted by the attack on the pumping stations, but it temporarily shut the East-West pipeline to evaluate its condition. RED LINE Both attacks targeted alternative routes for oil to bypass Hormuz. Fujairah port is a terminal of the crude pipeline from Abu Dhabi's Habshan oilfields. The Saudi East-West line takes crude from eastern fields to Yanbu port, north of Bab al-Mandeb. The commander of Irans Revolutionary Guards said last year that Tehran would block exports through the waterway if countries heeded U.S. calls to stop buying Iranian oil. U.S. officials have said closing the Strait would be crossing a "red line" and pledged action to reopen it. The waterway separates Iran and Oman, linking the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. The Strait is 21 miles (33 km) wide at its narrowest point, but the shipping lane is just two miles (three km) wide in either direction. Even during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, when the two sides sought to disrupt oil exports by attacking ships in what was known as the Tanker War, shipping did not stop although insurance rates spiked. JBC Energy Research Centre said Fujairah would continue to be seen as a reliable bunkering hub, especially with a U.S. strike group arriving in the region and navies from Britain, France and China available to assist. "No matter who is behind this," Rickli said, "it contributes to heightened tensions in the region and leads to a situation where an incident could trigger a larger response." (Additional reporting by Bozorg Sharafedin and Jonathan Saul in London, Rania El Gamal in Dubai and Eric Knecht in Doha; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous and Dale Hudson) Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinians protested Wednesday for the annual commemoration of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were expelled or fled during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel. Thousands gathered at various locations along the volatile border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, while crowds also demonstrated in the occupied West Bank. Protests and clashes in Gaza a year earlier, which coincided with the controversial move of the US embassy to Israel to Jerusalem, had seen more than 60 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire but Wednesday's were far smaller. The clashes on Wednesday erupted along parts of the border fence, with the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reporting 65 people injured, including 16 with gunshot wounds. Protesters largely avoided approaching the fence, an AFP journalist said. The AFP journalist on the border saw a number of kites being floated across the border and a fire breaking out inside Israeli territory. Palestinians in Gaza have regularly used kites with firebombs attached to them to set fires on the Israeli side of the fence. Israel's military said around 10,000 "rioters and demonstrators" were along the Gaza fence. "The rioters are setting tyres on fire and hurling rocks," it said in a statement. "A number of explosive devices have been hurled within the Gaza Strip as well, and a number of attempts have been made to approach the security fence." It said "troops are responding with riot dispersal means." - 'Will to return' - In the West Bank city of Ramallah, protesters held up giant paper keys to symbolise their will to return to the lands and homes they were expelled from or were forced to abandon, now located inside Israel. Palestinians commemorate the Nakba every year. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their land during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel. Story continues This year's protests came two weeks after a deadly flare-up between Gaza militants and Israel which threatened to spill into a new war. After two days a truce was reached under which Israel is meant to ease its blockade of the strip in exchange for calm, according to Hamas officials. Israel has not commented on the truce. Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas figure, told AFP at a protest site east of Gaza City the "truce understandings played a role in controlling the demonstrations" on Wednesday. Separately, there have also been regular protests and clashes along the Gaza border for more than a year. At least 293 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the protests began in March 2018. The majority died during the often-violent weekly protests, though others were killed in Israeli air strikes or by tank fire in response to violence from Gaza. Six Israelis have been killed in Gaza-related violence over the same time period. Violence peaked on May 14, 2018 when 62 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire as tens of thousands approached the border, with many seeking to breach the fence. Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's son Donald Jr has agreed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian election meddling, US media reported Tuesday. The agreement resolved a looming fight between the Congress and the White House after Donald Jr. was subpoenaed by the Republican-led committee last week. According to reports, he had initially agreed to testify behind closed doors and then backed out for unclear reasons. But President Trump is battling any cooperation with Congress in the Russia meddling investigation, claiming that he has already been "totally exonerated" of collusion and obstruction of justice by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report completed in late March. The Senate panel has interviewed Donald Jr. once before, and is believed to be seeking clarification on his knowledge of contacts between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russians. Some Democrats suspect he may have lied about what he and his father knew of a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton, as well as other connections between the two sides. Seeking to complete their own report on Russian election interference, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr risked the wrath of the White House and his Republican party by issuing a subpoena for Donald Jr. Finally, according to multiple reports, Donald Jr. agreed to testify in early or mid-June, behind closed doors and with limits on time and the questions he will answer. - Trump lawyer also pressed to testify - Meanwhile congressional Democrats on Tuesday scheduled former White House lawyer Don McGahn to testify about events described in the special counsel's report, setting up another clash with President Trump. McGahn has not confirmed his attendance at the House Judiciary Committee's May 21 hearing, and Trump has indicated he will assert executive privilege to resist Democrats seeking materials or testimony related to Russian meddling and alleged collusion. Story continues "I've had him testifying already for 30 hours," Trump told Fox News last week. "So I don't think I can let him and then tell everybody else you can't." The White House is seeking to shield a large swathe of material -- including redacted portions of Mueller's report -- that was subpoenaed by lawmakers seeking to exert their oversight responsibility. The report details how Trump's lawyers and advisors, including McGahn, repeatedly rebuffed the president's attempts to halt Mueller's investigation -- which some analysts say amounts to illegal obstruction by the president. The House committee's chairman, Democrat Jerry Nadler, has said he wants Mueller himself to testify but no date has been sent. Trump said this month that Mueller should not testify before Congress, but he reversed course last week, saying he would leave that decision up to Attorney General Bill Barr. President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that his administration is planning to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East in the event of hostilities with Iran, but said hed send a hell of a lot more if war breaks out. I think its fake news, OK? Trump said of the Times report. Now would I do that? Absolutely. But I have not planned for that. If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Tensions are rising with the Islamic Republic after the Trump administration revoked waivers this month that allowed Iran to continue selling oil to some customers despite U.S. sanctions. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reported on Monday mysterious attacks on several vessels including oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed on Tuesday they had damaged Saudi oil pumping stations on Tuesday using drones. Trump warned Iran against provocations yesterday. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake, he told reporters in the Oval Office. The Times reported that the presidents top national security aides met on Thursday to discuss updated war plans with Iran. The plans envision sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, the Times said. The Times said the plans do not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require many more troops. More must-read stories from Fortune: How New York could become a factor in the 2020 presidential race Meet the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates youve (probably) never heard of These are the U.S. goods affected by the China tariffs How to invest during a trade war Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortunes CEO Daily newsletter WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have attacked four tankers off the United Arab Emirates rather than Iranian forces themselves, a U.S. official familiar with the latest U.S. assessments said on Tuesday. The official said possible perpetrators might include Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran-backed Shi'ite militias based in Iraq but said Washington did not have hard evidence on who sabotaged the four vessels, including two Saudi tankers on Sunday near Fujairah port, which lies just outside the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia said armed drones hit two oil pumping stations in the kingdom on Tuesday in what it called a "cowardly" act of terrorism. A fifth of global oil consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz from Middle East crude producers to major markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond. The narrow waterway separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula. On Monday, a U.S. official familiar with U.S. intelligence had said Iran was a leading candidate for having carried out attacks on the four tankers but that the United States did not have conclusive proof Tehran was behind them. Iran has rejected the allegation and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that "extremist individuals" in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies, amid a war of words with Washington over sanctions. (Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Grant McCool) Shares of Apple AAPL have sunk over 10% in May on the back of renewed U.S.-China trade war worries, which could soon impact the iPhone giant. Plus, the U.S. Supreme Court recently set up the possibility for consumers to sue Apple on the basis of anticompetitive practices in its widely popular app store. Trade War Impact? Apple is currently safe from President Donald Trump and his administrations decision to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. Trump last Friday officially increased tariffs to 25% from 10% as the worlds two largest economies try to navigate toward a trade war resolution. Since then, the Chinese government has announced that it will impose tariffs on $60 billion worth of American products in retaliation. Apple currently remains mostly in the clear as the iPhone isnt on the list of $200 billion worth of Chinese-made products that face higher tariffs. With that said, Trump also threated to impose a 25% tariff on an additional $325 billion in Chinese imports that havent previously been targeted by duties. Build your products in the United States and there are NO TARIFFS! Trump wrote Friday on Twitter. Clearly, any new tariffs are still just threats at the moment. Yet, investors should understand just how important China is to the firm. Apple assembles most of its iPhones in China and works with a large number of American suppliers. Plus, China could target Apple with duties and call for boycotts of its products in a market that is already full of many less expensive, Chinese smartphone options from the likes of Xiaomi and Huawei. Last quarter, Apple posted adjusted Q2 2019 revenue of $58.02 billion. This marked a 5.1% downturn from the year-ago period and a larger decline than Q1s 4.5% drop. More specifically, revenue in Greater China tumbled 21.5% from the year-ago quarter to $10.22 billion. This did mark an improvement from last quarters 27% drop off in the worlds second-largest economy that includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. Overall, Greater China accounted for roughly 18% of Apples total quarterly revenue. Story continues On top of that, iPhone sales tumbled over 17% to hit $31.05 billion and account for over 53% of total sales. Last quarter, iPhone revenue fell 14.9%. Clearly, Apple investors need to watch out for any updates on how the latest round of tariffs between the U.S. and China might impact the firm. For example, Morgan Stanley MS analyst Katy Huberty predicted that a 25% tariff on the iPhone could create a $160 price hike on the iPhone XS. If Apple didnt pass the costs onto consumers, it could cause AAPLs earnings to slip 23% in 2020. App Antitrust Case To make up for slowing iPhone sales and a pullback in Greater China, Apple and CEO Tim Cook have focused on its Services business. This division is highlighted by the companys Spotify SPOT competitor Apple Music and will likely soon feature its long-awaited streaming TV platform that Apple hopes can compete alongside Amazon AMZN Prime, Netflix NFLX, Hulu, and Disney DIS. The iPhone giant also recently showed off its $9.99 per month magazine-heavy news service, a new Apple credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs GS, and a subscription-based gaming offering called Apple Arcade. With that said, Apples app store remains a huge source of revenue. In fact, Jefferies estimates that the companys app store will account for roughly $15.4 billion of an anticipated $31.3 billion in total Services revenue in fiscal 2019. Therefore, the U.S. Supreme Courts recent ruling in a 5-4 opinion on Monday, May 13, to allow lawsuits against Apple regarding its app store business model could spell trouble. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the decision, which stressed the Supreme Court was not taking a position on the merits of the lawsuit itself, but instead said it could proceed based on prior antitrust precedent. The consumers here purchased apps directly from Apple, and they allege that Apple used its monopoly power over the retail apps market to charge higher-than-competitive prices, Kavanaugh wrote. The court essentially opened Apple up to consumer lawsuits based on anticompetitive complaints. Apple currently requires all app offerings be sold exclusively through its app store, where it typically takes a 30% cut. The company also takes 15% from subscriptions sold through the app store after one yeardown from the initial 30%. This has caused companies such as Netflix to encourage customers to purchase its app in other locations. Furthermore, the lawsuit complained about Apples price points, which must end in 99 cents. It is unclear exactly what will come next for Apple, but the news caused AAPL shares to tank Monday. Investors should note that Apples Services sales climbed 16% last quarter to reach $11.45 billion and account for nearly 20% of total quarterly revenue. This, however, came in below Q1s 19% Services expansion. Bottom Line Looking ahead, Apples adjusted full-year earnings are projected to slip 3.6% on the back of a 3.3% revenue decline, based on our current Zacks Conesus Estimates. But new tariffs could eventually impact Apple, and any changes to its app store business could eat into profits. Shares of AAPL closed regular trading hours Tuesday up 1.58% to $188.66 per share, which represented a roughly 19% downturn from their 52-week high. Apple is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) based, for the most part, on its mixed earnings estimate revision activity. With all that said, Apple is still dividend payer that is poised to remain an industry giant for years to comeand its next game-changing product could always be in the pipeline. Today's Best Stocks from Zacks Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1%, and +98.3%. This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year. See their latest picks free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report The Walt Disney Company (DIS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Morgan Stanley (MS) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Spotify Technology SA (SPOT) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. defense official has presented an updated military plan to President Donald Trump's administration that envisions sending up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported on Monday. Citing unnamed administration officials, the Times said Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented the plan at a meeting of Trump's top security aides on Thursday. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment. Tensions between Iran and the United States have intensified since Trump pulled out of a 2015 international deal to curb Iran's nuclear activities and imposed increasingly strict sanctions on Tehran. Trump wants to force Tehran to agree to a broader arms control accord and has sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Gulf in a show of force against what U.S. officials have said are threats to U.S. troops in the region. Iran has said the U.S. is engaging in "psychological warfare," called the U.S. military presence "a target" rather than a threat and said it will not allow its oil exports to be halted. The Times said among those attending the Thursday meeting were Trump's national security adviser John Bolton, CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford. Several plans were detailed, the Times said, and "the uppermost option called for deploying 120,000 troops, which would take weeks or months to complete." (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham and Eric Beech; Editing by Michael Perry) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that she does not understand why the United States has failed to change its gun laws in the aftermath of mass shootings. Speaking with CNNs Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, Ardern noted that even though her county has a strong hunting culture and had pretty permissive gun legislation, most New Zealanders agreed after the Christchurch attack it was necessary to draw the line. On April 10, less than a month after a white supremacist terrorist shot and killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the countrys parliament voted 119 to one to pass gun control legislation that banned most of the countrys automatic and semiautomatic weapons. Ardern said while there is a practical purpose and use for guns, at the same time, that does not mean you need access to military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles. You do not. And New Zealanders by and large absolutely agreed with that position. She also compared New Zealands legislation to the laws passed in Australia in the aftermath of the 1996 Port Arthur shooting, in which a gunman murdered 35 people at a Tasmania tourist attraction. In both countries, Ardern said, single massacres were enough to galvanize the public to support gun control. Australia experienced a massacre and changed their laws. New Zealand had its experience and changed its laws. To be honest with you, I do not understand the United States, Ardern said. In 2019 alone, the United States has undergone 122 mass shootings according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people besides the shooter being killed or injured. Four of the five deadliest mass shootings in American history have taken place since 2012, including the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino shooting of Oct. 1, 2017, in which 59 people were killed and more than 500 were injured. In the aftermath of the shooting, Ardern has also established herself as a prominent advocate for combating violent extremism online. The Christchurch perpetrator live-streamed footage of the massacre, which was then disseminated countless times throughout social media. Beginning on Wednesday, Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron are hosting a summit that aims to curb terrorists use of social media. Tech giants will be asked to agree to a Christchurch Call, to more aggressively combat violent content, according to the New York Times. Helping robots remember: Hyperdimensional computing theory could change the way AI works The Houston Astros' Jose Altuve steps up to the plate on a 3-2 count, studies the pitcher and the situation, gets the go-ahead from third base, tracks the ball's release, swings ... and gets a single up the middle. Just another trip to the plate for the three-time American League batting champion. Could a robot get a hit in the same situation? Not likely. Altuve has honed natural reflexes, years of experience, knowledge of the pitcher's tendencies, and an understanding of the trajectories of various pitches. What he sees, hears, and feels seamlessly combines with his brain and muscle memory to time the swing that produces the hit. The robot, on the other hand, needs to use a linkage system to slowly coordinate data from its sensors with its motor capabilities. And it can't remember a thing. Strike three! But there may be hope for the robot. A paper by University of Maryland researchers just published in the journal Science Robotics introduces a new way of combining perception and motor commands using the so-called hyperdimensional computing theory, which could fundamentally alter and improve the basic artificial intelligence (AI) task of sensorimotor representation -- how agents like robots translate what they sense into what they do. "Learning Sensorimotor Control with Neuromorphic Sensors: Toward Hyperdimensional Active Perception" was written by computer science Ph.D. students Anton Mitrokhin and Peter Sutor, Jr.; Cornelia Fermuller, an associate research scientist with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies; and Computer Science Professor Yiannis Aloimonos. Mitrokhin and Sutor are advised by Aloimonos. Integration is the most important challenge facing the robotics field. A robot's sensors and the actuators that move it are separate systems, linked together by a central learning mechanism that infers a needed action given sensor data, or vice versa. The cumbersome three-part AI system--each part speaking its own language -- is a slow way to get robots to accomplish sensorimotor tasks. The next step in robotics will be to integrate a robot's perceptions with its motor capabilities. This fusion, known as "active perception," would provide a more efficient and faster way for the robot to complete tasks. In the authors' new computing theory, a robot's operating system would be based on hyperdimensional binary vectors (HBVs), which exist in a sparse and extremely high-dimensional space. HBVs can represent disparate discrete things -- for example, a single image, a concept, a sound or an instruction; sequences made up of discrete things; and groupings of discrete things and sequences. They can account for all these types of information in a meaningfully constructed way, binding each modality together in long vectors of 1s and 0s with equal dimension. In this system, action possibilities, sensory input and other information occupy the same space, are in the same language, and are fused, creating a kind of memory for the robot. The Science Robotics paper marks the first time that perception and action have been integrated. A hyperdimensional framework can turn any sequence of "instants" into new HBVs, and group existing HBVs together, all in the same vector length. This is a natural way to create semantically significant and informed "memories." The encoding of more and more information in turn leads to "history" vectors and the ability to remember. Signals become vectors, indexing translates to memory, and learning happens through clustering. The robot's memories of what it has sensed and done in the past could lead it to expect future perception and influence its future actions. This active perception would enable the robot to become more autonomous and better able to complete tasks. "An active perceiver knows why it wishes to sense, then chooses what to perceive, and determines how, when and where to achieve the perception," says Aloimonos. "It selects and fixates on scenes, moments in time, and episodes. Then it aligns its mechanisms, sensors, and other components to act on what it wants to see, and selects viewpoints from which to best capture what it intends." "Our hyperdimensional framework can address each of these goals." Applications of the Maryland research could extend far beyond robotics. The ultimate goal is to be able to do AI itself in a fundamentally different way: from concepts to signals to language. Hyperdimensional computing could provide a faster and more efficient alternative model to the iterative neural net and deep learning AI methods currently used in computing applications such as data mining, visual recognition and translating images to text. "Neural network-based AI methods are big and slow, because they are not able to remember," says Mitrokhin. "Our hyperdimensional theory method can create memories, which will require a lot less computation, and should make such tasks much faster and more efficient." ### This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. CHENGDU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, conducted remote medical consultation using 5G wireless technology on Tuesday. Via a 5G network, experts from West China Hospital under Sichuan University received the test results of patients from two hospitals in the Longquanyi District of Chengdu and the city of Suining, respectively. They gave advice and relevant operation guidance during the real-time remote medical consultation. Li Weimin, president of the West China Hospital, said it is very important to have clear pictures and real-time conversation for remote medical consultation. Due to the previous inefficient network, it used to be difficult to popularize remote medical consultation, Li said. Now, the 5G network can accelerate the speed of data transmission, sending electronic medical records, radiological images and pathological examination reports from hospitals in less developed areas to doctors at reputed hospitals, according to Li. It was the first time such a consultation was conducted with 5G technologies in Sichuan. In the future, the province will explore using 5G network to achieve remote real-time guidance of surgery in rural areas. 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. Looking out across the Mediterranean, the elderly Gaza fisherman sits on a bench adorned with just one word - Jaffa. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Mahmoud Al-Assi comes often to this blue bench. It is one of more than 120 such brightly-coloured concrete seats that line the Gaza seafront, each marked with the name of a town or village in Palestine, before Israel's creation in 1948. Mahmoud Al-Assi, 73, who said that he was expelled with his family from Jafa, sits on a concrete bench adorned with a word reading "Jaffa", on a beach in Gaza City He comes especially around May 15, when Palestinians lament what they call the "Nakba" or "Catastrophe" - their defeat in the war of 1948-1949 that surrounded the birth of the modern state of Israel. It is traditionally marked the day after Israel declared independence in 1948. Palestinian refugees in 1948 (Photo: UNRWA) Although Assi left Jaffa nearly seven decades ago as a child, he still regards it as "home". Like many Palestinian refugees, he seeks the right of return to his former homeland. But successive Israeli governments have rejected any such right, fearing the country would lose its Jewish majority. "I have never lost hope, and never will, even when I am dead and buried," he told Reuters as he looked out on the waters that bore him to safety when his father, a citrus merchant and fisherman, put him and his seven siblings on a boat to sail south from Jaffa to Gaza in 1950. In his new life as a refugee in Gaza, those same waters provided a livelihood for him as he brought up his 18 children. Two of Assi's brothers fled to Lebanon, where they lived and died as refugees. Palestinian fisherman Mahmoud Al-Assi, 73, who said that he was expelled with his family from Jafa when Israel was founded in 1948, walks at the seaport of Gaza City "I remember in 1948, when people were displaced, my father told my uncles: 'Don't leave here'", said Assi, who belongs to the same clan as Mahmoud Al-Assi in Gaza. "He told them not to leave because the best place to stay is here. But they didn't listen and left to Lebanon," said Assi, who began his life as a fisherman on the day the fence came down. In the early 1970s, when times were more peaceful and Gaza wasn't sealed off from Israel by checkpoints, blast walls and razor wire, Gaza fisherman Assi was able to travel the 60 kilometres (37 miles) up the Mediterranean coast to visit Jaffa and see his birthplace. He saw his family's unfinished home had since been completed, and was inhabited, but couldn't bring himself to knock at the door and see who was living there. Palestinian fisherman Mahmoud Al-Assi, 73, who said that he was expelled with his family from Jafa when Israel was founded in 1948, sits at the seaport of Gaza City Looking out across the Mediterranean, the elderly Gaza fisherman sits on a bench adorned with just one word - Jaffa. Mahmoud Al-Assi comes often to this blue bench. It is one of more than 120 such brightly-coloured concrete seats that line the Gaza seafront, each marked with the name of a town or village in Palestine, before Israel's creation in 1948. "I didn't know whether Jewish people lived there or others. I wasn't able to enter, I just could not do it. "I felt broken, when you can't enter your house. When it is your house and you can't reach it. I cried." Palestinian historians say only 4,000 Palestinians remained in Jaffa after 1948, of around 120,000 who lived there before it became part of Israel. Iran has officially stopped some commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following an order from its national security council, an informed official in the country's atomic energy body told the ISNA news agency on Wednesday. Iran has officially stopped some commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following an order from its national security council, an informed official in the country's atomic energy body told the ISNA news agency on Wednesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Last week, Iran notified China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom of its decision to halt some commitments under the nuclear deal, a year after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed sanctions. Under the nuclear deal, Tehran was allowed to produce low-enriched uranium with a 300-kg limit, and produce heavy water with a stock capped around 130 tonnes. Tehran could ship the excess amounts out of the country for storage or sale. Iranian president inspects a nuclear facility in Iran (Photo: AFP) The official said Iran has no limit from now for production of enriched uranium and heavy water. Iran's initial moves do not appear to violate the nuclear deal yet. But Iran has warned that unless the world powers protect Iran's economy from US sanctions within 60 days, Iran would start enriching uranium at higher level. The European Union and the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain said they were still committed to the deal but would not accept ultimatums from Tehran. The deal also caps the level of purity to which Iran can enrich uranium at 3.67 percent, far below the 90 percent of weapons grade. It is also well below the 20 percent level to which Iran enriched uranium before the deal. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Tehran does not seek war with the United States despite mounting tensions between the two arch-enemies over Iranian nuclear capabilities and its missile programme. Khamenei also said Tehran would not negotiate with the United States on another nuclear deal. Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhala on Wednesday attacked Qatari envoy to Gaza, Mohammed Al-Emadi, who hinted that the terror group bears responsibility for the latest deadly flare-up between Israel and Hamas. "We thank Qatar for humanitarian aid to Gaza, but that does not mean that we will accept their statements, which have nothing to do with the humanitarian mission, he said. Iran's supreme leader claims that enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels would not be a difficult task for the country - the latest threats from Tehran as tensions roil the region amid the unraveling of the nuclear deal. State-owned IRAN daily quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as telling a group of officials during a meeting on Tuesday night that "achieving 20 percent enrichment is the most difficult part. The next steps are easier than this step." The IDF and the defense establishment were deploying troops reinforcements in key trouble spots Wednesday, in anticipation of violent riots along the Gaza Strip border as Palestinians mark Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), which mourns the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The army believes that Hamas will restrain demonstrators and prevent violent incidents along the fence, but given the fragile cease-fire, is nonetheless preparing for the possibility of escalation during the Muslim fast month of Ramadan and as the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Nakba Day protests calong the Gaza border in 2018 (Photo: AFP) Tens of thousands of Palestinian demonstrators are expected to arrive at the Gaza border fence after noon prayers Wednesday, at the instigation of Hamas. As on other tense occasions over the past year, IDF forces will reinforce the Gaza border, deploying dozens of snipers and hundreds of ground troops at main friction points along the fence. The Iron Dome missile defense batteries deployed to the area during the recent violence with Gaza also remain in operation. While Nakba Day is marked every year with ceremonies, demonstrations and violent clashes, this year is expected to be particularly explosive as it is the first anniversary of the violent confrontations that took place in the Gaza Strip last year during the "March of the Return." More than 60 Palestinians were killed in the most deadly day in the Gaza Strip since the war in 2014, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge. Hamas expected to rein in violence The Hamas terrorist organization, which rules Gaza, is expected to restrain the riots and act as a barrier between the security fence and the demonstrators, in view of the current cease-fire and interim agreements between the Israeli government and Hamas. Most disturbances therefore are expected to take place a few hundred meters from the fence. IDF tanks near the Gaza border (Photo: Reuters) Nonetheless, Israel is still anticipating the possibility of an attack under cover of the demonstrations, and troops have been ordered to take extra precautions in the event of sniper fire from Gaza. Both the IDF and Hamas are aware of the fragility of the calm that has prevailed since the cease-fire came into effect some 10 days ago, and that could be shattered if Wednesday's riots end in Palestinian fatalities. Palestinian protests in Gaza ahead of Nakba Day (Photo: AFP) Tension was also felt in the Israeli communities along the Gaza border ahead of the demonstrations and expected riots, and the security forces in these areas have been bolstered in the event of an escalation in violence. In some areas, the IDF has begin to implement several defensive operations, with roadblocks and barriers being set up in areas that could be exposed to Gaza fire. Concerete barriers are placed in Sderot to counter rocket fire from Gaza (Photo: AFP) The Israel Police is also preparing for the possibility that the confrontations in Gaza will spill over into Jerusalem and the West Bank, following a call by the various Palestinian organizations for protests in those areas as well. Hundreds of extra police and Border Police officers were to be deployed to three locations in the capital - the Old City, neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and the crossings between Jerusalem and the West Bank. Security forces are concerned that so-called lone wolf terrorists will try to carry out attacks, although there is apparently no concrete threat or intelligence. The police were also bracing for the influx to the Old City by many of the tourists in Israel for the Eurovision. Poland's ambassador to Israel was assaulted in broad daylight on Tuesday afternoon near the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv by an assailant who apparently shouted curse words at the envoy as he struck him. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The attack comes amid the growing diplomatic tension between the two countries, as the former Soviet-backed nation refuses to pay restitution to Holocaust survivors and downplays the countys involvement in Nazi-orchestrated atrocities. Poland's Ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski Marek Magierowski said he was outside the embassy on Soutine Street in Tel Aviv when a man suddenly attacked him and shouted - most likely curse words in Hebrew - at the envoy. The stunned ambassador said all he could understand were the words "Polish, Polish." Polish officials immediately filed a police complaint, while the envoy also lodged a formal complaint with the Foreign Ministry. Meron Reuben, the chief of state protocol of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, asked the Israel Police and the officials responsible for embassy security to prioritize the issue in order to avoid further attacks. The ambassador also said he managed to take a picture of the attacker and his vehicle as he fled. The perpetrator was arrested by police and brought in for questioning less than an hour after the incident. The Israel Police is now investigating whether the suspect was involved in additional attacks. The Polish ambassador praised the police for a swift response and effective cooperation throughout the ordeal. Israel's webcast of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final was hacked with animated images of explosions in the host city of Tel Aviv, national broadcaster Kan said on Wednesday, casting blame on Hamas militants. Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, had no immediate comment. Israel's hosting of Eurovision 2019 has drawn pro-Palestinian boycott calls. Danish police arrest a suspect in the brutal stabbing of a member of the Jewish community in southern Sweden a day earlier. According to reports, the unnamed woman, who is married to a prominent member of the Swedish Jewish community, was stabbed nine times in the attack in hte city of Helsingborg. The victim is reportedly in serious condition. The suspect was detained after fleeing into neighboring Denmark. Danish police on Wednesday arrested a man suspected of carrying out a brutal stabbing of a member of the Jewish community in southern Sweden a day earlier. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter According to reports, Michal Bat Ruth, who is married to a prominent member of the Swedish Jewish community, was stabbed nine times in the attack in the city of Helsingborg. She is reportedly in serious condition. Police at the scene of the attack in Helsingborg The suspect was detained after fleeing into neighboring Denmark. He has yet to be identified. According to reports, Swedish police indicated that the attack was unlikely to have been a hate crime, as the suspect was known to them and there did not seem to be a clear motive for the attack. Police have apparently video footage of the attack from a nearby security camera, reports said. Israeli media reported that Sweden has bolstered security around Jewish institutions in Helsingborg. President Reuven Rivlin condemned the attack, writing in a tweet in English on Tuesday that, "(o)nce again, Jews in Europe are in danger." "Today's brutal stabbing of a woman in Helsingborg, Sweden reminds us that we cannot rely on fading memories of the Holocaust to keep today's Jewish communities safe," the president said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured, her family and community." A member of the Swedish Jewish communtiy told Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom that there is a great deal of anti-Jewish sentiment in the country. The situation is bad," Roy Tannenbaum told the paper Tuesday. "There is a lot of anti-Semitism in Sweden and in the Malmo area in particular, many Jews have left to the capital and some made Aliyah to Israel. Unfortunately, a woman paid the price for this today." Poland's foreign ministry says it has summoned Israel's ambassador to the country to explain why the Polish ambassador to Israel was assaulted and insulted on the streets of Tel Aviv. The incident comes amid a bitter standoff between Poland and Israel over how to remember the Holocaust and over demands that Poland pay reparations for former Jewish properties that were seized by Nazi Germany and later nationalized by Poland's communist regime. Ewa Suwara, the ministry spokeswoman, said Anna Azari was summoned to the ministry on Wednesday over the assault on Tuesday of Marek Magierowski. Foreign Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said the assault was being investigated and expressed "fullest sympathy to the ambassador and our shock at the attack." Poland's prime minister on Wednesday condemned what he described as a "xenophobic" and "racist" attack on the country's ambassador to Israel on a Tel Aviv street. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Israeli officials expressed shock at the attack and said they were investigating the assault on Marek Magierowski on Tuesday. The incident comes amid a bitter standoff between Poland and Israel over how to remember the Holocaust and over demands that Poland pay reparations for former Jewish properties that were seized by Nazi Germany and later nationalized by Poland's communist regime. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (Photo: EPA) Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari was summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw on Wednesday over the assault. Michal Dworczyk, the head of Morawiecki's office, said the Polish government expects the perpetrator to be punished. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki expressed his concern at the attack. "Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated," Morawiecki said. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said the assault was being investigated and that "we will update our Polish friends" on what is found. "Israel expresses its full sympathy with the Polish ambassador and shock at the attack," Nahshon said. "This is a top priority to us, as we are fully committed to diplomats' safety and security." Marek Magierowski Eric Lederman, 65, of Herzliya was arrested in connection with the incident. According to the police, Lederman was walking in the street when the ambassador's vehicle honked at him to get out of the street, which he did not take kindly to. The suspect then approached the car and hit its roof. When the ambassador began filming with his phone, the suspect opened the car door and spat in his face amid shouts. The officer added that the suspect probably did not know that the man he was assaulting was the ambassador himself. Lederman's lawyer said that he was at the embassy in order to inquire about regaining lost property but was not allowed inside and the guard called him a derogatory name. he further explained that because the sidewalk outside the embassy was so narrow, his client was forced to walk in the street and that he spat on the ground and not at the ambassador. The lawyer described Lederman as an architect and family man. "When a car honks at you in the street, it arouses emotions the incident was filmed and there is nothing to add," he said. Lederman was released to house arrest by the court and ordered not to approach the embassy area. He is expected to issue an apology later today and request a meeting with the ambassador to put the incident to rest. According to the Polish Embassy, Lederman was inquiring about "Polish anti-Semitism" and said that he did not understand the English spoken to him by the guard. Ties between the two countries became strained in January 2018 when Poland passed a law that criminalized blaming the Polish nation for the crimes of Nazi Germany during World War II. Poland's conservative nationalist government described it as an effort to end linguistic formulations such as "Polish death camps" to refer to the death camps that Germans operated on occupied Polish territory during the war. However, many people in Israel felt it was an attempt by the Polish government to repress debate and scholarship looking at the cases of those Poles who helped the Nazis in killing Jews during the occupation. The law was softened but tensions have continued to simmer, with tensions coming to the surface from time to time. Earlier this week the Polish government canceled a visit by an Israeli delegation, saying the Israeli government made last-minute changes that suggested it would focus on the issue of the restitution of former Jewish property. The Polish government insists that the matter is closed and that because it lost so much in the war it will pay nothing. A rare selfie recently released to the world by the commander of Iran's elite Al-Quds Force was a warning to the United States and its allies. The image, taken in Iraq, shows Qasem Soleimani with two of his senior officers and sends a clear message: We, the Al-Quds commanders, are here in Iraq, the soft underbelly of your interests, and from here we will deal with you too. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter In Israel, this message was taken very seriously. During recent discussions by the prime minister, the head of the National Security Council, the IDF chief of staff, the head of Military Intelligence and senior IDF General Staff officers, a picture emerged of an imminent confrontation between the Iranians and the Americans in the Persian Gulf. Al-Quds commander Qasem Soleimani (Photo: MCT) At this point, it is difficult to assess the scale of such a clash, but Israel must prepare for a gradual escalation, in which it, too, will likely to find itself involved in some way. It is fair to assume that the first military phase will focus on specific Iranian action against oil routes and oil producers in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, the Iranians have in recent days struck Saudi oilfields as well as their tankers at an oil terminal in the United Arab Emirates, either through their special forces or their Houthi allies in Yemen. In the second stage of the escalation, the Iranians will apparently target the interests of the United States and its allies. And this where Israel enters the picture. The Iranians will leave a direct confrontation with the U.S. to the final stage. Anti-U.S. protests in Tehran (Photo: EPA) According to Israeli assessments, there are at least four scenarios for a possible Iranian attack in Israel. The most likely scenario is the launch of missiles from Iraq. The second scenario includes firing missiles and dispatching armed drones from Syria, alongside terrorist activity along the border fence between the two countries. A third scenario, which is viewed as less likely, involves Hezbollah military activity from Lebanon. This is seen as a lesser threat as Hezbollah is at present at one of its economic low points, and it is doubtful that its leader Hassan Nasrallah would give Israel the opportunity to best him. The fourth possible scenario, and the least worrying from an Israeli perspective, is the use of terror attacks by Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip. Each of these scenarios, however, could be folded into another on a different front, depending on the depth of the crisis. Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Photo: AFP) Israel has been aware of the threat from Iraq for a while. More than a year and a half ago, Israel told Iran, via the Americans and the Russians, to remove surface-to-surface missile systems from western Iraq. The assessment was that these missiles were deployed in a bid to deter Israel from continuing attacks on Iranian targets in Syria. The warning achieved its goal and the Iranians lowered their profile in western Iraq, although there are still surface-to-surface missiles in the hands of pro-Iran, Shi'ite militias in Iraq. These militias have missiles with a range of 700-1,000 kilometers, and when stationed in western Iraq, they cover the entire territory of Israel. Unlike the missiles that Saddam Hussein fired at Israel from the same area in 1991, these missiles are accurate and have a relatively short launch period. There are still no preparations underway in Israel to deal with this potential threat, but there is a level of awareness among the intelligence agencies. A Ramat Gan home destroyed by an Iraqi Scud, January 1991 (Photo: GPO) Israel's ability to gather intelligence on what is happening in western Iraq is immeasurably greater than in 1991, when its intelligence agencies were blindly searching for Saddam's mobile rocket batteries and reliant on American satellite images. Israel's offensive capabilities in air and on land against second-tier countries like Iraq are also very different from what they were in 1991. Moreover, Israel has more diplomatic cover than ever before should it choose to embark on a military operation in western Iraq. Just as they didnt hesitate to use the Houthis in Yemen against the Saudis in order to fan the flames of the crisis with the Americans, the Iranians will likely try to ramp up tensions against Israel in order to speed up international intervention over the death blow that the U.S. has just dealt their economy. Palestinian demonstrators began gathering in the Gaza Strip border area on Wednesday afternoon, ahead of the expected demonstrations to mark Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), which mourns the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The demonstrators were heading for specially erected sites along the perimeter fence for events set to take place midday prayers. Palestinians in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza mark Nakba Day (Photo: AFP) The IDF and the defense establishment deploying reinforcements in key trouble spots Wednesday, in anticipation of violent riots along the Gaza border. The Palestinian media reported isolated incidents in which IDF forces fired at demonstrators who had moved near to the fence. There was also a general strike in the Gaza Strip to mark the day. Gaza Strip shops are closed as part of a general strike for Nakba Day By Wednesday afternoon, some 10,000 Palestinians had gathered in front of the border fence at several locations, while buses laid on by Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that rules Gaza, brought demonstrators to the sites. Tens of thousands of Palestinian demonstrators are expected to arrive at the fence, at the instigation of Hamas. Gazans mark Nakba Day along the border with Israel (Photo: Reuters) A small number of demonstrators have approached the border fence from time to time, but so far there have been no noticeable incidents. The IDF has deployed extensively along the fence perimeter, while on the other side Hamas has also dispatched stewards to keep protesters in check. IDF troops on the Gaza border during Nakba Day (Photo: Roee Idan) The army believes that Hamas will restrain demonstrators and prevent violent incidents along the fence, but given the fragile cease-fire, is nonetheless preparing for the possibility of escalation during the Muslim fast month of Ramadan and as the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Palestinian protesters gathering at the Gaza border fence on Nakba Day (Photo: Reuters) While Nakba Day is marked every year with ceremonies, demonstrations and violent clashes, this year was expected to be particularly explosive as it is the first anniversary of the violent confrontations that took place in the Gaza Strip last year during the "March of the Return." Hamas was expected to restrain the riots and act as a barrier between the security fence and the demonstrators, in view of the current cease-fire and interim agreements between the Israeli government and Hamas. Most disturbances were therefore expected to take place a few hundred meters from the fence. Eric Lederman, the man accused of assaulting the Polish ambassador to Israel has issued an apology. He said that his family suffered during the Holocaust and that he was at the embassy to inquire regarding recovering property but that he was treated in a derogatory fashion by embassy staff, which made him quite emotional. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he has been urging Iran's leadership to stick to the nuclear deal, despite the U.S. withdrawal from it. Putin, who was meeting Austria's president in Russia's Sochi, told reporters on Wednesday that the 2015 nuclear accords "are coming apart" but that he has been advising Iranian leaders to adhere to them no matter what the United States does. The Russian leader said that after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran deal with world powers, "Europe can't do anything to save it" and that if Iran begins to backtrack on its commitments, "everyone will end up blaming it all on Iran." Putin said Russia was glad to help mediate the deal and would be willing to help in the future but he added that Russia "is not a rescue squad" and cannot fix "everything that doesn't depend on us entirely." IDF forces arrested a man who crossed the border from the northern Gaza Strip into southern Israel. He was not carrying a weapon and is being questioned by authorities. March 1949, the War of Independence was not yet over but the Palestinian refugee problem had already become an issue. On the 10th of March, Israeli forces reached Um Rush Rush, currently Eilat, and completed the conquest of the Negev Desert. Many war refugees streamed into the Gaza Strip as well as to Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, was living under tight security in Alexandria at the time, following his escape from Europe where he was to stand trial at Nuremberg as a war criminal. Husseini in Germany with Nazi official Heinrich Himmler (Photo: HERMANN HISTORICA) It was the Mufti who fabricated the myth of "al-Aqsa is in danger," according to which the Jews are plotting to destroy the mosque at the Temple Mount complex and rebuild the Third Temple on its ruins. He was the main instigator to the anti-Jewish riots of 1920 and 1929. Husseini led the Arab revolt against the British and the Jews in the 1930's in which 300 Jews and 262 British personnel were killed. The British reacted harshly to the uprising and the local Arabs paid a heavy price 5,000 dead. But 3,500 of them were victims of a murderous campaign by the Mufti against his opponents. The Nakba did not begin in 1948. It began with the exodus of the elite, fleeing the Mufti's terror. And who supported the Mufti? Nazi Germany. Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini meeting Himmler Following an understanding reached between the Mufti and Nazi officials, the Germans sent him funding as the Jews were the enemies of both Nazis and Islamists. The victims of this coalition were mainly Muslims though. Arab society in Palestine began to unravel while the Jewish Yishuv (settlement) prospered as they built a new port and began producing their own foodstuffs so as not to be reliant on the local Arab population. The Peel Commission was established in the aftermath of the Arab uprising. It ultimately recommended partitioning the land in 1937. The committee allocated only 4,840 square km for a Jewish state and 110,000 square km for an Arab state (90,000 in Transjordan and 20,000 in western Palestine). Not only did the Mufti lead the resistance to the Jews receiving a small amount of territory, but he demanded that they be returned to Europe the same Europe which Jews were fleeing ahead of the Nazi onslaught. Having become a fugitive, the Mufti fled to Lebanon and then Iraq where he continued his collaboration with Nazi Germany, inciting against the Jews and encourage their persecution. That incitement led to the Farhud pogrom in Baghdad in 1942 during which at least 179 Jews were killed by Arab mobs. The Jews in Iraq had been loyal, productive and well-integrated citizens. They even issued an anti-Zionist statement following pressure from Iraqi nationalists. It did not help. They were still Jews. From Iraq the Mufti travelled to Germany to continue plotting the annihilation of the Middle East's Jews. Following the war's conclusion, he managed to avoid prosecution as a war criminal at Nuremberg by fleeing to Egypt in order to organize opposition to any compromise that would allow for Jewish autonomy in the region, no matter how minor. On the 10th of March 1949, Yedioth Ahronoth published a story saying that the Mufti survived two assassination attempts. And who tried to kill him? Refugees from Palestine. It is difficult to verify information regarding the attempted assassinations but it is clear that the Mufti was hated by many of the refugees who knew that he was responsible for their plight. The man who took an extremely radical line, eliminated his opponents, caused Arab flight from Palestine before the partition decision, brought about the anti-Jewish riots in Baghdad, opposed any arrangement he is the man most responsible for the Palestinian Nakba of 1948. There were many opponents to the Mufti in the Arab world. Many understood that he was leading the Arabs from one defeat to another. Ultimately, the fanaticism prevailed, while among the Jewish Yishuv, pragmatism prevailed. The day the Arabs recognize their responsibility for the Palestinian AND Jewish Nakba and undergo rehabilitation from the false Palestinian narrative, the chance for an agreement and reconciliation will be greater. It must happen, for us and for them. God willing. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, announced Wednesday that the body will scrutinize the new Palestinian textbooks for content that incites hate and violence, out of concern that EU aid funds are being used to promote hatred. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The announcement follows an investigation and campaign by IMPACT-se (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education). They found that the new Palestinian textbooks, releases in September 2018, are even more radical than previous editions, with hundreds of examples of extremism encouraging Jihad, violence, demonization and incitement against Israel and Jews. EU FM Mogherini alongside hateful content in textbooks The results of IMPACT-se's investigation were shown to senior European officials and delegates at the EU Parliament. In response to an official inquiry from a delegate, Mogherini confirmed that the that the EU will carry out an academic study of Palestinian learning materials and that funds were allocated for that purpose in the 2019 budget. The scrutiny is to be conducted by an independent, internationally respected research institution. Mogherini's response regarding the matter The purpose of the investigation is to "identify possible incitement to hate and violence and non-compliance with UNESCO standards regarding peace and tolerance in education," Mogherini said. "Incitement to violence is incompatible with the promotion of the two-state solution, and greatly exacerbates the lack of trust between the communities." The announcement of the study follows feedback from across the continent to the IMPACT-se campaign as well as increased awareness among European lawmakers. In March, Britain announced its participation in the EU research effort. In January, the British parliament passed legislation preventing tax money from being used to promote hate. The German government also announced last December that it would launch an independent investigation into the contents of the new Palestinian textbooks. Millions for teaching hate According to the investigation by IMPACT-se, the new textbooks deliberately omitted past peace negotiations with Israel, including the Roadmap, the Wye Agreement and even the peace treaty with Jordan. In addition, sections of study that taught about Jewish historical presence in Jerusalem and the Land of Israel were omitted. The word "Israel", which appeared on several maps in the past, has been completely erased from maps in the new books. Palestinian textbook "The European Union is the largest financial donor to the Palestinian Ministry of Education. But European taxpayers' money and good will have been abused for years, with generations of young Palestinians systematically undergoing radicalization," said Marcus Sheff, CEO of the institute. "There is no excuse and no justification. The PA takes hundreds of millions of euros and in return educates millions of children to violence, hatred and Jihad. We hope that the EU's in-depth examination of this issue will help put an end to this abuse of children and will finally enable young Palestinians to finally receive a meaningful education for peace and tolerance." Following IMPACT-se's campaign, the EU Parliament passed legislation in April 2018 intended to prevent European aid funds to the Palestinian Authority from being used to teach hate. In September, the EU's finance committee froze 15 million euros destined for the Palestinian Education Ministry. Following a vote, the EU hosted a discussion on the matter and invited a representative from IMPACT-se to debate the Palestinian deputy education minister. "After the upcoming European Parliament elections, the Institute will brief new members of the European Commission and other senior officials of the European Commission on the new curriculum of the Palestinian Authority and will work to ensure that the EU publishes a fair and meticulous report on the content of the Palestinian books in line with European values," Sheff added. Most European Union aid funds, some 360 million euros, are for the Palestinian Education Ministry. The EU also donated $178 million to UNRWA and much of that is used to fund their schools which also teach the PA curriculum. The Eurovision Song Contest has found few fans in a famous mosque in the Israeli host city, where worshippers have complained that the gaudy festivities are disrupting their observances of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Some Muslims fasting daily as part of Ramadan resent the carousing of scantily clad Eurovision enthusiasts. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter A "Eurovision Village" pavilion set up on the Tel Aviv beachfront to host parties is located directly opposite the century-old Hassan Bek mosque, named after an Ottoman governor and frequented by Israeli Arabs from nearby Jaffa. Hassan Bek mosque where worshipers complain of the noise (Photo: Yaron Brenner) "It (pavilion) is in the wrong place because it is close to the mosque," said worshiper Sa'd Abu Zakariya. "When we pray inside there is no feeling of solemnity because of the sound. We stand here and we can hear the noisy songs." Mohammad al-Akra, a Palestinian laborer from the West Bank who prays at Hassan Bek, said "the Jews" were throwing parties "where people drink alcohol and everything". "Because of the noise we close the windows and doors," said Abed al-Kareem Mohammad, another worshiper. A spokeswoman for Tel Aviv city hall said the municipality "respects the Islamic religion, community and institutions" and noted that "there are also synagogues in the area affected by the heavy pressure of the crowds". The "Eurovision Village" pavilion with Hassan Bek mosque in the background (Photo: Reuters) The Eurovision Song Contest a 41-country songfest which kicked off on Tuesday and ends on Saturday has also been the focus of pro-Palestinian boycott calls. In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, a small group of Palestinian protesters came out against the contest. "Israel is using Eurovision to distract attention from the crime of the Nakba," one demonstrator's placard read, using the Arabic term for the "Catastrophe" when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were displaced in violence that led to war between the new Jewish state and its Arab neighbors in 1948. WASHINGTON - U.S. officials believe Iran encouraged Houthi militants or Iraq-based Shi'ite militias to carry out Sunday's attacks on four tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, two U.S. government sources said on Wednesday. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity and who are familiar with U.S. national security assessments, said they viewed the attacks as a serious provocation by Iran which posed a significant threat to shipping. Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that "extremist individuals" in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies. No one has claimed responsibility for the tanker attacks. One source said U.S. government experts believe Iran gave its "blessing" to the operations, which hit two Saudi crude oil tankers, a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker near Fujairah, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs just outside the Strait of Hormuz. This source said the United States believes the Iranian role has been one of actively encouraging militants to undertake such actions and went beyond simply dropping hints. However, the source indicated the United States does not now have evidence that Iranian personnel played any direct operational role. A team of legal experts and activists have set their sights on the controversial Nation-State Law passed during the previous Knesset session and are working to amend it to include the element of equality. They are hoping that their proposal will be accepted by the upcoming Knesset. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter According to the proposal, signed by former Supreme Court justice Elyakim Rubinstein, among others, the law will be amended to include the values of the State o Israel as a Jewish and democratic state according to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, Arabic will be recognized as an official state language and the encouragement of Jewish settlement (throughout the country) will be carried out according to these principals and "for the benefit of all the state's citizens." Elyakim Rubinstein Druze protest law in Tel Aviv (: AFP) He added that their proposal is similar to the state's Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, with an added element of equality and a respectable clause regarding language and reference to (general) Jewish settlement. "Approval of the proposal will reflect a feeling of civic partnership and the dignity which is so important to Israel's non-Jewish citizens and will enhance internal peace as well as Israel's international standing," Rubinstein continued. Brig. Gen. (Res.) and Israel Prize recipient Amal Asad, who is leading the campaign to amend the law, was interviewed by Ynet Wednesday where he argued that the amendment will actually buttress the law. "We are offering the Knesset an olive branch in the form of an expanded law. Amal Asad "I am not fighting the Nation-State Law, it is okay. It exists to define the nationalism of the Jewish people, the home of the Jewish nation," Asad continued. "But it cannot only be a home for the Jewish people because I live here, I was born here, I built this state, I defended it together with my Jewish friends." Regarding the amendment's feasibility in the current political climate, Asad said that its acceptance is possible if pressure is applied to the government and its head. "I dont believe that there is a politician with a conscience, with integrity, who will not accept this. I call on all of Israel to read the new wording and together we will pressure the prime minister and the Right-wing government; I am sure they will accept it," Asad said. |Amir Ohana Many of the law's critics say that it was a major mistake to leave out any reference of equality and minorities rights. "Democracy and human rights are not a threat to Judaism. It is an Israeli project which we must fight for," said Prof. Shahr Lifshitz, head of the Center for Jewish and Democratic Law at the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University. Likud MK Amir Ohana, who headed the committee which wrote the law, rejected any possibility of its amendment. "It is like a broken record that is constantly repeating itself. They say that the contents of the law are fine only that its missing something, the term equality. But the law deals with nationality and not equality therefore it is omitted. To include equality in the law means that all nationalities are equal but that is not the case. Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish people, that is an inherent contradiction. Equality is great, it is one of the fundamentals of the method and we respect that, but it is not related to nationality," Ohana said. The first key to getting into a college is time. Because high school only lasts four years, it is important for students to make the most of their time. For me, this has meant participating in extra-curriculars, volunteering, and having a little fun along the way. As my time in high school runs out, I want to be sure to spend it with the amazing friends I have made, along with my family. Space is the next infinity stone and plays many roles in a students life. The first of these roles is providing more independence. Summer vacation, which I have been waiting for since last August, gives us all some space by separating us from school. Space also is an important factor in deciding where to go to college. I have gone on several college visits this year and last year and enjoy the feeling of distance. Obviously, the mind is crucial in the college admissions process. After all, education is the reason schools and colleges exist. Grades and standardized test scores are heavily weighted in considering applications because they show a students academic potential. My entire school career, I have given academics my best effort so that one day, I can see my hard work pay off. HURLEY, Wis. The Hurley Chamber of Commerce presented updates on city events to the Hurley City Council at Tuesday nights meeting. Rita Franzoi, marketing director and events coordinator for the chamber, said she would like local residents to help on Monday, during scheduled clean up day. Weve got our big Memorial Day rallies coming up and we want everything to look nice, she said. Beginning at 4 p.m., the event takes place downtown at the motorized trail behind Silver Street. When people come they see a nice presentation rather than everything that gets blown around... By RICHARD JENKINS [email protected] BESSEMER A man wanted in Kentucky was arrested in Gogebic County last week. Kermit Knutson, 66, was arrested in Marenisco Township May 8 after the Gogebic County Sheriffs Department received information regarding his location. Knutson was wanted for failing to appear in court on a first-degree rape charge, according to a post on the Louisville Police Departments Facebook page, after he allegedly cut off his ankle bracelet. Officer Lamont Washington, a spokesman for the Louisville Police Department, said Knutson was facing the rape cha... By P.J. GLISSON [email protected] WAKEFIELD The Wakefield City Council voted Monday to accept a draft version of its 2019-2020 fiscal budget and scheduled a related work session for May 29 at 10 a.m. in the council chambers of the municipal building. City manager Rob Brown told the Daily Globe Tuesday that an updated draft will be compiled after the session, followed by a public hearing. The council then plans to vote on the budget at its June 10 meeting. Among adjustments so far in the coming years budget will be a separation of the citys park and campground departments. B... An average mum-and-dad investor adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the public wealth over the lifetime of a single investment property, according to a new analysis by the Property Investors Council of Australia (PICA). The amount of federal taxes property investors pay is extraordinary and will surprise many and thats before state-based stamp duty and land tax costs are included, adding tens of thousands of dollars more to the bill, said PICA Chairman Ben Kingsley. It is clear that property investors do pay well above their fair share in taxes, and our concern is that impost on investors is set to blow out even further if Labors policies see the light of day. PICA modelled their investor-tax figures based on current negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT) rules assuming assets were held over a standard 30-year loan term. The results showed that while a typical Australian investor will benefit from negative gearing initially, they will be taxed nearly $167,000 in subsequent years over the full 30 years of modelling. Following the train of thought, their net tax payable from rental income over the life of the investment will be over $138,000 under current negative gearing rules, according to Kingsley. The initial tax benefit in this scenario is around $30,000, before paying the $167,000 over the journey, he said. If you think about what first home buyers get in grants, stamp duty concessions and the like, its very comparable to what investors receive, but investors have to pay a lot more additional tax when homeowners pay nothing more. Kingsley said that under current rules, CGT also substantially contributed to the governments tax take. Our data showed, for example, if the average investing couple sold their asset in the 30th year, under the current 50% exemption rule, they would be paying over $611,000 in CGT, he said. Property investors not the big end of town The majority of the nations 2.2 million property investors earn less than $80,000 a year. Hence, the Labor Partys claim about tax loopholes being for the big end of town is insulting, according to Kingsley. Its totally deceptive to characterise landlords as the big end of town in the lead-up to election day, he said. Kingsley said investors have been unfairly targeted throughout Labors and the Greens election campaigns. Mum-and-dads are tired of being branded as greedy property investors buying their fifth or sixth property, when almost 72% only own one, he said. Were also fed up with being blamed for higher property prices, when historically investors make up just three of every 10 buyers in the market. The analysis showed that investors were already contributing plenty towards funding essential services through taxes, according to PICA. Increased taxation on investors looking to self-fund their retirement would have far-reaching economic ramifications for all Australians, said Kingsley. We agree with research undertaken by the Property Council of Australia regarding Labors policy on negative gearing and CGT that it will force the average mum-and-dad investor out of property, which will reduce demand and have a [negative] impact on prices, he said. In addition, the policies will also reduce construction over time, which will force up rents when rental supply tightens. Arizona News Yuma, Arizona - A 2019 report from travel research company InsureMyTrip found that while most Arizona-based travelers prefer to stay in the US this summer, Canada is gaining popularity as a trending international destination. According to the latest data, Canada is the top place to visit abroad followed by the United Kingdom, and Italy. 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. Gabriel Paradelo, CEO of Expertizen, sat with us for the 8th episode of Stories That Inpire, to tell us how the need for CRM for an internal operation ended with him building an entire business around the product. Read his story of spreading Zohos name in Argentina and becoming a Zoho Authorized Partner! Adhya: Tell us a bit about your background. Gabriel: I did my masters in computer science and then stepped into entrepreneurship along with a friend of mine, for delicatessen food. But apart from business, I was also inclined to technology and was longing to make my mark in that niche. Adhya: When did you step into the technical side of the business? Gabriel: A couple of years in, we made a unanimous decision to move to the IT industryone that would serve both his passion for business and my passion for technology. So, we started a small company that caters to the software needs of architects and construction companies. From then on, for about 15 years now, Ive been tied to a consultants profile. Adhya: When did Expertizen come into the picture? Gabriel: Expertizen started many years after that. My 15 years of industry expertise had helped me build a massive network of people. So, I started out by dialing these people up and visiting them to offer Expertizens Google services; I was a Google apps partner at the start. Little by little, I built a customer base for my consultancy. Adhya: How did these 15 years shape your entrepreneurial career? Gabriel: Im always passionate about technology, given my major in computer science, but it was only after becoming a consultant that I figured out how technology would fit into a business context. I was able to understand the business areas of a company better, their needs, and how technology can solve their problems and improve the way people do business. My experience tuned me to understand beyond what customers put into words! Adhya: And when did the partnership with Zoho happen? Gabriel: As the company began to grow, we needed a CRM to build a structured sales channel. I tried many before narrowing it down to Zoho. After a few months with Zoho CRM, I discovered that Zoho also had many other products in its catalogue; all of them targeted at improving the efficiency of doing business. And, thats when I made my relationship with Zoho officialI became a Zoho CRM Partner in 2014! Adhya: How would you position Zoho CRM? Gabriel: We normally ask, Do you find the use of spreadsheets for data management easy? If the answer is no, and if the customer is in need of something more, thats when we start with a business analysis to position a CRM. A CRM is not just a tool that holds all the sales numbers, but software that can give you knowledge about your customers. Its a tool that every growing company needs in place, and thats how we sell it! Adhya: How were your first days in business? Gabriel: Back in 2014, Zoho was not a known brand in the Argentinian market, and it was difficult for us. However, when a potential customer sat through a product demo session, they loved the features! Also, the UI for Zoho products was not attractive, but a couple years later, a major revamp happened and our customers had the complete package with a vibrant interface! Today, Zoho products have become incredibly powerful, and our sole issue for the moment has been with the documentations language and that of the local market. However, I am happy to note that the company had already begun its work in this aspect of business! Adhya: What was your lead generation model then? Gabriel: At the start, Adwords was my lead generation machine. It was great! We were generating a steady pipeline of leads that we could prospect. But, we never had any organic leads until years later. That was after we revamped our website, started out with email marketing campaigns, and took our events online. Now weve built our lead generation machine, so this time we focus on a more specific clientele who comes in with the knowledge of who we are and what we do. As the saying goes, warm leads are better than the cold leads! Adhya: How has social media impacted your business? Gabriel: Were constantly active on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, but I dont really generate leads from social media. However, social media has been effective in letting the market know who we are and what we do as a company! Adhya: How is the Argentina market adopting SaaS services? Gabriel: Eight years ago, SaaS was a concept that few people knew. So people were extremely concerned about data security and service availability. A couple of years later, people got used to cloud services as they found these applications reliable. And by the time they came across companies setting up their own data centers, they concluded that SaaS industries are perhaps not handling security that bad after all, especially reputable companies in the market, like Zoho and Google. So, today, people in the Argentina and Latin America markets are pretty open to accepting cloud services. Adhya: What differentiates Zoho from other SaaS vendors? Gabriel: Zoho provides great service at an incredible price. And since weve used the product for setting up our business, weve got even greater belief in the solutions we provide! Adhya: Could you tell us your experiences selling Zoho to the Argentinian market? Gabriel: We never push our prospects to choose our products. Our approach has always been about avoiding sales speak. So we really try to be open and honest about our strengths and the limitations of our services and products. That way, we end up working with customers whove made an informed decision to choose us, and the products we offer, and are aware of what they can expect from our service. Adhya: How has your business grown over these 8 years of partnership? Gabriel: The last five years of business saw us growing from 30% to 50% YOY. But, as we mature, our growth metrics have started to plateau. However, Zoho has been incredible in adding new products and features to enhance existing products. So the company now has many opportunities to increase the bandwidth of our consulting services by selling and integrating with many other third-party applications. Adhya: What are the measures that Expertizen takes for customer retention? Gabriel: Every customer of Expertizen is provided with a team that handles their support services. We offer support services to all the products that we sell and combine them with the licensing revenue. Implementation helps us build an initial rapport with the customer. Since weve already built an initial interaction, all our clients trust us to help them when a need arises. Adhya: Tell us an interesting customization experience youve had in these 8 years of business. Gabriel: Argentina is a highly regulated market with complex tax ordinances, so we came up with an automated solution using Zoho Books. We started offering Books integration with the electronic invoice system that Argentina uses locally, along with custom reporting features to get the national and state tax reports. It was a perfect customization package for the local market! Adhya: What are your plans for the year? Gabriel: Our primary focus for 2019 revolves around adding other LATAM markets to work with. Were also actively involved in automating sales and service processes, improving the team, and preparing an approach that can expand Expertizen to larger markets. But before going big, were planning on using this time to fine-tune our business operations. Adhya: How are the opportunities for upselling and cross-selling with your existing clientele? Gabriel: Our marketing channels have been continuously pumping new leads into the pipeline. So we ended up spending most of our time acquiring new customers. However, for the past year, weve grown cautious about keeping our existing clientele engaged, and have begun to upsell and cross-sell different products. Adhya: What is your approach to consulting? Gabriel: The technology we introduce must be used by the company. It has to be easy for the employees to work with our customized software services. This is our approach to consultingto understand the clients business and requirements, and then show them all the available options, giving them the space to make an informed decision rather than using sales speak to push products into their basket. We never make decisions for our customers. We show them the options, and let them try the products and decide what works best for their needs. Adhya: Tell us a fond memory of your collaboration with Zoho. Gabriel: I came to Chennai in 2017 for Zoho Inspire. It was a fantastic opportunity for Partners to explore the Zoho headquarters. I had a wonderful conversation with the different teams, their product managers, and the development and support teams who are consistently in touch with us. That was when I came to learn about Zoho University and how this practice was revolutionizing the Indian education system by favoring local hires. The fact that a company as big as Zoho is concerned about the life of local people, and is taking steps to help them be on par with their urban competitors, is remarkable. It was nice meeting Zoho people and learning their philosophy of working, and the freedom with which the individual teams within the company work together! Adhya: Your final thoughts Gabriel: The Zoho Partner network extends to many countries around the world. Yet, they ensure that we get a wide market and dont cannibalize the opportunities of other Partners in the region. There has always been a cautious effort in the partners the company collaborates with, as well as the people who interact with us. So, even though were from all over the world, we all share a common goal! I love the transparency with which Zoho operatesboth with its Partners and its customers. Check out Expertizen here Know more about Partners @ Zoho here Mumbai: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan and actor Ayushmann Khurrana will come together on the big screen for the first time for filmmaker Shoojit Sircar`s upcoming film "Gulabo Sitabo". The family comedy, set in Lucknow, will release in November 2019. Written by Sircar`s frequent collaborator Juhi Chaturvedi of "Vicky Donor", "Piku" and "October" fame, "Gulabo Sitabo" will be produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar. Sircar said in a statement: "Me and Juhi have been working on this script for quite some time...and as we all know, when Juhi comes up with a story it has her trademark quirk in it. "As soon as I read it, I was extremely excited and shared it with Ronnie, my dear friend and producer and to both Mr Bachchan and Ayushmann at the same time," he added. Sircar thought it would take some time to develop and proceed. "But everyone including the duo were so enthusiastic to do this script, that they figured their dates and here we are, planning to release it this year," said the director. "After `Piku" and `Vicky Donor`, I had been wanting to work with Mr Bachchan and Ayushmann on an equally quirky script so this fell perfectly in place." As for the film`s title, he shared that the story is based in Lucknow, and "Gulabo Sitabo is a fun colloquial metaphor used by the locals...as to it`s connect to the story, wait and watch the film to know more". Mumbai: "Bharat" director Ali Abbas Zafar on Wednesday said filming Partition sequences in the Salman Khan-fronted film was the "most challenging part" of the shoot. The film, which is scheduled to release on June 5, is a remake of 2014 Korean drama "Ode To My Father". Ali said the soul of the film lies in keeping the humanity intact in the middle of chaos during Partition 1947. "Partition was the most challenging part of @Bharat_TheFilm shoot, to recreate the scale of this defining moment of history and to keep the emotions Zinda (alive) in the middle of that chaos... Is the soul of an extraordinary journey of an ordinary man #BHARAT," the director wrote on Twitter. Ali, who has previously worked with Salman in "Sultan" and "Tiger Zinda Hai", also shared some photographs from the film sets. The film is touted to be the journey of a country and also a person, both of whom go by the name of Bharat. It features Salman, 53, in several looks, depicting the changing decades. Produced by Atul Agnihotri, the film also features Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover, Disha Patani, Sonali Kulkarni, Jackie Shroff and Tabu. "Bharat" is slated to be released on June 5. New Delhi: The gorgeous and highly talented Alia Bhatt will soon be working with her father Mahesh Bhatt and sister Pooja Bhatt in 'Sadak 2'. The film was announced last year, on the occasion of Mahesh Bhatt's birthday. Alia had shared the first ever teaser of the film, making fans excited for the same. Details about 'Sadak 2' have started surfacing and the latest one is that actor Makarand Deshpande will be playing the antagonist in the film. As per a Mumbai Mirror report, Deshpande has already started prepping for the role. A source told Mumbai Mirror that Makarand has already started acting workshops with Mahesh Bhatt and a unique look is being designed for him in the sequel of the 1991 hit, Sadak. 'Sadak 2' is slated to hit the silver screens on March 25 next year. Besides Alia and Pooja, the film stars Sanjay Dutt and Aditya Roy Kapur as male leads. This is the first time that Alia will be seen working with her sister and father. 'Sadak 2' marks Mahesh Bhatt's comeback into filmmaking after a gap of nearly two decades. Chennai: State-owned Indian Bank will take a call on raising Rs 7,000 crore during the second quarter of the current financial year, its Managing Director and CEO Padmaja Chunduru said Tuesday. "We have received approval to raise upto Rs 7,000 crore. We will decide about it during the second quarter," she told PTI here. In December 2017, the bank's Board accorded approval to raise equity capital upto Rs 7,000 crore in one or more tranches in the current or subsequent financial years based on requirement through FPO, private placement, QIP/rights issue/preferential issue/institutional placement programme. To a query whether the bank has chalked out plans to reduce Non-Performing Assets, she said the target was to bring it down to less than three percent. Gross NPA of the bank reduced to 7.11 percent at the end of March 2018 while net NPA was at 3.75 percent. New Delhi: India's exports rose marginally by 0.64 per cent in April to USD 26 billion while imports increased by 4.5 per cent to 41.4 billion compared to the year-ago month, according to official data released Wednesday. Trade deficit, the difference between exports and imports, widened to USD 15.33 billion in April 2019 from USD 13.72 billion in April 2018. Oil imports grew by 9.26 per cent to USD 11.38 billion and non-oil imports expanded by 2.78 per cent. Gold imports rose by 54 per cent to USD 3.97 billion in April. New Delhi: The government Tuesday again extended its deadline to impose retaliatory import duties on 29 US products, including almond, walnut and pulses, till June 16. A notification of the finance ministry said that implementation of increased customs duty on specified imports originating in the US has been postponed from May 16 to June 16 this year. These deadlines were extended several times since June 2018, when India decided to impose these duties in retaliation to a move by the US to impose high customs duties on certain steel and aluminium products. This extension comes in the backdrop of the US decision to withdraw export incentives being provided to Indian exporters under Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme, which is expected to impact India's exports to the US worth USD 5.6 billion under this scheme. America had given 60 days notice, which ended on May 2 but has yet to withdraw those benefits. Meanwhile, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu held bilateral meetings on May 6 here. Further extension of GSP benefits was part of a trade package being negotiated between the two countries. However, those negotiations hit a roadblock after the US announced its decision to roll back GSP benefits from Indian exporters. The US administration has alleged India in imposing high import duties on products such as paper and Harley Davidson motorcycles from America. India wants US to exempt them from the high duty imposed on certain steel and aluminium products, provide greater market access for agriculture, automobile, automobile components and engineering sector products. On the other hand, the US is demanding greater market access through a cut in import duties for its agriculture goods, dairy products, medical devices, IT and communication items. As part of the imposition of higher import duties, India has notified higher tariffs on several products. While import duty on walnut has been hiked to 120 per cent from 30 per cent, duty on chickpeas, Bengal gram (chana) and masur dal will be raised to 70 per cent, from 30 per cent currently. Levy on lentils will be increased to 40 per cent. India's exports to the US in 2017-18 stood at USD 47.9 billion, while imports were at USD 26.7 billion. The trade balance is in favour of India. London: Daniel Craig, who was injured on the sets of "Bond 25", is reportedly expected to resume shooting on the film "within the week". The new James Bond film hit another roadblock after Craig fell while sprinting on the film's sets in Jamaica last week and was flown to the US for X-rays. The shooting, which was scheduled to take place at London's legendary Pinewood Studios, was suspended till further notice. According to The Sun, the actor will be able to resume production while being careful not to aggravate the injury. Citing an unnamed source, the publication stated that Craig's injury was not as bad as initially feared. "Things were deemed to be a disaster at first. But the injury is not as severe as believed, and he will be able to film while not over-exerting his ankle. He will be back on set within the week," the source told The Sun. The new film in the Bond franchise has had a tumultuous journey. It was previously set to be directed by Danny Boyle with a release date of November 8, 2019. After Boyle dropped out of the project over "creative differences", along with frequent collaborator, screenwriter John Hodge, the film's release date was moved to February 14, 2020. Cary Joji Fukunaga is now attached as director, with Scott Z Burns hired by MGM studio to pen a new script. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have already drafted a version of the script but it is being reported that the studio is unhappy with their story. Recently, "Fleabag" creator-actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge came on board the movie to "polish" the script of Bond 25. The release of the film was recently pushed back to April 8, 2020. HYDERABAD: A woman from Hyderabad on Tuesday sought help from Union Minister Sushma Swaraj claiming that her sister was stranded in Saudi Arabia's Riyadh. Talking to ANI, Rehmath Begum said that her sister, Ghousia Begum, was approached by some agents who offered her a good job in Saudi Arabia's capital city. She added that the agent told Ghousia that she can earn good money there and will not have to spend a lot of time working. " A woman and three agents approached my sister Ghousia and offered her job in Riyadh telling her she'll have to work only 2-4 hrs. Now she's being made to work at several houses for 15-20 hrs. She isn't being given food and is being tortured. I request Sushma ji to help her," Rehmath told ANI. Rehmat Begum: A woman&3 agents approached my sister Ghousia&offered her job in Riyadh telling her she'll have to work only 2-4 hrs. Now she's being made to work at several houses for 15-20 hrs. She isn't being given food&is being tortured. I request Sushma ji to help her. (14.05) pic.twitter.com/2vZWTos5Z9 ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2019 According to Rehmath, her sister left India for Riyadh on March 14, 2019 and she is now being tortured by her employers. Rehmath added that she and other members of her family tried contacting the agents who sent Ghousia to Saudi Arabia, but none of the agents were available to listen to their grievances. "My sister's employers are not letting her to speak with us. I request External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to rescue my sister as she is facing problems there and is not keeping well," she said. Intelligence agencies are on high alert after receiving specific inputs that terrorists are planning to carry out multiple attacks inside India. Intelligence agencies believe that terrorists are conspiring to carry on some big terror strikes. Sources told Zee Media that three terrorists have infiltrated inside India through Nepal and they have reached Bandipora in Jammu and Kashmir. On the other hand, Bangladesh-based terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has trained a female suicide bomber and it is likely that she would target Buddhist Temples in Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. Intelligence agencies are treating these developments as the arrival of Islamic State (IS) in South East Asia and the recent attacks at churches in Sri Lanka add credence to this theory. Sources told Zee News that a terrorist named Sajid Mir recently brought three foreign terrorists to Bandipora from Kathmandu in Nepal. It is to be noted that Bandipora is seen as one of the safest places foreign terrorists, especially of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. The infiltration through Nepal has left security agencies deeply worried because no infiltration had taken place from this route in 2017 and 2018. Live TV It may be recalled that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI had once very strong network in border areas of Nepal but the network was dismantled in recent years. But the inputs which has left intelligence agencies more worried is related to the female suicide bomber of JMB. Sources said that the suicide bomber has been trained to target Buddhist temples on May 18 during Buddh Purnima. JMB's motive behind these attacks is to take revenge of the alleged atrocities committed by the Buddhists on Muslims. JMB is a Bangladesh-based terrorist organisation. The JMB, which is now banned in Bangladesh, is responsible for carrying out some major terror attacks in Bangladesh in the last decade. Four JMB members were hanged on March 29, 2007 for their involvement in terror activities. Sources said that the JMB is growing in strength because it is receiving financial support from orthodox Muslim nations and organisations. In 2015, two Pakistani High Commission officials were caught red-handed while they were arranging funds for JMB. The Indian Navy had conducted a hostage rescue mock exercise at a hotel in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, it tweeted on Wednesday morning. The operation, that took place on Tuesday, was done by Navy's Seaking 42C helicopter and the MARCOS special forces. #IndianNavy Seaking 42C & special forces (MARCOS) conduct a hostage rescue mock drill at a hotel in Visakhapatnam pic.twitter.com/GmnHOFAtoY SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) May 14, 2019 All the stakeholders were plugged in for the operation. Earlier named as Marine Commando Force, MARCOS is the special forces unit of the Indian Navy created for conducting special operations. Live TV The MARCOS is specially organised, trained and equipped for the conduct of special operations in a maritime environment. Personnel from unit are deployed round the clock from Kashmir for CI/CT ops to GoA, Somalia for anti-piracy operations. The core tasking of MARCOS includes: conducting clandestine attack against enemy ships, offshore installations and other vital assets behind enemy lines, supporting amphibious operations including pre-assault ops, conducting of surveillance and recce missions in support of naval operations, conducting of clandestine diving operations, and combating terrorism in a maritime environment. The first feather in the cap of MARCOS was that immediately after donning its colours, the MARCOS were baptized in combat in Sri Lanka during Op Pawan. The journey that started from Sri Lanka has continued unabated, in some form or other and the force has participated in all the major operations conducted by the Navy. The unit has proved its mettle during these operations and is the recipient of the highest number of gallantry awards to date in the Navy. Pakistan's shambolic economic state has been prevailing for more than a year. And even with the recent announcement that a deal for a bailout package worth $6 billion has been sealed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the ominous signs refuse to fade. On Wednesday, the country's currency crashed to an all-time low against the US dollar to further deepen the crisis. The Pakistani rupee went into freefall and weakened significantly to 146.25 against one US dollar. This is a record low for the currency which has oscillated between PNR 140 and PNR 145 in recent months. Prior to this, the exchange rate figure stood at PNR 123 for every US dollar on the day Imran Khan took oath as PM in August of last year and was at PNR 115 only months prior to this. In the past, the country's central bank has repeatedly devalued the currency in a bid to deal with a possible payment crisis. Pakistan's ARY News reported on Wednesday that the country has lost 50 per cent of its reserves in the last two years. The report, quoting Imran Khan's advisor Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, however stated that the IMF bailout package will normalise the prevailing situation. Not many in Pakistan, however, are too pleased with the prevailing situation. While opposition parties have only intensified their attack against the PTI government, common people looking at summer vacations abroad too have been hit hard at what many of them term as an appaling exchange rate. Many have also taken to social media to vent their ire. Srinagar: A special cell of Delhi Police has arrested a wanted Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist, Abdul Majid Baba in Srinagar, said police on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference, in Delhi, Sanjeev Yadav DCP Special cell said, "The team of Special Cell south-western range had been working on the inputs to trace the wanted and absconding Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist arrested Abdul Majid Baba, who had a cash reward of Rs 2 lakh on him and was absconding since past five years." "The team of Special Cell managed to track Baba in Srinagar and he was arrested in the evening of May 11," The DCP added. Yadav further said, "Earlier in February 2007, Baba was arrested with a Pakistani national Sahid Gaffur along with two other terrorist and Fayaz Ahmad, Basir Ponu and they were planning a terror strike in Delhi. Arms and ammunition were also recovered from them." "After trial, a lower court had convicted the Pakistani national while the remaining three were acquitted. In 2014 acting on our appeal, the High Court had pronounced lifetime jail term for three terrorists, however, they went absconding," Yadav added. New Delhi: Hailing the Election Commission's decision to end campaigning in West Bengal from 10 pm on Thursday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that the poll panel effectively declared that the state is witnessing anarchy. Live TV Taking to his Twitter handle, Jaitley wrote, "A free campaign is not possible and therefore the campaign has to be cut short. This is a classical case of breakdown of the Constitutional Machinery." A free campaign is not possible and therefore the campaign has to be cut short. This is a classical case of breakdown of the Constitutional Machinery. Chowkidar Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 15, 2019 "A constitutional authority, the Election Commission of India, has effectively held Bengal to be a state in Anarchy. Repeatedly escalating violence, state supported Vandals, a partisan police and home department are the illustrations the ECI has given," he said. A constitutional authority, the Election Commission of India, has effectively held Bengal to be a state in Anarchy. Repeatedly escalating violence, state supported Vandals, a partisan police and home department are the illustrations the ECI has given. Chowkidar Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 15, 2019 The poll body today invoked Article 324 of the Constitution to curtail the campaigning for the last phase of the election on May 19. The EC also ordered the removal of West Bengal's principal secretary (home) and additional director general, CID. "No election campaigning to be held in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal, namely Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata, from 10 pm tomorrow till the conclusion of polls," Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar told media. The official said this is probably the first time the panel has invoked Article 324 in this manner, adding that it may not be last in cases of repetition of lawlessness and violence which vitiate the conduct of polls in a peaceful manner. The Commission also announced a ban on the sale of liquor and other intoxicating substances in polling areas of these constituencies till the end of elections. Campaigning was originally scheduled to conclude at 5 pm on Friday for the nine constituencies that go to polls on Sunday. Tensions mounted yesterday after violence erupted during Shah`s roadshow when the statue of iconic social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised in a college named after him. Both BJP and Trinamool Congress accused each other of inciting the violence which broke out during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. During the violence, a bust of Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised. A few bikes and motorcycles were set on fire and several supporters were injured in the clash. Hours after the BJP and TMC supporters on Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive road show by BJP president Amit Shah, leaders across party line trained their guns on each other in a blame game over the violence. Live TV Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence after TMC's student wing, allegedly, waved black flags near Vidyasagar college and were also displaying anti-BJP placards. When confronted by BJP supporters, violence erupted. Stones were thrown, lathis were used and several vehicles were set on fire, even as Kolkata Police eventually resorted to lathi charge to restore order. Outside the college entrance, several motorcycles parked were vandalised and set ablaze. Shards of broken glass littered the lobby of the college. While the BJP criticised the TMC for unleashing violence during Shah's roadshow, the TMC blamed the BJP for desecrating the statue of Bengali writer and philosopher Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. The Opposition leaders took a jibe at the BJP vehemently criticising the violence. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "Has Bengal acquired a Government of Gangsters? The attack on Amit Shahs peaceful rally by the TMC is deplorable. Is a free & fair Poll possible in Bengal? All eyes are now on the Election Commission." Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis said, "Mamata Ji has become so scared of her defeat, that she is killing democracy and doesn't even want to let anyone campaign. I appeal Election Commission (EC) to ensure free and fair polls." BJP National Secretary Incharge-Tripura, Sunil Deodhar, tweeted, "Very unfortunate to see that TMC goons vandalised the iconic statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Hoodlums of youth AITC on the direction of CM Mamata Banerjee used the premises of Vidyasagar College to attack BJP Bengal activists. I strongly condemn this frustrated act!" Haryana CM Manohar Lal, "Appalled by the shameful attack on @AmitShah ji's rally in Kolkata today. Does the TMC think that they are above the law? Their tactics of bullying and intimating to put fear in the minds of people will not work anymore. The citizens will give them a befitting reply soon." Manipur CM Nongthon Biren, "The attacked at @AmitShah jis rally in #Kolkata deserves to be condemned. The Violence on his peaceful rally is against the principles of democracy. All the right thinking people of this democratic country should condemn on strongest terms." Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien tweeted, "Uploading multiple videos of horrific events in Kolkata last evening. Irrefutable evidence that BJP goons, part of Shahs roadshow, went on rampage and even desecrated Vidyasagars bust showing no respect or love for Bengals culture. We guarantee the videos are 100% authentic." TMC leader Mimi Chakraborty tweeted, "Heart aches mind busts soul cries. Vandalism of icons statue-like ISHWAR CHANDRA VIDYASAGARS who was the epitome of knowledge will never be accepted..Ppl r loosing mind,culture, ethics nd definitely knowledge on serious grounds." CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury condemned the desecration of Vidyasagar's statue, alleging that "attacking knowledge is central to getting their poisonous project going". "BJP-RSS think nothing of when they vandalise the historic Vidyasagar College, break Vidyasagar statue. This is their advocacy of Indias civilisational heritage? Attacking knowledge is central to getting their poisonous project going. Bengal will reject the destruction they offer. By this ugly show in the capital of Bengal, do BJP and TMC think they will win support? It is an act of desperation where they have both revealed their destructive and unacceptable agenda for Bengal. Eta cholbe na, chala uchit na. Both TMC and BJP in Bengal today are hell-bent on negating the heritage and ethos of Bengal. Vidyasagar was conferred the title of the ocean of knowledge. A leading figure in the Bengal renaissance, he stood for progress, pathbreaking reform and enlightenment. It is very clear why the Sangh parivar would seek destruction of his ideas," tweeted Yechury. "I strongly condemn the unprecedented violence in Kolkata after the rally of the BJP President Amit Shah. The images of the destruction of the iconic Eshwar Chandra Vidya Sagar Statue will not be forgotten easily. Congress will oust the BJP on 23rd May and end the regime of hate," Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi. Kolkata: Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga was allegedly detained by Kolkata police, hours after clashes erupted between BJP and Trinamool workers at Amit Shah's roadshow on Tuesday. Live TV Bagga was picked up around 3 am on Wednesday and has been detained at New Market Police station in Kolkata, sources told Zee News. He has not yet been arrested. The case is being examined. A purported image of Bagga, sitting inside the police station, was widely shared by BJP members on Twitter and Facebook. (Zee News cannot independently verify the authenticity of the image) BJP's IT in-charge Amit Malviya alleged that several BJP leaders, including Bagga, were detained in a midnight crackdown on West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's instructions. Mamata Banerjee ordered a midnight crack down on several BJP leaders in Kolkata, who were picked up in the middle of night, without due process of law being followed. Tajinder Bagga and several others are now in TMCs illegal detention. #SaveBengalSaveDemocracy #FreeTajinderBagga, he tweeted. Mamata Banerjee ordered a midnight crack down on several BJP leaders in Kolkata, who were picked up in the middle of night, without due process of law being followed. Tajinder Bagga and several others are now in TMCs illegal detention. #SaveBengalSaveDemocracy #FreeTajinderBagga Chowkidar Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) May 15, 2019 BJP leader Kapil Mishra tweeted, Kolkata police has arrested @TajinderBagga at 3:00 am. His fault? Tried to save democracy in Bengal. Kolkata police has arrested @TajinderBagga at 3:00 am His fault? Tried to save democracy in Bengal#FreeTajinderBagga pic.twitter.com/3HUdh9nAGY Chowkidar Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishra_IND) May 15, 2019 Came to know that @TajinderBagga is lodged in police station at #Kolkata after being picked from his hotel at 4 am.The @MamataOfficial is not even ready to accept that her days are numbered. She has resorted to lowest kind of politics,she has faith in violence, tweeted Aijaz Hussain, BJP National Vice President and Incharge West Bengal BJP Youth Wing (BJYM). The situation continued to remain tense in West Bengal where violent clashes ensued between ruling Trinamool and Bharatiya Janata Party workers on Tuesday. While BJP will hold a dharna against the attack on Shah's roadshow in Kolkata at New Delhi, Trinamool will hold a protest rally against the BJP over the destruction of Bengali philosopher and social reformist Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue in Kolkata on Wednesday. New Delhi: In an unprecedented move and in the aftermath of violence in Kolkata on Tuesday, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday cut down campaigning time in West Bengal for the final phase of voting in Lok Sabha election 2019 by 24 hours. The EC also said it is extremely disappointed at the anarchic scenes on Kolkata's streets on Tuesday and removed ADG CID Rajeev Kumar and Home Secretary Atri Bhattacharya. Rajeev Kumar will have to report to MHA on Wednesday. TMC and BJP supporters had clashed in the capital city of West Bengal towards the end of Amit Shah's roadshow here. Acts of violence and arson had been witnessed with both parties blaming each other for it. Live TV Taking strong objection to this, the EC invoked Article 324 and took the decision to restrict campaigning time in the nine parliamentary seats in West Bengal - Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata. "This is probably the first time that ECI has invoked Article 324 in this manner but it may not be last in cases of repetition of lawlessness and violence which vitiate the conduct of polls in a peaceful manner," it said. "The Commission is deeply anguished at the vandalism done to the statue of Vidyasagar. It is hoped that the vandals are traced by the state administration. There would be no campaigning in the state from 10pm on Thursday. The TMC has sought a meeting with the Election Commission (EC) over the destruction of a statue of Bengali writer and philosopher Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during clashes in West Bengal's Kolkata between workers of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The team comprising of Derek O'Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Manish Gupta, Nadimul Haque has sought the meeting, hours after tensions heightened in the city. Live TV The supporters of both the parties fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive road show by BJP president Amit Shah. Though Shah escaped unhurt, he was forced to cut short the road show and had to be escorted to safety by the police. Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence after TMC's student wing, allegedly, waved black flags near Vidyasagar college and were also displaying anti-BJP placards. When confronted by BJP supporters, violence erupted. Stones were thrown, lathis were used and several vehicles were set on fire, even as Kolkata Police eventually resorted to lathi charge to restore order. In another development, the students and professors of the Vidyasagar College reached the Amherst Police Station at around midnight to register a complaint against the BJP over the destruction of the statue. Following the clashes, state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the party will hold a protest rally on Wednesday. The pressure in the state's political arena starting building up ahead of Amit Shah scheduled rally. There were reports that TMC supporters had begun tearing posters and hoardings in the city which showed PM Narendra Modi and Shah. BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya accused TMC of resorting to dubious means in order to disrupt proceedings. "Mamata ji's goons and police removed all the posters and flags. They escaped soon after we reached here," he had said. Shortly after, Kolkata Police denied permission for Shah's roadshow to begin from Shahid Minar Maidaan, stating that BJP had tried to set up a stage here. As a result, the roadshow eventually began from Dharmatala. Thousands of people came out to greet Shah as the roadshow proceeded from here, through Esplanade, Lenin Sarani, Wellington Square and Boubazar. Flower petals rained on participants of the roadshow as Shah waved, punched the air and showed the victory symbol. Following him were tableaus from 20 states and cultural events too were organised at different points of the route. But soon black clouds of violence ensued. Speaking to Zee News, Shah blasted Mamata. "The attack was carried out by TMC workers, they carried out arson. Mamata is frustrated as she is fearing defeat. This is a step taken because of their frustration," he said. Mamata, however, refuted the charge and countered by saying BJP had brought in party workers from other states in a bid to show they enjoyed mass support in West Bengal. She also visited the Vidyasagar College where a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar had been damaged. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien changed their Twitter and Facebook display photos to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's image, hours after a statue of the Bengali philosopher and reformist was vandalised during clashes between workers of the ruling party and the BJP on Tuesday. Trinamool's official profile on Twitter and Facebook also changed their display picture to Vidyasagar's image. Live TV Kolkata witnessed a tense Tuesday with supporters of BJP and Trinamool clashing during Amit Shah's roadshow. The BJP president's convoy was attacked with sticks and stones by alleged TMC supporters, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. The clashes took place near College Square and Calcutta University's Vidyasagar College, where a bust of Bengali Renaissance figure Vidyasagar was damaged. At least two vehicles were set ablaze. Kolkata Police resorted to lathi-charge to dispel the crowd of protestors. More than 100 people were taken into custody. While Banerjee said she has never seen such political violence in Kolkata, Amit Shah accused the state government of deliberately trying to disrupt the roadshow. "The attack was carried out by TMC workers, they carried out arson," Shah told Zee News. "Mamata is frustrated as she is fearing defeat. This is a step taken because of their frustration." "What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he God that no one can protest against him?" Banerjee told reporters after visiting the Vidyasagar College in north Kolkata. "They are so uncultured that they have broken the bust of Vidyasagar. They are all outsiders. They BJP had brought them to be used on the day of polls," she said. This is not the first time that supporters of the two parties clashed in West Bengal. The state witnessed poll-related violence in each of the six phases of voting so far in Lok Sabha election 2019. The BJP has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission and demanded strong action against TMC and its chief Mamata Banerjee. The Trinamool has also sought a meeting with the EC and will hold a protest rally on Wednesday. HOWRAH: Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) National Secretary Saurav Sikandar on Tuesday said that party worker Priyanka Sharma, who was jailed for sharing a morphed picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook, will be released on Wednesday. Sikandar said that Priyanka's release could not happen on Tuesday because the apex court's order reached to them after the closure of prison at around 5:30pm. "We got SC`s order around 5:30 PM; prison was closed by then. Still, we spoke to the jailor, she said they have received an e-mail but they cannot release Priyanka on the basis of it," Sikandar told ANI. Saurav Sikdar, BJYM, National Secy on delay in release of Priyanka Sharma who has been granted bail by SC after she was arrested for sharing a morphed picture of WB CM on Facebook: We got SC's order around 5:30 PM; prison was closed by then pic.twitter.com/jqwMomZHm3 ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2019 He added that the jailor suggested them to get in touch with the concerned Judicial Magistrate. Sikandar said that he will meet DG prison on Wednesday and secure Priyanka's release. "The jailor has asked us to speak to concerned Chief Judicial Magistrate. Tomorrow we will also speak to DG prison. We are hopeful that we can take Priyanka home tomorrow," he said. Saurav Sikdar: Still we spoke to jailor, she said they've received an e-mail but they can't release Priyanka on the basis of it. The jailor has asked us to speak to concerned CJM. Tomorrow we will also speak to DG prison. We are hopeful that we can take Priyanka home tomorrow. https://t.co/3ph0PIm2jH ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2019 While hearing Priyanka's bail plea, the SC said on Tuesday that bail will be granted to her only if she agrees to give a written apology to the West Bengal chief minister for her action. The top court later waived this condition and ordered her immediate release from judicial custody. "Subject to Priyanka Sharma tendering an apology in writing for putting up an objectionable picture on Facebook account, she shall be immediately released. At the time of release, she shall tender an apology in writing," a vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna erlier said. The SC then called back Sharma's lawyer and informed him about its decision about waiving the condition of written apology. During the hearing, Priyanka's lawyer had said that seeking a written apology from his client will amount to infringement of the Right to Freedom of Speech. Priyanka was arrested on a complaint by a Trinamool Congress member and was sent to 14 days judicial custody by a Howrah court. A day after the Supreme Court ordered the release of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) worker Priyanka Sharma, her lawyer on Wednesday approached the apex court alleging a delay in her release. Sharma was jailed for sharing a morphed picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook. Her lawyer said that despite the order, she wasn't release yet. Reacting to the claim, the top court warned the West Bengal government of complying with the order failing which the court will issue a contempt notice to the state government. Live TV On Tuesday, BJYM National Secretary Saurav Sikandar had said that Sharma's release could not happen on Tuesday because the apex court's order reached them after the closure of prison at around 5.30pm. "We got SC`s order around 5.30 PM; prison was closed by then. Still, we spoke to the jailor, she said they have received an e-mail but they cannot release Priyanka on the basis of it," Sikandar had told news agency ANI. He added that the jailor suggested them to get in touch with the concerned Judicial Magistrate. Sikandar said that he will meet DG prison on Wednesday and secure Priyanka's release. "The jailor has asked us to speak to concerned Chief Judicial Magistrate. Tomorrow we will also speak to DG prison. We are hopeful that we can take Priyanka home tomorrow," he had said. While hearing Priyanka's bail plea, the SC said on Tuesday that bail will be granted to her only if she agrees to give a written apology to the West Bengal chief minister for her action. The top court later waived this condition and ordered her immediate release from judicial custody. "Subject to Priyanka Sharma tendering an apology in writing for putting up an objectionable picture on Facebook account, she shall be immediately released. At the time of release, she shall tender an apology in writing," a vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna earlier had said. The SC then called back Sharma's lawyer and informed him about its decision about waiving the condition of written apology. During the hearing, Priyanka's lawyer had said that seeking a written apology from his client will amount to infringement of the Right to Freedom of Speech. Priyanka was arrested on a complaint by a Trinamool Congress member and was sent to 14 days judicial custody by a Howrah court. BJP's youth wing leader Priyanka Sharma was released on Wednesday morning after she was forced to spend five days in Alipore Correctional Home for posting a morphed image of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media. Addressing a press briefing in the party office in Kolkata after her release, Sharma alleged that even after the Supreme Court issued an order on Tuesday for her immediate release, she was kept inside the correctional home premises for an additional 18 hours. Sharma said that she wasn't allowed to talk to her family or lawyer, adding that she was tortured for posting a meme. She also asserted that she was forced to sign an apology letter before she was set free. Live TV Earlier in the day, her lawyer had approached the apex court alleging a delay in her release. Reacting to the claim, the top court warned the West Bengal government of complying with the order failing which the court will issue a contempt notice to the state government. However, the counsel appearing for the West Bengal government told a vacation bench comprising justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna that Sharma has been released from jail at around 9:40 am on Wednesday. On Tuesday, BJYM National Secretary Saurav Sikandar had said that Sharma's release could not happen on Tuesday because the apex court's order reached them after the closure of prison at around 5.30pm. "We got SC`s order around 5.30 PM; prison was closed by then. Still, we spoke to the jailor, she said they have received an e-mail but they cannot release Priyanka on the basis of it," Sikandar had told news agency ANI. He added that the jailor suggested them to get in touch with the concerned Judicial Magistrate. Sikandar said that he will meet DG prison on Wednesday and secure Priyanka's release. "The jailor has asked us to speak to concerned Chief Judicial Magistrate. Tomorrow we will also speak to DG prison. We are hopeful that we can take Priyanka home tomorrow," he had said. While hearing Priyanka's bail plea, the SC said on Tuesday that bail will be granted to her only if she agrees to give a written apology to the West Bengal chief minister for her action. The top court later waived this condition and ordered her immediate release from judicial custody. "Subject to Priyanka Sharma tendering an apology in writing for putting up an objectionable picture on Facebook account, she shall be immediately released. At the time of release, she shall tender an apology in writing," a vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna earlier had said. The SC then called back Sharma's lawyer and informed him about its decision about waiving the condition of written apology. During the hearing, Priyanka's lawyer had said that seeking a written apology from his client will amount to infringement of the Right to Freedom of Speech. Priyanka was arrested on a complaint by a Trinamool Congress member and was sent to 14 days judicial custody by a Howrah court. Basirhat, West Bengal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had an intense verbal duel with Mamata Banerjee through the course of Lok Sabha election 2019 but on Wednesday, a day after a BJP roadshow in Kolkata was marred by violence, he sharpened his already razor-sharp attack against the West Bengal chief minister. Addressing a rally, PM Modi launched a scathing attack against Mamata and blamed TMC for the violence in Kolkata a day earlier. "Mamata didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will take revenge. She fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow was attacked," he said, referring to a rally speech made by Mamata in which she had said she would take revenge for BJP trying to create a parallel government in West Bengal. PM Modi, however, accused West Bengal's state government of being high-handed and even referred to the arrest of a BJP worker for sharing a meme on Mamata. "Didi, the daughters you are putting in jail are the daughters who will rise up and punish you. One photo and so much anger? I request you to make an obscene photo of me and present it to me when you come to congratulate me on winning the election. I assure you that I will not file an FIR against you and will graciously accept the photo," he said. Expressing confidence that the NDA will roar back to power, PM Modi also said that West Bengal will outrightly reject TMC. "All the surveys are giving BJP a full majority on its own. But Didi, after seeing your frustration and the support from the people of Bengal, I'm saying that Bengal will help us win more than 300 seats," he proclaimed. Live TV The BJP vs TMC tussle has been intense with the two parties at loggerheads through the course of Lok Sabha election 2019. Shah's roadshow in Kolkata was meant to be a show of BJP's strength in Mamata's bastion but it was blemished by violence. Since, both parties have accused each other and even complained to the Election Commission of India. New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi has reportedly entrusted Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath to open talks with non-BJP parties for a possible alliance if no party is able to gain a majority in Lok Sabha election 2019. Sources have revealed to Zee News that the UPA chairperson wants Kamal Nath to lead Congress' outreach to smaller and regional parties if a hung parliament is the outcome at the end of result day - May 23. While the Bharatiya Janata Party has maintained that it will comfortably return to power as the largest member of National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Congress has reportedly begun gearing up for a scenario to the contrary. Support from non-NDA members could be the deciding factor for both Congress and the BJP if no party is able to hit the majority mark on its own. Kamal Nath, a seasoned war-horse for the Congress, has seen giddying heights and the lowest of lows of his party. His recent return to the post of MP CM showcased the faith Congress' top brass has in him. He has also been a key campaigner for the party in the ongoing Lok Sabha election 2019. Recently, he said at a rally that PM Narendra Modi's term in office is just a matter of time now. Live TV Kamal Nath may now have to reach out to non-UPA, non-BJP parties and work out a formula in the eventuality of a hung parliament. Out of power in Delhi since 2014 when BJP swept the Lok Sabha election, Congress is desperate to return to the political helm. And while party leaders see Rahul Gandhi as the obvious candidate for the PM's post if NDA is ousted, existing and future alliance partners may not be in agreement. It is speculated that this was one of the reasons why parties like Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party did not seal a pre-poll pact with the Congress. Political analysts feel that the final outcome of Lok Sabha election 2019 - if not conclusive, could well result in all major parties engaging in hectic negotiations to rake up the numbers. Violence marred the West Bengal capital, Kolkata, as the BJP and TMC supporters on Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets during a massive roadshow by BJP president Amit Shah. Tensions escalated and reached its peak after a statue of Bengali writer and philosopher Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was destructed inside the Vidyasagar college. A polymath, Vidyasagar, is considered one of the foremost key figures of the Bengal Renaissance and the desecration of his statue has put the spotlight on the reformer. Live TV The importance of Vidyasagar for any person who has studied him and his works is colossal as he is credited with significant contribution to Bengali and Sanskrit literature. He also reconstructed the Bengali alphabet and simplified Bengali typography into alphabet. A philosopher, academic educator, writer, translator, printer, publisher, entrepreneur, social reformer, philanthropist--his contribution exceeds that of many great men. Vidyasagar efforts to simplify and modernize Bengali prose were significant. Children are told and re-told the real-life story of how a boy born into a very poor family, crossed all barriers to satisfy his urge to educate himself by studying under the street lamps as he couldn't afford a gas lamp at home. Born as Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay, he received the title 'Vidyasagar' (Vidya meaning knowledge and Sagar meaning ocean, stand for Ocean of Knowledge) from his college due to his brilliance in studies. In his honour the Vidyasagar University was founded. The BBC, in its poll in 2004, ranked him at number 9 amongst the greatest Bengali of all time. He was born in a Bengali Hindu Brahmin family in West Bengal's Paschim Midnapore district in 1820. At the age of 9, he went to Calcutta. He used to clear all examinations with excellence and was rewarded with several scholarships. He joined the Sanskrit College and passed out qualifying in Sanskrit Grammar, Literature, Dialectics, Vedanta, Smruti and Astronomy. In 1839, Vidyasagar cleared his law examination and two years later, 21-year-old Vidyasagar joined Fort William College as head of the Sanskrit department. But after five years he left Fort William College and joined the Sanskrit College as Assistant Secretary and recommended a number of changes to the existing education system. He also established a high school in Kolkata. He is also credited with the upliftment of the status of women as he sought to transform orthodox Hindu society from within. He also forced the British to pass the widow remarriage act. The Vidyasagar Setu, Vidyasagar College, Vidyasagar University, Vidyasagar Street, Vidyasagar Stadium, Vidyasagar Hall of Residence at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Vidyasagar Station are all named after him. The Indian Post has also issued stamps featuring him. He has also authored many books. Bengaluru: Shares of Jet Airways Ltd fell as much as 6.05% on Wednesday, a day after its chief executive and two other senior executives stepped down, raising serious doubts over the revival of the debt-laden airline. CEO Vinay Dube, head of finance Amit Agarwal and head of human resources Rahul Taneja quit within a span of 24 hours after Jet failed to receive a concrete deal offer. Jet, once among the largest carriers in the country, was forced to ground all flights after running out of money and failing to secure funds. The Indian carrier, also saddled with roughly $1.2 billion in bank debt, was crippled by mounting losses as it attempted to compete with low-cost rivals Interglobe-owned IndiGo, SpiceJet Ltd and Wadia Group-owned GoAir. Stock was down 4.7%, as of 0347 GMT, and plunged 53.5% this year, as of Tuesday`s close. Two persons were killed and at least ten injured in a grenade blast outside a mall on Zoo road in Guwahati on Wednesday. The area has been cordoned off and police officials have begun an investigation. According to local cops, two people on a motorcycle had lobbed a grenade at a busy intersection on Zoo road. An anti-talk faction of ULFA led by Paresh Baruah claimed responsibility for the blast. The injured include two Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) jawans and eight local residents. The condition of five people, who were immediately referred to Guwahati Medical College Hospital, is said to be in a critical state. The others were taken to a private hospital where their condition is reportedly stable. Assam: Six people injured in explosion outside a mall on Zoo road in Guwahati, area cordoned off, police present at the spot; injured persons referred to Guwahati Medical College Hospital pic.twitter.com/PotXVWsVFh ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Deepak Kumar, Commissioner of Police, Guwahati, told news agency ANI that the grenade blast took place at 8 pm in which several people were injured. "An investigation is currently underway," he said. "There is a police check post here and it is evident that the suspects must have targeted them." Sources say that 'ULFA Swadhin' faction targeted the SSB jawans along with personnel from Assam Police, who were deployed at a police check post opposite Central Mall on Zoo road. In the grenade blast, SSB jawans - Ramesh Lal (48) and Amulya Lalan (30) - received serious injuries. The list of others injured included a child, whose identity is yet to be ascertained. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal condemned the attacks, saying in a tweet that he has directed the local authorities to immediately apprehend the culprits. Strongly condemn the blast in Guwahati this evening. Have directed authorities to rush to the spot and take stock of the situation. Also directed DGP to immediately apprehend the culprits and ensure the security of common people. Chowkidar Sarbananda Sonowal (@sarbanandsonwal) May 15, 2019 The blast took place on a day when CM Sonowal had called upon the police to devise a strategy to keep tabs on criminal elements and provide security to the city residents. Mumbai: Actor Anil Kapoor will be felicitated by the Council of European Chambers of Commerce (CEUCC) in India and an European Union delegation as part of the 'Europe Day' celebrations here on Friday, an official spokesperson said. The actor will be the chief guest for the celebrations, which will also be attended by EU Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski, EU Member states Consuls and senior representatives from the European and Indian corporate world. Europe Day is celebrated every year on May 9 to mark the formation of the European Union (EU). "Anil Kapoor will be felicitated for his decade-long support to promoting the cause of children's rights and his collaboration with the EU and Plan India in their girls' rights endeavours," said an official. The event will highlight how Europe has always been a favourite shooting destination for Indian filmmakers for many decades. Bollywood movies have for long been using the picturesque locales of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy and now even places like Greece, Hungary, Austria and Romania are gaining popularity for their natural beauty. New Delhi: The glamour industry witnesses several break-ups and new relationships every day. But did you know that 'Baaghi 2' actress Disha Patani dated television actor Parth Samthaan before Tiger Shroff? Yes! According to a report in Bollywoodlife.com, before entering into the showbiz world, Disha and Parth were dating each other but soon after the former made her sensational debut in MS Dhoni biopic, their relationship went kaput. Reason? Well, reportedly, when Disha got to know about Parth's alleged relationship with producer and former 'Bigg Boss' contestant Vikas Gupta, she broke up with him. Disha then got on with her rising movie career and meanwhile, the whole Parth-Vikas Gupta controversy also subsided. The popular TV star is these days making waves in Ekta Kapoor's daily soap 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay 2'. The actress is now rumoured to be dating her 'Baaghi 2' co-star Tiger Shroff. The duo is often spotted hanging out together but never really spoken publicly about their relationship status. On the work front, Disha will next be seen in Ali Abbas Zafar's ambitious project 'Bharat' starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif in the lead roles. The film will hit the screens on Eid, June 5, 2019. She is playing a trapeze artist in the movie. New Delhi: Popular television actress Hina Khan has made her maiden visit to Cannes and is currently enjoying her stay there. The prestigious Cannes Film Festival began from May 14 and will last till 25th of this month. The actress has worked in her maiden movie titled 'Lines' which is based at the backdrop of Kargil war. It is reportedly a love story set in Kashmir. Hina, who originally hails from the valley will be seen playing a character named Nazia. The movie's first look will be unveiled at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. The entire team of 'Lines' will be seen at the French Riviera to attend the launch. It is directed by Hussain Khan. On the work front, Hina has been making waves with her impressive portrayal of Komolika on Ekta Kapoor's 'Kasautii Zindagii Kay 2'. But she bid adieu to the Balaji Productions' daily soap to enter the world of movies. Hina will be seen in a de-glam avatar in 'Lines'. Recently she was awarded the best negative actor trophy at the Indian Telly Awards for her Komoswag. She is in talks with Vikram Bhatt and reportedly be seen in a female-centric movie helmed by the filmmaker. New York: Veteran actors Rishi Kapoor and his wife Neetu Kapoor spent some "wonderful moments" with actors Vicky Kaushal and Boman Irani here. Rishi has been in New York for several months for medical treatment, and film fraternity members are ensuring they meet the couple whenever they are in the city. After meeting Vicky for the first time, Neetu praised the "Uri: The Surgical strike" actor on Instagram. "Our library of wonderful moments is only getting bigger... met our very own Kamli (Vicky's character from 'Sanju') for the first time. Such a humble, well brought up boy with goodness written all over him," she wrote along with a photograph in which Vicky is seen posing with the Kapoors. Vicky shared screen space with Neetu and Rishi's son Ranbir Kapoor in the film "Sanju". He was seen as Ranbir's on-screen best friend Kamli. Neetu even shared a photograph featuring Boman and said they had a "two-hour laugh riot" with him. "He is all heart and so positive," added the actress, who has been by Rishi's side, and keeps fans updated with photographs of some of their special moments. Various Bollywood stars, including Aamir Khan, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Deepika Padukone and Anupam Kher have met Rishi in New York. Just last month, Rishi's brother Randhir Kapoor said the 66-year-old actor will be back in India in a few months, amid reports that he is now "cancer free". Chennai: Police have arrested six persons for pelting stones at a camp held by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Mayiladuthurai in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district. "Six persons were taken into custody on Monday for pelting stones at the RSS camp," said a police official on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday. According to him, the stone pelting happened early in the morning and the six were taken into custody the same day. New Delhi: Instant messaging app WhatsApp has been recently hit by bugs that installs spyware on the urged on users' phone, thereby increasing the vulnerability of billions of users. Following the malicious spyware attack, Facebook-owned company has urged its 1.5 billion global users to upgrade to the latest version of WhatsApp. Here's what Android users can do Open Google Play Store Now hit the menu icon on the upper right corner Select My Apps & Games Now select Update. You can also scroll below to see if there has been an auto update already Incase, you still don't find your upgrade, you will simply have to uninstall the app and then re-install the latest version of WhatsApp. Here's what iOS can do Open the App Store Now tap the Updates icon. Now refresh your app updates You can also choose Update All option All your pending apps will thus be Updated WhatsApp, has however not disclosed the number of people that may have been affected by the spyware attack. In India there are over 200 million WhatsApp users. Ballia: A three-year-old girl was allegedly raped in her village in Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district Wednesday, police said. The incident occurred in Kalwari area, they said. A villager allegedly abducted the girl from her home in the early hours, took her to a secluded place and allegedly raped her, police said. When the girl's family members woke up, they found her missing and started searching for her, they said. She was later found writhing in pain at a place away from her house in the village, police said. The family informed the police about the incident and rushed her to a hospital where her condition was stated to be serious, they said. The accused was arrested and further investigation is underway, police said. Kolkata: BJP spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, who was detained by West Bengal Police hours after clashes broke out in Kolkata on Tuesday, hit back at allegations made by Trinamool Congress spokesperson Derek O'Brien saying nobody takes the latter seriously. Live TV Bagga added that he would quit politics if the allegations made by the Trinamool Congress against him are proved. "No one takes Derek O'Brien seriously. I challenge him to prove that I was within 500 metres of the spot where violence broke out, I will leave politics. However, he should leave politics if he fails to prove the charge," he said. Earlier in the day, O'Brien had accused BJP president Amit Shah of bringing in outsiders for the clashes during the latter's roadshow in the city on Tuesday. "Anybody can come and do a procession, but what were the outsiders... Who is this fellow Tajinder Bagga? Who is he? He was arrested, is he not the same guy who slapped somebody in Delhi? You have taken in your outsider goons," he told reporters. Bagga had tweeted that the door of his hotel room was broken and he was arrested at around 2 am on Wednesday. On Tuesday, supporters of BJP and Trinamool Congress clashed with each other on the streets of Kolkata during a massive road show of Amit Shah. Later, at a press conference, Shah claimed that he was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by the police. The BJP today urged the Election Commission to bar Mamata from campaigning for the last and final phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, alleging a breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state. Music, theater and comedy events are also on the agenda for the holiday weekend. Islamabad: The US has imposed visa sanctions on three senior Pakistani interior ministry officials following a row between the two countries over the deportation of dozens of Pakistanis in America for their visa overstay and other allegations. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday informed the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs about that visa curbs by the US. Live TV The officials who are facing the visa restrictions are an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry as well as the director general passports, the Dawn newspaper reported. The sanctions on the officials have been put in place after a row between Pakistan and America over the deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other allegations, it said. Qureshi said the US authorities intended to deport more than 70 Pakistanis, but the government had asked them to fulfil the legal requirements. The US put the restrictions on three officials that are said to be overseeing the country's policy on accepting back nationals deported from other countries. The US has over the past 18 months deported over 100 Pakistanis, all of whom were accepted back. It is the first time that Pakistani authorities have insisted on verification of the credentials of the deportees. The foreign minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. He said consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad were continuing and are granting visas to the eligible applicants. No need to go to big hospitals far away, as a recently established 5G remote ultrasonic clinic improves medical support for army personnel and residents on the islands in the South China Sea while reducing costs. Since the remote clinic started operations in April, 62 military personnel and civilians have benefited from the 5G remote ultrasound outpatient service. Among them are 58 servicemen and women stationed on Xisha Islands, who underwent abdominal and gynecological check-ups and emergency services without leaving the island, PLA Daily reported on Tuesday. The clinic allows troops and residents living on the islands in the South China Sea suffering from health problems get timely medical treatment via 5G technology, it reported. Lu Faqin, the doctor of the ultrasonic clinic, was quoted by the PLA Daily as saying that when troops suffer from injuries or emergency symptoms, they could receive diagnosis and treatment within 24 hours with the 5G technology. Doctors from the Hainan Hospital of the People's Liberation Army General Hospital, based in Sanya could remotely monitor their conditions. Doctors can remotely operate the mechanical arm in real time at the patient end. Through 5G technology, images can be transmitted in real time and precise positioning can be achieved for remote ultrasonic examination and treatment. Doctors and patients can also communicate through voice and video. The clinic would solve the problem of the lack of ultrasound doctors in the South China Sea, Chen Xiangmiao, a research fellow at the Hainan-based National Institute for the South China Sea, told the Global Times. When there is no such clinic, patients in urgent need of medical attention were always being airlifted to other hospitals and even other provinces such as Guangdong, according to Chen. Chen noted it costs five to 10 hours, depending on weather conditions, to dispatch a military aircraft and transfer the patient in the South China Sea to nearest hospitals, usually those in Sanya and Haikou. There are two major hospitals in the South China Sea - one in the Yongshu Reef of the Nansha Islands and the other on Yongxing Island of the Xisha Islands, media reported. A patient from Xisha Islands was diagnosed with acute calculi obstruction by using 5G remote ultrasound technology. It only took two minutes to diagnose the patient's symptoms. The next morning, the remote ultrasonic robot found that the patient's stone had been discharged. The Hainan Hospital in Sanya will also program robots to launch remote ultrasonic checks to monitor the daily training of the soldiers, and develop more remote clinics for the solders and other residents in the South China Sea, said the PLA Daily report. Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk! You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details. Attendees from US universities share their overseas learning experiences at the event Tuesday. Photo: Courtesy of the Consulate General of United States in Shanghai The escalating US-China trade war not only rattled global markets this week but also triggered concerns that top US colleges might tighten their admission of Chinese students, or even close the door for good. An article saying no Chinese students were accepted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) this year shocked Chinese social media. It also suggested that students from the Chinese mainland are finding it difficult getting offers from other top US colleges, such as Stanford University and California Institute of Technology this year. However, the facts cited in the article proved to be false. Two students from the Chinese mainland were accepted by MIT in the regular action period, Chinese study-abroad agency Tiandao said in an April article. According to the website of MIT registrar's office, the number of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students in academic year 2018-19 was 829, slightly higher than 794 and 765, respectively, in the previous two academic years. MIT has not responded to Global Times inquiry via email. Similar interview request sent to Stanford University also went unanswered as of press time. In an email sent to the Global Times late Monday, Yale University said students from China represent two-thirds of the total increase in new international students (93 of 155 students) this fall (2018). At Yale, the number of students from China has increased by 53.1 percent in the past five years, it said. Despite the wrong facts, the article was widely circulated on China's social media after it was released on Sunday, the same day US President Donald Trump tweeted that he intends to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 to 25 percent. Parents and students are worried that the top US colleges are shutting the door to Chinese applicants as the trade war escalates. The concerns are justified as enhanced scrutiny on Chinese students has emerged after the two countries were engaged in a trade war and US politicians openly accused Chinese students of engaging in espionage. If top US universities shut the door on Chinese students, it would be politically motivated, said Jin Canrong, associate dean of Renmin University of China's School of International Studies. Reducing or cutting educational exchanges will hurt both sides, said Jin. For Chinese students, their life choices will be reduced and for US colleges, it's a loss of a source of revenue, campus diversity and first-class students, Jin noted. Chinese scholars noted that aside from the US, Chinese students have diverse alternatives, such as universities in Europe and Asia. It's clear that a tough policy against China has been agreed in the US government, and colleges have been "dragged" by US political elites toward this direction, said Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University's Institute of International Relations in Beijing. Cutting or limiting exchanges with China in science, technology and culture may hurt China in a short term, as the US remains on top in some sectors. But it will also further motivate China to step up innovation with powerful government support policies, said Li. The idea of creating a community of common destiny, a term championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, will take centre stage in the upcoming Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), scheduled to begin in Beijing on May 15th. Alistair Michie, the secretary general of the British East Asia Council, explained in a recent interview with People's Daily Online that a change in the way countries communicate with each other is key for the successful creation of a global community of common destiny. "The main message I want to try and get across in this conference is about a change of mindset. Fresh, innovative thinking was brilliantly successful during the economic reform and opening up of China. That fresh, innovative thinking now needs to be applied to how China communicates with the world," Michie said ahead of his participation in this week's CDAC. The CDAC will host six parallel sub-forums around the theme of Asian civilization exchanges and mutual understanding, welcoming more than 2,000 people, including government officials from 47 countries in Asia as well as from outside the region. Michie, who has lived and worked in 28 cities, provinces and regions in China over the last 30 years, said that this conference is hugely important, not only for China but also for the rest of the world. He believes that if China can use the same innovative thinking used during its economic reform and opening up, and apply it to communication, then bilateral relations will become more open and more productive. Since the country first implemented its reform and opening up policies 40 years ago, China has trans-formed itself from a poor and underdeveloped centrally-planned economy into an economic powerhouse. When Michie first arrived in China, the country was home to around 1,000 kilometres of inter-provincial highway. Now, the country's highway system is more extensive than any other country, exceeding 140,000 km last year, according to Xinhua. "I've been incredibly lucky because as a foreigner I've been able to observe 30 of the 40 years of reform and opening up, it has been a great privilege because I've been able to see China industrialize and modernize at a speed and scale that's unprecedented in human history." However, Michie, who is from the UK, notes that despite these incredible changes, the western perception of China is still stuck somewhat in the past, a fact he puts down to a western monopoly on global mindset. "The frustration is that many people outside China don't know that China now, arguably, has the most advanced infrastructure in the world. Little of this is known outside China. Asia, as a continent, is home to 60 percent of the world's population. In stark contrast, only 9.83 percent of the world's population resides in Europe, and a tiny 4.27 percent live in the US. "So, Europe and the US add up to only 14 percent of the world's population, but they dominate thinking and mindset because of the success they've had over the last couple of hundred years," Michie notes. "But Europe and the USA are struggling. The economic system is not working well, and the financial crisis that started in 2008 in the USA nearly broke the global banking systems. The political systems in Europe and USA are failing, so I think it's important that Asia and China takes a lead and has a new way of thinking." The world is under threat from unilateralism, and America seems to be gunning for what Michie calls a "clash of civilizations". In his opinion, the better alternative is a dialogue of civilizations with President Xi's community of common destiny at its core. "That's the only way we, as the human race, are going to tackle the many issues that we face that can only be dealt with by communal action - things like climate change, nuclear weapons and the stability of the global financial system." To help bring Asia's voice to the rest of the world, China needs to implement fresh thinking. Michie believes that China is not yet communicating in a way that the people outside of China can identify with. "China is brilliant at digital media inside of China, but it's not using that to bridge and reach out to people around the world." Under the theme of "exchanges and mutual learning among Asian civilizations and a community with a shared future," the CDAC will give China the opportunity to share its experience as well as learn from other nations. As Michie puts it, "[The CDAC] is a crucial step to help China communicate internationally and help the world better understand where China's headed, what its foreign policy means and how it is truly about creating a community of common destiny." WALLINGFORD Local businesses and community members have pledged more than $35,000 to pay for the town's annual Fourth of July fireworks show. The event is scheduled for Saturday, July 6, beginning at dusk, near the grounds of Sheehan High School. Since 2016, Town Council Chairman Vincent Cervoni has spearheaded the effort to raise money for the fireworks celebration, which is not funded through the town budget. Town Councilors Craig Fishbein and Jason Zandri previously had raised money, but stopped after 2015. A group of 12 donors pledged a total of $35,775 toward this years event, according to a memo Cervoni sent to the mayor and Town Council last week. The donations cover pyrotechnics, police and fire departments overtime costs and portable toilets. Live Nation, which owns the Toyota Oakdale Theatre, pledged $8,000, the same amount the company donated last year. Ulbrich Specialty Metals, Choate Rosemary Hall and Marshall Ruben & Carolyn Greenspan each pledged $5,000, same as last year. Mike Kolakowski, president and CEO of KBE Building Corp., donated $5,000. Other donors include the Latimer Group ($2,000), Masonicare ($2,000), United Concrete ($1,500), Gaylord Hospital ($1,000), Wallingford Buick ($1,000), Masonic Temple Corp. ($250) and Robin and Tom Corrigan ($25). The memo stated that in addition to these pledges, Dan and Holly Lajoie, who sold Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream at last years fireworks, pledged $200 from the profits of last years sales. Jennifer Wilson, a Cook Hill Elementary School kindergarten teacher, is working with the K-Kids club to raise money as well. LTakores@record-journal.com 203-317-2212 Twitter: @LCTakores Regional Muslim defies curfew to help pregnant woman Maqbool along with district authorities and Nandita. Hailakandi (Assam), May 15 | Publish Date: 5/15/2019 11:53:16 AM IST With prayers on his lips, a Muslim man drove his auto-rickshaw as fast as he can in a curfew-hit town, so that a Hindu woman who was in an advanced stage of labour could reach the hospital on time. They made it and a boy, aptly named Shanti, was born on Sunday when curfew was in force in Hailakandi following communal clashes just two days ago. Accompanied by district Superintendent of Police Mohneesh Mishra, Hailakandi Deputy Commissioner Keerthi Jalli visited the residence of Rubon Das and Nandita, parents of the new-born, on Wednesday and said, We need more such examples of Hindu-Muslim unity and amity. She also congratulated Maqbool, Rubons neighbour, for helping his friend at the time of distress, overriding the communal tension prevailing in the district. Two days after the clashes, Rubon was frantically calling his near and dear ones for help. He needed an ambulance to take Nandita to hospital as she was writhing in labour pain. In between the calls, Rubon said, I was trying to calm my wife down saying someone will surely come to take us to hospital in Hailakandi town. The S K Roy Civil Hospital is a few kilometres away from their Rajyeshwarpur Part I village. However, no help came for them in the curfew affected area and, in the meanwhile, Nanditas pain increased. At that time, Rubons friend and neighbour Maqbool heard his predicament and rushed to his residence with his auto-rickshaw. As Maqbool was driving the vehicle, speeding along the deserted roads, the only thing haunting him was whether he would make it on time to the hospital. I was trying to comfort them.... telling them everything will be fine. But I myself was praying, said Maqbool. His timely help paid off and Nandita delivered a healthy boy at around 5.30 pm. Both friends heaved a sigh ofrelief after knowing that the condition of both the mother and the child was fine. Rubon at once decided to name his son Shanti who was born amid curfew following a communal strife. The good news spread, with the Administrator of the hospital Bhaskar Das describing the incident as a classic instance of Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. Cuddling the baby, Jalli said, Its good to know that the baby has been named Shanti by the parents with the hope that lasting peace will return to Hailakandi. PTI DG Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Beijing. Describing Armenia as China's important cooperation partner in the Eurasian region, Li said China is willing to continuously consolidate political mutual trust with Armenia and strengthen the synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and Armenia's development strategy. Li said China stands ready to expand import of high-quality agricultural products from Armenia, leverage complementarity of the two sides, and strengthen technological cooperation. Pashinyan said Armenia is willing to uphold the ancient Silk Road spirit, actively take part in the joint building of the Belt and Road, and advance bilateral cooperation to continuously reinvigorate Armenia-China relations. By PTI NEW DELHI: Former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar's brother-in-law Rajiv Kochhar moved a Delhi court on Wednesday seeking cancellation of look out circular (LOC) against him in an alleged bank loan fraud and money laundering case registered against them. The court is likely to hear the application on Thursday. Chanda, her husband Deepak and Rajiv have been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Rajiv has been questioned by the CBI as well in the same case in the past as well. He is the founder of Singapore-based Avista Advisory. Rajiv was asked by CBI sleuths about the help he had extended to Videocon in relation to a loan from ICICI Bank, which was part of a Rs 400-billion credit given by a consortium of 20 banks to the group's main promoter, Venugopal Dhoot. The searches were conducted at the premises of Chanda, her family and Dhoot in Mumbai and Aurangabad. ED registered a criminal case under the PMLA early this year against Chanda, Deepak, Dhoot and others to probe alleged irregularities and corrupt practices in sanctioning Rs 1,875-crore loans by ICICI Bank to the corporate group. The action was based on an FIR registered by the CBI. CBI has named the three as also Dhoot's companies - Videocon International Electronics Ltd (VIEL) and Videocon Industries Limited (VIL) - in its case. The anti-corruption probe agency also named Supreme Energy, a company founded by Dhoot, and NuPower Renewables, a company controlled by Deepak, in the FIR. ALSO READ| Videocon's Dhoot complicit in Rs 64 cr payout to Chanda Kochhar It has slapped sections of the Indian Penal Code related to criminal conspiracy, cheating and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act on all the accused. The CBI alleged that Dhoot had invested in Nupower through his firm Supreme Energy in a quid pro quo to loans cleared by ICICI Bank after Chanda took over as the CEO of the bank on May 1, 2009. The ownership of Nupower and Supreme Energy changed hands through a complex web of shared transactions between Deepak and Dhoot, the CBI alleged. During its preliminary enquiry, the CBI found that six loans worth Rs 1,875 crore were sanctioned to the Videocon Group and companies associated with it between June, 2009 and October, 2011 in alleged violation of laid-down policies of ICICI Bank, which have now become part of the probe. "Existing outstanding in the accounts of these private group companies were adjusted in Rupee Term Loan of Rs 1,730 crore sanctioned by ICICI Bank under refinance of domestic debt under consortium arrangement on April 26, 2012," the CBI had said. The loans were declared non-performing assets in 2012, causing a loss of Rs 1,730 crore to the bank, it alleged. The ED, the sources said, is also probing at least two other instances of loans given by ICICI Bank (during Chanda Kochhar's tenure) to Gujarat-based pharmaceutical firm Sterling Biotech and to Bhushan Steel group. The agency is investigating these two instances of alleged bank loan fraud under the PMLA. Jayanta Roy Chowdhury By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The mini-ministerial meeting of developing nations hosted by India in New Delhi made a strong case for filling up vacancies in the World Trade Organisations (WTO) appellate body, which was long blocked by the Trump Administration in the US for delivering judgments not palatable to it. The conclave, which included India, China, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria, along with other developing countries, was also used by India and China to press for their case against the US and other Western countries bringing in definitions of developing nations that could strip such countries of flexibility they enjoyed in their trade and tariff regimes. The ministerial conclave declaration, signed by 17 of the 22 ministers, warned that the current impasse over appointments to the WTO appellate body could completely paralyse the dispute settlement mechanism. For the last two years, the US has blocked appointments to the WTO body, saying it had failed to adhere to the 90-day limit for issuing rulings and passed judgments on issues that were not part of its mandate. The WTO appellate body, which had seven members earlier, has three members now, which will be reduced to just one member this December. These are difficult times for the WTO, particularly for developing countries, Indian Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said. India, China and South Africa have already made common cause on both the vacancies in appellate body as well as on special and differential rights of developing countries. Sources said while the European Union is on the same page as India and China on the appointments, it may remain neutral on the US demand for stripping rights that go with the developing nation tag. Among others, Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said that the issue of filling in the vacancies in the Appellate Body of WTO should be resolved for making it functional without any further delay. Top officials said India, China and South Africa lobbied with ministers on defending their common tag. The three countries have already written to the WTO on the issue. preserve our rights The declaration passed at the mini-ministerial meet on Tuesday stressed that provisions for special and differential treatment are rights of members from the developing nations, and those must be preserved and strengthened in all WTO agreements. By PTI NEW DELHI: As summer air fares rise on high-volume routes connecting major Indian cities with Doha, Qatar Airways on Wednesday said it has asked Indian aviation authorities to permit additional flights on such routes on temporary basis. "Our contingency plan is designed to make an additional number of seats available on certain high volume routes (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore), but only a temporary basis and without formal changes to the current weekly seat capacity entitlement established under the 2009 Qatar-India bilateral aviation framework," said the airline. With Jet Airways shutting down its operations on April 17, there has been sudden reduction in the number of flights connecting Indian cities with Qatar's capital Doha. Consequently, the air fares for the peak summer season have shot up on these routes. "Qatar Airways' temporary contingency plan, which has been formally submitted to the relevant Indian authorities, aims to offer a viable travelling alternative to thousands of Indian families and children that otherwise would be left without concrete options," the airline said. The national carrier of Qatar said that without its contingency plan, Indian travellers will be forced to either choose expensive last-minute tickets or complicated and burdensome re-routings. As per the 2009 bilateral aviation framework between India and Qatar, one country's airlines can fly maximum of 24,292 passengers per week to other country. Qatar had asked the Indian government in November 2016 to more than double this weekly seat capacity entitlement. However, the Indian government refused to accede to this request. According to a senior Indian government official, major Indian airlines have repeatedly expressed their fears that their international expansion plans may get hit if Qatar's weekly seat entitlement is increased as Qatar Airways would be able to carry a lot of forward traffic to Europe, Africa and America through Doha. According to the latest numbers from the Ministry of Interior of Qatar, there are more than 7,00,000 Indian expats living in Qatar, which account for about 25 per cent of the total population. Qatar Airways said on Wednesday, "The sudden reduction in the number of seats offered between Doha and various Indian cities, combined with the imminent peak in traffic demand due to summer vacation, are already putting enormous upward pressure on costs in a restricted market that is unlikely to offer new seats or re-distribute existing capacity in sufficient numbers to meet demand." Simran Ahuja By Express News Service BENGALURU: Almost 8,700 km separates Bengaluru from Portugal. While the distance can be easily travelled by flight, one city woman is gearing up for an expedition of a lifetime a 40,000 km biking trip that will take her through 35 countries over six to eight months next year. But why is Archana Timmaraju choosing the road less travelled? As someone born with a hearing impairment, the 34-year-old is aiming to be the first deaf female biker in the world and is hoping to prove that deaf women too can travel and explore the world. The route Timmaraju is planning to begins at Bengaluru, traverses Nepal-Bhutan-Myanmar-Bangkok-Malaysia-Cambodia-Laos-China-Mongolia-Kazakhstan-Moscow-Europe, ending in Portugal, from where she will fly back to India. Timmaraju, an art teacher at Mallya Aditi International School, will not be alone during her journey. It is difficult to ride alone because I may have problems communicating with people. I will be accompanied by Abijit Somashekar, the founder of Moto Store and Cafe, she tells CE. Besides getting a taste of local cultures and cuisines, Timmaraju is also looking forward to meeting people from deaf communities across Asia and Europe, as also students from 60 different deaf schools. I want more people from the hearing impaired community, women in particular, to feel brave enough to embark on such journeys. I want them to feel the same level of self-confidence I feel when I am on a bike, she says. This isnt Timmarajus first biking expedition. She rode from Bengaluru to Leh last year, including riding through Khardung La, which is one of the highest motorable points in the world. She first started riding 15 years back, after she learned the skill on her friends Yamaha RX 100. I couldnt hear the bike but I could feel its vibration, she adds. Though thrilling, she also has to take many precautions, says Timmaraju. She often places a sticker at the back of her motorbike that reads: Rider is deaf. Failure to cooperate with verbal commands means I am not hearing you. During her trip last year, she often stuck to riding behind lorries to stay safe. The roads were bad between Jammu and Srinagar; there were no lights either. Lorries have reflective stickers so I would trail behind them, she explains. The year 2018 was a memorable one for Timmaraju. She and her colleague at the school, Daniel Sundaram, started their own venture called Silent Expedition, which helps hearing-impaired people with travel and exploration opportunities. It was also the year my parents accepted my adventures and let me buy a new bike, a Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350cc, she says. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia on Tuesday said his party was willing to join hands with a non-BJP front at the Centre to keep the saffron party out of power. In Chandigarh, the senior AAP leader also accused the BJP of playing divisive politics and termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the saffron partys chief Amit Shah as the biggest danger to the country. The Modi-Shah duo is the biggest danger to this country. They promote divisions in society and want to capture power by dividing the society. In this backdrop, we fear that if Modi and Shah come to power again, then riots will increase in the country. The situation in the country will become like Afghanistan and Syria, he told reporters. Therefore, it is necessary to defeat them, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said. To keep Modi and Shah out of power, we are ready to join hands with a non-BJP, non-Modi government at the Centre, he said when asked about what role the AAP could play in government formation at the Centre once the Lok Sabha results are declared on May 23. The AAP has fielded former Union minister Harmohan Dhawan from the Chandigarh seat, which goes to polls in the general elections final phase on May 19. Dhawan had joined the Arvind Kejriwal-led party six months back. Replying to a question, Sisodia said, Modi is campaigning in the entire country, lets see how many seats he gets. The BJP is fighting the poll in Modis name. The ruling party (at the Centre) is not talking about issues, the deputy chief minister said. Sisodia said his party is fighting the polls on the basis of its work and performance. To another question, he said everyone knows the condition of institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Reserve Bank of India under the present BJP-led NDA government. On Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal being shown black flags in Punjab, Sisodia said, It is not the public, but the (AAPs) political rivals who are doing so. On the BJPs sitting MP from Chandigarh Kirron Kher, he claimed that she does not have much to show on the performance front. In the last general elections, the people of Chandigarh elected her, but madam remained busy in doing advertisements and shooting (for films), he alleged. Sisodia evaded a direct reply to a question on the AAPs Chandigarh unit apparently remaining inactive after actor-turned-politician Gul Panag, who had contested the 2014 general elections from here as an AAP nominee, lost. What should she have done according to you? No, she did not run away anywhere. You may feel the party unit here is defunct, but we are active, he said. Agencies Aihik Sur By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Groups that claim to run prostitution rackets and provide similar services are taking the help of social media applications including, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to attract potential customers. However, police claim that it is a common modus operandi for fraudsters to extort money from people who fall into their trap. One such account called, Hyderabad Escorts, Natasha Roy Hyderabad Escort has over 3,357 followers on Twitter, and also has its presence on other social media websites such as Tumblr. The page has various posts with images of women and with corresponding text like, If looking for escorts in Hyderabad, please call. When these images were reverse searched on web search engines, the same pictures were being used by other websites claiming to offer similar services. This revealed that not only were the images were fake, but the said websites administrators could also possibly be running other such websites as well. The website also displays a phone number. When Express contacted the number, posing as a possible client, a man surprisingly responded in fluent Hindi, while noting the requirements. Through the course of the conversation, the unidentified man agreed to send a woman for two hours, to a star hotel in exchange of Rs 15,000, in cash. When apprised of the matter, Cyber Crime Additional DCP, KCS Raghuvir said that these (administrators of the website) were fraudsters looking to skim money off of people. These groups are usually run from places like Gurugram (NCR Delhi). It is not a surprise that the on the phone spoke in fluent Hindi. They cheat people on the pretext of providing such services, he added. Additionally, Raghuvir said that in the past several such cases had come to light wherein people looking for similar services were duped by fraudsters running such websites, and they are now available on social media as well. He further clarified that the police can only take action if anyone comes forward with a complaint in this regard. By Express News Service KOCHI: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) on Tuesday recorded the statements of officials of the Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala Ltd (RBDCK) as part of an inquiry into suspected corruption in the construction of the National Highway flyover at Palarivattom. VACB following the state governments directive launched a preliminary inquiry to dig out any corruption leading to flaws in the construction of the flyover. Statements of the officials were recorded at the VACB office in Kochi where they appeared in the morning. According to VACB officials, statements of a GM, DGM and engineers were recorded. The project was implemented by RBDCK through a Mumbai-based contractor. The estimates and project reports were verified and based on which statements of the officials were recorded. They also produced some documents related to the project, an official said.VACB will record the statement of KITCO officials on Wednesday. KITCO was the consultancy agency of the project. The statement of the contractor will be recorded soon. We have asked officials of KITCO to appear for giving a statement. The contractor was asked to appear before us on Friday. We had collected the samples from the bridge last week, which have been sent to the Central Laboratory for analysis. The result is expected by next week, an official said. CHONGQING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A remote-controlled car powered by the 5G network completed a test run on Wednesday in Chongqing, a vehicle-manufacturing powerhouse in southwest China. During the test run, a remote operator was able to control the car while watching the live feed of road conditions supported by the 5G network. The car was co-developed by the Chongqing subsidiary of China Telecom, China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co. Ltd., and Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co. Ltd. Tu Lefei, an expert with the Chongqing subsidiary of China Telecom, said the researchers were working to incorporate more functions such as hazard warnings into the car. Test data showed that the 5G network is able to provide a peak single-user download speed of 1.6 Gbps, nearly 16 times faster than that of 4G services. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: The much-publicised Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu went off smoothly at the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi on Tuesday.The meeting discussed only the issues mentioned in the agenda. It congratulated the officials for effective implementation of the MGNREGS programmes and relief and restoration measures in the cylone-affected places in the State. The meeting was held on a cordial note. Chief Secretary LV Subramanyam exchanged pleasantries with all the ministers, interacted with the Chief Minister and briefed him, a minister told TNIE.During the meeting that lasted approximately for two hours, the Cabinet discussed the issues including Fani cyclone relief, drinking water situation in the State, drought, employment situation and MGNREGS, adhering to the conditions of Election Commission of India. It may be recalled that Naidu announced his decision to hold the Cabinet meeting on May 10 but it was deferred to May 14 as there are some due procedures to be followed as the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is still in force in the State though polling took place on April 11.After the screening committee headed by the Chief Secretary cleared the agenda of the Cabinet meeting, it was sent to the ECI through the Chief Electoral Officer on May 10. The Election Commission gave permission to hold the Cabinet meeting only on Monday evening, with certain conditions. Speaking to mediapersons after the Cabinet meeting, Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy informed that they discussed the issues mentioned in the agenda. According to him, the officials have prepared the estimates to a tune of `3 crore for compensating 7,349 horticulture farmers, who have suffered crop loss due to natural calamities, untimely rains and other factors. After discussing at length the drinking water problem, Naidu made it clear that there should not be any financial difficulties for mitigating the crisis. Somireddy said that the Chief Minister expressed happiness over the Real Time Governance System (RTGS) playing a crucial role and issuing cyclone alerts and offering other services to other States. We dont have any problem with the officials. Because of their cooperation, AP performed well in different sectors in the last five years. But, we fight against attempts to increase the gap between people and the elected government in the name of MCC and trouble the people of AP as per the directions of PM Modi, he said. Three ministers skip meeting Three ministers, including Yanamala Ramakrishnudu (Finance), Pithani Satyanarayana (Labour) and Sujaya Krishna Ranga Rao (Mines) did not attend the Cabinet meeting. It is learnt that Yanamala was away in Italy. The two other ministers were not in the State capital and they could not attend the meet due to the ECs last-minute nod. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: City Security Wing (CSW) officials on Tuesday convened a meeting with Goddess Kanaka Durga temple administration and asked them to beef up security at Indrakeeladri in the wake of recent Sri Lanka serial blasts and Uttar Pradesh temple stampede. The meeting held at the temples administrative office on Tuesday was chaired by temple Executive Officer V Koteswaramma, DCP (law and order) Venkata Appala Naidu, ADCP (traffic) Madhav Reddy, CSW ACP Chenchu Reddy, Special Branch ACP KVSN Murthy and ADCP (law and order) L Chandrasekhar. During the meeting, the CSW officials suggested that temple officials procure metal detectors, CCTV cameras, luggage bag scanners and door frame metal detectors for strengthening security arrangements at the hill shrine. The temple EO informed CSW officials that the temple witnesses a footfall of 35,000-45,000 devotees on normal days whereas the number rises to 60,000 in weekends and festive days. To this, the CSW officials advised the temple authorities to arrange checkpoints near the queues and restrict use of mobile phones and bags inside the sanctum sanctorum. By Bloomberg Politics in India is undergoing a quiet revolution, driven by a handful of young candidates standing in the bitterly contested Lok Sabha election. While Prime Minister Narendra Modis high-octane election campaign has occupied much of the media limelight, a band of millennials -- reminiscent of the rise of young US Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- is becoming a counter to his right-wing partys hyper-nationalistic rhetoric. The disruptors - Kanhaiya Kumar, a 32-year-old with a doctorate in African studies, Atishi, 37, a Rhodes scholar and education expert, and Jignesh Mevani, 38, a law graduate - are offering an alternative brand of politics centered on improving lives of the poor, ensuring citizens participation in policy-making and delivering justice for the underprivileged, especially those at the bottom of Indias caste pyramid. The message is a contrast to the ruling partys nationalist narrative thats been boosted by airstrikes in Pakistan. Good politics should win and theres a need to counter majoritarianism and authoritarianism, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, political analyst and Modis biographer. These youngsters are rare examples of idealism among Indias younger generation and can change the political discourse if they come into parliament. Kanhaiya and Atishi are contesting the Lok Sabha elections, while Mevani represents Vadgam constituency in Gujarats state assembly. Coming from a humble background, their brand of politics is based on socialism and ending income inequality, much like Ocasio-Cortez. And like her, they are young, working-class political outsiders in a country where lineage and cadre-based parties like Modis Bharatiya Janata Party and its rival Indian National Congress dominate. Young Voters It was past dusk when about 75 party members shouted slogans into microphones in East Delhi as they waited for Atishi to flag off a bike rally. The atmosphere was festive for the candidate whos credited with revamping government schools by introducing modern learning tools and bringing them on par with private-run institutions. Her presence was electrifying for the 200-strong crowd that fills the narrow lane to catch a glimpse of the young leader. Ditching the bikes, she chose to walk, mixing freely and waving to those at the far end of the gathering. For 22-year-old Pragya Singh, Atishis focus on improving the quality of education has been the inspiration that prompted her to join the rally as a campaigner. Atishi belongs to the Aam Aadmi Party, which translates as Party of Ordinary People, which governs the state of Delhi and is fighting to spread its influence nationally. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE She knows education is the future," Singh said. "Whos talking about building schools other than her? Education and Jobs Education has received little more than a cursory mention from mainstream political leaders like Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the election, where 15 million youngsters aged 18-19 years will cast their vote for the first time. More than two-thirds of Indians are currently below the age of 35. The Modi governments spending on education has been lower than 4% of the total budget every year since the 2014-15. Only half of 10- to 11-year-olds in India can read grade two level text, according to IndiaSpend website. In rural India, almost 70% of grade five students cannot carry out simple division. Yet education is second only to jobs as the most critical political issue, according to Kanhaiya Kumar, whos fighting from Begusarai, an industrial town in Bihar. Arguably the most popular face of Indias left politics, Kumar became a household name after the Modis government jailed him on charges of sedition for alleged anti-India slogans at a gathering in February 2016 in Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he was a student leader. Kumar, who represents the Communist Party of India, stands opposite Modi on issues ranging from nationalism to economic policy. Hes fueled by the failure of the current government on key issues like unemployment. The jobless rate in India rose to a 45-year-high in 2017-18, Business Standard reported citing unreleased government data. While the Modi government denied the report, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy showed the unemployment rate in April rose to 7.6%, the highest since October 2016. Real nationalism is studying how we can give bread to the hungry, give jobs to unemployed citizens and youth; How we can give equality to all, irrespective of their caste and creed? Kumar said in a newspaper interview last month. His campaign against BJP leader Giriraj Singh attracted film stars, writers and students who joined in from all over the country. One common campaigner for both Kanhaiya and Atishi is Mevani, who won in the Gujarat state elections in 2017 as an independent candidate. I joined their fight as part of the peoples movement, said Mevani, a popular leader to lower castes or Dalits who took on the ruling party in Modis home state of Gujarat. The kind of cultural and institutional havoc created by the BJP in India has been unprecedented. Atishi, Kanhaiya and Jignesh favor crowdfunding and transparent funding for political campaigns. All three are critics of the electoral bonds introduced by Modis government to help political parties raise funds from anonymous donors. Election funding is one of the biggest fault lines in our electoral system. Political parties usually accept funding from large industrialists and are then obliged to bow down to the demands of these individuals, Atishi said by email. When the government is funded by peoples money, it will work for the people. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: Rubon Das was at his wits end when his wife Nandita was writhing in labour pain and there was no ambulance or other vehicles to take her to a government-run hospital, located 10 km away from their Rajyeshwarpur Part I village in Southern Assams Hailakandi where curfew was imposed following communal violence. It was then that Maqbool Hussain Laskar, a 32-year-old cab driver who is an acquaintance of Das, appeared like a Messiah. He volunteered to take the woman to the SK Roy Civil Hospital in Hailakandi in his car by putting his life at risk. Nandita, aged 22, delivered a healthy baby boy just minutes after reaching the hospital. The family has named the infant Shanti. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC were clamped in Hailakandi on May 11 following a communal violence that left one person dead and over a dozen others injured. The situation was tense and people were afraid of venturing out of their homes. On May 12, everything had come to a standstill in Hailakandi and its adjoining areas due to the curfew. I had frantically called up the 108 ambulance service and others I know for a vehicle to take my wife to the hospital. However, they declined my requests fearing trouble on the way. I was at a loss. Soon, Laskar, the Good Samaritan, arrived with his car. We immediately left for the hospital and the baby was born soon after we had reached there, Das told Express. He said everyone in the hospital was surprised to see them given the volatile situation that prevailed then. I have no words to express my gratitude to him (Laskar). The worst was possibly in store but God sent him to us, Das said, adding, We named the baby Shanti despite knowing that it is a girls name. Shanti denotes peace and we want the return of durable peace to Hailakandi. Laskar, the saviour, said he considered saving the lives of the woman and the baby in her womb was more important than putting his life at peril. As soon as I learnt about the agonies of the family from a local in my village, I left for the house. I wont say I was not scared to drive the distance but my fear was overpowered by the thought that I should be able to take her to the hospital before it is too late, Laskar said. He said he was happy that everything passed off well. Hailakandi Deputy Commissioner (District Magistrate), Keerthi Jalli, praised both Laskar and Das for their courage and communal brotherhood. She paid a visit to the residence of Das on Tuesday where Laskar was also present. Das hugged Laskar and thanked him for coming out to help them in their hour of distress and giving his wife a new lease of life. Laskar, in turn, asked Das to thank God for coming to their rescue. He (Laskar) had volunteered to take the woman to the hospital at great personal risk. As the baby has been named Shanti, we hope that the society will come back to peace, Jalli said. By PTI ALIRAJPUR/DHAR (MP): Union minister Nitin Gadkari Wednesday said while the BJP is concerned about resolving the people's woes, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is worried about how her son and Congress president Rahul Gandhi becomes the prime minister. He was addressing a rally at Alirajpur under Ratlam Jhabua Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh. "We are worried about how people should get power, farmers get right price for their produce, but Sonia ji is worried that how Rahul should become the prime minister," he said. "In Congress, a prime minister is born to a prime minister, a chief minister to a chief minister, an MP to an MP and an MLA is born to an MLA. There is no existence of a common woker in that party," he said. Warning Pakistan over cross-border terrorism, he said India will be forced to take a tough decision of stopping its share of water from three common rivers. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE He said that when Indira Gandhi became the prime minister, she had promised to remove poverty and the same promise was made by Rajiv Gandhi (former PM) and the Manmohan Singh government under the leadership pf Sonia Gandhi. "But they failed to do so... Now, Rahul Gandhi has been promising to eliminate poverty. Tell me whether the Congress has kept its promise," he asked the gathering. Although BJP chief Amit Shah was earlier scheduled to address these rallies, his visit was cancelled and Gadkari was deputed in his place. Polling in Dhar and Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha seats will take place on May 19. The BJP has fielded GS Damor from Ratlam Jhabua seat against sitting Congress MP Kantilal Bhuria. In Dhar, the saffron party has fielded Chhatar Singh Darbar against Dinesh Girewal of Congress. By PTI BENGALURU: India's second Moon mission that is planned for a July launch will have 13 payloads and one passive experiment from American space agency NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said Wednesday. "Thirteen Indian payloads (8 on orbiter, 3 on lander and 2 on rover) and one passive experiment from NASA," ISRO said in a mission update, but did not specify them or their objective. The spacecraft with a mass of 3.8 tonnes has three modules--Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). All the modules are getting ready for Chandrayaan-2 launch during the window of July 9 to July 16, 2019, with an expected Moon landing on September 6, the space agency had said earlier this month. The orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, while lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of moon, and Rover (Pragyan) will conduct in-situ experiments. The orbiter and lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an integrated module and accommodated inside the GSLV MK-III launch vehicle, ISRO has said, adding the rover is housed inside the lander. After launch into earth-bound orbit by GSLV MK-III, the integrated module will reach Moon orbit using orbiter propulsion module, and subsequently, lander will separate from the orbiter and soft land at the predetermined site close to lunar South Pole. Further, the rover will roll out for carrying out scientific experiments on the lunar surface, ISRO has said, noting that instruments are also mounted on lander and orbiter for carrying out scientific experiments. ISRO Chairman K Sivan had said in January, "We are going to land at a place where nobody else has gone-the Moon's South Pole... it is unexplored region." Chandrayaan-2 mission, is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission about 10 years ago. Chandrayaan-1 had 11 payloads- five from India, three from Europe, 2 from USA and 1 from Bulgaria, and the mission had the credit for discovery of water on the lunar surface. The 1.4 tonne spacecraft was launched using PSLV and the orbiter had orbited 100 km from the lunar surface. By PTI PATIALA: As Punjab tries to wriggle out of the grip of a continuing farm crisis and drug menace, a small set of farmers and politicians has been pushing for legalising opium cultivation in the state, arguing it will increase farmers' income and help fight "chitta" (synthetic drug). The farmers seeking legalisation of opium cultivation say they will support those who accept their demand in the elections. Patiala MP Dhramvir Gandhi and Shiromani Akali Dal Rajya Sabha member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa are among those advocating opium cultivation under the supervision of the state government. Dhindsa says small farmers in Punjab are under huge debt and fighting for survival. Opium cultivation under a government contract can turn things around for them. "Opium cultivation can fetch Rs 5-6 lakh per acre. The financial condition of small farmers will change drastically if the government allows each farmer to cultivate opium even in an acre of land," he says. "The government cannot put a complete end to drugs. That's impossible. What we can do is we can replace more dangerous 'chitta' with natural drugs," the MP says. "In many states, like in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, farmers cultivate opium poppy under the government's supervision. One would not have heard of drug addiction in such states, unlike Punjab," he says. Dhindsa says most of the politicians in Punjab agree in private that opium cultivation should be legalised, but they don't say it publicly. Gandhi, who is seeking re-election from the Patiala Lok Sabha constituency, argues a large number of people can be weaned away from more harmful synthetic drugs if the government allows medically supervised, regulated production of opium. He says the ban on drugs has led to mafia selling cheap, more damaging drugs like cocaine. "I have been demanding that the draconian Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, be scrapped. There's 10 years' imprisonment for a first offense, 20 years for a second offense and even life imprisonment or hanging if the judge desires so. For what? For consuming a small amount of opium husk or marijuana. "Lakhs of people have suffered because of this inhumane law in the last 20-30 years. They have been labelled criminals. The marginalised section of society has bore the brunt of this law, not the upper class or those who go to rave parties," Gandhi says. On the drug menace in Punjab, he says countries like the US, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Uruguay, and Portugal have decriminalised drug addicts. "Their jails have been vacated. They have adopted a new approach. They have begun treating drug addicts like patients and not criminals," he says. Gandhi, a cardiologist by profession, had in 2016 moved a private member's bill seeking legalisation of recreational use of marijuana. The late actor and politician Vinod Khanna and Biju Janata Dal MP Tathagata Satpathy had also supported him. However, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's wife and the Congress candidate from Patiala, Preneet Kaur, says the government has been trying very hard to contain the drug menace and the issue of opium cultivation requires proper legislation and a very-well-thought-of decision. Bharatiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) General Secretary Harinder Singh Lakhowal says that according to a study conducted in the states where governments allow opium cultivation, a farmer can earn up to Rs 5-6 lakh per acre through poppy. "Opium is a better alternative to synthetic drugs. Its consumption in small quantities is socially and culturally acceptable in the state. "While paddy is a water guzzler, opium cultivation hardly requires any water. It also leads to crop diversification," he says. "Recently, 50,000 farmers filled up forms seeking legalisation of opium cultivation and submitted them to the chief minister and Governor V P Singh Badnore, who happens to be from Rajasthan. The chief minister said he will convene a meeting, but nothing has happened so far," Lakhowal says. Another farmer leader, Harjinder Ghumman, says, "We will give up our demand if anyone can prove that opium led to a death in Punjab. All the deaths in the state are due to 'chitta'." He says that at places like Barnala and Sangrur, farmers are not allowed to dig borewells as the groundwater level had depleted to alarming levels. Opium cultivation is an answer to their problem as it doesn't require much water. The farmers say they are supporting candidates who have been advocating the legalisation of opium cultivation like Pramjit Ranu, an independent contesting from Anandpur Sahib, Samarjit Mann of Akali Dal (Amritsar) in Sangrur, and Jagmeet Jagga in Faridkot. Namita Bajpai By Express News Service LUCKNOW: As the country zeroes in on the last phase of Lok Sabha polls, it is a war of perceptions that are being fought on Ground Zero in far east Uttar Pradesh. The BJP is trying to flag the contradictions within the UP Mahagathbandhan alleging there is a tacit understanding between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, keeping BSP chief Mayawati in the dark. The alliance has rebuffed the contention. However, the BJP is looking at the larger picture, as was seen in PM Narendra Modis effort to reach out to crucial Dalits and OBC voters, while raising questions on the Opposition alliances future. The seventh and final phase will see voting on 13 seats where SP has fielded eight candidates leaving six for ally BSP. In 2014, the BJP had bagged all 13 seats. In the 2018 bypoll, the saffron party had lost Gorakhpur to SP candidate supported by the BSP. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE However, despite the SP-BSP alliance, the 2014 poll data gives BJP an edge in eight out of 13 seats while the alliance caste arithmetic dominates the remaining five seats. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and two of his cabinet colleagues, Manoj Sinha and Anupriya Patel, chief of Apna Dal (S), are in fray, the significance of the battle can be gauged from the fact that to repeat its 2014 performance, BJP had to dump five of its 13 sitting MPs to counteract anti-incumbency By PTI NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Wednesday termed as "prima facie arbitrary" the arrest of BJP's youth wing leader for allegedly posting morphed image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media and pulled up the West Bengal government for the delay in releasing her. A vacation bench comprising justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna was informed by the counsel of activist Priyanka Sharma's brother that she was not released from jail on Tuesday despite the apex court's order granting her bail and ordering her immediate release. However, the counsel for West Bengal government informed the bench that she has been released from jail at 9:40 am today. "Why 9:40 am today? The order was passed in your presence," the bench told the state counsel. When the state's counsel referred to the jail manual, the bench shot back, "Jail manual can't have precedence over an order of the Supreme Court." "No. This is not done. First of all the arrest was prima facie arbitrary," the bench said. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Priyanka's brother Rajib Sharma who filed the plea in the apex court, told the bench that despite the apex court's Tuesday order granting her bail she had to spend another night behind the bars. Kaul told the bench that jail authorities Tuesday told them that they have to either bring certified copies of the apex court's order or approach the court of the chief judicial magistrate concerned for her release. "If she is not released, the consequences will follow," the bench said and warned it will issue contempt to officials concerned if Sharma was not released from jail immediately. "She should be released from jail within half an hour," the bench said. The bench asked Kaul to get instructions whether she has been released from jail or not. After a few minutes, Kaul informed the bench that Sharma has been released from jail today. Kaul told the court that they have moved a separate application, in which they have said that though the closure report in the case was filed in the trial court on May 13, the apex court was not informed during yesterday's hearing. "If the Supreme Court was informed yesterday that the closure report has been filed in the trial court, then the apex court might not have asked her to apologise," Kaul said. The apex court had Tuesday granted bail to Sharma and asked to apologise for posting the morphed image of Banerjee. During the hearing on Wednesday, Kaul said the counsel for West Bengal was present in the apex court during yesterday's hearing but did not apprise the court about the closure report. "You know very well what happens to a counsel appearing for the state," the bench observed. To this Kaul said, "I am not on the counsel but I am on the conduct of the state." However, the bench told Kaul to check up whether Sharma has been released from jail or not. "If she is not released, we will issue contempt," the bench said. However, Kaul said when the apex court had yesterday said that Priyanka should be released forthwith, why jail authorities did not release her. "Does West Bengal state or the police have right to detain her even for a minute after the Supreme Court's order," Kaul asked. He told the bench that their application be listed for hearing next week. However, the bench said since Sharma has been released there was no urgency and the application will be heard in July after the summer vacation. After taking instructions, Kaul told the bench that Sharma has been released from jail but jail authorities "forced" her to give an apology before being released from the prison. Sharma was arrested on May 10 by the police under section 500 (defamation) of the IPC and under other provisions of the Information Technology Act on a complaint of a local Trinamool Congress leader Vibhas Hazra. She was sent to 14-day judicial custody by a trial court there. The apex court, which initially said Sharma's apology will be a bail condition, later clarified that it will not be a condition for bail but she should apologise for sharing the post at the time of her release. The court had also sought response from West Bengal government on whether a person can be arrested for sharing a post or meme on social media and posted the matter for further hearing after the summer vacation. On Monday, Kaul had mentioned the matter in the top court for urgent hearing, saying Sharma was forced to move the apex court as there was a complete strike in local courts till May 14 in Howrah and moreover, she had been remanded in 14-day judicial custody by a Howrah court on May 11. Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) entails punishment for defamation with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. Sharma had allegedly shared on Facebook the photo in which Banerjee's face has been photo-shopped on to actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from the MET Gala event in New York. Her arrest was followed by protests from the BJP and other social media users. By PTI LUCKNOW: Claiming that BJP is "afraid" of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav Wednesday said the combine would "wipe out" the saffron party completely in the Lok Sabha election's last phase of polling to be held on May 19. Thirteen of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in the last phase. ALSO READ | The weight of BSP's elephant will 'puncture' SP's bicycle: Yogi Adityanath "The BJP is afraid of our alliance. Till the sixth phase, people have discarded the saffron party, and in the seventh phase they will be completely wiped out as people are supporting our alliance which is for social justice, farmers and the poor," Yadav said. Addressing a joint election rally in Mau with BSP supremo Mayawati, he alleged that the BJP governments both at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh have been a "failure" and a new India would be formed when the alliance "gives a new prime minister" to the country. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE BSP chief Mayawati said, "People are fed up with the BJP government's anti-people policies and they will throw them out of the power. The BJP is using all tricks to win elections and people should remain alert." Alleging that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh was harassing BSP candidate Atul Rai, she said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should "be prepared to return to his math" after the elections. Both the leaders addressed joint rallies in Deoria also. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday urged various countries to treat each other as equals for the peaceful coexistence of civilizations. "Various civilizations are not destined to clash," Xi said at the opening of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, Asia's first-ever grand gathering themed on inter-civilizational exchanges and mutual learning for a community with a shared future. Thousands of people from 47 Asian countries and nearly 50 countries outside the region attended the conference in Beijing. "The intensifying global challenges humanity are facing now require concerted efforts from countries across the world," Xi said, highlighting the role of culture to cope with common challenges. The conference comes at a time when certain countries have resorted to the "clash of civilizations" argument, bullying, unilateralism and an inward-looking mentality. Qian Chengdan, a professor at Peking University, said the Xi-proposed event is highly relevant in the current political environment. "It will boost understanding among different civilizations and pave the way for a brighter future for humanity," Qian said. Xi noted there would be no clash of civilizations as long as people were able to appreciate the beauty of all civilizations. "It is foolish to believe that one's race and civilization are superior to others," Xi said. "It is disastrous to willfully reshape or even replace other civilizations." The Chinese president raised a four-point proposal to consolidate the "cultural foundation" of jointly building a community with a shared future for Asia and humanity: treating each other with respect and as equals; appreciating the beauty of all civilizations; adhering to openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning; and keeping pace with the times. Equality, reciprocality, diversity and multi-directionality are underscored in exchanges among civilizations. The exchanges, Xi said, should neither be compulsory or forced, nor one-directional. Asia, with two-thirds of the global population, is a major birthplace of human civilization and home to vibrant cultures. There are 47 countries and more than 1,000 ethnic groups on the continent. Asians expect a peaceful, stable, open and integrated continent with common prosperity, Xi said. The Chinese president's take on civilization has won broad support from conference attendees. "When he talked about discarding arrogance and prejudice to treat each other as equals, there was a round of applause," said Zhai Kun, another professor at Peking University. "That was really a show of approval." In their talks on Tuesday, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos told Xi that he believed the "clash of civilizations" argument was a huge mistake. He agreed that different civilizations should respect each other, enhance mutual learning through dialogue and exchanges and draw upon each other's strengths. "Civilizations are not meant to make war," said Massoud Daher, a professor at Lebanese University who attended the conference. "There is no clash of civilizations but complementarity between them." Professor Qian said the Chinese proposal will address challenges such as global deficits in governance, trust, peace and development. The week-long event includes an opening ceremony, panel discussions, an Asian Culture Carnival and Asian Civilization Week involving more than 110 activities to showcase the diversity and charm of Asian civilizations. By PTI VARANASI: Union minister Piyush Goyal Tuesday urged the Election Commission to take strong action against the West Bengal government for the violence during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. After violence and arson marred BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, a party delegation, including Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, rushed to the EC, seeking its immediate intervention to ensure free and fair polls in the state. "I request the President of India to take cognisance of the matter and ensure a message is send to the voters that they need not to fear and they be getting full protection and should come out fearfully to vote in large numbers on May 19 elections to make the BJP win," he said. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Strong action must be taken against the West Bengal government, the Union minister said. It is a total break down of law and order in West Bengal , a 'goondaraj' is prevailing in the state under the Mamata Banerjee government, he alleged. Goyal claimed that stones were hurled, petrol bombs were thrown and criminals attacked people and BJP workers during the roadshow. "Very sadly, we have to say the Election Commission remains a mute spectator to the violence in West Bengal by the state government, it did not act and could not arrest even a single person," he said. Goyal said the EC should appoint a special observer and central forces must be deputed. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The BJP chief Amit Shah on Wednesday charged Trinamool Congress of rioting during Tuesday roadshow in Kolkata. Shah claimed that he wouldn't have come back alive if there hadn't been the protection of the CRPF while alleging that TMC workers staged an attack on him during the roadshow. He exhorted that the state government could constitute an SIT to probe the Tuesday incident. Shah alleged that TMC workers as part of a conspiracy to vandalize the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. He asserted that the gate of the Vidyasagar college had been shut till the conclusion of the roadshow while asking who opened the door where the statue had been vandalized. Shah stressed that he's frustrated that the statue of Vidyasagar had been vandalized. Claiming that TMC is headed for a resounding defeat in West Bengal, Shah said that the state chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been rattled with the rise of the BJP in the state. Shah showed photographs as proof that TMC workers indulged in stone-pelting and arson aimed at him even while the CRPF personnel sought to protect him. READ | Mamata, TMC leaders change Twitter, Facebook profile picture with Vidyasagar's photo The BJP president further alleged that the Election Commission has remained as a mute spectator to the attempts of rigging in West Bengal. "History sheeters across the country are put behind the bars during elections. Such criminal elements are freely indulging in political violence in the state. Why has the EC not acted against such history sheeters," Shah asked. Shah refuted that TMC claims that vehicles of the BJP workers had been used in the Tuesday violence in the state. The BJP chief also questioned the EC's silence over Banerjee openly threatening the BJP workers. He said that the BJP campaigners, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, had been restrained from campaigning in West Bengal. He said that TMC is contesting elections on 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, while the BJP is in the contest on a much higher number of seats across the country. "If the BJP is indulging in violence, then why such incidents are not seen in any other parts of the country. It just means that TMC indulges in violence," said Shah. FOLLOW OUR ELECTIONS COVERAGE HERE The BJP chief also asserted that the party cadres wouldn't be deterred by the filing of an FIR against him. "Seven of the BJP workers had been killed in the state as part of TMC staged political violence. We wouldn't be deterred. People in the state will answer with ballots in the seventh phase of elections," said Shah, while stating that TMC has been practising the culture of threatening the political rivals. READ | 'Have come to Bengal to campaign for BJP': Shah's reply to Mamata's 'outsider' jibe Shah asserted that the BJP would sweep the elections in the state and would win over 23 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 in the state. Shah alleged that EC has been working with partiality in West Bengal. He claimed that he has reports that the election observers had been insisting on action against history-sheeters in the state, which had been ignored. Shah alleged that EC has a separate standard for election in West Bengal and other parts of the country. Exuding confidence that the BJP would win over 300 Lok Sabha seats, Shah said that the proponents of the Federal Front are free to choose their leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha while wondering that the Opposition may not gain strength to bag the status of leader of Opposition. By PTI NEW DELHI: The TMC Tuesday sought a meeting with the Election Commission over the destruction of a statue of Bengali writer and philosopher Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during clashes between workers of the ruling party and the BJP. "Trinamool parliamentary team comprising Derek O'Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Manish Gupta, Nadimul Haque seeks meeting with EC in aftermath of the attack on Bengal's heritage after Shah roadshow in Kolkata. BJP outsider ruffians resort to arson & break Vidyasagar's bust," the TMC said in a tweet. Earlier, Brien, also TMC spokesperson, took to Twitter and alleged that "violent mob of outsiders" were behind the attack. Supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (BJP) fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata on Tuesday during a massive road show by former's president Amit Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by the police. Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence as his convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. The stones were pelted as Shah's convoy passed through College Street and the arterial Bidhan Sarani on its way to Swami Vivekananda's residence in north Kolkata, a little over 3.5 km from Esplanade in the heart of the city, where it began. Furious BJP supporters retaliated and exchanged blows with their TMC rivals outside the college entrance. Several motorcycles parked outside were vandalised and set ablaze. Shards of broken glass littered the lobby of the college where a bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was smashed to smithereens. Police personnel quickly jumped into action, as they tried to douse the fire, while also chasing away the warring groups. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE "There was an attempt by TMC hooligans to attack me. Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal chief minister) tried to provoke violence. But I am safe," Shah told a Hindi TV news channel. Shah said while clashes erupted police remained a mute spectator. He said he was told by police that the permission for the roadshow ended near the college and that he would be taken to the ancestral home of Swami Vivekananda on Bidhan Sarani. "They (police) deviated from the planned route and took a way where there were traffic jams. I was not allowed to reach Swami Vivekananda's house to pay tributes and I am saddened by it," Shah claimed. Banerjee hit right back, calling Shah a "goonda". "If you lay your hands on Vidyasagar, what will I call you other than a goonda," he told a rally in Behala in the city. "I hate your ideology, I hate your ways," she said and announced a protest rally on Thursday against the vandalisation of the bust of Vidyasagar. There was another scuffle when a group shouted slogans against Shah outside the Calcutta University campus and showed him black flags. Police, however, swiftly brought the situation under control. Before the clashing mobs took over the streets of central Kolkata, Shah led a saffron surge in parts of the city as chants of 'Jai Shri Ram, Jai Jai Shri Ram' alternated with frenzied chorus of 'Modi! Modi!'. The party's Kolkata north and Kolkata south candidates Rahul Sinha and Chandra Kumar Bose were on the vehicle with Shah, who had to often wipe his face with a towel in the oppressive heat and humidity the city is known for during summer. Along the way, Shah and his entourage were showered with flower petals by women from terraces and rooftops. Shah also sprinkled the crowd with flower petals. Apparently satisfied with the impressive turnout of BJP supporters on Kolkata streets, a rare sight since the defeat and virtual eclipse of the Left Front whose rallies were stuff of legend because of sheer size, Shah declared the BJP will win more than 282 seats in the election, the number of constituencies it had clinched in 2014. "They (the TMC) killed several of our workers. Nothing can make a party president sadder. Didi (West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee) should know the more violence her party perpetrates the more the lotus (BJP's election symbol) will bloom," he told a national TV channel. Shah claimed the people of West Bengal have made up their mind to back Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defeat the Trinamool Congress. Responding to Banerjee's allegation that the BJP had brought people from other states to rig the elections in West Bengal and that saffron party workers in CRPF uniforms were vitiating the poll process, Shah said his party was ruling 16 states and nowhere it adopted such vile tactics. "I want to assure Didi as much... we will never do anything like that," he said. Tension was palpable since Tuesday noon, hours before Shah's roadshow began, after posters with images of Modi and him were dismantled by the police, provoking several senior leaders to stage a flash sit-in. BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party's pointsman for the northeast, Himanta Biswa Sarma, and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan remonstrated. Vijayvargiya was seen involved in a heated argument with a police officer. "No democracy exists in Bengal," Pradhan said, adding the people of the state were with Narendra Modi. "You (the TMC and Mamata Banerjee) are scared of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. But why should you be afraid of their posters?" Sarma said. By PTI KOLKATA: BJP youth wing activist Priyanka Sharma, who walked out of jail on Wednesday after being arrested for posting a morphed picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook, said she would not apologise. "I don't have any regrets. I have not done anything for which I will have to apologise," Sharma told a press conference at the BJP office here. She was released at 9.40 am from the Alipore jail after five days following a Supreme Court order. The BJP activist alleged that she was harassed and tortured inside the jail. "I was tortured in the jail. Even the jailer pushed me yesterday. I told them I am not a criminal that you are pushing me into the jail room like this," she said. "They behaved very rudely. The condition inside was very bad." Local BJP leaders and her mother were present outside the jail in south Kolkata when she was released. "Me and my family has gone through much agony which I think I don't deserve," Sharma told PTI over the phone. Her brother, Rajiv Sharma, alleged that the jail authorities violated the Supreme Court order by not releasing her on Tuesday. FOLLOW OUR ELECTIONS COVERAGE HERE "When we went to the jail yesterday, officials said they needed a hard copy of the order. I am in Delhi and it took time to get the hard copy of the order and therefore the delay. They did not abide by the Supreme Court order of immediate release," he said. The Supreme Court on Wednesday termed the arrest of Sharma "prima facie arbitrary" and pulled up the West Bengal government for the delay in releasing Sharma. The apex court, which initially said Sharma's apology would be a bail condition, later clarified that it would not be a condition for bail, but she should apologise for sharing the post at the time of her release. Sharma had allegedly shared on Facebook the photo in which Banerjee's face has been morphed on to actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from the MET Gala event in New York. Her arrest was followed by protests from the BJP and other social media users. The bail granted by the Supreme Court to West Bengal BJP Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma is a step in the right direction. Sharma was arrested on May 10 by the West Bengal Police for allegedly sharing on Facebook a photograph in which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees face was morphed on actor Priyanka Chopras picture from the Met Gala event in New York. The arrest was roundly criticised by the BJP and other social media users, and rightly so. This is not the first time that Mamata and her government have displayed such high-handedness. In 2012, a Jadavpur University professor was arrested for forwarding a cartoon of the CM. The same year, the then Press Council of India Chairman Markandey Katju wrote a letter to her saying she had become increasingly intolerant and whimsical. The less said about her partys attitude towards its political opponentswhether from the BJP, Left Front or Congressthe better. Threats, intimidation and violence against all political opponents have become the norm in West Bengal, with henchmen of the Trinamool Congress having little regard for the law of the land. While on the one hand, Mamata positions herself as a champion of free speech and tolerance, calling the BJP a fascist organisation, on the other hand, she has always cracked down on satire and dissent against her. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Another worrying aspect about Mamata is that she appears to be taking her political battle with the BJP to a near breakdown of her governments relations with the Centre. In the run-up to the polls, her government behaved most churlishly by denying permission to BJP leaders to hold rallies or landing rights to their helicopters. Most recently, she refused to take phone calls from Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he tried to reach her to discuss the impact of Cyclone Fani. Such behaviour can severely damage the federal structure and needs to be checked immediately. In a healthy democracy, political rivalries and the freedom to criticise one another should not only be welcomed but should be the norm. They must not spill over to governance once in power. Prabhu Chawla By In the vocabulary of political consolidation, party slogans promote unity among both cadres and followers. This election, they have become semantic syllables of slaughter, hysterical with divisive frenzy. Ram, Ram ji is the most common and most non-communal term of greeting in most of rural North and West India. Many Hindus and Muslims, even in white attire may not shake hands but will say Ram, Ram to each other. No more. Ever since Lord Ram found political ownership, the phrase symbolises majority cultural oppression. Bharat Mata ki jai, chanted regularly at various political rallies and social events was never a divisive declaration either. Sadly, both Ram and Bharat Mata have been added as factious words to Indias political dictionary. During the last two phases of the Lok Sabha election campaign, Narendra Modi vociferously castigated Mamata Banerjee for berating BJP workers chanting Jai Shri Ram. If people cannot raise Jai Shri Ram in India, where else can they? he blasted Didi. Her retort was Jai Mahakali, Kalkattawali. The election in Bengal became a dharmayudh between Modis Ram and Mamatas Kaaliironically both Hindu deities, though Didi only gave providence a secular address. Imitation may be a form of flattery, but in this vote fest, it is just mimicry with meanness. Accused of choosing appeasement over Hindutva, the Opposition is paying the BJP back with invoking Hinduisms spectacular pantheon. They accuse the saffron party of converting Ram from a god for all Hindus to its exclusive political asset for reaping political dividends. Though the lord of Ayodhya is the most revered symbol of faith, many other deities are equally worshipped across the country. Since the scriptures mention that Hindus have 33 crore gods, Modi-baiters are excavating divine antipodes to the excessive Ramification of the Indian political narrative. Most Modi-shatrus including Rahul Gandhi have been temple hopping from one state to another to enhance their Hindu connectivity. The definite ideological energy driving BJPs exorbitant invocation of nationalism and religion is scorching the pollscape. The party and the prime minister have concluded that secular discourse and administrative intervention are in collusion to erase Indias intrinsic Hindu identity by supporting sectarian and selective cultural invasions. During the 1990s, the BJP had a game changing epiphany: by finding a slogan or an idea to rally Hindus behind it, its saffron footprint could be extended beyond the Vindhiyas and in the East. In 1990, L K Advani had laid the road map for a Hindu political awakening with his Ram Rath Yatra. After the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, the BJP blamed radical Islam for the escalating terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir as well as in other parts of the country. Mandir and abolition of Article 370 are BJPs most effective contemporary slogans, calculated to besmear the entire Opposition with anti-Hindu paintballs. Over two decades, BJP has fine-tuned its ultra-polarising Hindutva slogans into nationalist war cries. India First, an oblique reference to a modern Hindu rasthra is its password to victory. Party slogans and Modis speeches are disproportionally loaded in favour of voting for nationalism instead of the governments performance in the past five years. Interestingly, the tone and tenor of political chants have been changing with the ascent of individuals over ideology. Slogans were once coined in a manner to define a leader and an alternative model of governance. Till the early 60s, the Congress dominated Indias political geography under Jawaharlal Nehru. Once Indira Gandhi took full charge of the party and the country, she was directly pilloried by the Opposition and the Syndicate. The Jan Sangh was the first to launch a personal attack with Indira Hatao, Desh Bachao. Her party parried with Who kahte hein India Hatao, hum kahte hein Desh Bachao. (They want to remove Indira while we want to save India). In the subsequent elections, the Congress led with the powerful call to arms, Garibi Hatao which gave it over two-thirds majority in Parliament. Though Indira lost miserably after the Emergency in 1977, she bounced back 32 months later riding the mesmerising slogan Elect The Government That Works, which summarised the ideal alternative to the chaos in the Morarji Desai-headed Janata Party government, which was being excoriated by factional feuds. Political slogans remained lukewarm until 2014, when Modi stormed the national stage with the promise of Achche din and a Strong India. These phrases resonated with voters who ached for leader with the will to fight corruption and deliver. Modis track record as prime minister is better than that of many of his predecessors. Yet he has chosen to seek re-election with emotional aggression rather than by explaining his future agenda. In other democracies, well established ruling parties have been overthrown by leaders with combative and impassioned slogans. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher exploited the labour union menace whose strikes were paralysing the UK economy by asking the British electorate to vote Conservative because The labour doesnt work. Many of Modis admirers feel that he could have learned from international leaders who won the polls or were seeking a second term. For example, Barack Obama hit pay dirt first in 2008 by playing to the American innovative spirit with Yes, we can. Yes we can heal this nation. Next in 2012, he promised America that he would take the change forward. Donald Trump, the dark horse and a subject of ridicule for Washingtons liberal classes reached the White House by promising demoralised citizens that he would Make America Great Again. Undoubtedly pithy, snappy and sharp slogans strike the right chord with the public. Mottos with emotive rhymes and alliterations, spiced with sarcastic puns promising a better, peaceful future would reap a bigger harvest of seats. After considering the good, the bad and the mediocre, the message is clear. A nation as diverse as India needs a slogan which emphasises its diversity and not just nationality. Unless the political context and social sentiment match piercing one-liners, all youre left with is yet another meaningless catchphrase. The slogans of 2019 have divided India vertically. Hopefully the verdict will not reflect the fury and filth of campaign histrionics. Prabhu Chawla Devaraj B Hirehalli By Express News Service TUMAKURU: With borewells drying up, and hope too, residents of parched Pavagada taluk turn back to superstition and rustic beliefs to appease the rain god. Pujas and rituals apart, the people also identify a huge rock on the village border, and roll it down into the jurisdiction of another village. The belief is that this rolling away of the rock brings rain. On Sunday morning, Bellibattalu village revived the jaldi ritual after a gap of three years. It involved creating a small pit and placing a polythene sheet to ensure that water does not percolate through. The village deity is brought to the pond in a procession for a special puja. The people, under the guidance of priest Palaiah, scaled the Akkamma Betta hills, 4km away, and fetched three pots of water from the small pond on top. Six more pots of water were poured into the pond created in the village. The deity, Gowdachandra Maramma, famous in Challakere taluk of Chitradurga district, was brought out of the temple and pujas performed after washing its face with water f rom the pond on the hillock. We completed the rituals and sent the deity back to the temple after sacrificing a goat, and got a few drops of rain around 7.30pm, claimed B R Palaiah, a gram panchayat (GP) member whose schooling ended in Class 2. A couple of days earlier, GP president Girija Sathyanarayana, and members Rajanna and Lingaiah had held a meeting and taken a decision to conduct jaldi, and this was tom-tommed to the villagers. Over 30 borewells went dry this summer, making things worse for the residents, especially farmers who were looking to the rain gods for showers to sow the groundnut crop. The village of over 500 households is represented by every community -- SC/STs, Muslims, Vokkaligas, Brahmins and Pinjaras, who are traditional cotton carders -- who live in harmony, said Madhusudhan J, who works with Infosys in Bengaluru, and is from the village. Biju E Paul By Express News Service ALAPPUZHA: In the past three decades, during Ramadan months, Muslim homes under the Chathanad and Kaichoondi juma masjids in Alappuzha have been waking up to the Muhammad Bashas Urdu ballads, accompanied by arbana (drum) beats. The Andhra Pradesh native did not disappoint the believers and turned up in the coastal district last week and continued his ritual, which is known as athazha paattu. I come here every year during Ramadan month for athazha pattu, the custom to wake up the believers. Ive been visiting homes and singing songs in Urdu to wake them up. They give me zakat (donation) for my songs at the end of the fasting period, said Basha. I belong to the Fakeer community, which performs the age-old ritual in Andhra Pradesh. For the past several decades, members of my community have been travelling to various locations of the country to sing during the month of Ramadan. I first came here 30 years ago with my father and Im continuing the custom even after his death, said the 50-year-old, a native of Mallasamudram in Chittoor district. Apart from the ones in Urdu, they opt for Malayalam songs, particularly that of Moyinkutty Vaidyar and other Mappila artists. By Express News Service KOCHI: In a major setback for the LDF Government, the High Court on Tuesday quashed the government order terminating Special Public Prosecutor Siby Chenappady, who was appointed by the UDF Government in the Anchery Baby murder case involving Electricity Minister M M Mani. The court observed the termination of appointment was whimsical and arbitrary. The court held Chenappady should be permitted to conduct the prosecution in the case pending before the Sessions Court, Thodupuzha. The court issued the order on the petition filed by the brother of the deceased alleging the termination was politically motivated. The UDF Government had appointed Chenappady as special prosecutor considering the legal issues involved in the case. However, the LDF Government passed the order terminating his appointment. and in his place, N K Unnikrishnan was appointed on July 24, 2018. The petitioner submitted that the special public prosecutor was conducting the prosecution in a diligent manner. He had filed an application to arraign Mani and two others as accused as their roles were evident from the records and it was accepted by the court. The petitioner pointed out the Special Prosecutor, who has now been appointed, is having affiliation with the ruling party and that would prevent him from acting in a fair and impartial manner. The accused in a case of political murder has been given the mantle to choose their own prosecutor, which was against all canons of justice, submitted the petitioner. By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: Unrest prevailed in Utkal University on Tuesday as hundreds of students staged a protest and blocked the main gate over delay in restoration of electricity on the campus. The students alleged that despite their active participation in rebuilding work post-cyclone Fani, the power supply is yet to be restored in the university. Hundreds of students staying in hostels are facing serious inconvenience due to delay in restoration of power which in turn has also affected water supply, said an agitator. Many of us stayed back at hostels during the cyclone in view of the examinations. However, we are facing lot of difficulties due to unavailability of power and water, said another agitating student. It is unfortunate that despite being located in the heart of the City, the university is yet to get electricity, he added. Some of the university staff said electricity has also not been restored in the administrative block and they are depending on DG sets for power. Later on the day, the agitating students called of their protest after university authorities assured that power will be restored soon. University Registrar Dayanidhi Nayak said the authorities are concerned about the students and have urged CESU to restore power at the earliest. Electricity is expected to be restored in a day or two, he said. The extremely severe cyclonic storm, which battered Odisha on May 3, has caused extensive damage to the universitys green cover as well as infrastructure. Around 200 utility poles and electricity cables have been completely damaged inside the campus. Nayak said preliminary estimate suggests that the university has sustained damage to a tune of `109 crore in the cyclone. He further said since it will take some time for the Government to sanction assistance, the university has provided an immediate grant of `20,000 to each department and `15,000 to each hostel for repairing broken water pipes and snapped power lines before the commencement of examinations. The university has postponed its examinations till May 21 in view of the damage caused to the infrastructure by cyclone Fani. Vietnamese tra fish, a major foreign currency earner, has gradually won the trust of Japanese consumers as seen in the markets emergence as one of the 10 biggest tra fish importers of Vietnam. According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), tra fish exports were estimated at 609 million USD in the first four months of this year, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier. The figure included 11.54 million USD from exports to Japan, soaring 61.5 percent, making the Northeast Asian country the eighth biggest market of Vietnamese tra fish its debut in the top 10. In 2018, tra fish shipments to Japan shot up 12 times from the 2.56 million USD in 2011. This is a notable result because in the past, Japanese consumers shunned imported farmed aquatic products. The rise in tra fish imports shows Vietnamese products are gradually gaining a foothold in this demanding market. The two countries signed an economic partnership agreement on December 25, 2008, and this deal took effect on October 1, 2009. This is Vietnams first bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), in which the two sides give more preferential treatment to each other compared to the FTA between ASEAN, of which Vietnam is a member, and Japan. Under these FTAs, Japan has eliminated import tariffs on some Vietnamese aquatic products. Since April 2019, Japan has also exempted import tariffs on fresh and frozen catfish fillet products from members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), including Vietnam. Thanks to the three agreements, tra fish exporters now have more chances to bolster shipments to Japan. VASEP expressed its belief that there remains huge potential for tra fish exporters to capitalise on the Japanese market.-VNA S Kumaresan By Express News Service CHENNAI: After the meeting between DMK leader MK Stalin and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, BJP leaders are insisting that the DMK may ditch Congress after the Lok Sabha poll results. However, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K S Alagiri dismisses the statements of BJP and reiterates that the relationship between Congress and DMK is strong. Excerpts from Alagiris interview to Express: Q: How do you see the meeting between K Chandrasekhar Rao and MK Stalin? It was purely a courtesy call. We cannot even say that Chandrasekhar Rao is either working for the creation of a third front or against Congress. He did not make any such statement of late. He is also fighting against the BJP in his State. FOLLOW OUR ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Q: What is your opinion on the possibilities of a third front in the country? As of today, there is no chance of a third front. No regional party can manage to win more than 20-25 MP seats. Hence, they have to either support Congress or BJP. Most of the regional parties are against BJP. Q: So you are confident that Stalin will not be inclined towards joining the third front if it emerges? Stalin is a seasoned politician. He had gained rich experience by working along with his father the late Chief Minister M Karunanidhi for almost five decades. He is the one who proposed our leader Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate and hence he will not go against his own proposal. Q: What do you think would have been discussed between the two leaders at the meeting? I am sure Stalin would have asked Chandrasekhar Rao to give up his efforts to form a third front and join the Congress-led alliance. Q: But BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan has claimed that even Stalin is in touch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It only shows disappointment and inability (of BJP leaders). Initially, they wanted to portray the meeting between the two leaders as something that is against Congress. But, Stalin has very cleverly handled the meeting. This shows Stalins statesmanship. Q: You issued an invitation to members of Tamil Manila Congress (Moopanar) to return to Congress. Did it get any response? Yes. A former MP Theertharaman from Dharmapuri, a former MLA Manivarma from Thiruvannamalai and various leaders across the State joined Congress recently. By Express News Service CHENNAI: In a multiple collision involving a government bus, a mini-truck and a car, a middle-aged man was killed and another man injured in Chengalpattu in the wee hours on Tuesday. Police said a government bus from Chengalpattu to Guduvanchery carrying around 30 passengers was nearing Pazhaveli when the driver lost control and as a result, the bus hit a mini-truck which, in the impact, dashed against a car. In the collision, truck driver Gunasekaran died on the spot and cleaner Manikandan sustained injuries, said a police source. Police said the truck, which was transporting goods to Guduvanchery, in the impact of the accident, also hit a car, but the occupants of the car were not injured. The passengers in the bus sustained minor injures and were discharged after treatment in hospital. Police sent Gunasekarans body to a hospital. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition has reiterated that it stands by its assessment of nutritional adequacy of the midday meals supplied by Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF) to the government schools in Karnataka. It may be noted that the research institution came in for sharp criticism by activists, academicians and scientists for its assessment report, that the NIN submitted to Karnataka government upon its request, following a controversy over non-usage of onion and garlic by APF in its midday meals and non-provision of egg which is mandated by the government. The letter pointed out that there were media reports of students vomiting after eating midday meals and questioned as to how NIN commented on food safety without taking samples of food and testing them. In response to the news published in these columns on Tuesday regarding the controversy, the NIN said that it never commented on the safety of midday meals provided by APF in schools. All that we said is the kitchens certified by ISO and regularly monitored by FSSAI certainly meet safety standards and the same has been corroborated by the personal accounts of scientists who visited some centralised kitchens of APF. To take out only parts of our report and make comments on them and shooting out letters to all our scientists is clearly an endeavour to create confusion, NIN said. Regarding the controversy over non-usage of onion and garlic by APF, NIN said that while bio-availability of nutrients definitely increases with addition of vegetables, every vegetable cannot be looked into isolation. It pointed out that while a study by CFTRI showed an increase in bioavailability of iron and zinc when compared to plain rice without onion and garlic, studies conducted in Taiwan reported that onion and garlic inhibit iron absorption in a rice-based meal. Pointing out the contrast, NIN said, Therefore, looking at each vegetable or compound in isolation and implicating it to the overall nutritional quality of the composite meal is not justifiable. NIN has no hesitation in saying that most vegetables/fruits improve bio-availability of micronutrients and hence can be used interchangeably, it said. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The best of Norway and the Australian state of Victoria may soon find its way into Telangana, as the State government finalises the New Municipal Act. Officials in the Municipal Administration department are hard at work preparing a draft of the bill by May 23. Official sources said they needed to meet Chief Secretary SK Joshi to fine-tune the draft of the bill. Sources said Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will hold discussions on the matter, and finalise the draft, only after May 23 -- when Lok Sabha results are announced. The State government will summon the Assembly for a session in June or July to pass the Bill and later, go for elections to municipalities and corporations. An official told Express they had studied municipal governance in Scandinavian countries such as Norway and also in Victoria state of Australia. The Chief Minister told us to make the new Act painless for citizens. Currently, the systems has several problems in relation to building permissions, issue of trade licenses and town planning. The new Act will solve these problems, he said. Official sources said the new Act would be transparent, on the lines of TS-iPASS, the States industrial policy. Will cater to cities needs for 25-30 years Official sources said the new Act would be transparent, on the lines of TS-iPASS, the States new industrial policy. This would mean there would a single window system that would make officials in local bodies more accountable to the public. The new Act is also likely to have a penalty clause to punish citizens and realtors for violation of rules. The new Act will cover all aspects in municipal governance. It will be prepared in a way that caters to the requirements of cities for the next 25 to 30 years, said an official. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Taking advantage of the language barrier faced by a Yemeni couple in the city for cancer treatment, a Yemeni youngster studying here cheated them to the tune of Rs 5 lakh. The Banjara Hills police on Tuesday arrested the youngster, identified as Khwaid Muwad Galal Abdo. According to the police, Abdul Nasin Oteyan Nayan, 68, from Yemen, was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer, and came to India with his wife Azhar Mohd Ali, on hearing that treatment was relatively cheap here. They landed in Mumbai a few weeks ago and soon learnt that treatment there was beyond their budget. Helpless, Abdul took to Facebook, seeking cheaper options. The accused, Abdo, a PG student at Osmania University, noticed the post and got in touch with Abdul. He convinced them to come to Hyderabad, saying he would help, and also arrange accommodation for them. Trusting Abdo, Abdul and Ali landed in Hyderabad in the first week of May. Abdo took them to a flat he arranged in Banjara Hills. When he was about to drop them off at a hospital in Banjara Hills, they expressed their helplessness in communicating, as they didnt know Hindi or English. Seizing the opportunity, Abdo offered to help them for Rs 1,000 per day. He got Abdul admitted, and told them the treatment would cost Rs 3.5 lakh. But the couple ended up spending Rs 7.65 lakh, apart from the money they gave Abdo for other expenses. Eventually, they noticed Abdo had misguided them and approached the police. Got in touch through Facebook The accused got in touch with the cancer patient after seeing the latters post on Facebook, seeking cheaper treatment options. He convinced him to come to Hyderabad and promised to also arrange accommodation By IANS WASHINGTON: The Alabama state Senate has passed the most restrictive abortion bill in the US that could punish doctors who perform abortions with life in prison. The state's Republican backers have pushed the legislation, which amounts to a near-total ban on abortion in the state, forward with the express goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case legalising abortion, CNN reported. After more than four hours of debate on Tuesday night, the Republican-led Senate voted 25-6 to pass "HB 314", which would slap doctors with up to 99 years in prison for performing an abortion. The Alabama House passed the bill earlier this month. The law only allows exceptions "to avoid a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother", for ectopic pregnancy and if the "unborn child has a lethal anomaly". Democrats re-introduced an amendment to exempt rape and incest victims, but the motion failed on an 11-21 vote. Republican Governor Kay Ivey will have six days to sign the legislation, though the bill would not take effect until six months after becoming law. Ivey has not publicly taken a stance on the bill but has previously aligned herself as anti-abortion. "As this legislation is still making its way through the legislative process, the governor intends to withhold comment until it makes its way to her desk for signature," Ivey spokeswoman Lori Jhons said in a statement on Tuesday night. American Civil Rights Union of Alabama Executive Director Randall Marshall said that his organisation would join with the national ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and Planned Parenthood of Southeast to challenge the bill in court within "a few weeks" should it become law. Anti-abortion campaigners have successfully enacted a ban on all or most abortions in six Republican-led states: Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio and Georgia, reports the Guardian. At least 61 bills like this have been introduced across the country. Even in states considered safe havens for abortion rights, such as New York and Illinois, anti-abortion lawmakers have introduced bills as a kind of protest. By ANI PARIS: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday said that she does not understand why the United States has not toughened gun laws following mass shootings which have claimed scores of lives, including students'. Just a few days after the Christchurch terrorist attacks, New Zealand announced a ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons, assault rifles, and high-capacity magazines. Ardern highlighted that while guns have a "practical purpose" in New Zealand, she added that it "does not mean you need access to military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles." She made these comments while speaking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour here. READ| New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern helps out a fellow mum "Australia experienced a massacre and changed their laws. New Zealand had its experience and changed its laws. To be honest, I do not understand the United States," she said. She is currently in Paris to hold a summit, aimed at making the world's biggest internet platforms remove extremist content online. The summit has been co-organised by Ardern along with French President Emmanuel Macron. The Christchurch gunman reportedly live-streamed the attack. 51 people died after a gunman stormed the mosques they were praying at during Friday prayers in March this year. In the wake of the attack, the Kiwi leader highlighted that tech companies could do a lot more in tackling the proliferation of violent content online. The summit in Paris will see world leaders and tech executives sign a pledge called the "Christchurch Call," that aims at ending the use of social media for terrorism, according to CNN. Repeated calls have been made for tighter regulations to prevent gun violence by the student-led campaign 'Never Again MSD' which was helmed by student survivors from the February 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida. They demanded legislative action be taken to prevent similar shootings in the future and called out US policymakers who have received funding by the National Rifle Association (NRA). By PTI LAHORE: The brother-in-law of Mumbai terror attack mastermind and proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed has been arrested for hate speech and criticising the Pakistan government, police said on Wednesday. Abdul Rehman Makki, head of JuD's political and international affairs wing and in-charge of its charity Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), was arrested during a government crackdown against the outlawed organisations, Geo News reported, quoting an Interior Ministry source. Makki has been arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order Act, Punjab Police said. He is accused of hate speech against the crackdown and criticising steps taken by the government under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines, the report said. The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings him to justice. READ| ED attaches over Rs 70 lakh assets in Delhi linked to Hafiz Saeed, Pakistan group Falah-e-Insaniyat In February, Paris-based international terror financing watchdog FATF decided to continue the 'Grey' listing of Pakistan for its failure to stop funding of terrorist groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the JuD. The Pakistan government has launched a crackdown against the outlawed organisations under the National Action Plan 2015 to eliminate militancy and extremism from the country's soil. The Imran Khan-led government has also announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council. The government banned 11 organisations for having links with the proscribed outifts JuD, FIF and JeM on Saturday. After the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 Indian security personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based JeM, prime minister Khan had said Islamabad would not spare any group involved in militancy or using Pakistani soil for any kind of terror activity against other countries. The FIF, like the JuD, was also banned in March by the Pakistan government. Recently, the government announced to take control of more than 30,000 religious seminaries. The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014. By ANI AMRITSAR: Nineteen Pakistani prisoners returned home from the Attari-Wagah border after being released by Indian authorities on Tuesday. They had been put in Indian jails on charges ranging from espionage to staying in the country illegally. "I was caught in 2009 without a visa in India. I stayed in the country for four years without a visa and was convicted for 10 years," Vikas Ahmed, one of the prisoners who was freed after completing his term, said. "I'd love to come back to India but with due legal procedure this time. No more sneaking around under the wires, I'll come with a visa again," he added. "I'd just like to request the governments of both India and Pakistan to release prisoners of the other nationality from their respective jails," said Mustaffa, a fisherman, who was released after spending 13 months in an Indian jail. Both the sides have spruced up efforts in releasing prisoners belonging to the other nation in recent times, with Pakistan recently releasing 60 Indians -- including 55 fishermen -- at the Wagah border on April 30. The released Indian citizens had completed their prison term and most of them had served much longer than the sentence awarded by Pakistani courts. India had sent a note verbale to Pakistan on April 9, urging it to make necessary arrangements for immediate release and repatriation of Indian prisoners who had completed their jail term. By PTI LAHORE: A Pakistani Christian couple, who has been sentenced to death for sending blasphemous text messages, did not get a fair trial, said the lawyer who successfully defended Aasia Bibi in the high-profile blasphemy case. Advocate Saiful Malook will plead for the innocence of the Christian couple, Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Masih, who was awarded death sentence by a district court in Pakistan's Punjab province in April 2014 and also imposed a fine of Rs 100,000 each. Kausar is the second woman after Bibi to be ordered capital punishment and is lodged in the same death cell, where Bibi was imprisoned before her acquittal in the blasphemy case last year. The couple has appealed to the high court in Lahore. "They did not get a fair trial," Malook told Fox News. They are innocent." Lawyer Saiful Malook, who briefly fled Pakistan after receiving death threats when Bibi's conviction for blasphemy was overturned last October, is to appeal against the couple's 2014 conviction under the same law. The couple, believed to be in their late 30's, hail from the city of Gojra in the Punjab province in Pakistan's east, and were living with their four young children in a church compound. Kausar was working as a cleaner and servant at the church school. Her husband is paralysed from the waist down, having fractured his spine in a 2004 accident. According to the complainant in the couple's case, he received an SMS containing blasphemous remarks while offering prayers at a mosque on July 18, 2013. He showed the SMS to his friends and thereafter approached his counsel for legal proceedings on the basis of the SMS. While sitting in the office of the council, he received five more SMSes. When the counsel tried to contact the number, he (lawyer) also received three to four SMSes on his mobile phone. The police claimed that both the convicts confessed to committing blasphemy. After the investigation, police in its report alleged the couple was involved in the commission of an offence and would face trial. However, the court's order was challenged by the couple on many grounds. Their appeal contends that the witnesses produced by the prosecution during the trial were related to the complainant and were inimical' towards them and their statements required independent corroboration which is lacking in this case. The convicted couple also claimed that about eight to nine months prior to the case, a minor quarrel took place between their children and of the neighbour's, who developed a grudge against them. The texts were alleged to have been written in English, and both Kausar and Masih are illiterate and neither have a knowledge of English or its alphabet. Kausar alleged that the neighbour succeeded in obtaining the copy of her National Identity Card (NIC) and purchased a SIM in her name and later misused that SIM and forwarded the alleged blasphemous messages to the complainant, who was in collusion with their neighbour. Malook said there is no evidence that they either sent the texts nor purchased the incendiary chip. He also contends that Masih was forced under torture into making a bogus confession ahead of the trial. Kausar is being held at Multan prison while her husband is imprisoned about 150 miles away at the Faisalabad District Jail. They have not seen each other since before their sentencing. Their four children, aged between nine and fifteen, are now in the care of a paternal aunt. Survivors of suicide attempts, students, professors, and common users all responded on social media begging the anonymous person who posted a suicide note not to take their life Users of Facebook and students at Cairos Ain Shams Medical University have been circulating a message written from a young student on a wall inside the faculty reading, I will commit suicide on 1 June 2019 inside the WC at Ain Shams University," concluding with Please dont add another word. Since discovering the message, dozens of hashtags on Facebook and Twitter were created in an attempt to prevent the unknown student from taking their own life. Many students and doctors attempted to find out the identity of the student threatening to commit suicide, but failed. The most important hash tags #_ (We are all for you) and # ( Ain Shams Student suicide note) showed hundreds of support messages from people of failed suicide experiences, students, professors, and common users, trying to prevent the anonymous message writer from suicide. "I am really sorry for what you have been going through, we are with you and by your side, we love you and we want you not to do this for our all sake," read a massage on the hashtag by user Farida Abdel Hakeem. Another user, Salma Saleh, begged the person with a direct message: Please do not do it." "Life is much smaller to kill yourself over it," said Amira Badawi. "At a certain time, God will enlighten your skies, ease your ways and rebuild your gates." Abdel Hakeem was more emotional in her message to the unknown person, saying: "Some day you will live with your family, watch your favourite series while your sweetheart prepares your favourite drink. You will have children that carry your name and you will be a succesful doctor, curing wounds severe than what you thought would have killed you." Egypt's Ministry of Health has released the results of its latest study on the mental health of high school students in 2018, indicating that nearly 30 percent of students suffer from psychological problems, with 21 percent having experienced suicidal thoughts. Search Keywords: Short link: By PTI LAHORE: The Pakistan government is going ahead with its plan to create the new South Punjab province by bifurcating Punjab and would move a bill in the National Assembly, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced on Wednesday. Punjab is Pakistan's second largest province by area after Balochistan. It is also the most populated province and politically influential. In the run-up to the 2018 general election, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party led by Imran Khan had promised to bifurcate Punjab province to form South Punjab. The South Punjab province will comprise Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan districts, Qureshi told reporters in Multan, Punjab. The Punjab Assembly seats will be reduced to 251 from the current 371 while 120 seats have been proposed for the South Punjab Assembly in the bill. Qureshi said that certain constitutional amendments have to be passed for the formation of the new South Punjab province. The region will turn into a province when amendments to Articles 59, 51, 1, 106, 158 and 218 of the Constitution are passed. "The word 'South Punjab' in the first paragraph of Article 1 will be inducted, and the territories that will be part of south Punjab have been named in the proposed bill," he was quoted as saying by the Express Tribune. "The province will come into being through Article 51, it calls for the separate formation of the assembly. South Punjab will also get representation in the Senate," he said. On Monday, PTI lawmaker Sami-ul-Hassan Gillani tabled the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2019 before Parliament, calling for the creation of a separate South Punjab province, Geo News reported. The planned South Punjab province will be the sixth province of Pakistan after Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Gilgit Baltistan. ALSO READ| Pakistan's airspace to remain shut for Indian flights till May 30 Qureshi, a senior leader of the ruling PTI, said that the National Assembly Speaker will formulate a special committee for consent on the bill. "We require co-operation of different parties for a two-thirds majority, said Qureshi. Qureshi said that he had held a meeting with Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) leadership. "I request them to support us as it is in our joint interests and a part of the PTI manifesto.We believe it strengthens a federation, and have decided to hold political dialogue with like-minded political parties," he said. Qureshi also requested the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to support the bill. "I am hopeful they will review their attitude over it," he said. The National Assembly, Pakistan's lower house, has a total 342 seats, which means the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf needs 228 votes to get its way. The PTI has 157 lawmakers. The Pakistan Muslim League-N has 84 members and the Pakistan Peoples Party has 54 lawmakers in Parliament. There are four independents. To get the South Punjab bill approved, the PTI would only need the support of the PPP, if the PML-N opts to stay out of the vote count, Geo News reported. The PPP support will also be needed in the Senate where the party has an upper hand, the report said. Meanwhile, PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal said Qureshi was fooling people on the name of South Punjab. Iqbal said the PML-N had already presented a bill in the National Assembly for the formation of the South Punjab and Bahawalpur provinces. But the bill was opposed by the PTI then, he said. By AFP WASHINGTON: After a deadly crash in Indonesia, American Airlines pilots called a meeting to press Boeing executives for safety changes to the 737 MAX aircraft, US media reported Tuesday. The call for changes, which could have required the best-selling aircraft model to be temporarily grounded, were reported by The New York Times and CBS News after they obtained an audio recording of the November 27 meeting between the American Airlines pilots union and officials from the aircraft manufacturer. The 737 MAX 8 is currently grounded worldwide after the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 that killed all 157 people onboard and drew scrutiny to the new Boeing model's anti-stall system, which investigators believe may have brought the jet down. But the meeting shows that pilots were already worried about the safety of the model following the October 2018 crash in Indonesia of a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 that left no survivors of the 189 people onboard. According to the reports, the pilots were particularly concerned about the MCAS anti-stall system that investigators in both Indonesia and Ethiopia have blamed for the crashes. ALSO READ | Pilot who hitched a ride saved Lion Air 737 Max 8 day before deadly crash "No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane," Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett told the meeting. "The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one," he said later in the meeting held four months before the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. Meanwhile, the pilots in the meeting said they felt they weren't told enough about the MCAS system, which was new to the 737 MAX 8. A cockpit voice recorder, the second "black box" from Lion Air flight 610 that crashed last October killing all 189 people onboard, is displayed to the media by Indonesian Navy personnel after the device's recovery at sea off the coast of Karawang on January 14, 2019. (Photo | AFP) "These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else," said Mike Michaelis, head of safety for the pilot's union. Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing had issued additional instructions to pilots in case they faced a malfunction of the MCAS. But in a letter obtained by AFP, Michaelis said the instructions weren't sufficient for pilots to know how to handle malfunctions with the anti-stall system. The New York Times said Michaelis asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8 -- which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time. Airlines and governments worldwide ordered the 737 MAX 8 to stop flying in the days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing has been working on a software fix for the flight system and hoping for quick approval from regulators, but it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season. By PTI UNITED NATIONS: The UN has sanctioned ISIS' South Asia Branch, a terrorist group formed in 2015 by a Pakistani national and a former commander of the TTP, for its links with al-Qaeda and involvement in several deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed over 150 people. The United Nations Security Council's 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee on Tuesday sanctioned Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan (ISIL-K), which is also known as 'ISIS' South Asia Branch, ISIL Khorasan, Islamic State's Khorasan Province' and 'South Asian Chapter of ISIL'. The listing comes two weeks after the Sanctions Committee designated Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as "global terrorist" on May 1, capping a decade-long effort by India and its allies including the US, the UK, France to sanction the mastermind of several attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the February 14 Pulwama terror attack which killed 40 CRPF soldiers. The group is now subject to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. The Sanctions Committee said in a statement that ISIS-K was formed on January 10, 2015 by a former Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander and was established by former Taliban faction commanders "who swore an oath of allegiance" to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. According to leading Washington-based think tank for defense and national security Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in 2014, Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan was chosen to spearhead ISIL-K province as its first "emir". Khan, a senior TTP commander, "brought along other prominent TTP members - including the group's spokesman Sheikh Maqbool and many district chiefs - when he initially pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in October 2014," said the CSIS, a nonprofit policy research organisation. The report on its website said the group's "early membership included a contingent of Pakistani militants who emerged in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province around 2010, just across the border from the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan". It also said many of these militants were "estranged members" of TTP and Lashkar-e Islam, who had fled Pakistan to escape from the security forces. According to Combatting Terrorism Center, academic institution at US Military Academy in New York, as of 2017, some members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had also "defected" to ISIS-K, which has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Sanctions Committee said the group was listed as being associated with ISIS or al-Qaida for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating" acts or activities by supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel. It said the group engaged in "other acts or activities indicating association with al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any cell, affiliate, splinter group of al-Qaeda in Iraq". The group had announced its formation in an online video in January 2015. ISIS spokesman Abou Mohamed al Adnani had announced its expansion into the area historically known as Khorasan, by acknowledging ISIS-K leader's pledge of allegiance to al-Baghdadi and claiming the leader of the Islamic State had accepted his pledge and appointed him as governor of the Khorasan Province. The Sanctions Committee said ISIS-K had carried out numerous attacks since its formation that have killed more than 150 people. In November 2016, the group carried out a suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 50 people and injured over 100 people, it said. In December 2017, the outfit claimed multiple suicide bombings at a Shia cultural center and news agency in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed more than 41 people, including women and children, and injured over 84 people, it added. In July 2018, the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside a polling station in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 31 people and injured over 24 people. Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). Reporter Noelle McGee is a Danville-based reporter at The News-Gazette. Her email is nmcgee@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@n_mcgee). One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi discussed boosting bilateral relations and inter-African cooperation with Ghana's visiting parliament speaker Aaron Mike Oquaye, an Egyptian presidency spokesman said. The two leaders stressed on the importance of boosting inter-African trade and strengthening bilateral economic and security ties and boosting mutiual trade and investment . El-Sisi now currently holds the rotating presidency of the 55-nation African Union . They also discussed strengthening parliamentary ties to bolster "the foundations of democracy, political pluralism and African solidarity" between peoples of the continent, spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement. El-Sisi said his country is keen to support Ghana's development efforts, providing support in capacity building as well as technical assistance . Short link: stockcam/iStock(NEW YORK) -- The human rights lawyer at the center of the WhatsApp security breach said it "doesnt come as a surprise" that the same spyware whose use he is suing against was allegedly used on him. Facebook, which owns the messaging app used by 1.5 billion users, admitted a vulnerability late Monday, after it was initially reported by the Financial Times. The breach, which exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp that would allow a hacker to access all of the contents of a user's phone including messages, photos and its operating system, comes at a vulnerable time for the parent company. WhatsApp, which boasts end-to-end encryption, is the crown jewel of privacy and security in the Facebook ecosystem, which is working to combine all of its messaging apps under the banner of a company that prioritizes privacy amid several scandals. The victim of the attempted hack is a London-based human rights lawyer, who spoke on the condition that his name not be revealed for security reasons. He told ABC News he recently noticed suspicious activity on this mobile phone. Several weeks ago I started receiving WhatsApp video calls early in the morning," the lawyer told ABC News. "These would ring for a few seconds and then thats it. Missed calls. I was suspicious of these calls." The calls originated in Sweden. He then contacted Citizen Lab, a research center at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, which has previously investigated the use of spyware created by the Israel-based NSO Group, which has been accused of supplying tools for regimes to hack the phones of dissidents, human-rights activists and journalists. The lawyer is on the team representing several of these activists and journalists who are suing NSO, claiming the company's tracking software, Pegasus, was used to infiltrate the devices of dissidents including Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi in Canada who claims his WhatsApp messages with his friend, the murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, were accessed by hackers using Pegasus. "NSO operates according to the law and adheres to a clear ethical policy that is meant to prevent misuse of its technology," NSO told ABC News in a statement. "NSO only licenses its technology to approved government intelligence and law enforcement agencies for the sole purpose of preventing and fighting crime and terror, according to clear definitions." "In an age when terrorists and criminals hide behind sophisticated technologies, our products have helped stop human traffickers and crime and terror organizations and save the lives of thousands of people around the world," the statement continued. Omar Abdulaziz's suit makes a number of false claims about our technology, which is designed to prevent and investigate terror and crime," the company previously said about Abdulaziz. Citizen Lab started an investigation. "As part of this investigation they contacted WhatsApp and reached a conclusion that its vulnerability in the app was being exploited by Pegasus, the lawyer said. The last of these calls I received on Sunday, an attempt to hack the phone. Most likely it did not succeed. "Its all upsetting, but also the same time, it doesnt come as a surprise especially the case that were working on -- hacking attacks by using the same technology, against lawyers or journalists or political activists, so this attempt is consistent with these other attempts in which this technology had been used," the lawyer said. "Its very ironic." Im on the same legal team that reps Omar Abdulaziz aginst NSO, and that hack [of his WhatsApp messages] was linked to the Khashoggi case. This same technology was used to spy on the communication between Omar Abdulaziz and Jamal Khashoggi, the lawyer said. Three sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News the software used was NSO's Pegasus. NSO issued a statement saying its technology "is licensed to authorized government agencies for the sole purpose of fighting crime and terror. The company does not operate the system, and after a rigorous licensing and vetting process, intelligence and law enforcement determine how to use the technology to support their public safety missions." "Under no circumstances would NSO be involved in the operating or identifying of targets of its technology, which is solely operated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. NSO would not or could not use its technology in its own right to target any person or organization, including this individual," the company said. WhatsApp did not comment on details of the breach, but said the company is sharing information with the Department of Justice to assist in an investigation. WhatsApp encourages people to upgrade to the latest version of our app, as well as keep their mobile operating system up to date, to protect against potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices, a WhatsApp spokesperson wrote ABC in an emailed statement. On Tuesday, European regulators confirmed they were looking into the breach as a violation of their year-old privacy regulations, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. Facebook, which owns the messaging app WhatsApp, has its European headquarters in Ireland, so Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) is the lead regulator in Europe. This is at least the 12th investigation by European regulators into Facebook since the European Union's new privacy laws went into effect one year ago. Officials from Ireland's DPC said it was told about the breach on Monday evening, and "understands that the vulnerability may have enabled a malicious actor to install unauthorised software and gain access to personal data on devices which have WhatsApp installed," in a statement released on Tuesday. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Two fugitives who were convicted in absentia for accidentally killing 13-year-old Youssef El-Arabi's turned themselves in early on Wednesday at 6 October City police station. Two days ago, a criminal court confirmed a seven-year sentence against the two defendants Ahmed Abdel-Tawab and Taher Abu Taleb for accidentally killing the teenager with a stray shot from celebratory gunfire. The court sentenced four defendants in total to five years in prison for possessing illegal firearms and sentenced three of them, including Abdel-Tawab and Taher Abu Taleb, to another two years for manslaughter. Earlier in 2017, El-Arabi was standing with his friends in front of a popular restaurant in 6 October Citys Hosari Square when he lost consciousness and fell to the ground. It was discovered later in the hospital that he had sustained a bullet wound to the head that put him in a coma for almost two weeks, before he died on 29 May 2017. According to the interior ministry, an investigation into El-Arabis death revealed that some people were firing guns from a nearby rooftop during a wedding celebration. Last year, a Cairo criminal court sentenced the four defendants to five years in prison for possessing illegal firearms and sentenced three of them to another two years for manslaughter. The verdict was also in absentia for two of the defendants. El-Arabis mother Marwa Qenawi told Ahram Online, I have been seeking legitimate paths to justice for more than a year-and-a-half and decided to go on a hunger strike to shed light on the case and demand the arrest of the two escaped defendants. Qenawi started her hunger strike on 31 March and ended it on 13 May 2019. Another aim of my strike was shedding light on and eliminating the social phenomenon of randomly shooting firearms at weddings celebrations, Qenawi said. Search Keywords: Short link: BINGA businessman, Taurai Marava, who has had a long-standing legal battle with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks) over fishing rigs, has been jailed for four months for fishing in Lake Kariba without a permit. This comes a month after Marava had taken Zimparks to the High Court, demanding damages of over $210 000 for his impounded fishing rigs. Justice Maxwell Takuva ruled in his favour. But when Zimparks laid criminal charges, Marava was convicted. Marava (46) and two of his rig captains, Dumezweni Munenge (31) and Davie Chagwambala (37) of Zewula village, Chief Siabuwa in Binga and Dumbula village, Chief Mola in Kariba, respectively, pleaded not guilty to the offence, but were convicted by Binga magistrate, Talent Phiri. Marava was sentenced to six months in prison of which two months were conditionally suspended on condition of good behaviour. In addition, his two rigs were forfeited to the State. His employees were each fined $100 or four months in prison, but they were given up to June 7 to pay the fines. Chief Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni of Ntabazinduna, with the aid of known anti-Government activists, yesterday stage-managed an attack on himself by people he claimed to be Zanu-PF youths in Bulawayo. The chief, who claimed his assailants sought to confiscate his Government-issued vehicle, was pictured pouring petrol all over the car and threatening to burn it if anyone touched it. The pictures went viral on social media after being published by activists led by Zenzele Ndebele, who recently claimed to have survived a suspicious accident in which all four bolts on the lower control arm of the front wheel on the left side of my vehicle came off simultaneously. A senior Zanu-PF official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, poured cold water on Chief Ndiwenis claims saying his story simply does not add up. For starters, it is a known fact that all Zanu-PF structures in Bulawayo were dissolved. How did Chief Ndiweni know that his attackers were Zanu-PF youths; did they identify themselves as such? The pictures that Ndebele posted do not show any Zanu-PF regalia. Secondly, how was this attack coordinated, considering that Ndiweni lives in Ntabazinduna and not Bulawayo? How did Zanu-PF youths know where he was in Bulawayo? Did they prophesy his presence in Bulawayo? This event was clearly stage-managed and broadcast by Ndebele a few minutes after it allegedly happened. If that is not suspicious, I dont know what is, the official said. Chief Ndiweni has been accused of abusing his position to further the agenda of the opposition MDC-Alliance with Zanu-PF challenging him to step down from the chieftaincy and join mainstream politics. Apparently angered by the Governments decision to resettle an indigenous farmer at a farm in Ntabazinduna previously occupied by a white family, Chief Ndiweni last week addressed a Press conference in Bulawayo and called for tougher sanctions against Zimbabwe. Chief Ndiweni sensationally appealed to the international community to escalate sanctions on President Mnangagwas Government, claiming it has failed to pursue democracy. It is understood that before addressing the Press, Chief Ndiweni wrote to a number of foreign embassies calling for further sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe. He has also set up a parallel organisation to the Chiefs Council under the banner of College of Amakhosi, where he is reportedly seeking to rope in some traditional leaders from Matabeleland and Midlands provinces. After the 2018 elections, Chief Ndiweni visited Mr Chamisa to endorse the MDC-Alliance leader despite his defeat in the polls at the hands of President Mnangagwa. Besides his links with the Chamisa-led party, Chief Ndiweni has had liaisons with secessionist movement Mthwakazi Republic. However, the relationship with the two are said to have suffered a temporary knock after Chief Ndiweni and some colleagues visited Mr Chamisa to update him about the installation of a Ndebele King in South Africa. Zanu-PF Matabeleland North provincial chair Cde Richard Moyo said they are aware of all Chief Ndiwenis shenanigans. He must just join politics and leave the chieftaincy. He should join mainstream politics by joining these political parties that he is aligned to or even form his own and we will show him how winning politics is played, he has no chance against Zanu-PF, said Cde Moyo. In pursuit of a political agenda, he has chosen to advocate for the suffering of the people instead of working towards their development and unity. We know that initially he was running with secessionist movements like Mthwakazi and later we heard he was endorsing Chamisa despite his loss in the 2018 elections. Cde Moyo urged traditional leaders to ignore Chief Ndiweni and continue working for the people. He has shown his true colours and his destructive politics and I dont think any self-respecting traditional leader who has their people at heart can follow such kind of behaviour. They should just ignore his attempts to divide the chiefs in the country, he said. In a statement on Sunday, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Mr Nick Mangwana said Chief Ndiwenis utterances were inhuman and against Zimbabwes cultural beliefs. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Heres what to know about legal cannabis in the Last Frontier The discussion comes just two weeks after constitutional amendments were approved in a public referendum on 23 April At the end of a plenary session on Tuesday, Egypts parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal surprised MPs by revealing that the government has referred amendments to laws regulating the performance of the Supreme Constitutional Court and other judicial authorities to parliament. "The amendments of these laws will be discussed by the constitutional and legislative affairs committee," said Abdel-Aal, also revealing that a government-drafted law on the setting up of the Higher Council for Judicial Authorities was also referred to the constitutional and legislative affairs committee to be discussed. The list includes the law regulating the Supreme Constitutional Court (no.48/1979), the Administrative Prosecution Authority (law no.117/1958), the Military Prosecution (law 25/1966), the Judicial Authority (law no.46/1972), and the State Council (law 47/1972). Bahaaeddin Abu Shoqa, chairman of the committee and head of the Wafd Party, told reporters on Wednesday that the amendments of the above laws aim to go in line with constitutional amendments which were passed by parliament on 16 April and approved in a public referendum on 23 April. "As you all know, some of these constitutional amendments require the amending of legislations dealing with judicial authorities, the performance of the State Council, the Supreme Constitutional Court, the General Prosecution and military courts," said Abu Shoqa. "As a result, the committee will meet to see how the laws go in line with the amendments." The constitutional amendments covered 12 articles of the constitution, four of which (articles 185, 189, 190 and 193) deal with judicial authorities, the setting up of a high council for judicial authorities, the selection of the prosecutor-general, the State Council and the naming of the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court. The amendments also covered three articles pertaining to the performance of the Armed Forces, one of which (Article 204) states that civilians can face trial before military courts only in cases of assaulting military establishments, military camps, military zones and borders, military equipment, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, documents, secrets, funds and army factories. Search Keywords: Short link: Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the federal government can seize assets from citizens who cannot explain the source of their wealth.... Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the federal government can seize assets from citizens who cannot explain the source of their wealth. The vice president made this known on Tuesday while declaring the anti-corruption conference organised by the office of the vice president and the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) in Abuja on Tuesday. The Supreme Court in a lead judgment of Akaahs JSC, recently held that forfeiture under Section 17 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act is a civil process which neither requires the criminal conviction of the property owner nor his innocence, he said. This opens the door for forfeiture of assets that the purported owner cannot explain, whether or not an allegation of corruption is made. According to him, corruption has made Nigerias debt and poverty figures double in spite of the highest oil revenues in Nigerias history He said the Buhari-administration is not deceived into thinking that it has won the battle against corruption as it was tackling grand corruption first. By that, we mean the stealing of huge public resources directly from the treasury; usually at the highest levels of executive authority; and the stealing of budgeted funds through various schemes, he explained. We are now poised to deal with the wider problem of systemic corruption; especially where the average person interacts with government. Corruption in the issuance of contracts, licenses and other government approvals; there is no reason why any Nigerian should have to give bribe to law enforcement agents for obtaining drivers licenses or passports or to clear goods at our ports. All the relevant government agencies have shown a serious commitment to eradicating these forms of corruption; our next level is to create the environment for collaboration between our agencies, civil society and other stakeholders. He said the enforcement of treasury single account(TSA), the presidential initiative on continuous audit, and transferring civil servants on the IPPIS electronic platform has helped to control official theft of public funds. Senator Godswill Akpabio, the former governor of Akwa Ibom state yesterday, May 14 told a Federal High Court, Abuja that he moved to t... Senator Godswill Akpabio, the former governor of Akwa Ibom state yesterday, May 14 told a Federal High Court, Abuja that he moved to the All Progressive Party (APC) because the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) expelled him from the party. While urging the court to dismiss the suit filed last year by the Legal Defense and Assistant Project (LEDAP) seeking to declare the seat of Akpabio and 54 other national lawmakers vacant over their defection from one political party to the other in 2018, the former governor said the PDP in his ward suspended him, after which he was expelled from the party at the local government level. Speaking through his counsel, Sunday Ameh (SAN), the Senator representing Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District at the Senate said the date of the two incidences, in exhibits A and B, was July and August 2019. When juxtaposed with the calendar for the primary elections as issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the intention of the PDP then, was to render him fait accompli and to deny him a platform to contest the election, as his nomination must come from the ward up, Ameh told the court. The senior counsel said Akpabio, who is the 3rd defendant in the suit filed by LEDAP was thrown out of the PDP at a very crucial moment in a political arrangement towards 2019 general election. In order not to fall prey of the gang-up, calculated at turning him into political orphan and preventing him from participating in the 2019 general, He has to take advantage of his constitutional right under Section 40 of the constitution to join the APC that was willing to accept him after his party has thrown him out. Ameh told the court what the PDP did to Akpabio was an uncommon situation and that is why he seeks a constitutional remedy. He said if Akpabios action was not correct, the PDP would have applied to be joined in the matter to say that the 3rd defendant willingly left the party and urged the court to dismiss the suit for being incompetent and lacking in merit. Earlier in his oral submission, counsel to the plaintiff, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN) insisted that there was no division to warrant the defendants defection, adding also that the further counter affidavit deposed to personally shows that defendants have admitted that there was no division in their parties. Okutepa, while urging the court to discountenance the arguments of Akpabios counsel said, When you have a petty local quarrel within your political party at the ward level, it does not give you an unbridled license to join another political party. What they put as expulsion from his local branch, does not constitute a division known to law to bring the case of the 3rd defendant under Section 58(1)(g) of the 1999 constitution, as amended, Okutepa added. He urged the court to hold that the defence raised in the further counter affidavit cannot avail the 3rd defendant the ground to stop the court from making an order sacking the defendants from their seat at the National Assembly Counsel to Senate President Bukola Saraki and other defendants in the suit, Mahmud Magaji (SAN) in his submission, urged the court to dismiss the suit as filed by the plaintiff for constituting an abuse of court process. If a person is suspended, expelled or removed from a political party, he can move to another political party of his choice. The 3rd defendant only exercised his freedom of association and urged the court to dismiss the suit without cost. The trial Judge, in a bench ruling, said judgment in the suit will be delivered on May 17, 2019, subject to availability of judicial time. Kingmakers in the Kano emirate have filed a case against Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano state, for splitting the emirate. In ... Kingmakers in the Kano emirate have filed a case against Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano state, for splitting the emirate. In the suit with number K/197/2019 filed on Tuesday at a state high court, Ganduje, the state house of assembly, attorney-general of the state and five others were listed as the defendants, while the kingmakers Yusuf Nabahani (Madakin Kano), Abdullahi Sarki Ibrahim (Makaman Kano), Bello Abubakar (Sarkin Dawaki man Tuta) and Mukhtari Adnan (Sarikin Ban Kano) were listed as first, second, third and fourth plaintiffs respectively. The kingmakers said the governors assent to the bill breaking up the emirate was done in bad faith and the action was a desecration of centuries old tradition. They also asked the court to stop the governor from deposing Sanusi or transferring him out of Kano emirate without consulting them. The defendants, in purporting to amend the Emirs (Appointment and Deposition) Law, 1984 have desecrated centuries old and highly revered traditions and heritage of the people of Kano and have uprooted the Plaintiffs various traditional titles without giving a hearing to the Plaintiffs and their clans or having regards to ancestral history by hurriedly enacting the Kano State Emirs law, 2019, a copy of the suit seen by TheCable read. The defendants desecrated the ancestral history and all known laws connected with or pertaining to Kano Emirates customs and tradition by: (a) establishing Bichi Emirate comprising of 9 local governments including Dawakin Tofa and Dambatta, the ancestral homes of the 1st and 4th plaintiffs. The first plaintiffs have her been under any authority of Bichi district. (b) Establsihing Gaya Emirate comprising 8 local governments including Wudil and Gabasawa, the ancestral homes of the 2nd and 3rd plaintiffs. The kingmakers are seeking a declaration that the passage of the law breaking the emirate was not for peace, order and good governance of the state and therefore contrary to Section 4 (7) of the 1999 constitution. They are also seeking a declaration that the the governor lacks the power under the existing emirs laws of Kano state, 1991 to appoint emirs of Bichi, Rano, Gaya, Karaye or any other person and that the appointments made are unconstitutional, illegal, null and void. The kingmakers are asking the court to give an order restraining the newly appointed monarchs from parading themselves as emirs. TheCable had reported how Ganduje moved to depose Muhammad Sanusi II as the emir of Kano or reduce his influence. Following the governors approval, the state now has five emirates: Kano, Rano, Gaya, Karaye and Bichi and five emirs of equal jurisdiction. The house of representatives has rejected a bill seeking to prevent public officials from seeking medical treatment abroad. The lo... The house of representatives has rejected a bill seeking to prevent public officials from seeking medical treatment abroad. The lower legislative chamber voted against the bill when it came up for debate during Tuesdays plenary. They had passed it for second reading last year. The bill seeks to amend the provisions of the National Health Act, 2014 to regulate international trips for medical treatment by public officers, to strengthen the health institutions for efficient service delivery; and for related matters. The lawmakers argued that the legislation breaches the right of the public officials. The bill sought to amend section 46 of the national health act thus: (1) A public officer of the Federal Government shall not embark on medical trip abroad without approval; or be sponsored for medical check-up, investigation; or treatment abroad at public expenses except in exceptional cases on the recommendation and referral by the medical board and which recommendation or referral shall be duly approved by the Minister or Commissioner as the case may be; or embark on medical trip abroad unless he satisfactorily proves to the office where the officer is working, that such ailment cannot be treated in Nigeria. Arguing against the bill, Lasun Yusuf, deputy speaker, said the bill would discriminate against elected officials. This bill is against my fundamental human right. There are two fundamental wrong in this bill, it is against human right, and its discriminatory. Do not let us do a debate on this bill, he said. Razak Atunwa from Kwara state expressed a similar view, suggesting the bill is a move to punish public officials over the mismanagement of the healthcare sector. The fact that I am public servant does not mean I have given up my right, he said, adding: If the government has failed in providing hospital, we cannot punish someone for it. The intention is right, but better funding for training of doctors, better funding for hospitals is the right way to go. Mohammed Wase from Plateau state asked his colleagues to throw away the bill. He said: I was in hospital in Nigeria for check-up, and they said I was fine, friends encouraged me to travel for checkup, I did only to discover that I was not okay. I spent three months there, now you are telling me to get approval please this bill should be thrown out. Instead of banning people from travelling, we should create enabling environment for people to invest in the healthcare sector. The presidency has said it is confident that the events of June 9, 2015 which produced Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Do... The presidency has said it is confident that the events of June 9, 2015 which produced Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as Speaker of the House of Representatives will not repeat itself in the election of the leadership of the 9th National Assembly. Ita Enang, Senior Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters (Senate), said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is on top of the situation, adding that the wishes of the party will eventually prevail. In 2015, APC had penciled down Senator Ahmad Lawan, the current Senate Leader, who hails from the North-East for the position of Senate President while Femi Gbajabiamila from the South-West was positioned for the Speaker slot. However, some APC lawmakers rebelled against the party and in concert with their PDP colleagues elected Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker, respectively. For the 9th National Assembly, the APC has settled for the duo of Senator Ahmad Lawan (Yobe North) and Femi Gbajabiamila (Surulere 1) as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively. However, the positions are being challenged by some lawmakers who described the partys position as imposition and an attempt to meddle in the leadership selection process of the National Assembly. In the Senate, Ali Ndume (Borno South) and Danjuma Goje (Gombe Central) have indicated interest to contest for the exalted position, though Goje is yet to formally declare his ambition despite mounting pressure from his loyalists on him. In the House of Representatives, Idris Ahmed Wase (APC, Plateau), John Dyegh (APC, Benue), Mohammed Umar Bago (APC, Niger) and Nkeiruka Onyejeocha (APC-Abia) are angling to succeed Speaker Yakubu Dogara against the partys directive. In a bid to avoid the events of 2015 where the candidates adopted by the party lost, many had thought President Buhari as the leader of the party will call the gladiators together and speak with them on the need to respect the position of the party. But the president has refused to do that. Speaking with Daily Independent, Enang said he believes that the coup detat of 2015 will not repeat itself because it is the majority of the lawmakers who opted for Lawan and Gbajabiamila based on their current rankings and length of years in both chambers of the National Assembly. I am sure what happened in 2015 will not repeat itself because the APC is in total control of the situation. We are almost at a consensus position. We are not ignoring anybody or using any harsh words on them. All the elected senators are stakeholders of the party and we are appealing to them to agree with the position of the party. The position that majority of them has taken has become the position of the party. The majority of them are saying let us follow legislative convention which is that the highest elected member of the party takes the seat as the presiding officer. As at today, Bukola Saraki is not coming back, Ike Ekweremadu is of the minority party. Senator Ahmad Lawan has two things going for him. He is currently the Leader of the Senate. So, he is the next in rank in terms of protocol. Also, in terms of his years of service as a senator, he is the highest amongst all of them. He was elected in 1999 as a member of the House of Representatives where he served till 2007. From 2007 till now, he has been in the Senate. So, in terms of length of service and ranking among the senators-elect in the National Assembly, he is the highest. The same also applies to Femi Gbajabiamila. He was elected in 2003. From 2003 till now, which is 15 years, he has been in the House of Representives. Again, Dogara has been reelected but he is in the minority party and as such, he is not contesting. The next to Dogara is Yusuf Lasun but he was not reelected. So, the next person in ranking is Gbajabiamila. So, the members have agreed that both Lawan and Gbajabiamila should be the leaders of both chambers. Having agreed, they now presented these persons to us in the party and so, we have to defend it and uphold it. It is the members themselves who settled for these men. We are not saying that if you do this, we will do this to you, no. They have a right having been elected as either representative or as senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be in the National Assembly. We are only working to assuage them to see reasons with us and to build consensus and, as of today, we are conscious that we are going to have a situation of a consensual nomination without opposition, he said. Also, speaking with Daily Independent, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), said it is unfair for some people to claim that President Buhari has not intervened in the leadership selection process. He said the president did that by having a dinner with the lawmakers-elect where he endorsed Lawan and Gbajabiamila. On why the president has refused to meet with Ndume, Goje and other lawmakers who are against the partys position, Sagay described them as rebels, saying the president should ignore them and allow them to be humiliated. To say the president has not intervened is false. The president has intervened by endorsing Lawan for Senate and Gbajabiamila as Speaker. He did that publicly and then asked the national chairman, Oshiomhole, to carry the message to everybody. So, he has already intervened. The only thing you can say is that since Ndume decided to be indiscipline, he hasnt called him privately. Frankly, if I were the president, I will not call Ndume or any of the rebellious lawmakers. I will let him crash on hard rock. Let his indiscipline, which is against the interest of the party that produced him, because without APC, Ndume wouldnt have been a senator today, yet he is carrying on in such a disgusting manner as if his ambition to become Senate President is more than the interest of the whole country. So, let him do it and crash. By calling him, the president is dignifying him and he doesnt deserve that dignity. He should be left to crash and after that he will be on his own and the shame will follow him for the rest of his political career. Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed in Cairo with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan the recent developments in the Gulf region, particularly with regards to the sabotage of naval vessels earlier this week, the Egyptian presidency announced. El-Sisi and Bin Zayed also discussed the attack on Saudi oil stations, for which Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels claimed responsibility. "During the talks, President El-Sisi expressed Egypt's full solidarity and support with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to face all attempts to destabilise the two countries," the statement read. The Egyptian president asserted that Egypt considers the national security of the Arab Gulf region part of its own security. Bin Zayed asserted the importance of coordination and consultation as well as exchanging points of view between the Arab countries, which face challenges including interference in their internal affairs. He also praised Egypt's vital role as a cornerstone of stability and security in the region. El-Sisi and Bin Zayed also discussed other developments in the Middle East as well as Egyptian-Emirati bilateral relations. Bin Zayed arrived in Cairo on Wednesday. He last visited Egypt in March. Search Keywords: Short link: The federal government says the kind of politics being played by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) constitutes a threat to the nation... The federal government says the kind of politics being played by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) constitutes a threat to the nations democracy. Addressing state house correspondents at the presidential villa in Abuja on Wednesday, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, said the PDP and Atiku Abubakar, its presidential candidate, were doing everything possible to sabotage President Muhammadu Buharis administration. He said the opposition party and its presidential candidate are not just overheating the polity but seeking to make Nigeria ungovernable, especially through their public utterances and their poorly-thought-out press releases before and after the 2019 general election. The federal government has strongly decried the increasingly unpatriotic and desperate opposition politics being played by the PDP and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, warning that such dead-end opposition could be toxic for the nations democracy, if left unchecked, he said. Never in the history of politics in Nigeria has an opposition party and its presidential candidate exhibited the kind of desperate tactics being deployed by the duo of the PDP and its flag-bearer, especially since President Muhammadu Buhari overwhelmingly defeated Atiku to win the 2019 presidential election. Either by themselves or via their proxies, the PDP and its presidential candidate are doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable. Unless they quickly retrace their steps, they may, sooner than later, overreach themselves. For those who may be quick to accuse the government of crying wolf, the pre-election statement credited to the former vice-president, that unless Nigerians vote out the APC Administration, killings by herdsmen will continue and ultimately spark a series of ethno-religious crises that will be irreversible, is looking more like a Freudian slip than anything else. Also, in recent times, the PDP has taken its desperation to a new low by attacking the judiciary, an action many see as indicating a reversal of the partys hitherto self-assured stance that it has a solid case against the election of the President. And either by coincidence or orchestration, a faceless group emerges from nowhere calling for an overthrow of a democratically-elected government, a totally egregious act of treason. It beggars belief that a candidate who prides himself as a democrat can so allow desperation to becloud his sense of propriety to such a extent that he will be associating with anti-democratic forces or making inflammatory statements. For acclaimed democrats, there are acceptable channels of seeking redress after an election defeat. Even President Buhari himself went to court three times to challenge election results. What is not acceptable is to either resort to self help after an election defeat, or to embark on a journey of subterfuge and sabotage while also mounting a legal challenge or pretending to do so. Worst still, painting the judiciary bad for whatever reason is anti-democratic and unconscionable. We want to urge the main opposition party to stop beating the drums of war concentrate on the legal challenge by its candidate against the election of President Buhari if indeed they have any faith in the countrys judiciary, and desist from unnecessarily overheating the polity. The Ebonyi state governorship election petition tribunal on Wednesday struck out the petition filed by the All Progressive Congress (AP... The Ebonyi state governorship election petition tribunal on Wednesday struck out the petition filed by the All Progressive Congress (APC) and its candidate, Sonni Ogbuoji against the election of Governor David Umahi. This followed the motion for withdrawal of the petition by Mr Ogbuoji counsel to Michael Odo at the resumption of hearing on Wednesday. The counsel to Governor Umahi, Okechukwu Otukwu did not oppose the motion. Also the Peoples Democratic Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, did not object to the motion. The Tribunal Chaired by Justice A. Abdulkarim was left with no other choice but to strike out the petition. It also warded cost of N100,000 to the 1st Respondent. It will be recalled that Ogbuoji lost the March 9th governorship election to the incumbent governor David Umahi of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The governor garnered a total of 393,343 votes cast across the 13 local governments in the state. Ogbuoji of the All Progressive Congress (APC) got a total of 81703 votes cast to place a distant second. Rapper Zlatan Ibile has regained his freedom, 5 days after being arrested alongside Naira Marley and 3 others over their alleged invol... Rapper Zlatan Ibile has regained his freedom, 5 days after being arrested alongside Naira Marley and 3 others over their alleged involvement with cybercrime. However, while four of them were released, Naira Marley remains in custody, allegedly due to some incriminating items found inside his laptop. According to a reliable source, Zlatan Ibile, Rahman Jago and two others person were freed on bail after the intervention of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria that Davido hired for them, but they still have to report at the EFCCs office, daily, till the end of the saga. Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) agreed the country's transition period would last for three years, a TMC member said on Wednesday, adding a final deal on the transition would be reached within 24 hours. Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta also said DFCF will have two-thirds of the seats on a transitional legislative council and parties that are not part of the alliance will take the rest. Satea al-Hajj, a DFCF member, said: "the viewpoints are close and, God willing, we will reach an agreement soon" on the composition of a new sovereign council that would lead the country until elections. The TMC had said the transition would last a maximum of two years, and the DFCF wanted it to last four years. Sudan's opposition alliance had blamed the TMC on Tuesday for renewed street violence complicating efforts to negotiate a handover of power to civilians after last month's overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir. But Madani Abbas Madani, another DFCF figure, said on Wednesday that it was "abundantly clear that there are counter-revolutionary forces who are naturally displeased with any progress in negotiations". At least four people died and dozens were injured during protests on Monday as the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) said they had reached a partial agreement for transition. Madani, speaking to a news conference alongside Atta past midnight, said the TMC had formed a committee to investigate the targeting of protesters. He also said a joint committee was set up with DFCF to thwart any attempt to break up a sit-in at the Defence Ministry. Gunfire rang out in the capital into the night on Monday after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - whose head is deputy of the military council - had patrolled the streets using tear gas and guns to disrupt demonstrations. The protesters, who want to keep pressure on the military for a swift handover, were back on Tuesday, blocking roads and bridges with bricks and rocks, images on social media showed. Demonstrators have been camped at a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry since April 6. On Tuesday, the sit-in area and eastern Khartoum were blocked off from the capital's centre by barriers that the protesters have erected. "The bullets that were fired yesterday were Rapid Support Forces bullets and we hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday," Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the DFCF, told a news conference on Tuesday. "While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party." He meant to kill me Monday's fatalities were the first in protests for several weeks after months of demonstrations led to Bashir's fall. The victims included a military police officer and three demonstrators, state TV said. The TMC, which took over after ousting the long-ruling Bashir last month, blamed the violence on saboteurs unhappy with the transition accord. The United States backed the opposition alliance in pinning the blame for Monday's chaos on the military for trying to remove roadblocks set up by protesters. "The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force, including the unnecessary use of tear gas, led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day that the TMC was unable to control," said the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. One hospital in Khartoum said it received more than 60 wounded on Monday as well as three dead bodies. Some arrived with gunshot wounds in the shoulder, chest and other body parts, Amar Abu Bakr, executive director of the Moalem Medical City Hospital, told Reuters. "There are also a number of wounds resulting from sharp objects, and others from beatings by sticks." Raed Mubarak, a protester who was wounded, said a shooter was about 20 metres (22 yards) away when he took aim. "He shot at my chest ... he meant to kill me, not to scare or terrorise," he said. Search Keywords: Short link: While contention between the US and Iran is real, the current round of sabre-rattling is more a reflection of larger realignments in the region, involving Syria, Russia and Turkey To the accompaniment of a chorus of stern warnings of the US secretary of defense, secretary of state and national security adviser, the US deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to the Gulf to send a clear and unmistakable message to Iran. Shortly afterwards, the Pentagon confirmed that it had sent the USS Arlington assault ship and a number of B-52 bombers to the Udeid Air Base in Qatar, signalling that they would reply to any Iranian attack with unrelenting force. Tehran had anticipated the American moves with similar escalatory language. It threatened to respond to Washingtons moves to hike up sanctions by blocking the Strait of Hormuz after the White House, last month, announced that it would end the exemptions from sanctions for several countries that were still buying Iranian oil. Iran subsequently warned that it would resume high-level uranium enrichment. Despite the mounting temperatures, they remain well below meltdown. While the US notched up its military profile in the Gulf, the level of deployment is still not exceptional. If Washington were actually to declare war on Iran, it would need to send in at least three times as much equipment into the eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea and Gulf of Oman. Also, since Washingtons Gulf allies could be the first target of Iranian reprisals, the US would have to support their defence capacities. This would require deploying more Patriot missile batteries in addition to replacing the four that were withdrawn from the Gulf late last year. More batteries would have to be sent in to strengthen the missile defence shield that Tel Aviv and Washington have been working on in Israel during recent months. The arrival of an American aircraft carrier in the Gulf is not such a surprise in and of itself given United States Central Commands (CENTCOM) schedule of activities in the Middle East. What is new, this time, is that the USS Abraham Lincoln, which was originally on route to the Black Sea in the framework of rising tensions between NATO and Russia, was ordered to change course, soon after which another warship was dispatched to the Gulf. If US and other Western reports on such deployments ranked them as a warning message, some fear that these messages could spiral into a more volatile situation. A report in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last week cited US officials as saying that their governments decision to reinforce its military presence in the region was informed by US intelligence indicating that Iran has made plans to target US forces in the Middle East. The sources told the newspaper that the intelligence was solid and specific, to the degree that it was possible to pinpoint where the attacks could be carried out against the US presence in Syria and who would be carrying them out. The New York Times similarly reported that US officials unnamed told the newspaper that the White House and Defense Department decided to shore up defenses against Iranian threats in light of intelligence showing that Iran was mobilising proxy groups in Iraq and Syria to attack US forces. According to an article posted on 6 May on the Axios news site, the US received its information on the alleged Iranian plot to attack US interests in the region from Israel Mossad specifically. The article cited Israeli officials as saying that information about possible Iranian plots against the US or its allies in the Gulf were raised two weeks ago in talks held at the White House between an Israeli delegation headed by National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat and a US team led by John Bolton. US actions are informed by both political and military motives. The former are more immediately assessable while the latter will need to be tested in the framework of developments in the foreseeable future. Warning Messages This is the immediate aim of the recent deployments. Washington wanted to use a display of military muscle in the Gulf in order send Iran the message that it is prepared to deter any potential Iranian aggression and that this deterrent action will not be directed against Irans regional proxies in the event that they threatened US interests in the region or those of its regional allies, but against Iran directly. Bolton put this into words when he explained that the purpose of having the USS Abraham Lincoln change course was to send a clear and unmistakeable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. Securing The US' Options The US perceives Iran as an obstacle to arrangements it is perusing on other regional issues, as Mike Pompeo indicated during his current European tour. For example, the US and Israel agree that a permanent Iranian presence in Syria and Iranian designs to reinforce this by developing a military infrastructure in Syria independent from the Syrian military pose a threat to Israel and to US forces in Syria, especially those stationed in Al-Tanf Base near the Syrian border with Iraq. The US also wants to keep its options open in Iraq as evidenced by a plan to shift US forces from Syria to the Ain Al-Assad Base in Iraq in light of threats by Iraqi militia groups. After Trump announced that US troops would remain stationed in Iraq in order to keep an eye on Iran, Asaib Ahl Al-Haq group warned that it would target US forces in Iraq. Increasing The US Military Presence This is clearly the most important motive in terms of its military and strategic implications. In this regard, one was struck by US Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahans description of the deployment of the aircraft carrier group and some bombers to the Middle East as prudent repositioning of assets. Shanahans choice of words hints at the possibility of a new and more permanent form of deployment reflecting Washingtons desire to increase its presence in the region to a level it deems commensurate with the likelihood of escalation on the part of Iran and its regional proxies. The foregoing developments beg an important question: if President Trump is so confident about the efficacy of notching up economic sanctions against Iran to the degree that he has contacted Swiss officials to give them a phone number on which Tehran can reach him directly when it is ready to talk, why is the US brandishing possible recourse to military force? One answer to the question was proposed by Seyed Hossein Mousavian in the National Interest magazine on 5 May beneath the heading, Can We Stop the Slow Slide to a US-Iran War? Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, believes that it is possible to contain the current confrontational trend. The US and Iran have shown that they can work together. They cooperated in the fight against terrorism during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, and Iraqi officials have frequently stressed to Washington that Iran was an indispensable asset in the war against Islamic State group terrorism. He reminds us that President Trump has committed himself to a policy of averting costly foreign wars and that Trump has repeatedly said that the US had stupidly spent trillions of dollars on futile wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. In addition, Iran and the US have long practised a strategy of No war, no peace, and Mousavian can see no logical reason why this principle should end. He also believes that, despite the domestic difficulties, the Iranian people will rally behind the regime when it comes to resisting all economic, diplomatic or military policies that aim to bring Iran to its knees. Mousavian concluded with an appeal to international, US and regional policymakers [to] come together to chart a diplomatic course that promotes broad dialogue and engagement with Iran to avoid a possible war. The opposing view argues that the confrontational trend cannot be contained. The US had tried this option before without tangible results. Moreover, Iran has expanded regionally until it came to pose a serious threat to the US and its regional allies. This camp also believes that something indicates that Iran has decided to escalate tactically against the interests of the US and its Middle East allies, necessitating preparations for recourse to the military option, as was indicated in a recent New York Times article that suggests that Tehran is attempting to prod the United States into a miscalculation or overreaction that it will ultimately backfire in favour of Iran. In fact, the two opposing viewpoints overlap in certain ways. Both are informed by the lack of dialogue and mutual trust between Washington and Tehran, and by their differing outlooks on regional security arrangements. These have become increasingly complex in view of the Iranian expansionism that has introduced dimensions to regional equations that extend beyond the Iranian nuclear and missile capacities. An important dimension is Irans alliances with Russia and Syria, which raise the question of the Russian presence in the Middle East and the possibility that Moscow might want to counter the US display of military muscle with a display of its own, especially now that it has upped its naval profile in Tartus. Another dimension has to do with Turkey. The US has long relied on Turkish logistic support in the wars it waged in this region and, above all, on access to the Incirlik Air Base. This is no longer an option now that Ankara has determined to pursue an independent course and ignore longstanding joint interests with the US. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Hot summer for Washington and Tehran? Search Keywords: Short link: Violence and accusations hit Sudans capital as negotiations between the transitional military command and protesters continue to be bogged down on key details Monday night was the most violent for Sudanese protesters since the departure of former president Omar Al-Bashir. Several were killed and dozens injured when authorities attempted to disperse the sit-in outside the headquarters of the army general command, even though both sides announced they had reached an agreement on the power structure in the transitional phase. The sit-in located in the centre of the capital, Khartoum, witnessed violent clashes that resulted in the death of one policeman and three protesters at the hands of armed groups that did not like progress on a political deal between the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition Freedom and Change Forces (FCF), according to military Spokesman Lieutenant General Shamsuddin Kabashi. Accusations flew among activists, blaming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army for attempts to disperse the sit-in. The week in Sudan began with important developments, including reopening a main thoroughfare that protesters had blocked, a round of talks between the military council and protest leaders, and an admission of financial crimes by the ousted president. By midday on Monday, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the police reopened Nile Street, which is a main artery crossing the capital, after it was blocked by protesters for an entire day. According to eyewitnesses quoted by Reuters, government forces used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, who headed to Nile Street because they were prevented from reaching the main sit-in outside the army general command the day before. Shamsuddin Kabashi Ibrahim, spokesman for the TMC, said the council considers blocking roads as unacceptable because it causes chaos and makes life difficult for citizens. At the same time, he said, the TMC does not intend to disperse the sit-in outside army command that began 6 April. The RSF are para-government forces that include armed members of Arab tribes in Darfur that are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in that province, where a civil war has been raging since 2003. Some observers believe the RSF is an evolution of the Janjaweed that has a bad reputation in Darfur. The RSF are currently led by Mohamed Hassan Dagalo (aka Hemeti) who is a lieutenant general and interim military vice president. Azaz Al-Shami, a Sudanese journalist, said that RSF has no legal mandate to engage with citizens, arrest or interrogate them. She continued: The legal status of these forces must be defined since they are not part of the armed forces.If they are necessary in a specific province then their mission must be clearly defined, which is common practice since Sudanese law defines the role of the army, police, prosecutor general and judiciary. Why are they beyond the law? Meanwhile, Sudans Al-Jareeda newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying that ousted president Al-Bashir has pled guilty to charges of financial corruption, violating foreign currency laws and money laundering. The source told the newspaper that Bashir appeared to be distraught during interrogation, commenting on his ouster by saying: There is no doubt that during 30 years in power there must have been victims and their prayers have been answered. Authorities in Khartoum found seven million Euros in Al-Bashirs home, as well as $350 million and five million Sudanese pounds, which is currently being investigated. AFP news agency reported that an unnamed source in Al-Bashirs family said they hired four lawyers, including former parliament speaker Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Taher and two former ministers of defense, Abdel-Basset Sobdarat and Omar Abdel-Ati, to defend the former president if he goes to court. The source said some 50 lawyers offered to defend Al-Bashir. Khaled Mahmoud, a researcher in Sudanese affairs, said Al-Bashirs financial crimes pale in comparison to his political crimes, beginning with the military coup of 1989. The general prosecutor agreed to interrogate Al-Bashir about the coup that brought him to power with the support of the Islamist movement led by the late Hassan Al-Turabi. The coup aborted the peace initiative proposed by the leader of the unionists, Othman Al-Mirghani and southern leader John Garang in 1988, even though all other parties agreed to it except the Islamist Front, said Mahmoud. Islamists took over power and tensions rose, and the war escalated until it ended in the secession of South Sudan in 2011. Al-Bashir is the second Sudanese ruler to be prosecuted after late president Jaafa Numeiri who was sentenced to death in 1988. Al-Bashir himself issued a pardon for Numeiri that enabled him to return to Khartoum and live there until his death. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) wants Al-Bashir to face charges that he is the mastermind of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, where the UN estimates 300,000 were killed, although the government counters that no more than 10,000 were killed. Of course, I hope Sudans judiciary, prosecutors and investigators could prosecute everyone who committed a crime, but I think it would be difficult, Kamal Al-Jazuli, a Sudanese lawyer in the opposition, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Sudans judicial system is divided between supporters and opponents of Al-Bashir. The TMC dismissed the chief justice under pressure from protesters, and more than 100 judges joined demonstrators in support of the peoples demands. Nonetheless, Al-Jazuli noted that hundreds of Islamist judges were appointed over the past 30 years under Al-Bashirs rule. Meanwhile, the spokesman for the TMC said the council has reached an agreement with the opposition on the specifics of governing structures during the interim period, but they have not yet decided how long that period will be or the make-up of the transitional structures. Striking a balance between military and civilian components and the duration of the transitional period are major sticking points in talks between TMC and the coalition of protesters and opposition since Al-Bashir was overthrown 11 April. Kabashi and Othman Taha, spokesmen for the opposition FCF coalition, said these two issues will be addressed Tuesday. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Khartoum heats up Search Keywords: Short link: Tensions between Iran and the US appear to have spiked. Now officials are talking down the possibility of conflict After over a week of increased signs of tension between the US and Iran, on Tuesday evening Iranian Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there is not going to be war with the US. The statement appeared on the official website of the most influential Iranian leaders. This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor they [the US] seek war. They know it will not be in their interest, said Khamenei. In an almost parallel statement US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US is not seeking war with Iran. Pompeo was speaking in Russia, a close Iranian ally, where he held talks with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov and was scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A Washington-based Arab diplomat had meanwhile said this might be the beginning of de-escalation but it is too early to tell given the multiple regional and international players and their competing interests. On Monday, this same source said it was becoming increasingly hard to dismiss manifestations of growing military tension between Iran and the US in the Middle East but we hope things will divert from this path. The diplomat added that no one was talking about a full-fledged war but possibly attacks and counter attacks on Iranian targets and US interests in the region. The diplomat was speaking before Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that terrorist drones had attacked two pumping stations on its East-West pipeline. Saudi Arabia openly accused Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen, at war with a Saudi-led military coalition for over four years, of responsibility for the attacks. According to the Washington-based diplomat, this is not something to be taken lightly; it is a serious matter that could have disturbing repercussions for the stability of the Middle East, given the number of countries in the region where both the US and Iran have interests and the significance of the region for the international oil trade. On Monday senior EU diplomats who had met with Pompeo in Brussels had warned against a series of possible scenarios. UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said, we are very worried about a conflict; about the risks of a conflict, while German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said EU member states had told Pompeo that we dont want to come to a military conflict. According to the US State Department, Pompeo was in Brussels to share with EU and NATO members what Washington qualifies as increasing Iranian threats. Also in Brussels, US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said Iran should try talks instead of threats. He added that Iranian leaders have chosen poorly by focusing on threats. Tensions between Iran and the US have been ramping up since the first days of US President Donald Trumps election. Trump openly condemned the nuclear deal signed with Iran by his predecessor Barack Obama, five leading European countries and the EU, under which Iran agreed to constrain its nuclear programme in return for a de-escalation of political and economic sanctions. Despite EU appeals Trump pulled out of the deal. The move led to growing trans-Atlantic tensions but was well received by US allies in the Middle East, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. An informed Arab Gulf official based in Abu Dhabi said increased US pressure on Iran met with approval in leading GCC capitals. We think that the Obama approach towards the region, especially when it came to Iran, was wrong. We are happy we are cooperating with the US to put the Iranians in their place, he said. Earlier this week the UAE accused Iran of being behind the attacks on two Saudi-owned oil carriers near the port of Fujairah, off the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the worlds oil passes through the strait and Iranian officials, speaking off record, had warned Tehran would close the maritime route if it was attacked. Iran has denied any involvement in the attack on the ships and has demanded an international investigation. Regional foreign diplomats are following developments on the edge of their seats. They agree it is difficult to see how an Iranian-American conflict would start and then develop. Few expect Iran to initiate an escalation, or for the US to become directly involved. They worry, though, that in the event of Iran being provoked to retaliate it might act recklessly against US targets, including US soldiers, in the Middle East, after which all hell could break loose. On Monday, in Washington, Trump said it would be a big mistake for Iran to try and do anything against the US. The US has already deployed an aircraft carrier and jet fighters to the region. Regional and European diplomats say there is a sense of high military alert in several Arab countries, particularly those at the forefront of the confrontation with Iran, as well as in Israel and among Washingtons closest Arab allies who might have to step in with forces if things get out of hand. Turkey and Russia are also being very vigilant and both have sent messages to Washington that they want to remain outside any conflict. Earlier in the week a Middle East-based European diplomat had expressed concern that Syria might be the scene of contentious US/Israel Iran/Hizbullah confrontations if things were to take a military turn. We have no reason to think that things will not get out of hand if a conflict starts. We are working to start a new dialogue between Washington and Tehran but we are not sure in which direction things will go war or dialogue, the European diplomat said. While nobody is underestimating the ability of Washington and its regional allies to harm Iran, equally nobody should underestimate the havoc that could be wreaked by Tehran and its associated militias across the region, not only in the Middle East but in Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa, including East Africa and areas bordering the Bab Al-Mandab Strait. Speaking to local media, Iranian officials said Tehran would retaliate if attacked, though the line they pushed was one of resistance rather than retaliation. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has openly warned that Tehran will resume uranium enrichment beyond the levels agreed in the 2015 if the US does not stop its pressure. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that the EU is doing all it can to support the 2015 nuclear deal. A Cairo-based European diplomat says concern is growing in EU capitals that Trump is undermining European efforts to consolidate the deal despite Washingtons withdrawal. According to one, things do look really bad and the Iranians seem to be seriously thinking of acting on their threats. On Tuesday morning, in Cairo, an Egyptian official said there are worrying signs that cannot be dismissed. Later in the day, he acknowledged that the statements of Khamenei and Pompeo may signal a de-escalation. The Egyptian official acknowledged the wish to put serious pressure on Iran is not exclusively American and argued this meant region-wide possible Iranian targets for retaliation. He declined questions on possible Egyptian military involvement to defend Arab Gulf states if directly attacked and excluded any scenarios involving traditional warfare. We are not talking about an Iraq war scenario. We are in a very different situation today, he said. In 1991 Egypt sent troops to help defend Arab Gulf countries during the US-led war to liberate Kuwait after it was invaded by Iraq. Earlier, Egypt and other Arab states, including Kuwait, sided with Iraq in its eight-year long war with Iran. Egypt and Iran have not had full diplomatic relations since Tehran severed diplomatic relations with Cairo in 1979 after president Anwar Al-Sadat gave refuge to the last shah, ousted by the Iranian Revolution. Cairo and Iran have had ups and downs in their relations but by and large maintained a policy of non-confrontation throughout the past four decades. In the 1990s they worked jointly in the UN on an initiative to free the Middle East from all weapons of mass destruction. Today, according to the Egyptian official, Cairo is hoping that confrontation can be averted to avoid the repercussions of a long proxy war on multiple regional fronts. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Conflict vs dialogue Search Keywords: Short link: The French army has no plans at this point to suspend military training activities in Iraq, a source close to the French Defence ministry told Reuters on Wednesday. There is no change regarding the French engagement at this time, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. France currently employs 300 military training staff in Iraq. Germany and the Netherlands said on Wednesday they were suspending military training in Iraq as the United States warned of increased threats from Iran-backed forces amid an escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. State Department has ordered the pullout of some employees from both its embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil. Search Keywords: Short link: The late Maronite religious figure Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir contributed to ending Lebanons civil war and built bridges with other religions and sects The death of former Maronite cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir on Sunday has shaken Lebanons largest Christian sect to the core. The 98-year-old spiritual leader, born on 15 May 1920, had played a pivotal role in shaping Lebanons modern history. Sfeir died after battling a long illness, but he will always be remembered for his often witty and humorous comments. He was an Arabic language and philosophy teacher by profession and was elected patriarch of the Maronite Church in 1986 and invested as a cardinal in 1994. Until his resignation in 2011, Sfeir was an icon of the patriarchy, leader of the Maronite Church and a national symbol, the Maronite Church said in a statement. Lebanese President Michel Aoun also lamented the loss of Sfeir. The nation will miss a man who always defended Lebanons sovereignty, independence and dignity, Aoun said. Sfeir in fact was as old as Lebanon, as he was born in the same year that France proclaimed the establishment of the Lebanese state with its present boundaries. The former cardinal will be remembered for the role he played during the last years of Lebanons civil war, the repercussions of which the country is still suffering from. He was elected patriarch before the end of the war between the Christian sects that Aoun launched against the Syrian army. The conflicts, better known as the War of Liberation, later saw Aoun exiled for 15 years. Sfeir backed the Taif Accords that brought Lebanons civil war to an end in 1989. He voiced harsh criticisms of them later on, however. His support of former president Rene Moawad attracted the wrath of Aoun supporters, as Aoun was the then head of the military government that opposed the Taif Accords. Angry pro-Aoun Christians stormed the patriarchal residence and assaulted Sfeir. Sfeir was later elected to head the Maronite Church, and he met with the Sunni mufti of the country, Hassan Khaled, in an attempt to build bridges between Lebanons Christians and Muslims and more effective communication than the sound of weapons. Khaled and Sfeir largely succeeded in their endeavours, and Khaleds later assassination made Sfeir even more adamant to end the civil war. He had a strong relationship with former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri at the time, with Al-Hariri acting as the godfather of the Saudi-backed Taif Accords, managing to sell the agreement to Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces bloc. Depression reigned over Lebanons Christian community after the Taif Accords, when Christian political heavyweights were either imprisoned or exiled. Coupled with Sfeirs dissatisfaction with the outcomes of the agreement, the Maronite patriarchal residence turned into one of the few opposition platforms in the country. The former cardinal also played an unforgettable role after the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000, when in September of that year the Maronite Council, headed by Sfeir, called for the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon and demanded that the country regain its sovereignty. Sfeirs stand fuelled countless similar demands, and Syria withdrew its army from Lebanon after the assassination of Al-Hariri. In 2004, Sfeir vehemently opposed attempts by Damascus to extend the term of then president Emile Lahoud. Al-Hariri had joined the camp opposing the Syrian presence in Lebanon, saying that the patriarchs position was adopted by all Lebanese. However, Sfeir stood up against the 14 March Movement that opposed Syria when it revealed its desire to topple Lahoud and insisted on the need to respect state institutions and the position of president. His biggest struggle was to end the Syrian presence in Lebanon, which we all thought was impossible because of the divisions in the country. But he worked on it steadily, objectively, and meticulously, Sfeirs biographer Antoine Saad said. He resisted Syrias hegemony by peaceful means, working on weaving the national unity that was capable of ending it. Sfeir repeatedly refused to visit Syria, even when Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II made a trip to Syria in 2001, saying he would only do so when the two countries established relations on an equal footing. Two years after Sfeir retired, his successor Bechara Boutros travelled to Damascus in 2013, becoming the first Lebanese patriarch to visit Syria since Lebanons independence from French colonial rule in 1943. After the Syrian army had left Lebanon, Sfeir did not hesitate to criticise the Shia group Hizbullah, backed by Tehran and Damascus, for refusing to give up its weapons. In 2010, Sfeir said the group was an abnormal case, stressing that arms should be in the possession of the state alone. Sfeirs stance was not welcomed by the majority of Christians in Lebanon, particularly supporters of Aoun, the then leader of the Free Patriotic Movement that was allied with Hizbullah. S feirs opponents called for the non-interference of the patriarch in politics and accused him of siding with the 14 March Movement at their expense. Sfeir always tried to build bridges with other sects, and he brokered the Chouf Mountain Agreement between the Maronites and Walid Jumblatts Druze, ending a chapter of violence between the two groups. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Lebanons peace-broker gone Search Keywords: Short link: Oil tankers and other commercial vessels were sabotaged in the Gulf this week as tensions continue to hang over the region Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on Tuesday that two oil-pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack an act of terrorism that targeted global oil supplies. Al-Falih said that Saudi oil output and exports for crude and refined products were continuing without disruption. Houthi-run Masirah TV earlier on Tuesday cited a military official saying the Houthis had launched drone attacks on vital Saudi installations. A number of commercial ships and oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf this week, with many countries condemning the incidents and expressing worries as the regions stock markets plummeted after the attacks. Al-Falih released a statement on Monday saying that two Saudi oil tankers were attacked near the emirate of Fujairah as they were about to cross the Arabian Gulf. The attacks did not lead to any casualties or an oil spill but caused significant damage to the vessels, he said. Al-Falih added that one of the two vessels was on its way to be loaded with Saudi crude oil from the port of Ras Tanura to be delivered to Saudi Aramcos customers in the United States. The attacks took place one day after the UAE announced four commercial vessels had been sabotaged near Fujairah 115km from Iran. A UAE Foreign Ministry statement said the four ships were civilian commercial ship of various nationalities. A Norwegian cargo company said one of its ships was sabotaged, adding that an unidentified body had created a hole in one of its oil tankers. The Foreign Ministry called the incidents worrisome and said there would be an investigation. Meanwhile, the UAE dismissed reports of bombings in Fujairah as baseless, adding that port operations had continued as usual. But many countries are concerned that details of the attacks have not been revealed. Spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry Abbas Mousavi said the Sunday incidents on several vessels in the Sea of Oman were alarming and regrettable. He warned against plots by ill-wishers wanting to disrupt regional security and called for the vigilance of regional states in the face of adventurism by foreign elements. Egypt and Jordan condemned the attacks, and a high-level official in the Pentagon said US units were aiding UAE military authorities investigating the sabotage incidents. Tensions heightened in the Gulf after the US sent B-52 bombers to the Middle East to counter clear indications of threats from Iran. In a sign of concern at the rising tensions, UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt warned of the risks of a conflict happening by accident with unintended escalation between Washington and Tehran over the unravelling Iran nuclear deal. Hunt said he would share Britains concerns with Germany and France and with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who was in Brussels on Monday for talks on Iran. Meanwhile, Riyadhs stock market, the largest in the region, fell by 2.7 per cent in the wake of the attacks. Dubai and Abu Dhabis stock exchanges dropped by 3.7 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively. Qatar recorded a 2.1 per cent drop, and there was a 1.25 per cent in Kuwait, a 0.16 per cent drop in Amman, and a 0.6 per cent drop in Bahrain. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Heightened tensions in the Gulf Search Keywords: Short link: ABC/Randy HolmesWhen Vampire Weekend's new album Father of the Bride debuted atop this week's Billboard 200, not only did it give the band their third straight number-one record, it also earned the NYC indie rockers an unprecedented chart feat. As Billboard explains, VW is the only act to boast three number-one albums without ever having charted a song on the Hot 100. Every one of the other 117 artists who've topped the Billboard 200 three or more times -- including Arcade Fire, Green Day, Dave Matthews Band and Jack White -- have notched at least one entry on the Hot 100. While Vampire Weekend has never gained any traction on the Hot 100, the group has had success on other charts. On Billboard's Alternative Songs tally, for example, they've had eight entries, including the Father of the Bride lead single "Harmony Hall," which peaked at number eight on the ranking. Father of the Bride, the long-awaited follow-up to 2013's Modern Vampires of the City, finally arrived on May 3. Vampire Weekend will launch a North American headlining tour behind the new album June 5 in Toronto. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Iraq may be the real problem in the US-Iranian standoff and could well be its flashpoint In his election campaign trail, US President Donald Trump was a vocal anti-war candidate. At a Republican Party debate, Trump called the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq a big, fat mistake. Trump repeatedly criticised his predecessors George W Bush and Barak Obama for spending two trillion dollars and thousands of lives on the US involvement in Iraq. Trump did not stop there. He twice asked former Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi for oil to pay for the invasion of his country. In December 2018, Trump ordered a US withdrawal from Syria after declaring victory over Islamic State (IS) jihadists. But all that has apparently now changed, and America under Trump seems to be back to the business of war. Trump has decided to keep thousands of US forces in Iraq and Syria, which were sent to fight IS militants and are now supposed to be dealing with remnants of the largely vanquished group. Trump even announced that he wanted the US troops in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran and to maintain pressure on the Islamic Republic to change policies that are seen by Washington and its regional allies as aggressive and hegemonic. All this is worrying, and Trumps change of mind may indicate that he or some of the hardline officials in his administration are setting the stage for new wars in the Middle East. Last year, the US withdrew from the landmark Iran Nuclear Agreement, saying that the deal had failed to address Tehrans ballistic-missile programme and its influence across the rest of the Middle East. In April, Trump announced that the US would no longer exempt any country from the US trade sanctions imposed on Iran after he withdrew from the nuclear deal. To squeeze Iran further, the US has also designated Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, the first time it has ever taken such a step regarding the army of a foreign government. Last week, the Pentagon said it was deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Arabian Gulf, claiming unspecified threats from the Islamic Republic. It also approved a new deployment of Patriot missiles. US officials claimed that the reinforcements came after Washington had linked Tehrans plans to stage attacks against US forces or interests in the Middle East with actual activity that we observed. However, the deployment signals preparations for a possible war with Iran, which the Trump administration has accused of spreading its influence in the Middle East and escalating regional conflicts. As tensions rise, the stakes seem high that Iraq could emerge as the primary flashpoint for Americas new war in the Middle East. In many ways, Iraq is already stuck in the middle of the conflict, and the dispute is presenting it with the dilemma of whether it will affect the already beleaguered nation. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit to Baghdad on 8 May in connection with the latest escalation against Iran. Pompeos visit highlighted the special relationship with Iraq as being top on the list of Washingtons demands from Tehran. While in Baghdad, Pompeo reportedly asked the Iraqi leaders he met, including President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, to ensure the protection of US troops and citizens in the country. Speaking to reporters after his meetings, Pompeo said that the Iraqi leaders had provided assurances that they understood that was their responsibility. Pompeo said he wanted to speak with the leadership there [in Iraq] to assure them that we stood ready to continue to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation. Beyond beefing up the security of Americans in Iraq, Pompeo said his visit was also critical to stress US preparedness to help Iraq become less dependent on energy deals with Iran. They understood, too, that its important for their country. We dont want anybody interfering in their country, certainly not by attacking another nation inside of Iraq, and there was complete agreement, he said. For his part, Abdul-Mahdi said in remarks to the press that Iraq would undertake to ensure the safety of the US troops in Iraq, which he described as an obligation that Iraq honours. However, he insisted that Iraq would not participate in the economic boycott of any country, which is to say that he declined to cooperate with the Trump administrations attempts to punish Iran. There are many scenarios for possible war between Iran and the United States. But as the United States continues to talk tough with Iraq and its pressure on Baghdad grows, Iraq is looming large in the US-Iranian conflict probably because of the close relationship of Iran to Iraqs Shia-led government and the Iranian influence in Iraq. On Sunday The US Embassy in Baghdad issued a security alert, warning American citizens of heightened tensions in Iraq and advising against travel there. While there is not much willingness within Iraq to enter into a conflict with the United States over Iran, the pressing question remains of how the Iran-backed para-military groups, or militias in Iraq would react if the tension escalates. Many Iraqi militia leaders have blasted the American belligerency towards Iran and said that if the US attacks Iran their followers would defend it. Some have even threatened to target US interests in Iraq in retaliation for any such attack. The Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper, widely believed to be funded by Iran and expressing Iranian views, reported on Saturday that the Iraqi militias had drawn up plans to target US interests if Iran was attacked. According to the paper, the plans include attacks on US targets in Iraq, such as the US Embassy in Baghdad and bases where US troops are deployed. The plans also include ambushes of US troop patrols in areas where American forces are operating and the kidnapping of American citizens, in particular Americans working in oil companies in southern Iraq. Iraq has a number of Shia militias, backed and trained by Iran and functioning as Iranian proxies. Some of these behave like local mafias that control neighbourhoods, and several have been accused of behaving like a state within a state. Many of the larger militias work under the umbrella of the Hashed al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF), which is officially recognised as a state-run force nominally under the command of Abdul-Mahdi. However, the borderline between the two kinds of Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups that have footprints across Iraq remains murky, and therein lies the dilemma should one militia group respond to action by the US by attacking US targets inside Iraq. With at least 125,000 active-duty fighters in the PMF and tens of thousands more in the militias, the stakes are high that some of the Iraqi militias could side with Iran and turn on United States troops and other US assets in Iraq. A major concern is that some of these Iraqi militias could be the flashpoint for an Iranian-US showdown, posing a quandary for Iraq as a result of an uninvited confrontation. On Sunday, the United Arab Emirates said sabotage operations targeted four commercial vessels including two Saudi-owned off the coast of Fujairah in the Arabian Sea. These attacks highlighted the precarious situation in the Gulf following the US-Iranian standoff. Despite the risk of war, however, the Iraqi government and parliamentary agenda is remarkably light, and Iraqi leaders keep repeating naive proposals of mediation between Tehran and Washington. Such an offer fails to grasp the conventional wisdom that one cant carry two watermelons with one hand or try to satisfy two wives at the same time. Unfortunately, there is also a lack of national debate in Iraq about this looming war or any real attempts to find an exit and avert catastrophe. This is a national crisis, and a pan-Iraq conference is urgently needed to work out a national strategy to serve the countrys interests. While distancing Iraq from any Iranian-US confrontation remains a priority, concrete action should be taken to end all kinds of foreign meddling in Iraq and ensure the countrys full sovereignty and independence. The biggest risk for Iraq now is that its hollow leadership will maintain its ostrich strategy and behave as if the Iranian-US crisis will eventually resolve itself and it will weather the gathering storm. This conflict will have dire consequences for Iraq even if a military confrontation can be averted. Therefore, the Iraqi ruling cliques need to extract their heads from the sand and look at what is really going on in the region. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: To save Iraq, act now Search Keywords: Short link: The Kremlin protested on Wednesday over the extradition from ex-Soviet Georgia to the United States of a Russian man accused of smuggling F-16 fighter jet manuals into Russia in breach of U.S. arms export law. Oleg Tishchenko, a software developer, was earlier this year extradited to the United States from Georgia, where he was reported to have been arrested on a U.S. warrant while attending a dance festival. Russian diplomats say he is now being held in a Utah jail ahead of his trial later this year. Tishchenko, 42, says he bought the F-16 fighter jet manuals on eBay in order to help develop an ultra-realistic flight simulator. He has been charged with five offences, including smuggling, conspiring against the United States, and violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, Russian diplomats say. He was also interested in obtaining manuals for other more advanced U.S. military aircraft such as the F-35 multi-role stealth fighter, according to an affidavit in support of the U.S. extradition request. The case is likely to worsen already poor U.S.-Russia relations which both Washington and Moscow have spoken of wanting to improve despite sharp differences over everything from Venezuela to Ukraine. The Russian Embassy in Washington said on Wednesday it was possible that Tishchenko had been set up by U.S. authorities. "There are signs in this case of a provocation by the U.S. intelligence services," it said in a statement. Asked about the case on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow was worried about the U.S. practice of having Russian nationals extradited from third countries like Georgia. Russia itself does not extradite its own citizens, a practice that is banned under the Russian constitution. "He's a Russian citizen," Peskov said of Tishchenko. "We are really worried and unhappy about the Americans carrying out such cross-border provocative actions towards Russian citizens. We are conveying our concerns and dissatisfaction to American colleagues at different levels." Russia will watch closely to ensure the United States properly observes Tishchenko's rights, Peskov said. Washington itself is unhappy about a number of U.S. citizens being detained in Russia. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue on Tuesday during talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The case of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine accused of espionage, and that of Michael Calvey, a U.S. investor accused of embezzlement, are of particular interest to U.S. authorities. Both men deny wrongdoing. Whelan is in pre-trial detention while Calvey has been freed on bail and placed under house arrest. Search Keywords: Short link: The region is seeing a new confrontation between Iran and the United States, but this need not lead to full-scale war The Iranian regime has been instigating trouble in the region since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. When the mullahs led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini replaced the former shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, they did not take long before instigating their first international crisis when a group of students and followers of Khomeini stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and held 55 diplomats and embassy staff hostage for 444 days. This was then the longest hostage crisis in history, and the Iranians demanded that the Americans turn in the former shah to be tried by the new regime, a demand that was refused by then US president Jimmy Carter. It thus did not take long for the Iranian regime to display its true colours and to project its animosity not just on the Western world but also on its regional neighbours. The relations between Iran and its neighbours as well as the West have plummeted since the revolution. The nuclear deal signed with the West in 2015 to curb Iranian ambitions to create a nuclear arsenal did not alleviate the strain on relations. The region is now seeing a new confrontation between Iran and the US along with its Arab allies. The US has now sent its strongest message in years to Iran by amassing a naval force in the Arabian Gulf and sending its fifth fleet to join its forces stationed in the Gulf. The US base in Al-Sailiya in Qatar might ironically be the launching pad for any upcoming operations against Iran, despite the strong Qatari ties with the Iranians. The US has already deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers in the Middle East to respond to concerns that Iran may be planning an attack on American interests. Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran possessed one of the most capable armies in the world. That changed after the eight years of the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988), which left the Iranian military battered and with limited resources thanks to the international sanctions on the country. The Iranians since have been reliant on militant and terrorist proxies across the Middle East, including the Lebanese group Hizbullah, the Palestinian group Hamas, the Yemeni Houthi militants, and elements of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Front. These proxies serve the Iranian regime to send messages to its neighbours that they could wreak havoc in such countries should the Iranians order it. For instance, Hizbullah receives an annual contribution of nearly $1 billion from Tehran. Hamas receives substantial sums to keep this terrorist organisation in business. The Houthis have received substantial financial and military aid in their war against the legitimate government in Yemen and the Arab Coalition. However, Iran never interferes officially in any conflict, and even during the Syrian civil war though it has sent some of its most important commanders to Syria it has never declared this on an official basis. Despite its chaotic and provocative behaviour, Iran is not keen to be officially involved in military conflicts because it is neither backed by a robust economy nor a strong army, as it claims. Despite the massive buildup of US forces in the Arabian Gulf, there is no certainty that a war or military conflict will now erupt. There is a temptation inside the US administration to deliver a stern warning to the Iranian regime following the toughest sanctions ever imposed by the US on Irans oil exports. Along with these has come the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group by the US, the first time a national military unit has been designated as a terrorist group even as the US has elaborated on the destructive role that the Iranian military has conducted over the past four decades. The challenge facing the US now is the sending of a tough message to Iran without igniting a full-blown war, whether caused by a massive military buildup or limited strikes. It is always much easier to start a war than to end one. The costs of the present operation will be mostly born by Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, but there are also limits on what these countries are willing to pay, as they do not want an open bill from the US. This is especially the case since a limited operation or show of power will be highly unlikely to deter the Iranians for long, given the historical precedents. Egypt has long considered Iran to be a foe in the region because of its record of supporting terrorism and radicalism. But the Egyptian leadership does not want to see a war spiralling out of control in the Arabian Gulf. Egypt believes that the region is still suffering in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolutions and the civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya. The lack of political stability in Algeria, Sudan and Lebanon adds even more reasons to reject another growing conflict. This is especially the case given the growing possibility of a confrontation with the Turkish regime, which is now setting its greedy eyes on Cypriot natural gas resources. Accordingly, though Egypt would like to see the Iranian regime gone or pacified at least, it remains vigilant about further escalation in the region that could force it to interfere militarily to protect the Gulf states from foreign intervention. Having to do so would be a military burden that the country could do without. One of the main aims of the US is to thwart threats to the flow of oil from the Gulf states through the Straits of Hormuz, where the Iranians are threatening to block them. Should they do so, this would spark military action if not full-scale war. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime, which is rejecting domestic reforms on the political, social or economic levels, is facing pressure that may entice it to try to distract the Iranian public by an international crisis. During the Iraq-Iran War, Iran targeted the oil tankers and commercial vessels of Iraq, and the war also extended to tankers of countries supporting Iraq, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A total of 546 oil tankers and commercial vessels were destroyed during the conflict. The Iranians have been developing long-range missiles in recent years that they are threatening to use, especially against cities in the Gulf. They may also activate their proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq in an attempt to take the battle away from Iranian soil. The Lebanese Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has denied statements published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Ray in April about a possible war with Israel this summer. But his group is likely to be activated along with others in the region should a military strike be conducted on Iran by the United States or there be the possibility of further sanctions on Iran. Iranian proxies have been successfully utilised for decades for distraction and leverage purposes by Iran, and the present case is unlikely to be any different. While the Iranian regime remains a clear and present danger to the peace of the region, a war with the regime is not certain to bring it down, especially since it will likely use its traditional propaganda tools to rally disgruntled citizens to defend their homeland. That said, all possible methods to curb the expansionist ambitions of the Iranian mullahs without igniting the region in a full-scale war remain welcome. *The writer is a political analyst and author of Egypts Arab Spring and the Winding Road to Democracy. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Prospects of war on Iran Search Keywords: Short link: Indications are, by way of recent events, that the US and Israel are gearing up to impose an unfair peace on the Palestinians in return for a concord between the US and Russia The Middle East and the Gulf witnessed a sudden flare-up in the last few weeks on two fronts. The first saw more than five hundred missiles rained on southern Israel fired by Hamas and other guerrilla groups. Israel, as expected in a well-scripted scenario, unleashed its airpower on the hapless Gazans, destroying homes and resuming its policy of targeted assassination by killing a young Palestinian in his thirties who acted as a conduit for Iranian money to Hamas. The Palestinian factions in Gaza justified the sudden military attacks by accusing Israel of reneging on its previous commitments to Egypt, destined to alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza due to an unprecedented, inhuman and amoral Israeli all-out siege of the Gaza Strip that has been in effect for the last 12 years and counting. Like previous military confrontations between the two sides, Egypt as has become the customary go-between in a negotiated ceasefire that went into effect Monday, 6 May, coinciding with the start of Ramadan, the month of fasting for more than one billion Muslims around the world. No one, of course, would be surprised if the new Israeli government, when formed, under Binyamin Netanyahu would resort to punishing the people of Gaza in another round of threats and attacks. T his strategy is defined as the campaigns between wars. (Israel opened the border crossings with Gaza on Sunday, 12 May.) As if by sheer coincidence, the same day the guns fell silent in Gaza, the United States announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln and an accompanying strike group would sail to the Gulf in addition to deploying B-2 strategic bombers to the region to deter Iran from targeting American forces stationed in the Middle East and the Gulf. In the meantime, the US administration imposed new economic sanctions on the Iranians while warning European banks and businesses from trying to use currencies other than the American greenbacks in doing business with Iran. A few days earlier, Washington had announced the end of its waivers for eight countries to import Iranian oil. Ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the world has gotten used to the very tense relationship between the United States and Iran which the two have done their best not to transform into direct military confrontation. This time around the rhetoric from both sides is not reassuring. On Friday, 10 May, a leading religious cleric close to Supreme Guide Ayotallah Ali Khameni threatened to sink the USS Abraham Lincoln with one missile. He added that the present situation would help in sidestepping moderates in the Iranian government, putting extremists in the drivers seat. Notwithstanding the militarisation of the age-old American-Iranian confrontation, US President Donald Trump tweeted the same time the USS Abraham Lincoln was passing through the Suez Canal en route to the Gulf that he was ready to meet with Iranian leaders. He pointed out Washington does not want the Iranians to have nuclear weapons. He added: It is not too much to ask. And we would help put them back into great shape. The US president gave no clues as to the subjects of discussion in case his offer would be taken seriously by the Iranians. On the contrary, commanders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard vowed never to talk to the Americans. Some experts believe this exchange was nothing but grandstanding. Which it could be, particularly if we take into consideration the fact that the United States is working with some of its Arab allies to set up what the secretary of state has called the Middle East Strategic Alliance, or, as some have called it the Arab NATO. In the context of the growing tension in the Middle East and American threats addressed to Tehran, the US secretary of state had paid an unannounced visit to Iraq on Tuesday, 7 May. He told reporters after his meetings with Iraqi leaders that, we wanted to let them know about the increased threat stream that we had seen and give them a little bit more background on that so they could ensure that they were doing all they could to provide protection for our team. He added: We dont want anyone interfering in their country and there was complete agreement. He meant Iran. Both the US secretary of state and National Security Adviser John Bolton had warned that Tehran and its proxy militias could be planning attacks against American military assets and interests in this arc extending from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. Not content only with the USS Abraham Lincoln, the United States announced Saturday, 11 May, that other naval units would be joining the aircraft carrier soon, in addition to a battery of Patriot missiles. This show of force aims at exercising maximum military pressure on the Iranians, coupled with the campaign of crippling economic and financial sanctions on Iran. To counter and prove that they still have cards to play, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Tehran would resume uranium enrichment if the Europeans would not fulfil their commitments to Iran in the framework of the implementation of the nuclear agreement signed in July 2015 known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which the United States withdrew on 8 May 2018, a decision hailed at the time by Netanyahu. The US administration ever since has on various occasions showed a willingness to negotiate another nuclear accord with Iran, an accord that wont be limited to the Iranian nuclear programme but would deal with its missile programme as well as Iranian malign influence in the Middle East, the Gulf and Yemen. The two major developments in the region lately, namely, the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the US campaign of maximum pressures on Iran, have emerged after Jared Kushner, the senior adviser to the American president, had told a Washington think tank two weeks ago that the Deal of the Century prepared by the Trump administration to bring peace to the Middle East would be released in June, after the month of Ramadan, and by the time Netanyahu would have formed a government for his fifth term in office, a government that would include, most probably, representatives of the extreme right in Israel who demand the annexation of settlement blocs to Israel if not the outright annexation of the West Bank. These two major developments are part of a grand strategy to usher the Middle East and the Gulf into a completely new era with different realities on the ground, where geographic borders for Israel would be decreed by the Americans and the Israelis at the expense of Palestinian and Arab rights enshrined in the UN Charter and reaffirmed in many resolutions by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. In this grand strategy, the Gaza Strip would be delinked from the West Bank, or from what would be left of it to the Palestinians, if the Deal of the Century would make room for a semblance of a State of Palestine. By the time this article appears, on Thursday, 16 May, Secretary Pompeo will have held talks in Russia with President Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, on a range of issues that bear not only on the situation in Venezuela, Ukraine and North Korea, but also on the Middle East and the Gulf and how the two countries could work together on a host of international and regional questions. Maybe we are about to witness a new Entente Cordiale in the Middle East, this time between the United States and Russia. In this arrangement, Moscow would probably rein in the Iranians and ask them not to oppose, other than rhetorically, the Kushner deal and its geographical and strategic ramifications on the overall balance of power in the Middle East in return for negotiating a new course for American-Iranian relations away from severe economic and financial sanctions and reducing American military presence in the Gulf. The Deal of the Century is not intended to bring peace to the Middle East but rather to redraw the maps, both geographically and strategically, in a grand bargain between the great powers and their regional counterparts, mostly Israel. The Israeli attacks against Gaza 10 days ago, the resumption of targeted assassination by the Israeli death squads and the show of American military might in the Gulf are intended, probably, to pave the way before the expected release of this deal. Never before from 1948 onwards, save in June 1967, has the Middle East experienced such a degree of strategic cooperation between the United States and Israel. Many doubt this convergence of strategic interests between the two will be conducive to security, peace and stability in the Middle East and the Gulf. *The writer is former assistant foreign minister. *A version of this article appears in print in the 16 May, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: A Mediterranean-Gulf arc Search Keywords: Short link: It was once explained to me that the reason why the standard DJ uniform consists of a black tee, black jeans, and a pair of sneakers is because you go a couple of days without washing it and if it gets stained, it's too dark in the club to even notice. Questionable hygiene aside, it has always felt like a massive missed opportunity. A good DJ can easily find themselves as a party's center of attention, so with all of those eyes on you, why not use it to make a statement? Luckily, resident New York DJ, Honey Dijon, is on a mission to change that fact, with a little help from Comme Des Garcons. According to WWD, Dijon has partnered up with President of Comme des Garcons International and Chief Executive Officer of Dover Street Market, Adrian Joffe, for the launch of her namesake brand "Honey Fing Dijon." Their first small collection of shirts and DJ bags is reportedly expected to be released sometime in late summer or early fall. Related | The Gossip and Honey Dijon to Headline LadyLand "As a trans woman of color I'd never imagined that this would be possible," Dijon wrote today on Instagram. "Thank you [Adrian Joffe and Comme des Garcons] for allowing me to represent my culture, community, and love of house music. I am truly honored." Frequently found behind the decks at after parties for Burberry, Prozena Schouler, DVF, and Prabal Gurung, Honey Dijon is by no stretch of the imagination a newcomer to the fashion industry. Dijon is sure to bring her years of experience immersed in the world of style, as well as her own personal flair to the nascent label. Dijon will also be joining the ranks of similarly style conscious DJs like Peggy Gou, whose recently launched Kirin brand falls under the same corporate umbrella as Heron Preston and Virgil Abloh's Off-White, and Sita Abellan. British Council Employee Aras Amiri Jailed for Refusing to Spy, Says Cousin 05/15/19 Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran Amiri Was Forced to Choose Lawyer from Court-Issued List The UK-based British Council employee Aras Amiri was jailed in Iran for refusing to spy for the country's Intelligence Ministry, her cousin, Mohsen Omrani, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on May 14, 2019. "They made a proposal to Aras to become an agent for the Islamic Republic in the UK and give them information about the British Council," he said. "Aras refused and said she is not the type for that kind of work," he added. "She told them everything she knew about her work. They made threats against her and eventually took her into custody." Omrani also told CHRI Amiri was forced to choose a lawyer from a list approved by the chief justice. He added: "The family kept quiet in dealing with the media hoping that talking to the authorities would lead to her release. But instead they raised the charges and gave her 10 years in prison." According to Omrani, who lives in the United States, Amiri's lawyer only became aware of her sentence through news reports. To date he has still not received a copy of the verdict. Amiri is currently being held in the Women's Ward of Evin Prison. An Iranian-born UK resident who worked for the British Council, Amiri was initially arrested in Tehran in March 2018 while visiting her ailing grandmother. The 33-year-old graduate student of the UK's Kensington College of Business was initially held in Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran, controlled by the Intelligence Ministry, before being released on bail in late May 2018. She was re-arrested sometime between August 23 and September 22, 2018. Without mentioning Amiri by name, Judiciary Spokesman Gholam-Hossein Esmaili told reporters on May 13, 2019, that an Iranian student in London who "cooperated" with the UK's intelligence service through the British Council's cultural activities in Tehran had been sentenced based on her own "confessions." "An Iranian individual in charge of the Iran desk at an English cultural organization known as the British Council cooperated with the British secret service to design and implement projects to adulterate and penetrate our culture," Esmaili said. Iran's security establishment has a documented history of extracting forced false "confessions" under actual or the threat of torture as well as imprisoning Iranian nationals with foreign ties and using them as negotiating chips with other nations. Amiri's trial was held in "two or three sessions" in February and March 2019 at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran presided by Judge Abolqasem Salavati. In an undated letter from Evin Prison, Iranian-born Swedish citizen and scientist Ahmadreza Djalali, jailed in Tehran since 2016, wrote that he was imprisoned for refusing to spy for Iran's Intelligence Ministry. His wife has stated that her husband was forced to rehearse and read a confession that was broadcast on state TV, and that his interrogators threatened him at the time that his family and children would be killed if he did not make the taped statement. Formerly Texas-based physicist Omid Kokabee was also imprisoned in Iran for over five years for similarly refusing to conduct military research for Iran, he said. At least 11 Iranian dual as well as foreign nationals were known to be imprisoned in Iran as of May 2019 including Iranian-UK citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Iranian-American citizen Siamak Namazi, American scholar Xiyue Wang, and US Navy veteran Michael White. In a speech at the iftar ceremony, Ambassador Aljowaily praised communication between members of the Egyptian community in Serbia and the embassy, enhancing Egyptian-Serbian relations Egypt's Olympic champions in Taekwondo took part in the firing ceremony of the iftar cannon in Novi Pazar. Ambassador of Egypt in Belgrade Amr Aljowaily hosted an iftar breaking of the fast for the Egyptian community in Serbia in the presence of two Olympic champions in the sport of Taekwondo, Hidayat Malak and Radwa Reda, five imams and Quran rectiers from Al-Azhar and the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments. In his speech at the ceremony, Aljowaily praised the constant communication between the members of the Egyptian community in Serbia and the embassy, through periodic bi-monthly meetings, enhancing Egyptian-Serbian relations, on the one hand, and communication between immigrant communities and Egypt, the motherland, on the other. Aljowaily noted the expansion and growth witnessed in bilateral relations between Egypt and Serbia recently, which is reflected in the diversity of the presence at the iftar, which included the two Olympic champions, currently residing in Serbia for an extended training camp, the Egyptian agricultural delegation participating in the exhibition of Novi Sad, and the large number of imams, in addition to the resident community. In a related activity, Ambassador Aljowaily participated with the group of Arab and Islamic ambassadors in the ceremony of launching the iftar cannon in the province of Novi Pazar in southwest Serbia, in the presence of Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Rasim Ljajic and the minister of trade, communications and tourism. Mayor of Novi Pazar Nihat Bisevac invited Egypt to participate in the cultural activities held by the city this summer, lauding the pioneering regional cultural role of Egypt. Search Keywords: Short link: The much awaited Regional Book Fair opened in Sunyani in the Bono Region on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. The event which is organized by the Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC) and the Ghana Book Publishers Association (GBPA) in Collaboration with the Regional Directorate of Education, Bono Region is being held at Sunyani Presby Church, from Monday 14th to 18th May, 2019. The colourful opening ceremony which was interspersed with cultural display on the importance of reading was well attended. Some of the personalities who attended the opening ceremony include the Regional Director of Education for the Bono Region, Dr. Peter Attafuah, the Regional Secretary for GNAT, Bono Region, Adobosam Ibrahim; the Literacy Promotion Manager for GBDC, Daniel Ofosu-Asamoah; Frederick N.N Baada, Regional Director, Ghana Library Authority. There were also Heads of Schools, Heads of Institutions, Teachers, and school children present. There were a number of publishing companies which exhibited varieties of books. Some of the publishing companies present were Aabok Publications, Calculus Publications, Adwinsa Publications, Smartline Publishers, Winmart Publications, Read Oak Limited, Minerva Books Limited, Mountype Books Limited etc The purpose of the Book Fair is to create a platform where books are made accessible to the general public, as the books are sold at discounted prices. This is to intensify a lifelong reading culture among Ghanaians, especially children in the Basic school level. The objective for organizing the Book Fair outside Accra is to reach out to as many people as possible - students, teachers and other stakeholders in other parts of the country - who do not get the opportunity to participate in the Ghana International Book Fair which usually takes place annually in Accra. Speaker after speaker emphasized on the need to encourage school children to cultivate a lifelong reading culture. Parents were also tasked to help their children read by setting personal example at home. Schools, teachers, parents and guardians were urged to take advantage of the occasion to buy books for their wards. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Students benefiting from the Free Senior High School policy of the government have been asked to vindicate the policy. They were advised not to take the opportunity for granted, but study hard to produce outstanding academic results. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave the advise when he made a brief stop at the Ntruboman Senior High School at Breweniase in the Nkwanta South District of the Oti region. According to the President, despite the huge investment in the future of the countrys youth through Free SHS education, there are many who who are seriously opposing it till date. He therefore charged the first batch of students who will be graduating to the final year in September 2019 to pass their final exams. Senior high schools in the Oti and Volta regions have witnessed a 38 percent rise in enrolment following the implementation of the Free Senior High School. For instance, at Ntruboman SHS student enrollment shot up from a little over 500 to 923 while Nkwanta SHS also saw an increased from 1451 in 2016 to 1898 in 2019 representing 40.8 percent. According to the President, a sterling performance by the first batch of the program will vindicate him and prove that Free SHS is truly a policy that is geared towards enhancing the countrys human resource. He said, you have a big responsibility, to make sure that this free senior high school concept comes to stay and all Ghanaians buy into it. Those of you who will go next year to take the exams will be the first of the free senior high school generation to take the exams. My prayer is that the result of the exams will show that Ghanaians are right to embrace the free senior high school concept. You are the pioneers, dont let the school down and shame all those people who didnt want you to have the free senior high school. Double Track to End The President who expressed similar sentiments at Nkwanta Senior High School assured that very soon the double track system will come to an end as about $1.5 billion has been allocated to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to support infrastructure in the various Senior High Schools. He said the massive infrastructure programme will also make nonsense of the claims by critics that Free SHS should have been delayed until schools had adequate infrastructure. Recalling a case made by the Deputy GETfund Coordinator, Joseoh Dente about how Nkwanta SHS began, Preaident Akufo-Addo said if we had to wait for infrastructure to be ready for Nkwanta SHS to start, this school will not have existed, Mr. Denteh who is a pioneering student of Nkwanta SHS had said, the school began in a construction yard of a German Company called Azabajan in 1979. He added that, the boys dormitory then was in a corrugated roofing sheet structure used by the company as a tools store room. He said if under such harsh conditions he and his mates, including the current headmaster of the school had become successful in life, then it was a national disgrace for people to oppose Free SHS on the back of inadequate infrastructure. President Akufo-Addo on this note said, as far as he was concerned, the human resource which is the most important resource of the country will be developed to its optimum irrespective of the cost and challenges. Donations to Ntruboman SHS and Nkwanta SHS The President, at Ntruboman SHS where government has completed an ultra-modern administration assured them of a school bus and a pickup truck. He also assured them that their school will be considered under the GETFund Infrasture programme to deals with their various needs. At Nkwanta, he cut the sod for the construction of a six-unit classroom, six-seater toilet facility and 300-bed femal dormitory block. The president who was impressed by the farming prowess of the school promised them a tractor to help expand their 8-acre maize and 3-acre vegetable farm to cover the additional one kilometer square farm land at their disposal. Source: Daily Guide 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 Founder and Leader of the Glorious Word and Power Ministry International, Rev Isaac Owusu Bempah, has in an open display of extreme anger, stated that the three girls kidnapped several months ago in the port city of Takoradi in the Western Region, will continue to go missing. The girls are 18-year-old Priscilla Mantebea Koranchie, last seen on December 21, 2018; 21-year-old Priscilla Blessing Bentum, last seen on August 17, 2018; and 18-year-old Ruth Love Quayson, last seen on December 4, 2018. The man suspected to be behind the kidnappings, Samuel Udoetuk-Wills, who broke cell and escaped from the custody of the Takoradi Metropolitan Police Command on December 30, 2018, and was re-arrested by the police on January 4, 2019 was on April 29, this year, sentenced to an 18-month jail term for escaping from lawful arrest. The controversial prophet, who had earlier indicated that he knows where the kidnapped girls are being kept, but will only disclose their location if the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo calls on him to do so, appears to have lost interest in helping to find the girls. The self-acclaimed nation prophet's sudden U-turn, stems from Mr Michael Hayford's comments on Tuesday morning on Neat FM. Mr Hayford speaks for the families of the missing girls. The man of God took umbrage at the spokesperson's threat to physically attack him (Bempah) should he fail to reveal the whereabouts of the girls. I will slap this man. I dont mind going to jail because of that man [Rev Owusu Bempah]. What is he telling us (that until the President asks him to, he will not out of his own volition, disclose the whereabouts of the missing girls)? he angrily questioned in an interview. His remarks seemed to have incurred the wrath of Rev Owusu Bempah, who in an interview with Kwasi Aboagye on NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie, dared Mr Hayford to walk his talk after invoking a dreadful curse on the family. The girls will continue to go missing forever, he swore. Listen to interview Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Ambrose_wash Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video India Women Association (IWA) in partnership with executives of Ghana Outstanding Women Awards (GOWA) last Sunday (Mothers Day) demonstrated gross love to mothers on admission at three hospitals in the Eastern Region. The two women-centered outfits, IWA, GOWA presented items worth thousands of cedis to nursing mothers and particularly those who delivered on Mothers Day. The beneficiary health centres-Atua Government Hospital, St. Martins De Porres Hospital and Akuse Government Hospital, Akuse received items including diapers, detergents, boxes of Indomie Instant Noodles, baby dresses etc. GOWA President Mrs Afua Asantewaa Owusu Aduonum said We have been doing this for the past three years, and l must say it keeps improving every year in terms of organization and everything. As a group, we realized there is no better day to honour mothers than this day." Mothers play key roles regarding shaping our societies, hence the need to salute them on this special day. I contacted IWA executives for this years project and they readily bought into the vision without hesitating. We hoping to deepening our ties to reach out to more mothers in our quest to encourage mothers shape their various homes. IWA Vice President Vanisha Daryanani and Sameena Thomas, secretary in separate words pledged their continued support for women empowerment and development in the country. Health officials who received the officials at the three health centres expressed thanks to the two groups for the gesture. The two groups began the exercise with the Atua Hospital, later moved to the St Martins Hospital and ended up at the Akuse Hospital. IWA contribution to social change in Ghana won them the best women group (Foreign) in the maiden edition of GOWA last year. Source: Kofi Aduonum Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A rigorous adherence to the Productivity Enhancement Programmes (PEP) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), particularly, pruning, fertilizing and hand pollination will guarantee a bountiful cocoa harvest, says the Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo. These programmes, which also include, irrigation, extension services, as well as, disease and pest control, ensure harvests of not less than 20 bags of cocoa per acre of cocoa farm. This, according to the COCOBOD boss, is enough to lift any cocoa farmer with a 5-acre farm out of poverty. Hon. Aidoo made this statement when he held an interactive meeting with the cocoa farmer corporative of Bibiani, in the Bono Ahafo Region, on the first day of his week-long tour of cocoa farms across the county. The corporative, which has about four dozen members, was led by the Kontihene of the area, Nana Kontihene Asiama. Last year the area produced 60 thousand tons of cocoa. "A good harvest starts with the proper preparation of the cocoa farm", Hon. Aidoo pointed out. "Pruning, which essentially is the careful cutting of excess brunches of cocoa trees, is very important at this stage. It allows sunlight to shine through the canopy onto the ground. Pruned plants also grow more flowers as the plants turn to devote a lot more of their nutrients to flowering and fruit-bearing." When the trees begin to flower, farmers are expected to apply the right kind of fertilizer in the right quantities to boost the flowering process, hereafter, it will be time for pollination. The COCOBOD Chief Executive encouraged farmers to hire some farm labourers, have the cocoa extension officers train them on how to hand pollinate and have them work on the farm to pollinate each flower to maximise yields. He went on to advise them to stop the use of weedicides; to grow other crops on the farm, which are helpful to the cocoa trees and to again grow large trees to provide shade for the cocoa. He told the farmers to ensure proper disease and pest control and to particularly be on the lookout for the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD). COCOBOD with the support of the government has introduced a programme to cut down every cocoa tree infected with CSSVD. Under the programme, COCOBOD is bearing the cost of cutting down the farms, replanting and providing compensation of GH 1000 per hector to both affected farmers and their landowners. Speaking on behalf of the member of the corporative, Nana Kontihene Asiama, expressed profound gratitude to the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, Hon. Aidoo and the current Management of COCOBOD for all the cocoa programmes, interventions and extension services, which according to him has improved substantially from what they experienced from the previous government. The COCOBOD Chief Executive is being accompanied by the Deputy Chief Executive of Operations at COCOBOD, Dr Emmanuel Opoku, as well, as Directors and Research Scientists from COCOBOD. They were later joined by the 2018 National Best Cocoa Farmer, Mr Charles Gyamfi, to inspect some farms. The tour is aimed at assessing the level of farmer participation in the various farm productivity enhancement programmes implemented by COCOBOD; it is also to gathering first-hand knowledge of the challenges facing farmers at different parts of the cocoa-producing areas, and to hold farmer rallies to interact with farmers. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video PRESIDENT NANA Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated that work on the 54 kilometre Jasikan to Dodo Pepesu stretch of the Eastern Corridor Road would commence in July 2019. According to President Akufo-Addo, an amount of $45 million has been earmarked under the phase one projects of the $2 billion Government of Ghana-Sinohydro Master Project Agreement, for the construction of the Jasikan to Dodo Pepesu road. Speaking at a durbar held in his honour at Jasikan, on Tuesday, 14th May 2019, President Akufo-Addo recounted how in 2016, he said he was yet to see the so-called unprecedented infrastructural projects touted by his predecessor, John Dramani Mahama. I stated at the time that wherever I have been to, I never saw these so-called unprecedented infrastructural projects he (Mahama) claimed he had done. He (Mahama) responded by telling me that I was asleep, the reason why I hadnt seen these projects. However, there has not been a single durbar across the country where I have been where the issue of the poor road network has been raised by the Chiefs and people, the President said. He continued We, as political leaders, must always be truthful to Ghanaians. Lies, inaccuracies and misrepresentations should not be the hallmark of political leaders. Mr. Akufo-Addo says I will not say I have done the Hohoe-Jasikan-Dodo Pepeso road when, indeed, it has not been constructed. I will never say such a thing. He assured residents of Jasikan that they would not lack in terms of development in the aftermath of the creation of the Oti Region. We are going to make sure that there is an even spread of infrastructural facilities in the region. Every part of Oti will have their fair share of infrastructural development, he said. The President, en route to Nkwanta, stopped by Ntruboman Senior High School, where he presented a school bus and pickup vehicle to the school, in fulfillment of a pledge he had made to them. President Akufo-Addo also cut the sod for the construction of the 12km Kpassa to Mama Akura Road. He also cut the sod for the construction of a classroom and dormitory block at the Nkwanta Senior High School. Source: Daily Guide 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 Coordinator of the Third World Network (TWN) Africa, Dr Yao Graham, has expressed disquiet over the importation of salt from Brazil to Ghana. He said the development was stifling local production of the mineral and was a disincentive for employment creation in the country. At a two-day national conference on artisanal small-scale mining in Ghana organised by the TWN-Africa, Dr Graham said the artisanal and small-scale salt production sector was one that lent itself better to employment creation. That was because the sector depended on labour intensive efforts, skills and the knowledge of communities where salt was mined, he explained. He said the government's intentions for the sector, however, did not seem to focus on the creation of employment opportunities for Ghanaians. Rather, the government was seeking to package off the sector for foreign investment operations, denying citizens who had been in the sector for years their livelihoods and employment avenues. "The problem of small-scale illegal mining is a challenge of livelihoods driving people to look for any opportunity," he said. Foreign investors Dr Graham said Ghanaians were not considered as viable investors in their own minerals by their government and indicted the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) for tailoring all its documents on investment opportunities in the mining sector to suit or attract foreign investors and not Ghanians. Touching on the joint military/police taskforce, known as Operation Vanguard, which was set up to fight illegal mining, Dr Graham said all mining companies in Ghana had contracts with the military for the security of their concessions. He wondered about the legality of such contracts and asked whether a Ghanaian could have the same opportunity of a military/police presence or protection for his or her property, the way foreign mining companies had it. He, therefore, urged the Ministry of Defence to fully disclose the terms of such contracts. He also called for a comprehensive policy on small-scale mining. No policy A lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Mr Alhassan Attah Quayson, said studies had shown that there was no institutional policy for the small-scale salt production sector. He said his studies in some communities had even shown that planning officers of some assemblies had no idea about environmental impact statements. Those documents, he said, were important for community engagements with the mining companies. Mr Quayson, therefore, urged the government to, as a matter of urgency, lead a conversation with artisanal small-scale miners and work towards a comprehensive policy. Use of force A researcher with the Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS), Mr Richard Ellimah, looked at how the small-scale mining sector in the country had faced periods of brutal force from joint police/military taskforces. He said in the Fourth Republic, military taskforces had been used under former Presidents J.A. Kufuor and John Mahama and current President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. Mr Ellimah said most often, the Chamber of Mines began the campaign, touting the fact that the country's reputation as a foreign mining investment hub would be lost if illegal operations persisted. But even with the clamp down, he said, illegal operations had not been eliminated because the people were not ready to be denied their livelihoods. Regulation The Director of Operations at the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners (GNASSM), Mr Emmanuel Yerenkyi Antwi, said the failure of the government to regulate the sector, had led to the illegal operations in the sector. 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 Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said Ghana is one of the few countries in the world where Muslims and Christians interact and do business freely without resorting to violence. He has, therefore, called for the sustenance of the positive development to push the nation forward. He said in response to the support Muslims offer the NPP government, it had established the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development and the Zongo funds to ensure the rapid socio-economic development of the over 1,080 Zongo communities in the country. The Vice-President was addressing a large number of Muslims at separate functions at Akyem Oda, Akyem Ofoase and Nkawkaw last Sunday when he worshipped with them as part of his nationwide Ramadan tour of Muslim communities. Dr Bawumia was accompanied by many dignitaries, including the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Sheik Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, a Minister of State at the Presidency, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Eric Kwakye Darfour, the Member of Parliament for Oda, Mr William Agyapong Quaittoo, some municipal and district chief executives as well as regional and constituency executives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). Peace and harmony Dr Bawumia stressed that since January 2017 the government had recruited 350,000 people into the public service. He said the recruitment was part of the positive measures adopted by the government to reduce the unemployment problem facing the youth in the country. The Vice President also said the implementation of the nationwide free Senior High School (SHS) education which would offer affordable and quality education to all Ghanaian children of schoolage to reduce the financial burden of parents. 1D1F Dr Bawumia said by the end of this year, as many as 180 industries under the One district One factory programme would be functional to absorb a large number of unemployed youth and also improve the local economies. He expressed concern about the poor roads in the country, especially those in the Eastern Region, and promised that they would soon be tackled to bring lasting relief to the people. Dr Bawumia donated GH2,000 each to the Muslim Chiefs, the Imams and GH1,000 to Muslim women, GH1000 for the development of the central Mosque, as well as 25 bags of sugar to the entire Muslims at Oda for their Ramadan festival. Astro turf Dr Abdul-Hamid, said contract for the construction of an astro turf football field at Oda Zongo had been terminated and re-awarded to a new contractor to ensure quality work. The Chief of Oda Zongo, Alhaji Sulemana Adamu, said the Vice-Presidents two previous visits had benefited them by way of classroom blocks for the Islamic Junior High School and kindergarten and two modern toilets. 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 National Lottery Authority (NLA) in collaboration with the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) Secretariat and overseas experts have offered training services to about 36 NABCO Recruits at the premises of NLA on technology transfer and assembling procedures for the solar-powered E-Kiosks. The National Lottery Authority due to its commitment to the Local Content and Local Participation Law of Ghana reached a consensus with the NABCO Secretariat to *train the Trainers* for the Assembling Technology of the E-Kiosks. The training of the first batch of Trainers started on 18th February 2019 and ended on the 21st February 2019 with 20 participants. After the successful training of the first batch, Mohammed Yahaya from Ada was adjudged the overall best trainer. Tuffour Nicholas from Sunyani and Doreena Alaliga Bawa from Tamale were first runner-up and second runner-up respectively. The second batch of the training also started from 25th February 2019 to 28th February 2019 with 16 participants. After the successful training of the second batch, Azoteyinne Joshua from Bolgatanga was adjudged overall best trainer. Atanga Michael Atadena from Bolgatanga and Twum Maxwell from Techiman were first runner-up and second runner-up respectively. The criteria used for the selection of the best trainers by the Training Officials were hardwork, commitment to duty, discipline, efficiency, effectiveness, smartness and attention to details. The NABCO Trainers were selected from all the Regions of Ghana and these Trainers would be useful in training other trainees on the E-Kiosk Assembling Technology Transfer in their respective Regions, Cities, Districts and Polling Stations. It means that the E-Kiosk Assembling Technology Transfer would be decentralized across the country, thereby creating jobs for the local economy. The NABCO Trainers were very excited about the training program and showed demonstrable competence to transfer the E-kiosk technology to the yet-to-be recruited trainees. The Trainers were highly impressed and showered praises on the management of the National Lottery Authority and the NABCO Secretariat for such a wonderful and pragmatic training initiative and collaboration. In line with the vision of President Akufo-Addo's Government to economically, socially and financially empower Ghanaians, the National Lottery Authority collaborated with the NABCO Secretariat and Overseas Experts to: 1. train the NABCO Recruits on the assembling techniques, processes and technology associated with the assembling of the solar-powered E-Kiosks. 2. Empower the NABCO Recruits to appreciate and understand the operations and maintenance of the solar-powered E-Kiosks. The training of the NABCO Recruits on the assembling of the E-Kiosks has helped to: 1. ensure the transfer of technology. 2. promote the exchange of technical competencies, skills and knowledge acquisition. 3. create sustainable jobs for the graduates under the NABCO Programme. 4. adhere to the Local Content and Local Participation Law of Ghana. The E-Kiosk Concept which is a Private Sector driven project would equally partner the Ghana Revenue Authority, Commercial Banks, One District One Factory Secretariat, MMDAS, Insurance Companies, Ghana Post Company Limited and other agencies to make revenue generation and collection convenient in the country. The E-kiosk would help to offer a wide range of services such as Lottery Products, Banking Services, Western Union, Moneygram, Mobile Money Transactions, Payment of Utility Bills, Payment of DSTV and GO TV Fees, Courier Services etc. The National Lottery Authority through Private Partnership is expected to roll out about 40, 000 solar-powered E-kiosks across the Country. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video THE MINISTRY of Railways Development has acquired new lands for the Tema-Mpakadan railway project. The new lands stretch from Afienya in the Greater Accra Region to Mpakadan in the Volta Region. Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA), Yaw Owusu, made the disclosure on Wednesday May 15, 2019, when the Minister of Railways Development, Joe Ghartey, inspected the project. Mr. Owusu told DGN Online in an interview on the sidelines of the tour that the acquisition of the lands would ensure that residential and commercial properties are 100 feet away from the track. But it comes with three different compensation payments by the state to the owners of the lands, structures along the track and some farms. Mr. Owusu says the state has to pay compensations for lands, structures and crops. Already, he says, Government was paying a Gh 750,000 compensation to crops owners with farms situated between kilometers 24 and 68 of the railway line. He says the new lands have been acquired from kilometers 23.90 to 90 of the Tema-Mpakadan railway project. Mr. Owusu could not give the total acres of lands acquired so far. The Tema line was initially supposed to end at Akosombo. But it was increased from 85 kilometers to 99 kilometers, extending to Mpakadan in the Volta Region, with the aim of protecting the Akosombo Hydroelectric dam. Mr. Ghartey told DGN Online that his outfit has written to the Finance Ministry to make provision for the extra cost being incurred as a result of the expansion of the line. The contractors have also indicated that the line would be completed by June 2020. Source: Daily Guide 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 event is a collaboration between Cairotronica and the Netherlands' Impakt project Egypt's Cairotronica and The Netherlands' Impakt are presenting a programme of talks and screenings on 16 May at Cimatheque. Titled 'We Are Data', the event aims "to connect researchers, technology experts, engineers and academics with artists and designers to generate more attention for the question of 'why' we use new technologies, instead of the more traditional and technical 'how' approach," the event description reads. The panel will strive to spark discussion to analyse and better understand questions such as: What is Data? How is our data being collected? What are the methodologies, tools and resources of data collection and archiving of data? What are the myths around data? How we can support creativity, autonomy and agency in these processes? The public panel will open with a keynote by Dutch visual artist Coralie Vogelaar and an introduction by Arjon Dunnewind from Impakt. Two short films will be screened; 2002 French film Remind Me by Ludovic Houplan, Herve de Crecy and Royksopp, and 2016 Colombian film Hyper Reality by Keiichi Matsuda. The evening will conclude with a panel discussion featuring Dutch designer, media artist and creative coder Sabrina Verhage, alongside Egyptian architect Amr Abdel-Kawi of NextARCH Lab, American University in Cairo. Cairotronica is an International Symposium of Electronic and New Media arts in Cairo, aiming to become an international hub and platform for electronic art in the Middle East. Its second edition was held in 2018 across different venues in Cairo, featuring an academic conference as well as workshops and an international exhibition of new media arts. Impakt is a Dutch organisation founded in 1988, concerned with media culture and innovative audiovisual arts. It organises the annual Impakt Festival, alongside smaller events year-round as well as a production house and residency programme for artists and curators. We Are Data is part of an ongoing collaboration between Cairotronica and Impakt, aiming to integrate new technologies with art and design practices and create a platform for an interdisciplinary community. Programme: Thursday 16 May at 9pm to 11pm Cimathque, 19a Adly Street, Downtown, Cairo For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: ONEGO, an Investment Consulting Firm based in China, has begun negotiations with some key stakeholders to establish an ultra-modern industrial city in the Central Region. The city would be built on 10,000 to 25,000 acres coastal lands with the capacity of accommodating more than 100 different manufacturing enterprises. It would have a minimum capacity of generating 300,000 indirect and 50,000 direct jobs. The project, scheduled for commencement in six months would add $2 billion to Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), rake in $500 million revenue and $8billion volume of trade investments. Mr Stephen Amoah, the leader of delegation of Chinese investors in an engagement with the Regions House of Chiefs in Cape Coast on Tuesday said the project formed part of the Ghana Special Economic Zone initiative. The meeting was to engage key stakeholders, solicit their views and effectively court their support for the establishment of the Region's Special Economic Zone Business Proposal to facilitate business development and job creation. Mr. Amoah stated that the project, when completed would be the biggest industrial park in Africa providing opportunities for investors to locate their industries in the enclave with reliable supply of energy, water, transport among others. "The Ghana Special Economic Zone will re-position the Region as the leading ultra-modern city in West Africa connecting and concentrating resources on overall planning, scientific layout and intensive development"' he said. He said it would propel Ghana to the highest level in various industries such as trade, automobile, finance, tourism, agriculture among others to create a new growth pole and driving force for the state, promoting Ghana as the Centre of Africa in the future. The move, according to Mr. Amoah, is geared towards re-establishing and restoring the historic Region as the Centre of West Africa to bridge the seemingly economic disconnect with Europe. That, he noted was the surest way to unveil its world-class historical heritage, beaches and geographical proximity to Accra for the establishment of harbour and railways to ease commuting distance and urbanisation. On measures to building a Free Trade Zone (FTZ), Mr.Amoah announced that ONEGO, would also build modern wholesale trade marts, six industrial and commercial marts with daily necessity Mart, household appliances mart, clothing mart, hardware mart and food and furniture Marts. Additionally, a trading centre for gold, cocoa and timber, exhibition centre, and an agricultural trading centre with Agric industrial, machinery, technical guidance market with ancillary service system of trading markets would be established. Mr.Amoah implored the chiefs to make land available for the project adding that the project would give the Central region and the whole of Ghana a facelift. Mr Spencer Taylor, acting Executive Director of the Central Regional Development Commission (CEDECOM) praised ONEGO Investment Consulting Firm for including the region in its development agenda. He described the project as timely and one which would complement development efforts and expressed the full commitment of the Commission, the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and the Regional Parliamentary Caucus. He said "the current position of the region as the fourth poorest in Ghana is debatable and undeserving of a Region that could lead the pace of development in Ghana. Mr. Taylor reiterated the need to change the narrative as the fourth poorest in Ghana and called for a paradigm shift to reverse the trend. Obrempong Nyanful Krampah XI, President of the Regional House of Chiefs and the Paramount Chief of Gomoa Ajumako Traditional Area, called for the unflinching support and commitment of all stakeholders to support and cooperate to bring development to the historic 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 Space FM, a radio station affiliated to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been shut down by the National Communications Authority (NCA) in compliance with ruling of the Electronic Communications Tribunal - a concrete source has told peacefmonline.com. The Sunyani based radio station with the frequency 87.7 is the latest media outlet to join Radio Gold and Radio XYZ both in Accra. The NCA in an earlier statement explained that following the FM Spectrum Audit in 2017, some stations were found to be in default and were fined by the Authority. However, some of the stations in default were not satisfied and proceeded to the various courts; Electronic Communications Tribunal (ECT) and the High Court to appeal against the NCAs decision. This resulted in a decision by the ECT in 2018 which reviewed the status of expired FM Radio Broadcasting Authorisations and which ruled among others that Companies whose authorisations had expired reverted to the same position as a fresh applicant. While some stations shut down following this decision, others did not. To this end, and in line with Regulations 65 (1) of the Electronic Communications Regulations, 2011, L. I. 1991, which states that 'A person shall not use a radio frequency without authorisation from the Authority' the National Communications Authority (NCA) is enforcing the shutdown of FM radio stations that are operating without authorisation, the statement said. In all thirty one radio stations will be shut down in the next four weeks by the NCA for operating without authorisation. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007 Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has presented eight (8) vehicles to the Oti Regional Co-ordinating Council, to help facilitate the smooth take off of the newly created region. The vehicles, which include 3 Nissan Patrol SUVs, and five pickup vehicles, were presented to the Oti Regional Minister, Hon. Kwasi Owusu Yeboah. Speaking at a durbar of Chiefs at Dambai, capital of the Oti Region, on Wednesday, 15th May, 2019, President Akufo-Addo noted that the pledge he made in the run-up to the 2016 elections to create the Oti Region was not to win votes from you, but I was convinced that, with the Oti Region, development would be accelerated than before. Having earlier inspected the site for the construction of the administration block for the Oti Region, President Akufo-Addo noted that, already, the head of the Local Government Service, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur, has selected the staff to work at the Oti regional coordinating council. So far, the Regional Co-ordinating Director, Regional Economic Planning Officer, Regional Agricultural Director, Regional Fire Commander, Regional Electoral Officer, Regional Human Resource Manager, Regional Internal Auditor, Regional Information Officer, Regional Commission on Culture Officer, Regional Land Use and Spatial Planning Officer, are all here at Dambai and have started work, the President added. To the pioneer local government staff, he urged them to work hard and to begin on a sound footnote, so that everybody will know that they came to do their best for the Oti Region. I will pay particular attention for the work they will be doing in Oti. He added that we have a development plan for all the six regions, and we are going to follow it exactly for Oti Region as well. I will ensure that there is an equitable distribution of infrastructural facilities in all parts of Oti Region. Touching on matters of interest to the Oti Region and to the Paramount Chief of the Krachi Traditional Area, Nana Mprah Besemuna III, the President noted a Dutch company called FDN Group has made a proposal to the Roads and Highways Ministry for the construction of a bridge over the Oti River. The pre-feasibility studies have been completed, the financial terms are being examined today at the Ministry of Finance, and the Roads Minister is waiting for no objection letter from Finance before they can negotiate the construction agreement, which will be brought to Cabinet and then to Parliament for approval, he stated. Additionally, President Akufo-Addo stated that should all these processes go according to plan, by the 4th quarter of this year, construction of the bridge over Oti River would have begun. At the same time, the President indicated that the construction of the road network in Oti Region will also begin soon, with the Jasikan to Dodo Pepesu road network set to commence in July this year. Dambai town roads, together with the roads in Krachi, are on the programme of the Minister. Your roads are dear to my heart, and I am working on them. Now, you have your own region, and we are determined to ensure that your developmental needs are accelerated, President Akufo-Addo noted. Earlier in the day, President Akufo-Addo President Akufo-Addo also inspected the 50 kilometre Nkwanta to Dambai Road, which is being constructed to City Construction Ghana Limited. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Kwadwo Korankye, a 33-year-old driver believed to be a member of a car snatching syndicate which operates in the Ashanti Region and other parts of the country, has been arrested by the Ejisu Police. The police arrested Korankye shortly after the gang attacked some guests of Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who were returning to their hotel at Ejisu after attending a dinner at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi on May 5, 2019. Ashanti Regional Deputy Police Commander, DCOP Frank Adu Anim, mentioned other members of the gang as Mallam, Osman and Joe, who are currently on the run. The police chief told a press on Monday that Korankye, a resident of Ahenema-Kokoben and his gang who were onboard a blue Opel Astra car, attacked the people on board a Mitsubishi Pajero 4X4 with registration number GS 2975-17 and a Toyota Hilux pickup (GR 9043-17) at gunpoint at Ejisu. According to him, the gang robbed the occupants of their money and personal belongings before snatching the two vehicles. DCOP Anim said the attack, which occurred on Sunday, May 5, 2019, took place at the entrance of their hotel. A report was immediately made to the Ejisu Police which issued a look-out message to all police patrol vehicles, check points and barriers on major roads across the country for necessary action, he narrated. The police commander added that both vehicles were later abandoned at Kadriso, near Kintampo, on the Kintampo-Tamale highway. Korankye was subsequently arrested by police with assistance from residents of Kadriso community, but his accomplices managed to escape. DCOP Anim asserted that Korankye led the police to retrieve some of the stolen items at Sakra Wonoo, near Bonwire in the Ashanti Region. Hes currently in the custody of the police assisting in investigations. Source: Daily Guide 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 Former Member of Parliament (MP) for Bantama constituency in the Ashanti region, Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu has said he wished the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police (COP), Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah remained silent after her first press conference. According to him, he sees her second interview with the media on matters of the three missing Takoradi girls as contradicting herself more in trying to explain herself further to human understanding. He explained that she should have tolerated whatever speculations were circulating after her first press conference and rather work harder in finding the girls. I wish COP Tiwaa did not talk again to explain herself on the case of the three missing Takoradi girls. She should have lived with all the speculations and work harder to finding the girls, he said. Speaking on UTVs Adekye Nsroma programme, the NPP Communicator noted he is very much aware how difficult the work of a Police Officer can be , therefore persons calling for the removal or resignation of the CID boss should as well remember the good works she has done over the years. DCOP Tiwaa will continue to do her job because I believe in her previous works and know she will do better on the job, even with respect to the Takoradi missing girls case, he added. Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi/Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The time has come for Ghanaians, the media in particular, to rise up against the tyranny of President Nana Addo Danwka Akufo-Addo administration, a former Minister of Trade and Industries, Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah has said. According to him, the Akufo-Addo administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is squandering the democratic gains Ghana has made over the years. His comments follow the closure of two pro-opposition radio stations, Radio Gold and Radio XYZ by the National Communication Authority (NCA). The NCA said the two stations are among many radio stations operating without valid authorisation, according to the Director-General Joe Anokye. He said the closures were part of enforcing the ruling of the Electronic Communication Tribunal. Mr Anokye said Radio Golds authorisation expired since 2000 while Radio XYZs expired in 2016. Mr Spio-Garbrah, who is also a former flag bearer hopeful of the NDC, told a vigil organised by the NDC over the closure of the stations that: We had a culture in this country of encouraging openness, pluralism and democracy; and surprisingly, the party that has made the most noise of it being democratic and believes in human rights, are the ones that are killing it. So, I want to find whether you agree that it is time for Ghanaians to rise up against this creeping tyranny, it is time for the media to rise up, it is time for the international community to rise up. It is time for Ghanaians not to allow their freedoms to be trampled upon. Source: classfmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Youre pretty late to the party if you do not know that Ghanaian actor John Dumelo got married to her baby mama Gifty Mawunya Nkornu in a white wedding over the weekend at Royal Senchi resort in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Well, now that we brought you up to speed on his white wedding, lets zoom straight to the very matter of this story. Abi your ear dey sweet you! Just as many from afar has appreciated the beauty of her wife looking at various pictures from the wedding, the Ghanaian actor has taken to social media to fantasise about the bottos of his wife. With all pun intended, the actor who claims he is not really a fan of bottos fantasised about that of her wife and how he was going to have fun with it. John Dumelo said in a post. 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 Ghanaian actor Chris Attoh is reportedly being questioned by Maryland Police in a bid to unravel the murderer of the late wife. Bettie, 44, was murdered by an unknown gunman while leaving her office in Maryland USA on Friday. She was shot in the head by the gunman at about 5:00pm Friday and was pronounced dead when police arrived at the scene of the crime. She left her office in the 6300 block of Ivy Lane in Maryland and was walking to her car when a man armed with a handgun approached her. She tried to run for her life, but the man followed her and fired at her multiple times, with at least one shot hitting her head. The gunman then fled in a vehicle and is still wanted by the Maryland Police. Police described the suspect as a black male with a thin build and black hair, wearing a dark shirt and pants. Bettie, according to reports, was married to two men, including the Ghanaian actor and 47-year-old drug lord called Kendrick Jenifer, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term for drug trafficking. Source: Daily Guide 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 2019 Ryan Kerrigan Your time is near, the missions clear, but its later than you think. The inaugural Phish Studies conference will take place at Oregon State University this weekend. The three-day event is unprecedented. There have been classes about other bands. There have been conferences focused on other bands. There has never been a stand-alone conference devoted to a single band with this level of community integration and collaboration. Youve never seen this side of Phish. The conference has been a dream of ours for a long time. Dont miss out on your only chance to be at the first-ever Phish Studies conference held on a college campus. Help shape the future of the growing field, redefine what is possible in the Academy, and take part in history as it unfolds. You will always remember where you were. Dreams will become reality this week. We will merge our professions with our passions. Scholars from around the country will be able to receive professional credit for their Phish-related research instead of assuming its just a hobby. Undergraduate students will receive rare professional mentoring opportunities. Graduate students will participate in research and be able to point to our conference if their advisors tell them its not possible to study Phish and be successful on the job market. Select and edited conference presentations will be published with an academic press as the first Phish Studies edited volume. The only rule is it begins! If you are unable to attend but would like to support a student or underemployed scholar, register for the conference via our online registration portal. Use your billing information, but enter Icculus in the discount code field at check out. Instead of a discount, the code will let OSU Conference Services know that you want us to transfer your registration to someone in need of assistance. Visit the conference website for other sponsorship opportunities. Weve received a lot of questions from fans who are not academics about what to expect. This is your Helping Friendly Guide to your first academic conference. Please remember that you will be attending a professional academic event, not a concert. In order to preserve the scholarly legitimacy of Phish Studies, we must follow the rules and norms of academic conferences. Registration is required. You do not have to be a presenter or academic to attend, but you must register online. The early bird registration deadline has passed, but regular registration is now open. Registration for the entire weekend is $175. Day passes are $75. Professional decorum is expected. Please be considerate of the fact that you are in the scholars work environment. Dress is business casual. Be respectful of faculty and student presenters; many will have flown across the country to participate in this conference. Do not interrupt scholars during their presentations. Follow academic protocols for audience participation. Panel sessions will have assigned moderators who will introduce the presenters and moderate Q&A. Each presenter will be allocated a total of 20 minutes. Given disciplinary differences, the Program Committee elected to let presenters decide how to use that time themselves. We recommended 15-minute talks with 5 minutes for questions, but some panelists may depart from this model. Wait for the designated question and answer period to ask thoughtful and concise questions. questions. Follow the panel moderators instructions regarding when it is appropriate to ask questions. You will be given a mic, which you must use to ensure others are able to hear your question. Arrive on time for each panel session and stay for all scheduled papers during that session. Avoid entering or leaving the room during a presentation. If doing so is necessary, please be as quiet as possible. Follow OSUs code of conduct. Please note that OSU is a smoke-free campus. There is no smoking or vaping of any kind on campus property. If you are travelling from out-of-state, you might be excited about legal recreational cannabis in Oregon. However, because OSU receives federal funding, there can be no cannabis on campus. Anyone who violates these policies will be removed and registration fees will not be refunded. No recording or flash photography. While there is a recording culture in the Phish community, the norms are different in academia. Scholars use conferences to present works-in-progress and receive feedback from colleagues. OSU will record and archive presentations, but talks will only be published with the consent of individual presenters. Jamie Lee Meyer, 2019 Youre probably inquiring if we can still have fun. Of course, it wouldnt be a Phish Conference if there wasnt an adequate balance of work and play. In addition to a jam-packed academic program, the conference will feature: On May 17-19, Stephen Olkers Baker's Dozen mural, Magnaball "Drive In," and Gorge Amphitheater prints will be sold at the Phish Studies conference via silent auction. Our conference poster is by Jamie Lee Meyer and will be sold for $30. T-shirts featuring the conference logo, designed by Ryan Kerrigan, will be sold for $20. Proceeds will be donated to support registration scholarships for students and underemployed scholars attending the event. We are grateful for the artists generosity and honored to feature their artwork at Oregon State University. In planning this event, weve received a lot of messages thanking us for making dreams come true, but we dont know what yours are. Let us know in the comments. What is your Phish Studies dream? (Think: What is the best possible outcome for the first conference? Where would you like the field to be in 5 years? In 10 years?) If you keep your eyes open, you may find yourself there. 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 Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Prosecutors to seek seizure of $62 mln from Moscow Regions Klin Districts ex-head RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 11:56 15/05/2019 MOSCOW, May 15 (RAPSI) The Russian Prosecutor Generals Office will file a lawsuit to forfeit assets worth nearly 4 billion rubles (about $62 million) from the former head of the Moscow Regions Klin District Alexander Postrigan, who stands charged with abuse of power and forgery, to the state. The claim will be lodged with the Klin City Court of the Moscow Region, according to the statement released by the Prosecutor Generals Office. Prosecutors believe that ex-official used his job position for personal profit. He misappropriated 407 items of property including apartments, land plots, a recreational compound and others in the cadastral value of 935.7 million rubles, 4 cars totaling to 9.4 million rubles and monetary funds worth 3 billion rubles, the statement reads. Earlier, the Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow extended detention of Postrigan until May 27. According to Russias Investigative Committee, between 2011 and 2013, Postrigan being the head of the Klin Districts administration, signed a dwelling-house operation commencement act in in breach of law. However, investigators believe that the defendant knew for a fact that the required works were not executed onsite and that there was a material inconsistency of the constructed facility to the planning documentation. The building was commissioned, and people became inhabited there upon a program on removal from dilapidated housing. By now, defects that may lead to the building damage have been found, investigators claim. Prosecutor seeks 15.5-year imprisonment for former anti-corruption official Zakharchenko RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 17:30 15/05/2019 MOSCOW, May 15 (RAPSI) A prosecutor on Wednesday demanded a 15.5-year prison term and a 494-million-ruble fine for ex-Russian anti-corruption official Dmitry Zakharchenko, who stands charged with corruption crimes, RAPSI reported from the Presnensky District Court of Moscow. The prosecutor asked the court to pay attention to the high public danger of crimes Zakharchenko was accused of, qualifying them as some of the most dangerous for public guilty acts, which may be committed by law enforcement officers. Zakharchenko was arrested on September 8, 2016, on allegation of taking a 7-million-ruble (about $105,000) bribe. During searches at his sisters apartment law enforcement officers found around 9 billion rubles ($140 million). He denied any relation to the seized funds. According to investigators, in 2014, Zakharchenko and his accomplice received $800,000 from a restaurant businessman. Initially, they demanded 5 million rubles ($75,000). In 2015, they allegedly demanded from that businessman a 50% discount card of his restaurants, and therefore the defendant saved over 3.5 million rubles during bill payment. Moreover, investigators claim that in 2016, he warned a familiar woman about forthcoming searches as part of a fraud case and organized taking of all documents and office equipment out to prevent their seizure. In late April, his father Viktor Zakharchenko received 4 years in prison and a 800,000-ruble ($12,500) fine for embezzlement. State Duma passes capital amnesty bills in second reading RIA Novosti 12:43 15/05/2019 MOSCOW, May 15 (RAPSI) The State Duma passed a package of bills extending the timeline for capital amnesty in Russia until March 1, 2020, in the second reading on Wednesday. The proposed amendments will promote favourable conditions for the transfer of assets to the Russian jurisdiction, the bills sponsors believe. The capital amnesty was implemented in Russia in two steps, from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016, and from March 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019. According to the legislative measure, applicants were able to voluntary declare their bank accounts and deposits in foreign banks. They were also able to declare their accounts and deposits opened before the set date but closed before filing an application. The applicants, who did so, were indemnified against tax, administrative and criminal liability. Under the proposed amendments, the timeline for the voluntary declaration of assets and bank accounts by individuals would be extended subject to repatriation obligation, official registration under the re-domiciliation of foreign firms controlled by them in special administrative areas of Russia. Certain fiscal loosening would be also given to such applicants. The provided guarantees would be extended to applicants actions committed prior to January 1, 2019. E-voting bill faces second reading in Russias lower house of parliament RIA Novosti, Ruslan Krivobok 16:58 15/05/2019 MOSCOW, May 15 (RAPSI) The State Duma will consider a bill envisaging a test remote voting via electronic communications during the elections to the Moscow parliament in the second reading on May 16, the Moscow City Duma Chairman Alexey Shaposhnikov has told journalists. Under the draft law, the test voting is to be conducted in only one city district. The remote voting would require changes and development of public control over the elections, Alexander Brod, a member of the Presidential Council of Human Rights, said earlier. Previously, the Central Election Commission (CEC) proposed to ease the procedure governing the elections of municipal lawmakers. As noted by Maxim Grigoryev, a member of the Civic Chamber, the measure will enable small political parties and those outside the Parliament to take a more active stand in the political life in Russia. CEC, Grigoriev pointed out, has also plans to improve the procedures on the participation of observers in the elections. The Moscow City Duma election will be held on September 8. Pompano Beach, FL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 05/15/2019 --MJ Tax Services is a well-known enterprise that offers its services to the various communities residing in the state of Florida. This organization has built quite a reputation for itself among the people of the community and enjoys their trust to a great extent. They have primarily have emerged as a premier 'one-stop shop' for services that are needed for the purpose for meeting to various daily needs and requirements of the families, as well as businesses situated throughout the area of South Florida. From them, people can easily purchase affordable and all-inclusive health, commercial and auto insurance in Tamarac and Coral Springs Florida. The house people live in, as well as the various items present inside it, including clothing, furniture, and electronics typically cost an enormous sum of money. To protect their clients from financial liabilities relating to it, MJ Tax Services offers comprehensive home insurance in Tamarac and Margate Florida. With such insurance plans, people would be able to enjoy the coverage required to protect themselves from financial hardships in case of theft, fire or any such event. The assistance of MJ Tax Services is quite popularly sought after by a diverse set of people, including established businesses, long-time residents, first-time homeowners, as well as brand-new immigrants of South Florida. The key focus of this company lies in ensuring that their discerning clients get adequate opportunities to enjoy their life to the best possible extent, without coming across any severe complications and hassles. They strive to provide optimal assurance of the fact that their clients get the chance to adequately thrive and prosper in the contemporary world while being equipped with the extensive range of services offered by them. From them, people can even acquire assistance regarding tax prep and planning. Give MJ Tax Services a call at 561-779-9423 to contact them. About MJ Tax Services MJ Tax Services largely provides its services to the people belonging to various regions of Florida. ABC/Craig SjodinWhen the American Idol finale rolls around this Sunday night, we'll finally get to see judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan perform -- along with a couple of American Idol alumni and various country, rock and pop acts. The website GoldDerby.com has a preview of exactly who's singing what come Sunday night. According to GoldDerby, Katy Perry will sing her hit "Unconditionally" with top-10 finalist Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon, and will perform her latest single, "Con Calma," with Latin star Daddy Yankee. Lionel Richie will sing his classic "Dancing on the Ceiling" with the top 10, and Luke will sing "Every Breath You Take" with Laci Kaye Booth, as well as his current single, "Knockin' Boots." American Idol season eight runner-up Adam Lambert, one of this season's mentors, will sing his new single, "New Eyes," and will also rock Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" with top-10 finalist Dimitrius Graham. American Idol season four winner Carrie Underwood will perform her latest hit, "Southbound." Kool & the Gang will appear to sing a medley of their hits Hollywood Swinging, Ladies Night and Celebrate with the entire top 10, while Montell Jordan will sing "This Is How We Do It" -- the song Katy Perry did the worm to during the audition rounds -- with contestants Austin Michael and Margie Mays. Rock band Weezer will sing their cover versions of Toto's "Africa," A-Ha's "Take On Me" and Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" with Walker Burroughs and Wade Cota. Finally, Madison VanDenburg will sing "All to Myself" and "Speechless" with country duo Dan + Shay, and Laine Hardy will sing two tracks with country star Jon Pardi. But what Alejandro Aranda will sing remains a mystery. The American Idol finale airs Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday attacked the Congress saying it has been standing with the "tukde-tukde" gang and joined hands with those who care less about the country and more about themselves. "Desh ko tukde tukde karne wale ke sath Congress khadi hai," Modi said, addressing an election meeting at Paliganj in Patliputra constituency in Patna district. Modi complained to the public that those people have been hurling abuses at him and trying to damage his image and defame him. He appealed to the people not to support and vote for any party that could disintegrate the country. "Elect a strong government that will protect the interest of the country." He urged them to vote for a party that will work for development, progress and growth of the nation. He said: "130 crore people of the country have faith in me and my leadership." Modi claimed that people, particularly the youths, have been getting cheapest internet in the country. "World's cheapest internet is in India." He said his real capital was people's love for him and he was getting overwhelming blessings and support throughout his campaign. He requested people to support and vote for BJP candidate and Union Minister Ram Kirpal Yadav from Patliputra seat, who is pitted against RJD's Misha Bharti. The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the West Bengal government over the delay in the release of BJP Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma from jail despite its order for her "immediate release". On Tuesday, the apex court granted bail to Sharma, who was arrested on May 10 for a meme on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, adding that she should apologize in writing upon her release for posting the morphed picture of the Trinamool Congress supremo. Sharma's counsel and senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul informed the court on Wednesday that she was not freed on Tuesday as jail authorities wanted certified copies of the court's order. He said Sharma was finally released at 9.40 a.m. on Wednesday. A vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna still wanted to know why Sharma was not released immediately after the apex court's order. The bench told the government counsel that if Sharma had not been released, the court would have issued contempt. The top court observed that the arrest was prime facie arbitrary. Kaul also informed the bench that the police had prepared a closure report in the matter but it did not bring it on record during the court the proceedings on Tuesday. The court said it will take up the apology issue in July. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader was accused of sharing on social media a photo of Banerjee photoshopped on a picture of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra from last week's MET Gala event in New York City. Jakarta, Indonesia -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/14/2019 -- Cookies have been known by people around the globe for a long time as one of the most popular snacks to indulge and also serve as a complement for tea, coffee or milk. As the time goes by, there are many different types of cookies have been created, in different flavours, variants and shapes. Denmark is one of the countries which famous with its cookies, especially the iconic Danish butter cookies, Danisa. For decades, Danisa Butter Cookies has been producing its world-renowned butter cookies which originated from the traditional treats enjoyed by the European nobility. Based on its history, Danisa Butter Cookies mostly enjoyed during the feast event, like Christmas celebrations, summer and winter festival. Therefore, we have 4 reasons why you should try Danisa Butter Cookies. 1.Made with an Authentic Danish Recipe Danisa Butter Cookies is made using authentic Danish recipe that passed down through generations of master bakers and combining the finest quality of butter, milk, and all-natural ingredients. It is loved for its perfectly baked golden crispy, great buttery aroma and delicious butter cookies that melts in the mouth. 2.Guaranteed Quality Unparalleled craftsmanship and consistency has established Danisa as one of the world's most sought-after treat. Production of Danisa Butter Cookies is strictly supervised and approved by Master Bakers from Danish Speciality Foods Denmark. The richness and flavor of the dough itself is then thoroughly examined by our master bakers. Once it has earned their seal of approval, the dough goes through several zones of ovens to be transformed into the perfect golden brown, buttery, and crisp cookies. 3.World's Leading Butter Cookies The superiority of authentic Danish recipe and the finest quality ingredients have made Danisa as the world's leading butter cookies that delights consumers in many countries across five continents. For the passion for perfection, and high attention to detail, to become the luscious range of cookies that offers the symbol of quality and prestige. Danisa has a strong presence across the globe in more than 100 countries around the world, with a leading position in cookies category. 4.Variety in Flavors and Delicacy Danisa is a range of luxurious butter cookies. It is made with intricate and meticulous details and can be tasted in many varieties. Danisa Butter Cookies consist of 5 types of cookies Harvest Moon, Butter Pretzel, Sugar Slice, Vanilla Ring, and Currant Crunch for taste matched by no other cookies. Moreover, aside of its Traditional Butter Cookies, Danisa also provides perfect indulgence through Danisa Choco Cashew Butter Cookies, this one is combining the earthy goodness of cashew nuts with real chocolate and our time-honored Danisa Traditional Butter Cookies, and Danisa Currant Crunch Butter Cookies with chosen of fresh currant fruit, that perfectly creates a unique taste experience of sweet-tart flavor with a crisp and crunchy texture. Those are the reasons why you should try Danisa Butter Cookies. Danisa Butter Cookies is made with Authentic Danish Recipe, to accompany the intimate delightful time with your closest ones. Made using the finest quality ingredients for the excellent quality favors, Danisa Butter Cookies offers luxurious variants of traditional butter cookies, Choco cashew butter cookies, and currant butter cookies. Delighting consumers around the globe with its buttery aroma, golden color, and taste that melts in the mouth, Danisa Butter Cookies is superior in taste and premium quality. As a result, you would feel proud to give Danisa prestigious butter cookies as a gift to your loved ones. Along with the massive demand for Danisa Butter Cookies from many countries, Danisa Butter Cookies conducts business cooperation by licensing agreement with PT. Mayora Indah, Tbk to produce and market Danisa worldwide. The production of Danisa butter cookies by PT. Mayora Indah, Tbk is strictly supervised by Danish Specialty Foods to meet the consistent requirement of the original Danish recipe and to ensure that Danisa Butter Cookies hold the same consistent quality globally. Selbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is a NOx emission control technique applicable to a wide range of diesel engines from light-, medium- and heavy-duty diesel engines right up to two-stroke low-speed marine engines. The configuration of an EGR system depends on the required EGR rate and other demands of the particular application. According to the report, one of the key drivers of the market is the regulation of NOx emission from diesel and gasoline engines. To comply with rigorous NOx emission regulations, a combination of NOx reduction catalysts and EGR systems is used. Vehicles in European countries undergo stringent checks for compliance with emission standards. Japan and the US have adopted similar regulations. Governments issue such emission regulations to reduce the effects of harmful gases on human health and the environment. The primary aim of these legislations is to reduce the release of NOx and PM from the vehicle's fuel. Request a sample Report of Automotive EGR System Market at: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/1583969?utm_source=Releasewire&utm_medium=VS At present, the leading companies in the market are BorgWarner, Denso, Rheinmetall Automotive, Delphi and Continental, this top 5 player occupied about 55% market share in 2016. The market size of global automotive exhaust gas recirculation systems was about 2280 M$ in 2016. In 2013, the consumption of global automotive exhaust gas recirculation valves and coolers grew at a double digit growth rate for the emission regulations effects, while in China, due to the China IV emission standard, the rapid growth in the consumption of automotive exhaust gas recirculation valves occurred in 2014. The growth of the Global Automotive EGR systems market may be impacted by the increased adoption of SCR over EGR systems technology, which has led to a decrease in the usage of EGR systems. SCR is a technology adopted by many automobile manufacturers, which uses AdBlue to convert excessive NOx gases into water and nitrogen. The major challenge in this market is the adoption of SCR over EGR in diesel engines. SCR is a technology that converts the excessive NOx gases produced in the engine to water and nitrogen. It enables the engine to operate under optimized combustion conditions such as high temperature, high peak pressure, and excess oxygen. A brief outline of the Automotive EGR System market scope: Global industry remuneration Individualized and overall growth rate Market trends Competitive reach Product spectrum Application terrain Distributor analysis Sales channel evaluation Marketing channel trends Now and later Market Competition Trend Market Concentration Rate One of the most vital pointers that makes the Automotive EGR System market report worth a purchase is the extensive overview of the competitive spectrum of the vertical. The study efficiently segregates the Automotive EGR System market into BorgWarner, Denso, Rheinmetall Automotive, Continental, Delphi, Korens, Mahle, Keihin, Eberspacher, Faurecia, Tenneco, Longsheng Technology, MEET Automotive, Klubert + Schmidt, Yibin Tianruida, Gits Manufacturing, Zhejiang Jiulong and Yinlun Machinery, as per the competitive hierarchy. In essence, these companies have been vying with one another to accrue a near-dominant position in the industry. Ask for Discount on Automotive EGR System Market Report at: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/1583969?utm_source=Releasewire&utm_medium=VS The report supplies substantial data regarding the market share that every one of these companies currently garner across this business, in tandem with the market share that they are expected to procure by the end of the forecast period. Also, the report elaborates on details pertaining to the products manufactured by each of these firms, that would help new entrants and prominent stakeholders work on their competition and strategy portfolios. Not to mention, their decision-making process is liable to get easier on account of the fact that the Automotive EGR System market report also enumerates a gist of the product price trends and the profit margins of each firm in the industry. Questions that the Automotive EGR System market report answers with respect to the regional terrain of the business space: The regional spectrum, as per the report, is segregated into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America & Middle East and Africa. Which among these zones is most likely to accrue the maximum market share by the end of the forecast duration? How much is the sales estimates of each firm in question? Also, how strong do the revenue statistics stand pertaining to the current market scenario? What exactly is the remuneration that each geography holds at present? How much revenue will every region including North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America & Middle East and Africa account for, by the end of the projected timeframe? How much is the growth rate which each geography is estimated to depict over the estimated timeline? Important takeaways from the study: The Automotive EGR System market report plays host to a plethora of deliverables that may prove highly beneficial. Say for example, the report underlines the information pertaining to market competition trends highly essential data subject to competitor intelligence and the ongoing market trends that would enable shareholders to stay competitive and make the most of the growth opportunities prevailing in the Automotive EGR System market. Another vital takeaway from the report can be credited to the market concentration rate that would aid investors to speculate on the current sales dominance and the plausible trends of the future. Further deliverables provided in the report include details regarding the sales channels deployed by prominent vendors in order to retail their stance in the industry. Some of these include direct and indirect marketing. What questions does the report answer with respect to the segmentation of the Automotive EGR System market? Which among EGR Valves, EGR Coolers, EGR Sensors and ECU the various product types, is likely to procure the largest share in the Automotive EGR System market? What is the market share held by each product type? How much is the sales estimates as well as projected valuation of every product segment in the industry by the end of the projected timeframe? Which of the various application spanning Diesel Engine and Gasoline Engine may emerge to be a highly profitable vertical in the Automotive EGR System market? How much share does each application account for in the Automotive EGR System market? How much is the remuneration which every application is likely to register by the end of the projected duration? Key questions answered in the Automotive EGR System Market report: What will the Automotive EGR System Market Size and the Growth rate be in future? What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Automotive EGR System market? Who are the key manufacturers of Automotive EGR System industry: Company Introduction, Product Specification and Major Types Analysis, Production Market Performance, Sales Market Performance, Contact Information? What are the types and applications of Automotive EGR System? What is the market share of each type and application: production, revenue, price, Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type? What are the upstream raw materials and manufacturing equipment of Automotive EGR System Market? Up Stream Industries Analysis, Raw Material and Suppliers, Equipment and Suppliers, Manufacturing Analysis, Manufacturing Process, Manufacturing Cost Structure, Manufacturing Plants Distribution Analysis, Industry Chain Structure Analysis What is the (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, China, Japan) production, production value, consumption, consumption value, import and export of Automotive EGR System? What are the Automotive EGR System market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Automotive EGR System Industry? For More Details On this Report: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-automotive-egr-system-market-2019-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2024 Some of the Major Highlights of TOC covers: 3 Global Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue, Market Share and Competition by Manufacturer (2017-2018) 3.1 Global Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Manufacturer (2017-2018) 3.2 Global Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Manufacturer (2017-2018) 3.3 Market Concentration Rate 3.3.1 Top 3 Automotive EGR System Manufacturer Market Share in 2018 3.3.2 Top 6 Automotive EGR System Manufacturer Market Share in 2018 3.4 Market Competition Trend 4 Global Automotive EGR System Market Analysis by Regions 4.1 Global Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Regions 4.1.1 Global Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Regions (2014-2019) 4.1.2 Global Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2014-2019) 4.2 North America Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 4.3 Europe Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 4.4 Asia-Pacific Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 4.5 South America Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 4.6 Middle East and Africa Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 5 North America Automotive EGR System by Country 5.1 North America Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Country 5.1.1 North America Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 5.1.2 North America Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 5.2 United States Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 5.3 Canada Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 5.4 Mexico Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 6 Europe Automotive EGR System by Country 6.1 Europe Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Country 6.1.1 Europe Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 6.1.2 Europe Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 6.2 Germany Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 6.3 UK Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 6.4 France Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 6.5 Russia Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 6.6 Italy Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 7 Asia-Pacific Automotive EGR System by Country 7.1 Asia-Pacific Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Country 7.1.1 Asia-Pacific Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 7.1.2 Asia-Pacific Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 7.2 China Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 7.3 Japan Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 7.4 Korea Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 7.5 India Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 7.6 Southeast Asia Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 8 South America Automotive EGR System by Country 8.1 South America Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Country 8.1.1 South America Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 8.1.2 South America Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 8.2 Brazil Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 8.3 Argentina Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 8.4 Colombia Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 9 Middle East and Africa Automotive EGR System by Countries 9.1 Middle East and Africa Automotive EGR System Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Country 9.1.1 Middle East and Africa Automotive EGR System Sales and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 9.1.2 Middle East and Africa Automotive EGR System Revenue and Market Share by Country (2014-2019) 9.2 Saudi Arabia Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 9.3 Turkey Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 9.4 Egypt Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 9.5 Nigeria Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) 9.6 South Africa Automotive EGR System Sales and Growth Rate (2014-2019) Read More Reports On: https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/At-92-CAGR-Capsule-Endoscopy-Market-Size-is-Expected-to-Exhibit-280-million-USD-by-2024-2019-05-10 Contact Us: Corporate Sales, Market Study Report LLC Phone: 1-302-273-0910 Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150 Email: sales@marketstudyreport.com Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- Cast saw devices are important orthopedic equipment employed in removal of casts that are utilized for fracture management. Bi-valving method is used to cut the cast with the help of an oscillating blade that is safe and prevents any cuts or injuries to the patient's skin, on contact. However, demand for cast saw devices is anticipated to increase during the forecast period owing to the rise in incidence of non-fatal injuries and growing burden of osteoporosis. Report Overview: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/cast-saw-devices-market.html The global cast saw devices market was valued at approximately US$ 150 Mn in 2017. It is anticipated to reach a value of nearly US$ 200 Mn by 2026, and expand at a CAGR of 4% from 2018 to 2026. Surge in incidence of non-fatal injuries and rising concerns about osteoporosis are likely to fuel the global cast saw devices market from 2018 to 2026. There are several unmet needs in global cast saw devices market, which create lucrative opportunities for existing players and new entrants, globally. For example, campaigns carried out by government and non-government organizations are likely to increase awareness among people regarding different orthopedic diseases. Additionally, the geriatric population is susceptible to numerous musculoskeletal diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Consistent rise in the geriatric population is anticipated to offer significant opportunity to the cast saw devices market during the forecast period. The global cast saw devices market has been segmented based on saw type, application, end-user, and region. In terms of saw type, the cast saw devices market has been classified into electric saw without vacuum, electric saw with vacuum, and battery operated saw. Expansion of the electric saw without vacuum segment can be attributed to the utility as well as cost associated with the device, which is significantly lower, as compared to that of the other saw types. Based on application, the cast saw devices market has been categorized into plaster of Paris (PoP) cast removal and fiberglass cast removal. Expansion of the fiberglass cast removal segment is attributed to the increasing preference for fiberglass cast over traditional plaster of Paris cast among patients as well as doctors and orthopedic cast technicians. The disadvantages associated with the use of plaster of Paris (POP) cast, such as extended drying period, excessive weight, and messy application process, are expected to decrease the usage of this cast in fracture management. These disadvantages of POP cast are projected to fuel the demand for fiberglass cast during the forecast period. Report Sample: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=53604 In terms of end-user, the cast saw devices market has been divided into hospitals, clinics, and ambulatory surgery centers. The hospitals segment is anticipated to hold a prominent share of the market by the end of 2026, as most trauma cases and those related to fractures are handled by hospitals. Additionally, increasing investments in hospitals across the globe is expected to further boost the segment during the forecast period. North America (NA) accounted for a notable share of the global cast saw devices market in 2017, followed by Europe. Increase in health hazards associated with dust released during cast removal and rise in awareness among doctors and patients about the benefits of electric saws with dust extraction systems are expected to fuel the demand for the cast saw devices during the forecast period. The fiberglass cast removal segment is anticipated to expand at a rapid pace during the forecast period. It is expected to be a highly lucrative segment from 2018 to 2026, due to increase in adoption of fiberglass cast among doctors and patients owing to benefits such as lightweight, water resistance, as compared to plaster of Paris cast removal. In Europe, Germany accounted for a significant share of the market in Europe in 2017. The country is expected to be a highly lucrative market and is expected to retain its market share during the forecast period, due to increasing number of fragility fractures. The cast saw devices market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to expand at a high CAGR due to the high frequency of road accidents and injuries and population in South Asia and China. According to the Australian Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, there were an estimated 5.08 deaths per 100,000 due to road accidents, in 2015. Likewise, Japan recorded an increase in number of deaths due to road accidents, around 4,117 deaths in 2015; as reported by the National Police Agency of Japan Key companies operating in the global cast saw devices market and profiled in the report include Essity Aktiebolag, De Soutter Medical, Smith & Nephew plc, Stryker Corporation, HEBU medical GmbH, McArthur Medical Sales, Inc., Medezine Ltd., Rimec S.R.L., Prime Medical, Inc., Shanghai Bojin Medical Instrument Co., Ltd., Hanshin Medical Co., Ltd., and OSCIMED SA. PDF Brochure: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=53604 About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge. Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMR's syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement. Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- According to the new market research report "Cell Expansion Market by Product (Reagent, Media, Flow Cytometer, Centrifuge, Bioreactor), Cell Type (Human, Animal), Application (Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cell Research, Cancer & Cell-based Research), End User, and Region - Global Forecast to 2024", published by MarketsandMarkets Growth in this market is largely driven by the increasing incidence of chronic diseases, government investments for cell-based research, growing focus on personalized medicine, increasing focus on R&D for cell-based therapies, and increasing GMP certifications for cell therapy production facilities. The media segment accounted for the largest share of the consumables segment in the Cell Expansion Market in 2018. On the basis of product type, the consumables market is segmented into media, reagents, sera, and disposables. In 2018, the media segment accounted for the largest share of the consumables segment in the Cell Expansion Market. The large share of this segment can be attributed to its high requirement during the production of pharmaceutical products and rising R&D investments on cell-based therapies. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=194978883 Browse and in-depth TOC on "Cell Expansion Market" 192 - Tables 35 - Figures 171 - Pages Increasing production of regenerative medicine in biotechnology & biopharmaceutical companies. Based on end users, the Cell Expansion Market has been segmented into research institutes, biotechnology & biopharmaceutical companies, cell banks, and other end users (includes hospitals, diagnostic centers, and laboratories). In 2018, biotechnology & biopharmaceutical companies were the largest end users in the Cell Expansion Market, and the trend is the same throughout the forecast period. Increasing production of regenerative medicine and rising awareness regarding advanced treatment methods such as personalized medicines and other cell-based therapies are the major driving factors for this segment. North America accounted for the largest share of the Cell Expansion Market in 2018. North America accounted for the largest share of the Cell Expansion Market in 2018. The large share of this segment can primarily be attributed to the rising incidence of cancer, increasing government funding, rising research activates on stem cell therapies, growing awareness regarding advanced treatment methods, growing geriatric population, and the strong presence of industry players in the region. Request Research Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=194978883 Some of the leading players in the Cell Expansion Market include Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (US), Becton, Dickinson and Company (US), Terumo BCT (Japan), Merck KGaA (Germany), Danaher Corporation (US), Miltenyi Biotec (Germany), Lonza Group Ltd. (Switzerland), STEMCELL Technologies Inc. (Canada), GE Healthcare (US), and Corning, Inc. (US). About MarketsandMarkets: MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA : +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- The cochineal is an insect from Dactylopius coccus family, from these insects natural food color dyecarminis derived. The female insect is dried and then dye is extracted from dried insect as well as from eggs. This extract is further mixed with calcium or aluminum salts to use as dye. Carmine is primarily used as a colorant in foodand in lipsticks. Cochineal extract is being used as colorant since centuries, it has wide applications as natural colorant into food, textile, medicine and personal care products. The cochineal insect farming is done to grow the particular insects for red color dye. The origin of cochineal insect is seen in Peru and Mexico. The insects are grown on specific type of cactus plant these insects grow on the moisture and nutrient contents of the cactus leaves. Insects are then collected and sun dried to produce extract. Dried cochineal, contains 17 % to 24% carminic acid, is carefully extracted in an acidic, aqueous, alcoholic solution to produce red, orange color dye. Cochineal Extract Market Segmentation: Cochineal extract market is segmented on the basis of its form, application and region. On the basis of forms, cochineal extract market is segmented into powders and liquid form. The cochineal extract is available in both water soluble as well as oil soluble. Cochineal extract market is segmented on the basis of its applications as food and beverages, textile/fabric, cosmetics & personal care, pharmaceuticals and others etc. Request to View Sample of Research Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2497 Cochineal extract market demand is considerably high in the food and beverage market segment as it is considered as natural color option where synthetic color is prohibited, and hence demanded as colorant in various food products such as bakery and confectionary, beverages, dairy products etc. Thus, food and beverages market segment is dominate market for cochineal extract. In cosmetics & personal care market segment cochineal extract is mainly used as colorant in skin care products, lipsticks, face powders, rouges, and blushes etc. Applications of cochineal extract in fabric/ textile segment is comparatively lesser as numerous new and synthetic color dye options are being invented, however in few of the markets it's still popular. In pharmaceutical market segment cochineal extract is basically used for color pills and ointments, however this segment comprises very small share of total market. Others market segment includes cochineal extract uses in the manufacturing of artificial flowers, paints and crimson ink. Cochineal extract market is further segmented on the basis of regions as North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, Europe, and Middle East and Africa. Latin America is major export market of cochineal extracts, Mexico and Peru being major regional producers. In European markets France is the major importer for cochineal extract. Due to various government bans on the uses of synthetic food colorant in Japan , Japan is also a becoming major importer for cochineal extract in coming years. CochinealExtractMarket Drivers: Cochineal extract is in high demand in several application sectors across the world. Principle factors driving market demand are continuous rising demand natural colorants. As synthetic colorant had proven allergic and hazardous for health, natural color market demand is high. Also rising market demand for natural products based cosmetics and skin care products is becoming another market driver for cochineal extract. Various government such as Japan has banned synthetic color uses in food and beverage products, this is driving natural colorant market demands such as cochineal extracts. Download TOC of Research Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2497 CochinealExtractMarket Restrains: Cochineal extract has no known health risks, number of people have been found to experience occupational asthma, foodand cosmetic allergies due to use of product containing cochineal extracts. Increasing vegan food culture and adoption of 100% plant food concept, many consumers are not ready to accept animal products and not preferring product labeled with cochineal extract or carmine as an ingredients. These are the main restraints for cochineal extract market. CochinealExtractMarket Key Players: Maximum amount of cochineal extract is produced in Mexico and Peru and get exported into global markets. Key players operating in cochineal extract market are DDW The Color House, Gentle world, Xian LiSheng-Tech Co., Ltd, Chr. Hansen Holding A/S, Colores Naturales EIRL, Lake Foods, and many of the local Mexican and Peru market players extract the cochineal product like Earthue, Biocon del Peru. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/14/2019 -- Market Industry Reports (MIR) has published a new report titled "Cosmetic Lasers Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 20192030." According to the report, the global cosmetic lasers market is estimated to be over US$ 1,500 Mn in 2018. It is anticipated to grow at a double digit CAGR from 2019 to 2030. Download Free Sample Copy @ https://www.marketindustryreports.com/pdf/47 The continual growth of the cosmetic lasers market can be attributed to several factors which have led to wide scale adoption of these products which are extensively used to improve physical appearance of patients. Moreover, the growing demand for cosmetic treatments and therapies across the globe is anticipated to further contribute to the substantial growth of the global cosmetic lasers market between 2019 and 2030. To obtain better insights regarding the market scenario prominent players are increasingly focusing on collaborative initiatives with several institutes and research centers. The Anglia Ruskin University, based in England, has entered into an agreement with Allergen Inc., a cosmetic lasers company, to develop educational program for practicing physicians in the Asia Pacific region on facial aesthetics. Rise in Medical Tourism Over the years, the emergence of medical tourism as a popular and profitable industry has played a vital role in contributing to the growth of the global cosmetic lasers industry. Several countries, namely India, Turkey, Thailand, Brazil and other developing countries have emerged as essential contributors to global medical tourism industry. Multiple factors have been responsible for attracting patients to tour worldwide for medical treatments. Cost effectiveness, availability of personalized and tailor-made services, better facilities, convenience, and advanced technologies have been vital in contributing to the medical travel facilities. In 2017, it was estimated that the total number of medical tourists across all countries was a staggering 14-16 million. It is further expected that the number of medical tourists travelling abroad seeking treatments will additionally increase at a rate of 25% every year. Cosmetic laser treatments have been one of the most lucrative therapy segments which have witnessed lucrative increment in terms of the number of medical tourist over the past few years. Attractive pricing coupled with availability of advanced technology has been a major driver for the global cosmetic lasers market, which is further anticipated to grow in the coming years. Browse key industry insights spread across 150 pages with market data tables & figures & charts from the report, Cosmetic Lasers Market by Product (Nd:YAG, Carbon Dioxide, Pulse Dyed-Laser (PDL), Diode and Er:YAG), Modality (Multiplatform and Standalone), Application (Hair Removal, Vascular Lesions, Body Contouring, Skin Resurfacing, and Scar & Acne Removal), End Users (Hospitals, Dermatology Clinics and Medical Spas) - Global Analysis & Forecast 2019-2030 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.marketindustryreports.com/47/cosmetic-lasers-market Increasing Adoption of Minimally-Invasive Procedures Since the advent of minimally-invasive procedures, the adoption of such procedures have witnessed substantial growth in recent times. Shorter hospital admittance time, lesser procedure associated pain and fewer complications have been pivotal in contributing to the growing adoption of minimally-invasive procedures. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the numbers of Americans opting for minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures have witnessed a growth of nearly 200% since 2000. In 2017, the total number of cosmetic procedures performed in U.S. was nearly 1.8 million. Growing preference for minimally-invasive cosmetic laser procedures in anticipated to further propel the growth of the cosmetic lasers market. Complications And Risk Related Associated with Cosmetic Procedures to Restrain the Market Various complications and risk related associated with cosmetic laser procedures have been affecting the growth of the cosmetic lasers industry inversely. Several complications such as nerve damage, infections, seroma and pulmonary embolism are known to cause serious adverse effects as a result of laser treatment procedures. Similarly, patients have reported granulomas, and infections as long-term adverse effects caused as a result of cosmetic procedures. Rapid Growth of the Asia Pacific Market Asia Pacific is estimated to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Increasing population, continuously growing economy, rising medical tourism and increasing awareness regarding cosmetic treatment, increasing preference for minimally invasive procedures and adoption of latest technologies is anticipated to present a lucrative growth scenario for the cosmetic lasers market in this region. Furthermore, attractive procedure rates, coupled with supportive government healthcare regulations and norms is expected to present an attractive growth prospect for the market in the coming years. Major Players in the Cosmetic Lasers Market The prominent players in the global cosmetic laserss market are Cutera, Inc, Cynosure (Hologic Inc.), Alma Lasers, Ltd. (Fosun Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.), SharpLight Technologies Inc, Aerolase Corp., Syneron Medical Ltd., Sciton, Inc., Solta Medical, Inc., Lumenis Ltd and El.En. S.P.Aamong others. Get Exclusive Discount @ https://www.marketindustryreports.com/discount/47 About Market Industry Reports Market Industry Reports is a global leader in market measurement & advisory services, Market Industry Reports is at the forefront of innovation to address the worldwide industry trends and opportunities. We identified the caliber of market dynamics & hence we excel in the areas of innovation and optimization, integrity, curiosity, customer and brand experience, and strategic business intelligence through our research. We continue to pioneer state-of-the-art approach in research & analysis that makes complex world simpler to stay ahead of the curve. By nurturing the perception of genius and optimized market intelligence we bring proficient contingency to our clients in the evolving world of technologies, megatrends and industry convergence. We empower and inspire Vanguards to fuel and shape their business to build and grow world-class consumer products. Contact Us- 502, Sai Radhe, Kennedy Road, Behind Hotel Sheraton Grand, Near Pune Station, Pune 411 001 Email: sales@marketindustryreports.com Phone: + 91 967353933 Website: https://www.marketindustryreports.com/ Follow Us- LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ | Facebook Portland, OR -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- Pest control is method of preventing, killing, or repelling attacks of pests such as insects, rodents, bed bugs, and others. These pests not only significantly damage the crops but also affect the human life through various diseases. Some of the professional pest control treatments to prevent pest population includes chemical, biological, and mechanical. Specifically in agriculture, chemical treatment are largely preferred to prevent pest attack on the crop to attain optimum crop yield. The aim behind pest control includes controlling the organisms that affect human activities adversely, without disturbing the ecosystem. The pest control services is initiated with the fundamental step that is inspection. The Europe pest control services market was valued at $2,517.2 million in 2017, and is expected to reach $4,025.5 million by 2025, registering a CAGR of 5.9% from 2018 to 2025. Europe is anticipated to witness increase in demand for pest control services due to new food safety and hygiene legislations, and adoption of integrated pest control management program by the European legislation for the sustainable use of pesticides. The Europe Pest control services market is expected to experience growth due to rise in awareness pertaining to outbreaks of diseases related to pests. However, toxic nature of pesticides, is the significant factor expected to hamper the Europe pest control services market growth during the forecast period. Furthermore, rise in R&D activities regarding biopesticides is anticipated to provide lucrative growth opportunity during the forecast period. Download Sample PDF Brochure at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5204 The Europe pest control services market is segmented into type, pest type, application, and region. Based on type, the Europe pest control services market is divided into chemical, mechanical, biological, and others. Based on pest type, the Europe pest control services market is classified into insects, termites, rodents, and others. Based on application, the Europe pest control services market is categorized into commercial, residential, agriculture, industrial, and others. Based on region the Europe pest control services market is analyzed across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and rest of Europe. Europe pest control services market share is dominant in the global pest control services market due to the presence of major players such as Anticimex, Rentokil, Ecolab, and The Servicemaster Company, LLC. Rentokil and Anticimex are one of the leading players in Europe and has a very strong pipeline of digital innovations, featuring unique, connected technology that provides immediate detection. Furthermore, acquisition is the key strategy adopted by the major players for expanding their business of pest control services. For instance, in June 2018, Anticimex has acquired South Coast Pest Control (SCPC) in Warrilla, NSW. South Coast Pest Control (SCPC), a well-known Australian brand has been offering pest management & hygiene services. The companys network of pest control & hygiene operators provides localized service across Australia and New Zealand, from over 36 branches and depots. This acquisition has reinforced its geographical presence. Western Europe emerged as the leading region in the Europe pest control services market. This is due to the presence of leading pesticides consuming countries such as German, France, UK, and Italy. However, France, is one of the leading food producing country in the world. Europe pest control services market analysis covers in depth information of major industry participants. Some of the major players in Europe pest control services market are Anticimex, Ecolab, Rentokil Initial PLC, Eastern Termite and Pest Control Co., Cleankill Pest Controls, JG Pest Control, Cleankill Pest Controls, Rollins, Inc., The ServiceMaster, Company LLC, and Nbc environment. The other players in the value chain include BASF, Bayer, Dodson Pest Control, Lindsey Pest Services, and Syngenta. Do Purchase Enquiry at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5204 Key Benefits for Europe Pest Control Services Market: - The report provides an in depth analysis of the Europe pest control services market forecast with current and future trends - This report highlights the key drivers, opportunities, and restraints of the market along with an impact analysis of the forecast period - Porters five forces analysis helps to analyse the potential of the buyers & suppliers and the competitive scenario of the Europe pest control services industry for strategy building - A comprehensive analysis of the factors that drive and restrain the growth of the Europe pest control services market is provided. - The qualitative data in this report aims on market dynamics, Europe pest control services market trends, and developments. - Europe pest control services market size is provided in terms of revenue. - An extensive analysis of various regions provides insights that are expected to allow companies to strategically plan their business moves. - s along with their key strategic developments are enlisted in the Europe pest control services reportThe profiles of key player Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- Psyllium is a form of fiber and comes under Plantaginaceae plant family. Psyllium is available in various forms such as psyllium seeds, psyllium husk, psyllium husk powder, psyllium industrial powder etc. Psyllium seeds can be consumed directly or in powdered form for medical purposes as it has various health benefits. Psyllium seed is a source of fiber, protein, and triglycerides. Psyllium seed also contains ascorbic acid, aucubin, beta-carotene, beta-sitosterol, potassium, riboflavin, selenium, sodium, chromium, cobalt, fiber, linoleic acid, magnesium etc. Psyllium seed can be marketed as whole seed or the husk or husk powder according to convenience of consumers. Psyllium seed is an intestinal cleanser and stool softener for both animals as well as humans therefore it is used as traditional medicinal herb in Asian countries. Market Segmentation: Psyllium seed market is segmented on the basis of application as therapeutics application, industrial application, animal feed etc. In therapeutics, Psyllium seed is used for constipation, diarrhea, high cholesterol, heart disease, blood pressure, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease. In industry, Psyllium seed is used to prevent soil erosion, prevent landscaping, preventing crumbling of solid ingredients as a result of moisture retention. In animal feed, psyllium seed husk is used to move sand from animal's digestive system without any harmful effect. Download Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3282 Psyllium seed market is segmented on the basis of industrial applications as food industry, pharmaceutical industry, and cosmetic industry. In food industry, psyllium seed can be powdered and used in health drinks, ice creams, breads, biscuits and other bakery products. Psyllium seed is also used in cereal breakfasts by many athletes. In pharmaceutical industry psyllium is used as thickening agent for capsule formation. In cosmetics industry, psyllium seeds can be used in forms like paste or power in anti-aging herbal products for skin care. Psyllium seed market is further segmented on the basis of regions as North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East and Africa. Market Regional Outlook: On the basis of regions, the Psyllium seed market has been segmented into North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, Middle East and Africa. Psyllium seed is originated from Iran and increased its travel from Asia to Europe. Production of psyllium seeds mainly comes from Arab world, Afghanistan, Egypt, North India, Sindh, Baluchistan etc. for medicinal purposes. Europe is emerging in psyllium seed market for consumption as well as production. Currently, India is the largest producer of psyllium seeds. Market Drivers and Trends: Psyllium seed have number of health benefits such as constipation, diarrhea, high cholesterol, heart disease, blood pressure, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease which is increasing demand for psyllium seeds in global market. Other applications of psyllium seed in various industries such as food industry, pharmaceutical industry, cosmetic industry is increasing which drives the market for psyllium seeds globally. Psyllium seed is used as an animal feed which is helping animals without any side effects, therefore the demand for psyllium seed as animal feed is gaining interest in global market which states that the psyllium seed market is expected to in forecast period. Psyllium seed Market Key Players: Some of the key players in the psyllium seed market include Keyur Industries, Atlas Industries, JYOT Overseas Pvt. Ltd., Abhyuday Indutries, Satnam Psyllium Industries, Rajganga Agro Product Pvt.Ltd., Shree Mahalaxmi psyllium Pvt. Ltd., Ispasen Remedies, Jyotindra International, Shubh Psyllium Industries are among these. Download Sample of Report with important Figures @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3282 Portland, OR -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- The Global Medical Device Outsourcing Market was valued at $44,326 million in 2016, and is projected to reach $83,952 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2017 to 2023. The electronics segment held more than two-fifth share of the total market in 2016. Medical device outsourcing involves taking the assistance of third-party companies to manufacture medical devices. Increase in geriatric population and rise in number of patients suffering from chronic disorders, such as spine disorders, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, are expected to drive the market growth. Moreover, outsourcing also allows the companies to focus on their core activities, which in turn boosts the market growth. However, threat of loss of confidential information is expected to impede the market growth. Download PDF Report Sample @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/1436 Asia-Pacific is projected to register the highest CAGR of 10.5% during the forecast period, owing to low labor costs, low overhead expenses, and improving technical abilities to produce class III medical devices. In addition, tax breaks and incentives such as lowered tariffs and duties to foreign companies in these nations offer a lucrative opportunity for the market growth. The major companies profiled Are: - Celestica, Inc. - Creganna - Flextronics International Ltd. - Heraeus Holding - Integer Holdings Corporation - Nortech Systems, Inc. - Plexus Corp. - Sanmina Corporation - Tecomet, Inc. - West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. Get a purchase enquiry @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/1436 Finished device manufacturing segment is expected to dominate the market throughout the analysis period, owing to increase in demand for affordable devices. Testing and regulatory support services is expected to register highest CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period. Key Findings of the Medical Device Outsourcing Market: - Finished goods segment is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period. - Class II devices accounted for more than half of the share of the global medical device outsourcing market, in 2016. - In terms of application, cardiovascular segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 9.9% during the analysis period. - Prototype & development is expected to grow at the CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period. - France and Germany collectively contributed for more than two-fifth share of the European medical device outsourcing market in 2016. - Japan is the major shareholder, accounting for more than one-third share of the Asia-Pacific medical device outsourcing market in 2016. Access Full report @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/medical-devices-outsourcing-market About Us: Allied Market Research, a market research and advisory company of Allied Analytics LLP, provides business insights and market research reports to large as well as small & medium enterprises. The company assists its clients to strategize business policies and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. Allied Market Research provides one stop solution from the beginning of data collection to investment advice. The analysts at Allied Market Research dig out factors that help clients to understand the significance and impact of market dynamics. The company amplies client's insight on the factors, such as strategies, future estimations, growth or fall forecasting, opportunity analysis, and consumer surveys among others. As follows, the company offers consistent business intelligent support to aid the clients to turn into prominent business firm. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Toll Free (USA/Canada): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1?855?550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Web: www.alliedmarketresearch.com New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/14/2019 -- Market Industry Reports (MIR) has published a new report titled "Monocyte Activation Test Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 20192030." The global Monocyte Activation Test market was valued at over US$ 6.5 Mn. in 2018 and is expected to grow at a double digit CAGR during the forecasted period. Download Free PDF Sample Copy @ https://www.marketindustryreports.com/pdf/48 Major Players in the Monocyte Activation Test Market The prominent players in the global monocyte activation test market are Merck KGaA, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Sanquin, Charles River Laboratories International, Inc., Microcoat Biotechnologie GmbH, SOLVIAS AG and Lonza Group among others. The global monocyte activation test market is witnessing continuous advancements in test offerings and extensive growth in the product portfolio of major as well as local manufacturers. The growth of the global monocyte activation test market is attributed to increasing number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries globally, rising research and development, increased investments and surge in new drug approval activities. Additionally, a proposed ban on animal tests has resulted in reducing the use of the rabbit for pyrogen test. This is one of the significant factors that is driving the growth of monocyte activation tests globally. Increase in public and regulatory concerns about product safety further support the market growth. Ban on Animal-based Pyrogen Test by Several Regulatory is likely to Boost Monocyte Activation Tests Market Animals are used to test both the safety and efficacy of therapeutic drugs, cosmetics, household products, and chemicals. Fortunately there are developing numbers of effective non-animal alternatives that can replace the use of animals in pyrogen testing. Moreover, many countries have regulatory requirements that stipulate a ban on animal based pyrogen testing. There have been major changes in the European Union in recent years. In the EU the use of animals for pyrogen testing of cosmetic products has been banned since 2009, the use of animals for the testing of cosmetic ingredients also has been banned since March 2013. Furthermore, the EU banned the sale of any cosmetics tested on animals from March 2013 onwards. Israel imposed similar cosmetic testing bans in 2007 and 2013, and similar policy change is under consideration in India and South Korea. These factors are anticipated to present a lucrative growth opportunity for the global monocyte activation test market in the coming years. Browse key industry insights spread across 150 pages with market data tables & figures & charts from the report, Monocyte Activation Test Market by Product (Monocyte Activation Test Kits and Reagents), Source (Blood Based, Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell (PBMC) Based, and Cell Line Based), Application (Medical Devices, Lipid Parenteral, Dialysis Liquids, Blood Products, and Toxic/immune-modulatory Drugs) and Region - Global Forecast to 2023 - Global Analysis & Forecast, 2019-2030 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.marketindustryreports.com/48/monocyte-activation-test-market Increasing Investments in R&D Rising prevalence and incidences of several diseases worldwide has triggered the need for advanced R&D scenario across all sectors of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and research establishments. Both public and private sectors are now focusing on new innovative techniques to obtain latest medical breakthroughs. According to studies, it was estimated that the total spending on R&D by mid-market biotechnology companies, witnessed an increment of approximately 18% between 2015 and 2016. Growing need to address several forms of ailments has been crucial in dictating the funding and R&D spending by government establishments as well as major market players and other research institutes. Increasing R&D investments and spending is anticipated to positively contribute to the growth of the global monocyte activation test market. Inadequate supply of MAT test kits & reagents to Restrain Global Market According to WHO (World Health Organization), only 12.5 million blood donations are collected globally, and approximately half of these are collected in high-income countries, which is home to 19% of the world's population. Thus, inadequate number of healthy blood donors hampers the manufacturing of MAT kits & reagents which eventually effects the growth of the global market. Moreover, there is an increase in application of pyrogen tests in various fields, whereas initially pyrogen test was introduced only for pharmaceutical products. However, presently it is being used on medical devices, implants, purification of water, and food & beverages industries. Rapid Growth of the Asia Pacific Market Asia Pacific is estimated to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Increasing growth of the R&D infrastructure, continuously growing economy, and proposed ban of animal-based pyrogen test by many South Asian countries is anticipated to present a lucrative growth scenario for the monocyte activation test market in this region. Furthermore, increasing R&D expenditures in the region is expected to present an attractive growth prospect for the market in the coming years. Get Exclusive Discount @ https://www.marketindustryreports.com/discount/48 About Market Industry Reports Market Industry Reports is a global leader in market measurement & advisory services, Market Industry Reports is at the forefront of innovation to address the worldwide industry trends and opportunities. We identified the caliber of market dynamics & hence we excel in the areas of innovation and optimization, integrity, curiosity, customer and brand experience, and strategic business intelligence through our research. We continue to pioneer state-of-the-art approach in research & analysis that makes complex world simpler to stay ahead of the curve. By nurturing the perception of genius and optimized market intelligence we bring proficient contingency to our clients in the evolving world of technologies, megatrends and industry convergence. We empower and inspire Vanguards to fuel and shape their business to build and grow world-class consumer products. Contact Us- 502, Sai Radhe, Kennedy Road, Behind Hotel Sheraton Grand, Near Pune Station, Pune 411 001 Email: sales@marketindustryreports.com Phone: + 91 967353933 Website: https://www.marketindustryreports.com/ Follow Us- LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ | Facebook Maharashtra, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- New study on Industrial Growth of Diabetes Mellitus Treatment Market 2019-2025: Diabetes mellitus (DM), commonly known as diabetes, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by high blood sugar levels over a prolonged period. There are two predominant types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes patients are typically diagnosed in childhood, and their bodies are not able to produce insulin. Type 1 accounts for less than 10% of diabetes patients, but the smaller population doesn't equate to minimal revenues. Synthetic insulin, the go-to treatment for type 1 diabetes, can also be prescribed to type 2 diabetes patients not responding to other treatments. Type 2 diabetes is more common and differs from type 1 because the body produces insulin but isn't able to process it correctly. Patients are typically diagnosed over the age of 30, there tends to be a genetic predisposition, and obesity is closely related to this type. Request a Sample of this report at:https://www.reportsmonitor.com/request_sample/479879 The Top Leading players operating in the market: Covered in this Report: Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, MannKind, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca & More. Market segment by Type, the product can be split into: Type 1 Diabetes Type 2 Diabetes Market segment by Application, split into: Children Adults The Old Global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment Market: Regional Segmentation For further clarification, analysts have also segmented the market on the basis of geography. This type of segmentation allows the readers to understand the volatile political scenario in varying geographies and their impact on the global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market. On the basis of geography, the global market for Diabetes Mellitus Treatment has been segmented into: North America (United States, Canada, and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, and Italy) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia) South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, etc.) Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa) Key Developments in the Diabetes Mellitus Treatment Market: Major developments in 2018 covered in the report And the latest major developments in 2019 covered in the report. Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount! Please click Here@ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/check_discount/479879 Reasons to buy: The points that are talked over within the report are the major Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market players that influence the market such as raw material suppliers, manufacturers, equipment suppliers, end users, traders, distributors etc. The all-inclusive profile of the companies is specified. The production, price, capacity, revenue, cost, gross, gross margin, sales volume, sales revenue, consumption, growth rate, import, export, future strategies, supply, and the technological developments that they are creating are also incorporated within the report. Besides the historical data from 2012 to 2019 and forecast data from 2019 to 2025. The growth factors of the Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market are deeply discussed while the different end users of the market are underlined. Data and information by manufacturer, by region, by type, by application and etc., and custom research can be added in line with the specific requirements. The report also considers the SWOT analysis of the market. Finally, the report concludes with the opinions of the industry experts. Key Questions Answered: What will be the size and CAGR of the global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market in the next five years? Which segment will take the lead in the global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market? What is the average manufacturing cost? What are the key business tactics adopted by top players of the global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market? Which region will secure a lion's share of the global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market? Which company will show dominance in the global Diabetes Mellitus Treatment market? Click to view the full report details, Reports TOC, Figure and Tables@ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/report/479879/Diabetes-Mellitus-Treatment-Market About Reports Monitor Reports Monitor is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. With an intrinsic understanding of many business environments, Reports Monitor provides strategic objective insights. Sellbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Technology Market in 3D motion segment is projected to grow at the fastest rate over the forecast timespan. The 3D technology is rapidly being adopted by various applications including AR, UAV, and robotics. With an increase in the adoption of handheld devices, the Handheld Augmented Reality (HAR) introduces AR to numerous consumers. These devices lack the potential to get the precise 3D positioning of the objects as they are unable to correctly map the 3D environment. The usage of SLAM enables exact 3D positioning of virtual objects to the actual environment with improved efficiency and reduced time, accelerating its demand in the market. Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2928 The manufacturing and logistics segments in the simultaneous localization and mapping technology market are projected to grow at a CAGR of 72.8 percent over the forecast timespan. The integration of SLAM into an automatic guided vehicle within a manufacturing system assists in pick & place tasks, allowing the automated guided vehicle to pick and deliver products with the manufacturing system. Furthermore, extensive R&D activities are going on in this field to develop innovative SLAM-based manufacturing applications, enhancing its capability and functionality features. The commercial sector dominates the global simultaneous localization and mapping technology market with an industry revenue of USD 22.2 million in 2017 anticipated to reach USD 933.4 million by 2024. Various industries using the SLAM technology include healthcare, hospitality, construction, service, education, automotive, retail, and wholesale departments. The healthcare department requires image guidance systems for performing critical surgeries. These systems must be capable of displaying a detailed computer-based 3D visualization that enables the surgeon to rotate the 3D model on the computer for gaining an enhanced understanding of the location of the robot with respect to the anatomical target. Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Technology Market in autonomous vehicle platform segment is anticipated to grow at the fastest rate over 2018-2024. The car makers and technology companies are together working toward improving the reliability and mechanics of self-driving vehicles. Various companies are investing in the autonomous vehicle industry to meet the growing customer safety requirements. This radar works efficiently regardless of the exterior conditions, providing accurate vision to the autonomous vehicle. Along with the radar, the company uses SLAM algorithm, providing improved target separation, enhanced resolution, and removal of false alarms, expanding its adoption rate in the SLAM technology market. Make an inquiry for buying this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2928 The Asia Pacific simultaneous localization and mapping technology market is anticipated to grow at the fastest rate due to the presence of a large number of electronics and automotive industries with low manufacturing cost units. The increasing demand for automation in various sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and agriculture and the rising aging population also contribute to the market growth. There is also an increase in the demand for the advanced robotics technology from SMEs for improving the production quality and efficiency, accelerating the SLAM technology adoption rate. The extensive use of software-assisted SLAM technology in drones and driverless cars is poised to fuel the simultaneous localization & mapping technology market trends over the years ahead. Taking into account the capability of this system to discover the complex obstacles in the absence of GPS, myriad countries have been deploying drones installed with SLAM technology for surveillance and protecting international borders. In addition, the growing preference for drones across mining and construction projects for the facility management, security, and mapping is slated to enhance the product demand. With the surging use of real-time 3D maps, simultaneous localization and mapping technology market will surpass a revenue collection of USD 2 billion by the end of 2024. Browse Full Report: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/simultaneous-localization-and-mapping-slam-technology-market About Global Market Insights Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- The latest market intelligence study on the Sodium Gluconate Market applies the best of both primary and secondary research techniques to bring to light the growth rate of the Sodium Gluconate Market for the forecast period, 2019 - 2025. The comprehensive study covers hard to find facts about the market landscape as well as its growth prospects in the years to come. Most importantly, the research report includes vital statistics about the major vendors occupying a strong foothold in this industry. Besides this, in order to calculate the market share, the study takes a closer look at the selling price of the product across different regions. Request for Sample Copy of Sodium Gluconate Market Report @ https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/sample/30342 Scope of the Report: The researcher assessing the Sodium Gluconate Market dive deep to unearth intangible facts related to the key restraints, opportunities, and threats expected to shape the progress of the industry during the forecast period, 2019 - 2025. Significant evaluation of other factors such as demand and supply status, import and export, distribution channel, consumption volume, and production capability play a vital role in offering business owners, stakeholders and field marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the same space. All important data are presented in self-explanatory charts, tables and graphic images that can be incorporated into any business presentation. Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers: Xiwang Group, Shandong Fuyang, Shandong Parkson, Zhucheng Dongxiao, Wanshang Group, Shandong Qilu Group, Weifang Honghai, Qingdao Kehai, Shandong Kaison, Shandong Xinhong Market Segment by Type, covers: - Industrial Grade - Industrial Grade - Food Grade - Other Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into: - Construction - Industrial - Other Buy Sodium Gluconate Market Report@ https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/checkout/30342 The study explores in details about the recent trend fast gaining momentum in the Sodium Gluconate industry due to factors including but not limited to growing customer preference and a sudden rise in their spending capacity. Aspects attributed to the gross margin, profit, supply chain management and product value and their considerable impact on the development of the Sodium Gluconate Market during the forecast period, 2019 - 2025 is carefully scrutinized during the research. Estimating the potential size of the Sodium Gluconate industry: Industry experts conducting the study further estimate the potential of the Sodium Gluconate industry. Such information is important for firms looking to launch an innovative service or product on the market. Industry experts have measured the total volume of the given market. Researchers have calculated the industry in terms of sales by the competitors and end-user customers. Data on the entire size of the Sodium Gluconate Market for a particular product or a service for the forecast period, 2019 to 2025 covered in the report makes it valuable. This information reveals the upper limit of the Sodium Gluconate industry for a specific product or service. Exploring growth rate over a period: Business owners looking to scale up their business can refer this report that contains data regarding the rise in sales within a given consumer base for the forecast period, 2019 to 2025. Product owners can use this information along with the driving factors such as demographics and revenue generated from other products discussed in the report to get a better analysis of their products and services. Besides, the research analysts have compared the market growth rate with the product sales to enable business owners to determine the success or failure of a specific product or service. The research provides answers to the following key questions: - What is the estimated size of the Sodium Gluconate Market for the forecast period, 2019 - 2025? What will be the growth rate of the industry during the estimated period? - What are the prominent driving forces likely to impact the progress of the industry across different regions? - Who are the major market players occupying a strong foothold in the Sodium Gluconate market? What are the winning strategies adopted by them to stay ahead in the competition? - What are the potential opportunities for the Sodium Gluconate Market for the forecast period, 2019 - 2025? Read More @ https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/30342/sodium-gluconate-market There are 14 Chapters to deeply display the global Sodium Gluconate market. Chapter 1 covers the Sodium Gluconate Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force; Chapter 2 talks about the top manufacturers and analyses their sales, revenue and pricing decisions for the duration 2019 and 2025; Chapter 3 displays the competitive nature of the market by discussing the competition among the top manufacturers. It dissects the market using sales, revenue and market share data for 2019 and 2025; Chapter 4, shows the global market by regions and the proportionate size of each market region based on sales, revenue and market share of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System, for the period 2019- 2025; Continue About Market Growth Insight Market Growth Insight is a one stop solution for market research reports in various business categories. We are serving 100+ clients with 10000+ diverse industry reports and our reports are developed to simplify strategic decision making, on the basis of comprehensive and in-depth significant information, established through wide ranging analysis and latest industry trends. We are striving to provide the best customer friendly services and appropriate business information to accomplish your ideas. Contact 502, Sai Radhe, Kennedy Road, Behind Hotel Sheraton Grand, Near Pune Station, Pune 411 001, Maharashtra, India Contact No- + 91 8956 049 020 Sales@marketgrowthinsight.com Website- https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com Follow Us:- LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ | Facebook Pune, Maharashtra -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- Speech therapy is given to those patients who are suffering from speech or communication-related disorders. Speech pathology services involve the diagnosis and treatment of speech and language disorders, fluency disorders, apraxia, dysarthria, cognitive-communicative disorder, swallowing and feeding disorder and others. Speech pathology services such as drills, audiometer, speech trainer equipment etc. are used by the speech pathologist to treat the patients with speech disorders. Speech related disorders are usually common in infants and geriatric population. Speech disorder and hearing loss are strongly associated with the geriatric population thus rise in the geriatric population will drive the growth of speech pathology services market. Rise in the number of infants affected by neurological disorders and motor speech-related disorders will also further increase the market value of speech pathology services. Furthermore, early detection and diagnosis of hearing disorders in infants will also boost the speech therapy market over the forecast period. Advanced healthcare facilities in developed countries also fueled up the market for speech therapy service. Increasing demands of speech therapy services in primary and secondary schools for special students education is further responsible for robust growth of speech pathology services market. However, high cost of speech pathology services and lack of availability of sufficient healthcare services hampers the growth of global speech pathology services market. In addition, less number of the speech pathologist in remote areas reduces the adoption of speech pathologist service which further restrains the market growth. Request Free Sample Report@ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1152 The global market of Speech Pathology Services is segmented on the basis of indications, age group, end-users and geography. Based on Indications, Speech Pathology Services Market is segmented into: Speech disorders Fluency Disorder Voice disorder Language disorders Aphasia Auditory processing disorder Motor speech disorder Apraxia Dysarthria Based on Age group, Speech Pathology Services Market is segmented into: Pediatric Adults Geriatric Based on service provider, Pathology Service Market is segmented into: Hospitals Specialty Clinics Bilingual Classes Rehabilitation Centers Speech Theraphy Centers Community Health Centers Increase in the elderly population and rise in the incidence of cognitive disorders in infants have increased the demand of speech pathology services. Speech pathology services demand will increase amongst end user in the near future. Increasing number of speech therapy centers in developing countries will increase the market of speech pathology services. Language related disorder like auditory processing disorder is increasing in elderly population. It can be treated using Audiometer manufactured by various companies. Various speech trainers are now available in the market which helps the patient to overcome the fluency and voice related disorder. Medical advancement and rise in the health care infrastructure in low resource regions will increase the global speech pathology services market. Request/View TOC@ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1152 Based on geography, speech pathology services market is segmented into six key regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific excluding China, China and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to dominate the speech pathology services market due to increasing geriatric population as well as increase of neurological disorders in infants in this region. Furthermore, the US is leading the speech pathology services market due to high adoption of such services among end users in this country. This is followed by Europe due to the increase in the standards of healthcare facilities. Asia Pacific is expected to show a considerable amount of growth in the forecast period due to lifestyle changes and increase in elderly population. Moreover, rise in the incidence of congenital disorders and increasing awareness will boost the growth of speech pathology service market in Asia pacific region. Growth of speech pathology services market in the Middle East and Africa is considerably low due to less awareness among the people and the high cost of the speech pathology services. Some of the key companies operating in the speech pathology services market are: India Medico Instruments, Medline Industries, Esko Bionics, Speech plus, Benchmark Therapies Inc., GF health Products, Inc., Dynatronics Corportion and others. The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Analysis Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Value Chain Analysis The regional analysis includes: North America (U.S., Canada) Latin America (Mexico. Brazil) Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia) Asia-Pacific Excluding China and Japan (India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand) China Japan The Middle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa, N. Africa) The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies. Report Highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Report Analysis@ https://www.factmr.com/report/1152/speech-pathology-services-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/ Los Angeles, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2019 -- In modern use of the term, yachts differ from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. There are two different classes of yachts: motor and power boats. With the rise of the steamboat and other types of powerboat, sailing vessels in general came to be perceived as luxury, or recreational vessels. Later the term came to encompass large motor boats for primarily private pleasure purposes as well. The global Yachts Boats market was xx million US$ in 2018 and is expected to xx million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2019 and 2025. This report studies the Yachts Boats market size (value and volume) by players, regions, product types and end industries, history data 2014-2018 and forecast data 2019-2025; This report also studies the global market competition landscape, market drivers and trends, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis. Get PDF template of this report: https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/1115872/global-yachts-boats-market Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share and growth Rate of Yachts Boats in these regions, from 2014 to 2025, covering North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey etc.) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam) South America (Brazil etc.) Middle East and Africa (Egypt and GCC Countries) The various contributors involved in the value chain of the product include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, intermediaries, and customers. The key manufacturers in this market include Azimut/Benetti Ferretti Group Sanlorenzo Sunseeker Feadship Lurssen Princess Yachts Amels / Damen Heesen Yachts Horizon Westport Oceanco Trinity Yachts Fipa Group Overmarine Perini Navi Palmer Johnson Cerri-Baglietto Christensen By the product type, the market is primarily split into <11m 11~18m 18~24m >24m By the end users/application, this report covers the following segments Private Use Commercial Use Special Use Get Complete Report in your Inbox within 24 hours: https://www.qyresearch.com/settlement/pre/ca3057f80640b74104ad222bf71168a0,0,1,Global%20Yachts%20Boats%20Market%20Report,%20History%20and%20Forecast%202014-2025,%20Breakdown%20Data%20by%20Manufacturers,%20Key%20Regions,%20Types%20and%20Application About QYResearch QYResearch always pursuits high product quality with the belief that quality is the soul of business. Through years of effort and supports from huge number of customer supports, QYResearch consulting group has accumulated creative design methods on many high-quality markets investigation and research team with rich experience. Today, QYResearch has become the brand of quality assurance in consulting industry. The Voynich manuscript, sometimes described as the worlds most mysterious text, may be written in proto-Romance, a language that arose from a blend of spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin) and other languages across the Mediterranean during the early Medieval period following the collapse of the Roman Empire and subsequently evolved into the many Romance languages. The manuscript originates from Castello Aragonese, an island castle and citadel off Ischia, Italy, and was compiled by a Dominican nun as a source of reference for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, according to research by University of Bristols Dr. Gerard Cheshire. The Voynich manuscript, named after the Polish-American antiquarian book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912, is a small book 23.5 x 16.2 cm of about 240 pages. Nearly every page of the manuscript contains scientific and botanical drawings in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red. The vellum used in the book was carbon dated to 1404-1438. Although the purpose and meaning of the manuscript had eluded scholars for decades, it took Dr. Cheshire two weeks to identify the language and writing system of the famously inscrutable document. I experienced a series of Eureka! moments whilst deciphering the code, followed by a sense of disbelief and excitement when I realized the magnitude of the achievement, both in terms of its linguistic importance and the revelations about the origin and content of the manuscript, Dr. Cheshire said. The Voynich manuscript is written in proto-Romance ancestral to todays Romance languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan and Galician. The language used was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean during the Medieval period, but it was seldom written in official or important documents because Latin was the language of royalty, church and government. As a result, proto-Romance was lost from the record, until now. The manuscripts alphabet is a combination of unfamiliar and more familiar symbols. It includes no dedicated punctuation marks, although some letters have symbol variants to indicate punctuation or phonetic accents. All of the letters are in lower case and there are no double consonants. It includes diphthong, triphthongs, quadriphthongs and even quintiphthongs for the abbreviation of phonetic components. It also includes some words and abbreviations in Latin. Translations by Dr. Cheshire reveal that the manuscript is a compendium of information on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing and astrological readings concerning matters of the female mind, of the body, of reproduction, of parenting and of the heart in accordance with the Catholic and Roman pagan religious beliefs of Mediterranean Europeans during the late Medieval period. More specifically, the manuscript was compiled by a Dominican nun as a source of reference for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, who happens to have been great aunt to Catherine of Aragon. Within the Voynich manuscript there is a foldout pictorial map that provides the necessary information to date and locate the origin of the manuscript, Dr. Cheshire said. It tells the adventurous, and rather inspiring, story of a rescue mission, by ship, to save the victims of a volcanic eruption in the Tyrrhenian Sea that began on the evening of the 4 February 1444. The manuscript originates from Castello Aragonese, an island castle and citadel off Ischia, and was compiled for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, who led the rescue mission as regent during the absence of her husband, King Alfonso V of Aragon who was otherwise occupied, having only recently conquered and then taken control of Naples in February 1443. The island of Ischia is historically famous for its hot volcanic spas, which exist to this day. The manuscript has many images of naked women bathing in them, both recreationally and therapeutically. There are also images of Queen Maria and her court conducting trade negotiations whilst bathing. Clearly the spa lifestyle was highly regarded as a form of physical cleansing and spiritual communion, as well as a general means of relaxation and leisure. The next step is to use this knowledge to translate the entire manuscript and compile a lexicon, which will take some time and funding, as it comprises more than 200 pages, Dr. Cheshire said. His paper was published online April 29 in the journal Romance Studies. _____ Gerard Cheshire. The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained. Romance Studies, published online April 29, 2019; doi: 10.1080/02639904.2019.1599566 The first phase of the planned refinery is scheduled for completion by the first quarter of 2020. From 1 January 2020, IMO will enforce its Marpol Annex VI regulation mandating all ocean-going vessels to burn bunker fuels with a maximum sulphur content of 0.5%, down from the current limit of 3.5%. According to BPGIC, the refinery will be the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa to comply with the upcoming IMO 2020 regulation. The new facility will contribute to bolstering the growing status of the Emirate of Fujairah in the oil and gas industry and help meet the growing demand for shipping fuel that complies with the new international laws on capping sulphur content in shipping fuels, Nicolaas Paardenkooper, ceo of BPGIC, was quoted saying. Read more: Fujairah port starts production and supply of 0.5% sulphur bunkers The UAE port of Fujairah is one of the worlds top three largest bunkering ports. Singapore is the worlds runaway leader in bunker sales while Fujairah and Rotterdam ports are neck-to-neck in their sales volumes. Fujairah is estimated to have sold approximately 9m metric tonnes of bunkers last year compared to Rotterdams 9.5m metric tonnes. Press Release May 15, 2019 Legarda Landslide Heralds New Day for Antique Senator Loren Legarda has ended the 32-year rule of the Javier dynasty in her home province of Antique. Legarda was proclaimed the new congresswoman of the lone district of Antique, sweeping all of the province's 18 towns, with 199,187 votes (based on the certificate of canvass of votes) against former Governor and Congressman Exequiel Javier's 69,716 votes, one of the largest margins of victory in the 2019 elections. Javier sought to replace his son, incumbent Congressman Paolo Javier, who was defeated for Governor by Rhodora Cadiao, marking the first election since 1987 that no Javier has won any position. Despite the fact that Legarda faced an entrenched political dynasty, she led all pre-election surveys, reflecting the overwhelming desire for change in Antique, which has the highest poverty incidence in Western Visayas according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. "By the grace of God, we have become victorious. I thank all Antiquenos who voted for me, especially those who supported me from the start. This victory is not for me alone, but for Antique and the Antiquenos. Now that the election is over, we should start working together. I extend my hand to every Antiqueno--let us unite to defeat the real enemy, which is poverty," said Legarda. "We are determined to do more in Antique in the next three years than has been done in the last 30 years, and prove that every province has the potential to bring prosperity to its people," she added. "I ran for Congress to bring my two decades of Senate work to the grassroots, and make Antique a role model for sustainable development for the rest of the country." This is Legarda's first entry into local politics, being at the end of her second consecutive term in the Senate. Legarda has served 18 years as Senator, championing causes such as environmental protection, sustainable development, and women and children's rights. As a three-term Senator, Legarda has crafted laws on education, such as the Free College Education Law; on health, such as the National Health Insurance Act of 2013; and on livelihood, such as the Magna Carta for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), and Barangay Kabuhayan Act, among many other laws that address the various needs of Filipinos. Aside from funding these laws, she has also ensured that the government's programs--free college education in state universities and colleges, free healthcare services, skills trainings, employment and livelihood programs from various agencies--reach all corners of the province. Legarda said that as Congresswoman of Antique, she will ensure that her kasimanwas will continue to feel the improvement in their lives, as what is already happening in the province through her efforts to bring government services closer to the Antiquenos. The Reserve Banks third discussion paper on its bank capital proposals points to a lack of robust policy process, is an embarrassment to New Zealand and undermines the central banks credibility, according to a former Reserve Bank official. The central bank has had to resort to some bizarre arguments to make the unworkable work in an increasingly desperate attempt to shore up some unwise decision-making, says Ian Harrison in his critique of that third paper which was issued in April. The bank capital proposals were announced on Dec. 14 last year and after a couple of extensions, the consultation period is set to end on Friday. The fact that the bank has had to produce a third paper in itself points to problems with the banks policy-making processes, Harrison says. The Reserve Bank has said that it wants to reduce the chances of a banking crisis to a one-in-200 year event, a number Harrison says appears to be decided on a whim. There were serious holes in the analysis which forced the bank to do a lot of back-filling. But, rather than improving, the quality of the analysis has got worse. Harrison notes that the paper even gets basic sums wrong: The bank says that the square root of the New Zealand correlation of 0.64 is 0.39. The square root of 0.64 is actually 0.8. He published an earlier paper in March which estimated that the hit to the economy the proposals would cause is $1.5-2 billion a year without making banks much safer. The Reserve Bank wants to increase the minimum tier 1 common equity the big four banks have to carry from 8.5 percent to 16 percent. It also wants to reduce the advantage the big four Australian-owned banks get from using their own internal models for calculating how much capital they need to 90 percent of the result using standardised models. Only the big four banks - ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac - are allowed to use their own models. Slides accompanying a speech given by deputy Reserve Bank governor Geoff Bascand showed New Zealands largest bank, ANZ Bank, currently has to hold just over half the amount of capital that Kiwibank is forced to hold to back every $100 of mortgage lending, giving the Australian-owned bank a huge cost advantage over its smaller government-owned rival. Harrison says the central bank missed the fact that they have already increased bank capital by 20 percent by requiring advanced bank capital to be 90 percent of that required under the standardised approach. While the advantage the big four banks get from their internal models differs by bank, Harrison says the Reserve Banks papers have treated the whole banking system as a single bank in its modelling. Another flaw is that the central bank is ignoring the fact that the big four New Zealand banks, which account for about 88 percent of New Zealands banking system, are foreign owned, he says. These banks share their parents' AA- credit rating international ratings agency Standard & Poors puts each of the four banks stand-alone profile at BBB+ or four notches lower. The reason for using internal models was that banks should be able to calculate the actual risks within their loan books, rather than using the one-size-fits-all approach of the standardised models, which are necessarily set higher. Harrison was working at the Reserve Bank when the change to internal models was approved, in line with new international rules known as Basel ll the big four banks began using them in 2008. The Reserve Bank required banks to use higher model inputs to boost the risk weights. This did not reflect an assessment that New Zealand was objectively intrinsically more risky than foreign jurisdictions in a way that should impact on risk weights, he says. Rather, it was due to a lack of confidence in the Basel model and in the very low risk weights it was producing. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers produced analysis in November 2017 that was commissioned by the New Zealand Bankers' Association which showed that the way New Zealand banks measure capital is more conservative than in other countries. That analysis showed, on a true like-for-like basis, the New Zealand banks were carrying six percentage points higher capital at 16.3 percent that the stated average 10.3 percent level then. The banks have since increased their capital to an average of about 12 percent, the Reserve Bank has said. That paper was essentially rubbished by a Reserve Bank official at the time in a three-page memo, but the central bank has never conducted any detailed analysis of its conclusions. Harrison says that the central bank has overstated the likely societal impacts of a banking crisis and has ignored international evidence that didnt suit its purpose. Overseas evidence can be manipulated to demonstrate almost anything, he says. He concludes that these papers trying to justify the Reserve Banks proposals have put its reputation at risk. Bank risk analysts are appalled at what they are seeing. The bank may not particularly care, because they are playing to a different audience: politicians, the general public and the media who dont understand the subject area, Harrison says. But people who do understand the analysis will eventually read it and their assessments will leach out, putting New Zealands international reputation at risk. APRA (the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) is probably aghast. They may have to deal with the Reserve Bank in a stress situation. Harrison, who left the central bank in 2012 and is now a consultant, has also worked for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements, which is the central banker for central banks. His role at the central bank involved developing an analytical approach to assessing risks. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 24th December 2021 Morning Report Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) GMT to develop North Shore facility for NZ Post 23rd December 2021 Morning Report SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) EXPANDS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH GIG Spark New Zealand Limited (NZX: SPK) Spark to take full ownership of Connect 8 22nd December 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Wynyard Quarter Stage 3 Commenced AMP Limited (NZX: AMP) Announces Delisting from the NZX Main Board 21st December 2021 Morning Report Greenfern Industries Limited (NZX: GFI) Updates on NTA OMV says it supports greater disclosure of outages in the gas sector but is concerned some players may have unrealistic expectations of new rules intended to make that happen. New Zealands biggest gas producer says it is alive to the concerns of users and broader energy consumers about the impact of gas field outages last year, particularly at the Pohokura field it now operates. But it believes some of the concern about information disclosure and also the expected benefit of greater disclosure may be overstated. It says some parties, even within the gas industry, appear not to have understood how gas supplies have contracted in recent years, particularly from the ageing Maui field. Nor do they appreciate the increased reliance on key supply facilities, the greater risk from any outage of those facilities, and the potential impact on other sectors, such as the electricity market. The major impacts from the Pohokura outages related to shortage of gas itself, rather than any information disparity, the company said in a submission to the Gas Industry Company, the sector regulator currently testing options for a new disclosure regime. Any information disclosure regime will not address the underlying supply position in the market. We are concerned that the expectations of the effectiveness of information disclosure of outage information may be unrealistic. The nature of the outages in the sector especially unplanned outages is such that there are limits to the certainty and reliability of information. In the case of the Pohokura outages, uncertainties as to the duration of the outage mean it is questionable whether the release of consistent information would have allowed for a materially different response by affected parties. Gas meets about 22 percent of the countrys primary energy needs, is a major fuel for industry and power generation, and provides heat and hot water for about 286,000 homes and businesses. But more than 82 percent of that gas came from just four fields in 2018, including the offshore Pohokura, Maui and Kupe fields. The government last year banned new offshore exploration. Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods asked the Gas Industry Company also known as the GIC - to review disclosure regulation in the sector after the first prolonged Pohokura maintenance shutdown in early 2018. The second outage, in late September, coincided with low hydro lake levels and then with planned generation maintenance. That combination saw wholesale power prices soar in October and November, with Dunedin-based power retailer Payless Energy ceasing trading as a result. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has included possible regulations for a new disclosure regime in a discussion paper on changes to the 1992 Gas Act. Other elements of that review look at the potential role of hydrogen and biogases in the industry and whether penalties for non-compliance in the existing regime are tough enough. MBIE notes that it shares stakeholder concern about the need for timely disclosure of gas information that may be material for the wider energy sector. While the GIC is required to first consider a non-regulatory response, MBIE says an appropriate regulation-empowering provision should be added to the legislation even if the GIC determines that a non-regulatory intervention is more suitable. The GIC canvassed a range of voluntary and mandatory arrangements for information disclosure in a discussion paper in March. Twenty organisations, including major power companies and gas producers and users submitted. Many supported greater disclosure particularly of planned and unplanned outages - but also urged work to make better use of the market data that is already available and being used by some market participants. New Zealand Steel, operator of the Glenbrook mill and a major user of coal, gas and electricity, said the Pohokura shutdown late last year and the spike in power costs resulted in several million dollars of extra cost and a negative impact on steel supplies for the local construction industry. It said the maintenance shutdown at Pohokura in February this year was another prime example of the vagueness of information as to dates for the work. While the need to move dates for weather and technical issues was understood, the information provided was minimal and not timely, the company said in its submission to the GIC. Enquiries made directly to the operator of the field confirmed they were not prepared to share information on the planned timetable. Participants must reasonably expect the market to be kept fully and transparently informed for planning and so no party can be considered to be taking advantage of informant asymmetry. The irony in this is that NZ Steel was endeavouring to have the timing of another planned maintenance shut - which would substantially reduce our gas requirement - align with timing of the Pohokura work, thereby assisting NZ Steel and the wider users in the gas market. Power retailer Trustpower urged the GIC to focus on changes that will deliver the biggest benefits information on planned and unplanned outages from producers and major gas users. These improvements should not be delayed while more controversial elements are debated by industry, such as the public release of information relating to average wholesale gas prices. We caution the GIC over enabling industry too long to attempt to derive a voluntary solution to this challenging, but important issue and consider that regardless of any voluntary agreements a regulated solution will ultimately be required. Methanex is the worlds largest methanol producer and uses close to half of New Zealands gas. It says it wants to help resolve valid and reasonable concerns about disclosure in the industry. But it challenged a suggestion that pricing and volumes of major users bilateral contracts should be disclosed. Term contracts take gas out of the market and cant have a bearing on volumes and prices in the spot market, it says. Nor does it believe it should have to give its international competitors an advantage by disclosing in advance planned maintenance shuts at its plants at Motunui and Waitara Valley. Nowhere in the globe is Methanex required to disclose its business operations in the detail proposed, it says. "Methanex would face adverse consequences if such information were to be widely disclosed, given the prospect that its competitors in global methanol markets would be able to use that information to gain a competitive advantage where they are not required to disclose such information themselves." Submissions on MBIEs Gas Act review close on June 12. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 24th December 2021 Morning Report Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) GMT to develop North Shore facility for NZ Post 23rd December 2021 Morning Report SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) EXPANDS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH GIG Spark New Zealand Limited (NZX: SPK) Spark to take full ownership of Connect 8 22nd December 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Wynyard Quarter Stage 3 Commenced AMP Limited (NZX: AMP) Announces Delisting from the NZX Main Board 21st December 2021 Morning Report Greenfern Industries Limited (NZX: GFI) Updates on NTA The New Zealand dollar eased a little as weaker than expected data from China added to market concern about the China-US trade stoush. The kiwi was trading at 65.62 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 65.72 at 8am. The trade-weighted index was at 72.16 points from 72.22. The Chinese data showed retail sales rose 7.2 percent in April, down from 8.7 percent in March and greatly missing expectations of an 8.6 percent increase. The April figure was the slowest pace since 2003. Other figures showed industrial production rose 5.4 percent in April, down from 8.5 percent in March and also well below market expectations of a 6.5 percent increase. That poured cold water on hopes raised by the March data that stimulatory measures by China's government were starting to work. All the data was weaker. Every single point of it, says Tim Kelleher, the head of institutional foreign exchange sales at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Earlier, some had taken heart from US President Donald Trump describing the trade war with China as a little squabble and his insistence that talks hadnt collapsed. Kelleher says the market is now in a holding pattern awaiting Australian March-quarter labour force data due out tomorrow. The Reserve Bank of Australia is on hold, but if jobs start to weaken, they will go to a cut bias as well, in line with that of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, he says. If we see a rate cut from Australia, that will increase the chances of another RBNZ cut they do seem to be moving pretty much in tandem. Data out today in Australia wont have pleased the RBA Australian wages rose 0.5 percent in the March quarter, leaving annual wage growth at 2.3 percent where it has sat for three straight quarters. The New Zealand dollar was trading at 94.70 Australian cents from 94.66, at 4.5115 Chinese yuan from 4.5174, at 50.82 British pence from 50.91, at 58.54 euro cents from 58.61, and at 71.95 Japanese yen from 72.04. The New Zealand two-year swap rate fell to 1.5665 percent from 1.587 percent yesterday, while the 10-year swap rate was little changed at 2.0875 from 2.088 percent. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 24th December 2021 Morning Report Goodman Property Trust (NZX: GMT) GMT to develop North Shore facility for NZ Post 23rd December 2021 Morning Report SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) EXPANDS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH GIG Spark New Zealand Limited (NZX: SPK) Spark to take full ownership of Connect 8 22nd December 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Wynyard Quarter Stage 3 Commenced AMP Limited (NZX: AMP) Announces Delisting from the NZX Main Board 21st December 2021 Morning Report Greenfern Industries Limited (NZX: GFI) Updates on NTA Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics The first official trailer for the new David Crosby documentary, David Crosby: Remember My Name, has premiered online, and the clip includes glimpses of the folk-rock legend discussing his poor health, his fractured relationships with his old band mates and more. As the video starts, we see an interviewer ask Crosby -- who's now 77 years old -- if he wonders why he's still alive, to which he answers, "I don't know. No idea, man." He then declares that he's had three heart attacks and has eight stents in his heart. David also talks about his current prolific period, noting, "The last few years, I made four solo albumsI'm going for five." Another segment features Crosby discussing his issues getting along with people in the past. "I was not easy," he declares. "Big ego, no brains. I don't think I was a good lover. I think I was selfish." Crosby also talks about his current conflicts with Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Neil Young, admitting, "All the guys I made music with won't even talk to meYou say stuff and do stuff that's just awful." Nash is then shown being interviewed and saying about the rift, "It's just sad, and I don't quite know how to undo it." After being shown at several film festivals earlier this year, Remember My Name will get its theatrical premiere on July 19 in New York and Los Angeles, and will then open in other cities in the following weeks. Meanwhile, Crosby, who last week launched a U.S. tour with a band featuring musicians who contributed to his 2016 album Sky Trails, has announced a late-summer stateside leg with the same group that kicks off August 15 in Roanoke, Virginia. Here are all of Crosby's 2019 U.S. tour dates: 5/15 -- St. Louis, MO, Sheldon Concert Hall 5/16 -- Nashville, TN, City Winery - Nashville 5/18 -- Brevard, NC, Brevard Music Center 5/20 -- Melbourne, FL, King Center for the Performing Arts 5/21 -- Fort Lauderdale, FL, Parker Playhouse 5/23 -- Clearwater, FL, Capitol Theatre 5/24 -- Key West, FL, Key West Theater 5/26 -- Atlanta, GA, Variety Playhouse 5/29 -- Virginia Beach, VA, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts 5/30 -- Charleston, WV, Clay Center for Arts & Sciences 6/1 -- Pennsauken, NJ, Cooper River Park - Twilight Series 6/2 -- Munhall, PA, Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead 6/4 -- Alexandria, VA, The Birchmere 6/5 -- Annapolis, MD, Rams Head On Stage 6/7 -- Ridgefield, CT, Ridgefield Playhouse 6/8 -- Woodstock, NY, Levon Helm Studios 6/10 -- Red Bank, NJ, Count Basie Theatre 6/12 -- New London, CT, Garde Arts Center 6/13 -- Lebanon, NH, Lebanon Opera House 6/15 -- Beverly, MA, The Cabot Theater 6/16 -- Bar Harbor, ME, Criterion Theater 8/15 -- Roanoke, VA, Jefferson Center+ 8/18 -- Upper Salford, PA, Philadelphia Folk Festival+ 8/20 -- Kent, OH, The Kent Stage+ 8/22 -- Wabash, IN, Honeywell Center+ 8/24 -- Bayfield, WI, Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua+ 8/25 -- Fargo, ND, Fargo Theatre+ 8/27 -- Bismarck, ND, Belle Mehus Auditorium+ 8/29 -- Missoula, MT, The Wilma Theatre+ 8/31 -- Seattle, WA, Neptune Theatre+ 9/1 -- Portland, OR, Aladdin Theatre+ 9/3 -- Arcata, CA, John Van Duzer Theatre+ 9/4 -- Redwood City, CA, Fox Forum+ 9/6 -- Napa, CA, Uptown Theatre+ 9/8 -- Big Sur, CA, Henry Miller Memorial Library+ 9/10 -- Beverly Hills, CA, Saban Theater+ 9/12 -- Phoenix, AZ, The Celebrity Theatre+ 9/13 -- Las Vegas, NV, Red Rock Casion Resort Spa+ 9/17 -- Morrison, CO, Red Rocks Amphitheatre+* + = newly added show * = with Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Cloverdale, CA (95425) Today Showers this morning, becoming a steady rain during the afternoon hours. High 46F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Periods of rain. Low around 40F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. By Mata Press Service If exercise is good. Yoga is goodness. Thats the message, Vancouver entrepreneur Aditya Tawatia aims to spread, with this years edition of International Yoga Festival and Health Expo to be held at Vancouvers Croatian Cultural Centre on June 16. The one-day festival features Yoga classes with well-known instructors and showcases a marketplace of health conscious, natural, and organic foods from various vendors. Yoga is not just about stretching and exercise, its a way of life to link health with happiness, said Tawatia, a real estate professional, who moved to Vancouver about 20 years ago. Our mission for this festival is to inspire and connect our communities to live creative, healthy, vibrant and stress free active lives through the practice of yoga and meditation, he said. Yoga will hopefully become a bridge for the entire globe to connect and our Yoga festival together with the Ayuverda tradition is a conscious movement celebrating and strengthening our unity. Our efforts will create a bond across the local communities across religions, caste, race and geography, he said. This years edition of the Vancouver festival will be held in conjunction with The United Nations International Day of Yoga (UNIDY) which occurs on June 21st every year. In addition to classes and education, The Vancouver festival will also showcase an array of products and services for yoga-related business. For Harbinder Singh Sewak, who has launched an inspiring, innovative and individualized gift box program out of Vancouver called alooatta.com, the festival is an ideal event to showcase his products. On display will be personalized and individualized environmentally friendly Alooatta boxes loaded with yoga-related goodies, like aromatherapy balms, bath bombs, scents and soaps. Our central philosophy is to reduce packagingmillions of gift boxes are going out every day and eventually ending up in our oceans and landfills, said Sewak, adding his companys vision is in line with the Yoga Festival, which aims to make our world a better place. Alooatta boxes, produced in Canada, are biodegradable and recyclable and are embossed with vegetable-based ink that contains no lead. All paper and dyes are approved by the Canada Food and Health Agency (CFIA) and the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Alooatta partners have alliances with Climate Smart and Ecotrust Canada and hold Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification while the print on the boxes Ultra Violet (UV) inks that are 100% greenhouse gas free. Add in the innovation of individualization each box comes with personalized greeting printed directly on the package to dispense with the need of extra paper for a card and Alooatta.com helps you change the world one gift box at a time. We have the greenest boxes to deliver any kind of gift across Canada, said Sewak. Yoga, for Aditya Tawatia, is part of India's soft power abroad and a conduit to harness the energy of the Indian diaspora in Canada. Last month, Tawatia organized the Make In India event, which took place on April 26 at the Indian consulate in Vancouver. It was hosted by the Consul General of India in Vancouver, Abhilasha Joshi and attended by George Chow, Minister of State for Trade; and Stewart G Beck, President & CEO, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and Former Canadian High Commissioner to the Republic of India. Three Canadian companies showcased their interest in India via Bernard Armani and Sudhir Sharma from BIOIQ Diagnostics; Ian Kent, President & CEO of NOMAD Micro Homes and Chloe Dubois, Co-founder & President of Ocean Legacy Foundation. They gave presentations on Bio-Medical Diagnostics, Affordable Housing and Waste Recycle respectively. The 5th International Yoga Festival and Health Expo is a one-day event that aims to spread the joy of wellness while bringing together local Yoga and health enthusiasts. The festival features Yoga classes with well-known Yoga instructors and showcases a marketplace of health conscious, natural, and organic foods from various vendors. For more details about the event visit https://yogahealthexpo.com/ The health benefits of Yoga Strengthens Muscles Yoga is essential for strengthening bones as it helps to prevent back pain and other conditions such as arthritis. Strength and flexibility are both achieved in balance from yoga which will help you live a healthy life. Increases Healthy Blood Flow Yoga increases the blood circulation as the relaxation exercises get more oxygen for the cells. Twisting poses are helpful for allowing oxygenated blood to the organs. Yoga may also be beneficial for maintaining healthy hemoglobin levels. Boosts Your Immunity and Drains Lymphs The drainage of lymph is increased with various yoga poses as the body moves and twists around. The body can fight infections and remove toxic waste to improve overall functioning. Increases your Heart Rate Regular yoga activity can increase the heart rate which reduces the risk of depression and heart stroke. Yoga is not vigorous but it can be done in fast pace to put heart rate in aerobic range. Yoga can also maximize the intake of oxygen which will also increase physical endurance. Lowers Your Blood Pressure Regular physical exercise has always been linked with healthy heart functioning and yoga does the same. Infact, yoga can have even better results than any other form of exercise if done in the right way. Makes you Happier and Relaxed You must have heard how yoga can make you happy and relaxed by relieving all physical and emotional stress. Practicing yoga continuously and consistently has shown greater happiness levels with improved immunity. Lowers your Blood Sugar Levels Yoga lowers blood sugar levels and bad cholesterol too. Also, yoga has been proven effective for weight loss reduced risk of heart disease, kidney failure, and blindness. Improves your Focus and Concentration Regular yoga practice can improve concentration, reaction time, and IQ level. Yoga has been seen to remove distracting thoughts and recall information better. Makes you Sleep Deeper Yoga can help you sleep better and deeper as you become free from tensions and anxiety. It gives you relief from the daily hustle and bustle of life. Guest Commentary By Peter Stockland Legislative hearings on outlawing the wearing of religious clothing or symbols by specific Quebec public servants could easily be dismissed as proverbial lipstick on a pig. In fact, theyre worse, much worse, than a skin-deep brush with porcine cosmetology. They are part of a calculated exploitation of the deep human spiritual need to push other people around from time to time. As Anna Farrow, executive director of Montreals English Speaking Catholic Council, puts it far more diplomatically, though no less critically: The government has rolled this out from the beginning as a fait accompli. It has essentially said: We have the right to do this because we are in power. This is our vision for Quebec. Too bad for you if it doesnt coincide with your vision of Quebec. Farrow points out the blurring of aggressiveness and absurdity in that vision by noting that Bill 21, as the legislation is known, will be troublesome to enforce. Now, say you have two women teaching in a school. One wears a hijab. One wears a religious medal displaying her faith by a chain around her neck. You have to treat them both the same under the law. You certainly cant be seen to discriminate. So whats the procedure? Whats the protocol? Do you call the teachers into the office and say if it happens again, its grounds for dismissal? What happens when someone says, as someone is sure to, No, Im not taking it off!? No one in the government of Premier Francois Legault seems to have foreseen such a circumstance. When Quebecs deputy premier suggested the police might be called in the face of such disobedience, Legault threw himself across that as if it were a live political grenade and insisted that was not going to happen. The governments hearings, meanwhile, wont hear from many believers directly. Only two of 36 groups invited to testify have any kind of connection with religious faith Instead, almost all religious groups will have to submit briefs through a volunteer grassroots group called Coalition Inclusion Quebec at a Consultation Populaire. The coalition will then collate the written objections and present them on behalf of Quebec citizens excluded from addressing their government themselves. At a recent protest organized by Coalition Inclusion Quebec outside Montreal City Hall, speaker after speaker decried the exclusion of faith groups not only from the Bill 21 legislative hearings but from full participation in Quebec public life. Intriguingly, one of the most compelling voices to address the group came from a young teacher who identified herself as first and foremost a feminist. I am not a religious believer. I do not wear religious clothing. I am a feminist. But as a feminist, I believe in choice. And Bill 21 takes away the right of Quebecers to make their own choices, she said to loud applause from the demonstrators. The theme that developed in the demonstration speeches was that Bill 21 attacks religious freedom, yes, but it also assaults freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom from workplace harassment and intimidation. Indeed, next to the concerns expressed about religious discrimination were stinging criticism about its violation of workplace norms in a democratic, open contemporary society. Given that Bill 21 is at least the third attempt in recent years to push such legislation through the National Assembly, theres an understandable fatigue among many defenders of religious freedom. That has led to a weakening of the fight. Its exacerbated by the governments decision to use the Charter of Rights override clause to prevent it being challenged on constitutional grounds. So the deep desire to push others around does seem, in this instance, bound to win. The question to be answered, though, is whether Bill 21s advocates can prevail in using a pragmatically unenforceable law to impose their will on a rapidly diversifying population. Or to put a happier face on it, how often do bullies turn out to be their own worst enemies? Peter Stockland is a senior writer with the think-tank Cardus and publisher of Convivium.ca. Roshan Taneja, who trained scores of Hindi film actors including the likes of Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Jaya Bachchan, Anil Kapoor and Shatrughan Sinha, has died, said a family member. He was 87. "My father passed away last night (Friday, May 10) at 9.30 pm in his sleep at home after a prolonged illness," the acting guru's son Rohit Taneja told IANS on Saturday (May 11) morning. He is survived by his wife Mithika and sons Rohit and Rahul. The cremation was held at 4.30 pm on Saturday at the electric crematorium in Santacruz West. Roshan Taneja, known to many as the 'pioneer of method acting' in India, is held in high regard in the Hindi film industry. He had been training talent since the 1960s, first at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and later at his private school in Mumbai, the Roshan Taneja School of Acting. Shabana paid condolences to the Taneja family, and tweeted: "Late last night came the sad news that Roshan Taneja passed away. He was my Guru at FTII and the only person whose feet I touched. I was privileged to be trained in acting by him." Actor Rakesh Bedi wrote: "A very sad day for me. My guru Roshan Taneja expired yesterday. I owe my career to him. Rest in peace." National Award-winning filmmaker Atanu Ghosh tweeted: "With him, ended an illustrious era spanning more than five decades. The greatest teacher of method acting we ever had. The revered guru to no less than four generations of brilliant actors. Rest in peace sir." San Francisco bans facial recognition use by police San Francisco, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 San Francisco on Tuesday became the first US city to ban use of facial recognition technology by police or other government agencies. Backers of the legislation argued that using software and cameras to positively identify people is, as city councillor Aaron Peskin put it, "not ready for prime time." All but one of the nine members of San Francisco's board of supervisors endorsed the legislation, which will be voted on again next week in a procedural step not expected to change the outcome. "The propensity for facial recognition technology to endanger civil rights and civil liberties substantially outweighs its purported benefits, and the technology will exacerbate racial injustice and threaten our ability to live free of continuous government monitoring," read the legislation passed Tuesday. The ban was part of broader legislation setting use and auditing policy for surveillance systems, creating high hurdles and requiring board approval for any city agencies. "It shall be unlawful for any department to obtain, retain, access, or use any Face Recognition Technology or any information obtained from Face Recognition Technology," read a graph tucked into the lengthy document. The ban did not include airports or other federally regulated facilities. A similar ban is being considered across the bay in the city of Oakland. Worries about the technology include dangers of innocent people being misidentified as wrongdoers and that systems can infringe on privacy in everyday life. Others, however, argue that facial recognition systems can help police fight crime and keep streets safer. The technology has been credited with helping police capture dangerous criminals, but also criticized for mistaken identifications. "Facial recognition can be used for general surveillance in combination with public video cameras, and it can be used in a passive way that doesn't require the knowledge, consent, or participation of the subject," the American Civil Liberties Union said at its website. "The biggest danger is that this technology will be used for general, suspicionless surveillance systems." Chinese authorities are using a vast system of facial recognition technology to track its Uighur Muslim minority across the country, according to a recent story in the New York Times. Beijing has already attracted widespread criticism for its treatment of Uighurs in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where up to one million members of mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking minority groups are held in internment camps, according to estimates cited by a UN panel. But according to the Times article, facial recognition technology -- integrated into China's huge networks of surveillance cameras -- has been programmed to look exclusively for Uighurs based on their appearance and keep records of their movements across China. It what was thought to be the first known example of a government intentionally using AI for racial profiling. Outback farmers lead charge as climate heats up Aussie election Mackay, Australia, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 As Australians head to the polls this week after the country's hottest-ever summer, outback farmers -- walloped by epic fires, floods and heatwaves -- are leading the fight against climate change, making it one of the election's key issues. With one of the world's worst pollution records per capita -- and a prime minister who paraded a lump of coal through parliament -- no one would mistake Australia for a progressive eco-haven. But after a prolonged drought, raging bushfires and "once-in-a-century" floods, many Australians fear the country is ill-equipped to tackle climate change. The northeast battleground state of Queensland bore the brunt of the summer's extreme climate conditions, and is ground zero for changing outback attitudes. Insurers AIG estimated that between 2007 and 2016 natural disasters cost the state roughly Aus$11 billion a year (US$12 billion) with the bill only increasing since then. - Slash and burn - When Simon Gedda's family took over a farm about two hours' drive from Australia's "beef capital" Rockhampton 50 years ago, they did what any other Queenslander cattle grazier household would do. They stripped out the trees, cut back the grass and sprayed chemicals to make farming easier. But rising costs and concern about climate change, prompted Gedda to move away from high-impact methods. And when a category-four cyclone struck his property in 2017, he joined the 5,000-member advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action. "The headwaters of our creek received 40 inches (100 centimetres) of rain in 14 hours," he said. "It wasn't any old flood. It was something that was totally unbelievable. "This is exactly what the scientists have been telling us." In the face of government inaction, Gedda and other farmers are pushing forward with their own climate initiatives -- in a bid to protect their livelihoods. Denis Couture, whose tomato and chilli-growing operation in Bowen is a short drive from Australia's most northernly deepwater coal port terminal, is shunning fossil fuels and using solar panels and batteries. "Renewable energy in Australia is abundant. There's wind everywhere, there's solar everywhere," Couture told AFP, pointing to the sky above the so-called Sunshine State. Craig Illingworth, who lives close to bushfire-hit rainforests in central Queensland, said last year's blaze was a wake-up call. "I've never seen fires or heard of that intensity, that many fires that ran for the time frame that they did and were so uncontrollable." Poor agricultural practices and deforestation have degraded the soil and are major climate change drivers. But Queensland farmer Simon Mattsson believes landowners can help -- by removing carbon from the atmosphere and putting it into the soil. "If Australia is to have any hope of maintaining good agriculture production, we need a healthy soil," Mattsson, who is diversifying his crops to improve soil quality, told AFP. - Changing attitudes - Queenslanders are not alone in expressing concern about climate change -- or frustration about Canberra's apparent reluctance to tackle the issue. A nationwide survey by the Australia Institute found that more than half of respondents believe the country is "facing a climate emergency", and support more policy action. The push for change is so strong analysts believe climate policies by Australia's two major parties -- the ruling right-wing Liberal-National coalition and left-leaning Labor -- might determine this and future elections. But Queensland is also a centre for coal mining. More than 20,000 people are employed in the sector in the central region of the state alone. Even politicians who believe in climate change are reluctant to put those jobs at risk, or risk donations from the mining industry and its unions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia will meet its international obligations under the Paris climate agreement, but not "in a way that puts our kids' economic future at risk". His party's hard-right ousted his predecessor Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in August amid plans to embed carbon emission targets in law. Labor meanwhile has committed to 50 percent energy coming from renewables by 2030. But, backed by trade unions, the party is also cautious about plans to fully phase out mining. How both parties fare in Saturday's vote could determine their environmental policies, and reshape how they campaign in rural areas in future elections. "I think that climate change is right smack in the middle of the electoral agenda from now on," Griffith University's Queensland political analyst Paul Williams told AFP. "Any major party that ignores it will not be taken seriously." grk/arb/amu/rbu San Francisco bans facial recognition use by police and govt San Francisco, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 San Francisco has banned the use of facial recognition by police and government agencies, the first US city to take such a step as privacy fears mount in the country's technology capital. Backers of the legislation argued that using software and cameras to positively identify people is, as city councillor Aaron Peskin put it, "not ready for prime time." All but one of the nine members of San Francisco's board of supervisors endorsed the legislation, which will be voted on again next week in a procedural step not expected to change the outcome. "The propensity for facial recognition technology to endanger civil rights and civil liberties substantially outweighs its purported benefits," read the legislation passed Tuesday. Facial recognition could "exacerbate racial injustice and threaten our ability to live free of continuous government monitoring," it added. The ban was part of broader legislation setting use and auditing policy for surveillance systems, creating high hurdles and requiring board approval for any city agencies. "It shall be unlawful for any department to obtain, retain, access, or use any Face Recognition Technology or any information obtained from Face Recognition Technology," read a paragraph tucked into the lengthy document. The ban did not include airports or other federally regulated facilities. San Francisco is known as "the tech epicenter of the world," and its Bay Area is home to giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Uber and Google parent Alphabet. A similar ban is being considered across the bay in the city of Oakland. Worries about the technology include dangers of innocent people being misidentified as wrongdoers and that systems can infringe on privacy in everyday life. - 'Keep the door open' - But supporters of the technology argue that facial recognition systems can help police fight crime and keep streets safer. Stop Crime SF, a local group, said facial recognition "can help locate missing children, people with dementia and fight sex trafficking". "Technology will improve and it could be a useful tool for public safety when used responsibly and with greater accuracy. We should keep the door open for that possibility," it said in a statement. The technology has been credited with helping police capture dangerous criminals, but also criticized for mistaken identifications. Facial recognition "can be used in a passive way that doesn't require the knowledge, consent, or participation of the subject," the American Civil Liberties Union warned. "The biggest danger is that this technology will be used for general, suspicionless surveillance systems." Chinese authorities are using a vast system of facial recognition technology to track its Uighur Muslim minority across the country, according to a recent story in the New York Times. Beijing has already attracted widespread criticism for its treatment of Uighurs in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where up to one million members of mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking minority groups are held in internment camps, according to estimates cited by a UN panel. But according to the Times article, facial recognition technology -- integrated into China's huge networks of surveillance cameras -- has been programmed to look exclusively for Uighurs based on their appearance and keep records of their movements across China. It is thought to be the first known example of a government intentionally using AI for racial profiling. UN chief hails Pacific's 'moral authority' on climate Suva, Fiji, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday the Pacific possesses "a unique moral authority" to demand global action on climate change because its people are bearing the brunt of the problem. Visiting Fiji as part of a South Pacific tour to highlight the dangers of global warming, Guterres said the region was on the front line of climate change. "Here in the Pacific, sea-level rise in some countries is four times greater than the global average and is an existential threat to some island states," he said. He said this was despite the fact that the Pacific islands contributed little to global warming and had been among the first nations to minimise their greenhouse gas emissions. "Your experiences underscore the urgency of the threat," he said. "The Pacific has a unique moral authority to speak out -- it is time for the world to listen." Guterres' visit -- which also includes New Zealand, Tuvalu and Vanuatu -- will see the UN chief meet locals whose lives have been upended by cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather events linked to climate change. It comes ahead of the Climate Action Summit in September in New York, billed as a last chance to prevent irreversible climate change. Members of the Pacific Islands Forum regional grouping commended Guterres for travelling to see "the everyday reality of climate change". They sent a strong message to the New York conference, warning "we are facing an unprecedented global catastrophe for our blue planet". "Platitudes and repackaged commitments cannot be the substance of our deliberations," they said in a statement. "We need transformational change at scale, and courageous leaders prepared to deliver it." Guterres will address the Fiji parliament on Thursday. The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2018 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement US, coalition allies appear divided on Iran threat Washington, May 14 (AFP) May 14, 2019 Coalition forces in Iraq and Syria sent conflicting signals Tuesday over Iran's alleged threat, with a British general appearing to take issue with Washington's alarms over an imminent danger posed by Tehran to the US and its allies. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said that they did not sense any intensified threat from Iran in the region, even though the US military was boosting its forces in the Gulf. "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," Ghika told reporters via teleconference at the Pentagon. That brought a sharp retort from the US Central Command, which in the past nine days has accelerated the deployment of an aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf, adding to it B-52 bombers, a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious assault ship, in the face of the alleged Iranian threat. Ghika's comments "run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region," Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban said. The mixed signals underscored questions about the US ramping up its forces in the Gulf without having explained the intelligence behind the move. On May 5, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the Pentagon was sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the region "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" related to Iran. In the week since, the Pentagon said it would also position a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious assault ship in the region as a warning to Tehran. Iran has denied planning anything and US allies have warned of the danger of escalation, saying it heightens the chance that an accident could set off a major conflict. - US: 'High level of alert' - Both Washington and Tehran said Tuesday that they were not seeking war -- but, in Sochi, Russia, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again issued a warning. "We have also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." Ghika's comments, and the lack of any details on what Washington believes Tehran was planning, has fed suspicions among critics that President Donald Trump's administration was firing up tensions in the region without justification. "We've seen no change in the posture or laydown" of the Shia Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi paramilitary group with close ties to Tehran, Ghika said. "Of course PMF is a very broad range of groups. Many of them are compliant and we have seen no change in their posture since the recent exchange between the US and Iran." Ghika denied he was contradicting his US partners, and said the Inherent Resolve forces were already postured against a range of threats. "I don't think we're out of step with the White House at all," Ghika said. But Central Command's Urban said that in fact alert levels had been stepped up due to the Iran threat. "US Central Command, in coordination with Operation Inherent Resolve, has increased the force posture level for all service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria," he said in a statement. "As a result, OIR is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq." Sudan army, protesters agree 3 year transition: general Khartoum, May 14 (AFP) May 14, 2019 Sudanese army rulers and protest leaders Wednesday agreed on a three year transition period for transferring power to a full civilian administration, a general announced. "We agreed on a transitional period of three years," Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, a member of the military council that took power after the ouster of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir told reporters. Atta said a final agreement on the sharing of power, including the forming of the next ruling body -- the sovereign council -- will be signed with the protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, within 24 hours. "We vow to our people that the agreement will be completed fully within 24 hours in a way that it meets the people's aspirations," Atta said. He said of the three year transitional period, the first six months will be allocated to signing peace accords with rebels in the country's war zones. The army generals had initially insisted on a two year transition period, while the protest leaders wanted four years. Atta also said that during the transitional period the parliament will be composed of 300 members, of which 67 percent will be from the Alliance for Freedom and Change and the rest will be from other political groups. Guaido blasts Venezuela regime after security forces block congress Caracas, May 14 (AFP) May 14, 2019 Juan Guaido accused the Venezuelan government of trying to "gag" congress after security forces prevented opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly on Tuesday, two weeks after the opposition leader's failed uprising against President Nicolas Maduro. Deputies said members of the National Guard, who provide security for the building, along with police and SEBIN intelligence agents blocked access to the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The move came as Amnesty International said it believes the Venezuelan authorities have committed crimes against humanity in their crackdown on anti-government protests, and urged the International Criminal Court to investigate. "SEBIN agents, using the excuse that there's an explosive device within the facilities, took over the federal palace. We're surrounded by intelligence agents," lawmaker Manuela Bolivar told AFP. Guaido said the security forces used "brute force," adding that congress was "occupied militarily." He tried to incite an uprising against Maduro on April 30 but only around 30 members of the armed forces joined him, and the revolt quickly petered out. It did however spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. Since then, the Maduro regime has ramped up pressure on Guaido's allies and supporters. The Constituent Assembly, a rival legislative body that was created by the Maduro government and is packed with people who support him, voted Tuesday to strip immunity from five more opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly. That brings to 14 the number who will presumably go trial for backing the failed insurrection. The charges include treason. One of them, deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano was arrested by SEBIN agents last week. Another fled to neighboring Colombia while three others sought refuge in diplomatic compounds. - Held hostage - Guaido -- the National Assembly president -- has accused Maduro of trying to dismantle the legislature. "They're trying to hold the legislative power hostage while the dictator entrenches himself alone in a palace where he shouldn't be," Guaido said on Twitter. He has previously accused the socialist leader of terrorism for his heavy-handed response to demonstrations. Amnesty said Maduro's government responded with "a systematic and widespread policy of repression" in late January, when anti-government protests swept the country after Guaido declared himself acting president. The London-based rights group said at least 47 people were killed during the protests from January 21 to 25. At least 33 were shot dead by the security forces, and six by government supporters. "Eleven of these deaths were extrajudicial executions," said Erika Guevara, Americas director for Amnesty International, who presented a report in Mexico City, following February's fact-finding mission to Venezuela. Some Maduro opponents were tortured while 900 people, including children, were arbitrarily detained, Amnesty said. "The nature of the attacks... the level of coordination by the security forces, as well as the signs of similar patterns in 2014 and 2017, leads Amnesty International to believe that the Venezuelan authorities committed crimes against humanity." Maduro himself "knew about these public and appalling acts and took no measures to either prevent or investigate them," Amnesty added in its statement. Guaido's declaration that he is the country's legitimate acting president, which has been supported by more than 50 countries, plunged Venezuela into a political crisis. It came about after the National Assembly branded Maduro a usurper over his controversial re-election last year in polls widely regarded as fraudulent. - 'Recurring theme' - The oil-rich, cash-poor country has been stricken by recession and a humanitarian crisis in which almost a quarter of its 30 million population is in urgent need of aid, according to the United Nations. The UN also says that more than 2.7 million people have fled the country since 2015. Those remaining behind face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines, and failing public services including water, electricity and transport. From early Tuesday, the security services cordoned off the building housing the National Assembly. Bullet-proof vehicles and a tow truck were parked in the surrounding streets. "This is a recurring theme. It's not the first time it's happened," said Bolivar, who claimed this was part of "a policy to weaken the Assembly" and "intimidation" related to the power struggle between Guaido and Maduro, who retains the support of the armed forces. Guaido insisted the move would not stop lawmakers from doing their job. "Tomorrow we will be in session again, we'll reconvene and let the regime decide if it wants to continue with a type of political harakiri," he said. "Whether it's in a square, in the annex buildings, under a bridge, the Assembly will sit and there will be a session," said congressman Luis Stefanelli. US orders non-emergency embassy staff to leave Baghdad, Arbil Washington, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 The US State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, as tensions mount between the United States and Iraq's neighbor Iran. Washington has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days, accusing Iran of planning "imminent" attacks in the region, and bolstering the American military presence in the Gulf. "Numerous terrorist and insurgent groups are active in Iraq and regularly attack both Iraqi security forces and civilians," a travel advisory warned. "Anti-US sectarian militias may also threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq." The US last year shut its consulate in the protest-hit southern Iraqi city of Basra, blaming "indirect fire" by Iran-backed forces and warning its rival of retaliation for any damage. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week paid a surprise trip to Baghdad in a move to bolster ties with Iraq as it pushes ahead with its "maximum pressure" against Tehran -- a US arch-rival, but an ally of Iraq. He told reporters he had made the trip because Iranian forces are "escalating their activity" and said the threat of attacks were "very specific." Pompeo met with Iraq President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, and spoke to them "about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it's able to adequately protect Americans in their country." The Pentagon said it was sending several massive, nuclear-capable B-52s to the region in response to "recent and clear indications that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were making preparations to possibly attack US forces." Both Pompeo and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have this week played down fears that their countries were seeking conflict. But National Security Advisor John Bolton warned Iran that Washington would respond with "unrelenting force" to any attack by Tehran, including by its regional allies. Blasts involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) occur in many areas of Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, the advisory added. Arbil is the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, in northern Iraq. US navy chief does not want China tensions to 'boil over' Singapore, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 The US navy chief said Wednesday he did not want maritime tensions with China to "boil over", a week after Washington's latest challenge to Beijing's territorial claims in contested waters. Beijing said last week two American warships sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea without permission, prompting the Chinese Navy to ask them to leave. The ships entered waters adjacent to Gaven and Chigua reefs in the Spratly Islands, which Beijing calls Nansha, on May 6, China's foreign ministry said. Speaking on the sidelines of a maritime security conference in Singapore, Admiral John Richardson said Washington will continue such operations which are aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation. The US will however ensure that communications with Beijing remain open to prevent any untoward incidents, he added. "I really value the channel of communication that I have with Shen Jinlong," he told reporters, referring to his Chinese counterpart. "We just recently visited China, we had a chance to get to know each other, understand each other more thoroughly. "We can continue to advocate that while we may not see things the same in all parts of the world, we've got to work through those differences in a way that doesn't boil over into conflict." The US Navy regularly conducts freedom of navigation operations to challenge Beijing's vast claims in the sea, often angering China. After last week's sail-by, a foreign ministry spokesman said "the Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to the US action. But Richardson insisted the patrols were routine. "We haven't done anything increasingly provocative or anything else that we would not do anywhere else in the world," he said. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea, including on the Spratlys. China claims nearly all of the sea, but Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. German, Dutch armies halt Iraq training amid Iran tensions Berlin, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday they were halting their training of soldiers in Iraq as tensions rise between neighbouring Iran and the United States. "The German army has suspended the training," defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said, adding that there was "generally heightened alert, awareness" for soldiers currently operating in the region. Flosdorff said training may resume in the next few days and that there was "no concrete threat" at the moment. Germany has about 160 soldiers deployed in Iraq, including 60 in Taji, just to the north of Baghdad, and 100 in Erbil, in Kurdish-controlled northern territory. Separately, the Netherlands' defence ministry said it was also suspending its training mission in Iraq due to "threats", the Dutch ANP news agency said. More than 50 Dutch soldiers are training Kurdish troops in Erbil in the context of the international coalition against the Islamic State group, ANP said. The defence ministry website says the Netherlands also supplies two military advisers and four civilian experts to the NATO "capacity-building mission" in Baghdad. Lithuania, which has eight soldiers in Iraq, said it did not plan to halt its mission. Saudi Arabia says oil facility attacks target world supplies Riyadh, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said Wednesday that attacks on two of its tankers and a major pipeline targeted the security of global oil supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, on Sunday. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage... do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening. Tuesday's drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in as yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman off the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or any oil spill. - International investigation - An Emirati official said three Western countries -- the US, France and Norway -- would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The ships -- which also included the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory and an Emirati vessel -- were docked in the sea off the coast of the emirate of Fujairah, the official added. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have given details on the exact nature of those attacks, which come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Riyadh's arch-rival Tehran. OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day of which around seven million are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi cabinet called for "confronting terrorist entities which carry out such sabotage acts, including the Iran-backed Huthi militias in Yemen". Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in case of a military confrontation with the United States. - 'Imminent' attacks - On Wednesday, the United States ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, northern Iraq, after accusing the Islamic republic of planning "imminent" attacks in the region. The US has already strengthened its military presence in the region, including deploying a number of strategic B-52 bombers in response to alleged Iranian threats. Also in Iraq, the German and Netherlands armies are suspending their training programmes for soldiers, the two European countries announced Wednesday, with Berlin citing a "generally heightened alert". Pumping up the rhetoric, Iran's Defence Minister Amir Hatami warned that the United States and its ally Israel would suffer the "bitter taste of defeat". "The proud nation of Islamic Iran will once again... pass this sensitive period of time with its head held high," Hatami said. A day after hosting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was sorry to see Iran's nuclear deal falling apart but stressed his country was not a "fire brigade" to "rescue everything". Earlier Wednesday, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed concern that tensions over Iran escalated despite assurances from Pompeo that Washington was not seeking war. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Peskov said. "We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side," Peskov said, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Tehran. Iran and the US have engaged in a war of words in recent weeks since Tehran began to roll back commitments set out in its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal last year and has unilaterally reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that Iranian crude oil output fell in April to 2.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level in over five years. Shiite-majority Iran rivals Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia for influence in the Middle East, with the two taking opposing sides in multiple regional conflicts including in Yemen. US orders embassy staff from Iraq amid Iran 'threat' Washington, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 The US on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, ramping up alarm over an alleged Iran threat even as allies appeared less than convinced. A senior Democratic senator demanded President Donald Trump's administration brief Congress on the Iran threat, warning that the US legislature has not approved military action against Tehran. And Moscow expressed concerns that both Washington and Tehran were dangerously stoking tensions, as the Pentagon ramped up its forces in the Gulf with B-52 bombers, Patriot missiles and an aircraft carrier task force. The embassy evacuation came 10 days after Trump's national security advisor John Bolton announced the military deployment in response to intelligence on an unspecified "imminent" plot by Iran to attack US forces or allies. The State Department warned Wednesday of numerous "terrorist and insurgent groups" active in the country, including "anti-US sectarian militias" who could "threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq." The warning did not mention Iran specifically, but "anti-US sectarian militias" points to Iran-backed groups. A State Department spokesman told AFP the departure of non-emergency personnel came in response to "the increased threat stream we are seeing in Iraq." - Possible attacks - Washington says it has received intelligence on possible attacks by Iranian or Iranian-backed forces, possibly targeting US bases in Iraq or Syria. Some observers speculate that Tehran is seeking to retaliate to Washington's decision in April to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a terrorist organization in an effort to stymie their activities across the Middle East. But since the first US warning on May 5, the only activity seen has been a still-mysterious "attack" Monday on four tankers anchored off Fujairah, a UAE port at the strategically crucial entrance to the Gulf. One or more vessels incurred light hull damage, but what caused the damage and who was behind it remains unknown. US allies in Iraq have refrained from echoing Washington's warning cry. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said Tuesday there was no special heightened alert, and that OIR troops were always on guard against possible attacks. After Ghika's comments drew a sharp retort from the US Central Command, Britain's defense ministry said Wednesday they have "long been clear about our concerns over Iran's destabilising behavior in the region" -- while still not confirming any new imminent danger. Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday they were suspending training of soldiers in Iraq; German defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said there was "generally heightened alert, awareness" among soldiers in the region, but gave no specifics. Separately, the Netherlands' defense ministry said it was suspending a training mission in Iraq due to "threats," according to the Dutch ANP news agency. - US, Iran both deny war plans - Both Washington and Tehran said Tuesday they were not seeking war. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran," echoed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Sochi, Russia. But Russia, a major backer of Tehran, expressed concern Wednesday that Pompeo's assurances had not quelled the crisis. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Pompeo met with President Vladimir Putin. Peskov said Washington had provoked Iran, but added that "we are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side." In the US Congress Democrats demanded to know why the Trump administration was boosting its forces in the Gulf and, according to media reports, considering military plans including the possibility of sending 120,000 US troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks American assets. "The Trump administration has not provided any information to this committee on the intelligence behind their decisions, or what they plan to do in Iraq or Iran," said Senator Bob Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations panel. He demanded a briefing "immediately" on the threat intelligence, any plans for war and the decision to order embassy staff out of Iraq. "Congress has not authorized war with Iran... If (the administration) were contemplating military action with Iran, it must come to Congress to seek approval," he said. US cites 'imminent' Iran threat for Iraq embassy evacuation Washington, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 The order to evacuate US diplomats from Iraq came in response to an "imminent" threat directly linked to Iran, senior State Department officials said Wednesday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the threat came from Iraqi militias commanded and controlled by Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "It is directly linked to Iran, multiple threat streams directly linked to Iran," said one official. "This is an imminent threat to our personnel," said a second official. Earlier Wednesday, the US State Department ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, citing a non-specific threat from "terrorist and insurgent groups" in Iraq that included "anti-US sectarian militias." The move came 10 days after the White House ordered a US aircraft carrier task force and B-52 bombers to the Gulf to prepare to respond to any Iranian-directed strike against US interests or allies in the region. Washington though has been vague about the specifics of the intelligence it has that allegedly indicates Tehran's plans to hit US personnel. "This threat stream, let me tell you, is real," said the second official. "It's IRGC-commanded and controlled Iraqi militias," the official said. "There is no doubt in my mind that under the circumstances, a partial ordered departure is a reasonable thing to do." Both officials stressed that the United States was not seeking an armed confrontation with Iran, despite the Pentagon's military build-up in the Gulf. "There is absolutely no desire or interest in a military conflict with anybody," the official said. US orders embassy staff from Iraq over 'imminent' Iran threat Washington, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 The US on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, citing intelligence on a "imminent" threat from Iraqi militias with close links to Iran. The evacuation order came 10 days after President Donald Trump ordered the movement of an aircraft carrier task force and B-52 bombers to the Gulf to fend off an unspecified plot by Tehran to attack US forces or allies. Both Washington and Tehran have said they have no intention of going to war, but tensions have soared in recent weeks. Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the threat came from Iraqi militias "commanded and controlled" by Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "It is directly linked to Iran, multiple threat streams directly linked to Iran," said one official. "This is an imminent threat to our personnel," said a second official. "There is no doubt in my mind that under the circumstances, a partial ordered departure is a reasonable thing to do." - War plans denied - On Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted the showdown between the Islamic republic and the United States was a test of resolve rather than a military encounter. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war," he said. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed that sentiment, saying in Sochi, Russia: "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran." But the evacuation of US diplomatic personnel from Iraq added to broader worries about a possible armed clash ahead. Democrats in Congress demanded the Trump administration brief them on the Iran threat, warning that the US legislature has not approved military action against Tehran. On Monday, British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt called for "a period of calm" and bluntly warned of the danger of pushing Iran back towards developing nuclear weapons. And in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday expressed concerns about "the continued escalation of tensions around this subject." - Allies skeptical - Washington says it has received intelligence on possible attacks by Iranian or Iranian-backed forces, possibly targeting US bases in Iraq or Syria. Some observers speculate that Tehran is seeking to retaliate over Washington's decision in April to put Iran's Revolutionary Guards on a terror blacklist -- a move designed to stymie their activities across the Middle East. But since the first US warning on May 5, the only activity seen has been a still-mysterious "attack" Monday on tankers anchored off Fujairah, an Emirati port located at the strategically crucial entrance to the Gulf. One or more vessels incurred light hull damage, but what caused the damage and who was behind it remains unknown. US allies continued to show skepticism over Washington's alarm bells. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said Tuesday there was no special heightened alert, adding that OIR troops were always on guard against possible attacks. After Ghika's comments drew a sharp retort from the US Central Command, Britain's defense ministry said Wednesday they have "long been clear about our concerns over Iran's destabilizing behavior in the region" -- while still not confirming any new imminent danger. Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday they were suspending training of soldiers in Iraq; German defense ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said there was "generally heightened alert, awareness" among soldiers in the region, but gave no specifics. In the US Congress, Democrats demanded to know why the Trump administration was boosting its Gulf presence and, according to media reports, considering war plans that would involve sending 120,000 US troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks American assets. Senator Bob Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate foreign relations panel, demanded a briefing "immediately" on the threat intelligence, any plans for war and the decision to order embassy staff out of Iraq. "Congress has not authorized war with Iran... If (the administration) were contemplating military action with Iran, it must come to Congress to seek approval," he said. Special peace court orders release of former Colombian guerrilla Bogota, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 A special peace court in Colombia ordered on Wednesday the "immediate release" of a former left-wing guerrilla leader wanted by the United States for drug trafficking. Jesus Santrich, a blind former leader of the FARC rebels, was arrested in April 2018, suspected of participating in the trafficking of 10 tons of cocaine to the United States. However, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) ordered him released to comply with the "non-extradition guarantee" that formed part of the historic 2016 peace accord that brought an end to FARC's 50-year insurrection, converting the former rebels into a political party. Colombia's Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez responded to the order by resigning. The JEP is the special court tasked with judging crimes committed during Colombia's half century of armed conflict. It had previously suspended an extradition order against Santrich, whose real name is Seuxis Paucias Hernandez. The 52-year-old is accused of involvement in drug trafficking between June 2017 and April 2018, crucially after the peace accord was signed in December 2016. The agreement stipulated that former guerrillas who commit crimes after the pact was signed would be tried in a normal court and would lose the benefits afforded by the accord, such as a ban on extradition. FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that has subsequently become the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force political party, has denounced the accusations against Santrich as a "judicial set-up." Explaining his resignation, Martinez said "my conscience and my devotion to the rule of law prevents me" from liberating Santrich. "That's why I've presented my irrevocable resignation," he added. Santrich's case had caused a schism between Martinez and the JEP over different interpretations regarding the scope of the special court's jurisdiction. raa/ll/bc Trump to visit S.Korea for talks on N.Korea nukes: White House Washington, May 15 (AFP) May 15, 2019 President Donald Trump will visit South Korea in June to meet with his counterpart Moon Jae-in over their efforts to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons arsenal, the White House said Wednesday. "President Trump and President Moon will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," the White House said in a statement, using North Korea's official name. The White House said Trump's visit to South Korea would combine with his visit to nearby Japan, where he will attend a G20 summit in Osaka on June 28-29. Trump has made attempts to negotiate with North Korea a top priority. However, his two summits with all-powerful leader Kim Jong Un have produced no breakthrough in getting the totalitarian state to relinquish its nuclear weapons. Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that the Chinese government and people stand firmly with the Sri Lankan people and resolutely support Sri Lanka in safeguarding its national security and stability. President Xi made the remarks while meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday in Beijing. Both sides need to maintain the high-level dialogue regularly, promote cooperation in jointly building the Belt and Road, facilitate law-enforcement and security cooperation, and enhance cooperation against non-traditional security threats, Xi said. The Chinese president said he believes Sri Lanka will show its rich culture through the platform of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations which is scheduled to open on May 15 in Beijing. Sirisena expressed appreciation of China's forthright position on Sri Lanka's counter-terrorism strategy and efforts. He said the conference will promote mutual understanding and respect and shared prosperity among countries with an emphasis on civilizations. Sri Lanka appreciates China's valuable support and assistance over the years, Sirisena said, adding his willingness to build the Belt and Road with China and deepen China-Sri Lanka mutually beneficial cooperation. A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Index of turnover in industry 2021, October Published: 15 May 2019 Turnover in manufacturing grew by 3.6 per cent in March According to Statistics Finland, working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing (TOL BCD) increased in March by 3.6 per cent from the corresponding period of the previous year. Among the main manufacturing industries, the growth in working day adjusted turnover was strongest in the chemical industry, 13.1 per cent and in the forest industry, 6.0 per cent. Seasonally adjusted turnover in manufacturing (TOL BCD) remained almost unchanged in March, growth from February only 0.1 per cent. Annual change in working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing (BCD), %, (TOL 2008) Among the main industries, turnover growth was slowest in the electrical and electronics industry, 0.3 per cent. Also, in the textile, apparel and leather production industry and in mining and quarrying industry, turnover growth was modest, only 1.2 per cent over the year. Turnover contracted from the previous year in the industry of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, by 4.0 per cent, and in the food industry, by 0.3 per cent. Annual change in working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing by industry, March 2019, %, (TOL 2008) Export turnover and domestic turnover growing in February Export turnover grew most in the electrical and electronics industry in February, by 17.2 per cent, in the metal industry, by 7.0 per cent, and the forest industry, by 6.4 per cent. In turn, export turnover decreased in February in mining and quarrying, by 9.5 per cent, in the textile, apparel and leather production industry, by 1.2 per cent, and in the chemical industry, by 0.7 per cent. Annual change in working day adjusted export turnover and domestic turnover in manufacturing by industry, February 2019, %, (TOL 2008) Domestic turnover grew most in February in the chemical industry, by 16.5 per cent, and in the forest industry, by 12.9 per cent. Domestic turnover declined from the corresponding period in the year before only in the textile, clothing and leather industry, by 8.5 per cent. Trend series of turnover, export turnover and domestic turnover in manufacturing (BC), 01/2007 to 03/2019, %, (TOL 2008) The index of turnover in industry describes enterprises whose main industry is manufacturing. The calculation of the indices is based on the Tax Administrations self-assessed tax data which are supplemented with data obtained with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The monthly turnovers of manufacturing enterprises can vary considerably, especially in the metal industries. The variation is mainly due to invoicing practices. The final invoice for major machinery deliveries and projects may be recorded in the sales of one month, even if the delivery had required the work of several months or years. The factors caused by the variation in the number of weekdays are taken into account in adjustment for working days. This means taking into consideration the lengths of months, different weekdays and holidays. In addition, seasonal variation is eliminated from seasonally adjusted series, on account of which it makes sense to compare observations of two successive months as well. The data for the latest month are preliminary and they may become significantly revised particularly on more detailed industry levels in coming months. Source: Index of turnover in industry 2019, March, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Maija Sappinen 029 551 3348, Kirsi-Maaria Manninen 029 551 2681, myynti.teollisuus@stat.fi Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko Publication in pdf-format (322.2 kB) Updated 15.5.2019 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Index of turnover in industry [e-publication]. ISSN=1798-596X. March 2019. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 26.12.2021]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tlv/2019/03/tlv_2019_03_2019-05-15_tie_001_en.html TO VIEW MORE NEWS STORY, PLEASE CLICK ON NEWS TAB ON MAIN MENU BAR The US House of Representatives on May 7 passed the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2019 and House Resolution 273 which reaffirmed the US commitment to the island of Taiwan and the implementation of the Taiwan Relations Act, according to Asia Times. Reuters reported that the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2019 will enable the US to make "regular sales of defense articles" to the island of Taiwan and support Taiwan's "participation in international organizations." There are several causes behind the House's passing the bills. One is to further strengthen ties with the island of Taiwan. Moreover, some hawkish US lawmakers attempt to play the Taiwan card to boost domestic support. Currently, tensions between Beijing and Washington are rising. Taiwan card can be used to provoke the Chinese mainland. Some believe the US executive branch has been too weak in upgrading ties with Taiwan and hope to pressure them to promote further measures. The Taiwan question has always been intertwined with China-US relations. Mutual trust between Beijing and Washington is gradually weakening while the strategic game between them is getting increasingly intense. Since Tsai Ing-wen became the leader of Taiwan region, cross-Straits relations have been deteriorating. Taiwan regional leadership election will be held in 2020 and some politicians in Taiwan hope to use US-Taiwan relations as a lever to canvass the constituency. Meanwhile, the US has increasingly challenged the one-China principle in recent years. For example, a US Navy research vessel docked in Kaosiung, a Taiwan's southern port city in October 2018; Amanda Mansour, spokesperson of American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) confirmed in April 2019 that the US Department of State has deployed US soldiers at AIT since 2005; the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2019 also directs the US secretary of defense to work to include Taiwan in bilateral and multilateral military training exercises. In spite of orally abiding by the one-China principle, the connotation of US one-China principle is being hollowed out. The US House's recent legislation on Taiwan shows they hope to continue this trend and the US may come up with new moves on Taiwan in the future. In the coming years, US ties with the island of Taiwan may deepen. The US tries to use pro-Taiwan policies to pressure the mainland. Therefore, US willingness to support Taiwan will be increasingly strong. In the context of current cross-Straits tensions, the island of Taiwan will actively cooperate with the US, or even prompt the US to take measures to enhance their bilateral ties, which is important for Tsai. Since Taiwan Assurance Act of 2019 is only the "sense of the Congress" and the US Senate has not voted on the act, Beijing is not supposed to overreact. We need to show to the US that its recent moves on Taiwan will escalate China-US tensions and impede cooperation in other fields, such as on the North Korean nuclear issues. Additionally, we have to convince the US Congress of the danger of its pro-Taiwan moves, which play a detrimental role in China-US ties. Besides the pro-Taiwan groups in the US, Taiwan regional administration also pushed the two acts. We should warn the island of Taiwan that if Tsai "administration" tries to play the US card, they need to pay the price. If there are further moves between the US and the island of Taiwan, we can increase the pressure on Taiwan, including limiting its participation in international organizations, or taking some military measures, such as military exercises and warships cruising around the island. In all, we need to send a deterrent signal to Taiwan and warn it against playing with fire. Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. Nadhim Zahawi, MP for Stratford-on-Avon, left, and Jeremy Wright, MP for Kenilworth and Southam. Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi decided not to support the idea of Parliament declaring a climate emergency this month, because he disagreed with the wording of the opposition motion. A motion calling on the house to declare a climate emergency was passed by MPs, and while he did not oppose it, Mr Zahawi said could not support the motion as it declared that funding to Natural England had been drastically cut. Labour put forward the motion in the light of high profile climate change protests by the group Extinction Rebellion and by student across the country over recent months. Mr Corbyn said that the passing of the motion could set off a wave of action by parliaments across the world to tackle climate change. Mr Zahawi said: The Government did not support the Oppositions motion because we totally reject the assertion of cuts to Natural England. However we did not oppose the motion either given our commitment to, and strong record on, addressing climate change and its many contributing factors. Providing his reaction to Mr Zahawis stance, Stratford Environmental Campaigner, Peter Chaddock said: As I recall, neither Mr Gove nor any of the conservative MPs who attended the five hour debate took it upon themselves to take issue with Mr Corbyn when he talked about cuts to Natural England. Most peculiar then that Nadhim has chosen to give this as "The Government's" sole reason for not supporting such a vital motion. Furthermore, during the debate, that fact that the government have fudged the figures to make it sound like we are doing better than we actually are on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, was spoken of more than once without challenge. It is now no secret that the UK is "on course to miss" its future carbon reduction targets. Mr Chaddock said the governments approval of a third runway at Heathrow, its attitude to fracking and its ending of the solar feed Tariff, did not support Mr Zahawis assertion that it has a strong record on environmental issues. Providing his view on the motion, Kenilworth and Southam MP, Jeremy Wright said: The Opposition Day Motion on the environment and climate change was not put to a formal vote, but we must tackle climate change, and the Government I support has taken several measures to do so. Britain is firmly on track to meet the 2050 target to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases by 80 per cent. Since 1990, the UK has cut emissions by more than 40 per cent while growing the economy by more than two thirds, the best performance on a per person basis than any other G7 nation. He added: The Government recognise the situation we face is an emergency. It is a crisis, and it is a threat that we must all unite to meet. China's first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Type 001A, docks at the shipyard of Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co Ltd in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province on Monday. Photo: IC A full year has passed since China's second aircraft carrier, or the first domestically made, the Type 001A, conducted its first sea trial, leading analysts to suggest the ship might soon officially join the country's naval service. Their prediction is based on the experience of the country's first carrier, the Liaoning, which took a little more than a year from its maiden voyage to enlist in the PLA Navy. As of Monday, lane markings have been painted on the Type 001A's flight deck. It also conducted a replenishment drill within the shipyard with the supply ship Hulunhu in late April, news website wenweipo.com reported on Monday. The first domestically developed carrier undertook its first sea trial on May 13, 2018. Four others have been conducted over the past year. The sea trials successfully tested the warship's propulsion system, combat and supply capabilities, China Central Television reported in April. Chinese military enthusiasts had hoped the second carrier would make it to a maritime parade on April 23 to celebrate the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's 70th anniversary in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province. However, it remained in its shipyard in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province where it continued to be painted. The interval between the Liaoning's first sea trial and its commissioning to the PLA Navy was a little more than a year, so analysts believe the domestically made carrier will very likely be commissioned within two months, the wenweipo.com report said. As the commissioning of the Type 001A appears to be on track, military observers are beginning to shift their focus to China's third carrier. The construction of the second domestically developed aircraft carrier has begun, the PLA Daily reported on April 21. The Xinhua News Agency also reported construction was underway in November 2018. Reuters reported on May 7 that the third carrier is being constructed at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, citing recent satellite images. Chinese military experts told the Global Times previously that the third carrier will likely be bigger than the previous two and feature a flat deck instead of jump-rack deck. It might also use new technologies including an electromagnetic catapult to launch its aircraft, they said. Wang Chao presents UDGs master plan. KT/Mai Vireak Source: Khmer Times The Defence Ministry has once again denied allegations made in a report saying that Cambodia is allowing Chinas Union Development Group to construct a military base in Koh Kong province. On May 9, US-based media War on the Rocks published Hiding in Plain Sight: Chinese Expansion in Southeast Asia, on its website. In the article, it said that China is building a naval base in the Kingdom, an allegation government officials have always denied by saying that according to the constitution, no foreign armed forces will ever be stationed in the Kingdom. The article said that despite repeated denials, satellite imagery shows that UDG is building a port long enough to support military vessels and aircraft. Recent commercial satellite imagery shows that Union Development Group, a Chinese-owned construction firm, has been rushing to complete a runway in Cambodias remote Koh Kong province on the southwestern coast, it said. It appears long enough to support military aircraft and matches the length of the runways built on the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea to support military reconnaissance, fighter and bomber aircraft. On Saturday, Defence Ministry spokesman General Chhum Sucheat reiterated on Facebook that the allegation was wrong due to the Kingdoms constitution. The article on this site is ill-willed, causing the world to be confused about Cambodia, Gen Sucheat said. It is attempting to disrupt the countrys cooperation with foreign investors. It affects potential tourists. He added that Prime Minister Hun Sen had already made it clear that Cambodia will not allow foreign military bases to be constructed, and that the constitution will not be changed to facilitate any decision to allow it. Defence Ministry spokesman General Chhum Sucheat. Supplied However, Gen Sucheat noted that Chinese investors bring plenty of capital into the Kingdom. The development of the Dara Sakor vacation resort in Koh Kong province, in which billions of dollars were invested by Chinese companies, is contributing to the promotion and development of tourism, the economy, and trade in Cambodia, he said, adding that Cambodian citizens are happy that Chinese investors are confident about Cambodias stability. Koh Koh Provincial Governor Mithona Phouthorng could not be reached for comment yesterday. However, she said in November that her province did not have a Chinese naval base. Allegations of a Chinese naval base in the Kingdom have also made Cambodias ally Vietnam concerned. In December, Mr Hun Sen assured Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc that the government will not allow a foreign military base to be established. . . I confirm that the constitution of Cambodia does not allow any foreign military bases in the Kingdom, nor does it allow Cambodian armed forces to go abroad outside of the United Nations framework, Mr Hun Sen said. If this propaganda continues, it will not only be an issue for Cambodia, but also neighbouring countries. I hope these evil rumours will cease. ABC/Randy HolmesOn Wednesday, a deluxe edition of Vampire Weekend's new album Father of the Bride, including three bonus tracks, was released in Japan. One of those tracks is called "Lord Ullin's Daughter," and features actor Jude Law. If you want to hear the song, you best book your plane tickets now -- a rep for VW tells Pitchfork that there aren't any plans to release "Lord Ullin's Daughter," or any of the extra tracks, outside of Japan. Law previously worked with Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig on the latter's Neo Yokio animated Netflix series. The Captain Marvel actor voices a robot butler named Charles on the show. The U.S. version of Father of the Bride debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, giving VW three straight chart-topping albums. The band will embark on a North American headlining tour in support of the new record June 5 in Toronto. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar's Defence Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing received Chinese ambassador to Myanmar Source: elevenmyanmar.com Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar's Defence Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing received Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Hong Liang, who had completed his duty in Myanmar, at the Parlour of Bayintnaung Villa at Nay Pyi Taw in the morning of May 13, announced the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services. Both sides cordially discussed relations between the two countries and between the two armed forces which has become the best and highest level at this time, the efforts of the ambassador to improve friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries and between the two armed forces during his tour of duty, on-going assistance of China for Myanmar to gain eternal peace, situations needed to be made for the peace and stability and development of the border region via the friendly relations between the border peoples of the two countries, the announcement said. Moreover both side discussed about the collaboration between the two armed forces and administrative organizations, requirements to boost border trade, projects in Chinas OBOR which will bring benefits to Myanmar, stances of China on the side of Myanmar among international countries with regard to the Rakhine issue, it said. They also discussed about the achievements of the Senior Generals goodwill visit to China to promote friendly ties and cooperation between the two countries and the two armed forces after meeting with civil and military leaders of China including President Xi Jinping of the Peoples Republic of China, it said. Lt-Gen Moe Myint Tun and senior military officers from the Office of the Commander-in-Chief (Army) and officials from the embassy attended the meeting, it said. Dr. Ng Eng Hen (3rd, R), Minister of Defense of Singapore, reviews the guard of honor of the PLA Navy aboard the Chinese naval guided-missile frigate Xiangtan (Hull 531) at the Port of Changi, Singapore, May 14, 2019. (mod.gov.cn/Photo by Zhang Qian) By Zhang Qian PORT OF CHANGI, Singapore, May 15 (ChinaMil) -- Dr. Ng Eng Hen, Minister of Defense of Singapore, visited Chinese naval guided-missile frigate Xiangtan (Hull 531), which is participating in a maritime live-fire exercise in the Port of Changi, Singapore on May 14, China Standard Time (CST), UTC+8. The drill is part of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) activities. Dr. Ng Eng Hen was accompanied by Rear Admiral Bai Yaoping, deputy commanding officer of the Navy under the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command, and Senior Colonel Jiang Jianrong, Defense Attache of the Chinese Embassy in Singapore, Dr. Ng Eng Hen reviewed the honor guard of the PLA Navy aboard the frigate Xiangtan and toured the ship. Afterwards, two sides held a friendly talk. Rear Admiral Bai Yaoping, deputy commanding officer of the Navy under the PLA Eastern Theater Command, appreciated Singapores contribution to the event and hoped to deepen bilateral exchanges and cooperation. Dr. Ng Eng Hen expressed that he welcomed the Chinese navy to Singapore and congratulated on the successful holding of the multinational naval activities marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy. He also spoke highly of the excellent spirit and professional qualities of the Chinese navy. After the meeting, Zhao Qingliang and Lin Xiaoxuan, respectively the commanding officer and the political commissar of the frigate Xiangtan (Hull 531), presented souvenirs including the ships badge to Dr. Ng Eng Hen. Other naval officers including Rear Admiral Lew Chuen Hong, Chief of Navy of the Republic of Singapore, were also present. The guided-missile frigate Xiangtan (Hull 531), a new generation of main warships independently developed and built in China, arrived in the Port of Changi, Singapore for a live-fire exercise as part of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) activities. Myanmar authorities have razed deserted Rohingya villages and those remaining in the country live in displacement camps and in fear of further military reprisals. "The situation is at a total standstill," said Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. The UN Human Rights Council said in a statement on Tuesday that there has been no progress toward resolving the crisis over Myanmar's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, more than 1 million of whom have fled military "clearance operations" in the northwest Rakhine region. A United Nations fact-finding mission is urging that countries cut off all business with Myanmar's military as part of efforts to hold the army accountable for human rights abuses. "Due to the gravity of the past and continuing violations, attention must be given to the political, economic and financial ties of the Myanmar military -- to identify who and what should be targeted so we can cut off the money supply as a means of increasing the pressure and reducing the violence," Christopher Sidoti, a member of the mission said in the statement. The mission found that the military has committed atrocities against many ethnic groups living within Myanmar. It also faulted armed ethnic groups for committing human rights abuses. Myanmar denies allegations of human rights violations, saying its security forces have not targeted civilians and have taken action only in response to attacks by Rohingya militants. UN officials and others have likened the actions to ethnic cleansing, or even genocide. The Fact-Finding Mission is to hand its findings to a new group of the Human Right Council, the Independent Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar, in September. That organization was set up to handle criminal prosecution of violations of international law. The crisis in Rahkine has soured Myanmar's relations with the United States, which had rolled back economic sanctions over the past decade to support political change in the country as it transitioned toward democracy. The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions on Myanmar security forces and Washington has barred Myanmar military officials involved in the Rakhine operations from U.S. assistance. Britain has also cut some support. The UN and independent rights advocates want governments to do more to hold the military accountable. All3Media has launched a new scripted production label, West Road Pictures, fronted by Jonathan Fisher. Fisher recently produced Blood for Virgin Media Television Ireland, starring Adrian Dunbar and written by Sophie Petzal. The series averaged an audience of 1.8 million when it aired on Channel 5 in the UK and the drama had its North American premier, with co-producer Acorn TV. Fisher joined Company Pictures in 2015, and served as Executive Producer for the 20th anniversary series of Midsomer Murders for ITV. Ellie Birnie will be joining Fisher as the new companys Head of Development. West Road Pictures will be producing Blood series two this year. West Road Pictures Managing Director, Jonathan Fisher said: Im thrilled to be launching West Road Pictures and to be working with a fantastic range of emerging and established talent. Im particularly pleased to be continuing my association with the dynamic and ambitious team at All3Media, at a time when new opportunities are opening up for scripted globally. All3Media Chief Executive Officer, Jane Turton, said: Jonathan has an exciting vision for his new label. Blood is an example of the sort of high quality contemporary drama series that West Road Pictures plans to produce for a global audience. Share this story The achievement came 182 days after its release on Nov. 12 last year. It garnered 100 million views in 23 days, the fastest pace for a Korean female solo singer, and 200 million in 90 days. Jennie of girl group Black Pink saw the music video of her single "Solo" rack up over 300 million views on YouTube as of Tuesday. She is the first Korean female soloist to hit the milestone. Black Pink also smashed a YouTube record recently. The lead track off their first mini album, "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du," hit the 800-million mark last Saturday -- the first time for a K-pop act. Two other of their songs -- "As If It's Your Last" and "Boombayah" -- have drawn over 500 million views and three others -- "Play with Fire," "Whistle" and their latest "Kill This Love" -- over 300 million. The four girls, who wrapped up their North American tour just last week, will embark on a European tour starting this weekend. They will perform in Amsterdam on May 18, Manchester on May 21, London on May 22, Berlin on May 24, Paris on May 26 and Barcelona on May 28. How Venus and Mars can teach us about Earth Paris (ESA) May 14, 2019 One has a thick poisonous atmosphere, one has hardly any atmosphere at all, and one is just right for life to flourish - but it wasn't always that way. The atmospheres of our two neighbours Venus and Mars can teach us a lot about the past and future scenarios for our own planet. Rewind 4.6 billion years from the present day to the planetary construction yard, and we see that all the planets share a common history: they were all born from the same swirling cloud of gas and dust, with the newborn Su ... read more Food prices have been on the decline in North Korea for nearly six months, despite claims of an alarming food shortage there. Rice prices have dropped about 1,000 North Korean won per kg in big cities like Pyongyang over the past six months. There is speculation that either the food shortage is not as severe as the North claims or the regime is controlling prices to quell potential unrest. In Pyongyang, rice prices have been dropping since last November, when a kilogram cost 5,000 won, ending up at 4,000 won as of April 30, according to the Daily NK. Overall rice prices fell around 1,000 won throughout the North. On Tuesday Bareun Mirae Party lawmaker Lee Hye-hoon said the food situation in the North "doesn't seem that serious and is not in an urgent need for humanitarian aid for starving people." But a source said the regime is releasing military stockpiles into markets, though food supply has also increased thanks to recent arrivals of aid from China and Russia. Ordinary people can buy food in the market with their own money, but the regime is "short of food for rations for the elite and military," another source said. Lotte built an ethane-cracking plant in the southern U.S. state to produce ethylene using shale gas. Trump also tweeted an hour after the meeting, "biggest investment in U.S. EVER from a South Korean company & thousands more jobs for Americans. Great partners like [South Korea] know the U.S. economy is running stronger than ever!" "Great to welcome Chairman Shin from Lotte Group to the [White House]. They just invested $3.1 BILLION into Louisiana." Trump also posted a photo of their meeting at the Oval Office. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday met with Lotte chief Shin Dong-bin and hailed the Korean-Japanese conglomerate's new plant in the depressed state of Louisiana. This is the first time a Korean business leader met one-on-one with Trump at the White House. The U.S. president is keen to show off his efforts in bringing business back to America. Lotte proposed the meeting and Trump invited Shin to the White House. It lasted for about 30 minutes and Shin thanked Trump for the support he received from the U.S. government and dangled future investment plans in front of Trump as well. Shin has been meeting with the leaders of several countries as part of the group's global expansion drive now its operations in China are on their last leg. He visited Vietnam last year and met with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. He then traveled to Indonesia to meet with President Joko Widodo. The Lotte chairman is desperate to make up for lost business opportunities due to the unofficial Chinese boycott and time lost while he was jailed for bribing ex-President Park Geun-hye. "Shin's appearance with Trump marks a significant rebound for the retail-to-chemicals Korean giant, whose operations and ambitions have been hampered in the past couple of years by a graft scandal and geopolitical backlash in China," Bloomberg wrote. A shortfall in skilled trades students means good students are highly recruited for positions that are hard to fill. Thanks to the recent awarding of Michigan Technical Training scholarships to several local students, theyre increasing their chances of getting hired for some of these high-demand jobs. The Downriver Career Technical Consortium has announced the names of the 2019 recipients of the Michigan MAT2 skilled trades apprenticeship program housed in the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant, home of the Ford Mustang. The following students were awarded MAT2 scholarships by the following companies: ?U.S. Steel: Miles Sysol, Justin Barger, Dylan Pierce, Seth Eastridge and Derrick Ilich. ?Link Engineering: Brandon Kar and Michael Simmons. ?SW America: Wyatt McDavid, Nikolas Voltzikos. ?Durr Industries: Michael Peruski. Heralded as the future of skilled trades training for students, this program is a joint partnership between Southgate Schools and the DCTC, along with Henry Ford College, the United Auto Workers and Ford Motor Company. Housed inside the Ford Mustang plant, students are enrolled in a dual enrollment program through Henry Ford College, where they receive up to 26 college credits, often counted towards their future apprenticeships. The program receives support from the Ford Motor Company which donates the facilities along with the United Auto Workers, which donates skilled trades personnel to help teach the students. UAW Region 1A Director Chuck Browning recently toured the program with the Ford Plant Manager Jon Gifford and was impressed with how well everyone worked to better the skilled trades opportunities for the students. I am very proud of the contributions made by the UAW Local 3000 leadership and our members to give back to our community through their participation in such a valuable program that helps prepare students for their future. Having the skilled trades personnel to help teach the students brings real world knowledge into the program plus gives individualized assistance that a regular classroom is unable to afford, said Arthur Ibegbu, Mechatronics program instructor for Southgate Schools and Henry Ford College. The students are part of the Michigan Advanced Technical Training or MAT2 initiative started by the State of Michigan to address this shortfall in the skilled trades. Employers all across the state are having a hard time finding enough people with in-demand skills to fill high-wage, high-skill jobs, said Marcia Black-Watson, Industry Engagement division administrator for the Talent Investment Agency. As the demand for jobs in the professional trades continues to grow, apprenticeships are becoming key to providing the hands-on work experience needed to fill those jobs. The MAT2 program has been, and continues to be, a very successful way to train talented individuals and help put a new generation on career paths that match their individual talents. Even before graduation, students receive job offers from Brose, U.S. Steel, Durr Industries, Z.F, Williams International, eMag, to name a few of the companies seeking program graduates. Students receiving the MAT2 job are awarded a five-year contract, with all college expenses covered by the company along with paid internships, stipends to cover expenses while in college and for some, travel for training outside the United States. My company, Durr Systems, sent me to Germany for training, said Kaitlin Bowen, a Southgate graduate and MAT2 student. We did electrical/electronics work, programmable logic controller projects and machining in work settings to compliment all the training they are providing here in Michigan. They even sent us on a ski trip on the weekend. While Bowen had full ride scholarships to college, she chose the MAT2 program to pursue her interest in engineering for the rigor and relevance of what is taught. When I complete this program, they will continue to support my education, if I choose! she said. With the baby boomers retiring, this is creating a shortfall of trades jobs. According to the state of Michigan, the state is going to have a need of 15,000 trades personnel yearly for the foreseeable future. To help address this shortfall, next year DCTC is going to add an additional program in the facility, focusing on machine trades and mechanical engineering. Those leading this program say it has a groundswell of support from industry partners who have lined up to hire interested students as apprentices. For more information see dctc-cte.org. The work will take place over the next few months and will put a definitive end to this case for the benefit of all, said John Belvedere. The mayor of Pointe Claire was referring to the longstanding issue with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl) found on the site of the former Reliance Power Equipment that dates back to the former administration. Mariam Ishak (l) is running for the Conservative party of Canada in the October election in the riding of Pierrefonds-Dollard and at her town hall held last week in DDO, she was joined by Calgary-Centre North MP and Shadow Minister for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Michelle Rempel. Sudan\s military rulers and an alliance of protesters and opposition groups were set to meet on Wednesday to hash out the details of a sovereign council designed to steer the country towards democracy during a three-year transition. The Transitional Military Council (TMC), which took over after overthrowing and jailing veteran President Omar al-Bashir on April 11, has been holding intermittent talks with the opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) for several weeks. Early on Wednesday, they announced a deal on the composition of a legislative council and the duration of the transition. But they said they would continue talks on the key sticking point of the make-up of the sovereign ruling council. Both sides expressed optimism that they could reach a final deal, with talks expected to resume on Wednesday evening. Protesters pushing for a civilian-led transition and for security forces to be held to account for the deaths of demonstrators have remained in the streets, however. Some expressed caution over the prospects for an agreement that would satisfy their demands. "We are still sticking to our plan," said Altaj Blah, a protester in central Khartoum. "The barriers are there and they are not moving until our demands are met." The two sides announced in the early hours of Wednesday that the transition would last three years a compromise between the TMC\s proposal of two years and the DFCF\s preference for four. The TMC said the DFCF would have two-thirds of the seats on a transitional legislative council while parties outside the alliance would take the rest. Free elections would be held at the end of the three-year transition. A final deal on the composition of the sovereign council will be reached within 24 hours, according to the TMC. Satea al-Hajj, a DFCF member, said: "The viewpoints are close and, God willing, we will reach an agreement soon." On Monday after security forces tried to clear some protest sites, an outburst of violence left at least four people dead, including three protesters and a military police officer. They were the first deaths linked to the protests for several weeks. DFCF members blamed security and paramilitary forces, while also voicing suspicions that groups linked to Bashir might be fomenting unrest to undermine the chances of a political accord. The ouster of Bashir, who seized power in a military coup 30 years ago, came after 16 weeks of demonstrations triggered by a worsening economic crisis under his increasingly repressive rule, with many people also angry over corruption and cronyism. Demonstrators have been camped at a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry since April 6. On Tuesday, the sit-in area and eastern Khartoum were blocked off from the capital\s centre by barriers erected by protesters. Some roads in the centre have been blocked with stones, bricks, branches and slabs of concrete that security and paramilitary forces have occasionally tried to clear. One group of protesters argued with soldiers on Wednesday as they tried to reinstall barricades just south of the al-Mek Nimir bridge over the Blue Nile river. The protesters chanted, "No going back, we have demands." The outcome of the dispute was not immediately clear. But in past such cases, protesters put their barricades back up after security forces leave the area. SOURCE: REUTERS Juan Guaido accused the Venezuelan government of trying to "gag" congress after security forces prevented opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly on Tuesday, two weeks after the opposition leader\s failed uprising against President Nicolas Maduro. Deputies said members of the National Guard, who provide security for the building, along with police and SEBIN intelligence agents blocked access to the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The move came as Amnesty International said it believes the Venezuelan authorities have committed crimes against humanity in their crackdown on anti-government protests, and urged the International Criminal Court to investigate. "SEBIN agents, using the excuse that there\s an explosive device within the facilities, took over the federal palace. We\re surrounded by intelligence agents," lawmaker Manuela Bolivar told AFP. Guaido said the security forces used "brute force," adding that congress was "occupied militarily." He tried to incite an uprising against Maduro on April 30 but only around 30 members of the armed forces joined him, and the revolt quickly petered out. It did however spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. Since then, the Maduro regime has ramped up pressure on Guaido\s allies and supporters. Deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano was arrested by SEBIN agents last week and stands accused of "treason, conspiracy and civil rebellion." He is one of 14 opposition lawmakers the latest four on Tuesday charged by the regime-dominated Supreme Court over the failed rebellion and branded as traitors. One fled to neighboring Colombia while three others sought refuge in diplomatic facilities. Held hostage Guaido the National Assembly president has accused Maduro of trying to dismantle the legislature. "They\re trying to hold the legislative power hostage while the dictator entrenches himself alone in a palace where he shouldn\t be," Guaido said on Twitter. He has previously accused the socialist leader of terrorism for his heavy-handed response to demonstrations. Amnesty said Maduro\s government responded with "a systematic and widespread policy of repression" in late January, when anti-government protests swept the country after Guaido declared himself acting president. The London-based rights group said at least 47 people were killed during the protests from January 21 to 25. At least 33 were shot dead by the security forces, and six by government supporters. "Eleven of these deaths were extrajudicial executions," said Erika Guevara, Americas director for Amnesty International, who presented a report in Mexico City, following February\s fact-finding mission to Venezuela. Some Maduro opponents were tortured while 900 people, including children, were arbitrarily detained, Amnesty said. "The nature of the attacks the level of coordination by the security forces, as well as the signs of similar patterns in 2014 and 2017, leads Amnesty International to believe that the Venezuelan authorities committed crimes against humanity." Maduro himself "knew about these public and appalling acts and took no measures to either prevent or investigate them," Amnesty added in its statement. Guaido\s declaration that he is the country\s legitimate acting president, which has been supported by more than 50 countries, plunged Venezuela into a political crisis. It came about after the National Assembly branded Maduro a usurper over his controversial re-election last year in polls widely regarded as fraudulent. \Recurring theme\ The oil-rich, cash-poor country has been stricken by recession and a humanitarian crisis in which almost a quarter of its 30 million population is in urgent need of aid, according to the United Nations. The UN also says that more than 2.7 million people have fled the country since 2015. Those remaining behind face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines, and failing public services including water, electricity and transport. From early Tuesday, the security services cordoned off the building housing the National Assembly. Bullet-proof vehicles and a tow truck were parked in the surrounding streets. "This is a recurring theme. It\s not the first time it\s happened," said Bolivar, who claimed this was part of "a policy to weaken the Assembly" and "intimidation" related to the power struggle between Guaido and Maduro, who retains the support of the armed forces. Guaido insisted the move would not stop lawmakers from doing their job. "Tomorrow we will be in session again, we\ll reconvene and let the regime decide if it wants to continue with a type of political harakiri," he said. "Whether it\s in a square, in the annex buildings, under a bridge, the Assembly will sit and there will be a session," said congressman Luis Stefanelli. SOURCE: AFP Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemen rebels shut down one of Saudi Arabia\s major oil pipelines Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of several tankers. Washington and Tehran played down tensions after trading barbs as the Americans sent an aircraft carrier group and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the region to counter alleged threats from Saudi arch-rival Iran. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi. Iran\s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "this face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war" with the United States. Saudi Arabia, the world\s largest crude exporter and OPEC kingpin, said two pumping stations had been targeted early Tuesday. They lie on the East West Pipeline, able to pump five million barrels of oil a day from oil-rich Eastern Province to a Red Sea port. The announcement came hours after Yemen\s Huthi rebels said they had targeted vital installations in Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition against them. Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Saudi Aramco had "temporarily shut down" the pipeline to "evaluate its condition" but added that oil production and exports had not been interrupted. He said the incident was an "act of terrorism that not only targets the kingdom but also the security of oil supplies to the world and the global economy". Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam tweeted that the attacks were "a response to the aggressors continuing to commit genocide" against Yemenis. In a statement, the Huthis warned of other "unique operations if the aggressors continue with their crimes and blockade". "We are capable of executing unique operations on a bigger and wider scale in the hearts of the enemy countries." \Sabotage attacks\ Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in the Yemen war in March 2015 to bolster the internationally recognised government\s efforts against the Huthis. The 1,200-kilometre (750-mile) pipeline reportedly hit Tuesday serves as an alternative for Saudi crude exports if the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to be closed. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in case of a military confrontation with the US. The reported pipeline attacks came after the UAE said four ships were damaged in "sabotage attacks" off the emirate of Fujairah, on the mouth of the Hormuz, on Sunday. Washington and its Gulf allies did not immediately blame Riyadh\s regional arch-rival Tehran for the sabotage, but US President Donald Trump has warned Iran against doing anything to harm US interests. The attacks came after the United States deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group, an amphibious assault vessel, a Patriot missile battery and B-52 bombers, triggering fears of a possible military confrontation. Trump later denied a New York Times report that he was considering sending 120,000 troops to counter Iran. "Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Trump said. "Hopefully we\re not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we\d send a hell of a lot more troops than that." The international coalition in Iraq and Syria said its troops were not feeling any intensified threat from Iran in the region. "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," said Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for the force. \Exercise restraint\ A UAE government official said the Saudi oil tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad were attacked off the emirate of Fujairah along with the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory and an Emirati ship, the A. Michel. No casualties were reported and none of the vessels sank. An Emirati official said three Western countries the US, France and Norway would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh said its two tankers suffered "significant damage" but there was no oil spill. The Andrea Victory\s managers, Thome Group, said the ship\s hull had been pierced "after being struck by an unknown object on the waterline". Asked whether the US believed Iran played a role in the attacks, Washington\s Iran envoy Brian Hook declined to comment, saying only that US authorities would help the investigation at the request of the UAE. The United Nations urged all sides to "exercise restraint for the sake of regional peace". Oil prices initially spiked in response to news of the attacks, but were largely flat in trading on Tuesday. Fujairah port is the only Emirati terminal located on the Arabian Sea coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz through which most Gulf oil exports pass. Iran and the US have engaged in a war of words in recent weeks since Tehran began to roll back commitments set out in a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal last year and has unilaterally reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. SOURCE: AFP Global real estate advisor Savills has announced the signing of a prominent joint venture with Egyptian company Sphere, to cover the full range of real estate services in Egypt. The new partnership, which will trade as Savills, will combine local knowledge with international best practice, said senior officials while announcing the deal at MIPIM 2019, a leading international property event held annually in Cannes, France. The ceremony was attended by key executives including Steve Morgan, CEO of Savills Middle East, Catesby Langer-Paget, Head of Savills Egypt, James Sparrow, CEO of Savills UK & EMEA, Philip Ingleby, COO of Savills UK & EMEA, and Sherine Badreldine, CEO of Sphere. As part of the deal, the new joint venture company will this month take responsibility for the management, agency and marketing of Arakan, a key mixed-use development located in West Cairo. The development opened its doors in 2012 and quickly became the prime location for business, retail and leisure for Sheikh Zayed City and beyond. Arkan is undergoing significant expansion, with construction on track to be completed in Q1 2020, said a statement from Savills. Once the extension is concluded, the project will span over a total built-up area of 260,000 sq m and features 210 shops, 67 restaurants, 185 room hotel, 600 seat theatre, 47,000 sq m offices, 4,500 parking spaces and other key developments. Langer-Paget said: The Savills journey in Egypt to date has been a great success. We launched our operations in Egypt only in December 2018 and recently announced the launch of our first residential project, One Zamalek, the much anticipated waterfront address in Cairo." "These rapid developments allowed us to grow considerably in a market that shows promising signs of expansion. We are now achieving another milestone through our strategic joint venture with Sphere, and the subsequent management of Arkan. This key development is set to become one of the most sought-after destinations in the Egyptian capital. Thus we are bringing on board world-class expertise to set a new benchmark in the market, he stated. Badreldin said: We have managed Arkan since its inception and were able to provide one of the first real mixed use schemes in Cairo. Accordingly, we have been approached by other clients for property management, marketing and leasing mandates." "There is a strong demand for high-end real estate services in Egypt, given the growing number of developments," she noted. "With Savills, we can meet these requests by providing best in class service, based on global standard policies and procedures. We take great pride in working with the renowned Savills team on the next phase of Arkan, and all the potential future mandates. Their global expertise and knowledge of the regional market, will be key in our journey towards being Egypt's best real estate service provider, she added. Savills has also appointed James Bailey as Client Services Director to join the team. James brings over 20 years of experience in delivering and managing key commercial assets. For instance, he played a vital role in successfully launching three top 20 UK shopping centres which contributed to significant economic regeneration and community engagement in Leeds, Bristol and Leicester. His expertise will be an important asset to raise the bar of what has been previously achieved in Cairo.-TradeArabia News Service Siemon, a leading global IT infrastructure specialist, has completed a series of educational events across the Middle East to share knowledge and expertise on the latest developments and trends impacting enterprise, intelligent building and data centre infrastructure. During an Emerging Technology Forum (ETF) seminar held last month at the Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel in Kuwait City, Valerie Maguire, director of standards and technology at Siemon, delivered a copper, fibre and wireless applications technology update to educate IT industry professionals on the structured cabling implications of emerging and recently published wired Ethernet, wireless Ethernet LAN, and remote powering applications. The seminar was held in partnership with Cisco and attracted a large audience of more than 80 attendees, including end users, consultants, architects and partners from the region, said a statement from the company. Maguire said: Wired ethernet technology under development covers a broad spectrum including 40Gb/s over balanced twisted-pair, remote power delivery using four pairs, 400Gb/s over optical fibre, single-pair Ethernet and more. Looking at wireless Ethernet, recent developments include the second wave IEEE 802.11ac technology, she said. In my talk, I highlight the impact these developments have on structured cabling to help ensure enterprise building and data centre professionals put IT infrastructure in place that is ready to support this latest technology wave, she added. At the seminar Siemon also showcased a range of its products, including demonstrations of its ConvergeIT cabling solutions for intelligent buildings and high-density data centre equipment and attendees learnt how the latest technology on offer can provide specific advantages to them. Siemons educational programme then moved on to the UAE and the BICSI Middle East and Africa conference and exhibition in Dubai where Valerie Maguire, together with other industry experts, delivered a masterclass on the subject of Remote power delivery and the role four-pair Power over Ethernet (PoE) plays in powering the future of intelligent buildings and the IoT. Addressing designers, installers and maintainers alike the masterclass explored new capabilities of four-pair PoE and how it will affect cabling design, installation, and testing. Maguire provided valuable advice on cable media selection and design strategies, stressing that shielded copper cabling including Category 6A and 7A cabling and a zone cabling design approach offer the greatest benefits when power is delivered over structured cabling. In her keynote presentation during the opening day of the BICSI conference Maguire explored how and why single-pair cabling is finding its way into todays enterprise automation and IoT networks. Attendees learnt how single-pair Ethernet sufficiently provides power and data to many automation controllers, sensors, and M2M devices and how single-pair cabling standards will facilitate deployment of generic infrastructure to support future IoT devices and technology. Prem Rodrigues, sales and marketing director for Middle East, India and SAARC at Siemon, said: We are very pleased with the amount of interest our ETFs and educational presentations received both in Kuwait City and Dubai. This confirms the importance of ongoing education and development amongst industry professionals in the Middle East. We have always been very dedicated to sharing knowledge and technical expertise and to helping infrastructure managers understand how the latest technology can future-proof their networks. We will certainly continue to offer these educational events in the future, he added. TradeArabia News Service Oman Fisheries Company (OFC), which is partly owned by the Omani government, has welcomed efforts by the authorities to crack down on illegal foreign fishermen, said a report. OFC claimed that the illegal fishing contributed to a significant decline in its earnings during the first quarter of this year, added the Oman Daily Observer report. OFC chairman Mohammed Hamad Ali Al Masrori stated in the Directors Report for the January-March 2019 period that illegal fishing took a sizable bite out of the revenue targets linked to procurements of small pelagic fisheries from artisanal Omani fishermen. He added that the OFCs procurement of fish totally relies on artisanal fisheries, which is not predictable in terms of availability per species and per quantities. He further noted that the company was able to export less than 600 metric tonnes (MT) per month of sardines instead of the 2,500 MT as budgeted. Significantly, illegal fishing was among a host of major challenges that had impacted its operations and consequently its bottom-line in the first quarter of this year. Restrictions on the exports of tuna in whole round form, imposed by regulatory authorities since the start of this year, led to a dramatic reduction in overseas shipments of tuna in the first quarter. As a result of these restriction, tuna exports were limited to only 300 MT as opposed to the targeted level of over 2000 MT, added the report. The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), a member of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB), reported a total of 1,320 bilateral meetings and 200 deals under discussion through its flagship programme: the Arab Africa Trade Bridges Program (AATB). The deals were at an Agri-food Trade Forum held recently in Dubai, UAE, in collaboration with Dubai Exports. The two-day forum promoted trade and investment between African countries and the UAE and eight other Arab Countries. Attended by 40 companies from 15 African countries, in addition to 70 companies from the UAE and Arab countries, the event focused on how to increase the import and export of Agri-Food products. Agri-food companies from Mauritania, Senegal, Cote dIvoire, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Mozambique were among the participants in the forum. Engineer Hani Salem Sonbol, chief executive officer, ITFC, said: With the huge potential of trade and investment between the Arab and the African regions, The AATB Program attracted the interest of several regional financial institutions and Arab and African Member Countries. The $500 million agreement signed last month with one of the main AATB partners to finance Arab and African trade is a strong signal on the growing importance given to African markets. Similarly, the high number of participating companies in this B2B and the 1300 business meetings held confirm the increasing trend to explore the African Markets, he added. The AATB Program is a regional trade promotion programme, led by ITFC to address some of the challenges faced in promoting trade between the two regions. The programme aims to enhance the potential for products of Arab origin to be exported into African countries and vice versa, and to create a platform that allows for business exchange and greater awareness of intra-regional trade opportunities. In addition, it brings together business communities from Arab and African countries, providing an opportunity for exporters to present their products; and creates new trade finance and export credit insurance solutions that facilitate to businesses to present their services and products. ITFC was established to advance trade and contribute to the improvement of socio-economic conditions and sustainable growth in OIC member countries. ITFC has facilitated more than $45 billion of trade financing solutions to OIC member countries since its inception in 2008, in addition to improving access to trade-related capacity building tools, enabling SMEs and growing businesses to compete in the global market. TradeArabia News Service Bahrains Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Microsoft and ICT training provider - Thinksmart, to upskill government employees for meeting the challenges posed by the global digital economy. Mohamed Ali AlQaed, chief executive, iGA, said: Our wise leaders have a vision for this country in which supports achieving the eTransformation in all working fields, in addition to empowering young people to thrive in our shared digital future. Our collaboration with Microsoft and Thinksmart will help us build the foundations of that success and improve government eServices, accelerate innovation, boost employment and economic growth in the Kingdom. We look forward to working with our partners to enhance the overall competitiveness of the country in line with Bahrain Vision 2030, he added. Under the terms of the MoU, iGA, Microsoft and Thinksmart will work together on an initiative known as Forsati for Government Employees, said a statement. Microsoft will work to provide courses, certifications and technical guidance. Potentially thousands of Bahraini government employees will be upskilled through the initiative, it said. Training paths will include Microsoft basic tools, professional IT, cloud training, digital transformation and exposure to technologies that have emerged as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Each path will be customised to align with the job role of the participant, it added. Sheikh Saif Hilal Al Hosni, country manager, Bahrain and Oman, Microsoft, said: We have enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership with Bahrain, and our work with the iGA has continued that tradition of committing ourselves to help every Bahraini individual and organisation to achieve more. Digital transformation has the power to engage citizens, empower government employees, optimise operations and reinvent service-delivery models. It is a vital component of achieving the goals of Vision 2030 and we are delighted to work with iGA and Thinksmart to help government departments realise that vision, he added. As the leading ICT training provider in Bahrain, Thinksmart will manage the programme, which it originally designed to enhance youth employability and productivity across the nation. For government employees, Forsati will help develop skills that can be used to accelerate digital transformation across all departments. Ahmed Al Hujairy, group CEO, Thinksmart, said: We exist to upskill the people of Bahrain in the technology talents they will need to be relevant in the new global digital economy. Our governments economic vision is steeped in the innovative use of technology. Our work with iGA and Microsoft will ensure our public servants are able to work without impediment towards a better life for every Bahraini, he added. TradeArabia News Service US-based KBR, a global provider of engineering solutions, said it has been awarded a front-end engineering design (Feed) contract by Oman LNG for the debottlenecking of its facility at Sur in the sultanate. Under the terms of the contract, KBR will provide Feed services for the debottlenecking project to increase production at its world-class plant in Sur. This Feed stipulates KBR performing full services including licenser and vendor management and associated services. "This project builds on KBR's extensive track record of developing and implementing LNG projects and providing solutions to complex developments around the world," said Jay Ibrahim, KBR president, Energy Solutions - Services. KBR will act as an extension to Oman LNG's project team and help manage the overall execution of the project including the management of the supply and ensure all areas of compliance and safety are adhered to. The contract underpins Oman LNG's robust commitment towards knowledge sharing and boosting staff competency in dealing with such complex projects, while enhancing Oman LNG's enriched In-Country Value (ICV) efforts. "We are excited to be a part of this important project and to continue to grow and maintain our presence in Oman," continued Ibrahim. "This indicates KBR's strategic commitment to deliver our differentiated services and develop our presence and long term commitment to Oman, support its in-country value initiatives and to develop a highly skilled in-country engineering capability." A pioneer in the LNG industry, KBR has designed and constructed one-third of the world's LNG production, a company statement said. TradeArabia News Service Amadeus has appointed Karim Eldeghedy to join its team in Oman as senior manager - pre-sales and solutions adoption. With over 20 years of experience, Eldeghedy will oversee pre-sales activities and Amadeus leading IT projects within the country, with a specific focus in global distribution systems (GDS) in the tourism sector. Eldeghedy also brings to Amadeus customers in Oman a compelling product and solutions background thanks to his 15 years spent in solutions management. He is relocating to Oman from Amadeus Mena regional office in Dubai, UAE, where he has realised a strong track record of business growth and customer satisfaction for the past five years. Eldeghedy has previously worked with other large multinational companies such as Sabre Travel Network Middle East and the Bahrain Institute of Technology. Today Oman is one of the most promising markets in the Mena region for Amadeus and represents a huge untapped potential for the company. I look forward to working with our established team in the sultanate and our partners across the Oman travel industry to power even better travel journeys moving forward, said Eldeghedy. Today Amadeus builds some of the most critical solutions that help airlines and airports, hotels, search engines, travel agencies, tour operators and other travel players to run their operations, with dedicated staff covering more than 190 countries worldwide. - TradeArabia News Service Turkish low-cost carrier Pegasus Airlines will be launching direct flights between Istanbul and Ras Al Khaimah from October, according to Haitham Mattar, CEO of Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority. The initiative, which was announced during the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai last month, aims to expand the emirates reach within major source markets in Europe and Russia. Commencing from October 28, Pegasus Airlines will operate scheduled flights between Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport and Ras Al Khaimah International Airport. The service will be operated twice a week, on Saturday and Wednesday. The new flight operation will provide outbound and transit travellers from Istanbul smoother and seamless access to Ras Al Khaimah. The carriers new route will further connect Ras Al Khaimah with 26 European destinations including the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, the Nordics and Russia via Istanbul. Mattar said: We are pleased to announce our strategic partnership with Pegasus Airlines that will help us introduce Ras Al Khaimah to the Turkish market and most importantly allow us to leverage Istanbuls proximity and hub connectivity with our key feeder markets within Europe and Russia. This new addition is an important step in our continuous drive to increase accessibility and visibility, attract more high yield visitors, and ultimately boost both first-time and repeat visitation from our source markets. Ras Al Khaimahs attractiveness amongst international tourists continues to be strong - accounting for 62 per cent of overall visitors in 2018 - attributable to its 7,000 years of fascinating history, authentic Arabian culture and heritage, high-profile adventure attractions, magnificent natural landscapes, and exclusive luxury and wellness experiences. As per figures last year, Germany, Russia and the UK continue to be the leading international source markets for Ras Al Khaimah, driven by a strong appetite for the destinations year-round offering. Ras Al Khaimah International Airport now welcomes direct connectivity from various global destinations including Cairo, Islamabad, Jeddah, Lahore, Peshawar, Calicut, Katowice, Poznan, Warsaw, Luxembourg, Prague, Moscow and Wroclaw. - TradeArabia News Service The UAE is expected to continue to be the preferred GCC destination for European tourists, welcoming a projected 8.3 million by 2023, according to new data. The latest data released by Expedia Group disclosed that travellers from the UK and France have topped the list for European travel demand into the UAE in Q1 2019. France saw more than 40 per cent year-on-year growth in demand compared to the same period last year with a 5 per cent share of total room nights, whilst the UK had almost a 15 per cent share of room nights with a year-on-year growth of below 5 per cent. The data also revealed strong growth in package demand from travellers in Ireland, seeing above 40 per cent year-on-year increase, followed by Sweden with an increase of above 30 per cent year-on-year. Some 3.14 million international tourists visited Dubai in January and February this year compared to 3.05 million in the same period last year, 3.01 million in 2017 and 2.68 million in 2016, respectively, increasing the international visitor numbers to Dubai. Factors contributing to this significant increase could be due to initiatives made by the UAE government to boost tourism to the country, such as announcement of new and direct flight routes to Europe, providing free 48-hour transit visas to travellers passing through the UAE, RAK Tourism partnership with European tourism associations to boost European outbound tourism to the UAE, visa on arrival facilities, etc. The UAE government is also beefing up its roster of events and is developing new attractions to woo visitors from across the globe. Mobile demand This year digital travel sales worldwide are forecasted to increase more than 10.4 per cent to $694.41 billion. Mobile is becoming the fastest growing check-in channel for travel. And according to a Statista report, the number of smartphone users globally is expected to grow around 2.5 billion by 2019. This growth in smartphone usage could be the reason why travellers are progressively choosing to book their travel on a mobile platform over other channels. Expedia Groups data also shows the surge in mobile demand as a means of booking travel. For international travel, France demonstrated impressive year-on-year growth in mobile demand with an increase of over 85 per cent in the first quarter of the year. Other tech-savvy European markets with a notable increase in mobile demand included Italy at 45 per cent year-on-year, the Netherlands at 55 per cent year-on-year, Switzerland at 50 per cent year-on-year and the UK with a 10 per cent year-on-year increase in demand. Paula De Keijzer, senior director, Market Management Middle East, Indian Ocean, Africa, Greece & Turkey at the Expedia group, said: As seen from this recent data, the UAE continues to be a hotspot for international travellers and we are noticing high growth in demand from new countries and regions coming to visit the UAE which is very exciting." "Dubais greatest competitive advantage in tourism is its ability to provide a world-class international hub for global air travellers. We also believe that, with the boost in new attractions and accommodation options due to the upcoming Expo 2020, UAE will see a major boost in outbound travel," De Keijzer said. - TradeArabia News Service Washington County Virginia Sheriff's Office(ATLANTA) -- The mother of a Georgia teen allegedly murdered by a traveling carnival worker described him as "the scum of all earth." Cynthia Butterworth, the mother of 17-year-old Joslyn M. Alsup, told ABC Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV that her daughter met the suspect, 23-year-old James Michael Wright, last September at the North Georgia State Fair. "He is unfit to even be called a monster," Butterworth said through tears. Alsup's father worked for carnival company Drew Expositions, where Wright worked as a sub-contractor, Fred Newman, sheriff for the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Virginia, told reporters at a press conference Monday. Wright was in charge of the ponies, Butterworth said. "That's what we called him -- the 'pony dude,'" she said. It is unclear how long he worked for the carnival, which travels up and down the East Coast, Newman said. Wright allegedly shot and killed Alsup near his home in Mendota, Va., on March 9, Newman said. She was reported missing by her family the day before. "We've been looking for her. We had everybody out," she said. "And then come to find she's been gone this whole time." Wright is also accused of murdering two other women he met while working at the carnival, Newman said. On Feb. 28, he allegedly shot and killed 22-year-old Elizabeth Marie Vanmeter, of Carter County, Tennessee, after an argument, and on March 17, Wright allegedly shot and killed 25-year-old Athina Hopson. "I see someone that shouldn't be on earth," Butterworth said. "My heart is so full of hate -- for him and what he has done." Wright allegedly confessed to the murders last week while being interviewed by detectives in Tennessee, Newman said. He allegedly deemed all three killings as accidents, Newman said, adding that the firearm believed to have been used in each murder has been recovered. Alsup's and Vanmeter's bodies were found Friday on the property surrounding Wright's home, Newman said. One body was buried in a shallow grave and the other was placed on or near some logs, Newman said. Investigators have "tentatively" identified the bodies based on Wright's alleged statement. Authorities have not yet located Hopson's body, Newman said. Wright allegedly told investigators that her body fell out of his truck and down an embankment near a bridge as he was driving and that he placed her body in the river, Newman said. Hopson's cellphone was found in Wright's truck during a search two weeks ago, Newman said. Authorities are still investigating Wright's involvement with the carnival to determine whether there could be more victims, Newman said. A representative for the carnival company did not immediately return ABC News' request for comment. It is unclear whether Wright has retained an attorney. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA) has succeeded in attracting more than 10,000 Russian tourists through the charter program operated by the world's leading travel and tourism company; Coral Travel. This was part of the BTEAs efforts to attract tourists from new markets to Bahrain, as the first charter flight was launched by Coral Travel from Moscow to the kingdom at the end of October 2018, with an average of two weekly flights. Shaikh Khaled bin Humood Al Khalifa, CEO of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority, said: "Through the cooperation efforts between Coral Travel and BTEA, the total number of Russian tourists has reached to 10,075 over the past six months alone. The tourists occupancy rate is currently at nine nights, resulting in an increase in the hotel occupancy rate in the kingdom; and the total number of tourist nights has reached to 34,578 nights, with the total expenditure of tourists arriving within the program itself amounting to BD 7,217,730 ($19 million). "Each flight carries 220 passengers staying in 30 hotels across the kingdom, which aids in familiarising them with the rich history of Bahrain and its advanced facilities, contributing to the promotion of tourism destinations in the kingdom and also enhancing the contribution of the tourism sector to the gross domestic product (GDP)." "We will continue to work closely with all our representative offices to bring in tourist groups from around the world," Shaikh Khaled added. - TradeArabia News Service In a world where it seems that everything we door even wanthas become data, how is it possible those who work in the public arena feel they dont have enough data to work with? The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) give us the opportunity to reach common goals for a better future. But how do we know whether we are getting there? Data are what allow us to understand if our choices are having the impact we want. Thats why the 2030 Agenda also needs a data revolution. A bold plan of action, as the SDGs, rely on relevant targets and specific indicators to measure progress. A lot of information about economics is available, but there is a long way to go in terms of social and environmental data. We need to go beyond census and household surveys and think about new kinds of data. More than that, we need to learn how to use all the data that are being collected on our smartphones and systems of registration and turn them into information and knowledge. UNDP Brazil has been working with municipal data since 1998, when we launched, together with the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) and Joao Pinheiro Foundation, the Atlas of Human Development. It includes the subnational Human Development Index (HDI) and more than 200 indicators of human development. Since its launch, the subnational HDI has been used as a parameter in some of the most important public policies in Brazil, such as Mais Medicos programme--a public policy to bring doctors to the most vulnerable communities. When world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda, one of the challenges which arose was how to inform municipal public managers of their progress towards the SDGs? With the important support of Itaipu Binacional, we started a local pilot programme to check which kind of administrative data is available and can be related to the SDGs. This resulted in a new platform, the Oeste do Parana. It has 67 indicators of 54 municipalities of the West of Parana State, a region known for its important UNESCO-rated subtropical forests and the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, which is the largest in the world. The indicators are shown on tables, maps and a municipal profile that combine the regions most important information. The webpage also carries information regarding the SDGs and a tool to monitor the plans for the 2030 Agenda. Based on both experiences, UNDP Brazil is also preparing a new version of the Atlas of Human Development. This project is part of an initiative from UNDP to boost innovative experiences in the field. Besides its traditional indicators, the atlas will have administrative data connected to the SDGs, which will help provide the most recent information to municipalities as they devise policies to align with the 2030 Agenda. The administrative data will be selected from the perspective of human development, and sustainable development. In a world in constant transformation, we need disaggregated and the most up-to-date data to create data-driven public policies. We still have a long way to go. Big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence are relatively recent concepts in development90 percent of all data was collected in the last two yearsbut in Brazil weve made a good start. The SDGs invite us to think creatively and take a step further in the use of data in public policies, developing ways to discover who is being left behind, and change the course of history by 2030. Bangladesh Govt, Chamber of Commerce on same page: Finance Min Dhaka, May 14 (UNI) Bangladeshi Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Tuesday said that there is now no distance between the government and the business community including Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce & Industries (FBCCI) as the government is moving forward to implement the new VAT law from July 1. "I think now there is no distance between the government and the FBCCI, as all of those gaps have been minimised. Were now looking forward to implement this VAT law from July 1," he said. The Finance Minister was briefing reporters at his Economic Relations Division (ERD) office after holding a meeting with the leaders of FBCCI this afternoon. Chinese astronauts of Shenzhou-13 mission conduct second spacewalk: State media 26 Dec 2021 | 7:51 PM Beijing, Dec 26 (UNI/Sputnik) Two crew members of China's Shenzhou-13 spaceship have entered open space for the second time to carry out works for the construction of the country's own orbital station, Tiangong, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Sunday, citing the Chinese space program. see more.. Four security officers die in roadside blast in Mogadishu :Officials 26 Dec 2021 | 7:16 PM Mogadishu, Dec 26 (UNI/Xinhua) At least four security officers including their commander were killed in a roadside bomb blast on Sunday near a hospital in the west of the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials said. see more.. Chinese envoy's visit to northernmost point of Sri Lanka sparks curiosity, concern 26 Dec 2021 | 6:26 PM Colombo, Dec 26 (UNI) The Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhongs visit to the Northern region of Sri Lanka, during which he travelled to Jaffna and Mannar and the northernmost point of the island at Point Pedro, has raised curiosity, and concern. see more.. Desmond Tutu was a moral voice for South Africa and the world (Obituary) 26 Dec 2021 | 5:29 PM Cape Town, Dec 26 (UNI) One of the worlds most respected spiritual and human rights leaders, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a living testament to faith in action, insuppressible in his opposition against the evils of racism, oppression, intolerance, and injustice not just during apartheid South Africa, but wherever in the world he saw moral wrongs, especially impacting the most vulnerable and voiceless in society. see more.. Exchange visits as learning and networking tool: the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Turkey strengthen international cooperation Ankara and Antalya, Republic of Turkey - 15 May 2019 - UNODC, under the framework of the Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants ( GLO.ACT ), organized for a delegation of 6 high-ranking officials from the Kyrgyz State Migration Service and the Ministry of Interior to take part in an exchange visit to the Republic of Turkey from 26 February to 1 March 2019. Kyrgyzstan is a party to a number of legal assistance and extradition agreements, including the Agreement on Cooperation of the Member Countries of the Commonwealth of the Independent States on Combating Trafficking in Persons, Human Organs and Tissues. However, information exchange between relevant migration services and criminal justice institutions of destination countries on investigative, prosecutorial and judicial matters related to Trafficking in Persons (TIP) remains a major challenge and few criminal cases lead to convictions. Stakeholders considered the country cooperated effectively with Russia and Kazakhstan - the main destinations for TIP for the purpose of forced labour. There is not, however, effective cooperation with the Republic of Turkey, which is one of the main destinations for victims of sexual exploitation trafficked from the Kyrgyz Republic. Recent TIP cases that made it onto social media platforms were highlighted in relevant meetings of the government and a request was made for the State Migration Service to improve international cooperation with destination countries such as Turkey, especially with regards to TIP for the purpose labour and sexual exploitation. It was also suggested that to prevent TIP cases a residential offices would need to be set up cities such as Ankara and Antalya, and that awareness raising activities for migrants working in the Republic of Turkey be conducted. The exchange visit included bilateral meetings of Kyrgyz officials with the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Services of the Republic of Turkey, the representatives of the General Directorate of Migration Policy under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police Departments of Ankara, Antalya and Belek cities. Additionally, meetings with Kyrgyz migrant workers and Kyrgyz diaspora in Turkey were organized in partnership with Kyrgyz Embassy to the Republic of Turkey and local private employment companies to increase awareness raising on procedures and rules for employment in the Republic of Turkey, on risks of possible TIP and Smuggling of Migrants (SOM) cases, as well as existing TIP victim's assistance procedures in the Republic of Turkey, including hotline and relevant referral mechanisms. Speaking on challenges of intelligence-led investigation and prosecution of TIP related crimes, Mr. Abdullah Ayaz, the Head of General Directorate of Migration Policy under the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that in 2018, 14 victims of human trafficking were identified by the Turkish police who are the citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic, and at the same time a criminal case was initiated against a citizen of the Kyrgyz Republic on the basis of TIP crime. UNODC 2018 Global Report on TIP in fact points out that victims and traffickers often have the same citizenship and very often come from the same place, speak the same language or have the same ethnic background. Such commonalities help traffickers generate trust to carry out the trafficking crime. The exchange visit of Kyrgyz officials to the destination country significantly contributed to enhance not only international cooperation on TIP and SOM, but also to enhance networking among criminal justice practitioners of both countries which will enable more effective information exchanges on intelligence-led joint investigations. Additionally, a first round of consultations on establishment of the official representation of the Kyrgyz State Migration Service in the cities of Ankara and Antalya will ensure safe labour migration and will contribute counter-trafficking efforts by the government of the Kyrgyz Republic. Over 100 Kyrgyz migrants are now more aware about the possible risks of TIP cases and relevant TIP victim's assistance in the Republic of Turkey, including hotline and victims' referral mechanisms. Over 10 private employment companies of the Republic of Turkey agreed to closely cooperate with State Migration Service under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic to ensure safe employment of Kyrgyz citizens in Turkey. A press conference was organized by the Kyrgyz State Migration Service in Kyrgyzstan to debrief and highlight the main results of the exchange visit. The Global Action to Prevent and Address Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT) is a four-year (2015-2019), 11 million joint initiative by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The project is being implemented in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). GLO.ACT aims to provide assistance to governmental authorities and civil society organizations across 13 strategically selected countries: Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Mali, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, South Africa, Ukraine. GLO.ACT works with the 13 countries to plan and implement strategic national counter-trafficking and counter smuggling efforts through a prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships approach. It supports the development of more effective responses to trafficking and smuggling, including providing assistance to victims of trafficking and vulnerable migrants through the strengthening of identification, referral, and direct support mechanisms. For more information, please contact: Ms. Raushan Bolotalieva GLO.ACT National Programme Officer raushan.bolotalieva@un.org www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/glo-act/ Email: unodc-glo.act@un.org Twitter: @glo_act Warming Climate Threatens Microbes in Alpine Streams, New Research Shows UW research scientist Lusha Tronstad collects samples from the Wind Cave alpine stream on the western side of the Tetons in the Targhee National Forest. The source of the stream is underground ice in the mountain. (Joe Giersch Photo) Changes to alpine streams fed by glaciers and snowfields due to a warming climate threaten to dramatically alter the types of bacteria and other microbes in those streams, according to a research team that included a University of Wyoming scientist. But streams that are fed by underground ice insulated by rock -- called icy seeps -- offer some hope that the impact of climate change will be less severe in some areas, say the researchers, who include Lusha Tronstad, research scientist with UWs Wyoming Natural Diversity Database (WYNDD). Our results show that patterns of microbial diversity support an ominous trend for alpine stream biodiversity, the researchers wrote in the journal Global Change Biology. Icy seeps, however, represent a source of optimism for the future of biodiversity in these imperiled ecosystems. Tronstad is an expert on the alpine streams in Grand Teton National Park, where her 2015 discovery of a rare insect called the western glacier stonefly provided information to assist in deciding whether the species should be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. In the latest research, she joined scientists from the University of Kentucky, Washington State University, Rutgers University, Kansas State University, Missouri State University, the University of Montana and the U.S. Geological Survey to study much smaller organisms in those Grand Teton streams and others in Montanas Glacier National Park. In those high-mountain streams -- some fed by glaciers, some by snowfields, some by underground ice and some by groundwater -- a wide variety of bacteria and other microbes exist. They provide the foundation for larger organisms such as insects in alpine waters and fish downstream. In Wyoming, North Americas Rocky Mountains and mountain ranges worldwide, glaciers and perennial snowfields are shrinking and, in some cases, disappearing as the climate warms. While previous research detailed expected impacts on insects and other larger species, Tronstads research team examined the organisms that cant be seen with the naked eye in six alpine streams in Grand Teton and seven in Glacier National Park. The scientists found that colder streams fed by glaciers and underground ice have less microbial diversity than those fed by snowmelt and groundwater, but the colder streams are home to some bacteria that dont exist in the warmer streams. As warmer temperatures and reduced snowfields and glaciers increase water temperatures and change the flow and variability of the streams, microbial diversity will decline across the alpine waters, the researchers say. That likely will result in broader environmental impacts -- though the scientists acknowledge that the degree to which environmental shifts will translate to altered ecosystem functioning remains largely unknown. UW research scientist Lusha Tronstad takes notes while conducting research downstream of Petersen Glacier in Grand Teton National Park. (Scott Hotaling Photo) While the new research expands understanding of microbial diversity across the range of alpine streams, the scientists say the most significant new insights relate specifically to icy seeps, which are fed by rock glaciers -- masses of underground ice surrounded by rocky debris. Its estimated there are more than 10,000 of these rock glaciers across the United States -- about double the number of surface glaciers and perennial snowfields. Icy seeps are closest in temperature to streams fed by surface glaciers, with less seasonal flow variability. One such underground-ice-fed stream that was part of the study originates from Wind Cave in the Targhee National Forest. Because theyre insulated by thick layers of rock, icy seeps may be more buffered against warming atmospheric conditions than glaciers and perennial snowfields, making them less susceptible to climate change. Consequently, there is strong potential for icy seeps to serve as (a refuge) for cold-adapted mountain stream species and unique ecological functions on a global scale, the researchers wrote, adding that icy seeps may represent the last stronghold of meltwater-associated (life forms) in a landscape without glaciers and perennial snowfields. WYNDD, based at UWs Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center, offers the most complete source of data for species and vegetation communities of conservation concern in Wyoming. This project was supported by a UW-National Park Service Research Station grant to learn more about alpine streams in Wyomings Grand Teton National Park. The lead author of the scientific paper is Scott Hotaling, previously at the University of Kentucky and now with Washington State University. This microbial ecology work complements that of other researchers at UW who are working under a five-year, $20 million National Science Foundation grant that funds researchers and technology to examine the distribution and ecological consequences of microbes in the state. 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. The Gibraltar Museum Open Day 2019 The Gibraltar National Museum will be opening its doors for the 18th annual Open Day on Saturday 18th May 2019 from 10:00 to 18:00. As in other years the event is aimed to coincide with International Museums Day. This years theme set by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) is Museums as Cultural Hubs: The future of tradition. International Museums Day has been celebrated in Gibraltar since 2002, in the form of an open day which continues to increase in popularity within the local community. The Open Day promises to be fun-filled with plenty of activities, primarily aimed at young people, but also for the young at heart. The staff at the Gibraltar National Museum will be on hand to answer any questions and, as in previous years, there will be a range of hands-on activities for all to enjoy. The Gibraltar National Museum will also count on contributions from the Gibraltar National Archives and the Nautilus Project. The popular childrens activities such as face painting and workshops as well as the treasure hunt and fancy dress competitions will once again feature on the day, with prizes for the winners. The theme for this years fancy dress competition is Traditional. Participants are asked to register on the day from 10:00 to 12:30. The recently acquired 18th Century gold pocket watch engraved with the name of Henry Cowper, who lived in Gibraltar at the time, will be on display at the Gibraltar National Museum for the first time. Arts and crafts workshops revolving around the pocket watch theme will be available for children throughout the day. All are welcome and entry is free. 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 If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 14, 2019 | 08:22 PM | PADUCAH Governor Matt Bevin discussed political advertising for the May primary election, the pension crisis, and the new Amazon hub in northern Kentucky in his latest radio interview.Bevin is running for re-election, and while other candidates in both parties are focusing on him in their advertising, the incumbent said he prefers to talk about what he's done and plans to do.He says his ads are, "reminding people of where we've come along the way in the last few years, and the fact that we just have a whole lot of upside ahead of us. This is really the joy of this position, to help Kentucky become the greatest version of itself, and it's been an amazing amount of progress that we've made, but boy, we have so much more upside potential, it's incredible."Bevin said television viewers will see lots of political ads over the next week, with many of them negative. He reminded listeners that many of those ads are paid for by political action committees and the candidates have no control over their content."But, ads that I have the ability to control, I just believe in taking the high road. Talk about what you're doing, what you're gonna do. There's no reason to tear other people down," he said.One of the positive things that's happened was celebrated Tuesday, as Amazon's Jeff Bezos came to northern Kentucky for a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 9-million-square-foot cargo hub for Amazon Prime shipping. It will include parking space for 100 planes.Bevin said some people love Amazon and others don't, but, "they have transformed the way in which people buy and sell goods. They're always innovating, always changing. We're also blessed to have stalwarts that frankly, Amazon is trying to catch up with logistically - the UPSs of the world, the DHLs of the world - all of them right here, operating out of Kentucky. We really are the logistical center of the United States."Regarding the pension issue, Bevin said his bill that will help quasi-government agencies avoid ballooning payments is ready for legislative discussion.Bevin said, "I would say there's never been a bill since I've been Governor that has been so thoroughly discussed and prepared and presented to every single member of the legislature as this bill has been. Everybody has it and it's just up to the leadership in the house and the senate to tell me when their people are ready to go. But this is their job and I'm confident that they'll do it, and I'm ready when they're ready."You can listen to the complete interview with Gov. Bevin on the podcast page for the Greg Dunker Show - just click the link below. On the Net: New Year's Eve still on in Times Square, but with smaller crowd Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 15, 2019 | PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 15, 2019 | 08:47 AM | PADUCAH The U.S. 45 Ohio River Brookport Bridge is expected to remain closed for at least 30 days while a contractor continues a maintenance and repair project. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says crews working on concrete pier cap and bearing pad repairs consulted inspectors and determined that additional work will be required on one of the main span piers. As ongoing maintenance and repair work has continued, our bridge engineers have worked with the contractor to add to the scope of the current contract, KYTC District 1 Chief Engineer Kyle Poat said. The additional work will require the contractor to jack up the end of one of the main truss spans, necessitating at least a 30-day closure. The bridge was initially closed to vehicles on May 8 when illegal truck traffic created safety issues for workers. Drivers who normally travel the bridge between Kentucky and Illinois are advised to continue to detour via the Interstate 24 Ohio River Bridge. By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 14, 2019 | 11:22 PM | CARLISLE COUNTY On Tuesday, the Carlisle County Sheriffs Office and Bardwell Police Department executed a search warrant on Oak Street in Bardwell. The search warrant was the result of a drug investigation that began approximately one week prior. Thirty-five-year-old Jason Busby, who was currently out on a $250.00 bond from a prior drug offense, was located at the home. During the search he was found to be in possession of approximately a gram of methamphetamine, a methamphetamine pipe, and a butane torch. He was charged with first degree possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, and taken to the Ballard County Jail. In addition, he was served with a criminal summons out of Graves County for traffic violations, and an additional summons out of Carlisle County, from an incident last week, where he and April Purcell, of Ballard County, were caught on camera allegedly attempting to break into a building near Cunningham. The Ballard County Sheriffs Office located Purcell and served her with a criminal summons charging her with 3rd degree attempted burglary. A drug investigation in Carlisle County has resulted in the arrest of a Bardwell man. By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 15, 2019 | 11:34 AM | GRAVES COUNTY Another scam is circulating throughout Graves County. According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, scammers were calling local residents on Tuesday claiming to be from the Graves County Sheriffs Office. The caller ID on the call back number showed Mayfield, KY 270-356-8170. Deputies say when you call that number, it goes to a computer prompt with a list of numbers that would direct you to special units within the sheriff's department. At this time, police say no personal identification or money have been given to the scammers. Deputies say the Graves County Sheriffs Office does not call residents for personal information, and the number listed is not a working number for their agency. Detectives are investigating the complaints, and they remind residents to never give out personal information over the phone. Advertisement By The Associated Press May. 15, 2019 | NEW YORK By The Associated Press May. 15, 2019 | 11:25 AM | NEW YORK New measures by U.S. regulators could help thwart some of the billions of robocalls received in the U.S. The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that it will vote in June on whether to let carriers block spam calls by default, which should mean that more spam calls are blocked. Right now, customers have to take the extra step of requesting tools from their carriers or downloading apps from other companies to help them weed out most unwanted calls. The rising volume of calls in the last few years, driven by how cheap and easy it is for scammers to call millions of people as well as weak enforcement, has created pressure on Congress, regulators and phone companies to act. The volume of calls has risen to roughly 5 billion per month, according to call-blocker YouMail, from 2.7 billion in November 2017. That's when the government gave carriers explicit, although narrow, permission to block certain types of calls. Many robocalls are not scam calls, though, but calls from debt collectors and telemarketers selling insurance, cruises and the like. It's not clear if carriers would automatically block those calls, too, said Margot Saunders, senior counsel for the National Consumer Law Center and an expert on robocalls. Under the proposed rules, the agency won't require carriers to provide such services or mandate that the tools offered are free. Today, some of these apps cost extra money; others are free. "We certainly are encouraging companies to offer this for free," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. He said he anticipates that companies won't charge extra because it would cost less than the headache of dealing with robocalls and customer complaints about them today. He raised the threat of regulatory action "if the companies do not take the steps necessary to protect consumers." The agency also said Wednesday it's making clear that carriers can let customers come up with lists of numbers that they will permit to call them. That means customers could tell phone companies that any number not on their list be automatically blocked. "There is no doubt that this can only help, that it's a good thing. My questions go to how much it helps," Saunders said, referring to whether consumers would be protected from unwanted debt-collector and telemarketing calls as well as scams. There are also bills in Congress addressing the robocall problem. A widely supported, bipartisan Senate bill would require carriers to verify that a number popping up on your caller ID is real. A big problem with robocalls is that many are "spoofed," or faked to look like they're coming from a number that matches your area code and the next three digits of your number, so you think it's a neighbor and are more likely to pick up. The industry is working on deploying this long-in-the-works system, but it's been a slow process. Pai has threatened regulatory action if it's not done this year. The Senate bill would also give the FCC more power to fine the people responsible for spam calls and puts together federal agencies and state officials to figure out ways to pursue criminal cases against robocall scammers, not just civil ones. By The Associated Press May. 14, 2019 | 09:56 PM | FRANKFORT Adam Edelen's running mate contributed another $1 million in loans to boost their campaign as they unleashed an attack ad against rival Andy Beshear in the race for Kentucky's Democratic gubernatorial nomination, according to their latest campaign-finance report. Of the $3.4 million raised by Edelen's campaign, about $2.5 million came from loans from running mate Gill Holland, a developer and businessman, their report showed Tuesday. Edelen also benefited from another big influx of money into a super PAC supporting his candidacy. The group, bankrolled mostly by Holland's mother-in-law, took in another $537,600 during the most recent 15-day reporting period and spent nearly $450,000 of it. Holland's wife is a member of the Brown family that built spirits industry giant Brown-Forman Corp. "Adam Edelen's running mate and his family are trying to buy this election," Beshear's campaign manager, Eric Hyers, said in a statement Tuesday. The PAC also launched a recent attack ad against Beshear, who is considered the front-runner in the hotly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary. The state's primary election is May 21. The attack ads claimed in part that Beshear benefited in the past from a hefty campaign donation from Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the powerful painkiller OxyContin. The Purdue Pharma donation didn't go directly to Beshear's campaign during his successful run for Kentucky attorney general in 2015. Instead, it went to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, and money was transferred to a PAC supporting Beshear. Beshear's campaign responded with its own ads calling the attacks shameful and false, saying they resembled something out of the GOP playbook. Beshear's campaign has noted that as attorney general he has sued nine drug companies for their role in the opioid epidemic. Meanwhile, Beshear's latest campaign-finance report showed he raised $300,399 during the 15-day reporting period. Another leading Democratic candidate, longtime state lawmaker Rocky Adkins, took in more than $132,000 during the period, his report showed. It was the final round of finance reports before next week's primary. They are competing for a chance to challenge Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in the general election. The reports showed Edelen's campaign has raised the most money and spent the most thanks to the hefty lending from his running mate. Holland's most recent $1 million loan accounted for nearly all of Edelen's fundraising during the 15-day period, his report showed. Edelen spent nearly $911,000 during the period when the former state auditor ran a robust TV ad campaign with the attack against Beshear and another commercial with a softer approach featuring his father, Meade County farmer Larry Edelen. Edelen has spent $2.7 million so far in his bid for a political comeback. Meanwhile, Beshear has raised more than $2.1 million and spent nearly $1.9 million, his latest report showed. Beshear is the son of former Gov. Steve Beshear, who served two terms. Adkins, the top-ranking Democrat in the Republican-led state House, has raised more than $1.6 million and spent more than $1.1 million. Edelen had the biggest balance at $679,390 with about two weeks left before the primary. Adkins had $487,173 still in the bank and Beshear had $292,970. The other Democrat running for governor is frequent candidate Geoff Young. In the state's Republican primary, Bevin's campaign reported raising nearly $244,000 during the 15-day period, pushing his campaign's fundraising past $1 million. While he trailed the three leading Democratic candidates, Bevin showed in 2015 that he can significantly self-finance his own campaign. Also, the Republican Governors Association is expected to advertise heavily in support of Bevin. The report for Bevin's leading GOP rival, state Rep. Robert Goforth, showed the challenger raised just $520 in the 15-day period. An earlier report showed Goforth loaning about $750,000 to his campaign. Goforth had more than $477,000 in the bank, his latest report showed. The other Republicans running for governor are William Woods and Ike Lawrence. More than 60 foreign journalists from more than 30 countries and regions visit the International Pavilion of the 2019 International Horticultural Exhibition in Beijing's Yanqing district on May 14, 2019. These journalists will report the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations that will be held in Beijing from May 15 to 22. [Photo by Wang Jing/chinadaily.com.cn] In Beijing's leafy Olympic Green stands a stately edifice, the curve of whose facade, inspired by the eaves of ancient Chinese architecture, symbolizes a bridge connecting different cultures around the world. The design of the building, China National Convention Center, befits an event it is about to host Wednesday the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping to promote cross-civilizational exchanges and mutual learning across this culturally diverse continent and build an Asian community with a shared future. Xi has long been a believer in, advocate of, model for and contributor to communications across civilizations. Whether during living in a cave house in a remote countryside village decades ago, or now standing at the helm of the world's most populous country, he maintains that exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations have empowered human progress as well as world peace and development. That conviction matters even more today. In a world beleaguered by alarming anti-globalization sentiment, rising protectionism and unilateralism, mutating security threats, and resurging assertions of a "clash of civilizations," cross-civilizational communication is of vital significance and in dire need of fresh vitality. A teenager's passion Over 40 years ago a teenager fascinated by Faust, a masterpiece in Western literature written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, walked over a dozen kilometers of bumpy and dusty country road only to borrow the book from his fellow student. The teenager was Xi Jinping. It was towards the end of 1960s, an age of scarcity with little to read, when Xi was sent from Beijing to work as a farmer in a poverty-stricken village in China's northwestern Shaanxi Province. An avid reader of not only Chinese but also foreign literary works, Xi read whatever books he managed to find during his seven years there, from old Chinese text books to plays written by William Shakespeare. "To be or not to be," Xi pondered the question on the barren loess plateau, and eventually made up his mind to dedicate himself to serving his country and the people. Like other young men, Xi would emulate his favorite protagonist in the books. After reading "What Is to Be Done?", a novel written by Russia's Nikolai Chernyshevsky, in which the leading character lives an ascetic life, even going so far as to sleep on a bed of nails to strengthen his will, Xi removed his cotton-padded mattress and chose to sleep directly on a brick bed so as to strengthen his own willpower. "Art and literary works are the best way for different nations and peoples to understand and communicate with each other," Xi said in 2014 when recalling the books he had read during his youth time. A president's endeavor As one of the busiest globe-trotting world leaders, Xi misses no opportunity to promote mutual respect, understanding and learning between different cultures and civilizations wherever he goes. "What's past is prologue," he quoted Shakespeare whose works he first read 40 years ago at the British Parliament during his state visit to Britain in the autumn of 2015, shedding light on his country's perspective on China-UK relations. Ahead of his state visit to Italy in March, Xi, in a signed article published by leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, told the story of Chinese emissary Gan Ying sent to search for "Da Qin," the Chinese name of the Roman Empire, during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220). Recalling the article, Francesco Sisci, a senior consultant for the Italian Minister of European Affairs, said he "saw in between the lines an amicable and wise leader." Quoting the pearls of wisdom in other cultures has been a hallmark of Xi's speeches on global stage, which demonstrates not only his art of communication but also how open the Chinese are towards other civilizations. Yet his commitment goes far beyond. His overseas trips have seen him attend cultural events, reach out to the local people and pay visits to landmark cultural heritages. A photo from Xi's 2015 trip to Britain which went viral shows the Chinese president enjoying a pint of Greene King IPA beer in the company of his British host, then Prime Minister David Cameron, at a pub near London. In a speech delivered in 2014 at the headquarters of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Xi reeled off his tours of cultural heritage sites from Mexico's Chichen Itza, an archaeological site of the Maya civilization, to Uzbekistan's Samarkand, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. "I have visited many places around the world," Xi said, adding "what I like most is exploring the varied civilizations of our five continents." A statesman's vision A highlight of Xi's Italy trip emerged in the picturesque and culturally significant Villa Madama, where the Chinese president and Italian Prime Minster Giuseppe Conte witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI, put forward by Xi in 2013, was inspired by one of the most renowned legacies of cross-civilizational communication in history -- the Silk Road, a network of ancient trade routes linking China in the East with ancient Rome in the West and beyond. A priority in Xi's signature initiative is to build a road connecting different civilizations where mutual respect will replace discrimination, exchanges will replace estrangement, and mutual learning will replace clashes. The vision was reflected in Xi's speech at UNESCO headquarters, during which he highlighted diversity, equality and inclusiveness among civilizations and the role cross-civilizational exchanges and mutual learning have played in fueling the progress of humanity. The landmark address, published in May this year by Qiushi, one of the most influential periodicals in China whose name means seeking truth, is no less and even more relevant today, given the world's present challenges. Among the global threats of security and climate change is the thinly veiled sense of superiority held by some in the West, who are in the midst of resurrecting an outdated "clash of civilizations" theory. What fuels conflict and leads to armed conflict is the absence of real dialogue, said Helmy al-Namnam, a former Egyptian minister of culture, ahead of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. "China's initiative to hold a major conference on the dialogue of civilizations in Asia is a very important move to pave the way for the language of dialogue over the language of conflict," he said. (Source: Xinhua) First Minister Questions: Has Wales Run Out Of Cold Storage Space For Food? This article is old - Published: Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 The below is the another in our now regular summaries of this weeks First Minister Questions session from Cardiff Bay. First Minister Questions takes place every Tuesday when the Assembly is sitting and can be watched live via Senedd.tv For those who have never ventured onto the Senedd site, you can view the session the below was taken from here, that displays a video of the meeting (along with creation of your own clips!) plus by clicking the meeting information and papers link you are able to view all the supporting documentation, along with a link to the full transcript. Wrexham did not get a mention this week, so below is the usual SeneddHome.com recap. Brexit: Has Wales run out of cold storage space? Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price AM (Plaid, Carms. E. & Dinefwr), focused on Brexit preparations in particular, the Welsh food industry stockpiling ingredients and alike in cold storage facilities. He told the chamber a report, which hasnt yet been published by the Welsh Government, suggests theres no more room: Can you confirm, First Minister, that there are only two companies in the sector in Wales and the one you received representation from Wild Water Group operates two of the three cold storage facilities for food in Wales? Can you confirm that they have asked you to urgently invest in a new storage facility?. Youve done this for medical supplies; given the lack of warehouse capacity in that area, why not do the same for food, given the devastating impact you yourself claim the pressure on supply chains Brexit will cause? Adam Price AM Adam Price AM suggested it would cost 3-4million to provide additional capacity. As suggested in Adams statement, the First Minister expects some products to be in short supply if theres a No Deal Brexit. He promised to look into whether the mentioned report can be published, but told AMs therell always be competing priorities in the sober business of government. Further discussions with the food industry will take place and while he wasnt yet convinced by the case for investing in additional storage capacity, he wouldnt rule it out either. Transparency and Accountability Leader of the Opposition, Paul Davies AM (Con, Preseli Pembs.), turned to a favourite Conservative topic issues around support given to businesses. He said that since 2010, the Welsh Government has wasted millions of pounds on loans and grants to businesses which have since failed after minimal transparency and oversight of decisions. The First Minister said the process always involves risk: I certainly dont apologise for a single moment for the fact that successive Welsh governments have seen it as their duty to assist Welsh firms.and if youre going to do that on an entirely risk-averse basis, where youre never willing to take a chance on a company that might turn out to be a really important part of our economic future, then, of course, you can eliminate every possibility of something going wrong by never doing anything. First Minister, Mark Drakeford (Lab, Cardiff West) The First Minister found it contradictory that Paul Davies was complaining about lack of transparency, whilst listing information that could only have been in the public domain adding he wasnt going to listen to holier-than-thou rhetoric over wasted money while he sat in on a UK Cabinet meeting which resulted in 80million of compensation being paid out due to cancelled contracts relating to Brexit (a Chris Grayling production). Tidal Lagoon rises from beneath the waves again Dr Dai Lloyd AM (Plaid, South Wales West) brought up the proposed-scrapped-but-not-quite-dead Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon. The worlds first test centre for tidal energy will now be built in Scotland and Wales was at risk of losing momentum. He asked whether the Welsh Government would support new proposals coming out of the Swansea City Region? Suzy Davies AM (Con, South Wales West) raised the idea of collective buying of energy by the public sector through public procurement. David Rees AM (Lab, Aberavon) said any resurrected tidal project could be used to help the steel industry in light of an expected rejection of a Tata-ThyssenKrupp merger. The strike price for energy remains a sticking point, but the First Minister called for the UK Government to consider the fact this will be the first of its kind: .the UK Government should recognise this was always to be a demonstration project, that it is inevitable in nascent technologies that the price of electricity would be higher than it otherwise would be in the marketplace, and, just as previous governments were willing to do in the fields of solar and wind, that they must find a tariff for marine energy.that allows those new technologies to be attempted and.thrive here in Wales. First Minister, Mark Drakeford Keep up to date with what is going on in the Senedd via SeneddHome.com Infamous Tesco roundabout to be resurfaced as part of new programme of roadworks This article is old - Published: Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 The notorious potholes on the Tesco Roundabout are to be resurfaced completely as part of a new programme of roadworks. Lead Member for Environment and Transport, Cllr David A Bithell confirmed at yesterdays executive board that resurfacing works will take place on the now locally infamous patch of road. Told the Tesco roundabout pothole has been upgraded to a crater Wrexham.com (@wrexham) March 18, 2019 The announcement was made after questions from Cllr Marc Jones who queried if it was possible to use some of the councils underspend to invest in local road infrastructure and fixing potholes. Just taken this picture of a few lads in a pothole on the tesco roundabout pic.twitter.com/jiSOWr0rzI Wrexham.com (@wrexham) December 17, 2018 A report presented to the executive board yesterday morning highlighted that there was a net overspend of 490k in the past financial year (details here). Of this it is proposed that 105,000 is allocated to the winter maintenance reserve and 104,000 to the capital reserve. Further to that pothole pic, pretty sure the tesco roundabout in town is being strip mined at the moment Wrexham.com (@wrexham) January 10, 2018 Cllr Jones said: There is nothing on what the remainder will be for. I would propose that given the state of the roads, we should look at putting money if there is an underspend into potholes and pothole repairs. It would reduce compensations costs. I am getting residents contacting me asking about making a claim. I know it a drop in the ocean but every drop in the ocean is welcome. 140k spare, that should just cover filling the pothole on Tesco roundabout. Sure I saw base jumpers eyeing it up yesterday as their next challenge nick bell (@jn13ell) February 12, 2019 Cllr Bithell responded by explaining that the councils resurfacing programme of works is set to go live in the next week or so and specifically noted that it will include sorting out everyones favourite caverns the potholes on the town centre Tesco roundabout. He said: The Welsh Government has given us 1.4 million over the next two years for potholes so we have been in dialogue. Think it is 750,000 this year and 750,000 the year after. Just so everyone and the public are aware our resurfacing programme is about to go live. It has been developed over the last couple of months. Some of the works have already commenced because its surface treatments because of the weather. There will be approximately 2.4 million of work, some of which is Welsh Government money and some our own capital money which we have identified over the last couple of years. We have got an extensive programme, that will be commencing in the next few weeks. Weve always been quite successful in getting money from Welsh Government. Hopefully some of the potholes that have been highlighted in the media will be addressed. I know there has been specific ones about Tesco Roundabout, that is down to be resurfaced completely and that will be done at night. @wrexham Just seen a Honda Civic hit the Tesco Roundabout Sinkhole with such force i'll be suprised if the driver didn't break a wrist ( or two ). Craig Roberts (@CraigRexham) March 18, 2019 Last week Wrexham.com reported that an estimated 28 million is needed to bring Wrexhams highways up to scratch. Overall 2.3 million is needed each year just to keep the status quo and maintain a steady state in the condition of the existing network. Is there any chance that @wrexhamcbc could throw some filler into the craters (potholes) on the Tesco / Waterworld roundabout or do I need to submit a claim form for 2x buckled wheels & suspension before it gets looked at? @wrexham pic.twitter.com/51ka6QEgOw (@scotthughesoff) April 2, 2018 Leader of Wrexham Council Mark Pritchard, said: With regards to potholes what I will say any elected member in chamber, if they want the roads to become better in Wrexham I suggest you canvas your AMs and MPs to have more funding from both governments. We work tirelessly for any money that we can attract or bring to Wrexham we do, and usually if we have any money leftover we tend to invest in the roads. I understand how important it is, but the bluntness of it is we havent the money to invest in or repair our roads. What I would say is every elected member who is part of a party can make representations to their AMs because this budget was supported in the Sennedd sometime ago which some national parties supported it. BREAKING NEWS the Tesco roundabout will be resurfaced as part of forthcoming works announces Cllr Bithell pic.twitter.com/g8SOjxnqZB Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 14, 2019 (Enjoy the Tesco roundabout tweets? Find more on twitter yourself) No soggy bottoms as star bakers raise funds for Mayors charities in town Bake Off This article is old - Published: Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 Last night saw another hugely successful Wrexham Bake Off that showcased the skills and talents of local Bakers and raised a tidy sum for the Mayors charities. Head Judge and local food blogger Sally Anglesea (instagram @Gingernutsaboutfood) said: The standard of entries was exceptionally high and a total pleasure to judge. From chocolate dragons to vanilla sheep; raspberry cupcakes to garlic bread, entries were as varied as they were delicious no soggy bottoms in sight! It was wonderful to see the community coming together for such worthwhile causes and a privilege to be part of it all. Note to the Bakers: if any of you ever need a personal recipe taster, you know where I amcongratulations all! Organiser Andy Atkinson said: Im over the moon that weve raised so much money. I cant thank Santander enough for their support and our host Alex at the Bank Bar that also made a kind donation. With everyones support the amount raised is around 1600! The event was a fundraiser for the Mayors charities and is the fourth time Mr Atkinson has worked with Alex at the Bank Bar to put on the event. The Professional Bakers Show Stopper category was won by Tracy Windram for the dragon cake (top). The Non-Professional Bakers Show Stopper category was won by Sheila Wilcock. The 12 matching cakes category was also won by Sheila Wilcock. The Gluten-Free category by Beverley Patterson-Jones of Bevs Been Baking. The Vegan Category was won by Jennifer Cordt in her first ever competition. The Victoria Sponge category was won by Cally Lloyd of Gateway Church All of the winners were presented with an engraved Welsh Dragon slate kindly donated by Simon Morris of the Personal Present People. Andy Gallanders of King Street Coffee collected the wooden spoon award on behalf of his brother Phil. Mr Atkinson explained, There was a lot of banter around his entry but it was actually a really good entry but theyre coffee is definitely better! Alex Jones from The Bank Wine Bar added, Tonight we raised nearly 1700 with the support of Santander, The Bank Wine Bar and of course the great bakers and supporters. The Wrexham bake off is a fun night full of cake, it is not every day you can use the words moist, claggy, like being in a long haul flight, and soggy bottom and get away with it! The outgoing Mayor of Wrexham must of set a record for raising money, Andy has raised over 35k since being mayor and part of that awesome achievement is purchasing a Blood Bike. Myself and Sam Regan have really enjoyed being part of events and helping organise them. Andy has become a friend and we look forward to doing more things in the future. Wrexham Council rules out allowing radioactive waste to be dumped in county borough This article is old - Published: Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 Wrexham Council has ruled itself out of allowing nuclear waste to be dumped in the county borough. Executive board members unanimously rejected hosting a geological disposal facility at its meeting yesterday morning. Earlier this year the Welsh Government published a policy framework document stating that the geological disposal of Higher Activity Radioactive Waste will only be sited in Wales if a community is willing to host it and a suitable and safe site can be found In April Wrexham.com reported that the First Minister Mark Drakeford had made it clear that no local authority comes forward then there will be no disposal sites in Wales. Speaking at the time, the first minister said: This radioactive waste has been created by us. It is in the lifetime of people in this Chamber where this waste has been created. We do have a responsibility to deal with the consequences of what we have done, rather than simply saying that we will play no part in bearing that responsibility, that somebody else must do it instead, or that we hand it on to future generations that come after us to clear up the mess that we have left. Because that mess is there; it has already been created We will not and have not identified such sites, and we dont intend to do so. It is for any local community that is willing to come forward to do so, and if no community comes forward, there will be no disposal here in Wales. Leader of Wrexham Council, Cllr Mark Pritchard, later confirmed that a report ruling Wrexham out as a possible option to become a nuclear waste dump would be coming before the executive board. Such a report was up for discussion, with Cllr Pritchard stating that he was seeking members agreement that the council will not support hosting a geological disposal facility in the county borough. He added: The disposal of radioactive waste is a devolved matter and the Welsh Government has developed and published the policy framework on the disposal of radioactive waste in Wales. The policy is based on a community or communities being willing to host the disposal of a facility within their community ward. Any formal decision on siting will only take place following a test of the public support and there is expectation that a community partnership would be established to wider the wider community interest and they would include participation from local authorities, community councils and residents in that ward. To date the council has not been invited to consider any potential sites by any community council across Wrexham. I am more than happy to move the report that we give a clear indication that the hosting of such a site within Wrexham will not be supported by this council. Cllr Joan Lowe, added: I fully support the leaders recommendation and I feel at this very early stage we should kill it dead. I dont think it is something we should even have to consider. Leader of the Labour Group, Cllr Dana Davies, said: The labour group fully support the recommendations in this report and very much welcome it. In this county we have a huge underground network of interlinked mining tunnels due to our proud history of coal mining. With this in mind I dont think 52 elected members plus all experienced officers that we have got, can guarantee the ability to seal that facility within the interlinked tunnels that go on for miles underneath us. There will be an issue there of not being able to guarantee any radioactivity in the future. Also we couldnt eliminate risk of disruption with any future development or infrastructure. For the labour group and the council this geological disposal facility is not in the best interest in our community and pleased to see this report come in front of us in a timely manner. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-12 21:45:52|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, May 12 (Xinhua) -- The Buddhist Association of China hosted a commemorative event to observe the 2,643rd birth anniversary of the Buddha Sunday at the Lingguang Temple in Beijing. The association will actively pass on China's fine traditional culture, said Master Yanjue, its vice president. He added it will put into practice and carry forward the ethic and virtue from China's fine traditional culture, such as knowingly repaying the kindness, to better play Buddhism's role in refining moral values. Lingguang Temple is renowned for its collection of the Buddha's tooth relic. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-14 01:17:43|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Family members of Palestinian Mousa Zorub have their breakfast next to their destroyed house in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on May 14, 2019. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Monday that more than half of the population in the Gaza Strip may not have enough food by June. (Xinhua) GAZA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday that more than half of the population in the Gaza Strip may not have enough food by June. "At a time when Muslims around the world are observing Ramadan, more than half of the population in Gaza depends on food aid provided by the international community," UNRWA said in an official press statement. UNRWA expressed its concern that unless it secures at least an additional 60 million U.S. dollars by June, its ability to continue providing food for over 1 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza will be severely challenged. In 2000, there were fewer than 80,000 Palestinian refugees receiving UNRWA's assistance in Gaza, it added. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions and financial support. However, the United States decided to stop funding the UN agency before the Palestinians resume peace talks with Israel. Earlier in the day, Nickolay Mladenov, UN peace envoy to the Middle East, urged the Israelis and Palestinians to stabilize a cease-fire understanding that was brokered by Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar. Mladenov's call was made at a news briefing held in southern Gaza as he was inspecting a solar energy project financed by the World Health Organization at a hospital in the city of Khan Younis. "We hope that all parties will abide by the cease-fire, so as ... to be able to precede with the implementation of humanitarian support projects," he told reporters. "We need the cooperation of all, including the Palestinian Authority, Egyptians and Israelis, to improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza so that they have a hope for a better future," the UN official added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-14 21:40:41|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Aerial photo taken on May 14, 2019 shows the view of Gongzhuang Village of Bayu Township, Rongcheng County, Xiongan New Area, north China's Hebei Province. Relocation has officially started in Xiongan New Area, a new city in the making about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. A large-scale building phase will start this year at Xiongan, authorities said. A 13-sq-km residential area will be built in the east part of Rongcheng County. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli) SHIJIAZHUANG, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Relocation has officially started in Xiongan New Area, a new city in the making about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. About 99 hectares of collectively-owned land in Hexi Village and 58 hectares of land in Gongzhuang Village in the Rongcheng County will be used for construction, according to a county government statement. The two village committees and farmers who live on the land will receive compensation from the government, the statement said. The resettled farmers can choose monetary settlement or new apartments. Those who opt for the latter will receive subsidies to rent houses and pay for heating during the transition period. The resettlement plan will be open to suggestions and comments from residents, the statement said. A large-scale building phase will start this year at Xiongan, authorities said. A 13-sq-km residential area will be built in the east part of Rongcheng County. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-14 21:45:52|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia attaches great importance to the biennial Mongolia-China expo, which is a great platform to showcase Mongolian products to Chinese consumers, Agriculture Minister Chultem Ulaan said Tuesday. "The third Mongolia-China expo will be held in Hohhot, capital of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in September. Preparation work for the expo is underway," he told Xinhua, noting that the Mongolian side "attaches great huge importance to the expo." He said that the biennial expo has provided Mongolian businesses with a huge opportunity to promote their products, especially organic food products to Chinese consumers. "Many companies have expressed their willingness to participate in the expo. Our officials are now working to provide them with all the information they need," the minister added. Ulaan said he hoped this year's expo would be bigger in size. More than 380 Mongolian businesses participated in the second Mongolia-China expo held in Hohhot in 2017, exhibiting products in around 400 categories, showed data from the department of foreign trade and economic cooperation at the Mongolian Foreign Ministry. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 01:19:26|Editor: ZX Video Player Close DUBAI, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The Dubai Multi-Commodities Center (DMCC), the world's leading free zone for commodities trade and enterprises, signed Tuesday a deal with China to promote gemstones and jade trade. Feryal Ahmadi, chief operating officer of DMCC, and Chen Yu, co-founder and executive vice president of China's Gems and Jade Exchange (CGJE), signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) during the visit of a high-level official delegation from Shanghai, China. The signing ceremony was attended by Xu Kunlin, vice mayor of Shanghai, and a number of senior representatives from the Shanghai municipal government. The partnership is set to create new trading opportunities between the UAE and China by connecting buyers and sellers of gemstones and jade from the two countries. Additionally, the collaboration aims at promoting ethical and responsible business practices for companies of both countries. "This agreement will boost our existing and strong economic ties with the Chinese business community. It also forms an integral part of DMCC's strategy to attract, facilitate and stimulate new trade flows through Dubai," said Ahmadi. Registered in China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the CGJE is a national-level gemstones trading platform. It is an important strategic project to improve the gemstone market and to promote the rapid development of China's gem and jewellery industry. "China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have a longstanding relation and partnership. This agreement will contribute to develop our ties," said Huang Yunfang, chairwoman and founder of CGJE. "We believe that the cooperation will enable us to connect with and get access to some of the fastest growing markets and unlock many opportunities in the gemstone industry," Huang added. The signing of the MoU highlighted DMCC's support for the country's economic vision, and in particular the "Dubai Silk Road" outlined in the "Fifty-Year Charter," said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and Prime Minister of the UAE. It also shows the importance of Dubai's strategic location in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 01:29:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SOFIA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Over 200 photos and traditional handicrafts were on display at the "Touching the Magic of Qinghai" exhibition held at the Confucius Institute here on Tuesday. The exhibition was held under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative, said Liu Wei, deputy head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China Qinghai provincial committee, in his opening address. While people are familiar with big cities in China, the sparsely-populated Qinghai Province in the northwest of China had a modest media presence and needs more efficient promotion, Liu said. Liu said he hoped that this exhibition would serve as a cultural bridge between Qinghai and Sofia, Europe and the world. Guan Xin, cultural counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Sofia, said that for those who live in large cities, Qinghai emanates an enticing charm. He said he hoped that this exhibition would help more Bulgarians become interested in Qinghai and fully experience this magical world of beauty. Rositsa Veleva, a visitor to the exhibition, told Xinhua that she found it very interesting. "I really liked that besides the beautiful natural scenery, there are many pictures of customs, traditions and people who live there," Veleva said. She said she was especially impressed with the Thangka painting shown at the exhibition. "There are photos of the process of making these paintings. It is a very precise and very labor-intensive method. The result is fantastic," Veleva said. Thangka is a Tibetan Buddhist scroll painting on cotton or silk with mineral and organic pigments derived from coral, agate, sapphire, pearl, gold, and others so that the color stays for centuries. The paintings date back to the 10th century and typically depict Buddhist deities. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 01:49:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KUWAIT CITY, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Tuesday condemned in the strongest terms the drone attacks on two oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia. Kuwait stands side by side with Saudi Arabia, and fully supports all measures taken to maintain its security and stability while fighting terrorist acts that undermine the security and stability of the kingdom and the region, an official source of the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry said. Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that two of its oil pipeline booster stations were targeted early Tuesday morning by drone attacks. Saudi Minister of Energy Khalid Al-Falih said that the two oil-pumping stations of its main pipeline were hit by explosive-laden drones, which caused a fire at the No. 8 station with limited damage. The 1,200-kilometre (750-mile) East-West pipeline carries crude from Saudi Arabia's main eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the west. Al-Falih condemned the attacks as "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies. He added that the drone attacks, along with the Sunday attacks against four ships including two Saudi oil vessels near the port of Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), aimed to destabilize the international energy supply. The minister also vowed that the Saudi oil supply and production won't be affected by the attacks. Yemen's Houthi rebels have claimed the drone attacks, which aimed to retaliate against the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes on their positions in Yemen. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 02:25:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (Xinhua) -- UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed on Tuesday highlighted the importance of Sustainable Development Goal 10 on reducing the scourge inequality within and among countries. Speaking at the UN General Assembly High-level Thematic Debate on Addressing Inequality Toward Inclusive Development, Mohammed said that high and rising inequality hindered sustained socio-economic growth and undermines equality of opportunities. Within-country inequality remained a particular challenge, as the top 1 percent of earners across the globe captured twice as much of the growth in global income as the poorest 50 percent, she added. Many countries have demonstrated that inequality can be curbed, with the right set of policies and institutions, said Mohammed, adding that key to this is the investments in building strong data ecosystems and capacities at the national level to ensure that no one is left behind. "Investment in human capital can correct generations of injustice and inequality," said the UN deputy chief. According to Mohammed, the UN is supporting Member States to enhance sustainable financing strategies and investments at the regional and country levels to seize the potential of financial innovations, new technologies and digitalization to provide equitable access to finance. She also called on international institutions and development partners to take actions to ensure that financial and other support benefits the most vulnerable developing countries. The high level thematic debate took place at the UN headquarters in New York. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 02:50:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GENEVA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Tuesday called for an inclusive global discourse about setting the direction of rapid technological change to accelerate progress to the 2030 Development Agenda. UNCTAD said that 22nd annual session of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), from May 13 to 17 in Geneva, addresses some profound questions on the implications of rapid technological change for sustainable development. "We need to develop tools that all countries can use to understand how technological change is relevant for their own development and assess its economic and social benefits, consequences and feedbacks," UNCTAD Deputy Secretary-General Isabelle Durant said in a statement here. UNCTAD said the global community has unprecedented possibilities to eliminate hunger, poverty, ignorance, disease, environmental degradation, and thereby accelerate progress towards the 2030 Development Agenda. The rapid and accelerating speed of technological progress sometimes outpaces the ability of societies to adapt to the ensuing social and economic changes, said the UN agency. "This is not an issue of only understanding the designs, characteristics, and functions of specific scientific and technological applications," said Shamika Sirimanne, director of UNCTAD's division on technology and logistics. "Rather, it involves analyzing how frontier technologies are adopted, adapted, and implicated in complex social, political, and environmental settings," she said in a statement here UNCTAD noted that social media platforms were designed to connect those sharing existing affiliations and to others with different locations, perspectives, and ideas. "Instead, these platforms are being manipulated to divide communities further and to make it difficult for different stakeholders to find common ground," said the UN agency. It said that "arguably one of the most transformative technological developments of our time -- artificial intelligence (AI) -- could be used to help identify solutions to our most intractable economic, social and environmental challenges." AI's applications, however, in public and private sectors could counterintuitively scale inequality and make the world less secure. Beyond understanding innovation and its potential impacts, the international community needs to define the shared values that define the direction in which rapid technological should proceed, said UNCTAD. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 03:35:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GAZA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Qatar will continue its humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip for another six months, including paying for electricity and helping poor families, a senior Qatari official announced on Tuesday. Mohammad Ammadi, chairman of the Qatari Committee to Reconstruct Gaza, told a news briefing in Gaza that his committee has renewed the contract of providing fuel to operate Gaza power station and will continue its aid program for six more months. He added that Qatar will build a large hospital in northern Gaza in coordination with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Meanwhile, the Qatari diplomat unveiled his country's efforts to restore calm in the Gaza Strip following the recent escalation of violence between Israel and the Hamas-led factions in the Gaza Strip. "Both Israel and Hamas wanted to restore calm, but one of the Palestinian factions (referring to Islamic Jihad) created a problem on the border that ignited a confrontation between the two sides," he said. Ammadi warned of a real humanitarian crisis if the violence goes on for several months, adding that both Israel and Hamas do not want to escalate the situation. He announced that he will meet soon with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammad Ishtaye in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 03:45:49|Editor: ZX Video Player Close OTTAWA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday spoke over phone with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, according to the prime minister office. Trudeau raised the issue of U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and stressed the importance of their removal. They also exchanged views on the ratification of the new North American Free Trade Agreement, a news release from the office said. The agreement was signed last November by the three countries, but it does not take effect until it is ratified, which none has done. On May 31, 2018, the United States announced that tariffs of 25 percent on imports of Canadian steel and 10 percent on imports of Canadian aluminum would take effect on June 1, 2018. In response to the unprecedented tariffs, Canada immediately announced countermeasures to impose tariffs on a range of American goods imported into Canada, including a 25 percent tariff on American-made steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 03:55:54|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa (R) meets with Chui Sai On, chief executive of China's Macao Special Administrative Region, in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 14, 2019. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said here on Tuesday that his country's relationship with China is an important element of its national policy. During his meeting with Chui Sai On, Costa said that the recent mutual visits by the presidents of the two countries have consolidated bilateral relations. (Xinhua/Pedro Fiuza) LISBON, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said here on Tuesday that his country's relationship with China is an important element of its national policy. During his meeting with Chui Sai On, chief executive of China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), Costa said that the recent mutual visits by the presidents of the two countries have consolidated bilateral relations. Costa spoke highly of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development project, stressing that the infrastructure improvements will strongly promote the area's further development. Costa said that Macao has played a very important and special role in enhancing Portugal-China relations. He expressed hope that Portugal and Macao will maintain unique friendly relations in several fields, such as judicial assistance and youth entrepreneurship. Costa said that he was glad to see the successful development of Macao SAR since its establishment 20 years ago. He praised Macao SAR for its efforts and contributions in promoting the relationship between China and Portugal, as well as other Portuguese-speaking countries. Chui, who is on a nine-day visit to Portugal, said that Macao will continue to serve as the service platform of commercial and trade cooperation for China and the Portuguese-speaking countries. Portugal and Macao SAR agreed to strengthen economic cooperation and promote mutual investments in order to maintain the sustainable growth of the two economies. Earlier on Tuesday, the Macao SAR government and the Portuguese Ministry of Economy signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the fields of tourism, education, training and research, with the aim of promoting the joint development of training courses and joint degree programs. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 04:31:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAMASCUS, May 14 (Xinhua) -- At least six civilians were killed Tuesday by rebels shelling on an area in Aleppo city in northern Syria, state news agency SANA reported. The shelling targeted the Nairab camp for Palestinian refugees in southeast of Aleppo city, said SANA. It said the shelling came from the rebels in the western and southwestern countryside of Aleppo. Eleven other civilians were wounded by the attack and were taken to the hospitals in the city. Two civilians were killed by a similar shelling on May 6, said SANA, accusing the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front of targeting residential areas in Aleppo. The Syrian Army has been launching an offensive against the al-Qaida-linked groups in the countryside of Hama and Idlib provinces in northern Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 04:46:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUCHAREST, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The registered area of virgin and quasi-virgin forests in Romania increased by more than 125 percent over the last two and a half years, according to data released Tuesday by the Ministry of Waters and Forestry. By Tuesday, virgin forests registered in the National Catalogue amounted to 6,947.22 hectares, while quasi-virgin forests increased to 22,116.36 hectares, the data showed. The first edition of the Catalogue, from Dec. 6 of 2016 included a total area of 2,569 hectares of virgin forests and 10,325 hectares of quasi-virgin forests. "The preservation of virgin and quasi-virgin forests in Romania is a priority for the Ministry of Waters and Forestry," said the ministry in a release, adding that important steps have been taken at the state level in order to finalize the process of identification and mapping of virgin/quasi-virgin forests as well as in terms of including the qualified forests in the National Catalogue. The ministry will continue its efforts in identifying more virgin and quasi-virgin forests in the country. According to local and European environmentalists, Romania hosts the largest tracts of virgin forests within the European Union, but they are vanishing due to industrial logging, corruption and corporate greed. Romania is home to some 200,000 - 300,000 hectares of virgin forest, based on data from Romsilva, the state-owned enterprise responsible for the protection, preservation and development of publicly owned forests in the country. Romsilva owns and manages 4,000,000 hectares of forests, representing some 65 percent of all forests in the country. All the virgin and quasi-virgin forests will be included in the national catalogue after being validated by specialists, the ministry noted. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 05:21:36|Editor: ZX Video Player Close James E. Bryant (1st R, front), his wife Dorothy Bryant (2nd R, front), son James Bryant (4th L, rear), grandson Ben Bryant (3rd R, rear) and other family members are pictured in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the United States, August 23, 2014. James Bryant will never forget the day when his 93-year-old father went back to his bedroom and came back with a flight brief case containing papers related to the training and assignments he took as a U.S. Flying Tiger pilot during the World War II. As a "remarkable" yet "humble" man and a loving father, James E. Bryant did not show any detailed evidence about his war experience until about three years ago, the son recalled. (Xinhua) by Xinhua writers Wu Xiaojun, Pan Lijun and Han Fang NEW YORK, May 14 (Xinhua) -- James Bryant will never forget the day when his 93-year-old father went back to his bedroom and came back with a flight brief case containing papers related to the training and assignments he took as a U.S. Flying Tiger pilot during the World War II. As a "remarkable" yet "humble" man and a loving father, James E. Bryant did not show any detailed evidence about his war experience until about three years ago, the son recalled. "So it was for the first time, I had a chance to see all these. Really pretty cool!" the junior Bryant said, adding that it was usually at his insistance that his father told him the stories about how he helped the Chinese fight Japanese invaders. When his father passed away at 96 in February, his 92-year-old mother was deeply moved by pouring letters of condolences from China, from people either familiar or not known to her, said Bryant. "Friendship never happens accidentally. They're the consequence of shared dreams and common experiences during the Flying Tiger times. So, that's exactly what evolved between the Flying Tigers and the people of China," he stressed. The Flying Tigers, a U.S. air squadron composed of pilots from the United States Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marine Corps, helped the Chinese fight Japanese invaders in WWII. "I think it was just remarkable. At that time, the United States and China had a common dream, and the common dream was to remove the Japanese from China," said Bryant. "The shared experiences that we had there together built lasting friendships." CHINA WILL NEVER FORGET After his father passed away, James Bryant learnt more about what his father did during the war either from his father's war-time friends or records he had never seen before. At a gathering of WWII veterans and their family members in Las Vegas over the weekend, Bryant presented two specially created memorial posters for his father. Many sitting in the audience were greatly moved. The posters, each with a big picture of young James E. Bryant in his pilot uniform, carry about 200 signatures of Chinese veterans, who had fought with Flying Tigers against Japanese invaders, and their family members, as well as a number of Chinese volunteers. The idea of creating the posters came from a volunteer who worked for organizations supporting the Flying Tiger veterans after seeing a message of Bryant's Chinese business partner about his father's death in a WeChat group. The signatures were collected from nine Chinese provincial regions including Hunan, Guangdong, Taiwan and Hong Kong just in about 50 days. When 63-year-old Bryant traveled to Hong Kong to get the posters, he was greeted by 101-year-old Flying Tiger pilot James Chen (Chen Bingjing) and over a dozen volunteers. "He had many stories that overlapped with the time when my father was there," Bryant said. At the two-day conference, he echoed with the familiar sentences written in a letter from China to a Flying Tiger veteran, "We know what you did, China will never forget." Many Chinese people remember the sacrifices of the Flying Tigers and cherish the friendship between the peoples of the two countries and show their respect, said Bryant. "If we can be helpful in any way and letting more people in America know how much the people of China recognize the cooperation that existed during the World War II, I'll be very pleased," he added. REMARKABLE AND HUMBLE FATHER Describing his father, the most frequently used words by Bryant was "remarkable" as a fighter pilot in WWII and "humble" as an ordinary man and a loving father. Coming from a big family of 11 children, Bryant's father had four brothers who fought in WWII and three of them had actually fought against the Japanese, said the son. Leaving his study at a university in Texas, he joined the army in the early 1940s and went to China after receiving pilot training in 1944. Then he became a P-51 fighter pilot with the 74th fighting squadron. "Though my father had never been back to China because of his old age, often he would wear a hat that has the symbol of the Flying Tigers symbol. He had another hat that had a picture of the P-51 fighter plane called 'Mustang' that he flew on that," Bryant said. The P-51 Mustang was a single propeller plane. The most advanced fighting aircraft of its day was very good in combating against the Japanese aircraft. Though his father seldom talked about how he fought in China, he did occasionally mention the hard work and sacrifices Chinese people had made during the war, said Bryant. After his father broke his silence about war experience, Bryant learnt that the work of his father focused on disrupting and attacking Japanese supply lines. There were quite a few pilots from China that were trained in the United States at that time, and they came back and were well prepared to engage with the anti-Japanese war. There was a good level of cooperation and a great system for American and Chinese to fight together during the war, his father used to tell him. GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FROM FATHER TO SON Bryant's first trip to China was in 1992, and he spends quite a lot of time in China each year. He visited places where his father had battled against Japanese troops and visited Flying Tigers museums, where he learnt more about what his father and other veterans did during the war. Bryant believed that his father's great impact on him is his vision of globalization, so he linked his business with global cultural exchanges. "My company's business is helping book publishers to find new markets for their books," Bryant said. "We're helping American publishers for example, to export their books in English to China and we're also helping Chinese publishers to export their books in other languages." Bryant's company name is Trajectory, which has something to do with flight. "I've also put an altimeter -- one of the most important meters on a plane on my desk, in memorial of my father," he said. "Flying Tiger is a symbol of China-U.S. friendship and cooperation, and I expect it can last long," Bryant said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 05:21:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HELSINKI, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The importance of defense cooperation with Finland had a central position in a Swedish defense plan published on Tuesday. An all-party defense committee in Sweden saw the need to earmark a full brigade for operations in Finland, in the event of a conflict or war. Commodore Raimo Peltonen, the Finnish military attache in Stockholm, told Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet that the explicit earmarking of a brigade for Finland was "almost surprising". "Military cooperation of Finland and Sweden continues to be developed and involves all service branches in both countries," said Peltonen. However, Peltonen noted, as Finland and Sweden have no mutual commitment for defense, the Swedish brigade will be seen as "an extra resource in Finnish planning". Sweden has a tradition in doing defense planning on an all-party basis, beyond the opposition-government divide. Peltonen underlined that although there was disagreement among the parties about the level of financing, the parties were unanimous about the policy vista and the role of Finland. Sweden plans to increase its wartime strength from 60,000 to 90,000 soldiers, the report pledged. Finland, meanwhile, is able to mobilize nearly 300,000 soldiers, Finnish media reported on Tuesday. Finland has maintained universal male military service duty uninterruptedly, while most other western European nations, including Sweden, switched to professional staff only after the end of the Cold War. Sweden resumed the training of conscripts some years ago, but the level is modest compared with Finland. The Swedish report defined the ability of Finland to defend itself as of strategic importance to Sweden. "Possibilities of deeper military cooperation with Finland will have to be investigated," the report said. "Sweden should make it clear that Sweden would help Finland in the event of a crisis," it stated. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said earlier this month that the upper limit of Finnish-Swedish defense cooperation is that there is no mutual defense commitment in the way NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has as stipulated in its Article Five. Finnish observers noted that Sweden has remained outside alliances since the early 1800s. In addition to Finnish-Swedish defense cooperation protocol, both countries are part of a tripartite declaration of intent with the United States. Finland and Sweden are not members of NATO, but are enhanced partners of cooperation with the alliance. Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a researcher at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs, was quoted by HBL as saying that the Finnish-Swedish military cooperation is more important to Sweden than to Finland. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 09:12:53|Editor: Liu Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Colored clay toys, porcelains, and jade flower arrangements from ancient palaces, next to virtual reality (VR) devices and the 3D-printed sneaker soles and Buddha statues, are ready to dazzle participants at the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) with China's past and future. Slated for May 15 to 22, the conference will focus on cultural diversity, exchanges and mutual learning. It is expected to gather more than 2,000 government officials and representatives of various circles from 47 Asian countries, and countries outside the region. Using 3D printing technology, Beijing-based Qingfeng technology company can produce a pair of sneaker soles in just an hour. Partnering with the leading Chinese sneaker brands such as Li-Ning and Anta, the company is confident of mass-production of the innovative sneakers by the end of this year. With good elasticity and corrosion resistance, the 3D-printed shoes won't be inferior to the sneakers made of any other material, the company said. SLOW BUT FINE ART WORKS Unlike the cutting-edge 3D-printing technology, which relies on data models to finish crafts at high speeds, the traditional handcrafts, including jade flowers, may take hours of manual work. The making of the jade flowers especially tests the patience and skills of technicians. They have to pick five petal-shaped jade pieces of the same color and then wrap the threads around a thin wire tightly as the flower's branch, according to Dong Xuexia, an employee at the intangible cultural heritage interactive area. Participants gather around tables to learn about crafts from the inheritors of these cultural heritages. Despite the precision and speed brought by modern technology, traditional crafts still appeal to them through engaging experiences. As one of China's intangible cultural heritages, Beijing colored porcelain has a century-long history and has been passed down to the fifth generation. The art's museum receives visitors from home and abroad every day, and some foreigners even come four times a year. The jade flower arrangement is among the museum's innovations, which aims to attract ordinary consumers. "Porcelain is one of China's cultural name-cards. As a unique handcraft skill of China, the art joins in communications with civilizations in the world, hoping to gain resonance," said Shi Qin, the curator of the museum. "As the successor of traditional crafts, we also seek innovation constantly. We believe that communication between different cultures can help us better innovate, which is the reason why we actively participate in CDAC." MODERN BUT INCLUSIVE HIGH-TECH While showcasing China's fast-growing high-tech sector, technological innovations displayed at the conference leave none of the country's past behind. With the 5G network and augmented reality (AR) technology, a "magic mirror" is all the participants need to color up the dusty Buddha figures on the computer screen. The famous thousand-hand goddess of mercy in the form of Tibetan thangka were also brought back to life via a handheld AR device. Beijing's largest early buddhist statues have long lost their original color due to their age, but now AR devices like the "magical mirror" can help restore their glory at museums. Likewise, incomplete cultural relics, for example the old Summer Palace and ruins of Yuanmingyuan Park, can be restored via virtual technology. AR technology is also expected to be applied in education in the future, so that more students can vividly see cultural relics in the classroom, said an employee of China Unicom, one of the country's main telecoms operators, which supports the 5G network at the experiencing area. Some of the country's traditional culture, including the 24 solar terms, the Chinese zodiac, and its world cultural and natural heritage sites, are also on display via the multimedia display. Participants can see the pictures of the sites by completing the jigsaw puzzles on an electronic screen. Currently, China has 53 world heritage sites, ranking second in the world. China is also one of the countries with the most complete heritage sites in the world. The photo area, where participants can take pictures with landmarks in Asian countries also attracted long queues. "The diversity of the Asian civilizations can be presented by the composite images of the participants and the sites in different forms of multimedia, combining the traditional physical photo exhibitions at the venues," said Wang Lin, an employee at the VR experience area, where participants can see tourist attractions of major Chinese cities through VR devices. "On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese and foreign attendees can both taste the country's development and changes, especially the scenery of Beijing via VR technology," Wang said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 10:54:24|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that Asian people expect an open and integrated Asia. Civilizations will lose vitality if countries go back to isolation and cut themselves off from the rest of the world, Xi made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 11:09:39|Editor: ZX Video Player Close SYDNEY, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Australian scientists have dubbed one of the ocean's most feared predators, tiger sharks, as "relaxed" and "lazy hunters" in a study released on Wednesday. Using specialist tags which combine cameras with motion and environmental sensors, the team from Murdoch University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, monitored 27 tiger sharks in the Ningaloo Reef off the coast of Western Australia. The tags revealed the movements of sharks in 3D when they encountered typical prey species including turtles, large fish and other sharks. "Tiger sharks are surprisingly lazy predators," lead author Dr Samantha Andrzejaczek said. "Our tagged sharks just continued on their courses without attempting to predate on alert individuals even if they were right in front of them." Co-author Dr Adrian Gleiss said that tiger sharks are more likely to use stealth to sneak up on their prey, comparing them to lions. "They don't waste energy stalking prey that are already aware of them and can easily escape," Gleiss said. "These sharks minimise energy output and chances of success by sneaking up on unsuspecting turtles and large fish." To conduct the study scientists attached the tags to their dorsal fins by hand, then when they automatically detached after one-two days, collected them from the surface for analysis. The research gives experts a unique glimpse into a day in the life of a shark, contributing to conservation and protection efforts. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 12:20:16|Editor: ZX Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The Sixth Panel of Brazil's Superior Court of Justice granted ex-President Michel Temer temporary release to await trial for corruption. The former president was jailed on Thursday under an order of preventive arrest, which is an instrument of Brazilian law to ensure the arrest of an accused before trial in order to preserve evidence, avoid the threat to witnesses, and prevent the continuation of a crime. However, the Superior Court of Justice unanimously decided that there was no justification for the preventive custody, and that Temer had the right to await trial free. The court's decision also applies to Colonel Joao Batista Lima, a friend of Temer who is being charged in the same process. Both must be released as soon as the official communique reaches their detention units. The former president is accused of heading a several-year-long corruption scheme related to the construction of nuclear power plant Angra 3, in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro state. According to the prosecution office, Temer and his allies, among which Colonel Lima is a prominent figure, embezzled millions from the government, defrauded governmental contracts with a construction company, took hefty bribes and engaged in money laundering. Though Temer and Lima were granted habeas corpus, they will have to follow some rules: they are not allowed to change addresses, leave the country and have any sort of contact with other people or organizations under investigation. Meanwhile, they must surrender their passport to the authorities, and Temer is banned from holding any political positions, including positions of leadership inside his party. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 12:35:23|Editor: ZX Video Player Close ANKARA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish leadership has been increasing its diplomatic engagement with Russia, in an attempt to prevent the Syrian government attacks in Syria's last major rebel enclave, Idlib. Earlier this month, the Syrian army, backed by the Russian air force, launched a massive ground offensive against the jihadists in Idlib, a northwestern province included in the de-escalation zone under a deal reached between Russia and Turkey last year. In a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed concern over ceasefire violations in the past two weeks by the Syrian army in Idlib, said Turkey's Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun on Twitter. Erdogan warned Putin about the Syrian government's intention to "sabotage" Turkey-Russia cooperation in the rebel-stronghold and "harm the spirit of the Astana agreement," Altun said. In the city of Astana, Russia, Turkey and Iran as "guarantor countries" have organized many rounds of talks on Syria, with the biggest achievement of the trio being the creation of de-escalation zones to reduce violence in the war-torn country. Altun said the Turkish president also underlined that increasing tensions in the region would jeopardize the formation of a constitutional committee in Syria and the political process. Meanwhile, Erdogan expressed Turkey's concern over possible refugee influx to its borders due to the military offensive in Idlib, a Turkish official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Nihat Ali Ozcan, a Turkish security expert, said Turkey is worried that the massive attacks by Syrian forces might trigger a humanitarian crisis and cause refugee crises, adding that the clashes also put lives of the soldiers in the observation posts of Turkish Armed Forces in danger. Turkey should prioritize security of its soldiers and reevaluate its objectives in this deal, the expert noted. Erdogan's diplomatic attempt was followed by Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Tuesday as he had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. They discussed measures to reduce tensions in the area within the scope of the Sochi agreement, as well as regional security issues, according to a statement of Turkey's Defense Ministry. In their conversation, the Turkish minister noted that the Turkish military reinforced its forces in the observation posts after two soldiers were wounded in the clashes between the regime forces and rebels. Currently, Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham controls most of Idlib, as well as parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. Russia has long been putting pressure on Turkey to launch a military offensive against the opposition-held areas, saying that Ankara failed to meet its commitment to end rebel attacks against the Syrian government, and failed to convince the opposition to retreat out of a buffer zone and critical highways that underpinned the Turkish-Russian deal. In September, Russia and Turkey have sealed a memorandum in Sochi to enforce a new demilitarized zone between the armed opposition and the government troops in Idlib by the middle of the following month, from which jihadists were required to withdraw. As the guarantor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, Russia is responsible for preventing attacks by regime forces and Iranian-backed militias in the rebel enclave, while Turkey takes its role for the rebels. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 13:00:29|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close People use the first Mi Express Kiosk, a vending machine of China's Xiaomi, in Bangalore, India, May 17, 2019. Xiaomi, a Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, announced a new innovative Mi Express Kiosk initiative in Bangalore, India. A release of the announcement says the new Mi Express Kiosks are vending machines which allow consumers and Mi Fans to purchase Xiaomi smartphones and mobile accessories directly. The kiosks are designed to accept all forms of payments across credit cards, debit cards, cash and UPI, making it a highly convenient and hassle-free form of purchase for customers. (Xinhua/Stringer) MUMBAI, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Xiaomi, a Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, announced a new innovative Mi Express Kiosk initiative in Bangalore, India. A release of the announcement says the new Mi Express Kiosks are vending machines which allow consumers and Mi Fans to purchase Xiaomi smartphones and mobile accessories directly. The kiosks are designed to accept all forms of payments across credit cards, debit cards, cash and UPI, making it a highly convenient and hassle-free form of purchase for customers. This innovative retail model will offer efficiency of e-commerce business making it a cost-effective approach. All technology equipping Mi Express Kiosks has been researched and developed in India. The company aims to set up several more kiosks in the coming months, and gradually expand the retail plan across more cities in India. Xiaomi, was founded in April 2010 and listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on July 9, 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 13:20:34|Editor: ZX Video Player Close CARACAS, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice said Tuesday that it will ask the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) to revoke the immunity of four opposition deputies for the "flagrant commission" of crimes such as treason and conspiracy. The four deputies, members of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, include Carlos Paparoni, Miguel Pizarro, Franco Casella and Winston Flores, according to a press release issued by the court. They were accused of "instigating the insurrection, civil rebellion, criminal conspiracy, usurpation of powers and public instigation to the disobedience of the law." It came after the ANC lifted the legal immunity for seven opposition members last week due to their support for and participation in a failed coup in late April. Venezuela has been plunged into political unrest after opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself "interim president" in January. Following Guaido's attempt to launch a military uprising on April 30, the Venezuelan prosecutor opened proceedings against a group of deputies from the National Assembly for their alleged role in the coup. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 13:40:45|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, May 14 (Xinhua) -- As the world faces food safety and other pressing issues, a Silicon Valley company sees opportunities in China to expand its "indoor farming" technology. "We incorporate hardware, software and plant science into our growing management system repeatedly and consistently to meet customers' demand of building safe, clean and efficient plant," said Robert Chen, president and CEO of AEssenseGrows, during a two-day Silicon Valley Agtech Conference that began on Monday. The Sunnyvale, California-based company's core technique is aeroponics, which is growing plants on special racks that allow the roots to hang in mid-air where they are misted with a water-nutrient solution. The company's self-developed "indoor growing systems" are monitored by sensors and managed by software. This technology can help solve the needs for food safety and conservation of resources, said Chen. It allows large-scale farming in tall buildings rather than spreading in farmland, and it also avoids contamination that could have occurred in the field or in processing facilities, he explained. "We can harvest lettuce in just 12 days after it's grown," said Chen. Founded in 2014, the company has a commercial production base in Shanghai. It's now working on another indoor growing system, covering nearly 5,000 square meters for the supply for Shanghai and Hong Kong, according to Chen. Early this year, the company set up a joint lab with the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences to develop the aeroponic technique for growing blueberry. So far, the company has developed aeroponic techniques for more than 70 types of plants, such as vegetables, flowers and herbal, according to a recent newsletter of the company. Chen said the government "does play a very important role" in developing indoor farming, just like in promoting solar energy or electric vehicle. "The government should have some incentives to help develop indoor agriculture," Chen said. "We are here in Silicon Valley, and we firmly believe the cost of indoor farming will continue to go down because of the advanced lighting and other controls." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 13:50:56|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close NEW YORK, May 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. experts hailed the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it facilitates people-to-people connectivity and offers sustainable development and green cooperation opportunities. The BRI is a tremendous idea given China's geographic location and development stage, and is "the right thing to do", said Jeffrey Sachs, senior UN advisor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in a keynote speech at a seminar jointly held by China General Chamber of Commerce and the Standard Chartered Bank. Sachs, who declared himself "a huge fan of the BRI," also noted the need for China's integration with near neighbors as well as remote continents, such as Europe, East Africa, and Latin America, Sachs's praise of the BRI was echoed by Alexis Crow, who leads the geopolitical investing practice at PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers). Crow attributed the charm of the initiative to people-to-people bond and believes the BRI "is different from past infrastructure development initiatives, particularly from the West," as it "relies on the bonds from people to people". "I think the BRI is a very important concept, one that could be very complementary to the West," she said at a seminar entitled "China's New 21st Century Silk Road to Europe" held by the European-American Business Organization. The BRI "should be a green initiative", as the world "needs China's leadership to decarbonize the energy system", noted Sachs. "China should use the BRI to show how the real sustainable development in the 21st century should be done -- transparently, clean and cooperatively. This will be the way for the whole world to get together," he said. Sarwar A. Kashmeri, adjunct professor of Political Science at Norwich University, compared the BRI to the Moon Shots Program proposed by former U.S. president John F. Kennedy in the 60's, saying it requires the same visionary boost as the U.S. program. The BRI is aimed at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and beyond along the ancient Silk Road trade routes for common development and prosperity. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 13:56:01|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close CHENGDU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, conducted remote medical consultation using 5G wireless technology on Tuesday. Via a 5G network, experts from West China Hospital under Sichuan University received the test results of patients from two hospitals in the Longquanyi District of Chengdu and the city of Suining, respectively. They gave advice and relevant operation guidance during the real-time remote medical consultation. Li Weimin, president of the West China Hospital, said it is very important to have clear pictures and real-time conversation for remote medical consultation. Due to the previous inefficient network, it used to be difficult to popularize remote medical consultation, Li said. Now, the 5G network can accelerate the speed of data transmission, sending electronic medical records, radiological images and pathological examination reports from hospitals in less developed areas to doctors at reputed hospitals, according to Li. It was the first time such a consultation was conducted with 5G technologies in Sichuan. In the future, the province will explore using 5G network to achieve remote real-time guidance of surgery in rural areas. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:01:05|Editor: ZX Video Player Close SEOUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea posted trade surplus for 87 months through April despite the fall in export, customs office data showed Wednesday. Trade surplus amounted to 4 billion U.S. dollars in April, staying in the black since February 2012, according to the Korea Customs Service. Export, which accounts for about half of the export-driven economy, fell 2 percent from a year earlier to 48.8 billion U.S. dollars in April, while import grew 2.6 percent to 44.8 billion U.S. dollars. The export reduction was slower than an 8.3 percent decline in the previous month. During the January-April period, export shrank 6.9 percent to 181.5 billion U.S. dollars compared with the same period of last year. Import slipped 4.5 percent to 168.3 billion U.S. dollars, sending the trade surplus to 13.2 billion U.S. dollars. In April alone, semiconductor shipment tumbled 12.7 percent on the downturn of business cycle in the global chip industry. Export for oil products and auto parts reduced last month. Ship export surged 56.7 percent last month, with shipment of telecommunication devices such as smartphone rising 46.5 percent. Car export gained 6 percent, and electronic products product advanced 24.7 percent in the month. Export to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, shed 4.5 percent in April from a year earlier, with shipments to the European Union, Japan and the Middle East skidding in the month. Those to the United States and Vietnam added 3.9 percent and 12.7 percent respectively. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:06:07|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close Sunait Chutintaranond, a history professor from Chulalongkorn University, speaks during an interview with Xinhua in Bangkok, Thailand, May 3, 2019. The Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) is important as it helps promote understanding and friendship among people from different countries, Sunait Chutintaranond said. (Xinhua/Yang Zhou) BANGKOK, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) is important as it helps promote understanding and friendship among people from different countries, a Thai scholar said. Sunait Chutintaranond, a history professor from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua. The CDAC opened Wednesday in Beijing. China is holding the conference under the theme of "exchanges and mutual learning among Asian civilizations and a community with a shared future." Sunait said sustainable relationship between countries of different civilizations depends on understanding between their peoples of each other's lifestyle, religion, among others. "I think it is a good thing that such a conference on Asian civilizations is held," he said. Noting that the world faces many problems such as climate change, the Thai academic said it would be difficult to solve if people cannot understand the culture behind those problems. Sunait also stressed the young people' role in inheriting civilizations, saying "Any policy to teach youths to realize the values of their own culture may come first so that they could adopt and adapt themselves properly." The ongoing CDAC draws more than 2,000 government officials and representatives of various circles from 47 Asian countries and other countries outside the region. There will be discussions on various topics, including tourism, culture, people-to-people exchanges and sharing of governance experience. Other activities such as an Asian cultural carnival, Asian civilization week and Asian food festival will also be held during the event. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:06:09|Editor: ZX Video Player Close VINALES, Cuba, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The green and fascinating countryside scenery of the Vinales Valley in western Cuba draws in hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. As Cuba seeks to receive 5 million visitors this year, the small town of Vinales aims to attract more tourists to enjoy natural scenery and outdoor activities. "This country is known for its beautiful and paradisiacal beaches, blue waters, but this type of tourism is not well-known and there are really many opportunities in this destination," Joss Stone, a British tourist, told Xinhua. "This destination is truly beautiful, many interesting landscapes and an exciting experience was to go inside several very old caves through a boat," said Stone. One of the main attractions of Vinales are its geological values as the karstic mountain-like mogotes can only be seen in this place throughout the island country. "Vinales is the oldest geological place in Cuba, it still has sites where fossils can be found, (and) more than 300 caves and caverns," Ricardo Alvarez, a historian in Vinales said. The Vinales Vallley has been listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization since 1999. The quality of this cultural landscape is enhanced by the vernacular architecture of its farms and villages, and its style, crafts and music illustrate Cuba's social and cultural development. "It's my second time in Vinales and it's a wonderful destination. I came with my husband to spend two days here because we like nature tourism a lot," said Jennifer Reids, a tourist from Canada. The couple decided to visit the valley once again as they love hiking, horseback riding and excursions to places of natural beauty. One of those spectacular limestone elevations that attracts foreign and local visitors is the Prehistorical Mural, one of the largest open-air frescoes on the planet. "It depicts the evolution of life on earth from curious details, findings, fossil remains of dinosaurs and is a mural that is 80 m high and 120 m wide that was painted with fine brushes," said Alvarez. Last year, Vinales received a record high of over 612,000 tourists which has boosted the local economy and the quality of the local residents' lives. "Tourism has been positive because this was a quiet and poor town but now the standard of living has changed, houses have been improved," said Osmany Rodriguez, a farmer in Vinales. "Many people have their own businesses (of) renting rooms, (and) providing tours or restaurants." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:11:13|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close KHARTOUM, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) announced Wednesday that it agreed with the major opposition forces on the rule structures and a three-year power transition period. "We have agreed on powers of the sovereignty council, the council of ministers and the legislative council," said Lt. Gen. Yasser al-Atta, a TMC member, at a press conference in Khartoum early Wednesday. The two sides have also agreed that "the transitional period duration will be three years," said the TMC member. "The first six months will be allotted for achieving peace all over Sudan." A comprehensive deal that fulfils the aspirations of the people would be completed in less than 24 hours, he said. According to al-Atta, the legislative council is to be comprised of 300 members, 67 percent of which is from the Freedom and Change Alliance and the rest will be from the other political forces. The Sudanese military staged a coup on April 11, following four months of anti-government protests. President Omar al-Bashir who had been in power for nearly 30 years was overthrown and then imprisoned. Sudan's opposition Freedom and Change Alliance has been holding intermittent talks with the TMC, chaired by Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and tasked with running Sudan's affairs following the ouster of al-Bashir, on procedures concerning the formation of the rule mechanisms during the transitional period since April. Thousands of protesters led by the opposition forces have been gathering outside the army headquarters since al-Bashir's overthrow to express their demand for civilian rule. Earlier this week, the latest round of negotiations between the two sides resumed amid clashes between unidentified groups and protesters, which killed several people and injured dozens. "There are parties targeting the revolution," the TMC said in a statement in response to the violence. "They are working to foil any agreement reached and push the country into a dark tunnel." Last week, after meeting with al-Burhan, the African Union Commission (AUC) Chairperson's Special Envoy to Sudan Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt urged the political parties in Sudan to reach a deal. The African Union (AU) earlier this month granted the TMC a 60-day extension to hand over the power to a civilian-led authority. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:21:25|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close NANCHANG, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Weaving bamboo strips back and forth in his deft hands, Xu Jianyuan continued to work until he had a beautiful piece of art, startling the crowd with his skilled and magical craftsmanship. On his "bamboo painting," the portrait of Zeng Gong, an eminent poet living in today's Linchuan, east China's Jiangxi Province during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), seemed to come to life. Surrounded by a group of visitors at a tour exhibition promoting local cultures, Xu, who has spent the past 37 years weaving bamboo strips in his hometown in Jiangxi, met his admirers from Douyin (Tik Tok), a popular online short video sharing platform. "I was just an ordinary bamboo strip weaver, and never thought my works would be a big hit on the internet," Xu said. He posted a short video clip showing his art and bamboo-weaving skills last November on the local government's Douyin account. To his surprise, the short video saw more than 6 million clicks and received some 200,000 likes. People who saw his short videos on the platform came from other places to buy his handicrafts, which boosted his confidence. He made about 50,000 yuan (7,274 U.S. dollars) in the first quarter this year, as much as his annual sales in the past. Local Chinese governments have been working with Douyin to promote intangible cultural heritages. Douyin launched a campaign in April to help inheritors demonstrate their crafts and better share the precious treasures. Statistics from Douyin show that more than 24 million videos related to 1,214 intangible cultural heritages have appeared on its short video sharing platform as of April 2019, with a total of over 106.5 billion views. Zhang Nan, president of Douyin, said they aim to make intangible heritage alive and allow the inheritors to live better lives. The 52-year-old inheritor of Linchuan bamboo strip weaving, slightly greying at the temples, never gave up pursuing the ancient charm of the craft. At the age of 16, Xu became a bamboo-weaver. Bamboo wares were quite popular at that time, at least one in four mastered the craft in his village of 1,000 residents. "In the late 1980s, people worked the land during the busy farming season and made bamboo mats in their leisure time," he recalled. Unfortunately, bamboo wares were shunned as plastic alternatives gained ground with much lower prices by the end of the 20th century. Xu stayed in his village as many bamboo weavers lost their jobs and left to find work. Xu was told by his folks who came back from coastal regions that production efficiency had largely increased as factories began to implement large-scale mechanization, which meant less demand for hand-made bamboo mats. Things became difficult for the craftsman's family. Xu and his wife worked more than 10 hours a day but weren't able to sell the mats they had made. The couple struggled to earn 10,000 yuan for a whole year's toil. "I don't think handmade crafts should be antique, appealing only to a niche audience," Xu said. Poverty makes people think of change. Instead of weaving bamboo mats and baskets, he chose to make high-quality works of art, which included portraits of great men, famous paintings like the "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival," a masterpiece by Zhang Zeduan from the Song Dynasty. The craft has earned a place on the list of provincial intangible cultural heritage in 2009 and Xu became its inheritor one year later. He set up a workshop that offered experiential courses to local schools and enterprises. With the help of the "information dividend" on short video platforms, Xu is more ambitious and considering opening an online store with expected sales volume growing tenfold. "The craft and wisdom of our ancestors cannot be lost," he said. "People's comments online encouraged me to go on, and it was worth it." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:36:30|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Fruit purchasers from around the world placed 270 million yuan (39.3 million U.S. dollars) of orders for lychees to be harvested in south China's Guangdong Province, at a fruit fair in the city of Dongguan on Monday. At the lychee export fair, consulates and businessmen from the United States, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Greece and Thailand were invited to taste the succulent lychee. China is the world's biggest lychee grower, producing more than 60 percent of the world's lychee. Guangdong has more than 266,667 hectares of lychee orchards, with an output nearing 1.5 million tonnes in 2018, ranking first in terms of both area and yield in the country. Greek buyer Themistoklis Mavroedis said at the event that the delicious taste of lychee has conquered European consumer appetites. "Thanks to advanced preservation and cold chain technology, the export of lychees from Guangdong is thriving in Europe. I'm here to work more closely with the suppliers," he said. Lychees are difficult to keep fresh. In ancient China, the fruit was a tribute to the imperial family. During the harvest season, relays of horsemen carrying fresh lychee fruit over the long distance to reach the capital were depicted by famous poets to imply the extravagant life of the upper-class. Lu Yajin, director of Liangtong Risheng Litchi Cooperative in the city of Lianjiang, Guangdong, said the rural cooperative has invited experts from South China Agricultural University to help farmers improve fruit-keeping techniques. The cooperative exported 1,500 tonnes of lychees last year, earning more than 20 million yuan. Chen Yaohua, chairman of Guangdong Fu Yi Agricultural Products Co. Ltd., said that traditional method of keeping the fruit fresh relied on low-temperature refrigeration, which although could keep it fresh for 20 days, make it deteriorate faster, within two or three days, after being put on shelves. He said breakthroughs have been made to lock the fresh fruit's moisture emission and prevent the surface bacterial propagation for 50 days in cold chain, which is long enough to keep it fresh when consumers taste it. Guangdong took the occasion of the fruit fair to inaugurate the Provincial Agricultural Products Purchasers Alliance and the Lychee Export Alliance to better promote the export of lychees. Gu Xingwei, director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that the platform is for sharing resources and information under the guidance of the country's Belt and Road Initiative. Guangdong's lychee exports exceeded 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2018. Exports to the United States, Canada and Europe accounted for 80 percent of the total. Local fruit growers are keen in studying export standardization norms and organic growing methods to supply for high-end markets. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 14:36:31|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close SANTIAGO, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The first physical store of Chinese electronics company Xiaomi in South America newly opened here is offering its more than 25,000 Chilean followers new technologies at affordable prices. "Our users don't just buy products; they become part of a global community. Common interests unite us, and we care about taking care of that relationship, as if it were with close friends," said Felipe Villalobos, a social media manager with Xiaomi Chile. The connection with "Mi Fans" is part of the company's strategy of "being by and for" its supporters to search for friends over clients, as the fans "will search for our products and create a need on the market tomorrow," Villalobos explained. Santiago's "Mi Store" opened in late April under the close watch of 1,500 followers, who thanked the brand for listening to users' advice and "making them participate in their products," Gustavo Belmar, a customer and surgeon, told Xinhua. The "Mi Fans" demand quality from Chinese products. They value lower prices and recognize the company's consideration towards its customers. Xiaomi now has 130 products available in Chile, including cellphones, security cameras, computers, robot vacuums, bicycles, electric scooters, and accessories. The company is looking to open another six stores and consolidate its expansion in Chile and the region after its landing in Mexico, and to introduce technologies as yet unknown to Latin America, according to Xiaomi. Sergio de la Fuente, a Mi Fan, said the launch of the store in Chile was "like a dream." "I was very happy to see that Xiaomi had preserved its philosophy of delivering the best technology at a very good price. I really look forward to the arrival of other stores and many more things," the fan said. The Latin American market is crucial and attractive for the brand -- especially Chile, "a country that tends to adopt new technologies very rapidly," the brand said. Currently, there is a large demand in the South American country for these types of devices, and thus a greater offer is in need from technology companies, which boosts competition and benefits consumers, the Chinese firm said. The brand highlighted the possibility of contributing to an "easy, healthy, and safe" life through the Internet of things. The ties between China and Chile have allowed Xiaomi and other Chinese companies to come to the South American country. In 2005, Chile became the first Latin American country to sign a free trade agreement with China, and in 2019, it became the first country in the region to update the agreement with China. "It's an extremely positive factor that allows us to develop a solid and growing business for the national market, with best technology and quality for Chilean consumers," Xiaomi said. Founded in 2010, Xiaomi Corporation is the world's fourth largest smartphone brand and has established the biggest Internet platform for consumer goods. It is present in more than 80 countries and regions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 15:06:46|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close JINAN, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Many Egyptian potato farmers enjoyed a bumper harvest this year, as imported potato seeds from China brought a 50 percent higher yield than the local variety. Last year, Egyptian major potato producer Ikthr imported around 120,000 potato seeds from Xisen Potato Industry Group Co. Ltd., in east China's Shandong Province. It is the first time for potato seeds cultivated independently by China to enter the Egyptian market, where 90 percent of imported seeds are from countries such as the Netherlands and Britain. With the foray into new markets like Egypt, Chinese companies are eyeing more prosperous seed trade in the countries along the Belt and Road. "As our products are recognized, they plan to buy more seeds from our company," said Kong Haiming, general manager of Laoling Xisen Potato Industry Group. The two companies will further cooperate in potato breeding techniques and planting machinery, Kong said. Over the past six years, Xisen has exported seeds to several countries along the Belt and Road including Egypt and Kazakhstan. Potatoes are a primary staple food in countries in central Asia, but many local varieties are susceptible to diseases and pests, and are low-yielding. In 2017, S.Seifullin Kazakh Agro Technical University and Xisen Potato Industry Group worked together on an experiment in breeding new varieties and exploring cultivation techniques suitable for local climates and growing conditions. The experiment, conducted on a 33.3 hectares of land in Kazakhstan, has produced a new variety with drought tolerance and resistance to diseases and pests. "The new variety, Xisen No.6, is favored by local farmers since it's starchy and good in texture and taste," said Kong, adding that the yield of the newly bred variety is more than twice as much as the local potato. Agricultural trade has been valued since the ancient Silk Road. As merchants brought flax and pomegranates to China and silk and tea to Central Asian countries, they enhanced exchanges of agricultural produce and communication of agricultural technologies. Countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have more opportunities for agricultural cooperation, said Zhang Qingjin, director of the Institute of Agricultural Development of the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences. Shandong Guangtong Silkworm Eggs Group, one of the largest companies in China's silk industry, has exported some 1.5 million mulberry saplings to countries in central Asia. "Our silkworm eggs and mulberry saplings have gained popularity among countries like Tajikistan," said Li Qiliang, head of marketing at Shandong Guangtong. Their mulberries, featuring saline-alkaline and drought tolerance, grow in abundance in the local climate, Li added. "China, with rich varieties of agricultural produce, is complementary in agriculture with many countries in central Asia," said Pan Jun, deputy director of Department of Science & Technology of Shandong Province. Cooperation will be made between universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises of Shandong and five Belt and Road countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in a bid to advance technologies exchanges, Pan added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 15:52:13|Editor: mingmei 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 Singaporean President Halimah Yacob in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Gao Jie) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Wang Huning met with Singaporean President Halimah Yacob in Beijing on Wednesday. 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, called on the two countries to take the joint building of the Belt and Road as an opportunity to carry out high-quality and substantial cooperation, enhance exchanges and mutual learning, and increase coordination in multilateral areas, to bring bilateral relations to a higher level. Halimah said Singapore is willing to work with China to increase high-level contacts, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and ensure smooth implementation of major projects. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:18:30|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close Sangay Tenzin reads books at a book store of the Beijing Language and Culture University in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2019. Sangay Tenzin, a Bhutanese student of Beijing Language and Culture University, is one of the photographers whose work was accepted by an exhibition themed "Diversity of Asian Civilizations in Youth Eyes", on the sidelines of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC). In his photo, a farmer pours radishes into a basket with traditional Bhutanese houses scattering far behind. His work focuses on the agriculture of Bhutan and reflects the characteristics of the nation. Sangay Tenzin majored in tourism management in Bhutan and now is studying Chinese in Beijing. He wants to open a tourism company in his hometown after graduation, cooperating with Chinese travel agencies. My country has an opportunity to present its culture thanks to the CDAC. I'm also able to see the diversity of Asian civilizations because of this conference, said Sangay. (Xinhua/Li He) Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 15:57:16|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's future lies in national reunification and the wellbeing of Taiwan compatriots lies in national rejuvenation, a Chinese mainland spokesperson told a press conference Wednesday. Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, made the remarks in response to Foxconn founder and chairman Terry Gou's comments on the 1992 Consensus. Noting that the mainland and Taiwan both belong to one China, Ma said the 1992 Consensus has clearly defined the nature of cross-Straits relations, which are not state-to-state relations. It is in the common interests of people of both sides to uphold the 1992 Consensus, to oppose "Taiwan independence," and to work for the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations and advance the process toward the peaceful reunification of China, he said. The two sides should work together to resolve differences based on the one-China principle and with an attitude responsible for the Chinese nation and future generations, he added. ABC News(NEW YORK) -- A powerful new storm is slamming California later Wednesday with heavy rain and heavy snow in the mountains, creating conditions that could lead to flash floods, before it heads for the Midwest by the end of the week. The heaviest rain in San Francisco and central California is expected Wednesday night, as the Bay Area is experiencing its wettest May since 2015. Some areas in northern California could see 4 inches of rain, with the Bay Area expecting 1 to 2 inches. By Thursday morning, the heaviest rainfall will shift toward Los Angeles and Southern California, where at higher elevations snow is expected. Parts of the Sierra Nevada could see as much as 2 feet of snow. The storm is forecast to move east by Friday. Severe weather is expected in the central U.S., from Minnesota all the way down to Texas. Damaging winds, hail and tornadoes are all possibilities. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:12:32|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SANAA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebels shot down a drone from the Saudi-led coalition over the capital Sanaa late Tuesday, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported Wednesday. A U.S.-made MQ1 drone was brought down at midnight by the Houthi air defenses in Dayan area of Bani Matar suburb in the southwest of Sanaa, al-Masirah TV said. According to the rebels, a warplane from the Saudi-led coalition attacked the wreckage of the downed drone two hours later. There had been no comments yet from the Saudi-led coalition over the Houthi rebels' claim. Drone war has escalated over the past months between Saudi Arabia, which has been leading an Arab coalition since March 2015 to support the Yemeni exiled government, and the Iran-allied Houthi rebels who seized much of Yemen's north in late 2014. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia said two oil-pumping stations of its main pipeline were hit by explosive-laden drones, which caused a fire at the No. 8 station with limited damage. The 1,200-km pipeline carries crude from Saudi Arabia's main eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the west. Houthis claimed responsibility for the drone attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, but the Saudi government has yet to comment on the claim. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:22:40|Editor: Liu Video Player Close Team members of Ocean University of China control an underwater robot during the World Intelligence Underwater Robots Challenge held in north China's Tianjin, May 15, 2019. The World Intelligence Underwater Robots Challenge opened here on Wednesday, attracting 13 teams from China, the United States, Japan and Australia. The competition, with the theme "Dream pursuer in the water, intelligence winner in the future," is one of the five competitions being held during the third World Intelligence Congress. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei) TIANJIN, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The World Intelligence Underwater Robots Challenge opened in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Wednesday, providing a platform for international teams to showcase the function and intelligence of underwater robots. The competition, with the theme "Dream pursuer in the water, intelligence winner in the future," is one of the five competitions being held during the third World Intelligence Congress. Two venues are set up for the competition, including indoor enclosed water and outdoor open water. The underwater contest is held in the indoor water. Underwater robots' comprehensive performance will be evaluated upon underwater speed, photography, grasp, precise work, and other catagories. Emergency rescue contest will be conducted in outdoor open waters. This competition attracts 13 teams from China, the United States, Japan and Australia. Meanwhile, many well-known Chinese and foreign scholars and representatives of enterprises and public institutions in underwater intelligent robots and marine science and technology have been invited to this event. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:27:56|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close WASHINGTON, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Several U.S. groups representing a variety of industries have denounced Washington's recent move to increase tariffs on Chinese imports. The U.S. administration of President Donald Trump increased the additional tariffs on 200 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent on Friday, and has threatened to raise tariffs on more Chinese imports. The new tariff measures are "catastrophic for the U.S. economy," said the American Apparel and Footwear Association in a statement released Monday, adding that it is "severely disappointed" by the latest tariff threat, which covers products "including clothing, shoes, and other textiles." It estimated that a U.S. family of four would be charged additional 500 dollars per year to cover these tariffs on clothing, shoes, travel goods, and related items. "This is a self-inflicted wound that will be catastrophic for the nation's economy," said Rick Helfenbein, president and CEO of the association. "By tightening the noose and pulling more consumer items into the trade war, the President has shown that he is not concerned with raising taxes on American families, or threatening millions of American jobs that are dependent on global value chains," he added. According to the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), a Washington-based trade association representing companies from the information and communications technology industry, additional tariffs are counterproductive. "The tariffs in force have already hurt consumers, rattled supply chains for U.S. manufacturers and businesses, and created uncertainty across economies," said Naomi Wilson, ITI's senior director of policy for Asia. "Additional tariffs threaten to needlessly escalate this conflict and diminish the prospects for addressing longstanding trade issues with China," Wilson added. As the China-U.S. trade tensions drag on, U.S. farmers have become increasingly impatient, especially those that grow soybeans -- one of the major U.S. export products to China. "U.S. soybean farmers remain frustrated by the lack of progress between the United States and China in resolving the trade war, which continues to immediately threaten soy prices and, if not resolved, farmers' ability to stay in business," the American Soybean Association (ASA) said in a statement. The ASA has consistently opposed using unilateral tariffs to address U.S. trade deficits with China and other countries, said the statement. "Instead, ASA supports the negotiation of trade agreements and other measures that can increase U.S. agricultural exports, including soybeans." For soybean growers, the fact that no deal was reached yet after 11 rounds of consultation with China on trade disputes means that "we're losing," said ASA President Davie Stephens, who is also a soy grower from Clinton, Kentucky. He said it took U.S. soybean farmers over 40 years to build the market in China, but now the Chinese market "will become increasingly difficult to recover" as the trade conflict continues. "We've been understanding during this negotiation process, but we cannot withstand another year in which our most important foreign market continues to slip away," said John Heisdorffer, ASA Chairman and soy grower from Keota, Iowa. The Consumer Technology Association said tech products account for more than half of the 300 billion dollars' worth of products that are now subject to the administration's new tariff threat. "This immense round of tariffs is exponentially worse for our country," it said. "China is one of the top export markets for American technology -- and its retaliatory tariffs will choke U.S. job creation and global sales for American manufacturers and innovators." Tariffs are taxes paid by Americans, not China, said the association. "Raising tariffs in this questionably legal fashion hurts American families, workers and businesses." The National Retail Federation said, "Slapping tariffs on everything U.S. companies import from China -- goods that support U.S. manufacturing and provide consumers with affordable products -- will jeopardize American jobs and increase costs for consumers." The federation cited an estimate by the Tariffs Hurt the Heartland campaign as saying that imposing tariffs of 25 percent on all remaining imports from China, combined with the impact of retaliation, would jeopardize more than 2 million American jobs, cost the average U.S. family 2,300 dollars each year and reduce the value of U.S. GDP by 1 percent. In response to the U.S. move to increase additional tariffs on 200 billion dollars' worth of Chinese goods, China on Monday announced that it will raise additional tariffs on a range of U.S. imports from June 1. "China doesn't want a trade war, but we are not afraid of fighting one," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said in Beijing on Tuesday. "If someone brings the war to our doorstep, we will fight to the end." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:38:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BAGHDAD, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Embassy in Iraq said on Wednesday that the U.S. State Department has ordered the non-emergency U.S. employees working in both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil to leave Iraq. "Normal visa services at both posts (Baghdad and Erbil) will be temporarily suspended," an embassy statement said. "The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq," the statement added. Earlier, the U.S. military said the U.S. forces were on high alert in Iraq and Syria over fears of "imminent threats" from Iran-backed forces in the region. The U.S. measures came amid the tense situation in the region after U.S. President Donald Trump decided not to re-issue the sanctions waivers for major importers to continue buying Iran's oil when they expired in early May. The United States has also increased its military buildup in the region recently by deploying an aircraft carrier, bombers and anti-missile systems there, citing a threat of Iranian attack. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:43:11|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close U.S. Congressman Rick Larsen (R), co-chair of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group in the House, speaks during an interview with Xinhua at his office in Washington D.C., the United States, May 9, 2019. The latest U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods will hurt American workers and consumers, and have a negative impact on the U.S. economy, Larsen told Xinhua in the interview. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) by Xinhua writers Xiong Maoling, Gao Pan and Liu Jie WASHINGTON, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The latest U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods will hurt American workers and consumers, and have a negative impact on the U.S. economy, congressman Rick Larsen, co-chair of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group in the House, has said. "The president is not telling the truth to the American people about that when he says that China is going to be paying for tariffs. They're not ... Americans are going to be paying for the tariffs," Larsen told Xinhua in a recent interview at his office in Washington D.C. Increasing additional tariffs on 200 billion U.S. dollars worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent will push up the price of consumer goods, said the Democratic congressman. "It's going to start hitting many more people than the tariffs are currently hitting." In a report released Saturday, Goldman Sachs revised up its estimate of the tariffs' impact on core personal consumption expenditures to 0.2 percentage points. If the United States imposes tariffs on the roughly 300 billion dollars remaining in Chinese imports, the report said, the effect would rise to 0.5 percentage point. "It'll be bad for the economy. It will be bad for the president and won't advance the necessary discussions," said Larsen, who represents the Second Congressional District in northwestern Washington state. Noting that the United States and China need to revolve their differences regarding the transfer of technology and intellectual property rights protection, Larsen said he does not believe tariffs are the right approach to address these problems. The added tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs have not been good for the Chinese economy or the U.S. economy, Larsen said, adding that he hopes the two sides can "back away from the tariffs" and find another solution. Larsen created the U.S.-China Working Group, which seeks to strengthen diplomatic relations with China and educate members of Congress through meetings and briefings with business, academic and political leaders from both sides. In late March, Larsen led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to China, traveling to Beijing, Hangzhou and Hong Kong to engage with high-level Chinese and U.S. officials, as well as American businesses operating in China. The six-member delegation also toured Alibaba headquarters. "As a representative from Washington state, I am particularly concerned with the current trade discussions because the largest number of exports from the state go to China," Larsen said in a statement released upon returning from the trip. "Forty percent of jobs in the state depend on trade. In Snohomish County, where I was born and raised, 60 percent of all jobs are tied to trade," he said. According to a recent report from the U.S.-China Business Council, Washington State's goods exports to China in 2018 totaled 12.1 billion dollars, down by 12.4 percent from 2017, due to headwinds from the U.S.-China trade dispute. The report also showed the state's goods exports to China surged by 108 percent from 2009 to 2018, while its goods exports to the rest of the world increased by 38 percent. Despite the ongoing frictions in U.S.-China relations, Larsen said he expects trade between his state and China and between the two countries overall to continue. "Unfortunately it will be more expensive because of these tariffs, and the people I represent will be paying more because they'd be paying higher tariffs," he said. The congressman said that he anticipates the current administration will continue to take a tougher stance on China, but will "not get the result that they want." "We're stuck with each other in one way," he said. "And so it's best that we find a way to cooperate where we can, and compete where we will." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 16:53:26|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close CHENGDU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A number of local residents in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in Sichuan Province can now send and receive express parcels within their villages thanks to the improved logistics network. Local authorities are building logistics sites in the counties of Luding, Danba and Garze. So far three county-level logistics service centers have been established and 264 village logistics sites launched, according to the prefecture commerce and economic cooperation bureau. Previously, local villagers had to travel to the county seats for express services. Currently the the village logistics services handle over 350 parcels everyday on average. Many local agricultural products such as mushrooms, oranges and cherries have been delivered through the service. The bureau plans to expand the logistics services to more villages across the prefecture. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 17:08:42|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- China's satellite navigation and location services industry achieved a total output value of 301.6 billion yuan (about 43.93 billion US dollars) in 2018, up 18.3 percent than the previous year, according to an annual industry report. The data was published in the White Paper on the Development of China's Satellite Navigation and Location Services Industry (2019), which was released by the GNSS (global navigation satellite system) and LBS (location-based service) Association of China on Wednesday. The industry's core sectors, which are directly related to the development and application of the satellite navigation technology, include chip, device, algorithm, software, navigation data, terminal equipment and infrastructure. These sectors reported 106.9 billion yuan in output value, accounting for 35.44 percent of the industry's total. The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) contributed 80 percent to the output value generated by the core sectors. The system raked in a total of 194.7 billion yuan with related products and services. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 17:08:46|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday urged various countries to treat each other as equals for the peaceful coexistence of civilizations. "Various civilizations are not destined to clash," Xi said at the opening of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, Asia's first-ever grand gathering themed on inter-civilizational exchanges and mutual learning for a community with a shared future. Thousands of people from 47 Asian countries and nearly 50 countries outside the region attended the conference in Beijing. "The intensifying global challenges humanity are facing now require concerted efforts from countries across the world," Xi said, highlighting the role of culture to cope with common challenges. The conference comes at a time when certain countries have resorted to the "clash of civilizations" argument, bullying, unilateralism and an inward-looking mentality. Qian Chengdan, a professor at Peking University, said the Xi-proposed event is highly relevant in the current political environment. "It will boost understanding among different civilizations and pave the way for a brighter future for humanity," Qian said. Xi noted there would be no clash of civilizations as long as people were able to appreciate the beauty of all civilizations. "It is foolish to believe that one's race and civilization are superior to others," Xi said. "It is disastrous to willfully reshape or even replace other civilizations." The Chinese president raised a four-point proposal to consolidate the "cultural foundation" of jointly building a community with a shared future for Asia and humanity: treating each other with respect and as equals; appreciating the beauty of all civilizations; adhering to openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning; and keeping pace with the times. Equality, reciprocality, diversity and multi-directionality are underscored in exchanges among civilizations. The exchanges, Xi said, should neither be compulsory or forced, nor one-directional. Asia, with two-thirds of the global population, is a major birthplace of human civilization and home to vibrant cultures. There are 47 countries and more than 1,000 ethnic groups on the continent. Asians expect a peaceful, stable, open and integrated continent with common prosperity, Xi said. The Chinese president's take on civilization has won broad support from conference attendees. "When he talked about discarding arrogance and prejudice to treat each other as equals, there was a round of applause," said Zhai Kun, another professor at Peking University. "That was really a show of approval." In their talks on Tuesday, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos told Xi that he believed the "clash of civilizations" argument was a huge mistake. He agreed that different civilizations should respect each other, enhance mutual learning through dialogue and exchanges and draw upon each other's strengths. "Civilizations are not meant to make war," said Massoud Daher, a professor at Lebanese University who attended the conference. "There is no clash of civilizations but complementarity between them." Professor Qian said the Chinese proposal will address challenges such as global deficits in governance, trust, peace and development. The week-long event includes an opening ceremony, panel discussions, an Asian Culture Carnival and Asian Civilization Week involving more than 110 activities to showcase the diversity and charm of Asian civilizations. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 17:24:05|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close WINDHOEK, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Namibia will launch its first ever regional consumer price index (CPI), a statistical officer said Wednesday at a press conference. The exercise, although costly, will positively influence the national economy by providing reliable data in various sectors, said John Steytler, chairman of the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), without giving more details. "Let me call for collaboration between the NSA and other organizations as a way of working together in collecting data," he said. Speaking on the same occasion, United Nations Population Fund Country Representative for Namibia Dennia Gayle said the launch of the regional CPI will pave the way for collecting data in Namibia's population census scheduled for 2021. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:14:27|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (R) meets with Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan on Wednesday met with Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, who is here for the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. Noting that the two countries share profound traditional friendship, Wang said the bilateral relationship is at its best in history under the leadership of the two heads of state. Asian countries should enhance cultural confidence, strive hand-in-hand for new development of Asia, and jointly build a community with a shared future for humanity, Wang said. Sihamoni said the Cambodian side is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China in various areas and push forward bilateral relations to achieve further progress in the new era. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:19:34|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close HARARE, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday appointed Fortune Chasi as the new Minister of Energy and Power Development in a mini-cabinet reshuffle. Chasi was until the appointment the deputy minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. He replaced Joram Gumbo, who has been re-assigned to Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in charge of Implementation and Monitoring of government programs. Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda said in a statement Tuesday night that the appointments were with immediate effect. Mnangagwa appointed Gumbo as energy minister and Chasi as deputy minister for transport after winning the 2018 harmonized elections. The surprise reshuffle comes at a time when Zimbabwe is facing acute shortages of fuel due to foreign currency shortages. The nation has also begun effecting crippling power cuts due low water levels in Kariba Dam that have necessitated a significant reduction in energy production at the Kariba hydro power plant that was recently expanded by another 300 megawatts by China's Sinohydro. Industry and miners have since decried the power cuts, saying they will further impact on production that is already weighed down by the ongoing foreign currency shortages, among other challenges. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:24:37|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close CHONGQING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The 2019 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Heads of Region Meeting opened in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Wednesday. Chinese delegates and more than 130 overseas delegates from member states of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, and observer states of Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are in Chongqing for the meeting. Sherali Saidamir Jonon, Deputy Secretary-General of the SCO Secretariat, said the meeting is expected to advance dialogue and deepen exchange between cities in commerce, trade, culture and tourism. The theme of the meeting, sponsored by the Chongqing Municipal People's Government and the SCO Secretariat, is "Upholding Openness and Inclusiveness for New Opportunities of the SCO Regional Cooperation". A slew of cooperative documents are scheduled to be signed on Wednesday. Trade between Chongqing and the SCO member states, observer states and dialogue partners reached 24.7 billion yuan (about 3.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, up 20 percent year on year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:29:45|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close KABUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- At least five security forces and nearly 40 Taliban militants have been killed in clashes in Afghanistan within the past 24 hours, authorities said Wednesday. Three Afghan army soldiers, two police officers and four militants were killed after Afghan security forces repelled an attack by Taliban on remote Shamulzay district in southern province of Zabul Tuesday night, Afghan Ministry of Defense said confirmed. The ministry added that heavy clashes with the security forces foiled the enemy's plan to capture the remote district, in southeast of provincial capital Qalat city. At least 17 militants were also wounded in the fighting in the district, bordering Pakistan. Zabiullah Mujahid, a purported Taliban spokesman, claimed that the insurgents overran the government offices in the district. In a separate incident, four Taliban militants were killed after Afghan Air Force targeted a running vehicle in Naw Bahar district of Zabul on Tuesday. In another incident, four Taliban militants were killed and eight others wounded after Afghan army commandoes launched an operation in Khelahzai village, on outskirts of Pul-e-Khumri, capital of northern Baghlan province Tuesday night, army Corps 217 Pamir said in a statement. The security force also destroyed two Taliban control and command posts and four defensive positions in the area which threaten Pul-e-Khumri city, according to the statement. In addition, a Taliban divisional commander named Abubakar was killed after an improvised explosive device that he was making detonated accidently in Khelahzai on Tuesday, provincial police spokesman Jawid Basharat told Xinhua. In eastern Ghazni province, 20 militants were killed following a string of airstrikes and army shelling attack against Taliban positions in Arizo and Shahleez localities on outskirts of provincial capital, Ghazni city, provincial government spokesman Harif Noori told Xinhua. Three motorcycles, a heavy gun and a heavy machinegun were also destroyed after the raids, he said. In neighboring Nangarhar province, five Taliban militants were killed and four militants were arrested after Afghan Special Forces launched a night raid operation in Khogyani district, provincial official Attaullah Khogyani told Xinhua. Two Taliban's hideouts and two defensive positions were destroyed after the raid, he added. The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since early April when the militant group launched its annual rebel offensive in different places of the country, which had claimed hundreds of lives including militants, security personnel and civilians. The Taliban has urged civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the targets by militants besides warning people not to support the government. Warring sides in Afghanistan typically exaggerate the casualties of opponent side and it is difficult to verify the figures by them with independent sources. U.S. 1st Lieutenant Jason Dozier (2nd L) of Alpha Troop, 3-89 CAV gives a patrol briefing before heading out from a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station to do a mission in Baghdad on April 16, 2008. (Reuters File photo) BAGHDAD, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Embassy in Iraq said on Wednesday that the U.S. State Department has ordered the non-emergency U.S. employees working in both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil to leave Iraq. "Normal visa services at both posts (Baghdad and Erbil) will be temporarily suspended," an embassy statement said. "The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq," the statement added. Earlier, the U.S. military said the U.S. forces were on high alert in Iraq and Syria over fears of "imminent threats" from Iran-backed forces in the region. The U.S. measures came amid the tense situation in the region after U.S. President Donald Trump decided not to re-issue the sanctions waivers for major importers to continue buying Iran's oil when they expired in early May. The United States has also increased its military buildup in the region recently by deploying an aircraft carrier, bombers and anti-missile systems there, citing a threat of Iranian attack. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:39:51|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat on Wednesday commended the latest accord among Sudanese stakeholders for a political transition in Sudan. The Chairperson of the 55-member continental bloc made the statement following Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) announcement on Wednesday that it has agreed with the major opposition forces on the rule structures and a three-year power transition period. "We have agreed on powers of the sovereignty council, the council of ministers and the legislative council," said Lt. Gen. Yasser al-Atta, a TMC member, at a press conference in Khartoum early Wednesday. The two sides have also agreed that "the transitional period duration will be three years," said the TMC member. "The first six months will be allotted for achieving peace all over Sudan." The AU Chairperson "extends his warm congratulations to the national stakeholders for their high level of responsibility to complete the negotiation cycle in a reasonable time in order to adequately address the legitimate concerns of the Sudanese people," an AU statement issued on Wednesday read. Faki further commended the collaboration of the United Nations, the European Union (EU) and the Troika group, which brings together the U.S., Norway and the United Kingdom, in support of the AU approach. He also "reaffirmed the strong and continuing support and commitment of the AU to the Sudanese stakeholders to achieve a lasting political agreement." Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt, the AU Chairperson's principal strategic adviser, is currently in Khartoum, capital of Sudan to oversee the AUC's technical support to the political transition process in Sudan, according to the AU. The Sudanese military staged a coup on April 11, following four months of anti-government protests. President Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for nearly 30 years, was overthrown and then imprisoned. Last week, after meeting with al-Burhan, the AU Chairperson's Special Envoy to Sudan had urged the political parties in Sudan to reach a deal. The continental bloc had also earlier this month granted the TMC a 60-day extension to hand over the power to a civilian-led authority. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:39:55|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- People's courts in China registered 4,319 new criminal cases of intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement last year, up 19.28 percent year on year, said a source with the Supreme People's Court (SPC). Of the total, 4,064 were concluded at courts across China, up 11.59 percent, said Lin Guanghai, an SPC judge responsible for IPR cases, at a press conference held at the State Council Information Office Wednesday. Lin cited the figures to state that punishment plays an increasingly obvious role in targeting criminal acts of IPR infringement and counterfeiting. China's courts, through trials of IPR cases, have fully played a leading role in judicial protection of IPR and contributed to the creation of a good business environment that honors the rule of law, and to a favorable environment conducive to scientific and technological innovation and cultural prosperity, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:39:56|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close COLOMBO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lanka military on Wednesday said the situation in the country was totally under control, after violent clashes erupted in several areas of the island on Monday, killing one. A military official told Xinhua that security remained heightened in the North Western province and the Gampaha Distict in the outskirts of the capital Colombo, which were affected by the violence on Monday, but there had been no incidents reported on Tuesday and Wednesday. A curfew was imposed in the affected areas from time to time since Monday while a countrywide curfew was also imposed for two consecutive nights. The curfews were lifted on Wednesday morning. Police said over 60 people were arrested over the clashes and several were being questioned by the criminal investigations department. The army have also sought public assistance to identify some of the perpetrators involved. Several mosques, shops and houses were damaged and burnt in the clashes which erupted after over 500 mobs took to the streets on Monday morning. The government has assured the safety of all communities and has warned of stern action against anyone spreading racism. Fears of ethnic violence have been growing in Sri Lanka following the terror attacks on April 21, which killed over 250 people and injured 500 others. A local radical group, named the National Thawheed Jammath, has been blamed for the Easter attacks. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:45:02|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ATHENS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Nine suspects have been detained after Greek anarchist group Rouvikonas (Rubicon) claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack where paint was thrown onto U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt's residence here, Greek national news agency AMNA reported. Demanding the approval of convicted terrorist Dimitris Koufodinas' request for furlough, Rubicon posted a video on an anti-establishment website showing a group of motorcyclists throwing black and red paint at the residence's outer enclosure. In a post on social media, Pyatt said that following the act of "childish vandalism," he "will continue to work with Greek authorities to punish the culprits according to law." Greece's Foreign Ministry also condemned the act of vandalism as an "unacceptable and irresponsible act, which will however not harm the friendship and widening cooperation between our two countries." It was not the first time that the U.S. ambassador's residence has been targeted in recent months. Koufodinas, a leading member of the extremist group November 17 which was dismantled in 2002, is serving 11 life sentences in jail for murder. Since May 2 he has been on a hunger strike after judicial authorities rejected his application for a furlough, the seventh in two years. In recent days anarchists have held protests in Athens, during which they often damage properties. Rubicon has launched dozens of similar attacks against ministries, embassies and businesses in recent years. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:50:06|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese mainland is willing to carry out consultations and dialogues in diversified forms and on a broad range of issues with parties, groups and personages from Taiwan, based on the political foundation of upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing "Taiwan independence," a mainland spokesperson said Wednesday. On this basis, the mainland is also willing to solve differences and accumulate consensus, the spokesperson said. Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, made the remarks in response to a question about the visit of a delegation of personages from Taiwan led by Hung Hsiu-chu, former chairperson of the Chinese Kuomintang party. Hung attended a symposium on cross-Strait relations and national rejuvenation in Beijing Monday. Participants at the symposium raised several joint proposals, including consolidating the political foundation of upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing "Taiwan independence," as well as deepening the integrated development and enhancing grassroots exchanges across the Strait, according to Ma. They also called for institutionalized economic cooperation between the two sides, Ma said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:50:08|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MOGADISHU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Somalia and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) are intensifying joint operations against the al-Shabab terror group, said Francisco Madeira, special representative of the chairperson of the AU Commission for Somalia, on Tuesday. The decision resulted from his talks with the Somali military held earlier in the capital Mogadishu. The two sides also agreed to strengthen information sharing in fighting the al-Shabab extremists, who control large parts of the rural southern and central Somalia. The al-Shabab militants often carry out high-profile attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere, on bases of the AMISOM and Somali security forces and public places among others. In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, Madeira also noted the progress being made by Somali security forces in taking over from AMISOM as agreed in the Somali Transition Plan. "Somalia is ready to take on its responsibility of national security. Somali forces now control Sabiid and Bariire. We intend to do the same in other locations," Madeira said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening. Sabiid and Bariire are two strategic towns recovered in April in the Lower Shabelle region by the allied forces. "We are considering handing over some forward operating bases (FOBs) to the Somali security forces. When we do this, AMISOM forces will become more mobile to secure the main supply routes," Madeira said. He also reaffirmed AMISOM's commitment to implementing the Somali Transition Plan to pave the way for the African Union forces to withdraw from the African country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 18:55:10|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close KUNMING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A severe drought is affecting southwest China's Yunnan Province, with swathes of crops damaged. Bad meteorological conditions have brought much less precipitation in Yunnan. As of Tuesday, 273,280 hectares of crops had been affected, with 91,160 hectares suffering damage. Drought has been reported in 110 monitored sites in Yunnan, meteorological authorities said. The northwest, middle and south of Yunnan are in severe drought. Authorities are ready to begin artificial rain, with 3,642 staff for man-made precipitation already on standby. Government authorities have sent experts to help with drought-relief efforts. The drought is likely to continue, as the next few days will remain hot and dry, according to the provincial meteorological administration. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 19:00:13|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MANILA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Five New People's Army (NPA) rebels were killed and three government soldiers injured in a clash early on Wednesday morning in the central Philippines, an army spokeswoman said. Army First Lieutenant Revella Roperos said the troops battled an estimated 30 fighters from the left-wing NPA guerrillas in Minautok villagein, Calatrava town in Negros Occidental Province around 5:30 a.m. local time, sparking a gun battle that lasted an hour. "The firefight lasted for about an hour, after which the enemy scampered to different directions," Roperos said, adding that three soldiers suffered injuries "but are all still in good physical conditions." On April 17, government security forces also clashed with NPA rebels in the same town, leaving three NPA rebels killed, she said. Several attempts were made since the 1980s to forge a peace pact between the government and the NPA rebels but failed. The current administration led by President Rodrigo Duterte also made an attempt but also failed. Fresh peace talks between the government and the NPA were suspended in 2017. The leftist rebellion has left about 40,000 combatants and civilians dead. It also has stunted the country's economic development, especially in the countryside. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 19:00:14|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PARIS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- As global demand for fresh water and energy is growing rapidly, the ensuing constraints on economic and social development are becoming more apparent. Against the backdrop of technological innovation, the coordinated development and utilization of water and energy resources has become a key condition for sustainable economic and social development, according to Liu Zhenya, chairman of the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDCO). Liu told Xinhua in a recent interview that the development and utilization of the world's water resources are faced with three major challenges: low exploitation rate of hydropower, shortage of fresh water supply, and severe water pollution. The unreasonable development and utilization of energy is an important factor causing fresh water shortages and worsening water pollution. He pointed out that building the Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) will transform the energy development pattern and accelerate clean and low-carbon development, which provides a fundamental solution to mankind's energy needs and opens a new path to resolve the issue of water resources. "In essence, the GEI ... serves as an important platform for the large-scale development, transmission and utilization of clean energy worldwide," he said. Liu emphasized that the GEI will promote the use of clean energy, such as hydro, wind and solar power, to meet global electricity demand. "By 2050, the installed capacity of clean energy worldwide will exceed 80 percent, reducing pollutant emissions by 630 million tons a year and carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption to less than half that of 1990." Sustainable energy will thus be available to all, which in turn will solve major global challenges in the fields of energy, climate and the environment, and will also promote the sustainable development of water resources, he said. Liu noted that, based on this concept, GEIDCO presented the conclusions of two innovative research projects during the first UNESCO International Water Conference held in Paris on May 13 and 14. The first report, on the African energy interconnection development, outlines an innovative approach based on the simultaneous development of the relevant electricity-related, mining, metallurgical, manufacturing and trade aspects. This entails the coordination of the planning and construction of clean energy bases, such as hydropower, mining and metallurgy bases, and industrial parks, to build a power market that integrates power generation, transmission and utilization. The underlying aim is to effectively solve the problems caused by power shortages in industrial development and by limited markets in power development. Taking into account the abundance of clean energy sources and in light of the trends in technological development, GEIDCO has systematically analyzed energy demand, power supply and demand, as well as power flow in Europe. The aim of the second report is to help build an energy system dominated by clean energy and to further strengthen interconnections. It proposes a planning scheme for interconnections in Europe as well as 11 key interconnection projects from Africa to Europe and Asia to Europe. According to Liu, building the GEI is a grand undertaking that aims to benefit all mankind. He has called on all parties to work together to accelerate the development of the project. Founded in March 2016, GEIDCO currently has 635 members in over 90 countries and regions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 19:10:17|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close HAIKOU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Hainan island, home to sprawling tropical rainforest, is drafting a general plan by June to build a national tropical rainforest park and making related legislation. The park is an integral part of China's latest plan to build Hainan, also the country's largest pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ), into a "national ecological civilization pilot zone." As the target stipulates, substantial progress is expected to be achieved in environmental protection by 2020. The environmental quality and resource utilization efficiency are expected to reach world-leading levels by 2035. The zone will focus on structured management of natural resources, coordinating conservation and development of land and sea, conserving the environment, exploring value from the environment, promoting green lifestyle and production, said Wang Qiang, head of the provincial water resources department. By 2020, 98 percent of the days will have good air quality. Forest coverage is kept above 62 percent, and 95 percent of the main rivers and lakes will be free of pollution. "The plan sets detailed targets for the quality of air, sea, rivers, and forests, which ensures the environment in Hainan will continue to get better, not worse," said Ge Chengjun, a professor with Hainan University. GREEN DEVELOPMENT, BETTER LIFE A tropical rainforest park covers 4,400 square kilometers in Hainan or one-seventh of the whole island. The forest, which accounts for one-third of the country's total, is home to over 200 rare and endangered species. A national tropical rainforest park project went in effect on the island in January this year to protect and restore the eco-system, and strike a balance with the social and economic development of surrounding areas. The forests are the traditional habitats for ethnic Li and Miao minority groups who suffer from poverty and conflicts between ecological protection and economic development, said Xiong Anjing, deputy director of the provincial government research office. "The national park will be an opportunity to explore and institutionalize ways to protect natural resources while eradicating poverty," Xiong said. The plan for the national ecological civilization pilot zone also proposes exploring value from ecological products, including ecological agriculture and tourism, and green finance. "Hainan's economy is still underdeveloped. The government authorities need to find more ways to convert the ecological advantages into economic wealth," said Wang Yiwu, dean of the Hainan Institute of Modern Management. Hainan is in a good position to restructure industries, and develop tourism, tropical agriculture, modern service industries, and high-tech industries, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 19:40:39|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BISHKEK, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan will enhance cooperation with China on law enforcement and security, said Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov on Tuesday when meeting with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi. The Kyrgyz president asked Zhao to convey his cordial greetings and sincere wishes to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and congratulated China on the success of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) held last month in Beijing. Kyrgyzstan will provide unwavering support for jointly building the Belt and Road, said the president, adding that his country is willing to align its development strategy with that of China, cement bilateral cooperation in areas of law enforcement and security, and work together to crack down on the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism, in a bid to push forward the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries. For his part, Zhao conveyed Xi's good wishes to President Jeenbekov, saying that the important consensus on development of China-Kyrgyzstan relations and joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reached by President Xi and President Jeenbekov during the second BRF would chart a course for the development of bilateral ties. China is willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to implement the important consensus reached by the two countries' heads of state, strengthen cooperation with Kyrgyzstan in combating the "three forces," enhance security capacity for the Belt and Road construction, anti-drug and cyber security, and push cooperation between the two sides on law enforcement and security to a higher level, so as to add new impetus to the development of bilateral relations. Zhao also said that China fully supports Kyrgyzstan in hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek this year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 19:45:42|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia is keen on increasing exports of agriculture products, especially meat and meat products, to China, Mongolian Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry Chultem Ulaan has said. "The Mongolian government has set a goal to develop a multi-pillar economy in a bid to diversify its heavily mining-dependent economy. Promoting the development of the agricultural sector is seen as the most reachable solution to achieve the goal," Ulaan told Xinhua here in an interview on Tuesday. "Now, we aim to increase the exports of non-mining sectors to China," the minister said, noting that China has been the biggest market and the top export destination for Mongolia. Mongolia has a great chance to promote economic growth by increasing its exports of high-quality ecologically pure food products such as meat and meat products and organic dairy products, Ulaan said, adding that China, with a population of nearly 1.4 billion, is the primary target market for the landlocked Asian country. Mongolia earned around 190 million U.S. dollars from meat exports in 2018, with most of the revenue coming from its exports to China, the minister said, stressing that the nomadic country has set itself the goal of increasing the revenue of meat and meat products to 1 billion dollars. The number of livestock animals in Mongolia has now reached 85 million so far this year after around 19 million dams (female animals) across the country have given birth, the minister said. He added that the Mongolian government has been paying special attention to disinfecting all livestock to prevent animal diseases and boost meat exports. Agriculture is a traditional sector of the Asian country, producing approximately almost 30 percent of the gross domestic product and 16 percent of the total exports, Ulaan said. He added that more than 50 percent of the total employees in the country work in this sector, forming the main source of their livelihood with revenue from selling agricultural products. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 20:05:57|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISTANBUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's main opposition party on Wednesday called for lawyers in the country to monitor the ballot boxes during the re-run of the mayoral election in Istanbul on June 23. The Republican People's Party (CHP) initiated a campaign, dubbed "One ballot box, one lawyer," with a view to preventing possible irregularities and wrongdoing during the voting and counting processes, the party said in a press release. "I invite all lawyers to fulfill a mission at the ballot boxes during the election," Canan Kaftancioglu, head of the CHP in Istanbul Province, was quoted as saying. The party has been planning to have at least one lawyer for each of the 31,186 ballot boxes in 39 districts of the city. Turkey held local elections on March 31, in which the CHP mayoral candidates won in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, the largest three cities of Turkey. The Supreme Election Council annulled the result of the Istanbul election and ordered a fresh one in the city last week over appeals by the ruling Justice and Development Party. The candidate of the Democratic Left Party has withdrawn from the race in a move to support the CHP candidate. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 20:31:25|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PARIS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Less than two weeks before voting begins, French President Emmanuel Macron's the Republic on the Move (LREM) party consolidated its lead over its far-right rival Marine Le Pen for the due European elections, a poll released on Wednesday showed. The centrist ruling party list for the European contest, headed by ex-European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau, is on course to win 23.5 percent of the votes, up by 1.5 percentage point from a previous survey, Elabe pollster found. In a race to Starsbourg-based parliament looked as a two-horse course between reformist platform and nationalist approach, the National Rally's score is put at 22 percent of voting intentions, unchanged from April poll. The pollster added 41 percent of 2,002 respondents said to turn to ballot stations on May 26 to choose 74 lawmakers for the European parliament, while 37 percent of them said could change their choice. In another survey of Kantar-Onepoint released on Tuesday, the far-rightists list moved ahead the ruling party with 23 percent against 20 percent. As nationalism has spread into European neighbors and expected to perform strongly, Macron has cast the upcoming election as a battle between his progressive ideas and what he sees as promotion of nationalist or anti-EU agendas that could, according to him, put France's interests and that of the European bloc on edge. At a press conference in the sidelines of European summit in Sibiu last week, the French president said that "I will energize all efforts so that the National Rally is not in the lead". Seeking to give a boost to the Renaissance list, the 41-year-old head of state throws himself into the campaign by appearing in a poster with a smiling face and a look at the horizon. In the non-official LREM candidates poster, it was written "On the march for Europe, May 26, I vote Renaissance." "Macron is the only glue that holds his En Marche movement together, and the further his political fortunes sink as the time for his re-election approaches, the greater the danger that things come unstuck," analysts wrote at the Eurointelligence blog. "Macron's European troubles have already begun, and might get even worse," they added. Even the street protests against his policy have lessened, a continued social malaise and wane public support cast doubt into Macron's ability to carry out the reforms he has announced to renew the European Union in particular that of a joint eurozone budget and further integration of the bloc on migration, defense and trade, believed the analysts. According to Elabe, national issues still dominate European ones, with 36 percent of potential voters said to make their choice based on the internal affairs, knowing that 26 percent of them said did not back the government's policy. In a further sign that more challenges are still ahead, Nathalie Loiseau, a career diplomat and expert in EU affairs, on whom the head of state rely to appease more centrist voters, saw her campaign clouded with a series of missteps. That included a denial of her student candidacy on a right-wing electoral list with several members of the extreme right, before dismissing it as "youthful mistake." In other gaffe, she said she "had been received like a gipsy" when she became director of the elite ENA administrative school. "All of this has entirely obscured the Renaissance list's political messaging. The problem is compounded by the fact that the list, hand-picked by Macron, is a politically little more than a motley crew even by En Marche standards," wrote analysts at Eurointelligence, an internet-based economic news and analysis on Europe. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 20:41:36|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson Wednesday criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority's attempts to obstruct and defame cross-Straits media exchanges, encouraging Taiwan media organizations aspiring to the development of cross-Straits relations to "walk tall." Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, made the remarks in response to questions about the DPP authority's actions against Taiwan media representatives who attended the fourth Beijing Taiwan Media Forum held from May 9 to 12 in Beijing. Noting that cross-Straits media exchanges have played important roles in promoting mutual understanding between the two sides, Ma said actions of the DPP authority and the separatist elements advocating "Taiwan independence" were out of fear that their schemes to sabotage cross-Straits relations would be exposed as compatriots across the Strait advance mutual understanding. The DPP authority's actions against media that uphold justice, oppose "Taiwan independence" and advocate developing cross-Straits relations will be in vain, Ma said. "Those media organizations should walk tall because good always triumphs over evil," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 20:51:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday attended the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing and delivered a keynote speech. He called for efforts to jointly create a brighter future for civilizations of Asia and the world. The Chinese president raised a four-point proposal to consolidate the "cultural foundation" of jointly building a community with a shared future for Asia and humanity: treating each other with respect and as equals; appreciating the beauty of all civilizations; adhering to openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning; and keeping pace with the times. Wang Huning attended the opening ceremony. Exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations should be conducted in a reciprocal and equal manner, and be diversified and multi-directional, he said. The exchanges should neither be compulsory or forced, nor one-directional. Xi said in his speech that various civilizations are not destined to clash as long as people were able to appreciate the beauty of all civilizations. Noting that Chinese civilization is an open system formed during constant exchanges and mutual learning with other civilizations, Xi said China will surely embrace the world with a more open posture and contribute more dynamic civilization achievements to the world in the future. Foreign guests including Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Singaporean President Halimah Yacob, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, spoke at the opening ceremony respectively. They stressed the need to respect the differences, uniqueness and diversity of civilizations, saying that the so-called clash of civilizations argument is a huge mistake which will damage or even cut off the bridge for civilization exchanges. The week-long event includes an opening ceremony, panel discussions, an Asian culture carnival and Asian Civilization Week involving more than 110 activities to showcase the diversity and charm of Asian civilizations. Industry veteran Randy Lervold is joining Glasair Aviation as its new CEO effective today. An experienced pilot and homebuilder, Lervold will be responsible for spearheading Glasairs refreshed presence in the market. This is a great opportunity to build on Glasair Aviations rich history and legacy, he says. I think we can improve operations and sales, and well be looking hard at product improvements as well. Lervold also said that more details about Glasairs next steps will be announced over the summer. Currently, the company produces the Sportsman kit aircraft that can be built as part of its Two Weeks to Taxi builder-assist program at its Arlington, Washington, facility. Lervold was most recently VP of marketing and sales at Dynon Avionics and before that president at Cub Crafters. He helped launch the original Carbon Cub and was instrumental in getting the xCub to market. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 20:51:46|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NAIROBI, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government on Wednesday called on the insurance industry to develop a policy to cater for human-wildlife conflict compensation. Najib Balala, cabinet secretary for tourism and wildlife told the industry to consider embracing innovative schemes to meet the increasing demand from claimants. "The Wildlife Act 2013 that acknowledged monetary compensation as the solution has become too expensive for the government," Balala said during a consultative forum on human-wildlife compensation in Nairobi. He said that claimants took advantage of this system to make fraudulent claims at the expense of genuine cases, making causes of human-wildlife conflict unmanageable and unsustainable. "The insurance industry should seize the business opportunity by complementing the government efforts in mitigating the expenses that arise due to human-wildlife conflicts," Balala said. He told stakeholders from insurance and wildlife conservationists that during 2014-2018, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) received 14,000 claims amounting to 10 billion shillings (100 million U.S. dollars). During the period, 494 people died from human wildlife conflicts while 333 died from snake bites, he said. "In the 2018-2019, the government allocated 4 million dollars as compensation allocations and has earmarked 5.4 million dollars for the 2019-2020," Balala said. He said the government is totally overwhelmed by the numbers of claims since the amount required exceeds KWS annual revenue of 30 million dollars. He said that the government has stopped paying out compensation from snake bites and has instead engaged in stocking health facilities with anti-venom medicine and creating awareness in collaboration with the ministry of health officials. Balala said that the ongoing dialogue and wide consultation will help create a clear way forward on policy and alternative mechanisms of compensation. "The solution has to come from joints efforts, without pointing fingers at any party, in order to ensure conservation and preservation of our national heritage for the benefit of all," he added. The Kenyan official observed that despite having successful anti-poaching strategies, the biggest threat to wildlife now is the fight for land for human settlement and agriculture. He said that this fight has led to frequent invasions of wildlife corridors and encroachment of the protected areas. Balala revealed that 68 elephants were poached in 2017 while 400 died due to effects of drought yet little attention was put on conservation measures. "We need public awareness on wildlife issues such as migratory corridors and conservation matters so as to conserve wildlife as a team," he added. "Scientists must also come out and explain to populations the wildlife movements in advance to reduce the conflicts," said Balala. He asked owners of conservancies to take responsibility by beginning to compensate claimants, adding that 90 percent of the conflicts takes place outside the government owned national parks. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 20:56:52|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) on Wednesday commended the "significant progress" made to secure peace and stability in Somalia under the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The AU Peace and Security Council (AU-PSC) said in a statement that it "acknowledged the significant progress made to secure peace and stability in Somalia, while noting the fragility of the gains made so far in the political and security situation." The council also "reiterates the importance of the continued presence of AMISOM in Somalia, as well as the need for predictable and sustainable funding for the AU Mission," said the statement. The council "commends the continuous progress and immense contribution of AMISOM police component in the provision of training, mentoring and advisory support in building effective federal and regional police capacity," it said. It also recognized the AMISOM and the Somali National Security forces for the recent operations that led to the liberation of some locations from Al-Shabab, especially in Lower Shabelle and Juba Valley, the Police deployment in Kismayo. The council also disclosed decision "to renew the mandate of AMISOM for another 12 months until May 27, 2020 to support implementation of the Somali Transitional Plan (STP)." The UN Security Council's Resolution 2431, which was adopted in last year, mainly called for a further reduction in the number of troops, following the first reduction undertaken in December 2017. AMISOM, back in November last year, had developed a document that will provide an effective framework for the gradual transition of security responsibilities to Somalia's security institutions from the AU mission. The new concept of operations, which guides AMISOM's activities and operations for the 2018-2021 period, marks the final phase of the AU mission's transition and eventual exit from Somalia. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:01:58|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close JUBA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 70 percent of South Sudanese are feeling safe living in the country after the warring parties signed the revitalized peace agreement last year to end more than five years of conflict, a UN survey launched on Wednesday reveals. The survey by the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) says only 28 percent of the 2,300 people interviewed between December 2018 and January 2019 said they felt unsafe. David Shearer, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and head of UNMISS said the perception survey was conducted by an international consultancy firm and local staff through face-to-face interviews with people in villages, towns and civilian protection sites in 10 areas where UNMISS has its bases. "This demonstrates to us that most people do feel the security situation is continuing to improve significantly, particularly following the signing of (revitalized) peace agreement," Shearer told journalists in Juba. The survey notes that 79 percent of the people interviewed reported having a family member dead and also having a family member displaced as result of the armed conflict that broke out in December 2013. "Of those who had experienced displacement, nearly one quarter said more than 15 of their family members had been forced to leave their homes," said UNMISS. The survey also reveals that 89 percent of people are optimistic of the lasting peace this year. "To us, this is very significant result because it demonstrates what we are picking up in our discussions with communities on the ground. There is palpable optimism and hope among people right across the country that peace is possible," said Shearer. "I hope that this kind of result will motivate the parties to work even harder to implement the agreement because they can see clearly that their people have a keen desire for peace and support their efforts," he added. According to the study, 72 percent said they felt much safer due to UNMISS presence, 67 percent approved the work of the peacekeeping force, 16 percent said there was no difference while 7 percent thought it was worse or much worse. It also discloses that 59 percent said the government was primarily responsible for their safety, 27 percent said it was UNMISS and 8 percent said it was up to individuals to look after their own safety. Shearer said that these results are encouraging as UNMISS will continue to measure its performance and make improvements where necessary in the years ahead. "All too often, the news that we hear in South Sudan is negative and that's not surprising given what the country has been through. But I think this survey offers some hope that we are on the right path towards peace and that, most importantly the people of this country believe it can be achieved," said Shearer. President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar signed the revitalized peace deal in September 2018 mediated by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Ethiopia. The 2015 peace agreement collapsed after outbreak of renewed fighting in Juba in July 2016, which forced Machar to flee into exile. The parties recently agreed to extend the pre-transitional period for another six months before forming the much-awaited transitional unity government that should have been up and running by May 12. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:07:00|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A ban on burning of low-grade coal for domestic use in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator came into force on Wednesday, with the aim of reducing air pollution. "Today, we all witnessed a historic decision to improve air quality in the capital city and protect ourselves from air pollution," Lamjav Byambasuren, vice health minister of the country, said at the opening of an event on raising public awareness of air pollution. Public participation in air pollution reduction is important, Byambasuren said, calling on residents of the city to comply with the ban on the burning of low-grade coal for domestic use. According to a statement issued by the National Committee for Environmental Pollution Reduction, households and enterprises who violate the ban will be fined from 300,000 Mongolian tugriks (over 113 U.S. dollars) to 3 million Mongolian tugriks (about 1,134 dollars). Households in Ulan Bator will be supplied with processed fuel instead of raw coal. Air pollution is one of the most pressing issues in Ulan Bator, which is home to around half of the country's 3.2-million population, and poses a major threat to the Mongolian people's health. More than 800,000 residents, half of Ulan Bator's population, live in slums, also known as ger districts. They burn raw coal and other flammable materials to keep warm and cook during the six-month-long winter. It is estimated that 80 percent of air pollution in the city is caused by ger stoves. Since the early 2000s, the Mongolian government has carried out a number of measures aimed at reducing air pollution in Ulan Bator. However, the city has not seen a significant reduction in air pollution levels. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:07:03|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close COLOMBO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Tourism Ministry will soon formulate a 100 million USD insurance fund to pay compensation to any tourist who suffers injury or death while visiting Sri Lanka, local media reported Wednesday. Tourism Development, Wildlife and Christian Religious Affairs Minister John Amaratunga said his ministry plans to launch a special insurance scheme to pay compensation claims for tourists from 100,000 USD to 250,000 USD. Over 250 people including over 40 foreigners were killed when suicide bombers targeted three churches and three luxury hotels in the country on April 21. "We see around 2,000 tourists still visiting Sri Lanka on a daily basis. We are in discussions with the embassies to tone down the travel advisories," the minister said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:12:06|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who is also the UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, on Wednesday vowed the UN's continued support to the Ethiopian government's efforts towards digitalization. The Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology, in a statement issued Wednesday, said that Maxima, during her meeting with Ethiopia's Minister of Innovation and Technology Getahun Mekuria, reiterated the UN's readiness to provide technical, knowledge, as well as advisory support. The queen, who is currently in Ethiopia as part of a three-day visit that aimed to promote access to financial services in the East African country, envisaged to promote digital applications in Ethiopia's financial services, as well as the development of digital national identification (ID) system. Mekuria, during his discussion with Maxima who was accompanied by World Bank and the Gates Foundation representatives, highlighted Ethiopia's efforts in pushing for a digital financial system, digital ID, as well as the privatization of the telecom sector. Maxima, expressing her concern regarding internet speed and information security, also urged the Ethiopian government to give particular emphasis to rural communities. The Netherlands queen has been the UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development since 2009. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:12:07|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- China firmly opposes U.S. interference in China's internal affairs, a Chinese mainland spokesperson said Wednesday. Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, made the remarks at a press conference in response to the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed the "Taiwan Assurance Act of 2019" in an attempt to normalize arms sales to Taiwan. Ma said the U.S. should adhere to the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques and cease to undermine cross-Strait peace and stability. "We reassert that the reliance of the Democratic Progressive Party administration on foreign forces won't work," Ma said. "Any attempt that relies on foreigners to build itself up will pay a price for its own deeds." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:12:12|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Chen Xi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, attends the opening ceremony of the school's 2019 spring semester for the second intake of students in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Chen Xi on Wednesday called for conscientious efforts to maintain deep belief in and faithfully practice "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era." Chen, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks while attending the opening ceremony of the school's 2019 spring semester for the second intake of students. He asked for in-depth studies to strengthen beliefs and conviction in Marxism, socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation as well as to forge a keen sense of responsibility. Chen also stressed fighting formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism and called for maintaining moral integrity. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:22:15|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIRUT, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese President Michel Aoun reaffirmed on Wednesday Lebanon's strong commitment to protecting its land and maritime sovereignty, highlighting the need to draw its borders with Israel. "We call upon the United States to help us draw our land and maritime borders according to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to enable Lebanon to explore its oil and gas resources in the Exclusive Economic Zone," Aoun was quoted as saying during his meeting with David Satterfield, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Satterfield arrived in Lebanon on Tuesday for a two-day visit over the country's border dispute with Israel. Lebanon has an unresolved maritime border with Israel that involves a triangular sea area of about 860 square km extending along the edge of three of its 10 offshore energy blocks. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:22:17|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close COLOMBO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 78 people have been arrested over violent clashes which erupted in northwestern Sri Lanka earlier this week, the police said on Wednesday. Police spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekara said the suspects were detained from several police divisions across the North Western Province including Kurunegala, Kuliyapitiya, Nikaweratiya and Chilaw. Gunasekara said investigations were ongoing to apprehend more suspects in connection with the violent clashes and have also sought public assistance. "The police are inspecting the video clips containing the tense situation in the North Western Province. We hope to arrest all the perpetrators soon," he said. Gunasekara said a curfew would be re-imposed in the province and the Gampaha District on the outskirts of the capital which was also affected by the violence, in order to prevent any further tensions. The curfew, imposed for the third day, would begin from 7:00 p.m. local time to 4:00 a.m. on Thursday. At least one person was killed and several injured in the violent clashes seen as one of the worst ethnic violence in Sri Lanka's recent history. The military said Wednesday that the situation was totally under control in the affected areas but a high security contingency remained on the ground. Several Muslim mosques, shops and houses were damaged and burnt in the clashes after more than 500 mobs took to streets on Monday morning. The government has assured the safety of all communities and has warned of stern action against anyone spreading racism. Fears of ethnic violence have been growing in Sri Lanka following a string of bomb attacks on April 21, which killed over 250 people and injured 500 others. Boeings mighty B-52 has yet to exhaust its cat-like nine lives. This week, the U.S. Air Forces 307th Bomb Wing in at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana was delivered a B-52H that had previously been mothballed at Davis-Monthan AFB. Wise Guy, parked in 2008, underwent a brief refurbishment of just over a month at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan. That project got the BUFF airworthy but it wont enter a full refurbishment until the fall. Col. Robert Burgess, 307th Operations Group commander, led the three-man crew bringing the B-52 back from Arizona. We are excited about the wings role in bringing this jet back into service, Burgess said. Its return is a testament to the skill of our airmen in restoring the bomber for regular use in the Air Force. Its also a testament to the B-52s longevity and flexibility. The B-52 has a unique place in aviation history, which partly explains the desire to keep the 67-year-old design available in the age of UAVs. Wise Guy is the second B-52H pulled out of retirement. Ghost Rider, which was brought out of retirement in 2015, underwent a 19-month refurbishment before rejoining the fleet. When Wise Guy is fully operational, the USAF will have 76 B-52Hs at its disposal. According to Air Force Technology, The B-52H, with a weapons payload of more than 70,000 pounds, is capable of carrying the most diverse range of weapons of any combat aircraft. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:32:21|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BAGHDAD, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of nine Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Wednesday in an operation by Iraqi forces in the western province of Anbar, the Iraqi military said. The Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), backed by Iraqi and international coalition aircraft, conducted airdrop operations in a desert area in Anbar, a media office affiliated with the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement. The troops killed nine IS militants and destroyed their headquarters, as well as tunnels and caches of weapons and explosives, the statement said, adding the operation is still underway. IS militants are still active in the vast Anbar desert which stretches to the border with neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as many civilians have been kidnapped or killed by the extremist group recently. The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017. IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:52:31|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Displaced Syrians arrive at the Jlaighem crossing in the eastern countryside of Homs Province in central Syria, on May 15, 2019. A new batch of civilians left the battered Rukban camp in southern Syria and reached government areas in central Syria on Wednesday, state news agency SANA reported. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani) DAMASCUS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A new batch of civilians left the battered Rukban camp in southern Syria and reached government areas in central Syria on Wednesday, state news agency SANA reported. Dozens of families arrived at the Jlaighim crossing in Homs Province from Rukban in the al-Tanf area in southeastern Syria near the Jordanian border. It's the latest batch to leave the camp and reach government areas. However, the evacuation of civilians from Rukban is going on slowly because of the presence of the U.S. forces in the al-Tanf area, SANA noted. It also accused U.S.-backed rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces of besieging the civilians in the camp. The Rukban camp is home to 50,000 displaced Syrians, who are suffering from the harsh humanitarian situation because of the cold weather and lack of supplies. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:52:36|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Civilizations are not destined to clash. Rather, they can co-exist in harmony. Conflict is usually born out of people's inability to appreciate the beauty of differences. Some Western politicians who have a hard time believing this may look for help from Asian wisdom. The idea that various civilizations can live in harmony is a point repeatedly stressed at the ongoing Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. At its opening ceremony on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for discarding arrogance and prejudice, deepening the understanding of differences in civilizations, and advancing inter-civilizational exchanges and dialogue. That is the recipe for the peaceful co-existence of civilizations. The Chinese, for example, have long come to appreciate the wisdom of "harmony without uniformity." Throughout its long history, China has welcomed the entry of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and Mediterranean civilization, as well as Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. They were sinicized and blended into Chinese civilization. No clash of civilizations or religious wars broke out. That proves the "clash of civilizations" argument is unfounded. Asia has witnessed many ancient civilizations appear and thrive over the past millennia. Today, the continent still proudly maintains its distinct diversity and nurtures all civilizations, ethnic groups and religions within a big Asian family. Asian countries are widely expected to continue to respect and trust each other, increase exchanges, and jointly maintain peace. Recognizing differences does not prevent a country from living peacefully with others. Civilizations are not destined to clash, but they are destined to swim or sink together as all are members of the same global village. File Photo: Chief Petty Officers stand in formation on the flight deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt for a photo honoring the 125th birthday of the Navy Chief Petty Officer rate, in the Strait of Malacca April 1, 2018. (Xinhua/REUTERS) WASHINGTON, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Navy said Tuesday that Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and ships from Carrier Strike Group 9 are exercising in the operation Northern Edge 2019 underway in the state of Alaska. Daniel Dwyer, commander of Carrier Strike Group 9, said it is "essential" to hold joint operations and exercises in the "strategic location" of Alaska in order for the United States to be able to stay involved in affairs in the Indo-Pacific region. The exercise, hosted by the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, is conducted in the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex (JPARC), involving the use of more than 60,000 square miles (155,400 square km) of airspace, according to the statement. The exercise running from May 13 to 24 is planned to involve some 10,000 personnel on the active and reserve lists of the National Guard, army, navy, air force, and Marines. It includes scenarios for defensive air combat, close air support, and aerial deterrence of maritime forces, according to the statement. Participating ships include Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Russell, USS John Finn, and USS Kidd, and replenishment oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:57:39|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BEIRUT, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Health Minister Jamil Jabak said on Wednesday that Lebanon will export its pharmaceutical products to countries including Iraq, the National News Agency reported. "We are negotiating with the Iraqi health minister the possibility of exporting our pharmaceutical products to Iraq and we are waiting to get over with the agreement soon," Jabak said during his meeting with Industry Minister Wael Abou Faour. Jabak also vowed to facilitate the establishment of new local pharmaceutical factories with a high quality of production to supply the Lebanese market with affordable products. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:57:43|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NAIROBI, May 15 (Xinhua) -- "Don't send money on the other phone number, use this line." This is a message many Kenyans have received on their mobile phones lately. It is among the most circulated in the country by fraudsters, targeting mobile-money users, and many people have fallen for it and lost cash. Cybercriminals in the east African nation have devised many ways to steal from mobile-money and internet users, both corporates and individuals. Increased internet usage, mobile-money ubiquity and the spread of cashless services in Kenya seem to have created a perfect environment for the cybercriminals to thrive. At the end of December 2018, Kenya's total number of active internet subscriptions stood at 46 million, up from 33 million of a year earlier, according to the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA). One of the things that have contributed to the rise in internet use is increased adoption of smartphones and social media. Many government and private organizations like banks have also automated their services, making it convenient for citizens to use the internet. On the other hand, mobile money use continues to soar, with Kenya's 45 million subscribers transacting a record 1.06 trillion shillings (about 10.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2019, up from 36 billion dollars for the whole year in 2018, according to the Central Bank. Some of the organizations increasingly targeted by fraudsters, in addition to ordinary Kenyans, are banks, savings and credit societies, government agencies and telecommunication companies. Kenyan companies lost 300 million dollars to cybercriminals last year, up from 210 million dollars in 2017, as the fraudsters stepped up their activities, Serianu, a firm that monitors cyber-attacks, said on Tuesday. "This includes 80 million dollars in direct cost from money lost in attacks or ransom paid to free up stolen data and over 200 million dollars in indirect costs involving buying of equipment and software, training personnel and monitoring systems to prevent attacks," noted Serianu chief executive William Makatiani. The attacks organizations in Kenya face include data breaches, data manipulation, email phishing, abuse of privilege access and system misconfigurations. In the last quarter of 2018, according to the latest CA data, there was an increase in the number of cyber threats in Kenya, with attacks standing at over 10.2 million in the three months, compared to 3.8 million in the previous quarter. Banks and credit societies are some of the easy targets, according to Serianu, with attackers leveraging on database manipulation. Peter Chacha, a journalist in Nairobi, is among ordinary Kenyans who have recently lost cash to fraudsters. For the past one week, Chacha has been frequenting his bank trying to figure out how 200 dollars was withdrawn from his account, although he did not do the transaction. "The bank has informed me it is investigating and that in case I was not involved, I would get my money back," he said on Wednesday. "I am hopeful all will go well." To help curb fraud, Kenyan banks and telecommunication firms are educating the public on how to stop the crime, reminding customers to secure their bank and mobile-money passwords and report scam messages. Bernard Mwaso of the Nairobi-based Edell IT Solution noted that with increased internet and mobile-money usage, cybercrime is to stay. "Increased consumer awareness and tightening of cyber security is the way to go to help curb the fraud but criminals are always ahead of their victims," he said. "That is why in Kenya, even large organizations like the telecoms are struggling to keep up with the frequency and complexity of attacks targeting the firms themselves and their customers," Mwaso said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 21:57:45|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- China's satellite navigation and location services industry achieved a total output value of 301.6 billion yuan (about 43.93 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, up 18.3 percent from the previous year, according to an annual industry report. The data was published in the White Paper on the Development of China's Satellite Navigation and Location Services Industry (2019), which was released by the GNSS (global navigation satellite system) and LBS (location-based service) Association of China on Wednesday. The industry's core sectors, which are directly related to the development and application of the satellite navigation technology, include chip, device, algorithm, software, navigation data, terminal equipment and infrastructure. These sectors reported 106.9 billion yuan in output value, accounting for 35.44 percent of the industry's total. The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) contributed 80 percent to the output value generated by the core sectors. The system raked in a total of 194.7 billion yuan with related products and services. China has launched 44 BDS satellites, and the system has been applied in many industries including transport, maritime affairs, electricity, civil affairs, meteorology, fishery, surveying and mapping, mining and public security. According to the report, over 80 million sets of domestic BDS terminal products had come into service by the end of 2018. The total number of terminal products, including smartphones, installed with BDS compatible chips was close to 700 million. There are 14,000 enterprises and institutions in the field of satellite navigation and location services in China, with more than 500,000 employees. By the end of 2018, 51 companies in the industry had been listed, said Li Donghang, deputy secretary-general of the GNSS and LBS Association of China (GLAC). By the end of 2018, the total number of satellite navigation patent applications in China exceeded 60,000, ranking first in the world, the report said. The satellite navigation and positioning products from Chinese enterprises have entered markets in more than 100 countries, among which BDS has been applied in more than 30 countries and regions along the Belt and Road, Li said. To enable BDS to better serve the economic and social development in Belt and Road countries and regions, China has established BDS cooperation mechanisms with countries and organizations in South Asia, Central Asia, ASEAN, the Arab League and Africa, strengthening technical exchanges and personnel training, and building BDS overseas centers. The world's first unmanned electric port tractor based on BDS, laser radar, millimeter wave radar and cameras was put into trial operation in the Tianjin Port in 2018. It can drive and park precisely, load and unload containers and avoid obstacles without an operator, Li said. China's main domestic aviation enterprises have made plans to introduce a BDS-based management system to monitor planes in real time. Since 2018, BDS has become one of the three major satellite systems serving the global ocean observation network. By the end of 2018, BDS had been used in more than 30,000 agricultural machines in over 1,200 farms across China, covering more than 4 million hectares of cultivated land. With quick and sensitive detection technology, the BDS-based gas leakage detection vehicle can locate a gas leakage point within a 150-meter radius, which is 10 times more efficient than the traditional method, Li said. So far, BDS has been used to help detect gas leakage in more than 600 cities and towns across China, covering gas pipelines with a total length of 800,000 km. With the development of 5G technology, BDS combined with 5G is expected to be used widely in fields such as airport scheduling, robot patrol, unmanned aerial vehicles, building and vehicle monitoring and logistics management, Li added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 22:12:55|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- China's market regulator has taken multiple measures in the past year to create a level playing field for all market competitors, an official said Wednesday. China has become more business-friendly, with the average time for starting a business in the country shortened from 20 days to 8.5 days in 2018, Gan Lin, deputy chief with the State Administration for Market Regulation told a press conference on a report highlighting China's new progress on intellectual property protection and business environment. Gan said the regulator emphasized anti-monology enforcement last year in pursuing a better business environment, which strictly punished monopoly pricing in areas concerning people's livelihood. Some key sectors such as electricity and real estate faced stricter pricing supervision, with 18,000 infringement cases investigated. In addition, 11,000 cases involving unfair competition were cracked. Gan said the regulator also took efforts to optimize the consumption environment, and one of the measures is tightening the supervision on vaccine and drug production. "Tighter supervision across the whole production chain has been carried out to reform the country's vaccine management system, and on-site inspection of high-risk products such as blood products and injections has also been conducted," Gan said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 22:12:58|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Palestinian medics carry a wounded man during clashes with Israeli troops on the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza Strip, May 15, 2019. At least 47 Palestinians were injured on Wednesday in their clashes with Israeli soldiers, while marking the 71st anniversary of the Nakba Day, or "Day of the Catastrophe," the day after Israel declared its independence in 1948. (Xinhua/Stringer) GAZA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 47 Palestinians were injured on Wednesday in their clashes with Israeli soldiers, while marking the 71st anniversary of the Nakba Day, or "Day of the Catastrophe," the day after Israel declared its independence in 1948. The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement that the injured included a field paramedic who was wounded in his head. Dozens suffered suffocation after inhaling tear gas, it added. The rally on the border between the eastern Gaza Strip and Israel was organized by the Highest Commission of the Great March of Return, which comprises of various Palestinian factions and political powers, including Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip. Israeli reports said around 10,000 demonstrators gathered near the fence of the border, adding they burned tires, threw stones at the soldiers on the border and released arson balloons into Israel. The reports quoted Israeli army sources saying dozens of homemade grenades were hurled at the soldiers but no injuries were reported. Meanwhile, eyewitnesses said Israeli security forces wearing orange jackets were seen deploying in the area and preventing the demonstrators from reaching the border fence with Israel. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 22:18:01|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close HANOI, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The first three provinces in Vietnam's southern region, including the country's biggest pig-raising hub, have hit by African swine fever (ASF), forcing authorities and farmers to take urgent measures to curb the disease. The presence of recent ASF outbreaks in the three southern provinces of Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc and Hau Giang has shown the strong spread and the high danger of the animal disease, online newspaper Dang Cong San Viet Nam (Communist Party of Vietnam) under management of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee's Commission for Education and Information reported on Wednesday. According to the Hau Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, an ASF outbreak was reported in Hau Giang's Chau Thanh district on May 14, after two outbreaks were detected in the province's Vi Thuy district on May 5 and April 11. Hau Giang is the first province in the southwestern region, or the Mekong Delta, hit by ASF. In Hau Giang, over 15,000 households currently raise pigs with a total pig population of some 160,000, said the provincial department. The first ASF outbreak in Binh Phuoc, a province in the southeastern region, was reported on May 8, among a group of seven pigs raised by a household in Dong Phu district. After that, two outbreaks were detected in the same district. Dong Nai, Vietnam's biggest pig-raising locality with some 2.5 million pigs, spotted the first ASF outbreak on April 24 in Trang Bom district, and since then it has seen two more affected districts, local online newspaper VnExpress on May 13. To date, five communes of three districts of Dong Nai have been stricken by ASF, leading to the forced culling of over 800 pigs, VnExpress quoted Vo Van Chanh, vice chairman of the provincial People's Committee, as saying. "In March, seeing the spread of ASF in the northern and central regions, I decided to sell all 1,300 pigs. Then I planned to raise pigs again if the disease did not spread to Dong Nai, but now I have to leave my pigsties empty for a longer period of time," Nguyen Hieu, a farm owner in Trang Bom, told Xinhua on Wednesday. Since the first ASF outbreak was detected in early February in northern Hung Yen province, the disease has so far spread to 29 localities nationwide, mostly in northern and central regions. ASF had occurred in 2,296 communes in 204 districts of 29 cities and provinces as of May 12 in Vietnam with more than 1.2 million pigs, or over 4 percent of the country's total pig population, being infected with the disease and culled, Vietnam News Agency quoted the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as saying on Monday. Regarding possible reasons for the spread of ASF in Vietnam, both foreign and local experts said authorities have been making great efforts to strictly control the transport and trading pigs and pig products in areas with ASF outbreaks, but the efforts should be bigger. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health sent a delegation of experts to Vietnam to assess the situation of ASF in the country, Vietnam News Agency reported on March 19. The experts noted that low biosecurity and the habit of using kitchen leftover as pig feed of small pig-raising households are factors behind the disease's spread. Local online newspaper Dan Tri (People's Knowledge) has quoted Vietnam's Department of Animal Health as saying that some Vietnamese people have not been aware of the danger of ASW, and wanted to secure their personal benefits, so they have not culled and buried infected pigs as required, but secretly slaughtered, transported and traded them, leading to the spread of the animal disease. To cope with the ASF spread, the Vietnamese government has assigned and instructed relevant ministries, agencies and localities nationwide to take urgent measures. During a teleconference held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung requested the involvement of the entire political system in the fight against ASF, Vietnam News Agency reported. The deputy prime minister assigned the Agriculture Ministry to issue documents guiding the slaughter of pigs in affected areas under the supervision of veterinary agencies, and to partner with ministries and agencies concerned to outline policies to support farmers and businesses who have had their inflected pigs culled. He also asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to work with ministries, agencies, and provincial People's Committees to purchase and slaughter pigs for cold storage to balance pork supply during the remaining months of this year. Cities and provinces nationwide will be guided on how to build five national quarantine stations to ensure requirements for animal transportation in major localities along the north-south highway. After Dong Nai was hit by ASF, Ho Chi Minh City has strengthened operations of inter-sectoral inspection delegations, and established three more checkpoints in areas bordering Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces, a leader of the Thu Duc Animal Quarantine Station in the city's Thu Duc district, told Xinhua. . , , , . , , , , : , . ,... Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 22:28:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government on Wednesday signed an agreement with the World Economic Forum to host the World Economic Forum on Africa, which is slated for September next year. The agreement was signed between the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Wednesday, the Ethiopian Prime Minister's Office said in a statement. The agreement between the Ethiopian government and the World Economic Forum came after the Ethiopian PM expressed his country's interest to host the regional edition of the forum during his meeting with the founder of World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab on the margins of this year's World Economic Forum held in January in Davos, Switzerland. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:08:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NIAMEY, May 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 Niger soldiers were killed and almost a dozen others missing after an ambush by militants near the Malian border, according to a security source on Wednesday. The source revealed that the attack happened near the town of Tongo Tongo on Tuesday. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:23:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- An acute watery diarrhea (AWD) outbreak in northern Ethiopia has left 12 people dead, state media reported on Wednesday. At least 165 others are recovering from the effects of the AWD outbreak, which is concentrated in Ethiopia's Amhara regional state, Amhara Mass Media Agency said. On Tuesday, an Ethiopian federal government official said a medical team has been dispatched to AWD-affected areas of Amhara regional state. Beyene Moges, deputy director general of Ethiopia Public Health Institute, said federal, regional and zonal officials are working together to control the outbreak, but the efforts have been hampered by the remoteness of the areas affected by the suspected cases of AWD as well as poor mobile phone and road networks. With the rainy season expected to start in June and continue until the middle of September, the Ethiopian government is trying to contain the AWD outbreak by improving hygienic conditions in factories, health facilities, agricultural areas and eateries. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:28:40|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chief of the central rural work leading group, attends a symposium calling for in-depth study and implementation of the discourses of Xi Jinping on agriculture, rural areas and rural residents in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A symposium was held Wednesday calling for in-depth study and implementation of the discourses of Xi Jinping on agriculture, rural areas and rural residents to achieve all-around rural revitalization. Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chief of the central rural work leading group, attended the symposium and made a speech. He said that the important discourses of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, represents the latest theoretical innovation of the party in advancing the work concerning agriculture, rural areas and rural residents and is an important part of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Hu called for better use of these discourses to guide and advance relevant work as well as greater determination, more specific goals and more effective measures in this regard to write a new chapter for the revitalization of rural areas. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:33:46|Editor: ZX Video Player Close LUANSHYA, Zambia, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese enterprises in Zambia have been commended for their efforts in supplementing the Zambian government efforts in creating jobs, a civic leader said on Wednesday. Nathan Chanda, Mayor of Luanshya town in the Copperbelt Province, said Chinese nationals have created jobs for the locals in varied sectors in the town that is heavily reliant on mining. Chanda called on Zambians to be committed to work when employed by the Chinese-run enterprises in the town and the country as a whole. Some Luanshya residents told Xinhua that they have benefited a lot from the Chinese presence. "The people of China have done a lot for us, they are creative, they have contributed to job creation," said Charles Chisenga. According to Chisenga, a number of projects such mining and construction that the Chinese have embarked on have greatly benefited Zambians who are able to make their ends meets. "We have seen projects such as the construction of the houses for the police by the Chinese," he said. Meanwhile, some youths in the town have appealed to the government to support cooperation with Chinese in developing agricultural activities. The youths observed that the Chinese are innovative and hard-working adding that they could make the province a food basket. "If Chinese express interest in farming, let government consider giving them enough land to do food production, this should be done in collaboration with the Zambians", said Albert Zimba. Zimba said Chinese are hard-working people whom Zambians should engage in various projects from construction, mining, manufacturing and agriculture. Another youth Edward Mulenga said engaging the Chinese in large scale farming projects will entail that there will be enough jobs for youths in the country. "The Chinese have good technology, and if engaged in the farming sector, we are going to have a lot of food throughout the year as the Chinese people will be able to use their technology to produce more food in the country," Mulenga said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:49:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- China will extend gigabit broadband connection to more than 300 cities and cut the average service rates by 15 percent for small and medium-sized enterprises this year. The decision was made at the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday in an effort to achieve multiplying effects of expanding domestic demand, boosting employment and improving people's lives. The Chinese government puts high importance on work relating to broadband connections at reasonable rates. Premier Li Keqiang emphasized that solid efforts must be made to make internet services faster and more affordable and sharpen the country's international competitiveness in this regard. Figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that gigabit broadband has been piloted in more than 100 Chinese cities. The country now has over 3.76 million 4G base stations and 1.17 billion-strong 4G network users. The meeting noted that as required by the Central Economic Work Conference and the Government Work Report, efforts must be intensified to make the country's internet services faster at a lower rate. This will not only benefit and provide convenience to companies and the people, but also help boost effective investment and allow digital economy to give a stronger boost to China's economic and social development. "We need to upgrade our internet services. This is a key measure to boost consumption and meet the needs of our massive cellphone users." Li said. The meeting said that upgrading and expanding the capacity of internet infrastructure can be a primary means to boost effective investment. By the end of this year, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) ports relative to all broadband ports will be raised to no less than 90 percent, gigabit broadband will be extended to more than 300 cities, and base stations for mobile internet will be upgraded with expanded capacities. The goal is to expand gigabit broadband to both fixed-line and mobile internet services. Broadband networks will cover practically 97 percent of primary and middle schools nationwide this year, and dedicated internet services will be made available over time in hospitals and medical consortiums above the county level. "Industrial internet, education and medical care are our priorities in upgrading internet services in order to boost industrial development, improve access to quality medical resources and promote fairness in education." Li said. Basic telecommunication service providers will be encouraged to further lower prices. The goal is to cut the average broadband service rate for small and midsized enterprises by 15 percent, the average rate for mobile internet services by no less than 20 percent, and roaming charges for internet traffic between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao by 30 percent by the end of this year. A "floor-price" rate will be set for low-income populations. Basic telecommunication service providers will be urged to ensure that cellphone users nationwide can switch service carriers without changing phone numbers by the end of November this year, and any extra term required for this service will be looked into. These companies will also be urged to straighten out their service packages to trim the packages available by 15 percent within this year, bringing more benefits to consumers. "There is huge consumer demand for internet services in our country. We must encourage fair competition, and ensure that our measures to lower internet service charges are fully delivered as they are an important part of our efforts in improving people's lives," Li said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:49:11|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close Students and teachers wearing traditional Chinese women's dress Qipao pose for photos during the Chinese Cultural Day event in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 15, 2019. About 50 students took part in the Chinese Cultural Day event, which was organized by the Center for Languages and Translation at the Lebanese University on Wednesday to celebrate the end of their academic year. (Xinhua/Bilal Jawich) by Dana Halawi BEIRUT, May 15 (Xinhua) -- About 50 students took part in the Chinese Cultural Day organized by the Center for Languages and Translation at the Lebanese University on Wednesday to celebrate the end of their academic year. Students in pursuit of a bachelor's degree in the Chinese Language and those studying translation with focus on the Chinese language performed songs and poems in Chinese, showing their great skills and talents. Other students showed their talents by drawing calligraphy to the sound of music played by a Chinese teacher using pipa, a Chinese traditional musical instrument. Students were also engaged in other activities, including the cooking of Chinese food such as dumplings. Students expressed to Xinhua their passion for the language and their expectations for learning such an important skill. Ghadi Yassine, 19, told Xinhua that he chose to learn Chinese because he appreciates the Chinese culture. Yassine said that his ambitions will not be limited to his bachelor's degree from the Lebanese University. "I am planning to apply for a master's degree in China. I want to go there to improve my language skills and find work in China," he said. Meanwhile, Maria Khalil, a 26-year-old student who specializes in Fashion Design, said that she is learning Chinese because China is looking for creative minds in her specialty. "I aim to work with China in the future. I love the Chinese and their culture," she said, adding that she has applied for a scholarship in China to be able to improve her Chinese language skills. Lea Samara expressed her excitement for learning about a culture that is totally different from the Lebanese culture. She also emphasized the importance of holding a Chinese Cultural Day which informs the Lebanese about China's culture and encourage them to visit the country to know more about its traditions. Nie Haiyan, a Chinese language teacher at the Lebanese University, told Xinhua that the Chinese Cultural Day is an occasion celebrated every year to give students the opportunity to show what they have learned throughout the year. "Students can show their skills and talents by singing and dancing in addition to engaging in other activities, such as paper cutting, calligraphy and Chinese tea art," she said. Gisele Al Riachi, director of the Center for Languages and Translation at the Lebanese University, said that it is a yearly occasion organized by the university to celebrate the end of an academic year in a fun way. "It is important for students to be engaged in activities related to the Chinese culture, not only to be taught the Chinese language," Riachi told Xinhua. Riachi said that the center has 50 students pursuing a bachelor's degree in the Chinese Language and another 50 students focusing on the Chinese language by studying translation at the university. "Around 30 percent of people specializing in translation have chosen the Chinese language due to its great importance," Riachi said. She added that people are more aware of the importance of the Chinese language due to the role that China plays in the world. Riachi said that the university's role is not only limited to teaching its students the Chinese language, but it also works on sending students to China to improve their language skills. "We also send students to summer camps in China," she said, adding that the university has good contacts which facilitate the search for training and job opportunities for graduated students. Riachi said that one of the future goals of the Lebanese University is to start a master's program in Chinese language, which is not available for the time being due to lack of the needed number of skilled teachers to teach the language. "China sent us three teachers through the Chinese Embassy in Lebanon which is much appreciated. But we need more teachers for us to be able to start with the program," she said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:49:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KIGALI, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Wednesday launched a digital economy blue print for Africa, aimed at guiding African countries towards the adoption of digital technologies in order to participate and thrive in the digital global economy. The digital blue print outlines five pillars for the development of the digital economy, which are digital infrastructure, presence and use of digital services platforms to enable public service delivery, digital business, innovation-driven entrepreneurship and digital skills and values, said Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta at the launch during the opening of the 5th edition of Transform Africa Summit, in the Rwandan capital Kigali. He called on African states to adopt the blue print to achieve accelerated digital transformation on the continent. The blue print highlights "crosscutting issues" such as legal and policy frameworks, emerging technologies and data management, he said. "Kenya is ready to share with Africa, our experiences, and learn from each other and to work together in our journey towards digital and economic transformation on the continent," the president said. The summit that runs through Friday has brought together about 4,000 participants including policymakers, regulators, young innovators and officials from Africa and beyond. Presidents of Rwanda and Mali as well as the secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union were also present at the summit. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:54:22|Editor: ZX Video Player Close TOKYO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A conference on cultural contact among Asian civilizations will help boost ties between nations in the region, an expert has said. "Asian civilizations have their similarities and uniqueness. I hope that while respecting the uniqueness of Asian civilizations, the dialogue will also attach importance to the history of mutual influence and mutual learning," said Seiichi Kondo, former head of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, in an interview with Xinhua on Wednesday. China is currently hosting the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), which kicked off on Wednesday in Beijing. Speaking of cultural exchanges between Japan and China, Kondo said that the history of contact between Japan and China dates back to ancient times and is a crucial component in the history of exchanges between Asian civilizations. "Many Japanese would like to visit Xi'an and see historical sites such as the Qinglong Temple which represents Japan-China civilization exchanges," he said. When it comes to advancing dialogues among Asian civilizations, Kondo, who used to serve as the Japanese Ambassador to the UNESCO and to Denmark, said that he believes culture is key. Kondo said countries must put aside political and economic issues and understand each other's similarities and differences through culture. Cultural exchanges help seek common ground while preserving differences, and also help countries learn from those differences, the expert said, adding that he believes these characteristics have a role to play in relations between China, Japan and South Korea. With regard to specific suggestions on promoting cultural exchanges in Asia, Kondo highlighted the "Culture City of East Asia" program, born from the third Japan-China-South Korea Culture Ministers' meeting held in Japan in 2011. Each year, the three countries select one city to promote as their Culture City. Yokohama in Japan, Quanzhou in China and Gwangju in South Korea were selected as the first batch of Culture Cities in 2014. The expert said that he believes Asian nations should also build ties related to their intangible cultural heritage. "Asian civilizations have long histories and splendid cultures. Not only are cultural relics a witness to the integration and development of Asian civilizations, intangible cultural heritage is also a living cultural treasure passed down by people from various countries and regions," he said. Kondo said one overlooked characteristic of Asian civilizations is their approach to nature. "The European concept emphasizes the greatness of human beings, and that nature is the resource and means for humans to obtain happiness. It lacks an attitude of learning from nature. The Asian way of thinking is more about learning from nature and merging with nature," he said. "When it comes to environmental issues, the Asian way of thinking that advocates learning from nature is particularly important," Kondo said. "Asia should communicate its mentality with the rest of the world." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:54:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WARSAW, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday condemned the attack on the Polish Ambassador to Israel on Tuesday as "racist" and "unacceptable". "We do not consent to any acts of xenophobia, either towards diplomats or towards regular citizens," Morawiecki wrote Wednesday morning on Twitter. On Tuesday, the Polish Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski was attacked by a man as he was getting into his car outside the Polish Embassy in Tel Aviv. According to the Israeli police, the attacker spat at the ambassador and shouted abusive words towards him in Hebrew. The ambassador was able to take photos of the attacker and his car, which made it possible for the police to arrest the man on Tuesday. The 65-year old attacker was being interrogated on Wednesday, with Israeli media quoting a written statement his lawyer had submitted which claimed the man didn't know he was attacking the ambassador himself. According to his statement, the man was reacting in anger after being mistreated by embassy staff, where he had gone to discuss the issue of restitution of property seized from Jewish people during the Second World War. "Israel expresses its full sympathy with the Polish Ambassador and shock at the attack. Israeli police are currently investigating. We will update our Polish friends. This is a top priority to us, as we are fully committed to diplomats' safety and security," Emmanuel Nahshon, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, responding to Morawiecki's comment. The attack was taking place against a backdrop of diplomatic tensions between Poland and Israel. Last week, Poland asked for the cancellation of a visit by Israeli officials planned for Monday, because the structure of the delegation indicated the Israeli side might open talks about the issue of restitution of property seized from Jewish people during or after the Second World War. The current Polish government has rejected the idea that Poland has any financial obligations towards descendants of Holocaust victims. U.S. Congressman Rick Larsen (R), co-chair of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group in the House, speaks during an interview with Xinhua at his office in Washington D.C., the United States, May 9, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) by Xinhua writers Xiong Maoling, Gao Pan and Liu Jie WASHINGTON, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The latest U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods will hurt American workers and consumers, and have a negative impact on the U.S. economy, congressman Rick Larsen, co-chair of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group in the House, has said. "The president is not telling the truth to the American people about that when he says that China is going to be paying for tariffs. They're not ... Americans are going to be paying for the tariffs," Larsen told Xinhua in a recent interview at his office in Washington D.C. Increasing additional tariffs on 200 billion U.S. dollars worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent will push up the price of consumer goods, said the Democratic congressman. "It's going to start hitting many more people than the tariffs are currently hitting." In a report released Saturday, Goldman Sachs revised up its estimate of the tariffs' impact on core personal consumption expenditures to 0.2 percentage points. If the United States imposes tariffs on the roughly 300 billion dollars remaining in Chinese imports, the report said, the effect would rise to 0.5 percentage point. "It'll be bad for the economy. It will be bad for the president and won't advance the necessary discussions," said Larsen, who represents the Second Congressional District in northwestern Washington state. Noting that the United States and China need to revolve their differences regarding the transfer of technology and intellectual property rights protection, Larsen said he does not believe tariffs are the right approach to address these problems. The added tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs have not been good for the Chinese economy or the U.S. economy, Larsen said, adding that he hopes the two sides can "back away from the tariffs" and find another solution. Larsen created the U.S.-China Working Group, which seeks to strengthen diplomatic relations with China and educate members of Congress through meetings and briefings with business, academic and political leaders from both sides. In late March, Larsen led a bipartisan Congressional delegation to China, traveling to Beijing, Hangzhou and Hong Kong to engage with high-level Chinese and U.S. officials, as well as American businesses operating in China. The six-member delegation also toured Alibaba headquarters. "As a representative from Washington state, I am particularly concerned with the current trade discussions because the largest number of exports from the state go to China," Larsen said in a statement released upon returning from the trip. "Forty percent of jobs in the state depend on trade. In Snohomish County, where I was born and raised, 60 percent of all jobs are tied to trade," he said. According to a recent report from the U.S.-China Business Council, Washington State's goods exports to China in 2018 totaled 12.1 billion dollars, down by 12.4 percent from 2017, due to headwinds from the U.S.-China trade dispute. The report also showed the state's goods exports to China surged by 108 percent from 2009 to 2018, while its goods exports to the rest of the world increased by 38 percent. Despite the ongoing frictions in U.S.-China relations, Larsen said he expects trade between his state and China and between the two countries overall to continue. "Unfortunately it will be more expensive because of these tariffs, and the people I represent will be paying more because they'd be paying higher tariffs," he said. The congressman said that he anticipates the current administration will continue to take a tougher stance on China, but will "not get the result that they want." "We're stuck with each other in one way," he said. "And so it's best that we find a way to cooperate where we can, and compete where we will." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:59:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RIGA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Latvia and Estonia are enjoying very close and friendly relations, Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said during a meeting with visiting Estonian counterpart Juri Ratas on Wednesday. "We discussed bilateral relations and cooperation on regional energy and transport projects. We were unanimous on the necessity to carry through with our current projects, including Rail Baltica, the synchronization of the Baltic states' power grids and the creation of a single gas market," Karins told reporters after the meeting. The meeting also dealt with current European Union (EU) affairs, including the bloc's multiannual budget and strategic agenda, the strengthening of the EU single market and improving the EU security and defense policy. The two prime ministers acknowledged common interests in these areas and emphasized close cooperation. Estonian Prime Minister Ratas, meanwhile, pointed to close defense cooperation between the two countries, describing the launch of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Multinational Division Headquarters North near Riga as "very important step for our region". He also called Latvia a strategic partner of Estonia. Ratas went on to underline that the major projects Latvia and Estonia are implementing together are of high importance to the entire Nordic and Baltic region and that good coordination and unanimity is essential for their smooth implementation. Ratas' trip to Riga was his first foreign visit after becoming prime minister of Estonia. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-15 23:59:30|Editor: ZX Video Player Close MOSCOW, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Russia may take steps in response to new sanctions imposed by Ukraine on Russian goods, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. "We need to remember that the previous decisions of the Russian side were provoked by the Ukrainian authorities," Peskov told reporters, when asked how Moscow would react to Kiev's sanctions. He did not elaborate. Earlier on Wednesday, the Ukrainian government approved a ban on imports of Russian cement and plywood, a statement on the Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade's website said. The ministry estimated the value of Russian cement imports last year at around 17 million U.S. dollars and that of plywood imports at around 19.7 million dollars. In another statement, the ministry said the Ukrainian government had approved imposing a special duty on all goods originating from Russia except coal, coke, gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas and pharmaceuticals from Aug. 1. These steps were taken in response to the "aggressive and discriminatory" actions by Russia against Ukrainian goods imports, the Ukrainian ministry said. Last year, Russia slapped economic sanctions against some 600 Ukrainian individuals, including senior officials and business tycoons, freezing their assets in Russia and banning the withdrawal of their capital from Russia. It also imposed a ban on imports of various items, including foodstuffs and beverages, machinery and equipment, construction materials, furniture and household appliances. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:04:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HANGZHOU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A movie on Longjing tea will start shooting in June in Hangzhou, eastern China's Zhejiang Province, according to the 3rd China International Tea Expo that opened Wednesday. The movie will be shot from mid-June to October in Longjing Village. The movie, adapted from a novel, will feature the scenery in the village and how the lives of residents in Hangzhou are connected to Longjing tea. The movie will be screened publicly in 2020. "We hope to present the unique charm of Chinese tea culture and the culture and beauty of Longjing tea to our audience," said Tang Guangyi, the movie's producer. Longjing tea, also known as West Lake Dragon Well tea, is a variety of green tea from Hangzhou. It has topped the list of the 10 most famous teas in China and is characterized by its green color, delicate aroma, mellow taste and beautiful shape. The tea expo is being held in Hangzhou from May 15 to 19. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:04:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gedu Andargachew on Wednesday reiterated the Ethiopian government's support to the ongoing negotiations among Sudanese stakeholders. Andargachew vowed the country's commitment to support Sudan during his meeting with Nadia Mohammed Kheir, Charge d'affaires of the Sudanese Embassy in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday. The Ethiopian foreign minister's meeting with Kheir also came after Sudan's Transitional Military Council announced Wednesday that it has agreed with the major opposition forces on the rule structures and a three-year power transition period. Meanwhile, Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat also on Wednesday commended the latest accord among Sudanese stakeholders for a political transition in Sudan. The AU Chairperson "extends his warm congratulations to the national stakeholders for their high level of responsibility to complete the negotiation cycle in a reasonable time in order to adequately address the legitimate concerns of the Sudanese people," an AU statement issued on Wednesday said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:09:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia will host the 2019 edition of the World Export Development Forum (WEDF), state affiliated media outlet Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) reported on Wednesday. Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa will host the WEDF 2019 edition from November 19-22. The forum which will bring together hundreds of business leaders, policymakers and trade development officials to address international business competitiveness issues is expected to further increase the international investment profile of Ethiopia, reported FBC. WEDF will coincide with the Africa Industrialization Week, with sessions designed to help business make the most of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), reported FBC. The AfCFTA, which was signed by 44 African countries when it was launched in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, in March 2018, aspires to create a tariff-free continent that can grow local businesses, boost intra-African trade, spur industrialization and create more jobs. The AfCFTA is expected to take effect later this year. The continental free trade pact paves the way for accelerating the establishment of the Continental Customs Union and the African customs union, according to the African Union. Past editions of WEDF have included trade related topics including investing in value addition, addressing the skills mismatch, making the most of free trade deals, business to business matchmaking platforms and sustainable packaging. The Ethiopia Ministry of Trade and Industry and the International Trade Center will co-host the 2019 World Export Development Forum, which is expected to take place at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa. WEDF is a global forum dedicated to supporting export-led development schemes of developing countries, providing issue-focused platform for policymakers, trade support institutions and business people to gain practical understandings in global export competitiveness. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:09:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The majority of the 20,000 euros (22,440 U.S. dollars) in funding received by the Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner came from bank accounts in Germany, according to bank statements seen by German (Sueddeutscher Zeitung, NDR, WDR) and Austrian (Wiener Standard) publications on Wednesday. Sellner is a leading figure of the Identitarian Movement of Austria (IBOe, also known as Generation Identity), a right-wing nationalist and new right organization, which is part of a broader Europe-wide network. According to German media reports, Sellner received funding from around 250 people in Europe in the first three months of last year. The majority of donors were in Germany and made donations of between 10 and 500 euros. Only three of the donors transferred amounts in excess of 1,000 euros, according to German media. Donors reportedly included German artists, filmmakers, corporate executives and university professors. Some were even low-level functionaries of the German right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The notes attached to the donations showed the extent of support for Sellner's ideology and struggle against the alleged demise of Christianity in Europe. The Austrian right-wing extremist had also received a donation of 1,500 euros from the Christchurch mosque shooter in New Zealand and even had been in email contact with the terrorist, according to German newspapers. Last year, the public prosecutor's office in the Austrian city of Graz initiated investigations against Sellner on suspicion of establishing a criminal organization and asked for information about his accounts in Germany. The criminal proceedings ended with an acquittal. However, investigations are currently underway based on the suspicion that the IBOe had evaded far more than 100,000 euros in taxes, German media reports said. According to the German intelligence organization (BfV), in 2016, 25 percent of the known members of the German branch of the IBOe were considered to belong to right-wing extremist groups. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:19:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JAKARTA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia obtained a 37-million-euro (41.5-million-U.S. dollar) grant from the German government on Wednesday to finance collaborative projects in helping the Asian country meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Documents related to the grant was signed by Director General of Risk and Financing Management at the Financial Ministry Luky Alfirman and Germany Ambassador to Indonesia Peter Schoof. Collaborative projects financed by the grant include good governance system, education, vocational training program and environment sustainability. "Indonesia and Germany has long history of cooperation in finding sustainable solution for Indonesia and global development issues," Luky said. He said the grant has reflected close relationship between Indonesia and Germany that officially established diplomatic ties in 1958. German Ambassador Schoof said Indonesia is one of Germany's important partners in tackling global development issues. "Germany fully supports Indonesia's spirit in coping with the 2030 SDGs as well as its commitments to tackling climate change," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:25:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LUANSHYA, Zambia, May 15 (Xinhua) -- An academician on Wednesday commended the Zambian government over its decision to introduce Chinese language in schools, saying this will go a long way in easing communication barriers with Chinese nationals working in Zambia. Last week, Ministry of Higher Education Permanent Secretary Mabvuto Sakala said Chinese language will effectively become examinable under the country's examination governing body starting next year. The academician said an agreement on the Chinese language curriculum to be entered into between the Confucius Institute and the Minister of General Education would officially flag off the implementation of Chinese language training at secondary school level. Kelvin Kaunda, Eden University chief executive officer said plans by the government to introduce Chinese language should be commended, as language was key between the two peoples for easy communication. "It is very progressive especially that Zambia has a historical relationship with China," Kaunda said. "China is our all-weather friend. We have a lot of Zambians who are in China and they know the Chinese language, they can come back and teach Chinese language in Zambian schools," he added. Mary Kangwa, a teacher based in Luanshya town in the Copperbelt Province said teaching Chinese language would be very exciting and further strength relationships between Zambia and China. "Apart from that, teaching Chinese language will also increase trade volumes between Zambia and China, so I don't see anything wrong with that," she said. She added that China was the first Asian country to come to Zambia's aid to construct Tanzania-Zambia Railway to open a route to the eastern African states and beyond. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:30:05|Editor: ZX Video Player Close OSLO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- China's Hainan Airlines on Wednesday began a direct flight service between Beijing and Norway's capital city Oslo, which is the first non-stop service between China and the Nordic country. The route between Beijing and Oslo will be operated by an Airbus A330-300 with a capacity of 292 passengers, according to Norway's state-owned operator of civil airports Avinor. Hainan Airlines will operate the route three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Norway's Minister of Trade and Industry Torbjorn Roe Isaksen and Minister of Fisheries Harald T. Nesvik were present to mark the opening of the route at Oslo airport, Avinor said in a press release. "The direct route between China and Norway will be of great significance for Norwegian trade and industry, and for trade relations with China in general," Isaksen was quoted as saying. "It ties our countries closer together and opens for more collaboration and contact between Norwegian and Chinese trade and industry," he said. Norway is the country in the Nordics with a high proportion of Chinese tourists, and more and more Chinese are choosing Norway as a destination. Meanwhile, demand for Norwegian seafood is great in China, and this route will also be important for delivering fresh Norwegian salmon to the Chinese market quickly and efficiently. Hainan Airlines believes this route will have great significance for the relations between Norway and China. "We are building a strong network between China and Europe and are very happy that we today have added Oslo to our network," said Bao Qifa, chairman of HNA Aviation Group. "This new route will certainly intensify relations between the two countries, thus stimulating the development of prosperous economic ties for China and Norway, as well as the Nordic region," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:35:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JOHANNESBURG, May 15 (Xinhua) -- With South Africa's slow economic growth, stubborn unemployment, President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the Goldman Sachs investors conference that his government would focus on economic reforms set to unlock the economic potentials and create jobs. In a discussion with Goldman Sachs for Sub Saharan Africa CEO Colin Coleman on Wednesday in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa said fixing the economy first would solve other pressing problems. "The key problem we have as a country is low economic growth, everything revolves around the economy. We need to focus on ways of revitalizing the economy, the key mandate is to create jobs," he said. Since Ramaphosa was elected as ANC president, economists have been saying South Africa must clarify its policy stance. The president said that policy certainty is crucial in attracting investors and dealing with other bottlenecks hindering investment. Ramaphosa said reforms would be implemented at struggling state-owned enterprises such as power utility Eskom, adding that the company was being structured and the government could not allow it to collapse. "Load shedding is over. Eskom is the only company in the history of South Africa to have debt of 430 billion Rand (30.3 billion US dollars). Eskom is too big, important to fail. If Eskom fails, the economy will fail," he said. "We will precede and clean up Eskom. At fiscal level, we must be able to reduce expenditure," he said. He told delegates that a policy unit which existed under former President Thabo Mbeki would be revived to ensure that policies are successfully implemented. This policy unit would fall under Presidency. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:45:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- President Salva Kiir of South Sudan on Wednesday called on opposition groups in the country to put aside their differences and join hands with the government to implement the revitalized peace agreement. Kiir also urged the opposition to restrain their supporters from taking part in anticipated street protests ahead of Army Day celebrations scheduled for Thursday. "The vicious cycle of violence will not end if we continue doing things the same way," he said. "Smooth implementation of the revitalized peace agreement will pave way for future democratic elections as a means to build durable peace." "Let us set aside lust for power, stabilize our country and return the nation to democracy and give people a chance to live in a country they deserve," Kiir said in Juba. The president, who delivered his state-of-the-nation address ahead of commemorating 36 years of the Sudan People's Liberation Army and Movement (SPLA/M) that led to the birth of the world's youngest nation, said many of his compatriots have abandoned the vision of the liberation struggle which was to establish a democratic and prosperous state. He noted that the years of conflict have ruined the country's hard-gained independence which cost many lives and subjected communities to a life of destitution. "The peace agreement we signed offers the opportunity for all the parties to work in good faith to see to its implementation after which elections will come at the end of the transition," he said. Kiir said that power sought through forceful means leads to violence, division and hatred, and urged the opposition to seek legitimate means to orchestrate their protests as an honor to the sacrifices that were made by the fallen heroes and heroines of the liberation struggle. "Let us not invest in power wrangling; instead, we should all devote to peace and democracy and spread the benefits of freedom and independence to our people, who deserve so much more from us," he said. Kiir called on the opposition to maximize their efforts in ensuring that the country succeeds toward the goal of achieving sustainable peace anchored on the people's will. "It will be a win-win situation if we work together after which we shall all live a dignified life," he said. "When we fight, we all lose and bring shame to our country and ourselves." Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:55:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RIGA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Latvia recorded growth of its shadow economy for a second straight year in 2018, as illicit business activity increased by another 2.2 percentage points to 24.2 percent of GDP last year, the annual SSE Riga Shadow Economy Index in the Baltic States showed. According to the index, which on Wednesday was presented at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga), the share of grey businesses continued to expand in Latvia last year despite the country seeing sustained economic growth. In 2017, Latvia's shadow economy grew to 22 percent of GDP from 20.7 percent of GDP in 2016, according to the survey conducted annually by SSE Riga professor Arnis Sauka. In an interview with public television on Wednesday, Sauka pointed to a rise in illegal immigration, which is fostered by increasingly severe labor shortages in Latvia. Citing the latest Shadow Economy Index, Sauka said that illegal employment was becoming an increasingly widespread problem along with the already known issues like undeclared wages and income. Illegal immigrants make up a significant proportion of the labor force working in Latvia unbeknownst to authorities. "There might be some 17,000 illegal workers in Latvia. Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000, it's hard to tell. According to Border Guard's data, around 60 percent are employed in construction, others are scattered across other sectors," the expert said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 00:55:25|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops on the Gaza-Israel border, east of southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, May 15, 2019. At least 65 Palestinians were injured on Wednesday during clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed on the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, medics said. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar) GAZA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 65 Palestinians were injured on Wednesday during clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed on the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, medics said. Gaza Health Ministry said in a press statement that 65 Palestinians were injured, including 22 children, five women and three field paramedics, during protests and rallies that turned into clashes with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza Strip. The clashes broke out when the Palestinians organized a rally near the border with Israel to mark 71 years for al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe, the day when the state of Israel was born and the Palestinian refugees' question started in 1948. Thousands of Palestinian demonstrators joined the rally in eastern Gaza Strip. They waved Palestinian flags, burned tires, chanted slogans against Israel and the United States, released arson balloons into southern Israel and threw stones at the soldiers. The Highest Commission of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Israeli Siege has earlier called on the Gaza Strip's populations to join the march to mark the 71st anniversary of the Nakba Day. The clashes were less violent than last year, where 61 Palestinians killed during the same protests. Observers said the reason why the clashes on Wednesday were less violent is because of renewing the Qatari humanitarian grant for six more months. The Interior Ministry run by Islamic Hamas movement announced earlier that it deployed security and police forces along with the border with Israel before and during the protests. Eyewitnesses said that security officers, who wore orange jackets, were preventing the demonstrators from approaching the barbed wire of the fence of the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel. Senior Hamas leaders joined the rallies on Wednesday, who stressed that the marches and rallies will go on until the Palestinians achieve their goals of breaking 12 years of an Israeli siege and gain their right of return. "Resistance is the choice of our movement because everyone knowns that resistance is the only mean to liberate our occupied and stolen land," Khalil al-Hayyah, deputy Hamas chief in Gaza told reporters in eastern Gaza. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 01:15:38|Editor: ZX Video Player Close KATHMANDU, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Nepali government on Wednesday set up a One-Stop Service Center in Kathmandu aiming to provide various services and facilities for the investors from a single location. Nepal's Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supply said the service center established at the premises of the Department of Industry, a body under the ministry, will provide various services and facilities such as registration of enterprises, approval for expansion and exit of enterprises, approval to foreign direct investment, exemption of taxes, foreign exchange facilities and visas and work permits to foreigners. Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supply Matrika Prasad Yadav opened the One-Stop Service Center formally. "This will end the the investors' compulsion of making rounds of various government offices to get their jobs done," Binod Prakash Singh, director general of Department of Industry, told Xinhua. "The facility will particularly be very helpful for foreign investors who are not used to making rounds of various government offices." Nearly two and half years after Nepal's new Industrial Enterprises Act made provision of One-Stop Service Center, the Nepal government set up the necessary infrastructure to establish such facility. Singh, who heads the service center, said it would provide most of the facilities within a week. "We will facilitate the process of getting approval for acquiring land more than set limit by the law as it is time consuming process," he said. "We will also help investors to get timely approval to Environment Impact Assessment report." The service center has been authorized to approve investment up to certain amount and repatriation of certain amount of dividends for the foreign investors. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 01:20:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said on Wednesday that "the first concrete step towards the implementation of the Hodeidah agreement" has been made in the past few days. In a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, Griffiths said that Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi rebel forces, have undertaken an initial deployment of forces from the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa, under UN monitoring between May 11 and 14. According to Griffiths, the UN Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA) confirmed that the Houthi rebels were fully compliant throughout the withdrawal and that they were very cooperative. "The military forces of Ansar Allah have now left the three ports Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa," said the UN special envoy. "Change in Hodeidah is a reality." Yemen has been in civil war in the past four years, pitting the Houthi rebels against forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition to support the Hadi government. Political efforts continue to focus on implementing the Agreement made at Stockholm in December 2018, particularly the arrangement for Hodeidah that established a governorate-wide ceasefire and called for the mutual redeployment of Houthi rebels and Yemeni government forces from Hodeidah port and city, as well as the two nearby smaller ports of Ras Isa and Saleef. "This moment is significant. But this is only the beginning. These redeployments must be followed by concrete actions of the parties to deliver on their obligations under the Stockholm Agreement," Griffiths said. "Despite the significance of the last few days, Yemen remains at the crossroads between war and peace," he cautioned, noting that the intensification of the conflict in other parts of the country is alarming. Fighting between the Houthis and forces aligned with the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia-led coalition has escalated in other parts of Yemen, and Houthi rebels on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the drone attacks on an oil pipeline and other oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. "Events like this are a reminder that hard won achievements can be wiped away very easily. We cannot ignore how these developments affect the political process," said Griffiths. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 01:30:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close AMMAN, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Wednesday there have been signs of positive improvement in Jordan's economy and there was a need to continue reforms, the state-run Petra news agency reported. There have been some signs of improvement in the economy with the reopening of the borders with Iraq, and exports to Iraq and Gulf countries are rising, IMF Mission Chief Martin Cerisola said, adding that there is a need to continue reforms. There are also positive signs in terms of rise in tourism revenues and remittances of expatriates, said Cerisola. He added that continued reforms will enhance the living conditions of the Jordanians, adding that the IMF will continue to urge donor countries to support Jordan for it to cope with the pressure of hosting a large number of Syrian refugees and to support fiscal reforms. In a report released Wednesday, the IMF said Jordan has continued to preserve macro-economic stability in a difficult environment and it will still need substantial donor involvement. The report, which indicated that global, regional, and domestic environments are expected to remain difficult, highlighted that Jordan will continue to face the burden of hosting Syrian refugees at a time of low growth, high unemployment, and sizable financial needs. "The recent London Initiative demonstrated that the international community is determined to continue to support Jordan in its efforts to tackle rigidities, reform the economy, and reduce its indebtedness," the report said. "Implementation will be key to preserve stability and enhance growth and employment; adjustment and reform on the part of the authorities, and the fulfillment of pledges on the part of the donor community," the report added. Jordan weathered a series of severe and highly persistent shocks for several years now, including protracted regional conflicts, the hosting of Syrian refugees, the disruption of critical export markets and transportation routes, and rising borrowing costs, the report highlighted. The IMF stressed that the steadfast implementation of policies and reforms is critical for stability and growth, adding that Jordan's programme is rightly focused on addressing lingering issues. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 01:35:53|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JERUSALEM, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Israeli venture capital firm JVP has signed a foodtech research and development (R&D) agreement with the U.S. candy and pet-food giant Mars, as reported by the two companies on Wednesday. The target of the joint activity is to locate technological ventures and investments in Israeli foodtech, which will focus on food, agriculture and healthy nutrition. The companies did not mention amounts, but the Israeli media estimated that the two companies would allocate millions of U.S. dollars each. As part of the cooperation, Mars will support Israeli start-up companies and will also work with leading research and academic bodies, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion). The two companies hope to locate and promote innovative food technologies that connect the worlds of food, innovation and health. JVP Chairman Erel Margalit said that "by partnering with Mars, one of the world's most iconic brands at the forefront of innovation, we are confident in Israel's ability to be the foodtech leader of the future." George Graham, vice president of Mars Advanced Research Institute, said that "this exciting collaboration will help us access and be part of solutions specific to global challenges in the food system related to agricultural tech, nutrition and food security". JVP (Jerusalem Venture Capital), founded in 1993 and headquartered in Jerusalem, raised so far more than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars and invested in more than 130 companies. Mars, which was founded in 1911 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, has an annual revenue of 35 billion U.S. dollars. More than 350 startups are operating in Israel, in a global market estimated at 11 trillion U.S. dollars. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 01:35:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Ten million Yemenis are still reliant on emergency food assistance to survive, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock told the Security Council on Wednesday. "The spectre of famine still looms," Lowcock said in a briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Yemen, adding that a resurgent cholera outbreak has affected already 300,000 people this year - compared to 370,000 cases in the whole of 2018. Regarding current challenges, Lowcock said that violence rages still in many areas. In the first quarter of the year, more than 900 civilian casualties were reported. And one of the sobering facts of the war in Yemen is that civilians killed are more likely to die in their own homes than anywhere else, he said. Severe access restrictions imposed by the warring parties continue to be a major problem, he said, adding that more than 900,000 people were affected by delays or interruptions in assistance in February and March. Despite all the problems, 130 agencies worked together to provide 9.8 million people with food, water, healthcare and other assistance in January and February, said Lowcock. "A year ago, agencies estimated that 107 districts were at risk of famine. Today, the food and nutrition situation has improved in more than half of those districts, and one-fifth are as of today no longer at risk off famine," he added. The UN humanitarian chief warned that the most immediate issue is funding. He called on all donors to fully disburse the pledges made in Geneva in February. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 01:45:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GENEVA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Nuclear deterrence targeted against non-nuclear-weapon states is a manifestation of hegemonism and power politics, said Chinese Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs Li Song at the ongoing Conference on Disarmament here in Geneva. He made the remarks on Tuesday during the second part of the 2019 session of the Conference on Disarmament, when discussions were held in an informal setting on the question of nuclear deterrence. The session will conclude on June 28. Li pointed out that the nuclear deterrence policy based on the first use of nuclear weapons is itself one of the greatest threats to international peace and security. "The ghost of the Cold War mentality is still in the genes of some major power when contemplating its national security strategy. The pursuit of unilateralism, hyping up of major power competition and geopolitical rivalry, and the search for overwhelming military advantage by the relevant country have continued to worsen the international security environment," he noted. During the session, the ambassador reiterated China's nuclear strategy and its position on nuclear disarmament. China staunchly pursues a nuclear strategy of self-defense, he said, adding that what makes China's nuclear strategy unique from those of other nuclear-weapon states is that China was compelled to develop nuclear weapons at a particular time during the Cold War, in order to deter the nuclear threat, break the nuclear monopoly and prevent nuclear war. "It developed nuclear weapons not for the purpose of threatening other countries. China takes no part in nuclear arms races of any kind, provides no nuclear umbrella for other countries, and does not deploy nuclear weapons in other countries," Li noted. According to the Chinese ambassador, during the time when it has possessed nuclear weapons, China has unswervingly upheld its unconditional commitments of "non-first-use of nuclear weapons" and "no use or threat to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones," and these commitments will not change in the future. China has been actively committed to promoting dialogue among the five nuclear-weapon States on nuclear doctrines and policies, and believes that all parties should have an objective assessment of each other's strategic intentions, respect each other's security concerns, exercise proper management of differences, prevent accidents and crises resulting from strategic miscalculation, and avoid major power competition becoming self-fulfilling prophecy. He called on nuclear-weapon states to abandon the Cold War mentality and zero-sum thinking, renounce nuclear deterrence polices with preemptive nuclear strike at its core, restrain the impulse to engage in a nuclear arms race, diminish the role of nuclear weapons in national security doctrines, and make joint efforts to maintain international and regional strategic balance and stability. With regard to the issue of so-called "China's participation in the U.S.-Russia nuclear disarmament process", Li said China does not intend and does not see any necessity to join bilateral talks between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear disarmament. "Following a national defense policy that is defensive in nature, China maintains a reasonable and moderate national defense input. Its nuclear force is always kept at the minimum level required by national security needs, which is totally not at the same level with that of the U.S. and Russia," he explained. "The U.S. and Russia, as countries possessing the largest nuclear arsenals, should in accordance with the long-standing consensus of the international community, fulfill their special and primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament and should continue to make drastic and substantive reductions in their nuclear arsenals," he said, adding that this would create necessary conditions or environment for other nuclear-weapon states to join in multilateral nuclear disarmament process. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 02:06:03|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Fighters from forces of the UN-backed Libyan government fire at the Libyan National Army (LNA) troops at Al-Sawani front line near Tripoli airport in Tripoli, Libya, on May 15, 2019. Libya's UN-backed government on Wednesday welcomed the call by the European Union (EU) for a ceasefire in Tripoli, which is witnessing violent clashes between the government and the east-based army over control of the city. (Xinhua/Amru Salahuddien) TRIPOLI, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed government on Wednesday welcomed the call by the European Union (EU) for a ceasefire in the capital Tripoli, which is witnessing violent clashes between the government and the east-based army over control of the city. On Monday, the EU Foreign Affairs Council expressed concern over the impact of the military actions against civilians in Tripoli, stressing that there is no military solution to the Libyan crisis and urging all Libyan parties to return to the UN-sponsored political dialogue. The government welcomed the statement, stressing "determination to deter the aggression" and calling on countries supporting the army to "stop this support that is a clear violation to the resolution of the UN Security Council." "The Council calls on those countries to reconsider their unjustified stand and join the international community in seeking peace, stability and security in Libya and the entire region," the government said in a statement. Tripoli has been witnessing a military conflict between the east-based army and the government's forces over the control of the city since early April. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the fighting so far has killed 454 people, injured 2,154 others, and displaced nearly 60,000 civilians. Libya has been suffering escalating violence and political instability ever since the fall of late leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 02:06:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Measurements from China's Chang'e-4 mission to the far side of the Moon have revealed the presence of material from the lunar mantle at the landing site, according to a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature. The Chang'e-4 probe touched down at the Von Karman Crater in January 2019 and deployed the Yutu-2 rover to explore the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon. Previous global remote sensing missions from orbit have concurred with the idea that "the best candidate for excavating lunar mantle materials was the huge South-Pole Aitken Basin which, given its size, should have tapped into the mantle through the lunar crust", Patrick Pinet at France's Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology, told Xinhua through email. The detailed structure of the Moon's mantle has eluded investigators for years. Scientists have focused their efforts on the impact craters as the events leading to their creation may have penetrated the crust into the lunar interior, excavating parts of the mantle and distributing them on the surface. Based on the initial observations from Yutu-2's Visible and Near Infrared Spectrometer, a team led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences inferred the presence of low-calcium pyroxene and olivine minerals, which may originate from the upper mantle, on the surface. They argued that this material was excavated from below the South Pole-Aitken basin floor by the nearby Finsen impact crater. The lunar mantle's composition characterization is "a very important step to conduct", as it allows researchers to present better models of lunar interior evolution and "to address related questions about lunar magma ocean and its solidification/cooling", said Pinet, who also wrote an accompanying article commenting on the Chinese team's latest findings. To further confirm the findings, it is still necessary to bring back a sample of the rocks to Earth for analysis, according to Pinet. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 02:11:09|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Henrietta Fore (R, front), Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), briefs the Security Council on the situation in Yemen, at the UN headquarters in New York, May 15, 2019. Henrietta Fore on Wednesday urged all parties to the conflict in Yemen to open doors to immediate, long-term humanitarian access, and to allow days of tranquility to vaccinate and help children. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Henrietta Fore, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), on Wednesday urged all parties to the conflict in Yemen to open doors to immediate, long-term humanitarian access, and to allow days of tranquility to vaccinate and help children. In her briefing to the Security Council, the UNICEF chief said that 7,300 children have been killed or seriously injured since the fighting in Yemen began four years ago, and the fighting still rages across 30 active conflict zones -- home to nearly 1.2 million children. Each day, another eight children will be killed, injured or recruited to the fighting, said Fore, adding that another child will die from a preventable cause every 10 minutes. "Like a lack of food, with 360,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. In fact, half the children under five years old in Yemen -- 2.5 million -- are stunted," she said. "And stunting is irreversible." "Like a lack of a simple vaccination, with 151 children dying of diphtheria since last August," she added. According to Fore, the UN has verified the recruitment and use of over 3,000 children by all parties to the conflict since the conflict began. "That number is likely much higher. A flagrant and outrageous violation of international law," she said. Although political efforts continue to focus on implementing the Agreement made at Stockholm in December 2018, Fore warned that while the ceasefire has largely held in Hodeidah, other areas are seeing a rise in violence. "To truly shape a better future for Yemen and its children, we need your engagement and influence to end this war on children, Now," she said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 02:41:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Wednesday called on Yemeni parties to put the interest of the country and the people first, and to keep up effective political dialogue and negotiation. "China welcomes the recent positive progress in the redeployment of troops," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said at a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. According to the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen Martin Griffiths, the Houthi rebel forces have undertaken an initial deployment of forces from the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa, under UN monitoring between May 11 and 14. The priority at this moment is to carry on the consultation and agree on the implementation of the Hodeidah Agreement and some concrete arrangements, including prisoner exchange, Ma said. "In the longer term, it is imperative to relaunch political talks to find a durable, holistic solution to the issue of Yemen," he added. The international community should respect and preserve the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Yemen, and support efforts to reach a broadly inclusive political solution through dialogue and negotiation on the basis of relevant Security Council resolutions, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative as well as its implementation mechanism, and the outcome document of the national dialogue conference, Ma said. He also called on the Security Council to "stay united", and to "push forward the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement, respect the positions of the country concerned and other countries in the region, provide political support to the intra-Yemeni dialogue, and play a constructive role there". Yemen has been in civil war in the past four years, pitting the Houthi rebels against forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition to support the Hadi government. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 02:41:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SKOPJE, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Violence against women is widespread and often underreported in North Macedonia, says a survey conducted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the wellbeing and safety of women and presented here on Wednesday. The host of the presentation, Zoran Zaev, prime minister of North Macedonia, said that violence against women is unacceptable. "Only 2 percent of the women surveyed who have experienced violence from their current partners reported to the police this most serious incident," said Zaev, calling the fact very worrying and stressing that the problem must be addressed urgently. Zaev underlined that the government of North Macedonia is committed to the systematic promotion of gender equality and the elimination of all forms of violence against women. In his remarks, the head of the OSCE Mission to Skopje, Clemens Koja, said that gender-based violence remains one of the most widespread and persistent human rights violations globally that affects the lives of women and girls across countries and regions. "For us at the OSCE, this structural violence is not only a violation of the human rights of women and girls but also a security issue," Koja said. Amarsanaa Darisuren, the OSCE's senior adviser on gender issues, said that no matter the geographic location, level of prosperity or size of the population, violence against women is pervasive in all countries of the world. "This survey provides the information needed to take action. It is now time to take concrete steps to prevent violence against women and girls," Darisuren said. According to the survey, 3 out of 5 (60 percent) women in North Macedonia think that violence against women is common, and nearly 3 in 10 think that it is very common. Almost 1 in 5 women (17 percent) personally knows someone who has experienced some form of domestic violence. "14 percent of women say they have experienced physical or sexual violence since the age of 15 at the hands of a partner or non-partner," the survey showed. Moreover, according to the survey, psychological violence committed by an intimate partner is significantly more common, with 44 percent of women indicating that they have experienced this. The survey identified a particular need for more support and targeted action to help women from minority groups and rural areas. OSCE conducted the survey in the spring and summer of 2018 among a representative sample of 1,910 women aged between 18 and 74. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 03:31:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Wednesday called on the international community to step up the humanitarian assistance to Yemen. The escalation of conflict in some parts of Yemen has led to civilian displacements, and it is coupled with cholera outbreaks, threat of famine, and dire economic situation, plunging the people of Yemen into abysmal suffering, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu said at a UN Security Council meeting. According to the UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock, 10 million Yemenis are still reliant on emergency food assistance to survive, and a resurgent cholera outbreak has already affected 300,000 people this year - compared to 370,000 cases in the whole of 2018. "We are deeply concerned and worried by the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen," Ma said. The Chinese envoy called on the international community to distribute pledged aid, to provide support as needed on the ground. "In particular, full attention should be paid to the humanitarian needs of vulnerable groups such as women and children." According to Ma, China has kept up its food aid to Yemen. China has sent 1,200 metric tons of rice to Yemen since mid-March this year. Another shipment of 1,200 metric tons of rice will be arriving in Aden by the end of May. China is ready, along with the rest of the international community, to continue its support for a political solution to the Yemeni issue, he added. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi rebels overtook the capital Sanaa and ousted the internationally-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 03:31:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TIRANA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The political crisis is harming the country's economy and the tourism sector, Albanian President Ilir Meta said on Wednesday while participating at the start of the new touristic season in Skrapar region, southern Albania. Meta wished a successful touristic season to the citizens, saying that "Skrapar offers extraordinary attractions, warm hospitality and a special culinary, and I am convinced that it soon will be one of the most important tourist destinations in the whole region." "But unfortunately, the political crisis is causing very serious consequences to the economy and to the tourism sector. Touristic operators describe the situation as dramatic," Meta told reporters. He called for all political sides to think about tourism, otherwise all Albanian families depending on this key sector of the economy will face serious consequences. The president has urged several times for dialogue among all parties and has declared that "it is never too late for reflection." Meta has also expressed his concern that the refusal of all opposition parties of the last parliamentary legislature to participate in the upcoming local elections risks not only the standards of the elections but also the country's political pluralism. Since mid-February, Albania has been going through a political crisis, with the opposition parties holding several anti-government protests -- some turned violent, asking Prime Minister Edi Rama and his cabinet to step down for early general elections. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 03:31:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump will host his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in June to discuss bilateral ties. In a statement, the White House said, "President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will welcome President Andrzej Duda and Mrs. Agata Kornhauser-Duda of the Republic of Poland to the White House on June 12, 2019." "The visit will reaffirm the longstanding historical and cultural ties between the United States and Poland, particularly in light of the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II later this year," the statement read. The two presidents "will discuss the growing United States-Poland strategic partnership and a range of mutual interests, including defense, security, energy, and trade matters," the White House added. The two countries will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of Poland's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it said. Sorry, this news has been deleted. The file photo shows that people wait in front of a closed office of United Airlines and Copa Airlines in Caracas, capital of Venezuela, on Jan. 25, 2014. (Xinhua/Boris Vergara) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao on Wednesday said that she has ordered to suspend all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela. In a statement issued by the Department of Transportation on its website, Chao said that she "has issued an order today suspending air service" between the two nations "with the approval of the Secretary of State and in close coordination with the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security." According to the order, "the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has concluded that 'conditions in Venezuela threaten the safety and security of passengers, aircraft, and crew traveling to or from that country, and that the public interest requires an immediate suspension of all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela.'" The order is in addition to the Federal Aviation Administration's Notice to Airmen issued on May 1, which "prohibits most U.S.-certified aircraft operators and pilots from flying below 26,000 feet over the territory of Venezuela, also for reasons of safety and security," the statement read. The United States has been pursuing a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation against the Venezuelan government in support of the nation's opposition leader Juan Guaido. It recognized 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 United States. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 04:57:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MINSK, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) will grant a loan of 100 million U.S. dollars to the Belarusian potash producer Belaruskali. EDB and Belaruskali signed the loan agreement to finance floating capital and investment program of the Belarusian potash giant, the press service of the Belarusian government said on Wednesday. Andrei Belyaninov, EDB's chairman of the board, said the agreement with Belaruskali had been signed in record time for the bank. He expressed the confidence that this was only the beginning of a long way of cooperation with the Belarusian company. Belaruskali is one of the largest suppliers of potash fertilizers to the world market. EDB is an international financial institution established in 2006. It has six member states, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 05:07:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUCHAREST, May 15 (Xinhua) -- EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Tibor Navracsics on Wednesday hailed the enhanced cooperation between Asia and Europe in education, stressing that the European Commission remains committed to a global approach to education. Speaking at the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting of Ministers of Education (ASEMME7), Navracsics said the Europe-Asia Conference is a fundamental forum for the EU, which allows for an informal dialogue and the exchange of good practice. "The priorities of the meeting for education are deeply linked to the overall evolution of education in Europe. We see enhanced cooperation between Asia and Europe in this field," said Navracsics, expressing his satisfaction that he personally has promoted a wide range of opportunities created by EU funding instruments such as ERASMUS+ and Horizon 2020. According to him, all these programs support cooperation between the two continents and encourage bi-directional mobility for students, researchers and academic staff. "These direct contacts between people are crucial: they help promote intercultural dialogue and develop intercultural awareness," Navracsics said, emphasizing the importance of connectivity and mobility between students, academics and researchers. Romania's Ministry of National Education organized the ASEMME7 on Wednesday and Thursday in Bucharest, under the auspices of Romania's Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) in the first half of 2019. With the theme "Connecting education: inclusion, mobility and excellence in support of the Sustainable Development Goals," the ASEMME7 in Bucharest will therefore have a closer look on the priority theme of "Balanced Mobility" within ASEM Education and how digitalisation could be an opportunity to contribute to better balanced and more inclusive mobility programmes. The Asia-Europe Meeting of Ministers of Education is an important platform for international cooperation in education between Asia and European and an intergovernmental cooperation mechanism in the field of education under the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), established in 1996 to foster dialogue and cooperation between Asia and Europe. The first ASEMME was held in Germany in 2008 and since then, the meeting is held every two years in Asia and Europe, with representatives of the 53 ASEM member states and the EU, as well as those of other international organizations. Chinese Ambassador to Romania Jiang Yu led a delegation to represent the Chinese Ministry of Education at the meeting in Bucharest. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 05:12:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Battles raging between the Yemeni government forces and the Houthis continued in the country's southern province of al-Dhalea, leaving five soldiers and seven rebels killed on Wednesday, a military official told Xinhua. The pro-government forces continued in confronting the Houthi rebels who insist on advancing toward al-Dhalea province, leaving five soldiers killed following hours of fighting in the area, said the local military official, who asked to remain anonymous. Houthis desperately tried to advance further to seize government-controlled sites in Qataba district to the northwestern part of al-Dhalea, but faced fierce resistance from the army soldiers, the source said. "The army forces air-covered by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition lost five soldiers in the ongoing battle with the Houthi rebels in area," he said. He added that Houthis carried out artillery shelling against the government forces after losing around seven of their rebel fighters in the same battles. According to information gathered from military sources earlier in the day, scores of pro-government soldiers backed by pick-ups equipped with heavy machine guns arrived in Qataba and began confronting Houthis. On Tuesday, UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths tweeted that he is deeply concerned about the ongoing escalation of conflict in Dhale, and urged all parties to exercise utmost restraint. The UN envoy said that any military escalation risks a setback in the progress towards peace in Yemen. Both warring sides continued to mobilize large numbers of fighters to the frontlines in al-Dhalea amid non-stop armed confrontations taking place since weeks ago in the southern region. Last month, 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 the government-controlled al-Dhalea have been witnessing continuous fighting between government forces and Houthi fighters for four years. Yemen has been plagued by a civil war since late 2014 after Houthi rebels revolted and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 05:33:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Four police officers and two policemen were killed Wednesday in two attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk, a security source said. Four federal police officers were killed when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle, followed by gunfire attack by IS militants near the town of Hawijah, in west of the provincial capital city of Kirkuk, which is located some 250 km north of Baghdad, Mahmoud al-Jubouri from Hawijah police told Xinhua. Iraqi security forces launched a search campaign in the area looking for the assailants, according to al-Jubouri. Also in the province, IS militants attacked a checkpoint manned by federal policemen near the town of al-Rashad, some 30 km south the city of Kirkuk, killing two policemen and wounding another. The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017. IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 05:43:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The White House said here on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump will visit South Korea to promote bilateral ties in June. In a statement, the White House said that "President Donald J. Trump will visit the Republic of Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in, in conjunction with his travel to the region to attend the G20 Summit in late June." Trump and Moon "will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization" of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the statement read. The two leaders will also discuss ways to strengthen the bilateral alliance and the friendship between the two peoples, the White House said. The White House said in April that Trump and his wife Melania will travel to Japan at the end of May as the country's first state guests to meet the newly enthroned emperor. During Moon's recent visit to the White House in April, Trump said that the sanctions on the DPRK would remain in place, but he deemed it unnecessary to further increase them. He also said that it was possible for him to hold a third meeting with top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 05:53:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LILONGWE, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which is deployed to observe the May 21 tripartite elections in Malawi, arrived in the country on Wednesday, six days ahead of the polling day. A statement released by COMESA Head of Governance, Peace and Security Elizabeth Mutunga on Wednesday said the team would be led by Ambassador Mohamed Ahmed Abdelghaffar Karrar, a member of the COMESA Committee of Elders from the Republic of Sudan. The statement said the leader of the delegation would be arriving in the country on May 17, four days before the elections day. "The observer mission comprises representatives from COMESA Member States and supported by members of staff from the secretariat," read the statement. "The deployment of the mission follows an invitation by the Government of Malawi to COMESA through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." According to the statement, the COMESA observers will undertake pre-election observation which will include consultations with political parties, the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), security agencies, civil society organizations, the media and other relevant electoral stakeholders. The pre-election observation is expected to inform the mission on elections-related issues and enable the mission to assess the preparedness of the respective stakeholders ahead of the elections. "COMESA observation will be based on the Malawi electoral code of conduct, the constitution and other relevant instruments governing the conduct of elections," read the statement. "The observers will also engage with other election observer mission on the ground in the three regions of Northern, Central and Southern." The findings of the observer mission are expected to be included into the detailed report which, according to the statement, will be submitted to MEC and the government of Malawi within 90 days from the election date. Ballot papers for presidential, parliamentary and local government elections arrived in the country on Monday and Tuesday from the United Arab Emirates where they were printed and they are expected to be dispatched to the country's district councils on Thursday. Of the seven presidential candidates contesting in the May 21 polls, Malawi President Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) faces a tough competition from the main opposition leader, Lazarus Chakwera, of the Malawi Congress Party, and Mutharika's Vice President, Saulos Chilima, who formed his own party, United Transformation Movement (UTM) in June 2018. Meanwhile, Mutharika dissolved his cabinet on Wednesday as per the dictates of the country's constitution and all the ministerial functions and responsibilities are to be handled by the president's office until a new cabinet is appointed after the May 21 elections. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 05:53:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BRUSSELS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Two exhibitions exploring Chinese culture and tourism in Shanghai and Shandong will be held at the China Cultural Center in Brussels from May 16 until May 31. Through two exhibitions, fragments of Shandong and Shanghai will be transported to the heart of Europe for the very first time, to be discovered by Belgian and European enthusiasts alike. "We wish to promote communication, mutual learning, as well as friendship between civilizations by holding such exhibition of creative products internationally," said Tang Shifen, of the Shanghai Museum, during the opening ceremony. "We have brought our precious collection of popular art here and are delighted to share the charm of Shandong folk art with our friends in Belgium, spanning 2,500 years of history from the ancient city of Shandong linked with modern Brussels," said Liu Yanchun, of the Shandong Art Museum. The exhibition "The Beautiful Shandong" offers more insight into the cultural and natural resources of this province. Collected by the Shandong Art Museum, a range of works of Shandong folk arts will be displayed at the Center. The Spring Festival pictures and handmade kites show the local customs of the people of Shandong and how folk arts enabled them to enrich their environment. "The Amazing Shanghai, Creative Cultural Products from the Shanghai Museum" will focus on creative cultural products from the Shanghai Museum and sheds light on different aspects of Shanghai's culture using various themes that run throughout the exhibition. From a look into the past of the literati to the modern fusion with Disney, these creative cultural products cover a lot of ground, with Shanghai's elegance being the common thread. Throughout the exhibition, ancient cultural relics will be exhibited to the public. The China Weeks is part of a global effort. A total of 19 China National Tourist Offices and 34 China Cultural Centers overseas joined hands to host various events globally during the following two months, presenting beautiful China with different cultural activities for increasing inbound tourism. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 06:08:30|Editor: ZX Video Player Close United Nations Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen Martin Griffiths (front) briefs the Security Council on the situation in Yemen, at the UN headquarters in New York, May 15, 2019. Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), on Wednesday urged all parties to the conflict in Yemen to open doors to immediate, long-term humanitarian access, and to allow days of tranquility to vaccinate and help children. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- With Yemen "at the crossroads between war and peace", both sides of the conflict in that country must set aside their differences and move towards a lasting political settlement, senior United Nations officials told the Security Council on Wednesday. Outlining recent developments, UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen Martin Griffiths said at a Security Council meeting on the Middle East that "change in Hodeidah is a reality" as the Houthi rebel forces have undertaken an initial deployment of forces from the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa, under UN monitoring between May 11 and 14. He described this as "the first concrete step towards the implementation of the Hodeidah agreement." Yemen has been in civil war in the past four years, pitting the Houthi rebels against forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition to support the Hadi government. Political efforts continue to focus on implementing the agreement made at Stockholm in December 2018, particularly the arrangement for Hodeidah that established a governorate-wide ceasefire and called for the mutual redeployment of Houthi rebels and Yemeni government forces from Hodeidah port and city, as well as the two nearby smaller ports of Ras Isa and Saleef. "Despite the significance of the last few days, Yemen remains at the crossroads between war and peace," he cautioned, noting that the intensification of the conflict in other parts of the country is alarming. Fighting between the Houthis and forces aligned with the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia-led coalition has escalated in other parts of Yemen, and Houthi rebels on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the drone attacks on an oil pipeline and other oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. At the same meeting, the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Henrietta Fore provided glimpses of the dire situation of Yemen's children, warning that time is running out. With 360,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition and 2.5 million - or half of all children under the age of five - stunted, the country is spiralling perilously close to the brink, she warned. According to Fore, the UN has verified the recruitment and use of over 3,000 children by all parties to the conflict since the conflict began. "That number is likely much higher. A flagrant and outrageous violation of international law," she said. Also briefing was the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock, who said that "the spectre of famine still looms" as ten million Yemenis are still reliant on emergency food assistance to survive. Restrictions on movement are delaying humanitarian deliveries, and violence is raging in many areas, Lowcock added, emphasizing that these challenges require strong, steady support. Security Council members agreed that there can be no military solution to the conflict, expressing strong support for a political process leading to lasting peace. They urged all parties to refrain from actions that could jeopardize that goal. Russian deputy ambassador to UN Vladimir Safronkov said that the strategic goal in Yemen remains the same: to launch a fully fledged political process in order to discuss a solution. The window of opportunity is now open to implement other components of the Stockholm Agreement, including prisoner exchanges, he added. Emphasizing that the goals of external players and parties in seeking a lasting solution have never been more important, the Russian envoy urged all stakeholders to honor the ceasefire. Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said that China welcomes the recent positive progress in the redeployment of troops, and in the longer term, it is imperative to relaunch political talks to find a durable, holistic solution to the issue of Yemen. The international community should respect and preserve the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Yemen, and support efforts to reach a broadly inclusive political solution through dialogue and negotiation on the basis of relevant Security Council resolutions, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative as well as its implementation mechanism, and the outcome document of the national dialogue conference, Ma said. Yemen's representative Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi, while emphasizing that implementation of the Stockholm Agreement must be built on trust, said the Houthis are attempting to implement measures through unilateral actions rather than through the United Nations. At the same time, the government of Yemen has tried to halt the conflict while the Houthis continue to destabilize the country and the wider region, including through drone attacks, he said. Drew Angerer/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Andrew Yang, one of the Democratic presidential field's least-known candidates, held one of his campaign's biggest rallies Tuesday at Washington Square Park in New York City, sharing his signature plan to give every American $1,000 per month before a young and diverse crowd that appeared to stretch into the thousands. Yang, whose "Humanity First Tour" has already attracted large audiences in several major cities across the country, despite his lack of name recognition, identified automation as a major issue threatening the United States' economy, but promised that his proposed "Freedom Dividend" -- the name for his universal basic income payment -- could create new jobs and provide its recipients with the flexibility to live more productively. "Think about what $1,000 per month would mean in your hands. How would you spend it?" Yang asked the crowd, which was dotted with umbrellas as a steady rain fell over the city. "It would make our children stronger and healthier. It would make us all mentally healthier and less stressed out. It would create more than two million jobs because most of the money would get spent right here in our communities." The rally Tuesday came as interest in Yang in recent months has steadily risen. The entrepreneur recently qualified for the first Democratic debate in June, after he reached the donor and polling thresholds. In New York, Yang addressed the forthcoming debate, joking that "millions of Americans are going to turn on the TV that night in June and they're going to ask themselves one question, 'who is the Asian man standing next to Joe Biden?'" Ahead of the event, Yang's campaign said that "well over" 5,000 people had registered to attend. It also noted that earlier this month, 4,000 people gathered at a Seattle rally and, in recent days, Yang has also held events in battleground states such as New Hampshire and South Carolina. At each of his campaign stops, the bulk of his remarks are centered around his promise of universal basic income, a plan developed in response to the automation threat -- an issue receiving less attention from other presidential candidates. "We automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa -- all of the swing states that Donald Trump needed to win and did win," Yang said Tuesday. "There's a straight line up between the adoption of industrial robots in a community and the movement towards Donald Trump." Yang said his plan would be funded, in part, by implementing more taxes on big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, the latter of which he pointed to as the cause of retail store closures across the country, resulting in widespread job loss in the retail sector. "Amazon's like a giant vacuum sucking up $20 billion of commerce every year pushing 30% of malls and stores to close in our country," he said. However, as some of his Democratic opponents called for breaking up big tech companies, Yang hesitated on what the correct approach would be. When asked if he would favor breaking up big tech, he said "we should definitely look at curtailing the tech companies influence and part of that would be potentially breaking up some of the companies." Later, when talking about the negative effects of social media apps on young Americans, Yang had a different response. Its not as simple as saying we need to break them up, those are 20th century solutions to 21st century problems," Yang said. "We need a 21st century approach to technology because technologies advanced way past our governments ability to reckon with that it means for our people." Some additional proposals featured on Yang's campaign website include his support of lowering the legal voting age to 16, providing free marriage counseling to all and providing every police single officer across the country with a body camera. The 44-year-old New York native and son of Taiwanese immigrants, launched his campaign for president earlier this year in February. He founded Venture for America, a non-profit aimed at training college graduates to work in startups in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Previously, Yang became CEO of a test-prep start up that was later sold. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Source: Xinhua| 2019-05-16 07:08:48|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HOUSTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The latest U.S. manufacturing and trade statistics released on Wednesday showed that business inventories for March hit 2.02 trillion U.S. dollars, almost the same level as last month's data. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of 2,018.1 billion dollars, virtually unchanged from February 2019, but were up by 5 percent from March 2018. The combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers' shipments for March, adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences but not for price changes, was estimated at 1,470.1 billion dollars, up by 1.6 percent from February 2019 and was up by 3.7 percent from March 2018. The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of March was 1.37. The March 2018 ratio was 1.36. Ladislau Boloni, uitat de FRF in cursa pentru postul de selectioner Antrenorul Ladislau Boloni este liber de contract din luna mai, cand Panathinaikos l-a dat afara. Chiar daca nu a acceptat nicio propunere de atunci, Ladislau Boloni nu a fost contactat de FRF pentru a prelua echipa nationala de seniori. Mirel Radoi a anuntat in [citeste mai departe] Stiri pe aceeasi tema - Un politist american de origine romana a fost impuscat de mai multe ori, in noaptea de luni spre marti, in timpul unei misiuni din Phoenix, Arizona, si se afla in stare critica, relateaza hotnews.ro citand ABC Arizona . Ofiterul se numeste Tyler Moldovan si are 22 de ani. Acesta a fost impuscat in timp - The draft law on the state budget for 2022 will be made public on Friday, and next Monday it will be approved by the Ciuca Cabinet and submitted for debate and adoption in Parliament, governmental sources informed on Tuesday, agerpres reports. According to the quoted sources, the assumed budget deficit - Minister of Agriculture Adrian Chesnoiu called on the Agriculture and Fisheries Council for flexibility from the European Commission regarding the submission of Strategic Plans, namely by March 1, 2022, as delays in adopting the legal basis will affect the preparation of the new programming period, - Deputy Ionut Stroe is the new spokesman for the National Liberal Party (PNL), according to some Liberal sources, agerpres reports. He was appointed spokesman for the Liberals on Monday, at the meeting of this party's Executive Bureau. He is replacing Ionel Danca, who left the PNL to join former - The Executive Bureau (BEx) of the National Liberal Party (PNL) decided on Friday to start talks with the People's Movement Party (PMP) on a merger by absorption, according to PNL sources. The Liberals also set up a negotiating team for the talks. The PNL BEx meeting took place at the - The Senate adopted on Monday, in plenary sitting, with modifications, Government Emergency Ordinance (GEO) No. 118/2021, which increases the subsidies for the household consumers to help them cover the price of electricity and natural gas, between November 1, 2021 - March 31, 2022. As the - The European Unions 27 leaders will seek a new approach to China on Tuesday in their first summit on Sino-European strategy since the bloc imposed sanctions on Beijing in March and faced retaliation, jeopardising a new investment pact, according to Reuters. Along with the United States, Britain and - Over 80 percent of Romanians believe things in the country are headed in the wrong direction, and only 12.5 percent consider the opposite, found a survey conducted by INSCOP Research in partnership with market research company Verifield upon the commission of the Strategic Thinking Group think tank. Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate Press-service of the Cabinet of Ministers At the same time, Volodymyr Zelensky, as we see, is more inclined to support Filaret. This might be corroborated by his statements at the debate with Poroshenko, where he puts Tomos in the merit of Denysenko. Or from the video with representatives of religious circles of Ukraine, where there is Filaret and there is no Epifaniy. Secondly, the power has changed not only in Ukraine - in a certain way, it happened in the United States, which almost played the main role in promoting Tomos. After the report of Robert Mueller that Trump has no links with Russia, his hands were untied. The State Department is being shaken right now, and curators of many directions regarding Ukraine are losing posts. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who represented the still old, democratic administration, was also called off. And she supported the creation of Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Apparently, Filaret launched an open attack on Epifaniy also because this time he was not expecting a shout from overseas. Whereas, before the presentation of Tomos, the 90-year-old cleric even traveled for a "blessing" in the USA. Thirdly, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine never became a full-fledged canonical church. The overwhelming majority of Orthodox churches did not recognize it. And day by day this process is cemented - there is practically no prospect of recognizing former schismatics. At the same time, the new church now has to share with Constantinople and obey all its orders. Whereas the Kyiv Patriarchate was in this sense a truly independent organization. That is, the exchange of "canonicity for independence" did not work out. And so it is logical that the old guard in the Orthodox Church of Ukraine decided to return the former privileges - even if by evading a new split. How exactly the split can take place? As the honorary patriarch has said above, he intends to convene a Council and try to seize power again. To convene the Council, Filaret needs a third of the votes - that is, 20 hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. According to the media information, Filarets disagreement is caused in particular by paragraph 5 of the Charter. "The Orthodox Church of Ukraine consists of religious organizations that have legal status in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine." Prior to the adoption in this form, this provision of the Charter sounded differently as Autocephalous Church in Ukraine, which has legal status in Ukraine in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, which meant that the church itself was the subject of law. Filaret also advocates changing the order of appointment of the permanent members of the Synod. The statute stipulates that there are three of them. Filaret believes that there should be 12 of them, for the rest of the bishops to leave the opportunity to be alternately temporary members of the Synod. Therefore, Filaret proposes to first convene a Local Council, at which participants will adopt the Charter, and then, on the basis of the new Charter, choose a Synod that Filaret will be able to control. And in the future, it will help him to seize power from the Epifaniy. The political prisoner is doing something creative all the time Open source The health of political prisoner Oleg Sentsov improved. His lawyer Dmytro Dinze has stated this, as Krym.Realii reported. Sentsov feels himself splendidly after recovering after a hunger strike, he even gained some weight, and now he weighs 90 kilograms. The organism of the political prisoner managed to recover, but he still has chronical diseases. The only thing is that he has chronical diseases, which appear from time to time. The rehabilitation was finished successfully. However, bear in mind, that this is an individual specific feature of an organism. Olegs organism managed to recover, but an organism of someone else can fail to do this. He was lucky, Dmytro Dinze said. According to the lawyer, Sentsov has a good psychological condition as well, as he constantly is doing something creative. A Ukrainian film director who was sentenced to 20 years in jail in Russia in 2015 for alleged terrorist attempt in occupied Crimea, October 5, 2018, he ended his hunger strike that has lasted 144 days. Earlier, mother of the Ukrainian political prisoner Oleg Sentsov has stated that she talks to her son once a month, their conversation lasts for 20 minutes. According to her, the political prisoner mainly asks about his children, their studying and interests. When asked about his health condition, he always replies that everything is fine. Ukrainian political prisoner is kept in the punishment cell, where he eats bread and drinks water. His health condition got worse Ukrainian political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh Krym.Realii U.S. Embassy in Ukraine called on Russia to provide Ukrainian political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh with the medical treatment. The embassy reported this on Twitter. We urge Russia to provide urgently needed medical care to political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh, whose health situation is precarious after being placed in solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water, the report said. We urge Russia to provide urgently needed medical care to political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh, whose health situation is precarious after being placed in solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water. U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) 15 2019 . Balukh was arrested on December 8, 2016, nine days after he nailed a plaque renaming his home No. 18 to 'Heroes of Nebesna Sotnya St' in memory of the over 100 Maidan activists who were killed during the 2013-2014 protests in Ukraine. He had rejected the demands of the head of the local council to remove it. During an irregular search of his home, 90 bullets and several TNT explosive devices were allegedly found in his attic. The implausibility of the charges was just one of several compelling reasons why the renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre declared him a political prisoner well before the trial. Earlier, the representative of Ukraines Consulate to Russia was not let to visit the Ukrainian political prisoner Volodymyr Balukh. Russian Federal Penitentiary Service has informed that Balukh is a Russian citizen, which was the reason why the diplomat was not allowed to see him. Balukh's lawyer Olga Dinze visited him in a penal colony No.4 and said that he still was in a punishment cell, over that time he was sent there three times on spurious grounds. The initiators of the appeal note the vulnerability of the LGBT community to sexual discrimination LGBT march in Ukraine dumskaya Representatives of diplomatic missions of 23 countries and of the European Union called on Ukrainians to support the march of equality for LGBT rights. A joint statement by diplomats was published Tuesday at the website of the German Embassy in Ukraine. On February 7, the Parliament of Ukraine enshrined the Euro-Atlantic direction of the country's development into the Constitution, which is a continuation of the previous international obligation to adhere to the democratic values of human rights for all citizens. With the implementation of institutional reforms and the adoption of relevant legislation, significant progress has been made over the last five years. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people remain vulnerable to sexual discrimination, including hate crimes and violations of their civil rights, it says. In particular, diplomats called on Ukraine to implement the National Human Rights Strategy and the relevant action plan, to ratify the Istanbul Convention and to ensure the implementation of comprehensive anti-discrimination measures. At the same time, the statement notes significant progress of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies in protecting the rights of LGBT Ukrainians. To demonstrate our commitment to defending and protecting human rights and equality, the diplomatic community and international organizations will take part in marches and other events, the diplomats said, urging Ukrainian officials, politicians, and civil society representatives to support the marches of equality. The address was signed by representatives of the embassies of Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA and the European Union. As the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner reported earlier, the societal attitudes towards the rights of the LGBT people in Ukraine remain to be affected by stigma and representatives of the state authority think that the sexual orientation and gender identity should be studied and discussed. Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, made such a statement. All detainees are charged with the alleged membership in Hizb-Ut Tahrir, the Islamist organization banned in Russia May 4, district courts in Rostov-on-Don and Rostov Oblast ruled that 24 arrested Crimean Tatars will remain in detention for another three months, until the middle of August. All detained citizens are the suspects in the so-called Hizb-Ut Tahrir case led by the Russian law enforcers; they are charged with he membership in this Islamist organization, which is banned in Russia. Krym.Realii reported that May 15. All 24 are to stay behind the bars until August 15. 20 activists are staying at the remand center in Rostov-on-Don, another four are held at a detention center in the town of Shakhty, Rostov Oblast. The defense team asked to appoint home arrest as the pre-trial restriction measure; the lawyers pointed out that the detained Crimean Tatars are citizens of Ukraine and political prisoners. However, the court still granted the prosecutors' motion, extending the detention period. All sessions on this case were held behind the closed doors. Dozens of relatives of the detained Crimean Tatars were not allowed inside the session hall. 24 Crimean Tatars were detained in March 2019, after massive searches at their dwellings in the occupied Crimea. Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB claimed they could be members of Hizb-Ut Tahrir. Valeriy Chaly and Roy Blunt negotiated the options to increase the U.S. budget expenditures for this specific purpose Open source Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine's ambassador in the U.S. met with Roy Blunt, the Republican Senator from Missouri and the Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. The Ukrainian Embassy posted that on Facebook. 'Taking into account that Senator Blunt is the member of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, discussion of the prospects of increasing the 2020 U.S. budget expenditures to support Ukraine's defense and security sphere was a specific topic for discussion', reads the message. The Ukrainian official updated the Senator on the latest developments in the occupied section of Donbas and the annexed Crimea and insisted that the further strengthening of Ukraine-U.S. strategic partnership is crucial. Chaly confirmed that his country and the civil society have been holding on to the stable path of democratic changes, reforms and the strategic course of integration with the EU and NATO. Ukroboronprom should finish all negotiations with audit companies and choose the winner State Defense Concern Ukroboronprom ukrinform.ru Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman provided Ukroboronprom defense state enterprise with 10 days to prepare for the financial audit, as 112 Ukraine reported. Ukroboronprom should finish all negotiations with audit companies and choose the winner during the next 10 days. The winner will hold public financial audit. It is important not only to hold the audit; the audit should be credible. It can be credible when the audit company has global confidence and reputation. We need such kind of audit, not a formal one. So we made a decision to oblige Ukroboronprom to finish all negotiations with such judicial audit companies in 10 days, establish the winner and begin the public financial audit of Ukroboronprom, Groysman said. Thus, Ukroboronprom should report about each spent hryvnia during previous years. February 25, journalist investigations Bihus.Info, Nashi Hroshi program alleged that Igor Gladkovsky, the son of close Poroshenko ally Oleh Gladkovsky, deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), organized a corruption scheme to smuggle spare military-equipment parts from Russia in 2015. State defense facilities purchased the smuggled spare parts from private companies linked to Hladkovsky and his friends at highly inflated prices. Ukroboronprom state concern knew the origin of the smuggled parts but agreed to purchase them. Igor Gladkovsky, along with Vitaliy Zhukov and Andriy Rogoza were supplying smuggled Russian components and components from the Ukrainian military units through straw companies at prices 2-4 times higher than market ones. On March 4, President Petro Poroshenko dismissed Oleh Gladkovsky, deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council from his post. he replaced his close associate with Maksym Kryvonos, one of the presidential nominees, who withdrew his candidacy in favor of Poroshenko and was soon appointed NSDC high-ranker. As it was reported earlier, the investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office detained the acting and former directors of the State Foreign Trade Enterprise SpetsTechnoExport on suspicion of embezzling $2,225 million, according to NABU. On April 24, a bill that provides for the liquidation of Ukroboronprom state enterprise was registered in the Verkhovna Rada. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch Radio Liberty U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch resisted the policy of Trump as Rudolph Giuliani, the lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump stated in an interview to Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Anopchenko. Yes, part of the problem created for us in the U.S. was the ambassador, who is suspended now. She was part of all these efforts against President Trump. About a year ago one of the congressmen said that she assures the Ukrainian officials that President Trump will face impeachment. The cases of the provision of false information to the Ukrainian authorities took place. Such counteracting to the policy of President Trump!, Giuliani noted. He also thinks that the U.S. Embassy participated in the conspiracy against Trump. it would right until the end if president-elect imitated the investigation, openly, due to, lets call it, conspiracy in which particular Ukrainian officials participated and some Americans were involved in it, including representatives of the U.S. Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton and, unfortunately, our American Embassy to Ukraine. They allowed the corruption information exchange and it harmed candidate Trump and his campaign, Giuliani said. He did not announce the names of the possible successors of Yovanovitch but noted, it will be a person, who supports the administration of President Trump and who rightly understands his policy in this difficult and key region of the world. On May 6, the media reported that Yovanovitch was recalled from her office in Kyiv due to the expiry of her three-years-long cadence. She is supposed to get back to the States on May 20. The Department of the State confirmed it. Putin's Press Secretary informed that Russian side waits for the inauguration of the new president Due to Ukraines new sanctions against Russia, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Press Secretary, expressed hope that inauguration of President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky will happen one day. He also reminded that sanctions against Russia were provoked by Ukrainian authorities, as Peskov said in a commentary for the journalists, Interfax-Ukraine reported. In general we have to recall that previous decisions of the Russian side (on sanctions against Ukraine, - ed.) were provoked by the Ukrainian authorities, Peskov said. At the same time, he expressed hope that President-elect Zelensky will take office. We hope that when the inauguration of the new president (of Ukraine, - ed.) will happen sooner or later, the Press Secretary of Russian President said. As it was reported, Ukraines Government imposed new sanctions against Russia. New goods were added to the list of banned Russian goods. Duties on all Russian goods were imposed. Earlier, Russian Federation placed a ban for export of petroleum and petroleum products, including coal, petroleum, and petroleum products to Ukraine. Magnitsky Act has been in force in Britain for around a year, yet it was not used against the violators of human rights, sanctions against Russia for Skripals case were not imposed, as members of Britains House of Commons pointed out in a statement addressed to Jeremy Hunt. In particular, British MP Matt Western reported on Twitter that he signed the letter. I have signed @RhonddaBryant's cross-party letter to the Foreign Secretary demanding that Magnitsky sanctions are implemented without further delay. The government should not be dropping the ball on human rights issues - nor using Brexit as an excuse! Action urgently needed. pic.twitter.com/Osc5gg3jfI Matt Western MP (@MattWestern_) 14 2019 . Legislatures stated that the authorities have not applied this amendment, which allows impose sanctions for violation of human rights, yet. The legislation, informally known as the Sergei Magnitsky Law, is named after a lawyer who died in a Russian prison under mysterious circumstances after exposing one of the biggest government corruption scandals during President Vladimir V. Putins time in power. In 2016, the U.S. Congress unanimously supported a bill that provides the expansion of the Magnitsky law application to every country in the world, not just to Russia. The law enables the US President to renew the list of foreign nationals that, in his view, are involved in corruption and human rights violations. Canada, Estonia, and Lithuania have also adopted similar legislative acts. In October 2017, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin claimed that the so-called Magnitsky Act, which provides a package of sanctions against Russia, is based on political games. The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Ukrainians insists that the current status of Kyiv Metrpopoly is not enough Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate Press-service of the Cabinet of Ministers Honorary Patriarch Filaret is not happy with the current status of Kyiv Metrpopoly, claiming it is not enough; instead, he assumes that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has prospects to restore the status of Kyiv Patriarchate. The churchman said that while talking to journalists on May 15. 'To the rest of the world, we're Kyiv Metropoly, recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. But we're not fine with it. We have prospects of creation and restoration of Kyiv Patriarchate. It's the future. And Ecumenical Patriarh does not deny that in the future, the Ukrainian Church will be recognized in the status of the Patriarchate. That's what Archbishop Daniil, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch, said on the record', Filaret stated. At the same time, he insisted it is crucial that members of the Ukrainian Church should stand united to see to it that the Patriarchate's status is restored. 'We need to unite, to create the united Orthodox Church. This is why our task is to unite all Orthodox branches in one church. But in order to join those who still has not yet joined us, we need to be united as well', the Patriarch said. Open source Uber Company seeks the opportunity to launch services for rental of electric bicycles and electric scooters in Kyiv provided the infrastructure problem would be solved. The regional Uber manager in the UK, the North, and East Europe Jamie Heywood stated, Interfax-Ukraine reported. You know that Uber has bought the service for the rental of electric bicycles Jump. The manufacturer is currently increasing the pace of production of equipment - we are talking about the production of electric bicycles and scooters. We have not signed any conditions with the Mayor of Kyiv yet, because firstly it is necessary to ensure the possibility of safe trips by bicycles around the city. My task is to bring the transport to the country when the safe routes will be provided, he said. According to the report, the rules using the electric scooters should be created as well. Uber suggests the wider service, and I have seen this abroad, where there are propositions concerning electric bicycles and electric scooters. I would be very happy to spread this service in our city, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko outlined. Uber Technologies Inc. (doing business as Uber) is a peer-to-peer ridesharing, taxi cab, food delivery, and transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with operations in 633 cities worldwide. Its platforms can be accessed via their websites and mobile apps. Uber has been prominent in the sharing economy, so much so that the changes in industries as a result of it have been referred to as Uberisation. The review of the agreement can take place in 2020, according to Klympush-Tsintsadze Ukraine intends to suggest the European Union review the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, stated this, as the governmental portal reported. It possible to speak about the review of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in 2020, in five years after the agreement came into force. Naturally, we, together with our colleagues from different ministries, have to work in order to suggest out terms, in particular concerning the change of the structure of the economy in comparison to the time, when we conducted the first consultations (concerning the Agreement on association), Klympush-Tsintsadze stated. According to Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine has fulfilled 52% of the planned tasks of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement over 2018. As we reported earlier, the European Commission has approved the issuance of 37 million Euros to fund the 2018 Program of Technical Cooperation. This is part of the comprehensive procedure foreseen by the provisions of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. The funding is supposed to cover the needs of Ukrainian institutions in the strengthening of democratic principles, human rights, and basic freedoms. Poster "Who ordered Handziuk" Open source Kherson City Court will begin the consideration of the case on the attack at the public activist Kateryna Handziuk on May 27 at 11:00 p.m. as Judicial Authorities of Ukraine reported. Yulia Bochko will be the judge. Viktor and Nadia Handziuk, the parents of the deceased activist as well as her husband Serhiy are on the list of the victims. Mykyta Hrabchuk, Volodymyr Vasyanovych, Vyacheslav Vyshnevsky, Serhy Torbin, and Viktor Horbunov are accused of the attack at Kateryna Handziuk. On April 25, the Prosecutor Generals Office changed the suspicion of Vladyslav Manger from the organization of the murder to the organization of the beating. On March 6, Vladyslav Manger, the suspect in the organization of murder of activist Kateryna Hanzdiuk, has been suspended from duty for a month. On February 11, Vladyslav Manger was served with charge papers in Handziuks murder. In his turn, Manger said that he would not escape from the country due to suspicion of organizing the murder of Handziuk. The court ruled to arrest Manger until March 3 with the possibility of bail. However, later lawyer Dmitry Ilchenko has posted a bail for his client Kherson Regional Council Head Vladyslav Manger. On February 19, Vladyslav Manger started to wear the digital bracelet. On November 4, 2018, it became known that Kateryna Handziuk died at the age of 34. She was doused with sulphuric acid in July this year. According to preliminary information, her death was caused by blood clot's detachment. Besides, the doctors specified the cause for the death of Handziuk was specified. It was due to multiple organ failure and chemical burns. The U.S. leader Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani Trumps personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani stated that Zelenskys entourage became the reason he canceled his visit to Kyiv, as Giuliani told the Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Anopchenko. In particular, the lawyer confirmed that he intended to meet with President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky, but he changed his plans as Zelenskys advisors are hostile to Trump. I was going to visit Ukraine on Monday-Wednesday, but I canceled the trip as I found out that the President-elect is surrounded by the people who treated the U.S. President unfairly. It is about the events of 2016. One of them was caught on having been cooperating and helping the election campaign of Trumps opponent Hillary Clinton. And these people are among his key advisors, Giuliani said. He also added that now, Zelensky is in the hands of the people who stood against Trump and they provided New York Times with information about Trump of a provocative nature. FBI holds investigation against Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky concerning alleged financial frauds including laundering of assets. American media reported earlier that Kolomoysky was accused of contract killings (in 2015) and now they believe that he is a patron saint of Zelensk. Due to the investigation, Kolomoysky moved to Israel. Andriy Bogdan, a personal lawyer of Kolomoysky, works in Ze!Team. The main task for the Ukrainian clergy is to preserve the unity of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Honorary Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine Filaret Open source Honorary Patriarch Filaret stated that for now there is no visible way to get recognition of the other churches. According to him, one of the main reasons would be Moscows influence, as he said on May 15 in a commentary for the journalists, 112 Ukraine reported. We dont see any ways, which would lead to recognition. Why dont they recognize? There are lots of reasons, but the main one is Moscow. That is why it acts there among many other orthodox churches and here, in Ukraine as well. But not through the Moscow Patriarchate, but through us, when our bishops stand against what they created against Kyiv Patriarchate. Our task is to preserve the unity of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, he stressed. Another reason for non-recognition of Ukraines autocephaly is Kyivs refusal from the status of a patriarchate. Filaret also said that forces, which helped to create Kyiv Patriarchate, joined the attempts to destroy Ukrainian church. It was reported that there were misunderstandings between the Honorable Patriarch Filaret and Metropolitan Epiphany. In particular, Filaret seems to want to restore the structure of the liquidated Ukraine's Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) and his influence on the church, while the circle of Metropolitan Epiphany is inclined to support the Greek system of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, proposed by Fanar. The organizers state the rally would last for two days Open source On May 15, another rally of the owners of EU license plates cars is held in Kyiv government district. Protesters demand delaying imposition of fines for cars were not released from bond, as Informator reported. The participants of the rally arrived at around 6 am and parked on both sides of the road near Mariinsky park up to the building of Ukraines Government. It was noted that more and more people were coming despite a complete absence of parking space. The organizers stated that the rally would last for two days. The session of the committee, which would result in a draft law on delay of fines imposition, begins at 2 pm. The laws about the reduction of excise taxes on cars, as well as the reinforcement of control over the movement and use of cars with foreign registration came into force. Thus, Law 2611-VIII established that the basic excise tax rates for a new car, depending on the type of fuel and engine size: - for cars with a gasoline engine of 1000 cubic centimeter - 50 euros; from 3000 cubic centimeter - 100 euros; - for diesel with an engine of 1500 - 75 euros; from 3500 - up to 150 euros. In order to determine the excise rate for a particular car, coefficients will be applied to the base rate. The formula will be: Rate = Base Rate Engine coefficient Engine Age. 180 working days are given for clearance of non-cleared cars. Meanwhile, the excise tax is reduced by 50% for cars that will be cleared during the first 90 days after the law enters into force. In the remaining 90 days of the grace period, the rates will become full, but the penalties for violating the terms of stay will not be imposed. Law 2612-VIII provides for fines for violating the conditions of temporary importation and transit of cars. Also, the law spells out fines for violation of the period of stay of a non-cleared car in Ukraine - from $6 to $6,000 or confiscation of the car. The laws take effect the day after the official publication. On October 22, 2018, the Supreme Court of Ukraine recognized the termless use of the cars with the EU license plates imported in the regime of transit as legal. Later the State Fiscal Service claimed that the use of the uncustomed cars is still a violation of the law. The special attention during the meeting with the ambassadors was paid to the continuation of imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko calls on the ambassadors from the Group of Seven countries (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan) as well as the European Union to continue their support of Ukraine. The press service of the head of state reported. I appeal to you with a request to continue supporting Ukraine, especially, taking into account the safety situation. To continue supporting the country on its way to reforms. This is a highly important issue, Poroshenko stated during the meeting with the ambassadors of the G7. In addition, the President of Ukraine thanked them for the great support of Ukraine during the last five years and called on to strengthen the support of Ukraine concerning the renewal of its sovereignty and the territorial integrity. As we reported earlier, there is a great chance that the sanctions against Russia will be extended. Incumbent President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated this in Brussels. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the law No. 5670-d on the provision of functioning of the Ukrainian language as state one. Earlier, Verkhovna Rada Spokesperson Andriy Parubiy signed the document. 112 Ukraine broadcasted the signing. Before signing Poroshenko noted that, the law does not split but unites the Ukrainian nation. President thanked all the people who supported this law. Spokesperson Parubiy noted that soon the document would be published in an official parliamentary outlet. Earlier, Verkhovna Rada unblocked signing of the law No. 5670-d on the provision of the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a state language. On May 10, the District Administrative Court of Kyiv received a lawsuit from the "Institute of Legal Policy and Social Protection named after Iryna Berezhna," in which they are asked to ban Andriy Parubiy from signing the law on language. Parubiy himself considers it an attempt of the pro-Russian revenge. The prosecution will also ask for the bail in the sum of $380,560 Yury Allerov, the ex-Commander of the National Guard Open source The prosecution intends to ask for the arrest of ex-Commander of the National Guard Yuriy Allerov and establish the alternative bail in the sum of $380,560, as Ukrainian News reported citing its own source. Arrest and $380,560 for Allerov, arrest and $2,6 million for Director of Ukrbud Development Maiboroda, the message said. It is also noted that the motions will be provided to the court soon. Earlier, Yuriy Allerov was detained by the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. He is accused of the case tied with the embezzlement of $5 million during the construction of the houses for the Ukrainian military. On May 14, Allerov and another two detainees, the representatives of Ukrbud, were notified about suspicion. On May 7, Allerov was dismissed from the position of the Commander of the National Guard by the order of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Mykola Balan was appointed as acting commander. Yury Allerov has been heading the National Guard since December 30, 2015, until May 7, 2019. Rally demanding resignation of Lutsenko, Avakov in Kyiv Gordon A fight occurred during the protest action at the building of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine. Five law enforcement officers suffered as a result. This was reported by the press service of the Interior Ministry, reports UNN. The protesters demanded resignation of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. The Interior Ministry noted that there were no clashes, when asked about whether there were clashes involving the protesters under the ministry's building. There was a fight due to the prevention of the offense. Five police officers got hurt over the use of a tear gas, the ministry said. According to the interlocutor, the information on this fact will be entered to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations by Kyiv police. As it was reported earlier, Yuriy Allerov has been relieved of his duty as the Commander of the National Guard of Ukraine. Under the acting legal frameworks, the National Guard Commander is assigned and fired by the President of Ukraine, based on the appeal of the Minister of Internal Affairs. session of Ukraines Cabinet of Ministers Open source Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman announced the imposing of tit-for-tat measures against the Russian Federation as 112 Ukraine reported. Today we will make a decision on imposing of tit-for-tat measures against Russia, Groysman said. The Ukrainian Prime Minister has also reported that the government is going to impose special duties for the Russian goods. It will also include the number of Russian goods banned for the import to Ukraine. There will be goods, which can be replaced or which are fully produced in Ukraine. "We will play the key role at the world markets, which are civilized and perspective for Ukraine," Groysman said. Earlier it was reported that EU would continue observing possibilities to sanction Russia for issuance of Russian passports to the residents of occupied Donbas. Besides, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin noted that personal sanctions against Russia will not be enough to stop issuance of Russian passports to the residents of Donbas. Boryslav Rosenblat asks the court to ban Sytnyk from performing his duties on the post of the Director of National Anti-Corruption Bureau Ukrainian MP Boryslav Rosenblat 112 Agency Ukrainian MP Boryslav Rosenblat asks Kyiv District Administrative Court to ban Artem Sytnyk to discharge the mandate of the director of National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as the press office of the court reported. It was noted that Kyiv District Administrative Court received a lawsuit of Rosenblat against President Poroshenko and NABU Head Sytnyk. The claimant asks the court to define that President of Ukraine does not have the mandate to appoint the Head of National Anti-Corruption Bureau. He also demands to define that Sytnyk does not have the competence to act as NABU Head and recognizing his actions on this post illegal, the message reads. The court examines the materials of the lawsuit and decides on the opening of a proceeding on the administrative case. Thank's for the fish. -- Douglas Adams Come back again sometime. Thank you for visiting. 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But what about small changes? Could it be that all it takes is a positive mental attitude? Melinda Forward spent 27 years in the classroom. She saw that just the acknowledgement that stress exists in students and teachers lives was a relief, so she started hosting a stress-less lunch. Lunch turned into craft time, where students started to make things to share with other students. Forward encouraged students to support each other with random tokens of kindness. Paper, scissors and glitter turned into a basket of hearts sitting on a chair at the end of the hallway. The sign said to take one and to share one. Forward says they werent all over the hallway floors as you would expect. Years later, Forward says many students still know where their hearts are. It was seeing the impact that such small, positive, overt acts had on a school day that prompted Forward to begin the Kindness Club to find a way to add kindness to the school day. Art has been the medium, from posters to murals to chalkboard affirmations. In the schools where it has taken hold, it seems to be working. As tough as the gauntlet of growing up in Albuquerque can be, maybe a well-placed kind word is one of the only things that does. Downtown Albuquerque gallery OT Circus is hosting a community event for the Kindness Club this Saturday to raise awareness and funds. Weekly Alibi sat down with Melinda Forward to talk about empathy and the role of small, positive things. The following is an edited version of that interview. Weekly Alibi: The first question is not how do you teach empathy, but why do you teach empathy? Melinda Forward: Schools are tough places and lifes a tough place. I think a lot of conflicts happen in schools when people dont take time to think about how people are thinking or feeling. Everyone is a lot more alike than they realize. Why is New Mexico the number one state for student dropout? A lot of students dont think they are ever going to graduate. They dont have models of people that graduated. When they get stuck in struggles and conflicts they just give up. They have models for dropping out, but not for staying in? Exactly. They dont believe in themselves or that they are ever really going to do anything, so why bother? Trauma and families, where kids end up sleeping on sofas when theyre freshmen. The poverty is a biggie. Ive always seen Albuquerque as having some of the kindest people. Is empathy part of our culture? The culture here is all about family. Its all about taking care of one another. Some of the machismo and all of that is about sticking up for yourself. Sticking up for your family. There is a lot of caring that goes into that attitude. In a lot of cases it is about taking care of one another. I see that in the classroom, too. So maybe its not empathy, its positivity? Thats where we go. What I find is that creating a positive environment is really vital in schools. Ive worked in schools that are old, that are rundown, that have graffiti. The kids say we are a ghetto school. They have no pride whatsoever in their school, but a lot of it is about how it looks. The physical environment of it. There is paint chipping over there, but if you put a positive poster over that paint chip, it makes a difference. Thats what we started doing. Simple, practical steps? The smallest things made the biggest difference. One of them is the Take a Smile poster. We created these posters to go all around school. All of my students did it. With me, its a matter of inclusion. Nobody is left out. Everybody participates. Everybody has that opportunity, even if they think they are too cool. If everybodys doing it, the cool kids dont opt in, theyre just it. All of a sudden everybody is creating something. Are they taking posters and putting them over chipped areas of the school? Exactly. They put them in the bathrooms and they put them outside. The kids would pick their places. There was one that was on the door I would go in. It was like, Everythings possible or never give up or this is a great day. Every time I saw that, it made me feel good, which was every time I walked in my building. Its that spark of positivity, in a world where kids are really traumatized, where teachers are traumatized because they are working with traumatized kids, that positivity and reaching out, even indirectly. Having a message to share, putting that on paper, making it all pretty with your art and putting it up somewhere of your choice. For the students, that was really powerful. What is the role of the arts in your process? It is giving students a chance in simple ways to express themselves, to create something they can share with others and that they think will make a difference. Thats it. There is the smile poster, like youd have phone numbers for an apartment, it has smiles all along the bottom. A student created it, its super simple and we just plaster them around school. People take all the little smiles. We are coming up on the end of the school year. What is the best gift to get a teacher who has had a positive influence on your childs life? A thank you note. Really. No phone calls. No emails. A handwritten thank you note explaining why. Runs through 05/18/2019. Named after the wounded Fisher King of Arthurian Legend, A Prairie Fisher King espouses the notion of home as both a site of idealization and a locus for wounding. Drawing from memory, a narrative is woven in the form of photographs and text of the rural Iowa countryside where my family has lived for generations. A Prairie Fisher King is an ongoing body of work reflecting on the nature of familial hardship and generational connection through the lens of place. An undertone of violence embodies the emotional distress accumulated with age as well as a looming threat posed upon the landscape. Initially conceived as a bittersweet love letter to home, A Prairie Fisher King considers the various myths we construct in order to survive in the face of inevitable change. Through the accumulation of intimately described detail a search for reconciliation becomes palpable. I assume the role of reluctant hero and return to seek the damaged king, to seal old wounds and to salve the land. __________________________________________ Chelsea Darter received her MFA at Columbia College Chicago in 2018 and her BFA from The University of Iowa in 2013. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and featured online by Light Leaked, Aint-Bad, and Fraction Magazine. Her personal work explores themes of place attachment, class, familial connection and local mythologies. She lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Eric Williams Photography We hear a lot about the effects of the beef industry on the environment. Growing up, my step-grandfather owned a rather sizeable cattle ranch in Arizona. At the time it was the third-largest beef supplier in the US. The size of his ranch was hard to comprehend, as I grew up in Albuquerque and the scale of his land just couldnt compare to anything Id ever seen out here. All that space dedicated to cows, with enormous herds roaming around freely, required an upkeep that is mind-boggling. Now, think about the amount of water and time and energy used to raise that many cows on a year-to-year basis, and multiply that hundreds of times over for the US alone, and it becomes easy to see how the beef industry damages our planets overall health. I say all this because theres been a race to find better ways to maintain the status quo with less damage to our planet. The biggest push has been finding truly effective vegetarian substitutes for normal meat offerings. With a dramatic shift in the way vegetarian options are created, were seeing more originality and variety in the products available. For example, 15 years ago, most stores had next to nothing for meat alternatives, and what was offered was a pittance of a creation, being a plant-based patty of some kind with little to no seasoning or flavor offered. The industry is finally catching up to meet the needs of the new wave of vegetarians that have risen up in the last decade. With products like Beyond Meat, which essentially builds meat from plants by matching the genetic properties of meat to those found in plants, the industries are taking an innovative approach to the process of creating vegetarian offerings. The rise of vegetarian offerings has a particular effect on New Mexico, where we have one of the largest beef industries in the country. With a lot of land and not enough people to occupy it all, weve found great success in the livestock industry, with current population estimates showing we have a ratio of 0.62 cows to every person currently in the state. With current estimates for the US showing were at roughly 7 percent of the total population being some form of vegetarian, that industry isnt in any danger of fading away. But the question is, how long will that remain the case? A rise in global activism with climate change at the forefront of issues concerning younger generations could spell a shift in cultural needs and wants. As more and more people take personal accountability into consideration, they become part of a change to the system, and we could see that number continue to rise. In the past decade alone, the number of vegetarians nearly doubled in the US. It wouldnt be all that shocking to see that happen again, even faster this time. Even now, were seeing places like Del Taco and Burger King making a shift in their menus to accommodate the new wave of vegetarian interest. We have so many places here, like Annapurna and An Hy Quan, that have extensive menus offering vegetarian and vegan options. These places have become local staples and have managed to penetrate into the markets of people who arent normally vegetarian but want to make an attempt at healthier eating. The outlook for vegetarians has never been better in terms of choice, as options continue to expand and grow. Look at local places that have been ahead of the curve, including B2B Bistronomy, a burger and brews joint. Currently their menu has seven separate styles of vegetarian burger, and theyre all quite extraordinary. Not content to just throw together a single-style patty with a few bleak ingredient offerings, theyve managed to create truly gourmet designs of vegetarian burgers that will leave most peopleaccustomed to only a few choicesreeling as they decide. Whether its a black bean burger with sundried tomato or the edamame cashew with wasabi and pesto mayo, these arent your typical vegetarian choices. All this is to say that things have grown and changed over the past few decades. Burger Week is next issue, and were featuring multiple vegetarian options. This is a huge step forward and shows hope for future change. Keep your eyes peeled for next issue and keep an eye out for vegetarian burgers. I left surprised at the level of quality on these, and you could, too. An open mind and an empty stomach could be all you need to change your opinion on vegetarian food. South Africa: Government at work to address economic growth President Cyril Ramaphosa has assured potential investors that South Africa is pulling out all the stops to ensure that the country comes out of the economic slump and moves into top gear as far as the economy is concerned. We want to move out of the low growth levels we have been in and move into top gear, said the President on Wednesday. The President made these remarks at the Goldman Sachs investor conference held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Westcliffe, Johannesburg. Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals. The conference brought together chief executive officers, chief information officers, chief financial officers and chairpersons of leading companies and financial institutions across all industry sectors from South Africa and other parts of the continent. The engagement forms part of President Ramaphosas ambitious investment drive aimed at raising $100 billion in local and international investments over a five year period. The Goldman Sachs conference comes just days after the 2019 general elections and takes place ahead of the second investment conference which is scheduled for later in 2019 as announced by President Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in February. In an interactive session facilitated by Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Colin Coleman, President Ramaphosa engaged on topics such as economic growth, challenges at the power utility - Eskom, youth unemployment and the land issue. Challenges at Eskom On the challenges at Eskom, the President highlighted management issues, a bloated staff and billions in debt as some of the challenges that need to be addressed. We have to work out a credible business plan to get Eskom out of the mess that it is in. We are not going to allow Eskom to fail because when Eskom fails the economy fails and the country fails. We have got to restructure Eskom. It is a valued national asset and we are not privatising Eskom, we are restructuring it. The elephant in the room is always going to be the debt, he said. Unemployment rate a concern With the increase in the unemployment rate as released by Statistics South Africa on Thursday, the countrys unemployment rate now sits at 27.6%. President Ramaphosa said this was a cause for concern particularly amongst the youth. He called on corporate South Africa to embrace young people, offer mentorship opportunities and make training more skills-focused. Land reform On the land issue, President Ramaphosa assured investors that the land debate will be managed according to the South African Constitution. We will not allow land grabs. We will ensure that the process of land reform takes place orderly, with the revamping of the Expropriation Act, said the President. President Ramaphosa told potential investors that plans to address these challenges will be addressed at the next SONA. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Check concentrate feeder accuracy WITH the cost of dairy cow concentrates rising farmers have been urged to check the accuracy of their feeders to ensure they are not overfeeding, or indeed underfeeding, their livestock. During his speech, the diplomat talked about the bilateral relations between Peru and Japan, as well as the Inca country's progress and challenges in the economic-commercial, political, social, and tourist domains within the regional and global frameworks. Afterwards, Ambassador Forsyth held a meeting with University of Foreign Studies Founder Yoshikazu Morita , who addressed the possibility of cooperation agreements between this educational institution and Peruvian ones. Forsyth also held a meeting with Kyoto Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa , who underlined his administration seeks harmonious tourism development in the city, as there are 18 universities with approximately 10,000 students, including foreigners, more specifically, 12 Peruvian students. Moreover, they addressed the initiative " League of Historical Cities ," which has so far 117 city members from 65 countries, including Kyoto and Cusco (Peru) . Its goal is to connect cities offering significant historical and cultural heritage. According to the Prosecutor, a collaborator stated Castro had said that "if he did not get paid, he would have the means and sources to get them to pay." In this sense, Zuloaga has requested 36-month preventive detention for Castro, who supported Villaran in the criminal network that sought to keep her in power. Likewise, the Prosecutor pointed out OAS delivered US$4 million at the request of Castro for Villaran's reelection campaign, as well as US$3 million for her anti-recall campaign in exchange for being favored in the awarding of Yellow Line Project. Pressure on witnesses The Prosecutor also accused Castro of influencing on other people under investigation so they would change their testimonies or provide false information to the Lava Jato Case Special Prosecution Group in order to hinder the probe. Furthermore, Castro had complained to Oscar Vidaurreta of Ojilvi company for having involved him in the anti-recall campaign in a statement to the Prosecutor's Office, as no one had mentioned his name. The Prosecutor informed Judge Jorge Chavez that the payments requested by Castro to Odebrecht (US$3 million) and OAS (US$7 million) were linked to the projects Yellow Line and Lima Routes. Moreover, Zuloaga pointed out Castro's close relationship with Villaran could have made easier his involvement in these illegal actions. (END) FHG/CCR/DTK/MVB Loading... Peruvian Prosecutor Angela Zuloaga on Wednesday affirmed former Municipal Manager Jose Miguel Castro had pressured and threatened OAS company in order to obtain the illegal contributions destined for ex-Lima Mayor Susana Villaran's unsuccessful reelection campaign in 2014.Publicado: 15/5/2019 Nuevo acuerdo comercial! ????El ministro #EdgarVasquez suscribira hoy el Acuerdo Comercial entre Peru y el Reino Unido, que permitira mantener las preferencias alcanzadas con dicho pais y garantizar que siga cumpliendo con las obligaciones en favor de los exportadores peruanos. pic.twitter.com/KglxWGUps1 " " Oak processionary moth larvae (Thaumetopoea processionea). The caterpillars have recently been found as far north as London, though their typical habitat is central and southern Europe. De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images "Attack of the Toxic Caterpillars!" could be the title of a B movie, but for Londoners, this storyline is playing out in real life. Oak processionary moth caterpillars (Thaumetopoea processionea) have been discovered in parts of London for the first time and British forestry officials are warning people that the invasion could have deadly consequences. The moth has a white body with a wide, dark stripe along the top, and 62,000 toxic white hairs that can be released as a defense mechanism. These hairs contain thaumetopoein, a protein that can trigger allergic reactions ranging from skin or eye irritation to difficulty breathing or anaphylaxis a life-threatening reaction to an allergen. Advertisement Even if people don't come in direct contact with the caterpillar, these defensive hairs can be picked up by the wind and cause people who are allergic to become symptomatic. "At best, you can get contact dermatitis. At worst, you can die," Jason J. Dombroskie, manager of the Cornell University Insect Collection and coordinator of the Insect Diagnostic Lab in Ithaca, N.Y., told The New York Times. No deaths in the U.K. have been reported, and the caterpillar has not yet been found in the U.S., where it is on a watch list of invasive insects. The caterpillars hatch in large numbers and live primarily on oak trees, where they feed on the leaves and have been known to strip trees bare. The species invaded Britain in 2005, presumably on live oak plants imported from southern Europe where the caterpillars are kept in check by insect predators, but this is the first time they have been spotted in London. Advertisement Advertisement Now That's Interesting The oak processionary moth is native to central and southern Europe, but its range is expanding northward, most likely in response to climate change. Upstairs Downstairs Better booze at Lo Fi and Nightcap by Lee Lawrence From the May, 2019 issue My husband and I met thirty-two years ago on the dance floor of the Blind Pig--a story whose full details we'd be unlikely to confess to any grandchildren we might've had, but a damn fun night. We still have fun on a dance floor, especially when liquor softens life's hard edges, music puts the thump in our feet, and the room's energy draws even the wallflowers into its grip. Recently we discovered vintage Blind Pig atmosphere at Lo-Fi, the new underground bar beneath Main St.'s Nightcap, complemented by the contemporary take on drinking better booze. The first weekend we visited, local musician Dave Menzo headed a pickup band before a mixed crowd. The place wasn't full--it was early--but there were enough folks to build enthusiasm and energy for a few spins across the dance floor. For lubrication, Lo-Fi focuses on a handful of classic house cocktails and beers. Suspecting the daiquiris might be frozen and frothy, I asked the bartender how they were made. "No, no," she assured me. "They're rum and lime and sugar syrup served in a coupe, the original formula." Mine was tart and lovely and alcoholic enough to make its point without hammering. My husband asked for a Founders Porter, and we turned our attention to the band. Sadly for us, it was an early night for them; the live music gave way around ten to DJ duo Tadd and Nayiri Mullinix, who started off with a couple of space-age numbers that left the early crowd wide-eyed and staring. The tide soon turned, though, with students, streaming down the stairs like gushing water, filling the room's empty corners and taking to the dance floor in gender-segregated, pogoing groups. It was clearly time for us to climb the stairs to Nightcap. We left a bar to enter a lounge. With an entrance notched back from the sidewalk and subtly signed, Nightcap can be hard to spot from the street. But as the night wears ...continued below... on, the traffic in and out of the door becomes noticeable, and the concierge, polished fine in a tailored suit and pocket square, comes to escort guests to an open seat at the bar or scattered tables, or maybe along an intimate plush banquette or a stand-up rail.Even busy, the atmosphere isn't rushed or frenetic. Here, the crafting of cocktails is given due consideration. That night, though, not wanting to suddenly change course, I ordered another daiquiri, noting that Nightcap's elegant setting added a dollar to the cost. My husband, who also decided to stick with what worked, found a greater selection of interesting beers. Served our drinks, we sat back in our seats, enfolded in the lounge's welcoming embrace.---Another evening took better advantage of Nightcap's strengths. When we arrived at 5:45, the friends we were meeting were already there--and no one else save a bartender and a server. Our companions were drinking a ginger beer and a virgin colada--a nonalcoholic but nicely balanced, not-too-sweet version of the tropical mainstay, they reported. Tax preparation called away the prudent ginger-beer chum, but the rest of us were ready for cocktail hour.We'd noticed that cocktails came bottled and on tap, as well as freshly made by the bartender, and we asked the server about the differences. Some of the more popular drinks, he explained, can be individually bottled ahead, finished before capping with a squirt of nitrogen for preservation. The mix is also diluted with about 20 percent water to mimic the melting of ice cubes in a cocktail shaker or in stirring; the water dilution is the often-forgotten part of many cocktail recipes. Other popular drinks are mixed in even larger batches and are available on tap. Nightcap offers some of these tap cocktails as shots, and we enjoyed sharing a tiny "Old Fashioned" (muddled sugar and bitters with whiskey).My friend and I are both fans of the Italian negroni--traditionally, equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth--bitter yet sweet and alcoholically hefty. Nightcap offers it freshly made or bottled, and we wondered if we'd taste a difference. "Well," our server said, "the bartender version is likely to be more intense," and indeed it was, though the reason--less dilution, the vagaries of the particular bartender, the mellowing that might happen in a capped bottle--no one could definitively declare. What we could declare without hesitation is that we appreciated both examples of the traditional recipe over the ashy, smoky mescal version we also tried--and which the server graciously whisked away without charge.---"Wanna nightcap?" I asked my friend after dinner later that evening. So we returned to the lounge, where the smartly dressed doorman escorted us back to a banquette seat. Dressed in headband and camouflage, with a heavy beard and unkempt hair, managing partner Andy Garris, looking more like a habitue of the old Blind Pig than this swanky club, led the bartending trio that kept the crowd well watered. We finished the evening with a Tap 75, a variation on a French 75 champagne cocktail splashed from the tap--light, slightly sweet, but refreshing, and, of course, sparkling and celebratory--a toast to a couple of fine new adornments to Ann Arbor's evening scene.Wed.-Mon. 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Closed Tues.Wheelchair accessibleWed.-Mon. 7 p.m.-2 a.m.Closed Tues. [Originally published in May, 2019.] BEIJING, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan met with Prime Minister of China Li Keqiang on the sidelines of his working visit in Beijing, Armenpress correspondent reports from the scene. From the Armenian side the meeting was attended by minister of transport, communication and information technologies Hakob Arshakyan, Armenian Ambassador to China Sergey Manasaryan, PMs chief advisor Arsen Gasparyan, PMs assistant Hrachya Tashchyan and PMs spokesperson Vladimir Karapetyan. The Armenian PM thanked for the warm welcome and stated that the meeting is a good opportunity to discuss cooperation issues and future programs. I am very happy for this meeting. The Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations is very important for us. It is a very important initiative. The opening ceremony of the Conference took place which was very impressive. This Conference is a good opportunity to discuss the future cooperation issues. I am very happy for this opportunity and the meeting with you. Armenia and China have common interests. I think this visit will contribute to working over the projects where the interests of Armenia and China are presented, Nikol Pashinyan said. Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan arrived in China on a working visit to participate in the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. The projects on building a new subway station and ropeway in Yerevan are in process. Talks are underway with the construction companies, Chief Architect of Yerevan Artur Meschyan told reporters today. He expressed hope that the designing works of the new subway station in the Ajapnyak district will be completed by January and the construction works will launch in early 2020. In general, metro is quite a complex system with its technology, and we are working with different specialists to clarify all nuances that are linked with this project, he said. Commenting on the construction of the ropeway from Nor Nork to downtown, the Chief Architect of the city said it will facilitate the transportation collapse. I think this project will solve many problems, he said, adding that currently they are dealing more with diplomacy, than architecture. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan met with Prime Minister of China Li Keqiang on the sidelines of his working visit in Beijing, the Armenian PMs Office told Armenpress. The Chinese PM welcomed Pashinyans visit and expressed confidence that it will contribute to the further development and strengthening of the Armenian-Chinese relations. We can closely cooperate in different areas, given the commonalities of our two countries. A firm political base exists for that, Li Keqiang said. In his turn the Armenian PM thanked for the warm welcome and stated: I am very happy for this meeting. The Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations is very important for us. It is a very important initiative. The opening ceremony of the Conference took place which was very impressive. This Conference is a good opportunity to discuss the future cooperation issues. I am very happy for this opportunity and the meeting with you. Armenia and China have common interests. I think this visit will contribute to working over the projects where the interests of Armenia and China are presented. Pashinyan attached importance to the cooperation in the fields of industry, transportation and IT. The Chinese PM also highlighted the further development of bilateral economic ties, stating that the approaches of the Chinese side are in accordance with the sectoral priorities mentioned by the Armenian PM. The officials also discussed issues on expanding and deepening the partnership in trade turnover, industry, transportation, IT and agriculture sectors. They also discussed the cooperation in the construction project of North-South highway and other infrastructure projects. The Chinese PM said China is ready to be engaged in these projects. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. The Republic of Armenia is principally in favor of Artsakh being included as a party in the NK conflict settlement negotiations, Armenias Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan told reporters in Brussels in response to Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov, who earlier said that Azerbaijan is principally against Stepanakerts return to the negotiations table. And we are principally in favor, Mnatsakanyan said. I say again, we have numerously touched upon this issue, this is a strongly practical issue, because if Artsakh is not allowed to be the owner of this process, the efficiency of this process is seriously damaged. Our approach is very practical, very reasonable, he said. The Armenian FM also said that he has talked with Mammadyarov during the Eastern Partnership 10th anniversary event. He said similar short conversations are of ordinary nature. Speaking about an upcoming official meeting with Mammadyarov, Mnatsakanyan said the possible location for the meeting is Washington D.C., but he noted that it would be wrong to make a statement on behalf of the hosting side. Let us be patient a bit more. As you know we are waiting for certain clarifications for the next stage, the meeting, and the hosting side must say how it is possible, when it is convenient, in order for us also to be able to assess these timeframes, i.e. to agree. Principally we dont have any problems. It is expected that the location of the next meeting is Washington. But it would be wrong to say anything. I say again, getting ahead of the hosting side is not appropriate, I suppose, he said. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. A 55-year-old local of the Geghanist village of Ararat Province is under arrest after police found multiple weapons and explosives stored in the suspects home. Police said they acted upon intelligence reports and searched the suspects home on May 14th. Officers confiscated an AK assault rifle, different types of single barrel shotguns, three hand grenades, 800 grams of explosive materials, more than 90 various-caliber ammunition, full magazines and other weaponry. The guns were sent for ballistic expertise. Police said the AK rifle had the serial number covered in paint. An investigation is underway. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. The visit of the delegation of the Parliament of Artsakh to Armenia has kicked off, the Artsakh Parliament told Armenpress. During the visit Speaker of Parliament of Artsakh Ashot Ghulyan held a private meeting with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan welcomed the delegations visit and highlighted the need to hold a session of the Armenia-Artsakh inter-parliamentary cooperation commission in Yerevan. The activity of the commission is specifically important in the whole context of relations between the Armenian republics, Mirzoyan said. The Speaker of Parliament of Artsakh thanked for the warm welcome and reaffirmed the unique role of the parliamentary relations within the frames of the Armenia-Artsakh ties, the vivid evidence of this are the recent visits of Armenias parliamentary forces to Artsakh. Each mutual visit intensifies both the practical and friendly relations and serves a base for finding effective solutions to the issues of pan-Armenian agenda. All preconditions exist for raising the relations with the Parliament of Armenia to a qualitatively new level, and I am confident that we will ensure this with a joint potential, through directing the existing resources to a constructive direction and upgrading the tools of the parliamentary diplomacy, Ashot Ghulyan said. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has congratulated the Armenian people on the occasion of International Day Of Families, which is celebrated today, on May 15th. Dear countrymen, I congratulate us all on Family Day. I wish health, happiness and welfare to your families. We love you all, we are proud of you all and we bow before you all, Pashinyan wrote on Facebook. Pashinyan also posted a selfie with his wife and children. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Anna Hakobyan, spouse of Armenias Prime Minister, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of My Step and City of Smile charity foundations, on May 15 visited the Beijing Cancer Hospital (Peking University Cancer Hospital) on the sidelines of the visit in China, her Office told Armenpress. Mrs. Hakobyan introduced the City of Smile foundations activity and programs. 100 cases of childrens cancer are registered in Armenia annually. The City of Smile foundation covers the treatment and nutrition costs of the patients. But we have greater programs. Our goal is to create a regional center for fighting cancer in Armenia, the Armenian PMs spouse said. Armenia is a friendly country and has centuries-old historical relations with China, and we are confident that we can closely cooperate in the fight against cancer, General Secretary of the China Anti-Cancer Association Ying Wang said. During the meeting the sides discussed the future cooperation directions and opportunities. Beijing Cancer Hospital is one of the famous large special hospitals in the field of cancer research and treatment in China. The hospital advocates the cooperation of multiple disciplines, integrate medical sources of all departments, and has established different cooperation groups for mono-disease including breast cancer, gastric cancer, lymphoma, and liver cancer, providing normalized and individualized combined treatment for the patients. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian political scientist Narek Minasyan has labeled Azerbaijans veto on the joint declaration of the Eastern Partnerships 10th anniversary as destructive. Each of the Eastern Partnership countries has its own priorities in the relations with the European Union. The EU tried to formulate these priorities with leaders of the Eastern partnership member states within the framework of a joint declaration. Unfortunately the adoption of the joint declaration failed. Once again Azerbaijan proceeded as a destructive party in this case. If other countries, Ukraine, Georgia, had certain reservations regarding various terms, at least they werent opposing its signing, but Azerbaijan attempted to insist for the declaration to include terms protecting territorial integrity, meaning force the EU and the Eastern Partnership countries to agree with terms which were only in Azerbaijans interest, Minasyan said. Minasyan emphasized this latest development to be a proof that Azerbaijan is even trying to use Eastern Partnership to advance its own interests. Instead of the adoption of the joint declaration, the text was signed by EU Commissioner Federica Moghernini, thus leaving the document at a level of statement. Armenian FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan participated in the event in Brussels. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Members of Parliament of Armenia and Artsakh further intensify the cooperation and the discussions over the Artsakh conflict in the context of the parliamentary diplomacy. Speakers of Parliaments of Armenia and Artsakh Ararat Mirzoyan and Ashot Ghulyan on May 15 summed up the results of the first session of the Armenia-Artsakh inter-parliamentary cooperation commission at a meeting with reporters in Yerevan. We have specifically selected the agenda issue, the topic of intensifying the parliamentary diplomacy and the discussions of the Karabakh conflict in the context of parliamentary diplomacy, as well as todays situation. And the lawmakers of the two parliaments had a chance to present their views. I consider this very useful because we have started a new process with the Parliament of Armenia, this is the new beginning of the great path, Speaker of Parliament of Artsakh Ashot Ghulyan said. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan assessed the discussions as very interesting. He considered the topic of discussion of special importance. Now our parliamentarians have a more concrete vision on what they must put an emphasis during various international bilateral and multilateral contacts. I think these discussions must continue, he said. During the session the lawmakers have also outlined the issues of future discussions. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Defense of Armenia Davit Tonoyan held a meeting on May 15th with a delegation of the Defense and Security Committee of the Federation Council (lower house) of the Russian Parliament. The delegation was led by Deputy Chair of the committee Sergei Arenin. During the meeting the high level of the Armenian-Russian inter-parliamentary ties was emphasized, the defense ministry said in a news release. A broad circle of directions of bilateral cooperation was discussed and ideas were exchanged about international and regional security affairs. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Ukraine imposed new economic sanctions against Russia on May 15, banning supplies of certain groups of goods and introducing special duties, Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman said during a cabinet meeting, TASS reported. Those are tit-for-tat measures - embargo and special duties on Russian goods, he said, adding that the restrictions will be applied to those goods that are fully produced in Ukraine or may be replaced with alternative supplies. According to First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv, the ban concerns certain types of industrial goods, mineral fertilizers, agriculture products, transport vehicles, plywood and others. STEPANAKERT, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. On May 13 the France-Artsakh Friendship Circle issued a statement on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Agreement on the full cessation of fire and hostilities, the foreign ministry of Artsakh told Armenpress. The document, in particular, notes that after the war, which lasted 4 years and claimed 30,000 lives, the peace in the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict zone, though fragile, became the main achievement gained thanks to the Ceasefire Agreement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Artsakh on May 12, 1994. The statement also underlines that the France-Artsakh Friendship Circle appreciates the ceasefire in the conflict zone that has been lasting for a quarter of a century and calls for the signing of a trilateral Agreement on lasting peace. Peace is always welcomed, and in this context, it is important to note that the Republic of Artsakh, which has been existing for over a quarter of a century in the conditions of conflict with Azerbaijan, is the main guarantor of the right to life of the people of Artsakh. Final peace is not achieved, as the armed confrontation is still underway. However, there is relative peace established thanks to the only trilateral Agreement signed also by Artsakh, said Chairman of the France-Artsakh Friendship Circle Gui Tessier. Touching upon the current tension on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, he noted that the victims on both sides are a tragedy for the families and societies, adding that the tension hinders the development of the region. The positive role of the Ceasefire Agreement convincingly proves that for the achievement of considerable progress in the negotiation process it should involve all the parties to the conflict. Considering this fact, France should contribute to the return of the Republic of Artsakh to the negotiation table for increasing the opportunities for the achievement of progress, stressed the Chairman of the France-Artsakh Friendship Circle. YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. The healthcare ministry of Armenia informs the citizens who are departing for Egypt that they need to follow some rules set by the Egyptian government for taking drugs for personal use with them, the ministry told Armenpress. The entry of drugs, psychotropic drugs and their precursors are strictly banned in Egypt, but for certain medicines permission is required: complete primary packaging is mandatory and the composition of the medicine should be clearly visible. While entering the country each medicine of personal use is checked by the Egyptian customs officers. At the same time, most of the currently used medicines are available in Egypts pharmacies and hospitals. Here is the list of medicines banned in Egypt: Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Jailed ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharyans lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan today asked the presiding judge to ensure conditions for President of Artsakh Bako Sahakyans and former President Arkady Ghukasyans appearance in court in the afternoon of May 17. Sahakyan and Ghukasyan have offered personal guarantees to the Armenian court for the release of Robert Kocharyan from pre-trial detention. The judge said yesterday that the examination of the request requires the presence of Sahakyan and Ghukasyan in court. Judge David Grigoryan said they cant notify them about the obligations of the guarantor over the distance, and both need to be in court. The two also need to reaffirm the petition with their signatures. The judge asked the lawyers to request the Artsakh President and the ex-president to make an appearance in court on May 16th in case of possibility, because May 17th is Friday and is followed by non-working days. Kocharyans defense team said they will clarify if the presidents will be able to attend the hearing. President of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan and former President Arkady Ghukasyan have presented personal guarantees to a Yerevan court requesting the release of ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan from pre-trial detention. The motion was presented to the judge on May 14th by Kocharyans lawyer Hovhannes Khudoyan during the ongoing trial of the March 1 case. Presiding judge David Grigoryan said the examination of the guarantees requires Sahakyans and Ghukasyans presence in court. Kocharyan also served as President of Artsakh from 1994 to 1997. Artsakhs President Bako Sahakyan and former President Arkady Ghukasyan had earlier petitioned to the Prosecutor General of Armenia requesting Kocharyans release from jail, but the prosecution said the request is misaddressed since the case is already in court. The March 1 case refers to the 2008 post-presidential election unrest in Yerevan when eight protesters and two security officers were killed in clashes during large demonstrations against alleged vote rigging. Kocharyan was the outgoing president at that time. He is accused of unlawfully ordering the military to interfere and disperse the protests. Robert Kocharyan is charged with overthrowing Constitutional order and accepting particularly large bribe. Other indicted officials are: ex-Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan (overthrowing Constitutional order). In 2008 Ohanyan served as Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces; Yuri Khachaturov (overthrowing Constitutional order). In 2008, Khachaturov was the Deputy Minister of Defense; Armen Gevorgyan (conspiracy to overthrow Constitutional order, accepting particularly large bribe and money laundering). Gevorgyan served as Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration. Gevorgyans most recent government position was Deputy Prime Minister. Yuri Khachaturov is an Armenian general who served as Secretary General of the CSTO until being recalled by Armenia for criminal proceedings in 2018. They all deny wrongdoing. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. The United States has a firm commitment to support Armenias democratic reforms agenda and economic developments, US Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy told reporters. Since 1992 the United States has provided financial aid worth nearly 2 billion USD to Armenia aimed at supporting the countrys independence and sovereignty. We will continue investing in Armenia, and the agreements, which were signed in the context of the Armenian-American dialogue, also prove this, the Ambassador said. Mrs. Tracy said the United States continues examining and considering sectors in Armenia where their support could be felt. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, 15 MAY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 15 May, USD exchange rate is down by 0.33 drams to 480.52 drams. EUR exchange rate is down by 2.05 drams to 538.23 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is up by 0.05 drams to 7.41 drams. GBP exchange rate is down by 2.44 drams to 619.97 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price is up by 29.51 drams to 20059.08 drams. Silver price is up by 1.31 drams to 227.95 drams. Platinum price is down by 55.47 drams to 13239.86 drams. YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy who has been in Aremenia for already 2.5 months is impressed by Armenia and the Armenian youth, ARMENPRESS reports the Ambassador said in her speech at the Armenian-American commerce chamber. I had mentioned previously that there is interest and motivation in the Armenian public to continue with the changes and this aspiration still exists. During my short stay in Armenia I managed to understand that people here are ready to make efforts for improving their future. They already know that changes take place starting from themselves. The materialization of the democratic achievements of last year now depends on the people of Armenia, she said. The Ambassador assured that the USA will support Armenia in developing the economy and democracy. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and his wife Anna Hakobyan attended the gala concert of Conference on Asian Civilization Dialogue at Beijing National Olympic Stadium. President of China Xi Jinping, Presidents of Singapore, Greece and Sri Lanka, and the King of Cambodia were also present. Xi Jinping delivered opening remarks and warmly greeted the present. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the representatives of some dozens of countries performed during the gala concert, presenting their national cultures. Armenia state dance ensemble Barekamutyun (Friendship) also performed during the gala concert. The number of the participants of Conference on Asian Civilization Dialogue is over 2 thousand from 47 countries. The goal of the conference is strengthening the links between Asian countries. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. EU4Digital, a new initiative funded by the European Union to support the digital economy and society, held an event to present the programme in Yerevan on 15 May 2019, with the support of the Delegation of European Union to Armenia and the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of the Republic of Armenia, ARMENPRESS was informed from the office of EU4Digital. The aim of the event was to present the EU4Digital as a flagship initiative channelling a broad range of actions in support of EU policy objectives in the digital area. The event also took stock of the situation and progress made in the digital sector in Armenia and looked ahead to upcoming actions. The session was addressed by the Deputy Head of Cooperation Section of the Delegation of European Union to Armenia, Gregory Tsouris, and the Adviser to the Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of the Republic of Armenia Gayane Hakobyan. "The EU had long history of cooperation with Armenia in the field of e-gov/digitisation (Mulberry paperless ministry, e-civil registry, Online business registry, etc.), said Gregory Tsouris from the EU Delegation. We also implement a new ambitious project that aims to establish a governmental interoperability platform, enabling a simplified and standardised secure connectivity between all organisations of the public administration of Armenia, and also introducing also a One Stop Shop solution for the border crossing points. The new EU4Digital regional project, recently launched by the EU Commissioner Andrus Ancip during his visit to Armenia, aims to strengthen EU-Armenia cooperation further, building on previous results and concentrating on Telecom Rules, Trust and Security, e-Trade, ICT Innovation, e-Health, and e-Skills. We are sure that the outcomes of this project will result in improved online services at better prices and with greater choice, attracting investments, boosting trade and employment, as well as strengthening cooperation with EU member states and within the Eastern Partnership, Gregory Tsouris added. In her opening remarks, Gayane Serobyan from the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies presented the structural changes in the government that will lead to the creation of the new Ministry of High Technology Industry, which is particularly important in context of coordination of achieved, ongoing, and planned initiatives and for the increased effectiveness of the digital sector. She stressed that one of the target objectives of the ministry would be the development, implementation and result monitoring of the digital conversion agenda of the countryacross the following priority areas: development of e-governance; development of digital society; development of digital economy; development of high-speed broadband and data infrastructures. Gayane Serobyan said that in all these areas the issue of cyber security is vital. The opening remarks were followed by a full presentation of the initiative, and a panel discussion on how EU4Digital complementsother digital initiatives in Armenia and the wider region. EU4Digital: supporting digital economy and society in the Eastern Partnership is a regional programme for the Eastern Partnership region. It began in January 2019 and will run until December 2021. EU4Digital aims to extend the benefits of the European Union's Digital Single Market to the Eastern Partner states, channelling EU support to develop the potential of the digital economy and society, in order to bring economic growth, generate more jobs, improve peoples lives and help businesses. Through EU4Digital, the EU supports Eastern Partnership countries on reducing roaming tariffs, developing high-speed broadband to boost economies and expand e-services, harmonising digital frameworks across society, in areas ranging from logistics to health, building cyber security and developing digital skills. On 6 May, a day before parliament was scheduled to resume sitting, the opposition coalition who declared themselves the alternative government announced Marape as their prime ministerial candidate. The vote must nominate an alternative prime minister, who will assume office if the vote is passed by a simple parliamentary majority. His resignation triggered mass defections from ONeills ruling coalition in the following weeks, culminating in the oppositions plans for tabling a no-confidence vote. SINGAPORE - The latest developments in Papua New Guinea began when finance minister James Marape resigned on 11 April and quit the Peoples National Congress on 29 April. Speaker Job Pomat wields significant influence in parliament, and is able to engage in partisan practices as proceedings are non-justiciable ONeill, a seasoned political strategist, disrupted the oppositions plans by obtaining a parliamentary adjournment on 7 May. The constitutional grace period that prevents the tabling of no-confidence votes in parliament expired earlier in February this year. However, following the adjournment, opposition members of parliament can now only table a no-confidence motion once parliament resumes operations on 28 May. The recent defections to the opposition coalition were triggered over a $13 billion liquefied natural gas expansion project with Frances Total SA and US company ExxonMobil. Marape reportedly resigned due to the lack of consultation by ONeill over the agreement, which was signed in early April. The agreement included tax provisions and other economic benefits that are perceived to favour the foreign companies and not benefit local communities enough. However, the planned no-confidence vote was driven largely by underlying frustrations with ONeills administration over poor economic governance and unequal wealth distribution. Opposition parliamentarians had already been planning to remove ONeill since last year; 22 opposition members of parliament signed a memorandum of understanding in November 2018, in collective agreement to vote against ONeill after the end of the grace period. ONeill is no stranger to such leadership challenges. He faced and defeated a no-confidence vote in his previous term, and even managed to gain re-election in 2017 amidst allegations of corruption and poor economic governance. ONeill has once again proven adept in an increasingly unstable political milieu, defeating a vote to remove the parliamentary speaker and obtaining the adjournment on 7 May. The continued support of the parliamentary speaker, Job Pomat, appears to be key in ensuring the continuity of ONeills prime ministerial tenure. An opposition speaker would be able to suspend standing orders and bring about a vote of no-confidence against ONeill. The targeted removal of Pomat who is a member of the ruling PNC party suggests that the opposition had failed to persuade him to defect, and is evidence of his importance. The speaker wields significant influence in parliament, and is able to engage in partisan practices as parliamentary proceedings are non-justiciable; this means that they cannot themselves be a cause of litigation. ONeill overcame the oppositions motion to remove the speaker of Parliament with 59 votes to 50, and obtained the adjournment with a similar margin. His success on both fronts is evidence of his political capital, and is especially telling given the oppositions confidence prior to the parliamentary sitting on 7 May; the opposition coalition had declared the day before that they held the support of the majority of parliamentarians. However, the slim margin suggests that support for the prime minister has sharply declined since his first term; he defeated a no-confidence in July 2016 by a vote of 85 to 21, even after weeks of high-profile student protests and strikes by members of the aviation, maritime and public transportation sectors. No-confidence votes are the norm in Papua New Guineas political system, and the latest developments only serve to highlight the fluid and unstable nature of the political milieu. Politics is generally dominated by personality and patronage allegiances, with shifting allegiances creating a fluid and relatively unstable system. A high proportion of candidates run as independents and then proceed to join a party, resulting in low levels of party loyalty. There are also no restrictions on the movement of members of parliament once they have been elected, and members often change parties more than once over the course of their five-year terms. Attempts in recent years to lengthen the grace period for the prevention of no-confidence votes in an effort to ensure political stability have all been unsuccessful. Parliament will resume sitting at the end of this month, leaving ONeill with just two weeks of horse-trading to save his job. Failure to defeat a no-confidence vote would spell personal disaster for ONeill, and leave him vulnerable to corruption charges brought by the new administration. He notoriously sacked senior government officials and defunded the corruption taskforce that called for his arrest in 2014. The replacement of ONeill also has wider geopolitical consequences; the next federal Australian government may seek the opportunity to counter the growing Chinese influence in the Pacific Islands, starting with Papua New Guinea. China has been steadily increasing investment into the region and, since 2006, has sent at least $632 million in aid to Papua New Guinea alone. The change in personal circumstances is likely to provide adequate motivation for ONeill, but it remains to be seen if his political finesse is sufficient to reverse the oppositions momentum and grant him a chance at finishing out his second term in office. Sebastian Liu, based in Singapore, is a Global Threat Analyst for Asia Pacific with Healix International Risk Management Services, a global risk management group headquartered in the United Kingdom KEITH JACKSON PORT MORESBY The final report of the PNG Ombudsman Commission into allegations of improper borrowing of a $1.239 billion loan from the Union Bank of Switzerland to purchase nearly 150 million shares in Oil Search Limited has been provided to PNG Attitude. In its principal findings the Commission strongly criticises the conduct of prime minister Peter ONeill, his main rival for leadership James Marape and other prominent leaders and concludes that they be investigated under the Leadership Code of the PNG constitution. The Ombudsman Commission states the conduct of ONeill was wrong and improper in a number of serious respects, including that he committed the government to purchase shares without the prior approval of the National Executive Council, he failed to present the loan to parliament for debate and approval and he misled the National Executive Council. An adventurous Australian businessman described as "a great family man" has been killed in the collision of two sightseeing seaplanes in Alaska. Alaska State Troopers confirmed on Tuesday that Simon Bodie, 56, from Tempe in Sydney's inner-west, was one of six people killed in the horror crash. Mr Bodie was believed to have taken the flight as part of a side trip from a cruise he was on along the Alaskan coast. A statement from his family reported by the Nine Network said he had been married for 31 years to Stephanie, who was also on the cruise, and had two children, with his daughter recently engaged. Simon Bodie, 56, from Tempe in Sydney's inner-west, was one of six people killed a seaplane crash in Alaska on Monday. Source: Facebook/ Simon Bodie Mr Bodie was described as a successful businessman and "a great family man" who "wouldn't hurt a fly". The family statement said he was adventurous, loved sailing, was a pilot himself and was very safety conscious. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to the family. The collision occurred when a larger de Havilland Otter DHC-3, carrying 10 passengers and the pilot, was returning from Misty Fjord and collided with a smaller DHC-2 Beaver. A sunken seaplane was seen at the site of the crash with part of the craft visible from above the water. Source: United States Coast Guard "The Australian unfortunately is one of the people confirmed deceased," US Coast Guard Lieutenant Brian Dykens told AAP. The nationalities of the people from both planes are 14 Americans, a Canadian and Mr Brodie. The planes crashed into the icy cold waters off a southeast Alaskan inlet near Ketchikan, a popular destination for cruise ships in Alaska. The Royal Princess, which can carry up to 3,600 people, was among four city-sized cruise ships in the tiny coastal community on the day. A popular activity is flight-seeing in Misty Fjords National Monument to view lakes, snowcapped peaks and glacier valleys in the wilderness area. "We have been in regular contact with the family members throughout our search efforts," US Coast Guard Captain Stephen White said. "This is not the outcome we hoped for and extend our deepest sympathies during this very difficult time." Story continues 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. A series of tweets by Donald Trump playing up the chances of a trade deal with China provided a much-needed boost to Asian equities Wednesday but investors trod cautiously as analysts warned of more volatility to come. After more than doubling tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods last week -- sparking retaliation from Beijing -- the US president has threatened to hit a further $300 billion with more levies if he does not get his way in high-stakes talks. However, in a series of tweets Tuesday, Trump gave markets some hope that a deal between the economic titans will eventually be struck. "When the time is right we will make a deal with China", he wrote, adding that his "respect and friendship with President Xi (Jinping) is unlimited". He went on to say: "We can make a deal with China tomorrow, before their companies start leaving so as not to lose USA business" and said it would be "game over" if the Federal Reserve "matched" Chinese support measures. The remarks, while again accusing China of backsliding in the trade talks, provided some optimism, while weak data out of China on industrial output, retail sales and investment highlighted weakness in the economy but fuelled hopes for growth-boosting measures. Shanghai ended 1.9 percent higher and Hong Kong put on one percent in the afternoon. "This sharp slowdown increases the likelihood that we will probably see further attempts by China to help stimulate its economy, as well as raising concerns that any hopes of a Chinese economic rebound helping to prompt a global pickup in economic activity look a little bit forlorn at this point in time," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK. Tokyo climbed 0.6 percent, Sydney rose 0.7 percent and Seoul added 0.5 percent. Seoul, Taipei, Wellington, Manila and Mumbai were also well in positive territory but Singapore and Jakarta fell. In early trade, London rose 0.3 percent and Paris added 0.1 percent while Frankfurt gained 0.2 percent. - 'Period of volatility' - Both the US and China have said they will resume talks in Beijing but with no date yet set, dealers are looking ahead to a possible meeting between Trump and Xi at the G20 in Japan at the end of June. "It's just too early to tell if this is a buy (on equity markets), on slightly oversold conditions, or if it's the start of stabilisation," Gina Martin Adams, chief equity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Bloomberg TV. "Our working thesis is that we're going to be in for a period of volatility for most of the next month as we await the G20 meeting." And OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley warned that "sentiment remains fragile and subject to the whims of trade headlines on either news tickers or social media accounts". He added that while some gains could be expected "one suspects a lot of money will remain on the sidelines as we await more clarity on the trade situation". Oil prices dipped in Asian trade on Wednesday following a surprising rise in US crude stockpiles but remain propped up by tensions in the Middle East. Major producer Saudi Arabia said Tuesday a pumping facility on the Red Sea had been attacked by armed drones, an act claimed by Yemeni rebels. That came days after sabotage attacks on four ships, including two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, in the United Arab Emirates. "Trade issues will continue to cap gains in Asia, but if anything, the incidents on opposite sides of Saudi Arabia will bring home how vulnerable the flow of oil is from the Middle East," said Halley. - Key figures around 0720 GMT - Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.6 percent at 21,188.56 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: UP 1.0 percent at 28,390.76 Shanghai - Composite: UP 1.9 percent at 2,938.68 (close) London - FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 7,259.85 Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1205 from $1.1208 at 2040 GMT Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2905 from $1.2907 Dollar/yen: UP at 109.68 yen from 109.62 yen Oil - West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 45 cents at $61.33 per barrel Oil - Brent Crude: DOWN 19 cents at $71.05 per barrel New York - Dow: UP 0.8 percent at 25,532.05 (close) Investors are looking ahead to a possible meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the G20 next month The directors of the new Will Smith "Bad Boys" movie are to make another Belgium crime drama after their first caused riots in the country, their producers said Wednesday. Screenings of "Black" by hot Belgian directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah had to be cancelled in Brussels in 2015 when fighting broke out after underage teenagers sneaked into a cinema without tickets. The award-winning movie, a Romeo and Juliet drama about street gangs in Brussels, was based on a children's book, but censors gave it a 16 certificate. Frustrated youngsters began throwing things when they were told to leave the film. El Arbi and Bilall are now to make another film based on the Antwerp underworld called "Gangstas", a follow-up to their 2018 hit "Gangsta", its producer Hendrik Verthe told Screen Daily at the Cannes film festival. The pair are shooting "Bad Boys For Life" in Florida at the moment, the third instalment of the US action comedy franchise starring Will Smith and deals with narcotics cops in Miami. Directors Bilall Fallah (L) and Adil El Arbi, pictured in 2018, plan to make another film based on the Antwerp underworld called "Gangstas" Former Brazil president Michel Temer left prison on Wednesday less than a week after returning to a Sao Paulo penitentiary in relation to a wide-ranging corruption scandal that has engulfed several high profile South American politicians. The 78-year-old left the Military Police Battalion in Sao Paulo at 1.30 pm (1630 GMT) in a heavily guarded convoy as he headed to his home in an upmarket neighborhood in the sprawling city's west. His release was ordered by all four judges on the Superior Court of Justice under the writ of habeas corpus, which demands that a prisoner who claims unlawful detention be brought before a court. However, several conditions were attached, including a freezing of his assets and the seizure of his passport. Temer has been implicated in an investigation into alleged bribes made in 2014 in exchange for work contracts at the Angra 3 nuclear power plant in Rio de Janeiro state. He was first placed in "preventative detention" in Rio de Janeiro in March. That decision was overturned days later by another judge, only for an appeals court to order him back to jail last week. He is suspected of having been at the head of a criminal organization that diverted up to 1.8 billion reais ($460 million) and has been operating for 40 years. Temer is the subject of five lawsuits and an investigation, mostly related to passive corruption and money laundering. He was the second ex-president of the Latin American country to be caught up in a sprawling anti-corruption probe called Operation Car Wash that has claimed scores of political and corporate scalps. Leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was jailed in April 2018 for bribery and money laundering as part of the probe. Temer came to power in August 2016 after Lula's hand-picked successor Dilma Rousseff was impeached for alleged financial wrongdoing in office. He was succeeded by far right leader Jair Bolsonaro on January 1. Former Brazil president Michel Temer spent less than a week in jail having previously been kept behind bars for four days in March A father claims his young daughter discovered a used syringe underneath a toy at a Big W store in the NSW Hunter region. Tim McDonald took to Facebook on Tuesday to reveal his outrage over his daughters find at the Cessnock store, 50km west of Newcastle. [The] first toy she picks up had a junkies (sic) syringe under it, he claimed. Absolutely disgusting that people use needles but to put them underneath childrens toys what a joke. His post was inundated with hundreds of comments, with many users in mutual shock over the images. This is a disgrace. Its at a kids (sic) height too, one person wrote. The NSW father claims the syringe was positioned under a toy his daughter picked up. Source: Facebook/ Tim McDonald People shouldnt leave them around thats totally not safe, another said. Thats absolutely appalling, one person proclaimed. Some noted the syringe may have been used for medical purposes instead of for illicit drugs. But many could not excuse its alleged placement. Yes this is careless and pathetic. But I need to put it out there that junkies aren't the only ones who use syringes, one person said. My partner is a diabetic and uses them and constantly gets discriminated against. A Big W spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia staff members dealt with the discovery of the syringe swiftly. The syringe beside a toy in the Big W store. Source: Facebook/ Tim McDonald We take the safety of the families that shop with us very seriously and are relieved to confirm there were no customer injuries at BIG W Cessnock, the spokesperson said. As part of our usual store operations, our teams refresh our stores frequently throughout the day to ensure stock is well presented. In the rare event our teams find a safety hazard in the store, they will act quickly and in line with our safety protocols to remove it. At BIG W Cessnock yesterday, our store team immediately attended to the customer and ensured the whole store was carefully inspected to prevent any further incidents. The matter has since been referred to police for investigation. Deliberately leaving a used syringe in a public place is a criminal offence in NSW and can incur a fine of up to $3300. Story continues NSW legislation states syringes must be disposed of in the appropriate sharps containers provided after use. Community sharps bins can be found at hospitals, some public toilets and some pharmacies. Last week, a mother in Carins discovered a used syringe at a popular swimming spot. 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. Peopled by sometimes-awkward geeks making physics references, "The Big Bang Theory," whose finale episode airs Thursday, seemed destined at first to appeal to a niche audience. But as the show reaches its conclusion, it has become one of the most-watched series in the world. Focused on whether characters Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah-Fowler will win the Nobel prize, the show is going out on top as it wraps up its 12th and final season. The show, which airs on US network CBS, has carved its place at the top of American television, with more than 12 million live viewers for much of the most-recent season (17 million when including delayed watchers) -- similar levels to "Game of Thrones." According to research firm Parrot, "Big Bang" was one of the five most popular shows in the world last year, a streak CBS would have been happy to continue -- were it not for Sheldon actor Jim Parsons having announced he would leave the show after the 12th season. For producer and writer Stephen Engel, who worked on it at the beginning of its run, "Big Bang" owes much of its success to the annoying-but-loveable character. "It was a serendipitous blending of a character and an actor that was just magic," he told AFP. Depicting a brilliant scientist who is socially clueless, Sheldon's portrayal was "just a perfect marriage of point of view, jokes, voice and actor that made that character jump off the screen," Engel said. - Rise of geek culture - But Sheldon's charm alone can't explain how a series that wasn't critically acclaimed or even breaking into the top 50 most-popular at the end of its first season went on to run longer than American sitcom classics like "Friends," "The Cosby Show" and "Seinfeld." According to conventional wisdom, it was "The Big Bang Theory"'s depiction of characters like Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj as proud geeks -- obsessed with TV series, video games and obscure sub-genre interests -- that allowed for its longevity. Long associated with niche interests, geek, or nerd, culture has made its way into the mainstream, thanks to sagas like "The Lord of the Rings," "Star Wars," "Game of Thrones" and others, meaning there was a growing audience that could feel an affinity with "The Big Bang Theory"'s characters. "There was a tendency in the wake of 'Friends' to just to put as many good looking people in a room as possible and just hope people would look at them and just want to watch the show. 'Big Bang Theory' just decided because they were nerds, we can get the funniest actors we can find," Engel said. "They don't have to be handsome." - The end of the sitcom? - Though "The Big Bang Theory" differs from most shows in its popularity and subject matter, the series still relies on a variety of tried-and-true sitcom conventions: the episodes, shot on multiple cameras, are made up of a series of punchlines interspersed by a laugh track, some of it edited in later (the show is filmed in front of a studio audience). The end of the series, which coincides with the end of ABC's "Modern Family," which will finish with its 11th season next year, marks the end of an era for the genre. Sitcoms on traditional networks, such as "Big Bang" spin-off "Young Sheldon," and "Mom," also the work of "Big Bang" creator Chuck Lorre, just don't bring in the same audience numbers. And Netflix has tried its hand at the format, with "Fuller House" and "One Day at a Time," though neither will be returning after the end of the year. By 2020, the classic sitcom will be absent from nearly every major streaming platform, including Amazon and Hulu. "I've lived in many periods in this business where people have said: the sitcom is dying," said Stan Zimmerman, who worked on "Roseanne" as a producer and writer. "And then it somehow comes roaring back." Coupled with the decline of the traditional sitcom, the fragmentation of audiences means there is concern that universal series, capable of capturing the attention of large swaths of the public, like "The Big Bang Theory" or even "Game of Thrones" was able to do, is gone. "I think it's wonderful that we are being so diverse in the programming and the voices that we are hearing and we just need to have more of that," said Zimmerman, who is working on a show called "Silver Foxes," a comedy centered on aging gay men. But he says he wouldn't count out water-cooler series just yet. "There's still room for a big, general-audience show that everybody could sit and watch and laugh and talk about the next day at work," he said. "There's room for everything now." The cast of "The Big Bang Theory" press their handprints into the cement at the TCL Chinese Theatre Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper on "The Big Bang Theory," is credited with much of the show's huge success "The Big Bang Theory" executive producer Chuck Lorre has created several traditional sitcoms, including "Young Sheldon" and "Mom" Major tech firms on Wednesday pledged to come up with new measures for stamping out violent extremist content on the internet, amid growing pressure from governments pushing for action in the wake of the massacres at two New Zealand mosques in March. Executives from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft met with the leaders of France, New Zealand and other countries in Paris to unveil the "Christchurch Call" of voluntary commitments for online platforms. It was named for the city where a gunman killed 51 people at two New Zealand mosques two months ago while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook via a head-mounted camera. The social networking giant has faced withering criticism since the attack, after the horrific footage was uploaded and shared millions of times despite efforts to remove it. "The call is a roadmap to action," New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. "It commits us all to build a more humane internet which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes," she said. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon later released a nine-point plan for jointly putting the Christchurch pledges in motion, in particular for addressing the threat posed by livestreaming. They promised investments in "digital fingerprinting" to track and remove harmful pictures and videos, and easy-to-use methods for users to report illicit content. "This is leading to real action, and I think real action can play an important role in at least preventing a number of these kinds of attacks," Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith told AFP in Paris. "No one wants to see the internet used as the staging ground for these kinds of terrorist atrocities," he said. Facebook had already promised Wednesday to tighten access to FaceBook Live, in particular by denying the service to users who have shared extremist content. - No US for now - The largely symbolic initiative is intended to keep up the pressure on social media companies, which face growing calls from politicians across the world to prevent their platforms from becoming stages for broadcasting extremist violence. "Our goal is to never again see the internet transformed into a crazy propaganda machine, a goal sought by both terrorists on the far right and Islamic terrorists," Macron said. The leaders of Britain, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia and Norway travelled to Paris as part of the initial backers of the plan. But despite the endorsement from the biggest US tech firms, Washington will not join for now, even though "we continue to support the overall goals reflected," the White House said in a statement. "We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press," it said. Macron appeared to take the refusal in stride, saying "The American administration has expressed its support for our effort, which I already consider progress." The companies said they would cooperate on finding new tools to identify and quickly remove extremist content, such as sharing databases of violent posts or images to ensure they don't spread across multiple platforms. They also said they would explore tweaking their algorithms to prevent violent or hateful content from going viral, while making it easier for users to report harmful posts. But it will be up to companies to develop specific tools or policies. - 'Can't prevent content' - Many countries have already tightened legislation to introduce penalties for companies that fail to take down offensive content once it is flagged, by either users or the authorities. But analysts say the tighter controls pledged Wednesday will go only so far in preventing people from circumventing rules and policies already in place against disseminating violence and hate speech. "You can't prevent content from being uploaded: it would require the resources for tracking everything put online by all internet users," said Marc Rees, editor in chief of the technology site Next INpact. "Can you imagine trying to get TV or radio to prevent libellous, abusive or violent speech that someone might say?" he asked. The "Christchurch Call" meeting ran in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called "Tech for Good" which brought together 80 tech executives to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good. But the US government was represented only at a junior level at a meeting of G7 digital ministers which also took place Wednesday in Paris. burs-adp-js/jj A self-described white supremacist used Facebook Live to stream his rampage at two mosques in Christchurch, which left 51 people dead New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron at the launch ceremony for the "Christchurch Call" initiative for stamping out online extremism in Paris on Wednesday France and New Zealand see their joint initiative to curb extremism online as a global response to a global problem The New Zealand mosque massacre in which a white supremacist slaughtered 51 people is to be turned into a movie called "Hello Brother", its producer told media at Cannes on Wednesday. The feature film, which follows a family of refugees that flees Afghanistan for the safety of Christchurch only to get caught up in the carnage, is being made by Egyptian producer Moez Masoud, he told Variety magazine. "In Christchurch, on March 15, the world witnessed an unspeakable crime against humanity," Masoud told Variety, saying members of his team were currently in New Zealand to meet survivors and families of the victims. "The story that 'Hello Brother' will bring to audiences is just one step in the healing process so that we might all better understand each other, and the root causes of hatred, racism, supremacy and terrorism." The title is based on the welcoming words spoken by an elderly Afghan man as he greeted the gunman at the doors of the Al Noor mosque. He was shot dead, but his words were taken up around the world as a rallying call against hate. News of the production was announced on the second day of the Cannes film festival, just two months after the bloodshed. Reacting to the announcement, the Christchurch-based Muslim Association of Canterbury, which represents Islamic organisations in the region, said it had not been approached about plans to make any such film. "We have not had any proposal such as this presented to us nor have we agreed to it," the organisation wrote on its Facebook page, although one man had visited the mosque on Tuesday with some "vague ideas" about filming something. "We cannot stop such projects going ahead if filmmakers choose to embark on them, but the Muslim Association of Canterbury regards the dignity and privacy of our community and the dignity of those whose lives were taken as paramount," it said. Masoud co-wrote the script and the film is being produced by his Acamedia Pictures. Last year, "Hotel Mumbai" offered a vivid dramatisation of the 2008 siege at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel as part of a string of attacks that killed 160, while "U - 22 July" recounted the deadly 2011 rampage in Norway by a rightwing extremist that left 77 dead. Masoud, who is an influential Islamic scholar, produced the 2016 film "Clash" about the social and political turmoil which brought about the ousting of Egypt's former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The film opened the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes the same year. After the massacre, the welcoming words spoken by an elderly Afghan man to the gunmen as he entered the mosque echoed around the world, with "Hello brother" becoming a rallying call against hatred French officials have reopened an investigation into the 2013 Paris killings of three female Kurdish activists, after their families asked them to look at whether Turkish agents were involved, sources said Wednesday. A Paris anti-terror judge has been appointed to the case following a complaint filed in March 2018 by the victims' families, several sources told AFP. Paris prosecutors have now opened an investigation into alleged complicity with a terror group in the killings, a judicial source said. "It is historic. This marks the end of impunity for political assassinations in France ordered from abroad," Antoine Comte, a lawyer for one of the families, told AFP. Turkish national Omer Guney had been charged with murdering the three but died in hospital of brain cancer in December 2016, just before his case came to trial. After his death, relatives had expressed fear that justice would never be done for the three murdered women. Guney was charged with killing 54-year-old Sakine Cansiz -- one of the founders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) -- Fidan Dogan, 28, and 24-year-old Leyla Soylemez. They were shot in the offices of the Kurdistan Information Centre on January 9, 2013. The reopening of the case risks further straining ties between Turkey and France, which have endured a rocky period over the last months. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and France's Emmanuel Macron initially seemed to strike up a working bond. But their relationship has deteriorated after France designated a day to remember the genocide of Armenians in World War I, a term vehemently rejected by Turkey. - 'Death didn't close case'- Guney denied involvement in the killings, though investigators said they had surveillance footage of him entering the crime scene and the DNA of one of the victims was allegedly found on his coat. His death meant that the case against him was closed. But the families of the victims pressed for the investigation to be continued, pointing to documents they said proved the involvement of Turkey's National Intelligence Organisation (MIT). Comte commented: "Prosecutors admit that the case did not finish with the death of the suspect and the judge will look at all the elements, including the involvement of a foreign state." In January 2014, MIT officially denied any role in the killings. But French investigators had concluded that members of the Turkish national intelligence agency MIT were "implicated" in the triple murder, according to legal sources. However, the investigators had been unable to establish whether the service sponsored the hit or whether agents were acting on their own initiative. A legal source said Wednesday it had been established that Guney had been active in espionage, maintained secret contacts with people in Turkey and even had a prison escape plan involving an MIT agent. The complaint, filed by the families and seen by AFP, quotes from statements allegedly made by two MIT agents abducted in northern Iraq by Kurdish forces purportedly pointing to the involvement of Turkish intelligence in the killings. Pro-Kurdish websites have alleged the two agents were captured in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017 ahead of a planned secret operation. But their disappearance has never been officially confirmed by Ankara. The PKK launched its insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, initially fighting for Kurdish independence although it now focuses on greater autonomy and rights for the country's largest ethnic minority. It is banned as a terror group not just by Turkey but also the United States and the European Union. France has over the last decades been the scene of several notorious assassinations, most notably the killing outside Paris in 1991 of Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister of Iran under deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His assassin Ali Vakili Rad was freed from a French jail and flew home in May 2010 amid controversy over whether his release was tied to that of a French academic freed by Tehran days earlier. Kurds in a number of countries have called for justice for the three assassinated activists More than a hundred pre-Columbian treasures including clay idols and textiles from the Inca Empire have been returned to Peru from the United States and Argentina. The 130 artefacts, many of which were voluntarily returned after being illegally smuggled out of Peru, were displayed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in the capital Lima on Tuesday. The objects included decorated bowls and vases, embroidered cloths, carved wooden sculptures and painted figurines. "Argentina (returned) a lot of 92 cultural goods and another from the United States is made up of 38 cultural assets," said a foreign ministry statement. The US lot was repatriated with the help of an anthropology museum at the University of California, Berkeley, while 77 other objects belonged to Argentine individual collectors. The archeological pieces can be traced back to pre-Columbian cultures including the Moche, Chimu, Nasca, Chancay, Huari, Vicus, Lambayeque and Chincha, as well as the Inca. The owners were approached by Peruvian authorities, who requested the objects' repatriation after identifying them as part of the nation's cultural heritage. The archeological pieces can be traced back to pre-Columbian cultures including the Moche, Chimu, Nasca, Chancay, Huari, Vicus, Lambayeque and Chincha, as well as the Incas The owners were approached by Peruvian authorities, who requested the objects' repatriation after identifying them as part of the nations' cultural heritage French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand's premier Jacinda Ardern will Wednesday host other world leaders and leading tech chiefs to launch an ambitious new initiative aimed at curbing extremism online. The initiative, known as the "Christchurch call", was pushed by Ardern after a self-described white supremacist gunned down 51 people in a massacre at two mosques in the New Zealand city in March, the country's worst atrocity of recent times. Participants will be asked to commit to pledges to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content on social media and other online platforms. The political meeting will run in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called Tech for Good which will bring together 80 tech chiefs in Paris to find a way for new technologies to work for the common good. The summit comes as there is a growing realisation that the current abuse of social media by extremists must be countered, after the Christchurch attacker broadcast live footage on Facebook from a head-mounted camera. - Dorsey but no Zuckerberg - Ardern has been the driving force behind the Paris summit following the tragedy. The New Zealand leader earned huge international prominence and respect after the attacks by reaching out to Muslim communities at home and vowing a widescale crackdown on extremist content. Other key leaders attending include Jordan's King Abdullah II, Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Theresa May and EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. Prominent figures from tech and social networks will also be present, most notably Twitter founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey who will also have bilateral talks with Ardern. However to the disappointment of some, a notable absentee will be Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, who held talks in Paris with Macron last week. The social network giant, under fire from all quarters over its response to violent extremist content, will instead by represented by its vice president for global affairs and communications Nick Clegg, the former British deputy premier. The Christchurch call meeting is to get underway around 1400 GMT and finish with a press conference by Ardern and Macron at 1600 GMT. The Tech for Good meeting will also be attended by the CEO of ride hailing app Uber Dara Khosrowshahi, who will later have bilateral talks with Macron. - 'Make changes' - In an opinion piece in The New York Times over the weekend, Ardern said the Christchurch massacre underlined "a horrifying new trend" in extremist atrocities. "It was designed to be broadcast on the internet. The entire event was livestreamed... the scale of this horrific video's reach was staggering," she wrote. Ardern said Facebook removed 1.5 million copies of the video within 24 hours of the attack, but she still found herself among those who inadvertently saw the footage when it auto-played on their social media feeds. "(We're) asking both nations and private corporations to make changes to prevent the posting of terrorist content online, to ensure its efficient and fast removal and to prevent the use of live-streaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks," she wrote in The Times. New Zealand officials said she found a natural partner for the fight against online extremism in Macron, who has repeatedly stated that the status quo is unacceptable. "Macron was one of the first leaders to call the prime minister after the attack, and he has long made removing hateful online content a priority," New Zealand's ambassador to France, Jane Coombs, told journalists on Monday. "It's a global problem that requires a global response," she said. A French presidential source said it was time for tech companies to "anticipate how their features will be exploited." Firms themselves will be urged to come up with concrete measures, the source said, for example by reserving live broadcasting to social media accounts whose owners have been identified. French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern are to launch a new initiative aimed at curbing extremism online Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not expected to attend the launch of a new initiative to curb extremism online France and New Zealand see their joint initiative to curb extremism online as a global response to a global problem A man has been arrested after he allegedly slapped his sleeping girlfriend in the face with a cheeseburger. Kyle Jamison Jones, 30, is accused of repeatedly hitting his partner in the face with the fast-food staple before pulling her hair and kicking her down the stairs, Martin County Sheriffss Office, in Florida, said on Tuesday (local time). When officers arrived at the address, they discovered Joness girlfriend covered in food particles. Kyle Jamison Jones allegedly slapped his girlfriend with a cheeseburger several times. Source: Martin County Sheriff's Office (L)/Getty, file (R) Martin County Sheriffs Office said the alleged assault started when he did not get it his way. Jones admitted the pair had become involved in a verbal dispute, yet declined to comment as to whether it turned physical. It is unknown which store the burger was purchased from. Jones has been charged with battery. 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. A man has been transported to hospital after being shot by police at a train station in Sydneys southwest. Police attended Campbelltown train station when an altercation with a man aged in his 30s occurred at about 2.45pm on Wednesday. The man allegedly challenged officers with a knife on Hurley Street outside the station. A man in his 30s has been shot at Campbelltown train station. Source: Google Maps (file pic) A taser was deployed however he continued to threaten police before being shot, police said. He was transported to Liverpool Hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach area. Police are not searching for anyone else in relation to the incident, and no police or other members of the public were injured. A Critical Incident Investigation Team will investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident. Police and ambulance on scene at the site of the shooting. Source: 7 News Four ambulance crews were called to the scene, a NSW Ambulance spokeswoman told Yahoo News Australia Its not known what condition he is in. The shooting wont affect anyone using the trains along the T-8 line on Wednesday afternoon. However, a NSW Transport spokesman said the bus stop directly outside the station has been moved across the road for anyone using the service. More to come. With AAP 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. A Claude Monet painting from his celebrated "Meules" (Haystacks) series fetched $110.7 million in New York on Tuesday in an auction record for the French Impressionist master. The sale at Sotheby's -- the first time the work had come to auction since 1986 -- fetched one of the 10 highest prices ever seen at auction. The total, which includes fees and the commission, was more than 44 times the previous record for the work. It was the first time an Impressionist painting fetched more than $100 million. Monet painted his 25 "Meules" compositions during the winter of 1890-1891 at his home in Giverny, in France's Normandy region. In each piece, Monet showed the light and surroundings of the same scene as they changed at different times of day, with the varying seasons and during various types of weather. Another painting from the series was sold in November 2016 by the Christie's auction house in New York for $81.4 million. The piece sold at Sotheby's is among the most immediately recognizable Monet paintings. It distinguishes itself from others in the series by its vibrant paint palette, dramatic diagonal brushstrokes of varying directions that meet at the center and a unique perspective with only part of the first haystack appearing in the foreground. "We feel -- and I think people when they stand in front of this would largely agree -- that this is an even nicer example" than the one sold in 2016, Sotheby's Julian Dawes told AFP. "It's enchanting. You just can't look away." The anonymous collector who brought the painting to be auctioned had purchased it in 1986 at Christie's for just $2.5 million. The last record for a Monet painting was set in May 2018 during a Christie's sale when his "Nympheas en fleur" (Water Lilies in Bloom) sold for $84.6 million. "This could be a defining moment for Monet's market," Dawes said. Despite the allure and popularity of contemporary art, Dawes said Impressionism has an enduring quality. "Something that I really like about impressionism in general is that the market tends to be really consistent. People love impressionism," he added. "It doesn't change from generation to generation. These paintings are 150 years old and they've always been beloved." A Claude Monet painting from his celebrated "Meules" (Haystacks) series drew $110.7 million at Sotheby's in New York in an auction record for the French Impressionist master Republicans in Congress want to bar Chinese military scientists from obtaining visas to study or work in the United States, drawing criticism Wednesday from Beijing. Companion bills in the House and Senate would compel the White House to identify a list of research and scientific institutions that the president determines are affiliated with or funded by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The PLA Visa Security Act introduced Tuesday would prevent people currently or formerly employed or sponsored by such entities from entering the United States on student or research visas. The legislation landed as the two global powers are locked in a fierce trade showdown that has bruised US-China ties, roiled world markets and led President Donald Trump to boost punitive tariffs on Chinese merchandise imports. Senator Tom Cotton, a bill co-sponsor, said "keeping PLA scientists out of our research laboratories is a basic act of self-defense." "Student and research visas ought to be reserved for those foreign nationals who want to contribute to our universities and research institutions, not for our foreign adversaries and spies that wish to do us harm," Senator Chuck Grassley added in a statement. China's Foreign Ministry said the exchanges are in line with the countries' common interests and should not be politicized. Washington has "without evidence suspected the motives of Chinese scholars, students, and scientific and technical personnel in the United States, unreasonably restricting and harassing them," ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. It was not immediately clear whether the measure would pass the Democratic-led House of Representatives, but a leadership aide said the issue "ought to be examined." Bill co-sponsor Senator Tom Cotton (pictured May 2017) said "keeping PLA scientists out of our research laboratories is a basic act of self-defense" Serial killer Ivan Milat has reportedly been diagnosed with advanced stages of cancer after being transferred from NSW's highest security prison to a Sydney hospital for medical tests. The 74-year-old backpacker killer was transferred from Goulburn's supermax jail to Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick on Monday afternoon. Milat is being held in a secure annexe of the hospital where inmates are treated. The Seven Network and ABC on Wednesday both reported Milat had cancer and wouldn't be returning to Goulburn but would likely be transferred to Long Bay Jail hospital. Ivan Milat smiles in a police car after attending a court in Sydney in November 1997. Source: AAP A source close to the Milat family also told the ABC he recently lost 20 kilograms. The source added hes being assessed for organ failure linked to geriatric anorexia. The former road worker was sentenced in 1996 to seven consecutive life sentences for murdering seven backpackers whose bodies were found in makeshift graves in NSW's Belanglo State Forest in the 1990s. He also kidnapped British tourist Paul Onions who managed to escape from Milat's vehicle. An undated photo of Milat. He murdered seven backpackers whose bodies were found in makeshift graves in NSW's Belanglo State Forest in the 1990s. Source: AAP Corrective Services NSW Commissioner Peter Severin on Tuesday said prisoner transfers were done in the "most secure and safe way possible". High-risk and terrorism-related inmates are always guarded by specialist staff from the extreme high-security escort unit, a corrective services spokeswoman said. "Extensive security planning and assessment is undertaken before such movements occur". Another undated photo of Milat. He's reportedly suffering from anorexia after refusing to eat. Source: AAP Inmates are searched before they leave prison and when they return, the spokeswoman said on Tuesday. At least one form of restraint - handcuffs or ankle cuffs - stay on high-risk inmates during medical treatment subject to medical requirements. With AAP 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. Sri Lanka's police arrested over 100 suspects and reimposed night curfews in violence-prone areas Wednesday after anti-Muslim riots left one man dead and caused extensive damage to homes, businesses and mosques. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said 78 people arrested in the worst-affected North-Western Province (NWP) were remanded in custody Wednesday, while the rest were detained after a manhunt in other areas. Some 5,500 additional police were deployed in NWP to contain the violence that claimed the life of a Muslim man on Monday. Scores of private homes, Muslim-owned shops and businesses were destroyed, while several mosques were also vandalised. Muslims in Sri Lanka have been bracing for revenge attacks since three churches and three luxury hotels were bombed by local Islamist extremists on April 21, killing 258 people. Gunasekera said a night curfew was being reimposed in NWP, just north of the capital, as well as the adjoining Gampaha district, which shares a border with Colombo, as a measure to "maintain peace". However, a top police source said there will be no curfews elsewhere in the country. The entire country was under night curfews for two straight days after the violence escalated. The night curfew on Tuesday ensured there was no repeat of Monday's violence against Muslims, who make up some 10 percent of Sri Lanka's population of 21 million. "The situation is now totally under control," said military spokesman Sumith Atapattu. "There were no incidents of violence overnight and we are arresting groups of people responsible for taking part in mob attacks." Official sources said police deployed special teams to review CCTV camera footage to identify the perpetrators and carry out more arrests. More police and army units were seen deployed in the troubled areas as the authorities lifted the nationwide curfew on Wednesday morning. But Muslims in NWP remained nervous and stayed indoors Wednesday, after sword-wielding rioters killed one man late Monday while vandalising scores of shops and mosques. In Bingiriya, where some 2,000 people went on the rampage, Muslim cleric M.I.M. Siddeeque said the community was worried. "Our people are still afraid to go out," he told AFP by telephone. Government spokesman Navin Dissanayake said the authorities had identified the leaders of the mobs and they were already in police custody. - Fear persists - Despite the extraordinary security measures, the minorities felt insecure, said Dissanayake, who is also a government minister. "People feel insecure and I acknowledge that," Dissanayake told reporters in Colombo. "We have given the armed forces of this country... a complete free hand to tackle the security situation." Among those detained was Amith Weerasinghe, a man from Sri Lanka's majority Buddhist Sinhalese community and on bail for his role in similar riots in March last year in the central Kandy district. Another was identified as Namal Kumara, a deserter from both the army and the air force. The police, meanwhile, also made several changes in the command structure by removing senior officers in the troubled areas after allegations officials did nothing to stop the rioters. The military released CCTV which showed a man in uniform apparently standing by while a mob pelted stones at a home, and sought public help to identify the individual. Parliamentary speaker Karu Jayasuriya condemned the violence and appealed for calm. "The attacks on mosques, the burning of houses and shops, the attacks on innocent people cannot be condoned in any way," Jayasuriya said in a statement. The attacks came during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. A state of emergency has been in place since the Easter bombings and security forces have been given sweeping powers to detain suspects. Internet service providers said the telecoms regulator on Tuesday extended a social media ban to Twitter. Earlier, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram had been blocked to prevent the spread of messages inciting violence. Muslim-owned shops and businesses were targetted by rioters in Sri Lanka's North-West Province Government spokesman Navin Dissanayake told a press conference in the capital that the situation was "under control" in areas hit by anti-Muslim rioting The UAE said Wednesday it was "committed to de-escalation" after a spike in tensions in the Gulf but warned it would retaliate hard against Yemen rebel attacks on civilian facilities in the region. The UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, was speaking after the mysterious sabotage at the weekend of four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, and after Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed drone attacks Tuesday that shut down a key Saudi oil pipeline. "We are very committed to de-escalation, peace and stability," he told journalists at a briefing in Dubai. He said a multi-country investigation into the sabotage attacks would be concluded within days, adding: "We are not going to jump the gun." "We need to emphasise caution without throwing accusations," he said. "We have always called for restraint and we will always call for that." However, he blamed "Iranian behaviour" for tensions in the Gulf region, where Washington has sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers in response to unspecified Iranian threats against American interests. "It is this behavior that has led to the difficult conditions," Gargash said. The UAE says three Western countries -- the US, France and Norway -- would take part in an investigation into the ship attacks, alongside Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. Gargash was speaking a day after drone strikes hit two pumping stations in neighbouring Saudi Arabia's key east-west pipeline. The pipeline, with a capacity of five million barrels of crude per day, provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to be closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were in response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition battling the Huthis in Yemen. "We will retaliate and we will retaliate hard when we see Huthis hitting civilian targets like what happened in Saudi Arabia," Gargash said Wednesday. OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day of which around seven million are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in case of a military confrontation with the United States. Mysterious "sabotage attacks" on ships near the Emirati port of Fujairah sparked heightened tensions in the Gulf UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash says his country is "very committed to de-escalation" in the Gulf while blaming Iranian 'behaviour' Coalition forces in Iraq and Syria sent conflicting signals Tuesday over Iran's alleged threat, with a British general appearing to take issue with Washington's alarms over an imminent danger posed by Tehran to the US and its allies. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said that they did not sense any intensified threat from Iran in the region, even though the US military was boosting its forces in the Gulf. "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," Ghika told reporters via teleconference at the Pentagon. That brought a sharp retort from the US Central Command, which in the past nine days has accelerated the deployment of an aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf, adding to it B-52 bombers, a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious assault ship, in the face of the alleged Iranian threat. Ghika's comments "run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region," Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban said. The mixed signals underscored questions about the US ramping up its forces in the Gulf without having explained the intelligence behind the move. On May 5, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the Pentagon was sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the region "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" related to Iran. In the week since, the Pentagon said it would also position a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious assault ship in the region as a warning to Tehran. Iran has denied planning anything and US allies have warned of the danger of escalation, saying it heightens the chance that an accident could set off a major conflict. - US: 'High level of alert' - Both Washington and Tehran said Tuesday that they were not seeking war -- but, in Sochi, Russia, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again issued a warning. "We have also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." Ghika's comments, and the lack of any details on what Washington believes Tehran was planning, has fed suspicions among critics that President Donald Trump's administration was firing up tensions in the region without justification. "We've seen no change in the posture or laydown" of the Shia Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi paramilitary group with close ties to Tehran, Ghika said. "Of course PMF is a very broad range of groups. Many of them are compliant and we have seen no change in their posture since the recent exchange between the US and Iran." Ghika denied he was contradicting his US partners, and said the Inherent Resolve forces were already postured against a range of threats. "I don't think we're out of step with the White House at all," Ghika said. But Central Command's Urban said that in fact alert levels had been stepped up due to the Iran threat. "US Central Command, in coordination with Operation Inherent Resolve, has increased the force posture level for all service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria," he said in a statement. "As a result, OIR is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq." Members of the international force fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, some of whose soldiers are pictured with French Defence Minister Florence Parly in February 2019, sees no increased threat from Iran US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that Washington was close to resolving its differences with Mexico and Canada over steel and aluminum tariffs that have created friction among the trading partners. The steep US tariffs imposed last year on national security grounds have become a major stumbling block to ratifying a new North American trade pact negotiated last year by the three countries. Mnuchin's comments came as visiting Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland again warned that Canada was unlikely to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement so long as the tariffs -- 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum -- remained in place. In his testimony before a Senate committee, Mnuchin said: "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada." Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have resisted bringing the new agreement to a vote while the tariffs remain in place for the US's northern and southern neighbors, traditionally major US suppliers of steel and aluminum. Democrats and their supporters have expressed skepticism about Mexico's commitment to greater labor rights protections. Powerful players in the Senate and House offered few details on Wednesday about efforts to end the impasse. "We won't know for a few days," Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, chairman of Senate Finance Committee and an opponent of the metal tariffs, told reporters. But Freeland told reporters that ratifying the USMCA would be "very, very problematic" so long as the tariffs remained in place. "We believe that these tariffs need to be lifted," she said, calling the levies "hurtful to each of our countries." US officials have reportedly sought to persuade Mexico City and Ottawa to accept export quotas in return for lifting the metal tariffs on their countries. Mnuchin said Wednesday the issue was likely to be worked out soon, but did not offer any details. "I've spoken to the finance ministers," he said in testimony. "I can assure you it is a priority for us." Lighthizer also met Wednesday with lawmakers including Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Following the meeting, Democrat Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee -- which will be key to the agreement's ratification through US legislation -- told reporters that members of his party would confer to consider their position. "We made a series of suggestions in there acknowledging that there have been improvements but we also think that there's a ways to go," Neal said. - China talks in 'near future' - Mnuchin also repeated his expectation that US negotiators would return to Beijing to pursue stalled talks aimed at resolving the US-China trade war. With Lighthizer, Mnuchin has led the US delegation in 11 rounds of shuttle diplomacy aimed at resolving the trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies. But hostilities resumed last week when the United States accused China of backsliding on major commitments, and President Donald Trump more than doubled punitive tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese merchandise imports. China responded in kind on Monday, raising duties on $60 billion in US exports. "I think we had a constructive meeting with the vice premier," Mnuchin told lawmakers Wednesday, referring to last week's brief sessions with Chinese trade envoy Liu He. "There's still a lot of work to do," he added. "As I've said, my expectation is we will most likely go to Beijing at some point in the near future to continue those discussions and I think it's President Trump's expectation to meet with President Xi at the G20 at the end of June." Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland was in Washington for talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and congressional leaders US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US is close to an "understanding" with Canada and Mexico on steel and aluminum tariffs Juan Guaido accused the Venezuelan government of trying to "gag" congress after security forces prevented opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly on Tuesday, two weeks after the opposition leader's failed uprising against President Nicolas Maduro. Deputies said members of the National Guard, who provide security for the building, along with police and SEBIN intelligence agents blocked access to the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The move came as Amnesty International said it believes the Venezuelan authorities have committed crimes against humanity in their crackdown on anti-government protests, and urged the International Criminal Court to investigate. "SEBIN agents, using the excuse that there's an explosive device within the facilities, took over the federal palace. We're surrounded by intelligence agents," lawmaker Manuela Bolivar told AFP. Guaido said the security forces used "brute force," adding that congress was "occupied militarily." He tried to incite an uprising against Maduro on April 30 but only around 30 members of the armed forces joined him, and the revolt quickly petered out. It did, however, spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. Since then, the Maduro regime has ramped up pressure on Guaido's allies and supporters. The Constituent Assembly, a rival legislative body that was created by the Maduro government and is packed with people who support him, voted Tuesday to strip immunity from five more opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly. That brings to 14 the number who will presumably go trial for backing the failed insurrection. The charges include treason. One of them, deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano was arrested by SEBIN agents last week. Another fled to neighboring Colombia, while three others sought refuge in diplomatic compounds. - Held hostage - The Mexican government said its embassy in Venezuela has taken in opposition lawmaker Franco Manuel Casella to provide him "protection and safety." But even in making the move, the Mexican government reiterated its position of non-interference in the conflict. Unlike other large Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, Mexico still recognizes Maduro's government and not Guaido. Guaido -- the National Assembly president -- has accused Maduro of trying to dismantle the legislature. "They're trying to hold the legislative power hostage while the dictator entrenches himself alone in a palace where he shouldn't be," Guaido said on Twitter. He has previously accused the socialist leader of terrorism for his heavy-handed response to demonstrations. Amnesty said Maduro's government responded with "a systematic and widespread policy of repression" in late January, when anti-government protests swept the country after Guaido declared himself acting president. The London-based rights group said at least 47 people were killed during the protests from January 21 to 25, with 11 of the deaths considered "extrajudicial executions." At least 33 were shot dead by the security forces, and six by government supporters. Some Maduro opponents were tortured while 900 people, including children, were arbitrarily detained, Amnesty said. "The nature of the attacks... the level of coordination by the security forces, as well as the signs of similar patterns in 2014 and 2017, leads Amnesty International to believe that the Venezuelan authorities committed crimes against humanity," it added in a statement. Maduro himself "knew about these public and appalling acts and took no measures to either prevent or investigate them." Guaido's declaration that he is the country's legitimate acting president, which has been supported by more than 50 countries, plunged Venezuela into a political crisis. It came about after the National Assembly branded Maduro a usurper over his controversial re-election last year in polls widely regarded as fraudulent. - 'Recurring theme' - The oil-rich, cash-poor country has been stricken by recession and a humanitarian crisis in which almost a quarter of its 30 million population is in urgent need of aid, according to the United Nations. The United Nations also says that more than 2.7 million people have fled the country since 2015. Those remaining behind face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines, and failing public services including water, electricity and transport. Earlier, security services cordoned off the building housing the National Assembly. Bullet-proof vehicles and a tow truck were parked in the surrounding streets. "This is a recurring theme. It's not the first time it's happened," said Bolivar, who claimed this was part of "a policy to weaken the Assembly" and "intimidation" related to the power struggle between Guaido and Maduro, who retains the support of the armed forces. Guaido insisted the move would not stop lawmakers from doing their job. "Tomorrow we will be in session again, we'll reconvene and let the regime decide if it wants to continue with a type of political harakiri," he said. Venezuelan opposition leader and self-declared president Juan Guaido said security forces used "brute force" and that the National Assembly was being "occupied militarily" Venezuelan police block access to the legislature in Caracas as opposition lawmakers accuse the regime of 'intimidation' Prison City Pub & Brewery has moved the site of its new facility a little ways up North Street. In an application for financial assistance submitted to the Auburn Industrial Development Authority May 3, Prison City co-owner Dawn Schulz identified the facility's new site as 251 North St. Located less than half a mile from the facility's original site, 197-199 North St., the new 5.5-acre site currently has an 8,000-square-foot dairy barn. Schulz said in the application that a purchase offer is in place with the lot's current owners, James and Robert Iwanicki. Its 2018 assessed value was $195,000, according to Cayuga County records. Prison City plans to build on the property a 13,000-square-foot brewery, an adjoining 6,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor tasting and retail space, and 1,000 square feet of office space. It also plans to renovate the barn for use as additional tasting room, retail and storage space, Schulz wrote. She and her husband, Marc, declined comment to The Citizen until plans for the new facility are finalized. The initial resolution for the project will be presented at the authority's next meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Prison City's application lists a tentative budget of $4,248,000 for the project. Schulz estimated that a little more than $3.8 million will come from bank financing and $420,000 from equity. She also noted that the brewery is a designated recipient of a $900,000 state grant that can be reimbursed over three years, and used as additional working capital. In line with previous projections, the new facility will create about 25 jobs in production, retail and other areas over its first three years, Schulz wrote. A construction timeline of August 2019 to April 2020 is anticipated. Prison City will have to return to the Auburn Planning Board for site plan approval, which it received for the 197-199 North St. facility in March. To support the project, Prison City is requesting a sales and use tax exemption, a mortgage recording tax exemption and a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement from the Auburn Industrial Development Authority. Between the three, the brewery would receive a total abatement of $460,342, according to the authority's calculations. Meanwhile, the project is estimated to create increases of $274,516 in property tax revenue over the course of the 10-year PILOT and, after three years, $236,617 in annual sales tax revenue and $735,000 in annual payroll. Prison City has been looking to expand to meet demand for its award-winning beers, including its Mass Riot India pale ale (ranked No. 1 in a 2016 blind tasting of hundreds of American IPAs and No. 6 in 2018) and its Wham Whams barrel-aged imperial stout (winner of the 2019 Governor's Cup award recognizing the best beer in the state at the New York State Craft Beer Competition). The Schulzes have said they anticipate their new facility will raise production of brewer Ben Maeso's beer from about 1,000 barrels a year to more than 10,000, and include canning and bottling lines. In the financial assistance application, Dawn Schulz noted that Prison City's new facility is likely to attract a significant number of visitors from outside the region. Lake Life Editor David Wilcox can be reached at (315) 282-2245 or david.wilcox@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @drwilcox. Love 19 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 5 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. It's a sad day in America when a county clerk's position is threatened over her opinion by a political party. Susan Dwyer has been an excellent county clerk with her innovative and "how can I make it better attitude" during her tenure. One just has to visit the DMV to see an example of her work. She should be rewarded, not threatened. This is the United States of America, isn't it? Aren't we entitled to our opinions? She just said that she didn't think it would be a good idea to issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. Nowhere did I read that she would refuse to issue them. Is that not an opinion? Our freedoms are in jeopardy due to the attack on the Constitution by a political party trying to manipulate it to further their agenda. Article VI Clause 3 of the United States Constitution requires that all who hold office in the United States take an oath to uphold the United States Constitution, which by the way includes state senators. If I were Sue I would take the matter to court because it sounds like her rights are being infringed upon. LOS ANGELESRocco Steele will make his first London appearance in more than three years for two special May 18 events to celebrate the launch of the Rocco by Perfect Fit Brand line of sex toys. Designed by Perfect Fit Brand CEO and inventor Steve Callow and championed by Rocco Steele, the Rocco by Perfect Fit Brand line kicks off with five new products aimed squarely at the gay market, all of which feature some major innovations that Steve and Rocco feel men will love. His first appearance is an in-store appearance 4-6 p.m. at Clonezone Soho, 35 Old Compton St., Soho, W1D 5JX. Customers who purchase the entire Rocco by Perfect Fit Brand line at the event are promised a surprise extra goody from Rocco himself. The second event, sponsored by Clonezone, is a special performance by Rocco Steele at the Hard On party at Bloc South club, located at 65 Albert Embankment SE1 7TP. Clonezone is one my favorite places to stop by when Im in London, so what an honor to be able to launch my Rocco By Perfect Fit promo tour there, Steele said. It will be great to meet the fans and show them just how cool and innovative these products are. Items customers will want to check out at Clonezone include the totally unique Rocco 3-Way Wrap-Ring (a cock ring, ball ring and cock-and-ball ring all in one!), the very beefy, but flat Rocco Steele Hard cock ring, the Rocco Breeder Sleeve (an open ended cock sheath) and the very cool looking Rocco Jack Daddy masturbator. We are so excited to invite Rocco Steele to our Soho store to launch his new line of toys with Perfect Fit," says Clonezone Brand Manager Topher Taylor. Rocco is an industry icon and Ive wanted to work with him for years, and now with the added bonus of incredible sex toys being in the mix just makes it even better. We are happy to invite Rocco to the Clonezone family and encourage you to check out the range sooner rather than later, as we are expecting to sell out. For more, visit Clonezone.co.uk. MONTREALFans of Casey Kisses can watch her head back to school for Hot for My TS Teacher from TransSensual, Mile High Medias trans erotica studio. The movie is now available on DVD. Ricky Greenwood wrote and directed Hot for My TS Teacher, starring the 2019 AVN Transsexual Performer of the Year nominee along with Kayleigh Coxx, Nikki Vicious, Pierce Paris and Dante Colle in four intense scenes of hardcore sex. Ricky presents a unique tale of a trans teacher who becomes her students object of desire, said Mile High Media Vice President Jon Blitt. Casey shows the energy and passion that earned her three Transgender Erotica Awards and multiple AVN and XBIZ nominations in the last three years. Likewise, Kayleigh and Nikki were dynamite opposite our male cast members, Pierce Paris, Dante Colle and Lance Hart, as they brought Rickys vision to life. Hot for My TS Teacher opens with Vanessa (Casey Kisses) who has to find another career path after she was caught having sex with one of her patients. When she sees an online ad for an anatomy instructor, the beautiful young nurse decides to share her knowledge of anatomy with a night class. But teaching is not easy, especially when she has a loudmouth in class like Frank (Pierce Paris), and a timid and cute student like Sam (Dante Colle). Vanessa had no problem rejecting Frank multiple times, but Sam is capable of causing more damage to her new career. She doesnt want to risk losing her teaching position, but she starts developing feelings for Sam that she cant deny. Unfortunately for her, things become even more complicated when hes also hot for his teacher. Hot for My TS Teacher was shot in 4K and includes exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, a photo slide show, animated chapter index and more. For the latest news and BTS previews, follow TransSensual on Twitter.com/TranSensual. For box art, cast list and more, visit MileHighOnline.com/product/movie/4690. The City of Flagstaff Sustainability Section is challenging residents to pick up as many wrappers, empty bottles and discarded soda cans as they possibly can through the end of May. Prizes await for those who collect the most trash and document it on their smartphones. The month-long challenge, dubbed "One a Day in May," is facilitated through an Android and iPhone application called Litterati. Users download the app, join the group #LitterFreeFlagstaff and begin searching for rubbish. Every piece of litter that an individual picks up, photographs and tags will be logged into their personal score and counted up. The end result locally will be a map made up of every photo as it covers Flagstaff. In other words, a trash map. On June 1, the user with the most trash to their name will be announced. According to Litterati's website, the United States alone has picked up close to 1 million pieces of trash. Most commonly tagged items are plastic, cigarette butts and paper. Some of the benefits of this app is it helps people learn about the kind of trash in their community and where it's concentrated, said Maggie Twomey, volunteer and event coordinator with the City of Flagstaff Sustainability Section. As of Tuesday there were 60 people using the app within the Flagstaff group; together they'd picked up a total of 400 pieces of trash. There is no particular area where the trash pickup is concentrated, according to Twomey, but she said the user currently leading the pack has picked up 158 pieces. Albert the Sustainability Squirrel, the Sustainability Section's mascot, is currently sitting in second place with 42 pieces of trash. Twomey is behind launching the Litterati group in Flagstaff. She discovered the app in a TedTalk earlier this year and decided she wanted to try to concentrate it locally. Im always looking for new ways for people to be engaged in community and to make it a better place. So this app is just another way for the City of Flagstaff to try and engage the citizens and create awareness, she said. Litterati was created by Jeff Kirschner and his then 4-year-old daughter. The two were on a hike when she noticed a box of cat litter in a stream and Kirschner took a photo. A little over a year later, the app is getting traction across the world and in Flagstaff -- where wind often blows trash into open fields or larger drainage washes, such as one near the Walmart on Woodlands Village Boulevard, Twomey said. The One a Day in May competition ends on May 31. The winner of the competition will be announced on the Sustainability Section Facebook page on June 1. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/FlagstaffSustainabilityProgram/. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Bernardino (Bernie) Nieto Sr. passed away May 12, 2019 at home surrounded by his wife Marta and family. Bernie was born in Bernalillo, NM. In his youth, his parents Epimenio and Filomena Nieto moved from New Mexico to Bellemont, AZ where he attended Emerson Elementary School. When he was 19 he went into the U.S Army, serving from 1942-1946. He was a WWII Veteran and served in the Philippines in Guadalcanel. In the 1950s he moved back to Flagstaff and worked in construction, meeting the love of his life Marta Contreras Nieto. Mr. Nieto was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Ernesto Nieto and Epimenio Nieto Sr. who were also WWII Veterans. He is survived by his wife Marta and three children Ernestine (Chewy) Hernandez, Bernie Jr. (Dolores), Dorothy (James) Watson, five granddaughters, one grandson and eight great-grandchildren. His wife and family would like to thank Dr. Jelineck from the Veterans Hospital in Prescott, AZ for the care they gave him when hospitalized last July. Also, thanks go to Angela, Rachael, Dr. Allen Baehr from the Flagstaff VA Clinic for all the support and care given during Bernies illness. A very special thank you to Mayra Baldenegro for her love and care for Bernie. With heartfelt gratitude to all, and God Bless. Holy Rosary will be recited 9:30 Friday, May 17th, Funeral Mass will follow at 10:30 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Interment will follow at Calvary Cemetery. Condolences can be sent to www.norvelowensmortuary.com Regarding the recent letter signed by a number of Flagstaff-area educators (Flagstaff teachers push back on Chamber's invite, May 2) that called into question the motives and mission of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, we believe a response is deserved. Everything the Arizona Chamber does related to education policy is intended to increase funding to schools and to increase teacher pay. Our record is clear. The Arizona Chamber supported the original passage of Proposition 301, which established a .6 percent sales tax for education. We then supported the 20-year extension of the sales tax, which the Legislature passed and the governor signed in 2018. During the depths of the recession, when all parts of state government were being slashed, we supported the passage of Proposition 100 to establish a temporary one-cent sales tax to prevent even deeper cuts to education. We were the business communitys leading advocate for the successful adoption by voters of Proposition 123, which will result in $3.5 billion going to K-12 over the course of a decade by increasing the disbursement from the State Land Trust to schools. We strongly supported the 2018 budget package that included a 20% average statewide pay raise for K-12 teachers by school year 2020, and we support the continued restoration of District Additional Assistance, which schools can use for a range of reasons, including to increase teacher pay. These two investments alone totaled $1 billion in new and restored K-12 funding. The Chamber is also the business communitys most vocal and consistent advocate for Career and Technical Education to help equip more high-school graduates with the skills to succeed in high-demand fields. We championed the restoration of CTE funding when it was cut, and this year weve made passage of HB 2657 a top priority. The bill would establish a grant program for community colleges engaged in training students in high-wage, in-demand fields like manufacturing, technology, and financial services. Another round of education funding is proposed in Governor Duceys proposed FY 2020 budget including more than $50 million in targeted higher education funding and expansion of a program to recognize high poverty schools closing the achievement gap. Investments of this size are only possible thanks to a thriving economy. If the economy contracts, so does funding for core government functions like education. Thats why the Chamber in 2018 opposed Proposition 207, which sought nearly to double the income tax on small businesses. The measure included zero dollars for Northern Arizona University or any other higher learning institution. It would have been a severe drag on the Arizona economy and, as a result, would mean fewer dollars for education, not more. You cant deliver 20% pay raises when the economy and the state general fund is shrinking, nor can you count on $500 million from the Proposition 301 sales tax. Whats worse, the description of the initiative presented to voters was also sloppily assembled and terribly misleading. The Supreme Court agreed and wisely removed it from the ballot. Arizona now is home to one of the fastest-growing state economies in the country. There is broad, bipartisan support for adopting a budget that continues the implementation of the 20% pay raise and the restoration of additional assistance. Arizona is on the right track. Thats in no small part due to the tremendous work of Arizona teachers, who have helped make Arizona one of the biggest climbers for academic achievement in the nation. We in the business community will continue to pursue policies that ensure we have the resources our teachers deserve. Glenn Hamer is President and CEO of Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Catholic Church claims convent The Old Convent The Old Convent By Myles Burt The old convent is coming back to the Catholic Church. The building, which has been owned by the Church of Christ since 1982, was sold to the highest bidder after it failed to reach the reserve price at an auction held in Sydney last week, said Mark Curtis of the Church of Christ yesterday. Over the weekend, our church agreed to an offer a little under what we were hoping for but we are happy with the outcome, particularly as The Old Convent has gone to a local concern, Mr Curtis told the BDT from Denmark where he is on holidays. Yesterday, the local concern was revealed by auctioneers Colliers International in Sydney as the Catholic Church. The convent was originally owned and built by the Catholic Church in 1909 to house the Sisters of Mercy who arrived in the city in the 1880s. The building was named the St Josephs Convent of Mercy and was opened by the Bishop Dunne of Port Augusta. It was sold to private developers after a fire ripped through the roof in October 1979. The cost of repairs was $70,000, which wouldve been around $325,700 today. After the fire, the site was earmarked for a private hospital but with the heritage listing, the required modifications were barred and it was put up for sale. The Broken Hill Church of Christ bought it in 1982 and have since gradually restored and renovated the old building. Colliers International also auctioned the former Commonwealth Bank building in Argent Street last week. They said it had sold for $520,000 but were not at liberty to say who had bought it. Inn at Cape Kiwanda An Oregon Coast Fave for Decades, And Here's Why Published 05/15/2019 at 5:53 AM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Pacific City, Oregon) A longtime Oregon coast staple has been the Inn at Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City. It is, after all, the maven and maverick hotel that started the whole ball rolling in the '90s, just after Pelican Pub and Brewery was created, bringing the tiny town up from a rather obscure and offbeat destination to the powerhouse tourism hotspot it is now. Still elegant and transformatively peaceful after all these years, the hotel been around long enough to be a pull on two generations. In some ways its changed a lot, in approach and maybe even in look. But in key ways it hasnt: the Inn at Cape Kiwanda still gazes out at the stately Haystack Rock from every room and pipes in that lulling, mesmerizing ocean murmur. The place certainly has its staunch devotees. Portland musician Pilar French is quite the fan of Inn at Cape Kiwanda, and has been for at least a decade. Shes also been indulging in the Cottage at Kiwanda before that luxury site was converted into the ultra-luxurious Headlands Coastal Lodge and Spa. Both have been a regular stop for her for ages now, always with her two happy-go-lucky Australian shepards in tow. Heading to the Oregon coast with her pups is the bottom line with her, and so the Inn at Cape Kiwandas open door policies to the wee beasties make it a standard. Not quite on the beach but close enough to have wonderful views of the haystack, French said. The staff are very friendly and always want to make sure their guests are content. The local grocery is just next door and visitors miss out on a treat if they dont pick up some of the homemade fudge. The Stimulus Cafe on the ground floor of the Inn at Cape Kiwanda is a famed purveyor of coffee and sweets on the Oregon coast as well. French, a smooth-but-urgent vocalist with a slightly gritty Americana sound, has plenty to sing about in the area. Shes big on the next door Pelican Pub and its beers, as well as the Headlands new Meridian Restaurant. along with other eateries in Pacific City. The dreaminess starts with the lobby. Youll find a telescope there to zoom in on the oceanic action. An elegant fireplace is somewhat the centerpiece, with a kind of marble-like construction and graceful yet sleek, futuristic lines. Many of the rooms come in a soft, eggshell white, often with blue accents in the surrounding fabrics while comely elements of polished wood are scattered throughout the decor. All this is lit up by day by the oceanic word outside, always with Haystack Rock dominating the view. All the balconies at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda are private. The rooms each have a deck and many are equipped with soaking tubs, French said. Also, when you walk outside the Inn you will almost always see charming bunnies in the grass. Rooms at the Inn come with wi-fi, gas fireplace, down pillows, down comforter, an LCD flat screen TV and a hairdryer. Some of the larger, more elaborate suites accommodate families and have kitchens. These also have Xbox 360s in the kids bunk room along with in-room board games and puzzles. Some have adorable kids bunk beds shaped like a little bus complete with surfboards on the top. The whole facility is a hop, skip and a jump from the sprawling, sandy ruggedness of Cape Kiwanda. And if its too gnarly outside to engage in outdoor frivolity, those ocean views provide practically a front row seat to the storm action on the cape, where you may see waves so chaotic and massive they pounce over the cape from the other side. Even that, however, brings a sense of not just wonder but stillness as well, that calming vibe the Pacific Ocean and the Oregon coast is known for. Then Pilar, with all her learned eloquence and artistic wisdom, cant help but break it down into the simplest of terms at times when describing her favorite getaway. Its so peaceful, she said. 33105 Cape Kiwanda Dr. Pacific City, Oregon. 888-965-7001. Website for full details. - Lodgings in Pacific City - Where to eat - Pacific City Maps and Virtual Tours 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 Even as some members of the Judiciary Committee said the bill does not go far enough, senators advanced a plan Wednesday meant to address crowding and other problems in the state's prisons. Six measures were gathered into one omnibus bill that would prohibit most cellphones in prisons, modify a restrictive housing work group and allow for judges to redirect offenders into intensive probation rather than prison. It advanced to a second round of debate on a 40-0 vote. Judiciary Chairman Steve Lathrop acknowledged the real solutions to crowding in the prisons are to "build our way out of this or provide some kind of sentencing reform." Sentencing reform would mean people spend less time in prison but they get more services and programming, or spend more time on work release so that they have an opportunity to establish themselves before getting out, he said. "That effort to do sentencing reform has run up against people who are in the old model of law enforcement. The county attorneys, police officers, attorney general," he said. They don't want to see sentencing reform, in his view, because it would be too easy to call that being soft on crime. Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, a committee member, said the bill doesn't go far enough in addressing overcrowding and other problems in the prisons. One bill that is missing from the omnibus bill, she said, is one she had introduced (LB131) that would have re-established that a minimum sentence not exceed one-third of the maximum sentence for certain felonies, unless a mandatory minimum sentence is required by statute. The change would have the effect of allowing offenders to become parole-eligible sooner and alleviating the overcrowding crisis in Nebraska prisons. And it would save millions of dollars annually, Pansing Brooks said. That bill did not make it out of committee. But she hopes it will next session, she said. She said she knows Lathrop is working to maneuver through advocacy groups, including the county attorneys and attorney general, to solve the overcrowding crisis and get money for inmate programming and staffing. "What we can't do is try to build our way out of this," she said, "when the flow of people coming into the system is getting larger and larger." Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers said things he thinks ought to be in the bill are not, and things that don't amount to much are there. "This bill is innocuous," Chambers said. "This is what happens when the Legislature feels the need to placate the governor's office, the county attorneys and those who don't want to see anything change." After the bill advanced, the Nebraska Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 88 weighed in, saying state corrections workers oppose the portion of the bill that they contend would make use of restrictive housing unmanageable, and one that would prevent officers from being able to contact their families when their schedules are changed without notice. The bill that was added to LB686 that would ensure inmates with serious mental illness not be put in restrictive housing could result in an increase in the risk of violence to corrections employees, said union president Mike Chipman. Stopping corrections employees from bringing cellphones to their workplaces would prevent them from making plans with their families to cover for child care and other needed personal matters, Chipman said. "While we understand the importance of preventing inmate access to cellphones, it is not necessary to stop corrections employees from bringing their phones to the facilities and using them in secure portions of the facility responsibly," the union said. The six bills that became LB686 are: * LB233, to make it a Class I misdemeanor to bring cellphones into the prisons, with exceptions for law enforcement, first responders and representatives of the state Ombudsman's office; * LB262, to change the long-term restrictive housing work group, including the membership of the group, who appoints them, and the requirement that the group meet at least three times each year; * LB240, to allow a judge to commit a defendant who is incompetent to stand trial to the Department of Health and Human Services for treatment at a facility other than one that is state-owned and operated; * LB684 combined with LB90, to make post-release supervision optional for people who commit Class IV felonies; * LB739, to ensure vulnerable inmates, including those with serious mental illness, are prohibited from restrictive housing; * LB91, to provide an option for judges that would allow them to place defendants on intensive probation and defer judgment for an agreed period of time. Reach the writer at 402-473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSLegislature. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 A resting bench and memorial area were recently dedicated at the Chief Standing Bear Trailhead near Blue Springs. The area was established by Bluebirds Across Nebraska to honor Sharon Holliday, Bert Hellmer and Kenneth Barnhill. All three members and their spouses had put out bluebird boxes along the Union Pacific rail corridor before it was converted to a hiking and biking trail. The joint effort began about 25 years ago with boxes from Oketo, Kan. to north of Blue Springs. The mission of the Bluebirds Across Nebraska is to increase the population of bluebirds and other native cavity-nesting birds through the promotion of bluebird awareness among concerned citizens. Sandy Siebert, President of the Bluebirds Across Nebraska, explained that until the mid 1880s the bluebird was common, but because of the English Sparrow and the Starling, their numbers began to decrease. Agriculture practices also impacted the population. They were on the brink of extinction, said Siebert. Holliday, Hellmer and Barnhill were involved in putting on workshops and educating the public on the bluebird. Native grasses and trees, including black cherry, hornbeam, linden, bald cypress, catalpa and a variety of oaks, were planted with assistance from the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum. The goal is to increase the population of the bluebirds, but the success of that is in the monitoring," said Dean Cole, a volunteer with Bluebirds Across Nebraska. Maurice Cullison and Xander Seeman continue to monitor the bluebird boxes. In 2018, 134 bluebirds were fledged along the trailhead corridor. Dwight Howe with the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska expressed appreciation to everyone involved in creating the memorial. Its humbling. All of the plants, the trees and the boxes. All of these things compliment the area and speaks well of the people involved and the community, said Howe. Its a beautiful thing and its only going to get better." The rest stop along the former Union Pacific Railroad property features antique paver bricks, railroad ties and spikes. In the late 19th century, nothing said 'prosperity' more than the railroad coming to your town, bringing brick streets and sidewalks, said Cole. This project is an example of the people and organizations working together to enhance an area, not only for hikers and bikers, but also for wildlife and naturalist." David Barnhill is the Gage County Coordinator for Bluebirds Across Nebraska and can be reached at kbarnhill@windstream.net or 402-674-3295 for more information. 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. What started as a routine afternoon preparing a field for planting became a baby eagle rescue adventure for Gary Remmers and his son Justin along the Big Blue River near Barneston. The 10-14-day old eagle was discovered on the ground near a stand of cottonwood trees by Gary Remmers. Dad had just cultivated a section of the field when he happened to look over his shoulder and spotted the baby eagle, Justin Remmers said. The eagle had fallen from its nest in a 40-50 foot cottonwood tree bordering the field on a very windy day according to Remmers. When the father and son rescued the eagle, they noticed one of the parents kept circling them and making a screeching distress sound. The screeching sounds and circling adult eagle made the situation a little stressful, Remmers explained. It is very rare that a baby eagle survives a fall from its nest because they have no wing strength to glide," Betsy Finch with Fontenelle Forests Raptor Recovery in Elmwood said. "They die because of the blunt trauma from the fall. This is the first baby eagle that has been rescued and delivered to the Raptor Recovery Center in five years, according to Finch. When the Remmers discovered the baby eagle was alive they knew they had to make a quick decision what to do next. Remmers immediately contacted Rex Adams, a certified Master Naturalist and friend of Remmers. Adams then contacted Dina Barta, a Game and Parks Conservation Officer for the area. Barta, who was on vacation, immediately contacted Fontenelle Forests Raptor Recovery and made arrangements to pick up the eagle at Adams home in Blue Springs and deliver it to the raptor recovery rehabilitation center in Elmwood. Even though I was on vacation I wanted to help. I just love those birds, Barta said. The young eagle is now at the Fontenelle Forests Raptor Recovery and Rehabilitation Center in Elmwood. A treatment plan has been implemented to begin the recovery process for the eagle. Finch would not predict how long the bird will be at the center before it is release or if it will ever be released. Recovery staff works very hard at trying to prevent the eagle from developing a human imprint dependence which would prevent its release into the wild. We must remember these are wild animals that are not meant to be pets and attached to humans, Finch said. Preventing a human dependence is very challenging because of the age of the bird. The eagle is fed two to three times a day by specially trained staff. It is fed very small pieces of fish and rabbit meat. A number of people have called the recovery center requesting to see the baby eagle because of the exposure of the eagle on social media. Finch wanted to make it very clear that the US Fish and Wildlife Service regulations prohibit display of protected raptors. Plus, too much human exposure would be detrimental to the baby eagle. Finchs advice to anyone who discovers an injured raptor is to first protect yourself and it from further danger, assess its condition, get a description of the bird and cover it with a blanket. Finch warns that it is not the beak of a raptor that can injure a person or the bird itself, it is the raptors talons. A Great Horn Owl may be the exception to the rule if you see one of its young on the ground. They first learn to fly from the ground. They will glide to the ground from their nest and stay on the ground for a while before getting oriented to fly. Finch advises to take the time to observe a Great Horn Owl before attempting to rescue it. Once a raptor is safe, call 866-888-7261 or the Nebraska Game and Parks. There are an estimated 60 individuals who volunteer with raptor recovery throughout the state. One of these volunteers or a Game and Parks officer will be dispatched to help with the recovery of the raptor. There are currently few raptor recovery volunteers in Southeast Nebraska. Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer is asked to contact Denis Lewis at Fontenelle Forests Raptor Recovery, 402-731-3140. All volunteers must be very committed to the program and complete an intensive training program. The center recovers an average of 30 adult eagles a year and over 600 varieties of native raptors. 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. When the Nebraska State Patrol caught up to a California man driving erratically on Interstate 80 recently, a drug recognition expert was brought in for an evaluation. Troopers clocked a Ford Mustang driven by 37-year-old Jonathan Suckow driving 4 mph on the interstate near Kearney, where the speed limit is 75 mph, according to a spokesman. Suckow later sped up to 70 mph -- and then 147 mph -- before stopping near the Gibbon exit on April 20, the patrol said. He reportedly sped away again and was only stopped when troopers deployed spike strips near Wood River. A state patrol drug recognition expert -- one of 113 law enforcement officers in the state who have gone through specialized training -- helped determine Suckow should be cited on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs, not alcohol. The expert believed he was under the influence of a stimulant, a patrol spokesman said. More than 30 law enforcement agencies across the state participate in the Drug Recognition Expert program, which started in California in the late 1970s as a way to help officers differentiate between alcohol-impaired driving and drug-impaired driving, said state patrol Capt. Martin Denton. "Its general purpose is to determine, one, if there is impairment, if the impairment is being caused by one or more drugs, or if the impairment is because of a medical situation like a stroke or a diabetic episode," Denton said Wednesday. Since 1991, state troopers, county sheriff's deputies and local police from all corners of Nebraska have enrolled in the "arduous" and intensive training program, which is led by the Nebraska Department of Transportation and 21 certified instructors. It requires applicants to complete a 16-hour "preschool," which provides an overview of the program; 56 hours of detailed training in recognizing the seven categories of drugs, the physical symptoms of drug use, field procedures and how to testify in court; and 80 hours of field training under a certified supervisor. Officers then must pass a written exam, which often takes four hours to complete, before they can gain certification. If they pass, they must complete eight hours of continuing education every two years to maintain the certification. Denton said drug recognition experts are trained to spot pupil dilation caused by stimulants such as methamphetamine or cocaine, pupil constriction caused by narcotics and pain medications, as well as the physical symptoms of hallucinogens, inhalants and cannabis. Built upon the same foundation as a field sobriety test, which is used to measure the impairment of suspected drunk drivers, Denton said various tests can work to include or exclude suspected drugs. "It helps us come to the most logical conclusion about the drugs that are causing the impairment," he said. While the number of alcohol-impaired driving offenses has dropped each year over the past decade, down from roughly 14,000 in 2008 to fewer than 6,900 in 2017, according to the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, the share of suspected drugged drivers has risen. About 10 percent of all impaired driving arrests last year involved drugs, according to the patrol, the first year in which the two offenses were recorded separately. Denton said the increase in drugged driving may be attributed to a better understanding among officers of how various intoxicants affect a driver's physical and mental state. "A drugged driver used to be more of a unique situation," he said. "The good news overall is the overall number of impaired drivers has gone down." He said better education, citizen engagement, expanded ride-share options and social awareness have helped cut down on the number of impaired driving arrests, as well as "a higher degree of responsibility" by Nebraskans. "We're fortunate to live in Nebraska," Denton said. "From a law enforcement standpoint, we have huge support and a great amount of respect, and we interact with a very reasonable population, which makes our job so much easier." Reach the writer at 402-473-7120 or cdunker@journalstar.com. On Twitter @ChrisDunkerLJS. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A man involved in a Tuesday evening fire died at a Lincoln hospital on Wednesday. The Gage County Sheriffs Office was dispatched Tuesday to reports of a suicidal male in his mid-40s in a sport utility vehicle on South 36th Road between Hoyt and Highway 136 at around 6:15 p.m. A press release from the department stated that while responding to the call, deputies were advised the male had lit himself on fire. Beatrice Fire and Rescue and Beatrice Rural Fire were then dispatched. Upon arrival, deputies found the vehicle fully engulfed in flames, and the male was outside the vehicle laying on the opposite side of the road with severe burns. Deputies assisted the male to a safe distance away from the burning vehicle. Beatrice Fire and Rescue and Beatrice Rural Fire extinguished the fire and paramedics cared for the patient. StarCare was contacted to transport the male to Saint Elizabeth Hospital in Lincoln for further treatment. Based upon statements from the male and a witness, it is believed the fire was set intentionally. The Gage County Attorney's Office confirmed that the man had died, and said the sheriff's office was still investigating the case Wednesday afternoon. Love 1 Funny 6 Wow 10 Sad 26 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. In 1942, Steele was among the tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers who surrendered to Japaneses forces while defending the peninsula of Bataan in the Philippines. The prisoners of war were forced to march in brutal heat and atrocious conditions to Camp O'Donnell. Thousands didn't make it to the prison camp, left for dead, shot, bayoneted, and beheaded when they fell behind. Their imprisonment ended after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Steele returned to Montana where in the 1950s he began to document what he experienced. His works are some of the only images that exist of the march. I have lots of images in my head, Steele told the Missoulian in 2011. I could paint them for the rest of my life. I dont have trouble recalling anything in there ... I was impressed very deeply by it. During his imprisonment, Steele drew on the concrete floor with a charred stick, and later on paper and pencils that were smuggled to him. He describes art as his savior, giving him the ability to express what he experienced. "Art basically saved his life," Kooistra said. After a warm start to the week, cooler weather, rain, thunderstorms and hail are on the horizon for the Billings area and south central Montana, according to the National Weather Service in Billings. Scattered showers and thunderstorms are predicted through the week and weekend in Billings. Wednesday has a high of 81 degrees, and should be dry in the morning, said NWS meteorologist Julie Arthur. By Wednesday afternoon theres a 20% chance of scattered thunderstorms and showers. Theres an overnight low of 53 with a slightly higher chance of thunderstorms, she said. A new weather system moving into town should cool the rest of the week down starting Thursday, Arthur said. Thursday has a forecast high of 74 and a 40% chance of scattered showers mixed with heavy rain and thunderstorms. Some of the thunderstorms may be heavy rain producing, she said. Friday will see a high of 66 degrees and 70% chances of rain Friday afternoon and 80% chance of rain on Friday night. Saturday and Sunday will see high temperatures of 51 and 56. Saturday has a 70% chance of rain. Sunday may be drier with scattered showers in the afternoon. Listing examples of reported bear sightings in the Billings area in recent years, Gibson said the animals have been observed around Bench Boulevard and Governors Boulevard in the Heights and in Emerald Hills in Lockwood. Gibson encouraged people to remove or secure bear attractants in order to avoid encountering the animals. That includes securing garbage and bird feeders and keeping pet and livestock food locked up so that it isn't easily accessible to roaming bears. "If they move through and there's no chow, they won't stick around," he said, adding that recently used grills can also be bear attractants. "You'd be surprised the number of people that fry up hamburgers, close the grill, leave it on the deck, and the next morning there's a bear around." The black bear population in the area numbers in the hundreds. Speaking in 2017 about black bear behavior after a bear had eaten pet goats and garbage in a south Billings neighborhood, FWP biologist Shawn Stewart said there were roughly 500 black bears in the Beartooth Mountains and about another 100 in the Pryor Mountains outside the Crow Reservation. An initial investigation into a fatal structure fire in the Carbon County town of Bridger indicates the fire was accidental. David Dyer, 67, died after a fire began in his kitchen Monday afternoon, according to a press release from Carbon County Sheriff Josh McQuillan. "Dyer was found unresponsive inside his residence by Bridger firemen within a few minutes after he had placed the 911 call reporting there was a fire in his kitchen," the release says. Dyer was pronounced dead at the scene of the fire. People from multiple agencies responded to the fire, including Bridger Fire, Bridger EMS, Bridger Police, the Montana State Fire Marshal and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office. There was extensive smoke damage to the interior of the home on East Sunnyside Street. No one else was in the home at the time of the fire and no other injuries were reported, according to McQuillan. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 23 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. Britt Cotter, lead defense attorney in Hardy's case, flatly declined to call Braunreiter, who had written in two different letters to attorneys that Hardy had indeed solicited him to kill Karen Hardy, the defendant's former partner, mother of their three children and key witness in the case. Braunreiter was reportedly not called to testify because in those same letters he vowed to use the witness stand as a soapbox to talk about his perceived injustices in his own case. Hardy said Braunreiter had since flipped his account of Hardy's alleged solicitation since it was clear prosecutors would not offer Braunreiter any concessions in his own case in exchange for his testimony in Hardy's. "If we call him as a witness those letters are going to be used," Cotter said. "That's why I don't think it's in your best interest for us to call him." Judge James Wheelis told Hardy he would rely on Cotter's judgement regarding Braunreiter. "OK, then I'd like to have Mr. Cotter removed for ineffective counsel," Hardy told Wheelis. "I could go pro se and represent myself. I studied law for 23 years. I'm just not a member of the same club you are, the bar association." A combo bill to give police more leeway in making low-level arrests and to provide retailers with a new tool against shoplifters has become law. The bill, brought in response to criminal justice reforms passed in 2017, was a dual effort by police and retailers to regain ground on disorderly calls and misdemeanor thefts. Gov. Steve Bullock received HB 421 on May 1 but let the 10-day window to sign or veto it pass. That allows the measure to become law without his signature. The bill, carried by Rep. Julie Dooling, R-Helena, restores the possibility of arrest on certain misdemeanor offenses, after it had been taken away amid a major reform of the states criminal justice system. Police can make arrests only for crimes that are punishable by incarceration, unless the person presents an immediate danger to themselves or others. Jail time was taken away from the sentencing range for various misdemeanors in 2017. CHEYENNE, Wyo. Prosecutors have filed attempted-murder charges against a Wyoming man they say fired a gun at police during a car chase. Dominique Childers, of Casper, faces two counts of attempted first-degree murder, four of felony property destruction, one of felony theft and several misdemeanor charges. He remained jailed in Cheyenne on $100,000 bond Wednesday. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports police arrested Childers on May 3. Cheyenne police and the Wyoming Highway Patrol say Childers drove a stolen 2016 Toyota Camry over 100 mph on a highway and almost 65 mph through Cheyenne. Police say Childers fired at a trooper and at a police officer who shot back, hitting Childers twice. Childers couldn't be reached for comment and had no attorney on file. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Islamophobia is thriving in the United States and elsewhere in the West. In the U.S. its essence was distilled and its get-out-of-jail-free-card issued in 2016 when Donald Trumps presidential campaign announced that he was calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. By then, nine states had banned Islams Shariah law from their courtrooms, and in 2017 Montana and 12 other states nearly approved anti-Shariah statutes. Trumps demand and Montanas near miss were more affirmation than creation, of course. Islamophobia was already a trope with long legs. First it was ridicule: Muslims were ragheads and sand n---s. Older folks will remember Ray Stevenss 1962 hit Ahab the Arab, in which Ahab is an Arab pronounced Ay-rab so as to rhyme with Ahab and be ridiculous who has a tryst with an equally ridiculous Fatima. (Sidebar: The original Fatima was the daughter of Mohamed and the wife of Shia Islams founder, Ali; her veneration in Islam is similar to Marys in Christianity.) The barrier to that is cost and time: Training and paying for school resource officers is expensive. But, if school safety really is an issue, then isn't it worth whatever cost to do it correctly? It seems like some lawmakers want the guns in school, but they don't want to pay the professional training that goes along with it. And if that's the case, then Montana is cheaping out, and making our kids vulnerable. It's important to note that while the Republican-led Legislature got behind the bill, important law enforcement groups did not. If the people we train and trust with our lives everyday cannot support it, then we shouldn't either. Let the people trained to have the guns, keep the guns. The solution is simple, if we want more trained police officers, let's hire them. This seems to be more political show than go, so to speak. Most people don't want someone whose only qualification is a series of training sessions carrying around a gun near or by their most precious asset, their children. North Dakota oil and gas production saw robust increases in March but fell shy of the states oil record, the states top oil regulator said Wednesday. Oil production grew 4 percent in March to 1.39 million barrels per day, a pretty good recovery after severe winter weather in February hampered production, Director of Mineral Resources Lynn Helms said. The state set an oil production record in January with 1.4 million barrels per day. I fully anticipate that starting with April, well get back to setting records, Helms said. Meanwhile, natural gas production jumped 6.5 percent in March to a record 2.8 billion cubic feet per day. The increase was the largest volume gain for natural gas production in a single month, said Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. Operators flared 20 percent of natural gas produced in March, or a record 555 million cubic feet per day, according to the preliminary figures. The gas capture rate fell short of the North Dakota Industrial Commission goal, which seeks to limit Bakken flaring to 12 percent. Helms added that the volume of gas captured was also an all-time high in March, but the volume produced exceeded the amount of processing plant capacity and other infrastructure. Thats going to be the story for the rest of this year, Helms said, adding that plant capacity is expected to catch up by the end of the year. North Dakota had 65 drilling rigs operating on Wednesday, a level Helms said he expects to grow. Fifteen of those rigs were active on the Fort Berthold Reservation, which Helms attributed to the new tax agreement between the state and tribe that provides certainty for the industry. Seventy-three percent of the states oil left the state by pipeline in March, Kringstad said. About 260,000 barrels of oil per day left the state by rail, with the West Coast receiving the bulk of the shipments, Kringstad said. The state of North Dakota is preparing to sue the state of Washington over new legislation that would affect Bakken rail shipments, with a number of interested parties that have said they would intervene in a lawsuit to support North Dakota, Helms said. Thats where were headed, with near 100 percent certainty, he said. (Reach Amy Dalrymple at 701-250-8267 or Amy.Dalrymple@bismarcktribune.com) Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The head of North Dakota's public colleges and universities said a "macro technological revolution" is making cybersecurity and data privacy of the utmost importance. About a year ago, the State Board of Higher Education formed an advisory group to explore and report on issues surrounding data privacy. Since the formation of that group, North Dakota University System chancellor Mark Hagerott said he didn't expect data privacy would become as prevalent as it is today. "Eighteen months ago, we (convened the group) because we felt students' data was something that would follow them for the rest of their lives," Hagerott said Wednesday at a data privacy event at Bismarck State College. "Now, it's becoming this huge issue." Hagerott pointed to recent data privacy scandals within Facebook and a decision Tuesday by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to outlaw the use of facial recognition surveillance technology. The event Wednesday at BSC was held to help inform advisory group members as they continue to address data privacy, according to Hagerott. It included a video discussion with a New York University computer science professor and member of a task force looking at New York City's use of algorithms to aid in decision-making. There was also a representative from Microsoft in attendance. "We're just trying to think through this, to exchange ideas (and) inform people," Hagerott said. Also at the event was a recent graduate of North Dakota State University, Jared Melville, who discussed the North Dakota Student Association's draft bill of rights protecting students' data in the university system. "All kinds of organizations collect massive amounts of data, including the university system, so this bill of rights is largely addressed at ensuring that the university system is appropriately collecting, handling and securing the data it collects on students," said Melville, former president of the student association. Melville said students have been working on the bill of rights over the past academic year, and it started as part of an "ongoing conversation with the university system over cybersecurity, data privacy" and related topics. "Naturally, this is kind of something that affects students, so we have an interest in it," he said. Melville said the student association didn't find any other states with a comparable bill of rights protecting student data in higher education. The closest comparison was in New York, where the state's Education Department has a parents' bill of rights that protects the data of K-12 students. Hagerott applauded the students' initiative as well as efforts across the state related to data privacy. This includes a recent push to offer computer science and cybersecurity education in K-12 schools, as the state Legislature may launch a study to grapple with personal data issues. "We don't expect to solve anything today," Hagerott said, adding that he's hopeful discussions will continue. (Reach Blair Emerson at 701-250-8251 or Blair.Emerson@bismarcktribune.com) 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. A bell rang 64 times near the North Dakota Peace Officers Memorial on the state Capitol grounds on Wednesday, each time proceeding the reading of the name of a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty since 1882. A rifle volley, taps and the playing of Amazing Grace on bagpipes by Cpt. Mickey Harmon, of the Cass County Sheriffs Department, were also part of the 25th annual Law Enforcement Memorial Service. Their lives and deaths may only be memories now, but they must never be forgotten. Ceremonies like this remind us that we will never forget the price they paid for our safety and our freedom, said North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem. As we honor these fallen officers, we also pay our respects to those officers who are today serving their state and their community. North Dakotas list did not grow last year. However, 144 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in the United States in 2018, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Fifty of those officers deaths were traffic related, with 14 struck and killed while outside of their vehicle. The Bismarck-Mandan area has lost several officers in its history, including two in 2011. Burleigh County Deputy Sheriff Bryan Sleeper died of a heart attack after an altercation with a subject, and Bismarck Police Sgt. Steven Kenner was fatally shot while responding to a domestic disturbance. Lt. Governor Brent Sanford also spoke at the memorial service, which was attended by hundreds, including law enforcement officers from across the state, calling North Dakotas 64 fallen officers brave souls. We owe them our everlasting thanks for their selfless devotion and sacrifice, and for the unwavering bravery and dedication demonstrated on a daily basis by all of our men and women in law enforcement, he said. We hear officers speak often about the law enforcement family but its hard for those of us outside the circle to fully comprehend what that means, he added. Its a camaraderie shared only by those who wholly dedicate their lives to keeping others safe. Who kiss their spouses and hug their children before leaving the house to go to work, knowing it might be for the last time. Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle, who also spoke, said he feels the best way to prevent officers from being killed in the line of duty is to provide them with the equipment and training they need. North Dakota Highway Patrol Sgt. Luke Hendrickson, president of the North Dakota Peace Officers Association, served as the master of ceremonies, and chaplains from the Crisis Care Chaplaincy officiated and read the roll call of fallen officers. The Capitol building windows on two floors were lit to display a Thin Blue Line in a show of support and respect for all law enforcement, past and present, both Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Gov. Doug Burgum also ordered flags at half-staff Wednesday in observance of Peace Officers Memorial Day. No peace officer serving in North Dakota was killed in the line of duty last year, Stenehjem said. Let us pray that we can say that same thing again next year. (Reach Cheryl McCormack at 701-250-8264 or cheryl.mccormack@bismarcktribune.com.) Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 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. In a recent article at City Journal, Discovery Institute Fellow, Christopher Rufo says: Over the past few years, Seattle has become a dumping ground for millions of pounds of garbage, needles, feces, and biohazardous waste, largely emanating from the hundreds of homeless encampments that have sprouted across the city Last year saw a 400 percent increase in HIV infections among mostly homeless addicts and prostitutes in the citys northern corridor. Public-health officials are sounding the alarms about the return of diseases like typhus, tuberculosis, and trench fever. Even the regions famed mussels and clams have tested positive for opioids. The city of Seattle has failed on multiple attempts to remedy the problem. Most recently the city offered garbage pick up to 10 of the 400 homeless encampments in Seattle providing trash bags at no cost. Referencing a Seattle Times report, Rufo states the people in these encampments, returned only 26 percent of the trash bags that the city distributed and even some of the ones returned had been ripped apart by people looking for needles with a bit of heroin left. This seems par for the course as far as government solutions to social problems are concerned. One need not look any further than the dilapidated roads of Oakland, California 800 miles south of Seattle. But, the Oakland Pothole Vigilantes are no longer waiting on government bureaucrats to fix the problem. The self-named Pothole Vigilantes began their constructive tear through Oakland just over a month ago. What is their mission? Accomplish what the government wasnt able to fill the potholes that litter many Oakland neighborhoods. We love the city, we hope they fill the potholes faster. And if theyre not going to do it, well do it ourselves, is what one of the renegade pothole fixers had to say about their project in an interview with KOD. The Pothole Vigilantes have even started to receive donations through a gofundme account. To date, they have nearly raised $4,500 for their efforts which are sorely needed as the greater Oakland metropolitan area has some of the worst ranked roads in the country. In his 1791 Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, Edmund Burke wrote, Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites This quote echoes one of my favorite Lord Acton quotes from almost a century later, Liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization. The Pothole Vigilantes may have never read Edmund Burke, nor perhaps have they heard of Lord Acton, but they certainly understand the essence of what these two political philosophers were trying to convey. If we want authentic liberty we must cultivate a mature, moral civilization. This, in part, means that we cant wait for someone else to fix the problems that plague our communities. No outside authority directed this effort. No bureaucratic body is guiding the pothole fixing process. This is simply a group of concerned Oakland neighbors that were tired of driving over potholes. As F.A. Hayek would say, this effort has been the result of human action but not the result of some specific human design. It appears that Seattle might be able to learn a lesson from the enterprising citizens of Oakland who arent willing to wait for someone else to fix their roads. At the end of his article at the City Journal, Christopher Rufo suggests that, Seattles liberal moderates need to wake up and demand that city government meet one of its fundamental responsibilities: picking up the trash. Maybe instead of turning to the city government, private citizens of Seattle should consider taking matters into their own hands. There may just be a profit opportunity for an enterprising Amazon engineer to start a private community group of Garbage Vigilantes in Seattle. by guest blogger Elizabeth Townsend Gard, Professor of Law (Tulane Law School); Lepage Faculty Fellow (A.B. Freeman School of Business); and host, Just Wanna Quilt podcast Quilts are a little bit in the (copyright) news. What is a quilt? There are three parts to a quilt. The top, made many ways (patchwork, applique, whole cloth, to name a few); the batting (the fluffy part in the middle) and a backing. Once the top is completed, a quilter then puts the batting and backing together, and then quilts the pieces together. This case focuses on the patterns for creating the tops. The art of quilting can be many things art quilts, traditional quilts, to name a few. And the quilt can be based on traditional, long-known blocks; they can be improvisational; or in this case, based on a pattern created by designers. Quilters purchase the patterns because they like the way the top looks in the picture provided, or to learn a particular technique included with the pattern. Patterns sell for $5-20 for individual patterns, but they are also found in quilt magazines and publications specifically created within the quilting industry. This case involves a terrible ending to a business that included two quilt designers: Lone Star Promotions v. Abbey Lane Quilts involves a business venture gone bad between Marcea Owen and Janice Liljenquist, who at the moment have three cases working its way through the courts. This is the second opinion on the district court case in Utah, the first from November 2018. The case concerns who owns the copyrights over 150 quilt pattern designs. The court called this a tangled web of arguments with respect to their multiple claims against each other in three different courts (3). Quilting is a $5 billion industry, much of which is businesses typical of Abbey Lane Quilts. One or two (mostly women) come together to create and market patterns, which are sold in individually or in a book. Sometimes designers also create templates to go along with the books, which was true in this case as well. Quilters buy the patterns to make the quilts, bags, and other items for personal use. To be a successful, companies such as Abbey Lane Quilts participate in Quilt Market, a twice-a-year business convention put on by Quilts, Inc. They have a booth for quilt shops to see their patterns and quilts, and to connect with distributors, fabric companies and other designers. The pattern-making part of the quilting is competitive and challenging in making a living. And as this case demonstrates, partnerships are formedoften without thinking through the copyright authorship and ownership issues. All of the facts are taken from two opinions so far rendered by the Utah district court. In 2007, Marcea Owen created the company Lone Star, whose primary business was web design services. A year later, Janice Liljenquist and Marcea decided to create a Florida at-will partnership, Abbey Lane Quilts, to sell quilt patterns and related products. Marcea created the website, and was better at design and colors. Janice was better at sewing and pattern writing. We are not sure exactly what this means, especially in terms of authorship. The question was who owned the patterns, and who was the author when things went bad. Owen claims the patterns were made under her other company, Lone Star, and that Liljenquist made no copyrightable contribution, that in all but one, Lone Star (Owen) is the author, and finally that Lone Star had given an oral license to Abbey Lane Quilts to use the patterns. Liljenquist is also claiming joint authorship on the patterns, except for Tale of 2 Gnomes. Liljenquist claims the patterns are collaborative, that it took both of them to come up with a pattern, and that the quilting world saw them as joint, collaborative designers. They were a team. Liljenquist denied that Lone Star had any control of the designs, that she never heard of an oral license from Lone Star, and that the tax returns for four years does not indicate any license agreement or royalty payments to Lone Star for such license. Its not clear from the court documents how the trouble began. On April 2, 2017, Liljenquist proposed to buy out Owen from Abbey Lane Quilts for $50,000 or, alternatively, end the company. Allegedly, Liljenquist had cancelled Abbey Lane Quilts credit cards, stopped selling products, refused to send samples or fulfill orders. The story gets more confusing. Liljenquist created Abbey Lane Quilts, LLC in December 2016. And Owen made a yearly filing for Abbey Lane Quilts in 2017. Owen notified customers of Abbey Lane Quilts (the partnership) to communicate only with her, and Liljenquist notified Owen that she could not use any of the patterns without a payment of $50,000. Then, Owen created a second business, 2 Abbey Lane, a Utah LLC. Such a mess! Owen said that she created new patterns under Lone Star, which were then licensed to 2 Abbey Lane to sell. These were all new designs, she contends. Owen reissued the Take of 2 Gnomes pattern under No 2 Abbey Lane. The ownership of this pattern appears to be the only thing the parties can agree upon, and is not subject of the case. Then, in August 2017, Liljenquist and Abbey Lane Quilts, LLC filed a lawsuit in Utah for dissolution of Abbey Lane Quilts LLC by Owen. Liljenquist won a preliminary injunction against Owen as Abbey Lane Quilts LLC and 2 Abbey Lane from selling designs that had been sold under Abbey Lane Quilts partnership. Then, Owen filed a lawsuit against Liljenquist in Florida state court. The Utah case has now been stayed pending resolution of the Florida case. The Florida case was then stayed pending resolution of this case. (2) Both stays have recently been lifted. The Utah state court granted a preliminary injunction in favor of Liljenquist and Abby Lane Quilts LLC, which barred Owen and 2 Abbey Lane from selling designs from the Abbey Lane Quilts partnership, and Owens designs developed after Owen and Liljenquist had parted ways in April 2017 on grounds of alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition. Lone Star Promotions v. Abbey Lane Quilts, 2018 WL 5808802. After that, Owen registered the copyrights in 8 designs. Before this registration, Abbey Lane Quilts had one copyright registration. Well, C&T Publishing, a large publisher of quilt and craft books, registered Baby Times: 24 Handmade Treasures for Baby & Mom as a book under the copyright claimant, Abbey Lane Quilts, listing a Florida address in 2012. Abbey Lane was listed as the author, and employer for hire. It appears to be the only registration filed by Abbey Lane Quilts. In 2017, eight patterns were registered under Lone Star Promotions, as employer for hire, interestingly under a Florida address: Blossoms & Spokes, Notting Hill, Just Smashing, Manchester Square, Double Decker, Hyde Park, Chelsea Market, and Tale of 2 Gnomes. Lone Star Promotions is not a party to the state actions, even though Lone Star Promotions is the copyright claimant. Then, the lawsuit in Utah district court was filed on June 28, 2018, and four months later, Lone Star filed the current motion for preliminary injunction against the Utah State Second District Court for allegedly violating 28 USC Section 1338(a) and improperly interfering with Lone Stars rights under the Copyright Act. At the time of the state injunction, Lone Star had not registered its copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office, and no copyright claims were in front of the state court, and in fact the preliminary injunction was based on trade secrets and unfair competition, not copyright. The in aid of its jurisdiction exception to the Anti-Injunction Act also did not apply. The court then turned to the preliminary injunction factors. As to likelihood of success on the merits, the court found significant disputed factors regarding authorship and licensing rights of the parties, and so there is no clear likelihood of success on the merits. Owen also stated the irreparable harm was her interference with her 106 rights under the Copyright Act, which she did not take up with the state court. Moreover, she could have had the case removed to federal court based on the federal trademark claim, and later the copyright registration. The court cannot conclude that Lone State is irreparably harmed when it has not taken advantage of the procedures and remedies available to it. Lone Star Promotions v. Abbey Lane Quilts, 2018 WL 5808802 (November 6, 2018). Also, over six months had passed since the state injunction, which lessens the optics that there is an immediate harm. Moreover, there are still opportunities to appeal and revise the preliminary injunction in state court. Therefore, the Utah district court denied the preliminary injunction against the Utah State District Court. Motion to Dismiss in April: Which court? The April 11, 2018, the Utah district court decision set out to resolve where the claims should be litigated: state or federal court. Defendant/Owen filed for a motion to dismiss, claiming that under Borden v. Katzman, 881 F.2d 1034 (11th cir. 1989), contractual disputes over copyright belong in state court. Lone Stars second amended complaint had claims of copyright infringement and a declaratory judgment on authorship. It is not clear just who owns the disputed 150 minus 1 pattern, and so Owen as Lone Star wanted the case to remain in federal court, as both copyright infringement as well as disputes over authorship are federal questions. So many authorship questions: whether Liljenquist is a joint author of that design who cannot infringe it, whether the lack of a writing is fatal to Lone Stars copyright claim, whether the copyright was a work for hire, and whether the copyright is to the full pattern or just a picture of the design all go to the merits of Lone Stars claims, not the jurisdiction of the court over those claims. (3). It could get interesting! And more issues! The copyright registration of the patterns is not Owens name, and so the Defendant argues that Owen is not the proper Plaintiff. The court did not dismiss for lack of federal subject matter or for abstention. Abstention was argued by the Defendants because there are other cases pending in state court. But the copyright issues must be resolved in federal court, and so the case was not dismissed. My Take This case is interesting on a number of levels. First, these kinds of disputes are throughout the quilting world, although they dont often rise to three court cases. But this is a field with informal relationships, family businesses, and sometimes falling-out situations. Also, most of the pattern makers like Owen and Liljenquist do not register their works, as demonstrated by the records and timing on what Owen did register. The publishers, like C&T Publishing, regularly register their works, but even authors of published books by C&T do not register their individual patterns. (It is interesting that the original copyright was registered as Abbey Lane Quilts, of course). Its just not part of the culture, even though they care so much about their patterns, as demonstrated by this case. Finally, the creatives in the quilting industry do not have much education on copyright, as demonstrated by the lack of clarity of ownership, authorship and other related copyright issues. Should this go all the way and we get a decision on ownership and authorship in these creative spaces that might help quilters, crafters and others better understand the importance of clear agreements, registration, and better attention to copyright issues. To date, we do not have cases that discuss quilt ownership. The issues that arise are a bundle-ful. Thats what Ive been working on for the last two years. Not only are there questions of authorship related to who created the quilt pattern, but most underlying patterns have significant elements in the public domain. Moreover, what is copyright protecting? Is it merely the image of the quilt? Is the math the image, or is it more like a recipe, and unprotectable? Then, there is the consumer side. When we buy patterns, are the pattern makers giving us a non-exclusive implied license to create the work (probably)? And derivative works (probably)? What about selling the completed works? So, there are two paths that quilters ask questions on: ownership and how far their copyrights extend, even though they rarely register their patterns outside of a publisher registering a work, as in this case). And second, what can the average consumer do with the patternsand how far do the rights extend to control the sale of the final products made by the general consumer. The second question is beyond the case, but is part of the larger Just Wanna Quilt Copyright Study at Tulane Law School. For more, also listen to the Just Wanna Quilt podcast, where we discuss copyright, quilting and other aspects of life, available at iTunes and other podcast venues. Case Citation: Lone Star Productions, LLC v. Abbey Lane Quilts LLC, 2019 WL 1574804 (D. Utah April 11, 2019) [Austria's Epicentre Works is an incredibly effective European digital rights group, most famous for getting the EU's Data Retention Directive struck down; now, they're raising the alarm about a move to relax the EU's Net Neutrality rules to allow ISPs to conduct fine-grained surveillance and discrimination against services that aren't in bed with ISPs. I'm happy to provide Epicenter Works's Thomas Lohninger a space to highlight the group's efforts -Cory] Today 45 NGOs, Academics and Companies from 15 countries released an open letter outlining the dangers of the wide-spread use of privacy invasive Deep Packet Inspection technology in the European Union. The letter is referencing the ongoing negotiations about Europes new net neutrality rules in which some telecom regulators are pushing for the legalization of DPI technology. Deep Packet Inspection allows telecom companies to examine the content of our communications data. Information about which apps we use, the videos we watch and the specific news articles we read should be off limits for the telecom industry. Yet, with the proliferation of zero-rating to all but two European countries the industry has started to utilize DPI equipment on a large scale to bill certain data packages differently or to throttle services to cram more internet subscribers in a network already running over capacity. Europe's current net neutrality rules contain a clear ban on any Deep Packet Inspection technology that examines specific user information for the purpose of treating traffic differently. Yet, a mapping of zero-rating offers in Europe identified 186 such products which potentially make use of DPI technology. Most regulators have so far turned a blind eye to these net neutrality violations and instead of fulfilling their enforcement duties now want to water down the rules to cover their inactivity. The negotiations are expected to continue in private and will culminate to a public consultation in autumn with Europe's net neutrality rules expected to be decided in March 2020. Open Letter to the EU [EDRi] Axon formerly Taser International makes police bodycams that they sell to towns on the cheap, betting that they'll make it up by gouging the towns for cloud-based storage for footage from the cameras (what could possibly go wrong?!). The town of Fontana, California bought some of Axon's bodycams to try them out with its police force, but after three years, decided to open up a general call for bids by Axon and its competitors to outfit the whole force. When a rival won the contract, Fontana tried to cancel its contract with Axon. Axon's sales reps falsely claimed that Fontana could not cancel its contract (the contract actually contained a "termination for convenience" clause that allowed the town to terminate the contract at will), and implied in correspondence with town officials that they would arrange to have the town's credit rating damaged if the town did not continue to pay $4,000/year for a service it wasn't using. Muckrock used Freedom of Information Access requests to get a copy of the contract and the correspondence and discovered that the town had been lied to by Axon; when they contacted the town to ask about the discrepancy, officials finally reviewed the contract and discovered the lie. According to Muckrock, Axon's business relies on recurring payments from small towns for cloud services. Axon is entrusted with the most sensitive and potentially damaging information that many of these towns generate, and unethical conduct on Axon's part could lead to catastrophic consequences for people across the country. The fact that its sales reps use deceit and blackmail to keep payments coming from towns should be a wakeup call for every Axon customer. As part of its release to a MuckRock California Public Records Act request, Fontana also provided its evaluation of bids in the 2017 search for a body camera purveyor; Axon came third in a field of seven contenders. The agency cited features available from its winning company that were not present on the Axon model, including the ability to securely and easily send digital evidence to the District Attorney. Binks estimates that between 150 and 160 officers are now outfitted with body cameras that also serve as cell phones, capable of calling and performing other applications for officers in the field. According to Binks, the police department has spent just more than $8,000 for the unused subscription, not that much, he says, in the scheme of things. However, those recurring costs at agencies across America are increasingly key to Axon's growth. The company now claims to have some form of customer relationship with 17,000 of the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S., and it's actively working to grow its international customer base, making it one of the most ubiquitous providers of police technology. According to the company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the worth of contracts with recurring payments for Evidence.com-related products has nearly tripled in the last two years, from just over $56 million at the end of 2016 to almost $160 million at the end of last year. Axon misled city about contract terms when police switched to new bodycam vendor [Beryl Lipton/Muckrock] (via Techdirt) Police in London conducted a public street trial with facial recognition cameras. A man who covered his face as he walked by the cameras was stopped by officers, forced to submit to being photographed, and then arrested on a charge of public disorder after complaining loudly. The segment starts at 3:35 in the embedded BBC video; here's more coverage from The Independent: The Independent revealed that more than 200,000 was spent on six deployments that resulted in no arrests between August 2016 and July last year. Two people wanted for violent offences were arrested after a trial in December. Critics have called the force's use of facial recognition a "shambles" and accused Scotland Yard of wasting public money The Metropolitan Police has described the deployments as "overt" and said members of the public were informed facial recognition was being used by posters and leaflets. But no one questioned by The Independent after they passed through a scanning zone in central London in December had seen police publicity material, and campaigners claim the technology is being rolled out "by stealth". I can barely beleive the motto of the Metropolitan Police is 'TOTAL POLICING'. Horseshoe theory is a limiting view of politics, but it is amazing how we get to the terminology of comic-book villainy by other means. The jobsworth "for your own protection" attitude of British cops is incredibly annoying, albeit less annoying than getting executed in the street by American ones. The real danger, though, lurks in how the cops dance their way between that nonsense and, as one plain-clothes officer puts it, "covering your face is grounds for reasonable suspicion." When authorities pick and choose rationalizations depending on the audience, the true answer is a secret. African-American women suffer a much higher level of maternal mortality than the national average, and Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bold but high-risk plan to incentivize hospitals to root out the institutional, systemic racism that produces these terrible outcomes. Under Warren's proposal, hospitals that continue to produce higher-than-average levels of maternal mortality for African-American patients will lose funding; while hospitals that improve will get bonuses. As Warren tweeted: "Don't just observe and debate racism in health care. Make providers pay until this crisis is fixed." I am 100% in favor of fixing institutional racism in health-care, and maternal care is a great place to start, but I'm really worried about this kind of plan. Structurally, Warren's plan mirrors GW Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, in which "underperforming" teachers and schools lost money, and teachers and schools that had improved test scores got bonuses. This produced terrible outcomes: teachers whose students scored poorly due to factors beyond their control (teaching in neighborhoods with high levels of unemployment, homelessness and discriminatory policing practices that locked up their students' parents) got less money to help the students who needed it the most, while teachers and schools that had structural advantages got money they needed less than their underperforming counterparts in worse-situated schools. And then there's the incredible incentive to cheat that these carrot-and-stick measures produce. Even without cheating, there are lots of ways that hospitals can juke their stats: when Tony Blair started punishing hospitals whose ambulances took too long to arrive, the ambulance services responded with a raft of bizarre, terrible tactics. Blair's targets specified an eight-minute response time for "immediate life-threatening cases," so the ambulance services redefined "immediate life-threatening" to exclude many serious conditions; and ambulances were replaced with EMTs on motorbikes, who could reach their patients in less than eight minutes (but couldn't do as much for them as an ambulance crew). And then there was the predictable spike in ambulance dispatches whose arrivals were recorded as coming 7:59 after the call came in. A lot of the hospitals with high African-American maternal mortality will be situated in neighborhoods where there are a host of discriminatory practices that harm mothers' outcomes: food deserts, racist police profiling, cuts to services, underfunded schools, high pollution levels and poor transit links. The hospitals in those neighborhoods need more money, not less, but a reform measure that only looks at outcomes and not wider circumstances will cut funding to those hospitals. It may be possible to build a more holistic evaluation scheme that avoids these traps, and I'd like to see Warren's detailed proposal to see how she addresses them. Speaking in Houston on Monday, the Massachusetts Democrat suggested that medical providers should be rewarded with "bonus" funds for reducing those numbers, which are three or four times higher than for white women. "And if they don't," the presidential candidate said, dropping the carrot to wield a stick, "then they're going to have money taken away from them. I want to see the hospitals see it as their responsibility to address this problem head-on and make it a first priority. The best way to do that is to use money to make it happen, because we gotta have change and we gotta have change now." Warren's plan, which she discussed for the first time at the She the People conference in Texas, was greeted with sustained applause in a room largely filled by women of color a constituency that will likely be key in deciding the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The audience quickly warmed to the senator, then sent her off with a standing ovation as she rolled through her growing suite of detailed policy proposals. Perhaps more than any other candidate in the field, Warren has offered comprehensive plans to match her campaign rhetoric, a dedicated strategy her aides and allies believe will ultimately translate into success in the polls. Elizabeth Warren rolls out plan to reward hospitals that make childbirth safer for African-American women [Gregory Krieg/CNN] (Image: Luis Prado, CC-BY) The US embassy in Austria has made a deal with the 194 McDonald's restaurants in Austria to help US citizens in distress by putting them in touch with embassy staff who can help with lost passports and other emergencies. From BBC: A 24-hour hotline to the embassy is part of the arrangement. The embassy said it was ensuring that American citizens had every option available to get in touch when in need "the #1 duty of every embassy around the world". McDonald's said it saw itself as a type of support and telephone exchange and had agreed to the idea on the request of US ambassador Trevor Traina. A spokesman told the BBC it would also "help anyone who finds themselves in need of assistance, for example, by calling the police or emergency services". Donald Trump's administration refuses to sign an international commitment to fight extremism online, citing concerns with free speech. The "Christchurch call to action" was brokered between officials in France and New Zealand and executives from the world's largest social media companies. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron are behind the call to action, which is scheduled to be unveiled later today, Wednesday, in Paris. From Tony Romm and Drew Harwell at the Washington Post: The decision comes as world leaders prepare to announce the so-called "Christchurch call to action" on Wednesday, an effort named after the New Zealand city where a shooter attacked two mosques in an attack inspired by online hate and broadcast on social-media sites. The document calls on governments and tech giants to improve their efforts to study and stop the spread of harmful content. U.S. officials said they stand "with the international community in condemning terrorist and violent extremist content online," and support the goals of the Christchurch document. But the White House said in a statement it is "not currently in a position to join the endorsement," which leaders from countries such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are expected to sign. The decision puts the United States at odds with U.S. tech companies including Facebook and Google, which are expected to support the effort. A day earlier, White House officials raised concerns that the document might run afoul of the First Amendment. "We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press," the White House said. "Further, we maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech, and thus we emphasize the importance of promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging." Last year, Google was rocked by a succession of mass uprisings by its staff, who erupted in fury after discovering that the company was secretly pursuing a censored Chinese search tool and an AI project for US drones, and that it had secretly paid Android founder Andy Rubin $150m to quietly leave the company after women who worked for him accused him of sexually assaulting them. In the end, 20,000 googlers walked out in protest, and, after attaining victory for most of their demands, continued to press the company to hold itself to high ethical standards, successfully blocking the inclusion of a transphobic, racist, xenophobic ideologue on the company's "AI Ethics" committee. Google management didn't take this lying down: they illegally retaliated against uprising organizers Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton (leading to a predictable second uprising among googlers). Now, Google management is taking things further, circulating a company-wide memo warning employees what they can expect to be terminated if they access documents that are "need to know" (which would have included the documents that led to the unrest about the drone project, the China project, Andy Rubin's payoff, and the inclusion of a Heritage Foundation extremist on the AI Ethics committee). Googlers are predictably upset about this not least because there are no consistent standards for "need to know" classification, and not all "need to know" documents are correctly labeled, a situation that creates an employment minefield for googlers. It's part of a general trend towards secrecy within Google, including an end to the practice of archiving videos from the company-wide, weekly "TGIF" meetings, and also an end to the practice of allowing any employee to ask questions of management at these meetings. The Thursday email titled "An important reminder on data classifications" referenced changes to Google's data security policy that were updated in October. Although the policy has been in place since 2007, and updates are visible internally, employees weren't notified by email at the time. The timing of the email announcement rattled employees who've been involved with organizing within the company's ranks and who told BuzzFeed News they saw it as a blow to internal accountability mechanisms. These employees said the "need to know" language in the data security policy leaves which particular documents are considered "need to know" up to Google's interpretation; "need to know" documents aren't necessarily labeled as such, and the punishment for accessing such documents without permission can vary but include termination. Google Exec's Internal Email On Its Data Leak Policy Has Rattled Employees [Caroline O'Donovan/Buzzfeed] (via /.) Featured Post Watch now 'Understory: Tongass Forest Documentary' Destruction of Alaskan Coastal Rain Forest "There was a time when the less greedy you are, and the more you can give, the wealthier you are," said Marina Anderson, Haida, tr... Archive Search This Blog Donate to Censored News Please donate to Censored News for travel and equipment for our live coverage. Thank you, Brenda. About Censored News Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell. Since 2006, Censored News has received more than 20 million pageviews. As a collective of writers, photographers and broadcasters, we publish news of Indigenous Peoples and human rights. Contact publisher Brenda Norrell: brendanorrell@gmail.com From the publisher Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 39 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the mainstream media for 14 years. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com Translate News / National by Simbarashe Sithole Two Harare men who stole a motorbike and crossed to the neighbouring Mozambique were finally nabbed while selling the stolen property valued at $5000.Kudzai Nyamakava (46) and Makusha Kure (32) both from Epworth Harare were arrested and brought to Guruve court where they were slapped with two year jail term by magistrate Shingirai Mutiro.Public prosecutor Spiwe Makarichi told the court that on 5 April 2019 around 11pm in Kanyemba, Mashonaland Central province, the convicts hatched a plan to steal a red CTX motorbike belonging to a Non-Governmental Company.The duo succeeded in their plan and went away unnoticed, after a week the police received a tip off that the two were selling the stolen bike in Mozambique.A trap was conducted leading to the arrest of the two, the bike was recovered but they had sold its battery.Mutiro suspended six months on condition of good behaviour and the remaining 42 months are effective. News / National by Staff reporter ZIMBABWE Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) chief executive Morris Bekezela Mpofu will today appear in court facing charges of criminal abuse of duty, police has said.On Monday, Mpofu was picked up for questioning by the police before being released, while the company's finance director, Charles Gambe, was arrested for criminal abuse of office after he allegedly bought 1 200 bags of cement at Lafarge Cement for personal use using his employer's account.National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi yesterday confirmed the latest developments but could not divulge further details on Mpofu's case."Morris Mpofu will appear in court tomorrow [today] for criminal abuse of duty. All I can say for now is that he abused his duty after he recommended a person with criminal records which was not procedural," he said.Meanwhile, Gambe yesterday appeared in court on allegations of using the company's account to buy 1 200 bags of cement from Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe Limited for his personal use.Gambe (49) was facing fraud charges when he appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Barbra Mateko. He was granted $200 bail.As part of his bail conditions, he was ordered to surrender his passport with the Clerk of Court.Gambe was also ordered to continue residing at his given address, report once every Friday to the police and not to interfere with state witnesses.During the last quarter of 2019 at Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe Limited in Manresa, Gambe misrepresented to the company's sales department that he intended to buy cement for ZCDC.It is alleged that as a result of the misrepresentation Gambe was allowed to purchase 1 200 bags of cement for his personal use using ZCDC's account.The court heard that this posed a potential prejudice to ZCDC which might have failed to buy cement since its slot had been fraudulently used by Gambe.On the part of Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe Limited, the potential prejudice was tarnishing of corporate image if individual buyers were to complain that Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe Limited showed favour to Gambe, an individual cement purchaser and showing disfavour to other individual cement consumers, since there were limited cement supplies for buyers at the time the alleged offence was committed. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Former Cabinet Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo said he desperately worked to change the 'rotten' culture of ZANU PF but lost it when he was ambushed during the bloody November coup that ended 37 years of President Robert Mugabe's rule.Professor Moyo made the revelation while responding to one Vusi Mbano who had asked why he worked with a system that he is not criticising.Said Prof. Moyo, "I fought it and called it uglyculture when I was in government. I was desperate to change it. I tried my level best by delicately walking through a minefield, fighting the rot. I lost the fight on 15 November 2017 when I was ambushed in the night by the military coup which imposed Mnangagwa. The rest is history!"In 2016 the then Commander of Zimbabwe Defense Forces General Constantino Dominic Nyikadzino Guvheya Chiwenga warned Jonathan Moyo that they are watching him as he tries to destroy ZANU PF from within."We were reading mapepa paakatanga kuti 'when you want to destroy ZANU PF you need to do it from within." Chiwenga said."Vaitiudza kuti kuchazoita vamwe vechidiki vanofanirwa kutonga. Hazvina kunyorwa here? Munoti tanga tisingazvioni? Hazvisizvo here zvirikuitika? Ngatidye sadza zvakanaka."Moyo once wrote an article which called for leadership and cultural renewal in the party and the article gave birth to the name Generational 40 which he coined. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The United States of America has issued a stern warning to its citizens to be vigilant when travelling to Zimbabwe due to civil unrest and increased levels of crime.USA on Tuesday issued a notice titled 'Zimbabwe Travel Advisory, Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution'.The notice said, "Violent crime, such as assault, carjacking, and home invasion, is common. Smashing the windows of cars with the intent to steal, which can harm the driver or passengers, is also common. Local police lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents. Read the safety and security section on the country information page,"Americans were encouraged to stay alert and avoid openly displaying cash, stay away from political rallies, demonstrations and crowds, as well as monitor local media for breaking events and to be prepared to adjust plans.They were further dissuaded from carrying original copies of their passports and visas.Zimbabwe has seen a high increase of criminal activities especially in Harare due to escalating levels of poverty. News / National by Staff reporter A Port Elizabeth-based pilot who allegedly ran away after he crashed his Audi A4 into pedestrians, killing one, has been arrested and intends to apply for bail.Kelvin Zirema, 31, was identified as the driver of the vehicle involved in a crash in Beach Road, Humewood, in the early hours of Sunday.He was driving the vehicle in the right lane, travelling towards King's Beach, when he knocked into two pedestrians standing next to the island in the road at around 03:50, said Colonel Priscilla Naidu."The driver lost control of the vehicle and collided with four other stationary vehicles near the Humewood Hotel. No one was in these vehicles at the time. The driver got out and ran away, but was arrested by police."The vehicle was towed to the pound for further investigation.Still in custodyA video of the gruesome crash has been circulating on social media.Anthony Agbo, 35, a Nigerian national who had been in the country for just a few days, was killed.A woman from Zwide, 26, was seriously injured and is still in hospital.Zirema works at Helicopter Charter and Training, situated about 5km away from where the accident took place.The company declined to comment at this stage.Zirema appeared in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate's Court on Monday on charges of drunk driving, culpable homicide and reckless and/or negligent driving.He will remain in custody until his formal bail application on Thursday. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu National Patriotic Front Jealousy Mawarire is blowing his top over revelations that former white commercial farmers might get back land as compensation than agree to take money.Commercial Farmers Union Director Ben Gilpin was quoted by media saying "To pay me, government has to take money from taxpayers. Wouldn't it be ok that, instead of excluding me from farming, you give me a land lease where I pay money to the state to meet its obligation?,"Responding to Gilpin Mawarire said, "The counterrevolutionary Emmerson Mnangagwa is now handing back land to our erstwhile colonizers. So why did more than 50 00 Zimbabweans die if the land they were fighting for is now being handed back to those who colonized us in the first place? ED admin is a cancer we should be worried of."Mawarire said NPF was willing to fight for the land if it was given back to the whites even for leasing."As the NPF, we say no to sell outs, counterrevolutionaries and Western puppets who seek to use Our land to buy phyrric legitimacy. Our youths, most Zimbabweans and our women, did not benefit from fast track land redistribution. What the hell is ED trying to do now?"We will FIGHT for our land. We will resist efforts to appease the west by the coup president. The land is ours and blood was shed for that land. We have watched ED giving away our minerals, now he is reversing the gains we made since independence. This is unacceptable. The Junta PF can steal elections but Zimbabweans won't allow them to hand our land back to our former colonizers. Zimbabweans should unite to resist such counterrevolutionary moves by ED's illegitimate regime."He added, "Anyone who intends to dispossess our people of THEIR LAND won't just instigate a political, social or economic crisis but a spiritual crisis as well." News / National by Staff reporter Government has to date paid US$64,4 million to 93 white former commercial farmers for the improvements they made on reallocated farms, a senior official has said.Presenting the Ministerial statement on the state of economy last night, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube said Government was committed to finalising compensation for all farmers who were affected by the land reform programme in accordance with country Constitution and obligations under bilateral agreements"As outlined in the Transitional Stabilisation Programme. Government is committed to finalising compensation for all former farmers affected by the land reform programme."Government is also engaging development partners and other bilateral countries with the view to mobilising the requisite resources."Since 2009 to date, US$64,4 million was paid to 93 former commercial farmers as compensation for immovable improvements."In 2018 alone, US$12 million was paid to 29 farmers. In the 2019 National Budget we set aside US$53 million for the same purpose," he said.He said the process of compensation involved the evaluation of assets to ascertain the extent of Government's obligation to former commercial farmers owing to the magnitude of resources required.Prof Ncube said Government had been working with the former commercial farmers to identify qualifying beneficiaries"The process is now complete. Currently, Government is in the process of vetting the identified members as a verification exercise to trigger disbursements."Compensating the affected farmers is a noble idea and is in keeping with our Constitutional dispensation," he said. News / National by Staff reporter President Mnangagwa yesterday swore-in three six-member commissions for the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS) at State House in Harare.The swearing-in of the commissioners was done in terms of the Constitution, which provides for the establishment of such commissions, adding to governance reforms that are being undertaken by President Mnangagwa's administration, which is also expanding civil and political rights in the country.President Mnangagwa said it was a requirement of the supreme law of the country to set up the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Services Commission, "consisting of a chairperson, who must be the chairperson of the Civil Service Commission and a minimum of two and a maximum of six other members appointed by the President."First to be sworn-in was the Zimbabwe Defence Commission in terms of Section 217 of the Constitution.The six who took oath of office before President Mnangagwa wereBishop Morris Gwedegwe, Air Commodore Anele Moyo (Rtd), Major General Etherton Shungu (Rtd), Colonel George Nare (Rtd), Mrs Patrica Sarah Bwerofa and Mrs Sheilla Mahere-Nyagumbo.The Police Services Commission members who were sworn in are Mr Great Fortune Zengeni, Mr Benson Gasura, Mr Casper Khumalo, Ms Plaxedes Gezha, Ms Mercy Muchirahondo-Murevesi and Dr Nyasha Kaseke.The last set of commissioners to take oath of office was that of the Prison and Correctional Services Commission. These are Colonel Godfrey Matemachani (Rtd), Mrs Pauline Mukondiwa, Brigadier General Milton Siziba (Rtd), Mrs Pauline Chapendama, Mrs Charles Manzini and Mrs Priscillah Murombedzi.Persons to be appointed to these three commissions, according to the Constitution, must be chosen for their knowledge of or experience in the administration, management and military affairs, police affairs and prisons affairs.Professional qualifications are also considered.At least half of the members of the commissions must be persons who are not and have not been members of the Defence Forces, police and prison service, says the Constitution.Also, according to the supreme law, at least one of them must have held a senior rank in the respective portfolios for one or more periods amounting to at least five years. Opinion / Columnist Elevation of Chamisa by National Council Pot calling kettle black Lawyer versus lawyers Defiance of the courts Not clean Power corrodes Lies Stubbornness Servant leadership Dialogue The MDC is a party that has been dogged by controversy since its formation. First was the split led by the then Secretary General, Professor Welshman Ncube over the issue of participating in the 2005 Senate elections or not. When the party was drubbed by ZANU PF during the 2013 harmonised elections internal cracks started to emerge with Acting Treasure General, Elton Steers Mangoma calling for leadership renewal which did not go down well with the late MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.Of all the developments in the MDC, there has emerged a young turk who is so power hungry in the name of Nelson Chamisa who is now leading the political outfit. The young man suffers from a huge ego to the detriment of the party.When the MDC National Standing Committee proposed the creation of two more Vice Presidents in the party, the issue was referred to the National Council for consideration. The National Council then advised Tsvangirai to hold wide consultations with party members and report back to the council. Tsvangirai in July 2016 went ahead and appointed Elias Mudzuri and Chamisa as VPs in addition to Dr Thokozani Khupe. Surprisingly, the announcement was not made at Harvest House, but at Tsvangirai's Highlands residence.Thus the creation of the other two VPs was never provided for in the MDC constitution.Following the death of Tsvangirai, Chamisa railroaded the MDC members and the National Council to endorse him as the party leader and Presidential candidate. If he was the rightful person to occupy that office he should have waited for an extra-ordinary congress to be convened and due processes to take place. Dr Khupe as the constitutionally elected VP in 2014 was supposed to take over not Chamisa.Since losing the Presidential election to President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the 2018 election, Chamisa has been questioning the President's legitimacy despite all the endorsement by various election monitors among them SADC and the African Union (AU). Now that the shoe is on the other foot if it pinches that's tough lucky for Chamisa. In the same vein he calls others illegitimate, the High Court ruled that he was the MDC illegitimate leader as well.In dealing with the MDC leadership issues, the MDC Secretary General, Douglas Mwonzora tried to offer his legal advice to Chamisa on the issue. Chamisa in his lack of tack did not heed Mwonzora and Advocate Eric Matinenga on how to replace Tsvangirai. If Chamisa cannot listen to fellow lawyers, it shows that he is as stubborn as a mule which in the long run is going to be his undoing.High Court Judge, Justice Edith Mushore last Wednesday ruled that the MDC was supposed to revert to the 2014 structures and that the appointment of Mudzuri and Chamisa were illegitimate as well as the MDC presidency held by Chamisa. An extra-ordinary congress was supposed to be held within a month. As expected, Chamisa defied the court ruling and went ahead in holding meeting in preparation for their congress which had been slated for 24 to 26 May 2019 in Gweru.During and after 2018 election campaigns, Chamisa claimed that his hands were clean, but alas they are dripping with blood. First he urged his supporters to take to the streets on 1 August 2018 and the blood of the dead people should be upon his head because he directed them to protest on his behalf. On Monday, MDC Glen View South legislator, Vimbai Tsvangirai- Java was involved in a road accident. The accident claims the lives of Tafadzwa Mhundwa and Paul Rukanda. If Chamisa had complied with the High Court ruling this unfortunate incident could have been avoided.When Chamisa has set his sight on acquiring power, nothing short of death will stop him. As it stands he does not want to listen to anyone as he has already set his eyes on the 2023 Presidential elections. From the day that he ascended to that office his feet grew too big for his shoes and became arrogant making decisions on his party despite the long term bearing on the party and its future.When they went for elections in 2018, Chamisa saw to it that his preferred candidates sailed through. This resulted in long time MDC members falling on the wayside. The likes of Jessie Majome and Ambassador designate James Maridadi were sidelined in Harare West and Mabvuku/Tafara Constituencies, respectively.Transform Zimbabwe leader, Jacob Ngarivhume has finally thrown in the towel and left the MDC after being sidelined in the congress equation.Chamisa is a psychological liar, each time he holds a microphone he would be churning out lies. Top on his list of lies was when he told a rally in Manicaland Province in 2018 that United States President Donald Trump has promised them US$15 billion to use in turning around the country's economy. As if that was not enough, he went on to promise state of the art infrastructure such as bullet trains and rural airports.If Chamisa has this arrogance and stubbornness of wily-nilly disregarding court at party level what would he do if he was to be elected State President? This kind of stubbornness is what irks people most.As the economy is taking its toll on the country and affecting the generality of citizens, Chamisa is taking pride in telling people that he is the one who holds the economic keys. One wonders what pleasure he derives from the suffering of people whom he wants to vote for him come 2023.When President Mnangagwa called for dialogue to resolve national issues, Chamisa snubbed it. Chamisa instead is still pressing on for a discussion on the outcome of the 2018 elections. He is forgetting that elections are over and it's time for national building and growing the economy for the benefit of all citizens. Even renowned constitutional lawyer, Professor Lovemore Madhuku has reminded Chamisa that the issue of legitimacy is now water under the bridge.In conclusion, it can be seen that Chamisa has been declared the illegitimate MDC leader. His illegitimacy coupled with the lies that he speaks, lack of servant leadership and snubbing of dialogue makes him not fit to occupy the highest office in the land. Opinion / Columnist Don Chigumba can be found on twitter @Donchigumba I used to undermine the supernatural powers of God but after the confrontation between ZANU PF youths and a defenseless Chief Ndiweni I am over-confident that God is the savior for the oppressed and downtrodden. If it was not because of God's powers, ZANU PF youths were going to kill Chief Ndiweni by fire on 15 May 2019. According to the media the murderers (ZANU PF youths) wanted to seize the Chief's car that he was given by the government. There are also allegations that the youths used a jerry-can to spray fuel on Chief Ndiweni's car. When they were about to kill him after spraying fuel on his car God intervened.This piece seeks to support the truth that Chief Ndiweni's life is in danger and call for citizens to contribute money to a fund that can be used to buy a new car for Chief Ndiweni (so that he can return back the ZANU PF bloody car and serve the Zimbabweans freely). ZANU PF and its government are using the cars bought buy taxpayers' money to silence Chief Ndiweni and other Chiefs. Zimbabweans should purchase a new car for the Chief in order for him to serve the Zimbabweans without fear and favor.The attempted murder on Chief Ndiweni's life is coming after his hard stance against the Gukurahundi exhumations that are currently under way. Attempted murder is coming following the Chief's hard stance against President ED Mnangagwa and his government. Chief Ndiweni is also alleged to be among the Chiefs from Matabeleland who are against the projects championed by the first lady in the area. I am strongly convinced that the Chief is a victim of his hard and democratic stance against the undemocratic ZANU PF government. Time is up for the government to stop silencing Chiefs by cars bought by the taxpayers' money.I know that ZANU PF is likely to distance itself from their youths who wanted to kill Chief Ndiweni today but I am 268.9% convinced that the youths were ZANU PF members send by their leaders to kill the Chief. The fact that they wanted to use fire to kill the Chief and burn his car resonates with ZANU PF methods of killing their enemies. Talent Mabika and Chiminya were burned to deaths by ZANU PF people in Manicaland. The Dairy Newspaper was once petrol bombed by alleged ZANU PF youths. General Mujuru was reduced to less than 10kgs by fire alleged to be linked to his enemies from the party. His body was burned to ashes but the carpet underneath was still intact. There are quite a number of cases of fire related deaths alleged to have been caused by ZANU PF linked people even the former Chipangano leader Jim Kunaka testified to this.It is shocking that neither the ZANU PF party nor the government has commented on the attempted murder of the Chief by the alleged ZANU PF youths. VANONGOTI DENO RWAFA (they do not care about the Chief's life).To my fellow Zimbabweans, time has come for us to call a spade a spade and not a hoe. There is need for the citizens to buy new cars for Chiefs around Zimbabwe in order to stop ZANU PF and government from terrorizing them. ZANU PF government should stop politicizing government institutions. The Chiefs should not be silenced by cars. I hope the opposition party should take this idea, they should mobilize citizens so that cars for Chiefs should be provided direct from the citizens. It is embarrassing for a party like ZANU PF to use government cars to silence Chiefs.To Chief Ndiweni, I urge you to return that (car) to government or ZANU PF now. If he is not careful, that car will take him to heaven. It is better for the Chief to use public trains and transport rather than using a grave car. The ZANU PF youths are requesting for their car and Chief Ndiweni should give back to Caesar what belongs to him. There are plenty of deaths related to car accidents of ZANU PF officials since 1980. I am warning the Chief that it is better to die by Cholera rather than unexplained accidents.To ZANU PF youths, you must come out clean on the allegations of Chief Ndiweni's attempted murder. Their party killed 20,000 brothers, sisters and children of Chief Ndiweni during the moment of madness and they now want to finish him off. It will not work?To the government, you have failed the Zimbabweans, I am ashamed to have heartless leaders like you. How can you embarrass a Chief reputable like Ndiweni? Is it because he is a Ndebele? The government should tolerate divergent views rather than criminalize them. Zimbabweans need your explanation about this skirmish. pipe metal texture inside Lucrative buying opportunities can be found across all segments of the market, but there are relatively few of those so-called opportunities that have spanned the test of time. Renewable energy stocks are one such example, as they can draw on the stability and recurring revenue stream that traditional utilities follow, while at the same time benefit from the changing face of an energy sector that is becoming more aware of the impact of climate change by the year. One such investment that should be on the radar of nearly every investor is Innergex Renewable Energy (TSX:INE), the Quebec-based owner/operator of a growing portfolio of 68 active renewable energy sites that are located across Canada, the U.S., Chile, and Europe. Innergex also has eight active development sites, and the companys current complement of sites includes hydro, wind, solar and geothermal facilities. What makes Innergex unique? Lets be honest. There are plenty of renewable energy investments on the market at the moment, and some of them make fairly compelling investment cases. So then what exactly makes Innergex a unique investment option that sets it apart from the growing list of peers? Lets take a moment to highlight some specifics. First, theres Innergexs approach to expansion. Rather than taking a broad approach to the energy market wherever an opportunity arises, Innergex has taken a more calculated approach one in which there is not only an opportunity, but also the means to capitalize on that opportunity, while at the same time applying a razor-like focus to the business, and allowing non-core assets to be sold off when needed. A prime example of this involves several of Innergexs proposed facilities under development. In Hawaii, a renewable energy goal has been set to ensure the state is powered completely by 2045, while in Saskatchewan, a less aggressive target of satisfying half of the electrical demand of the province has been pegged for 2030. Story continues Innergex is actively involved in both regions, with solar and wind farm proposals under consideration. Innergex announced the decision to sell its interest in various Iceland-based assets, which includes two geothermal facilities as well as one hydro site, citing a need to focus on the renewable energy types and core markets that are key to the companys growth. Turning to results, Innergex announced results for the most recent quarter this week that saw several encouraging long-term points for investors to note. Production in the most recent quarter topped 1,308,505 MW, handily surpassing the 944,108 MW generated in the same quarter last year. In terms of revenue, Innergex reported $126.4 million, thereby beating the $101.8 million reported in the prior period, and EBITDA for the most recent quarter realized a healthy bump to $93.2 million over the $73.6 million reported in the same period last year. One of the most attractive aspects of any renewable energy investment is its dividend, and Innergex never fails to impress. The company currently offers a quarterly payout with an appetizing yield of 4.94%. More reading Fool contributor Demetris Afxentiou 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 Man pointing at a recycling symbol Renewable energy investments make for some of the best long-term investments in the market today. Theres no denying the fact that climate change is real and that fossil fuel-burning facilities are going to be a thing of the past within a generation, leaving the future of power generation firmly in the hands of renewable energy companies, and one such company that is increasingly coming into focus with investors is Brookfield Renewable Partners (TSX:BEP.UN)(NYSE:BEP). To be clear, theres no shortage of viable renewable energy investments on the market, but there are several compelling reasons why Brookfield Renewable is the one stock that investors may want to consider at the moment. A solid background and portfolio As the name suggests, Brookfield is an offshoot of the well-known Brookfield Asset Management, which has over a century of experience in acquiring infrastructure, real estate, and just about any type of distressed asset around the world with a massive war chest to finance those acquisitions. Brookfield Renewable was set up just over a decade ago and has since grown into a powerhouse in the renewable energy sector, with a portfolio of 930 facilities that are scattered across four continents that collectively have a capacity of over 18,000 MW. The vast majority of those renewable facilities are hydroelectric facilities, but the company also has wind and solar elements and provides distributed generation and storage capabilities. If Brookfield Renewable was just maintaining that large number of sites, the company would still be a great investment, but investors should also take note of the fact that Brookfield Renewable continues to add to its portfolio. By way of example, just last month, the company signed an agreement to acquire two 210 MW wind farms in India, boosting Brookfield Renewables wind portfolio in India to 510 MW. The wind farms also have an existing long-term PPA in place that spans 25 years. Strong results and income-earning potential Story continues Brookfield Renewable announced results for the first fiscal quarter of 2019 earlier this month, which continued to show the incredible potential that is unfolding in the renewable energy sector. Specifically, the company reported FFO for the quarter in the amount of US$227 million, or US$0.73 per unit, surpassing the US$193 million, or US$0.62 per unit, declared in the same quarter last year by an impressive 18%. In terms of net income, Brookfield Renewable shattered the US$8 million, or $0.03 per unit, reported in the same quarter last year by posting net income of US$43 million, or US$0.14 per share. Turning to growth, Brookfield Renewable witnessed a healthy bump across all of its segments in the most recent quarter. Specifically, earnings from the hydro as well as the wind and solar businesses saw year-over-year increases of 5% and 43%, respectively. The same could be said of Brookfield Renewables other operations, which saw a notable US$7 million bump in the quarter. The strong earnings and growth numbers reported in the most recent quarter not only paint the picture that Brookfield is a great long-term investment for growth seekers but also sets the stage for the companys quarterly dividend, which currently provides a very appetizing 6.56% yield, making it one of the best-paying stocks in the renewable energy space. More reading Fool contributor Demetris Afxentiou has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Brookfield Asset Management and BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT INC. CL.A LV. Brookfield Renewable Partners is a recommendation of Dividend Investor Canada. The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2019 Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine will star in Best Sellers, the directorial feature debut of Lina Roessler (Little Whispers: The Vow, Mustard Seed). Pic follows a has-been author, played by Caine, who is on a wild book tour with a young editor trying to save his boutique publishing house. Caines author is miserable and sharp-witted and just wants to live out his days in peace with a bottle of scotch, a cigar, and his orange Tabby cat. Related stories DCR Finance Corp Launches $100M Film Fund, With 'The Last Full Measure' First On Its List The project is based on Anthony Griecos original screenplay which won a 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting award, and will be an official Canada-UK co-production, produced by Arielle Elwes (Braid), Cassian Elwes (Mudbound, The Butler), Petr Jakl (xXx, Ghoul, Medieval) and Wayne Marc Godfrey (The Foreigner, Wind River) on the UK side and Jonathan Vanger (Wishing Tree Productions: Miss Sloane) and Pierre Even (Item 7: War Witch, The Hummingbird Project) on the Canadian side. EPs include Martin Barab, Jere Hausfater, and Mark Damon. Foresight Unlimited is selling foreign in Cannes, while Cassian Elwes will handle the domestic sale. Cameras roll in mid-July in Canada. Best Sellers may become one of Michael Caines greatest and funniest triumphs, said Foresights Mark Damon. With Bullshite as his rallying cry, Caine weaves a character that is hilarious in its rage, yet so touching in its vulnerability. Best Sellers is just a wonderful script, Caine won best supporting actor Oscars for Woody Allens Hannah and her Sisters and The Cider House Rules. His canon is priceless including such movies as Alfie, Sleuth, Educating Rita, The Dark Knight franchise, The Quiet American, and most recently Going in Style. Caine is currently in post-production on Medieval (directed by Petr Jakl and produced by Jakl and Elwes) and Come Away starring Angelina Jolie. Roessler is a Canadian actor, writer and director. Her previous short films Little Whispers: The Vow and Winter have won several awards and screened at prestigious festivals around the globe. Her feature script, The Rescuer, recently placed in top selections across a number of Canadian competitions and is one of ten scripts selected to partake in the 2019 TIFF Writers Studio. Caine is repped by Toni Howard at ICM, Barry Tyerman at Jackoway Tyerman Wertheimer, and Kate Buckley at 42. Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to sign an international pledge in Paris Wednesday aimed at getting governments and social media companies working together to curb the spread of violent and extremist content online. Trudeau is attending the Christchurch Call meeting in Paris. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is co-chairing the meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, is expected to cite the massacre of 51 Muslim worshippers in two New Zealand mosques in March as she pushes for a sweeping agreement to combat terrorist content disseminated on social media. In a press release announcing the Paris visit last week, Trudeau voiced his fear that social media platforms increasingly are being weaponized "as tools to incite, publish and broadcast extremist violence and hatred." He called for "a coordinated global response" to tackle the problem. And while the details of the non-binding pledge up for approval in Paris tomorrow are sketchy at this point, the New York Times reports it will call on social media firms to examine software that directs users to violent content and ask them to share more data with government authorities to find and eliminate violent, extremist material. Frank Augstein/AP Photo The summit came together in the wake of gun attacks on two Christchurch mosques in March that left 51 dead. Video of the attacks was live-streamed for nearly 17 minutes on social media and was subsequently uploaded thousands of times, as social media companies struggled to remove it. The leaders of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Indonesia and Senegal, and the president of the European Commission, will also be in Paris, along with high-level officials from Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft. All are expected to endorse the agreement. The United States, which has been reluctant to regulate the internet due to concerns about limiting freedom of speech, was not invited to attend the Christchurch Call summit and is not expected to sign the pledge. Story continues No right to 'broadcast mass murder' Ardern has long insisted her push to control the amplification of hate online is not about curbing freedom of expression. "That right does not include the freedom to broadcast mass murder," she wrote in a recent column. "This is not about undermining or limiting freedom of speech. It is about these companies and how they operate." U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to use her time in Paris to call on governments and social media companies to work together in blocking hateful content. "The internet is global and online threats have no borders. Companies should be held to consistent international standards, so their customers enjoy the same level of protection wherever they live," May said in a statement. Trudeau spoke by phone with Microsoft president Brad Smith Monday night ahead of the Paris meeting. According to an account released by the Prime Minister's Office, he spoke about how governments could work with social media platforms to "stop the internet being used as a tool to organize and promote terrorism and violent extremism." Zuckerberg a no-show In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, Ardern called for a "voluntary framework that commits signatories to counter the drivers of terrorism and put in place specific measures to prevent the uploading of terrorist content." The word "voluntary" is key; the pledge is not expected to include enforcement measures, leaving it up to nations and the social media companies themselves to find ways to restrict the spread of terrorist content online. While the largest tech companies will be at the table, some of those responsible for running anonymous internet forums known for extreme content such as 8 Chan and 4 Chan are not taking part in the summit. Neither is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The social media giant is instead sending Nick Clegg, its vice-president for global affairs and a former deputy prime minister of the U.K. As part of his visit to Paris, Trudeau also will speak about promoting trust in the online world at VivaTech, an annual technology conference focused on start-ups and innovation. (Reuters) - Woodfibre LNG Ltd said Tuesday it plans to move forward with construction of its proposed C$1.4-C$1.8 billion liquefied natural gas export terminal in British Columbia later this year with the facility expected to be operational by 2023: - That could make the Woodfibre plant the first LNG export facility in Canada. There are 18 LNG export projects under development in Canada, including Woodfibre, according to government data from Natural Resources Canada. - Royal Dutch Shell Plc, meanwhile, made a final investment decision to build its C$40 billion LNG Canada plant in British Columbia in 2018. LNG Canada is expected to enter service in 2024. - Woodfibre said it is targeting a final investment decision to build the project this summer. - Demand for natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels, is growing fast around the world as more countries use it to meet increasing energy consumption and wean their power and industrial sectors off dirty coal to cut pollution. - The Woodfibre project is owned by Singapore-based Royal Golden Eagle's (RGE) Pacific Oil and Gas Ltd (PO&G) subsidiary. - PO&G agreed on Monday to buy Calgary-based Canbriam Energy Inc, a privately-held exploration and production company with properties in British Columbia. - PO&G said in September that Woodfibre signed a preliminary agreement, known as a head of agreement, with a unit of China National Offshore Oil Corp or CNOOC for the potential offtake of LNG starting in 2023. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Susan Thomas) Photo credit: . From Good Housekeeping Everyone's been speculating for months now, but we can finally confirm that Miley Cyrus is joining the cast of Black Mirror's fifth season. She isn't the only star appearing in the award-winning (and incredibly eerie) British series, either. Netflix released the trailer on May 15, but they just released a series of tweets that present new information about the highly-anticipated fifth season. Even with all of that, we still have so many questions. These first glimpses at what to expect already have us on the edge of our seats. Coming off the heels of the choose-your-own-adventure film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, creator Charlie Brooker is back to the show's original episodic format. Here's all the information we have about Black Mirror's fifth season: When does Black Mirror season 5 premiere? You can see Miley in action when Netflix releases the fifth season on Wednesday, June 5. In classic Netflix fashion, the show will likely drop at 3:01 a.m. E.T., and all episodes will be released at once. Unlike some past seasons, however, Brooker has made this season only three episodes. That being said, we don't know the length of each one. Who else is in the Black Mirror cast? Along with Miley, you'll see Topher Grace and two Avengers stars: Anthony Mackie and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Other famous actors include, Damson Idris, Andrew Scott, Nicole Beharie, Pom Klementieff, Angourie Rice, Madison Davenport, and Ludi Lin. What's going on in Black Mirror season 5? The series will stick with its general premise of predicting how technology will affect everything in our future, but there are various plots to investigate. "Let's talk about #BlackMirror Season 5," Netflix's Twitter account @seewhatsnext wrote, before sharing what each episode will tackle. Here's what each tweet mentioned about the new Black Mirror episodes: "Smithereens", starring Andrew Scott, Damson Idris, and Topher Grace. "A cab driver with an agenda becomes the centre of attention on a day that rapidly spirals out of control." Story continues "Rachel, Jack And Ashley, Too", starring Miley Cyrus, Angourie Rice, and Madison Davenport. "A lonely teenager yearns to connect with her favorite pop star - whose charmed existence isn't quite as rosy as it appears." "Striking Vipers", starring Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie, Pom Klementieff, and Ludi Lin. "Two estranged college friends reunite in later life, triggering a series of events that could alter their lives forever." Between the series of sped-up clips in the trailer, we also see flashes of the message: "Netflix invites you to experience three new stories from the award-winning series that changed how you see technology, the future, the world, each other, love, privacy, connection, sex, family, work, afterlife." These will likely be the themes throughout each episode. That sound like a lot of ground to cover in just three episodes, but we can't wait to see how it all unfolds. Do you have to watch the other four Black Mirror seasons first? Not necessarily. Though seasons have been connected in some ways, like the Easter eggs IndieWire spotted, they each present a different story. Here's what Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter when he was asked whether the storylines are more aligned than we think: "My answer to that has changed, actually. It always used to be that its just a bit of fun. But then sometimes weve done some things where we did explicitly refer to other episodes. I think the rule is that when a character says something that explicitly refers to something else, its canonical. Also, they follow the same dream universe. Thats the other thing that I tend to say. Theres a line in 'Hated in the Nation' where someone refers to a crime that happened in 'White Bear.'" Originally on the British Channel 4, Black Mirror's first two seasons got even more attention when old episodes were released on Netflix back in 2014. And by 2015, Netflix signed a deal for a third season. Then, they produced a fourth, Bandersnatch, and now, season 5. ('You Might Also Like',) It's been awhile since I've written here, feeling gratitude for this year's sales! Thank you to Ocean House Gallery & Frame for this sale from the Holiday Smallworks Sale and to my collector. This square was painted at Lighthouse Park at Pemaquid Point, Maine at the annual Pastel Society of Maine Painting Retreat on a beautiful early June day. I love to paint these challenging rocks that are so unique to Pemaquid. Feeling grateful!"Pemaquid 34" acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10, SOLD The Menomonie Police Department has identified the victim of a Tuesday night motorcycle crash as Levi Collin Benson, 40. Benson was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, the department said in a news release Thursday. Benson was found pronounced dead Tuesday at the site of a single-vehicle motorcycle crash in the 1900 block of Dairyland Road at 9:55 p.m. Tuesday. Speed and alcohol were possible factors in the crash. The department and the Menomonie Fire Department responded to the crash. The department and the Wisconsin State Patrol are investigating the accident. The department wrote in the release Thursday: Our sincere condolences go out to the family of Levi Benson. Love 0 Funny 6 Wow 1 Sad 17 Angry 0 State Assembly Republicans on Wednesday passed a package of bills to restrict abortion, as well as one that supporters say would protect a fetus born alive after an attempted abortion. The Assembly voted 62-35 to pass the latter bill, which now heads to the state Senate. Gov. Tony Evers has signaled he would veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, while declining to say if he supports a ban on abortion six weeks into a pregnancy, signaled support for the rationale underlying such bans in remarks to reporters before Wednesdays session. Iowa lawmakers recently adopted a ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Do I believe that once theres a detectable heartbeat, its a baby? I do, Vos said. Vos comments come as lawmakers in Alabama sparked a national firestorm Tuesday by passing a near-total abortion ban, which the states Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed Wednesday. Supporters of that measure say it is meant to spark a review by the U.S. Supreme Court of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. In Wisconsin, the born alive bill would require a health care provider who is present when a fetus survives an abortion or abortion attempt to exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be given to any other child born alive at the same gestational age. It also makes intentionally causing the death of a child born alive as a result of an abortion or an attempted abortion a felony with a penalty of life imprisonment the same penalty as first-degree intentional homicide. Children who miraculously survive abortion shouldnt be treated any differently than anyone else in this state, the bills sponsor, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said during Wednesdays floor debate. Democrats called the abortion bill package a diversion from the state budget debate and the popularity of the budget proposal offered by Evers. Its introduced to distract from an agenda thats overwhelmingly supported by the people of Wisconsin, said Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh. Author: Backstop to other laws President Donald Trump was speaking about the born-alive bill at his rally in Green Bay last month when he repeated a claim which doctors and health care groups say is false and reckless that doctors are executing babies. During a Wednesday press conference before the Assembly session, Steineke wouldnt say if he concurs with Trumps remarks. Critics question if the bill would have any impact because babies being born alive after an abortion attempt is extremely rare. Wisconsin Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that supports Steinekes bill, said it hasnt heard of any cases in the state since 1982. Steineke and other bill supporters cite the case of a Pennsylvania doctor, Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures. There also are multiple laws that appear to prevent the bill from having any effect. Wisconsin already bans abortions after 20 weeks before the point of fetal viability outside the womb and federal law provides legal protections to all babies born alive, including after an abortion attempt. Steineke said his bill is meant as a backstop if those laws are repealed. We know that given the opportunity of full control of the Legislature and governors mansion, that 20-week abortion ban would be gone overnight, he said. Another bill passed by the Assembly Wednesday, 62-35, would bar abortion selection on the basis of factors such as the fetus gender, race or disability. It would bar providers from performing abortions if they know the mother is seeking the abortion solely on the basis of those factors. Lawmakers cannot say they are advocates for people with disabilities when we also champion their extermination in the womb, argued the bills sponsor, Rep. Barbara Dittrich, R-Oconomowoc. Democrats cite Medicaid expansion A bill that passed the Assembly 64-32 on Wednesday would make health providers ineligible for the states Medicaid program if they perform abortions, with certain exceptions. Another bill, which passed 62-35, would require providers to report more information to the state about abortions they perform. It also requires providers to notify women who seek abortions by drug-regimen methods such as the RU-486 pill but who later change their minds and wish to continue their pregnancy that they may be able to reverse the effects of the drug before the pregnancy has been terminated if they contact a physician. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said he expects the Senate to take up the abortion bills in June. Democrats called the abortion bills a distraction from another measure they said would save lives of mothers and children: Evers plan in his budget proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility to 82,000 Wisconsinites. Republicans on the Legislatures budget-writing committee removed that measure from Evers budget last week, though Evers and Democrats say theyll continue fighting for it. Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, said the protections in the born-alive bill already are the law of the land. What isnt already the law of the land is Medicaid expansion, and youve made darn sure that no lives will be saved under that, Taylor said. Amendment sent to voters Lawmakers also voted Wednesday to pass Marsys Law, a constitutional amendment bolstering the rights of crime victims. The state Senate passed the amendment, 27-5, and the state Assembly passed it 82-15. The amendment now goes before voters in April 2020. It aims to give victims more say in criminal prosecutions, stipulating a list of their rights including the ability to discuss their case with prosecutors and the right to be notified of any release of the alleged offender in their case, or of their escape or death. It would also grant the right to refuse an interview, deposition or other discovery request made by the accused or their lawyers which some critics say could make it harder for the accused to defend themselves. The Senate also voted unanimously to confirm the states chief elections official, elections administrator Meagan Wolfe. Wolfe is the top staffer for the bipartisan state Elections Commission. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 At ProCigar 2018, La Aurora Cigars introduced a new limited edition ultra-premium cigar known at La Aurora Hors DAge. The name Hors DAge is French for beyond time. This is a cigar that La Aurora says goes through a 12-year cycle from the time the tobacco seeds are sowed to the time it reaches consumers. As a part of that process, the cigar itself spends two years in the aging room. A few months later, the La Aurora Hors DAge was also showcased to retailers at the 2018 IPCPR Trade Show. The La Aurora Hors DAge was offered to retailers in a 6 x 54 format. At the same time, La Aurora would also release five additional sizes of the blend that would be only available in a special 146 count humidor. Today we have an opportunity to look at one of those special sizes, the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon. The Hors DAge Humidor additional sizes includes the Salomon, two additional Toro formats, a Belicoso, and a 20 x 80 size known as the Stravaganza. These sizes were not available for sale outside the humidor (although we procured some samples the Salomon for the review). The humidor has a lid made of Spanish olive root and the trays are constructed from white cedar. The humidor itself sells for $5,000.00. It was also made available at the ProCigar 2019 charity auction where it sold for $10,000.00. Without further ado, lets break down the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon and see what this cigar brings to the table. SPECIFICATIONS Blend and Origin The blend to the La Aurora Hors DAge is a multinational blend highlighted by Ecuadorian tobaccos for the wrapper and binder and a filler consisting of Colombia, Dominican, and Nicaragua. As with all La Aurora Cigars, production comes from the La Aurora S.A. Wrapper: Ecuadorian Binder: Ecuadorian Filler: Colombian, Dominican (Cibao Valley), and Nicaraguan Country of Origin: Dominican Republic Factory: La Aurora S.A. Vitolas Offered As mentioned the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon is a part of the Hors DAge humidor. Each humidor consists of 34 cigars). Toro: 6 x 54 (Retail) Toro 1: 5 3/4 x 54 (Available only in Humidor 38 per humidor) Toro 2: 5 1/4 x 54 (Available only in Humidor 38 per humidor) Salomon: 6 1/2 x 50/60 (Available only in Humidor 34 per humidor) Belicoso: 6 1/4 x 52 (Available only in Humidor 34 per humidor) Stravaganza: 20 x 80 (Available only in Humidor 2 per humidor) As for the La Aurora Hors DAge Toro made available to retail, it was packaged in 15-count boxes. Appearance The Ecuadorian wrapper of the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon had a medium to dark brown color with a slight Colorado tint. There wasnt much in the way of oil on the surface. This wrapper had a bumpy surface. There were some visible wrapper seams. In addition, there were some prominent visible veins giving the cigar some toothy spots on the surface. The Salomon had a pointed cap with a sharp taper. The footer had a classic salomon with a short nozzle and open footer. There was a gentle taper from the base of the cigar to the nozzle. The band features a lion at the center of the band on a background consisting of gold and black color scheme. Above the lion is the text LA AURORA in black font. Below the lion is the text PREFERIDOS on a gold ribbon-design in black font. Toward the right of the band, it says REPUBLICA DOMINICANA in white font on a black background. The lower part of the band is a pseudo secondary band that mostly has a gold background. On the background is the text HORS DAGE 2017 in black font. The 2017 is interesting because the cigar itself didnt have a formal unveiling until 2018. PERFORMANCE Pre-Light Draw A straight cut was used to start the cigar experience of the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon. While I normally use a Credo Special-T cutter with a 36 ring gauge on a Salomon, I opted to use a normal straight cut ring size. This was because after smoking the first sample where I felt I need a little more area to draw from. Once the pre-light draw commenced, there were notes of chocolate, cedar, earth, and pepper present. I judged this to be a more than satisfactory pre-light draw. At this point I was ready to light up the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon and await what the smoking experience would have in store. Tasting Notes The La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon kicked off with a mix of chocolate, earth, red pepper, and classic wood notes. As the cigar moved through the first third, the chocolate notes became primary. The earth, red pepper, and wood notes settled into the background. There was also an additional layer of red pepper on the retro-hale. The wood and earth notes slowly increased and by the second third, these notes displaced the chocolate as the primary note. For the most part, the chocolate settled into the background, joining the red pepper notes and a newly emerged natural tobacco note. Occasionally the chocolate notes popped into the forefront, but past the midway point, these notes diminished in intensity. Just past the midway point, the wood and earth notes remained primary. There was an increase in the pepper notes as well as a slight increase in the natural tobacco. There were also bakers spice notes also mixed into the background. By the end of the second third, the chocolate notes dissipated. The final third of the Hors DAge Salomon saw the earth and wood remain primary. The pepper and bakers spice were close secondary notes with the natural tobacco a little more distant. This is the way the La Aurora Hors DAge came to a close. The resulting nub was cool in temperature and slightly soft to the touch. Burn In terms of the burn of the Hors Dage Salomon, there was an occasional bit of meandering on the burn path. While applying some touch-ups did the trick, the still were more touch-ups than I prefer. The resulting ash was slightly loose. This was an ash that was mostly silver with some darker spots mixed in. As for the burn rate and burn temperature, both were ideal. Draw The draw to the La Aurora Hors DAge Salomon performed quite well especially cutting a slightly wider area than I normally do on a Salomon. This was a cigar that struck a nice balance of openness and resistance. Strength and Body For most of the cigar experience, the La Aurora Hors DAge maintained medium strength and medium body. Toward the latter part of the second third, there was a slight increase in the intensity of both attributes. By the last third, both the strength and body quietly crept into medium to full territory. During the smoking experience, both the strength and body balanced each other nicely with neither overshadowing the other. OVERALL ASSESSMENT The refusal by President Donald Trump to comply with legitimate congressional requests for documents and testimony has produced what House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler accurately referred to as a constitutional crisis. Whether Congress will be able to get the courts to force the Trump administration to comply with some or all of their subpoenas is an open question. But it has a new ally: the state of New York. Last week, the state Senate voted in favor of legislation that if it is passed by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo would allow Congress, as part of its oversight responsibility, to access some of Trumps hidden tax information. And New York state is much more likely than congressional Democrats to beat Trump in court. The most important provisions of the bill would allow the state Department of Taxation and Finance to release tax returns for a wide array of state and federal public officials (including the president) to three congressional committees, as long as the request is for a specified and legitimate legislative purpose. The bill is in response to a particularly egregious piece of stonewalling by the Trump administration: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refusing to comply with a demand from the House Ways and Means Committee to release Trumps tax returns from 2013 to 2018. Mnuchins refusal comes despite clear language in a statute passed in the wake of the Teapot Dome scandal in 1924 requiring the returns to be turned over after a request from the committee. Trumps New York tax returns would not, of course, contain all of the information contained in his federal tax returns. But since Trump and most of his businesses are based in New York, there would be a great deal of overlap. And given the staggering and unprecedented conflicts of interest involved with Trump and the business empire he continues to be associated with, the returns are likely to reveal information that is of major public interest and substantially damaging to Trump which, of course, is precisely why hes trying to hide them. Given the fact that federal law also authorizes the release of Trumps tax returns to Congress, however, merely passing the law doesnt guarantee that the returns will be released. Mnuchin is refusing to release the returns on the basis that the request by Congress lacks a legitimate legislative purpose. Unlike Mnuchin, the Cuomo administration will be surely be willing to comply with a congressional request for the New York tax information, but the Trump administration would presumably sue to prevent the state tax department from releasing the returns, arguing that there is no legitimate purpose to knowing about the presidents business ties to foreign interests. But the administration would have to make these arguments in a much less favorable judicial context, as it would be hashed out in New York state courts. The argument that the requests for Trumps tax information lack a legitimate purpose, given Congress constitutional oversight function, can be characterized as being somewhere between weak and farcical. The kind of corruption made possible by the entwining of Trumps business interests and his administration is exactly the kind of corruption the 1924 law was intended to thwart. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of this subpoena power in 1975 when it was being used by a conservative senator to bankrupt groups that opposed the Vietnam War to put it mildly, a less legitimate legislative purpose than examining Trumps potential conflicts of interest. In light of this precedent, Trumps battle to keep his returns from being released has a chance of succeeding only because the Supreme Court is currently controlled by partisan Republicans. If Congress requests New Yorks returns, however, Trumps legal position is even weaker. It is one thing to not require an administrative official to comply with a legislative demand he considers inappropriate; to argue that New York cannot comply with a request would be an even heavier lift. And New York state courts, which arent nearly as favorable to Republican arguments, are charged with interpreting state laws. The only realistic hope Trump would have is finding a partisan federal court that might come up with a strained argument to try to stop the release of the state returns. But, since that would burden states rights, it is much less likely to succeed. The remedies offered by this bill would be incomplete, but they do offer some leverage to members of Congress who are actually trying to hold the Trump administration accountable for its historic malfeasance. Many issues before the state Legislature pit Republicans versus Democrats, but the effort to expand the use of the prevailing wage is not so simple. Most Democratic lawmakers support a measure expanding prevailing wages, and some Republicans have signed on to the legislation in the state Senate and Assembly. Yet the union-friendly bill which would also apply to nonunionized workers still lacks the support it needs to pass the Senate, lawmakers say. Some critics say people of color would not receive a fair share of the benefits brought by expanding the prevailing wage. Civil rights activists question whether the bill would really raise pay for nonunion labor as much as its supporters say it would. Others say it might impede affordable housing and economic development. Business groups in particular are pushing hard to limit the proposed changes, which they say could increase costs and deter development. I just feel that I need to understand it better, state Sen. Rachel May, a first-term Democrat who represents the Syracuse area, told City & State. Nonetheless, supporters say they are confident the measure will pass before the legislative session ends next month. Organized labor is pressuring lawmakers to support the proposal, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is also pushing for a deal. Meanwhile, opponents of the bill are signaling that they are focused on influencing the final legislation rather than stopping it altogether. The state Labor Department defines the prevailing wage as the pay rate set by law for work on public work projects. However, the current definition of public work depends on the projects purpose, public benefit and the parties involved, according to the department. Under the proposed expansion, exceptions would be made for some affordable housing or small-scale projects, but negotiations on where to draw the line on what will and will not be a public work are ongoing. About a dozen Democratic state senators have not yet signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation. In the Assembly, the legislation has moved through committee and is now on the floor calendar and appears to have enough support to pass, as it did last year. A final vote has not been scheduled because supporters say they want to wait until the Senate and governor get on the same page with a final version, according to Assemblyman Harry Bronson, the sponsor of the legislation. Im not a betting man, but if I were, I would say we have a very good chance of getting it passed by the end of session, he said. Were having regular conversations. Theyre fruitful. Theres movement on all sides. The proposal appeared primed for inclusion in the budget after organized labor made a show of force in the final days of negotiations at the end of March. But business groups and skeptical lawmakers helped nudge legislative leaders and the governor to put the proposal on hold. A coalition of groups is now trying to pick up where they left off in pushing lawmakers and the governor to a deal. Building trades unions are aiming to sway the public and lawmakers alike with a media campaign that argues that the legislation would help workers, spur economic development, reduce fraud and promote racial diversity in the construction industry. Its a benefit for all construction workers in New York, said Michael Cinquanti, director of policy and planning for the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. We view this bill as an economic stimulus and an expansion of the middle class. Supporters cite studies indicating that the economic benefits of raising wages could help counter the increased costs of projects. Wages and benefits make up about a quarter of total construction costs in New York, according to a 2018 report by Colorado State University-Pueblo on the use of the prevailing wage. A prevailing wage promotes high productivity, the report found, which mitigates the effects to the overall project from increasing labor costs. These claims of dramatic cost increases are overly simplistic and inaccurate, Colorado State University-Pueblo economics professor Kevin Duncan, who authored the study, wrote in a March 20 op-ed in the Daily News. Most utilize an analysis that is not accepted by peer-reviewed research in the construction industry. Opponents of the bill though say it would hurt their bottom line. The Real Estate Board of New York has opposed the bill, as have business groups who say that the bill will dramatically increase costs for all types of projects that receive public support. While developers are open to discussing ways to raise wages, they still need flexibility in their contracts with individual unions on work rules, wages, benefits and other matters, according to Mitchell Pally, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute. This is the No. 1 issue facing the real estate development community on Long Island, he said. Even some activists have joined business interests in opposing the bill, saying they are concerned about whether the benefits of the legislation would really help nonunion workers. These workers would technically be covered by the legislation, but the administrative costs associated with public projects could limit participation of companies owned by women and minorities, said Reginald Bachus, an associate pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church and founding member of the 400 Foundation, a faith-based nonprofit pushing for economic justice in the construction industry. More study is needed of diversity in organized labor and how an expansion of the prevailing wage would affect people of color, according to Bachus. So what were pushing for is, dont rush it through, he said. The governor has yet to publicly state his opinion on how to resolve these issues, but a Cuomo spokesman confirmed that the issue remains a priority for the administration. The governor has cited prevailing wages, along with recreational marijuana legalization and the renewal of rent regulations, as a priority. We have to look at prevailing wage, which I think is a legitimate issue, he said on WAMC on April 4. Leadership in both houses of the state Legislature have also signaled a desire to reach an agreement that organized labor, business groups and activists can live with. The level of attention that people are paying to this certainly gives me reason to sense that people are serious about trying to come to an agreement, Bronson said. Details remain to be worked out, but the sides appear to be getting closer to a deal. Senators have yet to discuss the issue as a conference, according to state Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., a co-sponsor of the bill, but as the end of session looms, things could get more testy. I really havent heard any of the opposition yet, the Queens Democrat said. And I think its because this bill has been lying in the weeds somewhere and it hasnt really popped its head up yet. In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome! Uqallagvik Uqallagvik is a radio program by and for Inuit of Ottawa. It is broadcast primarily in Inuktitut, with some English. Uqallagvik signifies radio station The station is a place for Inuit of all ages to share stories, discuss issues, and promote Inuktitut in the city. The station features Inuit music, news and public discussions in Inuktitut. It seeks to connect Ottawamiut with their families and friends in the north, and to increase the profile of Inuit among the non-Inuit community in Ottawa. Uqallagvik is the first radio program in Ottawa by and for Inuit in Inuktitut. It is the second Inuktitut radio program in Southern Canada, after Nipivut in Montreal. Uqallagvik airs every second Wednesday from 11:00am to 12:00pm. For more information, email uqallagvik@outlook.com Even as some members of the Judiciary Committee said the bill does not go far enough, senators advanced a plan Wednesday meant to address crowding and other problems in the state's prisons. Six measures were gathered into one omnibus bill that would prohibit most cellphones in prisons, modify a restrictive housing work group and allow for judges to redirect offenders into intensive probation rather than prison. It advanced to a second round of debate on a 40-0 vote. Judiciary Chairman Steve Lathrop acknowledged the real solutions to crowding in the prisons are to "build our way out of this or provide some kind of sentencing reform." Sentencing reform would mean people spend less time in prison but they get more services and programming, or spend more time on work release so that they have an opportunity to establish themselves before getting out, he said. "That effort to do sentencing reform has run up against people who are in the old model of law enforcement. The county attorneys, police officers, attorney general," he said. They don't want to see sentencing reform, in his view, because it would be too easy to call that being soft on crime. Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, a committee member, said the bill doesn't go far enough in addressing overcrowding and other problems in the prisons. One bill that is missing from the omnibus bill, she said, is one she had introduced (LB131) that would have re-established that a minimum sentence not exceed one-third of the maximum sentence for certain felonies, unless a mandatory minimum sentence is required by statute. The change would have the effect of allowing offenders to become parole-eligible sooner and alleviating the overcrowding crisis in Nebraska prisons. And it would save millions of dollars annually, Pansing Brooks said. That bill did not make it out of committee. But she hopes it will next session, she said. She said she knows Lathrop is working to maneuver through advocacy groups, including the county attorneys and attorney general, to solve the overcrowding crisis and get money for inmate programming and staffing. "What we can't do is try to build our way out of this," she said, "when the flow of people coming into the system is getting larger and larger." Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers said things he thinks ought to be in the bill are not, and things that don't amount to much are there. "This bill is innocuous," Chambers said. "This is what happens when the Legislature feels the need to placate the governor's office, the county attorneys and those who don't want to see anything change." After the bill advanced, the Nebraska Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 88 weighed in, saying state corrections workers oppose the portion of the bill that they contend would make use of restrictive housing unmanageable, and one that would prevent officers from being able to contact their families when their schedules are changed without notice. The bill that was added to LB686 that would ensure inmates with serious mental illness not be put in restrictive housing could result in an increase in the risk of violence to corrections employees, said union president Mike Chipman. Stopping corrections employees from bringing cellphones to their workplaces would prevent them from making plans with their families to cover for child care and other needed personal matters, Chipman said. "While we understand the importance of preventing inmate access to cellphones, it is not necessary to stop corrections employees from bringing their phones to the facilities and using them in secure portions of the facility responsibly," the union said. The six bills that became LB686 are: * LB233, to make it a Class I misdemeanor to bring cellphones into the prisons, with exceptions for law enforcement, first responders and representatives of the state Ombudsman's office; * LB262, to change the long-term restrictive housing work group, including the membership of the group, who appoints them, and the requirement that the group meet at least three times each year; * LB240, to allow a judge to commit a defendant who is incompetent to stand trial to the Department of Health and Human Services for treatment at a facility other than one that is state-owned and operated; * LB684 combined with LB90, to make post-release supervision optional for people who commit Class IV felonies; * LB739, to ensure vulnerable inmates, including those with serious mental illness, are prohibited from restrictive housing; * LB91, to provide an option for judges that would allow them to place defendants on intensive probation and defer judgment for an agreed period of time. Reach the writer at 402-473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSLegislature. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 With the clock ticking on a legislative session in its stretch run, supporters of property tax relief prepared Tuesday for what they hope will be a final opportunity to shape a tax reform package this year. If Speaker Jim Scheer of Norfolk returns the Revenue Committee's comprehensive proposal (LB289) to the agenda for debate, as widely anticipated, it will be shadowed by a couple of alternative pathways forward. The Revenue Committee plan, hammered together over the past several months, received three hours of floor debate last week. Proposed changes in that proposal are being designed to address some concerns raised by big-city public schools and objections expressed by urban senators about the impact that a proposed one-half cent increase in the state sales tax rate would have on low-income Nebraskans. Meanwhile, several members of the committee stand ready with backup plans of their own if the committee's product is unable to command the 33 votes that ultimately would be required to overcome a filibuster. Sens. John McCollister of Omaha and Curt Friesen of Henderson have authored a backup proposal that would rewrite the bill, decrease the proposed half-cent increase in the sales tax rate to a quarter-cent and add an income tax component that impacts high-income taxpayers. Their multi-faceted alternative would raise the state cigarette tax by $1 a pack instead of the 36 cents contained in the committee plan. The alternative proposal also contains changes in school funding provisions designed to meet concerns expressed by metro school districts and would funnel $25 million in new revenue into the state's depleted cash reserve fund while earmarking $200,000 for a school finance study by the Nebraska Department of Education. "But I'm still supporting LB289," Friesen said. "This is Plan B; I'm always going to have a Plan B." Sen. Tom Briese of Albion, another committee member, said he also has "a backup" in mind but is not ready to talk about it yet. Revenue Committee Chairwoman Lou Ann Linehan said the committee proposal, largely crafted by Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte in consultation with her and revised by the committee, would bring more equity to school funding, as it dedicates increased state revenue to property tax reductions delivered through state aid to schools. Groene is chairman of the Education Committee. A detailed statistical look at the results of LB289 shows that 228 of 244 school districts would clearly benefit from the bill, Linehan said. As the Legislature reaches crunch time, the Nebraska Farm Bureau drew a contrast between legislative support for a new program that would "use taxpayer dollars to provide business incentives and corporate tax breaks" and the need to "deliver property tax relief for hardworking Nebraska families." "Nebraskans aren't asking for corporate incentives," Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson said. "They're asking for the Legislature to fix the way we fund schools and to lower their property tax bills." The proposed new business tax incentive proposal (LB720) is scheduled for debate on Wednesday. The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce issued a joint statement urging support for the new incentives structure. "We must keep our 'open-for-business' sign illuminated," Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward, sponsor of the Imagine Nebraska Act, said. 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 28-year state senator serving as Lincolns Urban Development Department director has resigned after police ticketed him last week for urinating in public. The city attorney's office charged David Landis, 70, with the city ordinance violation on Tuesday in connection with the Friday incident. Officer Luke Bonkiewicz said at about 4:20 p.m. on Friday, police contacted Landis after seeing him urinating next to his car parked on the south side of J Street, between Eighth and Ninth streets, just west of the County-City Building. Bonkiewicz said the officer contacted Landis and cited him for urinating in public. He said the officer saw no signs to suggest Landis had been drinking alcohol. In an interview with the Journal Star on Wednesday, Landis reiterated he had not been drinking that afternoon and said he was unfortunately surprised as he left work. He deeply regrets the incident, and he wouldn't make excuses for what happened, he said. "Irresponsible acts have consequences, and I accept them," Landis said. As the transition between mayors nears, Landis had planned to stay on and resign later in the year, he said. But upon reflection, he tendered his resignation effective immediately to keep the transition orderly, he said. "I expect ridicule for my indiscretion," Landis said, noting he hoped it would only be directed at him and not those around him. He was set to go to court on the charge in June, but he said he has applied for diversion for his case and will "carry out the compensatory responsibilities assigned me." A city misdemeanor carries a sentence of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine. Mayor Chris Beutler appointed Landis to the position soon after taking office in May 2007. The two had served together in the Legislature, where Landis represented Lincoln's District 46 for seven terms from 1979 to 2007 until term limits kept him from the ballot. Landis serves as the at-large member on the Lower Platte South Natural Resource District board. He was elected to a four-year term last year. In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Beutler said he reluctantly accepted this resignation because Landis insisted. "Despite this recent lapse in judgment, I did not want to accept that resignation, as he has done admirable work for the city for 12 successful years and only five days remain in my administration," Beutler said. "I thank him profusely for his decades of service to the city of Lincoln and the state of Nebraska." Mayor-elect Leirion Gaylor Baird, who will be sworn in Monday, would have weighed whether to retain Landis, along with other city directors, in the coming weeks. "The mayor-elect has no comment on this matter," her spokesman said in a statement. Assistant Director Dallas McGee will serve as the Urban Development Department's acting director. Reach the writer at 402-473-2657 or rjohnson@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSRileyJohnson. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Lessons were learned after a bond issue for a new library/culture arts center failed in 2017. Columbus residents voted against issuing up to $8.5 million in bonds to design, build and furnish the roughly 45,000-square-foot facility planned for the former Gene Steffy Ford property along 14th Street between 23rd and 24th avenues. A new city police station is presently under construction at that site, and though city officials know people have various thoughts on a potential new library, theyre going about how they plan for one by keeping residents involved through every step of the process. Last time around it seemed like the project was pretty polarizing, recalled City Administrator Tara Vasicek, noting people were really excited for it or completely not in favor. That is sort of the same to this day. People have strong opinions about it, she said. People seem to feel strongly about it one way or the other. At 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Vasicek and Columbus Public Library Director Karen Connell will host what is being called a Town Hall Meeting on the second level of CPL, 2504 14th St. in downtown Columbus, to discuss the potential library building project and review previously collected data. It will be the culmination of several months of work by the two, who have gone to various community civic groups meetings to participate in round table discussions. During those, people had the chance to fill out surveys and express their desires in regard to potential features for a future library facility. We want their feedback, Connell said. We have been listening to their thoughts. Thursdays meeting will be similar, but on a grander scale as more people will be involved at one time in the discussion/presentation that is free and open to the public. We want to try and get as many people and stakeholders involved as possible, Vasicek said. We want it to be much easier and much clearer to voters (as to what) theyll get if the project passes. The tentative plan is to potentially present the project to voters in fall of 2020, according to Vasicek, who stressed its all still very early in the process. As such, Thursdays meeting will be specifically about reviewing data and sharing thoughts about what features a new library would contain. What components could be included and how they could be included together, Connell said of topic points. How might all of those features work together? CPL has been in its current downtown two-building facility since 1977. In 1976, according to the citys website, the City of Columbus purchased the two Nebraska Public Power District buildings on the north corners of 25th Avenue and 14th Street. The city offered the building on the northwest corner to the Library Board provided it could raise the funds necessary to remodel it, the website states. The Library Board and the Library Foundation then solicited funds from the public to pay to remodel the 33,000-square-foot library that boasts reading room and study space, among other things. The current location has been great over the decades, Connell said, but she added CPL has also outgrown it. She said she would like to see the library have a more open space and modern layout down the road. The director said she ultimately wants people to view the library as a gathering space or a community hub. There are a lot of small rooms, its very chopped up, she said of the current location. It has been functioning so we have a place to have books, movies and a computer lab, but we could just do so much more with a building that was designed for a library and flexibility and adaptability. Attendees can bring up whatever they would like Thursday night, such as potential locations and prices, but none of that is the point this time out. Vasicek stressed the project is still very much at square one and that the idea is to review data already received, share ideas and get a feel for where the community stands. The hope is to narrow things down to three possible options on Thursday and proceed from there, she noted. Vasicek added those involved with it want people to feel good about where the project is headed because they would like to put one in front of the voters that can be the best possible option while staying within the parameters outlined by the community. Were at ground zero, she said. Were trying to get as many opinions as we can get . Matt Lindberg is the managing editor of The Columbus Telegram. Reach him via email at matt.lindberg@lee.net. 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. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, May 15, 2019 The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed alarm that a Sri Lankan military intelligence officialwho, according to news reports and court documents, is linked to attacks on at least three journalistswas restored to active duty. Prabath Bulathwattes reinstatement as a major was announced on May 11 by Army Chief Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake in an interview with news broadcaster Ada Derana. In 2017, authorities arrested five military intelligence officers in relation to the 2008 abduction and assault of columnist Keith Noyahr, CPJ reported at the time. Maj. Bulathwatte was among the suspects, according to the Centre for Policy Alternatives, an independent think tank in the capital, Colombo. During the investigation, police found evidence linking the men to the 2009 murder of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickramatunga, according to news reports. Ahimsa Wickramatunga, Lasanthas daughter, filed a civil case in April in U.S. court against former Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, alleging that Rajapaksa operated a clandestine military intelligence unit known as the Tripoli Platoon that was responsible for her fathers assassination as well was attacks on Noyahr and Rivira weekly editor Upali Tennakoon. Bulathwatte was the leader of that platoon, according to news reports citing police investigations. He was released on bail from the Noyahr investigation, according to Colombo-based newspaper Daily FT. No charges against Bulathwatte have been disclosed. Promoting to active duty an intelligence officer who has been implicated in the killing of one journalist and the torture of two others severely undermines Sri Lankas claim that it is fighting impunity for crimes against journalists, said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler in Taipei. Instead, the move creates new threats to journalists in Sri Lanka, who are not safe to do their jobs. CPJs emailed requests for comment to the Sri Lanka army did not receive a response. CPJ reached out to the army, local civil society groups, and journalists in Sri Lanka in an attempt to obtain contact information for Bulathwatte, but was unable to contact him. Rajapaksa did not respond to a CPJ message in April seeking comment on the U.S. lawsuit. In his televised interview, Senanayake said that Bulathwatte had been aware of one of the suspects in last months bombings in Sri Lanka, which killed more than 253 people, and that sidelining the major had resulted in intelligence setbacks, according to Daily FT. Senanayake said that Bulathwatte had been placed on a special team that functions directly under him, according to the paper. Emergency regulations remain in place in Sri Lanka after the deadly Easter bombings. On May 13, Sri Lankan internet providers blocked Facebook, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, YouTube, and Snapchat for the third time this month, according to international digital rights group NetBlocks and news reports. Twitter was blocked on May 13 for the first time, according to NetBlocks. CPJ has reported how these blocks limit journalists ability to do their jobs safely and securely. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram A year after disputed national elections in Venezuela, and with access to information growing ever-scarcer, the country remains in a political and economic crisis. Conditions for the press have deteriorated further since January, when Juan Guaido, the head of the opposition-led national assembly, declared himself interim president. Both local and international journalists covering the Venezuela crisis are increasingly at risk from authorities under Nicolas Maduro and armed groups known as colectivos. CPJ has documented how authorities briefly detained journalists and their fixers, threatened reporters at gunpoint, and imposed intermittent blackouts, internet outages, and blocking of outlets. Earlier this month, both the BBC and CNN reported that they had been censored in the country. The risk of injury or attack while covering protests was highlighted on April 30, when security forces under Maduro used tear gas, water cannon, and live ammunition to disperse opposition activists. In response, CPJ issued an updated safety advisory for journalists. CPJ is also aware of incidents where opposition groups and their supporters harassed and attempted to discredit journalists. CPJs calls to the office of the president and vice-president were not answered. To further understand the challenges for the media, CPJ spoke with three journalists about their experiences covering the crisis. Their answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity. Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer, The New Yorker The situation for journalists is not really defined. It has been uneasy, with certain risks from those who are not friendly to journalists, like the colectivos or la guardia nacional [a branch of the Venezuelan armed forces]. It can sometimes get ugly for us. Theres an element of harassment in general. For the press, its much of what we have seen: There is general obstruction, general hostility, although [the authorities] do seem to be letting the press in. The press, however, is very exposed. There arent that many foreign journalists and everybody knows where they are. Caracas is a very dangerous place, and pretty much everyone there has been robbed or questioned. It is a somewhat hostile environment and people are behaving accordingly. They dont go out at night, they dont walk into the barrios. Right now, Caracas has an edge that you cant find anywhere else in Latin America. You feel in Venezuela the possibility of a looming conflict that is really fueled by the rhetoric inside and outside the country. You feel the standoff with global powers. You are working in a place where the regime is doing things that they dont want you to know about. It feels like El Salvador in the 1980s. The colectivos are active in a way that they werent before. When you see them outside the National Assembly and police dont do anything about it, you know something has changed. Its the M.O., the modus operandi, that I saw last summer in Nicaragua and its also similar to Crimea. Its thugs being used in a more blatant way. Its the same playbook Ive seen over and over again. I suspect things will get worse and more tense, and I also fear the risks will increase for journalists. Its a very polarized atmosphere. The regime is not behaving all in one way. You get the impression that there are different factions. The colectivos are being given more rein to act, and there is really the possibility that they could operate their own activities. And then it is highly likely that you could be taken. In Venezuela, it all becomes possible. There is less and less recourse, no diplomats. And a fervent social media that can really play both ways. There is a lot of fear. Venezuelan freelancer Andreina Itriago, pictured, says she feels exposed while working in her own country. (Andreina Itriago) Andreina Itriago, freelance journalist and fixer for international journalists My work is mainly on the streets of Venezuela. These streets are dangerous not only for politicians or human rights activists, but they are really, really dangerous for journalists. This is because of the paramilitary colectivos, but also because of the police and military groups that are chasing journalists. The government imposed a rule that journalists need a visa when they come to work in the country, but theres a 30-day wait required. Most journalists cannot wait that long, so they come in as tourists, which has brought a lot of trouble. Police and guards will ask if you have a visa and you can be interrogated at the airport. Nobody actually trusts anyone. When you go out into the streets as a journalist, you dont know if you should wear your press ID. You dont know if that will make you a target, or if someone who doesnt like the media will attack you. The streets are full of uncertainty for us in that matter. The situation is that really, we are living in a country that is divided into two halves. We have two presidents, we have two judiciary courts, we have two parliaments, and we have two halves of the country, and each one believes in their president, their judiciary court, and their own parliament. It can be really hard to understand, and it can be even harder to explain it to foreign readers. You have to give lots of background in order to explain the current situation. Whats happening now is a consequence of something that happened, 15, 20 years ago, for example. The biggest challenge Venezuelan journalists have now is to understand what is really going on here and transmit the truth. If not the truth, then transmit the situation in the most honest way. Obviously, I feel a bit exposed when working here in my country and when Im working with foreign journalists. When we go to street protests, we obviously have to go with our equipment, bullet-proof vests, gas masks, and helmets. It is dangerous. Last week, we saw many journalists injured while covering the protests. My biggest concern is that this polarization continues and there comes a time when you cannot go out into the streets, not even to report anything. Also, that they just stop allowing foreign journalists to come in, and that there will be more imprisonment. So far, they [mostly] just sent specific correspondents to prison, but they released them after a few hours. Its dangerous here, but journalists still come. Its also dangerous for journalists such as me, who live here. We are Venezuelans and we are supposed to be able to do our job in our country. We face many obstacles. Cody Weddle, freelance journalist for international news outlets, including ABC-Miami and The Daily Telegraph The situation for the press on the ground is deteriorating. Along with my apartment being raided, being detained, and later deported from the country, several other journalists have been targeted by authorities and paramilitary groups (colectivos) in the past few months. Many other journalists have been detained and later released or deported while attempting to report in sensitive areas, such as along the border with Colombia or outside of military bases. In one case not long after my arrest, a prominent Venezuelan blogger, Luis Carlos Diaz, was arrested. It appears authorities needed a scapegoat for the widespread blackouts affecting the country. Authorities have singled out journalists in a few cases, including mine. Most journalists who have trouble with authorities are detained while attempting to take photos or use other equipment in so-called security zones, such as the bridge that separates Colombia and Venezuela, or outside of the presidential palace. Taking photos is prohibited by officials in these areas. Some journalists have been robbed by colectivos and specifically targeted during protests. After being deported from Venezuela, I returned to Colombia. I would be worried about authorities targeting me again should I return to Venezuela. Im also not sure whether the supposed investigation into treason, espionage, and extraction of military artifacts against me has been resolved. I essentially started my reporting career in Venezuela, so I havent had many other experiences to compare. But I suspect the polarization in Venezuela creates a situation where reporters must be wary of all sides of the conflict. Journalists have been attacked in the past few years by opposition protesters, by authorities, by paramilitary colectivos, and by pro-government protesters. The situation will likely continue to deteriorate for journalists as the political standoff continues and both sides attempt to gain momentum. [Additional reporting by Maria Salazar Ferro, CPJ Emergencies Director] CPJs safety advisory for journalists in Venezuela is available in English and Espanol HARRISBURG The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is launching another effort to outlaw abortions because of a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, passing legislation Tuesday that faces a veto by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, if it even reaches his desk. The vote comes amid a wave of abortion restrictions advancing in more conservative states, setting them on a course to virtually eliminate abortion access in parts of the Midwest and Deep South, in hopes that a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court will approve. The Republican-controlled House passed the bill, 117-76, after two hours of debate about pregnancies, children and relatives living with disabilities. The vote was well short of a veto-proof margin. It goes to the GOP-controlled Senate. However, similar legislation died last year in the Senate, and its support remains uncertain there, particularly after Democrats who support abortion rights picked up seats. The bill hews closely to legislation advanced by abortion-rights opponents in other states, and House debate broke down along the lines of those who support and oppose abortion rights. Wolf's office said he would veto the bill, calling it a "Trojan horse" and "another attempt to ban abortions and put politicians between a woman and her doctor." Wolf's office went on to say that there is no evidence that the law is needed in Pennsylvania and that Wolf is eager to discuss how the state can better support people with disabilities and women facing complex pregnancies. Senate Republican leadership offered only a brief, neutral statement, saying the bill will be referred to the appropriate committee and that the caucus has not discussed it. Pennsylvania law allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy for any reason except to choose the gender. The bill would add to that prohibition a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. The bill carries exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. Backers said it would protect a vulnerable population whose lives are productive. "People with Down syndrome have contributed so much, so much to our daily lives and our society as a whole and they will all continue to do so when we finally recognize that each of their precious lives is worth living," the bill's sponsor, Rep. Kate Klunk, R-York, said during floor debate. Opponents argued it violates the right of women to make their own decisions about abortion and cautioned against forcing parents to raise children with the genetic chromosomal disorder. They called it ham-handed, unenforceable and an invasion of privacy that attempts to use children with disabilities to win a political battle over abortion rights. They pointed out that the chamber's Republican leaders refused to allow votes on amendments seeking to boost help for children with disabilities. "This bill is just another unconstitutional abortion ban from the same legislators who attempt to roll back the right to a safe, legal abortion every single legislative session," Rep. Leanne Krueger, D-Delaware, said during floor debate. A similar law is in effect in North Dakota, but laws in three other states have been blocked by federal courts. One of them, Indiana, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal. Meanwhile, a similar law in Arkansas will take effect in July and a Utah law is awaiting a positive court decision to take effect. It's not clear how many abortions in Pennsylvania are because of a Down syndrome diagnosis. The state Department of Health publishes an annual abortion statistics report, but does not collect such statistics about Down syndrome or genetic anomalies. Wolf has previously rejected abortion legislation advanced by the Republican-controlled Legislature. He rejected a measure in 2017 that would have prohibited elective abortions after 20 weeks and, opponents say, banned the most common method of second-trimester abortion. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Sentinel Teen of the Year for 2019 cant wait to get to the University of Florida to play in the dirt. After all, the dirt around Gainesville is quite a bit different from what Carlisle High School senior Zoe Spielman is used to seeing in North Middleton Township. Spielman was named Teen of the Year at a Tuesday evening reception at UPMC Pinnacle Carlisle at which each of the 33 students recognized as part of the Teen of Week program during the 2018-19 school year were honored. The program, sponsored by UPMC Pinnacle, was started in 2016 to honor local high school seniors who are model students. "These students come from various backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common: their drive to succeed, said Sentinel publisher Kim Kamowski, who hosted the event. Spielman said she was shocked at being named Teen of the Year. When you read everyone elses [story] and compare them to yourself, you feel like these people deserve it so much more than you, she said. As teen of the year, Spielman receives a $5,000 scholarship that she will use as she studies either soil and water science or forestry. It depends on whether she would rather work with farmers on preventing stream pollution from excess fertilizer runoff or work with the U.S. Forestry Service to conduct controlled burns to prevent forest fires. Neither option comes as a surprise. Spielman became a junior firefighter at 14 and was named Junior Firefighter of the Year for her department, Buchanan Valley Fire Department in Franklin County, in 2014 and 2016. In 2017, she placed first in the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science state competition and was the earth and space science category winner in the regional competition thanks to an experiment that tested plant growth in non-burned soil compared to growth in soil scorched by brush fire. Between higher out-of-state tuition rates and concerns about finances, receiving any scholarships or grants will help defray costs associated with college, Spielman said. Im thankful for everything, she said. Sentinel Teens of the Week 2018-19 Teen of the Week is a program that recognizes Cumberland County high school seniors not only for outstanding academic success, but also for th Dr. Christian Caicedo, president of the Cumberland Region for UPMC Pinnacle, said choosing the Teen of the Year was difficult given the amount of activities the students are involved in. How do you participate in sports, band, volunteer, work all the things that all of you folks are doing on a day-to-day basis to get you to this point while maintaining an incredible grade point average and being respected by peers and administration? he asked the students. He said 20 different career goals were represented among the students being honored, and he encouraged them to not only pursue those goals but also to be adaptable to changes that will inevitably come. 2018 Sentinel Teen of the Year: Carve your own path in college Sage Maguire, who was honored last year as the Teen of the Year by The Sentinel and UPMC Pinnacle, offered advice to this years honorees. When the students reach their goals, Caicedo asked them to remember their roots. This community that you live in right now is the community that nurtured you, made you who you are, he said. When you reach that educational goal, come back to this community. We need you. When I look at this room of such gifted young adults, I know our local communities are in good hands and our future is bright, Kamowski said. 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. PHILADELPHIA The judge who presided over Bill Cosby's criminal case said he let five other accusers testify at the sex-assault trial because their accounts had "chilling similarities" that pointed to a "signature" crime. A jury last year convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, after hearing from her and the five others. Cosby, 81, is appealing his conviction based on the women's testimony and other key rulings by Montgomery County Judge Stephen O'Neill. He began serving a three- to 10-year prison term in September at a state prison near Philadelphia. O'Neill, in a lengthy opinion filed Tuesday, said he found "striking similarities" in the women's descriptions of their encounters with Cosby. "In each instance, (he) met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated," O'Neill wrote. "These chilling similarities rendered (their) testimony admissible." O'Neill had allowed just one other accuser to testify at Cosby's first trial in June 2017, when a jury deadlock led to a mistrial. Cosby was retried in April 2018, months after the #MeToo movement burst into view with sexual asssault accusations against director Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in Hollywood and beyond. In the ruling Tuesday, O'Neill said the new defense team that handled Cosby's retrial never directly challenged him on the difference in his two trial rulings about the other accusers' testimony. At any rate, he said, judges are not bound by their prior decisions. The defense, in outlining their appeal issues, have also argued that Cosby had a binding agreement with a former prosecutor, Bruce Castor, that he would never be charged in the case. O'Neill rejected the claim Tuesday, repeating earlier rulings that the signed press release from Castor used to bolster the claim falls short of an immunity agreement. Castor had investigated Constand's complaint for about a month in 2005 before deciding not to bring a case, questioning why she waited a year to contact police. Before the year was out, 13 other accusers had come forward to support the lawsuit Constand filed against Cosby. He settled the case for $3.4 million. When Cosby's deposition from the lawsuit became public in 2015, and the criminal case was reopened, Castor for the first time told his successor about the supposed "nonprosecution" agreement. He forwarded their correspondence to Cosby's defense lawyer and testified as a defense witness at a 2016 hearing, O'Neill wrote. O'Neill also rejected defense efforts to have him step down from the case because of his alleged bias, and outlined the four-year legal process that led up to Cosby's conviction and sentencing. Cosby's lawyers have been awaiting the opinion so they can proceed with their appeals in Pennsylvania. The lead lawyer handling Cosby's appeal, Brian Perry, did not immediately return a phone message on Tuesday. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt, in a statement, said "O'Neill has a habitual habit of always trying to cover his many errors, which continues to show his hatred towards Mr. Cosby." The Associated Press does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Marysville borough manager has been charged with bribery and theft, according to State Police at Newport. Police said Scott Weaver of Enola is accused of receiving gift cards to Bass Pro Shops after making purchases at Nationwide Chemical Products of Coral Springs, Florida. Those purchases were for borough use, but they were not asked for by the users and were ordered in excess, police said. Weaver is accused of keeping the gift cards he had received from Nationwide Chemical Products and using them to make purchases for personal use. Weaver was charged with commercial bribery and breach of duty to act disinterestedly, theft by unlawful taking and restricted activities. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 It shouldnt shock anyone if Donald Trump wins a second term in 2020. Now Hiring signs in local shop windows are potentially more persuasive than abstract phrases like Constitutional Crisis. Jobs and wages affect everyone everywhere, and Washington court battles and executive-congressional clashes can be easily dismissed as distant thunder. Im not endorsing that scenario. Far from it. But in the wake of the newest Labor Department stats a 3.6 percent jobless rate (the lowest in nearly 50 years) and a 3.2 percent boost in the GDP during the first quarter of 2019 we need to acknowledge the reality that presidents typically get re-hired when voters believe the economy is on the upswing. Granted, this particular president and I use that honorific advisedly is a serial liar whose Russian-style authoritarian instincts are damaging our democratic institutions in all the ways that many of us foresaw in 2016. But his defenders may be right when they insist that a strong economy will ultimately trump everything else. Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, says: People will vote for somebody they dont like if they think it is good for them. Former GOP congressman and Trump fan Jason Chaffetz tells Fox News that when people feel good at home, theyre going to stick with the person who has the White House. Maybe thats just wishful thinking on their part, considering that despite the bullish economy, Trump is saddled with a 42 percent approval rating. But prominent Democrats are nevertheless worried that their party doesnt have an overarching economic message. They know how important that is. Their mantra in 1992, the last time they defeated a Republican presidential incumbent, was Its the Economy, Stupid. Bill Clinton toppled George H.W. Bush in part because, midway through the election season, the jobless rate spiked to 7.8 percent. At least Democrats arent claiming that the jobless stats are fake, something candidate Trump routinely used to do. Whenever President Obamas Labor Department reported job gains for the economy that was slowly recovering from the Great Recession, Trump would lie that the government had cooked the books (October 2015), or released phony jobs numbers (January 2016), or perpetrated one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics (August 2016). But now that hes the guy in the White House, he suddenly believes that the bullish numbers are accurate. What Democrats are trying to do is talk around the stats. The basic Democratic argument from Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and others is that, yes, the top-line economic stats look good, but that most Americans still feel pinched in their everyday lives. Klobuchar tells ABC News: A lot of people arent sharing this prosperity, because of the costs the cost of college, the costs of health care, the fact that the president had promised to bring down the prices of their prescription drugs. All those things are true; for instance, the number of Americans without health coverage has increased by seven million since Trump took office. The problem is that the Democrats are stuck with a Yes, but argument, and thats not ideal. A new Washington Post-ABC poll asked: Does Trumps handling of the economy make you more likely or less likely to support him in 2020? Forty-two percent said more likely. Only 32 percent said less. (Could some of Trumps voters dump him if they fear that his tariff war with China will undercut the economy by hiking consumer prices? Dont bet on it. If Trump personally tiki-torched their houses, theyd praise the smell of smoke.) For Democrats, the most optimistic scenario is that the Yes, but argument will suffice, that a good economy will not save a lawless president saddled with unprecedented baggage. In the words of Democratic commentator and ex-policy strategist Ed Kilgore, Trumps going to have to campaign on his full record, his full agenda, and the full set of impressions he has made during his first term...And even if things look good [economically], the future will look dim to those who fear what Trump will do in a second term. Ill put it this way: Are bullish jobless stats more important than the relentless assault on Americas soul? Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Ministry of Home Affairs in a freshly issued notification extended ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, also known as: Tamil Tigers) in India for a another period of five years. Key Highlights Ban: The Union Home Ministry notified extended ban (of 5 years) to LTTE under sub-sections (1) and (3) of section 3 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (37 of 1967) with immediate effect, thus declared LTTE as an Unlawful Association. Reasons by GoI: Notification states that- Even after LTTEs military defeat in May 2009, it continues to adopt a strong anti-India posture and also continues to pose a grave threat to security of Indian nationals. It has continued its disruptive and violent activities which are prejudicial to integrity and sovereignty of India. Recent Findings: LTTE has not abandoned concept of Tamil Eelam and is undertaking propaganda activities and fundraising for its Eelam cause in Europe. The pro-LTTE groups and Tamil chauvinist groups continue to foster separatist tendencies amongst Indian masses especially in Tamil Nadu. Recently, activities of LTTE remnant cadres and supporters have been traced out in Tamil Nadu. The Diaspora continued to spread anti-India feeling amongst Sri Lankan Tamils through their articles in Internet, by holding Indian Government responsible for defeat of LTTE. About Liberation Tigers Of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging apps in the world with about 1.5 Billion users worldwide confirmed a targeted spyware attack on its platform. Key Highlights Threat: A security flaw in WhatsApp acted as a vulnerability, which allowed hackers to insert malicious software on users phones by calling the target using the app. A security flaw in WhatsApp acted as a vulnerability, which allowed hackers to insert malicious software on users phones by calling the target using the app. This latest exploit impacts Android devices and Apples iPhones, among others. It was discovered by company in early May and WhatsApp quickly attempted to fix it and even rolled out an update within 10 days. Concern: WhatsApp is a secure communications app as the messages shared on platform are end-to-end encrypted, which means they should only be displayed in a readable form on sender or recipients device. However, the surveillance software used in spyware would have let an attacker read messages on potential targets device. WhatsApp is a secure communications app as the messages shared on platform are end-to-end encrypted, which means they should only be displayed in a readable form on sender or recipients device. However, the surveillance software used in spyware would have let an attacker read messages on potential targets device. Impact: Such attacks are designed to compromise users data stored on mobile device and thus puts information stored by billions of people at risk. Such attacks are designed to compromise users data stored on mobile device and thus puts information stored by billions of people at risk. Potential Attacker: As per a spyware dealer, the hacking tool was developed by NSO Group , a shadowy Israel-based firm, which has earlier been accused of helping governments from Middle East to Mexico snoop on activists and journalists. Several security researchers also found similarities between the malicious codes with other tech which have been developed by the firm. As per a spyware dealer, the hacking tool was developed by , a shadowy Israel-based firm, which has earlier been accused of helping governments from Middle East to Mexico snoop on activists and journalists. Several security researchers also found similarities between the malicious codes with other tech which have been developed by the firm. Restraint: to protect against potential targeted exploits, WhatsApp encouraged its users to upgrade to latest version of its app, and to also keep their mobile operating system (OS) updated as an added precaution. About NSO Group Question: Regarding my posts about the terrible perversion of Torah and halacha that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky has engineered with his prod... Important!! email - yadmoshe@gmail.com : The House of Representatives recently honored the memory of one of our states finest. Someone who was a true hero, Marine Lance Corporal Trevor Richardet. Trevor served with honor and distinction in the United States Marine Corps. His selfless service to our nation gave him fulfillment and made his family and friends extremely proud. Sadly, in September 2018, he tragically lost his life in an accident while he was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He was just 19 years old. No family should have to suffer the loss of a child. I know his parents, his brothers, his grandparents, and all the members of his family continue to grieve. It was my great honor to present the parents, Chad Richardet and Amy Hager Stepfather, Mark Hager Grandparents, Roger and Debbie Richardet and brothers, Nathan, Cole, Emmett and Blake a resolution I had prepared to honor the memory of Trevor. It was also my privilege to be able to present them with United States flags that I had flown over our state capitol building on Veterans Day. We will forever be grateful for his service. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Farmington Planning and Zoning Committee met Monday at its regular meeting at Long Hall to tackle the issue of where zoning will allow the establishment of medical marijuana businesses in the city. Development Services Director Tim Porter drafted a preliminary set of ordinances regarding where the city will allow the placement of dispensaries, infused product facilities, cultivation facilities and transportation facilities. This is an ordinance draft to present the council for next months meeting related to Amendment 2, he said. "Amendment 2 passed last November and as a result, Missouri became the 32nd state to legalize medical marijuana. Porter explained the timeline of the finalizing of state regulations and the availability of licenses to prospective medical marijuana distributors. The oversight agency at the state level is the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, he said. They are drafting a set of rules and regulations that are not yet complete and will not necessarily be complete until June 4. Coinciding with the final rules and regulations, applications for the respective type of facilities will be made available to those wishing to apply for one of these facilities. Applications for these facilities will be accepted on Aug. 3. According to Porter, the state of Missouri is covering a wide range of issues with medical marijuana businesses, including a minimal amount of regulations regarding where they can be located. The idea thats been conveyed to us is that they want the dispensaries to be in the same class that you would have a pharmacy in terms of patient access, he said. They dont want it to be at the top of the mountain at Uncle Fester's cabin. We can implement controls within our local ordinance that controls where they can be located, hours of operation and things like that. What we can not do is effectively zone them out of town. When writing the draft ordinance, Porter referenced multiple sources in order to keep the citys liabilities as low as possible. I tried to write this ordinance with the advice of our city attorney, he said. I looked at other cities and used advice from the Missouri Municipal League to keep us in bounds in terms of the parameters and keep us constitutionally sound. The Planning and Zoning Committee have made these recommendations to the Farmington City Council: Due to intense power and water use of a marijuana cultivation and infusion facilities, the recommendation for the city council was to restrict cultivation to the industrial park. All medical marijuana facilities are not to be less than 500 feet from an existing school, church or daycare. Any dispensary will not be less than 1,000 feet from another dispensary. Dispensary hours of operation may only take place between the hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Sunday. Onsite usage of marijuana products is prohibited in any medical marijuana facility. A medical marijuana license must be prominently displayed at every facility. Any outside storage at any cultivation or infused product facility would have to be enclosed by a 10-foot fence with razor wire on top. Porter explained that the final draft would be vetted by the city attorney before submitted to the city council, and there will be public notification of these recommendations before the city council meeting. Mark Marberry is a reporter for the Farmington Press and Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3629, or at mmarberry@farmingtonpressonline.com. Love 5 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Congressman Jason Smith, R-Salem, announced Monday the local finalists for the annual 8th Congressional District Art Competition for high school students across southeast and south central Missouri. Smiths office accepted more than 120 submissions from local high school artists. Smith congratulated Alicia Aubuchon from Bismarck High School and Makayla Dace from Farmington High School as the Farmington regional winners. Nothing brings out our best like friendly competition, said Congressman Smith. We received so many excellent submissions from high school students in Missouri this year, and today Id like to congratulate Alicia and Makayla for winning Farmingtons regional competition. They now move on to the final competition, where well select the overall winner whose vision of patriotism will hang in the halls of the United States Capitol. The two entries from the Farmington office will now head to a Best of Show competition. The winner of the 8th Congressional District Art Contest will receive two round-trip plane tickets to attend the national recognition reception in Washington, D.C. The winners artwork will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol for one year, where lawmakers and thousands of visitors will walk past it each day. The overall Best of Show winner will be announced later this month. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DEAR ABBY: Years ago, you published a recipe for cheesecake, which you said was very good. Well, it was not only "good" -- it was TERRIFIC. As a native New Yorker, I know cheesecake. I have moved and lost my recipe. Can you republish it? It's the best! -- CHEESECAKE LOVER IN DELAND, FLA. DEAR LOVER: Thank you for the compliment. I'm glad to oblige. My mother made it -- with either cherry or blueberry topping -- and I have fond memories of raiding the refrigerator with her again and again for "just a smidgen" more! We both carried the sweet tooth gene, and I have many delightful memories of her dinner and dessert recipes, which comprise the Dear Abby cookbooklet set. Mama was a talented hostess and prepared them for dinner parties (so have I). For readers interested in ordering the set, send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $16 (U.S. funds) to Dear Abby -- Cookbooklet Set, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. In addition to the recipes, there are tips on entertaining, and anyone who hasn't entertained before should be sure to read them. By following the suggestions, even the most nervous first-time host or hostess can be confident. I hope you will enjoy making this cheesecake for many more years, because I serve it with pride. ABBY'S CHEESECAKE CRUST: 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick) 1/3 cup powdered sugar CHEESECAKE: 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened 4 eggs 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 pint dairy sour cream (at room temperature) 1 (21-ounce) can prepared cherry, blueberry or strawberry pie filling 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Combine graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar and melted butter. Press into bottom of 8-inch springform pan. 3. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, eggs, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Pour mixture over prepared crust. 4. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes (until center is set). 5. Remove from oven and spread sour cream on top of cheesecake. Return to oven and bake an additional 5 minutes. 6. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Spread desired topping on cheesecake. 7. Chill overnight. Before serving, carefully remove sides from pan. Serves 16. Tip: To minimize cracking, place shallow pan half full of hot water on lower rack of oven during baking. And be sure the sour cream is at room temperature when you spread it on. DEAR ABBY: I am a senior who is confused by what seems to be a new rule of etiquette that one should never, ever comment on another's appearance. Does it include complimenting someone on a new hairstyle or a new outfit, for example? Please clarify. -- CONFUSED IN CALIFORNIA DEAR CONFUSED: In a work situation, among the subjects that should now be avoided are references to the appearance of a subordinate or a co-worker because they could be construed as sexual harassment. However, in social situations, compliments are usually welcome. DEAR ABBY: How old does a child have to be before she is able to choose a relative to live with? I'm the one my granddaughter wants to stay with. Her home life is in turmoil because of her parents' nasty divorce. Ever since her mother (my daughter) found out my granddaughter wants to live with me, she has forbidden her to talk to me, and me to contact her. Her mother is depressed and angry, but won't seek counseling. She doesn't talk to me unless it's to say ugly things. My granddaughter said her mother never smiles anymore. We are very close and this hurts my heart. She's a good girl and should be able to be happy. We live several hours away, and are more than willing to have her. She already has a room here, and our home is never happier than when she's visiting. We haven't spoken to her in months, and we really miss her. Her younger sibling gets most of the positive attention, while she receives mostly negative attention. I have seen this happen many times. She tries so hard to please her mom. I don't know what to do to help her. -- HEARTBROKEN IN OKLAHOMA DEAR HEARTBROKEN: It would have been helpful if you had mentioned why your daughter is angry with you and is preventing your grandchild from contacting you and vice versa. If she's in such bad shape that it is negatively affecting your granddaughter, your questions should be addressed to a lawyer. If your granddaughter is in her teens, she might be considered mature enough to ask to live with a relative other than her mother. If not, and her mother's hostility is affecting her schoolwork, a trusted teacher or counselor at school might be able to see she gets the emotional support she needs. DEAR ABBY: My husband is very outgoing. He loves chatting on the phone for hours, and talks with all the neighbors up and down the street. He's retired, so it's fine -- up to a point. We have a set time for dinner, which is 6:30, and he knows it. Invariably he'll be on the phone or up the street when it's close to dinner. I always remind him 10 to 15 minutes ahead, which gives him time to be here to eat, but he'll keep chatting until he's anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour late to dinner. I put time and effort into preparing my meals. I grow my own vegetables and think of creative things to fix. He always comments how great the meals are, so it's not that he doesn't like my food. If it's not eaten promptly, it's overcooked/mushy/wilted, etc., so I go ahead and eat if he's not here. I'd like him to be with me when I sit down at the table. I feel it's incredibly rude for him to be late. When I tell him that, he laughs like it's a big joke. Short of treating him like a 2-year-old and throwing his food away if he doesn't show up on time, I'm not sure what to do. Can you help? -- FED UP IN NAPA, CALIF. DEAR FED UP: I can't force your husband to the dinner table and neither can you. To toss his dinner into the garbage would be too overtly hostile and a waste of food. Try this: Tell him dinner time is 6:30, but prepare the food as if it's for 6:45 or 7. DEAR ABBY: I'm a 16-year-old girl who has started college early. I love my classes, and I'm glad to be here. The problem is, the dating culture here is huge. People go on dates all the time. I have been asked out several times, and I feel comfortable going, but I feel dishonest when I don't tell them that I'm 16. However, if I'm upfront about my age, the offer usually gets rescinded, and it becomes incredibly awkward. How can I have a fun college dating experience while still being truthful about my age? -- COLLEGE STUDENT IN UTAH DEAR COLLEGE STUDENT: The age of consent for a girl in Utah is 16. For a young man, it is 18. You shouldn't jump the gun and announce your age before getting to know someone. If you are asked, of course you shouldn't lie about it. However, I see no reason to volunteer the information when you are asked for a date. DEAR ABBY: I am a 32-year-old late-deafened adult. I have been deaf in my right ear my whole life, but lost my hearing in my left ear after a tumor was removed when I was 27. I guess they are right when they say we are never fully prepared to lose things we have taken for granted for so long. I still have trouble communicating with people. I have taken a few sign language classes and four lip-reading classes, but I often feel like I'm no longer part of normal society. My question is, shouldn't I have adjusted by now regarding how people see me, since I have been without hearing for so long? -- HEARING IMPAIRED DEAR HEARING IMPAIRED: I have been told that the most isolating disability is being unable to hear. Please do not burden yourself by feeling you "should" have adjusted faster than you have. There is no set timetable for adjusting to any disability. Because you feel stuck in the process, the Hearing Loss Association of America (hearingloss.org) may be helpful because it sponsors support groups in many states. Please check it out. DEAR ABBY: Do you think it is fair for me to do all the housework AND pick up dog doo-doo just because I moved into my sister's house with her and her family? They have five dogs and four cats. No one else bothers to do it. I do it to lessen the smell. When I try to say something, they say I am "causing problems." I don't have any animals of my own. -- POOPER SCOOPER DEAR P.S.: I agree that the task of picking up after an animal -- let alone nine of them -- isn't something most people look forward to. However, if you are living rent-free with your sister's family, perhaps you should consider your chores to be your contribution to the household. P.S. Because you mentioned that no one else cleans up the animal messes, consider finding more hygienic living arrangements as soon as it's feasible. DEAR ABBY: I am a 47-year-old professional man who loves children, but never had any of my own. Consequently, I have never had to contend with the considerable cost of raising children. Many of my friends are parents, and I feel the urge to buy their kids nice presents I know they want, or that I never received when I was a child, e.g., a wonderful bike or train set. What's the protocol for giving an expensive gift (e.g., a saxophone that can cost $1,000) to non-related children without creating awkwardness or obligation? Naturally, I would always check with the parents first. (All of us are white-collar executives and employed, but no one is "filthy rich.") -- GIFT GIVER IN OAKLAND, CALIF. DEAR GIFT GIVER: The protocol is the one you are already observing, which is to have a conversation with the parents before buying expensive gifts for their children. And when you do, make clear that it is not your wish to cause awkwardness or a sense of obligation. DEAR ABBY: My brother-in-law found out I smoke marijuana. I have a medical card and some mental disabilities. Marijuana helps with my anxiety. Although we live near each other, my in-laws now say they don't want me in their homes. The stress this has put on my husband is unfair. His brother obviously has a problem with me. I never discuss marijuana with anyone and don't carry it around with me. I use it only in the privacy of my home. How should I expect my husband to handle holidays or even regular get-togethers? I really need help. -- UNFAIR IN NEVADA DEAR UNFAIR: Medical and recreational marijuana are legal for adults in the state of Nevada. I wish you had mentioned how your brother-in-law learned you are using it. That it is being used as an excuse to isolate you is cruel. How your husband chooses to handle further contact -- or lack of it -- with his relatives will be his personal decision. Not knowing how close they have been, I can't guess what his next step should be -- except to point out that his first loyalty should be to you. DEAR ABBY: I'm married to a beautiful woman, "Suzonne." We are bodybuilders and into fitness, so we are both quite muscular. Recently, my wife cut her hair short. It's a great look for her, and we both love the style. Unfortunately, some people have begun calling her "sir" at work and when she's out and about. Suzonne waits tables a couple of nights a week for extra income. Some of the customers have gone so far as to keep calling her "sir" after she has told them that she's female. This infuriates me because it's so disrespectful. I know it hurts my wife's feelings, although she has been super strong about it. It's plain when you look at Suzonne that she is a beautiful woman. How can she nip this in the bud before it starts to make her feel bad? I feel a strong need to defend her, and I don't want to get into a physical altercation with anyone over it. -- HURT FEELINGS IN FLORIDA DEAR HURT FEELINGS: Because your wife has a muscular build and a short haircut, it's possible some of the individuals who call her "sir" are making an honest mistake. However, for someone to persist after being informed that she is a woman is extremely rude. (It makes me wonder if the offender has a warped sense of humor or is threatened by her muscular appearance.) When it happens at work, Suzonne should ask her manager how the situation should be handled rather than allow it to continue. But under no circumstances should you get into a physical altercation because of it. Instead, on the home front, continue to reassure your wife that she's beautiful. DEAR ABBY: My husband refuses to memorize my cellphone number. He says as long as it's in his phone he doesn't need to. I feel he should know it so if he loses the phone or the battery goes dead, I can be reached. What do you think? -- LOGICAL IN KANSAS DEAR LOGICAL: Experience is the best teacher. I think you should stop arguing with your husband and let him suffer the consequences. An option might be for him to jot the number on a small piece of paper and keep it in his wallet. DEAR ABBY: My wife passed away two years ago at age 40 after a long bout with cancer. We had three children, ages 7 to 12. I am 44 and engaged now to a wonderful woman. We are planning to have a small wedding with fewer than 50 guests. While the kids and I are doing well, my late wife's mother, "Karen," is still grieving. She has a forceful personality and can be quite pushy. She lives nearby. We have not finalized the arrangements or sent out invitations. Karen has been asking if she and my former father-in-law are invited, but we haven't answered her yet. She says she's hurt because she feels we don't want her there. Is it proper etiquette to invite the parents of a deceased spouse to a remarriage? The only people she would know aside from us would be my parents, who need to bond with my fiancee's family who are coming from out of town. The kids seem to not care either way. If it were me, I'd feel awkward being there. Help! -- LOOKING TO THE FUTURE IN ILLINOIS DEAR LOOKING: Although your late wife is gone, her parents are still your children's grandparents and therefore should be treated as part of your family. While you might feel awkward if you were in their position, consider how hurt they will be if they are not included on the guest list. The decision whether to attend should be theirs to make. Welcome them and treat them with kindness. A wife can be "replaced," but a daughter cannot, which is why Karen is still grieving even though you have gone on with your life. DEAR ABBY: I need advice on how to deal with a friend/neighbor's messy, unkempt backyard. We are getting ready to put our house on the market, and I'm concerned their yard may be a deterrent to potential buyers. Their pool looks like a swamp, and various pieces of lawn furniture are strewn about the yard. Tables are turned upside down and random items are thrown about. They are friends of ours, but I have no clue how to broach such a sensitive topic without upsetting them. Please help. -- LIVING NEXT TO A SWAMP DEAR LIVING: Because those neighbors are friends, I assume they are aware that you are selling your home. If you live in an area that's prone to any dangerous mosquito-borne viruses, you would be doing them a favor to point out that their pool equipment needs fixing because still water makes an excellent breeding place for mosquitoes. As to the state of their yard, your real estate agent may have some suggestions about how to handle that. If you and your spouse volunteer to help your neighbors make it more attractive, they might be receptive. However, if they refuse and you live in a community with a neighborhood association that regulates how properties must look in order to preserve their value, consider bringing this to its attention. DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Hal," and I have been dating for a year and a half, living together for six months. I'm afraid he feels emasculated. Because I make more money than he does, a lot of the responsibility for paying the bills lands on me. We try to split things down the middle, but recent complications with his job have meant it doesn't always work out that way. I love Hal. I know he's the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I don't want money to be a dividing force, but I don't know what to say to make him feel better. This has been the elephant in the room for some time. Hal helps out with cooking and housework, and because of that, I don't mind putting a little more into the bills. I do not want this to be an issue further down the road. Any advice is appreciated. -- STUCK ON THIS IN VIRGINIA DEAR STUCK: The problem with elephants in the room is, the longer they are ignored, the larger the herd becomes. It's amazing that two important subjects -- sex and finances -- are such touchy ones to discuss. Choose a time when you and Hal are relaxed, and then bring up your concerns. Tell him how much you appreciate him in your life and the efforts he makes to make life easier for you, and that you don't want money issues to cause problems between the two of you. He may need to hear you say it. Then encourage him to express his feelings the way you have. Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069 Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 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 Andhra Pradesh: Vannamei to make State a leading hub for aqua exports by Santosh Patnaik May 15,2019 | Source: The Hindu Even as seafood growth is expected to slow down to 17% during 2019-20 from 20% recorded during the past two years, Vannamei exports from Andhra Pradesh will make the State a leading hub for aquaculture exports. The overall growth of seafood exports will come down mainly due to stringent guidelines imposed by the United States under its Seafood Import Monitoring Programme by withdrawing preferential trade treatment and levying anti-dumping duties forcing exporters from the country to explore new markets. Vannamei (white-leg shrimp), an exotic species known for its taste and low cost, is most sought after in the export market and we are doing extremely well in culturing it, Association of Indian Fishery Industries president Y.G.K. Murti told The Hindu on Monday. Andhra Pradesh, specifically, the Krishna, West Godavari and East Godavari districts, account for 25% of the countrys aquaculture. It leads in shrimp farming, with production of over 300,000 tonne of Pacific whitetail or Vannamei in 2018. The State leads in seafood exports, with shrimp accounting for close to 95% of exports. The AP government has been focussing on making shrimp culture a long-term sustainable industry. So, in many ways, it has avoided the mistakes that other States, notably Tamil Nadu, made, by allowing rampant unregulated shrimp farming to take place. AP has taken steps to regulate new shrimp farms, as well as to shut illegal hatcheries, said Pushkar Mukewar, co-founder and co-CEO of Drip Capital, which offers a data and technology-driven working capital solution to SME exporters. Steps to improve quality He said State authorities were working closely with the Central authorities to ensure that brood-stock was not contaminated. The State was planning to use technology, including blockchain, to help improve quality and productivity to give a further fillip to shrimp culture. Mr. Mukewar said Vizag had been topping the list in terms of seafood exporting ports. However, the governments plan to modernise and upgrade Vizag Fishing Harbour could impact this position and make the city a world leader in seafood exports. In trouble He said the Indian shrimp had been in trouble with American and European authorities for unsanitary processes, as well as high levels of antibiotics used. State governments were now using technology to help maintain quality standards in shrimp cultivation. Companies in this business were also taking steps to improve the supply chain, and reducing the overuse of antibiotics and other chemicals. Some States were providing land to shrimp hatcheries to encourage more companies to enter shrimp cultivation, he stated 2019, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. Bangladesh: Protecting our biodiversity May 15,2019 | Source: The Daily Star Bangladesh is a country where various flora and fauna used to thrive. But in recent years, due to excessive population growth, poaching, overuse of natural resources, climate change and other reasons, our ecology is in danger. Many of our species are already extinct and numerous others are endangered. The Sundarbans is no exception. The mammals of the forest are in the most critical condition. They need a spacious habitat which is diminishing every day due to excessive harvesting of the natural resources. The growth in human population is pushing such endangered species towards extinction. The aquatic environment too is being polluted by insecticides, industrial waste and so on. If this continues, this glorious forest would be reduced to a pitiful sight. Due to the interconnected food chain, other dependent animals will also be harmed, which will cause the entire ecosystem to suffer from imbalance, ultimately affecting the human dwellers of the vicinity. The government and the Forest Department of Bangladesh, who are already aware of this situation, should take proper steps to save the biodiversity of the Sundarbans. After all, it is our duty to protect it. 2019 / thedailystar.net Karnataka: NHRC takes suo moto cognisance of missing fishermen case May 15,2019 | Source: City today The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Monday took suo motu cognisance of a report that more than four months after the disappearance of fishing boat Suvarna Tribuja, from Udupi in Karnataka, seven fishermen on board are still missing. Reportedly, the India Navy stopped the search operation after the wreckage of the vessel was discovered 33 km west-south-west off the coast of Malvan in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. The boat had left for a deep sea fishing expedition off the coast of Goa on December 16, 2018, the NHRC said in its statement. The Commission has issued a notice to the Chief Secretary of Government of Karnataka to look into the contents of the media report and take immediate steps to redress the grievances of the relatives and family members of the missing fishermen. A notice has also been issued to the Union Defence Secretary to inform the Commission about the latest update or status of the search operation, made in the meantime, by the Indian Navy in the deep sea for the recovery of seven missing fishermen. Both the reports have to be submitted within six weeks. Issuing the notices, the Commission observed that the disappearance of seven fishermen, who went deep into the sea for fishing, is a serious concern. The news report, carried on May 3, also stated that the Indian Navy confirmed that it is also reported that the wreckage was found by INS Nireekshak, a diving support vessel of the Indian Navy through side scan sonar operations, the Commission said. It added: The wreckage was confirmed by naval divers who drove to a depth of 60-metre. The news report further suggested that the fishing boat with seven fishermen on the boat had left the coast of Goa which had made the last contact with six other boats from Udupi, which were also fishing off the coast of Goa on the morning of December 16, 2018. Thereafter, the boat and fishermen were untraceable. The news report has also given the details of the name of the men on the boat which included Chandrashekar who owned the boat along with six others Damodar, Lakshman, Sathish, Ravi, Harish, and Ramesh. The search team found three canisters from the sea in the month of December and thereafter there was no further trace of the ship, the Commission said. 2019 Mysuru Today. At least 6 men have been hanged for drug offences in Iran since late April, raising concerns about a new wave of drug-related executions in a country that recently legislated to reduce the punishment. On April 27, Kamal Shahbakhs was hanged at Kerman Central Prison for drug offences after having spent six years in prison. The next day, 24-year-old Mohammad Bameri was executed at the same prison. A local activist described Bameria as "a poor student who had [sold drugs] to earn some money for his college expenses. His execution made his familys condition even worse. Then, on May 9, 4 men were hanged at Arak Central prison for drug offences: Hamidreza Hosseinkhani, Majid Kazemi, Mohammad Hemmati, and Mohammad Davoudabadi. Between 2008 and 2018, Iran executed at least 3,975 people for drug offences - according to a report by Harm Reduction International. However, the number of executions for drug offences dropped by 90 % between 2017 and 2018, following an amendment to the countrys drug legislation. As TalkingDrugs has previously reported, the 2017 amendment raised the threshold quantity of drugs needed for a person to be eligible for capital punishment. For heroin and cocaine, the quantity needed to be possessed to allow the death penalty rose from 30 grams to two kilograms. For cannabis, the quantity rose from 5 kilograms to 50 kilograms. The amendment was retroactive, so thousands of prisoners on death row are likely to be spared following a review of their case. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson for the Iran Human Rights (IHR) non-profit, praised the amendment: This is probably the most significant step towards limitation in the use of the death penalty in the history of the Islamic Republic and probably 2018s most significant change in death penalty trends worldwide. We hope it is the 1st step of many that the Iranian authorities must take in order to improve their dark human rights record. While authorities have not confirmed any of the deceaseds specific offences, there are several drug-related activities that retain the death penalty as punishment, regardless of the quantities involved. These include possessing or using a gun while drug trafficking, and encouraging children to participate in trafficking. Additionally, anyone who has previously been sentenced to death or over 15 years in prison for drug offences is eligible for execution if convicted for any subsequent drug offence. IHR have expressed dismay at the recent executions, stating that they raise concerns about a new wave of drug-related executions in Iran. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde talkingdrugs.org, Staff, May 15, 2019 The European Union (EU) has called on Taiwan to introduce a temporary moratorium on the death penalty after a bilateral meeting on human rights in Brussels on Tuesday. The European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's diplomatic service, said in a statement after the second annual EU-Taiwan Human Rights Consultations that the EU and Taiwan share democratic values and a respect for human rights and the rule of law but the death penalty remains problematic. "The EU commended Taiwan for recent developments on human rights. The EU called upon the Taiwanese authorities to apply and maintain a de facto moratorium in relation to the death penalty in Taiwan," the statement said. "The EU regretted the resumption of executions in Taiwan in 2018 and reiterated its long-standing position that the death penalty has no deterrent effect and is an inhumane form of punishment that cannot be reversed." The EU added that Taiwan stated its position on the death penalty issue, without divulging what that was. The death penalty remains legal in Taiwan and is supported by the vast majority of the population, up to 80 % according to some polls, but outside human rights groups have continued to urge Taiwan to ban the practice. Taiwan most recently executed a death-row inmate on Aug. 31, 2018, the 1st execution carried out under President Tsai Ing-wen's government, which took office in May 2016. During the meeting, Taiwan and the EU also discussed the situation of Lee Ming-che, a Taiwanese activist who is serving a jail term in China for "subverting state power" after promoting democracy in group messaging chats. The EU, meanwhile, also highlighted Taiwan's achievements in incorporating the provisions of United Nations human rights conventions but called on Taiwan to better incorporate those provisions in its legal system and establish a human rights action plan. Migrant workers' rights, especially in the fishing industry, were discussed as well, with the EU underlining the need to effectively ensure that migrant workers are fully protected against discrimination, abuse or exploitation, the statement said. During the discussions, the EU and Taiwan updated each other on respective policies on LGBT and gender equality, and brought up for the first time indigenous people's rights. Taiwan and the EU agreed to hold the annual consultations in Taipei next year and maintain close cooperation on the topics raised this year, the statement said. Source: focustaiwan.tw, Staff, May 15, 2019 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! Thomas Edward Silverstein , a federal prisoner whose ability to wreak havoc in even the most restrictive high-security conditions played a significant role in the creation of the modern supermax prison, died on Saturday, May 11, after more than three decades spent in solitary confinement. Silverstein had been hospitalized in Lakewood for weeks with complications following heart surgery, according to information posted on a website maintained by friends and supporters. His death was confirmed by a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman. Silverstein was 67. Before his recent health problems, Silverstein had spent the past fourteen years as a resident of the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum , or ADX, in Florence, Colorado the highest-security facility in the entire federal system, where he was serving several life sentences. But his notoriety as "Terrible Tommy" stems from an earlier time at a prison in Marion, Illinois, when Silverstein was convicted of committing three murders behind bars including the killing of a federal corrections officer. Born in 1952, Silverstein grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Long Beach, California. As a teenager, he began using heroin and committing burglaries to feed his addiction. At 23, he was sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison for armed robbery. Suspected of committing other crimes in prison on behalf of the Aryan Brotherhood, he was moved to the control unit at Marion, where prisoners were locked in their cells 23 hours a day and escorted to the showers handcuffed and under heavy guard. Despite the restrictions, Silverstein was convicted of murdering two rival gang leaders at Marion. (He would later deny involvement in one of the killings while characterizing the other as an act of self-defense.) Then, on October 22, 1983, with the connivance of other prisoners, Silverstein slipped his cuffs and fatally attacked corrections officer Merle Clutts. Hours later, another inmate pulled a similar handcuff trick and killed another officer. The shock waves from the two homicides compelled the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to rethink how it handled its most dangerous prisoners, eventually leading to the construction of ADX. The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison. Earley's nuanced portrait of Silverstein was soon followed by more lurid tabloid portrayals of the "most dangerous man in America," fueling the legend of Terrible Tommy. (Earley recently posted his own reminiscence about Silverstein on this The federal system had no death penalty at the time. Silverstein was removed from Marion and placed in a series of increasingly isolated cells, sometimes with lights on continuously and loud music blared in his direction, treatment that Silverstein said was designed to drive him insane. His journey was chronicled in journalist Pete Earley's 1992 bookEarley's nuanced portrait of Silverstein was soon followed by more lurid tabloid portrayals of the "most dangerous man in America," fueling the legend of Terrible Tommy. (Earley recently posted his own reminiscence about Silverstein on this site .) But in his later years, Silverstein expressed regret over Clutts's murder. He became a relentless critic of the BOP and its reliance on solitary confinement which in his case stretched over decades, during which he avoided all conflicts with staff or disciplinary infractions. "The BOP shrinks chalk it up as me being so isolated I haven't anyone to fight with," he told Westword in a 2007 profile, "but they're totally oblivious to all the petty BS I could go off on if I chose to...I just have more self-control now, after 25 years of yoga, meditation, studying Buddhism and taking some anger-management courses. All that goes unacknowledged." Despite his quarter-century of good behavior and evaluations by prison psychiatrists that indicated he was a low risk for further violence, Silverstein was unsuccessful in his efforts to challenge his epic isolation in court. In 2011 a federal judge ruled that the conditions of his confinement weren't "atypically extreme," and in 2014 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, declaring that thirty years of solitary didn't amount to cruel and unusual punishment. In an article he wrote a few years ago, Silverstein called solitary confinement "a slow constant peeling of the skin, stripping of the flesh, the nerve-wracking sound of water dripping from a leaky faucet in the still of the night while you're trying to sleep. Drip, drip, drip, the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, constantly drip away with no end or relief in sight." For Silverstein, the end came on Saturday, May 11. Source: westword.com , Alan Prendergast, May 13, 2019. Alan Prendergast has been writing for Westword for over thirty years. He teaches journalism at Colorado College; his stories about the justice system, historic crimes, high-security prisons and death by misadventure have won numerous awards and appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde The Lebanon Walmart Superstore was evacuated Tuesday afternoon after a fire caused extensive smoke and water damage to the store. Several businesses to the north had to be evacuated and a couple of city streets were closed, to protect citizens from the toxic smoke. Gordon Sletmoe, chief of the Lebanon Fire District, said the call came in at 12:47 p.m. The fire began in the section of the store where swimming pool supplies, including chemicals for pool cleaning, are stocked. "Shoppers in the store noticed the fire. They alerted the store staff and the store staff immediately began evacuating the store," Sletmoe said. "The fire grew to the point that it activated one sprinkler head directly over the fire. Ultimately, the sprinkler nearly completely extinguished the fire." Sletmoe praised the Walmart staff for their handling of the evacuation. "When we got there, the store was totally evacuated. The Walmart employees did a great job of that," he said. Upon their arrival, Lebanon firefighters did some final extinguishment of the fire. Because of the size of the store and the amount of smoke, a second alarm was called, which brought additional resources to the site. Based on their information that the fire began in an area with numerous chemicals nearby, the Linn-Benton HazMat team was also activated. In all, 11 units with approximately 40 personnel responded. Albany and Sweet Home sent units to assist the Lebanon Fire District. The Lebanon Police Department and the Oregon State Police assisted with securing the perimeter of the property during the response. The fire damage was limited to the aisle where the fire started, Sletmoe said. The water and smoke damage, however, was much more severe. According to the Lebanon Police Department, the store was to be closed overnight. "There was an extensive amount of water throughout the store because the sprinklers operated for quite some time. And the entire store, from front to back, side to side, ceiling to floor, really was full of smoke," Sletmoe said. "I believe that ultimately there's a lot of product damage." No injuries were reported to customers, employees or firefighters. Investigators are working to determine the cause of the fire. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 5 Sad 10 Angry 4 SALEM Thousands of Oregon public workers could see smaller retirement pots if lawmakers pass a slate of changes to the states retirement plan. About 176,000 people now working for state and local government, ranging from teachers to firefighters to wildlife biologists, are part of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, known as PERS. Under a new proposal from Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature, employees who make $30,000 a year or more could expect to see the benefits they were going to get reduced, depending on when they were hired and how long before they plan to retire. The change would continue until the state catches up and nearly fully funds the retirement system. As of October, the system has only about 73 percent of the money needed to pay benefits in the years ahead, according to Oregon PERS. That change would affect the vast majority of public employees in the state. About 97 percent of Oregon employees hired before Aug. 29, 2003, make $30,000 or more. About 90 percent of employees hired since then do, according to an analysis from actuarial firm Milliman. Lawmakers proposal, revealed last week, would also implement new financial maneuvers to try to tame the impact that the systems debt is having on government year-to-year. By and large, state and local government entities like cities and schools have to pay more money toward employee retirements every year. Its a state of affairs that, combined with limits on local property taxes, is putting the squeeze on government services, diverting money to pension costs instead of local services. In the coming years, local governments were expecting more dramatic increases in retirement costs. Lawmakers proposed changes could bring down those expected increases. In the two-year budget starting in 2021, for example, actuaries expect that about 32 percent of payroll costs would be going to pensions. Under the proposed plan, that share of payroll going to benefits could dip to about 26 percent. Oregon has a hugely complicated retirement system, and its complexity is partly due to years of attempts to rein in its high costs. The systems debt is now at about $26 billion. Four years ago, the states Supreme Court said that policymakers can only change future benefits, and cant tweak benefits that employees have already earned. Oregon public employees get a retirement plan that has two distinct parts: a basic pension, and a savings account thats similar to a 401(k). Lawmakers have proposed reducing the amount of money that goes to the savings account. Under the plan, employees would contribute the same amount of money to their retirement, but end up with less money when they retire. Thats because part of the money they currently contribute to the savings plan would instead be helping pay for a pension that they dont currently contribute to. Actuaries ran the numbers on lawmakers plan, using three hypothetical examples of public workers in the state. Oregon workers are divided into three tiers depending on when they were hired, and the proposed cuts could affect each group differently. Employees could see the benefits generated by the savings plan go down by 7 to 12.5 percent, depending on when they were hired and how much time they have left until retirement. But thats a reduction in the savings plan only. The plan would also cap the amount of money that the state uses to calculate each employees benefits. Benefits are partially based on a figure known as final average salary, which, in simple terms, approximates your annual salary at retirement. The proposal would cap that figure at $195,000. In each generation of hires, that change could reduce benefits for a fraction of 1 percent of workers. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is behind the proposal, which has been in the works for some time, Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said in an interview last week. But Kotek declined to say specifically who was involved in the negotiations. The proposal came at the end of a week where most Republicans in the Senate skipped out on floor sessions. Their absence was an act of protest over Democrats efforts to pass a slate of policy priorities, including a new business tax to fund public education. But lawmakers had begun working on the plan long before Republicans staged their walkout last week, Kotek said. Gov. Kate Brown unveiled her own plan several weeks ago, which focused on lowering schools costs and employed other methods, such as using a surplus from the states workers compensation fund, to pay down the debt. Several initiative petitions aimed at addressing the systems debt are waiting in the wings as well. Labor groups came out against the latest proposal. Union members turned out for a Friday hearing on the proposal, including a score of firefighters clad in yellow shirts. In a press release, Keep Oregons Promise, a group of public employees advocating against retirement benefit reductions, warned that employees may sue the state should the reforms pass. Oregon educators have shown time and again that they will stand up for their students, said John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association, the states largest teachers union. If lawmakers turn their backs on educators and cut retirements, we will see them in court. Union groups claimed Friday that the proposals would affect benefits that employees have already accrued. But Kotek said all of the proposed reforms are prospective. If you decided to retire today, none of this would affect you, Kotek said. Reporter Claire Withycombe: cwithycombe@eomediagroup.com or 971-304-4148. Withycombe is a reporter for the EO Media Group working for the Oregon Capital Bureau, a collaboration of EO Media Group, Pamplin Media Group, and Salem Reporter. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 5 Bill McKibben, the country's foremost green energy expert and activist, wrote that Biden "is too stuck in the past to be a credible standard-bearer for the Democratic party ." He doesn't understand anything about the climate crisis and thinks the solution is fracking. Like everyone concerned about climate policy, McKibben's internal alarm system went off Friday when Biden's brain trust said they're looking for a "middle ground" on climate. That's identical to what mainstream Republicans say-- and it doesn't exist. Biden likes fracking and nuclear energy and "a return to the all-of-the-above energy strategy that marked the Obama years, and a terrible idea." Biden is now trying to back-peddle and dishonestly blaming the story on a Reuters reporter. As is now entirely clear, increasing fracking increases the flow of methane to the atmosphere, and since methane is a potent greenhouse gas it drives up the rate of global warming. In the early days of the Obama years, when we knew far less about the chemistry of methane, it was a perhaps-defensible plan; in 2019 its embarrassing, the equivalent of idling your muscle car outside the Earth Day picnic. There is no middle ground on climate change-- theres only meeting the demands of physics and chemistry (and justice), or watching the temperature soar. A few hours after the story, as environmental activists (and primary opponents) tweeted their dismay, the Biden team seemed to blush. Bidens energy advisor Heather Zichal said that the Reuters reports were wrong, and that instead he planned to enact a bold policy to tackle climate change in a meaningful and lasting way. But the fact that it was Zichal making the statement essentially confirmed the accuracy of the original story: in the early Obama years, shed headed up an interagency working group to promote the development of domestic natural gas. The working group had been formed after pressure from the American Petroleum Institute, the chief fossil-fuel lobbying group, and Zichal, in a talk to an API gathering, said: Its hard to overstate how natural gasand our ability to access more of it than everhas become a game changer. Zichal left her White House job in 2013; one year later, she took a gig on the board of Cheniere Energy, a leading exporter of fracked gas, which has earned her over a million dollars. And Zichal said Biden was also turning for advice to former energy secretary Ernest Moniz, who oversaw the rise of the United States to its position as the biggest oil and gas producer on the planet and continues to recommend natural gas development, and Frank Verrastro, co-author of a report on fracking that found no unmanageable risk that would require widespread reconsideration of current recommended practices. In short, hes relying on people deeply attached to the status quo. [Note: We don't call him Status Quo Joe for nothing.] The timing of the gaffe couldnt have been more stunningit came just 72 hours after the UN released a report pointing out that climate change would help wipe out a million species in the decades ahead. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo later that day lauded the rapid melt of the Arctic, saying it would increase access to gold and diamonds, not to mention make it easier to ship junk from China. You couldnt have asked for a much better opportunity to draw a contrast, not search for a middle ground. As recently as 2016, climate was seen as a losing issue. It was a distant problem, with unclear consequences, that would require huge sacrifices to solve. But then California caught fire, Puerto Rico got ravaged by a hurricane, and people woke up to the fact that this was clear and present danger. The IPCC report hammered home the threat. And with ideas like the Green New Deal gaining prominence, people have understood that solving the problem wont require sacrifice as much as it will create opportunity. Why would we stay in the middle of the road when the left lane promises solutions that will not only help the climate, but also our economy, public health, and national security? But Bidens team apparently is fixated on the relatively small number of workers in the building trades unions who want to keep on constructing natural gas pipelines (and perhaps, since he hasnt signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, on big donors from the hydrocarbon sector). This is old-school thinking at its best: throw young voters, overwhelmingly fixated on climate change, under the dirty diesel bus in an effort to win a narrowing pool of union leaders, who gathered in the Oval Office with Trump to celebrate in the early days of his presidency. Obviously Biden will be better than Trump on this (and every other) issue; obviously everyone who cares about the earth should support him if hes the nominee. (That paramount need is why Ive been running the #DemUnityTwitterProject these past weeks). And hes got time to turn his policies aroundI remember when he gave a wink and a nod support to those fighting the Keystone pipeline, well in advance of Obamas eventual veto of the project. His credibility with union workers is understandably high, which is why he would be the perfect person to push for large-scale retraining programs for clean energy jobs. But for now Biden has done precisely the thing youd think hed be trying his hardest to avoid: showing that hes stuck in the dirty energy past. If hes going to mount a serious challenge to Trump, hes going to need the huge number of Americans for whom climate change has become the issue. On the biggest issue our civilizations ever faced, we need him thinking like its 2030, not 2010. Digitization could contribute 1.1 percent GDP per year to Vietnam until 2045, experts say. "Vietnam has a bright future in digital economy development," Dr. Lucy Cameron, senior research consultant at Australian federal scientific research agency CSIRO, said at a conference on the issue Wednesday. Cameron said that while Vietnam has been investing in production, manufacturing and assimilation of technology to boost traditional growth, breakthrough solutions needed sharper focus. Vienam should foster growth in advanced technology and promote innovation to extract due value from digitization, she said. In the best case scenario, if Vietnam fully implements digitization, GDP could rise by 1.1 percent, Cameron said. Vietnams GDP currently stands at $224 billion. "Having a young workforce as well as being positioned in the high-growth Asia-Pacific region are Vietnams advantages for digitizing its economy. If Vietnam can manage change it well, it will be able to achieve its ambitions, attract technology and boost innovation," she said. Ousmane Dione, country director of the World Bank in Vietnam, stressed that innovation and productivity-based growth was an urgent requirement for Vietnam. The country has experienced remarkable growth in the last few years, but is still behind some countries in the Asia-Pacific region, he said, adding that Vietnam needs to conduct reforms in the fields of science, innovation and technology, in order to improve performance both in the private and public sectors. Cameron recommended that Vietnam builds a unified platform to connect technological systems to take advantage of key strengths, focus on specialized areas, and provide increasing support for innovation. Vietnam needs to participate in many regional forums, promote the growth of venture capital funds, and boost partnerships in technology and transfer of know-how, he said. Two weeks ago, Data 61, an Australian data science research and engineering firm, projected that Vietnam could add $162 billion to its GDP in 20 years time by turning its economy digital. However, Data 61 also warned that 38 percent of jobs could be lost to digitization. Google and Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek have estimated that Vietnams digital economy was worth $9 billion in 2018, and expected to reach $30 billion by 2025. The digital economy has been booming in the last few years. It grew by over 25 percent last year and the country can sustain this rate for the next two or three years, according to the Vietnam E-Commerce Association. The latest salvo in the U.S.-China trade war could intensify pressure on Vietnam, experts have warned. U.S. President Donald Trump last Friday raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 percent to 25 percent. A day later he ordered a tariff hike on almost all the remaining imports worth $300 billion. In response, China said it would impose higher tariffs on some $60 billion worth of U.S goods starting June 1. Economist Nguyen Tri Hieu said the U.S.s aggressive move means China has to depreciate its currency to mitigate the damage. This would lead to a surge in cheaper imports from China, making it difficult for Vietnams domestic products to compete, he told VnExpress International. Vietnam would also struggle to export to China because of the weaker yuan, he added. The yuan has fallen by 2 percent against the greenback since the beginning of May to its lowest level since last December. Last year, due to the trade war, it had fallen by 7 percent. The dong has fallen by almost 1 percent since the beginning of this year. Data from Vietnam Customs supports Hieus warning. In the first quarter imports from China rose by 18.6 percent year-on-year, while exports fell by 7.8 percent. Another consequence experts fear is the labeling of Chinese goods as Vietnamese for export to the U.S. to circumvent the new tariffs. Trump said in a series of tweets on Monday: "Many tariffed companies will be leaving China for Vietnam and other such countries in Asia. "I say openly to President Xi & all of my many friends in China that China will be hurt very badly if you dont make a deal because companies will be forced to leave China for other countries. Too expensive to buy in China." Vietnam has since last year seen an increase in Chinese companies setting up shop to avoid the U.S. tariffs. Of the six biggest registered foreign projects in Vietnam in the first four months, four were from mainland China and Hong Kong, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Industrial parks in the northern Bac Ninh Province and provinces in the Mekong River Delta are reporting increased interest from Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong investors. These companies plan to double or triple their head count by the end of this year as they seek to expand production, a recent report by recruitment firm Navigos said. Experts caution Vietnam about this. Le Dang Doanh, a former economic adviser to the government, said if this situation is not controlled, it could have grave consequences for Vietnamese companies since the U.S. might apply the same tariffs it does on China if it finds Chinese products labeled as Vietnamese. Pham Hong Hai, CEO of HSBC Vietnam, said that the trade war might also take away existing foreign investors from the country. This happened during the 2008 global economic crisis, when investors pulled out of Vietnam due to falling demand, lowering the economys growth, he said. Vietnam, with 200 percent trade as a percentage of GDP, is very dependent on the global supply chain, and will suffer if the global economy face challenges from the trade war, he added. The National Center for Socio-Economic Information and Forecast (NCIF) last year forecast that Vietnams GDP could drop by 0.09 percent this year and 0.12 percent next year because of the U.S-China trade tensions. Nevertheless, there are also some positives for Vietnam from the trade war. Now its goods like electronics, furniture, bags, and seafood are believed to be more competitive in the U.S. than those from China. In the first quarter Vietnams exports to the U.S. rose 28.8 percent year-on-year, making that country the largest importer of Vietnamese goods. Te Tri Dung, former CEO of Tan Thuan Industrial Promotion Company, attends a meeting in HCMC in 2017. Photo by VnExpress/Huu Khoa Two former CEOs of state-owned firms have been arrested following a seven-month investigation by HCMC authorities. On Tuesday night, Te Tri Dung, former CEO of Tan Thuan Industrial Promotion Company (IPC), was arrested by HCMC police for "embezzlement" and "violations of regulations on the management and use of state-owned property that led to losses or wastefulness." The same evening, Ho Thi Thanh Phuc, CEO of IPC-owned South Saigon Development Corporation (Sadeco) was also arrested for the same charges. Prior to the arrest, Dung had been suspended from his post pending the investigation. He was directly involved in the selling of IPCs shares in Sadeco at cheap prices in 2017, causing a loss of VND153 billion ($6.5 million) to the city budget. IPC only used part of the building which it was assigned and illegally rented out office space to 81 companies, earning more than VND295 billion ($12.6 million) in rent over seven years. Despite the profit, the company signed up for a bank loan on which interest of more than VND8 billion ($341,720) had to be paid. The investigation also showed that IPC had organized overseas trips for its managers which were not approved by HCMC government. Several spent more time abroad than needed, causing the city to lose another VND1.3 billion ($55,543). IPC was established by the HCM City People's Committee in 1993 to work on construction and infrastructure investment programs. The ongoing anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong has netted big names including government officials and businesspeople. Embezzlement can face death penalty in Vietnam. A replica of the Greetingman statue in a park in Hue. Photo obtained by VnExpress Hue has found a home for the statue of a naked man gifted by South Korea after weeks of debating where to place it. The Greetingman, gifted by the mayor of Namyangju city last month, would be installed in Ba Thang Hai (February 3rd) Park in front of the Hue University of Education, Nguyen Van Thanh, Chairman of Hue Peoples Committee, said Tuesday. Authorities had been scratching heads to figure out where to place the six-meter statue due to its "sensitive nature." But now it would be made smaller than its originally intended size to fit the surroundings. Several locations were considered, including Dong Ba Market on Tran Hung Dao Street, the Imperial City and a park near the Huong River in front of the Hue Cultural Center. But cultural experts rejected all three citing "architectural and geomantic conflicts." Sculptor Yoo Young Ho will make the statue in aluminum and it will carry a message of "respect and understanding" and serve as a display of humility through the traditional South Korean greeting it will depict. It will be cast in South Korea and brought to Vietnam. "Family," a statue at the Ba Thang Hai Park in Hue. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh The Ba Thang Hai Park next to the Huong River has dozens of statues made by sculptors from Vietnam and other countries during the Hue Festival, a biennial event to celebrate the towns cultural legacy and values. Vietnam has the worlds seventh biggest pig herd and is the sixth largest pork producer, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Photo by Reuters/File The agriculture ministry has said that without proper prevention, the incurable pig disease can cause "extremely catastrophic consequences." Vietnam had destroyed more than 1.2 million farmed pigs, or 4 percent of the nations total herd, as of last Sunday, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. "If not controlled well, the outbreak will develop thus: reappearing where it has been controlled, spreading to new areas and becoming an epidemic in herds raised by large-scale farms," agriculture minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said at a Monday meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung. Once that happens, it would lead to "extremely catastrophic consequences," damaging the economy in general and threatening the pig farming sector, a major branch of the nations livestock industry, he said. "In order to ensure that the entire process of quarantining and culling infected pigs is done in line with regulations, army and police should be in charge, because of their discipline," the minister added. Suspecting that outbreak control has loosened in several areas where it has been detected, the minister suggested that the government deploys armed forces to keep an eye on anti-epidemic measures. Deputy PM Dung did not respond immediately to the suggestion about deploying armed forces, but wanted local authorities to make reasonable compensation to farmers before killing their pigs as a way to encourage them to join hands with the authorities in tightening quarantining and other measures. African swine fever has spread further in southern Vietnam, with Hau Giang in the Mekong Delta announcing infections on Monday, putting the total number of affected cities and provinces in the country at 30. The viral disease, which infects all pig species through bodily fluids such as blood and mucus and causes hemorrhagic fever, was first detected in Vietnam in February. It has since spread to all three major regions in the country the north, the central and the south. It went south in early May, hitting two farms in Dong Nai Province, home to the nations largest pig herd and a major source of pork supply to the neighbor Ho Chi Minh City. Just over the weekend, the outbreak was detected in Binh Phuoc Province, which neighbors Dong Nai. Vietnam has the worlds seventh biggest pig herd and is the sixth largest pork producer, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Some 70 percent of meat products in Vietnam are from pigs, with over 10,000 farms and 2.5 million households raising the animal for food. There is no cure for African swine fever though humans are not affected by it. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in March advised Vietnam to declare the swine fever outbreak a national emergency. Twenty countries and territories have reported outbreaks since 2017 and over one million pigs have been put down, according to the World Organization for Animal Health. Vietnam is the third country in Asia to be hit after China and Mongolia. A woman sorts through recyclable plastic soft drink bottles in Xa Cau Village outside Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham Government workers in Thua Thien-Hue Province have been told not to use plastic water bottles or plastic bags at the workplace. They are encouraged to boil water for drinking in office. On Saturday the chairman of the province People's Committee, Phan Ngoc Tho, issued a memo urging all employees in the province to help address the plastic waste problem and prevent pollution, reports said. Government offices and agencies are required not to use disposable bottles, including at conferences, and instead use bottles of more than 20 liters that are easier to recycle. Disposable plastic bags and one-time wipes are also discouraged. The province Department of Finance is not allowed to pay for buying disposable plastic products. This is part of the "anti-plastic waste" and "say no to disposable plastic bags" movements in which Thua Thien-Hue authorities want to involve public workers. The province, home to the former imperial citadel Hue which is a major tourist destination, plans to organize competitions to unearth plastic substitutes. It wants supermarkets, malls and restaurants to replace disposable plastic with eco-friendly materials by 2020. It has seven landfills that get on average a total of 450 to 700 tons of solid waste daily. Anti-plastic movement is gathering momentum in Vietnam. Last month the HCMC Open University announced a ban on plastic straws and bottled water from May. Teachers and students have to bring their own bottles or use recyclable bottles the university provides. Supermarket chain Saigon Co.op has stopped selling plastic straws from this month. Some supermarket chains have begun to use banana leaves to pack vegetables instead of plastic. The country generates around 2,500 tons of plastic waste daily, according to official figures. It is fourth in the list of nations dumping plastic waste in the ocean, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Police seize boxes from a shop of Nhat Cuong Mobile Company in Hanoi after a search on May 9, 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Hai The chief of a Hanoi-based technology and electronics company is being investigated for alleged cross-border smuggling and concealing revenues of millions of dollars. The anti-smuggling police on Tuesday began an investigation into "smuggling" and "violating regulations of law on accounting causing serious consequences" by Bui Quang Huy, 45, general director of Nhat Cuong Technical Services Trading Co. Ltd. Eight others have been accused of being his accomplices and arrested on the same charges. The police said Huy was the leader of an organized crime group responsible for cross-border smuggling and maintaining two sets of accounting books to conceal trillions of dong worth of revenues (VND1 trillion = $42.7 million). Police have not revealed further details. Last Thursday officers raided nine stores and a warranty center of Nhat Cuong Mobile and seized thousands of mobile phones, tablets and other electronic items before closing them down. Nhat Cuong Mobile belongs to Nhat Cuong Technical Services Trading Co. Ltd., set up in 2001 as a phone repair shop. Besides the retail stores and warranty center in the capital, it also has an ERP (enterprise resource planning) center in Ho Chi Minh City. It has a charter capital of VND38 billion ($1.62 million) and its businesses include trading of electronic and telecommunications equipment and components, mobile phone manufacturing, pawnbroking, and a travel agency. In addition to being Nhat Cuong's general director, Huy is also the legal representative of Nhat Cuong Software Co. Ltd., which has done a number of technology projects for Hanoi including a residential data project. The police are expanding their investigation to clarify the roles of the nine suspects and other related individuals. Huy and his accomplices face 12-20 years in prison for smuggling and three to 12 years for violating accounting law regulations. A worker rides his bicycle past steel rims in a dockyard at Mumbai Port Trust in Mumbai. Photo by Reuters/Shailesh Andrade India fears China could soon start flooding excess steel into its market after the United States raised tariffs on Chinese products due to the escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies. As a result, the Indian steel industry has asked the Indian government to put in so-called safeguard duties of as much as 25 percent to protect it from growing imports. These would be imposed on steel that the government determines has been dumped in India at prices below the cost of production. Since last year, China and the United States have been locked in a trade conflict as Washington seeks to fix the trade balance, currently tilted in favour of Beijing. The two nations have raised or threatened to raise tariffs on each other's goods, moves that could re-draw trade flows and that have threatened to derail the global economy. "China has excess (steel) capacity and there is a concern they could re-route it through other countries like Vietnam and Cambodia into India," an Indian government source with direct knowledge of the matter said. "Steel sector is vulnerable," the source said, declining to be identified due to the sensitive nature of discussions. India, the world's second-largest steel producer, turned net importer in the year ended March 31, 2019 after a gap of three years. That is because the country lacks the capability to produce high-quality steel and has lost some of its global clients to cheaper exports from China, Japan and South Korea. "China, Japan, Korea which are major exporters to U.S., Europe and Canada, because of trade actions, they are also diverting steel into India," Seshagiri Rao, joint managing director at JSW Steel Ltd, told Reuters. Demanded safeguard duties "It is very much essential for government of India to increase the safeguard duty to 25 percent as soon as possible," said Rao. Currently, there are a range of such duty levels. Last month, steel companies JSW, Steel Authority of India , Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power - controlling over 45 percent of India's total steel production - met with government officials to ask for safeguards, according to a source who attended the meeting. During the meeting, Steel Secretary Binoy Kumar, the top bureaucrat in the Ministry of Steel, also said that the steel industry was at risk from global excess capacity, the source said. Kumar said India need to act soon to protect its fragile steel industry from predatory imports as it would be difficult to revive it if the situation was allowed to deteriorate for three-to-four years. However, he said a decision on safeguard duties has not yet been taken. The steel ministry did not respond to Reuters' emails and phone calls seeking comments. Neither did SAIL, Tata and JSPL. "What we are seeing is that part of displaced exports is already making inroads," said Arnab Kumar Hazra, assistant secretary general at the Indian Steel Association, which represents major steel producers. There was therefore every reason to argue for safeguard duties given the perceived threat, he said. India had imposed a slew of safeguards in 2015-2017 on several steel products to curb cheaper imports and protect local industry, prompting Japan to refer India's behaviour to the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute panel. India's trade deficit with China jumped more than a nine fold over the past decade to $63.05 billion in the year ending March 2018. With the latest U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, India fears Beijing could also re-route exports of electronic items, toys, furniture and organic chemicals to India through other Southeast Asian nations. New Delhi and Beijing have been negotiating over greater market access as China wants to exports milk products and apples to India while New Delhi wants to sell China bovine meat, sources said. "In creating an energy future for our customers and shareholders, we need ambitious and crucial reductions in carbon emissions that align with the work of the scientific community, specifically the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its assessment of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050," Keebler said. MGE already has been on a path to reduce carbon, having reduced carbon dioxide emissions 23% since 2005 and targeting carbon reductions of at least 80% by 2050 from 2005 levels. "Since introducing our carbon reduction targets, we have always said that if we can go further faster by working with our customers, we will. We believe it is important to articulate a long-term goal that is both visionary and based on the best climate science available. Our net-zero carbon goal is aggressive, and it will require technologies not yet commercially available or cost-effective, but it is where we need to be," Keebler said. MGE's mission continues to be safe, reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity for all customers. Through the application of science and investment in the technologies of today and tomorrow, the company will continue to fulfill its mission. Climate science partnership MGE also announced it will be working with scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences to help evaluate the company's net-zero carbon goal in the context of the analyses done by the IPCC. The university will provide expert input and perspective to ensure MGE's goal is consistent with the IPCC assessment. In 2015, the company announced its Energy 2030 framework, which was informed by community input and laid out its foundational objectives for building your community energy company for the future: Provide customers with options they want today and in the future, Help customers use energy efficiently and control future costs for all customers, Transition MGE to a more environmentally sustainable energy supply, Provide a dynamic electric grid that can integrate all energy technologies to serve customers, and Ensure that new and changing technology serves all customers equitably. "These remain our objectives as we continue to build customer and shareholder value on our path to deep decarbonization," Keebler said. "As your community energy company, MGE has a history of engaging our customers and communities. We actively continue work to deepen that engagement to achieve our goals. Our net-zero carbon goal is a reflection of our commitment not only to long-term sustainability, rooted in the latest climate science, but also a reflection of our commitment to our customers and communities." Key strategies for deep decarbonization include reducing the carbon intensity in electricity generation through adding significant new renewable energy resources and reducing the use of fossil fuels; continued work to help customers with energy efficiency; and electrification, including transportation. "We are excited about our path, our progress and our ultimate vision. To us, this is what it means to lead and to serve," said Keebler. About MGE MGE generates and distributes electricity to 153,000 customers in Dane County, Wis., and purchases and distributes natural gas to 161,000 customers in seven south-central and western Wisconsin counties. MGE's parent company is MGE Energy, Inc. The company's roots in the Madison area date back more than 150 years. ExxonMobil's program matches individual donations to accredited colleges and universities in the United States. The American Indian College Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund and United Negro College Fund are also eligible to receive donations as part of the matching gift program. ExxonMobil has donated nearly $700 million to U.S. institutions of higher learning since the program began. "Supporting higher education, particularly in the areas of engineering, math and science, is critical in improving individual livelihoods as well as driving broader societal growth," said Kevin Murphy, president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. "We've long supported programs that improve educational outcomes and provide teachers with the tools they need to inspire our next generation of leaders and innovators." Although ExxonMobil's educational matching grants are unrestricted, colleges and universities are encouraged to designate a portion of the funds they receive to engineering, math and science programs. About the ExxonMobil Foundation The ExxonMobil Foundation is the primary philanthropic arm of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) in the United States. The foundation and corporation engage in a range of philanthropic activities that advance education, with a focus on math and science in the United States, promote women as catalysts for economic development and combat malaria. In 2018, the ExxonMobil Foundation, together with Exxon Mobil Corporation, its divisions and affiliates, along with employees and retirees, provided more than $211 million in contributions worldwide, of which over $75 million was dedicated to education. The order has now also been awarded for the final construction phase of the "Syvash" wind farm with 113.1 MW in Ukraine: the Nordex Group has received an order to supply a further 29 turbines from the N131/3900 series. In February 2019 the Nordex Group had already reported the order to supply the first 34 machines with 132.6 MW for "Syvash", marking the company's entry into the Ukraine market. After its completion in 2020, with its 245.7 MW "Syvash" will be the largest wind farm in Ukraine. Nordex contract partner is Powerchina Ltd., which will build the wind farm for the local project company SyvashEnergoProm, a joint venture comprising the Norwegian project developer NBT AS and Total Eren, a leading French based renewable energy IPP. The electricity generated from Syvash will be sold to state-owned company "Energorynok" - Ukraine's wholesale electricity market operator. Once the entire wind farm is completed, it will feed 840,000 MWh of clean electricity a year into the grid and can supply approximately the needs of 100,000 households. It is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 465,000 tonnes per year. The wind farm is to be built in the region of Kherson, on the north shore of Lake Syvash. NBT AS - a profile NBT AS is a developer and operator of utility-scale wind farms in emerging markets. The company was founded in 2004 and is based in Oslo, Norway. NBT has operations in Norway, China, Cyprus, Sweden, Singapore and Ukraine. NBT is planning to develop additional wind farms in Ukraine, which are due to be completed within the next three years. For more information, go to www.nbtas.no. Total Eren - a profile Founded in 2012 by Paris Mouratoglou and David Corchia, Total Eren develops, finances, builds and operates renewable energy power plants (solar, wind, hydro) representing a gross capacity of more than 2,200 MW in operation or under construction worldwide. Through partnerships with local developers, Total Eren is currently developing numerous energy projects in countries and regions where renewable energy represents an economically viable response to growing energy demand such as in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa. On April 5th, 2019, Total Eren integrated the NovEnergia Group and extended its presence notably in Southern Europe. The objective is to achieve a global net installed capacity of more than 3 GW by 2022 on top of NovEnergia Power Plants. Since December 2017, Total S.A., the major energy company, has been acting as a shareholder of Total Eren. For more information, please visit www.total-eren.com Powerchina - a profile The EPC contractors for the Syvash Wind Farm are Power Construction Corporation of China, Ltd. ("POWERCHINA"), the largest power plant construction company in the world, ranked no. 182 on the Fortune 500, and POWERCHINA Fujian Engineering Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of POWERCHINA. POWERCHINA possesses the full-range of capabilities, from planning, survey, design and engineering to construction, installation, and operation and maintenance of power and infrastructure projects. POWERCHINA aims to become a top global enterprise in renewable energy. Its business covers 116 countries and the total amount of contracts for projects under construction is more than USD 100 billion. The Nordex Group - a profile The Group has installed more than 25 GW of wind energy capacity in over 40 markets and in 2018 generated revenues of around EUR 2.5 billion. The company currently has more than 5,500 employees. The joint manufacturing capacity includes factories in Germany, Spain, Brazil, the United States, India and in the near future Argentina and Mexico. The product portfolio is focused on onshore turbines in the 2.4 to 5.X MW class, which are tailor-made for the market requirements in countries with limited space and regions with limited grid capacity. Contact: Felix Losada Bereich:Public Relations / Marketing Tel.:++49 - 40 - 300 30 -1000 E-Mail:flosada(at)nordex-online.com ELKO -- An Elko man was arrested Monday on a warrant charging sexual assault and two counts of open or gross lewdness. Roman M. Cervantes, 32, was booked on $160,000 bail. The case filed by the Nevada Attorney Generals office accuses Cervantes of sexually assaulting a woman on or about Dec. 29, 2017. The complaint does not say where the offense is alleged to have occurred. Cervantes also is accused of lewdness with the woman and one other woman, by grabbing their bottoms and squeezing or groping. The case was investigated by Elko Police Department. Bail on the sexual assault charge is $150,000. The lewdness charges are gross misdemeanors with $5,000 bail each. Love 0 Funny 9 Wow 4 Sad 0 Angry 6 In an effort to help school districts that say they cant afford teacher raises promised by Gov. Steve Sisolak, state lawmakers have introduced two measures designed to increase or free up millions of dollars in education spending. At a press conference in his office on Tuesday, Sisolak said both measures a bill placing all funds from a 10 percent tax on recreational marijuana in the states main education fund and another measure authorizing counties to raise the sales tax for social and educational services would help fulfill promises made in his State of the State for a 3 percent teacher pay raise and two consecutive 2 percent merit pay increases over the two-year budget cycle. Speaking alongside legislative leaders and state Superintendent Jhone Ebert, Sisolak also addressed the states teachers and reiterated his pledge to secure funds for a pay raise. We have not stopped working to get you the raises we promised at the very beginning of the year, because everyone standing here with me believes you deserve it, he said. Ive been working with legislative leadership and fiscal staff to fence off the funds for those raises to ensure that money makes it directly to educators pockets. The bill comes just a day after Democratic senators introduced a long-awaited measure that seeks to overhaul the states K-12 school funding formula, but doesnt increase any education funds and wouldnt take effect for at least two years. It also comes as lawmakers look for funds to fulfill Sisolaks promise of a 3 percent teacher pay raise something the nonpartisan Guinn Center said would require roughly $107 million in funds not included in the governors budget. It also comes after members of the Clark County Education Association authorized a strike at the beginning of next school year if education is not adequately funded. To allow for the raises, legislators have introduced one bill, SB545, which would move an estimated $120 million in funds from the states 10 percent recreational marijuana tax to the Distributive School Account, the primary account for K-12 education in the state. The funds initially intended for the education budget when proposed by Gov. Brian Sandoval in 2017 were originally put in the states Rainy Day Fund amid a last minute breakdown in legislative negotiations, though lawmakers backfilled the expected revenue in the two-year budget and schools never actually lost funds they expected. Sisolaks current budget proposal directs that marijuana revenue support the Millennium Scholarship and several school safety initiatives such as more social workers. He said he plans to find other ways to support those projects, and said he hoped to be able to fund them at the same levels prescribed in his budget. The other part of the puzzle is a substantial amendment proposed by Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson to AB309, a bill that originally called for streamlining the accounting of state education funds. If the amendment is adopted, it will authorize the county to raise the sales tax by a quarter of a cent per dollar. Based on fiscal year 2017-18 taxable sales, such a tax increase could raise about $106 million a year in Clark County and $21 million in Washoe County. Sisolak also expressed frustration at the perception that his budget did not fully fund the promised teacher raises, saying that reconciling his budget with the needs of schools districts has been one of his most difficult challenges since taking office. Last month, Clark County Superintendent Jesus Jara said that the district would not budget for the teacher raises amid fears that rising costs and enrollment would eat up whatever extra funds given by the state. We fully funded 3 percent pay raises, and then theres deficits of a moving target, Sisolak said at the press conference. It was $16 million, $90 million, $120 million, $180 million. I dont know what the number is. I can tell you that these men and women behind me are doing everything humanly possible to find every dollar we can put in. I can tell you the system is structurally flawed. We need to fix the system. The number keeps changing. It keeps moving. Frierson said the amendment was intended to give school districts flexibility in education spending while working within the confines of the proposed revamping of the funding formula. This isnt the end, he said, this is the beginning of us trying to provide more funding for public education, but it is certainly a good step, and a good step towards transitioning as we move on to further policies that provide some stability for our student funding process. The amendment to AB309 also calls for specific payments to school districts out of the states Account for Programs for Innovation and the Prevention of Remediation, which holds money used for categorical programs such as Zoom Schools and Victory Schools. The payments worth $38.6 million over the two-year budget cycle with the bulk ($26 million) going to the Clark County School District are allowed to be used for teacher incentives, Nevada Ready 21 technology programs, professional development and purchasing library books. But they can also be used for general operational expenses if the district wants. The bill language allows the state to disregard certain laws over the next two years regarding basic financial support and educational materials for programs for profoundly gifted pupils. Raising the taxes would require either a two-thirds majority vote by members of a board of county commissioners, or a majority of votes if it were sent to the ballot in the next election. The Clark County Commission is made up entirely of Democrats. Because the bill authorizes and doesnt require a tax increase, it isnt subjected to the normal requirement that any tax bill pass with a two-thirds vote. Sisolak a former Clark County Commission chair who staunchly opposed proposals to raise the county sales tax for more police funding in 2013 and 2014 said he hasnt spoken with members of the Clark County Commission about supporting the sales tax increase. I can assure you that any proposal that comes before them, will be vetted thoroughly with people having an opportunity to weigh in, he said. Whatever they want to do with them, thatll be their decision. Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom said he would support such a proposal as long as it was in addition to the main education budget account and stayed in the county in which it was raised. Fellow Commissioner Justin Jones said in a text message he hadnt seen the bill and wouldnt be commenting further. The other five members of the commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Proceeds from the tax would be restricted to supporting early childhood education programs, anti-truancy programs, anti-homelessness programs, increasing affordable housing or for incentives for recruiting teachers to schools with high levels of vacancy. The bill also contains language allowing for a special audit of school districts during the next legislative interim period, focusing on the distribution of federal, state and local money and whether it ensures intradistrict equity. More than a year ago, the Clark County Education Association began advocating for a local revenue stream that could supplement education funding. The union received pushback, however, from the Legislative Counsel Bureau, which said passing a local tax directly for classroom instruction could create inequities in school districts across the state. The amendment to AB309 solves that problem by restricting the additional sales tax revenue to specific purposes that would be constitutionally permissible such as pre-kindergarten, Vellardita said. It also establishes a program outside a school districts general fund that would reserve money for teacher raises. Vellardita called the multi-faceted amendment one piece of the puzzle toward achieving more public school funding. Even so, the union boss declined to comment about whether the amendment would ward off a possible teacher strike. CCEA members voted to authorize a strike next school year if funding goals arent met by the end of this session. Sisolak said during the press conference that he would welcome increased transparency, again expressing frustration at a moving deficit reported by the Clark County School District. I think maybe this is going to cause increased transparency, and I think thats a good thing, he said. But when you get a budget that we fully fund, and then youre told a couple of months later, geez, were short $120 million and the outcry is, How did my administration and this leadership not fund it? Thats not fair. We fully funded those budgets and that storys not being told. Earlier Tuesday, the Clark County School District posted its final budget for the 2019-2020 school year online. The School Board of Trustees will consider the budget at a special meeting next week. There are no major changes from the tentative budget presented to Trustees in April, as we do not know how much additional funding we will receive from the Legislature, district officials wrote in a statement accompanying the final budget. We can re-open our budget at any point before December to add in additional funds, including dollars for employee raises. The statement also says the district remains committed to working with Sisolak and legislative leaders to secure funds for the raises. Republican Senate Minority Leader James Settelmeyer said he had only heard the concept and still wanted to read the bill before making a decision on how hed vote on the measure, but said the county-specific sales tax wouldnt amount to a hill of beans for the states rural counties, and seemed at odds with the ideas in the revamped funding formula bill, which pools local and state sources of education funding. If you agree with that philosophy, how can you then say we should allow each county to implement their own tax and keep their own money? he said. Im having a little problem with the two theories. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 4 Never tell the boss no. This past week the Legislative Counsel Bureau, the Legislatures attorneys, told Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and the Democratic majorities in both the state Senate and Assembly what they wanted to hear: Extending taxes scheduled by law to be reduced does not require a two-thirds vote of all lawmakers, just a simple majority. In the 21-member Senate, Democrats are one shy of the 14 votes required to meet the two-thirds threshold established by a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1994 and 1996, which states an affirmative vote of not fewer than two-thirds of the members elected to each House is necessary to pass a bill or joint resolution which creates, generates, or increases any public revenue in any form, including but not limited to taxes, fees, assessments and rates, or changes in the computation bases for taxes, fees, assessments and rates. The governor pledged in his State of the State speech at the start of the legislative session that his $8.9 billion general fund budget contained no new taxes, but it does include a proposal to keep at the current rates two taxes that are scheduled to be reduced in June. The modified business tax passed in 2015 by a two-thirds vote of lawmakers contained specific language saying the rates would be reduced in 2019 if tax revenues exceeded a certain level, which they have. A tax on vehicle registration was also approved with the caveat that it would go down in June, the start of the fiscal year. The scheduled reduction in the modified business tax would reduce annual revenues by $48 million a year, while the vehicle tax revenue would drop by $21 million a year a total of $138 million for the two-year budget. Continuing that burden on taxpayers sure sounds like it creates, generates, or increases public revenue. It certainly generates. But the LCB is telling lawmakers, It is the opinion of this office that Nevadas two-thirds majority requirement does not apply to a bill which extends until a later date or revises or eliminates a future decrease in or future expiration of existing state taxes when that future decrease or expiration is not legally operative and binding yet, because such a bill does not change but maintains the existing computation bases currently in effect for the existing state taxes. Not binding? How can something approved by a two-thirds majority be undone by a simple majority? Asked nearly the same question in 2011, 2013 and 2015, the LCB said a two-thirds vote was necessary. Gov. Sisolak said he appreciated the decision. Regardless, I am continuing conversations with legislative leaders of both parties about supporting my budget that would keep funding at our current levels in order to help fund our schools and educators, provide health coverage under Medicaid expansion for our families, and feed our seniors through Meals on Wheels, his statement said. As this legislative session comes to a close, I look forward to working with the Legislature to pass a budget that reflects our core values making sure that Nevadas economic recovery reaches every family, that our schools prepare every child to reach their potential, and that our health care system is there for every Nevadan who needs it. But several media outlets quoted Senate Minority Leader James Settelmeyer as calling the opinion a work of legal fiction. He also said he does not believe any member of the Senate Republican caucus would break ranks and give the Democrats the one vote they would need to reach the two-thirds majority threshold. He also said that passage of the tax extensions by a simple majority would doubtlessly end in litigation. Unfortunately, it means that the majority party has decided to not try to reach compromise or discussions on issues, and unfortunately going down this road just guarantees legal challenge, Settelmeyer was quoted as saying. The Nevada Supreme Court did rule in 2003 that taxes could be raised by a simple majority vote if the lawmakers failed to adequately fund education as required by the Constitution, but that opinion was reversed in 2006 when the court ruled, The Nevada Constitution should be read as a whole, so as to give effect to and harmonize each provision. If lawmakers try to continue to assess those two taxes without a two-thirds majority, it certainly should end up in court. Thomas Mitchell is a longtime Nevada newspaper columnist. You may email him at thomasmnv@yahoo.com. He also blogs at http://4thst8.wordpress.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Posters for music concerts that have been sabotaged. The fly posters that have been stuck on top of them read: Fraudulent events. Illegal company. FIJADOS A large-scale sabotage campaign against street posters in Madrid is damaging publicity for international artists and performers. Posters promoting the concerts of Reggaeton artists Daddy Yankee and Bad Bunny, heavy metal groups and the Peruvian cumbia outfit Grupo 5 have been covered up with signs accusing the event organizer of fraud. For the past two weeks, concert posters have been plastered with signs saying Fraudulent events. Illegal company. and I ... on your filthy and deceitful events. Sabotaged street posters in Madrid. FIJADOS It is the latest and most outlandish chapter of a street war between poster companies, a business that, despite the internet, has continued to make a profit. In this small world, there have always been disputes between companies for covering up the posters of a rival, but they have never reached such a large scale in Madrid, representatives from two businesses specializing in cultural events tell EL PAIS. According to these companies, the sabotage is costing them clients, who have decided to take their business elsewhere. We have to do something because were at our wits end Sergio Larranaga, head of poster company Fijados They are attacking a business that is more than 100 years old, that you can see in any city in the world because any cultural event needs this advertising because it is cheap, says Sergio Larranaga, the head of Fijados, a business that has been putting up street posters for nearly 20 years in Madrid. The other business representative, who did not wish to be identified, agrees the situation is delicate. Both say that the industry operates under a code of honor, whereby workers are instructed to be respectful to both the city and the competition. One of the unwritten rules is to never cover over posters advertising concerts that havent yet taken place. But industry veterans complain that some companies do not respect this rule and put up posters wherever they want. They suspect a company that purchases and sells gold is behind the sabotage campaign. According to these sources, this company has been putting up posters indiscriminately for years and is now going a step further by using defamatory signs against their competitors. Posters advertising I buy gold covered with signs saying I buy smiles and A smile is more valuable than gold. The gold business, however, says it not the one sabotaging posters. Sometimes they cover my posters, and sometimes I cover others, the business owner tells EL PAIS. I am not at war with anybody. The owner of this company claims that he was a victim of a sabotage campaign last summer when his posters advertising I buy gold were covered up with signs featuring giant smiling faces and the message I buy smiles. Businesses say workers are instructed to be respectful to both the city and the competition There is a war between them, he says, referring to the poster companies. The businesses affected by the sabotage campaign have caught the culprits red-handed, running through the street after plastering the defamatory signs on top of event posters. They have photos of more than a dozen walls showing their posters covered up with the accusatory message: Fraudulent events. Illegal company. But the authorities, who tend to be fairly tolerant of the street-poster business, do not want to get involved. Larranaga says he has spoken informally with police but claims they have washed their hands of the issue. According to Larranaga, street-poster companies have never needed to go to the police before because all disputes were settled respectfully between themselves. But now they are planning on approaching Madrid City Hall and asking authorities to ensure all companies are placing advertising in the allotted spaces. Larranaga wants posters that fail to comply to be taken down. We have to do something because were at our wits end. English version by Melissa Kitson. The US embassy in Madrid is displeased with the fact that it was not informed about Spains decision to pull a frigate from a US-led naval mission in the Persian Gulf at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Iran. In an informal message conveyed to the Spanish Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, embassy personnel complained about Spains failure to inform them of the move through diplomatic channels. If the US feels that the carrier needs to go to a specific area on a specific mission that it never negotiated with Spain, we will provisionally withdraw from that combat group Acting Defense Minister Margarita Robles The decision to withdraw the Mendez Nunez from the US combat group was adopted by Spanish defense authorities, and communicated to the Pentagon via military channels. Neither the US embassy in Madrid nor the Spanish embassy in Washington were informed of the decision. The acting spokesperson for the Spanish government, Isabel Celaa, said the withdrawal was justified because of the need for prudence and due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump, who claims Iran is threatening US interests in the Middle East. The US national security advisor, John R. Bolton, recently warned that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. The Spanish Defense and Foreign ministries had spent days considering what to do in light of the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gulf. It was acting Defense Minister Margarita Robles who took the final decision, according to sources consulted by EL PAIS. Acting Defense Minister Margarita Robles in Brussels. EFE If the US government feels that the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln needs to go to a specific area on a specific mission that it never negotiated with Spain, we will provisionally withdraw from that combat group, she said. Robles has insisted that the decision is technical and military, and not political. She underscored that the agreement signed nearly two years ago between Madrid and Washington was to improve training and interoperability within the framework of the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation of the globe, and that if the US strayed from this program, so could Spain. Shifting sands On Tuesday morning, acting Foreign Minister Josep Borrell was queried about the matter at a news event focusing on the European elections of May 26, at which he is running as the top candidate for the Socialist Party (PSOE). Asked if Spain had assessed the consequences of withdrawing the frigate, the normally loquacious Borrell replied with a laconic: Yes, of course. Then he added: Id rather not walk into shifting sands its a complicated situation. He concluded: It shouldnt be blown out of proportion. Id rather not walk into shifting sands, its a complicated situation Acting Foreign Minister Josep Borrell The fact that the Mendez Nunez was part of a US Navy combat group is not unusual. Spains F-100 frigates are equipped with the US-made Aegis combat system, and these training exercises serve to certify the readiness of equipment and crews, as well as checking interoperability. Between September and December 2005, the Alvaro de Bazan joined the Theodore Roosevelt group and between May and June 2011 the Juan de Borbon joined the George H. W. Bush group. Military sources said that the Persian Gulf had been included as a possible operation area in the original plan, but what has changed is the nature and goal of the mission there, which is being specifically aimed against Iran and meant as a deterrent or even as punitive action. The Spanish frigate is now headed for Mumbai in India, where it will make a stop to wait for the US combat group. At that point, the Mendez Nunez will rejoin the fleet and continue the journey to San Diego, where the group is scheduled to arrive on October 13. But Robles has admitted it is possible that the withdrawal will be permanent. In that case, the frigate would join the EUs Operation Atalanta to fight piracy in the Indian Ocean. English version by Susana Urra. Pedro Sanchez (second from left) at a campaign rally in San Sebastian. JAVIER HERNANDEZ Spains acting prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, on Wednesday told Catalan separatists that their decision to block the designation of a veteran Socialist politician as a regional senator is a veto on social harmony, mutual understanding and dialogue. The refusal by the three separatist parties to vote for Miquel Iceta, leader of the Catalan Socialists (PSC), shows that the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Together for Catalonia (JxC) and the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) are afraid of solutions, said Sanchez. They are trying to gag us and tie our hands behind our backs ERC official Pere Aragones Getting Iceta appointed as regional senator in the Catalan parliament is a necessary step to making him the speaker of the Spanish Senate, something that Sanchez wants to do after his Socialist Party (PSOE) won the general election of April 28. Theyre afraid of telling the people who believed in them that independence is not going to be possible, and that the only alternative is through the Constitution and the Catalan Statute [regional charter of rights], which is what the PSOE defends, said the acting PM at a campaign event in the Basque city of San Sebastian. Spaniards will go to the polls again on May 26 to vote in local, regional and European elections. This political term is going to be one of social harmony, even if it upsets the three rights and the Catalan secessionists, said Sanchez, alluding to the right-of-center Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos and the far-right Vox. The first two defend a new suspension of Catalan self-rule, while Vox wants to recentralize Spain and eliminate regional powers altogether. Miquel Iceta, head of the Catalan Socialists, at a campaign event. EFE Basque puzzlement The president of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Andoni Ortuzar, also asked the Catalan separatist parties to reconsider their decision. I am a nationalist, I understand Catalan pro-sovereignty parties and I have a very good relationship with them, but I dont understand this decision they have made, said Ortuzar in an interview on the state radio station RNE. I can only construe this as based on past history, on the problems and grievances theyve had with constitutionalist forces at other times. Iceta could make the Senate forget about 155, said Ortuzar, alluding to the constitutional article that triggered the temporary suspension of self-rule in Catalonia following the unilateral independence declaration. The Spanish Senate has the final word on approving this measure, and the PP conservatives had an absolute majority in the upper house when it greenlighted Article 155 on October 27, 2017. The PSOE now has the most senators: 121 out of 208. TV debate Leaders of the separatist party ERC were particularly upset by the decision made on Tuesday by election authorities to prevent their leader Oriol Junqueras from participating in a televised debate ahead of the European elections. Junqueras is in preventive custody while the Supreme Court tries him and other secessionist leaders for rebellion, and election officials claimed that the late-night debate clashed with prison schedules. A symbolic choice El Pais The choice of Iceta as Senate speaker was symbolic, as he is a figure who has always supported dialogue as a means to solve the differences between Barcelona and Madrid. While his party does not support the idea of a negotiated referendum on independence, Iceta has in the past suggested he would support government pardons if the independence leaders currently on trial at the Supreme Court end up with jail sentences. The party did not hesitate to blame the central government for the decision. The acting Interior Ministry is seeking to silence Junqueras and prevent him from participating in election events and debates. They are trying to gag us and tie our hands behind our backs, said party official Pere Aragones. For now, Iceta can only count on support from his own PSC and the leftist alliance of Podemos-Catalunya en Comu, which adds up to 25 seats. Albert Rivera, the head of the unionist party Ciudadanos, said he will not block the designation, but did not reveal whether he would vote for Iceta or abstain. English version by Susana Urra. Moldovan President Igor Dodon spoke with Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone on Tuesday. "I have spoken with Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone. I have congratulated him on being elected president of the neighbor state and wished him success in this responsible position. We have discussed relations developed by Moldova and Ukraine in various areas of mutual interest. We have also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting in the near future and to discuss pressing issues," Dodon wrote on Facebook on Tuesday evening. As reported, Dodon tried to meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after his election president of Moldova, but the meeting never took place. The Ukrainian president had numerous meetings with the Moldovan prime minister and parliament speaker but refused to meet with Dodon, who said in a television program during his campaign in October 2016 that "Crimea belongs to Russia." Ukrainian Ambassador to Moldova Ivan Hnatyshyn also never met with the Moldovan president and never attended Dodon's meetings with foreign ambassadors. Hnatyshyn applied for being recalled from Moldova after the Ukrainian presidential election, and his request was granted. Dodon was one of the first to congratulate Volodymyr Zelensky on winning the presidential election. The appointment of the date of the inauguration of President-elect of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will be the first to be considered by the Verkhovna Rada at the plenary meeting on Thursday, Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy has said. "I hope there will be a committee today, and we'll firstly consider the issue of inauguration [on Thursday]," he said at a plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada on Wednesday. Detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) have notified former commander of the National Guard of Ukraine Yuriy Allerov, the director general of a development company and an appraiser of suspicion of seizing property of the National Guard in the amount of over UAH 81 million. "The ex-commander of the National Guard, the director general of a development company and an appraiser have received suspicion notices of seizing property of the National Guard in the amount of UAH 81.64 million. All three suspects, who were detained on May 14, 2019, are being held in a pretrial detention facility," the NABU said on its Facebook page. Kyiv regional council deputy Vitaliy Karliuk has been serviced a notice of suspicion for his involvement in a raider attack on an agricultural complex, which belonged to Mark Paslawsky, an American citizen of Ukrainian origin, who died in the Anti-terrorist Operation, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said. "In the well-known case involving the seizure of the Rusava-K LLC agri-complex, which belonged to ATO veteran Mark Paslawsky a notice of suspicion has been served o Kyiv regional council deputy Karkliuk," Lutsenko said on Facebook on Wednesday. As reported, in April 2016, Kyiv's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) reported on suspicion of committing a crime and announced the international search of the former member of Rusava-K LLC, who was uspected of illegally seizing the property of the company, the founder of which was Markiyan-Grigory Paslawsky (nom de guerre "Marko"). The PGO said after the death of Paslawsky new owners of the agricultural company appeared who forged the minutes of the general meeting of Rusava-K LLC members. As a result of such illegal actions, the owner of 3% of the shares and the founder company, whose representative was Paslawsky, were removed from the founders of the company. In addition, based on the results of the forensic technical examination, it was established that the contract of sale for the sale of the share of the authorized capital of Rusava-K LLC was made and signed after the death of Paslawsky. Paslawsky died on August 19, 2014 in Ilovaisk. He participated in the anti-terrorist operation as part of the Donbas volunteer battalion. The service said that during the 2020s Asia will dominate an exclusive list of economies expected to sustain growth rates of around 7%. India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines should all meet the benchmark of 7% growth rate, while Ethiopia and Cote dIvoire are likely to attain the 7% growth pace, according to a report by Standard Charter. The 7% growth rate means a doubling of gross domestic product (GDP) every 10 years. Standard Charter predicts that Vietnams per-capital income will surge to US$10,400 in 2030 from roughly US$2,500 in 2018. The South Asian members of the 7% growth group should be GDP standouts as they will together account for approximately one-fifth of the worlds population by 2030, Standard Chartered said. Notably, China is absent from the latest ranking after being a member of the group for almost four decades, reflecting both a slowdown in economic growth and a progression toward higher per-capita incomes that makes faster growth rates more difficult to sustain. Standard Chartered estimates that the worlds No. 2 economy will keep up a 5.5% economic growth pace in the 2020s. The group of 7% growth economies tends to have savings and investment rates of at least 20-25% of GDP, the report said. During its stay in Irelands Dublin from May 2-4, the delegation had working sessions with representatives from local educational institutions, visited Trinity College Dublin and made a tour to learn from the citys experience in cultural heritage management. Working with the citys Lord Mayor Nial Ring, Vice Secretary Ngoc said since Vietnam and Ireland set up diplomatic ties in 1996, Hanoi has always wanted to develop its friendship and cooperation with Dublin. She told the host that Hanoi is building towards a green and smart city, working to develop a modern agriculture and step up new-style rural area building and paying attention to conserving and promoting heritage values. She asked Dublin to step up cooperation in hi-tech agriculture and training with Hanoi. With its potential and strengths, Hanoi will be an attractive investment destination for foreign cities, including Dublin, she affirmed. Agreeing with the guests proposals, Ring said he will assign officials to make plans to intensify collaboration with Hanoi in tourism, agricultural and technology. While in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Hanoi delegation attended a working session with officials from the City of Edinburgh Council. Vice Secretary Ngoc stated that Hanoi hopes to soon cooperate with Edinburgh in tourism, culture, training and science and technology. This is the first official visit to Vietnam by a high-ranking Bhutan leader since the two countries set up diplomatic ties in 2012, Ngan said. The Vietnamese top legislator expressed her belief that the visit will significantly contribute to building and promoting the fruitful friendship between the two States and their peoples. She congratulated Tashi Dorji on his election as Chairman of the National Council of Bhutan, and believed that under the leadership of the Chairman and other leaders, Bhutan people will reap more successes and the country will become more prosperous. For his part, Tashi Dorji congratulated Ngan for being Vietnams first NA Chairwoman and expressed his fine impression on Vietnamese land and people. He spoke highly of Vietnams organisation of the 16th UN Day of Vesak 2019 which is taking place at the Tam Chuc Buddhism Culture Centre in Kim Bang district of northern Ha Nam province from May 12-14. NA Chairwoman Ngan briefed her guest on Vietnams socio-political-economic situation, saying the countrys economy grew 7.08 percent in 2018, the highest pace since 2008. Last year, the number of foreign tourists to the country hit a record high of 15.5 million. Besides, Vietnam has become a destination of foreign investors, with 26,000 projects valued at US$334 billion from 126 countries and territories worldwide. In the sphere of trade, Vietnam ratified the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific, signed and implemented 12 free trade agreements (FTAs) and is negotiating four others, both bilateral and multilateral. Of note, the countrys hosting of the second summit between the US and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Hanoi last February has proven its position as well as international confidence in the country as a responsible member of the world community that can contribute to peace, security and stability in the region and the world at large, she said. The Vietnamese NA leader congratulated Bhutan for achievements that the country with the highest Gross Happiness Index in the world - has gained so far. At the talks, the two leaders agreed that since the two countries set up diplomatic relations in 2012, the bilateral friendship and cooperation have been growing but yet to match the strength and potential of both sides. Dorji held that Vietnam and Bhutan share many similarities in culture and religion, especially Buddhism values and love for peace. Therefore, the two sides can share experience in national development and expand partnership in various areas Amidst the modest bilateral trade, the two countries should foster collaboration through the use of chartered flights, encouraging localities to strengthen their connections, while fostering the affiliation between the two national tourism agencies, he stated. Ngan expressed her hope that the Chairman will help increase exchanges of delegations at all levels and through all channels such as Party, State, National Assembly, localities and people-to-people contacts, thus enhancing mutual understanding and trust. Alongside, Bhutan should give more favourable conditions for Vietnamese firms to seek business opportunities in the country, especially in areas of Bhutans demand such as agricultural machineries and tourism. The Vietnamese top legislator declared that Vietnam is willing to share experience with Bhutan in economic development, especially agriculture, rural development, education and social welfare. She proposed that the two sides soon sign an agreement on visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders, while considering the appointment of Honorary Consuls in each country to act as bridges for bilateral friendship. Regarding regional and international issues, Ngan thanked Bhutan for supporting Vietnam at international organisations, showing her hope that Bhutan will continue collaborating closely with Vietnam for a consensus voice at organisations of which both countries are members. Currently, Vietnam has been nominated as the only candidate of the Asia-Pacific region for the seat of a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in the 2020-2021 tenure, she noted, expressing her wish that Bhutan will soon voice its support to Vietnam in the field. Speaking highly of Vietnams great achievements, Dorji stressed that the country has risen to stardom as a good economic development model in the region amid various challenges, and hoped it will reap further success in the time ahead. He suggested Vietnam and Bhutan promote bilateral cooperation in agriculture. As Bhutan sees Vietnam as a role model in agricultural development, particularly agriculture mechanization. Regarding the tourism sector, he said that Bhutan, with a total population of 700,000 people, focuses on high-quality tourism, and has policies to limit the number of foreign visitors so as to protect the environment. However, as the country looks to welcome more Vietnamese nationals, he expressed his hope that the Tourism Council of Bhutan and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism will work together to promote cooperation in the coming time. Touching on supporting Vietnam to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, he said that he will relay the issue to the parliament and the foreign minister for consideration. Last year, the two foreign ministers discussed measures to set up a bilateral consultation mechanism, he said, wishing that with sound coordination, they will successfully organise their first meeting in 2019. At the talk, he briefed NA Chairwoman Ngan on Bhutans parliament, with three tenures since 2008, while hoping to learn experiences from neighbouring countries, including Vietnam. The Vietnamese top legislator, for her part, highlighted that since its establishment more than seven decades ago, the Vietnamese National Assembly has had many reforms in its operation and activities and affirmed its increasing role in the countrys political life. She wished that the two parliaments will bolster delegation exchanges at all levels, as well as promote coordination and support for each other at international parliamentary forums, especially the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The same day, NA Chairwoman Ngan hosted a banquet for a high-ranking delegation from Bhutan, led by Tashi Dorji. The PM welcomed the Romanian official to Vietnam for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) conference on promoting economic and social inclusion in Asia and Europe, and for the political consultation with the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry. The Secretary of State said her trip aims to put into details the cooperation agreements and commitments made during the PMs visit to her country. Romania wishes to foster cooperation with Vietnam not only within the governmental framework but also through business-to-business partnership in various fields, she said, noting that she visited a human resources training centre in Vietnam, and labour is an area in which Romania hopes to enhance bilateral cooperation. Gheorghita also affirmed Romanias pledge to strongly push for the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA). A general view of the reception. (Photo: NDO/Tran Hai) PM Phuc said to help implement his visits outcomes, the two sides should organise the 16th meeting of the joint committee for economic cooperation as soon as possible, accelerate the signing of framework cooperation documents like the cooperation agreement on crime prevention and control, a cultural cooperation programme for 2019-2021, and an educational cooperation deal. He spoke highly of the countries close coordination and mutual support in the international arena, especially within the framework of the United Nations and ASEM. He also appreciated Romanian leaders commitment to strongly supporting the signing and ratification of the EVFTA and the EVIPA during the countrys term as EU presidency in the first half of 2019. The host also asked both sides to soon carry out the deals signed at the business forum held during his trip to Romania so as to bring bilateral trade on par with potential, higher than the US$218 million level in 2018. The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers have started talks in Moscow on the conflict over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The talks between Zohrab Mnatsakanian and Elmar Mammadyarov are hosted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and will be "devoted to issues concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Mnatsakanian and Lavrov held a one-one-one meeting in Moscow earlier on April 15, it said. Igor Popov, Stephane Visconti, and Andrew Schofer -- the Russian, French and U.S. co-chairs of the OSCE's Minsk Group set up to mediate a solution to the conflict -- are also taking part in the discussions, which are held behind closed doors, it said. Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Since 1994, it has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces that Baku says include troops supplied by Armenia. The region's claim to independence has not been recognized by any country. Internationally mediated negotiations involving the Minsk Group helped forge a cease-fire in the region that is not always honored. There has been a significant decrease in cease-fire violations around Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in recent months. However, the negotiations have failed to produce a lasting settlement of the conflict so far. On March 29 in Vienna, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held their first meeting under the auspices of the Minsk Group. Yerevan and Baku described the talks as "positive" and "constructive," saying the sides had agreed to strengthen the cease-fire regime in the conflict zone and continue their dialogue. The summit was Pashinian's and Aliyev's fourth face-to-face encounter in six months. The United Arab Emirates will show restraint after attacks on oil tankers off its coast and is committed to de-escalation during a "difficult situation" caused by Iranian behavior in the region, a senior official said on Wednesday. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said he would not speculate about who was behind Sunday's sabotage acts on four vessels near Fujairah port while an investigation was underway and due to be completed within days. "We need to emphasize caution and good judgment. It is easy to throw accusations but it is a difficult situation, there are serious issues and among them is Iranian behavior," he said, mentioning concern about Iran's missiles and regional policy. Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks on commercial vessels and the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, in a statement from his spokesman on Wednesday. The statement from Guterres says he is following with growing concern the recent incidents and "hardening rhetoric" in the region, which threatens to further increase tensions in the already volatile situation, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. He called for more investigation into attacks on four commercial vessels to determine and hold to account the perpetrators. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed European allies earlier in the week in Brussels of suspicions that Iran or its allies might have have been responsible. Reporting by Reuters, DPA Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 23 times, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on May 15, Trend reports. The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: When we talk about preparing nations for peace, it concerns, first and foremost, preparation for peace in Armenia, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said in response to a question from Armenian journalists in Brussels, Trend reports. Replying to the statement of Armenian journalist that it is impossible to achieve a real settlement of the conflict without adding the illegal regime created in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan to the negotiation process, Mammadyarov said it isn't entirely correct. "The co-chairs made visits to the region and traveled to Karabakh throughout all the years that the negotiations have been held, and communicated with representatives of the Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh." "Plus, both under the former and the current administration, I hope that they inform the representatives of the Armenian community of Karabakh about everything that happens at the talks. By the way, your leadership also said so." Mammadyarov remarked that "the question is not whether they are participating or not. The question is that we need to take a serious political approach to the decision in order to sit down and complete the process," adding that this is what he deems "substantive negotiations." "In what language should I say, read your Constitution, the Constitution of the 1990s, and then we will talk. You sit there and deceive yourself, you want to deceive the Armenian people. I am asking you - what did the Armenian people get during the 30 years of war with Azerbaijan?" the minister asked the Armenian journalists. When the Armenian journalists asked "what did Azerbaijan get?", Mammadyarov named the opening of roads, the construction of a gas pipeline and an oil pipeline. "Is that not enough?" he asked. Mammadyarov noted that when the preparation of nations for peace is being talked about, it concerns, first and foremost, the preparation for peace in Armenia. "You have closed borders with at least 2 out of 4 countries, and the third one is about to get closed. And? Think and ask yourself," the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister said. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: The Great Steppe: Cultural Heritage and Role in the World History international forum will be held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on May 15, due to which Rafael Huseynov, chairman of the Committee on Culture of the Azerbaijani Parliament, and Azerbaijani MP Javanshir Feyziyev are currently in France, Trend reports. The large-scale event, attended by well-known statesmen from many countries, historians and Turkologists, is held by the International Turkic Academy. The 650th anniversary of the birth of poet Imadaddin Nasimi, the 150th anniversary of the great Turkologist Ahmad Aghaoghlu, and the 100th anniversary of the start of the Turkish National Movement by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk will be marked on an international level during the forum. The visit will end on May 19. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 Trend: On May 15, President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Recep Tayyip Erdogan congratulated President Ilham Aliyev and the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the month of Ramadan, and wished the head of state and the people of Azerbaijan prosperity. President Ilham Aliyev thanked for the attention and congratulations, and congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the people of Turkey on the occasion of the holiday and extended his best wishes to the Turkish President and people. During the conversation, the heads of state expressed confidence that friendly and brotherly relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey will continue to develop successfully in all areas. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 Trend: The 9th International Exhibition of Arms Military Machinery MILEX-2019 opened in Minsk, Belarus, Trend reports referring to the Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan. In the opening ceremony, the prime minister of Belarus read out a congratulatory letter from President Alexander Lukashenko addressed to the exhibitors. The official opening was attended by Yahya Musayev, Azerbaijans Deputy Minister of Defense Industry. The exhibition, organized by the State Authority for Military Industry of Belarus, includes 170 companies from 10 countries - Belarus, Azerbaijan, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Poland, Russia, Serbia and South Africa. The Ministry of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan is represented by its own stand at this exhibition for the first time. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry demonstrates exportable products - sniper rifles, assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars, ammunition of various calibers and other products at the MILEX-2019 exhibition, which opened today on May 15, 2019 and is considered one of the largest exhibitions in Eastern Europe in terms of infrastructure and number of participants. As part of the exhibition, Azerbaijani Deputy Minister of Defense Industry Yahya Musayev will meet with delegations from a number of countries and representatives of leading firms and companies in the defense industry. The exhibition will continue until May 18. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus Igor, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani presidential press-service. The head of state noted that bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Belarus are developing successfully and dynamically. President Ilham Aliyev said that the visit of the delegation led by Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Igor Lyashenko to Azerbaijan creates a good opportunity for discussing prospects of the relations. Touching upon the 13th Azerbaijan International Agriculture Exhibition in Baku, President Ilham Aliyev hailed the active participation of Belarus in this event. The head of state pointed out that Azerbaijan appreciates the quality of Belarus agricultural products, and described the opening of Azerbaijans trading house in Belarus during his visit as a good sign of cooperation in this area. Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus Igor Lyashenko thanked for the warm words. The deputy prime minister noted that the active participation of Belarus in the 13th Azerbaijan International Agriculture Exhibition is a result of President Ilham Aliyev`s attention to cooperation between the two countries. He underlined the successful implementation of joint projects in accordance with the Azerbaijani and Belarus presidents` instructions to develop the bilateral ties. Igor Lyashenko said that during the visit to Azerbaijan they familiarized themselves with agricultural machinery and other vehicles, which are produced in Azerbaijan and will be jointly manufactured, praising works in this area as successful. Along with agriculture, the sides discussed the prospects for cooperation between the two countries in the fields of machine building and automotive industry, stressed the importance of export of Azerbaijan's products, particularly tobacco and wine, and exchanged views on the expansion of cooperation in this area. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Leman Zeynalova, Jani Babayeva - Trend: Mindaugas Survila, Lithuanian director and cinematographer, is visiting Baku, where he will present his documentary "The Ancient Woods" to the Azerbaijani public. This film offers viewers to go on a journey into the world of nature, starting with forest thickets, wolves' caves and the black stork's nest, then plunging into the depths of the underwater forest and returning to the people inhabiting this land. In an interview with Trend, Mindaugas Survila spoke about the shooting of the film "The Ancient Woods" and about why he touches on the topic of the environment in his work. "This film was shown in 30 countries at 50 film festivals. I want to thank the Ambassador of Lithuania in Azerbaijan for the invitation to present the film to the Baku audience. I am glad to come to Baku. I receive many invitations to visit different countries like France and Spain... Sometimes I do not have time to visit all countries, but I was very pleased to receive the invitation to visit Azerbaijan. I hope that at the presentation in Baku all viewers will get something good for them," he noted. Talking about how the idea for the plot of "The Ancient Woods" originated, Mindaugas Survila noted that childhood memories played a significant role. "All young children have their own secret places, say, near the garage or somewhere else. And my secret place was in the forest. Once, when I went there, I saw that the whole forest was cut down. I wanted to tell people: 'What are you doing? It was such a great place, but now everything is cut down here.' Then I realized that there are different ways to talk about this problem. You can just talk, or you can take pictures, and then more people will know about it. But then I realized that the movie will have the greatest impact on people. If you make a film, it will be seen by a large audience. In my film, I wanted not only to tell people that a forest is not merely trees that can be cut down to get money; I also wanted to the spirit of the forest itself. The issue of deforestation in the film 'The Ancient Woods' is global in nature and applies to the whole world, not just Lithuania," the Lithuanian film director said. Mindaugas Survila devoted 12 years to the project 'The Ancient Woods', and, of course, faced with difficulties. "There were a lot of difficulties. For example, we were filming at the top of trees. So, you should know how to build a tent and what kind of construction should be used. It took a lot of time to come up with a solution. Another challenge was to sit on a tree for 23 hours. The tent was small and it was on the tree on 27 meters high. There was no possibility to go outside because there were only two of us. I stayed in the tent while my colleague was outside and vice versa. I could not leave the tent; I did so only the next night. The place was quite north, so nights there were very short: only one hour, so 23 hours I had to sit on the tree, no matter if it was raining or storming, I did not have any possibilities to go outside. And the underwater shooting was also very hard," Survila noted. The director said that the premiere of the film took place at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). "It is the biggest documentary film festival in the world and it was a big honor to be there. After the festival, we asked the cinema directors about the number of people that might come to see the movie after the film's release. We made a big advertisement campaign for the movie and 8,000 people came to see it on the first weekend. Now we have about 67,000 comments that our movie is a popular documentary. After the first weekend, we decided to spend half of the money for an interactive platform project, and the other half for a special foundation that will buy the forest so that nobody will be able to bring harm to it. So far, we have about 60,000 euros. However, it is not a big amount, considering the forest's cost. Thus, we invite all the people to join us to buy more of these lands so our children will have possibility to visit the forest. It will be a private fund, the government will not have any influence over this place," he said. In his films "The Ancient Woods" and "The Field of Magic", Mindaugas Survila was both the film director and the director of photography. "I myself act as a director and a cameraman, because it is not always possible to ask another cameraman to replace me, since I spend a lot of time looking for a suitable frame, and also because of the climatic features, explained Survila. In addition to new films, I have plans to create an interactive platform. For example, a it can be a web page where we see the forest, hear the sounds of wind and birds. When we hear the sound of an animal or a bird, a link to the movie about this or that animal will appear on the screen," Survila said. The director noted that he always sought to make films, despite the fact that he is a biologist by profession. "I studied biology at university. After the graduation, I worked as a volunteer with many famous directors. Since childhood, I had the desire to make films. I worked with professionals, and one of them said to me, 'There are no books that teach what to do and how to do it. You have to catch the frame yourself. If you read about movies, you will make films like everyone else.' Master classes by other directors are also very helpful, as you learn their techniques and ways to solve problems. In the movie you have to be unique, that is what matters the most. I focus on the environment in my films. For example, the film 'Field of Magic' tells the story of people who live near a landfill. I just watch the wildlife and the environment and film them. We do not have a specific scenario, and this is more difficult, because you do not know the ending of the film in advance," the director added. Speaking about his visit to the Azerbaijani capital, Mindaugas Survila said that he would be happy to take a walk around the city and get acquainted with its sights. "After the presentation of the film, we will have time to see the sights of Baku. My first impression is that Baku is a very good city. There are beautiful architectural buildings here. As part of my visit, I also plan to hold a master class for Azerbaijani undergraduates studying cinema art. At the master class, I want to talk about how we made our film. After all, it took us eight years for preparatory work - finding the right locations, special equipment, and the shooting itself took four years. Ours is not a typical film about nature. There is no voice-over and no music; only sounds of the nature and the magical atmosphere of the forest," he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: Over 2 years, the number of employees in Azerbaijan whose labor activity has been legalized has exceeded 250,000 people, thanks to the efforts of Azerbaijans Commission on Regulation and Coordination of Labor Relations, Ali Ahmadov, Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan and Deputy Chairman and Executive Secretary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP), said at an event titled The Role of the Private Sector for Implementing Sustainable Development in Baku, Trend reports. Ahmadov stressed that the private sector holds an important place in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. "In a short span of time, Azerbaijan has achieved success in many fields and has become a country with a higher than average income level," said the deputy prime minister. Ahmadov also touched on the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan in recent years, noting that the government provides concessional loans to entrepreneurs and pays great attention to the development of self-employment. "We need to ensure the social security of the people and do everything possible to increase wages in the private sector," he said. Ahmadov also stressed that sustainable development in Azerbaijan is observed in all fields and in all regions of the country. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Fakhri Vakilov Trend: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree on the abolition of entry visas for Uzbek truck drivers for a period of 30 days, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan. The corresponding resolution was signed on May 9 by the president of Turkey and entered into force on May 10, 2019. Uzbek-Turkish Strategic Cooperation Council of the highest level was established at the end of April 2018 within the framework of the state visit of Erdogan to Uzbekistan. In 2018 the volume of trade between the two countries increased by 40 percent - up to $2.1 billion, about 75,000 citizens of Turkey visited Uzbekistan, which is almost two times more than the previous year. At the end of October 2017, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Turkey for the first time. During the talks, the parties signed more than 20 documents on the development of cooperation, as well as agreements and contracts worth more than $3.5 billion. During the return visit of Erdogan to Uzbekistan at the end of April 2018, the parties signed agreements worth about $3 billion, and also agreed to bring the trade to $5 billion in the medium term. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: The volume of concessional lending for entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan amounted to 2.3 billion manats, Sahib Mammadov, Deputy Economy Minister of Azerbaijan, said at an event titled The Role of the Private Sector for Implementing Sustainable Development in Baku, Trend reports. According to the deputy minister, 1 billion of these funds were allocated from the state budget, while the remaining 1.3 billion were allocated from returned funds. The allocated loans were directed to the implementation of projects worth 5.5 billion manats, Mammadov added. "Today, a strong entrepreneurial base has been formed in Azerbaijan. The number of business entities in the country has exceeded 990,000. The private sector accounts for 85 percent of GDP and 74 percent in employment," Mammadov said. The Deputy Minister stressed that the country also creates conditions for expanding the country's export potential. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: The UN Development Program is ready to support Azerbaijan in accelerating the inclusive development and the development of the field of alternative energy, Alessandro Fracassetti, UNDP Resident Representative, said at an event titled The Role of the Private Sector for Implementing Sustainable Development in Baku, Trend reports. The implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals opens up opportunities for the development of such sectors as agriculture, energy, healthcare and urban planning. These sectors account for 60 percent of the entire global economy and play a significant role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, he said. Fracassetti noted that dialogue and cooperation between the private and public sector are important in achieving these goals, adding that the UN is ready to support Azerbaijan in this direction. In 2015, the UN member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a list of 17 goals aimed at eradicating poverty, fighting inequality and injustice, as well as solving problems regarding climate change. Azerbaijan joined the new global Sustainable Development Goals in 2017. "What's the protest?" asked a tourist from London, as she and her husband walked along Fifth Avenue on Tuesday morning. For about three blocks, between 70th and 72nd Streets right outside Central Park, at least a hundred peoplemost of whom look like college studentswere bundled up, sitting under or over tarps behind a police barricade. It looks a little like a scene out of Children Of Men, or as if Occupy Wall Street has returned to the city. But it's not. "It's not a protest," I explained. "It's for BTS." BTS, the K-pop band that has taken the world by stormthree number 1 albums on Billboard charts; appearances on Ellen and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon; sellout concerts in Europe; nearly 20 million followers on their official Twitter account (which is mostly in Korean); an appearance on Saturday Night Liveare performing on Good Morning, America, as part of the morning talk show's summer concert series, on Wednesday. In spite of the cold, rainy conditions, loyal fans were waiting for a chance to see Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook at SummerStage. And they have been waiting since last Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. Trust us were just as excited as you are about the #BTS () @bts_bighit concert @SummerStage next Wednesday, but... For your safety, camping in the concrete jungle is not permitted. Please dont pitch tents in or outside #CentralPark. #NYC #BTSarmy pic.twitter.com/g2feQF1TX0 NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) May 10, 2019 "We have full camping supplies," said Mira Cho, pointing to her belongings on the sidewalk. "We have a tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses, we have everything." Cho, a Los Angeles resident who previously camped out for BTS for 10 days and has been a fan since 2014, "only" got to the line on Monday. She is following the band during their Love Yourself: Speak Yourself tour and had just come from Chicago. When asked why she likes BTS, she answered, "Why do you like anything? You start with liking the music, and then you end up liking them because of the artist and who they are and what they represent, what their message is." Another nice thing about BTS fandom is the communityBTS fans are know as ARMY. "If you know someone else is ARMY," Cho said, "you know you have something in common." "What's your bias"* is usually the first thing the fans ask each other, according to Amanda McKenzie. (*For an old like myself, it means asking who your favorite band member is.) McKenzie, a college student, has been on line since Friday, and said it's been a trying few days, especially with the pouring rain and unseasonably cold temperatures. "There are people getting pneumonia, there are people on the verge of getting hypothermia, and it's cold at nightit's concrete we're sleeping on!" she said. Another person said she vomited after feeling suffocated in a tent. "We're trying to stay safe out here," McKenzie said. "We work in shifts all the timewe go back to the hotel or home or Airbnb or wherever we came from to clean up or get supplies, dry our blankets" "Or take a shower," a friend piped up. "and then come back," McKenzie said. She thinks that the BTS ARMY is special: "There are other fans who didn't get tickets"this is the only ticketed GMA concert, so you won't have to camp out for Blink-182"and they drove by and help drop off supplies." She also had thoughts about the NYPD's tweet (see below) asking fans not to camp out. "They have to say that, so people won't come and camp," but camping is a natural part of the process for BTS devotion, she believes. She credited the security team for being really nice and even helping them set up or fix tents that were waterlogged. Checking in on the #BTSarmy waiting for Wednesdays @BTS_twt () @GMA Concert. #BTSonGMA Officer Nuccio even learned the Korean hand gesture from some dedicated fans, not letting the rain & cold dampen their spirits. Stay safe Armytake turns in line to keep warm! pic.twitter.com/poPb4SQ8vX NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) May 13, 2019 The fans self-organize the line, with people at the head becoming the unofficial "line leaders." They try to keep order so other parties (like the police) don't have to come and intervene. The line leaders then start a list of people and their positions, but even with a list, there was an undercurrent of frustration among some fans about line positions and whether some were "cutting" the line, while some people have been committed to waiting outside the park. For instance, Sarah O'Keefe has been commuting three hours from NJ to wait on lineshe stayed Friday through the weekend, left Sunday, and then came again on Monday. At one point, security told two women who were trying to join one of the groups at the front of the line that they couldn't enter and had to go back to the end of the line. One of the group members, Derek Castro, said that his group, which communicates about going to shows through a group text, had decided on shifts: "Obviously some of us have school or work, we scheduled who's going to be here at what time, like three or four or five people to hold our spot and represent." He pointed to a number on his wrist, "They started numbering us, and the leaders started a list, and I'm number 58... And since our group is so big now, because people decided to come at once, to the people behind us, that's scary because they didn't seem them over the weekend. But that's because people had shifts." Fans were also fiercely protective of their privacy: as journalists arrived to interview them and shoot pictures or video, some claimed that the reporters, photographers and camera crews had no right. I was told I had to ask permission first, even though they were on public propertya sidewalkand was grabbed by two people on line as I tried to capture some video of the group. There were different kinds of worries elsewhere on the line. "We just arrived this morning because it's finals season for a lot of college students, so we couldn't be out here very long," Sklyer Green, a freshman at Columbia University, said. "I have a final this afternoon, and one on Thursday." She had waited outside Citi Field last year (waiting time: two days) and at 30 Rock for their SNL performance (waiting time: about four days). "I'm just really excited hopefully to hear things from the new albumor hear some old things," Green said. "I think the ARMY is one of the most diverse fan bases out of any fanbases. They are so welcoming. Because BTS is a Korean band, being an ARMY that's international, it's really great to see the connection they have with their fans... Most fans are some form of social and people will have special events. I know there are special events just run by fans before their concert in New Jersey this upcoming weekend. Fans just like putting on events for each other, give each other free thingsit's very loving." Most people on line were annoyed with how the media characterizes them. Alonso spoke of being called a "crazy" fan and the stigma attached to it. She, McKenzie, O'Keefe, and Stephanie Clausing pointed out how there were fans who were in college and well into their 20s"they're not all teens." McKenzie was aware of how they might appear to outsiders: "We look like hobos, but we're not." As for the heightened nerves among fans on the line, she added, "We're trying to keep positive...We all just want to see BTS and have a good time." Update: BTS thanked ARMY (ARMYs?) for their very long wait: Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: Over the past 20 years, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has supported about 500,000 small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan, 25,000 of which are women, Aliya Azimova, IFC Country Representative for Azerbaijan, said at an event titled The Role of the Private Sector for Implementing Sustainable Development and held in Baku, Trend reports. Azimova also stressed that the corporation always supports the development of entrepreneurship in the country and works to facilitate the dialogue between the private and public sectors. "The corporation helps to improve the investment environment in Azerbaijan and is doing everything possible to attract private investments," she said. The IFC has been supporting the private sector of Azerbaijan for over 20 years, having invested $500 million over the past period. Some $350 million worth of investments were directed to trade financing, and investments were also made in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: Azerbaijans Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and the subsidiary of Turkey's Ziraat Bank in Azerbaijan signed a protocol of intent for cooperation, Trend reports. The signed document provides for the joint implementation of measures and projects to support small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan. The signing ceremony was held within the framework of the International Food Industry Exhibition held at the Baku Expo Center. The protocol was signed by Chairman of the board of Azerbaijans Agency for the Development of SMEs Orkhan Mammadov and Chairman of the board of Ziraat Bank Azerbaijan Avni Demirci. As part of the exhibition, Azerbaijans Agency for the Development of SMEs and Ziraat Bank Azerbaijan organized a separate stand so that small and medium-sized businesses can present their products. These include companies that produce dried fruits, milk and dairy products, tea, honey, fruit juices, vegetable oils, chocolate and other products. Azerbaijans Agency for the Development of SMEs supports the presentation of start-up products by small and micro businesses at reputable exhibitions as well as the establishment and expansion of cooperation within these exhibitions. For example, in 2018 with the support of the Agency, start-ups and small businesses operating in the ICT sector had the chance to demonstrate their products at BakuTel 2018. The Agency plans to support SMEs at other similar exhibitions expected in 2019. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: A delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Belarus has arrived in Ashgabat, Trend reports with reference to the Belarusian embassy. The delegation was headed by Belarus Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Vladimir Grakun, who is also the chairman of the CIS Intergovernmental Council on Seed Production. During the meeting, Ambassador of Belarus Oleg Tabanyukhov with a delegation from Minsk discussed the prospects for the Belarusian-Turkmen cooperation both in a bilateral format and within the CIS in seed production, plant growing and the agro-industrial complex as a whole, the report said. A meeting of the CIS Intergovernmental Council on Seed Production is taking place in Ashgabat, where there are plans to consider more than ten topical issues. Tomorrow the Belarusian delegation will visit the exhibition of achievements of the Turkmen agriculture, as well as take part in the round table meeting of experts in the field of agriculture of the CIS countries. Turkmenistan grows cotton, wheat, rice, sugar beets and melons. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: It is planned to launch market test for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, this summer, Trend reports citing Marija Savova, Head of Commercial at TAP AG. TAP continues to gear up to the start of commercial operations in 2020. TAP is set to launch a market test in the summer, in parallel with the operators of adjacent transportation systems, according to a European calendar, she said at the Flame Conference, the leading Gas and LNG Conference in the Netherlands. TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries. Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network. The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016. Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe. TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent). --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: SOCAR Energy Ukraine, the Ukrainian subsidiary of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR will appeal the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) to fine the company, Trend reports citing a message from the company. We are again unjustly accused of allegedly anticompetitive actions and conspiracies. We believe that the AMCU, instead of dealing with the real problems of the fuel market, is engaged in populism. It's so easy to raise popular outrage, using the theme of "fuel prices"! We would like to inform you that the accusations by the AMCU are unfounded. The court has already repealed the "fuel fines" of the Committee against SOCAR. We intend to appeal this decision in court, the company said. The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine fined networks of OKKO, WOG and SOCAR for 77 million hryvnia (more than 2.9 million dollars) for anti-competitive concerted actions on the market of light oil products (in particular, for similar actions during 2017), as announced by head of the AMCU, Yuri Terentyev on Facebook. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Fakhri Vakilov Trend: On May 15, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev received President of Russian Lukoil company Vagit Alekperov, who is in the country to attend the International Exhibition "Oil and Gas of Uzbekistan", Trend reports with reference to the press service of the head of state. Welcoming the guest, President highlighted the dynamically developing fruitful cooperation of the leading Russian company with the oil and gas complex of Uzbekistan. Currently, the volume of investments of Lukoil in joint projects in Uzbekistan exceeds $7.5 billion. The Kandym gas processing complex, commissioned in April last year, has reached its planned capacity. Development of the Khauzak, Shady and South-West Gissar fields are underway. "During the meeting, prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation were considered, including development of new investment programs and projects and the expansion of the activities of the Russian company in Uzbekistan," the presidential press service reports. Alekperov expressed his sincere gratitude to the President for the warm reception and full support of the joint projects. The head of Lukoil emphasized the company's readiness to further develop a long-term and full-scale partnership in the oil and gas industry. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend: On May 15, within the framework of the international exhibition Oil and Gas of Uzbekistan - OGU 2019, Uzbekneftegaz JSC and Russian Oil Company Tatneft signed an agreement on geological exploration work in Uzbekistan, Trend reports citing Uzbek media. A similar document has been prepared for signing with the Azerbaijan State Oil Company SOCAR. The Chairman of the Board of Uzbekneftegaz Bahodirjon Sidikov made this announcement at the conference. Favorable investment climate creates conditions for the implementation of large-scale projects on exploration, intensification of hydrocarbon production, deepening of their processing and development of new types of products, focusing on the global trends. In particular, work is underway to attract the French company Total, and new projects are being developed with the Russian company Lukoil, Sidikov noted. He added that a joint venture was created with Russian Zarubezhneft company last month to increase the production of brown fields, and negotiations with Tatneft are underway. Furthermore, it became known that the concept of expanding the production capacity of the Shurtan Gas Chemical Complex, which will provide for an increase in the production of polymers from the current 125,000 tons to 500,000 tons, has been developed. As a result, wide opportunities will be created for the development of the petrochemical industry, the head of Uzbekneftegaz said. The share of Uzbekneftegaz JSC in the country's GDP is more than 15 percent, with one fifth of the state budget revenues are formed due to the company's activities. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Russias Gazprom Export LLC and Turkmenistans Turkmengas State Concern signed an agreement on termination of arbitration procedures in early 2019, Trend reports referring to the Russian companys quarterly report. The corresponding notification was sent to the arbitral tribunal. The matter rests in a lawsuit filed by Gazprom Export in June 2005 against Turkmengas State Concern to the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, in which a proposal was made to revise the price for the Turkmen gas. Turkmenistan resumed the export of natural gas to Russia on April 15, 2019, after a three-year break. Gazprom company intends to purchase up to 1.155 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan till June 30, 2019. The cost of the new transaction is unknown. Turkmenistan transports its gas to Russia via the Central Asia-Center pipeline, built during the Soviet period and monopolized by Gazprom. Until 2009, Gazprom was the biggest buyer of Turkmen gas, purchasing up to 40-42 billion cubic meters a year. During that period, the Kremlin was interested in purchasing cheap Turkmen gas, as it received big dividends, reselling this raw material to the CIS countries and Europe. Since 2009, the Turkmen side has decided to gradually sell its fuel at reasonable prices of the world market. Gazprom Export LLC sharply reduced the volume of gas purchased from Turkmenistan in April 2009. According to Ashgabat, this led to the explosion in the Central Asia-Center pipeline, and supplies were suspended. The supplies were resumed only in early 2010, but in much smaller volumes. Despite the contractual arrangements, at first the volumes decreased to the level of 10-11 billion cubic meters per year within five years. The annual volume decreased by 2.5 times and amounted to four billion cubic meters in 2015. Gazprom explained the decrease in the volume of gas purchased from Turkmenistan by a decrease in demand in Europe and Ukraine. The Russian side was not pleased with the price for Turkmen gas set at $240 per 1,000 cubic meters due to the fall in export prices for gas which are constantly connected with falling oil prices. In early January 2016, after the cessation of gas purchases from Russia, Turkmengas voiced its readiness to hold talks with Gazprom Export LLC on a wide range of issues related to the economic ties between the two economic entities. "The Turkmen enterprises continue to cooperate with foreign companies in the supply of natural gas, realizing that the basic principles of partnership are mutual interest and mutual benefit and taking into account the fact that these important components of interaction in the gas sector mainly depend on financial and economic situation in the world," the report says. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Kheyraddin Nasirzade Trend: In Azerbaijan, until May 13, 2019, 506,000 citizens received compensation under the decree by President Ilham Aliyev On additional measures to resolve problem loans of individuals in Azerbaijan, Trend reports with reference to the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan (FIMSA). The compensation issued to citizens amounted to 84 percent of the total amount of compensations, according to the report. The compensation issued to 243,000 citizens served to reduce overdue loans. In turn, compensation was issued to 263,000 Azerbaijani citizens in cash and by accrual on a plastic card. The compensation payment of problem loans to individuals started in Azerbaijan on April 22, 2019. The payments are made through branches of banks and Azerpost postal operator. As expected, 602,347 people will receive compensation. The compensation is planned to be fully paid till late May 2019. Earlier, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures in connection with solving the issue of the individuals problem loans. The decree envisages the payment of compensation to citizens whose loan burden increased as a result of the devaluation of the manat in February and December 2015. According to the decree, opportunities are created for restructuring both US dollar loans and manat loans with a delay of more than 360 days on concessional terms. If the amount of compensation exceeds 500 manats, these funds will be transferred to the account of the individual; otherwise, the payment will be made via money transfer. The corresponding plastic cards to be received by individuals are issued free of charge for a period of one year. Banks and postal operator are not entitled to charge fees for issuing or conducting operations with these cards or for making money transfers. (1.7 AZN = 1 USD on May 15) ---- Follow the author on Twitter: @1nasirzade Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Kheyraddin Nasirzade Trend: Azerbaijan will host the 1st InnoFest Innovation Festival, which will consist of 12 events and will be held from May 29 to June 4, Tural Karimli, director of Azerbaijan's High Tech Park LLC under the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, said at a press conference held for the festival, Trend reports. According to him, the festival will be held on the initiative of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, and the event is organized by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Education, the Heydar Aliyev Center, the Azerbaijani Youth Foundation, the UN Development Program, the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, and the Azerbaijani mobile operator Azercell. As Karimli noted, the festival will include summits and forums with the participation of global organizations, international companies and influential individuals, robotics competitions, eSports tournaments, innovation and start-up competitions, exhibitions, technoparties and a concert with the participation of a famous artist. Karimli also said that the large-scale Monex Caspian summit will be held in Baku on May 30-June 1, which is held annually in the regions of Europe, the Middle East and the CIS countries. The goal of the Monex Caspian organization is to create new business opportunities in Azerbaijan, strengthen ties of cooperation and identify the latest trends. The summit will be held as part of the Innovation Festival with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, the Heydar Aliyev Center, the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan and the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, along with the joint organization of the American Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan (Amcham) and the FA International Trade Events. The event will bring together leaders in financial technology and the banking industry. The event will be attended by over 300 local and foreign companies, more than 70 speakers and representatives from about 50 countries. One of the main guests of the summit will be Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor and creator of the Internet, the speaker of the Web Summit and the World Economic Forum in Davos, the world's largest technology conference, as well as the winner of the Turing Award and Queen Elizabeth Award. Furthermore, Azerbaijans first Youth Internet Forum will be held from May 31 to June 3 within the festival, according to Karimli. The main purpose of the forum is to attract the youth of Azerbaijan, as well as the countries of the region, to discuss trends in the development of the digital sphere. With the support and initiative of Azerbaijans State Fund for Development of Information Technologies under the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, the Made in Azerbaijan: Innovations and Technologies (MAINTECH-2019) forum will also take place on June 3, the purpose of which is to widely disseminate innovative and technological products and services, and also to support their export. In addition, an exhibition of goods of local manufacturers will be held with the support of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, together with Mars Academy at the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, at which achievements in the field of high technologies will be presented. In a multi-zone pavilion, Mars Academy will present information about STEAM educational programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics). The goal of the program is to help young people choose different professions. During the second day of the disciplinary trial for NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, the Commanding Officer in charge of training recruits at the Police Academy defined a chokehold as any pressure to the throat or windpipe that could hinder breathing. Pantaleo stands accused of using a prohibited chokehold while trying to arrest Eric Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes on a hot July day in Staten Island in 2014. Garner died during the arrest and his death was ruled a homicide by the city Medical Examiner. His defense attorneys have maintained from the start that their client used whats called a seatbelt maneuver, which is approved by the NYPD and differs from a chokehold in that it involves putting an arm over a persons shoulder and not around their neck. But after being shown a still photo taken from video footage shot by Garners friend, Deputy Inspector Richard Dee stated that Pantaleo was, in fact, using a chokehold. I believe what we see is a chokehold, Dee said. As the department defines it? asked Prosecutor, Jonathan Fogel. Dee responded, Yes. Dee at first said it was difficult to tell whether there is pressure to the windpipe but after being shown several different shots he repeatedly concluded that Officer Pantaleo was using a chokehold. At that point he coughs, he said. And so yes, I do believe that meets the definition of a chokehold. In training materials, Dee said recruits are told that chokeholds include but are not limited to what are called bar arm holds and karate holds and that while police officers in other places have used them, not intending to kill, they are deadly." When asked if he would have put his hands on Eric Garner, he said that from where he sits, with 30 years of experience, he wouldve waited a little longer." Dee said there was backup on the way and that it wouldve been easier to take down Garner with four officers instead of two. He also pointed out that Garner may have chosen not to fight had he been faced with four officers. The high ranking NYPD official also testified that at the time Garner died, the chokehold was possibly the only physical use of force prohibited by the police department. Eric Garner's mother, Gwen Carr. (Cindy Rodriguez / Gothamist / WNYC) Outside the trial room, Gwen Carr, Garners mother, said Dees testimony raised the question of why Pantaleo was not fired immediately. Because that sounds like it should be immediate, I mean immediate dismissal, she said. In addition to his testimony about the chokehold, Dee also said that according to Pantaleos training transcript, he was never taught the so-called seatbelt maneuver. Fogel, the prosecutor, asked him how he could be sure of that. Because I have the lesson plan, he said. It would be very unusual for instructors to depart from the lesson plan. Pantaleo entered the academy in 2006 and according to his transcript Dee said the only other training he had received since then is on being a plainclothes officer. He said he confirmed the seatbelt maneuver was not part of that curriculum either. Pantaleos attorneys said they would refute Dees testimony Tuesday by calling Pantaleos training Sergeant as a witness. During cross-examination, Dee also gave Pantaleo and his partner credit for trying to de-escalate the situation at first. He was asked if officers were trained on how long they are to wait before using physical force and he answered, no. According to the video, about four minutes passed before Pantaleo began to physically confront Garner. Prosecutors said they intend to call the city medical examiner who performed Garners autopsy to testify on Wednesday. Cindy Rodriguez is an investigative reporter for New York Public Radio. You can follow her on Twitter at @cynrod. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend: Maritime administration of Kazakhstan was granted the observer status of Memorandum of understanding on vessels control in the region of The Black Sea on May 9, 2019, Trend reports via the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development of Kazakhstan. The decision was made during the 20th meeting of the The Black Sea Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control Committee which took place in Burgas, Bulgaria. The Black Sea Memorandum was signed in April 2000 and thus, it has developed the unified regimen of vessel control in the Black Sea ports and the integrated information system on the history of vessel violations in the region. Within the framework of the memorandum the special attention is given to vessels that could be considered dangerous: oil tankers, gas carriers, chemical carriers, as well as the vessels that were previously reprimanded. Currently, Caspian Sea countries are developing a similar Memorandum to be applied in the Caspian Sea. The participation of Kazakhstan in The Black Sea Memorandum will allow for the exchange of the practical experience and of the practices in the vessel control sphere, including the issues of developing an integrated database of inspections in the Caspian Sea, development of unified standards and methods of vessel inspections, as well as the further training of the portal control supervisors. Currently, the participants of The Black Sea Memorandum are Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania, Georgia and Bulgaria. The observer status of The Black Sea Memorandum is granted to Azerbaijan, the US, International Maritime Organization, International Labour Organization, as well as to six similar memorandums of European, Mediterranean, Asian countries and countries of Pacific and Indian oceans. --- Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The Consulate of Turkmenistan, together with representatives of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran, held a briefing in Russias Astrakhan city on the first Caspian Economic Forum to be held August 12 in Turkmenistans Avaza tourist zone, Trend reports with reference to the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper. The event was attended by employees of the ministries of the Astrakhan region: international and foreign economic relations, industry, transport and natural resources, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Astrakhan Fund for the Support of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The forum aims to intensify multidimensional interaction in the Caspian Sea basin and the creation of a new geo-economic space that unites Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and Baltic regions, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia. At the briefing, focus was made on the significant economic, transport and logistics, innovation and recreational, as well as tourist potential of Turkmenistan, which creates wide opportunities for effective cooperation for the sustainable development of the region, the report said. In turn, the diplomats and trade representatives of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran made presentations on the economic, transport and logistics potential of their countries in the context of the priorities of interaction among the Caspian states. The Forum Organizing Committees website states that the agenda includes creation of conditions for major projects, discussion on the role of the economy of the Caspian region in a global context, investment attractiveness in oil and gas, electricity, transport, trade, agro-industrial, tourism and other industries of the Caspian littoral states of mutual interest. The event will feature discussion of the prospects of joint investment projects and programs. In anticipation of the forum, a meeting of ministers of the competent authorities of the parties responsible for the implementation of agreements between the governments of the Caspian states on trade and economic cooperation and cooperation in the field of transport will be convened. In parallel, the draft Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Business Council of the Caspian states will be discussed. In addition to the delegations of the Caspian states, representatives of interested states close to the Caspian region, leaders and representatives of international economic, financial, transport, environmental and other organizations are invited to the forum. The forum consists of three parts - an international conference, an exhibition of innovative technologies and a legal part (the signing of contracts, agreements). Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 15 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The Turkmen delegation took part in UNESCO International Water Conference in Paris on May 13-14, Trend reports referring to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry. Chairman of the Turkmen State Committee for Water Resources Annageldi Yazmyradov spoke about the country's water policy and Turkmenistans activity as chairman of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). The information about the creation of the Altyn Asyr unique artificial lake in the Karakum Desert and the social infrastructure around it was perceived with special interest, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said. The key-note of the event was the discussion of intersectoral approaches to water resources management, the exchange of experience, as well as giving consultations to the countries on achieving the goals envisaged in various international water programs. Virtually all human activity depends on water resources, namely, food production, energy generation, industry or leisure. Water management affects the health of people and ecosystems and reflects the gender equality, education and cultural diversity of regions. Water resources are crucial for sustainable development and poverty reduction. The representatives of more than fifty countries, heads and representatives of international organizations, big companies and scholars attended the forum. Earlier, Turkmenistan proposed to open a regional center on technologies in Ashgabat related to the climate change in Central Asia and to develop the UN Aral Sea Program and the UN Water Strategy. Turkmenistan borders Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan and uses water resources coming in accordance with agreed quotas from four trans-boundary rivers, namely the Amu Darya, Tejen, Atrek and Murgab rivers. Turkmenistan is affected by the problem of the ecology of the Aral Sea, which is most noticeable in the countrys northern Dashoguz Region, where problems have arisen with the provision of drinking water, the fight against salinization of cultivation lands, land desertification. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Under the instruction of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, the Islamic Republic has suspended the fulfillment of some of its commitments in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as stated by an informed official at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Trend reports referring to ISNA. According to the official, the implementation of programs related to the suspension of some of Iran's obligations under the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan was noted in the statement of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. Iran's Atomic Energy Agency official added that the commitments on the sale of additional enriched uranium and heavy water, which is the first step of Iran in the first 60 days, will not be fulfilled. The JCPOA, signed between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany), was put in force in January 2016. The US announced its withdrawal from the deal in May 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran in November of the same year. In late January 2019, the European signatories of the JCPOA (namely the UK, France and Germany) officially announced the establishment of INSTEX, a special financial mechanism formed with Iran for backing the said agreement. On May 8, 2019, Iran stated that it would not be fulfilling its commitment to sell additional enriched uranium and heavy water in the JCPOA for 60 days, basing its decision on the promises of the European signatories on backing the deal not being fulfilled. Iran has announced that it will stop its commitments on the Arak reactor and the enrichment of uranium by 3.67 percent if the EU does not take steps for protecting the agreement and beginning negotiations on trade and banking sector with Iran within the 60-day period. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: Azerbaijan is building relations and cooperation with international organizations as part of the interests of the state and the people, chairman of the Nizami district organization of New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) and Azerbaijani MP Sadagat Veliyeva told Trend. According to her, the decisive position and authority of the country in relations with the UN, OSCE, PACE, OIC and the Non-Aligned Movement have always laid the foundation for protecting and considering national interests. In this context, the ties with the EU are no exception. Veliyeva said that the EU is the main trade partner of Azerbaijan, and its member states are the leading investors in the country. "Azerbaijans ties with 9 EU member states are strategic in their nature. Interests of countries, producers, consumers and transit countries of energy projects, in which Azerbaijan acts as an initiator and a participant, are jointly defended within the framework of their cooperation," she said. Veliyeva noted that, at the same time, Azerbaijan plays an important role in the implementation of the East-West transport corridor, and the country successfully cooperates with the EU in the transport sector. According to the MP, the statements of persons who are trying to undermine the country's international image are unfounded, biased and not objective. "In the "Partnership Priorities" document initialed between Azerbaijan and the EU last year in Brussels, support was once again expressed for Azerbaijans sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders." Veliyeva went on to say that, despite the fact that the so-called general consumer-level opposition existing in Azerbaijan organized a smear campaign in the West on the directives of anti-Azerbaijani centers on the eve of the visit of President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels, these actions proved to be futile. "The position and the opinions voiced at the meetings held by the head of state during the visit proved once again that the EU sees an important and reliable partner in Azerbaijan, and attaches particular importance to strategic cooperation. The success achieved during the visit of the President of Azerbaijan to Brussels exposed the anti-national activities composed of the fabrications of the radical opposition," she concluded. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was on a working visit to Belgium on May 13-14, 2019. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Azer Ahmadbayli Trend: Impeccable Iranian diplomacy made only one mistake believed the EU's exhortations that it is ready to lend a helping hand to the Islamic Republic in order to keep the nuclear agreement intact after the US withdrawal in May of last year. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei several times warned Irans officials not to waste time waiting for European countries, which have offered Iran their support despite the US sanctions: Do not trust them. If you want to agree on anything, make sure there are practical guarantees in place. Otherwise, they will do what the US did to us. There is nothing the Iranian diplomacy should be blamed for. Tehran had no choice but to trust the EU. Iran has patiently waited for economic improvements within a year since the US withdrawal. Meanwhile, as soon as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last week warned that Tehran could resume enrichment of nuclear fuel if the Europeans wouldnt exercise their obligations as well, the latter began to call for a period of calm so that everyone understands what the other side is thinking (as said by Great Britains Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt). Now the Europeans are talking about increasing tension, which was not planned or meant: We are very worried about a conflict, about the risk of a conflict ... of an escalation that is unintended, Mr. Hunt has said recently, according to Reuters. Has the escalation been so unintended? The whole world watched how the French President Macron stated, following the US withdrawal from JCPOA, that his country will not get involved in a trade war with the United States over Iran. The world also watched how the EUs commitment to implementing the nuclear deal was accurately shifted on to the shoulders of European businesses investing in Iran, which, in turn (and quite naturally), decided to halt their activities in the Islamic Republic fearing the US punitive measures. President Macron: We're not going to impose on French businesses to stay in Iran. The President of the French Republic is not the CEO of Total. If signatories of JCPOA absolve themselves of responsibility and place it on a business that will, for certain, have to leave Iran, then how can anybody talk about support? Ultimately, in late January, after months of delay the EU announced the launch of a special trade mechanism (INSTEX) designed to facilitate trade with Iran. However, as of now, the mechanism is far from being practically operational or beneficial to Iran. So it turns out that there was nothing behind declarations of commitment to the nuclear agreement. Insincere European position in the whole story has crumbled under the US pressure, and is largely at the root of todays dangerous developments around Iran. To sum it all up, there is a simple question: is JCPOA really of strategic importance to EU? If so, theres still a chance for the EU to stop the looming disaster. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke over phone with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, according to the prime minister office, Trend reported citing Xinhua. Trudeau raised the issue of U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and stressed the importance of their removal. They also exchanged views on the ratification of the new North American Free Trade Agreement, a news release from the office said. The agreement was signed last November by the three countries, but it does not take effect until it is ratified, which none has done. On May 31, 2018, the United States announced that tariffs of 25 percent on imports of Canadian steel and 10 percent on imports of Canadian aluminum would take effect on June 1, 2018. In response to the unprecedented tariffs, Canada immediately announced countermeasures to impose tariffs on a range of American goods imported into Canada, including a 25 percent tariff on American-made steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it was tightening rules around its livestreaming feature ahead of a meeting of world leaders aimed at curbing online violence in the aftermath of a massacre in New Zealand, reports Trend citing to Reuters A lone gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch on March 15 while livestreaming the attacks on Facebook. It was New Zealands worst peacetime shooting and spurred calls for tech companies to do more to combat extremism on their services. Facebook said in a statement it was introducing a one-strike policy for use of Facebook Live, temporarily restricting access for people who have faced disciplinary action for breaking the companys most serious rules anywhere on its site. First-time offenders will be suspended from using Live for set periods of time, the company said. It is also broadening the range of offences that will qualify for one-strike suspensions. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the change addressed a key component of an initiative, known as the Christchurch Call, she is spearheading to halt the spread of violence online. Facebooks decision to put limits on live streaming is a good first step to restrict the application being used as a tool for terrorists, and shows the Christchurch Call is being acted on, she said in an email from her spokesman. Facebook did not specify which offences were eligible for the one-strike policy or how long suspensions would last, but a spokeswoman said it would not have been possible for the shooter to use Live on his account under the new rules. The company said it plans to extend the restrictions to other areas over coming weeks, beginning with preventing the same people from creating ads on Facebook. It also said it would fund research at three universities on techniques to detect manipulated media, which Facebooks systems struggled to spot in the aftermath of the attack. WORK TO DO Ardern said the research was welcome and that edited and manipulated videos of the March 15 mosque shootings had been slow to be removed, resulting in many, including herself, seeing it played in Facebook feeds. Facebook has said it removed 1.5 million videos globally that contained footage of the attack in the first 24 hours after it occurred. It said in a blog post in late March that it had identified more than 900 different versions of the video. Ardern is due to lead a meeting, with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Wednesday, that seeks to have world leaders and chiefs of tech companies sign a pledge to eliminate violent content online. There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook have taken additional steps today alongside the Call and look forward to a long term collaboration to make social media safer by removing terrorist content from it, she said. In an opinion piece in the New York Times on Saturday, Ardern said the Christchurch Call would be a voluntary framework that commits signatories to put in place specific measures to prevent the uploading of terrorist content. Ardern has not made specific demands of social media companies in connection with the pledge, but has called for them to prevent the use of livestreaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks. Representatives from Facebook, Alphabet Incs Google, Twitter Inc and other tech companies are expected to take part in the meeting, although Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will not be in attendance. A U.N. official has urged Myanmar to grant aid workers predictable, sustained access to Rakhine state, where fighting between government troops and rebels has displaced nearly 33,000 people since late last year, saying lack of aid has cost lives, reports Trend citing to Reuters Ursula Mueller, a U.N. assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said authorities had turned down her requests to meet those displaced by the conflict in a region barred to most aid groups since the fighting broke out. We need access predictable, sustained access to reach the people in need, Muller told Reuters late on Tuesday, at the end of a six-day visit to the southeast Asian nation. If the assistance, including mobile clinics, cannot get to the people, they just dont have the services and their needs are not being met and some people are dying. Reuters could not immediately reach a government spokesman to seek comment. Rakhine has been in the global spotlight since 2017, after roughly 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks crossed into neighboring Bangladesh. U.N. investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing. More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state. During her visit, Mueller met senior officials in the capital, Naypyitaw, including state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi who said she was working towards development and social cohesion in Rakhine. I was pointing out the humanitarian needs that are existing that need to be urgently met, she added. Mueller also visited camps outside Sittwe, the states capital, where thousands of Rohingya have been confined since a previous bout of violence in 2012. Most lack citizenship and face curbs on movement and access to basic services. Myanmar has been working with the U.N on a strategy to close the camps, but it amounts to building new, more permanent homes in the same place rather than letting people return to areas from which they fled, Reuters reported last year. Mueller, who is also a deputy coordinator for emergency relief, said she had discussed the strategy with officials. Its not enough to erect buildings on the same site while the underlying causes are not addressed, she added. People have no freedom of movement. They are losing hope after seven years in this camp. The head of operations of the United States Navy said on Wednesday that its freedom of navigation operations in the disputed South China Sea get more attention than they deserve, reports Trend citing to Reuters The U.S. military said two of its warships sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday last week, a move that angered Beijing at a time of tense ties between the worlds two biggest economies. (The operations) get more attention in the media and also have, sometimes from China, than they warrant, to be honest, John Richardson told a reporters on the sidelines of a maritime defense conference in Singapore. In an earlier speech, Richardson said that U.S. naval operations had been consistent over decades and had not risen recently. The controversial gala honoring Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro came to the Marriott Marquis on Tuesday night, bringing an estimated 1,000 guests to the heart of Times Square for an annual dinner party put on by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. Before they could enjoy the sold-out black tie affair, attendees had to bypass close to 100 enraged activistsmembers of a swelling protest movement that successfully banished the event from its first choice of venue and scared off its guest of honor. Buoyed by a marching band, with fake blood smeared on their faces, the group greeted each guest as they stepped out of black cars and into the rain with hissing and ridicule: "fascista, racista, golpista [coup-monger]." The face-off was the culmination of an international outcry sparked last month, after it was revealed that the business group would award Bolsonaro, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with its annual "Person of the Year" designation. Initially scheduled to be hosted by American Museum of Natural History, the event was dropped from the space amid threats of staff resignations and boycotts by the public. After the Marriott agreed to host, a coalition of environmental groups, LGBTQ advocates, and left-wing Brazilians began staging daily demonstrations outside the hotel. A petition condemning the Marriott for legitimizing the "notorious homophobe" was circulated by State Senator Brad Hoylman, and quickly garnered more than 82,000 signatures. Last week, Bolsonaro backed out of the trip to New York City altogether, citing the "resistance and deliberate attacks" from Mayor Bill de Blasio and "interest groups." (He arrived in Dallas last night, where some members of the Chamber of Commerce are set to present him with the award later this afternoon.) Many of those in the crowd on Tuesday night were Brazilian transplants to the city, who said they were horrified by recent developments in their home country. "He's selling everything he can in Brazil, including the Amazon. It's capitalism without limits," fumed Adriana Machadal, a 43-year-old NYC resident who grew up in the country's southeastern capital city of Belo Horizonte. Since his election late last year, Bolsonaro has overseen a campaign of deforestation in the Amazon, which indigenous groups have likened to the apocalypse. He is reportedly in talks with President Trump about a joint development deal in the rainforest. turns out you can just walk right into these things (and then quickly get removed) pic.twitter.com/Qrbw7JnJ5V Jake Offenhartz (@jangelooff) May 14, 2019 Machadal was one of several protesters aligned with Defend Democracy in Brazil, an NYC-based expat group that's been raising the alarm about the country's hard-right turn, and the collaboration between Bolsonaro, Trump, and the international finance community. According to organizers, Brazil's top Supreme Court Justice Jose Antonio Dias Toffoli, as well as country's House and Senate leaders, gathered at the Bank of America Tower in Midtown for a lunch with foreign investors prior to attending the gala. "There's this script [Bolsonaro's] following, waving a flag of economic recovery while at the same time making cuts to education and threatening the rainforest," said Rafaela Carvalho, a 29-year-old journalist visiting from Sao Paulo, who told Gothamist she stopped by the protest on her way to see Hamilton next door. "It's similar to Trump; neither are fit for the presidency...but Brazil is a newer democracy, which means we have to find a way to stand up for ourselves." William "Reverend Billy" Talen, a bandleader and fixture at protests across the city, drew comparisons to the White House as well, and warned that Americans were only beginning to grapple with a global spread of authoritarianism. "Trump and Netanyahu and Bolsonaro and Erdogan may not be identified with the fascists of the past quite yet, but they will be," he said. "It's just a question of sparking the collective memory of fascism." First chant is Justice for Marielle/Justice for All. Marielle Franco was a black, gay Rio politician who was murdered last year. Photos recently surfaced of a smiling Bolsonaro with his arm around the alleged killer https://t.co/cToyW1O1jr pic.twitter.com/jc27HrCW0b Jake Offenhartz (@jangelooff) May 14, 2019 For the most part, gala-goers hustled past the wall of protesters and hefty police presence into the hotel lobby, where they were whisked up to the 6th floor Broadway Ballroom in a glass elevator. A few Brazilian attendees did agree to discuss the controversy, including one who said that Bolsonaro's record of hateful commentscomparing indigenous people to zoo animals or claiming he'd rather his son be dead than gay, for examplehad largely been taken out of context. Nicolau Daudt, the CEO of the Brazilian branch of the JLT insurance company, told Gothamist he supported the new regime because he was lowering government expenditures, including pensions. Another guest, who declined to share her name, said she was "disappointed" by the event's relocation to the Marriott convention space, calling it a clear downgrade from previous galas at the AMNH's sprawling Hall of Ocean life. While guests at the dinner seemed roughly split between Brazilians and Americans, members of the latter group were consistent in their refusal to speak with this reporter. "I probably shouldn't comment on this, right?" replied one woman, as she shuffled out of the elevator holding a glass of white wine. "Someone invited me, otherwise I wouldn't be here. I don't know anything about the guy." The U.S. State Department on Wednesday ordered the departure of non-emergency government employees from Iraq, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said in a statement, reports Trend citing to Reuters Referring to the embassy and the U.S. consulate in Erbil, it said normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended. The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq. The statement recommended those affected depart by commercial transportation as soon as possible. Ford Motor Co said Wednesday it is recalling 270,000 Ford Fusion cars in North America that could roll away, reports Trend citing to Reuters The automaker said the recall covers Fusion cars from the 2013 through 2016 model year that have a shifter cable that may detach from the transmission allowing a driver to remove the ignition key when the vehicle is not in park. Ford is aware of three reports of property damage and one injury report potentially related to the issue. Ford said owners should always use the parking brake and will be notified when a fix is available. Senior officials from Boeing Co and a U.S. aerospace industry trade group on Wednesday urged the U.S. government to narrowly tailor any tariffs imposed on the European Union over illegal aircraft subsidies to avoid harming American manufacturers, reports Trend citing to Reuters The comments were made in prepared testimony at a hearing held by the U.S. Trade Representatives Office on proposed tariffs on EU goods as part of the dispute. The United States and the EU have threatened to impose billions of dollars of retaliatory tariffs on planes, tractors and food in a nearly 15-year trans-Atlantic aircraft subsidy dispute at the World Trade Organization over subsidies given to Boeing and European rival Airbus. At least 10 people were wounded in a grenade explosion in the northeastern Indian state of Assam on Wednesday but no militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, police said, Trend reports citing Reuters. It was a grenade blast probably targeted against security personnel conducting routine patrol in the area, Deepak Kumar, police commissioner in the Assam capital Guwahati, told reporters. The blast in a busy street in Guwahati occurred at about 8 p.m. (1430 GMT) and those injured included two police officers and eight civilians. The grenade was lobbed by two people on a motorcycle, Kumar said. Police said no group had claimed responsibility, but national public radio broadcaster All India Radio said a faction of the banned separatist group United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) had claimed responsibility for the attack. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal condemned the attacks, saying in a tweet he has directed the local authorities to immediately apprehend the culprits. At least nine people were wounded on Wednesday when Sudanese security forces used live ammunition to clear demonstrators from central Khartoum, a protest group said, ahead of a meeting on who will run the country as it transitions to democracy, Trend reports citing Reuters. The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which spearheaded months of protests that led to the militarys removal of President Omar al-Bashir last month, gave the figure of nine wounded, in a statement. Amjad Farid, a spokesman for the SPA, said, We hold the military council responsible for attacking civilians. They are using the same methods as the previous regime in dealing with rebels, he told Reuters, referring to Bashirs government. There was no immediate comment from the military on Wednesdays violence. Early on Wednesday the military announced a committee would investigate the targeting of protesters after at least four people were killed in violence in Khartoum on Monday. Weeks of street protests that precipitated the end of Bashirs 30-year rule on April 11 have continued as the opposition demands that the military hand over power to civilians. A Reuters witness and Sudanese witnesses said that troops in military vehicles using the logo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fired extensively as they tried to clear demonstrators on al-Mek Nimir Avenue in central Khartoum, near the Foreign Ministry. People were walking toward the barricades and they (security forces) were firing shots at them, a 20-year-old demonstrator, who asked not to be named, said, showing a handful of empty bullet casings and referring to road blocks set up by protesters. There are no delays in the implementation of the agreement on delivering S-400 missile systems to Turkey, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said, Trend reported citing TASS. "We know in general that Americans are insisting [on postponing the contract on delivering S-400 missile systems to Turkey] but it seems to me that the agreement reached several months ago is being actively implemented. There are currently no delays," Ushakov said. At the beginning of May, Germany's Bild newspaper cited Turkish diplomatic sources as saying that the Turkish authorities are reconsidering their decision to purchase S-400 missile defense systems from Russia because of economic issues. The Turkish authorities later refuted those reports. On May 13, Bloomberg reported that Turkey is considering the US request to postpone delivery of S-400 missile defense systems to Ankara. It was officially confirmed in 2017 that Russia and Turkey signed a contract on delivering S-400 missile systems to Ankara. Two suspects with links to the extreme-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) have been arrested by security forces after they tried to enter the Turkish Parliament upon a deputy's invitation and take a member of staff hostage, Trend reported citing Daily Sabah. The duo, a woman and a man, came to the Parliament building at around 3 p.m. on Tuesday and said they were there to visit the Republican People's Party (CHP)'s Istanbul Deputy Mahmut Tanal, and were escorted to the visitors' waiting room. It was later reported that Tanal had given the suspects' names to the security personnel at the entrance as visitors. During security checks, the two tried to take a member of staff hostage with a razor blade taped to a pencil, but were quickly neutralized by security guards. Police found a black box made to look like a bomb set-up and the bladed-weapon on the suspects after searching them. One of the suspects identified as Mulla Zinjir was found to have contacts with the DHKP-C, and implicated in five ongoing criminal cases on charges of "making propaganda for a terrorist organization", "organizing illegal meetings and protests", and defamation. Meanwhile, the other suspect Eylem Yudjel is currently implicated in 13 cases on crimes including "being a member of an armed terrorist organization", "making propaganda for a terrorist organization", "organizing illegal meetings and protests" and "damaging public property". Police also found that she. had served jail time in Kocaeli's Kandira Prison for "carrying out acts and activities on behalf of a terror group". The far-left terrorist group was responsible for a number of attacks on police and civilians, as well as one on the U.S. Embassy in Turkey. The group has become less active in the country in recent years but remains a major security threat. It is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU. Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15 By Rufiz Hafizoglu Trend: Turkey and China will hold political consultations, Trend reports with reference to the Turkish Foreign Ministry May 15. The political consultations between the parties will be held May 16 in Beijing, during the meeting of Deputy Foreign Minister of Turkey Sedat Onal and Deputy Foreign Minister of China Le Yucheng. The parties will discuss a number of international and regional issues, including the development of bilateral political and economic relations, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday he will likely travel to China soon to continue talks as Washington and Beijing seek to resolve a trade war that has cast a pall over the global economy and financial markets, Trend reports citing Reuters. Mnuchin did not elaborate on the timing of future negotiations but characterized two days of high-level talks with Chinese officials in Washington last week as constructive. My expectation is that we will go to Beijing at some point in the near future to continue those discussions, he said in a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. Were continuing discussions. Theres still a lot of work to do. Mnuchins remarks dovetailed with a cooling of the Trump administrations rhetoric toward China after another round of tit-for-tat tariffs between the worlds two largest economies and a selloff on global stock markets. US President Donald Trump will visit South Korea in late June to discuss efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday, Trend reports citing Sputnik. "Trump will visit the Republic of Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in, in conjunction with his travel to the region to attend the G20 Summit in late June," the statement said. "President Trump and President Moon will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea." In April Moon Jae-in visited Washington to meet with Trump to discuss a range of mutual concerns including North Korea, trade and other interests. Back then presidents discussed paving a way forward on denuclearizing North Korea, the White House Press Secretarys Office said in a statement. The situation on the Korean Peninsula improved last year with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in having held several meetings. Kim Jong-un also held two summits with Trump, with the parties having reached an agreement stipulating that North Korea would make efforts to promote complete denuclearization of the peninsula in exchange for US-South Korean military drills' freeze and a potential removal of US sanctions. After waiting on a sidewalk for seven days (in unseasonably cold and very rainy weather), fans of the Korean pop band BTS were finally allowed into Central Park to see the group's Good Morning America performance this morning. Listen to the screams of fansaka ARMY: The NYPD even got into the act of hyping fans on their way into the park: The police were also very concerned about fan safety: The moment the #BTSarmy (and us) have been waiting for! Remember safety first, safety second, & coolness third! If you are in the audience please dont push or shove & enjoy the show! #BTSonGMA #BTS #CentralPark pic.twitter.com/nXuWn0pvmH NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) May 15, 2019 Some of these fans have been in line for days and are very excited, so we called in officer Kim of @nypdrecruit for backup! #BTSarmy, youve come this far, please walk, dont run, and remember: safety first, safety second & coolness third! @GMA #BTSonGMA pic.twitter.com/Huu5En5V67 NYPD Central Park (@NYPDCentralPark) May 15, 2019 BTS is in the middle of a tourthey were in Chicago last week and will be at MetLife Stadium later this weekas they continue their steady domination of America. They've tied a record with the Beatles (three number 1 albums in one year); a Billboard Award for Best Duo/Group; become the first K-pop group to present at the Grammys; performed on Saturday Night Live; etc. Now, they've kicked off GMA's Summer Concert Series at SummerStage, with their songs "Boy with Luv" and "Fire." Many of the BTS ARMYs explained that they admired the group's work ethicapparently, BTS wasn't a product of the major K-pop labels, which separates them from other K-pop groups ("Their style wasn't like anyone else's!" one fan said)and their humility. They also pointed out how BTS maintains a very strong connection with fans, and they did talk on the show about how their hit "Boy with Luv" is a message to fans. And those ARMYs helped make #BTSonGMA the number one trending hashtag on Twitter: Next up: performing on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight. And after that, BTS will be making NJ Transit very, very worried: KYODO NEWS - May 15, 2019 - 21:45 | All, Japan The government said Wednesday it plans to urge companies to hire employees until age 70 as part of measures to address a severe labor shortage amid Japan's rapidly graying population. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also plans to call on companies to provide support for retired employees to find new jobs, launch their own companies or work freelance. Many companies in Japan set a retirement age of 60, but employees are legally allowed to work until 65 if they desire and employers are obliged to rehire them. "It is necessary to provide a variety of options to make use of the expertise of elderly workers," Abe said in a gathering to discuss future growth policies. The government plans to submit a bill to parliament next year to revise related laws, the prime minister said, but there will be no penalties at this stage if companies fail to comply. Ensuring an adequate workforce is also important to secure funds to meet the rising social security costs of an aging society. One in every three people in Japan is expected to be 65 or older in 2025, government data showed. The government has already introduced a series of steps to make up for the labor shortfall, such as bringing in more foreign workers and promoting women's participation in the labor market. Still Japan is expected to face a shortage of 6.44 million workers in 2030, according to an estimate by Persol Research and Consulting, and Chuo University. Among the 66.64 million workers aged 15 or older last year, 8.62 million, or 13 percent, were 65 or older, the government said. The American social network Facebook has changed the rules of online broadcasts Facebook Live. It is reported by RBC-Ukraine, with reference to the social network blog . It is reported that a change in the rules of broadcasting Facebook Live followed after the terrorist attacks in New Zealand, which were broadcast live. From now on, users who violate the social network policy with regard to dangerous organizations and individuals will be restricted in using the online broadcast service for a certain period. In particular, the Live service will be automatically blocked if the user shares a link to a statement from a terrorist group. It also reported that Facebook is investing $ 7.5 million in improving image and video analysis technology. Prior to this, the company simply deleted the prohibited content and blocked accounts. Recall earlier reported that Facebook plans to pay users for viewing ads. Payments can be made in the social network cryptocurrency, the development of which the Internet giant discusses with Visa and Mastercard. In these seven matters, you'll discover some strange realities about Jesus hidden in the pages of the Bible. See if any are news to you. Facts About Jesus You Probably Did Not Know: Jesus was born earlier than we thought. Our current calendar, which supposedly starts from the time Jesus Christ was born (A.D., anno domini, Latin for "in the year of our Lord"), is wrong. We know from Roman historians that King Herod died about 4 B.C. But Jesus was born when Herod was still alive. In fact, Herod ordered all male children in Bethlehem two years and younger slaughtered, in an attempt to kill the Messiah. Although the date is debated, the census mentioned in Luke 2:2 probably occurred about 6 B.C. Taking these and other details into account, Jesus was born between 6 and 4 B.C. Jesus protected the Jews during the exodus. The Trinity always works together. When the Jews escaped from Pharaoh, detailed in the book of Exodus, Jesus sustained them in the wilderness. This truth was revealed by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:3-4: "They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." (NIV) This was not the only time Jesus took an active role in the Old Testament. Several other appearances, or theophanies, are documented in the Bible. also read Mythical Love Story: Immortal love Legend describes in scripture Jesus was not just a carpenter. Mark 6:3 calls Jesus a "carpenter," but it's very likely he possessed a broad range of construction skills, with the ability to work in wood, stone, and metal. The Greek word translated carpenter is "tekton," an ancient term going back to the poet Homer, at least 700 B.C. While tekton originally referred to a worker in wood, it expanded over time to include other materials. Some Bible scholars note that wood was relatively scarce in Jesus' time and that most houses were made of stone. Apprenticed to his step-father Joseph, Jesus may have traveled throughout Galilee, building synagogues and other structures. Jesus spoke three, possibly four languages. We know from the gospels that Jesus spoke Aramaic, the everyday tongue of ancient Israel because some of his Aramaic words are recorded in Scripture. As a devout Jew, he also spoke Hebrew, which was used in the prayers in the temple. However, many synagogues used the Septuagint, Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek. When he talked with Gentiles, Jesus may have conversed in Greek, the commerce language of the Middle East at the time. Although we don't know for sure, he may have talked with a Roman centurion in Latin (Matthew 8:13). Jesus could be amazed. On at least two occasions, Jesus showed great surprise at events. He was "amazed" at the people's lack of faith in him in Nazareth and could do no miracles there. (Mark 6:5-6) The great faith of a Roman centurion, a Gentile, also amazed him, as noted in Luke 7:9. Christians have long argued over Philippians 2:7. The New American Standard Bible says Christ "emptied" himself, while the later ESV and NIV versions say Jesus "made himself nothing." The controversy still goes on over what this emptying of divine power or kenosis means, but we can be sure that Jesus was both fully God and fully man in his incarnation. also read The Six Realms of Desire described in Buddhism by Wheel of Life Colombo: In a shocking incident, a 45-year-old Muslim man was killed in his carpentry shop by a sword-wielding mob on late Monday. The shocking incident took place in the North-Western Province (NWP). Fauzul Ameen was buried yesterday at a Muslim cemetery in Nattandiya under tight security. The service was attended by around 100 people and guarded by heavily-armed troops and police. also read: Noida woman thrashed by four men for demanding salary Police said yesterday that 13 people had been arrested including Amith Weerasinghe, a man from Sri Lankas majority Buddhist Sinhalese community on bail for his role in similar riots in March last year. Stunned by a series of coordinated suicide bombings on Easter Sunday, Sri Lanka is now battling escalating anti-Muslim backlash across the island nation. On Tuesday, the authorities announced a nationwide curfew for a second straight night to contain the violence, beginning at 9:00 pm (15:30 GMT). Notably, curfew had been in place all day in NWP, north of Colombo. Violence broke out in the island nation late Monday; three weeks after suicide bombings killed 258 people. Elsewhere in NWP, north of Colombo, attackers outnumbering police and security forces set fire to Muslim-owned shops, vandalized homes and smashed windows, furniture, and fittings inside several mosques. Footage of violence showed burning shops as crowd wielding sticks and stones attacked shops belonging to Muslims. According to the reports, attackers have systematically targeted mosques for two days. On Monday, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe addressed the nation, saying the unrest would obstruct the probe into Easter Sunday bombings. also read: Fake currency seized in Kolkata, two arrested By analyzing recordings of pregnant mothers throughout the day, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are beginning to understand the relationship between pre-birth language exposure and early development protection WASHINGTON, D.C. May 14, 2019 -- Premature infants spend a considerable amount of time growing in neonatal intensive care units instead of in the womb. The different soundscapes of NICUs has recently attracted interest in how changes in what we hear in our earliest days might affect language development in the brain. One ongoing study is hoping to better understand these differences by painting a clearer picture of what kinds of sounds full-term infants are exposed to in the womb. By enlisting pregnant mothers to wear audio recorders, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are conducting one of the first studies on how often full-term fetuses hear spoken language before birth. The group plans to compare the collected data with data on how often children in NICUs hear spoken language in a simultaneous study. The group will present their preliminary findings at the 177th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which takes place May 13-17, at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. "While there have been other studies evaluating typical language exposure for infants, toddlers and children, we have no data on the amount of language exposure a fetus receives after the onset of hearing in the womb," said Brian Monson, one of the researchers. Previous studies have shown that fetuses develop the ability to hear sounds outside the womb shortly before the third trimester, the key time Monson and his colleagues are beginning to record fetuses' exposure to sound. The pregnant mothers involved in the ongoing study wear recorders for 24 hours at a time. A computer algorithm then analyzes the recorder data to determine how much time during the day a fetus is exposed to language. After more than 2,200 hours of audio collected, the group so far has found a wide difference in how much language full-term infants hear while in the womb, ranging from five hours of language per day to as little as two hours and 45 minutes. "Some fetuses are averaging only 60% of the language exposure of their peers over the course of the third trimester," Monson said. Participating infants receive a hearing test at three months after birth to see if there is a relationship between prenatal language exposure and the development of the hearing center of the brain. These will be compared to similar outcomes in a group of infants in the NICU. Monson hopes the group's findings can help inform hospitals for best practices to ensure babies in the NICU develop along with their full-term peers. ### Presentation #2pSC20, "Average daily speech exposure for fetuses," will be given during a poster session beginning at 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 14, in Grand Ballroom C of the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. MORE MEETING INFORMATION USEFUL LINKS Main meeting website: http://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/ Technical program: https://ep70.eventpilotadmin.com/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING19 Press Room: http://acoustics.org/world-wide-press-room/ WORLD WIDE PRESS ROOM In the coming weeks, ASA's World Wide Press Room will be updated with additional tips on dozens of newsworthy stories and with lay language papers, which are 300-500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience and accompanied by photos, audio and video. You can visit the site during the meeting at http://acoustics.org/world-wide-press-room/. PRESS REGISTRATION We will grant free registration to credentialed staff journalists and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend, contact the AIP Media Line at 301-209-3090 or media@aip.org. Our media staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips or background information. LIVE MEDIA WEBCAST A press briefing will be webcast live from the conference Tuesday, May 14, in the Laffoon Room of the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Register at https://aipwebcasting.com to watch the live webcast. The schedule will be posted at the same site as soon as it is available. ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world's leading journal on acoustics), Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. For more information about ASA, visit our website at http://www.acousticalsociety.org. ADELPHI, Md. -- The U.S. Army is researching how to leverage smart cities of the future where networks of sensors will be used to enable services for civilian and government use, such as environmental monitoring or traffic flow optimization. Smart city environments have emerged from continued growth in urban internet of things, or IoT, infrastructure, where devices connect to the web, integrate capabilities and use data analytics to extract meaningful information. Researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, the Army's corporate research laboratory also known as ARL, are investigating how IoT could complement the capabilities of military assets in urban operations--with smart city infrastructures supporting the emerging internet of battlefield things, or IoBT. This research also supports Army modernization efforts in delivering a network that guarantees the Army can prepare for war and fight and win against any adversary and in any condition. "For IoBT systems to successfully utilize commercial IoT assets with minimal mission risk, expanded knowledge becomes necessary on the reliability and interoperability of commercial IoT protocols in urban environments," said Dr. James Michaelis, an ARL computer scientist. Commercial IoT systems rely on a collection of communication protocols to facilitate data ingest, which vary based on geographic coverage and amount of data that can be transmitted. Army-funded researchers focused on a communication protocol: Long Range Wide Area Network, known as LoRaWAN, and presented their findings in April 2019 at the IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things (Leveraging LoRaWAN to Support IoBT in Urban Environments). LoRaWAN has gained visibility among the various communication protocols due to its low power needs and ability to transmit data over long ranges within IoT infrastructures. In ideal conditions, LoRaWAN has demonstrated success in IoT device transmissions beyond 10 kilometers; however, the current body of knowledge around LoRaWAN is limited in empirical data on its coverage in the presence of dense, potentially obstructing urban infrastructure. To study these capabilities, Army-funded researchers used vehicle-mounted IoT transmitters to conduct a comprehensive test of LoRaWAN coverage in Montreal. Researchers found that the maximum transmission distance across Montreal's central business district could reliably be established five kilometers from the receiver. This distance was achieved for three separate LoRaWAN data transmission rates--each capable of transmitting different-sized IoT device messages--on the North American industrial, scientific and medical 915 MHz band. These findings help reinforce the reliability of LoRaWAN in the presence of dense urban infrastructure. To support the LoRaWAN testing, researchers applied a combination of ARL-developed IoT architecture and a collection of commercially available hardware and software. ARL initially developed the architecture to support integration of commercial-off-the-shelf assets into broader C2 systems to support situational awareness and decision support capabilities in tactical operations centers. Researchers are applying data from this testing to two additional areas of research--coverage gap analysis, which assesses conditions where LoRaWAN coverage may be obstructed, and data rate coverage, which assesses impact of data transmission rate on LoRaWAN coverage. ### The CCDC Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. As the Army's corporate research laboratory, ARL discovers, innovates and transitions science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. Through collaboration across the command's core technical competencies, CCDC leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more lethal to win our Nation's wars and come home safely. CCDC is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Futures Command. Description "Lindenhurst envisions a healthy and thriving downtown and a Village equally welcoming to young families and seniors, as it is accommodating to new residents and those who have lived in Lindenhurst all their lives. The Village is undertaking the development of its first Downtown Master Plan which will provide a foundation for sustainable development, preserve our hometown character, respect our environment, maximize existing infrastructure, and improve our quality of life. The Downtown Master Plan will develop recommendations for improved linkages within the Village, including access from the downtown to the waterfront, transit connectivity, traffic calming and pedestrian safety; and identify opportunities for downtown revitalization, including re-use potential of underutilized properties within the downtown, additional parking in the central business district, and residential relocation opportunities for residents south of Montauk Highway. The development of the Downtown Master Plan will take approximately 9 months. The plan will provide a long-range vision for the downtown with a planning projection of 10-15 years. As the Village looks to the future, the success of the Downtown Master Plan hinges on the participation of its residents, business owners, visitors, and other stakeholders. The Village invites you all to help shape the future of Downtown Lindenhurst by attending a community visioning workshop, scheduled on May 15th, 6:30PM at the Lindenhurst Middle School gymnasium. The event will include opening remarks by the Village, a short presentation on the downtown master plan, followed by a community workshop with interactive stations designed to stimulate discussion and offer the chance to provide your ideas and priorities for the future of Downtown Lindenhurst community." Village of Lindenhurst Description Get to Know the Residents First Team. The Citizens of Port Jefferson are invited to meet the candidates running for Village Mayor and two Trustee seats. Enjoy Ruvos amazing libations and light fare while learning more about the team thats ready to put the residents first in Port Jeff! At Ruvo's in Port Jeff TWEET ME DISCLAIMER *COMMENTS, LINKS, AND CUT AND PASTE ARTICLES, ARE NOT ALL ENDORSED BY THE PUBLISHER. THIS BLOG claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to its respectful owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed. MORE DISCLAIMERS This is a commercial free blog. Money is nice, but being able to speak my mind is better. "Real talk: Daniel Rubin has a great little piece up wherein he chats with The Field Negro, the Philly-based blogger who sharply ponders all things black on a daily basis. (Seriously, if youve never checked in with TFN, you should: Its author, Wayne Bennett, is a fantastic read who can cut through bullshit like a hot knife through butter, which is a far grosser analogy than I wanted to make, but there you have it.)" ~Philebrity~ "One of the most precocious and hilarious Black political minds on the net. Ive been a long-time fan!" ~Asad Malik~ "..While most of what he writes is tongue-in-cheek, his space is a safe house for candid discussions about race, especially in the comments section, where people of all colors meet." ~~Daniel Rubin, "The Philadelphia Inquirer"~~ "To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs." ~~Richard Fausset, "L.A. Times"~~~ ~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~ "That's why I love the blog " Field Negro " so much. Field, as he's known to his fans, has the sense of reality that it takes to call out the ( CowPuckey ) of blame beating by those who are in positions of power and their lackeys. Because of his handle and his unabashed way of writing about racial issues, Field is often cited as a "Black blogger." What he is, however, is a first-class detector of blame deflection and an excellent student of history. If you want to write about the past and future of repression there's really no other perspective to take - which is why everyone should read Field."~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~ 411 On The Field field negro Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Raised in the house, but field certified. Jamaica is the land of my birth, but I consider myself a citizen of the world. I currently practice law in the city of "brotherly love". View my complete profile "Half a century after Little Rock, the Montgomery bus boycott and the tumultuous dawn of the modern civil rights era, the new face of the movement is Facebook, MySpace and some 150 black blogs united in an Internet alliance they call the AfroSpear. Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslave and African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online." ~Howard Witt-The Chicago Tribune~ "I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination.But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation's schools and courtrooms, what's clear to me is that there's a new, "virtual" civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together." ~Chicago Tribune Reporter, Howard Witt~ IF YOU ARE BRAVE ENOUGH TO FLAUNT IT. Come visit my store on CafePress! Since the start of the year, the mayor has been using his bully pulpit to unveil policies that bolster his argument that he is doing more than talking about progressive ideashes implementing them here in New York City in a way that could serve as a model for the rest of the country. Most recently he trumpeted environmental legislation that seeks to force city building owners to drastically cut carbon emissions. On Monday, de Blasio held a campaign-style rally in the public lobby of Trump Plaza where supporters of the legislation faced a chorus of pro-Trump protesters who sought to drown out the event. De Blasio plans to position himself as a public executive, drawing on his experience leading the Americas biggest city which currently boasts record low crime and consistently low unemployment. His current stump speech emphasizes the struggles of working people. There is plenty of money in this city, de Blasio has taken to saying, it's just in the wrong hands, he adds, arguing people deserve their share of the prosperity that theyve earned. He presents his administrations signature programslike pre-kindergarten, paid sick leave, extended healthcare coverage, and a proposal for paid time offas ways the government can begin to lift peoples burdens. But for all his accomplishments, the mayor will also be forced to answer for the issues his administration has failed to address, from the citys crumbling public Housing Authority, to an ongoing affordable housing crisis and record-high homelessness. Advocates who once saw the mayor as their ally are among the most critical of his presidential ambitions. We think it's sort of unconscionable as we have record homelessness in New York City that he still continues to tout a record of housing production through his Housing New York plan when we know that so few of those units are actually going to those who need it most, Giselle Routhier from Coalition for the Homeless told Gothamist / WNYC a month ahead of the mayors expected announcement. On top of local concerns, the mayor faces an immediate national test just a month from now. Thats the deadline to qualify for the first Democratic debate scheduled for June 26th and 27th in Miami. The mayor is at risk of not qualifying, something that he acknowledged on the Brian Lehrer Show earlier this month. Democratic candidates face duel thresholds. Either a candidate must register at least 1 percent or more support in three qualifying polls since the start of the year or a candidate must receive donations from at least 65,000 unique donors, with a minimum of 200 unique donors from at least 20 states. If more than 20 candidates qualify, Democratic organizers will look at who hits both criteria. The mayor has already polled at 1 percent in two Monmouth polls. But he may face fundraising obstacles going forward. Since last July, he has been raising money for a political action committee, the Fairness PAC. While he received money from some top Democratic donors, some of his supporters have already decamped to other candidates. Scott Nash, founder of Moms Organic Markets, a chain of organic grocery stores, and his wife donated a combined $10,000 to de Blasios Fairness PAC last August. But hes putting his money on Joe Biden now. I usually support the person who is most electable and who I think is going to be the best campaigner, Nash said. Right now, I think its Joe Biden. So Im a Joe Biden guy and now that hes entered, hes my man. If those types of sentiments make de Blasio an underdog, thats just where he likes to be. He's always done the unexpected, always done what his advisers have told him wasn't a good idea and has managed to come out on top, said Vitteritti, the Hunter College professor and de Blasio biographer. If you look at his history it's not out of character. UPDATE, May 16: De Blasio released his campaign video on Thursday morning: Brigid Bergin is the City Hall and politics reporter for WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @brigidbergin. Crude prices settled higher on May 14 following an attack on the facilities of a state-owned oil company in Saudi Arabia. Tensions in the region have flared up ever since relations between Washington and Teheran took a turn for the worse. With a large chunk of the worlds oil supply passing through the region, supply bottlenecks are likely to worsen in the near term. Prices declined during the early hours of May 15 but Middle East tensions continued to support gains. Meanwhile, OPEC has said that oil demand will exceed expectations as supplies from rival producers decline. Also, market watchers believe that a U.S.-China trade deal is still possible, which will likely bolster demand for crude. This is why it makes sense to pick up select oil stocks. Saudi Arabia Attacks Boost Prices On Tuesday, WTI crude increased 1.2% or 74 cents to settle at $61.78 a barrel. Additionally, Brent futures gained 1.4% or $1.01 to end at $71.24 a barrel. The immediate trigger for these gains heightened tensions in the Middle East. According to Riyadh, Yemeni Houthi rebels attacked facilities of state-owned oil major Aramco early on the morning of May 15. This attack comes a couple of days after four oil tankers were damaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. According to Emirate authorities, this was an attack of sabotage. American security agencies think that elements which are allied or closely working with Irans government have caused these attacks. On their part, Iranian authorities have denied such claims. Tensions between the United States and Iran have heightened ever since the Trump administration toughened its sanctions against Teheran. This has hurt Irans oil exports and reduced global crude supplies substantially. Nearly 20% of global crude supplies move through the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East to consumers across the world. Trade Deal Hopes, Higher Demand to Boost Prices Market watchers are still hoping for a U.S.-China trade deal. Both sides have intermittently made encouraging noises, allowing investors to hold out hope for a mutually acceptable solution to the long-running trade dispute. In fact, analysts think that the pain caused by the conflict will force both sides to seal a deal. Story continues Additionally, OPEC said on May 14 that demand for crude would defy estimates in 2019. Supplies from rivals of the oil cartel, such as Americas shale producers, hint at tighter global supplies. The situation will worsen if OPEC refused to raise production further. U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela are already weighing on global crude supplies. Our Choices Following Tuesdays attacks, the situation in the Middle East remains tense. The primary trigger for these disturbances is the Trump administrations decision to tighten sanctions against Iran. Similar sanctions against Venezuela have also tightened global crude supplies. Meanwhile, OPEC expects crude demand to exceed expectations this year. Also, market watchers continue to believe that the United States and China will conclude a trade agreement. Adding oil stocks to your portfolio looks prudent. However, picking winning stocks may be difficult. This is where our VGM Score comes in. Here V stands for Value, G for Growth and M for Momentum and the score is a weighted combination of these three scores. Such a score allows you to eliminate the negative aspects of stocks and select winners. However, it is important to keep in mind that each Style Score will carry a different weight while arriving at a VGM Score. We have narrowed down our search to the following stocks, each of which has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and a good VGM Score. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. BCEI is engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of onshore oil and natural gas properties in the United States. Bonanza Creek Energy has a VGM Score of A. The companys expected earnings growth for the current year is 30.4%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 26.4% over the last 30 days. Oasis Midstream Partners LP OMP is a master limited partnership company which owns, develops, operate and acquires a diversified portfolio of midstream assets primarily in North America. Oasis Midstream Partners has a VGM Score of A. The companys projected growth rate for the current year is 62.1%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 2.5% over the last 30 days. Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. FET is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of products to the oil and natural gas industry. Forum Energy Technologies has a VGM Score of A. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 43.8% over the last 30 days. Enterprise Products Partners L.P. EPD is among the leading midstream energy players in North America. Enterprise Products Partners has a VGM Score of B. The companys expected earnings growth for the current year is 7.3%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 4.4% over the last 30 days. Independence Contract Drilling, Inc. ICD provides land drilling services for oil and natural gas producers primarily in the United States. Independence Contract Drilling has a VGM Score of B. The companys expected earnings growth for the current year is more than 100%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 17.4% over the last 30 days. Will you retire a millionaire? One out of every six people retires a multimillionaire. Get smart tips you can do today to become one of them in a new Special Report, 7 Things You Can Do Now to Retire a Multimillionaire. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD) : Free Stock Analysis Report Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. (FET) : Free Stock Analysis Report Independence Contract Drilling, Inc. (ICD) : Free Stock Analysis Report Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. (BCEI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Oasis Midstream Partners LP (OMP) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Streamlined Leadership Structure Builds on Transformation Progress and Supports Organizational Agility NEW ALBANY, Ohio, May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) today announced changes as part of its ongoing transforming while growing phase, which include the decision to eliminate the role of chief operating officer. In the newly streamlined organization the companys chief financial officer, chief information officer, head of global supply chain, and head of the transformation management office will now report to the CEO. The changes are effective immediately, and the companys COO, Joanne C. Crevoiserat, will leave the company following a short transition period. Based on the progress of our company-wide transformation initiatives, and the continuing focus on driving additional agility and efficiency throughout the business, we have decided to eliminate the COO role. Joanne has been a key partner in our transformation journey over these past five years, helping stabilize the business and embed transformation across the organization. I am grateful for her many contributions across the company, which will have a lasting, positive impact, and we wish her every success in the next chapter of her career, said Fran Horowitz, Chief Executive Officer, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT UNDER THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995 A&F cautions that any forward-looking statements (as such term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) contained herein or made by management or spokespeople of A&F involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change based on various important factors, many of which may be beyond the Companys control. Words such as estimate, project, plan, believe, expect, anticipate, intend, and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements. Except as may be required by applicable law, we assume no obligation to publicly update or revise our forward-looking statements. The factors disclosed in ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS of A&Fs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended February 2, 2019, in some cases have affected, and in the future could affect, the companys financial performance and could cause actual results for Fiscal 2019 and beyond to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any of the forward-looking statements included in this press release or otherwise made by management. Story continues About Abercrombie & Fitch Co. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) is a leading, global specialty retailer of apparel and accessories for Men, Women and Kids through three renowned brands. For more than 125 years, the iconic Abercrombie & Fitch brand has outfitted innovators, explorers and entrepreneurs. Today, the brand reflects the updated attitude of modern consumer, while remaining true to its heritage of creating expertly crafted products with an effortless, American style. The Hollister brand epitomizes the liberating and carefree spirit of the endless California summer for the teen market. abercrombie kids creates smart, playful apparel for children ages 5-14, celebrating the wide-eyed wonder of childhood. The brands share a commitment to offering products of enduring quality and exceptional comfort that allow consumers around the world to express their own individuality and style. The Company operates more than 850 stores under these brands across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, as well as the e-commerce sites www.abercrombie.com and www.hollisterco.com. Atlanta, May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acuity Brands, Inc. (AYI) will be showcasing its new smart home and other residential lighting products at LIGHTFAIR International 2019, May 21-23, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Booth 1201. The booth will feature an enclosed demonstration area where attendees can interact firsthand with smart lighting products from Juno and Lithonia Lighting. Acuitys flagship smart home product is the Juno AI family of state-of-the-art LED downlights you can talk to. Juno AI luminaires feature sophisticated lighting controls and premium JBL speakers, all completely built in and concealed along with the Alexa voice service for a seamless, truly smart home experience. The Juno AI LED downlight will allow homeowners to connect to their Alexa-enabled devices to control, for example, their homes lighting or security system, as well as schedule appointments, adjust thermostats, unlock the front door, run the vacuum and much more. Juno AI LED downlights will deliver 1000 lumens, feature tunable color temperatures from 2700K to 5000K, dim down to 1 percent, and come with a simple companion app to allow the user to set scenes or lighting schedules in each room of the home or play music through the integrated JBL speaker. Recessed lighting can now play a key role in establishing a smart home. It can be easily installed in every room and hardwired into the ceiling, creating an ideal environment for a centralized smart ecosystem, says Jeff Spencer, Acuity Brands Lighting Vice President and General Manager, Residential. Our smart home downlighting products sit seamlessly near the center of the room, free of obstructions, enabling them to hear commands and speak clearly to homeowners and their connected devices, while delivering exceptional lighting and sound. Acuity Brands smart home products from Juno and Lithonia Lighting are designed for easy retrofit or new construction applications. Electrical contractors or homeowners will be able to easily install and wire the products for immediate use and connectivity without the need for smart home specialists, providing a simple entry into the smart home space. Homeowners will be able to program the products with their mobile device through the respective Juno or Lithonia Lighting apps. Story continues See and interact with the new Acuity Brands smart home lighting products at booth #1201 at LIGHTFAIR International 2019 or visit our Smart Home product offering to learn more. Juno AI is expected to be available for purchase in June 2019. All trademarks referenced are property of their respective owners. About Acuity Brands Acuity Brands, Inc. (AYI) is the North American market leader and one of the worlds leading providers of lighting and building management solutions. With fiscal year 2018 net sales of $3.7 billion, Acuity Brands currently employs approximately 12,000 associates and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with operations throughout North America, and in Europe and Asia. The Companys products and solutions are sold under various brands, including Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Antique Street Lamps, Atrius, DGLogik, Distech Controls, DTL, eldoLED, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lucid, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, Peerless, RELOC Wiring, ROAM, Sensor Switch, Sunoptics and Winona Lighting. Visit us at www.acuitybrands.com # # # # Media Contact: Neil Egan Neil.Egan@acuitybrands.com 770-860-2957 Attachment A new destination in Sunset Parks Industry City is coming out strong: Barrows Intense Ginger Liqueur Tasting Rooma hybrid distillery, bar, and liquor storeis now serving up samples of its namesake liqueur to customers. Though Barrows has been creating their tonic in a production space in Industry City since 2013, the tasting room represents a pivot to brick & mortar for people looking to experience the unique flavor of their spirit in person. Founder Josh Morton told Gothamist that so far his two most popular cocktails are the ginger-based Frozen Intense Mule and the If You Like Ginger Coladas." The tasting room also sells bottles of the spirit along with over 160 different types of liquors from all over the state of New York. When were open, people can taste any of the products that we have. Theyll get a free taste of our ginger liqueur when they walk in. And then if someone wants to do a flight, they can do a flight, Morton says. They offer 22 types of Gin, 26 types of Bourbon, 9 Empire Ryes, 12 types of Vodka, 5 different Absinthes... and more. Once we started making cocktails, it was very hard for me to pick one gin to work with[so I thought] Why not just have everybody? That became the rationale, Morton says. Because Barrows functions as a tasting room, distillery, and store that sells liquor wholesale, the company does not have a normal liquor license like other New York bars. You can only serve New York state distilled spirits made with at least 75% New York state product, he explains. We cant technically sell Tequila or Rum because no agave or sugar cane is raised in New York state. So for a margarita, youll have to go somewhere else. In addition to the tasting and flight programs that feature their own ginger liqueur, Barrows is also starting an event series called Tasting Room Takeovers, where different distillers will take over their Industry City production space once a month. We carry all of these different distillers and we often distill here and ultimately want to make [Barrows] an educational space about the art of distillers, Morton says. The featured distillers will offer tastings while they explain in detail how they work and what, exactly, they do. (There will also be a distillation class so people can learn how to make their own gin.) The next takeover will happen on June 13th and feature Finger Lakes Distilling, which hails from Seneca Lake. As for food, they've collaborated with businesses right in the Industry City building space, like Li-Lac Chocolates and Blue Marble Ice Cream. Blue Marble did two different ginger ice creams with our ginger liqueur and used the leftover ginger from our production process too, Morton says. I love that we can play on the food side as well. Barrows Intense Ginger Liqueur Tasting Room is located in Industry City (86 34th Street C134, Sunset Park, Brooklyn)look for the neon sign beaming "INTENSE"; www.barrowsintense.com. They open at noon every day (full hours here). (Bloomberg) -- For more than a year, Apple Inc. avoided major damage from the U.S. trade war with China, thanks in part to a White House charm offensive by Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. But the company now faces its first major hit -- from both sides of the dispute. A new round of tariffs proposed by the U.S. on Monday includes mobile phones, meaning the iPhone, Apples most-important product that is made almost entirely in China, may be encumbered with a 25% import levy. There are other products on the list that would affect Apple too, such as laptops and tablets. That leaves the company with a difficult choice: Raise prices on already-pricey products and risk missing out on sales, or absorb the extra cost and let profits suffer. Theres a "very real risk of higher import costs and/or U.S. consumer demand destruction depending on whether Apple decides to pass along some of the tariff cost," Krish Sankar, an analyst at Cowen Inc., wrote Tuesday in a note to investors. "Given that the majority of Apples hardware products that include the iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac systems are assembled and imported from China, the earnings risk could be quite substantial." China retaliated on Monday with plans to increase tariffs on U.S. imports to 25% from 10%. That would apply to components for the iPad and iPhone. So when U.S.-made parts including glass screen covers and facial-recognition sensors are shipped to China for assembly into iPhones and iPads, they will be more expensive, too. The main concern is the iPhone, though. It accounted for 63% of sales in 2018, and serves as a hub for additional revenue from services and related devices like the Apple Watch. The newest iPhones cost $750 to $1,450, so any price increases could take the devices beyond the budgets of more consumers. Apple shares slumped last week as the trade war flared up. The stock rose 1.1% on Wednesday. The heightened trade tensions are a test for Cook and the global supply chain he helped build and run. Last year, the CEO showed political prowess by meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to argue against tariffs. Story continues Just over a year ago, Cook met Trump in the Oval Office. The CEO said he opposed the presidents approach and focused on how cooperation between countries can boost the economy more than nations acting alone. After the meeting, the administration told Cook it would not place tariffs on iPhones, The New York Times reported. Apple also wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in September asking him to reconsider tariffs and instead take other measures that would support the U.S. economy and American consumers. Later that month, the White House spared Apples Watch and AirPods. By late 2018, Apples strategy had become less effective. In late November, Trump told the Wall Street Journal he might impose tariffs on mobile phones and laptops, and said consumers "could stand" a 10% increase in prices "very easily." The day after, Cook toured schools in Idaho with Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and senior adviser. As 2019 began, the real cost of the trade war for Apple began to emerge. The company cut revenue projections and Cook said the Trump administrations trade policies had indirectly hurt consumer demand for iPhones in China. More recently, the company has raised prices when it refreshed products that have already been hit with tariffs. The updated Apple Pencil, launched in October, costs $30 more than the previous version. The faster Mac mini costs $300 more than its predecessor. That suggests the company may take a similar approach with the iPhone. In its September letter to Lighthizer, Apple said tariffs would increase product prices. The 25% tariff on iPhones would likely apply to the wholesale price of the devices when they are imported from China. Apple doesnt disclose wholesale prices, but research firms often estimate the bill of materials. A $1,249 iPhone XS Max with 256 gigabytes of storage has $453 worth of parts, according to TechInsights. A 25% levy on that would be $113, raising the purchase price by about 9%. Apples other models, the iPhone XS and the iPhone XR, could face a similar increase, according to estimates. In a recent note to investors, Morgan Stanley estimated that a $999 iPhone XS would cost $160 more. JPMorgan analysts forecast a 14% price increase. This may only apply to U.S. iPhone sales, limiting the damage. About a third of iPhone revenue comes from the U.S., according to Shannon Cross of Cross Research. That wont address the problem of even more expensive iPhones, though. A series of price increases in recent years has already coincided with declining sales. If Apple passes the whole tariff cost to U.S. consumers, demand could drop by 10% to 40%, Cowens Sankar estimated on Tuesday. That, in turn, may slice earnings per share by 1% to 4% in fiscal 2020, the analyst said. Alternatively, Apple could eat the cost and leave iPhone prices untouched. That would dent earnings per share by 6% to 7%, based on a $450-per-device import cost and annual U.S. unit sales of 40 million, according to Sankar. Still, Apple has experience absorbing extra costs. When currencies swing, the company manages to protect its gross profit margins, Cross noted. Apple could work around the tariff issue as well. Theres a possibility of Apple re-jiggering its supply chain to build more products outside China. Apple is ramping up production in India to avoid local taxes and has done similar work with Foxconn in Brazil. (Updates with Apple shares in seventh paragraph.) --With assistance from Debby Wu. To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net;Shawn Donnan in Washington at sdonnan@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. (Recasts throughout, adds St Barbara CEO comment) May 15 (Reuters) - Australian gold miner St Barbara said on Wednesday it would buy smaller Canadian peer Atlantic Gold Corp for C$722 million ($536.4 million), in an all-cash deal. St Barbara's C$2.90 per share cash offer represents a premium of 38.75% to Atlanta Gold's closing price on Tuesday. "The addition of Moose River (Atlantic's flagship project) to the portfolio diversifies St Barbaras production base with a low cost producing asset in a very favourable and prospective jurisdiction," St Barbara Chief Executive Bob Vassie said. The Australian miner added in a statement that it would raise about A$490 million ($340 million) to partly fund the bid, with the remainder coming from its own cash reserves. Atlantic Gold Chairman and CEO Steven Dean would be invited to join St Barbara's board and the target's current operating team would be retained. St Barbara expected to close the deal in July. ($1 = 1.3459 Canadian dollars) ($1 = 1.4413 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Rushil Dutta and Philip George in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates) By Clara Denina and Harry Brumpton LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp, the world's second largest bullion miner, is preparing its Zambian copper mine Lumwana for sale in the second half of 2019, looking to target Chinese buyers, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. Fresh from two major deals in recent months, Barrick has said it plans to shed $1.5 billion (1.16 billion) of less productive mines, which have little expansion potential. It included Lumwana among the possible sales, as a relatively low-grade copper mine whose margins could be materially affected by Zambia's new mining code and import duty. Analysts value the mine at up to $500 million. Barrick is holding discussions with investment banks about appointing advisers to the sale, the sources said. Two of the sources said that a bank with links to Chinese companies was likely to get the advising role for Lumwana. Barrick didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The group is looking to enter talks with Chinese state-owned companies including Aluminum Corp of China, known as Chinalco, and China Minmetals Corporation, which have been seeking growth abroad and a foothold in Africa, lured by its vast resources. The sale process, however, may not be easy, the sources said, as the potential acquirer will have to be comfortable with the risk associated with tax changes in Zambia. PURE COPPER Africa's second-biggest copper producer, is determined to enforce a new 5% copper import duty and also plans to replace value-added tax with a non-refundable sales tax as part of a plan to keep a greater share of mineral resource profits for the country and tackle its debt. The new taxes also include a royalty on copper production that increases as commodity prices rise. Zambia has overcome opposition of some of the world's biggest mining companies, betting that a global need for its resources, particularly copper, essential for manufacturing electric cars, and cobalt, used in lithium-ion batteries, will keep the tax receipts flowing. Diversified miners Glencore, Vedanta Resources and First Quantum also operate in the southern African country. Story continues The sale of Lumwana doesn't signal a complete exit from copper assets for Barrick. The company is interested in acquiring assets that include both copper and gold, and pure copper projects if it has a competitive advantage over traditional copper miners, Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow told Reuters last week. Over the past six months, Barrick closed a $6.1 billion acquisition of African miner Randgold Resources and formed a joint venture with rival Newmont Goldcorp to combine operations in U.S. Nevada to create the world's biggest gold complex. (Additional reporting by Nichola Saminather in Toronto and Zandi Shabalala in London) Its first quarter earnings were stronger than expected, and retailing behemoth Macy's is looking to capitalize even more with its valuable real estate. The company has confirmed an April Bloomberg News story that said Macy's was looking to build an office tower on top of its iconic Herald Square flagship location. "We hope to walk out of 2019 with a plan that were then going to bid out," Macy's CEO Jeff Gennette told Bloomberg, adding this has been in the works for a year and a half. Traditional retailers have been facing headwinds, like online sellers and fast retailing, and Macy's has responded by both closing stores and attempting to innovate, creating a new format of stores, called "magnet stores." But one retail industry observer told the Wall Street Journal, "The other [traditional] stores are dispiriting and crammed with stock. That is the issue that Macys has got to get to grips with." (Shutterstock) According to the original Bloomberg News story, "The company has floated plans for a 1.2 million-square-foot (111,500-square-meter) office tower that would be used by other tenants, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Macys probably would push for zoning changes around its property to allow for the 800-foot (244-meter) building, which would bring an estimated 6,000 additional people to the area, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The plans are exploratory and may change." Macy's has apparently been talking to NYC officials about the plan as well. Two years ago, Macy's floated the idea of adding a roof deck to the Herald Square store to increase foot traffic. At the time, a Macy's real estate executive said that others in the real estate industry told them constantly, "We love this piece of real estate, how do we get a piece of it?" Lord & Taylor's former New York City landmark building closed last year and is now a WeWork. Fun fact: The shopping bag at the corner of Macy's Herald Square store was (is?) originally a "spite building". Ephemeral New York had explained eight years ago, "Macys had a verbal agreement to buy a plot at the corner of 34th and Broadway. But an agent acting on behalf of rival department store Siegel-Cooper scored the plot instead. Reportedly the agent wanted Macys to give Siegel-Cooper its 14th Street store in exchange for the land at 34th Street. But Macys wouldnt have it. The store was built around the plot." FILE PHOTO: Visitors to the BHP (formerly known as BHP Billiton) booth speak with representatives during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Helgren LONDON (Reuters) - Global miner BHP will hold on to the Australian nickel operations it previously put up for sale, while Rio Tinto is working on copper and lithium projects as the mining industry bets on demand for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The biggest mining companies say they are well positioned to provide the metals needed for the shift to EV technology, although they acknowledge the political risks and environmental issues in some of the countries where the best supplies are found. Nickel is in demand to allow cars to travel further on a single charge. Using more nickel also cuts costs by reducing the use of expensive cobalt, a mainstay of current EV batteries. Western Australia is rich in nickel sulphides which can be chemically processed into sulphate, prompting BHP to retain its Nickel West operations after several attempts to sell the business. "Developments such as climate change and dramatic shifts in technology present both challenges and opportunities," CEO Andrew Mackenzie told the BAML mining conference in Barcelona, that was broadcast over the Internet. He said Nickel West offered the potential for high returns because of the expected growth in battery markets and the relative scarcity of quality nickel sulphide supply. Other minerals needed in a more electrified, lower-carbon economy include copper and lithium. Rio Tinto has a major copper expansion project in Mongolia and has discovered deposits in Australia, where it said initial results were promising. It also has a giant deposit of jadarite, a lithium-containing mineral unique to Serbia. On Tuesday, CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques told the Barcelona conference a study on the Serbian deposits should be completed in around 18 months, after which the company would update the market. "There are 26 steps to be able to extract the lithium," he said, adding pricing was an issue, but Rio was becoming more comfortable with the market. Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg said that significant new sources of battery minerals would be needed, combined with "thrifting," an industry term for battery makers' efforts to limit the use of expensive minerals, such as cobalt. Story continues Glencore has always said it is in pole position for a battery revolution as it commands a major chunk of the world's cobalt supply through its operations in Democratic Republic of Congo. But Glasenberg also flagged a number of obstacles, including higher risks, high capital costs and a lack of new, accessible supplies. Moody's on Monday upgraded Glencore, citing its sustained financial performance, but said its rating had been depressed by exposure to environmental risks and volatile countries, chiefly Congo. (Reporting by Melanie Burton in Melbourne, Muvija M in Bengaluru and Barbara Lewis in London; Editing by Joseph Radford and Kirsten Donovan) FILE PHOTO: Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate at Blackstone Group arrives for a meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., November 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar LONDON (Reuters) - Blackstone, one of the world's biggest private equity investors, said on Tuesday it still liked the United Kingdom as a long term prospect because assets were attractively priced even though Brexit had hurt economic growth. "We still like the UK as a place to invest long term," Blackstone President Jonathan Gray told a Wall Street Journal conference in London. "Long term we have a positive view on the UK." "We do see however that Brexit has slowed growth," he said. "You lower your expectations for what's going to happen economically but then you look again at what's the price that I have to pay for this." "The UK is still going to be a major economy, it'll grow more slowly and I don't have to necessarily pay the same price as before, the currency is cheaper than it was," Gray said. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Andrew MacAskilli) (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. revealed that its new Amazon.com Inc. bet totaled $860.6 million at the end of March. The size of the holding, an investment made by one of Buffetts deputies, gives more clarity to the wager that Buffett disclosed days before his annual shareholder meeting earlier in May. Berkshire also spent the first three months of the year ramping up bets on JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Red Hat Inc., and paring investments in Southwest Airlines Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., according to a regulatory filing Wednesday. The Amazon holding underscores the growing influence of Buffetts investing deputies, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who have been involved in Berkshire bets on airlines and Apple Inc. Buffett has praised the pair, and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charles Munger has credited the two with bringing younger eyes to Berkshires strategy. While Buffett has long admired Jeff Bezos, hes typically steered clear of technology giants, disclosing a stake in Apple just three years ago. Berkshire has deepened its ties with Amazon in recent years. The companies teamed up with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to form a health-care venture, led by Atul Gawande, that will focus on improving services and costs for their employees. Combs, also a member of JPMorgans board, has played a role in the formation of that venture. Buffetts company has waded deeper into the technology space in recent years. The company disclosed a wager on software company Red Hat last year, and boosted that investment by 22% in the first three months of 2019. The investment has proven to be a timely bet, as IBM agreed in October to purchase the company for $33 billion. Other key takeaways from Berkshires 13F filing Wednesday: Buffetts company has deepened some of its bets on banks in recent months. Berkshire boosted its wager on PNC Financial Services Group Inc., and its stake in JPMorgan climbed 19% in the first three months of the year to 59.5 million shares valued at $6.02 billion at the end of the quarter.Berkshire didnt boost all of its bets on financial firms. Its Wells Fargo holding dropped 4% to 409.8 million shares. Buffett has said he prefers to keep some bets below a 10% ownership threshold, which has sometimes been a driving force in cutting certain stakes.Berkshires bets on airlines diverged a bit. It trimmed its stake in Southwest 2.2% to 53.6 million shares, valued at $2.78 billion, while its investment in Delta Air Lines Inc. climbed to 70.9 million shares, a level Berkshire previously disclosed. Buffett said in March that crossing the 10% threshold in Delta was a mistake.Berkshires investment in Phillips 66 was cut by half in the first quarter. Buffett struck a deal in 2018 to sell back some of Berkshires shares in the oil refiner to get it under the 10% threshold. The holding has continued to shrink since then. Some of the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerates largest stakes remained unchanged. Berkshires Apple bet remained the same, at about 249.6 million shares, and it kept its wager on Bank of America Corp. steady, at 896.2 million shares. Story continues (Updates with Red Hat stake in fifth paragraph, other bets in bullet points.) To contact the reporter on this story: Katherine Chiglinsky in New York at kchiglinsky@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub, Alan Mirabella For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. By Nia Williams and Rod Nickel CALGARY, Alberta/WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canadian oil producers are raking in the highest revenues in five years thanks to strong global oil prices and Alberta's production cuts, but government intervention has hamstrung their spending abilities, encouraging many to buy back shares and pay down debt. Canada's main crude-producing province effectively became a mini-OPEC this year after the Alberta government imposed production quotas to relieve pipeline congestion and drain a glut of crude in storage. The move boosted prices dramatically but leaves Canadian producers starved of opportunities to grow output - usually the go-to strategy of any energy firm flush with cash. The oil patch's caution has contributed to a slow pace of deal-making, despite plenty of assets being up for sale. Several companies that announced big deals last year saw their stocks slide. The energy sector's cash flow is projected to be C$52.7 billion ($39.1 billion) this year, the highest in five years, yet spending is declining year-on-year, said ARC Financial analyst Jackie Forrest. That is prompting producers to ramp up share buybacks and debt repayment, as they bide their time pending two key political decisions. New Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has yet to say what happens next with curtailments and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is due to decide by June 18 whether to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline it owns. Canada, the world's fourth-largest crude producer, has seen billions of dollars in foreign investment flee since 2017 because of delays in building new pipelines. Surging crude prices are creating a "Canadian Nirvana" for large-cap Canadian energy companies, said BMO analyst Randy Ollenberger. At the current U.S. benchmark price and Canadian heavy oil discount, the biggest producers would amass C$13 billion ($9.7 billion) in surplus cash this year, he said. Canadian oil producers' coffers are the fullest they have been since 2014, when global oil prices peaked before crashing due to a slowing global economy and booming production. 'NO POINT GROWING' Story continues But producers have few options to spend. "There's no point growing with the Alberta production curtailment in place and the lack of egress opportunities," MEG Energy Chief Executive Derek Evans told Reuters. The heavy oil producer reported C$98 million in free cash flow during the first quarter, and intends to repay debt. Suncor Energy raked in more than C$1 billion in surplus cash flow last quarter and said it could increase stock buybacks if cash flow improves further. "There is no sense spending money to generate additional production and drive further throughput if you can't produce the oil. The economics of that are zero," Suncor CEO Mark Little said on an earnings call. The number of potential buyers for assets up for sale has dwindled, said Laura Lau, senior portfolio manager with Brompton Group, which owns shares in Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources and Cenovus Energy Inc. "Canada is not a friendly place to do business. The cost of capital has gone up and that is referenced in valuations," Lau said. "They are competing against the U.S., and it's the most business-friendly jurisdiction in the world." Canadian Natural, the largest Canadian energy producer, is the only oil sands major adding a new project this year with the ramp-up of its Kirby North oil sands plant. But to do so, the company will have to cut production elsewhere because of Alberta's limits on output, President Tim McKay said. "Investment in Canada is stymied," McKay said. "You have regulatory uncertainty and a system where market access doesn't exist." MEG's Evans said Alberta lifting the curtailments would be a "big check mark" that would encourage companies to boost spending, adding that progress on replacing the U.S. portion of Enbridge's Line 3 is a needed second check mark. Sentiment could change quickly with construction starting on expanding Trans Mountain or another new pipeline, because producers could then time their investments with takeaway expansion, said Grant Fagerheim, chief executive of Whitecap Resources. "You can understand people like me wanting to be more conservative and defensive than aggressive," Fagerheim said. (Reporting by Nia Williams in Calgary, Alberta and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Denny Thomas and Jonathan Oatis) On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it would no longer be accepting philanthropic gifts from members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company responsible for the addictive painkiller Oxycontin. According to a press release from the museum, which has a wing named after the Sacklers, the move was "precipitated in part by recent scrutiny of gifts received from individuals related to the production of opioids and the ensuing public health crisis surrounding the abuse of these medications." The Museum has no plans to rename the Sackler wing, however, Daniel Weiss, President and CEO of the Met, said they will no longer accept their money. "The Sackler family has graciously supported The Met for 50 years and has not proposed any new contributions," he said. "Nonetheless, in consideration of the ongoing litigation, the prudent course of action at this time is to suspend acceptance of gifts from individuals associated with this public health crisis." The NY Times reports that the American Museum of Natural History also ceased to accept Sackler donations as of Wednesday. In recent months, coalitions of activistsincluding P.A.I.N. Sackler, a group led by the artist Nan Goldinhave been protesting cultural institutions, such as the Guggenheim, with the likes of "die-ins" for accepting sizable donations from the Sackler family. Museums that have benefited from Sackler donations for years have, in response to the pressure, been publicly distancing themselves from the family (and by association, their ties to OxyContin) and ceasing to accept their financial gifts. Back in March, the Guggenheim and London's Tate Modern also announced that they would no longer be accepting the Sackler family's gifts. The decision for the Met to cease accepting Sackler gifts came on the heels of a Board of Trustees vote, which also saw the museum refining its gift acceptance policies. Moving forward, the Met will be "formalizing its review process for all new naming and other significant gifts to the Museum." Private philanthropy currently constitutes a huge portion of the Met's operating budgetdevelopment events, endowment, and membership makes up a whopping 72% of it, according to the museum. The Sacklers' Purdue Pharma has faced widespread criticism following reporting that exposed how the company's marketing of the highly addictive painkiller contributed to a public health crisis. This week, Pennsylvania's Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the state's lawsuit against the company, citing their many sales calls to doctors and the fact that it was pitched as a "non-addictive" medication. "While the allegations against our family are false and unfair, we understand that accepting gifts at this time would put the Met in a difficult position," the families of Drs. Mortimer and Raymond Sackler said in a statement provided to Gothamist. "We respect the Met and that is the last thing we would want to do. Our goal has always been to support the valuable work of such outstanding organizations, and we remain committed to doing so. Attorney Bob Cornish, an industry expert in the digital asset space and member of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, has been retained by Monarch Blockchain Corporation as its Counsel for legal and corporate matters. RENO, USA / ACCESSWIRE / May 14, 2019 / Monarch Blockchain Corporation welcomes crypto advocate attorney Bob Cornish as its outside counsel. Bob, who is Of Counsel at national Law firm Wilson Elser, has 25 years of experience in the financial services and broker-dealer space. He brings a wealth of knowledge of digital assets and laws surrounding them. He worked with the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition to add 13 laws to make Wyoming a welcoming state for crypto and blockchain technology and has been an ambassador to those blockchain companies seeking to establish a presence in the United States. Monarch Blockchain Corporation has announced that Bob Cornish will be taking over as its lead outside counsel. Mr. Cornish is a good fit for Monarch because they both are helping blockchain technologies become more accessible and useful in the space. Robert is a leading attorney in the digital assets space. Wyoming wanted to become a place to encourage growth in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. These laws were designed to benefit businesses and individuals. Some of the legislation was designed to help the challenge of banking with cryptocurrency. Wyoming created a state-chartered depository to provide basic banking to blockchain and other businesses that are required to have 100% reserves. These banks are for business depositors only and will have optional FDIC insurance. Wyoming hopes these laws will not only bring in US-based businesses but global businesses as well. With all of Mr. Cornish's experience in the digital assets space, he has been asked to speak at events in the blockchain and crypto industries. He was a panelist at Blockchain Unbound in Puerto Rico, Money Conference 2018 in Dublin and other events in the US, Asia and Europe. Story continues Robert also has a significant amount of experience in litigation, arbitration, regulatory and compliance matters for broker-dealers, investment advisors, institutional investors, commodity firms, accountants, hedge funds and family offices. He is a member of the EB5 Securities Roundtable, which is an informal, independent group of EB-5 Securities Attorneys that got together to facilitate best practices. He has been recognized as one of the top 15 Corporate and Securities Attorneys in the EB-5 space by his peers in EB5 Investors Magazine 2016 and 2017, as well as a thought leader. Bob has also served as chief legal ad compliance officer for prominent investment firms. Being a Chairperson-trained arbitrator for FINRA, NFA and the London Court of International Arbitration and a Rule 31 Mediator for the Tennessee Supreme Court will also benefit Monarch Blockchain Corporation it is focused on compliance and in the midst of its Token Generation Event concluding on June 30, 2019. More information can be found on the Monarch Website. With thanks to Wilson Elser, Monarch Blockchain Corporation is grateful to have Bob Cornish on board and is excited to have him assist with the expansion and improvement of its products and services while ensuring regulatory compliance. Robert Beadles, President of Monarch Blockchain Corporation, "Navigating the regulatory waters in crypto can be challenging. Adding the preeminent attorney in SEC Compliance and blockchain as Monarch's lead legal counsel shows we take our responsibility seriously. We are here to deliver amazing tech and value while doing everything in our power to be compliant. We're honored to welcome Robert to the family!" Monarch Blockchain Corporation currently has one of the best Universal Decentralized Wallets to offer the market. Currently, The Monarch Wallet supports over 1900 cryptocurrencies and can be downloaded for free from the Monarch website, the Google Play or iOS app stores. The Monarch mobile wallet has attractive features such as having a fiat gateway that allows qualified customers to utilize their bank or credit cards to purchase Bitcoin and/or Ethereum, to earning up to 7.1% APR with various cryptocurrencies. All users can also use the ERC20 Token to ERC20 Token Decentralized Exchange (DEX) directly from within the Monarch Decentralized Cryptocurrency Wallet. Top it all off with the app being updated on a regular basis, a portfolio tracker, updated news, market data, all while users own their keys and seed. The Monarch Wallet truly is the one app to rule them all. To stay up-to-date with all things Monarch, be sure to join their Telegram Community Channel of over 28,000 members here: https://t.me/MonarchToken Contact Info: Name: William Lince Organization: Monarch Blockchain Corporation Address: 401 Ryland St. STE 200-A, Reno, Nevada 89502, United States Website: https://monarchtoken.io/ SOURCE: Monarch Blockchain Corporation View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545466/Crypto-Attorney-Bob-Cornish-Retained-by-Monarch-Blockchain-Corp-as-its-Counsel View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545466/Crypto-Attorney-Bob-Cornish-Retained-by-Monarch-Blockchain-Corp-as-its-Counsel The media empire responsible for Northside Festival and Brooklyn Magazine appears to have crumbled, less than a year after it was revealed that Northside Media Group CEO Daniel Stedman was allegedly withholding tens of thousands of dollars in wages to dozens of former employees. According to the Parks Department, Northside Festivalthe CMJ/SXSW-inspired showcase of music, film and "innovation" that's taken over Williamsburg and Greenpoint each June for the past decadedid not apply for permits this year. Ditto for SummerScreen at McCarren Park, which Stedman launched in 2005 and claimed as the "longest-running outdoor film and music series" in the borough. The glossy quarterly publication Brooklyn Magazine, which laid off most of its staff last year but continued to publish online content by Stedman and a few others until early February, seems to have gone dark as well. Multiple inquiries to Stedman were not returned, and records show that he removed his name from the company's public LLC listing last month. A phone number for Northside Media Group has been disconnected. There is no online band submission form for Northside Festival, though the website promises more information on 2019's fest is "coming soon." Meanwhile, Stedman, the boss and self-described "cultural engineer" of the multi-platform business, has continued to withhold payment to some employees and former freelancers. In at least two cases this year, stiffed workers have won judgments in small claims court. They say that Stedman was a no-show at those hearings and that he has so far refused to accept certified mail sent to his home and office compelling him to pay up. (His listed address remains a $1.7 million brownstone in Prospect Heights). "Danny has taken ghosting to a whole new level and has proven he's a con artist. It's not shocking that the company has quietly disappeared," said Kat Lam, a visual artist who's owed $1,200 for a Northside Festival mural she painted last year. "I was under the impression that Northside (and Danny for that matter) was on a mission to support Brooklyn and its artists. Instead, he and his company have crafted a habit of scamming us." Northside Festival 2016 (Scott Lynch / Gothamist) Emails provided to Gothamist last summer show that Stedman assured former employees that they would eventually get paid, promising to "get us through this, if I don't die of exhaustion." Reached for comment at the time, he insisted that things were more complicated than they seemed. "My candor is a strength and a weakness, and I'm starting to lose faith in the degree of honesty that I have treated everybody with," he said. "It is clearly doing me a disservice." Those who worked closely with Stedman describe him as a headstrong and charismatic manager unprepared to run a far-flung events and a publishing operation. His introduction to the business came after his brother Scott enlisted his help in running the now-defunct L Magazine. (Scott Stedman eventually left the company, and was recently hired as Chief Strategy Officer of the Yes and Company; he did not respond to a request for comment.) Sarah Zorn, who worked for Stedman as Brooklyn Magazine's food editor for six years, told Gothamist last summer that she was forced to go on Medicaid as a result of the $9,000 in wages she was still owed. She won a civil suit for the full sum plus interest in February, but says that the ruling "doesn't remotely guarantee I'll have any success in collecting it." "I have no doubt I'll be spending as many years chasing down income rightly owed to me, as I did faithfully working for him," Zorn told Gothamist on Tuesday. "At the very least, I hope this is a lesson to all potential future partners, sponsors, vendors and employees. This man is a scam artist. RUN." FILE PHOTO: The logo of EDF (Electricite de France) is seen on the French state-controlled utility EDF's headquarters in Paris, France, February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau PARIS (Reuters) - French state-owned utility EDF's first-quarter sales rose 2.5 percent to 20.97 billion euros (18.19 billion pounds), as higher power prices offset the impact of lower French nuclear and hydropower output. Favourable market conditions in French power generation, the growth of energy services activities and a strong performance by EDF Trading all boosted sales, but UK revenue fell 2.9 percent to 2.5 billion euros due to extended nuclear reactor outages. The company confirmed its guidance for 2019 core earnings. It published a new 2019 target for core earnings of 16.0 to 16.7 billion euros, updated for the IFRS 16 accounting standard. An EDF spokesman said this was exactly the same as the forecast for 15.3 billion to 16 billion euros published in February. It also updated its cash flow outlook for the IFRS 16 standard to at least 600 million euros, excluding investments in the UK Hinkley Point project and its French Linky smart meters. In Februrary, the forecast was for positive cash flow. The company also confirmed that in 2019-20 it plans total net investments of about 15 billion euros per year and asset disposals of two to three billion euros. French nuclear output fell by 1.1 terawatt hours to 111.8 TWh as production was reduced because of warmer weather, and due to a higher volume of reactor outages. The full-year forecast for French nuclear output remains at 395 TWh. Hydropower output dropped 32.2 % to 9.9 TWh due to less favourable hydrological conditions. EDF said that the scrapping of a planned tariff increase that had been scheduled for Feb 1 had resulted in a negative impact of around 54 million euros. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta) Last month, New York police got a 911 call from a Bronx building superintendent who was upset at a tenant for banging on his neighbors doors. Two officers headed to the apartment and knocked on the door. Inside, they found 32-year-old Kawaski Trawick in his underwear, clutching a stick and a kitchen knife. They ordered him to drop his weapons multiple times, according to the police account. When he did not obey, an officer fired his Taser. The electric discharge knocked Trawick to the ground. But as the cops moved in, police say he jumped to his feet and charged at them. An officer then shot him four times with a lethal weapon: his gun. Trawick was declared dead at Bronx Lebanon Hospital less than an hour later. Axon, the company that makes Tasers, otherwise known as stun-guns, markets them as the most effective non-lethal weapon for police to subdue someone without endangering themselves or killing the suspect. But incidents like Trawicks fatal encounter with police appear to be a growing problem, according to a new investigation by APM reports. Police data from across the country show that Tasers are not as effective as the company claims. And numbers from Los Angeles, Houston and New York shows that newer modelsintroduced after a series of wrongful-death lawsuits involving the old higher-powered models are failing more often. The NYPD began deploying the newer Taser, known as the X-26P, in 2017. At the time, the department said it would increase officers ability to rapidly incapacitate a target while boosting safety levels. But NYPD data released to APM Reports in partnership with Gothamist/WNYC show decreasing effectiveness with the new weapons. Following discharges from its older model, the subjects continued to resist, to escalate, or to attack officers 25 percent of the time. With the newer Taser, subjects fought back in these ways 36 percent of the time. The NYPD also categorized just 71.9 percent of X-26P uses as effective, down from 78 percent with the older model. It is unclear why newer Tasers are producing lower performance numbers. But some experts have argued the decreases may stem from the fact that newer Taser models, like the X-26P, feature far lower maximum charges than previous models. Listen to George Josephs report on WNYC: Ineffective Tasers pose safety concerns for both officers and the public, says Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Even at a 70 percent or 71 percent usage, you want these things to work 100 percent of the time because if not, then that 30 percent of the time, that situation is going to escalate and it gets ugly, he said. In an interview, NYPD officials did not dispute the numbers, but argued the public should not read too much into them. Detective Louis DeRespiris of the NYPDs Firearms and Tactics Section said the data was based on officers subjective interpretations when filling out forms. My interpretation of one thing may differ from yours, or a different individual, he said. So its my individual interpretation of the performance in that specific situation. NYPD Inspector Richard DiBlasio, who commands the unit, also noted that different suspects also react differently when they are hit with a Taser. A lot of other things come into play: the apprehension of the individual, the tactics that were used, were they able to subdue them and take them into custody in a safe manner, he said. DiBlasio said the devices are effective at keeping both officers and the community safe, pointing out that officers now have a better alternative to guns. In a statement to Gothamist/WNYC, Axon, the taser manufacturer, said its own testing showed that innovations in its newer tasers, like the X26-P actually provide "increased effectiveness." Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, argues both high and low powered Tasers pose a danger to civilians. He believes the city should focus instead on diverting more of these cases, such as those involving the mentally ill, to non-police responders. In dealing with someone who might be potentially volatile, or even violent, the police normally use a kind of command and control presence, he said. Dealing with someone having a mental health crisis might require a total opposite kind of response. Mildred Galarza, Ariel Galarza's sister (George Joseph / WNYC) Take the 2016 death of Ariel Galarza, a developmentally disabled Bronx resident. Galarzas neighbor called police after she heard him shouting at an imaginary man. When officers arrived, he was sitting at his table, motioning at a man who wasnt there. Police commanded him to get on the floor. Instead, they said, he stood up, raised the bottle of hot sauce in the air and began advancing towards them. An NYPD sergeant fired his Taser, knocking him to the floor. But before police could cuff him, he began screaming and tried to get up. The sergeant shocked him again, but he continued to struggle and shout incoherently. Finally, the officer put the weapon directly on his shoulder and pulled the trigger. Galarza rolled onto his stomach and officers handcuffed him. Moments later, police noticed his skin turning blue. By the time EMTs arrived, he was in cardiac arrest. Galarza was pronounced dead less than two hours later at the hospital. Galarzas sister Mildred wishes her brother could have received a therapeutic approach in response to the 911 call about him. I just feel that a police officer should have sat on the table. My brother was sitting on the table. Should have pushed back the chair, and asked, Whats going on? Do you need some type of help? Do you want me to call paramedics? You know? Thats what I feel should have been done. In New York, where 911 calls for emotionally disturbed persons have risen consistently over the last decade, Taser data shows that 58 percent of non-accidental, non-animal discharges involved so-called EDPs. Galarza, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NYPD, says she hopes the department will abandon Tasers and begin dispatching alternative responders. Paramedics, she said, would have intervened with her brother in a different way. Theyll just go and theyll ask Mr. Ariel Galarza how hes feeling, she said. You know, theyre trained for this. The police officers are not trained for this. Dave Sheingold contributed data reporting to this piece. George Joseph can be emailed securely with a protonmail email account at gmjoseph@protonmail.com. You can also text him, via the encrypted phone app Signal or otherwise, at 929-486-4865. FILE PHOTO: A number of grounded Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircrafts are shown parked at Victorville Airport in Victorville, California FILE PHOTO: A number of grounded Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircrafts are shown parked at Victorville Airport in Victorville, California, U.S., March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo By Chris Kahn and Tracy Rucinski NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. fliers still consider ticket prices the most important factor when choosing a flight, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, suggesting two fatal crashes of Boeing Co 737 MAX jets have had little impact on consumer sentiment. In the public opinion poll released May 15, only about half of U.S. adults say they are familiar with the airplane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people, and only 43% could identify the Boeing 737 MAX as the aircraft involved. Most importantly for Boeing in the wake of the crashes, only 3% said that aircraft maker or model number was most important to them when buying a plane ticket. In contrast, 57% said ticket price was most important. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 percentage points. For a graphic, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2DTmkpW To see the full results of the poll, which was conducted online in English throughout the United States and gathered responses from 2,008 adults, click here: https://tmsnrt.rs/2VNbtI7 A Boeing spokesman declined to comment on the Reuters/Ipsos poll, but said the company is "committed to returning the MAX safely to the skies so that pilots, crew, regulators and the traveling public have total confidence in this airplane." During a call with investors last month, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said he knows "we have some work to do to earn and re-earn the trust of our customers and the flying public in particular. If global regulators clear the jets for flight, the Reuters/Ipsos poll data suggest that carriers likely will not have trouble booking seats on the aircraft. Boeing's fast-selling 737 MAX airliner was grounded worldwide in March after an Ethiopian Airlines crash, just five months after a similar disaster on a Lion Air flight. Boeing's stock has fallen about 18% since the March 10 crash, and airlines have warned that the groundings are hitting revenues, and costs, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. President Donald Trump urged Boeing to "rebrand" the 737 MAX with a new name in a April 15 tweet, saying "No product has suffered like this one." That sentiment was echoed in a recent Barclays Investment Bank report that concluded that "a large portion of fliers are likely to avoid 737 MAX for an extended period beyond when the grounding is lifted." Story continues Barclays said it based its findings on a survey of fliers in North American and Europe, though it would not disclose to Reuters the survey methodology or questionnaire. It is unclear how Barclays selected its respondents and how much they were informed of the Boeing crashes before being asked their opinion. Boeing declined to comment on the Barclays survey. The Chicago-based manufacturer is the target of investigations and lawsuits, and is in regular discussions with U.S. airlines on how to regain public trust. Half of all U.S. adults say that airlines prioritize profits over passenger safety, nearly identical to the result in the April 2018 poll. But based on the Reuters/Ipsos poll, even if people were aware of the 737 MAX crashes, that knowledge is not likely to influence their travel decisions. People say they mostly consider ticket price when planning upcoming plane trips, followed by travel time, the number of stops and the carrier. That does not mean all fliers ignore models, according to Steve Hafner, CEO of travel booking website KAYAK. He said the website has seen significant usage of a plane model filter it introduced after the Ethiopian crash, showing demand from some travelers. "As the news cycle on this simmers down and it becomes less top of mind for travelers, we've seen filter usage go flat. But that's not to say it won't pick back up once the planes start flying again," Hafner said. SOUTHWEST STILL ON TOP In another indication of the limited impact of the 737 MAX crashes on consumer sentiment, the airline with the deepest connection to the Boeing narrowbody, Southwest Airlines Co, remained the most popular carrier in the poll. Southwest, the world's largest 737 MAX operator with 34 jets and at least 249 more on order, is cancelling 160 daily flights during the peak summer travel season as a result of the MAX grounding, more than rival U.S. carriers. Still, 21% of respondents picked the low-cost airline as their preferred carrier, up from 19% in a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll that ran in June 2017. "We don't book the plane, we book the place," said Allen Forrey, a 63-year-old truck driver who did not participate in the poll, after landing at Chicago's Midway airport from Phoenix, Arizona on Southwest. Other frequent Southwest customers at Midway told Reuters they choose the airline because of its two free bag policy, versus fees charged by competitors, and friendly service. Southwest said the comments were consistent with feedback it receives and noted that "well less than 1% of customers check their aircraft type traditionally, but we do expect more customers to become aware given the current climate." To ease any concerns, Southwest said it is providing MAX updates on its website and communicating with passengers on a regular basis. After Southwest, 14% chose Delta Air Lines, 11% American Airlines Group Inc and 8% United Airlines. Thirty-five percent said they did not have a preferred airline, while the rest selected among JetBlue Airways Corp, Alaska Airlines, Virgin America or ultra low-cost carriers Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines Inc. As for the MAX, even if passengers rank prices as the top factor when buying plane tickets, U.S. pilot and flight attendant groups are demanding guarantees from Boeing that the aircraft is 100% safe before they support its return to service. "The last thing we want is our flight attendants to be afraid to fly that plane," said Lori Bassani, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. (Reporting by Chris Kahn in New York and Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; editing by Chris Sanders and Edward Tobin) FuelCell Energy, Inc.s FCEL announced that it has closed the acquisition of Bridgeport fuel cell park in Connecticut from Dominion Energy D. Dominions subsidiary Dominion Generation, Inc is the original owner of the 14.9 megawatts (MW) project that has been operated and maintained by FuelCell Energy under a service agreement. FuelCell Energy provided cash consideration of $35.4 million, which was funded by Liberty Bank, Fifth Third Bank and the Connecticut Green Bank. Per the agreement, the company has acquired 100% of the equity interest of the plant and will own as well as operate it as part of its generation portfolio. The acquisition expands the companys generation portfolio to 26.1MW and adds annual revenues in excess of $15 million per year. Other Fuel Cell Park FuelCell Energy is a global leader in delivering clean, efficient and affordable fuel cell solutions. The company provides comprehensive turn-key solutions for customers that include design and installation of a project to the long-term operation and maintenance of the fuel cell system. Apart from the facility in Connecticut, the company operates the worlds largest fuel cell park Gyeonggi Green Energy Fuel cell park in South Korea. The park comprises 21 SureSource 3000 power plants providing 59 Megawatt of electricity along with district heating to a number of customers. It also operates the largest fuel cell park in North America comprising five 2.8MW power plants. Rising Usage of Fuel Cell Technology Fuel cell generates clean electricity with high-power density, extended range and market-leading uptime based on rapid refueling. The demand for fuel cell technology is gaining popularity on the back of reliability and cheaper-than-conventional power sources. Per GRAND VIEW REASERCH, the global fuel cell market size was valued at USD 3.21 billion in 2016 and is projected to witness a CAGR of 20.9% over 2018-2025. Story continues Naturally, rising popularity of fuel cell technology has encouraged producers like Plug Power PLUG and Ballard Power Systems BLDP to make acquisitions and sign contracts to benefit from growth prospects in the space. Price Movement Shares of FuelCell Energy have plunged 93.1% in the past year compared with the industrys decline of 16.4%. Zacks Rank FuelCell Energy currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Today's Best Stocks from Zacks Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1% and +98.3%. This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year. See their latest picks free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Dominion Energy Inc. (D) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ballard Power Systems, Inc. (BLDP) : Free Stock Analysis Report Plug Power, Inc. (PLUG) : Free Stock Analysis Report FuelCell Energy, Inc. (FCEL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research By Emma Rumney JOHANNESBURG, May 15 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs is seeking a South African banking licence as part of plans to offer fixed income products in the country, sources and the Wall Street investment bank said, beefing up its African operations as global rivals scale back. The bank, which is in the midst of a sweeping overhaul and drive to win more clients to counter falling revenue, said on Wednesday the expansion would see it offer products including foreign exchange and government bonds. "The long-term economic potential of South Africa is unquestionable," Colin Coleman, Goldman CEO of sub-Saharan Africa, said in a statement. Other investment banks, including Credit Suisse and Barclays, have slimmed down or exited their African operations altogether. Credit Suisse closed its South African business last year during the country's first recession since 2009. Years of alleged corruption and mismanagement have knocked confidence in the continent's most industrialised economy, which is still struggling for growth. Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters Goldman was seeking a South African banking licence as part of the move. The bank said its plans were still subject to certain regulatory approvals. 'TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY' While some international investment banks have shrunk their presence in Africa, local South African lenders are ramping up their corporate and investment banking offerings elsewhere on the continent. So has France's Societe Generale. Richard Gnodde, CEO of the bank's international operations, said Africa was a substantial and growing part of its business, where it saw "tremendous opportunity" to better serve clients. Goldman is grappling with a slump in revenue and has been trying to expand its client base by selling more of its core banking products. It said its expansion plans include an equity trading cooperation agreement with Investec, which would see both banks extend their equity trading capabilities in South Africa and deepen links with African and international institutional clients looking to invest in the region. Story continues The agreement would be launched in the coming weeks and will look to expand into additional African markets, it said. Goldman also reportedly recently applied for a banking licence in Japan to offer corporate cash management services. It has also moved into consumer banking, opening an online-only retail bank called Marcus, and invested in financial technology firms such as UK-based online wealth manager Nutmeg and South Africa's Jumo, which helps individuals and small businesses access credit and savings products via mobile devices. (Reporting by Emma Rumney; editing by Jason Neely) In the wake of escalating trade conflict between the worlds two largest economies, GoPro, Inc. GPRO has reaffirmed its decision to shift the production of most of its U.S.-bound cameras from China to Mexico. However, cameras bound for other countries will continue to be produced in China. Management believes that it would be judicious to move manufacturing out of China to cope with potential tariffs and realize some cost savings and efficiencies. Such a diversified approach will help the company to expand its business irrespective of tariff implications. Although GoPros manufacturing partner provides facilities, the company owns its production equipment and therefore expects to make this move at a relatively low cost. Reportedly, in June, GoPro will begin production of its U.S.-bound cameras in Guadalajara, Mexico, to support sales beginning in the third quarter. It expects most of U.S.-bound cameras to be produced in Mexico in the second half of 2019. With intensifying competition, GoPro is trying to drive demand for its cameras. Also, it aims to maintain its competitively priced product line up to increase market share globally. Further, the action video camera maker intends to translate the healthy momentum in its business along with controlled cost into growth and profitability in 2019 while limiting operating expenses below $400 million. The company is optimistic about its prospects, mainly on account of strong demand for its products in end markets. It plans to boost its Plus subscription service through enhanced benefits and user awareness. It also aims to work more closely with its retail partners, both in North America and abroad. GoPro is also making investments in merchandising and retail advertising to drive a bigger brand presence while continuing to innovate. It intends to expand footprint in emerging markets like India and remains focused on scaling its CRM efforts to augment customer base. Driven by diligent execution of operational objectives, the stock has recorded an average return of 15.5% against the industrys decline of 3.9% over the past year. Story continues Currently, GoPro has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A few better-ranked stocks in the broader industry are Dolby Laboratories, Inc. DLB, Weight Watchers International, Inc. WW and MasterCraft Boat Holdings, Inc. MCFT, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Dolby has long-term earnings growth expectation of 13%. Weight Watchers has long-term earnings growth expectation of 12.5%. MasterCraft has long-term earnings growth expectation of 15%. Today's Best Stocks from Zacks Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1% and +98.3%. This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year. See their latest picks free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Dolby Laboratories (DLB) : Free Stock Analysis Report MASTERCRAFT BOAT HOLDINGS, INC. (MCFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report GoPro, Inc. (GPRO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Weight Watchers International Inc (WW) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The NY Post published a big "exclusive" on Tuesday, claiming that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and longtime partner Sandra Lee were no loner living together amidst "rumors that the couple have split up." Their sources claim Lee has been living either at her Battery Park City apartment in Manhattan or in California, while Cuomo has been full-time at the Executive Mansion in Albany. The couple have been together for 14 years, and Lee is reportedly close to his three daughters from his first marriage to Kerry Kennedy, but they are apparently selling their Mount Kisco homelocated on Bittersweet Lanewhich then fueled the rumors. While Lee did confirm they were selling the Westchester home, she vehemently denied the break-up rumors in a long Facebook post featuring a photograph of the family, sans cockatoos: Cuomo also denied the report through a rep, saying, "Nothing has changed I live in Mt. Kisco and Albany, and my cars are in the garage there." But riddle me this: does this sound like a guy who is going through a breakup? Cuomo speaking and getting a bit...weird. Paraphrasing but: I cant refer to a terminal as sexy. That opens other questions. Is the terminal male or female? Whats its orientation? How do you touch the terminal? pic.twitter.com/Hlj5159mPs David Slotnick (@David_Slotnick) May 15, 2019 Here are Andrew Cuomo's jokes today on "sexy" airport terminals, as well as the (generally positive) crowd reaction. (Context: Hotel developer Tyler Morse had previously called JFK the "sexiest airport" and cracked some sort of joke about drug dealers.) pic.twitter.com/9PfunmBgK5 Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) May 15, 2019 Couldn't this just be a normal guy embracing his inner objectophilia? Will be interesting to see if the governors office puts out a transcript of his TWA hotel remarks. All real quotes: pic.twitter.com/ekGvYDHjl9 Nick Niedzwiadek (@NickNiedz) May 15, 2019 There's no denying infrastructure is sexy as hell, but there may be better ways of processing inner strife, like bro-ing down with Billy Joel, or really focusing on your car collection: Billionaire businessman and former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz has delayed his decision on whether to run for president as an independent as he assesses the possibility of former Vice President Joe Biden capturing the Democratic nomination, FOX Business has learned. If Biden, a moderate liberal who is friendly to business, emerged as the likely Democratic nominee, this would be a significant impediment to Schultz running for president since his campaign would focus on similar issues to Bidens, according to two people with direct knowledge of Schultzs thinking. And if Biden does survive a Democratic primary without betraying his record as a moderate, its unlikely Schultz would mount his independent campaign, they add. According to recent polls, Biden is the front runner, and has opened leads in key early primary states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. As a result, Schultz has also pushed back the timetable of his decision, which was initially expected sometime in the summer, these people add. People close to the billionaire say his decision may now take months, and he might even wait until early 2020 to decide whether to run as he observes the Democratic primary fight, and how Biden competes against his more leftist rivals. His decision will be based on how the Democratic field shakes out and seeing how Biden fares, said one of the people familiar with Schultzs decision making. If Joe Biden remains strong, and remains a moderate, there clearly is a much narrower path. At least for the near term, Schultz has decided to stop doing televised town halls and traveling to early primary states. His Twitter feed, which remained active for months, has become relatively dormant starting in mid-April. His last active tweet references a visit to Arizona. On May 6th, Schultz reacted to a Game of Thrones reference from a follower who compared him to the oracle-like Three-Eyed Raven. Erin McPike, a spokeswoman for Schultz, confirmed FOX Business reporting on the matter. If Joe Biden were to emerge as the nominee and not a bloodied nominee, still more of a moderate Democrat, I think Howard would probably think twice about (running) she told Neil Cavuto during a FOX Business appearance Wednesday. Story continues McPike said We have to see how this race plays out over the summer, adding right now the odds are that Schultz will run as an independent. People close to Schultz say the former CEO who has never run for office in the past recently has been keeping a low profile in part because of back surgery. He is also paying close attention to the burgeoning field of Democratic candidates entering the race, and whether far left candidates like Socialist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders or Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren could win the nomination, which will all but certain lead him to join the race as an independent. One additional factor: Schultz may be weighing the cut-throat nature of a campaign. As FOX Business reported in February, Schultz was freaked out by the early Democratic backlash he received while promoting a potential presidential run. Schultz, a long-time Democrat, is worth an estimated $3.7 billion, according to Forbes. During his years at Starbucks, he earned the reputation for being one of Corporate Americas most progressive CEOs providing free college tuition assistance and health care benefits to nearly all employees. His politics have shifted more recently as he has openly considered a 2020 presidential run as an independenta move that has angered Democratic Party officials because they believe it would help re-elect President Trump. Schultz is certainly no fan of Trump, who he has said is unfit for office. But its his criticism of the Democratic Party that has generated the most controversy, particularly the socialist policies of Sanders and Warren that he believes are unaffordable. These policies include Medicare for all, universal taxpayer-financed college tuition and the Green New Deal. The Democratic Party has shifted significantly to the left, he said during an interview with FOX Business Trish Regan. The Democratic Party left me, I didnt leave them. All of which is why he is paying close attention to Biden, who is seen as sharing similar moderate views. Biden, a long-time politician as the senator from Delaware, and vice president for Barack Obama, has high name recognition among voters, a reason attributed to his early lead according to polls. But Schultz advisers believe this early lead could wither over time, as party activists particularly begin to attack his record as a business-friendly liberal willing to compromise with Republicans to pass legislation (his home state of Delaware is the home of some major banks and big companies; the Chancery Court, which adjudicates corporate disputes, is located there as well). CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APP Some Democratic political advisers arent so certain Biden will wilt or give up his more moderate agenda. They say mainstream Democratic voters, mainly African Americans, Latinos and Blue-Collar Whites, are more moderate than the progressives who often dominate the cable news circuit and social media pushing vast expansion of government and much higher taxes. And if Biden stays the moderate course he has recently sparred with far-left superstar New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, over climate-change policy, he will be tough to beat for the nomination and emerge as the candidate best suited to challenge President Trump in 2020, they say. It also means there is little room for an independent like Schultz in the race, his own advisers concede. Biden is the kindler gentler Democrat who fits the rest of the country, and Schultz knows that, said Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf . This is a big if, but if he can beat back the Sanders wing, and wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, he will win the nomination. Related Articles Intrinsyc achieved Revenue of US$6.1 million (CDN$8.2 million) with EBITDA of US$155,559 (CDN$206,817) VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intrinsyc Technologies Corporation (TSX: ITC and OTCQX: ISYRF) (Intrinsyc or the Company), a leading provider of edge computing solutions for the development of intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) products, today announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019. Intrinsyc achieved Revenue of US$6.1 million (CDN$8.2 million) with EBITDA of US$155,559 (CDN$206,817). We had delays, both in the expected launch of 2 new development platforms and production client orders due primarily to component shortages and client financing that negatively impacted Q1 revenue, stated Tracy Rees, Chief Executive Officer, Intrinsyc Technologies Corporation. We believe that these issues will be resolved during the second quarter through the introduction of the new development platforms which are expected to add over $2 million in revenue over the next 12 months and the production launch of 5 new client products that will use the Companys edge computing modules. These developments should lead to revenue growth in the second half of 2019. Intrinsyc is helping to take Internet of Things products to the next level - building artificial intelligence and advanced analytics directly into the devices and systems where insights are needed in real-time, added Rees. Known as Edge Computing, this trend is creating opportunities for businesses seeking to deliver enhanced levels of service across a wide range of industries; autonomous vehicles, intelligent cameras, smart home hubs, smart cities, robotics, and industry 4.0 applications, to name a few. Intrinsycs portfolio of computing modules with their high-performance multi-core processors and built-in artificial intelligence capabilities are ideal platforms for creating the next-generation of intelligent Internet of Things products. Story continues Quarterly Business Highlights In early January 2019, the Company announced orders from multiple clients that are in aggregate valued at $748,000. Orders were received from a combination of existing and new clients. The largest order was a product development services project for an outdoor surveillance camera valued at $375,000. In addition to the camera project, clients are utilizing Intrinsycs advanced-performance, Open-Q computing modules and expert product development services to build a variety of innovative Industrial and Consumer IoT devices. Announced the addition of the following platforms to our Edge Computing portfolio: Open-Q 835 SOM (micro System on Module) and Development Kit. Open-Q 660 SOM (micro System on Module) and Development Kit. The Company increased design wins of companies developing their products or shipping commercial devices using our computing modules, from 59 to 62. Clients in production remained constant at 24, as there were 3 new production clients, offset by 3 clients with discontinued products. Financial Highlights Three Month Comparative Results The Company reported first quarter revenue of US$6.1 million (CDN$8.2 million), down 14% over the prior period of US$7.1 million (CDN$9.4 million) and up 1% over the same period in the prior year of US$6.1 million (CDN$7.7 million). The decrease in revenue over the prior period was due primarily to decreased revenue from the sale of hardware products and services. Gross margin1 in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 was 32%, which was lower than the 35% gross margin in the prior quarter and 33% gross margin in the same period in the prior year. The decrease in gross margin over the prior quarter was due to a decrease in service revenue which has a higher gross margin. EBITDA was as follows: Three months ended March 31, 2019 Three months ended December 31, 2018 (Restated)2 Three months ended March 31, 2018 (Restated) Operating income (loss) US$ ($32,178) CDN$ ($42,780) US$ $485,712 CDN$ $641,332 US$ $153,003 CDN$ $193,503 Add back: Other operating expenses 187,737 249,597 179,699 237,275 196,791 248,882 EBITDA $155,559 $206,817 $665,411 $878,607 $349,794 $442,385 The Company had net loss of US$171,855 (CDN$225,414), and loss per share of US$0.01 (CDN$0.01) compared to net loss of US$675,274 (CDN$898,139) or US$0.03 (CDN$0.04) loss per share in the prior quarter and net income of US$159,566 (CDN$198,467) or US$0,01 (CDN$0.01) earnings per share in the same period in the prior year. Financial Position as at March 31, 2019 Working capital3 as of March 31, 2019 was US$10.1 million (CDN$13.0 million) inclusive of cash and short-term investments of US$4.2 million (CDN$5.4 million). This is compared to net working capital of US$10.3 million (CDN$14.1 million) as at December 31, 2018 inclusive of cash and short-term investments of US$6.0 million (CDN$8.1 million). Financial Statements and Management Discussion & Analysis Please see the audited consolidated financial statements and related Management's Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) for more details. The audited consolidated financial statements for the three ended March 31, 2019 and related MD&A have been reviewed and approved by Intrinsyc's Audit Committee and Board of Directors. Intrinsyc recognizes that the majority of its investors are now accessing Intrinsyc's corporate and financial information either through pushed news services, directly from www.intrinsyc.com or SEDAR. Thus, Intrinsyc has prepared this truncated news release to alert investors to its results and that a more detailed explanation and analysis is readily available in the MD&A. These reports have been filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and also posted at www.intrinsyc.com . Conference call The Company will hold a conference call to discuss its fiscal first quarter 2019 financial results at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time (6:00 a.m. Pacific Time) today. On the call, Tracy Rees, Chief Executive Officer and George Reznik, Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the financial results announced. This conference call may be accessed, toll-free, by dialing 1-800-319-4610, and internationally by dialing 1-604-638-5340 approximately 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. This conference line is operator assisted and an access PIN is not required. The conference call will also be broadcast live over the Internet and available for replay on the Companys Investor Relations Conference Calls web page ( http://www.intrinsyc.com/company/investors/ ). Analysts and investors are invited to participate on the call. Questions may be submitted to invest@intrinsyc.com prior to the call. Financial information is reported in United States dollars and in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Non-IFRS Measures The following and preceding discussion of financial results includes reference to Gross Margin, EBITDA and Working Capital, which are all non-IFRS financial measures. The measure of gross margin is provided as management believes this is a good indicator in evaluating the operating performance of the Company. EBITDA is defined as operating income (loss) less other operating expenses. The measure is provided as a proxy for the cash earnings from the operations of the business as operating loss for the Company includes non-cash amortization and depreciation expense and share-based compensation which are classified as other operating expenses. The measure of working capital is provided as management believes this is a good indicator of the operating liquidity available to the Company. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains statements which, to the extent that they are not recitations of historical fact, may constitute forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities legislation that involve risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements or information may include financial and other projections as well as statements regarding the Company's future plans, objectives, performance, revenues, growth, profits, operating expenses or the company's underlying assumptions. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "likely", "expect," "anticipate," "intend", "plan", "forecast", "project", "estimate" and "believe" or other similar words and phrases may identify forward-looking statements or information. Persons reading this press release are cautioned that such statements or information are only predictions, and that the Company's actual future results or performance may be materially different. Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those suggested by these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the need to develop, integrate and deploy software solutions to meet the Companys customer's requirements; the possibility of development or deployment difficulties or delays; a customers decision to cancel or fail to proceed with a commitment to purchase units of the Companys products contained in an executed purchase order; the dependence on the Companys customer's satisfaction; the timing of entering into significant contracts; customers continued commitment to the deployment of the Companys solutions; reliance on products manufactured by other companies for resale or distribution and reliance on third-party suppliers; the performance of the global economy and growth in software industry sales; market acceptance of the Companys products and services; the success of certain business combinations engaged in by the Company or by its competitors; possible disruptive effects of organizational or personnel changes; technological change, new products and standards; risks related to international expansion; concentration of sales; international operations and sales; dependence upon key personnel and hiring; reliance on a limited number of suppliers; industry growth; competition; intellectual property; product defects and product liability; currency exchange rate risk; and other factors described in the Companys reports filed on SEDAR, including its Annual Information Form and financial report for the year ended December 31, 2018. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect the Companys forward-looking information. These and other factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. All forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by this cautionary statement and there can be no assurance that actual results or developments anticipated by the Company will be realized. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. About Intrinsyc Technologies Corporation Intrinsyc provides comprehensive product development services, as well as the industrys highest-performance edge computing modules, to enable rapid commercialization of intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) products. Intrinsyc has successfully delivered over 1,400 client projects including sophisticated consumer and industrial IoT products like: robotics, connected cameras, smart displays, augmented reality, smart buildings, wearables, in-vehicle infotainment, and many others. Intrinsycs Open-Q System on Modules incorporate the industrys most advanced processor technology, and help OEMs to rapidly bring industry leading products, with rich functionality and high performance, to market. Intrinsyc is publicly traded (TSX: ITC and OTCQX: ISYRF) and is headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada; with additional product development centers in Taipei, Taiwan, and Bangalore, India. For more information, please contact: George W. Reznik, CPA-CA, CBV, CFE Chief Financial Officer Intrinsyc Technologies Corporation Email: greznik@intrinsyc.com Phone: +1-604-678-3734 1 Gross Margin is a non-IFRS measure that does not have a standard meaning and may not be comparable to a similar measure disclosed by other issuers. Gross margin referenced herein relates to revenues less cost of sales. 2 These numbers have been restated to account for the impact of IFRS 16. Additional details on IFRS 16 are discussed in the Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates section of the MD&A and Note 3 to the Interim Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements. 3 Working Capital is a non-IFRS measure that does not have a standardized meaning and may not be comparable to a similar measure disclosed by other issuers. This measure does not have a comparable IFRS measure. Working capital is defined as current assets less current liabilities. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co's logo is seen at its new headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, July 2, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Files By Takashi Umekawa TOKYO (Reuters) - Takeda Pharmaceutical Co forecast an unexpected operating loss for the current year due to costs associated with the $59 billion purchase of Shire Plc, providing the first set of financial results of the combined firm. Japan's biggest drugmaker said on Tuesday it expects a loss of 193 billion yen ($1.76 billion) in the year through March 2020, with the Shire acquisition negatively impacting the profit by 847 billion yen. It had already flagged that Shire-related costs will pile up due to revaluation of Shire's inventories and fixed intangible assets. Takeda was expected to post an operating profit of 227.5 billion yen, according to the average estimate of 12 analysts compiled by Refinitiv. As a standalone company, it recorded an operating profit of 412 billion yen last year. With the Shire acquisition that was completed in January, Takeda has been catapulted into the world's top 10 drugmakers by sales. The Japanese company forecast its revenue to jump by 57.4% this year to 3.3 trillion yen. And without considering the Shire hit, the drugmaker said it expects what it calls "core earnings" to grow 92.2% this year. "Overall, (it is) very strong results," Takeda chief executive Christophe Weber said at an earnings briefing. "We are not worried by this results, we were expecting that." While the Shire buy gave Takeda global heft, it also left it highly indebted, with 5.7 trillion yen of debt as of end-March this year. Takeda is trying to reduce its debt pile. It agreed last week to sell its dry eye drug Xiidra to Swiss drugmaker Novartis for up to $5.3 billion, as part of a move to dispose of $10 billion worth of non-core assets to cut debt. The company also said it is selling TachoSil, a surgical patch for bleeding control, to Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon for $400 million. In addition to these drugs, Takeda is looking to dispose Shire-originated SHP647 that treats inflammatory bowel disease after the European Commission voiced concerns about the overlap with its own drug called Entyvio. Story continues Takeda is aiming to focus on five key areas: oncology, gastroenterology, neuroscience, rare disease, and plasma-derived therapies, businesses that contribute about 75% of its total revenue. "In the 25% non-core assets, we are targeting to find some assets to sell," Weber said, without elaborating further. ($1 = 109.60 yen) (Reporting by Takashi Umekawa; Editing by Richard Borsuk and Muralikumar Anantharaman) Hundreds of straphangers found themselves swept up in a panicked stampede at the 34th Street-Herald Square subway station during the Wednesday morning rush hour. An NYPD spokesperson said the panic was caused by a "loud noise" but there was no sign that firearms were discharged. The incident started shortly before 8:30 a.m., when commuters on a northbound D train fled screaming from the platform at the 34th Street-Herald Square station. According to multiple reports from the scene, some passengers said they heard a gunshot, others said they saw someone pull a gun during a fight on the train, and ran off the train screaming, abandoning items along the way as they ran upstairs. The MTA told Gothamist that "there were reports of shots fired on a northbound train... People were running from the train. Supposedly there was a fight. When the police responded the said it was unfounded and service was resumed. Our officers are on scene at the 34th St station after reports of people fleeing and calls of a dispute at the location - It appears two males were fighting and our officers are investigating- There is full service and trains are operating normally pic.twitter.com/HzxzDk8tM1 NYPD Transit (@NYPDTransit) May 15, 2019 The NYPD told us, "There was a report of a loud noise that startled some people, officers went down into the station and did not find anything criminal in nature. It was a non-event." But it was not a non-event for those caught up in the stampede, which reminded at least one commuter of a similar panic at the Bedford Ave L station last summer, which was also sparked by the mistaken sound of gunshots. Another person on the scene, who wanted to remain anonymous, told us it was "like those apocalypse scenes in a movie where people are just running and screaming." Twitter confirms: At 34th St and that stampede was terrifying. Robyn Volker (@robynvolker) May 15, 2019 Im not sure what I just witnessed but something just went down at the 34th St Herald Square Subway Station. A lot of screeming and running throughout the station. NYPD appears to be responding quickly. Matt Grossman (@MGrossman92) May 15, 2019 On the D train at 34th St. people start screaming to run for their lives... International Goz (@ngwagwa) May 15, 2019 Anyone know if something bad happened at the 34th street B/D/F/M stop bc I got out and people were running towards me screaming run, run as fast as you can. So I ran as fast as I could. @Gothamist Meghan D. (@deghanmay) May 15, 2019 "I was on an M train that arrived at 34th Street a little before 8:30," said 38-year-old Brooklyn resident Meghan Day. "As soon as I stepped out it was pandemonium. People were screaming, 'RUN! RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!'" Day said she joined hundreds of other panicked commuters scrambling up the exit ramp from the platform, though she confirmed no one seemed to know what the cause of the panic was. "You know 34th Street, when you're down there you're in the depths of hell," Day said. "It was a panic. People were screaming, hundreds of people running. It was just chaosa woman bit it pretty hard. And the panic continued all the way until I was on the street. People were saying don't go down there. And when I got to the street, everyone was asking, 'What's happening, why are we running? What's going on?" Matt Grossman was also caught in the pandemonium, and told us, "I was getting on the Queens-bound M train at 34th St-Herald Square when a D train pulled in across the platform. Suddenly swarms of people started rushing out of the D train. Some were running into our train and others were leaving the station entirely. I saw multiple baby strollers scattered across the platform. I think parents must have quickly grabbed their kids and bolted. Most of us stood in shock trying to understand what was going on... There was a lot of running, screaming, and crying." He notes that police arrived quickly, and the D train was evacuated entirely. James McKenna was on the train in question, and told us that he "started hearing screaming and people frantically running the other way of whatever happened (with no one mentioning what the issue was)." Later he heard there was a fight and that someone allegedly pulled a gun. There was a stampede as people fled the train, and McKenna says he "handed cops a couple of backpacks that people left behind." McKenna was able to get back downstairs around five minutes later, he says, "and on to the same train" that the alleged gun was drawn, like a real goddamn New Yorker. A potent snowstorm could soon hit the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California, putting a damper on travel for the second half of the week. The late-season winter storm may bring significant accumulating snow to the higher elevation passes along the entire range. Drivers hauling loads through the region will probably have to chain up at some point, so don't be caught off guard. Source: NOAA Set Up A cold front will help produce the unsettled weather beginning Wednesday night, May 15. Valleys and coastal areas of central California will get drenched by some heavy rain and thunderstorms. However, many mountain roads and communities will be snow-covered under much colder temperatures. The storm should be out of the region by the morning/midday (Pacific Daylight Time) on Friday, May 17. Idamis Del Valle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Sacramento, California told Freight Waves that snow in mid-May in the Sierra Nevada isn't abnormal. However, she expects this storm to be stronger than normal for this time of the year. "Generally, in mid-May, storms produce four to eight inches of snow, depending on elevation. This storm could produce a foot or more," said Del Valle. She described the impending snowfall as "not extremely rare, but unusual." High-Impact Areas Snow will start to fall at elevations around 8,500 feet on Wednesday evening, dropping through the day on Thursday to around 5,500 feet. The NWS is forecasting some of the highest snow totals to occur near and south of Yosemite National Park, in the southern Sierra Nevada. This includes Camp Nelson, Devils Postpile, Fish Camp, Florence Lake, Giant Forest, Grant Grove, Lake Thomas Edison, Lodgepole, Shaver Lake and Tuolumne Meadows. These areas are mainly between US-395 and the Sacramento Valley. Total snow accumulation of up to 12 inches is possible, with isolated amounts up to 24 inches above 8,000 feet. There's a chance of blowing snow and reduced visibility as wind gusts may reach 45 mph. Story continues In the northern Sierra Nevada, areas near Lassen Volcanic National Park, as well as in western Plumas County and the western slopes could receive five to 10 inches of snow, with isolated spots of up to 20 inches. This will delay loads moving on I-80 over Donner Pass, in addition to US-50 over Echo Summit and CA-88 over Carson Pass. Parts of the eastern slopes, including Aspendell and Whitney Portal, could get up to 12 inches of snowfall while also getting battered by 60-mph winds. Besides extremely limited visibility, drivers may get stopped in their tracks by downed trees or power lines blocking routes. Chain Law Review/Impact on Freight SONAR Road Conditions: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11 p.m. EDT Roads will turn from wet Wednesday evening to slushy and snowy Wednesday night, especially after midnight. Because changes in the weather can occur quickly in California as drivers change elevation, it's important to remain aware of the chain laws. According to the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), California does not require truck drivers to carry chains during any specified time period during the year. When the weather hits, though, it takes at least eight chains for a standard tractor-trailer configuration to comply with the regulations. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) says that when chain controls are established in the Golden State, signs will be posted along roads indicating which of the three following levels of requirements is in place: Requirement 1 (R-1): Chains are required on all vehicles except passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks under 6,000 pounds gross weight and equipped with snow tires on at least two drive wheels. Chains must be carried by vehicles using snow tires. All vehicles towing trailers must have chains on one drive axle. Trailers with brakes must have chains on at least one axle. Requirement 2 (R2): Chains or traction devices are required on all vehicles except four wheel/all wheel drive vehicles with snow-tread tires on all four wheels. NOTE: Four wheel/all wheel drive vehicles must carry traction devices in chain control areas. Requirement 3 (R3): Chains or traction devices are required on all vehicles, no exceptions. The NWS has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the Sierra Nevada, in effect from Wednesday night through Thursday night. Check here for updates to official NWS winter weather alerts, and please be careful out there. The post Keep chains handy as late-season snowstorm heads to Sierra Nevada appeared first on FreightWaves. Image sourced from Pixabay See more from Benzinga 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Locate Bio receives 2.0 million investment from Mercia and theMEIF to expand its cell and gene therapy pipeline - LocateBio management attending forthcoming BioEquity and BIO 2019 conferences NOTTINGHAM, UK / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Locate Bio Ltd ("Locate"), a cell and gene therapy company using its proprietary next generation technologies to develop breakthrough and potentially curative therapies, today announces that it has received an additional 2.0 million of investment from Mercia Technologies PLC (AIM: MERC) and its third party fund, the Midlands Engine Investment Fund. The investment will allow the company to expand the application of its technologies, including its promising gene therapy technology IntraStem, into new high value therapy areas to both broaden its in-house development pipeline and provide additional partnering opportunities. Mercia Technologies PLC ("Mercia") is the UK national investment group focused on the identification, creation, funding and scaling of innovative technology businesses with high-growth potential from the UK regions. The 2.0 million financing announced today comprises 1.8 million of direct investment from Mercia and with the remaining amount coming from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which the Group manages on behalf of the British Business Bank. Mercia's direct equity stake is now 21.6%. Nick Staples, CEO of Locate, said: "Locate is in an exciting phase of growth and these new funds will allow us to further develop our non-viral gene therapy technology IntraStemTM while continuing to utilise our TAOS platform for cell delivery and other applications, as we look to expand our in-house pipeline. These next generation technologies overcome current industry challenges in the fast-growing gene and cell therapy fields, providing a major business opportunity for Locate." Peter Dines, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Life Sciences &Biosciences of Mercia, said: "Locate has continued to make important progress in developing its TAOS and IntraStem technologies. These proprietary technologies have the potential to address multi-billion pound markets in the exciting and fast-growing areas of gene and cell therapy. We look forward to continuing to support Nick and the Locate team move this cutting-edge technology forwards." Story continues Locate's CEO, Nick Staples and other members of senior management will be attending BioEquity on 20-2 May in Barcelona and BIO 2019 on 3-6 June in Philadelphia and will be available for meetings. - ENDS - For more information, please contact Locate Bio Limited +44 (0)115 784 0041 Nick Staples, Chief Executive Officer Media: Richard Hayhurst (richard@richardhayhurstassociates.com ) Mercia Technologies PLC +44 (0)330 223 1430 Mark Payton, Chief Executive Officer Martin Glanfield, Chief Financial Officer - ENDS - About Locate Bio Limited Locate Bio ("Locate") is a cell and gene therapy company based in the UK with next generation technologies that it is using to develop potentially curative therapies. The Company's key technologies IntraStem and TAOS are both designed to address recognised industry limitations with current cell and gene therapy approaches. IntraStem is a next generation, non viral, peptide based vector that overcomes key challenges with other viral and non-viral transfection methods. TAOS is designed to deliver and maintain cells at the required site of action in an environment that promotes their therapeutic effects. Both technologies can be used alone or in combination for ex vivo and in vivo therapeutic applications. Locate is developing a pipeline of high value musculoskeletal products and is looking to expand into in new therapy areas where cell and gene therapies may deliver breakthrough and potentially curative benefits to patients. For more information visit: www.locatebio.com About Mercia Technologies PLC Mercia Technologies PLC is a national investment group focused on the identification, creation, funding and scaling of innovative technology businesses with high growth potential from the UK regions. The Group benefits from 19 university partnerships and offices across the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland providing it with access to high quality, regional deal flow. Mercia Technologies PLC is quoted on AIM with the epic "MERC". Mercia's 'Complete Capital Solution' initially nurtures businesses via its third-party funds and then over time Mercia can provide further funding to the most promising companies, by deploying direct investment follow-on capital from its own balance sheet. Mercia has c.500million of assets under management and, since its IPO in December 2014, has invested over 78million across its direct investment portfolio. For more information visit: www.merciatech.co.uk About the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) The Midlands Engine Investment Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund, will invest in Debt Finance, Small Business Loans, Proof-of-Concept and Equity Finance funds, ranging from 25,000 to 2m, specifically to help small and medium sized businesses secure the funding they need for growth and development. The Midlands Engine Investment Fund is operated by British Business Financial Services Limited, wholly owned by British Business Bank, the UK's national economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. The Midlands Engine Investment Fund is supported by the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Bank, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and British Business Finance Limited, a British Business Bank group company. The Midlands Engine Investment Fund covers the following LEP areas: Black Country, Coventry & Warwickshire, Greater Birmingham & Solihull, Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, The Marches, and Worcestershire in the West Midlands; and Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham & Nottinghamshire (D2N2) Greater Lincolnshire, Leicester and Leicestershire, and South-East Midlands in the East and South-East Midlands. The project is receiving up to 78,550,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding. The European Investment Bank is providing 122,500,000 to support the Midlands Engine Investment Fund. This follows backing for the Northern Powerhouse in 2017 and backing for the newly launched North East Fund. For further information visit www.eib.org The funds in which Midlands Engine Investment Fund invests are open to businesses with material operations in or planning to open material operations in the West Midlands and East & South-East Midlands. The British Business Bank has published the Business Finance Guide (in partnership with the ICAEW, and a further 21 business and finance organisations). The guide, which impartially sets out the range finance options available to businesses and provides links to support available at a regional level, is available at www.thebusinessfinanceguide.co.uk/bbb . About the British Business Bank The British Business Bank is the UK's national economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. Our remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government. The British Business Bank is currently supporting more than 5.5bn of finance to over 78,000 smaller businesses (as at end of June 2018). British Business Bank plc is a limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, it is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government which is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, one of which is authorised and regulated by the FCA. More information, including a legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries, can be found on the British Business Bank website. This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com. SOURCE: Locate Bio Ltd View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545471/Locate-Bio-Limited-Announces-Locate-Bio-receives-2million-Mercia-investment View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545471/Locate-Bio-Limited-Announces-Locate-Bio-receives-2million-Mercia-investment (Bloomberg) -- The leaders of France and New Zealand joined with the worlds biggest online platforms in pledging to help curb the internets role in spreading hate speech and incitement to violence. At a summit in Paris Wednesday, representatives from Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc., committed to use and develop rules, algorithms and direct intervention to curb the uploading, promotion, amplification and distribution of violent extremism on social media platforms. The initiative calls for hate speech to be immediately and permanently taken down, though isnt legally binding. French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, were joined by leaders from the U.K., Canada, Jordan, Indonesia and others to approve the push they dubbed the Christchurch Call. The U.S. abstained from a formal endorsement of the agreement due to concerns about restricting free speech, but said it agreed in principle. The call comes after the March 15 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed by a right-wing extremist who had posted racist manifestos online and then live-streamed his rampage. Facebook and Alphabet Inc.s YouTube were widely criticized for failing to quickly remove the video from their platforms. Today must be Day One for change, Ardern told reporters after the summit. Its a road map for action, and its comforting to see major internet companies committing to collaborative action. Macron admitted it was hardly the first time governments have called for action or internet companies have promised steps to contain on-line incitement -- he listed a series of forums and initiatives -- but he said this time there were leaders from all the worlds continents, civil society, and companies working together. Companies and states pledged to endorse the initiative that includes transparent reporting of incidents, research for technical solutions to prevent the uploading and dissemination of hate speech, the use algorithms to redirect users from (terrorist and violent extremist content) or to promote credible and positive alternatives or counter-narratives. Macron said more work was needed to define some of what he called gray zones around hate speech. Story continues Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, Facebook vice president for global affairs and communications Nick Clegg and Google Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker attended the meeting, according to the French presidents office. Facebook said its tightening rules for Facebook Live to try to prevent people from using the streaming service to "cause harm or spread hate." In a blog post timed to coincide with the summit, the social network said its instituting a "one-strike" policy for users who violate its rules on offensive or dangerous content, such as sharing a link to a terrorist groups statement. Those users will be blocked from using Live to broadcast content for a specific period of time after a first offense. Facebook said the restrictions will be expanded into other areas in the coming weeks. At the end of the day, everyone will be judged on their actions, Ardern said. Attendees also included U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Irish Premier Leo Varadkar, Senegal President Macky Sall and Jordans King Abdullah II, as well as representatives from Amazon, Microsoft Corp. and Vivendi SAs DailyMotion. The White House said that while the U.S. is not currently in a position to join the endorsement, we continue to support the overall goals reflected in the call. We will continue to engage governments, industry, and civil society to counter terrorist content on the internet. Macron suggested the U.S. couldnt sign because of its more absolutist positions on freedom of speech, but both he and Ardern said the U.S. agreed with the general goals. The statement they put out demonstrates considerable support for the principles of our call to action, Ardern said. I think the statement speaks for itself. --With assistance from Justin Sink and Kurt Wagner. To contact the reporters on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net;Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Another new investment in the renewable energy sector has been confirmed for the state of Texas. Standing as one of the nation's largest contributors and developers of the projects that fuel alternative energy, Texas will be the home to Clearway Energy Group's Mesquite Star. Expected to be a 419-megawatt wind farm that will reside in Fischer and Nolan counties, the project that is already underway will house over 100 wind turbines and is expected to generate power for commercial operations as early as 2020. With the project set to be one of the 40 wind farms in Texas, the lone star state has a well established infrastructure of alternative energy sources that help fuel the growing industry. Currently generating a substantial amount of the state's energy supply through sustainable sources, the power that was produced through renewable sources has been recorded to make up nearly 18% of all consumed energy as early as 2017. Through projects like Mesquite Star, Texas owns nearly a quarter of the nation's installed generating capacity for wind energy and has increasingly become the national leader in this renewable power market. This focus on creating new sources of energy is catching on in other areas as well. As new industry revenue stream and job creation is stimulated from these alternative energy projects, Texas' residents and businesses are welcoming the trend. One area of focus is how energy from renewable sources is impacting the housing industry. Property developers are seeing this as a way to attract residents and also save money in the long term. "Incorporating energy efficiency into all of our rental communities has helped our properties and residents save money, live better while also putting environmental consciousness as part of our firm's priorities. As of 2017 all Western Rim properties include energy star rated appliances and solar powered technologies that help us do our part in maintaining a cleaner living environment and lifestyle for our residents and the surrounding communities." shares Marcus Hiles, Texas based entrepreneur and CEO of Western Rim Properties. Story continues However there is a reason why alternative energy projects are hard to get off the ground. In the case of Clearway Energy Group's Mesquite Star, this large undertaking required bringing in partners on a local, state and national scale. Having a strong backing is critical for all alternative energy projects that are part of an industry in its infancy where significant funding is necessary to get the project going. As an industry leader with a strong network of customers and revenue contract counter-parties, Clearway Energy Group has the backing of leading institutions such as Ecolab Inc., Brown University, Cisco Systems, Inc. This has allowed the sustainable energy corporation to drive new projects ahead while supporting sustainability and clean energy goals of some of today's biggest organizations. Expected to be the largest renewable energy facility in Texas' Adams County, the wind farm will produce enough renewable energy to power over 35k homes in the area. This will support Texas' position as a leading provider in the alternative energy industry and will continue to represent the model of a once oil and gas driven energy player that now has turned to more sustainable, cost-effective alternatives to drive the state's economy, long term. Houzz: https://www.houzz.com/pro/marcushiles/marcus-hiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcus.hiles/ SOURCE: Marcus Hiles View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545541/Marcus-Hiles-New-Wind-Farm-Project-Confirmed-for-National-Leader-in-the-Alternative-Energy-Sector-Texas View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545541/Marcus-Hiles-New-Wind-Farm-Project-Confirmed-for-National-Leader-in-the-Alternative-Energy-Sector-Texas With a thoughtfully woke CEO and consistently high ratings on all the diversity lists, Randall Tucker knew that his new life as Mastercards Chief Inclusion Officer would be a different kind of gig. This was not a turnaround situation, he laughs. But my marching orders were to build on the great work and make it more relevant and global. Now, just over two years on the job, Tucker says hes making a mark. Weve elevated the conversation of diversity and inclusion at that leadership level, he says. Weve all made sure that the work is seen as just as important as all other functions within the company. RaceAhead caught up with Tucker just as he was about to jet off to celebrate his 24th wedding anniversary. My husband and I met our first week at college, he says, an unexpected development but a wonderful one. As Ive gotten older, Ive learned that everything is better when you have someone to share it with. Its a philosophy that informs his thinking about what makes a welcoming workplace. What follows is a lightly edited version of our conversation. RA: Lets start with how you started. Mastercard was already doing so well and has a vocal equality champion in CEO Ajay Banga. How did you set your course? RT: Well, we needed a working definition of what we were trying to tackle. I started with my formal definition of D&I diversity is all the things that make us similar as well as different, the things you can and cant see about other people. Then theres inclusion how do build diverse teams and keep them? At the end of the day, those are the two things that made sense for me, the management committee, and Ajay to focus on. I imagine data played a big role. Exactly. Next, I took a pause for the cause to figure out what were really trying to move the needle on and how D&I can help support our core businesses. I had leadership interviews with the first two tiers of the organization. I had one-on-one conversations with board members. I looked at our HR data and employee engagement survey data and then the customer data which asked about our commitment to diversity. Story continues How does diversity play out globally? Its very different from region to region. In the US, we tend to gravitate to gender and ethnicity as the markers of diversity. But in other parts of the world that might not be the heavier weight. It might be language, it might be education, it might be religion or your career experiences. So that was part of the thinking. Then basically I looked at all this stuff and said, whats it trying to tell me? What was it trying to tell you? Two things, one big, one modular. The first is that inclusion education matters. I dont believe we are born inclusive leaders, so part of the job is to build the muscle of inclusive leadership in our talent. Thats how we make sure everyone can reach their greatest opportunity in the organization. Next, we needed to focus on the regional goals that made specific sense to those leaders, while still mapping back to the global vision. One size fits all, but with regional customization. Can you give me an example of regional differences? The idea is that to create the greatest business opportunities you need diverse perspectives at the table. In Asia, its how do we hire more people outside of the payments and banking industry, since our focus is primarily tech? In Latin America, it might be increasing women in senior leadership. In the US, its often how do I get more people of African descent in the mix. The goal is to get all those perspectives working together harmoniously, so everyone feels that they belong. How did you shape inclusive leadership training at Mastercard? I started by thinking about what those things that keep coming up that we need to get better at right now. Things youd find on employee surveys, things that we get sued for and then solve for them in tangible ways. Its not about holding hands. Whats impeding us from meeting our goals and creating a space for belonging so people can think better and innovate better? Also, I have opinions about implicit bias training. Lets hear it. Inclusive leadership is a skill you can learn like any other, like financial acumen or executive presence. Its a honing of something. Its hopeful. Its a relaxed approach because we can all be more inclusive leaders. Standalone trainings feel like we need to fix you. It creates outlier work and people dont understand how it relates to their business. Instead embed your inclusion thinking in every policy, practice, and conversation. Now, its just the way Mastercard execs learn to lead. The numbers show and it comes up all the time in my reporting that non-majority culture talent cant make it past their first leadership jobs. What should companies be doing differently? The piece that I make sure that I control is the development piece: What is the inclusion dialog around talent review? In that discussion, who is going to be given those stretch assignments. Who is in your next class of leaders in the organization? Are they diverse? Were having those conversations upfront about the people who are being identified as high potential. I show you the photo of your talent pool and ask you, is this what you want? Give them a chance to make a different decision by giving them the data. The inclusive leadership part is what do people specifically need to succeed? So much of inclusion is about getting people to really see each other. We do ourselves a disservice if we only talk to people like ourselves. We make sure our business resource groups (BRGs) are collaborating with each other. We make sure people are mentoring and sponsoring people different than themselves. There is not a Mastercard executive who wont make time for lunch if you ask. So ask. But really, I learned about the power of dialog and crisis management when the Pulse Nightclub [mass] shooting happened. You were the Senior Director of Inclusion and Diversity at Darden Restaurants at the time? Yes, and it was right down the street from us. Orlando is already a welcoming environment. But now we needed to ask, what does it mean to love and respect your neighbor? So, I brought in people from the black, Hispanic, gay, Muslim, and law enforcement communities for a panel discussion. You know, we didnt all agree, but it was healing. And thats what Im really proud of, bringing that sense of dialog and discussion here to Mastercard every day. How can we get better at really talking to each other? Working with other groups? Inclusion cant be built in silos. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - MAX RESOURCE CORP. (TSXV: MXR) (OTC Pink: MXROF) (FSE: M1D1) ("Max" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company is participating in the upcoming 121 Mining Investment Conference in Singapore. Mr. Brett Matich, Chief Executive Officer of Max, will be presenting about the recent activities on the Choco Gold-Platinum and North Choco Gold-Copper projects in Colombia. The 121 Mining Investment Conference hosts 25 mining companies joined by 120 sophisticated investors for pre-arranged, targeted 1-2-1 investment meetings. This year's event is being held on May 15 and 16, 2019 at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. About 121 Investment 121 Mining Investment events gather senior investors from institutional funds, private equity groups, family offices and sector analysts to meet with carefully selected mining company management teams in the world's leading financial hubs. Featuring cash-generating producers, near-production development companies, project generators and exciting exploration projects, 121 Mining Investment events offer investors the perfect forum to seek out their next big mining investment opportunity. 121 Mining Investment events are held annually in Hong Kong, London, Cape Town, New York and Singapore and focus on two-days of 1-on-1 meetings tailored to match the right level of mining projects with the right investment capital. Alongside the 1-2-1 meetings, delegates are able to enjoy a two-day agenda of investor-led panel discussions providing market insights, analysis and each participating mining company presenting their latest updates. About Max Resource Corp. MAX is a mineral exploration company focused on the development and acquisition of prospective projects in the rich mineral belts of Colombia. The Company has established significant exploration infrastructure and local community support for its three prospective projects: Choco Gold and Platinum, located 100 km south of Medellin, which covers or is adjacent to historic production of 1.5Mozs gold and 1.0Mozs platinum, North Choco Gold-Copper located 80 km southeast of Medellin and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti and Continental Gold properties, and the Gachala Copper Project, is located 60 km east of Bogota. The Company is led by a seasoned management team with a track record of significant discovery and exploration success. Story continues Source for Choco: R.J. Fletcher and Associates (2011) Review of Gold and Platinum Exploration and Production in Choco Province Colombia Part 3. Private Report for Condoto Platinum Ltd.) For more information visit: https://www.maxresource.com/ For additional information contact: Max Resource Corp. Tim McNulty E: info@maxresource.com T: (604) 290-8100 For Max Resource's French inquiries: Remy Scalabrini, Maricom Inc. E: rs@maricom.ca T: (888) 585-MARI Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the TSXV. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the commercialization plans for Max Resources Corp. described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com Corporate Logo To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44799 On Tuesday, hundreds of tenant activists converged on Albany to lobby for a package of nine bills that could strengthen protections for the citys one million rent stabilized tenants, and expand protections across New York State. Rena Marslin, 58, used a vacation day to travel from Valley Stream, Long Island, to join the rally. She said she takes care of her mother and has had a tough time finding her own housing. My apartment in Williamsburg was badcrumbling paint and rats and roachesI had to move in with my mother in 2017. I have to fight for my rights. If I dont, whos going to do it for me? Anthony G., 63, from Jamaica, Queens, met the bus to Albany near Atlantic Avenue. I got up at three in the morning today," he told Gothamist. Ive been through the nonsense that these landlords are pulling, and I cant stand to see anyone else go through it," he said. "Ive lived in a place where I was laying in my bed and the ceiling collapsed. Ive lived in other places where the landlords decided they were going to do construction and tear the place up so that I couldnt live in it. He added, Ive seen a lot, and thats what makes me want to stand up. Its going on, and people are living through deplorable conditions. People need to stand up and fight. Seven of the pending bills would close loopholes that allow landlords to boost rents in vacant apartments in order to deregulate them. Another would allow municipalities across the state to opt into rent stabilization, while the most contentious bill, sponsored by Brooklyn's freshman State Senator Julia Salazar, would prohibit eviction without a good causesuch as not paying rentexcept in very small owner-occupied buildings and a few other unique circumstances. It would also expand tenant protections statewide, including to buildings of less than six apartments, which are not currently covered by rent stabilization. While the governor has expressed support for repeals to vacancy decontrol and preferential rents, he has been less sanguine on statewide rent stabilization efforts, and the "good cause" bill. (Scott Heins / Gothamist) We get left behind all too often," Rashida Tyler of the Kingston Tenants Union told us. "Upstate is always the last to get any kind of relief and were suffering up here. We dont pay the same rents they do in New York City, but upstate were rent-burdened. In Kingston, over fifty percent of the population is rent burdened. Theyre paying over thirty percent of their incomes in rent. John Furman, 61, is the president of Central New York Citizens in Action. He traveled from Utica to make it to Tenant Tuesday. In smaller upstate cities like Utica we are confronting as serious a housing crisis as downstate New York," he said. "We see that the interests of people living in the Bronx align with the interests of people living in Utica." Furman said he believed that the state representatives were too beholden to the real estate industry to enact substantive reforms, which is why he was in Albany on Tuesday. The Democrats, particularly upstate Democrats, do not have enough courage and guts. They act too much like corporate Democrats, beholden to landlords and real estate interests," Furman said. "Its going to be a tough fight, but I think well win it. We have to shake up the system and give everybody a fair opportunity to be involved. Joseph Cegielski is an immediate treatment assistant at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo. He was in Albany with nurses to lobby for safe staffing and more funding for hospitals across the state before the state legislative session ends in June. When asked about the connection between housing and healthcare, he saw common cause with the tenants activists. Its all a matter of health and well-being, its humanity. OSLO (Reuters) - The hull of a Norwegian-registered product tanker was damaged by an unknown object off the cost of the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah on Sunday, ship management company Thome Ship Management said on Monday. "The master of MT Andrea Victory reported the crew were unharmed but there was a hole in the hull area of the aft peak tank. The ship is not in any danger of sinking," Thome said in a statement. The vessel is 47,210 deadweight tonnes, according to Refinitiv data. (Reporting by Oslo newsroom, editing by Louise Heavens) Marijuana legalization, rent reform, and driver's licenses for undocumented New Yorkers are among the issues state lawmakers in Albany are struggling to hash out before the legislative session ends in June. But some legislators also want to make it illegal for pedestrians to text and cross the street at the same time. A bill sponsored by Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz prohibits pedestrians from crossing the road at any point "while using any portable electronic device." The fine for doing so would be from $25 to $50 for a first offense, up to $100 for a second offense, and $250 for a third offense within 18 months. Exceptions include texting the police, fire department, hospital, or "a physician's office or health clinic." The text of the law states that "using" means "viewing," so presumably people would still be able to talk on the phone while they crossed the street. Ortiz's bill died in the Assembly last year, but this year, Queens State Senator John Liu has adopted it in the Senate. "I have gotten more than my share of complaints from constituents about the problem and the suggestion that there ought to be a law. Including from parents who don't want their kids texting while they're walking, much less while they're crossing the street," Senator Liu told Gothamist, in explaining his support for the bill. Liu, who is a former City Comptroller, said he did not have any data to back up his assertion that texting and crossing the street is a growing public health concern. "This is just about common sense. Unfortunately it takes a little bit of legislation and the possibility of a minimal fine to get people to think about what they're doing," Senator Liu said. Isn't that what rarely-enforced jaywalking laws are supposed to do? "Well, people are jaywalking less, even in New York City," Liu said. Asked for evidence, he responded, "No, I don't have any proof for you. But as there is a more international presence in New York City, I do believe that jaywalking is declining. In many other parts of the world, in other cities I have been to, jaywalking is not a widespread phenomenon." Thank you, Angela, for showing such initiative! I have introduced legislation that will make it a violation for pedestrians to be using their cell phones while crossing the street. Distracted walking is a danger for both the pedestrian and drivers. Keep up the great work! https://t.co/aA5au4GJbk Felix W Ortiz (@Felixwortiz) May 31, 2018 According to City data, "driver inattention/distraction" was a contributing factor in 17,933 of the 58,717 crashes that occurred in New York City from January of 2018 through April of 2019; "bicyclist/other pedestrian error/confusion" was a contributing factor in 1,447 crashes. Deaths from traffic crashes in New York City have increased in 2019 compared to the same time period of 2018. "This bill in no way absolves drivers from their paramount responsibility to yield to pedestrians," Liu said, responding to the numbers that show that drivers, not pedestrians, are overwhelmingly responsible for crashes. "However, it puts a little bit of responsibility on the part of the pedestrian." Liu added, "A fine of $25 to $50 for carelessly crossing the street is not the end of the world." In 2017, Honolulu passed a similar "distracted pedestrian" law. Janette Sadik-Khan, the Department of Transportation Commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, told the Times that these kinds of laws represent "an easy way out" of the actual root causes of crashes: street design and driver behavior. "Engineering is a lot more difficult, but a lot more efficient, she said. Meanwhile, a bill sponsored by Brooklyn State Senator Andrew Gounardes that requires pedestrian and cyclist safety training for people applying to get driver's licenses just passed the Senate. In a statement, Gounardes told Gothamist he is "skeptical of attempts to shift the burden of road safety on pedestrians but recognize that we all have more work to do to travel our streets safely." "Everyone who uses the road has an obligation to use them safely and responsibly, whether they are a driver, cyclists or a pedestrian," Gounardes said. "Of course pedestrians should cross the street responsibly and not in an unsafe or reckless manner. But driving is a privilege and drivers bear a special responsibility to drive safely because they have the power to take a life." Liu pointed out that he and Assemblyman Ortiz were also working on a law that would lower the blood alcohol level used for DWI from 0.08 to 0.05. "I certainly am happy it creates a discussion, and that's fine, we should have a discussion about this," Liu said. "But there are more people texting on their devices while crossing the street, and there are constituents complaining about it and asking me to do something about it, which is what I'm doing." Assemblyman Ortiz did not respond to a request for comment. * NZ top global dairy exporter, also major lamb, beef supplier * Under threat from fast-growing synthetic meat, dairy industries * NZ counting on high quality, ethical, natural products By Charlotte Greenfield WINDWHISTLE, New Zealand, May 16 (Reuters) - At Dave Harper's family farm in New Zealand's scenic Canterbury region, a painstakingly bred flock of lambs is grazing, not on grass, but on a field of herbs selected to unlock healthy omega-3 fatty acids in the animals' meat. Known as 'Te Mana lambs', they are part of an effort by the island nation to future-proof its agricultural sector from the threat of meat and dairy substitutes based on synthetic proteins or plant-based alternatives. Aimed at occupying a similar niche as premium Wagyu beef, each Te Mana lamb has a unique number and has been tracked, weighed and scanned since birth. "We've got to tell our story better and we can't do that unless we collect the informationeverything's got to be right," said Harper, whose farm hosts the lambs for their final few weeks grazing on chicory herbs after being brought down from the mountainous high country. The lambs have received millions of dollars in government funding in a joint venture with meat company Alliance Group. Both want to cut the country's dependence on shipping bulk commodities and move up the value chain into luxury products with burnished ethical, environmental and health credentials. New Zealand relies on agricultural farming and processing for 8% of its GDP, among the highest in the OECD so has a lot to lose as synthetic food gathers momentum. With an ideal climate, plenty of arable land and a long farming history, New Zealand is the world's top dairy exporter, and ranks second and seventh for sheepmeat and beef exports respectively. "I see this as both an opportunity and threat to New Zealand, depending on how we react to this emerging reality," New Zealand Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor told Reuters. "Animal welfare, labour standards, environmental management and food safety systems must be the best in the world." Story continues DISRUPTIVE THREAT The global meat substitutes market is predicted to reach $6.4 billion by 2023, according to research firm Markets and Markets, still a tiny fraction of the multi-trillion dollar traditional meat market but growing quickly. Asia, New Zealand's top agricultural export market, is the fastest growing region. High-profile investors are pouring in. Vegan burger maker Beyond Meat Inc, which counts Microsoft founder Bill Gates and actor Leonardo DiCaprio among its backers, saw shares surge after its initial public stock offering, reflecting ravenous investor demand. Impossible Foods, which makes a meatless plant-based burger and is backed by celebrities like Serena Williams and Katy Perry, this week announced it raised $300 million ahead of a possible initial public offering. Dairy is also at risk, particularly in the ingredients business, which relies on products such as milk powder and dairy-protein casein in everything from cakes and cookies to salad dressing and chewing gum. San Francisco-based Perfect Day plans to roll out dairy-like ingredients based on yeast cultures within the next two years, while Ripple Foods is selling a milk substitute, derived from yellow peas, throughout the United States. New Zealand's Fonterra , the world's biggest dairy exporter, has taken note. It made a modest investment it has not disclosed the exact value - in U.S.-based Motif, a start-up using fermentation technology to create ingredients that mimic milk and egg proteins. "We're trying....to position ourselves so if this was to take off and become a huge demand, that we're well placed to try and tap into it," said Judith Swales, head of Fonterra's consumer and foodservice business. "We can't say that we don't see an increasing rise in veganism and vegetarianism." After safety scares in China and criticism from environmentalists at home, Fonterra has also introduced a 'trusted goodness' seal to its products, which it says reflects increased efforts to improve traceability and ensure its grass-fed status and animal welfare meet independent standards. CHANGES COMING Still, many animal and environmental advocates say damage from industrial agriculture is unavoidable. Complaints include the removal of male 'bobby' calves from their mothers, methane emissions from animals, and chemical and agricultural runoff polluting New Zealand's once pristine rivers and lakes. The government has introduced new requirements for the agriculture sector to slash methane emissions by 10 percent in the next decade, drawing a vocal backlash from farmers who say they have already improved practices significantly. The industry is banking on its clean, green image to capture a niche global pool of consumers willing to pay a premium for ethically produced real meat and dairy. "There's going to be people who don't always want to have the synthetic stuff and having the organic, outdoor pasture fed stuff is definitely going to have a huge part of that market," said entrepreneur Craig Piggott. His agri-tech start-up, Halter, has won backing from Silicon Valley venture capitalists, some of whom also invest in synthetic proteins. North Island-based Halter is in the trial phases of a device, worn around the cow's necks, that allows farmers to monitor cattle health from an iPad, much like a human fitness tracker. The device can help to share information with consumers and uses noises and vibrations to direct livestock away from waterways without the need for farmhands, dogs, or fences. Other agricultural projects, from milk powder with immune-enhancing probiotic properties to farm management and product tracing software, are attracting government research and funding through the Ministry of Primary Industries. The partly state-funded Primary Growth Partnership plans to spend NZ$726 million ($478 million) on innovative projects in agriculture and horticulture. Te Mana lambs received NZ$12.5 million from the fund for the decade they took to develop with the help of a full-time geneticist and a handful of farmers working to develop a new niche for one of New Zealand's most famous foods. "There are some big changes coming," said Harper, 57, one of the farmers. "We're going to see more changes in the next 10 or 15 years than we've ever seen before." ($1 = 1.5186 New Zealand dollars) (Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield. Editing by Lincoln Feast.) Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! If you're interested in Bod Australia Limited (ASX:BDA), then you might want to consider its beta (a measure of share price volatility) in order to understand how the stock could impact your portfolio. Volatility is considered to be a measure of risk in modern finance theory. Investors may think of volatility as falling into two main categories. The first type is company specific volatility. Investors use diversification across uncorrelated stocks to reduce this kind of price volatility across the portfolio. The other type, which cannot be diversified away, is the volatility of the entire market. Every stock in the market is exposed to this volatility, which is linked to the fact that stocks prices are correlated in an efficient market. Some stocks are more sensitive to general market forces than others. Some investors use beta as a measure of how much a certain stock is impacted by market risk (volatility). While we should keep in mind that Warren Buffett has cautioned that 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk', beta is still a useful factor to consider. To make good use of it you must first know that the beta of the overall market is one. Any stock with a beta of greater than one is considered more volatile than the market, while those with a beta below one are either less volatile or poorly correlated with the market. View our latest analysis for Bod Australia What does BDA's beta value mean to investors? Zooming in on Bod Australia, we see it has a five year beta of 1.63. This is above 1, so historically its share price has been influenced by the broader volatility of the stock market. If the past is any guide, we would expect that Bod Australia shares will rise quicker than the markets in times of optimism, but fall faster in times of pessimism. Share price volatility is well worth considering, but most long term investors consider the history of revenue and earnings growth to be more important. Take a look at how Bod Australia fares in that regard, below. Story continues ASX:BDA Income Statement, May 15th 2019 Could BDA's size cause it to be more volatile? With a market capitalisation of AU$18m, Bod Australia is a very small company by global standards. It is quite likely to be unknown to most investors. It takes less money to influence the share price of a very small company. This may explain the excess volatility implied by this beta value. What this means for you: Beta only tells us that the Bod Australia share price is sensitive to broader market movements. This could indicate that it is a high growth company, or is heavily influenced by sentiment because it is speculative. Alternatively, it could have operating leverage in its business model. Ultimately, beta is an interesting metric, but there's plenty more to learn. This article aims to educate investors about beta values, but it's well worth looking at important company-specific fundamentals such as Bod Australias financial health and performance track record. I urge you to continue your research by taking a look at the following: Financial Health: Are BDAs operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why weve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here. 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. The Oregon Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), a program that adds to the price of gasoline and diesel by an amount that is variable, survived a legal challenge on May 13 in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court chose not to review a decision handed down in September 2018 by the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals that rejected a challenge to the standard's legality, which was filed by several organizations including the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the leading trade group of oil refiners. That means the Oregon LCFS will continue to be implemented, similar to the standard enacted by California to the south. Both states' LCFS programs work essentially the same way. They are designed to incentivize the use of low carbon fuels. Every type of fuel that might power a vehicle is given a carbon intensity rating. Is your truck in a fleet being powered by natural gas? That is less carbon- intensive than the base number carbon intensity given for gasoline and diesel. Can you show that the natural gas came from the methane thrown off by rotting garbage in a landfill instead of from a well? That's got an even lower carbon intensity. (And yes, that can be proven, although it's complex.) Did you blend a large amount of what is called renewable diesel into your diesel product, maybe as much as a 15 percent content? That also gives you a lower carbon intensity score than if you blended biodiesel. All of these are factors that determine the carbon intensity of the fuel that is sold under the California and Oregon LCFS programs. If you can show that you have sold a fuel with a lower carbon intensity than the benchmark numbers for gasoline and diesel, you are rewarded with LCFS credits. If all you do is sell the baseline gasoline or diesel product without blending lower-carbon fuels like ethanol or biodiesel into it, you generate deficits. To stay aligned with the requirements of reductions in carbon intensity which are to cut greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent by 2020 from the 2010 baseline those in the fuels industry would need to keep cutting their carbon intensity annually until it is down 10 percent by next year or buy credits from those who have generated them. Story continues There also were legal challenges to the California LCFS that ultimately failed. Now Oregon has its path free and clear as well. Just how much the LCFS should theoretically add to the price at the pump or at least the wholesale distribution point is a formula, according to David Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates, one of the leading consulting firms studying the impact of the LCFS. Hackett said his company's formula is to take the prevailing price of credits, which he said are now running about $188 per metric ton (mt), and multiply that figure by 0.08021, a number that is related to the carbon intensity of the baseline diesel fuel. At the $188/mt price, you currently get a price just under 16 cents per gallon. If you're a refiner that blended a great deal of biodiesel into your diesel product, or lower-carbon ethanol into gasoline, you'll still sell your product at the pump for the prevailing market price. But your blending would have allowed you to generate and sell LCFS credits. At the opposite end of the spectrum would be any sort of marketer who sells just the baseline fuel or blends it with smaller amounts of ethanol or biodiesel. (And even ethanol, under California's rules, has different carbon intensities.) They'll pay to stay compliant by buying credits. Last year, Stillwater Associates released a report on the retail impact of LCFS rules. By 2020, when Stillwater sees the cost of an LCFS credit rising to $225/mt, the consulting firm said it would expect the LCFS to add 20 cents per gallon to the price of diesel fuel and 21 cents to the price of diesel. By 2030, when it sees the LCFS credit price rising to $303/mt, diesel would see a 71 cents per gallon boost because of that price. Gasoline would be slightly less. One thing to note the LCFS regulation is separate from the California cap and trade regulation, which also uses a credit price to incentivize the reduction of carbon emissions from stationary sources like power plants, cement plants and refineries. They are paying to purchase cap and trade credits and are passing that price through to consumers. There have been efforts for the state of Washington to adopt an LCFS. They have so far failed including an attempt just in recent weeks. The post Oregon's path to lower carbon fuels is clear; what does that mean for the price at the pump? appeared first on FreightWaves. Image sourced from Pixabay See more from Benzinga 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. American Airlines (AA) pilots angrily confronted a Boeing official about an anti-stall system suspected in two fatal crashes of the manufacturers 737 Max aircraft, according to a new recording. Related: Boeing boss rejects accusations about 737 Max jets that crashed In audio obtained by CBS News, members of AAs pilots union quizzed Boeing officials about the system knowns as MCAS in a tense meeting in November last year, weeks after a Lion Air Max crashed in Indonesia and four months before the loss of an Ethiopian Airlines Max. In total, 346 people died in the two crashes. Boeing has been criticized for not disclosing how the MCAS anti-stall system worked a move that allowed the company to avoid costly retraining. We flat-out deserve to know what is on our airplanes, one pilot is heard saying in the recording. These guys didnt even know the damn system was on the airplane nor did anybody else, another said. The official, Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett, claimed the Lion Air disaster was a once-in-a-lifetime accident. He said: I dont know that understanding this system wouldve changed the outcome on this. In a million miles, youre going to maybe fly this airplane, maybe once youre going to see this, ever. So we try not to overload the crews with information thats unnecessary so they actually know the information we believe is important. The pilots countered: Were the last line of defence to being in that smoking hole, and we need the knowledge. Related: Boeing: global grounding of 737 Max will cost company more than $1bn Boeing said it would make software changes but did not want to rush and do crappy job of fixing the right things. The fix was still being developed when the Ethiopian Airlines jet went down. The release of the recording came as the House transportation committee opened a hearing into the role of Boeings regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in certifying the Max. Democrat Rick Larsen, a member of the committee and the chair of the aviation subcommittee, said: The FAA has a credibility problem. He cited a Wall Street Journal story that claimed an internal review had found that senior FAA officials did not participate in or monitor crucial safety assessments of MCAS. Story continues Larsen said: If that is in fact true, the [designation] process is not working as Congress intended. The acting FAA administrator, Daniel Elwell, said he was not aware of an internal assessment that reaches that conclusion. Elwell was criticized for the FAAs decision to hold off on grounding the USs Max fleet after the second crash. The FAA was the last major world regulator to ground the plane and did so only after Donald Trump announced that the plane would be grounded. Democratic congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said: Why did it take so long compared to other countries? The public wants to know: why did it take so long? Elwell said the FAA was a data-driven, risk based system and acted after it had received sufficient data to link the two crashes. * Pompeo disagrees with Lavrov on Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, Iran * Says Trump still hoping for improved relations with Moscow * Putin says Russia wants full restoration of ties (Adds comments from Pompeo to reporters after meeting with Putin) By Darya Korsunskaya and Andrew Osborn SOCHI/MOSCOW, May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Russia on Tuesday that Washington would brook no interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and wanted Moscow to take action to show there would be no repeat of its suspected 2016 meddling. President Vladimir Putin, who met Pompeo in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, pushed back, telling him that Russia never interfered in U.S. elections and that a report by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which he praised as being "objective overall", had found no evidence of collusion with President Donald Trumps 2016 campaign. Relations have long been strained by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement findings - denied by Moscow - that Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost Trump's chances of winning the White House. Pompeo's visit followed the publication of the long-awaited report by Mueller into the nature of Russia's role in that election that spoke of "sweeping and systematic" interference by Moscow but did not establish that members of Trumps campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 election. Now that the Mueller report was out of the way, Putin said he hoped ties would start improving. "I've formed the impression that your president wants to repair Russia-U.S. ties and contacts and wants to solve issues which are of common interest for us," Putin told Pompeo. "We've said many times that we also want to fully restore our relations. I hope that the necessary conditions for that to happen will now be created." Visiting Russia for the first time as secretary of state, Pompeo earlier clashed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on issues from Ukraine to Venezuela. After their meeting, both men said they had been far apart on many issues. Story continues "I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov ... that interference in American elections is unacceptable. If the Russians were engaged in that in 2020, it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been," said Pompeo. "I'd encourage them not to do that. We would not tolerate that." Both Lavrov and Pompeo said they shared a desire to improve battered ties despite not being able to confirm a suggestion by Trump that he would meet Putin on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 in Japan next month. Putin would agree to such a meeting if formally asked, a Kremlin aide told reporters. "The United States stands ready to find common ground with Russia as long as the two of us can engage seriously," Pompeo said. "President Trump has made clear that his expectation is that we will have an improved relationship. This will benefit each of our peoples. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction." A Kremlin aide said the talks had not yielded any breakthrough but had been held in a business-like atmosphere. 'PLACES WE CAN WORK TOGETHER' Pompeo told reporters after his talks with Putin that the two sides had a "very productive" conversation on Syria and how to move the political process there forward and were able to "make some truly constructive process points" on Afghanistan. They also discussed North Korea, which both want to see give up its nuclear weapons. "I think we share the same objective and I hope that we can find ways that we can work together," Pompeo said on North Korea. "He (Putin) understands that the U.S. is going to be in the lead, but I think there are places we can work together." Pompeo said Trump had made clear he wanted the to try to keep the Russia relationship "on the high ground". "We have places where we just have very different views," he said of the U.S.-Russia relationship. "It's about trying to find solutions, compromises, places where there are overlapping interests. You can make progress in unlocking some of the most difficult problems that are facing us." As well as the issue of interference in U.S. elections, the two sides clashed over Venezuela, with Lavrov sharply criticising Washington for trying to undermine President Nicolas Maduro, who Pompeo said must step down in the face of an economic crisis and large-scale protests against his rule. On Ukraine, Pompeo told Lavrov the United States would not recognise Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and would keep in place economic sanctions imposed on Russia over that move. Russia should now work with Ukraine's new president-elect to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, said Pompeo, adding that he wanted Moscow to free a group of captured Ukrainian sailors. Pompeo said he had also complained to Lavrov about U.S. citizens being detained in Russia, a reference to the case of Paul Whelan, a former Marine accused of espionage, and Michael Calvey, an investor accused of fraud. Both men deny wrongdoing. Lavrov told reporters the two countries continued to disagree about Iran's nuclear programme and the international community's approach to Tehran, while Pompeo said he had raised U.S. concerns about escalating fighting in Syria's Idlib. (Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya and Andrew Osborn; Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Tom Balmforth, Christian Lowe and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Gareth Jones and Peter Cooney) Rep. Jerry Nadler: We're 'probably' not headed for impeachment, but Trump is making it 'increasingly difficult' to avoid Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., sat down with CNBCs John Harwood to discuss the challenges he and his fellow House Democrats face in their oversight of President Trump and his administration. Nadler first took on the future president as a New York assemblyman in the 1980s when he joined the resistance to a massive Trump development project on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Trump won that battle, though his development got downsized. In today's confrontation over potential impeachment, the entire country holds a stake. After a quarter-century in Congress, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York stands on the brink of an outsize role in American political life. As Judiciary Committee chairman in the Democratic-controlled House, Nadler leads his party's efforts to exercise oversight of President Donald Trump and his administration. If Democrats pursue the fourth serious presidential impeachment effort in American history, Nadler would wield the gavel when it starts. Nadler, now 71, first took on the future president as a New York assemblyman in the 1980s when he joined the resistance to a massive Trump development project on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Trump won that battle, though his development got downsized. In today's confrontation, the entire country holds a stake. Nadler and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California face difficult political choices. Trump drew less than 20% of the 2016 vote in both their districts, but some Democratic colleagues fear a 2020 backlash from impeachment. So party leaders have moved cautiously in the wake of the Trump-Russia special counsel report. Over scrambled eggs at Westville Hudson in the lawmaker's New York City district, Nadler sat down to discuss the challenge. What follows is a condensed, edited transcript of the discussion. John Harwood: Unlike many people in Congress, you actually have experience from the 1980s in confronting Donald Trump, or disagreeing with Donald Trump. What did you learn from that experience? Story continues Jerry Nadler: I didn't actually learn that much because we didn't have very much personal contact at all. I think I met him two or three times personally. But he threw a lot of money and political influence around. And he wanted to get his way. And I battled him because I disagreed with him. John Harwood: The story I read said he called you Fat Jerry. Jerry Nadler: Yeah, but, was it at that time or later? I don't remember. When he first proposed the gargantuan project, everybody opposed it. It was ridiculous, a 150-story building surrounded by seven Chrysler Buildings. Much too big. And, this runs from 1985 to 1991. In '91, a compromise was reached. A much smaller project, but still gargantuan. And a lot of the groups that had opposed it supported it, and some of the civic groups did, because you're going to get a nice park and various other things. Most of the other legislators switched from opposition to support. I did not. I didn't like the compromise either. You know, one man's compromise is another man's sellout. John Harwood: Does anything about that experience inform your approach to the current situation? Jerry Nadler: Not really. We knew he was unscrupulous, but you knew that from just his general dealings in New York. I just thought he was overbearing and felt he could get his way no matter what, because he had the immense money and the resources. And that was wrong. John Harwood: Do you think of that experience as a fight with Donald Trump that you won, unequivocally, because it wasn't built? Jerry Nadler: No, we didn't win. The so-called compromise, which was much too big and large, was built. The rail yard stopped. No, I don't think it was a win at all. Quite the contrary. John Harwood: What do you think he is doing now? There are some people who believe that Trump is trying to goad the Congress into impeaching him because he thinks he will get a political benefit from that. There are others who think he's just an impulsive person who acts the way he acts, and it's not a larger strategy. Jerry Nadler: It's more the second than the first. I think he is very impulsive, he's very willful, and he's very ignorant. I mean, unlike Richard Nixon, who knew exactly what he was doing when he was violating the law and violating norms and so forth, he just goes ahead. He doesn't know what the law is. He doesn't know what the constitutional history is. He doesn't know the implications of half of what he does. John Harwood: Do you agree with Speaker Pelosi, who said the other day that he is self-impeaching by his conduct, making it impossible for you to avoid that? Jerry Nadler: He's making it increasingly difficult. Our major goal has to be to vindicate the rule of law. No questions are being answered about any subject. And then, when subpoenas are being issued, there's a blanket command, disobey all subpoenas. Nobody should testify, and nobody should give documents to Congress. Well, that's a way of neutering Congress, of making sure that Congress can't do its job, of turning the country into a dictatorship of a monarchical president. You can't function if you don't have information. John Harwood: That's why you call it a constitutional crisis? Jerry Nadler: Yes. John Harwood: He ridiculed that idea, said that you guys were just putting on a show and rallying your political base. The president says, "3.2 percent economic growth in the first quarter. What are you talking about? I'm making people's lives better." The idea of a constitutional crisis is not something people can see, feel, or touch. Jerry Nadler: That's right, but you know, we fought a Revolutionary War over that. It affects people's lives ultimately. Whether the president is doing a good job in the economy or not is one question. He may be. But, if he's destroying all the norms, and destroying all the practices, and destroying the laws, and arrogating all power to the presidency so that the people through Congress have nothing to say, that's a very different crisis. John Harwood: Is that an argument that you can make the American people see and understand and accept? Jerry Nadler: I think so. I mean, we have to hold hearings, and we have to get people to testify. And not just on the collusion with the Russians and obstruction of justice, but in all kinds of issues where they're refusing. The president goes out and lies, he says "I'm for health care." And he's trying to eliminate it in court. We have to get information on that so we can act, if necessary. John Harwood: I was reading over the weekend about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in the 19th century. And the advocates of impeachment then struggled with the question of, do we articulate narrow, concrete, easily understandable grounds for going after him? Crimes that he might have committed, or clear violations of his oath of office, or do we articulate a broader argument, but namely that the impeachable violation is that he was thwarting the aims of the Civil War, or the outcomes of the Civil War by interfering with the creation of a new society. Do you think of it that way as you're investigating President Trump? And if there's a larger issue about him and his conduct, what is it? Jerry Nadler: Certainly on many issues, you have to deal with the specifics. And the larger issue well, you've got three issues, really. It starts off with, this president and his campaign. If you read the Mueller report, there was tons of evidence that they knew the Russians were interfering with the election on their behalf. They welcomed it, they wanted it, and they coordinated with it. Colluded, in a word. There's no question about that. John Harwood: Despite Bill Barr saying over and over, "no collusion." Jerry Nadler: Bill Barr is just a liar. And, he's just representing the president. The second clear conclusion is, there are 12 episodes of obstruction of justice. Beyond all that is the basic question: They're trying to say that Congress, representing the American people, can't get information, and therefore, can't function. The effect of that is to make the president a monarch, to make him a dictator. And that's what we've got to fight. John Harwood: Do you believe, in fact, that the president is compromised by Russia? Jerry Nadler: Trump was saying throughout the campaign, "I have no dealings in Russia. I have no dealings of whatever kind." We now know that in fact, they were negotiating for Trump Tower Moscow right to the end of the campaign. They were lying and lying about it. Putin knew that they were having these negotiations. He knew that Trump was lying to the American people about it, and that gave him leverage, because he could have revealed that during the campaign. Whether there is leverage now, I don't know. There are a lot of questions. John Harwood: You actually think Bill Barr is just lying, as opposed to being a defender of the person who put him in the attorney general's job? Jerry Nadler: You could have two interpretations of Bill Barr's motives. The less charitable interpretation is he's doing whatever he has to do, to protect the president personally. And he'll hide whatever he has to hide. Lied may be too strong a word, but he certainly misrepresented very strongly what was in the report. The more charitable interpretation is that he simply believes in the so-called unitary theory of government, and this tyrannical theory that any president cannot obstruct justice, that as long as he believes that he didn't do anything wrong, he can stop an investigation. Which is a terrible doctrine because it would mean that you can't investigate any president for doing anything. And that he is acting now to protect that point of view. They're both dangerous. One would have him being very dishonest, the other would have him being honest but very dangerous to the republic. John Harwood: There was a poll that was done recently in which a solid majority of Americans said they believed that before he was president, President Trump committed crimes. Is that relevant? Jerry Nadler: The president can be impeached only if two things, only for misuse of presidential power while president or for cheating in the election that gave him the presidency. Other than that, if he did something terrible before he was president, he robbed the bank, that's not impeachable. It's a crime, but it's not impeachable. John Harwood: Do you believe he's committed crimes while in office? Jerry Nadler: Yes I do. Mueller lays out very strong evidence of a number of obstructions of justice. Those are crimes. Yes, of course he did. John Harwood: I wonder if the larger idea is that Democrats think that Donald Trump is a con man, and they are justified in finding ways to get a con man out of office. Jerry Nadler: I would very much oppose that point of view. Donald Trump is a con man. He is thoroughly dishonest. He lies all the time. We know that. None of those are grounds for impeachment. They're grounds for defeating him for reelection. They're grounds for why he shouldn't have been elected in the first place. But that's up to the American people. Impeachment is a weapon or a tool to protect the functioning of government and to protect liberty and to protect the structure of government. John Harwood: Several of your colleagues have told me that their approach is, you pursue investigations of the president not an impeachment process, but it could become an impeachment process, especially if public sentiment or your Republican colleagues shift in favor of that. Is that how you think of it? Jerry Nadler: Impeachment is a decision for down the road. But we have to get the facts. Ultimately, impeachment or not impeachment is a political act. And before you do it, the American people have to support it. John Harwood: Do you think Republican opinion and public opinion are susceptible to change at this point? Jerry Nadler: The American people have to be educated and understand the dangers of what's going on. I think the American people are intelligent enough to understand that once the facts are laid out, once they see what's going on, what the challenges are. John Harwood: When you talk about potential witnesses who could move public opinion, is that first and foremost Bob Mueller and maybe Don McGahn after that? Jerry Nadler: Those are the first two, but then you want a lot of others. John Harwood : When you say, "The question of impeachment is down the road," do you have a clock in your head? Does it need to be this calendar year or not at all? Jerry Nadler: I don't mean just in terms of time. It depends what comes out. It depends where the American people are, whether they want to go that way or not. I don't want to make it sound as if we're heading for impeachment. Probably we're not. John Harwood: You really believe that? Probably we're not? Jerry Nadler: Probably, but I don't know. John Harwood: What I hear from your colleagues is the reverse probably we are, but not yet. Jerry Nadler: Maybe. It's hard. I don't know. John Harwood: I had the lunch the other day with Bill Cohen, who was a young Republican congressman during the Nixon impeachment process. He said he thinks Trump deserves impeachment, and that what we're seeing now from Trump is worse than anything Nixon ever did. Do you agree with that? Jerry Nadler: Yeah, I do. Nixon never posed the kind of existential challenge to separation of powers and to limited government that Trump does. John Harwood: Are you enjoying the responsibility? Jerry Nadler: Well I don't know if I'd say I enjoy it. I'm in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time. You've got to do your job and you've got to do your duty. In one sense, I've prepared for it my entire life, because my motivation getting involved in politics, coming back to when I was 12 years old, was protecting civil liberties. I remember reading newspaper stories when I was 11 or 12 about Supreme Court decisions that infuriated me, upholding convictions based on confessions that were physically beaten out of prisoners. I remember getting very angry and saying, "I have to do something about this." John Harwood: President Trump and some conservative Republicans say that the media, social media companies, the "deep state," are suppressing or constraining the civil liberties of conservatives or Republicans, or President Trump. Jerry Nadler: It's nonsense. They're going off on nonsensical quests what's the origin of the investigation? We know what the origin was. And even if the origin wasn't good, which it was look what it found. It found the Russians making a concerted effort to rig an American election, and various people in the United States supporting that, and then trying to cover it up. That's the issue. John Harwood: Do you think your Republican colleagues will grapple in good faith with the questions of constitutional checks and balances and civil liberties that you think you are vindicating? Jerry Nadler: I hope so. I see no evidence of it yet. John Harwood: Why do you think that is? You've served with these people for a long time. Jerry Nadler: The reason is that President Trump is running, what, 85% among Republican voters? People are terrified of primaries. The only people you see doing what I think is the right thing are people not running for reelection. John Harwood: Lessons from Peter Rodino or Henry Hyde? Jerry Nadler: I don't remember in detail about Rodino, except that he presided with dignity and fairness and he was reluctant to do it. In fact, the story is that when the committee voted to impeach the president, he went into his office and cried, even though he had helped to engineer the vote. John Harwood: Are you going to go in your office and cry? Jerry Nadler: I don't think I'll cry. I'm not that emotional. He was crying, presumably, that it was necessary. If it's necessary, you've got to do it. We have to protect the Constitution, and protect a democratic form of government. If we succeed in doing that, maybe I'll cry out of happiness. Henry Hyde, I think he lost perspective. John Harwood: Now, one thing that you said during that impeachment process was that an impeachment lacks legitimacy if it's done by only one party. If you have no Republican member of Congress supporting it, does that mean it can't happen? Jerry Nadler: No. If you think that the evidence is so stark, about deeds so terrible, that by the end of the inquiry when it's laid out, then you'll have some appreciable Republican support, then you can do it. John Harwood: Should you be concerned with the electoral impact of what you're doing on candidates from districts very much not like yours, where Trump got 19% of the vote? Jerry Nadler: If you're going to do anything, you need the votes of people from districts not like mine, so obviously you have to take account of it. But, again, the ultimate measuring rod is saving liberty. The ultimate test is, do we hand down to our children as robust a democratic form of government as was handed to us? John Harwood: What about financial impacts? Your district encompasses Wall Street. If you thought the turmoil of an impeachment process was going to be damaging to the American economy, would that be a reason to shy away from it? Jerry Nadler: The American economy is very large and very resilient. But number two, no. That would not be a reason. I suppose if you thought it was going to cause a major depression like the '30s, you'd have to think about it. But that's not real. Our job is to preserve the rule of law, to make sure that nobody is above the law not the president or anybody else and that we have a form of government where the people rule. That's what is threatened. John Harwood: I talked to a Democratic senator the other day. He said, "I'm concerned that if we have an impeachment of Trump, what seems like an all-out assault on Trump, we could have violence in the streets." Do you believe that? Jerry Nadler: I would hope not. I hadn't thought of that. We have never had such considerations since the Civil War. We had the impeachment of Nixon, we had the impeachment of Clinton nobody talked that way. The United States has to be ruled by votes, not by violence in the streets. John Harwood: Would censure of the president be an effective remedy for a constitutional crisis or violation? Jerry Nadler: I don't know. I'm skeptical personally of censure. John Harwood: Why? Jerry Nadler: Because I don't know that it means much anymore. It was done once in American history, when Andrew Jackson was censured in 1830 or '31, and then it meant something. But that was in the era of duels. When someone insulted you, you took them to a duel. Today, I'm not sure anybody would care about a censure resolution. They'd laugh it off. I'm not sure it would mean anything at all. John Harwood: Do you think if the president were impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate, it would boost his reelection prospects? Jerry Nadler: It might very well. John Harwood: Would that be a reason not to do it? Jerry Nadler: It would be a consideration, certainly. John Harwood: As I listen to you, and other members of your party, it feels as if politics is now the only reason for you not to impeach the president. Is that where we are? Jerry Nadler: No. A major nonpolitical reason not to impeach the president is if you thought it would tear the country apart. John Harwood: Do you have any autonomy in that decision, or is that really the speaker's call? Jerry Nadler: Well, it's neither. Remember, everybody's independently elected, everybody has to get independently reelected. The speaker's not a tyrant, nor does she want to be. Decisions are made by consensus. She gets her way a lot because she's persuasive and because she's logical in terms of what she's supporting in the first place. But she has to listen to the caucus, as do we all. More From CNBC PARIS (Reuters) - Rothschild & Co has decided not to advise India's Adani in the financing or development of the $4 billion (3.10 billion) Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, Australia, a letter from the bank to an environmental group said. The bank is also not advising the firm on the planned sale of stake in the Abbot Point Coal export terminal, said the May 12 confidential letter to Friends of the Earth, France. A spokeswoman for the bank confirmed the authenticity of the letter but provided no further comment. The decision comes as banks and other financial institutions are facing increasing pressure to cut investments in coal, blamed for adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than any other fuel, as the world moves to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Carmichael coal mine, which has been in planning since 2010, has become a lightning rod for debate on climate change ahead of Australia's May 18 election. Friends of the Earth said in a statement on Tuesday that the decision by Rothschild came after several requests from Friends of the Earth and partner organisations. It added that the announcement come two days before the release of a report that would reveal the bank's significant activities in the coal sector. "While other French banks have restricted their coal advisory services, Rothschild & Co sees a financial windfall and is currently advising Uniper on the sale of its French coal plants to EPH," the NGO said in the statement. It said the organisation will be present at Rothschild's general assembly meeting in Paris on May 16, and would ask management to put an end to all financial services related to the coal sector. (Reporting by Bate Felix, editing by Louise Heavens) May 14, 2019 Partnership to utilize innovative technology to increase access to diagnostic services with five new community sites across England Agreement aims to deliver first class, patient-centered diagnostic services Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Guildford, the UK Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) a leading global health technology company, has announced it signed a 10-year strategic partnership agreement with Rutherford Diagnostics . This collaboration will utilize Philips innovative radiology technology and Rutherford Diagnostics healthcare expertise to deliver and operate advanced personalized diagnostic services through a network of community diagnostic centers, driving the best possible healthcare outcomes for patients. Rutherford Diagnostics is a subsidiary of Proton Partners International which operates diagnostic and cancer centers across the United Kingdom. The agreement has a term of 10-years and the two organizations will work in partnership to deliver advanced diagnostics services, through five new diagnostics centers across the UK. Under the terms of the agreement, which is built around a Managed Technology Service, Philips will deliver: state-of-the-art imaging equipment provision; management and technology utilization reporting; continuous training; and a research and innovation program. "For Philips, a successful managed service uses technology as an enabler to drive improved clinical practices and patient outcomes through innovation and sustainability, said Stephen McMillan, Solutions Lead for Philips in the UK. We believe this partnership with Rutherford Diagnostics is an opportunity to deliver a truly patient-centric diagnostic service with high levels of staff satisfaction. Philips already has a number of innovative managed service agreements with NHS partners here in the UK, so this is an exciting expansion of this service for us, as we partner with our first private provider. Philips and Rutherford Diagnostics will help expand access to diagnostic services for local patients in a cost-effective way that supports the best possible patient outcomes and experiences. Story continues Our focus is to change the current healthcare paradigm from a reactive model which responds to disease, to one that is proactive and preventative with far reaching long-term benefits, said Dr Steven Powell, Chief Executive Officer of Rutherford Diagnostics. We required a strategic partner who will complement our diagnostic service offering with technological innovation. Philips is closely aligned to our vision and can manage complexity while remaining flexible and is the right partner to support us on this journey. The first three community diagnostic centers are due to go live in 2020, with the remaining two in 2021. The first site is expected to welcome patients in Liverpool in 2020. For further information, please contact: Joost Maltha Philips Group Press Office Tel. +31 6 10 55 8116 E-mail: joost.maltha@philips.com Jonathan Falcone Philips United Kingdom & Ireland Tel. +44 (0)7789 925 134 E-mail: jonathan.falcone@philips.com About Royal Philips About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2018 sales of EUR 18.1 billion and employs approximately 77,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter . About Rutherford Diagnostics Transforming Medical Diagnostics a progressive approach for a better future Rutherford Diagnostics was established to fulfil a much-needed requirement for more advanced diagnostics services. We are developing a network of diagnostics centres across the UK to instigate change from the current reactive paradigm which often results in late stage diagnosis - to a proactive paradigm of prediction, prevention and earliest possible detection of disease. Our philosophy is to strive for world class quality care and we believe getting the basics of care right every time means the right diagnosis first time to ensure the best outcomes. By providing state of the art facilities and advanced clinical equipment we offer the highest level of efficiency and diagnostic yield, we can offer safe and clinically effective services with compassion and sensitivity for outstanding patient experience. Attachment (Bloomberg) -- Sanofi is joining other big pharmaceutical companies in expanding beyond pills and injections into a new frontier of tech-based treatments that doctors can prescribe. Working with partner Happify Health, the French drugmaker is studying a potential digital therapy for patients with depression and multiple sclerosis. That follows the launch last year of a similar type of prescription treatment from Novartis AG and Pear Therapeutics Inc. aimed at substance abuse, the first of its kind to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. The regulatory pathway has really become much more amenable, and we know for certain diseases, a digital therapeutic can actually be very effective, Chief Digital Officer Ameet Nathwani said in an interview at Sanofis headquarters in Paris. Theres an opportunity in finding alternatives that are lower cost and can be delivered in a different way. Drugmakers are looking increasingly at apps and other software tools that are proven in trials, reviewed by regulators and prescribed by doctors to treat a range of diseases. As costs to develop new drugs climb and health systems push back on prices, pharma companies are teaming up with artificial intelligence specialists, hiring data scientists or even snapping up tech startups in a bid to become faster and more efficient. If you look at the cycle times, clearly in digital therapeutics theyre disruptively shorter, according to Nathwani, who added the tech role to his responsibilities as Sanofis chief medical officer earlier this year. Newly created digital jobs at companies ranging from GlaxoSmithKline Plc to Novartis are a sign of the industrys desire to expand in the tech realm. Otsuka Pharmaceutical in January agreed to pay as much as $300 million to Click Therapeutics Inc. to develop digital therapies for patients with major depression. Deals and partnerships between pharma and digital-therapeutics companies are likely to increase in 2019, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Story continues Digital medicine aims to improve patients health by giving them ways to alter behavior, tools to cope with disease or reminders to take medicine. For example, Pear is developing therapies to follow Reset, an app approved by the FDA in 2017 that trains patients to modify drug-taking behavior. Other medical apps help patients manage their prescription drugs. While Sanofi looks at combining software with drugs to improve treatment of different disorders, it said the new study could open the door for the company in the area of standalone digital treatments. Happify brings together scientists and game designers to develop new therapies, according to its website. Were looking to see whether we can not just improve the depression, but the question then is can you improve some of the underlying MS attributes, Nathwani said. Digital therapeutics could be an interesting option for us. European regulators arent moving as swiftly as their U.S. counterparts in endorsing some of the new technologies and digital-health initiatives, he said later in a briefing with journalists. At least some of the delay may be due to Brexit and disruption caused by the European Medicines Agencys move from London to Amsterdam, he said. In Europe, I think its going to take more time, he said. Were hoping they will very quickly pick up the baton. (Adds comments on regulators in last paragraphs.) To contact the reporter on this story: James Paton in London at jpaton4@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, John Lauerman For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. By Clara Denina LONDON (Reuters) - A tie-up between London and Shanghai to allow Chinese firms to raise money on the UK stock market and British firms to sell shares in China is facing a long delay and is not likely to happen this year, sources close to the matter said. The Shanghai-London Stock Connect project started in 2015 and was embraced by the London Stock Exchange as one that would give Britain a lead in tapping Chinese investors who are currently not able to invest overseas. It would also allow companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) to launch secondary offerings in London. Chinese companies listed domestically cannot have a secondary listing abroad at the moment, with the exception of Hong Kong, and investors cannot use currencies such as euros or pounds. The project will be important for London post Brexit and could also help the London market combat a sharp fall in new listings across Europe. But sources say interest in the project in China has lost momentum, possibly because of difficulties introducing necessary changes to money market rules, as well as the delay to Brexit and the ongoing trade dispute with the United States. The sources said what looked like a short delay to the launch of the London Connect could now be indefinite. LSE and SSE officials say there is progress. "Various work around the Shanghai-London Connect is proceeding normally," the SSE said in an emailed statement. "The timing of launch will be decided by the preparatory conditions of the issuers on both sides, and the market. There's no concrete timetable for the launch." Charlie Walker, LSE head of Equity Primary Markets, said that the project "is now in the final stages prior to launch. We are just waiting for one final set of foreign exchange rules to come out, and are hopeful that it will launch this year." The delay comes as the uncertainty caused by Brexit remains unresolved and as growing trade tensions between the United States and China continue to rattle investors. Story continues A launch ceremony for the project, scheduled for last December, was called off. A Chinese media report said at the time that this delay was linked to Britain's parliamentary vote on the Brexit deal, which was seen as creating market turbulence. Brexit has now been delayed until the end of October and the British government is still working to reach an exit agreement. The concept of a tie-up between Shanghai and London is the latest in a series of efforts by China to gradually bring its stock markets into the world trading system. (Reporting by Clara Denina; additional reporting by Samuel Shen in Shanghai and Julia Fioretti in Hong Kong. Editing by Jane Merriman) SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Shockwave Medical, Inc. (SWAV), a pioneer in the development and commercialization of Intravascular Lithotripsy (IVL) to treat complex calcified cardiovascular disease, announced today that the Company has appointed Keith D. Dawkins, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer. Given the challenges associated with treating calcium throughout the cardiovascular system, joining Shockwave and contributing to the development of what will likely become the new standard of care for calcium modification was an attractive opportunity, said Dr. Dawkins. The Company has made significant progress in the last year in both technology development and the successful application of IVL to a variety of clinical settings; I believe that the future potential of IVL has yet to be fully realized. Prior to Shockwave, Dr. Dawkins served as Global Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President to Boston Scientific Corporation, as well as a member of that Companys Executive Committee from 2012 to 2017. This role followed Dr. Dawkins time as Chief Medical Officer to the Boston Scientific Cardiology, Rhythm and Vascular Group from 2010 to 2012. He joined Boston Scientific in 2008 as Senior Vice President and Associate Chief Medical Officer of the cardiovascular business. Earlier in his career, Dr. Dawkins was a practicing interventional cardiologist for more than 20 years in the U.K. He has earned a series of clinical, research and academic distinctions, including a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Dawkins served as President of the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society (BCIS) and held numerous appointments on hospital, regional and national committees, including the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). He has been an author on more than 750 academic publications and presentations on a variety of cardiac topics. Having Keith join Shockwave brings a great depth of experience to the organization, said Doug Godshall, President and Chief Executive Officer of Shockwave Medical. His expertise from the physician and industry perspective will offer significant value to both our customers and teams across Shockwave as we continue to expand access to our existing technology and to develop new applications for IVL. Story continues Dr. Dawkins earned a First Class Honours degree in Pathology at London University and Guys Hospital. He trained in cardiology at Oxford and at the Royal Brompton & St. Georges Hospital in London. Dr. Dawkins will serve Shockwave on a half-time basis as he is also currently serving as the Chief Medical Officer to 4TECH Cardio Inc. and is a Senior Advisor to Conformal Medical, in addition to serving on the Board of Directors for several companies including Avicena, JenaValve and InnovHeart. About Shockwave Medical, Inc. Shockwave Medical is focused on developing and commercializing products intended to transform the way calcified cardiovascular disease is treated by establishing a new standard of care with Intravascular Lithotripsy (IVL). The companys differentiated and proprietary IVL approach to calcium modification uses sonic pressure waves to safely and effectively fracture problematic calcium throughout the cardiovascular system in a wide and growing number of applications. For more information, visit www.shockwavemedical.com. Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements regarding Shockwaves current expectations. Words such as may, might, will, should, believe, expect, anticipate, estimate, continue, predict, forecast, project, plan, intend or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, those described more fully in the section captioned Risk Factors in the final prospectus related to the public offering filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made as of this date, and Shockwave undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law. Media Contact: Scott Shadiow +1.317.432.9210 sshadiow@shockwavemedical.com New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine. Near record high temperatures. High around 80F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low 62F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Sphinx Resources Ltd. ("Sphinx" or the "Corporation") (SFX.V) is pleased to announce that the Honourable Lawrence Cannon has been appointed to the Corporation's Board of Directors as an independent director. Mr. Cannon was born in Quebec and has a long history of public service at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. He was the Canadian Ambassador to the French Republic from 2012 to 2017. He was an influential member of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, serving from 2008 to 2011 as Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 2006 to 2008, he was Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and Minister responsible for Quebec in the Government of Canada. In the Quebec government, between 1985 and 1994, Mr. Cannon was Minister of Communications, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of External Trade and Technological Development and also Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism. From 1971 to 1976, he was the executive assistant to Premier Robert Bourassa. At the municipal level, he was Municipal Councillor for the City of Gatineau from 2001 to 2005 and for the City of Cap-Rouge from 1979 to 1985. In early October 2011, he was appointed Chair and Senior Member of the Gowlings Government Affairs Group in Ottawa. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Oceanic Iron Ore Corporation. Mr. Cannon resigned from both these positions when he was appointed Ambassador of Canada to France. From 1994 to 2001, he was Vice President of Government Affairs with Unitel, consultant for Groupe Cannon & Associates. Mr. Cannon holds an M.B.A. from the Universite Laval (Quebec City) and a Bachelor's Degree from Loyola College in Montreal. "We are privileged and honoured to welcome Lawrence to the Sphinx Board. Lawrence has tremendous experience in the business and political world and made significant contributions to local communities. He will help Sphinx's team to realize the next stage of growth", said Mr. John Hick, Chairman of the Board. Story continues Kerry E. Sparkes has resigned from the Board in order to pursue other opportunities. "I want to express our Board's deep appreciation for the opportunity to work with Kerry and benefit from his talent and dedication. We are thankful for his involvement and tremendous contributions since the beginning of the Corporation and wish him success in his new ventures", said Mr. Normand Champigny, director of the Corporation. About Sphinx Sphinx is a mineral exploration company that focuses its activities in southwestern Quebec in search of deposits of base metals (zinc, copper, lead) and precious metals (palladium, platinum, gold and silver). Sphinx is particularly active in the MRC Pontiac where its President and Chief Executive Officer resides. It has a strong local shareholding that contributes towards social acceptability. For further information, please consult Sphinx's website or contact: Jeremie Ryan President and Chief Executive Officer 819.664.2632 info@sphinxresources.ca www.sphinxresources.ca Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and activities to vary materially from targeted results and planning. Such risks and uncertainties include those described in Sphinx's periodic reports including the annual report or in the filings made by Sphinx from time to time with securities regulatory authorities. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Sphinx does not undertake to update any such forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. SOURCE:Sphinx Resources Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545463/Sphinx-Appoints-the-Honourable-Lawrence-Cannon-to-Its-Board-of-Directors View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/545463/Sphinx-Appoints-the-Honourable-Lawrence-Cannon-to-Its-Board-of-Directors By Geoffrey Smith Investing.com -- Italys Achilles heel is starting to trouble its stock market again. The FTSE MIB has been the big laggard in Europe over the last month and the underperformance is getting starker, as the economic slowdown puts the populist coalition in Rome on collision course with the European Unions budget cops. The issue flared again on Tuesday after deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini threatened to increase spending and openly breach EU deficit and debt limits, if needed, to support growth and stop unemployment rising. "Until we arrive at 5% unemployment, we will spend everything that we should and if someone in Brussels complains, that won't be our concern," Reuters reported Salvini as saying. The comments drove Italys 10-year bond yields to a two-month high of 2.76% and the premium over their German counterparts widened to 283 basis points, the most in three months. Such movements effectively raise the cost of capital and hit the profitability of all Italian companies, especially its banks. The MIB is still reeling from Salvinis comments this morning, down 0.7% and the worst-performing major index on the continent. Tellingly, Italys two largest banks, Unicredit (MI:CRDI) and Intesa Sanpaolo (MI:ISP), are both near the bottom of the index, down 1.9% and 1.6%, respectively, by 4 AM ET (0800 GMT). The benchmark Euro Stoxx 600 was down 1.4 points, or 0.4% at 374.98. The U.K. FTSE 100 was down 0.1% and the German DAX down 0.4%. Over the last month, the MIB has lost 5.4%, compared to a drop of only 3.7% for the Stoxx 600 and 1.4% for the Dax. Italy and the EU had struck an uneasy peace over the new year, Brussels turning a blind eye to a budget forecast from Rome that rested on some heroic growth assumptions. However, the European Commission slashed its 2019 growth estimate for Italy to only 0.1% when it updated its economic forecasts last week. It now sees the budget deficit at a much higher-than-projected 2.5% of GDP, rising to 3.5% next year, a level most economists see as unsustainable. Story continues Related Articles European shares fall amid disappointing bank earnings Japan stocks higher at close of trade; Nikkei 225 up 0.58% Renault shares fall after Nissan's bleak outlook By Geoffrey Smith Investing.com -- The cost of preparing for 5G has finally caught up with Vodafone (LON:VOD). The U.K. telecoms giant has finally admitted it cant afford its 4 billion euro dividend and is cutting its payout for the first time in nearly 30 years, only months after incoming chief executive Nick Read vowed to protect it Its a serious blow to pension managers and other income-hunters, but not an unexpected one, in the light of a 6.6 billion-pound loss in the last fiscal year. The companys shares have been trading at a dividend yield of over 9% in recent weeks, suggesting that a fair amount of speculation on a dividend cut was already baked in. The stock was up slightly on Tuesday, in line with a modest bounce in European markets after Mondays trade-war-induced volatility. At 4:30 AM ET (0830 GMT), it was up 2.3%, outperforming the U.K. FTSE 100, which was up 0.7%. The benchmark Euro Stoxx 600 was up 0.4% at 373.94 points, still down 2% over the last week. With 30 billion euros in net debt and the cost of paying for 5G spectrum still largely to come, the company has been looking financially weak for some time. Operational stumbles in Spain and Italy havent helped, and the acquisition of Liberty Globals German assets, which ought to give it a big boost in pricing power in Europes biggest market, still isnt expected to close until July. Until those assets can start throwing out cash, Vodafone is resorting to other ways of raising or saving money. Overnight, it announced it will sell its New Zealand business to a consortium led by Brookfield for $2.2 billion. It isnt too much of a stretch to see its Australian business going the same way, after regulators thwarted its best hope of success there last week by ruling against its proposed merger with TPG. Closer to home, it has signed agreements to share infrastructure with other operators already in place. Once those agreements are in place, Vodafone says it will look at monetizing its towers business an area that has generated some eye-catchingly high M&A deals elsewhere in Europe recently. Story continues For investors, the stock still yields a respectable 5.77% and Read on Tuesday promised a progressive dividend policy in future, aiming to rebuild the payout once debt is down toward 2.5 times EBITDA. Related Articles Nissan flags weakest profit in 11 years as Ghosn woes weigh Bayer stock at lowest in nearly seven years after $2 billion award in Roundup trial World stocks hover near two-month low, investor fears over U.S.-China trade war ease A study by ProPublica found that most ransomware solutions providers have one weird trick for getting rid of hackers paying them off. Ransomware activity is growing weekly according to experts at CoveWare. The result? Companies who just want to pay the ransom and move on. According to CoveWare, ransomware attacks were up in Q1 2019: New Crypto-Mining Malware Targeting Asian Firms With NSA Tools In Q1 of 2019, the average ransom increased by 89% to $12,762, as compared to $6,733 in Q4 of 2018. The ransom increase reflects increased infections of more expensive types of ransomware such as Ryuk, Bitpaymer, and Iencrypt. These types of ransomware are predominantly used in bespoke targeted attacks on larger enterprise targets. Once hackers encrypt an infected computer, however, the real question is how to unlock your data. ProPublica found that many data recovery firms simply pay the ransom and then charge a premium for their trouble. Proven Data promised to help ransomware victims by unlocking their data with the latest technology, according to company emails and former clients. Instead, it obtained decryption tools from cyberattackers by paying ransoms, according to Storfer and an FBI affidavit obtained by ProPublica. Another U.S. company, Florida-based MonsterCloud, also professes to use its own data recovery methods but instead pays ransoms, sometimes without informing victims such as local law enforcement agencies, ProPublica has found. The firms are alike in other ways. Both charge victims substantial fees on top of the ransom amounts. They also offer other services, such as sealing breaches to protect against future attacks. Both firms have used aliases for their workers, rather than real names, in communicating with victims. Going up Student Gets 10-Year Jail Term for SIM-Swap Crypto Thefts Worth $7.5 Million Ransomware is getting worse. After US Attorney General traced and indicted two Iranian hackers for releasing ransomware called SamSam, authorities hoped the prevalence of attacks would fall. Instead, it rose, beating 2018 levels considerably. Story continues The reason, many believe, is because ransomware is so lucrative. Hackers can launch an attack and then, when the victims discover the hack, they negotiate briefly with companies like MonsterCloud and others to unlock the computers. However, many of these companies offer recovery methods and many security researchers work on free methods this one for the popular WannaCry ransomware. Unfortunately, the hacks are getting worse and the software necessary is getting more complex. CoveWare admits to actually negotiating with scammers. Theyve found it to be one of the simplest methods for getting data back. The concern, however, is that these efforts are inadvertently funding terrorism. Further, they write, it is taking longer to decrypt hacked computers, thanks to new versions of the ransomeware. In Q1 2019, wrote CoveWar, the average downtime increased to 7.3 days, from 6.2 days in Q4 of 2018. Pattern recognition CoveWare CEO Bill Siegel has found that the average ransomware recovery isnt really a negotiation with terrorists as US Government officials believe. Theyve negotiated a few hundred ransomware cases this year and find that each hacker is different and often just frustrated. Our sense based on our study of the industry and experience is that the vast vast majority are relatively normal people that dont have legal economic prospects that match their technical abilities, Siegel said. They also live in parts of the world that are beyond the jurisdiction of Western law enforcement, and are ambivalent about stealing from the West. Their process for talking with the hackers is also quite precise. We study their communications patterns so that we can build up a database of experience. There is a surprisingly small group of threat actors that are active at any given time, so identifying them is relatively straight forward. From there, we have scripts and tactics that we have honed over our experience. We draw on those to develop a negotiation strategy on behalf of our client. We know the hackers based on the profile and patterns they exhaust. We dont communicate with them outside of representing our clients in a negotiation. All of the data exhaust we create from our cases is provided to law enforcement on a quarterly basis as well. Zohar Pinhasi of MonsterCloud said his company worked hard to use both methods recovery and ransom. The recovery process varies from case to case depending on the scope and nature of the cyber attack. Our methods for achieving data recovery and protection are the product of years of technical experience and expertise and we do not disclose the process to the public or to our customers. That is communicated clearly up front. However, what I can tell you is that we are a cyber security company, not a data recovery company. We have vast knowledge and experience dealing with these criminals, and we spend countless hours staying atop their evolving methods in order to provide our clients with protections against all future attackers, not just the one infiltrating their data at the time they come to us. We offer a money back guarantee to any client if we are unable to recover their data, and to date we have not had a single client report a follow-up attack from the same criminals or any other attacker. While sending a few thousand BTC to a strange address might not sit well with many victims, it still looks like the best way to reduce downtimes. After all, its the organizations fault for catching the ransomware bug in the first place. Prevention, as they say, is often better than the cure. Image via Coindesk archive. Related Stories DUP leader Arlene Foster with Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill at the funeral of Lyra McKee. Photo: Charles McQuillan/AFP/Getty Images Talks on restoring power-sharing involving five of Northern Irelands main political parties will begin in Belfast on Tuesday. Northern Ireland has been without an executive for more than two years as a result of a political stalemate between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein. The five-week negotiations, the first since February 2018, will be formally opened by the British and Irish governments. Prime minister Theresa May and her Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar last month urged political leaders in Northern Ireland to heed the unmistakable message heard at the funeral of murdered journalist Lyra McKee. Martin Magill, a Catholic priest, was given a standing ovation during a eulogy delivered at McKees funeral when he asked why it took the death of the 29-year-old woman, who was shot by dissident republicans in Londonderry, to get politicians to come together. READ MORE: Tories lose only council seat in Northern Ireland Talks on Tuesday are expected to focus more on the process and timeline, with substantive deliberations on restoring power at Stormont beginning on Wednesday. Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley and Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney will lead the proceedings, which are expected to involve round-table discussions, working groups, and one-on-one meetings with political parties. Bradley on Monday announced a 105m investment package for the Londonderry region. The talks also come after last weeks local elections in Northern Ireland failed to change the political calculus. Both the DUP and Sinn Fein remain the largest political parties. The collapse of power-sharing in January 2017 followed a scandal involving a failed renewable energy incentive scheme known as the Renewable Heat Incentive. But talks have not progressed for a number of reasons, including Sinn Feins objections to both the DUPs use of a parliamentary mechanism to prevent the introduction of same-sex marriage and its position on the Irish language. Story continues Both parties also fundamentally disagree about Brexit, with the DUP staunchly in favour of the UKs departure from the EU, and Sinn Fein opposed. READ MORE: Nancy Pelosi visits seamless Irish border Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The gloves are off. Not only has Attorney General Bill Barr hired a so-called pit bull to investigate the investigators, John Durham out of Connecticut, who has a history of investigating officials. He is also working with the nations top national security leaders to get to the bottom of exactly how this whole Russia investigation got started in the first place. Durham will review all intelligence collection activities related to the Trump 2016 campaign, including how the FBI got away with using opposition research bought and paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to secure a warrant to spy on an American citizen, who worked for the Trump campaign. About time, right? We spend two years listening to the media and former intelligence officials tell us that Trump was an agent of Russia and now we know there was no collusion and he was no agent of Russia. So why would the FBIs top lawyer, James Baker, not question the use of the dossier? He volunteered that he never authenticated anything telling lawmakers behind closed doors that he didn't read the Woods file, which provides the underlying documentation. Meanwhile, it was highly unusual for him to be this involved in a case, something he told Congress, "at that point in time when I was at the FBI, most of the FISA -- almost all the FISA applications did not go through me. If this was as sensitive a case as he indicates then why not triple check your sources or just check them, before filing for a FISA warrant? And then why not inform the FISA court judge that your application is based upon opposition research? Why leave it in a little footnote when thats rather important. Baker himself explained on Friday that, Nobodys gonna miss a page long footnote in regular type, okay? Excuse me? You treat hearsay and tabloid opposition research as legitimate FBI research and never headline it as such for the judge? Bakers inexplicable reason for just footnoting the source of the dossier to the judge? You dont want to put into a document like this gratuitous information about U.S. persons. You want to try to minimize it, to some extent. Story continues How about not using material you havent sourced? I mean this is the FBI! This should make everyone left, right and center angry because if we have people in big government thinking they can do whatever they want, and spy on innocent Americans then we have big, big problems. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APP There were all kinds of easily disprovable things in the dossier. For one, the dossier claims with such specificity that Michael Cohen was in Prague in August 2016 holding secret meetings with the Kremlin. But Michael Cohen had never even traveled to Prague and that was pretty easy to figure out. Check his passport records?! Mueller figured it out; its in Volume 2, page 139. And there are more but the point is: If, as I suspect, the FBI relied on opposition research for political purposes then this is the biggest scandal in modern American political history. Perhaps the biggest ever in this country. Related Articles (Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump plans in coming days to sign an executive order that would prohibit American firms from using gear made by foreign telecommunications companies that pose a security threat, according to an administration official. The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said on Tuesday night that the order was not meant to single out any country or company. U.S. officials have said that equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co.., a Chinese telecommunications firm, could be used to spy on behalf of the Beijing government. Huawei has denied the allegations. The official also said that the order, which could be signed as soon as Wednesday, has nothing to do with the recent escalation of the trade conflict with China. In January, the administration was preparing the action, which could significantly restrict Chinese state-owned telecom companies from operating in the U.S. over national security concerns, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The order, as it was conceived earlier this year, would not outright ban U.S. sales by the companies, but would give greater authority to the Commerce Department to review products and purchases by firms connected to adversarial countries, including China, one of the people said. Chinas Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. of deliberately discrediting Chinese companies. This is neither graceful nor fair, ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a news briefing in Beijing. We urge the U.S. to stop citing security concerns as an excuse to unreasonably suppress Chinese companies and provide a fair and equitable and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies to operate in the U.S. Huawei is pushing to take a global leadership position in 5G technology, but many American officials suspect the companys products could be used by Beijing to spy on Western governments and companies. Both Huawei and ZTE Corp. have also been targeted by the U.S. for alleged schemes to dodge American sanctions on Iran. Story continues Canadian authorities last December arrested Huaweis Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the U.S., which seeks her extradition over allegations of violating Iran sanctions. Ren Zhengfei, the companys founder and Mengs father, has denied espionage allegations and a link to Chinas government. Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver while the legal proceedings unfold. The administration official said the Commerce Department was expected to take as long as six months to fashion an approach to the order, so there might not be an immediate effect. And the order might eventually name specific companies or countries as Commerce carries out the process. The U.S. has been trying without success to persuade other governments to exclude to exclude equipment made by Huawei from super-fast 5G mobile networks that will connect billions of devices. The administration has been urging allies to analyze risk before buying gear, Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy at the State Department, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. We are concerned that China could compel actions by network vendors to act against the interests of U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries around the world, Strayer said. The U.S. says Chinese law compels Huawei to cooperate with Beijings espionage agencies. U.S. officials said Huawei can build vulnerabilities, or backdoors, into equipment. Last week, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission barred China Mobile Ltd. from the U.S. market over national security concerns and said it was opening a review of other Chinese companies. (Updates with China Foreign Ministry comment from sixth paragraph.) --With assistance from Todd Shields and Dandan Li. To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Justin Blum For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. The U.S. Grants Huawei a Temporary Reprieve from BlacklistAnd Saves Itself Some Trouble President Donald Trump plans in coming days to sign an executive order that would prohibit American firms from using gear made by foreign telecommunications companies that pose a security threat, according to an administration official. The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said on Tuesday night that the order was not meant to single out any country or company. U.S. officials have said that equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co.., a Chinese telecommunications firm, could be used to spy on behalf of the Beijing government. Huawei has denied the allegations. The official also said that the order, which could be signed as soon as Wednesday, has nothing to do with the recent escalation of the trade conflict with China. In January, the administration was preparing the action, which could significantly restrict Chinese state-owned telecom companies from operating in the U.S. over national security concerns, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The order, as it was conceived earlier this year, would not outright ban U.S. sales by the companies, but would give greater authority to the Commerce Department to review products and purchases by firms connected to adversarial countries, including China, one of the people said. This is neither graceful nor fair, ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a news briefing in Beijing. We urge the U.S. to stop citing security concerns as an excuse to unreasonably suppress Chinese companies and provide a fair and equitable and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies to operate in the U.S. Huawei is pushing to take a global leadership position in 5G technology, but many American officials suspect the companys products could be used by Beijing to spy on Western governments and companies. Both Huawei and ZTE Corp. have also been targeted by the U.S. for alleged schemes to dodge American sanctions on Iran. Story continues Canadian authorities last December arrested Huaweis Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the U.S., which seeks her extradition over allegations of violating Iran sanctions. Ren Zhengfei, the companys founder and Mengs father, has denied espionage allegations and a link to Chinas government. Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver while the legal proceedings unfold. The administration official said the Commerce Department was expected to take as long as six months to fashion an approach to the order, so there might not be an immediate effect. And the order might eventually name specific companies or countries as Commerce carries out the process. The U.S. has been trying without success to persuade other governments to exclude equipment made by Huawei from super-fast 5G mobile networks that will connect billions of devices. The administration has been urging allies to analyze risk before buying gear, Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy at the State Department, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. We are concerned that China could compel actions by network vendors to act against the interests of U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries around the world, Strayer said. The U.S. says Chinese law compels Huawei to cooperate with Beijings espionage agencies. U.S. officials said Huawei can build vulnerabilities, or backdoors, into equipment. Last week, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission barred China Mobile Ltd. from the U.S. market over national security concerns and said it was opening a review of other Chinese companies. More must-read stories from Fortune: Questioning the role of French telecom execs in 35 employee suicides Tencents new video game: part propaganda, part peace offering Why the new U.S.-EU trade talks might go nowhere The Eastern European countries home to todays most dynamic winemakers Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortunes daily digest on the business of tech The effects of slowing phone sales, including iPhones, are appearing in the supply chain. Foxconn and Japan Display report disappointing results, with sales slowing in double digits for both companies. Slowing phone sales have been blamed on rising prices and trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Foxconn 1138-SZ and Japan Display 6740.T-JP reported disappointing financial results this week as the effects of slowing iPhone sales ripple through Apple AAPL 's supply chain. Foxconn sales dipped 17.7% in the first quarter of 2019 to $637.26 million. Japan Display said Wednesday that mobile display sales, which make up 73.3% of its total sales, were down 17.2% year over year. Japan Display blamed its sales decline on customers moving to OLED screens in flagship phones, instead of using traditional LCD screens. It also pointed to "the slowdown of China's and the global smartphone market" and the "prolonged life cycle of smartphones." Japan Display is asking for 1,000 employees to retire early by the end of the second quarter. The global slowdown in phone sales has been attributed to rising costs in phone prices. With premium phones now costing more than $1,000, customers are holding on to devices longer. Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi said in February that iPhone owners are now hanging on to phones for three or four years. Research firm IDC said in February that 2018 was the "worst year ever" for smartphone sales , with shipments falling 4.1%. Apple iPhones probably won't be much cheaper in the future, either. Earlier this week, J.P. Morgan said Apple would need to increase the cost of iPhones by 14 percent to offset the next round of tariffs, unless it absorbs the costs itself. In an effort to offset the slowing sales, Apple has put a bigger focus on its services business with a new premium Apple News+ subscription offering, a new Apple TV Channels platform that rolled out this week that will provide it a larger cut of subscription revenues from services like HBO and Showtime, and an Apple TV+ library of original content that will roll out this fall. Story continues Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. More From CNBC (Adds comments on recession, gold) By Jennifer Ablan May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. growth appears to be based "exclusively" on government, corporate and mortgage debt and the economy would have contracted if the United States had not added trillions in debt, Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said in an investor webcast on Tuesday. "Nominal GDP growth over the past five years would have been negative if U.S. public debt had not increased," said Gundlach. "One thing everybody seems to miss when they look at these GDP numbers ... they seem to not understand that the growth in the GDP it looks pretty good on the screen is really based exclusively on debt - government debt, also corporate debt and even now some growth in mortgage debt." If the U.S. Treasury had avoided increasing its debt then nominal GDP would have been negative in three of the last five years, "even with all of the exact mortgage, corporate, and student loan growth that occurred," Gundlach told Reuters in an email, following the webcast. "If those non-Treasury debt categories had not grown, either, GDP would have been very negative." Nominal GDP rose by 4.3%, but total public debt rose by 4.7% over the past five years, Gundlach noted. Against this debt backdrop and financial markets "addicted to Federal Reserve stimulus," these are "very, very dangerous times" for the next U.S. recession, Gundlach, who oversees more than $130 billion in assets at DoubleLine Capital, said. Gundlach said although the United States is not headed into recession anytime soon, there are some weaknesses showing up in the U.S. economy. He cited the Citi Economic Data Change Index which has fallen to its lowest level since the financial crisis. Gundlach said U.S. stocks and bonds are headed for a volatile environment and that he is "comfortably" long gold. He has been long gold since the $1,190 level, he said. Gold prices are headed toward $1,300 an ounce. (Reporting by Jennifer Ablan in New York Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Matthew Lewis) BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's exports could fall between $5.6 billion to $6.7 billion because of new U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, the Thai commerce ministry said on Tuesday. Such goods cover about 46 percent of Thai exports, ministry official Pimchanok Vonkhorporn said in a statement. The statement did not give a timeframe for the forecast fall in Thai exports. Shipments of electronics and automobiles are expected to decline sharply, Pimchanok said. So far this year, the United States and China have been Thailand's two biggest export markets. (Reporting by Orathai Sriring and Kitiphong Thaichareon; Editing by) STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's VOI Technology plans to put a new fleet of thousands of electric scooters on European streets this summer to fend off competition in an increasingly crowded market. U.S. tech giants Uber and Alphabet are among investors that have have been betting on the growing popularity of e-scooter sharing in Europe, where large commuter populations have lower car ownership levels than in the United States. VOI launched nine months ago and is now targeting 150 European cities. Germany is expected to give the green light to e-scooters this month and could become VOI's biggest market, the company said. Its scooters are so far available in nine European countries, including France, Spain and Sweden, with plans to launch in Germany, Belgium, Poland and Italy this summer. But competition is fierce. Domestic start-ups such as Tier and Dott, as well as U.S. rivals Bird and Lime, are all expanding in Europe. VOI, backed by investors such as BlaBlaCar CEO Nicolas Brusson and venture fund Balderton Capital, said the number of rides on its scooters had more than doubled to over 2 million after reaching 1 million within six months. The company's new scooters will be able to travel up to 50 km (31.1 miles) on a single charge, almost twice as far as earlier models, it said. Critics warn that operators could face similar issues as bike-sharing businesses. Forced into price wars and facing a backlash from authorities over rules and vandalism, bike operators GoBee and Mobike have both retreated from Europe. (Reporting by Helena Soderpalm; Editing by David Goodman) DUBLIN (Reuters) - Facebook's WhatsApp has informed its lead regulator in the European Union, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), of a serious security vulnerability on its platform, the DPC said on Tuesday. "The DPC understands that the vulnerability may have enabled a malicious actor to install unauthorised software and gain access to personal data on devices which have WhatsApp installed," the regulator said in a statement. "WhatsApp are still investigating as to whether any WhatsApp EU user data has been affected as a result of this incident," the DPC said, adding that WhatsApp informed it of the incident late on Monday. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; editing by Jason Neely) Kudelski SA (VTX:KUD), which is in the electronic business, and is based in Switzerland, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the SWX over the last few months, increasing to CHF6.52 at one point, and dropping to the lows of CHF5.58. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Kudelski's current trading price of CHF6.12 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Kudelskis outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! View our latest analysis for Kudelski What is Kudelski worth? According to my valuation model, Kudelski seems to be fairly priced at around 6.1% below my intrinsic value, which means if you buy Kudelski today, youd be paying a fair price for it. And if you believe that the stock is really worth CHF6.52, then there isnt much room for the share price grow beyond what its currently trading. Is there another opportunity to buy low in the future? Since Kudelskis share price is quite volatile, we could potentially see it sink lower (or rise higher) in the future, giving us another chance to buy. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market. Can we expect growth from Kudelski? SWX:KUD Past and Future Earnings, May 15th 2019 Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. Though in the case of Kudelski, it is expected to deliver a relatively unexciting top-line growth of 4.8% in the next few years, which doesnt help build up its investment thesis. Growth doesnt appear to be a main reason for a buy decision for the company, at least in the near term. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? KUDs future growth appears to have been factored into the current share price, with shares trading around its fair value. However, there are also other important factors which we havent considered today, such as the track record of its management team. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at the stock? Will you have enough confidence to invest in the company should the price drop below its fair value? Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping tabs on KUD, now may not be the most optimal time to buy, given it is trading around its fair value. However, the positive outlook means its worth diving deeper into other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Kudelski. You can find everything you need to know about Kudelski in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Kudelski, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. For Immediate Release Chicago, IL May 15, 2019 Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Gulfport Energy Corp. GPOR, Antero Resources AR, SilverBow Resources, Inc. SBOW, Southwestern Energy Company SWN and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. COG. Here are highlights from Tuesdays Analyst Blog: U.S. Natural Gas Price Stay Low Amid Mild Spring Demand The U.S. Energy Department's weekly inventory release showed an as-expected increase in natural gas supplies. However, the injection was higher than the five-year average as the mild spring weather continues to limit heating and air conditioning demand. Analysis: In-Line Rise in Storage Stockpiles held in underground storage in the lower 48 states rose by 85 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for the week ended May 3, matching the guidance as per the analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts. However, the increase was higher than the five-year (2014-2018) average net injection of 72 Bcf, while the reported week saw a similar increase last year. Following past weeks supply addition, at 1.547 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), natural gas inventories are 303 Bcf (16.4%) under the five-year average but 128 Bcf (9%) above the year-ago figure. Fundamentally speaking, total supply of natural gas averaged around 94.4 Bcf per day, essentially unchanged on a weekly basis as dry production remained flat. Meanwhile, daily consumption fell 1.8% to 76 Bcf primarily due to weaker residential/commercial demand with temperatures falling back to normal territory. Natural Gas Futures Struggle to Reach $3 While natural gas futures have edged up a bit from the 3-year lows of below $2.5 per MMBtu in April and currently trade around $2.6 per MMBtu, its still 47% below the four-year high of $4.929 per MMBtu reached in mid-November. The early onset of winter, together with the lowest level of stocks in 15 years, demand from power plants and growing LNG shipments lifted the commodity to almost $5 per MMBtu. But the euphoria didnt last long as a mild weather led to smaller withdrawals that markedly reduced the storage deficit and sent prices lower. Story continues What is the Future of Natural Gas Prices? The fundamentals of natural gas consumption continue to be favorable. The demand for cleaner fuels and the commoditys relatively lower price has catapulted natural gas' share of domestic electricity generation to 35%, from 25% in 2011. Moreover, new pipelines to Mexico, together with large-scale liquefied gas export facilities have meant that exports out of the U.S. are set for a quantum leap. Finally, higher consumption from industrial projects will likely ensure strong natural gas demand. However, record high production in the United States and expectations for explosive growth through 2020 means that supply will keep pace with demand. Therefore, prices are likely to trade sideways but for weather-driven movements. Also, with the traditional withdrawal season (when supplies fall on heating demand due to cold weather) having ended in March, consumption is likely to decline in the near term. Want to Own a Natural Gas Stock Now? The uncertain natural gas fundamentals (considering its seasonal nature) is responsible for the understandable reluctance on investors part to dip their feet into these stocks. Moreover, most natural gas-heavy upstream companies like Gulfport Energy Corp., Antero Resources, SilverBow Resources, Inc., Southwestern Energy Company, etc. carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which means that investors should preferably wait for a better entry point before buying shares in them. If you are looking for near-term natural gas play, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. might be a good selection. The company has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. This Houston, TX-headquartered companys expected EPS growth rate for three to five years currently stands at 35%, comparing favorably with the industry's growth rate of 18.8%. 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 >> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Southwestern Energy Company (SWN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (COG) : Free Stock Analysis Report Antero Resources Corporation (AR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Gulfport Energy Corporation (GPOR) : Free Stock Analysis Report SilverBow Resources Inc. (SBOW) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research For Immediate Release Chicago, IL May 14, 2019 Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd TEVA, Amazon AMZN, Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B and JPMorgan JPM. Here are highlights from Mondays Analyst Blog: States Expand Suit Against Teva & Others; Shares Plunge The 2016 lawsuit that named 18 generic drug companies and two individuals for illegal price fixing has now been expanded to 20 companies and 15 individual senior executives. This may have been possible because two former senior executives are now cooperating with the Attorneys General of 44 states that are accusing the drug companies. One of the prime accused is Teva Pharmaceutical Industries USA, a unit of Israeli company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, which is the world's largest producer of generic medicine. The plaintiffs allege in a 500-page lawsuit that over the years, Teva and other generic drug makers operated under a non-compete understanding that helped them stick to a fair share of the market. In 2012, they wanted more from the relationship, so decided to also significantly raise prices on as many drugs as possible. It alleges that Teva then connived with the companies with which it already had very profitable collusive relationships to take each others lead in raising prices. This was behind the higher prices on at least 86 of a total 112 Teva products that saw price hikes between Jul 2013 and Jan 2015, causing many billions of dollars of harm to the national economy over a period of several years. Further, "Prices for hundreds of generic drugs have risen while some have skyrocketed, without explanation, sparking outrage from politicians, payers and consumers across the country whose costs have doubled, tripled, or even increased 1,000% or more." Story continues Worse, the executives involved in the wrongful act were fully aware of its illegal nature. The lawsuit alleges that the deals were made in utmost confidentiality and without leaving a trail as far as possible. There were also attempts to destroy evidence that was accidentally/incidentally created. We have hard evidence that shows the generic drug industry perpetrated a multibillion dollar fraud on the American people, Connecticut Attorney General Dem. William Tong said. We have emails, text messages, telephone records and former company insiders that we believe will prove a multi-year conspiracy to fix prices and divide market share for huge numbers of generic drugs. Moreover, they covered a broad range of medications including tablets, capsules, creams and ointments for diseases including diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer, and epilepsy. Teva is the only country to have responded to the suit, saying that The allegations in this new complaint, and in the litigation more generally, are just that allegationsTeva continues to review the issue internally and has not engaged in any conduct that would lead to civil or criminal liability." Note that it remains a civil suit at the moment, i.e. one that generally involves disputes between individuals regarding their legal duties and responsibilities toward each another. While it follows that the punishment in such cases is less than in a criminal suit, it also means that guilt is proved if the evidence suggests that it was the most likely outcome (there is no need to prove beyond doubt). Escalating Drug Costs a National Concern The Trump administration has made the control of drug costs part of its agenda and it will be bringing a new law requiring companies to include prices in product ads that cost a Medicare or Medicaid consumer more than $35 a month. But opinion is divided on whether this will help because uninsured people continue to cut back on medication they need because of prohibitive prices. But this just scratches the surface of the problem, which is very complex and involves many players. Smaller generic drug makers are actually routinely pushed out of the market by patent holding drug companies that get into beneficial agreements with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The racket became more beneficial in 2006 when Medicare started covering prescription drugs. The bigger pharmaceutical companies were granted patents to award innovation, so they could recover cost and create funds for further innovation. But when patent periods run out, and its time for increased competition to bring down cost, they reportedly start gaming the system. So smaller, low-cost generic companies just dont survive. This, along with the higher profit motive leads them toward collusions and gaming strategies of their own. More recently, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan started a joint venture called Haven with the goal of bringing together entrepreneurship, technology and clinical medicine through a network of effective healthcare professionals and organizations that can lower the total cost of treatment for employees. But while this might help determine the best healthcare plan to follow and protect a person from unnecessary overuse of drugs, it may not in its present state be able to take care of the rot in the drug pricing system. Impact on Investors The immediate impact on Teva and its peers is obviously negative. The Medical-Generic Drugs industry (industry rank 182, or bottom 29% of more than 250 Zacks classified industries) to which it belongs has done miserably in the last week, dropping 4.8%. This is somewhat better than Tevas 5.4% decline, but well below the 2.2% decline in the S&P 500. As far as the Zacks industry rank is concerned, the top half has beaten the bottom half by a factor of more than 2 to 1 over the last 10 years. So this isnt one of the best places to park your money. But investors are also consumers. So anything that has the effect of making costs more manageable is bound to be a positive at some level. Its a tough call determining the exact impact, if and when the litigation succeeds or at least if it results in a method of controlling price fixation in the industry. But any positive result could be years away. 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 >> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) : Free Stock Analysis Report Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Dodge County is now two months removed from the historic flooding that devastated Nebraska communities in March, but the recovery effort continues. And now, its shifted into a new phase. Local officials and area nonprofits have started the process of developing a Long-Term Recovery Group to continue to help residents in need, even as other recovery resources begin to wind down. Last weekend, for instance, Fremont City Auditorium, which had been acting as a supply distribution center for those in need, held its final day of distribution. Resource allocation will now be coordinated through the Long-Term Recovery Group, according to Dodge County Emergency Manager Tom Smith. The Long-Term Recovery Group is basically a group that is going to help with unmet needs in the community, Smith told the Tribune. The group consists of several local governmental entities including the City of Fremont, Dodge County, Winslow, Inglewood, Hooper and Scribner/Snyder as well as a swathe of area nonprofits. That includes the Fremont Area United Way, the Fremont Family Coalition, Three Rivers Public Health Department and others. The groups primary focus is case management working with individuals who, perhaps, didnt get as much assistance from FEMAs public assistance program as they needed, or who didnt qualify for assistance, or who may have other lingering, unmet needs. Case work is one of the primary goals of this group, to identify those unmet needs and help people transition to a new normal for themselves as they recover, Smith said. Individuals will be eligible to seek help through the group if theyve already sought FEMA public assistance. The deadline to apply for FEMA assistance is May 20. We have to make sure they seek the FEMA public assistance, Smith said. This isnt your first stop. This is your last stop. If you went through the FEMA process and they cant help you, this is where your case will come, to the Long-Term-Recovery Group. The Long-Term Recovery Group represents the latest iteration of the countys response to the floods. As the flooding reached its peak, necessitating rescues and immediate aid, the county and several other regional agencies hunkered down together in the Fremont Police Department, forming an Emergency Operations Center. The Fremont Area United Way and the Fremont Area Community Foundation, which both collected donations to help with flood response, will represent the financial backbone of this new group, Smith said. The group is still in its formation stages. Members met last Friday to establish bylaws, identify subcommittees and nominate the board. There will be subcommittees established to address the following needs: construction, resource allocation, volunteer and donation management, spiritual services, physical and mental health and housing. Members of the Long-Term Recovery Group will not be informed as to who submits a claim. Individuals who seek assistance will be assigned a case number and their names will be withheld to ensure anonymity and fairness, Smith said. Through the Long-Term Recovery Group, individuals will also be able to seek out resources that were previously distributed at the city auditorium. That includes other resources that were donated, but that need to be handed out on a case-by-case basis such as mattresses. There have been some obstacles in establishing the group, Smith told the Tribune. The group is working with larger national organizations like United Methodists Responding to Disaster and Disaster Philanthropy to establish the infrastructure for case management such as case workers. But those groups are tied up responding to a number of other natural disasters across the country, such as tornadoes and the continued flooding in Iowa. Our local United Way here is thinking outside the box and trying to do different things to get the infrastructure started for case management, Smith said. 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. I had an abortion when I was young, and it was the best decision I have ever made. Both for me, and for the baby I didnt want, and wasnt ready for, emotionally, psychologically and financially. So many children will end up in foster homes. So many lives ruined. So very cruel. The United States Capitol Building has been described throughout history as the spirit of America writ in stone, the temple of liberty, and the acropolis of our Republic. Thomas Jefferson called it the great commanding theater. Its the place where laws are made. Within its walls, there is an abundance of history. The building has housed some of the most consequential events since Americas founding. Inside, Congress passed the 14th Amendment, the Homestead Act, the Interstate Highway Act, paid for Lewis and Clarks journey west, and funded mans first steps on the moon. It was at the U.S. Capitol where our country declared two world wars, President Lincoln spoke of malice towards none, charity for all to help lead our nation out of the Civil War, and President John F. Kennedy challenged us to ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Whether its to advocate for a cause near to their hearts, participate in a school trip, or take a family vacation Nebraskans travel to Washington, D.C., to experience our nations history firsthand. If you are planning a trip to our nations capital, I encourage you to use my office as a resource. My staff is more than happy to help schedule a tour of the U.S. Capitol Building. If your group has less than 15 people, a member of my staff can take you on a private tour through the Capitol where you will get a glimpse of its rich story and learn things you likely will not find in a textbook. Youll see the original corn cob columns that survived the burning of the building by British troops in 1814; the location of John Quincy Adams desk when he served in the House of Representatives; and the small subway trains that operate below ground. My office can also assist you in planning visits to tour the White House and some of the inspiring monuments and museums in our nations capital. To begin the process of setting up tours, contact my Washington office at 202-224-6551 or visit my website at fischer.senate.gov. Recently, I met with students visiting from Clearwater-Orchard Public School, Diller-Odell Public School, and the High Plains Community School. They were a refreshingly enthusiastic group of Nebraskas future leaders. I enjoyed meeting with them and answering their questions about our system of government and the issues we are tackling in Congress. While you are in our nations capital, I hope you will consider joining us for the Nebraska Breakfast. This 76-year-old tradition is a gathering of Nebraskans in the Senate Dirksen Office Building. Each Wednesday when both the Senate and the House of Representatives are in session, the entire Nebraska Congressional Delegation meets to provide updates for visiting groups and families on the specific ways we are working for them in Washington. I am proud to be hosting this years Nebraska Breakfast and continuing what is the longest-running congressional delegation meeting in the history of the Senate. I always look forward to welcoming my fellow Nebraskans to our nations capital and listening to what is on their minds. Please visit my website at fischer.senate.gov to learn more information about attending the Nebraska Breakfast. One of the many joys of serving our great state in the United States Senate is meeting with Nebraskans during their trip to Washington. My office stands ready to help make your experience in our nations capital a memory that will last a lifetime. Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week. Deb Fischer is the senior senator from Nebraska. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012. She can be reached in Washington D.C. at 454 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510 (202-224-6551); in Lincoln at 440 North 8th Street, Suite 120, Lincoln, NE, 68508 (402-441-4600); in Omaha at 11819 Miracle Hills Dr. Suite 205, Omaha, NE 68154 (402-391-3411). Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Several states across the country have allowed various forms of marijuana in defiance of federal law and at great risk to public health. This week, the Nebraska Legislature will debate LB 110, a proposal to legalize marijuana under the guise of medicine. This proposal would put Nebraska on a path toward liberalizing our drug laws, which in many states has already resulted in recreational marijuana. As Senators get ready to debate this issue, here are five of the top problems with legalizing marijuana in Nebraska. Public Health: The United States has the best system of medicine in the world that helps protect public health. Here in Nebraska, the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) is one of the top medical schools in the nation. UNMC has conducted research supporting successful clinical trials for Epidiolex, a cannabidiol derivative from marijuana recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat seizures. Legislative approval of marijuana, instead of clinical trials, circumvents this system of modern medicine, putting public health at risk. Furthermore, doctors and pharmacists arent able to prescribe drugs like marijuana as a treatment because they are not federally approved and dosing and drug interactions remain unknown. Mental Health: Theres another reason why we should rely on clinical trials when considering marijuanas impacts: mental health. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana has been linked to temporary hallucinations, temporary paranoia, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among teens. Research in recent years showing the negative impacts of marijuana is confirming why this drug deserves expert medical review. From the New England Journal of Medicine to Northwestern Medicine, research is revealing that marijuana has harmful impacts on brain function and emotional health including schizophrenia and psychosis among others. Right now, scientists at the Boys Town National Research Hospital are studying the impact of marijuana on the brain function of kids. We need this research, and clinical trials, to understand whether theres any medical value to marijuanaand what the downsides are. Its especially important since marijuana is significantly more potent than it was a few decades ago, increasing mental health risks. Physical Safety: Marijuana proponents will often say that no one has died from using it. This is not true. In Colorado, traffic deaths involving people who tested positive for marijuana more than doubled between 2013 and 2017. Every 2.5 days, someone dies in Colorado due to a marijuana-related traffic accident. You also may have read in the news about other marijuana-related deaths. Levi Pongi, age 19, died after consuming a marijuana cookie and jumping off a balcony. Marc Bullard, age 23, committed suicide after he began using a concentrated form of marijuana. He had no previous history of depression. These stories reflect data from Colorado showing that the number of youth suicides with marijuana present has tripled in 10 years. Drug Abuse: You will hear marijuana proponents often say that marijuana is not a gateway drug. Research proves this wrong. The American Journal of Psychiatry and the Journal of Addiction Medicine have found that marijuana users are at twice the risk of abusing opioids. Nebraska has been a leader in combating opioid abuse, and legalizing marijuana would be a big step backwards from the great work that has earned Nebraska the distinction of being the least opioid-addicted state in the nation. Black Market: With the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, Nebraska has seen an explosion of black market marijuana and related products coming through our state. Marijuana supporters try to argue that black markets go away with legalization. This is false. Take for example the case of Missouri, which legalized medical marijuana last November. By February, Missouri was flooded with marijuana candy that was packaged to market to kids. For example Stoney Patch Kids are packaged like Sour Patch Kids. In Florida, five children overdosed on gummy bears laced with THC after a 12-year-old handed them out to a class. Many kids who encounter this kind of product wont have the skill to discern what is candy and what contains marijuana or its derivatives. Furthermore, during drug busts, its not uncommon for our troopers to uncover harder drugs or weapons when marijuana or related products are being trafficked. During debate on LB 110 this week, supporters of marijuana are sure to argue that Nebraska can just bring it here for medical purposes without moving towards recreational use. This is a fantasy. Once the marijuana industry puts roots down here, Nebraska will be under pressure to legalize recreational use. If youd like to call your Senator and let them know you oppose bringing marijuana to Nebraska, please visit www.NebraskaLegislature.gov. To contact me, please email pete.ricketts@nebraska.gov or call 402-471-2244. Pete Ricketts is the governor of Nebraska. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Roughly 65 kilometers north of Peshawar lies the remains of the huge monastic complex known as Takht Bhai. It was once at the heart of the ancient civilization of Gandhara, which reached to Swat to the north, Kabul to the west, and Taxila in the east. Today the site is simply called Khandrath, or ruins. Few locals appear to be aware of the site's fascinating history, so we turned to Dr. Abdul Samad, director of Archaeology and Museums in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, to take us back to an era he says was marked by religious harmony. Clashes between the Islamic State militants (IS) and the Taliban have forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes in two provinces in eastern Afghanistan. Saida Gul is among the most recent victims of largely underreported fighting between the two militant groups in the remote forested valleys of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. Gul was one of the more than 50,000 civilians -- according to UN estimates -- who were forced to leave their homes after clashes erupted in Nangarhars Khogyani and Sherzad districts last month. He says their escape from the sudden onset of fighting was dramatic. Someones child disappeared, and someones mother is still missing, he told Radio Free Afghanistan from his temporary shelter in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar. People left all their belongings at home and only rescued themselves. Ataullah Khogyani, Nangarhars provincial governors spokesman, says nearly 1,500 families have been displaced. But a May 2 report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates more than 56,000 civilians comprising 8,047 families have fled the two districts. In neighboring Kunar, the displacement began in March, and many civilians have received little or no assistance. Ahmadullah Dilsoz is among the thousands who fled their homes in a remote Kunar valley after IS and the Taliban began battling one another. Dilsoz, 20, is an 11th-grade high-school student. His family of 12 left behind everything they owned: their house, their fruit orchard, and the small field they farmed for a living. His village, Serai, is one of scores of impoverished hamlets in the picturesque alpine valley of Kunars Chapa Dara district, where most residents have fled. We fled because of the fighting between the Taliban and Daesh, he told Radio Free Afghanistan while referring to IS by its Arabic acronym. Daesh militants were shooting everyone. They attacked the Taliban and ordinary people's homes. Everyone was afraid. He says the sight of masked IS fighters struck terror into the hearts of residents because the ultra-radical group wants to impose strict rules on the conservative region. Dilsozs father died two years ago, and he is now the familys breadwinner. They rent a shabby house in the provincial capital, Asadabad, for the equivalent of $30 in Pakistani rupees. The rupee is used as the local currency in parts of Afghanistans long border with Pakistan. He says his daily wage of nearly $2 is not enough to make ends meet. People have a lot of problems, he said. They need everything, such as shelter and fans, because its hot here. We have only received some food staples [in aid]. Dilsozs mother, Shabnam, who goes by one name only, says the local government should help them. Its getting hot here, and its the month of Ramadan, she said of their misery in the Islamic holy month, when Muslim adults are expected to abstain from food and drink from dawn till dusk. There is nothing. Local officials say more than 3,000 families were forced to leave Chapa Dara district. Kunar Governor Abdul Satar Mirzakwal maintains that they have provided displaced civilians with essential aid such as food staples and money. He says their intelligence indicates that 400 IS fighters are active in Kunars Chapa Dara, Manogai, and Sawkai districts. Despite robust propaganda efforts, he says, IS militants have failed to attract locals to their cause. They ruin shrines and mosques and dont respect the elderly, he told Radio Free Afghanistan. They shut down schools. The people of Kunar dont approve of such actions. Mirzakwal says IS has failed to connect Kunar to northeastern Badakhshan Province through a corridor of territory they control. IS officially announced its emergence in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the formation of its Khorasan Province branch in early 2015. The group soon swept several Nangarhar districts bordering Pakistan. U.S. and NATO military operations have apparently failed to wipe IS out of its eastern Afghanistan strongholds. The group still poses a serious security challenge for Kabul and its international backers. Nicholas Kay, NATOs senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, told Radio Free Afghanistan in April that the threat of IS-linked militants in the country should be taken seriously. Their presence, at the moment, is limited to parts of [small] geographic areas, he said. But they are persistent, and they are responsible for some atrocious high-profile terrorist attacks against civilian targets in Kabul and elsewhere. Afghan officials continue to claim progress against the group. Mirzakwal says some displaced families have returned to Chapa Dara after Afghan security forces pushed the militants into neighboring Laghman Province. But for Dilsoz in Asadabad, little has changed. Besides worrying about his familys security and livelihood, he is saddened that the displacement deprives his siblings of their education. I'm worried that they cannot attend school and their fate is still uncertain, he said. U.S. 50 isnt as famous as Route 66, but its got one thing going for it: the Great U.S. 50 Yard Sale. Its exactly as it sounds sales of all kinds stretched along the 3,000 miles known as The Loneliest Road in America. The Friday through Sunday event runs through mostly rural areas and small, older towns from Salisbury, Md., to San Francisco. Part of the sale is Saturday and Sunday in Canon Citys Depot Park. Salida also will host a sale at Collegiate Peak Bank, and Montrose will close off three blocks of Main Street for multiple sales. Find a complete list online at route50.com. You have a win, win, win, said Tom Taylor, who founded the event in 2000 in Jennings County, Ind. It keeps things out of landfills, and its people who put extra money in their pocket and then usually spend that money locally. Its like cookie jar money. Also, it has big bargains, particularly for young families looking for clothes and furniture. DETAILS Great U.S. 50 Yard Sale, Friday through Sunday, Depot Park, U.S. 50 and Ninth Street, Canon City, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, free; route50.com The idea was born from a city council meeting Taylor attended where tourism was discussed. He walked away thinking the typical person didnt understand the personal benefits of tourism and could only see the upside for restaurant and hotel owners. He decided to start something that could help the average Joe, and the pre-Memorial Day weekend yard sale was born. People look forward to it, said Dee Stubbs, who coordinates the Depot Park sale. Its not just your typical yard sale, like a typical garage sale. It brings in crafters, jewelry, woodworking. Its a variety of so many different things. Taylor doesnt keep tabs on whos doing what and where, though he does field questions from prospective sellers, such as whether they have to host the sale all three days (no, they dont) and if Taylor can list the items each sale will have on the U.S. 50 website (no, he cant). Stubbs and Canon City have been part of the project for nine years. About 500 people meander through Depot Park each spring for the sale, scouring antiques, homemade birdhouses, clothing and more from 60 to 70 vendors. I love it, said Stubbs, who also owns Dees Pace, a custom embroidery and screen printing business. Seventy-five percent of vendors started nine years ago and are still coming. It makes a nice amount of money. Taylor, whos now 70, doesnt think about the sale too much anymore. Hes not even one for garage sales these days: If I go to two or three a year, thats a lot. But he is pleased with the outcome and surprised its lasted this long. I most enjoy hearing back from some family who says they made $1,500 and they really needed it, he said. They got rid of junk; others bought antiques. Thats the thank you. The Vanguard School Team America Rocketry Club to compete at U.S. finals Saturday in Virginia Carlos Echeandia, owner of Carlos Bistro, 1025 S. 21st St., has created a fancy burger hes selling for $90. No, that's not a typo. Its the first time in history, he said. Its a burger made by mixing meat from three cows Japanese Kobe short rib meat, Japanese Wagyu beef and Prime Black Angus beef. Its juicy and yummy. Carlos' Bistro is sourcing the beef from Lombardi Brothers Meats in Denver. It took longer than we had planned for the meat to pass the inspection process, he said. Because the meat is from three different cows, each batch of meat had to pass inspection. Click here for more dining and drink news. Once Echeandia got his hands on the 8-ounce patties, he worked his magic preparing a truly delicious hamburger. He asked La Baguette in Old Colorado City to make a French baguette that was not cooked as long as the bakery's traditional loaves. The result is a baguette that's softer. The bread is arrayed with Thousand Island dressing and ketchup. The patty, cooked to a customer's desired degree of doneness, is topped with slices of red onion and tomato, two pieces of thick, crisp bacon and micro greens. French fries complete the plate. Not ready to drop almost 100 bucks on a burger? Echeandia offers the meaty creation for $45 on Thursdays. (The burger is not on his Early Bird dinner menu.) Details: 471-2905, carlosbistrocos.com. Chefs making a difference Jason Gust, president and chef with Ascent Restaurant Group, and his culinary team were honored by the Colorado Restaurant Foundation as Colorado ProStart Mentors of the Year. I was totally floored when I got the call telling us we would be given the award at a gala in Denver on May 2, he said. Colorado ProStart is a restaurant/hospitality management, culinary arts and business economics curriculum for high school and college credit, scholarships and paid work experience for students. Gust has hired eight ProStart students from Woodland Park High School to work in his eateries Pizzeria Rustica, Tapateria and Smorbrod. We like that we can give youth a place in a real professional kitchen to see if they like the work, he said. And an opportunity to compete and be inspired by the culinary field. Food truck news Food Truck Tuesdays have returned to the west lawn of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, 215 S. Tejon St., 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. through Oct. 29. Live music and museum tours included. Details: 385-5990, cspm.org. Winners of the Food Truck Cook-Off held during Pikes Peak Region Small Business Week were Black Forest Chew-Chew for the Peoples Choice and Filipino Food Truck for the judges choice. Dine on the train The Royal Gorge Route Railroad Wine Dinner Train is 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets start at $199 for a five-course Colorado menu paired with wines from The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey. Reservations at royalgorgeroute.com. The rumble of hundreds of motorcycles will echo across the Pikes Peak region as a pair of two-wheeled events to honor veterans roars through this weekend. On Saturday, more than 1,000 veterans on motorcycles are expected to roll into Fountain on a journey that started in California and ends at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. At 12:30 p.m., the Run for the Wall riders will stop for lunch at a Fountain Fire station at 811 N. Santa Fe Ave. in Fountain. Fountain is sponsoring the Colorado leg of the ride along with several local veterans organizations. Organizers say the public is invited to greet the riders at the fire station or to wave at the bikers from the overpass at Interstate 25 and U.S. 85 in Fountain as they roll in just after noon. Please bring your friends and your American flag to wave, organizers said in a news release. To learn more about the ride, visit rftw.us. On Sunday, The Defenders of Freedom Veterans Recognition Ride will roar though Fountain starting at 10:30 a.m. with hundreds of motorcycle enthusiasts following a winding course that ends at Pikes Peak International Raceway. The ride, which includes a police escort, benefits the El Paso County Homeless Veterans Coalition. Organizers say the ride has been very successful generating nearly $75,000 in donations since 2008 toward charities that directly assist veterans and their families. To see the route or get registration details, visit veterans ride.org. Colorado may have a four-star ally in the battle to keep its big role in the military space business. Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Forces top general, visited Colorado last week and had nothing but praise for the home of five of his services installations and its top command for space. I dont think there is a state where the Air Force has a bigger footprint, Goldfein told The Gazette. My biggest message is to just thank the community. The Air Force under Goldfeins leadership is helping to craft a new Space Force at the urging of President Donald Trump. In a White House ceremony last week, Trump signed a directive that would put the space service under the Air Force at first, with a future transition into a separate military department. Trumps plan needs approval from Congress and faces skepticism, especially in the Democratic-majority House, where lawmakers have balked at what they see as ballooning budgets and burgeoning bureaucracy that would accompany a separate Space Force. Goldfein didnt address the politics or the specifics of the emerging Space Force plans. But he heaped praise on the Pikes Peak region, which is home to the bulk of Air Force satellite troops. I say, first and foremost, Colorado is the home of our Air Force Space Command, Goldfein said. If anything, I think it is a very healthy future for Colorado and our space community. The Pentagon is readying to reprise U.S. Space Command, which was shuttered in 2003 in favor of U.S. Northern Command. The old command, a Pentagon-wide version of Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, was in Colorado Springs. But the new version, which the Pentagon sees as a key component of the new Space Force, already has several states in addition to Colorado battling to house it, including most notably Florida and Alabama. Goldfein said a formal process to evaluate homes for the command is planned. But it certainly doesnt hurt Colorado Springs to have the top airmans affection. A 1983 Air Force Academy graduate, Goldfein came through town to address the schools National Character and Leadership Symposium. The general shared stories about his rocky start as a cadet he dropped out at one point to bicycle across America and challenges he has faced in uniform, including getting shot down over Serbia in 1999. A fighter pilot by trade, Goldfein was appointed to the top Air Force post by President Barack Obama in 2016. He has used the position to push the service toward multi-domain warfare, that values computer attacks and space systems as much as it does fighters and bombers. Have we embraced space superiority with the same passion we have embraced air superiority? he asked a crowd of cadets who filled an academy auditorium to hear him speak Friday morning. While space systems involve a relatively small contingent of the Air Forces 322,000 troops, the service has an outsize presence in the field compared with the rest of the Defense Department. The service controls systems for missile warning, communications, intelligence and navigation. As a service, we are responsible for 90 percent of the space architecture, he told cadets. Changing that architecture has been a top priority for the service, with leaders envisioning an agile fleet of smaller satellites that are easier to defend from enemy attacks and cost a fraction of the school bus-sized satellites in use today. In Congress this year, Goldfein is arguing for increasing the Air Forces fleet of planes while boosting space spending and embarking on a program to modernize the Air Forces nuclear weapons, which is the most controversial item on the agenda. The Air Force holds two corners of the militarys nuclear triad, with intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic weapons launched or dropped from planes. But the newest pieces of the Air Forces nuclear arsenal were built in the Reagan era, and some of them date back to the presidency of Richard Nixon. The nuclear push has proved unpopular with House Democrats. Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, who took over last month as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, came out in opposition to nuclear development plans last fall. We already have a nuclear deterrent that is more than adequate to achieve our national security goals, Smith wrote on Twitter. Goldfein said hes ready to make the case for new weapons. I think we are going to have a robust debate, he said. Goldfein has also used his post to push for more women and minorities in the Air Force and said hes pleased with progress he has seen at the academy, which will bring in a freshman class this summer thats one-third female. Im one who believes that increased diversity is a joint warfighting imperative in the Air Force, he said. But away from policy and looming congressional fights, Goldfein says his big message to Colorado is one of gratitude. The general says he wants to repay the courtesy he was shown here as a cadet. I remember how well I was taken care of by the Colorado Springs community, he said. -- Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx Former state Rep. Cole Wist, R-Centennial, on Tuesday blasted state GOP leadership and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for seeking to recall the Democrat who defeated him in November. His successor, Rep. Tom Sullivan, is a strong gun control supporter whose son Alex was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shootings that killed 12 moviegoers. Wist broke ranks with Republicans last year to back a version of the red flag bill, which lets a judge review evidence that a gun owner poses a threat to himself or others. If so, those guns can be held temporarily while the owner gets help. Sullivan backed this years version, which passed in the Democrat-controlled legislature and was signed by Gov. Jared Polis. Wist tweeted Tuesday: I was in denial. Until yesterday. Last year, state GOP leadership failed to speak up to defend me when RMGO carpet bombed my house district with negative flyers. Now, these same leaders pledge to work with RMGO to take out my successor in a recall. I do not support this effort. In another tweet, Wist added: It is unfortunate but crystal clear. RMGO owns the Colorado Republican Party. RMGO announced May 2 that it would sue to overturn the law and would work to recall nine House members and three state senators. RMGO and its backers last year targeted Wist as anti- gun. Wist tweeted to RMGO Executive Director Dudley Brown: Sorry to break it to you, Dudley. You didnt ruin my life. I lost an election. Get some perspective. Compared to what folks go through every day, my bad election day is just so insignificant. I am blessed with an amazing family and great friends. I will be just fine. Rep. Matt Gray, D-Broomfield, responded to Wists tweets: We have surely disagreed, but @colewist is one of the most honorable people Ive met in this state. I know what its like not to support a recall that some of your friends want. If you want leaders with integrity instead of blind partisanship, stand with the people who show it. The recall targets Sullivan for his sponsorship of House Bill 1177, this years red flag bill. The recall petition, approved Monday by the Secretary of States Office, was initiated by Kristi Burton Brown, vice chair of the state GOP, in her personal capacity. We will evaluate the HD 37 recall as it proceeds, just as we do with any potential recall or election, said U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, state party chairman. Republicans would have to win all 12 of the recalls it plans in order to take control of either the House or Senate, a tall order that grew a bit taller when one of those targets, Rep. Rochelle Galindo, D-Greeley, resigned Sunday. A Democratic House District 50 committee will appoint her replacement. Sullivan did not return a call for comment. Steve Stermer, the Colorado Springs man avidly using the Manitou Incline to train for tower races throughout the year, placed third in his age group during his sports premier contest in New York City. He clocked in at 16 minutes and 42 seconds at Tuesday nights Empire State Building Run-Up. That was better than 11 other men aged between 60 and 69 who, like Stermer, had their names drawn from among thousands who applied for the Run-Up, the oldest race of its kind in America. The top finisher in the age group was 15 minutes, 54 seconds. Another Incline regular, Mark Ewell, notched a time of 13 minutes, 58 seconds, 18th best of the men. Polands Piotr Lobodzinski finished first in 10 minutes, five seconds. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday for the teenager slain in the May 7 shootings at his suburban Denver charter school, just hours after the two alleged shooters are to appear in court. Eight more students were wounded in the shootings at STEM School Highlands Ranch. The last of the hospitalized students was released Sunday. Kendrick Castillo, 18, was killed. He and two classmates have been credited with helping thwart the attack by charging at one of the shooters when he entered a classroom. Authorities said an armed private security guard restrained the second shooter. The celebration of life for Castillo will be in the main auditorium at Cherry Hills Community Church, 3900 Grace Blvd., in Highlands Ranch. The service is open to the public, and the doors will open at 12:15 p.m. It also will be live-streamed at livestream.com/accounts/817378/events/8680861. During a 10 a.m. hearing at the Douglas County Courthouse, at 4000 Justice Way in Castle Rock, charges are expected to be filed against Devon Erickson, 18, and a 16-year-old boy. They're accused of carrying handguns into their school and opening fire in two classrooms. Investigators have offered no motive and declined to discuss how the students got the guns. In a Facebook post announcing the service for Castillo, the church used his photo with John 15:13 from the Bible: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." Castillo was a member of the school's robotics club who loved to tinker. He worked part-time at a manufacturing company that had offered him a job after an internship because he was such a standout employee. Friends say he had an infectious smile, a gentle sense of humor and was excited to help people. County commissioners took the first step Monday toward committing $10 million to pay for security upgrades and mental health services at all public schools in the county. Theyll vote May 28 after talking with experts, residents and students about how to use the money. The one-time payment would come from reserve savings and tax income from higher property values, commissioners said. The Douglas County School District received a $1.5 million grant from the Colorado Department of Public Safety in February to upgrade security in school buildings and vehicles and to train school personnel. County schools will use the money to update the school communications system, including replacing radios, said district spokeswoman Paula Hans. It was one of 95 grants to schools or school districts totaling more than $29 million. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A heated debate takes place every year around Christmas time. Its not about which relatives house you should visit for the holidays, its a topic with greater importance. Its a question everyone wants to know the answer to but cant seem to agree on. Is the 1988 film Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, a Christmas movie? You voted: CASTLE ROCK A 16-year-old arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in the May 7 shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch was charged Wednesday as an adult, prosecutors said. Despite Alec McKinneys age, the seriousness of the school shooting in which one student was killed and eight were wounded warranted upgrading the charges, 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler said. The law in the state of Colorado has changed over the years to make it more and more difficult to charge juveniles as adults, but it left open a portion where if you are 16 years old and you are accused of committing a first- or second-class felony and first-degree murder is a first-class felony you are eligible to be direct-filed (as an adult), Brauchler said. Charges also were filed against McKinneys alleged accomplice, Devon Erickson, 18, also was charged during a pair of hearings Wednesday at the Douglas County courthouse in Castle Rock. Most of the charges filed against the teenagers, who are being held without bond, were not read aloud in court, and little additional information was released. The case files including information about charges have not been made public. Brauchler opened a news conference after the hearings by saying, It is difficult to know what we can talk about at this point. According to online court documents that have since been removed, Erickson is charged with 48 crimes, including first-degree murder after deliberation, first-degree murder extreme indifference, first-degree murder after deliberation and 31 counts of attempted murder. Brauchler declined to confirm the charges. Erickson and McKinney are accused of carrying handguns into their school and opening fire in two classrooms. Investigators have offered no motive and declined to discuss how the students got the guns. Kendrick Castillo, 18, was killed when he and other students charged a shooter and tried to take the gun away. The last of the hospitalized students was released Sunday. Brauchler said he has asked the 4th Judicial District to investigate claims that a school security guard who held McKinney at gunpoint fired his weapon at a sheriffs deputy and might have wounded one of the injured students. This is a witness in the case, and I felt like in the abundance of caution, that a decision about the facts related to the security guard needed to be addressed by a separate prosecutor, he said. Brauchler declined to say how far along the investigation is, except to say, The work that has been put into this case from not just the Douglas County Sheriffs Office, but the FBI, I think the ATF, weve used, and then some of the other surrounding agencies the number of personnel, and the amount of resources that have been invested in trying to do this thing right and quickly is remarkable. Attorneys have been allowed into parts of the charter school at 8773 S. Ridgeline Blvd. Last week, we coordinated with the defense attorneys for both defendants to gain access to Im making this number up the 97 percent of the school that we do not believe is directly part of the crime scene, Brauchler said. Theyve had the opportunity to walk through there and do whatever they wanted to do, and that was with an eye towards returning it back to the school so that it can be used by that institution ... and they can return all the stuff back to the students and teachers and other adults that arent directly implicated in this crime. But let me be clear, they have not gone through, nor have they permitted access to, the actual place where we believe the crimes occurred. Castillos parents attended the hearings, which were followed hours later by a memorial service for their slain son in the main auditorium at Cherry Hills Community Church, 3900 Grace Blvd., in Highlands Ranch. Look, Im taken with the Castillos I cant imagine going through a more difficult situation than theyre going through, and yet, they are a very strong couple, Brauchler said. It would have been easy for them to say, Im not going to make it to court today because in less than two hours, were about to have a memorial service for our son, but from the word go, they have made it clear, Our intention is to be here for every single hearing, and today is, I think, a good example of that. Wednesday morning, Gov. Jared Polis tweeted a tribute to Castillo: I declare today Kendrick Castillo Day in Colorado as we remember the life of the 18-year-old hero who died saving others in last weeks STEM School shooting in Highlands Ranch. Rest In Peace, Kendrick. Your bravery wont be forgotten. Douglas County commissioners took the first step Monday toward committing $10 million to pay for security upgrades and mental health services at public schools in the county. Theyll vote May 28 after talking with experts, residents and students about how to use the money. The Douglas County School District received a $1.5 million grant from the Colorado Department of Public Safety in February to upgrade security in school buildings and vehicles and to train school personnel. County schools will use the money to update the school communications system, including replacing radios, said district spokeswoman Paula Hans. It was one of 95 grants to schools or school districts totaling more than $29 million. The Gazettes Liz Forster and The Associated Press contributed to this report. School shooters repulse, horrify and exhaust us. We fully understand that these shooters are despicable, inexplicable and indefensible. When two massively selfish shooters invaded Columbine High School 20 years ago, we tried to understand and explain. Maybe the shooters were bullied. (They werent.) Maybe their minds were polluted by video games. (They werent.) Maybe they were a slice from a weird collection of debauched juveniles who wore trench coats. (They werent.) The shooters glowed with evil as stars of the massacre, just as they intended. But slowly, we learned. We emphasize victims over murderers. We quit offering subtle excuses for the inexcusable. We are no longer fascinated. The two shooters who murdered one student and injured eight others in Highlands Ranch last week quickly faded as we mourned and celebrated the victims. We placed a light on Kendrick Castillo, who died a hero. We searched for the elusive secret to safe schools. We paid closer attention to Tom and Caren Teves, who founded the No Notoriety movement after their son, Alex, was shot to death, with 11 others, in August 2012 at a movie theater in suburban Denver. They lead a campaign to reveal school shooters as creeps. Portray them for what they are, Tom told The Associated Press. Theyre horrible human beings that are completely skewed in their perception of reality, and their one claim to fortune is sneaking up behind you and shooting you. Well said, Tom. This crusade to place the violent and repulsive in the shadows is not new. On Oct. 30, 1901, readers could pick from 33 New York Times front-page stories, including one that told of Mrs. H.S. Black failing to sneak a $35,000 necklace purchased in Europe ($1.05 million in 2019 dollars) past custom authorities. She faced todays equivalent of a $600,000 fine. Front-page readers did not see a story on the execution of Leon Czolgosz, who assassinated President William McKinley 53 days earlier in Buffalo. Czolgosz was electrocuted at 7:12 a.m. in Auburn, N.Y., 250 miles from Times Square. Czolgoszs clothes and personal items were immediately burned. And after an autopsy, quicklime and 10 gallons of sulfuric acid were poured on his corpse. Within 12 hours, Czolgoszs body disintegrated to virtually nothing. New York state, the Times reported, was determined that the prisoner, despite the enormity of his crime, should gain no undue notoriety. No notoriety, circa 1901. The attitude made sense. From 1865 to 1901, assassins murdered three American presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War hero James Garfield and McKinley. Much about Czolgoszs rapid conviction and execution is troubling. His entire trial sprinted by in 8 hours, and his lawyer ended his defense by apologizing for defending him. Czolgosz was likely insane, a man who spent his days sleeping, usually under trees. He even slept soundly the night before his execution. Guards had to shake him awake before leading him to the death chair. But there was genius in trying to ensure this contemptible man gained precious little real estate in Americas imagination. The Times exiled the execution story to Page 5. When I read of the men who blew up the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 girls, boys, women and men, Im outraged. When I think of the young man who gunned down 31 innocents at Virginia Tech, Im disgusted. But Im normal. The Columbine shooters read accounts of the Oklahoma City tragedy and hatched a plot to top it, hoping to kill more than 600. The Columbine shooters, in turn, became role models to unhinged young people who harbor strange and deadly ideas. There are a number of problems with the intense media focus on mass shooting perpetrators, writes Jaclyn Schildkraut, an expert on mass shootings and a professor at State University of New York-Oswego. First, they are explicitly seeking fame, and the media is helping them to achieve this end. The realization that this route to fame works can, in turn, produce more lethal events and foster one-upmanship among perpetrators. Were learning. The No Notoriety Movement doesnt ask Americas free press not to name the shooters. The movement asks the press to spend only as much time with these twisted fools as is absolutely necessary. The Colorado Springs City Council ensured the communitys future as the growing hub of U.S. military space operations. It voted 8-1 on Tuesday against an appeal of The Broadmoors expansion plan. At issue are plans to expand Broadmoor Hall with 93,500 square feet of additional exhibition space. Broadmoor Hall houses the annual Space Symposium, hosted by the Springs-based Space Foundation. It is the worlds premier aerospace convention and expo. The symposium brings about 6,000 people a day for four days to the Broadmoor, owned by the parent company of Gazette owner Clarity Media. Having outgrown Broadmoor Hall, much of the symposium takes place in a tent. The expansion replaces the tent, which has been vulnerable to high winds, and ensures the symposium can continue in the Springs. Expansion will also help the Broadmoor compete for additional conventions and expos throughout the year, which will create jobs and infuse outside capital into the local economy. Everyone wins. Based on testimony from neighbors and realtors, Broadmoor expansions in the past have increased the value of property throughout the Broadmoor neighborhood, said Councilman Wayne Williams. I think this enhances the neighborhood. Council President Richard Skorman voted to reject the appeal, but asked the Broadmoor to work with the neighborhood to address concerns about shuttle traffic on Cheyenne Boulevard. Thats a fair request. If Broadmoor executives take this advice, they should remind the neighborhood that shuttles reduce traffic. One shuttle can eliminate a dozen or more single-occupant car trips. Councilman Bill Murray provided the only opposition to the expansion, offering a surprising explanation. This distracts us from the bigger picture of where this community is going with a convention center, Murray said. This cannot replace the convention center we need downtown This, from a politician opposed to every major public works project the city embarks upon. A self-appointed champion of people abused by the taxes and government authority, Murray somehow favors tax-funded expo space over a project funded entirely with private investment at no expense to the working class. How odd. Councilwoman Jill Gaebler expressed hopes for a downtown convention center surrounded by hotels. She explained what Murray does not get. Colorado Springs, she said, can support both. Exactly. Growth is never a zero-sum game. To understand this, consider beer. When Colorado allowed full-strength beer sales in grocery stores last year, for better or worse, opponents feared the new option would kill small liquor stores. A grocers gain would be a liquor stores loss. As reported by Colorado Public Radio Tuesday, beer sales have increased statewide by 20% since the law took effect. Colorado is not seeing boarded-up mom-and-pop liquor stores. Just more sales. Broadmoor expansion does not come at the expense of future hotels or event centers. Economic growth typically begets more economic growth. That is why competing businesses so often congregate in common locations, creating hubs that attracts regular customers with common wants and needs. The Broadmoors expansion plan will make Colorado Springs an even better destination for conventions. That means more demand for direct flights to Colorado Springs. More flights to the airport makes the city more attractive for convention planners, meaning more demand for hotels and better justification for a convention center. Well-planned growth lifts all and impoverishes none. The council did the right thing Tuesday. It voted for a future of more jobs, better wages, and economic activity that will help all residents of Colorado Springs. This is a short video of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich slapping his nunchucks around to celebrate their removal from the state's list of deadly weapons. For decades, owning a pair of nunchucks was a felony, and you were only allowed to use them if practicing for a martial arts competition. Mark claims he "pulled his old nanchaku out of storage...like riding a bike," although I get the feeling this is a video of a man who secretly never stopped swinging illegal nunchucks around in his basement at night following the ban. Besides, isn't having a pair in storage still owning them? Now I'm not saying I'm clearly the rightful Arizona Attorney General after calling Mark out so eloquently, but as my first order of business I want my face on all the packs of cigarettes. "You're thinking of the US Surgeon General." This job sucks and I want to go home. Keep going for a rare video of the fifth Ninja Turtle as well as a local news report while I try to learn more about this way of the drag-on. Clearly, my years of martial arts training paid off. Pulled my old nunchaku out of storage...like riding a bike. #WayOfTheDragon pic.twitter.com/ibVf9ADWmx Mark Brnovich (@GeneralBrnovich) May 13, 2019 Thanks to hairless, who ensured me April O'Neil will get to the bottom of this. This is a video of a manatee, who, presumably pleading for us to stop polluting our planet's oceans and waterways, gives a snorkeler some hugs. Some more info while I update my bucket list: "My cousin was visiting from Ohio for my bachelorette party and had mentioned that she had never seen a manatee. I decided to take her swimming with them before we headed to Cocoa Beach [Florida]. We booked a tour with fun2dive in Crystal River. She was the first manatee we saw. We entered the water about 20 feet away from her, this is when she turned around to come to check us out. It started with small hugs on our legs, then she became more comfortable I'm guessing. I was floating on top of the water, as advised by the guides so to not bother the manatees. Then she approached me from the side, went under me, lifted me out of the water and rolled me to her other side. We then backed up to give her space and not overwhelm her, but she came back for more hugs. We spent an additional 30 minutes with her, then she began eating and we watched her swim away. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I could swim with them every day of the year and I'm not sure I would get this experience again! My grandparents actually used to live in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and I saw manatees on several occasions when we'd take a boat out. Did I ever get any hugs? No. Although one time I did think I saw a merman under the water but UNFORTUNATE REALITY: dead body. Keep going for the video. Thanks to Charlotte, who agrees you should really make sure to get your 12 hugs in today. The Winnebago County Board of Supervisors approved the resolution to designate portions of the courthouse as non-public areas in the courthouse during their weekly meeting Tuesday morning. County attorney Kelsey Beenken said she included public health, conservation and secondary roads, so the resolution would encompass all of those buildings as well. The resolution does not include the public safety center, which she is currently working on but will look a little different than the other buildings. Beenken said she wasnt so worried about that because the safety center has secured access. Beenken said she removed the Supervisors meeting room from the resolution and added the statement This Resolution does not prohibit the granting of authorization for access to non-public areas upon proper notice when deemed reasonable or necessary. Authorization may be granted by the county officer(s) responsible for said area. According to the resolution, it was adopted to avoid confusion to the public and provide for a reasonable restriction to public access and allow employees to work efficiently, protect sensitive private information, and provide additional security. The Supervisors also held an open session in which they discussed county engineer Scott Meinderss professional competency under Iowa Code 21.5(1)(i). They all agreed he was competent, but they occasionally and rarely had disagreements with how he has handled some issues, such as some signage. 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. A Nora Springs man who allegedly used two minors to create child pornography faces federal charges. Aaron Leroy Olson, 35, pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa in Cedar Rapids last week. His trial is set for July 8. Olson had a female minor and a male minor engage in sexually explicit conduct so he produce visual depictions of it between October 2017 and October 2018, according to the indictment. He was charged in federal court because he used a digital camera, SD cards and a computer hard drive manufactured outside the state of Iowa, the indictment states. Olson is also facing child sexual abuse charges in Floyd County District Court in a case involving a 5-year-old girl. He pleaded not guilty in November to three felony counts of second-degree sexual abuse in that case. The alleged abuse took place on three separate occasions between Jan. 1 and Nov. 8, 2018, according to trial information filed by Floyd County Attorney Rachel Ginbey. He was arrested on those charges on Nov. 9 by the Nora Springs Police Department. He posted $2,600 cash bond on Nov. 29 and was released from the Floyd County Jail under the supervisors of the Department of Correctional Services pending his trial, which is currently set for July 9. He was indicted in federal court in the child pornography case on May 7 and was arrested two days later on a warrant. Olson is currently in the Linn County Jail on a federal hold. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 5 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. * "Most Popular Intellectual Property Law Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , December 2021. * "Most Popular Copyright Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , December 2021. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018. * IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014. * Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013. * Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011. 2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100. * Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010. * Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010. * Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010. * Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll. Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008. ST. ANSGAR | The guardians of a St. Ansgar student with special needs have filed a complaint with the state alleging she did not receive free and appropriate public education during the fall 2018 semester. Michael Esdohr and Sue Shires, parents of Elizabeth Esdohr, and Brenda Esdohr, Elizabeth's stepmother, filed the due process complaint against the St. Ansgar School District and the Central Rivers Area Education Agency with the Iowa Department of Education on Monday. Elizabeth Esdohr, 21, who has developmental delay and a mild intellectual disability, did not have an individual education program (IEP) for most of the 2018 fall semester, according to the complaint. An IEP is a document developed for each public school student who needs special education. The state of Iowa is required to provide free public education to those with disabilities from birth to age 21. If students turn 21 during a school year, they must be allowed to finish the remainder of the year if they choose to do so, according to information from the Iowa Department of Education's website. Elizabeth Esdohr turned 21 on Sept. 25, 2018. During the 2017-18 school year, she attended the SAVE program at Iowa Lakes Community College in Emmetsburg through her IEP. SAVE, like similar programs at other community colleges, is meant to fill gaps in instruction for special education students ages 18-21. Elizabeth's IEP team met on Feb. 15, 2018, to write a new IEP for her. During the meeting, the Esdorhs and Shires allegedly were told that since Elizabeth was on track to meet her goals by the end of the semester, her IEP would be terminated. Upon hearing this, they were "astounded and bewildered," the complaint states. Jody Gray, the superintendent and special education director for the St. Ansgar School District, allegedly told Elizabeth's guardians she was not aware they believed Elizabeth had unmet needs requiring her to attend SAVE for two years rather than just one. "When Elizabeth realized that public agencies were set on terminating her education, she got up and left the room in tears," the complaint states. Over the next nine months, Elizabeth's IEP team met repeatedly. The complaint states representatives from the Central Rivers AEA did not attend three of the meetings, even though Elizabeth lives in that AEA district. During a meeting on March 23, 2018, the team identified several unmet needs, such as in math and reading, which would warrant her remaining eligible for special education, according to the complaint. On June 1 the school district validated and archived an IEP for Elizabeth dated May 15, the complaint states. The IEP stated she would stay in the dorm and have study time in the SAVE room where she could ask for assistance, according to the complaint. Elizabeth was required to register for fall classes at Iowa Lakes in August. However, the IEP team had made no final decision about her course of study before that date, according to the complaint. "Effectively, Elizabeth had no IEP because the IEP as written could not be implemented," the complaint states. Elizabeth had to be enrolled in at least 12 credit hours to be eligible to live in student housing. Elizabeth and her guardians chose what classes she would attend based on an earlier recommendation by the IEP team that early childhood education classes would be appropriate for her to meet her reading goal. Iowa Lakes required them to agree to pay tuition and room and board, which cost $6,047. The Esdohrs and Shires claim at that time no one told them the St. Ansgar School District would not pay for her classes. The IEP team met a few days after Elizabeth registered for the fall semester. An attorney for the school district and the AEA, who had not been present at previous IEP meetings, stated the school district would not pay for Elizabeth's courses even if they supported her IEP goals, according to the complaint. However, a draft of a new IEP dated Sept. 14 stated the school district would cover the cost of developmental courses in reading, writing and math, as well as room and board as the distance from St. Ansgar to Emmetsburg was too great for Elizabeth to travel each day. Iowa Lakes required Elizabeth to pay tuition before Sept. 28 to continue attending classes. She used her saving to purchase books and pay for her classes, according to the complaint. The school district allegedly agreed to reimburse her for these payments, as well as the expense of a tutor, once her IEP was finalized and in place. The complaint states Elizabeth had been attending classes for more than a month with no support through the SAVE program, so she hired a tutor to help make up for it. Brenda Esdohr told the AEA in October that her stepdaughter was failing one of her classes. The school district and the AEA did not complete a final version of an IEP that allowed her to participate in SAVE until Nov. 4, according to the complaint. Final exams began on Dec. 6. Elizabeth graduated from the Iowa Lakes Four Plus program on May 8, and will also receive a diploma from the St. Ansgar School District, according to the complaint. Her father, mother and stepmother are asking the AEA and the school district to provide Elizabeth with compensatory special education services through the SAVE program for the fall 2019 semester at Iowa Lakes and pay for her tuition, fees, books, and room and board. They also want Elizabeth to be reimbursed for her tuition, books and tutor fees for the 2018 fall semester at Iowa Lakes. "Without having special education support during the 2018 fall term, Elizabeth did not benefit from courses for which she paid tuition," the complaint states. When contacted by the Globe Gazette for a comment, Gray declined. The Globe left a voice mail Wednesday morning for Dustin Zeschke, the attorney representing the St. Ansgar School District and the AEA. He had not returned the call as of press time. Love 0 Funny 5 Wow 3 Sad 2 Angry 8 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. So far, little is known about the attacks. The Norwegian ship, the Andrea Victory, was reportedly struck by an unknown object, according to the ships operator, and video footage shows a hole in its hull near the waterline. A reporter from Sky News Arabia, a partly Emirati-owned news agency, captured video footage of the Al Marzoqah, one of the Saudi ships, that showed no identifiable damage. Separately, Lebanese news channel Al Mayadeen reported that seven Emirati oil tankers were damaged in an explosion at the port of Fujairah, a charge that was subsequently taken up in Iranian media and that the United Arab Emirates denied. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE has blamed Iran publicly. The UAE said it has requested support from a team of U.S. investigators and that it will refrain from making any conclusions until the investigation is complete. The initial assessment from the U.S. investigators, according to American officials who spoke with CBS News on Monday, was that Iran or its proxies were behind the attacks. The team hasnt reached a final conclusion yet, but Iran would seem to be the most likely suspect. It has, after all, threatened for years to take action in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has also launched sabotage and asymmetric attacks against more powerful adversaries before. By demonstrating the vulnerability of shipping in the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could beat its chest without seriously escalating an already tense situation to the point that the U.S. would need to get involved. At the same time, its not entirely clear what Iran would gain from such low-grade attacks. If anything, Iranian leaders appear to have been spooked by the U.S. deployment last week. In a closed-door session with Irans Parliament over the weekend, IRGC chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said that, while Iran is prepared for war with the U.S., it doesnt expect war. (Unsurprisingly, Iranian leaders certainly arent claiming responsibility for the attack and have called the incident regretful.) Nothing about a war with the U.S. would benefit Iran. Its economy is in shambles. Its people are struggling financially as the persistently weak rial drives up demand for hard assets that are ever further out of reach for the average Iranian. Drought plagues the country, driving disaffected farmers into crowded cities. And the regime is so strapped for cash that there have been reports that Hezbollah (an Iran-funded proxy) is struggling to pay its fighters . On top of this, the countrys oil export revenue has been declining because of reimposed U.S. sanctions. Iran cannot win a war with the U.S., which means that at least some factions within the country are seeking a way out of their current predicament. Despite its bellicose rhetoric, the IRGC likely doesnt want war, either. While it is angling to pull power away from President Hassan Rouhani and other moderates who supported the nuclear deal with the U.S., if all the political infighting brings only the threat of war with the U.S., the public may begin to question the efficacy of the IRGCs policies, too. Showcasing its ability to pose a low-level threat to Persian Gulf shipping channels could be a way for the IRGC to offer a tangible policy without risking U.S. retaliation and without letting the situation get out of its control. But it wouldnt make the IRGC look particularly strong, either. Sabotage attacks like the ones conducted over the weekend which at present look to have caused, at most, minor damage dont fundamentally change Irans strategic position, help Iran get around U.S. sanctions, or strengthen Irans allied militias prospects anywhere in the Middle East. The benefit of such attacks, in other words, is superficial at best, showcasing the limited options available to the IRGC rather than its military prowess. For its part, the U.S. has remained quiet so far, with President Donald Trump issuing only a vague threat to Iran if something happens. As of Sunday, the U.S. began flying what it has referred to as deterrence flights over the Persian Gulf with its recently deployed B-52s, as well as F-35s and F-15s, but its unclear whether theres a connection between these flights and the apparent sabotage. All things considered, the situation doesnt seem to benefit any of the typical players that have an interest in Persian Gulf transit. For now, then, well count this as another variable in the ongoing U.S.-Iran standoff. Estimados amigos, Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia. Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro. Gonzalo Raffo de Lavalle Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras. Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada. Helenio Herrera History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Karl Marx If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. Sun Tzu We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. Paulo Coelho " " Cultural issues against seeking therapy as well as the low number of black psychologists are some of the reasons African-Americans are less likely than white Americans to get mental help. track5/Getty Images Mental health issues carry a stigma seen across cultures and groups, but few (if any) bear the burden more than the black community. In the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast episode "Mental Health in Black Communities," Emilie Aries and Bridget Todd (a proud, therapy-going black woman herself) tackle why this stigma exists, who it particularly affects and the far-reaching consequences of not getting help. For many African-Americans, seeking help for mental health issues is virtually unheard of, even though they are 20 percent more likely to experience serious psychological distress than whites. A study from the American Psychological Association found that young adult African-Americans, especially those with higher levels of education, are less likely than their white counterparts to seek mental health services. Advertisement "Black folks and mental health have been kind of a thorny topic because it's so taboo," Bridget explains. "I grew up with this adage 'black folks don't go to therapy, we go to church.'" This longstanding mindset could date back to slavery because back then showing weakness, such as mental illness, meant you might not survive. This tendency to "do it all with a brave face and never let them see you sweat" was common then and persists today. "I can see how historically that might have been a strength and a way to cope, but now it's not doing us any favors," Bridget says. And issues surrounding slavery's legacy may affect the mental health of future generations. Emilie points to research of Holocaust survivors and their offspring which showed that there is potential for trauma to be internalized and imprinted onto DNA, and possibly passed on to future generations. This phenomenon is called epigenetic inheritance. The status of the mental health industry as being for the "white and wealthy" might also deter people of color from seeking help because they aren't confident that a white therapist will understand what they're grappling with in life. "And that ability to empathize is so critically important," Emilie explains. "I think some therapists might push back on that and say, 'I don't need to be my clientele to help my clientele,' but at the same time, representation matters, period. So, having options as an individual and seeking out therapists who look like you, feel like you, can understand and empathize with you from a cultural perspective, I'm sure that can lower the barrier for entry," she adds. (Just 2 percent of American Psychological Association members are black.) "Therapy changed my life," says Bridget, who notes that her own therapist is not black, although she has a degree from Howard University, a historically black institution. "Going to therapy and learning how to talk about my behavior and my issues and understand them, that has been a tremendous help in my life," she says. "I don't know where I'd be without it." There's been a slow shift in progress, with many black artists and public figures like Issa Rae, Jay-Z and Kid Cudi using their positions to further minority mental health awareness. "We are seeing raised awareness around this. We are not seeing political movement around this, which is what there needs to be," Emilie says. However, even new policies won't fully solve the problem. "I don't act think this is an issue that can be solved, 'if you're a black woman go see a shrink,' I think this is a systemic cultural change around how we think about, talk about and deal with the mental health of people of color," Bridget says. To get more information or the name of a therapist go to Ourselvesblack.com or the Black Mental Health Alliance. To hear this episode, download "Mental Health in Black Communities." Now That's Sad Black teens (8.3 percent) are more likely to attempt suicide than white teens (6.2 percent). MPs should stick to legislating and let local units carry out development plans The budget is around the corner. This means lawmakers have started seeking pork barrels for their constituencies like it is an annual function they all need to participate in. Troops overseas appreciate little reminders and support from back home. Sometimes it's socks, sometimes it's a Snickers, sometimes it's just a letter saying someone's thinking about them. The Helena-based nonprofit Montana Supporting Military is a group working to provide those things. This weekend, Montana Supporting Military is teaming up with Helena businesses for a donation drive. Liann Meyer, president and founder of Montana Supporting Military, said the group will be collecting powdered drink mix, beef jerky, crew socks, eye-drops, protein bars, tuna pouches and other nonperishable items. Volunteers will be stationed outside of grocery stores from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Volunteers will be at Sportsman's Warehouse, Safeway, Super 1 and the Albertson's on the north side of town, Meyer said. If weather permits, Capital Sports, Van's Thriftway, Wal-Mart and the Albertson's on Fee Street also will have Montana Supporting Military volunteers stationed outside. "We send care packages to 1,000 troops at a time," Meyer said. "We have some grants and donors, but it's all by donation." Meyer said the biggest expense for the nonprofit is postage. "It's $40 a box to send the packages," Meyer said. "That adds up really fast." Meyer added that the group is always looking for volunteers to help package donated items and accepting monetary donation online at mtsupportingmilitary.org. A party is scheduled at the Lewis and Clark Brewery from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday that will include two-for-one drink specials for those with a military ID, a 50/50 split the pot, and music by The Good the Bad and the Blues. Started in 2003, Montana Supporting Military's goal has always been to make troops feel remembered and to boost their morale with letters and care packages. "Some people can't get out and about and they like to write cards or letters," Meyer said. "Troops like getting handwritten letters or cards, knowing someone is thinking of them." 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. Dr. Laura Vosejpka of Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, has been selected as the next dean of Helena College. If her contract is approved next week by the Board of Regents for the Montana University System, she will start Aug. 12 with an annual salary of $145,000. I am so excited to join the team at Helena College, Vosejpka said in a press release from the college. I could tell it was an exceptional place right awayeveryone was so eager to tell me all of the special things about both the college and the city, and it did not take me long to see exactly what they meant. I have some projects to wrap up at my current institution, but am looking forward to moving to Helena as soon as I can. Vosejpka is the founding dean of the college of science and liberal arts for Kettering University. She has worked in both the classroom and administration at Mid Michigan Community College, Northwood University and Alma College. She holds a doctoral degree in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and bachelor's degrees in chemistry and English from Ohio State University. The dean search committee was led by Brock Tessman, who is the deputy commissioner of academic, research and student affairs for the Montana University System. Tessman said Vosejpka's mix of education and experience made her stand out among a "very strong and very diverse pool of candidates." "She has one of the most outstanding academic records I've seen for a two-year leader," Tessman said, adding that Vosejpka "electrified students, faculty and staff" during her in-person visit to Helena in early May. The press release says Vosejpka is a certified yoga instructor who enjoys hiking, backpacking and camping, and she ran her first half marathon in 2018. She also enjoys traveling and is an amateur welder and metal artist, and an avid outdoor photographer. My husband, Paul, and I have spent our entire professional lives in Michigan, even though neither of us is a Michigander, Vosejpka said in the release. Michigan is beautiful, but where we are is awfully flat! We always knew that we wanted to move to an area with great outdoor activities, friendly people and a gorgeous setting. Montana was high on our list of potential landing places, and we are so glad that this opportunity has come up for us. We know that all of us, Paul and me and our four dogs, will love it in Helena. Tessman said Helena College received 46 applications for the dean position. That pool was later narrowed down to seven semifinalists and four finalists. The other three finalists were: Angela McLean, the former lieutenant governor of Montana and the current director of American Indian and Minority Achievement and K-12 partnerships for the Montana University System. Anneliese A. Ripley, dean of the school of outreach and director of research and grants at the University of Montana-Western. Mark A. Smith, vice president for educational services at Temple College in Temple, Texas. Daniel Bingham was Helena College's dean for 12 years before stepping down in June 2017. Bingham left to become a missions president for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Australia, but returned to the United States after breaking his neck in a bicycle crash about seven months later. Jane Baker was named as interim dean in June 2017. After the college's initial search for a permanent dean came up short, Kirk Lacey became interim dean in January 2018. Love 6 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 4 Police officers, sheriff's deputies, state troopers and Canadian police came together Wednesday in front of Montana's Capitol building in Helena to honor officers who have died in the line of duty. More than 100 people attended the 58th National Peace Officers' Memorial Day ceremony, which was preceded by a parade of law enforcement vehicles through downtown Helena. Attendees heard speeches from Helena Mayor Wilmot Collins, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, interim Helena Police Chief Steve Hagen and Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton. Peace Officers' Memorial Day was instituted in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to remember law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. The event is held in different locations around Montana each year, with Bozeman and Havre being the last two host cities. Since 1889, 129 law enforcement officers in Montana and three in Lewis and Clark County have died in the line of duty. "As a profession, we gather to give thanks to those who have laid down their life in order to keep the peace of this great state and nation," Dutton said. "We are honored to have this remembrance in Helena today." Hagen agreed. "We're very proud to have it in Helena," he said. Hagen said he is thankful Helena has lost only one law enforcement officer in the last 100 years. "We're very lucky," he said. The event was particularly meaningful for Broadwater County Sheriff Wynn Meehan. On May 16, 2017, Broadwater County Deputy Mason Moore was shot and killed on Highway 287 just outside of Three Forks. The suspects had anti-law enforcement views and were determined to go on what prosecutors deemed a "suicide mission" that ended after a high-speed chase through several counties. "It's a wound that's not healed," Meehan said. "This just brings it up." The Montana Legislature recently passed House Bill 156, which will designate a stretch of Highway 287 to Mason Moore. A sign designating the Mason Moore Memorial Highway will be unveiled Thursday at mile marker 109, which is where he was killed. "I hope we'll put it to bed," Meehan said. Moore was the last Montana law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty. Wade Palmer, a Missoula-based Highway Patrol trooper who was shot earlier this year, is currently recovering from his injuries. Wednesday's speakers thanked the gathered law enforcement officers for their work and reminded listeners that their job is neither easy nor safe. "We do thank the citizens who we swore an oath to protect and serve," Dutton said. Editor's Note: A previous version of this story misidentified the agency that the Canadian police were representing. The story has been updated. 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. A delegation of six high-ranking parliamentary staffers from the country of Georgia will be in Helena from Thursday through Wednesday to visit with local leaders. The staffers were sent by the Open World Leadership Center, an agency of the U.S. Congress, and hosted by WorldMontana. The delegates are staying in the homes of local hosts. The trip includes visits to the offices of U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, the Montana secretary of state, the Legislative Audit Division and the Commissioner of Political Practices. They also will meet with state Rep. Julie Dooling and the Helena Young Professionals, and visit the National Institute on Money in State Politics. A presentation for the Helena community is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Monday at Red Atlas. Before coming to Helena, the participants completed an orientation in Washington, D.C. Delegates had a policy meeting with U.S. members of Congress and their staff members. For information about exchange programs facilitated by WorldMontana, please contact WorldMontanas office at (406) 447-4444. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 An initial investigation into a fatal structure fire in the Carbon County town of Bridger indicates the fire was accidental. David Dyer, 67, died after a fire began in his kitchen Monday afternoon, according to a press release from Carbon County Sheriff Josh McQuillan. "Dyer was found unresponsive inside his residence by Bridger firemen within a few minutes after he had placed the 911 call reporting there was a fire in his kitchen," the release says. Dyer was pronounced dead at the scene of the fire. People from multiple agencies responded to the fire, including Bridger Fire, Bridger EMS, Bridger Police, the Montana State Fire Marshal and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office. There was extensive smoke damage to the interior of the home on East Sunnyside Street. No one else was in the home at the time of the fire and no other injuries were reported, according to McQuillan. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 2 Angry 0 Stanley Maczek testified last week in a Missoula County homicide trial about leaving his family behind, enrolling in college and changing his name. He didn't particularly respect or love how his father, Thomas Korjack, had treated their family as he scurried them toward the Canadian border while fleeing tax evasion charges 20 years ago. Korjack is one of two men prosecutors believe were killed by Caressa Hardy in their home outside Frenchtown in 2013. While bone fragments unearthed in Hardy's fire pit have been established as human, extreme weathering prevented anthropology teams from extracting any DNA, and so they remain unidentified. Maczek did, however, testify about the need for some closure, particularly on his mother's behalf. And it was Maczek's DNA, a Montana State Crime lab official testified on Tuesday, that was tested against blood found on a TV in Hardy's house. The results showed the blood was several million times more likely to be that of Maczek's biological father than anyone else perhaps the most concrete piece of evidence uncovered by investigators since the alleged killings. Missoula County prosecutors rested their case Tuesday, a full week since opening statements. Hardy faces two counts of deliberate homicide for the apparent killings of Korjack and Robert Orozco, as well as two counts of solicitation for murder for allegedly seeking out inmates to kill Karen Hardy, the defendant's former partner, mother to his children and the one person who says she was in the basement bedroom of the Frenchtown home when Hardy started shooting in March 2013. Hardy, once known as Glenn Dibley, and Karen Hardy met up with Orozco nearly 10 years ago in Gillette, Wyoming. The couple formed a non-traditional family with Orozco, with whom Karen Hardy fell in love, and Korjack, a wealthy engineer who later purchased the Frenchtown home under Hardy's name. According to Karen Hardy's testimony, Hardy killed Korjack and Orozco out of fear Korjack would cut Hardy off financially. Hardy was transitioning to a woman when he was arrested in July 2017; attorneys and witnesses have used the pronouns "he" and "him" when referring to Hardy. As the prosecutors' case came to a close, Missoula County Sheriff's Detective Jared Cochran was called to the witness stand again, this time testifying about the notes and drawings recovered from Hardy's jail cell. Among the notes, "death=freedom" and "death to Karen" were written in red ink in Hardy's Bible. Karen Hardy wasn't the only one on Hardy's mind while he was sitting in jail. Note paper presented to the jury showed a line of stick figures X'ed over in more red ink. Above the figures were names of detectives and witnesses, and the word "DOOMED" appeared scribbled below. Other images showed stick figures in a cage, along with the words "False witnesses." The presentation of these drawings drew an argument from Hardy, who addressed the judge directly Tuesday, with the jury out of the courtroom: "Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as under the Montana Constitution, I have the right to freedom of expression and speech," Hardy said. "Those drawings only depict people who are lying as false witnesses against me, that they will be judged by God. That's his judgment, and it's not a direct threat towards anyone in the physical, on this earth, by me or anyone else." Judge James Wheelis allowed the jail notes to be presented. Along with the stick figures, newspaper clippings and Bible notes, other scraps of paper included writings that seemed to present the notion that Orozco had killed Korjack and that Karen Hardy killed Orozco. Former cellmates who testified Monday said Hardy had been "testing out" defense theories in jail ahead of trial. Hardy's defense team got underway in a hurry Tuesday, calling six witnesses in the first hour. Hardy had, on paper and in person, appeared to be the one who owned and controlled the property on Pond Road, a real estate broker and several neighbors testified, despite financial indications that Korjack had actually put forward the money to purchase the property. The home had been foreclosed on in 2011 and purchased by Hardy the next year. Brad Smith testified Tuesday that he and Hardy had become "extremely good friends" after meeting online, and that Hardy and his daughter would visit them several times a year at Smith's Stevensville home. He called Hardy an "excellent father" to the girl, approximately 6 years old at the time of the alleged killings. Smith's mentioning of Hardy's daughter broke the defendant's statue-like posture for the second time on Tuesday. Hardy took off his glasses and silently wiped away a few tears. Hardy had reportedly allowed Karen Hardy to leave the Frenchtown home some time after Korjack and Orozco disappeared, but he did not allow her to take their daughter. Curtis Moore, of Gillette, testified Tuesday that he took Karen Hardy in about two years after she says the killings occurred. Moore, a friend of theirs when Karen and Caressa Hardy lived in Wyoming, said Karen Hardy didn't show any signs of distress or fear when she lived with him for about a month in 2015. Brent Wolz, a civil engineer and owner of a consulting company in Gillette, testified that Korjack had once worked for him after his release from federal prison on the tax evasion charges. Korjack refused to be paid more than $10 an hour for his work as a structural and forensic engineer, Wolz said. That was below margin for a former university professor and nuclear physicist, but Korjack didn't want to pay the taxes. Ultimately Korjack was jailed again on embezzlement charges, Wolz said, and the last time he saw Korjack was in 2008. They had spoken a few times afterward, but Wolz said he never heard from Korjack again after 2013. Hardy's defense argues Korjack and Orozco actually fled the country; Korjack as a new ruse to avoid taxes and Orozco to escape paying several thousand dollars in child support he owed in three different states. Theresa Gorka, Korjack's ex-wife who was there with Maczek when they were stopped at the Canadian border as Korjack was trying to flee from the IRS, testified Tuesday that her husband had been en route for a new job at a university in Alaska when federal authorities caught up with him. Still, she said, Korjack had been secretive about many things, including the fake passport he had made in his dead brother's name that she found while he was incarcerated. "Many of his things, he was not discussing with me," she said. "He never wanted to tell the truth, really." She grew more estranged from Korjack after he was released from prison and they divorced. No one in her family knew he had gone missing in 2013 until Karen Hardy reported the alleged killings to authorities in eastern Montana three years later. Hardy's defense continues Wednesday in Missoula County District Court. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Helena Mayor Wilmot Collins announced Monday that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate next fall, becoming the first to chal Montanas Steve Bullock, the only Democratic governor to be reelected in a state Donald Trump carried in 2016, is running for president. In announcing early Tuesday morning, Bullock made history in the Treasure State. He is the first Montana politician to run for a major party's nomination for president. While his challenge is large as the 21st Democrat to announce a 2020 presidential run, he begins a compressed eight-month dash to the Iowa caucuses with optimism and determination. In an exclusive interview, he told Lee Newspapers Monday that Im excited about what we can do. Noting that the effort would be a grueling challenge for both him and his family, he said, "We have been talking about it for quite awhile. After I won a second term as governor, we thought that would be it. But if I can add something to this race to make sure that the next generation has it as good or better than I did, and heal some wounds in this country, we all believe it will be worth it. Bullock acknowledged the challenge of the tight timetable, but said he had no other choice he had to stay closely engaged with the Legislature during the session that just ended. And he touted the results. I had a job to do, he said simply. If I hadnt been making sure that 10% of our population retained its health care, that college in Montana remained affordable, and that we became the third state in the country to enact a foreign money campaign spending ban, I wouldnt have been doing my job for the people of Montana. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, author of The Kennedy Half-Century and one of the countrys most respected political scientists, said Bullocks record gives him credibility. Although Its awfully late to get in and raise enough money and grab enough media, Sabato said Monday, Getting elected in a Trump state is no small matter. Bullock said his fate is in the hands of the voters, but he believes he has a certain advantage in relating to Iowa voters. There are a lot of similarities between Iowans and Montanans, he said. Our states are ag-based. We care about clean air and clean water. And we care about making opportunities available in rural areas. What I hear and what I feel, talking to voters in Iowa and elsewhere, Bullock said, is that they want to make sure we can win. He said, I believe I bring something to that, referring to his reelection, and to his track record of working with Republicans to get things done in Montana. Bullock acknowledged that working together with Republicans in Washington is not the same as finding a working coalition in the Montana Legislature. Im not so naive as to think it will be easy, he said. But I remember in 2015, when we were at the height of the anti-Obamacare wave, and I went to Choteau. I had lost that county by 30 percent the Koch brothers mailed every household a picture of me with Barack Obama but I went, and I listened, and people said, If we lose this hospital, we lose this town. And that was reason enough for a Republican legislator to support Medicaid expansion. Bullock said the priorities he would bring to a presidency are clear. First and foremost we have to break the leash that dark money and corporate money has on the political system. Everything else cant be addressed until we can do that," he said. "When we start to curb the incidence of outside money in campaigns it will make everything easier. He said, I go back to the first George Bush address when he said Well handle the greenhouse effect with the White House effect. But now 30 years later most of the GOP cant even acknowledge (because of donor pressure) that climate change exists. Next, he said, It will be a priority for the next president to restore Americas role in the world, recognizing that in the last few years we have shaken our allies and created added instability. We also are living in a time where a fair shot at the American dream doesnt exist for so many people. ... Most people dont believe that they can do better than their parents or their grandparents did, and thats not right," he said. "We need to be better at training, better at providing opportunity. Climate change itself needs to be recognized and addressed, he said. "Id add one more priority, he said. Trust in government is at the lowest point in my lifetime. ... divisiveness is at a high point. If we cant bridge some divides, heal some bonds, it will make progress in every other area that much more difficult. Bullock pledged that he would not take any super PAC money, and that he would rely on individual donations. While acknowledging he starts out behind some other candidates in fundraising, he maintained, I dont believe this election will be won by the candidate who raises the most money. I believe it will be won by the candidate who makes the greatest connection with voters and does the work on the ground. Bullock cited his crossover appeal. He said that some people look at him oddly when he points out that 25 or 30% of those who voted for him in 2016 also voted for Trump. He said that sort of reach is vital in 2020. Whats most important in this election is making sure that we win back the states that Trump carried, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, states where we once did well. If we dont, we wont win. David McCumber is editor of The Montana Standard. Love 19 Funny 26 Wow 2 Sad 3 Angry 10 NorthWestern Energy customers would see a $6.5 million rate increase under a proposed settlement between the utility and some opponents to its billing plans. The $6.5 million rate increase is down from the $34.8 million originally sought by the South Dakota-based utility. Several parties who objected to the original proposal have agreed to the new amount, including Walmart; the Montana Consumer Counsel; Federal Executive Agencies; and a Montana group of large energy customers, such as Exxon, REC Silicon and Stillwater Mining Company. The settlement agreement also preserves a 10% return on equity for NorthWestern's 30% ownership share of Colstrip Power Plant Unit 4. Additionally, NorthWestern has a second settlement with Walmart and the state Department of Environmental quality to modify its E+ Green tariff, in which customers can invest in renewable energy by paying extra. Groups who aren't part of either settlement include the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Northwest Energy Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, Vote Solar, the Montana Environmental Information Center and a Billings couple, Leo and Jeanne Barsanti. The Barsantis say that they and other Montanans have been over-billed for streetlights by tens of thousands of dollars. The settlements would have to be approved by the Montana Public Service Commission, which during a hearing Monday in Helena didn't know what to make of NorthWestern's steep price drop. The utility has for months presented experts arguing that it needed to raise rates $34.8 million, or $76.44 per residential customer per year. "I'm confused as to how we should, or myself, look at testimony as being expert testimony that is not a hill to die on," said Tony O'Donnell, commissioner from Billings. In February, the PSC agreed NorthWestern rates could increase $10 million in the interim while the remaining $24.8 million was being considered. The utility argued the interim increase was essential. That $10 million rate hike already approved would be walked back as part of the $6.5 million settlement. Brian Bird, NorthWestern's chief financial officer, told O'Donnell to trust the parties that agreed to the settlement. "If those parties are going to attest to you that this increase is fair to our customers, they represent them too. I think that's very powerful," Bird said. Bird took the argument a step further, saying that the $6.5 million settlement, which will increase customer bills from where they were before rate proceedings started, was actually a rate decrease because the $10 million the PSC approved in February was coming off the books and more than the settlement amount. At least one Public Service Commissioner, Republican Randy Pinocci, agreed with Bird's math. "By approving this stipulation, I will be approving a lower rate for customers," said Pinocci, who represents customers north and east from Great Falls to Sidney. Bird assured Pinocci the commissioner had it right based on the difference in the size of the $10 million rate increase and the stipulated settlement. Commissioner Roger Koopman, of Bozeman, wasn't buying NorthWestern's logic. "To be perfectly clear, this stipulation does not reduce customer rates over the existing tariff," Koopman said. "It reduces obviously the rates over the interim that we've got. And the interim is just that. It's an interim, sort of a temporary condition that we agree to, and I think we made a good decision. But actually it does represent approximately a 2% increase in residential rates if we adopt this stipulation." Bird responded by saying the rate increase was closer to 1% and a good outcome for customers. Renewables The second settlement agreement was brought about by dissatisfaction with the E+ Green program, which allows NorthWestern customers to "green up" by paying extra to add renewable energy to their bills. The program, approved by the PSC in 2002, hasn't had many takers. DEQ pointed out that only an average 289 residential customers and 16 commercial customers participated in the program from 2013 through 2017. Since the program's approval, third-party renewable energy prices have fallen and are now cheaper for customers than coal or hydropower owned and generated by the utility. DEQ and Walmart want green tariffs that work. NorthWestern agreed to review its E+ program and consider options. Colstrip What's not being settled out of the case are customer costs associated with NorthWestern's share of Colstrip Power Plant, or new charges for customers who net meter. MEIC and Sierra Club argue that customers are paying too much for NorthWestern's 30% share of Colstrip Unit 4. Ratepayers are on a $407 million payment plan at 8.25% interest though 2042 for NorthWestern's Colstrip share. The $407 million price has been controversial since it was set in 2008, one year after NorthWestern secured its ownership in Colstrip for $187 million. Assessments of the power plant's value, including NorthWestern's, have come in lower than $407 million, some much lower. Economist David Schlissel, an expert witness for MEIC, estimates that NorthWestern's share of Unit 4 is worth $100 million and that customers' burden should be lowered to reflect that. NorthWestern is asking that $42.6 million in Colstrip expenses be included in its rate base. MEIC is asking the PSC not to add those costs to the base. The net-metering demand charge stems from what NorthWestern says are costs associated with customers with solar panels who at times sell electricity back to the utility. The company says it's paying those customers three times too much for net metered power. The utility wants to charge a higher rate to those customers during their biggest hour of consumption. Vote Solar argues that the utility's proposed rate will kill residential solar. NorthWestern has notified existing net-metered customers they would be exempt from the higher charge, which would only apply to new net metered customers. Additionally, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe has asked that NorthWestern include the Northern Cheyenne in any financial program to help the Colstrip community transition to an economy without Colstrip Power Plant. The are 100 Northern Cheyenne members who work in Colstrip, which is a short drive from Lame Deer. William Walksalong said the tribe has been shut out of transition talks as other utilities with Colstrip ownership offered transition funds. Walksalong has suggested NorthWestern put up $4.5 million and include the Northern Cheyenne in the transition. John Hines, NorthWestern's vice president of supply and government affairs, has testified that Walksalong's concerns are premature and focus on the wrong party. NorthWestern wants to keep Colstrip running, Hines testified earlier, suggesting that the tribe should ask the Sierra Club for money. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Montana is persistently in the top three states in the U.S. in terms of youth dying by suicide and overwhelmingly, the means youth use to kill themselves is firearms. In Montana, 63% of youth suicides are by firearms (compared to 39% nationally). Montana girls ages 10-18 kill themselves using firearms at six times the rate of girls in the rest of the country. Preventing Montanas youth from dying by suicide should and must be a priority, yet in America nothing sets off an ideological divide like the mention of guns. However, it is meaningless to talk about suicide without discussing the means. Using firearms is significant because people are far more likely to die from a suicide attempt; 83% of suicide attempts using firearms result in death, so the means matter. People who survive suicide are unlikely to attempt it again. Among those who have attempted suicide, approximately 7% eventually die by suicide, yet 70% have no further attempts. Growing up with firearms does not make an individual more prone to suicide. But if firearms are present in a household, reducing access to them during a suicidal crisis is important. Almost half of all people who survived a suicide attempt reported that there was less than 10 minutes of deliberation between the emergence of suicidal thoughts and the actual attempt. The policies shown to reduce youth suicide are child-access prevention laws (which include safe storage laws) and minimum age requirements for purchasing a firearm. Child-access prevention laws lower both the total number of suicides and the number of suicides with firearms. However, federal agencies are constrained in what data they are permitted to collect making additional research challenging. For instance, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is restricted by Congress from gathering data on gun violence a restriction that should be lifted. With the publics attitudes on gun policy being so widely divergent, non-legislative approaches may be our best option until Americans can overcome the polarization that exists around gun laws. These approaches include counselling at-risk youth and their families, educational campaigns and partnering with key players, such as people who are in contact with at-risk youth and gun owner groups. There is agreement between gun owners and non-gun owners when it comes to gun safety, especially when children are present in the household. Budget cuts made in 2018 to Montanas Department of Public Health and Human Services severely undermined suicide prevention efforts, with 100 mental health professionals being laid off across the state and 10 rural health care programs closing. Mental health services for youth in crisis were affected by these cuts. Additionally, during the Montana 2019 session, two pieces of legislation aimed at impacting Montanas high suicide rates were introduced but tabled in committee. Both bills included funding for youth suicide prevention program. Youth suicide and access to firearms is a public health crisis. Keeping guns out of the hands of youth who are having suicidal thoughts is common sense, delaying their actions and giving them time to reassess their choices. Daphne Herling is the senior research analyst for Montana KIDS COUNT at the Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Love 0 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Nepali embassy in Delhi issues public notice regarding no-objection certificate Nepals embassy in New Delhi has finally issued a notice in regard to the mandatory no-objection certificate for Nepalis travelling to third countries via India. WASHINGTON -- Briefly suspending their warnings about the rising tide of socialism, a large majority of Senate Republicans recently joined with almost all their Democratic colleagues in affirming the essence of socialism, which is government allocation of capital. The Senate's revival of the Export-Import Bank is a redundant reminder that the rhetorical discord between the parties exaggerates their actual differences. The Ex-Im bank has been reauthorized 16 times since it was created in 1934 as a filigree on the New Deal's overarching project of politicizing the allocation of financial resources. The reauthorization requirement is a way of pretending to refute Ronald Reagan's axiom that there is nothing as immortal as a temporary government program, because programs acquire "reliance interests" the way a ship acquires barnacles. Between 2015 and the Senate's recent confirmation of three board members, Ex-Im has been without a quorum and hence unable to approve guarantees of large loans (those over $10 million). So, we have had a sustained test of the theory that Ex-Im is vital to U.S. exporting in general, and to the few giant corporations that get the lion's share of benefits from Ex-Im's subsidies of foreign entities. The theory has been slain by many facts. Ex-Im has always been peripheral to U.S. exporting. In the four years since Ex-Im became largely dormant, the portion of American exports it subsidized fell from less than 2% to 0.3% -- and exports have risen. Ex-Im has prudently distributed subsidies to enough small businesses to blur its (accurate) reputation as primarily an ally of corporate behemoths such as General Electric, John Deere, Caterpillar and especially Boeing. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who opposes Ex-Im, notes, "When Ex-Im financing was at its peak, Boeing received 70 percent of all ... loan guarantees and 40 percent of all Ex-Im dollars." In 2018, deprived of subsidized Ex-Im loans, Boeing, America's 23rd largest corporation by market capitalization ($193.58 billion as of Tuesday morning), and 27th by revenue ($101 billion), had its best year ever. Of course, Ex-Im makes enough loans to small businesses (in 2014 about 25% of Ex-Im dollars went to 0.5% of small businesses) to purchase congressional support in the usual way: Want to build a bomber that the military does not want? Scatter subcontractors around enough congressional districts, and it will be built. Lee says: "The No. 1 buyer of exports subsidized by Ex-Im between 2007 and 2013 was Pemex ... the notoriously corrupt petroleum company owned by the Mexican government. Pemex, which has a market cap of $416 billion, received more than $7 billion in loans backed by U.S. taxpayers. During the same period, Ex-Im backed $3.4 billion in financing to Emirates Airlines -- a company wholly owned by the government of Dubai -- for Emirates' purchase of Boeing planes." Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., identifies the second- through fifth-biggest beneficiaries of Ex-Im subsidies: (2) State-owned Kenya Airways, (3) State-owned Air China, (4) Russia's state-owned bank VEB (currently under U.S. sanctions for bad behavior; two hands of the U.S. government, one caressing, one smiting), (5) Roy Hill mining, owned by Australia's richest woman, a multibillionaire. The Trump administration trots out its usual rationale for economic irrationality: Ex-Im is a "national security weapon." As the bank subsidizes China and Russia? In 2014, in 17 Ex-Im transactions the primary borrower was the Export-Import Bank of China. Says Toomey, "You cannot make this stuff up": Ex-Im is subsidizing the Chinese bank that is cited as the reason we need Ex-Im. Toomey notes that Ex-Im's defenders argue that the bank takes risks that private lenders will not undertake -- and that the bank does not risk taxpayers' money by making unsafe loans. By picking some U.S. winners, Ex-Im makes some U.S. losers: For example, it subsidizes state-owned Air India's purchase of Boeing jets, thereby enabling it to lower its fares on the New York-Mumbai route, where it competes against Delta Airlines. Ex-Im, which exists to allocate credit by political criteria rather than the market's efficiency criterion, is opposed by only 16 Republican senators -- call them The Remnant -- who, unlike their 37 Republican colleagues, mean what they say when praising free markets and limited government: Barrasso, Blackburn, Braun, Cruz, Daines, Grassley, Hawley, Inhofe, Kennedy, Lankford, Lee, Rubio, Sasse, Shelby, Toomey, Young. Republicans must repeat this dismally revealing exercise by Sept. 30, when the bank must be reauthorized, which it will be. So, the 37 have three months in which to resume their denunciations of socialism, with which they are familiar. George F. Will is a columnist for The Washington Post. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR Visitors to Scovill Zoo this summer will have a new attraction to see: animations created by Millikin University students. Students and the Decatur Park District Foundation on Tuesday afternoon unveiled the new artwork, "Stories," that will appear on the 20-foot "Learning Curve" sculpture. The curved steel LED sculpture at the entrance of the zoo, first installed in 2017, is designed to display images and animations over a square pool of water. It is a multimedia canvas, said Jessa Wilcoxen, chairperson of Millikins arts technology department. We could put video, photography and animation on it. The new display features animated short films designed by a select group of Millikins Motion Graphics Animation class, which selected the "Stories" theme. They felt that this theme would be especially appreciated by the younger members in the community who frequently visit the zoo, Wilcoxen said. It allowed them to make a moving piece that had a clear narrative and in some cases they were designed in a way to invite the viewer to complete the story in their own mind. Millikin senior Stephen Gardner said he was honored to have his piece as part of the display. He created an animation feature about a man stranded on an island after an airplane crash. It also has sound effects that are funny, he said. Learning Curve was created by Aaron McIntosh. He and his wife, Abi, own and operate both New Era Signs Inc. and the Standing Paddle Co., which offers kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals on Lake Decatur. This is the second year that the structure has displayed the work of Millikin students, with last year's exhibition titled "Nostalgia." Jill Applebee, director of the parks foundation, said the students' artwork was embraced by the public. People loved the piece last year, she said. It was exciting to see the partnership (between Millikin and the park district) come together. The large sculpture is a permanent piece and will remain in the same location, part of the Scovill Sculpture Park between the zoo and Children's Museum of Illinois. Three students and their work for this years exhibit were chosen by Applebee, the park districts media team and McIntosh. They were the ones who selected which works if any would be shown in exhibition, Wilcoxen said. While the process of having works chosen to be exhibited was the same this year, the theme is quite different and the students involved are different. Junior Carrie Thompson said she was surprised to find out her piece would be included. Coming into Millikin, I didnt think I would have something this big ... in the middle of Decatur, she said. Thompson, of Carbondale, describes her project as three genres in one. I created a poem based on late-night drives with my friends, she said. I then made an animation based off of each stanza and line and added music to it. Allison Brannon is a junior at Millikin from New Orleans. This is the biggest thing my art has ever been on, she said. Im glad I can contribute to the community. Brannons artwork was focused on her audience: the children visiting the zoo. It is a little bird that is hatching, she said. It is a symbol of growing up. McIntosh said he was happy to have provided the vehicle for the students' creativity to be displayed. "This is my way of having a part," he said. "This is a cool opportunity to see the generation behind me creating work for the generation behind them." Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR 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. CLINTON A Clinton High School student has a possible case of the mumps, leading school officials to send a letter to parents and guardians on Wednesday informing them about the rare and contagious disease. Clinton School Superintendent Curt Nettles said the letter went out at the recommendation of the DeWitt-Piatt Bi-County Health Department. "We follow the health department protocol, and they recommend notifying parents of a possible case ... so everyone has the factual information," Nettles said. Nettles declined to give the condition of the student. Mumps is a contagious disease caused by a virus, but it is not common among children who are up to date with their vaccinations. "I don't know our vaccination rate, but it's extremely high," Nettles said. "We're very nearly 100 percent all the time." "We're going to follow the advice of our health department to keep our parents informed and our students as safe as possible," he added. Mumps can be prevented with MMR vaccine. This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this protects against three diseases: measles, mumps, and rubella. CDC recommends that children get two doses of MMR vaccine: the first dose at 12 through 15 months of age the second dose at 4 through 6 years of age. Parents who aren't sure whether their child has received the vaccine should contact their child's primary care provider. The CDC said the mumps vaccination program started in 1967 has wiped out nearly 99 percent of cases. From Jan. 1 to April 26, 41 states including Illinois and the District of Columbia reported mumps infections in 736 people to the CDC. Nettles said, in his 28 years in education, there has never been a mumps case in a district where he has served. Mumps is spread by direct contact with respiratory droplets. People can reduce their risk by covering their nose and mouth when they cough or sneeze, washing their hands frequently with water and soap, not sharing eating and drinking utensils and avoiding close contact with people who are sick. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscles aches, swollen salivary glands and malaise. Serious cases also can include swollen testicles in males and swollen ovaries in females and inflammation of the joints for several days. Anyone who experiences symptoms should stay home for at least five days and call their health care provider. Contact Paul Swiech at (309) 820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech 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 Macon County State's Attorney Jay Scott is warning residents of a telephone scam targeting senior citizens that attempts to trick people into revealing personal information. The caller will state the person's Social Security card has been suspended and tells the person to call a phone number with a 903 area code, Scott said. He said the scam is designed to trick victims into disclosing person information, which could lead to identity theft. Scott said numerous reports have been made to the Elder Fraud Hotline on Tuesday, and most people indicated they received multiple identical calls. He advised residents to hang up, ignore any answering machine messages and not return the call. Scott encouraged residents to report any suspected scams to the Elder Fraud Hotline at (217) 615-7582. All calls will be answered by Scott. For more information on scams, visit www.sa-macon-il.us/scam-alert. Contact Kennedy Nolen at (217) 421-6985. Follow her on Twitter: @KNolenWrites Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR Police continued to search Tuesday for a Mattoon teen who went missing in Decatur, with special dogs from Cook and McLean counties brought in to help. Dominic D. Walker, 16, was last seen between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Saturday at his father's Decatur home in the 1000 block of West King Street. He has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD, police said. Dominic's father, Adam Walker, said Tuesday evening that his son left behind his phone and tablet, along with a stress ball and fidget spinner he often used. "The only thing we can think of is that something got him to go outside and somebody might've taken him, because he wouldn't have took off like that without all that stuff behind no shoes, no phone or tablet," Walker said. "All he has is like his jeans on and a pullover, that's it." Bloodhounds from Cook County were brought in Monday, a measure commonly taken to help find missing people, Sgt. Chris Copeland said. "We talked to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and they offered whatever resources they had," he said. The Decatur Police Department asked if there were bloodhounds available, and Cook County was the closest agency, Copeland said. Police have canvassed the neighborhood and wooded areas near the home. A special-purpose K-9 unit from McLean County also helped in the search Tuesday morning, Copeland said. He said police would not release more information at this time. Police previously said Dominic, who lives in Mattoon but was in Decatur to visit his father, was last seen wearing a red sweatshirt and shorts. He is described as white, 5 feet, 5 inches tall, 120 pounds with a fair complexion, brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Decatur Police Department at 217-424-2711 (choose option No. 1), or 217-424-2734. Walker said he just wants his son to come back home. "If he did run away, he's not in any trouble," he said. "We just want him to come home and be home safe." Adam Walker also said he will be speaking with the FBI today (Wednesday). "My mind is just wandering so many places. I can't think straight," he said. Contact Kennedy Nolen at (217) 421-6985. Follow her on Twitter: @KNolenWrites Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 5 Angry 0 DECATUR Firefighters were able to save a family dog named Bentley from a residential fire in the 2600 block of Glen Briar Place on Monday. The home belonged to the family of Anthony Corey Walker, president of the Black Chamber of Commerce of Illinois. Walker said he, his wife and two sons were not home at the time. The fire was detected by a residential alarm system, according to the Decatur Fire Department, and crews arrived on scene shortly before 5 p.m. Walker said Tuesday that he and his family were safe and thankful for their alarm system, as it helped saved their home. "The fire inspector said that had (alarm company) Vivint not called them, there wouldn't be a structure still sitting there," he said. Firefighters arrived to find smoke coming from the structure and a fire in the kitchen area, the news release said. The crew forced entry and extinguished the fire. Walker and his family later arrived and told firefighters about Bentley, a Shih Tzu, who was found unharmed and reunited with them. The fire was listed as controlled by 6:33 p.m. The home suffered "moderate" smoke and fire damage, the department said. The cause of the fire is unknown and remains under investigation. Walker said he and his family were staying in a hotel Tuesday after being displaced by the fire. He called the American Red Cross, the firefighters who responded to the fire and the family's neighbors who offered their help and support "amazing" and asked that people continue to pray for his family in the fire's aftermath. "There's nothing we need financially or physically," Walker said. "We've got good insurance, family, amazing friends and neighbors." Contact Jaylyn Cook at (217) 421-7980. Follow him on Twitter: @jaylyn_HR Love 2 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. DECATUR Macon County Sheriff Tony Brown said he sees flaws in the proposal to legalize recreational marijuana use in Illinois, saying the drafted bill has numerous provisions that will create public safety hazards and challenges for law enforcement. In a news release on Wednesday, Brown joined the Illinois Sheriffs' Association and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, who have also made public their objections to Senate Bill 7 as currently written. "We have hundreds of jobs here in Macon County that require individuals to be sober. This bill is not how you help people pass a drug test and secure a solid, stable job," Brown said in the news release. "Illinois should learn from the mistakes that other states have made, but unfortunately this bill does not do that," Brown said. Gov. J.B. Pritzker campaigned last year in support of legalizing recreational use of marijuana as a way to bring in much-needed revenue for the state budget, but details on how the state will form a legal market have been debated. The governor budgeted for $170 million in new revenues next fiscal year from licensing fees associated with legalization. Before advancing the bill, sheriffs in Illinois have said lawmakers must address public safety concerns such as impaired driving, increased crime, mass expungement and insufficient resources to keep communities safe. Pritzker said earlier this month that he had agreed with lawmakers on a plan to legalize recreational marijuana starting next year. If legalized, adults 21 and older would be allowed to buy cannabis for recreational use from licensed dispensaries. They would also eligible to possess up to an ounce, or 30 grams, of marijuana. Nonresidents could possess 15 grams. Up to five home-grown plants would also be allowed, provided certain safety conditions are met. Illinois would also be joining 10 states in the legalization of marijuana, hoping to take effect Jan. 1. Impaired driving is another concern for law enforcement across the state. According to the sheriff's association, a 2018 study shows cannabis-related fatal crashes increased from 31 to 174 percent. Sheriffs believe the measure has insufficient deterrence to reduce and discourage impaired driving. "Currently, we do not have a way to test people in real-time whether they are high or sober since THC can be present in an individual's system but not inhibiting them," Brown said. "The last thing we need is more impaired driving." Contact Kennedy Nolen at (217) 421-6985. Follow her on Twitter: @KNolenWrites Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHICAGO After the deaths of two Illinois State Police troopers in roadside collisions this year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his state police director are joining a bipartisan group of lawmakers in backing legislation that would increase penalties for drivers who don't slow down or move over for vehicles on the side of the road. The proposal, filed Tuesday by Democratic state Rep. Marcus Evans of Chicago, would increase the minimum fine for a first violation of the move-over law, also known as Scott's Law, to $250 from $100. Subsequent violations would carry a minimum fine of $750. Violators also would be charged an additional $250 fee that would help fund education and enforcement of the law. "We're here today to say, 'Enough is enough,' " Evans said Tuesday at a news conference at state police headquarters in Springfield, where he was joined by the governor, acting Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly and a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House and Senate. The legislation comes after 16 state police squad cars have been struck and two troopers killed so far this year in crashes that involved alleged violations of Scott's Law, which requires drivers to slow down and, if safe to do so, change lanes when approaching a vehicle on the side of the road with emergency or hazard lights flashing. "There are few times that this office weighs heavier on me than when we lose one of our finest," Pritzker said. "The calls to comfort the families, the funerals laying our heroes to rest -- there have been too many." Illinois State Trooper Christopher Lambert, 34, was killed Jan. 12 when assisting with a multiple-vehicle crash on northbound Interstate 294 near Willow Road. Trooper Brooke Jones-Story, also 34, was struck and killed outside her car on U.S. Highway 20 in Freeport on March 28 -- three days after Pritzker and Kelly held a news conference to call attention to the law. In addition to upping fines, the proposal under consideration in the House would make it a Class A misdemeanor if a violation of the law results in damage to another vehicle and a Class 4 felony if it results in injury or death. A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail; a Class 4 felony by 1 to 3 years in prison. Reckless homicide cases involving violations of Scott's Law that result in the death of a firefighter or emergency medical services worker would be a Class 2 felony, punishable by 3 to 7 years in prison, mirroring the penalty for crashes that kill police officers. "We are going to protect the protectors," said Republican Rep. John Cabello, a Rockford police detective. As part of their enforcement effort, state police have issued more than 2,000 citations for violations of the law this year, Kelly said, more than double the number for all of 2018. He said the agency will continue working to educate the public about the law. "Forty years ago, no one wore seat belts," Kelly said. "Change for the better, change that saves lives, is possible." Named for Chicago Fire Department Lt. Scott Gillen, who was killed in 2000 on the Bishop Ford Freeway by a driver who was later convicted of reckless homicide, Scott's Law was enacted in 2002 for emergency vehicles with their lights activated and expanded in 2017 to include all vehicles on the side of the road with hazard lights flashing. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD Fines and penalities for violating Scott's Law would be increased under a proposal announced on Tuesday. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Acting Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly and handful of legislators announced legislation on Tuesday meant to enhance enforcement of Scott's Law. Fines for a first offense of violating the state's move over law would be increased to between $250 to $10,000. A second violation would lead to a fine between $750 and $10,000. In addition to the fines, there would be a $250 assessment for any violation of Scott's Law. A person who causes damage to another vehicle while violating Scott's Law would face a class A misdemeanor. Causing death or injury makes it a class 4 felony. A person would face a class 2 felony charge if the Scott's Law violation led to the death or injury of an emergency responder. Currently, violators face a fine of $100 to $10,000. There also is legislation to create a taskforce to study move over law violations and why they happen. State Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Swansea, said the fine structure under the proposal is similar to a work zone violation. "This bill is in response to the alarming rise in the number of incidents which are placing the lives our police at greater risk," Hoffman said. "It is our responsibility to make sure we are taking every possible step to prevent these situations from reoccurring in the future." Scott's Law, commonly referred to as the move over law, requires motorists to slow down when they see emergency lights along a roadway and, if possible, to move over into another lane of traffic. Enforcement of the law has been top of mind this year as three Illinois state troopers Brooke Jones-Story, Jerry Ellis and Chris Lambert have been killed on highways as they were working. This year, there have been 16 state troopers hit. Kelly said the number of crashes is higher than all of 2018. State Police: Too often, drivers arent moving, slowing for squad cars SPRINGFIELD Already in 2019, motorists have hit 14 squad cars stopped along Illinois roads. One of those incidents cost an Illinois State Po More than 2,000 citations for violations of the move over law have been issued this year, which is six times as many at the same point in 2018, and twice as many for all of last year, Kelly said. Money from Scott's Law fines would go into a fund to produce materials educate drivers about the law. "Enforcement and education go hand-in-hand," Kelly said. He added extra efforts to enforce Scott's Law have not hampered enforcement of other traffic rules, adding when someone is violating Scott's Law, they likely are committing another traffic violation. Kelly said he doesn't think efforts to enforce the move over law would impose any other additional duties on law enforcement. "What this will do is strengthen the position of this law in the middle of all these other potential offenses that may exist," Kelly said. State Rep. John Cabello, R-Machesney Park, who also is a police detective, said legislators decided they needed to act to try to fix this issue. "This legislation is one way we're working to protect the protectors," Cabello said. "Too many first responders have paid the ultimate price, and we are honoring their legacy by preventing even more tragic losses among our state's heroes." Scott's Law was named after Lieutenant Scott Gillen of the Chicago Fire Department who was struck and killed by an intoxicated driver while assisting at a crash on the Dan Ryan Expressway. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 SPRINGFIELD A key component of a bill that would legalize possession and sale of marijuana for recreational use in Illinois erasing pot-related convictions for potentially hundreds of thousands of people may violate the state Constitution, according to the group representing county prosecutors statewide. The bill essentially would create legislative pardons, which are illegal, said Robert Berlin, president of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association. Under the Illinois Constitution, only the governor can issue pardons, Berlin, the DuPage County state's attorney, told The State Journal-Register. "It's a separation of powers argument," he said. An additional constitutional concern, he said, is that prosecutors would be prohibited under the bill from helping to determine who is and isn't eligible for expungement of certain misdemeanor and felony convictions. "It takes away all of our discretion," Berlin said of Senate Bill 7, adding that court challenges could overturn such expungements. Berlin, a Republican, said the bipartisan association plans to present its concerns to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat and supporter of the bill, as well as the bill's sponsors in the General Assembly. Berlin said the association has taken a neutral stance on the overall bill. Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh didn't directly respond to the state's attorneys' concerns when asked. "The administration and bill sponsors have made it clear that they're open to feedback on their proposal to legalize adult-use cannabis," she said in an email. "As negotiations continue, the governor remains committed to ensuring criminal-justice reform and equity are the focus of legislation." State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, the bill's House sponsor, held out the possibility that the section on exonerations could be tweaked. "There's been a lot of back and forth on process, and I don't know that this process is the final process we're going to land at," she said last week. Berlin said the governor has the power to issue a blanket pardon or individual pardons to carry out the legislation, but Cassidy said, "I don't know that there's a constitutional need to do that." Cassidy added: "There are ongoing conversations about what the process is going to look like. We know what we want to accomplish. We're still talking through with law enforcement, with state's attorneys, with clerks, to make sure we get the most efficient process." Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, a Democrat, has said she supports legalizing marijuana, and the Chicago Tribune reported that Foxx plans to expunge misdemeanor marijuana convictions to assist those suffering with criminal records. Regarding the issues raised by the state's attorneys association, Foxx spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said: "We are supportive of the legislation and providing the most extensive, equitable form of relief possible to those impacted by low-level marijuana convictions. This is especially important for communities of color who have been disproportionately harmed by the failed war on drugs." "We have offered our support to both the governor's office and legislators in the drafting process," Simonton said. "We will continue to back the broadest form of relief possible. ... As prosecutors who implement these convictions, we must own our role in the harm they have caused, and we should play a role in reversing them." Sangamon County State's Attorney Dan Wright, a Republican, said the current bill "contains a number of provisions related to expungement which appear problematic from a constitutional perspective." The 533-page bill was introduced in the General Assembly a week ago after months of consideration. There haven't been any votes on it in either the Illinois Senate or House. A Senate Executive Committee hearing on the legislation is scheduled Wednesday in the Capitol. The bill would legalize possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana, or 1 ounce, for people 21 and older. The section on expungements is part of the legislation's effort to institute social justice and in particular assist minorities who in the past have been arrested for cannabis-related infractions in disproportionate numbers. The proposed expungements, which would go beyond sealing court records and instead eliminate those records, were expected to help attract votes from lawmakers representing urban areas. Also viewed as attractive to those lawmakers were parts of the bill that would financially assist disadvantaged neighborhoods and provisions to make it easier for blacks and Hispanics to become entrepreneurs in a legal recreational cannabis industry in Illinois. Convictions, tickets and fines associated with marijuana-related charges have hindered many people in getting jobs, attending college and supporting their families, supporters of the bill say. It's estimated that as many as 800,000 people could benefit from the expungements, which would affect civil-law cannabis possession cases of less than 10 grams, misdemeanor possession cases involving up to 30 grams, and Class 4 felony cases involving possession of up to 500 grams, or more than 1 pound, of marijuana. The bill also proposes exonerations for felony convictions involving selling up to 30 grams of marijuana and also felony convictions for illegally growing up to 20 cannabis plants. It's fair to consider expunging these types of convictions, even though they involve possession of more marijuana than would be legal under the bill, Cassidy said. CBD is everywhere but is it safe? ATLANTA On any given morning, a steady stream of customers flows into Rev Coffee in Smyrna, mixing cups of espresso with white chocolate, fr "This is an opportunity to hit the reset button on the war on drugs, looking backwards and cleaning up for the people we have failed," she said. The bill would give wealthy investors more opportunity to profit off the legal sale of marijuana, so the bill's expungement system needs to create more economic opportunity for everyday citizens whose lives have been harmed by marijuana convictions, said state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria. "There are a lot of folks who are not going to be in this business," said Gordon-Booth, a supporter of the bill. "They want to be in the business of taking care of themselves and taking care of their families." Cassidy said automatic expungements provided for in the bill would affect only past convictions. However, the bill's section on "future offenses" says circuit court clerks, arresting agencies and the Illinois State Police "shall expunge" twice a year the records of people found to have committed the outlined offenses as long as the cases have been closed. Some law enforcement officials have questioned whether the bill is attempting a back-door revision of Illinois criminal law by providing for expungement of convictions for crimes that remain on the books. The automatic expungement process wouldn't apply to people with misdemeanor or Class 4 felony violations that were accompanied by charges other than the marijuana offenses mentioned in the bill. People who faced those additional charges could petition a court for expungement in a process that would include input from state's attorneys, Cassidy said. Berlin said state's attorneys should have the right to help decide who should and shouldn't be on the lists of defendants compiled by the Illinois State Police for automatic expungement. State's attorneys may have records that State Police lack that could disqualify someone for expungement, Berlin said. If state's attorneys don't present lists of automatic expungements to judges on schedule, the Illinois attorney general is required to present the lists for court approval, under the legislation. A spokeswoman for Attorney general Kwame Raoul said Raoul, a Democrat, is reviewing the legislation. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 Prisoners in Nepal are living under inhumane conditions says Office of the Attorney General The Office of the Attorney General has painted a bleak picture of police cells and prisons across the country, emphasising the urgent need to improve the living conditions to ensure human dignity of those living there. The first thing to be said about Facebooks decision to ban Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and a handful of other controversial figures is that the company is entirely within its rights to decide who will appear on its site. It is also under pressure from governments around the world to silence users (and bots) who encourage violence or lie to the public. Thats why its outrageous that President Trump tweeted that he is continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America and we have whats known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! Even if this is just another Twitter tantrum that doesnt lead to any official action, its dismaying that the president of the United States is such a constitutional illiterate that he doesnt realize that the 1st Amendment protects free speech only against infringement by the government, not private entities. In fact, a company like Facebook has every legal right to determine who may participate on its platform and what they may or may not say. Yet its possible to acknowledge Facebooks right to decide who appears on its site and its need to do a better job blocking certain types of truly awful content and still worry that the company might go overboard or act inconsistently in deciding what speech and which speakers are beyond the pale. It may, for instance, be susceptible to pressure to exclude individuals who are neither inciting violence nor spouting racial or religious hatred. In announcing the bans, a Facebook representative said: Weve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology. Some the exclusions announced last week might seem like easy calls under that standard. For example, Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, has made anti-Semitic statements that any reasonable person would regard as hateful. (He has referred to the Satanic Jew and last year said he wasnt anti-Semitic but anti-termite.) Similarly, its hard to defend Jones, author of outrageous conspiracy theories such as the one that the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 children and six adults died, was a hoax. (Jones now says he spun the conspiracy theory as the result of a mental disorder.) If Facebook now plans to police obviously absurd and hurtful conspiracy theories, that may also be appropriate. (It may, however, be a departure for Facebook. Last July, it tweeted: We just dont think banning Pages for sharing conspiracy theories or false news is the right way to go.) In an exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a Senate hearing last year, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, said he considered Facebook a platform for all ideas, a laudable aspiration that he didnt think was incompatible with excluding hate speech, terrorist content, and nudity, anything that makes people feel unsafe. This will requiring some complicated balancing. In our view, Facebook should tread lightly, and not err on the side of exclusion, or overreact to organized efforts to silence individuals whose views are controversial, even offensive, but not hateful, inciting or demonstrably untrue. As protests over speakers at some college campuses demonstrate, terms such as racist and hate speech can be interpreted with amazing elasticity, as can the notion of speech that makes people feel unsafe. In some eyes, for example, criticism of university affirmative-action programs as violating the rights of rejected white students would qualify as racist speech. Denunciation of the Catholic Church for its sex abuse scandals might be deemed religious hate speech. And so on. Facebook isnt a public utility or an extension of the government. It isnt bound by the 1st Amendment. And contrary to some Republicans assertions, it isnt compelled to be a neutral platform in order to be shielded from liability for its users posts. But it has become so prominent and pervasive a forum for communication not just in this country but around the world that it should adhere to free-speech principles to the maximum extent possible. Finally, as Zuckerberg himself has admitted, Facebook needs to be vigilant about political bias in deciding which opinions are intolerable. In his Senate testimony, he acknowledged that Facebook (and) the tech industry are located in Silicon Valley, which is an extremely left-leaning place. The law may not require the company to apply its standards in an evenhanded manner, but Facebook will do so anyway if it wants to be respected as a platform for all ideas. --Los Angeles Times Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 When we started thinking about robotic milking, I had to look outside our region of the U.S. for ideas. We didnt know of any robotic milking units in the Gulf Coast or Southeastern states, so we toured robot dairies in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The farmers who allowed us to visit were great, and we learned a lot. One young farmer suggested I follow a robotic milking group on Facebook. He told me it was a farmer-helping-farmer page, and the advice he received there had been helpful. My new friend said there was always some dairy farmer awake somewhere around the globe who would make a suggestion on how to correct a problem or question he might have with his robotic milker. If he had a breakdown at 2 a.m. and posed a question on this groups page, he often got advice on how to repair it fairly quickly. I now have joined several robotic groups on Facebook and am getting an ongoing education in the field of dairy robotics. It is a great place to get ideas, see the challenges that arise from robots, and obtain some real-world goals for my cows once we are robotically milking. I would suggest to anyone considering a brand of robots to use the search bar on the top of your Facebook page. Enter whichever brand of robot that you are interested in, research the magazine articles and posts that pop up, and join the pages and groups that look helpful. This gives you access to the farmers who operate robots on a daily basis. It will help with decisions on which robot to purchase, how to configure them, and realistic stocking densities to fit your operational goals. Franklin Roosevelt once said, I am not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues. Take the opportunity to get ideas from dairy farmers around the globe and let them share what they have learned about robotic milking with you. Mark and Caitlin Rodgers are dairy farmers in Dearing, Georgia. Their Father and Daughter Dairy Together column appears every other Thursday on HD Notebook. The Rodgers have a 400-cow dairy that averages 32,000 pounds of milk. Follow their family farm on Facebook at Hillcrest Farms Inc. I am person who is uncompromisingly black and unapologetically gay. Deal with it. I am person who is uncompromisingly black and unapologetically gay. Deal with it. Alvin McEwen [image: 472383 origin 1] Published by Reuters By Estelle Shirbon LONDON (Reuters) Britains Queen Elizabeth spoke of the loss of her husband Prince Ph... Katherine Huggins @ Mediaite: Marjorie Taylor Greene Boasts of Yellow People and Other Minorities at Turning Point Rally: The Left Calls This a White ... [image: Nyla Rose] Nyla Rose | AEW The man, sitting front row on Wednesdays AEW Dynamite broadcast, held a transphobic sign targeted at Nyla Rose. An a... Christmas in 2021 is the second holiday season that is burdened by the COVID pandemic. And yet, the enduring spirit of the American people shines through t... The Hill reports: In an appearance on ABC Newss This Week, co-anchor Jonathan Karl asked Fauci if he agreed with President Biden who said in a recent ... The exhibition Still Listening featuring new sculptures by Detroit artist Todd Erickson will open at the Hope College Kruizenga Art Museum, on Friday, May 31, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The public is invited to both the exhibition and the reception. Admission is free. A graduate of Hope College and Cranbrook Academy of Art, Erickson has spent the past 36 years working in various teaching and administrative roles at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the state of Michigan. Still Listening will showcase three new sculptures that Erickson created especially for the exhibition, along with 12 of his older works. Past visitors to the Kruizenga Art Museum will already be familiar with one of Ericksons pieces: Ziibi Elpidos, the sculpture that stands in front of the museums main entrance. Erickson was a biology major and art minor at Hope, and his interests in sculpture and the natural environment continue to be carried forward in his career. Using tree branches collected while exploring the wilderness of the state of Michigan, he assembles organic-looking but carefully composed sculptures. The sculptures are cut into pieces to make molds using sand, ceramic shell, rubber and plaster. Erickson then casts the pieces in bronze and welds the pieces back together to recreate the original wooden sculpture. His casting and welding techniques are masterful, and he is able to preserve all of the textures and subtle details of the branches in the finished metal sculptures, said Charles Mason, who is the director and Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga Curator of the Kruizenga Art Museum. Combining nature and artifice, specificity and universality, Erickons sculptures are paradoxical. The sculptures can evoke a variety of responses from the viewer when considered from different angles, sometimes seeming energetic and dynamic, and at other times feeling calm and still. [Ericksons sculptures] intersect with several grand traditions of modern art, including plein air painting, land art and found-object assemblage art, Mason said, but most of all they reflect an artist who is still humbly listening to what the world has to tell him and teach him. Still Listening was organized by the Kruizenga Art Museum and Erickson, who is loaning the sculptures for the exhibition. Erickson is represented commercially by the Robert Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan. The exhibition will run through Saturday, Aug. 3. Public visiting hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Please check the museums website or social media for additional information about special programs and events related to Still Listening. The museum functions as an educational resource for Hope College and the greater West Michigan community. The museum features two public galleries as well as a classroom and climate-controlled storage space for its 4,500-object permanent collection. It is named in honor of a leadership gift from Dr. Richard and the late Margaret Kruizenga of Holland, both of whom graduated from Hope in 1952. The Kruizenga Art Museum is located at 271 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets. Banner Image: Ziibi Elpidos Todd Erickson (American, b. 1959) 2017 Bronze Commissioned by Leona M. and Jacob E Nyenhuis The key is to let nature lead the way, says Jean-Eric Paquet, the European Commission's Director General for Research and Innovation A Houston company just opened a new factory and community space, allowing anyone in the community access to 3D printing. Courtesy of re:3D These three COVID-19 research stories were among the most read InnovationMap articles of 2021. Photo via Getty Images 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 Probe into the death of five-year-old girl to start today Nepal Medical Council has launched an investigation into the death of the five-year-old Aakriti Kumari Sah, who had died allegedly from blood mismatch during a cardiac surgery at Shahid Gangalal National Heart Centre. However, the United States cannot just sit back and watch how things pan out with Iran. It is being proactive and making sure that it is prepared to defend itself if Iran makes a move. The Trump administration has been pressuring the Iranian regime for a number of months now. In fact, ever since taking office, the Trump administration has not been silent about the Iran threat. President Trump is very aware that his predecessors administration made some very serious foreign policy mistakes with regards to Iran and he is keen to make sure that he does not go down the same route. War, however, is not the only way to eliminate the Iran threat. The regime is bordering on collapse as it is. The countrys economy is falling to pieces because of decades of mismanagement and corruption. It is losing its grip on power in the region, especially now that the conflict in Syria is drawing to a close and President Bashar al Assad has options. Domestic pressure in Iran is also being maintained by the people who are sick of the regimes suppression. They want regime change and they are determined to ensure that future generations have the freedom that they have been cruelly denied for the past four decades. The Iranian regime too knows that it would not be able to handle military conflict. War would push the regime right over the edge almost immediately. But it is being brave playing a game that it hopes will pay off, but a game that could very easily spark military conflict. The Iranian regime, in its place of weakness, presents more danger now than it ever did. The Trump administration realises this because it has sent an extraordinary set of weapons and vessels to the Gulf where they are just waiting for the signal. What more can Washington do to show that it is deadly serious when it comes to Iran? Military conflict, for all concerned, would be the least preferred solution. And there is no need because the people of Iran will undoubtedly be the force behind the regimes collapse. The United States has correctly identified the Iranian regime as the number one threat to peace and security and the threat is now extending much further. Former President Barack Obama promised that the regime would become more moderate but this never happened. And it is very clear that the regime is incapable of being moderate. Pressure is what is needed in the immediate term. The CSIRO's Data61 digital arm and Vietnams Ministry of Science and Technology have launched a report that examines the megatrends affecting the development of Vietnams digital economy until 2045. The report Vietnams Future Digital Economy is part of the Australian Governments Aus4Innovation program, a $10 million strategic initiative designed to strengthen the links between the Australian and Vietnamese innovation systems. According to the report launched at the Science, Technology & Innovation as a Pillar for Socio-Economic Development in Vietnam conference in Hanoi digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things, platforms and cloud-based services have the potential to transform Vietnam into Asias next high-performing economy and to bring up the living standards of all of Vietnams citizens over the coming decades. The Vietnams Future Digital Economy report provides a blueprint for Vietnam to plan for the countrys digital future. It is a tremendous example of successful collaboration between our national innovation systems, Dr Chu Ngoc Anh, Minister of Science and Technology, said. Craig Chittick, Australian ambassador to Vietnam, said the report was the first major output of the Aus4Innovation partnership between Australia and Vietnam. It will guide our work over the next three years as we deepen the collaborative linkages between our two countries and help strengthen the Vietnamese innovation system as it adapts to the challenges and opportunities of the digital economy, he said. Dr Lucy Cameron, lead author of the report and senior research consultant at CSIROs Data61, noted that Vietnam has been one of the worlds fastest growing economies and has already become one of the most dynamic countries in the East Asia region. The next wave of digital technologies Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things, and platforms and cloud-based services has the potential to transform Vietnam into Asias next high-performing economy. Vietnam will need to seize these substantial opportunities while carefully navigating a number of risks, Dr Cameron said. The CSIRO says Data61 has worked with the Ministry of Science and Technologys team to identify seven megatrends affecting Vietnams future digital economy. These include the impact of emerging digital technologies, new export markets for Vietnam, the development of modern digital infrastructure, the push to smart cities, the rise of digital skills and services and changing consumer behaviours. And megatrends informed the development of four potential future scenarios, which the CSIRO says provide a blueprint for decision-makers to plan for Vietnams future digital economy. How the future plays out will depend on Vietnams position in the regional digital economy, and the level of adaptation to digital products and services across government, the community and industry, Dr Cameron said. URBANA -- The Department of Crop Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, will host the 62nd annual Agronomy Day on Aug. 22. The event, which showcases the latest scientific discoveries from ACES researchers and Extension specialists, will feature a larger number of presentations on more diverse topics than previous years. This year, attendees can choose from seven tours and multiple hands-on demonstrations on topics including hemp and organic sweet corn production; uses of technology and digital platforms in ag; and fungicide applications for enhanced dairy cow performance. Thats in addition to high-demand tours on maximizing corn yield, dealing with insect pests and pathogens, and optimizing fertilizer management, says Allen Parrish, director of Crop Sciences Research and Education Centers and chairperson for Agronomy Day. There will be something for everyone this year. Similar to last years Agronomy Day, tours will be held in multiple tents and buildings surrounding the main exhibitors tent, each with a unique sequence of speakers. Presenters will be grouped according to themes for which attendees can earn certified crop advisor (CCA) credits. This years keynote speaker is John Sullivan, director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Adam Davis, department head for crop sciences, and College of ACES dean Kim Kidwell will also speak. The exhibitors tent will feature exhibits by sponsors, commercial vendors, ACES programs, and student clubs. Food trucks will be on hand for lunch, expanding the culinary options over previous years. Agronomy Day will be held at the South First Street Facility, located at 4202 S. First St. in Champaign. Contact Linda Harvey at 217-244-1693 or lharvey@illinois.edu with questions. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Community Police Partnership Programme launched in Rautahat The District Police Office launched the first Community Police Partnership Programme, an initiative of the Nepal Police, in Rautahat district on Saturday. CHARLESTON -- The 17-year-old suspect in last month's shooting at a Charleston apartment building is now charged as an adult. Devin W. Jenkins, 17, now faces an adult charge of aggravated battery with a firearm in connection with the April 28 shooting that injured the resident of the apartment at 24 Buchanan Ave. Two other suspects have been charged for what was also reportedly a burglary of the apartment, which the resident discovered just before the shooting. Jenkins was charged as an adult "based on the severity of the offense," Coles County State's Attorney Jesse Danley said Wednesday. Aggravated battery of a firearm is one of the offenses Illinois law allows to be filed as an adult charge against suspects ages 16 and 17, Danley said. First-degree murder and criminal sexual assault are the others. For the adult charge, a prison sentence of six to 30 years would be required if Jenkins is convicted. His juvenile charge was also aggravated battery with a firearm, but a conviction as a juvenile would have meant he could have been detained with the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice until age 21, at the longest. Jenkins appeared at a juvenile court hearing last week and another hearing is scheduled for Friday. Danley said Jenkins will still be at the Friday juvenile court hearing and the transfer of his case to adult court will be addressed then. Jenkins remains in juvenile custody because someone his age can't be housed at the county jail, Danley said. Shannon M. Barnes, 18, and Alyssa A. Jenkins, 19, both face charges of aggravated battery with a firearm, while Barnes is also charged with residential burglary. Devin Jenkins is accused of actually firing the shot that injured the apartment's resident, Trevor R. Pinkstaff, 20. Pinkstaff and Devin Jenkins fought after Pinkstaff discovered his apartment being burglarized and was shot in the abdomen after the teen pulled and fired a gun, according to evidence at an earlier hearing. Pinkstaff also saw Barnes fleeing from the apartment, the evidence indicated. There were also indications that Alyssa Jenkins was driving the car in which the suspects were traveling, leading to charges that accuse the adult suspects of accountability for the shooting. Pinkstaff identified Barnes and Devin Jenkins when he was interviewed while hospitalized at Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, according to police testimony at the earlier hearing. Barnes and Alyssa Jenkins pleaded not guilty to the charges against them during a hearing last week. Barnes remains jailed while Alysssa Jenkins posted bond but her release was limited to placement in residential substance abuse treatment. Contact Dave Fopay at (217) 238-6858. Follow him on Twitter: @FopayDave Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Shrewsbury International School Bangkok, Riverside Job Opportunity Position / Job Specification: EAL Specialist Posting Date: 14th May 2019 Closing Date: Interested candidates are suggested to apply immediately. (Applications will be considered as they arrive.) Department: Academic Salary: This is a Local Hire Position, and salary would be dependent on experience. Position Summary: The EAL Specialist reports to the Director of EAL and will typically be expected to engage in a full teaching timetable including allocated time for planning and department meetings. Our highly motivated, experienced and flexible team of EAL specialists, working across all age phases, have good knowledge of the National Curriculum for England, and support its delivery through an EAL model of sheltered immersion. The EAL specialists also play key roles in the promotion and development of EAL strategies for all. They do this by working closely with mainstream teachers at the planning and delivery stages, and through leading staff training. English language learning is one of the main pillars of the schools mission, and our expectations of the children are very high. The solid foundation set at the primary level and the development, consolidation and refinement of our students proficiency in English as they move through the school is crucial to meeting these aspirations. EAL Specialists at Shrewsbury are exceptional practitioners who understand the nature of second language acquisition and how best to support it in a specific setting such as this. Candidate Profile: The successful candidate: will hold at least a bachelors degree, or equivalent, and at least a TESOL / TEFL qualification from an accredited programme with minimum 120 hrs course time plus an observed live teaching component; will preferably have experience teaching within an international school setting and teaching EAL within mainstream curriculums; have sufficient up-to-date knowledge of effective teaching and learning pedagogy; be motivated, enthusiastic, imaginative and innovative; have excellent interpersonal skills; be aware of and sensitive to the demands of working in a cross-cultural setting; will be a dedicated teacher capable of inspiring students; will have a working knowledge of the National Curriculum for England and an ability and aspiration to attain high standards; will have knowledge of effective Assessment for Learning strategies and be able to implement them; will have a flexible approach to working within the school curriculum and structures; will have demonstrated an appreciation of the value of the extra-curricular dimension in developing the potential of students; will have a positive approach to professional development; will be happy to commit to and apply all school policies. Child Safeguarding: Shrewsbury International School is committed to Safeguarding and Child Protection promoting the welfare of children. The successful candidate will be required to attend in-house Child Safeguarding programmes; promote and safeguard the welfare of all students in the school; report to the Child Protection Officer any concerns they have for the welfare of a student. This may include unsafe practices witnessed within the school as outlined in the schools Speak Out (Whistleblowing) Policy; keep professional relationships with students where personal boundaries are respected and maintained; seek advice from a Line Manager or Child Protection Officer with issues or concerns related to Child Safeguarding. Kolterman said he believes it would be "a bad idea to delay" consideration of the new Imagine Nebraska tax incentive package until next year because of the negative message that would send to business interests inside and outside the state who plan developments years in advance. A year's delay has been eyed as a fallback alternative to enactment of the new program this year. Advantage Nebraska does not expire until the end of 2020. Among pending amendments to the bill are proposals by Sen. Kate Bolz of Lincoln centering on workforce development and erecting "fiscal guide rails" for the new program. Sen. John McCollister of Omaha, who said Nebraska needs to be prepared to compete in "an economic arms race," proposed inserting "a control mechanism" that would allow the state to dial back some of the entitlements after a mid-course review. Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln said he will oppose the bill until the business community decides to also be "proactive for individual workers" and supportive of legislation that helps grow the state. Morfeld pointed to the need for the business sector to support prompt implementation of the expansion of Medicaid health care coverage approved by voters in 2018, suggesting that represents "two billion dollars in economic development" for the state. Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSDon. 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. Medicinal cannabis got several hours of legislative debate Wednesday evening before moving off the agenda, most likely for the rest of this waning session. "Honestly, this was my colleagues' chance to do something, and I was giving them the decision on whether they wanted to take action or not," said Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart, who introduced the legalization bill (LB110). Wishart worked with a number of groups in the past few months to improve the bill, she said. Two of the changes she made in compromise were to eliminate the ability for patients to grow plants at their home, and to prohibit smoking the drug. She said she was open to addressing people's concerns. "We're crafting this together," she said. "This is a group project." Wishart said she recognized that in order to get something through the Legislature you have to listen to a diversity of voices and adopt solutions for their concerns. She did that on a number of fronts. With Rodizio Grill pulsating to the sounds of the 80s, the Nebraska Cancer Research Center (NCRC) kicked off its first Banding Together for Hope event April 27. Thanks to sponsors Advanced Medical Imaging, Bryan Health, Family Health & Wellness Center PC, Lincoln Radiology Group, Nebraska Hematology Oncology PC, Nebraska Pulmonary Specialties, Pathology Medical Services, Southeast Nebraska Cancer Center, Urology PC and generous donors, over $4,000 was raised to advance the work of Nebraska Cancer Research Center. NCRC partners with Lincoln oncology groups and hospital systems to provide patients local access to cutting-edge National Cancer Institute-sponsored clinical trials. Music was provided by AM/FM Lincoln throughout the evening while guests danced, bid on raffle items and reconnected with friends, old and new. We are very appreciative of the generosity of Rodizio Grill in providing us a wonderful venue in which to raise awareness of NCRCs work, said Kelly Madcharo, director of the Nebraska Cancer Research Center. We are also very grateful for the local businesses who donated items for our raffle and those who attended tonights event. A former Nebraska State Patrol investigator has gotten two years of probation for possessing 1,800 prescription pills that had been turned in to law enforcement to be disposed. As part of the plea agreement, Christopher Kober, 46, agreed to surrender his law enforcement certification and not seek a job in law enforcement in the future, U.S. Attorney Joe Kelly said in a news release Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Kober pleaded guilty to possession of Vicodin, Oxycodone HCI, Percocet, morphine sufate and fentanyl, a misdemeanor, in U.S. District Court in Omaha. The federal indictment lists the drugs as painkillers and opioids stolen from January 2016 to March 2017 during drug take-back operations, overdose investigations and other means. Kober was fired from the State Patrol in June 2017 following an internal investigation. Kelly said he had been assigned to the DEA Drug Diversion Task Force and was responsible for the collection of old and unused prescription drugs left at collection boxes. Police are looking for help to identify a suspect in a 2014 sexual assault in Lincoln who was caught on video in a burglary in Colorado three years later. Officer Luke Bonkiewicz said they were releasing a images from it in hopes of identifying the man, whose DNA tied him to both incidents. He said the sexual assault happened on Dec. 27, 2014. Bonkiewicz said a 58-year-old woman told investigators she had been talking to a man she didnt know at a downtown bar that night and he followed her to her car, grabbed her, pushed her into her car and sexually assaulted her. Bonkiewicz said police were able to recover forensic evidence from her car and learned earlier this year from the Nebraska State Crime Lab that there was a possible match to evidence obtained from a burglary in Denver on Dec. 2, 2017. He said the DNA from the burglary hadnt been processed until about 20 months after the crime. Now, police are hoping someone will recognize the man in the video and help them identify him. Its unclear if he lives in the Denver area, Lincoln or elsewhere. Photos from the burglary are posted on Lincolns Crime Stoppers website at lincolncrimestoppers.com/long-distance. Love 0 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Fringe communist parties launch a movement against the ruling Nepal Communist Party, calling them fascists Seven years on, as the newly minted Nepal Communist Party looks to mark its first anniversary on Friday, four communist parties and one communist frontled by Baidya and Gajurelhave announced the launch of a peaceful movement against what they call the corrupt and fascist Nepal Communist Party. The state said the classes are ill-defined and would require the court to conduct individual mini-trials of inmates to determine if they should be class members. ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad said it was undisputed that countless Nebraskans in prison lack access to basic health care, mental health care and sensible accommodations for their disabilities for which the state remains deliberately indifferent through decades of neglect, inadequate training, programming and services. The ACLU enlisted at least six experts with experience in treatment of prisoners with mental health, medical and dental needs and disability rights. The request for class-action status said those experts found bad policies and practices of the department, crowding, lack of appropriate access to medical, mental health and dental care, and failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Post said the Corrections Department has opened its doors, turning over 351,000 pages of records, and has many hundreds of thousands to go. It's done 20 facilities tours, with allowances to ACLU representatives to talk to staff and inmates with state representatives present, and will do more next month. The Senate has yet to vote on the House bill, which passed 257-150 last week and includes an amendment championed by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, but its fate has been overshadowed by President Donald Trumps call to Republicans to kill the measure over increased funding House Democrats included for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Even disaster aid has been politicized in recent years. What a sad condemnation of our government. All three Republicans in Nebraskas House delegation were among the 34 in the GOP to break party ranks to support the measure. Good for them. They displayed the common sense too often lacking in a hyper-partisan Washington, placing their constituents needs over their partys wants. Rep. Adrian Smith said it best on the House floor: I realize this bill is not perfect, and there are a number of issues I hope we can address moving forward. Nebraskans need assistance. Considering this bill moves us closer to providing them relief, and for that reason I support it. MOUNT PLEASANT All lanes of southbound Interstate 94/41 were blocked from about 2:45 p.m. until about 6:45 p.m. Tuesday near Highway 20 due to a crash, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. For most of that time, traffic was at a standstill as no vehicles were able to pass the scene of a three-vehicle crash, although one lane reopened at about 6 p.m. The crash involved a tanker trailer and a Chevy Tahoe that ended up getting stuck beneath the tanker and came to rest facing the wrong way. Nothing appeared to have spilled from the tanker, although the metal was dented. A Jeep Grand Cherokee that came to rest about 500 feet past the tanker and the Tahoe also suffered heavy front-end damage. The Racine County Sheriffs Office reported, after its initial investigation, that the Tahoe struck a barrier along the median wall, then struck the Jeep, which had two occupants, both of whom were 76 years old. The Tahoe then crashed into the tanker. The windshield of the Tahoe was crushed and its airbags were deployed. Flight for Life was called for at least one of the people involved in the crash, although the injured person was taken to the hospital and the helicopter was called off while en route. The driver of the tanker truck was not injured. It was not immediately clear who was injured or the condition of the injured. Traffic on I-94/41 was backed up to Rawson Avenue in Milwaukee County within 45 minutes of the crash, one driver said. Traffic headed in the other direction slowed down significantly, largely because of northbound drivers slowing down to look as they passed the scene of the crash. After 13 OWI arrests over weekend, sheriff calls for stricter penalties RACINE COUNTY Deputies from the Racine County Sheriffs Office arrested 13 people over 72 hours last weekend, each of whom now face charges The DOT said that, as a result of the incident, a crash cushion just south of the Highway K overpass needed to be repaired. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 11 Angry 7 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. Caitlin Sievers Reporter Caitlin Sievers covers education in Racine County with a primary focus on Racine Unified School District. Before moving to the Racine area she worked at small papers in Indiana, Illinois and Nebraska. Follow Caitlin Sievers 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 RACINE Contractors that adopt worker-friendly practices from hiring felons, to job training, to family leave and breastfeeding accommodations could get a leg up when bidding for city contracts. A social responsibility ordinance, proposed by 9to5 Wisconsin and Keep Families First, was introduced by Aldermen John Tate II of the 3rd District and Mollie Jones of the 2nd District and is making its way through the committee process. At the Public Works and Services committee meeting, which Tate chairs, City Attorney Scott Letteney asked for more time so that his office can work through a draft ordinance Tate submitted on Monday. Tate said that he would also like to have time to ensure the program works in conjunction with the citys existing Racine Works program, which was recently updated to require contractors to hire City of Racine residents as 20% of their workforce for city projects. Mayor Cory Mason also pointed out that the city is in the process of hiring a public works commissioner after Mark Yehlens retirement in April, and that the city also will need to hire a purchasing agent since Kathy Kasper is leaving at the end of May. Those hired to fill those positions would be the primary enforcers of the potential policy. The committee decided to defer, giving Tate and the City Attorneys office six weeks to work through a draft ordinance. That draft would next be brought back to Public Works and Services. Incentivizing good workplace policies 9to5 Wisconsin advocates for policies that help working families across the state. The organization promoted the ban the box initiative in 2017 that removed the question of whether an applicant for a City of Racine job had been convicted of a felony. Under the social responsibility ordinance, a contractor would receive extra points when bidding for a city contract if it: Offers paid sick leave and family and medical leave; Offers breastfeeding accommodations; Does not ask applicants about their felony record, and hires felons; Provides child care; Pays living wages; Accommodates pregnancies; Allows collective bargaining; Allows flexible scheduling. The City of Milwaukee adopted a socially responsible contractors ordinance in December. Tate pointed out at the meeting that his draft is designed to be more carrot than stick; incentivizing employers to put those practices into place rather than punishing those that dont. At last weeks City Council meeting, about a half-dozen people spoke on the proposed ordinance, including 9to5 member and Racine resident Mary Pirrello. Racine would share in this shining example with the City of Milwaukee to inspire at the state level what good work place policies look like, Pirrello said. Lets be that inspirational leadership for the rest of the city, county and state to follow in the employment arena by adopting these good workplace solutions, as we move away from that legacy of being the third-worst place for African Americans and toward becoming the best place for African Americans, and all community members, to live. Ola Baiyewu, executive director of First Choice, voiced support for the kinds of workplaces the program is attempting to promote, but also voiced caution about the ordinance. I agree with the social responsibility ordinance, but you have to step very carefully, Baiyewu said. Even though this ordinance will not be mandatory, I want you to look very carefully. We do not want employers to pick and choose who are winners and who are losers. 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. - Kris Aquino posted on social media her special message about Halalan 2019 - According to her, we can honor our country by voting wisely - She also shared a photo of her after voting at a polling precinct PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Kris Aquino took to social media to share her thoughts about the election. KAMI learned that Kris shared her message after she exercised her right to vote. The Queen of All Media made a connection between the election and the Mothers Day celebration last Sunday. According to the actress-host, Filipinos should try to honor the country by voting wisely. yesterday we expressed love for all our mothers for guiding us, nurturing us, and loving us... today lets honor our MOTHERLAND by voting, and help in tho the shaping & protecting of the Philippines destiny. Kagaya ng pakiramdam ng bawat anak, na ayaw mapahiya o maging pabigat sa nanay, na ang hangarin ay pwede syang ipagyabang ng kanyang ina dahil napalaki syang mabuti, masipag, matulungin, matalino, at mapagkakatiwalaan, ganun sana ang adhikain nating lahat tungkol sa Philippines. To make the country we love proud that we are her children, Kris wrote. 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! In a previous report by KAMI, Kris had a viral conversation on social media with Mariel Padilla. Kris Aquino is known as the Queen of All Media due to her success as a movie star, TV actress, talk show host, brand endorser, and social media celebrity. Her son Bimby is her child with ex-husband James Yap. Philip Salvador is the father of her eldest, Josh. POPULAR: Read more news about Kris Aquino! READ ALSO: Elections 2019 live updates: Partial and unofficial results of Senatorial race Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! A Little Bit Silly, But Extremely Hilarious Random Pranks! How would you react if there is a barker at an escalator? Check out all of our videos on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: KAMI.com.gh Indo-Pacific Strategy is not against any country, visiting US official asserts A visiting senior US State Department official said on Tuesday that the Indo-Pacific Strategy is not against any country and that the United States is not asking Nepal to be for or against it. - Vic Sotto recently gave his thoughts about his son Vico Sotto's win as the new mayor of Pasig City - According to him, his son's breakthrough has not sunk in yet for him - He also revealed his reason why he supported him when he decided to run for such a huge position PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Vic Sotto could not still believe that his son with Coney Reyes, who is Vico Sotto, is the new mayor of Pasig City. This is after Vico defeated incumbent Bobby Eusebio with a way larger number of votes. In an interview with Mario Dumaual of ABS-CBN news, the Eat Bulaga host said that his son's new position has not sunk in yet to him. "Hindi pa nag-si-sink in sa akin na may anak akong mayor," he stated. "Siguro, pag dating ng July, pag nakaupo na siya, sa inauguration, siguro doon ko pa lang ma-ri-realize 'Aba, may anak pala akong mayor.'" The Kapuso star also talked about the reason why he gave his hundred percent in supporting his son's decision. He said that he is proud of him and that he believes in his determination and eagerness to serve the people. 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! In a previous report by KAMI, Vic Sotto celebrated 65th birthday with surprise party prepared by Pauleen Luna. Vic Sotto married his fellow Kapuso star Pauleen Luna on January 30, 2016. She gave birth to her firstborn named Talitha or Tali Sotto on November 6, 2017. Vic and Pauleen are both hosts of Eat Bulaga, the longest noontime variety program in the Philippines. READ ALSO: Elections 2019 live updates: Partial and unofficial results of Senatorial race Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! A Little Bit Silly, But Extremely Hilarious Random Pranks! How would you react if there is a barker at an escalator? Check out all of our videos on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: KAMI.com.gh - Vico Sotto won the Pasig City mayoral race against Bobby Eusebio - Paulina Sotto, Vicos half-sister, took to social media to congratulate him - Angela Luz, Paulinas mother, also posted on social media about Vicos victory PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Vico Sottos victory over Bobby Eusebio in the Pasig City mayoral race has been one of the biggest stories to come out of the Election 2019. KAMI learned that Vicos half-sister Paulina Sotto and her mother Angela Luz have posted their reactions to his win. Paulina expressed how proud she is of Vico who she is very close to as her big brother. So sooooo proud of you brother!!!!!!! From annoying Kuya to MAYOR OF PASIG!!!!!! All your hard work truly paid off!!! So many exclamation points because Im so happy for you!!!!!!!! Dont be mean to me na, she wrote. As for Angela, she made a bold prediction that Vico has what it takes to become the President of the Philippines in the future. I'm sad that you probably won't have much time for @paulinavls now, but so happy for you, and for our country, and most especially the city of Pasig! @vicosotto I probably can't say much about your political career, but all I know is that you have been an amazing brother to my daughter... always there to support her in all her endeavours... even if Mina calls you annoying, I know she has been so happy to enjoy such a close relationship with you. And on my part, you have always been so nice to me, so respectful... never judgemental about my past history, but just so warm that I was always comfortable in your presence. It takes a man with a good heart to become a great leader. Congratulations on your landslide victory... so well-deserved. And I have every ounce of faith in you, and know in my heart that one day you will become PRESIDENT! Now more than ever, I am proud to say you are my favorite Sotto... and soon the whole country will know why. I know in my heart that you will be one of the most beloved Mayors in Philippine history. Congratulations, Angela posted. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! KAMI reported earlier that Bobby Eusebio alleged that Vico won the mayoral race due to an election fraud. Both Paulina Sotto and Vico Sotto are children of comedian Vic Sotto. Paulinas mother is Angela Luz and Vicos mother is Coney Reyes. They have three other half-siblings Oyo and Danica, whose mother is Dina Bonnevie, and Talitha, whose mother is Pauleen Luna. READ ALSO: Elections 2019 live updates: Partial and unofficial results of Senatorial race Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! A Little Bit Silly, But Extremely Hilarious Random Pranks! How would you react if there is a barker at an escalator? Check out all of our videos on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: KAMI.com.gh Federal government is showing no signs of devolving power, chief ministers say Without much headway during the inter-state council meeting, the tussle between the subnational governments and the federal administration seems unlikely to end anytime soon. Lawmakers lobby for hiking constituency development fund As the government expedites the process to finalise the annual budget, members of the federal parliament have intensified their lobbying to double the budget for the Local Infrastructure Partnership Programme and revive the controversial Constituency Development Programme. How many times have you heard the expression, Knowledge is power? I heard it from an unexpected source last week during one of our public hearings in the Senate Government Operations, Technology and Consumer Protection Committee. Who could disagree with the statement that knowledge is power? In fact, when someone used that line representing the conservative group, Americans for Prosperity, I thought it might be an opportunity to find agreement. The person testified in favor of a bill (Senate Bill 179) to force gas stations to post a sticker on each gas pump stating the tax being charged per gallon. I asked the woman testifying if she also supported transparency regarding Gov. Tony Evers budget provision to post on each homeowners property tax bill the amount of tax money used for voucher schools. It seemed the perfect time to ask if we could agree that taxpayers should also have the knowledge so they can have the power. The woman refused to answer my question. Knowledge shouldnt be limited because limited knowledge is limited power. The same week Republicans said no to Medicaid expansion, they sent a flurry of anti-choice bills through committees. Senate Bill 174, called A Womans Right to Know also received a public hearing in our committee. Doctors are supposed to know the facts and patients trust their recommendations because they are based on years of medical knowledge and expertise. SB 174 forces a doctor to inform a woman she may be able to reverse the process after taking a drug to chemically induce an abortion (despite lack of scientific evidence). So, I guess, its really just a womans right to know rhetoric rather than what is right. This would be Wrong Knowledge is Wrong Power. What most people may want to know is that while Republicans were removing Medicaid expansion from the budget they were passing bills to misinform women about important healthcare decisions. Here are the facts. Wisconsin has an opportunity to save $324.5 million, provide healthcare for 82,000 more residents and lower health insurance premiums for people with private insurance by 7-11 percent if we expand Medicaid. Its a no-brainer. It all comes down to whether we put people before politics. REAL knowledge IS real power. If were going to follow that philosophy, then we should be honest and consistent. If we really believe in knowledge and how citizens should be empowered, we should be forthright about our intentions behind our actions. It takes trust. Trust between legislators and the public. We cant build trust when the information provided is not complete or is outright wrong. Knowledge happens from firsthand experience, fact-based information and trustworthy sources. One or all of those things need to happen if knowledge is transformed into power. Then there is the power side of the equation. What sort of power? Where is the power applied? How is the power applied? Thats when things can get really sticky. Power can corrupt, and if power is the goal, then the knowledge can also be corrupted to attain that power. Too many times weve seen the powerful keep the powerless from knowing the truth. The facts are there for those that want to learn, but it takes effort on everyones part. In my office, one of my staff members has a quote from Edmund Burke near her desk that says, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. When we see injustice and the spread of misinformation, we need to stand up to it. That is the true purpose of the power behind the statement knowledge is power. Democrat Jeff Smith, Eau Claire, represents the 31st state Senate District. 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. Kimberly Richards Marquez calls it stuffing her emotions. It was how she dealt with the death of two of her soldiers and three of her sons. How she coped with the abuse of her husband. How she stayed afloat despite debilitating depression and anxiety. By ignoring her feelings and burying them deep inside, Richards Marquez could muster the strength to wake up, go to work, and make her way through the day. But emotions must go somewhere, a lesson she learned the hard way and with near-fatal results. Richards Marquez was in her teens when she began struggling with anxiety and depression, and in her 40s when the pain became so great she tried to end her life. Now 55, the La Crosse woman has found strength in others, and within herself, becoming a force of hope for those coping with mental illness. Her courage and honesty have earned her the 2019 Shining Star Award from the Mental Health Coalition of the Greater La Crosse Area. Given annually to a individual who has confronted mental illness, accepted the challenge of seeking help and encouraged others to do the same, the Shining Star Award serves as both an honor and a reminder to the community that a supportive environment is crucial for the management of mental illnesses. During the celebratory event being held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 29, at the Cargill Room at the Waterfront, three Iris Awards also will be presented to La Crosse County Jail clinical therapist Sam Seefeld, former La Crosse Tribune health reporter Mike Tighe and the Catholic Charities Live By Program. Though a prestigious recognition, Richards Marquez said she had to think twice about accepting the Shining Star Award, having declined a previous nomination by Alice Holstein, her peer support of eight years at the Department of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Clinic. She wasnt ready to wear this scarlet letter of Im mental illness, said Holstein, who nominated Richards Marquez again this year with her permission. Its about honoring someone who is willing to come forward and shine a spotlight on mental-illness recovery... Kim is prepared to tell her story if it will help others realize that even some of the worst conditions can yield outstanding success. Hers is a courageous, heartfelt story of suffering transformed into survival, wellness and service to others. Holstein, who has bipolar mood disorder and served in the Air Force from 1965 to 1969, bonded with Richards Marquez, an Army member from 1983 to 1994 and captain during the Gulf War, when the fellow veteran sought support at the VA River Valley Integrated Health Center in 2011. Diagnosed with PTSD, major depression and anxiety disorder, Richards Marquez says Holstein made her feel heard and respected without any sense of judgment. She didnt see my mental illness she saw my journey, Richards Marquez said. The key word is patience she didnt push me, she encouraged the things I could do to help myself and let me make the decision. (I practice) the three Cs: catch the negative thoughts, check how realistic they are and change what you can change. Recovery is a lot of work inner work. Many people dont do the inner work, Holstein noted. They dont know how to do it or they are scared. Kim was brave. Richards Marquez has had to brave many challenges and losses in her life. Several years into her military career, in the Gulf War era, two of her soldiers died under tragic circumstances one in a forklift accident, and the other to suicide. Richards Marquez, who was in command of a unit that supplied munitions in support of the war, considered both family and was despondent but determined to be strong for her soldiers. Her composure, however, would later manifest into symptoms of PTSD recurring flashbacks and both mental and physical exhaustion and strain. I didnt face the emotions, Richards Marquez says. I put them away, and I learned what you put away doesnt stay away. PTSD always comes back. Richards Marquez, who married a member of the Army and chose to leave the career herself in 1994, was still struggling emotionally when she became pregnant for the first time, losing her son shortly after his birth. Her second pregnancy brought renewed hope, only to end in tragedy when the infant boy died within hours. The one thing I wanted most in life was a child ... to only know a funeral after a birth is hard, Richards Marquez said. Descending into a deep depression, Richards Marquez and her husband began to grow distant, and while the couple welcomed a miracle baby in 1998, a healthy son, she was too depressed to feel joy and her husbands anger issues began to materialize. They decided to relocate to Puerto Rico, near family, for a fresh start but her spouse became combative and abusive, Richards Marquez says, and she felt increasingly isolated by the language barrier, without friends or a job. The family returned stateside in 2004, where Richards Marquez became pregnant again only to suffer a miscarriage when labor was induced at 19 weeks. The devastation led her to attempt suicide. I wanted to leave this world. You dont see getting better, you just see the nightmares and the pain, she says. In 2011, Richards Marquez found the strength to seek help, attending therapy at the VA River Valley Integrated Health Center. Her husband was unsupportive and refused to participate in therapy, though he was increasingly abusive and controlling of her whereabouts and relationships, she says. Her cloak of support staff at the VA encouraged her to leave the toxic relationship, and in 2015 the couple divorced, though the loss of the 25-year marriage hit Richards Marquez hard. I broke down, she recalled. The dreams, you know, the white picket fence, were gone. The breakup, however, gave her the space and freedom to truly begin the healing process. Through therapy, meetings with Holstein for peer support, gatherings at RAVE Recovery Avenue, art, music and medication, Richards Marquez began to experience relief. She keeps a photo of her son in her car to remind herself of what she has to live for, and understands the need to ask for help, especially with an illness where pain is not always obvious to others. Trauma is normal. With any other wound you get a cast or a Band-Aid, Richards Marquez said. With a wound in the brain your mental health you dont get crutches. People cant see it and they dont respond the same way. In 2017, Richards Marquez finished Wisconsin Peer support training herself and was hired at the Family and Childrens Center, where she is now case manager and works with adult clients suffering with severe mental illness, trauma or homelessness. The work, she says, is tough but rewarding. One of the few consistent people in her clients lives, Richards Marquez leads with empathy and uses herself as an example that relief is possible. She hopes to do the same for the community. Im accepting this award to be a part of bringing awareness to mental health and the judgment and discrimination against those who struggle with the symptoms of their diagnosis, Richards Marquez said. I want families and friends to know that there is support and education opportunities to help them support their family member and understand the symptoms of the mental illness. Usually family members are overwhelmed and burned out dealing with the symptoms, so they walk away or give up on the person struggling. Many people choose to suffer in silence and not seek help. The fear is real. The judgment and shame are real. The stigma is real." 2019 Iris Awards winners Mental Health Professional: Clinical therapist Sam Seefeld provides mental health services to people incarcerated in the La Crosse County Jail and to community members served by the La Crosse County Human Services Outpatient Clinic. Advocate: Mike Tighe is a former La Crosse Tribune reporter who is a strong advocate for mental-health issues. He reported on the topic with compassion and touched on his own struggles with depression in columns. Organization: The Catholic Charities Live by Program, represented by director of disability services Steve Burnette, serves children and adults with autism, developmental disabilities, childhood trauma, mental health and/or substance abuse issues. Programs include a day school, adult day services, summer programming, supported employment and community based services for individuals with mental health issues who no longer need a restrictive environment but are not ready for independent living. Emily Pyrek can be reached at emily.pyrek@lee.net. 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. Don Denny, a 93-year-old La Crosse man who served in the Navy during World War II, has been known for several years as the older guy who spins a hula hoop or two around his waist during live music events. And hes been known locally for going skydiving to celebrate his 90th birthday. This Saturday, he also will be known as one of 95 military veterans on the 23rd Freedom Honor Flight from La Crosse to Washington, D.C. It will be the first trip to the nations capital for Denny, a La Crosse native who operated automobile body shops in La Crosse and La Crescent, operated a salvage yard in La Crescent and was a La Crosse Mass Transit Utility bus driver for 12 years before he retired. Im sure Ill enjoy it, Denny said of Saturdays flight, which will take veterans to see monuments and memorials such as those to World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. That will interest me the most, he said of the World War II memorial. Denny, whose late brother Wes was La Crosses city treasurer for many years, volunteered for the Navy when he was 17. Denny served on a half-dozen ships, most often as part of an anti-aircraft gun crew. He especially remembers serving on what he calls a banana boat that trained Navy officers and traveled between New Orleans and South American countries, and brought back bananas on the return trip. More recently, Denny has become known for spinning as many as three or four hula hoops during events at various live music venues in the area. I started when I was 85, at Larryfest near La Farge, Denny recalled this week. A young lady put a hula hoop around me and told me to hula hoop. Ive been doing it ever since. Its fun, Denny said of gyrating with hula hoops around his waist at music events. The crowd can be deader than hell. But then when you start to hula hoop, that starts a lot of activity and the crowd comes to life, he said. Denny is one of six World War II veterans who will be on Saturdays flight, which also will include 26 Korean War veterans and 63 Vietnam War veterans, said Bill Hoel, a Freedom Honor Flight board member. Funded with donations, the Freedom Honor Flights from La Crosse began in 2008 and allow veterans to visit memorials in Washington, D.C., for free. Application forms and information are available at www.freedomhonorflight.org. Priority is given to veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, in that order, and to any veteran with a terminal illness. The fall Freedom Honor Flight is scheduled for Sept. 14. IF YOU GO What: The 23rd Freedom Honor Flight is Saturday Send-off: The public is invited to a brief send-off program for the veterans on the 23rd Freedom Honor Flight about 6 a.m. Saturday in Colgan Air Services Hangar No. 4 at the La Crosse Regional Airport. Doors will open at 5:30 a.m. and the flight will leave about 7 a.m. Return: The public also is invited to help welcome the veterans home when their jet returns about 11 p.m. Saturday; the hangar doors will open at 9 p.m. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 City leaders in Onalaska Tuesday asked for more information and time to think before they vote on whether the city will chip in for the $42 million La Crosse Center renovation and expansion. La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat spoke to the Onalaska Common Council at its regular meeting about the possibility of the city putting $500,000 toward the project in the form of $50,000 annual payments for 10 years. Onalaska Mayor Joe Chilsen asked for more details on the project and its potential benefits to Onalaska. Were going to take this back, and were going to chew on the numbers a little bit and see what our appetite and what the citys appetite is for a number, Chilsen said. The funding would go toward the estimated $2.5 million in annual debt service payments, helping to reduce the impact on the city of La Crosse property tax levy. The La Crosse Common Council committed in 2016 to borrowing about $35 million for the project; however, it hasnt yet decided exactly what type of bonding that will be. This is an opportunity for us to move beyond talking the talk when it comes to regional collaboration and to actually put those words into action and to show that we are, in true spirit, partners in these efforts, Kabat said. Kabat modeled his request to Onalaska after a similar deal Onalaska made 12 years ago to contribute to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse stadium project, he said, adding that both projects have a positive regional impact. The additional ballroom and meeting rooms and rebuilt exhibition hall and entrance are expected to add $6 million to the La Crosse Centers existing $38 million in economic impact, according to a third-party analysis. If all things go according to plan, well have a facility that generates $44 million every year for the larger region, Kabat said. Onalaskas city administrator, Eric Rindfleisch, agreed that regionalization includes sharing costs, but said regional partners should also share benefits and the governance of regional facilities. Is there any sense of shared governance of this? In other words, there are members of the public indicating that when its time to pay for something, now were engaged, but when its time to make a plans or offer some insight, thats not the case, Rindfleisch said. Will this plan, long-term, offer a seat at the table ... for Onalaska? While Kabat couldnt answer that question Tuesday, it was definitely something we would consider and discuss, he said. Kabat has also asked La Crosse County to contribute $2 million over 20 years. La Crosses requests to Onalaska and the county are only a portion of Kabats proposal to pay off the renovation. He introduced a resolution to the city of La Crosse last month to require $1.3 million of the $2.5 million debt service payments come from hotel room taxes and has asked the La Crosse County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the La Crosse council to consider raising the room tax to 9.5%. Those decisions are expected to go before the La Crosse Common Council in June. Jourdan Vian can be reached at jvian@lacrossetribune.com or follow her on Twitter at @Jourdan_LCT. 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. State Assembly Republicans on Wednesday passed a package of bills to restrict abortion, as well as one that supporters say would protect a fetus born alive after an attempted abortion. The Assembly voted 62-35 to pass the latter bill, which now heads to the state Senate. Gov. Tony Evers has signaled he would veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, while declining to say if he supports a ban on abortion six weeks into a pregnancy, signaled support for the rationale underlying such bans in remarks to reporters before Wednesdays session. Iowa lawmakers recently adopted a ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Do I believe that once theres a detectable heartbeat, its a baby? I do, Vos said. Vos comments come as lawmakers in Alabama sparked a national firestorm Tuesday by passing a near-total abortion ban, which the states Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed Wednesday. Supporters of that measure say it is meant to spark a review by the U.S. Supreme Court of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. In Wisconsin, the born alive bill would require a health care provider who is present when a fetus survives an abortion or abortion attempt to exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be given to any other child born alive at the same gestational age. It also makes intentionally causing the death of a child born alive as a result of an abortion or an attempted abortion a felony with a penalty of life imprisonment the same penalty as first-degree intentional homicide. Children who miraculously survive abortion shouldnt be treated any differently than anyone else in this state, the bills sponsor, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said during Wednesdays floor debate. Democrats called the abortion bill package a diversion from the state budget debate and the popularity of the budget proposal offered by Evers. Its introduced to distract from an agenda thats overwhelmingly supported by the people of Wisconsin, said Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh. Author: Backstop to other laws President Donald Trump was speaking about the born-alive bill at his rally in Green Bay last month when he repeated a claim which doctors and health care groups say is false and reckless that doctors are executing babies. During a Wednesday press conference before the Assembly session, Steineke wouldnt say if he concurs with Trumps remarks. Critics question if the bill would have any impact because babies being born alive after an abortion attempt is extremely rare. Wisconsin Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that supports Steinekes bill, said it hasnt heard of any cases in the state since 1982. Steineke and other bill supporters cite the case of a Pennsylvania doctor, Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures. There also are multiple laws that appear to prevent the bill from having any effect. Wisconsin already bans abortions after 20 weeks before the point of fetal viability outside the womb and federal law provides legal protections to all babies born alive, including after an abortion attempt. Steineke said his bill is meant as a backstop if those laws are repealed. We know that given the opportunity of full control of the Legislature and governors mansion, that 20-week abortion ban would be gone overnight, he said. Another bill passed by the Assembly Wednesday, 62-35, would bar abortion selection on the basis of factors such as the fetus gender, race or disability. It would bar providers from performing abortions if they know the mother is seeking the abortion solely on the basis of those factors. Lawmakers cannot say they are advocates for people with disabilities when we also champion their extermination in the womb, argued the bills sponsor, Rep. Barbara Dittrich, R-Oconomowoc. Democrats cite Medicaid expansion A bill that passed the Assembly 64-32 on Wednesday would make health providers ineligible for the states Medicaid program if they perform abortions, with certain exceptions. Another bill, which passed 62-35, would require providers to report more information to the state about abortions they perform. It also requires providers to notify women who seek abortions by drug-regimen methods such as the RU-486 pill but who later change their minds and wish to continue their pregnancy that they may be able to reverse the effects of the drug before the pregnancy has been terminated if they contact a physician. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said he expects the Senate to take up the abortion bills in June. Democrats called the abortion bills a distraction from another measure they said would save lives of mothers and children: Evers plan in his budget proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility to 82,000 Wisconsinites. Republicans on the Legislatures budget-writing committee removed that measure from Evers budget last week, though Evers and Democrats say theyll continue fighting for it. Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, said the protections in the born-alive bill already are the law of the land. What isnt already the law of the land is Medicaid expansion, and youve made darn sure that no lives will be saved under that, Taylor said. Amendment sent to voters Lawmakers also voted Wednesday to pass Marsys Law, a constitutional amendment bolstering the rights of crime victims. The state Senate passed the amendment, 27-5, and the state Assembly passed it 82-15. The amendment now goes before voters in April 2020. It aims to give victims more say in criminal prosecutions, stipulating a list of their rights including the ability to discuss their case with prosecutors and the right to be notified of any release of the alleged offender in their case, or of their escape or death. It would also grant the right to refuse an interview, deposition or other discovery request made by the accused or their lawyers which some critics say could make it harder for the accused to defend themselves. The Senate also voted unanimously to confirm the states chief elections official, elections administrator Meagan Wolfe. Wolfe is the top staffer for the bipartisan state Elections Commission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 12 Sangam Prasain is Business Editor at The Kathmandu Post, covering tourism, agriculture, mountaineering, aviation, infrastructure and other economic affairs. He joined The Kathmandu Post in October 2009. A bill to be voted on by the state Assembly Wednesday, among other abortion measures, would require doctors to exercise the same skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of babies born alive after abortions or attempted abortions as they would to any other child born alive at the same gestational age. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has said he will veto the bill, whose lead sponsor is Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna. President Donald Trump brought national attention to the bill late last month at a rally in Green Bay, saying doctors were executing babies who survive abortions, which doctors deny. The measure is similar to a federal bill blocked in the U.S. Senate in February. Here are some questions and answers about so-called born-alive abortions: Q: Under what circumstances might abortions result in live babies? A: Procedures typically used in elective abortions at clinics, such as injections to stop the heartbeat, suction or instruments and surgery, are generally not survivable, many doctors say. But fetuses might survive, or at least have a heartbeat initially, when labor is induced in hospitals for one of two reasons: the fetus has a lethal condition or the mothers life is at risk. These are devastating situations, said Dr. Kathy Hartke, legislative co-chair of the Wisconsin section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. They are women, families, who want their babies. Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director of the American Association of Prolife Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said babies can survive some injections and surgical techniques used in elective abortions. How often does this happen? It appears to be quite rare. From 2003 to 2014, when at least 9.3 million abortions were done nationally, the Centers and Disease Control and Prevention found 143 deaths involving induced terminations but said that figure could be an underestimate. Minnesota, one of a few states that require doctors to report abortions resulting in live babies, reported three cases in 2017 among more than 10,000 abortions. None survived. Wisconsin doesnt require such reporting. Wisconsin Right to Life, which supports Steinekes bill, said it hasnt heard of any cases in Wisconsin since 1982, when two babies survived abortion attempts in Madison and later died, according to a Wisconsin State Journal report at the time. The Wisconsin Catholic Conference noted that 52 of 5,640 abortions in the state in 2017 were conducted at more than 20 weeks gestation, according to the state Department of Health Services. It is these children who are the ones who might survive an attempted abortion, Barbara Sella, the conferences associate director, said this month in testimony supporting the bill. Didnt Wisconsin pass a law in 2015 banning non-emergency abortions after 20 weeks? Yes. The law prohibits abortions, including induced labor because of deadly fetal anomalies, at more than 20 weeks after fertilization. That is the same as 22 weeks gestation, which starts from the date of the womans last period, generally two weeks before she would ovulate, according to Dr. Steven Leuthner, a neonatologist and bioethicist at the Medical College of Wisconsin. If the mothers life is at risk, abortions can be performed later. Such medical emergencies can include preeclampsia, heart failure and severe hemorrhage, Hartke said. In that situation, Hartke and Leuthner said, doctors typically induce labor. If that is done at 22 weeks to 24 weeks gestation or so the earliest a baby might be viable doctors generally ask parents if they want to try resuscitation or do comfort care, such as wrapping and cuddling the baby. The same choices are offered when a baby is born prematurely at the same stage, Leuthner said. With babies born at later stages, resuscitation is typically done unless other factors suggest it isnt called for. Youre not delivering to end the babys life, Leuthner said. Youre delivering because you dont want mom to die, and then youre making a decision on what interventions you want to do for the baby or not, based on the babys potential outcome. Harrison said inducing labor or doing a Cesarean section to save the mothers life, while also trying to save the baby, are not considered abortion. The bill would apply to cases in which doctors use injections or surgical procedures to try to end the life of the fetus while trying to save the mothers life, she said. What fetal diagnoses are considered lethal, and when do pregnant women learn about them? Deadly fetal abnormalities include a lack of kidneys, certain conditions involving additional chromosomes and anencephaly, or having no brain, Hartke said. Fetuses with such conditions wont survive, regardless of when theyre delivered, Leuthner said. Some of the conditions can be picked up in blood tests or ultrasounds at about 10 to 15 weeks, but others arent found until a detailed ultrasound is conducted at 19 or 20 weeks, Hartke said. Before the 2015 law, some hospitals offered induced terminations after 22 weeks gestation for lethal anomalies if women didnt want to continue the pregnancies knowing the babies couldnt survive. Now, the procedures can be performed only before 20 weeks after fertilization. Women desiring later terminations must continue their pregnancies or seek terminations out of state, Hartke and Leuthner said. When hospitals previously did induced terminations at later stages, comfort care was generally provided because resuscitation was futile, said Dr. Douglas Laube, who provides abortions at Planned Parenthood in Madison and is former chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at UW-Madison. He does abortions at up to 14 weeks at Planned Parenthood, while other providers do them up to 19 weeks. Oftentimes the anomalies are so profound, its impossible to do the life-saving measures one would normally want to do, Laube said. Theres no anatomy there to deal with. So when could a baby be born alive after an abortion in Wisconsin? If labor is induced before 20 weeks, or 22 weeks gestation, because of a lethal fetal anomaly, the baby might have a heartbeat and the umbilical cord might be pulsing, but the life isnt considered viable, Hartke said. That is technically a live birth, but the life will typically last only minutes or hours, she said. With induced terminations at later stages to save the mothers life, a baby might be born alive. Doctors say they offer the same options they do in any birth at the same stage: resuscitation or comfort care. What would the bill change? Its not clear. The bill would require doctors to take the same actions with babies born live after abortions as they do with other babies at the same stage, such as those born prematurely. Doctors say they already offer the same options for both kinds of babies. I dont think it would really have an impact, Laube said. It seems to me this is a bill that is a solution in search of a problem. Harrison said the bill would require doctors to give babies born alive after abortions stabilization of treatment. It would require resuscitation if the baby is advanced enough typically 26 weeks or 27 weeks or later that theres no question resuscitation should be attempted, even if the mom wants that baby dead, she said. Hartke said resuscitation doing CPR, possibly breaking ribs, bruising, intubating, putting IVs in, drawing labs on an infant who will not survive due to extreme prematurity or a lethal condition would be traumatizing, cruel and harmful. Note: Hartke, Leuthner and Laube oppose Steinekes bill. Harrison supports it. The Wisconsin State Journal asked Steinekes office and Wisconsin Right to Life for names of Wisconsin doctors who support the bill. The one doctor whose name they provided was not available for an interview. [Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify Dr. Donna Harrison's position on induced labor to save a mothers life, while also trying to save the baby. Harrison said she does not consider that to be abortion.] Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Gretchen lifted her gaze from the newspaper and directed it at me across her breakfast toast. I could see she was in her discovery mode since the page open on the table next to her plate contained the legals. I was about to learn something she had found in the small print. Gretchen has been a fan of the public legal notices since we got into the business of owning newspapers in Wisconsin nearly 44 years ago. The book we bought about how to run a weekly newspaper advised us that we should pay careful attention to the legal notices both to know more about the community and its issues and because the legals were a steady source of income. Newspapers are paid a state-regulated fee to publish the notices to honor the publics right to know about how public business is managed. Back then, in the pre-digital age, the legals came to us from the municipal clerks as paper documents that we then had to typeset and then proof and proof again to ensure accuracy. In addition to dealing with the numbers of property descriptions and the legalese, the frequent contact with municipal clerks often produced leads to stories, which Gretchen would pass along to her editor, business partner and spouse, aka me. Her interest in legals, first in Lodi, where we owned our first paper and later in Onalaska and Holmen for a dozen years, has never flagged, now for what she learns at the breakfast table about people, business and public projects in the region. So why, she began, putting down her toast, is the county approving the expansion of a dairy operation on Brice Prairie just at the time there is such concern about animal manure contributing to nitrate in drinking water in the towns of Onalaska and Holland? She was referring to a legal notice of an application for an amendment to a conditional use permit for Morning Star Dairy on County Rd ZZ, which, she read, applies for a livestock facility siting expansion including increasing the number of Animal Units (AU) approved in Conditional Use Permit No. 745 from 895 AU to 939 AU; raze two existing barns to be replaced by a proposed barn, parlor, holding area, and breezeway additions to existing barns; construct a sand separation building and install separation equipment; and, construct a 281-ft x 285-ft 5,083,070 gallon concrete waste storage facility on property zoned General Agriculture District. Her question stemmed from another public document: A report from a county task force formed two years ago to study the nitrate contamination issue and how the county could reduce the number of residents exposed to nitrate contamination in well water. The study began after a legislative audit in 2016 revealed that the countys only CAFO, Babcock Genetics, a swine operation in the town of Holland, had for years been exceeding nitrate standards based on monitoring well reports. The county has been pressing the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources not to renew the CAFOs permit without additional performance requirements. Public interest in the subject has prompted The Sustainable La Crosse Commission to hold a public information program on water quality at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the basement auditorium of the La Crosse County Administration Center, 212 6th St. N, La Crosse. So why the expansion of animal units on the prairie? Gretchen asked again. Good question, I had to admit. So I called Nate Sampson, director of La Crosse County Planning and Zoning. He said that the county board had approved the conditional use amendment for the dairy. It was a modest increase in animal units, made necessary by the engineering plans that were for an improvement in the manure management capability of the operation. The water issue is just one example of whats to be learned from the legals at the breakfast table questions that remain unanswered such as the reason a property with a big price tag has changed hands in the neighborhood or why someone has lost to public auction the contents of a storage unit. But there are other notices that are immediately useful, such as school board and city council meeting agendas. Its all there in the legals daily fare as regular as coffee and toast at our house thanks to the newspapers role in the publics right to know whats going on. My only wish is for the newspapers to spotlight a legal when it has a particular relevance to an important public issue. For example, I would have missed the dairy expansion notice if it werent for Gretchens curiosity. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe By Gustavo Arellano Catholics across Idaho are in mourning after the Oct. 24 death of longtime Diocese of Orange Bishop Michael Driscoll. Obituaries across the state noted the good deeds the 78-year-old Long Beach native (who will be buried Thursday) implemented in his 15-year term from 1999 to 2014: the introduction of the nonprofit Catholic Charities, an emphasis on tending to Idahos growing Latino population, and an increase in the number of priests and deacons. But none of the Gem States newspapers bothered to mention Driscolls actual legacy: as an enabler, apologist and longtime keeper of secrets in the Diocese of Oranges pedophile priest scandal. I knew His Excellency well. From 2004 until about 2007, I was a one-man Spotlight against the Orange diocese for OC Weekly. In story after story, I showed how diocesan officials actively covered up priestly sex abuse, doing everything from shaming victims into silence to shuffling offending priests from parish to parish to not reporting them to law enforcementand worse. And during his 23-year career in Orange County, Driscoll was the conductor in the middle of it all. He was named chancellor when the Diocese of Orange split from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1976. In the Roman Catholic Church, a chancellor acts as the record-keeper for his diocese, fielding all complaints against priests and reporting any findings to his superiors. That meant Driscoll dealt directly with all sex-abuse allegations from 1976 until 1986, when he became vicar generalthe right-hand man of new Bishop Norman McFarland, and the person charged with disciplining wayward priests. He kept that role until 1989, when McFarland made Driscoll an auxiliary bishop in 1989. Not a bad trajectory for a man who actively protected child rapists, right? Spaceeven onlineprohibits me from listing all of Driscolls sins, so Ill just mention the most egregious examples, because they happen to involve bona fide monsters. In 1976, Driscoll received a letter from Archbishop William Cousins of the Diocese of Milwaukee regarding Father Siegfried Widera, who was set to visit Orange County. Cousins asked Driscoll to give Widera a temporary assignment as a sign of fraternal charity even though Widera had a moral problem having to do with a boy in school, and that there had been a repetition severe enough that state psychiatrists gave the strong recommendation that no immediate assignment be made in the environs of Milwaukee for Widera. Widera, in fact, had been convicted in 1973 of molesting a boy. Yet the Orange diocese fully accepted Widera, whose rape of young boys was so horrible that then-Bishop Tod D. Brown agreed to pay $17.7 million in 2005 to nine of Wideras victims. That was part of a $100 million settlement with other victimsat that time the largest such payout in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. The Orange County Register noted at the time that Wideras victims were among the most grievously abused. I don't want to sound like I'm some kind of a monster, but ... we perhaps never should have taken [Widera] in 1976,'' Driscoll admitted in a 2002 deposition. And I'm sorry about that today. But ... you know, I can't justify my actions. So I'm not going to. Driscoll didnt just take in pedophiles, he also helped them resettle elsewhere. In 1985, he asked church officials in Liverpool, England, to take the Reverend Robert Foley, who had admitted to molesting an 8-year-old boy during a Boy Scouts camping trip organized by St. Justin Martyr in Anaheim. The boys mother, Driscoll wrote, threatened to go to the police, and Foley is in jeopardy of arrest and possible imprisonment if he remains here. Foley left the U.S. for England soon after; he never faced prosecution. And in 1984, he wrote a letter praising Franklin Buckman, who had just left St. Polycarp in Anaheim for the remote Diocese of Baker in eastern Oregon. He will be a blessing to you and your diocese, Driscoll wrote to Baker officials, and he is always welcome to 'come home' with usnot revealing that Buckman was facing a sexual abuse allegation (the Orange diocese settled a case against the priest in 2005 for $1.9 million). Widera, Foley and Buckman, however, didnt compare to Eleuterio Ramos. Ramos was the worst pedophile priest in the history of the Orange diocese, admitting to molesting at least 25 boys during a career that started at St. Thomas the Apostle in Los Angeles 1966 and ended in Tijuana in 1991. And Driscoll was there to cover up for Ramos every step of the way. Upon becoming the Orange diocese chancellor, Driscoll wouldve learned about a letter in Ramos personnel file written by the Orange County District Attorney. Back in 1975, when OC parishes were still under the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the http://www.bishop-accountability.org/docs/orange/ramos/orange_50600006_PF_ramos.pdf District Attorney had suggested that Ramos see a psychologist as a result of a recent incident. As chancellor, Driscoll fielded multiple complaints from parents, teachers and even other priests about Ramos predatory ways as he moved from parish to parish. And it was Driscoll who helped Ramos leave to Tijuana in 1985 after the priest admitted to molesting yet another boy. We deeply regret the problems he has, Driscoll wrote to Diocese of Tijuana Bishop Emilio Berlie (who ended up placing Ramos in a childrens ministry), and hope that he may now completely come to grips with facing these problems and overcoming them." Yet when he was deposed in 1991 as part of a civil lawsuit filed by a Ramos victim, Driscoll claimed under oath during a deposition that he "didn't received any complaints [about Ramos] specifically to medespite letters that lawyers dug up detailing Ramos allegations in Driscoll's writing. In a 2005 letter printed in the Idaho Catholic Register, shortly before thousands of pages of documents were released with his name all over them, Driscoll stated he was "deeply sorry that the way we handled cases [in Orange County] allowed children to be victimized by permitting some priests to remain in ministry, for not disclosing their behavior to those who might be at risk, and for not monitoring their actions more closely." And that penance workedso much so that both the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register didnt even bother to print an obituary about him (mostly because the editors and reporters who covered the sex-abuse scandal 12 years ago are long gone from the papers). Such amnesia doesnt sit well with John Manly. He was one of the lead lawyers in securing record-breaking settlements against the Orange diocese and Los Angeles archdiocese, and in recent years has represented victims in the Miramonte Elementary School sex-abuse scandal and gymnasts who say longtime USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar sexually abused them. Bishop Driscolls systemic protection of child molester priests not only allowed children of the Diocese to be savaged by predators, says Manly, who served under Driscoll as an altar boy at St. Catherines Military School in Anaheim. His conduct destroyed lives, families and took the innocence of thousands. It also decimated the moral authority of the Church to speak on social justice issues. No one listens to someone who protects child rapists. Thats his legacy. Good riddance. Gustavo Arellano is the former editor OC Weekly and the nationally syndicated Ask a Mexican" column, and the author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America". Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe It appears Jackie Goldberg is no longer retired. The 74-year-old veteran of Los Angeles politics, whose campaign for an open L.A. Unified School Board seat became a rallying point for the district's energized teachers union, took a commanding lead in Tuesday's special election for the open Board District 5 seat. Goldberg held a 72% to 28% lead over opponent Heather Repenning after the election-night count wrapped just before 11 p.m. Goldberg now appears poised to reclaim the same LAUSD board seat she held from 1983 to 1991, a two-term stint that helped launch her political career. Goldberg, a former high school teacher, later served on the L.A. City Council, but hasn't held public office since terming out of her California Assembly seat in 2006. Preliminary numbers results showed stunningly low turnout in the special election. L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan announced that the initial count included ballots from 7.69% of the district's registered voters. That turnout figure is certain to rise somewhat as mail-in ballots currently in transit arrive. Still, let that sink in: an election to lead a government body with an $8 billion operating budget -- more than some states spend on K-12 education -- with consequences for 601,000 children, was ignored by the vast majority of eligible voters. WHY THIS MATTERS From her campaign's launch, Goldberg locked arms with L.A.'s teachers union, promising to speak forcefully for the priorities of United Teachers Los Angeles months before its January strike. After that walkout generated a swell of public goodwill for teachers union, Goldberg's campaign became a way for UTLA supporters to pick up where the strike left off. "It was the strike," Goldberg said in a victory speech at her Echo Park election-night party, "of the teachers and the nurses and the counselors [that] woke up the public to what has happened to public education." If Goldberg's lead holds, she'll inherit the challenge of ensuring LAUSD leaders can stick to the contract deal that ended the strike. Goldberg has insisted LAUSD has the money to pay for the class-size reductions and staffing increases it promised -- but district officials and county regulators say the state of LAUSD's $8 billion budget is far more precarious. .@Jackie4LAUSD delivers a speech to her supporters at Taix. Sounds like a victory speech. pic.twitter.com/o60tLOMMPN Kyle Stokes (@kystokes) May 15, 2019 Her ultimate aim, though, is to advocate for increased K-12 education funding from Sacramento -- another demand striking teachers statewide have made. "Our goal," Goldberg said in an interview before the polls closed Tuesday, "is to organize this state -- with other people, obviously -- to say, 'You've got two-thirds of Democrats in the Assembly and state Senate. We didn't have that before. Now it's time to tax the wealth of this very rich state ... and invest in our children again.'" Goldberg's apparent victory may also put LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner on weaker footing. Goldberg was deeply critical of the board's decision to hire Beutner. She has said that, if elected, she wouldn't advocate for his removal -- and has also touted her skills as a deal-maker and peace-maker. Still, Goldberg has expressed doubts about the superintendent's plans to reorganize LAUSD's bureaucracy. Beutner has said these plans will ultimately be far less sweeping than they've been portrayed in the L.A. Times and other news outlets. Nevertheless, Goldberg has said she still has concerns. DEFEAT -- FOR A GROUP NOT ON THE BALLOT Tuesday's apparent result marks a particularly stinging defeat for UTLA's chief rivals: the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and other critics of the teachers union. Only two years ago, pro-charter candidates secured a loose majority on the LAUSD board after landslide victories in the May 2017 elections. But just four months after those elections, a campaign finance scandal snared CCSA-backed board president Ref Rodriguez. The scandal ultimately forced Rodriguez's resignation in July 2018 and left LAUSD's pro-charter forces politically hamstrung. In the aftermath of the scandal, CCSA announced last December they'd sit out the race to replace Rodriguez and not endorse a challenger. That decision was a big deal. LAUSD school board members represent constituencies larger than many U.S. House seats, but campaign finance limits prevent board candidates from raising the sums necessary to realistically reach such large audiences. But outside spending by "independent expenditure" groups aren't subject to these limits, making their endorsements critical -- and historically, CCSA and its allies have been the biggest sources of outside spending on LAUSD elections. In the absence of an endorsement, some deep-pocketed charter school philanthropists funnelled donations to outside groups supporting Repenning. But it now appears Rodriguez's former seat will soon pass to Goldberg, who immediately becomes the LAUSD board's most colorful and blunt critic of charter schools. All in all, it's a stunning reversal of political fortunes for CCSA. Heather Repenning, a candidate for L.A. Unified School Board, campaigns in Los Feliz on Tues., May 14, 2019. (Kyle Stokes/KPCC) DEFEAT FOR A MAYORAL FAVORITE Politically, Repenning faced a tough hill to climb in the special election runoff. Repenning was one of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti's longest serving aides and, until recently, a member of the L.A. Board of Public Works. She showed early promise, entering the race with Garcetti's endorsement and building an early fundraising lead. SEIU Local 99, the union for many non-teaching LAUSD employees, also came through with more than $1 million in independent expenditures -- including on negative ads against Goldberg and primary opponent Graciela Ortiz -- designed to help Repenning's campaign. Still, Goldberg won 48 percent of the vote in the March primary, nearly securing the majority she needed to avoid a runoff election -- even in a field of 10 candidates. Repenning won 13 percent of the vote, edging out Ortiz for second place by a mere 31 votes. After the primary, Repenning's campaign fundraising advantage eroded away. UTLA came through with independent expenditures to aid Goldberg -- and SEIU's pace of spending on the race slowed. Her endorsement by the L.A. Times was also not enough. Repenning attempted to rise above the perennial, hot-button debate over the value of charter schools. "I don't have any regrets," Repenning said during her election night party in Silver Lake. "On the one hand, I didn't want to be the classic charter candidate. On the other hand, I didn't want to be a pro-labor Democrat who was going to scapegoat charter schools and especially charter school parents." The 44-year-old Los Feliz mother had asked voters to make her the only parent of a current LAUSD student to serve on the LAUSD board. "On my mind always, every day are parents," she said earlier Tuesday afternoon. "Hearing from them about the challenges and the hopes that they have when it comes to their public schools has been a wonderful, wonderful part of this experience. "I'm really proud of the campaign that we've run," she added. "I think I've put together a really broad and diverse coalition. I think I surprised a lot of people. I'm running against someone [Goldberg] who's run for office seven times previously. This is my first time doing it. I've given it all that I have." WHAT'S NEXT Tuesday's preliminary results are not final. Mail-in ballots will continue to roll in at the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office in Norwalk. Any ballot postmarked by Election Day will count if it arrives by Friday. The clerk's office plans to release another update of results, which also include provisional and other ballots, on Friday afternoon. UPDATES: 11:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional quotes from election night events. Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Walking around Wilshire and La Brea, it's rare not to see a line stretching outside Republique. Inside the brick building with tall glass panes, you can't miss case after case of delicate baked goods. The savory mushroom tart piled high with peas, moist fruit danishes with fresh mango, ricotta toast topped with sweet blood oranges, tart jam, salted pistachios and the flakiest, butter-crammed croissants beckon Angelenos from across the city. Since opening in 2013, Republique has become such a staple it's hard to imagine the neighborhood without it, but if you time traveled back to 2012, the founders would have told you a different story... THE LONG & WINDING ROAD In 2012, Republique was a gamble for chefs and restaurateurs Margarita and Walter Manzke, as the couple struggled to find the right spot for their restaurant. In the beginning, most of the PR focus was on Walter Manzke, who was already a rising star at the now-closed, but beloved Bastide and the Arts District rustic, chic bistro Church & State. Even with his name, it seemed like that restauranteur stars were out of alignment, so the Manzkes started looking for guidance on how to jumpstart their new venture. That guidance arrived in the form of Bill Chait, a prolific restaurateur who helped open everything from Bestia to Picca, The Rose, Barrel & Ashes, and Otium. "We had another space downtown that we had put a lot of money into and it just fell through," says Margarita Manzke, who often goes by Marge. "Bill Chait came and helped us get this space. Without him it would not have happened." Chait spoke with the property owners and made an offer. He helped grease the wheels and secure the place for the Manzkes. Archival photos of the South 600 block of La Brea Ave. circa 1930. (Courtesy Republique) The building came with a sparkle of Old Hollywood history -- Charlie Chaplin built it as an office space while developing his studio chops in the 1920s. It was used as rental offices in the 1940s, converted to retail space a decade later and hosted the beloved restaurant Campanile for 25 years. "It really is a historic piece of Los Angeles. The building wasn't even for sale at the time but we inquired and made an offer. We had no hope of actually getting it. We are so very fortunate to have this and we think this space has had a big part of why we were successful," she says. PUSHBACK FROM COMMUNITY & STAFF The Manzkes had big shoes to fill, trying to live up to the success of past chef-owners, Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton, who were the 90's "it" couple of new American cooking. During Republique's first few months, the Manzkes struggled to fill the dining room -- and the customers were vocal in their discontent. "People were pissed," Manzke says. "We were nervous coming in to the space because there [were] a lot of 'what ifs.' What if they don't like it? 'Why isn't it like Campanile? Why is the menu so different?' There was a lot of that." Even the staff had their reservations about the Manzkes' vision, which was to create a French provincial dining experience with California sensibilities. "Even our staff would tell us, 'Why are there no servers? We need to switch it up if we are going to make it,'" Manzke said. Guests at Republique still order their food at the counter instead of from their tables for a more casual dining experience. Adding to the easygoing vibe of the space is a mix of communal and traditional seating, including banquet-style tables. Despite the skeptics, the Manzkes stuck it out and stayed true to their vision. "The opening of the daytime concept was very hard because we would have days where we would have [only] two or three customers. The whole dining room would be empty with just two people sitting in the middle. It was very sad," Manzke says. About six months in, an eternity for a new restaurant, attitudes started to change. "I think as time went by, they saw what we were doing and started to accept us. I think it just clicked. I think a couple of reviews came out at the time and they were very positive," she says. Jonathan Gold praised the "urban rustic" desserts and Eater called it an "all-day" restaurant: "Walter and Margarita Manzke have made Republique into one of the touchstones of modern, multipurpose dining in Los Angeles --the kind of place you can come for a celebratory dinner, meet colleagues for lunch, or swing by for coffee and (stunning) midday pastries while staring into your laptop." The interior of Republique, located on La Brea in the "bread block" of Mid-Wilshire. (Photo by Tamika Adams) LOOKING AHEAD That first wave of reviews highlighted Margarita Manzke as the force behind the restaurant's stellar pastry program. By word of mouth the focus of the restaurant became the delicious baked goods coming from Marge's case. She was the restaurant's secret weapon-- and by 2016 she emerged as the key figure for Republique. "This place is home because we made it work," she told LAist. "It was very hard, but I think we have found our place in Los Angeles." Since then, it's been an all uphill ascent for Manzke. This year, she was a finalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef at the 2019 James Beard Awards, pitting her pastries against some of the best in the country. Born and raised in the Philippines, Manzke has a gift for fusing flavors and artistry into her baking, which is featured in her newly released cookbook "Baking at Republique." Later this year, the Manzkes will open a new French bistro-style cafe, Bicyclette, in the former Picca and Sotto space on the westside. "We're very fortunate to get that space because, again, it's another beautiful building. It looks like a house. Walter has the vision of making it into a French bistro but with his California twist." Sound familiar? In the spirit of expansion and reclamation, the pair are also returning to Downtown L.A. for their next restaurant project. Manzke won't reveal many details about the menu, but says it's going to be in another historic space, the Herald Examiner building. "I think it helps keep us inspired, being inside these building that are linked to Los Angeles in such a strong way," she says. Editor's note: A version of this story aired on the radio. Listen to it on KPCC's Take Two. Medical councils probe team furnishes report on ex-lawmaker Sahs case A probe team formed by the Nepal Medical Council to investigate into the dispute between former Constituent Assembly member Gayatri Sah and Nepal Mediciti Hospital has submitted its report. ALERT: More Abortion Bans Advancing in South, Midwest If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to get an abortion there. Or, potentially, in neighboring Louisiana. Or Alabama. Or Georgia. ADVERTISEMENT The Louisiana legislature is halfway toward passing a law like the ones enacted in Mississippi and Georgia that will ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know theyre pregnant. Alabama is on the cusp of approving an even more restrictive bill. State governments are on a course to virtually eliminate abortion access in large chunks of the Deep South and Midwest. Ohio and Kentucky also have passed heartbeat laws; Missouris Republican-controlled legislature is considering one. Their hope is that a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court will approve, spelling the end of the constitutional right to abortion. For pro-life folks, these are huge victories, said Sue Liebel, state director for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group. And I think theyre indicative of the momentum and excitement and the hope thats happening with changes in the Supreme Court and having such a pro-life president. For abortion rights supporters, meanwhile, the trend is ominous. Said Diane Derzis, owner of Mississippis sole abortion clinic, the Jackson Womens Health Organization: I think its certainly more dire than it ever has been. They smell blood and thats why theyre doing this. Already, Mississippi mandates a 24-hour wait between an in-person consultation. That means women must make at least two trips to her clinic, often traveling long distances. ADVERTISEMENT Other states have passed similar, incremental laws restricting abortion in recent years, and aside from Mississippi, five states have just one clinic Kentucky, Missouri, North and South Dakota, and West Virginia. But the latest efforts to bar the procedure represent the largest assault on abortion rights in decades. Lawmakers sponsoring the bans have made it clear their goal is to spark court challenges in hopes of ultimately overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Those challenges have begun. Derzis attorneys are scheduled to go before a judge on May 21, seeking to prevent Mississippis heartbeat law from taking effect July 1. A judge in Kentucky blocked enforcement of that states heartbeat ban after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the clinic in Louisville. Similar legal action is expected before bans can take effect in Ohio and Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the latest heartbeat bill into law Tuesday. Kemp said he welcomed the fight, vowing: We will not back down. Georgias ban doesnt take effect until Jan. 1. But the impact was immediate. An abortion clinic operated by The Womens Centers in Atlanta began receiving anxious calls from patients soon after Kemp signed the law. Many callers had plans to travel from outside the state for abortions. Georgias heartbeat ban would have a wider impact because the state has 17 abortion clinics more than the combined total in the other four Southern states that have passed or are considering bans. On a typical day we will see people from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina all over the region, said Dr. Lisa Haddad, the Atlanta clinics medical director. And my thought is were not going to see those people coming here because they assume its already illegal in Georgia. Dr. Ernest Marshall, co-founder of Kentuckys last remaining abortion clinic in Louisville, said in an email that banning abortions before most women know theyre pregnant would have a disproportionate impact on poor women and communities of color throughout the South. Advocates for abortion rights expect judges to halt enforcement of any new bans while lawsuits work their way through the courts. That could take years. These laws are blatantly unconstitutional, said Elisabeth Smith, chief counsel for state policy and advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which also has filed suit over Mississippis ban. But if they were allowed to go into force, they would have devastating consequences for the residents of all of these states. If heartbeat bans are upheld, many women who are poor and have limited means to travel would have few options other than to try to terminate their own pregnancies, Haddad said, possibly using abortion drugs purchased online. Others would have to drive or fly across multiple states, said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. People would go to Florida, people would continue to go to Memphis, Nash said. How many states do you have to cross before you can access abortion services? It exacerbates all the issues weve already seen around taking time off from work and having the money to travel. Proposed heartbeat bans failed to pass this year in several Republican-led states, including Texas. There, GOP lawmakers lost ground to Democrats in the 2018 elections, and some abortion foes were wary after courts struck down prior abortion restrictions in the state. Such efforts also fell short in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. Alabama lawmakers postponed until next week a vote on a proposal that would make performing nearly all abortions a felony. The measure has passed the state House, and the Senate suspended debate Thursday amid a heated dispute over whether exemptions for rape and incest should be stripped from the bill. You cant put a price on unborn life, Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, said Wednesday, as a legislative committee heard testimony on the states proposed ban. What you have to do is protect the people that live in this state and that includes unborn children. But Jenna King-Shepherd told Alabama lawmakers she believed the abortion she had at age 17 allowed her to finish college. She said her father, a part-time Baptist preacher furious about her pregnancy, drove her to the abortion clinic because he trusted her to make the right choice. Im not asking you to support access to abortion, King-Shepherd said. Im only asking you to let women, their families, their physicians and their God make this decision on how they want to start their families in private and trust them to do that. Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Introduce the Promoting Re-entry through Education in Prisons Act Congressman Elijah E. Cummings Washington, D.C. Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (MD-07) and Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (PA-04) introduced the Promoting Reentry through Education in Prisons (PREP) Act. The legislation would ease the barriers to reentry by ensuring incarcerated individuals receive the educational opportunities they need to successfully reenter their communities upon release from federal prison. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced companion legislation in the Senate. ADVERTISEMENT Providing incarcerated individuals with the resources needed to effectively reintegrate into society upon their release is essential in preventing recidivism. One in three American adults currently has a criminal record. Unfortunately, over two-thirds of formerly-incarcerated people are rearrested within three years; however, incarcerated individuals who participated in educational programs had 43 percent lower odds of reentering the prison system than those who did not. Education gives us direction and often provides people with the tools they need to leave the path that originally led them to incarceration. Educational programs are proven to reduce recidivism, and it is imperative that every incarcerated individual is provided with the opportunity to better themselves and leave prison ready to fully contribute to their communities, said Congressman Cummings. The bill we introduced today will provide the BOP with the tools and guidance they need to provide incarcerated individuals the educational opportunities to change their lives for the better. Its in everyones interest that when prisoners re-enter society, they do so with the skills they need to build decent futures for themselves and their families, said Congresswoman Dean. Education opportunities can make all the difference. Specifically, the PREP Act: Establishes an Office of Correctional Education within the BOP. The Office of Correctional Education would standardize educational programs across all federal prisons. The Office would be required to ensure that BOP provides educational services across the spectrumadult literacy, GED, postsecondary, workforce readiness, apprenticeships, career and technical education, and expanded opportunities for individual with learning disabilities. The Office would also be required to coordinate with other relevant federal agencies, provide technical assistance and training to state departments of corrections, and issue reports. The Office of Correctional Education would standardize educational programs across all federal prisons. The Office would be required to ensure that BOP provides educational services across the spectrumadult literacy, GED, postsecondary, workforce readiness, apprenticeships, career and technical education, and expanded opportunities for individual with learning disabilities. The Office would also be required to coordinate with other relevant federal agencies, provide technical assistance and training to state departments of corrections, and issue reports. Establishes the Federal Correctional Education Program. The program would create partnerships between federal correctional facilities and education providers to create quality programs within federal prisons. The program would create partnerships between federal correctional facilities and education providers to create quality programs within federal prisons. Trains and assists state and local correctional institutions. The bill would provide training and technical assistance to state and local correctional institutions that implement similar correctional education programs. The bill would provide training and technical assistance to state and local correctional institutions that implement similar correctional education programs. Notifies veterans of their eligibility. The bill would ensure that eligible veterans are notified of their ability to access their education benefits and are connected with available education programs in their federal or state correctional facility. The PREP Act has been endorsed by over 20 organizations, including the Association of State Correctional Administrators, NAACP, ACLU, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, #cut50, Campaign for Youth Justice, Drug Policy Alliance, The Sentencing Project, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). A full list of endorsing organizations can be found here. Click here for the bill text. Congressman Gregory W. Meeks Reintroduces Investor Choice Against Gun Proliferation Act Washington, DC Congressman Gregory W. Meeks (NY-05) reintroduced the Investor Choice Against Gun Proliferation Act. In recent years, mass shootings have prompted many companies to sever ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA). This bill would require public companies to disclose their financial relationships with manufacturers, dealers and other entities in the gun industry, to increase transparency and help investors make informed decisions. While common sense gun reform has languished in the partisan halls of Congress, American consumers and investors have taken action into their own hands by boycotting or divesting from companies tied to the gun industry. My Investor Choice Against Gun Proliferation Act would increase transparency in order to equip investors with information so they can create a portfolio that is consistent with their morals. Tens of thousands of lives are lost every year to gun violence, and Americans have a right to know whether their financial investments are inadvertently having a negative human impact, said Congressman Gregory W. Meeks. ADVERTISEMENT Prahlad Rijal is a business reporter at The Kathmandu Post, focusing on the energy sector. Before joining the Post, Rijal was an online reporter at The Himalayan Times. Congressmember Bobby Scott and other Members Reintroduce Bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to Protect Pregnant Workers From Workplace Discrimination WASHINGTON, DC Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), John Katko (R-NY), Lucy McBath (D-GA), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), and Bobby Scott (D-VA) reintroduced the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, legislation that would protect pregnant workers from workplace discrimination. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would address legal ambiguities and help ensure that pregnant women are treated fairly on the job. The legislation, which is closely modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), would require employers to make reasonable accommodationssuch as a minor job modificationthat would allow pregnant workers to continue working and prevent them from being forced out on leave or out of their jobs. The bill also prohibits employers from denying employment opportunities to women based on their need for reasonable accommodations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. As we celebrated Mothers Day last weekend, it is imperative that we give all moms and moms-to-be the certainty that they can stay on the job no matter what, said Congressman Nadler (NY-10). No woman should have to choose between a healthy pregnancy and a paycheck, especially when often a simple fix a bottle of water during a shift, an extra bathroom break, a chair will allow women to stay on the job and support their families throughout their pregnancy. The PWFA creates an affirmative duty for employers to provide pregnant workers a reasonable accommodation, unless the accommodation imposes an undue hardship on the employer. We know exactly what this language means, employers know just what to expect, and, most importantly, pregnant workers know they will be protected. ADVERTISEMENT Under current law, women are not guaranteed reasonable accommodations to remain healthy and in the workforce during pregnancy, said Congressman John Katko (NY-24). This bipartisan effort puts in place a uniform, fair and familiar framework for employers and will enable women to keep working safely and provide for their families throughout pregnancy. No woman should be forced out of a job or denied employment opportunities simply because she is pregnant. As a working mom, I learned just how important it is to be protected from workplace discrimination, and to be given the ability to prioritize my health and the health of my child, said Congresswoman Lucy McBath (GA-06). My pregnancy with Jordan was high risk I had to make difficult decisions to ensure my own health and safety, as well as the health and safety of my child. I am proud to support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act a bipartisan bill to protect pregnant workers and to ensure that employers provide necessary and reasonable accommodations to keep moms-to-be safe at work. Women make up almost half the workforce, yet continue to face unjust and unnecessary obstacles in the workplace, whether it is lack of paid family or sick leave, paycheck disparities, or pregnancy discrimination. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would remove one of those hurdles by ensuring that pregnant women are treated fairly on the job. This legislation would require employers to make reasonable accommodations such as minor job modifications that would allow pregnant workers to continue working and prevent them from being forced to take leave or forced out of their job, said Chairman Robert C. Bobby Scott (VA-03), Committee on Education and Labor. Sixty-two percent of pregnant women and new moms are in the labor force, yet under current law, pregnant workers can be placed on unpaid leave or forced out when they need a simple accommodation to stay on the job. Currently 25 states most recently Kentucky and South Carolina and five cities have adopted pregnancy accommodation laws with bipartisan support. But federal laws are leaving many women behind. A recent report by A Better Balance found that over in two-thirds of cases, courts allowed employers to deny pregnant workers a necessary accommodation. Passing PWFA would eliminate this confusion and ensure women can keep their jobs throughout their pregnancy. The legislation is supported by: 1,000 Days, A Better Balance, American Association of University Women (AAUW), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Equal Rights Advocates, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Legal Aid at Work, Legal Momentum, March of Dimes, MomsRising, National Asian Pacific American Womens Forum, National Partnership for Women & Families, National Womens Law Center, Oxfam, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Congresswoman Waters Leads Delegation to Haiti; Finds Both Inspiration and Evidence of Violence WASHINGTON Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA-43) led a delegation to Haiti, which included actor, director and activist Danny Glover; journalist Margaret Prescod of Sojourner Truth Radio in Los Angeles; civil rights lawyer Walter Riley; Haitian diaspora leader Pierre Labossiere; and human rights lawyer Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Congresswoman Waters and her delegation traveled to Haiti to visit the University of the Aristide Foundation (UNIFA) and was inspired by students of the university, which was founded by the Aristide Foundation. Seeing 2,000 students preparing to serve Haiti by studying to be the doctors, nurses, and lawyers of the future is a profound source of hope, said Congresswoman Waters. She told the UNIFA students in an address to them that UNIFA is not just an education. It is the realization of the Aristides dream for a new Haiti. The Congresswomans delegation also visited the construction site of the future UNIFA teaching hospital. When completed, the hospital will provide modern training facilities for the UNIFA nursing and medical students, as well as healthcare for some of the millions of Haitians without access to basic health services. The delegates promised to support efforts to complete hospital construction. ADVERTISEMENT Mildred Trouillot Aristide, an attorney and member of the UNIFA Board of Administration, explained, A university hospital is a critical and integral part of training university students in the health sciences sector. UNIFA must have its own teaching hospital. Every year tens of thousands of talented students graduate high school in Haiti but have no place available at a university. UNIFA must be able to fully meet the needs of these aspiring students. In addition to visiting the university and the construction site of the future UNIFA teaching hospital, the delegation was given a briefing by U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison and her staff. While in Haiti, the delegation was given deeply troubling accounts of politically motivated attacks in La Saline and nearby neighborhoods. The delegation then met with residents of La Saline, Cite Tokyo and Cite Vincent, who described a series of brutal attacks in their communities over the past six months, carried out by alleged government-connected gangs and police officers. Human rights groups researching these attacks claim to have documented over 70 extrajudicial executions, as well as multiple assaults, arsons and rapes. Victims, human rights groups and journalists also claim that the attacks were organized by Haitis government in order to punish those neighborhoods for organizing protests against government corruption and brutality. Congresswoman Waters said she was appalled and shocked at the killings and promised to engage with her colleagues in Congress to use whatever leverage and power we have to help make the violence cease because this is not conscionable and not tolerable. She noted that the U.S. contributes substantial financial support to Haiti, and that we do not want to see that aid abused or misused. Journalist Margaret Prescod, who had previously investigated the attacks in La Saline, added As a mother and a campaigner on womens rights, it was heartbreaking to hear the victims describe the killings of their children and spouses, and the burning of their homes with everything they own inside. We need to support their demands for justice and compensation for their community, the release of an arrested community leader, the resignation of the current government, the return of stolen PetroCaribe money and a true democracy for their beloved country. Human rights lawyer Brian Concannon, who has worked on political violence cases in Haiti for 24 years, noted the similarity between the La Saline massacre and other prominent attacks, including the 1987 attack on the St. Jean Bosco church in La Saline, attacks by the Duvalier dictatorship and the 1994 Raboteau massacre. With the Ton-Ton Macoutes, FRAPH and now the violent groups under the Moise administration, the motives have been the samesilencing calls for justice and democracyas have the brutal methods. If we do not assure justice for La Saline now, there will be more victims. ADVERTISEMENT Following Congresswoman Waters visit to Haiti, a group of current and former Haitian parliamentarians requested a meeting with the Congresswoman and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. In that meeting, which took place on May 2nd in Washington, DC, the Haitian parliamentarians confirmed the human rights organizations account of the extrajudicial executions and gang attacks on the Haitians in La Saline. Congresswoman Waters and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus vowed to do everything possible to pursue justice for those Haitians whose houses were burned down and whose relatives and neighbors were killed in the attacks in La Saline. Kams Kapsules: Weekly Previews That Make Choosing a Film Fun WIDE RELEASES A Dogs Journey (PG for peril, rude humor and mature themes) Heartwarming family tale about a stray dog that touches the lives of all the strangers it meets. Staring Dennis Quaid, Betty Gilpin and Josh Gad. ADVERTISEMENT John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum (R for profanity and pervasive violence) Third installment of the action-fueled franchise finds Keanu Reeves returning as assassin with a $14 million dollar bounty on his head and on the run from a gang of blood-thirsty hit men. With Laurence Fishburne, Halle Berry and Ian McShane. The Sun Is Also a Star (PG-13 for profanity and suggestive content) Romance drama about a teenage girl who falls in love with a boy of her dreams on the same day her family is supposed to be deported from New York City. Co-starring Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton. INDEPENDENT & FOREIGN FILMS ADVERTISEMENT All Creatures Here Below (Unrated) Harrowing tale of survival revolving around a desperate homeless couple (David Dastmalchian and Karen Gillan) on the run from the police as they travel from L.A. to Kansas City. With Jennifer Morrison, David Koechner, John Doe and Richard Cabral. Aniara (R for for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, disturbing images and drug use) Adaptation of Harry Martinssons sci-fi thriller of the same name about a crew that only learns en route that their space trip to Mars is only one way. Cast includes Emilie Jonssen, Bianca Cruzeiro and Arvin Kananian. The Meanest Man in Texas (Unrated) Adaptation of Clyde Thompsons (Mateus Ward) memoir of the same name, recounting the death row inmates conversion and redemption after being convicted of murder. Co-starring Jamie McShane, Alexandra Bard and Casey Bond. The Souvenir (R for some sexuality, graphic nudity, drug material and language) Suspense thriller, set in the Eighties, revolving around a young film student (Honor Swinton-Byrne) who becomes romantically involved with a charismatic stranger (Tom Burke). With Neil Young, Tosin Cole and Tilda Swinton. The Third Wife (R for graphic sexual content) Romance drama, set in the 19thCentury, revolving around a 14 year-old girl (Nguyen Phuong Tra My) torn between freedom and marrying a wealthy landowner (Le Vu Long). Cast includes Lam Thanh My and Mai Thu Huong Maya. (In Vietnamese with subtitles) Trial by Fire (R for pervasive profanity, some violence, disturbing images, sexual material and brief nudity) Crime biopic recounting the courtroom drama surrounding Cameron Todd Willinghams trial for murdering his three children based on shaky evidence. With Laura Dern, Jack OConnell and Emily Meade. Do you enjoy a good gothic novel? Do you wonder what it would have been like to be a part of a trio of three gifted sisters living a lonely... Wednesday, May 15, 2019 Many immigrants eligible to naturalize in the United States do not naturalize. This report by Raph Majma, Lindsey Wagner, Sabrina Fonseca looks at steps that could improve naturalization rates. Here is the executive summary: "Several months ago, our team set out to learn more about the variables that affect naturalization decisions. The number of presumed eligible to naturalize lawful permanent residents in the United States is growing, with estimates of a population of 8.9 million individuals. Our research attempts to better understand what prevents a person from naturalizing, and to determine what effective strategies or outcomes are likely to catalyze a lawful permanent resident to take action. Over the course of several months, we interviewed 63 immigrants and naturalized citizens and surveyed 117 citizenship workshop attendees and identified patterns and sentiments that deepened our understanding of how people decide to naturalize. Practical urgency drives naturalization. Catalysts are events or processes that assist individuals in overcoming obstacles around naturalizing. For many, there is greater urgency in receiving permanent residency than citizenship until an experience uncovers a tangible reason to naturalize. Voting is a motivation, but not always a catalyst to naturalize. Civic engagement is an appealing benefit for lawful permanent residents, but they often naturalize for more practical reasons. This is not always the case, as presidential election years result in spikes in naturalization applications, but there are steep declines in off years. Fear of anti-immigrant policies can inhibit or enable action. Immigrants from all backgrounds understand that they can be targeted by the next wave of policy changes, which for some causes action, while others see a barrier. Even interviewees from countries of origin that are not targeted by the Trump administrations most aggressive rhetoric and policies were affected. Traveling with a U.S. passport is a strong benefit to naturalization. Naturalization can be beneficial to cross U.S. borders safely, travel without having to obtain additional visas, be able to be abroad without the limitations of the Green Card, and more. There are distinct benefits that will interest different groups of people. Stressful interactions delay naturalization. Lawful permanent residents who previously had a difficult interaction with a government immigration official worry that their naturalization experience will be similarly difficult. Access to resources can help mitigate that fear, but its important to consider past experiences when assisting immigrants. Support helps overcome barriers. Immigration is a deeply personal subject, but everyone appreciates and benefits from encouragement. Nearly half of our interviewees identified a family member or friend who had a positive impact on their journey. The naturalization process is a deterrent. Application length and complexity fuel procrastination while the fear of the interview plagues applicants, regardless of their confidence. The process was opaque to some of the interviewees we spoke with, but the strenuous requirements impact immigrants attitudes and confidence toward naturalization. Common milestones are underutilized. There are times when immigrants may consider citizenship, but USCIS and other organizations miss opportunities to better inform or remind them. These opportunities are common among LPRs and create clear opportunities for engagement and education. In the report, we also outline a number of ways to improve the naturalization process. The recommendations are directed at government organizations, service organizations, lawyers assisting immigrants, and groups developing new technology for immigrant communities. Our goal is to make sure that these insights and recommendations are actionable tools for naturalizing lawful permanent residents throughout all levels of the immigration service ecosystem, and at each step in the journey to citizenship." KJ https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/05/new-america-understanding-the-catalysts-for-citizenship-application.html Wednesday, May 15, 2019 The South Carolina Supreme Court imposed reciprocal discipline based on a New Jersey suspension that in turn was based on the attorney's Alford plea in the Virgin Islands. Respondent entered a plea pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands to one count of compounding a crime in violation of Virgin Islands law. The New Jersey Supreme Court found Respondent's conduct violated New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(b) (commission of a criminal act that reflects adversely on a lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer), and 8.4(c) (conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation). New Jersey's Rule 8.4(b) is identical to South Carolina's Rule 8.4(b), RPC, Rule 407, SCACR, and its Rule 8.4(c) is identical to South Carolina's Rule 8.4(d), RPC, Rule 407, SCACR. He had failed to report the sanction as required and did not respond to notice Because we find a sufficient attempt was made to serve Respondent with Rule 29(b), RLDE, Rule 413, SCACR, notice, and none of the factors in Rule 29(d), Rule 413, SCACR, preventing the imposition of identical discipline are present in this matter, we hereby reciprocally suspend Respondent from the practice of law in South Carolina for one year from the date of this opinion. The St. Thomas Source reported on the criminal case Edward McKenzie, 61, pleaded guilty in a scheme to defraud the government through a property auction and has been sentenced for his role in the conspiracy, the Attorney Generals Office announced Friday. McKenzie, who became the third person to enter a guilty plea in the case, was sentenced to a suspended jail term of 90 days, supervised probation for one year and 100 hours of community service. McKenzie had faced four charges conspiracy, obtaining money by false pretense, conversion of government property and criminally influenced and corrupt organizations conspiracy in connection with the crime. Rather than face a jury, he accepted the terms of a plea bargain, appearing before V.I. Superior Court Judge Michael Dunston on March 17 to plead guilty to the single charge of compounding a crime. According to the AGs news release the conspiracy occurred between January 18, 2012, and June 26, 2013. On Aug. 30, 2012, an auction in the St. Thomas-St. John District was conducted and one of the properties auctioned was 97 Estate Frydenhoj. An investigation by the Office of the Inspector General determined that there were certain irregularities in the conduct of the bidding at the auction. Based upon the investigation, the Department of Justice filed criminal charges against McKenzie alleging that he and others conspired and associated with an enterprise, through a pattern of activity with the intent to defraud the government by manipulating the Office of the Lieutenant Governors property auction process to fraudulently transfer and obtain the property. The Government of the Virgin Islands was prepared to file a civil action under the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act alleging that McKenzie engaged in CICO civil violations, but on March 31, DOJ entered into a civil settlement with McKenzie. DOJ has resolved criminal charges against a third defendant in the tax assessors property auction scam, Attorney General Claude Earl Walker stated in Friday;s news release. McKenzie has pled guilty for his role, and like two other defendants who have also pleaded guilty, he has agreed to cooperate. The prosecutors will continue to go through its mountain of evidence in this case to prepare for trial against the fourth and final defendant. In addition, DOJ has settled its civil CICO claims against McKenzie, whereby he has paid $100,000 dollars to the Government of the Virgin Islands, and is barred from personally participating or associating with any real estate, agent, broker or other person for purposes of participating in any real property auction conducted by the Office of the Tax Assessor. In all, four men Sylvester Warner, Calford Charleswell, Paul Sabers and McKenzie were taken into custody and charged in connection with the public auction scheme. On Feb. 8, Charleswell, 51, of Estate Annas Retreat, who faced 14 charges stemming from the incident, pleaded guilty to the single count of conspiracy. Warner, 43, of Estate St. Peter, also pleaded to a single charge of conspiracy at a change-of-plea hearing on Feb. 3. An investigation by Nicholas Peru, special investigator in the office of the Inspector General, led to the apprehension of the four men. In his affidavit supporting the arrests, Peru gave the following details: A property auction was conducted on Aug. 30, 2012. One of the properties being auctioned was 97 Est. Frydenhoj, on which the opening bid was placed at $6,442.28. The first bidder offered $75,000, a second person bid $42,000 and the third bid was $10,100. However, the bidder tracking sheet prepared by Charleswell showed that there were only two bidders on the property, according to Peru. An unwritten policy developed by officials in 2012 required that the three highest bidders be recorded in case the highest bidder failed to meet the 10 percent deposit amount. The day after the auction, the winning bidder did not make the required deposit and the second highest bidder should have been contacted, Peru wrote. On Sept. 4, 2012, a deposit of $2,000 was paid on a bid that was not noted on the record and on Oct. 11, 2012, a man paid the balance of $8,000 on the Est. Frydenhoj property and the Office of the Lieutenant Governor transferred the property to that man for $10,000. Then, on Sept. 25, 2013, the man transferred the same property to another man, according to Peru. A woman whose name appeared on the bidder tracking sheet told Peru she had accompanied Warner to the auction and he completed the registration form using her name, but using his address. She said Warner bid on the Frydenhoj property and told her that he was bidding for a friend. On the day of the auction, Warner bid on three other properties, but although he was the highest bidder, he failed to pay deposits or take any of the properties, according to Peru. The investigation revealed that certain procedural changes made by officials at the Office of the Lieutenant Governor allowed individuals to fraudulently manipulate the bidding process in a scheme in which the highest bidder purposefully makes a substantially inflated high bid, then fails to post the ten percent deposit so that the property would go to another bidder or individual for a substantially lower price, Peru wrote. This manipulation prevented potential bidders from making fair and legitimate bids on properties offered at public auctions and potentially reduced the likelihood of the property owner recouping any excess proceeds from the sale after taxes and fees are paid, according to Peru. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2019/05/the-south-carolina-supreme-court-imposed-reciprocal-discipline-based-on-a-new-jersey-suspension-that-in-turn-was-based-on-the.html In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask you enter in the text you see in the image below so we can confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation. The job of the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi is to represent American interests in Vietnam. Next month, the ambassador will try something new. He plans to take Vietnamese businesses to the United States. Daniel J. Kritenbrink is the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. He and his team have been asking Vietnamese companies to send a business group to Washington, D.C. Investing in the United States is one of the best decisions that Vietnamese firms can make, especially as the countrys economy continues toexpand, Kritenbrink said. Over the past year, U.S. embassy officials have been holding events in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for Vietnamese businesses. Their goal is to persuade the companies to send representatives on the trip, which is planned for June 10 to 12. The idea for the business delegation comes as Vietnams economy is expanding. Many companies are considering if the time has come for them to expand overseas. For the past 20 years, Vietnam has built a big presence as an export powerhouse. And, as Kritenbrink noted, the United States is the biggest market for those exports. But many Vietnamese think the countrys businesses should take it to the next step. Instead of just shipping products overseas, they want companies to set up operations and offices around the world. Some companies have already begun expanding. The electronics business FPT has opened up in Japan and the telecommunications company Viettel is serving markets from Burundi to Peru. Smaller businesses are also considering the expansion idea. Saigon Innovation Hub, Sihub, announced a program last year to provide support to start-up companies that want to go overseas. The program is named Runway to the World. Sihub wants to gather all local and international resources to realize themission of boosting economic growth, Huynh Kim Tuoc said. He is the managing director of Sihub, which is under the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology. Supporters say international expansion is the next step in the development of businesses in Vietnam. In the 1980s, the Communist government started permitting a market economy to grow. In the 1990s, the U.S. government lifted its trade restrictions on the country. Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in the early 2000s. It is now a leading exporter of rice, clothing and telephones to the international market. Vietnam is still reporting increases in its Gross Domestic Product, foreign direct investment (FDI) and FDI-driven manufacturing. We are seeing an increasing number of local electronics players expressing interest to venture overseas for growth," said Standard Chartered Bank official Nirukt Sapru. But there could be problems. Some observers worry that the growing trade war between China and the United States could hurt Vietnams exports. If Chinas economy slows down a lot, Vietnamese exports to that country will fall. Others worry about U.S. President Donald Trumps other tariff fights with countries like Japan and the European Union. Vietnamese companies hope that going international will both protect their home economy from foreign trade tensions and help build Vietnams national brand. Im Susan Shand. Ha Nguyen reported this story for VOANews.com. Susan Shand adapted the report for Learning English. The editor was George Grow. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story resource n. something that a country has and can use to increase its wealth mission n. a task or job that someone is given to do Gross Domestic Product (GDP) n. the total value of the goods and services produced by the people of a nation during a year not including the value of income earned in foreign countries venture n. an undertaking that is new or different that usually involves risk tariff n. a tax on goods coming into or leaving a country brand n. particular kind or type of something Sherpa climber Kami Rita reached the top of Mount Everest on Wednesday for a 23rd time. By doing so, he broke his own record for the most successful climbs of the worlds highest summit. Rita reached the summit with other climbers and all of them were reported to be safe, said a Nepalese official at the mountains base camp. Two other climbers have reached the 8,850-meter high summit 21 times each, but both of them have retired from mountain climbing. It is my profession, but at the same time I am setting a new world record for Nepal, too, the 49-year-old Rita told The Associated Press last month. He first climbed Everest in 1994 and has been making the trip nearly every year since then. Rita is one of many Sherpa guides whose expertise is necessary to the safety and success of the hundreds of climbers who seek to stand on top of the world. His father was among the first Sherpa guides employed to help climbers reach the summit, and Rita followed in his footsteps. In addition to Mount Everest, Rita has climbed other mountains that are among the worlds highest. They include K-2, Cho-Oyu, Manaslu and Lhotse. Rita was at Everests base camp in 2015 when a combination of rocks, ice and snow came down the side of the mountain. The avalanche killed 19 people. After that tragedy, he came under intense family pressure to stop mountain climbing, but in the end decided against it. I know Mount Everest very well, having climbed it 22 times, but at the same time I know I may or may not come back, he told the AP last month. I am like a soldier who leaves behind their wives, children and family to battle for the pride of the country. Sherpa guides and their work Kami Rita has spoken up for other Sherpa guides, who he said do not get the recognition they have earned. He said that before climbers reach the summit to take pictures announcing their success, there are months of hard work done by Sherpas. The Sherpas are the ones who take care of setting up the camps, carrying the loads on their backs, cooking food and carrying oxygen tanks. Perhaps most importantly, it is Sherpas who each year fix ropes and supports over icefalls and holes that make things safer for the climbers who will follow them. Sherpa tribespeople mostly cared for yak and worked as traders deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their physical strength and knowledge of the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides. They also helped foreigners climb Everest. On Tuesday, it was a team of Sherpa guides who again were the first to reach the summit this year, completing their work of setting up ropes and lines for other climbers. There are 41 different teams with a total of 378 climbers who have been permitted to climb Everest during this years spring climbing season. There are an equal number of Nepalese guides helping them to get to the summit. I'm Jonathan Evans. George Grow adapted this story based on Associated Press news report. Hai Do was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story summit n. the highest point; the top-most level profession n. an occupation pride n. self-respect; feeling satisfaction resulting from ones actions tank n. a large container yak n. a long-haired animal native to the Himalayas We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. Non-formal womens school in Butwal hit by financial crisis Sadhana Womens School in Butwal, which was established 13 years ago, is on the verge of collapse due to financial crisis. Lawmakers in the American state of Alabama have given final approval to a ban on nearly all abortions. The bill is part of an effort in several states to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider a womens right to end a pregnancy. Alabamas Republican governor, who has long identified as anti-abortion, signed the bill into law on Wednesday. The states of Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have all recently approved bans on abortion once a fetuss heartbeat is detected. A heartbeat can develop by the sixth week of a womans pregnancy. That is before most women know they are pregnant. The Alabama bill goes further. It seeks to ban all abortions, even in cases of rape. The only exception would be when a woman or girls health is at serious risk. The bill would punish doctors who provide abortions with up to 99 years or life in prison. Under the bill, women seeking or undergoing abortions would not be punished. Aiming to overturn Roe v. Wade Alabama Senator Clyde Chambliss argued in support of the bill. The Republican lawmaker said the reason for passing the bill was so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe versus Wade. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that a Texas law criminalizing abortion violated a womans constitutional right to privacy. The ruling, known as Roe v. Wade, protected a womans right to choose whether to have an abortion. Americas legal system is based on the principle that courts follow rulings laid down in earlier judicial decisions. The Roe v. Wade ruling has faced repeated challenges but has not been overturned. However, with the addition of two new conservative justices that President Donald Trump appointed to the court, anti-abortion lawmakers hope to have the ruling overturned. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court with its conservative majority voted 5-4 to overturn an unrelated Supreme Court case from 1979. In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer noted, Todays decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the court will overrule next. Back in Alabama, Senator Chambliss said, While we cannot undo the damage that decades of legal precedence under Roe have caused, this bill has the opportunity to save the lives of millions of unborn children. Opposition Critics have promised to challenge the bill. Randall Marshall, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said his organization is writing a complaint. Democrats criticized the ban as a way to control women and as a waste of taxpayer money. Democratic Senator Bobby Singleton said that under the ban, doctors who perform abortions could serve more prison time than rapists. The group Physicians for Reproductive Health said the near total ban on abortions would have a disastrous effect on healthcare. In a statement, board member Dr. Yashica Robinson said, Physicians will be unwilling to help patients in need, even when continuing pregnancy is detrimental to a patients healthout of fear of being scrutinized by the criminal justice system. In answer to the new laws against abortion rights, American actor and activist Alyssa Milano has called for a sex strike using the social media hashtag #SexStrike. She urged women to refuse sex with men until we get our bodily autonomy back. I'm Ashley Thompson. Hai Do wrote this story for Learning English based on Associated Press and Reuters news reports. Ashley Thompson was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story abortion - n. a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy detect - to discover or notice challenge - v. to question the authority dissent - v. to publicly disagree with an official opinion precedence - n. the condition of being more important than something else opportunity - n. a situation in which something can be done complaint - n. a formal charge saying that someone has done something wrong detrimental - adj. causing damage or injury scrutinize - v. to examine carefully autonomy - n. the state of existing or acting separately from others The United States has ordered its non-emergency government employees to leave Iraq. The order comes as the Trump administration warns of possible threats against U.S. forces in the Middle East from Iran and its allies. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad said the move affects workers there and at the U.S. diplomatic office in the city of Irbil. U.S. embassies in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates all warned American citizens to have a high level of vigilance. "Ensuring the safety of U.S. government personnel and citizens is our highest priority ... and we want to reduce the risk of harm," a State Department official said. Last week, U.S. officials said they had found signs of Iranian preparations for possible attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Mideast. The officials did not share evidence to prove there is an increased threat from Iran. On Wednesday, Germany and the Netherlands said they were suspending military training operations in Iraq. Yet the German government said it had no signals of its own that Western interests in Iraq are being threatened. The Netherlands said that a security threat was the reason for stopping the training operations. U.S. actions Some U.S. lawmakers seemed to question claims that Iran is a growing threat to the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf. Senator Lindsey Graham asked that State and Defense Department officials tell Congress about the threat top officials say that Iran poses. The Defense Department has already sent an aircraft carrier and nuclear-capable bomber airplanes to the area. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that the administration plans to send up to 120,000 troops to face Iran, if necessary. But Trump created controversy when he said: "Would I do that? Absolutely." In Europe, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said his country was worried about the risk of accidental conflict. That comment was followed by the unusual public statement by a British general in Baghdad. Coalition generals comments "There's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," said Major General Chris Ghika. He is a top officer in the U.S.-aided coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Ghika was speaking on Tuesday from coalition headquarters in Baghdad. He told reporters "there are a number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we don't see any increased threat from any of them Late in the day, the U.S. Central Command said that Ghika's comments ran "counter to the identified credible threats" from Iranian-backed forces in the Mideast. In a written statement, it said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all coalition military in Iraq and Syria. Allied concerns about American credibility may be the result of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was justified by false intelligence. The U.S. military has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 2,000 in Syria as part of the coalition campaign to defeat the Islamic State (IS) group there. It also has air and naval forces in Bahrain, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf. Many are there to support military operations against IS, but some are there to balance Iranian influence. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday that he thought "things will end well." Hours later, an Iranian official said any conflict in the area will have "unimaginable consequences." Im Susan Shand. Susan Shand wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Her story was based on reports from The Associated Press, Reuters and VOANews.com. George Grow was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story vigilance - n. carefully noticing problems or signs of danger priority - n. the things that someone cares about and thinks are important pose - v. to be or create a possible threat, danger, problem controversy - n. argument that involves many people who strongly disagree about something absolutely - adv. used in speech as a forceful way of saying yes or of expressing agreement counter - v. doing something that is made or done as a defense against or response to something else credible - adj. believable alert - n. an alarm or signal of danger consequence - n. something that happens as a result of a particular action or set of conditions Americans are remembering students who died in recent weeks while trying to stop gunmen at two schools in the United States. Some people have praised the students for their actions, calling them heroic. Their actions demonstrate growing public support for guiding students on what they can do, in some situations, to stop armed attackers. Experts say educators should offer teachers and students as many choices as possible for how to deal with an active shooter - including fighting back. On April 30, a gunman opened fire at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The university sent students messages on their phones that read Run, Hide, Fight. Riley Howell chose to fight. He lost his life trying to stop the shooter. The local police chief described the 21-year-old student as the first and foremost hero. He said if Howell had not tackled the gunman, more students could have died. Along with Howell, one other student died in the attack. Nine days later, Kendrick Castillo was killed trying to stop a gunman who had entered the STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado. The school sits less than 15 kilometers from Columbine High School. That is where, 20 years ago, two gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher. Like Howell, the 18-year-old Castillo was described as a hero whose actions helped save lives. The STEM school uses a Locks, Lights, Out of Sight method for dealing with active shooters. A school official would not say whether the school had ever suggested students fight back against an active shooter. But student Brendan Bialy had thought about it on his own. And, on May 8, he joined Castillo in diving toward the gunman and taking the gun away. Bialy, who is also 18, survived the shooting. The next day, he told reporters, I dont like the idea of running and hiding.Somebody like that, Im going to fight them there. There always have been students willing to take action, notes Greg Crane. He founded a for-profit group called the ALICE Institute. The name ALICE is short for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. Crane says he created the institute in 2001 based on what had already been done by students who brought down shooters themselves. Crane said many people have a warrior mindset, a hero mindset. He noted the importance of providing information and training so that, in Crane's words, when they are the first one to stand up and start moving to do something, maybe theyre not alone. The institutes training has been offered to educators from over 5,000 public school districts, Crane said. Often, police officers lead the training programs. Crane said the program does not teach ways of fighting back. Instead, it advises people to make noise, create disorder and confuse the attacker. In the state of Maryland, Baltimore County Public Schools started offering ALICE this year. If a shooter gets too close, students are told to find any object they can and throw it at the attacker. Students also should shout and make other loud noises. The idea is to create enough disorder to escape. Young children are told not to make physical contact with the attacker. But teachers and older students have that choice, said George Roberts, the head of Baltimore County Public Schools. Roberts said, The adults are trained how to grab the arms, grab the legs and get control of the attacker until police arrive. This more active response provides a level of choice, Roberts added. Roberts was principal at Marylands Perry Hall High School in 2012, when a student brought a gun into the meal room and wounded another student. Karen Shepard has several children and grandchildren. Their Athens, Pennsylvania, school district adopted ALICE training this year. Shepard says she wants the children to know not to gather in just one part of the classroom if a gunman enters the room. They should barricade, they should have something in their hands, Shepard said. At least theyd have a fighting chance. It is not an easy discussion to have with students at any age, said Joseph Eradi. He was school superintendent in Newtown, Connecticut, after a gunman killed 26 people at an elementary school there. Eradi said, What weve learned over time is to provide staff and students with as many options as possible in the moment. He added, You never want to take that common sense element out. I'm Ashley Thompson. The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. US Schools Consider New Methods for Dealing with Active Shooters Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story tackle - v. to forcefully seize (someone) and cause that person to fall to the ground alert - adj. able to think clearly and to notice things lock - v. to fasten the door, lid, etc., of (something) with a lock counter - v. to do something in defense or in response to something often + with evacuate - v. to remove (someone) from a dangerous place confuse - v. to make (someone) uncertain or unable to understand something grab - v. to quickly take and hold (someone or something) with your hand or arms principal - n. the person in charge of a public school barricade - v. to block (something) so that people or things cannot enter or leave option - n. the opportunity or ability to choose something or to choose between two or more things The man who allegedly started a chemical fire at the Lebanon Walmart left the store, met up with a friend, admitted to setting the blaze and s 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 LEXINGTON The Lexington High School gym was packed to the brim with family and friends to observe the commencement exercises held Sunday afternoon. LHS graduated 196 seniors, 30 with academic distinction. The class motto was a quote by Tim McGraw, Chase your dreams, but always know the road thatll lead you home again. The class flower was the sunflower, and class colors were the classic white and black. The processional was led by junior escorts Madison Sutton and Esmeralda Acevedo-Barrios. The opening comments were made by Stephanie Vielmas-Duarte. During her speech she said their parents were one of the hardest working generations there was. She said many of them never saw a graduation ceremony, yet have worked diligently to make sure their children had this opportunity. Many people were fighting back tears after the closing comments of Brayan Martinez. He started off his speech by saying he was not a very social person, but wanted to formerly introduce himself. My name is Brayan Martinez, I am 17 years old and I am the valedictorian for this class. Curfew starts at 9 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. through 6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. It is time to take ownership of your kids," New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said Thursday morning. "Be responsible for these kids. We as a department, we as a criminal justice system, we as a city government can not do this alone. We do need your help with this For potential victims, officials told them to call 911 and not engage. Theyre armed, and this is serious," Cantrell said. "They are brazen, and they have no fear. Call 911, do not engage. Because we believe, based on what weve seen, it will not end in a manner that we want in this city. It will not end positively. President Bill Clinton in 1994 signed the crime bill into law with broad bipartisan support as violent crime rates peaked in the US in the early 1990s. Included in the law was the federal "three strikes" provision, mandating life sentences for criminals convicted of a violent felony after two or more prior convictions, including drug crimes. "We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its neglect, created," said Biden, then a fourth-term senator from Delaware so committed to the bill that he has referred to it over the years as "the Biden bill." "They are beyond the pale many of those people, beyond the pale," Biden continued. "And it's a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society." In the speech, Biden described a "cadre of young people, tens of thousands of them, born out of wedlock, without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing because they literally ... because they literally have not been socialized, they literally have not had an opportunity." He said, "we should focus on them now" because "if we don't, they will, or a portion of them, will become the predators 15 years from now." Of course, LaToya loves enforcing curfew. It was just last week that she and NOPD Chief Shaun Ferguson and Mayor Cantrell spent the better part of a press conference talking about how crappy New Orleanians are at being parents.They need your help. Meanwhile they will be helpful to you by arresting your children for the very serious crime of being outside. You might think having to deal with all the added stress and inconvenience of dealing with that makes the job of being a parent all the more difficult but, remember, it's for your protection... or it's for somebody's protection... maybe. There's no evidence that juvenile curfews do anything at all to reduce crim e. Sorry there's no research on whether or not they affect "brazenness." But LaToya sounds like she has some opinions on that.At least she doesn't call them superpredators. Although, I did think, for a second, I was watching Joe Biden talking about the crime bill again.The 1994 crime bill supercharged mass incarceration, greatly expanded the power of the American police state and penalized a generation of poor people, basically, for the conditions of their own poverty. I thought we knew that already. In fact, I thought so many people understand this now, as compared to in 1993, that this sort of rhetoric has become a political problem for Biden in the Democratic primary. It must not be much of a problem for Cantrell and her police chief, though because... geeze.Anyway I'm still trying to decide if the bigger problem here has to do with Mayor Trump's authoritarian streak or if it's more about the petty corruption of involving a problematic religious non-profit in the enforcement scheme. Is Covenant House being paid for its role in this? If so, how much? Consumed in all tranquillity, nestled over the sand-kissed beach of Goas most-famed Baga beach, facing the vast stretch of the Arabian Sea is Arudra Hospitality, an exotic resort known to the waves since its inception in 2015. Concretized by the mastermind-duo Mayank & Sampada (Co-Founders & Partners), Arudra is an amalgamation of 18 most-beautifully themed air-conditioned wooden cottages inspired and based-on Shivas serene composure and natures attributes surrounded by attractive landscape gardens and spacious aligns of cottages with balconies. To this unique adorning and Arudras splendid hospitality, Mayank states, We connect to the calm, serene & the indisputable sense of protection of Lord Shiva, and this is what we intend to deliver to all our guests. The beach-front, pet friendly resort further assures an experience unlike any other, leaving its spellbound customers returning for more is rated among top 10 percent of best dog-friendly resorts in the world by Travelmyth. Housing a multi-cuisine beach-restaurant and bar that serves the most delectable dishes, right from Chinese to Indian and Continental, one cannot leave without tasting Arudras mouth-watering assembles of delicious sea-food and scrumptious sizzlers. "We connect to the calm, serene & the indisputable sense of protection of Lord Shiva and this is what we intend to deliver to all our guests" What holds distinct of Arudras exclusiveness is the arrangements of cottages (Trishul, Rudraksha, The Moon, Damru and Nandi) that reflect the fiery areole of Shivas cosmic dance. Aiming for utmost privacy to its guests, Arudra personalizes services for its residents as well as engages in hosting corporate and private-events for groups upto 150. Every event stages a day-full of relevant & exciting activities(tug of war, treasure hunts, beach football, and beach volleyball) that drifts into a foot-tapping DJ evening with dances and dinner. Aside this, ample opportunities to boost adventurous spirits include various water-sports like parasailing, water-skiing and many others, apart from an appealing ferry ride to Anjunas flee market (on lucky-Wednesdays). Assuring an All - Encompassing Experience As fun and entertainment brims the resorts to-do list, guests in search of a peaceful vacation occupy the serene umbrella-headed beach beds or dine at the sand-floored restaurant with a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea. Furthermore, as safety deems prime, Arudra assures the security of its guests by constantly monitoring well-placed CCTVs around the property with a special security team that includes the services of Ace and TinTin (Arudras pet dogs) who dont just scout the property, but also ensure to add-on to every pet-lover's enjoyment. The owners also maintain direct contact with the local beach police in case of any mishaps. Additionally, the hospitable staff undergo rigorous trainings and daily-briefings to ensure thorough hygiene is taken care of, for its guests to have the most comfortable stay. If this citing has just proved more than what one could expect, ones arrival at that the resort is seamlessly sorted-out with prior-informed pick-up requests from airports, railway stations or bus-stops. Thus, Arudra defines an ideal destination that marks the beginning of very special journeys, thereby stealing the attention of both native & international guests. Soon anticipating expansion, Sampada and Mayank plan on introducing an exclusive spa at the resort and look forward to launching three more Arudra properties by the end of 2020. If you are planning to experience Goas exotics, then Arudra defines the ideal solution for a perfect stay. disclaimer I have received the books on this blog for review from the publisher or author or I have bought them. I have no financial interest in any book featured on this blog. Remember last year when developers started to notice a feature in Googles Chromium OS code that suggested one day you might be able to dual-boot Windows and Chrome OS on the same computer? Yeah, it looks like thats not coming anytime soon. Not officially anyway. A recent update to the Chromium Gerrit shows that the so-called Alt OS code has been deprecated. To be fair, Google never officially announced support for turning Chromebooks into dual-boot computers that could run Windows. So its not like the company is backing out on a promise. Its just that Chome OS is based on the open source Chromium project, so development happens in public and observers can sometimes get a peek at in-development features that never actually see the light of day (as well as many that do). That said, if you want to run desktop apps on a Chromebook, there are more options than ever before. And unlike the apparently-scrapped Alt OS or Campfire implementation, you dont even need to reboot your device to do it. Chromebooks have supported running Android apps as well as web apps for several years, and more recently Google has allowed users to enable a Linux beta feature to install desktop Linux apps such as LibreOffice and GIMP. Many recent Chromebooks already support Linux, and Google says every new Chromebook released this year will support Linux, whether its a device that ships with an Intel, AMD, or ARM-based processor. via About Chromebooks and /r/Crostini Police arrest two people in forgery case The Metropolitan Crime Division has arrested two frauds. The division arrested 23-year-old Rojina Adhikari,of Sunsari district, and 20-year-old Arabin Syangbo, of Sindhuli district, for allegedly conning several people by promising them Australian visas. A team of federal accident investigators is expected to arrive in Alaska today to try to piece together what caused a deadly midair collision between two sightseeing planes. Four people were killed after the floatplanes carrying cruise ship tourists collided yesterday [local time] near the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan, the Coast Guard said. Two others were missing, said Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios, a Coast Guard spokesman. The Washington, D.C.-based investigative team from the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to arrive in Ketchikan today, agency spokesman Peter Knudson said. He said board member Jennifer Homendy also is traveling with the so-called Go Team, which investigates major accidents. The floatplanes collided under unknown circumstances, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said in an email to The Associated Press. Floatplanes have pontoons mounted under the fuselage so they can land on water. The passengers were from the cruise ship Royal Princess and were on sightseeing flights, one of which was operated by flightseeing company Taquan Air. Eleven people were inside Taquans single-engine de Havilland Otter DHC-3 when it went down as it returned from Misty Fjords National Monument, which is part of the Tongass National Forest, the nations largest. Ten people were taken to a Ketchikan hospital. All patients were in fair or good condition, according to Marty West, a spokeswoman for PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center. Three people who died were among five people aboard the second plane, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, according to Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens. Its unclear which plane carried the fourth victim, whose body was recovered during a search, Rios said. Local emergency responders worked with state and federal agencies and good Samaritan vessels to help rescue and recover victims. Its been a long day and the crews have been working really hard to rescue people and recover the deceased, Deanna Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, the local government, said Monday evening. A spokeswoman for Taquan Air, operator of the Otter, said the company had suspended operations while federal authorities investigate the deadly crash. We are devastated by [yesterdays] incident and our hearts go out to our passengers and their families, Taquan said in a statement. Cindy Cicchetti, a passenger on the Royal Princess cruise ship told the AP that the ship captain announced that two planes were in an accident yesterday. She said the ship is not leaving as scheduled and there werent any details as to how the accident will affect the rest of the trip. The ship left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and is scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their lives and the families of those impacted by todays accident. Princess Cruises is extending its full support to traveling companions of the guests involved, Princess Cruises said in a statement. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. Weather conditions in the area included high overcast skies with 9 mph southeast winds. Its not the first time a major plane crash has occurred near Ketchikan, a popular tourist destination. In June 2015, a pilot and eight passengers died when a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter operated by Promech Air Inc. crashed into mountainous terrain about 24 miles from Ketchikan. The NTSB later determined that pilot error and lack of a formal safety program were behind the crash. Rachel Doro & Mark Thiessen, Anchorage, AP Sales of summer apparel heating up in Kathmandu With the temperature starting to inch upwards, clothing stores in the Kathmandu Valley have started introducing a range of new summer apparel in the market. The 19th Macao City Fringe Festival, organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), will be held in January next year adopting the concept of All around the city, our stages, our patrons, our artists. In a note distributed yesterday, IC says the call for proposals of programmes and performance venues is now open and all local arts and cultural associations, programme curators, producers, individual art practitioners and those who are interested in artistic creation are invited to submit proposals. In addition, the Fringe also invites the general public to participate in it as venue provider. The deadline for applications is 5pm on 21 June 2019. The regulations, application form and the Fringe venue registration form can be downloaded on ICs website. US universities retract mainland student intake Following the restriction by the US State Department of visas issued to Mainland Chinese students who are seeking to study aviation, robotics, and other advanced technologies, some US universities have ceased taking in students from China, as reported by local Chinese media outlet Macao Daily News. The paper claims that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has not taken in any Mainland Chinese students as part of its early admission, while Stanford University has canceled its interview points in Mainland China. The University of California at Berkeley has changed its policy which now requires students to finish their high school education in the US to be considered local students; which has also been implemented by Harvard and Cornell. 5G-assisted buses tested in Guangzhou Guangzhou is testing its first batch of public buses with 5G mobile networks in the hopes of achieving safer and easier public transport. In the future, public bus fares may be collected by a face scanner. The bus route is 30.9km long with 41 stops. As 5G is expected to be 10 times faster in transmission speed than 4G, real-time high-definition video streaming between the bus and the control center may be feasible. Offsite repairing may also be conducted in the future if the bus breaks down en route. Any emergency situations can also be dealt with remotely. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa yesterday [Macau time] met with Chief Executive Chui Sai On. Both sides agreed to further strengthen bilateral relations in various fields. The meeting is a continuation of the talks started in Macau when the Portuguese President visited the city for a day on May 1, a note from the Government Information Bureau stated. During the meeting in the Presidential Residence of the Belem Palace, the Portuguese president said that the relations between Portugal and China as well as between Portugal and Macau are at their best times, noting that China thinks highly of the Macaus role of bridge between China and Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries. Macau is developing well, especially in the field of economic diversification, he said, noting that progress has been made in business investments, science and technology, and the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries in Macau has played an important role. He explained that the sustainable development of the Portuguese language in Macau will enhance the connection and cooperation in the fields of culture, society, economy and trade, science and technology and tourism with the Portuguese-speaking countries. The presidents remarks were echoed by Chui, who said that his government will make the Chinese-Portuguese platform better. Chui, who is on his official visit to Portugal starting Sunday, said that thanks to the traditional friendship and historic connections between Macau and Portugal, bilateral cooperation has made rapid progress with joint efforts from both sides. He expressed confidence that there will be great potential for cooperation between the two sides under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Greater Bay Area. Chui reiterated that Macau will continue to protect the Portuguese community and promote the development of the Portuguese culture and the Portuguese language in Macau. Also yesterday, Chui attended the Macau SARs reception and a photo exhibition in Lisbon, which is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Macau SAR. RM/Agencies U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday arrived in Russia for talks that are expected to focus on an array of issues including arms control and Iran. Pompeo landed in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for his first visit to Russia at a time relations between the two countries are at a post-Cold War low. Pompeo will be sitting down for talks with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov before he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pompeo said in a tweet before setting off for Russia that Moscow and Washington agree on some issues and disagree on others but added that it is our responsibility to find a way forward. Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on that he expects the meeting to focus on arms control, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and North Koreas nuclear program. Before hosting Pompeo, Putin is expected to visit a military facility in the south that manufactures some of Russias most modern fighter jets. Asked whether it was deliberately timed to coincide with Pompeos visit, Peskov argued this was a routine visit and not a message to anyone. On Monday, Putin toured another military aviation factory and chaired a meeting on the military industrial complex. AP Women deprived of maternity allowance in Kailali district Women in Kailali district have been deprived of maternity allowance provided by the government for the past few months. As the U.S.-China trade war escalates, speculation is swirling over whether the Asian nation will honor purchases of American products including soybeans and cotton that are yet to be delivered. At least 10 bulk carrier cargoes are in transit, while at least one vessel managed to offload its U.S. cargo on the weekend as tensions between Washington and Beijing flared. Bulk carrier Fiji arrived in Dalian Sunday, waiting a week before congestion cleared to enter port. The cargo originated from Export Grain Terminal Longview in the Pacific Northwest with 67,113 metric tons of soybeans, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture and IHS shipping data analyzed by Bloomberg. China has bought about 7.4 million tons of U.S. soybeans that havent been shipped yet, USDA data show. Another 468,000 tons of American corn, 103,000 tons of pork and 704,000 running bales of cotton also have been sold but not yet shipped to China, according to the USDA. The shipments of the sales on the books have been slow-walked recently, said St. Louis-based independent analyst Ken Morrison. The risk of possible cancellations just got higher. There is similar anxiety for U.S. cotton orders. What weve sold to them, people are concerned they are not going to take that, said Jody Campiche, vice president of economics and policy analysis for the National Cotton Council of America. China announced higher tariffs on dozens of products, including soy-based biodiesel even though China has imported virtually none of the fuel from the U.S. this year. The increased levies are set to go into effect June 1. While the Chinese market is only a small, emerging one for U.S. biodiesel producers right now, the proposed tariffs add to the headwinds for our industry and U.S. soybean farmers, Kurt Kovarik, vice president of federal affairs at the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group, said yesterday [Macu time] in an emailed statement. In the energy sector, a tanker of liquefied natural gas which has also been targeted with tariffs is also en route. The Iberica Knutsen left Cheniere Energy Inc.s Sabine Pass terminal April 10 and is now headed for Taizhou, according to Genscape data. Kpler SAS, which tracks commodity shipments, said in an email that it interprets the vessels signal to show its actually heading to Taiwan, which would make more economic sense given the existing tariffs. Supertanker Alsace is also steaming for Chinas northeastern port of Qingdao, after loading up U.S. crude oil in the Caribbean. The ship received part of its West Texas Intermediate crude cargo while in the U.S. Virgin Islands and more off of Aruba. The tanker, which is carrying about 2 million barrels of oil, is set to reach its final destination May 21. Bloomberg This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway is appointing former Plan Commission chair Nan Fey to serve as interim director of the Planning, Community & Economic Development department until the city finds a replacement for recently retired Natalie Erdman. Fey will fill in for Erdman, who was appointed as director in July 2015 and retired after nearly four years in the role. Erdmans last day in office was April 26. Fey has served on numerous city committees, boards and commissions under three mayoral administrations. She served as the chair of the Plan Commission from 2005 to 2012 and is currently serving as the chair of the Madison Food Policy Council. However, Fey will cease serving on the committee when she starts the job May 20. Rhodes-Conway said in a statement she is pleased Fey accepted the challenge. Nans committee experience provides her with a great background for this job, Rhodes-Conway said in a statement. She knows the people around the table, from city staff to interested residents and city partners. Chapter 10 IT WAS LEAP DAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1952. A Friday. The fifth day of testimony at the Communism in the Detroit Area hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. There was only one witness all day, the committees clean-up hitter, as the press described her. Bereniece Baldwin entered Room 740 with a protective cordon of bodyguards, ready to recite all the names she had compiled during nine years inside the local Communist Party. The hearing convened at 10:45, and for the next two hours, until the committee took an hour-and-a-half recess for lunch, Baldwin and Frank Tavenner (a HUAC lawyer) engaged in a carefully scripted dialogue as he took her step-by-step through the chronology of her involvement with the party and the names of people she encountered along the way. Chairman (John Wood, a Georgia Democrat) and Representatives ( Charles Potter, a Michigan Republican, and Donald Jackson, a California Republican) were also there, but spoke little. Wood interrupted once to ask, How do you spell that? As it happens, his spelling question came at the mention of a communist club in Ann Arbor named in honor of Ralph Neafus, the Michigan graduate who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War. R-a-l-p-h N-e-a-f-u-s, Baldwin responded. Potter perked up when Baldwin cited a communist club in the Upper Peninsula, part of his congressional district. He asked her to name the leaders there. An hour into the session, Jackson sought to be recognized with a polite May I ask a question at that point, Mr. Chairman? When Wood acknowledged him, Jackson asked Baldwin, To what extent does a communist fear exposure, if at all? A Good American Family David Maraniss will discuss A Good American Family at the Central Library on Tuesday, May 28, at 7 p.m. Doors will open at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Mrs. Baldwin: Well, I am glad you added that [if at all]. They dont fear exposure as long as they are working in the open. But they would fear exposure underground. Mr. Jackson: If they had been up to that time concealed? Mrs. Baldwin: That is correct. Mr. Jackson: He is no longer useful, once exposed? Mrs. Baldwin: That is correct. Potter joined the conversation to sum up: So by that statement, Mrs. Baldwin, we will say in Detroit there are many persons who have never been identified as members of the party, but once the identity has been made, the Communist Party has lost a useful worker for them; is that true? Mrs. Baldwin: That is too true. By 12:45, when Chairman Wood called for a lunch recess, Baldwin had cited seventy Communist Party clubs in Michigan and named eighty people. During the break, she strolled over to the press table and pulled up a chair. You know you are sitting in Billy Allans chair, said Kenneth McCormick of the Free Press. Allan covered the hearings for the Daily Worker. Baldwin had known Billy and his wife, Stephanie, for years. Until recently they had thought of her as a friend and comrade. She had attended a baby shower for Stephanie. Yes, I know it is, Baldwin responded. Where is Billy? Allan was not at the press table that day, perhaps because he knew that Baldwin would name him. Her Where is Billy? is telling on a few levels. It reveals Baldwins familiarity with many of the people on whom she was informing. It makes apparent the contradictions inherent in a job whose purpose was to deceive and then expose supposed friends. And it shows the comfort level she had reached in undertaking this difficult mission. What motivated her to do this? Most likely it was not one thing but a combination of factors. This was a job, to be sure. The FBI had been paying her for her work. And it seems from her testimony that she found some thrills in the cloak-and-dagger life. Finally, there was the patriotic impulse. People will ask why my mother went into this dangerous work, said her daughter. I can only answer that she was one hundred percent American, through and through. Courtroom observers were struck by how tiny Baldwin was, barely five feet tall. She wore no makeup, and her face was pale, with deep, dark hollows around her eyes. E. A. Batchelor Jr., covering the hearings for the Detroit Times, was particularly taken by those eyes. They are dark and flashing and they meet one squarely, he wrote. They bored right into chief counsel Frank Tavenner as Mrs. Baldwin unfolded her amazing evidence. Her eyes recalled the statement of a neighbor woman when Mrs. Baldwins role was first revealed. The neighbor had said, You would think she was just a run of the [mill] person until you took a second look at her eyes. They seemed to go right through you. With her penetrating eyes and confident manner, Batchelor added, Mrs. Baldwin cast something of a spell over the courtroom. THE DETROIT TIMES was an evening newspaper. Early editions hit the newsstands in midafternoon and late city editions were delivered by paperboys in time to be read before supper. Evening papers were on the decline by the early 1950s, with the rise of television, but they still had some advantages, one being that they could publish stories on the same day as the events they were covering instead of the next morning. With tight deadlines, reporters in the field often dictated rough drafts or scribbles from their notebooks back to the newsroom, where rewrite menin that era they were almost always menturned them into polished stories. One of the top rewrite men on the copydesk at the Times was Elliott Maraniss, who was at work on the day Bereniece Baldwin testified in Room 740. At 1:20 that afternoon, during the lunch recess of the hearings, W. Jackson Jones, a HUAC investigator, walked into the Times newsroom in the Times Square Building at 1370 Cass Avenue with a subpoena that had been signed earlier in the day by Chairman Wood. Jones said he was looking for Maraniss. I presume that Jones conferred with the editors, explaining the purpose of his visit. I can only presume because all the journalists are dead, there are no records aside from the subpoena, and my father never talked about it. The only detail documented is the result: as soon as the subpoena was served, my father was fired. He told my brother later that his boss on the copydesk did not want to fire him, but the brass insisted. I came across the original subpoena in Series 3, Box 32, of the HUAC files at the National Archives, the same folder where I first saw the imperfect S in my fathers unread statement to the committee. Holding the subpoena in my hands had a similar effect. It put me in the moment and made me sensewith remorse for my previous obliviousness the fear and anguish my father might have felt at that difficult time. The language of the subpoena was archaic and intimidating. He was ordered to appear at the Federal Building at 10:00 a.m. on March 12. Then and there to testify touching matters of inquiry committed to said Committee; and he is not to depart without leave of said Committee. Jones, the server, was instructed, Herein fail not, and make return of this summons. ABOUT A HALF hour into the afternoon testimony, the reason for the subpoena became public. Tavenner was asking Baldwin about certain names in a section of the local party that included members of the intelligentsia who had not been exposed. Mr. Tavenner: Are you acquainted with a person by the name of Eliot Marioniss? Based on the official transcript, Tavenner must have used a visual aid in his presentation, because Baldwin told him the name was spelled wrong. Mr. Tavenner: Is that an improper spelling? Mrs. Baldwin: Yes. Mr. Tavenner: What is the proper spelling? Mrs. Baldwin: M-a-r-a-n-i-s-s. Mr. Tavenner: Were you acquainted with him? Mrs. Baldwin: I was. Mr. Tavenner: Will you state the circumstances? Mrs. Baldwin: I was very well acquainted with him when the Michigan Herald, a publication of the Communist Party, printed in Detroit, began their subscription drive the latter part of 1946. I was assigned as secretary of that paper. The building that we occupied was at 1310 Broadway. Elliott Maraniss, I understand, worked for the Times paper. Mr. Tavenner: What do you mean the Times paper? Mrs. Baldwin: The Detroit Times. And he did not wish his identity to be known. He gave me and others in there strict orders not to call him by his name, either given or last, but to use the name Ace. Baldwin said my father was active at the Herald from the time it was launched until it was dissolved and folded into the Michigan Worker. She said she saw him there as late as April or May 1950. Then the counsel brought up my mother, but used a name I had never heard. Mr. Tavenner: Did you become acquainted with Mary Morrison? Mrs. Baldwin: Mary Morrison MaranissMary Morrison is Elliott Maraniss wife. Prior to her marriage she was an officer of the YCL. That would be approximately 1944, 1945. They had an office on Broadway near Grand Circus Park. I made it my business to go there. I wanted to make a direct connection between the YCL and the CP. Mr. Tavenner: By YCL you are referring to the Young Communist League? Mrs. Baldwin: I am. At that time, Bridget Polson and Mary Morrison were in charge of the office. I purchased a YCL bond from them and upon questioning and inquiries they denied any connection with the Communist Party. However, within a short period, when I was working in the district office, Bridget Polson put in an appearance and then embarrassedly tried to explain her situation. She shortly thereafter made a trip to Europe, to England, and has not returned to my knowledge. Morrison was not my mothers middle name, nor her maiden name. It could have been an alias, since my father wanted to keep a low profile and have people refer to him only as Ace. Why Baldwin thought my mother was single until 1944 or 1945 I have no idea. My parents met at the University of Michigan in January 1939, and by Christmas of that year they were married. Baldwin continued naming names, dates, and places for another hour, and near the end, before the committee finished its work for the day and wrapped up the week, not to start up again until March 10, the congressmen bathed their star witness in praise, one by one. Representative Potter said that men in combat received decorations for gallant service, and he could think of no person more worthy of a decoration for gallantry than you, Mrs. Baldwin. Representative Jackson noted that in joining the Communist Party as an informant, she had been shut off from friends and associates for years. The American people have no way of expressing directly to you their thanks, he said. You will receive abuse and vilification from those who are part and parcel of the international conspiracy. I should like to say, as one representative of the American people, that I feel you have rendered a tremendous service to human freedom and to our country. Chairman Wood thanked her for her contribution to the cause of democratic government everywhere throughout the world. He also thanked the state police, the federal judges, the Detroit Police Department, the Detroit Loyalty Board, and all Detroit citizens who have evidenced such widespread interest in the work of the committee, and who have contributed so warmly and generously to the pleasure of our stay here. By the time Wood gaveled the days proceedings to an end at 4:30, my father had straggled back to the family, which had gathered at our aunts house on Pingree Street. Well, I got fired, he announced. Chapter 24 In the 34 years of my life, in war and peace, I have been a loyal, law-abiding citizen of the United States. One week after this nation was attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941, I enlisted as a private in the Army of the United States and served for more than four years, climaxed by the campaign in Okinawa. I was honorably discharged in January 1946, with the rank of captain. Upon my discharge I returned to my job as a newspaperman with the Detroit Times. I am a homeowner, taxpayer, and parent, father of two boys and a girl. I was taught as a child and in school that the highest responsibility of citizenship is to defend the principles of the U.S. Constitution and to do my part in securing for the American people the blessings of peace, economic well-being, and freedom. I have tried to do just that to the very best of my ability. And for doing just thatand nothing moreI have been summarily discharged from my job. I have been blacklisted in the newspaper business after 12 years in which my competency and objectivity have never once been questioned. I must sell my home, uproot my family and upset the tranquility and security of my three small children in the happy, formative years of their childhood. But I would rather have my children miss a meal or two now than have them grow up in the gruesome, fear-ridden future for America projected by the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I dont like to talk about these personal things. But my Americanism has been questioned and to properly measure a mans Americanism you must know the whole pattern of a life. I feel that nobody has the right to question my Americanismleast of all a committee which itself has been called subversive, un-American and anti-labor by the (Congress of Industrial Organizations), of which I am a member, by President Roosevelt and by responsible organizations representing many millions of Americans. I view this committees attempt to muzzle me and drive me off my job as a direct attack on freedom of the press and the right of newspapermen to participate freely in the political life of the country without fear of reprisal. The U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights are not simply musty documents in a library. They have meaning only if they are used. 'He rarely talked about it' When I joined the staff at The Capital Times back in June of 1962, I was assigned to a desk directly across from Elliott Maraniss. To betray and subvert the Bill of Rights is the most un-American act any man or committee can do: for that document was brought into being and maintained throughout our history by men who gave their lives and their blood. Every newspaperman knows that history is not a printed page. It is the passion and striving, the struggling and endurance of men and women. These qualities that went into the making of our nation can be discarded only at great peril to ourselves and our children. From the time of Peter Zenger, the colonial printer who defied the British crowns effort to impose censorship in the American colonies, right down to the present, newspapermen have zealously defended the freedom of the press. For the First Amendment is not only a guarantee of free speech and a free press: it is also an indispensable part of self-government. Thats what makes this committee so dangerous. Ostensibly designed to protect the government against overthrow by force and violence, it proceeds by force, terror and threats to overthrow the rights of the American people. A witness has no rights whatever. He is denied the elementary due processes of law. He has no opportunity to confront his accuser, to cross examine witnesses, to call witnesses in his own behalf or even to make a statement. The committee is so poisoned with bigotry and malice that it is hard indeed to believe that it is indeed a committee of the Congress of the United States. It more resembles a session of the Spanish Inquisition or the witch-hunting trials in Salem in the late Seventeenth Century. If anyone believes this comparison far-fetched, read these words of Cotton Mather instructing the judges in the technique of extracting confessions from suspected witches: Now first a credible confession of the guilty wretches is one of the most hopeful ways at coming at them. I am far from urging the un-English method of torture . . . but whatever hath a tendency to put the witches into confusion is likely to bring them into confession. Here cross and swift questions have their use! Under this technique, as Supreme Court Justice Black has observed, many confessed; some were burned; all were innocent. It was precisely to combat this technique, to rule it out forever from American life, that the Fifth Amendment was written into our Bill of Rights. This committee reflects no credit on American institutions or ideas. Its attempt to enforce conformity of political or economic thought is a long step toward dictatorship that holds the greatest danger to the entire American people. In this country we have never acquiesced in the proposition that persons could be punished for their beliefs. Back in Jeffersons time, when the Alien and Sedition laws were passed, countless newspapermen and editors were indicted, and many sent to jail for their fight together with Jefferson to restore the Bill of Rights. In their number Matthew Lyon, John C. Ogden, David Brown, William Duane, James Thomas Callendar, Jedediah Peck, Charles Holt and Thomas Adams. These men never stopped fighting. They forced the repeal of the repressive legislation and set the nation on the high road of its future development. I am supremely confident that the same spirit that motivated those men in the brave days of our past still lives in the American people. I am confident that the people of Detroit will reject this committees effort to subvert the U.S. Constitution. I am confident that the American people will not allow our traditions and freedom to be transformed in the image of fascism nor allow our cities and millions of our people to be destroyed in the hellish fires of atomic war. There are a lot of weighty issues on the line for Wednesdays Wisconsin Supreme Court hearings on lame-duck legislation: Medicaid work requirements, early voting restrictions, whether legislative leaders can convene a legislative session to constrain the power of a newly elected governor. But one law passed during that hastily convened session last fall that is not getting a lot of attention threatens to tie the states regulatory processes up in red tape. What the heck are "guidance documents"? When Republican lawmakers convened in December to restrict the powers of the Democratic governor and attorney general, they voted to require state agencies to review their entire library of guidance documents, which tell regulated businesses how to comply with state agency rules. According to a court brief filed earlier this month, there are at least 200,000 documents that can be defined as guidance documents. All of them would have to have public hearings and be subjected to other administrative standards or be rescinded. The Beloit Daily News reminds politicians that it's the Constitution, not the party that needs to be protected in the investigations that Congress is trying to launch on the Trump administration. Trouble is, there are few principles that politicians follow these days and that needs to be changed. Political Environment blogger James Rowen takes note of all the flooding occurring around the U.S. in recent weeks and wonders if Wisconsin is any better prepared than it was last year. He blames much of the problems on a refusal to admit that climate change is causing most of the problems. In a Right Wisconsin posting, M.D. Kittle of the MacIver Institute wonders if a new handbook produced by the Department of Health Services FoodShare program raises a number of red flags and may be opening the door to fraud because of new wording defining residency. On May 15, the state Supreme Court will hear arguments concerning the legality of the December 2018 extraordinary session. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit. In recent weeks, there have been some misconceptions perpetuated by those who oppose the merits of our case. Here are some facts of the lawsuit: First, the Wisconsin Constitution does not authorize the Legislature to call itself into an extraordinary session. In fact, the Wisconsin Constitution lays out restrictions on the Legislature, including limiting its convening power. This is to ensure legislators act responsibly and honorably when creating laws. The process is also to provide accountability, so the public is given appropriate notice about legislative activity. This is so citizens may engage with the process through review, discussion, and giving input. This is how democracy is practiced. The Legislature did not follow the law in December 2018 when it convened itself through an internal legislative rule. The Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee have made this pettiness their watchword. They have scrapped not just proposals by Evers to accept increased federal funding but also modest plans to hike taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, these decisions by the finance committee will short the governors budget by $1.4 billion over the next two years. Thats roughly the amount that Evers has proposed to spend to shore up schools that desperately need the money especially rural schools. This brings us to Novak and the other rural legislators. They ran re-election campaigns last year in which they acknowledged the need for more support for rural schools. They were right about the need for more education funding and about the mood of the electorate. The emphasis that candidates such as Novak placed on support for public education made it possible for them to win tough races in districts where Democrats were surging. As Novak secured re-election by a handful of votes last fall, Evers swept southwest Wisconsin. The Democrat carried every county in the region except Lafayette, and there he came within 200 votes of winning. Dear Editor: Nathan Conrad criticizes environmentalists for highlighting catastrophic mining accidents that have occurred in other countries (Mining can bring Wisconsins economy, environment together, Capital Times, May 7, 2019). Significantly, Conrad never mentions the recent tailings dam disaster in Brazil that killed over 200 people and contaminated local water supplies. Conrad says that such reporting omits the simple fact that the permitting and regulatory process in lands abroad are not nearly as stringent as those in the United States. This statement is wrong on both counts. The tailings dam failure in Brazil occurred in a technologically advanced country with mining companies that were required to use state-of-the-art technology to construct and maintain tailings dams. The leading expert on tailings dam failures is Dr. David Chambers, director of the Center for Science in Public Participation in Bozeman, Montana. His research demonstrates that these dam failures are not limited to countries with weak regulation. Thirty-nine percent of the tailings dam failures worldwide occur in the United States, significantly more than in any other country, according to Chambers. He discovered that Cash had spiritual visions that spring from her American Indian roots - visions that helped the sheriff piece together crimes. And now in the second book of the series, "Girl Gone Missing," Cash is enrolled at Moorhead State. But she finds herself bored by too-simple academics and the mundane lives of her fellow students. That is, until girls start going missing. First it's the tall blonde in one of Cash's classes. Then a farm girl from down the way. Her visions of these girls calling for her help lead in a serendipitous way to Cash's first trip out of the valley and to the Twin Cities, where she gets entangled in a plot too strange and dark to fathom. Sinister things are happening at the hands of people in authority, and Cash soon finds herself trapped with other girls and fighting for her life. Rendon, an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation who lives in Minneapolis, has created a forceful vehicle in Cash's character as a reminder of a painful history. "From 1819 to 1934," she writes in her author's note, "Native children were systematically removed from families and put into boarding schools. There they grew up like prisoners of war, punished for speaking their languages. ... 115 years of children not seeing a mom and dad raise children." RACINE An 18-year-old Racine woman allegedly cashed $2,903 in fraudulent checks, then posted a photo on Snapchat, where she was seen flashing several hundred dollars with the caption In one day. #THISaintTAXcash (This aint tax cash). The woman, Natalie Sabala of the 1600 block of St. Clair Street, faces four felony charges of uttering a forgery and felony fraud against a financial institution. Another woman Esmeralda Gonzalez, 21, who is reportedly Sabalas stepsister allegedly cashed another $2,181 in checks from the same bank, using the same method as Sabala. She faces three counts of uttering a forgery and felony fraud against a financial institution. According to a criminal complaint: This one, in my view, is very different. Like many beer geeks, I respect Dogfish Head immensely. Calagione has been a evangelist for beer for decades, both challenging common notions of what beer can be and proselytizing on the importance of brewers independence. I suspect hell do the same under the Boston Beer umbrella, and I dont think that message loses any of its potency just because hes not signing his own checks. In Boston Beer, Calagione joins craft beers original ambassador, Jim Koch. Boston Beers founder has been in national TV spots for years, talking in dad jeans and denim shirts about the craft and superior ingredients that go into Samuel Adams Boston Lager (which despite its struggles remains a prototypical Vienna lager). Theres no question the new Boston Beer is winning in charisma. Despite the success in ciders and flavored malt beverages, what has clearly been bothering Koch in recent years is where Boston Beer has not been winning: the Sam Adams line. Boston Lager just doesnt interest enough of todays drinkers, and Ive watched Sam Adams cast about in attempts to reinvent itself. None of these attempts increasingly wacky new seasonals, the Rebel IPA line, a New England IPA has hit home. A Madison man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison after being convicted for drug and gun possession crimes. James Turner, 32, was sentenced in federal court in Madison on Tuesday by US District Judge James Peterson. He pleaded guilty in March to charges of possessing drugs with the intent to distribute and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Turner was sentenced to two concurrent two-year prison terms, and he will also be under supervised release for three years after prison. The US Attorney's Office said in a news release that Turner was stopped for speeding and erratic driving by the State Patrol on Nov. 11, 2018 while he was driving in Dane County. Turner was arrested when he reached for a loaded revolver on the passenger seat. A search of the car turned up 27.5 grams of cocaine. 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. State Assembly Republicans on Wednesday passed a package of bills to restrict abortion, as well as one that supporters say would protect a fetus born alive after an attempted abortion. The Assembly voted 62-35 to pass the latter bill, which now heads to the state Senate. Gov. Tony Evers has signaled he would veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, while declining to say if he supports a ban on abortion six weeks into a pregnancy, signaled support for the rationale underlying such bans in remarks to reporters before Wednesdays session. Iowa lawmakers recently adopted a ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Do I believe that once theres a detectable heartbeat, its a baby? I do, Vos said. Vos comments come as lawmakers in Alabama sparked a national firestorm Tuesday by passing a near-total abortion ban, which the states Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed Wednesday. Supporters of that measure say it is meant to spark a review by the U.S. Supreme Court of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The Madison City Council on Tuesday approved a measure that would open a spot for a new member on the committee that has been reviewing city police policies, a seat the mayor has recommended be filled by a man one council member called anti-police. The Madison Police Department Policy and Procedure Review Ad Hoc Committee has been reviewing police policies and procedures for the past three years in the wake of the 2015 death of Tony Robinson, an unarmed, intoxicated and allegedly combative black teen who was fatally shot by a Madison police officer. The ad hoc committee was tasked with completing a comprehensive review of the Madison Police Department and finding ways to improve police-community relations, especially with regard to race. The committee is now working on its final report. The panel has shrunk over the past three years including after its former chairman, now-Ald. Christian Albouras, District 20, stopped coming to meetings because of his new political position and has had to cancel some meetings because not enough members were present to make a quorum. To help the committee finish its work effectively, the council voted to decrease its total number of members so it could more easily meet quorum. But the Legislature, which intervened in the case, argues the extraordinary session is lawful, in part because the Legislature is in continuous session and does not need outside permission to call an extraordinary session. The attorney for the Legislature, Misha Tseytlin who previously served as the states solicitor general, an office the lame-duck laws eliminated previously said that if courts ruled in favor of the challengers, it could call decades worth of other laws adopted in past extraordinary sessions into question, creating a rolling disaster. Such actions include establishing the constitutional terms of district attorneys and sheriffs and, as a result, criminal convictions they have won. They also include public funding for Milwaukees Fiserv Forum the Milwaukee Bucks home arena and the site hosting the Democratic National Convention in 2020 which was approved in an extraordinary session. The 2018 lame-duck laws, which received national attention and outcry from Democrats, limit Attorney General Josh Kauls ability to control the states participation in lawsuits, target Evers power to run the states economic-development agency and limit early voting hours. A person hiking on the Ice Age Trail Tuesday afternoon was bitten by a dog from a group of about 10 dogs on the trail. Animal services officials at Public Health Madison and Dane County said the biting incident happened at about 12:45 p.m. close to Frenchtown Road in the town of Montrose, near Belleville. The dog was described as medium-sized with longer hair, possibly a cattle dog or border collie, perky ears, mostly white in color with some spots and some gray around the head and neck. "The dog was with approximately 10 dogs appearing to be mostly of mixed breed, who were being walked by two women, in their 40s or 50s and possibly driving a maroon-colored minivan," the incident report said. Anyone with information about the dog biting incident is asked to call non-emergency dispatch, 255-2345, and ask for the animal services officer. If the dog isn't found, the victim might have to get rabies shots. 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. Don't let the president pile up more debt for roads OUR VIEW: Highways, bridges, clean water and broadband must be paid for with real money Despite a strong economy, Trump is adding $800 billion a year in debt to the nations $22 trillion tab that our children and grandchildren will be stuck with. Most Republicans say they favor a free-market economy, and Trump has eased some business regulations and taxes. But hes also escalating trade wars that will cost American consumers in higher prices for myriad products and lead to retaliation against Wisconsin businesses and farmers who sell overseas. Just as bad, Trump shows little interest in supporting democracy around the world. Instead, he has embraced dictators one of whom literally chopped an American-based journalist into pieces, and another who starves his own people and covets nuclear missiles. Trump is the Republican Partys problem, plain and simple and emphatically. BURLEY Thomas M. Rettew lay in a jail cell suffering the effects of a meth overdose for 95 minutes before guards checked on him, decided he was detoxing and left. Three hours later, he was dead. Rettew, a 38-year-old Rupert man was in a holding cell at the Mini-Cassia Criminal Justice Center for about four hours before his Jan. 17 death from acute methamphetamine toxicity, according to a Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office investigation. A redacted version of the 154-page report was released late Monday, more than a month after the Times-News filed a public records request. A Twin Falls County grand jury considered the case Feb. 13. Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Lori Stewart said no charges will be filed. Jail policy says detoxing inmates should be checked on every 15 minutes, but the report says detention center staff that day were also dealing with an inmate who attempted to kill himself. Cassia County Prosecutor Doug Abenroth, who is also Cassia Countys attorney, did not respond May 14 to a request from the Times-News for information on whether staff received any discipline or training after the incident. Cassia County Sheriff Jay Heward said the matter isnt resolved but declined to comment further because he was in a training. When he arrived Jan. 17, Rettew complained of not feeling well and during the next few hours, he had convulsions and vomiting. Detention staff was told he was detoxing from illegal drugs, according to the report. Officers were told to monitor him via video. Rettew was arrested earlier that day in Rupert by a Minidoka County Sheriffs detective on an outstanding warrant for a felony probation violation on a charge of possession of a controlled substance, The Twin Falls County report said. Arresting officers said they saw Rettew make suspicious movements before he stopped his vehicle, but he never told the officers hed ingested any substances. During the arrest, Rettew and two officers had a physical altercation after Rettew gave police a false name and failed to obey instructions, the report says. An officer tripped Rettew and he and the two officers fell to the ground. Because Rettew complained of leg pain after the incident, an emergency medical crew was called to the scene, but he refused treatment, the report said. A small baggie with 2.6 grams of crystal substance was found in his pants pocket. A 20-year-old male inmate who was in the holding cell with Rettew told authorities Rettew said he swallowed 2 grams of black tar heroin and 8 grams of methamphetamine and that hed put .2 grams of heroin in his rectum before stopping his car prior to his arrest. The holding cell inmate said Rettew became lethargic and mimicked lighting a meth pipe with a torch. He also tried to put his feet in the toilet and vomited. The inmate said he tried to monitor Rettew by squeezing his hand and talking to him, the report says. The man also put water on his own T-shirt and placed it on Rettews head to keep him cool. When Rettews hand went limp and he became unresponsive, the inmate pounded on the cell door for help. Staff came in and began CPR on Rettew. The other inmate was taken to another cell. Rettew was taken to Cassia Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:59 p.m. During an autopsy in Boise, a small plastic baggie was removed from Rettews stomach. Toxicology reports showed Rettew had amphetamine, which is a metabolite of methamphetamine, and methamphetamine in his blood after death. His blood also contained a nicotine metabolite and a narcotic antagonist used to counter the effects of opioid use. High doses of methamphetamine induce restlessness, confusion, hallucinations, convulsions and circulatory collapse. Love 2 Funny 9 Wow 5 Sad 15 Angry 38 1. Yes. The economy is strong and unemployment low. Thats a good basis for a solid year. 2. Yes. Health experts are getting a handle on COVID. 2022 should be a better year. 3. No. If any large-scale COV ID-related shutdowns take place, it will hit the nation hard. 4. No. Inflation is still too much of a wild card. It could really cause a drag on the economy. 5. Unsure. There are too many variables at play to predict with any degree of certainty. Vote View Results Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament The beautiful game of Rock, Paper, Scissors is a battle of wit and willpower. The ancient game of roshambo is a psychological war. Thirty-two local businesses will send their champion to compete in the First Federal Rock, Paper Scissors Tournament. The winner is awarded a cash prize to be donated to their pre-selected charity. There will be large screens at the event so no viewer misses out on the action. The Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at the Downtown Commons area. This event is open to the public. Alcohol and food vendors will be on location. Lights & Lasers show Southern Idaho Tourism will host its second annual Lights and Lasers at Shoshone Falls. The theme this year will be Magic Valley history, combining music, narration and lasers to create an exciting experience. The Lights & Lasers show is from 7 to 11 p.m. The laser show is scheduled for 10 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; the Saturday night show is already sold out. Tickets can be purchased at visitsouthidaho.com. Tickets are limited to 1,500 each night. General admission for Kids under 5 can watch for free, 12 and younger is $6, for adults tickets are $12. Tickets cover park entry, family activities, including a kids zone with face painting, train rides, balloon animals and the laser show itself. Check-in begins at 6:30 p.m. at the River Christian Fellowship Church each night before the event where a bus departs for Shoshone Falls. Family Karaoke Get your vocal cords warmed up for this fun family-friendly event. The Twin Falls Public Library is having a chance for anyone to show off their singing abilities. A personal favorite karaoke song is Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)." Family Karaoke starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Twin Falls Public Library. Call 208-733-2964 extension 200 for more information. All library programs are free and open to the public. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 TWIN FALLS The College of Southern Idaho is accepting registrations for Camp Masterpiece, its summer art camp, which will run from 9 to 11:30 a.m. June 17 to 22 or June 24 to 28 in the Shields Building on the CSI campus. This camp is for students going into grades one to eight. The cost $135. A Camp Masterpiece T-shirt is included. To register, call 208-732-6442 or go to csi.edu/communityed. Young artists will discover a world of inspiration and creativity through open-ended, age-appropriate art lessons in drawing, painting and sculpture. They will explore different media as they learn various art techniques. Visual and performing arts will be combined with play, games and snacks. The week will culminate in an art show and performance. Camp Masterpiece will feature a faculty of artists and art teachers from the Magic Valley. Camp director Karen Fothergill holds a masters degree in creative arts in learning and has taught art at Filer, Twin Falls and Gooding high schools. She has worked extensively teaching youth through Community Education, Kids Art in the Park and at the Twin Falls Creative Arts Center. Fothergill has been honored with the Governors Award in Art Education, the Twin Falls Mayors Award in Arts Education and is an Idaho State Art Teacher of the Year. Camp instructor Stacie Rambo is a longtime resident of Jerome. She is a wife, mother of four and a grandmother of two. Rambo has worked for the Jerome School District for 18 years and has been a part of various afterschool programs and camps. She has instructed many classes for young people through CSIs Community Educators Program over the past 10 years. Rambo enjoys sharing art and nature with children and finding ways to include art and creativity in education. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 HAZELTON A crash involving multiple vehicles on Interstate 84 on May 14 caused one fatality and multiple injuries. Idaho Fish and Game employee Douglas Megargle, 52, Jerome, died as a result of the six vehicle collision, according to an Idaho State Police statement. Idaho State Police responded to the crash at 2:47 p.m. near milepost 191 in Jerome County near Hazelton. The incident began when Keith G. Witt, 54, Brigham City, Utah; Jake D. Sluder, 24, Twin Falls; Kyle E. Hoskins, 31, Jerome, and Megargle slowed to a stop due to limited visibility caused by heavy winds and rain, along with a sudden dust storm covering the westbound lanes of the interstate. Filimon B. Miranda, 58, Twin Falls, failed to stop the 2015 Mack truck he was driving and hit the rear of Megargles vehicle. After being struck, Megargles vehicle spun out of control, hitting the rear of Hoskins truck. Mirandas truck continued moving west, also colliding with Hoskins vehicle, which was pushed off the right shoulder of the interstate and through a fence. Mirandas truck also struck Sluders vehicle, which then struck the rear of Witts truck. Wilma L. Benefiel, 72, Mesa, Arizona, also failed to stop her 2018 Toyota Sequoia, striking the rear of Megargles vehicle. Susan H. Leavitt, 74, also of Mesa, was a passenger in Benefiels vehicle. Megargle was pronounced dead at the scene, ISP said. His passenger, Sally F. Rose, 60, Jerome, was taken by ambulance to St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, Twin Falls, then later airlifted to Portneuf Medical Center, Pocatello, where she is in critical condition, according to Fish and Game. Megargle was the Magic Valley Regional Fisheries manager and a full-time Fish and Game employee for 22 years. Rose is the offices services supervisor for the Magic Valley Region and an 18-year Fish and Game employee. Both were on duty when the crash happened. As friends and colleagues, our thoughts and prayers are with Sally, and with Dougs family, during this difficult time, Fish and Game Director Ed Schriever said in a Wednesday morning statement. Doug was a respected fishery professional who I have personally worked with for many years, and I am heartbroken about this tragedy. Sally is a leader among our administrative support staff, and we will do everything we can to support her recovery. In 120 years, Megargle is the 11th Fish and Game employee lost in the line of duty and the second to lose his life in a car accident, the department said. The first was in 1959. Hoskins was driven by private vehicle to St. Lukes Magic Valley, ISP said. An ambulance took Miranda to St. Lukes Magic Valley. The westbound lanes of Interstate 84 reopened at 7:47 p.m. The occupants of the vehicles were wearing seatbelts, according to the ISP statement. The Jerome County Sheriffs Office, Jerome County Rural Fire Department, Magic Valley Paramedics and Idaho Transportation Department assisted with the incident and investigation. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 2 Sad 52 Angry 3 JEROME When Jerome High School students were asked to share why they thought French teacher Stacy Sobotka was a superhero, one student wrote, Mrs. Sobotka is one of the best, most loving human beings you could possibly meet. Shes become a mother figure to her students. Her superpowers will always be her kindness and her mentorship. That is just one out of dozens of nominations that poured in for Sobotka as part of a nationwide competition called the EF Superhero League, created by educational travel company EF Educational Tours to recognize the incredible impact teachers make on students every day. My goal as a teacher is to truly help students feel valued, loved and inspired to be the best they can be today and in their future, Sobotka said in a statement. I try to help them focus on the positives in their lives and make the world a better place with their own superpowers. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, and to help celebrate some of the worlds greatest unsung heroes, EF Educational Tours asked students nationwide to nominate their favorite teacher for the league. Out of thousands of nominations from across the country, five teachers were selected and inducted into the league including Sobotka. Each teacher also received a $1,000 donation to their school and a chance to travel to Berlin this summer on a professional learning tour. Should they win the grand prize, the $1,000 donation would be increased to $5,000 for their school. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Last week, I received a comment about Democratic obstructionism concerning the border crisis. Others are saying that Republicans, urged by Trump are the obstructionists in these issues. Both sides consider themselves the truth tellers in this situation. Neither side is helping the American public reach any kind of consensus on what a good collaboration of efforts would be. Because there are budget limitations, a compromise is needed. What do voters hear? They are fed various versions of party line. What is party line? It is a short description of a public policy issue which has (often) been focus group or survey tested to appeal to a political interest either positively or negatively. The appeal is either to our side or against the other side. The last three decades have increasingly pushed popular thinking into Us and Them categories labeled Conservative/Republican or Liberal/Democrat. It wouldnt be discouraging to me if there werent mindless negative adjectives associated with all four of those words. Those adjectives are meant to wound, and they do. Somehow, large groups of Us have decided that large groups of Them hate Us. Not only that, They are worthy of the disregard we have for Them. Because the words Republican and Democrat have so many adjectives associated with them, even unbiased news reporting can seem to be against Us if Them is associated with the news item. The truth is, all public policy has a collection of interests around it, and the real or perceived power of those interests in blocking legislation is what should be considered. When it comes to the complex question of what we should do about the large collection of migrants or asylum seekers at the border, I will attempt to name names or, if you will, interests. 1. People who want to enter the US because: a. They want to have a more prosperous life. b. They want to be safe from gangs who are trying to kill them. c. They have a family connection residing in the United States but have been unable to get permission to join them. 2. Companies and their employees who believe they would have worked building a border wall (and maintaining it). 3. Companies who have employees who work on the other side of the border and depend on daily passage. 4. Ranchers who must handle trespassers crossing the border illegally. 5. An Indian tribe with land on both sides of the Rio Grande. 6. Animals who migrate across the river who would be stopped by a wall. 7. People who are forced or volunteer to care for migrants. 8. Local and state governments who must collect revenue to pay for the crisis. 9. People whose religious beliefs strongly hold to a spirit of hospitality. 10. People who make money smuggling people across the border. 11. Mexico, who has population and crime problems even without migrants. 12. American employers who want more labor. 13. Border and Customs agents who need more backup. There are probably more, but I want to end with 14. Political interests who are collecting money by keeping up the fight for... The American public is left with: The Wall, Hoards of criminals, humanitarian crisis, children torn from their families. All of this gets our attention but only appeals to our emotion. Instead of spending any time on thinking of solutions, we the electorate are urged to blame others and vote for Us. Only Us offers only slogans with emotional adjectives. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, says Shakespeare. I would elaborate not in Their party, but in our failure to insist on open, fact-based debate. We must look at the way we practice politics in Idaho as well as in the United States and root out the unnecessary posturing, the unnecessary campaigning, the unnecessary commentary by people whose only interest is getting a paycheck for having opinions. We should give our time spent with all media to facts and considered debate we must look for problem solvers, not finger pointers. Linda Brugger retired from the Air Force and is a former chairwoman of the Twin Falls County Democrats. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 (HealthDay)Pregnancy is often a time of heightened worry. But researchers warn that taking anti-anxiety drugs like Valium and Xanax may increase the risk of miscarriage. Called benzodiazepines, these powerful drugs have long been prescribed to treat a variety of mood disorders. However, a new Canadian study finds that when taken in early pregnancy, they raise the risk for a miscarriage in the first trimester by 11%. Medication use in pregnancy is a tricky business, experts say. "In medications in pregnancy, physicians have to decide, are the risks higher than the benefits, because there isn't any risk zero," said lead researcher Anick Berard. She's a professor at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine in Montreal. In this case, doctors must balance the severity of the woman's mood problem against possible harm to the developing fetus, she said. For the study, Berard and her colleagues collected data on about 442,000 pregnant Canadians from 1998 through 2015. The study found that 6% of pregnancies ended in a miscarriage. Among those who miscarried, slightly more than 1% were taking a benzodiazepine for the first time in early pregnancy. Berard said that it didn't matter which benzodiazepine a woman took, as all were linked with an increased risk for miscarriage. Besides Valium (diazepam) and Xanax (alprazolam), this class of drugs includes Ativan (lorazepam) and Klonopin (clonazepam). Berard cautioned, however, that this study can't prove that tranquilizers cause miscarriages, only that an association exists. And the researchers were unable to account for smoking and alcohol use, which may also increase risk for miscarriage. Exactly how these drugs are linked with a failed pregnancy isn't known. But animal studies have shown that benzodiazepines affect fetal development and raise miscarriage odds, Berard said. And she stressed that although benzodiazepines may negatively affect pregnancy, so can anxiety and insomnia. Women should not stop taking their benzodiazepines, but should have a discussion with their doctor about the risks and benefits of these drugs, Berard said. "Anxiety and insomnia are serious mental health issues, and they are relatively common in pregnancy," said Catherine Monk, a professor of medical psychology in obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University. "Anxiety can affect up to 15% of pregnant women, almost two times the rate of gestational diabetes," said Monk, who wasn't involved in the study. But far too often, she said, primary care doctors or obstetricians prescribe benzodiazepines rather than refer expectant mothers to a mental health professional for evaluation and non-drug treatment. Psychotherapists have a variety of tools, Monk said. They can encourage good sleep habits, help set up a "worry book," and advise meditation. Using what's called cognitive behavioral therapy, they also can teach patients to see worries from different perspectives and to use relaxation techniques, she said. "Typically, some of these different techniques provide immense relief from anxiety and insomnia," Monk noted. Dr. Rahul Gupta, chief medical and health officer at the March of Dimes, said benzodiazepines also increase the risk of preterm birth and low birth weight infants. "This study reinforces the fact that these drugs have a risk potential that is significant and needs to be discussed with the patient," he said. Patients should be offered "non-pharmacological therapies as well as other pharmacological options if the non-pharmacological options do not work," he added. The report was published online May 15 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Explore further Risk of miscarriage linked strongly to mother's age and pregnancy history More information: The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on Journal information: JAMA Psychiatry The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on benzodiazepines Copyright 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Harmless doses of chemicals can form mixtures inside our bodies and the health risks of this are not yet fully understood. Credit: Flickr/CGP Grey, licensed under CC BY 2.0 Each of us harbours hundreds of man-made chemicals inside our bodies because we are exposed to them in our daily lives. While individual chemicals may not be of immediate concern to public health, scientists now worry that certain mixtures of them may pose previously underestimated risks to health. This year, the European Union heavily restricted four types of phthalates in consumer products because of their possible health effects. Phthalates are plasticisers, ubiquitous chemicals that soften plastics in many consumer products. They are present in food wrappings, clothes, packaging, car parts, cosmetics and fragrances. Over time, these plasticisers end up in the air, soil, water, food and household dust. They can also end up in our bodies. This is worrying because they are implicated in reproductive abnormalities in mammals. Studies of people have linked plasticisers to sperm damage, lower fertility, early puberty in girls and thyroid effects. The phthalates will be now legally be restricted to 0.1% in weight in articles used by consumers or in outdoor areas. But scientists are increasingly concerned not just about single chemicals, which are found in people's bodies at levels that are usually not toxic, but about what happens to toxicity when these chemicals mix. "We are exposed to thousands of chemicals at the same time, often in low doses, but in some cases they can interact and potentiate each other's effects," said Dr. Joelle Ruegg, a molecular toxicologist at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Of particular concern are endocrine disruptors, which are man-made chemicals that interfere with our hormone system. Examples include phthalates and bisphenol A from plastics, but also pesticides. They have subtle influences, even in miniscule amounts, while not being lethal to cells or animals in lab tests at high doses as is normal with a toxic substance. This makes them hard to study. Mixtures When scientists test one such chemical in the lab they may find no harmful impacts. But adding this chemical to others creates combinations that in aggregate can cause harm. Ignoring mixtures can lead us to miss important health effects. "If we don't take into account the many chemicals out there that have a similar effect on the hormone system, then we are underestimating risk," Dr. Ruegg said. She helped lead a European study called EDC-MixRisk that implicated chemical mixtures in harming children's health and development. This study measured the exposure levels of 41 chemicals in the blood and urine of more than 2,000 pregnant women in Sweden. When the chemicals were tested one by one in cells and in animals, there were few concerning effects. However, when mixtures of eight to 15 compounds were tested on animals at the levels and mixtures found in women, the sexual development and metabolism of animals such as zebrafish or mice being tested were affected. "We saw effects in many of our models at levels comparable to what we could measure in the pregnant women," said Dr. Ruegg. A typical mixture might contain bisphenol A, phthalates and pesticides. These mixtures could be used as a short-cut to test the risks posed by single compounds in a typical chemical mix. Based on levels in the pregnant women, 11% of the children were at risk of having problems with sexual development due to mixtures. This result would have been around 1% if the assessment only looked at single chemicals, one at a time. Regulated Traditionally, chemicals are regulated as single compounds, often under separate laws or by different regulators, which does not reflect how we encounter them. "These chemicals are regulated under different legislation, but the organism does not care if it is a pesticide or plasticiser, or if it is in food or drink. It is going to be important to address mixtures, together," Dr. Ruegg said. Dr. Marike Kolossa-Gehring, a biologist and toxicologist at the German Environment Agency in Berlin, agrees. "We find from our data that every person living in Europe has 200 to 300 chemicals (detectable in their blood or urine) and so we need to investigate the effect of mixtures," she said. Dr. Kolossa-Gehring coordinates a project called HBM4EU that measures man-made chemicals in people and investigates possible health implications. The project has drawn up a list of 18 priority substances, including chemical mixtures, for its scientists to study in order to give better information to policymakers. "Our established systems focus on single substances, but we know from experiments (in the toxicological literature) that while one chemical might not exert any effect, if we combine ten such chemicals we do see an effect," she said. Mixtures of endocrine disrupting chemicals, for example, can impact the sexual and neurological development of foetuses, reduce the immune system's response after vaccination and in adults, can be a factor for metabolic syndrome, which includes obesity, hypertension and diabetes, according to Dr. Kolossa-Gehring. The aim is to help regulators ensure that European consumers are not exposed to harmful chemicals and that they can get the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. Good chemical policy requires actions on an EU-wide scale, says Dr. Kolossa-Gehring, informed by good science. A total of 117 scientific groups and agencies across 28 countries are collaborating on this project. Safe The project will generate health-based guidance values about the levels of chemicals deemed safe when found in the human body. These levels may become more accurate once the science of mixtures is taken into account, says Dr. Kolossa-Gehring. She points to glyphosate, the controversial agrochemical, whose use the EU renewed for five more years in 2017. The chemical properties of this weed killer are known, but they seem to be different from the those we see once it is in the mixture in which it is sprayed, says Dr. Kolossa-Gehring. "These differences need to be investigated to protect people in Europe better." Dr. Kolossa-Gehring says that legislation in Europe, called REACH, puts the responsibility of product safety on industry, but governmental players must check that the control system is working well enough to protect consumers. "With the mixture issue, it seems that we are systemically underestimating the impact of chemical exposure (in the first place)," she said. Consumption of fast foods and convenience foods or the high use of cosmetics or body care products is related to significantly greater internal exposure to chemicals, Dr. Kolossa-Gehring says. Chemicals may enter food during food processing or may come from material that comes into contact with the food. Dr. Kolossa-Gehring says the project will also provide information via fact sheets for consumers to learn how they can lower their own burden of chemicals and mixtures. "People need to be aware of which behaviours are related to high exposure to chemicals," she said. Explore further Health risks associated with mixtures of man-made chemicals are underestimated Strict policies traditionally embraced by Asian nations to discourage illicit drug use are beginning to change, with a few nations adopting alternative approaches while other nations are taking an even harder line against drugs, according to a new RAND Corporation report. Thailand is on the forefront of Southeast Asian nations that are reconsidering longstanding policies, moving to adopt greater harm reduction, approving the use of medical cannabis and easing restrictions on the traditional use of the substance kratom. Meanwhile, some other nationsmost visibly represented by the Philippinesare adopting even harsher policies on illicit drugs, including violent repression of drug distribution and use. "Asian nations have long espoused the goal of a drug-free society, imposing harsh criminal penalties and even the death penalty on those involved with illicit drugs," said Bryce Pardo, lead author of the report and a policy analyst at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "So it is surprising to see some Asian nations begin to go in a different direction and consider more-progressive policies." The RAND report also dissects China's role as a focal point in the global supply of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is responsible for a growing number of fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. The report outlines the rapid rise of the drug industry in China, where there are now more than 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of chemical companies. While the industry is a leading source of many legitimate chemicals and pharmaceutical ingredients, its growth has made it easier for some companies to avoid regulations. China's central government has promised to crack down on fentanyl manufacturers, but enforcement of such policies is typically done at the provincial level, where there is little infrastructure in place to regulate the drug and chemical industries. "China's leaders recognize that they have a problem and appear committed to seeking solutions," Pardo said. "But it is unlikely that they can contain the illicit production and distribution of fentanyl in the short term because enforcement mechanisms are lacking. Producers are quick to adapt, impeding Chinese law enforcement's ability to stem the flow to global markets." Thailand's shift from harsh drug policies toward evidence-based treatment and reduced punishment appears to be motivated by the heavy burden previous policies have had on its prison system and an alarming increase in disease transmission related to needle-sharing. In 2016, about 70 percent of Thailand's 320,000 prisoners were incarcerated for drug offences, including many for consumption-related violations. The nation has begun to move toward voluntary outpatient treatment and has experimented with needle-exchange programs to address disease transmission. The report notes that the illicit production and use of opioids and amphetamine-type substances are the greatest concern across Asia. There also are reports of rising trafficking and use of new psychoactive substances and ketamine. But one challenge facing Asian nations is a shortage of reliable information about drug use, which is key to assessing the size of the problem and judging the influence of policies. "As in many countries, there is tremendous imprecision in the data available on the prevalence of drug use in Asia and the amount of money spent on these substances," said Beau Kilmer, a co-author of the report and co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. "Policy shifts are occurring and these data gaps will make it difficult to evaluate the consequences of these changes in the near and longer term." Explore further China to regulate all fentanyl drugs as controlled substance More information: "Contemporary Asian Drug Policy: Insights and Opportunities for Change," "Contemporary Asian Drug Policy: Insights and Opportunities for Change," www.rand.org/ High cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease, but not all forms of it are the same. An underdiagnosed genetic condition called familial hypercholesterolemia can cause dangerously high levels of cholesterol at an early age. While scientists have determined FH is caused by genetic mutations that affect the body's ability to remove LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, they haven't pinned down all the genes involved for nearly 1 in 3 people who have FH. But that may be beginning to change. Scientists presented preliminary research at the American Heart Association's Vascular Discovery conference in Boston this week showing more clues to the genetic roots of FH. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute researchers screened 19,114 genes and identified transgelin (TAGLN) as one of the genes of interest. Previous studies have found this gene could be associated in LDL metabolism. When researchers disabled the TAGLN gene in cells, some cells tried to compensate. "The cell tries to make more cholesterol because cholesterol is vital for the cell to survive," said Diego Lucero, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the NHLBI. "Understanding this is important because it might have impacts on the magnitude of the clinical presentation of the disease." People with FH are exposed to chronically high levels of LDL from an early age, and their risk for premature heart disease is 20 times greater than the general population, according to the FH Foundation. Over time, the condition can lead to atherosclerosis b the buildup of plaque and narrowing of artery walls. As a result, signs of heart disease can show up decades earlier in people with FH compared to the general population. The condition affects approximately 1 in 250 U.S. adults. Yet, it remains largely underdiagnosed and undertreated. "Less than 10 percent of those who have (FH) have actually been diagnosed, which leads to a lot of premature morbidity and mortality," said Dr. Samuel Gidding, chief medical officer for the FH Foundation. Someone who carries the altered gene has a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. Yet, the challenge is diagnosing FH. Health care providers may not understand the difference between general high cholesterol and FH and may not screen high-risk people, said Gidding, who was not involved in the new study. FH can be diagnosed with a simple blood test and a reported family history of cardiovascular disease. Doctors look for LDL levels over 190 in adults and over 160 in children, and onset of heart disease before age 60 in men and before 50 in women. Genetic testing can confirm the diagnosis. Once identified, there are effective ways to treat the condition, Gidding said. Early treatment with medications, as well as maintaining a heart-healthy lifestyle, can lower the risk of premature heart attacks and strokes. The new research and further work identifying new genes involved in the development of FH could lead to better diagnosis and treatment, Gidding said. "Anytime an individual gene like this could help explain variations in lipid level, it could be a drug target." Explore further Team finds rare gene mutations may prevent heart disease American Heart Association News covers heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved. If you have questions or comments about this story, please email editor@heart.org. Associate Professor Judith Andersen. Credit: Blake Eligh New research from U of T Mississauga reveals significant differences between police officers and civilians in a study that analyzed saliva samples for levels of the stress hormone cortisol. "Occupational concerns are a high priority to police and the public," says Associate Professor Judith Andersen of the Department of Psychology. "Identifying risk factors inherent in occupations that expose individuals to high stress and potential life threat can inform interventions and training to prevent or reduce long-term health implications." The study, which appears in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, compared daytime cortisol levels in saliva samples collected from tactical and frontline police officers and civilians. Researchers found that both police groups displayed higher levels of cortisol than civilian counterparts, but were also surprised to find that tactical officers had higher levels of cortisol than their frontline colleagues. Andersen studies how police manage stress on the job. Through her research with the Health Adaptation Research on Trauma Lab (HARTLab), Andersen works with frontline and tactical police forces in Iceland, Finland and Canadato develop science-based use-of-force training techniques to help officers control stress reactivity and improve split-second decisions. Along with biological responses like heart rate and respiration, Andersen studies cortisol, which is produced by the body's adrenal glands and plays an important role in inflammation, blood pressure, sleep patterns and more. "If you're going into a stressful situation, you need some adrenaline and an elevated level of stress hormones and neurochemicals for physiological readiness," Andersen says. "It's protectivein policing, there is a level of threat and there are unexpected things that happen. Cortisol helps the body to focus on the situation at hand." While protective, cortisol spikes can also produce short-term complications such as tunnel vision or audio distortions, impacting the safety of officers and the public in high-stress situations. After a stressful event, taking too long to come down from a cortisol spike can contribute to longer-term health complications, such as sleep issues, heart disease and diabetes. "This study investigates the association between increased levels of risk in occupational speciality and cortisol regulation," Andersen says. The study analyzed data from saliva samples collected from the time subjects awoke to 17 hours after waking, along with self-reported surveys about occupational stress. "Typically, cortisol levels are higher on waking and increase for the first 30 minutes of the day, and then steadily decrease throughout the day until it dips to a low point in the middle of the night," she says. Upon waking, frontline officers displayed more than double the cortisol rate of the general population, while tactical officers measured nearly triple that level. Both officer groups continued to display significantly greater levels of cortisol compared to the general population at the day's end. "Exactly why there would be a difference between the different officers isn't entirely clear and warrants further investigation," Andersen says. She notes that physical fitness may be part of the reason. Tactical officers have exceptional physical fitness, not unlike high performance athletes who also experience higher-than-usual levels of cortisol. Police readings may also be explained by psychological reasons, such as elevated stress response related to expectations about the day ahead, or physical reasons, such as the demands of shift work. Explore further Stress in childhood and adulthood have combined impact on hormones and health More information: Kyle Planche et al. Diurnal Cortisol Variation According to High Risk Occupational Speciality Within Police, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (2019). Journal information: Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Kyle Planche et al. Diurnal Cortisol Variation According to High Risk Occupational Speciality Within Police,(2019). DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001591 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Despite the rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) since 2000, HIV/AIDS is still the most common cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, according to data from the Global Burden of Disease. A new scientific paper reveals striking variation in HIV prevalence at provincial and district levels. The paper, published in Nature, provides precise geographic estimates of HIV prevalence and numbers of people living with HIV to identify priority areas for health care support to reduce the burden of HIV. "Changing the trajectory of HIV/AIDS in Africa requires that we continue to seek better ways to know the epidemic. This paper will support policymakers and health care providers in locating hotspots of HIV/AIDS at national and subnational levels, and will help guide smart investment of scarce resources for diagnosis, prevention, and treatment," said Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). The study, conducted at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, is the first to map HIV prevalence among adults ages 15-49 comprehensively at a granular, subnational level for all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The results show high variation in prevalence and changes in prevalence over time within countries. Since 2015, the World Health Organization has recommended ART for all people living with HIV, because early treatment enables them to live longer and healthier lives and reduces the potential for transmitting the virus. Despite the rapid scale-up of ART, 34% of people in East and Southern Africa and 60% of people in West and Central Africa living with HIV are not currently on treatment, according to UNAIDS. Growing population size and continued high incidence of HIV infection, combined with increased life expectancy among people living with HIV (PLHIV), has led to an increase in PLHIV in sub-Saharan Africa: between 2000 and 2017, the number of people aged 15-49 years living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 3 million, even as HIV prevalence declined. Africa CDC Director John Nkengasong discusses the obligations governments and donors in the fight against the spread of HIV. Credit: IHME "Global funding for HIV/AIDS has declined since 2013, but our research shows the substantial burden that still exists and reveals where geographically targeted interventions might make a big difference. Our goal is to provide robust data that can be used to help prevent future infections and ensure appropriate care for people living with HIV," said IHME's Dr. Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, lead author and Assistant Professor of Health Metrics Sciences. Key findings from the study include: Most countries (36 of 47) had a more than two-fold difference in prevalence between second-level administrative subdivisions (such as districts or departments) in 2017 (Figure 1). In one-fourth of countries, the largest difference was more than five-fold. While the country-level analysis shows a clear divide between countries in Southern sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the continent, subnational-level analysis reveals areas outside Southern sub-Saharan Africa with high HIV prevalence, including parts of Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and Tanzania where prevalence exceeded 10% in 2017 (Figure 1c). Both the direction and rate of change in HIV prevalence from 2000 to 2017 varied between and within countries, highlighting the changing landscape and underscoring the need for current, local data. The spatial concentration of people living with HIV (PLHIV) was highly variable. While a large number of PLHIV were concentrated in a small number of areas, an equally large number were widely distributed in areas with lower spatial concentrations of PLHIV. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the study, part of a five-year grant that enables IHME researchers and collaborators globally to map a range of health metrics in 5x5 square kilometer units. The research is part of the Local Burden of Disease project at IHME led by Dr. Simon I. Hay, Director of Geospatial Science at IHME and Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington. The estimates highlight transnational trends, suggesting that international collaboration could help address persistent high prevalence in some areas. The paper builds on many previously published analyses, incorporating a broad array of data sources and presenting the results in a publicly accessible web-based visualization tool. Explore further Discomfort or death? New study maps hot spots of child mortality from diarrhea in Africa More information: Mapping HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa between 2000 and 2017, Nature (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1200-9 Mapping HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa between 2000 and 2017,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1200-9 The study is available at IHME's website at http://www.healthdata.org; Data visualizations are available at https://vizhub.healthdata.org/lbd/hiv. Journal information: Nature A proposal to ban abortions in Louisiana as early as the sixth week of pregnancy continued to speed through the state legislature Wednesday, a day after Alabama lawmakers voted for what could become the nation's most restrictive law against the procedure. Without objection, the Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee backed legislation to prohibit abortions when a fetal heartbeat is detected, similar to laws passed in several conservative states that are aimed at challenging the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion. Louisiana's ban, however, only would take effect if a federal appeals court upholds a similar law in Mississippi. Louisiana's so-called "heartbeat bill" is sponsored by state Sen. John Milkovich, one of several measures that lawmakers are advancing to add new restrictions on abortion. Senators already have supported the bill, which will next receive full House consideration, one step from final passage. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has indicated he will sign the measure if it reaches his desk. "We believe children are a gift from God," said Milkovich, a Democrat from Keithville. He said his proposal provides that "once a heartbeat is detected, the baby can't be killed." In Louisiana, Alabama and other conservative states, anti-abortion politicians emboldened by the addition of conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court are hoping to ignite legal fights and eventually overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, putting an end to the constitutional right to abortion. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia recently approved bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. None of those are yet in force. Opponents said Louisiana's bill would effectively eliminate abortion as an option before many women realize they are pregnant, calling the proposal unconstitutional. "Louisianans need more health care, free of harassment, not more political posturing," said Amy Irvin, executive director of the New Orleans Abortion Fund, which gives financial help to women who can't afford the procedure. The legislation includes an exception from the abortion ban to prevent the pregnant woman's death or "a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function"or if the pregnancy is deemed "medically futile." But it does not include an exception for a pregnancy caused by rape or incest. Irvin called that "a horribly cruel omission." A doctor who violates the prohibition under the bill could face a prison sentence of up to two years, along with revocation of medical license. Testifying with Milkovich was Jennifer McCoy, who served prison time for conspiracy to commit arsons at two Virginia abortion clinics. While House lawmakers advanced that proposal, senators moved ahead with separate proposals to limit where medication-induced abortions can be performed and to toughen records storage requirements for abortion providers. One bill by Republican Rep. Frank Hoffmann would require medication abortionsadministered through pills that induce miscarriage at early stages of pregnancyto be handled solely at Louisiana's three licensed abortion clinics, said Ellie Schilling, a New Orleans attorney who represents those clinics. Another piece of legislation from Republican Rep. Raymond Crews would lengthen the time that abortion clinics and doctors who perform the procedure must retain patient records, with detailed requirements and hefty penalties for violations. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee backed both measures without objection, sending them to the Senate floor for debate. The House already has approved the proposals. In Alabama, lawmakers gave final approval Tuesday to the nation's most restrictive abortion proposal, which would make performing abortions a felony at any stage of pregnancy with almost no exceptions. The state's governor will now decide whether to sign it into law, which opponents say would draw an immediate legal challenge. Explore further Mississippi governor signs 'heartbeat' abortion law 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Hodgkin lymphoma, nodular lymphocyte predominant (high-power view) Credit: Gabriel Caponetti, MD./Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0 With more targeted therapies being approved each year for cancer, the development of drug resistance to these agents is a growing concern. It has often been assumed that drug resistance is due to the presence or development of additional genetic alterations; however, it is now clear that resistance mechanisms are more complicated. Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered a mechanism of drug resistance to Venetoclax, also known as ABT-199, a BCL-2 targeting drug commonly used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia. Their findings, published in the journal Cancer Cell, also suggest a possible co-treatment strategy to overcome this resistance. BCL-2 is a protein that promotes cell survival and is highly deregulated in numerous malignancies. This deregulation can be overcome by treatment with Venetoclax. However, many patients who initially respond to the drug eventually develop resistance and tumor recurrence. The team of researchers led by Jianguo Tao, M.D., Ph.D and Jun Qi, Ph.D., wanted to determine how the BCL2 inhibitor resistance develops in B-cell lymphomas, such as mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and double-hit lymphoma (DHL), in order to find strategies to overcome and prevent its occurrence. They created model cell lines that were resistant to Venetoclax and compared these cells to the parental cell lines that maintained drug sensitivity. The scientists found that ABT-199 resistance was dependent on both genetic mutations and non-mutational changes. Many patients with hematologic malignancies have an amplification of part of chromosome 18. The researchers discovered that during ABT-199 treatment, rare subpopulations of cells lose this genetic amplification and can survive from drug treatment. Interestingly, this region of chromosome 18 contains the BCL-2 gene, which is the target of ABT-199. This loss of the ABT-199 target and other cell death regulators on chromosome 18 contribute to the survival of these cell populations, which eventually can develop into drug resistance cells. The researchers also demonstrated that the resistant cells developed non-mutational changes involving transcriptional reprogramming. "Certain regions of the DNA called super-enhancers became activated or deactivated in the resistant cells, leading to either a downstream loss or gain in protein expression, which ultimately contributed to cell survival. The study, for the first time, unified genetic alteration and non-genetic adaptive response as a driving force for drug resistance evolution to therapy," said Tao, senior member of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Hematopathology at Moffitt Cancer Center. The transcriptional reprogramming was dependent on a protein called CDK7. These observations suggested that targeting CDK7 may be an effective strategy to prevent Venetoclax resistance. The researchers conducted a chemical screening of a set of small molecule inhibitors further confirmed this hypothesis by showing that combination treatment with ABT-199 and the CDK7-targeting inhibitor THZ1 prevented the emergence and maintenance of ABT-199 resistance in models of MCL and DHL. The patient samples assessment further proved the clinical relevance of this study, which can unveil the drug resistance mechanism in patient care in the future. "Disabling CDK7 in combination with ABT-199 is an attractive means to provoke tumor regression of otherwise refractory lymphoma, and such a combination strategy could be applied across a broad spectrum of hematological malignancies," said Qi, assistant professor in medicine at the Department of Cancer Biology Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Explore further Study shows new drug effective in overcoming ibrutinib resistance in mantle cell lymphona More information: Xiaohong Zhao et al, BCL2 Amplicon Loss and Transcriptional Remodeling Drives ABT-199 Resistance in B Cell Lymphoma Models, Cancer Cell (2019). Journal information: Cancer Cell Xiaohong Zhao et al, BCL2 Amplicon Loss and Transcriptional Remodeling Drives ABT-199 Resistance in B Cell Lymphoma Models,(2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2019.04.005 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Babies exposed to opioids while their mothers were pregnant with them may need special care even before they start to experience withdrawal symptoms, according to Penn State research. Researchers from Penn State College of Medicine found that as soon as 24 and 48 hours after birth, babies who were exposed to opioids prenatally reacted more strongly to pain and scored higher on a skin conductance test, which measures the electrical differences in skin in response to pain or stress. Dr. Christiana Oji-Mmuo, assistant professor of pediatrics, said the study suggests that babies who were exposed to opioids in the womb may need special care earlier than previously thought. "These babies are responding to pain differently than babies who were not exposed, so maybe we should be paying attention to pain management earlier," Oji-Mmuo said. "If we have to do a painful procedure like a heel lance, we may have to provide extra comforting measures, both during the procedure and after if they continue to be stressed." Oji-Mmuo said that as opioid use continues to be a problem in the U.S., so does the risk of babies being born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). She said an estimated 55 to 94 percent of babies born to mothers who used opioids during pregnancy will develop NAS. According to the researchers, opioids block the release of norepinephrine, a chemical released in the body during times of stress. When the baby is born and is no longer exposed to opioids, the baby experiences a spike in norepinephrine and other chemicals and hormones in the body. This can result in such symptoms as irritability, eating poorly, sweating, fever and seizures, among others. Oji-Mmuo said that while there are guidelines for screening babies at risk for developing NAS, there is a need for better, objective tools to help predict NAS and its severity earlier in newborns. "To best take care of these babies, it's important that we recognize babies who are going through withdrawal very early," Oji-Mmuo said. "We wanted to see if two different testsskin conductance measures and facial reactions to painwould correlate and predict withdrawal in newborns, because we really need accurate ways to assess these babies." The researchers enrolled 37 newborns22 with prenatal opioid exposure and 15 healthy controlsfor the study. To measure the babies' reaction to pain, the newborns were video-recorded while undergoing a heel stick, a standard procedure that most newborn babies undergo to give blood for screening tests. To measure skin conductance, a noninvasive device with three electrodes was applied to one foot. The device measured electrical conductance in the skin, which can change when norepinephrine boosts sweat production. After the data was analyzed, the researchers found that the babies exposed prenatally to opioids had higher skin conductance and reacted more strongly to pain during and after the heel-stick procedures. Additionally, Oji-Mmuo said the babies who had been exposed to opioids continued to be stressed after the procedure was over and they were swaddled and tucked in. Oji-Mmuo said the resultsrecently published in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicinesuggest that babies who are born exposed to opioids handle pain worse than babies who were not exposed. "Even after the painful procedure was over, they continued to have higher skin conductance," Oji-Mmuo said. "Even when the procedure was done and they'd been swaddled, they continued to have these higher measures compared to the babies who hadn't been exposed to opioids." Explore further Study suggests opioid addicted newborns do better in room with mother than in NICU More information: Christiana N. Oji-Mmuo et al, Prenatal opioid exposure heightens sympathetic arousal and facial expressions of pain/distress in term neonates at 2448 hours post birth, The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine (2019). Christiana N. Oji-Mmuo et al, Prenatal opioid exposure heightens sympathetic arousal and facial expressions of pain/distress in term neonates at 2448 hours post birth,(2019). DOI: 10.1080/14767058.2019.1588876 Credit: University of Toronto "When I see equations, I see the letters in colors. I don't know why," wrote Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. "I see vague pictures of Bessel functions with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around." Feynman was describing his grapheme-colour (GC) synesthesia a condition in which individuals sense colours associated with letters and numbers. Synesthesia is a family of conditions where individuals perceive stimulation through more than one sense. GC synesthesia is just one form. In others, musical notes evoke colours; words have associated tastes; sequences of numbers are sensed as points in space; numbers suggest people, like an elderly man or a baby girl. Many synesthetes have expressed how their condition has enhanced their lives. When designing a set for a ballet or opera, the American artist David Hockney uses the colours he "sees" in the musical score. Grammy award-winner Pharrell Williams has said that without his music-to-colour synesthesia, "I'd be lost." Now, an experiment led by University of Toronto psychologists has shown for the first time that grapheme-colour synesthesia provides a clear advantage in statistical learning an ability to discern patterns which is a critical aspect of learning language. The result provides insight into how we learn, and how children and adults may learn differently. According to psychology graduate student Tess Forest, "Our result shows that when people experience the same patterns with more than one sense for example, aurally and visually they are better able to learn the patterns." Forest is lead author of the paper describing the research, published online recently in the journal Cognition. She is a member of Assistant Professor Amy Finn's Learning and Neural Development Lab in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Finn is senior author on the paper and co-authors include researchers from the department of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. The team obtained its result with an experiment in which subjects listened to an artificial "language" comprising nonsense words for example, "muh-keh" and "beh-od." They were then asked to listen to a second set of words that included the artificial words, plus new artificial words they had not previously heard. The new artificial words contained combinations of syllables not included in the original artificial language; in other words, the new artificial words represented a "foreign" language to the participants. Participants were then asked to guess whether a word was part of the original artificial language or not. The result? GC synesthetes scored higher at distinguishing between the two "languages" than other participants in the experiments. "You can think about it this way: The GC synesthetes have twice the number of senses providing the same information," says Forest. Not only are they sensing the patterns of syllables by listening, they are also sensing those patterns using synesthesia-evoked colours. "This result is important for thinking about how we learn," says Forest, "because real-world learning outside the lab uses multiple senses. Our result sheds light on the learning mechanisms in the brain that might be supporting statistical learning." One focus of Finn's overall research is understanding how children and adults learn differently. "This result has clear implications for understanding how children and adults might learn differently," says Finn. "This study shows that you can learn more when you have redundant information, that is, information perceived through more than one sense. "This could be truer in infants if they are synesthetes though I don't think the evidence is very clear on that question yet. But, it's something that could be more true in kids because their developing attentional systems make them less able to focus on only one thing at a time. When this information is redundant, this broader focus, could be quite useful for learning." Explore further A longitudinal study of grapheme-color synaesthesia in childhood More information: Tess Allegra Forest et al. Superior learning in synesthetes: Consistent grapheme-color associations facilitate statistical learning, Cognition (2019). Journal information: Cognition Tess Allegra Forest et al. Superior learning in synesthetes: Consistent grapheme-color associations facilitate statistical learning,(2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.02.003 Ke-He Ruan, director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Pharmacoinformatics at the University of Houston, has created a form of recombinant insulin that could potentially address some of the biggest concerns about the lifesaving drug, including its price. Credit: University of Houston A researcher from the University of Houston has created a form of recombinant insulin that could potentially address some of the biggest concerns about the lifesaving drug, including its price. Ke-He Ruan, director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Pharmacoinformatics at the UH College of Pharmacy, said the single polypeptide chain insulin appears to stabilize glucose levels up to three times as long as conventional wild-type human insulin, that is, insulin grown to mimic that produced in humans, and could be manufactured using simpler production methods. That could potentially cut the cost of the medicationthe price of the most commonly used types of insulin have tripled over the past decadeas well as allow patients with Type 1 diabetes to go longer between injections, Ruan said. The new formula has not yet been tested in people, and the University's Office of Technology Transfer and Innovation is looking for a company to co-develop the technology and complete testing and approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. People with Type 1 diabetes produce little or no insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas, and rely on insulin to regulate blood sugar. Some people with Type 2 diabetes, which occurs when people can't efficiently use the insulin their bodies produce, also require insulin injections. Ruan, with a medical degree and a Ph.D. in biomedical science and biochemistry, was recruited to UH in 2007 from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, now the McGovern Medical School, to direct the College of Pharmacy's Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Pharmacoinformatics, which focuses on the use of technology in drug design. Ruan used 3-D computer modeling to determine how to link the two polypeptide chains used to produce current commercially available human insulins, creating a single polypeptide chain that could be inserted into yeast or bacteria to grow the insulin. He has recently filed for a provisional US patent for the discovery. He said the new formulation, known as single polypeptide chain insulin, or SPC-insulin, is better able to maintain its configuration, compared with the conventional two-chain configuration, linked by disulfide bonds which quickly reduce to inactive a- and b- chains once they reach the circulatory system. The single polypeptide chain configuration remains active longer, lengthening the time patients can go between injections. It also can be produced more quickly, with a one-step process rather than the three or four steps required for current recombinant-protein methods, said Ruan, who also is professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology at the UH College of Pharmacy. As with conventional production of recombinant human insulin, SPC-insulin can be produced in either yeast or bacteria. Explore further A third of type 1 diabetes is misdiagnosed in the over 30s At Mayo Clinic, mammograms are offered to women beginning at 40 and continuing annually. When to begin mammogram screening and how often to repeat it is a personal decision based on your preferences. Mayo Clinic recommends women and their health care providers discuss the benefits, risks and limitations of mammograms and decide together what is best. Balancing the benefits of screening with the limitations and risks is a key part of deciding when to begin mammograms and how often to repeat them. Not all organizations agree on breast cancer screening guidelines, but most emphasize meeting with your health care provider to review the risks, limitations and benefits of mammograms in order to determine what's right for your particular situation. For instance, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force mammogram guidelines recommend women begin screening at 50 and the American Cancer Society recommends women begin screening at 45. But both of these organizations acknowledge that beginning screening at 40 may make sense for some women after considering the benefits and limitations of the test. REACTING TO CHANGING EVIDENCE Mayo Clinic health care providers continue to review studies about mammogram guidelines to understand what the studies mean for women's health. Changes to mammogram guidelines might or might not be necessary in the future, as researchers continue studying this topic. Mayo Clinic supports screening beginning at 40 because screening mammograms can detect breast abnormalities early in women in their 40s. Findings from randomized trials of women in their 40s and 50s have demonstrated that screening mammograms decrease breast cancer deaths by 15 to 29 percent. But mammogram screening isn't perfect. Another study concluded that despite more women being diagnosed with early breast cancer due to mammogram screening, the number of women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer hasn't decreased. The study suggested that some women with early breast cancer were diagnosed with cancer that may never have affected their health. Unfortunately it's difficult to distinguish between breast cancers that may spread beyond the breast and those that will remain confined to the breast, so annual mammograms remain the best option for detecting cancer early and reducing the risk of death from breast cancer. The main concern about mammograms for breast cancer screening is the chance of a false positive result. This means that an abnormality is detected but, after additional testing, it turns out to not be cancer. This is especially a concern in younger women in their 40s and 50s, who may be more likely to have a false positive result. If an abnormality is detected on a mammogram, a woman may be asked to have additional mammogram images taken and, possibly, additional imaging tests, such as ultrasound. These tests may determine the abnormality shown on the original mammogram isn't worrisome for cancer. In some cases, it may be necessary for a woman to undergo a biopsy procedure to remove a sample of breast tissue for testing. For many women, having a biopsy that confirms there isn't any cancer present is reassuring and doesn't increase anxiety. WORKING WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER If you're concerned about when to start breast cancer screening and how often to repeat it, work with your health care provider to make an informed decision. Together you can decide what's best for you based on your personal preferences, your medical history and your individual breast cancer risk. Talk with your health care provider about: Your personal risk of breast cancer The benefits, risks and limitations of screening mammograms The role of breast self-exams for breast awareness in helping you become more familiar with your breasts, which may help you identify abnormalities or changes Explore further Women perceive the potential benefits of mammograms to be more important than the potential harms 2019 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. MILLTOWN A wet blanket has been thrown over the plan to excise two large bridge piers from the middle of the Blackfoot River here. The Montana Department of Transportation told state and federal agency partners in Helena on Tuesday its not going to happen, at least not as part of ongoing reconstruction of two Interstate 90 bridges that the concrete structures used to hold up. Dwane Kailey, MDTs highways and engineering administrator, said Montana Rail Link modeling found that removal would increase the river flow enough to require new riverside piers for the railroad bridge just upstream. The piers have been in place since the bridge was opened in 1908. The cost of replacing them, some $17 million, outstrips the scope and budget of the $15 million Bonner Bridges project. Roughly $12.5 million are available each year for all interstate projects in the Missoula district. We found out in working with Montana Rail Link that the cost of mitigation to that structure was well beyond what MDT could reasonably and feasibly participate in, Kailey said, adding, Its not something I'm happy with at all. MDT and MRL have been working together for nearly a year to analyze impacts on the railroad bridge once the midstream piers are removed and to allow Montana Rail Link time to figure out what mitigations were necessary, Kailey said. He said MDT learned of the findings less than a month ago. The transportation department's agency partners include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Federal Highway Administration, as well as the states Natural Resource Damage Program, Department of Environmental Quality and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. This was a shocker to them, and rightfully so, Kailey said. Were still trying to get our heads wrapped around it, said Pat Saffel, regional fisheries manager for Montana FWP. Obviously its a setback. It was kind of the last piece of the Milltown cleanup and restoration at the site that we thought needed to be done for the river, and for the fish and for river users. Were looking at what the options are now. When he was Missoula Countys environmental health supervisor, Peter Nielsen participated in most of the planning and design of Milltown Dams removal and river restoration. He said at the time participants recognized the railroad bridge was the oldest and most solidly constructed span across the Blackfoot. It also didnt have piers in the river channel, unlike the other three bridges. Since then, the countys Black Bridge pedestrian crossing and the states Highway 200 bridge have been rebuilt with single-span designs that dont require piers in the river. But the Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt Interstate 90s span with a new set of piers that both impeded river passage for floaters and fish and was prone to scour damage from the newly free-flowing Blackfoot. Those bridge piers and the way they did that was the one major disappointment many of us had with the whole Milltown project, Nielsen said Tuesday. Now were on the verge of getting rid of that one disappointment and we cant get it done? Kailey said he doesnt blame Montana Rail Link, a short-line partner of rail giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe. I wouldnt say theyre playing hardball. I think theyre looking at it kind of like we did from the get-go, he said. They werent the ones who wanted the dam removed, they arent the ones fixing our structures. Theyre innocent bystanders, in a way. MRL representatives were at Tuesdays meeting. Spokesman Ross Lane said Tuesday evening he hadnt had a chance to talk with folks internally and was withholding comment until he did. When the issue of not removing the I-90 piers was first announced in late April, Lane said the railroad didnt anticipate any impact to our structure or to our operations. But if impacts were to come up or if we do anticipate impacts, well continue to work with (MDT). From MDTs perspective, the primary reason for replacing the Bonner I-90 bridges was to stabilize them. We had concerns of their long-term suitability and survivability after the river piers were enlarged and fortified by the Army Corps of Engineers, Kailey said. Failure of the bridge embankments and the highway they supported would be a catastrophic event, an MDT press release said. It was clear that a major river event could create a dangerous situation for the traveling public, Kailey said. We didnt know when a river event would de-stabilize the bridges, but we did know that we needed to start working on a solution before river conditions forced us to be reactive instead of proactive. The Bonner Bridges project started last year with the replacement of the eastbound bridge. The westbound span has been removed this spring and will be completed this construction season. Kailey said removal of the top of the existing piers in the river bed to the 100-year flood level was built into the project. It was completed last weekend by a private contractor to help in construction of the new bridge. Lane said in April the railroad bridge, while more than 110 years old, is subject to twice-a-year inspections by the Federal Railroad Administration. The piers are out of the river except in high water. Kailey said MDT was aware of mitigation efforts to stabilize the bridge due to the removal of Milltown Dam, but that mitigation was reduced when the larger interstate piers were put in place. Were going to try to huddle with the agencies hopefully in the next month or so to see if we can come up with a solution and definitely at a lesser cost than what were looking at right now, Kailey said. I still have hope well be able to achieve the ultimate goal. I just dont have the options right now. "In the meantime, the piers are dangerous," Saffel said. "I don't think they're the best for fish passage and its not best for the river either. Thats the frustration. "This was the icing on the cake, the cherry on top. We're just not getting it done as soon as we wanted to." Reporter Rob Chaney contributed to this story. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Eyes were on the skies for an approaching storm Wednesday as the Miss Montana airplane crew prepared for a Thursday departure from Missoula International Airport. Everybodys working their butts off trying to get out of here tomorrow morning. I guess its going to be weather-dependent, said Eric Komberec, president of the Museum of Mountain Flying and chairman of the Miss Montana to Normandy project. Komberec said as of shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday, liftoff was planned for around noon. "With weather and whatnot it will be a quick dash," he said. The DC-3/C-47, once a cargo, smokejumper and charter carrier airplane, flew for the first time in 18 years on Sunday. The tentative first destination is Rapid City, South Dakota, for a refueling stop. If all goes well, the crew of 6 to 8 will overnight in Wichita, Kansas, then make two more stops en route to the final U.S. destination of Oxford, Connecticut, on Friday. There, Miss Montana is scheduled to join up with more than a dozen other Dakota warbirds comprising the D-Day Squadron for a Saturday flyover of the Statue of Liberty. They leave Sunday, weather permitting, for a week-long trip to Duxford Airfield north of London. Theyll join the entire international C-47 fleet for the final leg to Caen-Carpiquet Airport in Normandy, France, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in World War II. The cross-country flight roster includes chief pilot Jeff Whitesell and Komberec; fellow pilots Bryan Douglass and Art Dykstra, as well as mechanics Randy and Crystal Schonemann. An early departure would be best, said meteorologist Bob Nester at the National Weather Service on the other end of the airport. The earlier the better as far as avoiding thunderstorms tomorrow, Nester said Wednesday afternoon. "They're not getting here until maybe 1 or 2 o'clock. Then everything gets pretty crazy." The storm line to the east will follow a line to the south of the Musselshell River through Central Montana. Bozeman, Billings, southeast Montana, northeast Wyoming and the Rapid City area in western South Dakota are all expecting potential thunder showers of varying severity. Farther to the north would probably be the safest route, at least tomorrow, Nester said. Miss Montana has gotten in several hours of air time over the past three days. On Tuesday, it dropped seven skydivers onto an open field in Plains to allow the jumpers to update their certification. Fifteen jumpers are certified to jump from Miss Montana in England and France, according to jumpmaster Al Charters of Missoula. Video of the jumps, photos and other information are on the Miss Montana to Normandy Facebook page. 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. By Damali Mukhaye. More than 300 learning institutions among them; Primary, Secondary and Technical Institutions have been destroyed by strong winds and hailstorms in six months across the whole country. The Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, Eng. Hillary Onek says that the Education and infrastructure sector have been devastatingly affected by disaster which the country experienced since last year. He says that some of the structures in these schools/institutions have already been found compromised as a result of poor or lack of regular maintenance because of budgetary constraint. He asked the education ministry to use the Capital Development Budget to renovate some of these schools. He also notes that the Works and Transport has not been spared by the disaster since a total of 2,603 District roads require major works as well as 157 small to medium sized bridges. CLINTON Henry (Hank) Kallis Sr., 74, of Clinton, passed away on Sunday, May 12, 2019, of natural causes. He was born on July 27, 1944, to Tom and Lydia Kallis in Elgin, North Dakota. As a young child the family made the big move to Montana. He attended Clinton Elementary School. His family lived in Turah for many years. He joined the Marine Corps in the early '60s. While in basic training he obtained the highest Marksmanship score out of his platoon of 79 men. His parents received a letter of his achievements. He served as an MP and was stationed in Iceland and El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California. Henry was a jack-of-all-trades he worked at ranching, logging, and cement finishing. He especially loved ranching and was a skilled cement finisher. To this day he still owns several tools for working with cement and loves to give advice to anyone doing a cement job. He enjoyed the camaraderie of playing pool with his buddies which included his brother David. He loved every aspect of the outdoors, such as camping, hunting, and fishing being his favorite. He had a hand in teaching every member of our family to fish and to embrace their own passion for the sport. There was no other place he would rather be than out on the lake. Survivors include Henry (Michaela) Kallis, Tim (Susan) Kallis, Michelle Kallis, Laurel Wheeler and Heather (Zae) Hudson; grandchildren Joe, Rebecca, Lucritcia, Rachel, Colt, Jesse, Dakota, Gabby, Connigher, Kylie and Adrian; and great-grandchildren Zaylee, Ella, Weston and Jairus. He is also survived by siblings David Kallis and Marcia Wiggins; the love of his life Judy Kroemer, her children and grandchildren, which he loved like his own, and many nieces and nephews. He is preceded in Death by his Father, mother, youngest brother Allen Kallis, and great granddaughter Raylan Hudson. His ashes will be scattered at Spook Lake on Sunday June 16th, at 1 p.m. with a potluck style lunch. All family and friends are welcome to attend. The 2019 Montana Legislature failed to pass legislation addressing several key impaired driving issues that affect your safety. One is that 70% of first-time Montana DUI suspects, or twice the national average, refuse to take a breathalyzer test and then demand costly and unnecessary trials hoping the state will not have adequate evidence to prove their guilt without breathalyzer evidence. Why do we allow this and needlessly tie the hands of our courts and law enforcement trying to protect us from impaired drivers? Senate Bill 65 would have allowed law enforcement officers to seek a warrant allowing blood to be drawn to determine blood alcohol levels from first time offenders refusing a breathalyzer test. This can already be done for second or more time DUI suspects. In Missoula County alone about 16 people are killed and nearly 160 people injured every year in crashes involving these impaired drivers. Talk to your state legislators and ask them to help stop the carnage. For more information on impaired driving in our state, go to zeroduideaths.org and read the 2018 Montana DUI Survey and Analysis. Ronald Yates, former citizen member, Cascade County DUI Task Force, Great Falls You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 May 9 I read a letter to the editor asking us to wear a ribbon for Russias sacrifice in World War II and as a statement of friendly reach out to Russia. I would be happy to do that after 1. Donald Trump obtains a promise from Putin to stop interfering in our democracy or sanctions against Russia will increase. 2. Trump admits publicly to the terrible cyber invasion by Russia into our 2016 and 2020 elections and 3. the Russians indicted by the Mueller probe stand trial in federal court. " " Sussing out your options and plotting a course for retirement savings can be daunting. But more options means you can tailor your savings to your needs. AndrewWilliam/iStock The most common source of retirement income is Social Security. In fact, 86 percent of Americans 65 and older depend on their social security checks every month. For 36 percent of retirees, it's their primary source of income [source: Brandon]. Yet in 2014, the average payment for individuals was less than $1,300 [source: Brandon]. And only slightly more than 40 percent of retirees have some sort of pension plan [source: Brandon]. With statistics like these, what do currently working employees need to do to build a solid nest egg for their own retirement? Traditional 401(k) retirement plans allow employees to contribute pre-tax dollars to their accounts. This reduces their gross income and, consequently, their current tax load. In 2006, employees were given yet another financial retirement choice: the Roth 401(k). By 2011, half the companies that offered 401(k) plans included the Roth option [source: NBER]. When businesses have more options, they may appear more attractive to potential and current employees. The addition of the Roth 401(k) increases bookkeeping to a small extent, but the option can dramatically impact employees' retirement funds. Advertisement For employers, the addition of a Roth plan changes little. In order to offer it, they must already have a traditional 401(k) in place. Both plans allow employers to contribute to their employees' plans, and all contributions are pre-tax. Therefore, though workers with Roth 401(k)s don't pay tax on their contributions upon retirement, the employers' input is taxable. However, providing a choice of 401(k) plans allows employees more control over their future. Those that go the traditional route get a tax break when they pay into the account. These contributors are often on the lower end of pay scale and believe their earnings will significantly increase over time. Therefore, they'll be in a better financial place at retirement, so the tax burden won't feel substantial. Employees who chose the Roth version are more comfortable paying taxes now, because the futures of their financial status and federal tax rates are mysteries. Employees are not limited to an either/or choice, however. When companies provide both options, workers are free to invest in both. Every year, employees can decide to change how they direct their contributions. Some plans even allow participants to split their money evenly between traditional and Roth 401(k)s. Though providing alternative 401(k)s does not greatly affect a company's day-to-day practices, it can, in the years ahead, greatly enhance the quality of life for retired workers. The two men recently elected to the Butte School District No. 1 school board were sworn in as trustees on Tuesday afternoon. Kelly Lee, a firefighter for the Butte-Silver Bow Fire Department, and Quinton Queer, the training coordinator for the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 41 union, were voted onto the board during the annual Butte-Silver Bow County school board elections May 7, according to unofficial vote counts. A week later, the public school district trustees met to canvass the votes and swear Lee and Queer into their elementary seats. The final counts showed Lee received 2,717 votes, Queer received 2,610 votes, and the third candidate, Christy Zimpel, received 2,471 votes. As the incumbent trustees present Tuesday canvassed these final vote counts, both Lee and Queer chatted in the back of the school boardroom gallery. The men said they were both excited when they found out theyd won the election, and plan to do their best to learn how to carry out the trustee positions. I think I need to take time to learn the position and learn the process, then I can start to give input where it is needed based on my strengths, Lee said. Queer expressed similar thoughts. Im really happy about it, Queer said about winning the election. I hope I can make a difference. After the school board votes were canvassed, Cathy Maloney, Butte-Silver Bow superintendent of schools, led Queer and Lee in taking their trustee oath. When their right hands dropped to their sides, the rest of the school board members clapped and the two men were invited to sit at the oval-shaped desk where they will appear in their first public school board meeting on May 20. But while Tuesday afternoon was a happy day for Queer and Lee, it was bittersweet for trustee Kelly Howery, who has served on the board for over three years and did not seek re-election. A plaque was presented to her as a token of gratitude. Over the years Howery served on the school board, she said she learned things about the district and its processes that she never would have known as a parent. Its so important for parents to get involved and to stay involved, Howery said, noting she was a part of the Kennedy Elementary School parent-teacher group before joining the school board. J.P. Gallagher was the other trustee who did not run for re-election and who will not return to the school board. He was not present at Tuesdays meeting, but a plaque and cake with his name on it sat on a table in the board room. Howery had a cake with her name on it, too. At Tuesdays meeting, the school board also officially declared vacant the high school trustee seat that Jay LeProwse gave up and no one ran to fill. That means the district can now advertise for the open seat and begin a recruiting process similar to the one it would undertaken when hiring a new employee. If a high school trustee isnt selected after 60 days, Maloney will be required to find someone to fill the seat, according to Dennis Clague, district business director and school board clerk. The board also re-appointed Ann Boston as chairperson and Patti Hepola as vice-chairperson. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 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. By Damali Mukhaye. The bodies of the deceased twins for water minister Ronald Kibuule will be laid to rest today at their ancestral home in kapeke village, mukono district. Ramon Kato and Raiding Waswa drowned on Monday evening in a swimming pool at the ministers home in Mbalala, Mukono. Minsiter Kibuule yesterday told mourners who had gathered at his home to condole with him that he strive to join his innocent twins who have gone to heaven. Yesterday police arrested four domestic workers at Kibuules home and will be charged with negligence. A post mortem report also showed that the twins succumbed to drowning. Related Stories.. Police arrests four over the drowning of Kibuules twins At Mondays meeting the commission put some of the finishing touches to the proposal, including updates to definitions; making final decisions on setbacks, permit fees, special requirements and special use permits; screening; and other issues. One of the final issues that remained to be completed was managing storm water at any proposed solar site. Commission chair Sherry Humphreys said assistant county engineer Adam Shutt was working to develop a stormwater management plan and once he completed that, she would provide the rest of the commission with the final draft. If were all in agreement with the stormwater, Ill fire this off to Adam Parsons to review, she said. County supervisor Brad Quigley, who attended the meeting as an observer, suggested he would ask Parsons to expedite his review so the commission could then meet and settle on a public hearing date for the amendment. Even with a quick review by Parsons, Quigley predicted it would be several weeks before the pubic would have an opportunity to comment at a public hearing. Were looking at five to six weeks, Quigley said. The jewelry was on display in front of Donald's office, which led to some sales, she said, because people saw the sparkle. She also had a "traveling tray." With parents' permission, Donald took a few students with her to other schools in the district and to organizations and businesses in the community so students could make their sales pitch. She said homeroom time was their only time to make the visits, which was a challenge. "I did like them to get out and talk about the project," she said. In addition to sales, students were "actively involved" in advertising and marketing, inventory, supply and demand and on a few occasions, repairing bracelets that had broken. Jewelry-making wound down around Easter, Donald said, so the focus could turn to making the care kits. District "Parents as Teachers" staff helped identify age-appropriate items for the kits with students letting them know about trendy toys. Of the 80 kits, 40 were for 2- to 4-year-olds, 20 were for 5- to 7-year-olds and the remaining 20 were for 8- 12-year-olds. Donald said rattles and teethers were also donated to the hospital for the youngest children. The Ombudsman for Banking Services, Reana Steyn, has released her annual report, highlighting that banking fraud continues to plague South African customers. According to Steyn, Internet banking fraud continues to be the most prevalent complaint by South African banking customers despite the figure decreasing slightly compared to 2017. ATM-related complaints were the next most common case to be lodged with the Ombudsman. However, this figure decreased from 18% in 2017 to 14% in 2018. This is encouraging and may indicate that customers are more aware and careful transacting at ATMs, or that the fraudsters are targeting other avenues, Steyn said. Fraud related to Internet banking, ATMs, and credit cards accounted for 48% of all complaints. The fraudsters and hackers seem to be working around the clock to create fake copies of bank websites and impersonate the bank staff, explained Steyn. This happens despite all the warnings issued by banks and even our office. Thousands of customers are fooled by the scammers and in the process they lose millions of rands. 37% of all complaints were related to to maladministration on the side of banks such as failure to follow internal procedures or to conduct an affordability assessment when granting credit. We are constantly working with the regulators and relevant industry bodies to ensure that our dispute resolution service remains independent, fair, timeous and is of the highest standard, said Steyn. We are fortunate that the entire banking industry is 100% committed to upholding our findings and that they demonstrate their commitment at the highest (CEO) level. The South African Law Reform Commission has published a discussion paper on pornography and children, where it proposes the blocking of Internet porn by default. The Commission is an independent advisory statutory body established by the South African Law Reform Commission Act. Its paper is focused on proposals which will protect children from exposure to pornography and child sexual abuse material. The Commission provisionally recommends that legislation should comprehensively criminalise all acts of exposing children to pornography and content not suitable for children, in whatever manner, including through advertisement and enticement or by making use of misleading techniques, it stated. Default blocking As part of its recommendations, it said that all devices new and second-hand be issued or returned to a default setting that blocks inappropriate content, with an opt-in possibility depending on proof of age of the buyer/user as being 18 and older. Giving effect to this recommendation will serve to protect both the child and the provider, though regulations will be required to provide for effective implementation. It goes on to explain that this will require: Manufacturers or distributors of any technology or device that can access the Internet to ensure that default settings block access to child sexual abuse material or pornography. Electronic communications service providers to ensure that default settings blocks access to child sexual abuse material or pornography. The porn block extends to companies which unlawfully and intentionally advertise pornography to children, and anyone who uninstalls these default blocking settings and allow a child to access porn. The Commissions report goes on to state that it will also be an offence to not keep a register of when the default blocks have been removed. Porn register The move by the Commission comes weeks before the UK is set to implement its own porn block. As reported by TechRadar, the UK will implement a default block on 15 July 2019, which will see all UK Internet service providers having to confirm if users are over 18 before letting them access porn sites. Adult websites will need to show a splash screen to UK users when they arrive on the site. This interstitial screen must contain no adult material and should inform visitors that they must prove they are over 18 years old in order to continue, stated the report. A user must then use an approved age verification system and enter a username and password. All sites which serve users in the UK will have to implement this system. The Verge reported that users will be able to verify their age using passports, drivers licences, or credit cards. Porn passes will also be sold in shops for 4.99. Privacy advocates have voiced concerns that this will allow for the creation of a porn watcher database, where the details of those who access adult sites are stored. Now read: South African IT and telecoms companies that pay the highest salaries All of the wines from barrels that were sampled on Friday, May 3, at Calistogas Castello di Amorosa wont be released for another year. All but one were from the 2017 and 2018 vintages. On that afternoon, Brooks Painter, director of winemaking, and winemaker Peter Velleno hosted some 20 press members, and offered tastes and thoughts of many of the 19 wine barrels, including a Chardonnay and a Merlot, several Pinot Noirs and both single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons and Cab-based blends. The 12,000-square-foot barrel cellar, three levels beneath the Castello, was set up for the castles annual Grand Barrel Party, which included some 300 people and was held later that night. One of the wines, the 2016 Trenta Cabernet Sauvignon, is a new project from the Castellos winemaking team. It was aged in 100 percent new French oak for 30 months, a year longer than any other of the castles reserve wines. The wine, 97 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 3 percent Merlot, came from grapes grown in four Napa Valley vineyards, Rapp Ranch, Coombsville; Morisoli, Rutherford Bench; Perata, Yountville, and Melanson, Pritchard Hill. Six barrels were produced. Velleno called it a big, bold-style Cabernet and added it will withstand another year of aging before it is released. He said the Cabernet Sauvignon was scheduled to be tasted only once on May 3 either by the press or by the Grand Barrel Party attendees. Youre tasting wines directly out of the barrel. It will be another two to three years before you can try it again, Velleno said. He advocated people get into the rhythm of buying futures each year. That way, buyers will pay less than the release price for the wines. For example, their 2017 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon sells for $55 a bottle and $660 a case at release in April 2020; the futures price is $528 a case and $11,888 for a barrel. It will spend 20 months in 50 percent new French oak barrels and is made up of 89 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 11 percent Merlot. Grapes are sourced from vineyards throughout the Napa Valley. Velleno said he has spent 16 years in the Napa Valley, and graduated with a bachelors degree in Fermentation Science from UC Davis in 2003. After working for William Hill Winery and Hartwell Vineyards, he joined Castello as associate winemaker in 2008 and was promoted to winemaker in 2014. When I started working here, I had no idea what I was about to step into, he said. Its not just another winery, but a castle. Since Castello di Amorosa sells its wines directly to consumers, theres a lot of experimenting with the winemaking, he added. Napa Valley Merlot Although Painter, Velleno and their team make four Pinot Noirs, mostly from Anderson Valley and Sonoma County, and several limited Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons, they make only one Napa Valley Merlot. Some of the grapes in the wine were grown on the 35 acres of hillside vineyards that surround the Calistoga castle. Some people love it and some people dont care for it as much, Velleno said. But, we definitely see it as the wine we take seriously. We have a lot of people who really, really love our Napa Valley Merlot. He said whatever grapes are not going into Castellos higher-end wines are used for the Merlot. Were looking for a wine that is not quite as tannic, not as astringent and doesnt need to be held as long as our Cabernet wines, Velleno said. He called the 2017 Merlot a little more generous on the fruit with a more plush, velvety texture. It is complex, but not as dense or aggressive as the Cabernet Sauvignon, he added. We blended a little bit of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Verdot in this vintage, he said, adding, We dont always do that, it is just a matter of balancing the acidity and tannins and making sure that we end up with a wine that is age-worthy. Velleno said he is learning year after year. Our goal is not to transform the fruit but to let the vineyard shine. Painter added that every vintage gives the winemakers a different raw material. For example, they may be aggressive on an early-ripening grape, seeking to extract as much color and tannin as possible from the skin. Painter has been a winemaker for more than 30 years and joined the Castello team in 2005. In 2013, Painter received the Andre Tchelistcheff Winemaker of the Year award from the San Francisco International Wine Competition. When the group got to the reserve, single-vineyard 2017 Morisoli-Borges Cabernet Sauvignon, made from grapes grown in the heart of the Rutherford Bench, we all thought that this wine is nearly perfect as it is. Painter and Velleno buy three tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from Mike Morisoli, whose parents bought the vineyard in 1971. According to the tasting notes, much of the vineyard was planted to Cabernet Sauvignon in the late 1980s with a smaller area redeveloped in 2006. The wine comes from a blend of these old and young blocks and it expresses the Rutherford appellations famous dust character with its unique, soft, silky tannins. When released, the wine will sell for $145 a bottle or $1,740 a case. The futures price was $1,392 a case and $33,408 for a barrel. Il Barone Cabernet Sauvignon It took workers some 15 years to build and an estimated $30 million to build Castello di Amorosa, a replica of a 13th-century Tuscan castle. It opened in April 2007. Velleno said its 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, called Il Barone, is considered by many to be the wine that best represents the castle that was created when they first opened the doors. The 2017 vintage Il Barone is 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, although in some years he and Painter may blend a little bit of Merlot and Petite Verdot in the wine. Even so, it is definitely a Cabernet-based wine that is showcasing the best Napa Valley Cabernets we work with, Velleno said. Those vineyards are in Diamond Mountain, on the hillsides in Rutherford, Yountville and Oak Knoll, and in Coombsville. The blend is usually very heavy on Rutherford, including grapes from the Morisoli ranch. To create the blend, the winemakers started with one or two wines made from the Morisoli Vineyards, then blend in some Diamond Mountain fruit. The winemakers create both a single-blend Cabernet and Il Barone from Morisolis vineyards. In warmer years, we like to use more of the Coombsville fruit, and in cooler years, we use Diamond Mountain fruit, which does a great job, Velleno said. Each year, the Il Barone is created from a clean slate, Velleno said. We survey all of our wines and make them all the best they can be and then piece them all together, he added. As Painter, Velleno and the guests stood in the 12,000-square-foot barrel cellar, Painter said the barrel cellar is the same size as the winery that owner Dario Sattui originally decided to build. Instead, after 15 years, the winery is 136,000 square feet with 107 rooms and seven levels. Along with grapes from the estates 35 acres, today the winery sources grapes from several of its Sonoma County vineyards, including 13 acres in Anderson Valley, 13 acres in Philo and a new 80-acre property in Anderson Valley, between Philo and Boonville. Wildfires, prolonged power outages we need to be ready for anything this summer, Dear Readers. So before I get to anything else, I want to remind you about the fire season preparedness seminar at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, at the firehouse. Learn why fire has become such a big threat, what the countys emergency services are doing about it and, most important, how we can prepare. For more information, call 968-2742 (city) or 253-4421 (county). *** The next morning, you can cheer up with the latest A Cup With A Cop at 9-11 a.m. Wednesday, May 22, at the Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company. Get to know our local police force, ask a question, or just chat. *** As faithful readers of the Stars opinion pages know perfectly well, its election time. The June 4 mail-in election is all about Measure F, which involves rent stabilization at Vineyard Valley Mobile Home Park. Youve probably gotten your ballot already. If you know where you stand, you can mark your ballot and leave it in the drop box outside the St. Helena Public Library. If you want to study the issue further, the city has posted a link on its home page (cityofsthelena.org) where youll find the arguments for and against, an impartial analysis by the city attorney, a list of frequently asked questions and perhaps most important the ordinance in question. The ordinance is somewhat dense reading but you might find it worth the effort. Happy voting, and huzzah to democracy! *** Bonnie Long, Suzanne Bruce and the rest of St. Helenas Solstice Creative Writers are holding their Power of Poetry reading at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 16, at Rianda House. This is a way for the club to share their work and thank Rianda House for hosting them. A $5 donation is requested. There will be light refreshments and door prizes. RSVP to 963-8555. *** The White Barn will be bopping along to the sounds of the Craig Bond-affiliated Vocal Color and Jazz@7 at 4 p.m. Sunday, June 2. Vocal Color is a local a cappella group with an admirable distaste for genre limitations think blues, gospel, Beatles, big band, folk, etc. Jazz@7 is a similarly eclectic vocal and instrumental jazz group. Tickets are $25 and available at thewhitebarn.org or by calling 987-8225. *** Speaking of music, Pacific Union Colleges Symphonic Wind Ensemble, directed by Asher Raboy, will present its annual spring concert at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 19, at Paulin Hall Auditorium on the PUC campus in Angwin. The program includes Broadway songs, a Disneyland medley, and easily recognizable scores from Captain America, the James Bond films, The Music Man and The Little Mermaid. Theres even a little treat for us Beatlemaniacs. Admission is free. *** Let no one accuse Cathy Buck, proprietor of the Cameo Cinema, of contenting herself with half-measures. Shes going all-out for the annual Family Film Festival of the Napa Valley May 24-27. Theres too much going on for me to begin to summarize, but I love the animal theme. You can meet rescue animals native to the African savannah, pal around with big cats from the Cat Haven rescue center, and enjoy a livestream tour of Safari West. See CameoCinema.com for the full schedule. *** Have you ever sat next to somebody on a plane, been bored to death by their life story, and suspected that your own would be a lot more interesting? Local authors Christina Julian, Rina Faletti and Teri Stevens will talk about how to turn your personal experiences into prose at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at the St. Helena Public Library. The authors will read selections from their anthology Shes Got This! Essays on Standing Strong and Moving On! *** Do you have an electric car? If so, Gopal Shanker of Recolte Energy would love to put it on display during his Why Go Electric Upvalley Electric Vehicle Show from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 15, at the Napa Valley College Upper Valley Campus in St. Helena. Its a chance to meet other EV owners and share your experience with curious people who might be thinking about buying one. Email UVC_sthelena@napavalley.edu or call 967-2901 no later than June 5. *** Lets hear it for Jazmin Baltodano, whose guacamole blew away the judges at last Thursdays salsa contest at the library. Her not-so-secret ingredient? Hard-boiled eggs. Her age? Nine years old. I sense a future chef in the making By Benjamin Jumbe. The Pan African Parliament has appealed to Ugandan legislators to push government to sign and ratify the Malabo Protocol that would give the continental institution full legislative powers. The African Union Heads of State Summit sitting in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in 2014 approved an amendment to the Protocol that establishes the Pan African Parliament, which now requires ratification by at least 28 member states for it to come into effect. The appeal was made during a meeting between the Clerk to the Pan African Parliament, Yusupha Jobe and the Head of Committees and Research, Nassir Galal, and visiting members on the House committees on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Government Assurances at the Pan African Parliament in Midrand. The Leader of the Ugandan delegation, Clement Ongalo Obote, said there was need to follow up the ratification of the protocol with the relevant government department, and that there was need to protect PAP serving members to retain their seats in Midrand following national elections. A thousand thanks for everyones enormous support and participation in this years Rally4Rianda Community Rally & Classic Car Show on April 28. It was a smash hit because of a long list of volunteers, personal efforts, generous contributions and community involvement. Everyone needs help at times, and we could not have made this such a success without the help of the amazing city and staff, first by letting us use Lyman Park, the assistance with parking barricades, and their huge efforts to make the park sparkle. The park was picture-perfect thanks to all their efforts, ideal weather, blooming dogwoods, and beautiful geraniums donated by Central Valley. A special thanks to the St. Helena Star for their contribution of getting the word out and all the wonderful shared photos of the event. It is also important to acknowledge all the individuals who brought and showed their fabulous classic cars and vintage trucks that sparked countless conversations and walks down memory lane. Mayors Geoff Ellsworth and Chris Canning did us proud as they started the event rolling. Mayor Ellsworth rallied big time as a tireless artist who painted over 50 portraits which contributed monies and great fun. Mad Fritzs beer and local wine donations kept everyone happy especially when paired with our delicious lunch from Sorensen Catering made sweeter thanks to Umpqua Banks ice cream truck and Model Bakerys famous cookies. We were so lucky to have Saint Helena Community Band participate once again. And a special shout out to Jake Scheideman from the St. Helena Cyclery for introducing his new electric bikes. Of course, behind any successful fundraising event is a team of can-do volunteers. Huge thanks to our wonderful team of 38 volunteers from groups like St. Helena Kiwanis, Rotarys Interact Club and our own Rianda House super stars. What a generous, memorable and fun kick-off event! A perfect way to jumpstart our annual month-long fund drive during May. All made possible thanks to our very generous sponsors who fueled the event and to our amazing Match Challenge Team who created the $50,000 Match Challenge to inspire contributors to double their impact. Thank you to all who have already donated to support Rianda House no-cost enrichment and wellness programs for UpValley older adults. If you havent had a chance to donate, please do and keep our donation meter rising! For details and to view event photos, visit us at riandahouse.org and follow the Rally4Rianda logo. Susan Kenward, event chair & board member Peter Working, car wrangler & board chairman Julie Spencer, executive director Every so often in my decades in Washington, D.C. clients would ask me for assistance with pending legislation. I would have to remind them that I was their foreign business development consultant and not a lobbyist. If they pushed me further, or just asked innocent questions about lobbying, I would explain that not only is lobbyist a specific political term of art, but that it involves money. Lots of money. Californias Big Daddy Jesse Unruh, a major political player in this state for decades, was the author of the classic phrase Money is the mothers milk of politics. What was true a half century ago is even more so today. Big corporate money has now come to St. Helenas politics. Measure F, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) ballot issue were about to vote on, is the political creation of a Sacramento lobbying group, the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Associations Issues PAC. It spent more than $12,000 to get the RSO on the June ballot and has wagered about $50,000 campaigning against it. This Sacramento lobbying entity is closely aligned with the Republican Party; in the last two years it contributed $70,000 to the state Republicans. Alas, they didnt get a very good return on their investment. In past St. Helena elections, we have seen large contributions, but typically these have been local dollars. In their initial mayoral campaigns both our current mayor and his predecessor threw in many thousands of dollars more than their opponents. But not only was this local money, it was their own. If anything, they should be commended for putting their bank accounts behind their own campaigns. Big outside money brings with it political arguments that are dramatic and all too often wrong. In this instance, Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association calls the St. Helena RSO government-mandated rent control. But theres nothing mandatory or obligatory about this Ordinance. Its totally voluntary for affected renters. We have been subject to portentous arguments on both sides of Measure F. Not many of these statements have been helpful for voters. St. Helenan Mary Stephenson, a longtime housing advocate has, however, made an enlightening contribution. She writes, We need only look to our nearby neighbor Calistoga, which has had RSOs for all its mobile home parks for 30 years, to see that this type of regulation is beneficial both to park residents and the community at large. We will survive this orchestrated election and then can turn our collective attention to a far more impactful problem, fire season. As they might say on Game of Thrones, summer is coming. Our fire danger can stretch out for six months, from June through November, with the highest risk in the latter three months. From here, it looks like PG&E is playing a highly sophisticated political game this fire season. It is using blunderbuss tactics to get attention from both its bankruptcy judge and state regulators. Its latest blast is to warn St. Helena that even if a fire isnt close, we may still lose our electricity for days at a time. Indeed, a Cal Fire official assures me that St. Helena itself is considered a low-risk area. PG&E wants to expand its preemptive power cut-offs to include all its customers. This policy should not go unchallenged; our municipal, county and state leaders need to proactively intercede with PG&E and state utility regulators so that they can then campaign and petition to limit outage impacts on our town. This power problem may be the biggest challenge facing city government in decades. There are many issues here that the city needs to grapple with if the planned outages arent reined in. Here are a couple. Will city departments distribute bags of ice throughout town? Will the city formulate a policy on household generators? That is, will the city streamline permitting of standby generators or consider them a public nuisance or danger and make them hard to get? For these and other concerns, Mayor Geoff Ellsworth says we must develop a culture of preparedness. That, understandably, will take a significant coordination effort involving both public officials and residents. The pattern of our daily lives may change. We may be visiting gas stations more frequently to maintain full tanks. We may be shopping at Sunshine and Safeway daily to make small purchases to keep the amount of refrigerated and frozen food low. And we all should be ordering battery-operated radios now. This may be a summer and fall unlike any others in St. Helenas history. If that sounds alarming, it should be. Mark G. Epstein moved to St. Helena from the East Coast early this century after a career in international business. Whatever you do, dont let Amy Poehler plan your next trip to the Napa Valley. The film, Wine Country, is about six women, mostly played by Saturday Night Live alumni, who go on a trip to wine country specifically, the Napa Valley. Any tasting room associate can tell you that the Napa Valley is a chick-trip magnet. Ask them about wine country bachelorette parties, and youre sure to get some good stories about women behaving badly. In fact, these ladies act exactly like the groups of insolent, entitled, rude, loud, impatient infections that all tasting room staff absolutely dread. To summarize: Poehler and five friends are reuniting for Rachel Dratchs characters 50th birthday. They all know each other because they waitressed at the same time at a pizza place in Chicago, which may be a stand-in for Second City, the comedy incubator in Chicago where Poehler, among others, got their start. They come together in an Airbnb, hosted by Tina Fey in the weirdest fake tough girl Southern accent Ive ever heard, unlike the way anyone actually speaks in Napa. What follows are a drinking party where, rather than do the molly Ana Gasteyers character has thoughtfully brought on the trip, they sit around, drink wine and discuss the pharmaceuticals they take. Then there is the morning tarot reading gone wrong and wine tasting where the ladies rudely insult the poor wine educators. Thrown into the mix is a bit of art criticism when the girls go to an art show hosted by a Maya Erskines Jade, a millennial lesbian who has an interesting take on Fran Drescher; an interlude where Paula Pell hands out dildoes after dinner in an elegant restaurant and is dressed like Santa Claus; and a histrionic scene where Maya Rudolph gets bitten by a snake. This last bit was at the end of the movie I thought would be interesting because rattlesnakes are an ever-present and very serious danger to anyone working in a vineyard. But the snake turns out to be, according to a doctor, either non-venomous or just a twig that scratched her ankle. She lives. Bummer. It was a girls weekend that was the genesis for the movie. Apparently Poehler, et al, spent a few days in Sonoma the previous year. But the film is so bad, painting the Napa Valley in such a horrible light, one can only imagine that their trip to Sonoma must have been a complete disaster, filled with pretentious wine geeks who go on and on about the finer points of wine appreciation; chefs so committed to the perfect dish, they force their diners to wait, preposterously, all night long; or itineraries that are so overbooked, that one doesnt have time to enjoy the very thing they came to enjoy. The thing is, it is that very unyielding dedication to the craft of making food and wine that made you want to come to wine country in the first place. What is clear is that her trip to Sonoma did not inspire respect or appreciation for the work it takes to make a good bottle of wine or a great meal. Rather, it inspired contempt for a culture internationally known for its gracefulness and taste. And often, the inability to appreciate gracefulness and taste when it is presented is an indication of that lack of gracefulness and taste on the part of the person to whom such delicacies are being presented. Amy Poehler, this means you. As someone who has done my time behind a tasting bar, Ive dealt with plenty of people like these. Theyre a bore, insufferable, and generally detract from the experience everyone else is having. To make a film, where the hosts and tour guides work so hard to show you a good time are treated so poorly is an insult to everything I, and my fellow residents of the Napa Valley the winemakers and vineyard workers and marketing people and hospitality workers hold dear. Now dont get me wrong. I am not so blinded by my own sense of self-importance to realize they are poking fun at a stuffiness that can get tiresome. I fully realize the pretense with which I am writing. Who am I to be the arbiter of taste and gracefulness, and why is taste and gracefulness important in the first place? Cant we just spare each other the tired wine arrogance and have a good time? Sure. By all means. But you only do that once you have done your homework. And Amy Poehler didnt do hers. Somebody has to point out the stupid details she neglected to double check, and that person is going to be me. To wit: Jason Schwartzmans chef character is apparently so dedicated to his paella recipe that he never actually finishes it so it can be eaten. Paella, for those who dont know, is a Spanish dish of seafood and rice. Schwartzman, when Poehlers character meets him in the kitchen, says he just got this squid from Bodega Baya real place in Northern California comes from. Schwartzman goes on to ask whether the squid is a cuttlefish, then swiftly answers his own question, informing Poehler that it is indeed a cuttlefish. Except that cuttlefish are not native to North America. The water is too cold and deep. Cuttlefish are only found in Southeast Asia and Australia. Furthermore, there is a scene where Schwartzman is cooking his paella in a huge copper pan over a gas fire pit, stirring it with an oar from a rowboat. The paella is a total liquidcomplete soup, when anybody who has actually had paella as Poehler did when she was in Sonoma, will know that paella is made from rice, containing mussels, shrimp, calamari, etc. Its a moist rice pilaf filled with fruits de mer, not a pan of poop-colored slop. Next, a woman at one winery tells them that because the wine is organic, there will be a lot of sediment at the bottom of the glass, but they are all standing at the bar with white wine in their wine glasses. White wine doesnt have sediment. Sediment is caused by the precipitation of the grape solids out of the wine as it ages. White wine is not fermented with the skins, so there is nothing to precipitate out of the wine to create the sediment. Also, the hapless tasting room associate says that tartrates is another word for sediment, which is not true. Tartrates are the white crystals that form when potassium in the wine binds with tartaric acid usually if the wine gets below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. You can have tartrates in red wine, but it is rare because red wine is usually served just cooler than room temperature, around 55 degrees. On their second day in Napa, after a late night of drinking, they wake up hung over to find a completely crazed tarot card reader on their doorstep. Who in their right mind schedules a tarot card reading for early morning? Why didnt they have her come the night before when everyone was drunk? And, this tarot card reader referred to the major arcana card The Fool, saying that it was about other peoples needs, which is not true. The Fool represents new beginnings, having faith in the future, being inexperienced, and not knowing what to expect in life. If you do watch this movie, and can suppress your gag reflex enough to make it to the end, notice the doormat of the hospital they walk out of. The doormat says NoCal County. Did they mean NorCal County?NorCal being an abbreviation for Northern California, as opposed SoCal, the region to the south. Why NoCal County, when they know Napa is a county all its own? Lazy. Certainly, I, a self avowed wine snob and Napa Valley aesthete, am not the target demographic for this film. Im obviously taking too seriously something that is meant to be a laugh, a lark, an absurd bit of comedy. But its the mindless oversights like these that prevent me from being able to laugh. Her crude disrespect for the culture of her host is the ultimate insult. Wine Country is available anytime you want on Netflix. But your time would be much better spent watching Black Mirror. John Henry Martin admits that he has no sense of humor. Let him have it at jxxhxxm@gmail.com. 19302019 My Brother, Bob Ryan died Monday, May 6 at 10:04 PM. How shall we remember him? His warm and generous heart, a shy, private smile, his gentlemanly demeanorand his ferocious pen work on daily crossword puzzles are good starts. For years you could find him in Gillwoods by mid-afternoon holding court behind his favorite iced tea and a muffin. Bob was 88a depression baby in a tiny R.I. mill town, Peace Dale. We went to grammar and high school together . Then Bob worked with our Dad at Ryan Pontiaccoming up thru the ranks to become the Parts Manager. Believe me, you do not want to be an auto dealer parts manager at inventory time. How many little washers, nuts and bolts can you count in a daywithout getting permanently crossed eyes! When the dealership was sold, Bob moved over to the produce department at Almacs Supermarket before retiring to travel. Those travels led him to St. Helena where he settled in eight years ago. It was good to have him close by. Im sure he would have wanted me to tell you that he was marvelously treated during the two years he lived at the St. Helena Home Care residence on Crinella. Our combined thanks go to Silvana, Carmen, Lupe and Juana for taking such good care of Bob 24/7. Thanks go, too, to the team at Collabria Hospice. A caring yet professional organization with a dedicated staff that helped us through the hard parts. Bob was a fan of Rianda House. So, Im going to send them a little contribution in his memory. A veteran of 19 years in the nursing profession, Napa native Jan Selby says emergency room nursing is something she always wanted to do. As a kid, I remember driving by the emergency room at the Queen and seeing that red helicopter out in front and I just knew that was what Im going to do, Selby said. Now I think of nursing as part of my identity, its a core part of me. I am somebody who has to go towards suffering when I see it, like fire fighters run towards a burning building when everyone else is running away, that is how I am with suffering, she said. While a student at Napa High School, Selby completed the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program through the Regional Occupational Program. Then right out of high school, I went directly into the prerequisites at Napa Valley College and graduated from the nursing program by the time I was 21, Selby said. When she was in college, Selby worked at the Queen as an Emergency Room technician. After I finished school, they hired me right into a nursing position in the emergency department where I worked for about five years, Selby said. Then I decided I wanted to spread my wings and moved to New York City, where I worked at a major urban inner city Level One Trauma Center in the pediatric ER, she said. I just loved caring for kids so I lived and worked there for several years and got a lot of good experience with critically ill children. Eventually, Selby decided it was time to move back home and called the Queen to let them know she was returning to Napa. They asked me when I wanted to start, so Ive been back for about 10 years in the ER and for the last six years as the educator for the department, Selby said. Last year, Selby saw things from the other side when she spent six weeks in the hospital after suffering a stroke, followed by brain surgery. I came out of that a better nurse, she said. Im more patient now and spend more time with the people Im helping. I see the fear and vulnerability in their faces and I am familiar with that. Selby says being the educator means having to be the subject matter expert for every single thing in the ER from policies to procedures to understanding every piece of equipment. For every patient presentation that might come in I have I have to know what to do about it and then I have to be able to teach it, sometimes on the spur of the moment, she said. It can be anything from a toddler with a bead in their ear to a major trauma where we have to crack their chest open. Its a lot of responsibility, but I enjoy it, she said. And if were going to implement a new policy or procedure in the department, I will write the policy from start to finish and do the educating and mentoring for the staff. You cant become a nurse if you dont want to ever learn anything again, Selby said. You have to constantly be educating yourself. But Selbys nursing adventures arent limited to Napa and New York City. My friends are always telling me that I should write a book because Ive been a nurse all over the world, she said. Ive done mission trips, Ive done disaster relief in Third World countries and I went to Haiti for a month after the 2010 earthquake there. I was the only healthcare provider for about 2,000 Haitians. When I hear about those kind of situations, theres something inside me that compels me to help, she added. Selby said she has also traveled to Africa and worked with children suffered from malaria there. Little did Selby know that years later, her experience with earthquake victims would come in handy in Napa. When we had the earthquake here in Napa, within 20 minutes I was at work in the hospital using all the tools that I have to do whatever I could, she said. A colleague at Queen of the Valley said this about Selby: Jen is one of my nursing heroes. She is constantly improving her knowledge and skills so that she, and those she teaches, can offer the best care to our patients. A recent example is her participation in a program where she learned to insert thread-like, central access lines into one of our most vulnerable patient populations: sick newborns. This will allow many of these babies to be cared for in our hospital, keeping them closer to family. Theyre back! I understand why developers want the Adams Street property. Its in St. Helena. But its our property and we need to let the City Council know that its not for sale. We have one last chance to tell them 'no'. Please join me at the City Council Meeting on Tuesday, May 28 at 6 p.m. We all need to show up and tell them 'no.' On Tuesday, May 28 the City Council will decide whether or not to call for RFPs. A Request For Proposal would be asking developers what they think should happen to our property. Developers will propose a hotel as the only thing that makes sense for Adams Street. They will propose what makes them money. We need to show up and let the City Council know, yet again, that Adams Street is not for sale. No RFPs. Dont let them privatize our public property. Once its sold, its gone forever. We dont need another luxury hotel in St. Helena especially one that is off Main Street, at the intersection of two dead-end streets. We dont want more traffic congestion in the middle of our commercial area. Kevin Courtneys May 5 Napa Valley Register column is on Napas traffic woes. One reader wrote that locals have been sacrificed on the alter of tourism and greed by public officials who arent looking out for them. Further, downtown hotels are usurping public parking spaces. The issue in the end is the complete and utter lack of balance between tourism and the needs of the citizens of this city. St. Helena should not follow Napas bad example. There are already two hotels approved. Friedrich, on the old Central Valley property at Main and Vidovich, and Farmstead across the highway at Main and Charter Oak, and Ive heard about another behind Gotts. Isnt that enough?! Not to mention the disastrous situation created by Las Alcobas for the people who live nearby it. We pay a premium to live in St. Helena. Part of the charm we pay for is the open space within the city limits. There is nothing wrong with keeping it open. Why rush to sell? Its paid off, and according to the City Manager, St. Helena is not in dire financial straits. In 20, 30, 100 years from now, the future citizens of St. Helena will thank us for preserving this open space. Weve been fighting for Adams Street, this crucial piece of property, since Safeway wanted to move onto it. How many meetings, studies, committees, focus groups have you and I already been involved in that have come to the same conclusion? We dont want that property developed. However, this is a new Council, a new City Manager, all new city staff and they need to hear us say it once more. We need to rally again. This is our last opportunity to have our voices heard. Please show up on Tuesday, May 28. Let them know that we care. Leslie Stanton St. Helena Editors note: According to a notice of the May 28 City Council meeting, the discussion of conditions, community values, and process related to possible future lease or sale of Adams Street property will be heard at the Tuesday, May 28 regular City Council meeting, 6 p.m. at Vintage Hall on the St. Helena Unified School District property. YEREVAN. Secretary General of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) James Poisant is on a visit to Armenia to check on the progress of preparation for the World Congress on Information Technology 2019 which will be held in Yerevan on October. In an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Mr. Poisant spoke about his expectations from the event and elaborated on Armenia's IT sector. He believes information and communication is affecting nearly every aspect of the real life. Its potential impact on any society is great in terms of any aspect of your life: medical, transportation, environment, Poisant said, adding that this years organizers are doing a great job. According to him, the biggest benefit of bringing it to Armenia is to put spot on Armenia, to show the strength of the country, the beauty of culture and hospitality in order to attract investments in Armenia. WITSA Secretary General expects that around 2,000 participants from more than 60 countries will attend the Congress. The aim is to get more people involved and benefit from WCIT, he concluded. WCIT 2019 will be held in Yerevan on October 6-9, 2019. The Congress is hosted by Armenia with the support and under the high patronage of the Government of the Republic of Armenia. The World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) was established by the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA). Its main organizing body is the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE). Armenias Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has published his article entitled Armenias Contribution to the Successes of the EU Eastern Partnership in the EU Observer and has touched upon Armenias role in and expectations from the EU Eastern Partnership. Armenian News-NEWS.am presents the article in its entirety below: The 10th anniversary of the EU Eastern Partnership provides the opportunity to assess the success recorded to this day and the prospects for larger bilateral and multilateral cooperation in Europe. The first decade of the pretentious effort of the Eastern Partnership for the engagement of the eastern countries of the European Union has been perceived and interpreted differently by both partners and the EU member states. Nevertheless, the Eastern Partnership was also marked by the significant level of progress made for the enhancement and deepening of relations between the European Union and the six Eastern Partnership countries. The Eastern Partnership is growing as a multilateral platform to encourage and promote regional cooperation between the partnering countries that have chosen different paths and levels of involvement with the EU. Armenias unique success in the framework of the Eastern Partnership is due to three factors. The first is the acknowledgement and perception of the special position of Armenia as a country seeking more flexible and enlarged circles of cooperation based on the EUs differentiation policy, and the signing of the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement attests to that. Signed in November 2017 and ratified by the Parliament of Armenia in April 2018, the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement serves as an alternative path to achieve enhanced and strategically reinforced partnership between Armenia and the EU, beyond the format of the Associated Agreement. Moreover, the Agreement prescribes the prospective scope of Armenias contributions to the enhancement and deepening of relations, Europes support to the political and economic reforms in Armenia, as well as the strengthening of security and stability in the region. The second major achievement for the Eastern Partnership was attaching importance to common values shared by Europe and Armenia, hinged on the heritage of general civilization, as well as the mutual aspirations for sustainable democracy, freedom, dialogue and cooperation. However, the relatively last and more promising development is the third factor, that is, Armenias unique contribution to the success of the Eastern Partnership. This contribution derives from the success of the Velvet Revolution that took place in Armenia last year, and it affirms the European values and ideals as a major platform for peaceful change. From our perspective, the non-violent approach to political change in Armenia was the only potion to ensure a transition to credible democracy, accountability and good governance. Staying true to restoration of the priority of the citizen of Armenia, we managed to start a new chapter in our political history through public service that is aimed at placing national interest above ones own interest and in which the reforms underway have become irreversible. Armenia strives to strengthen its relations with Europe that are hinged on mutual respect, interests and acknowledgement of security considerations, acceptance of our responsibility for democratic governance and accountability, but we also expect the support of the EU for the promotion of our reforms, sustainable development and human contacts, including the ensuring of movement without a visa, cultural, educational and academic exchanges to use the potential of active and educated young people as agents for change. A greater challenge facing the Eastern Partnership is the strengthening of its potential and capacity as a platform for regional consolidation and expansion of cooperation and stability, while resisting geopolitical competition and confrontation. Dialogue and cooperation remain the driving force and only selection for the peaceful settlement of conflicts and the establishment of durable peace and stability in Europe. Thus, taking a look back at the past decade of the Eastern Partnership, it is clear that, like any program that has been around for a decade, this is also a growing and developing program in which the promise to reinforce our bilateral agenda with the EU and potential remain accessible. And as we continue our path for deeper democracy and fair economic development in our country and peaceful settlement of conflicts, we emphasize the importance of continuity of and collective efforts for Europes support to reinforce the results of cooperation. For development and further institutionalization of democracy, Armenia needs to work with the EU in order to expand the capacities of the Eastern Partnership for rule of law, sustainability of democratic institutions and for ensuring human rights protection and sustainable development. Depreciation of respect for and protection of human rights and the priorities for promoting democracy and rule of law in the territory of the Eastern Partnership will impede and cause severe damage to the EaP concept and value-based relations. We also expect more security from the Eastern Partnership in pivotal sectors of interrelationship. In this sense, as a part of the positive agenda for interrelationships between regions, the EU can play a pivotal role in the creation and development of more inclusive transportation and energy projects with and among partners. Armenia also expects a more comprehensive approach to security from the EU and the Eastern Partnership, including the adoption of a value-based policy on involvement, supporting the maintenance of peace, security and stability in our region. For instance, sustainable support to the vital right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) to self-determination and the peaceful settlement of the conflict within the scope of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, which have the mandate of the international community, is testing our partners consistency when it comes to sensitivity to the support to real peace in our region and to vital security of our nations. These principles and positions are reaffirmed in the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement. Taking the opportunity of the 10th anniversary to welcome the success of the Eastern Partnership and herald the lasting promise, Armenia stays committed to make its contributions to the successes to be achieved in the next decades a commitment that has only been reinforced with the first anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Karabakh President responds to Armenia PM Nikol Pashinyan Did you know? 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On our behalf, we have said it multiple times that we also would like to rebuild fully fledged relations, and I hope that right now a conducive environment is being built for that, because, though, however exotic the work of Special Counsel Mueller was, I have to say that on the whole he had a very objective investigation and he confirmed that there are no traces whatsoever of collusion between Russia and the incumbent administration, which weve said was absolutely fake, he said. We did have a productive set of conversations this afternoon between us. Theres places we disagree; theres places I think there are truly overlapping interests that we can build on, and most importantly, President Trump very much wants to do that. Always, just as you will, well protect our nations interests, but there are places that our two countries can find where we can be cooperative, we can be productive, we can be cumulative, we can work together to make each of our two peoples more successful and, frankly, the world more successful too. Putins talks with Pompeo, who first arrived in Russia as state secretary, lasted about an hour and a half. The sides discussed international issues, including the conflict in Syria and the Iranian issue, as well as the possibility of Putin meeting with US President Donald Trump within G20 summit in Japan. Assistant to the Russian leader Yury Ushakov noted that there was no breakthrough in relations between Russia and the US after the meeting, but he called the attitude of the American side businesslike. The European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan are negotiating with each other, they are negotiating; we, naturally, are not for those negotiations. Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on Tuesday told this to reporters in Brussels, after the high-level conference on the 10th anniversary of the EU Eastern Partnership program. To the query as to whether he is aware that, in terms of wording selection, to what degree are the EU and Azerbaijan statements wording related to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) consistent with and comparable to the wording in the Armenia-EU agreement, Mnatsakanyan replied: We [Armenia] have with the EU our agreement that is the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement where a great extent of various mattersthe including regional security matter, including the paragraph on Nagorno-Karabakhare expressed. The European Union and Azerbaijan are negotiating with each other, they are negotiating. Naturally, we [Armenia] are not for [these] negotiations, and here, it seems to me, there is a quite important matter for the European Union: to what extent are they principled and consistent in their stances? In that sense, I will repeat again, we [Armenia] have our contract arena where the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh has its own expression. I hope and am confident that the European Union has the principles of maintaining consistency. When asked whether Armenia has presented any specific reservation to the EU regarding possible partnership with Azerbaijan, the Armenian FM responded as follows: We [Armenia] are a third party in these negotiations, and the matter first of all concerns the consistency of the European Union. As for the fact that thanks to Azerbaijans unique veto, three declarations and the necessary documents could not be adopted because Azerbaijan wantedas it FM Elmar Mammadyarov revealedthat the principle of territorial integrity also be on the document, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan noted that Armenia has its own agenda with the EU, and he is satisfied with the results. As for the summary, the summary was made by [High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Vice President of the EU Commission] Mrs. [Federica] Mogherini, [and] which reflects the approaches of the member states, he added, And as for what concerns Armenia, it reflects our approaches. We have a summary of our 10-year activity, which was expressed by way of Mrs. Mogherinis statement. The rest was a process. We are waiting for some clarifications for the next phase. Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on Tuesday told this to reporters in Brussels, after the high-level conference on the 10th anniversary of the EU Eastern Partnership program, and touching upon the possibility of the next meeting between the prime minister of Armenia and the president of Azerbaijan. Asked whether or not such a meeting is planned for the near future, Mnatsakanyan replied as follows: Lets be patient a bit more. You know that we are waiting for some clarifications for the next phase, for the meeting; and the hosting side shall say how its possible, when its convenient, so that we can also assess those periods; that is, to agree. In principle, we have no problem. He noted that the next meeting between Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev is expected to be held in Washington. But it would be wrong to say anything [now], the Armenian FM added. Going ahead of the hosting side, I believe, is not a nice thing [to do]. Also, Mnatsakanyan informed that he had interacted and conversed with Azerbaijan FM Elmar Mammadyarov in Brussels. Thats a normal phenomenon within such frames, during such formats, he said. You know, we are human beings, too, and we can interact with each other, and at every interaction its not necessary for us to address some matters for which we have no shortage of occasions. Visa liberalization with the EU is of great importance, and its a very fundamental matter to us. Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on Tuesday told this to reporters in Brussels, after the high-level conference on the 10th anniversary of the EU Eastern Partnership program. Asked whether the matter of Armenias visa liberalization with the EU was touched upon during his talks these two days, Mnatsakanyan replied as follows: Visa liberalization is of great importance, which is a very fundamental matter to us. You have heard again: we again reflected [on it] during the discussion. Visa liberalization is not the only but the key tool that enables us to strengthen what is called human interaction. [But] this is not the only tool; we focus on and try to develop all the other possibilities [as well]. There are various considerations, various matters relating to the attitude and politics toward migration; [but] this is not a sufficient obstacle to us [Armenia]. We cant accept it and say, Very well, the matter is closed. We will continue to very consistently advance it because we insist that each and every person is assessed according to his merits, according to his abilities. We are very sensitive, and we will not act in any way so as to create such a possibility: abusing of the liberalized [EU visa] regime. Now they tell us that there are other countries that benefit from the liberalized regime and abuse it; [but] thats not an adequate argument to us [Armenia]. We want to be assessed according to our merits, our capabilities, and its in that sense that all of our experts, all of our relevant departments dealing with migration are in contact with the relevant European experts to evaluate to what extent our capabilities are developed, to what extent they meet the standards, so that we can start the visa liberalization dialogue. And to the query as to whether he can specify any precise date for Armenias visa liberalization with the EU, the FM responded as follows: This is a matter of every moment to us, and I cant say when it will be; this is continuous. The most important thing is that we have the opportunity to assess to what extent our abilities are sufficient so that we start it. We are confident that we have enough progress on that matter and now, by combining all of this and pushing forward our agenda, we must try to accelerate all this. I repeat again, this is a very fundamental matter to us [Armenia]. The Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, New York, is known as the heartland of Chabad-Lubavitch. Millions around the world have been touched by Chabad emissaries who were educated in the neighborhoods yeshivahs and nurtured by renowned Crown Heights personalities. Theythe elder generationwas guided by the Lubavitcher Rebbe who led and grew the movement from his office and synagogue at the iconic Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters on the neighborhoods main thoroughfare, 770 Eastern Parkway. This weekend, hundreds of adults and children from seventy five cities around the world will spend Shabbat in Crown Heights. Many people are intrigued by this mythical-sounding factory of rabbis and rebbetzins, says Rabbi Chaim Hanoka, director of Chabad of Pasadena, CA. But once they visit, it brings the concept of who we are and what we are doing, to life. Rabbi Shmuly Karp coordinates the annual event, dubbed Shabbat in the Heights. Chabad leaders, he explains, wanted to introduce their communities to the source from which they sprang, but from their far-flung locations, such a visit was difficult to organize. So in 2015, they approached the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI), Chabads preeminent provider of adult-education who, together with the local Lubavitch Youth Organization which has hosted Crown Heights guests for decades, created the first Shabbat in the Heights. A partialview of the crowd at Shabbat in the Heights 2018 during a havdala ceremony Rabbi Efraim Mintz, JLIs executive director explains that the program was aligned with the Institutes objective. We develop content with the overarching goal of illustrating the profound relevance of Torah in our day-to-day living. How better to do this than experiencing an authentic Shabbat while encountering the heart and soul of Chabad? Participants visit various notable communal leaders including members of the Rebbes secretariat, community activists and figureheads at their homes, and are hosted for Shabbat dinner by Crown Heights families. They attend lectures and join discussions, study Chasidic philosophy and fire questions at a panel of rabbis and rebbetzins. They visit local artisans, like a scribe who writes tefillin, Torahs and mezuzahs, and tour the iconic cornerstones of Chabad: the Rebbes home, offices and synagogue, and finally, a visit to the Rebbes resting place in Queens. The schedule is tightly packed, with a focus on giving our guests an insight into the inner workings of Chabad while encountering the hospitality for which the Crown Heights community is renowned, says Yisroel Beenstock, director of outreach for the weekend. Organizers expect 320 adults and 100 children to attend this years Shabbat. Many, like Greka and Yitzchak Isaac Leimberg, are repeat guests. The Pasadena couple have come every year since the inauguration of Shabbat in the Heights. It is enlightening to meet fabulous guests from all over, Greka explains to Lubavitch.com, Spiritually and emotionally, we recharge our batteries when we go to Crown Heights with our rabbi. A notable guest is Member of Parliament, Mr. Ivan Lewis who will be joining the group from Manchester, UK. As my commitment to Judaism has grown so has my admiration for Chabad-Lubavitch, Mr. Lewis who has recently begun to observe Shabbat, shared with Lubavitch.com. I am excited at the prospect of a spiritually uplifting weekend in the company of new friends, especially visiting the Rebbes Ohel and 770. Rabbi Hanoka, now chairman of Shabbat in the Heights, has brought guests from all levels of Jewish observance and involvement. He says the feedback, both from his colleagues and his congregants shows the impact of the experience. People go home with renewed energy and vigor in their own Judaism, becoming ambassadors to their communities, where they encourage others to become more involved. A group of Shabbat in the Heights participants pose in front of Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters The outcome of the talks between the Russian leadership and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Sochi was that both sides remained unconvinced, but this trip of the head of American diplomacy is a serious attempt by the Washington administration to start a reset in relations between the two countries. The Washington Post commented on the talks between the US Secretary of State and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin, TASS reported According to the source, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he came to this Black Sea resort on Tuesday with a task from President Donald Trump: to improve US relations with Russia. But closer to the night at the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, it became clear that Pompeo could hope no more than to leave Sochi with only one agreement - that everyone would remain unconvinced. On issues of Iran, Venezuela and Russian intervention in the US elections, Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a sharply opposite position at a joint press conference. Despite this, the first visit of Pompeo to Russia as state secretary was a serious new attempt by the administration of President Trump to find a fresh base for himself in the most politically dangerous relations on the world stage, WP added. During his elections campaign, Trump has voiced a desire to cooperate with Russia on the issue of global challenges, but he never realized this desire in practice because of strong political resistance. Now that the investigation by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller about Russia's intervention in the elections is completed, the White House and the Kremlin see an opportunity to reset the relationship, the source added. The US Secretary of State during his visit to Russia on Tuesday held talks with Lavrov, after which he was received by Putin. Lavrov and Pompeo held approximately three-hour talks in Sochi, discussing both bilateral relations and the most pressing international and regional issues, including the situation in Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria and the Middle East, the resolution of nuclear development problems of North Korea and Iran. The parties agreed to take practical steps to remedy the situation in the Russian-American relations. Donald Trump, Jr., agreed at the request of lawmakers from the Senate Senate Special Committee on Intelligence of the US Congress to answer questions concerning the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, TASS reported referring to the New York Times. According to the source, at the end of last week, the chair of this committee, Richard Burr, informed other Republicans that Trump Jr. had been summoned to the hearing. According to Berra, before that, the son of the US President had twice accepted the invitation to speak before the legislators, but later refused. The decision to send a summons to Trump Jr. was criticized by supporters of the US president. According to the NYT sources, the son of the US leader and lawmakers agreed that the meeting would be closed and will be held in mid-June. It will last no more than four hours. Lawmakers will be able to ask questions only on a few topics. In December 2017, Donald Trump Jr. had already spoken at the closed hearings of special intelligence committees of both houses of Congress as part of their investigations into the interference attributed to Russia in US elections. Since January 2017, the Senate Senate Intelligence Committee has been conducting its own investigation. Burr said earlier that the trial will end in the coming months. On April 18, the US Department of Justice announced the final report of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who since May 2017 has been investigating allegations that Russia was trying to influence the course of the US presidential race. Mueller admitted that no collusion of Donald Trumps campaign staff with Moscow was possible. The President and his assistants have repeatedly rejected suspicions of any unlawful contacts with Russian officials during the election campaign. Moscow has also repeatedly rejected allegations of attempts to influence the course of elections in the United States. YEREVAN. Sevak Hakobyan, Chief Editor of Yerevan.Today, presented details on Tuesdays incident at the courtyard of capital city Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction. On May 14, there was a protest action at the courtyard of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction, he noted. Minors, holding Life [imprisonment], Rob [i.e., Armenias second President Robert Kocharyan], killer, With courage and other banners in their hands, also were participating in it. A group of other demonstrators, whojudging by their height, mustache and beardwere grown-ups, were standing alongside them. The Yerevan.Today film crew approached the children to find out why they had come, who had brought [them], who had given those banners to them. The children noted that they were not with their parents. Adults approached our film crew and obstructed their work. They insulting our website, accusing the journalist of interviewing a minor without the presence, permission of the parent. It reached to the point that the demonstrators fell into hysterical fits. No clash broke out thanks to police intervention. But its noteworthy that the same policemen were calmly overseeing the childrens degeneration by those adults, and they were not making any intervention. It turns out that a minor can be included in hate speech, can be given anti-propaganda banners and be included in propaganda, whereas the journalist who is trying to find out and prevent all that can be accused, insulted, and obstructed the work of. We consider it important to note that detection and prevention of crime against children is the work of law enforcement, first and foremost. But if they are in the role of an observer, then the journalistin this case, our journalisthas to do it. And in the evening, some people called Yerevan.Todays cameraman from a blocked phone number, introduced [themselves] as officers from the Masis department of the police, and invited [him] to have a conversation. We invite the attention of RA Police Chief Valeri Osipyan, Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan, organizations engaged in the protection of minors rights and journalists interests. We are reporting a committed crime: involving children in hate speech, obstructing journalists work and getting an account from them. Police must find out who included the children into their so-called fight, who were sowing intolerance and hatred and for what purpose, who obstructed our correspondents work, who called our cameraman and attempted to get an account. We urge the advocates of the journalists interests to give an assessment on what has happened, especially since the adult demonstrators were openly and publicly promoting hatred towards Yerevan.Today: The incident took place in the presence of numerous people and police officers; it was recorded with numerous video recording devices. Karabakh President responds to Armenia PM Nikol Pashinyan Taliban advise US to not interfere in Afghanistan's domestic affairs Karabakh Parliament Speaker: We are in a sad situation, sirs Armenia opposition MP: Nikol stole from Karabakh-Armenians their small homeland, did he steal their dignity too? 2 more persons die of coronavirus in Karabakh Armenia opposition MP on Pashinyan's recent statements on Artsakh and Karabakh legislature's upcoming session Turkish drone strikes Kurds' Kobani in Syria - mass media Karabakh Parliament to convene special session for adoption of statement 102 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Stoltenberg wishes to convene session of NATO-Russia Council on Jan. 12 - mass media 2 earthquakes hit coasts of Kamchatka Peninsula in one hour Armenian President congratulates Justin Trudeau Macron calls launch of the James Webb telescope a historic event Iran closes land border with neighboring countries due to omicron strain Ariane successfully launches with latest James Webb telescope Turkey and Azerbaijan Foreign Ministers discuss situation in South Caucasus Pashinyan congratulates Trudeau on his anniversary Flight to Yerevan cancelled due to plane engine fire Yerevan ex-mayor Marutyan submits letter of resignation from his city council seat Artsakh Prosecutor's Office: Chartar village resident killed by long-range shot by Azerbaijan 4 dead after Sri Lanka policeman opens fire on fellow officers Newly appointed Yerevan mayor takes oath of office At least 16 people die after boat full of migrants capsizes off Greece coast of Amirabdollahian: Iran Azerbaijan charted roadmap to further enhance ties Christmas Eve does not pass without incident for Biden 118 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia New mayor of Yerevan to swear in today Huge ichthyosaur fossil reveals new theories about evolution speed Rare walking fish spotted off Tasmania coast for first time in 22 years Rice-sized microchip placed under skin can become Covid vaccination passport Thailand authorities seize $30M of crystal methamphetamine hidden in boxing punch bags Newspaper: No contract signed with any lobbying organization since Makunts appointment as ambassador to US Newspaper: Armenia ex-President Kocharyan to also hold press conference Newspaper: Armenia authorities instruct but investigative body can no longer continue Armenia PM: There are no legal grounds for existence of enclaves Armen Ashotyan to Pashinyan: Real catastrophe took place when a nincompoop like you came to power in Armenia Armenia PM: Catastrophe took place in Karabakh negotiations in 2016 Armenia PM on first meeting held in '3+2' regional format Armenia PM on opening of communications Yerevan mayor's oath-taking ceremony to be held on Dec. 25 Putin to not call Biden on the phone to wish him a Merry Christmas Armenia PM on granting status of observer to Azerbaijan within Eurasian Economic Union Georgia Parliament Speaker resigns Armenia's Pashinyan: I refuse to discuss any issue related to the army publicly Armenia PM: If the Armenian-Turkish negotiations are a success, of course, there will be a meeting with Erdogan Earthquake hits Armenia-Georgia border zone Armenia PM: I returned from meeting in Sochi with a feeling of satisfaction Armenia PM says he will attend non-official summit of CIS countries, will have contact with Aliyev Armenia's Pashinyan: We returned the captured Azerbaijani servicemen without preconditions Azerbaijan to deploy special military detachments in Karabakh's Hadrut region Azerbaijan President is blatantly threatening Armenia again Armenia FM meets with members of ruling parliamentary faction Armenia PM giving press conference Armenian PM attends Requiem Service for wife of National Hero of Armenia Karen Demirtchyan Analyst clarifies what will disturb Turkey and Azerbaijan from opening so-called corridor via Armenia NEWS.am daily digest: 24.12.21 Republican Party of Armenia: Authorities are creating barrier between Diaspora and historic homeland with their policy Turkey, Qatar sign memorandum on joint management of Kabul International Airport Armenia ex-defense minister Davit Tonoyan to remain in custody Representatives of Azerbaijani and Armenian communities meet in Moscow for first time after Karabakh military conflict Dollar still losing value in Armenia Parliament vice-speaker receives American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia board chairman Republican Party spokesperson: Armenia authorities decided to smoothen ties with Turkey after defeat in war Armenia Health Ministry Legal Department head: Decision of Constitutional Court is ministry's victory MFA: Russia welcomes international efforts to normalize Armenian-Azerbaijani relations Armenia President receives group of parents of deceased servicemen Armenia Security Council holds session Iran FM: Tehran is ready to participate in next stage of negotiations with Saudi Arabia Zakharova on Armenia-Azerbaijan railway link: Substantive discussions continue on trilateral working group Kremlin: US may consult with Ankara over settlement of situation in Ukraine Zakharova: Moscow believes Ankara will take Russia's signals seriously Non-official meeting of leaders of CIS countries to be held on Dec. 28 Audit Chamber official: Armenia banks have misused state subsidies they received Armenia health, labor inspectorate to inspect 700 economic entities in 2022 Russia peacekeepers ensure safe travel of more than 2,000 people to, from Karabakh in one day Azerbaijan's Aliyev celebrates 60th birthday in occupied Armenian city of Hadrut Russia MFA: Not only Turkey ready to hold 3+3 regional consultative mechanism meeting Maria Zakharova wishes Yerevan and Baku peace and patience Valerie Pecresse posts comment on Facebook: I visited Armenia - France's fraternal country Putin, Aliyev confirm readiness to strengthen Russia-Azerbaijan strategic partnership Middle East Eye: Turkey encouraged by Armenia PM Pashinyan's reelection, aims to normalize relations Armenia government: Constitutional Court decision does not lift requirement for employees to submit PCR test result New program shall develop Armenia metrology Armenia opposition MP: Corridor is spoken of as established fact in Azerbaijan Armenia Constitutional Reform Council to include 2 representatives of international organizations Putin expresses Aliyev readiness to continue dialogue, joint work to strengthen regional stability, security 1 more person dies of coronavirus in Karabakh 135 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Lavrov: Involvement of Kiev in NATO poses serious risks, even large-scale conflict in Europe Newly elected Vanadzor city council first session not convened NATO to approach Russia borders in case of aggression against Ukraine President thanks Russia peacekeepers, Putin in terms of Artsakh security Newspaper: What is actual Covid death toll in Armenia? Newspaper: Details became known from closed meeting between Armenia PM, parliament majority faction US arms exports fall 21% in 2021 Diaspora Commissioner: More than 1.5 million people left Armenia in 30 years High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs: Armenia won't build relations with Turkey at expense of interests of nation High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs: Fifth Turkish Column is very active in Armenia Armenia High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs: We Armenians don't know our enemies well Biden administration welcomes 'small' steps toward diplomacy with Russia Armenias foreign policy is actively developing both towards the West and the East, which is quite unusual, the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia Ruben Safrastyan told reporters on Wednesday. According to him, the development of relations with China is of interest not only from an economic point of view, but also civilizational. These are ancient countries that have a very rich, ancient history and culture and must maintain a high level of relations with each other, which comes from their common interests, he said. Asked to comment whether Armenia might be interesting for China, the expert answered that the Chinese foreign policy is aimed at maintaining good relations with the surrounding countries. Beijing is implementing a policy of preserving and developing harmonious relations with all countries, and not only neighboring ones. According to him, China is interested in Armenias foreign policy, in particular with regard to Turkey and its other neighbors. This is due to a certain interest of China towards Turkey, since the latter, to a certain extent, is one of the main competitors of China in the international market. In addition, the Chinese are also interested in the experience of Armenian experts with the Middle East, since Beijing does not have such rich experience of interaction with this region. Second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyans attorney Hayk Alumyan continues to cite excerpts from the testimonies of major witnesses in the case of the events of March 1, 2008. One of those testimonies is the testimony of current Advisor to the Prime Minister of Armenia Arshak Karapetyan in which Karapetyan tells about the talks held during the famous consultation convened on February 23, 2008. According to Karapetyans testimony, Robert Kocharyans decision to declare a state of emergency was followed by Serzh Sargsyans proposal to create a separate military administration under Yuri Khachaturov since the latter was the head of the garrison in Yerevan. After the consultation, some officers complained and asked why they had to be involved in the events taking place in Yerevan, this is what Karapetyan stated in his testimony. According to Karapetyan, on the evening of March 1, 2008, Robert Kocharyan promulgated the decree on declaring a state of emergency, even though Kocharyan had declared a state of emergency on February 23, 2008. According to attorney Hayk Alumyan, the prosecutors refer to this exact testimony and declare that Kocharyan had given the order to engage the army in the interior political processes on February 23, 2008. Alumyan added that the preliminary investigation body had the testimonies of other persons having participated in the consultation at its disposal, but those testimonies werent submitted during the trials over the case of Kocharyans remand. He stated that the attorneys found out about the other testimonies only when the case materials were provided to them. In particular, according to the attorney, Arshak Karapetyans statements are denied based on the testimonies given by then Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, and Alumyan cited an excerpt from the testimony that third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan has given in regard to the case of the events of March 1, 2008. I personally dont remember such circumstances since quite a long time has passed. Robert Kocharyan convened the consultation with high-ranking officers of the armed forces, and the common goal was to warn the administration of the armed forces that the heads of the demonstrations are engaging officers of the armed forces in those processes and that a deputy minister has joined them, Alumyan cited. Later, in his testimony, Serzh Sargsyan said that putting the armed forces in the status of barracks had nothing to do with martial law. Listening to Alumyan, the judge urged him once again to simply cite the testimonies, not publish all the testimonies, stating that he and the participants of the procedure are aware of the content of those testimonies. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continued his visit to China. Pashinyan participated on the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing. In his address at the event, PM Pashinyan noted, in particular, that today, as before, Armenia sees the path of its progress in cooperation with all regional and global players. Pashinyan also met with Chinese Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang. The sides discussed issues related to the expansion and deepening of cooperation various areas and also touched upon the cooperation in the construction of the North-South highway and other infrastructural projects in Armenia. Li Keqiang noted that the Chinese government is ready to engage in these programs. An Armenian soldier was killed in a car accident on Tuesday afternoon. Junior Sergeant Ararat Khechumyan died from injuries that he received after curving the Ural-4310 car off the road during the military exercises at N military unit of the Ministry of Defense. Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said they are waiting for some clarifications for the next phase of meetings between the representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Asked whether the next meeting is expected to be held in Washington, but the minister said it would be wrong to say anything now, and going ahead of the hosting side is not a nice thing to do. Mnatsakanyan informed that he had interacted and conversed with Azerbaijan FM Elmar Mammadyarov in Brussels. U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy said Washington is not going to interfere with the legitimate trade between Armenia and Iran. The United States understands that the southern border is very important for Armenia, for its trade and security relationship, she said We are asking not that Armenia cut off its trade with Iran. We have no interest in interfering with legitimate trade between this nation and very important neighbor, the diplomat added. Officers of the National Security Service of Armenia found out that the alarm about a terrorist act in building #3 of the Armenian government was a false alarm. The alarm was sounded on Tuesday by a person being kept under custody at Nubarashen penitentiary and charged with robbery, embezzlement and falsification of documents. Penitentiory employyes searched his cell and found a wifi device, a charger and 5 mobile phones, as well as the mobile phone card through which the false alarm had been sounded. Ararat Mirozyan: Artsakh and Armenian interests are united The 13th meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on Cooperation between the Armenian and Artsakh National Assemblies was held in Yerevan on Wednesday, Armenian National Assemblys press service reported. Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan highlighted the most demanding international observation missions have assessed the extraordinary parliamentary elections in 2018 as free, democratic, transparent, which, according to NA Speaker, is an extremely important circumstance. Ararat Mirzoyan expressed his gratitude to Artsakh colleagues for their observation mission and expressed readiness to observe the upcoming parliamentary elections in Artsakh. After being elected NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan noted that he considered it necessary to make his first visit to Artsakh. The NA President attached importance to the formation of a common national political agenda as a result of joint work. Artsakh and Armenian interests are united in all directions and they should be consistently advancing, said Ararat Mirzoyan. "Our parliamentarians, making the international community more accessible to the international community, the motives, the essence and peculiarities of the origin of the Karabakh issue should surely contribute to the international recognition of Artsakh, he said. Speaking about the activities of the Armenian Parliament delegations in the international structures, the head of the parliament touched upon the work carried out within the PACE, stressing that the Council of Europe does not have the appropriate mandate and mechanism for the settlement of conflicts, but within its functions the organization can directly initiate contacts with Artsakh. "The steps we take in the OSCE, NATO, BSEC and other platforms are to raise the issue of people living in Nagorno-Karabakh, and to make equal use of the European Convention on Human Rights across Europe, including in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the ceasefire between Artsakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia. During this time, we have been loyal to the letter and spirit of the ceasefire agreement and commitment to solving the conflict exclusively in the format of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing, he said. Ararat Mirzoyan thanked the members of the commission for participating in the session, wishing new joint successes. Welcoming the participants of the session, Nagorno Karabakh Speaker Ashot Ghulyan expressed satisfaction with the holding of the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee in Yerevan. According to him, during the past months, all Armenian political forces have visited Artsakh with high representation and met with representatives of the legislative and executive powers. "The international reputation of Armenia today gives the necessary positive impetus to advance the issues of the international pan-Armenian agenda. In this context, our main efforts should be focused on strengthening existing relations with international partners, establishing new partnerships and raising Artsakh's recognition on different platforms, he said. Armenias Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies Hakob Arshakyan, who is in China as part of the delegation led by Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, had a meeting with Minister of Transport of the Peoples Republic of China Li Xiaopeng, as reported on the official website of the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of Armenia. Li Xiaopeng presented the activities for the enhancement of transport infrastructures in China and expressed willingness to cooperate in several areas. Expressing gratitude for the reception, Minister Hakob Arshakyan presented Armenias road construction projects and attached special importance to the construction of the North-South Road Corridor. Arshakyan stated that he also had a meeting with the leadership of the China Railway Group, which is interested in the road construction projects under implementation in Armenia and wishes to become engaged in the efforts for construction of the North-South Road Corridor Investment Program. The minister emphasized the strategic significance of the North-South Road Corridor for the region and Armenia and the importance of the road corridor as a part of the One Belt, One Road project. During the meeting, the parties also touched upon the issue of direct flights between China and Armenia, the liberalization of permits for international transit cargo transfers to China through the territory of Armenia and the need for an appropriate agreement to intensify cargo transfers between the two countries. The parties positively assessed the effectiveness of the meeting and stated that it will promote intensification of activities and the strengthening of partnership between the relevant ministries of the two countries. Milton Hershey School and Mount St. Mary's University announced that they entered into a formal partnership to provide more focused support to help students from Milton Hershey Schoolmany of whom are the first in their families to attend collegesucceed at Mount St. Mary's University. Together, leaders from Milton Hershey School and the Mount St. Mary's University will work to improve the graduation rate for low-income, first-generation college students. Both institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that formalizes and expands the collaboration, specifying steps to be taken to attract more Milton Hershey School students to Mount St. Mary's University while improving their retention and graduation rates. "At Milton Hershey School we are working to ensure that our graduates have the ability to thrive academically, socially and emotionally during college," said Milton Hershey School Vice President of Graduate Programs for Success Tanya Baynham. "Through our partnership with Mount St. Mary's University, students will have access to sustained support that will help them navigate their educational journey with confidence and individualized guidance." Milton Hershey School graduates who attend Mount St. Mary's University will receive resources and support to guide them throughout the duration of their entire college experience. Students will have access to a wide array of resources that will allow them to not only graduate from college but thrive while there. These will include: Pre-college programming for Milton Hershey School students prior to entering Mount St. Mary's University that will introduce them to student life, academic expectations and resources; Academic support while at Mount St. Mary's University that will include small group sessions centered around planning, utilizing campus academic and personal services and gaining skills in time management and class preparation; and Assistance with finding and securing on-campus work study employment as well as summer employment. "The excellent work of Tanya Baynham and her team at Milton Hershey School in preparing students for a university experience aligns with Mount St. Mary's commitment to educate each student to lead lives of significance by supporting and encouraging them on their academic journeys," said Mount St. Mary's University President Timothy E. Trainor, Ph.D. "We are honored to be the first university outside of Pennsylvania to partner with Milton Hershey School and look forward to welcoming their graduates." Milton Hershey School's Graduate Programs for Success (GPS) Division has partnered with more than 18 postsecondary institutions. In addition to the individualized guidance offered at each institution, Milton Hershey School's career and higher education specialists provide comprehensive support throughout the duration of college. The partnership with Mount St. Mary's University is part of Milton Hershey School's ongoing commitment to strengthen its graduates' postsecondary experiences and improve the national college graduation outcome for financially disadvantaged students. SIU joins the economy-building Illinois Innovation Network by Christi Mathis CARBONDALE, Ill. Southern Illinois University Carbondale, long a leader in spurring innovation, entrepreneurship and development, is one of the newest members of a statewide group of hubs created to boost the states economy through research and innovation. SIU is part of the Illinois Innovation Network (IIN), a group that now includes 15 hubs, spanning the entire state and including all Illinois public four-year universities. The hubs will collaborate and could have access to capital funding in order to grow economies across the state. The newly established Illinois Innovation Network will provide significant opportunities to our campus the southernmost hub in the state, SIU Carbondale Chancellor John M. Dunn said. We are grateful for the opportunity to leverage our signature programs and our research enterprise in collaboration with our partners throughout Illinois. SIUs focus SIU Carbondale is establishing the Illinois Food, Entrepreneurship, Research and Manufacturing Hub to address via interdisciplinary research and education the challenges the region faces related to food, nutrition, agriculture and health. The hub will also provide the infrastructure to develop agricultural value-added products, which in turn will promote and support successful entrepreneurial activities. Essentially, one of the primary goals is to find new and different ways to utilize Illinois agricultural products and help them successfully reach the market. The hub will provide new economic and entrepreneurial opportunities and facilitate the development of value-added food, beverage and medicinal products. How it began The IIN launched in August 2018, led by the University of Illinois System and with hubs at the systems three institutions, as well as at the Discovery Partners Institute (CPI) in downtown Chicago. A couple of other institutions joined later last year and nine new hubs, including SIU Carbondale, joined the IIN this week. Now, all of the states public universities are involved, each having its own specific focus. The hubs will work with DPI to foster research innovation to spur progress and economic growth. Collaborations between the various hubs will take place as well. Last year the Illinois legislature approved $500 million in capital funds for DPI and the IIN and all of the hubs will be eligible to seek funding authorized this year. The DPI is a research center led by the U of I System and it will eventually house thousands of students and more than 100 top researchers. They will work with the hubs as well as with academic, business and technology partners around the world to spur discoveries which will spark innovation, economic growth and prosperity. The hubs will participate in DPI programming and collaborations and the DPI researchers and students will work with the hubs in educational, research and outreach activities. It is very exciting to see how our states public universities are working together through the Illinois Innovation Network, and how they are putting innovation at the forefront of their agenda, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said. We have so much potential if we just work together, and todays announcement shows me that our universities are committed to that. They are our states key pillars of innovation and talent production, and I look forward to seeing the even greater impact they can have on Illinois economy through the IIN. Diverse concepts Each of the 15 partner hubs will have a unique focus. Topics to be addressed include solutions for urban populations, manufacturing, health care workforce shortages, and much more. These new hubs fulfill the guiding vision of the Illinois Innovation Network, spreading the power of innovation to every corner of our state through partnerships with every one of our states public universities and other important regional partners, Tim Killeen, president of the U of I System, said. The growing network will bring together the very best minds to address our most pressing challenges, forging breakthrough solutions that will drive new waves of progress and prosperity for all of Illinois and beyond. More about SIU economic development In conjunction with SIU becoming part of the IIN, the universitys business and community development outreach office has a new name the Office of Innovation and Economic Development (OIED). Founded 33 years ago, the office has long supported regional entrepreneurship, innovation, enterprise development and expansion and job creation. To learn more about the many programs and services offered by OIED, as well as the impact of SIU becoming an IIN member, call 618/536-4451 or email innovation@siu.edu. The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, has strongly condemned the horrific blasts in Sri Lanka. Strongly condemn the horrific blasts in Sri Lanka. There is no place for such barbarism in our region. India stands in solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka. My thoughts are with the bereaved families and prayers with the injured, the Prime Minister said. Strongly condemn the horrific blasts in Sri Lanka. There is no place for such barbarism in our region. India stands in solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka. My thoughts are with the bereaved families and prayers with the injured. Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 21, 2019 Silver Shadow, a foreign passenger cruise with around 400 tourists from United States & United Kingdom at Porbandar Port. The foreign tourists pay a visit to Mahatma Gandhis birthplace KirtiMandir in Porbandar & also experiences # Gujarati culture in & around the vicinity. Silver Shadow,a foreign passenger cruise with around 400 tourists from US & UK arrived at @ports_gmb Jetty on Porbandar Port. The foreign tourists pay a visit to Mahatma Gandhis birthplace #KirtiMandir in Porbandar & also experiences #Gujarati culture in & around the vicinity. pic.twitter.com/KmTULJEUVv Gujarat Tourism (@GujaratTourism) April 20, 2019 Silver Shadow is a cruise ship that entered service in 2000, With passenger capacity is 382 passengers & 295 crew members. The ship was built by the Mariotti Shipyard in Genoa, Italy. 1355 Pearl St. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Capitol Hill? According to Walk Score, this Denver neighborhood is friendly for those on foot, is easy to get around on a bicycle and offers many nearby public transportation options. Data from rental site Zumper shows that the median rent for a one bedroom in Capitol Hill is currently hovering around $1,200. So, what might you expect to find if you don't want to spend more than $1,000/month on rent? Read on for a roundup of the latest rental listings, via Zumper. (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. Corona Street Here's this studio apartment situated on Corona Street. It's listed for $985/month for its 327 square feet of space. When it comes to building amenities, anticipate on-site laundry. In the unit, there is a balcony. Pet lovers are in luck: cats and dogs are allowed. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (Check out the complete listing here.) 1341 N. Ogden St. Next, there's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 1341 N. Ogden St. that's going for $975/month. The building boasts on-site laundry, assigned parking and secured entry. In the unit, expect air conditioning. Attention, cat owners: your kitty is permitted here. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. (Take a look at the full listing here.) 1355 Pearl St. Listed at $914/month, this 363-square-foot zero-bedroom, one-bathroom is located at 1355 Pearl St. In the apartment, you can anticipate hardwood flooring, air conditioning, a walk-in closet and a ceiling fan. Building amenities include on-site laundry, outdoor space, secured entry and a fitness center. Pet lovers are in luck: cats and dogs are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (Take a look 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. (Adds ACLU comment, background on pro-life/choice positions) May 15 (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union, its Ohio branch and Planned Parenthood on Wednesday filed a lawsuit challenging an Ohio law that they say could ban abortion as early as six weeks into a woman's pregnancy. The law, which was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature in April, bans abortions if doctors can detect a heartbeat, which can occur as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Four other U.S. states have passed similar "heartbeat" abortion bans in 2019 seen as part of a push to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring abortion a constitutional right. "This is a ban on almost all abortions, and if the court does not block it, it will imperil the freedoms and health of Ohio women," Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, said of the law set to take effect July 10. On Tuesday, Alabama's state Senate passed the country's strictest abortion bill, outlawing nearly all abortions other than those to protect a mother's health. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa. (Reporting by Makini Brice in Washington; additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Jeffrey Benkoe) (Updates with Globo estimate on how many cities saw protests; Adds clash in Rio de Janeiro; Updates that no official nationwide crowd estimate available.) By Anthony Boadle and Pablo Garcia BRASILIA/SAO PAULO, May 15 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in cities across Brazil on Wednesday to rally against education spending freezes in the biggest demonstrations yet against President Jair Bolsonaro, who called marchers "useful idiots and imbeciles." Brazil's National Student Union called for protests against what it called spending cuts, after the Education Ministry said it was freezing nearly a quarter of discretionary spending due to the government's precarious fiscal situation. The marches in over 200 cities, according to a count by the Globo TV network, mark the first national protests against the administration of the far-right Bolsonaro, whose poll numbers are falling as he struggles with a weak economy, rising unemployment, an unruly coalition in Congress and infighting within his cabinet. Speaking in Dallas, Texas, where he traveled to attend a gala dinner, Bolsonaro denied his government had cut education budgets and cast the protests as a partisan spectacle. "They are useful idiots, imbeciles, who are being used as the maneuvering mass of a clever little minority who make up the nucleus of many federal universities in Brazil," he said. A peaceful rally of thousands in central Rio de Janeiro turned violent as the protest was ending, with unknown assailants setting a bus ablaze and shooting fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas to break a crowd up. There was no word on any injuries. In the capital Brasilia some 7,000 students and university professors marched to Congress, carrying signs against the cuts. One said: "Education is not an expense, it is an investment." Another read: "Without investment there is no knowledge." "Our message to Bolsonaro is that society will not accept these cuts of 30 percent," said marcher Luis Antonio Pasquetti, head of the National University of Brasilia's teacher union. Story continues There was no official nationwide crowd estimate available, but the protests were likely the largest such gatherings since the 2016 impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff. "The importance is to show that civil society is organized against these cuts," said Rodrigo Tonieto, 22, in Sao Paulo. "Together, we are going to say 'no' to the Bolsonaro government ... To say 'no' to the mess that this government is." Called to explain the cuts to lawmakers in Congress, Education Minister Abraham Weintraub blamed the situation on the legacy of the previous government, while defending a shift away from spending on universities to favor elementary schools. "The priority is preschool, elementary school and technical school," he said. "A scientific, technical, number-based, efficient and managerial approach is vital to save this country from the economic stagnation of the last 20 years that we are living." (Reporting by Eduardo Simoes and Pablo Garcia in Sao Paulo Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro, Anthony Boadle in Brasilia, and Brad Brooks in Sao Paulo Editing by Brad Haynes, Susan Thomas and Lisa Shumaker) (Adds details and context) OTTAWA, May 15 (Reuters) - Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she will visit Cuba on Thursday to discuss the political crisis in Venezuela and the United States' decision to allow lawsuits for property confiscated after the 1959 revolution. "It is of critical importance that our two countries meet to discuss the economic, political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and the work we can undertake together to address it," Freeland said in a statement on Wednesday. "I also look forward to discussing how we can work together to defend Canadians conducting legitimate trade and investment in Cuba in light of the United States ending the suspension of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act," she added. It will be the first visit of a high ranking Canadian government official to Cuba since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled there in November of 2016. Canada vowed earlier this month to defend its businesses operating in Cuba after U.S. President Donald Trump lifted a ban on American citizens filing lawsuits against investors working on the island nation. Canada is also one of the countries in the Lima Group, a bloc of mostly Latin American countries seeking a peaceful solution to the Venezuelan political standoff. During her visit, Freeland also will visit the Havana embassy after diplomats there complained about mysterious bouts of dizziness, headaches and nausea. (Reporting by Steve Scherer; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Marguerita Choy) (Adds more comments from hearing) By David Shepardson WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Federal Aviation Administration acting chief Dan Elwell told lawmakers on Wednesday he expects Boeing Co to submit a software fix for the grounded 737 MAX involved in two fatal crashes for approval soon, and said he was concerned by the planemaker's lengthy delay in disclosing a software anomaly. At a congressional hearing, the chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee told the FAA it must "get it right" in deciding when to allow the Boeing 737 MAX to fly again. "The world is watching and the FAA and Boeing must get it right," Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio said, adding the incidents have raised concerns about how the FAA certifies aircraft. The Boeing 737 MAX plane was grounded worldwide in mid-March after two crashes in October and March killed 346 people. Elwell said the agency expects to get the software upgrade and training update from Boeing in the "next week or so." He said the FAA will only allow the plane to resume flights when it is "absolutely safe to do so ... It's important we get this right," Elwell said. Elwell said Boeing should not have waited 13 months to tell the FAA that it inadvertently made an alarm alerting pilots to a mismatch of flight data optional on the 737 MAX, instead of standard as on earlier 737s. Elwell said he was "concerned" by the delay. "We're going to look into that," Elwell said. "Thirteen months is too long." The FAA is planning a May 23 meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, with air regulators from around the world to update them on the reviews. U.S. airlines have canceled flights as a result of the 737 MAX grounding into August. Elwell said he hopes the international aviation community will work together. "My hope is that they have the confidence in our work and our analysis to make their ungrounding decisions if that's where the discussion is as close to our decision as possible," he said. Story continues Democratic Representative Rick Larsen, who chairs the aviation subcommittee that held Wednesday's hearing, said the FAA "has a credibility problem. The FAA needs to fix its credibility problem." Boeing has said its software upgrade and associated pilot training will add layers of protection to prevent erroneous data from triggering the system called MCAS. The system activated in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March and also during a separate Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October. Elwell said Boeing should have included more details on MCAS in its own manuals on the Boeing 737 MAX. Committee leaders said they still expect to call Boeing to testify at a future hearing but expressed some frustration they have not yet received any documents from Boeing as they probe what went wrong with the 737 MAX. The U.S. planemaker has been trying for weeks to dispel suggestions it made airlines pay for safety features after it emerged that an alert designed to show discrepancies in Angle of Attack readings from two sensors was optional on the 737 MAX. Erroneous data from a sensor responsible for measuring the angle at which the wing slices through the air - known as the Angle of Attack - is suspected of triggering a flawed piece of software that pushed the plane downward in two recent crashes. Boeing said last week it only discovered once deliveries of the 737 MAX had begun in 2017 that the so-called AOA Disagree alert was optional instead of standard as it had intended, but added that was not critical safety data. Boeing said a Safety Review Board, convened after a fatal Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October, corroborated its prior conclusion that the alert was not necessary for the safe operation of commercial aircraft and could safely be tackled in a future system update. Federal prosecutors, the Transportation Departments inspector general and lawmakers are investigating the FAAs certification of the 737 MAX 8 aircraft. (Reporting by David Shepardson Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle Editing by Nick Zieminski and Chris Reese) * New Zealand PM called for pledge to rein online violence * Macron meets group of tech CEOs in Paris * Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter sign non-binding accord * United States does not join the call (Recasts story, adds quotes, details, background) By Mathieu Rosemain and Katie Paul PARIS/SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 (Reuters) - Facebook announced steps on Wednesday to temporarily block users who break its rules from broadcasting live video, in the wake of an international outcry after a gunman killed 51 people in New Zealand last month and streamed the attack live on his page. The tweaks to Facebook's rules came as the White House snubbed other world leaders, who met with tech companies in Paris to back a call by New Zealand's prime minister for stronger measures against social media hate speech. Silicon Valley tech giants expressed their support for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's so-called "Christchurch Call," named for the city where the gunman attacked two mosques on March 15 and broadcast his killings live. But Washington declined to send a delegation to the meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. The White House said it would not endorse Ardern's initiative, although it supported the broader aims. Facebook said in a statement it was introducing a "one-strike" policy for use of Facebook Live, a service which lets users broadcast live video. Those who broke the company's most serious rules anywhere on its site would have their access to make live broadcasts temporarily restricted. The range of offenses that would qualify for one-strike suspensions would be broadened. The company did not specify which offenses would result in such a ban or how long suspensions would last, but a spokeswoman said it would not have been possible for the Christchurch shooter to use Facebook Live on his account under the new rules. Facebook has come under intense scrutiny in recent years over hate speech, privacy lapses and its dominant market position in social media. The company is trying to address those concerns while averting more strenuous action from regulators. Story continues Ardern called the changes announced on Wednesday "a good first step to restrict the application being used as a tool for terrorists, and shows the Christchurch Call is being acted on." The company said it plans to extend the restrictions to other areas over coming weeks, beginning with preventing the same people from creating Facebook ads. It also said it would fund research at three universities on techniques to detect manipulated media, which its systems struggled to spot in the aftermath of the attack. Ardern said the research was welcome and that edited and manipulated videos of the March 15 mosque shootings had been slow to be removed, resulting in many people, including herself, seeing video of the killings played in their Facebook feeds. WHITE HOUSE "NOT IN A POSITION TO JOIN" Macron hosted Ardern, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Canada's Justin Trudeau and other leaders at a summit on Wednesday to support Ardern's initiative. Signatories would "encourage media outlets to apply ethical standards when depicting terrorist events online, to avoid amplifying terrorist and violent extremist content," although the initiative is non-binding, light on details and leaves countries and companies to decide how to apply guidelines. Countries including Australia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, India and Sweden said they backed it, as did U.S. tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet's Google and its video platform YouTube and Amazon. But the White House said in a statement the United States was "not currently in a position to join the endorsement," although it added: "we continue to support the overall goals reflected in the call." In comments made at a joint news conference with Ardern, Macron put a positive spin on the White House response. "We'll do everything we can so that there is a more concrete and formal commitment, but I consider... the fact that the U.S. administration said it shared the objectives and the common will as a positive element," Macron said. Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, said the call was "leading to real action, even if it's not binding." "The Christchurch Call will be assessed ultimately by the impact it has. And the impact it has will be determined not only by governments but also by tech companies," Smith told Reuters. (Reporting by Katie Paul and Mathieu Rosemain; additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in WELLINGTON; Gwenaelle Barzic and Jean-Baptiste Vey in PARIS Editing by Peter Graff) * Cannes Film Festival runs until May 25 * Jarmusch's "The Dead Don't Die" opens the competition * Zombie romp too self-indulgent and sluggish for some * But raises laughs with cameos, gags and stellar cast (Updates following press conference with Jarmusch, Murray quotes) By Sarah White CANNES, France, May 15 (Reuters) - With a glamorous cast of flesh-eating undead including Iggy Pop, U.S. filmmaker Jim Jarmusch kicked off Cannes' cinema showcase with an acerbic swipe at American society - though the zombie romp lacked the bite some critics had hoped for. The comedy marked the opening salvo of the Cannes Film Festival, where it will compete for the top Palme D'Or prize alongside the latest offerings from Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar and a clutch of movies by newcomer, young directors. Set in a non-descript small town where the inhabitants start succumbing to a zombie apocalypse, "The Dead Don't Die" pokes fun at hipsters, U.S. politics and a materialistic, smartphone-addicted world all at once. And climate change deniers don't get away, either. "Watching nature decline at unprecedented rates in history is, for me, terrifying," Jarmusch, wearing his trademark dark glasses, told a news conference on Wednesday, after the film's Tuesday evening premiere. Bill Murray, a long-time collaborator of the "Broken Flowers" filmmaker, Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny star as cops fighting off the growing army of undead, with pop star Selena Gomez and actress Tilda Swinton also among the stellar line-up. A darling of U.S. art house filmmaking and a Cannes veteran, Jarmusch nonetheless drew a mixed bag of reviews with some lamenting a sluggish pace despite some spot-on jokes. Laden with witty film references - including nods to George Romero's cult 1968 zombie-fest "Night Of The Living Dead" - the film also leans on self-aware ploys where actors discuss its plotline. Story continues Some critics took issue with the more self-indulgent moments. "Jarmusch's movie is in danger of succumbing to a zombie-ism of its own: a narcotic torpor of self-aware coolness," the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote, describing the film as a "droll if directionless riff." Others said Jarmusch had done little to refresh a much-exploited genre, even if gags like Iggy Pop's coffee-guzzling zombie and a horde of undead stalking the streets in search of a Wi-Fi connection raised chuckles. "The problem with the opening film at Cannes is that you expect something really special," Marta Balaga, a critic at movie news agency Cineuropa, told Reuters. "People were laughing at moments and people wanted to love it." Asked alongside other cast members on Wednesday about his views on horror movies, Murray quipped: "I find Cannes frightening." CLIMATE CHANGE With the undead clawing their way out of their graves when excess fracking causes the world to turn off kilter, "The Dead Don't Die" needles climate change deniers, but also takes a swipe at an apathetic society unable to get its act together. Its well-meaning cops display little by way of a game-plan throughout to combat the increasingly hairy zombie invasion. Jarmusch said the film's environmental message was not meant to be overly dark or lay the blame with politicians, however. "Defining this as a political issue is very confusing and perplexing to me," he said. The film also hits out at U.S. President Donald Trump at moments. Steve Buscemi - playing a character determined to keep trespassers at bay - dons a "Keep America White Again" cap, echoing Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign motto. This year's Cannes movie selection was described by festival organizers as both "political and romantic." On Tuesday, Cannes jury president Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu of Mexico - the first Latin American film director to head up the panel - criticized Trump's plans for a Mexican border wall, describing it as "dangerous" and "cruel." "These guys are ruling with rage and anger and lies and writing fiction and making people believe those are really things and facts," Inarritu told a news conference, referring to Trump's immigration policies. (Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala; Editing by Tom Brown and Hugh Lawson) (Adds details, background) NIAMEY, May 15 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed at least 17 Nigerien troops in an ambush near the Malian border, where several jihadist groups are active, and another 11 soldiers are missing, a government spokesman said on Wednesday. The attack on Tuesday occurred near the town of Tongo Tongo, where fighters from an Islamic State affiliate killed four U.S. special forces and four Nigerien soldiers in an ambush in October 2017, spokesman Abdourahamane Zakaria told Reuters. Zakaria did not identify the perpetrators of the attack, which is one of the deadliest against the military in Niger's west in recent years. Jihadists, including affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State, have stepped up attacks on military and civilian targets across West Africa's Sahel region this year, particularly along the porous borders between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Niger also faces a threat in its southeast from Boko Haram and a splinter group affiliated with Islamic State, which are both based in Nigeria but frequently strike in neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon. (Reporting By Moussa Aksar; Writing by Juliette Jabkhiro; Editing by Aaron Ross and Toby Chopra) (Adds information minister, paragraph 7) BEIRUT, May 15 (Reuters) - Lebanon's cabinet delayed until Friday its last session on the 2019 draft budget, a minister said, pushing back a critical meeting to finalize plans for cutting the deficit. Lebanon has one of the heaviest public debt burdens in the world, and long-stalled reforms are seen as more pressing than ever after years of low economic growth. President Michel Aoun, in a speech late on Tuesday, urged the Lebanese to end protests and make sacrifices to rescue the country from economic and financial crisis. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has said this may be the most austere budget in Lebanon's history. Ministers who convened on Wednesday afternoon had been due to meet again at night to agree the budget before sending it to parliament for approval. "There will be no second session tonight," Health Minister Jamil Jabak told reporters at the Grand Serail, the government headquarters in Beirut. Information Minister Jamal Jarrah said the cabinet hoped to be done by Friday but talks might take longer. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called for speeding up efforts to complete the budget, lawmakers from his Amal Party cited him as saying after a meeting. Fears that the budget will include wage or pension cuts have sparked protests by public sector workers and retired soldiers. (Reporting by Ellen Francis Editing by Tom Perry/Mark Heinrich) (Adds comments from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, immigration advocate, context) By Loren Elliott MCALLEN, Texas, May 15 (Reuters) - Reuters photos taken on Wednesday show adults and children outside the U.S. Border Patrol station for migrants in McAllen, Texas, sleeping on the ground and rigging up makeshift awnings with reflective blankets to shelter from the sun. The photos, taken from a helicopter, also show people sleeping in a shaded area of a parking lot and crowded around a military tent. The ground temperature was about 89 Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) when the pictures were taken around midday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman Richard Pauza referred to testimony by U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost when asked for comment. The Border Patrol is the law enforcement arm of the CBP. During her May 8 testimony to a U.S. Senate committee, Provost said the agency faced an "unprecedented border security and humanitarian crisis" as Central American migrant families headed north and apprehension numbers went "off the charts." U.S. border officers apprehended nearly 99,000 people crossing the U.S. southern border in April, the highest monthly figure since 2007, Provost said. EMERGENCY FUNDING According to the Border Patrol website, McAllen Station is responsible for patrolling a 53-mile (85 km) section of the Rio Grande that runs along the U.S.-Mexican border. "From what we've seen at McAllen, people are sleeping on rocks and stones, and without shelter," said Erika Andiola, chief advocacy officer at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), which provides legal services to migrants. The Border Patrol did not immediately respond to a specific question on why migrants were being held in makeshift conditions by the McAllen Border Patrol station. The Trump administration on May 1 asked Congress for $4.5 billion in immediate emergency funding, saying a surge in Central American children and families claiming asylum at the U.S. southern border had drained government resources. Story continues The money would come on top of the funding President Donald Trump has redirected to make good on a central pledge of his 2016 election campaign - to build a border wall - ahead of his looming 2020 presidential race. The emergency funding request would represent a 44% increase in spending for programs that house, feed, transport and oversee record numbers of Central American families seeking asylum, fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries, and straining capacity at migrant shelters in border cities. This month, the federal government spent $37 million erecting two new temporary shelters in El Paso and Donna, Texas to deal with the crisis. A number of small border towns have declared emergencies in hopes of receiving government assistance to deal with migrants being diverted to their communities. (Reporting by Loren Elliott, additional reporting by Kristina Cooke; Writing by Andrew Hay; editing by Bill Tarrant and Rosalba O'Brien) (Adds quotes, background) By David Lawder WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday he will likely travel to Beijing soon to continue negotiations with Chinese counterparts as the world's two biggest economies try to salvage talks aimed at ending their months-long trade war. Mnuchin did not elaborate on the timing of future negotiations, but told lawmakers at a Senate Appropriation subcommittee hearing that recent discussions with Chinese officials in Washington were constructive. "My expectation is that we will go to Beijing at some point in the near future to continue those discussions," he said. "We're continuing discussions. There's still a lot of work to do." U.S. President Donald Trump has denied that trade talks with China had broken down even as he imposed more tariffs on Chinese imports and both sides prepared for another round of further tariffs, roiling global markets in recent days. But Trump softened his tone somewhat on Tuesday, praising his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, appealing to Beijing to purchase U.S. farm products and vowing to finalize a deal soon. (Reporting by David Lawder Writing by Susan Heavey Editing by Susan Thomas) (Adds detail and background) By Pamela Barbaglia May 15 (Reuters) - Nestle SA is in exclusive talks with a consortium led by private equity firm EQT Partners for a sale of its skin health unit, according to a source familiar with the matter. EQT is putting the finishing touches to the deal, which would value the unit at up to $10 billion and could be signed in the next 24 hours, the source said. EQT has teamed up with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), several sources told Reuters. It faced competition from rival buyout funds and some industry players including a consortium of Advent and Cinven as well as U.S. private equity firm KKR & Co Inc and European fund PAI Partners, the sources said. Nestle's skin health unit, which sells Cetaphil, was formed in 2014 when it bought a stake in cosmetics brand L'Oreal. The unit was put up for sale last September, as Nestle tries to ditch underperforming businesses in an effort to fend off criticism from an activist investor demanding an overhaul. Nestle and EQT declined to comment. The Financial Times reported about the deal talks earlier in the day. (Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia in London and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Shailesh Kuber) (Adds background) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department said on Wednesday it had awarded a $646 million contract to a construction company to design and build a replacement for the border wall in Arizona. In a statement, the Pentagon said the work by Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Southwest Valley Constructors was expected to be completed by Jan. 31, 2020. The work will be performed in the Tucson sector, which includes most of the Arizona border with Mexico. The Pentagon did not indicate the length of the wall to be built. President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to transfer funds to help build a border wall after he failed to secure funding from Congress. Last week, the Pentagon said acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had approved the transfer of $1.5 billion from the department to build more than 80 miles (130 km) of barriers on the border. Immigration is a signature issue of Trump's presidency and re-election campaign. He declared a national emergency in order to redirect funding to build a wall without the approval of Congress. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney) (Adds comment from suspect) WARSAW, May 15 (Reuters) - Poland's ambassador to Israel was spat at while sitting in his car in Tel Aviv, Israeli police said, drawing condemnation from the Polish government at a time of rising tensions between the two countries. An Israeli police spokesman said on Wednesday a 65-year-old Israeli architect was arrested over Tuesday's spitting incident. At a court hearing on Wednesday, he was put under house arrest until police complete their investigation, his lawyer said. "The event is under police investigation. We express our fullest sympathy to the ambassador and our shock at the attack," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said. The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador to Warsaw, Anna Azari, over the matter, a ministry spokeswoman told the state-run news agency PAP. "I am very worried to hear of a racist attack on @PLinIsrael ambassador @mmagierowski. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a tweet. Polish-Israeli relations have deteriorated in recent months over accusations that Warsaw's nationalist PiS government has tolerated a revival of anti-Semitic behavior, a charge it denies. Hundreds of far-right supporters marched in Warsaw on Saturday in protest against a U.S. law on the restitution of Jewish property seized during or after World War Two, an increasingly prominent issue in Polish election campaigns. David Johan, the suspect's lawyer, told reporters his client had been turned away from the Polish Embassy on Tuesday after trying to inquire about restitution. Later, outside the embassy, the alleged assailant "approached the vehicle of the Polish ambassador to Israel, opened the door and then spat (at him)," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Johan said the assault was not premeditated, adding: "My client was walking in the street and an embassy vehicle honked at him." Story continues In a statement issued to reporters, the suspect, Erik Lederman, said his family had been through the Nazi Holocaust and that a Polish embassy employee had used an anti-Semitic slur against him while he was there, which he found upsetting. "I did not know that Poland's ambassador was in the car. Consequently, I would like to express my sincere apology for what happened," Lederman said. Poland's Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski denied in a post on Twitter that there had been any inappropriate behavior or language used by embassy employees. The PiS government has said that Poland - which had one of the world's biggest Jewish communities before it was almost entirely wiped out by Nazi occupiers - was a victim of World War Two and so should not be saddled with any financial obligations. In response to the ultra-nationalist march, the World Jewish Congress urged Polish religious and political leaders on Wednesday to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism. On Monday the Polish government canceled a visit by an Israeli delegation as it learned that the Israelis intended to bring up the restitution issue, the Foreign Ministry said. (Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Alan Charlish in Warsaw, Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem Editing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones) * Brexit rebels to vote against May's deal * "What has changed?" DUP kingmakers ask * Labour fears May's successor could renege * Brexit deal vote in early June (Adds Brexit Secretary, Labour spokesman) By Kylie MacLellan and Andrew MacAskill LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Brexit-supporting rebels in British Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party said on Wednesday they would vote down her European Union divorce deal when she brings it back to parliament next month. Britain had been due to leave the EU on March 29 but parliament has three times rejected the withdrawal agreement May struck with Brussels. The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave, with or without a deal to smooth the exit, by Oct. 31. Defeat in the vote would likely spell the end of May's divorce deal and probably her premiership. May will bring a Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), which implements the departure terms, to parliament for a vote in the week beginning June 3, Brexit Secretary Steven Barclay said, just as U.S. President Donald Trump begins a divisive state visit to Britain. "I have talked to colleagues, some of whom voted for it last time, and they think it is dead and they will vote against it this time," Peter Bone, a Conservative lawmaker and Brexit supporter, told Talk Radio. "It seems absurd to bring it back. It is the same thing again, again and again." May, who became prime minister in the chaos that followed the 2016 referendum in which Britons voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, is under pressure from some of her own lawmakers to set a date for her departure. As well as the Brexit deadlock, the Conservative Party suffered major losses in local elections this month and is trailing in opinion polls ahead of the May 23 European Parliament elections. Her spokesman declined to say on Wednesday whether May would resign if she failed again to win parliamentary support for her Brexit deal. Asked by a committee of lawmakers from the upper house of parliament if this was "the last chance saloon" for May's divorce deal, Barclay said: "If the House of Commons does not approve the WAB, then the Barnier deal is dead in that form." He was referring to the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Story continues Barclay said that would leave parliament with the choice of revoking the decision to leave the EU or exiting without a deal, the default position if no divorce agreement can be reached. "If the House (of Commons) has not passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill then there are growing voices in Europe, not least the French, who want to move on to other issues," he said. "WHAT HAS CHANGED?" Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, politicians still disagree about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Brexit supporters fear May's deal will keep the United Kingdom trapped within the EU's orbit for years and that it could ultimately pull the British province of Northern Ireland towards the bloc. Before her deal was defeated the last time, by 344 votes to 286 on March 29, May had promised to resign if it was passed. It was voted down first in January and again in mid-March. A sticking point has been the Irish backstop, an insurance policy aimed at avoiding post-Brexit controls on the border between Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland. "If the prime minister brings the withdrawal bill to the Commons for a vote, the question will be 'what has changed'?" asked Nigel Dodds, parliamentary leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up May's minority government. "Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again," Dodds said. A majority of members of the European Research Group, a large Brexit-supporting faction in the Conservative Party, will vote against May's deal, said Owen Paterson, a former minister. As positions harden in parliament, with many wanting to either leave the EU without a deal or to stop Brexit altogether, May has turned to the opposition Labour Party, led by veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, to negotiate a way out of the impasse. But after more than four weeks of talks, the two party leaders appear no closer to agreeing a common position, with Labour saying May had not shifted her position and warning a future Conservative leader could rip up any deal they struck. "We have serious concerns about negotiating with a government that is in the process of disintegration and what has been said about what might happen if a new Tory (Conservative) leadership is in charge," a Labour spokesman said. However, the spokesman said while the party could not back May's deal as it stood, he did not rule out abstaining in the vote, which might allow it to muster enough support to pass. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; Editing by Janet Lawrence) (Adds JxCat party confirming veto) By Joan Faus BARCELONA, May 15 (Reuters) - Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned on Wednesday that the expected rejection by Catalan pro-independence parties of his Catalan nominee for chairman of Spain's Senate would undermine dialog with the northeastern region. The potential new rift comes at a difficult time when Sanchez, whose Socialists won last month's national election without securing a parliamentary majority, needs all the support he can get from regional parties to stay in power. "They (Catalan parties) are not vetoing Miquel Iceta, what they are vetoing is co-existence, dialog, understanding," Sanchez said during a political event in northern Spain. Sanchez announced last week that he would nominate Iceta, the Catalan Socialist leader, as chief of the upper chamber of parliament, a move widely seen as a conciliatory signal to Catalonia and its secessionist groups. Sanchez has made overtures over the past year to establish a dialog and give Catalonia a greater degree of autonomy, while ruling out an independence referendum for the region. Catalonia briefly declared independence in 2017 after a referendum deemed illegal by Spanish courts. The Socialists have a majority in Spain's upper house and had expected the nomination of Iceta to be easily approved. Still, Iceta, whose Socialists are not part of Catalonia's pro-independence camp, would first need to be designated as a senator by the Catalan assembly, which was to vote on the matter on Thursday. REJECTION But it looked all but certain to fail after the ERC - a pro-independence party that garnered the most votes in Catalonia in the April election - said on Wednesday it would reject the nomination on the grounds that it was imposed on them. The far-left separatist CUP also announced it would reject Iceta's bid and on Wednesday evening pro-independence Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), which controls the Catalan government, confirmed it would do the same. Story continues The three secessionist parties have 65 seats in the regional parliament, the same as its unionist parties, which could lead to a tie in Thursday's vote on Iceta's nomination - and that would mean it could not proceed, according to the chamber's rules. Iceta has vowed to take his case to the Constitutional Court. "(A failed nomination) would be a democratic outrage," he told reporters on Wednesday. Catalonia was a central issue in the run-up to the national election, with the opposition accusing Sanchez of undermining Spain's territorial integrity by granting concessions to the Catalan separatists. To be sworn in again as prime minister, Sanchez will need the support of other leftist parties plus at least one vote or abstention from Basque or Catalan nationalist parties. (Editing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones) * Two sides agreed to three-year transition period * Make-up of sovereign council is key sticking point * Protesters say they will stay on the streets for now (Adds transition talks suspended) By Nadine Awadalla KHARTOUM, May 15 (Reuters) - At least nine people were wounded on Wednesday when Sudanese forces used live ammunition to clear demonstrators from central Khartoum, a protest group said, and talks aimed at establishing a body to lead Sudan to democracy have been suspended indefinitely. A spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals' Association (SPA), which spearheaded months of protests that led to the military's removal of President Omar al-Bashir last month, said: "We hold the military council responsible for attacking civilians." "They are using the same methods as the previous regime in dealing with rebels," SPA spokesman Amjad Farid told Reuters. There was no immediate comment from the military on Wednesday's violence or an SPA statement that nine people were wounded. The Transitional Military Council (TMC), which took over after overthrowing and jailing Bashir, has said it would not tolerate the continued closure of main Khartoum roads and bridges by protesters but promised not to use force to disperse the sit-ins. The TMC has accused demonstrators of expanding a protest site set up last month outside the Defence Ministry to other parts of the capital, disrupting movement. Early on Wednesday the military announced a committee to investigate the targeting of protesters after at least four people were killed in violence in Khartoum on Monday. Weeks of street protests that precipitated the end of Bashir's 30-year rule on April 11 have continued as the opposition demands that the military hand over power to civilians. A Reuters witness and Sudanese witnesses said that troops in military vehicles using the logo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fired extensively as they tried to clear demonstrators on al-Mek Nimir Avenue in central Khartoum, near the Foreign Ministry. Story continues "People were walking towards the barricades and they (security forces) were firing shots at them," a 20-year-old demonstrator, who asked not to be named, said, showing a handful of empty bullet casings and referring to road blocks set up by protesters. The violence took place hours before the TMC was due to meet representatives of the umbrella opposition group Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) to try to hammer out a final deal for the transitional period. But a senior DFCF leader said the TMC has indefinitely suspended the talks. "No date has been set for the talks to resume," the source told Reuters. CAUTION The two sides, which have held talks for several weeks, announced early on Wednesday they had agreed on the composition of a legislative council and the duration of the transition. Some demonstrators expressed caution over the prospects for an agreement that would satisfy their demands for a handover of power to civilians, and for security forces to be held to account for the deaths of demonstrators. "We are still sticking to our plan," said Altaj Blah, a protester in central Khartoum. "The barriers are there and they are not moving until our demands are met," he said. In the agreement announced early on Wednesday the two sides said the transition would last three years - a compromise between the military council's proposal of two years and the opposition DFCF's preference for four. The TMC said the DFCF would have two-thirds of the seats on a transitional legislative council while parties outside the alliance would take the rest. Elections would be held at the end of the three-year transition. On Monday after security forces tried to clear some protest sites, at least four people, including three protesters and a military police officer, were killed in an outburst of violence. They were the first deaths linked to the protests for several weeks. DFCF members blamed security and paramilitary forces, while also voicing suspicions that groups linked to Bashir might be fomenting unrest to undermine the chances of a political accord. (Reporting by Nadine Awadalla; Additional reporting by Khaled Abdelaziz and Eltayeb Siddig; Writing by Aidan Lewis and Sami Aboudi; Editing by Yousef Saba, Frances Kerry and Grant McCool) (Adds auto industry group statement, details on tariff impact) By David Shepardson WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to delay a decision on imposing tariffs on imported cars and parts by up to six months, three Trump administration officials told Reuters, , avoiding opening yet another front in his global trade battles. A formal announcement is expected by Saturday, the due date for Trump to make a decision on recommendations by the Commerce Department to protect the U.S. auto industry from imports on national security grounds, the officials said. A White House spokesman declined to comment. They added that the administration has drafted language to formally delay a decision on the tariffs that is due by May 18. Reuters reported last week that automakers expected Trump to delay the decision as trade negotiations get underway with the European Union and Japan. General Motors Co, Volkswagen AG, Toyota Motor Corp and others have warned of the damaging impacts of imposing tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported cars and parts. The White House has held a series of high-level meetings on the issue in recent days, and administration officials have repeatedly told automakers they planned to delay the decision. In February, the Commerce Department submitted its "Section 232" national security report to the White House. The agency was investigating whether imports harmed U.S. national security by weakening American automakers' ability to invest in future technologies. The Commerce Department's specific recommendations have not been revealed. A series of announcements by GM last week of $700 million in investments in three Ohio plants and efforts to sell the company's closed Lordstown plant had made Trump more inclined to delay the tariffs, administration officials told Reuters last week. At the same time, Trump has escalated his trade war with China, sharply increasing tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and launching public consultations on remaining Chinese imports of about $300 billion. Story continues The auto tariffs face wide opposition in Congress. The White House has refused to turn over the Commerce Department report to Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who has been demanding to see it. Last week, 159 House of Representatives members led by Ways and Means Committee Vice Chair Terri Sewell wrote White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow to urge him to advise Trump against imposing trade restrictions that could harm the auto sector and the American economy. The letter from 79 Democrats and 81 Republicans, which was seen by Reuters, warned that imposing tariffs on parts in cars may overlap with motorcycles, recreational vehicles, construction equipment, heavy-duty trucks, farming equipment, powersports vehicles, and others. Administration officials have said tariff threats on autos are a way to win concessions from Japan and the EU. Last year, Trump agreed not to impose tariffs as long as talks with the two trading partners were proceeding in a productive manner. The industry says tariffs of up to 25 percent on millions of imported cars and parts would add thousands of dollars to vehicle costs and potentially lead to hundreds of thousands of job losses throughout the U.S. economy. "The case remains clear cars are not a national security threat," the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing GM, VW, Toyota and other producers, said in a statement. "We are deeply concerned that the administration continues to consider imposing auto tariffs." An auto industry research report released last year estimated that U.S. light-duty vehicle prices would increase by $2,750 on average, including U.S.-built vehicles, reducing annual U.S. sales by 1.3 million units and forcing many consumers to the used-car market. (Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and David Lawder Editing by Susan Thomas and Jonathan Oatis) (Adds background) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in South Korea as part of his trip to the region in late June for the G20 summit in Japan, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday. The two leaders "will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization" of North Korea, the statement said. They will also discuss "ways to strengthen" the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Tensions between the United States and North Korea have ratcheted up since a failed summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in February. North Korea has tested two short-range missiles and fired a series of projectiles in recent weeks. They were the first missile launches by Pyongyang since it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017. Moon said last week that the missile launches were probably a protest against the United States after the failed Hanoi summit. Trump downplayed the missile tests. In an interview with Politico last week, he called the launches "very standard stuff" and said he did not consider them a "breach of trust." Washington has employed sanctions to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Last week, the United States announced it had seized a North Korean cargo ship it accused of illicit coal shipments in violation of U.S. and United Nations sanctions. The Group of 20 summit will be held on June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Leslie Adler) (Updates with more details on the payments, background) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture has to date paid out $8.52 billion in direct payments to American farmers as part of the 2018 aid program, designed to offset losses from trade tariffs by China and other trading partners, a spokesman for the agency said. U.S. President Donald Trump last year pledged up to $12 billion in aid to farmers, a key constituency, to help offset losses due to Chinese tariffs imposed in response to Washington's levies on Chinese goods. A USDA spokesperson said the department had as of Wednesday paid out a total of $8.52 billion in direct payments, one portion of a wider trade mitigation program which also includes support up to $1.2 billion through commodity purchases and $200 million allocated to developing foreign markets. The top five commodities that received aid were soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton and sorghum while the top five states receiving the payments were Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana, the USDA spokesman said. Farmers have complained about the slow pace of the rollout of aid payments, which were hit by a month-long partial government shutdown that ended earlier this year. Floods in the Midwest coupled with a lingering trade dispute with China and tumbling commodity prices have hit them hard. China has zeroed in on U.S. farmers with tariffs after Trump imposed duties on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods last year as part of his vow to cut the U.S. trade deficit with China. Beijing slapped a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans in retaliation. That effectively shut down U.S. soybean exports to China, worth around $12 billion last year. With no quick end to the trade war in sight, particularly after the latest round of talks between Beijing and Washington last week ended with no progress, the Trump administration is now working on a second aid program to support farmers. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Susan Thomas) (Updates with quotes from Mexico's Seade) By David Lawder and Alexandra Alper WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Mexico is close to resolving its dispute with the United States over steel and aluminum tariffs without quotas but hopes Canada can reach a similar agreement before completing it, a senior Mexican official said on Wednesday. Jesus Seade, Mexican deputy foreign minister for North America, told Reuters by telephone that a deal to remove the so-called Section 232 tariffs was "very close" but he wanted Canada to be in the same position in its negotiations with Washington. "What we've been talking about for a week," he said, "is eliminating the 232 without any quotas," noting that it was "very possible" Canada could sign up to a "similar" deal. Sudden movements in future trade could be handled via a "consultation and monitoring system," he added, noting Mexico still had the option of sealing a deal without Canada. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also expressed optimism about a resolution to the steel dispute, but a top Canadian official avoided direct comment on that possibility. "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada," on resolving the tariffs, Mnuchin said at a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He did not provide any details about the potential agreement. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she discussed the tariffs on Canadian metals with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday, but declined to say whether the two countries were close to a deal. "We made the case as we have been doing for some time that the best outcome for both Canadians and Americans would be to lift those tariffs and to have free trade between our two countries who have this fantastic trading relationship in place," she told reporters after the meeting in Washington. A USTR spokeswoman declined comment on the meeting. Story continues Asked about prospects for a deal, Freeland said she would not discuss Canada's negotiating strategy. She added that if Washington kept the tariffs in place, it would be "very, very problematic" for Canadian ratification of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal (USMCA). TRADE DEAL VOTE Canada, Mexico and some U.S. lawmakers see lifting the tariffs imposed last year as imperative for ratifying USMCA, which would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. None of the three countries' legislatures has ratified USMCA. Canada has been trying to impress on the Trump administration that time is running out to ratify USMCA this year, a Canadian government source told Reuters. A bill to ratify the deal would need approval by Canada's House of Commons, which adjourns for the summer on June 21 ahead of an October general election. It will not reconvene until December. Lighthizer met later with Democratic U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss the path forward on a potential USMCA vote. A Pelosi aide called the meeting productive, but offered few details. "Democrats continued to express our interest in working with the USTR to get to yes, and will be planning more discussions with the USTR on the key questions about the USMCA proposal," the aide said. Mexico and Canada imposed tariffs against a range of U.S. products in retaliation for Trump's metals duties to put pressure on Washington to repeal them. Mexico says it has prepared a revised list of products to spread the pain to different sectors of the U.S. economy if necessary, but has yet to apply them. In a sign of thawing tension, Mexico's Seade said it was not the right time to target new products. "It's not necessary because I think the top priority is to get a deal first." (Reporting by David Lawder and Susan Heavey in Washington, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Frank Jack Daniel and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney) (Adds comment from Amnesty International, details and comments from airlines, context) By Chris Sanders and Luc Cohen WASHINGTON/CARACAS, May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday ordered the suspension of all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela, citing reports of unrest and violence around airports in the South American country. Many international airlines had stopped flying to Venezuela anyway because of security concerns and disputes over money they say the government owes them. But domestic airlines, including Laser Airlines and Avior Airlines, had been offering services to Miami. Some Venezuelans also expressed concern about the impact of the ban on people receiving food and other provisions via cargo planes from relatives abroad to help them weather a humanitarian crisis. In a letter to the Transportation Department requesting the halt, the Department of Homeland Security said "conditions in Venezuela threaten the safety and security of passengers, aircraft, and crew traveling to or from that country." Venezuela's Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Laser Airlines said it would maintain service to the United States through a layover in the Dominican Republic. In a tweet, Laser said it would continue offering two flights between Miami and Caracas each day with layovers in Santo Domingo. An Avior representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Copa Airlines, which operates flights between Caracas and its international hub in Panama City that allow passengers to continue on to the United States, said in an email that its operations would not be affected by the measure. But many of the millions of Venezuelans who have fled the crisis in recent years use U.S.-based companies to ship goods to relatives in the country via cargo planes, and the measure prohibiting direct flights could raise costs, said Marcos Gomez, Amnesty International's Venezuela director. Story continues "It was a small bit of hope," Gomez said in a telephone interview, likening the U.S. measure to a form of "collective blockade." American Airlines Group Inc, previously the largest carrier providing service between the United States and Venezuela, in March said it was indefinitely suspending its flights to Venezuela. In April, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. air operators from flying below 26,000 feet in Venezuela's airspace. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump last week expanded its Venezuela sanctions to the defense and security services sectors to pressure President Nicolas Maduro. The moves are part of a four-month-old campaign against Maduro as the United States ramps up its support for opposition leader Juan Guaido. (Reporting by Chris Sanders in Washington and Luc Cohen in Caracas; additional reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun in Sao Paulo; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Rosalba O'Brien) (Adds context) BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 15 (Reuters) - Washington ordered the departure of non-emergency government employees from Iraq on Wednesday, after repeated U.S. expressions of concern about threats from Iranian-backed forces. The U.S. State Department has ordered the pullout of the employees from both the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, the embassy said in a statement. "Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended," it said, recommending those affected depart as soon as possible. It was unclear how many staff would leave. On Tuesday, the U.S. military reaffirmed concerns about possible imminent threats from Iran to its troops in Iraq, although a senior British commander cast doubt on that and Tehran has called it "psychological warfare." U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has stepped up sanctions pressure by ending waivers for some countries to purchase Iranian oil - part of efforts to roll back the Islamic Republic's expanding regional clout. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday he was getting indications from talks with both the United States and Iran that "things will end well" despite the rhetoric. Washington has sent additional military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles in a show of force against what U.S. officials have said is a threat to its troops and interests in the region. A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has said Tehran would retaliate against any aggressive U.S. moves. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the decision to withdraw non-emergency staff was based on a security assessment, but would not give details on how many personnel were leaving. "Ensuring the safety of U.S. government personnel and citizens is our highest priority and we are confident in the Iraqi security services' (ability) to protect us," he said. "But this threat is serious and we want to reduce the risk of harm." (Reporting by John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Raya Jalabi; Editing by Catherine Evans and Andrew Cawthorne) (Adds Egyptian president after talks with Abu Dhabi crown prince) By Rania El Gamal and Aziz El Yaakoubi DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates will show restraint after attacks on oil tankers off its coast and is committed to de-escalation during a "difficult situation" caused by Iranian behavior in the region, a senior official said on Wednesday. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said he would not speculate about who was behind Sunday's sabotage acts on four vessels, including two Saudi tankers, near Fujairah emirate while an investigation was under way and due to be completed within days. "We need to emphasize caution and good judgment. It is easy to throw accusations but it is a difficult situation, there are serious issues and among them is Iranian behavior," he said, mentioning concern about Iran's missiles and regional policy. We will actually with our partners also be deliberate in considering our response, what to do about it, how to deal with it," he said, adding the United States and France were helping with the probe. France has a naval base in Abu Dhabi. A UAE official had told Reuters that Saudi Arabia and Norway were also involved. A Norwegian-registered oil products tanker was among the vessels hit, along with a UAE fuel bunker barge. Iran has distanced itself from the attack off Fujairah, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs lying just outside the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials believe Iran encouraged Yemen's Houthi group or Iraq-based Shi'ite militias to carry out the attack, two U.S. government sources said on Wednesday. Gargash said the attack took place in UAE territorial waters but declined to comment on whether the OPEC producer and regional trading hub was beefing up security after the incident. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in comments after talks with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, said the most populous country in the Arab world regarded Gulf security as part of its own security. Story continues "The president expressed Egypt's full solidarity with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in confronting all attempts to undermine the security and stability of the two sisterly countries," Sisi spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement. SANCTIONS ARE 'BITING' Saudi Arabia shared the concerns of its fellow Sunni Muslim ally that Shi'ite Iran has for a long time been undermining stability in the region, Gargash said, and the U.S. commitment to its allies in the region is "very strong." "U.S. sanctions on Iran are biting, and biting in a very effective way," Gargash said. The attacks took place against a backdrop of U.S.-Iranian tension following Washingtons decision this month to try to cut Irans oil exports to zero and beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats. Saudi Arabia and the UAE back the sanctions against Iran, a fellow OPEC producer but regional foe. After the United States ended sanctions waivers that had allowed some nations to continue importing Iranian crude, Washington said Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would help compensate for any shortage in oil supply. Tehran has called the U.S. military presence "a target" rather than a threat, and said it would not allow its oil exports to be halted. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that extremist individuals in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies and that Tehran is not seeking confrontation. On Iran, it doesnt really help to hear Foreign Minister Zarif trying to offer a moderate voice with regards to Irans intentions," Gargash said. "We have been bullied by Iran, we have seen aggressive Iranian actions in the region. So his words are very hollow in that sense. (Reporting by Rania El Gamal and Aziz El Yaakoubi; Additional reporting by Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Toby Chopra and Peter Cooney) (Adds French foreign ministry) PARIS, May 15 (Reuters) - France has granted asylum to the wife of a former head of the international police cooperation agency Interpol, after he was charged in his native China with corruption, the wife's lawyer said on Wednesday. Grace Meng first reported in October that her husband Meng Hongwei had gone missing after traveling back to China from their home in France where the organization is based. Days later, Interpol said he had resigned as its president. Chinese prosecutors this month filed formal charges against him, accusing him of abuse of power and taking bribes. Grace Meng's lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny said she had applied for asylum in France and her application was approved. The French Foreign Ministry did not comment on the outcome of the case but said the decision was made by an independent body and complied with French and international law. In March, China's ruling Communist Party said its own investigation into Meng found he spent lavish amounts of state funds, abused his power and refused to follow party decisions. His wife has dismissed the allegations and said his arrest was politically motivated. Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was unaware of the specifics of the situation regarding Meng's wife, but that her husband's case was a normal one not connected to "political factors." "I can tell you that Meng Hongwei is suspected of taking bribes," Geng told a daily news briefing. If Meng's wife had sought asylum in France then it was "completely an abuse of France's legal procedures," he added. "Good political mutual trust is the basis for the healthy and stable development of Sino-French relations. We hope that in this case, both China and France can jointly handle it properly according to the law on the basis of good cooperation." Meng Hongwei became president of the global police cooperation agency in late 2016 as China widened its bid to secure leadership posts in international organizations. His appointment prompted concern at the time from rights groups that China might try to leverage his position to pursue dissidents abroad. Under President Xi Jinping, China has pursued a sweeping crackdown on official corruption. (Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Catherine Evans and Peter Graff) (Adds company comment on vote outcome) LOS ANGELES, May 15 (Reuters) - XPO Logistics Inc on Wednesday said investors ratified the company's executive compensation plan and rejected shareholder proposals calling for an independent board chair and sexual harassment prevention policies. Connecticut-based XPO has twice lowered its 2019 profit forecast as it struggles to replace lost revenue, and is trying to contain investor concern over costly executive compensation. Shares have fallen by half in the last eight months. It is also managing the fallout from media reports about its alleged mistreatment of workers, including sexual harassment and discrimination against pregnant employees. XPO has said it reviewed the allegations and found them to be unsubstantiated and untrue. An XPO spokesman said investors approved executive compensation with "overwhelming" support and that they also voted against the shareholder proposals, as the board recommended. It did not provide details. XPO shares gained 1 percent to $58.36, about half the all-time high of $116.26 hit in September. Influential shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis had recommended that investors vote against ratifying compensation for named XPO executives under non-binding "say on pay" rules. Jacobs, XPO's CEO, received total compensation of $13.3 million in 2018, $1.4 million in 2017 and almost $22 million in 2016. He received a large equity grant while a previous award was still vesting, ISS wrote in a report. "Given that the company granted the most recent award more than a year before the vesting period for the prior grant was over, investors may question the lack of a firm commitment not to make additional rewards," ISS said. ISS and Glass Lewis also recommended that shareholders back a proposal that would have required an independent board chair. The company is looking to replace $600 million in lost revenue from its top customer, identified by current and former XPO employees as Amazon.com Inc. That customer moved two-thirds of the business it had with XPO in-house, XPO said. Story continues Hedge fund Spruce Point Capital Management, which has taken a short position in XPO, in December accused the company of hiding losses through aggressive accounting and criticized its use of acquisitions for growth. XPO called the Spruce Point report "intentionally misleading, with significant inaccuracies" - a view shared by some Wall Street analysts. ISS and Glass Lewis split on a resolution from the Service Employees International Union Pension Plans Master Trust, which called for the board to strengthen XPO's workplace sexual harassment prevention efforts. (Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles Editing by Bill Rigby and Tom Brown) (Adds details from cross-examination by officer's lawyer) By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - The New York City medical examiner who conducted an autopsy on an unarmed black man who was killed during a 2014 arrest said at a hearing on Wednesday that a police officer's chokehold set off a "lethal cascade" of events that ended in the man's death. Cellphone videos taken by bystanders show Officer Daniel Pantaleo putting his arm around the neck of Eric Garner to subdue and arrest him on suspicion of selling loose cigarettes on a sidewalk of the city's Staten Island borough. The New York Police Department (NYPD) is conducting a disciplinary trial for Pantaleo that could lead to his dismissal, nearly five years after Garner's death. The department has banned officers from using chokeholds for decades, saying the maneuver is too risky. "In my opinion, that's a chokehold," Dr. Floriana Persechino, the medical examiner, said after video footage of the arrest was put on pause during the hearing. She said the chokehold would have been painful and constricted Garner's airways, triggering "a lethal cascade of events" that led to his death. Video of the arrest sparked a national outcry over policing tactics used against black men. Garner's dying refrain of "I can't breathe!" became a rallying cry in the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement. Using a green laser pointer, Persechino explained that the autopsy photographs showed a band of ruptured blood vessels in the muscles in the front of Garner's neck, and said they were caused by pressure from Pantaleo's forearm. In hearings this week at the NYPD's headquarters in Manhattan, prosecutors from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent city agency with oversight powers over the NYPD, have said that Pantaleo should be fired. CHOKEHOLD AND "CONTRIBUTING CONDITIONS" Pantaleo's lawyers have argued that he did not use a chokehold, but instead used an authorized "seatbelt" hold that slipped as Garner struggled, and said that the officer did not cause Garner's death. Story continues Persechino agreed with one of Pantaleo's lawyers, Stuart London, that the chokehold was not the sole cause of death. A summary of her findings shared with reporters in 2014 and repeated in Wednesday's hearing ruled that the cause of death was: "Compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police." It also said that Garner's asthma, obesity and high blood pressure were "contributing conditions." Garner was 43 when he died. London, Pantaleo's lawyer, tore up a copy of that report at an earlier hearing, saying it was wrong and that Garner caused his own death in part by resisting arrest despite being in poor health. London sought to undermine the medical examiner's ruling on Wednesday by noting that Persechino found no external abrasions on Garner's neck and that small bones and cartilage in his neck were not fractured. Persechino said forearms, being soft and broad, often do not leave external marks in a chokehold, and that she saw fractured neck bones or cartilage in only a minority of choking and strangling cases. In this week's hearings, several of Pantaleo's colleagues, including investigators in the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau and an officer who oversees cadet training, say the videos show Pantaleo used a chokehold. Pantaleo, who has been assigned to a desk job since Garner's death, has sat silently by his lawyers during the hearings, dressed in a dark suit. An NYPD judge overseeing the hearing will make a ruling at the trial's end, but the ultimate decision about Pantaleo's fate will be made by Police Commissioner James O'Neill. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty, Bill Berkrot and Leslie Adler) Founders: Dan Lewis (CEO), Grant Goodale Launched: 2015 Headquarters: Seattle Funding: $265 million Valuation: $1.1 billion (PitchBook) Key technologies: Artificial intelligence, machine learning Industry: Transportation, logistics Truck drivers collectively cover more than 93 billion highway miles each year in the U.S., but up to 40% of those trips are made with empty trailers. This disconnect between shippers and truckers is what Convoy is solving. The Seattle-based company has developed an on-demand technology platform that allows trucking companies and shippers to connect via an app instead of relying on a broker, which utilizes email or phone calls. Read More: FULL LIST 2019 DISRUPTOR 50 By using data-driven software to better match up shippers and truckers, founders Dan Lewis and Grant Goodale both former Amazon executives are proving they can save time, money and CO 2 output. They're going after a huge but fragmented market. According to the American Trucking Association, the U.S. trucking industry is worth $700 billion annually and is forecast to grow 3.4% in freight volume through 2023. But small firms those with just three or four trucks make up most of the market. Convoy is helping these truckers operate more efficiently and is giving its customers (GE Appliances, Home Depot, Anheuser-Busch and Unilever, among them) better tracking and pricing data. The company makes money by taking a percentage of each transaction on its platform. So far, investors like what they see. In September, Convoy raised a whopping $185 million from CapitalG, the venture arm of Google parent company, Alphabet, bringing its total funding to $265 million. Other all-star backers include Bono, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff and Expedia chairman Barry Diller. The company hasn't said much about an IPO but did hire a CFO last year. Last evening a painting by Claude Monet shattered auction records at Sothebys impressionist and modern art evening sale in New York when it sold for $110.7 milliondouble its pre-auction estimate of $55 million. Meules is one of 25 works existing from the artists Haystacks series and one of only eight left in private hands; the rest have been placed in museum collections, which include those of the Musee DOrsay in Paris and MoMA in New York. The work not only surpassed the artists previous auction record$84.7 million, set last May for his Nympheas en Fleurbut also is the first painting from the Impressionist movement to surpass $100 million. Meules also now holds the title of the ninth most expensive work to ever sell at auction. Image courtesy of Sotheby's. One of the most recognizable images in art history, Claude Monets Haystacks series has long served as an inspiration to countless artists since its creation in the early 1890s. It was a true honor to present Meules among a remarkable group of Impressionist pictures emerging from the same distinguished private collectionone of several important collections offered tonight that propelled our results, said August Uribe, Sothebys head of impressionist and modern art in New York, in a statement to the press. Monet created his Haystacks series between 1880 and 1891 in the fields beside his home in Giverny, in Northern France. In an art historical context, the group represents the first time he painted the same subject multiple times under different lighting and atmospheric conditions in different seasonssomething he would go on to do with other series. He was particularly taken by the haystacks and the surrounding landscape in Giverny, and the sensitive changes in light throughout the day was a theme he studied throughout much of his work. This particular painting features multiple stacks and is painted with a vibrancy that scholars say distinguishes it from the rest of Haystacks. Theyre so evocative, so romantic, and so easy to live with, Offer Waterman, a London-based dealer, told The New York Times. That was the best of the series thats come up for auction. It was an amazing painting. And you just cant get them. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest Its not every day that someone sets out to create a cozy yet minimalist home out of an ancient Austrian defensive tower, built in the 12th century to house gunpowder stores for a nearby castle. It was a very eccentric sort of scenario, says interior designer Mark Gillette. But after working hand in hand with Countess Elizabeth Eltz and her husband on a handful of homes over the years, it seemed fated, despite the grim initial outlook. I knew [Mark] would sensitively create a stylish, comfortable home and work within the confines of the architecture, says Eltz, adding, this was by far the most ambitious project we have undertaken together. Eccentric hardly describes the reality of the Red Tower, which in the early 19th century came under the ownership of the Frey family, whose patriarch began adding wings of disparate faux periods. A very peculiar mixas the years progressed, nobody could quite tell when bits of it were built, because it looked earlier than it was, says Gillette. What it had going for it, however, was the location. Its somehow in the countryside and on a mountain, yet youre overlooking the rooftops of the city, says Gillette. It is very extraordinary. Countess Eltz adds, We were immediately drawn to its very special locationbeing both private and rural, yet very much a part of the city. In spite ofor perhaps because ofthe wild mishmash of historical extensions, the property is listed as a National Monument in Salzburg, Austria. It had to be completely gutted, the first stage of a six-year restoration so extensive it comprised burning the stone walls to kill bacteria. The extended renovation period was partly due to the narrowness of Salzburgs old city walls and tunnels. Everything going into the tower had to be dismantled, ferried through, and rebuilt on the other sidequite a feat of engineering, says Gillette. Story continues Another challenge was to achieve cohesion in the face of so many different time periods, represented in stone, brick, and wood. What we didnt want to do was create more fake history, says Gillette. Additionally there was oversight from Salzburgs government, which is notoriously strict. In place of one falling-down section, the new owners were required to erect a contemporary wing in its place, to illustrate its full evolvement, says Gillette. As a result, the 12th to 21st centuries are represented under one glazed roof, with a six-story circular elevator cut out of stone emerging through the top, where the pinnacle will eventually become a summer dining room. The new modern living room is front-row seating to admire the red brickwork, stone, and timber framing, in addition to the views of Salzburg. Several salons maintain original timber paneling in fragrant zirbe wood (Austrian snow pine), stained glass (painstakingly restored), and unique doors, each of which is a distinct size and shape. To furnish this amalgamation, Gillette and Countess Eltz shopped in her and her husbands other homes, pulling pieces of artwork, ancestral treasures, and antiques that fit. They didnt want anything that looks sort of pseudo and trying to pretend to be important, says the designer. Instead they balanced history with simple contemporary pieces designed by Gillette to fit the scale of the spaces that allow the architecture to speak and the artwork to sing out. Gillette paid homage to the towers environment by using local Salzburg glacial stone for flooring in all the bathrooms, cut in a way to give it a green-gray sheen. Additional cohesion was gained through the hammered, handmade black ironwork lighting fixtures used throughout and the soft green-gray new doors featuring bronze ironworka link to those that were restored and now act almost like sculpture, freed from their previously dark surrounds. I am thrilled with the result, says Countess Eltz, whose Italian friend, according to Gillette, describes the Red Tower as her ultimate folly. A 12th-Century Salzburg Fortress Turned Home Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest For years, doctors told 14-year-old Grace Jackson-Matthew that her chronic pain was just in her headyet she and her family knew it was something more. Finally, after traveling to Germany to see a new set of physicians, she received an explanation for her pain that was more frightening than she ever imagined. Jackson-Matthew, who's from the UK, has four different vascular compression syndromes, meaning her veins and organs are being crushed inside her body, according to her page on the crowdfunding website JustGiving. She's in constant pain and is mostly bed-bound because she's unable to walk on her own. She also can't stomach solid foods and has lost nearly 45 pounds in under a year. RELATED: The Bulge in This Mans Torso Turned Out to Be a Huge Aortic Aneurysm Jackson-Matthew was diagnosed with median arcuate ligament syndrome (MALS), superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS), renal nutcracker syndrome (NCS), and May-Thurner syndrome. MALS is caused by a ligament pressing on the artery that supplies blood to the stomach, liver, and other parts of the body. SMAS describes a condition where part of the small intestine is squeezed between two arteries. NCS occurs when a vein that carries blood from the kidney becomes compressed. May-Thurner syndrome is characterized by an artery compressing a vein that runs through the leg. Now, Jackson-Matthew's family is hoping she can undergo surgery to rearrange her blood vessels and ligaments to relieve some of the pressure. According to her JustGiving page, she'll need to travel to internationally to get the nearly $65,000 surgery. "These compressions gradually worsen (as other veins have to compensate when blood flow is impaired)," her page reads, "and eventually Grace will be unable to digest food, be unable to eat at all without artificial feeding via a tube, she will develop pelvic congestion and her kidneys will fail and eventually she will loose the ability to walk." Her page says that aside from her illness, Jackson-Matthew is a bubbly, animal-loving 14-year-old, though her condition has kept her from living a normal life. Her family has hope that this surgery will change that. RELATED: Can You Be Allergic to Water? Heres What You Need to Know Weekly pay in real terms has fallen 3.8% in the north since 2008. Photo: PA A leading think tank has warned that a quarter of workers in the north of England or around 1.6 million people are paid less than the real living wage. Across the board, weekly pay in real terms has also fallen 21 or 3.8% since 2008, and one in three women are paid less than the real living wage there, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said on Wednesday. To remedy the crisis, the IPPR is calling for the regions local authorities to make the payment of the 9-an-hour real living wage to employees a condition of outsourced contracts. The real living wage, championed by the Living Wage Foundation, is a voluntary rate of pay calculated according to what employees and their families need to live. A new report published by the IPPR blames the dramatic increase in the number of zero-hours contracts and the fact that wages in the UK overall are still 2% lower than they were in 2008. READ MORE: Britains highest-paying industries right now The report also points to significant major cuts to in-work benefits and the introduction of universal credit, which replaced six other out-of-work or low-income benefits with a single monthly payment. While the IPPR said that the responsibility for this crisis lies principally with central government, it suggested that there was significant scope for local government to support and encourage better employment. There are numerous examples of local authorities using their power and influence to improve work locally. Across the country, councils have become living wage employers or have implemented other policies that encourage decent work, the IPPR said in its report. While it noted that austerity has disproportionately affected local authorities in the north of England, it said they could help combat the pay crisis by paying their staff well, introducing criteria to give preference to contractors who pay the real living wage, and by using their influence in the local economy. READ MORE: Record numbers of women are working - but they won't all be cheering (Recasts with minister seeing deal on steel tariffs close) By Allison Martell TORONTO, May 14 (Reuters) - Mexico is closing in on a deal to repeal U.S. President Donald Trump's punitive tariffs on steel and aluminum, a senior Mexican official said on Tuesday, potentially moving a step nearer to the ratification of a major trade deal struck last year. "We are, I think, close to negotiating the lifting of the tariffs," Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez told Canadian broadcaster CBC after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Toronto. "We're having very fruitful conversations on lifting the tariffs not only in the U.S. but also here in Toronto." Adam Austen, a spokesman for Freeland, said the minister noted on Tuesday that it was unwise to predict how long a negotiation would take. He declined to comment further. Mexico and Canada imposed tariffs on various U.S. products last year in response to Trump's metals duties. The Mexican government says it could soon swap out some goods from its list for others to spread the pain across the U.S. economy. Earlier, Marquez said a new target list of U.S. products had been completed, and only needed approval from other officials, including President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. That process would likely take at least two to three weeks, she said. Her remarks, and those of a business leader involved in efforts to lift the tariffs and secure passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), suggested there may be scope to resolve the spat before fresh tariffs are imposed. Mexico's push to have the metals tariffs lifted has become bound up with its efforts to secure U.S. ratification of USCMA, which was signed by the three countries' leaders on Nov. 30 to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexicans lobbying for USMCA approval have focused their attention more on Democratic lawmakers since Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January. Story continues Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Mexican official said any revised retaliatory tariffs would lean more than before toward Democrats' districts to impress on them the need to lift the metals duties, and pave the way for USMCA ratification. When asked in a news conference if Mexico would target Democratic constituencies to encourage more U.S. lawmakers to argue for an end to the metals duties, Marquez said the new measures included economic and political components. Democrats have said they will not ratify USMCA unless Mexico delivers on a pledge to enact stronger labor provisions. Mexico's Congress passed a law that strengthens the rights of trade unions near the end of last month. U.S. Republican lawmakers have already signaled that Trump will need to drop his metals tariffs to pass USMCA. U.S. Republican Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said last month there was no chance of ratifying the new trade pact until the tariffs were gone. Participants in the process see progress. Moises Kalach, a leader of the CCE business lobby, which represented Mexico's private sector in the USMCA talks, told Reuters the original retaliatory tariffs were having the desired effect and saw no need to apply a new round of measures yet. "You don't want to ... make a major change to retaliatory tariffs only to end up reaching a deal a couple of weeks later," he said, adding he saw signs of "light" in breaking the impasse. Canada's Freeland said she would hold talks in Washington on Wednesday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, as well as Grassley. (Reporting by Allison Martell; Additional reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell, Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker) SheKnows If there were any questions as to how Jeff Bezos relationship with Lauren Sanchez is going, their latest vacation photos from the island of St. Barts should give a solid answer. The duo couldnt keep their hands off of each other during a hike through the beautiful mountains on the Caribbean island. The couple dressed [] Summer may be prime vacation time, but sometimes our budgets dont cooperate with our summer vacation ideas. Luckily, Skyscanner a travel search engine celebrated for its ability to discover the cheapest flights has uncovered affordable summer vacation spots around the world that offer everything youd want from a fancy trip. Not surprisingly, warm-weather destinations can be far cheaper in the summer months. Keep reading to discover other reasons the following five summer vacation destinations should fit into your budget-friendly travel plans this summer. New Orleans The Big Easy fills up with tourists in the spring for Mardi Gras, so summer visitors can get a good deal. Fly from New York to New Orleans in July for as little as $220. A nice hotel in the French Quarter for $149 a night will keep you in the heart of whats happening in NOLA. Honolulu Honolulu, which can be pricey any time of year, typically sees a 2.1% fare drop in the summer months, according to Skyscanner. But even choosing the best weeks to fly in the summer can save you serious cash. Fly from San Francisco to Honolulu from Aug. 20-26 and pay $495. The same trip in early July would set you back $563. Grab an Airbnb studio apartment on the beach in Waikiki for $75 a night and have a tropical vacation one can only dream about. San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan feels like an international island vacation, but theres no passport required for those in the U.S. Fly from Chicago on Aug. 7 and return on Aug. 13, and pay just $325. A hotel in Old San Juan can be had for $131 a night, making your island vacation relaxing and economical. Austin, Texas Austin is a trendy destination for music and art lovers, with plenty to do all day and long into the night. Fly from Los Angeles for just $97 round trip in August. One of the best cheap vacation ideas, you can pick up an apartment on Airbnb for $56 a night, and set out to explore. You can go tubing on the San Marcos River for $45 during the day, and then head to one of over 250 live music venues to dance the night away. Story continues Fort Lauderdale, Florida Florida sees an influx of vacationers in the winter, which means that bargain hunters can find cheap rates in the summer off-season. Vacationers can fly from Boston to Fort Lauderdale in August for $139 round trip. Snowbirds rent their condos on Airbnb when theyre not using them, so you can find a studio bungalow for $69 a night. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 5 budget-friendly summer vacation destinations On Wednesday, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill that would effectively ban all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. Under the bill, doctors could face 99 years in jail for performing abortions. The bill makes exceptions for cases in which the mothers life is at risk. Passed last week, a new Georgia law bans abortions when fetal heartbeat can be detected. This can occur as early as six weeks after conception and before some women know they are pregnant. Proponents of these abortion restrictions stated that they wanted to challenge and reverse Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. By Steve Gorman May 14 (Reuters) - A California nursing student charged with last month's deadly shooting spree in a San Diego-area synagogue and arson at a nearby mosque pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to more than 100 counts of federal hate crimes and civil rights offenses. John Timothy Earnest, 19, who could face the death penalty if convicted, was appointed an attorney with expertise in capital cases in a brief appearance in U.S. District Court in San Diego. Earnest pleaded not guilty last month in state court to one count of murder as a hate crime - a capital offense under California law - and three counts of attempted murder stemming from the April 27 shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. One worshipper was killed in that attack and three others wounded. He also pleaded not guilty to arson in connection with a March 24 fire that damaged the Islamic Center of Escondido. No one was injured in that blaze. The suspect, who was arrested following the synagogue attack, was linked to the mosque fire after an online manifesto written by a John Earnest was discovered claiming responsibility for it and professing to have been inspired by a gunman who killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand earlier in March. The separate federal criminal complaint, filed on May 9, charged Earnest with 54 counts of obstructing the exercise of religious freedom resulting in death and bodily injury, plus 54 counts of violating federal hate-crime statutes. Prosecutors said 54 people were present in the temple when the shooting took place. The federal complaint also charges Earnest with causing damage to religious property involving use of a dangerous weapon or fire, in connection with the mosque arson. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shane Hannigan said the federal and state cases would proceed along "parallel" tracks, and that Earnest would likely remain in state pretrial custody, except when he appears for proceedings in federal court. Story continues He is accused of entering the Poway synagogue during Sabbath prayers on the last day of the week-long Passover holiday and opening fire with an assault-style rifle, killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60. The rabbi was shot in the hand and lost a finger. The attack ended when the gunman's weapon apparently jammed and he was chased from the temple by a former Army sergeant in the congregation. After speeding away by car, the suspect pulled over and surrendered to police. The shooting came six months after a gunman killed 11 worshipers in a synagogue in Pittsburgh in the deadliest ever attack on American Jewry. The accused gunman was arrested. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) By Steve Gorman (Reuters) - A California nursing student charged with last month's deadly shooting spree in a San Diego-area synagogue and arson at a nearby mosque pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to more than 100 counts of federal hate crimes and civil rights offenses. John Timothy Earnest, 19, who could face the death penalty if convicted, was appointed an attorney with expertise in capital cases in a brief appearance in U.S. District Court in San Diego. Earnest pleaded not guilty last month in state court to one count of murder as a hate crime - a capital offense under California law - and three counts of attempted murder stemming from the April 27 shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. One worshipper was killed in that attack and three others wounded. He also pleaded not guilty to arson in connection with a March 24 fire that damaged the Islamic Center of Escondido. No one was injured in that blaze. The suspect, who was arrested following the synagogue attack, was linked to the mosque fire after an online manifesto written by a John Earnest was discovered claiming responsibility for it and professing to have been inspired by a gunman who killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand earlier in March. The separate federal criminal complaint, filed on May 9, charged Earnest with 54 counts of obstructing the exercise of religious freedom resulting in death and bodily injury, plus 54 counts of violating federal hate-crime statutes. Prosecutors said 54 people were present in the temple when the shooting took place. The federal complaint also charges Earnest with causing damage to religious property involving use of a dangerous weapon or fire, in connection with the mosque arson. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shane Hannigan said the federal and state cases would proceed along "parallel" tracks, and that Earnest would likely remain in state pretrial custody, except when he appears for proceedings in federal court. He is accused of entering the Poway synagogue during Sabbath prayers on the last day of the week-long Passover holiday and opening fire with an assault-style rifle, killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60. The rabbi was shot in the hand and lost a finger. Story continues The attack ended when the gunman's weapon apparently jammed and he was chased from the temple by a former Army sergeant in the congregation. After speeding away by car, the suspect pulled over and surrendered to police. The shooting came six months after a gunman killed 11 worshipers in a synagogue in Pittsburgh in the deadliest ever attack on American Jewry. The accused gunman was arrested. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) May 15 (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union, the Ohio branch of the ACLU and Planned Parenthood said on Wednesday they have filed a lawsuit challenging an Ohio law that they say could ban abortion as early as six weeks into a woman's pregnancy. The law, which was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature in April, bans abortions if doctors can detect a heartbeat, which can occur as early as six weeks into pregnancy. (Reporting by Makini Brice in Washington; Editing by Doina Chiaacu) Previously sidelined, a musical drama starring Adam Driver of the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy has been given the green light. Adam Driver is teaming up with French auteur Leos Carax (of "Holy Motors," "Mauvais Sang" and "Boy Meets Girl") for "Annette," a musical drama about a couple and their daughter. With its Hollywood setting and musical theme, "Annette" might already sound reminiscent of "La La Land," and in fact Carax has secured the services of music producer Marius de Vries, who worked on not only "La La Land" but also "Moulin Rouge!," "The Lego Movie 2," the upcoming "Cats" and more. In addition, influential synth pop and rock band Sparks is providing original songs for the movie. The US sibling duo is best known for their '70s hit "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us," they also wrote Swedish radio musical and film director biography "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman." "Annette" is back on after French film producer Charles Gillibert agreed to help get it going through his CG Cinema company. He's specialized in producing well-received independent films, including over half a dozen Cannes Film Festival selections, and has previously backed a run of films by another award-winning French director, Olivier Assayas, whose "Clouds of Sils Maria" and "Non-Fiction" co-starred early Carax collaborator Juliette Binoche. German, Japanese, and Belgian production companies are also involved. The news comes as 2019's Cannes Film Festival begins, running from May 14 to May 25. The AFL-CIO, whose constituents once expended some effort expelling the Communists from their ranks, apparently has decided on another course and is now using its social-media accounts to distribute Marxist propaganda. This comes hot on the heels of the same organization suggesting guillotines as the solution to the nations economic troubles. There are many objections to this line of thinking, beginning with the 100 million people the champions of this philosophy murdered in the 20th century and the horrors they are inflicting today on the people of Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. Our friends on the left like to lecture conservatives about the occasional outburst of violent rhetoric in our midst, and they are not entirely wrong to do so. But what the AFL-CIO refers to here is not violent rhetoric but actual violence in the form of mass murder. Beyond the niggling details of gulags, the Holodomor, anti-Semitic purges, etc., theres also the matter of hilarious illiteracy. The daft little propaganda video the union is circulating features a very confident young man identified as Dan Whelan: Marxist, roofer, who is here to explain that the existence of the middle class is a great fiction perpetrated on the feckless victims of American capitalism in order to blind them to the truth of relations between labor and capital as understood in Marxist orthodoxy. The working class, Whelan explains, consists of all those who sell their time and skills to members of the ownership class, irrespective of the kind of work they do. Under this analysis, working class encompasses roofers, farmworkers, factory labor, and industrial personnel and also most of the investment bankers down at Goldman Sachs, and the lawyers around the corner from them, and the AI scientists at Google, who also sell their time and skills to the owners of companies. A definition of working class that lumps in pickers of peaches with writers of algorithms is functionally useless and intellectually sterile except in the context of a narrow ideological framework such as Marxism. Marxism is predicated upon certain notions of class interest, and it is difficult to imagine, say, M&A lawyers having a great deal in common as a matter of class interest with over-the-road truckers. Story continues Or maybe the truckers should be excluded from the working class. Many of them are owner-operators, and as owners of capital are excluded from the working class in this analysis. So, truckers are the capitalist class, and neurosurgeons are the working class. What about teachers? The middle class, which is said not to exist, turns out to own a great deal of capital. Among the nations largest institutional investors owners of capital are organizations such as CalPERS and CalSTRS, which invest on behalf of teachers and other government employees in California. Investment funds representing public employees, unions, and the like are very large holders of capital. Other large institutional investors include funds such as Vanguard Asset Management (second only to BlackRock in assets) through which a great many ordinary people with ordinary jobs invest in publicly traded companies. The AFL-CIO, repeating a slogan under which millions of people have been murdered, advises that working people seize the means of production. But they already own a considerable amount, and there is nothing stopping them from buying more. You need the AFL-CIOs permission to work in a closed union shop, but there is no similar gatekeeper blocking anybodys access to the stock market. Theyll sell shares to anybody who wants them. Capitalists do not discriminate. Unions do. Ask around in Philadelphia. When Barack Obama was president, certain Republicans spoke of the carnage of American life, while Democrats sang the praises of a rising stock market; now that Donald Trump is president, the roles have been roughly reversed. (Let us set aside, for the moment, the risible and primitive superstition that the performance of the economy is a quasi-divine judgment on the president and his performance in office.) The American middle class is right out there, sited prettily easily in the suburbs of Houston or Boston, in the aisles of the Home Depot or Whole Foods, at the bank, watching Game of Thrones. The middle class has its ups and downs, its triumphs and disappointments, comforts and anxieties thats what being in the middle is all about. The Left has in recent years shifted its emphasis from the troubles of the poor to the troubles of the middle class, for obvious reasons: The Democratic party has become a middle-class party, one that is dominated by college-educated white professionals in relatively affluent urban centers rather than the farmer-labor party of a generation ago, the agricultural communities having gone solidly Republican, a fact that would have mystified members of my grandfathers generation, when the socioeconomic poles of the parties were roughly reversed. (The Republican march through the South, notably, began in the relatively affluent and educated suburbs; the Democrats are now doing something very similar in places such as Texas and Georgia.) For this reason, the Democrats have a heavy investment in convincing the middle class that it is miserable, that it is the victim of Republicans, that it is a victim of Wall Street (which is politically dominated by Democrats, but never mind), or in the silly Marxist analysis that it does not exist, that it has had the wool of false consciousness pulled over its eyes. If the plight of the middle class under capitalism seems to you unbearable, you should consider what has happened to the working class under Marxism, if only for comparison. Build the Wall! was a socialist program long before it was Trumps. More from National Review Johannesburg (AFP) - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged Wednesday to use his victory in last week's election to impose faster reforms to boost the economy and turn around Eskom, the state's ailing power company. Ramaphosa spoke at a gathering of chief executives hosted by the Goldman Sachs investment bank in Johannesburg, signalling his pro-business stance after he took over from scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma last year. "We identified a number of reform issues that we needed to address, we are now going to do that with greater speed," Ramaphosa said after the ruling ANC party won the May 8 election with its thinnest majority since the end of apartheid. "We are going to ensure that the certainty that investors want to see is there," he said. "We are going to continue with our reforms of our state-owned enterprises because a number of them have held us back." Ramaphosa said corruption had "set itself into Eskom" and that proper management processes had been "completely destroyed" at the company, which is teetering on the edge of collapse with debts of $30 billion. "We are going to proceed to clean it up," he vowed, promoting his plan to restructure the company and tackle its vast debts. "In the end, Eskom is too big to fail. The plan is in place, it is credible... If Eskom fails, this economy fails, this country also fails, so we are not going to allow that." Ramaphosa also said South Africa's 27 percent unemployment rate "keeps me awake at night," adding: "The key mandate I have as president is to make sure that our focus is on jobs." Three women had a voice in Alabama Senate as 25 men passed abortion ban Amid the debate on the Alabama Senate floor over Americas most restrictive abortion law, state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison appeared to be losing patience. She was one of just three women to vote Tuesday on HB 314, which would outlaw abortions even in cases of rape and incest. And more than two hours into the debate, she had a few questions for state Senator Clyde Chambliss, one of the bills key Republican backers. Earlier, he had explained the law wouldnt affect women until they are known to be pregnant. What, exactly, did that mean? Ms Coleman-Madison asked. Well, he said, if you dont know, then youre not known to be pregnant. Ms Coleman-Madison rested her chin in the palm of her hand, looking bored. I guess thats a typical male answer, she said. You dont know what you dont know because youve never been pregnant. And herein is the problem: You cant get pregnant. ... You dont know what its like to be pregnant. To Ms Coleman-Madison, the moment crystallized a problem that has plagued womens reproductive health debates over the years in Alabamas legislature and beyond: They are typically dominated by male politicians. On Tuesday, that was in sharp focus. All 25 votes cast in favour of the bill were from white Republican men. Ms Coleman-Madison and Democratic state Senator Vivian Davis Figures, the only women who spoke during the four-hour debate, acknowledged in interviews with The Washington Post that the divide on the issue is primarily one of ideology rather than gender; the Republican sponsor of the bill in the Alabama House, for example, is a woman, and Republican governor Kay Ivey is expected to sign it. But both said the dearth of womens voices in the Alabama legislature, particularly on an issue as intimate as pregnancy, has created a serious representation problem. While women comprise 51 percent of Alabamas population, they make up just 15 percent of the legislature among the worst gender ratios in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ms Coleman-Madison compared Tuesdays all-male yea vote to a dentist making a decision about a heart surgery. Story continues At the end, its the concept of strength in numbers, said Ms Coleman-Madison who, like Ms Figures, personally opposes abortion but doesnt believe in making the procedure illegal. Thats why we need more women to run for office. These decisions are going to be made whether we like it or not, and more likely were not going to like it when decisions like this one, about a woman and her health, are being made by all the men. Tuesday marked the third time in the past month that a state legislature passed a restrictive abortion law, all of which have largely been seen as a vehicle for challenging Roe v. Wade in the newly balanced Supreme Court. The Alabama abortion bill is the most harsh yet. It would allow abortion only if the mothers health was in critical danger, banning it virtually at the moment of conception. It does not penalise women for abortions but could send doctors who perform them to prison for up to 99 years, more than rapists face in most cases. In Ohio, a law signed last month by governor Mike DeWine outlaws abortion as early as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, before many women even know theyre pregnant (also without exception for rape or incest). And in Georgia, a new law signed last week by governor Brian Kemp outlaws abortion after six weeks, again before many women know. In those states as well, men voting on the measures heavily outnumbered women. Male legislators in favour of such bills often argue that the issue of abortion is one of morality and that it is a topic both men and women should equally be allowed to debate. But then, of course, come the questions like Ms Coleman-Madisons: How many times have you actually carried a baby? as Georgia state representative Kim Schofield asked a male Republican lawmaker at one point. Women on both sides of the aisle have long used their personal experiences with pregnancy to support or oppose restrictive abortion laws. For example, Iowa state representative, Amy Sinclair, said hearing her sons heartbeat on an ultrasound when she was pregnant at age 19 profoundly affected her concept of when life begins. By contrast, former Democratic state representative Wendy Davis of Texas and Georgia state representative Park Cannon both used their experiences with abortions to oppose restrictive laws in 2013 and this year, respectively. But in states where personal stories about abortion are not likely to sway the vote, female lawmakers who support abortion rights have sometimes filed protest bills or even made gyneacology presentations to make a point. In Texas in 2011, for example, state representative Sid Miller proposed a bill requiring women to undergo ultrasounds 24 hours before getting an abortion to make sure she knows what she is doing, as Texas Monthly reported. But under questioning by a group of female lawmakers, Mr Miller admitted he didnt know whether at eight to 10 weeks a woman would need a traditional ultrasound or a more invasive transvaginal sonogram. (It was the latter.) State representative Carol Alvarado whipped out a transvaginal probe to help provide Mr Miller a visual. What would a woman undergo in your bill? she asked. Actually, I have never had a sonogram done on me, so Im not familiar with that exact procedure, on the medical procedure, how that proceeds, Mr Miller, now the state agriculture commissioner, sheepishly responded. In recent years, female lawmakers have also increasingly filed satirical bills seeking to regulate mens reproductive systems a how-would-you-like-it approach prone to making headlines if not actually changing the law. Ms Figures took the same approach Tuesday afternoon, filing an amendment to the bill that would make it a felony for a man to have a vasectomy. It failed. It was just to prove a point, she told The Washington Post. Put yourself in our shoes. I tell them, theres no law on the books anywhere in this country that mandate what a man can and cant do with his body, yet for us there are a number of them. ... Theyre just so hell-bent on doing what they want to do that they ignore all of that. On Tuesday night, numerous female lawmakers described the passage of the Alabama bill as an assault on womens rights, and an unconstitutional attempt to revert to a time of DIY abortions. Ive lived in that America, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter, and let me tell you: We are not going back not now, not ever. This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell, said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Ms Figures said that after more than 20 years of being one of a few women in the state senate at any given time, she no longer feels exasperated by the lack of women only because she got used to it. Its more disappointment, she said. You feel disappointed that youre living in 2019 and youre dealing this. But from the Alabama Senate floor Tuesday, Ms Coleman-Madison offered a prediction. Now, we understand the women in this chamber are a minority, she said, but one of these days thats going to change. And Senator Figures amendment might just get passed. The Washington Post Campaigners say Alabamas new law mandating a near total ban on abortion is part of a nationwide coordinated strategy to make abortion inaccessible for women across America. The legislation, which is the most restrictive abortion bill in the US, would make carrying out an abortion at any stage of the pregnancy punishable by 10 to 99 years in jail. The strict abortion ban, which has been branded a death sentence for women, would even criminalise performing abortions in cases of rape and incest. While doctors would face ten years in prison for attempting to terminate a pregnancy, they would face 99 years for carrying out the procedure. Of the 27 Republicans, all men, that dominate the 35-seat Alabama senate, 25 voted to pass the bill late on Tuesday. None of the senates four female senators backed the ban which has now been sent to Governor Kay Iveys desk for signature into law. While supporters say they expect the law to be blocked in court, they hope that the appeals process will bring it before the Supreme Court. They want the court to overturn Roe v Wade - the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion nationwide in 1973. Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a lawyer who will be challenging the controversial bill, said: We are disappointed but we are ready to fight. What Alabama has done is part of a national coordinated strategy to push abortion out of reach for all women. We are going to go to court and make sure that does not happen. For years, Alabama has been pushing laws that chip away at abortion but what happened last night, and what is happening in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, and Georgia, is an example of politicians showing their true colours. They are launching an unprecedented, and the most extreme attack, on abortion in recent years. If the law took effect, it would be devastating. While the Alabama law does not explicitly criminalise women, we know a criminalised atmosphere around abortion does, and would, inevitably have an impact on the women themselves. If the law took effect, doctors would stop providing abortions. You do not want to run afoul of a law which carries 99 years. We are also afraid it would have a chilling effect on doctors carrying out other work. You could be wrongly accused when treating pregnant women. Story continues Ms Kolbi-Molinas, who has been fighting for abortion rights at the American Civil Liberties Union for 12 years, said Alabama and other states already have abysmal maternity and prenatal care for women. She said that the ACLU, the largest human rights defence organisation in the US, has had four or five cases in Alabama in recent years challenging these medically unnecessary and politically motivated restrictions and they had been successful in blocking all of them adding that she remained optimistic this latest bill would be the same. Ms Kolbi-Molinas said there are people on the ground in Alabama fighting every day to make access to abortion a reality for anyone who needs it, adding that they had been fighting this law all the way. The fact the bill did not even allow abortions in instances of rape and incest was, however, a representative of how extreme the politicians behind the legislation are, she said, as it was previously very rare to see a law that does not have exceptions. Alabamas new bill comes as politicians in several other states propose legislation to restrict abortion such as Georgias recent heartbeat bill. Some sixteen other states are trying to impose new restrictions on abortion. Alabama state lawmakers compare abortions in America to the Holocaust and other modern genocides in the legislation - spurring Jewish activists and abortion rights groups to rebuke the bill as deeply offensive. Dr Ben Kasstan, a medical anthropologist based at the University of Sussex in the UK, said: The dystopian tales penned by Margaret Atwood increasingly resemble reality in the US, as a bill against performing abortion - except if a woman's health is at serious risk is set to be passed in the State of Alabama. Physicians, in reality, will have to interpret what serious means, and will likely provide care defensively and in fear of law enforcement. This extreme legislation forms part of a Republican pledge to curtail access to the full continuum of women's sexual and reproductive healthcare. "Such restrictive abortion regimes do not stop women from requiring abortion: it forces women to either travel to access care legally, or to possibly make dangerous decisions about their health. Conversely, men are rarely, if at all, forced to make such decisions about their health. Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has aligned herself as anti-abortion previously, will have six days to sign the legislation but the bill would not take effect until six months after becoming law. She has said she will only decide whether or not to sign it into law once she has considered the final version. Alarm bells have been raised that Roe v Wade could be overturned or radically undermined with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - who are both Trump appointees. Abortion opponents in other states have been emboldened to attempt to provoke new legal battles that could spark Supreme Court justices to revisit the key case. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved bans on abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. At six weeks, many women do not yet know they are pregnant. Earlier this year the Supreme Court blocked implementation of new abortion restrictions in Louisiana. But the ruling was made by a narrow margin - with the case due to be reviewed later this year. On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Alabama state legislature passed the most restrictive abortion bill in the country. Alabamas Republican governor Kay Ivey is expected to sign it into law, which could set up the law for a legal challenge before the Supreme Court under the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. The legislation seeks to ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with the only exception in cases when the pregnancy threatens the life of the pregnant person. Doctors who perform the procedure could be charged with felonies and face up to 99 years in prison. The bill would also ban abortions in cases of rape or incest. Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss, a sponsor of the bill, defended omitting exceptions in cases of rape or incest on the basis of religion. When God creates the miracle of life inside a womans womb, it is not our place as human beings to extinguish that life, he said. The bill passed with the support of 25 white, male Republican senators, while a number of Democratic amendments to the legislation failed. Democratic minority leader Bobby Singleton opposed the ban, and called attention to the men stripping people of their rights to access reproductive healthcare. Youve got 27 men over on the other side ready to tell women what they can do with their bodies, Singleton said. If signed into law, the bill will not only affect women, but also transgender men, non-binary, and intersex people. The legislation would also disproportionately affect the lives of low-income residents, black residents, and residents of color in the state. Two Republicans did not vote on the measure. During a four-hour debate over the legislation Tuesday night, Democratic Senator Vivian Davis Figures argued that the men voting to strip people of their reproductive rights have no stake in the matter. You dont have to raise that child. You dont have to carry that child. You dont have to provide for that child, Davis Figures said. Story continues Twenty-one abortion restrictions had already been enacted in 2019 as of April, as anti-abortion activists and lawmakers continue to push restrictive legislation in hopes of getting a case before the Supreme Court that would pose a legal challenge to Roe. What were seeing now is much more a full frontal attack on abortion rights, Elizabeth Nash, a senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, told Fortune last month. The ACLU of Alabama, along with the National ACLU and Planned Parenthood, are preparing a legal challenge of their own. [We] will file a lawsuit to stop this unconstitutional ban and protect every womans right to make her own choice about her healthcare, her body, and her future, Alabamas ACLU chapter said Tuesday. The organization reminded people living in the state that the bill will not take effect anytime in the near future, and abortion will remain a safe, legal medical procedure at all clinics in Alabama. Abortion rights advocates say that anti-abortion legislation has already created a level of fear and a spread of misinformation. Theres a real concern as we are talking about states that are seeking to ban abortion that real people across the country will make the assumption that abortion is banned, said Nash. Thats not the end of the story. More must-read stories from Fortune: How civil rights and liberties activists are taking on Capitol Hill What exactly is ranked-choice voting? 21 abortion restrictions have already been enacted in 2019 Should Title VII civil rights protections include the LGBTQ community? Human Trafficking is an epidemic in the U.S. Its also big business MONTGOMERY, Ala. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey told reporters Wednesday that her office hadnt gotten a bill that would criminalize abortion in nearly all cases, and that shed have to review it before making a decision. She then defended some of the bills most contentious points. The Alabama Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would make it a Class A felony, punishable by life or 10 to 99 years in prison, for a doctor to perform an abortion in the state. Attempting to perform an abortion would be a Class C felony, punishable by one to 10 years in prison. The Senate rejected an amendment that would have put in exceptions for rape and incest. Ivey was asked Wednesday about victims of rape and incest who would be required by law to carry their babies to term. All human life is precious, she said. If signed into law, it would likely trigger a costly legal battle for the state. Ivey dismissed that as a concern. You certainly cannot deter your efforts to protect the unborn because of cost, even if it means going to the United States Supreme Court, she said. Ivey said she expected to get the bill later Wednesday. More: End Roe v. Wade? Here's what would happen next If she signs it, the ban would take effect six months after her signature. If she vetoes it, a simple majority in both chambers could override the veto. It passed the House 74 to 3 and passed the Senate 25 to 6. She spoke after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabamas new, $388 million engine plant. The ceremony happened on a day when #BoycottAlabama was one of the trending hashtags on social media. Asked if she was concerned that the abortion bill and its backlash could make it more difficult to recruit business to the state, she said only that Alabama is open for business. Its a great place to do business, Ivey said. Weve got a business-friendly environment. More: After Alabama's abortion bill, Missouri could be next Bryan Lyman contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama's governor defends near-total abortion ban bill, but doesn't commit to signing MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Alabama's Republican governor has signed the most stringent abortion legislation in the nation, making performing an abortion a felony in nearly all cases. "To the bill's many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God," Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement after signing it into law on Wednesday. The law's sponsors want to give conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court a chance to gut abortion rights nationwide. Democrats and abortion rights advocates criticized the legislation as a slap in the face to women. "It just completely disregards women and the value of women and their voice. We have once again silenced women on a very personal issue," said Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, a Birmingham Democrat. The abortion ban would go into effect in six months if it isn't blocked by legal challenges. Coleman-Madison said she hopes the measure awakens a "sleeping giant" of women voters in the state. But Republican pollster Chris Kratzer noted that there is no congressional district and likely no legislative district in Alabama with enough swing voters to put Republicans at serious risk. "The people who are outraged about this are not the people who are electing these guys, generally speaking, especially when we're talking about the primary," he said. Kratzer also argued that there aren't enough potential swing voters and disenchanted Republicans to make the issue any kind of advantage for the lone Democrat elected to statewide office, U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, who scored a surprise win in a 2017 special election. Jones upset Republican Roy Moore, in part on the strength of GOP-leaning college graduates abandoning the controversial Moore. But Kratzer said that was more about Moore's long history of flouting federal courts as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and accusations that Moore sexually harassed teens when he was in his 30s not Moore's hardline stance on abortion. Story continues The legislation Alabama senators passed Tuesday would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison for the provider. There is no exception for pregnancies resulting for rape and incest. The only exception would be when the woman's health is at serious risk. Women seeking or undergoing abortions wouldn't be punished. Rep. Terri Collins, the bill's sponsor, said she believes the measure reflects the beliefs of the majority of the state electorate. The vote came after 59% of state voters in November agreed to write anti-abortion language in the Alabama Constitution, saying the state recognizes the rights of the "unborn." Ivey acknowledged Wednesday that the measure may be unenforceable in the short term, and even supporters expect it to be blocked by lower courts as they fight toward the Supreme Court. "It's to address the issue that Roe. v. Wade was decided on. Is that baby in the womb a person?" Collins said. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia recently approved bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. Missouri's Republican-led Senate voted early Thursday to ban abortions at eight weeks, with no rape or incest exceptions. The Alabama bill goes further by seeking to ban abortion outright. Abortion rights advocates vowed swift legal action. "We haven't lost a case in Alabama yet and we don't plan to start now. We will see Governor Ivey in court," said Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast. Evangelist Pat Robertson on his television show Wednesday said the Alabama law is "extreme" and opined it may not be the best one to bring to the U.S. Supreme Court in the hopes of overturning Roe "because I think this one will lose." "God bless them they are trying to do something," Robertson said. One mile (1.6 kilometers) from the Alabama Statehouse down the street from the Governor's Mansion sits Montgomery's only abortion clinic, one of three performing abortions in the state. Clinic staff on Wednesday fielded calls from patients, and potential patients, assuring them that abortion remains legal, for now. Dr. Yashica Robinson, who provides abortions in Huntsville, said her clinic similarly fielded calls from frightened patients. "This is a really sad day for women in Alabama and all across the nation," she said. "It's like we have just taken three steps backwards as far as women's rights and being able to make decisions that are best for them and best for their families." But Robinson said the bill is also having a galvanizing effect. With phone lines jammed, she said messages came streaming across their fax machine. "We had letters coming across the fax just asking what they can do to help and telling us they are sending us their love and support our way," Robinson said. ___ Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report. MONTGOMERY, Ala. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a near-total abortion ban Wednesday, putting in place one of the nation's most restrictive laws on the procedure and all but guaranteeing legal challenges. The governor had been quiet about her intentions after the Alabama Senate gave final legislative approval to the bill Tuesday night. "To the bills many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God," Ivey said in a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon. But in a nod to the likely legal challenges the bill would face, Ivey's statement also said that Alabama's pre-1973 ban on abortion is unenforeceable due to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which struck down state bans on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Gov. Kay Ivey speaks to the media following the new engine plant grand opening at the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Ala., on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. "No matter ones personal view on abortion, we can all recognize that, at least for the short term, this bill may similarly be unenforceable," the statement said. "As citizens of this great country, we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions." Abortion rights supporters have vowed to fight the measure, which bans abortion in nearly all cases except where a woman's health is in danger. "We havent lost a case in Alabama yet and we dont plan to start now," Staci Fox, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said in a statement Wednesday evening. "We will see Governor Ivey in court." Randall Marshall, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, said his group would fight the ban. By signing this bill, the governor and her colleagues in the state legislature have decided to waste millions in Alabama taxpayer dollars in order to defend a bill that is simply a political effort to overturn 46 years of precedent that has followed the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision," the statement said. Story continues Without legal challenges, the ban would take effect in November. The ban, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Terri Collins, makes it a felony punishable by life or 10 to 99 years in prison to perform an abortion in the state of Alabama. Attempting an abortion would be a felony, with a prison sentence of one to 10 years. The only exceptions to the ban would be a threat to the life of the mother; a mental illness where a birth might lead to a woman's death or the death of her child, or in the case of fetal anomalies where a child might be stillborn or die after birth. Collins' bill provides no exceptions for rape or incest. Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature rejected attempts to add exceptions for sexual assault victims in debates over the measure. All but four of 25 Republicans rejected an amendment Wednesday that would place a rape and incest exception in the bill. On April 30, 74 House Republicans voted to reject a rape and incest exception. "If you are going to allow a baby to be raped, or a father, or an uncle, or a cousin to have babies by their own family, you couldn't have been thinking this through," Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, a Democrat, said during the debate Tuesday. Collins and other supporters of the bill said it is designed to take a challenge to Roe v. Wade to the U.S. Supreme Court, and adding exceptions for sexual assault in the bill would weaken its argument for fetal personhood. Collins has argued the state could design a new abortion law if Roe is struck down, and said she would support rape and incest exceptions in that instance. It's unclear, though, whether a legislature that overwhelmingly voted to keep those exceptions out would want to revisit the issue. Legislators ability to write that prospective new law may also be limited by a state constitutional amendment approved by Alabama voters last year, which said there was no right to abortion. Women seeking an abortion in Alabama must first receive mandatory counseling, then wait 48 hours. More: Planned Parenthood readies challenge to near-total abortion ban in Alabama More: How does Alabama's abortion bill compare to Georgia's 'fetal heartbeat' law? This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama governor signs near-total abortion ban into law By Steve Gorman and Daniel Trotta (Reuters) - Alabama's governor on Wednesday signed a bill to ban nearly all abortions in the state, even in cases of rape and incest, in the latest bid by political conservatives to try to roll back the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1973 ruling establishing a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy. U.S. abortion-rights activists had already vowed to go court to block enforcement of the Alabama measure, the strictest anti-abortion law yet enacted by abortion foes aiming to provoke reconsideration of the Roe v. Wade ruling. The decision by Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican abortion opponent, to sign the measure came a day after the Republican-controlled state Senate gave final legislative approval to the abortion ban. "To the bills many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God," Ivey said in a statement. "To all Alabamians, I assure you that we will continue to follow the rule of law." As passed, the law would take effect in six months. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. Planned Parenthood joined the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday in filing a legal challenge to Ohio's recent ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time, unless the mother's health is in danger. Those performing abortions would be committing a felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison. A woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The state Senate defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape or incest. 2020 DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES BLAST MOVE Most of the Democratic candidates seeking their party's 2020 nomination to run for the White House condemned the Alabama law, calling it an attack on women's rights and vowing to fight to uphold legal access to abortion. Story continues "The idea that supposed leaders have passed a law that would criminalize a physician for assisting a woman on something that she, in consult with her physician, with her God, with her faith leader, has made the decision to do, that is her body that you would criminalize," U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, one of the large field of hopefuls, said at a town hall on Wednesday morning in Nashua, New Hampshire. Some on Twitter had called on their allies to mail coat hangers to Ivey, as a reminder of the illegal abortion practices common before it was made legal. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged. Courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa passed last year. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life of the fetus transcended other rights, an idea they would like tested at the Supreme Court. The high court, now with a majority of conservative justices after Republican President Donald Trump appointed two, could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade. That decision held that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment provides a fundamental right to privacy that protects a woman's right to abortion. Roe v. Wade did allow states to place restrictions on the procedure from the time a fetus could viably survive outside the womb, except in cases in which a woman's health was otherwise at risk. A fetus is generally considered viable at 22 to 24 weeks. A full-term pregnancy typically is about 40 weeks. Just this year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio enacted statutes outlawing abortion after a doctor can detect an embryonic heartbeat. Opponents call the "heartbeat" legislation a virtual ban because embryonic cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks, before a woman may even be aware she is pregnant. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg and Daniel Trotta in New York; Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson in Washington and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker) By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) - Alabama's state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday to outlaw nearly all abortions, creating exceptions only to protect the mother's health, as part of a multistate effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. The country's strictest abortion bill was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign but is generally a strong opponent of abortion. The law, which passed 25-6, would take effect six months after being signed by the governor, but is certain to face legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups which have vowed to sue. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time. Those performing abortions would be committing a felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison, although a woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The Republican-controlled Alabama Senate also defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape and incest. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa passed last year. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life of the unborn child transcends other rights, an idea they would like tested. Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss, arguing in favor of the Alabama bill, said the whole point was "so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe versus Wade." The high court, now with a majority of conservative justices after Republican President Donald Trump appointed two, could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision establishing a woman's right to an abortion. Just this year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have outlawed abortion after a doctor can detect an embryonic heartbeat. Opponents call the "heartbeat" legislation a virtual ban because embryonic cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks, before a woman may be aware she is pregnant. Democratic state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison called the Republicans hypocritical for advocating small government that ought to stay out of private matters but "now you want in my womb; I want you out." All 27 Republican senators are men. The group Physicians for Reproductive Health said the near total ban on abortions would have a disastrous effect on healthcare. "Physicians will be unwilling to help patients in need, even when continuing pregnancy is detrimental to a patient's health, or potentially fatal, out of fear of being scrutinized by the criminal justice system," Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board member and ob/gyn, said in a statement. The National Organization for Women (NOW) denounced the ban as unconstitutional. "This is a transparent effort to drum up political support for anti-abortion candidates in upcoming elections and serves as a direct threat to women's health, autonomy and pursuit of happiness," NOW said in a statement. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano has called for a sex strike under the social media hashtag #SexStrike in response to the campaigns against abortion rights, urging women to refuse sex with men "until we get bodily autonomy back." (Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Clarence Fernandez) Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA) shares were moving higher Wednesday following its fourth-quarter report. The Chinese tech giant showed off revenue and earnings per share that topped estimates and maintained its long-held guidance of 500 billion yuan ($72.7 billion) in fiscal 2020, the current year. However, arguably the most noteworthy item to come out of the earnings report wasn't in the financial results, but in comments made by executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai, who addressed concerns about the trade war between China and the United States on the earnings call. The escalating standoff has captivated the market in recent weeks, sending stocks plunging in much of the world. Investors were taken aback on May 5 when President Donald Trump said that he would lift tariff rates from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of goods imported from China. It was a sudden reversal: Investors had expected a resolution after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said negotiations between the two sides were on their "final laps." The unexpected twist pushed the S&P 500 down as much as 5%; China's Shanghai Composite has lost as much as 7.8%, after crashing more than 5% when the new round of tariffs was first announced. Addressing the elephant in the room on the earnings call, Tsai sought to reassure Alibaba investors and the broader market, saying that "the trade talks put Alibaba on the right side of all the issues on the table." He said China was already taking steps and naturally shifting in the direction that Trump wanted, and discussed areas including the trade deficit, China's developing economy, and intellectual property. Let's take a closer look at what he had to say. A boulder with the Alibaba logo outside the company headquarters Image source: Alibaba. On the trade deficit The trade deficit with China has been a particular bugaboo for Trump, who believes that the U.S. is getting ripped off by China, which exports more goods to the U.S. than it imports. On that topic, Tsai said: "China's commitment to purchase more American products means China will, over the next several years, become a net importing country." He singled out American farmers, brands, and small businesses as beneficiaries of this shift. Story continues Tsai also called China's rising imports a "secular trend," meaning it would happen with or without the saber-rattling over trade. He sees it as a natural outcome from China's transition from a manufacturing economy to a services one, similar to the transition the U.S. experienced. Tsai noted that over the last five years, China lost 14 million manufacturing jobs but gained 70 million service jobs, which are driving its consumer economy. On Chinese markets and growth Along with concerns about the trade deficit, U.S. negotiators would also like to see less protection from China and more fair trade. "The trade negotiations will lead to China opening its markets to more foreign businesses in order to satisfy the massively growing demands of domestic consumers," Tsai said. "We're not concerned about slowing China exports affecting GDP [gross domestic product] growth, because the Chinese economy is shifting from an export economy to a domestic consumption economy. Job expansion is continuing in China." He went on to predict that the middle class in China would double over the next ten years. Clearly, Tsai does not think tariffs or the trade war will be severe enough to derail Chinese growth, as Alibaba just reported a quarter with 39% organic revenue growth, and predicts 33% revenue growth for the current year. Tsai's comments about GDP and the shift to a consumer economy are especially noteworthy for Americans investing in Chinese stocks, as the trade war has weighed on companies in both countries. On intellectual property Intellectual-property rights are a pain point for American companies, which complain about counterfeits and knockoff products, as well as being forced to divulge proprietary technology in order to do business in China. Once again, Tsai sought to reassure investors that China was moving in the right direction. "In recent years, China has made significant improvements in reducing IP infringement, as China moves closer to global norms in protecting and paying for foreign IP," he said. "China also recognizes the need to protect its own innovators, as well as being focused on Chinese consumers who demand genuine products of high quality." Tsai seems to believe that the IP concerns of American companies and the U.S. government are being resolved by separate forces as China evolves. That refrain -- that the trade war differences will clear up as a matter of course -- was the core message he wanted to leave with investors. "The vexing issues in the trade negotiations will resolve themselves, as the Chinese economy is already evolving to close the gap between the interests of the United States and China," Tsai said. "This means in the future there will be bigger Chinese domestic consumption, more foreign imports, continuing focus on enhanced IP protection, and further digitization of industries driven by participation of the private sector." What this means for investors Tsai's words may just be one person's opinion on the trade war, but as one of the leaders of Alibaba, a titan of Chinese business, he has a valuable window into the machinations of the Chinese economy and the impact of trade tensions. He's also likely wary of a repeat of last year's performance, when Alibaba stock lost as much as a third of its value (along with much of the Chinese stock market) on concerns about a trade war and a slowing economy. So he was trying to assure his own investors as he made the argument that Alibaba was well-positioned for the economic shifts and other changes. If Tsai is right, Chinese stocks should do well regardless of the outcome of the trade negotiations. However, when and how they're resolved is ultimately up to the leaders of the two countries. And plenty of American retailers and small businesses have made it clear that they're unhappy with the tariffs that will force them to raise prices. More From The Motley Fool Jeremy Bowman 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. Alibaba (BABA), the business empire built on Chinas digitalization and fast-growth consumer markets, is trying to persuade investors it could benefit from the ongoing U.S.-China trade negotiations. Joe Tsai, Alibaba vice chairman, made the case on Alibabas earnings call after the company reported strong revenue growth on Wednesday. He emphasized Alibabas role in connecting Chinese consumers with more foreign foods and speeding up the structural reform of the worlds second largest economy, as well as its efforts to deepen intellectual property protection. Tsais comments come amid a tumultuous time for U.S.-China relations, as a highly-anticipated trade deal didnt close in the latest round of negotiations, instead tit-for-tat tariffs were put in place. President Donald Trumps tough stance on China first stemmed from the huge trade imbalance between the two countries, and he later expanded the feud to include non-tariff barriers such as IP theft and restrictions on market access. Alibaba said its on the right side of all these issues and could benefit from any U.S.-China trade agreement that is made, including China buying more U.S. goods, protecting IP and further opening up its economy. China's commitment to purchase more American products means China will over the next several years become a net importing country. Consumers in China would benefit from the availability of quality imported products from all over the world, including from American farmers, brand and small businesses, said Tsai. Alibaba is set up to benefit from the secular trend of growing imports into China. Alibaba has programs that help U.S. small businesses sell products to China through its platform. The company hosted a conference in Detroit in June 2017, calling small businesses to tap into Chinas growing middle-class. Chairman Jack Ma had famously told Trump he would create 1 million jobs in the U.S., but walked away from that promise last September, citing the trade war. Story continues Tsai said trade negotiations with the U.S. could lead China to further open its market to foreign businesses, bringing in more options for consumers on Alibabas platforms. We're not concerned about slowing China exports affecting GDP growth because the Chinese economy is shifting from an export economy to a domestic consumption economy, said Tsai. Consumption contributed 76% to Chinas GDP growth in 2018. Trade tension looms over economic recovery The Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant expects to rake in 500 billion yuan ($72.69 billion) in revenue in fiscal year 2020, citing more opportunities from less-developed cities in China, which could fuel the growth of the middle-class. Chinas domestic stock market and currency have been hit by the trade uncertainties, which loom over the Chinese economy, which just showed some positive signs of bottoming out this year. But Alibaba believes it plays a critical role in digitizing once state-dominated industries by working with traditional malls through its New Retail strategy and offering cloud services to enterprises. The vexing issues in the trade negotiations will resolve themselves as the Chinese economy is already evolving to close the gap between the interest of the United States and China, Tsai said. I cannot think of another company that is better equipped to drive these secular changes and participate in the ensuing long-term benefits. Note: Alibabas revenue guidance for the fiscal year 2020 is 500 billion yuan. An earlier version of the story stated $500 billion. Write to Krystal Hu via krystalh@yahoofinance.com or follow her on Twitter. Read more: Jack Ma to Alibaba employees: Have more kids Here are all of Uber's worldwide competitors Huawei is still winning 5G contracts around the world despite the U.S. ban Bangladeshi police shot dead two suspected Rohingya human traffickers, officials said Wednesday, after rescuing 103 refugees in two days about to make the perilous sea voyage to Malaysia. The two Rohingya men were killed outside a refugee camp in the southeast on Tuesday evening, said Prodip Kumar Das, police chief of Teknaf which borders Myanmar. "They opened fire at the police. We fired back in retaliation," he told AFP. This is the first time in four years suspected human traffickers were killed in a gunfight in Bangladesh's southeast. It follows a rise in attempted human smuggling of Rohingya in the last few months. People-smugglers have in recent years sent tens of thousands of Rohingya from the Bangladesh camps by boat to relatively prosperous Malaysia, usually between November and April when the seas are calmer. But the route was disrupted in 2015 when a Bangladeshi crackdown killed dozens of top traffickers after Thai authorities discovered mass graves and overcrowded boats drifting at sea. Now the traffickers are back, officials say, preying on the camps where 740,000 Rohingya took shelter in 2017 after fleeing a brutal military crackdown in their homeland in Myanmar. Masud Hossain, police chief of Cox's Bazar district, told AFP that the police alone have this year rescued over 300 Rohingya, including many young girls, lured by traffickers to go to Malaysia. On Tuesday evening Cox's Bazar police rescued 34 Rohingya bound for Malaysia, local police chief Fariduddin Khandker said, a day after 69 people were rescued. Police also intercepted 23 Rohingya teenage girls from the capital Dhaka last week waiting to be trafficked to Malaysia by air. Police suspect the girls were to be sold for forced prostitution. Rights activists are worried about growing desperation in the camps but said gunfights were not the solution. "This (killing traffickers in gunfights) will never bring any permanent solution. Instead it will create a horrific environment in the camps," prominent rights worker Nur Khan Liton told AFP. Ameren Corporations AEE unit Ameren Missouri recently announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire a third wind generation facility in Missouri. The facility was developed by Tradewind Energy and is expected to be operational in 2020. The facility with a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) and will be located near the town of Tarkio. When completed, the project is anticipated to create more than 300 high-quality jobs and power 90,000 homes. The construction of the facility is subject to the approval of Missouri Public Service Commission.This wind power project will be the most advanced unit in the state and have the capability to harness wind more efficiently with fewer turbines. Steps to Reduce CO2 Emissions Ameren Missouri is striving to increase generation from cleaner source. The companys Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is a 20-year program to promote cleaner energy in Missouri. Ameren aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 from the 2005 base levels. The company intends to offer electricity through cleaner and more diverse sources of energy generation that include solar, wind, natural gas, hydro and nuclear power. To achieve its goal, Ameren Missouri inked agreements with two developers to acquire two plants with wind generation capacity of 557 MW after construction. Once completed, these facilities will represent about 80% of Amerens compliance needs with the states requirement of achieving 15% of native load sales from renewable energy sources by 2021. The company plans to invest nearly $1 billion for the two wind generation facilities and expects them to be in service by the end of 2020. Increasing Wind Generation The utility sector is currently undergoing a notable transition. Utilities are shifting to renewables through the replacement of coal by natural gas and clean energy. Per an Energy Information Administration (EIA) report, all renewable sources of energy that include wind, solar and hydropower will produce 18% of U.S. electricity in 2019 and almost 20% in 2020. Story continues EIA expects that wind generation will surpass hydropower generation for the first time to become the leading source of renewable electricity generation in 2019 and maintain that position in 2020. EIA expects that U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will decline by 2.1% in 2019 and by 0.8% in 2020. Rising awareness regarding emission, federal and state policies as well as declining costs are driving renewable technologies in the United States, particularly in wind and solar. Thus, utilities and corporations are increasingly shifting their focus to renewables. Utility companies like WEC Energy Group, Inc WEC, NiSource NI and Xcel Energy XEL are focusing on renewable sources to add more clean generations in their production portfolios. Zacks Rank & Price Movement Ameren carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Amerens stock has gained 32.1% in a year, outperforming the industrys rise of 14.9%. Will you retire a millionaire? One out of every six people retires a multimillionaire. Get smart tips you can do today to become one of them in a new Special Report, 7 Things You Can Do Now to Retire a Multimillionaire. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report WEC Energy Group, Inc. (WEC) : Free Stock Analysis Report NiSource, Inc (NI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ameren Corporation (AEE) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Paris (AFP) - A British financier who has infuriated the Kremlin by spearheading legislation worldwide to sanction Russian officials and oligarchs said Wednesday he is hopeful of a similar law being agreed in France. William (Bill) Browder, a former top investor in Russia, began a campaign to penalise Russians accused of rights violations after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Russian jail in 2009. After "Magnitsky Acts" were agreed by legislatures in Britain, Canada, the United States and the three Baltic states, Browder said France was now a priority for his campaign. Were France to pass legislation, he said it would hit officials and oligarchs who own villas on the Cote d'Azur, sip coffee in St Tropez or enjoy residences in Paris. "France is one of the most important countries in the world as far as a Magnitsky Act is concerned," Browder told AFP in an interview in Paris. "France is one of the most coveted countries for dictators and kleptocrats to keep second homes and go on vacation. If you have sanctions against these people in some countries but not France you are really missing something." "It would be devastating. Every single oligarch has some presence here," he said. - 'Momentum in France' - The campaigner had on Tuesday embarked on the first formal stage of his legislative campaign in France, addressing the foreign affairs committee of the French parliament Browder said he had not felt much interest in France until the election of President Emmanuel Macron in May 2017. "The entire chemistry and feeling has changed," said Browder, whose appearance was backed by the committee's vice president and Macron ruling party member Mireille Clapot. "It was truly an interesting and engaged dialogue," Browder said. "It was one of the most successful parliamentary hearings we had anywhere and it feels like France is now in play." Browder will now head to Germany to press for a Magnitsky Act there, although unlike in France he has no formal hearing with the foreign affairs committee scheduled. Story continues - 'Putin the best advocate' - He said it just takes "one nasty action" by Putin to intensify the momentum, as happened in Britain where an act was passed following the botched assassination bid against former spy Sergei Skripal last year which was blamed on the Kremlin. "Vladimir Putin is the best advocate for this cause. He always does something that causes such outrage," said Browder. The US-born chief executive of hedge fund Hermitage Capital is now a public enemy number one for the Kremlin and the target of multiple Russian arrest warrants. Russian prosecutors in December 2018 said they had opened a new criminal probe against him alleging he was a crime boss who could have poisoned several associates. Browder, who has rubbished the charges, alleges that it is Putin who sits at the top of a system that lives and breathes on money and corruption. "In order for Putin to stay in power, he has to enrich a group of around 1,000 people who run the security organisations," he said. Magnitsky went public with details of the $230 million fraud by Russian state officials before being charged with tax evasion and later dying in pre-trial detention after a year in jail. A few weeks ago in this space, I wrote that we were in a submerged constitutional crisis. President Donald Trump could announce one change in American foreign policy, but the White House would implement a different one. Trump, for example, proclaimed that all American troops would leave Syria, only for White House officials to announce a few weeks later that Americas troop presence would stay the same. My expressed worry was that this unacknowledged crisis of authority invited mischief by our enemies and could swiftly be exposed as a full blown foreign-policy crisis. Well, we may be heading there with Iran. Our low-grade conflict with Tehran is now escalating at a dizzying pace. New sanctions on the Islamic republic were reportedly answered by Iranian leaders with provocations in the Strait of Hormuz. National-security adviser John Bolton has long taken a hard line on Iran. The behavior and objectives of the regime are not going to change, Bolton said of Iran last year. Therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And here he was, a week and a half ago, announcing in a statement that American naval assets were being moved toward the country: In response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings, the United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces. The unusual source of this announcement and the unusually bellicose language in it were at odds with Pentagon officials claims that nothing significant was underway. But there was no normal Pentagon briefing, or better yet, explanation from the White House. In the absence of explanation, military-reporting outfit Defense One was reduced to asking rhetorically, If there was a threat, what is it? And why would the White House claim it is deploying a ship already underway in the region? Is this just political bluster? Occasionally it was murmured that the movements were meant to send a message to Iran. It is hard to imagine what salutary purpose such a message could serve, when the previous message sent by the U.S. was the destruction of the governments in two neighboring states. Story continues But the bluster has only increased since. Could we win in a war with Iran? Margaret Hoover asked Senator Tom Cotton, among the most consistent hawks in the GOP caucus, in an interview yesterday. Cottons response was swaggering, and sure to make headlines across the world. Yes, two strikes, Cotton said. The first strike and the last strike. Meanwhile, the New York Times was filling with reports about the Pentagon reviewing options for deploying 120,000 ground troops in Iran. Trump has denied that this is under consideration. But again, how can anyone trust that he has the final say over such decisions when clearly his word counted for nothing in the matter of withdrawal from Syria? Iran is a country with a population roughly the size of Germanys. It has a large number of armed soldiers. It has the ability to disrupt oil markets worldwide in the blink of an eye. Going to war would be unwise, and some of our closest allies are already signaling discomfort with the prospect. The British major general Chris Ghika, who is deputy commander of the coalition operations against ISIS, issued a public rejection of the U.S. intelligence reports on the increased threat of Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria. This is no small gesture, but amounts to a warning from the British government about the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Israeli officials are likewise warning their countrymen of possible fallout if the U.S. and Iran head into conflict. Currently the U.S. has no confirmed secretary of defense. Regular White House briefings have been canceled. All we have are the Twitter feeds of various senators. The decision to go to war in the United States is supposed to lie with the people themselves, through their representatives in Congress. Does it still? The command of the armed forces is supposed to lie with the elected president. Does it still? Will America intervene militarily in Iran, flouting public opinion and sidestepping Congress, as it did under Obama in Syria? Will the president explain what it is he is hoping to achieve? And if the president wishes not to go to war, will his word matter? I wonder. More from National Review Planned Parenthood, one of the largest abortion providers in the country, says it is gearing up for a legal battle against Alabama after state lawmakers passed the most extreme abortion ban the country has seen in more than 40 years. Organization leaders said Wednesday that Alabama's near-total abortion ban threatens the health and lives of women and puts doctors at risk of imprisonment for trying to help them. The bill, passed by the Alabama Senate on Tuesday, would make it a felony punishable by life or 10 to 99 years in prison to perform an abortion in the state of Alabama. Attempting to perform an abortion also would be a felony, punishable by one to 10 years in prison. The Alabama bill now goes to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey who has not said whether she will sign it. Alabama legislators have given final approval to a ban on nearly all abortions, and if the Republican governor signs the measure, the state will have the strictest abortion law in the country. (May 15) Planned Parenthood leaders said in a press call Wednesday that they will file a legal challenge if the bill becomes law. "Today is a dark day for women in Alabama and across the country," said Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast. Banning abortion is horrible ... We will take this to court and ensure abortion remains safe and legal and accessible in the state of Alabama." The bill only allows abortion if the life of the woman is threatened; if the woman had a mental illness that could result in "her death or the death of her unborn child;" or if the fetus had a fatal anomaly that would result in stillbirth or its death after birth. There is no exception for rape and incest. If Ivey signs the bill, it will make Alabama the fifth state to pass a law restricting abortion this year. Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Mississippi have all passed bills, however they are slightly less restrictive and allow abortions up to the sixth week of pregnancy or when a fetal heartbeat is detected. Many abortion advocates have said the six-week threshold is just as extreme as a total ban because many women don't know they are pregnant at six weeks. Story continues Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and other abortion rights advocates say all the bans are unconstitutional and have filed, or plan to file, lawsuits in each state. Emboldened by a new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican lawmakers say they are passing anti-abortion bills in an attempt to get the landmark Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 overturned. "Its no coincidence that this comes only days after Georgia enacted its own extreme ban on abortion," said Leana Wen, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. We will do whatever it takes to stop these dangerous bans so our patients can continue to receive the care that they need. Doctors across the country have voiced opposition to the abortion bans, saying the laws will prevent them from helping women in need. Yashica Robinson, an Alabama-based OB-GYN and board member for Physicians for Reproductive Health, said signing the Alabama bill into law would be a "grave mistake." "Physicians will be unwilling to help patients in need, even when continuing pregnancy is detrimental to a patients health or potentially fatal, out of fear of being scrutinized by the criminal justice system," Robinson said. It is inappropriate for lawmakers to insert their own belief systems into complex, personal health decisions that could affect my daughter and the people I take care of in Alabama." Fox said Alabama's law is particularly harsh because the state has some of the worst health outcomes for women, including high rates of infant and maternal mortality among black women, according to Planned Parenthood. More than 300 proposals to restrict abortion have been introduced in states so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. The proposals have ranged from the six-week bans in 15 states to total abortion bans in eight states, Guttmacher found. Elizabeth Nash, spokeswoman for the Guttmacher Institute, said the recent spike in abortion bans is historic. The shift has been moving from restrictions to bans," Nash said. "I dont know if I was expecting this level of a reaction and especially seeing a total abortion ban moving." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Today is a dark day for women': Planned Parenthood vows to challenge Alabama abortion ban MEXICO CITY (AP) An apparent dispute over a fake drug sale led to the death of two men in the tony Mexico City neighborhood of Condesa. The men were found shot in a car that had crashed into a median strip Tuesday. One died at the scene and the other at a local hospital. Witnesses said the dead men got in a heated discussion with the occupants of another car, whose occupants escaped. One of the dead men had a satchel with packages of apparent drugs. Next to the other man were two packages also wrapped with tan-colored tape often used to wrap drugs. But those packages contained powdered detergent, and the city prosecutors' office said the investigation suggest the dispute arose because the men were sold fake drugs. Global stocks gained Wednesday after the US sent more conciliatory messages on trade, offsetting lackluster economic data from the world's biggest economy. Industry sources told AFP that US President Donald Trump was planning to delay imposing tariffs on auto imports while the United States pursues agreements with key trading partners. European and US markets that had been in negative territory suddenly jumped higher, with German auto manufacturers among those posting strong advances. US auto giants General Motors and Ford also gained. Wall Street "has shown a propensity to bounce on any positive-sounding trade headline, and today was no different," said Briefing.com. Adding to the market's hopes, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a Senate panel that Washington was close to resolving its differences with Mexico and Canada over steel and aluminum tariffs that have created friction among the trading partners. Mnuchin also repeated his expectation that US negotiators would return to Beijing to pursue stalled talks aimed at resolving the US-China trade war. "These developments helped assuage investors that the US would not be distracted in its trade talks with China by also having to deal with other tariff disputes," said Briefing.com. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent, with the more hopeful tone on trade offsetting lackluster April retail sales data and weak industrial output data. Earlier, bourses in Europe and Asia pushed higher. Oil prices advanced following US data showing a drop in gasoline inventories. The International Energy Agency confirmed that the world's oil supply fell last month as US sanctions on Iran tightened and OPEC+ members produced less crude in line with their pact. Among individual companies, Google parent Alphabet jumped 3.9 percent, unveiling new promotional formats as it competes with Amazon and Facebook for advertising dollars. Other large tech shares were also solidly higher, including Amazon, Apple and Netflix, all of which rose more than one percent. Story continues - Key figures around 2050 GMT - New York - Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 25,648.02 (close) New York - S&P 500: UP 0.6 percent at 2,850.96 (close) New York - Nasdaq: UP 1.1 percent at 7,822.15 (close) London - FTSE 100: UP 0.8 percent at 7,296.95 (close) Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 0.9 percent at 12,099.57 (close) Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.6 percent at 5,374.26 (close) EURO STOXX 50 - UP 0.6 percent at 3,385.78 (close) Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.6 percent at 21,188.56 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: UP 0.5 percent at 28,268.71 (close) Shanghai - Composite: UP 1.9 percent at 2,938.68 (close) Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1200 from $1.1204 at 2100 GMT Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2840 from $1.2905 Dollar/yen: DOWN at 109.58 yen from 109.61 yen Oil - Brent Crude: UP 53 cents at $71.77 per barrel Oil - West Texas Intermediate: UP 24 cents at $62.02 per barrel burs-jmb/dg The ASOS cat bra proved a polarising look. [Photo: ASOS] A lucky cat bra sold on ASOS is proving to be a source of hilarity for Internet users. The 30 bra closely resembles a common Japanese figurine known as a maneki-neko or waving cat. However, in this design, the cat appears to be extending its middle finger rather than waving. The user behind @asbos_sos, an Instagram account which pokes fun at select ASOS items, ridiculed the design. They hashtagged #notactuallyabra and #notactuallyanything. READ MORE: What would it take to get blacklisted by ASOS? In the comments section below, the very, very uncomfortable bra was met with some hilarious responses. One person dubbed it the Hello Titty bra, while another quipped, The iddy biddy kitty committee. READ MORE: ASOS accidentally reveals bulldog clips in model shoot Someone else deemed the design: Horrifying yet cute in equal measures, and another remarked simply: What on earth. However, the response wasnt all bad. One person wrote: Ok I actually love this one, and another said, I would actually wear this. The top has already sold out in a size 8 on the ASOS website suggesting there has been a lot of interest in the design. The search is over for your new festival attire GoGuy has just landed onsite, the description on the ASOS page reads. Starting off as a one-woman feat. sewing machine show, the brand hasnt stopped growing since its beginnings in 2016. GoGuy, who designed a British fashion label founded by 24-year-old designer and Events Management graduate, Sophie Guy. The designs are all handmade and designed in house, according to the brands website. This isnt the first polarising design to be listed on ASOS. Last month, the retailer was mocked for a 68 bubble wrap dress which tapped into the near-naked trend. Shoppers were left similarly cold by a completely see-through plastic bag listed for 15 on the website. Kokopo (Papua New Guinea) (AFP) - Papua New Guinea dispatched assessment teams Wednesday to get a full picture of the damage caused by a violent 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck an island chain off the north coast overnight. An AFP reporter and residents on New Britain said electricity was still out and radio stations off air some 12 hours after the quake, but there appeared to be no major structural damage or loss of life. "We didn't really have that much damage thank goodness, just ornaments falling down and that kind of thing," said Ellen Morgan, a manager at Kokopo Beach Bungalows. Officials at the nearby port of Rabaul said there was no major damage to the facility, which was operating as normal. Papua New Guinea's poor communications infrastructure, lack of roads and difficult terrain mean that sometimes it can be days before the full impact of a natural disaster is known. A spokesman for the National Disaster Centre in Port Moresby told AFP they had dispatched a team to uncover the full extent of the damage. "Assessment teams have been deployed to the area but we have not heard from them yet, so we have nothing to report." The United Nations estimated that around 120,000 people live within 50 kilometres of the epicentre. The terrifying quake late Tuesday sent residents running from their homes for safety and sparked fears of a tsunami. It occurred around 11pm (1300 GMT), some 44 kilometres (27 miles) northeast of Kokopo on New Britain island, the US Geological Survey said. "It was massive, absolutely massive. Very scary," Megan Martin, the managing director of the Rapopo Plantation Resort in Kokopo, told AFP. Some locals reported seeing the tide recede by metres after the earthquake, but fears of a devastating tsunami do not appear to have materialised. Kokopo is no stranger to natural disasters. It sits in the shadow of nearby Rabaul, which was devastated by twin volcanic eruptions in 1994. Story continues Earlier this year, weeks of heavy rains killed at least nine people, with many more families left homeless without access to safe drinking water. Papua New Guinea is well within the Pacific "Ring of Fire" a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. Just weeks ago a 7.2-earthquake knocked items off shelves in Port Moresby -- far from the epicentre -- and was felt as far away as Australia. A 7.5-magnitude quake hit the rugged highlands region in February 2018 that triggered landslides, burying homes and killing at least 125 people. The risk from quake-triggered tsunamis is also a real danger in PNG. In July 1998, an offshore tremor generated a massive oceanic surge that swamped the country's northern coast, killing more than 2,000 people. Along the South Solomon trench, an area of the Pacific that includes Papua New Guinea, there have been more than a dozen quakes of magnitude 7.5 or more recorded since 1900, according to USGS data. Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO), which is in the insurance business, and is based in Bermuda, saw significant share price movement during recent months on the NYSE, rising to highs of $47.7 and falling to the lows of $40.06. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Assured Guaranty's current trading price of $42.76 reflective of the actual value of the mid-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Assured Guarantys outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! View our latest analysis for Assured Guaranty What is Assured Guaranty worth? Great news for investors Assured Guaranty is still trading at a fairly cheap price. Ive used the price-to-earnings ratio in this instance because theres not enough visibility to forecast its cash flows. The stocks ratio of 12.1x is currently well-below the industry average of 17.47x, meaning that it is trading at a cheaper price relative to its peers. Whats more interesting is that, Assured Guarantys share price is quite volatile, which gives us more chances to buy since the share price could sink lower (or rise higher) in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market. Can we expect growth from Assured Guaranty? NYSE:AGO Past and Future Earnings, May 15th 2019 Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. Though in the case of Assured Guaranty, it is expected to deliver a negative earnings growth of -11%, which doesnt help build up its investment thesis. It appears that risk of future uncertainty is high, at least in the near term. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Although AGO is currently undervalued, the negative outlook does bring on some uncertainty, which equates to higher risk. Consider whether you want to increase your portfolio exposure to AGO, or whether diversifying into another stock may be a better move for your total risk and return. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on AGO for a while, but hesitant on making the leap, I recommend you research further into the stock. Given its current undervaluation, now is a great time to make a decision. But keep in mind the risks that come with negative growth prospects in the future. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Assured Guaranty. You can find everything you need to know about Assured Guaranty in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Assured Guaranty, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. With events for designers happening daily, and new projects cropping up all over the city, keeping track of all the goings-on in Atlanta can be a tall order. Thats why AD PRO is here to keep you informed for the week. Atlanta BeltLine Chooses Boulevard Crossing Park Design Firms As Atlanta BeltLine (ABI), in collaboration with the city of Atlanta, enters into the second design phase for the 25-acre Boulevard Crossing Park project, it has named the local headquarters of Perkins + Will and Cambridge-based Agency Landscape + Planning to lead the planning and design. Improvements will include expanded recreational opportunities, neighborhood connectivity, and ecological health for park visitors. Perkins + Wills Valdis Zusmanis, who led previous work with ABI, said in a statement, Boulevard Crossing Park is a major addition to the constellation of new parks that will be connected by the BeltLine. It represents a unique opportunity to re-envision this part of Atlanta in a way that will engage the surrounding community and welcome visitors alike. Spotlight on Design Features Kranen/Gille at Switch Modern On Wednesday, May 22, from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M., Switch Modern will welcome Jos Kranen and Johannes Gille, who make up the design duo Kranen/Gille, to unveil their Plant Chandelier for Moooi. Inspired by nature, the piece debuts in Atlanta after its premiere at the brand's Museum of Extinct Animals show during Milan Design Week. The Dutch designers will mingle with guests and lead a discussion about their inspirations, which include German artist Karl Blossfeldts plant photography. The event is part of an ongoing series of events hosted by Switch Modern, curated by proprietors Doug Henderson and Roy Otwell. Dan Croft Becomes ARCO Design/Builds Division Manager ARCO Design/Build has promoted Dan Croft to the position of division manager. Croft joined the Atlanta-based firm in 2001 and has since overseen the construction of more than 50 facilities, totaling $320 million and four million square feet across ten states. He will focus on the delivery of construction solutions for build-to-suit clients and national developers, working directly with clients to understand their needs and solve challenges that arise along the way. Story continues Anne Irwin Fine Art Welcomes Artists Peter Kuttner and Brad Stroman Anne Irwin Fine Art has become the exclusive Atlanta gallery representing two artists. Brad Stromans paintings incorporate the wabi-sabi aesthetic to balance both organic and man-made surfaces, while Peter Kuttners Cut-Out series uses familiar, abstracted details to create lively utopian pieces. Founded in 1985, the gallery supplies interior designers and individual collectors around the Southeast and beyond. The Refinery, a Fitness Club by Three Design Firms, Opens in Westside Village This week marks the opening of the Refinery, Atlantas newest boutique fitness club in Westside Village. The studio is marked by industrial-chic design created by three design firms: Boston-based architects S3 Design; FitnessSmith from Boca Raton, Florida; and Atlantas DLDT Associates for interior design and project management. The collaboration resulted in bright spaces including a covered outdoor training area and a 40-yard indoor track. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Current and former attorneys general from both major parties and several states are imploring Iowa's Republican governor to veto a measure meant to prevent the state's attorney general, currently a Democrat, from being able to file or join lawsuits challenging Trump administration policies. Iowa would be the only state with such limits on the power of an independently elected attorney general if Gov. Kim Reynolds signs off on the bill, which would require the attorney general to get the permission of the governor, Legislature or state executive council, which includes the governor and other statewide elected officials, to file any out-of-state court action. "There is no question that Iowa would be the only state that has done this to itself, and that the only losers are the people of Iowa," said Jim Tierney, a Harvard Law School lecturer who served as Maine attorney general from 1980 to 1990. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has done his best to argue on his own behalf and persuade Reynolds to veto the language inserted by a GOP lawmaker into a justice system budget bill in the last days of the legislative session. Miller met last week with Reynolds to discuss the measure, which is aimed at stopping him from filing or joining lawsuits challenging Trump administration policies. His spokesman, Lynn Hicks, said Miller "thought the meeting went well and he explained the reasons we think this legislation is a bad idea for the state and Iowans." Reynolds said recently that she would examine the bill's language and determine what the Legislature's motivation was for including it. She has until May 27th to act on remaining bills that the Legislature sent to her before adjourning. State attorneys general often join multi-state lawsuits to recoup monetary losses or to stop companies from engaging in consumer fraud, deceptive practices or other misconduct. They also join in lawsuits against the federal government challenging the constitutionality of policies when the attorney general believes they harm citizens or infringe on their rights. It's common for a group of Democratic attorneys general to sue Republican administrations and vice versa. Story continues State Rep. Gary Worthan, a Republican, defended the language he added to the bill, saying the Republican-run Legislature and governor set the agenda for the state and the attorney general's actions have conflicted with those priorities with his challenges to Trump. The GOP has tried unsuccessfully to unseat Miller, who was first elected in 1978, is serving his 10th four-year term and is the longest serving attorney general in the country. Miller has said he joins out-of-state cases only when the law and the interest of Iowans indicate that he should. Cases he joined against the Trump administration involved internet access, immigration policies including the separation of children from their parents, and safeguarding the federal health care law's guarantee of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Miller also said Iowans overwhelmingly re-elected him in 2018 after he took on some Trump administration policies during the president's first two years. He asked fellow attorneys general to write to Reynolds and explain why the limitations are a bad idea. "As a nation of checks and balances, it is essential that we retain as many of our inherent checks and balances as possible to ensure the our offices function as that envisioned by our states' founding fathers, instead of according to political cycles," wrote Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, who is a Republican. In another letter to Reynolds, a group of former Democratic and Republican attorneys general asked her to veto the measure. "Our office holders should cultivate not impede elected officials' ability to work together and independently for the good of us all," they wrote. The signers included Republican Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Betty Montgomery of Ohio and Democrats Dustin McDaniel of Arkansas, and Patrick Lynch of Rhode Island. In December, then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who is a Republican, vetoed a bill that the GOP-controlled Legislature passed during a lame duck session that would have granted lawmakers the power to intercede in any court cases challenging the constitutionality of their laws. It was aimed at undermining the power of the incoming Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel. ___ Follow David Pitt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/davepitt The true heft of the cannabis drinks market remains to be seen. (Press Association) Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.TO) is second guessing the infused beverage trend that whipped up unprecedented investor enthusiasm for the sector last year. Speaking on a conference call following the companys fiscal third quarter earnings released after the closing bell on Tuesday, chief executive officer Terry Booth questioned demand for pot-powered beverages. The proven market is certainly not in beverage, he told analysts on Wednesday. There are not going to be any cannabis bars like there are alcohol bars any time soon. Edmonton-based Auroras chief rival, Canopy Growth Corp. (WEED.TO), sparked a pot stock frenzy in the wake of the companys blockbuster deal with Corona beer-maker Constellation Brands Inc. (STZ) last summer. Other cannabis producers are teaming up with beverage alcohol players, including HEXO Corp. (HEXO.TO) and Molson Coors Canada Inc. (TPX-B.TO), and more recently Moosehead Breweries and Sproutly Canada Inc. (SPR.CN). Aurora and The Coca-Cola Co. (KO) were in serious talks to develop cannabis beverages, BNN Bloomberg reported in September. No collaboration has been announced. Coca-Cola said it has no interest in marijuana or cannabis, but is closely watching the growth of non-psychoactive CBD as an ingredient. The true heft of the cannabis drinks market remains to be seen. Data from BDS Analytics shows cannabis-infused beverages amount to less than 0.5 per cent of sales in the U.S. legal pot market. Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. released figures suggesting pot beverages could be worth US$600 million by 2022. Last year, Molson Coors chief executive Mark R. Hunter suggested Canadas cannabis market could be worth somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion, with about 20 to 30 per cent of that coming from cannabis-infused, non-alcoholic beverages. He said that values the beverage segment at about $1.5 billion. Booth predicts government restrictions on marketing will be a major challenge for companies looking to grow a customer base for a product that is unfamiliar to the vast majority of consumers. Story continues He added the physical effect of a psychoactive drink could be a problem as well. The more you have, the less you want in a very short amount of time, once it starts taking effect, Booth said. If we are leaning towards any beverage, it would be on the wellness side. We think there is a tremendous market potential there. On the intoxication side of the fence with respect to cannabis drinks, the market is just not there. Its not proven to be a popular item anywhere. Chief corporate officer Cam Battley told analysts that while he doesnt want to sound too negative on beverages, they should expect Aurora to prioritize vape, edibles like chocolates and mints, cosmetics, and soft gels. Products such as infused beverages are also under development. But considering the anticipated relatively low market share of these products, we are not rushing this, he said. Aurora reported a $158-million loss on net revenue of $65 million, compared with a loss of $238 million on revenue of $54 million in the prior quarter. Analysts had expected a net loss of $52.6 million on net revenue of $77 million in the quarter ended March 31, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon. Sign up here Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. Photo: Erik Witsoe/Unsplash Looking to get out into the community this week? From paper toys to a film screening, there's plenty to do when it comes to community and cultural events coming up in Austin this week. Read on for a rundown. 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. All Hands: The Racial Health Gap From the event description: MEASURE believes that a healthier community begins with its members communicating and working together to address disparities. This interactive will be a forum to discuss health disparities in CenTex and how we might apply community mobilization & actionable steps to change the statistics. When: Wednesday, May 15, 6-8 p.m. Where: Huston-Tillotson University, 900 Chicon St., Agard-Lovinggood Auditorium (near the front entrance). Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Letterpress PLAY Grand Opening Celebration From the event description: Letterpress PLAY Paper Toys and Art launches a hands-on studio/retail space in Austin with a free grand opening celebration. All ages are invited to enjoy a night of imagination handcrafted in Austin. Letterpress PLAY, inspired by Texas native and creative, Kyle Hawley, is launching a studio and retail space fostering sustainability, community and play for ages 4 to 100. When: Thursday, May 16, 5-9 p.m. Where: Letterpress PLAY, 2300 S. Lamar Blvd., Suite 108 Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Artists in Conversation | New Monuments for New Cities From the event description: New Monuments for New Cities raises a number of questions about who and what has been memorialized in the past and how applying new lenses could shift that paradigm in the future. Join the dialogue as we host conversations with artists, historians, and community leaders about these themes. When: Thursday, May 16, 6-8 p.m. Where: Symphony Square, 1111 Red River St. Price: Free Story continues Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Love Goes Through Your Mind: Film Screening and Q&A From the event description: In this film, an Indian-American family must grapple with a new reality when their high-achieving son drops out of college and returns home a different person than when he left. The film is followed by a Q&A with director Ronak Shah. When: Thursday, May 16, 6-9 p.m. Where: Asian American Resource Center, 8401 Cameron Road Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Vienna (AFP) - Austrian MPs on Wednesday approved a law aimed at banning the headscarf in primary schools, a measure proposed by the ruling right-wing government. So as to avoid charges that the law discriminates against Muslims, the text refers to any "ideologically or religiously influenced clothing which is associated with the covering of the head". However, representatives of both parts of the governing coalition, the centre-right People's Party (OeVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), have made it clear that the law is targeted at the Islamic headscarf. FPOe education spokesman Wendelin Moelzer said the law was "a signal against political Islam" while OeVP MP Rudolf Taschner said the measure was necessary to free girls from "subjugation". The government says the patka head covering worn by Sikh boys or the Jewish kippa would not be affected. Austria's official Muslim community organisation IGGOe has previously condemned the proposals as "shameless" and a "diversionary tactic". The IGGOe says that in any case only a "miniscule number" of girls would be affected. Opposition MPs almost all voted against the measure, with some accusing the government of focusing on garnering positive headlines rather than child welfare. The government admits that the law is likely to be challenged at Austria's constitutional court, either on grounds of religious discrimination or because similar legislation affecting schools is normally passed with a two-thirds majority of MPs. The OeVP and FPOe formed a coalition in late 2017 after elections in which both parties took a tough anti-immigration stance and warned of the dangers of so-called "parallel societies". We may not have heard the last from Game Winner this Triple Crown season as racing in the Belmont Stakes has become a possibility. After finishing sixth at the Kentucky Derby (and bumping up to fifth following Maximum Security's disqualification), the Bob Baffert-trained horse will miss the Preakness Stakes with "muscle soreness," having reportedly missed about a week of training. But according to Baffert, Game Winner is training again and could give it a go at the finale of the Triple Crown in New York on June 8. "Game Winner is back at the track now. He looks good. He was a little roughed up or he would have been great in the Preakness," Baffert recently said, per BloodHorse. "I lost a week of training with him to check him and make sure he was OK. A great thing about (owners Gary and Mary West) is that the horse comes first for them. He tells me to train them like I own them." Game Winner easily won the Breeders Cup Juvenile in November and was unbeaten until finishing second to Omaha Beach at the Rebel Stakes on March 16. The update on Game Winner comes on the heels of Baffert telling horse racing outlet XBTV last weekend: "We're going to give him an easy two weeks and decide what we're going to do with him." According to BloodHorse's Bob Ehalt, after attending the Preakness at Pimlico in Maryland this Saturday, Baffert will visit Game Winner at Churchill Downs next Monday before returning to California to plan for the future. "I haven't closed the door on (the Belmont Stakes)," Baffert told Ehalt. "We're going to let the horse show me." As for this weekend, Baffert will saddle Improbable, currently the 2-1 favorite. Improbable is the highest-finishing Kentucky Derby horse in the Preakness, having finished fourth after Maximum Security's DQ. --Field Level Media By Linda Carroll (Reuters Health) - Pregnant women who take a class of drugs that's often prescribed for anxiety or insomnia may run a higher risk of miscarriage, a new study suggests. Canadian researchers looked at the outcomes from more than 160,000 early pregnancies and found that women taking benzodiazepines, such as Alprazolam (Xanax), Diazepam (Valium) and Clonazepam (Klonopin), were nearly twice as likely to miscarry, according to the results in JAMA Psychiatry. "Anxiety and mood disorders need to be treated during pregnancy," said the study's lead author, Anick Berard, a professor and research chair on medications, pregnancy and lactation, at the University of Montreal. "Given the high prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders during pregnancy, physicians need to evaluate the risk and benefits of using benzodiazepines given that alternative nonpharmacologic treatments exist." The benzodiazepine class of drugs has already been shown to pass into the placenta, and to be associated with certain birth defects, Berard's team notes. Past studies have also linked the drugs to miscarriage risk, but it wasn't clear if all versions of these medications carry the same risk. To look at the impact on pregnancy of specific benzodiazepines, and different forms of the drug that are long- or short-acting, Berard and her colleagues turned to the Quebec Pregnancy Cohort, which included information on 442,066 pregnancies. Included in their analysis were 161,454 women, 27,149 of whom had suffered a miscarriage and 134,305, the control group, had given birth. The researchers excluded women who had epilepsy, previous benzodiazepine use and/or exposure to substances known to be toxic to fetuses. Also excluded were women whose pregnancy loss occurred before six weeks or after 19 weeks. Among those who suffered a miscarriage, 375, or 1.4 percent, had used benzodiazepines in early pregnancy. Among the women who successfully delivered, 788, or 0.6 percent, had used benzodiazepines. Story continues After accounting for factors such as mood and anxiety disorders diagnosed before pregnancy, exposure to antidepressants and antipsychotic medications, the researchers found that women who used benzodiazepines early in pregnancy were 1.85 times more likely than those who did not take the drugs to have a miscarriage. Every form of the drug carried an increased risk of miscarriage. The increase varied by the particular benzodiazepine used, ranging from a low of 1.13 times that of nonusers for flurazepam, to 3.43 times that of nonusers for diazepam. Most of the women only used the drugs for about two weeks, the authors note. How could these drugs be harming pregnancies? "Benzodiazepines are anxiolytics and signaling molecules," Berard said in an email. "It is believed that they disrupt binding and implantation when used in early pregnancy." The new study was carefully done and because of this it is "persuasive," said Catherine Monk, director of the women's mental health program in obstetrics and gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. "Far too often, primary care providers or obstetricians prescribe benzodiazepines to pregnant women rather than referring her to a mental health provider for a thorough evaluation and engagement in the myriad of non-medicine tools that have strong evidence in treating anxiety and insomnia," Monk said in an email. Dr. Priya Gopalan welcomed the new study. "The literature on benzodiazepines in pregnancy is fairly limited compared to the antidepressant literature," said Gopalan, chief of psychiatry at Magee-Womens Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. And while there may be possible limitations to the study because of possible confounding factors, it's one we should "pay attention to," Gopalan said. It suggests that physicians should first try other treatment options, such as psychotherapy, Gopalan said. SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2WKFJkj JAMA Psychiatry, online May 15, 2019. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Today we are going to look at Best of the Best PLC (LON:BOTB) to see whether it might be an attractive investment prospect. Specifically, we're going to calculate its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), in the hopes of getting some insight into the business. First up, we'll look at what ROCE is and how we calculate it. Then we'll compare its ROCE to similar companies. Finally, we'll look at how its current liabilities affect its ROCE. Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it? ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. All else being equal, a better business will have a higher ROCE. Ultimately, it is a useful but imperfect metric. Renowned investment researcher Michael Mauboussin has suggested that a high ROCE can indicate that 'one dollar invested in the company generates value of more than one dollar'. So, How Do We Calculate ROCE? Analysts use this formula to calculate return on capital employed: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) Or for Best of the Best: 0.45 = UK1.7m (UK8.3m - UK4.5m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to October 2018.) Therefore, Best of the Best has an ROCE of 45%. Check out our latest analysis for Best of the Best Does Best of the Best Have A Good ROCE? One way to assess ROCE is to compare similar companies. Using our data, we find that Best of the Best's ROCE is meaningfully better than the 8.3% average in the Hospitality industry. We would consider this a positive, as it suggests it is using capital more effectively than other similar companies. Regardless of the industry comparison, in absolute terms, Best of the Best's ROCE currently appears to be excellent. AIM:BOTB Past Revenue and Net Income, May 15th 2019 When considering this metric, keep in mind that it is backwards looking, and not necessarily predictive. Companies in cyclical industries can be difficult to understand using ROCE, as returns typically look high during boom times, and low during busts. ROCE is only a point-in-time measure. You can check if Best of the Best has cyclical profits by looking at this free graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow. Story continues Do Best of the Best's Current Liabilities Skew Its ROCE? Liabilities, such as supplier bills and bank overdrafts, are referred to as current liabilities if they need to be paid within 12 months. The ROCE equation subtracts current liabilities from capital employed, so a company with a lot of current liabilities appears to have less capital employed, and a higher ROCE than otherwise. To counteract this, we check if a company has high current liabilities, relative to its total assets. Best of the Best has total assets of UK8.3m and current liabilities of UK4.5m. As a result, its current liabilities are equal to approximately 54% of its total assets. While a high level of current liabilities boosts its ROCE, Best of the Best's returns are still very good. Our Take On Best of the Best's ROCE So we would be interested in doing more research here -- there may be an opportunity! There might be better investments than Best of the Best out there, but you will have to work hard to find them . These promising businesses with rapidly growing earnings might be right up your alley. If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). 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 Chris Kahn NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has expanded his lead over a wide field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by 5 percentage points since he entered the race in late April, according to a monthly Reuters/Ipsos poll. The poll released on Wednesday found 29% of Democrats and independents said they would vote for Biden in the state nominating contests that begin next year. That is up from 24% who said so in a poll that ran in late April, days before Biden announced his bid. Biden led the field among all major demographic groups except millennials (ages 18-37), who favored U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont over Biden 18% to 16%. To see the full poll results, click here: https://tmsnrt.rs/2W8Jnao Biden, 76, remains in the strongest position for the top of the ticket despite questions about his age and centrist positions. He also has faced criticism over his unwanted touching of women and his treatment of law professor Anita Hill three decades ago during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing. The monthly survey showed 29% of women who identify as Democrats and independents said they backed Biden, up 4 points from last month. And among registered Democrats, those who supported other candidates still listed Biden as a top alternative if their choice dropped out of the race, according to the poll. "That means that there is not a significant anti-Biden block of voters split between the other candidates," said Chris Jackson, a polling expert at Ipsos. "At this moment, Joe Biden is a clear front-runner in the Democratic primary," Jackson added. The Democratic nominee will likely face Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election. Besides Biden, 13% of Democrats and independents said they would vote for Sanders. None of the other candidates received more than 6% support in the poll. With more than a month until the candidates square off in the first televised debates and 18 months before the 2020 presidential election, the American public appears to be selecting candidates they know best. Story continues Less than 20% of Democrats said they were familiar with many of the candidates, including U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Montana Governor Steve Bullock, Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Wayne Messam, mayor of Miramar, Florida. In comparison, more than 84% said they were familiar with Biden and Sanders. However, Biden probably is not leading on name recognition alone, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "It's not valuable if people know you but don't like you," Kondik said. "We saw that for (former Florida Governor) Jeb Bush in 2015. He had good name ID - everyone knew his family name - but he wasn't polling as well as Biden is now because Republicans didn't like him." The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States from May 10-14. It gathered responses from 1,132 Democrats and independents and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 percentage points. Respondents were asked to pick from 23 potential Democratic nominees, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is expected to announce his plans this week. The poll did not include 89-year-old Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska, who is running. For more on the candidates running for the Democratic nomination, see: https://tmsnrt.rs/2LeoO8z (Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis) BALTIMORE (AP) In a field without the top three finishers in the Kentucky Derby, the odds that Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert wouldn't have the favorite in the Preakness are, well, Improbable. Baffert will seek a record-setting eighth Preakness victory Saturday with 5-2 morning line favorite Improbable, who will start from the No. 4 post in a field of 13 horses. War of Will, the second choice at 4-1, received the No. 1 post in Wednesday's draw. For the first time since 1951, the Preakness will not include the four horses that crossed the finish line first in the Kentucky Derby. Improbable finished fifth and was moved up to fourth following the disqualification of Maximum Security for interference. It was the only time in six career races that Improbable failed to finish first or second. On Saturday, co-owner Elliott Walden hopes his horse gets back on track after watching another of his horses, Justify, roll to a Triple Crown win in 2018. "I feel like we're favored by default this year," Walden conceded. "But this horse has a good resume. He ran very well in the Derby without hitting the board." After being bunched tightly in the 19-horse Kentucky Derby, Improbable can expect a much smoother ride within a small field. "Happy with the 4 post. Post positions here are a little bit anti-climactic," Walden said. "There's not a lot whole lot to it. We just hope he gets away clean and he's able to get in a nice rhythm. " Baffert did not attend the draw, but he will no doubt be in the center of things Saturday. Baffert and R.W. Walden, who saddled seven winners in the late 1800s, are currently tied atop the Preakness leaderboard. War of Will, meanwhile, is stuck on the rail with the No. 1 post the same place he started from in the Kentucky Derby, when he finished eighth and was moved up to seventh. "We definitely know it's not as bad as the Derby," trainer Mark Casse said. "One thing about it: the 1 hole can be extremely good or it can be extremely bad. In the Derby it was extremely bad, so I'm thinking we're going to get extremely good this time." Story continues The other two Derby participants in this race are Bodexpress and Win Win Win. Bodexpress (14th in the Derby, moved up to 13th) will break from the No. 9 post and is 20-1 on the morning line. Win Win Win (10th to 9th at Churchill Downs) is 15-1 from the 13 hole. Bodexpress is striving for his first career victory, with hopes of becoming the first maiden to win the Preakness since Refund captured a four-horse race in 1888. Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, 83, is looking for his seventh Preakness victory with Market King, 30-1 on the morning line and starting from the No. 8 post. "I don't think the post position matters a lot because he's a very good gate horse," Lukas said. "I don't think he's the fastest but he'll be close. By the time they get to the clubhouse turn, he should be placed somewhere where we're comfortable." This is Lukas' 44th Preakness entry, more than any trainer in the 144-year history of the race. Alwaysmining drew the No. 7 post and odds of 8-1. Not only is Kelly Rubley seeking to become the first female trainer to win the Preakness, but the last Maryland-bred horse to finish first in the race was Deputed Testamony in 1983. "I think it's more about the horse than the fact that I'm a woman trainer," Rubley said. "The horse brought me here, and I'm very proud of him." Everfast , entered hours before the draw on Wednesday, was the longest shot in the field at 50-1. The horse is trained by Dale Romans, who won the 2011 Preakness with Shackleford. "Some of the top contenders are missing, so we'll take a chance," Romans said from Louisville, Kentucky. The others: Anothertwistafate (No. 12 post, 6-1); Bourbon War (No. 2, 12-1); Laughing Fox (No. 11, 20-1); Owendale (No. 5, 10-1); Signalman (No. 8, 30-1); Warrior's Charge (No. 3, 12-1). ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports BRASILIA, May 15 (Reuters) - Brazilian federal prosecutors are suing the government, seeking an injunction to block President Jair Bolsonaro's gun decree that liberalized weapons regulation, according to a statement on Wednesday from the federal prosecutor's office. In their lawsuit, prosecutors argued Bolsonaro's executive order represented legislative overreach by the executive, broke with provisions of the current Disarmament Statute and "endangered the public safety of all Brazilians." Federal prosecutors sought an injunction to permanently suspend the effects of the decree, adding that the sale of weapons will increase as a result of the executive order and will, for decades, impact the number of weapons in circulation in the country. Last week, Bolsonaro signed a decree to ease restrictions on gun imports and increase the amount of ammunition a person can buy. An earlier executive order signed by Bolsonaro had eased restrictions for collectors, marksmen and hunters, for example allowing them to carry loaded guns to shooting clubs. Bolsonaro's latest decree was expanded to lift a ban on imported arms if there was a similar domestic-made product. It also raised a limit on ammunition purchases to 5,000 cartridges per year for normal guns. The decree also allows for up to 1,000 cartridges to be bought annually for use in restricted weapons, including large-caliber and semiautomatic weapons that are limited to military and police. (Reporting by Ricardo Brito Editing by James Dalgleish) By Dominique Patton BEIJING (Reuters) - Brazil's agriculture minister will ask Chinese officials on Thursday to greenlight exports to the Asian nation of sugar made from genetically modified (GM) sugarcane, which is expected to be widely used in Brazil in coming years. Minister Tereza Cristina Dias told Reuters in Beijing on Wednesday, on her first visit to Brazil's top buyer of farm goods, that she would raise the GMO issue during a visit to China's General Administration of Customs on Thursday. Brazilian officials will make the case that the sugar has no traces of modified genes after the GM cane is processed, similar to soy oil made from GM soybeans. "We export sugar and will export sugar made from GMO cane. The sugar itself is not genetically modified, so we're going to explain about the scientific process and explain why sugar should not be considered by science as a GM product," Dias told Reuters through a translator. Brazil's CTC (Cane Technology Center) developed the GM cane variety that is resistant to the cane borer, which could reduce pesticide costs. Mills in the world's largest sugar exporter are already testing the variety. Brazil's government has approved commercial use of GM cane, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ruled that it is safe to consume sugar made from that cane. "The production of these varieties will increase a lot in Brazil, so it's something we need to discuss," Dias said. China has been slow in approving genetically modified foods in general. Last month, a Brazil agriculture ministry official complained that Chinese approvals take about five to six years, up from 240 days in 2010. The minister said she would also raise the issue of 79 meat plants seeking approval to export beef, poultry, pork and other meat to China. Only 10 of them have been inspected by Chinese food quality officials to date. "One thing we're going to discuss is if it's necessary to visit all plants or if they can select a sample," Dias said. She added that the ministry was building a new relationship with China's customs administration which only recently took on the role of approving imports after a Chinese government shuffle. Brazil is one of a few countries able to supply China with significant quantities of meat when it experiences a large drop in output of pork expected later this year due to the African swine fever outbreak, Dias said. (Reporting by Dominique Patton; Additional reporting by Marcelo Teixeira in Sao Paulo; Editing by Richard Chang) By Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu BRASILIA (Reuters) - Venezuela's armed forces will either depose President Nicolas Maduro and lead a transition to democratic rule or face divisions that risk a civil war, the Brazilian government's top security adviser said on Tuesday. Retired General Augusto Heleno, national security adviser to President Jair Bolsonaro, told Reuters the situation in Venezuela was unpredictable after opposition leader Juan Guaido unsuccessfully called on the military to change sides last month. Only a handful of soldiers headed Guaido's call to back the opposition on April 30 and since then Maduro's government has launched a crackdown on opposition legislators allegedly linked to the attempt. Despite U.S. sanctions, the upper echelons of Venezuela's military have largely ignored entreaties from the opposition and Washington to turn against Maduro and just over 1,000 troops have defected, mostly to Colombia and Brazil. "The future of Venezuela will be decided by the armed forces: either they stay in power with the same government or they remove Maduro," Heleno said in an interview. "We don't know how the military will act. Either they will oust Maduro, take power and set in motion a return to democracy, or they could split between Guaido and Maduro, which is the riskier scenario that could set off a civil war," he said. Venezuela's information ministry - which handles media enquiries for the government - did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Heleno's remarks. Bolsonaro's right-wing government has joined more than 50 other nations in recognizing Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela and backed an opposition initiative to deliver U.S. humanitarian aid to the neighboring country in February. Maduro shut the border with Brazil to block the aid, but reopened it on Friday, allowing a flow of Venezuelans crossing in search of food, medicine or an escape from the economic and political turmoil in their homeland. Story continues Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has echoed U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-line view on the need for change in Venezuela, including the possible use of troops. However, Brazil's military as well as Vice President Hamilton Mourao - a former general - have ruled out any intervention in Venezuela. Not even the U.S. government knows which way things will turn out in Venezuela but the United States is trying to avoid a military invasion, according to Heleno. "They just don't want Venezuela becoming another Cuba. It's a nightmare for them," he said. "The Americans are trying to deal with the situation peacefully, diplomatically, without taking military action, even though they have the potential to do so," he said. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month in a television interview that the United States was prepared to take military action to stem the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela, but added that Washington would prefer a peaceful transition of power. Maduro says that the U.S. government, supported by regional allies in Latin America, wants to forcibly oust him from office in order to exploit Venezuela's oil wealth. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Tens of thousands of students and teachers protested across Brazil in "defense of education" on Wednesday in response to a raft of budget cuts announced by President Jair Bolsonaro's government. Classes were suspended in federal universities and secondary schools across Brazil's 27 states in the first nationwide protests against the far-right president since he took office on January 1. Protesters flocked onto the streets in Brazil's biggest cities including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, in marches that grew steadily larger as the day wore on. The budget cuts feature a 30 percent reduction in subsidies paid to state-owned universities. Bolsonaro blasted the protesters as being "useful idiots manipulated by an expert minority that makes up the heart of federal universities in Brazil." He accused leftist militants of stoking the protests. Speaking from Texas -- where he was to receive an award from the US-Brazil Chamber of Commerce -- Bolsonaro defended his education policy, saying he had inherited "a Brazil that was destroyed economically." He added that necessary budget cuts had been "lower than forecast." Some 15,000 protesters marched in the capital Brasilia, while 20,000 took part in demonstrations in the northern city of Belem, according to police. Organizers said 70,000 people marched in the leftist stronghold of Salvador in the northeast. Isolated incidents were reported. Police used tear gas to disperse protesters in the southern city of Porto Alegre, and a bus was set on fire at the end of the march in Rio. "I have a master's degree and a post-doctorate in energy. If someone is an idiot in this story, it's not me," said Mariana Moura, a 38-year-old protester in Sao Paulo, angered at Bolsonaro's criticism. "Without science there is no health, or work. We are here fighting for Brazil to continue producing knowledge. Without money, there is no knowledge," said Moura, a researcher. Story continues "Unfortunately, education is not a priority. That's why I'm here today to fight for public education," said Alessandra Roscoe, a writer, as she took part in the protest in Brasilia. "Class today is in the street," read one banner in Rio. Demonstrators chanted: "Either stop the cuts or we stop Brazil." Organizers estimated up to 150,000 people had taken to the streets in a massive demonstration in Sao Paulo, Brazil's economic capital and biggest city, where protesters chanted the slogan: "Books Yes, Weapons No." - Government 'not responsible'- Education Minister Abraham Weintraub -- who sparked the protests by slashing the federal university subsidies -- was forced to defend his policy in Congress. Weintraub insisted the government "is not responsible for the disaster of basic education in Brazil." He warned that "university autonomy is not sovereignty. Universities have to respect the laws." Since assuming the presidency, Bolsonaro has been on an ideological campaign to promote his ultraconservative ideas and values, and to erase any trace of the 2003-2016 leftist Workers Party government -- including what he called "cultural Marxism" -- from classrooms. Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the president's three lawmaker sons, accused the Workers Party of being behind Wednesday's massive street protests. The reaction to the education cuts combined with international trade tensions worried the markets, with the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange hitting its lowest level since January 3. Several chief education officers claimed the budget cuts would compromise the ability of federal universities to operate and threatened to paralyze them. A sudden suspension of financing for masters degrees and doctorate scholarships in the sciences and human sciences last week threw oil on the fire. Although the cuts affect only federal institutions, the protest movement has been joined by many private universities such as Rio's Pontifical University, which voted last week to join the nationwide demonstration. By Marcelo Rochabrun SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Embraer SA reported a $42.5 million loss for the first quarter on Wednesday, its fifth straight quarter of losses, as revenue fell amid fewer plane deliveries and as the Brazilian planemaker spent heavily ahead of a deal with Boeing Co. Revenue fell most sharply, by 26% to $281 million, in its commercial aviation segment in the three months ended March 31. The company delivered 11 commercial jets in the quarter, three fewer than a year earlier. Overall, revenue fell 14.1%. The results were "weaker than expected," analysts at Brazilian bank BTG Pactual said in a note to clients. Shares fell over 4% in Sao Paulo in morning trading. Embraer has been spending heavily to separate its commercial jet division, in which Boeing is buying a controlling stake for $4.2 billion. Embraer's available cash fell by $512 million in the latest quarter. Despite the weak results, the company reaffirmed its delivery forecast for 2019 and expects to boost the number of plane deliveries over the next quarters. For 2019, it expects to deliver 85 to 95 passenger jets and 90 to 110 executive jets; in 2018, it delivered 90 passenger jets and 91 executive jets. Embraer's results have been weak for the past year amid limp demand for executive jets and a runway accident involving its yet-to-be-launched signature military plane, the KC-390, that cost it hundreds of millions dollars. Weak deliveries of commercial planes added to that burden in the first quarter. Unlike its two other divisions, executive jets and defense, selling commercial passenger jets of up to 150 seats has been profitable for Embraer in recent quarters. But Embraer is now in the middle of a large-scale transformation after it obtained shareholder approval to sell 80% of its commercial jet division to Boeing for $4.2 billion, a deal that still needs regulatory approval. As a result of that deal, Embraer will have to rely heavily in the short term on the profits it can generate from its executive jets and defense divisions. Story continues Embraer's Chief Financial Officer Nelson Salgado said on an earnings call that Boeing's crisis relating to its 737 MAX plane, which has been grounded worldwide following two deadly crashes, would not impact the timeline of closing the deal with Embraer, which is still expected by the end of the year. Still, he said Boeing's troubles would "absolutely not" boost demand for Embraer's planes. Embraer also released results in Brazil's local currency, the real, which showed revenue faring better and positively affected by the depreciation of the currency against the U.S. dollar. Still, only 10% of Embraer's revenue and 20% of its expenses are denominated in reais, the company said. (Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Additional reporting by Carolina Mandl and Paula Arend Laier; Editing by Bernadette Baum) Brussels (AFP) - Brexit Britain is "like Game of Thrones on steroids", a leading candidate for the top job at the European Commission said Wednesday as the front-runners clashed in a televised debate. Frans Timmermans, the commission vice-president and the main centre left hopeful, said the political chaos raging in Britain should serve as a warning to others tempted by the siren call of populism. The Dutchman faced off against chief rivals conservative MEP Manfred Weber and EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager in a debate that featured a few testy exchanges but no serious body blows. With populist and nationalist movements on the rise in Europe, Timmermans said mainstream parties needed to do more to persuade voters of the value of European integration. And he warned that voters who believed the populists' rhetoric could expect disappointment. "Look at what the divisiveness of Brexit has done to the United Kingdom," he said. "Today the United Kingdom looks like Game of Thrones on steroids -- and that's because of this divisive politics," he said, referring to a television series known for bloody intrigue, gruesome torture and indiscriminate dragonfire. Nearly three years on from its shock vote to leave the EU, Britain remains a member, its bitterly divided politicians deadlocked and unable to agree on the details of the divorce. Currently held by former Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the commission serves a five-year term as Europe's chief legislator, trade negotiator and regulation supremo. The EU is split over how Juncker's successor should be chosen, in particular how great a role the results of the May 23-26 elections to the European Parliament should play. Wednesday's debate, broadcast on European TV stations and online, was the first to feature Weber, the head of the centre-right European People's Party group who has the backing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Story continues Weber -- criticised by some as uncharismatic and little known beyond the EU bubble -- said he wanted to "open a new chapter" as head of the commission. Vestager, the Dane who has served five years as the bloc's anti-trust enforcer, taking on the likes of Google, Apple and Starbucks, is aiming to be the first woman to lead the commission. "It's important to show that we do change and the most visible way to do it is to have a gender balanced commission, the same number of men as the number of women -- that reflects our society," she said. Also taking part in the debate were Greens MEP Ska Keller, Nico Cue of the far left grouping and Czech MEP Jan Zahradil, who represents another centre-right but more eurosceptic bloc. * Brexit rebels to vote against May's deal * "What has changed?" DUP kingmakers ask * Labour worries that May successor could renege * Brexit deal vote likely in early June By Kylie MacLellan and Andrew MacAskill LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Brexit-supporting rebels in British Prime Minister Theresa May's party said on Wednesday they would vote down her European Union divorce deal when she brings it back to parliament early next month. Brexit had been due to take place on March 29 but lawmakers rejected the withdrawal agreement that May struck with Brussels three times. The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave the EU by Oct. 31. May will bring a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which implements the departure terms, in the week beginning June 3 - the same date that U.S. President Donald Trump begins a state visit to Britain at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth. Brexit supporters in May's divided Conservative party said her deal was as dead as her crisis-riven three-year premiership. "I have talked to colleagues, some of whom voted for it last time, and they think it is dead and they will vote against it this time," Peter Bone, a Conservative lawmaker and a prominent supporter of leaving the EU, told Talk Radio. "I know they wouldn't vote for it. It seems absurd to bring it back. It is the same thing again, again and again." May, who secured the Conservative Party leadership and the premiership in the chaos that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum, is already under pressure from some of her own lawmakers to set a date for her departure. Defeat in the June vote would likely spell the end of her divorce deal and her premiership. Brexit supporters fear that May's deal will keep the United Kingdom trapped within the EU's orbit for years and that it could ultimately pull the British province of Northern Ireland towards the bloc. "WHAT HAS CHANGED?" Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, politicians still disagree about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Story continues Before her deal was defeated the last time, 344-286 on March 29, May had promised to resign if it was passed. It was voted down first in January and again in mid-March. A constant sticking point has been the Irish backstop, an insurance policy aimed at avoiding post-Brexit controls on the border between Northern Ireland and EU state Ireland. "If the Prime Minister brings the Withdrawal bill to the Commons for a vote the question will be 'what has changed?'" asked Nigel Dodds, parliamentary leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up May's minority government. "Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again," Dodds said. A majority of members of the European Research Group, a large Brexit-supporting faction in the Conservative Party, will vote against May's deal, said Owen Paterson, a former minister. "Sadly, we will vote against it again," he said, adding that it could divide the country. As positions harden in parliament, with many wanting to either leave the EU without a deal or to stop Brexit altogether, May has turned to the opposition Labour Party, led by veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, to negotiate a way out of the impasse. But after more than four weeks of talks, the two party leaders appear no closer to agreeing a common position. "We haven't seen the significant shift yet that we require to be able to support a deal," Labour's second most powerful man, finance chief John McDonnell, said on Tuesday. "We are not near what we want." McDonnell said he was deeply concerned a future Conservative leader could renege on any promises made by the current government. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by John Stonestreet) By Kylie MacLellan and Andrew MacAskill LONDON (Reuters) - Brexit-supporting rebels in British Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party said on Wednesday they would vote down her European Union divorce deal when she brings it back to parliament next month. Britain had been due to leave the EU on March 29 but parliament has three times rejected the withdrawal agreement May struck with Brussels. The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave, with or without a deal to smooth the exit, by Oct. 31. Defeat in the vote would likely spell the end of May's divorce deal and probably her premiership. May will bring a Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), which implements the departure terms, to parliament for a vote in the week beginning June 3, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said, just as U.S. President Donald Trump begins a divisive state visit to Britain. "I have talked to colleagues, some of whom voted for it last time, and they think it is dead and they will vote against it this time," Peter Bone, a Conservative lawmaker and Brexit supporter, told Talk Radio. "It seems absurd to bring it back. It is the same thing again, again and again." May, who became prime minister in the chaos that followed the 2016 referendum in which Britons voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, is under pressure from some of her own lawmakers to set a date for her departure. As well as the Brexit deadlock, the Conservative Party suffered major losses in local elections this month and is trailing in opinion polls ahead of the May 23 European Parliament elections. Asked if she would resign if the bill was defeated, May told reporters she was sure Members of Parliament (MPs) would remember to respect the referendum result. "When MPs come to look at that (bill), they will recognize that we have a duty in parliament to deliver on the result of the referendum and deliver Brexit," she said. Lawmakers from the upper house of parliament had earlier asked Barclay if this was "the last chance saloon" for May's divorce deal. "If the House of Commons does not approve the WAB, then the Barnier deal is dead in that form," Barclay told them, referring to the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Barclay said that would leave parliament with the choice of revoking the decision to leave the EU or exiting without a deal, the default position if no divorce agreement can be reached. "If the House (of Commons) has not passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill then there are growing voices in Europe, not least the French, who want to move on to other issues," he said. "WHAT HAS CHANGED?" Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, politicians still disagree about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Brexit supporters fear May's deal will keep the United Kingdom trapped within the EU's orbit for years and that it could ultimately pull the British province of Northern Ireland toward the bloc. Before her deal was defeated the last time, by 344 votes to 286 on March 29, May had promised to resign if it was passed. It was voted down first in January and again in mid-March. A sticking point has been the Irish backstop, an insurance policy aimed at avoiding post-Brexit controls on the border between Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland. "If the prime minister brings the withdrawal bill to the Commons for a vote, the question will be 'what has changed'?" asked Nigel Dodds, parliamentary leader of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up May's minority government. "Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again," Dodds said. A majority of members of the European Research Group, a large Brexit-supporting faction in the Conservative Party, will vote against May's deal, said Owen Paterson, a former minister. As positions harden in parliament, with many wanting to either leave the EU without a deal or to stop Brexit altogether, May has turned to the opposition Labour Party, led by veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, to negotiate a way out of the impasse. But after more than four weeks of talks, the two party leaders appear no closer to agreeing a common position, with Labour saying May had not shifted her position and warning a future Conservative leader could rip up any deal they struck. "We have serious concerns about negotiating with a government that is in the process of disintegration and what has been said about what might happen if a new Tory (Conservative) leadership is in charge," a Labour spokesman said. However, the spokesman said while the party could not back May's deal as it stood, he did not rule out abstaining in the vote, which might allow it to muster enough support to pass. (Additional reporting by John Irish in PARIS; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; Editing by Janet Lawrence) LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of members of the European Research Group, a large eurosceptic faction in Britains ruling Conservative Party, will vote against Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal when it is brought back before parliament next month, a lawmaker said. Owen Paterson, a former minister, said he was concerned that her deal would leave Britain following EU laws. He said the Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May's party, is concerned it will align Northern Ireland more closely with the EU than the rest of the United Kingdom. "Sadly, we will vote against it again, as the DUP put out a statement, because it doesn't change the essential nature of the withdrawal agreement, which is unacceptable we will have laws imposed on us by 27 different countries where we are not involved," Paterson told the BBC. "And very importantly for the DUP and us it potentially breaks up the United Kingdom by creating a new entity called UK and I and that means you could end with Scotland wanting to follow and that is really dangerous for the union." (Reporting By Andrew MacAskill; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) The Brit tourist has reportedly been missing for two days after falling into the sea around Koh Samui (Wikipedia/stock photo) A British tourist has reportedly been missing for two nights after falling into the sea during a sightseeing trip in Thailand. Wesley Bates, 35, who holds dual British and Australian nationality, fell into the sea off Koh Samui during a drunken speedboat trip on Monday, according to The Sun. Chaktam Jaijong, the captain of the vessel, claims the group that charted the boat - four men and one women - ignored warnings not sit on the bow without life jackets. Mr Jaijong said the group were already drunk when he picked them up for the tour and Mr Bates lost his balance during windy weather and fell into the water as they made their way back to the island at around 4pm. He added: They didnt listen to me when I told them to sit properly because it was very dangerous to sit on the boats head. The man was part of a group that had hired a speedboat to go sightseeing around the Thai island (Flickr/stock photo) They looked very angry, so I didnt want to keep bothering them, so I just let them sit there. Mr Jaijong was aided by local fishermen in searching for Mr Bates before the authorities were notified and the search continued without success. Police Major Worasak Akarakul, the inspector of Koh Samui police station, said that Mr Bates had still not been found. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Cyclists actually break traffic laws far less than drivers Girl born on bus 12 minutes after arriving at service station Drivers who leave their engines running could be hit with instant fines He said: "Officers have questioned the boat captain and the owner of the vessel. Their statements will form part of the investigation. "Rescue teams are co-operating to search for the tourist and all vessels in the area have been notified alerted. A Foreign & Commonwealth Office spokesperson told Yahoo News: We are in contact with the Australian embassy in Thailand, which is leading on a consular case following an incident involving an Australian-British dual national. The FCO added that they are supporting one of the passengers on board the boat, British citizen Roger Humphreys. London (AFP) - Theresa May's Brexit minister said Wednesday that her EU withdrawal deal would be "dead" if parliament rejects it for a fourth time next month, after the British premier set the date for what could be the final act of her leadership. May said MPs will vote on legislation to implement the Brexit deal in the week starting June 3, with the aim of getting Britain out of the European Union by the end of July. But the main opposition Labour party said it will not support the bill without concessions, which have yet to be agreed despite six weeks of talks. May's Northern Irish allies meanwhile repeated demands for changes to the divorce text, and opposition remains entrenched among many members of her own Conservative party. The prime minister struck a deal on Britain's exit terms with Brussels in November, but it has been rejected by the House of Commons three times. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said that if it failed again then the "deal is dead in that form". "I think the House will have to then address a much more fundamental question between whether it will pursue... a no-deal option or whether it will revoke" the entire Brexit process, he said. - May's future - Britain was due to leave the EU on March 29 but the political deadlock has caused May to delay it twice, most recently to October 31. Brexit can happen before then, if MPs back the plan. Setting a date for a new vote is a gamble -- if she loses, May cannot hold another in the current parliamentary session. "It's very hard to see where she goes after a further rebuff," former Conservative minister and Brexit supporter David Jones said. But there is huge anger among her Conservative MPs and voters at the delays, and the party is braced for a drubbing at European parliamentary polls next week. May is also under intense pressure to fulfil her promise to disgruntled colleagues to step down once Brexit is secured. Story continues On Thursday, she will meet senior Conservatives who have demanded a detailed timetable for her departure. Her ministers -- many of them already jockeying to replace her -- said this week it was "imperative" that the Brexit deal pass before MPs began their summer holiday, expected at the end of July. - Labour doubts - May's decision to set a date for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill followed a meeting with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday night, which her office described as "constructive". But Labour has called for "further movement", and expressed concern that any promises made by May -- for example, to protect workers' rights after Brexit -- would be ripped up by her successor. "We have serious concerns about negotiating with a government that is in the process of disintegration," a spokesman said on Wednesday. However, while stressing Labour MPs would not support the Brexit bill without a deal, he did not rule out the possibility they might abstain. Without Labour's active opposition, the bill could pass next month. The party could then seek to amend the text as it passes through parliament. Like the Conservatives, Labour is under pressure ahead of European Parliament elections on May 23. Corbyn has promised to deliver Brexit but growing numbers of his MPs want a second referendum, with an option to stay in the EU. The Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage, a key figure in the 2016 referendum campaign, is currently topping opinion polls for the vote. - 'What has changed?' - May's deal covers Britain's financial liabilities, the rights of EU citizens, proposals for a transition period and arrangements to keep open the border with Eu-member Ireland after Brexit. Opposition among Conservatives and their Northern Irish allies, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), is focused on the Irish "backstop" plan. This could keep Britain in a customs union with the EU for years after Brexit to avoid border checks that might jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland. "If the prime minister brings the withdrawal bill to the Commons for a vote the question will be 'what has changed'?" said DUP lawmaker Nigel Dodds. "Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again." LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday she was deeply concerned about the jailing of a British Council worker in Iran on espionage charges. Iran said on Monday it had sentenced an Iranian woman to 10 years prison for spying for Britain, as tension rises between Tehran and some Western countries over its nuclear and missile programs. "It's utterly shocking. I'm deeply concerned by the turn of events," May told parliament, adding that the woman was working for a legitimate organization that was trying to foster better relations between countries. "The Foreign Secretary is taking this issue up, the government will press the case and the concerns that have been raised." (Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Stephen Addison) LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday she was deeply concerned about the jailing of a British Council worker in Iran on espionage charges. Iran said on Monday it had sentenced an Iranian woman to 10 years prison for spying for Britain, as tension rises between Tehran and some Western countries over its nuclear and missile programs. "It's utterly shocking. I'm deeply concerned by the turn of events," May told parliament, adding that the woman was working for a legitimate organization that was trying to foster better relations between countries. "The Foreign Secretary is taking this issue up, the government will press the case and the concerns that have been raised." (Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Stephen Addison) By Byron Kaye SYDNEY (Reuters) - The brother of an Australian man who set fire to a truck laden with gas cylinders and stabbed a person to death in Melbourne in 2018 pleaded guilty on Wednesday to planning another attack in the city's main square. Ali Khalif Shire Ali, 22, was due to face trial after being accused of trying to obtain a gun for an attack in Melbourne's Federation Square in late 2017, according to an indictment provided to the media. He pleaded guilty in the Victoria state Supreme Court on Wednesday, according to a transcript of the hearing that was made public. He did not otherwise speak in court, according to the transcript. Until Wednesday, the judge overseeing the case had banned media from reporting that the 22-year-old was the brother of Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, who died in a separate attack last year. In his ruling, Supreme Court justice John Champion revoked the suppression order on the grounds that it was only intended to run until the end of the man's trial. A guilty plea automatically ends the need for a trial in Australian courts. A sentencing hearing for Ali Khalif Shire Ali is scheduled for Aug. 23. From March 31 to April 6, 2017, he made inquiries about getting a gun for "an attack on people in the city of Melbourne, specifically at Federation Square, at the end of the year in 2017," the indictment said. "The action was to be done with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, namely the advancement of Islam through violence," it added. The planned act "was not to be done as advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action." The 22-year-old was arrested in November 2017, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported. A year later, his brother Hassan Ali set fire to a pick-up truck loaded with gas cylinders in the city centre and stabbed three people, killing one, during the evening rush hour. Ali was shot by police and died later. Story continues Militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the 2018 attack, without providing evidence. Australian authorities said Somali-born Hassan Ali appeared to have been radicalised by the group's propaganda although there was no sign he was directly linked to Islamic State. A staunch U.S. ally, Australia has been on alert for militant violence after a Sydney cafe siege in 2014, and its intelligence agencies have stepped up their efforts. (Reporting by Byron Kaye; editing by Darren Schuettler) Madalyn Parker, a web developer in Ann Arbor, MI, made headlines last month after she shared a screenshot of an email she sent to her colleagues about taking a few sick days. "I'm taking today and tomorrow to focus on my mental health," she wrote. "Hopefully I'll be back next week refreshed and back to 100%." Ben Congleton, her boss and the CEO of the software company, Olark, replied: "I wanted to personally thank you for sending emails like this. Every time you do, I use it as a reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health I can't believe this is not standard practice at all organizations." Calling in sick can be complicated Congleton is right most companies are lightyears away from embracing candid asks from employees when it comes to sick days, for mental health or otherwise. Americans are terrible at taking vacation days for a variety of reasons. Some can't afford to take the days off; others are too scared to ask and want to look driven; and still others feel like they have way too much work to get done. However, asking for a day off when you're sick can be harder to put off . Federal law does not mandate paid sick leave, so it depends on where you live if you're eligible for the benefit. Some companies are beholden to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (which doesn't only apply to parents, FYI!), and only a handful of states have approved paid family sick leave policies. Still, if you're able to take some much-needed time off to take care of yourself, there are a few basic things you can do to ensure the ask goes as smoothly as possible. "Working from home, personal time off, unlimited vacation all these perks only work if we trust our employees to use them responsibly, and the same goes for sick time," says Sanji Moore, the general manager at Praytell, a digital public relations agency based in Brooklyn, NY. Moore says employees are expected to follow a few basic rules. Story continues Clearly communicate with your team Tell their teams they need time off as soon as they decide they can't come to work. Also make sure to flag anything that needs to get done immediately so no ends are untied. Share any information their teams need to handle those tasks in their absence. Communication is key Moore says: "Whether it's in an email, a phone call, or just a text doesn't matter, as long as the rest of team is in a good place to take over. This way, the sick employee can truly sign off and not worry about anything but their health." Get clear on your company policies Edward Yost, an HR business partner at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) who specializes in employee relations issues, largely agrees. He adds, though, that checking in with an employer about company policy is often a wise move. "Generally speaking, employees should use the company-preferred method of calling in sick," he explains. "Many companies specifically note in their written policy that an employee must speak directly to their supervisors rather than leaving a voicemail or sending an email message. Some companies and managers will prefer a text directly to the supervisor. I would encourage employees to ask their supervisors which method is preferred and comply with that requirement." He says that fewer organizations require doctors' notes for one-or-two-day absences because things like a stomach bug or a bad cold won't always necessitate a visit to the doctor. Plus, requiring that note could put an additional financial burden on the employee for an unnecessary office visit or copay. "If employees know they are required to provide a doctor's note, they may elect to come to work while they are sick, which can result in reduction in their overall productivity and potentially spread the illness to coworkers." Don't go into too much detail Regardless of how you keep everyone looped in, be sure to stick to the basics, he emphasizes. For the most part, employees should NOT share graphic details about their illnesses or specific diagnoses in those communications. Similarly, Yost says, managers should not play diagnostician and ask inappropriate questions about their employee's symptoms or diagnosis either. Some of this might be a matter of company culture. You might totally work in a place where it's A-okay to gloriously recount the number of times and ways you prayed to the porcelain god after eating bad takeout. But as a matter of both propriety and professionalism, keep it simple. "Employees should stick primarily to the fact that they will not be in today, and should indicate whether or not they expect to be out for more than just one day, if they can confidently say so," Yost says. "Extending this courtesy can help the manager effectively rearrange duties or reschedule other staff for multiple days rather than scrambling at the last minute. Prioritize getting better If you anticipate needing to be absent for several days for a medical condition, he says, your manager may decide to contact human resources and alert them to a possible FMLA leave situation. When you're feeling better, it's worth brushing up on what that might mean for you. In the meantime, recover in peace. "If youre sick, be sick," Moore says. "Take the time you need to rest and sign off email." So turn off your laptop you're supposed to be recovering. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here? I Make $105K As An Executive Assistant & I'm Starting A New Coding Career How I Made $250K To Pay For College (With A Little Help From Oprah) A Week In Columbus, OH, On A $52,500 Salary Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Campaigners called on supporters of the Palestinian cause to at least temporarily deactivate their Airbnb accounts on Wednesday to protest its listings in settlements in the occupied West Bank. After Israeli pressure, the company last month reversed course and scrapped plans to ban homes in settlements from listing on the site. The decision has led to fresh anger from groups opposed to the settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. A range of organisations including Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy have backed a call for an at least temporary deactivation, with organisers saying thousands had pledged to do so. "Ultimately we would like Airbnb to reverse its decision but we know that won't be easy," Salem Barahmeh, executive director of PIPD, told AFP. "But I think what we ultimately want to do is end this culture of impunity where international companies are allowed to be complicit in supporting war crimes and Israeli settlements that have been responsible for displacing Palestinians." Airbnb declined to comment, pointing instead to its statement from the April reversal. That statement says that while the company will not ban settlement homes it will give all profits from those listings to charities. Campaigners say this does not stop the settlers from making profits. Around 400,000 Israelis live in settlements that dot the West Bank and range in size from tiny hamlets to large towns, in addition to 200,000 living in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem. Settlements are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state. The date of the protest coincides with the Palestinian commemoration of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their land in the war surrounding the creation of Israel. OTTAWA, May 15 (Reuters) - Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she will visit Cuba on Thursday to discuss the political crisis in Venezuela and the United States' decision to allow lawsuits for property confiscated after the 1959 revolution. "It is of critical importance that our two countries meet to discuss the economic, political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and the work we can undertake together to address it," Freeland said in a statement on Wednesday. "I also look forward to discussing how we can work together to defend Canadians conducting legitimate trade and investment in Cuba in light of the United States ending the suspension of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act," she added. (Reporting by Steve Scherer; editing by Jonathan Oatis) PARIS (AP) A month after a fire engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral, workers are still trying to ensure the edifice is safe enough for the restoration process to begin, French Culture Minister Franck Riester said. Riester and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wore hard hats for a visit Wednesday inside the Gothic church. Trudeau said he wanted to show Canadians' solidarity "toward our French cousins." After the devastating April 15 fire, he said one "can't help but marvel at how so much was saved." Operations to secure and conserve the cathedral must be completed before restoration works can start, Riester said, adding that robots were removing gravel from within to be examined both by ministry experts and police seeking clues about the fire's origin. Most paintings, relics and the Crown of Thorns purported to have been worn by Jesus at his crucifixion are being conserved at the Louvre Museum. Several works still cannot be accessed, though they are safe, the culture minister said. A collection of funds for the restoration has so far brought in about 850 million euros (952.2 million dollars), he said. "It's way too early to know if we have enough money or even too much money to restore Notre Dame of Paris," Riester said. He noted there can be a difference between pledges and what is actually provided, and added that with no "diagnostic" of the damage, a price of the restoration work isn't yet known. "The needs are obviously colossal," he said. What happened? Swathes of people have reacted with fury to the news Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion. The senate in the Republican-dominated state voted by 25-6 for a bill that makes performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a crime punishable by life in prison. The only exception would be if the womans health is seriously at risk. All those who voted to make abortion illegal were men. Senators also rejected an attempt to add an exception for rape and incest, with 22 voting against. Dangerous and exceptionally cruel Commentators and pro-choice activists shared their dismay at the decision, with particular attention drawn to the fact the decision was made by a group of men. Democratic Presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren called the move dangerous and exceptionally cruel and fellow Democrat Bernie Sanders said what Alabama doing it blatantly unconstitutional. The Handmaids Tale Following the vote, the title of Margaret Atwoods novel The Handmaids Tale began trending on Twitter, with people drawing comparisons to the story where women are subjugated to systemic rape and forced to have children. Read more Alabama bans abortion with strictest legislation in US (Guardian) The Alabama abortion ban is an outrage but what about Northern Ireland? (The Independent) Abortion law harsher in Northern Ireland than in Alabama (The Guardian) Every vote for Alabamas abortion ban was from a white man (HuffPost) The Jeremy Kyle Show has been cancelled with immediate effect after the suspected suicide of a recent guest. Steven Dymond died from a suspected drugs overdose just 10 days after filming an appearance for the programme. Do you think ITV were right to cancel the show? Read the full story (Yahoo Celebrity UK) and have your say below: Government rejects new definition of Islamophobia Theresa May has turned down a proposal for a new definition of Islamophobia, citing grounds of free speech. The Government believes that adopting it could mean criticisim of aspects of Islam could be prosecuted under discrimination laws. Instead, ministers will appoint independent advisers to come up with their own definition of Islamophobia. Police had warned said the definition could hamper the fight against terrorism. Read the full story here (Press Association) Story continues VIP paedophile accuser is alleged paedophile himself A man who stands accused of lying about a Westminter VIP ring of child abusers and killers is himself a committed and manipulative paedophile, a court has heard. Carl Beech, known by the pseudonym Nick, hid his sexual interest in young boys behind a secret app on his iPad, tried to frame someone else, and only later admitted a series of charges, jurors were told. The father-of-one, from Gloucester, denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud. Read the full story here (Independent) A camera set up to monitor the nest of an endangered oriental white stork in Russia inadvertently recorded a dramatic scene, capturing the moment a wildfire burned across ground underneath the nest. The camera is run by the World Wildlife Fund, and used by scientists to monitor the storks. 2 million Thats the estimated value of a vintage Ferrari that was stolen in Germany when a man posing as a would-be buyer drove off during a test drive. The man sped off in the red Ferrari 288 GTO, first registered in 1985, when the seller got out of the car to swap places. The car was later found hidden in a garage, but police are still hunting the thief. Read the full story here (CNBC) Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. The 26-year-old video producer from Reno, Nev., was shocked when a drug test he took as part of a job application came back positive for marijuana. The problem? He hadnt used marijuana, he says. Instead, J.C., who prefers not to use his name, had taken CBD, or cannabidiol, from hemp to help with sleep and anxiety. And unlike THC, a related compound in cannabis plants, CBD cant get you high. I thought I was in the clear, J.C. says. From everything that I had heard, CBD oil wasnt supposed to show up on drug tests. CBD is going mainstream. Late last year Congress made CBD from hemp legal at the federal level. And its increasingly found on store shelves, now even sold in some CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens stores. An estimated 64 million people have tried CBD in the past 24 months, according to a January 2019 nationally representative survey by Consumer Reports of more than 4,000 adult Americans, using it for pain, insomnia, anxiety, and other health problems. But as more people try it, one unexpected side effect could be failing an employers drug test, and even losing a job as a result. Consider Bianca Thurston of Pennsylvania and Coni Hass of California. They are jointly suing Koi CBD, alleging that they failed drug tests because of the companys CBD product; Thurston lost her job. Or Douglas Horn, a truck driver in New York who alleges that he lost his job after taking a CBD product made by Dixie (aka Dixie Elixirs). Koi CBD told Consumer Reports in a statement about the lawsuit: Koi prides itself on providing the highest-quality products while being a leader in the industry. We take claims regarding our products very seriously. We are investigating this matter and the allegations, which at this time, are unproven and unverified. We remain focused on continuing to carefully craft and offer a full array of beneficial cannabinoid products. Story continues Dixie Elixirs did not respond to a request for a comment. So how can you fail a drug test after taking CBD? The urine test most commonly used doesnt even look for CBD but instead a compound created by the body when it metabolizes THC, says Barry Sample, senior director of science and technology at Quest Diagnostics, the largest administrator of drug tests in the U.S. There isnt going to be a laboratory analytical false positive confusing CBD with a THC metabolite. But Sample says that CBD products could have more THC than the label claims. CBD products from hemp sold in retail stores and online arent supposed contain more than 0.3 percent THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound in marijuana that can get you high. Its also possible that over time, the small amounts of THC allowed in CBD products could build up in the body to detectable levels. And while New York City recently passed a law that, starting May 10, 2020, will bar many employers from testing prospective employees for marijuana, that is still the exception, even in states that allow marijuana for medical or adult recreational use. In fact, more than half of employers test job applicants for it, says Kate Kennedy, spokesperson for the Society for Human Resource Management, an industry group. That can help companies lower costs for disability insurance and workers compensation. Some people who work for the federal government or military or as pilots, bus drivers, train conductors, or truck drivers are also subject to drug testing. So if you use CBD, especially if you are applying for a job or work in a sensitive field, you should be aware of the possible need to pass a drug test. Heres more on how to do it, as well as advice on how to avoid that problem or deal with a positive drug test because of CBD. Mislabeled Products CBD products often have more THC than claimed, research suggests. For example, a 2017 study in JAMA found that 18 of 84 CBD products, all purchased online, had THC levels possibly high enough to cause intoxication or impairment. And those elevated levels might also be high enough to cause you not to pass a drug test. Thats what Horn, the truck driver from New York, alleges happened to him after taking a product advertised to contain zero THC. After losing his job because of the failed drug test, the lawsuit says Horn purchased a sample of the CBD product, had it tested, and found that, contrary to the claim, it did contain THCenough, the lawsuit alleges, to cause a THC level in his urine of 29 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). Thats double the amount that typically triggers a positive result, says Sample at Quest Diagnostics. Mislabeled CBD products are a growing problem for American workers, Sample believes. Its buyer beware, he says. Theres not always truth in labeling on the products. And he believes those high levels could be due in part to how THC levels are measured in hemp plants. While those plants are supposed to contain no more than 0.3 percent THC, thats based on the dry weight of the plant. But dry weight doesnt necessarily equate to whats in the finished product, Sample says. Plus, he says, in some cases that percentage is based on the weight of the whole plant, or on the weight of the buds or flowers, which tend to have more THC. Adding to the confusion is that each state can determine how it samples and tests hemp plants for THC content, says Aline DeLucia, senior policy analyst for the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. When sampling the hemp plant, the closer you get to the flower, the higher the THC content. So some states collect the top 6 inches of the plant, while others do it differently, DeLucia says. But everybody is onboard that we need some kind of uniformity. And once CBD is turned into a finished product, such as an oil, a lotion, a tincture, a pill, or a vape liquid, few states dictate how those should be tested for THC, save for Oregon and soon Vermont. State agriculture departments, DeLucia says, dont have jurisdiction over testing these products for safety. Last, some states allow medical CBD products obtained through permitted channels to contain more than 0.3 percent THC. For example, the cutoff in Georgia and Virginia is 5 percent, Sample says, a level that is definitely high enough to cause impairment and a failed drug test. Best bet: To increase the likelihood that a product doesnt have more THC than claimed, look for a manufacturer that can provide a Certificate of Analysis, or COA, for its product. That document shows the results of a companys testing for THC, CBD, and various contaminants. Though that testing is voluntary (except in Indiana and Utah) and the results arent confirmed by independent experts, for now its the best information available. If a store or website cant provide you with a COA, look for another product. Read more about how CBD products are tested. Small Amounts of THC Can Build Up Many legitimate CBD products contain small amounts of THC. And when taken regularly over as little as four to six days, that THC can accumulate in the body, according to several studies. Thats because THC is fat-soluble, says Norbert E. Kaminski, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University in East Lansing. So THC that isnt immediately metabolized by the body will be stored in fat tissue. And over time, THC and THC metabolites will be slowly released, Kaminski says. As a result, its possible to test positive for THC and not pass a drug test, even after youve stopped taking the product. Sample, at Quest Diagnostics, says that chronic, heavy users of marijuana could test positive even a month after they stop using it. Best bet: Consider products that are claimed to be CBD only and have COAs showing that they contain zero THC. Also, you can try tracking your own THC levels with an at-home drug test, says Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York, who has studied the medicinal use of CBD. If you test positive but need to be THC-free, consider taking a two- to three-week break from the product to clear THC from your system, he says. What to Do If You Failed a Drug Test Talk with your employer. Thats what worked for J.C., in Nevada, after he tested positive for marijuana use. Armed with documentation from his doctor that he was taking CBD to treat anxiety and insomnia, he met with company co-founder Matt Ross, chief operating officer of the Slumber Yarda website that tracks user experiences with buying and using mattressesand explained why he was taking it. He even took the bottle in for his employer to see. I wasnt familiar with CBD at the time, Ross says. But he and his partner appreciated that J.C. addressed the situation. He was really talented as a video editor, and we felt comfortable enough to get past it. If that doesnt work, try your companys HR department. If your employer resists, you may be able to seek protection through the Americans with Disabilities Act and state disability laws. Those laws allows people with documented needs to get exceptions, or reasonable accommodations, to account for their medical situation. While the ADA does not apply to marijuanabecause it remains illegal on the federal level, even for medical useits still worth asking your companys HR department, says James Reidy, an attorney at Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green who focuses on drug policy issues with employers. Thats because CBD from hemp is now legal on a federal level. If you have any documentation from a medical provider, that can help, too. And you may have more luck if you live in Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia. Those states have passed laws providing some protection for people who use medical marijuana, potentially including CBD, Reidy says. Other states, such as likeCalifornia, Montana, Oregon, and Washington have laws to assure that companies located in those states do not have to provide reasonable accommodations for people who use medical marijuana, and leave it up to each employer to decide, Reidy says. In those states, though, its still worth asking your companys HR department about it if youve failed a drug test for marijuana after taking CBD. Ask for a retest. If youve stopped taking CBD for a few weeks or longer, or took CBD infrequently, and still test positive for marijuana, consider asking for a retest. Though there are safeguards in place to prevent errors, Sample says, in rare cases they do happen. In addition, some companies might set the threshold for THC very low to catch as many people as possible, Earleywine says. But doing so means the test can generate some false positives, people who look as if theyve used THC when they havent. Stop or skip using CBD products if faced with an upcoming drug test. Thats the only way to ensure that your CBD wont trigger a positive test result for marijuana. And that includes stopping use of topical CBD lotions, oils, and cosmetic products, says Kaminski at Michigan State University. And its best to stop two to three weeks before the test, he adds. That should allow for enough time for any THC and THC metabolites to clear out of your system. 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. BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) - Growth in China's industrial output slowed more than expected to 5.4 percent in April from a 4-1/2 year high in March, reinforcing views Beijing will have to roll out more stimulus measures as a trade war with the United States intensifies. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast industrial output would grow 6.5%, slowing from an unexpectedly strong 8.5% in March. Fixed-asset investment rose 6.1% in January-April from the same period last year, also lagging expectations, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. Analysts had predicted a 6.4% increase, picking up slightly from 6.3% in January-March. Private-sector fixed-asset investment, which accounts for about 60 percent of overall investment in China, rose 5.5% in the same period, compared with a increase of 6.4% in the first three months of the year. Retail sales rose 7.2% in April on-year, the slowest pace since May 2003, sharply down from March's 8.7% and missing a forecast rise of 8.6%. The United States escalated a tariff war with China on Friday by hiking levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods in the midst of last-ditch talks to rescue a trade deal. China retaliated on Monday, though on a smaller scale. The U.S. move comes as China's economy was beginning to show tentative signs of improvement after a flurry of support measures, though analysts had cautioned it was too early to call a recovery. Economists at Citi estimate the U.S. tariff increase could lop 50 basis points off China's GDP growth, reduce exports by 2.7 percent and cost the country another 2.1 million jobs, though they are optimistic a trade deal will be reached eventually. (Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Kim Coghill) Beijing has broadened its block of online encyclopedia Wikipedia to include all language editions, an internet censorship research group reported just weeks ahead of China's most politically explosive anniversary. According to a report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), China started blocking all language editions of Wikipedia last month. Previously, most editions of Wikipedia -- besides the Chinese language version, which was reportedly blocked in 2015 -- were available, OONI said in their report. AFP could not open any of Wikipedia's versions in China on Wednesday. "At the end of the day, the content that really matters is Chinese-language content," said Charlie Smith, the pseudonym of one of the co-founders of Greatfire.org, which tracks online censorship in China. "Blocking access to all language versions of Wikipedia for internet users in China is just symbolic," he told AFP. "It symbolises the fear that the Chinese authorities have of the truth." Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that operates Wikipedia, said it had not received any notices explaining the latest block. According to the organisation, Wikipedia has been blocked intermittently in China since 2004. "With the expansion of this block, millions of readers and volunteer editors, writers, academics, and researchers within China cannot access this resource or share their knowledge and achievements with the world," Samantha Lien, communications manager at Wikimedia Foundation, told AFP over email. "When one country, region, or culture cannot join the global conversation on Wikipedia, the entire world is poorer," she said. China's online censorship apparatus -- dubbed the "Great Firewall" -- blocks a large number of foreign sites in the country, such as Google, Facebook and The New York Times. Topics that are deemed too "sensitive" are also scrubbed, such as the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen pro-democracy protesters which will mark its 30th anniversary on June 4. Story continues The expanded block of Wikipedia comes as Chinese authorities under Chinese President Xi Jinping ramp up online controls and crack down on Great Firewall circumvention tools, such as virtual private network (VPN) software. In November, China's cyberspace authority said it had "cleaned up" 9,800 accounts on Chinese social media platforms like messaging app WeChat and the Twitter-like Weibo that it accused of spreading "politically harmful" information and rumours. Chinese Twitter users have also told AFP that they have experienced intimidation from local authorities -- and even detention -- for their tweets. The latest move to block all versions of Wikipedia could be linked to online translation tools, which make it easy for Chinese users to read anything on Wikipedia, Smith said. Images can also be considered taboo, he said. "A picture is worth a thousand words, and there is no dearth of Tiananmen-related imagery on the Wikipedia website," Smith added. By John Geddie and Fathin Ungku SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The head of operations of the United States Navy said on Wednesday that its freedom of navigation movements in the disputed South China Sea get more attention than they deserve. The U.S. military said two of its warships sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday last week, a move that angered Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world's two biggest economies. "(The operations) get more attention in the media and also have, sometimes from China, than they warrant, to be honest," John Richardson told reporters on the sidelines of a maritime defence conference in Singapore. China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which trillions of dollars worth of ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. In an earlier speech, Richardson said that U.S. naval operations had been consistent over decades and had not risen recently. "I've done the analysis and I can state with confidence that our level of operations has been consistent over the decades," Richardson said, adding that there had been "no spikes recently". Beijing denounced what the United States said was an "innocent passage" near the Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands last week, saying it infringed upon Chinese sovereignty, and "damaged the peace, security and good order of the relevant seas". The U.S. freedom of navigation operations are aimed at challenging what it sees as Chinese activity limiting freedom of movement in the strategic waters. In particular, the United States has criticised China's construction of islands on tiny reefs and shoals and its installation of military facilities on them, including air strips and docks. Richardson told reporters that he's not surprised by China's reaction any more. "They've been, I guess, fairly increasingly consistent in their response to these but if I just got back to first principles...I just want to make sure that the U.S. Navy's approach has been consistent. We haven't done anything increasingly provocative or anything else," Richardson said. (Reporting by John Geddie and Fathin Ungku; Editing by Nick Macfie) Popular Chinese actor Hu Ge, whose suave looks made him the star of small screen imperial dramas, has tapped into a different side of himself for "Wild Goose Lake", a gritty gangster flick competing for the top prize at the Cannes film festival. The Shanghai-born heartthrob plays the male lead in acclaimed Chinese director Diao Yinan's latest film, which follows the noirish vein of his 2014 crime thriller "Black Coal, Thin Ice" which won the Golden Bear at Berlin. Chinese authorities, notorious for strict censorship, appear to have officially approved the movie's premiere at Cannes on Saturday. Hu will be testing his acting chops against Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio who star in Quentin Tarantino's new film, which is also in the running for the Palme d'Or. The dark role is dramatically different to the wholesome heroes Hu usually plays. Starring as a biker gang leader in "Wild Goose Lake", Hu's character is his first lead role on the big screen following a stellar career in television. A string of hits has made him one of the highest-paid male actors on Chinese TV, commanding fees of around 100 million yuan ($14.7 million, 13 million euros), Hong Kong news site HK01 reported last year. The new movie marks his return to the limelight after a hiatus to study in the US. Hu, 36, shot to fame in mainland China for his leading roles in wildly popular period series starting with the historical martial arts drama "Chinese Paladin" in 2005. - 'I want to be a bad guy' - But his meteoric rise was derailed by a tragic car accident the following year that killed his assistant and left him with severe injuries. The actor was left requiring reconstructive surgery, according to reports. In 2015, he starred in "Nirvana in Fire", a TV adaptation of a Chinese online novel, which earned numerous awards and enjoyed wide commercial success in China. State-owned tabloid Global Times even proclaimed that the show had restored people's confidence in period dramas. Story continues The actor eventually caught the eye of Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani and in 2017 became the face of clothing brand Emporio Armani in China and Asia. He epitomises "the modern urban man combined with an elegant and dynamic look", the designer was quoted as saying by luxury fashion website Men's Folio. Hu also shot ads for a Swiss jeweller. All too aware of his pristine public persona, the actor and style icon revealed his desire to rebel against what has endeared him to so many fans. "I really want to act a bad guy or even a villain," he said last year. "Since I have always played roles with nearly perfect personalities, I wonder if I could step into other ranges of characters, and somewhat subvert the stereotyped image on screen," he said. Photo: Amy V./Yelp The Denver City Council held their latest meeting on Monday evening and passed several items affecting West Denver. If you missed the action, you can find full meeting agendas, minutes, and videos here. Looking at the development of Re-Imagine Play at Paco Sanchez Park in West Denver, the council approved $259,726 in additional funding and a new end date of Dec. 30, 2020 for Phase II of the projects construction, including facilities and recreational space around the playground. The council also approved a $3.3 million contract with Insituform Technologies LLC for a one year rehabilitation of sewer mains with structural deterioration problems in Council Districts 3, 7, 9 and 10, including much of West Denver. In housing news, the council adopted an intergovernmental agreement with the Housing Authority of the City and County of Denver, to provide assistance to low-income homeowners participating in the West Denver Single Family Plus program in Council Districts 3, 7, and 9. The program will provide soft second mortgages for the construction of accessory dwelling units, to serve as an income-generation and anti-displacement tool. On a similar theme, the council adopted a resolution to accept a $629,750 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide rental assistance to individuals experiencing homelessness through the Continuum of Care Bedrock program, citywide. Besides the regular city council meeting, there was also a meeting yesterday of the Special Issues Marijuana Committee. The session included a briefing on cannabis social consumption special event permitting from the Department of Excise & License, a state legislative update by the Marijuana Industry Group, and a briefing on HB19-1230 a bill before the Colorado General Assembly concerning marijuana hospitality establishments and its impacts to Denver, by a representative of the City Attorneys Office. If you missed the details, the video is available here. And if you missed last weeks City Council meeting on May 6, the council adopted several other citywide initiatives relevant to West Denver. The council adopted a resolution amending a contract with The Salvation Army to provide additional outreach services to the homeless. The agreement adds $189,000 for a new total of $551,762 and extends the contract until the end of 2019, to provide additional after-hours programming and other services in collaboration with the Denver Street Outreach Collaborative (DSOC) and Denvers Road Home. The council also approved a proposed Memorandum of Agreement between the City and County of Denver and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. for in-kind technical assistance to implement climate programs and policies around transportation, electric vehicles and building codes. Also benefiting residents throughout the city, the council passed a bill establishing a new Public Art Contributions Capital Fund for expenditures related to planning, design and construction of existing or new public art, citywide. Jason Reed/Reuters In 1992, the Supreme Court looked poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case protecting abortion rights. They didnt, however, and the main reason was respect for precedentspecifically, the legal doctrine known as stare decisis, or let the decision stand. Would it do the same today, with over 250 laws meant to test the case pending in states across the country? An otherwise obscure case decided this week, Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, suggests that a majority of the court would not. Hyatt was, in large part, about stare decisis. A 1979 Supreme Court case, Nevada v. Hall, held that citizens can sue a state in another states court. In 1998, Gilbert Hyatt did just that as part of a tax dispute, with tens of millions of dollars at stake. This week, the court overruled its 1979 decision by a vote of 5-4 and tossed out Hyatts claim. The split was on ideological lines, with the courts five conservatives in the majority and four liberals in the minority. Of the 18 pages in the majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, 17 are about the legal question in the case, which revolves around states rights, sovereign immunity, and the Constitution. Its no surprise that Justice Thomas, in particular, wrote this opinion, as states rights have been a focus of his for three decades. What was surprising is that stare decisis warranted only 318 words in Justice Thomas opinion, almost like an afterthought, and that Justice Thomas summarily waved away this important judicial doctrine. If this is how the courts conservatives treat sovereign immunity, how will they treat abortion rights? Thats what Justice Stephen Breyer asked in his dissent. Unlike the majority opinion, Justice Breyers dissent devoted over a quarter of its space to stare decisis. And he concluded, todays decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next. Its not hard to guess which cases Justice Breyer was wondering about. Because the same logic applied in Hyatt would overturn not only Roe v. Wade but also the courts precedent on same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges. Story continues How? Lets look at Justice Thomas reasoning. First, Justice Thomas notes that stare decisis is not an inexorable command and is at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment. Now, some would say that stare decisis is at its strongest when fundamental constitutional rights are at issue. But for Justice Thomas, in cases like Roe and Obergefell, stare decisis is at its weakest. Thomas then goes on to apply a version of the usual stare decisis test, taking into account the quality of the decisions reasoning; its consistency with related decisions; legal developments since the decision; and reliance on the decision. The first prong is the most important. Here, Thomas finds that the 1979 precedent failed to account for the historical understanding of state sovereign immunity. But thats not the same as the decisions being of poor qualityits an imposition of Justice Thomas specific, historically oriented originalism philosophy. There are, after all, many ways to evaluate the quality of a decisions reading: its principled analysis of the rights in question, its integration of constitutional norms with contemporary reality, and so on. Here, however Justice Thomas glosses over that jurisprudential debate and simply concludes that a Supreme Court precedent was badly arguedaccording to his standards. This is the central question in cases like Roe and Obergefell. No one denies that abortion was banned for much of our countrys history, and that same-sex marriage would have been anathema to the Founders of the republic. The debate is over whether history gets a vote or a veto. Heartbeat Abortion Bills Were Once a Fringe Idea. Could They Overturn Roe v. Wade? If this same standard is applied to Roe and Obergefell, they would go down in flames. The fourth prong is also critical. People depend on the law being stable. Hyatt, for example, filed his suit exactly as the law provided. Now, the rug is pulled out from under him, and all Justice Thomas says is that we acknowledge that some plaintiffs, such as Hyatt, have relied on Hall by suing sovereign States. Because of our decision to overrule Hall, Hyatt unfortunately will suffer the loss of two decades of litigation expenses and a final judgment against the Board for its egregious conduct. Unfortunately! Now multiply Hyatts misfortune a millionfold. As Justice Breyer wrote, overturning Supreme Court precedents except in the rarest of cases is to cause the public to become increasingly uncertain about which cases the Court will overrule and which cases are here to stay. Arguably, many more people rely on Roe and Obergefell than on Hall, and so the reliance prong would be more important in challenges to those cases. But that cuts both ways. For every woman seeking an abortion, there is someone who believes that abortion is murder. In at least a dozen states, a majority of democratically elected legislators are trying to ban or severely limit the practice. Just last week, Georgia became the fourth state this year (joining Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio) to ban abortions after only six weeks of pregnancy, in a direct frontal challenge to Roe. And, a future conservative justice might point out, women seeking abortions could simply travel to other states if need be (if, of course, they can afford it). Because Justice Thomas so readily dismisses the reliance claim in Hyatt, its easy to see him doing the same in Roe. Likewise in Obergefell. For 12 years, we lived in a country in which same-sex marriage was legal in some states and illegal in others; is a return to such a world truly untenable? Anyway, unless marriages like mine were retroactively invalidated, who is really relying on same-sex marriage being legal? Prospective couples could, like victims of rape or incest, simply relocate to a state more favorable to their interests. In short, Justice Thomas theory of stare decisis is like a roadmap for how to overrule decisions one disagrees with. First, frame the disagreement as one over quality rather than principle. Second, trivialize the ways in which people rely on the law as it stands. And third, with the stroke of a pen, wipe out constitutional rights that people like me mistakenly think we possess. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Cloudera, Inc. (NYSE:CLDR), which is in the software business, and is based in United States, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the NYSE over the last few months, increasing to $15.15 at one point, and dropping to the lows of $10. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Cloudera's current trading price of $10 reflective of the actual value of the mid-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Clouderas outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! View our latest analysis for Cloudera What is Cloudera worth? Great news for investors Cloudera is still trading at a fairly cheap price. According to my valuation, the intrinsic value for the stock is $15.67, which is above what the market is valuing the company at the moment. This indicates a potential opportunity to buy low. Although, there may be another chance to buy again in the future. This is because Clouderas beta (a measure of share price volatility) is high, meaning its price movements will be exaggerated relative to the rest of the market. If the market is bearish, the company's shares will likely fall by more than the rest of the market, providing a prime buying opportunity. What does the future of Cloudera look like? NYSE:CLDR Past and Future Earnings, May 15th 2019 Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. However, with a negative profit growth of -6.5% expected over the next couple of years, near-term growth certainly doesnt appear to be a driver for a buy decision for Cloudera. This certainty tips the risk-return scale towards higher risk. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Although CLDR is currently undervalued, the negative outlook does bring on some uncertainty, which equates to higher risk. Consider whether you want to increase your portfolio exposure to CLDR, or whether diversifying into another stock may be a better move for your total risk and return. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on CLDR for a while, but hesitant on making the leap, I recommend you dig deeper into the stock. Given its current undervaluation, now is a great time to make a decision. But keep in mind the risks that come with negative growth prospects in the future. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Cloudera. You can find everything you need to know about Cloudera in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Cloudera, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's attorney general said on Wednesday he resigned in protest after a special court charged with prosecuting war crimes denied a U.S. extradition request for a former FARC leader accused of drug trafficking. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal prosecutes leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, who demobilized under a 2016 peace deal, as well as military officials for crimes committed during the country's five-decade internal conflict. The JEP earlier on Wednesday ordered the release of Seuxis Paucias Hernandez, better known by his war alias Jesus Santrich, saying evidence provided by prosecutors did not allow the court to evaluate whether or when he allegedly conspired to move cocaine to the United States. Because the JEP has jurisdiction over all crimes which took place during the war, Hernandez's extradition can only go ahead if the alleged crime took place after the accord, placing it within the remit of the regular justice system. Hernandez was indicted over a year ago by a U.S. grand jury for conspiracy to export 10 tonnes of cocaine, worth $320 million in street value. "This challenge to judicial order will not be endorsed by the undersigned. My conscience and my devotion to the rule of law prohibit it," Attorney General Nelson Humberto Martinez told journalists. "For that reason I have presented my irrevocable resignation," he added. Martinez, who has been beset by questions over his connections to the Latin America-wide Odebrecht corruption scandal, took office in 2016 and was meant to serve until 2020. He has denied any misconduct and recused himself from the investigation into Odebrecht. The U.S. Embassy in Bogota said it had no immediate comment. Separately, the FARC's political party on Wednesday accused the far right of assassinating its members, but pledged to continue reintegration. The party, which kept its famous initials but changed its name to the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force, came a day after the shooting death of Jorge Enrique Corredor, the highest ranking ex-guerrilla to be killed since the deal. "We won't hesitate to point the finger at right-wing and paramilitary sectors closely linked to state security agencies, who are behind these murders," FARC senator Pablo Catatumbo told reporters. At least 139 former FARC rebels have been killed since the peace deal, under which some 13,000 members of the rebel group, including more than 6,000 combatants, demobilized. The FARC has repeatedly raised concerns that members may be assassinated by right-wing gangs or drug traffickers, in an echo of thousands of targeted killings in the 1980s. (Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta, Julia Symmes Cobb and Helen Murphy; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Phil Berlowitz) By Steve Holland HACKBERRY, La., May 14 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump came to southern Louisiana on Tuesday to extol the benefits of U.S. energy production but could not resist a slashing critique of the Democrats battling to face him in the 2020 presidential race. "I'm looking at the competition. You sort of dream about competition like that, you know?" he told several hundred workers at the Cameron liquefied natural gas export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Trump's review of the candidacies of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, former congressman Beto O'Rourke and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders showed he was keeping a keen eye on the crowded Democratic presidential contest. After talking up the benefits of LNG exports, Trump dove into his assessment of Democratic presidential contenders, who are eager to deny him a second term and have bashed his presidency on the campaign trail. He drew out the pronunciation of Buttigieg's surname, which the candidate pronounces as "Boot-edge-edge," and noted O'Rourke's bid to relaunch his campaign after his initial outing fizzled with voters. "Beto is falling fast. What the hell happened? Remember, about four weeks ago, he said: 'I was made for this.' He was made for it. He was made to fall like a rock," said Trump. Then he turned to Biden, the front-runner in the Democratic field that now numbers more than 20. "I don't know what the hell happened to Biden. What happened to him? I'm looking and I said: 'That doesnt look like the guy I knew.' What happened to him?" asked Trump. Trump, who has in the past dubbed Sanders "Crazy Bernie," returned to that theme on Tuesday, saying: "You know, Bernie is crazy." But he added: "Bernie has got a lot more energy than Biden, so you never know." Trump, with an approval rating in the low 40 percent range, is no shoe-in for re-election. He has a strong economy on which to campaign, but his divisive policies on issues such as immigration as well as his trade war with China and struggles with Iran, North Korea and Venezuela could prove serious obstacles. Story continues But he expressed confidence in his chances. "Boy, you got some beauties there. Three hundred and fifty million people and that's the best we can do. I don't think so. Even as Democrats, I could pick better than that," he said. Trump later traveled to the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, for a campaign fundraiser. The event, attended by 225 people, raised $4 million for his campaign and the Republican National Committee. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney) By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bill passed by Alabama legislators that would outlaw nearly all abortions in the state is the strictest such measure in the United States. If signed into law, it will face legal challenges and put the focus on the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court, the final stop on all roads in the fight over abortion. Alabama's law would outlaw almost all abortions, including in cases of pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Exceptions would only be allowed to protect the mother's health. Doctors who perform abortions could face up to 99 years in prison. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Wednesday was mulling whether to sign the law, part of an accelerating effort by some states and anti-abortion activists to get the Supreme Court to reconsider its landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade holding that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion. If Ivey signs the bill, it would take effect in six months. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. RIGHT TO ABORTION Roe v. Wade held that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment provides a fundamental right to privacy that protects a woman's right to abortion. The high court reaffirmed abortion rights in a 1992 decision that said abortion restrictions cannot place an "undue burden" on the right and most recently in 2016, when the court threw out a Texas law that would have imposed difficult-to-meet requirements on abortion clinics and abortion doctors. The retirement last year of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who co-authored the 1992 decision and joined the 2016 one, has given conservatives a new opening to challenge Roe. Kennedy was replaced by President Donald Trump's conservative appointee Brett Kavanaugh, who has a thin record on abortion. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority. ROAD TO SUPREME COURT Before reaching the Supreme Court, the Alabama law would need to be challenged in federal district court. The judge's decision would be appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 11th Circuit is currently split 6-6 between Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges. Trump has made three recent appointments to that court. Both those courts are bound to follow existing Supreme Court precedent. Only after those two rulings, which could take more than a year, would an appeal reach the high court. There is a chance that the justices could be asked to intervene at an earlier stage if one of the parties files an emergency application seeking immediate review of a lower court decision. The court could, for example, stay a lower court ruling, but would not rule on the merits of the case at that point. PENDING CASES There are other cases already pending at the high court that could give the conservative majority the opportunity to weaken Roe v. Wade. As soon as Monday, the court could act on two appeals concerning abortion restrictions in Indiana. One requires fetal remains to be buried or cremated and bans abortions performed because of fetal disability or the sex or race of the fetus. The other requires women to undergo an ultrasound examination at least 18 hours before they undergo an abortion. Both provisions have been struck down by lower courts. Another pending case concerns a separate Alabama law that would effectively ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law criminalized an abortion method called dilation and evacuation, sometimes called D&E, in which the woman's cervix is dilated and the contents of the uterus are removed. The Supreme Court later this year is also set to act on a bid by Louisiana to revive restrictions on doctors who perform abortions, requiring that they have hospital admitting privileges. HOW WOULD ROE BE OVERTURNED? The Supreme Court could overturn Roe if it decides that the principle known as stare decisis, whereby the court traditionally stands by its older decisions, does not hold sway. The legal doctrine protects the court's credibility by avoiding politicization and keeps the law evenhanded. However, the court can overrule its prior precedents if a majority of justices believe such action is warranted, in part because they believe the precedent had been wrongly decided. On Monday, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer dissented when the court overturned a 1979 precedent in an unrelated case and in doing so cited the 1992 abortion ruling that upheld Roe. "Todays decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the court will overrule next," he wrote. OTHER STATE LAWS Other conservative states have passed laws that will also face legal challenges. Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi, and Georgia this year passed bills that would ban abortions after six weeks. In January, a federal judge struck down a similar Iowa law. States have also passed laws similar to Alabama's that ban dilation and evacuation abortions. Abortion rights activists have said it is the most common method of abortion during the second trimester of a pregnancy. North Dakota in April became the 12th state to enact a D&E ban. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; editing by Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Jonathan Oatis) Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Every investor in King's Flair International (Holdings) Limited (HKG:6822) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Insiders often own a large chunk of younger, smaller, companies while huge companies tend to have institutions as shareholders. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.' King's Flair International (Holdings) is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of HK$1.0b, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions are not on the share registry. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about 6822. View our latest analysis for King's Flair International (Holdings) SEHK:6822 Ownership Summary, May 14th 2019 What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About King's Flair International (Holdings)? Institutional investors often avoid companies that are too small, too illiquid or too risky for their tastes. But it's unusual to see larger companies without any institutional investors. There are multiple explanations for why institutions don't own a stock. The most common is that the company is too small relative to fund under management, so the institition does not bother to look closely at the company. Alternatively, there might be something about the company that has kept institutional investors away. King's Flair International (Holdings) might not have the sort of past performance institutions are looking for, or perhaps they simply have not studied the business closely. SEHK:6822 Income Statement, May 14th 2019 King's Flair International (Holdings) is not owned by hedge funds. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known. Story continues Insider Ownership Of King's Flair International (Holdings) While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. Our information suggests that insiders own more than half of King's Flair International (Holdings) Limited. This gives them effective control of the company. That means they own HK$613m worth of shares in the HK$1.0b company. That's quite meaningful. Most would be pleased to see the board is investing alongside them. You may wish todiscover (for free) if they have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership The general public, with a 25% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 15%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. Next Steps: While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph. If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. 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. HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) The U.S. government is providing long-distance video counseling to teens housed at the country's largest child migrant detention center as officials struggle to accommodate increasing numbers of minors illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Some mental health experts and human rights advocates say that's the wrong way to help refugees coping with trauma after a perilous journey and while being held away from their families. A private company contracted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to run the center in Homestead is piloting the program and has hired clinical counselors and case managers in Texas, about 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers) away. Counselors are often the first to hear reports of rapes or beatings that children suffered either in their home countries or at the hands of gangs as they journeyed north from impoverished villages in Guatemala's western highlands, Honduras or El Salvador. Some teenage girls have arrived at the facility pregnant. "Migrant children already find it extremely hard to communicate their feelings and trust professionals," said Martha Vallejo, a clinical social worker in Miami who has counseled minors after their release from migrant detention centers. "How can they feel at ease talking to someone behind a screen?" Case managers are also using video conferencing to talk with children and their relatives before the minors are released from custody. One of Homestead's residents, a 17-year-old Guatemalan boy who learned shortly after arriving in the U.S. that he had tuberculosis, told Amnesty International researcher Brian Griffey that is how he communicated with his case manager. Elena Reyes, director of Florida State University's Center for Child Stress & Health, acknowledged that long-distance counseling is increasingly being used in remote locations where there aren't enough providers. But she said it was hard to imagine that there isn't a larger pool of bilingual applicants who could provide in-person counseling at the Homestead facility, located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Miami. Story continues Comprehensive Health Services, the government contractor, said it was enlisting counselors and case managers in Texas to work remotely with the clients because they have not gotten enough applicants from the Miami area. The contractor holds frequent job fairs, said Health and Human Services' spokesman Mark Weber. The head of a local nonprofit organization, which is part of a national network of child trauma professionals, said the company had not contacted them. Claudia Kitchens, Kristi House's director, said the group already sends specialists to two smaller child migrant shelters in the area. It has an office 3 miles (5 kilometers) away from the facility. Providing services through teleconferencing is not completely new: The federal government previously had used it to conduct court hearings for migrant teens. Telehealth counseling has also been expanded to treat active-duty soldiers or veterans dealing with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. But the Homestead facility is the only one of 168 child migrant facilities nationwide using it for counseling. Homestead has the country's largest child migrant facility in the nation, with 2,200 minors, and officials say capacity may grow to 3,200. A 1997 court agreement setting conditions for the detention of minors generally bars the government from keeping them for more than 20 days. But some children have told lawyers and congressional delegations they have been held there for months. Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has jailed more than 100 of those teenagers who turned 18 while being held at the center. The government recently awarded Comprehensive Health Services $341 million to expand the Florida center in a no-bid contract. The company was bought last year by Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm DC Capital Partners, which consolidated four companies to form the conglomerate Caliburn International. The conglomerate recently added former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to its board of directors. Democratic U.S. representatives from Florida have asked a government watchdog agency to investigate the contract. House members have said children at the facility are kept in "prison-like" conditions. They are allowed 10-minute phone calls to family members twice a week. Some of the minors have said they are unhappy about being prohibited from hugging or touching one another, lawyers who met with them told The Associated Press. Employing a remote method of counseling is yet another affront, migrant advocates said. "A lot of the children we spoke to had not even seen a cellphone," said J.J. Mulligan, an attorney with the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California, Davis, who has visited the facility. "Asking them to share the most intimate traumas with a stranger over a computer screen seems completely tone-deaf and incapable of offering the mental health they desperately need." Democratic Florida U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch said he was concerned that the government already had increased the number of children each counselor treats: now 20 instead of the previous 12. "The question is whether you can use technology to meet the ratios," Deutch said. "The most important thing is, are these kids taken care of the way they need to be?" RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) Tens of thousands joined in demonstrations across Brazil on Wednesday to protest big cuts in federal funding for public education, the first nationwide rallies organized against far-right President Jair Bolsonaro since he took office Jan. 1. Avenues and public squares in Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Recife were jammed as students and teachers marched against the decision to pare $1.85 billion from funds for the public education network, from elementary schools to universities. Speaking during a visit to Dallas, Texas, Bolsonaro dismissed the protests, calling student demonstrators "useful idiots" who have "nothing in their heads" and are being manipulated by "a sly minority" in federal universities. Education experts, professors and students say they are particularly worried about the government freezing 30% of the discretionary budgets at all federal universities, money that goes to pay such things as utility bills, security, cleaning and maintenance work. Nilton Brandao, president of one of Brazil's largest teacher unions in higher education, said the second semester at universities, which in Brazil run August-September, will be compromised due to the lack of financing. Brandao said that if the decision is not reversed, universities may not be able to open. Brandao said the new government should be following the previous administration's 10-year education roadmap that was implemented in 2014. "We (in Brazil) approved a national education plan, with clear objectives to meet. It's a project that has been approved and that is still in vigor," he told The Associated Press. "The government is ignoring this plan. They don't want to discuss education." Since the early stages of his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro has repeatedly vowed to improve Brazil's underperforming education system, mostly by ousting what he considers a deeply engrained "Marxist ideology" and by increasing security in violent schools. After assuming the presidency, Once in the presidential office, Bolsonaro spoke of plans to revise school textbooks to excise references to feminism, homosexuality and violence against women. Story continues On Wednesday, Bolsonaro said he wished he didn't have to implement the cuts but that he was legally obligated to do so as they are part of a wider effort to slash all government spending. "There is no way around it, we need the (cuts)," he said. In Brazil's biggest city, thousands of protesters chanted "Bolsonaro, the youth are not afraid!" as they overflowed Paulista Avenue by the Sao Paulo Museum of Art. Carolina Ponce, a 20-year architecture student, said Brazilians are feeling "anger and frustration" over Bolsonaro's "attack" on education. "Many smart and prepared people are out of work because of the cuts. This government reduces investment because it wants to end the critical thinking of the population," she said. There were confrontations in Rio de Janeiro toward the end of the protest there, but violent activists were quickly driven off by police using tear gas. A bus was set on fire in the city center but it was not immediately clear who was responsible. In Brasilia, the capital, thousands of protesters carried banners down the Esplanade of Ministers past the lower house of congress, where Education minister Abraham Weintraub had been summoned to testify about the budget cuts. Weintraub told lawmakers during a heated, nearly four-hour debate that the government is not responsible for the "disaster" in education, which it inherited from previous administrations. He added that the Education Ministry had been affected to a lesser extent than other government areas such as defense and infrastructure. "Management is why I am here; it is my specialty," said Weintraub, an economist. He reiterated his and Bolsonaro's previous criticisms of Brazil's academic research, especially in social and human sciences and linguistics, which he said did not have any significant impact in international academia. Last month, Bolsonaro tweeted that funding for sociology and philosophy studies could be eliminated. In the latest budget cuts, scholarships for master's and doctorate research were suspended. The scholarships "are precisely in the areas that do not generate enough scientific production," Weintraub said. "Who does not produce does not receive." Lawmaker Alessandro Molon, from the Brazilian Socialist Party, said that if the government is not stopped, it will cause "great evil" in the Brazilian education system. "The last governments, several, of various different ideological positions, had a clear consensus: education is the way out Brazil. This government seems to want to destroy everything, including this consensus," Molon said. ___ Associated Press writer Diane Jeantet reported this story from Rio de Janeiro and AP writer Marcelo Silva da Sousa reported in Sao Paulo. London-based financial services firm Mode has announced its first product a crypto-backed lending platform for businesses will launch later this month. The company is aiming to become the UKs first fully-regulated digital-asset bank as it works on building an ecosystem of products and services designed to bridge the gap between digital and traditional finance. The service is aimed at companies which hold Bitcoin and Ethereum whether through direct purchase, investment, or as payment from clients. Terms of up to 90 days are offered, with further extensions possible which can be repaid at any time without incurring fees. Mode is a subsidiary of fintech group R8 an umbrella organisation over Mode and sister company JGOO, which is a mobile payments platform providing brands with direct access to the emerging Chinese market and connects UK brands to Chinese shoppers and tourists. R8 was divested out of the Redwood Bank Group two years ago after being launched by Jonathan Rowland, also the co-founder of Redwood Bank. Mode is currently under the stewardship of CEO Alex Ryvkin (pictured) who expressed his determination to offer a business-first service. Demanding solutions Holders of both traditional and digital assets are demanding solutions that mix the best of both old and new finance, he said. This is where Mode enters the equation, and we trust that our approach will enable us to create a reliable environment that makes lending, investing, and borrowing safer for everyone. Today, most crypto-backed lending solutions in the market are created with retail customers in mind this is why we chose to design a product that catered to the needs of companies in the ecosystem, ensuring they have equal access to the capital that will help them successfully grow their business and further advance the tokenised economy. The post Crypto lending platform for business launches this month appeared first on Coin Rivet. New York (AFP) - Peopled by sometimes-awkward geeks making physics references, "The Big Bang Theory," whose finale episode airs Thursday, seemed destined at first to appeal to a niche audience. But as the show reaches its conclusion, it has become one of the most-watched series in the world. Focused on whether characters Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah-Fowler will win the Nobel prize, the show is going out on top as it wraps up its 12th and final season. The show, which airs on US network CBS, has carved its place at the top of American television, with more than 12 million live viewers for much of the most-recent season (17 million when including delayed watchers) -- similar levels to "Game of Thrones." According to research firm Parrot, "Big Bang" was one of the five most popular shows in the world last year, a streak CBS would have been happy to continue -- were it not for Sheldon actor Jim Parsons having announced he would leave the show after the 12th season. For producer and writer Stephen Engel, who worked on it at the beginning of its run, "Big Bang" owes much of its success to the annoying-but-loveable character. "It was a serendipitous blending of a character and an actor that was just magic," he told AFP. Depicting a brilliant scientist who is socially clueless, Sheldon's portrayal was "just a perfect marriage of point of view, jokes, voice and actor that made that character jump off the screen," Engel said. - Rise of geek culture - But Sheldon's charm alone can't explain how a series that wasn't critically acclaimed or even breaking into the top 50 most-popular at the end of its first season went on to run longer than American sitcom classics like "Friends," "The Cosby Show" and "Seinfeld." According to conventional wisdom, it was "The Big Bang Theory"'s depiction of characters like Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj as proud geeks -- obsessed with TV series, video games and obscure sub-genre interests -- that allowed for its longevity. Story continues Long associated with niche interests, geek, or nerd, culture has made its way into the mainstream, thanks to sagas like "The Lord of the Rings," "Star Wars," "Game of Thrones" and others, meaning there was a growing audience that could feel an affinity with "The Big Bang Theory"'s characters. "There was a tendency in the wake of 'Friends' to just to put as many good looking people in a room as possible and just hope people would look at them and just want to watch the show. 'Big Bang Theory' just decided because they were nerds, we can get the funniest actors we can find," Engel said. "They don't have to be handsome." - The end of the sitcom? - Though "The Big Bang Theory" differs from most shows in its popularity and subject matter, the series still relies on a variety of tried-and-true sitcom conventions: the episodes, shot on multiple cameras, are made up of a series of punchlines interspersed by a laugh track, some of it edited in later (the show is filmed in front of a studio audience). The end of the series, which coincides with the end of ABC's "Modern Family," which will finish with its 11th season next year, marks the end of an era for the genre. Sitcoms on traditional networks, such as "Big Bang" spin-off "Young Sheldon," and "Mom," also the work of "Big Bang" creator Chuck Lorre, just don't bring in the same audience numbers. And Netflix has tried its hand at the format, with "Fuller House" and "One Day at a Time," though neither will be returning after the end of the year. By 2020, the classic sitcom will be absent from nearly every major streaming platform, including Amazon and Hulu. "I've lived in many periods in this business where people have said: the sitcom is dying," said Stan Zimmerman, who worked on "Roseanne" as a producer and writer. "And then it somehow comes roaring back." Coupled with the decline of the traditional sitcom, the fragmentation of audiences means there is concern that universal series, capable of capturing the attention of large swaths of the public, like "The Big Bang Theory" or even "Game of Thrones" was able to do, is gone. "I think it's wonderful that we are being so diverse in the programming and the voices that we are hearing and we just need to have more of that," said Zimmerman, who is working on a show called "Silver Foxes," a comedy centered on aging gay men. But he says he wouldn't count out water-cooler series just yet. "There's still room for a big, general-audience show that everybody could sit and watch and laugh and talk about the next day at work," he said. "There's room for everything now." Photo: Vincent Keiman/Unsplash Looking to get out into the community this week? From a barbecue to a book club, there's plenty to do when it comes to community and cultural events coming up in Dallas this week. Read on for a rundown. 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. Juneteenth Unity Barbeque From the event description: Dallas Southern Pride and United Black Ellument presents the Junetheenth Unity Barbeque. This is a completely free event. Drink and food while supplies last. When: Tuesday, May 14, 7-10 p.m. Where: Bachman Lake Park, 3500 W. Northwest Highway Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Urban Engagement Book Club: 'Man's Search for Meaning' From the event description: Presented by the CitySquare's External Affairs Department, Urban Engagement aims to increase public awareness on issues related to our work and the conditions of those we serve, in order to foster dialogue and ongoing community awareness of key issues. What kind of book club is the Urban Engagement Book Club? A different kind of book club! You dont have to read the book! Join us as Randy Mayeux presents the key content of the selected book each month, with a comprehensive handout of key quotes and key ideas from the book. Then, in conversation with a diverse group of fellow participants, we discuss the implications of the book out of our shared concern for social justice. When: Thursday, May 16, noon-1:30 p.m. Where: CitySquare's Opportunity Center, Bldg #200, 1610 S. Malcolm X Blvd. Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Forum with Dallas Mayoral Runoff Candidates From the event description: In a city where your neighborhood often predicts your wealth and health, the Anti-Poverty Coalition of Greater Dallas (APC) and the League of Women Voters of Dallas County (LWV) want to make sure that increasing opportunities and prosperity for all residents is a priority for the next Dallas mayor. In partnership with the LWV, APC is hosting a candidate forum with the two mayoral runoff candidates that is focused on discussing the real issues facing hard-working Dallas families. Story continues When: Thursday, May 16, 6:30-7:45 p.m. Where: Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, 5144 Dolphin Road Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Salon Series: Texas or Bust From the event description: For the sixth Salon at The Adolphus, two writers describe various views of the Texan landscape, both architectural and quotidian, a major theme within the collection of the French Room Salon's art collection. Mark Lamster, Dallas Morning News architecture critic and author of "The Man in the Glass House," will read and discuss a selection from the book. Dallas native, novelist and essayist, David Searcy, will read from and expound upon "Shame and Wonder," his collection of essays on memory, science and daily Texan life. When: Thursday, May 16, 7-9 p.m. Where: The French Room, 1321 Commerce St. Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. By Robert Mitchell LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Daniel Craig is expected to return to shooting the latest James Bond film "within the week" after suffering an injury during a stunt, it has been reported. According to British newspaper The Sun, which broke the story of Craig's ankle injury suffered on set in Jamaica last week, which caused a temporary halt to production, the actor will be able to resume production while being careful not to aggravate the injury. The newspaper cited an unnamed source as saying Craig's injury was not as bad as initially feared. "Things were deemed to be a disaster at first," the source said. "But the injury is not as severe as believed, and he will be able to film while not over-exerting his ankle. He will be back on set within the week." The Bond star suffered the injury after slipping while sprinting during filming towards the end of the production's shoot in Jamaica, where official photography began in late April. The news would be a relief to Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, as any production delay would have been a further setback for "Bond 25" after original director Danny Boyle's exit over creative differences led to the film's release being delayed nearly six months from October 2019 to April 2020. "Bond 25" is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and co-stars Oscar-winner Rami Malek, Ana De Armas, Lashana Lynch, David Dencik, Billy Magnussen, Dali Benssalah, Lea Seydoux, Jeffrey Wright, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Naomi Harris, and Ralph Fiennes. As well as Jamaica, the film is set to shoot in locations including London, Italy and Norway. The film is scheduled for release in the U.K. through Universal on April 3, 2020, and in the U.S. through United Artists Releasing on April 8, 2020. By Amanda Becker May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Kamala Harris said during a presidential campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday that she disagreed with former Vice President Joe Biden, who said a day earlier that his Senate vote for a 1994 crime bill did not contribute to mass incarceration. Harris, who previously served as the top prosecutor for San Francisco and then for California, said at a town hall that she has a "great deal of respect" for Biden but disagreed with him on this issue. "That 1994 crime bill, it did contribute to mass incarceration in our country. It encouraged and was the first time that we had a federal three strikes law. It funded the building of more prisons in the states. And so I disagree, sadly," Harris told reporters. Biden was in New Hampshire earlier this week on his first swing through the early-voting state since he entered the field of more than 20 Democrats vying for the 2020 presidential nomination. During a Tuesday stop, Biden said: "This idea that the crime bill created mass incarceration, it did not create mass incarceration." He conceded that the 1994 crime bill was not perfect, especially as it related to harsher sentences for crack versus powder cocaine, which disproportionately sent minorities to prison. The 1994 crime bill, which was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton, resurfaces frequently in Democratic politics as sentiments shift on how to best address crime. The bill included $9 billion for the construction of federal prisons. It also included a "three strikes" provision, which required a mandatory life sentence for a person guilty of committing a severe, violent felony after two previous convictions. Independent assessments have show it is difficult to isolate the bill's impact. Crime rates in the United States had started to decline during the 1970s and continued to decline after the bill's passage. Prison populations started to grow in the 1970s and continued to do so after the bill's passage. Story continues According to the nonpartisan Marshall Project, which tracks criminal justice issues: "The crime bill did not inaugurate the era of mass incarceration, but it certainly escalated the scale of its impact." Harris, who trails Biden in polls, has faced criticism of her own for criminal justice decisions she made as a state prosecutor, including defending California's three strikes law in the state's highest court and opposing a ballot measure to amend it, though she acknowledged it had flaws. (Reporting by Amanda Becker Editing by Leslie Adler) A cargo ship in Dublin Port. Photo: PA In a sign that Brexit worries arent weighing too heavily, Irelands exports to Great Britain increased by 12% in March to 1.25bn (1.1bn) compared to the same month last year. Irelands statistics agency said on Wednesday that the boost primarily came from increases in exports of mineral fuels, lubricants, and related materials. Exports to Great Britain accounted for 11% of total exports. Meanwhile, imports from Great Britain also increased by 9%, to 1.71bn, in March. Imports of machinery and transport equipment, manufactured goods, and food and live animals were the primary drivers of the increase. Trade with Northern Ireland, which is broken out in the data separately, also climbed, with both imports and exports rising by 9%. While the UK is Irelands largest trading partner, 50% of all exports in March went to the EU, with 1.2bn going to Belgium and 822m going to the Netherlands. Some 28% of total exports went to the US. In general, exports from Ireland jumped by nearly 440m compared to March 2018, reflecting a general trend seen in the first quarter. The data comes a day after Unites general secretary Len McCluskey said in Dublin that Brexit had been bungled and had already been hugely damaging to Irelands economy. We know the impact this bungled Brexit has had on the economy across all parts of Ireland. The last two years of Tory Brexit chaos have been hugely detrimental to Northern Irelands economy in particular, he said. On the same day the death toll from a floatplane collision in southeast Alaska rose to six people, federal investigators launched what's expected to be a week-long investigation in the popular tourist area. The U.S. Coast Guard announced search crews found the bodies of two missing people on Tuesday night, hours after the National Transportation Safety Board arrived to figure out how a sightseeing excursion into Misty Fjords National Monument ended in tragedy. Investigators will gather evidence in the coming days, NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy said at a press conference, but will not determine the cause of the crash while in Ketchikan. Teams will request and analyze the routes of each plane, the training and qualifications of each pilot and Federal Aviation Administration oversight of the operators. The safety board also plans to interview the surviving pilot and recover wreckage. Neither plane had cockpit voice recorders installed, Homendy said, and regulations did not require them to do so. Two pilots guided a collective 14 passengers from the same cruise ship on tours. Here's what we know so far: Where did the planes collide? The planes crashed about eight miles from Ketchikan, near George Inlet. They met at an altitude between 3,200 and 3,300 feet, Homendy said, as both flew southwest toward Ketchikan. Preliminary data shows the plane operated by Taquan Air descended from about 3,800 feet traveling at 149 mph, while the smaller plane owned by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan was maintaining an altitude of 3,300 feet at 125 mph. But assumptions cannot be made from the speed and altitude alone, Homendy said. "It takes some significant work to really understand how the two really came together," she said. Is the site of the crash a controlled space? No, said lead investigator Aaron Sauer. The area is not controlled, he explained, so the pilots were not required to talk with a staff at a communications tower. Story continues In controlled airspaces, air traffic controllers coordinate the movement of planes on the ground and in the air so they keep a safe distance. Boeing engine failure: Passengers hear 'loud bang' as plane's engine shuts down, flight diverted Airplane bird crashes: Planes strike birds more than 40 times a day, FAA data show Investigators will determine whether pilots filed flight plans with their companies or the FAA. They have requested flight track data from the latter. Who is injured or dead? Ten people, all Americans, were injured. Hospital staff released three of them Tuesday and listed the rest in fair or good condition, spokeswoman Marty West said. The last two bodies found Tuesday were near the the crash site of the smaller plane involved in the collision, Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens said. Earlier in the day, Dykens said three of the dead were among the five aboard that same plane. Princess Cruises identified them as two passengers and a pilot. The Alaska State Troopers identified the six deceased as Randy Sullivan, 46, from Ketchikan; Simon Bodie, 56, from Tempe, Australia; Cassandra Webb, 62, from St. Louis; Ryan Wilk, 39, from Utah; Louis Botha, 46, from San Diego; and Elsa Wilk, 37, from Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Authorities listed Sullivan as a pilot. He was owner and pilot of Mountain Air, the operator of the smaller plane in the collision, according to the company's website. Where are the remains of the planes? The smaller plane was partially submerged in the shore of George Inlet after the single-engine plane overturned and and hit trees before crashing, Dykens said. The larger plane carrying 11 people landed in the water and sank. While the smaller aircraft's floats landed near shore, the plane's tail and section of the fuselage crashed 900 feet away. It seems to have broken apart in midair, said Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How did it happen? NTSB begins probe of midair collision of Alaska floatplanes that killed 6 people Next year, Boston will have the opportunity to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre. The victims in the confrontation and shooting outside the Boston Customs House have long been considered the first casualties of the American Revolution, and the fact that one of the fallen was an African American (Crispus Attucks) helped make the incident even more relevant in recent decades. However, one of the most important lessons of the massacre wont get the same respect it did in the past: the importance of the right to counsel. When the British soldiers who had fired into the crowd on the night of March 5, 1770, were put on trial, it was John Adams one of Bostons top lawyers and a leading member of the Patriot political faction that had helped incite the protests against the government who took their case. His successful defense of the most unpopular defendants in the colonies at the time was the moment when the future president entered history. And by choosing to face down the hostile mob of fellow Patriots organized by his cousin Sam Adams, he also stood for a principle the right to effective counsel that has become a hallmark of the American legal system. But Adamss alma mater, Harvard University, has broken with the spirit of what he achieved. In a shocking development, the school announced last weekend that their first African-American faculty deans would be terminated. Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, may continue to teach at Harvard Law. But they lost their jobs as deans because of their decision to join the defense team of former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who faces charges of sexual misconduct. Rhakesh Khurana, the dean of Harvard College, described the decision as a result of concerns about the climate at Winthrop House, the institution that Sullivan and Robinson had led since 2009. While there was some attempt to portray the pair as having been the subject of prior controversies, there was little doubt that the main reason for climate change at Winthrop was the fact that the two legal scholars had become part of a new dream team that would attempt to keep the countrys most notorious #MeToo villain out of prison. Story continues Student protests about Sullivan and Robinsons legal activities had been in the news throughout the last semester, with a small but vocal group calling for Sullivans resignation as dean. Critics of the lawyers vented their anger in graffiti depicting slogans such as down with Sullivan, our rage is self-defense, and whose side are you on? Those against Sullivan and Robinson werent objecting in principle to their defending controversial clients. During the last decade, while both taught at Harvard Law and presided over Winthrop House, Sullivan who has specialized in attempts to overturn what he considers to be wrongful convictions represented Ussaamah Rahim, an accused terrorist who had been shot by the Boston Police. But Weinstein was the first controversial Sullivan client who fit into categories toward which academic elites are generally unsympathetic. The former Hollywood mogul is the poster child for #MeToo villainy, with more than 80 women having alleged that he was guilty of sexual misconduct against them, up to and including rape. Sullivan clearly expected students to understand that even the most repulsive defendants are entitled to legal representation. But he underestimated two factors. First, the presumption of innocence has been undermined by the #MeToo movement that took off in the fall of 2017 a movement catalyzed by the accusations against Weinstein. The increased attention paid to all forms of sexual harassment and assault was long overdue. But #MeToo brought with it the idea that one must simply believe accusers. Crowd-sourced accusations, such as those on the the so-called Sh***y Media Men list, trafficked in unsubstantiated charges of misconduct and threatened to end careers with no due process whatsoever. This was very much in tune with the way that sexual-misconduct cases have been handled on college campuses. At many if not most institutions of higher education, the accused have been subjected to a process that required them to prove their innocence rather than the other way around, and that shielded accusers from questioning. Indeed, some of those who defended Sullivans firing by Harvard said that his defense of someone accused of sexual misconduct was in conflict with his status as a dean responsible for the welfare of the students who lived, ate, and socialized at Winthrop House. According to one student writing in the New York Times, Sullivans representation of Weinstein would discourage victims from coming forward and infringe on students safety. But the negative climate at Harvard is not solely related to #MeToos influence. A shift in the culture of political liberalism is also part of the story. With conservatives asserting their First Amendment rights in cases seeking to push back against the power of big government and a politically correct legal establishment, liberals have lost faith in the defense of civil liberties for their own sake. Justice Elena Kagan has complained of conservatives weaponizing the First Amendment, as if it were valid only if used in the service of the Left. The American Civil Liberties Union, once the stalwart defender of the free-speech rights of Nazis as well as labor unions, has recently signaled that it will not expend resources defending anyone associated with a cause that the liberal group opposes. The result is an atmosphere where the actions of John Adams the legal defense of the despised either are impossible or result in serious censure. Ironically, Sullivan and Robinson recently left Weinsteins team owing to a schedule conflict. But the damage to their reputations at Harvard is already done. If lawyers defend only those who are in tune with fashionable opinion, the result is a blow to the concept of impartial justice. The decline of a belief in due process on college campuses isnt new. But the fact that contempt for the right to counsel is so widespread at a place like Harvard, bodes ill for the future of American justice. More from National Review Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Every investor in Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings Limited (HKG:1001) should be aware of the most powerful shareholder groups. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. Warren Buffett said that he likes 'a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people'. So it's nice to see some insider ownership, because it may suggest that management is owner-oriented. Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of HK$404m, which means it wouldn't have the attention of many institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions are not on the share registry. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about 1001. View our latest analysis for Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings SEHK:1001 Ownership Summary, May 15th 2019 What Does The Lack Of Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings? Institutional investors often avoid companies that are too small, too illiquid or too risky for their tastes. But it's unusual to see larger companies without any institutional investors. There could be various reasons why no institutions own shares in a company. Typically, small, newly listed companies don't attract much attention from fund managers, because it would not be possible for large fund managers to build a meaningful position in the company. It is also possible that fund managers don't own the stock because they aren't convinced it will perform well. Institutional investors may not find the historic growth of the business impressive, or there might be other factors at play. You can see the past revenue performance of Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings, for yourself, below. Story continues SEHK:1001 Income Statement, May 15th 2019 We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar. Insider Ownership Of Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings The definition of company insiders can be subjective, and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Hong Kong Shanghai Alliance Holdings Limited. Insiders have a HK$86m stake in this HK$404m business. I would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership The general public holds a 49% stake in 1001. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Private Company Ownership It seems that Private Companies own 30%, of the 1001 stock. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this fact alone, so its worth looking into who owns those private companies. Sometimes insiders or other related parties have an interest in shares in a public company through a separate private company. Next Steps: While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can access this interactive graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow for free . Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free free list of interesting companies. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. 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. The CEO of Bank of Qingdao Co., Ltd. (HKG:3866) is Lin Wang. This report will, first, examine the CEO compensation levels in comparison to CEO compensation at companies of similar size. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. Third, we'll reflect on the total return to shareholders over three years, as a second measure of business performance. This method should give us information to assess how appropriately the company pays the CEO. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! View our latest analysis for Bank of Qingdao How Does Lin Wang's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies? According to our data, Bank of Qingdao Co., Ltd. has a market capitalization of HK$32b, and pays its CEO total annual compensation worth CN2.3m. (This number is for the twelve months until December 2018). That's below the compensation, last year. While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at CN951k. We examined companies with market caps from CN14b to CN44b, and discovered that the median CEO total compensation of that group was CN3.2m. So Lin Wang receives a similar amount to the median CEO pay, amongst the companies we looked at. While this data point isn't particularly informative alone, it gains more meaning when considered with business performance. You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Bank of Qingdao has changed over time. SEHK:3866 CEO Compensation, May 15th 2019 Is Bank of Qingdao Co., Ltd. Growing? On average over the last three years, Bank of Qingdao Co., Ltd. has shrunk earnings per share by 12% each year (measured with a line of best fit). Its revenue is up 22% over last year. Unfortunately, earnings per share have trended lower over the last three years. There's no doubt that the silver lining is that revenue is up. But it isn't sufficiently fast growth to overlook the fact that earnings per share has gone backwards over three years. These factors suggest that the business performance wouldn't really justify a high pay packet for the CEO. We don't have analyst forecasts, but you could get a better understanding of its growth by checking out this more detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow. Story continues Has Bank of Qingdao Co., Ltd. Been A Good Investment? I think that the total shareholder return of 40%, over three years, would leave most Bank of Qingdao Co., Ltd. shareholders smiling. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size. In Summary... Lin Wang is paid around the same as most CEOs of similar size companies. We feel that earnings per share have been a bit disappointing, but it's nice to see positive shareholder returns over the last three years. So we think most shareholders wouldn't be too worried about CEO compensation, which is close to the median for similar sized companies. CEO compensation is one thing, but it is also interesting to check if the CEO is buying or selling Bank of Qingdao (free visualization of insider trades). Important note: Bank of Qingdao may not be the best stock to buy. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Understanding how Flexible Solutions International Inc. (NYSEMKT:FSI) is performing as a company requires looking at more than just a years' earnings. Today I will run you through a basic sense check to gain perspective on how Flexible Solutions International is doing by comparing its latest earnings with its long-term trend as well as the performance of its chemicals industry peers. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Check out our latest analysis for Flexible Solutions International Did FSI's recent earnings growth beat the long-term trend and the industry? FSI's trailing twelve-month earnings (from 31 December 2018) of US$2.5m has jumped 42% compared to the previous year. Furthermore, this one-year growth rate has exceeded its 5-year annual growth average of 4.0%, indicating the rate at which FSI is growing has accelerated. What's enabled this growth? Well, lets take a look at whether it is only attributable to industry tailwinds, or if Flexible Solutions International has experienced some company-specific growth. AMEX:FSI Income Statement, May 15th 2019 In terms of returns from investment, Flexible Solutions International has fallen short of achieving a 20% return on equity (ROE), recording 12% instead. However, its return on assets (ROA) of 8.2% exceeds the US Chemicals industry of 7.1%, indicating Flexible Solutions International has used its assets more efficiently. Though, its return on capital (ROC), which also accounts for Flexible Solutions Internationals debt level, has declined over the past 3 years from 20% to 4.3%. This correlates with an increase in debt holding, with debt-to-equity ratio rising from 24% to 42% over the past 5 years. What does this mean? While past data is useful, it doesnt tell the whole story. Companies that have performed well in the past, such as Flexible Solutions International gives investors conviction. However, the next step would be to assess whether the future looks as optimistic. I recommend you continue to research Flexible Solutions International to get a better picture of the stock by looking at: Story continues Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for FSIs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for FSIs outlook. Financial Health: Are FSIs operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why weve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 31 December 2018. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. 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. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Is Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZSE:TRA) a good dividend stock? How would you know? Dividend paying companies with growing earnings can be highly rewarding in the long term. If you are hoping to live on the income from dividends, it's important to be a lot more stringent with your investments than the average punter. In this case, Turners Automotive Group likely looks attractive to dividend investors, given its 6.1% dividend yield and five-year payment history. It sure looks interesting on these metrics - but there's always more to the story . Before you buy any stock for its dividend however, you should always remember Warren Buffett's two rules: 1) Don't lose money, and 2) Remember rule #1. We'll run through some checks below to help with this. Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Turners Automotive Group! NZSE:TRA Historical Dividend Yield, May 14th 2019 Payout ratios Dividends are usually paid out of company earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. As a result, we should always investigate whether a company can afford its dividend, measured as a percentage of a company's net income after tax. Looking at the data, we can see that 57% of Turners Automotive Group's profits were paid out as dividends in the last 12 months. This is a healthy payout ratio, and while it does limit the amount of earnings that can be reinvested in the business, there is also some room to lift the payout ratio over time. Another important check we do is to see if the free cash flow generated is sufficient to pay the dividend. Last year, Turners Automotive Group paid a dividend while reporting negative free cash flow. While there may be an explanation, we think this behaviour is generally not sustainable. Is Turners Automotive Group's Balance Sheet Risky? Story continues As Turners Automotive Group has a meaningful amount of debt, we need to check its balance sheet to see if the company might have debt risks. A rough way to check this is with these two simple ratios: a) net debt divided by EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), and b) net interest cover. Net debt to EBITDA is a measure of a company's total debt. Net interest cover measures the ability to meet interest payments on debt. Essentially we check that a) a company does not have too much debt, and b) that it can afford to pay the interest. With net debt of more than 5x EBITDA, Turners Automotive Group could be described as a highly leveraged company. While some companies can handle this level of leverage, we'd be concerned about the dividend sustainability if there was any risk of an earnings downturn. Net interest cover can be calculated by dividing earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) by the company's net interest expense. With EBIT of 3.79 times its interest expense, Turners Automotive Group's interest cover is starting to look a bit thin. Low interest cover and high debt can create problems right when the investor least needs them. We're generally reluctant to rely on the dividend of companies with these traits. We update our data on Turners Automotive Group every 24 hours, so you can always get our latest analysis of its financial health, here. Dividend Volatility From the perspective of an income investor who wants to earn dividends for many years, there is not much point buying a stock if its dividend is regularly cut or is not reliable. Looking at the data, we can see that Turners Automotive Group has been paying a dividend for the past five years. During the past five-year period, the first annual payment was NZ$0.05 in 2014, compared to NZ$0.15 last year. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 25% a year over that time. Turners Automotive Group's dividend payments have fluctuated, so it hasn't grown 25% every year, but the CAGR is a useful rule of thumb for approximating the historical growth. So, its dividends have grown at a rapid rate over this time, but payments have been cut in the past. The stock may still be worth considering as part of a diversified dividend portfolio. Dividend Growth Potential Given that the dividend has been cut in the past, we need to check if earnings are growing and if that might lead to stronger dividends in the future. Strong earnings per share (EPS) growth might encourage our interest in the company despite fluctuating dividends, which is why it's great to see Turners Automotive Group has grown its earnings per share at 29% per annum over the past five years. With recent, rapid earnings per share growth and a payout ratio of 57%, this business could be an interesting prospect if growth can be maintained. We'd also point out that Turners Automotive Group issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Trying to grow the dividend when issuing new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill. Companies that consistently issue new shares are often suboptimal from a dividend perspective. Conclusion Dividend investors should always want to know if a) a company's dividends are affordable, b) if there is a track record of consistent payments, and c) if the dividend is capable of growing. Turners Automotive Group gets a pass on its dividend payout ratio, but it paid out virtually all of its cash flow as dividends. This may just be a one-off, but we'd keep an eye on this. We were also glad to see it growing earnings, but it was concerning to see the dividend has been cut at least once in the past. While we're not hugely bearish on it, overall we think there are potentially better dividend stocks than Turners Automotive Group out there. You can also discover whether shareholders are aligned with insider interests by checking our visualisation of insider shareholdings and trades in Turners Automotive Group stock. We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 3%. 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. Donald Trump denied planning to send tens of thousands of troops to the middle east but said he was ready to do so if necessary - AP Donald Trump yesterday suggested he is ready to send a hell of a lot of troops to confront Iran in the Middle East amid warnings that the two countries are stumbling towards a war. The comments come amid mounting diplomatic and military tensions in the Persian Gulf after Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels attacked an oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia and an unidentified attacker attempted to sabotage tankers. Mr Trump said reports that the Pentagon has already drawn up plans to deploy 120,000 soldiers to the region in preparation for conflict were fake news. But he added: Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that, he said. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that, he said. A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bomber assigned to the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron refuels during a mission over the middle east Credit: HANDOUT/Reuters Tensions between Washington and Iran have spiralled since last week, when the US accused Iran of preparing to attack US interests in the Middle East and said it was sending an aircraft carrier and a task force of B-52 bombers to the region in response. Iran then said it would resume enriching high-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapon unless the world finds a way to ease the impact of US sanctions that have devastated its economy. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Pentagon officials had drawn up a plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter military attacks. Irans president earlier said he would not bow to US pressure and warned that Iran is too great to be intimidated by anyone. The Norwegian-flagged MV Andrea Victory was attacked on 12 May 2019 outside Fujairah port, United Arab Emirates Credit: ALI HAIDER/EPA-EFE/REX God willing we will pass this difficult period with glory and our heads held high, and defeat the enemy, Hassan Rouhani said at a meeting with Sunni clerics. On Monday four ships were damaged by sabotage attacks near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The United States and its allies have refrained from publicly blaming Iran for the incident, but officials in Washington have briefed reporters that national security agencies believe Iran or Iranian proxies were responsible. Iran has denied all such claims. Story continues On Tuesday Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi energy minister, said state owned oil firm Aramco had temporarily shut down the East-West pipeline after two pumping stations were targeted. Oil production and exports were not interrupted. Mohammed Abdusalam, a spokesman for the Houthi rebels, wrote on Twitter that the attacks were a response to the aggressors continuing to commit genocide against the Yemeni people. The US has pursued a policy of maximum pressure including trying to prevent third countries buying Iranian oil since Mr Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a 2015 deal designed to curtail Irans nuclear program in May 2018. Iran has said it cannot remain bound by a one-sided agreement and has given the other signatories - the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union - sixty days to find a way to allow it to continue to sell oil and receive the revenues from such sales. The Trump administration's policy has caused a rift between the United States and European signatories to the agreement, including Britain. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, has warned that the US and Iran could stumble into armed conflict. Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, on Tuesday said US officials fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran but said there was an increased risk of attack from Iranian allies across the region. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) Credit: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/POOL/EPA-EFE/REX Speaking at a press conference with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, he said: "weve made clear to the Iranian that if US interests are attacked we will respond in an appropriate fashion." But a senior British general on Tuesday claimed there was little reason to believe Iran posed a greater threat in key areas of the Middle East. No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika told reporters at the Pentagon in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad. Were aware of their presence, clearly, and we monitor them, along with a whole range of others because thats the environment were in. Mr Pompeo was speaking after a meeting with Mr Lavrov and Vladimir Putin. He admitted there were major differences between Russia and the United States over Iran, Venezuela, and Ukraine. Mr Lavrov said Russia supported a "diplomatic solution" to the confrontation and that he believed the US was ready to seek one. Hamid Baeidinejad, Irans ambassador to the United Kingdom, described the threat to renew uranium enrichment and heavy water production as an attempt to "save" the 2015 nuclear deal by signalling that immediate action is needed to preserve it. He said Iran did not want a war but warned an armed conflict would be devastating for both the United States and the region. If people in the White House or the region want to drag the US into a conflict they should take this very seriously, he said. We are fully prepared for any eventuality. Story 16 November 2021 Elena never gave up and finally found a job she loves. A story of labour market inclusion of people with disabilities in the Republic of Moldova Disability is an obstacle, a huge one, but the human spirit is resilient, and one has to keep going forward. Read the story of Elena Epuri, a worker with a disability at Steinel Electronics in Chisinau, Moldova. She found a great job she loves because of the new Employment Law and a wage subsidy scheme created an opportunity for her. The ILO provided the technical assistance for these reforms and measures. Elena was born in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova. As a child, she was diagnosed with infantile cerebral palsy. Despite long years of medical treatment, her mobility could never be restored in full. Yet Elena was not inclined to sit at home and waste away. She dreamed of becoming educated and finding a job. She went to two professional schools where she specialized in computer and postal operations. Despite these qualifications, Elena had trouble finding work for many years after graduation. Some employers were sceptical about my physical abilities and lack of working experience, recalls Elena, but more often it was a lack of adaptations in the workplace or long commuting distances that prevented me from finding work. After years of searching in vain, despair and disappointment took their toll on her, but she never gave up. When her son Maxim was born, Elena felt blessed and loved. Time passed, and when Maxim was nearly two years old, she felt that it was time to start looking for work again. Elenas mother had passed away long before Maxim was born. Without her mothers support, there was only her father to count on, and she did not want to be a burden on him. She needed a job badly, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not find one. One day Elena was advised to reach out to the National Employment Agency (NEA). The day I knocked at their door was the luckiest day in my life, Elena professed. I was interviewed, I filled out a couple of forms and I left. A few days later, I heard back from the office. I was given the name of a company and told where to go for an interview. Believe it or not, I was hired the same week I first visited Steinel Electronic. Returning home with my first labour contract in hand, I felt like I was in seventh heaven. I had feelings of excitement and hope that were new to me. I never miss a day of work. Each time that I pick up Maxim from kindergarten, I tell him that his mom is back from work to take him home. The Republic of Moldova has the lowest employment rates in the region, hovering around 40 per cent over the last two decades. The employment rate of people with disabilities (PwDs) is much lower, at just 17 per cent in recent years, slightly higher for women. Every third person with disability works in agriculture and is highly exposed to precarious working conditions and low chances for career development. Although economic growth is mostly concentrated in Moldovas urban areas, the unemployment rate of PwDs in cities is double than the rural one. It reached nearly 6 per cent in recent years. While apparently low, the figure can be misleading as it tells little about the many discouraged workers among PwDs, who do not even try to find a job any more. To strengthen Moldovas labour market and improve workers livelihoods, both legislative reforms and practical measures are essential, and Moldova therefore enacted a new Employment Promotion Law in 2019. The ILO was provided technical assistance for the reforms. The new law promotes a portfolio of active labour market measures (ALMMs) designed to address the diverse challenges unemployed people like Elena face -- i.e. lack of skills and/or work experience, low productivity, employer discrimination, etc. The measures are directed to active jobseekers, as well as to the discouraged unemployed and to employers. They include training and retraining, traineeships, wage subsidies, self-employment opportunities, and local employment initiatives. Starting in 2019, the Public Employment Service piloted five ALMMs with ILO financial support, including a wage subsidy scheme for which Steinel Electronic applied. Steinel Electronic opened its doors in Moldova in 2007 with a production factory of the German company, specialised in sensor systems, sensor-switched lighting and heat tools. The factory is located in Chisinau and employs 320 workers. Of these, 27 have various degrees of disability. 14 out of 27 PwDs were employed with the support of NEA through the wage subsidy pilot funded by the ILO, Elena is among them. Ten employees joined the company in 2020, at a time when many other workers in Moldova lost their jobs due to the COVID -19 pandemic. The wage subsidy scheme compensates the employer for the extra costs of hiring PwDs, and the Government subsidizes their wages in the first six months of work. This subsidy is equal to 30 per cent of the average wage in the economy. In return, the employer makes a commitment to maintain the worker in employment for at least 12 months. Elena has been employed for nearly 26 months now, and she is happy. From her first day at Steinel Electronic, she has received training courses on effective assembling processes, occupational safety and health, and environmental protection. During her first month on the job, she also received individual coaching. The company provides daily transportation services to Elena and her colleagues. Her co-workers are always available to offer advice or a helping hand when needed. When her father passed away, they reached out to support her. We first hired workers with disabilities many years ago to reinforce our social responsibly culture, as well as to comply with the requirements of Moldovan law, recalls Clementina Saratean, head of Steinel human resources department. At least 5 per cent of our jobs have to be reserved for PwDs, this is how the Moldovan law reads. Yet, after some time passed, we realized workers with disabilities can be equally skilful, responsive, and, whats very important, they are extremely loyal. The turnover among workers with disabilities is the lowest in our company. Eight per cent of our workers have various types of disabilities. We even hired a sign interpreter on a permanent basis to help the deaf colleagues. We are not going to stop here, more people like Elena will be offered the opportunity to join us. In 2020, Steinel Electronic was awarded the Best Employer of People with Disability. The selection was made by NEA. Employment is about more than just a pay check, according to Elena. It is about achieving and maintaining independence, self-confidence and paying back your family. Things have changed in the last two years. Ive got a job, and Maxim again has a mother full of beautiful dreams. One of my dreams has already been fulfilled with the help of NEA and ILO, and now another, very different one is coming true - Maxim is good at breakdancing. Elenas smile is warm and wide. As I said, there are many different ways we can see our dreams fulfilled. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will travel to South Korea next month to discuss nuclear negotiations with North Korea, officials said Wednesday, an extension of his trip to Japan for a G-20 summit. Trump and South Korea President Moon Jae-in "will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. The two leaders will also discuss ways to strengthen the U.S.-South Korea relationship, Sanders said. Despite a failed summit in February between Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Moon has encouraged the two countries to keep negotiating an agreement in which the North would eliminate nuclear weapons programs while the U.S. and allies end economic sanctions on Kim's regime. More: 'We're courting danger': Trump suffers foreign policy setbacks in Iran, North Korea More: Donald Trump holds call with Vladimir Putin, attacks Mueller's Russia probe as a 'hoax' Specific dates for Trump's South Korea trip were not announced. Trump has previously announced plans to attend a Group of 20 nations summit in Osaka, Japan, during the last week in June. While at the G-20 summit, Trump plans to meet separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. North Korea will also be on the agenda for those talks, officials said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump travels to South Korea next month to talk about North Korea Baghdad (AFP) - With temperatures rising on both the weather and security fronts across the region, Iraq's freshman electricity minister is warning that politicising his country's power sector could have ripple effects around the world. "Electricity is a national security issue," Luay al-Khateeb told AFP in a wide-ranging interview at the ministry's headquarters in Baghdad. "In the end, any political, economic or security crisis in Iraq will affect the whole region -- and the global economy will be open to threat." "We're urging for this file not to be politicised." Khateeb, a 51-year-old energy expert, was appointed minister in October with a mandate to revamp Iraq's grid, which was already ailing before it was further crippled by the Islamic State (IS) group. But he faces a pair of formidable political challenges to a typically dry, technical portfolio: the threat of renewed protests and escalating US pressure on energy-supplier Iran. Demonstrations erupted in 2018 across Iraq against poor services, including the measly few hours of state-provided electricity per day. This summer will be a de facto referendum on the governments progress. Khateeb, optimistic, said his ministry had revived out-of-service stations, fixed transmission lines, and brought temporary generators to battered areas including Mosul that IS held in the north. "On October 25, the week I took office, electricity generation sat at between 9.5 to 10 GW. It is now at 15 GW," Khateeb said. Most Iraqi provinces, he said, "will receive no less than 20 hours of electricity per day. This, to be honest, is a level of production the country hasn't seen in years." In the medium term, the ministry is developing solar power, gas-capturing capabilities, and energy deals with neighbours. It signed contracts worth 700 million euro ($785 million) with Germany's Siemens last month, amid expectations of similar deals with American rival General Electric. Story continues Around a third of Iraq's electricity relies on Iran, through 28 million cubic metres (990 cubic feet) of gas piped in to feed stations or the direct import of up to 1,300 megawatts of Iranian-produced electricity. When Washington reimposed sanctions on Iran last year, it granted Iraq temporary exemptions until late June. Khateeb declined to say what would happen if the waiver was not again extended. "I'm not in the business of making predictions, but what I ask for from world powers is a little reasonableness so we can live in peace on this planet," he said. - Don't want to be 'scapegoat' - Tensions have ramped up between Washington and Tehran, with Baghdad often caught in the middle. Iraqi government sources say the US is pressuring Baghdad to partner with American companies including General Electric, ExxonMobil and Honeywell as it weans off Iranian energy. Khateeb acknowledged foreign embassies were pushing for their interests in Iraq's power sector, but said Baghdad would try to steer clear of the politics. "The truth is we don't want to be a scapegoat in conflicts that will negatively affect regional security, and in turn the global economy," he said. Besides the ticking clocks of the Iraqi street and geopolitical tensions, Khateeb admitted pressure from within the government itself. He said he had "inherited a bureaucracy" and was often asked for favours or employment opportunities. Asked whether he, like Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, kept his resignation letter close at hand, Khateeb sounded determined. "One needs to have a thick skin," he said. "Either I focus on the politicians, or I focus on the work." Pamela Turner was killed by a police officer in a scuffle. (Twitter/Good Morning America) Shocking footage has shown the moment a police officer opened fire and killed a woman moments after she told him she was pregnant. The confrontation unfolded in Baytown, Texas, on Monday evening (local time) when an officer tried to arrest Pamela Turner, 44, over outstanding warrants. Graphic video showed the officer struggling with the woman who could be heard yelling, Im pregnant. In the video, which is circulating on social media, Turner could be heard saying "You're actually harassing me" and "I'm actually walking to my house" before falling to the ground. Pamela Turner, 44, was shot during a struggle with a police officer who was trying to arrest her over outstanding warrants. (Baytown Police Department) While on her back, she appeared to struggle with the officer, saying, "Why? Why?", and then "I'm pregnant". Turner then appeared to reach up towards the officer and, moments later, he fired five shots, killing her. Police claimed the woman snatched the officers taser, which he had earlier used on her, and shot it towards his groin during the scuffle. Video showed the police man standing over the woman. (Twitter/Good Morning America) Following the incident, the police department learned Turner was not pregnant, but declined to elaborate on how it had found out. Autopsy results have not been released. The lieutenant said the officer was patrolling the complex about 40 kilometres east of Houston and tried to arrest the African-American woman because he knew she had outstanding warrants. The officer, who is Hispanic and an 11-year veteran of the department, had previous dealings with Turner. Graphic footage showed the woman on the floor as she yelled to the officer about being pregnant. (Twitter/Good Morning America) The officer, who was not seriously injured, has been placed on paid administrative leave. Investigators are trying to contact whoever recorded the video as they were a witness to the shooting. "It's a tragic event for everybody involved. Of course, our hearts go out to the family of the deceased as well as our officer, Lieutenant Steve Dorris said. ---Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK--- By Esha Vaish JONKOPING, Sweden (Reuters) - Resembling the helmet of a Star Wars stormtrooper, a driverless electric truck began daily freight deliveries on a public road in Sweden on Wednesday, in what developer Einride and logistics customer DB Schenker described as a world first. Robert Falck, the CEO of Swedish start-up Einride, said the company was in partnership talks with major suppliers to help scale production and deliver orders, and the firm did not rule out future tie-ups with large truckmakers. "This public road permit is a major milestone ... and it is a step to commercializing autonomous technology on roads," the former Volvo executive told Reuters. "Since we're a software and operational first company, a partnership with a manufacturing company is something that we see as a core moving forward," he said, adding he hoped to seal a deal by next year. Falck said Einride, whose investors include ex-Daimler Asia trucks head Marc Llistosella, is also courting investors for an ongoing Series A fundraising, often a company's first sizable one. It previously raised $10 million. Auto alliances are on the rise to share the cost of electric and autonomous technology. Ford has vowed to invest $500 million in U.S. electric utility truck startup Rivian. Einride's T-Pod is 26 tonnes when full and does not have a driver cabin, which it estimates reduces road freight operating costs by around 60 percent versus a diesel truck with a driver. Besides Schenker, Einride has orders from German grocer Lidl, Swedish delivery company Svenska Retursystem and five Fortune 500 retail companies, underpinning its ambition to have 200 vehicles in operation by the end of 2020. Freight operators are under pressure to reduce delivery times, cut emissions and face a growing shortage of drivers. Schenker picked Einride over established truckmakers as the T-Pod straddles the two biggest sector transformations: digitization and electrification, CEO Jochen Thewes said. Story continues "We believe that Einride is the best concept out there for now," he said. The T-Pod is level 4 autonomous, the second highest category, and uses a Nvidia Drive platform to process visual data in real time. An operator, sitting miles away, can supervise and control up to 10 vehicles at once. Thewes said the rollout of 5G technology, vital for electrification, was lagging. For Schenker's pilot with Einride, Ericsson and Telia had to construct two new towers. The T-Pod has permission to make short trips - between a warehouse and a terminal - on a public road in an industrial area in Jonkoping, central Sweden, at up to 5 km/hr, documents from the transport authority show. Falck said Einride would apply next year for more public route permits and was planning to expand in the United States. "Ground zero for autonomous vehicles is the United States. I think it will be the first market to scale when it comes to autonomous vehicles," he said. (Reporting by Esha Vaish and Ilze Filks, additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Mark Potter) Cairo (AFP) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday met Abu Dhabi's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the presidency said, amid rising tensions in the Gulf. "Both sides discussed the latest situation in the region in light of the events the Gulf witnessed of sabotage attacks on four vessels off the coast of the Emirates and the attack against two oil pumping stations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," a presidency statement said. Attacks on ships and oil installations in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia this week have come as the United States and Iran remain locked in a standoff. On the bilateral front, the UAE has been a firm regional backer of former army chief Sisi since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The discussions between MBZ and Sisi also "touched upon the latest crisis that Arab countries are experiencing" where they supported efforts to find "political solutions" for them. Abu Dhabi, Cairo and Riyadh are seen as key supporters of Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar, praising his battlefield successes against jihadists. They have also thrown their political weight behind Sudan's military council as demonstrators remain defiant in their calls for a civilian government after Omar al Bashir's ouster in April. (Corrects kilometer-to-mile conversion in paragraph 5) CAIRO, May 15 (Reuters) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday opened a suspension bridge over the Nile touted as the world's widest, one of a series of military-led, mega-projects designed to improve infrastructure and provide jobs. The bridge, which crosses the Nile just north of central Cairo, is a key link in a highway stretching from the Red Sea in the east to Egypt's northwestern Mediterranean coast, and is meant to help reduce congestion in the capital. Traffic ground to a halt in parts of central Cairo on Wednesday morning as Sisi traveled to open the bridge with ministers and military generals. At its widest, the bridge has six traffic lanes in each direction and measures 67.3 meters (222 feet) across. A regional director for the Guinness Book of World Records present at the opening said that makes it the world's widest suspension bridge. Around one million cubic meters of concrete as well as 1,400 km (870 miles) of steel wire for 160 suspension cables were used in its construction, according to a presentation given at the formal opening. The bridge crosses the Nile's Warraq Island, which has an estimated 100,000 residents, some of whom have protested against planned demolitions on the island and plans to develop it into a "modern residential community." On an inspection visit to the suspension bridge last month, Sisi denied reports the island could be sold to investors and said the state could not forcefully evict residents. Other prestige projects launched under Sisi include an expansion of the Suez Canal, completed in 2015, and the building of a new capital in the desert east of Cairo that is currently under construction. (Reporting by Aidan Lewis, Mahmoud Mourad and Ahmed Tolba Editing by Mark Heinrich) Editor's note: This article updates an earlier analysis on Roe v. Wade. CINCINNATI The Alabama Senate has passed a bill criminalizing nearly all abortions, approving one of the most sweeping restrictions in the United States that could put abortion providers in prison for life. The passage follows a flurry of anti-abortion developments including "fetal heartbeat laws" in Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi. The goal is to produce lawsuits that work through lower courts and, ultimately, to the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court isn't likely to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade decision anytime soon, experts say. But ending Roe wont end abortion in America or the fight over abortion. Instead, a repeal of Roe would shift the battle from the federal courts to state legislatures, where lawmakers in every state would make their own rules about when, where and under what circumstances women could obtain abortions. States would be free to act because, without Roe, the constitutional right to access abortion would be gone. All of a sudden, thats where the venue is, said James Bopp Jr., general counsel for National Right to Life. All federal oversight goes away. Those on both sides of the debate say the result would be a patchwork of new laws, with some states enacting outright bans, others setting tougher restrictions and still others maintaining the status quo. In this new landscape, some women could have access to abortions with few or no restrictions, while others would have to travel hundreds of miles or more to find a clinic in another state. More: Why anti-abortion laws aimed at Supreme Court may not work No Roe v. Wade? It's already happening To some extent, this is already happening. Republican state lawmakers across the country have been attacking Roe around the edges for years with increasingly restrictive rules, from gestational limits to tougher licensing for clinics. Court challenges based on Roe v. Wade rolled back some of those rules, but not all of them. The new restrictions contributed to the closing of more than 50 clinics nationwide between 2011 and 2014, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion-related data. Story continues Ohio, Michigan and Texas each lost at least one-third of their clinics in that time. A handful of states, including Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri, are down to one clinic. Overturning Roe would accelerate the process, abortion rights activists say, because states would no longer have to worry about a federal judge standing in their way. The right to access abortion in this country is on the line, said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. A recent court case in Ohio offers a hint of how a post-Roe world would work. After the state legislature passed a law banning abortion in cases where a fetus is diagnosed with Down syndrome, U.S. District Judge Timothy Black blocked enforcement of the law. His ruling was based entirely on constitutional protections granted by Roe v. Wade. A state may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability, Black wrote. If Roe is overturned, that legal argument would vanish and states like Ohio could make their own rules. Basically, the question would go to the states, said Freda Levenson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio. More: Alabama's abortion bill could put doctors in prison for life: Here's what to know Which states would ban abortion without Roe? Theres no way to know for certain how many states would ban abortion or institute tougher restrictions if given the chance, but at least a dozen, mostly in the South and Midwest, have given every indication theyre ready to act. Four states, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota, have approved "trigger laws" that would ban abortion immediately after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Roughly a dozen other states appear unlikely to enact tougher abortion laws, and some of those, such as California and Maryland, have laws explicitly protecting the right to access abortion. Bopp said states should be allowed to chart their own course, and overturning Roe is the only way. He said Roe took democracy out of the abortion equation by declaring it a privacy right protected by the U.S. Constitution. Without Roe, he said, the people of every state could decide how tolerant or not they want to be when it comes to abortion. Weve had little opportunity for the democratic process to sort this through and develop a consensus, Bopp said. Itll take some time. In theory, such a process could force state legislatures to compromise. For 45 years, lawmakers on both sides could be as strident as they liked because they knew the courts, ultimately, would sort it out and that Roe would prevent an outright ban. More: How does Alabama's anti-abortion bill compare to Georgia'' law? The new terrain won't be easy If Roe goes away, laws that previously would have been rejected by the courts will have real consequences, not only for pregnant women, but for politicians, too. Navigating the new terrain wont be easy. A Pew Research Center poll last year found most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion. Overall, 57 percent said it should be legal in all or most cases and 40 percent said it should be illegal in all or most cases. But those with absolutist views are in the minority: Just 25 percent said abortion should be legal in all cases and 16 percent said it should be illegal in all cases. Views vary from state to state, however, and abortion rights activists say thats why leaving the decision to lawmakers is a problem. They say an individuals rights shouldnt be subject to the beliefs of the majority of voters in the place they happen to live. Some states probably wouldnt impose restrictions and some would impose terrible restrictions, Levenson said. Some states are poised to go as far as they can. Follow Dan Horn on Twitter: @danhornnews This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ending Roe v. Wade wouldn't end abortion in America. This is what happens next Shaili Jain, MD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the School of Medicine, has cared for thousands of trauma survivors over nearly two decades. A specialist in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, Jain has been part of an explosion in knowledge about the conditions biology and possible treatments. So it frustrates her when she encounters ignorance about PTSD, especially because she believes it stands in the way of people getting therapy for it. Though its widely considered incurable, PTSD is treatable and, in some cases, can be prevented, said Jain, who is also medical director for integrated care at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Often, people with the disorder are unaware they have it, as are their friends and family, she said. PTSD is widely known for causing nightmares, flashbacks and extreme startle reactions, but the disorder has other, more subtle, symptoms: It mutes feelings of happiness, often leads sufferers to social withdrawal and can result in damaging cellular changes that pass from parent to child. Spurred to clear up misconceptions about PTSD, Jain has written her first book, The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing From the Frontlines of PTSD Science. Its a portrait of the condition its history, biology, treatment and repercussions for society written to be accessible to the general public. Science writer Rosanne Spector spoke with Jain about PTSD, how she came to write about it and why it matters. She also discussed the topic in this 1:2:1 podcast. 1. Why did you write a book about PTSD for the general public? Jain: In my mind, it was just begging for explanation. If you look at the statistics, its such a pressing public health concern. At any given moment more than 6 million people in the United States are suffering from PTSD. PTSD can result after many traumas. Rape, family violence, being robbed at gunpoint, escaping a major fire or car accident and being a refugee are just some examples. Higher rates of PTSD are found in military personnel, but they are also found in police officers, firefighters and low-income women and teenagers who live in high-crime, inner-city areas. The term PTSD has become part of our modern vernacular, especially since 9/11, but as a PTSD specialist, I see that the condition is often misunderstood. Meanwhile, there has been a huge growth in the science of PTSD over the past 20 years. I wanted to share all of this with the general reader so that we could elevate our understanding of it and the way we talk about it. 2. With so much research on the condition, what has been learned about treating people with PTSD? Jain: Weve made really good progress in understanding the talk therapies that work for PTSD. One key ingredient is exposure. People with PTSD avoid talking about the trauma, but PTSD thrives when they dont speak out because then the trauma takes on a life of its own in their minds. Part of undoing that is for them to talk about the trauma talk about it again and again and again. It sounds daunting, but under the care of a skilled mental health clinician it can be done. Lets take an example of somebody who survived an explosion in a busy marketplace. Part of the reason they dont want to talk about the explosion is the minute their mind starts to go there, they can feel their heart racing. They can feel their blood pressure going up. They can feel the panic setting in. They start to relive that day. The idea behind the therapy is that by careful telling and retelling of that event, or through exercises, such as exposing yourself to similar situations, like a busy marketplace, youre habituating your body to that physiological response. Over time, it goes down. Medications also help many people with PTSD. The best evidence that we have is for SSRIs or SNRIs. Theyre commonly known as antidepressants, but they are also effective for PTSD. About 60 percent of sufferers will have a good response, so for now medications alone are not the answer for everyone. 3. How did PTSD come to be recognized by the psychiatry establishment and why do you think it took so long? Jain: PTSD has been documented since ancient times, but its been this elusive, slippery diagnosis. I think part of the reason it went unrecognized for so long is a resistance to acknowledge that a social reality can actually change someones biology. Every time theres a war, theres an interest in PTSD. During World War I, shell shock was the term that was used. After the war, the interest waned again. Then in the 1970s, there was a lot of advocacy for Vietnam-era veterans and, because of womens rights groups efforts, a lot of advocacy for women who were in violent relationships or were the survivors of sexual assault. All this advocacy led to the realization that, Hey, this is something. We need to give it a name. We need to recognize it. It pushed it over the edge. It was accepted into the 1980 version of the psychiatric bible of diagnosis, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Even after that, some within the field were still skeptical. And though by now an amazing amount of studies have been done to validate PTSD, theres still some denial of its existence. To me it sounds bizarre, but its the nature of the illness. The same way individuals can deny trauma, I think whole societies can deny it as well. 4. Youve said that PTSD can be inherited. How is that possible? Jain: Although, by definition, PTSD is linked to an external traumatic event, research has shown that the condition is highly heritable. There is evidence to suggest that epigenetic changes can occur in a mans sperm or a womans eggs because of psychological trauma. These changes are then transmitted to their future children and leave them vulnerable because of altered neurons, neuroanatomy and genes. So the children of traumatized parents are at risk, even though they may never have been exposed to a traumatic event themselves. 5. Aside from preventing violence, is there any way to prevent PTSD? Jain: Yes. We can perform targeted interventions in what is known as the golden hours that window between trauma exposure and the onset of PTSD where we have a chance to set people on a pathway toward recovery. For example, one study of motor-vehicle crash survivors found that playing the computer game Tetris for 20 minutes while still in the emergency department lessened intrusive memories about the accident the following week. Other studies have shown that treatment with the stress hormone cortisol can help. We can also make PTSD care more accessible, acceptable and available to sufferers so it does not become a chronic problem. ANKARA, May 15 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have agreed that a working group on Syria's northwest should convene as soon as possible, Turkey's foreign minister said on Wednesday. A recent offensive targeting Syria's Idlib and surrounding areas by the Syrian army and its allies, backed by Russia, has uprooted more than 150,000 people, the United Nations says, while rescue workers and civil defense officials say more than 120 civilians have been killed. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that attacks by Syrian government forces were damaging prospects of forming a U.N.-sponsored committee to draft a new Syrian constitution. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Writing by Sarah Dadouch Editing by Dominic Evans) ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have agreed that a working group on Syria's northwest should convene as soon as possible, Turkey's foreign minister said on Wednesday. A recent offensive targeting Syria's Idlib and surrounding areas by the Syrian army and its allies, backed by Russia, has uprooted more than 150,000 people, the United Nations says, while rescue workers and civil defense officials say more than 120 civilians have been killed. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that attacks by Syrian government forces were damaging prospects of forming a U.N.-sponsored committee to draft a new Syrian constitution. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Writing by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Dominic Evans) BRUSSELS, May 15 (Reuters) - The European Union should allow Britain as much time as needed to reconsider Brexit, Poland's Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told Reuters. Three years after the referendum vote to quit the European Union, Britain is still struggling to agree on how and whether to leave the EU, which has recently agreed to put off the departure day to October to give London time to regroup. Poland's ruling eurosceptics have long argued the EU needs to be more accommodating to London, disagreeing with a more hawkish camp led by France, whose President Emmanuel Macron had sought to attach strict conditions to any delay. Czaputowicz said Britain should be given more leeway ahead. "From Poland's point of view, it would be good if Brexit would not happen," he said in comments cleared for release late on Tuesday. "It's a matter of changing the rhetoric to let the Brits rethink their decision." "We should go soft on Britain, give them time, they are still in the EU, let's give them space to take decision," Czaputowicz said, adding that Britain could count on the EU granting further Brexit delays, or revoke its leave notice. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Deepa Babington) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union should allow Britain as much time as needed to reconsider Brexit, Poland's Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told Reuters. Three years after the referendum vote to quit the European Union, Britain is still struggling to agree on how and whether to leave the EU, which has recently agreed to put off the departure day to October to give London time to regroup. Poland's ruling eurosceptics have long argued the EU needs to be more accommodating to London, disagreeing with a more hawkish camp led by France, whose President Emmanuel Macron had sought to attach strict conditions to any delay. Czaputowicz said Britain should be given more leeway ahead. "From Poland's point of view, it would be good if Brexit would not happen," he said in comments cleared for release late on Tuesday. "It's a matter of changing the rhetoric to let the Brits rethink their decision." "We should go soft on Britain, give them time, they are still in the EU, let's give them space to take decision," Czaputowicz said, adding that Britain could count on the EU granting further Brexit delays, or revoke its leave notice. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Deepa Babington) By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europeans will elect a new EU legislature next week. This is why the vote matters: WHO'S VOTING AND FOR WHAT? Some 427 million people in the European Union's 28 member states can vote from May 23 to 26, including nearly 50 million Britons who had been due to leave the bloc in March. Their votes for 73 lawmakers who may have to quit within weeks has upset some calculations after a delay to Brexit. By proportional representation, Europeans will elect 751 members to the European Parliament, which divides its time between Brussels and Strasbourg. For five years, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will pass laws proposed by the European Commission, subject to approval by national governments in the EU Council. National contingents range in size from 96 seats for Germany to the minimum six each for tiny Cyprus, Estonia, Luxembourg and Malta. European elections: https://tmsnrt.rs/2VBfCzA WHAT'S AT STAKE? Issues range from spending - though the EU budget is just 1 percent of members' gross domestic product - to climate change and labor rights. Some who want the EU broken up see it as a Brexit-style referendum on the EU's survival, pitting advocates of historic, ethnic-based nations against the idea of pooling sovereignty to defend Europe's wealth and values in a world of rising authoritarian powers and global corporations. Caught up in this center-versus-states debate are refugees. Nationalists blame the EU for a surge in arrivals in 2015. Federalists say only cooperation can control migration. Leaders of some eastern states such as Hungary and Poland criticize Brussels over migrants and its complaints that they are undermining EU rules on democracy in Warsaw and Budapest; some westerners speak of cutting their EU subsidies in retaliation. The election in Britain is seen by some as a new referendum on Brexit, one that could help block withdrawal - or accelerate it - as Britons go on debating how, and whether, to leave. ARE THERE EU POLITICAL PARTIES? Yes. And no. Eight party groups sit in the chamber today. The center-right European People's Party (EPP) has 217 seats and ensures an establishment majority by often cooperating with the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D - 186) and ALDE liberals (68). Two right-wing, anti-EU groups led by Britain's UKIP and France's National Rally share 78 seats. But all the groups are unruly and EU elections are mainly contested by national parties on issues familiar to voters. IS BRITAIN A PROBLEM? Some EU officials suggest a delay in approving key post-election appointments until after British MEPs leave, to avoid accusations parliament's decisions will lack legitimacy. The British vote will favor eurosceptics, Socialists and Greens - likely narrowing the gap with EPP, which has no members in Britain since the ruling Conservatives quit the group. By taking part, Britain has forced the EU to postpone the redistribution of 27 of 73 UK seats to other countries. France, for example, will elect 79 MEPs, five more than it has now, but those five will not be able to take up their seats until after Britain leaves and parliament shrinks by 46 members to 705. DOES THE WINNER GET TO RUN THE EU? Not really. Well, maybe. Parliament's leaders say they are the heart of European democracy. National leaders scoff at the 43 percent turnout in the 2014 EU elections. In practice, states wield most power and little happens that big countries dislike. The EU executive Commission is led by Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg. A historic power struggle between Parliament and the Council will get an airing after the election. Parliament has pledged to force the Council to nominate as Juncker's successor a lead candidate from a winning party. Leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron say they will not be bound by that. Parliament could reject the Council's Commission nominee. I'M CONFUSED. SO WHO REALLY RUNS THE EU? It's complicated. But the voting and lead candidate rumpus is part of horse-trading among governments to get compatriots or allies into top positions, not just in the Commission and Council but also in the European Central Bank. Germany and France, the two biggest states, have the most clout, but even the smallest can play. Juncker is the third EU chief executive from little Luxembourg. SO WILL THE ELECTIONS CHANGE MUCH? A push by eurosceptics could mean a bigger, more cohesive minority to disrupt EU legislation. But EU optimists say a campaign that grabs more people's attention could reinvigorate post-Brexit efforts to pull the EU together. Polls suggest the far right could increase its share but probably not by enough to sound the death knell of the EU. It seems improbable that either camp, for or against closer integration in Europe, can land a knockout blow. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Graff) (For a live blog on European stocks, type LIVE/ in an Eikon news window) May 15 (Reuters) - European shares fell on Wednesday after a rebound the day before as a softer tone from U.S. President Donald Trump calmed investor worries over worsening trade relations between China and the United States. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.4% by 0743 GMT. Bank-heavy Italian and Spanish indices led the losses after some dour results from their lenders. On Tuesday, Trump called the trade dispute with China "a little squabble" and expressed optimism about reaching a deal. His comments helped markets recover from two-months lows after both side imposed duties on each other's imports. Asian shares also found support as weak retail sales and industrial output data from China raised hopes for more stimulus from Beijing. Germany's DAX the most sensitive European market to trade-war fears - dropped 0.4%, even though the latest data showed Europe's biggest economy returning to growth in the first quarter of 2019. Autos, which were among the leading gainers on Tuesday, dropped 1.3%. Renault's shares fell about 3% after its Japanese partner, Nissan, issued a bleak earnings outlook. Volkswagen also fell about 3%. Banks fell 0.9%, weighed down by disappointing results. Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) and Dutch bank ABN Amro both missed profit expectations. French bank Credit Agricole's first-quarter net profits dropped after two one-off events offset gains in profitability at some of its businesses. Bucking the trend was British bank CYBG Plc, which jumped 6% to the top of STOXX 600 after posting a first-half profit. LafargeHolcim's rose 1.3% as the world's largest cement maker posted a rise in operating profit. The IT services provider Cancom SE gained after confirming its full- year outlook. STMicroelectronics rose after Kepler Cheuvreux raised its price target. German publisher Axel Springer gained after JP Morgan upgraded its shares to "overweight" from "neutral." A more than 5% drop in E.ON weighed on the energy company's shares and the utilities sector as Goldman Sachs downgraded its shares. Its shares also traded ex-divided. (Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru, editing by Larry King) The EU phone call price cap has come into force. (Getty) A price cap on phone calls across the European Union comes into effect today. The cheaper international calls and texts are part of the European Commissions plan to strengthen telecoms rules, after it banned roaming charges across the region in June 2017. Heres what UK customers need to know. Costs Callers from their country to another EU country will pay a maximum of 16p per minute (19 cents) plus VAT and 5p (6 cents) plus VAT per SMS message. The rules will apply in all 28 EU countries as of 15 May, and in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein soon after. Your phone operator will have to notify you of the new price caps. The maximum price is capped for private personal calls only. Business customers are excluded from the price cap. Will this change for Brits after Brexit? With the UK poised to leave the EU, the government has confirmed that operators could reintroduce roaming charges to UK customers - if the country crashes out without a deal. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the government advises that you check your mobile operators roaming policies before you go abroad. If there is a deal, then UK customers will continue to be guaranteed surcharge-free roaming within the EU during the Implementation Period of transition out of the bloc, ending on 31 December 2020. That period could be extended by two years. After the Implementation Period, arrangements for roaming, including surcharges, would depend on the outcome of the UKs negotiations on the Future Economic Partnership with the EU. Zambias Mopani Copper Mines, owned by mine giant Glencore, plans to close two shafts at its Nkana mine in Kitwe. According to unions, the move could affect more than 2,000 workers. Mine Workers Union of Zambia (MUZ) President Joseph Chewe said the closure of the two shafts would affect 600 direct employees. Other union sources interviewed by Reuters said 1,500 contractor employees would also lose their jobs because of the closure. The company said in a statement it would cease operations at the Mindola north and central shafts of the Nkana mine and instead focus on other activities. The company said the shafts had reached the end of their economic life and their closure had always been planned. We believe this approach will enable us to focus on achieving both safe and productive, it said. The government sent a team of engineers and geologists to the mine to verify Mopanis reasons for the planned closure, Mines Minister Richard Musukwa said in a speech broadcast on state-owned ZNBC TV. He said the government has directed that Mopani must surrender North Shaft and Central Shaft to local Zambian contractors, instead of putting them on care and maintenance. Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. As concerns about the safety of the nations municipal tap water have increased, so have sales of bottled water. Its now the nations top-selling bottled beverage. And much of the marketing for that bottled water plays up the idea that its especially pure, and healthy in other ways, too. Consider alkaline water, which has emerged as a popular health fad in recent years. Proponents claim it can hydrate you more quickly than regular water, and even help cure cancer. The problem: Theres not much solid research backing up those claims. As a 2016 review, published in BMJ, concluded: "Despite the promotion of . . . alkaline water by the media and salespeople, there is almost no actual research to either support or disprove [these ideas]." In fact, when it comes to making sense of all the different kinds of bottled water on the market, and their claims about purity and healthfulness, consumers are understandably confused, says Charlotte Vallaeys, senior policy analyst and food labeling expert at Consumer Reports. In some cases, the Food and Drug Administration has defined the meanings of the terms used to describe bottled water, what it calls standards of identity. But those definitions may not mean what you think they do. Case in point: spring water. That term is so contentious, in fact, its at the heart of a potential class-action lawsuit involving Nestle Poland Spring bottled water. The suit alleges that not one drop of the water qualifies as legitimate spring water, and that the companys marketing is a colossal fraud perpetrated against American consumers. Nestle denies the allegations and is appealing a judges ruling in March that allowed the suit to move forward. The FDA allows manufacturers to use terms it has not yet defined, as long as that use is truthful and not misleading. But again, that may not mean exactly what you think it does. Story continues For example, alkaline simply describes a solution with a pH above 7; those with a pH below that are acidic. So manufacturers can use alkaline to describe their water as long as it really does have a pH over 7. But that doesn't mean the FDA agrees with the health claims made for alkaline water, and the agency could, in theory, crack down on companies that market their alkaline water or any other product making unproven health claims. The International Bottled Water Association, the industrys main lobbying group, says that bottled water is "comprehensively regulated as a food product" by the FDA and believes those protections are sufficient. "It is vital for the safety of consumers that companies producing bottled waterwhether it is treated or untreatedfollow all FDA rules and regulations," the association says. "This helps ensure that mislabeled products do not reach consumers." But Vallaeys, at CR, worries that the marketplace remains a confusing one. Manufacturers can come up with new claims at any time, she says, and it's nearly impossible for consumers to tell, just by looking at the label, which are official and which are not. And Patty Lovera, assistant director at Food & Water Watch, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, says that some bottled-water brands seem to be taking advantage of concerns about purity and health and contamination of tap water. Which, she says, makes accuracy and transparency in bottled water more important than ever. To help in that effort, we put together a brief glossary of some common terms used to describe bottled water. Some, like spring and artesian, have FDA definitions; others, like alkaline and raw, do not. (Note that seltzers, tonics, and flavored water brands are regulated as soft drinks, not water, so are not included.) Bottled Water Terms, Defined Alkaline: Water with a pH level above 7. Some proponents say it can neutralize acid in a persons blood and so provide a health benefit, though that is controversial. This is an industry term; the FDA doesnt have a standard of identity. Example: Essentia Artesian: Water from a well that taps a confined aquifer, or an underground layer of rock or sand that contains water. Example: Fiji Natural Artesian Water Glacier Water: The FDA doesnt have a standard of identity for this term, but Alaska has set its own definition for glacier water or pure glacier water. It must be runoff from the natural melting of a glacier, water from a stream flowing from a glacier and not diluted by another source, or the melting of glacier ice at a processing facility. Example: Clear Alaskan Glacial Water Mineral: Water with at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solids, with a consistent amount of minerals and trace elements at its source. Bottlers cannot add additional minerals, which differentiates it from bottled water labeled as enhanced with minerals. Example: Topo Chico Municipal Source: Sometimes referred to as community water or public water, municipal source means the water came from a tap before being treated any further. A significant percentage of bottled water is sourced this way. Example: Aquafina Purified: Water that has been treated by various methods to remove chemicals and particulates. It cant contain more than 10 parts per million of total dissolved solids. Purification methods include reverse osmosis (which uses pressure to push water through specialized membranes) and distillation (which involves boiling the water, capturing the steam, and condensing it back into water). Examples: Dasani (reverse osmosis) and Nestle Pure Life (distilled) Raw: Unfiltered, untreated water, bottled straight from the source. Its an industry term, without an FDA standard of identity. But companies can legally sell it provided the source is approved by a local jurisdiction and the water meets federal quality standards, meaning it cant exceed certain levels of various toxins, such as arsenic and lead. Example: Summit Spring Sparkling Bottled Water: Water that naturally contains carbonation. It must have the same level of carbon dioxide after it has been treated, even if the gas is artificially added back. (This is different from sparkling water, artificially carbonated water, which the FDA regulates as a soft drink.) Example: Perrier Spring: This term is the focal point of the major lawsuit against Nestle. The FDA sets strict regulations for spring water, which it says must be derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface. Crucially, it has to be collected at the spring itself, or through a borehole, or well, that taps the aquifer feeding the spring. If an external force, such as a pump, is used to move the water to the surface, it cant change the quality and composition of the water, once it reaches the surface, by for example causing it to have more particulates or higher levels of any minerals. Example: Evian 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. By Shihar Aneez, Shri Navaratnam and Sanjeev Miglani COLOMBO/AHMEDABAD,India (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan software engineer suspected by authorities in Sri Lanka of having provided technical and logistical support to the Easter Sunday suicide bombers was monitored by Indian intelligence agencies three years ago for links with Islamic State suspects, investigators said. Four sources in Sri Lankan investigating agencies said they believed Aadhil Ameez, a 24-year-old, was the link between two groups that carried out the attacks on churches and hotels that killed more than 250 people and wounded hundreds more. Aadhil has been arrested and is in police custody, the sources said. His arrest has not been made public, but when asked by Reuters, Ruwan Gunasekera, the main spokesman for the Sri Lankan police, confirmed Aadhil was taken into custody on April 25, four days after the attacks. The spokesman declined to give more details. A police official at India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) and another police official in Gujarat said they were providing assistance to Sri Lankan authorities. Aadhil, who describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as a senior engineer/programmer/web designer with a masters degree in computer science and a bachelors in political science from U.K. universities, could not be reached for comment. He does not yet have a lawyer and under Sri Lanka's tough new emergency laws imposed after the attacks, he can be held indefinitely. His father, M. Ameez, who lives in Aluthgama, a town south of Colombo, denied that Aadhil was involved with the plotters and said such "allegations are lies". The Indian investigators said they had been monitoring Aadhil since 2016 and named him in two chargesheets filed in Indian courts against suspected Islamic State operatives as being one of their contacts. According to one of the chargesheets, reviewed by Reuters, he showed up in Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram chats with two of the suspects who are on trial for plotting an attack on a synagogue in Ahmedabad. Story continues The two suspects Ubed Ahmad Mirza, a lawyer, and Stimberwala Mohamed Kasim, a hospital technician, were accused of planning "lone-wolf" attacks, according to the chargesheet. GRAPHIC: A network of extremism expands https://graphics.reuters.com/SRI%20LANKA-BLASTS-PLOTTER/010091W52YP/index.html Lawyers for both men rejected the allegations and said they were innocent. Both lawyers declined to comment on the possible role of Aadhil. Aadhil has also been named in another chargesheet filed in court by the NIA for providing propaganda and online material to three Indians arrested in early 2016 for promoting Islamic State. The three men, Sheikh Azhar ul-Islam, Adnan Hassan and Mohammed Rafiq Sadique Shaikh are on trial in a special Delhi court facing charges of criminal conspiracy to propagate the ideology of Islamic State, recruit, raise funds and facilitate the travel of people to Syria, according to the chargesheet. Sheikh Mohammad Munawar, a cousin of ul-Islam, said the charges were fabricated and that he had no criminal record ever. Families of the other two accused could not be reached. Their lawyers were not immediately available for comment. Reuters was unable to determine when the Indians informed Sri Lankan authorities of the surveillance. The two officials declined to say whether they continued to keep Aadhil under surveillance after they completed investigation of the cases in India. Indian intelligence services warned Sri Lankan authorities of a possible attack at least three times in April alone, officials have said. LINK BETWEEN GROUPS Sri Lankan authorities have said two local Islamist groups - the National Tawheed Jamaath (NTJ) led by radical preacher Zahran Hashim and the Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) - were involved in the synchronised blasts in Colombo, the island nation's capital, and two other towns. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Two sources in Sri Lanka's police Criminal Investigation Department and two military officials said Aadhil was the link between the two groups. The groups used the dark web and WhatsApp to communicate, they said. However, investigators don't know yet whether Aadhil was simply a facilitator for the bombers, or if he was also one of the ring leaders involved in planning and executing the attacks. Last week, police raided IT firm Virtusa, where Aadhil had interned in 2013, according to his profile. One current employee has been detained for questioning in connection with the attacks, police say, but no other details have been provided. ONLINE CHATS India, with one of the world's largest populations of Muslims, has claimed success in foiling several Islamic State cells, mostly in southern and western India. Court documents reviewed by Reuters show that the online conversations between the Sri Lankan and the two Indians in western India, began in the summer of 2016 and lasted until the arrest of the two Indians in late 2017. The documents describe how Aadhil Ax, as he called himself online, asked the Indians if they had heard about the atrocities being committed against Muslims in Sri Lanka by the majority Buddhist community. He talked about his own experiences: that he had been in jail, that his house had been torched and that he limped because of beatings, the documents seen by Reuters show. Investigators and neighbours in Sri Lanka say none of these were true. The Sri Lankan investigators interviewed by Reuters say Aadhil made claims he was a journalist and a PhD candidate in some of his online postings, which also were false. They said they believed Aadhil, operating largely from his home, was a key part of the Easter bombings plot and helped in communications and training. "He was the main technology person for them," said one of the CID sources involved in the investigation. The source said Aadhil was helped in this by Abdul Latheef Mohamed Jameel, one of the eight suicide bombers who detonated his explosives at a guesthouse after failing to do so at Colombo's luxury Taj Samudra hotel. About a week before the bombings, Aadhil met Jameel, Zahran the extremist preacher, and Inshaf Ibrahim and Ilham Ibrahim, the two brothers from a family engaged in the spice trade in Colombo, the other sources said. The latter three men blew themselves up in five-star Colombo hotels. The CID source said that Aadhil, Zahran and the Ibrahim brothers had leased land in Wanathawilluwa town in the north and set up a training camp. Police raided the place in January this year and discovered a large amount of explosives, but did not know at the time who had leased it. When police raided Aadhil's home four days after the bombings, all his computer files were found to have been deleted. "He seems to have played an important role in setting up communications for the attackers, helping organise meetings and training camps," said one of the military sources. (Additional reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in COLOMBO and Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China's Huawei, three U.S. officials familiar with the plan told Reuters. The order, which will not name specific countries or companies, has been under consideration for more than a year but has repeatedly been delayed, the sources said, asking not to be named because the preparations remain confidential. It could be delayed again, they said. The executive order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The order will direct the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement, the sources said. If signed, the executive order would come at a delicate time in relations between China and the United States as the world's two largest economies ratchet up tariffs in a battle over what U.S. officials call China's unfair trade practices. Washington believes equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's third largest smartphone maker, could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei, which has repeatedly denied the allegations, did not immediately comment. The White House and Commerce Department declined to comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a daily briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that the United States had been "abusing its national power" to "deliberately smear" and suppress certain Chinese companies. "This is not honorable, nor is it just," he said. "We urge the United States to stop using the excuse of security issues to unreasonably suppress Chinese companies, and provide a fair, just, non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies carrying out normal investments and operations in the United States." Story continues The United States has been actively pushing other countries not to use Huawei's equipment in next-generation 5G networks that it calls "untrustworthy." In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using equipment from Huawei and another Chinese provider, ZTE Corp. In January, U.S. prosecutors charged two Huawei units in Washington state saying they conspired to steal T-Mobile US Inc trade secrets, and also charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with bank and wire fraud on allegations that the company violated sanctions against Iran. The Federal Communications Commission in April 2018 voted to advance a proposal to bar the use of funds from a $9 billion government fund to buy equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks. Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said last week he was waiting for the Commerce Department to express views on how to "define the list of companies" that would be prohibited under the FCC proposal. The FCC voted unanimously to deny China Mobile Ltds bid to provide U.S. telecommunications services last week and said it was reviewing similar prior approvals held by China Unicom and China Telecom Corp. The issue has taken on new urgency as U.S. wireless carriers look for partners as they rollout 5G networks. While the big wireless companies have already cut ties with Huawei, small rural carriers continue to rely on both Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be cheaper. The Rural Wireless Association, which represents carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers, estimated that 25 percent of its members had Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks, it said in an FCC filing in December. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. senators raised the alarm about allies using Chinese equipment in 5G networks. The Wall Street Journal first reported in May 2018 that the executive order was under review. Reuters reported in December that Trump was still considering issuing the order and other media reported in February that the order was imminent. (Reporting by David Shepardson, additional reporting by Chris Bing and Diane Bartz, Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Nick Macfie) North Korea's average rain and snowfall this year fell to the lowest level in 37 years, Pyongyang's state media said Wednesday, just days after the UN expressed "grave concerns" about food shortages. The isolated, impoverished nation -- which is under several sets of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes -- has long struggled to feed itself and suffers chronic food shortages. A number of international organisations, including the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), have said minor disasters, including drought, can significantly worsen and hamper food production in the country. From January to early May this year, North Korea only received 54.4 millimetres of rain or snow, the smallest amount since the same period in 1982, the state-run KCNA said, describing the situation as "an extreme drought". Last month, the WFP and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a joint report that North Korea's crop output last year hit the lowest level since 2008, and that an estimated 10 million people -- 40 percent of the entire population -- are in urgent need of food. "The situation could further deteriorate during the lean season from May to September, if no proper and urgent humanitarian actions are taken," the report said. The WFP executive director David Beasley was in Seoul earlier this week, and said he is "very concerned" about food situation in the North during his meeting with the South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul. A Unification Ministry official said Tuesday it is "necessary" to send food aid to the North sometime between May and September as recommended by the WFP report. Seoul in 2017 had aimed to send $4.5 million worth of nutritional products to North Korea through the WFP, but that never happened partially due to Pyongyang's nuclear tests that year. The South's presidential Blue House has said US President Donald Trump supports Seoul's plan to provide humanitarian food aid to the North. Early seasonal drought in the North this year could exacerbate "hunger, malnutrition and health problems" for "thousands of children, pregnant and breastfeeding women" in North Korea, the International Federation of Red Cross said last week. "Even before this drought, one in five children under five years old was stunted because of poor nutrition. We are concerned that these children will not be able to cope with further stress on their bodies." WASHINGTON (AP) -- The acting chief of the Federal Aviation Administration defended his agency's safety certification of the Boeing 737 Max jetliner, the plane involved in two deadly crashes, and the FAA's decision not to ground the jet until other regulators around the world had already done so. During a congressional hearing Wednesday, the FAA official, Daniel Elwell, also stood by the agency's decades-old policy of using employees of aircraft manufacturers like Boeing to conduct inspections on their own companies' work. Boeing is updating an automated flight-control system that has been implicated in the two crashes involving the 737 Max. Elwell said he expects Boeing to complete its work "in the next week or so," after which the FAA will analyze the software changes and conduct test flights. "In the U.S., the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAA's analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so," Elwell said. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee held a short hearing for President Donald Trump's choice to take over the FAA: Stephen Dickson, a former Delta Air Lines pilot and executive. During the two-hour questioning of Elwell by the House aviation subcommittee, lawmakers pressed him on the FAA's reliance on designated Boeing employees during the planes' certification process. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., told Elwell that the public believes "you were in bed with those you were supposed to be regulating, and that's why it took so long" to ground the planes. "The FAA has a credibility problem," declared the subcommittee chairman, Rick Larsen, D-Wash. The 737 Max is Boeing's best-selling plane and it is built in his home state of Washington. Larsen said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because "if they don't fly, airlines don't need to buy airplanes," and "then there will be no jobs" in aircraft manufacturing. Other lawmakers defended the FAA and Boeing and suggested that the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air jet off Indonesia and the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max were due at least partly to pilot error. A total of 346 people were killed in the crashes. Story continues "It bothers me that we continue to tear down our system based on what has happened in two other countries," said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo. Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined to comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. Congressional investigations into the FAA's relationship with Boeing are in the early stages. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who heads the full Transportation Committee, said he and Larsen have been frustrated after seeking information from Boeing. "Boeing has yet to provide a single document," he said. "We've got to get to the bottom of this." Elwell defended FAA's practice of designating employees of Boeing and other aerospace manufacturers to do some inspection work, saying it takes advantage of industry expertise, and "when done right, is indispensable to the health and safety of our system." At a Senate hearing in March, Elwell said it would cost $1.8 billion a year if FAA did all the work done by designees at companies regulated by the agency. On Wednesday, the acting chief defended the FAA's 2017 approval of the Max including its new automated flight-control system that can push the nose of the plane down if a single sensor detects that the plane could be nearing an aerodynamic stall. That system, called MCAS, was triggered on both fatal flights by faulty sensor readings, and pilots were not able to regain control of the planes as they plunged to Earth. Airlines and pilots were not told about MCAS until after the October crash. "When I first heard of this, (I) thought that the MCAS should have been more adequately explained in the ops manual and the flight manual," Elwell said. Boeing is changing MCAS to make it less powerful, and to link the system to two sensors instead of one. And it will include more explanation of the system, Elwell said, "to make pilots more aware and respond better to an anomaly." American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in November shortly after the first Max crash to fix the software quickly. "We don't want to rush and do a crappy job of fixing things," a Boeing official responded, according to a recording of the meeting. "We also don't want to fix the wrong things." The Boeing representative called the Lion Air crash a tragedy, adding, "an even worse thing would be another one." He promised a software update in six weeks. The update was still not done when the Ethiopian crash occurred more than three months later. "Boeing did not treat the 737 Max 8 situation like the emergency it was," said Daniel Carey, president of the American Airlines pilots' union, which has filed public records related to the matter. Carey said his pilots are seeking "proper oversight" of Boeing, the FAA and airlines including their own. Boeing representatives were not invited to Wednesday's hearing. Nadia Milleron, whose daughter, Samya Stumo, was on the Ethiopian Airlines plane, was in the audience. She said FAA seems to be rushing to approve Boeing's fixes to the Max even before the accident investigations are finished something that could take many months. "It is possible that these planes should never go back in the air," she said. Milleron, whose family is suing Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines, said travelers hold the final power to ground the plane. "The only thing that is going to stop this is the public," Milleron said in an interview. "If the public is concerned and if the Boeing 737 Max 8 ... becomes toxic ... that's going to make a change." Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Commerce Committee held a relatively placid hearing for Dickson, the nominee to replace Elwell, FAA's acting administrator since January 2018. Dickson promised that if he is confirmed by the full Senate, he would not hesitate to take enforcement action against companies and FAA would not be captive to the industry it regulates. U.S. aviation has an enviable safety record over the past decade, Dickson said, but the industry is only as good as the last takeoff or landing. ___ Koenig reported from Dallas, Krisher from Detroit. Washington (AFP) - The head of the Federal Aviation Administration faced another grilling in Congress on Wednesday following revelations that pilots complained to Boeing about the 737 MAX in the aftermath of the Lion Air crash. The hearing comes amid a near-constant trickle of news reports in recent weeks that have raised pointed questions about both Boeing's and the FAA's handling of an aircraft that has been grounded globally following two deadly crashes that left 346 dead. News reports on the eve of the hearing chronicled a November 27 meeting after the Lion Air crash at which American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing for safety changes that could have temporarily grounded the plane. Another report on Tuesday said the FAA did not independently evaluate the safety of a Boeing 737 MAX system implicated in the two deadly crashes, deferring to Boeing on key judgments. In three-hour testimony, Acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell broadly defended the agency's handling of the 737 MAX certification. Critics have accused the FAA of being too cozy with Boeing, inhibiting its ability to effectively regulate the company. Elwell said the fact that there had been only one airline fatality in the United States over the last decade was evidence of a safety record "that is in many ways remarkable," while adding "we know that our oversight approach needs to evolve." But the FAA chief, who hedged his criticism of Boeing over the disasters, faced plenty of tough questioning, including about the agency's move to ground the 737 MAX only after virtually every other civil aviation authority had already taken the plane out of service. Elwell said the US body acted only after "data" showed a connected between the October Lion Air crash and the March Ethiopian Airlines crashes. "So the opposite of data is common sense," said Representative Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat. "It just seems like common sense should have taken control," he said "Data is fine but it's something that's right before your eyes." Story continues - Key info 'languished' - Lawmakers also pressed the FAA about revelations that Boeing knew that a sensor linked to a flight handling system did not work properly for more than a year before it notified the agency. In both crashes, the system, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, pointed the plane sharply downward based on a faulty sensor reading, hindering pilot control after takeoff, according to preliminary crash investigations. The information "languished" at Boeing, Elwell acknowledged. "I am not happy about a 13-month gap," he said, adding that the agency would fix the issue. Reports Tuesday in The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News recounted the November meeting at which pilots pressed Boeing to take more aggressive action to ensure the safety of the MCAS, complaining that information about the system was not included in training manuals. Elwell said he first learned about a late-November American Airlines pilots meeting with pilot from news reports. Elwell appeared to hedge when asked whether Boeing should have notified the FAA of the pilot concerns, saying "anytime a manufacture becomes aware of a critical safety issue, it should be made known to the FAA." Most of the toughest questions came from Democrats, with some Republicans on the panel expressing support for the FAA and for Boeing. Representative Sam Graves, Republican of Missouri, said the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes illustrated problems with pilot training and with the capacity of overseas regulators. The FAA is still the "gold standard," Graves said. "What scares me is climbing on an aircraft or airline that is outside US jurisdiction.... It just bothers me that we continue to tear down our system based on what has happened in two other countries." - Need for international coordination - The FAA is overseeing Boeing's MCAS upgrade as both it and Boeing face federal investigations, including by the US Department of Justice. Major US carriers have said they expect to resume flights on the 737 MAX in August but that timeframe is contingent on FAA approval of the upgrade. The FAA has called a May 23 meeting of international civil aviation regulators to Texas to discuss the FAA's process for clearing the 737 MAX to resume service. Elwell said his hope was for better coordination in returning the 737 MAX to the skies than had been the case in grounding it, when global aviation authorities acted separately. "There's a perception of a crisis of confidence with the design of the plane and maybe wider," Elwell said. "It's important that we are collaborative and act transparently," he said. After the May 23 meeting, "my hope is that they have the confidence in our work to make their un-grounding as close to ours as possible." Paris (AFP) - Major tech firms on Wednesday pledged to come up with new measures for stamping out violent extremist content on the internet, amid growing pressure from governments pushing for action in the wake of the massacres at two New Zealand mosques in March. Executives from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft met with the leaders of France, New Zealand and other countries in Paris to unveil the "Christchurch Call" of voluntary commitments for online platforms. It was named for the city where a gunman killed 51 people at two New Zealand mosques two months ago while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook via a head-mounted camera. The social networking giant has faced withering criticism since the attack, after the horrific footage was uploaded and shared millions of times despite efforts to remove it. "The call is a roadmap to action," New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. "It commits us all to build a more humane internet which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes," she said. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon later released a nine-point plan for jointly putting the Christchurch pledges in motion, in particular for addressing the threat posed by livestreaming. They promised investments in "digital fingerprinting" to track and remove harmful pictures and videos, and easy-to-use methods for users to report illicit content. "This is leading to real action, and I think real action can play an important role in at least preventing a number of these kinds of attacks," Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith told AFP in Paris. "No one wants to see the internet used as the staging ground for these kinds of terrorist atrocities," he said. Facebook had already promised Wednesday to tighten access to FaceBook Live, in particular by denying the service to users who have shared extremist content. Story continues - No US for now - The largely symbolic initiative is intended to keep up the pressure on social media companies, which face growing calls from politicians across the world to prevent their platforms from becoming stages for broadcasting extremist violence. "Our goal is to never again see the internet transformed into a crazy propaganda machine, a goal sought by both terrorists on the far right and Islamic terrorists," Macron said. The leaders of Britain, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia and Norway travelled to Paris as part of the initial backers of the plan. But despite the endorsement from the biggest US tech firms, Washington will not join for now, even though "we continue to support the overall goals reflected," the White House said in a statement. "We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press," it said. Macron appeared to take the refusal in stride, saying "The American administration has expressed its support for our effort, which I already consider progress." The companies said they would cooperate on finding new tools to identify and quickly remove extremist content, such as sharing databases of violent posts or images to ensure they don't spread across multiple platforms. They also said they would explore tweaking their algorithms to prevent violent or hateful content from going viral, while making it easier for users to report harmful posts. But it will be up to companies to develop specific tools or policies. - 'Can't prevent content' - Many countries have already tightened legislation to introduce penalties for companies that fail to take down offensive content once it is flagged, by either users or the authorities. But analysts say the tighter controls pledged Wednesday will go only so far in preventing people from circumventing rules and policies already in place against disseminating violence and hate speech. "You can't prevent content from being uploaded: it would require the resources for tracking everything put online by all internet users," said Marc Rees, editor in chief of the technology site Next INpact. "Can you imagine trying to get TV or radio to prevent libellous, abusive or violent speech that someone might say?" he asked. The "Christchurch Call" meeting ran in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called "Tech for Good" which brought together 80 tech executives to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good. But the US government was represented only at a junior level at a meeting of G7 digital ministers which also took place Wednesday in Paris. burs-adp-js/jj LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May plans to ask British lawmakers to vote in early June on legislation to ratify her Brexit deal with the European Union. Here is some information about that legislation: WHAT IS THE 'WAB'? The 'European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill', known as the WAB, formally ratifies Britain's exit agreement with the EU. It gives legal effect to the transition period, due to run until December 2020, the rights of EU citizens, a financial settlement with the bloc and an agreement on how to avoid a hard border in Ireland if a future trade deal with the EU cannot be concluded in time. WHEN COULD IT BE INTRODUCED TO PARLIAMENT? The government has said it plans to hold the so-called second reading of the bill in the week beginning June 3. This is the first opportunity lawmakers have to debate and vote on the bill, and the debate is likely to last one or two days. The bill could have its first reading, when it is formally introduced and published, before that week. Parliament is due to be in recess May 23-June 4, so it could be published before that break in order to give lawmakers time to scrutinize the bill. The government has not yet said which day the second reading will take place. Parliament is only due to be sitting on June 4-6 that week, and there are several big events taking place including a state visit by U.S. President Donald Trump and commemorations for the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings. HOW QUICKLY COULD IT BE PASSED? The government has said it wants the bill to pass all its stages in both the lower House of Commons and upper House of Lords before parliament breaks for its summer holiday. That date has not yet been set but last year it was July 24. Timing is tight. That could leave fewer than 35 sitting days in parliament and several previous bills on Britain's relationship with Europe have taken more than 30 days to pass. Legislation can be rushed through, although many provisions in the bill are expected to be contentious. Lawmakers are likely to object to not having the opportunity to give it enough scrutiny. Story continues If it is not passed by June 30, British MEPs will have to take up their seats in the European Parliament. WILL IT PASS? Parliament has rejected May's Brexit deal three times this year. The government has now held weeks of talks with the opposition Labour Party aimed at finding a compromise on the way forward but so far no agreement has been reached. Introducing the bill could enable compromise to be reached through amendments, or changes, to the bill, which could be put forward by pro- and anti-Brexit factions in parliament, giving the legislation a better chance of gaining support. But Labour have said as things stand they cannot support it, and Brexit-supporting rebels in May's Conservative Party have also said they will vote against it. WHAT HAPPENS IF IT IS VOTED DOWN? If it is voted down, rules dictate that the same bill cannot be brought back during this parliamentary session. In order to bring back the bill, the government would have to "prorogue" parliament to end the session and start a new session. Proroguing could bring problems: the Conservatives do not have a majority in parliament and their agreement with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to prop up the government is due to be reviewed at the start of any new session. The DUP oppose May's Brexit deal. Britain cannot leave the EU with a deal if it does not pass the bill to ratify the agreement. Its EU membership is due to end on Oct. 31, with or without a deal. Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said if parliament rejected the bill the "deal is dead in that form" and many expect it could also spell the end of May's premiership. Her spokesman declined to say whether she would resign if the bill fails. DOES THERE STILL HAVE TO BE A 'MEANINGFUL VOTE'? Introducing the legislation directly bypasses the so-called meaningful vote on May's deal, which the House of Commons Speaker has ruled cannot take place again without substantial changes to the deal. The legal requirement to hold a meaningful vote would remain, but the government believes that if lawmakers have voted to approve the legislation, passing a meaningful vote would become a formality and could possibly be included within the bill itself. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison) Tech giant Microsoft has launched a $100 million Africa Development Centre (ADC) with offices in Kenya and Nigeria. The program will support the recruitment of 100 full-time engineers by the end of the year, and 500 engineers by the end of 2023. The tech company is betting on African innovation in fields like fintech, agritech and offgrid energy and hopes to tap into them. According to Jaime Galviz, Microsofts COO and CMO for the Middle East and Africa, the future of the world in terms of labor work force is in Africa and Microsoft started working about infrastructure that is needed in order to untap that opportunity, and give the opportunity for all African countries in order to do the bridging in the details cap. The project will be unlike any other existing investment on the continent. It will help Microsoft to better listen to its customers, develop locally and scale for the global impact, Microsoft executive vice president Phil Spencer said in Nairobi. Beyond that, its an opportunity to engage further with African partners, academia, governments and developers driving impact and innovation in sectors important to Africa, he said. Microsoft is partnering with local universities that will create a curriculum designed for the next wave of digital skills, including data science, AI, mixed reality, and application development. Our desire is to recruit exceptional engineering talent and provide the opportunity to work on the latest technologies suitable for Kenya, Nigeria and the rest of the world, said Microsofts corporate vice president Michael Fortin. By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - These are numbers, key and not so key, that will feature in voting for the European Parliament on May 23-36: 427 million EU citizens eligible to vote in their home state or the one of the other 27 EU countries they live in; from Thursday, May 23, when the British and Dutch cast ballots in line with national tradition, through Friday (Irish and Czechs), Saturday (Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, Czechs) to Sunday (everyone else). Only Indian elections give more people a democratic choice. 43 percent The proportion who actually took part in the last election in May 2014; that was down fractionally from 2009 and reflected an unbroken decline since 62 percent voted in the first direct election in 1979, with only nine member states. In Belgium, where voting is compulsory, it was 90 percent; in Slovakia, laggard of the ex-communist laggards, just 13 percent voted. 705, er, sorry 751 Members of the European Parliament. It should have been 705 due to Brexit but Britain has failed to leave the EU yet. When it does, 46 seats will be scrapped and 27 of Britain's 73 will be reallocated to 14 other states. 96 versus 6 Number of seats Germany, the EU's biggest country, has compared to four tiddlers, Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta. 400,000 versus 40,000 The average number of votes cast needed win a seat in Italy is some 10 times that in Luxembourg. Small states punch above their weight. In some countries, minimum thresholds are a bar to small parties, but some voting systems can favor them. One Cypriot MEP got just 20,000 votes in 2014, while the MEP for Belgium's 77,000 German-speakers was elected with less than 12,000. On average in 2014, each MEP was backed by 240,000 actual voters and represented about 550,000 registered electors. 12 times 2 makes 114 million That's the cost in euros a year of Parliament's "two seats" policy, decreed in the original European treaty of the 1950s. MEPs and their staff decamp monthly from Brussels to the French city of Strasbourg, 400 km (250 miles) away, to hold plenary sittings. France wields its veto over any push to change the treaty rule, despite complaints from travel-weary lawmakers. Vingt-quatre, fiche a ceathair, erbgha u ghoxrin - 24 Languages the Parliament works in. Brexit or no, English is likely to remain dominant. While MEPs can address colleagues via interpreters in their mother tongue -- from German and French to Irish or Maltese -- many use English to reach a wider public. 708 Legislative acts adopted in the 2014-19 parliament. Most pass at first reading, taking an average of 18 months. Those that need a further reading, as lawmakers tussle with EU member states and the executive Commission, took 40 months on average. 25 and a quarter This is a key formula for allowing lawmakers to coalesce into a formal parliamentary group, entitled to special funding, a voice in managing the agenda, committee chairs and so on. A group must have at least 25 members from at least a quarter of member states, ie 7 out of 28 at present. There are eight groups today but lawmakers expect some reshuffling after the election. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald ; @macdonaldrtr; Editing by Peter Graff) By Lin Taylor and Cormac O Brien LONDON, May 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Apart from being spat on and urinated on when he slept rough in London for over a year, 52-year-old Chabahn had to contend with another daily threat: being abused and attacked for his sexuality. Chabahn, who is gay but kept it hidden on the streets, said living with HIV was an additional burden that some mainstream shelters did not have the capacity to support him with. "When it comes to being LGBT, the amount of discrimination on the street is rather high. There is no safety, you have to fend for yourself," said Chabahn, who declined to give his full name. "You have to become a very good actor and you have to be someone that you are not." Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) people make up a growing portion of Britain's homeless population, campaigners say, and face specific threats, from exploitation to health issues, highlighting the need for specialized shelters. They are often too scared to go into mixed accommodation where bullying can be a problem and may feel uncomfortable staying in religious buildings, homeless charities say. "When the street becomes your home, you are mixing with all kinds from every background. You are mixing with a lot of dangers as well," said Chabahn. "Showing your vulnerability, being in a position like that, puts you at higher risk." HATE CRIMES It is a service gap that Carla Ecola, founder of The Outside Project, has hoped to fill since 2017 when she turned a 12-bed tour bus into Britain's first homeless shelter for LGBT+ people. After receiving funding and support from the London mayor's office, the charity this month opened its first permanent space - turning a disused fire station in central London's Clerkenwell into a sober 10-bed LGBT+ homeless shelter and community center. "People who have been referred to our shelter from mainstream accommodation have experienced hate crimes, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and outright violence ... just for being who they are," Ecola told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Story continues More than 1 million people, or 2% of the British population, identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual in 2017, according to official data. Almost 12,000 hate crimes were reported against LGBT+ people in 2017/18 - accounting for 12% of such incidents - the most common motivating factor after racism, police data showed in October. REJECTION TO RELIEF Homelessness has been rising in England for nearly a decade, with some 82,000 families in temporary accommodation, including more than 123,000 children last year, government data shows. About 77% of young LGBT+ people say abuse or being kicked out of the family home for their sexuality was the main reason they became homeless, according to the Albert Kennedy Trust, a UK-based charity supporting homeless LGBT+ youth. LGBT+ rights group Stonewall also found one in four transgender people were discriminated against when trying to rent accommodation. "It's unimaginable some of the difficulties that some our guests have faced," said Ecola, who has about 40 volunteers and six staff members working for the charity, which receives support from LGBT+ housing advocacy group Stonewall Housing. "When they come here, the relief from being around other LGBTIQ+ people - having been rejected by their families or their neighbors, and then from other homelessness services that are supposed to have caught them - is huge." Ecola said the new building puts the needs of LGBT+ homeless people at its core, and will have a sexual health clinic, a free cafe and shop, and domestic violence services. It will also provide a space for LGBT+ artists and campaigners. Chabahn said after receiving help from The Outside Project, he was able to sleep for the first time in months and no longer had to hide his sexuality. He has found work and rented a home in London too. "You've got a big bag of bricks that you have to carry for a long, long time. And you are able to drop it down and not lift it up again," he said. "It really felt good to be with my own kind and to be in a safe environment. And most of all, to not have to act anymore." (Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls and Cormac O'Brien. Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking and slavery, property rights, social innovation, resilience and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories) Katuna (Uganda) (AFP) - The people living on either side of the Ugandan-Rwandan border at Katuna never much considered the boundary: children crossed for school, workers moved freely and trade thrived. That harmony evaporated in February when Rwanda abruptly closed the crossing, with queues of cargo trucks and thronging merchants turned back as soldiers from both armies marshalled along the forest-clad border. The blockade is a result of the worsening animosity between Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, once close allies who backed each other into power, but whose relationship has turned deeply hostile. The distrust between the presidents has burst into the open in recent months, with the pair trading accusations of espionage, political assassinations and meddling in each other's backyards. The spat risks dragging in their neighbours, threatening economic integration and regional stability in an already conflict-prone swathe of the continent. The standoff escalated dramatically in March when Rwanda publicly accused Uganda of abducting its citizens and supporting rebels bent on overthrowing the government. Museveni -- who has admitted meeting, but not endorsing, anti-Kagame rebels -- harbours his own suspicions about his erstwhile ally. His officials have accused Rwandans in Uganda of spying, and some have been detained by military courts or deported. "What is wrong is for Rwandan agents to try and operate behind the government of Uganda," Museveni wrote to Kagame in March. The following month, Kagame threatened perceived enemies as he digressed during a speech marking the 25th anniversary of Rwanda's genocide. "Those who think we have not seen enough of a mess, and want to mess with us, whether from here or from outside, I want to say: We will mess up with them big time," Kagame declared to applause, before an audience peppered with foreign dignitaries. - Biting blockade - The sabre-rattling has not turned violent to date. Story continues Ugandan troops are busy at Katuna, the border town, where earth-movers can be seen clearing a road to a hilltop military base. Rwandan forces, meanwhile, are patrolling their side. But the interruption to trade is taking its toll. Food prices have jumped in Rwanda, which relies heavily on imports from its larger northern neighbour. The blockade has also severed Uganda's land access to export markets in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi. And for communities straddling the border, the leaders' row has proved disastrous. "I have lived and worked here most of my life... business has never been this bad," said Philemon Mugasha, a Ugandan clearing agent at Katuna, surveying the deserted streets usually buzzing day and night with money changers, food vendors, truck drivers and prostitutes. Rwandans are taking great risks to cross the border under the cover of darkness. In May, a bean trader was shot in the arm by Rwandan troops as he attempted to enter Uganda. "If they see us, they will arrest us and beat us for defying their order... it is dangerous," said one Rwandan worker who crossed illegally at Katuna to find work, and could not return. - Friends to foes - For decades, armies commanded by Kagame and Museveni fought shoulder to shoulder in East Africa, thrusting their generals into high office, and overthrowing the DRC's rapacious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. Kagame was appointed Uganda's military intelligence chief after his army of Rwandan exiles helped Museveni take power in 1986. Museveni later returned the favour, backing Kagame's invasion of Rwanda that ended the 1994 genocide and secured his grip on the country. But by the turn of the century, the romance was over. A festering unease between their armies during the DRC campaign erupted into open warfare in the city of Kisangani, leaving hundreds dead between 1999 and 2000. The relationship never recovered. But despite the bad blood, Rwanda and Uganda maintained full diplomatic ties, and troops stayed in their barracks. The neighbours both enjoyed robust economic growth and strong relations with the West. Rwanda is a major contributor of peacekeepers, and Ugandan soldiers are fighting terrorism in Somalia. - Kagame's enemies - While Kagame did not name his enemies in his recent speech, shadowy rebel groups seeking to oust him have proliferated in the region. Rwanda has boosted security in its southwest region bordering Burundi -- with whom it has long had sour relations -- and the DRC. There have been several bloody incursions into Rwanda by one anti-Kagame rebel group known as the National Liberation Front (FLN), based in the DRC. Western allies have advised their citizens to steer clear as the attacks target a region popular among foreign tourists. The UN has also reported that Kayumba Nyamwasa, a Kagame foe and former military chief who runs the Rwandan National Congress, could be raising a rebel army in the DRC. Kagame sees Museveni's invisible hand in the move against him. "This is a contest to determine who between them is the kingmaker in the region," said Christopher Kayumba, a political analyst in Kigali. War seems unlikely, experts say. But the brinkmanship is inflicting casualties each day it drags on. "They say when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. We are suffering," said Mugasha, the customs agents at Katuna. burs-np/fb/mlr By Ellen Wulfhorst NEW YORK, May 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Documented attacks on health workers in conflict areas increased dramatically last year, endangering both children waiting for polio vaccines and efforts to contain the latest outbreak of Ebola, research showed on Wednesday. Last year 973 attacks were reported on health workers in nearly two dozen conflict-ridden countries, killing 167 workers, according to the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, a collection of global groups aimed at protecting them. The violence, from bombings, burnings and armed takeovers of hospitals and clinics to attacks on ambulances and kidnappings, injured 710 health workers, it said. The number of documented attacks rose significantly from the 701 reported attacks, also in 23 countries, in 2017, it said. But the coalition cautioned that it was unclear if the higher number reflected more attacks or higher reporting after the World Health Organization (WHO) implemented a standardized system for collecting data on attacks last year. Workers administering vaccines were attacked in six countries - Afghanistan, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan - blocking children from getting polio immunizations, it said. Six vaccination workers were killed, and six were injured, it said. The countries with the most reported attacks on health workers in 2018 were the occupied Palestinian territories with 308 and Syria with 257, followed by Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and CAR. The number of reported incidents rose in Cameroon, Libya, the occupied Palestinian territories and Yemen from 2017 and dropped in Iraq and South Sudan. Of critical significance were attacks on health workers in northeastern Congo that forced many clinics to close temporarily, the coalition said in its report. The violence poses "a great threat to containing the spread of the Ebola virus," it said, by hindering efforts to trace those coming in contact with the virus and heightening the risk that it spreads. Story continues "The violence is directly connected to the inability to get the epidemic under control," said Leonard Rubenstein, chairman of the coalition and faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "It's an unrecognized problem," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Anybody concerned with global health needs to ... recognize what a threat this is to people all around the world and to us as well when epidemics can't be stopped because of violence." The epidemic has moved through northeastern Congo, killing 1,117 people since mid-2018, the WHO said on Tuesday. In the 23 countries studied, the attackers included government forces, foreign government forces, religious extremists and armed rebel groups, the coalition said. Violence and threats in Afghanistan forced 140 clinics to close between June 2017 and June 2018, leaving an estimated two million people without access to healthcare, it found. In Libya, Yemen and in northern Nigeria, more than half of the health facilities are either closed or no longer fully functioning, it said. (Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Jason Fields The New Zealand mosque massacre in which a white supremacist slaughtered 51 people is to be turned into a movie called "Hello Brother", its producer told media at Cannes on Wednesday. The feature film, which follows a family of refugees that flees Afghanistan for the safety of Christchurch only to get caught up in the carnage, is being made by Egyptian producer Moez Masoud, he told Variety magazine. "In Christchurch, on March 15, the world witnessed an unspeakable crime against humanity," Masoud told Variety, saying members of his team were currently in New Zealand to meet survivors and families of the victims. "The story that 'Hello Brother' will bring to audiences is just one step in the healing process so that we might all better understand each other, and the root causes of hatred, racism, supremacy and terrorism." The title is based on the welcoming words spoken by an elderly Afghan man as he greeted the gunman at the doors of the Al Noor mosque. He was shot dead, but his words were taken up around the world as a rallying call against hate. News of the production was announced on the second day of the Cannes film festival, just two months after the bloodshed. Reacting to the announcement, the Christchurch-based Muslim Association of Canterbury, which represents Islamic organisations in the region, said it had not been approached about plans to make any such film. "We have not had any proposal such as this presented to us nor have we agreed to it," the organisation wrote on its Facebook page, although one man had visited the mosque on Tuesday with some "vague ideas" about filming something. "We cannot stop such projects going ahead if filmmakers choose to embark on them, but the Muslim Association of Canterbury regards the dignity and privacy of our community and the dignity of those whose lives were taken as paramount," it said. Masoud co-wrote the script and the film is being produced by his Acamedia Pictures. Last year, "Hotel Mumbai" offered a vivid dramatisation of the 2008 siege at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel as part of a string of attacks that killed 160, while "U - 22 July" recounted the deadly 2011 rampage in Norway by a rightwing extremist that left 77 dead. Masoud, who is an influential Islamic scholar, produced the 2016 film "Clash" about the social and political turmoil which brought about the ousting of Egypt's former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The film opened the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes the same year. New York (AFP) - Michael Wolff, whose tell-all about Donald Trump's chaotic early days in the White House was one of last year's bestsellers, is to publish a follow up next month called "Siege: Trump Under Fire." "Fire and Fury," the first of a string of books about the Trump presidency, was published in January 2018 and sold more than four million copies worldwide. Citing dozens of anonymous insider sources, the book told the story of how the former real estate magnate and reality star stunned the world by winning the 2016 election, painting an unflattering portrait of a chaotic campaign and an incompetent president. Trump dismissed the book as a "full of lies" and had his personal lawyer send a cease and desist order to the publisher, to no avail. Wolff's publisher Henry Holt, a subsidiary of Macmillan, said that where "Fire and Fury" dealt with Trump's first year in the White House, the new book "reveals an administration that is perpetually beleaguered by investigations and a president who is increasingly volatile, erratic and exposed." The book, to be released on June 4, starts out with Trump's presidency going into its second year and ends with the publication of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller about Russian interference in the 2016 election. By Nick Carey May 15 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co plans to start production of new luxury Lincoln models in China for that market as they are launched, starting with the new Corsair later this year, to benefit from lower costs and avoid the risk of tariffs, a top executive said on Monday. "It's a huge, huge opportunity for Lincoln because we see China as Ground Zero for Lincoln given the size of the market and how well the brand has been received," Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks said at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York. Ford has lower levels of localized production than rivals General Motors Co or Volkswagen AG, who make more vehicles in China for Chinese consumers, benefiting from lower labor and material costs, and avoiding tariffs in the burgeoning trade war between the United States and China. Shanks said all new Lincoln models, with the exception of the Navigator assembled in Louisville, Kentucky, will also be produced in China. He declined to say how much Ford will save through localized production. Ford has been struggling to revive sales in China, the automaker's second biggest market. Ford sales slumped 37 percent in 2018, after a 6 percent decline in 2017. Shanks said that all of the problems the automaker experienced in China last year were related to the Ford brand, not Lincoln, which is popular with Chinese customers. (Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by David Gregorio) Hong Kong: Joshua Law visits registry Secretary for the Civil Service Joshua Law today visited the Companies Registry. He met Registrar of Companies Ada Chung and directorate staff for an update on the departments work, including the registration of companies and statutory returns as well as the provision of company search services for the public. He then visited the Public Search Division and the Company Formation & Deregistration Division. Mr Law also toured the Development Divisions Data Centre where he was briefed on the centre's 24-hour system support services. He was pleased to learn of the departments continuous efforts to enhance its electronic services, which allow the public to incorporate companies, apply for business registration and submit related documents through the e-Registry portal or the CR eFiling mobile application. Mr Law also had tea with staff and encouraged them to continue providing efficient and quality services to the community. This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Georgia to abolish taxes for farmers of organic products By Tea Mariamidze The government of Georgia is going to abolish taxes for entrepreneurs who produce ecologically clean and organic products.The statement was made by the Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, who vowed that the taxes for ecologically clean products will be abolished.The PM voiced the initiative in West Georgia, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti Region, at the Agro Investment Business Forum in Zugdidi."Step by step, we will abolish taxes for entrepreneurs engaged in ecologically clean, organic production. The world must come to know us as a country manufacturing ecologically clean products, and that is what will help us defeat poverty and to advance Georgia's sector of agriculture to a new level of development, he said.According to Bakhtadze, Governments new initiative, Plant the Future, raises the upper limit of co-financing from the state from 100,000 to 250,000 GEL, which will be an opportunity for the farmers to develop their business.We have taken these recommendations into account, and the berries program will expand to cover every region. It is important to me that, in recent years, we have revived the significant potential of tea production. A decision has been made further to enhance support in this direction," he added.The PM spoke about the Samegrelo region, noting that it has unique potential for becoming a growing region in agricultural production. According to him, Samegrelo boasts unique grape varieties."A decision has been made to increase support for viticulture as well. We will do everything fully to tap into the region's agricultural production. That is the right way to make sure that Georgian farmers are successful, that Georgia is successful, and we will take principled steps toward overcoming poverty, he said, adding that the agricultural sector bears enormous responsibility in regards to defeating poverty in Georgia.Bakhtadze stressed that it is crucial to develop not only the central cities but equally the regions too which will bring prosperity to the country.The regional development, with particular emphasis on agriculture, is the only way to ensure Georgia's success," he added.As for the importance of the forum, the PM said it is an important precondition for achieving more in agriculture.The PM added that a few years ago, Georgias agricultural trade deficit was GEL 900 million, but it has been cut down to 300 million.I am convinced that we will be able not only to replace import but also to transform Georgia into a successful agricultural product exporter Last year, our agricultural export was one billion GEL. We would have been even more successful if it were not for the greatest challenge and problem posed by stink bugs that have affected this region, he said, referring to Asian Stink Bugs that have destroyed nearly the whole nut harvest in West Georgia. WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co said Wednesday it is recalling 270,000 Ford Fusion cars in North America that could roll away. The automaker said the recall covers Fusion cars from the 2013 through 2016 model year that have a shifter cable that may detach from the transmission allowing a driver to remove the ignition key when the vehicle is not in park. Ford is aware of three reports of property damage and one injury report potentially related to the issue. Ford said owners should always use the parking brake and will be notified when a fix is available. (Reporting by David Shepardson) Drivers of the new Ford Ranger midsize pickup truck, along with owners of the 2013-16 Ford Fusion sedan, may think their vehicle is safely in the "park" position when it is not and may roll unexpectedly. Consumers have reported property damage and an injury related to the Fusion defect, Ford said Wednesday. The company is recalling about 270,000 Fusions and 2,760 Rangers in North America to address the issue. On some affected Rangers, the two fasteners that secure the transmission shift cable bracket to the transmission housing may not have been torqued to specification, the company said. Over time, the cable bracket can loosen and the transmission would be in a different gear than the gearshift selected by the driver. "This condition could allow the driver to remove the ignition key (if equipped) with no instrument panel warning message or chime indicating that the transmission is not in park. This could allow unintended vehicle movement or roll away if the parking brake is not applied, increasing the risk of a crash or injury," Ford said in a statement. The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker is not aware of any accidents or injuries related to this condition at this time. Dealers will adjust Ranger fasteners and verify everything is safe. Drivers are urged to use the parking brake at all times until the fix has been done. The recall reference number is 19S15. "A recall on an all-new vehicle isnt uncommon," said Karl Brauer, executive publisher of Kelley Blue Book. "Its happened in the last 12 months on multiple new cars or SUVs, including models from Europe and Asia. This Ranger recall is fairly straightforward and should be easy to fix and verify. The challenging part of this recall, like all vehicle recalls, is getting the information to affected owners and having them respond in a timely manner." Injury reported Ford also issued a safety alert for its 2013-16 Fusion midsize sedans with 2.5-liter engines for similar problems. Story continues Fusion drivers may shift their lever into park and remove the ignition key but the transmission is actually not in park, with no warning message or audible chime, Ford said in its recall alert. If the parking brake is not applied, a shift cable that detaches from the transmission could allow the car to roll, increasing the risk of injury or crash, Ford said. Ford is aware of three reports of property damage and one report of an injury potentially related to this condition. Ford denied a Reuters report that it plans to shift The root cause is in the process of being confirmed, Ford said. Dealers and Fusion owners will be instructed to always use the parking brake, and they will be notified when the final remedy is available, the company said. The Ford reference number for this recall is 19S16. Follow Detroit Free Press reporter Phoebe Wall Howard on Twitter @phoebesaid. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford recalls Ranger, Fusion vehicles at risk of rolling unexpectedly Logo of jester cap with thought bubble with words 'Fool Transcripts' below it Image source: The Motley Fool. Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (NYSE: FSM) Q1 2019 Earnings Call May 15, 2019, 12:00 p.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fortuna Silver Mines' First 2019 Financial and Operational Results Call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions and comments following the presentation. If you should require assistance throughout the conference, please press *0. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Carlos Baca, Investor Relations Manager. Sir, the floor is yours. Carlos Baca -- Investor Relations Manager Thank you, Tom. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to Fortuna Silver Mines and to our financial and operations results call for the first quarter of 2019. Today, we'll be using a webcast presentation which will be controlled by us. To download the presentation, please go to our website at www.fortunasilver.com. Please click on the Investors tab then click on the Financials subtab and under Q1 2019, click on the Earnings Call Webcast link. Jorge Alberto Ganoza, President, CEO, and Director; and Luis Dario Ganoza, CFO will be hosting the call. More From The Motley Fool Before I turn over the call to Jorge, I would like to indicate that this earnings call contains forward-looking information that is based on the company's current expectations, estimates, and beliefs. This forward-looking information is subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information. Story continues Certain material factors or assumptions were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information. Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information and the material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection as reflected in the forward-looking information is contained in the company's Annual Information Form and MD&A which are publicly available on SEDAR. The company assumes no obligation to update such forward-looking information in the future except as required by law. I would now like to turn the call over to Jorge Alberto Ganoza, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Fortuna. Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Carlos and good morning to all. I will be presenting an introduction to our quarterly results and progress on the Lindero Gold Mine construction in Argentina and then turn the call over to Luis who will take you through the financial statements. After that, we'll open the call for questions. On slide 4, today we show a solid track record of organic growth and profitability from our mines in Mexico and Peru which underpins our business. For the investor's attention, let's focus now on our execution of Lindero. Lindero will be our third operating mine and is a strategic asset to the company. This mine has reserved for 15 years of gold production and is critical to the strong consolidated margins of our business. Slide 5, please. Under Q1 2019 highlights, our adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $23.8 million representing our robust 40% margin over sales. Liquidity available stands at $193 million which includes our available trade lines while keeping a modest debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.7 at the end of the quarter. The next thing for us now until Q1 of next year is the successful completion of Lindero. As of the end of April, we have a 47% advance toward completion, 97% of the direct capital costs have been committed and remaining construction capital to completion is estimated at $115 million. Apart from the typical quarterly updates on construction and news releases, we're producing a series of monthly videos that help us show our advance on a regular basis. The construction videos can be found on our website and I would like to encourage you to access the videos and follow our progress. On May 9th, we were pleased to announce the publication of our 2018 Sustainability Report. This is our first Sustainability Report and was produced under the GRI standard. This document presents a comprehensive view of the commitments and actions we're taking to conduct our business in an ethical manner, measuring our economic, social, and environmental impacts. This document one more step we take toward improving transparency and communication with stakeholders. Slide 6. Our mines teams delivered another consistent quarter with silver and gold production tracking in line with our 2019 guidance of 8.2 to 9 million ounces of silver and 49,000 to 54,000 ounces of gold. Measured against the previous quarter, silver and gold production was down 7% and 11% respectively. This is explained largely by silver and gold rates being down 6% and 12% respectively against the comparative quarter. It is worth noting that the first quarter of 2018, we had positive reconciliation in high-grade stocks and mining concentrated in some of these high-grade areas within the quarter for operational reasons. Slide 7. Precious metals accounted for 75% of the $59 million in sales for the quarter. Average realized silver price for the period was $15.60 per ounce and $1,316 per ounce for gold. This is 7% lower for silver and only about 1% lower gold against the comparable period. By-product lead and zinc prices were down 19% and 21% respectively. Slide 8. Our sales were down 16%. Adjusted EBITDA down 25% and adjusted net income down 36%. In spite of the significant drops, we managed to sustain an EBITDA margin of 40% down from 45% in the comparable quarter and adjusted net income of $8.5 million. The lower sales figures against the comparable quarter are largely explained by lower metal prices, less metal produced, and concentrate inventory buildup of Jan Jose. Slide 9. All-in sustaining costs of $10.70 is within our range or guidance for the year, but 11% above the comparable quarter. Jan Jose all-in cost has no variation with last year and Caylloma all-in cost is impacted by the drop in base metal prices and better-sustaining capital execution. Cast costs per ton at both operations are marginally higher when compared against Q1 2018 and below budget. Slide 10. We recorded capital expenditures of $37.6 million for the quarter of which approximately $31 million are attributed to Lindero. It is worth mentioning that during the quarter, we have spent $42 million comprised of recorded capital expenditures plus advances at Lindero. Our spending on the project is planned to continue at this pace which is what the project requires for completion at year-end. Next slide, please. On slide 11, we show our portfolio pyramid. I would like to highlight here that with Lindero in production, we will be in a position to take our annual gold production from the current 50,000 ounces of gold to north of 200,000 ounces of gold while maintaining silver production at 8 million to 9 million ounces of silver. Next slide, please. Slide 12 shows a simplified schedule with some selected milestones. I would like to move on to the next slide, please. Just to recap, we continue to plan for commercial operations in Q1 2020. The project shows a 47% advance as of April. 97% of the projects total direct capital costs have been committed. $150 million construction capital remains until completion and we continue to forecast $295 million for the total capital capex. We continue to report approximately $17 million in contingencies within the $295 million fee. Next slide, please. Here I would like to present you with some of the latest photos showing the advance at Lindero. This is a view of our start-up leach pad on slide 14. As you can see, the complete 35 hector site of the start-up leach pad is ready and receiving liner and over liner. We expect to conclude the leach pad by the month of August so it will be ready to start receiving first ore in October, early in Q4. Next slide, please. In slide 15, we present pictures of the crushing circuit. This is the critical path of construction. We started the electromechanical installation of the tertiary crusher, which is an HPGR, higher pressure grinder roll. The equipment is mounted on the final stages of installation as we speak. We are starting this week with the mounting of secondary crushers. The primary crusher is the last piece of equipment that is going to be installed and here all of the ground preparation and foundation work for the crushers is concluded and retention walls are virtually concluded by now as well. Next slide. Here we show in the upper pictures this is the tunnel under the stockpile that will feed the HPGR coming from the secondary crusher. This is a tunnel that takes a lot of concrete but it is well advanced by now. We started placing concrete in the tunnel this week as well. Next slide. ADR and SART plants are not on the critical path of the project. Foundations are concluded and this project needs to be commissioned in late November or early December. We are on schedule with that timeline. Next slide. Mine development, we have on site all the mine fleet. The mining fleet is operational and complete. Six 100-ton trucks, two-wheel loader, a shovel, two driller rigs for production, graters, dozers. The mine work has advanced, and the mine is prepared for production. We expect to initiate the production blasting in the month of July. I would like to remind everybody that at Lindero, Lindero benefits from very low strip ratio as high-grade mineralization outcrops over extensive areas on the surface. So, we benefit from accessing ore from the start at the mine. This is no over stripping or extensive mine preparation that needs to take place. So, the mine is ready for production as we speak. Next. Slide 19, we are advancing with ancillary facilities. Here you see on the left the structure being installed and mounted and on the right pictures of our plant. The plant is ready for commissioning by mid-year. So, we'll be fully operational with power from this 8-megawatt plant where we're going to be self-generating power for our operations. Next slide. So, with this, I will pass on the call to Luis. Luis Ganoza -- Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Jorge. Slide 21. So, sales for the first quarter were $59 million down 16% from 2018 due to lower metal prices and lower metal production when compared to the prior year. We reported net income of $2.2 million compared to $13.8 million in Q1 2018 and adjusted net income of $8.4 million compared to $13.2 million in Q1 of 2018. The reduction was driven mainly by lower sales. Our adjusted EBITDA was $23.8 million compared to $31.8 million recorded in 2018 and free cash flow from ongoing operations was $2.2 million compared to $16.8 million in 2018. Free cash flow in the quarter was affected by short-term movements in inventory and accounts receivable of around $7.1 million. At current metal prices, we expect free cash flow to be on average in the range of $8 million to $10 million for the quarter. Next slide, please. On slide 22, when breaking down our sales performance for the quarter, we can see the highest impact came from lower silver and base metal prices. Lower silver and gold sold. Less favorable treatment and refining charges in 2019 also had an impact on sales when compared to 2018. Slide 23. Our comparative segmented results show a similar pattern in both operations, mainly lower margins driven by lower prices and slightly higher costs in the case of Jan Jose. Cash costs at Jan Jose were $68.7 per ton, which was about the mid-point of our guidance for the year but aligned with our budget for the first quarter. Cash costs at Caylloma were slightly below the range of our cost guidance for the year and are expected to increase closer to the mid-point of our guidance. Slide 24. G&A is slightly below Q1 2018 and inline with guidance provided in our year-end call. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was affected by the devaluation of the Argentine Peso of 24 percentage points of out of the 76% effective tax rate are explained by this factor alone. Next slide, slide 25. Finally, on slide 25 the evolution of our cash balance reflects the increased pace of spending at Lindero. We closed the quarter with $113 million in the treasury and total liquidity of $193 million. Construction spending on Lindero in the quarter was $42.2 million while total spending on the construction at the end of March was $165 million. This leaves a total amount remaining to spend on the construction budget of $130 million as of the end of March. And as Jorge disclosed, at the end of April, this amount was $115 million. This amount excludes any VAT. So, thank you and back to you, Carlos. Carlos Baca -- Investor Relations Manager Thank you, Luis. We would now like to turn the call over to any questions that you might have. Questions and Answers: Operator Thank you. The floor is now open for your questions. If you do have a question, please press * 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. If you are using the speakerphone, we ask that while posing your question you pick up your handset to provide favorable sound quality. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do you have a question or comment, please press * 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. Please hold while hold for your questions. We'll take our first question from Ife McGowan with CAPIA. Eithel Mc Gowen -- CAPIA -- Analyst Hi, Jorge. Hi, Luis. My question is about the Lindero depreciation and depletion for the first few years. So, given that the 20% increase in capex required for the project and accelerate depreciation schedule, how much are you expecting of depreciation and depletion for the first three years of the operation? Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer Depletion will take place -- I take it we are talking about financial depreciation and depletion. Depletion will take place over the life of the mine. That is 12 to 13 years. So, I'm doing the quick math here as we speak. That is $295 million capex over 13 years. That's around $22 million a year of depreciation and depletion combined, I'd say on average per year. You mentioned accelerated depreciation. That would be a feature of tax depreciation. There is some of that we expect to benefit from, but I'm not sure that was what you were referring to. Eithel Mc Gowen -- CAPIA -- Analyst Yes, related to the tax depreciation. Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yes. On the tax side of things, there are incentives that would allow us to benefit from accelerated depreciation on fixed assets over, if I'm not mistaken, a three year period for a significant portion of the construction spend. I'm not able to give you precise figures at this very moment. I'm happy to share them outside of the call. Eithel Mc Gowen -- CAPIA -- Analyst Okay. Thanks. Operator And we'll take our next question from Chris Thompson with PI Financial. Chris Thompson -- PI Financial -- Analyst Hey. Good morning, guys. Just a couple of quick questions. We'll start out with Jan Jose and then I just wanted to ask a question on Lindero. So, Jan Jose, first of all, I did notice an uptick in unit costs in the quarter. It currently looks like on the high side of guidance. Do you expect these to remain there or can we see them retreating more to 2018 levels? Luis Ganoza -- Chief Financial Officer Chris, thanks for the question. We expect to be within the range of guidance. We see nothing that suggests a trend away from our guidance, Chris. Chris Thompson -- PI Financial -- Analyst Okay. All right. Just on the grades, I know that you did mention that they were a little lower than anticipated. They beat our expectations and it looks like they are tracking above guidance as well. Again, a similar sort of question. How should we be modeling the grades both gold and silver for the remainder of the year? Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer Grades were basically in line with our budget for the quarter. We show lower grades at San Jose compared to the comparable quarter, Q1 2018. That leads to the drop in metal in production against the comparable quarter as well. But 2018, in the start of 2018, it benefited from positive reconciliation and concentration of mining on high-grade areas due to operational reasons which lead us to mine above budget and plan in the start of the year. So, that's why you see a drop quarter versus quarter in metal and that's lead by grade. Our grades at this mine are tracking along plan and I think something I can say about this mine is that our ability to project grade and tonnage has always been very good due to the nature of the deposit and we expect no deviations with respect to guidance and grade. We're what we planned. Chris Thompson -- PI Financial -- Analyst Okay. That's good enough. Just on expiration, maybe a little bit of an update of what's happening at San Jose? Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer At San Jose we are preparing to -- We do our costs for resources around mid-year. So, we are guiding up our drilling. Our focus, we have three or four rigs working on peripheral areas on the deep extension and to the south and some areas in the north around the shell of existing resources. We have provided some results previously. We need to provide a market update on additional results but we expect based on what we're seeing that we will be able to have new resources come in that will help us deal with depletion. That's our expectation based on the drilling to date. I cannot report any game-changing discovery or anything like this. I think San Jose is at a stage where our exploration is yielding resources that help us deal with depletion. So, we are preparing to close our drilling for the first half of the year to consolidate the data that will go into the resource estimations in the second half of the year which supports our budgeting and reserve exercises. Chris Thompson -- PI Financial -- Analyst Okay. Great. A final question about Lindero, here. You were talking about the crusher being a critical path item. Maybe just can you outline the remaining critical path items for the project and sort of put it in context by way of timing? Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer Yes. All of the eyes and efforts of the construction team are on the crushing and leach pad. We are pushing and working on our schedule to keep on track. We plan to start placing ore in October in the leach pad. So, that will require the entire crushing system to be operational. That will require power. That will require a leach pad to receive the ore. That will require the stacking system. And when I talk about crushing, it's crushing and agglomeration system. So, crushing and agglomeration, power, water, stockers, leach pad. Out of all of those, the one that is on the critical path is the commissioning of the crushing and agglomeration. We have the stackers arriving on site as we speak. We already received about half of the stackers. Those are starting to being assembled. So, no issues there. The leach pad, as you have seen on the picture, all of the area works related to the leach pad and site preparations are concluded. We need to roll out the geomembrane and then place over liner on top of that. So, that work is ongoing and our plan calls for the completion of the leach pad and have it ready to receive ore in August. So, that is running with time in our schedule. Power, we will have power available from the 8-megawatt plant in June or July. So, no issues there. As you have seen in the pictures, all of the power stations are there, are installed with the secondary tension line, the secondary transmission power line is advancing well according to plan. So, no issues there. Water, our well field is 13 kilometers away from the site. The wells, of course, we concluded early in the project and we're laying down the water pipeline. This is also a work that we plan to have concluded by mid-year and it's advancing well. So, the last thing to be delivered within all of this is the actual crushing and agglomeration. We need to mount the equipment, install it, put up the belt conveyors, and commission the crushing. And it is a big work. The bulk of that excavations and the riskier part of that in terms of uncertainties are related usually to excavations and all of that is done. All of the excavations are done. As you see, we have built the retention walls. We are basically concluded with all the major placement of concrete for large foundations with the exception of the tunnel for the stockpile between the secondary and HPGR. But as you've seen in the pictures as well, that work is advancing and advancing according to plan. So, I just tried to give you a bit more color of where we are with all of this. So, we need to start placing ore in early Q4 on the leach pad and then the delivery of SART and AVR comes in late November or early December. We have no elements on critical path on the side of procurement and expediting. All of that, we have no red flags there. Everything we need is arriving on time. We have the contractors on site. I have to say that getting the project to this stage has been a monumental effort. As we have shared with you, the challenges that we faced with the start of this project with delays on camp availability, challenges with the excavations in the leach pad and foundations, all of those issues are resolved. We currently have roughly 1200 people on site, close to a thousand people to date climbing up to 1200 on site. All the major contractors are running on all cylinders on the project and the project is really advancing at the pace that we need. That's also reflected in the rate of spending of the project. In Q1 we spent $42 million and that is the rate of spend that we need on the project for conclusion at year end. Based on the activities that we're seeing, which are the planned activities, we can sustain the rate of spend and bring this project to a successful conclusion by year end. Chris Thompson -- PI Financial -- Analyst Great. Thank you, Jorge. Thanks for that. Operator Again, ladies and gentlemen, that's * 1 on your touchtone telephone if you do have a question, * 1 at this time, please. We'll go next to Adrian Day, Asset Management. Adrian Day -- Asset Management -- Analyst Yes. Good afternoon. My question is specifically on Caylloma. You gave us a breakdown of metals by production. Can you tell us how that compares with the comparable period, the comparable quarter? Also, perhaps, just discuss a little bit about the variability of metal production specifically going forward, how you see it. Carlos Baca -- Investor Relations Manager Good morning, Adrian. Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer All of your questions just refers to Caylloma, no? Adrian Day -- Asset Management -- Analyst Correct. Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer For Caylloma today, zinc and lead are major components of value. So, with respect to zinc and lead against the comparable quarter, as we showed in the presentation, there is no significant variance in terms of metal output for zinc and lead. Our zinc production is up 2% compared against Q1 2018 and our lead production is up 2% against Q1 2018. So, and silver production is basically on line as well with Q1 2018. What has hit Caylloma comparing against the comparable quarter is the large drop in zinc and lead prices we've seen compared to a year ago. Lead prices are down 19% and zinc prices are down 21%. No? Adrian Day -- Asset Management -- Analyst Okay. Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer But in terms of metal output, the mine is running well according to plan. Even though we are seeing also higher all-in sustaining costs. That's also explained by higher sustaining capital. But it is basically a good execution of our budget in the quarter compared against last year. Last year we had a larger sustaining capital budget at Caylloma. It was about $16 million. This year our capex budget for Caylloma is about $13 million. So, it's a lower sustaining capital or investment budget for that mine. But we had a much better execution of that budget at the start of this year compared to last year. So, that's also impacting our all-in sustaining costs. The way to view the cost performance of the mine, to better view the cost performance is on a cost per ton basis. On a cost per ton, we are on line with budget. Adrian Day -- Asset Management -- Analyst Okay. So, the relative of production of zinc, lead, and then silver doesn't really change much? Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer No. The mine is operating at a steady state and we have provided guidance. Adrian Day -- Asset Management -- Analyst Okay. Thank you. Operator Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that's * 1 on your touchtone telephone if you do have a question, * 1 at this time, please. Mr. Baca, there appears to be no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to you for any additional or closing remarks. Carlos Baca -- Investor Relations Manager Thank you, Tom. I would like to thank everyone for listening to today's earnings call and we look forward to you joining us next quarter. Have a good day. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Have a great day. Duration: 40 minutes Call participants: Carlos Baca -- Investor Relations Manager Jorge Ganoza -- President and Chief Executive Officer Luis Ganoza -- Chief Financial Officer Eithel Mc Gowen -- CAPIA -- Analyst Chris Thompson -- PI Financial -- Analyst Adrian Day -- Asset Management -- Analyst More FSM analysis All earnings call transcripts 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 Transcription 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. PARIS, May 15 (Reuters) - The French army has no plans at this point to suspend military training activities in Iraq, a source close to the French Defence ministry told Reuters on Wednesday. "There is no change regarding the French engagement at this time," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. France currently employs 300 military training staff in Iraq. Germany and the Netherlands said on Wednesday they were suspending military training in Iraq as the United States warned of increased threats from Iran-backed forces amid an escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. State Department has ordered the pullout of some employees from both its embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil. (Reporting by Sophie Louet; Writing by Matthias Blamont; Editing by Luke Baker) PARIS, May 15 (Reuters) - France said on Wednesday that drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil installations claimed by Houthi rebels were an unacceptable act that threatened regional security, and warned all sides to avoid an escalation that would put Yemeni peace talks at risk. "France strongly condemns the attacks carried out by drones against Saudi oil installations, claimed by the Houthis. These attacks, which undermine Saudi Arabia's security and the stability of the region, are an unacceptable act," foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said in a statement. "France calls on all parties to refrain from any escalation likely to jeopardize the political process to bring an end to the Yemeni conflict," she added. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta) BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany and the Netherlands said on Wednesday they were suspending military training operations in Iraq as the United States warned of increased threats from Iran-backed forces amid an escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran. A German defence ministry spokesman said Berlin had no indications of its own of any impending attacks on Western interests by Iran and said the training programmes could resume in the coming days. A Dutch government source also announced a suspension of military training operations, citing an unspecified security threat. Germany has 160 soldiers involved in training Iraqi forces trying to contain Islamic State militants. The Netherlands has 169 military and civilian personnel in Iraq, including about 50 in Erbil, where they are helping to train Kurdish troops. Dutch news agency ANP said Dutch forces had been ordered to remain indoors since Sunday. Earlier on Wednesday the U.S. State Department ordered the pullout of some employees from both its embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil. The order came as tensions build up between the United States and Iran. Washington has applied new sanctions pressure on Tehran and sent additional forces to the Middle East, saying there is an increased threat from Iran to U.S. interests there. (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Sabine Siebold; Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Gareth Jones) Njambi Koikai alias Jahmby is the latest Kenyan personality to be killed on the internet. The media personality has been battling Thoracic Endometriosis, a rare form of endometriosis which causes her lungs to collapse regularly. She has been in and out of the surgery room for about three years now before she was admitted to a hospital in the U.S for specialized treatment in February 2018. On Tuesday, the former Trend host and panelist took to Instagram to shoot down reports that she is dead. And she employed humour, writing her post in heavy Sheng and joking that she is ready to put up a YouTube Channel about 1000 ways to stay alive. Kuna msee niliona alipost ati nimekacha(nimededi) mazeeNataka tu kumshow mi niko poa sana siwezi nyuria hii idhaa. Niko tu poa infact nafikiria vile ntaanza youtube channel niwashow 1000 ways to stay alive, have good skin and strong locs. Mbogi ingine ikikosa story za kutrendwanaanza za ovyo. God ndio hupeana life. Mi niko going strong mbaya sana aiseeh! Thankfully now at 4.4m, Finishing strong mazee.#jahmbyarmy, wrote the reggae music connoisseur. The radio personality was forced to appeal for financial help from wellwishers after she accepted for specialised treatment in America when her family was coming out of a financial crisis occasioned by her late grandmothers cancer treatment. In November last year, Njambi sought Johos financial assistance on social media, with the Mombasa governor contributing Sh1million towards her medical fund. Accra (AFP) - With his white hair and walking stick, Charles Kormi Kudzordzi does not look like the leader of a revolutionary separatist movement seeking to forge a new West African nation. Even his supporters call the frail 85-year old "Papavi", or grandfather. But Ghana's security forces are not taking any chances. A joint police and military operation cracked down this month on a group that said it was preparing to declare its own nation in the eastern Volta region bordering Togo. Soldiers blocked roads and stormed houses, arresting 89 people across the region, most of them around the town of Ho, 150 kilometres (93 miles) northeast of Ghana's capital Accra. The separatists, members of the innocuous-sounding "Homeland Study Group Foundation", or HSGF, call their dream country "Western Togoland". "We are not leaving anything to chance," said Prince Dogbatse, Volta region police spokesman. "We're on high alert... to protect the territorial boundaries of Ghana." Police say the group not only has an anthem, constitution and flag, but is also training a militia force. The Volta region is also a stronghold of Ghana's main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC). - 'Storm in a tea cup' - A video taken by a local journalist of the arrests shows Kudzordzi leaning heavily on a carved wooden stick, flanked by men in combat helmets and automatic rifles leading him towards a military helicopter. The retired teacher pauses, as if out of breath, before getting in. Kudzordzi was flown to the confines of the high-security walls of Ghana's Bureau of National Investigations in Accra, accused, with seven other men, of being the group's leaders, and charged with treason. They risk the death penalty if found guilty. Kudzordzi -- who was granted bail but could not meet the conditions -- will next appear in court on May 22 with his co-accused. A further 81 supporters have been released on bail on illegal gathering charges. Story continues Separatists say the Volta area has a unique history and culture and warrants being its own country, but reject accusations of planning violence to achieve their goal. "Our activities have always been in the open," the fugitive secretary of HSGF, George Nyakpo, told AFP. Local lawmaker Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor accused police of heavy-handedness. "We are in a democratic state, and you don't just arrest people because you think they have an intention to demonstrate," said Dafeamekpor. "It's a storm in a tea cup." - 'Craftiness of Britain' - The region's problems are deeply rooted in divisions created by its colonial past. During the so-called "Scramble for Africa", Britain seized much of what is today Ghana, while Germany grabbed areas to the east, then Togoland. After Germany's defeat in World War One, Togoland was split west-east between Britain and France. When Britain abandoned its empire in 1956, Ghana was among the first African colonies to gain freedom. The people of British Togoland were given a choice between Ghana and Togo, and Britain said nearly two-thirds opted to incorporate their area into Ghana. Separatists say that vote was rigged. "It was the craftiness of Britain... that deprived us of our self-rule and sovereignty," the HSGF said in a statement last year. - Bigger than Belgium - If Western Togoland were a country, it would be home to millions of people and possibly rich in oil and gold reserves. Multiple ethnic groups live in the area; Christians, Muslims, and followers of voodoo. Separatists say the territory is a strip 550 kilometres (340 miles) long and 60 kilometres wide -- stretching from the border with Burkina Faso in the north to the Gulf of Guinea, sandwiched between Ghana and Togo. UN documents from 1955 estimate then-British Togoland at 33,776 square kilometres (13,041 square miles) -- slightly bigger than Belgium. But while the colonial-era area was landlocked, separatists today claim access to the sea. Historians reject a claim by separatists that in 1956 the people of Togoland were promised another referendum after 50 years. "It is not true," said Professor Wilson Yayoh, from Ghana's University of Cape Coast. - Long history - Backers of Western Togoland claim widespread support, but many in Volta seem suspicious. "Their mission is impossible," said trader Doris Mawusi. "Ghana is our homeland and we are here to stay." "We don't trust these HSGF people," said Joseph Doe, a 57-year-old fisherman. "They are pursuing their parochial interests. What track record do they have to rule over us?" The separatists began campaigning in 1972 as the "National Liberation Movement of Togoland", dominated by the Ewe tribal group. Their calls to renegotiate borders sparked tensions between Ghana and Togo, and in 1976, Accra banned the group. Back then, US diplomatic cables said the government was "unusually sensitive to Ewe separatist challenges, which may be real or imaginary". Today, the issue seems to cause no less twitchiness in the Ghanaian capital. WASHINGTON (AP) An attempt by presidential senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner to win support for a White House immigration plan produced uncertain results Tuesday as Republican senators raised questions. After Kushner and others described the proposal at a Capitol Hill lunch with GOP lawmakers, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters that White House officials seemed "well on their way" to winning consensus for a plan that would unite Republicans on the contentious issue. But he added, "Whether it will or not, I don't know." Kushner has been describing his proposal to Republicans even as the approaching 2020 presidential campaign makes a solution to what has long been an intractable issue even harder to resolve. President Donald Trump has made hard-line policies a staple of his presidency as conservatives push to reduce legal immigration. Democrats want an easing of restrictions that have prevented many from obtaining citizenship, including for hundreds of thousands of young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. They've been allowed to temporarily live and work in the U.S. under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump has tried to terminate. Kushner won a positive reception for his proposal last week from about a dozen of the Senate's more conservative Republicans. It features a bolstering of security measures, such as improved screening at southwest border ports of entry, and an increased preference for immigrants with strong job skills over relatives of migrants already in the U.S. Graham, who is close to Trump, said that while Kushner's plan focuses on people with high-end job skills, "We need workers across the board." Moderate Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Kushner about protections for DACA recipients but received no specific answer, Republicans said. "They cannot be excluded from any immigration package," Collins said afterward. Story continues One Republican official briefed on Tuesday's meeting said Kushner provided few details and said senators did not seem overly impressed with the plan. Another said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not offer his views of the proposal. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private session. Senators said Trump was expected to deliver a speech on immigration in coming days. Kushner did not include DACA protections in his proposal. Republicans say the plan is designed to give their party a starting point for talks and a stance they can carry into next year's elections. "I don't think it's designed to get Democratic support as much as it is to unify the Republican Party around border security, a negotiating position," Graham said. "There was a lot of encouragement today for the work they've done," said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. Graham planned to unveil his own proposal Wednesday for revamping laws that affect Central American migrants seeking asylum to enter the U.S. Growing numbers of them have been trying to get asylum status in recent years. ___ AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and reporter Matthew Daly contributed. Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) on Wednesday urged Department of Defense and State Department officials to explain to members of Congress why they felt inclined to withdraw diplomatic personnel from U.S. embassies in Iraq earlier in the day. Removing personnel from embassies and consulates is clearly a serious move by the State Department; they feel the threat, Graham told reporters. I would urge the State Department and DoD to come down here and explain to us whats going on, because I have no idea what the threat stream is beyond what I read in the paper. And I think there are a lot of people in my shoes who are going to support standing up to Iran but they need to understand what the threat is. Sen. Graham after State Dept. orders personnel to leave Iraq posts: "I would urge the State Dept. and DoD to come down here and explain to us what's going on" with alleged threats from Iran. "We need to understand what we're doing."https://t.co/sE3cURbALx pic.twitter.com/vhRDcdMLSz NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) May 15, 2019 The State Department ordered all non-critical government employees to leave Iraq Wednesday morning to avoid potential danger if violence breaks out between the U.S. and neighboring Iran. That announcement came after a U.S. intelligence assessment blaming Iran for attacking Saudi oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates over the weekend. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated steadily since mid-April, when the Trump administration designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. The U.S. then dispatched the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier-strike group to the Persian Gulf last Thursday in response to intelligence reports that suggested a possible imminent attack on American troops by Iranian forces or their proxies. Story continues The New York Times reported Monday evening that acting secretary of defense Patrick Shanahan presented a plan to top national-security aides last week that called for deploying 120,000 troops to the Middle East in the event Iran attacked U.S. forces or made any effort to accelerate its nuclear program. President Trump pushed back on the report Tuesday, telling reporters no such plan had been devised while also expressing a willingness to deploy that many troops under certain unspecified circumstances. I think its fake news, okay? Would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we dont have to plan for that. And if we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that, Trump told reporters at the White House. British major general Chris Ghika, who is deputy commander of the coalition operations against ISIS, publicly rebuked the Trump administrations assertion that there is an increased threat to U.S. forces in the Middle East. I am not going to go into the detail of it, but there are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria and we dont see an increased threat from many of them at this stage, he told reporters Tuesday. More from National Review ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek court on Wednesday acquitted nine Turkish citizens of terrorism-related offences, citing a lack of evidence, a judicial source said. Greek police had arrested the eight men and one woman in dawn raids in central Athens, days before a state visit by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to Greece in December 2017. Authorities at the time suspected links to the leftist DHKP/C, a Turkish far-left group blamed for a string of attacks and suicide bombings in Turkey since 1990. The detainees had denied any wrongdoing, and prosecutors had suggested they should be acquitted. The judicial source provided no further details on the outcome of the case. Greece and Turkey, although NATO allies, have often been at loggerheads over issues including Aegean territorial rights and the ethnically divided island of Cyprus. Tensions rose further when eight Turkish army officers commandeered a helicopter and fled to Greece in the wake of the failed coup attempt against Erdogan in 2016. Greek courts have repeatedly rejected extradition requests from Turkish authorities. (Reporting by Constantinos Georgizas Writing by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Michele Kambas/Mark Heinrich) The Soup Otzie's. | Photo: Ahnoki D./Yelp Looking to uncover all that Tippecanoe has to offer? Get to know this Milwaukee neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from a soup joint to a fried chicken delivery spot. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in Tippecanoe, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. The Soup Otzie's Photo: ahnoki d./Yelp Topping the list is The Soup Otzie's, a spot to score sandwiches and soup. Located at 3950 S. Howell Ave., it's the highest rated business in the neighborhood, boasting 4.5 stars out of 86 reviews on Yelp. This spot's menu changes daily based on the flavor of the day. Daily offerings include Mom's Pot Roast, Cream of Potato, Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle and more. Stop by today for New England Clam Chowder and vegetarian Cheesy Onion. Check out the spot's website for more information and an upcoming schedule of available soups. 2. Gold Rush Chicken Carry Out & Delivery Photo: gold rush chicken carry out & delivery/Yelp Chicken shop Gold Rush Chicken Carry Out & Delivery, which offers chicken and seafood, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 3500 S. Howell Ave., four stars out of 50 reviews. Come in, order delivery or pick up your food and take it home at this fried chicken joint that offers big buckets of chicken, seafood entrees, barbecue, burgers and pizza. Hone in on popular options like the Super Barrel 24-piece chicken bucket, the jumbo shrimp jumbo dinner, or the single pork chop barbecue dinner. Appetizers and dessert round out this spot's menu. 3. Buddy's Meat Market Photo: chiefslapaho e./Yelp Buddy's Meat Market, a butcher and meat shop, is another much-loved neighborhood go-to, with 4.5 stars out of 20 Yelp reviews. Head over to 3620 S. Clement Ave. to see for yourself. Come sit down and enjoy some chicken, pork or beef, or peruse the market's large selection of meat and take it home and cook it up yourself. 4. Gingerz Sportz Pub And Grill Story continues Photo: william s./Yelp Check out Gingerz Sportz Pub And Grill, which has earned four stars out of 14 reviews on Yelp. You can find the venues and event space, Irish pub and traditional American spot at 3915 S. Howell Ave. The menu is littered with everything from pizza and burgers to sandwiches and wraps. Check out specific menu options such as the Jalapeno Cheddar Burger; the Philly Cheesesteak loaded with onion, mushrooms, green peppers and Cheese Whiz; and the Ragin' Rooster pizza with chicken, bacon, onion and barbecue sauce. The full menu can be seen 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. Thai Spice. | Photo: Eric S./Yelp Visiting North Domingo Baca, or just looking to better appreciate what it has to offer? Get to know this Albuquerque neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from a Thai restaurant to an Eastern European dessert spot. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in North Domingo Baca, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses. Read on for the results. 1. Thai Spice Photo: Lorelai p./Yelp Topping the list is Thai spot Thai Spice. Located at 7441 Paseo Del Norte Blvd. NE, it's the highest-rated business in the neighborhood, boasting 4.5 stars out of 176 reviews on Yelp. On the menu, expect a diverse selection of Thai curry dishes, noodles, fish and more. Look for the stir-fried tofu loaded with veggies, cashew nuts and roasted chili. 2. Weck's Photo: Maria G./Yelp Next up is breakfast and brunch spot Weck's, situated at 7301 N. Paseo Del Norte. With 4.5 stars out of 73 reviews on Yelp, it's proven to be a local favorite. Operating for nearly three decades, this spot boasts six outposts across New Mexico, according to its website. On the breakfast menu, look for buttermilk pancakes, French toast and waffles. For lunch, items include the Philly-style roast beef sandwiches, burgers and quesadillas. 3. Which Wich Photo: Karla M./Yelp Which Wich, a spot to score sandwiches and more, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 8110 Louisiana Blvd. NE, Suite F, four stars out of 52 reviews. This spot is a Texas-based chain with build-your-own sandwich options, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Look for its signature Reuben sandwich or the meatball grinder. There's also a small selection of made-to-order milkshakes. 4. Kolache Factory Photo: Pat Z./Yelp Last but not least, Kolache Factory, a breakfast, bakery and catering spot, is another neighborhood go-to, with four stars out of 96 Yelp reviews. Head over to 8001 Wyoming Blvd. NE, #B3 to see for yourself. This spot, which has operated for 37 years, specializes in the kolach, an Eastern European pastry stuffed with fruit or cheese, according to its website. On the menu, look for sweet and savory kolaches, Polish sausage, coffee and more. 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 botched murder-suicide incident has left residents of Kautine village, Igembe North in Meru County shaken. Three members of a family are recuperating at different hospitals in Meru after a man attacked his teen wife and their baby with a knife. The man then attempted to take his own life during the incident which occurred on Thursday last week. The suspect stabbed the 17-year-old girl eleven times and cut their one-year-old baby on the face, Nation reports. A suicide recovered at the scene showed that the assailant wanted to kill mother and child before committing suicide. Joseph Kaumbuthu, the father of the girl, said trouble started when they announced plans to take their daughter back to school. He impregnated my daughter when she was in class eight but we forgave him. We allowed our daughter to take care of the child and plans were underway for her to go back to school. When she told him that she was going back to school, he became violent, said Kaumbuthu. The girls mother, Ms Beatrice Kaumbuthu, said the young couple had cohabited for some time before the dispute. They had a dispute after she informed the man that she is going back to school. She came back home and informed us that he had threatened to stab her if she went back to school, she said. The girls parents collected a suicide note, pesticide, weapon of attack and bloodied clothes. But nearly a week after the attack, police are yet to open an investigation. Kaumbuthu told Nation that police officers said they would visit the scene after the suspect had recuperated. Igembe North Police Commander Apollo Busolo said complainants reported the matter at Maua and Mutuati police stations but never returned to give leads. In the suicide note, the man claimed that the girl does not respect him, insults him and she is always at her parents home. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri took to the Senate floor Wednesday morning for his first floor speech, decrying the Republican partys sclerotic reliance on Reagan-era free-market orthodoxy and advocating a populist move toward the great American middle. Channeling the anti-elitist current that swept President Trump into the Oval Office, Hawley lambasted Americas academics, media figures, video-game designers, financiers, entertainers, and pharmaceutical executives, casting them as uncaring aristocrats who have chosen profit over patriotism time and time again, for decades. Todays society benefits those who shaped it, and it has been shaped not by working men and women, but by the aristocratic elite, he said, reading from prepared remarks obtained by National Review. Big banks, big tech, big multi-national corporations, along with their allies in the academy and media these are the aristocrats of our age. They live in the United States, but they consider themselves citizens of the world. They operate businesses or run universities here, but their primary loyalty is elsewhere, to their own agenda for a more unified, progressive and profitable global order. Just months into his tenure as a freshman senator, Hawley has already begun to cement his reputation as a gadfly among congressional Republicans by urging a more active role for the government in reversing the cultural and economic losses suffered in recent years by Americans like those he grew up with. If you want a life built around the place where you grew up, if your goals are not to found a tech startup but to carry on the family business, to serve on the PTA and in your local church, well, youre told youre not a success, and youre on your own. Hawley said. This is hardly an accident. The people who make the rules now, who run our large corporations, who set the tone for our popular culture, all belong to the same class. This economy has been their economy. They made it for themselves. Story continues But in places like the one where I grew up in middle Missouri, good-paying jobs that you can raise a family on are moving away, he added. Hawleys populist leanings and distrust of status-quo Republican politics have found expression in a number of unorthodox bills, none more so than legislation he introduced last week that would prohibit video-game makers from exploiting children by encouraging them to spend money in order to advance in a particular game. Google and Facebook have also emerged as favorite targets of Hawleys populist ire. He has openly entertained the possibility of breaking the companies up and has argued on many occasions that the government must, at the very least, introduce substantial regulations to prevent them from trading on users personal data. In a letter sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week, Hawley argued that the tech billionaire has a responsibility to his fellow Americans to dramatically shift his business model away from the monetization of user data and the capturing of users attention. The burden to protect the American people from forces parasitic on our national life and on our economy is on me and my colleagues. I take my responsibilities seriously, he wrote. I hope you do the same for yours. More from National Review By Francesco Guarascio BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Romania and Hungary are pushing the EU to make it easier for orchard farmers to distil their own fruit brandy, a traditional practice in east and central Europe that is restricted in the bloc on health grounds. The former communist states, both of which have clashed with the EU over accusations of undermining civil rights, have taken to describing the right to distil fruit brandy as a fight for freedoms. At the initiative of Romania, which holds the EU rotating presidency through June, the issue will be discussed by EU finance ministers at a meeting on Friday, just ahead of European parliamentary elections next week. EU rules now ban distilling at home, although orchard owners who bring their own fruit to distilleries to be made into brandy are allowed to take some home for personal use, paying half the usual rate of excise tax. Romania, known for its "tuica" plum brandy, wants to lift the ban on home distilling and give countries the option to remove excise tax altogether for brandy produced for the fruit grower's own use. It is backed by Hungary, whose president Viktor Orban changed Hungary's laws to allow home distilling in 2010 but was forced to backtrack by the EU's top court, which ruled the changes illegal in 2014. Hungarians are known for "palinka", brandy from apricots, plums, cherries, apples or pears. Fruit growers in Hungary and Romania are already allowed to produce more brandy for personal use, taxed at the lower rate, than in other EU countries, up to 50 litres a year per grower. A tweak to an EU legislative proposal suggested by Romania would allow countries to charge no tax rather than just lowering it. The personal use threshold would be raised to 100 litres in Romania and Hungary, and 50 litres elsewhere in the EU. The reform would also legalise home distilleries, a move that would be welcomed by other states, including Austria, officials said. Homemade beers and wines are already legal and duty-free in the bloc. Story continues A Romanian official said the higher ceiling was meant to allow large households in the countryside to produce their own spirits in line with ancient traditions. The proposal, which needs the backing of all EU states to be approved, is opposed by Germany, Italy, Sweden and Bulgaria, according to an EU document seen by Reuters. Sofia fears the reform would allow cheaper Romanian brandies to be sold illegally across the border and disrupt local production, a Bulgarian official said. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by Peter Graff) JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) Missouri's Republican-led Senate is set to take up a bill to ban abortions after eight weeks, a move that comes as GOP legislatures across the U.S. are emboldened by the possibility that a more conservative Supreme Court could overturn its landmark ruling legalizing the procedure. The Missouri bill would be one of the nation's most restrictive if enacted. It's similar to "heartbeat" bills signed into law in Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio and Georgia that ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. That can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. Missouri is among several states where abortion opponents are working with renewed enthusiasm following President Donald Trump's appointment of more conservative high court justices. Alabama's Senate passed a near-total ban on abortion Tuesday, sending what would be the nation's most stringent abortion law to the state's Republican governor. Supporters say the Alabama bill is intentionally designed to conflict with the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally in hopes of sparking a court case that might prompt the justices to revisit abortion rights. Missouri's bill also includes an outright ban on abortions except in cases of medical emergencies. But that would only kick in if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Doctors who perform abortions in Missouri would face 5-15 years in prison if that provision is enacted. The Missouri legislation is designed to withstand court challenges, which are likely imminent. Kentucky's six-week ban was immediately challenged by the ACLU after it was signed in March, and a federal judge temporarily blocked it. Earlier versions of the law passed in North Dakota and Iowa have also been struck down in court. If courts don't allow Missouri's proposed eight-week ban to take effect, it includes a ladder of less-restrictive time limits ranging from 14-20 weeks. Other provisions in the wide-ranging abortion bill include a ban on abortions based on race, sex or a "prenatal diagnosis, test, or screening indicating Down Syndrome or the potential of Down Syndrome in an unborn child." Story continues The bill would also require that both parents be notified in order for a minor to get an abortion, with exceptions. Current law only requires written consent from one parent. Debate on the bill is possible after members of the Senate Conservative Caucus broke a more than 27-hour filibuster on an unrelated bill Tuesday to pave the way for its passage. Senate Democrats are expected to push back hard. Although Republicans control the chamber, Senate Democrats still could wield the powerful filibuster tool to block votes. But that power is limited. Republicans can force a vote with a simple majority. NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - A helicopter that fell short of its landing pad crashed into the Hudson River in New York City on Wednesday, injuring two people, police and fire officials said. The helicopter's pilot and a heliport worker suffered "non-life-threatening" injuries in the incident, the city Fire Department wrote in a Twitter message. The pilot was the only person aboard the helicopter at the time of the crash, the department wrote in a separate tweet. Photo and video images of the scene showed the aircraft upside-down and partially submerged in the river as crews worked to secure it. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis) NEW YORK (AP) A helicopter crash landed in the Hudson River near a busy Manhattan heliport Wednesday and partially sank, but not before the pilot was able to escape mostly unscathed. The 34-year-old pilot suffered just a minor hand injury after the hard splashdown, which happened just before 2:30 p.m. and was recorded by bystanders who saw the aircraft in trouble and whipped out their mobile phones. No other people were aboard but a dockworker trying to get out of the way of the descending aircraft slipped and injured his wrist, fire and police officials said. The helicopter, a charter aircraft, was hauled out of the water Wednesday afternoon by a marine crane after about 90 minutes in the river. At a news conference, authorities said the pilot had just taken off from the helipad after refueling when something went wrong. "All of a sudden, he felt the helicopter go down," said Police Department Assistant Chief Stephen Hughes. A mobile phone video of the helicopter going down, taken by a WCBS TV editor, showed it descending into the river about 150 feet (46 meters) from the helipad. The aircraft came down quickly, but it wasn't in freefall. Its blades were rotating. Emergency pontoons inflated moments before it hit the water. Anthony Raisley, 20, a college student from Middletown, New Jersey, said he and a friend were at the nearby High Line park, watching the river, when they noticed the aircraft spinning and wobbling in a way that didn't seem normal. They thought it might be a stunt. "The next thing you know, it was out of sight," Raisley said. His reaction: "Just shock. You see this stuff in the news, and you never think you'll witness it." The pilot, who was not immediately identified by authorities, quickly scrambled on to the aircraft's pontoons. The helicopter eventually capsized and sank mostly beneath the water but was kept from going to the bottom by the floats. The FAA identified the helicopter as a Bell 206. The National Transportation Safety Board said it would investigate the accident. Story continues New York City has a history of both minor and major helicopter wrecks and crash landings. Five people died when a sightseeing helicopter crashed into the East River last year. Three people died in another crash into the same river in 2011. Nine people died in a collision between a sightseeing helicopter and a small plane in 2009, not far from the scene of Wednesday's mishap. Following the East River mishap, Rep. Carolyn Maloney said she called for a ban on helicopter flights over Manhattan and Brooklyn until their safety could be properly studied. "Helicopter flights are not subject to proper regulation and safety standards and pose significant public safety risks to our community," Maloney said Wednesday. "Today's crash is yet another reminder that oversight of helicopter operations over New York City is absolutely necessary." By Stewart Clarke LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Moez Masoud will helm "Hello Brother," a movie about the deadly terror attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The film will follow a family facing death and destruction in Afghanistan who escape with their lives. Their story meshes with that of the recent attacks by a 28-year-old white supremacist on the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic center. The shootings claimed the lives of 51 worshipers and were partly live-streamed on social media. Masoud is a producer, Cambridge scholar and noted public speaker. His movie, "Clash," was the opening film in Cannes' Un Certain Regard in 2016. "In Christchurch, on March 15, the world witnessed an unspeakable crime against humanity," Masoud said. "The story that 'Hello Brother' will bring to audiences is just one step in the healing process, so that we might all better understand each other, and the root causes of hatred, racism, supremacy and terrorism." Films covering terror attacks include Paul Greengrass' Netflix film "July 22" and Norwegian helmer Erik Poppe's "U - July 22," both about Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik's massacre of 77 civilians in 2011. "Hello Brother" is thought to be the first confirmed project about the Christchurch shootings. Masoud will produce the New Zealand-set film through his Acamedia Pictures banner. He co-wrote the "Hello Brother" script with Rick Castaneda. Mohamed Hefzy, whose "Yomeddine" was in competition at Cannes in 2018, and Eric Lagesse, whose "The Wound" was at Sundance in 2017, are on board as producers. Acamedia is on the ground at Cannes presenting the project to partners. Other members of the film's team are visiting Christchurch to meet officials and families of the victims of the shooting, as well as survivors and potential partners. World leaders, and New Zealand film figures including Peter Jackson and Taika Waititi, expressed their sympathies, and solidarity with different cultural and religious groups, after the horrific shootings. "Hello Brother" writer-producer-director Masoud said that he wants his film "bring people all over the world together to discuss that day and continue a positive dialog for a future based on genuine mutual understanding." Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Some have more dollars than sense, they say, so even companies that have no revenue, no profit, and a record of falling short, can easily find investors. But as Warren Buffett has mused, 'If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.' When they buy such story stocks, investors are all too often the patsy. So if you're like me, you might be more interested in profitable, growing companies, like Softcat (LON:SCT). Even if the shares are fully valued today, most capitalists would recognize its profits as the demonstration of steady value generation. While a well funded company may sustain losses for years, unless its owners have an endless appetite for subsidizing the customer, it will need to generate a profit eventually, or else breathe its last breath. Check out our latest analysis for Softcat How Quickly Is Softcat Increasing Earnings Per Share? If a company can keep growing earnings per share (EPS) long enough, its share price will eventually follow. It's no surprise, then, that I like to invest in companies with EPS growth. It certainly is nice to see that Softcat has managed to grow EPS by 28% per year over three years. As a general rule, we'd say that if a company can keep up that sort of growth, shareholders will be smiling. Careful consideration of revenue growth and earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margins can help inform a view on the sustainability of the recent profit growth. Softcat maintained stable EBIT margins over the last year, all while growing revenue 42% to UK1.2b. That's a real positive. In the chart below, you can see how the company has grown earnings, and revenue, over time. Click on the chart to see the exact numbers. LSE:SCT Income Statement, May 15th 2019 While we live in the present moment at all times, there's no doubt in my mind that the future matters more than the past. So why not check this interactive chart depicting future EPS estimates, for Softcat? Story continues Are Softcat Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders? Personally, I like to see high insider ownership of a company, since it suggests that it will be managed in the interests of shareholders. So as you can imagine, the fact that Softcat insiders own a significant number of shares certainly appeals to me. Actually, with 42% of the company to their names, insiders are profoundly invested in the business. I'm reassured by this kind of alignment, as it suggests the business will be run for the benefit of shareholders. At the current share price, that insider holding is worth a whopping UK751m. That means they have plenty of their own capital riding on the performance of the business! It's good to see that insiders are invested in the company, but are remuneration levels reasonable? A brief analysis of the CEO compensation suggests they are. For companies with market capitalizations between UK768m and UK2.5b, like Softcat, the median CEO pay is around UK1.2m. The CEO of Softcat only received UK606k in total compensation for the year ending July 2018. That looks like modest pay to me, and may hint at a certain respect for the interests of shareholders. While the level of CEO compensation isn't a huge factor in my view of the company, modest remuneration is a positive, because it suggests that the board keeps shareholder interests in mind. It can also be a sign of a culture of integrity, in a broader sense. Does Softcat Deserve A Spot On Your Watchlist? You can't deny that Softcat has grown its earnings per share at a very impressive rate. That's attractive. If that's not enough, consider also that the CEO pay is quite reasonable, and insiders are well-invested alongside other shareholders. Each to their own, but I think all this makes Softcat look rather interesting indeed. Of course, just because Softcat is growing does not mean it is undervalued. If you're wondering about the valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry. Although Softcat certainly looks good to me, I would like it more if insiders were buying up shares. If you like to see insider buying, too, then this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying, could be exactly what you're looking for. Please note the insider transactions discussed in this article refer to reportable transactions in the relevant jurisdiction 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. Photo: Rob Laughter/Unsplash If you're a theater fan, mark your calendars: there's plenty to do when it comes to stage performances in Houston this week, from a speaking event by best-selling authors to a play. 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. 'Tell Me More' Tour: Jen Hatmaker and Kelly Corrigan From the event description: Enjoy a lively conversation with best-selling authors (and friends) Jen Hatmaker and Kelly Corrigan. They'll offer you inspiration for creating a bright future full of laughter, connection and purpose. This delightful event has all the best ingredients: warm, deeply personal storytelling; refreshing candor and a well of empathy for the fears, inadequacies and self-consciousness we so often carry; the promise that through love and connection it's possible to listen well, admit when we're wrong, make peace with uncertainty, find our way through loss and laugh at the days to come; wit and insights on parenting, marriage, friendship and dreams (it's not too late). When: Wednesday, May 15, 7 p.m. Where: Revention Music Center, 520 Texas Ave. Price: $24.50 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'The God Committee' From the event description: A heart has suddenly become available for transplant and the members of St. Patricks Hospital's Heart Transplant Selection Committee have only a matter of minutes to decide which of three patients will receive it. Told in real time with hints of "Twelve Angry Men," "ER" and "Grey's Anatomy," "The God Committee" provides a dramatic but also amusing glimpse into the machinations of a transplant program, as seven professionals (three doctors, a social worker, a psychiatrist, a nurse and a priest) encounter a conflict of emotions, ethics and responsibilities as they try to select who will live and who will die. Watch it all unfold at the A.D. Players Theater in Houston. Story continues When: Sunday, May 19, 2:30 p.m. Where: A.D. Players Theater, 5420 Westheimer Price: $27.50 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'Collected Stories' From the event description: "Collected Stories" is a two-character drama that takes an intimate look at the lives of a pair of writers, focusing on their friendship, ambitions, conflicts, rivalries and betrayals. When: Thursday, May 16, 7:30 p.m. Where: Studio 101, 1824 Spring St. Price: $16 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'Suffer a Witch' From the event description: Based on a true account. In 1706, Grace Sherwood is an independent, tart-tongued, and unorthodox herbalist healer who sticks out like a witchs black mark in her God-fearing community of Pungo, Colony of Virginia. She stands accused of conjuring a late-term miscarriage, bewitching crops and shapeshifting. When the court orders a trial by water, Grace is stripped and cross-bound in a burlap sack. When: Friday, May 17, 8 p.m. Where: The Company OnStage, 4930 W. Bellfort Blvd. Price: $9 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Former TV News Anchor Michelle Morgan has finally made her relationship with longtime boyfriend official. The lovebirds who have been together for six years are now man and wife following an elopement wedding at a private beach in Seychelles. The former K24 news anchor broke the news on social media Tuesday as it also emerged that she is heavy with child. Michelle Morgan announced that she got married to Peng Chen in the most beautiful beach ceremony. Wander4th and I finally tied the knot after 6 magical years together in the most beautiful beach ceremony in the #Seychelles. Nothing makes me happier than to announce to that I am now Mrs. Chen, she wrote, adding the hashtags #married #soulmate#elopmentwedding. Mr and Mrs Chen held a private pre-wedding reception for their close friends and family in Nairobi on Saturday, before they flew to Seychelles for their elopement wedding. An excited Mr Chen also took to Instagram to describe his journey with Morgan as wonderful. What a wonderful journey weve taken to become Mr. and Mrs. Chen ?-Looking forward to taking on what life has to bring, hand in hand, with @michellemorganke for the rest of our lives. It is by the light of your love that I see the world.-? to all the friends and family that have supported us along the way. Thank you all for the love! Michelle and Peng Chen got engaged in 2015. Mr Chen is a former Easy Taxi Managing Director. The newlyweds own the Alchemist Bar in Westlands, Nairobi. Have a peep at their wedding snaps; Good morning. AI is now part of the toolkit of most big companies. But how are they using it? Thats one of the topics we probed in this years poll of Fortune 500 CEOs. The question: To date, my company has used artificial intelligence or machine learning mostly to: 1) reduce business cost. 2) create new products or services for customers. 3) other. Its an important question. As the folks at the McKinsey Global Institute point out in a new paper this morningTech for Goodtechnology has no overall purpose of its own; its effects are driven by human choices and actions. In the case of business, AI can be used to automate all sorts of back office functionssaving money and cutting costs, but also eliminating jobs. Or it can be used to reinvent products and services to create new value for customersand for society. Both functions are important, and enable increases in productivity, profits and pay. But the more companies focus on the second useboosting the top line rather than the bottom linethe more their actions are likely to benefit society. So what did the survey show? Seventy percent of the CEOs who answered the question chose the first optionthey are using AI mostly to cut costs. Only 22% are using it mostly to create new products and services. Thats no surprise, I suppose; cost cutting is the low-hanging fruit. But its unfortunate. If AI is going to create a new industrial revolution, and live up to its potential to improve society, business leaders will need to focus on the second option. That will take more imagination, more creativity and more courageit will take a talent for design thinkingbut in the end, it will lead to much greater rewards. You can read the McKinsey paper here. Also out this morning is PwCs annual study on CEO turnover, showing the turnover rate among the CEOs of the worlds 2,500 largest companies hit 17% last yearthe highest in the studys 19-year history. And for the first time, more CEOs were forced out for ethical lapses (39%) than for financial performance (35%). I suspect thats a good thingnot because ethical lapses are becoming more common, but because CEOs are being held more accountable. Story continues More news below, and more results from the Fortune 500 CEO survey tomorrow. Alan Murray @alansmurray alan.murray@fortune.com By Sijia Jiang HONG KONG (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies unveiled on Wednesday a new database management system, in a bid to expand its enterprise business and challenge Western rivals such as Oracle Corp in China, amid growing scrutiny over its main telecom business. Huawei said in a statement its new database management software, called GaussDB, is backed by artificial intelligence and works locally as well as on clouds. The move comes amid growing international scrutiny over Huawei's main telecom equipment business as Washington tries to persuade its allies that Huawei posed national security risks. Huawei is trying to grow its nascent enterprise service business, a segment accounting for around 10 percent of its revenue, while its smartphone business continues to grow its share in a shrinking global market. Industry consultancy IDC said in a report this month that China's cloud system and management software market is expected to grow to $650 million in 2023 from $105 million in 2018 driven by growing demand for cloud service. Huawei is the largest player with one fifth of the market, closely followed by U.S. firm VMware. IDC analyst Thomas Zhou said, "Traditionally, the database market in China is dominated by relationship database, and that market is dominated by foreign players such as Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. "But this is changing in recent years because of the rapid growth of public cloud services, with many enterprises migrating to the cloud, they also turn to cloud-based databases." Alibaba Group is the largest cloud service provider in China with nearly 43 percent of the market, followed by Tencent Cloud, according to IDC. "Huawei is unlikely to challenge Oracle's dominant position in traditional, structured database. But that is a stagnant market. The fastest-growing market is in big data platforms," Zhou said. U.S. software giant Oracle earlier this month axed more than 900 jobs in China - 60 per cent of its workforce there - as part of a company-wide restructuring, media outlets, including the Financial Times, reported. In response to a request by Reuters for comment, Oracle said by email: "As our cloud business grows, we will continually balance our resources and restructure our development group to help ensure we deliver the best cloud services to our customers in China." (Reporting by Sijia Jiang in HONG KONG; Addiitonal reporting by Josh Horwitz in SHANGHAI; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) About 14,000 years ago, a party of five barefoot people two adults, one preteen and two children walked and even crawled through a dark passageway in a cave, according to a new study that analyzed the hand- and footprints these individuals left behind. To light their way, these late Stone Age people likely burned bundles of pine (Pinus) sticks, which archaeologists also found in the cave, known as Grotta della Basura, in northern Italy. The cave's ceiling was so low, that at one part, the ancient explorers were forced to crawl, leaving behind "the first evidence ever of human footprints left during crawling locomotion," that is, in a "crouching walk" position, said study first author Marco Romano, a postdoctoral researcher at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. [In Photos: Stone Age Human Footprints Discovered] Researchers have known about the ancient human presence in Grotta della Basura since the 1950s. But the new analysis is the first high-tech look at these particular trackways, in which the researchers used laser scans, sediment analysis, geochemistry, archaeobotany and 3D modeling to study the prints. There were so many prints 180 in all that the researchers were able to piece together what happened that day during the upper Paleolithic (also known as the late Stone Age). According to the different sizes of footprints, it appears there were five people: a 3-year-old, 6-year-old, a pre-adolescent (8- to 11-year-old) and two adults, the researchers found. Researchers found a total of 180 human footprints and traces that were made about 14,000 years ago in a cave in northern Italy. Here are three of the footprints, made on different surfaces within the cave. Marco Avanzini This group was barefoot and didn't appear to be wearing any clothes (at least not that left any imprints in the cave). After walking nearly 500 feet (150 meters) into the cave, the party arrived at the "Corridoio delle Impronte" (footprint corridor), and then fell into single file, with the 3-year-old in the rear. "[They] walked very close to the side wall of the cave, a safer approach also used by other animals (e.g., dogs and bears) when moving in a poorly lit and unknown environment," Romano told Live Science in an email. Story continues Shortly thereafter, the cave roof dropped to below 31 inches (80 centimeters), forcing the adventurers to crawl, "placing their hands and knees on the clay substrate," Romano said. The corridor known as Corridoio delle Impronte within the cave where the researchers analyzed some of the ancient prints. Isabella Salvador The explorers then passed a bottleneck of stalagmites; traversed a small pond, leaving deep tracks on the waterlogged ground; climbed a small slope beyond the "Cimitero degli Orsi" (cemetery of the bears); and finally arrived at the terminal room "Sala dei Misteri" (room of mysteries), where they stopped. Once in that room, "the adolescent and children started collecting clay from the floor and smeared it on a stalagmite at different levels according to height," Romano said. The group's torches left several charcoal traces on the walls. Then they left the cave. The motley crew shows that "very young children were active members of the upper Palaeolithic populations, even in apparently dangerous and social activities," Romano said. The new study is "a beautifully presented piece of work," said Matthew Bennett, a professor of environmental and geographical sciences at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the research. "It's an example of the sophistication with which we can now record prints, whether they be humans or animals." [Photos: Dinosaur Tracks Reveal Australia's 'Jurassic Park'] However, given that researchers already knew that ancient humans lived in the area and used the cave, the finding doesn't add much to the scientific understanding of late Stone Age people, Bennett said. "It's a group of individuals exploring a cave, which is cool, but we knew that anyway," he told Live Science. In this image, researchers used shiny sheets to help highlight the ancient human prints on the cave floor. Isabella Salvador Bennett added that it's not uncommon to find the footprints of children intermingled with those of adults from this time. In part, that's because children likely outnumbered adults during the upper Paleolithic and because children take more steps than adults, as their legs are shorter. Moreover, "[children] do silly things they dance around, they run around, they don't walk economically in one direction," Bennett said. "It makes statistical sense that we should be finding lots of children's footprints." The study was published online today (May 14) in the journal eLife. Originally published on Live Science. International Business Machines Corporation IBM recently announced a slew of collaborations, service renewals and agreements with its expanding Europe-based clientele. IBM Cloud was recently selected by Poland-based, The Agricultural Social Insurance Fund, to enhance e-learning platform and expand business. Meanwhile, Italy-based Confindustria, tapped into IBMs Cloud platformto migrate its IT infrastructure from traditional on-premises architecture. Further, Endesa, based out of Spain, is utilizing IBM Cloud and IBM Watson to automate its call center processes with AI-based virtual assistants to offer personalized customer service and expand clientele. The robust adoption of IBMs hybrid cloud platforms, Watson services and other AI-driven offerings is expected to benefit the top line in the days ahead. Into the Headlines The company recently entered into agreements with major European automotive companies leveraging IBMs digital transformation services, which includes Germany-based Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH. Additionally, Netherlands-based Vinturas will utilize IBMs Blockchain technologies to accelerate logistics processes and streamline purchase of new or used cars. The clientele also comprises Belgium-based Performance for Assets (P4A), Munich, Germany-based Moovster, among others. International Business Machines Corporation Revenue (Quarterly) International Business Machines Corporation Revenue (Quarterly) International Business Machines Corporation revenue-quarterly | International Business Machines Corporation Quote Whats Favoring IBMs Expansion in Europe? IBMs robust familiarity with managing and implementing cloud platforms has been a tailwind.Moreover, growing demand for data center virtualization, cloud computing and mobile traffic packet/optical convergence calls for robust IT infrastructure management services. Notably, IBM has 18 availability zones globally, with two major regions in Germany and the U.K. The company has also obtained Germany's C5 attestation. Given the increasing data related regulations, including the likes of European Unions GDPR, businesses are pursuing means to control their data better. Additionally, IBM Cloud offers local EU-based support to its clientele by which access can be confined to solely EU-based IBM employees. These factors are aiding the tech giant expand presence in Europe. Market Prospects Abound IBM Clouds increasing adoption on the back of strength in companys hosted private cloud offerings bodes well. In first-quarter fiscal 2019, IBMs Cloud & Cognitive Software segments revenues-external improved 2% year over year (on cc basis) to $5 billion. Segmental revenues pertaining to Cloud increased 10%. Moreover, the expanding customer base strengthens the companys growth prospects in the digital transformation market, which per a MarketsandMarkets report, is envisioned to witness a CAGR of 18.1% to $665 billion by 2023 from $290 billion in 2018. Per Gartner, enterprise IT spending is projected to hit $3.295 billion in 2020 from $3.747 billion in 2018. Ongoing digital transformation initiatives and hyperscale datacenter development are the primary catalysts behind cloud-based IT infrastructure expansion. The aforementioned secular trends reinforce IBMs growth prospects in the longer haul. However, rising competition from Amazons AMZN Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure in the cloud infrastructure services market is a headwind. Zacks Rank & Key Picks IBM carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks worth considering in the broader sector, include Cadence Design Systems CDNS and Verint Systems Inc. VRNT, both sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Long-term earnings growth rate for Cadence and Verint is pegged at 12% and 11%, respectively. Will you retire a millionaire? One out of every six people retires a multimillionaire. Get smart tips you can do today to become one of them in a new Special Report, 7 Things You Can Do Now to Retire a Multimillionaire. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Verint Systems Inc. (VRNT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (CDNS) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Getty Images (4). In the spring of 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was on the cusp of a dramatic overhaul of the agencys cyber capabilities. The FBI was wrapping up an agency-wide survey, and one option on the table included getting rid of the bureaus central cyber division altogether and dispersing digital experts throughout its 56 regional offices. But just days before FBI officials were scheduled to brief the director on the results of the survey, according to a bureau official working there at the time, President Trump fired James Comey, the bureaus head. Comey, who says he was fired after refusing to pledge loyalty to the president, recalled that episode at a recent conference in Washington. I failed to push us to the decision point of how do we want to deploy against this threat aggressively enough, he said. Should we have a cyber division or blow it up? He never got the opportunity to make that decision, however. Chris Wray, the current FBI director, is wrestling with that now, Comey said. According to Tonya Ugoretz, the deputy assistant director of the bureaus cyber division, her office isnt going anywhere. There are no plans to not have a cyber division, she told Yahoo News during an interview. The division is the locus of all our intrusion investigations, whether thats nation state or criminal. Regardless of the structure, the bureaus top officials recognize a paradigm shift. In the United States, digital criminals using everything from weaponized botnets to ransomware are attacking private industry and the government on a daily basis, increasing the demand for experts with skills in cybersecurity, intelligence and law enforcement. So, after nearly two decades of focusing on terrorism and intelligence, the FBI is in the midst of an even more intensive shift toward cyber. While the bureau has a history of being run by agents with guns, more funding and priority is now being funneled into behind-the-scenes digital experts who can watch network traffic and unravel digital trails back to hackers, and who can explain online activity to judges and secure subpoenas for tech companies. The Department of Justice budget request to Congress for 2019 asks for $370 million to fund the FBIs cyber investigations and related work. Story continues Now every field office has a cyber squad modeled after lessons learned fighting terrorism, said Ugoretz, speaking earlier this year at a conference in Sea Island, Ga. Some field offices are being assigned as leads for specific attacks or threat actors, she said. There is also a rapid response team that can be deployed out of headquarters in Washington at a moments notice. Yet even as the FBIs need for cyber experts is increasing, its ability to retain agents and employees with the needed technical expertise is under threat. According to interviews with over a dozen former FBI cyber employees as well as other national security experts, a cyber brain drain is taking place at the bureau that could hamper its ability to stem the constant flow of digital threats. The FBIs loss comes at a critical time. With the 2020 presidential elections approaching, and concerns about foreign interference as well as theft of trade secrets and intellectual property, the need for cyber experts is likely to increase. Make no mistake, the threat just keeps escalating, Wray, the current FBI director, told a Senate panel this week, and were going to have to up our game to stay ahead of it. That means more than just focusing on Russian influence campaigns. On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the FBI has briefed him on 2016 Russian hacks of two county election systems in the state. Certainly we expect our adversaries will not only continue to evolve technologically, but theyre also always learning from each other, Ugoretz told Yahoo News. Much of the conversation from 2016 and 2018 was about Russian efforts to influence the election. But were focused on all threats, whether its influence or interference in election infrastructure. Some of the FBIs first forays into the digital world came in the 1990s, when computer crimes started to come under the agencys purview. In the early days, a large percentage of those cases involved tracking child pornography, like the Operation Innocent Images case in 1993 that revealed an online network of child predators based off a search for a missing boy in Brentwood, Md. By 2007, according to the FBI, the bureau opened more than 20,000 similar cases. FBI supervisory special agent Stacey Bradley. (Photo: Matt Houston/AP) In 1994, the bureau caught a glimpse of what has today become common: international adversaries committing crimes online. After multiple large banks noticed $400,000 was missing from their coffers, the FBI was ultimately led to a ring of criminal hackers led by a man in St. Petersburg, Russia. Bigger cases followed, like the FBIs Moonlight Maze, a sophisticated, ongoing digital campaign to steal military technologies that was ultimately linked back to Moscow. Tim Gallagher, managing director in the business intelligence and investigations practice at Kroll, a division of global advisory firm Duff & Phelps, first got into the cyber field at the FBI in the late 1990s, working on criminal intrusion cases in a small field office in Ohio. There, he attended one of the first meetings of a task force called InfraGard focused on working with the private sector to protect infrastructure in Cleveland. From Ohio, Gallagher saw a gradual shift of pretty much every violation we worked on to the point that each investigation had a cyber piece. It was not about going in and grabbing evidence out of filing cabinets anymore, he said. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the FBI pivoted from a focus on locking up criminals and busting gangs and drug rings to predicting and stopping the next extremist plot at any cost, bulking up intelligence resources and linking up with foreign intelligence agencies for unprecedented information sharing. In 2002, the FBIs cyber division at FBI headquarters in Washington was created to pursue investigations of cyber-based terrorism, espionage, computer intrusions and major cyber fraud. The FBI employs a variety of different employees to defend against the cyberthreat at its headquarters, around the country and overseas. By default, everyone talks about agents and analysts, said Ugoretz, who arrived at the bureau in 2001. But the division also employs computer scientists, data scientists and data operation specialists, among others. At FBI field offices, each has a cyber task force, and major cities now host a few dozen cyber experts, while smaller ones may be home only to a handful. According to multiple former FBI employees, former bureau director Robert Mueller now better known for his role as the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election worked to professionalize the analyst workforce during his tenure, around the same time the bureau began implementing career tracks, one of which was cyber-focused. Previously, an agents ticket to promotion was disrupting a possible terrorist plot, by making an arrest, seizing assets or blocking someone from committing an ideologically motivated crime. But at the end of Muellers tenure as FBI director, agents started getting pulled off of counterterrorism squads to work on cyber investigations, and the cyber division was reorganized to focus exclusively on intrusions, i.e., hacks or unauthorized computer access as opposed to crimes that had only a digital component. Around 2013, the writing was on the wall that cyber was becoming a higher priority than it had ever been before, said Jim Harris, a former FBI agent who worked on cyber cases and later co-founded a startup. At the same time, the bureau was applying lessons from fighting terrorism to the digital realm. The FBI shifted its cyber intrusion emphasis from reacting to cyber-attacks to predicting and preventing them, according to a 2015 DOJ Inspector General report. The emphasis on prediction and prevention resulted in other changes. For example, child pornography, a digitally enabled crime that occupied a large amount of cyber agents time, was shifted to the criminal division, freeing up other agents to do more intelligence-related work. This shift toward broader national security may have come from a bureauwide effort because thats where the money is, said one former FBI agent who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The FBI constantly ceded ground to other agencies as a result of this. Ugoretz argues the shift toward cybercrime has been gradual, and that the bureaus primary targets have not changed. I dont know if I can speak of a specific transition, she told Yahoo News. This has been a gradual evolution. The bureau has always adapted to new technologies; I see cyber in much the same way. By around 2010, cyber investigations were already bleeding into all of the FBIs major operational divisions, from counterintelligence to counterterrorism, according to Harris. In one case, the bureau arrested Hector Xavier Monsegur, known online as Sabu, for hacking private U.S. businesses and government agencies, then used him as an informant to indict other hackers. The bureau spent years hunting down terrorists disseminating propaganda and committing crimes online. In more recent years, the bureau has been at the forefront of the biggest cyber cases in modern history, including Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Chinese state-directed hacking. In a recent case from January of this year, a U.S. company and its 600 or so employees suffered a ransomware attack that completely crippled their operations, threatening to shut down the business entirely, said Ugoretz. However, the cyber division had experience with the perpetrator, and intelligence that enabled them to help unlock the companys files and restore operations in three days. Hector Xavier Monsegur leaves court in New York City on May 27, 2014. (Photo: Seth Wenig/AP) While the bureaus major arrests in cyber cases often make headlines, the numbers are too small to make a significant dent in cyber crime, according to analysis from national security think tank Thirdway, which determined that the FBI is arresting the perpetrators in less than 1 percent of malicious cyberattacks. Part of the problem is that cyber crimes are committed by a variety of people and organizations, ranging from nation states and criminals to terrorists and organized criminal gangs, according to Jim Baker, the former FBI general counsel now working on cybersecurity and workforce issues at R Street, a think tank. Because of the overlapping responsibilities involved in dealing with those different types of threats, the cyber division has a bit of an identity crisis, said Baker, who noted he is a supporter of the division despite its issues. The problem that Baker refers to can be seen in both the lower and higher levels of the FBI. Over the last two years, the press has tracked several high-profile departures from the FBIs senior cyber leadership. In July of last summer, the Wall Street Journal revealed three top FBI cyber officials were leaving within the same month, and Politico detailed the loss of about 20 cybersecurity leaders a fraught time for the FBI with a near constant barrage of criticism from the president. At the top levels, the investigation into Hillary Clintons email server and routine attacks from President Trump have taken a toll, according to several former FBI officials. But the cyber brain drain is affected by many factors, and as the FBI transitioned from a building run by agents with guns to an agency full of technical experts, retention of those with cyber skills has become a major problem. Both senior officials and more junior FBI employees are eyeing the door or have already left for a number of reasons, according to former FBI employees who spoke with Yahoo News. One of the major issues they cited has been the relationship between the field offices and headquarters, and the lack of clarity on how cyber skills would be incorporated into cases. The question for Comey, who was weighing the plan to eliminate the cyber division, was whether having a part of the bureau dedicated to a specific criminal vector, like the internet, made sense. After all, the bureau never created an automobile division, despite the revolutionary shift in crime cars brought about. Criminals were suddenly moving at breathtaking speeds at distances we couldnt imagine, he said. The challenge for the FBI was, you couldnt have an automobile division. Everybody had to learn to drive. Experts argue that Comeys comments make sense, and that the bureau needs to require a certain level of digital literacy and cyber know-how across the board to confront the issue. Criminal reliance on technology is so great that cyber competence is an essential, not specialized, part of law enforcement, said Mieke Eoyang, vice president of the national security program of think tank ThirdWay, who is currently researching FBI and workforce issues. Unfortunately, we dont see law enforcement developing a strategic, coherent approach to integrating cyber into their skill set. Ugoretz challenged the notion that the bureau is pivoting toward cyber crime the same way it reorganized to focus on terrorism. The way cyber is talked about, its as if its something wholly unique, not something thats connected to everything we do, she said. I think thats not correct. I know theres been some analogies made to the post 9/11 shift in resources ... [but] its about making sure everyone, no matter what theyre working, has the perspective of whatever targets theyre working, whether its a criminal, nation state, hacktivist, how theyre using cyber-means to meet their objectives, she said. The essential challenge is how to make the entire bureau digitally competent. That includes providing basic digital training in how to apply for subpoenas to get information about a post on an online forum or on a social media website, remarked one former FBI cyber manager. However, the true technical work involved in intrusions is so in the weeds that many are not interested or not capable of developing those skills, the former manager said. Multiple former FBI employees told Yahoo that part of the problem is that the bureau has been dominated by agents, while other employees with the specialized technical skills sometimes dubbed tech ninja wizards have little opportunity for advancement, according to one former FBI employee. Employees also found the bureaucracy and paperwork associated with the FBI can be crushing, said one former FBI cyber employee. This is particularly true for anyone used to working in Silicon Valley. You may have this grand vision of entering into a career of awesome cyber investigations and come to the realization that half your time will be paperwork. That paperwork, argued Ugoretz, is there for a reason. Our primary mission thats in really giant letters in the lobby is about preserving the Constitution and protecting the American people, and we cant forget that part. Some employees with technical skills felt their talents were being underutilized due to bureaucratic ranking systems. The bureau sucks at retaining people, said one former FBI agent. They actively drive talent away because they do not let the people they hired for their skills use the skills they were hired for in the first place. One of the biggest concerns for the bureau is competition from the private sector. Over recent years, the other intelligence agencies, particularly the NSA, suffered an exodus of talent amid disruptive reorganizations, clashes between military leadership and a civilian workforce, and lucrative salaries on the outside. The bureau is now facing a similar fate, though several former FBI employees interviewed by Yahoo said the bureaucratic roadblocks make it more difficult for the FBI to reward talented young cyber employees based on their rank, whereas NSA is better positioned to do that. Its a highly competitive marketplace for talent, said Gallagher, the former FBI special agent who now works at Kroll. Theres literally over a million vacant cybersecurity jobs around the country. Even the FBI efforts to train employees, as opposed to recruiting cyber experts, can backfire. According to four of the former FBI employees interviewed by Yahoo, the FBIs cyber training is extremely valuable so valuable that it often allows them to find lucrative jobs in the private sector. It was after the training phase that people started leaving. The FBI is kind of a victim of its own success, said one retired FBI agent. Some people who landed in the cyber track felt like they were trapped, the official explained, unable to return to criminal cases and play the field. Former FBI cyber employees who spoke to Yahoo, as well as others whose departures were publicly announced, left the bureau for jobs in banks, consulting jobs, threat intelligence firms and even the NFL. One of the reasons the FBI employees in New York leave is they cant afford to live there on a government salary, a problem that extends to other tech hubs like San Francisco, Boston and Washington. High-ranking FBI employees can make in the six figures, but multiple former FBI employees, both agents and other employees, told Yahoo News their salaries often doubled or rose substantially when making the jump to the private sector. Seeking promotion within cyber roles at the bureau is also difficult, according to one former FBI cyber supervisor. If you want to stay in cyber, promotion is unbelievably hard, he said. Even beyond the FBIs own internal problems, it also faces challenges from inside government. As is often the case within the vast federal bureaucracy, cyber is subject to turf battles among agencies. The U.S. Secret Service is moving into cyber investigations, and routinely brings financial cases forward, and the Department of Homeland Security, created in 2002 following the 9/11 attack, has expanded into defending the nations networks and critical infrastructure from cyberattacks. In November 2018, the Trump administration mandated the creation of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the DHS. Both the DHS and the FBI work with the private sector, and handle sensitive information on breaches, but the FBI and the Department of Justice serve as the lead for responding to a cyberattack, collecting evidence and tracking down those responsible, while DHS is in charge of asset response, offering technical assistance to prevent further damage. Those lines arent always clear cut, however. Theyre constantly stepping on each others toes, said one former FBI cyber employee, though cooperation has improved over time, others said. While bureaucratic infighting and difficulties keeping talent are not necessarily new issues to the federal government, they are likely to be critical as the FBI prepares for the 2020 election. And behind the scenes, the FBIs leadership appears to now be recognizing problems with retaining its cyber workforce, and within the last several months, the bureau began conducting a survey on retention of cyber employees, according to one source who received a copy of the questionnaire. According to the FBI, the voluntary attrition rate for special agents in 2018 was .5 percent, while 2 to 3 percent chose to leave the cyber division. This isnt just an FBI issue, said Ugoretz, said of retention issues. Theres certainly great demand in the government, private sector, academia, everywhere for people with cyber skill. Even despite complaints and concerns, nearly every former FBI employee who spoke to Yahoo News said they have thought about going back to government, nearly all citing the bureaus national security mission as a primary factor. But experts argue fixing the FBIs problems, and retaining employees, will require major changes directed from the top, as well as support from Congress and the White House. Baker, the retired FBI general counsel, said thats what Mueller did following 9/11, and something of that magnitude will be required now. The FBI is well aware of the seriousness of the cyberthreat and that it must organize itself to deal effectively with that threat. Doing so will require leadership and effective management, said Baker. Some china is going to have to be broken, he concluded. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Lima (AFP) - More than a hundred pre-Columbian treasures including clay idols and textiles from the Inca Empire have been returned to Peru from the United States and Argentina. The 130 artefacts, many of which were voluntarily returned after being illegally smuggled out of Peru, were displayed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in the capital Lima on Tuesday. The objects included decorated bowls and vases, embroidered cloths, carved wooden sculptures and painted figurines. "Argentina (returned) a lot of 92 cultural goods and another from the United States is made up of 38 cultural assets," said a foreign ministry statement. The US lot was repatriated with the help of an anthropology museum at the University of California, Berkeley, while 77 other objects belonged to Argentine individual collectors. The archeological pieces can be traced back to pre-Columbian cultures including the Moche, Chimu, Nasca, Chancay, Huari, Vicus, Lambayeque and Chincha, as well as the Inca. The owners were approached by Peruvian authorities, who requested the objects' repatriation after identifying them as part of the nation's cultural heritage. By Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra and Sankalp Phartiyal NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - WhatsApp clones and software tools that cost as little as $14 are helping Indian digital marketers and political activists bypass anti-spam restrictions set up by the world's most popular messaging app, Reuters has found. The activities highlight the challenges WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook Inc, faces in preventing abuse in India, its biggest market with more than 200 million users. With fervent campaigning in India's staggered general election, which concludes on May 19, the demand for such tools has surged, according to digital companies and sources in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its main rival, the Congress party. After false messages on WhatsApp last year sparked mob lynchings in India, the company restricted forwarding of a message to only five users. The software tools appear to overcome those restrictions, allowing users to reach thousands of people at once. Divya Spandana, the social media chief of the Congress, and the BJP's IT head, Amit Malviya, did not respond requests for comment. Rohitash Repswal, who owns a digital marketing business in a cramped, residential neighborhood of New Delhi, said he ran a 1,000 rupee ($14) piece of software round-the-clock in recent months to send up to 100,000 WhatsApp messages a day for two BJP members. "Whatever WhatsApp does, there's a workaround," Repswal said during an interview at his small, two-bedroom house. Reuters found WhatsApp was misused in at least three ways in India for political campaigning: free clone apps available online were used by some BJP and Congress workers to manually forward messages on a mass basis; software tools which allow users to automate delivery of WhatsApp messages; and some firms offering political workers the chance to go onto a website and send bulk WhatsApp messages from anonymous numbers. At least three software tools were available on Amazon.com's India website. When purchased by a Reuters reporter, they arrived as compact discs tucked inside thin cardboard casings, with no company branding. WhatsApp declined a Reuters request to allow testing such tools for reporting this story. "We are continuing to step up our enforcement against imposter WhatsApp services and take legal action by sending cease and desist letters to hundreds of bulk messaging service providers to help curb abuse," a spokeswoman said. "We do not want them to operate on our platform and we work to ban them". WHATSAPP CLONES Modified versions of popular apps have become common as technically-savvy hobbyists have long reverse-engineered them. Tools purporting to bypass WhatsApp restrictions are advertised in videos and online forums aimed at users in Indonesia and Nigeria, both of which held major elections this year. For Indian politicians, WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter are key campaigning tools to target the country's near 900 million voters. Two Congress sources and one BJP source told Reuters their workers used clone apps such as "GBWhatsApp" and "JTWhatsApp", which allowed them to cut through WhatsApp's restrictions. Both apps have a green-color interface that closely resembles WhatsApp and can be downloaded for free from dozens of technology blogs. They are not available on Google's official app store but work on Android phones. WhatsApp describes such apps as "unofficial" and says its users can face bans, which means the company can block the account associated with a particular mobile number if it detects unusual activity. Some Congress workers said they did not care. "WhatsApp occasionally bans some of these numbers, but the volunteers would use new (mobile) sim cards to sign up," said a Congress member with direct knowledge of the activities. In Mumbai, a person in the social media team of a senior BJP candidate said no restrictions on JTWhatsApp meant his team could easily send forwards to up to 6,000 people a day, as well as video files containing political content which would be far bigger in size than allowed on the official WhatsApp service. Reuters was not able to ascertain the overall scale of such activities and found no evidence that BJP and Congress leaders officially ordered workers to campaign this way. "BUSINESS SENDER" In New Delhi, digital marketer Repswal said he would typically charge 150,000 rupees ($2,161) for a month's service for creating digital content, providing a database of mobile numbers and then sending 300,000 WhatsApp messages. He uses a piece of software named "Business Sender" which he said he also sells for 1,000 rupees ($14). A person can add many mobile numbers in a field and compose messages with pictures. Using a so-called "Group Contacts Grabber" feature, the user can also extract a list of mobile numbers from a particular WhatsApp group with a click of a button. Repswal didn't name the two BJP members he worked for, but in a demonstration for Reuters, added dozens of mobile numbers in the software, typed a test message saying "your vote is your right" and hit "send". Then, his WhatsApp web version started delivering the messages almost robotically, one after the other. Business Sender was "not supported or endorsed" by WhatsApp and was developed by "Tiger Vikram Mysore INDIA", its system properties said. A member of the software support team at Business Sender, Rajesh K., declined to identify the developer by his real name, but said the tool was designed in Lebanon about four months ago and takes advantage of what he called a "loophole" in WhatsApp's system. "This is not rocket science or fabricated software," said Rajesh. "There are hundreds of such software available." In April, when a Reuters reporter responded to a text message with an "Election Special" offer of sending 100,000 "bulk WhatsApp" messages for 7,999 rupees ($115), he was invited to an office in a dusty industrial area of Noida in northern Uttar Pradesh state. "How many messages you want to send, tell us: 10,000, 1 million, 2 million," a representative asked, while showing a black-colored, password-protected website they use for sending bulk WhatsApp messages. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra and Sankalp Phartiyal; Additional reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal, Paresh Dave and Fanny Potkin; Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Martin Howell, Jonathan Weber and Raju Gopalakrishnan) Sabotage by senior medical officials and politicians is to blame for the health crisis being witnessed in Kirinyaga County, Anne Waiguru has intimated. According to the underfire Kirinyaga governor, six senior health officers at Kerugoya County Referral Hospital working with her political rivals paralysed health operations at the facility. This in a bid to portray her government as incompetent, said Waiguru. There was sabotage and we are investigating further to know which politician is behind this fiasco. We shall wait for investigations to be completed but in the meantime, the situation is much better now at Kerugoya Hospital. She added, The task-force we had set up to look into the matter has completed its work and we also had a delegation from Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) that visited the hospital and they have submitted to us their report. Waiguru said: The report recommends how we can improve the status of the hospital and it also calls for disciplinary action against officers who colluded to paralyse operations at the hospital. We have handed the report to the taskforce for them to begin implementing it We will not allow people to play politics with the lives of Kirinyaga residents. The former DEvolution CS further dismissed reports that the crisis at Kerugoya Hospital was occasioned by the sacking of 436 casual workers by her government. Waiguru said a chief executive officer will be hired to oversee the smooth operations of the crucial sector to end the suffering of patients. She was speaking after visiting Kerugoya County Referral Hospital. JAKARTA, May 15 (Reuters) - Indonesia's counter-terrorism squad has rounded up at least 10 people suspected of planning attacks during next week's announcement of the results of April's hotly contested presidential election, police said on Wednesday. The arrests come as tension runs high and security is tightened in the world's third-largest democracy ahead of the May 22 announcement by the General Election Commission (KPU). It is expected to confirm unofficial counts by private pollsters that showed incumbent President Joko Widodo winning the race over ex-general Prabowo Subianto last month. Nearly 32,000 police and military personnel are on standby in the capital Jakarta, including troops drafted in from other provinces, to safeguard the event, national police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said. "Through interrogation we found the suspects planned to attack mass gatherings on May 21, 22 or 23," Prasetyo said, referring to demonstrations planned for next week. "Their aim is to create chaos and target as many victims as possible, including police." The suspects belonged to Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the largest Islamic State-linked group in the country, and authorities were on the hunt for more members, he added. Last week authorities shot dead one Islamist militant and detained six for plotting to attack police during the planned demonstrations. Prabowo has refused to concede and his team has made accusations of "massive cheating and irregularities" in the voting and vote-counting process. "We have won the mandate of the people," the former special forces commander told hundreds of supporters at a campaign event on Tuesday. "If we give up, that means we are giving in to unfairness, and that means we are betraying our own country and our people." His team has threatened to resort to "people power"-style street protests, although it has pledged they will be peaceful. With more than 80% of ballots counted, Widodo is leading by 12 percentage points, with 56% of the vote, the election commission says. (Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Kanupriya Kapoor and Yerica Lai; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) * Payments for sold dirty oil in pipeline are imminent * Buyers seeking financial guarantees from Russian suppliers * Russia has yet to offer buyers any cost sharing solutions * Druzhba remains shut, Russia losing $80 mln a day * Russian pipeline map - https://tmsnrt.rs/2DytnnM By Dmitry Zhdannikov, Olga Yagova and Gleb Gorodyankin LONDON/MOSCOW, May 15 (Reuters) - The bills are due for millions of barrels of contaminated Russian oil that have been stuck for weeks in pipelines from Belarus to Germany - but no one wants to pay. Western oil companies and European refiners that bought the oil a month ago, before discovering it was unusable, have so far refrained from freezing payments as they are keen to maintain good long-term relations with the world's second biggest oil exporter and avoid protracted legal battles in Russian courts. Instead, several Western buyers have asked Russian producers if they can postpone payments for the tainted crude while buyers and sellers agree how to resolve the mess - and how to share the costs, four traders involved in Russian oil trading said. For the buyers of an estimated 19 million barrels of contaminated crude stuck in the pipeline and loaded on tankers, it's a $1.2 billion question. The buyers want Russian producers to give guarantees in the form of bank deposits that they will contribute to the clean-up, or delay payments due this week until the crisis is resolved, said a source at European refiner, who declined to be named. "There's around 0.8-0.9 million tonnes of dirty oil sitting in the pipelines between Belarus and Germany that no refiner wants to take," he said. "This oil needs to be evacuated somewhere to restart the pipeline. But it would be wrong for Russia to assume European refiners will bear all costs." The refiner said Russian oil producers had yet to respond to the proposals made by major European buyers. "We are ready to help sort out the problem and find solutions for the dirty oil. But we want Russian producers to come up with financial guarantees that they will help cover the costs," said a second buyer of Russian oil in Europe. Story continues Russian state-owned oil producer Rosneft said it was too early to comment on the issue. Lukoil declined to comment and Surgutneftegas said it was holding normal commercial talks with its buyers. International oil companies and trading houses have not commented publicly on the contamination crisis. State Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft declined to comment on the issue of compensation. It said on Tuesday it was not to blame for the organic chloride contamination because it could only have been added by producers. MAY DEADLINES It has been three weeks since Belarus told oil refiners and pipeline operators in Europe that the crude heading towards them down the 5,500 km (3,400 mile) Druzhba pipeline network was heavily contaminated with organic chloride. Russian oil flows via Druzhba were halted, sending crude to a six-month high above $75 a barrel and tarnishing Russia's reputation as an exporter at a time of rising competition with U.S. and Middle Eastern oil sales. Russia has since said the oil was contaminated deliberately by an unnamed local producer while Belarus said it would take months to restore clean oil supplies to Europe via Druzhba. Organic chloride is used to clean oil wells and accelerate the flow of crude but it should be removed before the oil enters the supply chain as the compounds can damage refining equipment. To get the pipeline working again, the tainted oil needs to be removed and stored somewhere so it can be diluted with clean oil - in some cases in proportions of one to 30 - to bring the organic chloride down to safe levels. Traders estimate the process for all the contaminated oil in Druzhba would cost tens of millions of dollars. In the meantime, the question of who should pay for the contaminated oil when the bills come due this week remains. $1.2 BILLION QUESTION Exports to Europe via Druzhba are fairly complicated because they involve dozens of sellers, buyers and banks. Normally, contracts are rolled over and letters of credit renewed as payments are made via intermediaries - and the oil keeps flowing. But the contamination has thrown a spanner in the works. Russian producers sell oil to European refiners along the Druzhba pipeline in Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Those refineries are owned by companies such as PKN Orlen, Grupa Lotos, MOL, Total , Eni and Shell, among others. Once the Russian oil producers have transferred their crude to Transneft, it effectively becomes responsible for delivering the right quality of crude to pipeline companies in Europe. As soon as those companies, such as Poland's PERN or Slovakia's Transpetrol, acknowledge receipt of oil from Transneft, the ownership of the crude passes from Russian sellers to European buyers. But no money changes hands at this point as payment is usually due in the middle of the next month, meaning the bills for oil exported via Druzhba in April should be paid by mid-May. According to trading sources, at least 19 million barrels of contaminated crude, worth $1.2 billion at current market prices, has yet to be paid for. That includes 8 million barrels in the Druzhba pipeline and another 11 million barrels loaded onto tankers at Ust-Luga port in the Baltic. Those vessels are now anchored off Europe because the trading houses that took on the oil are struggling to sell it to refiners. Russian producers, meanwhile, have already paid taxes to the Russian state for the oil they sold in April - such as export duties and mineral extraction taxes - putting them under pressure to recoup money owed by the buyers. 'EXPENSIVE EXERCISE' With payment deadlines looming, none of the Western oil buyers has yet instructed their banks to withhold funds as that could have significant repercussions, according to traders. "You can of course say that I won't pay because I didn't get the right quality oil," said an executive at a major commodities trading house. "But no one wants this nuclear option. We prefer responsible dialog." Another source with a major buyer said the money it owes for Ust-Luga cargoes will be paid on time but it will be accompanied by claims for damages against the sellers for poor quality. Further complicating talks between buyers and sellers is the fact that the various oil contracts in question fall under different legal systems. Most sales along the pipeline are governed by Russian law - which leaves issues of oil quality open to interpretation. Sales from Ust-Luga, meanwhile, are mostly governed by English law, according to traders familiar with the contracts. "We expect a complicated claim handling through the whole supply chain of Russian crude oil," said Swedish refiner Preem. Belarusian refiner Naftan said it had filed claims against unnamed Russian suppliers for delivering low quality oil during April. For now though, until buyers and sellers can agree how to get the tainted oil out of Druzhba - and who will foot the bill - the pipeline is set to remain shut. "Based on Druzhba's normal throughput, every new day of stoppage costs Russia $80 million in lost revenue. That is an expensive exercise," said the trader with a European refiner. (Additional reporting by Alexander Yershov, Olesya Astakhova, Vladimir Soldatkin and Julia Payne; editing by David Clarke) Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! When Toyota Caetano Portugal, S.A. (ELI:SCT) released its most recent earnings update (31 December 2018), I wanted to understand how these figures stacked up against its past performance. The two benchmarks I used were Toyota Caetano Portugal's average earnings over the past couple of years, and its industry performance. These are useful yardsticks to help me gauge whether or not SCT actually performed well. Below is a quick commentary on how I see SCT has performed. See our latest analysis for Toyota Caetano Portugal How SCT fared against its long-term earnings performance and its industry SCT's trailing twelve-month earnings (from 31 December 2018) of 13m has jumped 37% compared to the previous year. Furthermore, this one-year growth rate has exceeded its 5-year annual growth average of 35%, indicating the rate at which SCT is growing has accelerated. How has it been able to do this? Let's take a look at if it is merely a result of an industry uplift, or if Toyota Caetano Portugal has seen some company-specific growth. ENXTLS:SCT Income Statement, May 15th 2019 In terms of returns from investment, Toyota Caetano Portugal has fallen short of achieving a 20% return on equity (ROE), recording 9.3% instead. However, its return on assets (ROA) of 4.4% exceeds the PT Auto industry of 3.6%, indicating Toyota Caetano Portugal has used its assets more efficiently. And finally, its return on capital (ROC), which also accounts for Toyota Caetano Portugals debt level, has increased over the past 3 years from 4.4% to 9.3%. What does this mean? Toyota Caetano Portugal's track record can be a valuable insight into its earnings performance, but it certainly doesn't tell the whole story. Companies that have performed well in the past, such as Toyota Caetano Portugal gives investors conviction. However, the next step would be to assess whether the future looks as optimistic. You should continue to research Toyota Caetano Portugal to get a better picture of the stock by looking at: Story continues Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for SCTs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for SCTs outlook. Financial Health: Are SCTs operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why weve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the trailing twelve months from 31 December 2018. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. WASHINGTON (AP) In a May 14 story about US-Iran tensions, The Associated Press misquoted a British general who disputed the U.S. assessment of security threats from Iran. The story quoted Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika as saying he has not detected increased threats from "any" of the militia groups in Iraq and Syria. In fact, Ghika said he doesn't see increased threats from "many" of the groups. A corrected version of the story is below: Allies fear US-Iran tensions could spark accidental conflict U.S. claims that Iran poses a growing threat are meeting international skepticism as well as worries of a slide toward war By ROBERT BURNS and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) International worries that the Trump administration is sliding toward war with Iran flared into the open amid skepticism about its claims that the Islamic Republic poses a growing threat to the U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf and beyond. The U.S. military on Tuesday rebutted doubts expressed by a British general about such a threat. President Donald Trump denied a report that the administration has updated plans to send more than 100,000 troops to counter Iran if necessary. But Trump then stirred the controversy further by saying: "Would I do that? Absolutely." Underscoring what the U.S. says is heightened risk to U.S. personnel, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave Iraq immediately. Still, the general's remarks exposed international skepticism over the American military buildup in the Middle East, a legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was predicated on false intelligence. U.S. officials have not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat amid other signs of allied unease. As tensions in the region started to surge, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said his nation was worried about the risk of accidental conflict "with an escalation that is unintended really on either side." Then on Tuesday, Spain temporarily pulled one of its frigates from the U.S.-led combat fleet heading toward the Strait of Hormuz. That was followed by the unusual public challenge to the Trump administration by the general. Story continues "No, there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," said Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Ghika, speaking in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon that the coalition monitors the presence of Iranian-backed forces "along with a whole range of others because that's the environment we're in." But he added, "There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we don't see any increased threat from many of them at this stage." Late in the day, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, U.S. Central Command said Ghika's remarks "run counter to the identified credible threats" from Iranian-backed forces in the Mideast. In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. "As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq," the statement said. Trump, who has repeatedly argued for avoiding long-term conflicts in the Mideast, discounted a New York Times report that the U.S. has updated plans that could send up to 120,000 troops to counter Iran if it attacked American forces. "Would I do that? Absolutely," he told reporters Tuesday at the White House. "But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that." Reinforcing Trump's denial, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference in Sochi with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran." A Trump administration official said a recent small meeting of national security officials was not focused on a military response to Iran, but instead concentrated on a range of other policy options, including diplomacy and economic sanctions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Lavrov said Pompeo told him that a potential deployment of 120,000 U.S. troops to the Mideast was only a "rumor." Lavrov said the international community needs to focus on diplomacy with Iran, including on the potentially explosive issue of Iran's nuclear program, which is constrained by a U.S.-brokered deal in 2015 that Trump has abandoned. U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook told reporters traveling with Pompeo in Brussels that the secretary of state shared intelligence on Iran with allies since "Europe shares our concerns about stability in the Gulf and the Middle East." What the Europeans do not share, however, is Washington's more aggressive approach to Iran. "We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters in Brussels. "What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking," Hunt said. Last week, U.S. officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Mideast, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. The U.S. has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 2,000 in Syria as part of the coalition campaign to defeat the Islamic State group there. It also has long had a variety of air and naval forces stationed in Bahrain, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf, partly to support military operations against IS and partly as a counter to Iranian influence. The U.S. in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. It also is moving a Patriot air-defense missile battery to an undisclosed country in the area. As of Tuesday, the Lincoln and its strike group had passed through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, but officials would not disclose their exact location. On Sunday there were reports that four commercial vessels anchored off the United Arab Emirates had been damaged by sabotage. A U.S. military team was sent to the UAE to investigate, and one U.S. official said the initial assessment is that each ship has a 5- to 10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation, said the early interpretation is that the holes were caused by explosive charges. An initial assessment is that the damage was done by Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies, but they are still going through the evidence and have not yet reached a final conclusion, the official said. ___ AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee and Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Statistically speaking, long term investing is a profitable endeavour. But that doesn't mean long term investors can avoid big losses. For example the Shenzhen Neptunus Interlong Bio-technique Company Limited (HKG:8329) share price dropped 61% over five years. That is extremely sub-optimal, to say the least. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 11% in the last three months. We note that the company has reported results fairly recently; and the market is hardly delighted. You can check out the latest numbers in our company report. See our latest analysis for Shenzhen Neptunus Interlong Bio-technique To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). During the unfortunate half decade during which the share price slipped, Shenzhen Neptunus Interlong Bio-technique actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) improve by 5.2% per year. Given the share price reaction, one might suspect that EPS is not a good guide to the business performance during the period (perhaps due to a one-off loss or gain). Or possibly, the market was previously very optimistic, so the stock has disappointed, despite improving EPS. Due to the lack of correlation between the EPS growth and the falling share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics to try to understand the share price movement. Revenue is actually up 7.5% over the time period. So it seems one might have to take closer look at the fundamentals to understand why the share price languishes. After all, there may be an opportunity. The chart below shows how revenue and earnings have changed with time, (if you click on the chart you can see the actual values). Story continues SEHK:8329 Income Statement, May 15th 2019 It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.. A Different Perspective While it's certainly disappointing to see that Shenzhen Neptunus Interlong Bio-technique shares lost 8.6% throughout the year, that wasn't as bad as the market loss of 11%. Of far more concern is the 17% p.a. loss served to shareholders over the last five years. While the losses are slowing we doubt many shareholders are happy with the stock. Before forming an opinion on Shenzhen Neptunus Interlong Bio-technique you might want to consider these 3 valuation metrics. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on HK 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. Cisco CSCO stock jumped 1.40% during regular trading hours Tuesday heading into the release of the companys quarterly financial results, which are due out after the closing bell on Wednesday. Shares of the historic tech giant are up 20% in 2019, but have slipped over the last month as the broader market comes back down to earth. With that said, lets see what investors can expect from Ciscos third-quarter fiscal 2019 earnings and revenue results. Quick Overview Cisco last quarter impressed Wall Street with top and bottom-line beats despite President Trump and his administrations 10% tariffs on many Chinese produced goods. Cisco makes some of its routers and switches in the worlds second-largest economy and sells them in the U.S. Cisco executives were, however, able to combat these tariffs through higher prices. The tech firms ability to raise prices again to try to offset the increased 25% tariffs might prove more difficult. Yet, Bank of America analyst Tal Llanl seemed confident that Cisco would be able to navigate any potential setbacks. Cisco has been actively shifting contract manufacturing and pricing to offset the previous 10% tariffs on Chinese-produced goods, and we expect such workarounds to also help soften the recent tariff increase to 25%," Llanl wrote in a note to investors. Aside from future trade war speculation, which wont impact Wednesdays results, Cisco has expanded far beyond its core hardware business. The San Jose, California-headquartered firm now sells everything from security offerings to solutions for cloud computing, data centers, the Internet of Things, and more. Our teams are executing incredibly well, aggressively transitioning to a software model and accelerating our pace of innovation, CEO Chuck Robbins said in prepared remarks last quarter. CSCO stock closed regular trading Tuesday at $52.02 per share. This marked a roughly 10% downturn from its 52-week intraday trading high of $57.53 per share, which could give Cisco shares room to run following its earnings release if the company is able to impress investors and Wall Street. Story continues Outlook & Earnings Trends Our current Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for Ciscos quarterly revenue to jump roughly 3.5% from the year-ago quarter to reach $12.90 billion. More specifically, the companys product unit sales are projected to jump 3.8% to reach $9.67 billion, based on our NFM estimates. Investors should note that this would come in below last quarters 6% product revenue growth. Meanwhile, Ciscos services unit is projected to climb approximately 2.4% to hit $3.24 billion, which would top last quarters flat growth. Furthermore, Ciscos application unit sales are projected to climb 19% to touch $1.56 billion. Last quarter, its app business jumped 24%. Lastly, its security division is expected to expand by 12% to hit $653 million. Once again, this would mark a slowdown compared to Q2 2019s 18% security unit growth. Moving on, Ciscos adjusted quarterly earnings are projected to climb 16.7% from the prior-year quarter to come in at $0.77 per share. This would come in higher than last quarters roughly 16% bottom-line expansion. With that said, investors should note that the company has seen zero earnings estimate revisions for the current quarter over the last 60 days. This means analysts havent changed their minds for better or worse. Cisco also boasts an extremely long history of quarterly earnings beats, which includes a 2.1% average bottom-line surprise in the trailing four quarters. Bottom Line Ciscos longer-term earnings estimate revision activity helps it earn a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) heading into its Q3 fiscal 2019 earnings release, which is due out after the closing bell Wednesday, May 15. Yet, buying stocks ahead of earnings is not for the faint of heart, as projections are not guarantees and lower-than-expected guidance can send stock prices down following earnings. Today's Best Stocks from Zacks Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1%, and +98.3%. This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year. See their latest picks free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has officially stopped some commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following an order from its national security council, an informed official in the country's atomic energy body told the ISNA news agency on Wednesday. Last week, Iran notified China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom of its decision to halt some commitments under the nuclear deal, a year after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed sanctions. Under the nuclear deal, Tehran was allowed to produce low-enriched uranium with a 300-kg limit, and produce heavy water with a stock capped around 130 tonnes. Tehran could ship the excess amounts out of the country for storage or sale. The official said Iran has no limit from now for production of enriched uranium and heavy water. Irans initial moves do not appear to violate the nuclear deal yet. But Iran has warned that unless the world powers protect Irans economy from U.S. sanctions within 60 days, Iran would start enriching uranium at higher level. The European Union and the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain said they were still committed to the deal but would not accept ultimatums from Tehran. The deal also caps the level of purity to which Iran can enrich uranium at 3.67 percent, far below the 90 percent of weapons grade. It is also well below the 20 percent level to which Iran enriched uranium before the deal. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Tehran does not seek war with the United States despite mounting tensions between the two arch-enemies over Iranian nuclear capabilities and its missile programme. Khamenei also said Tehran would not negotiate with the United States on another nuclear deal. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Michael Perry) DUBAI (Reuters) - A senior Iranian official said on Wednesday that Tehran was ready for all scenarios from "confrontation to diplomacy" but the United States could not afford another war in the Middle East. Any conflict in the region will have "unimaginable consequences," the official told Reuters. Washington has sent additional military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles, in a show of force against what U.S. officials have said are Iranian threats to its troops and interests in the region. Iran does not want a war in the region, the official said. Tensions have worsened since attacks on Saudi oil tankers and other vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, as well as armed drone attacks on oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia which were claimed by Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen. (Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Michael Georgy/Mark Heinrich) Tehran (AFP) - Iran's Defence Minister Brigadier-General Amir Hatami vowed Wednesday to inflict the "bitter taste of defeat" on the United States in its "economic war" on the Islamic republic. Hatami was speaking to Revolutionary Guards veterans in Tehran with tensions riding high a year after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, leading to renewed economic sanctions on Tehran. The relations between the two countries have deteriorated even further in recent weeks as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on Iran over alleged threats from Tehran. "The proud nation of Islamic Iran will once again... pass this sensitive period of time with its head held high, and force the bitter taste of defeat onto the American-Zionist alliance," Hatami said, referring to the US and its ally Israel. Washington said on Saturday that in response to the alleged threats from Iran it was deploying an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to bolster an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers already sent to the region President Hassan Rouhani later condemned the US sanctions on his country. "The hard times and problems of Americas economic war against Iran have begun... what America is doing is a crime against humanity," he said. Rouhani accused the US of disrupting the flow of "livelihood, food and medical drugs" to normal Iranians. "This war is not against the government of the Islamic republic of Iran, its against the Iranian nation, he said. About 48 residents of Old Pangani Estate will receive Sh600,000 each to vacate their properties. Nairobi County government has paid out Sh28.8 million to the residents for them to vacate immediately, so that construction of 1,500 affordable housing units can start. Most of the residents have lived there since the 1960s, and governor Sonko said the cash was to facilitate their relocation. According to the county government, the Sh600,000 will allow the tenants to rent houses in Nairobi at an average of Sh25,000 a month, for the next 2 years. If everything goes according to schedule, this is the time the new houses will be completed. The relocated tenants will then be given first priority and allocated three-bedroom units at a cost of Sh3 million. This figure will be repaid at Sh8,000 a month for the next 30 years. My administration is on course to construct 200,000 affordable houses in Nairobi in line with President Kenyattas Big Four agenda. Phase One of the project will kick off in Pangani Estate this month, where 1,500 affordable housing units will be constructed in the next 10 months, Sonko revealed on Twitter. As most of the tenants are relatively old, it remains unclear how this mortgage arrangement will ultimately work. Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Watheq Mahmud is pursuing an advanced engineering degree but the textbooks he needs are often missing in his native Mosul, the Iraqi city where jihadists burned volumes and destroyed libraries. To track down the books, he has had to travel 400 kilometres (250 miles) south to Baghdad, and even a further 600 kilometres to Basra. "Everything is reversed today. Mosul used to be the hub for students and researchers from all across Iraq and the Arab world," said Mahmud, 33. "But today, Mosul's people are forced to leave their city in search of education, books, and resources," he added. For centuries, Mosul was known for its artists and writers, for libraries brimming with books in multiple languages, and for housing Iraq's first printing press. But when the Islamic State group seized the city in 2014, it banned any texts deemed un-Islamic and burned treasured archives. And although Mosul has been back in government hands since 2017, its young academics see the barren bookshelves as part of IS's dark legacy. "It's extremely hard for a researcher to complete his dissertation because there are so few resources available," Abdulhamid Mohammad, a 34-year-old pursuing a doctorate in history, told AFP. Roa al-Hassan, who is studying food science, fears much of her city's written riches will never be recovered. "Some books were never digitally available, and now they'll be lost forever," she lamented. - Looted, burned - One of Mosul's most prominent literary hubs was the Central Library, erected in 1921 in the eastern Faysaliyah quarter. It housed books ranging from donated novels to rare volumes, fragile manuscripts, and old blueprints. The library even held books in the Syriac language, produced in the 19th century by Iraq's first printing press, across the Tigris river in Mosul's west. Mosul also boasted several large government collections, a library of religious texts, the Mosul University library, dozens of archives linked to churches and mosques, and even more private bookstores along Nujaifi Street, nicknamed "Culture Boulevard." Story continues Those gems were all destroyed in February 2015, when IS fighters looted the Central Library and systematically destroyed other collections, despite howls of protest locally. Some experts say IS set aside precious manuscripts to sell on the black market, along with ancient artefacts retrieved from heritage sites it had destroyed. The Iraqi government's recapture of Mosul in 2017 facilitated support to restock the libraries, with donated volumes arriving from all over the world. "We had 16,338 books before the library was looted and ruined," said Jamal Ahmad Hesso, the associate director of the Central Library. The library has received 11,758 volumes but is still missing more than a quarter of its previous content, said Hesso. Mosul's main religious archive once housed around 58,000 books. It now holds 48,000, according to its keeper, Shamel Lazem Tah. "Among them were 4,361 rare and important manuscripts that were all stolen by Daesh (IS)," said Tah, 41. They included "al-Muhit al-Burhani," a key text in Islamic jurisprudence that dated back 900 years. - 'What it once was' - Mosul University, too, was ravaged by IS's three-year rule over the city, said agriculture professor Mohammad Abdallah. "The university library lost more than a million scientific and academic books, including more than 3,500 valuable prints," he told AFP. "Manuscripts, periodicals more than 300 years old, copies of the Quran dating back to the 9th century -- all of them were looted or burned," Abdallah said. Around 90 to 95 percent of the library's contents were lost. Slowly but surely, the university is restocking: nearly 100,000 books were donated from other colleges and non-governmental agencies, both inside and outside Iraq. "The university is determined to rebuild its library so it can be what it once was -- a rich resource of knowledge and academia," Abdallah told AFP. While most of the current stocks are donations, some volumes remain from Mosul's original archives -- survivors of IS. "More than 3,000 books were saved. We have also stored away the remnants of another 4,000 destroyed books," said Mosul University librarian Omar Tufiq. Abu Mohammad, 33, was one of the Mosul residents who contributed to the rescue effort. "I rescued more than 750 books; one of my friends and I," he said. He hid the literary treasures in the cellar of an abandoned home. "When the library was being burned, we carried them away in small bags, despite it being dangerous," Mohammad. MILAN (AP) A judge in Sicily has dropped an investigation into two members of the Spanish aid group Proactiva Open Arms that stemmed from a standoff last year when the crew refused to hand over 218 migrants rescued at sea to the Libyan coast guard. Proactiva welcomed Wednesday's decision to drop the investigation into criminal association and aiding illegal migration, describing it "an additional step toward the truth." The group stated that it has always operated according to international roles. The migrants, who were rescued off Libya in international waters, were brought to a Sicilian port last March, and the ship was briefly impounded. The case came at a time of growing reluctance in Italy to accept migrants rescued at sea, a position that hardened after the election of a populist government. (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson said on Wednesday it expected to file marketing applications for at least 10 new drugs between 2019 to 2023, to strengthen its pharmaceuticals unit which has been a major growth driver. This is part of the healthcare conglomerate's plan to deliver above-market growth through 2023 at its Janssen unit, it said. The plan comes ahead of J&J's business review, scheduled later on Wednesday. The company said it would discuss four medicines that are new to J&J's pipeline of drugs at its review as well as therapeutic areas such as gene therapy and RNA therapeutics. (Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur) SAN ANTONIO (AP) A federal judge says he'll rule soon on whether to dismiss claims filed in several lawsuits against the U.S. Air Force in connection with a 2017 massacre at a Texas church that killed more than two dozen people. Relatives of those killed or injured at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs sued , arguing that the federal government was negligent by failing to report gunman Devin Kelley's criminal information to a national database used to conduct background checks of gun buyers. The Express-News reports lawyers for the Justice Department argued Tuesday in court that federal employees should be shielded from the lawsuits. A government report released last year said the Air Force failed six times to report information that could have prevented Kelley, a former airman, from buying a gun. When gunmen killed former journalist Mena Mangal on a busy Kabul street, observers first wondered if she had been murdered by the Taliban, the Islamist extremists who have long marginalised women. But police quickly said they were looking at Mangal's broad-daylight killing as the result of a family dispute, saying her ex-husband had "probably" played a role. The brazen attack last weekend sparked global outrage over the plight of Afghan women, who still suffer rampant levels of physical and mental abuse, sexual violence and discrimination. Authorities say Mangal's death came amid the type of suffocating marital dispute that is common for many women in Afghanistan, a country where domestic abuse can seem like the norm and women are often seen as little more than household chattel. Her killing has garnered broad condemnation -- including from the US and from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In Kabul, the attorney general's office said Mangal had filed a complaint saying she was mistreated by her husband, whom she had felt pressured into marrying after a 10-year engagement. "She was not happy about her relationship from the very beginning," Jamshid Rasuli, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, told AFP. Rasuli said Mangal's husband had threatened to kill her, and she was eventually granted a divorce -- no easy feat in a strictly Islamic country whose male-dominated courts favour men. The ex-husband remains at large and is being sought by police, who have vowed a thorough investigation. But Mangal's father, Talib Jan Mangal, said he thought police were not doing enough. "If he is not arrested, he can threaten our lives too," he told AFP. Mangal, who reportedly was 27, posted a message on social media days before she died saying she had received a death threat -- though she did not say who it was from. She was relatively well known in Kabul thanks to her experience as a broadcast journalist and her work as an activist. Story continues Mangal was also known in political circles, having quit journalism three years ago to work as an adviser for the Afghan parliament's religious and cultural affairs committee. - #StopKillingWomen - Gender equality in Afghanistan has improved somewhat since a US-led coalition toppled the hardline Taliban regime in 2001. The insurgents were notorious for denying women and girls any education, forcing women to wear burqas and for stoning them to death on trumped-up charges. Women today -- particularly in urban areas -- hold professional jobs, as well as about a quarter of the seats in parliament. But major challenges remain, with forced marriages and child marriages still common. Samira Hamidi, a South Asia campaigner for Amnesty International, said Afghan women remain vulnerable, and authorities are ill-equipped to investigate crimes. "Unfortunately Mena's killing is not the first one," Hamidi told AFP. "There have been many women intimidated, harassed, abducted, threatened and eventually killed -- but there has not been a mechanism to investigate the crime and bring perpetrators to justice." In 2015, a woman known as Farkhunda was beaten to death in Kabul after being falsely accused of blasphemy, a case that became a symbol of the endemic violence that women still face. Shagufa Noorzai, a female member of parliament, posted images of Afghan abuse cases on Twitter including portraits of Mangal, Farkhunda, a woman whose nose had been cut off by her husband, and a young girl who'd been kidnapped and murdered. "All these crimes took place mainly during the day" in Kabul, she wrote on Twitter, adding the hashtag #StopKillingWomen. Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan Women Network, told AFP violence towards women remains common partly due to a "culture of impunity". "Lawlessness, a lack of proper punishment and corruption in the judiciary system have given men a sense of impunity," she said. Akrami also pointed to women's continued lack of access to information about their rights. After Mangal's death, Akrami and others started a WhatsApp conversation with over 100 female participants. "None of the women had any ideas on how to deal with such a situation. They all believed the men were too powerful to deal with," Akrami said. The plight of Afghan women has received renewed focus in recent months, as many fret that rights will be lost if the US cuts a peace deal with the Taliban. Such an outcome seems far off, and it is unclear what kind of power the Taliban could end up wielding across Afghanistan. But a deadly Taliban attack on a US-funded aid group last week does not bode well. The insurgents said they targeted the organisation, killing nine people in the process, because it promoted the "inter-mixing" of men and women. Zari Hassan has expressed her interest in becoming a movie star in the near future despite turning down several offers from Nollywood. The mother of five clearly has what it takes to make it big on the movie screens but she is yet to make her debut. In a recent interview, Zari disclosed that she has been getting offers from Nigeria but turned them down for one reason or another. Some of the movie roles required the mother of five to relocate to Nigeria while other offers never matched her rates. For movies yes nimekuwa na offers kidogo from Nigeria, but the problem kidogo it needed me to move to Nigeria., Zari told Millard Ayo. Adding, Na shooting is not something you are going to do in a week, it takes a bit of time and some of the offers I declined because the time was too long and the money was not enough for me to leave my family, my work. Zari, however, noted that she is multitalented and would consider a movie role only if the offer was good. So ikitokea a good offer for movie why not. Im talented and I can multitask, stated Zari. The South Africa based Ugandan businesswoman also ruled out going back to being a video vixen. Video vixen I think Im bigger than that honestly, mtu ata kama atanilipa pesa ngapi for me to be a video vixen. Yaani Ive gone past that stage, she said. Zari further announced that she is engaged to be married to her South African lover King Bae. She said she will be revealing her customised engagement ring soon. Na very soon nitakuwa napata my own Bentley its gonna be more of my engagement present. Nishafanya my engagement My ring is being custom made coz I wanted something different and we are waiting for it to come out, said Zari. KBR, Inc. KBR has been selected as the preferred bidder by Freeport LNG Development, L.P. for the engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPC) contract for the fourth liquefaction train at the latter's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Texas. Under the anticipated EPC contract, KBR will provide engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and startup of a nominal 5-million ton per annum (MTPA) LNG train and associated gas pre-treatment plant. Notably, after a nine-month front-end engineering and design (FEED) verification, execution planning and EPC proposal process, KBR has been selected for the contract. Meanwhile, KBR stated that the fixed price EPC contract should be concluded this quarter. The company expects a limited notice to proceed period that will include early engineering and commitment of critical long-lead equipment orders. KBR anticipates a full notice to proceed for the Train 4 project during the second half of 2019. Freeport LNG intends to add this fourth liquefaction train adjacent to the first three trains at its facility on Quintana Island in Brazoria County, TX. The 4th Train will boost the facilitys total LNG export capacity to 20 MTPA. McDermott International Inc. MDR is the prime contractor for the first three units at Freeport. Being active in the LNG industry for more than four decades, KBR remains committed to boost global LNG production for environmental reasons. Its Energy Solutions unit, accounting for 20.3% of revenues, is expected to benefit from the growing number of LNG projects and solid backlog level ($13.6 billion as of Mar 31, 2019). Share Price Performance KBRs shares have gained 45.4% year to date, outperforming its industry and the S&P 500 composites growth of 22.6% and 14.3%, respectively. The contract winning spree underscores KBR's strong ability to safely and efficiently deliver projects in operating facilities. Story continues Zacks Rank & Key Picks Currently, KBR carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Some better-ranked stocks in the Zacks Construction sector are EMCOR Group, Inc. EME and MasTec, Inc. MTZ, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1. EMCORs earnings per share are expected to increase 11% in 2019. MasTecs 2019 earnings per share are expected to increase 19.9%. Today's Best Stocks from Zacks Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2018, while the S&P 500 gained +15.8%, five of our screens returned +38.0%, +61.3%, +61.6%, +68.1% and +98.3%. This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 2018, while the S&P averaged +4.8% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +56.2% per year. See their latest picks free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report MasTec, Inc. (MTZ) : Free Stock Analysis Report EMCOR Group, Inc. (EME) : Free Stock Analysis Report KBR, Inc. (KBR) : Free Stock Analysis Report McDermott International, Inc. (MDR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research LOUISVILLE, Ky. As always, it took about two minutes to contest the Kentucky Derby. But the squabble over the outcome of the infamous 145th running of Americas greatest horse race may never end. Ten days later after his horse was disqualified, Maximum Security owner Gary West has taken his ongoing tantrum to court. He filed a federal lawsuit in Kentucky on Tuesday seeking to have the result of the race overturned, his horse restored as the winner and his bank account enriched by the $1.86 million winners purse. The suit, which names the Kentucky racing stewards and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission as defendants, claims the process by which Maximum Security was disqualified is unconstitutional. Thats just one of the reasons why the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness, will be contested under a cloud and without key participants Saturday. Both Maximum Security and Derby winner-by-disqualification Country House are skipping that race, reducing it to rubble in terms of fan interest, though West has opportunistically agreed to an NBC interview during the networks Preakness telecast. (Heres an idea for pouty Gary: If he wants to be part of the telecast, enter the horse in the race.) Meanwhile, the Great Derby DQ is still the talk at racetracks everywhere, with the same lack of consensus now as there was on the first Saturday in May. That includes Churchill Downs, site of the fiasco. There was an interesting exchange Monday morning here between Bob Baffert, king of all thoroughbred trainers, and 58-year-old journeyman jockey Jon Court, who lit the fuse on the post-race powder keg by filing the initial foul claim. Flavien Prat on Country House, left, races against Luis Saez on Maximum Security, third from left, during the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. (AP) Baffert was in town to oversee the workout of his Derby and Preakness horse, Improbable. Court was at Churchill because hes ridden here off and on for decades, ranking in the all-time top 15 for wins at the track. The two had a meeting of the minds that Baffert later described as all in jest. Others thought the conversation had a bit more edge to it. Story continues Baffert, winner of five Derbies, has consistently stated his support for West and Maximum Security. His stance: The Derby is always a roughly run race, which everyone signs up for and expects; if you claim foul, it better be because your horse was going to win before being interfered with. Courts mount, Long Range Toddy, was 18th before being moved to 17th after the foul claim. (It should also be noted that West is a longtime Baffert client, and that Baffert used one of Wests horses as a de facto blocker to help Justify win the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes last June.) Standing just a few feet from Bafferts Barn 33 on the Churchill backside Monday, Court wasnt backing down after their exchange. The first thing he said was, You dont file a claim in the Derby, Court recounted. Well, Im not the first to file a claim in the Derby. I think we ought to initiate a race with no rules, and with 39 years experience I want to be in that race. The rules are there for a reason and they shouldnt change from one race to another. [The Derby] is roughly run, and thats why we have officials that are in position to make rulings. The Derby is no excuse to be able to ride recklessly. To recap what happened on May 4: Maximum Security was on his way to a wire-to-wire Derby triumph when, rounding the far turn, the colt veered out on the wet track into the path of pursuing War of Will, ridden Tyler Gaffalione. That caused Gaffalione to check his horses progress sharply, thus interfering with Long Range Toddy and forcing Court to jerk his colt outward and avoid a collision. The potential carnage, human and equine, cannot be overstated. I went from race riding to protecting and taking precautionary measures, Court said. It was a miracle that no one did come to a travesty of falling. Were very fortunate that everyone was unscathed. When the race was over, Court informed an outrider that he wanted to file an objection, which he did via telephone after dismounting. Mud caking his face, Court told me immediately after his phone conversation with the stewards, [The race] got pretty gnarly. Hed just made history as the oldest jockey ever to ride in the Derby, but his historical footnote in that race was only just beginning. While Court was lodging his complaint, Bill Mott was sensing an opportunity to enter the winners circle via the backdoor. The trainer of runner-up Country House was told by Jose Ortiz, the jockey of Tacitus, Motts other Derby horse, that Maximum Security interfered with the field. So Mott sent Country House jockey Florent Geroux to the phone to lodge his own foul claim. What ensued was a 22-minute stewards review and a ruling that shook the sport the first DQ for an in-race infraction in Derby history. For Court to play a central role in that drama is highly improbable. Trainer Bob Baffert is seen at Churchill Downs on May 3, 2019, in Louisville, Kentucky. (AP) Court has spent most of his career toiling at a level below racings elite. Hes won a lot of races over nearly four decades in the saddle, but few of them in the biggest spots for the biggest purses. Despite an extensive background at Churchill, hes ridden in just four Derbies and never finished better than eighth. Hes been replaced by higher-profile riders on several horses on their way to the Derby, part of his lot in jockey life. But with one phone call on May 4, previously anonymous Jon Court found himself in the middle of a controversy that rages to this day. I think we owe the public an absolution for the Derby, Court said. Im stepping up and trying to bring some vindication and be as transparent as possible. Whether youre Gary West or Jon Court, were all in this together. Yeah, his feelings are hurt, but were all on the same team. Were working together for the welfare of racing. I dont think we need to run and hide. We dont need a war of opinions, but when it comes to the Derby there are rules in place. Saturday, Jon Court has the mount on Market King, a long shot trained by D. Wayne Lukas a legendary 83-year-old who has put Court on many horses throughout his career. Market King was assigned 30-1 morning-line odds Wednesday at the Preakness post-position draw. Bafferts Improbable was installed as the 5-2 favorite. If you want a scenario that further intensifies the acrimony in the sport, here it is: Low-profile, 58-year-old Jon Court winning the Preakness after playing a key role in taking down Maximum Security, and after sparring with Baffert, would be the capper. Its not likely to happen but then again, a 65-1 shot wasnt supposed to win the Derby by disqualification. In this 2019 Triple Crown campaign, no outcome seems too bizarre. More from Yahoo Sports: If you own shares in Ensign Energy Services Inc. (TSE:ESI) then it's worth thinking about how it contributes to the volatility of your portfolio, overall. In finance, Beta is a measure of volatility. Modern finance theory considers volatility to be a measure of risk, and there are two main types of price volatility. The first type is company specific volatility. Investors use diversification across uncorrelated stocks to reduce this kind of price volatility across the portfolio. The second sort is caused by the natural volatility of markets, overall. For example, certain macroeconomic events will impact (virtually) all stocks on the market. Some stocks see their prices move in concert with the market. Others tend towards stronger, gentler or unrelated price movements. Beta is a widely used metric to measure a stock's exposure to market risk (volatility). Before we go on, it's worth noting that Warren Buffett pointed out in his 2014 letter to shareholders that 'volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' Having said that, beta can still be rather useful. The first thing to understand about beta is that the beta of the overall market is one. Any stock with a beta of greater than one is considered more volatile than the market, while those with a beta below one are either less volatile or poorly correlated with the market. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Check out our latest analysis for Ensign Energy Services What ESI's beta value tells investors Looking at the last five years, Ensign Energy Services has a beta of 1.44. The fact that this is well above 1 indicates that its share price movements have shown sensitivity to overall market volatility. Based on this history, investors should be aware that Ensign Energy Services are likely to rise strongly in times of greed, but sell off in times of fear. Many would argue that beta is useful in position sizing, but fundamental metrics such as revenue and earnings are more important overall. You can see Ensign Energy Services's revenue and earnings in the image below. Story continues TSX:ESI Income Statement, May 15th 2019 Does ESI's size influence the expected beta? Ensign Energy Services is a small cap stock with a market capitalisation of CA$817m. Most companies this size are actively traded. It has a relatively high beta, which is not unusual among small-cap stocks. Because it takes less capital to move the share price of a smaller company, actively traded small-cap stocks often have a higher beta that a similar large-cap stock. What this means for you: Since Ensign Energy Services tends to moves up when the market is going up, and down when it's going down, potential investors may wish to reflect on the overall market, when considering the stock. This article aims to educate investors about beta values, but it's well worth looking at important company-specific fundamentals such as Ensign Energy Servicess financial health and performance track record. I urge you to continue your research by taking a look at the following: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for ESIs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for ESIs outlook. Past Track Record: Has ESI been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of ESI's historicals for more clarity. Other Interesting Stocks: It's worth checking to see how ESI measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with this free list of prospective options. 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. Today we'll take a closer look at Kiwi Property Group Limited (NZSE:KPG) from a dividend investor's perspective. Owning a strong business and reinvesting the dividends is widely seen as an attractive way of growing your wealth. Yet sometimes, investors buy a popular dividend stock because of its yield, and then lose money if the company's dividend doesn't live up to expectations. With Kiwi Property Group yielding 4.5% and having paid a dividend for over 10 years, many investors likely find the company quite interesting. It would not be a surprise to discover that many investors buy it for the dividends. Some simple research can reduce the risk of buying Kiwi Property Group for its dividend - read on to learn more. Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Kiwi Property Group! NZSE:KPG Historical Dividend Yield, May 15th 2019 Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Payout ratios Dividends are usually paid out of company earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Comparing dividend payments to a company's net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. Looking at the data, we can see that 74% of Kiwi Property Group's profits were paid out as dividends in the last 12 months. A payout ratio above 50% generally implies a business is reaching maturity, although it is still possible to reinvest in the business or increase the dividend over time. In addition to comparing dividends against profits, we should inspect whether the company generated enough cash to pay its dividend. Kiwi Property Group paid out 84% of its cash flow last year. This may be sustainable but it does not leave much of a buffer for unexpected circumstances. REITs like Kiwi Property Group often have different rules governing their distributions, so a higher payout ratio on its own is not unusual. Story continues Consider getting our latest analysis on Kiwi Property Group's financial position here. Dividend Volatility One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well - nasty. For the purpose of this article, we only scrutinise the last decade of Kiwi Property Group's dividend payments. The dividend has been stable over the past 10 years, which is great. We think this could suggest some resilience to the business and its dividends. During the past ten-year period, the first annual payment was NZ$0.08 in 2009, compared to NZ$0.07 last year. The dividend has shrunk at around -1.4% a year during that period. We struggle to make a case for buying Kiwi Property Group for its dividend, given that payments have shrunk over the past ten years. Dividend Growth Potential Dividend payments have been consistent over the past few years, but we should always check if earnings per share (EPS) are growing, as this will help maintain the purchasing power of the dividend. In the last five years, Kiwi Property Group's earnings per share have shrunk at approximately 5.3% per annum. Declining earnings per share over a number of years is not a great sign for the dividend investor. Without some improvement, this does not bode well for the long term value of a company's dividend. Conclusion Dividend investors should always want to know if a) a company's dividends are affordable, b) if there is a track record of consistent payments, and c) if the dividend is capable of growing. First, we think Kiwi Property Group is paying out an acceptable percentage of its cashflow and profit. Moreover, earnings have been shrinking. While the dividends have been fairly steady, we'd wonder for how much longer this will be sustainable if earnings continue to decline. In sum, we find it hard to get excited about Kiwi Property Group from a dividend perspective. It's not that we think it's a bad business; just that there are other companies that perform better on these criteria. Given that earnings are not growing, the dividend does not look nearly so attractive. Very few businesses see earnings consistently shrink year after year in perpetuity though, and so it might be worth seeing what the 7 analysts we track are forecasting for the future. We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 3%. 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. MONTGOMERY, Ala. The Alabama Senate has passed a near-total ban on abortions that would essentially prohibit the procedure statewide. If the bill becomes a law, performing an abortion would be considered a Class A felony, which carries a sentence of life or 10 to 99 years in prison. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, was passed by the Alabama House last month. The Alabama vote comes just more than a week after Georgia passed its own "fetal heartbeat" bill, which is now one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the nation. Here's everything you need to know about Alabama's abortion bill, what it contains and what happens now that it's passed in the Senate. What are the abortion bill's details? Rep. Terri Collins, the bill's sponsor, says the abortion bill aims to create a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down state bans on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Alabama state law currently outlaws abortion after 20 weeks into the pregnancy, unless it's to protect the womens health or in cases involving rape or incest. The new bill would remove that 20-week restriction, essentially outlawing abortions entirely. In addition to making performing an abortion a Class A felony, the bill would also make attempting to perform one a Class C felony. The resulting penalty for an attempted abortion under the new law would be a prison sentence of one to 10 years. Rep. Terri Collins introduces her HB 314 during a public hearing, before the house health committee, on the abortion legislation bill at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., on Wednesday April 17, 2019. Does the bill make exceptions for rape and incest? Earlier this week, Senate Democrats introduced provisions to the bill that would allow for exceptions in cases involving rape or incest. Those provisions were rejected in the Senate on Tuesday, though, meaning the bill will move forward without any such exceptions. In the House, Republicans also rejected an amendment to provide exceptions for victims of rape and incest. The bill does include exceptions for when the life of the mother was at risk; when the fetus had a lethal anomaly that would result in stillbirth or death after childbirth, or when a mental illness could lead to the womans death or that of her child. Story continues Will Alabama's governor vote 'yes' on the bill? Now that the bill has passed the Senate, it will go to Gov. Kay Ivey's desk for her approval. The governor hasn't said anything regarding whether or not she will sign the bill, or what conditions she might attach to it. "As this legislation is still making its way through the legislative process, the governor intends to withhold comment until it makes its way to her desk for signature," Lori Jhons, a spokeswoman for Ivey, wrote in an email on Monday. Bianca Cameron-Schwiesow, from left, Kari Crowe and Margeaux Hartline, dressed as handmaids, take part in a protest against HB314, the abortion ban bill, at the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Ala., on April 17, 2019. Still, Republicans hold 27 of 35 seats in the Senate, so even if Ivey vetoed the measure, the Legislature can override any veto by simple majority votes. How would Alabama's law compare to Georgia's 'fetal heartbeat' law? The Alabama law is more restrictive than the "fetal heartbeat" bill passed in Georgia last week. Under the new Georgia law, abortions would be illegal after about six weeks of pregnancy, which is when a heartbeat can be detected in the womb. Mississippi, Ohio and Kentucky have all passed similar laws that ban abortions after a heartbeat is detected. Alabama's bill goes further. If passed, the provision would ban abortions entirely, except in particular cases such as if the mother's life is at risk. What abortion access is currently available to Alabama residents? If Ivey does sign the bill into law, it won't take effect for six months. That means, that time, Alabama residents will still have the same access to abortion resources as they do now. Here's what that looks like. There are just three abortion clinics left in the state, according to the National Abortion Federation's database: The Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville, the West Alabama Women's Center in Tuscaloosa and the Reproductive Health Services of Montgomery in Montgomery. Alabama-based groups such as P.O.W.E.R. House and national organizations like Planned Parenthood and Pro-Choice America also offer additional information and resources. This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama abortion bill: What happens next for most restrictive ban in US in 40 years? Dividend paying stocks like Associated Banc-Corp (NYSE:ASB) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason - some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. On the other hand, investors have been known to buy a stock because of its yield, and then lose money if the company's dividend doesn't live up to expectations. In this case, Associated Banc-Corp likely looks attractive to investors, given its 3.1% dividend yield and a payment history of over ten years. We'd guess that plenty of investors have purchased it for the income. The company also bought back stock equivalent to around 6.5% of market capitalisation this year. Before you buy any stock for its dividend however, you should always remember Warren Buffett's two rules: 1) Don't lose money, and 2) Remember rule #1. We'll run through some checks below to help with this. Click the interactive chart for our full dividend analysis NYSE:ASB Historical Dividend Yield, May 15th 2019 Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Payout ratios Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. So we need to be form a view on if a company's dividend is sustainable, relative to its net profit after tax. Associated Banc-Corp paid out 32% of its profit as dividends, over the trailing twelve month period. This is medium payout level that leaves enough capital in the business to fund opportunities that might arise, while also rewarding shareholders. One of the risks is that management reinvests the retained capital poorly instead of paying a higher dividend. Remember, you can always get a snapshot of Associated Banc-Corp's latest financial position, by checking our visualisation of its financial health. Dividend Volatility Before buying a stock for its income, we want to see if the dividends have been stable in the past, and if the company has a track record of maintaining its dividend. For the purpose of this article, we only scrutinise the last decade of Associated Banc-Corp's dividend payments. This dividend has been unstable, which we define as having fallen by at least 20% one or more times over this time. During the past ten-year period, the first annual payment was US$0.20 in 2009, compared to US$0.68 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 13% per year over this time. The dividends haven't grown at precisely 13% every year, but this is a useful way to average out the historical rate of growth. Story continues It's not great to see that the payment has been cut in the past. We're generally more wary of companies that have cut their dividend before, as they tend to perform worse in an economic downturn. Dividend Growth Potential With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share (EPS) are growing - it's not worth taking the risk on a dividend getting cut, unless you might be rewarded with larger dividends in future. Strong earnings per share (EPS) growth might encourage our interest in the company despite fluctuating dividends, which is why it's great to see Associated Banc-Corp has grown its earnings per share at 13% per annum over the past five years. Earnings per share have been growing at a good rate, and the company is paying less than half its earnings as dividends. We generally think this is an attractive combination, as it permits further reinvestment in the business. Conclusion When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. Firstly, we like that Associated Banc-Corp has a low and conservative payout ratio. Next, earnings growth has been good, but unfortunately the dividend has been cut at least once in the past. Overall, we think there are a lot of positives to Associated Banc-Corp from a dividend perspective. Companies that are growing earnings tend to be the best dividend stocks over the long term. See what the 13 analysts we track are forecasting for Associated Banc-Corp for free with public analyst estimates for the company. We have also put together a list of global stocks with a market capitalisation above $1bn and yielding more 3%. 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. Dividend paying stocks like Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited (SGX:O39) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason - some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. If you are hoping to live on the income from dividends, it's important to be a lot more stringent with your investments than the average punter. With Oversea-Chinese Banking yielding 4.1% and having paid a dividend for over 10 years, many investors likely find the company quite interesting. We'd guess that plenty of investors have purchased it for the income. Some simple analysis can offer a lot of insights when buying a company for its dividend, and we'll go through this below. Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Oversea-Chinese Banking! SGX:O39 Historical Dividend Yield, May 15th 2019 Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Payout ratios Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Comparing dividend payments to a company's net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. Oversea-Chinese Banking paid out 40% of its profit as dividends, over the trailing twelve month period. This is medium payout level that leaves enough capital in the business to fund opportunities that might arise, while also rewarding shareholders. Plus, there is room to increase the payout ratio over time. Consider getting our latest analysis on Oversea-Chinese Banking's financial position here. Dividend Volatility One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well - nasty. Oversea-Chinese Banking has been paying dividends for a long time, but for the purpose of this analysis, we only examine the past 10 years of payments. The dividend has been stable over the past 10 years, which is great. We think this could suggest some resilience to the business and its dividends. During the past ten-year period, the first annual payment was S$0.28 in 2009, compared to S$0.46 last year. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 5.1% a year over that time. Story continues Dividend Growth Potential Dividend payments have been consistent over the past few years, but we should always check if earnings per share (EPS) are growing, as this will help maintain the purchasing power of the dividend. Oversea-Chinese Banking has grown its earnings per share at 7.4% per annum over the past five years. Earnings per share have been growing at a credible rate. What's more, the payout ratio is reasonable and provides some protection to the dividend, or even the potential to increase it. We'd also point out that Oversea-Chinese Banking issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Trying to grow the dividend when issuing new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill. Companies that consistently issue new shares are often suboptimal from a dividend perspective. Conclusion When we look at a dividend stock, we need to form a judgement on whether the dividend will grow, if the company is able to maintain it in a wide range of economic circumstances, and if the dividend payout is sustainable. We're glad to see Oversea-Chinese Banking has a low payout ratio, as this suggests earnings are being reinvested in the business. Second, earnings growth has been mediocre, but at least the dividends have been relatively stable. In summary, we're unenthused by Oversea-Chinese Banking as a dividend stock. It's not that we think it is a bad company; it simply falls short of our criteria in some key areas. Earnings growth generally bodes well for the future value of company dividend payments. See if the 18 Oversea-Chinese Banking analysts we track are forecasting continued growth with our free report on analyst estimates for the company. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of dividend stocks yielding above 3%. 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. On May 14, at IMDEX Asia 2019, Damen Schelde's President Director, Sir Hein van Ameijden, told Navy Recognition that the Dutch shipbuilder was hoping to build some SIGMA 10514 Perusak Kawal Rudal (PKR) frigates for the Indonesian Navy. He also added that the company was expecting some business in South East Asia, including Singapore. On May 14, at IMDEX Asia 2019, Damen Schelde's President Director, Sir Hein van Ameijden, told Navy Recognition that the Dutch shipbuilder was hoping to build some SIGMA 10514 Perusak Kawal Rudal (PKR) frigates for the Indonesian Navy. He also added that the company was expecting some business in South East Asia, including Singapore. The SIGMA 10514 PKR frigate on display at IMDEX 2019, Singapore (Picture Source: Navy Recognition) As a reminder, in February 2017, Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding has handed over the first SIGMA 10514 Perusak Kawal Rudal (PKR) frigate to the Indonesian Ministry of Defence, on schedule and on budget. The ceremony took place at the PT PAL shipyard in Surabaya where the vessel was assembled. The Indonesian Ministry of Defence awarded the contract to Damen as the main contractor for the construction of the first SIGMA 10514 PKR in December 2012. On receiving the ship, named the Raden Eddy Martadinata after one of the founders of the Indonesian Navy, the Ministry handed it on to the Navy. The 105-metre, 2365 tonne PKR frigates are designed to undertake a wide range of missions in and around the waters of Indonesia, an archipelago nation made up of over 18,000 islands. Their primary mission is anti-air, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare. However, they are also equipped for maritime security, search and rescue, and humanitarian support tasks. The Raden Eddy Martadinatawas built using a collaborative modular process operating simultaneously at Damen Schelde Naval Shipyard (DSNS) in the Netherlands and PT PAL shipyard. The vessel is made up of six modules, and for the Raden Eddy Martadinata four of these were built at PT PAL while the other two modules the power plant and the bridge & command centre - were built and fully tested at DSNS before being shipped for final assembly at PT PAL. This process brings many other benefits, including allowing Damen to build top quality vessels anywhere in the world. It also is the best way for Damen to fulfil its contractual obligation to Indonesias defence ministry to deliver an exceptionally extensive knowledge and technology transfer programme. This has the explicit aim of establishing a centre of naval shipbuilding expertise at the PT PAL shipyard. By collaborating closely on the first two vessels the transfer of skills and upgrading of the yard is taking place smoothly and with a strong spirit of cooperation. Clashes between followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a firebrand opposition leader heightened tensions in the key Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday ahead of the final round of the country's hard-fought national election. More than 100 people were arrested after street battles on Tuesday that forced Amit Shah, president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to leave an election rally in the eastern capital of West Bengal state under armed guard, police said. The Election Commission on Wednesday ordered an end to campaigning at 10 pm on Thursday, a day early, in West Bengal for Sunday's final election round. Separately, a grenade attack in the city of Guwahati in the north-eastern state of Assam injured 12 people, officials said. A local separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa), claimed responsibility. In Tuesday's disturbances in Kolkata, a bust of a renowned Bengal reformer, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, was destroyed and a college named after him ransacked, which the BJP and rival Trinamool Congress (TMC) angrily blamed on each other. Teachers and students of Vidyasagar college wearing black badges staged a day-long protest Wednesday, demanding an impartial investigation. "I could not recognize the office when I stepped in today," Gautam Kundu, the college principal, told AFP. "Broken shards of glass lay all over and a statue of Vidyasagar was missing from the glass case. "They (the teachers) were cowering in fear inside the classrooms when the attack took place. We are shocked," he said. Security was stepped up outside the college as well as at Calcutta University, where students demonstrated with placards reading "Go Back Narendra Modi", "Go Back BJP". Modi's BJP has campaigned hard in West Bengal, hoping to capture many of the state's 42 parliament seats from the TMC to compensate for losses predicted in other regions. The BJP accused West Bengal's chief minister Mamata Banerjee of orchestrating attacks on Shah's roadshow. Government ministers joined a protest in Delhi which blamed Banerjee's party. Story continues West Bengal state has been hit by repeated violence between the two parties during the six-week-long election that ends Sunday with results due on May 23. As in previous elections, there has been also sporadic violence elsewhere. On May 1, Maoist rebels fighting a decades-old insurgency against the Indian state killed 15 Indian troops and their driver in the western state of Maharashtra. In Wednesday's explosion in Guwahati, two men came on a motorcycle and threw a grenade in front of the shopping mall, police said. One of the 12 people wounded in the attack is in serious condition, Assam Minister of State for Health Pijush Hazarika told the Press Trust of India. - Activist freed - "Has Bengal acquired a government of gangsters? The attack on Amit Shah's peaceful rally by TMC is deplorable," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Twitter. In a television interview, Modi condemned what he called "TMC goons" for launching the street battles. Banerjee hit back by accusing Shah of acting like a "god" who does not allow protests. She led a rally of several thousand supporters through the city late Wednesday. The communist party held its own rally. Trouble erupted when Shah's convoy drove past the entrance to Calcutta University, where TMC student wing activists had gathered. "TMC supporters started throwing stones at the tail-end of the rally. A group of people then set two motorbikes and a bicycle on fire," said witness Partha Sinha. Political observers say the aggressive campaign by Modi's party against the TMC in the eastern state has made it one of the most bitter contests in the election. Modi won a landslide victory in 2014, but many pollsters expect him to lose his overall majority in this election. A good performance in West Bengal would significantly improve his chances of a second term. The BJP and Banerjee's party have also been at loggerheads over a BJP activist arrested for posting a doctored image on Facebook with Banerjee's head on the body of Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra wearing a revealing dress. Priyanka Sharma was arrested last week for posting the viral meme that sparked national headlines. She was released on Wednesday after the Supreme Court intervened. But Sharma told journalists after her release: "All I did was post a meme and I was jailed for 5 days. I am not sorry." str-bb-abh-stu/ch/wd Clichy-sous-Bois (France) (AFP) - The 2005 riots that shook France began in the suburban high rises where he grew up. Now Ladj Ly, who has been dubbed France's answer to Spike Lee, is bringing his story of angry youth to the red carpet at the Cannes film festival. For Ly, the seething Paris suburbs around Clichy-sous-Bois are both home and film set, and the setting for "Les Miserables", his first feature-length film now vying for Cannes' top prize. One of Paris' infamous "banlieues", Clichy-sous-Bois hit the headlines in October 2005 when two teenagers died while fleeing the police in an area home to many impoverished immigrants. Their deaths unleashed a wave of fury that engulfed the housing estates then spread through the country in a three-week crisis whose dramatic images of burning cars and street fighting flashed around the globe, in the most serious unrest in France since 1968. It was in the rundown tower blocks of the Bosquets estate that Ly grew up, and when the protests erupted, he went out to film, capturing the explosive anger of the troubled suburbs in what has become the dominant theme of his work. "Les Miserables" tells the story of three policemen during the 2005 riots and is a full-length version of a short documentary he made two years ago, which was nominated last year for a Cesar Award -- France's equivalent of an Oscar. - 'Tell our stories' - It is here on this downtrodden estate with 5,400 residents and 40-percent unemployment that Ly set up a film school in a joint project with the Kourtrajme art collective which counts figures like JR, a local graffiti artist turned global star who is from the same suburb, among its members. Entry is free and anyone can apply, offering an unparalleled opportunity to learn scriptwriting, directing and post-production techniques, with more than 1,500 candidates applying for the 30 places available on each of three specialist tracks. Story continues Nine out of 10 applicants were from the margins of France's biggest cities. Ly, who was born to Malian immigrants, says the idea is to show that "it's possible to make films without having a pile of money", while also sharing his knowledge and connections with "those who have none". "There are doors which do not open to those from a certain social class," says the 39-year-old, who trained at the prestigious Femis cinema school in Paris. But things are starting to change. "Cinema is beginning to open up to diversity. Little by little, we too are going to be able to tell our stories," he says. "That's the challenge, I've had enough of other people telling our story for us." - 'Kicking the doors in' - On an afternoon in April, half a dozen students are shooting a short documentary in the hilltop Paris neighbourhood of Montmartre. Gaspa, who runs a community centre in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, said he struggled to make a short film because he "lacked connections". "And along comes Ladj, like the Messiah!" says the 33-year-old, who admits he cannot think of even one black French film director. For Nouta Kiaie, 23, the training has helped demystify the world of cinema. "I have learned that there are ways into this notoriously closed environment and it's up to us to do it -- even if it means kicking the doors in," she says, smiling. "And when you're a woman, you have to make even more of an effort." Former hip-hop dancer Bouchra Ouikou, 36, says it's all about confidence. "Ladj showed us it was possible," she says. - 'Passing it on' - For their instructor, Thomas Gayrard, the fact that a local boy has managed to scale the heights to compete in the world's top film festival is a game changer. "The fact that Ladj, a guy from the estate who became a filmmaker during the riots, is now competing for the Palme d'Or alongside Ken Loach or Terrence Malick, is decisive," he said. Visiting the school for a masterclass, Olivier Nakache, who co-directed the 2011 French blockbuster "Intouchables" (Untouchable), hailed it as "an incredible place" which serves as a reminder that cinema "is open to anyone". "Ladj, who came from nothing, is passing it on. Cannes is the reward for 20 years of work," says his younger brother and right-hand man, Amade. "We're sharing this happiness with everyone in the neighbourhood." LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal with Brussels will be dead in its current form if parliament rejects it for a fourth time next month, Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Wednesday. The government said on Tuesday it planned to bring forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), the legislation required to ratify May's exit deal, early next month. Lawmakers will get to vote on it the week of June 3. Asked by a committee of lawmakers from the upper house of parliament if this was the last chance saloon for May's divorce deal, Barclay said: "If the House of Commons does not approve the WAB, then the Barnier deal is dead in that form and the House will have to then address a fundamental question between whether it will pursue and communicate on a no-deal option or whether it will revoke." (Reporting by Michael Holden and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) NIAMEY, May 15 (Reuters) - At least 17 soldiers in Niger were killed and 11 went missing in an ambush near the Malian border, a government spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. Abdourahamane Zakaria said the attack on Tuesday occurred near the town of Tongo Tongo, where fighters from an Islamic State affiliate killed four U.S. special forces and four Nigerien soldiers in an ambush in October 2017. (Reporting By Moussa Aksar; Writing by Juliette Jabkhiro; Editing by Aaron Ross and Toby Chopra) BEIRUT, May 15 (Reuters) - Lebanon's cabinet will no longer convene on Wednesday night and will hold its last session on the 2019 state draft budget on Friday, the health minister told reporters. Ministers are seeking to finalize a budget that Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri says may be the most austere in Lebanon's history, trying to get spending under control and rein in public debt. (Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Catherine Evans) By Ankur Banerjee (Reuters Health) - A recent study suggests that light physical activity may help stave off signs of aging in the brain. The human brain typically shrinks as people age, with volume declining by about 0.2 percent per year by age 60 and with excessive shrinkage linked with cognitive problems, Nicole Spartano of Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues explain in JAMA Network Open. Their new research, done in middle aged adults, found that each additional hour spent in light physical activity was associated with 0.22 percent higher brain volume. And spending 10 to 19 minutes per day in moderate-intensity physical activity, like brisk walking, was linked with 0.29 percent higher brain volume, compared to averaging less than 10 minutes per day. Those activity levels are lower than what guidelines suggest is necessary to achieve substantial health benefits. Guidelines typically say adults should aim for at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity (about 21 minutes per day), or 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise, and at least 10,000 steps per day. In the new study, individuals who took at least 7,500 steps per day had larger brain volumes than those averaging fewer than 7,500 steps per day. The researchers estimate that each additional hour of light-intensity physical activity was associated with approximately 1.1 years less brain aging - although they caution that because participants were relatively young, this estimate might not be accurate. They also note that the link between activity levels, step counts and brain volume was not consistent, with a smaller benefit seen at the highest levels of exertion. For the study, the researchers had 2,354 middle-aged volunteers wear a small accelerometer for at least three days (and up to eight days), to measure their energy expenditure and step counts. The researchers also used magnetic resonance imaging to assess participants' brain volume in relation to their skull volume. Story continues "There shouldn't be very much extra space in the skull that is not filled by brain tissue. If we see lots of extra space than this suggests that the brain may have atrophied or shrunk and is linked to dementia," Spartano told Reuters Health by email. The finding that the lowest levels of physical activity were linked with smaller brain volume even in middle age suggests that "some adults may enter older age with lower brain volumes, putting them at a disadvantage for maintaining this already depleted tissue," she and her colleagues write in their report. Yaakov Stern, a professor of neuropsychology at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City who was not involved in the research, pointed out to Reuters Health that the study only looked at brain volume and not whether different amounts of physical activity translate into real-life benefits in cognitive function or reduced risk of dementia. Furthermore, observational studies like this one can't prove cause and effect. "Follow up trials where people are randomized to specific conditions consisting of different intensities of exercise can help explore more definitively what degree of physical activity is required for increased brain health," Stern said in an email. SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2XD0xdz JAMA Network Open, online April 19, 2019. Rice Box. | Photo: Marisol A./Yelp In search of a new favorite Chinese spot? Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top Chinese spots around Louisville, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of where to satisfy your cravings. 1. Rice Box Photo: amanda j./Yelp Topping the list is Rice Box. Located at 6810 Southside Drive in Southside, the Chinese spot, which offers seafood and soup, is the highest-rated Chinese restaurant in Louisville, boasting four stars out of 19 reviews on Yelp. 2. The Joy Luck Photo: the joy luck/Yelp Next up is The Joy Luck, situated at 9850 Von Allmen Court, Suite 101. With four stars out of 94 reviews on Yelp, the cocktail bar, Taiwanese and Chinese spot has proven to be a local favorite. 3. Hong Kong Fast Food Photo: jonathan b./Yelp Hong Kong Fast Food, located at 5312 S. 3rd St., is another top choice, with Yelpers giving the Chinese spot, which offers fast food and more, 4.5 stars out of 30 reviews. 4. China One Photo: alexis b./Yelp China One, a Chinese spot in Schnitzelburg, is another go-to, with four stars out of 62 Yelp reviews. Head over to 816 Eastern Parkway to see for yourself. 5. Asian Pot Photo: lenita g./Yelp Over in Okolona, check out Asian Pot, which has earned four stars out of 42 reviews on Yelp. You can find the sushi bar and Chinese and Japanese spot at 2801 Packerland Way, Suite 100. 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. When design enthusiasts think of color and the infectious, lighthearted joy it often brings, two creative forces are likely to come up. The first is Svenskt Tenn, the Swedish store founded by Estrid Ericson that introduced the work of Josef Frank to the wider world. However, anyone paying close attention to the design climate of 2019 would be remiss not to mention Luke Edward Hall. The prolific British designer, who is known for his seemingly effortless sketches, is on something of a roll: During Milan Design Week, he debuted a collaboration with Richard Ginori, and nowhis new collection with Svenskt Tenn is here. Photo: Courtesy of Svenskt Tenn Photo: Courtesy of Svenskt Tenn What accounts for this exciting news, and for the Stockholm store's related exhibition, which opens today? Besides Hall's current relevance, it is the guiding ethos of Svenskt Tenn, which is carefully maintained by creative director Thommy Bindefeld. "Eighty-five percent of what we do we take from the archive," Bindefeld explains to AD PRO while on a trip to London ahead of the collection's launch. He adds that Svenskt Tenn is unique compared to other design businesses, in that it is governed in part by a foundation, whose mission is to preserve the legacy of Ericson and Frank. However, even the casual student of history knows that in order to truly preserve and protect someone's legacy, a careful dose of promotion is in order. That's why Bindefeld strives to continue to make the company feel contemporaryand to be on the lookout for designers whose work is somewhat reminiscent of, or at least in line with, that of Josef Frank. "I'd been following [Luke Edward Hall] for a couple of years," Bindefeld says, adding that he kept returning to the question: "What could we do with that?" The true aha moment may have come when Bindefeld read a quote by Hall, which he paraphrases as saying that at this time, people need more color in their lives. This immediately struck a chord with Bindefeld. "In the middle of [World War II], Josef Frank was doing these amazing, colorful, happy prints," he saysadding that it was also in the midst of Frank having to flee his homeland of Austria. Story continues Photo: Courtesy of Svenskt Tenn When Bindefeld met with Hall things took off "extremely" quickly. After their November meeting, the company sent Hall bags, pillows, trays, and lampshades (Bindefeld's favorite out of the finished lot). And while these types of collections can, according to Bindefeld, take one to one and a half years to come to fruition, Hall translated his gestural style of drawing onto the pieces in near record time. Beyond their aesthetic quality, it is the processand the fact that Hall literally hand-painted many of the piecesthat makes this fact even more exemplary. (In other cases, Hall's paintings have been translated onto the goods.) When the original batch of products arrived back at Svenskt Tenn's doorstep, Bindefeld was "really surprised that [Hall] had done each and every one individually, and that he took the time [to do so]." Coordinating the production of one-of-a-kind creationsanother well-spent day in the life of someone working to preserve Svenskt Tenn's joyful legacy. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest Munich (Germany) (AFP) - The man killed in Germany's crossbow murder-suicide pact is thought to have led a cultish group devoted to medieval folklore and treated the women around him like slaves, witnesses said in media reports Wednesday. Germany has been baffled by the bizarre case since the man and two women killed with crossbows were found Saturday in a hotel in Passau, followed by Monday's discovery of two more dead women in the town of Wittingen. The figure at the core of the group, Torsten W., 53, appeared to have controlled the four women like a harsh sect leader who used physical force and psychological manipulation, Bild daily and RTL television reported. "Investigators suspect they were all members of a kind of sex circle with a focus on the Middle Ages. Torsten W. may have been the guru of the group," reported RTL after interviewing several people who knew them. Bild said W. was apparently "in relationships with several women whom he ruled over like a master". W. owned a shop that sold medieval-style weapons and flags, offered sword-fighting classes and featured a bizarre female mannequin wearing suspenders, tied with ropes and chains, and smeared with blood-like red paint. RTL spoke with a couple who feared the 19-year-old woman found dead in Wittingen was their daughter Carina U., who they said had fallen under the spell of W. years ago and broken off contact with them. The once joyful girl had come into contact with him through martial arts classes and quickly become withdrawn and depressive, the parents said, recalling how she had died her hair black and soon moved out. The mother recalled how initially Carina "was raving about Torsten, Torsten, Torsten", while the father said that "until today I don't understand how someone manages in four to six weeks to manipulate someone like that". - 'Requested killing and suicide' - Bild daily meanwhile interviewed a former landlord who recalled that W. had harshly shouted commands at the lesbian couple living with him, as the women kept their heads bowed and behaved like slaves. Story continues W. had kept a dog that had previously bitten to death other dogs, said the landlord Alexander Krueger, adding that he had kicked W. out after the man had punched him. Investigations meanwhile continued at the Passau, Bavaria state crime scene where the prosecutor's office said the motive was still unclear and a final report was not expected for another two or three weeks. According to the autopsy, W. and his partner Kerstin E., 33, were found lying in the double bed, hand-in-hand, with crossbow bolts in their heads and hearts and their last wills nearby. The other woman, 30-year-old Farina C., lay on the floor, a single crossbow arrow in her neck. Police were treating the case as a "requested killing and suicide", suggesting Farina C. first shot the couple and then herself. On Monday, police searching Farina C.'s apartment -- some 650 kilometres (400 miles) miles away, in Wittingen, Lower Saxony -- found two more dead women. One of them, 35-year-old primary school teacher Gertrud C., was the partner of Farina C., the other was a 19-year-old woman, said police, without naming her. The cause of death was still unclear, police said, adding that the bodies had been dead for several days, that no crossbows or arrows were found, and there were no signs of a struggle. A man was thrown off of a Southwest Airlines flight for a joke about vodka, which was allegedly directed at a surly crew member. As first reported by Fox 40, the unnamed passenger was escorted off the Wednesday flight from Sacramento, Calif., to Austin, Texas, for making a joke after a long delay that made the cabin and crew annoyed and restless. Peter Uzelac and his wife sat on either side of the unnamed passenger while the crew attended to a blinking light in the cockpit. We returned to the gate to wait for maintenance and to refuel, and then waited for clearance from air traffic control in all, we were delayed by three to four hours, Uzelac, 70, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. When a young flight attendant distributed water, Uzelac says the man seated next to him joked, Wow, I hope thats vodka because weve been sitting here for so long. According to Uzelac, the attendant replied brusquely, Yeah, its vodka and when she moved to another row, the man joked, Hey, this isnt vodka. The employee allegedly returned to Uzelacs row to confront the passenger, but Uzelacs wife spoke up. She said something like, Were all tired here. And thats no way to speak to a passenger, he tells Yahoo Lifestyle. They argued about it. I tried filming but my phone wasnt working. The flight attendant allegedly walked to the front of the plane, made a phone call, and then suddenly, the plane taxied back to the terminal. Once parked, three deputies from the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department walked onboard. Uzelac says two officers escorted the man off the plane despite his threats to sue the airline. A third officer stayed behind. I stood up and told the officer that the flight attendant started all the trouble and other people shouted that the man did nothing wrong, Uzelac tells Yahoo Lifestyle. A spokesperson from the Sacramento County Sheriffs Office tells Yahoo Lifestyle the passenger was not arrested, as the incident was not a matter for law enforcement. Police presence was intended to keep peace on the plane. Story continues According to Uzelac, the flight attendant sat out her shift on the connecting flight to Los Angeles but resumed her post on the Austin leg. When I walked off the plane, she stood next to the pilot and smirked at me, he tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Vexing to Uzelac are rumors that the passenger was unruly. If anyone was unruly, it was me, he admits. I feel bad for the guy he should sue the airline. Uzelac himself filed a formal complaint with the carrier. Flying is almost scary because you dont know who youre going to anger, he says. You cant say anything to anyone. A Southwest Airlines representative tells Yahoo Lifestyle: We regret any less-than-positive experience a Customer has onboard our aircraft. We welcome over 100 million Customers each year, and we aim to maintain the comfort of all while delivering Southwest Hospitality. We will share this report with our Customer Relations Team. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. On the other hand, we'd be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So we'll take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Cougar Metals NL (ASX:CGM). What Is Insider Buying? It's quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required. Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Columbia University study found that 'insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own companys stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers'. Check out our latest analysis for Cougar Metals The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Cougar Metals Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Executive Chairman & MD Randal Swick for AU$74k worth of shares, at about AU$0.002 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being AU$0.001). While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. To us, it's very important to consider the price insiders pay for shares is very important. It is encouraging to see an insider paid above the current price for shares, as it suggests they saw value, even at higher levels. Randal Swick was the only individual insider to buy over the year. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! Story continues ASX:CGM Recent Insider Trading, May 15th 2019 There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Does Cougar Metals Boast High Insider Ownership? Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Cougar Metals insiders own 50% of the company, currently worth about AU$562k based on the recent share price. I like to see this level of insider ownership, because it increases the chances that management are thinking about the best interests of shareholders. So What Does This Data Suggest About Cougar Metals Insiders? It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. But we don't feel the same about the fact the company is making losses. Once you factor in the high insider ownership, it certainly seems like insiders are positive about Cougar Metals. Nice! I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Berlin (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that she and French President Emmanuel Macron "wrestle" on policy and have different outlooks, but tend to cooperate and find compromises in the end. "Of course, we wrestle with each other," Merkel said about relations between the core EU leaders who have disagreed recently on issues from how the bloc should handle Brexit to arms exports and climate policy. "There are differences in mentality between us and differences in our understanding of our roles," she added, speaking to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and other European newspapers. Asked whether her relationship with Macron had deteriorated in recent months, Merkel replied: "No. Not at all." Instead, Merkel insisted that Berlin and Paris agreed "naturally on the big issues", adding that "this is how we accomplish much for Europe, even today". In Paris, Macron reacted by acknowledging "fruitful confrontations" with Merkel but said they result in compromises which allow the two nations to move forward together. "I don't want to believe in sterile confrontations or relations," Macron said at a press conference. "I believe in fruitful confrontations, which means you propose something, you see how your partner responds, and together you try to find a compromise." He added: "What is expected of France in Europe ... is to reach a compromise with Germany in order to be able to move forward. That's our history, it's the heart of our relationship." - 'Find middle way' - France and Germany have traditionally been the duo at the heart of the European project and in January signed a new cooperation pact 53 years after the post-war Elysee Treaty. However, Paris has voiced frustration that the reformist drive of Macron has been stalled by resistance from Germany, where veteran leader Merkel has been in power since 2005. Story continues Merkel in the interview rejected the charge that she had been a brake on change in European policy. "We always find a middle way," the chancellor said, adding that Germany too had "launched a whole series of initiatives", including in African development projects. She said that "in the core questions -- where is Europe going, the economy, what responsibility do we have for the climate and for Africa -- we are on a very similar wavelength". The German leader cited as an example of Franco-German cooperation the "enormous progress" in defence policy, where "we decided to develop a fighter plane and a tank together". Merkel also said there had been cases of bad timing, pointing out that while Macron was pushing for major European reforms, she was engaged in half a year of coalition building after 2017 elections. She did, however, point to different political cultures, saying: "I am the chancellor of a coalition government and much more committed to parliament than the French president, who is not even allowed to enter the National Assembly." burs-fz/cw By Devjyot Ghoshal JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - In January, India's main opposition Congress party seemed poised for a strong fight back against Prime Minister Narendra Modi after victories in three heartland states late last year. But just over four months later, even Congress officials admit the attempt to unseat Modi in the ongoing general election has suffered from a weak campaign and fumbled communications. Political strategists say the mis-steps and an inability to sew up alliances with other opposition groups had hurt Congress. Votes are to be counted on May 23 and it's still not clear if Modi will come back to power, although many political analysts and pollsters have said he has the edge. Two Congress officials told Reuters that their campaign, centered around a promise of a handout of 72,000 rupees ($1,022) every year for India's poorest families, was rolled out late only four days before the first phase of the polls began on April 11. In contrast, the Modi campaign's communications has been a huge strength - no one can complain that the message didn't get out. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has dominated newspaper frontpages, TV screens, social media posts, roadside billboards and rallies through the election, backed by a war chest multiple times that controlled by Congress. On 11 Hindi TV news channels, for example, Modi has got nearly three times the air-time compared to Congress party chief Rahul Gandhi between March 30-April 26, according to Broadcast Audience Research Council India. Congress has also been unable to forge alliances with other opposition parties in two important states and adequately overhaul its grassroots organization, political strategists said, making an already difficult contest even harder. The campaign slip-up was partly because the party's detailed manifesto came out late, followed by further delays in readying promotional materials, the two Congress officials said. Both requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. "The backroom work to push out the campaign hadn't been done," one of them said. "Basically, it was a big royal mess." A Congress candidate in eastern India said that his party's publicity campaign wasn't even noticed by rank-and-file workers, let alone voters. On multiple trips to northern Uttar Pradesh, which elects more lawmakers than any other state, Reuters found that many voters did not know about Congress's handout promise. DIFFICULT TO PREDICT Elections in India are notoriously difficult to predict, and growing farm distress and a lack of jobs could still hurt the BJP, like it did last December when Congress wrested away three states from the ruling party. There are a whole series of regional and caste-based parties that could benefit from any such anti-Modi swing as much as Congress. If that happens, a coalition of parties might form the next government with Congress a powerful force in that though not necessarily calling all the shots. A key problem in the campaign has been that instead of maximizing the impact of December's wins, Congress stumbled, particularly after a suicide bombing in Kashmir's Pulwama region, where a Pakistan-based militant group killed 40 Indian policemen in February, the second Congress official said. "After the state elections there was complacency, and after Pulwama happened, there was no coherent campaign to respond," he said. In response to Pulwama, Modi sent Indian warplanes into Pakistan in late February, dramatically escalating tensions with the nuclear-armed neighbor while projecting himself as a fearless leader, which the BJP deftly used to craft an election campaign focused on national security. HUGE LOSSES P. Chidamabaram, a top Congress strategist and a former finance minister, acknowledged that Modi had dominated the election so far, but declined to comment on his party's delayed publicity campaign. "I think if anybody has gained in this election campaign it is Mr Gandhi, if anybody has lost ground in the election campaign it is Mr Modi," he told Reuters. "I think BJP will suffer huge losses." Part of Congress's confidence stems from states like western Rajasthan, where it has set up good ground operations. On May 6, as India voted in the fifth phase of the election, over 100 young men and women employed by a private firm sat inside a basement in Rajasthan's capital city of Jaipur making and receiving calls on behalf of Congress. Most were calling party workers to check for any problems during polling and logging complaints, which were being monitored and resolved by Congress officials there and at another location in Jaipur. The same call center, together with a large state-wide database of workers, was also used by Congress to receive daily feedback, tweak the campaign to local needs and identify swing polling centers in each Rajasthan constituency to focus on. Using a dozen similar operations, Congress's data analytics chief Praveen Chakravarty said he has polled more than one million people covering all of India's 543 constituencies in the last six months. That is only a start in an electorate of about 900 million. "There's not one national election," Chakravarty said, "In my view, it's not even 29 different state elections. It feels like there are 543 different elections going on." He said his data showed there was upsurge in the number of people unhappy with Modi but he did not give any prediction on the final results. (Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) By Andrew Hay TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - The small city of Deming, New Mexico has become the latest U.S. border community to declare a state of emergency after dozens of migrants were released in the town by federal authorities seeking to cope with a surge in asylum seekers coming across the southern U.S. border. Deming, a city of about 15,000 residents about 35 miles (56 km) north of the border, made the move on Monday after U.S. Border Patrol agents dropped off about 170 migrants, the Deming Headlight newspaper reported, citing City Administrator Aaron Sera. The city declared an emergency "in hopes it will trigger assistance from both the federal government and state officials," Sera said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. Recent releases during the biggest migrant surge on the U.S.-Mexican border in over a decade have divided communities. Democratic-controlled cities such as Las Cruces, New Mexico are using tax dollars to shelter migrants while Republican-controlled Otero County, New Mexico passed a resolution against housing migrants and the use of taxpayer funds to do so. President Donald Trump, who made the issue of illegal immigration a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, has called the rise in asylum-seekers an "invasion" that vindicates his call for the construction of a border wall and a get-tough policy. Deming is the third border community to declare an emergency over the issue, following Yuma, Arizona and Otero County in April. U.S. Border Patrol began releasing migrants directly into border communities in April after its holding facilities became overwhelmed. The agency is turning to smaller towns as shelters reach capacity in El Paso, Texas and other cities. "We don't know how many, if any, will be dropped off there again, it's just a day by day thing," said Ramiro Cordero, a spokesman for U.S. Border Patrol in the El Paso sector, when asked about Deming. A spokeswoman for New Mexico's Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham criticized the releases in small towns like Deming. "Communities like Las Cruces and Deming are being dealt a bad hand by the federal government, they didn't ask for these releases to happen," said Claudia Tristan, adding that the state was assisting Deming and urging U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop targeting such small communities. Otero County officials have criticized Lujan Grisham for ordering National Guard troops off the border at a time when Border Patrol is having to take officers off highway checkpoints and border crossings to deal with the surge. Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin warned that empty checkpoints and the distraction of large migrant groups were allowing Mexican cartels to flood drugs into New Mexico. He cited skyrocketing drug seizures by county police since the checkpoints were left empty in March. "The cartels are merely using the human end of it to promote the illegal narcotics trafficking," said Griffin by phone. (Reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Frank McGurty and Rosalba O'Brien) Software giant Microsoft has announced it's looking to build a new digital identity program for users via the Bitcoin blockchain. | Source: Shutterstock By CCN: Does Microsoft consider blockchain to be the strongest technology in the world? Who knows, but they sure seem to recognize its growing mainstream status and view it as a potential moneymaker. The company recently announced that it would be building a decentralized identity (DID) network on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, the oldest and arguably most trusted blockchain within the space. The network will be built in accordance with standards set by the Decentralized Identity Foundation, which Microsoft claims can overpower the throughput issues commonly witnessed on the Bitcoin blockchain. How Can Bitcoin and Blockchain Be Improved? Microsoft is also confident the use of the blockchain could lead to tens of thousands of operations per second. In a blog post, the tech giant explained: We believe every person needs a decentralized, digital identity they own and control, backed by self-owned identifiers that enable secure, privacy-preserving interactions. This self-owned identity must seamlessly integrate into their lives and put them at the center of everything they do in the digital world. A blockchain identity would allow people to log into online accounts without having to reaffirm themselves each time. As it stands, multiple online accounts mean multiple logins. A blockchain-based digital identity would allow users to simply log in once and then use that ID to access their online data, reducing pain points, as Microsoft calls them. For Microsoft, the move likely means two things, the first being that they are looking to accomplish what several other companies either havent or couldnt in the past. The second thing is that Microsoft clearly views blockchain as a technology thats not part of the future but rather already here. Read the full story on CCN.com. In a scene from a rare 1920s film featuring the work of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropiuss wife Ise and friends demonstrate the flexibility of the Whip Lamp, TYPE 113 model. Though the directional light, with its elegantly curved rod, certainly adheres to the tenets of the Bauhausand could easily be mistaken for one of its iconic designsit is, in fact, not the product of the German art school, but rather the invention of Curt Fischer, the founder of German lighting firm Midgard. Yet what this cameo reveals is a shared ethos, and symbiosis, between Fischer and the leaders of the Bauhaus, who were early adopters of his versatile, glare-free lamps. A new exhibition, "100 Years of Adjustable Light," opening this evening at New York's Goethe-Institut, celebrates Midgards centennial and illuminates the evolution of positional lighting, with a special screening of the film from the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin along with never-before-seen archival material and over a dozen lamps on display. Photo: Courtesy of Midgard The exhibition, coinciding with NYCxDesign, comes to the city after its initial debut at the Museum of Applied Arts Cologne this past winter. David Einsiedler and Joke Rasch, who acquired the rights to Midgard in 2015, set out to commemorate the companys anniversary with a show that traces the history of steerable lighting. The story begins with Fischer, who owned a metal workshop in 1918, and noticed that the light emanating from the ceiling was casting heavy shadows, creating challenging conditions for his workers. His solution: a wall-mounted lamp that could be easily moved and turned to direct the light to meet the users needs. One year later, he patented his scissors arm lamp (also called the Light Arc) with the Imperial Patent Office, and from there, he continued to devise new variations, culminating in Midgards three quintessential series: the Machine Lamp, Positionable Lamp, and Spring-Balanced Lamp. His lighting soon became a staple in the studios and homes of Bauhaus designers such as Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Story continues Photo: Courtesy of Midgard It is just 40 kilometers between the factory of Midgard and Dessau, and it seems that Curt Fischer was in quite good contact with Walter Gropius and Gropius became a big fan of the Midgard lamps, explains Einsiedler to AD PRO. They were used nearly everywhere in the Bauhaus: in the apartments, in the workshops, in the drawing desks. There are hundreds of pictures where you can find, in particular, the Type 113 Midgard. While the exhibition at the Goethe-Institut will present examples from other prewar German lighting manufacturers as well, including Kandem and AEG, a showcase at the Manhattan edition of WantedDesign, in collaboration with Ameico, will solely feature Midgard designs, including both a vintage and a re-edition of the Bauhaus favorite, Type 113, which will be released in a limited-edition series this coming September. Photo: Courtesy of Midgard Einsiedler explains that he and Rasch have been deliberately cautious in rolling out the production of each Midgard design, and saved the most difficult for last. Its an extremely sophisticated piece and contains a lot of special parts that call for meticulous workmanship, he said in a press statement. We wanted to gain a bit of production experience before we attempted it. Now with the Type 113 underway, Midgard is ready for its next major challenge. Sixty years with no development of a new lamp, Einsiedler tells AD PRO. We are working together with one of the top European industrial designers who will be responsible for the modern Midgard. The new design is slated to be introduced in January 2020. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest Mike Pompeo and Vladimir Putin shake hands during meeting in Sochi - AFP Donald Trumps secretary of state has warned Russia not to meddle in the 2020 US presidential election after face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin. Mike Pompeo made the remarks while sitting alongside Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, at a joint press conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Mr Pompeo, who met with both Mr Putin, the Russian president, and Mr Lavrov during his visit, said: Interference in American elections in unacceptable. "If Russia engaged in that in 2020, it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been. I conveyed that there are things that Russia can do to demonstrate that these kinds of activities are a thing of the past. I hope that Russia takes advantage of those opportunities. The comments were a marked contrast from Mr Trumps decision not to blame Russia for 2016 election meddling when standing alongside Mr Putin at a Helsinki press conference last July. That triggered a backlash from the US intelligence leaders who had publicly blamed the Kremlin, leading eventually to Mr Trump walking back the remark. Mr Lavrov issued a lengthy rebuttal of America's belief that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential race. "The facts show that those who are inflating this topic do not have any proof," Mr Lavrov said, demanding cold hard facts to back up the claims. He added: "We want and we are ready to deal with cybersecurity issues along with our American partners, without any politicisation. Mr Putin later said he hoped US-Russia relations could be restored now that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in election meddling is over. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, left, and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Sochi Credit: Pavel Golovkin/Pool via REUTERS "Since the start we have always said that this was complete nonsense, this could never happen," Mr Putin said of claims the Kremlin conspired with the Trump campaign in 2016. Ever since the Mueller Report concluded there was no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the president, Mr Trump has attempted to put focus on the origins of the investigation. Story continues On Tuesday it emerged that the US Justice Department has assigned John Durham, the US attorney in Connecticut, to examine whether there was any inappropriate activity in starting the inquiry. Mr Trump and his allies have claimed that the US justice and intelligence officials who opened the investigation before the 2016 election overstepped the mark. Mr Trump said he was not aware of the decision to appoint Mr Durham before it was reported. Washington (AFP) - A team at the University of Washington has invented a smartphone app that, when used with a paper funnel, is able to detect ear infections in children, helping parents decide whether a trip to the doctor is warranted. The app, which was described in the journal Science Transnational Medicine on Wednesday, plays a sound akin to a bird chirp into a child's ear canal via a simple funnel the parents put together. It plays for 1.2 seconds and then uses the phone's mic to listen in: if fluids or pus have accumulated behind the eardrum, in the middle ear, the sound pattern of the returned echo will indicate an infection. "The way to think about it is almost like a wine glass," said Shyam Gollakota, head of the lab that developed the project. "And if you tap on the wine glass, you're going to get a different sound depending on the level of liquid in the wine glass." It had a success rate of 85 percent when tested on around a hundred cases, and, according to Gollakota, is more accurate than a visual inspection by a doctor. If an infection is detected, parents will need to go to a doctor anyway for confirmation and to get a prescription. Gollakota likened its utility to that of a thermometer, which helps people decide whether a visit to a doctor is appropriate. The ear infection app is just one of several ideas being developed by the lab at the intersection of mobile technology and health. The goal is to resolve some of the biggest health issues that people face today at lower costs. Gollakota's team has also built another application to detect sleep apnea, and another that warns the relatives or friends of a person taking opioids if they appear to be overdosing. He hopes to obtain regulatory approval for the ear infection app by the end of the year and have it available in the market by early 2020. Taylah Roberts posted a poignant before (left) and after picture. A 24-year-old model has shared a candid Instagram post detailing how her experience of the fashion industry put her in a dark place where she never felt thin enough. Taylah Roberts, a former Australias Next Top Model contestant, uploaded a before and after image of herself in underwear. In the left image, a throwback to when she felt unworthy and insecure, Roberts ribs and hip bones are visible. READ MORE: Male model dies after runway collapse All I see in the photo on the left is sadness, exhaustion, insecurity and lack of worth beyond size, she writes in the caption. Roberts, who has spoken openly about her struggle with an eating disorder, competed in Australias Next Top Model in 2013 when she was just 18. Although it is not clear when exactly this photo is from, Roberts refers to a time in her life when she was in a dark place due to the pressures of the fashion industry. READ MORE: Bikini model claims shes too good looking to find love Roberts spoke in a post last month about the eating disorder she suffered from six years ago which would coincide with the age she was when filming the popular modelling contest. Roberts was disqualified from the popular show after she was filmed lunging at fellow contestant, Ashley Pogmore, and choking her in a joke that backfired. Roberts has since apologised for the incident. "It's just one of those things that just happened so quickly and once I'd done it, I knew that it was the wrong thing to do," she told Australian news show A Current Affair. Body-positive model Iskra Lawrence has also spoken out about the pressures on models to be slim. Last month, she took to Instagram to share her story of weight-loss tea addiction in a bid to help others facing similar problems. If you or someone you know suffers from an eating disorder, you can visit the BEAT website for support, or call their helpline on 0808 801 0677. After going through something as life-altering as a car accident, the best thing you can get out of it is... Washington (AFP) - Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, significantly earlier than currently thought, according to new study based on analyzing how the teeth of ancient fossils evolved instead of relying on genetic techniques. The proposed new timeline is around 300,000 years earlier than current estimates, and would in turn mean that Homo heidelbergensis, another extinct human species, cannot be the last common ancestor between our species and our Neanderthal cousins, as many anthropologists presently believe. In recent years, scientists seeking to unlock the mysteries of our species' evolution have used DNA analyses to provide a "molecular clock" to date fossils, based on assumptions about the rate of genetic change per generation. The new research by Aida Gomez-Robles at the University College London instead examined dental evolutionary rates across extinct human species, finding that tooth crowns changed in size and shape at a steady rate. Her study then focused on the molars and pre-molars of around 30 fossils from the Sima de los Huesos site, which earlier research has reliably dated to 430,000 years ago -- close to the previously assumed date when sapiens and Neanderthals split. But she found strong similarities between the Sima hominins' teeth and those of Neanderthals, which meant they could only have existed after the long-held date of divergence. Statistical analysis was used to extrapolate the new date of divergence to 800,000 years ago. "Any divergence time between Neanderthals and modern humans younger than 800,000 years ago would have entailed an unexpectedly fast dental evolution in the early Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos," she said. "The major implication is Homo heidelbergensis cannot be the last common ancestor between modern humans and Neanderthals," she told AFP. Gomez-Robles' work was praised by Mirjana Roksandic, a biological anthropologist at the University of Winnipeg. Story continues "She is pinpointing a time when Neanderthals must have moved their own way and that is a very very significant result," said Roksandic. But it received pushback from Susan Cachel, a professor in human evolution at Rutgers University. "If the ancestors of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals do not come from the taxon Homo heidelbergensis, then where do they come from? Some unknown, shadowy ancestor?" Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, significantly earlier than currently thought, according to new study based on analyzing how the teeth of ancient fossils evolved instead of relying on genetic techniques. The proposed new timeline is around 300,000 years earlier than current estimates, and would in turn mean that Homo heidelbergensis, another extinct human species, cannot be the last common ancestor between our species and our Neanderthal cousins, as many anthropologists presently believe. In recent years, scientists seeking to unlock the mysteries of our species' evolution have used DNA analyses to provide a "molecular clock" to date fossils, based on assumptions about the rate of genetic change per generation. The new research by Aida Gomez-Robles at the University College London instead examined dental evolutionary rates across extinct human species, finding that tooth crowns changed in size and shape at a steady rate. Her study then focused on the molars and pre-molars of around 30 fossils from the Sima de los Huesos site, which earlier research has reliably dated to 430,000 years ago -- close to the previously assumed date when sapiens and Neanderthals split. But she found strong similarities between the Sima hominins' teeth and those of Neanderthals, which meant they could only have existed after the long-held date of divergence. Statistical analysis was used to extrapolate the new date of divergence to 800,000 years ago. "Any divergence time between Neanderthals and modern humans younger than 800,000 years ago would have entailed an unexpectedly fast dental evolution in the early Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos," she said. "The major implication is Homo heidelbergensis cannot be the last common ancestor between modern humans and Neanderthals," she told AFP. Gomez-Robles' work was praised by Mirjana Roksandic, a biological anthropologist at the University of Winnipeg. Story continues "She is pinpointing a time when Neanderthals must have moved their own way and that is a very very significant result," said Roksandic. But it received pushback from Susan Cachel, a professor in human evolution at Rutgers University. "If the ancestors of anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals do not come from the taxon Homo heidelbergensis, then where do they come from? Some unknown, shadowy ancestor?" By Dan Whitcomb May 14 (Reuters) - One of the few paintings in Claude Monet's celebrated "Haystacks" series that still remains in private hands sold at auction on Tuesday for $110.7 million, setting a record for an Impressionist work. The oil on canvas, titled "Meules" and completed in 1890, is the first piece of Impressionist art to command more than $100 million at auction, said Sotheby's, which handled the sale. That also represents the highest sum ever paid at auction for a painting by Monet, the founder of French Impressionism and a master of "plein air" landscapes who died in 1926, aged 86. "Meules" was one of 25 paintings in a series depicting stacks of harvested wheat belonging to Monet's neighbor in Giverny, France. The works are widely acclaimed for capturing the play of light on his subject and for their influence on the Impressionist movement. Most works in the series have long been displayed in top world museums, from the Getty Center in Los Angeles to the Musee D'Orsay in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "Meules" is one of only four to have come up for auction this century. Sotheby's said the painting was acquired by wealthy Chicago socialites directly from Monet's dealer in the 1890s and remained in the family until it was bought at auction in 1986 by the present sellers for $2.53 million. The auction house did not identify the painting's buyer, who beat out five other bidders in an eight-minute auction in New York City. (Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) New York (AFP) - A Claude Monet painting from his celebrated "Meules" (Haystacks) series fetched $110.7 million in New York on Tuesday in an auction record for the French Impressionist master. The sale at Sotheby's -- the first time the work had come to auction since 1986 -- fetched one of the 10 highest prices ever seen at auction. The total, which includes fees and the commission, was more than 44 times the previous record for the work. It was the first time an Impressionist painting fetched more than $100 million. Monet painted his 25 "Meules" compositions during the winter of 1890-1891 at his home in Giverny, in France's Normandy region. In each piece, Monet showed the light and surroundings of the same scene as they changed at different times of day, with the varying seasons and during various types of weather. Another painting from the series was sold in November 2016 by the Christie's auction house in New York for $81.4 million. The piece sold at Sotheby's is among the most immediately recognizable Monet paintings. It distinguishes itself from others in the series by its vibrant paint palette, dramatic diagonal brushstrokes of varying directions that meet at the center and a unique perspective with only part of the first haystack appearing in the foreground. "We feel -- and I think people when they stand in front of this would largely agree -- that this is an even nicer example" than the one sold in 2016, Sotheby's Julian Dawes told AFP. "It's enchanting. You just can't look away." The anonymous collector who brought the painting to be auctioned had purchased it in 1986 at Christie's for just $2.5 million. The last record for a Monet painting was set in May 2018 during a Christie's sale when his "Nympheas en fleur" (Water Lilies in Bloom) sold for $84.6 million. "This could be a defining moment for Monet's market," Dawes said. Story continues Despite the allure and popularity of contemporary art, Dawes said Impressionism has an enduring quality. "Something that I really like about impressionism in general is that the market tends to be really consistent. People love impressionism," he added. "It doesn't change from generation to generation. These paintings are 150 years old and they've always been beloved." 1910 T St. NW, #3. | Photos: Zumper Apartment hunting on a budget can be difficult. So what does the low-end pricing on a rental in Adams Morgan look like these days and what might you get for the price? Walk Score indicates that the neighborhood is extremely walkable, is very bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. It also features median rents for a one bedroom that hover around $2,111, compared to a $2,000 one-bedroom median for Washington as a whole. A look at local listings for studios and one-bedroom apartments in Adams Morgan, via rental site Zumper, offers an overview of what budget-minded apartment seekers can expect to find in this Washington 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. 2422 17th St. NW, #305 Listed at $1,600/month, this 310-square-foot studio address, located at 2422 17th St. NW, #305, is 4.9 percent less than the $1,682/month median rent for a studio in Adams Morgan. In the unit, anticipate hardwood flooring, dishwasher and in-unit laundry. Building amenities include on-site management and storage. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are welcome. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. (See the complete listing here.) 2339 Ontario Road NW, #1 Next, check out this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 2339 Ontario Road NW, #1, listed at $1,750/month. In the apartment, expect to find hardwood flooring. The building offers outdoor space and on-site laundry. Good news for animal lovers: both dogs and cats are welcome here. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. (Here's the listing.) 1933 18th St. NW, #103 And here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom living space at 1933 18th St. NW, #103, which is going for $1,950/month. Story continues In the unit, anticipate air conditioning and hardwood flooring. Neither cats nor dogs are allowed. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (Check out the listing here.) 1910 Kalorama Road NW, #305 Over at 1910 Kalorama Road NW, #305, there's this 753-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom rental, going for $1,990/month. Inside, you're promised hardwood flooring and in-unit laundry. The building features storage. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. (View the listing here.) 1910 T St. NW, #3 To round things out, there's this 681-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom rental at 1910 T St. NW, #3. It's being listed for $2,000/month. In the unit, the listing promises hardwood flooring. Building amenities include on-site laundry, on-site management and storage. If you've got a pet, you'll be happy to learn that cats and dogs are welcome. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee. (Here's the full 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. LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - The Haas team may have to change its livery after title sponsor Rich Energy lost a court case for copyright infringement concerning the stag's head logo prominent on the Formula One cars. ATB Sales, owners of cycle maker Whyte Bikes, had sought an injunction in the London High Court against Rich Energy -- a little-known energy drink brand that became Haas's sponsors this season -- to require them to remove the logo. Whyte argued that Rich had copied a logo belonging to the cycle brand that was designed by company employees in 2008. Judge Melissa Clarke said in a written judgment that she found Rich Energy boss William Storey and Sean Kelly, founder of the digital marketing company Staxoweb Ltd, to be "poor witnesses." "He had a tendency to make impressive statements, which on further investigation or consideration were not quite what they seemed," she said of Storey. The judge cited as an example that when cross-examined about a claim to the media in February that 90 million cans had been produced, Storey explained that Rich "had produced 90 million cans, but had not yet filled and sold them." Rich Energy said on their Twitter feed that they were disappointed with the judgment and the findings of the judge. "We are considering all of our legal options including appeal," they added. Rich Energy tried to buy Force India (now Racing Point), to some skepticism from F1 insiders when that team went into administration last year. They were also in talks with struggling former champions Williams. Story shrugged off those who questioned the company's fundamentals at the Haas team launch in February and said Rich had a presence in 43 countries. Haas's drivers are Frenchman Romain Grosjean and Denmark's Kevin Magnussen. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Nick Mulvenney) From its humble beginnings 20 years ago, UK-based website Mumsnet has grown to become a leading internet destination for parenting advice and support to its 14 million monthly users. Its no-holds-barred discussion forums are often the source of national news headlines about topics ranging from unreasonable bridezillas to traumatic childbirth experiences and Brexit stockpiling. Mumsnets influence has also stretched to Downing Street over the years: The 2010 General Election was even dubbed the Mumsnet election as major parties used the popular parenting site to place their campaign messages. Speaking on Yahoo Finance UKs Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded show, Mumsnet co-founder and CEO Justine Roberts explained the site never set out to be politically active, but once we realised we had ... the ear of prime ministers we thought it was remiss not to use it. Mumsnet and Gransnet CEO and co-founder Justine Roberts (right) on Yahoo Finance UK's "Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded" show. Photo: Yahoo Finance UK In 2014, Mumsnet launched a Miscarriage Care Campaign, for example, which aimed to change the way the UKs National Health Service deals with miscarriages, to offer more support, information and treatment. Mumsnet is currently campaigning for the UK government to compel companies to publish their parental leave policies, much like firms in the region must now make their gender pay gap statistics public. A 2019 Mumsnet survey found 82% of parents and prospective parents are reluctant to ask potential employers about their parental leave policies. Mumsnet survives because people speak the truth on it Mumsnets staying power over the past couple decades suggests it has been at least somewhat resistant to some of the other trends facing internet media companies, many of which have struggled to retain their audiences and maintain healthy advertising revenues amid growing competition from US internet giants. I think Mumsnet survives because people speak the truth on it, said Roberts. While on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, users are likely to be showing off their best selves, on Mumsnet youre getting the truthful nitty gritty. Story continues You cant really say, What do I do about my mother-in-law, my boss, my best friend, my middle child on Facebook, but you can on Mumsnet and youll get great answers, and youll get a range of answers from quite a wide crowd as well. Watch the full show for: Roberts on the incident that led to her leaving the finance sector and starting up her own business How Mumsnet keeps users safe and navigates grey areas in content moderation How Roberts keeps a cool head in a crisis such as its recent data breach and her house being maliciously swatted Why the motherhood penalty is holding back future leaders and Roberts advice for working mothers Why many advertisers are getting it wrong when they target mums Mumsnets international ambitions and the potential for a Dadsnet Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded is a new premium video series from Yahoo Finance UK. The show explores the stories of some of the most inspirational women across business, tech, and academia. Catch up on all the latest episodes here. Photo: Jens Thekkeveettil/Unsplash If you love to take advantage of the live music offerings near you, this week provides several great reasons to leave the house. From a visionary violinist to DJs spinning Drake tunes, read on for a local music to-do list to fill your calendar this week. 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. Dixon's Violin with Special Guest Fire Flower From the event description: The world's premier visionary violinist, Dixon's life mission is to inspire people, and he has done so across North America, including giving three TED talks/performances, over ten years at Burning Man, plus radio, TV and film appearances. A former technology leader and symphony violinist, Dixon walked away from a distinguished career to follow his dream full-time and invented a whole new music genre. Dixon now improvises on a 5-string electric violin with a looping system he developed to create an all-live one-man symphony, guided by his remarkable personal story of life transformation. When: Friday, May 17, 7-11 p.m. Where: Detroit Shipping Company, 474 Peterboro St. Price: $12 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Balkan Brass Bash Featuring the Dzambo Agusevi Orchestra From the event description: From humble beginnings in the small Macedonian city of Strumica to conquering stages across the globe, the Dzambo Agusevi Orchestra has risen to the very top of the international music scene. Representing the apex of the younger generation of Balkan Romani (Gypsy) brass performers, the band maintains an active touring schedule, performing at festivals throughout Europe and North America. Arrive at 6:30 to take part in a Balkan folk dance class prior to the show. When: Tuesday, May 14, 7:00 p.m. Where: DSO, Max M. Fisher Music Center, 3711 Woodward Ave. Price: $15 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Story continues Uncorked: Bordeaux and The Beatles From the event description: Join the DSO for Bordeaux and The Beatles featuring classic wines and classic songs! Bordeaux was making its modern emergence in the international wine world just as the Beatles were becoming icons. Hear all the famous songs that reference wine in the lyrics: 'Eleanor Rigby,' 'Her Majesty,' 'When I'm Sixty Four,' 'A Taste of Honey,' 'Norwegian Wood' and others. Ticket includes wine tasting with live music, light fare and a commemorative wine glass. When: Thursday, May 16, 7 p.m. Where: DSO, Max M. Fisher Music Center, 3711 Woodward Ave. Price: $75 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Drake Nite Detroit From the event description: Are you a Drake fan? If so, head over to El Club in Mexicantown on Friday night for the greatest ever dance party...Drake Nite Detroit. DJs Killa Squid and Sky Jetta will be spinning Drake tunes all nite long! Plus, show everyone your moves for the Shiggy aka Keke dance-off on stage. You can also plan onpassionfruit and scorpion drink specials, a Drake photo booth and 6 God party favors and surprises. When: Friday, May 17, 10:30 p.m. Where: El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Highway Price: $5 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Up to 42 Percent Off Wynton Marsalis' Abyssinian Mass From the Wynton Marsalis' Abyssinian Mass featuring a Detroit Community Choir deal description: For the first time in Detroit, Wynton Marsalis Abyssinian Mass, a masterpiece commemorating the 200th anniversary of Harlems Abyssinian Baptist church, will be performed in full in Detroit, featuring a local choir directed by music educator and producer Damien Sneed and the Gathering Orchestra directed by Rodney Whitaker. About the Gathering Orchestra: World-renowned jazz pianist Geri Allen created this jazz fellowship, which is composed of four seasoned jazz veterans and 14 young professional fellows under the leadership of jazz bassist Rodney Whitaker. When: Saturday, May 18, 7:30 p.m. Where: Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, 2080 W. Grand Blvd. Price: $20 for One Ticket (33 percent discount off regular price); $35 for Two Tickets (42 percent discount off regular price) Click here for more details, and to score this deal This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Editors Note: Jay Nordlinger recently interviewed Vladimir Bukovsky, the legendary Soviet-era dissident, at Bukovskys home in Cambridge, England. For the first two parts of this series, go here and here. Talking with Bukovsky, I ask him to give me a comment or two on Yeltsin Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the new Russia. He does. He was a tragic figure. He was kind of half born I dont know how to put it. He was part and parcel of the Communist regime, and he suddenly realized that the whole thing was wrong and then he was on both sides at the same time. That was the trouble with Yeltsin. Thats what made him a tragic figure. He couldnt decide what to do with his life. He couldnt go all the way against the Communists. He went against them, but did not finish it. Yes, he was a tragic figure. Bukovskys book Judgment in Moscow: Did he mean it to be a Nuremberg? A partial Nuremberg? A mini-Nuremberg? Theoretically, thats what I tried to achieve, but there is nothing like an actual trial, a real trial. We all know the difference: One is moral, the other actual. Along with many others, Bukovsky would have liked to see an actual trial, in any form. Someone asked me a member of Yeltsins entourage Well, whos going to be the judges? A very tricky question. I said, Look, I dont care. Choose twelve people off the street, and that would be okay with me. I think of the old phrase, about juries: twelve good men and true. Without a trial a Nuremberg-style trial the regime was bound to return, says Bukovsky. He is speaking of Vladimir Putin and his Soviet ways. In Germany, if we hadnt conducted denazification, if we hadnt convened the Nuremberg tribunals, the Nazi regime would have come back to power. Under a different name, in a different guise, but it would have come back. Much to the annoyance of many of us, the Nazis have always been the object of more opprobrium than the Communists, including the Soviet Communists much more opprobrium. When I think of this subject, I think of Paul Hollander, the Hungarian-born sociologist and writer. Like many of his countrymen, he lived under both Nazi and Communist regimes. No one was better on the subject of the Nazis and the Communists, and the worlds differing views on them, than Paul. Story continues Paul has just died. I mention this to Vladimir, and we reminisce a little. Bukovsky once collaborated on a book with Hollander, and Sidney Hook as well. In 1987, the three of them put out Soviet Hypocrisy and Western Gullibility. Did the Czechs do best? I ask Bukovsky. Havel and your other friends there did they do the best? What I mean is, Of all the people in the former Soviet empire, did the Czechs do the best in accounting for the past and decommunizing? They tried, says Bukovsky, but they did not succeed. The whole thing got stuck. Lustration was completely lost in the courts. Too bad. No one has done it right, says Bukovsky. He then says, almost as an afterthought, No one could. He has a memory of the Gulag. It was 1968 or so. He was in one of the transit jails, and some workers said to him, Youre against this system? Well, good: Were against it too. But what would you do with people like us if you came to power? Bukovsky looked at them and said, Have you ever heard about jury trials? They had not. Bukovsky spent a good hour, he says, explaining to them how justice works in a democratic system. Some people say, Move on. Cant we just move on from the USSR and all that? Cant we leave the past in the past and get on with life? Bukovsky virtually explodes at this, with good reason. It is the most animated he will be in this entire conversation. Listen, he says: Saying that today is ridiculous. Saying move on, he means. Look at Venezuela, he says. Look at Russia. In Russia, Bukovsky sees the revival of the Soviet system. And without knowing about the past, how can you deal with Putin now? Putin will provoke the West again and again, says Bukovsky. What he is doing now, you remember, used to be called brinkmanship. He will push things to the limit to test the strength and resolve of the West. Todays politicians are totally unequipped to deal with this, Bukovsky says, in part because they are ignorant of the past. Putin is a Soviet man, according to Bukovsky a product of the system. The Russian president did not spend all those years in the KGB for nothing. Everything that comes from him has a birthmark on it, says Bukovsky: a Soviet birthmark. In the days of the USSR, he says, Soviet leaders would always talk about encirclement: capitalist encirclement. The Soviet Union was the first state in history for the workers and the peasants, and the capitalists were jealous and resentful, so they were encircling the Soviet Union. Putin pulls the same trick, says Bukovsky, using slightly different language, but sticking with encirclement. As Kremlin propaganda has it, the West is always plotting against Russia, ever hostile. In reality, says Bukovsky, the West doesnt give a damn about Russia. He knows this, having lived in the West for more than 40 years. But this propaganda about the West keeps the masses in line, distracting them from the many, Russian-made ills around them. I ask Bukovsky whether he feels any kinship with Russia any affinity, any sympathy, any fellow feeling. Not anymore, he says. You have to shrug your shoulders and say, Well, you asked for it, you got it. For Chrissake. Why would a country, at last free of the KGB, elect a lieutenant colonel in the KGB as president? Can you imagine the same thing happening in Germany? Some Gestapo officer elected the chancellor? I doubt it even in Germany. If Boris Nemtsov had succeeded Yeltsin, instead of the KGB officer, Putin, that would have been a whole different ballgame a different Russia. Nemtsov was a liberal democrat, and he was the leader of the opposition, after Putin got entrenched. That wasnt on the table, says Bukovsky. We were all close friends of his remember, when Bukovsky says we, he means Soviet-Russian dissidents and democracy activists and we all hoped that one day he would be president of Russia, but it was never serious, never meant to be. Nemtsov was killed, of course, within sight of the Kremlin in 2015. Did the government kill him? Oh, Im sure, says Bukovsky. Putins structures killed him. If anyone is killed in Red Square, the killer or killers must have approval from the Kremlin. Red Square is the one place in the whole of Russia where every millimeter is monitored. Nothing could happen in Red Square without the authorities knowing about it, you see? I do see. Bukovsky says of Nemtsov, He was a good friend. He was a very decent fellow. Yeah. See you tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, for the final part of our series. More from National Review CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) The candidates running for a North Carolina congressional seat left empty after allegations of ballot fraud launched their campaigns on Wednesday deflecting questions about controversial policies and refusing to rule out a bid for higher office in the near future. The 9th Congressional District race pits state Sen. Dan Bishop, the Republican architect of the state's "bathroom bill," against a Dan McCready, the Democrat who was granted an electoral do-over after evidence of ballot fraud tainted his prior opponent's campaign. With Bishop's resounding primary election Tuesday, he and McCready face off Sept. 10. In a bit of guerrilla theater, Bishop appeared outside McCready's campaign headquarters with a cardboard cutout of the Democrat. Bishop described McCready as a liberal who has been as mum as the prop when it comes to talking about his views on current issues. "I think what voters expect and need is contrast and clarity on issues," Bishop said. "So that's exactly what we're going to do is be clear about the issues from my perspective and we invite Dan McCready to be clear about where he stands." Both candidates dodged questions, however. At his own news conference minutes after Bishop spoke, McCready refused to pledge not to run for U.S. Senate next year. Bishop said McCready is using the congressional election to angle for a 2020 shot against Republican Senate incumbent Thom Tillis. Bishop, meanwhile, deflected questions about his sponsorship of the headline-grabbing "bathroom bill," which cost the state billions in projected economic activity. The 2016 law known as House Bill 2 voided anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and also directed transgender people to use public bathrooms matching their sex at birth. "HB2 is an old issue and there's a lot of fantasy about it, including a lot in the media, but I think voters are tired of hearing about it," Bishop said. "We've got a lot of new issues in this campaign we've talk about." Story continues McCready cited a 2017 analysis by The Associated Press estimating that the law cost North Carolina more than $3.76 billion, primarily from businesses that decided to skip intended moves to the state. "His agenda is nothing but a track record of making things worse for people here in North Carolina," McCready said of Bishop. Bishop said he agrees with President Donald Trump that the country should build a wall on the Mexican border and that the current high rate of Central American citizens seeking asylum in the United States amounts to an emergency. McCready responded that he supported comprehensive immigration reform, one version of which passed the U.S. Senate in 2013 but died in the House as Republican hard-liners opposed legal status for immigrants living in the country illegally. "It's absolutely important that we secure the border," McCready said. "It's also important that we uphold American values at the border." McCready said his experience as a Marine Corps officer in Iraq taught him how to work across political, racial and class lines to complete a mission an apparent attempt to portray himself as a political moderate eager to find common ground with Republicans. "We were all on the same team," McCready said. "That's what I think this country is all about and that's what I think we're missing right now in Washington." The four-month special election contest is expected to serve as a measure of national political currents and an open vault for donors. McCready ran a solar-energy financing fund before starting his run for Congress two years ago. He's built up his name recognition over the extended campaign and had almost $1.6 million in cash on hand as of May 2, according to Federal Election Commission reports. But the Democrat will be swimming upstream in a congressional district that has been in GOP hands since 1963 and which Trump won by 12 percentage points in 2016. The 9th Congressional District stretches from suburban Charlotte to suburban Fayetteville along the South Carolina border. ___ Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio . * At least 47 Palestinians wounded - Gaza health ministry * Palestinians commemorating Nakba Day * Anniversary marks displacement at Israel's creation * * By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA, May 15 (Reuters) - Israeli troops wounded nearly 50 Palestinians at the Gaza border on Wednesday during protests to mark the 71st anniversary of the "Nakba," or catastrophe, when many Palestinians lost their homes in the fighting around Israel's creation, Gaza officials said. Thousands had gathered at the coastal enclave's frontier with Israel, the scene of bloodshed over the past year that has raised international concern. Groups approached the border fence, planting Palestinian flags and throwing stones towards Israeli soldiers on the other side despite the efforts of marshalls in orange vests to keep protesters away from the barrier, witnesses said. Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets to repel them, but also live ammunition, the witnesses said. The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 47 people were wounded, though it was not clear how many of those were hit by live ammunition or were hurt by rubber bullets or by inhaling tear gas. The Israeli military said about 10,000 rioters and demonstrators gathered in several places along the Gaza Strip fence. "The rioters are setting tires on fire and hurling rocks. A number of explosive devices have been hurled within the Gaza Strip, as well, and a number of attempts have been made to approach the security fence. IDF troops are responding with riot dispersal means." Wednesday's rallies were called to mark Nakba Day, what Palestinians term the catastrophe that befell them at Israel's creation in 1948, when hundreds of thousands fled or were expelled from lands in what is now Israel. "Our people rise today to announce their rejection to this crime and to assert their right in Palestine, all of Palestine," Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib said at one demonstration, referring to Israel and the territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Story continues "Palestine is ours, the sea is ours, the sky is ours and the land is ours, and those strangers must be removed," he said. Another protester, Jamila Mahmoud, 50, said her family had originally come from Asqlan, now the Israeli city of Ashkelon, near Gaza. "If we don't return, maybe our children and grandchildren will do, one day we will get our rights back," Mahmoud said at the border protest site. Palestinians also held rallies in the occupied West Bank but no major clashes with Israeli forces were immediately reported. This year's Nakba protests were preceded by a surge in deadly cross-border fighting between Gaza militants and Israel which ended in a ceasefire on May 6. Israeli troops have killed more than 200 Palestinians and wounded thousands in regular border protests since March 2018, according to human rights groups. U.N. investigators have said the Israeli military might be guilty of war crimes for using excessive force. Israel has said it is defending its border against attacks against its troops and infiltration attempts by gunmen. Israel has rejected a Palestinian right of return as a threat to maintaining a Jewish majority in a country it describes as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Frustration is growing among Palestinians as hopes fade for a two-state solution to the conflict which would give them an independent country. President Donald Trump's announcment in December 2017 of U.S. recognition of disputed Jerusalem as Israel's capital also fueled Palestinian anger. (Editing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and Angus MacSwan) AMSTERDAM, May 15 (Reuters) - The Dutch government has suspended a mission in Iraq that provides assistance to local authorities due to a security threat, Dutch news agency ANP reported on Wednesday. Dutch military personal help train Iraqi forces in Erbil, northern Iraq, along with other foreign troops. The report gave no details about the nature of the threat. (Reporting by Anthony Deutsch and Toby Sterling; editing by John Stonestreet) Theresa May has been urged not to adopt the proposed wording (PA) Theresa May is set to reject the proposal for a definition of Islamophobia on free speech grounds. According to Buzzfeed, the Government believes that adopting the definition may mean people criticising some aspects of Islam could be prosecuted under discrimination laws. The website claims that ministers will instead appoing two new independent advisers to come up with their own definition of Islamophobia, while at the same time investigating anti-Muslim prejudice in the UK. A source told Buzzfeed that there are legal difficulties with calling Islamophobia a type of racism because Islam is a religion and not a race. The news comes after a police chief warned that counter-terror operations could be hindered if the Government adopts the official definition of Islamophobia. Martin Hewitt, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council, has written to Theresa May to urge her not to adopt the proposed wording as it could prevent them from shutting down extremist groups or conducting searches at ports. The proposed definition describes Islamophobia as a 'type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. Those in favour of the official definition believe it could help Muslims report crime against them, while improving relations between Islamic communities and the Government. Advocates of the official definition believe it would help Muslims report crime against them (Getty) But Mr Hewitt warned that the wording was perhaps misleading in the context of hate crime... hate crime seeks to protect Muslims and not Islam. Critics also say the definition could restrict free speech and legitimate debate about Islam. A group of opposition MPs, led by Change UKs Anna Soubry, are pushing for the official definition to be adopted. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Cyclists actually break traffic laws far less than drivers Westminster 'paedophile ring' accuser's account 'totally unfounded' Girl born on bus 12 minutes after arriving at service station They wrote in a recently-published 72-page report that the lack of a widely adopted working definition... has led to an increase in Islamophobia in society to devastating effect. Story continues The report added that the lack of a definition would allow for the continued denial of Islamophobia as a real lived experience. The authors went on: 'British Muslims would be able to trust the government, which would assist in decreasing the disaffection British Muslims often experience in relation to the Government A police chief has warned that the official definition of Islamophobia would hinder counter-terror operations (Getty) Not recognising that Islamophobia is a specifically racial and religious form of discrimination leaves Muslims vulnerable to abuse without recourse to legal or political remedy. Hitting back at accusations that the definition would go against free speech, the authors added: The aim of establishing a working definition of Islamophobia has neither been motivated by, nor is intended to curtail, free speech or criticism of Islam as a religion.' Criticism of religion is a fundamental right in an open society and is enshrined in our commitment to freedom of speech. Anna Soubry is part of a group pushing for the official definition to be adopted The Muslim Council of Britain has already backed calls for an official definition but suggested a different wording that emphasised the curtailment of the ability of Muslims to articulate their Muslimness. However, the National Secular Society opposes the change, arguing that the terminology was vague and unworkable. Recent Home Office figures show that over 52% of religious hate crimes recorded by police were Islamophobic. The Government said it was considering adopting an official wording and MPs will debate the matter on Thursday. By Michael Erman NEW YORK (Reuters) - England's National Health Service said it had reached a deal to pay for U.S. drugmaker Biogen Inc's expensive spinal muscle atrophy treatment Spinraza. NHS England said it reached a "managed access agreement" with Biogen under which it will fund treatment for a limited time and collect data on the drug's effectiveness. NHS England did not disclose the price it will pay for the drug. Biogen confirmed the deal on Tuesday and said it applauded the decision by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to recommend funding for Spinraza in the United Kingdom. Spinraza, which is administered by spinal injection every four months, has a U.S. list price of $750,000 for the first year and $375,000 annually thereafter. Britain's healthcare cost agency, NICE, said in August it could not recommend Spinraza as a cost effective treatment. The rejection came despite a lower British price tag of 450,000 pounds ($573,000) for the first year and Biogen offering an undisclosed discount to the National Health Service. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of infant mortality, affecting one in every 10,000 live births. About 60 percent of patients have the most severe Type 1 form of the disease, which often leads to paralysis, impaired breathing and death by the second birthday. Between 600 and 1,200 children and adults are currently living with the condition in England and Wales, according to NHS England. Spinraza will be made available immediately to Type 1 patients by Biogen, it said. It said that Spinraza will be made available for other patients - including adults and siblings who have yet to show symptoms - in a few weeks, after NICE publishes guidance. Spinraza was the first approved treatment for SMA, but is expected to soon face new competition. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is due to decide on approval for Novartis' gene therapy Zolgensma this month, with other regulators expected to follow suit later this year. Novartis says the one-time treatment could be a cure for SMA and is pushing for a price in the range of $1.5 million to $5 million. That would make Zolgensma the most expensive new therapy. (Reporting by Michael Erman; Additional reporting by Caroline Humer and Rishika Chatterjee; editing by Bill Berkrot) LONDON (Reuters) - There is an under appreciation of the risk Britain could leave the European Union without a deal later this year, Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Wednesday. "There is an under appreciation that no deal can still happen," he told a committee of lawmakers from the House of Lords, the upper house of parliament. "If the House has not passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill then there are growing voices in Europe, not least the French, who want to move on to other issues," Barclay said. "So there is no automatic right of an extension and in that scenario it would then be a question for the House whether it voted for a no deal and none of can sit here and definitively answer that question," he said. (Reporting By Andrew MacAskill; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea said Wednesday it is suffering its worst drought in nearly four decades amid reports of severe food shortages. The official Korean Central News Agency said an average of 54.4 millimeters (2.1 inches) of rain fell throughout the country in the first five months of this year. It said that is the lowest level since 1982, when North Korea received 51.2 millimeters (2 inches) of rain on average during the same period. The report came after U.N. food agencies said in a joint assessment earlier this month that about 10 million people in North Korea were facing "severe food shortages" after the country had one of the worst harvests in a decade. In February, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, issued an unusual appeal for urgent food assistance. North Korean officials have blamed the food shortage on bad weather and international economic sanctions that were toughened after the country conducted a series of high-profile nuclear and missile tests in recent years. In a high-stakes summit in Vietnam in February, President Donald Trump rejected North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's call for an easing of the sanctions in return for dismantling his main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step. KCNA said the drought is expected to continue until the end of May. North Korea's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported Wednesday that officials and workers are attempting to find new water sources and mobilize pumps and irrigation equipment to minimize the damage to agriculture. North Korea suffered a devastating famine in the mid-1990s that is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. By Tova Cohen TEL AVIV, May 15 (Reuters) - NSO Group's owner said it will do whatever necessary to ensure the Israeli firm's spyware does not undermine human rights, after Amnesty International sought to revoke the export license for NSO, which has been linked to a WhatsApp breach. While it did not comment on specific attacks, NSO said in a statement following a breach of WhatsApp's messaging app on Tuesday that it would investigate any "credible allegations of misuse" of its technology which "is solely operated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies." WhatsApp, a unit of Facebook, told human rights groups it believed the spyware used was developed by NSO, best known for its mobile hacking tools, Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation said on Tuesday following the breach. A second person familiar with the matter also identified spyware from NSO, whose biggest investor is Novalpina Capital. In a May 15 letter to Amnesty Novalpina said it controls NSO's board and owns about two-thirds of its holding company. The letter, signed by founding partner Stephen Peel, said Novalpina was "determined to do whatever is necessary to ensure that NSO technology is used for the purpose for which it is intended the prevention of harm to fundamental human rights arising from terrorism and serious crime and not abused in a manner that undermines other equally fundamental human rights." NSO's founders and management acquired the company from U.S. private equity firm Francisco Partners in February, with Novalpina's support. WhatsApp, one of the worlds most popular messaging tools which is used by 1.5 billion people monthly, said it had notified the U.S. Department of Justice to help with an investigation, and it encouraged all WhatsApp users to update to the latest version of the app, where the breach had been fixed. Novalpina has been exchanging letters with Amnesty over the past few months, outlining its commitment to ensure NSO operates in accordance with UN principles on business and human rights. Story continues The latest communication was in response to a letter from Amnesty in April and does not mention the WhatsApp breach. Lawful and responsible deployment of NSO technology by intelligence and law enforcement agencies is essential to meet the challenges of what would otherwise be untraceable crime, terrorism, human trafficking and drug cartels, said the letter. It referred to an affidavit submitted to the Israeli government by Amnesty this week seeking the revocation of NSOs export license. It said this would allow alternative suppliers that have not expressed interest in complying with UN principles to fill the gap. Novalpina said it was seeking to involve Amnesty in its efforts to address concerns raised in the affidavit. "Our intention is to establish a new benchmark for transparency and respect for human rights in full compliance with the UN Guiding Principles," the letter said. "This will be underpinned by ongoing and meaningful consultation with affected stakeholders, and by a new model of public transparency." It said this goal will need to address complex matters of national security law and of intelligence and law enforcement agency practice. "The intended outcome is a significant enhancement of respect for human rights to be built into NSOs policies and procedures and into the products sold under license to intelligence and law enforcement agencies," it said. (Reporting by Tova Cohen Editing by Steven Scheer and Alexander Smith) (Getty Images) Canadas temporary workforce is growing at a faster pace than permanent employment, according to Statistics Canada. Data collected in 2018 showed that 2.1 million Canadians worked in temporary jobs, representing 13.3 per cent of the countrys workforce. In 1998, 1.4 million Canadians worked in temporary jobs. The 50 per cent growth in temporary jobs during the period easily outpaces the 33 per cent increase in permanent jobs during the same period. Statistics Canada says growth in term of contract jobs explains the increase. Term or contract employees made up 46 per cent of all temporary employees in 1998, compared to 53 per cent in 2018. Temporary employees typically make less money. On average, they made $21.80 an hour in 2018. Meanwhile, permanent employees made $27.71 an hour. Take home pay for temporary workers gets even smaller because they work fewer hours than permanent employees: 27.8 vs. 33.3. About 4 out of 10 temporary employees work part-time, compared with 14 per cent of permanent employees. Men and women are almost equally represented among the temporary workforce, but women (85 per cent) were more likely to have a casual, or term or contract job. Men are more likely to have a seasonal job (27 per cent) compared to women (14 per cent). Most temporary employees in the healthcare and social assistance industries are women (82 per cent), as well as in educational services (68 per cent). Both industries employ a large share of temporary workers, with 26 per cent for educational services and 13 per cent for healthcare and social assistance. Temporary employment is higher in the Atlantic provinces, where seasonal work is more common. Newfoundland and Labrador took the top spot at 26 per cent, followed by Prince Edward Island at 21 per cent. They also happened to have the highest unemployment rates, at 13.8 per cent and 9.4 per cent respectively. Temporary employment was lowest in Manitoba (12 per cent), Saskatchewan (13 per cent) and Ontario (13 per cent). These provinces also have lower unemployment rates than the rest of the country. Story continues Sign up here Jessy Bains is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jessysbains Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. The Sacramento Fire Department, California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health and Blue Diamond will conduct investigations into the cause of a four-alarm fire that broke out at the almond processor's manufacturing facility. Fire crews responded to the 1800 block of C Street at the Blue Diamond factory around 9:30 p.m. Monday, according to the Sacramento Fire Department. The fire was quickly contained. The fire sparked on the factory's second floor. The building is still standing, but KCRA 3 was told there is significant damage inside parts of Blue Diamond. Get the full story in the video above. Logo of jester cap with thought bubble with words 'Fool Transcripts' below it Image source: The Motley Fool. OncoCyte Corporation (NYSEMKT: OCX) Q1 2019 Earnings Call May 14, 2019, 1:30 p.m. ET Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks: Operator Good day and welcome to the OncoCyte conference call to discuss the first quarter 2019 financial results and operating highlights. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Bob Yedid of LifeSci Advisors. Please go ahead. Bob Yedid -- Investor Relations, LifeSci Advisors Thank you, Operator and thanks to everyone for joining us for this afternoon's conference call to discuss OncoCyte's first quarter 2019 financial results and recent operating highlights. If you have not seen today's financial results press release, please visit OncoCyte's website at www.oncocyte.com. Before turning the call over to William Annett, OncoCyte's President and Chief Executive Officer, I would like to remind you that during this conference call, the company will make projections and forward-looking statements regarding future events. More From The Motley Fool Any statements that are not historical fact, including but not limited to statements that contain words such as will, believe, plan, anticipate, expect, estimate, and similar expressions are forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review the company's SEC filings, including without limitation the company's Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify specific risks that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. These factors may include without limitations risks inherent in the development and/or the commercialization of potential diagnostic tests, uncertainties in the results of clinical trials or regulatory approvals, the capacity of OncoCyte's third-party supply blood sample analytical system, to provide consistent and precise analytics results on a commercial scale, the need to obtain third-party reimbursement for patient use of any diagnostic test the company commercializes or need and ability to obtain future capital and maintenance of IT rights. Story continues Therefore, actual outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. OncoCyte expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements except as otherwise may be required under applicable law. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Bill Annett. Bill? William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Bob. Welcome, everyone to our conference call to discuss our first quarter 2019 financial results and operating highlights. Joining me on today's call are Al Parker, Chief Operating Officer, Mitch Levine, Chief Financial Officer, and Lyndal Hesterberg, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer. We will all be available during the question and answer session. 2019 has been a transformative year for OncoCyte. We started 2019 with the successful completion of our R&D validation study of DetermaVu, our liquid biopsy lung cancer diagnostic test. With the subsequent progress we have made toward completing product development, we remain on track for commercial availability of DetermaVu in the second half of this year. In addition, in mid-February, we completed a successful equity rate of $37 million of net proceeds, strengthening our balance sheet and leaving us well-positioned to complete development and immense commercialization of DetermaVu, while also beginning the development of an expanded R&D program to leverage our unique immune system interrogation approach in other cancer indications. Today, we'll provide a brief recap of our recent accomplishments, an update on the remaining steps on the path toward commercialization, and finish with a brief review of our financials. As a reminder, DetermaVu is our confirmatory non-invasive liquid biopsy test that we are developing to facilitate clinical decision making in lung cancer diagnosis. DetermaVu is designed for use following a low-dose CT scan and before determining whether a tissue biopsy is necessary in patients with a suspicious lung nodule. In short, DetermaVu's value proposition is to reduce the number of expenses, risky lung biopsies of benign nodules. Late last year, we announced our successful transition to the Thermo Fisher Ion Torrent Gene Studio S5 next generation sequencing platform to ensure consistent, robust, and reproducible results. In 2019, we quickly followed with positive results from our R&D validation study. That study demonstrated sensitivity of 90% with a 95% confidence interval of 82% to 95% and specificity of 75% with a 95% confidence interval of 68% to 81%. The R&D validation study analyzed 250 blinded patient blood samples utilizing the optimized mRNA biomarkers and algorithms previously determined by the company's algorithm development site. These study results solidified that DetermaVu is a best-in-class commercially viable test with the potential to fundamentally change the way lung cancer is diagnosed. As a reminder, sensitivity and specificity are statistical measures of test performance, with sensitivity measuring the percentage of malignant nodules that are identified correctly by the test and specificity measuring the percentage of the nine nodules correctly identified. A 95% confidence interval or CI suggests that there is a 95% chance that final test performance will be within the stated range. We will be presenting these results as a late-breaking poster presentation at the American Thoracic Society 2019 International Conference. One of the largest and most well-regarded multi-disciplinary medical conferences. It is being held May 17th to May 22nd in Dallas. The abstract, entitled Blinded Prospective Validation Study of a whole blood gene expression classifier or the diagnosis of benign versus malignant pulmonary nodules will be our first formal presentation of these data and we look forward to sharing these results with the broader scientific and medical community. Just last month, we announced the successful completion of the analytical validation study, the next key development milestone. Analytical validation established the performance characteristics of the DetermaVu assay system utilizing the Thermo Fisher next generation sequencing platform in OncoCyte's CLIA laboratory. The studies required for analytical validation are established in the clinical laboratory standards institute guidelines and cover testing for minutes of quantitation, precision, reproducibility, and interfering substances. We have now completed all of these studies successfully and are encouraged to report that the analytical validation data supports the robust performance previously seen in the R&D validation study. After completion of the analytical validation study, we quickly initiated our CLIA laboratory validation study, which is one of the remaining two studies necessary prior to commercialization. In the CLIA laboratory validation study, we are assaying approximately 120 blood samples previously tested as part of our R&D validation study. This study aims to demonstrate equivalent test performance when conducted in the company's CLIA-validated laboratory with CLIA laboratory staff and includes specific protocols to confirm the accuracy, reproducibility and precision of DetermaVu in a real world clinical CLIA lab setting. We look forward to reporting results from the study. Assuming successful completion of the CLIA validation study, we will begin the final remaining step prior to commercialization, clinical validation. In the clinical validation study, we will analyze about 440 blinded prospectively collected patient blood samples with the final confirmation of test sensitivity and specificity in our CLIA lab setting. Importantly, we already have all of the patient blood samples that we need in our freezers and can rapidly proceed through this final step. Between our two blinded studies, the R&D validation and clinical validation study, we will have run about 700 blinded prospectively collected samples. These studies are intended to produce the error bar for DetermaVu's sensitivity and specificity performance to about plus or minus 5%, which we believe is the range of accuracy needed for physician confidence and adoption. We'll touch upon this in greater detail later in the call. We remain on track to complete these two remaining studies by mid-2019. Assuming a successful completion, we plan on making DetermaVu commercially available in the second half of this year. We are proud of our recent progress and are grateful to the entire OncoCyte team for the rapid and efficient execution of the studies required to bring DetermaVu to market. While we've been excited by our remarkable progress thus far, we're also equally excited by the significance of these results from a scientific perspective. That said, I'd now like to provide a brief reminder about DetermaVu's unique approach, which harnesses the immune system's exquisite sensitivity to the presence of cancer. At OncoCyte, we believe that our results represent a true scientific breakthrough in the field of liquid biopsy or early cancer diagnosis. Our approach, which we call immune system interrogation detects gene expression changes in the immune system in response to cancer, all from a simple blood sample. We have shown in a blinded study that it can reliably and reproducibly diagnose early stage lung cancer. We believe that our approach was the first to succeed as an early stage lung cancer diagnosis. Other companies are applying alternative methodologies to detect lung cancer, such as direct detection of cell-free DNA, tumor DNA or circulating tumor cells in the blood. While some types of this type may be successful in late-stage cancer, they remain unsuccessful in early stage cancer, likely because at the earliest stages, there just aren't enough of these components in the blood for reliable detection and diagnosis. So, instead of trying to directly detect and small and very difficult-to-find traces of cancer, instead we are detecting an amplified, highly sensitive response to the cancer by the body's immune system. This unique approach is what has allowed us to succeed where many of our competitors have failed. Our results back this up. All of the samples from our study are with patients with lung nodules no larger than 30 millimeters, which are generally indicative of very early stage cancer. We're also increasingly excited by the potential of our immune system interrogation approach to be broadly applied across solid tumors, particularly for early stage malignancy. While we remain focused on rapidly completing the remaining steps for the commercialization of DetermaVu for lung cancer, we are also actively developing our plans to expand our technology more broadly. We look forward to providing future updates about our plans, next steps, or our R&D activity as we determine our next areas of focus based on both patient need and commercial opportunity for OncoCyte. Before we move to commercialization and reimbursement, I'd like to provide a brief reminder of how DetermaVu has the potential to address the significant challenges and lung cancer diagnostic paced by patients, doctors, and payers. Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death, both in the US and worldwide, generally because most patients are not diagnosed until they have late-stage disease. Detecting lung cancer early will allow for earlier treatment with a better chance of saving or prolonging life. However, it's important to note that current methods of detection rely on low-dose CT scans or X-rays, followed by tissue biopsies. This is where the main problem lies. Lung biopsies are risky, with high rates of complications, such as collapsed lung and intensive care unit stays, and in 1% of cases, results in death. In fact, this high complication rate was recently highlighted by a major study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, which examined outcomes of over 340,000 patients that underwent lung biopsies and found a complication rate of 24% in Medicare patients and 22% in patients under 65 years old. This rate of complications is higher than previous estimates and emphasizes that for most patients, the probability of serious complications associated with biopsies is greater than the likelihood of confirming lung cancer. Beyond the risk to patients, biopsies are also expensive. According to a study of Medicare data by an independent health economics firm, they have an average cost of nearly $15,000.00. This means that increased screening for early detection without DetermaVu would likely also lead to a greater number of patients having lung nodules detected and undergoing unnecessary biopsy procedures at considerable risk to the patient and cost to the healthcare system. This is why DetermaVu is attractive to physicians and patients. It's a simple blood test that can help clinicians determine which patients are least likely to have a malignancy and should not have a biopsy. This means that DetermaVu has the potential to eliminate unnecessary biopsy, avoiding complications and saving lives, while also leading to significant cost savings to the healthcare system. While the benefits to patients are clear, I'd like to spend a little time explaining why DetermaVu is extremely valuable to clinicians. It's important to note that DetermaVu is differentiated from other diagnostics as the reported sensitivity and specificity are achieved without the use of clinical data in the algorithm. This will have a real world impact for physicians, as DetermaVu will provide an independent biological assessment of the risk of cancer incremental to the risk of information from clinical data alone, such as lung nodule characteristics like size and margins and the patient's smoking and health history, which the doctors already have. This resonates with doctors, as it provides a new tool for risk stratification and decision making beyond available clinical data. I've been asked by investors and the public recently what we think the results of our final clinical validation study will be. I don't want to speculate and of course, we haven't even begun testing the sample yet, so, we can't know. But I would like to remind everyone about the significance of the 95% confidence interval we announced for the R&D validation study. The confidence interval suggests that there is a 95% probability that our final results will be within the stated range. As you will recall, a confidence interval for sensitivity was 82% to 95% and for specificity, 68% to 81%. So, what does this mean for doctors? We previously highlighted that our reported R&D validation sensitivity and specificity significantly exceed the parameters we believe are required for a successful commercial product in the lung cancer diagnostics market, based on our market survey of chest physicians. Today, I'd like to expand on this by highlighting an official policy statement of the American Thoracic Society entitled "Evaluating Molecule Biomarkers for the Early Detection of Lung Cancer: When is a Biomarker Ready for Clinical Use?" This published policy statement, which comes from a committee of key opinion leaders in lung cancer detection provides guidance for the level of evidence required to support the clinical use of a biomarker for early lung cancer detection. The policy states that for a molecular diagnostic to be clinically useful, the lower range of sensitivity would need to be at least 80% and the lower range of specificity would need to be at least 40%. We're very excited that these numbers both substantiate our prior market research and independently confirm that at the 95% confidence interval, the levels of sensitivity and specificity reported for DetermaVu thus far are within the boundaries of clinical usefulness as determined by the American Thoracic Society. Consequently, we believe that DetermaVu will provide doctors with a highly sensitive and specific test, allowing them to confidently determine which patients will need biopsy. Now, to briefly touch upon the commercial opportunity for DetermaVu -- we believe that there is an estimated total addressable market of $2 billion to $4.7 billion in the US alone depending on the scope of physician utilization, reimbursement rate, and market penetration. These figures emphasize the large number of patients with lung nodules that would benefit from DetermaVu. As a note on the potential scope of utilization of DetermaVu, many physicians who follow the Lung-RADS guidelines, biopsy lung nodules 8 mm or larger in size, because those nodules are statistically more likely to be malignant than smaller nodules, but we see an opportunity for DetermaVu in testing patients in the 5 mm to 7 mm range as well based on the incidence of physicians now electing to biopsy those nodules. One of our goals for DetermaVu is to see it adopted for use as a confirmatory test of guidance and making patient care recommendations regardless of the size of the nodules detected by a low dose CT or other scan. Our plan remains to launch DetermaVu independently in the US and in preparation of making it commercially available, we have begun to build a small and targeted commercial team to effectively promote DetermaVu among the approximately 6,000 pulmonologists in the US. We are in the early stages of building a talented team of medical science liaison professionals, sales reps, marketing professionals, and patient support staff. We will provide updates for our commercial plans as they are finalized in the near future. Of course, after commercialization, a major focus of the company will move toward securing broad reimbursement for Medicare and private payers, an essential step for a commercially successful diagnostic test. To accomplish this, we have developed a comprehensive reimbursement strategy. It includes conducting a post-commercialization clinical utility study, which will follow actual patients for one to two years measuring in the real world how the use of DetermaVu improves health outcomes for patients and lowers cost for the healthcare system. Thus far, we are highly encouraged by the results from ten public and commercial health plans. They all view DetermaVu favorably and recognize the large unmet need we are working to address. However, as I said before, as with other diagnostic companies and given the reality of reimbursement in the diagnostic space, we believe that it would be one to two years before we generate significant revenues from DetermaVu. So, as I said at the start of this call, this is a transformational time for OncoCyte. We believe we are only months away from our first commercial product and are beginning to explore how our unique apporoach can be leveraged for a pipeline of revolutionary liquid biopsy tests for early stage cancer diagnosis. We are convinced that DetermaVu can fundamentally change the paradigm of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment, leading to meaningful improvements for patients, physicians, and payers. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Mitch Lavine for a review of the financials. Mitch? Mitch Levine -- Chief Financial Officer Thanks, Bill. Good afternoon, everybody. At March 31, 2019, we had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $39.9 million as compared to $8.4 million at December 31st, 2018. As we mentioned earlier, our balance sheet was strengthened in February 2019 with the successful equity raise of $37.3 million in net proceeds from an underwritten public offering. For the first quarter ended March 31st, 2019, we incurred a net loss of $3.9 million or $0.08 per share as compared to $3.8 million or $0.12 per share for the three months ended March 31st, 2018. Our operating expenses for the three months ended March 31st, 2019, were $4 million and $3.2 million on an as adjusted basis, as compared to $3.9 million or $3.4 million on an as adjusted basis for the same period in 2018. We have provided a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses in the financial tables included with our earnings release, which believe is helpful in understanding our ongoing operating expenses. Research and development expenses for the quarter ended March 31st, 2019 were $1.3 million as compared to $1.5 million for the same period in 2018, relatively unchanged quarter over quarter as we continue to focus resources on the development of DetermaVu. General and administrative expenses for the quarter were $2.4 million as compared to $1.7 million for the same period in 2018, an increase of $700,000. This increase was primarily due to $400,000 in personnel and related expenses and $300,000 in stock-based compensation expense due to increased grants of equity awards to our employees. Sales and marketing expenses for the three months ended March 31st, 2019 were $200,000 as compared to about $700,000 for the same period in 2018, a decrease of $500,000 as we reduced our marketing activities and personnel after Q1 2018 and concentrated our resources on the development of DetermaVu. Cash used in operations was $6.7 million in the first quarter. Typically, we use more cash in the first quarter because of timing of payments of merit salary increases and personnel-related costs. We also had some significant non-recurring cash outlays this quarter, including a $2.1 million payment to BioTime in February for shared services from prior years. That concludes my remarks concerning our financial highlights. Questions and Answers: Operator Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press *2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the * keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Bill Quirk from Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead. Bill Quirk -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst Thanks, good afternoon, everybody. First off, Bill, recognizing that you're obviously focusing on DetermaVu for lung cancer, you did comment several times on applying the technology in other areas of oncology. Which ones should we be thinking about if it's not too much to ask, when might we see some initial data? William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Thanks, Bill. Yes, as we mentioned before, we do believe that the underlying mechanisms in our immunological approach may be very applicable across multiple cancer types, particularly solid tumors. We are in the process right now of looking at different opportunities and deciding and prioritizing on research projects in other cancer types. We haven't finished that exercise yet, but when we do, we will be talking in further calls about what our R&D strategy and plan going forward will be. Bill Quirk -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst Okay. Understood. Staying on DetermaVu for a moment, based on the ATS comments that you made concerning the clinical relevance of DetermaVu, help us think about your strategy or potential for guideline inclusion there. William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Sure. Certainly, at this point in time, there are no guidelines for tests such as ours because it's a brand new space. There really aren't any alternatives right now to the use of clinical data. We'd very much like to see in the future guidelines developed and we'd like to be included in those guidelines. That's what we'll be moving forward with the various studies we've talked about, particularly the clinical utility study post-commercialization. We hope to be able to give data which would be helpful for the bodies that develop guidelines. Bill Quirk -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst Got it. Last one for me, one for Mitch -- you've talked about this in the past -- any change to your initial thoughts concerning the salesforce build around the initial commercialization? I'm assuming you're going to continue to have that be relatively small until you get to the reimbursement, but could you just remind us what you're thinking there? Mitch Levine -- Chief Financial Officer Hey, Bill. You're exactly right. We are not making any changes in the development of our salesforce. We expect to ramp modestly and slowly as we develop milestones such as peer-reviewed papers that get published. We'll bring in some more salespeople at that point, but I think in the early going, mostly through medical science liaison and possibly a couple of outside salespeople. Ultimately, at full ramp when we have reimbursement, we expect to have approximately 40 outside salespeople at peak. Bill Quirk -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst Okay. Perfect. Last one from me -- I asked last quarter about getting New York CLIA certification. Is that still the plan, guys? Are you guys going to pursue that following the commercial release? William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Lyndal, do you want to answer that? Lyndal Hesterberg -- Senior Vice President of Research and Development Sure, I'd be glad to. New York is absolutely in our plans. As you may realize, it has a queue. It takes time to have their inspectors come through all the various CLIA labs. So, we are looking forward to that as soon as they can get things done post our commercialization. The ball is sort of in their court at this point. Bill Quirk -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst Got it. Thank you. Operator Our next question is from Bruce Jackson from The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead. Bruce Jackson -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst Thanks for taking my question. In terms of getting to the 40 reps post-launch, how long do you think that would take. William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Our suspicion is that we'll have reimbursement within about two years plus or minus and at that point, we'll have our 40 reps. I think that as we see milestones along the way, as I point out, perhaps, it's peer-reviewed papers that are published, etc. that would make openings into the physician's office easier. That will be very helpful to us and we will ramp up at that time. We expect it to be modest in the foreseeable future. Bruce Jackson -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst Okay. Then with the R&D expense and the operating expenses generally, do you think they're going to stay in this current range or might they drift up a little bit as we get toward the energy of the year? William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer I think that you'll see them grow very modestly, Bruce, as we bring in some more professionals and we begin to commercialize, DetermaVu will have a modest ramp up, but it shouldn't be more dramatic than what you've seen in the past. Bruce Jackson -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst Okay. Last question on the R&D strategy here -- you had a breast cancer test in the pipeline at one point in time and also a pretty good bladder cancer test. Would you start there with the test that you have and perform process somewhere to DetermaVu where you ran the test through the samples with some new candidates and then came up with the new test or would you just start from scratch and just use the DetermaVu platform as a discovery vehicle and then prioritize? That's it for me. Thank you. William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Good question, Bruce. Lyndal, do you want to answer that? Lyndal Hesterberg -- Senior Vice President of Research and Development Sure. Just to clarify -- as Bill said, we're still in the planning process and evaluating all of the opportunities first. Second, we know there are areas we want to explore based on the biology of the immune system interrogation. So, first and foremost, we need to expand and protect our DetermaVu product and then past that is where we want to look at other opportunities, both within lung cancer and potentially other solid tumors. That's still at this point in the planning stage. Operator Once again, as a reminder, it is *1 to ask a question. The next question is from Casey Woodring from Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead. Casey Woodring -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst Hi, guys. This is Casey on for Paul. A lot of my questions have been answered here, but maybe one you guys could speak to is what sort of opportunity will the presentation that you guys had at the American Thoracic Society Conference be? Will it simply be your first chance to present the details of the R&D validation study or will you be able to market yourselves to pulmonologists in attendance or maybe talk to payers, any color you can give there. Thanks. William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Sure. The American Thoracic Society Conference is largely a scientific conference. So, it is not so much a conference for payers and others. Perhaps Lyndal, you could talk a little bit about what we'll be presenting, mindful that we're under embargo until that point in time. Lyndal Hesterberg -- Senior Vice President of Research and Development Sure. I'd be glad to. In a general sense, we'll be sharing not just the topline results, which we've already reported, but also the details underneath in terms of the patient population, the characteristics that were there, what we've used in this such that my hope is that the physicians that are looking at this will see that we've done a good job in our clinical study collection itself in getting a cross-sectional representation of these patients at risk for lung cancer. The other piece that we will be disclosing there is the performance against clinical factors alone, which doctors already have and they use today in their best efforts to try to identify patients who had higher risk of cancer as a guidance to themselves as to which ones to carry the biopsy. The trouble is that clinical factors alone, while they're helpful, are not sufficient and aren't, in my opinion, good enough. That's where the biology and our biomarkers will outperform those clinical factors significantly and we'll be sharing some of that new information at the ATS presentation. William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer As a reminder, the presentation is next Tuesday, May 21st at ATS. So, we will be making the poster and the information available after that point. Operator Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to Mr. Annett for any closing comments. William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Thank you. Thanks to everyone for joining our call this afternoon. We do hope you are all as excited about we are about OncoCyte's progress and our upcoming milestones. We're well-funded. We're well-positioned to develop an exciting potential pipeline of liquid biopsy tests. Of course, we continue to rapidly advance the development of DetermaVu and expect in just a few months to have a commercially available product in the potentially multi-billion-dollar lung cancer diagnostic test market. We look forward to providing you with further updates in the upcoming months. Operator This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation. Duration: 38 minutes Call participants: Bob Yedid -- Investor Relations, LifeSci Advisors William Annett -- Chief Executive Officer Mitch Levine -- Chief Financial Officer Lyndal Hesterberg -- Senior Vice President of Research and Development Bill Quirk -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst Bruce Jackson -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst Casey Woodring -- Janney Montgomery Scott -- Analyst More OCX analysis All earnings call transcripts 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 Transcription 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. By Josh Horwitz SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Authorities in China have blocked Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia's owner said on Wednesday. "In April, the Wikimedia Foundation determined that Wikipedia was no longer accessible in China," Samantha Lien, spokeswoman for the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, said in a email. "After closely analyzing our internal traffic reports, we can confirm Wikipedia is blocked across all language versions," Lien said. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites have long been blocked in China. Individual Wikipedia articles about sensitive issues, such as 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the Himalayan region of Tibet, have long been blocked in China, however, even while the main site is accessible. Suspicion of a total block on Wikipedia surfaced in late April when some Chinese internet users took to social media to complain that the site was no longer accessible. Tests run by GreatFire.org, an organisation that tracks internet censorship in China, revealed that the site had not been accessible from within China since April 23. The Cyberspace Administration of China, which oversees China's internet censorship, did not respond immediately to a faxed request for comment. Since 2015, Wikipedia's Chinese-language site was blocked by China's "Great Firewall", which prevents internet users from accessing certain foreign websites. Versions in other languages, however, have largely remained accessible, albeit with occasional interruptions. Lien said the Wikimedia Foundation had not received any notice that would explain why the block had been imposed. "When one country, region, or culture cannot join the global conversation on Wikipedia, the entire world is poorer," Lien adds. Internet authorities in China often ramp up censorship before major political events or sensitive anniversaries. This June will mark 30 years since the army used force to suppress the pro-democracy protests centred around Tiananmen Square. Story continues This month marked the 100th anniversary of the May 4th movement, which began as student protests against imperialism but quickly grew into widespread protests against the government. Authorities have long played the element of political liberalism in that movement. Later this year, China will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. (Reporting by Josh Horwitz; Editing by Robert Birsel) Ottawa (AFP) - A fugitive on Canada's most wanted list ended up leading police to his doorstep after announcing where he was living in a defiant Facebook message to a television station publicizing his case. Jessie Dean Kowalchuk, 27, was wanted in westernmost British Columbia province for violating his probation related to three separate crimes in 2015. When he spotted his photo on the website of television station CFJC Today in Kamloops, he sent a Facebook message to taunt the news show's producers -- and said he was in the capital of neighboring Alberta province. "News flash morons I'm in Edmonton and not coming back," Kowalchuk wrote, according to the station. Police were notified of his apparent location and arrested him in Edmonton, where he had apparently been living for three years. "We're just really pleased that he sent the message advising where he was living in Alberta and that we were able to extend the warrants to Alberta so that we could bring him back here to face charges," federal police Corporal Jodi Shelkie told public broadcaster CBC. "You've got to face up to your actions at some point and you know it doesn't matter where you go -- sooner or later, the police are going to find you," she said late Tuesday. As Australians head to the polls this week after the country's hottest-ever summer, outback farmers -- walloped by epic fires, floods and heatwaves -- are leading the fight against climate change, making it one of the election's key issues. With one of the world's worst pollution records per capita -- and a prime minister who paraded a lump of coal through parliament -- no one would mistake Australia for a progressive eco-haven. But after a prolonged drought, raging bushfires and "once-in-a-century" floods, many Australians fear the country is ill-equipped to tackle climate change. The northeast battleground state of Queensland bore the brunt of the summer's extreme climate conditions, and is ground zero for changing outback attitudes. Insurers AIG estimated that between 2007 and 2016 natural disasters cost the state roughly Aus$11 billion a year (US$12 billion) with the bill only increasing since then. - Slash and burn - When Simon Gedda's family took over a farm about two hours' drive from Australia's "beef capital" Rockhampton 50 years ago, they did what any other Queenslander cattle grazier household would do. They stripped out the trees, cut back the grass and sprayed chemicals to make farming easier. But rising costs and concern about climate change, prompted Gedda to move away from high-impact methods. And when a category-four cyclone struck his property in 2017, he joined the 5,000-member advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action. "The headwaters of our creek received 40 inches (100 centimetres) of rain in 14 hours," he said. "It wasn't any old flood. It was something that was totally unbelievable. "This is exactly what the scientists have been telling us." In the face of government inaction, Gedda and other farmers are pushing forward with their own climate initiatives -- in a bid to protect their livelihoods. Denis Couture, whose tomato and chilli-growing operation in Bowen is a short drive from Australia's most northernly deepwater coal port terminal, is shunning fossil fuels and using solar panels and batteries. Story continues "Renewable energy in Australia is abundant. There's wind everywhere, there's solar everywhere," Couture told AFP, pointing to the sky above the so-called Sunshine State. Craig Illingworth, who lives close to bushfire-hit rainforests in central Queensland, said last year's blaze was a wake-up call. "I've never seen fires or heard of that intensity, that many fires that ran for the time frame that they did and were so uncontrollable." Poor agricultural practices and deforestation have degraded the soil and are major climate change drivers. But Queensland farmer Simon Mattsson believes landowners can help -- by removing carbon from the atmosphere and putting it into the soil. "If Australia is to have any hope of maintaining good agriculture production, we need a healthy soil," Mattsson, who is diversifying his crops to improve soil quality, told AFP. - Changing attitudes - Queenslanders are not alone in expressing concern about climate change -- or frustration about Canberra's apparent reluctance to tackle the issue. A nationwide survey by the Australia Institute found that more than half of respondents believe the country is "facing a climate emergency", and support more policy action. The push for change is so strong analysts believe climate policies by Australia's two major parties -- the ruling right-wing Liberal-National coalition and left-leaning Labor -- might determine this and future elections. But Queensland is also a centre for coal mining. More than 20,000 people are employed in the sector in the central region of the state alone. Even politicians who believe in climate change are reluctant to put those jobs at risk, or risk donations from the mining industry and its unions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia will meet its international obligations under the Paris climate agreement, but not "in a way that puts our kids' economic future at risk". His party's hard-right ousted his predecessor Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in August amid plans to embed carbon emission targets in law. Labor meanwhile has committed to 50 percent energy coming from renewables by 2030. But, backed by trade unions, the party is also cautious about plans to fully phase out mining. How both parties fare in Saturday's vote could determine their environmental policies, and reshape how they campaign in rural areas in future elections. "I think that climate change is right smack in the middle of the electoral agenda from now on," Griffith University's Queensland political analyst Paul Williams told AFP. "Any major party that ignores it will not be taken seriously." By Mubasher Bukhari LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistani court on Tuesday granted bail to the leader of a ultra-right Islamist group arrested last year after his supporters shut down cities and threatened judges following the acquittal of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. The leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and his deputy, Pir Afzal Qadri, were arrested last year and charged with inciting terrorism and sedition after protesting against the acquittal of Asia Bibi who had spent eight years on death row on blasphemy charges. "Today, the Lahore High Court has granted bail to Rizvi and Qadri in the cases of terrorism, sedition and inciting for violence," TLP lawyer Muhammad Arif Awan told Reuters. Bibi left for Canada last week after living at an undisclosed location inside Pakistan since her acquittal. Hardline Islamists in Pakistan had rallied against her being allowed to leave and called for her to be killed. Rizvi's November arrest led to clashes between police and his supporters in the eastern city of Lahore, wounding five people in violence authorities say was instigated by the TLP leader after he called on his faithful to take to the streets if he was arrested. The two men are due to be released on Wednesday. TLP leaders had threatened the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi, urging their cooks and servants to kill them, and called for the overthrow of the army chief, an unthinkable comment in Pakistan where the military is rarely criticized in public and the army normally does not tolerate such dissent. The TLP, whose main focus is protecting Pakistans draconian blasphemy laws, was founded out of a movement supporting a bodyguard who assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer for advocating for Bibi in 2011. Blasphemy is a deeply emotive issue in Pakistans staunchly religious society, and officials have been unnerved by how much support Rizvis TLP has garnered across the country in the two years since the group entered mainstream politics. (Additional reporting by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Nick Macfie) Pangaea Logistics (PANL) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.09 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.08 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.10 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 12.50%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this maritime logistics company would post earnings of $0.07 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.09, delivering a surprise of 28.57%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Pangaea Logistics, which belongs to the Zacks Transportation - Shipping industry, posted revenues of $79.54 million for the quarter ended March 2019, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.80%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $78.97 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Pangaea Logistics shares have added about 14.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12.2%. What's Next for Pangaea Logistics? While Pangaea Logistics has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Pangaea Logistics was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.19 on $109.72 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.66 on $415.43 million in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Transportation - Shipping is currently in the top 42% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. 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 Pangaea Logistics Solutions Ltd. (PANL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Is sex politics? In the biopic Pasolini, that question is posed to legendary Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini (played by Willem Dafoe), who responds, In life, everything is politics. His answer brings this movie close to understanding the discord now roiling American public intercourse. For Pasolini, sex was a metaphor for spiritual dysfunction, the anguished expression of human desire and its opposite, vengeance that is, politics. This ambitious biopic, directed by the renegade American filmmaker Abel Ferrara (whose films Bad Lieutenant, King of New York, The Funeral, and Welcome to New York make him something like an American counterpart to Pasolini), arrives just as unfathomable gamesmanship and political theatrics have frustrated the current administration and discombobulated American society. Pasolini (now playing at Metrograph) explores a filmmakers personal and public responsibility in an era when political society races to the bottom. It asks, as did Pasolini himself, How low can we go? Pasolinis interest in sexual behavior shocked the polite humanism of the Italian neorealist tradition, starting with his brilliant debut Accattone (1961) and then Mamma Roma (1962), The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966), and his final film Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1977). He deserves a biopic because his audacity helps us think through the vindictive motivations of the recent political backbiting that ignores everyday social problems in favor of settling personal grievances and grabbing partisan power. For a culture that overthrows the sacred for the political, Pasolinis vision of the profane takes on fresh relevance. Ferrara and Dafoe probably did not intend their very personal, Eurocentric drama to reflect American turmoil. But Dafoe, perfectly cast as the bespectacled Pasolini, speaks with a timbre that recalls how Arthur Kennedys middle-American intonations in Lawrence of Arabia reoriented a foreign experience, giving it American immediacy. Story continues Ferrara sets his essay-film just before the artists death, when Pasolini is at a desperate point, only days before releasing the sure-to-be-controversial Salo. Pasolini questions his own aesthetic ideas and political philosophies as a poet and cineaste. The film shifts into fantasy sequences of a proposed novel about sexual libertinism and Italian history. Its a jumble of ideas centered on images of Italian Fascist art. Awed by Pasolinis sharp perspective, Ferrara and Dafoe take a respectful approach that is not an artistic failure so much as an indication that we live in a period when its difficult to ascertain the complexity of political and artistic radicalism. (Whats that? Marvel and Pixar fans might ask.) Ferrara and Dafoe confront an important quandary: that liberals might be as afraid to look deeply into the human abyss as conservatives are. Ferrara starts by dealing with Salo, Pasolinis most extreme film a key work of political provocation and anxiety (as a clip in Godards The Image Book indicated). Whereas Nanni Morettis Caro Diario (1993) paid sentimental homage to Pasolinis violent death, the explicit clips from Salo permit Ferrara to portray Pasolinis rough-trade sex life made all the more startling by Dafoes appetitive smile. A scene of raunchy street sex that fades to morbid black, followed by daylight shots of the famous Palazzo della Civilta Italiana, connects debased behavior to the high artistic aspiration of Italian Fascist art. The Palazzo, built by Mussolini in 1935, bears the inscription A nation of poets, of artists, of heroes, of thinkers, of scientists, of navigators, of migrants, about which Pasolini had to be ambivalent. Pasolini is the only great director to make a movie as truly disgusting as Salo, a political allegory that explicitly depicts outrageous scenes from its source material, a 1785 novel by the Marquis de Sade. As the most audaciously realistic and yet inventive political filmmaker, Pasolini converted Sades wicked theology into a parable and critique of Fascism as a system that corrupts even its own doctrine. Salos conceit is also an unsettling rebuke of the threat that Marxist Pasolini saw in his political adversaries who blurred the line between power and insensitivity. (It was Pasolini who directed both the Bach-influenced The Gospel According to St. Matthew and the ribald Second Coming allegory Teoremaa title that translates Pasolinis allegorical reasoning as Theorem.) Set in the Salo Republic, the Italian puppet state of Nazi Germany, Salo begins with a unique preamble of footnotes (including by Roland Barthes) to validate its portrayal of the last days of Mussolinis regime. Pasolini takes an intellectual view of the fictionalized exploits of several town nobles who use their authority to commandeer young members of the Italian resistance and submit them to sexual humiliation, physical and mental torture, and murder. Salo demonstrates Ferrara and Dafoes pronouncement: Narrative art, as you well know, is dead. This is a parable. The meaning of the parable is the relation of the author to the form he creates. Salos four sequences (Anteinferno, Circle of Mania, Circle of Shit, Circle of Blood) evoke Dantes Inferno. This high-brow stuff (even quoting Ezra Pounds Cantos) gets quite low down. Its an atrocity exhibition. That explains Ferrara and Dafoes valiant attempt to extrapolate from inside Pasolinis mind. Among Salos most unsettling aspects is the incontestable fact that this alarming film shows Pasolini bravely admitting his own depraved temptation. His social criticism did not lack self-awareness. Made only three years after Mel Brookss flatulent campfire in Blazing Saddles, Salo, in its emphasis on scatology and shock, turns the lusty neorealism of Accattone into a political schema that, though always seriously intended, uses allegory that is too harshly literal our faces and sensibilities rubbed in degradation. Though testing Pasolinis own virtue, the challenge the self-reproach is insular, perhaps too personal. Yet this gives Salo, and the figurehead that Ferrara and Dafoe create from Pasolinis artistic courage, great and undeniable significance amid the political hypocrisy and artistic crises of today. Pasolini connected the impulse to power with sadism. Often described as an art horror film, Salo bears a classic warning mans inhumanity to man that has been hidden by Millennial political objectives. Who can doubt Pasolinis proposition that the bureaucrats who advance the unrelenting congressional and media witch hunts would not also be capable of Sadean indignities if given the opportunity? More from National Review Dr Jeffrey Bado received his first sales visit from a Purdue Pharma representative in September 2005. In the next five years, his prescriptions of OxyContin the jet fuel of Americas opioid crisis, according to Pennsylvanias attorney general increased by 600%, as Purdue reps visited two to three times a week. Now, a lawsuit in the state seeks to hold the company accountable. The lawsuit, filed 2 May by the state attorney general, Josh Shapiro, and announced on Tuesday, accuses Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut-based maker of OxyContin, of deceptive marketing and criminal negligence in pushing doctors to prescribe the opioid. Weve lost lives, weve lost money and weve squandered opportunity, said Shapiro in a press conference Tuesday. Meanwhile, opioids have been a goldmine for Purdue, which has made more than $35bn in revenue since OxyContin was released in 1996, he said. While Purdue and its executives were profiting and lining their own pockets, they were leaving a path of loss, heartache and bills for someone else in Pennsylvania to pay, he added. Pennsylvanias suit follows a wave of legal action against the pharmaceutical giant, and in some cases, certain members of the multibillionaire Sackler family, who own the company. More than three dozen states have sued Purdue for underplaying the risks of addiction, and a consolidation of 1,500-plus lawsuits filed by US cities and counties is currently playing out in a federal courthouse in Cleveland. Related: Meet the Sacklers: the family feuding over blame for the opioid crisis Pennsylvanias lawsuit, however, is the first to allege in detail a prolific and calculated scheme of pushing drugs on prescribers a ruthlessly profitable marketing blitzkrieg targeting doctors such as Bado, who was convicted of fraud and drug distribution felonies in 2016. According to the complaint, Pennsylvania, one of the hardest-hit states in the opioid crisis, received half a million sales visits by Purdue reps since 2007 the highest of any state except California. Story continues The complaint outlines a multi-pronged promotion strategy from Purdue involving unrelenting sales calls; branded and unbranded promotion; paying select key opinion leaders to make seemingly unbiased endorsements of Purdue products; and targeting its marketing efforts to vulnerable patient groups, such as the elderly and veterans. The complaint also alleges that Purdue knew of OxyContins high addiction risk but continued to misrepresent or minimize it. Shapiro singled out Purdues propagation of the term pseudoaddiction, a condition it says the company invented to encourage more opioid prescriptions despite evidence of full-blown addiction. The conduct is absolutely outrageous and unlawful, said Shapiro. Purdue said in a statement that it vigorously denies the allegations filed today in Pennsylvania and called the allegations misleading attacks that are part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system. Such allegations demand clear evidence linking the conduct alleged to the harm described, but we believe the state fails to show such causation and offers little evidence to support its sweeping legal claims, it said. Shapiro said his offices efforts were on behalf of those lost to addiction 12 Pennsylvanians every day in 2018, according to the CDC and the loved ones left behind. Asked in a subsequent press call if he intended to add the Sacklers in name to the suit, Shapiro declined to outline future plans. But he added: We are not done here. This lawsuit is just the first step. By Poppy McPherson YANGON (Reuters) - A U.N. official has urged Myanmar to grant aid workers "predictable, sustained access" to Rakhine state, where fighting between government troops and rebels has displaced nearly 33,000 people since late last year, saying lack of aid has cost lives. Ursula Mueller, a U.N. assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said authorities had turned down her requests to meet those displaced by the conflict in a region barred to most aid groups since the fighting broke out. "We need access predictable, sustained access to reach the people in need," Mueller told Reuters late on Tuesday, at the end of a six-day visit to the southeast Asian nation. "If the assistance, including mobile clinics, cannot get to the people, they just dont have the services and their needs are not being met and some people are dying." Reuters could not immediately reach a government spokesman to seek comment. Rakhine has been in the global spotlight since 2017, after roughly 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks crossed into neighboring Bangladesh. U.N. investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing. More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state. During her visit, Mueller met senior officials in the capital, Naypyitaw, including state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi who said she was working towards "development and social cohesion" in Rakhine. "I was pointing out the humanitarian needs that are existing that need to be urgently met," she added. Mueller also visited camps outside Sittwe, the state's capital, where thousands of Rohingya have been confined since a previous bout of violence in 2012. Most lack citizenship and face curbs on movement and access to basic services. Myanmar has been working with the U.N on a strategy to close the camps, but it amounts to building new, more permanent homes in the same place rather than letting people return to areas from which they fled, Reuters reported last year. Mueller, who is also a deputy coordinator for emergency relief, said she had discussed the strategy with officials. "It's not enough to erect buildings on the same site while the underlying causes are not addressed," she added. "People have no freedom of movement. They are losing hope after seven years in this camp." (The story refiles to fix spelling of name in third paragraph) (Reporting by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Warmdaddy's. | Photo: Joe B./Yelp Looking to up your appreciation of the arts? We've rounded up four artsy events around Philadelphia this week that will scratch your cultural itch, from an artist talk to a comedy show. Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. Artist Talk with Cory Arcangel From the event description: The Institute of Contemporary Art is hosting artist Cory Arcangel on Wednesday for discussion on his past and recent activities, which include digital preservation, composition and fine art. The Buffalo, N.Y. native has worked in a diverse array of mediums such as video games, organ compositions, lasers, social network bots and cinema. He will also talk about Music and the Mind of the World, Conrad's late 1970s and early 1980s piano work that spans over 200 hours. When: Wednesday, May 15, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Where: Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th St. Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Comedian Carl Payne playing Warmdaddy's From the event description: On Wednesday, actor and comedian Carl Payne is performing a set at Warmdaddy's. Payne has starred on such TV classics as the "Cosby Show" and "Martin." When: Wednesday, May 15, 8:30-11 p.m. Where: Warmdaddy's, 1400 S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. Price: $30 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Staying in Place with Local and Regional Artists From the event description: The Asian Arts Initiative is hosting a dynamic conversation tonight among artists who are leading path-breaking projects. Artists Mei Lum and Juliet Phillips will visit from the W.O.W. Project in New York's Chinatown, promoting the preservation of cultural traditions in the face of gentrification, while Philadelphia artists Shira Walinsky and Kathryn Pannepacker will discuss their work in the local community. When: Tuesday, May 14, 6 p.m. Where: 1219 Vine St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Story continues Photo Pop Philly Opening Celebrations From the event description: Photo Pop Philly is poppin' up again this summer as PhillyPR Girl is presenting Photo Pop Philly: Sweet Paradise on Wednesday at The Bourse. Guests will immerse themselves in unique environments by exploring themes of paradise. The experience will feature over 25 installations and work from local artists. When: Wednesday, May 15, 7 p.m. Where: 111 S. Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, PA 19106 Price: $75 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Tell Me A Story: Game On at Shot Tower Coffee From the event description: Shot Tower Coffee is hosting its eighth annual Tell Me A Story show on Wednesday. Hosted by Hillary Rea, the theme for the night of true stories is "Game On" and will feature Jean Burns, Megan Griffith-Greene, DC Maxwell, Alejandro Morales, Emilie Parker and Tyler Wolf. When: Wednesday, May 15, 7 p.m. Where: 542 Christian St., Philadelphia, PA 19147 Price: $10 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. (This May 14 story corrects first paragraph to show sale of diamond was to Stargems Group and Choron (Belgium) BVBA, not only to Stargems.) (Reuters) - Petra Diamonds said on Tuesday it sold a 425-carat diamond, recovered at its flagship Cullinan mine in South Africa in March, to Belgium-based Stargems Group and Choron (Belgium) BVBA for $15 million, potentially helping it turn free cash flow positive this year. Petra said the sale of the diamond, named 'Legacy of the Cullinan Diamond Mine', highlighted the quality of the ore in the mine. The miner bought Cullinan from De Beers in 2008, aiming to breathe new life into the mine renowned for yielding the largest rough gem diamond ever found - 3,106 carats - and being the world's main source of rare blue diamonds. BMO Capital Markets analyst Edward Sterck said the $15 million purchase price was in line with its estimate, adding that realised prices at Cullinan have recently been "exceedingly weak". Shares of the miner were down 3.8% at 23.90 pence by 1405 GMT, lagging the small-cap index which was in the positive territory. Petra has been struggling to clear its multi-million-dollar debts after it borrowed heavily to revamp the Cullinan facility and began mining a new section of ore last July. However, Cullinan has been profitable every year since Petra acquired it in 2008 and the mine is expected to generate free cash flow this year. Sterck said the sale of the diamond, which would flow almost directly to the bottom line, will help Petra Diamonds in its target to turn free cash flow positive this year. Petra Diamonds last month announced the recovery of a 209.9 carat 'Type II' diamond at Cullinan mine, the third recovery of a gem of that size since March. "With additional higher value stones likely to be sold in the quarter ... pricing for Q4 looks likely to be stronger than forecast," said Sterck. (Reporting by Samantha Machado in Bengaluru and Barbara Lewis in London; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) Washington (AFP) - After a deadly crash in Indonesia, American Airlines pilots called a meeting to press Boeing executives for safety changes to the 737 MAX aircraft, US media reported Tuesday. The call for changes, which could have required the best-selling aircraft model to be temporarily grounded, were reported by The New York Times and CBS News after they obtained an audio recording of the November 27 meeting between the American Airlines pilots union and officials from the aircraft manufacturer. The 737 MAX 8 is currently grounded worldwide after the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 that killed all 157 people onboard and drew scrutiny to the new Boeing model's anti-stall system, which investigators believe may have brought the jet down. But the meeting shows that pilots were already worried about the safety of the model following the October 2018 crash in Indonesia of a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 that left no survivors of the 189 people onboard. According to the reports, the pilots were particularly concerned about the MCAS anti-stall system that investigators in both Indonesia and Ethiopia have blamed for the crashes. "No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane," Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett told the meeting. "The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one," he said later in the meeting held four months before the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. Meanwhile, the pilots in the meeting said they felt they weren't told enough about the MCAS system, which was new to the 737 MAX 8. "These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else," said Mike Michaelis, head of safety for the pilot's union. Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing had issued additional instructions to pilots in case they faced a malfunction of the MCAS. But in a letter obtained by AFP, Michaelis said the instructions weren't sufficient for pilots to know how to handle malfunctions with the anti-stall system. Story continues The New York Times said Michaelis asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8 -- which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time. Airlines and governments worldwide ordered the 737 MAX 8 to stop flying in the days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing has been working on a software fix for the flight system and hoping for quick approval from regulators, but it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season. WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish bishops will meet on May 22 to discuss steps to tackle paedophilia in Poland's powerful Catholic Church after a documentary that showed victims confronting priests who had sexually abused them shocked the devout nation. The film "Just don't tell anyone", which has been watched by 14.8 million people since Youtube released it on Saturday, also alleges that the Polish Church moved known paedophile priests from parish to parish, as happened in other countries. Lawyers and journalists have called for the police to launch criminal investigations and the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has close links to the Church, announced plans on Tuesday to tighten sentences for child sex abuse. "The head of the Episcopate, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, called yesterday an extraordinary meeting of top bishops - the meeting of the permanent council - to set out further actions aimed at protecting minors," an Episcopate spokesman said. "This is connected with the (recent) paedophilia issue," priest Pawel Rytel-Andrianik told Reuters. Primate Wojciech Polak, the most senior clergyman in Poland, told private Radio Zet on Wednesday he saw no need for any bishops to resign over the scandal but added that more had to be done to protect minors. "CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE" The leftist opposition party Wiosna (Spring) accused the Church of trying to cover up sex abuse cases and said secular authorities should get directly involved. "We can't expect the Church to clean up its own act, as if this were just its own affair... A number of bishops took part in this conspiracy of silence, in hiding these crimes," Wiosna leader Robert Biedron told Radio Zet. "The state should guard the safety of children, youths, and the state has failed," said Biedron, one of Poland's first openly gay politicians. Biedron has called unsuccessfully for Polish state television to broadcast the documentary. When his party tried to project the documentary onto a building next door to a church on Monday, police seized the projector and blocked the event. Child abuse scandals, some dating back many decades, have rocked the Catholic Church globally, eroding its authority in once devout nations from Ireland to Chile. It has had to pay out billions of dollars in damages to victims and close parishes. The Church in Poland, where 85 percent of people identify themselves as Catholic and where a third of the population attends mass every week, has yet to reach a consensus on how to address the abuse issue. An arm of the Church has filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking to annul a 1 million zloty ($260,000) payment ordered by a lower court to a woman who, as a 13-year-old child, was repeatedly raped by her local priest. The abuse scandals in the Church are a challenge to PiS as it gears up for European elections this month and national polls later this year. PiS sees Catholicism as a key element of Polish identity while liberals say the Church wields too much power. (Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Gareth Jones) WARSAW, May 15 (Reuters) - Poland's ambassador to Israel was spat at while sitting in his car in Tel Aviv, Israeli police said, and the Polish government condemned the incident, which coincided with rising tensions between the two countries. "I am very worried to hear of a racist attack on @PLinIsrael ambassador @mmagierowski. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. An Israeli police spokesman said on Wednesday a 65-year-old Israeli man was arrested over Tuesday's spitting incident. Israel's Walla News site said the suspect was brought to court on Wednesday and released on bail. It quoted the judge as saying the alleged attack against a foreign diplomat was shameful. The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador to Warsaw, Anna Azari, over the matter, a ministry spokeswoman told the state-run news agency PAP. "The event is under police investigation. We express our fullest sympathy to the ambassador and our shock at the attack," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said. Polish-Israeli relations have deteriorated in recent months over accusations that Warsaw's nationalist PiS government has tolerated a revival of anti-Semitic behavior, a charge it denies. Hundreds of far-right supporters marched in Warsaw on Saturday in protest against a U.S. law on the restitution of Jewish property seized during or after World War Two, an increasingly prominent issue in Polish election campaigns. A lawyer for the man suspected of spitting at the ambassador was quoted by Walla News as saying he had been turned away from the Polish Embassy on Tuesday after trying to inquire about restitution. The PiS government has said that Poland - which had one of the world's biggest Jewish communities before it was almost entirely wiped out by Nazi occupiers - was a victim of World War Two and so should not be saddled with any financial obligations. In response to the ultra-nationalist march, the World Jewish Congress urged Polish religious and political leaders on Wednesday to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism. On Monday the Polish government canceled a visit by an Israeli delegation as it learned that the Israelis intended to bring up the restitution issue, the Foreign Ministry said. (Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Alan Charlish in Warsaw, Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem Editing by Mark Heinrich) * Documentary about sexual abuse by priests shocks Poles * Bishops to discuss on May 22 how to tackle abuse in Church * Leftist opposition says state should intervene WARSAW, May 15 (Reuters) - Polish bishops will meet on May 22 to discuss steps to tackle pedophilia in Poland's powerful Catholic Church after a documentary that showed victims confronting priests who had sexually abused them shocked the devout nation. The film "Just don't tell anyone," which has been watched by 14.8 million people since Youtube released it on Saturday, also alleges that the Polish Church moved known pedophile priests from parish to parish, as happened in other countries. Lawyers and journalists have called for the police to launch criminal investigations and the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has close links to the Church, announced plans on Tuesday to tighten sentences for child sex abuse. "The head of the Episcopate, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, called yesterday an extraordinary meeting of top bishops - the meeting of the permanent council - to set out further actions aimed at protecting minors," an Episcopate spokesman said. "This is connected with the (recent) pedophilia issue," priest Pawel Rytel-Andrianik told Reuters. Primate Wojciech Polak, the most senior clergyman in Poland, told private Radio Zet on Wednesday he saw no need for any bishops to resign over the scandal but added that more had to be done to protect minors. "CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE" The leftist opposition party Wiosna (Spring) accused the Church of trying to cover up sex abuse cases and said secular authorities should get directly involved. "We can't expect the Church to clean up its own act, as if this were just its own affair... A number of bishops took part in this conspiracy of silence, in hiding these crimes," Wiosna leader Robert Biedron told Radio Zet. "The state should guard the safety of children, youths, and the state has failed," said Biedron, one of Poland's first openly gay politicians. Story continues Biedron has called unsuccessfully for Polish state television to broadcast the documentary. When his party tried to project the documentary onto a building next door to a church on Monday, police seized the projector and blocked the event. Child abuse scandals, some dating back many decades, have rocked the Catholic Church globally, eroding its authority in once devout nations from Ireland to Chile. It has had to pay out billions of dollars in damages to victims and close parishes. The Church in Poland, where 85 percent of people identify themselves as Catholic and where a third of the population attends mass every week, has yet to reach a consensus on how to address the abuse issue. An arm of the Church has filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking to annul a 1 million zloty ($260,000) payment ordered by a lower court to a woman who, as a 13-year-old child, was repeatedly raped by her local priest. The abuse scandals in the Church are a challenge to PiS as it gears up for European elections this month and national polls later this year. PiS sees Catholicism as a key element of Polish identity while liberals say the Church wields too much power. ($1 = 3.8436 zlotys) (Reporting by Marcin Goclowski Editing by Gareth Jones) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, in Washington on June 12 to talk about security and defense among other issues, the White House said on Wednesday. During Duda's first official visit to the White House on Sept. 18, Duda asked Trump for a permanent U.S. military base and offered to name it "Fort Trump," explaining it would be a bulwark against what he considers a threat from Russia. Trump said the United States was considering the request, acknowledging that he shared Poland's concerns about possible Russian aggression. "President Trump and President Duda will discuss the growing United StatesPoland strategic partnership and a range of mutual interests, including defense, security, energy, and trade matters," the White House said in a statement. It said the leaders would also reaffirm their countries' historical and cultural ties, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the start of World War Two later this year, and celebrate the 20th anniversary of Poland's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tom Brown) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, in Washington on June 12 to talk about security and defense among other issues, the White House said on Wednesday. During Duda's first official visit to the White House on Sept. 18, Duda asked Trump for a permanent U.S. military base and offered to name it "Fort Trump," explaining it would be a bulwark against what he considers a threat from Russia. Trump said the United States was considering the request, acknowledging that he shared Poland's concerns about possible Russian aggression. "President Trump and President Duda will discuss the growing United StatesPoland strategic partnership and a range of mutual interests, including defense, security, energy, and trade matters," the White House said in a statement. It said the leaders would also reaffirm their countries' historical and cultural ties, ahead of the 80th anniversary of the start of World War Two later this year, and celebrate the 20th anniversary of Poland's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Tom Brown) WARSAW, May 15 (Reuters) - Poland's religious and political leaders should unequivocally condemn antisemitic behavior following a number of troubling events in the country, the head of the World Jewish Congress wrote on Wednesday. Ronald S. Lauder criticized "the sight of protesters on the streets of Warsaw chanting anti-Jewish and anti-American slogans," and the burning of an effigy of Judas in the Polish town of Pruchnik in April. "We can't allow for the ghosts of the past to rise again and to lead to the destruction of that which our nations have built over years," he wrote in an op-ed published in Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. Hundreds of far-right supporters marched in Warsaw on Saturday in protest against a U.S. law on the restitution of Jewish property seized during or after World War Two, an increasingly prominent issue in Polish election campaigns. The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government has said that, as a victim in World War Two, Poland should not be saddled with any financial obligations. Poland was home to one of the worlds biggest Jewish communities before it was almost entirely wiped out by Nazi occupiers who set up death camps on Polish soil. "Poles can't and shouldn't be blamed for the fact that Nazis chose Nazi-occupied Poland as the location for their death camps," Lauder also wrote. Poland will hold European parliament elections on May 26 and national elections in the autumn. (Reporting by Joanna Plucinska; editing by John Stonestreet) WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's religious and political leaders should unequivocally condemn antisemitic behaviour following a number of troubling events in the country, the head of the World Jewish Congress wrote on Wednesday. Ronald S. Lauder criticised "the sight of protesters on the streets of Warsaw chanting anti-Jewish and anti-American slogans", and the burning of an effigy of Judas in the Polish town of Pruchnik in April. "We can't allow for the ghosts of the past to rise again and to lead to the destruction of that which our nations have built over years," he wrote in an op-ed published in Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. Hundreds of far-right supporters marched in Warsaw on Saturday in protest against a U.S. law on the restitution of Jewish property seized during or after World War Two, an increasingly prominent issue in Polish election campaigns. The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government has said that, as a victim in World War Two, Poland should not be saddled with any financial obligations. Poland was home to one of the worlds biggest Jewish communities before it was almost entirely wiped out by Nazi occupiers who set up death camps on Polish soil. "Poles can't and shouldn't be blamed for the fact that Nazis chose Nazi-occupied Poland as the location for their death camps," Lauder also wrote. Poland will hold European parliament elections on May 26 and national elections in the autumn. (Reporting by Joanna Plucinska; editing by John Stonestreet) WASHINGTON President Donald Trump teed up what could become the weirdest test yet of what communications a president can keep secret from Congress. It could still end up being a defining test of presidential power. Trump took the rare move last week of asserting executive privilege to keep secret the millions of pages of evidence that special counsel Robert Mueller gathered in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, in addition to portions of the final report that were blacked-out in the version made available to lawmakers and the public. That claim set the stage for a legal showdown with Congress over the president's power to keep secrets. Lawmakers had demanded access to the full report and Mueller's underlying evidence. When they didn't get it, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt. The full House could vote within days to approve a contempt finding and send the dispute to court. But the looming legal battle a constitutional showdown over a secrecy doctrine the Supreme Court recognized in a key Watergate decision is an unusual one. For one thing, it's not clear that lawmakers are after the kind of smoking-gun evidence that was behind the big legal fight in which the court recognized executive privilege. In that case, the White House was trying to hide the secret tapes that eventually drove President Richard Nixon from office. This time, lawmakers are seeking to fill in gaps in a document that is posted online. And the Justice Department has offered to show select lawmakers some of the material that it now says is privileged. Another oddity is that Trumps blanket assertion of executive privilege was meant as a way to give officials more time to review the materials Congress requested to see whether any could be released. After the materials are scrutinized, Barr said the final decision might cover some or all of the subpoenaed documents. Story continues Plus, Trump waived executive privilege two years ago to allow his aides to cooperate with Mueller's investigation. And the White House didn't try to block the release of Mueller's report, which recounted conversations between the president and some of his closest advisers. House Democrats have said they are determined to pursue it anyway. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Trump ordered "that a curtain be pulled down over the executive branch." Exactly how that will work is far from clear. Federal courts have wrestled with executive privilege before, but have never decided exactly what a president can keep secret, or whether he can assert a privilege after waiving it, or even after offering to give lawmakers some of the secret information. Once the cat is out of the bag, you cant put the cat back in, said Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University School of Law. But the question is: is all of the cat out of the bag, or just the tail? President Donald Trump What is executive privilege? Executive privilege is the authority of the president to keep conversations or memos from advisers secret so they can give him candid advice. Presidents have fought with Congress almost since the United States' founding over access to information. But it wasn't until 1974 that the Supreme Court formally recognized executive privilege as a basis for refusing some requests for information, saying it was necessary for the "effective discharge of a president's powers." In that case, a special prosecutor sought access to Nixon's White House tapes. The justices ruled that executive privilege was a basis to keep presidential communications private, but ordered Nixon to release them anyway because prosecutors' need for the information was so great. Nixon resigned two weeks later. Since then, presidents of both parties have haggled with lawmakers over the breadth and strength of privilege claims. The federal cases have often been settled before judges spelled out in black and white what was protected and what wasnt. Most recently, a nearly seven-year court battle over a flawed gun-trafficking investigation called Operation Fast and Furious ended last week without a clear resolution. Both the Justice Department and Congress agreed to drop their appeals rather than keep fighting over lower-court rulings. The committee disagreed with conclusions in August 2014 and January 2016 that the president's deliberative process could be privileged. And the executive branch disagreed with the conclusion that the committee had standing and cause for its lawsuit. That case ended the same day Trump invoked executive privilege for unreleased portions of the Mueller report and its underlying evidence. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have said they will ask federal courts to order the documents released. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meets with reporters May 9, 2019, the day after the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. What can a president keep secret? Executive privilege is commonly thought of as a way to keep secret a president's discussions and memos with his aides. Presidents have asserted it over subjects ranging from the development of environmental regulations to the replacement of U.S. attorneys. But it doesn't protect everything and it isn't an absolute shield. Even if a court finds that communications could be privileged, the secrecy must be balanced against the need for a prosecutor or the general public to learn the information. Even if executive privilege applies, it is not absolute, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at University of California, Berkeley. The court would have to decide: does the executive privilege apply here and is there an overriding interest that would justify release of the documents. The Supreme Court ruled in the Nixon case that whether a president can keep information secret depends in part on how badly someone else needs it. For example, the high court said that privilege would be stronger for military or diplomatic communications, which werent at stake in the Nixon case. The court ruled that the privilege had to be weighed against a prosecutors need for information in a criminal case. The court hasn't fully spelled out which interests are sufficient to outweigh a president's claim to secrecy. The court suggested in 1974 that prosecutors might have a greater need than Congress or people pursuing civil lawsuits. Where that leaves a potential challenge to Trump is unclear. The upshot is that were in a lengthy mud fight, Medwed said. At the end of the day, its going to be up to our courts, and most likely the Supreme Court, to decide. The Fast and Furious case illustrated the difficulty of asking federal courts to referee. The House committee subpoenaed documents about the investigation that sent thousands of weapons to traffickers in Mexico. Then-Attorney General Eric Holder released some documents, but withheld others under executive privilege. The committee found him in contempt and filed a lawsuit in August 2012. Documents dribbled out for years before both sides essentially gave up. I think the scope of executive privilege is something that will be litigated and called into question. It's unclear," said Tara Grove, a professor at William & Mary Law School. "Most of these cases, even if they go to court, we dont get a final judicial ruling on exactly what is the scope of your executive privilege." Attorney General Eric Holder testifies June 12, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Trump's blanket assertion Trump began by making the broadest possible assertion of privilege. Barr redacted four categories of material in the Mueller report dealing with grand-jury evidence, information about pending cases, intelligence material and information infringing on the privacy of people who werent charged. The underlying evidence spans millions of pages of classified and unclassified documents bearing on two dozen criminal cases, some of which are ongoing, Barr told Trump in a two-page letter urging him to invoke executive privilege. In these circumstances, you may properly assert executive privilege with respect to the entirety of the Department of Justice materials that the committee has demanded, pending a final decision on the matter, Barr said. The department has taken that view before, largely as a way to buy time during congressional investigations. Justice officials must now comb through the report and underlying evidence to determine what they think deserves secrecy. Legal experts questioned whether privilege applied at all because Mueller wasnt a Trump aide. But parts of the investigation dealt with attempts to thwart the special counsel probe, and relied on Trump's aides' accounts of their private conversations, some of which could be privileged. Experts said the administration's claim to secrecy seems thin. Executive privilege seems inapplicable here, Chemerinsky said. Theres no way you can say the entire Mueller report is protected by executive privilege only those parts that would reveal advice to the president. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno testifies before the Public then, secret now? Another wild card in the fight is whether the president can invoke executive privilege after he waives it. Trump himself repeated Thursday that he initially waived privilege so his aides could cooperate with Mueller. Don McGahn, then the White House counsel, spent 30 hours with Mueller's investigators. "I didn't have to," Trump said. "I have presidential privilege. I could have stopped everything." The White House didn't try to block Mueller's report from becoming public. And the Justice Department had offered to let lawmakers see some of the material other than grand-jury evidence. At least one, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., accepted and reviewed some of the blacked-out parts of Mueller's report. Now, though, the White House says that material is privileged at least for now. And Trump has threatened to use privilege to block McGahn from testifying before Congress. I hope that the department will think better of this last-minute outburst and return to negotiations, Nadler said. This is information we are legally entitled to receive and we are constitutionally obligated to review. More about President Donald Trump, executive privilege and the Mueller report: Donald Trump asserts executive privilege over Mueller report as House panel debates holding attorney general in contempt In rare move, House panel votes to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt over Mueller report 'Slow-motion constitutional car crash': Trump, Congress battle over investigations with no end in sight This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Donald Trump tees up the strangest test yet of executive privilege Photo credit: Mario Tama - Getty Images From Car and Driver Donald Trump said he would wait up to six months before he decides whether to impose tariffs on imported cars and car parts, Automotive News reported in mid-May. The decision had been expected on Saturday, May 18. Putting a 25 percent tariff on car imports has been unpopular with carmakers, politicians on both sides of the aisle, and much of the public. UPDATE 6/7/19: President Trump, via Twitter, has announced that the United States and Mexico have "reached a signed agreement" and that the tariffs he had threatened to impose against Mexico "are hereby indefinitely suspended." The Washington Post called it a "deal on trade and migration." We will continue to update this story as more details become available. President Trump has a lot to tweet about when it comes to tariffs, imports, China, and the like, but he is reportedly waffling on his intention to slap a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and car parts. In fact, multiple news sources are reporting, he will wait up to six months to make a final decision on the matter; originally, the promised tariffs were to be decided on by May 18. Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch! In the meantime, China should not renegotiate deals with the U.S. at the last minute. This is not the Obama Administration, or the Administration of Sleepy Joe, who let China get away with murder! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019 The delay is sure to be welcomed across the board. A permanent tabling of the idea would be even more popular, because another six months of deliberations will merely drag out the auto industry's uncertainty about how things will play out. (Uncertainty doesn't mix well with the sort of long-term planning required to develop, build, and eventually sell new cars and trucks.) Automakers, then, have lobbied Trump to abandon the tariffs altogether; so, too, have Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Story continues Why? Because a tariff is essentially passed on to consumers-people who live in districts represented by the whole of the political spectrum-in the form of higher prices. Not only could John and Jane Q. Car Buyer have to pay 25 percent more for their imported car, John and Jane Q. Automaker could also have to pay 25 percent more for foreign-made parts, a cost that, again, will most likely be passed on to John and Jane Q. Car Buyer. Photo credit: Mark Wilson - Getty Images While Trump cites patriotic motives and has even played the "national security" card, the issue isn't as black and white as "Buy American!" The president and his team are operating on the simple logic that tariffs on imported cars and car parts would punish foreign makers, to the benefit of those brands that call America home. In pushing this narrative, the administration is either willfully ignorant of or misinformed about the reality that a great many domestic car brands source their vehicles and parts from outside the U.S. So if you think that Ford, General Motors, or Fiat Chrysler products won't be affected by the tariffs, think again. Need we remind you of the list of the most American cars and trucks you can buy, as determined by parts content? Or how about the numerous foreign brands that build cars here in the U.S., in some cases exporting those vehicles to other markets? Automotive News, citing unnamed sources, said the delay is due to Trump's unwillingness to "further antagonize allies as he ramps up his trade war with China." The publication also said the Republicans are "threatening to move forward with legislation to limit the presidents tariff authority, with many in Congress saying duties on cars, which are widely opposed by the auto industry, would be a step too far." However this is decided, it is certain the auto industry-and car buyers-need to pay very close attention. This story was originally published on May 15, 2019. ('You Might Also Like',) The Daily News publishes death notices and obituaries on a daily basis for Norfolkans, area residents and former residents. Death notices, which include information about when and where a person died, funeral services, burial and visitation for the deceased and memorial information, are published free of charge. If families of the deceased desire to have an obituary printed, there is a fee charged for doing so. Because of that, families of the deceased can decide what information they want included in the obituary, as well as if they desire to have a photograph published along with it. The Daily News reserves the right to edit. Norfolk and area funeral homes have detailed information about placing an obituary in the Daily News. If individuals want to submit obituary information themselves, it can be emailed to funerals@norfolkdailynews.com or faxed to (402) 644-2080. People needing additional information about death notices and obituaries can call the Daily News at 371-1020 or (877) 371-1020 and ask for the newsroom. By Anthony Boadle and Pablo Garcia BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in cities across Brazil on Wednesday to rally against education spending freezes in the biggest demonstrations to date against the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who called marchers "useful idiots and imbeciles." Brazil's National Student Union called for protests against what it called spending cuts, after the Education Ministry said it was freezing nearly a quarter of discretionary spending due to the government's precarious fiscal situation. The marches mark the first national protests against the administration of Bolsonaro, whose poll numbers are falling as he struggles with a weak economy, rising unemployment, an unruly coalition in Congress and infighting within his cabinet. Speaking in Dallas, Texas where he traveled to attend a gala dinner, Bolsonaro denied his government had cut education budgets and cast the protests as a partisan spectacle. "They are useful idiots, imbeciles, who are being used as the maneuvering mass of a clever little minority who make up the nucleus of many federal universities in Brazil," he said. In the capital Brasilia some 7,000 students and university professors marched to Congress, carrying signs against the cuts. One said: "Education is not an expense, it is an investment." Another read: "Without investment there is no knowledge." "Our message to Bolsonaro is that society will not accept these cuts of 30 percent," said marcher Luis Antonio Pasquetti, head of the National University of Brasilia's teacher union. Nationwide, official crowd estimates were not immediately available, and the protests were expected to gain steam over the course of the day. "The importance is to show that civil society is organized against these cuts," said Rodrigo Tonieto, 22, in Sao Paulo. "Together, we are going to say 'no' to the Bolsonaro government ... To say 'no' to the mess that this government is." Called to explain the cuts to lawmakers in Congress, Education Minister Abraham Weintraub blamed the situation on the legacy of the previous government, while defending a shift away from spending on universities to favor elementary schools. "The priority is preschool, elementary school and technical school," he said. "A scientific, technical, number-based, efficient and managerial approach is vital to save this country from the economic stagnation of the last 20 years that we are living." (Reporting by Eduardo Simoes and Pablo Garcia in Sao Paulo; Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro, Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Editing by Brad Haynes, James Dalgleish and Susan Thomas) PALOS VERDES ESTATES, Calif. (AP) A social media photo showing two Southern California high school students laughing while displaying a prom proposal poster containing a racial slur against black people drew a stern reaction from their principal Wednesday. "Racist words and racist acts have no place in our school community," Palos Verdes High School Principal Allan Tyner said in a statement on the school's website. The photo shows a teenage boy and girl holding a poster that says she's a racist but he would give anything if she would go to the prom with him. Highlighted letters in the text spell out the slur. Tyner wrote that he would meet Wednesday with all students, class by class. "We will review appropriate behavior and how the use of hurtful racial slurs like the one used on this recent picture posted on social media is unacceptable," he said. "I know that this one unfortunate event does not represent us as a school community." The Los Angeles Times reported that the principal said the teens pictured are from Palos Verdes High and their families have been contacted "to inform them that we are forming a response and anticipate severe consequences." Tyner did not specify the consequences. The school was also attempting to find out who took the photo and who else may have been present. "At this time, I am asking all teachers and parents in our school community to join me in reminding our students that we live in a society that must respect diversity and tolerance. Indeed, this life lesson is critical and is one that school and home must partner to teach," the principal wrote. He added that the response by other students and families on social media made clear that the community does not support the behavior. Palos Verdes Estates is among a cluster of upscale communities overlooking the Pacific Ocean from the Palos Verdes Peninsula at the south end of Los Angeles County. Its population of about 13,500 is more than 73% white and less the 1% black. Ibo (Mozambique) (AFP) - Muslims in the cyclone-ravaged Mozambican island of Ibo are struggling to observe the holy month of Ramadan as most mosques were destroyed and food is in short supply. The island on the Quirimbas archipelago off Mozambique's northeastern coast was one of the regions worst hit when Cyclone Kenneth struck last month packing winds of over 200 kilometres (125 miles) per hour. Residents of the island, where the majority of the population is Muslim, were left without shelter and with few places to worship with estimates that 90 percent of buildings were damaged. At one of the few mosques still standing, half of the roof was blown away by wind and prayer rugs were damaged by flooding. Worshippers gather in one surviving section to say prayers. Female worshippers endure the harsh sun praying outdoors. "Very few people are attending prayers because mosques were destroyed," said Muzasufar Abakari, head of the village of Guludo. Residents search for food to break the fast and survive mainly on high-energy biscuits handed out by aid agencies. "As Muslims we observe Ramadan but there is no food to eat. On Friday (holy day) there was no-one because there is no wall at the mosque," said Abakari. The cyclone killed at least 41 people across northern Mozambique and displaced thousand. Some people on Ibo have been sleeping in damaged mosques. "People have been sleeping here because their houses were destroyed. With nothing -- from clothes to food -- God willing our prayers are answered and we will receive help," said imam Saidi Cassabo, from Kumwamba village. Before the storm, Ibo island, a popular tourist destination, was a haven of golden beaches, unspoiled coral reefs and lush greenery. Sally McQuillan and her late husband, Tim, started Raoul Textiles in a prefab steel Quonset hut in Santa Barbara in 1981. The coupleshes a painter who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and he ran a restaurantneeded to support their young family, so they handprinted T-shirts and sold them on the beach. Soon, surfwear brands like Quicksilver came calling after they heard someone up the coast was hand-screening and could manufacture preproduction fabric samples. Billabong also signed up to fill the demand for its wild neon bleeds, and then Nike came along requesting bright prints on Lycra. We learned on the fly, Sally McQuillan recalls of those early days. The company outgrew its Quonset hut long ago and ceased doing contract work in 2000 to focus full-time on its coveted textile line, which it produces using the same time-honored, low-tech handprinting and screening techniques that launched the business nearly 40 years ago. RaoulTextiles13 Photo by Liz Kuball McQuillan, who has watched the textile industry evolve from a handcraft into a global digital endeavor where the push of the button has replaced the slide of a screen, says for her, the joy of the process is reflected in the final product. I think the fact that actual human beings are pulling the squeegees makes for a prettier, richer piece of fabric, she says. When I see digitally produced textiles, I dont see the vitality, a penetration of color, or the hand. Sometimes I feel like an old curmudgeon who constantly says, Those were the days. Adhering to those values of a handcrafted, locally made product not only gives McQuillan creative freedom but makes Raoul textiles a relevant luxury brand thats thriving precisely because its nimble. It releases new designs annually, can print to order so it doesnt have to stock inventory, and accommodates customization of the nearly 200 distinct prints and wovens in its textile library. It sources fabric from mills in Belgium, Italy, France, and Scotland, employs 20 people (many of whom have been with the company for more than 25 years), and 90 percent of its business is to the trade, with clients all over the world who order from showrooms in the U.S. and Europe. Story continues It has developed a cult following and is attracting the attention of innovative brands like Firmdale Hotels, where Kit Kemp has used Raoul textiles in her hospitality designs, and old-world interior designers like Bunny Williams. In 2010, the brand opened its only retail showroom, in a historic building around the corner from its Santa Barbara factory. In 2014 it launched a furniture line called Engle & Deutch; next year it will launch its first wallpaper line, using Japanese paper and water-based inks. RaoulTextiles18 Photo by Liz Kuball We love Raoul, says Elizabeth Lawrence, a partner at Bunny Williams. We use them because theyre great at custom coloring, and theres a timeless quality to their designs. Theyre not too traditional. Theyre not too modern. And we love that its a family-run business. Raoul Textiles is still very much a family affair. McQuillans children, Gene, 30, and Madeline, 34, spent their formative years beside their parents in the factory. It was a messy childhood, McQuillan laughs, referring to the hand-mixed, secret-recipe paints that produce the bold green for an elephant-leaf botanical called Exoticus, or the perfect shade of sulfur-yellow to make the graphic Suriname print pop. When kids grow up in a business, the business becomes another member of the family, she says. So they grow up with respect for it, and now they work in a way that shows that they really care for it. RaoulTextiles1 Photo by Liz Kuball She and Gene are sitting in the back office of their Santa Barbara showroom, which serves as the art department. Sallys dog Fergus, a scruffy terrier, naps on the floor, and every wall is covered with inspirationbotanical prints, books, African baskets, swatches of linen, and family photos. The latter is a poignant reminder that even after Tim died, in 2000, the children would continue to build the legacy business when they moved back to Santa Barbara to work alongside their mother. (Madeline started in 2009 and Gene returned in 2013). We have lunch together almost every day and we really enjoy each others company, explains Gene, who studied textiles at Central Saint Martins and worked with George Smith furniture. Since were family, I think thats why we can accomplish a lot. We can be brutally honest. We dont have to tiptoe around things. Weve found our balance, and we know our strengths. RaoulTextiles8 Photo by Liz Kuball McQuillan is definitely what Gene calls the design boss. Her current pattern inspiration: the mysterious geometry of the Auricula flower, which has rosettes with unexpected color combinations that only Mother Nature can render. But he and Madeline also create their own designs that they shepherd through production each release. Gene focuses on the finances and works with the mills to produce their fabrics. Madeline is in charge of production and spends most days at the factory. She points out that manufacturing locally is part of the company ethos, and it also drives the aesthetic. Our colors and our designs reflect where we live and work, here in Santa Barbara, she says. But the McQuillans are never interested in chasing trends or spending time networking within the design world. Thats the nice thing about the company, explains Gene. We get to focus on the craft, take risks and design what we like. Adds Madeline, Were only interested in creating vibrant and exciting fabrics with unusual colors and bold prints because these are the things we want to see in our lives. How Raoul Textiles Went From a Beachside Start-Up to Cult Designer Favorite Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Photo by Liz Kuball Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest GAUHATI, India (AP) A grenade lobbed from a motorcycle at a police checkpoint in the heart of a northeastern Indian city injured 10 people on Wednesday in an attack immediately claimed by a separatist leader. The blast happened as police checked vehicles at a barrier in front of a busy shopping mall in Gauhati, the capital of the state of Assam, according to Gauhati Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar. Paresh Baruah, the exiled leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) rebel group, which has been fighting for independence from India for decades, called local TV stations to claim the attack, recordings of which were later broadcast on local TV news. The condition of the injured, including two paramilitary troopers, was not immediately clear. India's northeast region is home to dozens of separatist groups that accuse the government of exploiting the area's natural resources while doing little for the indigenous people. Explosions caused by rebels are common, though Wednesday's attack was the first such incident in about two years. Assam security forces were already on high alert, Kumar said, after the Islamic State group-claimed coordinated suicide bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter that killed more than 250 people, and because of a possible threat from a so-called affiliate of the withered caliphate across the porous border in Bangladesh. ___ This version corrects that claim for the attack was broadcast on local TV news, not announced by Gauhati Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN envoy for Yemen warned Wednesday that despite a rebel withdrawal from key ports, the country still faced the threat of plunging into all-out war. "Despite the significance of the last few days, Yemen remains at the crossroads between war and peace," Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council. Yemen's government and Huthi rebels must press on with further redeployments of forces and return to the negotiating table for talks on a broader peace settlement, he said. "There are signs of hope," he added, but there are also "alarming signs" of war. The envoy delivered the warning after the Huthis pulled out of three Red Sea ports, in line with a ceasefire deal reached in Stockholm in December. The pullback from Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa marked the first concrete step to implement the Stockholm agreement, which was hailed as a breakthrough in efforts to end the war. The Huthis handed over control of the ports to a "coast guard," but some government officials said these forces were in fact rebel fighters in different uniforms. - Moving to phase 2- The pullback from the ports had been delayed over disagreements on the makeup of local security forces that are to be deployed to those facilities. Griffiths acknowledged that the first phase of the redeployment was incomplete, and that an agreement on the local security forces was still under negotiation. Despite the complications, Griffiths hailed "a new beginning in Hodeida," saying that "change is now a reality." Danish General Michael Lollesgaard, who heads a redeployment commission, told reporters by videolink from Hodeida that the Huthi handover of the ports would be verified by all sides at a later stage. "We are not sidelining the government of Yemen in any way," he said. Hodeida is the main entry point for the bulk of Yemen's imports and humanitarian aid, providing a lifeline to millions of people who are on the brink of famine. Story continues Talks are continuing on the second stage of the redeployment which will see pro-government forces and the Huthis pull back from the city of Hodeida, but Lollesgaard declined to give a timetable for that withdrawal. "I've stopped making predictions," he said after acknowledging that he had previously underestimated the difficulties involved in reaching a deal. - Tipping point - The conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has had a devastating toll on civilians and triggered the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations. The head of UNICEF, the UN children's agency, said that while a ceasefire was largely holding in Hodeida, fighting was raging "across 30 active conflict zones -- home to nearly 1.2 million children." "Hospitals, clinics and water systems are in ruins -- with half of the country's hospitals and clinics destroyed," Henrietta Fore told the council. "We are at a tipping point. If the war continues any longer, the country may move past the point of no return." A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to push back an advance by the rebels, who continue to hold the capital Sanaa, and to restore to power President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. During World War II, the influx of women into the American workforce solved one problemthe labor shortagewhile creating another: With women off to the factories, who would watch the kids? When millions of women flocked to coastal cities to build ships, planes and artillery, many left behind the networks of friends and families who mightve helped care for their children. Without them, some workers just parked their kids in cars outside factories and schools. Others sent them off to the movies for hours and hours. So the U.S. government stepped in. Congress quietly added funding for community-based childcare centers in the Lanham Act, a wartime bill to support large-scale infrastructure projects. But even after he funding was in place, the public wasnt sold. The idea that the government would be involved in childcare was a pretty radical concept, and it was not an easy sell, says Lincoln Cushing, an archivist at Kaiser Permanente who has studied this period in the companys history. During the war, Kaiser (then called The Kaiser Company) was building ships for the merchant marines. It used the government subsidies to build state-of-the art on-site day care centers for hundreds of employees children. The widespread view of childcare at the time was that it was cruel, custodial, a last-ditch option for the poor or desperate. Most people still believed that in order to grow up safe, happy and well-adjusted, children should be cared for by a mother who stayed home full-time. But Kaisers centers set a high standard of care, slowly eroding the public stigma. The inviting spaces were designed by famous architects. Warm meals, educational activities and structured play time filled childrens days until it was time to go home. The hours of care were accommodating to womens round-the-clock shifts, and for a small fee, they would provide mothers with a hot meal to take home for dinner after they picked up the kids. Studies of the centers showed that fears they would harm children were misplaced. In one study, teachers observed that 75 percent of kids made noticeable social progress. And researchers who interviewed 500 mothers with children in the centers found that every single one said their kids enjoyed nursery school. Many said they became better mothers. When the war ended, so did the funding for childcare centers. But in the few short years they were around, the publicly-funded day cares changed the way Americans thought about childcare. In 2019, the grim reputation that once tainted communal care is largely gone. More than 70% of children between 3 and 5 go to daycare or preschoolwhile their parents go to work. 5653 Beechmont Ave. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Cincinnati? 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 an apartment in Cincinnati with a budget of $700/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. 621 Clemmer Ave. (CUF) Here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 621 Clemmer Ave. that's going for $675/month. In the unit, you'll get hardwood floors, a dishwasher, newer appliances, high ceilings, air conditioning and a patio. Amenities offered in the building include on-site laundry, assigned parking and shared outdoor space. Cats and dogs are not welcome. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is somewhat walkable, is somewhat bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options. (Check out the complete listing here.) 5653 Beechmont Ave. Next, check out this 575-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's located at 5653 Beechmont Ave. It's listed for $650/month. In the apartment, you'll find a walk-in closet, new carpet, extra storage space and a new kitchen. The building features assigned parking. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. According to Walk Score's assessment, the area around this address isn't very walkable, isn't particularly bikeable and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 3575 Linwood Ave., #3 (Mt. Lookout) Next, check out this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment that's located at 3575 Linwood Ave., #3. It's listed for $625/month. In the unit, you'll get hardwood floors and in-unit laundry. The building boasts assigned parking. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Story continues According to Walk Score's assessment, this location is car-dependent, is somewhat bikeable and has some 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. 1303 Gears Road. | Photos: Zumper According to rental site Zumper, median rents for a one-bedroom in Houston are hovering around $1,230. But how does the low-end pricing on a Houston rental look these daysand what might you get for your money? We took a look at local listings for studios and one-bedroom apartments to find out what budget-minded apartment seekers can expect to find. 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. 470 Maxey Road, #5164 Here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 470 Maxey Road, #5164 in Northshore, which is going for $535/month. Pets are not permitted. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the area around this address is somewhat walkable, is bikeable and has some transit options. (See the full listing here.) 1303 Gears Road Next up is this 484-square-foot studio, located at 1303 Gears Road in Greater Greenspoint and listed for $575/month. The building offers storage space, secured entry and a swimming pool. In the unit, the listing promises a air conditioning, a fireplace and a walk-in closet. Luckily for pet owners, both dogs and cats are welcome. The listing specifies a $99 deposit. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is car-dependent, isn't particularly bikeable and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Here's the listing.) 2305 Hayes Road, #4487 This studio apartment, situated at 2305 Hayes Road, #4487, in Briarforest Area, is also listed for $575/month. Pets are not permitted. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Per Walk Score ratings, this location is moderately walkable, has some bike infrastructure and offers many nearby public transportation options. (See the listing here.) 503 El Dorado Blvd., #5160 Story continues And here's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 503 El Dorado Blvd., #5160, in Clear Lake, which is going for $595/month. Pets are not permitted. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. According to Walk Score's assessment, this location is somewhat walkable, is fairly bikeable and has minimal transit options. (Check out the 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. North Tatum Boulevard and East Grovers Avenue. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Phoenix? 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 Phoenix if you don't want to spend more than $1,100/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. 4214 N. 10th St., #11 (Encanto) Here's a 700-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at 4214 N. 10th St., #11 that's going for $1,100/month. In the unit, you'll get hardwood floors, a dishwasher and air conditioning. On-site laundry and secured entry are listed as building amenities. Good news for dog lovers: pups are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score, this location is somewhat walkable, is very bikeable and has good transit options. (See the full listing here.) North Tatum Boulevard and East Grovers Avenue, #Jade (Paradise Valley) Next, check out this 756-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment located at North Tatum Boulevard and East Grovers Avenue. It's listed for $1,100/month. In the unit, you'll find hardwood floors, central heating and air conditioning, in-unit laundry and a balcony. Amenities offered in the building include assigned parking, a business center, a fitness center and a swimming pool. Pet lovers are in luck: cats and dogs are permitted. Walk Score indicates that the surrounding area is car-dependent, is bikeable and has some transit options. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 307 W. Mariposa St. (Alhambra) Located at 307 W. Mariposa St., here's a 700-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's listed for $1,100/month. The unit features stainless steel appliances and in-unit laundry. A swimming pool is listed as a building amenity. Both cats and dogs are welcome. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. Story continues According to Walk Score's assessment, the area around this address is friendly for those on foot, is quite bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) 2500 S. 99th Ave., #80 (Estrella) Here's a 668-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom rental home that's going for $1,099/month. It's located at 2500 S. 99th Ave., #80. The complex features outdoor space, a swimming pool and a fitness center. In the unit, anticipate hardwood floors, ceiling fans and a fireplace. Pet owners take note: neither cats nor dogs are permitted. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score's assessment, this location is somewhat walkable, is very bikeable and offers limited transit options. (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. 317 W. Morgan St., #226. | Photos: Zumper Curious just how far your dollar goes in Raleigh? We've rounded up the latest rental offerings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to scoring a rental in Raleigh if you're on 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. 317 W. Morgan St., #226 (Central) Listed at $1,300/month, this 789-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo is located at 317 W. Morgan St., #226. In the unit, you will find a large living room, recessed lighting, high ceilings, many closets, granite countertops, wooden cabinetry and large closets. The building offers assigned parking and on-site management. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. Per Walk Score ratings, the surrounding area is a "walker's paradise," is great for biking and is a haven for transit riders. (See the complete listing here.) 1300 St. Marys St., #405 (Five Points) Next, there's this studio condo over at 1300 St. Marys St., #405. It's listed for $1,295/month for its 526 square feet of space. In the unit, there is hardwood flooring, concrete ceilings, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and a private balcony. Assigned parking is listed as a building amenity. Pet owners, inquire elsewhere: this spot doesn't allow cats or dogs. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. According to Walk Score's assessment, this location is moderately walkable, is somewhat bikeable and has some transit options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) 712 Tucker St. (Glenwood South) Here's a 780-square-foot studio at 712 Tucker St. that's going for $1,256/month. Inside, you'll get hardwood flooring, a dishwasher, a gourmet kitchen, stainless steel appliances, a large bathroom, in-unit laundry, a balcony and a loft. Pet lovers are in luck: cats and dogs are welcome. Story continues Per Walk Score ratings, the surrounding area is quite walkable, is fairly bikeable and offers many nearby public transportation options. (See the full listing here.) 610 Willard Place, #4 (Glenwood South) Next, check out this 750-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit that's located at 610 Willard Place, #4. It's listed for $1,250/month. In the apartment, you'll get hardwood flooring, large rooms, fresh paint, high ceilings and a lot of counter space. When it comes to building amenities, anticipate assigned parking and on-site management. Neither cats nor dogs are welcome. There's no leasing fee required for this rental. Walk Score indicates that this location is very walkable, is very bikeable and is a haven for transit riders. (See the complete listing here.) 425 N. Boylan Ave. (Glenwood South) Located at 425 N. Boylan Ave., here's a 600-square-foot studio that's listed for $1,209/month. In the apartment, you can expect hardwood flooring, designer finishes, a dishwasher and in-unit laundry. Pet owners, take heed: cats and dogs are welcome. According to Walk Score, the area around this address is friendly for those on foot, is relatively bikeable and offers many 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. May 15 (Reuters) - Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Wednesday was mulling whether to sign the United States' strictest abortion law, part of a multistate effort to get the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider women's constitutional right to abortion. The state's Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would outlaw nearly all abortions, including in the cases of pregnancies that resulted from rape or incest, allowing exceptions only to protect the mother's health. The Republican governor is a strong opponent of abortion but has so far withheld comment on whether she would sign the bill. If Ivey signs the bill, the law would take effect six months later. But it is certain to face legal challenge from abortion rights groups, which have vowed to sue. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time. Those performing abortions would be committing a felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison. A woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The Senate defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape or incest. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged. Courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa passed last year. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life of the fetus transcends other rights, an idea they would like tested at the Supreme Court. The high court, now with a majority of conservative justices after Republican President Donald Trump appointed two, could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision establishing a woman's right to an abortion. Just this year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have outlawed abortion after a doctor can detect an embryonic heartbeat. Story continues Opponents call the "heartbeat" legislation a virtual ban because embryonic cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks, before a woman may be aware she is pregnant. The National Organization for Women denounced Alabama's ban as unconstitutional. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano has called for a sex strike under the social media hashtag #SexStrike in response to the campaigns against abortion rights, urging women to refuse sex with men "until we get bodily autonomy back." (Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis) Washington (AFP) - Republican-led legislatures in state after state are passing bills restricting abortion access in a bid to eventually challenge the 1973 US Supreme Court ruling allowing a woman to terminate a pregnancy. Opponents of abortion rights are hoping that the moves will prompt the nation's highest court, which now has a conservative majority, to overturn its landmark decision in the case known as Roe vs Wade. The latest state to pass abortion restrictions -- in fact, the toughest in the entire US -- is Alabama, where Republican Governor Kay Ivey on Wednesday signed a bill that places a near-total ban on ending a pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest. Under the bill doctors who perform abortions could face between 10 and 99 years in prison. Ivey said that for now, the law may be unenforceable because of Roe vs. Wade. But "the sponsors of this bill believe that it is time, once again, for the US Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur," Ivey said in a statement. The law is now scheduled to take effect in six months, but it is widely expected to be challenged in court. Last week, the Republican governor of Georgia signed into law a ban on abortion from the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected. Georgia thus became the sixth US state to outlaw abortion after roughly six weeks of gestation. Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Iowa and North Dakota have enacted similar laws, while electoral powerhouses Florida and Texas are considering following suit. All of the state bans have either been blocked by a judge or are headed for the courts, and some of their backers have said -- as Ivey mentioned -- that they want the issue to go all the way to the nine-member Supreme Court. The Republican bid to force a showdown over Roe vs Wade comes as President Donald Trump is ramping up for a 2020 re-election campaign with abortion as a hot-button issue. Story continues The Supreme Court has previously reaffirmed a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, but some anti-abortion activists believe the time may have come to turn the tables. Since taking office, Trump has appointed two conservative justices -- Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh -- and liberal members of the court are outnumbered five to four. Conservative-leaning Chief Justice John Roberts is seen as the potential swing vote if the constitutionality of abortion eventually comes before the court. - 'Constitutional right' - The moves to restrict abortion drew a firestorm of criticism on Wednesday from Democrats. "This Alabama effort, and the effort across this country now in 29 states, is an all-out attack on women's reproductive freedom and our basic civil rights," said New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who is among 22 candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. "This is a plan by the Republican Party, make no mistake, to overturn Roe vs Wade and turn back the clock," Gillibrand told CNN. Former vice president Joe Biden, who is also seeking to head the Democratic ticket, said Republicans were "ushering in laws that clearly violate Roe v Wade" and should be declared unconstitutional. "Roe v Wade is settled law and should not be overturned," Biden said. "The choice should remain between a woman and her doctor." "Abortion is a constitutional right," added Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, another 2020 hopeful. "What Alabama is doing is blatantly unconstitutional and disrespects the fundamental right a woman has to make decisions about her own body." Former first lady Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, said the abortion bans were "appalling attacks on women's lives and fundamental freedoms." "None of us should accept a future in which our daughters and granddaughters have fewer rights than we do," Clinton said. In Ohio, proponents of abortion rights sued the state on Wednesday to challenge the law that would ban the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy. "This is a ban on almost all abortions, and if the court does not block it, it will imperil the freedoms and health of Ohio women," said Freda Levenson of the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The law of the land has been crystal clear for nearly 50 years: women have a categorical right to a pre-viability abortion." In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center late last year, 58 percent of those surveyed said abortion should be legal in all or most cases while 37 percent said it should be illegal. Americans were split along party lines, with 59 percent of Republicans saying abortion should be illegal and 76 percent of Democrats saying it should be legal in most cases. Corrections & clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated which five states have no A-rated hospitals. Alaska should have been named rather than Arkansas. Patients' risk of dying from medical mistakes, deadly infections and safety lapses have gotten much worse at the lowest ranked U.S. hospitals, underscoring Americans' need to check ratings of their local hospitals, new research released Wednesday shows. The new analysis is based on data gleaned from about 2,600 U.S. hospitals since 2016. What the findings reveal is that some of the nation's most dangerous medical centers have become even riskier for patients. "These are the avoidable deaths the deaths that are accidental or the result of a mistake made in the hospital," said Leah Binder, the CEO of the non-profit Leapfrog Group, which issues grades hospitals based on safety and quality. "It doesnt matter how sick you are the surgeon and operating room team shouldnt be leaving sponges or surgical tools in you." Leapfrog assigns letter grades - from A to F - to hospitals and is a tougher grader than the federal government, which doesn't issue failing marks. The latest Leapfrog rankings, released Wednesday, give failing or near-failing classifications to 168 hospitals. Among the hospitals with failing grades are United Medical Center in Washington, D.C, Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Mich., and St. John's Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway, N.Y. The American Hospital Association, a trade group, defended its member hospitals, saying that improvements have been made. The group cited recent data that shows hospitals have been doing a better job at preventing infections and other safety problems that patients sometimes get during treatment. It said hospitals are "making important strides in making care safer." Akin Demehin, AHA's director of quality policy, said Leapfrog's grades may not reflect recent hospital improvement efforts, adding "not all measures apply to all patients." Story continues Hospitals that scored poorly also have claimed that the rankings are skewed because they treat sicker patients, whereas higher-graded hospitals have a healthier, more affluent clientele and are therefore less likely to have complications. But Leapfrog, which has been grading hospitals since 2012, counters that some of their measurements, such as hospital infections, are risk adjusted to reflect sickness levels of patients. Some medical errors, such as leaving instruments inside patients, should never happen no matter how sick the patient is, Binder said. "Improving their safety record is something any hospital can do and they dont have to have a lot of money or resources," she said. "They just have to put patients first." Also Wednesday, the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine released its updated 2016 report on Leapfrog's grades and the increased death risk associated with them. It found some encouraging news: Although about 160,000 people die a year from the avoidable medical errors reflected in the Leapfrog's grades, that's still a drop from the 205,000 avoidable deaths estimated in 2016. Other grades: About a third of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded received an A grade. Forty-one of them - including Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital in Boston and OhioHealth Methodist Hospital in Dublin, Ohio - have only gotten A's since Leapfrog started grading in 2012. About a quarter of hospitals got a B; 36% earned C's and 6% got a D grade. Patients at C-rated hospitals on average face an 88% greater risk of avoidable death, while those at B-rated hospitals on average face a 35% greater risk of avoidable death, the Armstrong Institute report said. The five states with the highest percentages of A hospitals were Oregon, Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts and Utah. There were no A-rated hospitals in five other states: Wyoming, Alaska, Washington, D.C., Delaware, North Dakota. Hospitals know how to reduce or stop staph infections. So why are thousands still dying? Trump administration backs off plan to reduce reporting on hospital infections, safety Women seeking discount plastic surgery paid with their lives at clinics opened by felons People whose family members have suffered at average- or low-grade hospitals say they wish they had checked ratings. When his 69-year-old mother went to a hospital for a partial hip replacement in 2009, Los Angeles comedy director Steve Burrows said he "had no idea what it was rated." Judie Burrows lost half of her blood and was taken to intensive care, where no one realized she had fallen into a coma, her son charged in a lawsuit and new HBO documentary Bleed Out. Burrows was interviewed by USA TODAY after Leapfrog recommended him as someone who believes in the nonprofit's ratings. The hospital where his mother was treated, Aurora West Allis Medical Center in Milwaukee, is rated C in the new Leapfrog ratings. Judie Burrows, who suffered irreversible brain damage and could never return home, is now in long-term hospice. Despite an emergency trip with his wife to an F-rated hospital in California a few years ago, Burrows is now committed to only using A-rated hospitals. "If a hospital is rated an F, it's an incredibly good indicator whats going on at that hospital: what the culture is and what the quality and safety of that hospital is," Burrows said. "You're not going to go out for a D rated steak dinner or a chicken Alfredo rated C." "Our hearts go out to the Burrows family, and our focus remains on providing the safest care and achieving the best outcomes for our patients," Aurora West Allis said in a statement. "While we applaud efforts to report and measure safety, we recognize that government and industry safety organizations use varying methodologies that dont always reflect the quality of care provided." Loading... Marian Hollingsworth of La Mesa, Calif., became a patient safety advocate after her father died in 2009 at a nursing home. She alleges that he succumbed to a staph infection that led to pneumonia, and that he also suffered from the effects of an anti-psychotic medication given without consent. Last year, her husband, Ed, got sepsis in a hospital that was rated A by Leapfrog but soon dropped to a B. "An A rating is certainly no guarantee that things will go well," Hollingsworth said. "I think having these rating systems definitely helps people get an idea of the quality of their hospital, but they still need to be vigilant while at the hospital." While Hollingsworth supports hospital rating systems including Leapfrog's, she says she worries that hospitals teach to the test to get a good rating. Leapfrog, started by employers and unions that wanted more public information about patient safety and quality, factors medical errors, infections and injuries into its grades. The ratings are based in part on patient responses to surveys, data provided to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the American Hospital Association and voluntarily to the nonprofit. More than 2,000 hospitals - at least 50% of those eligible - agree to provide the additional voluntary data on medication safety, hand hygiene, intensive care unit physician coverage and cesarean section section rates. Hurley Medical Center spokeswoman Laura Jasso noted that the hospital, which received an F grade, doesn't provide any voluntary information, which she said "obviously" affects the grade. Hurley, like United Medical Center, has a one-star rating on CMS' Hospital Compare site. United Medical Center and St. John's Episcopal in Far Rockaway, New York, did not respond to a request seeking comment. No matter what a facility is rated, Hollingsworth said consumers "should not assume hospitals are clean." "Its what you cant see that can kill you," she said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Low-rated US hospitals are deadlier due to mistakes, botched surgery, infections Following is a summary of current people news briefs. Tearful Felicity Huffman admits role in U.S. college admissions scandal Actress Felicity Huffman tearfully pleaded guilty on Monday to paying to rig a college entrance exam for her daughter, part of a wide-ranging scandal in which wealthy parents used fraud to secure their children spots at prominent U.S. universities. The onetime star of the television series "Desperate Housewives" pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to a conspiracy charge related to her payment of $15,000 to have someone secretly correct her daughter's answers on the SAT exam. Madonna, on Eurovision, says she won't bow 'to suit someone's political agenda' Pop superstar Madonna on Tuesday explained her decision to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel this week, saying that she will always speak up to defend human rights and hopes to see "a new path toward peace." Madonna will make a guest appearance on Saturday during the Eurovision finals in Tel Aviv. The venue has prompted calls for a boycott by pro-Palestinian activists who want companies, performers and governments to disengage from Israel. Doris Day, Hollywood star of the 1950s and '60s, dead at 97 Actress Doris Day, who became one of the greatest box-office attractions of her time as the cheery, freckle-faced personification of wholesomeness, died on Monday at the age of 97, her foundation said on Monday. Day, who co-starred with 1950s and '60s superstars such as Rock Hudson and Cary Grant, died at her Carmel, California home after a bout with pneumonia, the Doris Day Animal Foundation said on its website. Ex-president Jimmy Carter breaks hip ahead of turkey hunt Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter fell and broke his hip on Monday as he was preparing to leave his home in Georgia for a turkey-hunting trip, and underwent successful surgery to repair the injury, a representative said. Carter, 94, a Democrat who was elected president in 1976, was accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn, 91, while recovering from the operation, which doctors said was successful, according to a statement from his nonprofit organization, the Carter Center. Story continues Britain's Kate views Bletchley Park codebreaker exhibit for D-Day Kate, Britain's Duchess of Cambridge, traveled on Tuesday to the old home of Britain's World War Two codebreakers - and where her own grandmother worked, visiting an exhibition marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. The historic site in Milton Keynes is where mathematician Alan Turing cracked Nazi Germany's "unbreakable" Enigma code. Stan Lee's ex-manager charged with elder abuse against comic book co-creator The former manager of Stan Lee has been charged with elder abuse against the late comic book legend, a Los Angeles court official said on Monday. Keya Morgan was charged on Friday with five counts of elder abuse, including false imprisonment, fraud and forgery stemming from an incident last summer when Lee was 95 years old, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Superior Court public information office told Los Angeles City News Service. U.S. actor Tim Conway of 'The Carol Burnett Show' dies at age 85 Emmy-winning actor Tim Conway, who brought an endearing, free-wheeling goofiness to skits on "The Carol Burnett Show" that cracked up his cast mates as well as the audience, died on Tuesday at the age of 85, his publicist said. Publicist Howard Bragman said Conway died in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday morning. Prior to his death, he had suffered complications from normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) and had no signs of dementia or Alzheimers, Bragman said. New Zealand's highest court rejects Eminem damages appeal New Zealand's top court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by U.S. rapper Eminem against a lower court ruling that reduced the damages a political party was ordered to pay for using music similar to his 2002 hit "Lose Yourself" in a TV commercial. His music company Eight Mile was awarded NZ$600,000 ($393,840) in damages in 2017 after a court ruled the use of the track was a breach of copyright. Following is a summary of current science news briefs. Trump seeks extra $1.6 billion in NASA spending to return to moon by 2024 The Trump administration asked Congress on Monday to increase NASA spending next year by an extra $1.6 billion as a "down payment" to accommodate the accelerated goal of returning Americans to the surface of the moon by 2024. The increased funding request, announced by President Donald Trump on Twitter, comes nearly two months after Vice President Mike Pence declared the objective of shortening by four years NASA's previous timeline for putting astronauts back on the moon for the first time since 1972. Quakes show that moon, gradually shrinking, is tectonically active The moon may be dynamic and tectonically active like Earth - not the inert world some scientists had believed it to be - based on a new analysis disclosed on Monday of quakes measured by seismometers in operation on the moon from 1969 and 1977. Researchers examining the seismic data gathered during NASA's Apollo missions traced the location of some of the quakes to step-shaped cliffs called scarps on the lunar surface that formed relatively recently, in geological terms, due to the ongoing subtle shrinking of the moon as its hot interior cools. Brazil seeks China's OK for genetically modified sugarcane Brazil's agriculture minister will ask Chinese officials on Thursday to greenlight exports to the Asian nation of sugar made from genetically modified (GM) sugarcane, which is expected to be widely used in Brazil in coming years. Minister Tereza Cristina Dias told Reuters in Beijing on Wednesday, on her first visit to Brazil's top buyer of farm goods, that she would raise the GMO issue during a visit to China's General Administration of Customs on Thursday. Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Iran halts some commitments under nuclear deal Iran has officially stopped some commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers following an order from its national security council, an informed official in the country's atomic energy body told the ISNA news agency on Wednesday. Last week, Iran notified China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom of its decision to halt some commitments under the nuclear deal, a year after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed sanctions. Polish ambassador spat at in Israel amid rising tensions Poland's ambassador to Israel was spat at while sitting in his car in Tel Aviv, Israeli police said, and the Polish government condemned the incident, which coincided with rising tensions between the two countries. "I am very worried to hear of a racist attack on @PLinIsrael ambassador @mmagierowski. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. Amid trade war, China's Xi preaches openness, says no civilization superior China will only be more open to the world, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, as he denounced as "stupid" those who believe in cultural superiority, in his first public address since trade tension with the United States spiked last week. China and the United States are locked in an escalating trade war, with both levying tariffs on each other's imports. Just before Xi spoke, the government reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April. Kremlin protests after U.S. arrests Russian accused of smuggling fighter jet manuals The Kremlin protested on Wednesday over the extradition from ex-Soviet Georgia to the United States of a Russian man accused of smuggling F-16 fighter jet manuals into Russia in breach of U.S. arms export law. Oleg Tishchenko, a software developer, was earlier this year extradited to the United States from Georgia, where he was reported to have been arrested on a U.S. warrant while attending a dance festival. Story continues Turkey says it is discussing S-400 working group with U.S., postponing not on agenda Turkey is discussing with the United States setting up a working group to assess the impact of its purchase of Russian missile defenses systems, but will not delay their delivery, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday. Tensions between Turkey and the United States are running high over Ankara's decision to buy the S-400 missile defenses, which are not compatible with NATO systems. Defeat for SPD in bastion Bremen may threaten Merkel's coalition Germany's weakened Social Democrats (SPD) look likely to lose the state of Bremen after seven decades next week in an election that could set the clock ticking on their strained national coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Polls before the May 26 vote in the northern trading city, home to Beck's beer, reflects the disillusionment among supporters fed up with a party they feel has lost its way after serving 10 of the last 14 years as Merkel's kingmaker. German armed forces suspend training ops in Iraq on regional tensions Germany is suspending military training operations in Iraq due to increasing regional tensions, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday. Germany has no indications of its own of attacks supported by Iran, he said. He added that training programs could resume in the coming days. Brexit rebels tell Theresa May: Your EU divorce deal is dead Brexit-supporting rebels in British Prime Minister Theresa May's party said on Wednesday they would vote down her European Union divorce deal when she brings it back to parliament early next month. Brexit had been due to take place on March 29 but lawmakers rejected the withdrawal agreement that May struck with Brussels three times. The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave the EU by Oct. 31. Tanker attacks near UAE expose weaknesses in Gulf Arab security Attacks on Saudi tankers and other vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates this week expose vulnerabilities in the security of a key oil-shipping route amid rising tensions between the United States, Iran and Gulf Arab states. The operation near the Strait of Hormuz appeared designed to test the resolve of the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies without triggering a war, after Washington tightened sanctions on Iran and beefed up its military presence nearby. Fighting breaks out in Yemen's Hodeidah as Houthis pull out Houthi fighters and pro-government forces battled in Yemen's port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday, breaching a ceasefire and potentially complicating a troop withdrawal agreement intended to pave the way for wider peace talks. Hodeidah port, which has been under Houthi control, is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis threatened by starvation because of the war as it is the main entry point for food imports and aid. Following is a summary of current world news briefs. Sudan military council, opposition inch closer to final deal Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) agreed the country's transition period would last for three years, a TMC member said on Wednesday, adding a final deal on the transition would be reached within 24 hours. Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta also said DFCF will have two-thirds of the seats on a transitional legislative council and parties that are not part of the alliance will take the rest. Saudi oil facilities attacked, U.S. sees threat in Iraq from Iran-backed forces Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on Tuesday, two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. military said it was braced for "possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq" from Iran-backed forces. The attacks took place against a backdrop of U.S.-Iranian tension following Washington's decision this month to try to cut Iran's oil exports to zero and to beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats. Britain's May to launch new push on her Brexit deal next month British Prime Minister Theresa May will launch another push next month to approve Britain's exit from the European Union before the summer break, setting a new deadline for her Brexit plan and a potential timetable for her own departure. Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, politicians still disagree about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Putin says he senses Trump genuinely wants to repair U.S.- Russia ties President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday that he sensed that U.S. President Donald Trump genuinely wanted to repair battered relations between Russia and the United States. Putin, speaking ahead of talks with Pompeo, also said that Russia had never interfered in U.S. elections and that he and Pompeo had something to talk about when it came to stability on global energy markets. Story continues U.S. lawmakers want to tighten visas for Chinese students, researchers A group of President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress introduced legislation on Tuesday intended to prohibit anyone employed or sponsored by the Chinese military from receiving student or research visas to the United States. The bill would require the U.S. government to create a list of scientific and engineering institutions affiliated with the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and prohibit anyone employed or sponsored by those institutions from receiving the visas. 'Poison pills': Pentagon tells EU not to block U.S. companies from defense pact A new European Union military pact risks shutting American companies out of defense contracts and undermining NATO, the United States has told the bloc, hinting at possible retaliation. In a May 1 letter, the U.S. government said limitations on the involvement of non-EU countries under consideration in the European pact amounted to "poison pills." Trump denies U.S. plan to send 120,000 troops to counter Iran threat President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied a New York Times report that U.S. officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran. "I think it's fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," Trump told reporters at the White House. Early version of U.S. House bill seeks to bar F-35 from Turkey A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Tuesday released an early version of a spending bill that seeks to prevent the shipment of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, as U.S. officials press Turkey not to buy a Russian S-400 air defense system. The appropriations committee's bill forbids use of federal funds to deliver F-35s to Turkey. Congress often uses its control of federal government spending to influence policy by barring the use of funds. In this case, the measure would not allow any spending, for example, for fuel or pilots to fly the aircraft to Turkey Pompeo tells Russia: Don't meddle in next U.S. presidential election U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Russia on Tuesday that Washington would brook no interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and wanted Moscow to take action to show there would be no repeat of its suspected 2016 meddling. President Vladimir Putin, who met Pompeo in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, pushed back, telling him that Russia never interfered in U.S. elections and that a report by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which he praised as being "objective overall," had found no evidence of collusion with President Donald Trumps 2016 campaign. Venezuela top court accuses more lawmakers of treason as congress building blocked Venezuela's top court accused four opposition lawmakers of treason on Tuesday, following similar accusations against 10 legislators this month, escalating a deep political crisis in the South American country. Security forces had earlier prevented lawmakers from entering the legislature for Tuesday's session, saying they were investigating the possible presence of an explosive device inside the building. Photo: Getty Images Despite evolving awareness of the city's architectural history, reconciling the forces between the real-estate market and historic preservation in Los Angeles can be difficult. Richard Neutras endangered Chuey House, the 1956 Sunset Plaza Drive home, was on the market, and there was a growing fear of it facing the same fate of Neutras other home in San Francisco, which was razed for a new construction project. The home has now been purchased by two preservation-minded developers, who are vowing to keep the home intact and at its current location. Developers Eric Choi and Philippe Naouri purchased the property for $5.5 million, and have hired architect Tim Campbell to design a comprehensive rehabilitation plan that involves preserving the home's character-defining features. Discussions involved the Los Angeles Conservancy staff, who took an interest in protecting the Chuey House after its first listing in summer 2017 was advertising the property as a "unique development opportunity." In other words: a teardown. Photo: LAC/Adrian Scott Fine "We're pleased and we're optimistic," says Adrian Scott Fine, director of advocacy at the Conservancy. "In a place like L.A., everything is about the views and the land, and the historic building sitting on it can be an afterthought. We knew this was more challenging, and having a preservation-minded buyer step forward, we couldn't ask for a better outcome." Campbell's plans will likely include a sensitive addition to the home that was built more than 60 years ago for poet Josephine Ain Chuey and artist Robert Chuey. The architect has worked with the developers on previous projects and sees similarities between the Chuey House and Neutra's Singleton House, which his firm previously restored. Both are sited on hills and "prominently are positioned facing the same direction, and have seamless corner glass windows facing toward the L.A. basin view." Story continues To properly restore the home, Campbell is looking through the archival photography of Julius Shulman, who shot the house in its earliest state, detailing the various elements of architecture at work. "Everything in that quintessential Shulman photo will be added back," Campbell notes. He describes the two public rooms in the Chuey House as "pretty generous" and adaptable for contemporary living. As to Campbells approach to designing an addition, "you have to embrace the fact that we're preserving the house and proportions. Overhauling a house originally created for unconventional bohemian artists is a delicate design charge. "If you erase those memories from the house, then you run the risk of making the house something that it wasn't," Campbell explains. "And that's not something we want to do." Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that attacks on two of its oil tankers and a major pipeline targeted not only its own security but that of the world's supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, just outside the Gulf on Sunday. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage ... do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening. Tuesday's drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Stait of Hormuz is closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in as yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman off the United Artab Emirates on Sunday, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or any oil spill. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have yet given details on the exact nature of those attacks, which come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Riyadh's arch rival Tehran. The Saudi cabinet called for "confronting terrorist entities which carry out such sabotage acts, including the Iran-backed Huthi militias in Yemen." Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of oil, currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day of which around seven million bpd are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Yekaterinburg (Russia) (AFP) - Thousands of people protested for a third straight day Wednesday plans for a new cathedral in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in a case exposing tensions over the growing authority of the Orthodox Church. Police made more than 20 arrests after clashes with protesters in the central park where the building is set to be erected, according to local media and an AFP correspondent at the scene. The Church wants to recreate a cathedral demolished by the Soviets in 1930 in one of the few green public spaces in the Urals city, some 1,000 miles (1,700 km) east of Moscow. Local authorities have backed the project, and the oligarch head of one of Russia's largest copper producers has also offered financial support. Demonstrators told AFP they were fighting to protect a valued leisure area in a city that was originally designed as an industrial hub. But the protests have also taken on a wider political significance in a country where the Church, far from its Soviet-era repression, has ever more political clout. President Vladimir Putin has embraced the moral authority offered by the Church over his two-decade rule and Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill is seen as a key ally of the Kremlin. - 'Our common space' - Many were angered when they found that a large swathe of the green zone had been fenced off to prepare for the cathedral construction on Monday morning. "This is our common space, it belongs to all the people of this city," said Alexei Mosin, a 62-year-old historian who took part in the protests. He decried authorities for "making a decision without us". "This is where people who live in the area can walk and it is free, where children ride bicycles, where we run and do yoga," another protester, 35-year-old Alyona Smyshlyaeva, told AFP. Anger boiled over on Tuesday, when some 2,000 activists toppled a fence around the construction site and clashed with security guards. Story continues They also faced martial arts enthusiasts, linked to an investor in the project, who were brought in to protect the site. While protests against planned new Orthodox churches are not uncommon in Russian cities, including the capital Moscow, they rarely lead to open clashes. The Kremlin defended local authorities Wednesday, saying they had consulted locals on the project, which demonstrators deny. - 'Not a casino or brothel' - Regional governor Yevgeny Kuivashev responded to the protests by holding an emergency meeting behind closed doors with representatives of the Church and activists. But demonstrators dismissed the talks as a back-handed attempt with no chance for a compromise, with authorities and the church insisting the cathedral will be built. Russian opposition politicians have rallied around the Yekaterinburg protesters. Independent media have meanwhile painted the stand-off as a fresh illustration of the rift between Russia's liberals and conservatives. "The church is seen as a branch of the authorities," said Andrei Desnitsky, an independent religion expert. He added that while there have been conflicts over the growing role of the church in other Russian cities, in Yekaterinburg there is particular tension between the church and the local secular intelligentsia. The city also has a special significance for the church, which built a monastery on the site on the outskirts of the city where the Bolsheviks murdered Russia's last Tsar Nicholas II. In recent years Russia has seen an increase in religion taught in schools, church officials taking part in state celebrations and new controversial laws criminalising offending religious beliefs. The diocese of Yekaterinburg said the cathedral construction was legal and its completion in 2023 would be a "historic event." "There is no legal or logical reason to stop the construction," said Maxim Minyailo, a senior priest from Yekaterinburg's main Church on the Blood. "We want to build a cathedral -- not a casino, a brothel or a dump," Vladimir Legoyda, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, wrote on Facebook. video-oc/tm/cw Moscow (AFP) - Russia is to free captured killer whales over the next month, but will not return them to their original habitat despite expert advice, a scientist said Wednesday. The animals will instead be released from their pens in Russia's Far East and may "disrupt vacationers" at resorts nearby, said Vladislav Rozhnov, who was involved in talks over their fate. Nearly 100 belugas and orcas were captured last summer and kept in small pens by commercial firms who had planned to deliver them to aquariums, including in China where the industry is booming. Ten killer whales, or orcas, will be released "in late May to early June", Rozhnov said during a briefing at the Russian environment ministry. He said it would be more ideal to transport them to where they had initially been captured, as Russian and foreign scientists have advised, but this was deemed too costly. Instead they will be freed in the bay where they have been held near the town of Nakhodka -- more than 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) south from where they were actually caught in the Sea of Okhotsk. There is a risk that the whales will "stay near the pens where they were fed" and bother humans, he said. "Science gives recommendations, but the decision is taken by government authorities," said Rozhnov, who heads the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Environment and -- with other agencies -- is part of a council on the fate of the whales. "We hope that the released animals will go north and return to their native waters," he said. - 'Aggressive' orcas - The environment ministry said in a statement that transporting the animals to the Sea of Okhotsk could injure the animals and cause stress. Constructing rehabilitation enclosures at a faraway release site would be too complicated, it added. "Due to constraints of time, the realisation of this is difficult," the ministry said. Russian officials last month met with US-based conservationists Jean-Michel Cousteau and Charles Vinick, who visited the facility with the killer whales and 87 beluga whales, also captured last year. Story continues Rozhnov said there was no precise decision on the beluga whales, but that scientists now were looking into genetic evidence of family ties between the captured juveniles and known beluga groups in the wild. In a statement Wednesday, Cousteau's team warned that releasing the killer whales near the facility where they were being held carried a "high number of significant risks". They included potential conflict with people and boats in the area due to "aggressive behaviours observed in some of the orcas". Such a release "leads to likely long-term costs and diminished potential for survival", the team said. They said the whales should be taken to where they were captured following an "acclimatisation period" in remote enclosures. Russia is the only country still catching wild orcas and belugas. The controversial trade of marine mammals has boomed in recent years together with the aquarium industry in China, which uses Russian animals in its new marine parks. Although some fisheries officials have defended the capture as a legitimate industry, scientists argue it threatens the species' populations. France Tuesday announced President Emmanuel Macron wants to meet with Khalifa Haftar whose eastern Libyan National Army has been fighting to control capital Tripoli, few days after UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) leader asked the French leader to press the rebel general to cease his offensive. Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive on Tripoli early April to take control of the city to allegedly free it from terror groups. The offensive has met resistance from GNA fighters, on the southern outskirts of the city. French foreign minister Tuesday told lawmakers French President Emmanuel Macron wants to meet leaders of both sides to rekindle an UN-proposed roadmap that will conclude with elections later this year. The situation in Libya is extremely worrying because the proposed UN roadmap to both parties and which almost reached a positive conclusion has today failed because of Field Marshal Haftars initiative and Serrajs non-initiative, Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers. Le Drians comments seem to confirm last week report by Libya Observer that Haftar was scheduled to travel to Paris. Macron had already met with GNA leader Fayez Serraj last week in Paris. He called for ceasefire but refrained from clearly condemning the military campaign by Haftar forces. The GNA subsequently in what appeared as counter reaction to Macrons call suspended the operation licenses of 40 companies including oil giant Total on the motive that their permits had expired. The GNA had accused France of bringing support for Haftar and suspended security cooperation with the European country. France has denied the accusation as baseless. It is unclear whether Macron will host both leaders at the same time as he did previously multiple times. Washington (AFP) - A ban on facial recognition for law enforcement in San Francisco highlights growing public concerns about technology which is seeing stunning growth for an array of applications while provoking worries over privacy. All but one of the nine members of San Francisco's board of supervisors endorsed the legislation Tuesday, which will be voted on again next week in a procedural step. Facial recognition technology uses a scan of a person's face to create an algorithm that is compared against a database. It can be used to unlock a smartphone or vehicle, pay in retail stores, verify identities at bank machines or develop customized fashion or beauty recommendations. But its use in law enforcement has created the greatest outcry among rights activists because of the potential for errors and mismatches, and because the technology relies on vast databases that may have little or no oversight. - 'We're not helpless' - Adding to those concerns has been the deployment in China of a vast surveillance system that can track criminals but also dissidents, and which has been used to track the movements of the Uighur Muslim minority, according to some reports. The move in San Francisco "is a reminder we're not helpless in the face of technology," said Jay Stanley, a policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union. "Certainly you can't stop technology development and research but that doesn't mean we can't stop the deployment of technology to protect our values." While facial recognition may help catch criminals faster than traditional methods, civil liberties activists say the technology is not perfect, with high error rates for minorities found in some studies. "As things stand, it is inappropriate for government agencies to use face recognition technology because the dangers substantially outweigh the benefits," said Evan Selinger, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum. Story continues Tiffany Li, a researcher at the Yale Law School's Information Society Project, echoed those sentiments, arguing that more needs to be done to study the impact of facial recognition on civil liberties. "The tech is not accurate, fair, or safe enough yet. And our laws and policies don't know how to safeguard us from the many abuses that can occur," Li tweeted. - Wide deployment - Despite the ban in San Francisco -- and legislation being considered in other municipalities -- use of facial recognition is growing in cities in the US and elsewhere. A 2016 study by Georgetown University researchers found about 64 million Americans were in at least one database in "a virtual line-up" even if most had no criminal record, and that there was little knowledge of whether these systems were accurate or unfairly impacted minorities. The researchers found nearly 4,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, or 25 percent of the total, have the ability to run face recognition searches of their own system or that of another agency such as the FBI. Facial recognition is being deployed in airports around the United States, aiming to help speed boarding and arrivals and also monitoring for suspects and people who may have overstayed their visas. US customs authorities are also reported to be studying the technology to help identify illegal immigrants. Microsoft has joined critics of facial recognition deployment by government agencies. Its president Brad Smith said last year it was urgent to begin placing limits on facial recognition to avoid the surveillance state described in George Orwell's "1984." - Safer and faster - Supporters of the technology argue that facial recognition systems can help police fight crime and keep streets safer. Daniel Castro of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank following technology issues, noted that authorities "can use facial recognition to efficiently and effectively identify suspects, find missing children or lost seniors, and secure access to government buildings" and save considerable expense compared with doing these tasks manually. Concerns about moving toward Chinese-style surveillance systems are unwarranted because the United States has strong constitutional protections, Castro said. "Ironically, a ban on facial recognition is a step backwards for privacy," Castro said in a statement. "Rather than having individuals monitor surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology would use unmanned cameras... Focusing on technology bans misses opportunities to make communities safer and increase privacy." Concerned that some new surveillance technologies may be too intrusive, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial-recognition tools by its police and other municipal departments. The Board of Supervisors approved the Stop Secret Surveillance ordinance Tuesday, culminating a re-examination of city policy that began with the false arrest of Denise Green in 2014. Greens Lexus was misidentified as a stolen vehicle by an automated license-plate reader. She was pulled over by police, forced out of the car, and onto her knees at gunpoint by six officers. The city spent $500,000 to settle lawsuits linked to her detention. Since then, San Francisco officials determined flaws in the license-plate reader were just part of a wider potential for abuse with Big Brother-type surveillance capabilities. With new technologies increasingly making it possible to identify people, places, and objects, the city decided to impose a higher bar for snooping tools. The central motivator here is public safety, while making sure police can do their jobs, said Matt Cagle, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who helped draft the law. Weve learned a lot about facial recognition and seen how its been used in places like China to track and control populations. The public increasingly understands the threat this technology can pose and that isnt what they want. Stricter Regulations While San Francisco and nearby Silicon Valley are hubs of American technology and innovation, local opposition to the ordinance was minimal. Six other Northern California municipalities have recently adopted stricter regulations on the use of surveillance technology. But San Francisco was the first to ban facial recognition outright by city departments, a law that will go into effect 180 days after a second reading of the measure next week. The law does not prohibit companies or individuals from using facial recognition cameras or other surveillance tools, or from sharing their contents with law enforcement during an investigation. Last month, a New York student sued Apple, claiming the companys facial-recognition software falsely linked him to a series of thefts at Apple stores. Story continues Facial-recognition poses a threat to people of color and would supercharge biased government surveillance of our communities, a coalition of 25 privacy, civil rights and justice groups wrote in an April letter to city officials supporting the measure. Significant Challenges The U.S. Department of Justice said the technology is not always accurate and that implementation poses significant challenges to civil rights. The potential for misuse of face recognition information may expose agencies participating in such systems to civil liability and negative public perceptions, according to a December 2017 report on face recognition by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The lack of rules and protocols also raises concerns that law enforcement agencies will use face recognition systems to systematically, and without human intervention, identify members of the public and monitor individuals actions and movements. Not everyone was a fan of the law. There are plenty of legitimate concerns about government surveillance, but the right approach is to implement safeguards on the use of technology rather than prohibitions, Daniel Castro, a vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a non-profit think tank, said in a statement. Good oversight and proper guidance can ensure that police and other government agencies use facial recognition appropriately. One of every two Americans already is captured in a face-recognition database accessible to law enforcement, according to a 2016 study at Georgetown Law. Its mostly stored in the Federal Bureau of Investigations Next Generation Identification-Interstate Systemwhich has about 411 million individual photos. In a May 2016 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office admonished the FBI for failing to disclose the extent to which it uses the technology, and to ensure privacy and accuracy. With passage of todays ordinance, San Francisco is getting ahead of the problem while companies continue to develop facial-analysis systems. The measures sponsor acknowledged that todays vote is unlikely to be the citys final word on facial recognition. Supervisor Aaron Peskin said that as the policy evolves, the ordinance will be amended. Thats probably my biggest concern for the future, said Brian Hofer, chairman of Oaklands Privacy Advisory Commission. That itll get too good and be the perfect form of surveillance. San Franciscos new law will also require police to confirm the results of their license-plate reader with the California Department of Justice before detaining individuals. Also, any city departments seeking to acquire surveillance technology must receive formal approval. It also calls for departments currently in possession of surveillance equipment to propose regulations for use, along with an annual audit of all surveillance tools. Photo: Trusted Health/Facebook San Francisco-based employment and staffing agency company Trusted Health has secured $20 million in Series A funding, according to company database Crunchbase, topping the citys recent funding headlines. The cash infusion was announced May 6 and led by Craft Ventures. According to its Crunchbase profile, "Trusted Health is a digital employment platform for nurses that allows them to connect with flexible job opportunities. It simplifies how they create resumes, manage credentials, and understand and apply for opportunities in real-time. Trusted Health is backed by Craft Ventures, Felicis Ventures, and Founder Collective, as well as healthcare innovators like Texas Medical Center and Healthbox." The two-year-old startup has raised three previous funding rounds, including a $4 million seed round in 2018. The round brings total funding raised by San Francisco companies in community and lifestyle over the past month to $446 million, and increase of $407 million from the month before. The local community and lifestyle industry has seen 76 funding rounds over the past year, raking in a total of $14 billion in venture funding. In other local funding news, project management and UX design company Team Labs announced a $8.2 million seed funding round on April 18. According to Crunchbase, "Team Labs creates simple and intuitive products for everyone, striving to make working smarter and creating simpler. Team Labs is transforming the future of work with its cloud-based products that enable thousands of teams from across the globe." The company also raised a $3.8 million seed round in 2017. Meanwhile, agriculture company Afresh Technologies raised $6.1 million in Series A funding, announced on April 30. From the company's Crunchbase profile, "Fresh is the future of food. Born out of Stanford's Computer Science Ph.D. program, Afresh builds A.I.-powered supply chain solutions tailored for the nuances of perishable food (produce, meat, deli, dairy, bakery and prepared foods). By doing so, we make fresh food accessible, abundant and less wasteful." Story continues Afresh Technologies last raised $1.7 million in seed funding in 2018. Also of note, consulting and insurance company Gainfully raised $5.5 million in Series A funding, announced on April 23 and led by IA Capital Group. From Crunchbase, "Gainfully is a financial services platform that helps financial professionals generate new business and connect with their clients better." The company previously raised $2.5 million in seed funding in 2017. Rounding out the city's recent top local funding events, database company Improvado.io raised $5 million in seed funding, announced on April 11. The company previously raised $3 million in seed funding in 2018. This story was created automatically using local investment data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said Wednesday that attacks on two of its tankers and a major oil pipeline had targeted the security of global crude supplies. Its close ally, the UAE, said it was "committed to de-escalation" after the spike in Gulf tensions, but warned it would retaliate hard against Yemen rebel attacks on civilian facilities in the region. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Huthi rebels in Yemen shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, two days after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, off the UAE. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage... not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," Riyadh said after a meeting chaired by King Salman. The drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the vital conduit for global oil supplies in case of a military confrontation with the United States. Yemen's Huthis claimed responsibility for the pipeline attacks and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies, who have been battling the rebels for more than four years. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in the as-yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman on Sunday, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or oil spills. - International investigation - The Emirates has said three Western countries -- the US, France and Norway -- would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The ships, which also included the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory and an Emirati vessel, were docked in the sea off the coast of the emirate of Fujairah. Story continues Gargash said the probe would be concluded within days. "We are very committed to de-escalation, peace and stability," the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, told a press briefing in Dubai, vowing not to "jump the gun" on the investigation. However, he blamed "Iranian behaviour" for Gulf tensions. "It is this behaviour that has led to the difficult conditions," Gargash said. He also said that the UAE, which is part of the Saudi-led coalition battling the Iran-aligned Huthis, would "retaliate hard when we see Huthis hitting civilian targets like what happened in Saudi Arabia". Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have given details on the exact nature of the ship attacks, which came amid heightened tensions between Washington and Riyadh's arch-rival Tehran. OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day, of which around seven million are exported -- mostly through the Strait of Hormuz. - 'Imminent' attacks - On Wednesday, the United States ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, northern Iraq, after accusing the Islamic republic of planning "imminent" attacks in the region. The US has already strengthened its military presence in the region, including deploying several of strategic B-52 bombers in response to alleged Iranian threats. President Donald Trump on Wednesday predicted that Iran would "soon" want to negotiate, denying discord in the White House over moves that critics say could lead to war. "Different opinions are expressed and I make a decisive and final decision -- it is a very simple process," Trump tweeted. "I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon." But that came after Iran's Defence Minister Amir Hatami warned that the United States and its ally Israel would suffer the "bitter taste of defeat". "The proud nation of Islamic Iran will once again... pass this sensitive period of time with its head held high," Hatami said. A day after hosting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was sorry to see Iran's nuclear deal falling apart but stressed his country was not a "fire brigade" to "rescue everything". Earlier Wednesday, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed concern that tensions over Iran escalated despite assurances from Pompeo that Washington was not seeking war. Iran and the US have engaged in a war of words in recent weeks since Tehran began to roll back commitments set out in its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew the United States from the deal last year and has unilaterally reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that Iranian crude oil output fell in April to 2.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level in over five years. A school district employee in Missouri said she is out of a job after CBD oil caused her to fail a drug screening. Lorraine Jeffries, who worked as a school bus monitor for the district, said her doctor recommended she take the CBD oil for her joint pains. She said her doctor even provided her with a letter to show the district. By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Cancer scientists in Britain are launching what they call the world's first "Darwinian" drug development program in a bid to get ahead of cancer's ability to become resistant to even the newest treatments and recur in many patients. While not abandoning the search for an ultimate cure, the "anti-evolution" project will re-focus on turning cancer into a disease controllable with drugs for many years. This would be a little like HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the scientists told reporters at a briefing. "Cancer's ability to adapt, evolve and become drug-resistant is the cause of the vast majority of deaths from the disease and the biggest challenge we face in overcoming it," said Paul Workman, chief executive of Britain's Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) - a charity and research institute which will lead the new Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery. The centre, funded with 75 million pounds ($96.5 million) from the ICR, will "seek to meet the challenge of cancer evolution head on", Workman said, by blocking its process of evolution. Teams at the new centre will initially focus on two possible paths to doing this. The first, known as "evolutionary herding", involves selecting an initial specific treatment that forces cancer cells to adapt in a way that makes them highly susceptible to a second drug, or pushes them into an evolutionary dead end. The second will explore a possible new class of drugs to target cancer's ability to evolve and become resistant to treatment. These potential drugs would be designed to block the action of molecules called APOBEC proteins, found in the body's immune system. Researchers hope a new class of APOBEC inhibitors could be developed and given alongside targeted cancer treatments to try and keep cancer at bay for much longer. Combination therapies using multiple current or new treatments will also be explored, Workman said. Olivia Rossanese, a specialist in cancer drug discovery who will head the new centre's biology team, said the idea was to build a global hub of expertise in anti-evolution therapies so scientists could "stop playing catch-up" with cancer. "This Darwinian approach to drug discovery gives us the best chance yet of defeating cancer," she said, "because we will be able to predict what cancer is going to do next and get one step ahead." (Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Niamey (AFP) - The bodies of 11 missing Niger soldiers have been discovered after an ambush by armed men killed 17 of their colleagues on patrol near the Mali border, security sources said. "We have confirmation that the dead bodies of the eleven missing soldiers have been found, bringing the death toll to 28," a source said late Wednesday. The military patrol was ambushed on Tuesday near the village of Tongo Tongo in the western Tillaberi region, sources said. One of the military vehicles had set off an explosive device. A source referred to what happened as a "terrorist attack". Several troops were also injured and evacuated to the capital Niamey, a different source told AFP. According to the news site Actuniger, a patrol of 52 Niger soldiers happened upon a group of heavily armed men at Baley Beri, near Tongo Tongo. Heavy fighting ensued, lasting more than two hours. Twenty-two soldiers made it back to their base at Ouallam in three vehicles, while the rest were unaccounted for, it said, citing local and security sources. This is the same region where four American and five Niger soldiers were killed in a jihadist attack in October 2017. Niger is one of a number of poor, fragile countries in the Sahel region that have been hit by a jihadist revolt. Different jihadist groups operate in the country's west and north, and Boko Haram from Nigeria in its southeast. The country is part of the so-called G5 Sahel group set up to manage a coordinated response to the jihadist insurgency. The Istanbul-based Pegasus Airlines will launch in July its first route to Morocco, at Casablanca, marking its debut in the North African country. The new route, part of the carriers expansion on the African continent, will be inaugurated on July 8. The airline will propose four weekly flights to the Moroccan business city. Passengers will use one single aisle aircraft that could be a Boeing or an Airbus, reports say. The low-cost airline will be the second Turkish aviation company to serve Casablanca after national carrier Turkish Airlines. The Istanbul-Casablanca flights adds on the already existing two Egyptian destinations namely Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh. The airline, which already services two Egyptian destinations, namely Hurghada and Sharm el Sheikh, intends to gradually capture the rest of the continent using Casablanca as hub. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has imposed a cease-and-desist order on Canada-based crypto investment firm NextBlock Global for violating securities law. Its CEO and blockchain author Alex Tapscott also received a $25,000 penalty. The company, which once made plans to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange but is now winding up its operations, also agreed to pay a $700,000 CAD (approximately $520,000) administrative penalty as part of its agreement with the Ontario Securities Commission. According to the SEC, the company had been offering securities to U.S. investors despite neither NextBlock nor its securities [having] ever been registered with the Commission in any capacity." The company also reportedly falsely advertised to investors that four prominent figures in the blockchain industry were serving as its advisors. In 2017, NextBlock raised $20 million CAD (then approximately $16 million) in a convertible debenture offering, with approximately $2.4 million procured from U.S. investors. NextBlock invested the proceeds in digital assets, with Tapscott entitled to a share of any profit generated. The firm later planned a second fundraising round but abandoned it amid the misconduct reports. It has since agreed to liquidate its crypto holdings and return the funds plus profits to investors. Since the company has promptly undertaken remedial acts, the SEC said it had decided against imposing a further civil penalty. WASHINGTON (AP) The Senate has confirmed a Los Angeles lawyer as a federal appeals court judge, despite opposition from California's two Democratic senators. The Senate voted, 52-45, Wednesday to confirm Kenneth Lee's nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris opposed Lee, saying he failed to provide dozens of controversial writings on voting rights, race and sexual harassment. Lee's approval continues a recent trend by President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate to ignore a longtime Senate custom on judicial nominees. The tradition allows home-state lawmakers to weigh in on a possible nominee, with opposition generally meaning the nomination does not move forward. Earlier this month, the Senate approved Michael Park and Joseph Bianco of New York to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over the objection of home-state Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Lee well-qualified and noted that he worked in the George W. Bush White House and clerked in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Lee attended Harvard Law School with Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, who called him "a brilliant lawyer" and "a man of high character." But Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Lee has "a long record of controversial writings and statements on race and diversity, immigration, affirmative action, women's rights and other issues." She and Harris criticized Lee for failing to disclose dozens of "problematic writings" to a California commission and the Senate Judiciary Committee. "That failure raises significant doubts about Mr. Lee's candor and judgment and it should be concerning to all members of this body," Feinstein said on the Senate floor. Harris said in a statement that throughout his confirmation process, Lee "repeatedly failed to be forthcoming about his troubling past writings on race, the LGBTQ community, survivors of sexual assault and more." His actions raised concerns about whether Lee can be a fair and impartial judge, Harris said. "The American people deserve federal judges who will deliver on our country's promise to provide equal justice under law," she said. "I do not believe Kenneth Lee will live up to this important standard." By Ginger Gibson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Expanding on her gun control proposals, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris will announce on Wednesday that if elected president she will prohibit imports of some high-powered guns into the United States. Harris has already endorsed a swath of gun control measures, but at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she will promise to institute a ban on "AR-15-style assault weapons," a senior campaign official said. There is legal precedent for such a ban, the aide said, pointing to similar measures by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush taken in order to study permanent bans. Harris is vying against more than 20 Democrats for the party's nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The AR-15, or assault weapons, are catch-all terms often used by critics to describe semi-automatic rifles and other high-capacity fire arms. Such guns were used in several recent mass shootings in the United States, but Congress has so far failed to ban them. It is unclear just how many weapons Harris' proposal would affect. Her campaign estimates 4 million rifles have been imported into the United States, based on industry figures. The United States has a robust domestic market and 2.5 million rifles were made in 2017 alone, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms provided data. The figures did not distinguish between rifle types. About 159,000 of those made in the United States that year were exported. Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc., the largest domestic producer of rifles, including one similar to the AR-15, made about 253,000 in 2017 in Mayodan, North Carolina and 406,000 more in Newport, New Hampshire. The campaign pointed to three foreign-based gun makers - Glock, Sig Sauer and Beretta. Glock, which makes a pistol used in several recent shootings, made more than 175,000 pistols in the United States in 2017. Sig Sauer, which was spun off into a separate American company in the 1980s, made about 36,000 rifles in the United States in 2017. Beretta, which also has an American subsidiary, made about 2,700 rifles in the U.S. that year. Story continues In Harris' previous announcement backing gun control, she proposed giving Congress 100 days to pass legislation such as a universal background checks bill or a renewal of the ban on assault weapons, before using presidential executive power to act on the issue. Harris said she would use executive power to require sellers of five or more weapons a year to run background checks for all gun sales; revoke the license of gun makers and dealers who break the law; reverse a move by Trump to redefine the term "fugitive from justice" that allowed gun purchases by people with outstanding arrest warrants; and close the boyfriend loophole. An assault weapons ban adopted in 1994 during Bill Clinton's presidency was among the reasons cited when Democrats lost congressional seats in that year's midterm elections. The ban expired in 2004. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Two-time champion Maria Sharapova announced her withdrawal from the French Open on Wednesday, as she continues to recover from a right shoulder injury. "Sometimes the right decisions aren't the easiest ones," Sharapova posted on Instagram. "In better news, I have returned to the practice court, and slowly building the strength back in my shoulder." The 32-year-old from Russia -- who won at Roland Garros in 2012 and 2014, the most recent of her five major titles -- hasn't played since retiring due to shoulder pain in the second round of the St. Petersburg Open on Jan. 30. Sharapova said in February she had a "small procedure" on the shoulder. Currently ranked 35th in the world, Sharapova reached the Round of 16 at the Australian Open in January. She was a quarterfinalist at the French Open in 2018, her best result since reaching three straight finals at Roland Garros from 2012-14. The French Open starts May 26 in Paris. --Field Level Media Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Sino Land Company Limited (HKG:83) shareholders might be concerned after seeing the share price drop 12% in the last quarter. On the other hand the share price is higher than it was three years ago. Arguably you'd have been better off buying an index fund, because the gain of 15% in three years isn't amazing. View our latest analysis for Sino Land In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Over the last three years, Sino Land failed to grow earnings per share, which fell 13% (annualized). The strong decline in earnings per share suggests the market isn't using EPS to judge the company. So we'll need to take a look at some different metrics to try to understand why the share price remains solid. Interestingly, the dividend has increased over time; so that may have given the share price a boost. Sometimes yield-chasing investors will flock to a company if they think the dividend can grow over time. Depicted in the graphic below, you'll see revenue and earnings over time. If you want more detail, you can click on the chart itself. SEHK:83 Income Statement, May 15th 2019 It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important factors to consider. This free report showing analyst forecasts should help you form a view on Sino Land What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Sino Land's TSR for the last 3 years was 33%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! Story continues A Different Perspective While it's certainly disappointing to see that Sino Land shares lost 0.6% throughout the year, that wasn't as bad as the market loss of 11%. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 6.5%, each year, over five years. It could be that the business is just facing some short term problems, but shareholders should keep a close eye on the fundamentals. If you want to research this stock further, the data on insider buying is an obvious place to start. You can click here to see who has been buying shares - and the price they paid. There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on HK 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. Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - French police investigating the Christmas Market attack in Strasbourg in which five people died have arrested a sixth person, a judicial source said on Wednesday. The suspect, a 32-year-old man, was held for questioning on the request of anti-terrorist judges in Paris, following the arrest on Tuesday of three men and two women from the same family. All six were still being questioned late Wednesday, the source said. Cherif Chekatt, a small-time criminal, shot dead five people and wounded 11 during the December 11 attack on the open-air Christmas market. This week's arrests are part of investigations linked to the weapons held by Chekatt. Chekatt, 29, who was on a special watchlist as a suspected radical Islamist, was shot dead by police after a two-day manhunt in the city on the German border. The Islamic State group claimed Chekatt was one of their "fighters", but this was dismissed by French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. Judicial sources said that Chekatt had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video found on a USB key. President Trump has some bipartisan support for playing hardball with China over trade, and its easy to see why. The Chinese regime has pursued mercantilist policies that harm Americans (and others in the developed world), notably through the theft of intellectual property and the forced transfer of technology. It is also now clear that policymakers in both parties had too optimistic a view of how rapidly Chinas integration into global markets would improve the character of its government. Chinese trade negotiators seem also to have surprised their American counterparts by retracting concessions they had already made. While their tactics may have been a response to mixed signals they got from the Trump administration, they are not ones that should be rewarded. Trump responded to the setback in talks by raising tariffs, and China reciprocated. The escalation of the trade war poses increasing risk to our economy, as stocks have been signaling. The best course for the U.S. now would be to reach a swift resolution in the current talks getting back to the deal that seemed to be on the table before China miscalculated and then switch to a strategy for changing Chinese behavior that does not depend so thoroughly on possibly backfiring tariffs. The president has already hinted at what such a strategy would look like when urging companies to move their supply chains from China to other countries such as Vietnam. That suggestion was doubtless glib, overlooking the costs of re-siting and the distinctive advantages that can accompany investment in China. The intuition that trade with other countries in the region can be useful in exerting pressure on China is, however, correct. It is the same thought that underlaid the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The president took the U.S. out of it, in part because he did not focus on its utility in reshaping the economic environment in favor of our economic model rather than Chinas. But the other countries involved are moving ahead with the idea, and we should find a face-saving way to revive our participation. Trump has reportedly been open to this suggestion. Story continues We should also make a new commitment to bringing cases against Chinese abuses before the World Trade Organization. This administration has followed its predecessors in declining to take full advantage of that forum, even though it has had some success in forcing reform. And we should work in concert with other countries that have suffered from these abuses, which may require us to end less pressing trade conflicts with Europe, Canada, and Japan. Both the countrys economic interests and Trumps political interests counsel in favor of making progress with China while minimizing the damage that both our tariffs and its inflict on us damage that both is worth avoiding for its own sake and places inherent limits on our leverage. So take a deal, even a limited one, and then pursue less dangerous ways of pressuring China. More from National Review The dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation in Tripoli has highlighted that much more needs to be done to protect all non-combatants caught up in the battle for the Libyan capital, as the number of victims rises and thousands flee their homes, the UN said on Tuesday. In an update to journalists in Geneva, the UN migration agency, IOM, reported that 66,000 people have now fled Tripoli to cities along the coast and towards the Nafusa Mountains since clashes erupted between the internationally recognized Government, GNA, and eastern forces loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar last month. Safa Msehli, spokesperson for IOM Libya said: As it stands, the clashes are definitely intensifying and we have not noticed a lot of differences since the beginning of armed conflict on 4 April. Ms. Msehli also expressed concern for more than 3,000 migrants still being held in 11 official detention centres in and around the capital. They include children and pregnant women, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which urged the international community to come forward with offers of evacuation, humanitarian corridors, whatever it takes to get people out of harms way. According to latest UN figures from April 5 until May 9, the fighting has claimed 454 lives and wounded more than 2,150. By Subrata Nag Chowdhury KOLKATA, May 15 (Reuters) - Soldiers patrolled the center of Kolkata, the capital of India's West Bengal state, on Wednesday a day after rival political supporters clashed during campaigning for the country's general election. With the third highest number of parliamentary seats among Indian states, West Bengal has emerged as a battleground where the BJP is attempting to make inroads to offset likely losses elsewhere and retain power. The BJP is facing stiff opposition from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a regional party that controls the state and is one of Modi's biggest critics. More than 100 supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were detained for violence in West Bengal on Tuesday, police said. The state police said no Trinamool member had been detained, but the independent election commission said it planned to investigate allegations of vandalism by party supporters. The clashes broke out as BJP president Amit Shah led a campaign procession through Kolkata, and rival party supporters threw stones and water bottles at each other. "The reason behind the violence is Trinamool Congress, not Bharatiya Janata Party," Shah told reporters on Wednesday. The TMC, led by firebrand politician Mamata Banerjee who is a contender for prime minister, blamed the violence on BJP "goons" and said it planned to hold a rally on Wednesday. Authorities said soldiers were deployed in the city to ensure there was no further violence. The seven-phase election started on April 11 and ends on May 19. The results will be announced on May 23. West Bengal has a history of election-related violence, initially between the communists who ran the state for nearly three decades and the main opposition Congress party. But now the BJP and the regional TMC have emerged as the frontrunners and clashes are erupting frequently between their supporters. "Elections matter in Bengal much more than most other states because party is the only form through which people tend to organize themselves," said Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, a political science professor at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. (Additional reporting and writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Darren Schuettler) By Joan Faus BARCELONA (Reuters) - Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned on Wednesday that the expected rejection by Catalan pro-independence parties of his Catalan nominee for chairman of Spain's Senate would undermine dialogue with the northeastern region. The potential new rift comes at a difficult time when Sanchez, whose Socialists won last month's national election without securing a parliamentary majority, needs all the support he can get from regional parties to stay in power. "They (Catalan parties) are not vetoing Miquel Iceta, what they are vetoing is co-existence, dialogue, understanding," Sanchez said during a political event in northern Spain. Sanchez announced last week that he would nominate Iceta, the Catalan Socialist leader, as chief of the upper chamber of parliament, a move widely seen as a conciliatory signal to Catalonia and its secessionist groups. Sanchez has made overtures over the past year to establish a dialogue and give Catalonia a greater degree of autonomy, while ruling out an independence referendum for the region. Catalonia briefly declared independence in 2017 after a referendum deemed illegal by Spanish courts. The Socialists have a majority in Spain's upper house and had expected the nomination of Iceta to be easily approved. Still, Iceta, whose Socialists are not part of Catalonia's pro-independence camp, would first need to be designated as a senator by the Catalan assembly, which was to vote on the matter on Thursday. REJECTION But it looked all but certain to fail after the ERC - a pro-independence party that garnered the most votes in Catalonia in the April election - said on Wednesday it would reject the nomination on the grounds that it was imposed on them. The far-left separatist CUP also announced it would reject Iceta's bid and on Wednesday evening pro-independence Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), which controls the Catalan government, confirmed it would do the same. The three secessionist parties have 65 seats in the regional parliament, the same as its unionist parties, which could lead to a tie in Thursday's vote on Iceta's nomination - and that would mean it could not proceed, according to the chamber's rules. Iceta has vowed to take his case to the Constitutional Court. "(A failed nomination) would be a democratic outrage," he told reporters on Wednesday. Catalonia was a central issue in the run-up to the national election, with the opposition accusing Sanchez of undermining Spain's territorial integrity by granting concessions to the Catalan separatists. To be sworn in again as prime minister, Sanchez will need the support of other leftist parties plus at least one vote or abstention from Basque or Catalan nationalist parties. (Editing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones) Bogota (AFP) - A special peace court in Colombia on Wednesday ordered the "immediate release" of a former left-wing guerrilla leader wanted by the United States for drug trafficking. Jesus Santrich, a blind former leader of the FARC rebels, was arrested in April 2018, suspected of participating in the trafficking of 10 tons of cocaine to the United States. However, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) ordered him released to comply with the "non-extradition guarantee" that formed part of the historic 2016 peace accord that brought an end to FARC's 50-year insurrection, converting the former rebels into a political party. "I hope that the government, the public prosecutor's office and other agencies will respect the decision," Santrich said in an audio recording sent form prison. Colombia's Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez responded to the order by resigning. The JEP is the special court tasked with judging crimes committed during Colombia's half century of armed conflict. It had previously suspended an extradition order against Santrich, whose real name is Seuxis Paucias Hernandez. The 52-year-old is accused of involvement in drug trafficking between June 2017 and April 2018, crucially after the peace accord was signed in December 2016. The agreement stipulated that former guerrillas who commit crimes after the pact was signed would be tried in a normal court and would lose the benefits afforded by the accord, such as a ban on extradition. FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has subsequently become the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force political party, has denounced the accusations against Santrich as a "judicial set-up." Explaining his resignation, Martinez said: "My conscience and my devotion to the rule of law prevents me" from liberating Santrich. "That's why I've presented my irrevocable resignation," he added. Story continues Santrich's case had caused a schism between Martinez and the JEP over different interpretations regarding the scope of the special court's jurisdiction. The JEP said the prosecution's evidence was insufficient to establish both what had taken place and when it occurred. It also said the US had not sent its evidence against Santrich. It has "adopted a decision that defies the evidence provided by the United States and the prosecutor's office," said Martinez, adding that "the evidence was unequivocal." Martinez had been under pressure to resign over an unrelated affair, having been implicated in the far-ranging corruption scandal centered around Brazilian corruption giant Odebrecht. On Tuesday, FARC said one of its former guerrilla leaders, Jorge Enrique Corredor Gonzalez, known as Wilson Saavedra, had been killed by attackers on a motorcycle in western Colombia. They said he was the second such former guerrilla leader killed since the peace accord was signed. Colombo (AFP) - A Briton whose bride died on their honeymoon two days after arriving in Sri Lanka was allowed to return home after a court lifted a travel ban Wednesday. Khilan Chandaria, 33, said he would probably return home Thursday after thanking several Sri Lankans who helped him during the tragedy. "When I heard that I can go back, the realisation finally hit me that I am going back to a life without my wife," Chandaria told AFP by telephone from the southern resort town of Galle. He said the remains of his wife Usheila Patel, 31, were repatriated Wednesday as the courts decided to put off a full inquest into the death until August. A court official told AFP that Galle magistrate Pavithra Pathirana revoked the travel ban as Chandaria was not regarded as a suspect in the death of his wife. Chandaria was in court with three lawyers. He said he was touched by the kindness shown by Sri Lankans and wanted to thank all of them before leaving the island. "If I was a foreigner in the UK and this happened, no one would have helped me as much as the help I got here," he said adding that friends and relatives back home too were very supportive. He said he wanted to keep his wife's memory alive by offering his time for charity work. The inquest into Patel's death will resume in August, officials said, but Chandaria is not required to attend. "The forensic reports were not available today. Therefore the inquest proceedings were postponed until August 7," the court official told AFP from Galle, south of Colombo. The couple checked into the Amari Galle hotel on April 23, four days after their wedding, and were taken ill two days later. Amari spokesman Russell Cool told AFP last week that the couple initially declined medical treatment at a local hospital, but asked for help a few hours later. Patel died at the hospital. "The couple consumed a light meal prepared by the hotel, as did other guests at the same time and who remain fine," Cool told AFP. Sri Lanka's police arrested over 100 suspects and reimposed night curfews in violence-prone areas Wednesday after anti-Muslim riots left one man dead and caused extensive damage to homes, businesses and mosques. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said 78 people arrested in the worst-affected North-Western Province (NWP) were remanded in custody Wednesday, while the rest were detained after a manhunt in other areas. Some 5,500 additional police were deployed in NWP to contain the violence that claimed the life of a Muslim man on Monday. Scores of private homes, Muslim-owned shops and businesses were destroyed, while several mosques were also vandalised. Muslims in Sri Lanka have been bracing for revenge attacks since three churches and three luxury hotels were bombed by local Islamist extremists on April 21, killing 258 people. Gunasekera said a night curfew was being reimposed in NWP, just north of the capital, as well as the adjoining Gampaha district, which shares a border with Colombo, as a measure to "maintain peace". However, a top police source said there will be no curfews elsewhere in the country. The entire country was under night curfews for two straight days after the violence escalated. The night curfew on Tuesday ensured there was no repeat of Monday's violence against Muslims, who make up some 10 percent of Sri Lanka's population of 21 million. "The situation is now totally under control," said military spokesman Sumith Atapattu. "There were no incidents of violence overnight and we are arresting groups of people responsible for taking part in mob attacks." Official sources said police deployed special teams to review CCTV camera footage to identify the perpetrators and carry out more arrests. More police and army units were seen deployed in the troubled areas as the authorities lifted the nationwide curfew on Wednesday morning. But Muslims in NWP remained nervous and stayed indoors Wednesday, after sword-wielding rioters killed one man late Monday while vandalising scores of shops and mosques. Story continues In Bingiriya, where some 2,000 people went on the rampage, Muslim cleric M.I.M. Siddeeque said the community was worried. "Our people are still afraid to go out," he told AFP by telephone. Government spokesman Navin Dissanayake said the authorities had identified the leaders of the mobs and they were already in police custody. - Fear persists - Despite the extraordinary security measures, the minorities felt insecure, said Dissanayake, who is also a government minister. "People feel insecure and I acknowledge that," Dissanayake told reporters in Colombo. "We have given the armed forces of this country... a complete free hand to tackle the security situation." Among those detained was Amith Weerasinghe, a man from Sri Lanka's majority Buddhist Sinhalese community and on bail for his role in similar riots in March last year in the central Kandy district. Another was identified as Namal Kumara, a deserter from both the army and the air force. The police, meanwhile, also made several changes in the command structure by removing senior officers in the troubled areas after allegations officials did nothing to stop the rioters. The military released CCTV which showed a man in uniform apparently standing by while a mob pelted stones at a home, and sought public help to identify the individual. Parliamentary speaker Karu Jayasuriya condemned the violence and appealed for calm. "The attacks on mosques, the burning of houses and shops, the attacks on innocent people cannot be condoned in any way," Jayasuriya said in a statement. The attacks came during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. A state of emergency has been in place since the Easter bombings and security forces have been given sweeping powers to detain suspects. Internet service providers said the telecoms regulator on Tuesday extended a social media ban to Twitter. Earlier, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram had been blocked to prevent the spread of messages inciting violence. Alabama lawmakers passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the US on Tuesday night, outlawing abortion from the point of conception with exceptions only if the womans life is seriously at risk. The law is one example of a severe clampdown on womens reproductive rights spreading across Republican-led states. The White House has stoked anti-abortion campaigners fervor, with conservative court nominations and a litany of bureaucratic changes restricting reproductive freedom and related funding. Related: 'We need this bill to die': the Alabama Democrat fighting for abortion rights This year, more than a dozen US states have sought to make abortion illegal after six weeks of gestation, including six states that successfully enacted the laws. Where is this happening? Anti-abortion campaigners have successfully enacted a ban on all or most abortions in seven Republican-led states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio and Georgia. Alabamas law, which must be signed by the Republican governor, is the most severe. At least 61 bills like this have been introduced across the country, in states including Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Minnesota, Texas and West Virginia. Even in states considered safe havens for abortion rights, such as New York and Illinois, anti-abortion lawmakers have introduced bills as a kind of protest. The wave of restrictions is due primarily to the Trump administrations judicial picks. Anti-abortion campaigners believe the chances of further restricting abortion through court cases are better today than they were a year ago. Who is behind it? Generally, the anti-abortion elements are made up of social conservatives. The Christian right has fought against abortion rights for decades, but some of its most extreme proposals have only recently started to pick up steam. The Christian right is also one of the Trump administrations most fervent bases of political support. Story continues Related: Revealed: nine US states considering hardline Georgia-style anti-abortion bills In Ohio for example, the leader of one anti-abortion and anti-gay hate group, Janet Porter, pressed for a ban on abortions for nearly a decade. She only succeeded this year, after the Trump administration pushed the supreme court and lower courts to the right. Could these cases threaten Roe v Wade? That is the aim for many anti-abortion campaigners. The US supreme court legalized abortion across the country in 1973, through the landmark case Roe v Wade. Until then, states had been left to make their own laws on abortion, leaving a patchwork system where some women lived in places where abortion was illegal, and others where it was safe and accessible. That changed with Roe. The supreme court ruled that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus can survive outside the womb, generally understood to be about 24 weeks gestation. A full term is 40 weeks. The supreme court is made up of nine justices. Until last year, there were four generally liberal judges, four conservative, and one swing vote, Anthony Kennedy. But when Kennedy retired last year Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh a conservative and a Catholic. His confirmation, after a contentious series of hearings, has has tilted the court to the right, and although Kavanaugh does not have a long track record on abortion, experts believe he will support more restrictions. Will these cases end up in the Supreme Court? To pressure the supreme court to take up a case, anti-abortion campaigners have pushed for these clearly unconstitutional restrictions to be passed in the seven state legislatures. Civil rights groups are forced to challenge the laws in court to stop their implementation, setting up a fight and a chance to get to the highest court. Some groups want to use these cases to overturn Roe v Wade or severely restrict how it is interpreted. Unless and until the supreme court speaks on one of these cases, abortion remains legal to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb in the US. Could this plan actually work? Abortion providers are taking the threat seriously and making plans for the future, which could include using funding to shuttle women across state lines to obtain abortions. However, some civil rights lawyers are cautiously optimistic that the supreme court is not interested in revisiting Roe, even with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in place. It is impossible to say for certain whether one of the new laws being passed by states will be considered. But even if states do not succeed in making abortion illegal, the pile-on of restrictions has had an impact. There are fewer abortion providers and the procedure is more expensive, making it ever more difficult for women to exercise their rights. Justin M. B. Wheatley is the CEO of StatPro Group plc (LON:SOG). This analysis aims first to contrast CEO compensation with other companies that have similar market capitalization. Then we'll look at a snap shot of the business growth. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. The aim of all this is to consider the appropriateness of CEO pay levels. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! See our latest analysis for StatPro Group How Does Justin M. B. Wheatley's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies? At the time of writing our data says that StatPro Group plc has a market cap of UK81m, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of UK743k. (This is based on the year to December 2017). While this analysis focuses on total compensation, it's worth noting the salary is lower, valued at UK403k. We looked at a group of companies with market capitalizations under UK154m, and the median CEO total compensation was UK238k. Thus we can conclude that Justin M. B. Wheatley receives more in total compensation than the median of a group of companies in the same market, and of similar size to StatPro Group plc. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the pay is too high. We can better assess whether the pay is overly generous by looking into the underlying business performance. You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at StatPro Group, below. AIM:SOG CEO Compensation, May 15th 2019 Is StatPro Group plc Growing? StatPro Group plc has increased its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 5.7% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). In the last year, its revenue is up 11%. I think the revenue growth is good. And the improvement in earnings per share is modest but respectable. So while we'd stop just short of calling this a top performer, but we think it is well worth watching. You might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for future earnings. Story continues Has StatPro Group plc Been A Good Investment? I think that the total shareholder return of 78%, over three years, would leave most StatPro Group plc shareholders smiling. So they may not be at all concerned if the CEO were to be paid more than is normal for companies around the same size. In Summary... We compared total CEO remuneration at StatPro Group plc with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. Our data suggests that it pays above the median CEO pay within that group. Over the last three years returns to investors have been great, though we might have liked stronger business growth. Considering this fine result for investors, we daresay the CEO compensation might be apt. Shareholders may want to check for free if StatPro Group insiders are buying or selling shares. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. 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. Clashes between followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a firebrand opposition leader heightened tensions in the key Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday ahead of the final round of the country's hard-fought national election. More than a hundred people were arrested after street battles that forced Amit Shah, president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to leave an election rally in the eastern metropolis under armed guard, police said. A bust of renowned Bengal reformer, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, was destroyed and a college named after him ransacked in the troubles late Tuesday, which the BJP and rival Trinamool Congress (TMC) angrily blamed on each other. Teachers and students of Vidyasagar college wearing black badges staged a day-long protest Wednesday, demanding an impartial investigation into the incident. "I could not recognize the office when I stepped in today," Gautam Kundu, the college principal, told AFP. "Broken shards of glass lay all over and a statue of Vidyasagar was missing from the glass case. "They (the teachers) were cowering in fear inside the classrooms when the attack took place. We are shocked," he said. Security was stepped up outside the college as well as at Calcutta University where students demonstrated with placards reading "Go Back Narendra Modi", "Go Back BJP". West Bengal state has been hit by repeated violence between the two parties during the six-week-long election that ends Sunday. Results will be announced on May 23. Modi's BJP hopes to capture many of the state's 42 parliament seats from the TMC to compensate for losses predicted in other regions. The BJP accused West Bengal's chief minister Mamata Banerjee of orchestrating attacks on Shah's roadshow. Government ministers joined a protest in Delhi which blamed Banerjee's party. - Activist freed - "Has Bengal acquired a government of gangsters? The attack on Amit Shah's peaceful rally by TMC is deplorable," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Twitter. Story continues Modi condemned what he called "TMC goons" for launching the street battles, in a television interview. Banerjee hit back by accusing Shah acting like a "god" who does not allow protests. She led a rally of several thousand supporters through the city late Wednesday. The communist party held its own rally. Trouble erupted when Shah's convoy drove past the entrance to Calcutta University, where TMC student wing activists had gathered. "TMC supporters started throwing stones at the tail-end of the rally. A group of people then set two motorbikes and a bicycle on fire," said witness Partha Sinha. Political observers say the aggressive campaign by Modi's party against the TMC in the eastern state has made it one of the most bitter contests in the election. Modi won a landslide victory in 2014 but many pollsters expect him to lose his overall majority this time. A good performance in West Bengal would significantly improve his chances of a second term. The BJP and Banerjee's party have also been at loggerheads over a BJP activist arrested for posting a doctored image on Facebook with Banerjee's head on the body of Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra wearing a revealing dress. Priyanka Sharma was arrested last week for posting the viral meme that sparked national headlines. She was released on Wednesday after the Supreme Court intervened. But Sharma told journalists after her release: "All I did was post a meme and I was jailed for 5 days. I am not sorry." The first-ever conference for exchange and cooperation between national and local authorities in Africa to address climate issues and support decentralization territorial approach of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), kicked off this Wednesday in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire. Ministers, mayors and heads of African municipalities will explore opportunities for cooperation and mutual assistance in this Structured Dialogue conference convened by the Climate Task Force of the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) in partnership with the European Commission and the African Development Bank. The two-day meeting (May 15 to 16), held at the AfDB headquarters, is bringing together presidents of local government associations and technical and financial partners. The first Structured Dialogue will explore concrete opportunities to enhance multi-level governance, with a specific focus on inclusive and participatory development for African countries, cities and regions to manage the risks of a changing climate while unlocking new investment opportunities, according to an AfDB press release. While Africa enjoys unprecedented economic development and strong demographic and urban growth, large parts of the continent are also highly vulnerable and already face the dramatic consequences of climate change. Local governments, civil society and the youth are getting increasingly vocal, asking more commitment at all levels to fight climate change. This makes Africa a key player in the global challenge to meet goals set in the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and to adapt to climate change. Across the region, cities and local authorities are moving forward, the press release added. Recognizing that Climate Change is a major threat to Africas efforts to meet all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the importance of aligning the NDCs with the broader national development agenda, the European Commission is increasing its efforts to support partner countries in mainstreaming climate change considerations and NDCs into all their policies and plans. Through the EU-funded Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA) cities and municipalities receive technical support to develop Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plan (SEACAPs) as well as direct financial support to implement actions at local level. With additional 25 million, the third phase of the CoMSSA aims to scale-up the initiatives impact by expanding and sustaining the network and reaching a greater number of beneficiaries, bridging the gap to finance investments and fostering coordination. SEACAPs will be an instrumental tool to the decentralization of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Khartoum (AFP) - Sudanese protesters voiced regret Thursday at an army decision to suspend crucial talks on installing civilian rule but vowed to press on with a sit-in despite being targeted in fresh violence. Army generals and protest leaders had been expected to come to an agreement on Wednesday over the make-up of a new body to govern Sudan for three years. The issue is the thorniest to have come up in ongoing talks on reinstating civilian rule after the generals took over following the ouster of longtime autocratic president Omar al-Bashir last month. But in the early hours of Thursday, the chief of Sudan's ruling military council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced the talks had been suspended for 72 hours as security in Khartoum had deteriorated. He demanded that protesters dismantle roadblocks in Khartoum, open bridges and railway lines connecting the capital and "stop provoking security forces". The Alliance for Freedom and Change, the group leading the protest movement and negotiating the transfer of power with the army rulers, called the move "regrettable". "It ignores the developments achieved in negotiations so far... and the fact that Wednesday's meeting was to finalise the agreement, which would have stopped the escalations such as roadblocks." The protest movement vowed to press on with the sit-in and called on its supporters to launch rallies heading to the protest camp later on Thursday after breaking the Ramadan fast. - Several roadblocks removed - Protesters said the army was trying to provoke them. "They want to provoke the people by delaying the negotiations... but the negotiations will resume now that the roadblocks have been removed," said Moatassim Sayid, a protester at the sit-in. On Thursday morning, several roadblocks in downtown Khartoum had been taken down, an AFP correspondent reported, adding that troops from the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) were deployed in some areas. Story continues Roadblocks on key thoroughfares are being used by demonstrators to pressure the generals to transfer power to a civilian administration. The talks began on Monday and achieved significant breakthroughs, but have also been marred by violence that left five protesters and an army major dead and many wounded from gunshots. Protesters allege that members of RSF were behind the violence. But Burhan said there were "armed elements among demonstrators who were shooting at security forces." He defended the paramilitary group, saying "it had taken the side of the people" during the uprising that toppled Bashir on April 11. The British ambassador to Khartoum said Sudanese security forces had fired at protesters on Wednesday when eight were reported wounded near the sit-in, where thousands remain camped demanding the generals step down. "Extremely concerned by use of live ammunition by Sudanese security forces against protesters in Khartoum today, with reports of civilian casualties," Irfan Siddiq wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. - US blames generals - Washington blamed the generals for the bloodshed that left six dead on Monday. "The tragic attacks on protesters... were clearly the result of the Transitional Military Council trying to impose its will on the protesters by attempting to remove roadblocks," the US embassy said. The French foreign ministry urged the two sides to resume the dialogue "to establish a transitional civilian government" and to "preserve the peaceful nature of the transition". The protest movement said the generals wanted the demonstrators to restrict themselves to the sit-in area. Protesters are demanding a civilian-led transition, which the generals have steadfastly resisted since bowing to their demands and toppling Bashir. During the first two days of talks the two sides had agreed on an overall civilian structure, including a three-year period for the full transfer of power to a civilian administration. They had also agreed that parliament be composed of 300 members for the transition, with around two-thirds from the alliance and the rest drawn from other political groups. The make-up of the new sovereign council has been the toughest part of the negotiations, with the two sides so far proposing different compositions of the body which is expected to take all key decisions concerning national issues. The generals want it to be military-led, while the protesters insist on a majority civilian body. General Yasser al-Atta, one of the members of the current ruling military council, had vowed earlier this week to reach a deal by Thursday that "meets the people's aspirations". The new council is expected to form a transitional civilian government, which would then prepare for the first post-Bashir election after the three-year changeover period ends. Juba (AFP) - South Sudan's President Salva Kiir said Wednesday that any attempt to forcibly seize power in the country would be met with "violent resistance", as calls for his ouster spread on social media. In the past two weeks, a new group calling itself the Red Card Movement has been circulating calls online for a protest on Thursday with the hashtags #KiirMustGo and #SouthSudanUprising, with organisers appearing to be based mostly in the diaspora. The movement appears to be inspired by street protests in neighbouring Sudan which led to the toppling of veteran president Omar al-Bashir. "Violent attempts to usurp power from the people would be met with violent resistance and the cycle of violence cannot end," Kiir told a press briefing. "The way to stability in South Sudan is through democracy and democratic elections, and this is what we fought for and we will not compromise it," Kiir said. Since last week security on the streets of Juba has been beefed up. However officials have said this was unrelated to the planned protests, but was in preparation for a public holiday Thursday celebrating those who took up arms in the fight for independence from Sudan, achieved in 2011. Army spokesman Major-General Lul Ruai Koang told AFP that the celebrations had been postponed by a week for "final touches" to preparations. "The security deployment and all sorts of security arrangements (are) to provide maximum security and safety for the people during the celebrations," he added. Independent radio station Eye Radio reported Wednesday that some Juba residents had woken up to security officers going house to house searching for guns. South Sudanese activist Keluel Agok, now living in Kampala, is among those calling for the protests. "If you want to an end the impunity please come out on 16th May 2019 to restore liberty, justice and unity in South Sudan," he wrote on Facebook Tuesday. Story continues South Sudan plunged into civil war in 2013 after Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup against him. The war has left 380,000 people dead and forced more than four million South Sudanese -- almost a third of the population -- to flee their homes. A peace deal signed in September 2018 has largely stopped fighting, but implementation has run aground and the planned formation of a unity government on May 12 was postponed for six months. str-fb/gd CAIRO (Reuters) - Sudan's military rulers have indefinitely suspended talks with protest leaders on the establishment of a sovereign body, a leader of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces said on Wednesday. The source said that no new date had been set for the talks, which were expected to hammer out an agreement on the composition of a body that would run the country for a transitional period until elections. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by James Dalgleish) BEIRUT (AP) The U.S.-backed Syrian forces battling the Islamic State group in eastern Syria say they have launched a campaign to clear a restive Arab village of militant sleeper cells. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces says the campaign launched Wednesday targeted insurgent hideouts in the desert area around Shheil village, arresting 20, and discovering at least two tunnels, ammunition and weapons. The village was one of a number that rose up in protest against the SDF's hold on power in eastern Syria's Arab-dominated Deir el-Zour province. The first fatality in the protests was also in Shheil, threatening to deepen tensions that have challenged the U.S. and its local partners. Since seizing IS's last territory in March, the SDF has been fighting expansive sleeper cells amid rising Arab discontent at Kurdish control. By Keith Coffman DENVER, May 15 (Reuters) - Two teenagers accused of fatally shooting a classmate and wounding eight others at a Denver-area high school last week are set to return to court on Wednesday for the formal filing of charges. Devon Erickson, 18, and Alec McKinney, 16, who was listed on the court docket by the name Maya Elizabeth McKinney but who identifies as male, were both arrested on suspicion of a single count of first-degree murder and 29 counts of attempted murder immediately after the May 7 shooting spree. The pair is accused of opening fire on fellow students inside two classrooms at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) charter school in Highlands Ranch, about 25 miles south of Denver. The two teens made their initial court appearances last week in separate hearings before Douglas County District Judge Theresa Slade, who ordered them both held without bond. Denvers ABC affiliate television station has reported that the two pistols used in the attack were stolen from the home of Erickson, whose parents had purchased the guns legally. Court documents relating to the case have been sealed. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office has declined to comment. District Attorney George Brauchler said last week that he would reveal at Wednesdays proceeding whether he will charge McKinney as a juvenile or an adult. MEMORIAL SERVICE Slain student Kendrick Castillo is to be honored a memorial service on Wednesday at a Highlands Ranch church. The 18-year-old robotics enthusiast and aspiring engineer was shot dead as he and two other students charged at the shooters in an effort to disarm them. Just three days shy of graduation, Castillo was pronounced dead at the scene, Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock told Reuters. The attack occurred less than a month after the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in nearby Littleton, in which two students shot 13 people to death before committing suicide. Story continues Five months ago, a school district official urged the STEM schools director to investigate allegations of student bullying and violence by a parent who feared they could lead to the next Columbine. The director said an investigation found no evidence to support the allegations. The STEM school had no sworn police officer at the 1,850-student campus, after a dispute with the sheriffs office over the previous school resource officers role ended that relationship last year, the school said last week. Instead a private security company was hired to patrol the kindergarten-high school campus. An armed security guard responded to last weeks shooting. ABC News, citing an unnamed law enforcement official, reported last week that the security guard may have mistakenly fired on sheriffs deputies called to the scene and wounded a student in the chaos. The CBS News television affiliate in Denver reported that a special prosecutor from neighboring El Paso County is probing the actions of the security guard. A spokeswoman for El Paso County District Attorney Dan May declined to comment on the report. (Reporting by Keith Coffman; editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie Adler) Chicago (AFP) - Texas police investigating child sexual abuse on Wednesday raided offices of the Catholic diocese in Dallas, after alleging that church officials had not been fully cooperative. Police served search warrants at the headquarters of the diocese, a storage location and offices of a local church. The raids were connected to the investigation of a fugitive priest named Edmundo Paredes and at least five new allegations of abuse against other suspects, police said. "These investigations stem from additional allegations made after the case against Mr. Paredes became public," Major Max Geron of the Dallas police said. Paredes is charged with sexual abuse of a child and accused of molesting at least three other minors. He disappeared from the suburban Dallas church where he served for decades and is believed to have fled to his native Philippines. The Dallas diocese said the raids did not involve any suspects who had not been publicly disclosed on a list of 31 predator priests going back to the 1950s. The diocese released the list in January. "The diocese has been cooperating with the ongoing investigation of these priests," Dallas Bishop Edward Burns told reporters. A judge approved the warrants after police alleged that church officials had not been fully cooperative, according to The Dallas Morning News, which obtained a copy of court records. "To date, the Dallas Police Department has not been given the number of priests' files flagged for sexual abuse," the newspaper quoted police as saying in an affidavit. Police accused the church of hiding allegations against priests or providing incomplete information, according to the newspaper. "We believed at this point that executing search warrants was wholly appropriate for the furtherance of the investigation," Geron said. Photo: Vlah Dumitru/Unsplash If you're a theater fan, mark your calendars: there's plenty to do when it comes to stage performances in San Francisco this week, from monologues about cultural and geographic borders to two-minute plays. 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. 'Border People' From the event description: "Border People" is based on conversations and interviews from the South Bronx housing projects courtyards, refugee safe houses on the northern border with Canada and travels along the southwestern border and into Mexico. Featuring 11 monologues of people who live on or across borders both geographic and cultural, "Border People" is an intimate, raw, poignant, funny look at the borders we all negotiate in our everyday lives. When: Wednesday, May 15, 8 p.m. Where: The Marsh San Francisco MainStage Theater, 1062 Valencia St. Price: $12.50 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'Bakersfield Mist' From the event description: Maude, a middle-aged, unemployed bartender from Bakersfield, California, purchased a painting from a local thrift store for only a few bucks. Now she's convinced the painting is a long-lost Jackson Pollock masterpiece worth millions. Lionel, an expert from New York City, flies over to her trailer park home to authenticate the artwork, but what they discover is far beyond what either could have ever imagined. Who ultimately gets to decide what is true and what is false? When: Thursday, May 16, 8 p.m. Where: Phoenix Theatre San Francisco, 414 Mason St. Price: $20 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'The Speakeasy: Age of Scofflaws' From the event description: Behind a secret door near the intersection of North Beach and Chinatown lies a dimly lit subterranean realm teeming with colorful characters and overlapping storylines. This is "The Speakeasy," an interactive theatrical experience that'll transport you to a 1920s San Francisco watering hole full of bootleggers, bouncers, war veterans and barflies. As you wander throughout the multi-room environment, sipping cocktails, playing casino games, or simply observing, you'll stumble across all manner of conversations and interactions as a complex narrative web unfolds. Story continues When: Friday, May 17, 7:30 p.m. Where: The Speakeasy, a discreet location near the intersection of North Beach and Chinatown Price: $69 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'The Infinite Wrench' From the event description: The San Francisco Neo-Futurists are thrilled to present "The Infinite Wrench," as part of an ongoing and ever-changing attempt to shift the conventions of live performance and speak to audiences, including those unreached or unmoved by traditional theater. "The Infinite Wrench" is a mechanism that unleashes a barrage of two-minute plays that'll never ask you to suspend your disbelief. When: Friday, May 17, 9 p.m. Where: PianoFight, 144 Taylor St. Price: $9 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Insurance commissioner Jim Beck campaigns in front of an image of the governor, Brian Kemp. Photo: Jim Beck via Twitter During the period of its Republican ascendancy, Georgia has always been a special place for the Christian right. It was, after all, Ralph Reeds stomping grounds until his career took a turn for the worse with a lurid scandal involving casino gambling. It has also been the home base of former congresswoman and national anti-abortion icon Karen Handel, who, believe it or not, lost a gubernatorial runoff in 2010 because she wasnt extreme enough on abortion. Georgias delegations to Washington have recently included such colorful religious wing nuts as Paul Broun Jr., an anti-evolution (a lie from the pit of hell) member of the House Science Committee, and Jody Hice, who denies the major world religion called Islam is a religion at all. So its no surprise at all that Brian Kemp ran for governor last year as a politically incorrect conservative on a ticket with longtime Georgia Christian Coalition leader and insurance commissioner, Jim Beck, or that Kemp cheerfully signed legislation adding his state to the list of Constitution defiers banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, which is usually around the time a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But both Kemp and Beck, and with them the Christian right, have had a very bad week. Kemp received a firm slap in the face from one of Georgias most important cash cows, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: Gov. Brian Kemp postponed an annual trip to Los Angeles to promote Georgias film industry on Tuesday as a growing number of movie executives and celebrities criticized his decision to sign the anti-abortion heartbeat bill into law. Abortion rights activists had threatened to protest the May 22 event, and Georgia film executives were worried that tepid turnout and no-shows from studio chiefs could do lasting damage to the states movie-making business. You have to appreciate that the film industry is a really big deal in Georgia, having an estimated $9.5 billion economic impact in fiscal year 2017, when 320 movie and television productions were shot in the state. So Kemp is caught in a dilemma involving two causes dear to the hearts of the conservatives of his state: ending legal abortion and making a quick buck. But longtime Christian-right stalwart Jim Beck is in more immediate trouble, the AJC reports: Georgia Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck was accused Tuesday by a federal grand jury of stealing more than $2 million from his former employer. The 38-count indictment charges Beck, an ex-insurance lobbyist and long-time leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition, with fraud and money laundering in an elaborate scheme to defraud the Georgia Underwriting Association. With the stolen cash, the Republican allegedly paid his credit card bills and taxes and even funded the 2018 campaign that landed him in office. Becks, whose lawyers said he denies the charges, is expected to surrender to U.S. Marshals on Wednesday in downtown Atlanta, said U.S. Attorney Byung J. BJay Pak. This is an additional headache for Kemp, because under Georgia law he must decide whether an elected official under indictment should be suspended from office: Under state law, if Beck doesnt resign or ask to be suspended, the governor can act after a 14-day waiting period if he determines the charges relate to the performance of his duties as commissioner. The governor would appoint a three-person commission to look into the charges. If they believe the charges relate to his duties, the governor must suspend the official and name a temporary replacement. Gov. Brian Kemp didnt immediately comment Tuesday on what hell do. He may have been praying to his angry God for guidance. Photo: Felix Mooneeram/Unsplash If you're a theater fan, mark your calendars: there's plenty to do when it comes to stage performances in New York City this week, from a rap musical about climate change to a play about comedian Lenny Bruce. 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. Baba Brinkman's 'Rap Guide to Climate Chaos' From the event description: Canadian tree-planter-turned-rap-artist Baba Brinkman breaks down the science and politics of global warming, tracking its surprising twists from the carbon cycle to the energy economy. "Climate Chaos" confronts both the scale of the challenge and also the failings of human psychology that make it such an easy problem to ignore. When: Tuesday, May 14, 7 p.m. Where: Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam St. Price: Free-$19.50 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'The Prom' From the event description: Everyones invited to this new musical comedy about big Broadway stars, a small town and a love that unites them all. When: Wednesday, May 15, 8 p.m. Where: Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th St. Price: $49-$89 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'Accidentally Brave' From the event description: A courageous true story of perseverance and hope comes to the DR2 Theatre in its off-Broadway premiere. Written and performed by film, TV and Broadway actress Maddie Corman, "Accidentally Brave" inspires and amuses with its heartfelt story of Corman's struggle to find a new normal after an unthinkable incident tests her marriage, family and values. When: Wednesday, May 15, 7:30 p.m. Where: DR2 Theatre, 103 E. 15th St. Price: $45 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets 'Im Not a Comedian Im Lenny Bruce' From the event description: "Im Not a Comedian Im Lenny Bruce" is a look at the life and battles of comedian Lenny Bruce. It not only draws from his many court battles championing the freedom of speech but also includes many of Bruce's original comedic bits and insights from his own writings. When: Friday, May 17, 8 p.m. Where: The Box, 189 Chrystie St. Price: $29 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Theta Labs the team behind the decentralised video protocol Theta recently closed a round of strategic funding led by Samsung NEXT and Blockchain and is now fully funded until 2021, according to Forbes. The Theta Network enables users to share excess bandwidth while watching streams to help reduce the overall cost of video streaming for all participants in exchange for token rewards. Forbes estimates that each Theta Network user has the potential to earn roughly $16 per month by participating, which is enough to cover the cost of the average subscription to a streamer on a streaming platform. The Theta Network mainnet launch occurred on March 15 2019 processing more than 2.7 million on-chain transactions in just 10 days. Each of these transactions represent approximately 60 video segment micropayments. Mitch Liu, CEO of Theta, told Forbes: We hit a major milestone on March 15 with the successful launch of the Theta blockchain, along with the native tokens THETA and TFUEL. For the remainder of 2019 and beyond, key deliverables include the first production version of Theta in set-top boxes and smart TVs, support for smart contracts on the Theta blockchain, and the launch of community-operated nodes to decentralise governance of the Theta protocol. Alongside Samsung NEXT and Blockchain, Uphonest Capital, Wei Fund, Igen Fusion Capital, and other private investors also contributed to Theta Labs strategic funding round. Theta Labs is now fully funded until 2021 with plans to open offices in Seoul, Singapore, and London to invest globally in media partner adoption. Mitch Liu states: Weve been working with Samsung NEXT and Blockchain for some time now, and with this new funding round we look forward to align strategic interests and invest in the Theta projects success. Interested in reading more about the Theta Network? Discover more about Sliver.tv, Theta, and the vision of tokenised bandwidth sharing with our introduction on the topic. The post Theta Labs has received funding from Samsung NEXT and Blockchain appeared first on Coin Rivet. Isaac Kappy (Credit: Getty) An actor who has appeared in movies like Thor in 2011 and Terminator: Salvation, has died after jumping from a motorway bridge, after which he was hit by a car. Police confirmed that 42-year-old Isaac Kappy jumped from the bridge over the Interstate 40 in Bellmont, Arizona. TMZ reports that 'several bystanders tried physically restraining [him] from jumping but failed to hold him'. He died at the scene. Read more: Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew dies A spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Public Safety told People: On May 13, 2019 at 7.26am, troopers were called to Interstate 40 eastbound at Transwestern Road for a subject who forced himself off the Transwestern Road bridge onto Interstate 40. He was then struck by a passing car. The man has been identified as 42-year-old Issac Kappy of Albuquerque, NM. The spokesperson added that the incident was being investigated as a suicide. Kappy played the pet store clerk in 2011's Thor with Chris Hemsworth, and also had roles in Terminator: Salvation, Channing Tatum rom-com 10 Years and US comedian Rachel Dratch's show Late Night Snack. In a lengthy and rambling post to Instagram two days ago, he admitted to having been 'a pretty bad guy throughout my life'. I have betrayed MANY people and much trust. I have sold drugs. I have tax delinquencies. I have debts, he said. I have abused my body with cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Read more: Doris Day dies at 97 I have been abusive to people WHO LOVED ME, including my family. Earlier this week, I committed an act so flippantly without thought that will become synonymous with short sightedness and petty, vile greed, and in the end, has cost me everything. This lesson has come too late for me, but perhaps it can inspire you. I will be using the remainder of my time on earth to atone for my transgressions, and to seek the light within, in others and myself. Kappy hit headlines in an incident last year when he allegedly assaulted Michael Jackson's daughter Paris, choking her at a party. Jackson, a former friend, hired security and moved out of her home after becoming concerned about Kappy's behaviour. If youve been affected by this story and want to talk to someone, you can call the Samaritans free on 116 123 or at jo@samaritans.org Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, it's worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But even the best stock picker will only win with some selections. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Genting Singapore Limited (SGX:G13), since the last five years saw the share price fall 32%. And we doubt long term believers are the only worried holders, since the stock price has declined 31% over the last twelve months. Furthermore, it's down 18% in about a quarter. That's not much fun for holders. This could be related to the recent financial results - you can catch up on the most recent data by reading our company report. See our latest analysis for Genting Singapore While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time. While the share price declined over five years, Genting Singapore actually managed to increase EPS by an average of 1.5% per year. So it doesn't seem like EPS is a great guide to understanding how the market is valuing the stock. Alternatively, growth expectations may have been unreasonable in the past. Based on these numbers, we'd venture that the market may have been over-optimistic about forecast growth, half a decade ago. Looking to other metrics might better explain the share price change. It could be that the revenue decline of 3.9% per year is viewed as evidence that Genting Singapore is shrinking. This has probably encouraged some shareholders to sell down the stock. Depicted in the graphic below, you'll see revenue and earnings over time. If you want more detail, you can click on the chart itself. Story continues SGX:G13 Income Statement, May 15th 2019 Genting Singapore 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. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Genting Singapore's TSR for the last 5 years was -24%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! A Different Perspective We regret to report that Genting Singapore shareholders are down 29% for the year (even including dividends). Unfortunately, that's worse than the broader market decline of 4.7%. 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 5.3% over the last half decade. Generally speaking long term share price weakness can be a bad sign, though contrarian investors might want to research the stock in hope of a turnaround. Before spending more time on Genting Singapore it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares. We will like Genting Singapore better if we see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on SG 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. Senator Pat Toomey broke with President Trump Wednesday, calling the administrations plan to give U.S. farmers $15 billion in aid to offset the deleterious effects of the trade battle with China very bad policy. Its a very bad policy, Toomey, a top member of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters. Think about what were doing. Were inviting this retaliation that denies our farmers, the most productive farmers on the planet, the opportunity to sell their products overseas and then we say, Dont worry, well have taxpayers send you some checks and make it OK. Thats a very bad approach. The White House raised tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from 10 to 25 percent on Friday, after accusing the worlds second-largest economy of reneging on the terms of a trade deal they had previously agreed to. China retaliated by raising tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow admitted Sunday that both sides will pay in these things, referring to the tit-for-tat tariff battle with China. Tariffs are not in and of themselves a good thing. Tariffs at best can be a tool that might produce good results. But they are themselves dangerous and a painful tool that hits both the country against which the tariffs are being imposed and the country that is doing the imposition, Toomey said. I think the recent developments with China are illustrating this. Its certainly true that tariffs on Chinese products can be painful for parts of China, although, oddly, so far Chinese imports to the U.S. have not declined, American exports to China have declined and our trade deficit with China has worsened despite these tariffs. The Pennsylvania Republican added that the jury is still out on whether an acceptable trade deal with China will materialize, and said that he has spoken directly to the president about his objections to no avail. The president doesnt agree with my macro view on trade, its fair to say, he admitted. More from National Review Photo: Stephen Cook/Unsplash Here's what you need to know about what's happening in Atlanta. Instead of Bar Mitzvah gift, Atlanta boy asks for donations to fight rare disease Natanel Gold is raising money to support research for Mucolipidosis Type IV, in honor of his sister who is battling the neurological disease. Read the full story on 11ALIVE. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta patients get primped for prom The patients at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta have all faced fears and been through a lot. It's why a special prom for the patients exists. Read the full story on 11ALIVE. Verify: Are Atlanta's new scooter laws being enforced? Complaints on social media question whether e-scooter riders are following the new rules. Read the full story on 11ALIVE. Atlanta-area teens sentenced for plot to attack high school ATLANTA (AP) - Two teens who admitted to planning a deadly attack on their high school outside Atlanta have been sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by 20 years of probation. Read the full story on MySanAntonio. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Photo: James Willamor/Flickr Missed the the most recent top news in Charlotte? Read on for everything you need to know. UNC Charlotte victim takes his first steps 2 weeks after deadly shooting Drew Pescaro, part of the UNCC class of 2021, was in the classroom when the suspect opened fire. Read the full story on WCNC. Brewery offered free beer as reward for finding stolen van. It was back in 42 minutes. - CharlotteFive The Unknown Brewing Co. in Charlotte may have set a record this week for the recovery of a stolen vehicle after offering a keg party to whoever found it. Read the full story on CharlotteFive. Mom claims 10-year-old daughter bullied, assaulted at school Charlotte mom says 10-year-old daughter assaulted at school. Read the full story on Spectrum News North Carolina. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Photo: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images On Tuesday, the state Senate in Alabama passed the most restrictive abortion bill in the nation. It is a near-total ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The legislation passed by 25 men in a state Senate featuring just three women criminalizes the procedure for doctors, who would be charged with a felony and up to 99 years in prison. Physicians would also face a ten-year sentence for attempting to perform an abortion. Women who seek out the procedure would not be prosecuted under the bill. Immediately upon its passage, Democrats and abortion rights advocates condemned Alabaman lawmakers. Today is a dark day for women in Alabama and across this country, said Staci Fox, the head of Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates. Banning abortion is bad enough. Imprisoning doctors for providing care goes beyond the brink. Alabama politicians will forever live in infamy for this vote and we will make sure that every woman knows who to hold accountable. Here are some of the responses: BREAKING: Alabama's legislature just passed a law that criminalizes doctors and makes abortion illegal. Abortion is NOT a crime it's a constitutional right. We will sue to stop this law from ever taking effect. ACLU (@ACLU) May 15, 2019 The fight for abortion rights in Alabama is NOT over, and this legislation is NOT yet in effect. We're partnering with @YellowFund to fund safe abortion care across Alabama, and we need your help now: https://t.co/y64fzVgg4G NARAL (@NARAL) May 15, 2019 This is the most extreme and dangerous policy since Roe vs. Wade, banning abortion at any point in pregnancy going so far as to threaten doctors with life-in-prison. Doctors and public health leaders agree: the cost will be womens lives. https://t.co/qcC8VtoAnu Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) May 15, 2019 In a state that has some of the worst health outcomes for women in the nation such as the highest rate of cervical cancer Alabama is putting womens lives at an even greater risk. Our full statement: pic.twitter.com/VJfNiJCOQv Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) May 15, 2019 The GOP made an intentional long term investment in winning state legislatures so they could do exactly what theyve done in GA and AL. This was no accident. Undoing the damage will take time, resources, &, tbh, giving a shit about races beyond the presidency. https://t.co/2Yat7RDh6f Amanda Litman (@amandalitman) May 15, 2019 There is no state in the country where support for banning abortion reaches even 25 percent. (Data for Progress analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies) pic.twitter.com/lrOxU0eNaz Data for Progress (@DataProgress) May 15, 2019 The Alabama abortion ban is not just about outlawing the health care procedure from the moment of conception, endangering doctors, challenging Roe v. Wade, or policing womens bodies. The ban will also put a lot more black women in prison than anyone else. https://t.co/rG2rYhIYvL Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) May 15, 2019 This ban is dangerous and exceptionally crueland the bills authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade. I've lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going backnot now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win. https://t.co/WNlr7Ys73q Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 15, 2019 Womens rights are under attack. This relentless and cruel Republican assault on womens health is designed to force a court battle to destroy Roe v. Wade. Democrats will be ready to defend health care and womens reproductive freedom. Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) May 15, 2019 Alabama just passed a near-total ban on abortion. No exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors could face 99 years in prison for providing abortions. This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell. https://t.co/lhwlbyeQsl Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) May 15, 2019 Outrageous news coming out of Alabama. This law would effectively ban abortions in the state and criminalize doctors for doing their jobs - providing health care to women. https://t.co/90utkxn7J2 Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 15, 2019 What Alabama is doing is blatantly unconstitutional and disrespects the fundamental right a woman has to make decisions about her own body. I say to Gov. Ivey: Veto this cruel bill. Stop the attack on womens rights. https://t.co/yByOIyJ6XL Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 15, 2019 The bill will now head to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who is expected to sign it into law. From there, the path forward is uncertain: Even supporters of the bill do not expect it to survive the review of a lower court. But thats more or less the point. The architect of the bill, founder of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition Eric Johnston, wants to give the conservative-leaning Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade. According to the New York Times, Johnston hopes that his bill will find itself in front of the Court instead of one of the six-week abortion bans that passed in Georgia, Mississippi, or Ohio, so that if the Alabama bill is upheld, it would represent an all-but-complete overturn of Roe. Why not go all the way? Johnston asked. Photo: iStock Read on for the most recent top news you may have missed in Detroit. ATV, dirt bike riders pop wheelies during rush hour traffic on Detroit's east side More than a dozen people riding on all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes zoomed through rush hour traffic on Detroit's east side Tuesday between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. Read the full story on ClickOnDetroit. Detroit man to spend at least 27 years in prison for killing his wife, mother of 5 Gregory McQueen pleaded guilty to Alisha McQueen, a missing Detroit mother of five. Read the full story on ClickOnDetroit. Detroit Sound Conservancy works to restore iconic jazz club Blue Bird Inn If the walls at The Blue Bird Inn could talk, they'd have some incredible stories to tell. Read the full story on WDIV Detroit. Woman killed, 2 men hurt when gunman opens fire on Detroit's east side, police say Police said three people were sitting inside a car in a driveway on Detroit's east side when someone pulled up and started firing shots. Read the full story on ClickOnDetroit. Man flees scene after double fatal high-speed crash on Detroit's west side A man fled the scene after a fatal high-speed crash at Coyle Street and 7 Mile Road on Detroit's west side Tuesday evening. Read the full story on WDIV Detroit. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Here's the most recent top news you may have missed in Fresno. Authorities want help identifying 2 suspects, 3 vehicles in 'Home of Hope' burglary Authorities are asking for help identifying three vehicles and two suspects in the Home of Hope burglary last week, the Fresno Police Department said Tuesday. Read the full story on CBS47 Fresno. I told you I was going to kill you. California man describes sisters grisly death A Fresno, California, man will stand trial for the alleged stabbing death of his ex-girlfriend. The man is accused of stabbing his ex-girlfriend 10 times in 2017. He was arrested and waits to be arraigned. Read the full story on The Modesto Bee. Fresno Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula admits harshest ever discipline, denies abuse Fresno Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula says he only used physical discipline on his daughter one time - the night before police arrested him for misdemeanor child abuse. Read the full story on ABC Fresno, KFSN. Man severely burns one-third of his body while working on car in East Central Fresno Firefighters say the man was welding when a fuel can fell sparking an explosion. Read the full story on ABC Fresno, KFSN. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Photo: Chris Dickey/Flickr Missed the the most recent top news in Jacksonville? Read on for everything you need to know. DeFoor wins closest race in Jacksonville City Council runoffs All 199 precincts in Duval County open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today as voters finish the job they started in March: electing who will represent them on the City Council for the next four years. Read the full story on News 4 JAX. Jacksonville council accepts donated property The Jacksonville City Council voted Monday to accept the donation of a downtown parking lot from U.S. Bank. Mayor Andy Ezard expects the lot to join the ranks of city-owned properties that will go on an inventory the city is planning to publish in the coming months. Read the full story on MySanAntonio. Woods fire burning near NAS Jacksonville A fire was burning Tuesday afternoon in a wooded area near the Tillie Fowler Park, across from Naval Air Station Jacksonville, according to the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. Read the full story on News 4 JAX. Poll: Jacksonville Beach voters want short-term rentals regulated A poll of registered voters at Jacksonville Beach found a majority of beach residents want various regulations on short-term vacation rentals, according to the University of North Florida's Public Opinion Research Lab. Read the full story on News 4 JAX. Police: Suspect caught on camera stealing from Pier 1 Imports in Jacksonville Beach Surveillance cameras captured the suspect entering the store and heading to the backroom where he took personal items from the employees' lockers, police said. Read the full story on FIRST COAST NEWS. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Missed the the most recent top news in Minneapolis? Read on for everything you need to know. Minneapolis Police holding precinct open houses The community will be able to tour the police stations and meet officers. Read the full story on KARE11. Minneapolis Police: Man critical after Lowry Avenue shooting Minneapolis police say a man is in critical condition after being shot Tuesday night. Read the full story on CBS Minnesota. Minneapolis wins the Bronze for Americas fittest city St. Paul ranked in the top 10 as well, coming in behind Washington, D.C. to place seventh overall. Read the full story on CBS Minnesota. NEW: Immigrant from Ecuador wants U.S. deportation case reopened, 25 years later MINNEAPOLIS (AP) An attorney for an Ecuadorian man who was arrested in Minneapolis and ordered deported from the U.S. 25 years ago will go to court Tuesday to ask that his case be reopened. Read the full story on Yahoo News. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. Here's what you need to know about what's happening in Pittsburgh. Nine candidates vie for Pittsburgh Board of Education seats Candidates running for a seat on the Pittsburgh Public Schools board have spent the last few months knocking on doors, handing out signs and seeking Read the full story on WESA. Trial begins for ex-Pittsburgh cop accused of cover-up for fellow officer Kaelen OConnor is accused of trying to cover-up a probe of fellow Officer Robert Kramer in an alleged road rage incident in 2017. Read the full story on Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburghers travel to Harrisburg in attempt to sway lawmakers on UPMC-Highmark dispute Pittsburgh-area patients traveled to Harrisburg Tuesday, hoping for legislation that would compel UPMC and Highmark to work together. Read the full story on CBS Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Steelers want to build new sign at Heinz Field The Pittsburgh Steelers are looking to build a new sign at Heinz Field out of seats. Read the full story on CBS Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh School Board considering reconfiguration of Milliones 6-12 The Pittsburgh School Board is considering a proposal for the reconfiguration of a school in the Hill District. Read the full story on CBS Pittsburgh. This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. By Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters) - China will only be more open to the world, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, as he denounced as "stupid" those who believe in cultural superiority, in his first public address since trade tension with the United States spiked last week. China and the United States are locked in an escalating trade war, with both levying tariffs on each other's imports. Just before Xi spoke, the government reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April. China on Monday announced higher tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, effective on June 1, in retaliation for a U.S. decision on Friday to raise levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Xi was addressing a forum in Beijing organised by the propaganda ministry, called the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations. He made no direct reference to the trade tension nor to the United States, focusing instead on presenting China as a non-threatening country open to all. Chinese civilisation was an "open system" that had continuously had exchanges and learned from other cultures, including Buddhism, Marxism and Islam, Xi told the forum. "Today's China is not only China's China. It is Asia's China and the world's China. China in the future will take on an even more open stance to embrace the world," he added. No country could stand alone, Xi said, perhaps taking an indirect swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy. "Civilizations will lose vitality if countries go back to isolation and cut themselves off from the rest of the world," Xi said. "The people of Asian countries hope to distance themselves from being closed, and hope that all countries will adhere to the spirit of openness and promote policy communication, connectivity and smooth trade." SUSPICION China has been particularly upset by comments reported in the U.S. media last month by a State Department official who said the United States was involved in "a fight with a really different civilisation" when it came to China. Story continues Xi told the forum that civilisations were not destined to clash. "It is stupid to believe that one's race and civilisation are superior to others, and it is disastrous to wilfully reshape or even replace other civilisations." Xi offered no new concrete measures to open China up, aside from proposing an Asia tourism promotion plan, and even on that he gave no details. Officials have billed the forum as part of a soft power push to put a gentler face on China's growing might, though it only attracted a handful of foreign leaders to the opening session, at which Xi spoke, including the presidents of Greece, Sri Lanka and Singapore. China has faced opposition to some of its global ambitions, mainly in the West but especially in the United States, where there has been suspicion of Chinese technology, Xi's Belt and Road Initiative to re-create the Old Silk Road, and government-run Confucius Institutes to teach the Chinese language. China has also faced criticism for its tight cyber controls - though forum organisers unblocked the internet for foreign media - and for a controversial re-education campaign for Muslims in its far Western region of Xinjiang. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel) Washington (AFP) - A US farmer in his 60s whose leg was horrifically sucked into a corn hopper sawed off the limb with a pocket knife to save his life. Kurt Kaser, 63, a life-long farmer in the central state of Nebraska, said he was working alone last month when he got out of his truck and mistakenly stepped into "that little hole" of the hopper. "It just sucked my leg in and I was trying to pull it out, and it kept pulling," he told the local ABC affiliate in Omaha, KETV. "I about gave up once and just said the heck with it... and then I felt it jerk me again. I thought, well, I was going in," Kaser added. He realized that his only option was to "cut it off" using the small knife in his pocket. "So I just started sawing on it," he said, matter-of-factly. After performing the grisly life-saving task, Kaser crawled to his house to phone for help, reports said. The first to arrive was his son Adam, who happens to be a member of the local rescue squad, the Omaha World-Herald reported early Wednesday. After a week in hospital and two more in rehabilitation, Kaser was back home last Friday, optimistic that he will be walking normally again, the newspaper said. - 'In a hurry' - "I was in a hurry and didn't pay attention," he said, hoping his story can serve as a warning to other farmers. Local media showed images of Kaser in a wheelchair, his bandaged left leg amputated below the knee. The incident -- shared widely on social media -- prompted comparisons by moviegoers with Danny Boyle's 2010 film "127 Hours," in which James Franco plays real-life adventurer Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm after being trapped in a canyon for five days. "Reminiscent of Aron Ralston. What a horrifying ordeal to have to go through," tweeted Ron Terrell, a morning news anchor for Oklahoma-based Fox 23. "Between 127 Hours and this story, I am going to start carrying a hacksaw," one Twitter user observed. Over on Facebook, Mike Walker, owner of Missouri-based Black Sky Radio, thought the drama was more reminiscent of horror film "Saw," an even more grisly take on self-amputation. "I think I would have attempted to break every bit of whatever had me gorilla style before I went all 'Saw' on my parts," he posted. By Humeyra Pamuk and Chris Prentice WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The Trump administration's second package of aid for U.S. farmers hit by the trade war with China is expected to have a similar structure to last year's program, using direct payments and commodity purchases, industry sources briefed on the plan said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is still finalizing the plan, which is likely to prioritize hog and soybean farmers, the products most affected by the trade dispute between China and the United States. The world's two largest economies have been embroiled in a 10-month trade war that has cost billions, roiled global supply chains and rattled financial markets. American farmers, who helped carry President Donald Trump to his surprise 2016 election win, have been among the hardest hit. The USDA in 2018 pledged up to $12 billion in aid to farmers to help offset their crop losses and has to date paid $8.52 billion. Trump has said the next round of aid could reach $15 billion. The United States hiked tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods last Friday, escalating the trade dispute as the latest round of talks in Washington to resolve it ended with no progress. Beijing responded with retaliatory tariffs, and the escalation may not be over. Earlier this week soybean prices fell to their lowest in a decade, while benchmark cotton futures dropped to a three-year low. One industry source briefed on the plan said it was likely to feature a purchasing and direct payments program through USDAs Commodity Credit Corporation, a Depression-era program created to support farm income, rather than going through Congress to approve the funds. "This package seems to be driven much more by what's going in with China," one of the sources said. "Therefore you might see the payment rates or the percentage rate that each commodity could get quite a bit different," he said. The USDA did not respond to requests for comment. Story continues 'FAST-TRACK' While the White House had discussions about another round of aid, no plan was in the works at USDA until last week when Trump announced the second package, one of the sources said, adding that soybean and pork producers were likely to be prioritized. Kirk Leeds, chief executive of the Iowa Soybean Association, said the USDA had contacted it and other farm groups for suggestions on a new package last week. "The program they had before made a lot of sense, Leeds said. "My anticipation is it'll look very similar to the payments that we had before." The Trump administration wants any trade deal with China to include purchases of more than $1.2 trillion worth of American products, including agricultural commodities and industrial goods. The countries appeared on track for an agreement before relations soured earlier this month. Sources said Beijing had backtracked on a series of commitments, prompting the United States to implement a previously delayed hike in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. The "dynamic changed suddenly," a second source said, noting that USDA officials were racing to put something together. Prolonged economic pain across the American farm belt could complicate Trumps re-election efforts. Farmers have been key supporters of the president, even as his actions on U.S. trade policy have sunk key crop prices. One of the sources said an announcement was likely to come next week. Ted McKinney, the USDA's undersecretary for trade, told a gathering of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting on Tuesday the new package would be ready in days, "not weeks or months," industry publication Agri-Pulse reported. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Chris Prentice; Additional reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Tom Brown) Donald Trump stepped up his battle against Huawei Wednesday, effectively barring the Chinese telecom giant from the US market and adding it to a blacklist restricting US sales to the firm amid an escalating trade war with Beijing. An executive order signed by the president prohibits purchase or use of equipment from companies that pose "an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons." "This administration will do what it takes to keep America safe and prosperous and to protect America from foreign adversaries," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. A senior White House official insisted that no particular country or company was targeted in the "company- and country-agnostic" declaration. However, the measure -- announced just as a US-China trade war deepens -- is widely seen as prompted by already deep concerns over an alleged spying threat from Huawei. "Restricting Huawei from doing business in the US will not make the US more secure or stronger; instead, this will only serve to limit the US to inferior yet more expensive alternatives," Huawei said in a statement. "In addition, unreasonable restrictions will infringe upon Huawei's rights and raise other serious legal issues," it said. The Commerce Department followed up with a more direct hit on the tech giant, adding it to a blacklist that will make it much harder for the firm to use crucial US components in its array of phones, telecom gear, databases and other electronics. Canada has also been dragged into the spat as it arrested a Huawei executive on a US extradition warrant related to Iran sanctions violations in December. In what is seen as retaliation from Beijing, a former Canadian diplomat, Michael Kovrig, and a businessman, Michael Spavor, were detained on national security grounds, with Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reporting Thursday that they have now been formally arrested. Story continues - 'RIP Huawei' - Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said it would add Huawei and its affiliates to its "entity list" over alleged Iran sanctions violations. The listing requires US firms to get a license from BIS for the sale or transfer of American technology to a company or person on the list. "A license may be denied if the sale or transfer would harm US national security or foreign policy interests," a Commerce Department statement said. "This will prevent American technology from being used by foreign-owned entities in ways that potentially undermine US national security or foreign policy interests," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. US Senator Tom Cotton, from Trump's Republican Party, tweeted: "@Huawei 5G, RIP. Thanks for playing." Huawei did not immediately comment on the blacklisting. US officials have been trying to persuade allies not to allow China a role in building next-generation 5G mobile networks, warning that doing so would result in restrictions on sharing of information with the United States. US government agencies are already banned from buying equipment from Huawei, a rapidly expanding leader in the 5G technology. Beijing was already furious about US moves to limit use of equipment from Chinese firms including Huawei and another company ZTE. "For some time, the United States has abused its national power to deliberately discredit and suppress by any means specific Chinese enterprises, which is neither honorable nor fair," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said ahead of Trump's executive order. "We urge the US side to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese enterprises on the pretext of national security and to provide a fair and non-discriminatory environment," the spokesman said. - Trojan horse - The US portrayal of Huawei as a national security danger dovetails with Washington's wider complaint that Chinese companies are unfairly protected by the state, making fair trade impossible. The move also threatens to further flare trade tensions just days after the US more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports, which was met with a retaliation in kind by Beijing. Washington and some European allies fear that Chinese economic expansion, particularly in the Belt and Road global infrastructure program, is part of a bid for geopolitical dominance. Amid those worries, Huawei is portrayed as a Trojan horse that could leverage its ultra-rapid telecoms technology into a Chinese government spy network reaching deep into American society and business fields. "Chinese telecom companies like Huawei effectively serve as an intelligence-gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party," Senator Cotton said after Trump's emergency declaration. "The administration is right to restrict the use of their products." So far, the US campaign to lobby other countries to turn their backs on Huawei has had mixed results. Even Britain, one of Washington's closest allies, is mired in debate over whether to follow the US lead or allow Huawei to develop the 5G networks. On Tuesday, the chairman of the company, Liang Hua, visited London to insist that Huawei will "commit ourselves, to commit our equipment to meeting the no-spy, no back-door standards." The oh-so-respectable Mitt Romney embraced some seriously extremist positions in 2012. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images One of the latent questions in American politics for both parties is whether Donald J. Trump is some sort of horror-movie version of a unicorn, who after this term, and perhaps another one, will retreat to Mar-a-Lago, leaving the Republican Party and the United States scarred but not fundamentally changed. For obvious reasons, Republicans dont discuss this view of their own future very openly, lest their master resent the suggestion that hes a man whose moment is rapidly slipping away. You hear the subject discussed more among Democrats, particularly those who are running for president to consign Trump to the ash bin of history. Joe Biden, for example, has made it clear he considers the 45th president an aberration, whose evil spell over Republicans will dissipate once hes out of office. But Trumps undoubtedly strange and outlandish personality should not make us forget that the party he took by force in 2016 was already exhibiting an alarming extremism on multiple issues. Heres Barack Obama being hopeful about Republicans in 2012: President Obama told supporters that he expected the gridlock to end after the election, when Republicans can stop worrying about voting him out of office. My expectation is that if we can break this fever, that we can invest in clean energy and energy efficiency because thats not a partisan issue, Obama said, speaking to supporters in Minneapolis. Obama pointed to deficit reduction, a transportation bill, and immigration reform as initiatives that could well pass in November. None of that happened, of course. And instead of getting over their fever of policy extremism and tactical obstructionism, what did Republicans do? They nominated Donald Trump as their next presidential candidate. Yes, there were more moderate strains in the GOP pre-Trump that have largely been silenced since his election. But its important to remember that such sensible-sounding themes (like the inclusiveness urged upon the party in the famously rejected 2013 autopsy report) were mostly tactical cosmetics designed to give a lighter touch to a political machine devoted to radical policy goals: the demolition of the New Deal and Great Society programs; the re-criminalization of abortion; the reversal of progress toward treating LGBTQ people as equals; stuffing as much money into a bloated Pentagon as possible; all but outlawing unions and collective bargaining; and restricting the franchise. Mitt Romney, one of the GOPs most respectable figures, advocated immigration policies arguably to the right of Trumps in his pursuit of the 2012 presidential nomination. He also endorsed the Ryan budgets (reflecting the partys hard-core commitment to entitlement reform and an end to decades of anti-poverty measures), and supported the cut, cap, balance pledge to permanently shrink the size of the federal government. And most famously, he embraced one of the foundational myths of conservative extremism in his remarks that the votes of 47 percent of Americans had been corruptly bought by welfare-state benefits, thus implicitly making those votes illegitimate. For the ninth consecutive time, the GOP platform on which Romney ran in 2012 called not just for the reversal of reproductive rights in Roe v. Wade but the constitutional enshrinement of fetal (even embryonic) rights in a Human Life Amendment that would ban states from allowing abortions from the moment of conception. All that was mainstream Republican policy pre-Trump. In the ever-more-militant conservative wing of the party, the big fashion in the early years of this decade was to call oneself a constitutional conservative. As I tried to explain at the time, this meant something genuinely alarming: I do worry that the still-emerging ideology of constitutional conservatism is something new and dangerous, at least in its growing respectability. Its always been there in the background, among the Birchers and in the Christian Right, and as as emotional and intellectual force within Movement Conservatism. It basically holds that a governing model of strictly limited (domestic) government that is at the same time devoted to the preservation of traditional culture is the only legitimate governing model for this country, now and forever, via the divinely inspired agency of the Founders. That means democratic elections, the will of the majority, the need to take collective action to meet big national challenges, the rights of women and minorities, the empirical data on what works and what doesnt all of those considerations and more are so much satanic or foreign delusions that can and must be swept aside in the pursuit of a Righteous and Exceptional America. A first cousin to, or perhaps just a corollary of, constitutional conservatism is the belief, which has spread rapidly through the GOP ranks, that the Second Amendment is the most important element of the Bill of Rights and includes an implicit right to armed revolution against tyranny, as defined by, well, constitutional conservatives. It wasnt Donald Trump who espoused that point of view during the 2016 Republican presidential nominating process, but his rivals Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Ben Carson. Constitutional conservatism has more or less been absorbed into America First Trumpism, but the way of thinking hasnt gone away as evidenced by Trumps tendency to disregard those aspects of the Constitution that dont suit his needs, while deifying those that do. When it comes to extremist goals like banning abortion entirely, or defending an absolutist view of gun rights, or sealing the borders, or making freedom of religion contingent upon its consistency with Judeo-Christian heritage, Trump is a louder champion of extremism, but hardly novel. And even where Trump has departed from hard-core conservative orthodoxy, he seems to have coarsened it more than anything else, viz the open pro-corporate mercantilism of his trade policy, and the supposed non-interventionism that is accompanied by constant threats of military violence. Yes, there are long-term demographic trends that could make Republican extremism no longer practicable, but you have to figure the GOP will have to lose a few more presidential elections before that lesson sinks in; extremism does, if nothing else, help mobilize the party base and attract highly motivated donors. For every Democrat baffled by Trumps win in 2016, theres a Republican who believes the formula will work forever. For the legions of younger Republicans who have probably never met a genuinely moderate GOP leader in their lives, the fever could be especially persistent. Practical politics aside, progressives need to take seriously the possibility that their counterparts on the right feel just as passionately about fetal life, the alleged threat of immigrants to civilization, and the decline of religious affiliation and 1950s-style patriarchal family values as those on the left feel about climate change or equality. Those who doubt the staying power of conservative extremism beyond its relationship to Trump should take another look at Michael Antons 2016 essay arguing that the condition of liberal-dominated American society is so catastrophically dire that voting for Trump is a survival impulse like that of the terrorism victims who stormed the cockpit of United Flight 93 on 9/11. Trumps 2016 victory was in no small part the product of that brand of extremism, not its cause. Its fine for Democrats to appeal to the tiny band of remaining swing voters by arguing that Donald Trump is an outlier who, despite his aggressive Americanism, finds his closest spiritual allies in menacing overseas figures like Hungarys Viktor Orban, Brazils Jair Bolsonaro, the Philippiness Rodrigo Duterte, and of course, Russias Vladimir Putin. But they should not embrace the illusion that once Trump or his sycophantic subordinate Mike Pence is gone, politics will return to normal. The GOP hasnt been normal for a good while. Akos Stiller/Bloomberg/Getty SIBIU, RomaniaEuropean leaders met last Thursday in this picturesque town that, as it happens, was once the capital of Transylvania. They were looking for ways to fight increasingly authoritarian leaders and parties in the European Union that are sucking the life blood out of democracy. In contrast, U.S. President Donald J. Trump embraced one of those leaders at the White House on Monday, praising Hungarys Prime Minister Viktor Orban, even as he has been censured by fellow European politicians. You've done a good job and you've kept your country safe, Trump said during a photo op with Orban at the White House. You have been great with respect to Christian communities. You have really put a block up, and we appreciate that very much. To Europeans, that sounds like praise for Orbans xenophobic, anti-Muslim-immigrant policiesthe very ones for which theyve censured him. Romanians, and other Europeans who came to this city for an informal summit of E.U. leaders told me they keep hoping the media reports on Trump are exaggerated, that his anti-E.U. tweets and threats of sanctions, and his continued embrace of authoritarian leaders is just part of his negotiating style. They continue to hope that the Trump administration will be there for them to fend off Russian aggression and protect the E.U.s way of doing business: respecting the rule of law; human rights; religious and press freedom. Trumps praise of Orban flies in the face of all of that. Orban has railed against immigrants, gutted his countrys laws by creating an alternate judicial system, and strangled press freedom, to the extent that one of the most powerful political groupings in the European Parliament suspended his party, Fidesz, from its ranks. His administration provoked the E.U. by publishing billboards attacking European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for urging E.U. members to take in refugees. The cartoon portrayed him as a puppet controlled by philanthropist George Soros, which also played on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Billionaire Soros, originally from Hungary, is Jewish. Story continues The E.U. gathering in Sibiu was meant in part to send a message to Orban and his ilk that the E.U. would find ways to bring them back in line, or would sanction them for moves to gut their own laws to give leaders more control over their people. French President Emmanuel Macron, a fierce E.U. proponent, told the leaders that Europeans in the coming parliamentary election would be choosing to build Europe further or... to destroy, deconstruct Europe and return to nationalism. Climate, protection of borders and a model of growth, a social model... is what I really want for the coming years, he said at the one-day summit. France and eight other E.U. countries proposed getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Reuters reported. German Chancellor Angela Merkel demurred because of her countrys heavy industrialism, but France and Germany are in agreement when it comes to E.U. members who are dismantling democracy from within. The E.U. took the first step to recommend sanctions against Poland in 2017, then Hungary in 2018 for trying to tighten control on their populations, and Romania could be next, said Iulian Kifu, president of the Bucharest-based Center for Conflict Prevention and Early Warning, which held a side forum at the Sibiu summit. Orban has been pushing the limits of what the E.U. will tolerate, but has so far toed the line when the E.U. takes him to court and the court rules against his anti-democratic moves, Kifu said. The Hungarian has even dropped his pledge to bring illiberal democracy to Hungary after a stern talking to by German Chancellor Merkel. The problem is that it takes a unanimous EU vote to pass some of the strictest measures, lamented Leonard Orban, European affairs adviser to the Romanian president and no relation to the Hungarian leader. Some leaders find a way to stay in power, he said, referring obliquely to authoritarian excesses by Hungary and his own prime minister. Unfortunately the Union has no real instruments to deal with these kinds of cases, he said speaking at the Europes Future conference sponsored by the Romanian president, in cooperation with Kifus think tank. Still, Trumps invitation to Orban is seen as rewarding him for bad behavior and elevating his stature a scant two weeks ahead of European parliamentary elections that are seen as a test in the contest between traditional democratic values and populist demagoguery. The White House visit was payback for Orbans support of Trump during the 2016 campaigna reward apparently delayed by Orbans attacks on Soros and allegations of anti-Semitism. Trumps decision to welcome Romanias pro-E.U. President Klaus Iohannis back in 2017 was taken as a slap in Orbans face. (The Romanian president is not to be confused with the Romanian prime minister whose administration faces E.U. censure.) Other Romanian politicos claim Trumps invitation is really a shrewd move to draw Orban away from Moscows orbit, but thats a tall order given Hungarys energy dependence on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putins careful cultivation of autocrats. If you leave Mr. Orban in Russias hands, thats bad. You have to meet him, said Cristian Adomnitei, a member of the center-right National Liberal Party. Tell him again, cmon, did you forget who your friends are? Adomnitei says he hoped Trump would spend his private moments with Orban talking about the importance of the rule of law and press freedom. Thats a high hope for an American man who regularly uses his bully pulpit to rail at the media via tweets, speeches and interviews and is now locked in battle with Congress, precisely, over the rule of law. But politician-turned-entrepreneur Adomnitei still remembers the Republican Party that helped his country rebuild civil society after communism. He considers himself a sort of Romanian Republican, with MAGA-level loyalty to the Trump administration. He laments the fact that the International Republican Institute closed its offices in Bucharest, and says that events like Kifus in Sibiu are supported by what he considers more Democratic or left-leaning organizations. They need to come back, he said of Trumps party. For others here, though, the Republican Party wont rate for Europeans until it gets rid of Trump, and they insist his meeting with Orban will produce little political advantage for the Hungarian. Trump does not give you prestige, Kifu said. He is unpredictable, and bullies everybody, so they dislike him. Thats Europe. After Trumps embrace of Orban, he suggests, most of those leaders will like Trump even less. The International Republican Institute said its continuing to work with pro-democratic parties in Eastern Europe, but from a distance. Once both Bulgaria and Romania got into the union, it was a relatively easy for the U.S. government to say, mission accomplished.and democracy assistance kind of dried up for Eastern Europe, said IRIs senior director for transatlantic strategy Jan Surotchak Monday. But he said IRI is still reaching out to Romanian via offices in Bratislava and Vienna, including working with the Romanian president specifically on fighting corruption and increasing transparency and governance. But will any of this stop the autocratic trend? Right-wing populists, from Nigel Farages Brexit Party in Britain to Matteo Salvinis Lega, Marine Le Pen in France and other nationalists, are organizing to try to take over the European Parliament with the express intent of disrupting and diminishing the E.U. Was there too much optimism here in Sibiu? Perhaps its worth noting that in Transylvania, there is sometimes a tendency to relativize even the history of its most famous historical figure, Vlad Tepes, known as Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century prince at the heart of the Dracula legend. Yes, Vlad skewered people and left them hanging from stakes, but everybody in these parts used to do that, said Sibiu Deputy Mayor Razvan Pop as we took an impromptu tour of the medieval walled city. But Vlad didnt drink blood, said Pop. That was just a vicious rumor spread by people who didnt like his taxes and tariffs. The fact is, Vlad may not have drunk any blood, but for his victims that was a distinction without a difference. Editors note: This story was updated with comment from the International Republican Institute. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. By Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will outline on Thursday a plan to harden border security and overhaul the legal immigration system to favor applicants who speak English, are well-educated and have job offers, senior administration officials said. Trump's immigration proposal, the product largely of senior advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller and economic aide Kevin Hassett, is an effort to rally Republicans on an issue that has often divided them. While its chances of approval by Congress seem distant, the plan will give Republicans an outline they can say they favor as Trump and lawmakers look toward the November 2020 presidential and congressional elections, where immigration will likely be a key issue. For decades, U.S. immigration laws have given priority to family-based immigration, and about two-thirds of all people granted green cards each year have family ties to people in the United States. Trump's plan would keep legal immigration steady at 1.1 million people a year, but family-based immigration would account for only a third of that. Instead, high-skilled people with jobs would be given priority, and could bring with them their spouses and children, the officials told reporters at a White House briefing on Wednesday. It would harden the border by building more of Trump's coveted southern border wall and improve inspections of goods and people at ports of entry to fight drug smuggling. It would propose an increase in fees collected at the border to pay for border security infrastructure. "Our goal in the short term is to make sure that we are laying out what the president's policy is in terms of what he's looking for from immigration reform, and we would like to see if we could get the Republican Party to come together on these two pillars, which we think is a very, very logical, very mainstream point of view," said one official. Trump will present an overview of the plan, with details of the "very large document" to be released in coming weeks, the official said. SHIFT TO SKILLED WORKERS It does not address some of the hot-button issues in the immigration debate, such as what to do about the surge of people crossing the southern border from Mexico. Nor does it deal with the "Dreamer" children of immigrants in the country illegally or immigrants in the country under Temporary Protected Status, both of whom are priorities of Democratic lawmakers. The plan also does not include provisions to help farmers and other seasonal employers obtain more guest workers. Instead, Kushner and others looked at the legal migration systems of Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand for clues on how to shift U.S. policy more toward attracting skilled workers and less on uniting extended families. After studying the systems of the other countries, they found that 12% of migration to the United States was based on employment and skill, compared with 63% for Canada, 57% for New Zealand, 68% for Australia and 52% for Japan. By giving a preference to immigrants proficient in English and with degrees or training and job offers, the officials said the plan would allow 57% of green cards, which grant permanent legal residency, to be based on employment. Trump will propose ending the diversity lottery system, which offers applicants from countries with low immigration rates the chance to move to the United States. The plan also proposes changes to the asylum process, which the Trump administration says is abused. It would result in 10 percent of green cards being given to immigration for humanitarian reasons, down from 22 percent currently. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham proposed legislation on Wednesday to deal with the surge of migrants from Central America at the southern U.S. border, changes the administration officials described as needed to address the immediate crisis. (Reporting by Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney) By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to delay a decision on imposing tariffs on imported cars and parts by up to six months, three Trump administration officials told Reuters, , avoiding opening yet another front in his global trade battles. A formal announcement is expected by Saturday, the due date for Trump to make a decision on recommendations by the Commerce Department to protect the U.S. auto industry from imports on national security grounds, the officials said. A White House spokesman declined to comment. They added that the administration has drafted language to formally delay a decision on the tariffs that is due by May 18. Reuters reported last week that automakers expected Trump to delay the decision as trade negotiations get underway with the European Union and Japan. General Motors Co, Volkswagen AG, Toyota Motor Corp and others have warned of the damaging impacts of imposing tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported cars and parts. The White House has held a series of high-level meetings on the issue in recent days, and administration officials have repeatedly told automakers they planned to delay the decision. In February, the Commerce Department submitted its "Section 232" national security report to the White House. The agency was investigating whether imports harmed U.S. national security by weakening American automakers' ability to invest in future technologies. The Commerce Department's specific recommendations have not been revealed. A series of announcements by GM last week of $700 million in investments in three Ohio plants and efforts to sell the company's closed Lordstown plant had made Trump more inclined to delay the tariffs, administration officials told Reuters last week. At the same time, Trump has escalated his trade war with China, sharply increasing tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and launching public consultations on remaining Chinese imports of about $300 billion. The auto tariffs face wide opposition in Congress. The White House has refused to turn over the Commerce Department report to Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who has been demanding to see it. Last week, 159 House of Representatives members led by Ways and Means Committee Vice Chair Terri Sewell wrote White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow to urge him to advise Trump against imposing trade restrictions that could harm the auto sector and the American economy. The letter from 79 Democrats and 81 Republicans, which was seen by Reuters, warned that imposing tariffs on parts in cars may overlap with motorcycles, recreational vehicles, construction equipment, heavy-duty trucks, farming equipment, powersports vehicles, and others. Administration officials have said tariff threats on autos are a way to win concessions from Japan and the EU. Last year, Trump agreed not to impose tariffs as long as talks with the two trading partners were proceeding in a productive manner. The industry says tariffs of up to 25 percent on millions of imported cars and parts would add thousands of dollars to vehicle costs and potentially lead to hundreds of thousands of job losses throughout the U.S. economy. "The case remains clear cars are not a national security threat," the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing GM, VW, Toyota and other producers, said in a statement. "We are deeply concerned that the administration continues to consider imposing auto tariffs." An auto industry research report released last year estimated that U.S. light-duty vehicle prices would increase by $2,750 on average, including U.S.-built vehicles, reducing annual U.S. sales by 1.3 million units and forcing many consumers to the used-car market. (Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and David Lawder; Editing by Susan Thomas and Jonathan Oatis) By Nichola Groom May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told a panel of U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that he has not lost sleep over record amounts of carbon dioxide recorded in the Earth's atmosphere, which scientists warn are altering the global climate. "I haven't lost any sleep over it," he told the House Committee on Natural Resources, after Democratic Representative Matt Cartwright asked him to rate his level of concern regarding CO2 levels. Bernhardt said the United States was a leader among nations in reducing CO2 emissions. "I absolutely care that our climate is changing and that we need to factor that into our thinking," Bernhardt said later in the hearing. "I absolutely believe that and I've said that over and over and over. That's the reality." The Interior Department oversees about a fifth of the U.S. landmass, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, and has helped enact the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel agenda by pushing for an expansion of oil, gas and coal development on the public lands it oversees. But its role has angered environmentalists who see global climate change as a priority problem. CO2 levels hit a new record on May 11, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Keeling Curve. And scientists say man-made CO2 from burning fossil fuels is driving climate change, bringing increasingly devastating consequences like sea level rise, flooding, drought, and more frequent damaging storms. President Donald Trump has rejected the science on climate change, announced an intention to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and has rolled back other Obama-era moves aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Bernhardt, a former energy lobbyist, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the agency's secretary last month, over the objections of Democrats concerned he will favor energy and minerals development over conservation. (Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) By Nichola Groom (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told a panel of U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that he has not lost sleep over record amounts of carbon dioxide recorded in the Earth's atmosphere, which scientists warn are altering the global climate. "I haven't lost any sleep over it," he told the House Committee on Natural Resources, after Democratic Representative Matt Cartwright asked him to rate his level of concern regarding CO2 levels. Bernhardt said the United States was a leader among nations in reducing CO2 emissions. "I absolutely care that our climate is changing and that we need to factor that into our thinking," Bernhardt said later in the hearing. "I absolutely believe that and I've said that over and over and over. That's the reality." The Interior Department oversees about a fifth of the U.S. landmass, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, and has helped enact the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel agenda by pushing for an expansion of oil, gas and coal development on the public lands it oversees. But its role has angered environmentalists who see global climate change as a priority problem. CO2 levels hit a new record on May 11, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Keeling Curve. And scientists say man-made CO2 from burning fossil fuels is driving climate change, bringing increasingly devastating consequences like sea level rise, flooding, drought, and more frequent damaging storms. President Donald Trump has rejected the science on climate change, announced an intention to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and has rolled back other Obama-era moves aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Bernhardt, a former energy lobbyist, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the agency's secretary last month, over the objections of Democrats concerned he will favor energy and minerals development over conservation. (Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in South Korea as part of his trip to the region in late June for the G20 summit in Japan, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday. It said the two leaders "will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization" of North Korea. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in South Korea as part of his trip to the region in late June for the G20 summit in Japan, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday. The two leaders "will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization" of North Korea, the statement said. They will also discuss "ways to strengthen" the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Tensions between the United States and North Korea have ratcheted up since a failed summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in February. North Korea has tested two short-range missiles and fired a series of projectiles in recent weeks. They were the first missile launches by Pyongyang since it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017. Moon said last week that the missile launches were probably a protest against the United States after the failed Hanoi summit. Trump downplayed the missile tests. In an interview with Politico last week, he called the launches "very standard stuff" and said he did not consider them a "breach of trust." Washington has employed sanctions to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Last week, the United States announced it had seized a North Korean cargo ship it accused of illicit coal shipments in violation of U.S. and United Nations sanctions. The Group of 20 summit will be held on June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Leslie Adler) Donald Trump has been accused of playing a very dangerous game with Iran and risking dragging the US into a new war in the Middle East that could have devastating consequences. The warning came from Hamid Baeidinejad, Irans ambassador to the UK, with the acting US defence secretary Patrick Shanahan tabling plans to send 120,000 troops to the region if needed as tensions soar between the two nations over economic sanctions and an increased American military presence in the Persian Gulf. A commander of Irans Revolutionary Guards, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, later warned the nation is on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy. Meanwhile, President Trump has signed an executive order declaring a national emergency that will ban American companies from using telecommunications equipment made by foreign firms posing a national security risk to the US. The move thought to be aimed at Chinas Huawei comes as tensions flare between the two countries, with Beijing and Washington failing to find consensus on trade and tariffs after months of negotiations. In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the emergency declaration by the president ispart of his commitment to protecting the information and communications technology and services of our Nation. In the latest US immigration news, the Trump administration is planning to redirect Transportation Security Administration staff to the Mexico border, the TSA said Wednesday. TSA, like all DHS components, is supporting the DHS effort to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border. TSA is in the process of soliciting volunteers to support this effort while minimising operational impact, TSA spokesman James Gregory said in a statement. The announcement came as Donald Trump spoke at the annual Peace Officers Memorial Service in Washington DC, where he denounced illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load Homeland Security officials reportedly planned to arrest thousands of migrant families who had final deportation orders and remove them from the US in a show of force. The arrests would have targeted parents and children in 10 cities with large populations of immigrants living in the US illegally, specifically New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. However the plans were put on hold by then-Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) head Ron Vitiello and then-secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, according to interviews with officials conducted by the Washington Post and the Associated Press. The proposal was intended to send a message and possibly deter others from crossing the border, the officials said, and was supported by Donald Trumps senior adviser Stephen Miller and ICEs deputy director Matthew Albence. But Mr Vitiello and Ms Nielsen reportedly put the proposal aside over concerns about diverting resources from the border, a lack of detention spaces and the possibility of renewed public outrage over the treatment of migrant families. The plan, which remains under consideration, included fast-tracking immigration cases to allow judges to order deportations for those who did not show up for hearings. Officials told the Washington Post 90 per cent of those targeted were found deportable in their absence. It also prioritised the newest cases in order to deport people faster. Mr Vitiello didnt think it was a good idea, one Homeland Security official told the newspaper. Both he and Nielsen instinctively thought it was bad policy and that the proposal was less than half-baked. Mr Vitiellos nomination to lead ICE was quashed by the White House last month and Ms Nielsen resigned a few days later. Last summer the Trump administration sparked mass outrage when it separated children from parents at southern border of the US. The US president promised he would clamp down on immigration during his campaign run, but has so far been unable to stem the flow of migrants. Story continues The number of border crossings has risen dramatically in the past few months to more than 100,000 per month. The White House recently asked Congress for $4.5bn in supplemental funding, mostly for humanitarian aid and shelter space for migrant children. Additional reporting by agencies Photo: Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images Sleepy Joe. One Percent Joe. SleepyCreepy Joe. If theres a Trump insult primary, former Vice-President Biden is well ahead of the pack just as he is in actual polling. But the presidents excess of bad nicknames has a strategic downside, according to Republican operatives who spoke with the New York Times; they worry that Trumps spotlight on Biden is helping him stand out in a crowded Democratic primary class. In a Democratic primary, attacks from President Trump are the best thing that can happen to you, Republican campaign strategist Matt Gorman told the Times. It elevates you, gives you a huge fundraising boost and sucks the oxygen from your competitors. Chris LaCivita, another strategist, said he would prefer the president to pick a Democratic candidate whose platform would be easier to disparage among the Republican base. Bernie Sanders is the perfect guy for us, LaCivita said. He looks like the professor out of Back to the Future and is a hardcore socialist. Senior Trump campaign aides have reportedly told GOP officials theyd prefer to face a non-Biden candidate in the general. Some Democrats also think that the Trump insults are playing to Bidens favor. It just shows everybody that the vice president is the candidate Trump is most concerned about, Louisiana Representative Cedric Richmond told the Times. Its a theory made more convincing by this months early morning, 60-tweet tirade after the International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed Biden. He just cant help himself during executive time, added Richmond, referring to the huge, unstructured swaths on the presidents schedule, much of which is reportedly spent watching television. Republicans close to the president agree. According to the Times, Trump has been consuming cable news coverage about Mr. Biden, and firing off tweets based on the coverage and polling on the Democratic race he hears about on the air. Campaign aides and allies have reportedly told the president that he should stop drawing attention toward the current Democratic frontrunner, who enjoys an advantage over Trump in a survey of seven polls. But it appears that the president isnt absorbing the advice. Though Trump was surprised by Rudy Giulianis now-cancelled trip to Ukraine to encourage prosecutors to investigate Bidens son Hunters business contacts in the country, he said last week that a potential Justice Department investigation into the dealings would be an appropriate thing to discuss with his Attorney General. President Donald Trump plans to hold off on imposing steep tariffs on imported autos while the US pursues agreements with key trading partners, industry sources told AFP Wednesday. Trump has threatened to impose 25 percent punitive duties on autos -- a possibility that has worried the European Union and Japan in particular, as well as Mexico and Canada. Facing a deadline to announce a decision by Saturday on whether to implement the tariffs based on national security concerns, the sources said Trump would hold off as negotiations proceed. New tariffs risk exploding already tense trade relations with Washington's major trading partners, who are angry about punitive duties on steel and aluminum imposed last year. CNBC and other media earlier Wednesday cited government sources also saying that Trump was expected to try negotiations before imposing any new import taxes. German carmakers are especially concerned about the tariff threat, but Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared a truce in July 2018 in order to pursue negotiations. EU officials have repeatedly said they expect the US to abide by the agreement to hold off on any new tariffs. Under US law, Trump must make a decision 90 days after receiving the report from the Commerce Department on the national security threat faced by the American auto sector -- or Saturday. If he decides to impose tariffs, they must take effect 15 days after the announcement. However, he can delay implementation for 180 days if he decides to negotiate. The White House currently is negotiating trade deals with the EU and Japan, and late last year completed a revised accord with North American trading partners Mexico and Canada. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that could restrict Chinese telecommunication firms Huawei Technologies and ZTE from selling their equipment in the U.S., ratcheting up the battle for control over new 5G technology networks. The order, which didnt name any countries or companies, declares a national emergency relating to threats against information and communications technology and services. The U.S. is engaged in a global campaign to keep Chinese tech companies out of advanced 5G networks promising faster connections, enabling uses such as autonomous vehicles and remote surgery. Huawei is pushing to take a global leadership position, but many American officials suspect the companys products could be used by Beijing to spy on Western governments and companies. The order doesnt outright ban U.S. sales by the companies, but would give greater authority to the Commerce Department to review products and purchases by firms connected to adversarial countries, including China. An administration official said Tuesday that the order is unrelated to the recent escalation of the trade conflict with China. Both Huawei and ZTE have also been targeted by the U.S. for alleged schemes to dodge American sanctions on Iran. Canadian authorities last December arrested Huaweis Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the U.S., which seeks her extradition over allegations of violating Iran sanctions. Ren Zhengfei, the companys founder and Mengs father, has denied espionage allegations and a link to Chinas government. Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver while the legal proceedings unfold. The administration official said Wednesday that the Commerce Department was expected to take as long as six months to fashion an approach to the order, so there might not be an immediate effect. The order might eventually name specific companies or countries as Commerce carries out the process. Story continues The U.S. has been trying without success to persuade other governments to exclude equipment made by Huawei from super-fast 5G mobile networks that will connect billions of devices. The administration has been urging allies to analyze risk before buying gear, Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy at the State Department, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. We are concerned that China could compel actions by network vendors to act against the interests of U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries around the world, Strayer said. The U.S. says Chinese law compels Huawei to cooperate with Beijings espionage agencies. U.S. officials said Huawei can build vulnerabilities, or backdoors, into equipment. Last week, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission barred China Mobile Ltd. from the U.S. market over national security concerns and said it was opening a review of other Chinese companies. WASHINGTON For the first time in awhile, President Donald Trump was happy to hear what MSNBC's Joe Scarborough had to say about him. Trump thanked the "Morning Joe" host a fierce critic he has mocked as "Psycho Joe" in a tweet Wednesday because Scarborough said Trump looks "20 years younger than a lot of Democratic candidates." "Thank you Joe and remember, the BRAIN is much sharper also!" the 72-year-old president tweeted in response to the news of Scarborough's compliment. Scarborough made the comment on Wednesday while discussing Trump's statement to reporters last month that he is a "young, vibrant man" and that he believes former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, is showing his age. "I look at Joe, I don't know about him," Trump said. "I don't know. I would never say anyone is too old. I know they are all making me look very young both in terms of age and I think in terms of energy." Scarborough said he agreed with Trump's assessment. Interactive: 4 decades separate 2020's presidential candidates. Here's what that looks like. "Let's just be blunt about Donald Trump. That guy can do on a campaign stage what nobody else can do. He can engage the audience. He can engage viewers, despite the hateful rhetoric, despite everything else," Scarborough said. "You can see that guy is gearing up for 2020 and, yes, Democrats, he is going to be hard to beat because he does look like he is about 20 years younger than a lot of Democratic candidates." Trump is the oldest person ever to be elected president but the two front runners in the Democratic primary, Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, are both older. Will it be Buttigieg, Biden or Bernie?: Here are the oldest, youngest presidential candidates in history The 2020 candidates: Who is running for president? An interactive guide This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump thrilled at Scarborough compliment that he looks '20 years younger than' opponents President Donald Trump will unveil a new plan Thursday to overhaul the existing U.S. immigration system with a program developed by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that stands little chance of passing Congress.The proposal calls for some of Trumps promised border wall to be constructed while ignoring key Democratic priorities, including legal status for millions of immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The plan would rank would-be immigrants by metrics including age, English proficiency, an offer of employment at certain wage levels or in specialty jobs, or vocational training, according to three administration officials. The officials asked not to be identified discussing the plan ahead of Trumps speech. The proposal includes construction of Trumps promised wall at 33 priority locations along the Mexican border, and higher immigration fees would finance continuous upgrades of infrastructure along the border and at ports of entry. The White House would also overhaul the asylum process in a bid to reduce claims for refugee status at the border, after a surge of migrants claiming danger in their home countries overwhelmed immigration courts. The White House says the system would attract more skilled immigrants who could boost the U.S. economy, while reducing the flow of illegal immigration. But Kushners plan seems unlikely to gain traction on Capitol Hill the administration officials declined to name even Republican lawmakers who would support it. The proposal does not address how the administration would handle millions of immigrants already living in the country without documentation. It would eliminate programs championed by Democrats, including the diversity visa lottery, instead offering additional points under the merit system to citizens of certain countries. The officials did not say which countries would be favored. The plan is silent on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offers deportation protection for immigrants brought to the country as children. Story continues Key Democratic Priorities Unaddressed That omission is likely to be a key stumbling block for Democrats and moderate Republican senators, who have said that protecting so-called Dreamers is crucial to winning their support for changes to the immigration system. The officials said the plan, which Trump will unveil in a speech at the White House, is largely designed to unify Republicans on immigration policy while demonstrating that the party is not anti-immigrant. Battling that perception will be key to the presidents re-election efforts after the 2018 midterm elections the GOP suffered heavy losses in the U.S. House after Trump spent the closing months of the campaign warning that Central American immigrants are dangerous. And scrutiny of the presidents handling of immigration has only intensified after he forced a 35-day government shutdown late last year over border wall funding and dismissed a number of top officials handling immigration enforcement, including former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Kushner has met for weeks with GOP lawmakers and outside groups as he crafted the plan. On Tuesday, he presented the plan to GOP senators alongside Stephen Miller, Trumps hard-line domestic policy adviser, and Kevin Hassett, the presidents economic adviser, in what was regarded as an effort to show that the disparate camps within the White House were united behind the proposal. That conversation included a presentation that attempted to demonstrate that maintaining or increasing current immigration levels but reallocating how the current 1.1 million green cards are distributed wouldnt hurt middle class workers, according to one senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussion. Limiting Asylum According to data prepared by the White House counsel of economic advisers, the number of green cards issued to individuals with at least bachelor degrees will increase to 71% from 42%, the share of immigrants employed would improve to 69% from 55%, and the average annual wage among the employed would rise to $96,000 from $43,000. Those numbers underscore the extent to which the White House proposal would dramatically change the composition of immigrants earning green cards. The percentage of individuals receiving permission to immigrate to the U.S. because of family connections would be slashed to just 33% from 66% of current recipients under the new plan, while the number winning entry for humanitarian or diversity reasons would go to 10% from 22%. By contrast, those getting green cards based on employment or skills would increase to 57% from 12%. Thats likely to spark concern from human rights groups who argue the new proposal would largely limit access to the U.S. for individuals in developing or war-torn nations. And the plan could also run into opposition from employers in fields including construction and farming who rely on immigrants to fill low-skilled positions. Immigration activists have previously denounced merit-based proposals as a backdoor attempt to limit legal migration by eliminating the ability of U.S. citizens and legal residents to sponsor foreign family members entry into the country. While the White House says current levels of immigration will be maintained, officials did not say how or whether that number would grow over time. Need to Fix It The White House is not expected to release legislative text or even full details of the plan with Trumps speech on Thursday, but officials say that the president is endorsing efforts to codify elements of the plan including a bill introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, that would prohibit Central Americans from seeking asylum at the border. Instead, they would have to apply in Mexico or at consulates in their home countries. The Obama administration had set up a program allowing Central American minors to make refugee requests in other countries consulates. The Trump administration shut it down. Graham also wants to add 500 immigration judges and increase detention time for undocumented families to a maximum 100 days from the current limit of 20 days. Graham said that while he supported the main elements of the Kushner plan, he warned that Trump will own this problem if he doesnt agree to some asylum law changes that Democrats support in order to dissuade families from leaving Central America in the first place. To the president, you need to do more than talk about fixing it, you need to fix it, Graham said. As the Trump administration draws up war plans against Iran over what it says are threats to US troops and interests, a senior British military official told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he saw no increased risk from Iran or allied militias in Iraq or Syria. A few hours later, the US Central Command issued an unusual rebuke. The remarks from the British official Major General Chris Ghika, who is also the deputy commander of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region. The rare public dispute highlights a central problem for the Trump administration as it seeks to rally allies and global opinion against Iran. Over the past year, Washington has said Iran is threatening US interests in the Middle East, encouraging aggression by Shiite militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, shipping missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen and allowing its naval forces to behave belligerently in the Persian Gulf. All are concerns that have been levelled against Iranian forces for years. We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because of the environment we are in, Mr Ghika said. But he said, No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria. Intelligence and military officials in Europe as well as in the United States said that over the past year, most aggressive moves have originated not in Tehran, but in Washington where John Bolton, the national security adviser, has prodded President Donald Trump into backing Iran into a corner. One U.S. official said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was small stuff and did not merit the military planning being driven by Mr Bolton. The official also said the ultimate goal of the yearlong economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States. Story continues Since May 2018, the Trump administration has withdrawn from the major powers agreement that curbed Irans nuclear program, reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran, demanded that allies choose between Iranian oil and doing business in the U.S. market, and declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organisation. And on Tuesday, the State Department appeared on the verge of ordering a partial evacuation of the US Embassy in Baghdad as a heightened security measure, according to people familiar with the plans. The anti-Iran push has proved difficult even among the allies, which remember a similar campaign against Iraq that was led in part by Mr Bolton and was fuelled by false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos efforts this week to recruit European countries to back the administrations steely posture on Iran are being received coolly. Federica Mogherini, the European Unions foreign affairs chief, called for maximum restraint after meeting on Monday in Brussels with Mr Pompeo, a proponent of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Iraqi officials said they were sceptical of the US intelligence that Mr Pompeo presented last week on a surprise trip to Baghdad. Mr Pompeo said the threat was to US facilities and military personnel in Iraq. In September, Trump administration officials blamed Shiite militias with ties to Iran for firing a few rockets into the area near the US Embassy in Baghdad and the US Consulate in Basra. There were no injuries, but Mr Pompeo ordered the Basra Consulate closed. Privately, several European officials described Mr Bolton and Mr Pompeo as pushing an unsusnewpecting Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realises it. While Trump has made no secret of his reluctance to engage in another military conflict in the Middle East, and has ordered US troops home from Syria, his secretary of state and his national security adviser have pushed a maximalist hard-line approach on Iran. Mr Bolton, in particular, has repeatedly called for US military strikes against Tehran. Officials said Trump was aware that Mr Boltons instinctual approach to Iran could lead to war; aides suggested that the presidents own aversion to drawn-out overseas conflicts would be the best hope of putting the brakes on military escalation. A spokesman for Mr Bolton declined to comment. The Trump administration is looking at plans to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack US forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported. On Tuesday, Trump dismissed that as fake news. We have not planned for that, he told reporters. But he immediately added, If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Some of the presidents critics accept that Iran continues to engage in what US officials call malign behaviour, be it in Yemen, Syria or the Palestinian territories. But they blamed the administration for aggravating the standoff with Tehran.. This is a crisis that has entirely been manufactured by the Trump administration, said Vali Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He pointed to Trumps decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, coupled with the administrations failure to get any other nations to do so. None of the other signatories to the deal were persuaded by the case the U.S. was making, Nasr said. And that is because this administrations policy on Iran, at a fundamental level, does not have credibility. That lack of trust has proved to be a major obstacle in convincing allies that Iranian behaviour in the region warrants military action. And while acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has carefully cultivated a more acquiescent stance to Mr Boltons demands than did his predecessor, Jim Mattis, many military officials and congressional representatives worry about the escalating tensions. Mr Mattis had balked at Mr Boltons request for military options against Iran after the rockets landed on US. Embassy grounds in Baghdad. Mr Bolton did the same with President George W. Bush and Iraq, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., an Iraq War veteran, said in a statement last week. As someone sent four times to that misguided war, I have seen the costs of Mr Boltons disastrous foreign policy in a way he never will firsthand, and at the loss of thousands of American lives. One big worry is that the Trump administration has issued the most expansive type of warning to Iran, without drawing specific red lines. That has increased the chance of a military conflict over misinterpretations and miscalculations. In a statement this month, Mr Bolton outlined vague terms of what appeared to be conditions for military engagement, responding to what he said were troubling and escalatory indications and warnings. He said any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. And he warned that the Trump administration was fully prepared to respond to any attack by the Iranian military or a proxy one of the Middle Easts many Shiite militias that are supported by Iran. Those militias often do not operate under direct command-and-control from Iran, and they have varying levels of allegiance to the Iran military. In Yemens civil war, the Houthis are Shiite rebels who oppose a government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Sunni nations. The Houthis ties to Iran are murky. But the Trump administration labels the rebels as Iranian proxies, and Mr Boltons statement left open the possibility that a Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia or the UAE both US allies could set off a US military assault against Iran. The hard-line tactics against Iran could backfire in two ways, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. If the sanctions crush its economy, then Iran could act with less restraint, he said. And if the sanctions do not work well, then some US officials will advocate military action, a move that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likely to support. There will be people in Washington who will push for limited kinetic action against the Iranian regime to cut it down to size, he said. In statements, Iranian leaders have reacted with both belligerence and diplomatic restraint to a series of US actions that they see as provocative. In a tweet Tuesday, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, ridiculed Mr Bolton and three anti-Iran foreign leaders in the Middle East as a B Team. In interviews in April, I predicted accidentsnot because I'm a genius but because #B_Team is so brazenly following @AmbJohnBolton's script (https://t.co/beCZByEaCT). After all, half of B-Team were co-conspirators in disastrous Iraq war. Stark reminder https://t.co/ksCi9ntp85 pic.twitter.com/hpkGaap8aC Javad Zarif (@JZarif) May 14, 2019 In interviews in April, I predicted accidents not because Im a genius but because #B_Team is so brazenly following @AmbJohnBoltons script, Zarif said. After all, half of B-Team were co-conspirators in disastrous Iraq war. The New York Times Attorney General William Barr Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Yesterday, attorneys for President Trump made an astonishing argument in federal court. Congress had no right to look at Trumps tax returns, they argued, because it had no right to investigate or even expose matters relating to law enforcement of the White House. The judge asked whether this meant episodes like the Watergate hearings were an unconstitutional exercise of power by Congress, and Trumps lawyer conceded they might have been. Trumps official position is that Congress has no business looking into whether the president has broken the law. When you combine this position with the long-standing Department of Justice policy that it cannot indict a sitting president, and Attorney General William Barrs position that the president is entitled to shut down any investigation he considers unfair, you have built a wall of legal impunity for the president. There is an abstract argument for decriminalizing disputes between Congress and the president, and funneling these issues into the political sphere. Rather than charge the president with crimes, the argument goes, his critics can expose them to the public and Congress can choose to hold impeachment hearings or, failing that, allow voters to render the verdict. But Trump is notably attempting to shut off Congresss power to expose corruption and wrongdoing, too. The administration is making blanket arguments against Congresss ability to subpoena witnesses and documents. Barr himself refused to answer a question from Senator Kamala Harris as to whether he had been told to investigate anybody, and then refused to appear at a hearing held by the House the next day. All modern presidents have tangled with Congress about the scope of its investigative reach, but none before Trump have completely denied the legitimacy of this function. Trumps claims that Congress cannot investigate him because its not impartial, and that its alleged motive of harassing him disqualifies it, do not merely quibble with particular subpoenas or topics. He is dismissing all investigations run by people who arent his allies (which, of course, means all investigations). The most benign explanation for this audacious claim of untrammeled executive power is that Trump has embraced, or been embraced by, the ideology of William Barr. The attorney general has advocated sweeping authority for the Executive branch dating back to the first Bush administration, where he was warning against legislative encroachments by Congress. Tom Hamburgers profile of Barr explains how he has long stood at the forefront of the legal movement to establish presidential supremacy, a worldview that happens to dovetail conveniently with Trumps utter disdain for any limits on his prerogatives. Hamburger also points out as an aside that Barr has not always maintained this position with perfect consistency. During the Clinton administration, the president was hounded by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who began by looking into Clintons land deals as governor of Arkansas, and wound up charging him for lying under oath about a sexual affair. Starrs probe was widely considered so abusive it prompted a change in the law authorizing an independent counsel. But Barr, despite his putative belief in presidential authority, did not see it that way. He signed a letter insisting an independent counsel should be allowed to carry out his or her duties without harassment by government officials and members of the bar. (The harassment faced by Starr came in the form of criticism by Clintons supporters, a comically mild measure in comparison with the campaign of obstruction undertaken by Trump against Robert Mueller.) The man who today defends Trumps right to shut down an investigation because he considers it fake news accused Clinton of having an improper purpose of influencing and impeding an ongoing criminal investigation and intimidating possible jurors, witnesses and even investigators. At the time, Starrs investigation had attained the status of holy crusade among Republicans. Conservative intellectuals routinely declared that the rule of law required not only protecting Starrs infinitely broad mandate but impeaching and removing Clinton for perjuring himself about his affair. Starr himself built a cult of personality that nearly matched the status commanded today by Trump himself. One House Republican unironically composed and sang an ode to the partys idol on the House floor. To the tune of Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, he sang, Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr, now we see how brave you are Starr leveraged his fame to win the presidency of Baylor University, where he presided over a rape scandal so comprehensive and sickening it forced his resignation. He has remade himself again as a Republican legal pundit. These days he can be found attacking Mueller for special counsel overkill without any trace of irony. Both parties tend, to some extent, to take opportunistic positions on the powers available to Congress and the president depending on which branch of government of they happen to control at any given time. The Republican Party does not have a monopoly on this brand of hypocrisy. But the radical inconsistency of its positions is surely unique. Republicans dont merely swing back and forth on executive power like a pendulum, they race from one extreme position to the other. Under the Obama administration, Republicans expressed a mordant libertarian terror of executive authority. Remember the scare campaign against czars? The czar is a colloquial term for an Executive branch position that coordinates action on an issue, like drugs, an infectious disease, or reading. President Obama used this informal method about as often as his predecessor, but Republicans seized upon it as an authoritarian plot. House Republicans sued Obama over his czars, and Representative Steve Scalise likened him to a dictator. Republicans conducted endless, redundant probes of various conspiracy theories, refusing to stop when they were debunked. House Republicans conducted six investigations into Benghazi alone. In the fall of 2016, Jason Chaffetz, head of the House Oversight Committee, boasted that he had already teed up years of investigations against the presumptive next president, Hillary Clinton. When Trump surprisingly won the election, they toggled back immediately from redundant conspiratorial investigative overreach into total cover-up mode. A handful of Republicans complained faintly when Trump declared he could unilaterally spend money on a border wall even if Congress didnt approve it. They have stood behind virtually every other Trump stonewall, including his extraordinary refusal to release financial information even while he continues running a private business empire with massive conflicts of interest. Imagining how Republicans would react if Obama had attempted any of the various Trumpian abuses has become a too-easy game for the handful of disillusioned critics on the right. If only the czar hysterics knew! This is one sense in which Trumps authoritarian impulses place him squarely within the mainstream of his party, rather than, as figures like Joe Biden have called him, an outlier. Trump, like his party, simply refuses to recognize the legitimacy of sharing power. Power in their minds is unitary: unquestionable when in their hands, illegitimate when wielded by the opposition. Trump grew naturally out of, and fit comfortably within, the party of Starrs and Barrs. Restaurant Brands (QSR) CEO Jose Cil still has a whopper of a number in mind when it comes to new restaurant openings in China 1,000 to be exact, at least as it pertains to the Burger King brand. Cil said on Yahoo Finances The First Trade Wednesday there have been no change in plans on Burger Kings aggressive expansion in the country despite trade tensions between the U.S. reaching fever pitch levels. Concerns on the part of investors regarding the companys China push are valid though. Opening up too many restaurants amid frayed trade relations could be a recipe for lackluster returns on those investments. Nevertheless, Burger King opened its 1,000 restaurant in China in December 2018, some 13 years after it first entered the country. Restaurant Brands has said it plans to open another 1,000 Burger King spots in China over the next three years mostly via a franchised business model. A Burger King restaurant in a shopping mall. (Photo by Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images) Cil also reiterated the companys intention to expand the Tim Hortons coffee brand long known as Canadian focused in China. The company opened its initial Tim Hortons in China in February of this year, laying the groundwork for it to compete with the popular Luckin Coffee and Starbucks brands. Cil also teased a potential push with fried chicken brand Popeyes in the country, which would pit it against the dominant KFC. Restaurant Brands overall, remains aggressive At its first-ever investor day on Wednesday, Cil revealed a goal for Restaurant Brands to hit the 40,000 restaurant mark in eight to 10 years. Reaching the 40,000 mark isnt a pipe-dream Restaurant Brands has grown its restaurant count to 26,000 currently from 12,000 in 2010. A large portion of that growth has been fueled by the acquisitions of Canadian coffee house Tim Hortons (2014) and fried chicken joint Popeyes (2017). And moving forward, China looks to be integral... despite the trade war. Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-host of Yahoo Finance The First Trade. Follow Brian Sozzi him on Twitter @BrianSozzi Read Sozzis latest: If you love to eat and drink, this week offers a great chance to explore the world of Tucson food and beverage. From a Sunday brunch to a tipsy tea party, there's plenty to explore and enjoy if you're hungry for something new. 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. Black Women of Arizona Tucson Sunday Brunch From the event description: Tucson Queens, Black Women of Arizona has heard your voice! Join BWA for our very first brunch in Tucson. Step out of your comfort zone, meet new people, network and let's share some new experiences. When: Sunday, May 19, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Where: The Dutch Eatery & Refuge, 943 E. University Blvd. Price: Free Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Fish Fry Friday From the event description: On Friday, head over to the Trolley II - Food Truck at Arizona Beer House for a fish fry. Not keen on fish? West Coast Trolley II will also be offering chicken. Stay tuned for the full menu. When: Friday, May 17, 4 p.m. Where: Arizona Beer House, 150 S. Kolb Road Click here for more details, and to get your tickets Tipsy Tea with Brunch Babes Tucson From the event description: Grab your floppy sunhat, slip into something cute and spring approved and join the Brunch Babes Tucson as they head to Cafe a la C'Art/Carte Blanche Catering for a tipsy tea party. This event is entirely on the outdoor patio, with a focus on an afternoon cocktail experience, with light bites paired perfectly with each drink. When: Saturday, May 18, 3-5 p.m. Where: Cafe A La Cart, 150 N. Main Ave. Price: $46 Click here for more details, and to get your tickets This story was created automatically using local event data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback. By Ece Toksabay ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is discussing with the United States setting up a working group to assess the impact of its purchase of Russian missile defences systems, but will not delay their delivery, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday. Tensions between Turkey and the United States are running high over Ankara's decision to buy the S-400 missile defences, which are not compatible with NATO systems. U.S. officials say Turkey's planned purchase would jeopardise its role in building F-35 fighter jets as well as its purchase of the aircraft, which Washington says would be compromised by the presence of the S-400s. The United States and other NATO allies that own F-35s fear the radar on the system will learn how to spot and track the jet, making it less able to evade Russian weapons. Ankara says U.S. concerns are overstated and has been pushing Washington to establish a working group to assess the risks the system would be posing to the F-35 jet. "We are exchanging opinions on how this could work, we will continue to share our views. Once we agree on that, we will decide if there will be a working group or not," Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara. "The discussions are ongoing, there is nothing certain yet," he added. On Monday, a source familiar with the matter said the United States had asked Turkey to delay taking delivery of the S-400 system, currently scheduled for July, in return for potentially approving the formation of the working group. "There is no such thing as postponing or cancelling at this stage," Cavusoglu said. "It's not on the agenda either." The disagreement is the latest in a series of diplomatic disputes between the United States and Turkey. They include Turkish demands that Washington extradite cleric Fethullah Gulen, differences over Middle East policy and the war in Syria, and sanctions on Iran. A Turkish court on Wednesday remanded in jail U.S. consulate employee Metin Topuz and set the next session of his trial on espionage charges for June 28, a lawyer for Topuz said. (Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans and Alison Williams) The Minnesota Twins placed catcher Mitch Garver on the 10-day injured list Wednesday with a high left ankle sprain and reinstated infielder Miguel Sano. Garver suffered the injury in the eighth inning of Tuesday night's 4-3 victory against the Los Angeles Angels when Shohei Ohtani slid into his planted foot at the plate. Garver, 28, is batting .329 with nine homers and 19 RBIs in 25 games this season. Sano, 26, replaces Garver on the 25-man roster and could make his 2019 debut this week. The 2017 All-Star has missed the first 41 games while recovering from a right heel laceration. He played 10 games in the minors on a rehab assignment, batting .316 with two homers and nine RBIs. --Field Level Media By Yereth Rosen ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Searchers found the bodies of the last two Alaska seaplane crash victims on Tuesday evening, after a hunt through the debris and frigid waters following a mid-air collision that killed six people and injured 10, officials said. The two missing, an Australian and a Canadian, had been among 14 passengers from a Princess Cruises ship who boarded two seaplanes operated by separate tour companies in the town of Ketchikan on Monday, the cruise line said. "This is not the outcome we hoped for," said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Stephen White, offering the searchers' condolences to the families of the dead. The dead, three men and three women, ranged in age from 37 to 62, officials said. All the dead were identified late on Tuesday, and 14 of those on board the planes were American. The discovery of the bodies closes the search at the scene where the two seaplanes crashed after colliding over the inlet waters near Ketchikan, in southeastern Alaska, said Matthew Schofield, a U.S. Coast Guard officer. Work at the crash site will now shift to an investigation into what led the two planes, which were ferrying Princess Cruises passengers on sightseeing expeditions, to strike each other and fall into the waters of George Inlet. The round-the-clock search lasted 27 hours and covered 93 nautical miles, officials said. A team of 14 National Transportation Safety Board investigators has been sent to the site and divers will start working on Wednesday to pull up the wreckage of the two planes. The NTSB team began investigating on Tuesday and is unlikely to determine the cause during the week it will spend at the scene, NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy told a news conference. Ten people survived but were injured in the collision, which took place over open water during daylight, the Coast Guard said. The dead included one of the pilots. Three of the injured were in serious condition and seven in fair condition, Dr Peter Rice, medical director of the PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center, told a separate news conference. Story continues The water temperature off Ketchikan on Tuesday was 48 Fahrenheit (8.9 C), the National Weather Service said. The expected survival time in temperatures of 40F to 50F (4C to 10C) ranges from one to three hours, the United States Search and Rescue Task Force says on its website. The investigators will collect information from the survivors, the Federal Aviation Administration, other witnesses who might have been in the area, flight logs, training records and other sources, including the wrecked planes, Homendy said. "We still have to recover the planes and then we have to look at those," she said. "It takes some significant work to really understand how the two came together." All the planes' passengers arrived in Ketchikan on the cruise ship Royal Princess during a seven-day trip between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska, Princess Cruises said. Ten passengers and a pilot were aboard one float plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3, operated by Taquan Air. Four passengers and a pilot were aboard the second float plane, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, run by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan. The crash site at Coon Cove about 300 miles (480 km) south of Juneau, Alaska's capital, is near a tourist lodge that runs excursions to the nearby Misty Fjords National Monument. Ketchikan-based Taquan Air said the plane was returning from a sightseeing tour of Misty Fjords at the time of the crash. (Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Clarence Fernandez) Los Angeles (AFP) - Two teenagers accused of opening fire at a school in the US state of Colorado this month, killing one student and wounding eight, were charged Wednesday with murder. Devon Erickson, 18, faces 48 allegations including murder and attempted murder as well as charges related to providing the second suspect Maya McKinney with a gun. McKinney -- who in the eyes of the court is female but considers herself a male and goes by the name "Alec" -- is also charged with murder, and prosecutors say they intend to try the 16-year-old as an adult, opening the door to harsher sentencing. A television broadcast of Wednesday's court proceedings showed Erickson, his bushy hair dyed a shade of purple, sitting silently as charges were read out against him. Erickson and McKinney are accused of attacking the Highlands Ranch STEM school, which has some 1,800 students and offers classes from kindergarten through high school. Witnesses say 18-year-old Kendrick Ray Castillo was killed after he stepped between the gunmen and his classmates. Several hundred people were expected to attend a ceremony in his memory on Wednesday. Though police arrived minutes after the shooting began, an armed security guard "neutralized" one of the suspects, which the local sheriff said averted a much higher death toll. School shootings have become frequent in the US, fueling controversy over the availability of guns in the country. One study put the number of firearms at 393 million, more than the country's population. The Highlands Ranch STEM school is just seven miles (11 kilometers) from Columbine High School, site of one of the deadliest school shootings in the US that left 13 people dead in 1999. * Kurdish-led forces say hunting militant hideouts * Shuhail town scene of anti-Kurdish protests * SDF says protests limited and fueled by Damascus By Suleiman Al-Khalidi May 15 (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces said on Wednesday they had begun a campaign against "terrorists" linked to Islamic State in a strategic town in the oil rich eastern province of Deir al Zor that residents and witnesses say has been at the center of protests opposing the rule of U.S.-supported militia. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spearheaded by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said it had so far arrested 20 militants and confiscated weapons in the security sweep in the vicinity of the town of Shuhail on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River and its outlying desert region. "Our forces began a campaign in the early hours of the morning ... we have discovered two tunnels used by terrorists to launch attacks," the SDF said in a statement. Last week, a U.S.-led special operations raid on a suspected Islamic State fighters' hideout in the town had sparked violent protests and attacks on SDF garrisons, three residents and social media footage showed. Eight people were killed in the raid, residents said. SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali denied any civilians were killed in the operation that he said sought an "important" Islamic State militant cell inside Shuhail, part of a large swathe of territory in northeastern Syria the U.S.-backed group controls. "The operation was executed carefully and highly professionally and achieved its aims," Bali told Reuters. He blamed the Syrian government for fueling anti-SDF protests in a string of towns in the region in recent weeks. "The Syrian regime is influencing some tribal figures to aggravate the situation and trying to benefit and agitate people to protest," Bali said. A meeting two days ago called by the main Akaidat tribe in Shuhail urged the U.S.-led coalition to hand over the running of the affairs of their towns to them. Story continues Growing unrest against the SDF in areas they control in Deir Zor province east of the Euphrates River has been aggravated by poor services, lack of jobs and compulsory conscription of youth, residents and tribal figures said. Syria's Foreign Ministry on Monday urged the U.N. Security Council to act against what it said were "crimes perpetuated" by the SDF, warning it reserved the right to defend its citizens. Protesters carrying placards have accused Kurdish officials of discrimination and want an end to forcible conscription of Arab youths. They have also been angry with the YPG selling crude oil from fields within their region to the Syrian government. Kurdish YPG commanders have denied discrimination against Arabs in local administrations they run and warned that tribal unrest in former Islamic State areas could undermine stability of the U.S protected territory and encourage a militant comeback. They say militants who have reverted to guerrilla tactics after the loss of territorial control are behind a rise in hit and run attacks on SDF checkpoints and assassinations. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; editing by Grant McCool) By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials believe Iran encouraged Houthi militants or Iraq-based Shi'ite militias to carry out Sunday's attacks on four tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, two U.S. government sources said on Wednesday. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity and who are familiar with U.S. national security assessments, said they viewed the attacks as a serious provocation by Iran which posed a significant threat to shipping. Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that "extremist individuals" in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies. No one has claimed responsibility for the tanker attacks. One source said U.S. government experts believe Iran gave its "blessing" to the operations, which hit two Saudi crude oil tankers, a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker near Fujairah, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs just outside the Strait of Hormuz. This source said the United States believes the Iranian role has been one of actively encouraging militants to undertake such actions and went beyond simply dropping hints. However, the source indicated the United States does not now have evidence that Iranian personnel played any direct operational role. A fifth of the oil consumed in the world passes through the Strait of Hormuz en route from Gulf crude producers to much of the globe. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis for four years in Yemen to try to restore the internationally recognized government in a conflict widely seen as a Saudi-Iran proxy war. The attacks occurred against a background of tensions between the United States and Iran over Iranian nuclear capabilities, its missile program and its support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Washington ordered the departure of non-emergency American employees from its diplomatic missions in Iraq on Wednesday in another apparent show of concern about what it describes as threats from Iran. On Tuesday, a U.S. official had said U.S. national security agencies believed proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have attacked four tankers rather than Iranian forces themselves. While that official had said perpetrators might include Houthi rebels or Iraq-based Shi'ite militias, the official said Washington did not have hard evidence on who struck the vessels and did not go so far as to say Iran had encouraged them to act. (Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Wednesday said the United States is close to resolving steel and aluminum tariffs with Canada and Mexico, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who is scheduled to meet with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, will propose a process for removing steel and aluminum tariffs, CNBC reported separately citing an unnamed senior official. (Writing by Susan Heavey Editing by Tom Brown) (Recasts, adds quotes, changes slug to USA-TRADE/CANADA) By David Lawder WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The United States is close to resolving a dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs with Canada and Mexico, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday as high-level American and Canadian officials prepared to meet to discuss trade issues. "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada," on resolving the tariffs, Mnuchin said at a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He not provide any details about the potential agreement. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was scheduled to meet with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington later on Wednesday to discuss the metals tariffs and other issues related to the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement. That trade deal would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but the U.S. Congress has yet to ratify it. Lighthizer is expected to propose a process for removing the steel and aluminum tariffs, CNBC reported separately, citing an unnamed senior official. U.S. lawmakers have insisted those tariffs must be lifted on Canada and Mexico before a vote on USMCA can proceed. Lighthizer is also due to meet with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi later on Wednesday to discuss plans for lawmakers to vote on the agreement. (Reporting by David Lawder and Susan Heavey; Editing by Tom Brown and Paul Simao) Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no vice? Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images Nancy Pelosi says that the United States is in a constitutional crisis, that White House officials have decided that they are not going to honor their oath of office, and that Donald Trump is an aspiring autocrat who might well refuse to relinquish the presidency even if he loses next years election. Which is why, in the speakers view, Democrats must avoid checking the presidents power too aggressively. Joe Biden says that Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to our republics bedrock values and that, if Trump wins a second term, congressional Republicans will allow their standard-bearer to forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, not least by destroying our very democracy. Which is why, in the 2020 frontrunners opinion, Democrats must neither give up on bipartisanship, nor forfeit their faith in the fundamental decency of congressional Republicans. Pelosi and Bidens positions are a bit less absurd than they sound. But they also could not be more antithetical to the consensus view among liberal intellectuals, blue-state back-benchers, and progressive 2020 candidates which holds that solving our democracys present crisis requires waging total war on the Republican president and his party. For this reason, the most divisive question in the Democratic Party today may be, Do desperate times call for milquetoast measures? Pelosis case for meeting fire with fecklessness. In ordinary times, Democrats who preach moderation and bipartisanship tend to also endorse a (relatively) sanguine view of the state of the union. In 2016, Bernie Sanders paired his calls for a political revolution with lamentations of Americas descent into oligarchy while Hillary Clinton complemented her more incremental program with the declaration, America is already great. But we live in abnormal times. Robert Muellers investigation confirmed that the president of the United States routinely orders his subordinates to subvert the law, believes that the Justice Department should comport itself as his personal detective agency, and is willing to use one of his offices most extraordinary powers the authority to pardon convicted criminals to undermine a federal investigation. Further, while the special counsel declined to recommend obstruction charges against Donald Trump, more than 800 former federal prosecutors have said that the evidence Mueller produced would have been sufficient to prosecute Trump were he a private citizen. Nevertheless, the reports release did not humble the administration. Quite the contrary. The White House proceeded to recast the fact that Mueller had merely established the Trump campaigns complicity in Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election (as opposed to the campaigns participation in a related criminal conspiracy) as both a total exoneration of the president and a damning indictment of the Mueller investigations very existence. Now, the administration insists that all investigations of its activities constitute coup attempts against a duly elected president. Thus, administration officials are refusing to comply with House subpoenas, while Attorney General William Barr has ordered multiple investigations into the origins of the FBIs Russia investigation. These events have persuaded Nancy Pelosi that the United States has entered a constitutional crisis. The speaker recognizes that the White House is nullifying Congresss authority to conduct oversight, and undermining the independence of federal law enforcement. Her diagnosis is extreme. But her prescription remains mild: The speaker has deflected calls within her caucus for impeachment proceedings, and discouraged her colleagues from asserting the Houses statutory authority to fine or jail those who refuse to comply with its subpoenas. The logic of Pelosis position is straightforward: The fact that Donald Trump is a lawless, would-be autocrat makes it absolutely imperative to remove him from office. And since there is an approximately zero percent chance that two thirds of the GOP-controlled Senate will ever vote to evict Trump from the White House, the only viable means of ending his presidency is to defeat him at the ballot box next year. The question then is whether impeaching Trump or taking other radical actions to hold him accountable would increase the Democratic Partys prospects for defeating him next year. And all available polling suggests that the small fraction of Americans who regularly vote in elections but have no fixed partisan preference really hate the idea of impeachment. It is theoretically possible that actual impeachment proceedings could change their minds. But remember: These are voters who have looked at the past three years of widely-publicized, highly-damning information about Donald Trump, and remain unsure about whether they should vote for his reelection. If Trumps boasts about sexual assault, praise of neo-Nazis, attacks on prisoners of war, and attempts to throw millions of Americans off of health insurance didnt persuade these people that they should remove him from office through conventional means, why would impeachment proceedings convince them that Democrats should expel Trump through extraordinary ones? After all, the whole saga would inevitably end with the Senate awarding Trump total exoneration, thereby signaling to these low-information Americans that the whole impeachment thing had been a partisan crusade. Meeting fire with fecklessness may feel wrong. But the fate of our republic lies in the hands of a very small, very strange subset of the American electorate. And for God knows what reason, these people despise the very concept of impeachment. Thus, moral courage in this moment requires Democrats to do the right thing, not the satisfying one and meet Trumps assaults on the rule of law with calls for infrastructure deals instead of accountability. Bidens argument for strategic naivete. Joe Biden claims that Donald Trumps reelection would irrevocably compromise the core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy. He has likened Republican Voter ID laws to Jim Crow, and suggested that the modern GOP is right to regard democracy as its enemy, telling a crowd in South Carolina, You know what happens when you have an equal right to vote? They lose. In other words: Biden ostensibly believes that the Republican Party cannot survive in its current form without disenfranchising nonwhite voters, and is on the cusp of helping its authoritarian leader drive a nail into the coffin of the American republic. Nevertheless, Biden maintains that Trump is a kind of demon thats taken possession of the Republican Party; once the aberration of his presidency is over, the evil within the GOP will be exorcised, and high-minded bipartisan governance will reign throughout the land. Whats happened is, between gerrymandering and unlimited campaign spending, we found ourselves in a position where an awful lot of Republicans have become intimidated by the president, Biden said in New Hampshire Tuesday. If you notice, most Republicans leaders, dont lose from the left. They lose on the right I think there is not a middle ground. The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House not a joke you will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends, the former vice president continued. And its already beginning. In the House now, youve seen people that in fact were not willing to vote for any Democratic initiative, even if they agreed with it, because they didnt want to be the odd person out if it wasnt going to pass. Theres no sense in getting politically beaten for something thats not going to happen. But you are seeing the talk, even the dialogue is changing. Bidens narrative doesnt make sense on its own terms. If gerrymandering and unlimited campaign contributions have left most congressional Republicans unaccountable to anyone save GOP primary voters, then what difference would Trumps defeat make? As Biden surely remembers, it wasnt that long ago that an unpopular Republican president suffered a landslide rebuke at the polls. In 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 192 votes in the Electoral College, and Democrats gained 8 seats in the Senate and 21 in the House leaving Team Blue in full command of the federal government. And yet, this shellacking did not awaken the Republican Party to the beauty of bipartisanship and ideological moderation. Instead, the GOP opted for obstructionist nihilism, refusing to support any and all efforts to stimulate the American economy amid the worst recession in a generation. At the time, Republicans insisted that this intransigence was motivated by a sincere belief that the U.S. could not afford to increase its deficit; subsequent events have proven that this was a lie. Sabotage was the point. What was bad for the U.S. economy, Mitch McConnell reasoned, would be good for the party out of power. In 2010, voters proved McConnell right. And the Obama administration responded to the Tea Party wave by turning its focus to deficit reduction, a pivot that would ultimately weaken the economic recovery, and thereby undermine Hillary Clintons campaign in 2016. Donald Trump played no role in any of this. Nor did he have a hand in the nullification of Merrick Garlands nomination to the Supreme Court, or any of the GOPs voter suppression efforts at the state level, or its new habit of using its heavily gerrymandered state legislative majorities to strip incoming Democratic governors of their offices traditional powers. It is essentially impossible for the GOP to suffer a worse defeat in 2020 than it did in 2008. Given the current partisan balance in the Senate, there is no way Democrats will secure a filibuster-proof majority next year. It will take a minor miracle for them win control of 50 Senate seats. Barring a sudden turn in the Roberts Courts jurisprudence, gerrymandering and Citizens United will remain. As will the many structural advantages the GOP derives from being the party of white, rural America in an era of polarized, culture-war politics. The pro-life movement will still believe that the Democratic Party stands for neverending genocide. Trumps base will still believe that Democrats stand for open borders immigration policies that are destroying the America they love. The Koch brothers will still see Social Security as a crime against humanity. Which is to say: The donors and social movements that constitute the GOP will still have every incentive to demand purity and obstruction from their leadership. And that leadership will still have every incentive to answer the challenges posed by demographic change with voter suppression instead of triangulation. It is possible that Biden actually understands all of this. If so, then his case for moderation in the defense of democracy is similar to Pelosis: Precisely because the GOP is irredeemable, it is imperative to pretend that it is not, so as to maximize the Democrats chances of expelling Republicans from the White House. Swing voters like talk of bipartisanship. There are some Republican-leaning independents who dislike Trump but retain some affection for the Republican Party. By insisting that Trump is the cancer and the GOP, merely his victim Biden is making it a bit less psychologically threatening for such independents to pull the Democratic lever. Alternatively, Biden may really believe that defeating Trump will break the GOPs fever, in the same way that a devout but doubting zealot believes in Gods mercy. He may see faith in bipartisanship less as a choice than a necessity. Let me put it another way, Biden went on to say in New Hampshire Tuesday. If we cant change, were in trouble. The nation cannot function without generating consensus. You cant do it. Because what happens is, if you cant generate consensus under our system of separated powers, all the power moves to the executive. Waiting for Republicans to come to their senses may sound delusional. But given the structure of our government and all-but-unamendable constitution there is no alternative. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue. If one defines Donald Trumps presidency as the alpha and omega of our democracys crisis, then Pelosi and Biden both have reasonable arguments. One can certainly question whether avoiding impeachment at all costs is politically optimal for Democrats. But there is some empirical basis for Pelosis view on that score. Meanwhile, appealing to the other partys soft supporters by assuring them that their nominee this year is an awful aberration has long been a best practice of both Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns. So, while one can certainly argue that it would be more electorally expedient for Biden to decry the GOP as a cancer on our body politic, he has some cause for taking the opposite approach. But, as we just saw, the Pelosi-Biden worldview has no real answer for what happens when Trump leaves, and the crisis persists. Odds are, even in a landslide election, Democrats wont take the upper chamber next year. Thanks to urban-rural polarization, Republicans enjoy a historic structural advantage in the Senate that is poised to grow in the coming decades. (by 2040, about 70 percent of Americans are expected to live in 15 states.) Its quite possible that the next Democratic president will not be allowed to appoint federal judges. Thus, even without the White House, the conservative movement could leverage its control of the judiciary, the Senate, and most state governments to block progressive governance (including existentially necessary climate action) at the federal level, while rolling back voting rights in the states. Recognition of this threat has led progressive intellectuals, and many of Bidens rivals including ostensible moderates like Pete Buttigieg to endorse procedurally radical reforms to democratize the federal government. If Democrats do find a way to eke out a Senate majority in 2021, this contingent argues, they must be prepared to approve statehood for (at least) Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico not only as a matter of justice, but also for the sake of mitigating the Senates underrepresentation of nonwhite (and thus, for now, Democratic) voters. Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren have also endorsed measures to reform the Supreme Court, so that a conservative majority wont spend the next three decades standing athwart history yelling stop. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosis caucus has already passed a formidable voting rights bill that would protect the foundations of the republic from conservative assaults. But none of these reforms will have a prayer unless 50 Democratic senators are willing to vote to abolish the legislative filibuster. And if the Democratic leadership is too afraid of swing voters to impeach a lawless president or to cease vouching for the pre-Trump Republican Partys fundamental decency how will it ever create a political climate in which Jon Tester feels comfortable violating Senate norms for the sake of mitigating the overrepresentation of his own tiny state? Tip-toeing around swing voters pet peeves may be a sound strategy for winning a single election. But to cure what ails our polity and planet, well need to walk a bolder path. By David Lawder and Alexandra Alper WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mexico is close to resolving its dispute with the United States over steel and aluminum tariffs without quotas but is waiting for Canada to reach a similar agreement before completing it, Mexico's top trade official said on Wednesday. Jesus Seade, Mexican deputy foreign minister for North America, told Canadian television networks that a deal to remove the tariffs is "almost done" but he wanted Canada to be in the same position in its negotiations with Washington. "I'm looking to an early resolution on the basis of lifting the tariffs -- no quotas," Seade said on CBC television. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in Washington on Wednesday that a resolution of trilateral steel tariff dispute is close at hand, but Canada's foreign minister avoided direct comment on the prospects for a deal. "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada," on resolving the tariffs, Mnuchin said at a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He did not provide any details about the potential agreement. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she discussed the "Section 232" tariffs on Canadian metals with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday but declined to say whether the two countries were close to a deal. "We made the case as we have been doing for some time that the best outcome for both Canadians and Americans would be to lift those tariffs and to have free trade between our two countries who have this fantastic trading relationship in place," Freeland told reporters after the meeting in Washington. A USTR spokeswoman declined comment on the meeting. Asked about prospects for a deal later in the day, Freeland said she would not discuss Canada's negotiating strategy. She added that if Washington keeps the tariffs in place, it would be "very, very problematic" for Canadian ratification of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal (USMCA). Story continues TRADE DEAL VOTE Canada, Mexico and a number of U.S. lawmakers view the lifting of the tariffs imposed last year as a condition for ratification of USMCA, which would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. None of the three countries' legislatures have ratified USMCA. Canada has been trying to impress upon the Trump administration that time is running out to ratify the USMCA pact this year, a Canadian government source told Reuters. A bill to ratify the deal would have to be approved by Canada's House of Commons, which adjourns for the summer on June 21 ahead of an October general election. It will not reconvene until December. Lighthizer later met with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss the path forward on a potential USMCA vote. A Pelosi aide called the meeting productive, but offered few details. "Democrats continued to express our interest in working with the USTR to get to yes, and will be planning more discussions with the USTR on the key questions about the USMCA proposal," the aide said. (Reporting by David Lawder and Susan Heavey in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Paul Simao, Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker) The U.S. military put its forces in Iraq on high alert, and the State Department ordered all nonemergency employees Wednesday to leave the country immediately amid escalating tensions with Iran. Some U.S. allies have expressed skepticism about the Trump administrations claims that Iran poses a growing threat. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman at the U.S. militarys Central Command, said in a statement that there were "possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq" as he sought to clarify contradictory remarks by a British commander Tuesday. British Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, said, "Theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria." Urban rebutted Ghika's remarks in a sign of how the United States and its close allies have split over Iran's potential threat. Applying "maximum pressure" on Iran is a central tenet of the Trump administration's foreign policy. Trump withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers in 2015, reimposed crushing sanctions and boosted the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf. Unease that Washington and Tehran could be headed toward military confrontation has mounted. Iran to Trump: You are playing 'very dangerous game,' risking 'devastating war' In Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy published a statement Wednesday saying the State Department mandated that all nonemergency government staff leave the country after Washington said last week it detected urgent "credible" threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and U.S. interests. Specific details about the intelligence have not been revealed. Saudi Arabia said this week that two of its oil tankers and other energy-related infrastructure were damaged in an act of "sabotage" in the Gulf. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who are fighting a war with Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities Tuesday. Story continues Federica Mogherini, Europe's top foreign affairs diplomat, called for the United States to show "maximum restraint" after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Mixed messages: Varied points of view from Trump on Iran When the United States pulled out of the nuclear deal in May last year, the other signatories to the accord Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union vowed to stay in and establish a financial mechanism that would allow them to keep trade and other ties with Iran open amid the U.S. sanctions. They have struggled to achieve that. As a result, Iran gave European countries 60 days to find a way of salvaging the agreement or it would start enriching uranium to far higher levels. If nothing happens when the 60 days are up, "there will be consequences from our side," Hamid Baeidinejad, Irans ambassador to the United Kingdom, told USA TODAY and other media outlets during a briefing in Iran's Embassy in London on Tuesday. Successive U.S. administrations have viewed Iran as a regional troublemaker and described it as the "largest state sponsor of terrorism." Tehran aids a number of Shiite militant groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere across the Middle East. The Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal in part because of that and also because the deal does not address Iran's ballistic missile activity. Iran or its proxies, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban, have carried out bombings, abductions and hijackings against the USA and other Western nations. "Iran is certain to continue to pursue its regional strategy, unless and until its adversaries are willing or able to blunt Irans efforts," the authors of a new report by the Soufan Center, a global security research center, wrote. "Rolling back Tehrans regional influence will require an equally nimble approach combining diplomacy, smart counter-terrorism policy, and a nuanced understanding of how and why Irans soft power efforts have been successful so they may be effectively countered." New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said lawmakers needed an immediate briefing from Trump administration officials on the alleged threats from Iran. He said there are only two reasons for the State Department to order the departure of U.S. Embassy staff from Baghdad: credible intelligence Americans are at risk or preparation for military action. "The Trump administration has not provided any information to this committee on the intelligence behind their decisions or what they plan to do in Iraq or Iran," he said. War plan?: Trump dismisses report of plan to send troops to Middle East Like what youre reading? Download the USA TODAY app for more Contributing: Deirdre Shesgreen This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: State Department orders nonemergency staff to leave Iraq amid escalating tensions with Iran WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday unveiled a probe of the Trump administration's moves to curtail the federal government's role in scrutinizing police shootings. In a letter to Attorney General William Barr, Chairman Jerrold Nadler and other committee Democrats requested documents and updates on how the Justice Department has addressed shootings and other cases of excessive police force since President Donald Trump took office in early 2017. The lawmakers cited statistics, including media reports, that show nearly 1,000 people were shot and killed by police in 2018 and that at least 265 others have met with the same fate this year. The numbers include cases of unarmed shooting victims that have drawn international criticism. "Despite continuing concerns from civil rights and community-based organizations, the department has sharply curtailed its statutory role in identifying and eradicating civil rights abuses by law enforcement," the lawmakers' letter said. Justice Department officials were not immediately available to comment. Among the documents sought by the Democratic lawmakers are memos written by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who implemented policies that critics say sharply curtailed the ability of Justice Department civil rights attorneys to rein in unconstitutional policing. The lawmakers gave Barr until June 5 to comply with their request. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the U.S. Congress complained on Tuesday that President Donald Trump's administration has not shared enough information with them as tensions flared with Iran, with even some Republicans saying they have been left in the dark. Relations between Washington and Tehran have become more fraught following Trump's decision this month to try to cut Iran's oil exports to zero and beef up the U.S. military presence in the Gulf in response to what he said were Iranian threats. Lawmakers, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans, said they would like classified briefings on those threats and the administration's decisions. During previous administrations, Congress has been regularly briefed about major national security matters. Some Democrats said public hearings with senior administration officials also would be appropriate. Separately on Tuesday, Trump denied a New York Times report that U.S. officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran. "I think all of us are in the dark over here," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters outside the Senate. Asked if he thought lawmakers would be briefed on the situation, he said, "I hope so." Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, has requested a briefing for House members, but an aide said the administration had not yet agreed. Senate aides said no briefing had yet been scheduled for the full Republican-controlled Senate, despite appeals from Democrats. "If Iran is responsible for targeted attacks on our service members stationed around the region or any of our national security assets, we should of course respond appropriately and in a way that deters and prevents further assaults," said Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "But it is hard to justify the administration's actions thus far since they insist on stonewalling Congress from receiving any specifics about what these increased threats actually are and our strategy to confront them." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A few congressional committees - including the Senate and House intelligence and the Senate Armed Services panel - said they had arranged briefings for staff or members later this week or had already had one, committee aides said. (Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Sandra Maler) UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations called on Tunisia on Wednesday to immediately release a U.N. official who was detained more than six weeks ago as part of an investigation by a Tunisian anti-terrorism unit. Tunisian national Moncef Kartas is a member of a panel of experts that monitors sanctions, including an arms embargo, on Libya and reports their findings to the U.N. Security Council. He was detained in late March at Tunis airport. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the detention and prosecution of Kartas was "in violation of the privileges and immunities that have been granted to Mr. Kartas in the interests of the United Nations." He told reporters on Wednesday that the United Nations has formally asked Tunisia for Kartas' "immediate release and for the charges against him to be dropped." A spokesman for a Tunisian anti-terrorism judiciary unit told Tunisian state news agency TAP on March 30 that the detained official had traveled in a private capacity on his Tunisian passport, meaning he was not entitled to diplomatic immunity and could be arrested. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bernadette Baum) The State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-critical government employees to leave Iraq and warned American citizens not to travel to the country over fears that growing tensions between the Trump administration and neighboring Iran could spark a conflict endangering them. In a statement announcing the decision, officials cited a high risk for violence and kidnapping and said normal visa services will be temporarily suspended at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. consulate in Erbil. Some employees in Baghdad will continue to provide consular services to U.S. citizens in Basrah, the statement said. The move comes a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unannounced trip to Baghdad, meeting with Iraqi officials and discussing the importance of Iraq ensuring that its able to adequately protect Americans in their country. Pompeo said he made the visit also to warn Iraq about U.S. intelligence that suggested Iran was planning strikes on U.S. forces in the country. We dont want anyone interfering in their country, certainly not by attacking another nation inside of Iraq, and there was complete agreement, Pompeo said. These were attacks that were imminent, these were attacks that were going to happen fairly soon. Weve learned about them and were taking every action to deter them. The U.S. deployed four bombers as well as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier-strike group to the Persian Gulf last Thursday amid fears that Iran was transporting short-range ballistic missiles in the region. Acrimony between the U.S. and Iran has been increasing since April, when the U.S. officially designated Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization and Pompeo announced an end to the exemptions from U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil and gas that eight countries had been granted. U.S. Central Command, responsible for Middle Eastern operations, said in a statement Tuesday that troops are now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq. More from National Review Threats to the right to vote have become a standard feature of partisan politics. Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images One of the most important political trends of the 21st century has been the abandonment by most Republicans of the once-bipartisan cause of voting rights. Its become an ongoing national tragedy thanks to the conjunction of two events: the evisceration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Roberts Court in 2013 (the Shelby County v. Holder decision), and the sweep of state legislatures by a Tea Partyinflected GOP in 2010 and 2014. In the former Confederate States where voting rights were once vigilantly supervised by the U.S. Department of Justice in both Republican and Democratic administrations, its been open season for all sorts of abuses in recent years. One of them, voter-roll purges, has really gotten out of control, as the Washington Posts Joe Davidson explains: Consider this data from Myrna Perez of New York Universitys Brennan Center for Justice: Between 2014 and 2016, states removed almost 16 million voters from the rolls. Thats almost 4 million more than between 2006 and 2008. And it should be obvious that that is a rate that outstrips the growth rate of total registered voters and the growth rate of total population. She acknowledged the responsibility of election administrators to keep voting rolls clear of the dead and geographically departed. But she said what is especially concerning to the Brennan Center is jurisdictions now excluded from federal pre-clearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act had purge rates that were significantly higher than other jurisdictions, leaving 2 million fewer citizens eligible to vote. The jurisdictions in question were the ones liberated from oversight by SCOTUS. Theoretically, the Justice Department itself can bring suits to police voting-rights violations under a different section of the VRA, but as you can imagine, it hasnt happened at all in the Trump administration. But even if the Feds were better disposed to voting rights, the flood of state voter-suppression activity would be hard to stop: The 2016 presidential election was the first following the Shelby decision. Before that vote, jurisdictions closed polling places on a massive scale, said Leigh Chapman, voting rights program director at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. A report by the organization, she said, identified 868 polling places that were closed between 2012 and 2016. She listed states, including Georgia, as areas where polling place reductions have continued unabated. As you may recall, Georgia became a pioneer of these sorts of devious methods of voter suppression under the stewardship of two-term Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who continued his efforts to hold down minority voting right up through his very narrow win over voting-rights champion Stacey Abrams in the 2018 gubernatorial contest. With the right to vote now the subject of partisan gamesmanship as practiced by those who belong to a party that knows demographic trends are not in its favor, more and more voices are calling for a fundamental solution to the problem: To overcome the worst practices, Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties, advocates a constitutional amendment that explicitly guarantees the right to vote One is needed, he said during an interview, despite a rag-tag sequence of anti-discrimination amendments to expand voting rights beyond the propertied white men who originally lorded over everyone else. The amendments covered black people and women, allowed the people to elect senators instead of state legislatures, permitted District citizens to vote for president, abolished poll taxes and lowered the voting age to 18. The Constitution as amended provides a way to fight discrimination of certain types, but doesnt provide an individual right to vote. The December 2000 Supreme Court decision allowing George W. Bush to become president emphasizes the need for a constitutional amendment in [Raskins] view because the ruling said the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the president of the United States. Yes, constitutional amendments are very, very difficult to secure, and the very partisanship that is eroding the right to vote could easily thwart a voting-rights amendment in Congress or during the state ratification process. But while most Republicans are complicit in voter suppression to one degree or another, openly opposing the right of citizens to vote would be difficult for those who dont subscribe to openly anti-democratic theories of self-government (cue up the this is a republic, not a democracy extremists who offer the final line of defense for voter suppression). An amendment drive could help shine a spotlight on current efforts to restrict voting rights, and perhaps push Republicans at least to consider statutory solutions like the restoration of key elements of the VRA (which had strong bipartisan support as recently as 2006 when George W. Bush signed an extension of the law). Turning up the heat in todays cold war over voting rights is essential before hostility to democracy becomes a permanent part of one major partys fundamental principles. * Pompeo told Iraq to keep militias in check - sources * Intelligence showed militia rockets positioned near U.S. forces * Iraq caught in the middle of tensions between Tehran, Washington * Iran-backed groups said they had no plans to target U.S. forces By Ahmed Rasheed and John Davison BAGHDAD, May 15 (Reuters) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's surprise visit to Baghdad this month came after U.S. intelligence showed Iran-backed Shi'ite militias positioning rockets near bases housing U.S. forces, according to two Iraqi security sources. He told Iraq's top brass to keep the militias, which are expanding their power in Iraq and now form part of its security apparatus, in check, the sources said. If not, the U.S. would respond with force. As tensions between Washington and Tehran increase, Iraq finds itself caught between neighboring Iran, whose regional influence has grown in recent years, and the United States. "The message from the Americans was clear. They wanted guarantees that Iraq would stop those groups threatening U.S. interests," a senior Iraqi military source with knowledge of Pompeo's trip said. "They said if the U.S. were attacked on Iraqi soil, it would take action to defend itself without coordinating with Baghdad." The U.S. State Department declined to comment on the details of Pompeo's discussions. He had said after the trip: "We don't want anyone interfering in their country (Iraq), certainly not by attacking another nation inside of Iraq." The second Iraqi security source said: "Communications intercepted by the Americans showed some militia groups redeployed to take up suspicious positions, which the Americans considered provocations." He said the Iraqis were told that any threat from the groups "would be dealt with directly by the Americans with force." Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Tuesday told reporters that the Iraqi side had not observed "movements that constitute a threat to any side. We clarified that to the Americans - the government is doing its duty to protect all parties." Story continues Tensions between Washington and Tehran intensified early this month as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration stepped up sanctions pressure by ending waivers for some countries to purchase Iranian oil - part of efforts to roll back the Islamic Republic's expanding regional clout. It also said last week it was sending additional military forces to the Middle East. "PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE" Iraq would struggle to rein in the Iran-backed militias. The paramilitaries are formally part of Iraq's security forces but operate semi-independently, backed by powerful Iran-allied politicians, and are expanding their economic power. Spokesmen for two Iran-backed paramilitary groups said there were no plans to target U.S. forces, saying talk of threats was "psychological warfare" by Washington. The United States says Iran is the biggest threat to peace in the region. It wants to weaken the paramilitaries which have expanded their sway over land stretching to Syria and Lebanon, and for Iraq to decrease dependence on Iranian gas exports. Iran sees Iraq as an important link to the world in the face of U.S. sanctions, and analysts say the positioning of pro-Iran forces and rockets indicates Tehran is prepared at least to threaten the United States with violence. The Iraqi security source said U.S. officials discussed with Iraqi officials Iran-backed militia deployed along the Syrian border, where U.S. troops have helped fight Islamic State. Pompeo said last week: "We've urged the Iraqi government ... to get all of those forces under Iraqi central control." The groups say they already follow the orders of the Iraqi state and are not planning to target U.S. interests. "American claims are baseless. It reminds us of the big lie of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," said Laith al-Athari, a spokesman for the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq group, referring to the pretext for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), the umbrella grouping of mostly Shi'ite militias, numbers around 150,000 men. There are currently an estimated 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, having peaked at 170,000 in the years following the invasion. Analysts say the positioning of missiles by militias backed by Iran is likely meant as a symbolic threat to the United States, rather than a real plan to use them. Professor Toby Dodge of the London School of Economics said Iran has in the past moved such weapons "to slowly ratchet up the heat under America in Iraq when it feels America is seeking to threaten Iran's interests." ECONOMIC POWER Some observers say economic pressure on Iran will have more impact than military action. Pompeo said he discussed on his Baghdad visit "crude oil and natural gas ... (and) ways we could ... make those projects move forward very quickly," a reference to efforts to wean Iraq off crucial Iranian energy imports. He urged Iraq to sign oil and power deals being negotiated with American companies, two energy officials said. U.S. energy giant General Electric is seeking a share of a $14 billion scheme to develop electricity infrastructure, and Iraq is close to signing a $53 billion oil infrastructure contract which includes Exxon Mobil. This is another way in which the United States is seeking to pressure Iraq's major electricity supplier Iran and force Iraq to choose between Washington and Tehran as its chief ally, said Renad Mansour, a research fellow at Chatham House. "The U.S. is ... going to Iraqi leaders and saying you're either with us or with them," Mansour said. "Iraqis have been saying why can't we be allies with both? But the Americans aren't interested in that and I think neither are the Iranians." A Western diplomat said warned of the danger of a serious escalation. "The atmosphere is no longer friendly ... (and) the White House does not seem to be concerned if Iraq is collateral damage," the diplomat said. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein, Aref Mohammed in Basra and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington Writing by John Davison; editing by Anna Willard) WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. imposition of tariffs against the European Union over aircraft subsidies would cause "serious harm" to Delta Air Lines since the U.S. carrier is already under contract to buy several billion dollars worth of Airbus aircraft, a senior airline official said on Wednesday. Delta Associate General Counsel Scott McClain told a hearing that the airline was contractually obligated to pay for any tariffs imposed. He said the U.S. tariffs "will not punish the foreign producer because we cant avoid those orders now." Instead, it would force Delta to pay what he called an "unexpected tax" that would harm the airline, its employees and its customers. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Dubai (AFP) - The UAE said Wednesday it was "committed to de-escalation" after a spike in tensions in the Gulf but warned it would retaliate hard against Yemen rebel attacks on civilian facilities in the region. The UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, was speaking after the mysterious sabotage at the weekend of four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, and after Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed drone attacks Tuesday that shut down a key Saudi oil pipeline. "We are very committed to de-escalation, peace and stability," he told journalists at a briefing in Dubai. He said a multi-country investigation into the sabotage attacks would be concluded within days, adding: "We are not going to jump the gun." "We need to emphasise caution without throwing accusations," he said. "We have always called for restraint and we will always call for that." However, he blamed "Iranian behaviour" for tensions in the Gulf region, where Washington has sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers in response to unspecified Iranian threats against American interests. "It is this behavior that has led to the difficult conditions," Gargash said. The UAE says three Western countries -- the US, France and Norway -- would take part in an investigation into the ship attacks, alongside Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. Gargash was speaking a day after drone strikes hit two pumping stations in neighbouring Saudi Arabia's key east-west pipeline. The pipeline, with a capacity of five million barrels of crude per day, provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to be closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were in response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition battling the Huthis in Yemen. Story continues "We will retaliate and we will retaliate hard when we see Huthis hitting civilian targets like what happened in Saudi Arabia," Gargash said Wednesday. OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day of which around seven million are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in case of a military confrontation with the United States. By Emma Batha LONDON, May 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - British doctors and humanitarians have launched a pioneering field manual to help medics in Syria and other warzones treat catastrophic injuries in children caused by explosive weapons. The life-saving handbook was compiled at the request of Syrian doctors who were struggling to treat children for horrific injuries they had not come across before in a country where health services have been decimated by eight years of war. Nearly three quarters of child casualties in the world's five deadliest wars are caused by explosives such as suicide bombs, landmines, unexploded ordinance and air strikes, aid agency Save the Children said in a report on Thursday. The charity, which helped produce the manual, calculated at least 5,322 children in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria were killed or maimed by explosives in 2017. In some cases, it said children were killed when they picked up unexploded ordnance which is small and sometimes colorful to use as toys. Children are more likely to die from blast injuries than adults, the charity said. It calculated that nearly three times as many children as adult combatants have died from explosives in Syria, where densely populated towns have been shattered by weapons traditionally meant for open battlefields. Aid group Syria Relief is distributing the handbook to emergency units across northwest Syria, and there are plans to roll it out in Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq. "For more than eight years we've seen children dying on the operating table from wounds that adults have survived," said one Syria Relief pediatrician who asked not to be named. "The tragedy is these deaths could have been prevented with basic training. This manual ... will undoubtedly save lives." The book was produced by the Paediatric Blast Injury Partnership (PBIP) - a British coalition of doctors and humanitarians - which plans to translate it into other languages and create a smart phone app. Story continues It said most textbooks on treating blasts were based on research on injured soldiers. "We know children's bodies are different. They aren't just small adults." PBIP member Michael von Bertele, former head of British Army Medical Services, said in a statement. Children's thinner skulls and less developed muscle put them at greater risk of brain injury and internal organ damage. Future growth also has to be factored in when amputating limbs or children can be left with even worse disabilities and lifelong pain. One in five children worldwide lives in conflict-affected areas, according to Save the Children. The charity is hosting a global symposium in The Hague on Thursday - the anniversary of its centenary - to discuss how to protect children in war and end impunity for those who commit atrocities on them. (Reporting by Emma Batha @emmabatha; Editing by Claire Cozens. 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) LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - British lawmakers will vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal in the first week of June, the same week U.S. President Donald Trump is due to visit Britain, Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Wednesday. May's deal has been rejected three times by parliament and the government said on Tuesday it now planned to bring forward the legislation required to ratify an exit deal early next month. "The House of Commons will have an opportunity to vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill the week commencing June 3," Barclay told a committee of members of the upper chamber of parliament. "Obviously there is President Trump's visit as well so that is going to be an interesting week." (Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Kate Holton) UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday the Pacific possesses "a unique moral authority" to demand global action on climate change because its people are bearing the brunt of the problem. Visiting Fiji as part of a South Pacific tour to highlight the dangers of global warming, Guterres said the region was on the front line of climate change. "Here in the Pacific, sea-level rise in some countries is four times greater than the global average and is an existential threat to some island states," he said. He said this was despite the fact that the Pacific islands contributed little to global warming and had been among the first nations to minimise their greenhouse gas emissions. "Your experiences underscore the urgency of the threat," he said. "The Pacific has a unique moral authority to speak out -- it is time for the world to listen." Guterres' visit -- which also includes New Zealand, Tuvalu and Vanuatu -- will see the UN chief meet locals whose lives have been upended by cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather events linked to climate change. It comes ahead of the Climate Action Summit in September in New York, billed as a last chance to prevent irreversible climate change. Members of the Pacific Islands Forum regional grouping commended Guterres for travelling to see "the everyday reality of climate change". They sent a strong message to the New York conference, warning "we are facing an unprecedented global catastrophe for our blue planet". "Platitudes and repackaged commitments cannot be the substance of our deliberations," they said in a statement. "We need transformational change at scale, and courageous leaders prepared to deliver it." Guterres will address the Fiji parliament on Thursday. Photo: Snap/REX/Shutterstock The Trump administration is warning that Iran plans new attacks on American forces in the Middle East. Commentarys Noah Rothman is up in arms that these claims are being met in some quarters with skepticism. Those who accuse the Trump administration of engineering a military confrontation with Iran are asking you to ignore your own eyes and ears in service to their conspiracy theory, he argues. Rothman treats the somewhat vague intelligence of an imminent Iranian attack on the United States as a fact so solid only the most insane Trump-haters could deny it. Yet British major general Christopher Ghika, the top British military officer in the coalition fighting ISIS, tells reporters, No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. That would seem, at minimum, to throw the entire premise of an increased threat into question. Rothman proceeds to argue that the Trump administration already has strong cause to attack Iran because Iran sabotaged two Saudi oil tankers, taking them out of commission and causing global oil prices to spike by 2 percent. The threat to international commerce and global maritime navigation posed by this attack is more than enough to justify a retaliatory response. Rothman continues to emphasize that this act alone justifies a military response: Yesterday, according to US assessment, Iran or its proxies bombed four ships--two Saudi, one UAE, and one Norwegian flagged--some of which were oil tankers, hiking oil prices up by 2% and threatening maritime navigation. Casus belli by any definition. https://t.co/qQtDgAB8ga https://t.co/ZfzRN02EDK Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) May 14, 2019 Rothman treats Irans responsibility as a certainty: According to the U.S. assessment, Iran or its proxy forces were responsible for an assault on two Saudi oil tankers, he writes. He links to a story that merely calls this conclusion an initial assessment. Iran denies responsibility. So this premise is also less than completely solid. More striking is Rothmans casus belli: a 2 percent oil, uh, spike, if you can use the word spike to describe such a minuscule increase. That would translate to around 30 cents more to fill up a tank of gas. Note that Rothman doesnt merely call this tiny, imperceptible, and temporary bump in the price of oil enough to justify retaliation he says its more than enough. Would would just enough be? United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations on Wednesday rejected Tunisia's reasons for the arrest in March of a UN expert on suspicion of espionage and demanded that charges against him be dropped. Tunisia had submitted documents to the United Nations detailing the case against Moncef Kartas, a member of the UN panel of experts on Libya, who was detained on arrival in Tunis on March 26. After reviewing the documents, the UN formally notified Tunisia's government that Kartas enjoys diplomatic immunity and "requested Mr Kartas' immediate release and for the charges against him to be dropped," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The United Nations "remains very concerned by the continued detention and prosecution" of Kartas, a Tunisian-German dual national who has been a member of the panel since 2016. The spokesman declined to provide details on the documents submitted by Tunisia, but made clear that the contents were unconvincing. In mid-April, the world body had asked Tunisia to provide the reasons for his arrest, in line with its international legal obligations. Kartas' lawyers have said that the charges were linked to the arms expert's possession of a device allowing him to have access to data on flights of civil and commercial aircraft. The panel of experts investigates allegations of violations of the arms embargo and other sanctions imposed on Libya. On April 4, Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar launched an operation to seize the capital Tripoli from the UN-recognized government. The panel has reported that arms and ammunition deliveries continue to reach warring parties despite the UN embargo -- with the involvement of member states. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council will meet Friday to discuss the surge of fighting in northwest Syria, the second meeting on the worsening violence in as many weeks, diplomats said. Syrian forces and their Russian allies have stepped up attacks on the jihadist-controlled Idlib region since late April, raising alarm that a full-on offensive is imminent to seize the territory. Belgium, Germany and Kuwait requested the urgent meeting to follow up on a closed session of the Council held on Friday during which several countries expressed concern over a potential humanitarian catastrophe from an all-out assault. The council will meet in open session and hear a briefing from UN humanitarian affairs chief Mark Lowcock among other briefers. Belgium, Germany and Kuwait, three non-permanent members of the council, lead efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Syria, now in its ninth year of war. More than 180,000 people have been displaced by the latest violence, according to the United Nations, while 119 civilians have been killed in bombardment since late April, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. The 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. Beirut (AFP) - After decades of civil war and repeated political crises made it one of the world's most indebted countries, Lebanon is drafting its "most austere" budget to secure billions of dollars in international aid. The small Mediterranean country has promised donors to slash public spending as part of reforms to unlock $11 billion in aid pledged at a conference in Paris last year. Growth in Lebanon has plummeted in the wake of endless political deadlocks in recent years, compounded by the 2011 breakout of civil war in neighbouring Syria. The country has been racking up public debt since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war, which now stands at 152 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to the finance ministry. Eighty percent of that debt is owed to Lebanon's central bank and local banks. Prime Minister Saad Hariri last month vowed to introduce "the most austere budget in Lebanon's history", sparking fears of benefit cuts in the public sector. The cabinet has not yet released a full austerity package for 2019, but already it has faced a string of small protests. Lebanon's government is under pressure from all sides, said Nassib Ghobril, head of the economic research at Byblos Bank. At home, "the pressure comes from the Lebanese citizen who sees job opportunities and the economy are in decline", a private sector suffering from cost increases, and a banking sector weighed down by having to fund the public sector, he explained. And the cabinet has to meet the expectations of "countries and institutions" who have promised billions in aid, he said. - 'Social upheaval' - Despite previous promises of reform, Lebanese have continued to complain of unemployment, poor infrastructure, and dire public services including an ageing electricity grid plagued by frequent power cuts. More than a quarter of all Lebanese live in poverty, according to World Bank figures. Story continues At the Paris conference, Lebanon committed to gradually reducing its public deficit over five years, but appears to have missed the mark for 2018. The World Bank estimates the public deficit reached 11.5 percent of GDP for that year, above the figures for previous years. As the cabinet mulls how to cut expenses in 2019, Lebanese public employees are warning their benefits are a red line. For the first time in the country's history, a strike by central bank employees briefly crippled the country's stock exchange earlier this month. Also clamouring against austerity measures that would affect them are army pensioners, port workers, public university staff, and employees of the national electricity company. "We're against any measure that will affect disadvantaged sections of the population," Lebanon's labour union chief Beshara Asmar told AFP. "If the government does not take note of the remarks we have submitted to it... the budget will lead to social upheaval," he warned. So far, to decrease the public deficit, the cabinet has announced it will increase taxes on interest income from bank deposits from seven to 10 percent. The government is also expected to slash salaries and freeze recruitment in the public sector. - Tax evasion - But Ghobril said measures like raising taxes showed "a lack of seriousness in finding sources of revenue" Instead, he suggested tackling rampant tax evasion, and chasing up unpaid utility bills. The state should also fight smuggling to increase custom revenues, and make sure influential businessman who have built illegally on state-owned land along the coast actually pay fines. "Around 50 percent of individuals and companies in Lebanon do not declare all taxes" they should pay, Ghobril said. "All these measures just require political will. They could easily bring in $1 billion in 2019 without even increasing taxes," the economist said. Many Lebanese are disillusioned with the ruling class, whom they accuse of nepotism and graft. After previous pledges of aid have failed to bring about structural reform in Lebanon, international creditors last year set conditions on handing out more cash. A government finally formed in January after an eight-month political deadlock is grappling to complete the requirements on time to receive these monies. In April, the cabinet approved a plan to reform a costly but underperforming electricity sector. And as the cabinet now moves on to cutting budget expenses, members of the Lebanese public are making sure they are not trampled in the process. "This is the last warning," said retired general Ali Amer at a recent protest in Beirut against feared pension cuts. If the budget does affect their retirement benefits, "we will be on the streets every day, all over the country, burning tyres and blocking roads," he said. Los Angeles (AFP) - Six Catholic dioceses in the United States rolled out a "compensation program" Tuesday as an alternative to court proceedings for minors sexually abused by clergy. The program by the dioceses, all of which are located in California, will be managed by two independent monitors who have handled similar programs in New York and Pennsylvania, the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez said in a letter to worshipers. "We are joining with five other dioceses in California in a new initiative to provide pastoral care and financial support to any person who has been sexually abused as a minor by a diocesan priest," Gomez wrote. "We also understand that some victim-survivors are reluctant to come to the church for assistance. Our hope with this new program is to give these people a chance to seek redress and healing through an independent program." According to California church officials, the program will be open to anybody who was abused by a priest as a minor, including people residing in the US illegally and those for whom the statute of limitations to prosecute their abuser has expired. No lawyer will be necessary, and the process will be free and conducted in a "non-adversarial" manner that respects victims' privacy, according to the letter. The six dioceses involved in the program represent some 10 million Catholics in California, many of whom have origins in Latin America where the church is particularly strong. The Catholic Church both in the US and across the globe is struggling to deal with an epidemic of sexual assault by priests, much of it directed at minors. The abuse has often gone on for decades and been covered up by church hierarchy. The program's announcement came the same day that five Catholic molestation victims filed a lawsuit in a Minnesota federal court asking a judge to compel the Vatican to open its archives and release details of abusive priests. A British general has rejected claims from the White House that coalition forces in the Middle East are facing an increased threat from Iran or its allies. In recent days, Washington US has responded to what has claimed as a raised threat from Iran-backed militias to US and coalition forces fighting the remnants of Isis in Iraq and Syria, by dispatching an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles. National security advisor John Bolton, a longtime advocate of regime change in Iran, has ordered up a proposal to immediately dispatch 120,000 US troops should Iran attack American forces. But the British general who is second in command of the coalition operation named Inherent Resolve, Maj Gen Chris Ghika, told reporters at the Pentagon, there was no evidence of an increased threat. No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, he said, according to Reuters. We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because that is the environment we are in. More follows...... Washington (AFP) - The US economy is showing more signs of strain amid President Donald Trump's multi-front trade war, with a sharp slowdown in manufacturing and a pullback by American shoppers. Some cooling was to be expected from the red-hot pace of the past year but the drop-off in manufacturing -- especially in the struggling auto sector -- was far worse than economists had expected. President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the strong first-quarter growth figures as proof his economic policies and tough trade tactics are producing results. He cited its 3.2 percent growth rate as proof the United States could weather the impact of his decision to more than double tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods to 25 percent as of May 10. However, economists have long cautioned that the data include troubling signs that could point to a coming slowdown, especially as the short-term burst from the 2017 tax cuts fades away and higher tariffs bite. US manufacturing declined sharply in April. More worrisome was the economy's total industrial output for the first three months of the year, which was much lower than originally reported, according to Federal Reserve data released Wednesday. And retail sales fell 0.2 percent -- the mirror image of the 0.2 percent gain economists had instead predicted -- which like manufacturing was impacted by weak auto sales. Amid the bitter dispute with China, with the pain reflected across in multiple sectors, industrial output in the first quarter plunged 1.9 percent compared to the same period of last year, according to the latest data, revised from a dip of just 0.3 percent reported last month. - 'Manufacturing is struggling - In April alone, total output fell 0.5 percent, driven by a decline of the same magnitude in manufacturing, as vehicle production continued to slip. Economists had been expecting a 0.1 percent gain in industrial production for the month. "In short, manufacturing is looking weak," economist Jim O'Sullivan of High Frequency Economics told AFP. Story continues And the revised data show the sector is weaker than suggested by other closely-watched manufacturing data that have suggested slower growth rather than contraction. "The trend in exports has certainly weakened, and likely not just because of trade tensions." In the key manufacturing sector, industries that saw declines of more than two percent compared to March included motor vehicles and parts, machinery, and electrical equipment and appliances. Manufacturing is 0.2 percent lower than April 2018, while total industrial production remains 0.9 percent higher. "What is clear is that manufacturing is struggling and, therefore, added uncertainty and tensions over tariffs is particularly unhelpful at this juncture," RDQ Economics said in an analysis. Mining output, which includes oil and gas, rebounded after three months of declines, with a 1.6 percent increase in the month, while utilities output fell 3.5 percent as heating demand declined with the warmer weather. Industrial capacity in use in use in April continued its string of declines, dipping to 77.9 percent from 78.8 percent due to a dip in utilization for manufacturing, including another two-point decline in the troubled auto sector. Economists noted that the retail sales data can be volatile and some expect a rebound in coming months but there are troubling elements. "Consumers are showing some signs of weakness despite ongoing improvements in the labor markets," economist Diane Swonk of Grant Thornton said in a research note. And she cautioned that consumers "at the low end of the income strata are particularly vulnerable to higher prices at the pump and the pending tariffs on China." The US navy chief said Wednesday he did not want maritime tensions with China to "boil over", a week after Washington's latest challenge to Beijing's territorial claims in contested waters. Beijing said last week two American warships sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea without permission, prompting the Chinese Navy to ask them to leave. The ships entered waters adjacent to Gaven and Chigua reefs in the Spratly Islands, which Beijing calls Nansha, on May 6, China's foreign ministry said. Speaking on the sidelines of a maritime security conference in Singapore, Admiral John Richardson said Washington will continue such operations which are aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation. The US will however ensure that communications with Beijing remain open to prevent any untoward incidents, he added. "I really value the channel of communication that I have with Shen Jinlong," he told reporters, referring to his Chinese counterpart. "We just recently visited China, we had a chance to get to know each other, understand each other more thoroughly. "We can continue to advocate that while we may not see things the same in all parts of the world, we've got to work through those differences in a way that doesn't boil over into conflict." The US Navy regularly conducts freedom of navigation operations to challenge Beijing's vast claims in the sea, often angering China. After last week's sail-by, a foreign ministry spokesman said "the Chinese side expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to the US action. But Richardson insisted the patrols were routine. "We haven't done anything increasingly provocative or anything else that we would not do anywhere else in the world," he said. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea, including on the Spratlys. China claims nearly all of the sea, but Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Washington (AFP) - US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that Washington was close to resolving its differences with Mexico and Canada over steel and aluminum tariffs that have created friction among the trading partners. The steep US tariffs imposed last year on national security grounds have become a major stumbling block to ratifying a new North American trade pact negotiated last year by the three countries. Mnuchin's comments came as visiting Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland again warned that Canada was unlikely to ratify the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement so long as the tariffs -- 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum -- remained in place. In his testimony before a Senate committee, Mnuchin said: "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada." Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have resisted bringing the new agreement to a vote while the tariffs remain in place for the US's northern and southern neighbors, traditionally major US suppliers of steel and aluminum. Democrats and their supporters have expressed skepticism about Mexico's commitment to greater labor rights protections. Powerful players in the Senate and House offered few details on Wednesday about efforts to end the impasse. "We won't know for a few days," Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, chairman of Senate Finance Committee and an opponent of the metal tariffs, told reporters. But Freeland told reporters that ratifying the USMCA would be "very, very problematic" so long as the tariffs remained in place. "We believe that these tariffs need to be lifted," she said, calling the levies "hurtful to each of our countries." US officials have reportedly sought to persuade Mexico City and Ottawa to accept export quotas in return for lifting the metal tariffs on their countries. Mnuchin said Wednesday the issue was likely to be worked out soon, but did not offer any details. Story continues "I've spoken to the finance ministers," he said in testimony. "I can assure you it is a priority for us." Lighthizer also met Wednesday with lawmakers including Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Following the meeting, Democrat Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee -- which will be key to the agreement's ratification through US legislation -- told reporters that members of his party would confer to consider their position. "We made a series of suggestions in there acknowledging that there have been improvements but we also think that there's a ways to go," Neal said. - China talks in 'near future' - Mnuchin also repeated his expectation that US negotiators would return to Beijing to pursue stalled talks aimed at resolving the US-China trade war. With Lighthizer, Mnuchin has led the US delegation in 11 rounds of shuttle diplomacy aimed at resolving the trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies. But hostilities resumed last week when the United States accused China of backsliding on major commitments, and President Donald Trump more than doubled punitive tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese merchandise imports. China responded in kind on Monday, raising duties on $60 billion in US exports. "I think we had a constructive meeting with the vice premier," Mnuchin told lawmakers Wednesday, referring to last week's brief sessions with Chinese trade envoy Liu He. "There's still a lot of work to do," he added. "As I've said, my expectation is we will most likely go to Beijing at some point in the near future to continue those discussions and I think it's President Trump's expectation to meet with President Xi at the G20 at the end of June." Major General Chris Ghika contradicted US claims of increased risk from pro-Iranian groups - www.alamy.com Rifts grew between the United States and its closest allies on Wednesday as Britain and other European governments refused to back its claim that Iran is planning to mount attacks against US and allied assets in Syria and Iraq. The US State department said it was withdrawing all non-emergency staff from diplomatic missions in Iraq following warnings from Donald Trump's government about a threat from Iranian-backed militia groups there. But in a sign of growing differences, the Foreign Office said it had no plans to follow suit and the ministry of defence defended a British general who appeared to question the Trump administration's claims that an imminent threat has emerged from Iran and militias that it backs in recent days. US National Security Advisor John Bolton insists Iran is planning to attack US assets in the Middle East Credit: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/REX John Bolton, Mr Trump's national security advisor, announced last week that the US would send an aircraft carrier, 5-52 bombers and a missile battery to the Middle East because of a sudden escalation of that threat. The Pentagon has reportedly drawn up contingency plans for conflict including the deployment of 120,000 troops. Maj Gen Chris Ghika, the deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, told reporters in a conference call on Monday: "No, there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria." Hours later US Central Command, which is responsible for US military operations in the Middle East, took the unusual step of publicly contradicting him. "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region," said Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman, in a statement. The ministry of defence said on Wednesday that Maj Gen Ghika was speaking only as an officer focused on the fight against Isil and that he had been clear that threats to US and allied forces do indeed exist. Story continues But it avoided endorsing the US assessment that the threat level has recently increased, saying only that Britain had long-standing concerns about Iran's role in the region. MOD statement following Major General Chris Ghika's Pentagon press briefing. Full briefing can be watched here: https://t.co/U64v2E9BvUpic.twitter.com/4tZrD9zN1D Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) May 15, 2019 The incident reflects diplomatic dilemmas. While British officials may be uneasy about US rhetoric towards Iran, they will be wary of jeopardising the UK's single most important security relationship by alienating the Trump administration. Although Germany and the Netherlands said they would halt military training programs in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq for security reasons, Jens Flosdorff, a spokesman for the German defence ministry, also said there was "no concrete threat" and that training may resume in several days. France said it had no plans to withdraw diplomats or suspend its own military training programs. Need a better way to start your day? For your essential rundown from The Telegraph, sign up to our free Front Page newsletter and new audio briefings on WhatsApp. Washington (AFP) - The US State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, as tensions mount between the United States and Iraq's neighbor Iran. Washington has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days, accusing Iran of planning "imminent" attacks in the region, and bolstering the American military presence in the Gulf. "Numerous terrorist and insurgent groups are active in Iraq and regularly attack both Iraqi security forces and civilians," a travel advisory warned. "Anti-US sectarian militias may also threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq." The US last year shut its consulate in the protest-hit southern Iraqi city of Basra, blaming "indirect fire" by Iran-backed forces and warning its rival of retaliation for any damage. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week paid a surprise trip to Baghdad in a move to bolster ties with Iraq as it pushes ahead with its "maximum pressure" against Tehran -- a US arch-rival, but an ally of Iraq. He told reporters he had made the trip because Iranian forces are "escalating their activity" and said the threat of attacks were "very specific." Pompeo met with Iraq President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, and spoke to them "about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it's able to adequately protect Americans in their country." The Pentagon said it was sending several massive, nuclear-capable B-52s to the region in response to "recent and clear indications that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were making preparations to possibly attack US forces." Both Pompeo and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have this week played down fears that their countries were seeking conflict. But National Security Advisor John Bolton warned Iran that Washington would respond with "unrelenting force" to any attack by Tehran, including by its regional allies. Blasts involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) occur in many areas of Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, the advisory added. Arbil is the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, in northern Iraq. There he goes again. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump may be the most powerful man in the world, but theres at least one group of people he hasnt convinced to take him seriously: his own staff. According to a new report in The Atlantic, Trump aides routinely ignore his most outlandish orders in hopes that the 72-year-old will forget about them and then get distracted by another shiny object. As a recent example, The Atlantics Elaina Plott takes us back to late March, when Trump announced the end of aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The next day, the State Department put out a statement affirming plans to cut off money to the Northern Triangle nations. There was just one problem the White House had no plan. Thats not a surprise, because Trumps plan to cut aid wasnt a plan at all. It was an impulsive pronouncement that has already been forgotten in Washington. A month and a half has passed since the presidents Central America announcement, and according to lawmakers and aides, the administration is not advancing the issue. Senator Patrick Leahy, who serves as the ranking member of the subcommittee that funds foreign aid, told me that this was the inevitable result of an impulsive and illogical decision by the president. It caught the State Department and USAID by surprise, and they have been scrambling to figure out how to limit the damage it would cause, Leahy said. The playbook for dealing with Trumps unexpected orders includes such moves as actually trying to implement them, feigning cooperation, and just totally ignoring the guy. Then, aides ignore reporters who come sniffing around, as Plott found when she asked questions about the two reviews of the Jussie Smollett case that Trump ordered on March 28. FBI & DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2019 This kind of treatment might enrage a normal president, whod expect the simply dignity of being listened to. But Trump is far from normal and there may be no better illustration of that than his making big, splashy policy announcements and then totally forgetting about them. Washington (AFP) - Amid rising tensions in the Gulf, Iran on Thursday rejected negotiations with the US and said it was showing "maximum restraint" after Washington sent extra military forces to the region against what it claimed was an imminent threat from Tehran. US officials meanwhile said the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf, one of the world's most strategic waterways, was in reaction to photographs showing that Iran had loaded missiles onto small traditional boats. In Tokyo for talks with Japanese officials, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the US escalation "unacceptable." There was "no possibility" of negotiations with the United States, he told reporters. "I don't know why President Trump is confident." "We exercise maximum restraint," he said, despite the Trump administration's unilateral move last year to withdraw from the international agreement on Iran's nuclear program. On Wednesday, Trump predicted Iran would "soon" want to negotiate, even as the State Department ordered the evacuation of most personnel from the US embassy and consulate in Iraq, fearing an attack by Iranian-directed Shiite militias. "I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon," the president tweeted. - Pressure to justify escalation - The White House and Pentagon remained under pressure to demonstrate the reason for the huge buildup in forces and heightened rhetoric of the past 11 days. Two major pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq rejected allegations that they were plotting an attack on US diplomatic installations in the country. Nasr al-Shomari, a military commander for the Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujaba, told AFP the claim was "a pretext" by Washington to create "an uproar" in Iraq. US coalition partners in Iraq had suggested earlier this week that the threat level there had not risen significantly, and members of Congress demanded to see the information behind the Trump administration's warlike rhetoric. Story continues "I think they should tell us what the hell is going on," senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN. A US official said Thursday that Iranian missiles loaded on small, traditional dhow boats in the Gulf were among the new "threats" to US forces and allies in the region. The official, who asked not to be named, confirmed a New York Times report that US intelligence had aerial photos of the vessels. "The missiles on civilian boats are a concern," said the official. - Anti-war Trump? - The Trump administration meanwhile appeared divided on how hard of a line to take. The deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group and the bombers was first announced on May 5 by White House National Security Advisor John Bolton. The vocal hawk called the move "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said days later that while the US does not seek a war with Iran, "if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." But The New York Times reported that Trump himself was not entirely happy with the talk of war and told acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan early Thursday that he does not want to a military clash. Brookings Institution foreign policy analyst Tom Wright said Trump does not agree with Bolton's hard line and advocacy of regime change in Tehran. "Trump has always distrusted Bolton on military intervention," Wright said. Intelligence officials were scheduled to brief congressional leaders Thursday on the information they have that spurred the new deployments to the Gulf, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Trump that the legislature, and not the president, has the constitutional power to declare war. "I like what I hear from the president, that he has no appetite for this," Pelosi said. "One of the places that I agree with the president is in both of our opposition to the war in Iraq, and I hope that that same attitude will prevail with (Trump), even though some of his supporters are rattling sabers." BEIRUT (AP) A senior U.S. official who has been mediating the maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon met with Lebanese officials Wednesday for a second day, signaling a new push to resolve the matter. Israel and Lebanon both claim some 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon hopes to unleash offshore oil and gas production as it grapples with an economic crisis. Washington is mediating between the two countries, which have been officially at war since Israel's creation in 1948. Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield met Wednesday with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. He also met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri for a second time on the visit. Satterfield made no comments to the press. Israel and Lebanon also disagree over their land borders. The U.S. had asked the Lebanese for a "unified position," signaling that some in the country were ready to separate the two issues. Aoun said he informed Satterfield that Lebanon believes demarcating the maritime and land borders reinforces stability in the area and urged Washington to help while respecting his country's frontiers and right to explore for oil and gas. Speaking to lawmakers after the meeting, Berri described the meeting as "positive" and said it would be followed up. He said things are moving in the right direction because of the Lebanese "unified" position that protects maritime and land borders, according to his remarks published in the state National News Agency. A week before Satterfield's visit, Aoun presented the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon with what he called a "unified stance" regarding the demarcation of the borders between Lebanon and Israel. Berri had told the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon that the government is ready to establish the maritime border and special economic zone with Israel similar to the one used to demarcate the land border between the two countries after Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Lebanon is expected to begin drilling for oil and gas by the end of the year off the coast north of Beirut, and in the block near the disputed area with Israel a year later. A consortium of French Total, Italian Eni and Russian Novatek will handle exploration there. A second round of bidding for exploration was approved last month. An agreement over maritime borders would ensure such exploration remains on track. Washington (AFP) - A US F-35 stealth bomber suffered millions of dollars in damage after being hit by a bird during take-off from an air base in Japan, the US Marine Corps said in a statement Wednesday. "On May 7, 2019 an F-35B with Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing aborted take-off due to a bird strike at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni and safely taxied off the runway," the statement said. The pilot was not hurt in the incident, it said. A damage assessment report has not yet been completed but the Marine Corps classified the incident as category "A", meaning the damage bill is expected to exceed $2 million. Last month an F-16 fighter jet operating in the United States was hit by a hawk, the US Air Force told a military-focused website. Photos of the April 17 incident showed the mangled remains of a bird in the landing gear of the plane. The F-35 program was launched in the 1990s and has cost almost $400 billion, making it the most expensive weapons system ever developed by the Pentagon. The defense department plans to build some 2,500 of the warplanes in the decades to come. The F-35B is a short take-off and landing variant of the plane, developed for the Marine Corps. Each plane costs $115 million to build. In April, an F-35A stealth fighter went down off the coast of Japan, sparking a lengthy search by Japanese and American salvage crews. Some debris was recovered but the pilot's body has not been found and the US Navy announced earlier this month it was calling off the search. CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's top court accused four opposition lawmakers of treason on Tuesday, following similar accusations against 10 legislators this month, escalating a deep political crisis in the South American country. Security forces earlier prevented lawmakers from entering the legislature for Tuesday's session, saying they were investigating the possible presence of an explosive device inside the building. The Supreme Court accused lawmakers Carlos Paparoni, Miguel Pizarro, Franco Casella and Winston Flores of treason and inciting rebellion. The accusations, in a statement posted on the court's Facebook page, marked the latest step in a crackdown by President Nicolas Maduro on allies of opposition leader Juan Guaido following a failed effort to spur a military uprising in April. "This simply gives us more strength," Flores told Reuters,calling the Supreme Court's accusations "illegitimate orders from the dictator." "We know they will continue with this process of trying to destroy the National Assembly," he said. Mexico's foreign ministry said later on Tuesday it had received opposition lawmaker Franco Manuel Casella Lovaton in its embassy in Caracas "to provide protection and shelter." The ministry, which stressed its commitment to protecting human rights, also said it would continue to follow a policy of non-intervention in Venezuela. "The government reaffirms its position of non-intervention, its openness to dialogue and its firm commitment to collaborate in finding a democratic, peaceful and collaborative solution to the situation that Venezuela faces," it said in a statement. One opposition lawmaker was arrested and several took refuge in foreign embassies in Caracas or fled the country last week after similar accusations from the court. 'ILLEGAL SENTENCE' Flores said he would make an "emergency" trip to Uruguay to denounce the wave of accusations against Venezuelan lawmakers to the parliament of the Mercosur trade bloc, where he is also a representative, in Montevideo. Story continues Pizarro called the court ruling "an illegal sentence that seeks only to generate fear to shut us up" in a post on Twitter. Reuters was unable to obtain comment from the other legislators. Opposition leaders have in recent weeks called such charges an effort by the ruling Socialist Party to shut the legislature. The Trump administration strongly condemned this month's detention of Edgar Zambrano, the vice president of the legislature. Guaido, leader of the opposition-controlled assembly, invoked Venezuela's constitution in January to assume an interim presidency, arguing Maduro's 2018 re-election was illegitimate. More than 50 countries have recognized him as the country'srightful leader and say the assembly is its last remainingdemocratic institution. "This is a dictatorship that goes after dissidents, and weare fighting for a political change," lawmaker Juan Pablo Guanipa told Reuters, referring to the blocking of congress. Tuesday's session was scheduled for 10 a.m. (1400 GMT) but never began. The lawmakers were set to discuss the charges against their colleagues and the arrest of Zambrano, anoutspoken critic of Maduro. Venezuela's information ministry, which handles media inquiries on behalf of the government, did not respond to a request for comment on why security forces blocked the entrance to parliament. Maduro, a socialist, calls Guaido a puppet of the United States seeking to oust him in a coup. The government stripped the assembly of most of its powers after the opposition won a majority in 2015 elections. Lawmakers loyal to Maduro generally do not attend the sessions but go to meetings of the Constituent Assembly, a legislative body created in 2017 that meets in the same building. The Constituent Assembly is controlled by the ruling Socialist Party and its powers supersede those of the National Assembly. Opposition lawmaker Jorge Millan told reporters the report of "bombs" in the building was false. "It is a trick to prevent the parliament from functioning today," he said. "If we do not have a session today, we will do it tomorrow." (Reporting by Mayela Armas and Corina PonsAdditional reporting and writing by Luc CohenEditing by Bill Berkrot and Paul Tait) Caracas (AFP) - Lawmakers entered congress on Wednesday, a day after opposition leader Juan Guaido accused Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's government of trying to "gag" the legislature after it was blocked by security forces. "Here we are in session, facing the people," said Guaido when opening the day's proceedings at the Federal Palace building that houses the National Assembly -- the only government branch under opposition control. SEBIN security agents and the National Guard, which provides security for the building, had prevented lawmakers from entering on Tuesday. It was the latest move in a series of measures taken by the Maduro regime against opposition lawmakers since Guaido's failed April 30 uprising. Venezuela has been in political turmoil since assembly speaker Guaido declared himself acting president in January in a direct challenge to Maduro's authority. "The (only) option in Venezuela is to struggle, to keep going ... and here is your parliament to accompany you and get out of this crisis," said Guaido in a speech transmitted on twitter. Tuesday's session was meant to discuss government measures taken against National Assembly lawmakers, which was instead on Wednesday's program. The Constituent Assembly, set up by Maduro to replace the sidelined National Assembly, has stripped a dozen opposition lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity. The Supreme Court has likewise charged 14 deputies with involvement in the failed uprising, in which Guaido was joined by around 30 members of the armed forces in a revolt that quickly fizzled out. It did, however, spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. The US government suspended all passenger and cargo air services to Venezuela on Wednesday, citing reports of civil unrest in and around its airports. The military has largely remained loyal to Maduro, strengthening his position in the power struggle with Guaido, who is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries. Story continues Of the lawmakers singled out by authorities, deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano was arrested by SEBIN agents last week. Another fled to neighboring Colombia, four more sought refuge in diplomatic compounds while yet another said he was hiding inside Venezuela. "Yesterday the dictatorship tried to prevent our session but they couldn't and they can't," Guaido wrote on twitter. "Today we will sit in session honoring once more the support and confidence of the whole of Venezuela." - Normal entry - Earlier in the day, the National Assembly speaker's press team had shared a video of a smiling Guaido entering the congress building alongside other lawmakers. "We're already here inside. Entry was as normal, they only asked deputies for their identification," lawmaker Arnoldo Benitez told AFP. Maduro's right-hand man Diosdado Cabello justified Tuesday's intervention by claiming there was a bomb threat in the building. Guaido accused the security forces of using "brute force" and said the building was "occupied militarily." While deputies were allowed in on Wednesday, the National Guard prevented the press from entering, something that has happened before. "They didn't allow in the press and that's a concern for us because the media is a shield for us here inside," Benitez said by telephone. A line of uniformed officers carrying shields were stationed outside the entrance to the legislature. The National Assembly has been effectively powerless since 2016 when the Supreme Court, made up of regime loyalists, declared it in contempt. Ever since the top court has annulled every decision its made. "Today, history obliges us to be firm with those few who try to tarnish the people's ideals," said Supreme Court president Maikel Moreno in an official act, referring to supposed attacks on the constitution by opposition lawmakers that reject Maduro's authority. Vermont on Friday became the sixth state to eliminate Columbus Day, replacing it with Indigenous Peoples Day. Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, signed a bill designating the second Monday in October a day honoring Native Americans rather than the 15th-century Italian explorer. Vermont was founded and built upon lands whose original inhabitants were Abenaki people and honors them and their ancestors, the states new law reads. I know its controversial from many standpoints, from many people, but you know, its just a day, and well get through it, Scott said last month after the state legislature passed the measure. Vermonts move comes on the heels of similar bills in Maine and New Mexico, whose Democratic governors signed the holiday change into law last month. Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota had already chosen to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day. Some modern Native American tribes object to the celebration of Christopher Columbus, who led several expeditions to Central and South America and spearheaded the European colonization of the New World. Columbus is very much a part of these stories, said Rich Holschuh, a member of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and advocate for changing the holiday, in remarks to lawmakers at the statehouse earlier this year. But we now know that he was not the idealistic, magnanimous, inspirational figure that we were . . . taught. Others said they were for Indigenous Peoples Day but lamented the scrapping of Columbus Day. I am all for an Indigenous Peoples Day, absolutely, Karl Miller, secretary for the Italian-heritage organization Barre Mutuo, said in March. But the casting aside [of] Columbus Day I think is a tragedy, I really do, for the American people in general. More from National Review Fashion house Versace has just brought its signature daring style to a new collection of homeware, and its everything youd expect and more. The Versace Home Collection made its debut at this years FurioSalone in Milan, with curation from interior designer Sasha Bikoff and artist Andy Dixon. Drawing inspiration from pop culture, mythology, and all the palm trees and neon colors of Gianni Versaces adopted home of Miami, the collection consists of five different furniture groups: Pop Medusa, Medusa, Jungle, Rhapsody, and Logomania. Unveiled in a special exhibition on the second floor of the Versace home on Via Gesu, the Milanese street known for its high concentration of luxury menswear boutiques, these designs also reinterpret pieces seen in previous Versace Home collections. Full of bold shapes, bright colors, clashing patterns, and iridescent materials, the exhibition works in plenty of 2019 interior design trends. The overall effect (as is often the case with Versace) is garish without veering into gauche, and always Fashion with a capital F. Clearly, the 90s are back, whether were ready or not. Bikoff says she was inspired by the Fall/Winter 1994 Versace advertising campaign shot by Richard Avedon, which featured pastel colors and iconic 90s supermodels like Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, and Stephanie Seymour. I wanted to showcase the connection between fashion and the home: atmosphere and rooms have the power to inspire emotions to make us feel a certain way, just like a dress, she tells Elle Decor. The space I wanted to create makes you feel happy and powerful. Included in the exhibition are several pieces by Canadian artist Andy Dixon, who hand-painted oversized shirts with both iconic Versace prints and new prints he developed in collaboration with Donatella Versace. Dixon is known for layering historical references with contemporary social commentary, playing on art history and questioning the inherent value of luxuries. He draws comparisons between his own work and that of Versace in that they both marry pop culture and art and toe the line between sophistication and kitsch. Story continues As for the furnishings themselves, they range from upscale versions of patio furniture that would fit right in on the Golden Girls lanai to sculpted polyethylene chairs featuring the face of Medusa in all her snake-haired glory. Pop Medusa translates the latter theme into weather-resistant chairs and glass cubes that serve as side tables or stools. Rhapsody showcases vivid Baroque prints, and Logomania is exactly what it sounds like, splashing VERSACE across various surfaces in stark black and white. The Jungle pieces represent Versaces first foray into outdoor furniture, and its tropical prints reference the unforgettable green V-cut silk chiffon dress Jennifer Lopez wore to the 42nd Grammy Awards ceremony in 2000. Also included in this mini-collection are a hanging bed, fire pit table, lanterns, and sun loungers. The Versace villa at Via Gesu opened its doors to the public during Milan Design Week to show off the exhibition. Smaller pieces from the collection, like Medusa head vases and a set of ornate porcelain Rhapsody plates, are already available for purchase on the Versace website. Photo: New York Magazines May 13-26, 2019 issue. In New Yorks May 1326, 2019 issue, city editor Christopher Bonanos unveils a selection from 73 long-lost images by the mid-century New York crime-photography legend Weegee. The pictures in our pages, unearthed from a junk-store box by the artist David Young, are being published for the first time in 82 years. As our story details, Young bought the photos in 1970 simply because he liked the look of them, and he was unaware of their origins until he pulled the box out of his kitchen cabinet last year and Googled the photographers stamp present on many of the images. For Bonanos, who recently won a National Book Critics Circle award for his biography of Weegee, Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous, its tremendously exciting for something like this to appear after hes studied the mans work for so long. Nearly all of the images turned out to have been made in April and May 1937, and there are at least eight murders, murderers, or murder suspects represented among them. Bonanos spent the past few weeks applying his research skills and extensive knowledge of Weegees work to identify most of the scenes. Heres how he pinned one of them down. Photo: Weegee/International Center of Photography This photo was hard to figure. Maybe it was Easter, and everyone was dressed for church? I started with a weak guess, from the look of the buildings and the el train and the fact that the subjects were African-American, that it was somewhere in Harlem. After a lot of staring, I spotted a street sign, barely legible, toward the upper left of the photo: 8TH AVE. That meant the train was the old Ninth Avenue IRT, which took a curve north of Central Park and shifted to Eighth Avenue. Since theres a staircase in the photo, that narrowed it down to the trains eight stations in Harlem. And I started marching south on Google Street View, looking for a landmark, from 155th to 150th to 145th to 140th Nothing matched. Too many buildings have been torn down and rebuilt in the past 80 years. But then I had a brainstorm: In 1940, for a citywide property-tax survey, New York City photographed every single building in town. Those pictures went online recently. So I started checking each of those same intersection, and in about 20 minutes I found a photo of 2527 Eighth Avenue that showed the same CHINESE HAND LAUNDRY sign same building, too, though the ground floor looks different now and another photo that showed the tenements across the street. So now I had a corner: 135th Street and Eighth Avenue. Then it hit me. Another photo in the same box of Weegee prints one that hed captioned in ink showed a crashed limousine owned by the actor Stepin Fetchit. Id looked up the coverage of that crash in the New York Daily News, and the car, it said, had run into an elevated-train pillar at 135th and Eighth. And I know well that Weegees signature move was to photograph the observers of a news event in addition to the event itself, and that, on occasion, he was known to give that scene a little help by asking someone to pose as an observer. The story as seen in the Daily News, April 26, 1937. (Photo uncredited, but probably not by Weegee.) Its pretty clear to me, therefore, what happened here. He went and shot the wrecked car, wherever it had been towed. Then he came back to the site and asked a few neighborhood kids to gawk at the pillar it had hit. As for the woman, maybe she posed there, too, or maybe she just stepped into the scene. What I love most of all is that her baleful glance kind of prefigures the one in The Critic, Weegees most famous photo, of two opera ladies arriving on opening night as a disheveled woman rolls her eyes at them. He set that one up, too. If you like stories like these, consider subscribing to New York. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Investors can approximate the average market return by buying an index fund. While individual stocks can be big winners, plenty more fail to generate satisfactory returns. Investors in Vault Intelligence Limited (ASX:VLT) have tasted that bitter downside in the last year, as the share price dropped 32%. That's disappointing when you consider the market returned 5.6%. We wouldn't rush to judgement on Vault Intelligence because we don't have a long term history to look at. There was little comfort for shareholders in the last week as the price declined a further 2.9%. Check out our latest analysis for Vault Intelligence Given that Vault Intelligence didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth. In the last year Vault Intelligence saw its revenue grow by 15%. We think that is pretty nice growth. Meanwhile, the share price is down 32% over twelve months, which is disappointing given the progress made. This implies the market was expecting better growth. However, that's in the past now, and it's the future that matters most. Depicted in the graphic below, you'll see revenue and earnings over time. If you want more detail, you can click on the chart itself. ASX:VLT Income Statement, May 15th 2019 Balance sheet strength is crucual. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time. A Different Perspective While Vault Intelligence shareholders are down 32% for the year, the market itself is up 5.6%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Putting aside the last twelve months, it's good to see the share price has rebounded by 6.3%, in the last ninety days. Let's just hope this isn't the widely-feared 'dead cat bounce' (which would indicate further declines to come). Before spending more time on Vault Intelligence it might be wise to click here to see if insiders have been buying or selling shares. Story continues If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on AU exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Declaring that the United States needs more than a border wall to stem a surge of Central American migrants, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham on Wednesday proposed additional steps such as holding migrant families for longer periods and hiring more immigration judges. The senior Republican senator's latest plan to tackle America's problem with undocumented immigrants also would result in unaccompanied minors from Central America being sent back to their countries of origin. Also, asylum applications from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras would be filed at centers in those countries and in Mexico, not in the United States, under Graham's plan. While Graham is known to have President Donald Trump's ear, proposals similar to the senator's have been rejected in the past by Democrats, who control the House of Representatives. Trump will give a speech on immigration policy on Thursday, the White House said on Wednesday. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House hardline immigration adviser Stephen Miller were on Capitol Hill on Tuesday talking to senators about Trump's plans. The White House approach is expected to call for more merit-based immigration. Trump's most-often cited solution, which Congress has refused to fully fund, is a border wall. "We need the wall," said Graham, of South Carolina, but he added, "A wall will not fix this." He subdivided the border problem into "illegal immigration, smuggling, sex trafficking, drugs, people trying not to get caught," as well as a second category of asylum claimants, or "people wanting to get caught from Central America because of these loopholes in our law." He said the border needs to be secured "so that people cant cross illegally if they are trying to avoid detection." But on another track, he said, "You need to deal with the magnets and loopholes in the law that entice people to come who want to get caught." Graham proposed letting authorities hold migrant families with children for 100 days instead of the present 20-day limit, while increasing the number of judges dealing with their cases by 500. "We got almost 900,000 backlog of asylum claims. We're gonna wipe out the backlog," Graham said. Last year, Trump encouraged bipartisan work on an immigration overhaul, but then rejected a proposal produced by Graham, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and others. Since then, numbers of border-crossers have surged, pushing resources to the breaking point. John Sanders, acting commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, said on Wednesday that the number of people apprehended at the border since Oct. 1 was nearly 520,000, the highest level in a decade. Durbin said Graham's proposal was "a non-starter as legislation, but it is a starter for debate. So I welcome the fact that he's going to put it before the committee and open the discussion on amendments." Proposals to reform immigration law have defied bipartisan consensus for years, with polarization hardening over Trump's wall proposal. "I realize that this process has got to have some Democratic buy-in," Graham said. "I'm just asking the president to encourage Democrats to work with us." (Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and David Gregorio) LONDON (Reuters) - Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, said it is considering a stock market listing for its British supermarket arm Asda, whose attempt to combine with rival Sainsbury's was blocked by the UK regulator last month. Judith McKenna, the Walmart International CEO, told Asda managers at an event in Leeds, northern England, on Tuesday: "While we are not rushing into anything, I want you to know that we are seriously considering a path to an IPO - a public listing - to strengthen your long-term success." But she cautioned that any preparations for an IPO would "take years", according to comments released by Asda afterwards. Britain's competition regulator ruled Sainsbury's 7.3 billion pound ($9.4 billion) takeover of Asda could not proceed, blocking one potential exit route for Walmart from the UK. The decision prompted analysts to speculate that Walmart would try to sell Asda to private equity or consider a stock market listing for the business, which it paid 6.7 billion pounds to acquire in 1999. McKenna's comments are the first time Walmart has publicly addressed its future strategy for Asda since the Sainsbury's deal collapsed. "Walmart does not have a one-size-fits-all approach to operating its international markets, but a consistent focus on strong local businesses powered by Walmart," she said. Asda has reported seven consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales growth thanks to a strategy focused on lower prices, more innovation in own-brand products, better store standards and improvements in its e-commerce operations. Monthly industry data produced by researcher Kantar indicates that Asda will likely report an eighth quarter of growth when it updates on trading on Thursday. CEO Roger Burnley told managers at the Leeds meeting there would be 80 million pounds of price cuts throughout the rest of 2019. Asda's strategy is working, he said, but noted it would be harder to deliver the strategy at the same pace without the synergies that the Sainsbury's deal would have provided. (Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) Now that theres a truce of sorts in the war on cops, the anti-incarceration Left has found a new enemy: your local district attorney. Progressive reformers still obsessing over so-called mass incarceration think that the best way to reduce imprisonment is to curtail the power of prosecutors offices. They believe that prosecutors caused the prison buildup and that DAs persist in maximizing incarceration even though crime is down. These critics are mistaken, and their proposals are unnecessary, risky, and misguided. A new book by Emily Bazelon is typical of the anti-prosecutor genre. The title, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, is revealing. The book is a mix of polemic and illustrative cases, except that the two cases she places under the spotlight dont prove her point. Neither case demonstrates that prosecutors caused mass incarceration or that they have breathtaking power, leading to disastrous results for millions of people. Bazelon thinks that because the prosecutors could have charged the defendant under any one of three statutes, each carrying prison time New Yorks gun laws are strict but provide for fine distinctions they have too much discretion. But that discretion is what enabled prosecutors to fashion a rehabilitative outcome. In one of the cases, involving a young black man caught red-handed with an illegal handgun, the Brooklyn District Attorneys Office showed great leniency, agreeing to divert an obviously guilty defendant. With diversion the charges are suspended for a year, then dropped after completion of a community-service program and no further arrests. While Bazelon pushes for a new, progressive type of district attorney, it was an old type of district attorney who set up and maintained Brooklyns diversion program 15 years ago. In Bazelons second case, a brutal knife murder in Memphis, the prosecutor did go too far to obtain a conviction. She made an overly aggressive remark in her closing statement at trial, and the conviction was reversed on appeal. But this kind of error is not common, partly because trials are uncommon relative to plea bargains, so it could not have contributed much to mass incarceration. If anything, the case demonstrates the power of courts to check prosecutors. Story continues Bazelon thinks that a progressive groundswell will usher in a slew of reformist prosecutors and fix the system. Unlikely. There are over 2,400 elected DAs in the United States, and only a handful of leftists may be expected to garner public support. Another new book on the subject, Rachel Barkows Prisoners of Politics, is skeptical about the election solution. But Barkow goes much further than Bazelon; she wants to transfer the powers of local prosecutors to statewide agencies. This would diminish local control over criminal justice, an American tradition that provides responsiveness to community conditions. More broadly speaking, the obsession of the anti-incarcerationists with prosecutors is misplaced. First of all, the incarceration buildup was a product of the beefing-up of the entire criminal-justice system, not just prosecutors. For instance, the number of prosecutors increased 58 percent from 1974 to 2001. But the number of full-time police rose nearly 95 percent for the same period, and its the police who bring offenders into the system. The prosecutors didnt cause the incarceration buildup; soaring crime and public demand for a more punitive criminal-justice system did. The continuation of the high incarceration rates after the mid-1990s, when crime began to fall, was due to the continuing fear, which was rational: Nobody knew if crime would rise again, as it had in the 1980s. The further decline in crime in the 2000s has led to a contraction of the system. Imprisonment rates have been steadily falling and are now at their lowest point since 1997. Black imprisonment rates tumbled a whopping 29 percent between 2006 and 2016. Moreover, if one examines the actual time served in prison, and not just initial sentences, one sees that the system is not overly punitive. For all prisoners released in 2016, the median time served was only 1.3 years; the mean was 2.6 years. For violent offenders the median was 2.4 years, the average 4.7 years. Second, the work of prosecutors is caricatured by the reformers. They assume that prosecutors always seek the harshest punishments, threatening defendants with mandatory sentences in order to extract guilty pleas. In fact, however, prosecutors frequently evade mandatory sentences. The handgun case in Bazelons book is a good illustration of this. Numerous empirical studies prove that prosecutors commonly seek alternatives to mandatory sentences where they consider them unjustly harsh, or when defendants are cooperative in conspiracy cases. Some of the critics reform proposals (Bazelon provides a long list) are certainly worthwhile. For instance, it makes a great deal of sense to encourage police to use crisis-intervention techniques and to divert mentally ill lawbreakers to treatment instead of arrest. Likewise, offering drug-treatment programs in jails would be helpful. But modest improvements such as these are a far cry from some of the extreme proposals now being floated. You can bet that prosecutors, including the progressives, will vigorously oppose any reforms, such as review boards, that give outsiders a veto over office policy. More from National Review By John Davison and Mark Hosenball BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Helicopters ferried U.S. staff from the American embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday out of apparent concern about perceived threats from Iran, which U.S. sources believe encouraged Sunday's attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf. The sabotage of the tankers, for which no one has claimed responsibility, and Saudi Arabia's announcement on Tuesday that armed drones hit two of its oil pumping stations have raised concerns Washington and Tehran may be inching toward conflict. A U.S. government source said American security experts believe Iran gave its "blessing" to tanker attacks, which hit two Saudi crude oil tankers, a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker off Fujeirah near the Strait of Hormuz. The source said the United States believes Iran's role was one of actively encouraging militants but indicated the United States does not now have evidence that Iranian personnel played any direct operational role. Iran's Foreign Ministry has called the tanker attacks "worrisome and dreadful" and called for an investigation. There has been a marked increase in U.S.-Iranian tensions since U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to try to cut off all of Iran's oil exports and to designate its Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organization." Trump, who last year abandoned the 2015 international nuclear accord with Iran, believes the economic pressure will force Tehran to accept more stringent limitations on its nuclear and missile programs as well as on its support for proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. U.S. SHRINKS DIPLOMATIC PRESENCE U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit to Baghdad last week after U.S. intelligence showed Iran-backed Shi'ite militias positioning rockets near bases housing U.S. forces, according to two Iraqi security sources. Pompeo told Iraq's top brass to keep the militias, which are expanding their power in Iraq and now form part of its security apparatus, in check, the sources said. If not, the United States would respond with force. Story continues Helicopters took off throughout the day from the vast U.S. embassy compound near the Tigris River in Baghdad, carrying non-emergency staff out, according to an Iraqi source and a diplomatic source inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. The Iraqi source said U.S. staff were headed for a military base at Baghdad airport. A U.S. official told Reuters late on Wednesday that the evacuation was complete. Trump is sending an aircraft carrier group, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles to the Middle East to counter what the United States calls a heightened threat from Iran to U.S. soldiers and interests in the region. Iran described the U.S. moves as "psychological warfare", and a British commander cast doubt on U.S. military concerns about threats to its roughly 5,000 soldiers in Iraq, who have been helping Iraqi security forces fight Islamic State. The U.S. State Department said employees at both the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, were being pulled out immediately due to safety concerns. It was unclear how many were affected, and there was no word on any specific threat. Visa services were suspended at the heavily-fortified U.S. missions. Germany, which has 160 soldiers in Iraq, and the Netherlands which has 169 military and civilian staff, suspended military training operations, citing regional tensions. 'DANGEROUS SITUATION' The attack on the tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world's oil consumption flows, appeared designed to test the resolve of the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies without triggering a war, analysts said. "This is a pin-prick event, a little needle-like jab at the maritime trade going into the Strait of Hormuz," said Gerry Northwood, chairman of risk management and security firm MAST. Both the United States and Iran have said they do not want war, and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday he had indications "things will end well" despite the rhetoric. Iraq is one of few countries with close ties to both the United States and Iran. It has said it will keep strong ties with Iran, and also with the United States and Arab neighbors, some of whom, such as Saudi Arabia, consider Tehran a rival. The United States, which had a large troop presence in Iraq from 2003-2011 after invading to topple dictator Saddam Hussein, sent troops back there in 2014 to help fight Islamic State. Iran has close ties to powerful Iraqi political parties and supports powerful Shi'ite militia groups. "I think we are now in a quite dangerous situation where a miscalculation by either side could lead us into conflict," U.S. Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN in an interview on Wednesday. (Reporting by John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Raya Jalabi in Erbil and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and Phil Stewart in Washington, Babak Dehghanpisheh in Geneva; Tassilo Hummel and Sabine Siebold in Berlin; and Anthony Deutsch and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Grant McCool) May 15 (Reuters) - The Weinstein Co said in court papers on Tuesday that it aims to liquidate the remainder of it holdings to end the bankruptcy of the film studio co-founded by one-time Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, 67, fell from grace after more than 70 women, mostly young actresses and others in the movie business, accused him of sexual assaults dating back decades. (Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by Sandra Maler) A total of 59 parliamentary constituencies across seven states and a UT will go to poll in the final phase of Lok Sabha Election 2019 on Sunday. Top leaders of major political parties are trying their best to woo voters by holding back-to-back rallies in the constituencies going to poll on May 19. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address rallies at Paliganj in Bihar, Deoghar in Jharkhand and Hasnabad and Diamond Harbour in West Bengal on Wednesday, BJP President Amit Shah will campaign at Dhar and Alirajpur in Madhya Pradesh. Other prominent BJP leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Yogi Adityanath and Manoj Tiwari will also campaign in Uttar Pradesh. Congress President Rahul Gandhi will hold rallies in Punjab's Faridkot and Ludhiana while his sister and party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will hold a roadshow in Varanasi. The final phase of 2019 Lok Sabha Election will cover all constituencies in Punjab (13) and Himachal Pradesh (4). Other states going to poll in phase 7 include Uttar Pradesh (13), West Bengal (9), Bihar (8), Madhya Pradesh (8); Jharkhand 3) and Chandigarh (1). Counting of votes will be done on May 23. Lok Sabha Election 2019: Poll dates, full schedule, voting FAQs, election results, constituencies' details Catch all the latest updates on Lok Sabha Election 2019 on BusinessToday.In live blog. 7.00 PM: Rahul Gandhi takes a jibe at PM Modi by attaching a snapshot of a dictionary entry on the term 'Modilie'. There's a new word in the English Dictionary. Attached is a snapshot of the entry :) pic.twitter.com/xdBdEUL48r - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 15, 2019 6.35 PM: Robert Vadra said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocks everyone over 'VIP treatment' but his brother wants a police escort (ANI) 6.05 PM: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, at his residence, meets Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, MA Naqvi, Vijay Goel, Anil Baluni, GVL Narasimha Rao, and Rakesh Sinha over clashes during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. (ANI) 5.35 PM: Rajnaath Singh says, "The Law and order is a primary responsibility of State govt and its CM" The Law and order is a primary responsibility of a State govt and its Chief Minister. The West Bengal govt. and Chief Minister, Sushri Mamata Banerjee should own the responsibility of the prevailing situation in the state. 4/4 - Chowkidar Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) May 15, 2019 5.45 PM: Smriti Irani says that in India, there is a state where if a common citizen says 'Jai Sri Ram' allies of Congress put him in jail Smriti Irani, BJP addressing a public meeting in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh: You are lucky that when you chant 'Jai Sri Ram', at least you are not arrested. Today in India, there is a state where if a common citizen merely says 'Jai Sri Ram' allies of Congress put him in jail. pic.twitter.com/DXNcqKmNog - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 5.05 PM: Rajnath Singh says that he is deeply concerned over the increasing incidents of political violence in West Bengal I am deeply concerned over the increasing incidents of political violence in West Bengal. It seems that the Law and Order situation is worsening further in the state with every passing phase in the ongoing General Elections. 3/4 - Chowkidar Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) May 15, 2019 4.25 PM: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at Bashirhat rally, said, "Mamata didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will take revenge. She fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow was attacked."(ANI) 2.55 PM: Political parties, digital marketers bypass WhatsApp spam restrictions using Rs 1,000 tool WhatsApp describes such apps as "unofficial" and says its users can face bans, which means the company can block the account associated with a particular mobile number if it detects unusual activity 1.45 PM: TMC's student wing protests against the vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue. Kolkata: TMC's student wing protests against the vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue during clashes in BJP Chief Amit Shah's roadshow in the city, yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Xhup7Zf19a - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 1.30 PM: Rahul Sinha, BJP, on Yogi Adityanath's rally in Kolkata cancelled: "When stage was being set up y'day, labourers working on it were beaten up & scared away; the stage was vandalised. The public meeting was scheduled for 2 pm today, stage couldn't be repaired. So we had to cancel it." (ANI) 12.30 PM: A four-member delegation of Trinamool Congress MPs will address a press conference at Constitution Club in New Delhi at 2 PM and will display video evidence of yesterday's incident. The Kolkata police have arrested 58 people in connection with the clashes. 12.19 PM: Amit Shah on Kolkata violence: "BJP workers were beaten up, TMC can go to any extent, it's with luck that I made it out." BJP President Amit Shah on violence at his roadshow in Kolkata yesterday: Had CRPF not been there, it would have been really difficult for me to escape, BJP workers were beaten up, TMC can go to any extent, it's with luck that I made it out. #WestBengalpic.twitter.com/GksBpZA2iY - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 12.15 PM: "I will fight this case. I will not apologise," says BJP Youth Wing Convenor Priyanka Sharma, who was arrested for sharing a meme on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. BJP Youth Wing Convenor Priyanka Sharma who was arrested for sharing a meme on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee: My bail was granted y'day, but still I wasn't released for another 18 hours. They didn't allow me to meet my advocate & family. They made me sign an apology pic.twitter.com/Ln80lBZzJn - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 12.05 PM: TMC releases a video showing BJP workers vandalising college. " Irrefutable evidence that BJP goons, part of Shah's roadshow, went on rampage and even desecrated Vidyasagar's bust showing no respect or love for Bengal's culture. We guarantee the videos are 100% authentic," says TMC leader Derek O'Brien. 12.10 PM: BJP leaders protest against violence during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, West Bengal. Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds protest against violence in BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, West Bengal yesterday. Union Ministers Harsh Vardhan, Jitendra Singh and Vijay Goel also present pic.twitter.com/pIK872wgYF - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 11.56 AM: PM Modi in Paliganj, Bihar: "This is my last public meeting today; last opportunity to seek blessings for 2019 Elections." PM Modi in Paliganj, Bihar: This is my last public meeting today; last opportunity to seek blessings for 2019 Elections. Lekin iske baad Pradhan Mantri pad ko seva ke bhav se svikaar karte hue, main fir ek baar vikas ki ganga lekar ke aapke beech aaunga. pic.twitter.com/74CJk4i7eZ - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 11.55 AM: "They misguided the youth from their castes, led them to the path of crime," says Modi in an oblique reference to the RJD. 11.54 AM: "While in power, they did nothing for the nation, for the society at large and the very caste which they used for their society at large and the very caste which they used for their politics," says PM tearing into the RJD without naming it. (PTI) 11.52 AM: I would not have escaped unhurt without CRPF protection: Shah on violence in Kolkata. 10.50 AM: BSP Chief Mayawati in Lucknow: "PM doesn't hesitate from calling BSP, 'Behenji ki Sampatti Party'. Whatever the national president of BSP has, it has been given by well-wishers & the society, and nothing is hidden from the government." BSP Chief Mayawati: PM Narendra Modi was indeed the CM of Gujarat for a longer time than I was the CM of Uttar Pradesh. But his legacy is a black stain on BJP & country's communalism....While in our government, Uttar Pradesh was free of riots and anarchy pic.twitter.com/T7mv3ohiGO - ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 15, 2019 10.48 AM: The Election Commission to hold a meeting with West Bengal observers on poll violence in the state at 11.30 am today via video conferencing. 10.38 AM: "I hope the Election Commission will arrest the TMC goons and restore peace in Bengal," says BJP President Amit Shah. TMC TMC pic.twitter.com/WxlASaVFj8 - Chowkidar Amit Shah (@AmitShah) May 14, 2019 10.37 AM: A national protest against the cowardly attack on BJP National President's roadshow in Kolkata will be held at Jantar Mantar around 10:30 am today, says the BJP. A national protest against the cowardly attack on BJP National President's roadshow in Kolkata, would be held at 10:30 am on Wednesday, 15th May at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Please join and register your protest against this goondaism. pic.twitter.com/reXehYJI5c - BJP (@BJP4India) May 14, 2019 9.40 AM: PM Modi shares snippets of his speeches in Bihar, UP and Chandigarh. The campaign takes me eastwards today. Happy to be in Paliganj (Bihar), Deoghar (Jharkhand), Basirhat and Diamond Harbour (West Bengal). Here is a video encapsulating important snippets of my speeches in Bihar, UP and Chandigarh yesterday. Have a look. pic.twitter.com/kuDTHcyEst - Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 15, 2019 9.25 AM: On Vidyasagar college violence: "There was an attempt by TMC hooligans to attack me. Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal chief minister) tried to provoke violence. But I am safe," said Amit Shah after his rally. Hitting back, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said during a rally in Behala: "If you lay your hands on Vidyasagar, what will I call you other than a goonda?" 9.20 AM: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold two rallies in West Bengal today. Basirhat: 3.25 PM Diamond Harbour: 5 PM 9.15 AM: The Bharatiya Janata Party will hold a national protest against violence during BJP chief Amit Shah's rally in Kolkata on Tuesday. The BJP and Trinamool supporters clashed in the middle of BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow. Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis on clashes in Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, #WestBengal: Mamata Ji has become so scared of her defeat, that she is killing democracy & doesn't even want to let anyone campaign. I appeal Election Commission to ensure free & fair polls. pic.twitter.com/kNJpHrdqym - ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 9.10 AM: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited Vidyasagar College where clashes broke out during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow on Tuesday. Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visits Vidyasagar College; clashes broke out near it at BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow today. #WestBengalpic.twitter.com/LDZa5HpZvM - ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2019 9.05 AM: "After insulting Rabindranath Thakur, then using the term Kangal, today they did not even spare Vidyasagar," TMC leader Derek O'Brien. After insulting Rabindranath Thakur, then using the term Kangal, today they did not even spare Vidyasagar. WATCH pic.twitter.com/5lQlbgX7kl - Derek O'Brien | ' (@derekobrienmp) May 14, 2019 8.59 AM: "Trinamool and BJP clash demolishes Vidyasagar Statue in #VidyasagarCollege today at #Kolkata. Did you want these creatures of dark ages to rule u (you)?" asks Congress. Trinamool and BJP clash demolishes Vidyasagar Statue in #VidyasagarCollege today at #Kolkata. The man who fought for women's education, started remarriage for widows and many more. Did you want these creatures of dark ages to rule u? - West Bengal Congress (@INCWestBengal) May 14, 2019 8.50 AM: "BJP-RSS think nothing of when they vandalise the historic Vidyasagar College, break Vidyasagar statue. This is their advocacy of India's civilisational heritage?" asks CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury. BJP-RSS think nothing of when they vandalise the historic Vidyasagar College, break Vidyasagar statue. This is their advocacy of India's civilisational heritage? Attacking knowledge is central to getting their poisonous project going. Bengal will reject the destruction they offer - Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) May 14, 2019 8.30 AM: As a mark of protest against demolition of Vidyasagar Statue at Vidyasagar College during a BJP roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and all TMC leaders have changed their profile pictures to Vidyasagar. Edited by Manoj Sharma Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's order of a US military buildup in the Gulf to counter alleged threats by Iran has many worried about a looming war and others skeptical of Washington's motivations. Here's what has happened: - What assets has the US deployed? - On May 5, Trump's hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and a B-52 bomber force to the Gulf. Days later, the Pentagon added a Patriot missile defense battery and an amphibious assault ship to the deployment - What is the alleged Iran threat? - Iran has not made any direct public threats to spark the US deployment. Washington says it acted on intelligence reports of Iranian actions. Bolton said the aircraft carrier and bomber deployments were "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings." On Wednesday, the US was more specific, saying there was an "imminent" threat to US personnel in Iraq from Iraqi militias allegedly controlled by Tehran. The US State Department ordered the partial evacuation of the US embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Arbil in response. Analysts in Washington suspect that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could have been plotting an attack in retaliation for the US declaring it a terrorist organization in April. Iran subsequently designated all US troops as "terrorists," effectively making them a potential target. Have there been any incidents? One. On Monday, Saudi and United Arab Emirates officials said three oil tankers and a barge anchored at Fujairah near the strategically important entrance to the Gulf were damaged in an alleged "sabotage" operation. But what caused the relatively minor damage to the vessels and who was behind it remains unknown. - Is the US preparing for war? - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it is not. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran," he said Tuesday in Sochi, Russia. Story continues President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that expects the pressure on Iran will bring it to the negotiating table. "I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon," he wrote. At the same time, The New York Times reported last week that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented the White House with a plan for responding to an Iranian attack that involved sending up to 120,000 American troops to the region. That is not enough to invade Iran but is enough for an attack from outside its borders. - What do US allies say? - Washington's European allies have kept their distance, calling for calm and expressing concern over military escalation. They fear that more pressure on Tehran will compel it to abrogate the international agreement on its nuclear program, the JCPOA, from which Trump withdrew the United States one year ago. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Berlin "still regards this nuclear agreement as the basis for Iran not having any nuclear weapons in the future, and we regard this as existential for our security." British, Netherlands and German forces in the international coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria downplayed the immediate threat from Iran. But Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday that they were suspending training of soldiers in Iraq due to a "generally heightened" state of alert. And Spain recalled a frigate accompanying the US carrier task force, explaining that the frigate's mission was not to take part in actual hostilities with Iran. Washington (AFP) - The White House on Wednesday branded Democrat-led congressional efforts to probe alleged wrongdoing by President Donald Trump a "show trial" and said it would refuse demands to cooperate. A letter sent by White House counsel Pat Cipollone rejected demands by Jerry Nadler, head of the House of Representatives judiciary committee, for extensive documentation and testimony. Cipollone wrote that the committee does not have the right "to harass political opponents" or conduct an "unauthorized do-over" of the recently completed probe into Trump led by special counsel Robert Mueller. A senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, went further, saying that Nadler's probes amount to "nothing short of presidential harassment" and "some kind of show trial." The White House stressed that much of the ground that Nadler's committee aims to cover has already been the subject of Mueller's two-year investigation into alleged links between Trump's election campaign and Russia. Mueller concluded that there was not evidence to prove a conspiracy, even if Trump's team did have numerous contacts with Russians during a Moscow-organized campaign to try and disrupt the 2016 election. Mueller left open whether the president had attempted to obstruct justice, but Trump's attorney general, William Barr, ruled later that there was no obstruction. That outcome led Trump and his allies to declare he was fully exonerated, while opponents say he is badly tainted and should be investigated further. The White House refusal to respond to the judiciary committee's demand for evidence sets up a constitutional clash that could end up in the courts. Nadler has accused Trump of wanting "to make himself king." But the White House official insisted the reverse is true. "The president is not acting in imperial fashion. It seems to me that Congress, particularly House Democrats are acting imperiously by setting out demands that they know they have no right to," he said. "This investigation that Chairman Nadler thinks he's somehow going to replicate has been done and done thoroughly," the White House official said. "The trouble is that the chairman doesn't like the results." WASHINGTON The White House told lawmakers Wednesday that Congress doesn't have the power to carry out a "pseudo law enforcement investigation" of President Donald Trump, rejecting demands for information about his efforts to thwart the special counsel investigation that clouded the first two years of his administration. The refusal came in a letter Wednesday from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. Cipollone said the administration would not cooperate with what it sees as an unprecedented overreach by politically motivated lawmakers seeking to replicate an already exhaustive and concluded special counsel investigation into Russia and the president's conduct. Nadler's committee "has no legitimate role" in collecting materials to investigate Trump, Cipollone said. He suggested that lawmakers are using their investigative power to "harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized 'do-over' of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice." The 12-page letter, a response to Nadler's request for documents, is another escalation of a battle between the White House and congressional Democrats who are conducting wide-ranging investigations of Trump's presidency, his finances and his private business. The administration has largely defied lawmakers' efforts to gather records and has signaled a willingness to fight them in court. More: President Donald Trump tees up the strangest test yet of executive privilege Letter: Read the White House counsel's letter to Congress Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump win, but it did not find enough evidence that the president's campaign conspired with Russia. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice, but detailed nearly a dozen episodes in which the president sought to intercede in the probe and suggested some could well have been criminal. Story continues Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein separately determined that the evidence did not amount to a crime. In March, Nadler sent letters to 81 individuals and agencies, including the White House, requesting documents pertaining to the House Judiciary Committee's investigation into possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Cipollone said in his response to that request that Nadler is seeking to "replow the same ground" Mueller and his large team of investigators have already covered. "I ask you to consider that approach," Cipollone said. "With the Special Counsel's investigation behind us, the President and his team stand ready to work with the Committee cooperatively to advance the legislative agenda for the benefit of the American people." In a statement, Nadler said his committee will not end its investigation. "The White House position appears to be that the Justice Department cannot hold the President accountable, since it purportedly cannot indict him," Nadler said. "Now it adds the extreme claim that Congress cannot act either ... This flies in the face of the American idea that no one is above the law, and I reject it." Cipollone cited in his letter what he says were legal flaws in Nadler's request for documents. He said Nadler is seeking records, including confidential communications and deliberations between Trump, his advisers and foreign leaders, all of which are subject to executive privilege. He said Nadler's request is "beyond the reach of congressional oversight," does not advance a "legitimate legislative purpose," and violates separation of powers. More: Trump's lawyers question Congress' power to investigate him, battle House over demand for financial records Cipollone said the White House will cooperate with congressional investigations that have a legislative purpose. But even then, he said, Congress' authority "to explore in detail any particular case of alleged wrongdoing is limited." Trump's personal lawyers made similar arguments in federal court on Tuesday, asking a federal judge to block a House subpoena seeking financial records from his longtime accountant. Trump's private lawyer told a judge that Congress has no authority to investigate his private conduct, and suggested that even the Watergate investigation that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon's resignation was improper. Trump took the rare move last week of asserting executive privilege to keep secret the millions of pages of evidence that Mueller gathered in his investigation. At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt for refusing to turn over an unredacted version of the Mueller report. Contributing: Bart Jansen This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: White House says Congress has no 'legitimate role' in investigating Trump, rejects document demands The U.S. ordered its non-emergency government employees to leave Iraq, a week after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo made an unannounced visit to discuss what he said was the rising threat from neighboring Iran. The security alert includes staff at the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil, in the majority Kurdish region to the north. A statement attributed the imminent departures to an increased threat stream, without elaborating. The move follows the withdrawal of employees from the U.S. consulate in Basra in September, when the Trump administration pointed the finger at Iran-backed Shiite militias. After a year of tightening unilateral U.S. sanctions on Tehran, tension has suddenly spiked in the Gulf, where dangers posed to shipping or oil facilities in the worlds largest oil-exporting region have the potential to rattle global markets. On the first anniversary of President Donald Trumps decision to exit the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran threatened this month to gradually withdraw too. On Tuesday, an Iran-backed Yemeni rebel group attacked oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, forcing it to suspend a key pipeline. That followed a series of unexplained sabotage attacks earlier in the week on commercial vessels heading for the Strait of Hormuz, the global shipping choke-point at the mouth of the Gulf. The series of events, combined with a Pentagon decision to send an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East to ward off what it called heightened Iranian readiness to attack U.S. interests, has increased concerns of a military confrontation, whether deliberate or otherwise. On Tuesday, Trump himself broached the subject of war with Iran, denying a report in the New York Times that the U.S. had updated its military planning for Iran, but adding that hed send a hell of a lot more troops than the 120,000 mentioned if needed. Pompeo canceled a trip to Germany last week in order to make the unannounced visit to Baghdad, where he spoke with Iraqi leaders about an escalating threat from Iran and possible big energy deals to help wean the Iraqi economy away from its neighbor. Story continues Shiite Muslim Iran has played a prominent role in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 put Iraqs majority Shiite community in power. Tehran supports several powerful Shiite militias in Iraq, including some who played a significant role in the fight against Islamic State. Trump says Irans missile program and support for militant groups is destabilizing the Mideast region and he has made countering the Islamic Republic a primary focus of his foreign policy, encouraged by Iranian foes led by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. In recent weeks, the U.S. ratcheted up the pressure on ruling clerics by scrapping waivers that had allowed some countries to carry on importing Iranian crude, and designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Irans elite military unit, as a terrorist organization. The attacks on oil infrastructure further stoked geopolitical uncertainty. While Iran backs the Houthi rebels who said they carried out the drone strikes on Tuesday, no country or group has been assigned direct blame, or taken responsibility, for the reported sabotage on Sunday of four ships, including two Saudi crude tankers, heading for the Strait of Hormuz. Iran denied any involvement and earlier top officials had alluded to a coming campaign of misinformation. Last month, its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, warned that the targeting of his nation could take a dangerous turn and trigger a wider crisis. I dont discount the B Team plotting an accident anywhere in the region, Zarif said in New York, referring to a group of officials including National Security Adviser John Bolton and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman he said were set on changing the regime in Iran. Zarif visited India this week and traveled to Japan on Wednesday as sanctioned Iran seeks an economic lifeline from Asia. U.S. officials have said the deployment of the carrier group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf was triggered by the perception of an increased threat against U.S. personnel from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. That assessment was disowned on Tuesday during a Pentagon briefing by the British deputy commander of the international campaign to defeat Islamic State, Major General Christopher Ghika. In an unusual airing of differences, the U.S. Central Command then issued a statement rejecting Ghikas comments as running counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence. German officials on Wednesday said the country wasnt aware of a concrete threat or change to the security situation in Iraq. More must-read stories from Fortune: These are the U.S. goods affected by the China tariffs How to invest during a trade war What would impeachment look like in Trumps America? Bernie Sanders has a message for Trump on trade Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortunes CEO Daily newsletter PARIS, May 15 (Reuters) - The wife of ex-Interpol chief Meng Hongwei has been granted asylum in France, said lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny, who is acting on her behalf. Interpol, the global police coordination agency based in France, said last October that Meng had resigned as its president, days after his wife, Grace Meng, reported him missing after he traveled back to his home country of China. Chinese prosecutors this month filed formal charges against Meng, accusing him of abuse of power and taking bribes. (Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and John Stonestreet) PARIS (Reuters) - The wife of ex-Interpol chief Meng Hongwei has been granted asylum in France, her lawyer said. Interpol, the global police coordination agency based in France, said last October that Meng had resigned as its president, days after his wife, Grace Meng, reported him missing after he travelled back to his home country of China. Chinese prosecutors this month filed formal charges against Meng, accusing him of abuse of power and taking bribes. In March, China's ruling Communist Party said its own investigation into Meng found he spent "lavish" amounts of state funds, abused his power and refused to follow party decisions. His wife has dismissed the allegations and said his arrest was politically motivated. Speaking in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was unaware of the specifics of the situation regarding Meng's wife, but her husband's case was a normal one not connected to "political factors". "I can tell you that Meng Hongwei is suspected of taking bribes," Geng told a daily news briefing. If Meng's wife had sought asylum in France then it was "completely an abuse of France's legal procedures", he added. "Good political mutual trust is the basis for the healthy and stable development of Sino-French relations. We hope that in this case, both China and France can jointly handle it properly according to the law on the basis of good cooperation." Meng Hongwei became president of the global police cooperation agency in late 2016 as China widened its bid to secure leadership posts in international organisations. His appointment prompted concern at the time from rights groups that China might try to leverage his position to pursue dissidents abroad. Under President Xi Jinping, China has pursued a sweeping crackdown on official corruption. (Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Catherine Evans) PARIS (Reuters) - France has granted asylum to the wife of a former head of the international police cooperation agency Interpol, after he was charged in his native China with corruption, the wife's lawyer said on Wednesday. Grace Meng first reported in October that her husband Meng Hongwei had gone missing after travelling back to China from their home in France where the organisation is based. Days later, Interpol said he had resigned as its president. Chinese prosecutors this month filed formal charges against him, accusing him of abuse of power and taking bribes. Grace Meng's lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny said she had applied for asylum in France and her application was approved. The French Foreign Ministry did not comment on the outcome of the case but said the decision was made by an independent body and complied with French and international law. In March, China's ruling Communist Party said its own investigation into Meng found he spent lavish amounts of state funds, abused his power and refused to follow party decisions. His wife has dismissed the allegations and said his arrest was politically motivated. Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was unaware of the specifics of the situation regarding Meng's wife, but that her husband's case was a normal one not connected to "political factors". "I can tell you that Meng Hongwei is suspected of taking bribes," Geng told a daily news briefing. If Meng's wife had sought asylum in France then it was "completely an abuse of France's legal procedures", he added. "Good political mutual trust is the basis for the healthy and stable development of Sino-French relations. We hope that in this case, both China and France can jointly handle it properly according to the law on the basis of good cooperation." Meng Hongwei became president of the global police cooperation agency in late 2016 as China widened its bid to secure leadership posts in international organisations. His appointment prompted concern at the time from rights groups that China might try to leverage his position to pursue dissidents abroad. Under President Xi Jinping, China has pursued a sweeping crackdown on official corruption. (Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Catherine Evans and Peter Graff) China has expanded its ban on Wikipedia to block the community-edited online encyclopedia in all available languages, the BBC reports. An earlier enforced ban barred Internet users from viewing the Chinese version, as well as the pages for sensitive search terms such as Dalai Lama and the Tiananmen massacre. According to Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), an internet censorship research group, the block has been in place since late April. The Wikimedia foundation said in a statement that it did not receive any notice of the censorship. Wikipedia joins a growing list of websites that cannot be accessed in China, which in recent years has tightened its grip on access to information online. Google, Facebook and LinkedIn are among the sites already banned, forcing Internet users to use virtual private networks, or VPNS, to bypass what has become known as the Great Firewall of China. Reporters Without Borders 2019 World Press Freedom index ranks China at 177 on a list of 180 countries analyzed. According to a separate study conducted by the watchdog group, China is not just issuing censorships locally, but is also attempting to infiltrate foreign media in an attempt to deter criticism and spread propaganda. Wikipedia is also blocked in Turkey. Ramesh Kumar Sharma, who has declared Rs 1,107 crore assets in his election affidavit, is the richest candidate contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He is an independent candidate contesting from Patliputra constituency in Bihar. The secret to Sharma's wealth is the appreciation of his agricultural land in Navi Mumbai. Sharma is an engineer by profession and is employed in the private sector. His annual earnings have largely remained modest in the last 5 years. He earned Rs 5.81 lakhs in FY19, Rs 5.93 lakh in FY18, Rs 6.95 lakh in FY17, Rs 4.65 lakh in FY16 and Rs 4.78 lakh in FY15. Out of his total wealth of Rs 1,107 crore, his movable assets are valued at Rs 7.08 crore and immovable assets are valued at Rs 1,100 crore. Among movable assets, Sharma has reported, cash in hand Rs 55,000, bank balance Rs 14,193 and two fixed deposits of Rs 80,000 each. Sharma has invested in equity shares worth Rs 2.5 crore and a mutual fund with market value of Rs 3.5 crore. The bulk of Sharma's wealth consists of immovable assets. This includes his 31 acre agricultural land in Navi Mumbai. One would imagine this property to be inherited considering Sharma's meagre annual earnings, but it is not. In total Sharma owns 36.90 acre agricultural land, out of which only 5.40 acre is inherited while 31.50 acre agricultural land in Navi Mumbai is self-acquired. As per the election affidavit filed with the Election Commission, this land was bought between 1997-2002 for Rs 1.31 crore. ALSO READ:Lok Sabha election 2019: 'I wouldn't have survived if there was no CRPF,' says Amit Shah on Kolkata violence As per the same affidavit, the value of the land has since then appreciated to Rs 1,050 crore. Apart from agricultural land, Sharma also owns six commercial properties in Mumbai which were bought for Rs 1.29 crore between the years 1984-2006 and are currently valued at Rs 16 crore. He also owns 3 flats; two of which are in Vashi, Navi Mumbai and one in Bhavnagar, Gujarat. The market price of these three flats adds up to Rs 12.5 crore. Sharma also owns 500 gram gold which as per his affidavit has a market value of Rs 15 lakh. Sharma has declared that there are no pending criminal cases against him. As per his affidavit, he has no liabilities including loans of any sort in his name. Sharma owns nine vehicles, none of which is an imported luxury car. He owns Volkswagen Jetta, Tata Estate, Honda City, Mahindra Jeep, Toyota Qualis, Tata Safari, Hyundai Ascent and Honda Mobilio and Chevrolet Optra. Sharma has said he is fighting the elections to remove Narendra Modi from the position of prime minister. "With demonetisation, Modi took money away from people. There is crime happening all around and they are looting the country. I am fighting this election against Modi, the 'jumlebaaz'," he told IANS. ALSO READ:Mani Shankar Aiyar justifies 'neech aadmi' jibe against PM Modi, BJP retorts strongly Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Photos from Getty/AP If you come at the king, you best not miss. Thats the message Attorney General William Barr is sending to FBI agents, whether intentionally or not. Barr has authorized yet another investigation into the FBIs conduct probing links between Russian election interference and the Trump campaign. Even though two other entities are already investigating the same matter, reports indicate that Barr has appointed Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. In doing so, Barr is playing into the hands of President Donald Trump, who has already characterized Durhams assignment as an investigation into how that whole hoax got started. The most charitable interpretation of Barrs behavior in defense of Trump is that he believes strongly in a unitary executive, where the president can order any investigation he wants. But in his quest to protect the presidency, Barr is damaging our national security. His complicity in Trumps efforts to disparage the FBI will make it more difficult for agents to do their jobs and could discourage investigations of those in power. Certainly, the FBI, like any other government agency, should be subject to scrutiny. If you were to ask most FBI agents about internal investigations, they would tell you that they welcome such probes when done in good faith because they ensure not only accountability but also public trust. Following the FBIs aggressive surveillance of civil rights activists and war protesters in the 1960s and 70s, safeguards and approval requirements were created to prevent such abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created to provide independent oversight of wiretaps conducted in the name of national security. The Domestic Investigations Operations Guide was created to provide detailed operational and approval requirements for each investigative step. FBI personnel are subject to DOJs Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations of misconduct. The FBI also has its own inspection division to conduct routine audits of compliance with polices and practices. Story continues But the current outcry about the use of FISA surveillance and informants to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election is not sufficient predication for a criminal investigation. Those techniques are routinely and appropriately used in counterintelligence investigations against foreign adversaries. Former FBI general counsel James Baker has been speaking out about the FBIs work on the Russia investigation, stating that the investigation was not a coup against President Trump, but instead was about Russia. It was always about Russia. Full stop. Failing to investigate Russian interference would have been a breach of the FBIs duty. Even use of the so-called Steele dossier in the FISA application for surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page is not the scandal that some describe. The dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence agent to be used as opposition research by Hillary Clintons campaign against Trump, was properly described as such in the FISA application, such that the FISA court had complete and accurate information when it authorized the surveillance. Judges, including those on the FISA court, are capable of discounting information based on potential biases as long as they are disclosed in the application, as they were here. In addition, material from the Steele dossier provided only a portion of the facts included in the 66-page application that was used to establish probable cause to obtain surveillance authorization from the FISA court. Renewals of the application were approved from Trump-appointed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. There is no evidence in the public record that the FBI abused the FISA process in this investigation. Nonetheless, last year, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate potential abuses in the FISA process following complaints by Republican lawmakers. Sessions later asked Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber to pursue any criminal conduct relating to the same matter, along with other matters relating to Clinton. It is unclear why Barr does not simply await those results rather than appoint a new prosecutor to undertake another investigation. If Barr had wanted to expand the scope of the prior investigations, he could have done so without appointing a new investigator. If he were simply replacing Huber with Durham, who, by all accounts is a highly respected and experienced investigator, then he should say so. Forget Roy Cohn, Future Presidents Would Ask Wheres My Bill Barr? Instead, Barr has created the appearance that he is launching another investigation to appease Trump. But there is a significant downside to such a tactic. Barrs appointment of Durham advances the Trump narrative that the FBI is run by a deep state that is engaged in a witch hunt and a hoax. Barr has already contributed to the partisan conspiracy theory with the language he used at his press conference to announce the release of Special Counsel Robert Muellers report in April. Barr repeatedly used Trumps talking point of no collusion, a term Mueller specifically said he was avoiding. Barr made things worse in his subsequent congressional testimony, when he used the word spying to describe the FBIs tactics in the Russia probe. Despite his protestations that the word is not a pejorative term, and that spying is a word used by the media, it is not a word that government officials use to describe court-authorized surveillance. Contrast Barrs performances with the recent congressional testimony of FBI Director Christopher Wray. Wray rejected Barrs use of the term spying as not the term I would use. Wray also stated that he did not have any evidence of any illegal surveillance into the Trump campaign. Trump responded by tweeting: The FBI has no leadership . . . The Director is protecting the same gang . . . that tried to . . . overthrow the President through an illegal coup. Even after seeing this treatment, Barr continues to appease Trump, who campaigns on the narrative that he is victim of the deep state. Trump has called the FBI a disgrace that is in tatters. Harming the reputation of the FBI will make it more difficult for the FBI do the important work it does every day. When an agent knocks on a door for tips in a kidnaping case, will the resident help someone from an agency the president has warned him about? When an FBI agent testifies at the trial of a sex trafficker, will a juror trust that he is telling the truth? By disparaging the FBI, the president makes our country less safe. Barr is compounding the problem by contributing to this false narrative. In addition to harming the effectiveness of the FBI, Barrs complicity in Trumps tactics may also have a chilling effect. By advancing the investigate the investigators mantra, Barr may cause the FBI to flinch next time it perceives a threat from powerful people within the government. He is incentivizing the FBI to sit idly by in the face of national security threats. The risk is that under Barrs leadership, the FBIs new motto might become he who does nothing does nothing wrong. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) The cute, cuddly, bundle of joy at the center of a bitter custody battle wasn't present as lawyers argued her fate before the Maine supreme court. Dogs, after all, aren't allowed in court. A woman who's seeking custody of Honey, the Lab-boxer mix she shared with her former boyfriend, asked the Supreme Judicial Court to declare her the rightful owner and to provide updated guidance to judges for the pet custody. The appeal by Jessica Sardina, 25, of Bangor, challenges the notion that pets should be treated simply as property when a relationship terminates. She contends she's the one who cared for the dog and said the dog "means the world" to her. It's no frivolous matter for animal lovers. "Most of us who've had animals consider them to be family. The legal system has been slow to catch up with that idea," said Marcia Kramer, of the animal advocacy group National Anti-Vivisection Society, based in Chicago. Pets are considered property in all 50 states, and only three states Alaska, Illinois and California have specific laws that address pet custody when a marriage dissolves, she said. None has a statute dealing with pets when an unmarried couple breaks up. A lower-court judge ruled Sardina's former boyfriend, Kelvin Liriano, also 25, is Honey's sole owner because his signature appeared on adoption papers. His attorney, Jonathan Hunter, contends there's no legal precedent for treating pets differently than they have for hundreds of years: as property. But Sardina's attorney, Gene Sullivan, suggested to skeptical justices that the judge relied on antiquated property law. Chief Justice Leigh Saufley said she understood how the case tugs at heartstrings but asked whether it's a good use of time for judges to spend more time analyzing pet custody in cases involving unmarried couples. Sullivan said it's a worthwhile time investment. "Hey, this is not a toaster. This is not a blender. This is a living, breathing animal that these parties, especially my client, grew an attachment to," he said afterward. ___ This story has been corrected to show the dog is a boxer-Lab mix, not a Lab-shepherd mix. A former employee at Atchison Hospital in Kansas shared a rape victim's personal information with her alleged assailant, and he attack her again. (Photo: Facebook/Atchison Hospital) A rape victim brought a lawsuit against a hospital for sharing her health information with her alleged assailant, before he attacked her again. A $75,000 lawsuit filed Wednesday in Kansass U.S. District Court names Atchison Hospital and a former employee as defendants whose breach of trust and invasion of privacy unleashed a barrage of harassment from the assailant and hospital staff. The harassment escalated to violence when, approximately six months later, Plaintiff was sexually assaulted by the same man a second time. In May 2017, the victim was hospitalized at Atchison for a violent sexual assault and shared the name of her alleged assailant when describing the attack. However, she was adamant that the information be confidential, in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). An X-ray technician employed by the hospital at the time accessed the victims file allegedly stored in an un-secure manner and contacted the man, warning him of the accusations, and sharing with him private and intimate details from the victims personal file. After talking with the employee, the victims alleged rapist relentlessly harassed Plaintiff through text messages, social media, and phone calls. Such communications were highly threatening and contained graphic language and pornographic content. The assailant also stalked Plaintiff in public and at her home, the lawsuit says. The employee joined the harassment, says the claim, by repeatedly hounding and harassing Plaintiff by phone and text. The employee was fired in September 2017, however the lawsuit claims Atchison inadvertently helped her land a new job at St. Lukes Cushing Hospital in Leavenworth, by either giving her a positive employee review or not disclosing her actions to the new employer. In November, Atchison CEO John Jacobson sent a letter to the victim saying, We sincerely and deeply regret her experience, specifying that the former employee accessed her chart from an outside department before it was scanned into Atchisons electronic record. Around that same time, says the complaint, the same man assaulted the victim again. Story continues TC Roberts, Atchison Hospitals marketing director tells Yahoo Lifestyle in a statement, We want you to know that patient confidentiality at Atchison Hospital and our ability to protect personal information is a top priority of ours. While we are limited with what we can share related to this situation, we are deeply disturbed by the actions of this former employee. In fact, when we were made aware of this situation, we took immediate steps to investigate and within two days, we terminated this individuals employment. Roberts wrote, In addition, we reviewed this specific situation to understand what could be done differently in the future and as a result, immediately implemented changes to our internal controls, including even stricter accessibility requirements to our Health Information Management (HMI) department. We are committed to doing everything possible to provide a safe and caring environment for our patients, and paramount to that is confidentiality and privacy around personal medical information. And a spokesperson from Saint Lukes tells Yahoo Lifestyle, Saint Lukes Cushing Hospital was unaware of any allegations regarding this employee until the Kansas City Stars article on Thursday afternoon. In light of the new information, hospital administrators are now conducting a thorough internal review to learn more and determine the most appropriate course of action. The employee in question has been placed on administrative leave until the review is complete. Saint Lukes places the utmost importance on patient care and patient privacy. All new employees undergo thorough HIPPA training and the hospital has extensive safeguards and processes in place to ensure patient privacy is protected. The victims lawyers did not return Yahoo Lifestyles interview requests nor could the X-ray technician be found for comment. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. The Voynich manuscript, housed at Yale University, is a medieval, handwritten and illustrated text. Its been described as the most mysterious manuscript on Earth, written in an unknown language and script, and showing images of strange, alien plant species. But the Voynich Manuscript which has resisted all attempts to decode it for over a century has finally yielded up its secrets. Dr Gerard Cheshire took two weeks, using a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity, to unravel the Voynich Manuscript, which features in the Indiana Jones films. The Voynich manuscript is a medieval, handwritten and illustrated text, which has been carbon-dated to the mid-15th century. Read more from Yahoo News UK: NASA plan to put the first woman on the moon by 2024 Cyclists actually break traffic laws far less than drivers Common painkiller is actually just as addictive as opiates It is named after Wilfrid M Voynich, a Polish book dealer and antiquarian, who purchased the manuscript in 1912. It is currently housed at Yale University, where it is filed as item MS408 in the Beinecke Library of rare books and manuscripts. Among those who have famously attempted to crack the code are Alan Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park. Its been described as the worlds most mysterious manuscript Dr Cheshire, a research associate at the University of Bristol, described how he successfully deciphered the manuscripts codex and, at the same time, revealed the only known example of proto-Romance language. I experienced a series of eureka moments whilst deciphering the code, followed by a sense of disbelief and excitement when I realised the magnitude of the achievement, both in terms of its linguistic importance and the revelations about the origin and content of the manuscript, he said. What it reveals is even more amazing than the myths and fantasies it has generated. For example, the manuscript was compiled by Dominican nuns as a source of reference for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, who happens to have been great-aunt to Catherine of Aragon. It is also no exaggeration to say this work represents one of the most important developments to date in Romance linguistics. Story continues The manuscript is written in proto-Romance ancestral to todays Romance languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan and Galician. Its been described as the worlds most mysterious manuscript The language used was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean during the Medieval period, but it was seldom written in official or important documents because Latin was the language of royalty, church and government. As a result, proto-Romance was lost from the record, until now. Dr Cheshire also explained in linguistic terms what made the manuscript so unusual. It uses an extinct language. Its alphabet is a combination of unfamiliar and more familiar symbols, he said. It includes no dedicated punctuation marks, although some letters have symbol variants to indicate punctuation or phonetic accents. All of the letters are in lower case and there are no double consonants. It includes diphthong, triphthongs, quadriphthongs and even quintiphthongs for the abbreviation of phonetic components. It also includes some words and abbreviations in Latin. The next step is to use this knowledge to translate the entire manuscript and compile a lexicon, which Dr Cheshire acknowledged will take some time and funding, as it comprises more than 200 pages. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is struggling with poll ratings in the low single digits and may not make the cut for the first Democratic primary debate. So, naturally, shes blaming sexism. I think its just gender bias, she said in a CNN interview, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon. I think people are generally biased against women. I think also biased against young women, she continued. Theres just bias, and its real and it exists, but you have to overcome it. Now, Ill be the first to admit that I definitely fall into the I Dont Like Gillibrand for President camp. The thing is, though, thats actually not because I am sexist against myself. Its because the truth is that there are plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with her gender for people even Democrats not to like her. First of all, its absolutely true that the candidate who is comfortably at the top of the polls Joe Biden is in fact a man. I would argue, however, that this has less to do with his gender and more to do with the fact that he has approximately 9,000,700 (my calculation) times more name recognition than any of the other candidates, male or female. Name recognition matters, particularly early on in the race, where it usually counts more than anything else. (Remember Jeb Bush, everyone?) Second, lets take a look at some of the things that Gillibrand has made headlines for. Now, keep in mind, there havent been very many, because I have to say it this woman is a snooze-fest. Seriously. Shed probably be doing better if she werent so soul-crushingly boring; Id rather have a beer with my ex-boyfriends entire family than with her, a person who apparently doesnt even know that youre supposed to play beer pong with beer and not water. Clearly, other voters agree with me I mean, remember when someone walked past her to get ranch dressing? A simple rule of thumb: If your candidate isnt more enthralling than a condiment, then chances are, she (or he!) is probably not enthralling enough to win a presidential election. If, like Gillibrand, the only headlines a candidate is really making during his or her campaign are ones highlighting what an absolute square and a yawn she is, then she or he is probably not going to do so well. Story continues Theres also, of course, her proSecond Amendment record, which is something that she used to be proud of. Back during her 2008 campaign, she actually ran on her A rating from the NRA. Although she has since tried to walk this back, its not going to be something that Democratic voters will easily forget. To many of them, after all, the NRA is literally (and unfortunately, they do mean this literally) just a bunch of child-slaughtering murderers. Her record on this issue could easily be one of the things that might make Democratic voters think twice about choosing her and, for what its worth, her current flip to embrace gun control would make voters like me think twice about it. Truly, shes caught in a loselose on one of the most hot-button issues of our time, which wouldnt really help anyone. Another problem? She just seems too much like Hillary Clinton, and voters who want Trump to lose are probably not going to pick someone who reminds them of the person to whom Trump did not lose. Let me be clear: I do not mean that they are alike simply because they are both women. No: As a piece in The Federalist pointed out, there was literally a 2010 Vanity Fair profile titled In Hillarys Footsteps: Kirsten Gillibrand, and the same cannot be said for other female candidates such as Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren, both of whom are doing fairly well, especially compared with Gillibrand. Something that Gillibrand is also doing (that Clinton also did, but that Warren and Harris are not doing) is making her campaign too focused on her gender. She wont stop reminding voters that shes a mom, the same way Clinton wouldnt stop reminding voters that she was a grandmother. In either case, it should be obvious by now that no one cares. Also like Clinton, shes been trying really hard to make herself seem like a relatable, regular person. As that same piece in The Federalist points out, she even, to try and convey this, had The Associated Press come to her house for dinner only to wear an apron that had creases so sharp its clearly been sitting folded in a drawer for a while. Like Clinton, Gillibrand seems to be falling into the trap of trying so desperately to seem normal that she comes off as so obviously fake . . . and voters can spot a fake, regardless of your gender. Sexism and bias are very real things for women, both young and old. In fact, Ive been known to say that when youre a young woman, youre critiqued for being inexperienced, but once you do become experienced, youre critiqued for being old. So Im not denying the fact that sexism exists in my pushing back on her statement. In fact, its quite the opposite: It is because sexism is real that her comments offend me so much. After all, using sexism as an explanation every time something goes wrong for you is an excellent way to make people stop listening to accusations of sexism at all and this issue is one that is simply too important to be trivialized. More from National Review * Most April activity data weaker than expected * Adds to economy worries as trade war escalates * Jan-April industrial output +5.4% y/y (poll +6.5%) * Jan-April retail sales +7.2% y/y (poll +8.6%) * Jan-April fixed-asset investment +6.1% y/y (poll +6.4%) (Adds details) BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) - China on Wednesday reported surprisingly weaker growth in industrial output and retail sales for April, reinforcing expectations that Beijing needs to roll out more stimulus measures as the trade war with the United States escalates. Investment also stumbled unexpectedly, suggesting China's economy is still struggling for better footing even as a sharp hike in U.S. tariffs on Friday ratcheted up pressure on its exporters. Growth in industrial output slowed more than expected to 5.4 percent in April from a year earlier, pulling back from a surprising strong 4-1/2 year high of 8.5% in March, which some analysts had suspected was boosted by seasonal and temporary factors. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast output would grow 6.5% for the month. China's exports unexpectedly shrank in April in the face of U.S. tariffs and weaker global demand, while factory surveys suggest new export orders remain sluggish. Retail sales were also worse than expected, with the headline number rising 7.2%, the slowest pace since May 2003, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. That compared with March's 8.7% and forecasts of 8.6%, highlighting concerns that consumers are growing less confident as the economic slows and the trade war drags on. Earlier this week, industry data showed automobile sales in China fell 14.6% in April on-year, marking the 10th consecutive month of decline. INVESTMENT Fixed-asset investment growth slowed to 6.1% in the first four months of this year. Analyst polled by Reuters had expected it to rise 6.4%, picking up from 6.3% in the first quarter of this year. Private sector fixed-asset investment grew 5.5% in the same period, easing sharply from an increase of 6.4% in the Jan-March period. Private investment accounts for about 60 percent of overall investment in China. Story continues Growth in infrastructure spending, a powerful economic driver, held steady at 4.4% on-year in Jan-April from the first quarter of this year. China is trying to engineer a construction boom to rekindle demand, even as it steps up support measures to keep cash-starved smaller companies afloat, ranging from tax cuts to financial incentives for firms which do not lay off staff. TRADE TENSIONS Washington dramatically escalated its 10-month tariff war with Beijing on Friday by hiking levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods in the midst of trade talks, and President Donald Trump has threatened new levies on all remaining U.S. imports from China, sending global financial markets into a tailspin. China retaliated on Monday, though on a smaller scale, and the two sides appear deadlocked over negotiations. But Trump softened his tone on Tuesday, insisting that talks between the world's two largest economies had not collapsed. He has announced plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a G20 summit late next month. Economists at Citi estimate the U.S. tariff increase could lop 50 basis points off China's GDP growth, reduce exports by 2.7 percent and cost the country another 2.1 million jobs, though they are optimistic a trade deal will be reached eventually. Analysts at BofA Merrill Lynch believe a prolonged period of brinksmanship would drag China's growth to 6.1 percent this year, from a near 30-year low of 6.6 percent in 2018. They expect more policy easing in the short-term, further cuts in banks' reserve requirements and another surge in bank lending, as well as consumer subsidies to boost sales of products such as cars, appliances and smartphones. Just weeks ago, analysts had been scaling back expectations for additional stimulus in China after surprisingly upbeat March data and signs of progress in trade talks. But they expected the central bank would maintain its easing bias and continue to keep ample liquidity in the financial system. The economy grew at a steady 6.4% pace in the first quarter, defying expectations for a slowdown, as industrial production jumped and consumer demand showed signs of picking up. (Reporting by Lusha Zhang, Judy Hua and Se Young Lee; Editing by Kim Coghill) (Adds Huawei comment) * U.S. Commerce Department adds China's Huawei to trade blacklist * Trump signs executive order on telecoms citing national security * Huawei says willing to work with U.S. to ensure security * Treasury chief says talks with Beijing are continuing * Says U.S. near to resolving tariff row with Canada, Mexico By David Lawder and Susan Heavey WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The Trump administration hit Chinese telecoms giant Huawei with severe sanctions on Wednesday, adding another incendiary element to the U.S.-China trade dispute just as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he would visit China soon for more talks. The Commerce Department said it was adding Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and 70 affiliates to its "Entity List" - a move that bans the company from acquiring components and technology from U.S. firms without government approval. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that President Donald Trump backed the decision to "prevent American technology from being used by foreign owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests." Trump earlier in the day signed an executive order barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms deemed to pose a national security risk. While the order did not specifically name any country or company, U.S. officials have previously labeled Huawei a "threat" and lobbied allies not to use Huawei network equipment in next-generation 5G networks. Huawei, which denies its products pose a security threat, said it was "ready and willing to engage with the U.S. government and come up with effective measures to ensure product security." It said restricting Huawei from doing business in the United States would "limit the U.S. to inferior yet more expensive alternatives, leaving the U.S. lagging behind in 5G deployment and eventually harming the interests of U.S. companies and consumers." Story continues Speaking at a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Mnuchin characterized two days of high-level talks with Chinese officials in Washington last week as constructive. "My expectation is that we will go to Beijing at some point in the near future to continue those discussions," he said. "There's still a lot of work to do." He did not say when his China trip might take place. Shares in Huawei suppliers in China skidded on the news as markets opened in Asia, with Luxshare Precision Industry down as much as 6.1%. Shares in smaller Chinese Huawei rival ZTE Corp also tumbled. The Trump administration's rhetoric toward China had cooled in recent days after another round of tit-for-tat tariffs between the world's two largest economies and a selloff on global stock markets. On Tuesday, Trump denied talks with China had collapsed and sounded an optimistic note about the chance of a deal, saying he had an "extraordinary" relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he plans to meet at a G20 summit in Japan next month. Trump also urged China to buy more U.S. farm products. U.S. agricultural goods have been targeted by China's retaliatory tariffs, and American farmers, a key political constituency for Trump, are worried. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has paid $8.52 billion directly to farmers as part of a 2018 aid program designed to offset losses from tariffs imposed by China and other trading partners, a spokesman for the agency said on Wednesday. The Trump administration had pledged up to $12 billion in aid to help offset losses resulting from Chinese tariffs. TARIFF PAIN Trump, who has embraced protectionism as part of an "America First" agenda, has railed against what many U.S. and European officials and companies describe as China's unfair trade practices, including forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft. But trading partners and close allies in Europe, North America and Asia are also in the U.S. administration's sights. Mnuchin said the United States was close to resolving a dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico last year as the three countries renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the tariffs and other issues related to the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced NAFTA. The three countries have not yet ratified the new deal. After her meeting with Lighthizer, Freeland declined to say whether the two countries were close to a deal. But she told reporters later that ratification of the agreement would be difficult as long as the tariffs remain in place. "When it comes to Canada it has still been the case for us that as long as the tariffs remain in place ratification would be very, very problematic," she said on Capitol Hill. Jesus Seade, Mexican deputy foreign minister for North America, told Reuters on Wednesday that Mexico was close to resolving its part in the tariffs dispute but wanted Canada to be in a similar position before completing the deal. Three Trump administration officials told Reuters that Trump was expected to delay a decision on imposing tariffs on imported cars and parts by up to six months, avoiding opening yet another front in his global trade battles. The decision to delay was expected to be made on Friday, officials and automakers said. The tariffs of up to 25 percent on cars and parts could have a devastating impact on Japan and countries in the European Union, particularly Germany. Global stock markets, which have swooned in the past week over the rising trade tensions, gained ground on Wednesday after the reports of the planned delay. 'ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES' As negotiations toward resolving the U.S.-China dispute stalled last week, the United States ratcheted up the pressure by increasing tariffs on a list of $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25% from 10%. China retaliated on Monday with higher tariffs on a revised list of $60 billion worth of U.S. products. Trump could launch 25% tariffs on another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods when he meets Xi next month. He has not ruled out imposing punitive levies on all of China's imports to the United States. Another escalation could disrupt global supply lines and damage a slowing world economy. Beijing is vowing not to succumb to U.S. pressure. But on Wednesday, China reported surprisingly weaker growth in its retail sales and industrial output in April. Data out of the United States showed U.S. retail sales fell in April as households cut back on purchases of motor vehicles and other goods, pointing to a slowdown in economic growth after a boost from exports and inventories in the first quarter. Other data showed a drop in U.S. industrial production. The U.S. Congress is uneasy about the potential consequences of tariffs on the economy. House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said U.S. consumers were in the "same boat as farmers" and would end up having to bear the burden of the tariffs. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. (Reporting by David Lawder, Susan Heavey, Humeyra Pamuk, Amanda Becker, Alex Alper and David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Sijia Jiang in Hong Kong; Writing by Paul Simao and Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Susan Thomas, Cynthia Osterman, Peter Cooney and Himani Sarkar) (Adds Iranian foreign minister comments, Iran stops some accord commitments, paragraphs 8-11) * U.S. fears Iranian threat against troops in Iraq * Tehran dismisses U.S. 'psychological warfare' * Germans, Dutch also halt military missions in Iraq * U.S. believes Iran encouraged Sunday tanker attacks By John Davison and Mark Hosenball BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Helicopters ferried U.S. staff from the American embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday out of apparent concern about perceived threats from Iran, which U.S. sources believe encouraged Sunday's attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf. The sabotage of the tankers, for which no one has claimed responsibility, and Saudi Arabia's announcement on Tuesday that armed drones hit two of its oil pumping stations have raised concerns Washington and Tehran may be inching toward conflict. A U.S. government source said American security experts believe Iran gave its "blessing" to tanker attacks, which hit two Saudi crude oil tankers, a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker off Fujeirah near the Strait of Hormuz. The source said the United States believes Iran's role was one of actively encouraging militants but indicated the United States does not now have evidence that Iranian personnel played any direct operational role. Iran's Foreign Ministry has called the tanker attacks "worrisome and dreadful" and called for an investigation. There has been a marked increase in U.S.-Iranian tensions since U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to try to cut off all of Iran's oil exports and to designate its Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organization." Trump, who last year abandoned the 2015 international nuclear accord with Iran, believes the economic pressure will force Tehran to accept more stringent limitations on its nuclear and missile programs as well as on its support for proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Story continues Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the increasing U.S. sanctions "unacceptable" but said Tehran remained committed to its obligations under the nuclear accord. "We exercise maximum restraint in spite of the fact the United States withdrew," Zarif said as he met his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono, in Tokyo. Under the accord negotiated by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, Iran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, in return for sanctions relief. Earlier on Wednesday, the ISNA news agency reported that an Iranian atomic energy official said Iran has officially stopped some commitments under the pact, and has no limit from now for production of enriched uranium and heavy water. Iran's decision does not appear to violate the nuclear deal yet. U.S. SHRINKS DIPLOMATIC PRESENCE U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit to Baghdad last week after U.S. intelligence showed Iran-backed Shi'ite militias positioning rockets near bases housing U.S. forces, according to two Iraqi security sources. Pompeo told Iraq's top brass to keep the militias, which are expanding their power in Iraq and now form part of its security apparatus, in check, the sources said. If not, the United States would respond with force. Helicopters took off throughout the day from the vast U.S. embassy compound near the Tigris River in Baghdad, carrying non-emergency staff out, according to an Iraqi source and a diplomatic source inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. The Iraqi source said U.S. staff were headed for a military base at Baghdad airport. A U.S. official told Reuters late on Wednesday that the evacuation was complete. Trump is sending an aircraft carrier group, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles to the Middle East to counter what the United States calls a heightened threat from Iran to U.S. soldiers and interests in the region. Iran described the U.S. moves as "psychological warfare," and a British commander cast doubt on U.S. military concerns about threats to its roughly 5,000 soldiers in Iraq, who have been helping Iraqi security forces fight Islamic State. The U.S. State Department said employees at both the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, were being pulled out immediately due to safety concerns. It was unclear how many were affected, and there was no word on any specific threat. Visa services were suspended at the heavily-fortified U.S. missions. Germany, which has 160 soldiers in Iraq, and the Netherlands which has 169 military and civilian staff, suspended military training operations, citing regional tensions. 'DANGEROUS SITUATION' The attack on the tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world's oil consumption flows, appeared designed to test the resolve of the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies without triggering a war, analysts said. "This is a pin-prick event, a little needle-like jab at the maritime trade going into the Strait of Hormuz," said Gerry Northwood, chairman of risk management and security firm MAST. Both the United States and Iran have said they do not want war, and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday he had indications "things will end well" despite the rhetoric. Iraq is one of few countries with close ties to both the United States and Iran. It has said it will keep strong ties with Iran, and also with the United States and Arab neighbors, some of whom, such as Saudi Arabia, consider Tehran a rival. The United States, which had a large troop presence in Iraq from 2003-2011 after invading to topple dictator Saddam Hussein, sent troops back there in 2014 to help fight Islamic State. Iran has close ties to powerful Iraqi political parties and supports powerful Shi'ite militia groups. "I think we are now in a quite dangerous situation where a miscalculation by either side could lead us into conflict," U.S. Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN in an interview on Wednesday. (Reporting by John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Raya Jalabi in Erbil and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and Phil Stewart in Washington; Babak Dehghanpisheh in Geneva; Tassilo Hummel and Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; and Anthony Deutsch and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Grant McCool) Beijing (AFP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping declared Wednesday there was "no clash" of civilisations and denounced racial supremacy as "stupid" amid tensions with the United States and concerns over Beijing's rising global power. His remarks came after a top-level US official last month described the rivalry between China and the US as "a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology". Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US State Department, put it in racial terms, telling a security forum that China was the first US "great power competitor that is not Caucasian". "Thinking that one's own race and culture are superior, and insisting on transforming or even replacing other civilisations is stupid in its understanding and disastrous in practice," Xi said at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations in Beijing. "There is no clash between different civilisations, (we) just need to have the eye to appreciate the beauty in all civilisations," he added, without mentioning the United States. Xi's speech comes less than a week after trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing took a turn for the worse, with the US hiking tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese merchandise and targeting duties on $300 billion more. On Monday, China retaliated with an announcement that it would raise tariffs on $60 billion worth of US goods from June 1. The two countries are locked in a battle for global influence, with diplomatic and economic tensions ranging from US military aid to self-ruled Taiwan to criticism of Beijing's Belt and Road global infrastructure programme. China's rising influence has also raised alarm bells in Asia, especially as it continues to assert its vast territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea and East China Sea. Last month, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned Beijing to back off from a Manila-held island in the South China Sea, threatening possible military action if Beijing "touched" the island. Xi's speech on Wednesday also focused on promoting cross-cultural collaboration across the region, and urged other Asian nations to "strengthen cultural confidence". "On the foundation of the brilliant achievements obtained by our ancestors, we will... strive to continue writing the new glory of Asian civilisations," he said. In April, when the Lok Sabha Elections were still underway, Prime Minister Narendra Modi received three times more TV airtime than his political opponent and Congress President Rahul Gandhi. The data revealed by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) took the period from April 1 to April 28 for the data. According to the BARC data, Modi was shown by television news channels for more than 722, while Rahul Gandhi was shown for less than 252 hours. This difference becomes even starker since Modi addressed one rally less than the 65 that the Congress President addressed during that period. Similarly, BJP President Amit Shah got 124 hours of TV airtime, while Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was shown for over 84 hours. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati was shown on TV channels for about 85 hours. According to the report, Modi was shown on TV channels for longer duration because he apparently boosts target rating points (TRP). The Lok Sabha Elections 2019 started on April 11 and will continue till May 19. The results will be declared on May 23. The last phase of the election is scheduled for May 19. Fifty-nine Lok Sabha constituencies spread across eight states will vote on this phase - Bihar (8 parliamentary constituencies), Jharkhand (3), Madhya Pradesh (8), Punjab (13), West Bengal (9), Chandigarh (1), Uttar Pradesh (13) and Himachal Pradesh (4). Prime Minister Narendra Modi contested from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, while Rahul Gandhi contested from Amethi and Wayanad Lok Sabha constituencies. Also read: PM Modi says he used digital camera, e-mail in 1988, and social media is having none of it Also read: Lok Sabha Election 2019: Poll dates, full schedule, voting FAQs, election results, constituencies' details Yves Behar doesn't cry over spilled milk. While sitting at a coffee table explaining his forthcoming projecta revolutionary mission to build 3D-printed homes for the homelessBehar's hands swung to and fro, the Swiss designer's hurried movements matching his enthusiasm. That was, until, during an important step in the building process (the plumbing), Behar's hand erratically shifted flight, knocking a glass of milk over the table. The white liquid spilled onto his top-of-line laptop, simultaneously encroaching on other valuables on the table. All the while, Behar maintained eye contact, unconcerned with his potential losses: "So, you see, we create two thick walls with a minimal amount of space between them so that the pipes can properly fit." In 1999, Behar founded Fuseproject, a company so wide-ranging in its capacity for design that it's difficult to summarize in a sentence, let alone a mission statement. But for the sake of exercise, if one were to boil down Behar's abilities, it would be in the seamless fusion of distinct forms coming together in useful functionality. He has the type of ambition, creativity, and flat-out gusto to take on seemingly any project and turn it into something better, more efficient. He's the type of virtuoso that we're excited about in the moment, yes, but more so for what his future has in store. For our collective future is very much tethered to it as well. Since the turn of the century, one has not needed not to look any further than a few of his greatest hits to see how Behar's been wooing the world (and winning over many hearts) with his creations. One Laptop Per Child, for example, has allowed millions of children around the world to own their own laptop at a cost of roughly $100 (the laptop was so popular that the Rwandan government added its image to its currency). In the same ethos, See Well to Learn Better implemented Behar-designed eyeglasses to provide children throughout Mexico with light, durable, and fashionable eyewear at a fraction of the cost. His designs have allowed children to mix and match various colors and styles, providing a personal connection and identity to their frames; the program has distributed over five million pairs to date. Yet, like any truly great innovator, Behar is thinking less of his previous successes or current validations and more on his future projects. The forthcoming of which, could be his most ambitious. And groundbreaking. Story continues Rwandan francs bills stacked background. Photo: Getty Images New Story is a San Franciscobased social impact organization pioneering solutions to combat global homelessness. While there are many well-intentioned firms working to end the same humanitarian dilemma, the key word in New Story's mantra is "pioneering." "I took a trip to Haiti a few years after the [2010] earthquake and couldn't fathom seeing all these families living in tents with seemingly no long-term solution," says New Story CEO Brett Hagler, who leads a team of 23, all millennial, employees. "That experience led me on a search of housing organizations that I could get excited about and champion." For Hagler, who majored in entrepreneurship, excitement only came from those who are innovative, and willing to take some calculated risks. "No one was doing anything that spoke to me, so I teamed up with my co-founders and we decided to do it a different way." Photo: Courtesy of New Story What makes New Story so different from other nonprofits that work on home-building for the neediest is that it uses funds for traditional building while putting certain amounts toward research and development. It was this forward-thinking spirit of investment that connected New Story to ICON, a construction technologies company that specializes in 3-D printing. The partnership meant that the pieces for a 3D-printed home were coalescing, but not fully in place. Photo: Courtesy of New Story In the fall of 2018, Architectural Digest hosted an event with New Story in San Francisco, and it was at this program that Hagler connected with a designer who could take his radical idea and turn it into a reality. "I approached Yves and pitched him to be the creative director for a project to build a series of 3D-printed homes," explains Hagler. "The rest . . . well, that's soon to be history." Photo: Courtesy of New Story This summer, New Story and Behar will be completing a community of homes built from a 3-D printer in Latin America; the exact location is not being disclosed for a few more months. Behar (who is the father of four) speaks in the soft tone of a parent who is mindful of napping children. "We are using the most cutting-edge technology in the noblest way possible with this project," he says. "These homes will change the lives of families, not just today, but for generations to come." The technology that Behar is referencing is such that it can take a 3-D printer to any corner of the globe and create a fully functional home on-site in a mere 24 hours. For Behar, such moments of technological kismet arent just a reflection of personal taste, theyre signs of how close we are to living in the future. "At a time when construction cranes are falling from the sky on to Seattle streets and killing bystanders, 3D-printed homes seem like they could be having their moment sooner than we expected." Photo: Courtesy of New Story Working exclusively on-site, the 3-D printer builds an exterior consisting of two cement walls, which are connected by a dense packing of zigzagged lines. The only parts of the homes that are not 3D-printed are the cement bases and rooftop. For the latter, the cement from the 3-D printer must be fixed to a solid form, and with a rooftop, that's still not possible (New Story is hoping to have this technology perfected in the near future). Behar, who designed the interior and exterior of the home, made sure to keep the functionality of the space top of mind. "There are very few corners in the homes, particularly in spaces such as the bathroom and kitchen," says Behar. "Gently rounded curvature was done in specific rooms for ease of cleaning so that insects or potential mold would be less of a concern." Each of these Behar-designed homes will range from 430 to 590 square feet, depending on layout and family size. "Our goal is that, with the materials used, families can eventually add an additional story to their home [without a 3-D printer] so that their growing family can comfortably live within the same space." Photo: Courtesy of New Story "We don't want to restrict this technology to just New Story," says Hagler. "Everyone who needs it should have access to our printerit's our goal to democratize this type of community-building." Yet Hagler's team isn't letting just anyone wield the power of the printer. They are setting noble guidelines to ensure the safety and satisfaction of the communities who live in 3D-printed homes:"If some NGO across the world wants to implement our technology for a 3-D printer, it is absolutely imperative that they work with the local families who will be living in those homes to listen and implement their design needs." These asks can range from the kitchen locationindoor or outdoor, depending on the region of the worldto how the roads should be set in and around the community. "When the families living in the space have a say in the design, there's a palpable sense of ownership and dignity that simply wouldn't exist if they don't have input in the layout," Hagler argues. While New Story isn't commenting on cost for its forthcoming community of homes in Latin America, the company does promise that over time, 3D-printed homes will be cheaper than traditional building. Photo: Courtesy of New Story To date, New Story has been successful in its work of building traditional homes for those in need, particularly in the Caribbean and Latin America. But its partnerships with ICON and Behar is shifting the company in a direction of real groundbreaking potential. With ICON providing the tools, and Behar imparting his uncanny design sense and propensity for good will, those who are in need of a safe home might have found a saving grace. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest For Immediate Release Chicago, IL May 15, 2019 Zacks Market Edge is a podcast hosted weekly by cks Stock Strategist Tracey Ryniec. Every week, Tracey will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. To listen to the podcast, click here: Please use the Soundcloud link from this URL for the PR. Thanks: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/413995/investing-strategies-for-the-trade-war) Investing Strategies for the Trade War Welcome to Episode #177 of the Zacks Market Edge Podcast. Every week, host and Zacks stock strategist, Tracey Ryniec, will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. In this episode, Tracey is joined by Zacks Chief Equity Strategist, John Blank, to discuss the escalation of the trade tensions between the United States and China. Now that the United States has instituted the 25% tariffs, and China has retaliated with tariffs of their own, what are the implications for the global economy for the rest of this year? Is a recession looming? Johns answer might surprise you. Wall Street: Sell Now, Buy Back in Later For stock investors, however, its a tough environment. Wall Street hates uncertainty. For now, Wall Street is selling and going to the sidelines. But at some point, the sentiment will change. Investors will want to get back in. Where do you hide out in the meantime? Strategies for Stock Investing During a Trade War Theres something to be said for having your business banned in China: youre not impacted by trade tensions. American social media and Internet stocks, with no direct business in China, might be a place to hide out. Those would be names like Facebook FB, Twitter TWTR and Alphabet GOOGL. Additionally, investors could go the opposite route and buy Chinese stocks with no direct business in the United States, like Chinese Internet giant Baidu BIDU. Story continues But what about the big international stocks like Alibaba BABA? Theres a lot of uncertainty as to what a trade war might do to its business if the Chinese economy slows. What other industries should you be buying, or avoiding, over the next few months? Find out on this weeks podcast. [In full disclosure, the author of this article owns shares of FB and GOOGL in her personal portfolio.] Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. Theyre also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases. Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +98%, +119% and +164% in as little as 1 month. The stocks in this report could perform even better. See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>> Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zacksresearch Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Zacks-Investment-Research/57553657748?ref=ts Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates. Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com/performance Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Facebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis Report Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) : Free Stock Analysis Report Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Twitter, Inc. (TWTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research WELLINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - New Zealand's top court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by U.S. rapper Eminem against a lower court ruling that reduced the damages a political party was ordered to pay for using music similar to his 2002 hit "Lose Yourself" in a TV commercial. His music company Eight Mile was awarded NZ$600,000 ($393,840) in damages in 2017 after a court ruled the use of the track was a breach of copyright. The Court of Appeal later reduced that amount to NZ$225,000 and Eight Mile appealed to the Supreme Court. "We have considered these points carefully but we are not persuaded that they are matters of public importance or general commercial significance that would justify a further appeal," the Supreme Court said in its ruling. The track, played during the center-right National Party's successful 2014 election campaign and titled "Eminem Esque," was found by a lower court to have "substantially copied" Lose Yourself. The National Party used the song 186 times during the campaign before taking the ad off the air, the court said. The Supreme Court ordered Eight Mile pay the National Party NZ$4,500 in costs. ($1 = 1.5235 New Zealand dollars) (Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; editing by Darren Schuettler) Harare (AFP) - Zimbabwe has sold nearly 100 elephants to China and Dubai for a total price of $2.7 million over six years, the countrys wildlife agency said Wednesday, citing overpopulation. Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesman Tinashe Farawo told AFP Zimbabwe's elephants were overcrowding national parks, encroaching into human settlements, destroying crops and posing a risk to human life. "We have 84,000 elephants against a carrying capacity of 50,000," he said, justifying the sales. "We believe in sustainable use of resources, so we sell a few elephants to take care of the rest. Farawo said 200 people have died in "human-and-animal conflict" in the past five years, "and at least 7,000 hectares of crop have been destroyed by elephants". The animals' natural habitat has been depleted by climate change, he added, while recurrent droughts have added to strain on the overburdened national parks, forcing the pachyderms to seek food and water further afield. Farawo said money from the legal sales was allocated to anti-poaching projects, conservation work, research and welfare. According to the Zimbabwe Chronicle newspaper, 93 elephants were safely airlifted to parks in China and four to Dubai between 2012 and 2018, They were sold in a price range of between $13,500 and $41,500 each. Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have called for a global ban on elephant ivory trade to be relaxed due to the growing number of elephants in some regions. But over the past decade, the population of elephants across Africa has fallen by about 111,000 to 415,000, largely due to poaching for ivory, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Prime Minister Narendra Modi might be busy campaigning, but his office, along with the government's think-tank, NITI Aayog, have started work on the agenda for the first 100 days of the next government. A top official told BT this includes further freeing up sectors such as infrastructure (road, rivers, railways, airports, ports), oil and gas, education and healthcare from red tape. They are also working out plans to push investments in MSMEs, mining, power, education and primary healthcare. Inputs have been sought from the top CEOs of these sectors. Officials have started studying the BJP's poll manifesto. Opposition leaders taunt this as over-confidence of the PM and his team. Officials are also working on the agenda for the possible September visit of the prime minister to Russia. Officials said Modi has accepted the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin to be the chief guest at the Eastern Economic Forum. Officials who have worked with previous prime ministers find these activities surprising but those who have worked with the prime minister when he was Gujarat chief minister do not. They call it a reflection of his confidence. Amid rising tensions in the Gulf, Iran on Thursday rejected negotiations with the US and said it was showing "maximum restraint" after Washington sent extra military forces to the region against what it claimed was an imminent threat from Tehran. US officials meanwhile said the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf, one of the world's most strategic waterways, was in reaction to photographs showing that Iran had loaded missiles onto small traditional boats. In Tokyo for talks with Japanese officials, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the US escalation "unacceptable." There was "no possibility" of negotiations with the United States, he told reporters. "I don't know why President Trump is confident." "We exercise maximum restraint," he said, despite the Trump administration's unilateral move last year to withdraw from the international agreement on Iran's nuclear program. On Wednesday, Trump predicted Iran would "soon" want to negotiate, even as the State Department ordered the evacuation of most personnel from the US embassy and consulate in Iraq, fearing an attack by Iranian-directed Shiite militias. "I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon," the president tweeted. - Pressure to justify escalation - The White House and Pentagon remained under pressure to demonstrate the reason for the huge buildup in forces and heightened rhetoric of the past 11 days. Two major pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq rejected allegations that they were plotting an attack on US diplomatic installations in the country. Nasr al-Shomari, a military commander for the Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujaba, told AFP the claim was "a pretext" by Washington to create "an uproar" in Iraq. US coalition partners in Iraq had suggested earlier this week that the threat level there had not risen significantly, and members of Congress demanded to see the information behind the Trump administration's warlike rhetoric. "I think they should tell us what the hell is going on," senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN. A US official said Thursday that Iranian missiles loaded on small, traditional dhow boats in the Gulf were among the new "threats" to US forces and allies in the region. The official, who asked not to be named, confirmed a New York Times report that US intelligence had aerial photos of the vessels. "The missiles on civilian boats are a concern," said the official. - Anti-war Trump? - The Trump administration meanwhile appeared divided on how hard of a line to take. The deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group and the bombers was first announced on May 5 by White House National Security Advisor John Bolton. The vocal hawk called the move "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said days later that while the US does not seek a war with Iran, "if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." But The New York Times reported that Trump himself was not entirely happy with the talk of war and told acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan early Thursday that he does not want to a military clash. Brookings Institution foreign policy analyst Tom Wright said Trump does not agree with Bolton's hard line and advocacy of regime change in Tehran. "Trump has always distrusted Bolton on military intervention," Wright said. Intelligence officials were scheduled to brief congressional leaders Thursday on the information they have that spurred the new deployments to the Gulf, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Trump that the legislature, and not the president, has the constitutional power to declare war. "I like what I hear from the president, that he has no appetite for this," Pelosi said. "One of the places that I agree with the president is in both of our opposition to the war in Iraq, and I hope that that same attitude will prevail with (Trump), even though some of his supporters are rattling sabers." A US Navy MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter hovers over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is among forces the Pentagon has dispatched to reinforce Gulf-region security after alleged threats from Iran Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (C) says Tehran is exercising "maximum restraint" Factfile on Iran's military strength, based on data analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute those ones with skin can go. also, fuck soggy fries. Reply Thread Link They're all great! Reply Thread Link Right? They all serve a need Reply Parent Thread Link MET Reply Parent Thread Link the only correct take Reply Parent Thread Link For real, WORST fries lol theres no such thing Reply Parent Thread Link The blur Reply Parent Thread Link I know, it's killing meee. Reply Parent Thread Link Promote ha. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Lmao I had to squint so hard to read it. Reply Parent Thread Link They are like universal. Its next to pizza omg Reply Parent Thread Link Mte. It's the same taste lol. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link steak fries hold up better in gravy than regular cut, potato wedges tend to be fluffier with a crackled skin, crinkle cuts are hands down my absolute favorite for cheese fries, and curly fries are a fun soft thing to have once in a while. waffle fries i do think are a wee bit overrated but i concede that when salted properly they taste great. Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao for some reason the crappy quality of this gif is killing me Reply Parent Thread Link As a potato enthusiast its good in every form. Reply Parent Thread Link curly fries are basically inedible when they get cold so they can go... Reply Thread Link Mte Reply Parent Thread Link True. Theyre only good fresh and hot. Reply Parent Thread Link i mean, all fries are disgusting when they get cold Reply Parent Thread Link not when waffle fries exist ! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Personally for me hand cut fries are great hours later. Like from five guys. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link A valid point but some are just completely inedible when cold compared to another type. Reply Parent Thread Link i love all fries but if i had to pick to go: shoestring. thanks, i won't be taking questions. Reply Thread Link Drop mic. You have won. They are definitely the worst. So much so they arent even in the picture. Reply Parent Thread Link They're the worst! Reply Parent Thread Link 100% agree! Generally I am ride or die for fries but shoestring fries can gtfo Reply Parent Thread Link I forgot about those. They'd get my vote as worst. Reply Parent Thread Link The only correct answer!! Never thought thered be a fry I didnt want to eat. Then I went to Steak N Shake. Reply Parent Thread Link Omg Im screaming! YAS Reply Parent Thread Link YES!! god awful Reply Parent Thread Link Oh man, I love those! Reply Parent Thread Link Wait. These are the WORST! Reply Parent Thread Link Noooo. Unless youre talking about reallyyyy crispy, really thin shoe string potatoes, because then theyre more chip than fry... Edited at 2019-05-15 02:12 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link Nooooo my faaave! Reply Parent Thread Link crinkle fries can choke Reply Thread Link lol are you me? I hate crinkle cut fries. Reply Parent Thread Link I would have agreed with you before Shake Shack fries came into my life. Reply Parent Thread Link Shake Shack burgers are DIVINE but the fries are disappointment Reply Parent Thread Link This. Somehow they make them amaaaazing. Reply Parent Thread Link shake shack fries are (allegedly) ore-ida crinkle cut fries. Reply Parent Thread Link zaxby's fries are amazing and i rebuke you in russet's name. Reply Parent Thread Link Crinkle cut fries remind me of childhood Oryda fries and sadness. They can die. Reply Parent Thread Link They've always been bad in my experience. No salt or pepper or any other seasoning. And stale. Ick. Reply Parent Thread Link Del Taco Crinkle Fries tho Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I've hated crinckle cut fries ever since middle school because the cafeteria always served them lukewarm af, slightly undercooked, and they didn't even attempt to season them so they tasted bland as hell and as you can all see I still haven't gotten over that shit. Blech! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Agreed Reply Parent Thread Link FOOLS - with waffle fries you can make yourself a mini sandwich, TF?! I love and eat all of these but I do think steak fries are just an overgrown version of the straight cut ones Reply Thread Link lol I've never heard of this mini sandwich thing. Now I need some waffle fries. Reply Parent Thread Link The idea of a little waffle fry sandwich is both hilarious and adorable. Reply Parent Thread Link Omg you're a fucking GENIUS. Reply Parent Thread Link mind = blown Reply Parent Thread Link agree steak frieds are the worst shoestring is my fav Reply Thread Link I've only ever had them from Chick-Fil-A, but they're definitely fries, just waffle-shaped. Reply Parent Thread Link They're fries here. They're crispy all over and have soft potato in the middle. Not many restaurants serve them, though. Chick-fil-A famously serves them, but off the top of my head I can't think of any other place. Reply Parent Thread Link Steak fries gotta go. Waffle fries and crinkle cut are so goooooood. Reply Thread Link I have never understood the curly fry hype. And waffle fries serve a purpose as a vehicle for cheese/sauce/bacon but other than that I would never eat them bare. Same with steak fries to an extent. Reply Thread Link Curly fries & a shake are heaven. Reply Parent Thread Link Curly fries are only good if they are seasoned, like Arby's. Reply Parent Thread Link THERE IS NO BAD TYPE OF FRY Reply Thread Link Yaaaas. Esp when they are well done. Gawd Reply Parent Thread Link Thank you. This is accurate and true and real. Reply Parent Thread Link I've never tried curly fries Never liked waffle cut except for the one time I tried chikfila steak fries are fine if you are stuck with them Crinkle cut are a gift from satan and I wish for them to return to hell Reply Thread Link I like mcDonalds fries when they're fresh Reply Thread Link Theres like a 10 minute window where McDonalds fries stay fresh. I always have to go to one within minutes of my destination or its useless Reply Parent Thread Link I love McDonald's fries, but I haven't had them in years since I heard they use animal fat in preparing them. Reply Parent Thread Link Always ask for unsalted and then they have to make them for you fresh. Just add the salt yourself and youll never go back to ordering them any other way. Reply Parent Thread Link lmao i always do this and i dont even bother adding salt tbh, fresh out the fryer and they are so perfect. Reply Parent Thread Link Steak fries can CHOKE. I love crinkle cut and the others are fine too. Reply Thread Link Dying at multiple people using "[x] fries can choke!" Reply Parent Thread Link Omfg I didn't even read the other comments, now I look A FOOL Reply Parent Thread Link I just realized I did skim the comments, what if I subconsciously saw it and plagiarized!! Cancel me tbh. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I never used to like tater tots until I bought a cheapy air-fryer and holy shit they are delicious. I'm hooked. Reply Parent Thread Link I love my air fryer so much everything is so CRISPY Reply Parent Thread Link Hell yeah tater tots. I used to eat them all the time in high school. Bomb Reply Parent Thread Link omg there's a bar by me with the best tater tots i've ever had and now I am craving them Reply Parent Thread Link You're absolutely right about tater tots. Reply Parent Thread Link Tater tots are perfect Reply Parent Thread Link Africas economic potential is enormous: the continent contains significant mineral and energy deposits, a young and growing population, and an underdeveloped energy sector desperately in need of investment. Approximately 640 million people, or two-thirds of the entire populace, dont have access to electricity. According to the African Development Bank, energy poverty reduces GDP growth by 4 percent every year. Russias energy industry, in comparison, is booming. Its state-run nuclear energy company Rosatom has an order book of 34 reactors in 12 countries worth $300 billion. Recently, Moscow has set its eyes on Africa where most states have either already struck a deal with the Kremlin or are considering one. Africas long march forward Currently, only South Africa is operating a commercial nuclear power plant with plans on the table to expand capacity. Another ten states are in different stages of planning and negotiations including Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia. (Click to enlarge) Energy poverty is a significant problem in the worlds least developed continent. The lack of access to a reliable and affordable source of energy is a severe impediment to economic development. Although the costs of renewables have decreased significantly over the years, technical and geographic limitations impede the rapid rollout of solar and wind energy. Also, Africa is urbanizing much quicker than the rest of the world where cities are expanding by 8 percent every year compared to 2 percent globally - which puts even more pressure on the existing energy systems. Related: Russia Could Take Hold Of Chinas Entire Gas Market The Russian deal is particularly appealing to countries lacking nuclear knowhow due to Moscows comprehensive offer regarding financing, construction, and operation of the facilities. Currently, Rosatom is experimenting with a contract known as build-own-operate under which ownership of the plant remains in Russian hands while energy is sold to the host country. This new type of contract is appealing to several African states who lack the means to finance construction. In some instances, the mineral resources of host countries could function as a deposit for any liability comparable to Moscows arms-for-platinum deal with Zimbabwe worth $3 billion. The Russian deal is also attractive for countries lacking the necessary infrastructure because Moscow takes back nuclear waste which means that host countries don't have to worry about storage. From a security point of view, this could alleviate concerns regarding weapons production through plutonium reprocessing or threats from non-state actors. Russias strategy Moscows is reusing its successful Middle East strategy comprised of diplomacy, energy, and security. The Kremlin has presented itself as a clean and honest broker lacking the colonial background of most Western countries. Africas relative instability and need for cheap energy makes it a good match for Russia which is looking to expand its global presence and find new markets for critical industries such as energy. Related: The Battle For Control Over Iraqs Oil From Moscows perspective, sanctions and deteriorated relations with the West have increased the need to improve its relations with other parts of the world. Africa is not a new frontier for the Kremlin, which maintained diplomatic and military contact with the continent during the Cold War to counterbalance the U.S. This time, however, Moscow is not driven by ideology but by the need to increase influence and its position as a global power. Nuclear energy is an obvious option as Russia is a global leader in nuclear technology. The country processes 7 percent of the worlds uranium production, 20 percent of uranium conversion, 45 percent of uranium enrichment, and 25 percent of the global nuclear power plant construction activities. Providing the necessary technology to Africa serves another purpose besides increasing influence and revenue for the states coffers. The continent is also home to some of the worlds largest uranium deposits in Malawi, Niger, and South Africa. Access to these resources is essential if Moscows wants to maintain its position globally. A way forward or unnecessary risks? Without a doubt, Africa is in desperate need of electricity to develop and industrialize. However, according to some critics, Russia's nuclear involvement in unstable countries could become a global security threat due to those countries weak institutions and unstable governments. Moscows nuclear strategy will be tested after the first power plants are completed in developing countries in Africa and Asia. The lifespan of these facilities spans decades and they require an adequate and comprehensive approach in order to provide electricity for millions that is both safe and reliable. By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Chinese refineries returned to record-high processing rates last month driven by the so-called teapots, which added a substantial amount of new refining capacity. According to Reuters, the average daily throughput in April stood at 12.68 million barrels, up 5 percent from a year earlier. For the January to April period, the average was 12.62 million bpd, up 4.7 percent on the year. In January this year, CNPC, the countrys largest oil company, said it expected 12.68 million bpd to be the average processing rate for local refineries this year as a whole. This is an interesting development given that this year, the initial round of independent refiner quotas were lower, as the local market sinks in a glut of fuels and the regional market begins to feel the margin squeeze of cheap Chinese fuel exports. Fuel production margins are not what they used to be, and yet independent refiners continue to add capacity. According to an analysis from Bloomberg released in March, this year will see refining capacity additions of as much as 890,000 bpd. Almost half of this will come from a new 400,000-bpd refinery property of teapot Hengli Petrochemical Co. which began trial runs at the facility five months ago. Full capacity is expected to be reached later in May. Imports are also on the rise as domestic oil production continues its steady decline, forcing Chinese oil majors to look for replacement production overseas. In April, these averaged 10.64 million bpd, which came as a surprise to analysts as the 11-percent year-on-year increase came amid refinery maintenance activities and low local fuel demand. Right now, China is once again in the oil spotlight after the latest escalation with Washington that saw the U.S. increase tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on US$200 billion of Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to respond with an equal increase in the rate it taxes U.S. LNG imports. For now, however, there has been no word of China imposing tariffs on U.S. oil. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: OPEC de facto leader and the worlds largest crude oil exporter Saudi Arabia is still trying to pivot away from over-reliance on crude oil export revenue. But, to achieve this goal may be more difficult that planners in Riyadh have considered and may also take longer than anticipated. Naif Al-Rasheed, managing director of the Saudi Private Sector Stimulus Office, said on Wednesday that the Saudi 200 billion-riyal ($53 billion) lifeline to its non-oil economy may be in place for longer than planned as the kingdom supports industries struggling to cope with reforms that pushed up costs and dampened demand. He said that the program is earmarking some 36 billion riyals to boost private-sector growth this year alone, on top of the 40 billion riyals already spent. The financing could continue beyond the originally planned end date of 2021. The office has a long-term mandate to continuously support the private sector through economic cycles, he added. Al-Rasheeds comments come three years after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced Vision 2030, a monumental policy shift to help the country wean itself away from reliance on oil export revenue. Saudi Arabia, which transformed itself from being an impoverished third world country in the waning days of World War II to being one of the richest nations on earth, still derives nearly 75 percent of its total exports from oil. Moreover, at least 60 percent of Saudi Arabias state coffers are derived from crude oil exports, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Others place that number even higher. Related: Russia Could Take Hold Of Chinas Entire Gas Market Its Saudi Arabias reliance on oil export revenue that continues to provide both financial rewards but also bouts of economic pain when oil prices head south. When oil prices plunged from more than $100/ barrel in mid-2014 to below $30/barrel in early 2016, Saudi Arabia nearly collapsed financially. It ran record budget deficits, had to put in place politically unpopular austerity measures and had to raise operational cash through international bond sales. Though Saudi Arabia's oil production still has one of the lowest per barrel breakeven points in the world, its fiscal breakeven point is still reportedly above $70 a barrel its little wonder that it is still reticent to bow to both global pressure and President Trumps recent demands to increase oil production to push prices down. Even with global oil prices more than 30 percent higher this year, the Saudis need that price to continue to climb, even if it creates headwinds with an otherwise healthy relationship with the Trump administration. Related: Russia Aims To Exploit Africas Energy Potential However, amid the Saudi plan to implement Vision 2030, its continued disregard of human rights among its own citizens continues to put a stain not only on the Kingdoms push for a kinder, gentler, perhaps more modern nation, causing pause for international investors that would otherwise be flocking to pour money to the country. At the end of last month, according to media reports, the kingdom had beheaded 37 people, mostly from the minority Shia Muslim community, with possible allegiances to Saudi arch-enemy Iran. Also, in what could be called the most ill-timed public relations blunder in decades, the controversial executions happened just as an international investors conference opened in Riyadh. Going forward, expect the Saudis to continue to do what it does best, try to control global oil markets and prices as well as maintain a strict top-down authoritarian hold of power with zero tolerance for dissent, as well as trying out maneuver Iran for geopolitical hegemony in the region. Yet, at the end of the day, it remains to be seen if these pursuits will stall its long-term economic growth, its ambitious Vision 2030 plan as well as its long term standing in the international community. By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The Energy Information Administration reported a crude oil inventory build of 5.4 million barrels for the week to May 10. This follows a 4-million-barrel draw a week earlier. Analysts expected an inventory increase of about 3 million barrels for the week to May 10, while the American Petroleum Institute estimated inventories had risen by 8.6 million barrels. In gasoline, the EIA reported a draw of 1.1 million barrels, versus a decline of 600,000 bpd a week earlier, with production at 9.9 million bpd. This compares with 10.1 million bpd in average daily production for the first week of May. In distillate fuel, the authority estimated an inventory rise of 100,000 barrels for the week ending May 10, compared with a draw of 200,000 barrels a week earlier. Distillate fuel production last week averaged 5.3 million bpd, up from 5.1 million bpd a week earlier. Oil prices have been relatively stable these past few days as tailwinds and headwinds collide, keeping prices very much in one place. On the one hand, there is the growing tension in the Middle East following the reported sabotage on four vessels at the Emirati port of Fujairah, which early U.S. assessment said may be the result of Iranian action in the Persian Gulf. Then Saudi Arabia reported a drone attack on oil facilities, which only intensified the pressure that would have normally pushed prices quite a bit higher. However, this time there is the stable headwind of U.S. production and inventories. Yesterdays API report served as the stabilizing force to keep prices relatively unchanged. U.S. production has been supported by the latest round of oil supply and demand forecasts that dont expect global demand growth to be particularly lively this year. To add to the downward pressure, Venezuelas oil production surprisingly stabilized and even rose slightly last month, according to the latest Monthly Oil Market Report by OPEC released yesterday. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at US$71.15 a barrel, with West Texas Intermediate at US$61.35 a barrel, both down slightly from opening. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Canadian oil producers have been having a hard time after the 2014 crisis, harder than their peers elsewhere, constrained in their recovery and growth plans by a shortage of oil export capacity. However, in evidence of silver linings, they are now focusing on paying down debt and buying back shares issued at the height of the crisis as a survival measure that was very popular in the oil industry. Reuters reports that an obligatory production cut has seen local producers accumulate cash they cant use to boost output growth so they are using it to cut down debt. The previous Alberta government instituted the OPEC-style production cut last December in a bid to prop up historically low prices of Canadian crude brought about by that same pipeline shortage that is still plaguing the industry with no resolution in sight. This year, cash flow in Canadas oil industry is seen to hit US$39.1 billion (C$52.7 billion), according to Jackie Forrest, at ARC Financial. Last month, BMO analysts told Bloomberg, The surge in crude oil prices is creating a cash flow windfall for many companies. At a WTI price of $55/bbl and WTI-WCS differential of $20/bbl, we expect the Canadian large cap companies to collectively generate C$11 billion of surplus cash flow in 2019. WTI has been trading higher than US$55 a barrel and is likely to remain where it is for a while longer bar any sudden surges in production. Although Canadian crude doesnt follow suit with price movements of the U.S. benchmark, the current discount of Western Canadian Select to West Texas Intermediate is less than US$20 a barrel. Indeed, in a more recent comment to Reuters, BMO analyst Randy Ollenberg said large Canadian oil producers could see their cash piles rise to US$9.7 billion (C$13 billion). Related: Oil Shrugs Off Trade War Threat In this environment its only to be expected that producers would not even make any growth plans. There is no sense spending money to generate additional production and drive further throughput if you cant produce the oil. The economics of that are zero, said Suncors chief executive during a recent earnings call. Suncor, by the way, was against the cuts unlike sector players. The producer is an integrated company, which means its refining business benefits from cheaper local oil. Theres no point growing with the Alberta production curtailment in place and the lack of egress opportunities, Meg Energys CEO told Reuters echoing an identical sentiment. So, has the NDP government that surrendered power to the Conservatives in last months election Alberta did a favor in disguise to local oil producers? That may well be the case. With cash flow at a five-year high and no way of using it to get more barrels out of the ground, Canadian producers are forced to improve other aspects of their performance, which would ultimately earn them shareholder trust. A drawback in this blessing in disguise of sorts is the fact that asset sale deals have dwindled in number. However, this could be temporary if the next Canadian federal government turns out to be more investment friendly and energy industry-friendly, which based on what we have seen in Alberta is not impossible. In the meantime, the industry is blaming the current federal and the previous provincial governments for the situation it is in and buying back stock for lack of anything better to do. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The escalation of the trade war between the US and China could jeopardize several LNG mega projects that are awaiting final approval, according to Rystad Energy. China announced on Monday that it will raise the duty on imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to 25% from the previous level of 10% in retaliation to the US increasing its tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Rystad Energy forecasts that Chinese LNG demand will reach 95 million tonnes per annum (tpa) in 2025, up from 53 million tpa in 2018. This would make China the worlds largest LNG importer. The US, on the other hand, is the fastest growing LNG exporter thanks to strong Asian and Chinese demand. Rystad Energy expects that US export volumes will nearly quadruple over the coming years, reaching 84 million tpa by 2025 based on currently sanctioned projects. However, the increased tariffs will create additional headwinds for US LNG projects that are currently awaiting final investment decisions (FIDs). Rystad Energy, has noted previously that if LNG prices continue to linger around their current low level for an extended period of time, some of the more expensive LNG projects could struggle to offer competitive terms to buyers and this could result in FID deferrals. Most of these projects need to secure long-term contracts in order to get financing for their development. Rystad Energy expects China to be one of the biggest contributors in sponsoring new LNG projects over the coming years, and there will be a reluctance to signing new deals with US projects as long as this trade war persists, said Sindre Knutsson, Senior Analyst at Rystad Energys Gas Markets team. For example, Cheniere and Sinopec agreed late last year on a 20-year deal that would supply 2 million tpa of LNG to China starting in 2023. This deal could have been signed once the trade tensions were resolved, but due to the heightened tensions this has not happened. Related: Trumps New Plan To Spark A California Oil Boom Chinas decision to impose tariffs on US LNG will make LNG projects outside of the US more attractive. As illustrated in the figure below, so-called oil-indexed gas contracts are more common in countries such as Australia, Qatar, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea compared to the US, where indexing to the Henry Hub price is more prevalent. This means that non-US projects are more competitive in terms of breakeven price (delivered), and that China therefore could have greater bargaining power when negotiating new contracts, Knutsson remarked. Commenting on the short-term outlook for the global gas market, Per Magnus Nysveen, Rystad Energy Head of Analysis, said: US LNG export to China is already seriously affected by the 10% tariffs in effect from last year, and we expect it continue to be so as long as the tariff is imposed. By Rystad Energy More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Govt announced Asset Declaration Scheme 15 May, 2019 Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love Types of Casino Payment Methods Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino Are Slot Developers Important for players? Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry Woke Bingo ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday announced the Asset Declaration Scheme, providing one more opportunity to all Pakistani citizens to declare and legalise undisclosed assets inside and outside the country by paying just four percent taxes on all assets other than real estate. The scheme would be applicable till June 30, and all Pakistan citizens, other than those holding public offices or their dependents, would be able to take benefit from it, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said at a press conference while announcing the scheme after its formal approval by the federal cabinet. He was accompanied by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, State Minister for Revenues Hammad Azhar and Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Syed Shabbar Zaidi. Dr Shaikh said the basic purpose of the scheme was not to generate revenue but to document economy and make the dead assets functional to promote economy. He said the philosophy behind the scheme was to encourage businessmen to participate in the legal economy, adding that it did not intend to intimidate people. He said efforts had been made to make the scheme easy in understanding as well as implementing. He said all assets were included in the scheme inside or outside Pakistan, and added that people would have to pay four percent tax to get all their assets, other than real estate, legalised. In case of real estate, it would be evaluated at 1.5 on FBR value, to bring it to market value, he said, citing an example that if the FBR value of any property was Rs 1 million, it would be charged at the value of Rs 1.5 million. He said the Pakistanis abroad could also pay four percent tax to legalise their undisclosed assets, but added that in terms of cash, they would have to deposit their money in Pakistani banks (in local or foreign currency), otherwise they would have to pay 6 percent to legalise their assets. Dr Shaikh said every Pakistani national was eligible to benefit from this scheme; however, the scheme would not be applicable to the public office holders and their dependents. He said this was the last chance as the government had already imposed the benami law, under which all such benami properties would be confiscated by the government. Replying to a question, he said talks between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continued for around 7-8 months and nothing special was added in the agreement after he joined the office. The IMF is an international institution, which primarily focuses on bringing the financially weak countries out of financial crisis, and the conditions set [by the IMF] for Pakistan are in its own interest, he said, adding that whether it was the condition of shrinking trade deficit or reducing expenditures and increasing revenues, or selling out the bleeding state own entities, all such conditions were aimed at stabilising the countrys economy. When asked whether this would be the last programme with the IMF, the adviser said that in the past, the governments could not fulfil the conditions of the IMF, which resulted in instability of the economy, but this time the government was committed to abiding by all the conditions and hoped that the country would not need to go for another programme. He said the electricity tariff would be increased for only those consumers who used 300 and above units per month, while the rest of the 75 percent consumers would not be affected by the power tariff raises. He informed that in the upcoming budget, the government was raising the budget for the downtrodden segment of society and allocating Rs 180 billion as compared to Rs 100 billion in the previous year for the purpose. Dr Shaikh said under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2019-20, the government would allocate Rs 550 billion to Rs 600 billion, while in the next year this budget would be increased to over Rs 700 billion, which would help generate new jobs. He said the revenue performance had not been so good in the past, but now the government was taking some basic measures that would help take the revenue level to record high in coming years. Speaking on the occasion, Hammad Azhar said there was a lot of difference between the current and previous amnesty schemes, as for the first time there was a condition for all asset declarer to become tax filers, besides giving option to all such people to revise their balance sheet in their tax returns. Shabbar Zaidi said the government had clear business information about the Pakistanis living abroad and at present it possessed information about 150,000 accounts in 28 countries against which the government had started taking action. He also urged the media to become partner in this scheme and play a role in making this scheme a big success. Meanwhile, briefing the media on amnesty scheme, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said the ordinance on declaration of assets would be issued by the president as part of the governments efforts to document the economy and generate taxes from privileged sections of society. She said the cabinet renewed the licence of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), approved Board of Directors of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC), ratified Pakistans trade agreement with Algeria, approved exemptions for assets belonging to institutions of Benevolent Fund and Group Insurance. Crude oil production in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries fell by just 45,000 bpd in April, according to the cartels latest Monthly Oil Market Report, despite continued deep cuts by the largest producer, Saudi Arabia and continued decline in Venezuela and Iran. According to secondary sources, Iran registered the deepest decline in production in April, by 154,000 bpd to 2.554 million bpd. Interestingly, Iraq booked the second-largest decline, at 113,000 bpd to 4.63 million bpd. Saudi Arabia produced 45,000 bpd less crude oil in April than in march, at 9.742 million bpd. At the same time, Venezuelas oil production decline was reversed last month, with output rising by a daily average of 28,000 bpd to 768,000 bpd. Still, this daily average production rate is a lot below what Venezuela produced last year: that average was 1.3354 million bpd. OPEC has been doing its best to reduce production sufficiently to boost prices to a level more acceptable to the producers club, but uncertainty around where prices are headed for the rest of the year has remained. Despite Venezuelan and especially Iranian sanctions from the U.S., the outlook for prices has not become clearer as nobody knows for sure how much Iranian production will decline following the removal of sanction wavers at the start of this month. Earlier in the month, unnamed sources told Reuters that lOPEC is having a hard time predicting its next steps in the production cut agreement and in general. Unforeseen events such as Russias temporary suspension of exports via the Druzhba pipeline following contamination are interfering with the cartels estimates of the most likely supply drop by the end of the year, making it harder to decide on whether to continue the cuts or start pumping more as large importers would like. Meanwhile, prices have steadied at around US$71 for Brent and US$61 for West Texas Intermediate as the new tariff exchange between Washington and Beijing has countered the bullish effect of supply outages and sanctions. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: This week hundreds of industry insiders are heading to Amsterdam for Europe's largest midstream gas & LNG event, the 25th annual Flame Conference. The setting for the summit is an apt one, as the Netherlands is a sort of poster child for the current state of the liquefied natural gas industry throughout Europe. At one time the Netherlands was the largest supplier of natural gas in all of Europe. Now production is in serious decline as the nation becomes more and more dependent on natural gas imported from other countries. The transition from energy autonomy to dependence on imports from places like Russia (which already supplies a massive amount of the European Unions fuel demand at approximately 40 percent), northern Africa, Qatar and the United States embodied by the Netherlands is also true for the European continent as a whole. This trend is not only set to continue, but to worsen. The Netherlands is on track to become a net importer of natural gas. What was once Europes largest natural gas field, the Netherlands Groningen field, has already been diminished considerably and will be shut down completely by 2030 as part of the Dutch government's efforts to quell earthquakes caused by gas exploration in the area. Even after a relatively mild winter, Bloomberg reports that European LNG imports more than doubled in the first quarter [...] demonstrating a genuine underlying demand according to Alastair Maxwell, chief financial officer of LNG tanker owner GasLog Ltd. Maxwell went on to explain to Bloomberg reporters that, while buyers took advantage of the lower prices to bring in more cargoes, declines in the regions production were also behind the increases. So far, as European natural gas production has been in severe decline, low natural gas prices--thanks in large part to a global supply glut--has been the continents saving grace. As we head into the summer, however, demand for natural gas in Asia is set to keep growing, and gas prices will likely grow accordingly. Related: The Battle For Control Over Iraqs Oil In the meantime, the European Unions growing dependence on Russia has created a politically fraught dynamic between Europe, Moscow, and Washington. The United States has urged the European Union to ease their dependence on Russian oil. The U.S. says that dependency is dangerous and is urging the EU to build more terminals to ship in gas from its shale boom to bolster the blocs efforts at diversification, reports Bloomberg. In fact, just this week United States energy secretary Rick Perry announced that on Monday in Brussels he signed two export orders for liquefied natural gas as part of an agreement that will raise the United States export capacity to Europe to Europe to 112 billion cubic meters per year by 2020, more than double the current annual amount. In a rather hyperbolic address to reporters in Brussels Perry compared the introduction of more U.S. natural gas into European markets to U.S. troops during World War II, saying that the United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent [...] and rather than in the form of young American soldiers, its in the form of liquefied natural gas. This weeks liquefied natural gas export orders come on the tails of a joint statement pledging to build up strategic energy cooperation between the EU and the U.S., released last year by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and United States President Donald Trump. The initiative to import more LNG from the U.S. realized this week was already established in the statement released last July. The European Union wants to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States to diversify its energy supply, stated the press release. By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The UKs goal to maximize oil and gas recovery from the North Sea will harm the countrys Paris Agreement climate goals, a new report by climate campaign groups showed on Wednesday. The UKs petroleum reserves remain at a significant level, with overall remaining recoverable reserves and resources ranging from 10 to 20 billion barrels plus of oil equivalent, according to the UK Oil and Gas Authority (OGA). Currently proven and probable reserves on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) can sustain production for another 20 years. The UKCS yielded 20 percent more oil and gas in the last five years after 14 consecutive years of production declines, the industrys association, Oil and Gas UK, said in its latest annual Business Outlook earlier this year. The UK and Scottish governments, together with oil and gas industry associations, aim to find, develop, and operate reserves that could add a generation of productive life to the North Sea. But environmental organizations warned in their report published today that the UK would miss the Paris Agreement goals if the industry were to intensify production. The UKs 5.7 billion barrels of oil and gas in already-operating oil and gas fields will exceed the UKs share in relation to Paris climate goals - whereas industry and government aim to extract 20 billion barrels, is one of the key findings of the report written by Platform, Oil Change International, and Friends of the Earth Scotland. Recent subsidies for oil and gas extraction will add twice as much carbon to the atmosphere as the phase-out of coal power saves, the authors of the report note. Related: Saudi Tanker Attack Reveals Oil Market Weakness The report also recommends that the UK and Scottish governments Stop issuing licenses and permits for new oil and gas exploration and development, and revoke undeveloped licenses, among other things, including implementing a plan to transition to clean energy and to a clean energy industry and jobs. Climate science is clear that we urgently need to phase out fossil fuels, yet the government and big oil are doing everything they can to squeeze every last drop out of the North Sea. To tackle the climate emergency head on we must ban oil and gas exploration now, and redirect the vast subsidies propping up fossil fuel extraction towards creating decent jobs in a clean energy economy, Mary Church, Head of Campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said, commenting on the report. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Saudi Aramco restarted pumping oil on Wednesday through the pipeline which was hit by drone attacks on Tuesday, Arab media report. Two pumping stations along Aramcos East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia were attacked by explosive-laden drones in the early morning local time on Tuesday, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported yesterday, citing Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih, who described the attack as one of terrorism and sabotage. The drones laden with explosives targeted the pump stations on the pipeline which carries oil from eastern Saudi Arabia to the Yanbu port. Saudi Aramco issued a statement on Tuesday, saying that the sabotage caused minor damage and a fire at one of the pumping stations. Aramco temporarily shut down the pipeline yesterday as a precautionary measure and noted that no injuries or fatalities were reported. The companys oil and gas supplies havent been impacted as a result of the incident either, it said. Mr. Al-Falih confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia condemns this cowardly attack, emphasizing that this act of terrorism and sabotage in addition to recent acts in the Arabian Gulf do not only target the Kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy. These attacks prove again that it is important for us to face terrorist entities, including the Houthi militias in Yemen that are backed by Iran, the official Saudi agency said on Tuesday. Related: The Battle For Control Over Iraqs Oil This statement came out hours after Houthi-owned TV Almasirah reported that 7 Drones have targeted vital Saudi facilities. Reports of the drone attack on Saudi Aramcos oil infrastructure came a day after Saudi Arabia said that two of its oil tankers were attacked by saboteurs near the United Arab Emirates (UAE), while the UAE said that a total four vessels were attacked off its coast at the port of Fujairah. The heightened security concerns and the potential threat to global oil supplies in the Middle East lifted oil prices on Monday and early Tuesday, outweighing concerns about an escalating U.S.-China trade war and slowing global economic growth. A large crude build reported by API later on Tuesday, however, weighed down on oil prices, which were still down just before the EIAs inventory report release on Wednesday. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: South Korea imported some 353,000 bpd of Iranian crude last month, up 17 percent on March ahead of the removal of sanction waivers that granted South Korea and another seven countries to legally import certain amounts of Iranian crude despite U.S. sanctions. A month earlier, South Koreas imports of Iranian crude reached 1.2 million tons, or 8.8 million barrels which was a 23-percent increase on February and a fivefold increase on January, when Korean refiners resumed their purchases of Iranian crude. Reuters reports the monthly rise will be followed by a sharp drop this month as Washington did not renew the sanction waivers for Iranian oil importers. The picture would be the same for Japan as the two are the staunchest U.S. allies in Asia and have been careful to maintain their traditionally strong relationship with Washington. Both South Korea and Japan stopped importing Iranian oil well before the U.S. sanctions snapped back last November and then they waited for a couple of months before they started importing oil from Iran while the waivers lasted. Neither South Korea nor Japan expect any major negative impact from the cancelation of the waivers, officials from the two countries have said. However, now they will have to find an affordable alternative to Iranian oil, especially condensate, of which South Korea is a major importer. One obvious alternative would be U.S. light crude, which is comparable in quality with Iranian condensate. South Korea is already the second-largest oil client of the U.S. as of the end of 2018, after Canada and ahead of China. The average daily intake of U.S. crude in South Korea last year was 236,000 bpd. This is actually lower than what South Korea imported from Iran during the waiver period, at 235,533 bpd for January to April this year, but now that the waivers have been removed, shipments of U.S. light will most likely increase. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: ExxonMobil is starting to evacuate its engineers working on Iraqs West Qurna 1 field due to security concerns, according to Al Arabiya. Earlier in the day, S&P Global Platts reported that ExxonMobil was closely monitoring the situation in Iraq, adding that BP and Chevron were also watching the situation closely. The exodus from Iraq comes after the United States ordered on Wednesday the evacuation of all non-essential government employees from Iraq citing security concerns, adding that the US embassy in Iraq would suspend visa services and would have a limited ability to provide emergency services to US citizens in Iraq. The US State Department said on Wednesday in a Level 4 travel advisory that US citizens in Iraq are at a high risk for violence and kidnapping. Numerous terrorist and insurgent groups are active in Iraq and regularly attack both Iraqi security forces and civilians. Anti-U.S. sectarian militias may also threaten U.S. citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq. Attacks by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) occur in many areas of the country, including Baghdad. Last week, Iraq said it was close to signing a $53-billion deal with ExxonMobil and PetroChina, which would land Iraq $400 billion over the 30-year deal period. Exxon also signed six Production Sharing Contracts covering more than 848,000 acres in Iraqs Kurdistan region, according to Exxons website. In addition to BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil, foreign oil companies including Eni, Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom, CNPC, CNOOC, and Total also operate in the now restive region, among others. Iraq is a major oil producer and is OPECs No.2, producing 4.630 million bpd in April according to OPECs most recent Monthly Oil Market Report. If Iraqs oil production is disrupted as a result of foreign oil company personnel exiting the country, it will further add to other OPEC production losses in Venezuela and Iran at a time when the market is already skittish due to attacks in the region on four oil tankers and Aramcos oil pipeline. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed how he warned Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo against being mobbed by hefty traders while distributing Trader Moni in the market. Speaking when he hosted Osinbajo, Ministers, Security Chiefs and Chief Executives of Federal Government Agencies to a breaking of fast at the Presidential Villa on Monday, Buhari warned the vice president to be careful with the way he moves from one market to the other. The All Progressives Congress (APC) chapter in Lagos state has fired back at Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State for insisting that political godfathers in Lagos State must be retired, a comment that is widely believed to be targeted at the national leader of APC, Bola Tinubu. El-Rufai, who had recently said he overcame godfatherism in his state, offered to help Lagosians to replicate same. The comment drew mixed reactions among Nigerians, especially the political class. Despite the condemnations that greeted his comment, El-Rufai yesterday insisted that he owed nobody an apology for asking people of the state to disregard godfatherism. In reaction through a statement issued by Joe Igbokwe, the Publicity Secretary of the Lagos State chapter of APC, the party lambasted the El-Rufai saying talk was cheap, adding Tinubu remained their leader. The petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PEGASSAN) has condemned the high rate of insurgency leading to spate of killings of innocent citizens in some parts of the country especially areas predominantly occupied by Muslims. The body, made the official reaction today in Lagos through its General secretary Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa while felicitating with Muslims across the country in this holy month of Ramadan. According to him Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. He therefore urged all Muslims to imbibe the true essence of this Holy period which teaches perseverance, tolerance, purity, love and refrain from all negativity of life such as anger and hatred which are not attribute of a true Muslim. The Association therefore call on all Muslim faithful to use this period pray against all obstacles and challenges militating against the growth and development of the country, as well as newly elected public office holders. He call on Nigerians to eschew things that can hamper the peaceful co-existence of the nation as time has come for all citizens to rise against any form of terrorism and other acts of violence. Negative issues such as ethnic and religious chauvinism, often wrapped around religious cover to justify evil and un-islamic positions and this must be discourage he added. Senator Barnabas Gemade, a former Managing Director of Benue Cement Company, and former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and now Social Democratic Party (SDP) remains fortunate to have escaped assassination in Benue State in the build up to the 2019 general elections, National Daily reports. Sources told National Daily that a major political opponent had plotted the assassination of the Senator which failed, though, the man who was approached to carry out the job died in his place. According to our sources, a Pharmacist operating in Benue State, Ternenge Labe, owner of Lambeth Pharmacy, identified to be located adjacent to Bristow roundabout in Gboko, was contacted by the said politician to poison the senator through administration of adulterated drugs. Labe, National Daily sources said, was the medical consultant to Senator Gemade. The Pharmacist resisted the pressures, including monetary inducement, and rejected the appeal to kill the senator. Our sources further said that, perhaps, because of the fear that the failed plot may be leaked, armed men were deployed to murder the Pharmacist, Ternenge Labe, owner of Lambeth Pharmacy. Before he was killed, Labe had revealed the plot and his resistance to pressures to his wife, who then kept the secret. Labe did not reveal the plot to the Senator before he was killed by the gunmen. ALSO READ: Kano Emirate: Sanusi resigns as Ganduje install more emirs Apparently, the plot was exposed by Labes wife after the murder of her husband by gunmen. Thus, the political rival and the killers were not aware Labe had already leaked the plot to kill Gemade to his wife before they murdered him. The sources also disclosed that Police investigation into the murder was frustrated by the political opponents of the senator linked to the assassination plot. Senator Gemade, who lost the 2019 senatorial election in Zone A, Benue State, to the PDP, was said to be an accomplished and decent politician who hate political violence. The senator discourages the use of political thugs for the violence by any politician in the state. Post Views: 544 India released 13 Pakistani prisoners India on Tuesday released 13 Pakistani prisoners after they completed their jail terms. The released prisoners, which included four fishermen who illegally entered Indian waters, were handed over to Pakistani authorities at the Wagah Border. Meanwhile, at least three of the prisoners released were detained in India for overstaying their visas. Travelling arrangements for the released fishermen from Lahore to Karachi will be made by the Edhi Foundation. The prisoners expressed gratitude over their release in the holy month of Ramazan as they will be able to celebrate Eid with their families. In April, Pakistan had released over 360 Indian fishermen. Eden Hazard Chelsea star player, Eden Hazard, has agreed personal terms with Real Madrid, according to Express Sports. The Belgian international is desperate to force Chelsea and Real Madrid to come closer to an agreement to allow him play at the Santiago Bernabeu next season. The newspaper reports that Hazard went public about his feelings after the 0-0 draw with Leicester on Sunday. The player desperately wants his future resolved, out of sheer frustration that Chelsea and Real are no nearer agreeing a deal after weeks of talks. Real have already offered around 85million for the 28-year-old Belgian captain. However, Chelsea want around 112m and an agreement between the clubs has still not been reached. Hazard has finalised his own terms with Real on a move. The Blues, however are holding out for the full figure for their star player, who still has a year of his contract to go. A 29-year-old woman , Omolara Busari has called off her wedding after her husband-to-be, Adelekan Adelufosi, beat the hell out of her during a quarrel in Oyo state In an interview with Punch, Omolara, who hails from Iseyin, Oyo State, said she endured her relationship with 32-year-old Adelufosi for four years. They had planned to finally get married in August 2019, but their wedding has now been cancelled after Adelufosi beat his fiancee to a pulp last Thursday at Iwere-Ile, Iwajowa, Oyo State. Omolara, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, said she had only challenged Adelufosi for asking her not to ever relate with a woman who lives in their area. By the time she knew what was happening, she had been admitted to hospital. She said, There is a woman who lives in my area, close to my apartment. We were just discussing and greeting each other when he (Adelufosi) showed up. Later, he went to the womans shop and warned her not to ever see her around me again. When we entered my apartment that night, I asked him, Why did you do that? That was the last thing I remembered saying. By the time I opened my eyes, I found myself in a hospital. From last Thursday night, Omolara had been receiving treatment and was discharged on Monday. But that was not the first time Omolara would get physically assaulted by a man who claimed to love her and make his wife someday. That was the fifth time he would beat me, Omolara said. Asked why she held on to the man despite his abusive nature for so long, Omolara said it was because she had a daughter for him. She said, Actually, I wanted to marry him because I have a daughter, who is two years old, for him. This is what kept me glued to the relationship. But this time around, I dont care. Our relationship has ended and I have cancelled our wedding. Right from the beginning, my parents and siblings didnt approve of our relationship, but I thought maybe after our wedding, he would change. We were already planning our wedding for August 2019, but like I said, it cannot hold again. Omolara lamented she did not heed her parents and siblings warning before. However, she was thankful it was not too late for her. Now, they (my parents and siblings) are relieved and I have finally learnt my lesson. I am so happy that our relationship has ended, she said. Omolara said she was more relieved because she would not have to spend her savings on Adelufosi again, who she claimed to have been responsible for since their relationship started. She said, He only has the primary school leaving certificate. I am a trader and deal in beverages. He doesnt have a job and I have been the one taking care of him. I used to buy him clothes, shoes and others. Even the phone hes using right now, I bought it for him. I was practically taking responsibility for his life. Just last week, I gave him N50,000 capital, encouraging him to start selling recharge cards. But after the beating, he burgled my shop and ran away. Up till now, hes still at large. He was always mad at me for telling him to look for a job. Asked what he initially saw in the suspect before agreeing to date him, Omolara said she thought he was a good man because he was calm and gentle. I never knew he could be this dangerous. I knew his real person when I got closer to him. I also did not know he smokes and drinks alcohol a lot. Anytime I told him what he was doing was not good, he would be angry, she added. Asked what she would do if the suspect came back to apologise to her, she replied, Am I a fool? It cant happen. I have made up my mind. It was then that I used to fall for his apologies. He can never change. He used to threaten me that if I decided to break up with him, he would take our child, and this was why I held on to him for so long. I will raise my daughter, whom I had by Caesarean Section, on my own; I would never let her near him. Happy she had finally taken the bull by the horns by ending her relationship with Adelufosi and cancelling her wedding, Omolara said the only thing she now wanted was justice. I want him to be punished, she said. She also Punch that immediately after her discharge from the hospital on Monday morning, she went to report the case to the Divisional Crime Branch, Iwere-Ile Police Station, Oyo State. Efforts to reach the Public Relations Officer of the Oyo State Police Command, Mr. Olugbenga Fadeyi, on Tuesday proved abortive. Mans karma travels with him, like his shadow. But karma is on nobodys leash. The universes agent of cause and effect, deterrence and retributive justice, can neither be owned nor tethered. Unlike life, it doesnt suffer the affliction of mans dubious acquiescence to daunting, baleful bestiality oft summed up by the terse, intense statement: Lifes a bitch. Karma is our open secret. In Nigeria, it is our sacred, secret space, ignored in plain sight. It becomes our temenos, ritual precinct of reward and deserts. In this divine, marked-off terrain, the moral code of the universe operates at its darkest and most mechanical there are no emotive shingles of pardon or persuasion, just causes and effects, actions and consequences. In 1932, the great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget found that by the age of 6, children begin to believe, that, bad things that happen to them are punishments for bad things they had done. The Nigerian society, however, fights to subvert the karmic laws of cause and effect, and thus insulate individuals from the injurious effects of their vices and poor judgment. Local gender activists, like their European and American role models, abandon more progressive causes to pervert the birth control and abortion debate, in bid to detach sex from morality and its natural consequences. Politics is equally rigged to reward greed, savagery, indolence, illegitimacy and so on. Lest we forget the pervasive political and economic crisis bedeviling the country. The nations woes originate from her moral lapses. Endemic poverty, substandard healthcare and education, ethnic and religious bigotry, bribery and other forms of corruption manifest by the societys poverty of morals and humane ethics. Hence those guilty of corruption escape the consequences of their wrongdoing in connivance with a bland, treacherous government. The consequences of this anomaly are of course, better imagined think Dasukigate, Mainagate, and so on. The frightful blooming of the Nigerian karma is a brazen incantation of debaucherys triumph over morals. Desire trumps ethics on the watch of supposedly invincible oligarchs. The latter espouse raptorial power in rebuttal of patriot magic. Their awful energy incites the eerie flurry of Medusas reptilian hairlocks, entangling everyone and everything. From treasury looting, sponsorship of terrorism, to the elevation of random bigotries, the incumbent ruling class manifests as Nigerias worst comeuppance. Until recently, there was no punishment for the wicked and no deterrence for the corrupt. On President Goodluck Jonathans watch, Nigeria was pilfered silly. The country was persistently debauched by cliques and individuals. There was no good or evil. The cult of moral grayness bloomed on Jonathans watch. Thus our reality of chronic indebtedness and bankruptcy. Enter Muhammadu Buhari, incumbent President and leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Buhari suffers the flipside of karma from his ascension to power and ouster by military coup in the 1980s, to his re-emergence as democratic President, the retired General from Daura, is widely appreciated and denounced along bigoted shoals of ethnic and religious extremism. In his first term, base sentimentality and impoverished logic of entitlement fostered by the ruling class and segments of the citizenry, afflicted Buhari with a clumsy cabinet; subtle cues abound therein, establishing incompetence and workings of unforgiving karma. Thus we have ministers whose appointments were hotly debated and questioned on basis of their shameful antecedents either as governors, commissioners and other capacities in public and private sectors. Four years after their appointment, these ministers can only manage a hobble along the clogged, swampy corridors of the APCs castle of Change. Such individuals must be replaced with competent hands. Buharis next cabinet mustnt bloom as yet another bower of ill-bliss. Contemporary legend contend that some of the outgoing ministers are victims of hubris and retribution trailing their emergence through vile, subterranean tactics. Such characters constitute impediment to national progress and his presidency his personal inadequacies notwithstanding, if Buhari has a formidable team, his shortcomings as an administrator and leader wouldnt be so bothersome. Lest we forget the countrys outgoing Eighth National Assembly and its lack of character. Lawmakers in the countrys upper and lower legislative chambers currently constitute a disgraceful burden to national purse and pride. But groupies of the ruling class would have none of that. Left to them, their cronies and benefactors in the current administration can do no wrong. In the scheme of things, not only are the corrupt saved from their just deserts, the worthy and true are punished for their uprightness and industry via burdensome levels of maladministration, taxation and bureaucratic ineptitude. In the ensuing moral sepsis, the ruling class treats equality as an ethical baseline even as it establishes prosperity and poverty as fortunate and unfortunate draws in Nigerias cosmic lottery. Thus public office metamorphoses to moral insult and government officials make concerted efforts, daily, to subvert progress. The most prescient portrait of the Nigerian character and our ultimate fate as a nation however, resonates Hedges apt commentary on Herman Melvilles allegorical portrayal of the American character in his literary classic, Moby Dick. Melville makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle. He is to us what William Shakespeare was to Elizabethan England or Fyodor Dostoyevsky to czarist Russia, argues Hedges. In truth, Nigeria is likable to the fictional ship, the Pequod. The ships crew is a mixture of races and creeds which is reflective of Nigerias heterogeneous society. The object of the hunt is a massive white whale, Moby Dick, which, in a previous encounter, maimed the ships captain, Ahab, by biting off one of his legs. The self-destructive fury of the quest, much like the Nigerian societys inordinate dash for wealth, assures the Pequods destruction. While Ahab and his crew eventually gained awareness of their imminent doom, very few Nigerians appreciate from experience that our prevalent culture of acquisition, fostered by insatiable greed and based on cutthroat politics, extreme corporate profit and devastation of farmlands by oil exploration accelerates doom. Nigeria, like the Pequods crew, rationalises insanity, scorns prudence and bows slavishly before hedonism and greed. The society yields to the seductive illusion of unbounded luxury, wanton idolatry, limitless power and acclaim. Thus we unfurl to degenerate forces and systems of death. Those who foresee the impending doom lack the fortitude to rebel. Thus moral cowardice makes hostage of all. This shouldnt encourage Buhari and his ruling class to scorn the subtle nudge of tact. History offers timeless lessons in the fate of Napolean, Hitler, Stalin, Joseph Mobutu (Mobutu Sese Seko), Saddam Hussein, to mention a few. These men rose to lead with positive intentions. In time, they did good but later got drunk with power, losing touch with reality, causing misery for many with their own fate sealed in the Karma of their actions. They forget that a movement toward the illicit, as Camille would say, produces a violent movement outward in desolation. We see the same pattern in the finale of Moby Dick, where Ahabs attempt to pierce the heart of nature by harpooning the whale ends in tragedy and a vast, empty silence. Moby Dick eventually rams and sinks the Pequod. The waves swallow up Ahab and all who followed him, except one. Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark. Chairman of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore has demanded for the immediate sack and arrest of the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele over an alleged N500bn theft carried out by top echelon of the apex bank. He said the CBN governor, appointed by Goodluck Jonathan, retained by Buharis regime and now approved for a further five years could be distinctly heard in a now viral audio discussing with his deputy for ideas on how to cover up the heinous crime against the people of Nigeria. Recall that an online news platform had released an audio last weekend in which the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, his deputy Lamatek Adamu and others were on the tape discussing how to cover up the loss of the funds stolen from the CBN towards the end of 2018 in a private investment in Dubai that went bad. While the CBN had through a statement described the report as false, it didnt deny the audio tape. According to the CBN, the leak conference call was held in a desperate attempt to understand the banks auditors reason for categorizing the N650bn bail-out loan to 35 states in 2015 as a bad debt. ALSO READ: Missing N500bn in CBN: CACOL calls for independent investigation But in a statement signed AACs Director of Media and Communication, Rachel Onamusi-Kpasi on Tuesday, Sowore said the fact this irrefutable evidence is not headline news and the governor still maintaining his position at the helm of the nations financial affairs is damning to the country. Independent sources at the CBN say Mr. Emefiele and his partners ultimately resolved this issue by diverting funds in possession of the CBN and also printing hard cold cash. The country cannot continue to be led by people who are unconcerned about the plight of the suffering masses and are only creative in covering their perfidious tracks. This cannot be allowed to continue. The African Action Congress party demands that the governor steps down immediately and a full scale investigations be launched into his actions and financial manipulations during his tenure. He said both the APC and PDP are the two sides of the same country-crippling coin install that have install their cronies into positions of power and the wholesale embezzlement has continued unabated. NAB requested IHC to dismiss bail petition of Asif Zardari The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday requested the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to dismiss a bail petition of former president Asif Ali Zardari in the mega money laundering and fake bank accounts case by terming it non-maintainable. The bureau submitted an 11-page reply to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairmans bail petition, stating that he was being investigated over his alleged involvement in different cases, including the fake accounts case. The bureau state that 22 inquiries and four references were being probed against Zardari at present, and added that there was concrete evidence to substantiate its charges against the former president. The NAB, therefore, contended that Zardari did not deserve any relief in the shape of bails and demanded that his bail be cancelled. The PPP co-chairman, his sister Faryal Talpur and other accused in the fake bank accounts case had approached the IHC, seeking interim bail after a banking court in Karachi transferred the matter to Islamabad on a NAB request. Lately, the IHC approved the interim bail of Zardari who approached it after the NAB summoned him in connection with illegal award of water supply contracts of the Sindh government to private firms. An IHC bench granted bail to Zardari until May 15 against a surety bond of Rs 500,000. Zardari, through his lawyer, stated before the court that he was being subjected to political victimisation, adding that he had been issued another call-up notice by the bureau. He pleaded the court to grant him bail until conclusion of trial against him in the case and direct the NAB to provide details of all the cases being probed by it against him. Meanwhile, the NAB submitted the details of its ongoing investigation into fake bank accounts in the Islamabad High Court. NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi submitted the bureaus report, detailing the ongoing inquiries against Zardari, after the PPP leader had petitioned the court on April 29 to summon the details of all the ongoing cases and inquiries against him. Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike on Wednesday accused the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 6 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major General Jamil Sarhem of promoting in oil theft in the Niger Delta region. Governor Wike made the allegation when he played host to the commander Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Delta Safe, Real Admiral Akinjide Akinrinade during a courtesy visit to the State House. The Governor in a statement by his Personal Assistant on Electronic Media, Simeon Nwakudu, accused Major General Sarham of operating an illegal oil bunkering squad to enable him finance his ambition to be appointed the Chief of Army Staff. Wike said: The GOC is doing illegal bunkering, which he is using to finance his quest to emerge as the countrys Chief of Army Staff. He has his own team that is making money for him through oil bunkering. He accused the GOC of compromising security in Rivers State through illegal actions. We will have a security meeting and he will release the details to criminals. And the Chief of Army Staff will leave the man here because he is playing their role. Read also: Oshiomhole, other APC leaders behind my ordeal, says Okorocha How will security of the state be with such a man as the GOC? He will compromise when fighting to reduce crime, they sent us a GOC who destroy the security architecture of the state. The governor wondered what the JTF Operation Delta Safe would do when they encounter the illegal oil bunkering team of the GOC. He recalled how the people of the state bravely stopped the GOC and his accomplices from imposing a Governor during the elections. A man came to plot coup. The people resisted him for plotting coup. You want to impose a party that has no candidate for National Assembly and State Assembly elections on the people. How will such a party win the Governorship election? A party that nobody has seen their posters? Rivers people said no. He has result sheets. Let him bring the result sheets to the tribunal. Army now has result sheets. That is now part of their mandate . Governor Wike assured the visiting JTF Commander that the State will support their operations to ensure that they defend the Niger Delta, especially the State. He said: Anybody who wants to help us fight crime, I will support. I will never support those involved in illegal refineries. Real Admiral Akinrinade thanked Wike for the supply of gunboats, security vehicles and finances for security operations in the area. He assured him that the Joint Task Force will not relent in fighting crime in the State. He noted that the troop has recorded successes in the protection of oil and gas facilities and the maintenance of internal security in the area. He appealed to leaders to engage youths to shun crime and criminality for the development of the state. Nollywood Actress, Iyabo Ojo who recently shared an emotional story of how she raised her two children as a single mother as been attacked by Journalist Kemi Olounlyo. Kemi shared this photo on her page with caption saying.. @iyaboojofespris#IyaboOjo crying crocodile tears reflecting on her crashed marriage. Like I said on pastor Ibiyeomies pulpit, whoever sent me that letter that sent me to prison, God will deal with them mercilessly. Your tears just began. Apologise to Pastor Ibiyeomie and Kemi Olunloyo for pitching an innocent pastor against an innocent Journalist all because you were fighting Vivian Metchie and your PA who wrote the fake letter against you substituting Apostle Suleimans name for Ibiyeomies name. You and Gbeminiyi Adegbola will not make heaven for sending me to prison for 6 mos and ruining my name Amen! I will release the letter in detail in my book which your PA also describes your daughter Prisca as a runs girl in training. Thank u Apostle Suleiman for the text message contacting me, Pastor Ibiyeomie who prayed for me and Toronto Police Officer CM who tracked the instagram account that sent it and Truecaller in Sweden who exposed the SIM owner Iyabo Ojo Pinkies group. Flag this post too. It is a documentary and an upcoming book. Your legal papers and lies will all Read Also ???: Source Related A Kano State high court on Wednesday declared the appointment and the installation of four new emirs by the Kano State government as null and void. It ordered a return to status quo pending the hearing of the suit against the appointment of the emirs. The emirs were installed by the Governor Umaru Ganduje at the weekend following the balkanisation of the century-old emirate by the Kano state government that followed an unusually fast passage of a bill by the Kano State House of Assembly. Ganduje was accused of carrying out a personal vendetta against the Emir of Kano Muhammad Sanusi II in order to whittle down his influence in one of Nigerias oldest traditional institutions. But the governor insisted the future of the state was taken into consideration before Kano Emirate was divided into five smaller units. For easier local administration as Kano state moves in a new direction to deliver community-based growth, we have decided to create 4 new Emirates for our great state, Ganduje said on May 10. Governor Ganduje signed the Kano State Emirs Appointment and Deposition Amendment 2019 into last Thursday and the emirs were given their letter of appointment on Friday. A court order barring the governor from appointing and installing new emirs was issued by a Kano State high court on Friday. But the state government claimed the order came after the persons appointed as emirs had accepted their appointments. The governor is also facing another suit brought against him and state government by four kingmakers Madakin Kano, District head of Dawakintofa, Yusuf Nabahani; Makaman Kano, District head of Wudil, Abdullahi Sarki-Ibrahim; Sarkin Dawaki Mai Tuta, District head of Gabasawa, Bello Abubakar and Sarkin Ban Kano, District head of Dambatta, Mukhtar Adnan. The Kano House of Assembly, the Attorney General of Kano State and the new emir Tafida Abubakar-Ila, Ibrahim Abdulkadir, Ibrahim Abubakar ll and Aminu Ado-Bayero were also named as defendants in the suit. " " This French postcard depicts the Dutch colonies of Borneo and Java. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images To Americans who live in a nation that began back in 1776 when 13 former British colonies declared their independence, the term colonialism might conjure up nostalgic mental pictures of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock and having their first Thanksgiving feast with some friendly Native Americans. Americans may think of colonists as brave souls who ventured across the ocean and made a new life for themselves in an unfamiliar land. But to people in much of the rest of the world particularly countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that once were dominated by European powers that same word may bring to mind the humiliation and cruelty that their ancestors suffered at the hands of invading soldiers and colonial overseers, the loss of ancestral homelands and lives spent toiling to amass wealth for some master in a faraway land. As Nathan J. Robinson, editor of the journal Current Affairs, explained in a 2017 essay, "Perhaps the easiest way to understand why colonialism was so horrific is to imagine it happening in your own country now." Advertisement We have these divergent impressions because colonialism is a complicated, provocative, often painful subject. At the most basic level of meaning, colonialism is the practice of taking control over another country, occupying its land with settlers and/or exploiting its resources for economic gain [source: Oxford]. The idea of colonialism dates back to ancient times, but the real age of colonialism began sometime around 1500, when European mariners first arrived at distant lands in Asia and the Americas. It reached its height in the mid-1900s, when a third of the world's population lived in places ruled by colonial powers. After World War II altered the global balance of power, the European colonial empires began to crumble, as countries they had controlled fought to gain independence. In 1960, the United Nations officially declared an end to colonialism, and today, only a handful of places around the world are ruled by other nations. Even so, the legacy of colonialism remains from prosperous former colonies that still feel a connection to the empires to which they once belonged, to struggling nations where years of exploitation has left lasting scars. In this article, we'll look at the different types of colonialism, the history of colonial empires, the forces that led to decolonization and colonialism's lingering impact. 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 AUTHORITIES arrested on Tuesday evening, May 14, two men who are suspected of burning two vote-counting machines (VCMs) in Jones, Isabela. Cagayan Police Regional Office spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Chevalier Iringan identified the suspects as Jayson Leano and Rodel Pascual, both from Sta. Isabel in Jones town. He said Pascual was arrested in a hot pursuit operation around 10:30 p.m. in Barangay Diarao while Leano surrendered to the barangay chairman of Barangay Sta. Isabel around 9:30 a.m. of Wednesday, May 15. Iringan said the suspects were positively identified by an eyewitness. At around 6 a.m. of Tuesday, two armed men waylaid a dump truck which was then transferring VCMs to the Jones municipal hall. The suspects reportedly ordered the occupants of the truck to alight from the vehicle and unload the VCMs together with at least 200 unread ballots from the polling precincts in Barangay Dicamay I before setting these on fire. Interrogation of the suspects is still ongoing. (SunStar Philippines) Courtesy : BAYANs Facebook page MANILA, Philippines The group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) is brewing a mass protest on Friday (May 17) to question the results of the 2019 midterm elections. Bayan Secretary-General Renato Reyes criticized the remarks of Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo on Tuesday (May 14) saying it is through Dutertes magic that most of the admin-endorsed senatorial candidates entered the Top 12 list of the partial, unofficial results of the midterm polls. Due to this, Reyes said, the election results cannot be trusted. Reyes has accused Duterte of using government resources for election results to favor administration bets. Also, he alleged that the Armed Forces and the National Police have been utilized to target and harass opposition groups. Apart from that, Duterte allegedly placed the Commission on Elections (Comelec) under his control to do some magic in the automated polls. Reyes also accused the President of extending the martial law in Mindanao and backing government-sponsored disinformation to manipulate the elections. Reyes, meanwhile, gets the support of former congressman and losing senatorial candidate, Neri Colmenares. In a Twitter post, Colmenares refused to accept the election results saying: I will never concede defeat to a rotten electoral exercise that has basically deceived, bribed, intimidated and manipulated our people into electing the worst kinds of leaders imaginable. Meanwhile, Malacanang said such reactions are expected from left-leaning party-list groups. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said, Their loss is a clear indication that our people do not believe in their advocacies. He added that Reyes allegations have not been backed by any semblance of evidence and can easily be fact-checked. We hope that Mr. Reyes would be humble enough to accept the electoral defeat even as we are magnanimous in our triumph, Panelo said, We reiterate our call to the opposition. Let us set aside our partisanship and work together for the betterment of the Filipino people. The sovereign voice has spoken, the Presidential Spokesperson concluded. Marje Pelayo (with details from Rosalie Coz) The post Bayan to protest alleged fraud in 2019 midterm polls appeared first on UNTV News. GIVEN the glitches experienced during the midterm elections on Monday, May 13, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it is preparing to receive a high number of electoral protests in the coming days.In GIVEN the glitches experienced during the midterm elections on Monday, May 13, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it is preparing to receive a high number of electoral protests in the coming days. In an interview, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said they were prepared to handle such electoral protests. "Surely there will be protests just as in the past. That's a certainty. We have no problem on that. Those will be handled by proper courts. But they cannot stop proclamation," said Jimenez. He said the Comelec expects the proclamation of winners to proceed amid allegations of massive vote-buying and fraud. An official of the Catholic bishops' social action arm, National Secretariat for Social Action (Nassa), on Wednesday, May 15, called for the suspension of the proclamation of winning candidates. Nassa executive secretary Fr. Edwin Gariquez said there should be no proclamation of winners until the allegedly fraud-tainted results have been validated. "We are calling to suspend the proclamation of winning senatorial candidates until the issue of fraud is resolved," said Gariguez. "We demand for an independent and impartial investigation of the alleged fraud and manipulation of automated canvassing by the Comelec and Smartmatic," he added. Jimenez rejected this, saying there is no reason to postpone the proclamation of winners. "They can make a call if they want. That's their right. But in terms of the likelihood, it's unlikely that anything will be suspended on the basis of their unsubstantiated allegations," he said. He warned that postponing proclamation due to allegations of fraud may open the floodgates for anyone to make unfounded claims of irregularities in a bid to prevent winners from being proclaimed. "If an allegation of fraud were enough to suspend a proclamation, then there would never be any proclamation. Because if I were losing, all Id have to do is allege fraud and everything comes to a standstill. Its not conducive to an orderly elections," said Jimenez. Story continues Data from the Comelec Election and Barangay Affairs Department show 366 municipalities nationwide have proclaimed local winners. Those with the highest reported proclamations are in the Cordillera Administrative Region with 71, followed by 61 in the Ilocos Region, and 56 in Eastern Visayas. Also having proclaimed winners in local posts are Calabarzon with 37; Cagayan Valley with 36; Mimaropa with 35; Soccsksargen with 27; Central Luzon with 24; and Davao Region with 19. Eight other regions have yet to report proclamation of winners at the city/municipal level. At the national level, Jimenez said they expect the National Board of Canvassers to finish the job within the week. "But as to the formal proclamation, it is not within this week probably because we still have to send out invites," said Jimenez. (HDT/SunStar Philippines) Major tech firms on Wednesday pledged to come up with new measures for stamping out violent extremist content on the internet, amid growing pressure from governments pushing for action in the wake of the massacres at two New Zealand mosques in March. Executives from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft met with the leaders of France, New Zealand and other countries in Paris to unveil the "Christchurch Call" of voluntary commitments for online platforms. It was named for the city where a gunman killed 51 people at two New Zealand mosques two months ago while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook via a head-mounted camera. The social networking giant has faced withering criticism since the attack, after the horrific footage was uploaded and shared millions of times despite efforts to remove it. "The call is a roadmap to action," New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. "It commits us all to build a more humane internet which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes," she said. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon later released a nine-point plan for jointly putting the Christchurch pledges in motion, in particular for addressing the threat posed by livestreaming. They promised investments in "digital fingerprinting" to track and remove harmful pictures and videos, and easy-to-use methods for users to report illicit content. "This is leading to real action, and I think real action can play an important role in at least preventing a number of these kinds of attacks," Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith told AFP in Paris. "No one wants to see the internet used as the staging ground for these kinds of terrorist atrocities," he said. Facebook had already promised Wednesday to tighten access to FaceBook Live, in particular by denying the service to users who have shared extremist content. - No US for now - The largely symbolic initiative is intended to keep up the pressure on social media companies, which face growing calls from politicians across the world to prevent their platforms from becoming stages for broadcasting extremist violence. "Our goal is to never again see the internet transformed into a crazy propaganda machine, a goal sought by both terrorists on the far right and Islamic terrorists," Macron said. The leaders of Britain, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia and Norway travelled to Paris as part of the initial backers of the plan. But despite the endorsement from the biggest US tech firms, Washington will not join for now, even though "we continue to support the overall goals reflected," the White House said in a statement. "We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press," it said. Macron appeared to take the refusal in stride, saying "The American administration has expressed its support for our effort, which I already consider progress." The companies said they would cooperate on finding new tools to identify and quickly remove extremist content, such as sharing databases of violent posts or images to ensure they don't spread across multiple platforms. They also said they would explore tweaking their algorithms to prevent violent or hateful content from going viral, while making it easier for users to report harmful posts. But it will be up to companies to develop specific tools or policies. - 'Can't prevent content' - Many countries have already tightened legislation to introduce penalties for companies that fail to take down offensive content once it is flagged, by either users or the authorities. But analysts say the tighter controls pledged Wednesday will go only so far in preventing people from circumventing rules and policies already in place against disseminating violence and hate speech. "You can't prevent content from being uploaded: it would require the resources for tracking everything put online by all internet users," said Marc Rees, editor in chief of the technology site Next INpact. "Can you imagine trying to get TV or radio to prevent libellous, abusive or violent speech that someone might say?" he asked. The "Christchurch Call" meeting ran in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called "Tech for Good" which brought together 80 tech executives to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good. But the US government was represented only at a junior level at a meeting of G7 digital ministers which also took place Wednesday in Paris. burs-adp-js/jj The Apollo 15 mission in 1971. / NASA The head of NASA has described his plan to put a woman on the moon by 2024 saying he hopes it will inspire a generation of women. NASA flew six manned missions to the surface of the moon, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969, up to Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt in December 1972. NASA head Jim Bridenstine described his new crop of astronauts as very diverse. The space agency chief was speaking after US President Donald Trump announced an additional $1.6 billion to go towards accelerating the lunar programme. Speaking at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington DC, Mr Bridenstein said: I have an 11-year-old daughter and I want her to be able to see herself in the same way that our current very diverse astronaut corps sees itself. Read more from Yahoo News UK: Alesha MacPhails killer wins right to appeal Baker to face no police action over royal baby tweet Moped crime halved after gang of 12 jailed And if we look at the history of moon landings, it was test pilots from the 1960s and 1970s, fighter pilots, and there were no opportunities for women back then. This programme is going to enable a new generation of young girls like my daughter to see themselves in a way that maybe they wouldnt otherwise see themselves. NASAs budget includes a new Lunar Gateway space station which will orbit the moon by the nimd-2020s, and budget for a manned mission to the moon NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said earlier this year, For the first time in over 10 years, we have money in this budget for a return to the Moon with humans. Im talking human-rated landers, compatible with Gateway, that can go back and forth to the surface of the moon. The moon is the proving ground; Mars is the horizon goal. More than 20 million newborns in 2015 -- one in seven -- came into the world weighing too little, according to a global assessment of birthweight, published Thursday. Over 90 percent of babies tipping the scale at less than 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds) when born were in low- and middle-income countries, researchers reported in The Lancet Global Health. Worldwide, just under 15 percent of 2015 newborns in the 148 countries canvassed had low birthweight, varying between 2.4 percent in Sweden and nearly 28 percent in Bangladesh. That's down from a global average of 17.5 percent in 2000. But meeting the World Health Organization target of cutting low birthweight 30 percent between 2012 and 2025 "will require more than doubling the pace of progress," said lead author Hannah Blencowe, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of low birthweight live births actually increased from 2000 to 2015, from 4.4 to 5 million. Southern Asia is estimated to have had 9.8 million in 2015, nearly half the world total. Weighing less than 2.5 kilos at birth is closely linked to high rates of neonatal mortality and ill health later in life: more than 80 percent of the world's 2.5 newborns who die every year are low birthweight. Underweight newborns who survive also have a greater risk of stunting as well as developmental and health problems, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. "National governments are doing too little to reduce low birthweight," Blencowe said in a statement. - Undernourished mothers - "To meet the global nutrition target of a 30 percent reduction by 2025 will require more than doubling the pace of progress." The reasons for low birthweight are very different in poor and rich regions. In South Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, a large percentage of underweight babies are born at term but are stunted because their mothers were undernourished. In North America and Europe, a higher share of low birthweight babies are preemies. Adolescent pregnancies, a high prevalence of infection, high levels of fertility treatment, and a high rate of caesarean sections -- especially in the United States and Brazil -- can all be factors, the study found. An international team of researchers analysed national government databases to estimate the prevalence of low birthweight in 148 nations from 2000 to 2015. Overall, the study took into account 281 million births. Several countries -- including India -- were not included for lack of data. "Every newborn must be weighed, yet worldwide we dont have a record for the birthweight of nearly one third of all newborns," said co-author Julia Krasevec, a statistics and monitoring specialist at UNICEF. Besides Sweden, other countries with relatively few low birthweight babies included Finland (4.1 percent), Iceland (4.2) Serbia (4.5), Norway (4.5), Albania (4.6), China (5), Croatia (5.1) and Cuba (5.3). Many large advanced economies fell in the 6-8 percent range, including France, the United States, Britain and Germany, Mexico and Brazil. Five countries, including Bangladesh, had low birthweight rates above 20 percent: Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Nepal, and the Philippines. US imposed visa sanction on three Pakistani interior ministry officials: Shah Mehmood Qureshi ISLAMABAD: The United States has imposed visa sanction on three senior Pakistani interior ministry officials because of a row over repatriation of deportees. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday told the National Assemblys Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that visa curbs had been applied by the US on three officials of Pakistans interior ministry. The officials who are facing visa restrictions are an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry as well as the director general passports. The sanctions on the three officials have been put in place after a row between the two countries over deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other allegations. Mr Qureshi said the US authorities intended to deport more than 70 Pakistanis, but the government had asked them to fulfil the legal requirements. The US put the restrictions on three officials that are said to be overseeing countrys policy on accepting back nationals deported from other countries. The US has over the past 18 months deported over 100 Pakistanis, all of whom were accepted back. It is the first time that Pakistani authorities have insisted on a verification of the credentials of the deportees. The foreign minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. Consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad are continuing and are granting visas to the eligible applicants. About the escalating US-Iran tensions, FM Qureshi said, Pakistan was closely following the situation and would take a position on the issue that best served the national interest. He said Irans troubled relations with the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were affecting the regions peace. If the situation aggravated, he feared, it would affect the entire region. The US, it should be recalled, had deployed aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and F-15 fighters, and Patriot Missile batteries to counter an unspecified threat from Iran. Latest reports suggest that the US is planning to deploy 120,000 troops as well. US Air Force aircraft deployed around Iran have in the meantime begun flying deterrence missions. Acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan has said that the US, through its deployment, intended to convey to Iran that an attack on Americans or our interests would be met with an appropriate response. Ever since the US deployments sabotage acts in the region have increased. In the first such incident, Saudi vessels were attacked and in the latest occurrence Aramco oil fields have been hit by drones. The head of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has, however, downplayed the US deployments describing them as part of psychological war in the region. He contended that the comings and goings of their (US) military is a normal matter. The foreign minister said he would visit Kuwait over the weekend (May 18-19) with a message from Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said notwithstanding the rifts with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Pakistan wished to have good relations with all Arab countries and strengthen trade ties with them through a Free Trade Agreement with GCC. MALACANANG on Wednesday, May 15, advised the opposition's losing candidates in the 2019 midterm elections to just accept defeat.Th advice was made after Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary MALACANANG on Wednesday, May 15, advised the opposition's losing candidates in the 2019 midterm elections to just accept defeat. Th advice was made after Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Renato Reyes alleged that the so-called President Rodrigo Duterte's "magic" consisted of strategies such as "systematic cheating and rigging of the elections." In a statement issued Wednesday, Reyes claimed that the "Duterte magic" consists of use of government resources to "favor administration bets," as well as of the military and the police to "target and harass opposition groups, especially the progressive partylists and candidates." The Bayan leader also claimed that "control" of the Commission on Elections and the "hocus-pocus" of the automated polls, martial law in Mindanao, and "government-sponsored disinformation" were also part of the so-called "Duterte magic." In a separate statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo countered Reyes's accusation, which he said are not supported by any evidence or facts. Panelo also stressed that the President would never intervene in the election process. "All his claims have not been backed by any semblance of evidence and can easily be fact checked. For one, half of the commissioners of the Commission on Elections are appointees of former President Noynoy Aquino. In fact, supporters of the administration candidates remain vigilant to protect their votes from being altered," the Palace official said. "President Duterte will never interfere with the election process, as well as frustrate the sovereign will of the people, for such is the very process which propelled him to the presidency," he added. Reyes's remarks came after Panelo on Tuesday, May 14, cited the so-called "Duterte magic" for the impending victory of administration-allied senatorial candidates. Story continues Panelo clarifed that "Duterte magic" refers to the "total package of sterling performance and good governance the President delivers to the people." "It is also his empathy towards the ordinary Filipino as against those who, until now after the elections, cannot comprehend the voice of the majority opting to turn a blind eye to it," he said. "It includes his decisive actions in resolving various local and national issues, as well as creating solutions to uplift the lives of the citizenry. These, among others, comprise the 'Duterte magic' which carried his candidates to a resounding victory," he added. Panelo said the Palace was no longer surprised by Reyes's allegations, following the loss of many left-leaning party-list groups and their senatorial candidate Neri Colmenares in the 2019 midterm elections. He, however, said the opposition should consider their losing bets' defeat as a "wake-up call to re-assess their actions," instead of throwing "false and malicious narratives at the Duterte administration." "They should have presented an alternative platform of governance and discussed how their brand of politics would be much better than the kind that the administration candidates would provide," Panelo said. "Their loss is a clear [indication] that our people do not believe in their advocacies, especially on the war on drugs, extra-judicial killings, South China Sea, one-man rule, etc., which they have foisted and peddled to the people. The electorate has seen through the sophistry of espousing their feigned brand of nationalism for many decades, taking advantage of the poor mans plight." Panelo said he was hopeful that Reyes would learn to accept electoral defeat, stressing that the strategy of attacking the President at the height of the election season was "simply wrong" as it merely triggered a "backlash against the opposition candidates." "We reiterate our call to the opposition, let us set aside our partisanship and work together for the betterment of the Filipino people," he said. "The sovereign voice has spoken. We urge the opposition, the critics and the detractors to bow to the majesty of the rule of the majority, lest we are swept away by the rampaging tidal waves of change," Panelo added. (SunStar Philippines) Sri Lanka's police arrested over 100 suspects and reimposed night curfews in violence-prone areas Wednesday after anti-Muslim riots left one man dead and caused extensive damage to homes, businesses and mosques. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said 78 people arrested in the worst-affected North-Western Province (NWP) were remanded in custody Wednesday, while the rest were detained after a manhunt in other areas. Some 5,500 additional police were deployed in NWP to contain the violence that claimed the life of a Muslim man on Monday. Scores of private homes, Muslim-owned shops and businesses were destroyed, while several mosques were also vandalised. Muslims in Sri Lanka have been bracing for revenge attacks since three churches and three luxury hotels were bombed by local Islamist extremists on April 21, killing 258 people. Gunasekera said a night curfew was being reimposed in NWP, just north of the capital, as well as the adjoining Gampaha district, which shares a border with Colombo, as a measure to "maintain peace". However, a top police source said there will be no curfews elsewhere in the country. The entire country was under night curfews for two straight days after the violence escalated. The night curfew on Tuesday ensured there was no repeat of Monday's violence against Muslims, who make up some 10 percent of Sri Lanka's population of 21 million. "The situation is now totally under control," said military spokesman Sumith Atapattu. "There were no incidents of violence overnight and we are arresting groups of people responsible for taking part in mob attacks." Official sources said police deployed special teams to review CCTV camera footage to identify the perpetrators and carry out more arrests. More police and army units were seen deployed in the troubled areas as the authorities lifted the nationwide curfew on Wednesday morning. But Muslims in NWP remained nervous and stayed indoors Wednesday, after sword-wielding rioters killed one man late Monday while vandalising scores of shops and mosques. In Bingiriya, where some 2,000 people went on the rampage, Muslim cleric M.I.M. Siddeeque said the community was worried. "Our people are still afraid to go out," he told AFP by telephone. Government spokesman Navin Dissanayake said the authorities had identified the leaders of the mobs and they were already in police custody. - Fear persists - Despite the extraordinary security measures, the minorities felt insecure, said Dissanayake, who is also a government minister. "People feel insecure and I acknowledge that," Dissanayake told reporters in Colombo. "We have given the armed forces of this country... a complete free hand to tackle the security situation." Among those detained was Amith Weerasinghe, a man from Sri Lanka's majority Buddhist Sinhalese community and on bail for his role in similar riots in March last year in the central Kandy district. Another was identified as Namal Kumara, a deserter from both the army and the air force. The police, meanwhile, also made several changes in the command structure by removing senior officers in the troubled areas after allegations officials did nothing to stop the rioters. The military released CCTV which showed a man in uniform apparently standing by while a mob pelted stones at a home, and sought public help to identify the individual. Parliamentary speaker Karu Jayasuriya condemned the violence and appealed for calm. "The attacks on mosques, the burning of houses and shops, the attacks on innocent people cannot be condoned in any way," Jayasuriya said in a statement. The attacks came during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. A state of emergency has been in place since the Easter bombings and security forces have been given sweeping powers to detain suspects. Internet service providers said the telecoms regulator on Tuesday extended a social media ban to Twitter. Earlier, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram had been blocked to prevent the spread of messages inciting violence. The local arm for Japanese automotive brand Suzuki has shown consistent growth for the first quarter of 2019. This after it secured the sixth spot in terms of sales in the first quarter report of the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (CAMPI). For the first three months of the year, Suzuki Philippines retailed 4,812 units. Of the said figures, the Suzuki Ertiga remains their key driver with a 33 percent share of total sales. Following the Ertigas is the Suzuki Celerio with 12.3 percent while the Suzuki Dzire contributed 11.6 percent. The first quarter sales performance comes on the heels of a successful 2018, which marked strong sales, expansion in key cities across the country and back-to-back recognitions from several renowned award-giving bodies. Suzuki Philippines (SPH) Director and General Manager for Automobile Division, Keiichi Suzuki, expressed confidence that it will continue to gain more as the year progresses. We started 2019 consistent and stable, and so far, we have maintained our momentum. Our performance at the start of the year is setting the pace for the rest of 2019. We are confident of achieving substantial sales growth and reaching more customers through aggressive marketing efforts and nationwide promotional campaigns, he said. Suzuki Ertiga The post Suzuki PH Posts Steady Growth in Q1 2019 appeared first on Carmudi Philippines. In this undated photo provided by XPRIZE, children in a village in the Tanga region of Tanzania gather to learn from tablets using open-sourced software that would easily be downloaded by illiterate children to teach themselves to read. That's what nearly 200 teams from around the world have spent more than a year in impoverished villages in Tanzania trying to do. The winner of this latest competition for a $10 million XPRIZE for global innovation is being announced Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. (Courtesy XPRIZE via AP) A California company founded by game-developer parents who wanted to help their special-needs son is sharing a $10 million XPRIZE award with a London-based educational nonprofit for programs created to teach illiterate children how to teach themselves to read. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. Nearly 200 teams from 40 countries entered the competition, jumping at the chance to become the latest winner of an XPRIZE, a coveted international award funded by future-looking entrepreneurs, billionaires and philanthropists who have banded together with the goal of making the world a better place through technology. Elon Musk announced the winners at Wednesday's event honoring all five of the finalists. The total XPRIZE For Global Learning, funded by Musk, was worth $15 million, with each finalist getting $1 million just for making the final round. The winners additionally receive $5 million each. The goal was to develop open-sourced software, put it on tablets donated by Google and have thousands of children in 170 remote villages in Tanzania test it. The five finalists, which also included teams from New York, Pittsburgh and Bangalore, India, spent 15 months refining the software. onebillion CEO Andrew Ashe, third from right, and CTO Jamie Stuart, third from left, receive the XPRIZE Children's Literacy award from XPRIZE Founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, far left, Telsa CEO Elon Musk, second from left, XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari, second from right, and Executive Director Emily Church, far right, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night and will share a $10 million award. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) They had to develop programs filled with games that could grab children's attention and then, like teachers do, use drawings, letters, numbers and sounds to teach them to teach themselves to read, write and do arithmetic. The games would show children letters and pictures, allow them to trace letters themselves as they learned to write, and even read books to them. When testing began, XPRIZE officials said only 2% of the children could read as much as a sentence in their native Swahili. Three-quarters had never attended school and many had to be shown how to swipe their finger across a tablet's screen just to power it up. But 15 months later, 30% of the children had acquired basic reading skills. Representatives of both winning teams said the hardest part was developing software at their home bases, putting it on tablets and hoping the children would take to it and figure out how to use it. Members of Kitkit School embrace after winning the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) "We had to learn fast and work closely with partners who were in East Africa," said Sooinn Lee, who co-founded Enuma Inc., the operator of Team Kitkit School, with her husband in 2012 and whose company produces the popular children's app Todo Math. "It often felt like driving in the dark," she said. Despite that, all five finalists developed functional, open-sourced software that will be put on the web so everybody can use it. Judges determined that the two winners simply did the best when it came to producing results. That any of them succeeded likely came as a surprise to critics who didn't think it could be done when the XPRIZE Foundation announced plans for the Global Learning prize five years ago. Representatives from onebillion, Jamie Stuart, third from left, and Andrew Ashe, fourth from left, and representatives from KitKit School, Sooinn Lee, third from right, and Gunho Lee, second from right, receive the XPRIZE Children's Literacy award from XPRIZE Executive Director Emily Church, far left, founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, second from left, Telsa CEO Elon Musk, fourth from right, and XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari, far right, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning and will share a $10 million award. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Tesla CEO Elon Musk, left, shakes hands with XPRIZE founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. A California company founded by game-developer parents who wanted to help their special-needs son is sharing a $10 million XPRIZE award with a London-based educational nonprofit for programs created to teach illiterate children how to teach themselves to read. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) XPRIZE Executive Director Emily Church speaks during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Tesla CEO Elon Musk, center, joins XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis, left, and CEO Anousheh Ansari during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Actor LeVar Burton speaks during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Kitkit School CEO Sooinn Lee, third from right, and Chief Engineer, Gunho Lee, second from left, receive the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy from XPRIZE Founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, far left, Telsa CEO Elon Musk, third from left, XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari, second from right, and Executive Director Emily Church, far right, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) "All our experts said, 'Are you sure about this?'" recalled Emily Musil Church, XPRIZE's executive director of prize operations. "Our specialty is making sure we frame the problem in a way that is audacious but at the same time achievable and really advances the field," said XPRIZE Foundation CEO Anousheh Ansari, who funded the first prize, for $10 million, in 1996 for private space flight. The winning team of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aviation pioneer Burt Rutan needed nearly a decade to accomplish that goal, but they created a new industry by sending their privately piloted SpaceShipOne into space in 2004. Since then the XPRIZE Foundation has funded more than a dozen other prizes for those pursuing such innovations as making water for drought-stricken areas by heating air in shipping containers, creating sensors that allow people to track their health in real time and developing advanced ways to study ocean contamination. In this Sept. 29, 2006 file photo, U.S. space tourist Anousheh Ansari waves shortly after landing near the town of Arkalyk, northern Kazakhstan. CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, Ansari, funded the first prize for $10 million for private space flight. The 2019 XPRIZE, also for $10 million, funded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, presented a challenge: Come up with open-sourced software that could easily be downloaded onto tablets used by illiterate children to teach themselves to read. The winner of this latest competition for global innovation is being announced Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File) The winners of the latest prize will now get to work putting their software into the hands of as many people as possible. Lee said Kitkit's efforts will include adapting its software for smartphones, adding they are widely used in developing countries. Onebillion wants to quickly begin distributing in multiple languages to reach as large a global audience as possible. More than 250 million children worldwide cannot read or write, according to the XPRIZE Foundation. "This will be transformational for them, their communities and their countries," said onebillion's Judith Hermetter. Explore further Learning Upgrade named co-winner of literacy XPrize 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Boeing said engineers had identified the safety alert issue on its 737 MAX aircraft in 2017 After a deadly crash in Indonesia, American Airlines pilots called a meeting to press Boeing executives for safety changes to the 737 MAX aircraft, US media reported Tuesday. The call for changes, which could have required the best-selling aircraft model to be temporarily grounded, were reported by The New York Times and CBS News after they obtained an audio recording of the November 27 meeting between the American Airlines pilots union and officials from the aircraft manufacturer. The 737 MAX 8 is currently grounded worldwide after the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 that killed all 157 people onboard and drew scrutiny to the new Boeing model's anti-stall system, which investigators believe may have brought the jet down. But the meeting shows that pilots were already worried about the safety of the model following the October 2018 crash in Indonesia of a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 that left no survivors of the 189 people onboard. According to the reports, the pilots were particularly concerned about the MCAS anti-stall system that investigators in both Indonesia and Ethiopia have blamed for the crashes. "No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane," Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett told the meeting. "The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one," he said later in the meeting held four months before the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. Meanwhile, the pilots in the meeting said they felt they weren't told enough about the MCAS system, which was new to the 737 MAX 8. "These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else," said Mike Michaelis, head of safety for the pilot's union. Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing had issued additional instructions to pilots in case they faced a malfunction of the MCAS. But in a letter obtained by AFP, Michaelis said the instructions weren't sufficient for pilots to know how to handle malfunctions with the anti-stall system. The New York Times said Michaelis asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time. Airlines and governments worldwide ordered the 737 MAX 8 to stop flying in the days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing has been working on a software fix for the flight system and hoping for quick approval from regulators, but it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season. Explore further Boeing to meet with US airlines over 737 MAX 2019 AFP An image captured by Chang'E 4 showed the landscape near the landing site. Credit: NAOC/CNSA A lunar lander named for the Chinese goddess of the moon may have lessened the mystery of the far side of the moon. The fourth Chang'E probe (CE-4) was the first mission to land on the far side of the moon, and it has collected new evidence from the largest crater in the solar system, clarifying how the moon may have evolved. The results were published on May 16, 2019, in Nature. A theory emerged in the 1970s that in the moon's infancy, an ocean made of magma covered its surface. As the molten ocean began to calm and cool, lighter minerals floated to the top, while heavier components sank. The top crusted over in a sheet of mare basalt, encasing a mantle of dense minerals, such as olivine and pyroxene. As asteroids and space junk crashed into the surface of the moon, they cracked through the crust and kicked up pieces of the lunar mantel. "Understanding the composition of the lunar mantel is critical for testing whether a magma ocean ever existed, as postulated," said corresponding author Li Chunlai, a professor of the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). "It also helps advance our understanding of the thermal and magmatic evolution of the moon." The evolution of the moon may provide a window into the evolution of Earth and other terrestrial planets, according to Li, because its surface is relatively untouched compared to, say, the early planetary surface of Earth. An image captured by Chang'E 4 showed the landscape near the landing site. Credit: NAOC/CNSA Li and his team landed CE-4 in the moon's South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, which stretches about 2,500 kilometersabout half the width of China. CE-4 collected spectral data samples from the flat stretches of the basin, as well as from other smaller but deeper impact craters within the basin. The researchers expected to find a wealth of excavated mantle material on the flat floor of the SPA basin, since the originating impact would have penetrated well into and past the lunar crust. Instead, they found mere traces of olivine, the primary component of the Earth's upper mantle. "The absence of abundant olivine in the SPA interior remains a conundrum," Li said. "Could the predictions of an olivine-rich lunar mantle be incorrect?" Not quite. As it turns out, more olivine appeared in the samples from deeper impacts. One theory, according to Li, is that the mantle consists of equal parts olivine and pyroxene, rather than being dominated by one or the other. CE-4 will need to explore more to better understand the geology of its landing site, as well as collect much more spectral data to validate its initial findings and to fully understand the composition of the lunar mantle. Explore further Ancient asteroid impact exposes the moon's interior More information: Chang'E-4 initial spectroscopic identification of lunar far-side mantle-derived materials, Nature (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1189-0 Journal information: Nature Chang'E-4 initial spectroscopic identification of lunar far-side mantle-derived materials,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1189-0 Credit: Fauna & Flora International Many eloquent commentators have waxed lyrical about their first encounter with mountain gorillasmost notably Sir David Attenborough, vice-president of Fauna & Flora International (FFI) since 1979, the same year that those iconic scenes from Life on Earth were first broadcast. For the fortunate few who have been privileged to share an hour (or more in Sir David's case) with these powerful but peaceable primates, the experience is often nothing short of life-changing. In my case, it was the closest I'm ever likely to come to an epiphany. It's over 15 years since I stood in stunned silence in the midst of a mountain gorilla group in Volcanoes National Park. I had traveled to Rwanda to help create a new website for the International Gorilla Conservation Programme which FFI co-founded and was fortunate enough to be in the company of the legendary Francois Bigirimana, a veteran gorilla guide with an intimate knowledge of these remarkable animals. At one point, Francois beckoned me over to where he was crouching a short distance from the main group, pointed into the thick foliage and whispered: "Le chef fait l'amour." Sure enough, the giant silverback and his female companion had absented themselves and were discreetly devoting themselves to the vital task of perpetuating their subspecies. Privileged insights are one thing, but personal intrusion is quite another. Leaving Guhonda and his latest flame to procreate in private, we returned to the rest of the group. Francois Bigirimana (left), the most experienced guide in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Credit: Juan Pablo Moreiras/FFI Thanks to the kind of scene we witnessedand to the indefatigable efforts of conservationists and park staff working against the odds for decadesmountain gorilla numbers have increased to the point where experts have seen fit to downgrade this particular great ape's IUCN Red List status from Critically Endangered to Endangered. Regrettably, its closest cousin is on a very different trajectory. Relatively little studied, and largely unknown outside conservation circles, Grauer's gorilla sometimes misleadingly referred to as the eastern lowland gorilla, despite the fact that it also occurs at higher altitudesis confined to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Grauer's gorilla may be more numerous than its montane cousin, but it is patchily distributedin pocketsacross a vast area 800 times larger than the habitat occupied by mountain gorillas. What is more, the population trend is heading in the opposite direction, and at an alarming rate. In recent years, numbers have plummeted and its range has shrunk dramatically. Hope for the future in the shape of another mountain gorilla baby. Credit: Juan Pablo Moreiras/FFI Even at the time of the earliest surveys in 1950, the population was already fragmented and under considerable threat. In the ensuing decades, habitat conversion, hunting for bushmeat and retaliatory killing for crop-raidingall against a backdrop of violent civil conflict took a considerable toll. An intensive survey led by WCS and FFI revealed a 77% decline in Grauer's gorilla numbers within the previous 20 yearsequivalent to a 5% year-on-year loss. An estimated 3,800 individuals remain, confined to an area covering around 20,000 square kilometres. For much of the last decade, Grauer's gorilla has had the unenviable distinction of being listed as one of the world's 25 most endangered primates. It is not all doom and gloom, however. In the face of multiple threats posed by civil unrest, agricultural expansion, illegal and unregulated mining, poaching and exposure to deadly diseases such as Ebola fever, some tremendous work is being done to halt the dramatic decline of Grauer's gorilla as well as the eastern chimpanzee under the auspices of the Eastern DRC Great Ape Conservation Action Plan. Habitat fragmentation forces Grauers gorillas to cross roads a hazardous business. Credit: Angelique Todd/FFI FFI has been working with communities and local authorities to safeguard Grauer's gorillas and their habitat since 2011. Our efforts to date have focused specifically on two community forest areas to the west of Maiko National Park. Reserve de Gorilles de Lubutu (REGOLU) and Reserve de Gorilles de Mukingiti et Kingombe (REGOMUKI) cover, respectively, about 500 and 1,000 square kilometres and act as a buffer zone for the national park itself, much of which is inaccessible as a result of the long-term presence of rebel militia. Within these two reserves FFI focuses on supporting locally led biomonitoring and law enforcement by helping to train and equip community rangers. We are also working with communities to improve their livelihoods and support sustainable natural resource use for example, by providing them with the means to build energy-efficient stoves that reduce the need for firewood collection and improve health. Our close working relationship with these communities has enabled FFI not only to mitigate conflict, but also to locate Grauer's gorilla groups that had previously gone undetected during surveys in 2010. It is entirely possible that more groups exist outside the areas regularly monitored by the nine community ranger teams. Current patrols cover only a fraction of the reserve areas, and most of the gorillas located to date have been found in remote forests at high altitude, away from human disturbance. Close-up of a Grauers gorilla silverback. Credit: Angelique Todd/FFI There is an urgent need to safeguard as many Grauer's gorillas as possible both within and outside protected areasand to ensure the connectivity of their habitat in order to maintain the genetic diversity on which the long-term viability of the subspecies will ultimately depend. FFI support for the efforts of wildlife authorities and communities in REGOLU and REGOMUKI is already having an impact. As we seek to broaden the scope of our work to cover more gorilla territory, insecurity is obviously an ongoing issue, but the main constraint is funding. With additional support, we could be doing even more to ensure the continued survival of Grauer's gorilla. Explore further Population analysis suggests Grauer's gorilla is Critically Endangered More information: For more information about FFI: For more information about FFI: www.fauna-flora.org/about Two Hawaiian crows, or alala, have done something momentous in the struggle to save the critically endangered species. They have built a nest. Extinct in the wild for decades, the alala were raised at the Keauhou and Maui Bird Conservation Centers of San Diego Zoo Global, part of its Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program. In partnership with the state of Hawaii and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alala Project has released 21 birds into protected forest areas on the Big Island of Hawaii. The nesting pair live in the Puu Makaala Natural Area Reserve on the Big Island. After all the years of work, the nest is the first tangible sign the Alala Project might be succeeding in its ultimate goal. These birds were raised to have the skills to live in the wild. Their keepers wore costumes and hid their human features to prevent the birds from imprinting on people. They were also taught to avoid a natural enemy, a native Hawaiian hawk called the io, by playing an alala warning cry at the same time as showing them a captive io. But it isn't enough for the captive-raised alala to merely survive. They must also raise their own young. If they survive, they'll reconstitute a truly wild population. A nest isn't an actual bird or even an egg, of course. But it's the necessary first step. Researchers, who know each bird by name, saw the promising signs in early April. Two alala, Manaolana and Manaiakalani, were spotted building a nest. The female, Manaiakalani, then began what appeared to be brooding behavior, sitting on the nest. "While it's difficult to see exactly what's in the nest from observations on the ground, we do believe that Manaiakalani is likely sitting on eggsand we've observed her male partner, Manaolana, bringing her food regularly," Alison Greggor, of San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, said in a statement. "Alala typically lay between three and five eggs, and incubate them for an average of 21 days," said Greggor, a postdoctoral research associate at the institute. "If these eggs hatch, the chicks would be the first alala hatched in the wild in two decades." In another promising sign, another pair, Kiaikumokuhalii and Ola, have been observed beginning to build their own nest. However, first-time avian parents usually fail, the zoo says. It often takes multiple tries before birds can successfully raise their chicks. The alala must overcome multiple obstacles, Jackie Gaudioso-Levita, coordinator of the Alala Project, said in a statement. "There are many stages in the process, before the young fledge; the pair encounters natural and introduced threats, as well as environmental challenges," Gaudioso-Levita said. "The team tries to help nesting birds as much as possible without causing disturbance." So while watching from a safe distance, the team intently watches the possible rebirth of a species. The next release of captive-raised alala is planned for later this year. Explore further Achieving a balance: Animal welfare and conservation 2019 The San Diego Union-Tribune Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: CC0 Public Domain In solving quantum-physical problems in many-body systems, such as predicting material properties, conventional computers rapidly reach the limits of their capacity. Digital quantum simulators might help, but until now they are drastically limited to small systems with few particles and only short simulation times. Now, Heidelberg University physicist Dr. Philipp Hauke and colleagues from Dresden and Innsbruck (Austria) have demonstrated that such simulations can be more robust and hence much more stable than previously assumed. The results of their research were published in Science Advances. In quantum physics, many-body theory describes a large number of interacting particles. In the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the many-body system can be described by only a handful of values such as temperature or pressure, which are largely homogeneous for the entire system. But what happens over time after a major perturbation, such as when energy is abruptly deposited in a material sample by short laser pulses? Precisely calculating the so-called nonequilibrium dynamics of interacting many-body systems is a high-profile problem in quantum physics. Calculations using conventional computers require resources that increase exponentially with the number of constituent quantum particles. "So computationally exact methods fail with just a few dozen particles. That is far less than the number needed to predict material properties, for example. In such cases, scientists rely on approximation methods that are often uncontrolled, particularly when it comes to dynamic properties," explains Dr. Hauke, a researcher at the Kirchhoff Institute for Physics and the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Heidelberg University. Digital quantum simulation provides one possible workaround. The nonequilibrium dynamics are studied with simulators that themselves are governed by quantum-mechanical laws. Depicting the time evolution in a quantum computer requires discretising it into individual operations. But this approachalso known as Trotterizationunavoidably generates an error inherent in the simulation itself. This Trotter error can be mitigated by sufficiently fine discretisations. Extremely small discretisation steps must be chosen, however, to depict reliably a longer time evolution. Until now, research has maintained that the error quickly grows over long time periods and with a larger number of particleswhich for all practical purposes drastically limits digital quantum simulation to small systems and short times. Using numerical demonstrations and analytical arguments, the researchers have now shown that quantum simulation is much more "robust" and hence more stable than previously assumed, as long as only values that are relevant in practicesuch as averages across the entire systemare considered and not the full state of each individual particle. For such values, there is a sharp threshold between a region with controllable errors and a simulation that can no longer deliver a usable result. Below this threshold, the Trotter error has only limited impactin fact for all time periods that could be practically simulated and largely independent of the number of constituent particles. At the same time, the research showed that digital quantum simulation can deliver astonishingly precise results using unexpectedly large Trotter steps. "A simulation that can predict the behaviour of many quantum particles over a longer time therefore becomes more and more likely. This further opens the door for practical applications, ranging from materials science and quantum chemistry to issues in fundamental physics," states Dr. Hauke, who heads the "Quantum optics and quantum many-body theory" research group. Explore further Quantum simulation more stable than expected More information: Markus Heyl et al. Quantum localization bounds Trotter errors in digital quantum simulation, Science Advances (2019). Journal information: Science Advances Markus Heyl et al. Quantum localization bounds Trotter errors in digital quantum simulation,(2019). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aau8342 After months of helping rehabilitate a group of lesser flamingo chicks abandoned in South Africa, the Dallas Zoo has released dozens of the birds back into the wild. For the last four months, the zoo has been helping lead an effort to care for more than 1,800 chicks that were left behind by adult flamingos that abandoned their nests because of severe drought at the Kamfers Dam. The drought has since ended, the zoo said. The dam in Kimberley, the capital of South Africa's Northern Cape Province, is one of four breeding grounds for the species in Africa and one of five worldwide. Recently, 49 of the chicks were released at the dam. It was the first release of the rescued birds. "It's been incredible to release our first flock and see them walk toward the other 20,000 wild adult flamingos at Kamfers Dam, and just fit right in," said Harrison Edell, the Dallas Zoo's executive vice president of animal care and conservation, said in a prepared statement. The zoo expects that hundreds of other birds will be released in the coming weeks. Edell said the rescue, care and release of the chicks has been a "massive undertaking" and credited the zoo community for stepping up to keep the orphaned birds alive. "We're feeling intense relief right now, knowing a release of this magnitude has never been done before," Edell said. For months, staff members have been helping to feed and care for the birds, but as the flamingos have grown, the caretakers had to make sure the animals don't confuse humans with their parents. Edell said it has been a "delicate balance" to ensure the birds are only interested in other birds. Before they were released, the flamingos were examined to check their physical health and were given a leg band and microchip. Not all of the chicks will go back into the wild. Those that aren't fit to survive will become species ambassadors at Pan African association zoos. Several others, including a blind chick and some with wing injuries, will stay in human care, the zoo said. More than 30 lesser flamingo chicks call the Dallas Zoo home. The chicks are listed as near-threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Species and face threats of habitat destruction and climate change, the zoo said. Explore further Special airlift for baby flamingos in peril in South Africa 2019 The Dallas Morning News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. US on the verge of defeat and will quit Afghanistan: Afghan Taliban WASHINGTON: The Talibans chief negotiator has claimed that the United States is on the verge of defeat and will quit Afghanistan soon, the Voice of America (VOA) broadcasting service reported on Tuesday. The semi-official US news outlet reported that Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai made the assertions in an April 28 speech to an internal gathering in Doha, Qatar, saying that either American will leave of their own accord, or they will be forced out. Mr Stanekzai made these remarks just two days before he led a Taliban team into fresh talks with US interlocutors. Pro-Taliban social media outlets on Friday released video of Mr Stanekzais speech, one day after the US special reconciliation envoy Zalmay Khalilzad wrapped up the week-long negotiations with Taliban representatives in Doha. Mr Stanekzai can be heard praising the bravery of the Afghan nation for defeating past British and Soviet invasions of their country and resisting the current foreign military presence. God has helped us defeat two superpowers in the last century. The third super power that we are currently confronted with is also on the verge of defeat, he said. On Saturday, former US Defence Chief Robert Gates warned that theres a real risk that if American troops withdraw from Afghanistan before the Afghan government is stable, the Taliban might retake control of the country. Last week, Ambassador Khalilzad claimed in a tweet his talks with the Taliban were making steady but slow progress on aspects of the framework for ending the Afghan war. Bermuda has a unique volcanic past. About 30 million years ago, a disturbance in the mantles transition zone supplied the magma to form the now-dormant volcanic foundation on which the island sits. Credit: Wendy Kenigsberg/Clive Howard Cornell University, modified from Mazza et al. (2019) Far below Bermuda's pink sand beaches and turquoise tides, geoscientists have discovered the first direct evidence that material from deep within Earth's mantle transition zonea layer rich in water, crystals and melted rockcan percolate to the surface to form volcanoes. Scientists have long known that volcanoes form when tectonic plates (traveling on top of the Earth's mantle) converge, or as the result of mantle plumes that rise from the core-mantle boundary to make hotspots at Earth's crust. But obtaining evidence that material emanating from the mantle's transition zonebetween 250 to 400 miles (440-660 km) beneath our planet's crustcan cause volcanoes to form is new to geologists. "We found a new way to make volcanoes. This is the first time we found a clear indication from the transition zone deep in the Earth's mantle that volcanoes can form this way," said senior author Esteban Gazel, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. The research published in Nature. "We were expecting our data to show the volcano was a mantle plume formationan upwelling from the deeper mantlejust like it is in Hawaii," Gazel said. But 30 million years ago, a disturbance in the transition zone caused an upwelling of magma material to rise to the surface, forming a now-dormant volcano under the Atlantic Ocean and then forming Bermuda. Using a 2,600-foot (over 700-meter) core sampledrilled in 1972, housed at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotiaco-author Sarah Mazza of the University of Munster, in Germany, assessed the cross-section for isotopes, trace elements, evidence of water content and other volatile material. The assessment provided a geologic, volcanic history of Bermuda. "I first suspected that Bermuda's volcanic past was special as I sampled the core and noticed the diverse textures and mineralogy preserved in the different lava flows," Mazza said. "We quickly confirmed extreme enrichments in trace element compositions. It was exciting going over our first results ... the mysteries of Bermuda started to unfold." In a cross-polarized microscopic slice of a core sample, the blue and yellow crystal is titanium-augite, surrounded by a ground mass of minerals, which include feldspars, phlogopite, spinel, perovskite and apatite. This assemblage suggests that the mantle source rich in water produced this lava. Credit: Gazel Lab/Provided From the core samples, the group detected geochemical signatures from the transition zone, which included larger amounts of water encased in the crystals than were found in subduction zones. Water in subduction zones recycles back to Earth's surface. There is enough water in the transition zone to form at least three oceans, according to Gazel, but it is the water that helps rock to melt in the transition zone. The geoscientists developed numerical models with Robert Moucha, associate professor of Earth sciences at Syracuse University, to discover a disturbance in the transition zone that likely forced material from this deep mantle layer to melt and percolate to the surface, Gazel said. Despite more than 50 years of isotopic measurements in oceanic lavas, the peculiar and extreme isotopes measured in the Bermuda lava core had not been observed before. Yet, these extreme isotopic compositions allowed the scientists to identify the unique source of the lava. "If we start to look more carefully, I believe we're going to find these geochemical signatures in more places," said co-author Michael Bizimis, associate professor at the University of South Carolina. Gazel explained that this research provides a new connection between the transition zone layer and volcanoes on the surface of Earth. "With this work we can demonstrate that the Earth's transition zone is an extreme chemical reservoir," said Gazel. "We are now just now beginning to recognize its importance in terms of global geodynamics and even volcanism." Said Gazel: "Our next step is to examine more locations to determine the difference between geological processes that can result in intraplate volcanoes and determine the role of the mantle's transition zone in the evolution of our planet." Explore further Diamond inclusions suggest free flowing water at boundary between upper and lower mantle More information: Sarah E. Mazza et al, Sampling the volatile-rich transition zone beneath Bermuda, Nature (2019). Journal information: Nature Sarah E. Mazza et al, Sampling the volatile-rich transition zone beneath Bermuda,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1183-6 Field. Credit: Greta Hughson at the Centre for Alternative Technology. New analysis by the UK Trade Policy Observatory is warning that what should have been the technical formality of transferring EU powers into national law when the UK leaves the European Union, could instead open the gates for the widespread use of outlawed carcinogenic pesticides that have been shown to alter human reproductive, neurological, and immune systems. The analysis, carried out by researchers at the University of Sussex and a Masters student at the Centre for Alternative Technology alongside Pesticide Action Network, has uncovered a significant weakening of enforcement arrangements covering the approval of pesticides as part of legislative changes carried out under the EU Withdrawal Act. They include the removal of a blanket ban on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), potentially allowing for their use on UK land despite considerable evidence the chemicals, which effect how the body responds to sex hormones such as oestrogen, raise the risk of some cancers, birth defects, and other developmental disorders. Dr. Emily Lydgate, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, said: "While the stated aims of the EU Withdrawal Act was to bring existing EU pesticide regulations into UK law without major changes to policy, our analysis reveals that there are significant departures from EU pesticides legislation. The new legislation consolidates powers to UK ministers to amend, revoke and make pesticide legislation, and weakens both enforcement arrangements and the requirement to obtain scientific advice." The researchers warn that the EU system of significant checks and balances is being cast aside for a new regulatory process which places too much power into the hands of UK ministers and away from independent scientific advisors. Bee. Credit: Chris Senior at the Centre for Alternative Technology. EU requirements place independent scientific advice as integral to the approval process. The academics warn that the commitment to scientific evidence will be "significantly watered down" in the future with UK ministers only required to consider scientific evidence at their discretion. Chloe Anthony, a LLM student at the University of Sussex, said: "EU regulations on pesticides start from the overarching objectives and principles to protect human and animal health, and the environment. The legislation also puts the onus on industry to demonstrate, with a high level of certainty, pesticides don't have a harmful effect on humans, animals or the environment before they are placed on the market. These key guiding principles and objectives are not carried forward into the UK legislation, and it is unclear what the framework for future UK decision making will be." EDCs are permitted for use in Canada and the US and both North American governments view the EU ban as an undue trade barrier. The analysis observes this barrier has now effectively been lifted in advance of UK-US and UK-Canada future trade negotiations. The analysis also warns that the changes give ministers powers to open the door to more deregulation in the future. Ffion Thomas, a Masters student from the Centre for Alternative Technology, said: "These changes to pesticide regulation in the UK can hardly be characterised as 'technical'; they will weaken the rigour of the process by which pesticides are approved and monitored in the UK. UK Statutory Instruments introduce the ability for ministers to produce guidance documents which provide an easy path to future reform. In a best-case scenario this could lead to future strengthening of pesticide regulation but in a worse-case scenario, concentrate authority to UK ministers for future weakening of pesticide legislation." Explore further Improved prediction of pesticide residues NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Southern Pacific Ocean and captured a visible image of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Ann on May 15, 2019, as it continued to move over the Cape York Peninsula. Credit: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Southern Pacific Ocean and captured a visible image of the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Ann moving over Queensland's Cape York Peninsula. Despite the storm weakening below tropical cyclone status, warnings remain active for strong winds and flooding potential. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology or ABM issued a Strong Wind Warning for the North East Gulf of Carpentaria for today, May 15, and tomorrow, May 16. There is also a Flood Watch in effect for coastal catchments between Cooktown and Port Douglas. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Ann has the potential to generate areas of heavy rainfall. ABM noted "Catchments remain wet following coastal showers and rain areas during the last few days, which will make stream rises and flooding more likely with the onset of heavy rainfall. Enhanced rainfall is expected to occur on the coastal catchments north of Port Douglas and through to Cooktown during Wednesday." Heavy rainfall may also lead to flash flooding and the catchments likely to be affected include the Endeavour River and the Daintree River. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the remnant clouds on May 15 and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument provided a visible image of the storm. The VIIRS image showed the center of the low pressure area in the middle of the northern Cape York Peninsula, framed by the Heartlands Resources Reserve to the north, the Iron Range National Park to the east, and the Mungkan Kandju National Park south of the circulation center. The remnants of Ann are expected to move west into the Gulf of Carpentaria in the next day. Explore further NASA-NOAA satellite catches Tropical Cyclone Ann threatening Queensland More information: For updated forecasts, visit the ABM website: For updated forecasts, visit the ABM website: http://www.bom.gov.au Daniel Elwell, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, testifies during a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) The acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that Boeing should have done more to explain an automated flight-control system on its 737 Max aircraft before two deadly crashes, but he defended his agency's safety certification of the plane and its decision not to ground the jet until other regulators around the world had already done so. The FAA official, Daniel Elwell, said he expects Boeing to submit a fix to the plane's flight-control software "in the next week or so." The FAA will analyze the changes, conduct test flights and determine what additional pilot training is needed before letting the planes fly again, he said. "In the U.S., the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAA's analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so," he told members of the House aviation subcommittee. During a two-hour hearing, lawmakers pressed Elwell on the FAA's reliance on designated Boeing employees during the planes' certification process and why the agency didn't ground the planes sooner. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., told Elwell that the public believes "you were in bed with those you were supposed to be regulating, and that's why it took so long" to ground the planes. Other lawmakers defended Boeing and suggested that the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air jet off Indonesia and the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max were due at least partly to pilot error. A total of 346 people were killed in the crashes. Daniel Elwell, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, left, shakes hands with Robert L. Sumwalt, right, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, as the arrive to testify before a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) "It bothers me that we continue to tear down our system based on what has happened in two other countries," said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo. Across Capitol Hill, a Senate committee held a confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's choice to lead the FAA, former Delta Air Lines pilot and executive Stephen Dickson. He promised senators that he would make sure the FAA does not become captive to the industry it regulates. House Aviation subcommittee Chairman Rick Larsen opened the hearing by declaring that, "The FAA has a credibility problem." Larsen, however, added a note of economic urgency to the FAA's upcoming decision on the plane's safety. The 737 Max is Boeing's best-selling plane and it is built in his home state of Washington. Larsen said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because "if they don't fly, airlines don't need to buy airplanes," and "then there will be no jobs" in aircraft manufacturing. Michael Stumo, right, the father of Samya Stumo, 24, a Massachusetts resident who died in the Ethiopian plane crash, shows a photo of his daughter and others who died in the crash to Daniel Elwell, left, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, before the start of a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., struck a sharper tone, criticizing Boeing for pilot manuals that didn't mention a new automated flight-control system implicated in both accidents. DeFazio, who heads the full Transportation Committee, also said he and Larsen have been frustrated after requesting documents from Boeing to aid in the panel's investigation. "Boeing has yet to provide a single document," he said. "We've got to get to the bottom of this." Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined to comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. The Transportation Department's inspector general and two congressional committees are looking into the FAA's relationship with Boeing. Michael Stumo and Nadia Milleron, right, parents of Samya Stumo, 24, a Massachusetts resident who died in the Ethiopian plane crash, listen during a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Elwell defended the FAA's 2017 approval of the Max including its new automated flight-control system that can push the nose of the plane down if a single sensor detects that the plane could be nearing an aerodynamic stall. That system, called MCAS, was triggered on both fatal flights by faulty sensor readings, and pilots were not able to regain control of the planes as they plunged to Earth. Airlines and pilots were not told about MCAS until after the October crash. "When I first heard of this, (I) thought that the MCAS should have been more adequately explained in the ops manual and the flight manual," Elwell said. He said he expects more explanation to accompany Boeing's fix for the plane, "to make pilots more aware and respond better to an anomaly." Boeing is now reducing the power of MCAS to tilt the plane down, and linking the system to two sensors instead of one. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., speaks during a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Under questioning, Elwell said Boeing should not have waited more than a year to tell FAA and airlines that another featurea light that indicates when information from flight sensors might be unreliabledid not work. Elwell said the light was not critical for safetyBoeing has said the same thingalthough some lawmakers seemed skeptical. The Dallas Morning News reported that American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in Novembershortly after the first Max crashon potentially grounding the planes and pushed for a quick software fix from the plane maker. "We don't want to do a crappy job of fixing things, and we also don't want to fix the wrong things," a Boeing employee responded, according to a recording reviewed by the newspaper. Elwell was joined at the House hearing by Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. No Boeing representatives were invited to testify. Robert L. Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, testifies during a House Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Nadia Milleron, whose daughter, Samya Stumo, was on the Ethiopian Airlines plane, was in the audience. She said FAA seems to be rushing to approve Boeing's fixes to the Max. Regulators, she said, should wait until the accident investigations are finishedsomething that could take many months. "It is possible that these planes should never go back in the air," she added. Milleron, whose family is suing Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines, said travelers hold the final power to ground the plane. "The only thing that is going to stop this is the public," Milleron said in an interview. "If the public is concerned and if the Boeing 737 Max 8 ... becomes toxic ... that's going to make a change." The Senate Commerce Committee heard from Dickson, the former Delta official who, if confirmed by the full Senate, would replace Elwell. The FAA has been led by an acting administrator since January 2018. House Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Rick Larsen, D-W.Va., speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Dickson said he would not hesitate to take enforcement action against a company regulated by the FAA. U.S. aviation has an enviable safety record over the past decade, Dickson said, but the industry is only as good as the last takeoff or landing. Explore further FAA deferred to Boeing on key 737 MAX assessments: source 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Why is that ad targeting you? Credit: Olivier Le Moal/Shutterstock.com Facebook's advertising platform was not built to help social media users understand who was targeting them with messages, or why. It is an extremely powerful system, which lets advertisers target specific users according to a detailed range of attributes. For example, in 2017, there were 3,100 people in Facebook's database who lived in Idaho, were in long-distance relationships and were thinking about buying a minivan. That ability to microtarget specific messages at very particular groups of people can, however, let dishonest advertisers discriminate against minority groups or spread politically divisive misinformation. Governments and advocates in the U.S. and Europe, as well as elsewhere around the globe, have been pushing Facebook to make the inner workings of its advertising system clearer to the public. But as Congress continues to review ideas, it's not yet clear how best to make these systems more transparent. It's not even obvious what information people most need to know about how they are targeted with ads. I am part of a team of researchers investigating where risks come from in social media advertising platforms, and what transparency practices would reduce them. Analyzing Facebook ads In response to users' and regulators' concerns, Facebook recently introduced a "Why am I seeing this ad?" button that is supposed to provide users with an explanation for why they had been targeted with a particular ad. However, the only people who see Facebook ads are those that Facebook's algorithms choose, based on advertisers' chosen criteria. Without help from Facebook, the only way to audit advertisers and the ads they buy is to directly collect from actual users the ads they see in their timelines. To do this, my research group developed a free browser extension called AdAnalyst that users can install to anonymously collect data about the ads they see. This is what Facebook says about why it displayed a specific ad. Credit: Oana Goga screenshot from Facebook.com, CC BY-ND More than 600 people shared their data with us, which allowed us to observe more than 50,000 advertisers and 235,000 ads from March 2017 to August 2018. We learned quite a bit about who advertises on Facebook, how they target their messages and how much information users can get about why they're actually being shown specific ads. Who are Facebook's advertisers? Any Facebook user can become an advertiser in a matter of minutes and just five clicks. The company does not seek to verify a person's identity, nor any involvement of a legitimate, registered business. Our AdAnalyst data revealed that just 36% of advertisers bother to get themselves verified. There is no way to truly identify the remaining 64%, so they can't really be held accountable for what their ads might say. We also found that more than 10% of advertisers are news organizations, politicians, universities, and legal and financial firms, trying to promote nonmaterial services or spread particular messages. Efforts to determine if any of them are dishonest, spreading disinformation or racially targeting messages is much more difficult than, for instance, figuring out whether someone has falsely advertised a bicycle for sale. Very specific targeting We found that the most-targeted user interests were broad categories like "travel" and "food and drinks." But a surprising amount of ads, 39%, were more specifically directed using keywords advertisers entered, for which Facebook suggested related interests and categories. For instance, an advertiser could type in "alcoholic" and get suggestions including "alcoholic beverages" but also people interested in "Alcoholics Anonymous," and users whom Facebook's algorithms had identified as being part of a group called "adult children of alcoholics." Facebooks ad system suggests possible categories of users to target, including ones its algorithms have identified. Credit: Screenshot of Facebook.com, CC BY-ND In addition, we observed that 20% of advertisers use potentially invasive or opaque strategies to determine who sees their ads. For instance, 2% of advertisers targeted ads at specific users based on their personally identifying information, like email addresses or phone numbers, which they had collected elsewhere, perhaps from customer loyalty programs or online mailing lists. Another 2% used attributes from third-party data brokers to identify, for instance, "First-time homebuyers" or people who use "primarily cash." A further 16% used a Facebook feature called Lookalike audiences to reach new users Facebook's algorithms evaluate as being similar to users who had previously interacted with the business. Malicious groups can and do use these features to target Facebook ads in dishonest and manipulative ways. The Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency, for instance, managed several Facebook accounts, including two that created ads for directly opposing messages about the Black Lives Matter movement. Facebook explanations are thin, unclear Facebook doesn't claim to give complete explanations to users about why they're seeing a particular ad. Its messages often say things like "one reason you're seeing this ad is," "based on a combination of factors" and "there may be other reasons you're seeing this ad." To find out more details, we used our AdAnalyst tool to collect, from a set of volunteers, not only all the ads they received, but also the explanations Facebook offered for showing them those ads. In addition, we designed controlled ad campaigns specifically targeting our AdAnalyst volunteers, to compare Facebook's explanations to the actual targeting parameters we chose. We found that Facebook's ad explanations are incomplete in potentially worrying ways. For instance, we bought an ad whose primary targets were specific people, based on a list of emails we had collected from people willing to participate in our experiment. As secondary target criteria, we added "Photography" and "Facebook." A Russian troll operation bought this Facebook ad to inflame some Americans, and other ads to agitate other groups, including those with opposing views. Credit: U.S. House Intelligence Committee When users clicked on "Why am I seeing this ad?," they learned only that they saw it because they are interested in Facebook, a characteristic they share with 1.3 billion other users. There was no mention of anything about their interest in photography, which they share with 659 million others. They saw no mention at all that we had targeted them specifically using their email address. Revealing the most common characteristic, rather than the most distinct and not disclosing that a user was individually targeted is not a particularly useful explanation. This practice deprives users of the full picture of how they were targeted with an ad message. Advertisers can hide direct targeting In addition, advertisers may be able to hide evidence of controversial or discriminatory ad campaigns, or efforts that target characteristics people consider private, by adding a very prevalent attribute to their audience-targeting selection. For example, a person who wanted to target an ad at people with income below US$20,000 a year could conceal that intent by adding, as a secondary criterion, that they were "interested in Facebook" or "used a mobile phone" massive groups that wouldn't limit the advertising pool, but would more likely be mentioned in Facebook's attempt to explain why any one person saw that ad. Our experiments also show that Facebook's ad explanations sometimes offer reasons that were never specified by the advertiser. We instructed Facebook to send ads only to a set of people whose emails we had. Despite the fact that we selected no location, all of the corresponding ad explanations contained the following text: "There may be other reasons why you're seeing this ad, including that [advertiser] wants to reach people ages 18 and older who live [in or near]" and then mentioned a location near that user though we had specified no locations at all. If Facebook fills in its explanations with reasons advertisers never chose, its transparency efforts are even more misleading. To provide users with a more complete picture of who is targeting them and why, AdAnalyst shows aggregate statistics about advertisers targeting them and the characteristics of other users that received the same ads. We hope our tool will help users identify and avoid dishonest advertisers and their messages. Explore further Facebook admits phone numbers may be used to target ads This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A Claude Monet painting from his celebrated "Meules" (Haystacks) series drew $110.7 million at Sotheby's in New York in an auction record for the French Impressionist master A Claude Monet painting from his celebrated "Meules" (Haystacks) series fetched $110.7 million in New York on Tuesday in an auction record for the French Impressionist master. The sale at Sotheby'sthe first time the work had come to auction since 1986fetched one of the 10 highest prices ever seen at auction. The total, which includes fees and the commission, was more than 44 times the previous record for the work. It was the first time an Impressionist painting fetched more than $100 million. Monet painted his 25 "Meules" compositions during the winter of 1890-1891 at his home in Giverny, in France's Normandy region. In each piece, Monet showed the light and surroundings of the same scene as they changed at different times of day, with the varying seasons and during various types of weather. Another painting from the series was sold in November 2016 by the Christie's auction house in New York for $81.4 million. The piece sold at Sotheby's is among the most immediately recognizable Monet paintings. It distinguishes itself from others in the series by its vibrant paint palette, dramatic diagonal brushstrokes of varying directions that meet at the center and a unique perspective with only part of the first haystack appearing in the foreground. "We feeland I think people when they stand in front of this would largely agreethat this is an even nicer example" than the one sold in 2016, Sotheby's Julian Dawes told AFP. "It's enchanting. You just can't look away." The anonymous collector who brought the painting to be auctioned had purchased it in 1986 at Christie's for just $2.5 million. The last record for a Monet painting was set in May 2018 during a Christie's sale when his "Nympheas en fleur" (Water Lilies in Bloom) sold for $84.6 million. "This could be a defining moment for Monet's market," Dawes said. Despite the allure and popularity of contemporary art, Dawes said Impressionism has an enduring quality. "Something that I really like about impressionism in general is that the market tends to be really consistent. People love impressionism," he added. "It doesn't change from generation to generation. These paintings are 150 years old and they've always been beloved." Explore further Hopper, de Kooning hit new auction records in New York 2019 AFP Conventional versus holographic PINEM imaging. (A) In conventional PINEM, propagating SPPs are imaged with long electron pulses, rendering only its time-averaged envelope with a spatial resolution x ~ elvg. (B) In local holographic PINEM, two SPPs propagate with orthogonal wave vectors k1 and k2 forming a standing wave pattern along the direction k1 k2, which is imaged as a periodic modulation in PINEM (the hologram). The interference contrast appears only when the two pulses overlap in space and time. Inset: SEM image of a fabricated structure. Black regions are grooves, which serve as plasmon sources. CCD, charge-coupled device. Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav8358 In conventional holography a photographic film can record the interference pattern of monochromatic light scattered from the object to be imaged with a reference beam of un-scattered light. Scientists can then illuminate the developed image with a replica of the reference beam to create a virtual image of the original object. Holography was originally proposed by the physicist Dennis Gabor in 1948 to improve the resolution of an electron microscope, demonstrated using light optics. A hologram can be formed by capturing the phase and amplitude distribution of a signal by superimposing it with a known reference. The original concept was followed by holography with electrons, and after the invention of lasers optical holography became a popular technique for 3-D imaging macroscopic objects, information encryption and microscopy imaging. However, extending holograms to the ultrafast domain currently remains a challenge with electrons, although developing the technique would allow the highest possible combined spatiotemporal resolution for advanced imaging applications in condensed matter physics. In a recent study now published in Science Advances, Ivan Madan and an interdisciplinary research team in the departments of Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering, Physics, Science and Technology in Switzerland, the U.K. and Spain, detailed the development of a hologram using local electromagnetic fields. The scientists obtained the electromagnetic holograms with combined attosecond/nanometer resolution in an ultrafast transmission electron microscope (UEM). In the new method, the scientists relied on electromagnetic fields to split an electron wave function in a quantum coherent superposition of different energy states. The technique deviated from the conventional method, where the signal of interest and reference spatially separated and recombined to reconstruct the amplitude and phase of a signal of interest to subsequently form a hologram. The principle can be extended to any kind of detection configuration involving a periodic signal capable of undergoing interference, including sound waves, X-rays or femtosecond pulse waveforms. Plasmon hologram evolution with 0.33-fs time step. Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav8358. Further advances in the study of holography resulted in time-resolved optical holography, successfully realized in the femtosecond regime for enhanced spatial resolution in time-resolved photoemission electron spectroscopy (tr-PEEM). Reaching the ultrafast domain can also become a reality, due to recent developments in ultrafast transmission electron microscopy using femtosecond lasers to create ultrafast electron pulses. The developments have allowed real-time filming of collective electronic modes, strain fields and magnetic textures at a resolution of a few hundred femtoseconds. In the new work, Madan et al. demonstrated a time-domain holography imaging technique in an ultrafast transmission electron microscope (UEM). They based the technique on quantum coherent interaction of electron wave packets with multiple optical fields. To illustrate the method, Madan et al. captured attosecond/nanometer-resolved phase-sensitive movies of rapidly evolving electromagnetic fields in plasmonic structures. The scientists implemented two key experimental methods in the study in an approach to parallelly access the quantum coherence of generic electronic states. The work will be relevant for further electron quantum optics applications. As a simple implementation of the holographic UEM, the scientists based the local interference of two fields on two propagating surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) (i.e. a collective oscillation wave of free electrons along a metal). They described the interaction mechanism of the electron pulse with a single SPP using conventional photon-induced, near-field electron microscopy (PINEM) and then comparatively examined the holograms produced via the interference between two SPPs in a local holographic PINEM. During conventional PINEM, electrons can inelastically absorb or emit photon energy quanta and filter inelastically scattered electrons to allow the formation of real-space images of the plasmon fields. LEFT: Schematic illustration of local holographic PINEM, where two SPPs propagate with orthogonal wave vectors k1 and k2 forming a standing wave pattern along the direction k1 k2, which is imaged as a periodic modulation in PINEM (the hologram). The interference contrast appears only when the two pulses overlap in space and time. Inset: SEM image of a fabricated structure. RIGHT: Holographic images formed by two pulses of orthogonal polarization at different delays. (A to D) Micrographs of PINEM images for different values of the relative time delay t between the photo-exciting pulses, as indicated in each image. Scale bars, 2 m. The SPP emitted from the vertical slit propagates from left to right. Correspondingly, the interference pattern moves from the bottom-left to the top-right corner. (E to H) Modulation of the electron counts along the k1 k2 direction indicated in (A), calculated as the average of counts along the direction orthogonal to k1 k2, taken within the dashed square indicated in (A). (I) Evolution of the profiles shown in (E) to (H) as a function of delay between the two pulses; because of the experimentally adopted sample orientation, retardation effects cause the slope of the fringes (see dashed line as a guide) to be decreased by a factor of 0.71 with respect to the SPP phase velocity. (J) Envelope of the interference pattern as a function of delay between the two pulses, with the slope of the peak (see dashed line as a guide) also decreased by a factor of 0.71 with respect to the SPP group velocity. Envelope data have been acquired in a separate measurement over a longer delay span and with larger time steps. a.u., arbitrary units. Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav8358. To implement the holographic PINEM concept, Madan et al. used an experimental nanostructure composed of two perpendicular slits, composed of silver (Ag) film fabricated by gallium (Ga) ion milling, deposited on a silicon nitride membrane (Si 3 N 4 ). They conducted the experiments in a modified transmission electron microscope. In the work, the scientists used a second SPP wave as a reference and created an interference pattern with the SPP of interest to form a hologram when both waves overlapped in space and time. The scientists observed holograms formed by the 2 SPPs with relative pulse delays of -77, -20, 0 and 22 femtoseconds by energy filtering inelastically scattered electrons. Madan et al. generalized the holographic approach using the coherence between different energy states of the quantum ladder, where the electron wave function split upon interacting with light. Since electrons carry information about the amplitude and phase of the optical field, even after completing the interaction, the scientists exploited this fact to enable quantum holography. In the experiments, they made use of a semi-infinite light field created by the reflection of the optical beam from an electron transparent optical mirror, to create a material-independent reference field. The setup allowed nearly constant spatial amplitude and phase to prepare an optimum reference field for holography in the study. Principle of spatially separated electron holography. (A) The initial energy distribution of the electron beam is a function of energy that is singly peaked at E = E0 (right). Interaction with the reference field produces coherent superposition states with energies E = E0 n. The ensuing interaction with an SPP depends on the relative phase between SPP and reference fields, which results in a position-dependent electron energy distribution. The elastic part of the electron spectrum is then used to form the 2D hologram. The spectra on the right are simulations from an analytical model. (B) Hybrid energy-space map (spectrogram) of the electrons after interaction with the two fields, as schematized in (A). (C) Spatial profiles of the normalized intensity for elastic (blue curve) and inelastic (red curve) electrons, as obtained from (B) by energy-averaging from 1 to 1 eV for the elastic contribution and from 27 to 12 eV for the inelastic one. (D) Energy profiles at the maximum and minimum of the spatial modulation shown in (B), averaged over four periods. Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav8358. In the context of this study, quantum coherence of an electron state did not refer to the coherence between electrons, but to a measure of the monochromaticity (singularity) and phase stability of the electron plane wave. Madan et al. used the term to determine if an electron was in a pure state or entangled state in the environment. In the quantum sense, therefore, the phase between different energy states was determined by the time evolution operator and not at random. The scientists then reconstructed the complex electric field distribution around 3-D particles or nanostructures. They showed that the mathematical equivalence of local plasmon holography and spatially separated quantum holography allowed the recorded holograms to be treated with the same formalism of propagating standing waves. Madan et al. thus presented an observation of this effect by recording holograms formed by the tilted wavefront of the light reflected from a silver mirror and a plasmon wave emitted from a hole carved in the silver layer. The resulting pattern exhibited a periodicity that was naturally absent from an untilted hologram. Proposal for the determination of the coherence of photoemitted electrons. (A) Density matrix of a fully coherent (pure) state created by photoemission. (B) Spatially dependent spectrogram formed after interaction of the pure state with an SPP. (C) Density matrix of the completely mixed state. (D) Spectrogram formed after interaction of the mixed state with an SPP. Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav8358. Using model calculations, Madan et al. discriminated between a highly coherent (pure) and fully incoherent (completely mixed) electron distribution. For this, they modelled the density matrix of photoelectrons generated, for example, using UV illumination of a solid target. They then coordinated the electron states to interact with a traveling plasmon polariton in the experimental setup. By observing the electron energy distribution, the scientists were able to establish if there was partial coherence in the photoemitted electrons. Based on the observation, they proposed a further extension of the UEM holographic imaging to practically realize quantum holographic UEM. The scientists envision using the technique to study potential objects of interest such as atomic polarizabilities, excitons, phonons, Higgs and other collective and quasiparticle excitations in condensed matter systems in the future. The present work provided sufficient information to reconstruct the complete density matrix of an unknown electronic state, similar to a previous approach on quantum state reconstruction with attosecond pulse trains. But unlike previous work, this method can also use well-controlled SPP fields to realize a number of projective measurements in parallel. In this way Madan et al. demonstrated both local and spatially separated holographic approaches based on ultrafast transmission electron microscopy (UEM). The scientists showed that the nonlocal character of the technique allowed to completely decouple the reference and probe fields, which was not previously possible with near-field optical or photoemission microscopy techniques. The work offers a unique perspective to achieve atomic and sub-femtosecond combined resolution within a transmission microscope. The method will allow a spatially resolved detection method of coherences in electron quantum states with great potential for electron quantum holography and additional applications. Explore further New holographic technique opens the way for quantum computation More information: I. Madan et al. Holographic imaging of electromagnetic fields via electron-light quantum interference, Science Advances (2019). I. Madan et al. Holographic imaging of electromagnetic fields via electron-light quantum interference,(2019). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aav8358 Katharina E. Priebe et al. Attosecond electron pulse trains and quantum state reconstruction in ultrafast transmission electron microscopy, Nature Photonics (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-017-0045-8 Xianglei Liu et al. Compressed ultrafast transmission electron microscopy: a simulation study, Three-Dimensional and Multidimensional Microscopy: Image Acquisition and Processing XXVI (2019). DOI: 10.1117/12.2510394 A new microscopic principle. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18860291?dopt=Abstract Dennis Gabor et al. May 1948, Nature. Journal information: Science Advances , Nature Photonics , Nature 2019 Science X Network This is the R/V Hakuho-Maru. Credit: Prof. Yusuke Yokoyama, the University of Tokyo By using marine sediment cores from northwestern Australia, a Japanese team led by National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and the University of Tokyo revealed that the global ice sheet during the last ice age had changed in a shorter time scale than previously thought. This study was published on May 10 in the journal Scientific Reports. Knowledge regarding the nature of past climate variability is essential for understanding current climate change and providing context for interpretation of model results. Especially, past ice-sheet variability provides an important insight of future ice-sheet and sea-level change. During the last ice age, continental ice sheets reached their maximum volume approximately 20,000 years ago, resulting in a large drop in global sea level. Therefore, ice-sheet dynamics may be inferred from sea-level history. However, there are few places on earth appropriate for investigating past sea-level change, and different locations offer records of conflicting information. The main problem is that local elevation changes can affect how each location records the history of sea-level change. To address this issue, the team ventured to the Bonaparte Gulf in northwestern Australia, which is far from the locations of past ice sheets. The weight of an ice sheet deforms the Earth's crust, causing proximal depression and distal bulging (GIA: glacial isostatic adjustment). The gently sloping sea floor in the Bonaparte is relatively free of the effects of this crustal deformation, making it an ideal location to investigate past sea-level change. This sea-level reconstruction was accomplished through a combination of a transect of ten sediment cores, collected during cruise KH11-1 of the R/V Hakuho-Maru, paleo-tidal reconstruction, and GIA modeling. The sedimentary environment of the Bonaparte Gulf changed with sea level, allowing for paleo-water depth information to be extracted from the network of sediment cores. The timing of these water depth changes was constrained by over 100 radiocarbon dates to obtain a local history of relative sea-level change. Paleo-tidal modeling clarified the uncertainty in this record, which was converted into a global ice-volume history for the last ice age by accounting for isostatic effects. Results indicate that the trend of decreasing sea level was briefly interrupted by a period of stability from about 26,000 to 20,000 years ago during the last ice age. A geologically rapid, 10-m global decrease in sea level then occurred over about 1,000 years. "This sea-level history reveals short-period ice-sheet dynamics during the last ice age, which the current generation of climate models have not considered" said the first author, NIPR scientist Takeshige Ishiwa. "A better understanding of ice sheet dynamics will improve prediction of future climate change by model simulations." Explore further Ocean expedition to West Antarctic Ice Sheet seeks to reveal climate history More information: Takeshige Ishiwa et al, A sea-level plateau preceding the Marine Isotope Stage 2 minima revealed by Australian sediments, Scientific Reports (2019). Journal information: Scientific Reports Takeshige Ishiwa et al, A sea-level plateau preceding the Marine Isotope Stage 2 minima revealed by Australian sediments,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-42573-4 Provided by Research Organization of Information and Systems The Laki volcano in Iceland. It is not a typical mountain and its fissure to the right stretches into the distance. Credit: Alan Robock/Rutgers University-New Brunswick An enormous volcanic eruption on Iceland in 1783-84 did not cause an extreme summer heat wave in Europe. But, as Benjamin Franklin speculated, the eruption triggered an unusually cold winter, according to a Rutgers-led study. The study, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, will help improve predictions of how the climate will respond to future high-latitude volcanic eruptions. The eight-month eruption of the Laki volcano, beginning in June 1783, was the largest high-latitude eruption in the last 1,000 years. It injected about six times as much sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere as the 1883 Krakatau or 1991 Pinatubo eruptions, according to co-author Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers UniversityNew Brunswick. The eruption coincided with unusual weather across Europe. The summer was unusually warm with July temperatures more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm, leading to societal disruption and failed harvests. The 178384 European winter was up to 5 degrees colder than average. Franklin, the U.S. ambassador to France, speculated on the causes in a 1784 paper, the first publication in English on the potential impacts of a volcanic eruption on the climate. To determine whether Franklin and other researchers were right, the Rutgers-led team performed 80 simulations with a state-of-the-art climate model from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The computer model included weather during the eruption and compared the ensuing climate with and without the effects of the eruption. "It turned out, to our surprise, that the warm summer was not caused by the eruption," Robock said. "Instead, it was just natural variability in the climate system. It would have been even warmer without the eruption. The cold winter would be expected after such an eruption." Another view of the Laki volcano fissure in Iceland. Credit: Alan Robock/Rutgers University-New Brunswick The warm 1783 summer stemmed from unusually high pressure over Northern Europe that caused cold polar air to bypass the region, the study says. After the eruption, precipitation in Africa and Asia dropped substantially, causing widespread drought and famine. The eruption also increased the chances of El Nino, featuring unusually warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, in the next winter. The eruption spawned a sulfuric aerosol cloud called the "Laki haze" that lingered over most of the Northern Hemisphere in 1783. Reports from across Europe included lower visibility and the smell of sulfur or hydrogen sulfide. The air pollution was linked to reports of headaches, respiratory issues and asthma attacks, along with acid rain damage to trees and crops, the study notes. More than 60 percent of Iceland's livestock died within a year, and about 20 percent of the people died in a famine. Reports of increased death rates and/or respiratory disorders crisscrossed Europe. "Understanding the causes of these climate anomalies is important not only for historical purposes, but also for understanding and predicting possible climate responses to future high-latitude volcanic eruptions," Robock said. "Our work tells us that even with a large eruption like Laki, it will be impossible to predict very local climate impacts because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere." Scientists continue to work on the potential impacts of volcanic eruptions on people through the Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society project. The Laki eruption will be included in their research. Volcanic eruptions can have global climate impacts lasting several years. The study's lead author is Brian Zambri, a former post-doctoral associate who earned his doctorate at Rutgers and is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and University of Cambridge contributed to the study. Explore further Large volcanic eruptions in tropics can trigger El Nino events More information: Brian Zambri et al, Modeling the 17831784 Laki Eruption in Iceland, Part II: Climate Impacts, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2019). Journal information: Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres Brian Zambri et al, Modeling the 17831784 Laki Eruption in Iceland, Part II: Climate Impacts,(2019). DOI: 10.1029/2018JD029554 Credit: Naval Research Laboratory Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory flew a fleet of 30 miniature autonomous blimps in unison to test the swarming behavior of autonomous systems. The blimps responded to each other while in flight and responded to changing conditions. Don Sofge, lead for the distributed autonomous systems group at NRL, and his team are working to further research for autonomous super swarms. Their goal is to fly more than 100 controlled miniature blimps this year. Georgia Tech researchers created the miniature blimp platform and continue to provide design upgrades in collaboration with Sofge's group. This year, they are upgrading the motors, adding sensors and making design tweaks. "The process is a constant give-and-take with design and scale," Sofge said. "It's better to start with a simple design. You start with something that works and then make incremental changes. There are challenges with design and there are challenges with scaling. So we are redesigning and then scaling up to produce the 100 blimps. We are taking it one step at a time." The Science of Swarming One of the goals for Sofge's research is to understand the potential uses for swarms of autonomous systemsboth defensive and offensive. Some desired emergent behaviors include protecting an asset, providing area coverage, conducting reconnaissance missions, or simply moving in formation from one location to another. He likens individual autonomous agents to ants in a colony. Ants perform actions often equated with the functions of a society, but they do not have a central control. The possibility of replicating individual behaviors in autonomous systems is of great interest to researchers. "We are using these as platforms to demonstrate swarm behaviors," Sofge said. "Behaviors are programmed into each agent individually. The idea is that each agent is making its own decisions, sensing the world around it so that the action of the group results in some desirable emergent behavior." "In order to get the swarm to do something useful, you have to think about how to program the individual," he said. "What behaviors or algorithms are running on the individual agent? In nature, most colony or swarm systems have no centralized control. Each individual is basically interacting with its environment, but collectively they are able to do very interesting and useful things." Sofge and his team plan to design such behaviors to scale up emergent swarming behavior to involve as many as 10,000 autonomous systems. "If you are working with a traditional centralized control architecture you have to deal with the challenges of communicating with 10,000 agents individually," Sofge said. "You can't assume everyone knows where everyone else is because they are only interacting locally based on what they sense and the decisions they are making and the actions they are taking locally." The NRL research team is also working to establish a seamless networking architecture. They are leveraging existing network architectures and protocols for large numbers of objects working together. Each object in a swarm is dynamic and its location is never fixed. The object may move in and out of the network, which makes overlaying a network architecture extremely difficult. Autonomous objects in a swarm must deal with a challenge common in military environments: communication. The U.S. Department of Defense operates all over the world, from the chilling Arctic to hot tropical forests. Staying in communication with an agent despite inhospitable environments and potential enemy jamming is something Sofge and his team must keep in mind as they develop swarming technology. The History of Autonomy Imitating Life The study of swarming behavior at NRL began in the 1990s and was founded on the concept of physicomimetics, a physics-based approach that models the behavior of charged particles interacting with one another. Later, swarming approaches developed at NRL were biology-inspired by animal swarms, such as bees, ants and birds in nature. "In physicomimetics, you define objects as being particle types and create force laws to describe action between those particle types," Sofge said. "By choosing your particle type and force laws appropriately you could get swarms of agents to do interesting things, like move in formation and flow around objects." Using bio-inspired concepts such as quorum sensing, an ability that bacteria use to communicate and coordinate via signaling molecules, Sofge's team demonstrated complex group decision-making using simple agent-based behaviors. NRL's researchers have advanced physicomimetics and nature-inspired techniques for teams of autonomous systems and plan to continue to develop new algorithms for swarming behaviors. The most recent findings have advanced swarm technology and show potential for making advances in human-machine interfaces. Explore further Engineers to Develop Robot Swarms from MARS USA not seeking war with Iran: Michael Pompeo SOCHI: US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Tuesday said his country is not seeking war with Iran, despite a spike in tensions that has seen the Pentagon dispatch nuclear-capable bombers to the region. Pompeos comments came during his first official visit to Russia, a key backer of Tehran which has blamed the current crisis on Washingtons decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran, Pompeo said in a joint press conference following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. But he added: We have also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion. We are looking for Iran to behave like a normal country, Pompeo said, pointing in part to Tehrans backing of Houthi rebels in Yemen who are under attack from US ally Saudi Arabia. Houthi rebels are launching missiles into areas where there are Russians and Americans travelling. These missiles could easily kill a Russian or an American, Pompeo said. For his part, Lavrov said Moscow would work to ensure this situation does not descend into a military scenario. I hope that reason will triumph, Lavrov said, adding that he hoped reports in the US media that President Donald Trump is planning to send 120,000 troops to counter Iran turn out to be wrong. Trump himself rejected the New York Times report, saying it was fake news but did not rule out deploying a hell of a lot more soldiers in the future. Pompeo was set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at his residence in Sochi later in the evening, for the countries highest-level bilateral talks in nearly a year. Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Tuesday slammed what he called Washingtons maximum pressure campaign on Iran, saying it would only drive Tehran into a corner. Pompeo cancelled a stop in Moscow on Monday to instead have an unscheduled meeting in Brussels with European foreign ministers, who have been uncomfortable with the hawkish direction of the US on Iran. Washington last year pulled out of a nuclear deal backed by Europe, Russia and China, which curbed Irans nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief. Since then it has slapped sweeping sanctions on Iran in an all-out effort to reduce Tehrans regional clout. The US has recently ramped up the pressure, deploying an aircraft carrier strike group and nuclear-capable bombers to counter vaguely described threats from Iran. UN inspectors have said Iran is complying with the deal, and Moscow last week denounced new US sanctions on the countrys mining industry, calling for new talks to save the nuclear accord. Going into the Sochi talks, Pompeo and Lavrov both said they wanted to see ties between Moscow and the US improve. But the pair had little to agree on in their statements to the press some three hours later. Pompeo warned Russia not to meddle in the US presidential election next year, calling on Moscow to demonstrate that these types of activities are a thing of the past. Lavrov however repeated Moscows denials of interference and said it was absolute fiction that Russia had colluded with the Trump campaign. The exchange follows the publication of the Mueller report, which found that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election but did not conclude that the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. Pompeo meanwhile said he had urged Lavrov to end Russias support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. But Lavrov flatly rejected the request, denouncing US and opposition threats against the Maduro government. Credit: James Gaffey/Biorefinery Glas Along the windy west coast of Ireland a biorefinery on wheels is turning grass into a series of different green products that could give farmers a more diversified source of income. "This is Ireland's first grass-fed biorefinery," said James Gaffey, a researcher at the University of Tralee in county Kerry which is leading the project. "And it's the first step looking at grass-based bioeconomy options for Ireland." The bioeconomy is a concept that uses renewable resources from nature or organic waste and turns them into valuable new products. The EU see the bioeconomy as a key strategy to address some of the most pressing environmental challenges and. In Ireland, where agriculture accounts for over a third of its emissions, the biorefinery is being trialled as a solution to improve the farming sector's sustainability. "We're the only country in Europe with over 50% of grassland," said Gaffey, adding that this ready supply provides plenty for the biorefinery to work with, which it separates into a juice and a fibre. The juice is turned into a dry protein-rich cake that can be absorbed easier by cows so it generates less emissions from their digestion process or from feeding them other feed, like soy beans imported from Brazil. "We could improve the overall protein availability per hectare [of grass] by around 40%," said Gaffey. "That can improve the availability on indigenous non-GMO (genetically modified) protein." This could translate into a reduced demand from Ireland, and the EU, on imported soy as an animal feed, which is one of the main commodities driving deforestation in South America as well as a key source of greenhouse gas emissions. The leftover fibre can be processed into a sustainable alternative to synthetic fertiliser or used as a more efficient supply of fuel for anaerobic digesters, which breaks down the biological material and turns it into natural gas. Both solutions would take another chunk out of Ireland's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. These different sustainable products could also help farmers enter new markets. "We're working on using the fibre as feedstock for a liquid cellulose process, which is a building block that could be used as an alternative to PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic," said Gaffey. All these grass based bio-products have export potential and that would add further value to Ireland's agriculture sector. It would also help Irish farmers diversify their income and improve their resilience against fluctuating food prices from the dominant beef and dairy sectors in the country. Because of this potential, the biorefinery project is working directly with a cooperative of farmers in the west of Ireland. The idea is to keep control in their hands rather than hand over the power to big agrifood businesses. "80% of the jobs the bioeconomy will create will be in rural communities," said Gaffey. "We need to think about how to frame the bioeconomy to really make an impact." The next step for the mobile biorefinery is to recruit enough farmers to establish a network that can help prove the potential of the bioeconomy. To do this Gaffey will demonstrate the technology to different farmer groups which he hopes will help them see the untapped value in each blade of grass. A lot of sectors and businesses are already apart of the bioeconomy, but they don't realise it yet, according to Nikolaos Ntavos, a manager at the bioenergy and environment business cluster of western Macedonia, or CLUBE. This, he says, prevents them taking advantage of the opportunities it presents as well as from accessing the available bioeconomy funds and support services available to them. "This is not helpful for the bioeconomy to evolve and grow," he said. Creating scale, stimulating a new wave of entrepreneurship CLUBE is a member of the EU-wide RUBIZMO project, which is a collection of clusters aiming to stimulate similar bioeconomy businesses and entrepreneurs elsewhere. If fully utilised the EU thinks the bioeconomy could create an additional one million jobs by 2030, generally in rural or coastal areas where employment is needed to curb the exodus of its people to cities. Ntavos is working with different businesses in Macedonia and Greece to help them reinvent their business models and drive the bioeconomy forward. One example is a food cooperative that recently joined CLUBE, together they are trying to find ways to make new products from their food waste like peelings, rotten leftovers and kernels. "We are trying to link our SMEs (small- and medium- enterprises) with the R&D institutes in the area of bioeconomy to help them collaborate and make more innovative products," said Ntavos. This could have a huge impact in many areas of northern Greece and Macedonia where there is a lot waste leftover from agricultural production, like wine, olive oil, cereals and fruit production, as well as forestry. The EU is planning to invest 10 billion during 2021-27 to help the bioeconomy take shape. This cash will certainly help incentivise more businesses to get involved, but if the right controls are not put in place it could risk exasperating the environmental challenges we already face. According to Alex Mason, senior policy officer at the World Wildlife Fund's European office, the EU bioeconomy strategy needs to focus on optimising biomass that would otherwise have no use, like agricultural waste and residues. "The supply of sustainable biomass, waste and residues, is limited there is some, but don't get carried away," said Mason. "We have to be careful that we don't do something that is counterproductive." For instance, if a farmer grows rapeseed purely for bioplastic or biofuel and uses intensive practices, like artificial fertiliser, it may emit more greenhouse gases than a plastic made with conventional oil, especially if the bioplastic is incinerated soon after its used. A big reason for this is that when land is used purely for biofuel, for example, it could see land elsewhere converted into agricultural because there is still food demand to be met. This land-use change, like deforestation, could end up causing a surge of greenhouse gas emissions; adding to the environmental challenge we face. "If they [the EU] are not careful they may actually make things worse," said Mason. Japanese entrepreneurs and Founder of Interstellar Technologies Inc. Takafumi Horie speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia. While Japan's government-led space programs have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) A Japanese startup that launched a rocket into space earlier this month plans to provide low-cost rocket services and compete with American rivals such as SpaceX, its founder said Wednesday. Interstellar Technology Inc. founder Takafumi Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia. While Japan's government-led space programs have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs. "In Japan, space programs have been largely government-funded and they solely focused on developing rockets using the best and newest technologies, which means they are expensive," Horie told reporters in Tokyo. "As a private company, we can focus on the minimum level of technology needed to go to space, which is our advantage. We can transport more goods and people to space by slashing costs." Horie said his company's low-cost MOMO-3 rocket is the way to create a competitive space business in Japan. During its May 4 flight, the unmanned MOMO-3 rocket reached 113.4 kilometers (70 miles) in altitude before falling into the Pacific Ocean. The cost to launch the MOMO-3 was about one-tenth of the launch cost of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the country's space agency, according to Interstellar CEO Takahiro Inagawa. In this May 4, 2019, file photo, the unmanned MOMO-3 rocket lifts off in Taiki, Hokkaido, northern Japan. A Japanese startup that launched a rocket into space earlier this month plans to provide low-cost rocket services and compete with American rivals such as SpaceX, its founder said Wednesday. (Kyodo News via AP, File) Japanese entrepreneurs and Founder of Interstellar Technologies Inc. Takafumi Horie speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia. While Japan's government-led space programs have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) Japanese entrepreneurs and Founder of Interstellar Technologies Inc. Takafumi Horie speaks during a press conference in Tokyo, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia. While Japan's government-led space programs have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) Horie said his company plans to launch its first orbital rocketthe ZEROwithin the next few years and then it would technologically be on par with competitors such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and New Zealand engineer Peter Beck's Rocket Lab. The two-stage ZERO would be twice as long and much heavier than the compact MOMO-3, which is about 10 meters (32 feet) long and 50 centimeters (1.5 feet) in diameter and weighs about 1 ton. It would be able to send satellites into orbit or carry payloads for scientific purposes. Development of a low-cost commercial rocket is part of a growing international trend in the space business led by the U.S. and aggressively followed by China and others. At home, Horie could face competition from space subsidiaries of major companies such as Canon and IHI, which have expertise from working with the government's space agency. Explore further Japan's private rocket reaches outer space for first time 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. In this May 10, 2019 photo, flood waters from the Missouri River cover fields north of Hamburg, Iowa. The communities that flooded this spring after levees failed along the Missouri River will likely remain exposed to flooding for at least several more months. More than 40 levees were damaged but only a handful of construction contracts to fix them have been issued. Two of those are for repairs to levees near Hamburg, Iowa, but even the initial repairs won't be done until after the spring rainy season. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Communities that were flooded when levees failed along the Missouri River earlier this spring will likely remain exposed to high water for months to come, leaving displaced residents wondering whenor ifthey will be able to return and rebuild their homes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineersthe federal agency that regulates flood control along the waterwayhas been assessing the levees that were crippled in March when heavy rain and snow melt caused the river and its tributaries to overflow in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas. But repairs have been hindered by the extent of the damage and lingering floodwaters. The flooding that caused an estimated $3 billion in damage in the Midwest forced 94-year-old Ardis Rogers from her farm near the small community of Percival in southwest Iowa. She said she's heard from people who flew over her home that it appears dry but that the roads leading to the property remain flooded. "I haven't a clue of when I can go home, and there's no place like home," said Rogers, who has been staying with friends in Hamburg. "We're dependent on the levees, and we're dependent on the Corps of Engineers." Only a handful of the more than 40 construction contracts needed to fix the damaged Missouri River levees have been issued. "Until those levees get back up to regular height, we won't feel secure," said Sherri Bowen, spokeswoman for Mills County, Iowa, whose hometown of Glenwood sits behind a broken levee. "It's very stressful." In this May 10, 2019 photo, flood waters from the Missouri River flow through a break in a levee, north of Hamburg, Iowa. Communities that were flooded when levees failed along the Missouri River earlier this spring will likely remain exposed to high water for months to come. More than 40 levees were damaged but only a handful of construction contracts to fix them have been issued. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Even the quickest repairsplugging holes in two levees near Hamburg and Percival, Iowawon't be completed until the spring rainy season is over. "We're working hard to get that initial level of protection in place," said Lowell Blankers, who oversees levee repairs in Iowa and Nebraska for the Corps. But completing the repairs will be difficult. "We have been hampered by poor conditions," said Jud Kneuvean, emergency manager with the Kansas City district of the Army Corps of Engineers. In this May 10, 2019 photo, a makeshift levee holds back flood waters from the Missouri River in Hamburg, Iowa. Communities that were flooded when levees failed along the Missouri River earlier this spring will likely remain exposed to high water for months to come. More than 40 levees were damaged but only a handful of construction contracts to fix them have been issued. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Often after floods, officials are able to drive along the levees to assess the damage, but that hasn't been an option this spring in many places where floodwaters surged over the top. The Corps is relying more heavily than ever on watercrafts and helicopters to find out what is going on. Even in Hamburg, where repair work is underway, some of the still-flooded job sites can't be accessed without a boat. Once the damage surveys are completed, the Corps will review which levees were the most effective in protecting populations and the most critical infrastructure. That helps determine which repair projects come first. The federal government will pay for all of the repairs to levees in the federal system and 80% of the cost to repair levees owned by cities or agricultural groups. Until the levees are repaired, any heavy rain will threaten Missouri River communities with more flooding, said Mike Crecelius, emergency manager for Fremont County, which includes Hamburg. In this May 10, 2019 photo, barriers constructed to hold back flood waters from the Missouri River, line a street in Hamburg, Iowa. The communities that flooded this spring after levees failed along the Missouri River will likely remain exposed to flooding for at least several more months. More than 40 levees were damaged but only a handful of construction contracts to fix them have been issued. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) "It's going to be a long, treacherous summer for us," Crecelius said. The dragging levee repairs make it hard for people to decide when or if to rebuild their homes and businesses. Only six of the 32 businesses in Hamburg have reopened since the floods, and residents are still boiling water. "Right now we're not alarmed," Hamburg Mayor Cathy Crain said. "But we have to get through May and June." Explore further Parts of US Midwest deluged in historic deadly floods 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Understanding the patterns underlying vegetation distribution is vital for creating predictive models to forecast responses of natural systems to global change. Savanna ecosystems cover at least 40 percent of the global tropics, but the distribution of vegetation in savannas has long evaded understanding and characterization, making it impossible to fully capture within such a model. According to a new study published May 13th, 2019 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, airborne surveys show that, on a large scale, the spatial arrangement of savanna trees follows distinct patterns that can be described mathematically regardless of variation in environmental factors. "Concluding that some universal process governs spatial patterns in tree distributions may be premature," said lead author Carla Staver, an assistant professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. "However, we can say that, although the tree layer may look unpredictable locally, at scales relevant to prediction, such as global vegetation models, vegetation is instead strongly structured by regular statistical distributions." These findings were derived from LiDAR data collected in Kruger National Park in South Africa by the Global Airborne Observatory (GAO) at Arizona State University's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. The GAO is an airborne laboratory directed by Dr. Greg Asner that houses advanced Earth mapping technologies. Past work to determine such patterns relied on small-scale plots that failed to reveal discernable patterns or identify relationships between environmental factors, like rainfall or soil characteristics, and distribution. The high-resolution LiDAR data enabled a closer examination of tree clusters, and the large scale of the area surveyed uncovered patterns that are not discernable at smaller scales. The pattern of clusters they found at the larger scale can be explained neatly by a power law distribution, which captures significant statistical correlations that cannot be applied at a smaller scale. "When you are looking at things from the ground, what you see is a messy jumble," Staver said. "What we found was still a jumble, but it was a very structured jumble." Going forward, Staver and her colleagues plan to investigate whether such mathematical laws also govern the distribution of vegetation in other ecosystems. Future work also includes broadening the scope of the study to include more diverse environmental variation in the landscape surveyed. Explore further Elephants boost tree losses in South Africa's largest savanna reserve More information: A. Carla Staver et al, Spatial patterning among savanna trees in high-resolution, spatially extensive data, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences A. Carla Staver et al, Spatial patterning among savanna trees in high-resolution, spatially extensive data,(2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1819391116 Credit: CC0 Public Domain A Curtin University researcher has solved a nearly 100-year-old riddle by discovering that glass found in the Egyptian desert was created by a meteorite impact, rather than atmospheric airburst, in findings that have implications for understanding the threat posed by asteroids. Published in leading journal Geology, the research examined tiny grains of the mineral zircon in samples of Libyan desert glass, which formed 29 million years ago and is found over several thousand square kilometres in western Egypt. Nearly pure silica, the canary yellow glass was famously used to make a scarab that is part of King Tut's Pectoral. Lead author Dr. Aaron Cavosie, from the Space Science and Technology Centre in Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said zircons in the glass preserved evidence of the former presence of a high-pressure mineral named reidite, which only forms during a meteorite impact. "It has been a topic of ongoing debate as to whether the glass formed during meteorite impact, or during an airburst, which happens when asteroids called Near Earth Objects explode and deposit energy in the Earth's atmosphere," Dr. Cavosie said. "Both meteorite impacts and airbursts can cause melting, however, only meteorite impacts create shock waves that form high-pressure minerals, so finding evidence of former reidite confirms it was created as the result of a meteorite impact." Dr. Cavosie said the idea that the glass may have formed during a large atmospheric airburst gained popularity after a dramatic airburst over Russia in 2013, which caused extensive property damage and injury to humans but did not cause surface materials to melt. "Previous models suggested that Libyan desert glass represented a large, 100-Mt class airburst, but our results show this is not the case," Dr. Cavosie said. "Meteorite impacts are catastrophic events, but they are not common. Airbursts happen more frequently, but we now know not to expect a Libyan desert glass-forming event in the near future, which is cause for some comfort." The research team also included Natural History Museum of Vienna Director, Professor Christian Koeberl. Explore further Researchers discover 'ghostly' signs of a mysterious new mineral More information: Aaron J. Cavosie et al. Overestimation of threat from 100 Mtclass airbursts? High-pressure evidence from zircon in Libyan Desert Glass, Geology (2019). Journal information: Geology Aaron J. Cavosie et al. Overestimation of threat from 100 Mtclass airbursts? High-pressure evidence from zircon in Libyan Desert Glass,(2019). DOI: 10.1130/G45974.1 Two new papers by University of Chicago scholars outline the impact early childhood education programs can have on life outcomes. Credit: shutterstock.com Early childhood education programs can impact life outcomes in ways that span generations, according to new research from Nobel laureate James Heckman. In a pair of companion papers released this week, the pioneering University of Chicago economist found that the children of those who participated in a landmark 1960s study still saw improvements in education, health and employment. The children saw such benefits without participating in the same preschool program as their parentssuggesting that early education can contribute to lasting upward mobility and help break cycles of poverty. "For the first time, we have experimental evidence about how a case of early childhood education propagates across generations," said Heckman, the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, whose groundbreaking work on the benefits of early childhood education has helped shaped the field. The papers further expand on work originally done from 1962 through 1967, when late psychologist David Weikart designed the HighScope Perry Preschool in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Working with a sample of 123 low-income African American children, Weikart and his colleagues randomly assigned 58 individuals to enter an enriched preschool environment, one that incorporated 2-hour weekday sessions and weekly 1-hour home visits with a certified public school teachers. Heckman's new research draws from analysis of survey data, which accounts for approximately 85 percent of the original participants. When compared with children of non-participants, the children of the Perry Preschoolers were more likely to complete high school without suspension (67% to 40%) and more likely to be employed full time or be self-employed (59% to 42%). They also were less likely to have ever been arrested. The original participants showed better health according to biomedical tests administered around age 55, and were also more likely to report their own children being healthy. These latest findings are outlined in two papers that Heckman co-authored with UChicago predoctoral fellow Ganesh Karapakula: "The Perry Preschoolers at Late Midlife: A Study in Design-Specific Inference" and "Intergenerational and Intragenerational Externalities of the Perry Preschool Project." Growing out of a collaboration with the nonprofit organization HighScope that began a decade ago, Heckman's research validates the return on investment in early childhood education, rigorously testing data to show that even future generations can continue to reap benefits. Heckman, who directs the Center for the Economics of Human Development at the University of Chicago, said the new papers offer more evidence that successful early education programs hinge on engaging with children and building social and emotional skills. Fostering those sorts of environments, he said, can lead to better life outcomes than trying to measure cognitive improvements. He added, however, that his research should push policymakers not toward universal pre-K programs, but to design interventions tailored to populations that are most in need and stand to benefit the most. "I don't believe we can directly talk about how children in affluent cities would benefit if they were enrolled in the Perry Program," Heckman said. "Those children have significant benefits already. We should really understand that the lesson from a lot of this research has been about targeting." Explore further Education, nutrition improve language skills for children in rural China More information: James Heckman, and Karapakula, G. The Perry Preschoolers at Late Midlife: A Study in Design-Specific Inference, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group, 2019. James Heckman, and Karapakula, G. The Perry Preschoolers at Late Midlife: A Study in Design-Specific Inference,, 2019. hceconomics.uchicago.edu/resea n-specific-inference James Heckman, and Karapakula, G. Intergenerational and Intragenerational Externalities of the Perry Preschool Project, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group, 2019. hceconomics.uchicago.edu/resea ry-preschool-project The animals are being kept at a holding facility in Srednyaya Bay in the Far Eastern town of Nakhodka Russia is to free captured killer whales over the next month, but will not return them to their original habitat despite expert advice, a scientist said Wednesday. The animals will instead be released from their pens in Russia's Far East and may "disrupt vacationers" at resorts nearby, said Vladislav Rozhnov, who was involved in talks over their fate. Nearly 100 belugas and orcas were captured last summer and kept in small pens by commercial firms who had planned to deliver them to aquariums, including in China where the industry is booming. Ten killer whales, or orcas, will be released "in late May to early June", Rozhnov said during a briefing at the Russian environment ministry. He said it would be more ideal to transport them to where they had initially been captured, as Russian and foreign scientists have advised, but this was deemed too costly. Instead they will be freed in the bay where they have been held near the town of Nakhodkamore than 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) south from where they were actually caught in the Sea of Okhotsk. There is a risk that the whales will "stay near the pens where they were fed" and bother humans, he said. "Science gives recommendations, but the decision is taken by government authorities," said Rozhnov, who heads the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Environment andwith other agenciesis part of a council on the fate of the whales. "We hope that the released animals will go north and return to their native waters," he said. Last month Greenpeace activists produced an image of an orca in Moscow in protest against keeping orcas and beluga whales crammed into small enclosures in the Far Eastern town of Nakhodka 'Aggressive' orcas The environment ministry said in a statement that transporting the animals to the Sea of Okhotsk could injure the animals and cause stress. Constructing rehabilitation enclosures at a faraway release site would be too complicated, it added. "Due to constraints of time, the realisation of this is difficult," the ministry said. Russian officials last month met with US-based conservationists Jean-Michel Cousteau and Charles Vinick, who visited the facility with the killer whales and 87 beluga whales, also captured last year. Rozhnov said there was no precise decision on the beluga whales, but that scientists now were looking into genetic evidence of family ties between the captured juveniles and known beluga groups in the wild. In a statement Wednesday, Cousteau's team warned that releasing the killer whales near the facility where they were being held carried a "high number of significant risks". They included potential conflict with people and boats in the area due to "aggressive behaviours observed in some of the orcas". Such a release "leads to likely long-term costs and diminished potential for survival", the team said. They said the whales should be taken to where they were captured following an "acclimatisation period" in remote enclosures. Russia is the only country still catching wild orcas and belugas. The controversial trade of marine mammals has boomed in recent years together with the aquarium industry in China, which uses Russian animals in its new marine parks. Although some fisheries officials have defended the capture as a legitimate industry, scientists argue it threatens the species' populations. Explore further Russia plans to free almost 100 captured whales 2019 AFP Facial recognition for law enforcement is being banned in San Francisco, igniting fresh debate on the privacy and civil liberties concerns about the technology A ban on facial recognition for law enforcement in San Francisco highlights growing public concerns about technology which is seeing stunning growth for an array of applications while provoking worries over privacy. All but one of the nine members of San Francisco's board of supervisors endorsed the legislation Tuesday, which will be voted on again next week in a procedural step. Facial recognition technology uses a scan of a person's face to create an algorithm that is compared against a database. It can be used to unlock a smartphone or vehicle, pay in retail stores, verify identities at bank machines or develop customized fashion or beauty recommendations. But its use in law enforcement has created the greatest outcry among rights activists because of the potential for errors and mismatches, and because the technology relies on vast databases that may have little or no oversight. 'We're not helpless' Adding to those concerns has been the deployment in China of a vast surveillance system that can track criminals but also dissidents, and which has been used to track the movements of the Uighur Muslim minority, according to some reports. The move in San Francisco "is a reminder we're not helpless in the face of technology," said Jay Stanley, a policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union. Airline gate agents sign into facial recognition verification system VeriScan at Dulles International Airport "Certainly you can't stop technology development and research but that doesn't mean we can't stop the deployment of technology to protect our values." While facial recognition may help catch criminals faster than traditional methods, civil liberties activists say the technology is not perfect, with high error rates for minorities found in some studies. "As things stand, it is inappropriate for government agencies to use face recognition technology because the dangers substantially outweigh the benefits," said Evan Selinger, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum. Tiffany Li, a researcher at the Yale Law School's Information Society Project, echoed those sentiments, arguing that more needs to be done to study the impact of facial recognition on civil liberties. "The tech is not accurate, fair, or safe enough yet. And our laws and policies don't know how to safeguard us from the many abuses that can occur," Li tweeted. China's wide deployment of facial recognition for law enforcement and surveillance has highlighted concerns in the United States about an "Orwellian" state Wide deployment Despite the ban in San Franciscoand legislation being considered in other municipalitiesuse of facial recognition is growing in cities in the US and elsewhere. A 2016 study by Georgetown University researchers found about 64 million Americans were in at least one database in "a virtual line-up" even if most had no criminal record, and that there was little knowledge of whether these systems were accurate or unfairly impacted minorities. The researchers found nearly 4,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, or 25 percent of the total, have the ability to run face recognition searches of their own system or that of another agency such as the FBI. Facial recognition is being deployed in airports around the United States, aiming to help speed boarding and arrivals and also monitoring for suspects and people who may have overstayed their visas. Visitors walk past a security robot named APV3 with a facial recognition system at the 14th China International Exhibition on Public Safety and Security in 2018 US customs authorities are also reported to be studying the technology to help identify illegal immigrants. Microsoft has joined critics of facial recognition deployment by government agencies. Its president Brad Smith said last year it was urgent to begin placing limits on facial recognition to avoid the surveillance state described in George Orwell's "1984." Safer and faster Supporters of the technology argue that facial recognition systems can help police fight crime and keep streets safer. Daniel Castro of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank following technology issues, noted that authorities "can use facial recognition to efficiently and effectively identify suspects, find missing children or lost seniors, and secure access to government buildings" and save considerable expense compared with doing these tasks manually. Visitors walk in a "Future Bar" concept store by Chinese giant Alibaba at an industry trade show showing how payments may be made using facial recognition at the fully automated store Concerns about moving toward Chinese-style surveillance systems are unwarranted because the United States has strong constitutional protections, Castro said. "Ironically, a ban on facial recognition is a step backwards for privacy," Castro said in a statement. "Rather than having individuals monitor surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology would use unmanned cameras... Focusing on technology bans misses opportunities to make communities safer and increase privacy." Explore further San Francisco bans facial recognition use by police and govt 2019 AFP Brazilian researchers develop a program for high-performance computers to map specific portions of plant DNA faster and less expensively for use in breeding more productive and stress-resistant varieties. Credit: Leo Ramos Chaves/Pesquisa FAPESP magazine Plants have larger and more complex genomes than all animals, be they mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians. Fish are the exception to the rule. Human DNA consists of some 3.2 billion base pairs spread out over 23 pairs of chromosomes, for a total of 46 chromosomes. The genome of wheat (Triticum aestivum), however, comprises 17 billion base pairs divided into 21 pairs of chromosomes (a total of 42). The genome of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) contains 10 billion base pairs in 100-130 chromosomes. The sugarcane grown today is a hybrid (S. hybridum) cross-bred from two species, S. officinarumthe original sugarcane domesticated in India 3,000 years agoand S. spontaneum. "The sugarcane genome has become a giant. It's very hard to work with it using current genomic methods. Deciphering it requires a huge amount of computing power. It's difficult even with state-of-the art computers in processing terms, and they're expensive. In sum, this is a challenge for bioinformatics," said Marcelo Falsarella Carazzolle, bioinformatics coordinator in the Genomics and Bioenergy Laboratory (LGE) at the University of Campinas's Biology Institute (IB-UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo State, Brazil. "For years, laboratories in various parts of the world have tried and failed to map the sugarcane genome. The first successful endeavor was completed only a few months ago by a consortium of researchers in several countries, including Brazil," Carazzolle said. The strategy deployed by the consortium involved massive large-scale computing and heavy investment to sequence the whole genome, i.e., all 10 billion base pairs. In an article published in the journal DNA Research, Carazzolle and colleagues present a different strategy that is much less costly and time consuming. This technique is designed to map specific portions of the genomes of polyploid plants. Some of the research underpinning this innovation was performed for a Ph.D. thesis by Karina Yanagui de Almeida and for a postdoctoral project by Juliana Jose. Both are biologists at IB-UNICAMP and were supervised by Professor Goncalo Amarante Guimaraes Pereira. Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) also provided funding. "We developed the software necessary to reconstruct these complex genomes and applied it to sugarcane. We weren't trying to assemble the whole genome. Previous studies set out to reconstruct the plant's entire DNA, but our strategy consisted of focusing on small portions corresponding to about 1%-2%, exactly where the genes of interest for plant breeders are located," Carazzolle explained. This strategy saved at least two orders of magnitude compared with the tens of millions of dollars it would cost to map the whole genome. When the project was completed, the consortium had not yet published their results, so the Brazilian geneticists had to use publicly available datasuch as the genomes of sorghum, rice and corn, which are related to sugarcane to a greater or lesser extentto locate the areas they wanted to decipher in the analogous regions of the sugarcane genome. Selection by analogy was possible because all grasses have a common ancestor that existed more than 50 million years ago. In other words, after all this time, the DNA of any grass todaysugarcane, wheat, sorghum, rice, corn, etc. - still preserves the original core structure, alongside the billions of mutations that have occurred over the eons. Gene assembler The outcome of the research conducted at IB-UNICAMP was a software package called Polyploid Gene Assembler (PGA). "PGA represents a novel strategy for assembly of a genetic space based on complex genomes using low-coverage DNA sequencing," Carazzolle said. Although PGA requires less computer power than the massive processing of a polyploid's whole genome, a very large system is still required to run the program in a timely manner. In this case, the researchers used the computer cluster belonging to the Center for Computing in Engineering & Science (CCES), one of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs funded by Sao Paulo Research FoundationFAPESP. Carazzolle is the principal investigator for bioinformatics at CCES. "The project required the use of CCES's high-performance computers with plenty of memory," Carazzolle said. They loaded PGA with known gene loci from public genome databases, deploying assembly strategies to construct high-quality genome sequences for the species investigated, and validated the procedure with wheat (Triticum aestivum), a hexaploid species, using barley (Hordeum vulgare) as a reference. More than 90% of the genes were identified, as well as several new genes. In addition, they used PGA to assemble the genes from grass species S. spontaneumgrouped in the same genus as traditional sugarcane (S. officinarum), S. spontaneum is used in the parental lineage of the hybrid sugarcane varieties widely grown today (S. hybridum). "We identified a total of 39,234 genes, 60.4% of which were clustered into known grass gene families. Thirty-seven gene families were expanded when compared with other grasses. Three stood out for the number of gene copies potentially involved in initial development and stress response," Carazzolle said. "Our findings for the genome of S. spontaneum highlighted for the first time the molecular basis of certain significant characteristics, such as high productivity and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. These results can be used in future functional and genetic studies. They will also support the development of new sugarcane varieties. "Using PGA, we provided a high-quality assembly of gene regions in T. aestivum and S. spontaneum, proving that PGA can be more efficient than conventional strategies applied to complex genomes and using low-coverage DNA sequencing. PGA's low memory requirement in comparison with the conventional assembly strategy is also an advantage." Carazzolle stressed that even with significant advances in sequencing technology, the assembly of complex genomes still represents a bottleneck, owing mainly to polyploidy and high heterozygosity. The development of new bioinformatics efforts, he added, can help overcome these constraints, especially in the case of the whole genomes of closely related organisms, for which reference-guided assembly methods can be used. Explore further The highly complex sugarcane genome has finally been sequenced More information: Leandro Costa Nascimento et al, Unraveling the complex genome of Saccharum spontaneum using Polyploid Gene Assembler, DNA Research (2019). Leandro Costa Nascimento et al, Unraveling the complex genome of Saccharum spontaneum using Polyploid Gene Assembler,(2019). DOI: 10.1093/dnares/dsz001 A self-described white supremacist used Facebook Live to stream his rampage at two mosques in Christchurch, which left 51 people dead Major tech firms on Wednesday pledged to come up with new measures for stamping out violent extremist content on the internet, amid growing pressure from governments pushing for action in the wake of the massacres at two New Zealand mosques in March. Executives from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft met with the leaders of France, New Zealand and other countries in Paris to unveil the "Christchurch Call" of voluntary commitments for online platforms. It was named for the city where a gunman killed 51 people at two New Zealand mosques two months ago while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook via a head-mounted camera. The social networking giant has faced withering criticism since the attack, after the horrific footage was uploaded and shared millions of times despite efforts to remove it. "The call is a roadmap to action," New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. "It commits us all to build a more humane internet which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes," she said. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon later released a nine-point plan for jointly putting the Christchurch pledges in motion, in particular for addressing the threat posed by livestreaming. They promised investments in "digital fingerprinting" to track and remove harmful pictures and videos, and easy-to-use methods for users to report illicit content. "This is leading to real action, and I think real action can play an important role in at least preventing a number of these kinds of attacks," Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith told AFP in Paris. New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, left, was welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Wednesday, when they plan to issue a "Christchurch Call" against online violence and extremism "No one wants to see the internet used as the staging ground for these kinds of terrorist atrocities," he said. Facebook had already promised Wednesday to tighten access to FaceBook Live, in particular by denying the service to users who have shared extremist content. No US for now The largely symbolic initiative is intended to keep up the pressure on social media companies, which face growing calls from politicians across the world to prevent their platforms from becoming stages for broadcasting extremist violence. "Our goal is to never again see the internet transformed into a crazy propaganda machine, a goal sought by both terrorists on the far right and Islamic terrorists," Macron said. The leaders of Britain, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia and Norway travelled to Paris as part of the initial backers of the plan. But despite the endorsement from the biggest US tech firms, Washington will not join for now, even though "we continue to support the overall goals reflected," the White House said in a statement. "We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press," it said. Macron appeared to take the refusal in stride, saying "The American administration has expressed its support for our effort, which I already consider progress." France and New Zealand see their joint initiative to curb extremism online as a global response to a global problem The companies said they would cooperate on finding new tools to identify and quickly remove extremist content, such as sharing databases of violent posts or images to ensure they don't spread across multiple platforms. They also said they would explore tweaking their algorithms to prevent violent or hateful content from going viral, while making it easier for users to report harmful posts. But it will be up to companies to develop specific tools or policies. 'Can't prevent content' Many countries have already tightened legislation to introduce penalties for companies that fail to take down offensive content once it is flagged, by either users or the authorities. But analysts say the tighter controls pledged Wednesday will go only so far in preventing people from circumventing rules and policies already in place against disseminating violence and hate speech. "You can't prevent content from being uploaded: it would require the resources for tracking everything put online by all internet users," said Marc Rees, editor in chief of the technology site Next INpact. "Can you imagine trying to get TV or radio to prevent libellous, abusive or violent speech that someone might say?" he asked. The "Christchurch Call" meeting ran in parallel to an initiative launched by Macron called "Tech for Good" which brought together 80 tech executives to discuss how to harness technologies for the common good. But the US government was represented only at a junior level at a meeting of G7 digital ministers which also took place Wednesday in Paris. Explore further Facebook to curb livestreaming amid pressure over Christchurch massacre 2019 AFP High-profile global companies including IBM pledged to boost the number of female executives from 15 percent to 30 percent Forty-five tech giants committed Wednesday to doubling the number of women on their management boards to 30 percent by 2022, the French presidency said. Alibaba, BNP Paribas, Booking.com, IBM, L'Oreal and Uber were some of the high-profile companies to sign a pledge at the second "Tech for good" summit taking place in Paris. Businesses that reach the goal are then to pursue complete parity including on executive committees, the Elysee palace said in a statement. A recent tech-sector study by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company showed that women occupied just 15 percent of management posts at present, it added. The "Tech for good" summit aims to encourage global tech leaders to think about how new technologies can contribute to the common good, in areas such as education and health. The initiative is the brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron who was scheduled to dine with 180 leaders of digital companies including Jack Ma of Alibaba, and Ken Hu of Huawei on Wednesday evening. He was also due to individual meetings with IBM boss Virginia Rometty and Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber. Explore further Macron presses tech giants on taxes, working conditions 2019 AFP In this May 4, 2018, file photo a man talks on the phone in a hallway adorned with the palm tree-printed wallpaper at a hotel near the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. U.S. regulators are proposing new measures intended to thwart billions of annoying robocalls received by Americans each year. The rising volume of unwanted calls in the last few years has created pressure on Congress, regulators and phone companies to do something to act. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) New measures by U.S. regulators could help thwart some of the billions of robocalls received in the U.S. The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that it will vote in June on whether to let carriers block spam calls by default, which should mean that more spam calls are blocked. Right now, customers have to take the extra step of requesting tools from their carriers or downloading apps from other companies to help them weed out most unwanted calls. The rising volume of calls in the last few years, driven by how cheap and easy it is for scammers to call millions of people as well as weak enforcement, has created pressure on Congress, regulators and phone companies to act. The volume of calls has risen to roughly 5 billion per month, according to call-blocker YouMail, from 2.7 billion in November 2017. That's when the government gave carriers explicit, although narrow, permission to block certain types of calls. Many robocalls are not scam calls, though, but calls from debt collectors and telemarketers selling insurance, cruises and the like. It's not clear if carriers would automatically block those calls, too, said Margot Saunders, senior counsel for the National Consumer Law Center and an expert on robocalls. Under the proposed rules, the agency won't require carriers to provide such services or mandate that the tools offered are free. Today, some of these apps cost extra money; others are free. "We certainly are encouraging companies to offer this for free," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. He said he anticipates that companies won't charge extra because it would cost less than the headache of dealing with robocalls and customer complaints about them today. He raised the threat of regulatory action "if the companies do not take the steps necessary to protect consumers." The agency also said Wednesday it's making clear that carriers can let customers come up with lists of numbers that they will permit to call them. That means customers could tell phone companies that any number not on their list be automatically blocked. "There is no doubt that this can only help, that it's a good thing. My questions go to how much it helps," Saunders said, referring to whether consumers would be protected from unwanted debt-collector and telemarketing calls as well as scams. There are also bills in Congress addressing the robocall problem. A widely supported, bipartisan Senate bill would require carriers to verify that a number popping up on your caller ID is real. A big problem with robocalls is that many are "spoofed," or faked to look like they're coming from a number that matches your area code and the next three digits of your number, so you think it's a neighbor and are more likely to pick up. The industry is working on deploying this long-in-the-works system, but it's been a slow process. Pai has threatened regulatory action if it's not done this year. The Senate bill would also give the FCC more power to fine the people responsible for spam calls and puts together federal agencies and state officials to figure out ways to pursue criminal cases against robocall scammers, not just civil ones. Explore further Phone companies get new tools to block spam calls 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Changes in jobs in transition from coal to renewable energy. With 12 coal power stations in Australia closed since 2013, a full transition out of coal is coming. Around the world, governments and stakeholders are considering how to implement a "just transition" from coal to clean energy a transition that's fair for local workers and communities in coal regions. Some coal-producing nations, such as Germany and Spain, are delivering major just transition packages. Other nations are less successfully trying to navigate social conflicts around the transition, such as Poland and South Africa. But so far in Australia, there is little planning for the transition. What can Australia learn from other international experiences to plan our own just transition? Through our ongoing research we found four important lessons. Lesson 1: build a social compact Climate science demands the energy transition be as rapid as possible. But faster transitions threaten the capacity of local labour markets to replace jobs lost in coal. Unions have begun shifting from defensive support for coal towards a just transition perspective, but this support can unravel once job losses start to hit. In South Africa, for instance, trade unions helped pioneer a just transition. But they brought legal action to stop renewable energy auctions amid coal closures without adjustment support for workers. Germany, on the other hand, has managed industrial transitions in the western coal regions since the late 1960s through effective negotiations. In 2018, Germany's government-appointed "coal commission" developed a pathway for the full closure and transition of the coal industry by 2038. It involved a process with representatives from unions, industry associations, coal regions, scientists, local communities and environmental NGOs. A social compact between the key parties is needed to manage the conflicts that can emerge over a transition out of coal. Just transition commissions have been established in Canada, Scotland and now South Africa. So Australia should be considering two things to build a social compact for coal transition: a taskforce including all the key stakeholders to negotiate an overarching framework for a transition out of coal an on-going process for including stakeholders at national and regional level, because it will be a long-term process requiring negotiated trade-offs. Lesson 2: plan early for closures If transition planning is delayed until mass redundancies are on the horizon, labour markets will not cope with the volume of displaced workers. Planning for closures is starting to emerge at an industry and company-level in some nations (such as Italy, Germany and Australia) - which includes retraining, support for early retirements and the redeployment of workers. Victoria is a global leader on regional level adjustment. The La Trobe Worker Transfer Scheme is redeploying retrenched Hazelwood power station workers to other sites. Site remediation is also an important way we can restore the local environment quality and create semi and low-skilled jobs at the most critical time of the transition. Mandatory requirements need to be established for funds allocated to the coal industry. Lesson 3: diversify the regional economy The Institute for Sustainable Futures has modelled the global employment impacts in the energy sector if we meet the Paris Climate Agreement. The modelling found jobs will grow across almost all occupational categories. There will be big job losses among machine operators and assemblers as coal closures occur, but this group also experiences the strongest job growth within the renewables sector, especially solar. But market restructuring alone will not deliver a just transition. In each of the coal regions we examined, there is little prospect for large-scale renewable energy because the best solar and wind resources are located elsewhere. This means workers will rarely transfer seamlessly to new jobs without having to move away from home. And as many of the new jobs are in the construction phase, ongoing jobs will be replaced by a higher volume of temporary jobs. Local solar and energy efficiency can be a source of new jobs but ultimately diversifying the regional economy is the solution for creating new jobs beyond coal. Each region has different mixes of sectors and capabilities, so economic diversification strategies need to be tailored. These are some features of successful plans to diversify regional economies: develop links with related industries and establish new industries extend the capabilities of existing industries and workers fund labour-intensive projects, such as site remediation and plant decommissioning target infrastructure upgrades and skill development for coal regions. Lesson 4: establish funds and authority for a just transition Specialist funds are being established to oversee, develop and implement coal transition programs. The European Commission's coal and carbon-intensive regions in transition initiative is investing funds in 13 coal regions. In Germany, the coal commission has recommended a funding package of 40 billion to support the coal regions, with legislation due May 2019. The Spanish government has established a 250 million fund, which includes support for workers, economic diversification and environmental restoration. How is Australia placed? National climate and energy policy is a fiasco in Australia. The federal government has no energy transition plan and refused to sign a Just Transition declaration at the Poland climate conference in December 2018. On a positive note, there have been some innovative regional responses. The Victorian Government has established the La Trobe Valley Authority, which is funding economic diversification initiatives. The ALP will establish a Just Transition Authority if it wins the federal election, which will develop regional transition plans and oversee redundancy schemes. Unions, industry and local communities will have direct input. But without a coordinated exit schedule like the German coal commission, coal closures will still likely be abrupt, driven by technical breakdowns or renewables growth squeezing out less profitable generators. The ALP scheme also only covers power generators not coal mining which will be more challenging because there are more low-skilled workers (around half are drivers and machine operators). Social and political support can unravel very quickly once regional communities start to transition. In Queensland, mining unions are opposing any candidates that will not support the Adani mine after their national body led the shift to a just transition policy by the ACTU. Australia would be wise to invest heavily in just transition planning and investment alongside technology development. Explore further EU coal regionsopportunities and challenges ahead This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. LAKE GEORGE Experts will be returning next week to continue searching for any additional historical artifacts at the site where 18th-century bones were found in February. About six to 12 people, primarily from the New York State Museum, will be on the site of a housing project at the intersection of Courtland and Mohican streets. A total of 11 graves were found in February, along with the partial remains of 13 people. They will be sifting a large backfill pile at the site to recover any remains within it. There will be no new excavations at this time, said State Museum spokeswoman Antonia Giuliano in an email. Due to the scale of the work and the need to safely perform this work on an active construction site, we do not have an estimated end date at this time. If necessary, staff will perform work one day each following weekend as needed until work is complete. In addition to the remains, also found were buttons associated with the First Pennsylvania Battalion, a regiment present in the Lake George area during the Revolutionary War. The battalion was part of a failed invasion of Quebec. Dan Barusch, director of planning and zoning for the town, said developer Ruben Ellsworth is continuing to build on the portion of the lot that was not affected by the excavation. A two-building apartment complex had been planned for the site. Ellsworth is continuing construction on the one building there, not messing with any of the grounds that had been disturbed previously. Theyre being a good steward, said. The second building is on hold indefinitely, according to Barusch. One idea is to turn that site into a pocket park by obtaining grant funds, he added. State Museum experts will be examining the remains. Once that is complete, they will be brought back to Lake George for re-interment, according to Barusch. Then, there would be a ceremony of some kind, perhaps timed to Memorial Day or another significant event, he added. The tentative plan is for the remains to be re-interred at Fort George, where the remains of four unknown Colonial Americans were reburied. The remains were found in 1931 in a ravine during road construction on Route 9. The Lake George Battlefield Park Alliance is planning to put a visitors interpretative center at the 35-acre site, which was the site of battles during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. The center would occupy the first floor of a building that would also house the new offices of the Lake George Park Commission. Michael Goot covers politics, business, the city of Glens Falls and the town and village of Lake George. Reach him at 518-742-3320 or mgoot@poststar.com and follow his blog at http://poststar.com/blogs/michael_goot/. 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. WARRENSBURG A local business owner who is a former Warrensburg Town Board member was arrested late Tuesday for allegedly sexually abusing a young boy, police said. Dean G. Ackley, 59, was charged with first-degree criminal sexual act and first-degree sexual abuse, both felonies, and misdemeanor sexual abuse for accusations that he had sexual contact with a child with whom he was acquainted. He was accused of forcibly abusing the boy during one of the incidents, according to police. Police said the child was 14 and 15 years old, and the alleged incidents happened in the town of Warrensburg between last summer and earlier this month. Warren County sheriffs Lt. Steve Stockdale said police received information there were multiple sexual assaults, and the investigation was continuing this week with additional charges anticipated. Ackley was arraigned in Warrensburg Town Court and released on $5,000 cash bail pending further prosecution June 12. He operates Direct Deposit Bottle Redemption Center in Warrensburg, a business he started more than 12 years ago while he was on the Warrensburg Town Board. He was on the Town Board for 16 years, serving as deputy town supervisor for several years in the early 2000s, before he lost a re-election bid in 2011. He also formerly worked for Warren County in a number of departments in the 1990s and 2000s, including the Parks & Recreation Department before he left the countys employ. A phone message left for Ackley at his business Wednesday was not returned. Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty called the accusations surprising, as Ackley has been involved with town government and the business community for decades. He said Ackley recently came to Town Hall to lobby town officials to support a bill that would raise the state bottle deposit fee. This is going to send shock waves through the community, Geraghty said. First-degree criminal sexual act is punishable by up to 25 years in state prison. Anyone with information in the case was asked to call the Sheriffs Office at 518-732-2500. Sheriffs investigators Doug David, Jesse Wittenberg and Ed Affinito are handling the case. Love 8 Funny 15 Wow 10 Sad 20 Angry 54 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 On May 5, the city council approved paying $10,000 to consultant Robert K. Bush to conduct a study on if the city should hire outside legal counsel or continue to employee legal counsel in-house. After the meeting, Kotter was asked by the media about the future of the research and the agreement with Bush. "It's hard to compare costs now with the old legal counsel gone," Kotter said. "We will have to compare costs next year." With the research no longer relevant, would Bush still be paid for the research? "I would assume so, yes," Kotter said. In other business: Council members approved spending the $775,031 needed to fund their portion of the P-25 emergency radio tower system. Questions were raised at last week's meeting regarding unbudgeted video gaming fee revenue. An error was found, with revenue coming in at $163,400 as opposed to the $221,950 originally supplied to the council. The general fund will now kick in $562,166, leaving the city with between 82 and 83 days of emergency funding. Now visiting the first-in-the-nation caucus state with the new title presidential candidate, Democratic Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is scheduled to make a campaign stop in Davenports East Village this weekend. Bullock will hold a meet-and-greet with prospective Iowa voters at 2 p.m. Saturday in Baked Beer & Bread Company, a bar and restaurant. The event was booked on Tuesday shortly before the Montana governor was scheduled to formally announce his run at his high school in Helena, Montana. Bullock is a Democrat in deep-red state Montana whos outlined climate change and campaign finance reform as major policy issues of concern. He was first elected as Montanas governor in 2012 and previously was the states attorney general. Davenport is one of eight Iowa cities on the tour. He will hold meet-and-greets in the Maquoketa Public Library Community Room, 126 S. 2nd St., at 9 a.m. Saturday, and at the Gateway Area Community Center, 1850 S. Bluff Blvd., Clinton, at 11 a.m. Saturday. His campaign will also make stops in Des Moines and Dubuque. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 "We made the commitment to do this twice a year," Thoms said. Tweet said all questions and suggestions for the city from the community are welcome. "It's an opportunity for citizens to come out and engage with leaders of the police and fire (departments) and other city leaders," Tweet said. "It allows citizens to ask questions on issues. Sometimes people have questions and they don't who to ask or how to contact them. One of our goals is to make our city government more accessible to citizens. "We've done individual ward meetings, but that turnout tends to be very small," Tweet said. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m., and panel discussions will begin at 6 p.m. Hors doeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided to attendees, and a cash bar also will be available. 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. Convicted businessman Mikhalchenko to stay detained in new case until late June RIA Novosti, Yevgeny Blinov 13:54 15/05/2019 MOSCOW, May 15 (RAPSI) The Moscow City Court on Wednesday upheld a lower courts ruling extending detention of Forum Holding CEO Dmitry Mikhalchenko convicted of alcohol trafficking until June 21 as part of a new criminal case against the businessman, RAPSI reported from the courtroom. The court therefore dismissed the defendants appeal against the ruling of April 8 on extension of his detention for 3 months. He thus lost his bid for release from jail. On April 2, the Moscow City Court overturned a lower courts ruling to extend Mikhalchenkos detention till late June. The matter was sent back to the Basmanny District Court of Moscow for reconsideration by other judges. The Moscow City Court has therefore granted Mikhalchenkos appeal against the Basmanny District Courts ruling of March 14. Mikhalchenko is charged with embezzlement and organizing a criminal group. On December 28, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow found Mikhalchenko guilty of alcohol smuggling and sentenced him to 4 years and 7 months in prison. However, the term is to expire on April 19. Two other defendants in the alcohol smuggling case, Boris Korevsky and Alexey Mishchenko, were also convicted. Korevsky was given 5 years behind bars, Mishchenko received a 3-year suspended sentence. Mikhalchenko was arrested and detained in late March 2016. Investigators claimed that he had organized trafficking of alcoholic products from countries of the European Union. According to the prosecution, in 2015, the products were bought in European shops, collected in the port of Hamburg and then smuggled into Russia. The caused damage was estimated at more than 61 million rubles (about $1 million). Forum Holding Company established in 2011 is one of the largest multibusiness companies in Saint-Petersburg. The company has united several dozens of the citys enterprises and organizations. Forum Holding consists of industrial enterprises, such as "Spinning Mill named after S.M. Kirov", the oldest textile industry enterprise in Russia, "Izmeron" factory, one of technological leaders of Russias downhole equipment market, according to the companys website. For this area, having every single one on tap is a big deal, he said Wednesday. People like new stuff, and local breweries like to make their own. Your local bar is becoming your local brewery. With craft brewing booming nationally and locally, the Q-C is becoming more a beer destination, Johnson said, claiming more new independent brewers will help ones already here. People will know when they come to the Quad-Cities, they'll go to some awesome breweries. Every place is different. They have different styles of beer they like to brew. Like Crawford, his style is different than ours. He leans more traditional, German style, and we like to do more goofy stuff. Five Cities which opened in early 2018 next to Central Standard restaurant, near the intersection of 18th and 53rd has been doing strong business, Johnson said. The new Ale Trail will make bar hopping more fun, he said. The QC Ale Trail will offer a self-guided tour of the craft breweries across the region. Craft Beer Week coinciding with American Craft Beer Week celebrated Moline on Monday and Bettendorf/LeClaire Tuesday. The end of earmarks undercut the power of party leaders in Congress, including committee chairs, and the growth of cable television and the internet have created personalities and organizers who compete for influence with the political parties. Instead of seeing the House as a career and a platform from which to help their districts and the country as a whole, Swalwell, Gabbard, Moulton and to a lesser extent Ryan (who challenged Nancy Pelosi for House leadership after the 2016 elections) have joined the 2020 presidential race. Obviously, these four House members dont expect to be nominated. They are running either out of ego or to increase their name identification so they can make some other career move. But it says something that each believes his or her candidacy for president will be helpful. The same goes to some extent for the lengthy list of senators and governors running. Yes, every senator looks into the mirror and sees a future president, but it is still telling that so many current and former senators have, over the last two presidential contests, sought the presidency instead of building seniority in the Senate and moving up the leadership ladder. One of the sisters, Krista Anderson Link, of Minneapolis, recalls how all six kids "each had our jobs on the farm. "We had to bail hay, walk the bean fields pulling weeds. We trucked all over the hills growing up. We'd get on our horses in the morning and not come back until supper time." Link, now a nurse, is thrilled that others will see the farm's beauty. "It will be wonderful if the dream comes true and we're able to restore it and sustain it," she said, crediting her sister-in-law's hard work. Marijo Anderson said the site could have easily been converted into a housing development with high-end houses. "But then only 30 people would get to enjoy these vistas." The project drew inspiration from other business parks elsewhere in the country, including Ohio and Texas. She recalled how when she and her husband lived in Dublin, Ohio, they regularly would attend concerts under the stars, days in the park and other activities on the Chemical Abstracts Services' world headquarters in Columbus, north of the Ohio State campus. "I truly can see that (land) someday being used as a business park, but on the weekends people could come out and bring their bikes and go on the trails and enjoy the beauty the farm always had," said Link, her sister-in-law. "I know my Mom and Dad would be very proud and happy to see this." Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 1 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. The Anderson 400 Green Business Park will provide Quad-City and Iowa economic development leaders with a new tool to recruit businesses. Just outside Princeton, Iowa, the 400-acre farm is in the final step of a three-step process to earn the state's green business park certification. The new certification is an offshoot of the industrial site certification offered by the Iowa Economic Development Authority, or IEDA. Liz Murray Tallman, chief economic development officer of Quad-Cities First, an arm of the Quad-Cities Chamber, said the project will be a new type of regional asset to market to site consultants and companies. "The Anderson project will help improve the Quad-Cities' competitive position in the world of site selection by having a one-of-a-kind certified site in its marketing tool box," she wrote in a letter of support for the Anderson 400 certification. In fact, she said the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center in Davenport would not have landed the new Kraft Heinz plant had it not been for the state's certification indicating it was shovel-ready. Neither Rasos name nor his position were explicitly stated on the agenda for either meeting, but Raso was named as the employee in the question when Lynch's motion was made. At around 6:15 p.m., the board voted 4-3 to approve the agenda. Holland, Lynch and Directors Andrew Champion and Stacey Struck voted to approve the agenda, while Directors Paul Castro, Michael Pyevich and Gordon Staley voted against. Holland and Lynch did not respond for comment after the meeting. Champion said he didnt feel it was appropriate to remark on a personnel issue. The vote failed tonight, but the board is still pursuing looking into this further, Struck said. ... What I can say is, in my opinion, the process isnt finished. This isnt the end of things. Struck said her main concern is the districts finances. I really doubt the information thats been presented to us under the last financial director, she said of Dallon Christensen, whose resignation tendered March 7 and was approved by the board March 18. His contract terminated April 17. Christensen reported directly to Raso. Were confused, Greenwalt said of the two posted meetings. We drew up the agenda yesterday, posted it, and somebody had went out and our agenda had been taken down and a different agenda had been posted. Now theres two agendas up on the board. During the later meeting, back-and-forth arguments erupted between Lacey and members of the citys legal department over whether a meeting could in fact take place. Lacey said the commissions agenda for that afternoon had not been approved by the commission, and accused the city of attempting to overpower the commissions authority by putting together an agenda that was not disclosed to those who work in the civil rights office or approved by commissioners. For the commissioners to not make that decision is inappropriate and its illegal, she said. Its usurping the commissions authority and dictating what their staff has authority to do. It is usurping the commissions authority to plan their own meeting. We dont know whats going on, I dont think you all fully know whats going on and were all in the dark on whats happening, Lacey added. I have no idea who posted this agenda, I dont know who authorized it, I dont know who authored it. As he campaigns for president, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is scheduled to land in Davenport on Wednesday morning to tour the citys damaged downtown in the wake of its historic flood and outline his vision for stronger environmental policy. Iowa families are paying the price for Americas inaction on climate change, Inslee said in a statement. I look forward to hearing from Davenport residents about how the flooding has impacted their community. We must take action now to fund disaster recovery and to protect communities like Davenport from the impacts of climate change. The city is still reeling from the most disastrous flood in recent memory after temporary barriers holding back the mighty Mississippi River gave way in late April, spilling floodwater through the streets and prompting emergency rescues of dozens of trapped downtowners. In the weeks since, recovery efforts are underway as many downtown business owners look to reopen their doors. Inslee is one of the latest additions to the Democratic presidential candidate field, which has grown to more than 20 challengers seeking to defeat Republican President Donald Trump in 2020. Hes scheduled to meet with local state elected officials and business owners. The Wednesday trip will mark Inslee's second tour of Iowa flooding. In April, he visited the western Iowa town of Hamburg to meet people affected by rising floodwaters. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 A good Wednesday to all. Look for warmer weather today with rain on Thursday. Here are the weather details from the National Weather Service. 1. A high in the mid-70s Today will be mostly sunny with a high near 76 degrees and a low around 56 degrees. Thunderstorms are possible Thursday morning north of Interstate 80. The primary threat from these storms will be lightning. Thunderstorms are expected to develop Thursday night and continue into Friday. The Storm Prediction Center has most of eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois in a marginal risk for severe thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday. The primary threat for severe weather is large hail along with lightning. In addition to the severe threat, thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday will also bring the potential for heavy rainfall across parts of eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois. An active weather pattern will continue across the region this weekend into early next week. Thunderstorms are possible each day. It is still too early to determine the severe potential for any of these periods. CAMBODIA, May 15: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is returning home today after completing his eight-day official visits to Viet Nam and Cambodia (five day official visit to Viet Nam and three day official visit to Cambodia). The Prime Minister had arrived Viet Nam on May 9 at the friendly invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc. He was accorded an official welcome at the Presidential Office and the two held bilateral talks at the Office of the Prime Minister, Viet Nam. During his trip to Viet Nam, the Prime Minister also met with the President of National Assembly of Viet Nam Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan at the National Assembly building in Hanoi. He also addressed the Viet Nam-Nepal Business Forum in Hanoi and urged them to invest in Nepal. Prime Minister Oli and his delegates also visited Ho Lang Bay, an attractive touristic site, and Ho Chi Minh House. Prime Minister Oli also delivered his speech at Ho Chi Minh Academy of Politics where he briefed about Nepals current political development and the government campaign for prosperity. Similarly, Prime Minister Oli delivered his speech at the UN Day of Vesak organized in Ha Nam Province where he urged world community to visit in Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Prime Minister Oli had also visited the monument of the National Heroes and Martyrs of Viet Nam and offered floral tribute there. Then, he had arrived Cambodia at the friendly invitation of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen. While staying in Cambodia, Prime Minister Oli held bilateral talks with his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen. He also met with Samdech Akka Moha Ponhea Chakerei Heng Samrin, President of National Assembly and Senate chair Vibol Sena Pheakdey Say Chhum. He also visited National Museum, Silver Pagoda and Win-win Monument as well. Likewise, Prime Minister Oli also addressed Cambodia-Nepal Business Forum and the NRN, Cambodia chapter programme. The local Cambodian media has commented that the Nepal PMs ever-first visit to Cambodia remained successful to strengthen the bonds of friendship with the Kingdom and promote economic, trade, tourism and cultural cooperation between the two countries. City officials have a stern message for boaters: "At all cost" avoid the Rock River west of Ben Williamson Park. Mike Bartels, interim public works director, stressed in a news release Tuesday that the Rock River is particularly dangerous along the roughly 4 mile stretch between the Milan Beltway and the Mississippi River. Because of high river water, boat barrier buoys are not in place on the river, according to the release. As a result, the Steel Dam between Carr Island and Milan can be difficult to see. Bartels said in the release the city will install boat barrier buoys once the river level drops below 9.5 feet. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Rock River at Moline measured 12.1 feet, a minor flood stage, according to the National Weather Service. National Weather Service models predict the Rock River at Moline will remain above 10 feet for at least another week. "As always, use caution when boating during high river conditions," the statement from Bartels said. Bartels could not be reached for further comment on Tuesday. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Scott County will begin collecting flood debris from residents in the unincorporated areas beginning Tuesday, May 21. Scott County Secondary Roads and Scott County Conservation, in partnership with the Waste Commission of Scott County, will be collecting debris from residents impacted by the recent flooding on the Mississippi and Wapsipinicon rivers. Items to be collected include: construction debris (building materials, drywall, lumber, and plumbing materials); bulky waste such as furniture, doors, carpeting and padding; and large appliances. The collections will not pick up household garbage, hazardous materials or electronics. Cleanups will proceed throughout the county in this order: 297th and 298th Streets North of River Camp Road 145th Avenue North of 144th Avenue 317th Street East and West of Scott Park Road Properties east and adjacent to Great River Road between Territorial Road and 235th Street 249th Avenue from 181st Street East 181st Street south of Great River Road Spencer Road South of Highway 67 including 179th Street Place, 179th and 178th streets 245th and 246th avenues south of Great River Road A Nebraska State Patrol investigation is still ongoing into an officer-involved shooting last month at a Rushville church, while Native American leaders are lobbying the Department of Justice to look into the matter. Cody Thomas, the public relations director for the Nebraska State Patrol, confirmed Monday that the investigation into the shooting of Clarence Leading Fighter, 32, during Palm Sunday services at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church is still underway. State law requires that a grand jury be convened any time an individual dies in custody or during apprehension. The Sheridan County Attorneys Office has turned its portion of the case over to the Nebraska Attorney Generals Office. The Lakota Peoples Law Project, however, is not waiting for action by the NSP or Attorney General. According to the organizations website, it has submitted a letter to the Department of Justice seeking further investigation into Leading Fighters death. The letter to the DOJ, which is posted in its entirety on the organizations website, claims that an eye witness to the incident last month says that Leading Fighter had already been incapacitated by a Taser before he was shot by sheriffs deputies. The letter also claims that a state patrol press release after the incident misrepresented the events leading up to the police pursuit of Leading Fighter. The press release said Leading Fighter was a suspect in a domestic dispute earlier in the day after deputies found a victim with a broken arm. The letter to the DOJ alleges that the victims arm had actually been broken days prior. According to information released by the Nebraska State Patrol in the aftermath of the shooting, Leading Fighter was shot by Sheridan County Sheriffs Deputies who were attempting to apprehend him in connection with an alleged assault. Deputies responded to 303 Chamberlain Street in Rushville at just before 10:30 a.m. that morning and discovered a victim with a broken arm, according to a Nebraska State Patrol press release. The investigation led authorities to Leading Fighter, who was shot just after 11 a.m. after entering the church. Leading Fighter was pronounced dead at a local hospital, said Thomas in the days after the incident. Thomas declined to comment on how many deputies were involved in the incident, whether or not Leading Fighter was in possession of a weapon and whether other non-lethal means were employed first in an attempt to stop him. He also did not comment on the sequence of events that resulted in Leading Fighter entering the church. In addition to the Lakota Peoples Law Project, other activist groups have become involved in calls for Leading Fighters death to be investigated. Among them are the American Indian Movement, Native Lives Matter and the Indigenous Peoples Movement. AIM and the Lakota People's Law Project collaborated on scheduling a pair of events this past weekend to call attention to the matter: an informational gathering session in Pine Ridge, S.D., Saturday, and a Mothers Day March for Justice for Clarence Leading Fighter. A caravan of supporters left Pine Ridge Sunday morning and gathered in front of the Rushville Church later that day. Father Joseph K. Joseph said Monday the gathering at the church by the group did not disrupt Sunday services. Sheridan County Sheriff Jeff Brewer said Sunday's march was a peaceful one. "Everything went really well," Brewer said. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A bell-ringing ceremony Saturday in Rapid City will honor submarines and more than 3,500 submariners who perished while serving and defending the United States. The public is invited to the Tolling of the Bells, which is part of the James Madison Reunion Associations 2019 reunion. The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at the Ramkota Hotel. Depending on weather, Tolling of the Bells will take place either in the northwest parking lot or the Sylvan Room. The public also is invited to view a 23-foot model submarine on display in the parking lot in front of the Ramkota. There was 60-plus submarines lost since 1917, and several before World War II and several after. We toll a bell for each boat. Its a ceremony we do every time a bunch of submariners get together, said Don Hix of Rapid City. The James Madison Reunion Association holds a reunion every other year for submarine veterans from the USS James Madison (SSBN-627) and their families. The USS James Madison was the lead ship of her class of ballistic missile submarine. It was launched in 1963, commissioned in 1964, and decommissioned and scrapped in 1992. Hix served as a nuclear-trained interior communications electrician aboard the USS James Madison from 1966 to 1968. I drove the submarine, he said. We were a major deterrent in the 41 For Freedom 41 missile-carrying submarines that patrolled within missile range of Russia, basically. In the 1960s, submarines were a major component of the United States Strategic Triad of land-based ballistic missiles, strategic bombers and submarine-launched missiles. The purpose of the nuclear triad was to reduce the possibility of an enemy destroying the nations nuclear defenses. That possibility was considered an imminent threat during the Cold War, according to the Submarine Force Museum in Connecticut. In addition to the Tolling of the Bells ceremony, retired submariners in western South Dakota are invited to the Polaris Base submarine veterans club, which meets on the third Saturday of odd-numbered months at Perkins at Interstate 90, Exit 61. For more information about the club, call Don Hix at 545-2075. For more information about the James Madison Reunion Associations reunion, go to ussjamesmadison627.com/ You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 STURGIS | With the days ticking away before an estimated 4,000 Meade County residents lose their ambulance service, county commissioners agreed Tuesday to try and find long-term methods to pay for that service. Edward Miller, owner of Rush-No-More RV Resort & Campground east of Sturgis and head of the South Dakota Campground Owners Association, spoke at Tuesdays commission meeting representing Meade County Citizens for Fair Emergency Services, which was formed after an April 15 decision by the Sturgis City Council to redraw boundaries served by the city's ambulance service. This is matter of life and death to everybody in this room, all of our families and anyone who travels through Meade County, Miller said. The city council cited continuing shortfalls in revenue to cover ambulance calls outside of city limits, including campgrounds used by those attending the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally, when it voted to redraw the ambulance services boundaries. Residential, rural and campground areas east and north of the city would lose the service effective July 15, just three weeks before the rally officially starts and when the campgrounds will be hosting thousands of motorcyclists from across the nation and other countries. The Sturgis Ambulance Service would provide service within the city limits of Sturgis, The Fort Meade VA Medical Center, National Forest land to the south of the city, Bureau of Land Management areas and segments of Interstate 90 to the west and east of Sturgis. Other north and eastern areas of Meade County are served by other ambulance districts, including Newell, Faith and Enning, with southern areas of the county served by Piedmont and Rapid City, and small portions served by Wall and Ellsworth Air Force Base. Many of the areas that would no longer receive service are in county precincts where a majority of voters on Dec. 18 rejected a proposal to form fire and ambulance districts to help address an $85,000 shortfall in funding for the ambulance service. The Citizens For Fair Emergency Services, in a letter to the commission, sought reinstatement of county payments to provide services to areas outside of the city and not covered by other ambulance districts. The group also demanded an independent forensic audit of the Sturgis Ambulance Service to determine accurate call, cost, staff and billing information to allow for informed negotiations with the city. We all pay property taxes, and we elect our officials, you folks sitting up on that dais, to represent us and make the tough budgeting choices with the revenue that you receive, Miller said. That drew a sharp response from Commissioner Talbot Wieczorek of Piedmont. Maybe theres an ambulance payment we could work out, but you categorically rejected it. Then you turn around it and say we elected you to solve this, and then you dictate the terms by which we can solve it, Wieczorek said. That doesnt work for me. Wieczorek said the Sturgis City Council had been heavy-handed in giving affected county residents only 90 days to fund the continuation of ambulance services in their districts. Sturgis City Manager Daniel Ainslie said the council had been grappling with the issue of ambulance funding for seven years. Unfortunately in all those years, theres never been a movement to resolve this issue, and that, frankly, is why there had to be a deadline, Ainslie said. Commission Chairman Ted Seaman assigned Wieczorek and fellow Commissioner Rod Bradley to meet with citizen groups to come up with a funding plan, either through an ambulance district or a yearly fee. Ainslie said the city council could reconsider redrawing the ambulance boundaries with a bona fide proposal for an election for a governing district or other permanent funding source. Miller said his group also wants to see a fair resolution. I dont think anybody in our group would be opposed to working with the commission to come up with something that is reasonable, and again reasonable means fair and equitable to everyone in the county, he said. Bradley said finding a revenue source is a top concern as the July 15 deadline nears. The solution to the problem is a funding option, he said. "With the deadline looming, we have to put a move on it. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 A Rapid City woman received a 15-year prison sentence Tuesday for killing her friend when she crashed a motorcycle trike while driving with more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in her system. "Your actions killed a person," Judge Robert Gusinsky told Sophia Elbow Shield at the state court. Gusinsky sentenced Elbow Shield to the maximum 15-year sentence after she pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide for killing her passenger, 62-year-old Brian Minor of Rapid City, on July 14, 2018, in Box Elder. He suspended seven years of the sentence, which means Elbow Shield will spend at least eight years in prison and seven on parole. As part of the plea deal, the prosecution will dismiss two DUI counts and charges of careless driving, driving with a suspended license, and driving without a motorcycle license. No friends or family of Minor or Elbow Shield attended the sentencing and little is known about the victim. But Elizabeth Regalado, Elbow Shield's defense lawyer, said her client described her friend as a good person, listener and advice-giver. Arman Zeljkovic, a prosecutor with the Pennington County State's Attorney Office, said Elbow Shield deserved the maximum 15-year sentence. He said while vehicular homicide was her first felony, she was convicted of DUIs in 1999, 2014 and 2017 and hasn't expressed true remorse. She has "not taken responsibility for her actions," Zeljkovic said. Zeljkovic said that when Elbow Shield was taken to the hospital after the crash, she told police that it was Minor who was driving and later repeated the claim in a letter to Gusinsky despite multiple witnesses putting her behind the wheel. He said Elbow Shield's later letters spoke about how she wanted to speed up the trial so she could receive treatment and be with her children, but made no mention of Minor. He said while Elbow Shield has mental health problems and had a traumatic childhood, it was ultimately her choice to make the "selfish" decision to drink and drive. Regalado said her client was sexually and physically abused as a child, had to drop out of school when she became pregnant at age 15, and was abused by the father of her child. She said Elbow Shield initially denied responsibility for her actions because she couldn't believe what she had done, and her memory may have been impacted by alcohol and her injuries. But she said her client was able to to take responsibility and begin to address her past trauma through mental health counseling at the Pennington County Jail. Elbow Shield admitted to drinking and using methamphetamine before the accident and feels "deep remorse and regret" for her actions. Regalado did not ask for a specific sentence, but said she wants her client to receive the treatment she needs. "I know what had happened was my fault," Elbow Shield told Gusinsky through tears. Elbow Shield and Minor had been drinking and gambling the night of July 13, and Minor took Elbow shield on a motorcycle ride, Regalado said. Elbow Shield continued to drink and used meth when they met up the next morning, and Minor decided to teach Elbow Shield how to drive the trike. The crash occurred when Elbow Shield was traveling north on Liberty Boulevard around 1:30 p.m. and "was driving too fast and she did not have control" as she turned left onto the Interstate 90 ramp at mile marker 67, according to the incident report from the Department of Public Safety. Contact Arielle Zionts at arielle.zionts@rapidcityjournal.com. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 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. My classmates and I sat at desks for the entirety of our education in the Rapid City School District and the majority of us were able to learn well enough to go on to successfully support ourselves and our families. To me, yoga balls and stools are another representation of the over-coddling of todays children. Iowa's Republican governor just signed legislation legalizing industrial hemp. South Dakota is now the only Midwestern state with a governor who is too ignorant to recognize the economic benefits. You say you miss Gov. Daugaard. I miss what could have been if Marty Jackley was elected governor. Mike Rounds, John Thune, Dusty Johnson and Kristi Noem all stood by subserviently (again) as Donald Trump threw South Dakota ag producers under the tariff bus (again). Trump might consider bankruptcy to be a smart business tactic, but to struggling family farmers it is the end to a way of life. Whenever Native Americans hold peaceful demonstrations, they are infiltrated by out-of-state corporate-hired private security-firm police and informants who use counter-terrorism tactics to incite violence, and who then blame the peaceful protesters. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on May 15, 2019 2019/05/15 At the invitation of Igor Komarov, Russian Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Volga Federal District, State Councilor Wang Yong will travel to Russia from May 21 to 24 to hold the third meeting of the council of cooperation between the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Volga Federal District. Q: According to reports, US President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that will ban US companies from using telecom equipment made by companies that the US considers a national security concern. An indication is that this will be used to ban American companies from buying from companies like Huawei. I wonder if you could comment on that? A: For some time, the US has been abusing its national power to tarnish the image of and suppress specific Chinese companies, which is disgraceful and unjust. The world knows clearly what its intentions are. We urge the US side to stop oppressing Chinese companies under the pretext of security concerns and provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for their normal investment and operation. Q: You announced yesterday that Brazilian Vice President Mourao is going to visit China. Do you have more details? We also noted that he said in an interview on May 13 that Brazil has expectations for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and is willing to hear China's advice on cooperation. Does China welcome Brazil's participation in the BRI? A: At the invitation of Vice President Wang Qishan, Brazilian Vice President Mourao will pay an official visit to China from May 19 to 24. President Xi Jinping and the CPPCC Chairman Wang Yang will meet with him. Vice President Wang Qishan will hold a welcome ceremony and banquet for him, and they will co-chair the fifth meeting of the China-Brazil High Level Coordination and Cooperation Committee. Vice President Mourao will also attend economic and cultural events in Shanghai. China and Brazil are important emerging markets and the biggest developing countries in the Eastern and Western hemispheres. The China-Brazil relationship is a mature and sound one between major developing countries. In recent years we have achieved fruitful outcomes in practical cooperation in trade, investment, finance and other fields, bringing tangible benefits to the two peoples. This year marks the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Brazil. We believe Vice President Mourao's visit will enhance political mutual trust, deepen mutually beneficial and friendly cooperation across the board, and add new dimensions to our comprehensive strategic partnership. We remain open to and welcome Brazil's participation in the BRI. Like we said on many occasions, the BRI is an open, inclusive and transparent initiative for cooperation which follows the principle of consultation and collaboration for shared benefits. We welcome all like-minded countries to join it. China is ready to discuss with Brazil ways to create synergy between our development plans for greater connectivity, common development and win-win results. Q: The US Treasury Department said that it expects to hold more trade talks with China soon. Has China invited more US officials to come for the talks? A: I know you have been closely following the China-US trade talks, but I'd still refer you to the competent authority for the specifics. Q: US Secretary of State Pompeo concluded his first visit to Russia yesterday. Do you have any comment on the improvement of the relationship between Russia and the US? A: Both the US and Russia are permanent members of the UN Security Council with major influence worldwide. China is pleased to see more dialogue and improved relationship between the US and Russia. We believe this will contribute to world peace and stability and international efforts in addressing global challenges. Q: US President Trump said in his recent tweets that American farmers would be among the biggest beneficiaries of additional tariffs on Chinese products. China may take some revenge on American farmers, but the US government will offer them assistance. He also said that there was no reason for US consumers to pay for the tariffs. I wonder what is your response? A: Such remarks were made to muddy the waters. The innocent American farmers and consumers are mistakenly "spoken on behalf of". Recently, US agricultural associations in the soybean, corn and wheat industries jointly issued a statement to oppose additional tariffs on Chinese products. Head of the National Corn Grower Association said that the agricultural sector needs certainties rather than tariffs, and that the American farmers waiting for the result of the trade talks are losing patience. According to the National Farmers Union, as the American farmers are busy dealing with lower prices of agricultural products and natural disasters, they cannot afford China's retaliatory tariffs. As some US institutions noted, farmers need contracts rather than subsidies. In fact, in the past several years, China has been a major buyer of American agricultural products. Let's look at soybeans. China, being the biggest buyer, imported about 60 percent of soybeans produced in America in 2017. But after the trade disputes began, the US soybean exports to China dropped significantly. Head of the American Soybean Association noted, it took the US 40 years to foster the Chinese market for soybeans, and it won't be easy to restore such a market as the trade war continues. Regarding the US claim that its consumers will not pay for the tariffs, I think it's simply against common sense. Who, if not the consumers, will pay? According to a published study by US economists, the additional tariffs cost American consumers and importers $4.4 billion every month last year. In their published statements, relevant industry organizations noted that imposing additional tariffs on Chinese products was a wrong approach which, if continued, would cost an average American household an additional $2,300 every year. US media put it in a more straightforward way that American consumers were the casualties of the trade war. Like I said yesterday, we advise the US to heed the call of the international community and people from various sectors, carefully weigh its gains and losses, grasp the situation and get back on the right track as soon as possible. We advise the US to make concerted efforts with China for an agreement beneficial to both sides on the basis of mutual respect. Q: During US Secretary of State Pompeo's visit to Russia, both sides showed willingness to improve bilateral relations. The US said they are not always rivals on all issues. Are you worried this may affect China-Russia relations? A: I just made clear China's attitude on the latest interactions between the US and Russia. As to your question on whether this will affect China-Russia relations, China is not worried about that at all. The China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is built on the basis of solid political mutual trust and mutual support. Under the strategic guidance of our Presidents, our relationship is now at its historical height. During State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi's recent visit to Russia, he compared notes and made full political preparations with the Russian side for President Xi's upcoming state visit to Russia next month. The two sides also exchanged views on major international and regional hotspot issues. As China and Russia both believe, unilateral and bullying practices are deeply unpopular and will not last long, while win-win cooperation remains the pursuit of all countries. China and Russia stand ready to work with the rest of the international community to uphold the international system with the UN at its core and the international order based on international law, champion multilateralism and an open world economy, jointly address global challenges and build a community with a shared future for mankind. Q: You had been using the word "trade disputes" when replying to questions related to the China-US trade talks previously. But you began saying "trade war" from yesterday. What is the reason for such change? Is it because China believes the trade disputes have escalated? A: I think you may have over-interpreted our words. As I kept saying, China doesn't want a trade war, but is by no means afraid of fighting one. It is the US, not China, that defined the trade friction as a trade war and started it. The countermeasures China has taken are entirely for legitimate self-defense. Q: When you talked about "bringing a war to our doorstep" yesterday, did you mean the act of the US to raise tariffs on all Chinese products? If the US were to impose additional tariffs on all Chinese goods, would you consider it a trade war then? A: It almost seems that you want to see a trade war between China and the US. Let me tell you, a trade war will not serve the interests of either side or the international community, and it is by no means what the world is looking for. The pressing task for the US at the moment is to judiciously grasp the situation, get back on the right track and make concerted efforts with China for a mutually beneficial agreement on the basis of mutual respect. At the same time, I'd like to reaffirm that we will take necessary countermeasures against the unilateral and bullying practices of the US side. We have the confidence and capability to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests. Q: Yesterday US Senators introduced a legislation requiring the government to develop a list of scientific and engineering institutions affiliated with the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The bill would prohibit individuals employed or sponsored by those Chinese military institutions from receiving student or research visas to the US. I wonder if you are aware of that legislation? What is your comment? A: For some time, certain US departments and agencies have cast baseless suspicion over the motives of Chinese scholars, students and scientific and technological personnel going to the US. They use every possible means to restrict and harass them and set up various obstacles to the normal people-to-people exchange, which disrupted trust and cooperation between the two countries. People-to-people exchange, being the foundation for communication and cooperation, serves common interests of both countries and thus should not be politicized or wantonly restricted. We hope the relevant US individuals will view it objectively and fairly, and stop taking restrictive measures on scholars, students and other Chinese citizens going to the US. It should create better conditions for, rather than setting up obstacles to exchanges and cooperation between the two countries. Q: We noted that there have been widespread concerns over the new round of additional tariffs between China and the US. Some believe escalated disputes will bring more uncertainties to world economy. Some have described the global economic landscape as "unpredictable" and labeled the trade issue as "the biggest uncertainty". How do you respond to that? Is China going to take any measures to ease such worries? A: We have noted the reactions of the international community and understand the concerns of various parties. Indeed, the escalation of China-US trade disputes is not in the interests of either side and will put a drag on world economy. But I would like to make it clear: it is the US that provoked the trade disputes, not China; it is the US that fired the first shot in raising tariffs, not China; it is the US that repeatedly resorted to maximum pressuring, not China. What China has done so far is entirely self-defense against the unreasonable acts of the US side. By so doing, we are not only defending our own legitimate rights and interests, but also safeguarding multilateralism and the free trading system. The economic and trade relations between China and the US, the two biggest economies in the world, are of great significance to the two countries and the global economy. The US should have worked with China and shouldered its responsibilities for global growth. But on the contrary, it insisted on staging a trade war unilaterally and repeatedly increased tariffs on Chinese goods against standing consensus while China has kept full sincerity for the consultations. The international community has its fair judgment on who is the initiator of the latest round of a tariff war, the rule-breaker in free trade and the generator of risks in global economy. We hope the US will heed the international community's call of ration and justice, keenly grasp the situation, return to the right track as early as possible, meet China halfway and strive for a mutually beneficial agreement on the basis of mutual respect. It will serve the interests of China and the US and is the shared aspiration of the international community. Q: In the past days, US President Trump told reporters many times that China's economy was not so good, and that China very much wanted to make a deal. Do you agree on that? How do you see the impact of trade disputes on the Chinese economy? A: Such remarks are just baseless. They are not the Chinese economic authority. On what grounds do they keep feeding fake information on Chinese economy to reporters? The fact is, the Chinese economy is growing steadily with a positive momentum. Trade protectionist measures of the US side will have some impact on our economy, but we can totally overcome it. We have the confidence and capability to guard against any external risks and impacts. Here I have some statistics for you. In the first quarter this year, China's GDP grew by 6.4 percent year on year, which is more than expected. In particular, domestic demand has become the main driver for growth. Last year, consumption contributed 76.2 percent of our economic growth. In its recent World Economic Outlook report, the IMF downgraded its outlook for global economic growth to 3.3 percent while upgrading China's growth to 6.3 percent from 6.2%. China was the only country that got upgraded in the forecast among all major economies. From January to April this year, China's import and export increased by 4.3 percent year on year, with dramatic rise in export to the EU and ASEAN. With trade partners all around the world, China is turning more rapidly into a strong trading nation. Many countries would like to share China's development dividends. If some country does not want to do business with China, others will soon fill in the vacancy. China has a well-developed industrial system, growing capability for scientific and technological innovation, the largest middle-income population and a huge market for domestic consumption and investment. With every confidence in our economy, following our own timetable and roadmap, we will continue to advance the reform and opening up and pursue high-quality growth for steady and sustained progress. Q: Given that a lot of oil flows from the Hormuz Strait to China, I'd like to ask if China is concerned at all about threats to close the strait? Is China considering a contingency plan if the strait is closed? A: The Hormuz Strait is an important passageway for maritime shipping. We hope all parties can resolve differences through dialogue and jointly uphold peace and stability in the Hormuz Strait. We call on all parties, especially non-regional major country, to make responsible and constructive efforts. SUMMERFIELD, Fla. | Mae Louise Pirila Zeise, 91, went peacefully to be with the Lord on Wednesday, May 8, 2019. She was born on May 6, 1928, in Ely, MN, to Saima (Lahti) and Oscar Pirila. She lived in Ely until her family moved to Pennsylvania shortly after she graduated from Ely Junior College. After returning to Minnesota, she met her husband George F. Zeise while they both worked at the Downtown Minneapolis YMCA. They married in September 1956. Their daughter Kristen was born the next year. For more than 45 years she continued to support her husband's YMCA work while they lived in Minneapolis and Worthington, MN, and then Rapid City, SD. Mae Louise worked at the Care Center in Rapid City as an Activities Director and as the secretary at the First Congregational Church in Rapid City. After Mae Louise and George retired in 1988, they started volunteering with the Latin American YMCA and as missionary affiliates for their Church in San Jose, Costa Rica. They eventually settled down in Summerfield. Grateful for having shared her life are daughter, Kristen Leppla and her husband Bruce Leppla of Eustis, FL; her brother, Charles Pirila and his wife Donna of Alexandria, MN; as well as many nieces and nephews. Her husband of almost 50 years, George, preceded her in death, as did her sisters, Arlene Rukavina and June Gifford, sister-in-law, Ruth Ann Von Ruden, brothers-in-law, Joe Rukavina, George Gifford and Howard Von Ruden; and niece, Kay Marie Rukavina. Memorial Services will be held at 3 p.m. EDT on Saturday, May 25, at the United Church of Christ at the Villages in Oxford, FL. Mae Louise requested that any memorial gifts be made out to the Sioux Indian YMCA in Dupree, SD, to be used for scholarships. Lous Pies is the winner of the best pie for Montana according to a Mental Floss article listing the best pie in each state. The award is under Black Cat Bake Shop because they sell Lous Pies. Lewis Summerlot started baking when he was 9-years-old, began Kays Pies in 2003, then became solo baker in 2007. The business started in a camper at Woodside doing about 12 pies each weekend then he credits a Thanksgiving article in the Ravalli Republic with bumping his business up to 70 pies a week. Im starting my 18th year at Hamilton Farmers Market and I sell to Black Cat Bake Shop in Missoula, Summerlot said. Last August I went in the owner said, Congratulations, your pies just won Best Pies in the state of Montana on MentalFloss.com. I said, Wow! I didnt know I was even in a contest. I was clueless. Summerlot read the description at Mental Floss.com and found the review under Black Cat Bake Shop where the review said, Known for their stupendous pies. My name is not mentioned but those are my pies, Summerlot said. Jayci Johnson, manager, of Black Cat Bake Shop in Missoula confirmed the partnership and praised Lous Pies. He takes a big load off our production by doing pretty much all the pies that we sell, Johnson said. We do special ones for Thanksgiving and Christmas but we offer pies all year round and Lew is like our sole provider for those. Pies are the one thing we dont make here in the shop. Johnson said the pies are very popular. Last year he won best pie in Montana, she said. He is listed under us but we get our huckleberry pies from Lew. We sell pies like crazy all year round. Summerlot said his philosophy is to make a good pie. I dont make gourmet pies, he said. I make a good pie, people really like them. Huckleberry pie is my signature pie, it is really a big seller. The MentalFloss review said, The huckleberry pie earns raves for its effortless balance of sweet and tart flavors. Summerlot credits people who have helped him. My daughter Rayma has helped since she was age 11, he said. Tom Dunbar rented a space to me for next to nothing, electricity included, out at Woodside. Summerlot spends days, months and years perfecting his recipes. He said the secret ingredient for making great pies is his crust. Most people in the Bitterroot Valley have tasted his buttery, flaky crusts as he makes and sells the 750 crusts and many tops to the Ravalli County Museum for their Apple Day celebration, known as the Biggest Bake Sale Under the Big Sky. I sell a lot of pies every month of the year, Summerlot said. It has become quite good. I have a wholesale license. I would love to do fundraisers at the holidays. The name is known and people raising money for their organization could do well. He has a recipe for business success. I think for success people just need a little bit of space, he said. People have helped me and the customers are raving over these pies. People absolutely love them. Summerlot makes and sells blackberry, Marion berry, peach, rhubarb, strawberry-rhubarb, pecan, cherry, apple and huckleberry pies. He also makes cheesecakes huckleberry swirl, raspberry swirl, chocolate swirl and plain. He also will quarter the cheesecakes making a variety cheesecake. Summerlot guesses hes made over 80,000 pies. Customers could make the drive to Missoula, to Black Cat Bake Shop on Broadway, call and place an order or simply buy one at the Hamilton Farmers Market on Saturday. Lous Pies is at space number three at the corner of Bedford and Third. He has a vegetable stand on each side and has added little trailer for transporting the pies. Taste and see that Lous Pies are stupendous. For more information contact Lewis Summerlot at 406-369-1638. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The past winters lingering low-level snowpack and cold was hard on yearling elk in the Bitterroot Valley. On average, the ratio between cows and calves counted in this springs annual elk monitoring flight dropped from 24 calves per 100 cows last year to 18 calves this year. We usually like to see that number closer to 25. When you start dropping into the teens, thats not so good," said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Bitterroot-based biologist Rebecca Mowry. And the damage to the herd might not stop there. Mowry said that since the spring green-up arrived late, pregnant cows could end up delivering underweight calves. Research shows those lighter-weight calves have a lower chance of survival, Mowry said. We could end up seeing two years of a low cow-calf ratio. That, in turn, could lead to a drop in the number of bull elk that are the focus of most hunters. Overall elk numbers were down from last years count, but still above the objectives set in the state elk management plan. Mowry counted 7,851 elk in the five hunting districts that surround the valley as well as several herds that live along the river bottom. Last year, she tallied 8,585. The state elk plan objective for the five hunting districts in the Bitterroot Valley is 7,500. In the East Fork of the Bitterroot the valleys most popular hunting area Mowry counted 4,069 elk, including 423 bulls. While last years count was higher at 4,779, this springs numbers were still over the objective of 3,800. Given the rough winter, the count was much higher than I expected, Mowry said. The biologist and pilot made five flights over the HD 270 in three days in an attempt to avoid the possibility of double counting elk. Even with that extra effort, several areas that typically hold bull elk in the spring were missed in this years survey. I am highly confidence in the overall count, minus the bulls I know we missed, she said. Two of the five hunting districts on the east side of the valley HD 261 and HD 204 are both above objectives. In HD 204 on the north end of the Sapphire Mountains, Mowry counted 891 elk. The objective for that area is 600. That district also had the highest number of bull-cow ratio on the Bitterroot. Mowry spotted 205 bulls in the district, which equates to 39 bulls for every 100 cows. In HD 261, which includes the middle portion of the Sapphire Mountains, Mowry tallied 857 elk in an area where the objective is 700. The only hunting district that fell short of the state elk plan objective was HD 250 in the West Fork of the Bitterroot, where Mowry counted 901 elk, including 170 bulls. The objective is 1,400, but Mowry thinks that number may have to be adjusted. Some of the elk that spend the summer and fall in the West Fork winter in Idaho. That fact was documented during the recent elk study that focused on calf mortality. After finding elk had already gone back into the timber during one flight of the springs survey in the Hughes Creek drainage, Mowry and her pilot popped over the mountains into Idaho where they found elk that may soon move back into Montana. It was beautifully greened up and there were lots of elk hanging out in the North Fork of the Salmon: probably 200 to 300 at least, Mowry said. In years with less snow, theres a good chance we could find these elk already in the West Fork during the annual surveys but not this year, as the snow at the divide was still pretty deep. Since elk move back and forth between Montana and Idaho in the West Fork, Mowry said the state may need to take another look at the objective for that area to see if its appropriate. On the west side of the valley, Mowry spotted 1,010 elk in HD 240. She thinks she may have missed a few between Trapper Creek and Chaffin Creek after running out of daylight during an evening flight. Mowry also spotted four different elk herds on the valley floor. She counted 88 south of Stevensville near Bell Crossing. Closer to Hamilton, Mowry found two different herds in places where there have normally been one. One was near Murdochs Ranch and Home Supply, where she has normally spotted elk before. The other was closer to Anglers Roost. Both herds had about 40 elk. Mowry guesses that the Anglers Roost group might have moved down from the west side. The Murdochs herd has been living in the river bottom year around and sometimes crosses the highway on the south of side of Hamilton near the Conoco gas station. Mowry also found a herd of about 35 elk in the Conner area this year. That herd is often spotted west of the West Fork Road around the White Fishing Access Site. A wet and cool March pushed back this years annual monitoring flight a couple weeks. Mowry has to wait until the grass begins to green up before launching the intensive effort. Usually the lower elevations start to green up in late March, she said. This year we started on April 11. The weather delayed us two to three weeks. Love 2 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. Ravalli County will receive a $11.8 million federal grant to help pay for an expansion of the Ravalli County Airport in Hamilton. Ravalli County Commission Chair Jeff Burrows said the county was notified last week about the funding that will pay for the bulk of an airport expansion that has been talked about for 20 years. Burrows said Tuesday it was too early to know if there are any strings attached to the funding or when it will arrive. There are a lot of questions right now that we dont have answers for, Burrows said. At this point, Burrows said it wasnt clear if there would be a requirement for matching funds or whether the funding will be allocated this fiscal year or the next. The county applied for $14 million from the Federal Aviation Administrations Airport Improvement Plan. Ravalli Countys proposal which includes acquisition of 126 acres from the Mildenberger family and construction of a new 5,200-foot-long, 75-foot-wide runway and other improvements at the airport just east of Hamilton was the No. 1-rated project in the FAAs northwest region. The Ravalli Commission signed a tentative agreement with the Mildenbergers last month to acquire the property for $3 million. Burrows said the land acquisition agreement was sent to the FAA for its approval. The agency has asked for some changes in the agreements language. The initial feedback that we received was the settlement looked OK, he said. If things go as expected, Burrows said the land acquisition agreement could be finalized in the next couple of weeks. One potential hold-up for the acquisition could revolve around when the federal funds are allocated. We dont know when they are going to release the funds, Burrows said. We dont know if those will come in this fiscal year or the next one. If we have to wait until after October, we might have find come up with a creative way to get funding for this year. We hope to have answers to those questions soon, he said. As much as this news brought a sigh of relief, it brought more questions too. Its certainly a significant amount of money. With that funding in place, the hope is the county will be able to select an engineer sometime later this year. If that occurs, Burrows said some dirt work and construction of the new taxiway could get started next summer. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester worked with Ravalli County to acquire the funding. Rural Montana relies on airports to support the economy, provide better access for live-savings flights and connect families, Tester said in a press release. Investing in local infrastructure will help support businesses in Ravalli County and get folks where they need to go. Tester is senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He was the only member of Montanas congressional delegation to vote for the bipartisan budget agreement that provided this funding through the Federal Aviation Administrations Airport Improvement Plan. The Hamilton airport is one of the busiest general aviation facilities in the state. There are 78 aircraft based there, including two jets and seven multi-engine aircraft. Nearly 23,600 aircraft either take off or land there annually. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 2 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. The Montana State Parks Foundation is publishing a weekly showcase of Montana State Parks' 55 properties. Rosebud Battlefield is one of the most undeveloped, pristine battlefields in the nation. While looking for the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne villages of Chief Sitting Bull, Brigadier General George Cook, along with 1,000 troops and Crow and Shoshone scouts, were unprepared for an organized attack. On June 17, 1876, an equal or greater number of warriors led by Sioux Chief Crazy Horse and Cheyenne Chiefs Two Moon, Young Two Moons and Spotted Wolf, attacked the band of soldiers. One of the largest battles of the Indian Wars, the Battle of Rosebud, or Where the Girl Saved Her Brother" as referred to by the Northern Cheyenne, lasted for eight hours. Because Crooks troops had been withdrawn from the war zone in order to resupply, they were not there to support Colonel Custer at Little Bighorn. The defeat at Little Bighorn by the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors was a shock to the nation and led to a counter attack and the Lakotas loss of the Black Hills. Rosebud Battlefield State Park is a significant historic park where visitors can retrace the steps of soldiers and warriors at the site of the largest battle in the history of Montana. Did you know? Although the park does not encompass the entirety of the battlefield, the 3,025-acre park has remained nearly the same as it was during the time of the battle in the 1870s. The battlefield is still used throughout the year by U.S. Armed Forces to study military strategy, including how troops take on an enemy who is familiar with the landscape. The park includes Kobold Buffalo Jump, a cliff once used by Native Americans and marked with petroglyphs. A short hike within the gap to the cliffs will allow you to see these. The use of metal detectors, digging and the collecting or removal of artifacts is restricted and bikes are allowed on existing roadways only. Be very cautious while in the park as rattlesnakes reside in the area. Although camping isnt available, there is camping at Tongue River Reservoir State Park only 13 miles south. The Montana State Parks Foundation helps fund work at parks, for more information log on to www.montanastateparksfoundation.org. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 37 minutes ago Despite supply issues and omicron, holiday sales rise 8.5% Holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years, even as shoppers grappled with higher prices, product shortages and a raging new COVID-19 variant in the last few weeks of the season, according to one spending measure. Mastercard Spending Pulse, which tracks all kinds of payments including cash and debit cards, reported Sunday that holiday sales had risen 8.5% from a year earlier. Read Article Chinese Ambassador Hu Zhangliang met with Hon. Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources 2019/05/14 On May 6, 2019, the Chinese Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Sierra Leone, H.E. Mr. HU Zhangliang met with the honorable Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Ms. Emma Kowa. The two sides exchanged views on strengthening bilateral fishery cooperation. According to Ambassador Hu, the fishing sector is one of the important areas of cooperation between China and Sierra Leone, the Chinese government has consistently required the Chinese fishing companies to operate in compliance with the laws and China is willing to work with the Sierra Leone to promote the healthy development of bilateral fishery cooperation. Minister Ms. Kowa thanked the Chinese government for its long-standing support for the fishery development and cooperation. She said that the bilateral fishery cooperation had played an important role in promoting the fishing industry and economic development in Sierra Leone and hoped that this cooperation would continue to be deepened. Celebrated composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) falls prey to a singular longing of the forbidden variety in Luchino Viscontis 1971 Death in Venice. As far as vacations go, this ones a killer. As far as escapism goes, this film is immaculately lonesome. Out among the unscrubed ancient splendor of Italys great water-paved Lido, our irritable and soul-weary protagonist descends ever deeper into his torment. Modulated mostly, Gustavs temper nevertheless erupts now and then in sideways frustration. Words are scarcely spoken throughout Death in Venice; plot is nonexistent. In Venice, the waters flow everywhere. As advertised, it mainly streams millions of tourists along the picturesque thoroughfares of the majestic city. But if theres a dark side to this paradise, thats the space Gustav occupies. Hes come for revitalization; he gets only hollow-core philosophy and unfulfillable longing. Tormented by personal tragedy, illness, and artistic stagnation, his antagonistic confidant Alfred cuts into him thusly: Do you know what lies at the bottom of the mainstream? Mediocrity. Somehow, a dagger. In the hands of Italian filmmaking master Visconti (Senso, The Leopard), Venice has never before been so gloomy, so chilling. Far from the romantic sun-drenched getaway depicted in every other movie which travels there, Viscontis Venice is a tired facade, washed out and suffocating. This alone is a bold, unique rendering, revealing one of the most majestic places places on Earth as just another tourist trap, desperate to maintain its vital illusion of perfection and retreat. A Carnival Cruise; a Disney vacation package; just another time share on a ticking clock, circa 1912. Somewhere, far beyond these green and tainted waters (not an exaggeration, as it turns out), the Titanic itself goes down. The deaths of its passengers would be relatively quick and cold, externally inflicted in the dark of night. Gustavs death in Venice, no less opulent, is otherwise the exact opposite. He is both the tormented soul and the melting witch in the inescapable bad part of Oz. Based on the renowned 1912 novella by Thomas Mann, Death in Venice is anchored as the middle entry of Viscontis late-career German Trilogy (between 1969s The Damned and 1973s Ludwig). While some have taken issue with the filmmaking maestros interpretation of Manns central struggle- Gustavs overwhelming attraction to an effervescent pubescent boy (an androgynous Bjorn Andresen), also vacationing, with his family- there is no denying Viscontis purely cinematic mastery of showing rather than telling. In his life before the film, Gustav was a family man; a wife left in the past and a young daughter left in the ground. That this admittedly effeminate boy has now captured his attention is played with few words but a multitude of emotions, each of them colliding, overlapping, ransacking, condemning and igniting this man unawares. He is helpless, guilty, and tortured, alone to literally sweat it out on the beaches and in the parlors and the dining halls. In his mind, hes seen perfection incarnate- and therefore theres no beating this thing. Being that nothing tangible ever happens between Gustav and the boy, nor anyone else, Death in Venice is perhaps the most uncomfortably adult themed film that censor boards, left with no targetable moments or dialogue, were resigned to assigning all-ages ratings. There are those who quibble with the casting of Bogarde as Gustav, claiming hes unconvincingly as a composer, or whatever. That Visconti, the famously homosexual communist and former aristocrat of film history, ever so rapt in his own meticulous doings, changed the character from a writer to a composer might be part of the issue, who knows. But what Bogarde does sell, completely and boldly, is the withering inner dry rot of this individual. In those days of just over one hundred years ago, even proper, openly gay culture was nonexistent, much less todays popular notions of gay pride. Thats to say nothing of the pederast angle, a never acceptable horror. Hence, we have a man -- an Important man -- blindsided with no way of navigating this. Gaseous drawing room discussions of the nature of Art and the Truth of the creative impulse only get Gustav- and us- so far. Theres something rotten in Venice, and its roughly 185 pounds of flesh, bound in dapper layers of fine wardrobe offerings, nose spectacles, and a fedora to match. Anuric failure of the soul. For this tale wrought with lost luggage and misplaced expectations, Criterion truly delivers the goods. Their new Blu-ray release of Death in Venice, a new 4K restoration of the film, arrives with a wealthy mans trove of bonus features, both vintage and newly minted. Top among them is the nearly one-hour documentary by Carlo Lizzani, Luchino Visconti: Life as in a Romance. Though credited as a 2008 production, this comprehensive piece looks quite a bit older than that. It features later interviews with actors Burt Lancaster, Silvana Mangano, and Marcello Mastroianni, as well as filmmakers Francesco Rosi and Franco Zeffirelli; spanning every film and major operatic production. Then theres Alla ricerca di Tadzio, a thirty minute program from 1970 detailing Visconti's multi-national efforts to cast the role of the boy. Stefano Albertini, a literature and cinema scholar, appears in a featurette to compare Mann novella and Viscontis film; theres a 2006 interview with Death in Venice costume designer Piero Tosi; an excerpt from a 1990 program about the music in Visconti's films, featuring Bogarde and actor Marisa Berenson; a 1971 television broadcast in which Visconti discusses the film; Visconti's Venice, a short 1970 behind-the-scenes documentary featuring Visconti and Bogarde; and the films trailer. The printed essay included in this starkly handsome package is by critic Dennis Lim, and it is a good one indeed. All in all, Criterion has presented Viscontis luxury class ticket to Hell in a truly first class package. Death in Venice is, in its own way, an immaculately overwhelming movie, the kind that sticks hard to the inside of your skull in both striking and unsettling ways. It slowly drifts in on the haunting strains of the extensively utilized Third and Fifth Symphonies of Gustav Mahler, the composer thats said to have inspired Mann in the first place. Its true that Visconti is moving at a very deliberate pace, though one that feels entirely appropriate in every way for the story being told. At 131 minutes, Death in Venice is still among Viscontis shortest films of the lavish second half of his career. It is a grand meditation that invites empathy but not necessarily sympathy; it is uniquely compelling, with its garish beauty and strange affinity for the zoom lens. Visconti, like Mann, stops short of asking viewers to root for the man and the boy to get together. That, thankfully, is entirely not the point. The point is to show the blunt, raw truth of what it is to wake up to the realization that one has honestly already lost everything. New opinion memo from DOJ concludes FDA lacks jurisdiction to regulate execution drugs | Main | An illuminating study highlighting bright ways to deter and prevent crime other than through prison punishments May 15, 2019 "The Governor's Clemency Power: An Underused Tool to Mitigate the Impact of Measure 11 in Oregon" The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper authored by Aliza Kaplan and Venetia Mayhew recently posted to SSRN. Here is its abstract: In this article, we analyze the historical use of the clemency power at both the federal and state levels; including the factors that occurred during the 20th century which resulted in both presidents and governors gradually using the power less, up until the 1980s. We examine how the war on crime and other political and legal changes, including the imposition of new mandatory minimum sentencing laws during the 1980s and 1990s, has led to mass-incarceration at both a national and Oregonian level. We discuss how this new punitive sentencing and incarceration philosophy has resulted in a general souring on the use of the pardon power and is now seen as a challenge to powerful prosecutors who generally oppose clemency as an extra-judicial attack on their own policies. In looking at the current prison population in Oregon, we argue that the current Governor should use her pardon power as tool to mitigate some of the prevalent injustice in Oregon. May 15, 2019 at 04:03 PM | Permalink Comments Post a comment Citing safety concerns, the United States on Wednesday suspended all passenger and cargo air services to Venezuela. The announcement follows the decision in March by American Airlines, the largest carrier providing services, to suspend flights to the crisis-stricken South American nation. The decision came at the request of the Department of Homeland Security following an assessment of conditions in Venezuela, the Department of Transportation said in a statement. An order released by the Transportation Department cited "reports of civil unrest in an around the airports" and said the US Transportation Security Administration had been unable to gain access to Venezuelan airports for security assessments. The State Department has urged Americans not travel to Venezuela and temporarily suspended US embassy operations, withdrawing diplomatic personnel. Earlier this month, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited most US-certified aircraft and pilots from flying below 26,000 feet (7,900 meters) over Venezuelan territory, also on safety grounds. Pete Buttigieg and Donald Trump traded jabs this week as the Presidential campaign continues to develop. As of May 3, President Trump had a 46 percent job approval score from Gallup. In Panama City Beach last week, a puffed up Trump took the stage in front of prominent Florida Republicans. In a chest thumping 1-hour and 24-minute speech Trump paused to ridicule Buttigieg, the young gay Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. You have this young man, Buttigieg, Buddha-Edge-Edge. They say, Edge, Edge, Trump blustered. Hes got a great chance doesnt he? Hell be great. Hell be great. Representing us against President Shee (Xi Jinping) of China. Thatll be great. Thatll be great. I wanna be in the room, I wanna watch that one. Off-stage Trump compared Buttigieg to a character from Mad Magazine. Alfred E. Neuman cannot become President of the United States, Trump said. Neuman is the mascot of Mad Magazine, an American humor magazine in publication since 1952. Campaigning in Los Angeles, Buttigieg dismissed the attempted insult as a generational joke. I didnt get the reference, he told reporters. Its kind of funny, I guess. As for the remarks on China, Buttigieg thoughtfully addressed the topic. I was thinking of the Chinese proverb that goes: When the wind changes, some people build walls and some people build windmills, Buttigieg said. LGBT Field Notes: Chelsea Manning, the transgender U.S. Army whistleblower, told CNN on Sunday the media is the Trump administrations real target. Whenever a journalist makes a misstep, I think that they are put on notice now that the FBI and the Department of Justice are going to go after them on the administrations behalf, Manning told CNNs Reliable Sources. Bukit Timah has long been one of Singapores most leafy districts, so it doesnt come as a surprise to find some of our city-states most upmarket grocery stores in the area. The stores boast anything from instant noodles featuring shirataki (Japanese for white waterfall) made from konnyaku instead of vulgar flour-and-starch ones to gourmet sausages made from free-range animals. The Fishwives, settled into a snug corner of posh Cluny Court. Photo credit:Loh Xiu Ruth If you like Australian produce thats fresh and organic, The Fishwives is your homeground. Youll find cookbooks, fine wines, upscale chocolate, and fresh organic meats. They have frozen sustainable seafood from Noosa Seafood Market in Australia; fresh, floury pasta made in Melbourne;, and pasta sauces and spices to add flavour to your palate. Grass-fed meats, Akaroa king salmon from New Zealand, and gourmet cheeses are part of the product lineup at The Fishwives. The store also does online delivery, but the minimum order is $180 for free delivery. The fresh pasta isnt cheap, at $12.50 for a four-portion serving of linguine, but it makes other offerings taste like dry twigs resurrected in boiling water. Where: 501 Bukit Timah Road #01-05B, Singapore 259764 (next to the French Embassy). Operating times: 10am to 7pm on weekdays, 9am to 7pm on Saturdays, and 9.30am to 5.30pm on Sundays. Helpful note: Plastic bags will cost 20 cents each, so bring your own environmentally friendly tote to stock up on goodies. Eat Organic This sizeable store covers two shophouse spaces on both levels. Photo credit: Loh Xiu Ruth Eat Organic purveys numerous wellness and organic brands across two floors of space. Theres a section on the ground floor dedicated to fresh organic produce and frozen meats, and another for household items such as recycled toilet paper, unbleached waxed paper, and recyclable sandwich bags. Get your organic acai and dairy-free ice-cream from the freezer section, and gluten-free bread from the tiny bakery basket. Story continues Eat Organics upper floor. Photo credit: Loh Xiu Ruth Up on the second storey, you can find numerous toiletries, supplements, and little niceties to add to your vanity drawer. You can get a konjac body sponge for $28, unbelievably soft bamboo socks for $12 a pair, organic bee pollen for $20.90, and henna botanical hair dyes for $18 a pack. Theres handmade goats milk soap free of palm oil, a cupboards worth of essential oils costing $20 to $40 on average for a 15ml vial, and environmentally friendly makeup tools. Where: 619H Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 269728 (near Coronation Plaza). Opening times: 10am to 7pm from Mondays to Saturdays and 11am to 4pm on Sundays. Helpful note: Eat Organic does not provide free plastic bags, so bring your own environmentally tote (or buy a $45 handwoven rattan shoulder bag onsite and support the aboriginal Penan folk from Sarawak). Meat the Butcher Meat the Butcher is a mere skip down the road from Eat Organic. Photo credit: Loh Xiu Ruth The first thing that greets you before you enter the store is a large poster advertising Welsh spring lamb in both English and Welsh. Meat the Butcher also sells Motobu Wagyu, Kagoshima Kuroge Wagyu, Australian lamb, and many more organic and free-range (grass-fed!) meats. Barbeque lovers can also select from a lengthy smorgasbord of marinated steaks, kebabs, and schnitzel. Meat the Butcher also has a cold cuts selection with Hungarian salami, German white salami, lyoner, and bierschinken, which is adjacent to a modest sausage counter stocked with good old-fashioned favourites, including English Cumberlands and spicy Italians. The freezer section carries foie gras chunks so huge they look like steaks, and the famously delicious Magret de Canard duck breast. You can also get some other staples here, such as graisse de canard (duck fat) for $14.50, six dozen snails in a tin for $24.95, and sauerkraut. This store also has less common meats, such as guinea fowl, rabbit, and pigeon. They dont always keep non-staple meats in supply, though. Where: 615 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 269716 (near Coronation Plaza). Opening times: 10am to 6.30pm, Mondays to Sundays. German Market Place is along the same street as Eat Organic and Meat the Butcher, and is filled with German goods. Photo credit: Loh Xiu Ruth. The decor reminds you of an old-school mama shop but the goods on the shelves are most certainly not local. Candies and cake mixes are German in origin. There are rye bread mixes and Italian gnocchi mixes wrapped in German packaging. Household items, including dishwashing liquid and detergents, are German. Many of the snacks and mixes are inexpensive, with most small items costing less than $20. The chilled section carries instant spatzle, an egg pasta commonly cooked in Germany, and if youve ever been to Austria or Germany, youll recognise the picture of giant dumpling balls on a packet of potato dough ($8.90 for 750 grams). Butter and drink syrups are also German in provenance, and theres a selection of wines and liquors next to the payment counter, many of which are German in origin. Yes, of course theres Jagermeister. Where: 609 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 269710 (next to Coronation Plaza). Opening times: 10am to 7pm from Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5.30pm on Saturdays, and closed on Sundays. Ryans Grocery store is sequestered deep within the Binjai Park area and is quite a walk from the main Bukit Timah Road. Photo credit: Loh Xiu Ruth The store is modest in size, but it packs an impressive variety of premium goods. Organic vegetable bouillon, vegetarian luncheon meats (made from nuts) and nut roasts (a meatloaf alternative), and organic free-range meats are on display. There are pantry picks, from organic red, black, and brown rice bags to nut milks. The store even has artisanal cup noodles made with konjac jelly for a low-calorie alternative or sprouted buckwheat ramen. Theres a small but quality meat selection and a particularly interesting is the Australian saltbush lamb. This is lamb heavily raised on the grey-blue herbal saltbush shrub so that its meat carries exceptionally fresh flavour. Theres also kampong chicken fed with digestive enzymes, and a neat array of sausages made by Ryans Grocery (although not onsite). These are unique, gluten-free combinations such as pork cranberry and chestnut, wagyu herb and garlic, pork apple sage and rosemary, pork-and-beef Italian casalinga, and curry coconut chicken. According to an employee, the free-range meat extravaganza means the animals were very happy prior to slaughter and therefore had yummier meat. Where: 29 Binjai Park, Singapore 589831 (same row as Ivins Peranakan Restaurant). Opening times: 9am to 7pm, Mondays to Sundays. See Also: A vast Chinese-funded infrastructure project in Pakistan has become a major trigger for separatist insurgents, galvanising their movement as they employ new tactics -- including suicide attacks -- in an escalation that could rattle Beijing, observers say. A deadly weekend attack by gunmen who stormed the luxury Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar, a port on Pakistan's southern coast, was the latest high-profile assault linked to the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). CPEC -- part of China's massive Belt and Road initiative -- seeks to link its western province Xinjiang with Gwadar, giving Beijing valuable access to the Arabian Sea and conferring new roads, ports, and airports on Pakistan. Pakistani authorities routinely tout Gwadar, a former fishing village, as "the next Dubai". The problem is that Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and poorest province through which much of CPEC runs, is a Pandora's Box of Islamist, sectarian, and separatist insurgencies. Saturday's attack was claimed by the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Chinese and Pakistani investors visiting the hotel, isolated high on a ridge overlooking the port, were the target, a spokesman for the BLA said. "We warn China to stop her exploitative projects in Balochistan and do not support Pakistan in the genocide of Baloch people, otherwise, we would respond with more attacks," the English-language message to media read. The BLA has attacked the Chinese in Pakistan before, said analyst Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Wilson Center. What's new is the desire and capacity to attack highly visible, well-secured Chinese targets, he said, citing another deadly attack claimed by the group on Beijing's consulate in Karachi last year. "There's good reason to believe that the Pearl Continental attack spooked (Beijing) in a big way, given that a major facility was struck in a city that houses one of the crown jewels of CPEC," Kugelman said. The project, he continued, "is a major trigger for Baloch insurgents". "CPEC represents everything the insurgents despise: A large infrastructure and development project undertaken by the Pakistani state and its Chinese ally." - Anger and resentment - Separatist groups in Balochistan, whose proud population have a turbulent history, have long demanded autonomy and a fairer share of resources. For years the Pakistani military maintained a crushing grip on the insurgency, while brushing off accusations of serious rights abuses. However, analysts say Chinese investment appears to have imbued the nationalist movement with new energy, inflaming the long-running grievance over resources and giving sometimes-disparate groups a common focus. At the same time, Pakistan's determination to protect Chinese investment saw the military further intensify its stance, deepening resentment among the Baloch people. With positions hardening on both sides, one result is the relatively new phenomenon for Baloch separatists of suicide attacks, such as in the Karachi consulate attack. Nationalist politician Jan Mohammed Buledi described the development as previously "unimaginable and unthinkable" for a movement driven more by socialist principles than jihad. "When locals resist they are kidnapped, tortured and their mutilated dead bodies appear," he explained. The state, he argued, has left young Baloch "no option but to blow themselves up. "And now with the influx of Chinese, the Baloch separatists are getting international attention, so it seems the only way out." - Scorched earth - Anger against the Chinese, seen as usurpers, is real and powerful, said Buledi -- but the true enemy for the separatists remains the Pakistani state, with analysts warning that unless genuine grievances are addressed, a low-level insurgency could continue indefinitely "They blame the state for its long and relentless predatory behaviour in Balochistan, and for the scorched earth policies used by the military," agreed Kugelman. Publicly at least, Beijing backs Pakistan's crackdown, and while the Pearl Continental attack was widely reported in Chinese media the claim that Chinese investors were the target was largely downplayed. What Beijing can do about the threats its faces remains to be seen. One tantalising suggestion came from a Baloch leader based in the US, who told AFP that some Chinese officials have sought help from exiled Baloch nationalists in exchange for bringing them home. AFP was unable to verify the claim. "To the best of my knowledge they are still in contact with more than half a dozen nationalist leaders in US, UK and other European countries," he said. U.S. Navy Admiral John Richardson (L), the U.S. chief of naval operations, waits for Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before their talks at Abe's official residence in Tokyo October 15, 2015. REUTERS/Yoshikazu Tsuno/Pool/Files By John Geddie and Fathin Ungku SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The head of operations of the United States Navy said on Wednesday that its freedom of navigation movements in the disputed South China Sea get more attention than they deserve. The U.S. military said two of its warships sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday last week, a move that angered Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world's two biggest economies. "(The operations) get more attention in the media and also have, sometimes from China, than they warrant, to be honest," John Richardson told reporters on the sidelines of a maritime defence conference in Singapore. China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which trillions of dollars worth of ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. In an earlier speech, Richardson said that U.S. naval operations had been consistent over decades and had not risen recently. "I've done the analysis and I can state with confidence that our level of operations has been consistent over the decades," Richardson said, adding that there had been "no spikes recently". Beijing denounced what the United States said was an "innocent passage" near the Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands last week, saying it infringed upon Chinese sovereignty, and "damaged the peace, security and good order of the relevant seas". The U.S. freedom of navigation operations are aimed at challenging what it sees as Chinese activity limiting freedom of movement in the strategic waters. In particular, the United States has criticised China's construction of islands on tiny reefs and shoals and its installation of military facilities on them, including air strips and docks. Richardson told reporters that he's not surprised by China's reaction any more. "They've been, I guess, fairly increasingly consistent in their response to these but if I just got back to first principles...I just want to make sure that the U.S. Navy's approach has been consistent. We haven't done anything increasingly provocative or anything else," Richardson said. (Reporting by John Geddie and Fathin Ungku; Editing by Nick Macfie) Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon MANILA, Philippines An official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday questioned the National Printing Office (NPO) on its alleged subcontracting of the printing of the voters information sheet for the 2019 midterm polls. Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said they are seeking clarification from the NPO following the discovery of some errors in the printed information sheet just days before the elections. Dahil government to government eh walang bidding, tapos nalaman ko at sagutin nila ako kung totoo. Tanungin niyo sila, pina-subcontract ba nila sa Holy Family Printing Press ang voter information sheet namin? Guanzon said at a chance interview at the National Board of Canvassers for the Senate and party-list race on Wednesday. She noted that NPOs alleged subcontracting is against the rules of the Commission on Audit (COA). Under the law, the NPO is mandated to provide printing services to government agencies and instrumentalities. Kaya nga sila ang pinili namin para wala na kaming bidding, she said. The poll official said the errors contained in the printed voter information sheets could have confused voters and resulted in a failure of elections. Mabuti na lang naagapan and the Comelec en banc ordered na huwag i-distribute yung voter information sheets, she said. Guanzon added that the NPO should clarify the issue because they may be held liable for it. NPO should be asked because they are accountable for this. Siningil nila kami ng P4.00 per voter information sheet na napakaliit ng print, she said. Kung totoo iyan, and some directors answer my question, Holy Family Printing ang nag-deliver sa kanila at mali-mali, she added. The NPO has yet to issue any comment on the matter as of posting time. (with details from Aiko Miguel) The post Guanzon questions NPO on subcontracted printing of voter info sheet appeared first on UNTV News. Mediacorp actors Ian Fang Wei Jie and Carrie Wong Si Tian. (PHOTOS: Ian Fang, Carrie Wong/Instagram) SINGAPORE Channel 8 actors Ian Fang and Carrie Wong have apologised over sexually explicit private text messages between the two of them which were leaked. A video, which had circulated among the showbiz industry for a few weeks before reaching the wider public online, shows someones hand holding a mobile phone and scrolling through a flirty Instagram chat conversation between Fang and Wong. At one point in the conversation, Fang tells her, It feels comfortable when I sleep with you... I look forward to the next time. Fang adds that he would plant strawberries (Chinese slang for love bites) on Carrie, to which she replies, If you make it painful, I will bite you back. It is unclear when the conversation took place or who leaked it, but both artists have confirmed that the leak is genuine. Wong recently revealed in February that she is dating a Taiwanese guy named Boris Lin, while Fang has long been rumoured to be dating actress Rebecca Lim. Fang and Wong, who are both managed by Mediacorps The Celebrity Agency, have both released statements in Chinese addressing the leaked messages. In his statement, Fang said, With regard to the private conversation between me and my good friend Carrie Wong thats been circulating online, Im very shocked. I apologise to everyone for my inappropriate behaviour. Carrie and I are very good friends and there is nothing we cant say to each other. I admit that the language we used was vulgar and inappropriate and I apologise for that. I feel very bad for those who have read the messages. As a public figure, I will be careful about my words and actions in the future. Meanwhile, Wong said, Ian and I are good friends of many years, and we often dont put much thought into what we say to each other. I deeply regret the unnecessary trouble and hurt caused to everyone by the coarse language in our private conversation. I have been reflecting a lot after the incident. I have to take responsibility for my inappropriate language. I am grateful to my boyfriend for his trust in me. I offer my deepest apologies to everyone. Story continues Ivy Low, head of Celebrity Agency, also released a statement: The conversation, as we understand it, was a private exchange conducted in jest. However, it was distasteful and inappropriate. The parties involved are deeply embarrassed and have no doubt taken away many lessons from this unfortunate incident. We expect our artistes, being public figures, to conduct themselves professionally and appropriately at all times. Fang, who is 29, and Wong, who is 25, both star in the drama series, Hello, Miss Driver, currently airing on Channel 8, where they play siblings. Meanwhile, Rebecca Lim did a very strange thing a week before the scandalous news broke: she unfollowed everyone she was following on Instagram. She also appears to have deleted all pictures of Fang from her Instagram. Perhaps Lim, who has been romantically linked to Fang for years, got wind of the leak and moved to cut her losses? Follow Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore on social media. More stories: Carrie Wong apologises to Lawrence Wong after dissing him in leaked texts for replacing Aloysius Pang in drama Actress Rebecca Lim unfollowed everyone on Instagram after scandalous leak about rumoured beau Ian Fang Jacqueline Wong apologises over affair with Andy Hui, Sammi Chengs husband Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Bador speaks during a press conference at Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur May 15, 2019. Picture by Firdaus Latif KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 Newly-appointed Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Bador explained that he made unannounced visits to several police stations and headquarters recently to assess the welfare of his front-line personnel. The visits allowed him to evaluate for himself how police personnel on the ground were faring and to see how he could improve conditions for them, he said, adding that he meant to make these unscheduled visits a habit The visits were not planned. I will take the opportunity, day or night, to go down to as many police establishments as I can. If I happen to be around a specific area and there is a police station or police headquarters, I will take the opportunity to drop by. Not only police stations, but also police brigades, so I can see for myself what's happening on the ground and communicate with my men, he said after the handover ceremony for deputy inspector-general of police Datuk Mazlan Mansor. Mazlan replaced Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim, who retired on March 17. Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Bador (centre) is pictured speaking to police personnel during an impromptu visit to a police station in Bidor, Perak. Picture via Facebook Hamid said the visits allowed him to get unfiltered feedback and complaints from personnel, such as over the condition of their barracks. These also allowed him to tell them about policies affecting the force. Thats why I told them this is what the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) is all about. I need the ammunition to convince the government that PDRM need a little extra budget to repair ageing police barracks and improve the conditions for my men on the ground, he said, using the Royal Malaysia Polices Malay initials. Pictures of Hamid's impromptu visits made rounds on social media in recent days, drawing praise for his efforts to visit his front-liners. Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Bador (left) is pictured during an impromptu visit to the Damansara Utama police station in Petaling Jaya. Picture via Facebook Among the areas he has visited include police stations in Taman Melawati, Ampang, Damansara Utama and Bidor in Perak. Hamid, who took office barely two weeks ago, has gained prominence through such efforts and for announcing the forces agreement to the IPCMC after years of resistance. Story continues His predecessor, Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun, was among former police chiefs who rejected the commission. On Monday, Hamid also revealed that the police had apprehended four men who were planning terror attacks and assassinations in Malaysia in the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. They comprised two from the Rohingya ethnic group, one Indonesian, and one Malaysian. The suspects admitted to being part of an Islamic State (IS) cell, and were planning revenge attacks on non-Muslims for the death of firemen Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim. Yesterday Hamid also told Malay Mail that he has ordered two separate but complementary investigations into several officers suspected of extorting money from a civilian. Several officers have been detained for investigation after one of them was recorded telling the alleged victim to retract a report alleging assault by several police personnel who had stopped him on a road. Malay Mail was tipped off about the alleged extortion by law enforcers. The alleged victim had identified himself as a school teacher and claimed the rogue policemen he met had extorted RM8,550 from him. He subsequently filed a police complaint on the matter. Born on August 7, 1958, in Kuala Lumpur, Abdul Hamid has held several positions throughout his 42-year career in the police force. These include as Gombak deputy police chief, Selangor Special Branch chief, deputy director of the External Intelligence division, Special Branch deputy director I, and since May 23 last year as Special Branch director. Abdul Hamid was transferred to the Prime Minister's Department in 2015 during a crackdown on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investigations by the Barisan Nasional administration but never turned up at his new posting. Ten days later, Abdul Hamid publicly announced that he had been removed from his police post due to his insistence on investigating the 1MDB scandal. He was reappointed to the Special Branch after Pakatan Harapan defeated BN in last years general election. Related Articles In first strike as IGP, Hamid Bador orders two-pronged probe on cops suspected of extortion IGP: International human-trafficking syndicate busted with arrest of 11 suspects Special Branch officers just doing their job, says IGP after personnel barred from Warisan events in Sabah KL Ho talking about his designs at his boutique. Picture by Hari Anggara KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 Gothic-inspired cheongsam. This is what Malaysian fashion designer KL Ho will be bringing with him when he shows off his latest creations at the Cannes Global Short Film Awards Gala and Luxury Fashion Shows. The event is being organised by Global Short Film Awards with Couture Fashion Week New York in conjunction with the Cannes International Film Festival. Ho, who is the director of The Mod House, will represent Malaysia when he showcases 20 of his designs, themed Gothiclistic Oriental, during the show on May 25. I am definitely excited. I never even dared to dream to be there and especially to meet movie stars from all over the world, he told Malay Mail. KL Ho showing off the zentagle patterned material made for one of his designs. Picture by Hari Anggara He started work on the collection since the beginning of the year and has since improvised on the pieces. There is fine handiwork in his designs by way of embroidery and extreme detailing has been given to the design of the material itself. For example, one design features zentagle patterns while another uses Chinese philosophical words. Chinese philosophical words are also featured in his design. Picture by Hari Anggara My collection this time remains Oriental and incorporates elements of Gothic and Western regal, he said. I have actually actually admired how amazing royal costumes are from both East and West since I was young. It is an amazing feeling to be able to merge cultures from both worlds. Related Articles 32.66 juta penduduk di Malaysia, lelaki melebihi perempuan David Beckham is moving into eyewear Gigi Hadid fronts new Burberry Monogram campaign Mohamed said that the matriculation programme is the only recourse to most financially-strapped Bumiputera students to uncover their 'true potential'. Picture by Hari Anggara KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin has challenged Tun Daim Zainuddin to prove his assertion that the matriculation system is irrelevant today as the racial imbalances in education have been corrected. The former higher education minister also chided Daim for suggesting that matriculation is a back door for Bumiputera students to enter public universities, saying the syllabus could be tougher than even STPM, the main route post-secondary. Tun Daim did not show any data to support his claim, by right he should have provided data collected in the last 10 years to show the achievement of Bumiputera and Indian students in Science subjects compared to Chinese students. Lets see from the data if we have sufficient Bumiputera and Indian students who are qualified based on their STPM results to be enrolled in critical courses such as medicine, engineering, law and others. Without providing any data and statistics, Tun Daims statement can be considered as baseless assumptions and in fact, it is irresponsible of him to say it, Mohamed Khaled said in a statement last night. He said that matriculation is the only recourse to most financially-strapped Bumiputera students to uncover their true potential, adding that 70 per cent of Malaysia remain without proper access to educational infrastructure. Remember, Malaysia is not just about Bangsar, Bukit Tunku, Taman Melawati or Taman Tun Dr Ismail, which have proper modern schools and families that can afford additional tuition, he said. Mohamed Khaled added that its unfair to assume that students who opt for matriculation programme are weak in their studies and not competitive. He said most selected student have good academic performance and diverse potential and talent; all they need is a more structured development opportunity. Remember Tun Daim, the competition entering the public universities is not assessed based on academic results alone but also other values, he said. Story continues He added that it was wrong to assume that matriculation students go through easier syllabus as it is actually equivalent to the quality of STPM examination. In certain subjects, the syllabus is more difficult compared to STPM as according to the current requirement, because the matriculation programme is framed with the goal of preparing students for universities. When it comes to education, it is important that any statement made is based on current facts. Tun Daim should be more mindful when voicing his views, and should not just give preconceived opinions, Mohamed Khaled said. Daim recently told news portal The Malaysian Insight that the original purpose of matriculation to correct racial imbalances no longer existed and indicated that the system should be dismantled. At the same time, he also admitted that doing so would be political suicide for the government among the Malays as it would give the Opposition parties ammunition to tar Pakatan Harapan as being anti-Bumiputera. The government recently increased the number of seats in the matriculation programme to 40,000 from 25,000 after receiving complaints that non-Malay SPMs graduates were not able to secure places despite scoring high marks. Daim said the whole education system needed to be reformed as it is producing graduates that lack the skills to compete in todays job market. Related Articles Daim not sole broker in China renegotiations, ECRL firm clarifies Daim: Singapore could be prolonging water dispute until it becomes self-sufficient Daim: Terikat dengan perjanjian awal Najib, ECRL tetap rugi bertahun-tahun Yesterday, George Clooney said on US talk show Ellen that the hotels boycott that forced the Sultan of Brunei to back down from imposing the death penalty for homosexuality will serve as a warning shot to other countries considering this. Reuters pic BANGI, May 15 Foreigners should not dictate to Malaysia about its laws, civil or religious, said Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in response to US actor George Clooneys warning shot to the country not to introduce the death penalty for homosexuality. The PKR president said that while Malaysia should consider all views on rights issues, it need not bow to outsiders as it was a sovereign nation. You must realise that Americans decide on their own evolution they dont care about the views of others. The Germans decide on themselves, the Chinese decide for themselves, why must Malaysia be dictated to by the rest? There are general humanitarian issues, which concerns human rights or justice... but to suggest that America or other foreigners dictate terms, [and] we must abide, I dont think we can govern like that, he said. Speaking to reporters after the National Youth Convention 2019 at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia here today, the Port Dickson MP said Malaysia must fiercely protect its independence and ability to decide matters important to Malaysians. Anwar said foreign leaders or the global community can present their suggestions to Malaysia but should not present these as pressure. Yesterday, Clooney said on US talk show Ellen that the hotels boycott that forced the Sultan of Brunei to back down from imposing the death penalty for homosexuality will serve as a warning shot to other countries considering this. It is unclear why but the Hollywood celebrity singled out Malaysia and Indonesia as among countries purportedly considering such laws. Malaysia does not have laws against homosexuality per se but criminalises unnatural sex in its Penal Code. Related Articles Anwar: Too late for PAS to keep dedak cartel under wraps No need for ministers, govt officials to hit election trail always, says Anwar Anwar urges bipartisan support for MPs asset disclosure, pushes for new law The campaign was shot in the Al Wadi Desert in Abu Dhabi. Picture courtesy of Swarovski PETALING JAYA, May 15 Actress, TV host and entrepreneur Neelofa is the first hijabi to front the Raya campaign of jewellery brand Swarovski in Malaysia. Shot in Abu Dhabis stunning Al Wadi Desert, Neelofa, whose full name is Noor Neelofa Mohd Noor is seen wearing a variety of designs from the popular Austrian accessories brands Raya Selection collection. Syawal is the month that I dedicate my time and emphasise on the values and ways I could contribute to our society. My aspiration is to be a giver, rather than a receiver. I truly believe a persons greatness does not lie in what they possess but rather in what they give, Neelofa said in a press statement. Her involvement also marks Swarovskis first hijabi model to appear on the brands billboard campaign. Neelofa says Syawal is the month for giving back to society. Picture courtesy of Swarovski In another first, the 30-year-old model also marked her debut collaboration with the jewellery giant and her successful business venture Naelofar Hijab which was founded in 2014. Created with the aim of revolutionising modest fashion, Neelofas hijab label can be found in more than 37 countries. Swarovski creative director Nathalie Colin said, At Swarovski, we believe in brilliance for all, thats why we curate a special Raya Selection so that every woman around the world feels ever more empowered, confident and brilliant during one of the most important seasons in the Muslim culture. Yusni said the states determination to go ahead with the PSR was 'suspicious'. Picture by Sayuti Zainudin GEORGE TOWN, May 15 The Penang governments insistence on reclaiming land to create three artificial islands will only sideline the poor and destroy the environment, the states sole PAS assemblyman said today. Penaga assemblyman Yusni Mat Piah said the most possible outcome from the proposed Penang South Reclamation (PSR) is the eviction of low-income Penangites from the island state on top of disrupting the balance of nature. The public is opposed to the PSR because of the high risks and negative impact it involves as compared to the benefits it might bring, he said in a statement. Yusni pointed out the high costs involved for each component of the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP), highlighting the cost of RM80 per sq ft to reclaim land off the coast of the Penang island. The cost of reclaiming land is too high, higher than the costs of reclamation in Melaka and Johor, he claimed. He said the states determination to go ahead with the PSR was suspicious especially when the state administration had failed to be transparent in many aspects on the project. The state has failed to provide satisfactory explanations and clarifications on the project, not only in the media, but also at the recent state legislative assembly, he said. He accused Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow of merely reading a script that was prepared behind-the-scene regarding the project. He said Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy had bounced back and forth in his emotional stance on the project. The timeframe for the display of the Environmental Impact Assessment report for public feedback was too short to allow anyone to submit proper feedback on the project, he said. Yusni, who is also Penang PAS Information chief, said Pan Island Link 1 (PIL1) is set to be the most expensive highway in Malaysia at a cost of RM500 million per km as compared to the Kinrara-Damansara Expressway which costs about RM161 million. Yusni said the proposed Light Rail Transit (LRT) project, which is another component under the PTMP, will cost about RM9 billion to build while the operation costs will be about RM170 million per year. Story continues The estimated 42 million passengers per year, or 116,000 per day, is far higher than the Ampang LRT Ampang the busiest in Kuala Lumpur which just reached 61 million users after 19 years, he said. He said the PTMP will be a waste of resources as there was no accurate projection of the traffic flow on the island and the mega projects will not solve traffic problems in the island. On the other hand, it will exacerbate the pressure on the residents to face traffic jams, he said. He questioned the states financial prudence in planning out this massive project. He said the timeline for the expenditure cash flow is inconsistent with the proposed revenue stream to finance the project. The cost for construction is immediate expenditure whereas the revenue from the sale of highly priced lands is on a long term basis so if the yield is less, the property market will be badly affected due to property overhang, he said. He said the fact that the state had applied for a RM1 billion bridging loan from the federal government showed the states financial incompetence. The loan is not enough to start the first phase of the project which costs RM17 billion. What if the loan is not approved by the federal government? he said. He said this obviously proves the financial incompetency of the parties involved in the project. Penang PAS joined several civil society groups in opposing the proposed PSR, which is the funding module for the RM46 billion PTMP. Both the PIL1 and LRT projects are part of the ambitious PTMP. The PSR project will see the creation of three islands covering 4,500 acres of land which the state will then sell to raise funds for the implementation of the PTMP. Related Articles Critic starts online petition against Penang land reclamation NGOs want to know conditions for Penang reclamation project approval Putrajaya approves Penang South Reclamation project The bodies of 11 missing Niger soldiers have been discovered after an ambush by armed men killed 17 of their colleagues on patrol near the Mali border, security sources said. "We have confirmation that the dead bodies of the eleven missing soldiers have been found, bringing the death toll to 28," a source said late Wednesday. The military patrol was ambushed on Tuesday near the village of Tongo Tongo in the western Tillaberi region, sources said. One of the military vehicles had set off an explosive device. A source referred to what happened as a "terrorist attack". Several troops were also injured and evacuated to the capital Niamey, a different source told AFP. According to the news site Actuniger, a patrol of 52 Niger soldiers happened upon a group of heavily armed men at Baley Beri, near Tongo Tongo. Heavy fighting ensued, lasting more than two hours. Twenty-two soldiers made it back to their base at Ouallam in three vehicles, while the rest were unaccounted for, it said, citing local and security sources. This is the same region where four American and five Niger soldiers were killed in a jihadist attack in October 2017. Niger is one of a number of poor, fragile countries in the Sahel region that have been hit by a jihadist revolt. Different jihadist groups operate in the country's west and north, and Boko Haram from Nigeria in its southeast. The country is part of the so-called G5 Sahel group set up to manage a coordinated response to the jihadist insurgency. Datuk Seri Najib Razak leaves the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex May 15, 2019. Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd, the entity appointed to undertake all 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes, was a shelf company that was renamed and rebranded following the mandate of 1MDBs board of directors, the High Court heard today. Ihsan Perdana director Datuk Dr Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman, the 37th prosecution witness in Datuk Seri Najib Razaks trial over RM42 million from SRC International Sdn Bhd, said the decision to form a separate entity was made while he was still helming the position as 1MDBs Executive Director of the CSR division. At that time, 1MDBs CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral had asked me to form a private limited (Sdn Bhd) company to launch the 1MDB CSR projects, under the instructions of Datuk Seri Najib Razak. He said Shahrol had informed him of the decision following a board meeting, which he was absent from. Najib at that time held two federal government positions, as the prime minister and finance minister. The suggestion to form a Sdn Bhd surfaced when the 1MDB board of directors found there was a conflict of interest, where 1MDB was seen as unsuitable to carry out CSRs which were under their own recommendation, he said when reading out his witness statement. Dr Shamsul Anwar explained he was then given the mandate to identify a company that could take over the CSR duties from 1MDBs board of directors following a board meeting. After being given the mandate, I looked for a Sdn Bhd company, a shelf company, with the intentions to carry out 1MDBs CSR programmes. I then contacted a company secretary, Rashidi Md Deris and he recommended a shelf company, which was Gem Horizon Sdn Bhd. I was then instructed by the 1MDB board of directors to vacate my position in 1MDB, and form a new entity to carry out 1MDBs CSR projects, he read. Shelf companies are generally known as dormant or aged ready-made companies with little or no business activities. Story continues Such companies, also called blank check companies, are usually sold by accounting or law firms and normally bought to bypass lengthy registration or incorporation processes. Datuk Dr Shamsul Anwar Sulaiman is pictured at the Kuala Lumpur High Court May 15, 2019. Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri Dr Shamsul Anwar went on to explain how Gem Horizons was seen as an inappropriate name to carry out CSR work by 1MDBs upper management, with its name then officially changed to Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd on October 24, 2011. He had in his statement revealed how no employment contract had been signed between him and Ihsan Perdana, despite him being one of only two shareholders in the non-profit oriented company. It was previously revealed in court that a total of RM42 million from Ihsan Perdana made its way into two personal accounts of Najib between December 2014 and February 2015, in three tranches of RM27 million, RM5 million, and RM10 million. Former prime minister Najib is currently on trial over seven charges including money laundering and criminal breach of trust over the RM42 million belonging to former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd. Today marks Day 18 of the trial. Cross-examination During cross-examination by Najibs lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Dr Shamsul Anwar had established his reputation as a humanitarian and for being active in humanitarian efforts as a catalyst that landed him the role handling 1MDBs CSR work, that warranted a recommendation by Najib himself. The former general practitioner explained how he was previously attached to Medical Relief Society of Malaysia (Mercy), and was involved in humanitarian work as an onsite doctor during clashes in Kosovo, then part of Yugoslavia, in the late 1990s. He also detailed how he had flown to Banda Aceh, Indonesia for relief humanitarian work following the devastating ocean earthquake and tsunami at the end in Dec 2004. Dr Shamsul Anwar also agreed with Shafee that his work with Badan Amal Kebajikan Tenaga Inter Menteri (Bakti) and general involvement within the humanitarian circle had propelled his reputation as someone who could take the job overseeing CSR projects. *A previous version of this story contained errors which have since been corrected. Related Articles Ihsan Perdana MD says would not have approved RM42m transfer if he knew Najib was recipient SRC trial: Ihsan Perdana got RM40m a year to run CSR schemes dictated by BN, Umno leaders Kes Najib: Dana RM42j direkod program CSR, kata bekas pegawai Ihsan Perdana Total (Philippines) Corporation continues to strengthen its retail business and presence in the country. In an effort to provide cleaner fuels in more parts of the Philippines, Total has opened three new stations last March. These are the Total Bongabong station in Oriental Mindoro, Total Pulungbulu in Pampanga, and Total Boac 2 in Marinduque. This brings to 10 the number of stations opened this year. Our continuous growth is a testimony to our commitment to bring high-quality and affordable fuels to more Filipinos, Total (Philippines) Corporation President and Managing Director Laurent Stouffe says. Total, which has been present in the Philippines for 21 years, is upscaling its projects in the downstream oil industry. It now has a growing network of close to 500 service stations nationwide. Last year, it opened around 50 stations and intends to continue its growth trajectory. We are committed to providing products and services that will support the clean energy needs of the Philippines. With the undertaking of our current initiatives and plans for tomorrows oil and gas sector, we continue to serve as a responsible energy player, concludes Laurent Stouffe. The post Total PH Expands Retail Network in Luzon, Visayas appeared first on Carmudi Philippines. Lawmakers entered congress on Wednesday, a day after opposition leader Juan Guaido accused Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's government of trying to "gag" the legislature after it was blocked by security forces. "Here we are in session, facing the people," said Guaido when opening the day's proceedings at the Federal Palace building that houses the National Assembly -- the only government branch under opposition control. SEBIN security agents and the National Guard, which provides security for the building, had prevented lawmakers from entering on Tuesday. It was the latest move in a series of measures taken by the Maduro regime against opposition lawmakers since Guaido's failed April 30 uprising. Venezuela has been in political turmoil since assembly speaker Guaido declared himself acting president in January in a direct challenge to Maduro's authority. "The (only) option in Venezuela is to struggle, to keep going ... and here is your parliament to accompany you and get out of this crisis," said Guaido in a speech transmitted on twitter. Tuesday's session was meant to discuss government measures taken against National Assembly lawmakers, which was instead on Wednesday's program. The Constituent Assembly, set up by Maduro to replace the sidelined National Assembly, has stripped a dozen opposition lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity. The Supreme Court has likewise charged 14 deputies with involvement in the failed uprising, in which Guaido was joined by around 30 members of the armed forces in a revolt that quickly fizzled out. It did, however, spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. The US government suspended all passenger and cargo air services to Venezuela on Wednesday, citing reports of civil unrest in and around its airports. The military has largely remained loyal to Maduro, strengthening his position in the power struggle with Guaido, who is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries. Of the lawmakers singled out by authorities, deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano was arrested by SEBIN agents last week. Another fled to neighboring Colombia, four more sought refuge in diplomatic compounds while yet another said he was hiding inside Venezuela. "Yesterday the dictatorship tried to prevent our session but they couldn't and they can't," Guaido wrote on twitter. "Today we will sit in session honoring once more the support and confidence of the whole of Venezuela." - Normal entry - Earlier in the day, the National Assembly speaker's press team had shared a video of a smiling Guaido entering the congress building alongside other lawmakers. "We're already here inside. Entry was as normal, they only asked deputies for their identification," lawmaker Arnoldo Benitez told AFP. Maduro's right-hand man Diosdado Cabello justified Tuesday's intervention by claiming there was a bomb threat in the building. Guaido accused the security forces of using "brute force" and said the building was "occupied militarily." While deputies were allowed in on Wednesday, the National Guard prevented the press from entering, something that has happened before. "They didn't allow in the press and that's a concern for us because the media is a shield for us here inside," Benitez said by telephone. A line of uniformed officers carrying shields were stationed outside the entrance to the legislature. The National Assembly has been effectively powerless since 2016 when the Supreme Court, made up of regime loyalists, declared it in contempt. Ever since the top court has annulled every decision its made. "Today, history obliges us to be firm with those few who try to tarnish the people's ideals," said Supreme Court president Maikel Moreno in an official act, referring to supposed attacks on the constitution by opposition lawmakers that reject Maduro's authority. Juan Guaido accused the Venezuelan government of trying to "gag" congress after security forces prevented opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly on Tuesday, two weeks after the opposition leader's failed uprising against President Nicolas Maduro. Deputies said members of the National Guard, who provide security for the building, along with police and SEBIN intelligence agents blocked access to the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The move came as Amnesty International said it believes the Venezuelan authorities have committed crimes against humanity in their crackdown on anti-government protests, and urged the International Criminal Court to investigate. "SEBIN agents, using the excuse that there's an explosive device within the facilities, took over the federal palace. We're surrounded by intelligence agents," lawmaker Manuela Bolivar told AFP. Guaido said the security forces used "brute force," adding that congress was "occupied militarily." He tried to incite an uprising against Maduro on April 30 but only around 30 members of the armed forces joined him, and the revolt quickly petered out. It did, however, spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. Since then, the Maduro regime has ramped up pressure on Guaido's allies and supporters. The Constituent Assembly, a rival legislative body that was created by the Maduro government and is packed with people who support him, voted Tuesday to strip immunity from five more opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly. That brings to 14 the number who will presumably go trial for backing the failed insurrection. The charges include treason. One of them, deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano was arrested by SEBIN agents last week. Another fled to neighboring Colombia, while three others sought refuge in diplomatic compounds. - Held hostage - The Mexican government said its embassy in Venezuela has taken in opposition lawmaker Franco Manuel Casella to provide him "protection and safety." But even in making the move, the Mexican government reiterated its position of non-interference in the conflict. Unlike other large Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, Mexico still recognizes Maduro's government and not Guaido. Guaido -- the National Assembly president -- has accused Maduro of trying to dismantle the legislature. "They're trying to hold the legislative power hostage while the dictator entrenches himself alone in a palace where he shouldn't be," Guaido said on Twitter. He has previously accused the socialist leader of terrorism for his heavy-handed response to demonstrations. Amnesty said Maduro's government responded with "a systematic and widespread policy of repression" in late January, when anti-government protests swept the country after Guaido declared himself acting president. The London-based rights group said at least 47 people were killed during the protests from January 21 to 25, with 11 of the deaths considered "extrajudicial executions." At least 33 were shot dead by the security forces, and six by government supporters. Some Maduro opponents were tortured while 900 people, including children, were arbitrarily detained, Amnesty said. "The nature of the attacks... the level of coordination by the security forces, as well as the signs of similar patterns in 2014 and 2017, leads Amnesty International to believe that the Venezuelan authorities committed crimes against humanity," it added in a statement. Maduro himself "knew about these public and appalling acts and took no measures to either prevent or investigate them." Guaido's declaration that he is the country's legitimate acting president, which has been supported by more than 50 countries, plunged Venezuela into a political crisis. It came about after the National Assembly branded Maduro a usurper over his controversial re-election last year in polls widely regarded as fraudulent. - 'Recurring theme' - The oil-rich, cash-poor country has been stricken by recession and a humanitarian crisis in which almost a quarter of its 30 million population is in urgent need of aid, according to the United Nations. The United Nations also says that more than 2.7 million people have fled the country since 2015. Those remaining behind face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines, and failing public services including water, electricity and transport. Earlier, security services cordoned off the building housing the National Assembly. Bullet-proof vehicles and a tow truck were parked in the surrounding streets. "This is a recurring theme. It's not the first time it's happened," said Bolivar, who claimed this was part of "a policy to weaken the Assembly" and "intimidation" related to the power struggle between Guaido and Maduro, who retains the support of the armed forces. Guaido insisted the move would not stop lawmakers from doing their job. "Tomorrow we will be in session again, we'll reconvene and let the regime decide if it wants to continue with a type of political harakiri," he said. Peruvian archaeologists, historians and conservationists are banding together to petition against a new airport at Machu Picchu. The famous Incan ruin is Perus most famous tourist attraction, bringing in almost 1.5 million people in 2017 alone, according to The Guardian. In order to bring more people to the landmark, the Peruvian government has begun construction on an airport that would allow direct international flights. Plans for the airport were announced back in 2012. But it was only earlier this year that bulldozers arrived to begin clearing ground at Chinchero, an Incan town considered to be the gateway to the Sacred Valley. To get to Machu Picchu, tourists currently must fly into Cusco Airport, located about 50 miles south of the site. From there, a train or a bus will take visitors to the ancient citadel. The airport only has one runway, capable of carrying only narrow-body planes. But the proposed Chinchero Airport would be capable of accommodating larger jets, allowing for direct flights from the U.S. to land close to the historic landmark. Almost 6,000 people have signed a petition to stop construction of the airport, saying that the project would cause irreparable damage to the culture of Peru and humanity. This is a built landscape; there are terraces and routes which were designed by the Incas, Natalia Majluf, a Peruvian art historian at Cambridge University, told The Guardian. Putting an airport here would destroy it. %image1 Some people fear that a new international airport would create a storm of businesses competing for a slice of tourism money, with hotels and chain restaurants popping up overnight. Others have expressed concern that the noise from the airport would bring noise and air pollution to some of Perus most sacred and historical sites. The Peruvian government still plans to move forward with the project, with the land expected to be completely cleared by September, according to the magazine Science. Macys Inc. is off to a solid start. The department store chain posted first-quarter earnings of 44 cents per share down 8.3% from the same time last year but 11 cents ahead of Wall Streets consensus bets. Its net income for the quarter ended May 4 was $136 million, compared with $139 million the prior-year period. Related stories Macy's CEO Just Confirmed Your Clothes, Shoes Will Probably Cost More Due to Tariffs Is It a Waste of Money for Retailers to Invest in In-Store Experiences? This Is How Footwear Companies Can Bridge the Racial Hiring Gap Ahead of Wednesdays opening bell, shares for Macys shot up more than 7%. As of 9:35 a.m. ET, the companys stock was in the green 1.28% to $22.08. The Cincinnati-based retail giant also reported revenues of $5.504 billion just shy of the $5.505 billion forecasted by analysts and found same-store sales rising 0.7%, versus an expected decline of 0.2%. It marked Macys sixth straight quarter of comparable sales growth, which the company has attributed to its turnaround strategy taking hold. As an omnichannel retailer, we are focused on growing our customer base by providing a great experience across all channels and taking market share category-by-category, said chairman and CEO Jeff Gennette. Our brick-and-mortar sales trend improved sequentially in the first quarter, supported by the Growth50 stores and Backstage. Outlined last February, the Growth50 project was Macys experiment to revamp 50 stores across the United States by modernizing interiors, expending offerings and increasing staffing levels, among other improvements. Its Backstage stores, on the other hand, were introduced in 2015 and serve as the firms off-price concept, offering top brands at a discount. Macys also rolled out its experiential bet, Story, in April. A year after acquiring the New York-based concept shop, the retailer debuted the 1,500-square-foot boutiques at 36 of its locations in 15 states across the country, including its Herald Square flagship. Story continues We had another quarter of double-digit growth in our digital business, and mobile continues to be our fastest-growing channel, Gennette added. We are pleased with the progress we are making on our strategic initiatives as they continue to drive top-line growth, keeping us on track to reach our 2019 goals. We believe these initiatives, coupled with productivity improvements, position our company well for long-term profit growth. Reaffirming its full-year guidance, Macys expects sales to remain flat with those of the prior year, while same-store sales are estimated to climb by 1% in 2019. Adjusted earnings per share are predicted to be in the range of $3.05 to $3.25. Watch FNs interview with these shoe designers. Want more? Macys Officially Rolls Out Story Heres What the Concept Shop Looks Like Macys Profits Blow Past Forecasts Despite Soft Holiday Quarter, Announces Job Cuts for 100 Execs Sign up for FN's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI - Getty Images From Esquire A Republican president faces a very tough re-election fight. To that end, his Republican attorney general seeks to find damaging information on his political rival. The AG pressures a local U.S. Attorney to join in the effort. Being possessed of more integrity in his left thumb than the AG has in his own body, the U.S. Attorney tells the AG to pound sand. The effort fails. The president loses. And the U.S. Attorney ultimately finds his career at an end. Interesting scenario, no? Well, longtime shebeen regular and friend o' the blog Gene Lyons reminded us of this episode back in July of 2016, when James Comey first banjaxed that year's presidential election as regards Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. Here is part of what Lyons wrote: Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, specifically to September 1992, when Attorney General [Name Redacted For Dramatic Purposes], top-ranking FBI officials and - believe it or not - a Treasury Department functionary who actually sold Presidential Bitch T-shirts with Hillary Clintons likeness from her government office, pressured the U.S. attorney in Little Rock to open an investigation of Bill and Hillary Clintons Whitewater investment. The Arkansas prosecutor was Charles Chuck Banks, a Republican appointed by President Reagan, and recently nominated to a federal judgeship by President George H.W. Bush. It was definitely in Banks interest to see Bush re-elected. The problem was that Banks knew all about Madison Guaranty S&L and its screwball proprietor Jim McDougal. His office had unsuccessfully prosecuted the Clintons Whitewater partner for bank fraud. He knew perfectly well that McDougal had deceived them about their investment, just as hed fooled everybody in a frantic fiscal juggling act trying to save his doomed thrift. Photo credit: Dirck Halstead - Getty Images The Presidential Bitch womans analysis showed a shaky grasp of banking law and obvious bias - listing virtually every prominent Democrat in Arkansas as a suspect. So when FBI headquarters in Washington ordered its Little Rock office to proceed on L. Jean Lewis criminal referral, Banks decided he had to act. He wrote a stinging letter to superiors in the Department of Justice, refusing to be party to a trumped-up probe clearly intended to affect the presidential election. Even media questions about such an investigation he wrote, all too often publicly purport to legitimize what cant be proven. That was the end of the Bush administrations attempt to win the 1992 election with a fake scandal. Also the end of Chuck Banks political career. Story continues That attorney general was-dramatic sting music-William Barr. So, when people tell you that Barr is somehow tossing away his reputation by serving as a White House lawn ornament, remember that he never had much of one in the first place. Remember also that he cut his teeth running the very political end of some very political investigations. He was a weapon in the first real weaponization of the DOJ since John Mitchell was running it. Going around. Coming around. All of that. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) In a revival of the anti-gay crackdowns in Chechnya, police have detained and abused men suspected of being gay or bisexual. Human Rights Watch put out a reportsaying at least 23 men were detained between September and April. This is the third crackdown in recent years, but unlike the others, Human Rights Watch says the police felt the inclination to detain gay and bisexual men independent of the government. Russian authorities should immediately investigate the new wave of torture and humiliation by the Chechen police of men they believe to be gay and, finally, carry out an effective investigation into the purge of 2017, Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch said. Chechen authorities have denied the reports of abuse, according to Human Rights Watch. WINNEBAGO, Neb. -- A former Winnebago Public Schools staff member has been fired amid an investigation into allegations that he had inappropriate contact with students. School officials learned of the allegations on Friday, when students informed a staff member about the interactions with a part-time classified staff member. Administrators then contacted Child Family Services, local law enforcement and the FBI, school superintendent Dan Fehringer said in a news release that was posted on the school district's Facebook page. Fehringer declined to identify the staff member and said he would have no further comment besides the information contained in the news release. Parents of the students who had reported any contact have been notified by the school district, Fehringer said. "Parents who have not received this direct contact should know that this means their individual student is not suspected of being involved in this situation. However, any parents who have reason to believe their child may have been victimized should contact law enforcement immediately," the news release said. The school is cooperating with the criminal investigation, Fehringer said in the release. The news release did not include the gender of the students who reported the allegations, nor did it say how many students made allegations. Winnebago Police Chief Jason Lawrence declined to comment on the investigation. In addition to being fired, the former employee is subject to a "stay away" directive prohibiting him from being on school grounds or attending any school-related event, according to the district. Fehringer said in the news release that the district is working to ensure that students and staff are safe while at school. "Our staff is committed to continuing its work keeping our students focused on their school work while at the same time providing students with emotional support throughout this process," the district said. "Our students have also done a great job of supporting each other through this process. We look forward to returning our primary focus to our students' academic and extracurricular success." Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 7 Angry 6 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. SIOUX CITY -- A man has claimed that the Mapleton, Iowa, police chief used excessive force by releasing his police dog without warning during a 2017 traffic stop. Darrell Bowen, of Danbury, Iowa, said in a lawsuit that he was "viciously bitten" and required medical attention after Jared Clausen released the K9 unit from his cruiser while Bowen was trying to put down the kickstand of his motorcycle. "This force was unnecessary under the circumstances," Bowen said in a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court against Clausen and the City of Mapleton. Bowen is suing Clausen and the city for excessive force, assault and battery, and negligence. He said the city had not implemented effective policies or adequately trained Clausen, causing Clausen to violate his constitutional right for freedom from excessive force. Clausen, who was hired by the city in October 2014, declined to comment on the allegations. The city's attorney, Michael Schmiedt, of South Sioux City, did not return a call seeking comment. According to the lawsuit, Clausen stopped Bowen on Iowa Highway 175 on June 12, 2017. Bowen said he pulled over to the side of the highway, got off his motorcycle and was putting down the kickstand when Clausen exited his cruiser and released his police dog without warning. "(Clausen) demonstrated a deliberate indifference to and/or reckless disregard of (Bowen's) civil and constitutional rights by maliciously and sadistically employing his police dog or K9 under the circumstances," the lawsuit said. Bowen is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory damages for loss of income and earning capacity and for humiliation, degradation, public ridicule, loss of reputation and emotional distress. Bowen also is seeking punitive damages. Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 4 Funny 11 Wow 3 Sad 1 Angry 4 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. SIOUX CITY -- Tyson Foods claims a federal meat inspector lied about inspecting thousands of hogs at its Storm Lake, Iowa, plant, forcing the company to destroy 8,000 carcasses and resulting in $2.4 million in losses and expenses. Tyson Foods and Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. claim that meat inspector Yolanda Thompson, who is employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service, signed certificates indicating she inspected slaughtered hogs at the plant on March 26, 2018. Video footage later showed that Thompson never entered the plant and signed the inspection cards while sitting in her vehicle. The Springdale, Arkansas, meat processor says in a negligence lawsuit filed against the United States Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City that USDA and FSIS employees were aware of deficiencies in Thompson's inspection practices, as well as physical limitations, and should not have been assigned to the pork processing plant. "The United States should have recognized Thompson's unfitness to perform the inspections that were necessary for the protection of Tyson's property. However, the United States failed to so recognize, resulting in the destruction of approximately 8,000 hog carcasses, causing injury to Tyson," the company said in the lawsuit. USDA officials did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Tyson officials declined to comment on the lawsuit. Inspectors are required to visually inspect all hogs slaughtered at the plant to determine whether they have health conditions making them unfit for human consumption. On March 26, 2018, Tyson slaughtered approximately 4,622 hogs at the Storm Lake plant, and Thompson provided signed inspection cards to plant management. Plant officials were informed by FSIS personnel the following day that Thompson had not performed the inspections, the lawsuit said. By that time, the uninspected carcasses had been mixed with other carcasses. The USDA concluded on March 30, 2018, that it was not possible to identify whether the hogs that had not been inspected were subject to any health conditions that would have led to condemnation of the carcasses. Tyson had no choice but to destroy approximately 8,000 carcasses -- those that had not been inspected, as well as those they had been mixed with, the lawsuit said. Though some of the meat was rendered into nonedible products, Tyson claimed a loss of $1.85 million for the destroyed carcasses, in addition to nearly $315,000 in cancelled sales, $213,000 from reduction of normal processing activities while diverting resources to respond to the situation, $50,000 in freight and storage fees, and $51,000 in overtime hours worked to resolve the situation. Tyson said in the lawsuit that a USDA-FSIS employee had mentioned to Tyson workers during the investigation that Thompson "had bad habits" in her inspection practices. USDA-FSIS personnel also were aware that Thompson had difficulties walking, Tyson claims, and her normal inspection site was Tyson's Storm Lake turkey processing plant, which is smaller than the pork plant. Inspectors at the pork plant also must walk through holding pens to inspect the animals, the suit said. Tyson said it's believed that other USDA and FSIS employees knew of Thompson's mobility and performance issues, and the agencies were negligent in not addressing those issues. The USDA in November denied Tyson's claim for damages, leaving Tyson with the option of filing the lawsuit. Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 3 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. SIOUX CITY -- Now a month and a half away from the official switch, Woodbury County officials keep working on details to make sure there is a clean transition from one regional group to another, for the task of connecting low-income and disabled individuals with mental health services. Woodbury County will depart the Sioux Rivers Regional Mental Health and Disability Services agency and become a member of the Rolling Hills Community Services Region, in a step that comes with the arrival of the 2019-20 fiscal year on July 1. The Woodbury County Board of Supervisors have worked with county leaders of Buena Vista, Calhoun, Carroll, Cherokee, Crawford, Ida and Sac counties in Rolling Hills to ensure a smooth transition. Rolling Hills governance board members have come to Sioux City in recent months to meet with mental health service providers to learn more about how they function. In most recent Woodbury County Board meetings, Supervisor Jeremy Taylor has shared details, such as on May 7, when he discussed the challenges of fitting a region in which Woodbury County has a population of more than 100,000 residents and the other combined seven counties in the more rural region have about 98,000 residents. Taylor said the Rolling Hills officials are meshing well together, so services will be cooperatively delivered in a strong fashion. "They are looking at all options, to be as responsive as possible," he said. Taylor said the state of Iowa is requiring the creation of at least six access centers providing core mental health services by July 2021. The access centers will function as a sort of one-stop shop for mental health and substance abuse services. The cost in Rolling Hills could be at least $3 million, and Taylor said Cherokee could perhaps be the spot for an access center, with many details remaining to be set. Multiple mental health regions may need to work to fund an access center, a Rolling Hills document shared by Taylor showed. The Rolling Hills budget for 2019-20 will be $7.5 million, of which $3,445,900 will come from Woodbury County. The other $4 million will be provided by the other seven region counties. Siouxland Mental Health Center in Sioux City is the designated community mental health center for Woodbury County, and has several programs to which the mental health region will continue to direct people. In an Tuesday agenda item that concerned the March flooding in Woodbury County, board chairman Keith Radig shared that Siouxland Mental Health Center has been set as the designated agency to work with the Iowa Department of Human Services to reach out to people and businesses impacted by flooding. That is part of the Project Recovery Iowa endeavor, and SMHC will work on that project in Woodbury and Monona counties. SMHC workers will meet with people in those counties in the next few weeks. Woodbury, Sioux and Plymouth counties founded Sioux Rivers in 2014 when Iowa moved from a county-based to regional system for providing mental health services to disabled, low-income and other Iowans. Woodbury County officials sought to leave Sioux Rivers over disagreements on management style and other issues. 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 0 SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- John Gleeson's family has a long history of leadership and service with the local United Way. As the family's construction business, Klinger Companies, neared its 100th anniversary, Gleeson believed there was no better way to observe that company milestone than to provide a special gift to the nonprofit organization that has funded so many charitable endeavors over the years. The Klinger Companies and the Gleeson Family Foundation have donated $1 million to the United Way of Siouxland's endowment. The gift, which Gleeson announced at a luncheon Wednesday, is the single-largest gift in the local United Way's history. "In the past year, I have been asked, how are we going to celebrate our 100-year anniversary? Gleeson told about 125 people invited to the luncheon at the Delta Hotels by Marriott South Sioux City Riverfront. "I reflected on how my parents raised my siblings and me. I looked for a common thread from my familys history and the answer became obvious for a number of reasons. "My grandfather, my parents, and (my wife) Karen and I have been and continue to be staunch believers in paying our fair share to our communitys nonprofits. My father in a letter he wrote to his family, he stated, 'It is important that you share some of your success by contributing to worthy causes and helping others who are less fortunate.'" Gleeson is the third-generation CEO of Klinger Companies, Inc., founded by his grandfather, William Klinger. In 1919, Klinger moved his young family from Milwaukee to Sioux City to build a six-story building for his father-in-law, William Warnock. Warnock owned one of the earliest Ford Motor dealerships in the country and needed a building for his dealership and offices. The Warnock Building, as it was known for many years until the name was changed to the Benson Building, was the Klinger Companies first construction project. 100 years later, the parent company that bears Klingers name has grown to include four construction subsidiaries that rank among one of the largest construction corporations in America, completing projects in virtually every state. Each of the subsidiaries, W. A. Klinger, Younglove Construction, Gleeson Constructors and Engineers, and Klinger Constructors of New Mexico, are leaders in their respective markets. Gleeson said he is proud of his family's tradition of community involvement, which has included multiple leadership roles with the United Way. William Klinger chaired the annual United Way campaign in 1927, helping to raise a total of $127,000. Gleeson's mother, Helen K. Gleeson, became the first woman chair of the United Way Board of Directors in 1979. And in 1984, Gleeson's father, Robert Gleeson, chaired the United Way campaign and raised a total of $1.4 million. In 2005, John Gleeson chaired the United Way board, and, in 2013, he and his wife, Karen, chaired a campaign that raised $3.3 million. The Gleeson family and members of Klinger Companies have been involved, not just as donors, but as volunteer leaders of United Way in a variety of capacities over the last century, United Way of Siouxland President Heather Hennings said Wednesday. The United Way of Siouxland distributes funding for more than 30 nonprofits each year. The $1 million gift announced Wednesday will be placed in a separate account called the Klinger Companies, Inc. and Gleeson Family Foundation Endowed Fund, and will be administered by Security National Bank Trust Department on behalf of United Way. Annual distributions of 4 percent will be made each year to the United Way Community Impact Fund for allocation to the United Way agencies. The goal is for the $1 million to grow over time through its investments and possibly further contributions from Klinger Companies and the Gleeson family. Hennings said Klinger Companies and the Gleeson family will become the United Way of Siouxland's first Million Dollar Roundtable Member, a national recognition society within United Way Worldwide. Gleeson noted the gift "will not change our strong annual support that our company and its employees do every year. That will continue as we have in the past many years." Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 NORTH SIOUX CITY -- A former North Sioux City police officer has been charged in the shooting death of a cat in a cemetery. Derek McIntosh faces a class 1 misdemeanor charge of killing or injuring an animal during an incident on May 9. According to an affidavit filed Wednesday, Police Cpt. Dustin Sharkey was talking to Officer Stephanie Ryan that day about going to a location along Alcoma Drive to pick up a cat that was caught in a trap. Ryan told Sharkey that he "just saved the cat's life." When Sharkey asked Ryan what she meant, she told him she'd heard rumors that McIntosh had been taking cats caught in traps to a cemetery and then shooting them. The day before, a North Sioux City man had confronted McIntosh about a missing black-and-white cat belonging to the man and his girlfriend. McIntosh reportedly told the man that the police department sometimes placed stray cats in the cemetery. Sharkey then went to Officer Andrew Ryan, who told him of a conversation he'd had with McIntosh about releasing cats at the cemetery, during which McIntosh said he had shot a cat at the cemetery. According to the affidavit, Ryan's impression of the conversation was that McIntosh had shot more than one cat. Sharkey and Police Chief Richard Headid went to the cemetery and found two dead cats, along with a pair of rubber gloves of the type used by the police department. When McIntosh reported for work that afternoon, Headid, along with Mayor Randy Fredrickson and city administrator Ted Cherry, called a meeting with the officer. During the meeting, McIntosh maintained he had released cats at the cemetery, but had not shot them. He did, however, admit to shooting cats in the past. When Cherry told McIntosh he would be placed on paid administrative leave, he told those at the meeting, "OK, I did shoot the cat." McIntosh was placed on paid administrative leave last week and subsequently dismissed. In a press release Tuesday, the city would only say that McIntosh "is no longer an employee of the City of North Sioux City." Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 4 Angry 9 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. (WB) Cuban authorities last week refused to allow Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers to enter the country. Lavers arrived at Havanas Jose Marti International Airport on an American Airlines flight from Miami shortly before noon EST. A customs agent pulled him aside and a supervisor took his passport. The supervisors colleague approached Lavers about 15 minutes later and asked him how many times he has been to Cuba, what his profession is and why he was attempting to travel to the country. The official informed Lavers the Cuban government was not going to allow him into the country. Lavers asked the official why and he said his name appeared on a list without any additional explanation. Lavers spent more than six hours in the customs hall before he boarded an American Airlines flight to Miami shortly before 7 p.m. His iPhone was confiscated shortly after 3 p.m., but he was able to text contacts in the country through his Cuban cell phone. Lavers was not officially detained. Lavers has traveled to Cuba seven times since 2015, with his most recent trip from Feb. 28-March 4 of this year on a tourist card. Lavers has filed dozens of stories from Cuba after authorities allowed him to enter the country with both press visas and a tourist card. We are deeply disappointed in this action by the Cuban government, said Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff. The Blade has traveled to Cuba seven times in four years covering the plight of the LGBTQ community and we are committed to fair, accurate journalism. Barring our reporter from the country is a disturbing development that we hope is an aberration that will be remedied. Lavers landed in Havana two days after the Cuban National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), a group directed by Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raul Castro, announced the cancellation of marches in Havana and the city of Camaguey that would have commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Cleve Jones, a San Francisco-based activist who was to have been the Havana marchs grand marshal, was on Lavers flight and spoke with him before he passed through customs. LGBT activists who work independently of CENESEX sharply criticized the decision to cancel the marches. Reports also indicate they are planning to stage a march in Havana on Saturday. Other IDAHOBiT events sponsored by CENESEX will take place as scheduled. They coincide with increased tensions between Washington and Havana over Cubas continued support of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Reports also indicate authorities on Wednesday arrested Luz Escobar, an independent journalist. SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- South Sioux City Police Officer Brian Van Berkum, who was wounded in a deadly shootout Saturday, is expected to be released from the hospital Thursday. The police department is organizing a "Welcome Home'' event for Van Berkum, a 19-year veteran of the force, Police Chief Ed Mahon said. After leaving MercyOne Siouxland Medical Center, Berkum's vehicle will receive an escort from his fellow officers. The procession will begin at the Siouxland Veterans Memorial Bridge and continue down Dakota Avenue before ending at the south end of town. Mahon said Van Berkum is expected to be released from the hospital sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Thursday. "Our intent is to get squads over there, not have a parade, but show him unity and we'll take him home on Dakota Avenue around that time," Mahon told the Journal. "There's some businesses that wanted to know about it so they could kind of be out and give him their respects, and City Hall wanted to know." Van Berkum was shot in the abdomen and leg during a gunfire exchange with Luis A. Quinones Rosa, outside Los Amigos bar and liquor store around 2 a.m. Saturday. Van Berkum underwent surgery Saturday and was "doing very well" by that evening. Quinones Rosa died of extensive blood loss after a shot severed his femoral artery. Van Berkum was one of the officers called to the scene after reports of an armed man at the bar. Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 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. CEDAR RAPIDS A Cedar Rapids lawyer and eight state lawmakers are seeking to block implementation of changes the Legislature made in the final hours of the 2019 session to Iowas 57-year-old judicial nominating procedure. This shady deal to give Gov. Kim Reynolds the majority of appointments to the commission that nominates finalists for openings on the Iowa Supreme Court and Court of Appeals ignored the constitution and our merit-based system for selection of judges, said lawyer and former Democratic legislator Bob Rush of Cedar Rapids. Republican lawmakers cut a backroom deal to put politics back into the selection of judges for the Iowa Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, Rush said. Rush and Reps. Art Staed and Liz Bennett of Cedar Rapids, Mary Mascher of Iowa City, Brian Meyer, Jo Oldson and Rick Olson of Des Moines, Mark Smith of Marshalltown and Mary Wolfe of Clinton all Democrats are challenging the law, Senate File 638, on three counts. They are asking the Polk County District Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the implementation of the portions of the law dealing with judicial nominating, and then a permanent injunction barring the enforcement and use those changes. First, they allege the bill violates rules against logrolling, which is the inclusion of unrelated matters in one bill. The Iowa Constitution requires legislation to embrace but one subject, and matters properly connected therewith. The plaintiffs also challenge SF 638 for failure to meet the constitutional requirement that the title of a bill contain the subject matter to prevent fraud and surprise. There is no mention of the judicial nominating commission in the title. Its pretty fuzzy, Rush said. Finally, the plaintiffs call the portion of SF 638 dealing with judicial nominating procedures a violation of the constitutional establishment of coequal branches of government because it changes the selection and term of office for the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. The Legislature directed the court to elect a chief justice every two years. The term and selection of the chief justice is a matter for the court, not the Legislature, to decide, Rush said. Underlying the lawsuit and the unsuccessful legislative opposition to the changes approved on the final day of the session is the concern that lawmakers are reintroducing politics into the process. Since Iowans approved a constitutional amendment to have judges nominated by panels made up of equal numbers of members selected by the Iowa bar and the governor, and one member from the state Supreme Court, politics have not influenced the process, Rush said. Iowa has been at the top of the class, a model for the other 49 states to look up to on our merit-based selection process, Rush said. Politics are not involved, havent been involved since that constitutional change to get us away from electing judges on a partisan, political basis. He believes the majority of Iowans like and support a system that keeps politics out. Giving the governor nine appointees to the commission to the bars eight throws politics back into the selection process, according to Rush. While the appointees dont necessarily vote as blocs when selecting finalists for the governor to choose from, the governors ninth appointee or tiebreaker owes their allegiance to the governor, he said. Reynolds ninth appointee, Pella lawyer Dan Huitink, who was named since she signed SF 638, is named separately in the lawsuit. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WASHINGTON -- For House Democrats, this is health care week. How many voters will notice? The answer will be instructive about how the constitutional crisis that is upon us will affect action on every other problem voters expect their government to confront. President Trump is engaged, as is his way, in a two-faced game. He says that by demanding the Mueller report's evidence of obstruction of justice, Democrats are mounting a vendetta that will prevent Washington from governing. Yet it is Trump who keeps the investigation at the heart of the news. He talks and tweets about it nonstop. He is impeding the House's accountability efforts across-the-board in the wake of the Mueller report, blocking access to administration officials and documents -- including his tax returns. The House cannot leave his insult to its constitutional powers unanswered. It's widely conjectured that Trump is courting impeachment because it would promote the "us vs. them" approach to politics with which he's most comfortable. But none of this resolves the House Democrats' quandaries over the most effective ways to push back, and whether to move quickly to impeachment. The easiest call is to keep legislating. The package of health care bills they began passing last week and are scheduled to complete in the coming days is designed to keep the promises that virtually every Democrat ran on last year: to guard the Affordable Care Act from the administration's efforts to repeal or gut it; to protect the insurance of Americans with pre-existing conditions; to contain prescription drug prices; and to prevent the rise of "junk insurance" that could wreck the insurance markets. The Democrats scored a modest early victory in gaining attention for their health care push. Last Thursday, Democrats passed a bill that would block Trump administration efforts to facilitate the sale of skimpy insurance plans. It got media hits, but mostly on the inside pages of newspapers and lower down on websites. The vote itself, amidst all the Trump news, was a signal that the House would continue to pass legislation and keep its pledges. Nonetheless, there is a fundamental flaw in the standard account of how Democrats who won Republican seats in 2018 are affected by all this. The conventional view is that these Democrats won on health care and other bread-and-butter issues and that concern over Trump was secondary. It's certainly true that economic issues were important to swing voters in their districts. But this analysis underestimates the extent to which the backlash against Trump was important in boosting Democratic turnout in every district. The bulk of the voters Democratic challengers had a chance of winning were already dissatisfied with the president, his efforts to repeal the ACA being just one element of their discontent. Victorious candidates, particularly in suburban districts, typically linked their appeals on issues with broad promises to end the rubber-stamping of the president's approach. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who ousted a five-term GOP incumbent, was one of them. "I ran on health care and infrastructure and getting things done for our district and our country," he said in an interview, "but I never hesitated in talking about checks and balances, decency and the rule of law." Malinowski is deeply involved in passing the health care package, but he argues that his party has an inescapable responsibility to ensure that Trump's "unacceptable conduct" in 2016 and beyond "never happens again." Part of the response, Malinowski says, should be legislative -- for example, requiring candidates who are offered foreign help to report the proposition to the Justice Department, and outlawing the sharing of campaign information, such as polling, with a foreign power. When it comes to impeachment, Malinowski says what matters most is keeping Trump's abuses from establishing a precedent. "If we do nothing, there's a risk of setting that precedent," he says of the House. But if the House impeached and the Senate acquitted, he argues, the acquittal itself might be read as sending exactly the wrong message for the future. For now, Malinowski supports Speaker Nancy Pelosi's efforts to fight Trump's stonewalling without moving immediately to impeachment. But he does not pretend that the dilemma over impeachment can be avoided indefinitely. Malinowski's thinking is a window into the challenges the Democrats face. The least of them is passing bills, which they'll continue doing. In deciding on impeachment, the House's newest members know they were elected with an obligation to take on one of the most corrupt administrations in our history. They're also aware how much depends on the choices they make. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sinon Loresca, a gay model known for sporting high heels and dresses in public, traveled to Brunei following new laws implementing the death penalty for gay sex. The harsh Sharia laws were instituted early last month, and Brunei received worldwide backlash and boycotting. Loresca, however, said he felt safe as a gay man in Brunei, according to Gay Star News. He also said that the media exaggerated the laws. I must say BRUNIE is one of the safest country on earth. Lovely and friendly people. Some news so exaggerated - stoned to death is not real NOT AT ALL. BRUNIE is a beautiful country. Period, Loresca wrote on Facebook. But a gay refugee speculated whether someone in power invited Loresca, and guaranteed his safety, according to Gay Star News. Other Facebook users alleged that they Brunei government paid Loresca to mend their image, according to Q News. Where do we start with Iowa State Sen. Claire Celsi? The West Des Moines Democrat made headlines when in a tweet on Thursday night she urged buyers to "beware" when considering the purchase of ice cream manufactured by Le Mars, Iowa, based Wells Enterprises because members of the Wells family have in the past made financial contributions to U.S. House campaigns of Steve King. We could share our general annoyance with individuals who assume the role of righteous arbiter by demanding, proposing or implying what private businesses the rest of us should or shouldn't support. We could point out members of the Wells family have every right as individuals, as do all Americans, to support whoever and whatever causes they wish as well as the fact their company, according to a spokeswoman, doesn't support political campaigns through either endorsements or contributions. We could point out how boycotts of private businesses for political reasons ensnare average men and women who simply want to earn a living and support themselves and their families through work at those businesses. What we really want to say, though, is this: That an elected Iowa official would in any way, shape or form suggest consumers should not buy a product from an iconic Iowa-based business that provides employment for more than 2,000 Iowa workers, that contributes to the economy of this region and Iowa as a whole in significant fashion and about which commendable doesn't begin to describe the positive corporate citizenship it demonstrates in myriad ways to the benefit of this region and Iowa as a whole is beyond disappointing or irresponsible. It's disgraceful. As a company, Wells Enterprises represents everything good about Iowa. As an Iowan, Celsi owes the Wells family an apology. Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 3 Funny 5 Wow 1 Sad 2 Angry 2 From December 19th through December 26th we will be granting free access as a gift to our readers presented by Guarantee Roofing Shouts broke out on the Alabama Senate floor last Thursday when Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth tried to rush through a motion without a roll-call vote. If that sentence bored youeven with the shoutingyouve already grasped something basic: The dullness of these procedures is why most of us have trouble understanding them or paying attention, even when theres cheating involved. We should try. In this case, the motion would have removed an amendmentsupported by some Republicansto exclude cases of rape and incest from an abortion ban that had already passed the House. Ainsworth believes Americans impregnated by rapists should be made to give birth, so he tried to rush the motion through without a roll-call vote, bending the rules to get his way. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement State Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton stalled the attempted circumvention through sheer force of will, shouting his objections until the vote was delayed. But this is not a happy story: The controversial bill ended up passing the Senate on Tuesday nightwith no exceptions includedand will go to Gov. Kay Iveys desk. Its intention is to strip Americans of a constitutional right, on the assumption that a friendly Supreme Court will soon declare that removal legal. The path to that end point is not short, but neither is it far-fetched. It will take only one of these abortion bans to survive the ultimate judicial challenge for Americans with uteruses to be forced by the state to carry fetuses against their will. Advertisement If Alabamas turns out to be the one, wed do well to remember that one link in that chain of events was Republicans trying to proceed without a roll-call vote. Thats a simple procedural violation, the sort one might hesitate to get too upset over. But those kinds of violations stack up. They stack up until they form a basis for disenfranchising half the country. And at a certain point, theres nothing to be done but insist that what few rules remain be followed. After last weeks fracas, the New York Times quoted Democratic state Sen. Vivian Figures as saying to her Republican colleagues, You all are going to get your way, but at least treat us fairly and do it the right way. This is where we are in a nutshell. Those who wish to preserve constitutionally protected abortion rights are left appealing to the denatured process that got us here: At least have the decency to strip our rights fairly. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alabama isnt alone. Just a few days ago, Georgia passed a law criminalizing abortions after six weeks, set to take effect in 2020, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed it. Its a total abortion ban for reasons you can read here. Its the most extreme law ever passed, and its supposed to be: GOP members across several states have said theyre excited to pass illegal laws that defy a settled Supreme Court ruling so that the current court can overturn it. The Georgia bill redefines fetuses as legal persons with rights while, again, stripping the rights and bodily autonomy of citizens who actually exist. Though some activists on both sides want to believe this unlikely, the bill clearly allows for those who actively refuse to give birth to face lifelong imprisonment or the death penalty. Even those who leave the state to abort would be subject to punishment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Then theres the Ohio bill, similar in structure and passed in April, which will condemn an 11-year-old child who was raped to forced birthwhich must be understood as rape in reverse. Kentucky and Mississippi passed similar bills this year (Kentuckys was struck down, as was Iowas, passed last year). These bills arent just astonishing and punitive and misnamed (the heartbeat is not a heart but a collection of cells in the fetal pole that may one day become one). Theyre ignorant even of the actual reproductive biology they purport to regulate. Several would criminalize miscarriages, and one invents a medical procedure whereby ectopic pregnancieswhich tend to be fatalcould not be aborted but would be reimplanted in the uterus. That is not a medical procedure you can get; its a suggestion that doctors experiment on women whose lives are in danger. Never mind. That is not, at least for the moment, the point. The rights of women and the marginalized seldom are. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The point is this web-like convergence, across multiple states, thats closing like a net around Americans capable of getting pregnant. Multiple states, with multiple paths to the Supreme Court. A law passed to invoke the high court cant be dismissed as a strategy or a tacticthe law is exactly what it says. And it was passed to satisfy the beliefs of a minority. Take Georgia: 70 percent of Georgian voters and 68 percent of American voters dont believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned.* It doesnt matter. That isnt stopping Georgias government. Were long past democracy working, even if many have yet to realize it, because so much of its dismantling has been invisible to the public thanks to dark money, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and maneuvers like Ainsworths, all of which weve been encouraged to consider merely improper. A long campaign to hobble and constrain our representative government at every turn is now paying off dramatically. For decades, extremists have been seizing control through the kind of procedural malfeasance that gets continually mislabeled as assholery or poor etiquette. Over and over, Americans have made the mistake of responding to Republican misbehavior by treating each case as an isolated insult to be transcended. The mature thing, weve been told, is to rise above. Advertisement Advertisement Women will die because of laws like these that became possible thanks to stacks of technicalities. The Georgia bill in particular reflects the cost of letting individual instances of Republican overstepping go unchallenged in the name of bipartisanship. (Im not saying that it would have been easy to challenge, or that no one has.) But cheats and transgressions accrue like compound interest, and the technical wins Republicans gained and keep gaming have given them a stranglehold. That most Americans didnt see this as a crisis isnt shocking: Theres nothing Americans like less than detail-oriented bureaucracy. A lot of us confuse that impatience with an ability to see through B.S.; theres a lamentable tendency to see procedural violations as dull or unimportant. This is dismissiveness at worst and civic confusion at best, but it has led many of us to think that the citizens groups and organizations that have been calling attention to these violationsand bringing lawsuits and doing their best in this whack-a-mole fight to stop a takeover by an extremist minorityare overreacting. Advertisement They werent. And the best proof is that a bill seeking to legalize executing women for their reproductive choices was signed into law by a governor who was elected after a massive procedural campaign to disenfranchise voters less likely to support him. As Georgias secretary of state, Brian Kemp presided over an election in which he was a candidate. In the former capacity, he stalled more than 50,000 voter registrations for predominantly black voters. His office was found to be using amateur handwriting analysis by untrained people to reject absentee ballots, voiding the votes of disproportionately black voters. He launched an investigation into his opponent Stacey Abrams New Georgia Project, which was registering black voters. (No wrongdoing was found.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You might wonderas many Americans who think the system still works dohow Kemp got away with closing 214 polling locations in Georgia, most of them in disproportionately poor and minority communities. Or how county boards in Georgia could get away with dispatching deputies with court summonses demanding that (mostly black) voters give proof of residence or lose their right to vote. The answer is that a conservative Supreme Court struck crucial portions of the Voting Rights Act, which used to protect Southern minority voters from measures like these, in 2013. Advertisement Advertisement The court has grown even more conservative since then thanks to another procedural violation that was seen more as a rupture with norms than a soft takeover. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a hearing for President Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Democrats objected strenuously at the time, but there was nothing much they could do: Thanks to the structure of the Senate, Republicans hold a dangerously durable majority. McConnell took pleasure in this: One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Advertisement My theory is that partly because McConnell took obvious pleasure in it, that loss is remembered more clearly as an asshole move than a government-changing upheaval that would cost many Americans their rights. Republicans have encouraged this perspective: Get over it has become a kind of GOP mantra. The opposition is supposed to get over everything from Merrick Garland to Russian interference to child separations and plenty more. Thats smart framing by the dominant party: It encourages a personal response to a public offense. Youre supposed to get over Republican overstepping rather than, say, retaliate. You dont feed the trolls, and when a jerk flips you off in a parking lot, you let it go. You rise above. Advertisement Advertisement This, ultimately, is the problem with talk of bipartisanship among the Democrats, and of askingor beggingto be treated fairly even as the other party holds all the cards. (Or indeed predicting that Republicans will have an epiphany and seek consensus, which appears to be Joe Bidens plan.) Get over it is a spiritual recipe, not a political one. And it doesnt work against the parliamentary politics McConnell excels at, which consists, in part, of choosing battles too recondite and fiddly for the public to get angry about. For instance, he has now made a standard practice of defying the blue-slip rule when it comes to confirming judicial nominees. Given how little the public knows about the protocol, theyre primed to miss the effect. McConnell has been advancing nominees without the approval of their home-state senators, locking out the minority from the process, and stocking the judiciary with radical right-wing conservatives. Advertisement Advertisement These are not matters of etiquette. Individually they havent seemed like enormous changes (well, maybe the Garland denial did), but they are serious and consequential, and together they are changing history. And there is no recourse for any of this. Yes, a judge found that Kemps practices raised grave concerns for the Court about the differential treatment inflicted on a group of individuals who are predominantly minorities. It didnt matter. Hes the governor now. In the name of what he called voter maintenance, the man canceled 1.4 million voter registrations in his tenure as secretary of state. He won his election by 55,000 votes. The thousand cuts he inflicted on Georgia worked: By the time that court decision came around, it was only a week before the election. Too much damage had been done. Kemp wontechnically, but technical wins are all you needand that yearslong series of cheats has empowered him now to sign a bill that would authorize punishing women for exercising their constitutional right to an abortion. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Women will die because of laws like these that became possible thanks to stacks of technicalities. It wasnt enough for Republicans to legalize crisis pregnancy centers that give women dangerously inaccurate information about their options. Or to force doctors to lie to their patients about abortion. Or to try to force patients to get transvaginal ultrasounds for no medical reason. Republicans are now doing everything in their power to drag a tragic past into the present. We are moving closer to a world where reproductive health moves underground, and where women are afraid to seek careor as in the past, get interrogated by police when they do. But never mind: The point is how we got here. After decades of accruing small technical advantages, its not crazy to say that the modern GOP is on the precipice of achieving one of its highest aimsmade possible thanks to some closed polling stations here, a gerrymandered district there, judges confirmed against tradition and precedent, a president who lost the popular vote. Some of these were obviousand later camouflaged by suggestions that we get over itbut the bulk of those strategic advantages were secured more quietly, distributed across statehouses and carried out without arousing too much public alarm, because none of this is what the public wants. It doesnt matter. And its almost too late. As the net closes in, we must remember how it was made, strand by strand, by extremists wishing to impose their religious doctrine on a country founded on the separation of church and state. We can be grateful that these laws have so far been struck down in two states thanks to suits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. But there will be more. Stemming the tide would require an absolutely massive outpouring of voters to overcome a deck this stackedand that alone will not be enough to reverse course. Redundancy is built into this strategy, and the judiciary is immune to those votes. More restrictions will pass. Some will fall. Appeals will be filed. And the Supreme Court, with its new, young, and life-tenured justices, will wait patiently for the chance to subordinate women to fetuses and bring the full power of the state against those who would refuse to comply. A series of court fights now looms over congressional efforts to uncover everything from Donald Trumps tax returns to the White Houses security clearance process to the full, unredacted Mueller report and all of its underlying evidence. Its difficult to know how much time these court fights will take, but in the meantime House Democrats might want to consider another avenue to break the current stalemate with the White House: impeaching Trump. For understandable political reasons, House leadership is reluctant to initiate formal impeachment proceedings. At the same time, almost the entire Democratic caucus wants to commence hearings that will expose the public to the corruption detailed in Volume II of the Mueller reportwhich most members of the public have never and will never read. The Democrats recognize that a single picture of former White House counsel Don McGahn testifying on national TV would be worth a thousand words. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But heres the rub: Knowing that the House is reluctant to pull the impeachment trigger, the White House has felt free to stonewall the hearing process by refusing to permit any executive branch official, past or present, to testify, and by refusing to produce documents. Each of the Houses options for attempting to compel compliance with these subpoenas is apt to bog down in rounds of legal briefing and layers of appeals. Essentially, the Trump White House can attempt to play for time, hoping to tie up House counsel in court until no earlier than 2020. An impeachment proceeding, however, might break the logjam. Heres how. An impeachment proceeding might break the logjam. First, the House, without calling a single witness or demanding a single document, could impeach the president based on the current record alone. There is little doubt that Volume II of the Mueller report, even as redacted, suffices to prove multiple acts of obstruction of justice. More than 800 former federal prosecutorsmyself includedhave signed on to a letter explaining how the Mueller report proves an indictable case of obstruction. Coupled with the allegations of complicity in campaign finance crimes against Individual 1 in the Southern District of New York, as well as Trumps resistance to House subpoenaswhich was an impeachment count against President Richard Nixonthe current record is more than sufficient to draft a formidable bill of impeachment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The House would then designate a subset of its members to serve as managers in the impeachment process. The managers are basically the presidents prosecutors. They present the evidence to the Senate, select the witnesses they wish to call, choose the documents they wish to submit, and make opening and final arguments in support of conviction. Once the managers are chosen, the case would move to the Senate. And under the Senate rules that have governed all impeachment proceedings since 1986, there is a speedy and efficient vehicle for holding exactly the kind of hearings that House Democrats have been seeking. Advertisement Advertisement Crucially, a Senate impeachment trial could not get mired in multiple layers of district court and appellate court litigation. Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution, when the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. As the Presiding Officer, under Senate impeachment Rule V, the chief justice has the power to make and issue all orders, mandates, writs, and precepts authorized by these rules or by the Senate. The chief justice likewise has full authority to direct all the forms of proceedings while the Senate is sitting for the purpose of trying an impeachment, and all forms during the trial not otherwise specially provided for. According to the Senate rules, it is the chief justice as presiding officer who gets to rule on all questions of evidence including, but not limited to, questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence and incidental questions. And while Rule VII permits a member of the Senate to demand a Senate vote on the chiefs rulings, it is difficult to imagine even Mitch McConnell seeking to overrule Chief Justice John Roberts. Indeed, no senator challenged a single ruling by Chief Justice William Rehnquist during the Bill Clinton impeachment trial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whatever then happens for any given witness or exhibit, the chiefs rulings are apt to be prompt and efficient. There would be no reams of legal briefing, no extended oral arguments, no endless appeals. The parties would cut right to the chase, and the substance of the Mueller report allegationsnot to mention the role of Individual 1 in providing hush money on the eve of the 2016 electionwould play out on live TV. So, for example, if the House impeachment managers call Don McGahn to testify, the White House cannot rush off to court to block his attendance. The president must make his objections to the chief justice, who will issue an effectively unreviewable order on relevancy, materiality, and redundancy. Given the central role McGahn played in Trumps obstruction of justice, it is hard to imagine that the chief justice would restrict him from testifying. So too for most of the key players in Volume II of the Mueller report. And unlike what the Trump administration may do in the face of adverse rulings in the lower federal courts, it seems exceedingly unlikelyeven with this presidentthat the administration would defy a ruling by the chief justice sitting as the presiding officer in an impeachment trial. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nor does it appear likely that McConnell would be able to stall the Senate trial until after the 2020 election. As soon as the House appoints the managers to prosecute impeachment, Senate Rule I requires the secretary of the Senate immediately to inform the House that the Senate is ready to receive the managers for the purpose of exhibiting such articles of impeachment. Once the articles are presented, Rule III requires the Senate, at 1 oclock afternoon of the day (Sunday excepted) following such presentation, or sooner if ordered by the Senate, to proceed to the consideration of such articles, and thereafter to continue from day to day (Sundays excepted) after the trial shall commence (unless ordered by the Senate) until final judgment shall be rendered. While McConnell may have some discretion to drag the process out, the Senate rules clearly anticipate a prompt and efficient trial to judgment. Advertisement Of course, Senate Republicans may prove to be more brazen than I anticipate. They could throw out the rules that have governed every impeachment hearing in the past 33 years and devise a new set of rules that place more power in their own hands, instead of the chief justices. And they might seek to overrule by majority vote rulings by the chief that they dont like. But there are constitutional limits to such brazenness; the chief justice must still be allowed to preside over the trial of the president. And any efforts by the Senate to refashion the impeachment process simply to protect this particular president will be impossible to conceal from public scrutiny. Each senator will have to account for his or her actions. To be sure, none of this answers the question of whether impeachment is the right course, for the Democrats or for the country. But if the House leadership is serious about affording the public a chance to see for itself what is otherwise lodged in 400-plus pages of the Mueller reportand possibly developing additional lines of inquiry not addressed by Muellerit may want to revisit its aversion to impeachment. And who knowsperhaps the White House will back down from its stonewalling once the prospect of impeachment is back on the table. Confusion and mixed signals have characterized the past couple of days when it comes to the escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The New York Times reported late Monday that the White House had reviewed updated military plans, prepared by Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, to deploy up to 120,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East if Iran were to attack U.S. forces or resume work on nuclear weapons. In this case, the White House seems to mean national security adviser John Bolton, who ordered the update and has been spearheading the recent U.S. pressure campaign against Iran (and several other countries). The Times noted that it was unclear whether the president has been briefed on the number of troops or other details. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On Tuesday, President Donald Trump dismissed the report as fake news, saying no plans were in the works to send troops but that if conflict did break out, wed send a hell of a lot more than 120,000. Trump has reportedly questioned his advisers bellicose approach to the crisis in Venezuela, and it seems like theres daylight between them on Iran as well. Trump still seems to be holding out hopes that the pressure campaign will lead to direct talks with the leaders of Iran, as it did with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, while Bolton views such negotiations as a waste of time and has long sought regime change. Whatever Trumps intentions are, tensions are continuing to build. The U.S. has also pointed the finger at Iran or its proxies for using explosives to damage four ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates last weekendthough Iran has denied responsibility, and little information about the attacks has been provided. In a more straightforward case, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities on Tuesday. Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. has now ordered all nonessential diplomatic personnel out of Iraq, citing threats from Iranian-backed militias in the area. This threat was also reportedly what led the U.S. to move a carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf region earlier this month. Advertisement But here, too, there are mixed signals. British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, the deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolvethe U.S.-led coalition fighting ISISsaid on Tuesday that theres been no increase in the dangers posed by Iranian-backed militias. There are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, Ghika said. We monitor them all. Iranian-backed forces is clearly one of them, and I am not going to go into the detail of it, but there are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we dont see an increased threat from many of them at this stage, he said in a briefing to Pentagon reporters from Baghdad. (If youre confused about why a British general is the one briefing Pentagon reporters about this, keep in mind that its been nearly a year since a U.S. Defense Department spokesperson has given a televised briefing.) A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command subsequently rebuked Ghika, saying, Recent comments from OIRs Deputy Commander run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That these remarks came from the deputy commander of the anti-ISIS mission is also a reminder that even as the U.S. appears to be escalating toward a new conflict, its previous conflicts are not exactly resolved. While ISIS, also known by its Arabic nickname Daesh, is no longer in control of any physical territoryand Trump has, as a result, been anxious to withdraw U.S. troops it is still active. Ghika told reporters: Daesh foresaw the fall of its physical caliphate and has been reorganizing itself into a network of cells, intent on striking key leaders, village elders and military personnel to undermine the security and stability in Iraq and Syria. Daesh fighters are still ambushing security patrols, detonating IEDs and conducting kidnappings. Despite its territorial setbacks, Daesh is still having successes. And its ideology still inspires people around the world: we saw this on Easter Sunday with the devastating attacks in Sri Lanka. Last month, Daeshs leader, Baghdadi, appeared online for the first time in over five years, conceding defeat in Baghuz but rousing Daesh supporters to continue their fight. Advertisement Advertisement Experts estimate that between 5,000 and 7,000 ISIS fighters are still in Iraq, and they continue to carry out ambushes and extort civilians. On Tuesday, to take one example, Kurdish media reported that an ISIS cell had set fire to the crops of farmers near the town of Makhmour who had refused to pay taxes to the group. The continued danger posed by ISIS is inconvenient for Iran hawks in Washington, as the Shiite militias that the U.S. is warning about have also been fighting against the group. It also undercuts the Trump narrative of total victory: The president has lately said that U.S. troops are remaining in the region not to fight terrorism but to keep an eye on Iran. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Violence continues in Syria as well. Syrian government and Russian warplanes have recently ramped up their campaign of airstrikes against the rebel-held province of Idlib, sending thousands of residents fleeing. Three hospitals were bombed last Saturday. Idlib is one of the last regions in rebel handsits largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a hard-line group that was affiliated with al-Qaida until recentlyand President Bashar al-Assad is desperate to finish the job. But an all-out assault on the densely populated region, where displaced civilians from other regions have fled, could be a bloodbath. Trump, to his credit, has urged Assad and the Russians to exercise caution in Idlib in the past and taken credit for forestalling a massacre. But as Josh Rogin of the Washington Post notes, this time around, Trumps attention is elsewhere. Advertisement Its fair to debate whether the U.S. should continue to fight the remnants of ISIS indefinitely, or what role it can or should play in resolving the larger conflict in Syria. But its noteworthy that a president who spent much of the past few months fighting with his advisers over his desire to remove U.S. troops in the Middle East now appears to be letting those advisers create a situation where even more troops would be sent into a much larger and more dangerous conflict. And theyre doing it before the last conflict is even over. Theres a notion out there that the brewing crisis with Iran could all be settled fairly easily. All the Iranian leader has to do is send President Donald Trump a beautiful letter, in the manner of North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un, and the dotard in the White House (as Kim once called him in tenser times) will fold, maybe even fall in love. Or, some boast, if the situation does escalate and war breaks out, the USA will win quickly: in two strikesthe first strike and the last strike, as Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and a known aspirant for secretary of defense, put it. Advertisement Both views reflect a blithe ignorance, of Iranian politics in the first instance and of geography, history, and the nature of warfare in the second. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement First, lets look at the Kim gambit. Trump might well buy such a letter. He seems eager for a deal, saying hed like the Iranians to call him, even providing Swiss intermediaries with a number where he can be reached. But neither Iranian President Hassan Rouhani nor the countrys supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is inclined to send, write, or phone. Iran is not quite a democracy, though it does have elections and factions. But it is a fairly open (if oppressive) society, certainly far more so than North Korea, which is not only an absolute dictatorship but also more hermetically sealed than any country on earth. Kim can say or do pretty much anything he wants; he can pivot on a dime and no one will complain, since grousing is punishable by death. Khameneiwho has never communicated in any way with any U.S. presidenthas to continue to paint America as the devil to maintain his power among the hard-line mullahs on Irans ruling council. Advertisement Advertisement Opening negotiations with President Barack Obamas diplomats, much less reaching an agreement that required the dismantlement of Irans nuclear program, was a very high risk for all involved. Advertisement The fact that Trump pulled out of the deal, even though international inspectors attested that Iran was abiding by its terms, suggests that the ayatollah wont take a chance again, not with an American so untrustworthy. Even if he did express interest in reopening talks, perhaps because the renewed sanctions were squeezing his economy dry, he would notcould notbring himself to pen flowery, flattering prose to the bearer of his misery. Iran is a highly literate countrynearly everyone can read and writeand many people, especially in the cities, are plugged into the world through the internet and satellite television. If their leader wrote the sort of doting letter designed to make Trump melt, they would hear about it. Much of the regimes legitimacy, or its rationale for oppressive policies, rests on projecting the image of threats all aroundan image that Trump has done much to affirm. If suddenly Rouhani or Khamenei were seen as praising Trump (something that they did not do even to Obamathe talks with Secretary of State John Kerry were conducted on a cordial but businesslike and at times contentious basis), they would risk forfeiting their power and the foundational rhetoric of their regime. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If Trump wants to talk seriously with Rouhani or Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, there are wayscircuitous ways, but ways nonethelessto make this happen. If hes looking for a new best friend, or someone who will at least pretend to be one, forget about it. As for waging war on Iran, Cotton and others like him dont seem to remember certain lessons of Iraq. Back in 200203, when President George W. Bush was preparing for the invasion, many seemingly smart people predicted a cakewalk. The U.S. commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, urged Bush to speed up the invasion, in March, even before the 4th Infantry Division was in place, so that his troops could come home before the peak of Iraqs summer heat. (They ended up staying through nine summers, with 4,424 killed and more than 31,000 injured.) Advertisement Advertisement Iran would be even harder than Iraq: It is 3 times the size and has a little more than three times as many people. Its terrain is rougher and more mountainous; Iraqs was flat and mostly clear desert. The biggest fear leading up to the invasion of Iraq was a Battle of Baghdad at the endurban warfare with snipers firing from rooftops and alleys. It didnt happen because Saddam Hussein fled, the police and the army disbanded, the entire ruling elite disintegrated, before the U.S. tanks arrived. Its true that many Iranians, especially in the cities, despise their regime. But they also loathe invaders; the memory of 1953when the CIA and the British overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, a popularly elected leader, and installed the shah as the Wests supine allyremains fresh. They are not likely to welcome American soldiers as their liberators. There probably would be a Battle of Tehran, and it would likely be long and bloody. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Iran would be even harder than Iraq; it is 3 times the size and has a little more than three times as many people. One other big difference: Saddam had no external leverage on the invaders; his army had to fight the U.S. military head-on. Iran can wage asymmetric warfare. It could shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway for more than a quarter of the worlds oil. Its proxies could launch missiles at Israel and at American forces in the region. It could also launch cyberattacks against the networks that control U.S. military communications, intelligence, and guided missilesor, out in the wider world, Americas critical infrastructure. The U.S. also has extensive cyberoffensive capabilities, of course, but it has never used them in battle against a power with cyber forces of its own. The standoff would be unpredictable and probably very damaging to both sides. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent 150,000 troops into Iraqwhich proved enough to run Saddam out of town and defeat his army, but not nearly enough to stabilize things afterward. Neither of them thought post-combat operations would be necessary, even though their advisers warned otherwise. Now, the Pentagon has reportedly drawn up plans to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East, to deter or stave off Iranian aggression. That is but a fraction of what would be necessary if things escalated. Even Trump said that, if he did send troops to Iran, hed send a hell of a lot more than 120,000. Finally, Trump would go into waror any other sort of pressure campaign against Iranwith none of Americas traditional allies. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel would provide bases, intelligence support, maybe firepower (though dont count on that). But this would leave out the European allieswho did play an important political role in the wars against Iraqand it would accentuate the perception that this is nothing but a gang-up by Sunni Arabs, Zionists, and America against Shiites, thereby aggravating the regions sectarian conflicts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Different members of the administration are sending different messages about the purpose of the recent escalation. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has sometimes depicted the campaign of maximum pressure as leverage to bring Iran back to the table to negotiate an improved Iran nuclear dealthough he has also said the U.S. wont back down until Iran changes its behavior. National security adviser John Bolton quite openly calls for regime change, by force if necessary. What does Trump want out of this high drama? Thats unclear. He bugged out of the Iran nuclear deala move that marked the genesis of this crisisfor no good reason, other than that he didnt like it or the previous president who negotiated it. He withdrew under pressure, or with the merry blessings, of Bolton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If he stays passive and lets the escalation play out, hes going to wind up in a war. If he doesnt want a war, he should slow this juggernaut down. The problem is, he has nobody around him who seems inclined to do this. There is nobody in his administration with any experience doing diplomacy with Iran. Hes going to have to do it himself. And that, in itself, is frightening. Donald Trump Jr. has agreed to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in private, after the Republican-led committee subpoenaed him to sit for a follow-up interview as the panel tries to wrap up its investigation into Russian election meddling. Trump Jr. was publicly resistant to the idea of sitting to testify again and President Donald Trump started poking around in congressional business, questioning why his eldest son would need to appear after the Mueller report had been submitted. But Trump Jr.s lawyers came to an agreement with the Intelligence Committee, the Washington Post reports, to testify in June for up to four hours with a limit on the number of questions. Its unclear if the scope of topics open for discussion will be limited or not. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump Jr. has been a key figure in a number of different investigations into the Trump campaign. Democrats believe he lied under oath about what he knew going into the June 2016 Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer promising to assist the Trump campaign with damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohens testimony, however, has brought new information to light that may implicate Trump Jr. Another topic of interest to the panel is Trump Jr.s knowledge of the pursuit of a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the campaign. The Trump White House has begun aggressively pressuring current and former staffers and allies to refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas to testify on a wide range of topics under investigation by the Democrat-led House. Trump has seemed more than willing to refuse across the board and fight it out in court. The Trump Jr. summons, however, put the Trump administration in an awkward position of potentially defying a member of its own party, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr. Advertisement Advertisement The deal came after an aggressive push by the younger Mr. Trumps allies, who accused the Intelligence Committees chairman, Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, of caving to Democrats by issuing a subpoena for his testimony. They called the effort a political hit job against the White House, using the presidents son as fodder, the New York Times notes. The accusationsand accompanying pushback by Mr. Burr to his Republican colleaguesamounted to an unusually public spat for a panel that has toiled for nearly two years on a bipartisan investigation into Russias 2016 election interference efforts that has been largely free of partisan politics. Subscribe in Apple Podcasts or another podcast player. For two and a half years, Emily Bazelon has been following people through a special court in New York designed to be a speedy machine for the harsh punishment of illegal gun possession. Along the way, a strange thing happenedthe politics outside the courtroom started to change when a new generation of activists and insiders began challenging the old system the gun court was part of. Read Bazelons cover story. Season 1 of Slate Presents brought you the story of Ruby Ridge, and Season 2 brings you a fight to transform one big-city justice system. New episodes of Charged will be released every Wednesday beginning Apr. 17. Slate Plus members will receive a full bonus episode each week. Get More Charged Only Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Charged each week, going deeper into the issues of gun prosecution. Youll also get extended, ad-free versions of all Slate podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to Charged Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page. EPISODE 1: BORN IN BROOKLYN The mayor of New York deals with a big political problem by creating a new court in Brooklyn. Two men, Eric and Tarari, born 25 years and a few blocks apart in Brooklyn take entirely different paths to meet at that courtone as a defendant and the other as the district attorney. PLUS: THE MAKING OF CHARGED Host Emily Bazelon talks to producers Veralyn Williams and Alvin Melathe. They discuss what its like being producers of color and the racial nuances of making a podcast about crime and punishment in New York. For Slate Plus members only. EPISODE 2: CRIMINOGENIC As his family and friends hustle to come up with his bail money, Tararis journey into the criminal justice system takes him to one of the most infamous jails in the country: Rikers Island. Eric runs for his own term as district attorney just as the demands to close Rikers heat up. PLUS: BAIL Bazelon goes deeper into the issues of bail with Insha Rahman of the Vera Institute. They discuss the history of bail in the United States, how bail bond companies work, and the current movements to end cash bail in several states. For Slate Plus members only. EPISODE 3: THE GHOST OF TYRONE HOWARD Tarari faces a very long prison sentence before hes offered the chance at mercywith many strings attached. An episode from Eric Gonzalezs past comes back to haunt him as he campaigns for district attorney and thinks through the consequences of extending mercy to people like Tarari. PLUS: PLEA BARGAINING Bazelon talks plea bargaining with Adam Foss, founder and president of Prosecutor Impact. They discuss how plea bargaining works, the culture of prosecutors versus public defenders, and what hes trying to teach young prosecutors now. EPISODE 4: THE ESCAPE HATCH Tarari enters a diversion program, which saves him from jail but puts his lifeand the lives of other defendants like himon a knifes edge. We hear from social workers who run the program about the many ethical quandaries of trying to help their clients inside of a system built to punish them. PLUS: DIVERSION Bazelon talks about diversion and alternatives to incarceration with Adam Mansky from the Center for Court Innovation. They discuss the possible alternatives to incarceration or conviction, like the CCIs pioneering program at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in New York, and how they work. EPISODE 5: THE LONG TAIL A stand-alone episode about Cadeem Gibbs, one of the voices featured in our series. Gibbs is introduced to listeners as an expert but goes through his own harrowing experience with the systemwhen hes sent to Rikers a few days shy of completing his parole. We document his ordeal and its surprising aftermath. PLUS: PROBATION Bazelon goes deeper into the issues of parole and supervised release with Scott Hechinger of Brooklyn Defender Services. They discuss Cadeems case, New Yorks Less is More act, supervision and reincarceration, and how more attention is starting to shine on what happens in gun court and once people are released from jail. EPISODE 6: THE OTHER SIDE We check in with Tarari and others as they complete their time in the diversion program and look toward their futures, and we hear from the people inside the Brooklyn District Attorneys Office about their plans to reshape their slice of the criminal justice system. PLUS: A CONVERSATION WITH STACEY ABRAMS Listen to a conversation between Bazelon and former Georgia House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams, recorded at an event at the New York Public Library in April. Buy Bazelons new book Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration. Listen to If Then by clicking the arrow on the audio player below, or get the show via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Get More If Then Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to If Then Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page. In this episode, April Glaser is joined by guest co-host Max Read, an editor at New York magazine who covers technology and the internet. First, April and Max talk about Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes apostasy. Last week, Hughes wrote a long op-ed in the New York Times about why he thinks the company that made him so wealthy should be broken up. Advertisement Then, Katherine Lo joins the hosts to discuss how Facebooks redesign will change how we communicate on the platform. She leads the content moderation team at a nonprofit called Meedan, which works with journalists on disinformation. While we talk a lot about how large social networks are governedand misgovernedits less frequent that we talk about how these platforms are designed, and how that can lead to toxic behavior. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Stories discussed on the show: Its Time to Break Up Facebook Facebook Unveils Redesign as It Tries to Move Past Privacy Scandals Dont Close My Tabs: Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again Alyssa Limperis, Comedian Podcast production by Samantha Lee. You can follow April @Aprilaser and Max @Max_read. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com. If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Greetings, Future Tensers, In a recent New York Times op-ed, one of Facebooks co-founders, Chris Hughes, added his voice to the growing chorus calling for the breakup of the social media giant. While others who have made similar calls often cite its poor privacy practices and invasive levels of data collection, Hughes, who left Facebook in 2007, largely focused his appeal on the idea that his former college roommate has way too much power over online speech. Between Facebooks namesake platform and its ownership of Instagram and WhatsApp, the decisions about what 2 billion people can and cant say on the platforms essentially fall under the purview of one Mark Zuckerberg. But, as Evelyn Douek counters, simply breaking up Facebook likely wouldnt fix free speech problems on any of the resulting smaller platforms. She explains why shes unconvinced that competition and market-based accountability alone will do much to address the many underlying problems with its practices. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Elsewhere this week, Future Tense has also been exploring other big debates in big tech. Andreas Vogel and Nicholas Wright expose the inherent conflict of interest in the way that Amazons Alexa plays both constant companion and sales robot. Dan Gillmor explains a powerful change Google announced for its Android devices. And Kate Klonick writes about why Facebooks announcement that it will be raising wages and giving more support to its contract content moderators is such a big dealand the researcher we have to thank for it. Other things we read between trying to figure out where to get rid of the things that didnt spark joy: Back doors: In just three days, Intel, Cisco, and WhatsApp all announced major security flaws in their products. Aaron Mak gives us the alarming rundown. Advertisement Advertisement Dirty war: The author of World War Z writes about his worries about the looming threat of biological warfare and bioterrorism. Package-free: Jane C. Hu explores a new crop of package-free products and who theyre actually for. Wiki Leaks: Stephen Harrison explains how WikiLeaks false use of the Wiki- prefix has hurt the free encyclopedias brand. Cryptoschemes: Nir Kshetri explores how criminals are using new technologyand some classic tacticsto pull off a new generation of cryptocurrency scams. Advertisement Black death: Yes, you can still get the plague. Shannon Palus explains how one couple recently died of it and why you should avoid raw marmot kidney. Events: The original Jurassic Park did something few other movies have managed to do: It delivered the entertaining drama of dinosaurs wreaking havoc while giving viewers new ways to think about ethics in science. Join Future Tense on Wednesday, May 22, in Washington, D.C., for a screening of the 1993 sci-fi classic and a brief discussion on the ways it helped informand misinformthe public imagination. Well be joined by the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcia McNutt, and Daniel Sarewitz, co-director of the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes. RSVP here. To watching teens fail at rotary phones, Anthony Nguyen For Future Tense Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. An asteroid torn apart by the strong gravity of a white dwarf has formed a ring of dust particles and debris orbiting the Earth-sized burnt out stellar core. Small, hardy planets packed with dense elements have the best chance of avoiding being crushed and swallowed up when their host star dies, new research from the University of Warwick has found. Astrophysicists from the Astronomy and Astrophysics Group have modelled the chances of different planets being destroyed by tidal forces when their host stars become white dwarfs and have determined the most significant factors that decide whether they avoid destruction. Their 'survival guide' for exoplanets could help guide astronomers locate potential exoplanets around white dwarf stars, as a new generation of even more powerful telescopes is being developed to search for them. Their research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Most stars like our own Sun will run out of fuel eventually and shrink and become white dwarfs. Some orbiting bodies that aren't destroyed in the maelstrom caused when the star blasts away its outer layers will then be subjected to shifts in tidal forces as the star collapses and becomes super-dense. The gravitational forces exerted on any orbiting planets would be intense and would potentially drag them into new orbits, even pushing some further out in their solar systems. By modelling the effects of a white dwarf's change in gravity on orbiting rocky bodies, the researchers have determined the most likely factors that will cause a planet to move within the star's 'destruction radius'; the distance from the star where an object held together only by its own gravity will disintegrate due to tidal forces. Within the destruction radius a disc of debris from destroyed planets will form. Although a planet's survival is dependent on many factors, the models reveal that the more massive the planet, the more likely that it will be destroyed through tidal interactions. But destruction is not certain based on mass alone: low viscosity exo-Earths are easily swallowed even if they reside at separations within five times the distance between the centre of the white dwarf and its destruction radius. Saturn's moon Enceladus - often described as a 'dirty snowball' - is a good example of a homogeneous very low viscosity planet. High viscosity exo-Earths are easily swallowed only if they reside at distances within twice the separation between the centre of the white dwarf and its destruction radius. These planets would be composed entirely of a dense core of heavier elements, with a similar composition to the 'heavy metal' planet discovered by another team of University of Warwick astronomers recently. That planet has avoided engulfment because it is as small as an asteroid. Dr Dimitri Veras, from the University of Warwick's Department of Physics, said: "The paper is one of the first-ever dedicated studies investigating tidal effects between white dwarfs and planets. This type of modelling will have increasing relevance in upcoming years, when additional rocky bodies are likely to be discovered close to white dwarfs." "Our study, while sophisticated in several respects, only treats homogenous rocky planets that are consistent in their structure throughout. A multi-layer planet, like Earth, would be significantly more complicated to calculate but we are investigating the feasibility of doing so too." Distance from the star, like the planet's mass, has a robust correlation with survival or engulfment. There will always be a safe distance from the star and this safe distance depends on many parameters. In general, a rocky homogenous planet which resides at a location from the white dwarf which is beyond about one-third of the distance between Mercury and the Sun is guaranteed to avoid being swallowed from tidal forces. Dr Veras said: "Our study prompts astronomers to look for rocky planets close to - but just outside of - the destruction radius of the white dwarf. So far observations have focussed on this inner region, but our study demonstrates that rocky planets can survive tidal interactions with the white dwarf in a way which pushes the planets slightly outward. "Astronomers should also look for geometric signatures in known debris discs. These signatures could be the result of gravitational perturbations from a planet which resides just outside of the destruction radius. In these cases, the discs would have been formed earlier by the crushing of asteroids which periodically approach and enter the destruction radius of the white dwarf." The research received support from the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council. 'Orbital relaxation and excitation of planets tidally interacting with white dwarfs' published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz965 Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. Three companies have already announced major security flaws in their products this week, and we havent even made it to Wednesday. And thats not counting an additional location bug announced by Twitter with a more limitedthough still worrisomeimpact. While its not uncommon for tech firms to disclose vulnerabilities on a regular basis, the number of severe problems this week seems particularly egregiousand potentially hard to keep track of. Heres a quick rundown of everything you should know. Advertisement Intel Chip Vulnerability Security researchers from Graz University of Technology announced that they had discovered a vulnerability affecting nearly every Intel chip manufactured since 2011, which would allow a hacker to steal data from a victims processor using four different bugs. Researchers named the attack ZombieLoad and are comparing it to the Spectre and Meltdown flaws discovered last year. Zombieload allows hackers to take advantage of existing flaws in Intel chips, rather than having to implant malware onto the target devices. Intel, Apple, Microsoft, and Google have all released patches to address the vulnerability. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Cisco Router Bugs Red Balloon, a cybersecurity firm, announced on Monday that it had been able to compromise Ciscos 1001-X routers using two different bugs. The first bug allows the hacker to remotely gain root access to the router, which essentially grants a user administrative privileges on the device. Once the hackers have root access, they can then circumvent the routers security protections using the second bug and infiltrate all the devices on the network. Given the popularity of Ciscos routers, the vulnerability could have wide-ranging implications. Cisco announced on Monday that it would be releasing a patch. Advertisement Advertisement WhatsApp Hack WhatsApp, the encrypted messenger service owned by Facebook, announced on Monday that unidentified hackers tried to exploit a vulnerability in the platform by injecting spyware onto a victims phone via voice call. Even if the target didnt answer the call, the hackers would still be able to infiltrate the device. A source familiar with the situation told CNN that the NSO Group, a company based in Israel, designed the malware. (The NSO Group denied any involvement in executing the attack.) A United Kingdom lawyer for a human rights organization claimed to the Guardian that he was a target of the attempted hack, and that he is currently involved in a civil case against the NSO Group. The New York Times further reported that a Saudi dissident, Mexican journalists and activists, and a Qatari citizen were also among the targets. Advertisement Advertisement WhatsApp is advising that all users to download the latest version of the app, which has a patch for the vulnerability. Twitter Location Glitch Twitter announced on Monday that a bug was sharing users location data with a trusted partner in some cases without consent. The company says that the bug would only have affected users who had multiple accounts and had opted to share precise location data on one of the accounts. However, the company claims that only a users city or ZIP code, not precise address, would have been sent to the partner, and that this location data has already been deleted. Twitter has declined to disclose the identity of the partner or the length of time that this bug was sharing the data. What do Slovaks living and working in Ireland say about the possibility of moving back to Slovakia? The next edition of Work in Slovakia Good Idea! event will focus on health-care workers. (Source: SME) Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Faced with brain-drain some eastern European countries have tried various schemes to attract back their citizens who moved abroad. My home country Romania has a scheme offering starting capital of up to 40,000 to those Romanians wishing to come back and open a business in any locality. Apparently about 3,500 people were interested in applying last year, most of them scared by Brexit. The food service industry is first in regards to areas in which returning Romanians would like to launch their business, followed by IT and the creative industry. Just in case you are wondering, Romania is hemorrhaging doctors and nurses and it needs them back badly more than any other group of emigrants. I mean back in hospitals and not running a pub (there is no shortage of pubs and restaurants in Romania, by the way). Read also: Read also: Government tried to lure Slovaks back from the UK. But the promotion was weak Read more Slovak authorities want to lure back their fellow skilled Slovaks living abroad. Faced with a shortage of IT experts in the Slovak market, the companies gathered under the umbrella of the Slovak IT Association have initiated a project called Work in Slovakia Good Idea!, supported by the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Investments and Informatisation. In January it organized its first job fair in London, which was attended by 127 people with 3 to 7 of them already in various phases of the recruitment process, according to organisers. Another job fair is scheduled for May 18 at the Slovak Embassy in Dublin. This time health-care personnel should have been targeted, but by the time this text was published the Slovak Health Ministry had yet to offer some details in this respect, including an estimate on how many Slovak doctors and nurses work in Ireland. Juraj Hossu, sentenced for the killing of a Filipino expat, could be conditionally released after more than two years. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Not a cell but a room in a hostel-like prison, which is open until 22:00. If he ends up in open prison, he could even change his clothes after work and visit his family for two days. This is where Juraj Hossu, a Slovak sentenced to six years in prison for the killing of Filipino expat Henry Acorda last year, will be staying in the following years. Hossu has already spent one year in prison since being taken into custody last June, the Sme daily reported. Apart from the fact that Hossu has been sent to prison of the lowest level of protection, some are also questioning whether six years for killing a person is enough. A killing vs a murder Read also: Read also: Man who killed Henry Acorda gets six years Read more The law distinguishes between a murder and a killing, Tomas Stremy of the Faculty of Law at Comenius University in Bratislava told Sme. Since Hossu killed Acorda but did not murder him, he received only a six-year prison sentence. A murder occurs when the intent of a person is to harm their victim harshly, eventually causing death, he added. If an offender deliberately shot their victim in the head, they would probably not have the intent to only harm the victim but also to cause their death, criminal lawyer Ondrej Laciak told Sme. This means that when Hossu kicked Acorda in the head, he may not have intended to kill him, said criminal lawyer Ondrej Mularcik. Given Hossu's strength and height, he may only have realised that he could kill the Filipino. 7 to 10 years in prison During the trial, the prosecutor said an offender may be sentenced to seven to 10 years in prison in the case of a killing. However, she suggested a slightly lower punishment, Sme reported. Read also: Read also: I am not an aggressor, claims the man accused of Filipinos manslaughter Read more The judge took her arguments into consideration and accepted the proposal of the six-year prison sentence. In addition, he reasoned his decision with the fact that Hossu was drunk and under the influence of medicine. Reduced sanity may result in a sentence being uncommonly lowered, added Mularcik, as quoted by Sme. Hossu did not drink to kill somebody, claimed Stremy. Because of this, it was right that the judge also considered Hossu's drunkenness, he added. Released after three years The lawyers addressed by Sme are not surprised Hossu will spend the following five years in a prison with the lowest level of protection, Sme wrote. If an offender was not sentenced for intentional crime in the last 10 years, they can be sent to such a prison, Stremy explained. Read also: Read also: Expat dies following street attack in Bratislava. Attacker charged with manslaughter Read more Moreover, Hossu could be released conditionally once half of his prison sentence is over. This means that he could leave prison in just over two years, Sme wrote. Even if he was released, he would still have to wear an electronic bracelet. Some restrictions may be linked with the bracelet, said Laciak, as quoted by Sme. Hossu would not be able to travel abroad, go to bars, and would have to be home by 20:00, he added. Coffee has a long, rich history in Vietnam. Sidewalk cafes with tiny tables and plastic stools are ubiquitous throughout the country. Traditional Vietnamese coffeea phin-brewed combination of bitter Robusta and sweet condensed milkis as much a symbol of Vietnamese culture as any other. Despite a deep cultural appreciation for coffee and being the worlds second-largest producer, coffee in Vietnamwhich is primarily robustaisnt known for being high quality. While big city shops like The Workshop and Bosgaurus have sought to shift the conversation around coffee in Vietnam, specialty coffee is still a relatively new concept in this rapidly changing country. Now, in the burgeoning city of Da Nang, 43 Factory Coffee Roaster is leading the charge for Central Vietnam in the countrys coffee revolution. Da Nang has grown rapidly in recent years. It recently reached a population of one million and is now touted as the new must-visit city in Vietnam. After years of being skipped over by visitors in favor of nearby Hoi An and Hue, the coastal city is becoming a premier travel destination. Seeing the rapid development around Da Nang and wanting better coffee for his fellow citizens, LE ac Thanh co-founded 43 Factory to bring a better coffee experience to his hometown. Born and raised in Da Nang, he chose 43 as a nod to the first numbers on the license plates of Da Nang vehicles. LE ac Thanh is young and full of ambition. He has to be. He understands that hes fighting an uphill battle when it comes to influencing the perception of coffee among his fellow citizens. Still, its an endeavor LE ac Thanh has decided is worth taking on. I believe that it is very difficult for Vietnamese people to realize and face the truth that Vietnamese coffee is considered low quality and customers deserve to drink better coffee, Thanh says. But we are young people who dare to fight. We love Da Nang, we love Vietnam, but we have our own way of doing things. He is resolute in his mission. Through 43 Factory, Thanhs goal is to effect change at the production level in Vietnam. By bringing a specialty-focused cafe to Da Nang, he believes that he can change the perception of what coffee can be. In turn, by showing that theres a demand for better coffee, he hopes that producers will take notice and focus on producing quality coffee in Vietnam. Historically, Vietnams green bean production is poor quality and less sustainable, explains LE ac Thanh. While people around the world can easily approach and consume high-quality Arabica coffee, Vietnamese people have very little opportunity to do so. That motivated us to build 43 Factory, he adds. The hope is that when consumer awareness and behaviors increase, there will be an improvement of the supply market. With an ambitious vision laid out for 43 Factory, LE ac Thanh built the space to reflect his big dreams. As a result, 43 Factory is one of the most visually stunning cafes youll ever visiteach element carefully thought out, each flourish meaningful. Located just a few blocks from the beach, the cafe is a harmony of industrial, minimalist, and tropical styles. Floor to ceiling windows, steel frames, and green trees provide a balanced design that manages to be equal parts elegant and simple. A profile view of 43 Factory reveals a roof in the shape of a birds wing to represent the dream of reaching out for the coffee industry sky, says LE ac Thanh. Outside, a massive koi pond surrounds the cafe. A concrete walkway cuts through the pond where sunken stone booths allow guests to sit amongst dozens of colorful fish. Inside, an open bar takes center stage. In the middle of the bar, a tree stretches up to the second floor. Furthering the design metaphors, LE ac Thanh says that the tree symbolizes being newly involved in the coffee industry but having aspirations to develop. With the baristas behind low counters adorned with various grinders and brewing equipment, customers can grab a seat at the bar and witness each step of the bean-to-cup process. Transparency, attention to detail, and education are all part of the bigger picture at 43 Factory. Here, its understood that its not just about the success of the cafe, but the Vietnamese coffee industry as a whole. To this end, LE ac Thanh and his team are happy to do their part. We never feared failure, LE ac Thanh says confidently. We believe that one day, Vietnamese farmers will have to change their production habits towards quality rather than quantity, he adds before summarizing the future he sees for his countrys coffee industry. Then, the world will officially recognize Vietnam on a specialty coffee map. Zach Anderson is a freelance journalist living in Southeast Asia. This is Zach Andersons first feature for Sprudge. Photos courtesy of 43 Factory Coffee Roaster Diane L. Norris, age 79 of Westland and formerly a longtime resident of Fowlerville, passed away April 25, 2019. Norris was born on June 23, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan; daughter of George and Doris (nee Kelley) Strange. Diane was united in marriage to Gordon E. Norris. They have been together for 52 years. Diane was the owner of Standardbred race horses and was an integral part in running Gordon Norris Stables in Fowlerville with her husband. They raced all over North America where she was well known and respected in the horse racing community. She enjoyed working with horses; training, grooming, and naming them. Diane was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Owners and Trainers. She was a member of United States Trotting Association, Michigan Harness Horseman Association, and Florida Breeders Association. Diane took pride in a well-kept house and was very meticulous about cleaning both her home and barns. Diane is survived by her loving husband Gordon E. Norris, seven children, nine grandchildren, five great grandchildren, one sister and one brother. She was preceded in death by her parents and one brother. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the friends and family of Diane Norris. Over the next few months, on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Susan Fitzgerald will be offering some emergency management workshops for agriculture explaining the formal response structure that government agencies and first responders use in emergency situations. The Incident Management System (IMS) was created as the result of a communications breakdown among the many services and levels of government that were called in to fight wildfires in California in the 1970s. The system expanded and spread into and across Canada and now all government agencies in Ontario follow the IMS when responding to emergencies. This same IMS structure would be used for emergencies involving agriculture, e.g. fires, floods or significant disease outbreaks. The goal of these workshops is to increase industry awareness and understanding within agriculture of the basic concepts of emergency response protocols. This will help improve both associations and individual companies know how to tap into the emergency command system and respond effectively to emergencies that may impact their sector or society at large. The Ontario Harness Horse Association (OHHA) will host one of these workshops on July 30, 2019 in Guelph, Ontario. The workshop will start at 9:00 a.m. and run until approximately 3:00 p.m. There is no charge to attend this workshop as they are being financially supported by Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) funds provided through OMAFRA, however pre-registration is required. Participants will receive an IMS 100 certificate issued by Emergency Management Ontario, Ministry of the Attorney General upon successful completion of the workshop. For more information please contact either Brian Tropea at OHHA, 905-854-6442 or by e-mail at [email protected], or Susan Fitzgerald at 519-669-3350 or by e-mail at [email protected]. (OHHA) In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation. New York Sire Stakes continued downstate Tuesday night (May 14), as Yonkers Raceway hosted the soggy Art Watson Pace for three-year-old fillies. Two consecutively-contested divisions, at $85,250 apiece, comprised the event. Odds-on Zero Tolerance widened in the first division. From post position four, she crawled through splits of :28.2 and :59.2), then rebuffed a hard challenge from Meghan Lynn before finishing the job to a 1:55.2 mile. Zero Tolerance whipped a loosely-pocketed So Awesome by two-and-a-half lengths, with DD Delicious third and Crazy Cute fourth. For Zero Tolerance, a daughter of Heston Blue Chip co-owned by Val Dor Farms & Ted Gewertz and trained by Joe Holloway, it was her first win in two seasonal starts (7-for-13, $485,813 as two-year-old). David Miller drove the $2.40 winner. The exacta (two wagering choices) paid $4.80, the triple returned $32.80 and the superfecta paid $177.50. She was good and strong. I liked the way she raced, Miller said. The second and final sire stakes event saw a perfectly-towed Brooklyn Lilacs edge Hurrikane Norakane, who carried her into the fray. The latter went up and over the just-over-even-money choice JK American Beauty after the one led through intervals of :28.2, :57.4 and 1:26.2. When the leader tired, she trapped last seasons frosh champ, Money Shot Hanover, in behind. Hurrikane Norakane grabbed a short lead off the final turn, but Brooklyn Lilacsfrom post fourwas ready for her close-up. Brooklyn Lilacs went by late to win, the margin a neck, in a life-best 1:55.2. Heavens Challenge closed from third over to grab third, with Money Shot Hanover settling for fourth. For sixth-choice Brooklyn Lilacs, a homebred Rock N Roll Heaven miss owned by Crawford Farms and trained by Jennifer Bongiorno, it was her first win in three 19 tries (1-for-7, $60,660 as two-year-old). Joe Bongiorno drove the $65.00 winner. The exacta paid $466, the triple returned $4,466 and the superfecta paid $7,127. Shes a nice filly and I think shes going to get better every start, driver Bongiorno said. New York Sire Stakes returns downstate Thursday night, June 20 with the Jim Meagher Pace for two-year-old colts and geldings. A friendly reminder from Yonkers Raceway that Thursday evenings, May 16, Pick-5 wager starts with a carryover of $5,599.16 and a $15,000 guaranteed pool. The guarantee is in conjunction with the U.S. Trotting Associations Strategic Wagering Program. The Pick 5 is a 50-cent base wager comprising races 6 through 10 Thursday night. It has no consolation payoff, meaning if no one selects all five winners (as was the case Tuesday night), the entire pool (minus takeout) moves to the next racing program. (with files from Yonkers Raceway) When the Islamic State took control of Raqqa they banned all music and art, but with their removal, art and culture has returned to the city writes Asharq al-Awsat. More than a year after the ISIS group fled, Syrian boys and girls are finally back on stage bobbing to the rhythm of drums in the northern city of Raqqa. At the first cultural center to open since ISIS draconian rule ended, sunlight floods into the brand new library, while books line shelves along a wall that still smells of wet paint. After almost four years under ISIS, which banned music and the arts, US-backed forces expelled the last terrorists from Raqqa in October 2017. But its taken a bit of time to resuscitate cultural life, said an AFP report Sunday. I cant describe how happy I am, said Fawzia al-Sheikh at the centers opening earlier this month, in the still largely devastated city. After all this destruction, and no arts or culture, we finally have a center where we can listen to song and poetry again, the Raqqa resident added. In the Raqqa Center for Arts and Cultures brightly lit gallery, paintings hang beside charcoal drawings, near sculptures of human figures. In the concert hall, Malak al-Yatim stepped off stage after performing exhilarated to finally be able to sing in public again. I feel like a bird sweeping through the spring sky, he said. Yatim added that ISIS smashed his instruments and banned him from singing. We were like nightingales in a cage, he lamented. If we did anything, theyd chop off our head or whip us. ISIS overran Raqqa in 2014, making the city its de facto Syrian capital. Before ISIS arrived, the city had more than 20 cultural centers, the largest housing 60,000 books. But the extremists forced all these facilities to close, burning and destroying books and paintings. But in the new centers library, hundreds of volumes that survived the extremists adorn shelves. These books you can see we saved them from the ruins, said Ziad al-Hamad, the centers director. During ISIS rule, residents hid them wherever they could, added the 62-year-old, dressed neatly in a brown V-neck jumper over a stripy white shirt. When the city was liberated, they gave them back to us, added Hamad, who also sits on the city councils culture and antiquities commission. The Kurdish-led and US backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled ISIS from the village of Baghouz, its last scrap of Syrian territory, in late March. While the extremists have continued to claim deadly attacks in areas controlled by the SDF including Raqqa local artists have returned to their easels. In the cultural centers gallery, painter Amal al-Attar has work on display after returning from exile in Beirut. Among her works is a painting of a white boat adrift on an ocean, and another of a home on the shoreline. Its like a re-birth, the 37-year-old said of the centers opening, sunglasses perched atop her dark shoulder-length hair. Attar used to run a studio for artists, but when ISIS overran the city they told her art was forbidden. She left 50 works behind when she fled to neighboring Lebanon. ISIS burned them, she said. I cant forget what happened back then, but this cultural center will give us a new drive, she said. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces have violently suppressed the protests of citizens in Deir ez-Zor reports The Syria Times. Syria has called on the Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities by working to stop the attacks and treasonous actions of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the US and other Western states. In letters addressed to the UN Secretary-General and the head of the Security Council on Monday, the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said that the recent massacres committed by the SDF in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor, in collusion with the US-led International Coalition, seek to subjugate Syrian citizens who are demanding their rights and demanding that the Syrian state resume carrying out its duties in the area. The Ministry said that the SDF militias responded with violence to Syrian citizens demands for improvements to the educational sector and provisions of food and water in the impoverished area, killing locals and destroying infrastructure. The letters noted that protests by Syrian citizens against the SDF broke out in several areas in Deir ez-Zor province as well as south of Hassakeh city. The Ministry said the actions of the SDF and their shameful alliance with Syrias enemies prove without a doubt their criminal and terrorist nature, and that they do not express the will of the Syrian people, stressing that the massacred committed by the SDF will only bring them disgrace and the contempt from the Syrian people. The letters calls on the Security Council to compel the US and other Western states to respect Security Council resolutions that assert Syrias sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. The Ministry concluded the letters by saying that Syria reasserts its legal right to defend its citizens across the country, citing paragraph eight of Security Council resolution no. 2254, which gives Syria the right to confront actions carried out by terrorist groups, establishments and entities that seek to undermine Syrias unity. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Over two day, the bodies of fighters who had agreed to settlements with the regime and were killed in northern Syria, were returned to the Damascus countryside reports Sowt al-Asima. In the last two days, the bodies of 10 settlement fighters who joined Assads militias have arrived at military hospitals in the Damascus Countryside. The fighters were killed in the ongoing battle in Idleb and Hama against Syrian resistance groups. The city of Douma mourned eight young men from among their residents, after they were killed fighting for in regimes militia ranks in northern Syria, including two who were part of the Fifth Corps and six who were in the Tiger militia led by General Suhail al-Hassan. Khan al-Sheikh, al-Tal and Harasta received the bodies of fighters from various militias including the Fourth Division, the Republican Guard and militias under the authority of intelligence branches. Local sources in Douma said that a state of fear and terror was gripping residents of the city who had volunteered for the regimes militias after the bodies of their fellow fighters arrived from northern Syria, out of fear they would be put onto the fronts if the fighting continues. The regime is relying on using the reconciliation and settlement fighters as the spearhead in the attack against opposition factions in the current fighting according to eyewitness soldiers who spoke to Sowt al-Asima after taking part in the fighting. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. The educator at the center of a community firestorm in Clatskanie last year will resign at the end of this year, according to school officials, who say his exodus is amicable and that the school and community have been healing since last year. Clatskanie Elementary School principal Brad Thorud announced his decision Monday, Clatskanie School Superintendent Cathy Hurowitz said Wednesday, and he will finish his contract through the end of June. Hurowitz said Thorud has done a great job and said it was his personal decision to resign and not tied to any concerns of wrongdoing or discontent from administration. Reached by phone, Thorud declined to comment Wednesday and said he would release a statement at a later time. The resignation comes during a period of apparent reconciliation for the school district and community, which were thrown into conflict last year when the school board voted 3-2 to not renew Thoruds contract as elementary school principal at the recommendation of former Superintendent Lloyd Hartley. Thoruds district personnel files, while mostly positive, also said he had threatened former Clatskanie High School Principal Amy McNeil and had conflicts with other educators. An attorney for McNeil at one point threatened to sue the district. However, the community supported Thorud and recalled two of the three board members who voted not to renew Thoruds contract. The third quit before the landslide recall vote, held on May 1 last year. In June, a mostly-new school board voted unanimously to rehire Thorud, appealing for reconciliation and mending of community relationships. Hartley resigned in April a week after taking a leave of absence due to stress, and the school board in June selected Hurowitz, a 14-year school administrator, as the new superintendent. Now, all five members of the school board are running unopposed to retain their seats in the upcoming May 21 special election. This current school board came on, of course, as you know in some turmoil, Hurowitz said. But they have made an effort to talk to the community, be out in the community. Megan Evenson, the sole board member remaining from when the controversy first began, said she hopes the board members unopposed re-election run speaks to the fact that people are happy with the direction that the school boards heading and the direction the school district is going too. Facilitated by the Oregon School Boards Association, the Clatskanie School Board has met four times this year with parents, teachers, administration and supervisory staff to identify areas of focus for the school district, Hurowitz said: Engagement, instruction, community and wellness. Evenson said that the school district is having productive conversations among staff, the teachers union and parents. She attributed much of that progress to Hurowitz, who she said came in as a neutral and diplomatic agent to the conflict. Its still a process, Evenson said. Were not 100% healed from it, by any means, but I think were making good strides. I know there are still hard feelings, but we have to move forward. Evenson said she couldnt speak for Thorud but said that his decision was entirely personal and not related to any conflict within the school. She said the board has gotten along great with Thorud since last year. Love 0 Funny 2 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. Can 'Toxic Masculinity' be Cured in Today's Culture? Not just a gentleman, but a Catholic gentleman, is what is lacking in modern times NEWS PROVIDED BY Carmel Communications May 15, 2019 SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2019 /Standard Newswire/ -- Knights that fought for a lady's honor and slayed dragons may be legends of old, but these men still hold many of the ideals of what it truly means to be a man, to live a life fighting for the truth, upholding honor, and unafraid to stand against evil essentially the opposite of the culture of 'toxic masculinity' today. In his new book, THE CATHOLIC GENTLEMAN: Living Authentic Manhood Today, author Sam Guzman extracts from the Catholic faith and the example set by Jesus Christ on how to be a gentleman in today's world and eradicate the toxic masculinity that has gripped the culture. At this point in history, when men have so clearly taken advantage of their power status, twisting the very notion of masculinity from one of service and sacrifice into one of abuse and self-satisfaction, THE CATHOLIC GENTLEMAN is a needed resource and guide for the culture. Guzman is the founder and editor of The Catholic Gentleman blog and a marketing professional. His writing has appeared in various faith-based publications and websites, such as Catholic Exchange, Aleteia, and the Christian Science Monitor, and he is a frequent guest on radio programs. He and his wife have four children, and live in the rolling hills of the Oklahoma Ozarks. Traditional gender roles have been eroding for decades but have been almost completely discarded in today's culture. Guzman makes a case for bringing back courtesy, politeness, courage, valor and honor into the very definition of masculinity in THE CATHOLIC GENTLEMAN. "Very well-written, direct and packed with spiritual insight," Matt Fradd, host of Pints with Aquinas and author of The Porn Myth, says of THE CATHOLIC GENTLEMAN. "Our culture isn't suffering from toxic masculinity; it's suffering from a toxic lack of it. This book seeks to remedy that." For more information, to request a review copy or to schedule an interview with Sam Guzman, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com) of Carmel Communications. SOURCE Carmel Communications CONTACT: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276, KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com Is truth dead in America? Washington State University political professor Steven Stehr aims to find out. On Monday, Stehr will give a free public presentation at the Longview Public Library about how talk of alternative facts, fake news and the post-truth world are symptoms of deeper societal stress. But America has been here before, he says. The same discord was present in the lead-up to the American Civil War, he said, with gun fights on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. And again in the 1890s with anti-immigration attitudes, income inequality and the rise of yellow journalism, which used sensationalism and exaggeration. It ebbs and flows, Stehr said in an interview Monday. When societies are more healthy, you tend to see more trust in political institutions. You certainly dont see that now. A generation ago, Americans were more willing to accept what they heard from political leaders, institutions and the media, Stehr said. Now there is a lack of trust on all levels: from interpersonal relationships to major institutions. Stehr is a Sam Reed Distinguished Professor in Civic Education and Public Civility and director of the WSU School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs. His presentation at 6 p.m. Monday in the Longview library at 1600 Louisiana St. is part of the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, which is federally funded under the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities Act. It will last about an hour, with time for questions at the end. During his presentation, Stehr will examine the recent anti-vaccine movement, which he says represents a declining trust in not just the medicine but the medical establishment at large. Its not the vaccines so much as its the institutions behind the vaccines. Parents dont want to be told what to do with their children from a medical establishment they dont trust, he said. The distrust also pervades political groups, he said. Many Donald Trump voters felt left behind by people cutting the line. Meanwhile, some on the political left fear theyll be left behind by a patriarchal society, he said. The political polarization is only reinforced by social media platforms where younger generations overwhelmingly get their news that use algorithms to show people information they are already inclined to agree with, he said. Decades of research reveals that Americans are generally uninformed about politics, Stehr said, but its getting worse, in part due to the increased presence of opinion in news. Increased demand for constant news coverage has forced media outlets to fill a 24-hour news cycle. Uncovering and reporting news is expensive, while its relatively cheap to pay people to give their opinions, he said. Im a pretty sophisticated consumer of political news and sometimes I cant tell when theyre talking about news reporting or offering opinions, he said. Newspapers mostly you can tell because they put opinion at the top. Stehr said there is some evidence for the stereotype of reporters as leaning liberal and editors leaning conservative, but the larger problem in media is that it is a for-profit enterprise that has to think about the bottom line. People generally get the kind of news they are willing to pay for, he said. If people wanted to see four hours of white paper segments on complex issues, thats what they would show. Instead theyre showing car chases. Stehr will also talk about the politics of fear. Since the 1990s, violent crime has steadily decreased, but surveys find that citizens believe crime is going up. Both Democrats and Republicans have discovered thats a winning message. If you can scare people, you can get elected no matter the reality. Despite the dire outlook, Stehr says there is also cause for optimism: Americans generally agree on political positions regarding social security, Medicare and background checks for guns. There is some middle ground that we often ignore because that doesnt generate nice headlines, he said. (When Im on a plane), I dont care if the pilot is conservative or liberal. I just want her to be able to fly a plane. Every day we accept professionals to manage our daily lives. However, Stehr said he doesnt have any answers about how to pull America out of its societal stress. Im observing things like everybody else. Im interested to see what will happen. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Advanced Excavating Specialists, a contractor operating out of Longview for a decade, is moving its operations to Kelso due to the politics of the Longview City Council, according to the business owner. AES owner Mike LaFave last week sent a letter to the city resigning from the Stormwater Advisory Committee. I have been struggling with my decision to resign from the Committee since the City Council rejected our responsive bid for the Beech Street Culvert replacement project, LaFave wrote. The City Council made a strong statement that they do not support a City of Longview Business. This being the case I feel that at this time I cant support the Politics of a City, we (AES) have supported and respected. AES has purchased property in the City of Kelso, and have started the process of moving our operation. You and your department (the stormwater division) have done a tremendous job implementing your program, and it has been a pleasure and privilege to be a part of this Committee, so I regretfully resign as of today. The letter references the City Councils decision in March to reject all bids to replace a storm drainage box culvert along Beech Street after Councilman Mike Wallin objected to an addendum that disqualified the lowest bidder, C & R Tractor and Landscaping, Inc. City staff had increased the experience qualifications after the project went out to bid and required bidding contractors to submit documentation showing they met the new criteria. Such addendums happen on most projects, Public Works Director Jeff Cameron told the council during a Feb. 28 meeting. C & R Tractor did not meet the new requirements, so Cameron recommended rejecting the Kelso contractors $2.19 million bid in favor of a $2.3 million bid from AES. The engineers estimate for the project was $2.9 million. In response, Wallin said the city was moving the goalposts on the project. As a result, the council voted to reject all five bids and re-advertise the project. Councilwoman MaryAlice Wallis had the only opposing vote and Councilman Ken Botero was absent. This is the most ridiculous thing Ive heard in my life. You take the recommendations of your own department, and youre throwing them out the window? Thats embarrassing to me, LaFave told the council during the meeting. Wallin told The Daily News Tuesday the letter from AES and its move to Kelso was a complete surprise to me. The councils decision to throw out the bids, Wallin said, had more to do with concerns over the citys process of awarding bids, not the contractors themselves: AES was just as much a victim as other contractors. A decision was made to change requirements for those who would otherwise qualify for the project, Wallin added. This isnt just someone being upset with council. There is a much bigger process here about how projects are publicly bidded and how theyre awarded. The city received only one bid after re-advertising the culvert project: a $2.68 million proposal from Nutter Corp. of Vancouver, which was $380,000 higher than the original bid from AES. LaFave told The Daily News last week that AES did not bid on the project a second time because it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare bids and he didnt feel it was worth it. We didnt want to put any more time toward it. We were done, he said. The council decided to not award any bids and instead return to the project when the bidding climate is more favorable. AES had been looking at property for a while, LaFave said, but the Longview City Councils decision just kind of helped things along. He declined to comment further on what the politics of the city were, but he confirmed that his company bought property at 13th Street and Hazel Street by Foster Farms in Kelso. Longview City Manager Kurt Sacha Tuesday said he was disappointed about AESs decision to move to Kelso, but said there could be many different reasons for it. Having multiple bidders on projects is always in the citys favor, Sacha said, and Hopefully, regardless of where AES is located, they will decide to get back into bidding on all projects. Love 2 Funny 3 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 17 The easternmost six miles of Spirit Lake Memorial Highway from Coldwater Lake to Johnston Ridge reopened to the public Wednesday after its winter shutdown. Reopening of the highway, also known as State Route 504, occurs the same week as the 39th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people, laid waste a vast stretch of forest and sent a cloud of ash across the globe. The highway ends at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which is named after David Johnston, the young U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist killed while monitoring the volcano that day 39 years ago. Each year, the state Department of Transportation coordinates with the U.S Forest Service to open the highway to travelers headed to the Johnston Ridge Observatory in time for the annual May 18 event commemorating the lethal eruption. This years commemoration will include a book launch event for A Hero of Mount St. Helens: The Life and Legacy of David A. Johnston, by Melanie Holmes. It is published by Illinois University Press. Holmes book is the first full-length biography of Johnston, who was immortalized by an iconic photo showing him in a checkered hunting jacket and grimacing up at the volcano from the old timber line parking lot. He compared the steaming and bulging volcano, which sputtered back to life on March 20 that year, to a keg of dynamite with the fuse lit. Holmes will sign copies of her book and lecture about Johnson from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Observatory. The Observatory, which tells the story of the May 18 eruption, is on a ridge directly opposite the crater blasted out of the mountain on the morning of May 18. The Observatory also opened Wednesday and its hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The ridge is 4,300 feet above sea level, and the state closes the road to the location every winter because of snowfall. Contact City Editor Andre Stepankowsky at 360-577-2520. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A Kelso-Longview area man is headed to trial in August after having a series of run-ins with police in recent months. Christian Mackenzie Thompson, 22, was already wanted on suspicion of malicious mischief, robbery, burglary, cyberstalking and violations of court orders when he was arrested on January 8, said Longview police Sergeant Chris Blanchard. Longview police that day found him and another person passed out in a car during a traffic stop, according to court documents. Thompson woke up in a panic when officers knocked on his car window, and began reaching for something behind the drivers seat, court records show. Officers yelled for him to show his hands, but he continued to reach behind his seat and at one point toward his waistband. At that point, a Longview officer sent police dog Ike, who bit Thompsons right hand and began dragging him from the vehicle, court documents said. The concern was that he either had access to a weapon, which was unknown at the time, (or was) potentially reaching for a weapon, Blanchard said. In a search warrant, officers found a backpack located on the back seat in the area Thompson was reaching for. It contained a stolen handgun, cocaine, Suboxone, and a brown substance. Officers also found ammunition, miscellaneous drug paraphernalia, an insurance card for a passenger, $500 in fake currency, and a black face mask in the car. Officers arrested Thompson and requested a new warrant for suspicion of unlawful firearm possession, stolen firearm possession and drug possession. Thompson was arrested again on the night of April 30, in the 1400 block of South Sixth Street in Kelso. Law enforcement were informed that he had a firearm, and based on the number of charges against him and his hostility toward officers in the past, police decided to activate Lower Columbia SWAT to assist in arresting him, Blanchard said. Patrol tried to coax him out of the garage, he didnt respond, so they activated SWAT, Longview police Corporal Brian Streissguth said. We surrounded, continued PA announcements ... and he eventually came out on his own, surrendered. Thompson was booked and initially only charged with illegal suboxone possession. Cowlitz County Prosecutor Ryan Jurvakainen said thats because his office had to act quickly to write out a warrant for Thompsons arrest about two weeks prior. Prosecutors received the case the afternoon of April 19 and had to get a warrant signed by 4 p.m. that day, he said, so there wasnt time to research and file every charge. We had a small opportunity for judicial opportunity to review and sign off that warrant, Jurvakainen said on May 9. We quickly charged one of the charges to get it in front of the judge. There was a very limited window of opportunity ... Quite often that process takes multiple days. ... Additional charges will be added either at or before arraignment. According to his bail study from that arrest, he is at a high risk for violent felony recidivism. Since Thompson only was charged with drug possession during his first appearance on May 1, the prosecutor asked for $5,000 bail, Jurvakainen said. Thompsons bond was set at $2,500 and he bailed out that day. Thompson pleaded not guilty Tuesday to amended charges of drug possession, unlawful firearm possession and possession of a stolen firearm. He is scheduled for trial on August 13. Love 2 Funny 6 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 12 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. Kalama voters will have at least one contested City Council race to decide in the next election. Jon Stanfill, a University of Portland theology professor, filed Monday for James M. Dennis Langhams seat on the Kalama City Council. Langham said he will not be running for reelection. Kalama business owner Sara Hutchinson also filed for the position Monday. Stanfill moved to Kalama about three years ago with his wife, who is from Kelso. Stanfill said he grew up in Seattle and most recently spent about a decade in New York City, where he got his Ph.D. at Fordham University. Stanfill said his experience as a teacher and scholar make him a good candidate. While I have my values, I dont approach issues already having made up my mind, Stanfill said. Its important to welcome new evidence, be humble and flexible enough to change my mind when its the right call. Those are important skills in a local government official. Hutchinson, 36, grew up in Kalama, and after serving five years in the Army, moved back to her hometown in 2007. Hutchinson owns a massage business in Kalama and is also an active member of the Lions Club, VFW and the American Legion. Hutchinson said she decided to run for the council seat because the current administration has made decisions in recent years that many Kalama residents didnt agree with. I want to represent the majority of the people in our city, she said. I dont think thats been done. The seat was the only contested Kalama council position as of Tuesday. Seventy-three elective offices are up for re-election in Cowlitz County this year. Heres an updated list of other candidates who have filed today. A list of candidates who previously filed ran in Mondays paper: Port of Longview Commission District 3: Robert (Rob) Beringer City of Castle Rock Mayor: Paul Helenberg (Incumbent) City of Kalama Position 3: Sara Hutchinson Position 4: Rosemary Siipola (Incumbent) City of Woodland Mayor: Will Finn (Incumbent) Toutle Lake School District District 5: Jonathon Rodeback Castle Rock School District District 4 (at large): Tracy Morgan Kalama School District District 3: Wesley (Wes) R. Eader (Incumbent) District 5: Russ Ipock (Incumbent) Woodland School District District 4: Tammy Graham Kelso School District District 3: Don Sharer Cemetery District 2 Commission Position 3: Christy Tseu Cemetery District 6 Commission Position 3: Ella (Christie) Masters No one has yet filed for the following offices: Fire District 3 Commission Cowlitz-Lewis Fire Protection District 20 Commission Cemetery Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 Woodland Swimming Pool and Recreation District 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. Canada has adopted a suite of measures intended to improve orcas access to food by reducing commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon and quieting vessel noise and disturbance that can interfere with orcas foraging. Some of the policies go further than laws just adopted by the Washington State Legislature. The measures, announced Friday by Canadian agencies, create new sanctuaries for endangered southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea that will be closed to vessel traffic. Washington has no such sanctuaries today. The sanctuaries will be in place from June 1 through Oct. 31 prime southern resident orca season in the Salish Sea at Pender and Saturna Islands and Swiftsure Bank, important feeding areas for the southern residents. The areas would be closed except to emergency vessels and indigenous food, social and ceremonial fisheries. The southern residents are at grave risk of extinction. Vessel noise is one the key threats to the southern residents survival, because it can interfere with their ability to find prey that also is scarce because of a downturn in the orcas preferred food, chinook salmon. The new policies also double the distance vessels must stay away from southern resident killer whales to 400 meters (437 yards, or about one-quarter of a mile). That is more strict than the Legislatures new policy for commercial whale-watch operators in Washington waters. Tours cant approach southern resident killer whales in Washington waters closer than 300 yards, or follow from behind closer than 400 yards. Canadas new policy also allows commercial whale-watch operators, in return for not offering southern resident tours, to watch transient or Biggs killer whales at only 200 yards. Commercial operators that sign on to the deal, which is still being finalized, could still watch the southern residents if they encounter them, albeit at the 400-meter distance. A voluntary slowdown to 7 knots for all small vessels within 1 kilometer of killer whales also was adopted. For commercial shippers such as bulk carriers, ferries, tankers and cruise ships, an ongoing voluntary slowdown was extended, and will start earlier, beginning June 1 if whales are present. The slowdown area is also being expanded from Haro Strait to Boundary Pass. To leave more prey available for the southern residents, recreational and commercial fishing closures were imposed for chinook in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Canadian Gulf Islands. The target date for implementation of the measures is June 1, except for the fisheries closures, which are in July and August, based on the area. All are interim policies, intended to be in place for 2019. In Washington, new restrictions on whale watching are still coming. Under 2SSB 5577, passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jay Inslee, the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife is to develop new fees and regulations on whale watching by 2021 to reduce the daily and cumulative impacts of commercial whale watching on the southern residents. New restrictions are to consider the number of days and hours that tours can operate, as well as the areas in which tours may be given. Washington lawmakers also at the last minute of the 2019 legislative session included $750,000 in the state budget to fund an analysis by a citizen panel of impacts and possible responses to dam removal on the Lower Snake River. Lawmakers did not fund continuation of the governors task force on orca recovery, but it is expected to continue to operate using money from the governors office. The Canadian policies, particularly the vessel slow down to quiet boat noise, could benefit the southern residents, said Alan McGillivray, Canadian president of the Pacific Whale Watch Association and owner of the Prince of Whales tour operation. The agreement not to offer tours of southern residents wont hurt business, he predicted, because operators can still watch the whales if they are encountered though at 400 meters, about a quarter-mile, its not much of an experience for viewers. As a gauge, McGillivray notes that when viewers are a half a mile away, all they can see is a tiny fin. Some Washington conservationists were unimpressed with the initiatives announced across the border. Canada is still pursuing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which will increase the risk of oil spills in the Salish Sea, and vessel noise, so its a double whammy, said Robb Krehbiel, Northwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife, based in Seattle. Stormwater and sewage pollution from Canada also has not been addressed nearly as much as in the U.S. Canadas farmed Atlantic salmon net-pen industry in the Salish Sea which pollutes and can spread disease to wild salmon also is among the largest in the world. They are making progress but still have a long way to go, Krehbiel said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Editors note: Todays editorials originally appeared in The Oregonian. Editorial content from other publications and authors is provided to give readers a sampling of regional and national opinion and does not necessarily reflect positions endorsed by the Editorial Board of The Daily News. Despite last weeks drama in which Senate Republicans refused to show up at the Capitol, theres little doubt that a $2 billion tax package for education investments will soon pass. While some legislators have their beefs with House Bill 3427, few question the need for more money to support Oregons students, from pre-kindergarten through high school. Senate Republicans need to end the drama, return to the Capitol and vote this bill in. The real mystery that remains however, is how officials can ensure this huge infusion of cash is spent smartly, effectively and accountably. With local school officials controlling most district decisions and a state education department with a spotty track record of holding them accountable, thats not a given. Fortunately, the bill, which dedicates much of a new business tax to grants for K-12 districts, recognizes that business as usual is a recipe for failure. The legislation, which reflects the extensive work done by a bipartisan legislative committee, attempts to set up a more accountable structure for issuing money to districts. Districts would submit plans detailing how they will spend funds such as adding mental health services, increasing the school year, or offering new classes to improve graduation rates, decrease chronic absenteeism and improve the educational outcomes for historically underserved students. The bill also significantly increases resources for the education department to vet plans, check progress and provide assistance to districts to help them meet their goals. And it requires annual audits from districts and reporting by state education officials. The bill provides an excellent start. But as numerous examples throughout state government show from failures to report deaths of children in state custody to allowing companies to pollute on expired permits written requirements alone arent enough. Ensuring accountability relies not just on policies but on people with the commitment and support to ask questions, verify claims, follow up and demand improvements, if needed. Provided the bill becomes law as expected, here are a few ideas that administrators, legislators, school board members, superintendents and community members should consider for ensuring this massive investment of public dollars is spent for students needs. Plan now. The Student Success Act money isnt expected to be available for school districts until the 2020-2021 school year. That gives districts time to thoughtfully plan with the communitys input how to best use those dollars in true, evidence-based ways to help students. While reducing class size is always a popular idea, districts and communities must honestly weigh if a one- or two-student reduction in class size will be as meaningful as hiring reading specialists in the early years, funding science and technology classes for middle schoolers or increasing counselors for ninth-graders. Include local oversight in the accountability matrix. The bill already requires districts to include the public in assessing its greatest needs. School boards should go one step farther and create a community oversight panel for their district, composed of residents with expertise in financial, educational and equity strategies. While a school board should ideally provide such oversight, a committee created solely to bird-dog the districts implementation of its plan and share that information with the public would allow for closer scrutiny and transparency than a school board might provide. Similarly, rely on regional networks of employees or contractors to help keep districts accountable. The Department of Education will add a new team for administering and managing districts grants and ensuring they are meeting their agreements. Rather than park them all in Salem, the agency should look to selectively hire or contract with people in other parts of the state who can regularly check in with far-flung districts helping create a culture where accountability and follow-ups are considered routine. Continue with initiatives to improve districts operational sophistication. The state is already working with districts on providing fiscal management training for administrators, strengthening district business practices, and emphasizing transparency, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Colt Gill told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board. Improving the professionalism and transparency of the states 197 K-12 school districts helps them not only deliver on any Student Success Act plans, but on serving students in general. Look into expanding the state board of education to include publicly elected members. Currently, all voting members are appointees of the governor. Including members who owe their seats to the public can help ensure that the board is keeping the needs of students first something it failed to do when it allowed school districts to abandon minimum requirements of classtime for high school students. And of course, enact pension reforms. Its clear that legislators and the governor are finally recognizing the crisis of the pension systems unfunded liability. Without changes including requiring public employees to share some of the burden of funding their own pensions schools will be devoting more and more of these new dollars to pension debt. The expected passage of this bill can be transformative for an educational system currently known for its second-to-worst graduation rate. Failing to reform the pension system would be an unforgivable betrayal of students who need leaders to show the political courage to put them first. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Cannabis could come to the beach cities. This is how ["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP, wherein Mike scats and vamps and riffs off the top of his pointy head. When all is right with the world, it appears on Wednesdays.] - Thomas Riley Marshall, Vice President of the United States under Woodrow Wilson, was presiding over the Senateone of the VP's duties in our countrywhen he was forced to listen one day to a litany of complaints from various Senators about what was wrong about America. When it came his turn to speak, he spoke a line that became famous: "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar." The phrase, usually credited to Marshall, went on to be used by several generations of Americans to complain about anything that was overpriced or fancier than it needed to be. Marshall, however, was probably quoting a line from the 19th-century humorist Kin Hubbard, the author of a popular cartoon that ran in newspapers from 1904 to 1930. The Senators were probably already familiar with it. Another line Kin Hubbard made famous was, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be," quoted later by Kurt Vonnegut in his novels Slaughterhouse-five and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. Another of Kin Hubbard's many maxims might pertain to more than a few photo enthusiasts: "Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men." Guilty! Levels I don't smoke cigars and never have, but, without ever thinking about it too much, I've always kinda liked the five-cent cigar thing. One reason might be because I'm a Hoosier* by birth, and Hoosiers cotton to cornpone. They like, or used to like, homespun, old-timey, good-natured down-home humor. And another might be because the notion of solid, unpretentious, middle-of-the-road, good-enough products, of whatever type, has a natural appeal to me on the level of idealistic principle. I like 'em. And I enjoy the task of finding that level. So what level is that? Products of all sorts by nature follow a bell curve, where the left side of the graph and the lead-in tail of the curve represents woefully insufficient quality and dolorous cheapness, and the far tail over at the right is excess, decadence, one-upsmanship, greed, naked status display, and the rubbing of one's neighbors' noses in the fatness of one's wallet. Both extremes are deplorable in my view of things. Both are unbalanced; both verge on the immoral; and both are traditionally un-American. I don't care for extremes. Just because something is good doesn't mean more of it is better. Seek the middle. Find balance. It's raining, better get back inside I'll give you an example. I saw a memorable interview on television once with a couple who were living in a dumpster. That is, the dumpster was their address; it was their domicile; it was where they slept and kept their things. As an abode, a human habitation, the dumpster had a few shortcomings. It was not big enough to stand up in, for one thing. It smelled bad, although the man informed the interviewer that "you get used to it." (I doubt many in the audience were eager to test that claim themselves, though.) Entry and egress were awkward. The roofAKA the hinged plastic liddid not keep rain out entirely, nor did it provide the ordinary security of even a screen door with a hook-and-eye on it. A hook-and-eye latchtoo luxurious for a dumpster dwelling And of course, passers-by regularly threw a varied mix of trash and garbage down on their heads, which the couple then had to remove and stack on the pavement in the alley next to the dumpster. I'm just guessing, but I'll bet the lack of a kitchen or a bathroom in the home was also a drawback. At the end of the interview, it started to rain. The couple apologized that it was inconvenient for them to get wet, because they had no place to wash or dry their clothes. Thus they excused themselves. The camera and the television audience then watched as they climbed into their house and closed the lid. Contrast this to where another couple lives: a 37,000-square-foot mansion with thirteen buildings, forty bathrooms, three complete kitchens, a movie theater, indoor and outdoor pools, a bowling alley, a sauna with massage tables, a 20,000-bottle wine cellar, six bars, twelve bedrooms (seven with adjacent sitting rooms), a meditation roomand so on; the list of all the features of the home is longer than it is interesting, but you get the ideaon 52 acres of meticulously manicured land. In this house, the servants' quarters occupy more square footage than, well, several average houses. (In 2015 the average American house had 2,687 square feet of living space, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That would be a pretty lavish apartment in New York City but smaller than you're allowed to build in some Midwestern housing developments). Both of these examples, the dumpster and the estate, are beyond three standard deviations from the meanone at one end, the other at the other. Neither are very satisfactory. You might say one extreme is noxious, whereas the other is obnoxious. Seek the middle way At the apex of the bell curve might be, what, a good, solid, tidy 3,500-square-foot house, nicely constructed of good but not lavish materials, durable, safe, with one kitchen, three or four bedrooms, two and a half or three and a half bathrooms, and an attached two- or three-car garage, on a half acre or so of land maybe, in a nice, friendly, safe, and hopefully not too sterile or "Stepford-wife"** neighborhood. Affordable but not cheap; nice but not too nice; gracious but comfortable. That or something near it would be the apex house, at least in the areas of the United States where I've lived, and according to my middle class, middlebrow values. Of course, the apex of a bell curve is, sensibly speaking, a region, not a single point. For instance, if I were to pick the Fujifilm X-T3 as the apex product among cameras, it would perfectly sensible for you to pick a product a little to the left of it (a little more basic) or a little to the right of it (a little fancier) as your own nomination for the apex point. In automobiles, the apex product has long been said to be the Toyota Camry. Or these days, maybe it's a good mainstream small SUV like the RAV4. You get the concept. The point is that there's usually a segment of the line at the top of the bell curve where sufficiency is reached, economies of scale are optimized, decadence has not been breached, and the product (whatever it is) is utilitarian, not too precious, and not too difficult or expensive to maintaina place where usability is optimized, reliability is good, resale value remains robust, and where enjoyment and pride of ownership on the one hand, and practicality and a decent modesty on the other, are in balance. That kind of product is the best kind if you ask me. Somewhere in the middle ranges, a balanced option, neither too much nor too little, nothing too extreme. That was Kin Hubbard's good 5 cigar***, back when. Mike [UPDATE later the same day: Believe it or not, this post started to be about stereo equipment. A family of loudspeakers from Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries (DALI) to be specific. I figured it had been a while since I wrote an Open Mike about audio. But I just got going, and it turned out it wanted to be about something different, so I gave the horse its head. What can I say? I usually write a post before breakfast every day, and something's gotta get written, at least in first draft, before I fix my oatmeal. But one of the points I would have made if the post had been about speakers was this: sticking within shouting distance of the apex can help save you from OCD. Stereo equipment and OCD go together like cheese and crackers (whoops, wrong eating plan: like rice and beans), so you have to be mindful of perfectionism. I'm constantly trying to tell myself that good enough is good enough, that I don't need the perfect car or the perfect camera or the perfect whateverto get something that works and just make do. It doesn't always work. But it's one of the reasons why the notion of an apex product"settling" for a practical, utilitarian, mainstream choicecan be helpful in real life.] *Born in the state of Indiana **Oh, how clever and cunning your humble host can be. The Stepford Wives is a 1972 sci-fi thriller novel by Ira Levin (who also wrote Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil) in which a woman moves with her husband to a suburban neighborhood and gradually discovers that all the other women there are submissive robots created by their husbands. The book was made into a movie twice, once in 1975 with Katherine Ross in the lead role, and again in 2004 with Nicole Kidman as the star. So why is that sly? Well, the protagonist, Joanna Eberhartin the book, at least (I haven't seen the movies)is a photographer. :-) ***Men a century ago clearly cared about their cigars. In his bawdy poem "The Betrothed" about a man who received an ultimatum from his wife to choose between her and his cigarsspoiler alertthe rascally but entertaining Rudyard Kipling, roughly contemporaneously with Thomas Riley Marshall's pronouncement in the Senate, had his character say, "...a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke." Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. B&H Photo Adorama (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.) Featured Comments from: Matt (partial comment): "I feel like the best strategy is to look to the left at least one standard deviation for products you care very little about, and to move to the right at least one standard deviation for products you care a great deal about." Al C.: "On the economic well-offness bell curve, I am now situated well to the right of apex. However, I was born and raised at slightly left of apex, which conditioned me lifelong to agonize over spending beyond +1 sigma, except, curiously, for the few big ticket items such as houses, cars, sound systems. For smaller items, including cameras, I have a hard time justifying paying more than five cents for cigars. Which, I have learned but not yet managed to correct, is often false economy, because, using cameras as examples, I end up churning through multiple good but not great apex purchases which in total cost more than if I had reached for the +3 sigma model in the first place. How many of us have a shelf (closet?) full of 'apex' cameras and lenses, gathering dust? Quality over quantity may be the better advice, and strategy. Besides, YOLO [you only live once Ed.]." Mike replies: Your cameras example was the subject of one of my more famous posts, "Letter to George" (2010). Tom Duffy: "Didn't St. Thomas Aquinas say, 'Prudence is the mother of all the virtues'? Ironic since he's been described as very short and weighed over 300 pounds." George Feucht: "Having grown up in Wisconsin with a lower-middle class background, I was absolutely raised to these same values and I would totally agree, but I've found a curveball: I moved to Los Angeles to go to school and ultimately become a cameraman. The idea of having a 3,500 square foot house here is laughable. That is far right side of the curve. The average house in my apex-of-the-curve suburb of Burbank is 1,400 square feet, three bedrooms, on a 7000-square-foot lot for about $800K. That is way left of your curve for size and way right of your curve for price. It's odd when I'm home for Christmas and tell my relatives that I'm in a house half the size of theirs but pay five times the mortgage. As for other indicators of where I like to live on the curve, I own a RAV4 and the previous middle-of-the-road camera standard: a Canon 5D." Mike replies: I have a cousin who has a two-story house on a spacious lot about a block from the ocean in a place called Palos Verdes Estates in L.A. (He's in finance.) He said "It's a really nice house for L.A., but any place else, it's just a house." James: I'm going to pile on and say 3,500 square feet is well to the right of the apex. Not insanely far to the right, but to say it is about at apex is pretty far from reality. "While the AEI [American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-thank Ed.] is not everyone's cup of tea, they do not lie about basic statistics: In 2015, in the US, the average new home was 2600 square feet. Here is a PDF from the US Census. "Even at 2,600 square feet, I have no idea what I would do with the space. And I live in a household with three total humans." Mike replies: Fair enough. I saw a study which claimed that most people do most of their living in about 680 square feet inside their homes, even if the homes themselves are much larger than that. Then add about 140 square feet per bedroom per adult, and 100 square feet for a child's bedroom. Even with large bedrooms which had "sitting areas" at one end or off to the side, the occupants never used the sitting areas...they used only 140 square feet inside the larger bedroom. I think they also subtracted "halls," meaning any space that people walked through to get to another space but didn't spend any time in per se. For example, if someone has a 6,000-sq.-ft. home, they might have to walk a considerable distance to get to their bedroom, but the study didn't count the stairs/halls that were passed through on the way unless they were actually occupied or used for some other reason or at some other time. I suspect that the 1,000 extra square feet Americans have now, per the AEI statistics, is not exactly "living" space...it's space for "stuff." We own so much stuff that one of the few recession-proof businesses these days is self-storage. The issue becomes obvious at the extreme. When hoarders fill their home entirely, leaving themselves only "goat paths" along which to walk through rooms, they radically reduce their living space even though they might live in large houses. I saw an episode of A&E's "Hoarders" TV show that profiled a woman who could not use her bed because she had heaped so much stuff on it, so she slept curled up on half of her living room couch...the other half being piled with stuff. And she lived in an apparently generously-sized two-story house. On another show, a man had blocked most of his staircase, such that he could only get upstairs and downstairs by picking his way gingerly along a very narrow pathway. No matter how much "living space" such people have statistically, they don't actually have that much space to live in. Anyway, the same is true for many of the rest of us as well, only to a lesser extent. CARBONDALE The McLeod Summer Playhouse is offering an opportunity for ambitious young performers to audition for the upcoming musical Gypsy. From May 23 to 25, Southern Illinois University Carbondales professional theater company will hold special auditions for area children to fill the featured roles of Baby Junes Newsboys in the musical. Young actors who can play boys ages 10 to 12 are welcomed to audition. Auditions will be held on the SIU Campus at Altgeld Hall in Room 116. Audition slots are by appointment only. Performers must sing and dance well. Prepared singing or acting pieces are not necessary, as music and acting sides will be provided and taught at the audition. All children auditioning must live or have housing with an approved guardian in the Southern Illinois area during the times of rehearsals and must have transportation to and from the rehearsal spaces in Carbondale. Parents and guardians are encouraged to become familiar with the play and the roles. Gypsy, considered by many critics as Americas greatest work of musical theater, has a book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Jule Styne. It tells the story of the early life of famed stripper-celebrity Gypsy Rose Lee and her indomitable Momma Rose. Auditions are specifically for the upcoming production of Gypsy this summer. Performances are set for July 12 to 14 and July 19 to 21. To schedule an audition or for more information, please contact McLeod Summer Playhouse at 618-453-5741 or email mcleodsummerplayhouse@gmail.com. The McLeod Summer Playhouse 2019 Season is sponsored by Southern Illinois Healthcare. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 After a two-day jury trial, a Carbondale man has been convicted of robbery. According to a news release from the Jackson County States Attorneys Office, Alphonzo E. Higgins, 49, of Carbondale, was found guilty on Tuesday. The release says that shortly after midnight on Feb. 1, Higgins and another person followed two Carbondale residents home after watching them withdraw money from an ATM. The release says after following them to their apartment on South Marion Street, Higgins and his accomplice attacked the two victims and took cash from them as they attempted to get inside the building. Surveillance videos from the bank and apartment complex helped authorities identify Higgins, the release states. Because of his criminal history he has several battery convictions, according to court records website Judici the release says the court is classifying the robbery conviction as a Class X felony. The conviction could carry between six and 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The Southern Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 PINCKNEYVILLE During a special meeting Monday, the Perry County Board voted to replace its amended budget with a budget recommended by Bruce Delashmit of Bellwether LLC, a consultant hired to help with the county budget. The budget currently on display included $1.3 million in cuts, which would force county officials to lay off employees, close the jail and limit services. The Bellwether proposal will allow the county to get through the year with a $17,000 revenue-to-expense gap, a very small margin for any entity. Delashmit said his proposal is designed to get dollars out of the corners and into the countys general fund. Some of the budget recommendations include: Using standard financial software across offices to get better information for sound financial decisions. Change the funds from which certain expenses are paid, such as using the county tort fund to pay for the time States Attorney David Searby Jr. is acting as civil council for the county. Liquidating county-owned property. Raising fees charged by the county. A 25 percent cut in labor expenses, which will need to be negotiated with labor unions. Renegotiating lower prices for items like employee health plans and telephone services. Commissioners reducing their compensation for the remainder of the year. Raising the countys tax levy. Commissioners Robert Kelly and Dallas Bigham voted in favor of putting the budget proposal on display. Board Chairman Jim Epplin voted no. The budget will be displayed for 15 days. At the end of the 15 days, the county board will vote on whether or not to adopt the budget. The board also approved changing animal control fees to reflect the multi-year rabies vaccines given to pets. During the meeting, County Board Chairman Jim Epplin gave his letter of resignation. I broke my right hip and right wrist, and Im in therapy right now, Epplin told The Southern on Tuesday afternoon. Its hard to make meetings with therapy three times a week. Epplin tendered his resignation to allow someone with more time to take his place. With the budget issues, Perry County Board is meeting more frequently. Im not driving yet, and its not fair to my family who has to take me everywhere, Epplin said. The board will vote to accept or decline Epplins resignation at its June meeting, and to make notice of the vacancy to the Perry County Democratic Party, who will appoint Epplins replacement. The boards next regular meeting will be at 2 p.m. Thursday in the Perry County Government Building. Love 1 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. SPRINGFIELD A group of K-12 education representatives on Tuesday added to the chorus of calls for a statewide capital infrastructure bill that goes beyond road and bridge projects. At a Capitol press event, the group detailed infrastructure needs at school districts across the state, appearing in front of poster boards with images of outdated and dilapidated Illinois school facilities. They did not, however, give any suggestions as to how the revenue for capital infrastructure projects could be raised. I think our role is to show that the need exists across the state pretty widespread, and then show the most effective and efficient ways that we could use the money to enhance educational opportunities, said Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. I think our big job is to rely on the General Assembly to determine the revenues to fund a capital bill. In a budget proposal packet distributed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in January, K-12 deferred maintenance needs were estimated at $9.3 billion. The state has not passed a capital projects bill since 2009. Superintendents at the news conference detailed 100-year-old buildings, excessive use of mobile classrooms and crumbling facilities that schools dont have the funding to correct. Brian Ganan, superintendent of Komarek School District 94 in North Riverside, said his districts building was constructed in 1936 and has significant infrastructure issues. On my way down here (to Springfield), I got a phone call from our architect telling me that building now has more plumbing issues where the pipes have rusted, Ganan said. And that's going to be at least a $200,000 project. So we're continually having to put big dollars that we don't have into an old infrastructure that's failing. Jennifer Gill, superintendent of Springfield School District 186, said her district has 27 mobile facilities being used for education purposes. She said that even though voters in her district approved a sales tax that would raise about $10 million annually for capital projects, it wouldnt be enough to address maintenance backlog issues. We have just identified more than $300 million in construction needs that will take 30 years to complete, Gill said. We recognize the importance of investments in transportation infrastructure, but the urgency for K-12 vertical construction is great. Superintendents from Scott-Morgan CUSD 2 in Bluffs and Murphyspboro CUSD 186 also detailed aging facilities and classrooms that cannot accommodate the students in their districts. Our newest building is in the best shape, but it still needs at least six new classrooms simply to allow our regular education class sizes to be reduced to the recommended amounts, Murphysboro Superintendent Christopher Grode said. The General Assembly is discussing an infrastructure funding bill that would increase motor fuel taxes and state licensing fees, but the $2.4 billion in estimated revenue generated in that proposal could be used only for roads and bridges due to a lock box amendment passed in 2016. Funding for vertical infrastructure would have to come from other sources. State Rep. Will Davis, a Homewood Democrat, said discussions for revenue are ongoing, although he did not give specifics as to where money would come from. What these folks behind me (superintendents and education representatives) also have to do is advocate, not just for the project itself, because I'm sure that our legislators will support the project, Davis said. They also have to encourage their legislators to be open-minded when it comes to the revenue side of this as well because it is going to take some tough votes to get us to where we need to go. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD Criminal record expungement language in a bill legalizing recreational marijuana in Illinois might be unconstitutional. That is the warning one chief county law enforcement official gave to the State Journal-Register for a story first published online Monday. At issue is the General Assemblys legal authority to erase criminal records for those previously convicted of possession crimes. Robert Berlin, president of the Illinois States Attorneys Association, said the Legislature can create a process by which people can petition to have their records erased. But the language in question goes beyond that and provides for an automatic expungement. The issue is a separation of powers issue, he said. The first draft of Senate Bill 7, which is scheduled for a committee hearing Wednesday, details an expungement procedure and schedule for state and local law enforcement agencies, states attorneys, and courts to follow. It is a critical component of the legalization measure, Chicago Democratic Rep. Kelly Cassidy said. She is the bills sponsor in the House, and spent more than two years working with Sen. Heather Steans, a Democrat from Chicago, negotiating the pieces of a potential recreational program. Weve always said that the language about how this gets done is a work in progress, Cassidy said in an email Tuesday. We have been talking to the prosecutors and law enforcement from day one. The bill instructs law enforcement to comb through its records and identify everyone convicted of a possession charge that would be eligible for automatic expungement, according to the bill. A list is sent to states attorneys, who then submit it to a court for a judges approval. The provision is included in the measure because if recreational marijuana becomes legal in Illinois, the individuals conviction would become legally invalid, the bill states. It is additionally part of an initiative by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker to focus on equity, he said Tuesday. Expungement is also part of something that I said from the very beginning, which is that this needs to be about equity as much as anything that we need to focus on the criminal justice reform aspects of it, the safety aspects of it and indeed lots of that was included in the bill, the governor said. Berlin said the proposal does not allow for oversight on each of the cases, or give judges enough discretion before erasing individuals records. Some cases, for example, could have a reduced charge because the individual took a plea bargain, he said. The problem I see is it requires the states attorneys to actually present this list to a judge and it tells a judge to sign it, Berlin said. Instead, he proposes leaving the current expungement process in place let those convicted of marijuana possession petition a court to have their record wiped clean. A states attorney would have time to respond to such a request and a judge the time to review the details of each case. Our criminal justice system is built around judges being able to make these decisions, Berlin said. Give the judge the power and the authority and the discretion to grant a petition for expungement. I think that system works very well. Ann Lousin, a constitutional professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, helped draft Illinois governing document at the Constitutional Convention five decades ago. She said only the governor can make pardons or commutations. She said alternatively, the cleanest way to handle this constitutional challenge would be for Pritzker to announce that he would issue a blanket pardon for Illinoisans convicted of possessing marijuana, and for the General Assembly to remove the expungement component from the recreational marijuana legislation. The last time a governor exercised his ability to commute a large number of sentences was in 2003, when then-Gov. George Ryan mitigated the sentences of Illinoisans on death row. The attorney general challenged the act and the states highest court issued an opinion agreeing the governor had the authority. The grant of this essentially unreviewable power carries with it the responsibility to exercise it in the manner intended, the court wrote. Our hope is that governors will use the clemency power in its intended manner to prevent miscarriages of justice in individual cases. If the language remains as is, Lousin added, the states attorneys would probably file a legal challenge. Berlin said the States Attorneys Association has taken a neutral position on the bill as a whole, but added members of the group have had a very good dialogue with Cassidy and Steans over the past few weeks. Theyve taken all of our input, he said. May 31 is approaching and theres still a lot of work to be done. Steans said changes will be made to the proposal, and the hearing scheduled for Wednesday is to allow members of the public to hear reaction from stakeholders on the current version. But expungement has been a strong goal of the bill and there are compelling reasons why it needs to be achieved. One thing were finding is that some folks are just against expungement but need a fig leaf any fig leaf to hide their objection to the idea, Cassidy said in an email. Chicago Democratic Sen. Kimberly Lightford, the chairwoman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said erasing the records of individuals is a key provision to the bill moving forward. I believe the automatic expungement of nonviolent marijuana convictions is imperative to this legislation. Its not an area that were willing to ignore, she said. Conversations are still taking place. We want to have a strong law. We want it to be a law that is constitutional, but we want to make sure it is also fair. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD Gov. J.B. Pritzker and several public health advocates outlined an ambitious plan Tuesday to halt the spread of HIV in Illinois by 2030. Speaking at a Statehouse news conference, Pritzker unveiled a multi-pronged strategy called Getting to Zero that calls for expanding access to antiviral drugs for people already infected with the virus, and preventive medication known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP for people who are at high risk of contracting the disease While this virus most horrifying and unsparing days may be behind us, we know that the disease rages on, Pritzker said. Over the last few years, weve seen HIV prevention funding dry up, he added. HIV testing rates have gone down, and HIV prevention and treatment agencies have laid off staff. I have always said that health care is a right, and not a privilege. All Illinoisans deserve access to that right, and that includes those who are living with or vulnerable to HIV. The Getting to Zero plan is a collaborative project involving the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Chicago Department of Public Health, outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuels office and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. It calls for increasing investments over the next five years to expand the HIV health care and public health workforce, increase access to PrEP and use data to target resources to the most at-risk communities. It also aims to increase funding for treatment of other conditions that often accompany HIV infection and AIDS, including mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and screening and treatment of other sexually-transmitted diseases. This plan paves the path towards the day when there will be zero transmissions of HIV in the state of Illinois and every person living with HIV will thrive, said John Peller, president and CEO of the Chicago AIDS Foundation. Peller said that to eliminate HIV transmission in Illinois by 2030, the state first needs to focus on achieving two goals over the next five years: increasing by 20 percentage points the number of at-risk individuals who are taking PrEP and the number of HIV-positive individuals who are virally suppressed, meaning they are taking HIV medications and the virus is not circulating in their body. Not only does this increase their individual health, but scientific evidence shows that when someones viral load is undetectable, they cannot transmit HIV to their partners, Peller said. HIV treatment has incredible benefits for individuals and for the community to prevent new cases of HIV. But today, just 50 percent of people who are living with HIV in Illinois are virally suppressed. PrEP is the common name for the drug Truvada, which was released by the pharmaceutical company Gilead in 2012 as a once-daily pill to reduce the risk of HIV infection in high-risk adults. House Majority Leader Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat who is HIV-positive, noted that next month will mark the 38th anniversary of the first identified case of AIDS being reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And over that time, I know Ive lost an uncounted number of friends, he said. A cure is a long way off, but we still have an option for treatment and prevention today. In Illinois, one of the biggest barriers to treatment and prevention for many people is the inability to access the states Medicaid program. Pritzker acknowledged that huge backlogs of applications for initial and continuing coverage under the program have prevented many people from receiving the treatment they need. But he said fixing that problem will be a high priority for his administration. If you give us a little bit of time, were going to announce what were working on and how were working down that backlog, he said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Panasonic announced the launch of first of its kind smart EV charging service in India Nymbus. A futuristic charging service combines physical components such as charging stations, swap stations, on board charges, telematics systems and the virtual components like cloud service, analytics, intuitive dashboard, and artificial intelligence to deliver onestop solution. Nymbus, is a unique technology platform by Panasonic Indias concentrated R&D efforts, designed and developed to cater to the growing mobility market in India. As part of the first phase, Panasonic has partnered with electric mobility service providers SmartE and qQuick, wherein Panasonic will be deploying the EV charging service on 150 SmartE electric three wheelers and on 25 qQuick 2 wheelers in the Delhi NCR region. The solution is poised to help individual EV users, EV fleet owners, e commerce & logistics companies to manage their fleet more efficiently and also the utility providers, vehicle, equipment and battery manufacturers to understand the user patterns and calibrate the products and services accordingly. The service comes equipped with telematics sensors on the vehicles, allowing users to generate real time data and reports from continuous operation thus enabling them to use their fleet in the most efficient way. Built to learn and gain intelligence over time, the systems are poised to assist the fleet managers in monitoring and managing the entire fleet such as finding out the efficiency of different li-ion battery packs, avoiding unnecessary charge trips due to lack of charging and real-time data, monitoring of vehicle data usage etc. The cloud and app service also allows EV and fleet owners to easily search and navigate the nearest charging point, thus reducing logistical challenges. Mr. Manish Sharma, President & CEO Panasonic India said, At Panasonic, our unending quest for innovation, guided by our philosophy of A Better Life, A Better World, inspired us to take the lead and develop this innovative EV charging solution. With the launch of the EV charging service, Panasonic for the first time is venturing into service domain in energy and eMobility we are creating an integrated common platform to cater to unsatiated needs of multiple stakeholders and enable faster adoption of EV in the country. Speaking about the launch, Mr. Atul Arya Head Energy Systems Division, Panasonic India said, Conceptualized and developed in-house, our charging service is currently meant for two and three wheelers, but we aim to expand that in the near future to other vehicles. We have currently deployed our solutions in Delhi NCR and aim to expand the offerings to Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Amaravati in the next three years and 25 more cities in the next five years (catering to) targeting approximately 1 million vehicles. Mr. Goldie Srivastava, Co-Founder and CEO, SmartE said, We are delighted to associate with Panasonic and have their charging solutions deployed for our electric vehicles. Panasonics technology enabled charging service would not only help us optimize our charging infrastructure but also help achieve operational efficiencies through real time data generation. As Indias largest electric vehicle operator, we look forward to a continued association with Panasonic as we work towards the common goal of building sustainable mobility solutions for the country. Mr. Aishwarya Kachhal, Founder, qQuick said, Our aim is to establish an integrated green mobility ecosystem for India. We are partnering with the best for making India the leader in green mobility. Panasonic is the global leader in EV solutions with its proven R&D capabilities and global experience. This partnership between qQuick and Panasonic will provide customers personal, accessible, affordable and green mobility. We look forward to establishing a long term relationship with Panasonic. Growing up in the 1950s and '60s, there was no avoiding the adorable Doris Day. She was cute as a bug, wholesome, winsome and adored, at least in movies, by the swooning-est leading men in Hollywood Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and Clark Gable, to name a few. As a young girl, I simply loved her and, of course, wanted to marry Rock. As dreamboats went, he was without par. And Doris (we were on a first-name basis back then) was this motherless girl's idea of what a woman should be cheerfully feminine and wise to men. Today, Day's characters would be laughable to world-weary children trapped in a sexualized world. But I can testify that watching grown-ups crawl into twin beds wearing pajamas brings no harm to the underaged. I'm grateful for the innocence that society then permitted its younger generation, and to actors such as Day, who declined roles, including Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate," that defied her values. Also, Day was honest enough about herself to figure she probably wouldn't have been believable as a seductress. She was certainly glamorous, but was also perhaps cursed by a prevailing perkiness that could be neither subdued nor camouflaged. Besides, who would want to see a lascivious Doris Day? Surely, not her fans. Day's singing career about which much has been written preceded and succeeded her acting career. "Que Sera, Sera" became her theme song, and its lyrics were tantamount to an elegy for the songstress, who wanted none of that. Day, who died Monday at 97, made known that she didn't want a funeral, memorial or even a headstone. In her later years, Day became increasingly reclusive and dedicated her talents and resources to animal rights. If long ago I admired her fictional personas, I'm grateful today for her animal activism and find myself in agreement with her reflection: "The more I study human beings, the more I love animals." Though her work for animals is inarguably her greatest legacy, most obituaries have focused on her film and song careers. Eager to know more, I contacted Wayne Pacelle, former head of the Humane Society of the United States, who knew Day and worked with her in pursuing legislative action on behalf of animals. "Her compassion for all animals not just dogs, but for all animals was central to everything she was about," he wrote in an email. "She attached her name to advocacy organizations to scale up her work for animals a rare thing for celebrities, who would occasionally weigh in on issues, but not fully commit to engagement on these issues." Pacelle said Day frequently called state and federal lawmakers when animal issues hung in the balance. She advocated for a 1990 ban on the trophy hunting of mountain lions in California, was strong in urging an end to cosmetic testing on animals, helped with a 2010 ballot measure in Missouri to crack down on puppy mills, and made calls and sent letters on a wide range of topics to help all animals. "Lawmakers who were old enough to have been fans were always thrilled to hear from her," he said. "She was one of the biggest celebrity names in the 20th century, and her guileless approach on animal issues won her so many admirers and fans. She was part of the process of making animal welfare a mainstream issue. She is like Jane Goodall in being above the fray and was almost impossible for apologists of animal cruelty to attack." Pacelle visited Day in her Carmel, California, home 14 years ago to discuss merging the Doris Day Animal League (a political advocacy group) with a planned HSUS political action committee. He remembered her home as elegant but understated and described her as "warm and gracious." A small herd of rescue dogs followed her everywhere. At first, Day was reluctant to combine forces, wishing to remain independent, but she ended the conversation with, "Let's do it." The result was a union of HSUS and DDAL and the creation of the Humane Society Legislative Fund and its PAC. Come to think of it, maybe Day wasn't a que sera, sera sort of gal after all. She saw cruelty and used her celebrity to improve the lives of animals and, by extension, helped create a more-humane world. The future may not be ours to see, but Day demonstrated that the future can be made better through activism, helped along, no doubt, by the memory of a wink, a smile and a song. Kathleen Parker writes for the Washington Post Writers Group. Her columns include her own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinion or editorial position of The Southern. Her email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Regional Medical Center recently held its 45th annual Blood Assurance Program Appreciation Banquet to recognize the many donors and sponsor groups who have helped replenish the communitys blood supply. Held May 7 at the Family Life Center in Orangeburg, the program opened with a warm welcome and remarks from RMC Vice President of Operations Matthew Hinkle. Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs blood. All it takes is a single donation to potentially save up to three lives, Hinkle said. With less than 38 percent of the population eligible, we are thankful for your desire and commitment to help give the gift of life." Following a blessing by Chaplain Paul Hamilton, RMC Vice President of Strategy and Marketing Carol Koenecke-Grant recognized lifetime donors George Kerr (20 gallons); Rex Williams (17 gallons); Gary Auton, Leonard Felkel and Lois Porth (16 gallons each). The top three sponsor groups were Branchville High School, Edisto High School and SI Group. Attendees were treated to a live performance by The Lugnutz, a local band that plays classic and original tunes from the jazz and rock genres. RMCs Blood Assurance Program celebrated the collection of 2,182 units of blood in 2018. RMCs Blood Donor Center collected 1,254 units, while the RMC Bloodmobile was credited with 928 units. RMC is one of only two independent, community-based blood donor programs in South Carolina. All of the blood collected at RMCs Blood Donor Center and Bloodmobile stays in the community. The RMC Blood Donor Centers hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. To schedule an appointment to donate blood or to ask about hosting a blood drive, please contact RMCs Blood Donor Center at 803-395-2419 or toll free at 1-800-476-3377, ext. 2419. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 William Douglas Bill Workman III, whose tenure as mayor from 1983-1995 saw the emergence of Greenville as an economic and cultural center, died May 12 at his Walterboro home. He was 78. Workman was elected mayor in 1983 at a time when the economy had been lagging and Greenville was in a rut after former Mayor Max Heller planted the first seeds of downtown rebirth, according to reporting by The Greenville News. Workman, a 1961 graduate of The Citadel and retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, was poised to see the vision for rebirth through, Greenville Mayor Knox White told the newspaper. "There were many voices at the time that didn't want Greenville to grow," White said. "He saw economic development as his life's mission." White defeated Workman in the mayoral race in 1995, and from there Workman's political career shifted into a focus on accomplishing his mission in the private sector. "He was the right man at the right time to serve as mayor," City Councilman George Fletcher. "He was great at pulling in corporate support and building public-private partnerships for projects like the Peace Center." Workman grew up in Walterboro and Columbia. His father, the late William Douglas Workman Jr., was state capital correspondent for various South Carolina newspapers and Newsweek magazine and later editor of The State newspaper. His mother, Rhea, was a professor of English at Columbia College. Workman began his professional career as a news reporter, first for the Charleston News and Courier, and then for The Greenville News from 1966-1970. It was in Greenville that he began working with economic development. After serving as executive assistant to Gov. James B. Edwards from 1975-1978, Workman joined Fluor Daniel Inc., where he worked for many years in industrial relations and project development. In 1994, Workman began working for Piedmont Natural Gas in Greenville as its vice president for S.C. district operations. He continued his economic development work, serving in roles including president of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, chairman of the Greenville Area Development Corporation, founding board member of the Upstate Alliance and president of the Greenville County Research and Technological Development Corporation. Upon retiring from Piedmont Natural Gas, Workman moved to the South Carolina Lowcountry in 2006. He was the town manager of Bluffton before retiring in 2009. He continued working in retirement as an economic development consultant, serving on the board of directors of the Colleton County Economic Development Alliance and as a commissioner of the Savannah River Maritime Commission. Graveside services will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday at Live Oak Cemetery in Walterboro, followed by a celebration of his life at his residence at 109 Silverhill Road, Walterboro. Workmans complete obituary can be found at http://walterborolive.com/2019/05/william-workman-iii-obituaries/ Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Orangeburg County School District's interim superintendent will be stepping down from the position. Dr. Zona Jefferson plans to leave once the new board finds a replacement. "My agreement with the board began as a short-term understanding," Jefferson said in an email. "As I told them, I envision a superintendent who can start Orangeburg County School District with a vision of great opportunities for all students." "There are so many programs and opportunities available now to support students and a superintendent must be positioned to choose those that are the right fit for the students we serve," she said. "Successful execution of my hopes, vision and thoughts would require the kind of energy I had ten years ago." Jefferson, a retired school superintendent, was hired as interim superintendent in January to help guide the new Orangeburg County district as it works to combine the three existing school districts into one. Board Chair Peggy James-Tyler said the board will seek to hire another interim superintendent. The district will plan to keep the interim superintendent for at least a year or until a new permanent superintendent is hired. This means an interim superintendent will be in place when the board formally takes control over the schools on July 1. "We will have another very capable person in place," James-Tyler said. During Tuesday's board meeting, trustees unanimously agreed to have their attorney discuss a contract with a candidate to become the new interim superintendent. The board did not vote on whether to hire the candidate, who has not been publicly named. The search for a permanent superintendent has yet to begin. James-Tyler said the board knew Jefferson would not stay for more than a few months as she made this clear when the board hired her in January. "She has gotten us ready for July 1," James-Tyler said. "She is an outstanding person and is a very capable superintendent that came in and hit the ground running." James-Tyler said Jefferson and interim secretary Marie Harrison did a lot of work on their own before there was staff in place to handle the obligations. Harrison has said she will stay as long as the new board needs her. Jefferson believes she has fulfilled her role by putting into place the new district's structure including leaders, policies, regulations, calendars, budgets, technical platforms, contracts, federal agreements, state agreements, banking services, legal services, insurance and partnerships. "I accepted this opportunity to assist the board as they began to establish a framework for the new district," Jefferson said. "Critical components necessary for success for the new district had to be established immediately." She says shes optimistic about the districts future, particularly considering the role of the local institutions of higher education. "The three institutions of higher education ensure the opportunity in the near future that the vast majority of students can leave high school with a diploma and college credit," she said. "The community has an ample supply of people who take an interest in the success of the students. It is a pleasure to meet those who are willing to serve in the various capacities." James-Tyler said the school board plans to meet with South Carolina School Boards Association Executive Director Scott Price later this month about picking a permanent superintendent. She said Price will guide the board through the search process and create a timeline for the search. James-Tyler said the public will be made aware of the process and will be able to meet the top three superintendent finalists when the time comes. Contact the writer: gzaleski@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5551. Check out Zaleski on Twitter at @ZaleskiTD. Love 3 Funny 1 Wow 4 Sad 1 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. Another U.S. senator and 2020 presidential candidate will be visiting The T&D Region this weekend. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders will be hosting two events on Saturday, May 18 in The T&D Region. Sanders first stop will be at Life Cathedral Church in Orangeburg from 10 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. Sanders will then head to Denmark Technical College, where he will host a town hall from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. While in Orangeburg, Sanders will be discussing education and poverty. The conversation during the town hall at Denmark Tech will focus on environmental justice. Sanders last visited The T&D Region in February 2016 during his first campaign as a presidential candidate, making a stop at Claflin University. Those looking to attend the events can RSVP via Sanders Facebook page. Contact the writer: bharris@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5516. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Make a difference everywhere you go, Dr. Cerrissa Hugie told Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical Colleges graduates on Tuesday evening. Hundreds of students received associates degrees, diplomas or certificates during the spring ceremony, held at Smith-Hammond-Middleton Memorial Center on the campus of South Carolina State University. A graduate of OCtechs practical nursing program, Hugie is a former adjunct PN instructor at the college and the founder of MyNDSpace Mental Health Education and Consulting, which seeks to promote mental health awareness, reduce mental health disparities in underserved communities and be a bridge between community and faith organizations and professional mental health services. It is my privilege and my honor to be your commencement speaker, Hugie said, asking the students to take a moment to congratulate themselves and each other. I firmly believe that there are world changers among you. These are the next generation of leaders, she said. There are business owners among you. Some of you will go on to further your education by getting bachelors and masters degrees and even your doctorate degrees. There are political leaders among you. So this is a huge accomplishment. Hugie said that even those from humble beginnings like herself can go on to greatness. I grew up in poverty, oftentimes without basic necessities like food or water or electricity, she said. But by the grace of God, I was given a gift. She said she was always a smart child, but after high school, she found herself in a job that was supposed to be temporary. At the age of 30, she went to OCtech in what she called her midlife crisis as she tried to find her calling. She went on to earn a bachelors degree in psychology and masters in social work from the University of South Carolina. She later earned a bachelors degree in nursing from the Medical University of South Carolina and a masters and doctorate in nursing practice from Vanderbilt University. Hugie said its important to surround yourself with positive people, people who will not only see greatness in you but will also push you to your destiny. So it is with great pride that I look out at each of you and consider that I too, like you, started my educational journey at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. It is truly a special place, she said. Hugie stressed the importance of three areas: responsibility, compassion and self-care. She urged everyone in the room to take full responsibility for your destiny. You get to choose what you will become. The word responsibility means your ability to respond, she said. You always have a choice despite how the circumstances may present themselves, she said. Now, Im not saying its going to be easy, but its up to you to choose how you will respond. Your choices and your decisions will determine the course of your entire life. Youre not only responsible to others, you are also responsible to yourselves, she said. And the degree to which you can be responsible to yourself is the degree in which you will be responsible to others, she said. Hugie said that responsible people dont seek to blame others or worry about who did what or who wasnt there. Responsible people embrace all that comes with the path that they choose, she said. Realizing this changed the course of her whole life, she said. Hugie said that one of the ways people can be responsible is by showing compassion. Social media is great for keeping up with friends and family members who live far away, she said. But there seems to be a lost art in the human connection and having face-to-face, meaningful conversations, she said. Humanity is the one thing that unites all of us. So often, were so focused on what divides us whats different about this person, she said. So thats why I believe compassion is one of the greatest gifts that we can offer other people. She quoted U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Our diversity is our strength, and our unity is our power. Another important responsibility is to be proactive about our own mental health, she said. Hugie said that mental illness cuts across ethnic and socioeconomic lines and that suicide is still a leading cause of death. In the light of so many national, global and even local tragedies, We can no longer afford to ignore the growing concern and the need to address our mental health, she said. And I would argue that your mental health is equally as important as your physical health in that it affects every aspect of your life, she said. Self-care is not selfish, she said. Its good stewardship of the only gift that you have to give the world. And thats you, she said. You, graduates, are a gift to the world. So stop and smell the roses, spend time with your loved ones, go for walks, meditate. Do whatever it is that you enjoy. Hugie and her husband, Tracy, live in Hollywood. She has two stepchildren, Jordan and Savana. Contact the writer: chuff@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5543. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Orangeburg County recently got quite the spread in a statewide magazine for projects undertaken by county government. The South Carolina Association of Counties publishes the quarterly magazine, County Focus, about the most notable undertakings in the states 46 counties. In the March 2019 edition, the cover featured an image of the members of Orangeburg County Council and an artists rendering of the new detention center slated for completion in 2020. The magazine included three full feature stories: Orangeburg County Constructs New State-of-the-Art Detention Center. Orangeburg Countys New Public Services Building. Orangeburg County Incorporates Projects to Construct Two Memorial Plazas and Renovate Council Chambers/Memorial Plazas Honor the Late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Veterans." The countys elected leaders, and the administration and county employees, have reason to be proud. A new jail is a necessity, the public services building is needed and the memorial plazas have positively transformed the county complex near the courthouse. Yet its safe to say those in government know there is no time to bask in too much glory. Taxpayers are always pointing out shortcomings, as is their right, and looking at whats next. In January, members of Eutawville Town Council and citizens of Eutawville came to the council with concerns about the ability of EMS to serve the eastern areas in a county with the states second largest land area. Eutawville Councilwoman Stephanie Adkins, who serves as the towns police, fire, emergency services commissioner, spoke before council to discuss delays in EMS response and other issues regarding the county's emergency services. Adkins along with other concerned citizens signed a petition to the county council regarding the issues, and she told council of increasing complaints about response times. The county leadership has responded. The Orangeburg County Fire Commission plans to add an EMS building onto the existing Eutawville fire station. The district has previously added EMS facilities to stations in Neeses, Rowesville and Bowman. Speaking for the county, Orangeburg County Administrator Harold Young said bringing EMS and fire together brings a continuity of services. He noted in the past EMS and fire were housed in separate locations. "It helps to improve costs," Young said. It is more convenient and efficient, especially when it comes to maintaining and updating equipment. Timothy Winslow of the S.C. Association of Counties said of the feature stories on Orangeburg County: Part of our mission is to show people the exciting things that are happening in the counties in this state. Orangeburg County is doing some exciting stuff. Putting EMS and fire protection under one roof in Eutawville to better provide emergency response may never rate a statewide magazine profile, but doing so is an important service to citizens. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Lincoln, NH In a week where the Transcontinental Railroad celebrated its 150th Anniversary, an Excursion Railroad Economic Impact Analysis was released by Stone Consulting, Inc. of Warren, PA. The study, commissioned by the Hobo & Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad, highlights the significance of the heritage based tourist attraction for jobs creation and economic development regionally. The Railroad, which operates excursions from Lincoln, Meredith & Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, accounts for more than $17.4 million dollars in total economic impact annually, and affects the equivalent of nearly 380 full and part time jobs in the restaurant, lodging, hospitality and retail sectors. Since assuming operations over portions of the State-owned Concord-Lincoln Line, the Railroad has welcomed over 2.1 million guests from around the world. Research performed by Stone Consulting, Inc., concluded that last year, 61% of the Railroads passengers travelled from outside of New Hampshire, resulting in $8.8 million dollars in additional spending while visiting. Additionally, 44% of the Railroads guests incorporated an overnight stay as part of their trip itinerary, which accounted for approximately $4.4 million dollars of economic benefit to local lodging establishments. The research also showed that more than 50% of the Railroads guests spent at least $100 or more during their visit (in addition to their train tickets), while 25% spent more than $200 per day (in addition to their train tickets) while visiting the region. In conjunction with the Railroads excursion trains which operate from May through December each year, the Hobo & Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad actively caters to group tours traveling to New Hampshire from across the country. In 2018 alone, the Railroad welcomed more than 260 bus tours, which accounted for nearly 12,000 additional guests to the region. Of these groups, more than 50% stayed overnight after enjoying spectacular views of New Hampshires lakes, rivers and mountains from the comfort of restored vintage trains. As a result of this study, its clear the Railroad serves as an anchor tourist attraction, benefiting the regional economy of New Hampshires Lakes and White Mountains, and is a significant employer, directly providing jobs to 68 full and part time area residents last year, stated Benjamin Clark, Vice President of the Hobo & Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad. Each year, the Railroad pays a user fee to the State of New Hampshire, as track owner, totaling approximately $100,000 - a portion of which is returned to the local communities along the line. Furthermore, the Railroad typically invests an additional $150,000 annually in the form of maintenance contributions, to help preserve rail service over the 55.2-mile corridor through central and northern New Hampshire. The report also highlighted that in 2018, the Hobo & Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad conducted business with over 365 various vendors, 203 of which were based in New Hampshire. Furthermore, the Railroad provided donations to 64 non-profit and community-based organizations, serving cities and towns bordering the Railroad in the Lakes and White Mountain Regions of central and northern New Hampshire. Were proud to continue the tradition of railroading in the Lakes Region and White Mountains of New Hampshire that dates back to 1848 more than 20 years prior to the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, stated Clark. This historic rail line has been a part of the economic and social fabric of the region for generations and, as indicated by this study, is well-poised to continue making positive contributions to the region well into the future. About the Hobo & Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad: 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. Today's guest is Martha Geaney, author of the new mystery, Death on Clare Island. Carol is here to talk about her book, writing and what surprised her about getting her book published. Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, wed love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning? When did you come up with the idea to write your book? Death on Clare Island: A Star OBrien Mystery grew out of my love for Ireland. My father is from Cork; my mother is from Mayo. I kissed the Blarney Stone when I was four years old. When I was sixteen, my parents sent me to boarding school in Castlebar, Mayo. I fell in love with the people, especially all the cousins, the lush and moody landscape, and the culture. When I decided to develop myself as an Indie author, I knew I had to set this series in Ireland. Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish? I am self-published. I formed my publishing imprint, Turlough Nolan Publishing, about ten years ago when I self-published my non-fiction book, Bring Your Spirit to Work: One Woman at a Time. The imprint name is tied to my family history. Turlough is a village in Mayo where my mothers ancestors the Nolans came from. Is there anything that surprised you about getting your first book published? Ive been surprised and grateful for all the well wishes Ive received from family and friends. Do you believe a book cover plays an important role in the selling process? Yes, I do. The image of the lighthouse and the moon over the water was one that stuck in my mind several years ago. I worked with the cover designer to come up that image for the cover. I also wanted it to look dark and mysterious to fit the books mystery genre. How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers? A mystery series is one of the most difficult writing projects to tackle. A writer can lose their audience if theres sloppiness in the plotting, red herons, suspects, and characters. I have created a Star OBrien bible to document all the ongoing series characters back stories. I also write a short summary of each chapter before I begin writing. Im a plotter! What other books are you working on and when will they be published? My editor just returned my draft manuscript for the second book in the series this week. Im planning to publish the second book by late October. Whats one fact about your book that would surprise people? The ending and who the villain was! Its a mystery, after all. Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book? Star OBrien is a strong, independent, feisty amateur sleuth. I want readers to root for her as she searches for her mother and comes to gripes with the losses in her life. Because of her experiences she is always for those who seem to be the underdog. Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words? Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. About the Author MARTHA M. GEANEY is the author of the highly praised non-fiction, womens leadership book, Bring Your Spirit to Work: One Woman at a Time. She is also the author of the Star OBrien fiction series which is set in the west of Ireland, and the United States. Martha was born in New York City but lived in New Jersey beginning at the age of eight. In 2017, Martha and her partner, Bill, moved to Florida where she enjoys cooking, reading, swimming, and her Schipperke puppy, Turlough. Before turning to indie writing, Martha was a teacher, management consultant, university professor, and the dean of a business college. It was her leadership experience as a management consultant and her research for her doctorate that prompted Martha to write a self-help book for women who aspire to leadership roles. Marthas passion for Ireland began when she made her first trip, at the age of four, to County Mayo, birthplace of her mother, and to County Cork, birthplace of her father. She returned to Ireland again at the age of sixteen to attend a boarding school in Castlebar, County Mayo, for two years. Since then, Martha has visited her cousins and friends in Ireland for more than thirty-five years. It is her love for the people, the country, and all its beauty that inspired her to create a mystery and suspense series, set in Ireland, about an amateur detective, Star OBrien, who is an American. She is currently working on her second Star OBrien novel. About the Book: Title: DEATH ON CLARE ISLAND (A Star OBrien Mystery Book 1) Author: Martha M. Geaney Publisher: Turlough, Nolan Publishing Pages: 232 Genre: Mystery BOOK BLURB: Star OBrien is a haunting voice for the dead, the missing, and the lost. Star O'Brien is a successful American information broker who can't solve the mysteries of her own life. She comes to County Mayo, Ireland to settle her dead lover's estate and look for her Irish mother who has been missing since Star was six years old. She is on the scene on Clare Island, when a body is discovered. It seems like a closed case involving the island's dangerous cliffs and drug abuse. Star didn't believe it when the police dismissed her mother's disappearance as "abandonment" and she can't believe the stories she is hearing about the dead young man. Star must separate truth from fiction in the testimonies of those close to the victim including the head of an anti-drug foundation, a volatile ex-lover, a besotted young art student, and a restorer of the island's ruins. Before long, Star's investigation becomes the catalyst for a second murder, and she must work fast to avoid becoming the third victim. As she uncovers the truth about the murders, this fiercely independent, complex, female protagonist must also own up to her own past and a potential future with a charming new confidant. ORDER YOUR COPY: Amazon Barnes & Noble This site focuses on Republican politicians and conservatives that rip off their constituency. We have the Tea Party, fundamentalist churches, the corruption of ALEC and other special interests groups. But the site also supports progressive Democrats and the local Democratic Socialist of America. We must have ideas on how to replace regressive and corrupt politicians with something better. For comments steveotto2001@yahoo.com or ottozero2001@yahoo.com. THERMOPOLISDr. Howard Todd Willson, 84, died peacefully May 8, 2019 at Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Born December 3, 1934, in Spring Lake, Florida, he was the son of Edwin C. and Blanche H. (Downs) Willson. The son of a preacher, Howards early years were shaped by the depression and WWII which saw his father enlist as a Chaplain in the Army. Howard attended the Florida State University, then joined the Air Force as a commissioned officer and became a father as well. After his time in the Air Force, he received his medical degree from the University of Florida, practicing medicine in Boynton Beach, FL, for many years. On June 30, 1973, he married Belenda Peters in Boca Raton, FL, and later moved his family to Wyoming. Settling first in Basin, Howard eventually moved to Thermopolis. In addition to the practice of medicine, Howard had a passion for airplanes and was an accomplished pilot. He loved the West, especially hunting, fishing, horse-back riding and spending time at the family cabin in the Big Horns, his favorite spot on earth. Known simply as Doc Willson to his patients, he was an exceptionally caring physician. Devoted to the practice of medicine in Wyoming, he served as President of Wyoming Medical Society, delegate to the American Medical Association and was extensively involved in establishing the medical school partnership between Wyoming and Washington to help educate the next generation of Wyoming physicians. Later in life he found great enjoyment serving on the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees. He was a member of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Devoted to his family, patients, community and the state of Wyoming, those who loved him will not forget the stories he told, his infectious laugh, and the twinkle in his eye. Family cherishing his memory include his wife of 45 years, Belenda; sister, Margot Osborne; his loving children, Todd, Janet, and Scott Willson, Felicia Collins, Greg Willson, and Kati Urbanek; 12 grandchildren; and 1 great-grandchild. He was preceded in death by his parents; sister, Blanche Sapp; and brother, Edwin Willson. Private services will be held Saturday, May 18, 11:00 AM at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Memorial services will be held Saturday afternoon, 2:00 PM at the Thermopolis High School Auditorium. Memorials in Howards name may be made to H.S. Co. Memorial Hospital Foundation, 150 E. Arapahoe, Thermopolis, 82443. Mortimore Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements. Online messages may be offered at www.mortfh.com. The Casper/Natrona County International Airport will be receiving almost $9 million from the federal government to renovate its Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting training facility, the airport announced May 14. The Casper airport is among only a handful of airports in the region with facilities to train the firefighters whose job it would be to extinguish an aircraft if it caught fire. The Federal Aviation Administration requires all commercial airports to have trained ARFF personnel on site, and those personnel receive training annually. Casper having its own facility to conduct that training is invaluable, airport director Glenn Januska said. But, he said, their facilities are getting old. Caspers training facility opened in 1995, and Januska said without the $8,718,750 Supplemental Airport Improvement Program grant, the airport would likely have had to close that training facility. That grant is funded by the Federal Aviation Trust Fund, which uses taxes collected from airline tickets to support U.S. airline capital and operational costs. The grant will help fund the reconstruction of the training facility in Casper and a new 3,000 gallon ARFF vehicle, as well as expanding the Airport Public Safety Facility to provide dedicated training space. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $9.3 million. Without the facility, Casper airports safety personnel would need to travel elsewhere for their annual training, incurring costs for travel, hotels and food. But having the facility is about more than saving money, Januska said. We get people from all over the country coming here to use the training facility, he said. When airline safety departments use Caspers facilities, they typically stay at local hotels and eat at local restaurants, Januska said, helping the local economy. Because the Salt Lake City training facility recently closed and the Denver International Airport facility does not train personnel outside of Colorado, Caspers facility is used more often. Januska said some airports prefer Caspers facility because they use diesel fuel, rather than propane gas to simulate aircraft fires. He said using diesel is more realistic and many departments prefer that. Since 1995, Casper has trained 2400 ARFF personnel and completed roughly eight training sessions annually. In comparison, the Denver International Airport completes between six and 10 external trainings annually, Denver airport training chief Ryan Nuanes said. Im anticipating were going to have more and more demand going forward, Januska said. Indeed, the new facility could bring back departments that have since opted to use facilities further away. The Jackson Hole Airport used to use Caspers facilities. In recent years, they have opted for training facilities in Montana and Dallas, Jackson Hole Airport Assistant Director Dustin Havel said. Havel said part of the decision to use those facilities over Caspers was that they are newer. He said with the upcoming renovations at Casper, Jackson Holes airport would likely begin using Caspers facilities again. It would be an additional one we would put in our rotation, he said. In addition to the single-day trainings, Casper also provides a weeklong training, as mandated by the FAA, to new airport safety personnel. Follow city reporter Morgan Hughes on Twitter @morganhwrites. 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. A Casper man entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental illness Wednesday to prosecutors allegations he killed his mother in her own home earlier this year. Andrew Steplock, 27, entered the pleas in Natrona County District Court to four charges: felony murder, second-degree murder, aggravated burglary and possession of a deadly weapon. If convicted, he could spend life in prison without parole. Steplock will receive a competency evaluation, which will put the case on hold until its completed. The parallel pleas mean that even if Steplock is found competent to faces the charges, the not guilty pleas will remain in effect while his case proceeds toward trial. During Wednesdays hearing, Steplock answered procedural questions in a hoarse voice. When Judge Daniel Forgey asked him if hed like to enter the pleas as outlined by court-ordered defense attorney Joe Cole, Steplock answered in the affirmative. Yes, sir, he said. Attorneys told the judge they would request that Steplock be evaluated on an outpatient basis, rather than being seen in the Wyoming State Hospital. The judge said he would order a scheduling conference and attorneys said they had no more issues to be considered. Steplock turned and whispered to Cole, who then told the judge he had another issue to consider. The defense attorney asked Forgey to reduce Steplocks bond to $250,000 and allow him to hire a bail bond agent. Cole acknowledged the serious nature of the charges but said the six-figure bond would be enough to ensure Steplocks return to court. District Attorney Dan Itzen argued Forgey should keep the bond requirement at $1 million cash-only. He noted Steplock is effectively homeless, unemployed and according to police fled the state to evade law enforcement. Cole responded by saying that an arrest affidavit notes Steplock told police he was headed back to Wyoming when they caught up with him. Forgey nevertheless denied the defense request and kept the seven-figure cash bond requirement in place. Deputies then led the defendant out of the courtroom. Wyoming authorities in March extradited Steplock from Larimer County, Colorado, where prosecutors say he fled after shooting his mother in her home. Police early Feb. 26 responded to an alarm call south of downtown Casper and found Deborah Steplock, the defendants 58-year-old mother, with a single gunshot wound to the head. When police arrived at the house, her husband was performing first aid on her. An ambulance transported her to Wyoming Medical Center. By midday, hospital staff had declared her brain dead. She was kept on life support until Feb. 28 in order to arrange the donation of her organs, which had been her living wish. According to court documents filed by prosecutors, Steplock told detectives he broke into his parents house to steal from them, and in the process he shot his mother. Follow crime reporter Shane Sanderson on Twitter @shanersanderson Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 5 Angry 12 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. The city of Rawlins agreed to pay $925,000 to the family of a man shot and killed by Rawlins police in 2015, according to a statement issued by the dead mans family. The settlement stems from a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of John R. Veach, of Fort Collins, Colorado, against the agency and two of its employees, Sgt. Jared Frakes and Officer Joe Balestrieri. According to the Tuesday afternoon statement, dash camera footage shows Frakes and Balestrieri were not in danger on Dec. 30, 2015, when they shot Veach as he tried to drive away from a traffic stop near a Rawlins gas station. Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson, the prosecutor assigned the case, in March 2016 ruled the shooting justified and declined to bring charges against the two policemen. Sergeant Frakes and Officer Balestrieri took the law into their own hands, serving as judge, jury, and executioner. Mr. Veach should still be alive, David Lane, one of three civil rights attorneys representing the family, said in the written statement. The killing of John Veach is a stain on the entire Rawlins Police Department. In November 2017, the familys attorneys filed a lawsuit against the city and officers, alleging the police officers violated Veachs constitutional rights when they shot him. The attorneys also alleged officers tried to fabricate a cover story while performing CPR on Veach in the parking lot. The police department had failed to properly train, supervise or discipline the two officers, the attorneys stated in their lawsuit. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in April of this year. However, on March 28, attorneys for the family, the police officers and the city filed a joint request to stay the trial, pending the finalization of a settlement. On May 8, the same attorneys filed a request for Judge Scott Skavdahl to dismiss the case. The same day, the judge did so. The officers initial version of events diverged wildly from what the video revealed to be the truth, attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai said in the statement. Without the video evidence, it is likely that the family of John Veach would never have received justice for their enormous loss. Matthew Cron, who practices law in the same office as Mohamedbhai, also represented the family in the case. Attorneys representing the city and officers could not be reached Tuesday evening. Follow crime reporter Shane Sanderson on Twitter @shanersanderson Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. CHEYENNE (AP) Prosecutors have filed attempted-murder charges against a Casper man they say fired a gun at police during a car chase. Dominique Childers faces two counts of attempted first-degree murder, four of felony property destruction, one of felony theft and several misdemeanor charges. He remained jailed in Cheyenne on $100,000 bond Wednesday. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports police arrested Childers on May 3. Cheyenne police and the Wyoming Highway Patrol say Childers drove a stolen 2016 Toyota Camry over 100 mph on a highway and almost 65 mph through Cheyenne. Police say Childers fired at a trooper and at a police officer who shot back, hitting Childers twice. Childers couldn't be reached for comment and had no attorney on file. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 JACKSON (AP) Investigators say they're looking for a white male between 40 and 50 years old who they believe started a devastating wildfire in Wyoming. They say he's between 5 feet, 10 inches and 6 feet tall and weighs 185 to 200 pounds. The Roosevelt Fire destroyed 55 homes as it burned 96 square miles in western Wyoming last September and October. Authorities believe a man started the blaze by failing to extinguish a warming fire. They say the suspect had brown hair and a short beard and carried a hunting rifle and compound bow on a backpack. The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports anyone with information that might help investigators may call the U.S. Forest Service at 208-557-5852. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Subscribe to stay connected to Tucson. A subscription helps you access more of the local stories that keep you connected to the community. PHOENIX The Arizona Legislature is now in overtime. But unlike other jobs where OT equals more money, lawmakers will get less. And thats by design: Arizonas founders wanted legislators to come in, do the states business and go home perhaps before they could think of other improvements to make in the statutes. State lawmakers are entitled to a per diem allowance, which is designed to pay for out-of-pocket expenses for coming to the Capitol. Thats on top of the $24,000 a year in salary for what is supposed to be a part-time job. Mind you, theres no actual requirement to prove the expenses. And the allowance continues even on days when lawmakers dont go to the Capitol, including Saturdays and Sundays. For out-of-county lawmakerse, that may make sense if they have to rent an apartment or a hotel room in Phoenix. Thats why the 25 out-of-county members of the House and 12 in the Senate get $60 a day. But heres the hammer: State law says that full allowance runs only for the first 120 days of the session. Tuesday was Day 121. Now that out-of-county allowance goes to $20 a day. Working at Tucson Map and Flag was the greatest job ever. I had the greatest boss, who actually listened to you and actually cared whether or not you were OK, Henley said. Henley rattled off a few entertaining stories, such as the one in which Smith, who has a white beard, spontaneously donned a Santa cap to help a mother deal with an unruly child by warning the boy that Santa still hands out coal sometimes. More recently, Henley said, people came in looking for a map of the flat Earth and were summarily chased out. The customers I met Tuesday were map lovers like me, absorbed by the remaining, somewhat random offerings, now on sale as he clears the store out. I picked up a travel book and a map. Couldnt help it. Joseph Canales, 25, was the only younger customer I came across. He was buying two more wall maps for his office, one of Central America and one of the Phoenix area, bringing his total to eight. Hes bought them all at Tucson Map and Flag but only discovered the place a few months ago. Smith pulled out topo maps of the Tortolita Mountains area for customer Priscilla Warren, who pored over them looking for certain canyons of archaeological interest. PHOENIX A husband arrested in Arizona on suspicion of concealing his wife's dead body was seen earlier on security video moving a woman's naked body to his vehicle outside a Texas hotel, police said Tuesday. Previous footage showed the couple from Sand Springs, Oklahoma, walking into their room at the El Paso hotel on Sunday evening. The next morning, 70-year-old Rodney Puckett is seen using a luggage cart to move the body of 74-year-old Linda Puckett, said Sgt. Kristie Barnette, a police spokeswoman in Eloy, where Rodney Puckett was later arrested. Puckett told investigators he found his wife unresponsive on Monday and put her body in their vehicle before continuing an unplanned trip to California. The cause of death hasn't been determined, but Barnette noted that Linda Puckett had signs of blunt-force trauma on her body. It's unclear why Rodney Puckett moved the body, she said. It's not known whether he has an attorney who could comment. From December 19th through December 26th we will be granting free access as a gift to our readers presented by Copenhagen Imports Your browser does not support the audio element. Phan Thanh Danh is carving out a name for himself in Vietnams culinary scene thanks to his unique take on one of the countrys most popular street dishes. Danh, 30, is not the only chef in Ho Chi Minh City putting his own twist on traditional banh bao (steamed rice buns), but he certainly is making the biggest splash. According to Danh, the fusion buns he is serving up at Got Bun? a stall at Ben Thanh Street Food Market on Thu Khoa Huan Street in District 1 are a big draw for young people searching for a modern twist on a classic snack. Unique steamed buns Steamed buns are not exactly hard to come by in Vietnam. Step onto any neighborhood street and look to your left or right, chances are someone is selling them. Still cannot find them? Dont worry! It is likely that your nearest convenience store has a display case full of the buns. But if you are looking to break away from tradition, you might have to travel a bit further to Danhs Got Bun? stall. Unlike regular Vietnamese steamed buns, which usually contain quail eggs or salted egg yolk and meat on the inside, Danh's buns are stuffed with fillings that he knows will hit his diners with a burst of flavor twice-cooked Chinese pork belly, Thai Five Spice pork, and fried oysters to name a few. And he does not stop at the fillings. Each bun is served with a unique sauce that is sure to add an extra layer of flavor to the dish. Its mostly young people who are interested in these unique steamed buns, Danh said. Older customers still prefer the traditional style. And it seems those young people are more than just interested. They are addicted. Since I like the buns here I just have to keep coming back! one of the customers commented on a food review website. Beside fusion steamed buns, Got Bun? also serves Western dishes, Vietnamese street food, and traditional courses, such as Vietnamese pancakes, rice with twice-cooked Chinese pork belly, and spring rolls. Pham Thanh Danh poses for a photo with foreign tourists who have Vietnamese pancakes (banh xeo) at his diner in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Quoc Linh / Tuoi Tre Starting from scratch Danh first began cooking as a means to satisfy his craving for Vietnamese comfort food when he moved abroad after high school. Every time he started to miss a specific dish, he would call his mother to ask for a recipe. My mom had a great impact on my decision to pursue the culinary arts, Danh said. And the cook refused to let distance keep him from the food he loved so much as a child. Even though I studied abroad I kept cooking Vietnamese dishes and fell in love with cooking, he shared. After completing his studies at a U.S. community college, he began splitting his time between obtaining a degree in hospitality management at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and working as a server and cleaner at a Vietnamese restaurant to earn extra pocket money. There were times when I was feeling discouraged since I had never had to clean toilets or sweep floors at home, he said. After finishing his studies, Danh traveled the world in search of inspiration, trying as many cuisines and dishes from different countries as possible and finding his own ways to incorporate those flavors into his foods. Eventually, he was offered a job at a restaurant in Macau, where he worked before moving back to Vietnam to open his own diner. Danh has spent a lot of time in the kitchen so he not only understands the dishes, but also the difficulties of being a cook and working in the food industry, explained Nguyen Thanh Son, a cook at Got Bun?. And Danh is fully aware that understanding his employees struggles is part of what makes him such a great employer, and he is not ashamed to show it. I always say I am a cook when someone asks me about my job, but I notice that many people do not want others to know theyve chosen cooking as a career, Danh said. So what is next for Danh? Everyone pursues a cuisine career to have his or her own restaurant, he says, explaining that his goal is to eventually open a place where he can experiment freely with each dish. Most importantly, once I have my own restaurant I can serve customers better, the young cook said. Customers not only have a need to eat good food, they also want a good experience. "It's difficult to satisfy such diners at my current joint." Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Your browser does not support the audio element. American attorney and filmmaker Sharon Rowen has sat down for an interview with Tuoi Tre News as her documentary Balancing the Scales was shown to viewers in Vietnam as part of a film diplomacy program backed by the U.S. Department of State. The American Film Showcase program features screenings of U.S. movies and workshops with the participation of American filmmakers in more than 40 countries. Rowen, a 67-year-old lawyer-turned-filmmaker, had been invited to join the program before it was brought to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on May 10 and 13, respectively, and she decided to introduce her documentary on gender discrimination to the Vietnamese audience. Balancing the Scales is a culmination of more than 20 years of interviewing women lawyers spanning five generations, from such pioneers as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg and prominent civil rights attorney Gloria Allred to young associates and law students, in the quest to expose the challenges facing women in the field of law. It features both women who have put great energy effort into changing law and culture in the U.S. regarding women and leadership, and younger women who still face the same challenges today. For example, in the film, a lawyer said that during her time, people thought women going to Harvard was only to find a husband. Meanwhile, another homosexual lawyer featured in the documentary recounted a story in which her colleague told her that it's maybe good to be lesbian because people will see you as a man. Balancing the Scales also reflects the challenging scales that women have to face in their life. One is the equality between men and women in employment, and the other is how to balance their career and family. Rowen said at the screening at Hoa Sen University in Chi Minh City on May 13 that so far all the young lawyers she interviewed had quit working at large law firms when they had children because of the difficulties in balancing personal life and career. Trailer of the documentary Balancing the Scales While in Ho Chi Minh City, she had a discussion with Tuoi Tre News on the film as well as her perspective on gender equality in Vietnam and other countries. The conversation below has been edited for cohesion, clarity, and concision. Could you please explain why you brought Balancing the Scales to Vietnam? After accepting the invitation from the American Film Showcase to come here, I started reading about your culture, your laws, where there are challenges in terms of rules, laws, and gender equality. And I was honestly not very surprised to find out that the problems are universal. What is the most common stereotype about women in Vietnam you got to know before coming here? I will answer that by saying what somebody who came up and said to me privately after one of the presentations in Hanoi, which was that there is a saying in Vietnam, if a woman has a PhD, she'll be an old maid. I think that's the same kind of stereotype that keeps women from leadership positions in the United States as well, because our cultural stereotypes everywhere expect women to be modest, to keep their head down and work hard. And when they have a family, they will step back from their career to raise their children and then are not welcomed back into the job market. They're expected to stay at home. Here in Vietnam I think that there's an additional problem that the family lives with an extended family, and so the woman is also expected not only to take care of the children but also the elderly relatives. All of those things keep women from being able to fully explore their career. If they have to step back, they will never make it to leadership positions. Attorney and filmmaker Sharon Rowen talks with students at the screening of her film Balancing the Scales at Hoa Sen University in Ho Chi Minh City on May 13, 2019. Photo: Dong Nguyen / Tuoi Tre News So is there any solution, in your opinion, to that? Well, yes I think! The solution needs to come from three different levels of society, the first one being government policies. In addition, its also about corporations and employers; they should think about how they treat their employees and whether they welcome women as leaders, or whether they tell them things like you're only going to have children anyway so you know there's no point in my promoting you to this position. And then there's a role for individuals to think about what they can do. For example, I made this film to be able to tell people in the United States and around the world some of the things that young women were telling me about the challenges they were facing. Let's talk about the film. How did you come up with the idea of making it? Ive been a lawyer for 40 years, so I was subject to some of the discrimination that I talk about in the film and that younger people are still talking about. When my daughter was born in 1994, I wanted to be able to explore this because I want her opportunities to be broader than mine. When I graduated from law school, large law firms didn't hire any women. And I thought that I would start by talking to some of the people that worked very hard before me in the 1950s and 60s to change the laws about equality for women. At that time, I thought my movie was going to be a kind of hall of fame," meaning the struggle was finished and all what I wanted to do was take the heroines I saw in the legal profession and help them tell their stories. But in 2009 - which was about 15 years after I started - I found out that young women in the legal profession were still experiencing the same challenges as women from the 1950s to 90s. I realized that even though the laws were there and people believed that women had attained more equality in the workplace, the statistics, in fact, showed that was not true. Only 20 leaders in the legal field were women and to me those were very depressing statistics. Then my focus changed in the middle of making the film to the challenges, the cultural stereotypes that exist in the society and keep women from attaining leadership positions, from tens years ago to now. Attorney and filmmaker Sharon Rowen (C) talks to local media at the screening of her film Balancing the Scales at the American Center in Ho Chi Minh City on May 13, 2019. Photo: Dong Nguyen / Tuoi Tre News So during your fight for women in leadership, what is the worst stereotype of women you have seen? There are a couple of different things going on in the United States right now. One is the sexual harassment and of course you've heard about Me Too and Time's Up, so that is getting some attention. For 60 years, it didn't get very much attention at all. It was just expected that women would put up with physical harassment and rape. So that part of it is getting a little more notice now. But the thing that my film is talking about is the mental idea that women are not cut out for leadership positions, which has not gotten enough attention. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Lying not too far from the heart of Hoi An, a famed resort city in central Vietnam, is a vegetable village that French daily morning newspaper Le Figaro in 2015 called a top must-visit place in the Southeast Asian country. Founded more than 400 years ago, Tra Que vegetable village is located in Cam Ha Commune, some three kilometers to the northeast of Hoi An, home to a namesake ancient town recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, Quang Nam Province. The small village presently accommodates around 220 households. Of these, 130 specialize in growing vegetables on a total area of 40 hectares and supply organic green produce to the whole of Hoi An Ancient Town and nearby areas. What make Tra Que vegetables different from those grown in other places are their natural green color and outstanding taste and flavor, thanks to a special farming method of the villagers. Farmers in the village do not use manure or chemical fertilizers in the plant growing process but a kind of algae found only in a lagoon surrounding Tra Que. Tra Que vegetables are loved by many for its freshness, tastiness and safety. Visitors to Hoi An often come to Tra Que vegetable village to discover local life and join culinary classes using the local veggies. A farmer fertilizes her crop with a kind of algae found only in a lagoon surrounding Tra Que. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre A foreign tourist visits Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam, on a bike. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre A farmer collects vegetables in Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre Tra Ques vegetables are tied up by bamboo strings. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre Crops are watered automatically in Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre A farmer collects vegetables in Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre A man waters his crop in Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre A farmer collects vegetables in Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre An aerial view of Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre A farmer collects vegetables in Tra Que vegetable village in Hoi An, Quang Nam, central Vietnam. Photo: Mai Vinh / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Your browser does not support the audio element. Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong chaired a meeting with key officials in Hanoi on Tuesday, making his first appearance since taking some time off work due to health issues in April. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairwoman of the lawmaking National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and two other high-ranking Party officials were among the participants in the five-people meeting, according to the official Vietnam News Agency. The meeting heard and discussed a report on official work in April and issues needing attention in the time ahead. Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong chairs a meeting in Hanoi on May 14, 2019. Video: Vietnam News Agency The officials at the meeting reached high consensus on key tasks in May and the following months. In the immediate future, priority should be given to organizing the 10th plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee as well as meetings of the Politburo and the Party Central Committee Secretariat. Party leader and State President Nguyen Phu Trong instructed that the fight against corruption and negative phenomena" be continued with resolve and persistence while upholding the spirit of solidarity and unity at all levels and in all sectors and winning public consensus. Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong (C) chairs a meeting in Hanoi on May 14, 2019. Photo: Vietnam News Agency Last month, foreign ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang told reporters a heavy workload and extreme weather had affected the health of the Vietnamese head of state, addressing rumor that he had health issues after a working trip to the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang in mid-April. President Trong was in Kien Giang on April 13-14 to discuss the implementation of socio-economic, security, and national defense initiatives with local officials. He will return to normal work soon, Hang said at the same meeting. Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong chairs a meeting in Hanoi on May 14, 2019. Photo: Vietnam News Agency Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Read what is in the news today, May 15! Politics -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday received Romanian Secretary of State Monica Gheorghita in Hanoi, asking for close coordination to realize the outcomes of his recent visit to the European nation. -- Vietnamese Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong on Tuesday chaired a meeting of key leaders in Hanoi, making his first media appearance since taking some time off work due to health issues after a working trip in April. Society -- Ho Chi Minh City police on Tuesday launched legal proceedings against and arrested Te Tri Dung, former general director of Tan Thuan Holdings Co. Ltd. (IPC), for embezzlement and violating regulations on the management and use of state assets. -- Bui Quang Huy, general director of Nhat Cuong, a major mobile phone dealer in Hanoi that came under police inspection last week, was on Tuesday arrested and placed under criminal investigation on charges of trafficking and violating accounting regulations. -- The African swine fever epidemic in Vietnam must be considered a pandemic if more outbreaks are reported in the countrys southern region while existing outbreaks in the north remains uncontained, Director of Vietnams Husbandry Department Nguyen Xuan Duong said on Tuesday. -- Nguyen Ba Canh, son of late Da Nang leader Nguyen Ba Thanh and a high-ranking member of the central citys Party Committee, has been removed from all positions in the Communist Party of Vietnam for violating marital laws. Business -- Vietnams fruit and vegetable exports in April reached US$462 million, bringing their total export turnover in the first four months of 2019 to $1.4 billion, a year-on-year rise of 7.2 percent, according to the Department of Agro Processing and Market Development. -- Facing water scarcity, farmers in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang have grown corn on nearly 2,000 hectares of rice fields, mostly located in drought-prone and saltwater-affected areas, for the 2018-19 winter-spring crop. -- Bitel, a Peruvian brand of Vietnams military-run telecoms giant Viettel, has won a $27 million contract to provide information and technology infrastructure for 1,837 schools in 25 cities and provinces in Peru. Lifestyle -- The 16th UN Day of Vesak 2019 wrapped up at Tam Chuc Pagoda in Ha Nam Province of north-central Vietnam on Tuesday with the adoption of the Ha Nam Declaration that promotes world peace, harmony, and improvements for all people. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Your browser does not support the audio element. The general director of Nhat Cuong Mobile, a technology firm and major mobile phone seller in Hanoi, has been apprehended for his alleged involvement in an organized smuggling ring. Officers under the Ministry of Public Security on Tuesday arrested and initiated legal proceedings against Bui Quang Huy, general director of Nhat Cuong Mobile, and his eight accessories for smuggling and violating financial accounting regulations, resulting in serious consequences. The arrest warrant had been approved by the Supreme Peoples Procuracy on the same day. Preliminary information showed that Huy and the other suspects had established an organized transnational smuggling ring, and created two financial accounting systems to pocket trillions of dong (VND1 trillion = US$43 million). Local authorities are expanding their investigation to clarify the role of each member and figure out the exact amount of money the illegal ring had earned. Since 2001, Nhat Cuong Mobile had opened nine mobile phone retail stores on major streets in the capital until its shutdown last week. It also operated the largest warranty center in northern Vietnam, and an ERP (enterprise resources planning) center in Ho Chi Minh City. Bui Quang Huy, general director of Nhat Cuong Mobile, in this photo provided by officers Nhat Cuong Mobile had a subsidiary named Nhat Cuong Software Solutions, which specialized in information technology, enterprise management software, network solutions and system integration. Last week, anti-smuggling officers under the Ministry of Public Security, in coordination with the municipal Department of Police, examined multiple stores of Nhat Cuong Mobile, resulting in the shutdown of all of its nine outlets as well as the firms official website and Facebook page. Officers also inspected the companys headquarters on Tran Phu Street in Ba Dinh District. Thousands of mobile phones, tablets, other electronic devices and a number of relevant documents were confiscated after the inspection to facilitate the investigation. According to the Penal Code, smugglers who pocket VND1 billion ($43,000) and more shall be sentenced to 12 to 20 years in prison. Violating regulations on financial accounting is punishable by ten to 20 years behind bars, if the damage is worth VND1 billion and over. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A UK citizen convicted of grooming children for sex in his home country entered Vietnam last month and departed early this month, according to the Vietnamese Immigration Department. British man Christopher John Trinnaman, 41, was in 2010 jailed for four years in his absence by a UK court for causing or inciting children to engage in sexual activity in 2008 and possessing indecent images, UK tabloid Mirror reported. He had posed as a teen online and persuaded two girls to send naked pictures before trying to lure one to a hotel for sex. Police were alerted and found 28 indecent images of kids on his computer in a search of his home. Trinnaman was caught in 2011 and served his sentence until he was released from jail in 2015. The trombone player entered Vietnam on April 9 this year on a visa granted to foreigners working for enterprises in Vietnam, the Immigration Department under Vietnams Ministry of Public Security told Vietnam News Agency. He left the country on May 3, the department added. Mirror reported that he worked with the Hanoi-based Sun Symphony Orchestra for a short time before resigning on April 23. According to the immigration department, Trinnaman is not on the list of those banned from entering Vietnam under the countrys law on entry, exit, transit and residence of foreigners. At present, there is no information about Christopher John Trinnamans violations of Vietnams entry and exit regulations or actions that might be inappropriate to or violate Vietnams law when he was in Vietnam, the Vietnam News Agency quoted the department as saying. The department noted that it is in touch with the UKs diplomatic mission in Vietnam to verify information related to the mans case, adding that it will coordinate with relevant agencies to proactively take action to prevent criminals from entering the country. A photo of Trinnaman surrounded by some Asian children, putting his arm over the shoulder of one of the unsuspecting kids, was published on Mirror on Saturday, raising safety concerns as a convicted pedophile in the UK was allowed to make physical contact with children in another country. Tuoi Tre News could not independently verify the authenticity of these undated images. Dang Hoa Nam, director of the Child Affairs Department of Vietnam, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Monday it is not illegal for a person guilty of pedophilia in the past to be around children after serving their sentence, citing Vietnamese laws. People like Trinnaman who have a criminal record of past convictions for pedophilia-related crimes are barred from jobs that require contact with or involve children, Nam said. In this case, the Briton moved to Vietnam to work in an orchestra, which is not a child-related profession. Even if he was in the photos with those children, he would not have broken any law in doing so, Nam explained. However, Vietnamese authorities do keep a close watch on high-risk people like Trinnaman." Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A top-line international cast will lead ABCs upcoming 6 part drama Stateless including Yvonne Strahovski (pictured), Jai Courtney, Asher Keddie, Fayssal Bazzi, Dominic West & Cate Blanchett. Stateless is described as an urgent and compelling drama about four people caught up in an immigration system that profoundly affects their lives. As previously revealed by TV Tonight, production is due to get underway in June in South Australia by Matchbox Pictures and Cate Blanchett & Andrew Uptons Dirty Films. Co-created by Cate Blanchett, Tony Ayres and Elise McCredie, the series centres on four strangers in an immigration detention centre in the Australian desert. They are an airline hostess escaping a suburban cult, an Afghan refugee fleeing persecution, a young Australian father escaping a dead-end job and a bureaucrat caught-up in a national scandal. When their lives intersect they are pushed to the brink of sanity, yet unlikely and profound emotional connections are made amongst the group. Inspired by real events, the series intertwines gripping and devastating personal stories revealing a system struggling with the irreconcilable contradictions of border protection. Additional cast members include Rachel House, Kate Box, Clarence Ryan, Claude Jabbour, Rose Riley and Helana Sawires. Tony Ayres, co-creator and executive producer says, We have assembled the most extraordinary array of Australian talent to make this show, both in front of and behind the camera. In each case, people were drawn to Stateless because it asks one of the most vexing questions of our times how do we as a nation maintain control of our sovereign borders whilst retaining our own humanity? Co-creator, executive producer and actor Cate Blanchett said, Whilst this story centres on Australia, the dilemmas that it explores through four absorbing characters will resonate globally: the desire for personal freedom, the need for social stability, an escalating lack of faith in the political process and the deeply unsettling impact this has on individual lives. Sally Riley, ABC Head of Scripted Production says, The ABC is proud to be collaborating with such a high calibre of homegrown talent to create this thought-provoking, ambitious and gripping series that is sure to connect with Australians and audiences around the world. Sally Caplan, Head of Production at Screen Australia says, Emma Freeman and Jocelyn Moorhouse are two directors at the top of their game, and combined with this immensely talented cast I look forward to seeing this remarkable story on screen. Alastair McKinnon, Managing Director of Matchbox Pictures says, Stateless is at once both intimate and epic in its scope and ambition, and this stellar cast is testament to the power of this story. Thrilling, courageous and intensely relevant, this is certain to be an unmissable drama series. Courtney Gibson, Chief Executive of the South Australian Film Corporation says, We were so pleased to support the development of this landmark series, with its all-female writing and directing team including some of Australias leading key creatives. We look forward to full production and post at Adelaide Studios and locations in South Australia, with SA producer Paul Ranford working alongside the team at Dirty Films and Matchbox, together with Matchbox SAs Kirsty Stark, who is a co-producer on this major series. When the project received Screen Australia development funding, Blanchett was announced as making her TV directing debut, but is no longer directing. Stateless is written by Elise McCredie and Belinda Chayko and will be directed by Emma Freeman and Jocelyn Moorhouse, produced by Sheila Jayadev and Paul Ranford for Matchbox Pictures with Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Tony Ayres as Executive Producers. Elise McCredie is Showrunner and Executive Producer and Liz Watts will serve as Executive Producer. ABC Executive Producers are Sally Riley and Andrew Gregory. The series will be distributed worldwide by NBCUniversal International Distribution. Production Credit: Stateless is a Matchbox Pictures and Dirty Films production for the ABC. Major production investment from Screen Australia and the ABC. Financed with support from the South Australian Film Corporation. Matchbox Pictures is an NBCUniversal International Studios company. Michael Usher and political editor Mark Riley will lead Seven News primetime coverage on Election Night this Saturday. The panel includes Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, Senator Jenny McAllister, Senator Michaelia Cash & former MP Craig Laundy. This Saturday, Australians will have their say on who will lead the nation. As Australia decides, Seven will broadcast an early edition of 7NEWS from 4.00pm AEST hosted by presenter Angela Cox live from our Melbourne studios. We begin our 2019 Federal Election coverage with a 7NEWS pre-show live from Election Central in Martin Place at 5.00pm AEST. Election coverage will break on Seven at 6.00pm AEST for a special 45-minute edition of 7NEWS hosted by senior anchor Mark Ferguson. From 6.45pm, join 7NEWS anchor Michael Usher and political editor Mark Riley for comprehensive coverage and up-to-the-minute results on 7NEWS: Decision Night in Australia 2019. Our election panel will pack a punch with Labor party powerbrokers Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen and NSW ALP Senator Jenny McAllister. And on the other side of the picture will be Coalition heavyweights Senator Michaelia Cash and former MP Craig Laundy. Rounding out our expert panel will be some of the sharpest political minds; Australian radio broadcaster Alan Jones and former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett. 7NEWS will cross live throughout the night to reporters and politicians in more than 30 key battlegrounds across the country. 7NEWS senior political correspondent Tim Lester will be with Bill Shorten at Labor headquarters in Melbourne. And at Liberal HQ with Scott Morrison will be 7NEWS chief correspondent Chris Reason. Channel 7s team of experts will deliver results to you in an instant with analysis you wont want to miss. 7NEWS: Decision Night Saturday from 6.45pm AEST on Seven. By Katie Paul, Joel Schectman and Christopher Bing WASHINGTON (Reuters) - WhatsApp said on Tuesday that a security breach on its messaging app had signs of coming from a government using surveillance technology developed by a private company, and it may have targeted human rights groups. WhatsApp, a unit of Facebook, said it had notified the U.S. Department of Justice to help with an investigation, and it encouraged all WhatsApp users to update to the latest version of the app, where the breach had been fixed. WhatsApp, one of the world's most popular messaging tools, is used by 1.5 billion people monthly. It has touted its high level of security and privacy, with messages on its platform being encrypted end-to-end so that WhatsApp and third parties cannot read or listen to them. The company said it was still investigating the breach but believed only a "select number of users were targeted through this vulnerability by an advanced cyber actor." WhatsApp said its advice to all users to update came "out of an abundance of caution" and a recommendation by Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto that it notified about the vulnerability before the announcement. It did not disclose how many users were affected. A technical advisory published on Facebook's security website said the vulnerability affected both Android and iPhones. A WhatsApp spokesman said the attack was sophisticated and had all the hallmarks of a "private company working with governments on surveillance." The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment. HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER A TARGET The Financial Times initially reported on the WhatsApp vulnerability that allowed attackers to inject spyware on phones via the app's voice-calling function. WhatsApp told human rights groups it believed the spyware was developed by Israeli cyber surveillance company NSO Group, best known for its mobile hacking tools, said Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit. Story continues "They said they believed it was NSO Group, but they also couched it in very careful terms with many caveats, because attribution is hard," she said. Like Citizen Lab, EFF was among the groups WhatsApp notified several days ago about the vulnerability. A second person familiar with the matter also identified NSO Group as the suspected culprit. NSO did not comment on the specific attacks. In a statement sent to Reuters, NSO said it would investigate any "credible allegations of misuse" of its technology. The company said it never picks or identifies targets of its technology, "which is solely operated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. NSO would not or could not use its technology in its own right to target any person or organisation, including this individual." One target of the new WhatsApp exploit was a United Kingdom-based human rights lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said an attack against him took place on Sunday after WhatsApp issued its update and was not successful. The lawyer had contacted Citizen Lab after receiving previous suspicious WhatsApp calls. The lawyer is helping a Saudi dissident and several Mexican journalists mount civil cases against NSO Group for its alleged role in selling hacking tools to the Saudi and Mexican governments, which they allege were used to hack into their phones. There are currently four known legal cases against NSO Group, including three in Israel and one based in Cyprus. NSO is being sued for damages allegedly caused by the sale of its tools, which the company says it sells only to law enforcement and intelligence agencies pursuing legitimate targets, such as terrorists and criminals. HUMAN RIGHTS WhatsApp said it was "deeply concerned about the abuse" of such surveillance technologies and that it believed human rights activists may have been the targets. "We're working with human rights groups on learning as much as we can about who may have been impacted from their community. That's really where our highest concern is," the spokesman said. Citizen Lab tweeted on Monday: "We believe an attacker tried (and was blocked by WhatsApp) to exploit it as recently as yesterday to target a human rights lawyer." Citizen Lab told Reuters that the person was the UK lawyer, who had approached Citizen Lab after receiving multiple WhatsApp calls from unknown numbers at strange hours, making him suspicious. Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), WhatsApp's lead regulator in the European Union, said WhatsApp had notified the agency late on Monday of a "serious security vulnerability" on its platform. "The DPC understands that the vulnerability may have enabled a malicious actor to install unauthorised software and gain access to personal data on devices which have WhatsApp installed," the regulator said in a statement. Cyber security experts said the vast majority of WhatsApp users were unlikely to have been affected. (Additional reporting by Steven Scheer and Ari Rabinovitch, Tamara Mathias and Padraic Halpin; Editing by Keith Weir, Jane Merriman and Leslie Adler) Anti-Brexit party Change UK has lost its lead candidate in Scotland for next weeks European elections. David Macdonald announced he was ending his candidacy immediately, as he urged voters to back the Liberal Democrats in a bid to keep Britain in the European Union. With the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens all campaiging on an anti-Brexit ticket in the May 26 ballot, Mr Macdonald fears the Remain vote north of the border could be diluted, giving Nigel Farages Brexit Party the chance to get an MEP in Scotland. Mr Macdonald, an independent councillor in East Renfrewshire, has written to Anna Soubry of Change UK, renouncing his candidacy without animosity or rancour. He said he had campaigned passionately for Change UK over the last three weeks, but stated: I have made the decision at this course to stand down as a candidate for change UK and voice my support for the Liberal Democrats. And while he insisted Change UK could still be a force for good in politics , he added: I have come to the point where I have realised I must do what is best for the future of this country before anything else. Chuka Umunna said Mr Macdonalds decision was disappointing (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Speaking outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Mr Macdonald stated: For me it was just purely about the mathematics of this, were looking at a very different political landscape in Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. We have a much more diluted Remain vote in Scotland, and its become very apparent close to these elections that we are in grave danger of splitting this vote and it is very clear to me now that we need to shore up the remain vote and get behind the Scottish Liberal Democrats. They are the force in politics in Scotland that are the clear voice for ending Brexit and for us remaining in the European Union. He added: There comes a point in politics where you realise you have go to do something for the greater good. Story continues Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie welcomed the decision which comes after postal votes for the European elections have already been sent out. Change UK's top candidate in Scotland is urging voters to vote Liberal Democrat on 23rd May because they are the party of remain. Read the full statement here https://t.co/8hIff4UFnL pic.twitter.com/NFEXokLC3Y Scottish Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) May 15, 2019 Mr Rennie said: I am grateful for the step David has taken. I know it is not easy making this decision, it was difficult, and he has been considering it for quite some time. I think this gives us a real opportunity to send a message across Scotland that if you want to stop Brexit you need to vote Liberal Democrat. Mr Macdonald added: If things continue as they are the remain vote will split in Scotland and put at risk the representation that supporters of remaining in the European Union so collectively desire. Change UK spokesman Chuka Umuna said: It is obviously disappointing that this candidate has chosen to pledge allegiance to another party he has let down his fellow candidates and activists. But we are focusing all our efforts on adding to the Remain vote in the UK and challenging the pro-Brexit Tory, Brexit and Labour parties, which is why our leader challenged Nigel Farage to a live TV debate this week. In the past 24 hours Labours former head of campaigns for the north of England has come out for Change UK, as have many former Labour voters. Winning voters over from the main parties and growing the Remain vote across the UK will continue to be our focus. Protestors outside Alabama State House dressed as characters from 'The Handmaid's Tale'. (PA) Alabama has just passed the most restrictive abortion bill in the US. It includes a clause which means doctors could be jailed for 99 years for performing an abortion. The only exceptions allowed are to avoid a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother - such as for ectopic pregnancies - and if the unborn child has a condition that means it would be unlikely to survive childbirth. This means, Alabama has ruled women who become pregnant by rape or incest are still banned from having terminations. The ruling has caused widespread backlash in the US and beyond, with many pointing out that the legislators who voted for the bill were all male. Marjorie Newman-Williams, President of Marie Stopes International US, an organisation providing contraception and safe abortion services, said: The Alabama abortion ban is cruel and unconstitutional. We hope that it will be blocked by the courts, and were deeply alarmed to see states attempt to punish women for making choices about their own bodies, lives and futures. However, some campaigners have said British people outraged by the legislation should look closer to home, pointing out that abortion is still illegal. For anyone horrified by Alabamas proposed abortion ban, or calling it Gilead. Look closer to home! Northern Ireland does not permit abortions even in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality. The ONLY exception is endangerment to a womans life. Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) May 15, 2019 It is only permitted when there is a risk to the life of the mother, or a serious risk to her physical or mental health. Mara Clarke from the London-based Abortion Support Network, said: We have had a scenario for decades upon decades in which women face the full weight of the law and years of imprisonment if they were to have an abortion in Northern Ireland. What is going on in Alabama should remind everyone here in the UK as to what is also going on in one part of this state, where women are criminalised and where women are forced to leave home to have abortions in England. Story continues In Europe there are still a few countries where there are strict laws governing abortion. Northern Ireland Pro-choice campaigners say Northern Irish anti-abortion laws are actually stricter than the legislation introduced in Alabama. At least one woman faces prosecution for procuring abortion pills on the internet for her then 14-year-old daughter who became pregnant through rape. Andorra In Andorra, abortion is banned except in cases where it is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. A person who performs an abortion with the consent of a pregnant woman is subject to imprisonment up to four years; if she or he is a medical practitioner and aborted the child for financial profit, the maximum penalty is six years in prison. Liechtenstein Abortion in Liechtenstein is illegal in almost all circumstances and is punishable by prison terms for the woman and the physician. An attempt to legalise it in 2011 was defeated by voters. Malta Malta is the only country in the European Union to prohibit abortion entirely. However, abortions are de facto allowed to save the mother's life. San Marino The law in San Marino imposes prison sentences for any woman who procures an abortion, any person who helps her and any person who performs the abortion. Abortions performed to save the life of the mother are generally permitted by legal principles of necessity, but the law makes no specific exceptions. The other 23 countries that ban abortions around the world are: Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mauritania, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Iraq, Laos, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Philippines, Tonga, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Suriname. South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, has adopted new measures to promote gender parity in ANC business.The ANC is currently holding talks to pick its candidates for key positions in the new administration . . . this in the wake of the partys victory in last week's general election.President Cyril Ramaphosa is under pressure, not just to weed out corrupt officials but also to honour campaign pledges to bring gender parity to government business.The partys national executive committee launched the process with the selection of premiers to head the 8 provinces won by the ANC, at a special session held at Irene on Monday.There were only two woman in the premiership list. But the partys leaders agreed to boost their numbers within the movements structures. At Mondays NEC meeting members laid down new guidelines for intra-party appointments. A key provision is that, where the premier is a man, at least 60 percent of the executive council or the provincial executive should be women. "Zebra approach"Under the new measures, the speakers in all provinces will be women irrespective of whether the premier is male or female.The zebra approach of one man one woman is the basis of the reform the ANC wants to introduce in the National Assembly and the Provincial legislatures, says Qaanitah Hunter, author of an investigative article published by the Johannesburg Sunday Times. According to the senior Times correspondent, its a historic problem that has left Jesse Duarte, Deputy Secretary General of the ANC, as the only woman sitting in the partys leadership.As Qaanitah Hunter argues, "when it comes to appointments it is automatic that it is the men who get those positions. She claims that the problem was raised five years ago, when the ANC picked only one woman as premier, out of the 8 provinces it won in the 2014 Elections.Hence her expressed conviction that the ANC needs to have some mechanism in place to ensure that it has more women in serious positions of power.Dangers of imposed culturesDespite the unfolding dynamics of gender parity, theSunday Times senior correspondent sounds warnings by critics that it could give rise to a false sense of womens empowerment. According to Qaanitah Hunter, such imposed cultures dont necessarily produce the desired outcome when they are put in place.'Angel with a cabinet from hell'Gender parity is not the only criteria defined as the basis for appointments in the ANCs new leadership. Experts say that, while President Ramaphosa goes out hunting for men and women of integrity and experience for his new cabinet, he will also ensure that the unity and stability of ANC structures are not tampered with.The complexity of the alchemy to be performed inspired a provocative comment from South African maverick Prince Mashele. Speaking on the Johannesburg-based 702 FM Radio he describes Ramaphosa as "an angel told to select cabinet members from hell". South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, has adopted new measures to promote gender parity in ANC business. The ANC is currently holding talks to pick its candidates for key positions in the new administration . . . this in the wake of the partys victory in last week's general election. President Cyril Ramaphosa is under pressure, not just to weed out corrupt officials but also to honour campaign pledges to bring gender parity to government business. The partys national executive committee launched the process with the selection of premiers to head the 8 provinces won by the ANC, at a special session held at Irene on Monday. There were only two woman in the premiership list. But the partys leaders agreed to boost their numbers within the movements structures. At Mondays NEC meeting members laid down new guidelines for intra-party appointments. A key provision is that, where the premier is a man, at least 60 percent of the executive council or the provincial executive should be women. "Zebra approach" Under the new measures, the speakers in all provinces will be women irrespective of whether the premier is male or female. The zebra approach of one man one woman is the basis of the reform the ANC wants to introduce in the National Assembly and the Provincial legislatures, says Qaanitah Hunter, author of an investigative article published by the Johannesburg Sunday Times. According to the senior Times correspondent, its a historic problem that has left Jesse Duarte, Deputy Secretary General of the ANC, as the only woman sitting in the partys leadership. As Qaanitah Hunter argues, "when it comes to appointments it is automatic that it is the men who get those positions. She claims that the problem was raised five years ago, when the ANC picked only one woman as premier, out of the 8 provinces it won in the 2014 Elections. Hence her expressed conviction that the ANC needs to have some mechanism in place to ensure that it has more women in serious positions of power. Story continues Dangers of imposed cultures Despite the unfolding dynamics of gender parity, theSunday Times senior correspondent sounds warnings by critics that it could give rise to a false sense of womens empowerment. According to Qaanitah Hunter, such imposed cultures dont necessarily produce the desired outcome when they are put in place. 'Angel with a cabinet from hell' Gender parity is not the only criteria defined as the basis for appointments in the ANCs new leadership. Experts say that, while President Ramaphosa goes out hunting for men and women of integrity and experience for his new cabinet, he will also ensure that the unity and stability of ANC structures are not tampered with. The complexity of the alchemy to be performed inspired a provocative comment from South African maverick Prince Mashele. Speaking on the Johannesburg-based 702 FM Radio he describes Ramaphosa as "an angel told to select cabinet members from hell". French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has faced tough questioning during a visit to Estonia. At a news conference in the capital Tallinn, Le Pen was asked about allegations that Russia had supported her 2017 presidential campaign.Le Pen was in Estonia attending a meeting of an alliance of far-right parties preparing for the EU parliamentary elections taking place next week. The meeting brought together far-right representatives from Italy, Finland and Denmark, along with the leader of the nationalist, anti-immigrant Estonian Conservative People's Party, which has five ministerial posts in the government of Prime Minister Juri Ratas.According to Marlene Wind, at the center of European Politics in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, the strong performance of the far-right in Finland's elections last weekend has shown the strength of anti-immigrant parties across the bloc, just over a week before the European parliament elections.The far-right has made gains recently in EU countries ranging from Estonia to Spain, on top of its strong bases in nations like France, Germany and Italy.National sovereignty and immigration are seen as the driving forces behind the populist vote in Europe. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has faced tough questioning during a visit to Estonia. At a news conference in the capital Tallinn, Le Pen was asked about allegations that Russia had supported her 2017 presidential campaign. Le Pen was in Estonia attending a meeting of an alliance of far-right parties preparing for the EU parliamentary elections taking place next week. The meeting brought together far-right representatives from Italy, Finland and Denmark, along with the leader of the nationalist, anti-immigrant Estonian Conservative People's Party, which has five ministerial posts in the government of Prime Minister Juri Ratas. According to Marlene Wind, at the center of European Politics in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, the strong performance of the far-right in Finland's elections last weekend has shown the strength of anti-immigrant parties across the bloc, just over a week before the European parliament elections. The far-right has made gains recently in EU countries ranging from Estonia to Spain, on top of its strong bases in nations like France, Germany and Italy. National sovereignty and immigration are seen as the driving forces behind the populist vote in Europe. New Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt has said she is determined to end the chilling threat of repeated investigations into alleged historical offences by British troops who served in Northern Ireland. Ms Mordaunt said she wanted plans to strengthen the legal protections for military personnel who served on overseas operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan to be extended to cover veterans of the Troubles. The Defence Secretary has signalled she intends to create a statutory presumption against prosecution of current or former personnel for alleged offences committed in the course of duty abroad more than 10 years ago. The legislation, which is subject to public consultation, will stipulate that such prosecutions are not in the public interest unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as if compelling new evidence emerged. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute in London, Ms Mordaunt said she hoped the measures could offer a way forward for those who served during the Troubles. I do think it should cover Northern Ireland, she said during a conference at the Royal United Services Institute. The problem is that we have failed to make progress on the whole lawfare issue because we have been held up waiting for other things to happen. It is not going to be resolved overnight. It is a personal priority of mine that we get this resolved and we stop this chilling effect that is claiming veterans who really deserve our care and respect. Ms Mordaunt said she had secured agreement with Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley that the concerns of defence, including the veterans, would be formally considered in her next steps. General Lord Dannatt said peers will try to amend the legislation to cover the Northern Ireland Troubles (Kirsty OConnor/PA) She said that she was determined that they should not repeat the mistakes of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) which degenerated into the pursuit of profit by legal firms interested in making a quick buck. Story continues This is not about preventing someone who has committed a crime facing justice. This is about stopping an industry that surrounds these processes which is not about the pursuit of justice, she said. Among those currently facing prosecution in relation to the Troubles is a former soldier, known as Soldier F, who has been charged with the killing of two people during Bloody Sunday in Londonderry in 1972. Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who is refusing to vote for Government legislation in the Commons until it ends such historical inquires, welcomed the protection for those who had served overseas, but said it needed to go further. Northern Ireland represents a particular challenge, the way that conflict was framed in the time, it was not classed as war even though it had many traits of wartime activity, he told Sky News. We need to redouble our efforts and see what we can do to apply legislation to stop this process taking place. The chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, Conservative MP Julian Lewis, called for a South African-style truth recovery process for Northern Ireland. Given that sort of immunity has already been effectively granted to so many people on the terrorist side of that bitter and awful conflict, whats good enough for Nelson Mandela should be good enough for us and we ought to draw a line in this way, he told the Press Association. The former head of the Army, General Lord Dannatt, said peers would try to amend the legislation to extend it to Northern Ireland when it comes to the House of Lords. Soldiers did their duty, got up in the morning, sometimes they came under attack. They returned fire, he said. They didnt set out to murder people. Terrorists set out every morning to murder people and successfully did so. There is a huge distinction to be drawn. Amnesty International UKs legal programme director Rachel Logan said Ms Mordaunts proposals set a dangerous precedent. British soldiers who break the law must face it, just like everyone else, she said. Naturally, individuals should be presumed innocent and only charged with criminal offences in the exceptional circumstance that the thresholds for prosecution are met that is already the law. But trying to go further and exempt a certain group of people from facing justice would be a perversion of that law. The Defence Secretary is also expected to reaffirm her commitment to derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) before the UK embarks on significant military operations. In 2016, Theresa May announced that the Government will adopt a presumption that it will take advantage of a right to suspend aspects of the ECHR at times of war. Mrs May said at the time that the move should end an industry of vexatious claims which has seen veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan pursued through the courts over alleged mistreatment of combatants and prisoners over a decade after the supposed events took place. Sudans military rulers and protest leaders have agreed on a three-year transition period for transferring power to a civilian administration after the deposition of president Omar al-Bashir last month.Parties must now negotiate the composition of the sovereign council, which replace the existing ruling body currently made up of army generals.After nearly 12 hours of negotiations, the two sides announced early Wednesday that they had reached an agreement on the transition period. The Transitional Military Council had insisted on a two-year transition, while the protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, wanted four years.Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, a member of the military council, told reporters that a final power-sharing agreement, including the formation of the sovereign council, will be signed within a day."We vow to our people that the agreement will be completed fully within 24 hours in a way that it meets the people's aspirations," Atta said.The protest movement has demanded the sovereign council be civilian-led, whereas the generals who overthrew Bashir say it should be mostly military.After the council is formed, a new transitional civilian government will be formed to run the country and work towards elections after the end of the transition period.Atta said that the transition parliament will be made up of 300 members, 67 percent of whom will be from the Alliance for Freedom and Change, and the rest from other political groups.The first six months of the transition period will be dedicated to signing peace accords with rebels in Sudans war zones like Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, according to Atta. Negotiations interrupted by violenceThe negotiations started Monday, and were marred by violence when an army major and five protesters participating in round-the clock sit-ins outside military headquarters in Khartoum were killed by unidentified gunmen in the evening. Dozens were wounded.Sudans opposition alliance blamed the military for the violence, as an attempt to disturb the breakthrough in the negotiations."We hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday," Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the opposition, told a news conference. "While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party."The United States backed the opposition alliance in blaming the military."The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day," said the US Embassy in Khartoum. Sudans military rulers and protest leaders have agreed on a three-year transition period for transferring power to a civilian administration after the deposition of president Omar al-Bashir last month. Parties must now negotiate the composition of the sovereign council, which replace the existing ruling body currently made up of army generals. After nearly 12 hours of negotiations, the two sides announced early Wednesday that they had reached an agreement on the transition period. The Transitional Military Council had insisted on a two-year transition, while the protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, wanted four years. Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, a member of the military council, told reporters that a final power-sharing agreement, including the formation of the sovereign council, will be signed within a day. "We vow to our people that the agreement will be completed fully within 24 hours in a way that it meets the people's aspirations," Atta said. The protest movement has demanded the sovereign council be civilian-led, whereas the generals who overthrew Bashir say it should be mostly military. After the council is formed, a new transitional civilian government will be formed to run the country and work towards elections after the end of the transition period. Atta said that the transition parliament will be made up of 300 members, 67 percent of whom will be from the Alliance for Freedom and Change, and the rest from other political groups. The first six months of the transition period will be dedicated to signing peace accords with rebels in Sudans war zones like Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, according to Atta. Negotiations interrupted by violence The negotiations started Monday, and were marred by violence when an army major and five protesters participating in round-the clock sit-ins outside military headquarters in Khartoum were killed by unidentified gunmen in the evening. Dozens were wounded. Story continues Sudans opposition alliance blamed the military for the violence, as an attempt to disturb the breakthrough in the negotiations. "We hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday," Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the opposition, told a news conference. "While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party." The United States backed the opposition alliance in blaming the military. "The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day," said the US Embassy in Khartoum. The US military has countered doubts expressed by a British general about the potential threat Iran poses to the US and its allies amid fears America is sliding towards war with the Islamic Republic. Maj Gen Chris Ghika, a senior British officer in the US-backed coalition fighting Islamic State (IS), exposed international scepticism over the American military build-up in the Middle East, a legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was predicated on false intelligence. US officials have not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat amid other signs of allied unease. Sailors assigned to the USS Nitze (DDG 94) participate in visit, board, search and seizure training. Nitze, as part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (ABECSG), is deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. https://t.co/AOYUbZIx67 pic.twitter.com/2nhTwc54UD U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) May 14, 2019 As tensions in the region surge, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said British officials are worried about the risk of a conflict between the US and Iran which neither side intends. Mr Hunt told reporters in Brussels: We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict. What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking. US president Donald Trump also denied a report that his administration has updated plans to send more than 100,000 troops to counter Iran if necessary. Mr Trump then stirred the controversy further by saying: Would I do that? Absolutely. "Militarily, we continue our campaign to ensure the lasting defeat of Daesh. But we cannot do it ourselves: campaigns cannot be won by fighting alone." MG C. Ghika. Watch his comments live now at https://t.co/e6Ps5EIt9K pic.twitter.com/bD3H8WR0h2 Inherent Resolve (@CJTFOIR) May 14, 2019 On Tuesday, Spain temporarily pulled one of its frigates from the US-led combat fleet heading towards the Strait of Hormuz. That was followed by the unusual public challenge to the Trump administration by Maj Gen Ghika. Story continues The general, speaking in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad, said: No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. He told reporters at the Pentagon that the coalition monitors the presence of Iranian-backed forces along with a whole range of others because thats the environment were in. But he added: There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we dont see any increased threat from any of them at this stage. Later in the day, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, US Central Command said Maj Gen Ghikas remarks run counter to the identified credible threats from Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo meet in Sochi (AP) In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq, the statement said. At the White House, Mr Trump, who has repeatedly argued for avoiding long-term conflicts in the Middle East, discounted a New York Times report that the US has updated plans that could send up to 120,000 troops to counter Iran if it attacked American forces. Would I do that? Absolutely, he told reporters. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. The Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) Reinforcing Mr Trumps denial, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference in Sochi with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov: We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: Major General Ghika speaks as a military officer in the US-led Coalition focused on the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. His comments are based on the day-to-day military operations and his sole focus is the enduring defeat of Daesh. He made clear in his Pentagon briefing that there are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in this part of the world. There always have been, that is why we have a very robust range of force protection measures. The UK has long been clear about our concerns over Irans destabilising behaviour in the region A Trump administration official said a recent small meeting of national security officials was not focused on a military response to Iran, but instead concentrated on a range of other policy options, including diplomacy and economic sanctions. Mr Lavrov said Mr Pompeo told him that a potential deployment of 120,000 US troops to the Middle East was only a rumour. The Russian foreign minister added that the international community needs to focus on diplomacy with Iran, including on the potentially explosive issue of Irans nuclear programme, which is constrained by a US-brokered deal in 2015 that Mr Trump abandoned. US Iranian envoy Brian Hook told reporters travelling with Mr Pompeo in Brussels that the secretary of state shared intelligence on Iran with allies since Europe shares our concerns about stability in the Gulf and the Middle East. Last week, US officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on American forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. The US has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 2,000 in Syria as part of the coalition campaign to defeat the Islamic State group there. It also has long had a variety of air and naval forces stationed in Bahrain, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf, partly to support military operations against IS and partly as a counter to Iranian influence. Maj Gen Ghikas comments came amid dramatically heightened tensions in the Middle East. The US in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. It also is moving a Patriot air-defence missile battery to an undisclosed country in the area. As of Tuesday, the Lincoln and its strike group had passed through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. Could bananas be under threat? (Getty) Britains favourite yellow fruity treat is in peril and it could be too late to find a solution, a scientist has warned. A fast-evolving fungal disease could put the worlds supply of bananas under threat, experts believe. A new strain of Panama disease, a deadly fungal infection, is evolving to be more lethal to bananas. What makes it so dangerous is that Cavendish bananas the kind you normally get in the supermarket are all grown from cuttings, so are effectively clones. This makes them less resistant to disease, and scientists now fear that it may be too late to reintroduce genetic diversity. Read more from Yahoo News UK: NASA plan to put the first woman on the moon by 2024 Cyclists actually break traffic laws far less than drivers Common painkiller is actually just as addictive as opiates Cavendish bananas which make up 50% of bananas eaten on Earth are all descended from bananas grown in 1835 in the stately home Chatsworth in Derbyshire. From there, Cavendish bananas were introduced to South American countries which now export them worldwide. But scientists believe they could fall victim to a strain of Panama disease, Colombian scientist Dr Fernando Garcia, who has been studying banana plants for years, believes there is a threat. Could bananas be under threat? (Getty) I cannot predict when the disease will arrive in Latin America and the other uninfected countries, but it is inevitable. Garcia says he is optimistic that an answer could be found by study wild varieties, extracting DNA and cross-breeding. But he is concerned an answer might not arrive soon enough. Garcia said, We are five to 15 years away from a new variety that is tested and ready for commercial farming. Research should have begun 20 years ago. Andreas Christoforou Wins the 2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event May 15 2019 Shirley Ang More than thirteen hours after the final day started, a winner has been crowned in the Merit Poker Classic $5,300 Main Event. Its a home island win for Cyprus own Andreas Christoforou, who grabbed the first-place prize of $565,157 by defeating Israels Liran Twito heads-up. The tournament was organized by Merit Poker, in conjunction with partypoker LIVE and Poker Club Management here in the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino and attracted 649 entries in total, which included 211 entries, which created a total prize pool of $2,990,267. This win is Christoforous biggest cash ever in the live tournament circuit, nearly doubling his total winnings in one fell swoop (according to The Hendon Mob) and will take him to second place on the Cyprus All Time Money List. Christoforou started the day at the short stack but managed to wield himself through the minefield of eliminations to claim the win in the end with a huge rail cheering him on along the way. Other notable players to have reached the final table of ten included the two partypoker pros Kristen Bicknell and Ludovic Geilich, Basil Yaiche, Anton Morgenstern, Mustafa Biz, and Florian Duta. 2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize (USD) 1 Andreas Christoforou Cyprus $565,157 2 Liran Twito Israel $416,245 3 Kristen Bicknell Canada $254,770 4 Daniel Braude Israel $188,685 5 Basil Yaiche France $141,440 6 Ludovic Geilich United Kingdom $113,330 7 Selahaddin Bedir Turkey $94,490 8 Anton Morgenstern Germany $75,355 9 Mustafa Biz Turkey $56,515 10 Florian Duta Romania $41,565 The 2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Table 2019 Merit Poker Classic Main Event Final Day Action Sixteen players returned at noon local time for the final day of the Merit Poker Classic, with start-of-the-day chip leader Geilich was off to a bad start when he first doubled up Anatoly Suvarov and Duta. Geilich quickly recovered by eliminating Sharar Levi, as well as Pavel Kovalenko. The latter went down with jacks against jacks, where the Scotsman spiked a four-flush to send him out. Despite doubling earlier, Suvarov was next to go when he shoved his last ten big blinds with queen-jack and also fell victim to Geilich who held ace-seven. However, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for the popular Scotsman, and Christoforou started off his ascent towards the eventual victory by doubling through Geilich with a rivered a pair of aces against pocket nines. His stack still consisted of mere crumbs at that point: once the final table kicked off Geilich was holding the chip lead, while Christoforou was the second shortest stack. Florian Duta and Mustafa Biz were the first to bow out from the ten-handed final table before notable German pro Anton Morgenstern fell in eight. It took three hours of eight-handed play before the German busted in a classic coin flip with ace-king versus Twito's pocket jacks. Selahaddin Bedir also got cooked by Twito, this time with Bedir holding jacks onto to walk into Twito's pocket aces. The blades held up to leave six at dinner with Twito leading. Ludovic Geilich finished in 6th place for $113,330 & Kristen Bicknell finished in 3rd place for $254,770 After dinner, former chip leader Geilich fell to Twito when he ran jack-ten suited into the Israeli's ace-jack and didn't improve. Twito went four for four just five minutes after, taking out Basil Yaiche with eights versus sixes. Holding half the chips in play at that point, Twito ramped up the aggression on the other three, but it was Christoforou that took care of fourth-place finisher Braude to bring the field down to its final three hopefuls. The three were ready to discuss a deal and agreed to look at the numbers but decided to play out the current hand first before entering negotiations. That decision proved to be crucial for Christoforou who doubled up with pocket queens through Twito to decrease the gap between them. The new state of affairs eventually resulted in a declined deal, which proved unfortunate for Bicknell as she busted out in third by shoving king-six into the ace-ten of Christoforou. Liran Twito finished runner-up for $416,245 Numbers were once again considered, but no deal was agreed and play continued. The chip lead went back and forth over the span of almost two hours, and Christoforou held the lead when the final hand occurred. Twito shoved with ace-eight. Christoforou called with king-ten suited and turned a flush while avoiding another club on the river which would have given Twito the nut-flush. With the rail and Christoforou himself exploding from happiness, the Merit Poker tournament was over with the home town hero claiming the gold. This concludes PokerNews live coverage from the Merit Crystal Cove & Hotel in Cyprus. There's plenty more from Merit Poker on the horizon. The next partypoker LIVE tournament is around the corner, when the Playground Poker Club in Montreal will host the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS North America event. PokerNews will be back on the floor to cover all the action. Maxwell Cohen is an entrepreneur and inventor who, at the young age of 28, already has started a business known as based Peel Away Labs. Based in Jersey City, New Jersey, the startup company produces Peelaways and Peelaways Health which are easy to change and disposable bedsheets. Maxwellwho came from a family who expected all their children to start a business by age 27came up with the Peelaways concept when he was a student at the University of Arizona. While there, he earned a B.S. in Environmental and Water Resource Economics and saw how many college students couldnt be bothered changing their bedsheets due to the hassle of washing them. Similarly, many elderly people reported not wanting to go through the trouble of washing and drying the sheets to change them. Considering this dilemma, Maxwell invented a Peelaways solution and officially launched Peel Away Labs in 2017. Peelaways have the distinction of being the bedding industrys first multilayered, disposable, waterproof fitted sheet that is specially designed for the home, healthcare, and industrial markets. The product appeared on Shark Tank and was not successful, but Maxwell did not give up, and Peelaways are presently being distributed across America and beyond. Maxwell Cohen recently granted an exclusive interview where he discussed being an inventor, entrepreneur, and the founder of Peel Away Labs. Inventions, materials, and business Meagan Meehan (MM): You grew up in a family that wanted all the children to invent something by age 27. So how did that become a rule and why that specific age? Maxwell Cohen (MC): My family has been starting businesses for 40 years and investing in them for 20. My family has a rule that, before you turn 27, you have had to at least attempt to start a business. Discuss this news on Eunomia Our family motto is failed fast or realizes the time and hard work it takes for an idea to become a successful reality. Starting at a young age is great because I do not have children, no mortgage and can take the risk. MM: What have your siblings invented? MC: My sister started and sold her travel business bonvoyaging(dot)com and my brother started a company called BrandYourself(dot)com, while he was in college and now runs a Venture firm called New York Venture Partners (NYVP). MM: What made you decide to create Peel Away sheets and how tough was it to turn the thought into a product? MC: I started executing on my idea while studying environmental and water resource economics at the University of Arizona. I noticed my friends would never wash their bedsheets. Stripping the bed, washing the laundry and remaking the bed was time-consuming and annoying for my friends. I said, There has to be an easier way. Ideas are a dime a dozen and it is all about smart execution. It is tough to create a product this is "good enough" to sell to customers. I did over two years of research and development and created 32 iterations of Peelaways. Those two years of R & D allowed me to learn what customers enjoy, and it also allowed me to learn more about the manufacturing process. Turning my Idea to an actual product was defiantly tough, but creating a real business is the real tough part. MM: How did you find the materials and the company to manufacture it? MC: I went to the closest hospital and learned what the (please delete the word the here) materials they used for disposable products, and from there I ordered a large role of the material from Alibaba. I found a company by searching for companies that create prototypes. With the few prototypes I created for Peelaways, I went to textile trade shows to learn about the industry and how to manufacture on a large scale. I ended up partnering with a Chinese factory and now have a great relationship with our manufacturers and work to improve our products every day. Health benefits, feedback, and the future MM: What sorts of health benefits does this product offer? MC: Peelaways Health are 32% softer than traditional hospital sheets. Each layer is 100% waterproof which is key for healthcare facilities as well as the home market. The products help prevent hospital-acquired infections. Since Peelaways Health as easy inventory management, new sheets are changed in less than one minute which provides better time management. The product reduces skin irritation and offers better patient/user comfort. MM: How did you get on Shark Tank and why do you think this pitch was unsuccessful? MC: I saw there was an open casting call in downtown LA and I waited online with over 800 entrepreneurs in order to have my 30 seconds to shine. I made it to the next steps of the Shark Tank process and ended up filming my pitch which originally aired Friday, November 13, 2015. I was young and the company was even younger. I only had a few customers but not a real business. Its actually a blessing that I did not get funded by the sharks. I took all of their advice and the great experience to create the business I successfully run now. MM: How did you end up getting this product on the market and then sold globally? MC: When I first started Peel Away Labs, I went after markets I was familiar with including summer camps and college students. After selling to these industries I recognize that there is a strong need for our products. My grandmother was bedbound. Then, we recognized that homecare and healthcare tremendously benefit by using Peelaways. Disposable bed sheets are something that everybody can use --- there are people that you believe should use it. When starting a business, there are people that you believe need a product like yours. The Peel Away Labs team attends many tradeshows around the world and targets countries with low infrastructure and water issues as our product has many benefits for countries globally. Once we recognize our product is superior to anything out on the market, we created all sizes from crib to king. In addition to tradeshows, we use the Rolodex of our investors to create relationships to get our products to secure global sales opportunities for Peelaways and Peelaways Health. MM: What sorts of feedback have you gotten so far and are you planning to invent anything else in the future? MC: Weve gotten great feedback that allows us to become smarter and fast. People are incredibly surprised by how soft, and comfortable our products are, and its one of those products where people say how come I didnt make that. Yes, I am young, and I plan to start many more ventures that potentially can help others for the greater good. Cushman & Wakefield published new research on May 15 assessing 48 of the most suitable locations for global manufacturers to expand in or relocate their operations to in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Anh: Its Manufacturing Risk Index (MRI) scores each country against 20 variables that make up three final weighted rankings covering conditions, cost, and risk. The data underpinning the MRI comes from a variety of reliable sources, including the World Bank, UNCTAD, and Oxford Economics. The report reveals that China is the leading country when viewed from a baseline scenario that gives equal importance to a countrys operating conditions and cost competitiveness. Vietnam ranked 15th in this regard, in and around the other countries in the Southeast Asian region. Malaysia ranked highly, at seventh globally, while Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore ranked tenth, 13th, and 14th, respectively. Regarding cost scenario, which gives a higher score to countries where operating outlay, including labor costs, is lower, China leads the pack, with Malaysia second and Vietnam performing strongly in third ahead of most competitors in the region as well as other global competitors. Asian countries dominated the top 10. From elsewhere, only Lithuania and Romania, in seventh and eighth, respectively, feature prominently. The third ranking, the risk scenario, considers rising geopolitical risk by favoring countries with lower levels of economic and political threat. In this scenario, North America leads the way with the US and Canada first and second, respectively, and China slipping to fourth. European locations account for more than half of the top 10, led by the Czech Republic, at third, with Germany, Denmark, Finland, Austria, and the UK also featuring in the top 10. Low-cost locations in Asia-Pacific are still attractive for labor-intensive manufacturing and will continue to be sought-after given their cost competitiveness, said Dr. Dominic Brown, Head of Research for Asia Pacific. We are seeing this play out with the China+ manufacturing strategy, which is helping to drive growth in the industrial sector in Southeast Asia. Developed markets with robust regulatory frameworks such as Australia, Singapore, and Japan offer companies a reasonable level of protection from geo-political and loss of intellectual property (IP) risks. Vietnams low cost of doing business, booming middle class, and deregulated environment have helped it become 69th out of 190 countries worldwide in the World Banks Ease of Doing Business Rankings, said Mr. Paul Tonkes, Director of Industrial & Logistics Services. It placed above the Asia-Pacific regional average and ahead of competitors like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Laos. However, Vietnam could be facing the dreaded middle-income trap, as it is at a challenging juncture and needs to address the issues surrounding this problem. It will need to focus on increasing productivity in the next few years. The government is looking to Industry 4.0 to help drive this with chinh phu kien tao (enabling government) policies. Investors shouldnt focus on labor costs in the long term, as rising costs can be offset by using technology and knowledge transfers as a way to leverage human capital. VN Economic Times Vietnamese airlines are facing difficulties to carry out their plans to acquire new airplanes due to the limited governance capability of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), Zing reported. In a letter in response to startup airline Bamboo Airways, CAAV said due to limited resources, the agency could only supervise 256 airplanes registered under Vietnamese nationality. Previously, Bamboo Airways backed by conglomerate FLC Group - proposed to operate 40 airplanes by the end of 2019. Taking in to account the number of airplanes subject to be delivered of other airlines, the total number of aircraft in Vietnam as of December 31, 2019 would reach 277, up 61 from the current number and exceeding the supervisory capability of CAAV by 21 airplanes. Vietjet Air in its 2018 annual report revealed the airline would take delivery of 100 new airplanes from Boeing and Airbus in the 2019 2023 period, including the A320 and 737 Max. During the 2019 2024 period, Vietjet Air would receive 20 aircraft per year, taking the fleet under its management to 76 by the end of 2019 instead of the current 64. In the annual general meeting, national carrier Vietnam Airlines announced in 2019 it would put into operation an additional 20 A321neo aircraft, while offloading five A321neos dated 2004 2005. Vietnam Airlines 20 new airplanes would include aircraft under wet and dry leasing, the airline also plans to purchase 50 narrow-body aircraft and 10 back-up engines for the 2021 2025 period, of which Boeing 737 Max and A321neo are under consideration. An official from Vietnam Airlines said its contract of 50 narrow-body aircraft has a clause for purchasing another 50. Recently, the airline has received the 14th Airbus A350-900 in April, the last in its contract with Airbus. According to Planespotter, Bamboo Airways currently has a fleet of nine aircraft plus one on order. The airline is in the process of seeking a new aviation license with registered capital of VND1.3 trillion (US$55.76 million), aiming to raise the permitted number of aircraft from current 10 to over 30. Trinh Van Quyet, FLC Groups CEO, said Bamboo Airways expects to expand its fleet to 40 airplanes, however, the number is exceeding CAAVs supervisory capacity. Vietnam currently has a total of five airlines, including Vietnam Airlines, budget operator Jetstar Pacific Airlines (partly owned by Vietnam Airlines), budget carrier Vietjet Aviation, Vietnam Air Services (VASCO) and Bamboo Airways. Vietravel, a leading tour company in Vietnam, is also seeking to set up an airline specialized in charter flight. Hanoitimes Ngoc Thuy Fruit and vegetable exports in April reached 462 million USD, bringing their total export turnover in the first four months of 2019 to 1.4 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 7.2 percent. According to the Department of Agro Processing and Market Development (Agrotrade) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the first three months of the year, fruit and vegetable exports had actually witnessed a year-on-year reduction of over 9 percent. China ranked first in Vietnams fruit and vegetable import market, accounting for over 72 percent of the total export turnover. It was followed by the US with 3.26 percent, the Republic of Korea (RoK) 3.22 percent, Japan 2.9 percent, and the Netherlands 1.71 percent. Strong growth was seen in Australian imports (up nearly 53 percent), the RoK 31 percent, and the Netherlands 28 percent. After being licensed by the US to import fresh mangoes in February 2019, on April 18, 8 tonnes of mangoes from Cao Lanh in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap, were exported to the US by air. With the official export of mangoes to the US, this fruit is hoped to bring a lot of positive signs for the fruit-vegetable sector in the coming time. Vietnamese mangoes are now sold in 40 markets in the world such as Europe, China, the RoK, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. According to Agrotrade, businesses should make use of Vietnamese key fruits such as mangoes, dragon fruits, longans, rambuttans, thieu lychees, and star apples which have been exported to the US to increase their presence in the market.VNA The expansion of Vietnams road network would continue in the next decade in order to support growing freight transport volumes due a projected increase in economic activity, Fitch Groups Fitch Solutions Macro Research forecast. Growth of Vietnams road sector will mainly be supported by the construction of expressways In the report on the outlook for Vietnams road infrastructure, Fitch predicted the countrys road and bridges sector to grow by 7.2 percent, in real terms, in 2019, and at an annual average of 6.7 percent from 2020 to 2028, driven by a large number of road projects. According to Fitch's key projects database (KPD), there are a total of 137 road projects currently in the planning or construction phases, representing 60 percent of all pipeline projects. "We are positive that most of these projects will be implemented progressively given a projected surge in demand for road infrastructure supported by sustained, robust economic growth, averaging 6.5 percent annually till 2028, as projected by our Country Risk team," Fitch said in the report. According to Fitch, growth of Vietnams road sector will mainly be supported by the construction of expressways. The government plans to expand the current network by more than ve times to 7,000km by 2030, which is an upward revision of the target set in 2016 (6,400km). The plan will include the construction of new expressways linking the northern and southern regions, several ring routes that will circle existing urban cores to enhance suburban connectivity, and the expansion of existing expressways by extending routes and increasing the number of lanes. "Given the high number of roads which are unpaved, we expect a wave of road modernisation to take place over the next decade, as currently unpaved roads are upgraded to asphalt or concrete roads. However, we note that some expressway projects are likely to face land acquisition issues, which may delay project timelines and result in cost ination." Also, Fitch said, as most expressway projects are likely procured via public-private partnership (PPP), the pace of expansion of Vietnams expressway network will depend on the level of private interest, which will pick up if the PPP framework, legal and financial institutions are strengthened. The inclusion of sovereign guarantees and the implementation of a robust legal framework would increase interest in PPPs and provide tailwinds to road sector growth, Fitch noted. Current PPP laws do not have minimum return guarantees by the government, which means that the burden of project-related nancial risks are tilted towards private investors. As a result, low investor interest in PPP projects often leads to longer implementation times and in some cases, cancellation of PPPs. Such a scenario is best exemplied by the Dau Giay-Phan Thiet Expressway project, where many investors expressed interest and withdrew at a later date due to financing uncertainties. According to Fitch, legal barriers have also deterred potential investors from the road sector. The lack of a strong legal framework has caused concerns over site clearance, price xing and concessions. Fitch's KPD showed out of 87 road projects in the pre-construction phase, 61 are earmarked as PPPs. "We believe the progress of these projects will pick up once the legal environment in the country improves, and reforms to the current PPP law are made to include guarantees. The more balanced risk profile of the projects will make them a more attractive investment proposition to private investors," Fitch concluded.-VNS If Vietnams proportion in MSCI market increases by 3 percent, the stock market can expect to receive VND1.5 trillion more worth of capital, analysts say. Morgan Stanley Capital Investment (MSCI) is to release the 2019 Annual Market Classification Review on May 13. According to VNDirect Securities, it is highly possible that Vietnam will not be shortlisted for reclassification from the current status of a frontier market to emerging. However, if Argentina is upgraded, Vietnams proportion in MSCI Frontier Markets Index and MSCI Frontier Markets 100 Index may increase by 3 percent, and Vietnams shares with large capitalization value would be able to receive VND1.5 trillion more foreign capital. It is estimated that the total assets of the funds making passive investments based on MSCI indexes is $3.75 million. It is estimated that the total assets of the funds making passive investments based on MSCI indexes is $3.75 million. These include Schroder International Selection, Templeton Frontier Markets Fund and iShares MSCI Frontier. By the end of March, the funds had allocated $493 million to the Vietnamese stock market, $671 million to Kuwait and $501 million into Argentina. If Argentina shifts to the group of emerging markets, the amount of $501 million would be re-allocated to the remaining frontier markets, including Vietnam. Vietnam is expected to get the biggest benefit because it accounts for a large proportion in MSCI Frontier Markets Index and MSCI Frontier Markets 100 Index. As MSCI stated last June, Vietnams proportion in the two indexes may increase by 3 percent from the current 16-17 percent. The shares with large capitalization value will benefit the most, VnDirect Securities commented. The shares expected to catch the eyes of frontier investment funds include VNM, VIC, VHM, VCB, SAB, MSN, HPG and GAS. The continued capital flow into the market will serve as important support to the market in the second quarter of 2019 in the context of the lack of good information. 2019 wont be a smooth year for the global stock market. In such conditions, Vietnam is not likely to swim against the current, VDSC commented. In addition to the capital from the funds making passive investments based on MSCI Frontier Markets Index and MSCI Frontier Markets 100 Index, estimated at $66 million, Vietnam will also receive capital from active funds, and funds based on other benchmarks such as MSCI Frontier Emerging Index and S&P/BNP Mellon New Frontier Index. Vietnams stocks are being held mostly by Schroder Fund ($113 million) and Magna Fund ($127 million). VNM accounts for the largest proportion in iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF (3.56 percent), followed by VIC (3.55 percent), VHM (2.29 percent), MSN (1.47 percent), HPG (1.25 percent) and VRE (1.23 percent). RELATED NEWS Over $1.2 billion to flow to VN stock market after upgrading to secondary emerging market Foreign capital to flow to Vietnam after equity market gets upgrade Mai Lan PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc received Secretary of State at the Romanian Foreign Ministry Monica Gheorghita in Hanoi on May 14, asking for close coordination to realise the outcomes of his recent visit to the European nation. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives Secretary of State at the Romanian Foreign Ministry Monica Gheorghita in Hanoi on May 14 The PM welcomed the Romanian official to Vietnam for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) conference on promoting economic and social inclusion in Asia and Europe, and for the political consultation with the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry. The Secretary of State said her trip aims to put into details the cooperation agreements and commitments made during the PMs visit to her country. Romania wishes to foster cooperation with Vietnam not only within the governmental framework but also through business-to-business partnership in various fields, she said, noting that she visited a human resources training centre in Vietnam, and labour is an area in which Romania hopes to enhance bilateral cooperation. Gheorghita also affirmed Romanias pledge to strongly push for the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA). PM Phuc said to help implement his visits outcomes, the two sides should organise the 16th meeting of the joint committee for economic cooperation as soon as possible, accelerate the signing of framework cooperation documents like the cooperation agreement on crime prevention and control, a cultural cooperation programme for 2019-2021, and an educational cooperation deal. He spoke highly of the countries close coordination and mutual support in the international arena, especially within the framework of the United Nations and ASEM. He also appreciated Romanian leaders commitment to strongly supporting the signing and ratification of the EVFTA and the EVIPA during the countrys term as EU presidency in the first half of 2019. The host also asked both sides to soon carry out the deals signed at the business forum held during his trip to Romania so as to bring bilateral trade on par with potential, higher than the 218 million USD in 2018. -VNA Social organizations and the Vietnam Rubber Group are arguing about farmers contribution of land for rubber production in northwestern provinces. Nguyen Vinh Quang from Forest Trends, representing the research team which conducted a quick survey in three provinces of Son La, Dien Bien and Lai Chau in February and March 2019, affirmed that real income from rubber farming was much lower than income from other crops on the same land area. About 75 percent of surveyed households said their income decreased after contributing land to grow rubber, while 47 percent said the income fell by at least 40 percent. After eight years of farming, the profit from rubber latex was VND500,000-2 million per hectare, which was just equal to 2 percent of profits from maize. The income may increase in the future with the latex output increase, but it will be lower than the income from other crops. More than 50 percent of households said they wanted to fell rubber trees to cultivate other crops. According to Lo Van Dien from Muong Bu commune in Son La province, locals contributed 300 hectares of land, but they have not received any dong in dividends. Lu Van Hai from Ta Mo Hamlet said locals were unhappy because they have not received significant benefits from the project. About 75 percent of surveyed households said their income decreased after contributing land to grow rubber, while 47 percent said the income fell by at least 40 percent. He said the recruitment of workers for rubber plantations did not go as promised (1 worker for 1 hectare, VND1.5-1.8 million a month). Workers could not get official labor contracts after two years of working, while the number of poor households in the hamlet has increased to 50 percent. Lo Van Hung from Cu Pe hamlet said he now just wants to get his land back, because he could not get any benefit from the land contribution over the last 11 years. Hung believes that rubber trees wont have a future in Son La, because it cannot bear the severe weather conditions there. Rubber trees will die when white fog appears, he said. Prof Nguyen Ngoc Lung also thinks rubber trees will not develop well in the northwest because the tree grows well at the height of below 60 meters and in temperatures of 22oC and higher. The land area satisfying both conditions in the northwest is very modest. Meanwhile, Ho Anh Duc from Son La Rubber Company and Nguyen Hong Thang, director of Lai Chau Rubber, did not give direct reply to complaints by locals, but said it would be better to find solutions to problems rather than continue complaining. According to Thang, the Vietnam Rubber Group has built a 5,000 ton plant in Son La and is going to build other plants in Lai Chau and DIen Bien. RELATED NEWS Vietnam struggles to stay in top 3 rubber exporters Natural rubber market struggles Nam Lich Vietnam is now trying to transform itself into a digital economy. Science and technology firms will play an important role in Vietnams future plans However, it is necessary for the government to offer incentives to technology companies as the first step of building out the local digital economy. The new slogan Make in Vietnam has been announced by the Vietnamese government as part of the efforts to show support to all businesses in Vietnam and turn the country into a regional technology hub. The announcement was made at last weeks national forum on developing Vietnamese technology companies in the presence of more than 1,000 delegates, including government officials, experts, and leaders of leading technology firms like FPT Group, Bkav and VCCorp. The event aimed to disseminate the governments directions in developing technology companies and gather policy feedback. In recent years, Vietnam has seen breakthroughs in technology thanks to giants like Vingroup which last year gained global publicity by developing its own VinFast automobiles and VinSmart smartphone brand, and Viettel Group which is planning to roll out its 5G network next year. Within less than six months, VinSmart has launched four smartphones and plans to offer 12 more devices in 2019. The company is constructing a manufacturing facility in the northern city of Haiphong with the annual capacity of 100 million devices and has partnered up with a US partner to develop 5G-ready phones. Le Thi Thu Thuy, chairwoman of VinFast said, About 10 years ago, there was only one tech company (Microsoft) among the 10 most successful companies in the world, but now only one of the 10 largest companies does not deal in technology. Vingroup is the biggest Vietnamese company to incorporate technology as one of the three pillars of its operation, next to industry and trade services, with the goal of becoming the regions leading technology corporation within 10 years. Vingroup has already developed factories that sport capacities and levels of automation that turn corporations over the world green with envy, while Viettel is developing 5G equipment, making Vietnam the fifth in the world to develop such capabilities. These Vietnamese companies not only caught up to the region and the globe in technology, but are actually leaving many a step behind. However, such companies are a miniscule portion of nearly 400 local tech businesses and 15,000 startups. Potential still to be reached The latest data from the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) showed that last year, the local IT sector reached $98.9 billion in revenue, up 8 per cent on-year, including $88 billion from hardware, $4.3 billion from software, $5.7 billion from technology services, and $800 million from digital content. The industry also contributed nearly VND50 trillion ($2.17 billion) to the state budget and created more than one million jobs. The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), estimated the value of Vietnams digital economy at $9 billion in 2018, forecasting it to reach $30 billion by 2025. Accordingly, Vietnams GDP will increase by $162 billion in 20 years if the digital transformation is successful. Recognising the role of tech firms, over the past few years, the government has provided capital and come up with many supporting policies to nurture them. Specifically, Decree No.13/2019/ND-CP providing new incentives for science and technology companies took effect on March 20. It gives sci-tech firms exemption from corporate income tax for the first four years and a 50 per cent exemption for the next nine years. The decree also stipulated that sci-tech companies are eligible for exemption or reduction of land and water surface rental fees. In addition, the MoST in 2015 also launched the National Technology Innovation Fund (NATIF) with a budget of VND1 trillion ($43.48 million) to support sci-tech firms. Despite the governments efforts, these firms still have limited access to support, according to Nguyen The Tan, CEO of VCCorp. Speaking at the forum, Tan said that while China actually has negative tax rates for Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, and in the US, Amazon is subject to 0 per cent tax, established Vietnamese firms like VCCorp often pay 15-20 per cent on tax. Value-added and corporate income taxes are very high, Tan added. He said that the digital economy should be considered a key economic sector, with taxes aimed to incentivise development, not milk firms dry. The government should appreciate Vietnamese technology companies and enable them to export products and services to international markets. Technology is the foundation of economic growth, escaping the middle-income trap, and enabling Vietnam to become a developed country. Vietnam targets to become a prosperous industrial country with more than half of the population in the middle class by 2045. In my opinion, taking advantage of Industry 4.0, technological and scientific achievements, and developing technology corporations will help us reach the target. In the time coming, Vietnam will not only absorb and master technology, but also strengthen innovation and creativity. This is the only way we can become a prosperous country. We will use technology from over the world to resolve Vietnams problems, and then local technology companies will provide solutions for the globe. We consider technology companies the key for the country to become a dragon by 2045. With the exciting trends of Industry 4.0 and digital economy, they will play an important role in the countrys socio-economic development. Natural resources and cheap labour are no longer advantages, so innovation is vital for the businesses and the economy. For example, e-commerce has contributed around $3.5 billion to the economy, equivalent to 1.7 per cent of the GDP, which is expected to grow to $42 billion by 2030 thanks to boosting digital technology in order to increase labour productivity and reduce production costs. These figures should increase multiple times in the decades after. There are nearly 50,000 active businesses in the ICT sector now, making a total revenue of $100 billion. We target to have 100,000 businesses by 2030, as well as transfer from outsourcing to making Vietnamese products. Industry 4.0 is a good opportunity for innovative ideas to change the way of doing business. Economies will shift from a model whose growth is driven by traditional inputs such as low-cost labour, land, and natural resources to another model whose growth created by high technology and innovation. Thereby, labour-intensive industries will lose their competitive advantage and narrow production scale. But there will be opportunities from the efforts of Vietnamese businesses trying to overcome the challenge, while maximising the advantage of Vietnam in the digital era. Breaking limitations Pham Hai Van, director of Haravan Technology JSC in north Vietnam, told VIR that Vietnamese firms have yet to acquire the financial strength of global firms and cannot afford producing new technology and train human resources. Therefore, in addition to tax incentives, policies resolving capital shortage should also be issued. Nguyen Xuan Thanh, lecturer in public policy at Fulbright University, also told VIR, It is necessary to create open policies for all sides playing a part in the development of local tech firms. According to Thanh, schools should be free in selecting curricula instead of being limited to the one prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training. Besides, private businesses should be involved deeper in developing technology parks for domestic players and startups because they know better what those companies need. In addition, it is essential to extend loans to startups. The most difficult times for startups and sci-tech firms are the ones directly after establishment when they commonly accept losses in hopes of future gain. Therefore, they need a certain amount of capital to support them before they grow up. Eric Sidgwick, the Asian Development Banks country director for Vietnam, said that Vietnam should harness the digital economy to rapidly raise productivity, and a key task for this will be fostering tech startups. He advised the government to develop technology parks focusing on regional and global markets, as well as promote innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education. Vietnam still needs to adapt to the technology era and work out suitable policies. There are not only problems with governance, but also with startups and tech firms, which also need time to grow up, according to Van from Haravan Technology. Piloting new policies on a small scale could help the government to avoid risks. They can be extended if they work and there is little harm if they do not hit the mark, Van said. VIR The accelerating pace of urbanisation in developing countries, and Vietnam in particular, is presenting new opportunities to apply technologies to the challenges of city management. Anh: This integration of urban governance and technology, generally referred to as smart cities, is driven both by global private enterprise and by local and national governments seeking to strengthen economic competitiveness. Cities in Vietnam will benefit from smart initiatives already finding success elsewhere Over the last decade, the urban population in Vietnam has grown at an annual average of nearly 3 per cent, the fastest in Southeast Asia. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which have grown 3.8 and 4 per cent per year respectively, will need substantial changes in order to promote sustainable living. Increasing population density is also adding pressure to aging infrastructure and is impacting the environment. Vietnam has 800 urban areas in which the rate of urbanisation increased from nearly 24 per cent in 1999 to 37 per cent in 2017. The figure is expected to climb by 50 per cent by 2025. This rapid urbanisation is not without its challenges, as it has implications for important issues such as city congestion, water and air quality, poverty, rising inequalities, the urban-rural divide, and the security and safety of citizens. As a result, the Vietnamese government has approved a sustainable smart city development plan for the 2018-2025 period, and towards 2030, with a view to improving the lives of city residents. Under the plan, four chains of smart cities will be formed in Hanoi, Danang, Ho Chi Minh City, and Can Tho. The plan aims to build smart cities based on green growth and sustainable development, utilising the strength and potential of these cities in order to raise the living standards of locals. New technologies create opportunities to develop new urban services that improve the operational performance of cities, provide greater transparency and more interaction with citizens, and reduce the local environmental impact. By making use of data from connected objects such as sensors, probes, and the Internet of Things, real-time water quality can be measured, network losses can be reduced, waste collection and treatment can be managed in real time, and the energy performance of urban services can be improved while also preserving resources. From small to mega cities, groups such as Swiss robotics multinational ABB are helping modern cities deal with the increasing pressure of rising populations and aging infrastructure by working with governments and citizens to implement initiatives on smart utilities, smart buildings, smart transportation, and smart industries. ABB Ability has a portfolio of digital services that turn cities into smart ones. The platform combines cross-industry digital expertise and includes devices, systems, solutions and services that, for example, connect utilities and link the individual subsystems of urban infrastructure. ABB Ability alone currently includes over 200 digital solutions. For example, the ABB Ability Optimax energy management solution helps companies make the transition to new business models easier by providing transparent insight into the energy consumption of industrial, commercial, and utility companies while helping to reduce both environmental impact and costs. The Smart City Cockpit, meanwhile, creates a common operating environment. For example, the district heating network, heat and power generation, and water supply including pumps can be bundled in a model that continuously calculates the cost-optimised operating point of the overall system. With regard to energy supply, Smart City Virtual Power Pool software can automatically monitor generation units, energy storage, and controllable loads. If, for example, the city electric bus fleet is charged at the most favourable time, consumption of renewable energies is optimised. Continuous data analysis shortens response times in the event of unforeseen events, cloud-based automation solutions bring numerous benefits to cities, and the efficiency of networked supply systems increases which in return reduces costs. Quality and accessible data aligned to robust architecture and state-of-the-art analytics are fundamental to mapping, visualising, and optimising these relationships and dependencies at scale. 5G networks are often seen to be critical to the future of the industrial Internet of Things and therefore to the integrated smart city proposition. ABB has cited that its products and solutions are at the heart of a citys critical infrastructure, relied upon for everything from the supply of power, water and heat, to the automation of the factories and buildings people work in. The technology corporation has been partnering with major players in key technology fields for many years such as Microsoft, Ericsson, IBM, and Hewlett Packard, in an attempt to meet complex and challenging requirements. Smart city initiatives are built on a bedrock of strong partnerships and agile processes, said Guido Jouret, chief digital officer of ABB Global. We have built a unique position in this space with founding experience in weaving together technology and infrastructure partnerships across the world, whilst simultaneously helping to shape government policies and standards. Reflecting the diversity of the market, the multinational has been involved in regeneration projects from Sydney to Shanghai, with smart city applications at the heart of new commercial and domestic real estate projects. These include transport electrification across Europe, advanced electric vehicle charging technology in China, solar plants in north Africa, and a smart water system in Ho Chi Minh City. Vasteras, Swedens fifth-largest city, provides an example of how a conventional location can become a smart city. Energy supplier Malarenergi, along with ABB, is currently digitising the citys infrastructure. Malarenergi operates several hydroelectric power stations, the local power grid, the local fibre-optic network, a waste-fired combined heat and power plant, district heating networks, water treatment and wastewater treatment plants, and the water supply system for the citys 150,000 inhabitants. A key objective of the project is to combine the monitoring facilities of the various automated systems into a single control centre from which all services will be operated. ABB has a great example of a waste water project in Hong Kong where the authorities launched an initiative to improve the water quality in Victoria Harbour, as the existing wastewater treatment facility for Kowloon and Hong Kong Island was releasing excessive untreated wastewater inflow into the sea. The ABB Ability solution for HATS 1 and 2 consisted of a sophisticated unified distributed control system (DCS) with a total of about 43,000 I/Os installed on both the original and the expanded part of the plant. The DCS supervises the entire sewage works, providing operators with full control over the older and newer parts of the plant. ABB executed the installation of the new control system during normal plant operations and without requiring unscheduled shutdowns. Here in Vietnam, ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA is deployed in Ho Chi Minh City to reduce the loss of 30 per cent (150 million cubic metres) of clean water through leaking and damaged pipes. The project, commissioned by Saigon Water Corporation, included expansion of the current network capacity, integration of more isolated sections, reduction of water leakage, and real-time control and monitoring of the network conditions to prevent major disruptions. The result will be a rise in the volume of water delivered to households and industries, as well as minimising an estimated 500,000m3 of non-revenue water lost per day, according to ABB. VIR Vietnam and Japan will sign a cooperation agreement providing labour skills for foreigners, aiming to enable Vietnamese citizens to work in Japan in line with the countrys new visa policy. Speaking at a conference in Tokyo on May 14, Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan Vu Hong Nam affirmed that the Vietnamese Government supports the relaxation of visa regulations to attract more foreign workers. This is an objective requirement of all countries when integrating into the international economy, he said. Previously, the labour cooperation between Vietnam and Japan was conducted under training programmes. However, this form reveals many limitations detrimental to both employers and employees, according to the ambassador. He unveiled that the new cooperation deal will soon be signed between Vietnams Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs and Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare; and National Police Agency. Nam hoped the reception of Vietnamese workers according to Japans new visa policy will be carried out swiftly, helping the country maintain its economic growth and business operations. At the workshop, Ambassador Vu Hong Nam highlighted Vietnams remarkable socio-economic achievements and foreign direct investment attraction policies, as well as the economic ties between Vietnam and Japan in recent times. He said Vietnam is an ideal destination for foreign investors thanks to socio-political stability, rapid economic development, high growth potential, and open policies with numerous preferences as well as improved infrastructure, abundant human resources, and competitive production costs. So far, Vietnam has joined 12 free trade agreements (FTAs) and is negotiating three others, Nam said. Regarding the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the ambassador highly appreciated the role of Japan in the deals negotiation process. The agreement will help cut down all tariffs on products of Japanese strength. For Vietnam, it will create the best conditions for Vietnamese businesses in terms of customs procedures, he said. Nam, along with Vietnamese trade and investment counsellors in Japan, also fielded questions related to trade, investment, and labour issues. The workshop was held by the ASEAN-Japan Centre with the participation of representatives from nearly 200 businesses and researchers about Vietnam.VNA Cat OBrien has converted a regular double-decker bus into a venue to be used as a banh mi restaurant. She came up with the concept during a visit to Southeast Asia. The 26-year-old was working as a teacher in Hanoi when she fell in love with Vietnamese street food. Upon returning to England, she decided to purchase a double-decker bus from an online trading website in order to transform it into a restaurant. After receiving her purchase she got to work renovating the bus and designing the restaurant by herself. The restaurant is decorated with wooden furniture in a Vietnamese style. Many of the materials used such as cloth and colourful bricks have been brought over directly from Vietnam. A number of photos that she took during her time in Hanoi adorn the walls of the bus. As well as the owner, Cat OBrien also works as a chef in the restaurant. Each banh mi costs 7, equivalent to VND210,000. A booth of Vietnamese firm at the SIAL China 2019. Photo baoquocte.vn SHANGHAI Twenty-five Vietnamese enterprises are showcasing their products at the SIAL China 2019 Asias largest food and beverage exhibition in Shanghai, China. Their goods include dairy, cashew nuts, coffee, dried fruits, fruit beverages and coconuts. The annual exhibition is being participated in by some 4,300 businesses from 70 countries and territories worldwide. The event, which runs until tomorrow, is expected to lure more than 110,000 visitors. On the sidelines of the events opening ceremony on Tuesday, the Consulate General of Viet Nam in Shanghai and the Viet Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association held a business conference to connect nearly 40 Vietnamese coffee enterprises with Chinese counterparts. Speaking at the conference, Consul General Ninh Thanh Cong said along with good bilateral trade ties, co-operation between two nations coffee enterprises has also achieved positive results. However, these results still lag behind the expectations of the two countries. Cong said the Consulate General of Viet Nam in Shanghai was willing to help Vietnamese enterprises to understand the Chinese markets demand and seek new partners. During the event, chairman of the Viet Nam Coffee and Cocoa Association Luong Van Tu outlined the strengths of Vietnamese coffee and coffee products. The chairman expressed his hope that through the conference, businesses from both sides would enhance their understanding of each other's needs. Chinese firms at the seminar affirmed that Viet Nam was a prioritised market for them in Southeast Asia thanks to the countrys high economic growth, close location and developing e-commerce sector. According to trade experts, China is an open and lucrative market for Vietnamese exporters. They suggested local firms set up facilities to preserve farm produce and apply new technology in cultivation, to improve quality and yields and for tracing of origin as this year Chinese customs has stepped up inspection of Vietnamese agricultural products by requiring approval certificates and origin traceability, Meeting Chinas import criteria would help Viet Nam capture a larger market share, experts added. China is the world's biggest importer of agricultural products, accounting for 10 per cent of global imports, and its imports are growing at 8.8 per cent annually. Last year, Viet Nam exported US$8.64 billion worth of agricultural products to the neighbour, accounting for 70 per cent of its agricultural exports. VNS A scene from the film Ho Chi Minh: Sketching a Portrait of a Politician. Photo courtesy of the State Records Management and Archives Department HA NOI A documentary portraying President Ho Chi Minhs personality and revolutionary career made by French director Gerard Guillaume (1931-2015) will be broadcast in Viet Nam for the first time today. Nguyen Thi Nga, vice director of the State Records Management and Archives Department, said the documentary would be screened nationwide to commemorate the 129th birthday of President Ho and the 50th anniversary of the implementation of his will. We bought the copyright for the documentary, made post-production and released it following after collecting rare and precious archives about Viet Nam thanks to the approval of then-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2012, Nga said yesterday in Ha Noi. The documentary will be broadcast tonight on VTV1, and then shown on other stations, museums and historical relics relating to President Ho. The film was produced and broadcast for the first time in 1973 in France, said Nga. It contains precious information and images that havent been shown in Viet Nam before. It also provides an important source of archives and a perspective on President Ho seen by the French side. President Ho devoted his life for national liberation, contributing in the struggle for world peace. This year marks 50 years since he passed away. His ideology, personality and morality always inspire people to follow and research him. Nga added the documentary would give researchers another view on President Ho and his career. Titled " Ho Chi Minh: Sketching a Portrait of a Politician (Ho Chi Minh: Esquisse Pour Un Portrait Politique), the 58-minute documentary was copyrighted and stored by Cine-Archives (Movie Library of the French Communist Party). The documentary reflects the revolutionary career of President Ho since his participation in the Tours Congress in 1920 and his journey to fight for the national independence of the country. It presents archives and interviews with historical figures. The film ends with thewill of President Ho Chi Minh, calling on the Vietnamese people to maintain the revolutionary spirit and the leadership of the Communist Party of Viet Nam. The documentary was shot in Viet Nam, France and Switzerland. It also mentions US President Richard Nixon, Pham Van ong as representative of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam at the Geneva Conference, General Vo Nguyen Giap and Madame Nguyen Thi Binh. The documentary recalls historical events such as the Tours Congress, World War II, the Indochinese War, the ien Bien Phu Campaign, the Geneva Conference, the Tet 1968 Offensive and the Paris Accords. Guillaume has directed other documentaries about Viet Nam such as Le Monde de Khoa (The World of Khoa) reflecting how a boy from the Red River Delta thought about the war in the north of Viet Nam, Les Chemins de la Victoire (Roads to Victory) and Jane Fonda au Vietnam (Jane Fonda in Viet Nam). VNS Cayce Myers knows what it feels like for his name to be botched in public. His first name, which is his mothers maiden name, is pronounced Cay-ce. Its often mispronounced as case. Thats why the assistant professor of communication spends at least a month practicing name pronunciations for the more than 200 students who will graduate from Virginia Techs Department of Communication this week. Myers, who has been reading graduates names since 2015, asks students with difficult pronunciations to call his office voicemail and state their name three times. Myers may listen to a voicemail five or six times, before he feels confident saying the name. Having lived through that [mispronunciation] my entire life, it is an important thing, he said. Theres no opportunity for correction. You are doing something in a very public way that hundreds of people will know that you did wrong, if you do it wrong. You want to make sure that that moment is perfect for that student and their family. Virginia Tech faculty readers like Myers are the unsung heroes of commencement, and they take their roles seriously. Each year, as they prepare to read thousands of names in front of commencement crowds, they pore over lists of graduates, scribbling meticulous phonetic notes and praying that they wont get sick or worse lose their voices before the big event. Katie Wells, director of advising for Pamplin College of Business, recalled a hurried trip to the doctor a few days before commencement several years ago, when her allergies were particularly bad. I cant sound like this, she said to the doctor. Joe Merola carries several bottles of water and Ricola throat lozenges each year when he climbs onto the Graduate Schools Commencement Ceremony stage in Cassell Coliseum. Merola, a chemistry professor, often takes a seat near the back of the stage so that he can review last-minute changes to the name list, which this year will total about 870 for masters degree and Ph.D. students who plan to attend. A few days before commencement, he receives a list of doctoral graduates via email (masters students hand him cards with their name), enlarges the font, prints the pages, and begins making his pronunciation marks and notes. When he first began reading names for the Graduate School 15 years ago, Merola enlisted Don McKeon, a now retired Virginia Tech professor who taught English as a Second Language courses. McKeon taught Merola how to correctly pronounce hundreds of international names. Now Merola said he feels comfortable with most pronunciation variations. But that hasnt stopped him from occasionally getting a name wrong. One year, he mispronounced the name of a faculty member who hooded a Ph.D. student during commencement. He remembers an angry email the next day. Later, the blunder became a joke between the two. Graduates for the College of Engineering are asked to fill out an electronic survey to explain how to pronounce their names using common words. Bev Watford, the colleges associate dean for academic affairs, uses the survey, plus Google, as she studies name pronunciations for the more than 1,600 undergraduates who will graduate this week. Your parents paid money [for college], Watford said. They deserve to hear your name correctly. Confidence in name pronouncing is key, said Wells, explaining that students send her audio recordings of their name pronunciations if she asks. This year, Wells is splitting the list of more than 1,000 Pamplin graduate names with two other advisors. Youve got to go with what comes out, said Wells, who admitted to having nightmares about commencement each year. You cant try to go back. Just say it and say it with confidence. Still, theres a fine line between sounding too serious and too somber, Merola said. He said he likes to have fun, particularly when spouses receive their diplomas at the same time or a graduate walks up to the stage holding their child. Over the years, Merola has found ways to change his voice to keep from sounding monotonous as he reads name after name. You really want to find a way to make that student think that theyre special, he said. You try to pronounce it [their name] with confidence, properly, and maybe, if I can manage it, with a little twinkle in my voice. Written by Jenny Kincaid Boone Couple face prison for abusing children OSCEOLA (AP) An Osceola husband and wife accused of abusing two adopted children have pleaded guilty to two counts each of child endangerment. Kenneth Fry, 42, and Kelly Fry, 40, entered their pleas Monday in a deal with prosecutors that saw several other charges dropped. Prosecutors say the children, ages 8 and 9, were adopted from Ghana and that the Frys kept them in an unfurnished room divided by a wooden wall. The divided room contained only a couple of blankets and buckets for use as toilets, and its door was equipped with an alarm that would sound if opened. Doctors say the children were also dangerously malnourished. Prosecutors say the Frys five other children had typical age-appropriate bedrooms and did not have food restrictions. The Frys each face up to two years in prison when theyre sentenced May 23. Officers involved in shooting IDd IOWA CITY (AP) Authorities have released the names of two officers and a burglary suspect they shot in Iowa City. The shooting occurred around 2:30 a.m. Thursday after the officers responded to burglar alarms at two businesses on the south side of the city. The Iowa Public Safety Department said in a news release Tuesday that Officers Travis Neeld and Alex Stricker spotted 34-year-old Michael Caceres in the area and chased him on foot to a fenced area at Big Ten Rentals, where the shooting occurred. Department Special Agent Ryan Herman said he could not yet comment on whether Caceres was armed or precisely what caused the officers to shoot him. Both officers are on administrative leave. The department says Caceres remains hospitalized in stable condition. Bookkeeper allegedly stole from churches DES MOINES (AP) A bookkeeper is accused of stealing more than $200,000 from at least three Open Bible Churches in the Des Moines area. Polk County court records say 54-year-old Michelene Kinning is charged with four counts of theft. The records dont list the name of an attorney who could comment for her. Authorities say she wrote unauthorized checks to herself from the churches bank accounts from 2010 until she was fired last year. 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. CEDAR FALLS A former Cedar Falls couple has been arrested for allegedly fleeing to Texas amid an Iowa Department of Human Services investigation. Erin Mae Nicole Moore, 32, currently of Pleasant Hill; and Brian Keith Taylor, 40, now of Des Moines, were arrested Monday for several counts of child endangerment. Her bond was set at $30,000, and his bond was set at $20,000. According to court records, both were living at a West First Street address in Cedar Falls with their child and five of her children from a previous relationship when they left for Texas after receiving notice of the Iowa DHS investigation. After they relocated to Texas, Texas Department of Child Protection workers received reports of abuse that occurred while they lived in Iowa. The children were removed and interviewed at a child protection center, according to court records. Moore and Taylor later returned to Iowa. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WATERLOO Police are investigating a stabbing after a Waterloo man showed up at the hospital early Tuesday. Ronald Nesbit, 61, arrived at UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital with cuts to his left arm, face and head around 5:45 a.m. His injuries arent considered life threatening, according to police. Nesbit told police he was attacked by three men in the 800 block of Fowler Street and realized he was bleeding after the fight. No arrested have been made in the incident. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 2 Sad 1 Angry 0 CEDAR FALLS Sooner or later, Cedar Falls is going to have spend millions of dollars to update wastewater treatment operations. And that means higher bills for customers. Federal regulations limiting nutrient pollution are inevitable, officials believe. Every five years we have to renew our permit for our wastewater discharge, and through those discussions we knew what was happening with the Gulf of Mexico, said Stephanie Houk Sheetz, Community Development director. Pollution flowing down the Mississippi River has caused a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, where low oxygen levels kill marine life. Nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, come from treated sewage and agricultural runoff. The situation is driving federal regulations to reduce nutrient pollution. We have to have our sights on it. We dont know when exactly its going to happen, but we know our plant right now is not achieving those limits, Sheetz said. We want to have our eye toward the future of how we can meet those (standards). Last week, the City Council held a work session to discuss possible solutions, which include partnering with Waterloo for a regional treatment plant. There is a $42 million item in the citys Capital Improvement Program for fiscal year 2024. Right now since nothings been decided all the options have to stay open, Sheetz said. Waterloo held a meeting this week to talk about the prospect of regionalizing wastewater treatment. We have seen other communities that have seen a benefit from regionalizing their treatment, and we know the (the Iowa Department of Natural Resources) and (the Environmental Protection Agency) encourage that, Sheetz said. We want to keep our eyes open. Cedar Falls also is working with Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments on wastewater treatment options. We think our next steps are to do a little bit more investigation about our plant and the longevity it might have, Sheetz said. According to the citys 2016 master plan, it would cost more than $70 million for Cedar Falls to update its treatment plant on its own. Combining with Waterloo bears an estimated initial cost of $50 million to extend sewer lines and more for ongoing plant operations. Those costs could change by the time a decision is made. There are just so many emerging technologies and different ways to do things, Sheetz said. Another option is building a new wastewater treatment plant, but the estimated costs surpass either improving the present site or regionalization. Higher rates will pay for whatever improvements are made, although bonding would spread costs over a number of years and ease the sticker shock for customers. Its the sewer rates that end up paying for any of the sewer-related improvements, Sheetz said. We dont want to have spike them in reaction to one thing or another, but if we plan for things we can handle that a little bit better. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 WATERLOO Police officers and firefighters will see bigger pay raises than other city workers over the next two years. Waterloo City Council members voted 6-0 Monday to approve new four-year collective bargaining agreements with seven labor unions representing roughly 430 city workers. While most police officers and firefighters will see 3.25 percent raises July 1, 2019, and 3 percent raises July 1, 2020, employees represented by other bargaining units will see just 2.5 percent annual raises during those years. Raises for the final two years of the contracts would be negotiated in the future. Human Resources Director Lance Dunn said the wage disparity is tied to changes Gov. Terry Branstad and the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature made to the states collective bargaining laws in February 2017. Public safety employees could negotiate pretty much the same things they always have, Dunn said. Non-public safety employees could only negotiate base wages. Public safety units can still bargain for health insurance benefits while other government employees are explicitly banned from having insurance language in their contracts, for example. The additional leverage afforded police and fire unions has led to larger raises for those employees under contracts approved statewide since the changes were made, Dunn said. Councilman Pat Morrissey blasted the changes in state law limiting bargaining rights and essentially setting up two tiers of workers. Its a sad day that we see state lawmakers turning our city into a divisive kind of environment when it comes down to negotiating raises and different terms, he said. I support all of our good public employees in the city of Waterloo. While the police and fire unions were the only employees allowed to negotiate health insurances premiums and coverage, city officials said the adopted plans still will apply to all city workers. Dunn said the current health insurance policies have not changed in the past four years and will not change for the next two years. The police and fire contracts call for the benefit to be renegotiated in the third and fourth years. City employees currently pay $40 a month for single coverage and $80 a month for family health insurance plans. Councilman Steve Schmitt voiced his disapproval that taxpayers were providing a benefit level he believes is better than those provided to private sector workers. I dont know of a person in the private sector that has not seen an increase in the last two or three years, Schmitt said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WATERLOO Things are popping or poppying at Sullivan Brothers Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1623. Veterans there have a bumper crop of poppies and hope the public will snatch them up and dig deep for donations to aid veterans in general and the financially strapped post specifically. Post volunteers will be at The Crossroads Hy-Vee, Logan Avenue Hy-Vee and Ansborough Hy-Vee, as well as Waterloo Fareway store Friday and Saturday with poppies, hoping the public will fill donation buckets in return. What we do with that money is try to help local veterans, said post commander Dave Bovis. But the post has to look to its own financial needs as well. Beset with a considerable amount of mechanical work and other expenses, the post has about $1,500 in its account. Theyre hoping poppy sales will replenish the post funds to assist veterans and shore up post operations. Anyone wanting more information about the poppy drive, the post, donations or volunteering may contact Bovis at 610-2801 or the post at 232-1244. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A month ago, I declared that President Donald Trumps trade war against China looked like it might be winding down. I was wrong. Instead of capitulating in exchange for some agricultural purchases and other minor concessions, Trump is doubling down. Hes raising tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 percent to 25 percent, and imposing new tariffs on almost all of the remaining $325 billion or so. China today said it would retaliate and starting next month would impose tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods. This is the biggest trade war in modern American history. There were several reasons it looked as if Trump might back off. First, its very hard to verify whether Chinese theft of intellectual property one of the biggest and most justified complaints from the U.S. side is still happening. Even if Chinese companies and the Chinese military were to stop appropriating the fruits of U.S. research and development, they would still be able to make some progress by cleverly reverse-engineering American-made products, raising accusations of continued espionage. A similar enforceability problem applies to Chinese non-tariff trade barriers; for example, Chinese local governments quietly and unofficially helping Chinese companies outcompete American companies in the domestic market. So even if China acceded to U.S. demands, ensuring compliance would be hard. The difficulty of establishing a credible enforcement mechanism is probably a big reason trade talks have broken down. Second, the trade war has cost the U.S. Economists have shown that the actual burden of tariffs has fallen mostly on American consumers in other words, the prices consumers pay for imported goods has risen, while the prices Chinese sellers receive hasnt changed very much. And higher prices on capital goods and intermediate goods is raising expenses for U.S. manufacturers, making them less competitive. Meanwhile, Chinese retaliation has hurt U.S. farmers. So with victory hard to verify and losses mounting, it looked like there was little reason to continue the trade war. Yet Trump is doubling down. Why? Trump may be calculating that the strong U.S. economy and resilient stock markets mean that there is little downside to continuing the trade war. Despite higher import prices, real wages have generally continued to rise at a modest rate. The economy also continues to add jobs at a strong pace, despite a historically low unemployment rate. Meanwhile, U.S. stock markets are not all that much below record highs, having largely recovered from a tumble in late 2018. Chinas announcement of retaliatory tariffs has put a modest dent in equity markets, though that may well be temporary. With the economy doing well enough for many Americans not to notice the pinch from the trade war, losses on the U.S. side have been concentrated among farmers. And it seems that Trump is betting that a combination of government payouts and cultural affinity will mean few farmers desert him at the ballot box. Meanwhile, the trade war appears to be hurting Chinas economy. Its hard to isolate the affect of the dispute from other factors, like Chinese government attempts to crack down on the shadow-banking system. But the International Monetary Fund forecasts that the immediate blow from the trade war is hitting China much harder. Chinese exports, fixed-asset investment, consumption and industrial production may already have taken a hit. In the long term, both U.S. tariffs and Chinese retaliation may deter multinational companies from producing goods in China; some already are blaming the trade war for a slowdown in foreign direct investment. And by forcing China to shift from exports to investment in order to sustain growth, the trade war might push the country toward a less productive growth model. There may be a grim sort of logic to this approach. So far, Chinas ascent in the 21st century has looked unstoppable, as it gobbled up one manufacturing industry after another, shouldered the U.S. aside as the worlds biggest exporter, and became the beating heart of an East Asian economic supercluster. In addition to threatening to relegate North America to the global economys periphery, this trend directly imperils U.S. military dominance, as economic and technological supremacy tends to translate into military supremacy. If Trump wants to slow Chinas ascent as a superpower, a trade war might be an effective way to do it. If the harm to the U.S. is modest and the costs for China are severe and lasting, Trump might conclude that the former are acceptable losses. Geopolitical primacy, not maximum prosperity for Americans, might be the presidents true objective. Its also possible, of course, that the trade war is a purely populist endeavor, and that maintaining tariffs is simply a way for Trump to look tough. If he calculates that there is less to be gained from striking a deal than from continuing the tariffs, or if weakening China really is the goal, then this could be just the opening rounds of a long and grinding trade war. Noah Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Reprinted from the Des Moines Register May 9. It would be encouraging to see Iowa organizations like The Family Leader and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa both talking about the need for civil discourse in the presidential race but a recent exchange between these groups was a letdown. We werent impressed by Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, trying to shame Democratic presidential candidates into appearing at his organizations forum. But it was even more disappointing to see Interfaiths Connie Ryan twist the definition of civility to the point of ruling out dialogue with someone who believes as Vander Plaats does about LGBTQ issues. There was nothing wrong with Vander Plaats extending an invitation to Democratic presidential candidates to join the evangelical Christian organizations annual summit in July. He offered a platform for civil discourse, despite his organizations staunch opposition to abortion rights, gay marriage and other social positions the Democratic Party embraces. But when the campaigns, spurred by the Interfaith Alliance, turned Vander Plaats down, he wrote in a guest column that hed made the invitation to honor LGBT activist Donna Red Wings legacy and lamented that the Democratic campaigns were unwilling to have a civil conversation. Red Wing and Vander Plaats had enjoyed an unusual friendship after she asked him out for coffee one day. I never envisioned one day we would become dear friends, challenging and inspiring many to have civil conversation over deep disagreements, Vander Plaats wrote. We dont question Vander Plaats sincerity. Even so, there was nothing wrong with Democratic candidates passing on the opportunity. Its understandable if they would prefer to focus their precious time in Iowa on audiences with a higher likelihood to yield caucus supporters. Its also understandable if they would not want to help raise the profile and fundraising ability of an organization that works against their values. As Drake Universitys Carol Spaulding-Kruse writes in a separate guest column, public dialogue requires a neutral framework and facilitation. Thats why I find it disingenuous to invite political leaders to an annual summit hosted by those leaders political opponents and then claim that they are refusing to engage in civil discourse when they decline to attend, she wrote. But Vander Plaats didnt deserve the over-the-top response from Ryan. She wrote in a guest column that Vander Plaats positions and actions against gay marriage and other issues show a lack of respect to other people. Vander Plaats and much of the work of The Family Leader is antithetical to civility. He has shown time and again that, based on his actions and his rhetoric, he is not committed to civility or civil dialogue, Ryan wrote. By defining Vander Plaats values and public-policy efforts to promote those values as inherently uncivil, Ryan seems to suggest there can never be civil discourse between people on opposite sides of issues like abortion, gay marriage and Medicaid funding for gender reassignment. That is a shame. The Interfaith Alliance and The Family Leader, despite being on opposite sides of many issues, have some things in common. They are both faith-based coalitions of religious organizations. Both have an interest in public policy and civil discourse. Maybe Bob and Connie should have coffee and talk. We at the Register would be happy to offer neutral ground. 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Harvard University for 34 years. In that time, the school has made some mistakes. But it has never so thoroughly embarrassed itself as it did this past weekend. At the center of the controversy is Ronald Sullivan, a law professor who ran afoul of student activists enraged that he was willing to represent Harvey Weinstein. Mr. Sullivan is my friend and colleague. He is the director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and the architect of a conviction-review program in Brooklyn that has freed a score of improperly convicted individuals. He is also a sought-after lawyer who has represented plaintiffs (including the family of Michael Brown, whose death at the hands of a police officer fueled the Black Lives Matter movement) as well as defendants (including Rose McGowan, the actress who faced drug charges and is, ironically, one of Mr. Weinsteins accusers). More here. Traci Watson in Nature: Every mythology needs a good trickster, and there are few better than the Norse god Loki. He stirs trouble and insults other gods. He is elusive, anarchic and ambiguous. He is, in other words, the perfect namesake for a group of microbes the Lokiarchaeota that is rewriting a fundamental story about lifes early roots. These unruly microbes belong to a category of single-celled organisms called archaea, which resemble bacteria under a microscope but are as distinct from them in some respects as humans are. The Lokis, as they are sometimes known, were discovered by sequencing DNA from sea-floor muck collected near Greenland1. Together with some related microbes, they are prodding biologists to reconsider one of the greatest events in the history of life on Earth the appearance of the eukaryotes, the group of organisms that includes all plants, animals, fungi and more. The discovery of archaea in the late 1970s led scientists to propose that the tree of life diverged long ago into three main trunks, or domains. One trunk gave rise to modern bacteria; one to archaea. And the third produced eukaryotes. But debates soon erupted over the structure of these trunks. A leading three-domain model held that archaea and eukaryotes diverged from a common ancestor. But a two-domain scenario suggested that eukaryotes diverged directly from a subgroup of archaea. The arguments, although heated at times, eventually stagnated, says microbiologist Phil Hugenholtz at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Then the Lokis and their relatives blew in like a breath of fresh air, he says, and revived the case for a two-domain tree. More here. Getty images En espanol | Working women are much more likely than their male counterparts to make career sacrifices so that they can be informal caregivers, according to a 19-year study of employees in Canada. The study, published recently in the Journals of Gerontology, determined that after adjusting for gender differences in the labor market, women were 73 percent more likely to leave the labor market, more than 5 times more likely to work part-time, and twice as likely to [have taken] time off in the last week because of caregiving needs. The study included representative samples of the national workforce from 1997 through 2015. Researchers calculated that about a total of 8.5 million hours of work were lost in 2015 because of caregiving duties among employees of either gender age 40 and older. En espanol | More than half of all adults between the ages of 45 and 75 report taking an aspirin every day, according to a 2015 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. And for years doctors have recommended an aspirin a day for otherwise healthy older adults to help keep heart attacks at bay. Within the past year, however, the thinking has changed dramatically, says Leslie Cho, M.D., section head for preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation at the Cleveland Clinic. The trials that established aspirin for primary prevention were done way before we had high-potent medications to help lower cholesterol, like statins, she explains. Now, newer research shows that the risks for most people probably outweigh the benefits. A study funded by the National Institutes of Health of more than 19,000 people over age 70, published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that a daily aspirin didnt reduce the risk of heart attack, dementia or stroke but did increase rates of GI bleeding by an alarming 38 percent. And earlier this month, the American College of Cardiology published new guidelines recommending against routinely giving aspirin to older adults who don't have a history of heart disease. But there are still some people who need to take an aspirin every day. Patients have been calling nonstop over the last week, confused as to whether or not they still need to take their aspirin, says Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist at New York University and director of the NYU Langone Joan H. Tisch Center for Women's Health. Heres what you need to know. Do take a daily aspirin if youve already had a heart attack or stroke or have existing heart disease. In these people theres clear evidence that it significantly lowers their risk of a second cardiovascular event, Goldberg explains. This is because aspirin is an antiplatelet medication, which means it prevents your platelets from clumping together and forming blood clots that can trigger a heart attack or stroke. You also need aspirin if you already have heart disease. You may not have been hospitalized for heart surgery, for example, but if youve had a coronary calcium scan and theres plaque in your arteries, then youre considered to have heart disease, she says. In these cases youll still benefit from aspirin. Don't take a daily aspirin if youre over 70 and don't have heart disease (including a past heart attack or stroke). People in this group have a much higher risk of GI bleeding than younger individuals, says Cho, so its not likely that theyll see much benefit. A 2017 study published in The Lancet found the risk of potentially life-threatening GI bleeding was highest in those over age 75. Also important: Dont stop taking a daily aspirin cold turkey. It can create a rebound effect that can trigger a heart attack, especially if youve already suffered one before. A 2017 Swedish study, published in the journal Circulation, found that abruptly stopping a daily aspirin raised the risk of a heart attack or stroke by 37 percent. The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. Council approves resolution seeking financing for water reclamation plant The Aberdeen City Council is seeking financing for improvements to the Water Reclamation Plant. The 2019 spring Stamp Out Hunger food drive held Saturday in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service brought in 184,120 pounds of food donations from across Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and Belen, outpacing last years spring drive, which tallied 169,784 pounds of food. The food drive is one of two held yearly the other in the fall in which residents in Albuquerque and in communities across the nation put out bags or boxes of non-perishable food items by their mail boxes for pickup at the regular time when USPS letter carriers deliver their mail. The letter carriers bring the food to local post office branches, where staff and volunteers from Roadrunner Food Bank transfer the items to Roadrunner trucks for transport to the food banks warehouse and subsequent distribution statewide. More than 10,000 communities across the country, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam participated in the Stamp Out Hunger food drive. In New Mexico, the combined spring and summer food drives are the largest drives to benefit Roadrunner Food Bank, which feeds 70,000 people weekly through its network of about 500 pantries and meal sites around the state. It is truly an honor to receive this gift of food from our community. We are moved by the communitys generosity and involvement in our mission, said Mag Strittmatter, president and CEO of Roadrunner. Thank you for making a difference and thank you for being our partner in solving hunger in our state. To our friends at the United States Postal Service, what a phenomenal job you did on behalf of people struggling to put food on the table. Your hard work year after year is inspiring. The Stamp Out Hunger food drive is in its 27th year. A man is accused gunning down another man during a fight outside a lodge in Magdalena on Monday afternoon, according to New Mexico State Police. State Police spokesman Mark Soriano said Jo Hill, 39, has been booked into the Socorro County Detention Center on an open count of murder. He did not identify the man Hill allegedly killed. Soriano said local authorities responded to a shooting at the High Country Lodge, at 303 First Street in Magdalena, around 1:30 p.m. They found a man shot and he was pronounced dead at the scene. State Police agents learned that the victim and Jo Hill got into a physical altercation in the parking lot of the High Country Lodge, he said. Shortly after the physical altercation, Hill armed himself with a firearm and fired several shots at the victim, striking and killing him. In early 2004 more than 15 years before he was charged with embezzling $162,000 from Torrance County throughout his term as sheriff Heath White was accused of stealing $700 from a man he pulled over for driving while intoxicated. White was an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department at the time. He resigned from the department in July 2004, while under investigation, rather than be terminated. These details surfaced in a motion filed by the Attorney Generals Office in 7th Judicial District Court asking the court to order APD to turn over Whites internal affairs file. Earlier this month, the AG charged White with six felonies, including embezzlement over $20,000, making or permitting false public voucher and receiving stolen property, after an investigation by New Mexico State Police determined he had bought personal guns, security cameras, tools and parts for his truck with public money. These allegations arresting a driver and taking money from him are similar to this case in that they allege that defendant improperly used his office to enrich himself, the motion states. Information in defendants APD internal affairs file regarding this or other alleged incidents has potential relevance to this case as other acts evidence of defendants misuse of office. However, Whites attorney, Sam Bregman, said he believes the Attorney Generals Office is grasping for something to throw against the wall and hope to god that it sticks. (The motions are) an example of how weak this case is that they have to go back years and years to try and find some kind of other conduct so they can attack his character rather than focusing on the allegations they brought forward, Bregman told the Journal. White, who served two terms as Torrance County sheriff, was elected as a magistrate judge in 2018. On May 10, the New Mexico Supreme Court suspended White without pay following a petition by the New Mexico Judicial Standard Commission. The case regarding the 2004 allegations against White were sustained by APD and referred to state authorities to determine whether his police officer certification should be suspended or revoked, according to a letter attached to the AGs motion. It is unclear what action was taken and no one from the Law Enforcement Academy Board or APD responded to requests for more information. Four months after resigning from APD, White was working as a deputy for the Torrance County Sheriffs Office. He was the subject of a handful of lawsuits and complaints as a deputy and as sheriff. New Mexico is known for its beautiful, wide-open spaces. What many people may not know is that fully one-third of the states population resides in rural or frontier settings, making it very difficult for them to access health care. As our states flagship nursing program, the University of New Mexico College of Nursing is finding innovative solutions to help meet the critical need for health care providers in these areas. One way we do this is through the TeleECHO clinic operated with the primary care Area Health Education Centers. A video conferencing network developed by UNMs Project ECHO connects practitioners located in rural areas with experts on the Health Sciences Center campus to consult on complex patient cases to improve patient outcomes. Providers and nurse practitioner students in their final term of graduate school present cases from their clinic or clinical education to a panel of experienced nurse practitioners, physicians and other health professionals, who then provide recommendations on the best course of care for each patient. We believe the participation of our nurse practitioner students will encourage them to practice in rural New Mexico after they graduate because they know that they will be able to return to the TeleECHO for support. Nurse practitioners are licensed, independent clinicians who manage the patients health conditions and preventive care in primary and specialty care settings. They are registered nurses who have gone on to complete advanced education and clinical competency with masters, post-masters and doctoral degrees. Nurse practitioners in New Mexico practice under their own license, with full prescriptive authority. Studies show that advanced-practice registered nurses such as nurse practitioners deliver safe, high-quality care that results in positive health outcomes for patients. Better still, patients report high levels of satisfaction under their care. The College of Nursing promotes health and health equity for the residents of our state in many other ways. We engage in cutting-edge science, practice and clinical research, and our college prepares practitioners, nurse educators and nurse leaders to develop new understandings of health among vulnerable populations. Our nationally ranked master of science in nursing degree program educates advanced practice nurses in the areas of family practice, pediatric, adult gerontology and acute care, psychiatric mental health and nurse-midwifery. Because we have a strong focus on rural health, our program requires students to travel to rural locations throughout the state for their clinical education experiences. We are researchers, scholars and innovators. Our work in the College of Nursing is not just a mission it is a calling. Christine E. Kasper, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACSM, is dean and the Crenshaw Endowed professor in the UNM College of Nursing. You dont have to be the hero. That, John Castillo told NBC News last Wednesday, is something he had advised his 18-year-old son, Kendrick. If ever a shooter invades your school, son, dont try to confront him, dont take the risk. But Castillo said Kendrick had other ideas, telling his dad that he would not hesitate to defend other peoples lives. As the world now knows, Kendrick was as good as his word. When two of the latest in this countrys seemingly endless line of armed maniacs descended upon the STEM Schools Highland Ranch near Denver, witnesses say Kendrick rushed him. Some other boys managed to disarm him. In the melee, one of the students, Joshua Jones, was wounded. And Kendrick was killed. The young man whose father told him not to be a hero became exactly that. But he never shouldve had to. That goes also for Riley Howell, a 21-year-old student who died seven days before Kendrick tackling a gunman in a classroom at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. And it goes for 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye, shot and killed 10 days before when she stood between her rabbi and a gunman at a synagogue near San Diego. All of them heroes, yes. But in a saner nation, they might not have had to be. Indeed, in a saner nation, they might still be alive. Dont blame the gun. Thats what gun rights advocates always say in moments like this. And, OK, fair enough. Lets not blame the gun. But can we not blame this nations insistence on easy and unfettered access to the gun? Might that not have the tiniest bit to do with the fact that gun violence is rampant here? Instead of dealing with that causality, gun people ask us to take gun violence as some immutable fact of life, some intrinsic component of freedom. Thats nonsense, but its nonsense they have to embrace because to do otherwise is to face an untenable truth. People are dying for nothing. For some fantasy of rugged self-reliance. For some shortcut to macho. For some terror of the dark Other standing at the bedroom window. For nothing. There is no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons. So said no less towering an icon of conservatism than Ronald Reagan. Of course, he said it in 1967, before conservatism lost its mind before Florida gave guns to teachers and Iowa gave them to the blind, before cause divorced effect and reason became an anachronism, before 6-year-olds developed PTSD and mass murder became normal. If it is true, as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, that, No lie can live forever, then there must eventually come a day when we face the truth of what we have allowed. One wonders what the death toll will be by then. Meantime, in place of truth, we have heroes. Their selflessness and sacrifice, their willingness to do what must be done, whatever the cost, rightfully inspire us. But they diminish us, too. Because, inadvertently highlighted in the reflected glow of their sacrifice is the bitter truth of how pusillanimous, how cowardly, how chicken-hearted, is the nation that required sacrifice of them to begin with, the nation that lets people die for nothing because it cannot muster the moral fortitude to restrain its own carnage. In Denver, they held a vigil for Kendrick Castillo. Riley Howell, an ROTC cadet, was buried with military honors. An overflow crowd paid tribute to Lori Gilbert-Kaye. And it is well and fitting that we do such things. But there is a better way to honor these martyrs courage. By finding some of our own. Email lpitts@miamiherald.com. 2019 The Miami Herald distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC. The surprise about the big New York Times story on President Donald Trumps tax returns is that there are no real surprises. Trumps taxes have been an obsession of the left since he, in violation of a long-standing norm, reneged on his promise to release his returns during the 2016 campaign. Pieces were written urging some brave whistleblower to come forward with them, and Democrats counted as one of the advantages of taking the House that they could demand Trumps returns. The dispute resulting from the administrations refusal to turn them over is now probably headed to the Supreme Court. All the while, the expectation, or at least the suspicion, was the returns contained some awful secret, perhaps evidence he is a tool of the Russians. And here, The New York Times has obtained Trumps tax information spanning a decade from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, and the revelation is he wasnt doing as well as he said in public and lost a boatload of money in a period that nearly destroyed him. In other words, exactly what anyone paying any attention would have expected. Yes, the amount of the reported loss, $1.17 billion, is remarkable although inflated for tax purposes and some of the details memorable. Trump doesnt like having all the particulars on the record to be discussed and mocked, but can anyone say that they are surprised? Trump himself, the Washington Examiner notes, talked about his precarious financial state in this period on the first episode of The Apprentice. In fact, he may have exaggerated, saying he had been billions of dollars in debt. As for Trumps use of tax loopholes, he said in a debate with Hillary Clinton that if he didnt owe any tax liability, that made him smart. There really are no Trump mysteries. His flaws arent hidden away. He often attests to them himself, or demonstrates them publicly. For someone who cares so much about his image, and so assiduously crafts it, hes a relative open book. No blockbuster report has more than a passing effect because each dispatch is, ultimately, another dot in a pointillist portrait of the president that was largely completed long ago. This is also why the hope we are one investigation, tax return or subpoena away from the revelation that will finally bring Trump down or even make a difference is almost certainly forlorn. Obviously, it was news he had paid off a porn star during the presidential campaign and highly embarrassing. This is why Trump denied it for so long. But hed already told us about his womanizing in his own words, often on The Howard Stern Show. Likewise, the most blameworthy conduct regarding Russias election interference in 2016 was out in the open. The Trump campaign was happy to derive any possible advantage from the WikiLeaks disclosures, and Trump tried to deny the obvious Russian involvement. We didnt need a 400-page special counsel report to break this news. Even some of Trumps alleged obstruction, which youd expect to involve back-channel scheming and there was certainly that was out in the open. He pressured Jeff Sessions in public to un-recuse. He publicly called Michael Cohen a rat. He told Lester Holt on a TV news broadcast that he fired James Comey because of the Russia investigation specifically that it didnt have anything to do with him. And hes made no secret that he yearns for an attorney general who will protect him. You can add lurid details to this basic picture, and Mueller did, but its hard to find a game-changer. None of this is to defend or excuse Trumps business practices or his conduct in office. It is merely to say that hes an extravagantly known quantity and will likely win or lose in 2020 based on what we already know, rather than the fruits of further investigation and fact-finding. Email: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com>href=http://comments.low>comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. 2019 by King Features Syndicate. Its almost as if toxic infighting among board members and an unfunded liability the size of Texas werent quite enough for New Mexicans to worry about when it comes to the states public employee pension program. A member of the Public Employees Retirement Association board has now accused the organizations executive director of feathering his own nest with improper raises. State Treasurer Tim Eichenbergs gripe detailed in a May 8 Journal op-ed is that in the past five years, executive director Wayne Propst has taken three raises in varying amounts never approved by PERAs full board. Eichenberg believes the raises were illegal and has asked the Attorney Generals Office to look into the matter. Its the right venue to raise the concern. PERA has enough problems as it is its liabilities led to a downgrade in the states bond rating last year, and considering it manages the retirements of firefighters, police officers and other civil servants, its leaders must be beyond reproach. Heres to the AG conducting a thorough investigation and putting the matter to rest. Its worth noting that in the midst of all the finger-pointing, the board failed to take action on its annual budget before an all-important May 1 deadline, a baffling failure that earned a well-deserved dressing down from state Auditor Brian Colon. Colon was right when he said missing the date could harm membership, and its simply not acceptable. This board needs to do its job and put PERA pensioners above PERA squabbling. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. Its what the states largest school district should have done in the first place. Albuquerque Public Schools new funding ask a $190 million mill levy and $100 million bond package this November is far more justifiable than the disastrous $900 million ballot issue voters shot down decisively in February. In that botched affair, the district asked voters to increase district residents combined property taxes an average of 4.7%. Concerned about the sticker shock to residents already suffering from tight budgets and tax fatigue, the Journal recommended passage of the $190 million mill levy, which would not have increased taxes but not for the two bond measures, which would have raised around $710 million and boosted APS tax rate by almost 20%. The entire ballot failed spectacularly. As a cherry on top, the Journal learned APS leaders had paid $21K for a poll that showed the measures would likely fail, but they charged ahead with a million-dollar special election, anyway. That was then. This is now, and APS appears to have beaten a hasty retreat to practicality. Theres no doubt the district one of the largest in the nation, with more than 80,000 students, albeit an enrollment in decline has significant infrastructure needs. The money sought now would be used over several years for school maintenance, education and music equipment, technology and security upgrades. And while property taxes should have gone down with that February no vote, which retired some bonding capacity, this November request should put district taxpayers back where they were before the administrations exorbitant request. This balance of school needs with taxpayer ability is the fiscal responsibility the public has been looking for. Rio Rancho Public Schools is taking a similar tack, but right from the start. According to Sundays Rio Rancho Observer, the growing district will ask voters to OK a $60 million bond package this November. No special election. No tax increase. Its not that the district doesnt have needs that outstrip its funding. RRPS Chief Operations Officer Mike Baker told the school board we could easily have $100 million of projects. Yet, RRPS opted to live within its taxpayers means. If approved, this bond issue would go to replacing HVAC systems, funding expansions for high school career-technical programs and updating the computer network system. There are months to go before either election, but both requests are for needed, often deferred, maintenance to keep metro-area K-12 public school classrooms safe and comfortable for students and educators. If only APS had saved its taxpayers more than $1 million and chosen this route in the first place. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Nineteen lawyers and other employees fired when Attorney General Hector Balderas took office four years ago may be entitled to protection under the state Personnel Act, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. In a 23-page opinion issued Tuesday, a panel of state judges ruled the ex-employees are covered by the Personnel Act unless certain exceptions written into the law apply to them. The ruling reversed a decision by the New Mexico State Personnel Board and ordered the board to reconsider whether the employees are entitled to protection under the Personnel Act. Under the law, employees who have been wrongly terminated can seek back pay and reinstatement to their prior jobs or similar ones. Balderas, who won reelection last year, said he will appeal Tuesdays decision. I was elected by the people of New Mexico to hire the highest quality professionals that will aggressively protect families, he said in a written statement. I respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeals and will appeal this decision, as this constitutionally independent office should not be limited in hiring exempt employees. At issue in the case is whether employees in the Attorney Generals Office are exempt from the typical job protections that cover state workers. Policymaking officials, legislative staffers and some high-ranking administrators, among others, are usually considered at-will employees who can be dismissed for almost any reason. Many of these exempt employees lose their jobs when a new elected official or administration takes over. But much of the state workforce is in classified positions, meaning they can be terminated only for cause and theyre entitled to certain procedural protections, such as the right to appeal. The protection is intended to insulate them from political considerations. The 19 ex-employees argue thats how they should be treated. They worked in a variety of jobs in the Attorney Generals Office, including as lawyers, special agents and paralegals. In arguments before the Personnel Board four years ago, they said about 40 people altogether were fired in the 2014-15 transition. They described the acts as unlawful mass terminations and a gross abuse of state governmental power. The turnover came when Balderas, a Democrat, succeeded Gary King, also a Democrat. There were about 180 employees in the office at the time. The case ended up in District Court, which sent the issue directly to the Court of Appeals. The lower court said the case should go to the appeals court because the legal questions address an issue of substantial importance because they implicate the New Mexico Attorney Generals authority to hire and fire at will, which affects not only (the ex-employees in the case), but also all current and future employees of the office. Tuesdays Court of Appeals opinion was written by retired Supreme Court Justice Edward Chavez, who served as a temporary judge in the case. Michael Bustamante, also a judge pro tempore, and Court of Appeals Judge Linda Vanzi concurred. Business organizations are asking the Bernalillo County Commission not to hurry a newly introduced paid sick leave proposal, saying they would like time to study the provisions and discuss the potential implications. But several other advocacy groups from the AARP to the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence say its time to act and provide workers with a critical benefit. Commissioners Maggie Hart Stebbins and Debbie OMalley on Tuesday introduced legislation that would require businesses with at least two employees to provide workers one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked up to 56 hours per year. Employees could use the leave for their own health needs or to care for a family member or someone else to whom they are close. It also provides for absences related to domestic violence. The law would only affect employers in the unincorporated areas of the county, where there are currently about 1,350 active commercial business licenses. Businesses in their first year would be exempt. The commissioners did not discuss the bill during Tuesdays meeting, though about 20 people addressed it during public comment. Several business groups voiced reservations, saying that the bill in some ways resembled one that city of Albuquerque voters narrowly defeated in 2017. Others argued it might invite baseless lawsuits something David Pena with the New Mexico Association of Commerce and Industry said could disproportionately hurt small businesses without the means to wage a legal battle. Several asked the commission to wait longer before voting. The board is scheduled to vote June 25. Id encourage you to not rush the vote in 30 days so we do have time to get everyones concerns on the table, said Larry Sontag, who said he represented the New Mexico Business Coalition. But more than a dozen people spoke in support of the measure, saying local workers should not have to choose between tending to their health needs or an income, and that not having paid sick leave is a public health hazard. Greg Frazier, president of the United Commercial and Food Workers Union that represents about 3,800 workers statewide, said many of his members go to their grocery store jobs sick because they do not have traditional sick leave and cannot afford to stay home. Its really tough, because you just dont want somebody sneezing on your cold cuts or coughing on your muffins, he said. A few teachers also spoke, saying they see students come to class ill because they do not have a parent who can stay home with them. And Gwyn Kaitis of the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence said the proposal would allow victims the time off needed for medical treatment, counseling, legal proceedings and other related issues. Without leave and other supports, it can be too difficult for survivors to manage the many issues at play in their lives, she said. Without job security and a paycheck, victims simply cannot afford to leave an abuser. In an interview after the meeting, OMalley said she did not foresee postponing the June 25 vote. She said she would willingly meet with business groups over the next month to hear their positions. But she said the initiative was meant to help the countys most vulnerable workers who could potentially lose a house or apartment if they became ill and had to miss work without compensation. According to a recent study commissioned by the Albuquerque City Council, 90% of the citys private sector employees with household incomes under $15,000 do not currently have paid sick leave. This is in support of the working poor, so they can get some benefits, OMalley said. And let me tell you, its not a huge benefit, but its something. Five months after the deaths of two migrant children in Border Patrol custody, U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., wants the Department of Homeland Security to provide an update on the investigations. Despite circumstances at the border continuing to drastically change and more family units continuing to voluntarily seek asylum, DHS still hasnt completed these investigations which could shed meaningful light onto the resources needed at the border and prevent these types of deaths from happening again, Torres Small said in a statement released Tuesday. She is among 17 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, all Democrats, who signed a letter urging Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan to provide an update to Congress on the investigations into the deaths of Jakelin Caal Maquin and Felipe Gomez Alonzo. Caal Maquin, a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala, crossed the border with her father in the Antelope Wells area and became deathly ill while being transported to El Paso where she died at a hospital on Dec. 8. A few weeks later on Christmas Eve, 8-year-old Gomez Alonzo died in Alamogordo. He crossed the border with his father in El Paso but was sent to a Border Patrol holding facility in New Mexico. An Alamogordo hospital said he had a cold shortly before he died. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator performed an autopsy and determined the boys cause of death was complications from an influenza-related infection. A medical examiner in Texas found Caal Maquin died of a sepsis infection. During testimony before Congress in early March, former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the department was waiting for autopsy reports to quickly move forward with the investigations. The autopsies were completed more than a month ago. Im urging Acting Secretary McAleenan, just as I urged former Secretary Nielsen, to oversee the completion of the investigations and present the findings to Congress, Torres Small said. Our federal government must provide a full accounting of the policies and practices that contributed to the deaths of Jakelin and Felipe innocent children whose lives were cut short in the custody of our federal government, said Rep. Raul Ruiz, chair of the CHC Health Task Force. I am an emergency medicine physician and humanitarian aid specialist. I know from experience that CBP facilities are under-staffed, under-equipped, and unprepared to care for the families in their custody. The congressman from California said he will introduce legislation in the coming weeks to implement humanitarian standards to govern CBPs treatment of the women, children and families in their custody and prevent future loss of life. The kids at Tony Hillerman Middle School were too young to know Hailey Nicole Ratliff when she walked the hallways here as a sixth grader, the only year she attended the school on Albuquerques West Side. But every kid here knows her name. They see it painted in black on the white frame of a flower-decorated ghost bike in front of their school since 2012. They see it on a sign at a nearby park named for her in 2013. Though they are murky on the details, they know her story how she died in September 2012 after she was struck head-on by a GMC Yukon as she rode her bike home from school, not long after she and her family moved to Novato, Calif. How her death had devastated the Hillerman students who had known her so much that they cried in the hallways, their tear-stained tissues covering the floors. How the ghost bike and the park were a reminder of how tenuous life is and how dangerous the roads can be when they are not shared. This spring, Hailey became the inspiration for an art project that honors her and others who lost their lives while riding bikes. The project, which coincides with National Bike Month, was the idea of art teacher Noel Chilton, who wanted to build upon her students curiosity about Haileys story and increase awareness of bicycle safety. Each of her seventh and eighth grade students created small dioramas dedicated to a fallen cyclist. Students were given small box lids, tiny bicycles found at a model train store and spray-painted white, bendable wire with which to create the name of the cyclist and paint to design their diorama backdrops. The students were also given a list of cyclists with information on the crashes that took their lives. But Chilton said she also wanted the students to do their own research. They really got deep into the research, she said. I think they really took to heart the need for safety on the streets. Not surprisingly, many of the students chose Hailey for their dioramas, though each one had a different take on how to paint the backdrop. Caitlynn Offard, 14 and an eighth grader, chose a road through a froth of pink flowers. I just figured if she was here now, she would like something feminine, something pretty, she said. Destinee Martinez, 13 and a seventh grader, also chose Hailey and flowers. Hers was a personal choice: Hailey was her cousin. I was in first grade when she died, Martinez said. She was a role model. She was fun. She liked to make videos of herself singing. Elle Staszewski, 14 and an eighth-grader, chose a tranquil beach scene, a departure from the mountainous Tijeras Canyon where her subject, James Quinn, was struck and killed in 2007 by a vehicle that swerved onto the shoulder of Route 66 where he and his wife had been riding. I chose the beach because of how peaceful it is, she said. Jayden Romero, 13 and a seventh grader, wanted his subject, Dan Montoya, to ride off into the sunset he painted. Montoya was killed in 2011 on Tramway near Sandia Resort and Casino when an older driver blacked out, causing his vehicle to cross the median and hit Montoyas bike head-on. Trinity Cooper, 14 and an eighth grader, chose Scott Dwane Lane, a businessman and father of four who was fatally struck in 2012 by an SUV that police said ran a red light at Osuna and Academy Parkway NE. Instead of bright, cheery scenes, Cooper chose a dark night sky filled with stars. Everyone was doing sunshine and rainbows, and I wanted something not super sad but also not happy, because this happened, she said. Not many of the kids said they ride their bikes far beyond their own neighborhoods, if they ride at all. Albuquerque drivers, they agreed, are crazy. I dont even touch my bike, Cooper said. Im 100 percent sure it can be dangerous, not just riding a bike but riding in a car. Im very, very nervous in a car. I dont take chances. Several students said that although they learned a lot from the art project, bike safety awareness is not spoken of enough among their peers. People dont understand how many bike crashes there are, how unsafe the bike lanes feel, said Sydney Griego, 14 and an eighth grader. There are all these bad drivers and creepy people honking and saying stuff. Yet few of the kids say they wear a bike helmet a disappointment. Your hair, you know? Offard said. Your hair. Which is to say that it may take more than an art project and a ghost bike for the lesson to sink in completely. UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE The state agency that helps needy New Mexicans buy groceries and obtain medical care continued last year to illegally deny benefits to some families that qualified for aid, plaintiffs attorneys in a class-action lawsuit say. In about one-third of the cases checked by lawyers, according to the lawsuit, food or medical benefits were lost or delayed because of errors by the state Human Services Department. A court-appointed special master also found that some families benefits were denied or terminated for failure to turn in documents, even though they were already in the families case files, according to court records. The cases examined were from a six-month period last year, from March to September. The state, in turn, says its taken action since then to improve the handling of benefits. Human Services Secretary David Scrase said the new administration which took office Jan. 1 is reconfiguring the departments computer system and making other changes to improve the processing of benefits. Were working very diligently on the problems weve inherited, Scrase said in an interview. The department also has hired retired state Supreme Court Justice Edward Chavez as special counsel to help guide work to resolve the class-action lawsuit, which was filed in 1988. Maria Griego, an attorney for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, an advocacy group representing the plaintiffs, said the review of cases demonstrates that the state remains in violation of court orders, which require removing systemic barriers in the application process for food and medical assistance. In about 31 percent of cases reviewed, Griego said, families had a loss or delay in benefits because of a state error. The case review shows the eligibility decisions are frequently wrong, Griego said in a written statement Tuesday. In a report based on the case review, plaintiffs attorneys said they found instances in which families received notices saying HSD was still reviewing their paperwork, even though the department actually needed more documents from the applicant. The department later denied benefits because the families didnt submit the needed documents. In one case, the plaintiffs attorneys said, the department told a family that it had extra time to submit documents but closed the case before the time was up. This is confusing and unfair to families who are seeking benefits, the plaintiffs attorneys said in their report to the court-appointed special master. Scrase, a longtime physician who took over the department this year, said there have been signs of improvement in recent months. The state, he said, now exceeds federal standards for timely processing of applications in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly called the Food Stamp Program. The state Human Services Department, Scrase said, has made changes since the review of last years cases. But I would agree that theres still a lot of work left to do, he said. The class-action lawsuit, meanwhile, is in its 31st year. It accuses New Mexico of violating peoples rights by imposing inconsistent and excessive requirements on applicants seeking benefits, delaying eligibility decisions and failing to provide emergency food assistance in time. A federal judge last year approved a settlement that could end the litigation, but the state must first prove that its meeting a series of standards. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in Las Cruces before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Gonzales to discuss the status of the suit. The court-appointed special master, Lawrence Parker, identified at least two systemic errors based on the review of cases from last year: eligibility problems, such as improper income calculations, and verification errors, such as denying benefits to a family for failing to turn in documents that are already in the case file. The nutrition program is a critical part of New Mexicos efforts to fight hunger. The federal government sends the state about $650 million a year to provide food assistance for low-income families. More than 220,000 households in the state receive help. In a written statement last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham commended Human Services Department employees for improving how quickly they process SNAP applications. I am firmly committed to ensuring that every qualified New Mexican receives their benefits as efficiently as possible, Lujan Grisham said. SANTA FE The decision to provide temporary housing to asylum-seeking migrants at dormitories on the Expo New Mexico grounds in Albuquerque is generating political fallout. Fifteen state senators, all Republicans, delivered a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday that urged the first-term Democratic governor to re-evaluate the decision and expressed concern about its impact on New Mexico residents. The letter was drafted less than a week after New Mexico State University announced it would move a youth 4-H horse program with more than 90 enrolled participants to Las Cruces that had been scheduled for Expo New Mexico. A 4-H Northern District Livestock School scheduled to take place right after the youth horse program was also canceled, though an Expo spokesman said Tuesday that accommodations were offered for participants in both programs. While we are not opposed to the use of Expo New Mexico facilities to temporarily house asylum seekers, we find it problematic that programs that benefit New Mexicos residents and communities may be canceled or relocated because of this decision, the GOP senators wrote in their letter. However, Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki said it was a mischaracterization of the facts to suggest the 4-H program was displaced by the decision to house the asylum-seeking migrants. Both were feasibly able to happen at the same time, Stelnicki said Tuesday. Expo is able to do everything it had previously planned while also temporarily housing these vulnerable women and children. He also said no other events are expected to be affected by the plan. Lujan Grisham, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and top Expo officials announced earlier this month that the fairgrounds dorms would be used for the asylum-seekers, though no migrants have stayed there yet and Expo spokesman Wyndham Kemsley said local officials do not know when they might arrive. But federal immigration authorities have already transferred thousands of immigrants to Albuquerque, where faith-based and community groups have helped them make travel arrangements to meet sponsors elsewhere in the country. In addition to the Expo dorms, the Albuquerque City Council recently approved spending $250,000 to support their efforts. Las Cruces has also approved spending $75,000 on humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the letter delivered Tuesday was signed by 15 of the states 16 GOP senators. The one who did not sign it, Sen. Gregg Fulfer, R-Jal, said in a statement that he did not think the letter went far enough. The governor apparently is not seeing what we are seeing in southeastern New Mexico we are in a crisis, said Fulfer, who claimed illegal immigrants are crowding out New Mexicans and depleting state and local resources. Migrants are legally allowed to seek asylum from within the United States, though they must prove they face persecution in their home countries to be granted asylum. By Trend Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 23 times, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on May 15, Trend reports. The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. To salute area teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week last week, the Rio Rancho Observer asked administrators at the citys two largest high schools to nominate two respected and deserving teachers. And here they are: Shawnee Legere has been a math teacher at Cleveland High School since it opened in time for the 2009-10 school year. Before that, she taught at Rio Rancho Mid-High and Rio Rancho High School. She has been teaching for a dozen years. Growing up in Citrus Heights, Calif., she originally wanted to be a veterinarian. I grew up riding horses, she said. After graduating from high school in 2001, she enrolled in California State-Sacramento, where she had an amazing math teacher. She was just incredible and I changed my degree to math. Legere did math tutoring, helping others struggling with the subject, but for her it was the enjoyment of problem-solving that made math her favorite subject. It was the sense of solving something, she said. She transferred to the University of New Mexico, having family members in New Mexico, and later graduated from New Mexico Tech in Socorro. Flash ahead a few years: She met her husband, Scott, at swing-dance lessons; the couple has three children with another on the way. Scott Legere is a math teacher at Rio Rancho High School, and Shawnee is the math instructional leader at Cleveland High, where she teaches trigonometry, math analysis and, her real love, she says, AP Calculus. Im always willing to do what it takes to help (students), she said, not make them feel dumb, but to answer their questions. Ultimately, I want them to succeed, she said. I feel this is the first time they hit something that didnt come easily. Shes more than happy to help them in their journey, with many of them headed to college and, someday, careers in engineering and other jobs that require a lot of math knowledge. I have amazing students, Legere said. Amanda Bader, a veteran teacher at Rio Rancho High School, said she initially had her eyes on being a firefighter, like her father, or maybe a lawyer, but then realized Grandma knew best. My grandmother taught English for 42 years; she taught at Queen of Heaven and St. Pius in Albuquerque and she always told me I was going to be a teacher, Bader said. And I thought she was full of it. Born and raised in Albuquerque, and a 1992 graduate of West Mesa High School, she obtained two degrees at UNM. I didnt like high school; I certainly wasnt a popular kid, Bader said. Its sometimes interesting to me that I ended up here. Now the Social Studies head, shes in her 19th year at RRHS. She and her husband, Drew, a retired Albuquerque Police officer, have two daughters attending RRHS, but she wont have them in her classes. I teach AP World History with sophomores, Government and Economics with seniors, and AP Language and Composition, which is the 12th grade AP English course, she said. She makes it a point to know her students and to tell them her class isnt the most-important thing of their day, but they have to work hard while in the classroom. What I try to tell them is theres always something to be interested in, and theres lots of things that youre going to need that you dont know, she said. The main thing I try to teach them is how to learn, how to be curious, how to ask the right questions, how to think critically and how to solve problems. Those are things we all need; regardless of what their career path or their chosen field is, those skills benefit all of them. The biggest change in the learning process shes seen since she started at RRHS, she said, has been due to technology: (Students) dont have great perseverance; they dont have great stamina for anything because they live in the instant world. They flick their screen and see a million (things) all day. Thats what they do. If I have a strength, its the relationships I have with kids, she said. They tease me that Im really honest with them. When science teacher Diana Allen set out to teach climate change, a subject shed never learned in school, she fell into a rabbits hole of misinformation: Many resources presented online as educational material were actually junk. It is a pretty scary topic to take on, said Allen, a teacher at Sanford Junior High School, in southern Maine. There are some pretty tricky websites out there. You kind of have to be an expert to be able to see through that like, Oh, no, these guys arent telling you the truth.' There are materials produced by climate change doubters, lesson plans developed by the oil industry, and countless other sites with misleading or outdated information. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network , funded by federal grants, reviewed more than 30,000 free online resources and found only 700 acceptable for use in schools. Theres a lot of information thats out there that is broken, old, misleading, not scientifically sound, not sound technically, said Frank Niepold, a climate education coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based group that dismisses climate change, in 2017 sent thousands of science teachers copies of a book titled Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming The book, attributed to the groups Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, misrepresents the near-universal consensus of scientists and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that global warming is real and man-made. Another resource, a set of six lesson plans on understanding climate change, is available online from the Canada-based Fraser Institute, which counts the Charles Koch Foundation among its financial supporters. The lessons claim that mainstream climate scientists have made selective use of data and that its a matter of debate whether human-generated carbon dioxide emissions have contributed to climate change, saying the issues are far from settled. Our history is full of examples where common knowledge was discarded in favor of more correct hypotheses, the lesson plans say. Among them, it lists, Are diseases caused by evil spirits? Are natural disasters caused by angry gods? And: Does smoking pose a threat to your health? Also vying for educators attention are classroom-ready materials made available by the oil companies. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and other companies have invested heavily in promoting science, technology, engineering and math education in K-12 schools. Such materials are used widely to teach topics related to energy, but critics say they can mislead by not addressing the role of burning fossil fuels in global warming. For teachers in cash-strapped schools, it can be hard to pass up the free handout materials. Melissa Lau, a sixth-grade teacher in Piedmont, Oklahoma, attended one of the training sessions put on regularly for teachers by the Oklahoma Energy Resource Bureau, which is funded by the oil and gas companies. She kept the $50 stipend and the tub full of science equipment she got from the group but she tossed its illustrated lesson plans featuring the character Petro Pete. In a book available online, Petro Pete has a nightmare about everything that would be missing from his life if there were no petroleum products, from his toothbrush to his school bus. I get free beakers and cool things like that, Lau said. But the curriculum itself is borderline propaganda. A spokeswoman for the industry group, Dara McBee, said their materials align with Oklahoma standards, which do not reference climate change, and they are intended to supplement what students learn in school. Kevin Leineweber, a science teacher at Cascade High School in Clayton, Indiana, said he is skeptical about resources sent to him, including oil industry materials, but some colleagues are less so. At a districtwide science meeting a couple months ago one elementary school teacher expressed excitement about receiving unsolicited materials on climate change in the mail, to help introduce the topic to students. After talking it over with Leineweber, the teacher tossed the mailing of unknown origin. Im just like, Oh, jeez,' Leineweber said. The oil industry materials have the effect of pushing climate change to the periphery, Charles Anderson, a professor of science education at Michigan State University. The school systems of the country are so fragmented and under-resourced that they have no choice but to turn to people like the oil industry who offer them free stuff, he said. Climate change education varies across states, and often from one classroom to the next. The Next Generation Science Standards, which emphasize climate change and how humans are altering the planet, have been adopted by or served as a model for most states. But many teachers report that they shy away from the topic not only because of issues with materials but also the political sensitivities, and uncertainty over where to introduce an issue that crosses so many disciplines. Diana Allen, 48, said she began to see it as her duty to teach climate change even though its not required under Maines science education standards. For her lesson plans on climate change, she turns primarily to other teachers, pulling resources they have vetted and shared on an email thread overseen by the National Science Teachers Association . Other teachers have turned to the National Center for Science Education, which posts free climate change lessons and has a scientist in the classroom program. Many educators say that climate change as an area of instruction is still so new that textbook publishers have not caught up enough to provide useful materials. I have a Ph.D. from Stanford in biochemistry, and its still hard for me to source stuff that works in my classroom right, said Kirstin Milks, an Earth science teacher at Bloomington High School South in Indiana. Milks helps train educators on how to teach climate change. In their applications, many teachers display a sense of urgency, she said. I think we all are in that same boat of understanding that this might be one of the most important social justice issues of our time, one of the most important environmental issues of our time, one of the most important political issues of our time, she said. Sometimes educators have to push back against what their students are taught in other classrooms. Leigh Foy, a science teacher at York Suburban High School in Pennsylvania, said a social studies teacher at her school has told students for years that climate change is a hoax and he could prove it with an experiment. He would fill a cup in the classroom with ice and water, mark the water level, and show students it didnt rise as the ice melted. The problem, Foy said, is his lack of accounting for the difference between sea ice and land ice or the expansion of water as it gets warmer. This is just an example of what were up against, Foy said. Teachers who have gotten themselves up to speed on climate change often say they make it a primary goal to help their students identify untrustworthy materials. Sarah Ott, who teaches physical science to eighth-graders in Dalton, Georgia, dedicates a section of her class to climate literacy. In one April class, she discussed how to identify misinformation, highlighting materials including a petition signed by more than 30,000 purported scientists that dismisses the dangers of global warming. These people are fake experts and this is being used to mislead people, she told her students. So were going to be learning about misinformation and ways for you to spot misinformation. And this is a great skill because youre not just going to use this for science. Youre going to use this for all of your subjects. ____ Associated Press writer Sarah Blake Morgan contributed to this report from Dalton, Georgia. MEXICO CITY For the first time, Mexicos Senate has approved a law requiring written contracts, paid vacation and annual bonuses for domestic workers. The bill. already approved by the lower house, opens the way for domestic workers be registered in Mexicos social security system, which also provides health care. The new law will prohibit hiring domestic workers under 15. It requires defined rest periods of at least nine hours per day, at least 1 1/2 days off per week and an annual bonus paid around Christmas, usually equivalent to two weeks pay. The bill was passed on a 117-0 vote Tuesday and goes to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to be signed into law. It remains unclear how the law will be enforced. Middle class Mexican families hire maids, often from provincial towns, on verbal contracts. Inspectors apparently wont be allowed to enter homes to ensure compliance. The vote came after the movie Roma raised consciousness about the plight of Mexicos domestic workers. Roma is the touching black-and-white portrait of the travails of a domestic worker and the middle-class family she cares for in 1970s Mexico City. MANAGUA, Nicaragua More than 5,000 Cubans have visited Nicaragua so far this year, a 900% increase over the total for all of 2018, Nicaraguan officials said Wednesday. It lends evidence to anecdotal accounts from Cuban migrants who say they passed through Nicaragua en route to the U.S.-Mexico border, where they are requesting asylum. Others come to buy hard-to-find goods for resale in Cuba, and Nicaraguan officials say still others are drawn by the countrys volcanoes and lakes. We have has a very significant arrival from Cuban tourists, Ana Carolina Garcia, Nicaragua National Tourism Institute promotion director, said on the pro-government Channel 4. Last year we had 556 Cubans and today weve already had more than 5,000. Nicaragua has made it easier for Cubans to obtain visas. They need just a passport, photos and a $30 fee. Garcia said the visits increased after Venezuelan airline Conviasa started a Havana-Managua-Caracas route three times a week in December. The deteriorating economic situation for many Cubans and the loosening of visa restrictions helped make Nicaragua a favored destination. While some come to shop, others embark on an overland trek to the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2017, the U.S. government ended the so-called wet foot, dry foot policy, which essentially had allowed Cubans who reached U.S. soil to stay. Rather than attempting to cross to the Florida coast on rickety boats, Cubans began moving through Central America and Mexico to the border. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, 10,910 Cubans crossed in a six-month period, more than the 7,079 in the prior 12 months. Garcia, the tourism official, said the influx of Cubans had softened the blow to Nicaraguas tourism industry since anti-government protests were violently repressed beginning more than a year ago. Nicaraguas private sector has estimated the tourism industry lost $500 million during the year of unrest. SANTA FE Three people, including a popular local musician, were found dead in their Santa Cruz-area home Tuesday night. Dominic Manzanares, 39, and his two sons, Isa Manzanares, 19, and Ventura Manzanares, 9, apparently were killed by inhalation of toxic fumes, according to a Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office account. Dominic Manzanares, who went by the name Tha Sandman, was a music artist and DJ in the Espanola area and performed with Isa, who was known as Dr. Dabs. They appear together in a recent music video for the song Nothin, whose YouTube credits say it was filmed at Northern New Mexico College. Another Sandman song, Spanas My Home, is a tribute to Espanolas lowrider culture. According to a Sheriffs Office search warrant affidavit, deputies went to the house described as a stuccoed mobile home about 5:50 p.m. Tuesday after a report that there was a heavy smell of fumes coming from the house and that there were bodies inside. Deputies began evacuating nearby homes and waited for fire department and emergency medical personnel to bring protective equipment. The bodies of Dominic and Isa Manzanares were found in the kitchen, and 9-year-old Venturas body was in the bathtub. Dominic Manzanares mother, Ymelda Roybal, was the first to discover there was a problem at the house, at 40B Camino de Paz in Santa Cruz. She first went to the house after she went to pick Ventura up at school Tuesday afternoon and was told he hadnt come to school for the day. She knocked on the door of the house, but no one answered. She notified the boys mother, who also went to the house and also couldnt get anyone to come to the door. Roybal then returned to the home, climbed through a window and found Dominics body. She ran out of the house because of the fumes, the affidavit says, but she couldnt get a phone signal to make a call. She returned with a son-in-law, but they couldnt go inside because of the fumes, even though Roybal had left the front door open. The son-in-law called 911, and deputies arrived. Several people took to Facebook to express grief over the deaths, with most of them referring to Dominic by his stage name. Sandman, Im so sad to hear about your passing, Jordan James wrote. Ill cherish all of our memories. I know that everyone that got to meet ya knew you were a genuine person. Im sad that Im never gonna get the chance to see your face again. Im gonna miss you my brother. Sandman aka Dominic you were such a kindhearted awesome human being, MelissaRose A. Lopez wrote. A beautiful soul you always went outta your way to be there for me. You will forever be missed here on earth as you walk through heaven with your boys by your side. Pueblo, Colo.-based Grip Alot Records, which has released Tha Sandmans music, reported the deaths on its Facebook page with a heavy heart and extreme disbelief. Ymelda Roybal is the wife of legendary northern New Mexico basketball coach Lenny Roybal, who had successful tenures at the old College of Santa, Santa Fe High and Espanola Valley High. Their Lenny Ymelda Roybal Facebook page also was receiving messages of condolences Wednesday. The Sheriffs Office report identifies the Roybals as the owners of the house where the three bodies were found and as the parents of Dominick Manzanares and the grandparents of Isa Manzanares and Ventura Manzanares. DALLAS Investigators who were thwarted during earlier investigations of child sexual abuse by priests on Wednesday searched the offices of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas to obtain evidence of sexual misconduct, according to a police commander and police records. Investigators searched the diocesan headquarters, a storage unit it uses and the offices of a church, police Maj. Max Geron told reporters. We believe at this point that the execution of the search warrants was wholly appropriate for the furtherance of the investigation at this point, Geron said. The events began last August with the investigation of Edmundo Paredes , a former priest who is believed to have fled Texas following claims that he abused three teenagers. That investigation resulted in allegations of abuse by others, Geron said. Copies of the warrants refer to the 70-year-old Paredes and four others. All five were named in a report released in January by the diocese that identified former priests credibly accused of sexually assaulting a child. Paredes is suspended from the diocese; the other four are suspended, on leave, retired or removed from the ministry. Police Detective David Clark in an affidavit supporting the warrants described a diocese that wasnt forthcoming with critical files and relied on personnel to identify predatory behavior when they had no background or training to do so. Investigators in a meeting with diocesan attorneys in January requested the number of priests files that were flagged for sexual abuse, Clark wrote in the affidavit. But the attorneys wouldnt provide the number, arguing that it was privileged information. Clark later wrote that he was given incomplete and inaccurate files, despite assurances to the contrary from priests and church lawyers. The detective said his efforts to obtain records that likely contained information on the alleged sexual abuse of children were thwarted. Bishop Edward Burns brushed aside the claim Wednesday that his diocese stymied efforts to obtain files on clerical abuse, saying church officials are being as transparent as possible. I stand confident that as the bishop of the Diocese of Dallas that we are doing this right, Burns said during a press conference. Were doing everything possible to create a safe environment. Burns also said a retired FBI agent who the diocese brought in to review its files told him the affidavit and search warrants were rife with errors. He did not name the former agent. The group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, released a statement commending police with raiding the secret archives of the diocese. Institutions cannot police themselves and it is only through strong action from law enforcement that the full truth of their scandals can be revealed, the statement said. We applaud the move and hope that it will inspire others who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Texas to make a report to law enforcement officials immediately. The Dallas diocese was ground zero for the nations clergy sex-abuse crisis more than two decades ago. About a dozen victims of the Rev. Rudolph Rudy Kos pressed the diocese into one of the countrys first civil jury trials. The Catholic Church had more often settled cases out of court, avoiding the kind of high-profile, 11-week trial that ended in 1997 when Dallas jurors found the diocese had committed gross negligence and hid information in its handling of Kos complaints. The jury awarded Kos victims a staggering $119.6 million in actual and punitive damages at the time the largest clergy-abuse verdict ever. The sides later settled, cutting the amount to about $30 million. Kos was criminally convicted in 1998, sentenced to life in prison and later dismissed from the priesthood. Wednesdays search follows another conducted by authorities in November at the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston , where investigators were searching for information on a priest who has been accused by two people of fondling them two decades ago when they were teenagers. Its highly unusual for dioceses to be raided by law enforcement. Church officials in Texas have said theyre committed to transparency and 14 dioceses in Texas, including Dallas, in January each released reports that identified nearly 300 former priests whove been accused. __ Staff writers Jake Bleiberg and Reese Dunklin contributed to this report. By Trend The final document following the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels dedicated to the 10th anniversary of launching the EU Eastern Partnership program was not planned to be adopted at all, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg Fuad Isgandarov said. Isgandarov, who is also the head of the Azerbaijani representative office to the EU, was commenting on the information that Azerbaijan did not agree with the final document following the meeting and that the use of veto right by Azerbaijan was connected with the lack of references to the country's territorial integrity, Trend reports on May 14. The ambassador stressed that the issue was voiced by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov during a high-level conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership (for information, please visit https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-172103). The final document following the ministerial meeting in Brussels, dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership, was not planned to be adopted at all, Isgandarov added. "The discussions, which were held during the process of making the proposals for the adoption of a single document of the Eastern Partnership, all EU member-states and European institutions, were procedural, he said. Such issues as whether the document will be concise or expanded, comprehensive and focusing on all aspects were discussed, as it was at previous summits. He continued by saying, Azerbaijan was a proponent of inclusion of the issues, which are fundamental for all EU member-states and Eastern Partnership countries, in the case of adoption of the final document. He added, In this context, the issue of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all Eastern Partnership countries was jointly proposed by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova. To decrease the volume of the document, an agreement was reached that it would include the references to the documents of previous summits and thereby reflect the abovementioned principles during the discussions among the Eastern Partnership countries, the EU institutions and member-states, Isgandarov said. The document entitled 'Chairmans Final Notes', signed by High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, contains all references to the documents from previous summits, he added. Isgandarov once again emphasized that territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence were unequivocally recognized at all Eastern Partnership summits. In his words, in conclusion, an agreement was reached that this short document which was not a declaration should be presented as "Chairmans Final Notes". In contrast to the abovementioned facts, the celebration of the "non-recognition of territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan in the Armenian press is absurd, he said. "If the opposite side carefully reads the document, it will see the references to the documents adopted at the previous summits," the ambassador said. He emphasized that Azerbaijans foreign policy is based on the countrys interests and the norms and principles of international law. "Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs current visit to Brussels is the most vivid example of this attitude," the ambassador said. Isgandarov reminded that a number of high-level meetings were held during the visit and the events dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership are still underway. The Azerbaijani foreign minister also participates in these events and Azerbaijans position based on its national interests is voiced during all the discussions. ANDERSON, Calif. - After a horse was shot in Anderson, The Shasta County Sheriff's Office and Haven Humane are saying this crime is a rare occurrence. The shooting happened Sunday, May 5, around midnight. Juan Montano, the owner of the horse, said he heard his dogs barking but did not hear gunshots. The next morning Montano came out to find his horse had been shot in the forehead and would, unfortunately, have to be put down because of the injury. "My grandson, James, came down the hill and he rushed back to the house and said someone shot the horse. I got up quickly and we came out and he had been gasping for air -breathing really short- and he was already almost dead," Montano said. "He had suffered all night long. That's what really ticks me off." The Sheriff's Office told Action News Now they do have an investigation open but there are no leads. Montano said he wanted the story to be known in hopes that it would not happen to any other horse owners in the area. BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - The Northern California Ballet returns to the stage of the Paradise Performing Arts Center this week with its performance of 'Sleeping Beauty.' It's the first show at the Paradise Performing Arts Center since the Camp Fire. "It feels amazing to be back," said Elizabeth Andelone, a performer in the show. "It's quite a treat honestly. It's our home. It's where we've always performed every year." The following are the performance times for the production: Friday, May 17, at 7:15 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at 2:15 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. For more information, and to buy tickets, CLICK HERE. BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - Park rangers are warning hikers of tick dangers on trails in Butte County. James Ledonne, a park ranger, said he sees most ticks on Upper Park Road. "We are concerned about certain ticks the black-legged deer tick do carry limes disease and are prevalent in this area," he said. Ledonne said that it's best to wear light-colored clothing so that it's easier to see the ticks. He said that if hikers aren't sure what kind of tick may be on them, they should remove it and take it to Butte County Public Health to be tested. Ledonne also said its extremely important to stay on the path while hiking because if people stray they are more likely to be exposed to the ticks. John Lyons is a hiker in the area who has had his own first-hand experience with ticks. He took a quick walk on a path near Horse Shoe Lake and the next day, he realized he had a tick. He went to get it removed and had to be on 10 days of antibiotics. Lyons said it's important to only check yourself after a hike, but also your animals. SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto announced the creation of a compensation program for victims of sexual abuse. The announcement comes after the Sacramento Diocese published a list of clergy accused of abusing minors and adults. Soto said that victims of the alleged abuse will be able to apply for compensation regardless of when the abuse occurred. The program is a joint effort between six California dioceses including Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange and San Diego. No amount of money can make up for the evil done to victims of priestly sex abuse. I acknowledge the pain that was caused, my shame and sorrow that it happened in the name of the Church, and my intention to help victim/survivors heal from that abuse," Soto said. See the full details of the compensation plan in the document below: Mobile users, CLICK HERE. Emirates Investment Bank (EIBank), an independent private bank based in the UAE, has announced the resignation of Khaled Q Sifri, the chief executive officer, effective immediately. In his capacity as CEO, Khaled has positioned the bank as a recognised partner for people looking to preserve or grow their wealth, said a representative of the Board of directors of EIBank. The board would like to extend their appreciation to Khaled for his efforts throughout his tenure at EIBank and the significant contribution he has made to the bank, and wish him every success in all his future endeavours. Looking ahead, we will build on the momentum of EIBank and continue making progress on our long-term goals. EIBank will communicate the name of the new CEO in due course, a bank statement said. TradeArabia News Service New York Festivals Advertising Awards announced the 2019 award winners. The 2019 Executive Jury of Chief Creative Officers and other top agency creatives, in addition to NYFs Film Craft Executive Jury, selected the Worlds Best Advertising award winners from the Finalists chosen by New York Festivals 400+ Grand Jury members. The combined 2019 Executive Juries deliberated and awarded: Best of Show, 7 Grand Prize Awards, 71 First Prize Awards, 209 Second Prize Awards, and 205 Third Prize Awards. Black Supermarket from Marcel Paris was honoured with the 2019 Best of Show Award. Client Carrefour challenged the agrochemical lobby and law that allows access to only 3 per cent of existing fruits and vegetables in the Official Catalogue of Authorized Species. The campaign challenged people to go to the Black Supermarket and to sign the petition to change the law. Black Supermarket also earned a Grand Award, 3 First Prize Awards, 8 Second Prize Awards and 3 Finalist Certificates. We are extremely honoured to receive this ultimate accolade from our industrys leaders, said Anne de Maupeou, Creative Chairman of Marcel. We truly believe that we are in the right place to help our clients achieve great things for our common future, simply because thats what people expect from brands and because brands really do have this power. Long live advertising! Lets keep doing things that make a difference. BBDO Worldwide was recognised with the title of 2019 Global Agency Network of the Year. The prestigious award is presented to the agency network that earns the most awards and produces a high caliber of creative work. The network earned a Grand Award, 10 First Prize Awards, 29 Second Prize Awards, 21 Third Prize Awards and 34 Finalist Certificates. The work is winning because of our brilliant teams around the globe; its great to see so many BBDOs contributing, said David Lubars, BBDO Worldwide Chairman & Chief Creative Officer. Toyota, the Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer, was honoured with the New York Festivals 2019 Global Brand of the Year Award for their fearless commitment to creativity and innovation. Thank you to New York Festivals for naming Toyota 2019 Global Brand of the Year, said Ed Laukes, Group Vice President, Toyota Marketing, Toyota Motor North America. We are honoured to be recognised for our continued efforts to push creative boundaries and connect with customers in new and innovative ways. The Regional Agency of the Year Award honours an advertising agency that earns the highest score for entries in their regions. The following agencies were recognised this year: North America - Saatchi & Saatchi LA/Dallas Latin America - AlmapBBDO Brazil Asia Pacific - BWM Dentsu Sydney and Cheil Hong Kong (Tie) Europe - Marcel France MENA TBWARAAD United Arab Emirates Thank you New York Festivals for the Regional Agency of the Year, North America, recognition. The phrase Nothing is Impossible captures the spirit of Saatchi & Saatchi. Im extremely proud of our talented teams in Los Angeles and Dallas for bringing this spirit to life and consistently creating iconic Toyota campaigns, said Chuck Maguy, Chief Executive Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles/Dallas. Asheen Naidu, Executive Creative Director, BWM Dentsu Sydney, remarked, Its a huge honour to be recognised by the New York Festivals as Regional Agency of the Year APAC. Wed like to thank all our clients for believing in the power of brave ideas, especially Brian Frederick at the ALS Association. And a special thanks to the man himself, Pat Quinn, for inspiring us with your bravery and fearlessness. This ones for you Pat! Were truly humbled. New York Festivals is one of the worlds top creative award shows with the best-looking trophies, bar none. So, to be named Regional Agency of the Year (APAC) for the second-year running is a surprise and beyond all expectations. Congrats to everyone involved, said Paul Chan, Chief Creative Officer, Cheil Hong Kong. It is a great honour to be named Regional Agency of the Year 2019 for the MENA at the New York Festivals Advertising Awards. Having our work recognized by the creative community of this prestigious show makes us strive for bigger achievements and look forward to greater partnerships with our clients, said Walid Kanaan, Chief Creative Officer, TBWARAAD United Arab Emirates. Serviceplan Group Germany is the 2019 Independent Agency of the Year, which is awarded to the non-networked agency that obtains the highest score for entries in all competitions across all mediums. To be named Independent Agency of the Year does not only make me proud of our work, but even more proud of our people around the world, who work hard every day to make our little global network a true alternative to the big old, established cruise ships out there. Fresh thinking, mixed teams and a glimmer of naive braveness no other place I could ever feel more comfortable, said Alex Schill, Global Chief Creative Officer, Serviceplan. Stink Films London earned the title of 2019 Film Production Company of the Year. The award is based on total points scored irrespective of whether the entries have been submitted by the production company, advertising agency or another third party. Stink Films earned this honour for their award-winning work for several prominent agencies, including Publicis Italy, ROSAPARK France, and AlmapBBDO Brazil. We are honoured and humbled to be chosen as best production company by the New York Festivals. Its great to be recognised for such diverse work across multiple offices. It makes us think we might be doing something right after all! Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to bring these to life and all those who voted, said Blake Powell, Managing Partner, Stink Films. The 2019 Executive Jury panel awarded the following agencies with the New York Festivals Grand Award for their innovative entries: Activation & Engagement: Marcel France Black Supermarket Carrefour Avant-Garde/Innovative: BWM Dentsu Australia Project Revoice ALS Association Collaborations & Partnerships: Pages BBDO The Day Women Left the Set La Sirena Design: BETC France Save our Species Lacoste Digital/Mobile: BWM Dentsu Australia Project Revoice ALS Association Film Craft: Dollar Shave Club USA Get Ready Dollar Shave Club Print: McCann Spain Fresh Prints Aldi The New York City Award, a new category for NYFA was awarded to celebrate advertising that captures the vibe of New York City. First Prize Award went to BBH for their entry Planned Parenthood NYC - Freedom to F*ck. Each year, New York Festivals, in partnership with the United Nations Department of Public Information, appoints a UN panel to select public service work that exemplifies the aims and ideals of the United Nations. For 2019, the UNDPI Jury recognised the following entries with the UNDPI Award: Philipp und Keuntje GmbH Germany Shitty Paper Made from Hate for Goldeimer earned the UNDPI First Prize Award BETC Brazil The Dissolving Poster for Habitat For Humanity was awarded the UNDPI Second Prize Award Serviceplan France Autism Can Work for ANDROS / Vivre et travailler autrement was honoured with the UNDPI Third Prize Chrome News Track, part of Chrome Data Analytics and Media, has release the Most Aired, Most Watched and Most Discussed News of Week 19, 2019. Chrome News Track conducts study on news content aired across India. The survey conducted is an outcome of the data collected from 34,000 Chrome DM panel homes across India. It analyses the effectiveness of the News aired on television every week and categorises it through three broad segments namely Most Aired, Most Watched and Most Discussed. Most Aired News in Week 19 According to the Chrome News Track data for the Week 19, 2019, 2019 Lok Sabha Elections is the most Aired News this week, followed by News About PM Narendra Modi Interview & Activities. The News about War of Words on Rajiv Gandhi stood at the 3rd spot, the Sam Pitroda Controversy is next in the list, while News about CM Arvind Kejriwal Slapped During Roadshow managed to take the fifth and the last spot. Most Watched News in Week 19 The survey also unveils that 2019 Lok Sabha Elections is the most watched news for the week grabbing maximum eyeballs, followed by PM Narendra Modi Interview & Activities. The news about War of Words on Rajiv Gandhi, CM Arvind Kejriwal Slapped During Roadshow and Sam Pitroda Controversy also generated interests amongst viewers and are placed at 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively, in the list. Most Discussed News in Week 19 Taking a closer view of the Most Discussed News category of the survey, the news about 2019 Lok Sabha Elections has been the talk of the nation making it the most discussed news, whereas the News War of Words on Rajiv Gandhi happens to be the 2nd most discussed news as per the survey. CM Arvind Kejriwal Slapped During Roadshow became the 3rd most discussed news among masses. Sam Pitroda Controversy and PM Narendra Modi Interview & Activities are placed at 4th and 5th positions, respectively, in the list. B4U Network popularly known for its Bollywood Music and Movie channels launches B4U Bhojpuri its first regional offering in the Bhojpuri Regional space. B4U Bhojpuri a Bhojpuri movie channel targeted at audiences in UP, Bihar & Jharkhand launches with a bank of most popular exclusive Bhojpuri Movies. Regional language programming has penetrated different mediums, FTA audiences and languages like Bhojpuri would see the maximum growth owing to universe change as per BARC. In the last 3 years the audience base in Bihar/Jharkhand has grown from 24 million in 2016 to 39 million in 2019 a 62% growth in audience base which B4U Bhojpuri is capitalizing on opportunity. Speaking to Sandeep Gupta, CFO and COO - Broadcasting India said, B4U Bhojpuri is a unique offering for the audience with a premium packaging unseen in the Bhojpuri genre. As a content mix we are offering audiences a mix of devotional songs, festive programming during cultural events like Chhatt, Navratri, Diwali and Holi. Besides we are also announcing 2 WTPs (World Television Premieres) for Bhojpuri audiences every week which is an unmatched offering by any other channel in the HSM market. The channel has movies of superstars like Nirahua (Dineshlal), Khesari, Pawan Singh etc from the Bhojpuri movie industry. The 2 WTPs every week proposition is a never before offering in the Bhojpuri Genre and is sure to hook audiences from 15th May 2019 onwards on DD free dish and other cable and DTH networks. The channel has also released a Brand film with the brand philosophy of Dilwa Bhojpuri Ba which is core to every Bhojpuri person who is truly Bhojpuri at heart and shows how the community is so closely connected both with the culture and language. B4U Bhojpuri is coming up with 6 programming bands with different movies of named Patna Talkies, Bhojpuri Multiplex, Gorakhpur Theatre, Arra Chappra Hall, Banaras Mahal & WTPs which would be played over the weekends. B4U is also going all out with a TV campaign to promote this brand film along with its unique WTP movies on outside network channels focused on UP/Bihar/Jharkhand along with OOH in all the 3 states covering over 40 cities with 400+ sites. To launch the channel B4U Bhojpuri has opened a free screening for viewers and media in Arrah near Patna where Bhojpuri speaking audiences would be able to see Nirahua Hindustani 2 and engage with B4U Bhojpuris engagement onground. Mr. Dinesh Pangtey has 35 years of experience across Private Equity, life, Pension, Group Superannuation Scheme and Insurance sector. During his stint as CEO with the private equity division of the LIC Group, Mr. Pangtey completed investment of the maiden Fund corpus and achieved exit from 4 portfolio companies with an IRR of 22% and returned 79% of the amount drawn from Investors. He strategized the setting up of the new Fund under SEBI AIF platform & directly raised 92% of the base corpus. The Fund is shortly poised to exhaust the green shoe option and close at Rs. 1000 Cr. He is a Direct Recruit Officer in LIC at various key positions with expertise in marketing. He has served as Regional Manager Marketing channel in Western Zone spanning the States of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. He has headed Divisions like J&K, Ahmedabad & Delhi. Mr. Dinesh Pangtey has a Bachelor's Degree in Science. Dharampal Satyapal Group (DS Group) has rolled out a new TVC for Rajnigandha, Indias leading mouth freshener brand. Conceptualized by Dentsu Impact, the new commercial showcases Rajnigandha as a brand, which believes in leadership that inspires the world. The film revolves around a successful and compassionate protagonist Varun Singhania, who expresses gratitude to his college teacher for inspiring him to take the lead in an alternate teaching practice and while doing this, the protagonist proves that he still values him and his teaching style. This TVC effectively reinforces communication line 'Kuch Kar Aisa, Duniya Banna Chahe Tere Jaisa', that the brand advocates. The TVC plot opens with the teacher, Mr. Chhaya, in a job interview facing an embarrassing question about being sacked from an Institute, where he had taught for 12 years and a sketchy career thereafter. Suddenly the protagonist Varun Singhania, a plane designer and the founder of an aero designer centre answers the question, reminiscing his college days with his former teacher, Mr. Chhaya, who would teach even serious topics such as aerodynamics, centre of gravity and speed in a fun way. Filled with nostalgia, Varun asks him whether he would still like to do something different. The ad film then cuts to a three-years later shot, showcasing an ultra-modern academy with Mr. Chhaya asking Varun about his reasons to start the academy, as they walk down a staircase towards a zero-gravity room. The TVC closes as the protagonist answering Khwabon ki asli udaan, kitaabon ke bojh mein nahin, aasmaan jaisi khuli soch mein hai, to drive home the idea of how his success was inspired by his teachers thinking and how he is now taking it forward with this new impactful way to impart knowledge. Commenting on the campaign, Rajeev Jain, VP Marketing, DSL said, Rajnigandha has always applauded success, aspiration and winning spirit and the accompanying modesty that is inspiring. The brand Rajnigandha has remained a perfect companion of achievers for decades. This TVC effectively reinforces communication line 'Kuch Kar Aisa, Duniya Banna ChaheTere Jaisa', a philosophy that the brand advocates. True Achievers believe that achievement is not just about only achieving self goals, but also understands responsibility to bring positive change in the system we live in. Rajnigandha is an iconic brand and it has managed to redefine the advertising space in its category. Carrying forward the brand message of Kuch Kar Aisa, Duniya Banna Chahe Tere Jaise, the intent behind the campaign was not only to showcase the product as a symbol of success but to spread the message of achieving success to a level that inspires others around you. What we are really proud of is that while, the film has scale but it also has a soul to it which we are sure will help people connect with the brand, said Amit Wadhwa, President, Dentsu Impact. P&G Shiksha, the flagship CSR program of P&G India, today unveiled its new heart-warming film that highlights the story of Bittu, who at the age of 75 is realizing his dream of attending school. The film has been launched across social media platforms YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The film signifies the dreams of children across India who wish to attend school and receive quality education. P&G Shiksha has been working towards improving access to quality education for underprivileged children since 2005. Till date, P&G Shiksha has built and supported more than 1800 schools which will impact the lives of more than 1.4 million children. The film is inspired by a true story and highlights Bittus life at school. Having grown up in a village without schools, he had to wait until the age of 75 to attend one. Bittus story is a simple yet heart-warming instance of the dreams fulfilled by P&G Shiksha through its interventions. Speaking about the new campaign, Abhishek Desai, Director Marketing Operations, P&G India said, Education is the foundation of an individuals development and the society at large. The film highlights the simple joy of learning and attending a school that no child should miss. P&G India is extremely proud to be working towards this and helping millions of children in India fulfil their dream. We hope the film builds an emotional connect with the audience and inspires them to do their bit towards Shiksha. Added Rajdeepak Das, MD India and Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett South Asia, P&G Shiksha is a brand with a soul, and it required a heartfelt humankind approach. Going to school is a dream that children have. Not just the learnings but the fun stays with us all our lives. However, unfortunately, this dream is not realised for everyone. The new campaign is inspired by a true story and we have humanised the campaign by capturing the hopes and aspirations of Bittu and how he is living his dream of attending school at the age of 75. With this emotional and thought-provoking story, we hope this campaign strikes a chord with everyone. P&G Shiksha is working extensively towards improving the education infrastructure by providing necessary amenities from building classrooms to building toilets, providing clean drinking water to setting up drinking water stations and playgrounds across India. It is also working towards empowering marginalised girls through education by supporting the KGBV schools and improving learning outcomes in children through remedial learning and early childhood programs. Indias leading cold-pressed beverage brand RAW Pressery announces the appointment of its new CFO, Badri Sanjeevi. Previously, Badri was Co-founder and CEO of Mauj Mobile (a VC funded mobile media company part of People Group) and Group CFO at People Group, which includes businesses like Shaadi.com and Makaan.com. Badri is a Chartered Accountant and MBA graduate from INSEAD Business School, France. He started his career with Arthur Andersen and gleaned experience at Deutsche Bank Telecoms Investment Banking, T-Mobile, and Deloitte Media Strategy consulting in the UK. Badri brings with him strong business acumen, unwavering commitment and strategic leadership, significantly contributing to a companys growth trajectory. In the past, he has been recognised by CFO India as one of the Top 100 CFOs in the country, and under his leadership, Mauj Mobile, won the Red Herring European Innovation Award in 2012, and the mBillionth Award for bringing digital innovation to developing countries. Deeply passionate about early childhood learning, Badri co-founded AppyStore - an edu-tech product focused on kids between ages 2 8 of age.An avid blogger and regular speaker at CFO events, he regularly writes about running, managing high-growth businesses and enjoys spending time with his wife and kids in Mumbai. Commenting on his appointment as CFO at Raw Pressery, Badri says,"I am excited to join Raw Pressery as it rapidly scales across geographies and categories. I look forward to building excellence in finance and building critical capabilities in analytics and our tech stack that are critical for Raw Pressery growth and profitability. I am very excited to be working with Anuj and the team at Raw Pressery". Suraj Vazirani, Founder & CEO, The Beauty Co., is no stranger to the e-commerce ecosystem. Vazirani had set up online marketplace maniacstore.com in 2011, which sold on all major e-commerce platforms. Faced with several pain points in the selling process, in 2015 Vazirani set up DSYH (Dont Scratch Your Head), a SaaS (Software as a Service)-based platform that focuses on reconciliation for e-commerce entities sellers, marketplace or enterprises, and helps e-commerce sellers know their gross profitability. Vazirani ventured into the beauty business in June 2018 with The Beauty Co. He feels that the beauty industry has been about remedying problems for too long and that The Beauty Co. is an experience in self-love and that boost of confidence that comes from feeling good. The Beauty Co.s vast portfolio of products includes four main categories Hair, Body, Skin, and Teeth and are targeted todays modern woman. In a short span of time, the company has carved a niche for itself in the womens grooming industry. Being in the e-commerce ecosystem for a long time, Suraj Vazirani has seen the business grow in India. In this interaction with Adgully, he speaks about being an entrepreneur. He also chalks out the growth path for The Beauty Co. and the online as well as offline strategy and more. What has the growth been like for The Beauty Co. in its first year of business? We launched our first product in June 2018. We are doing 400+ units per day online with an ASP of 800+. Currently, we are already sitting at a $1.5 million run rate without even considering the growth figures or new product launches. In less than 9 months of our launch, we are at $1.5 million ARR. Though The Beauty Co. is a fairly new venture, we have been in the online industry for several years. While we are headquartered in Ahmedabad, we also have presence in 8-9 states and have around 19-20 warehouses across India. From a stage actor, how did you think of setting up The Beauty Co.? I was into theatre back in my school college days. At that time, I started multiple cyber cafes and then a chain of mobile retail stores. I then built an online marketplace maniacstore.com that was a time when Baazi was acquired by eBay and no other e-commerce website existed in India. At that time it was hoped that Maniacstore would become the next Flipkart; it was our first dream as a start-up. Over time, we realised that this requires a lot of VC funding, so we didnt go ahead with that idea even though Maniacstore kept on running. During those days we used to sell any and every category of products such as mobile phones, computer peripherals, consumer appliances and home appliances all branded items. Three years ago, we realised that there was no margin at all in selling brands where 10, 20 or 50 people are competing with each other. Ultimately, huge turnovers, minimalistic margins and hell of a lot of returns and losses start piling up. We pivoted our business model and joined hands with Beardo, who was our exclusive pan-India e-commerce partner. Those were the days when Beardo had just started and was doing 25-30 units a day. Post Beardo, a lot of brands joined us for pan-India e-commerce partnerships and we used to manage their entire online business. I have always wanted to have my own brand. Since Beardo was already present in the male grooming category and I was the partner, there was no point getting into that. In the last two years the e-commerce scenario has changed vastly and so have the consumer buying patterns. Previously, consumers were rigid about buying only renowned beauty brands like Loreal or Lakme, etc. Nowadays, take any category and you will find more and more private labels coming up, and online marketplaces are where they are getting exposure and growth. After a lot of research, I found that the womens beauty industry is expected to touch Rs 80,000 crore to Rs 1 lakh crore in 2020, and even though there is a lot of competition in this space, launching womens beauty products online could give me a healthy market share. So, after a lot of research we launched a women-oriented brand and that came to be known as The Beauty Co. Since the competition is very stiff in this category, how are you creating the awareness for your brands? We are taking different routes like the fashion blogger route, the marketplace route, running various social media campaigns, video product shoots as well as promoting those videos. We also do a lot of sampling activities. We keep participating in multiple B2B and B2C events. We do youth campaigns and give away freebies. Recently, we created a 50 gm scrub, where 50,000 samples were distributed through Nykaa or other platforms to create awareness and allow the consumer to experience the product. We were in talks with Fab Bag for a partnership, but the quantity versus supply was a concern, so the partnership did not happen. Who are your primary customers? Women in the 18-40 age group. If you look at the entire marketing activities and campaigns as well as the look and feel of the brand, they are all made to appeal to this audience range. How have you kept your pricing competitive? The players in the market are either massy brands or super premium brands for niche consumers. The Beauty Co. is neither a massy brand nor a very premium brand. We are in the premium to semi-premium category, where products are at par or better than some well known premium labels, but at half the price. Our product prices range from Rs 299 to Rs 1,260. The ASP (Average Selling Price) of the brand as a whole is Rs 800+. What drives your marketing strategy? We were very clear on Day 1 of the launch that we are going to be an online only brand, until and unless we reached X number of units. There is no point in launching a new brand and going offline, talking to distributers and trying to get your products placed in premium and semi-premium retail outlets. We followed our online strategy strictly and we depend 100 per cent on online and social media marketing only. The only tools we use are Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram and obviously, the Amazon and Flipkart spaces for marketing. Celebrity influencers, blogger networks and PR agencies are all part of our marketing strategy. Till the first week of April 2019 we were only online in almost any and every marketplace in India. This financial year we are planning to go offline in full force. The offline activity will be a slow process starting from Mumbai, Pune and Gujarat. The Western region would be covered in Phase 1. The North would be covered in Phase 2. The South market would be covered in Phase 3 and then we would look at the East. For our offline strategy, we would target salons and spas that are also into retail activity. These businesses need brands like The Beauty Co. We already have 3 tie-ups in Mumbai. Initially, we would be supplying to retailers and partners. Once we have sizeable distribution numbers, we would then incorporate the entire pyramid structure of the distributer and retailer model in every city and state. Would you also be creating experience stores for The Beauty Co.? No, that would be too early. Currently, the strategy is very clear. Year 1 was about online only and achieving our targets. Year 2 is going to be about expanding offline and once we have set up a strong presence and strong tertiary sales, then would be the time to launch experience stores. Is it the breakdown in the family? Is it too much screen time? Is it something in the food? We don't really know. That is the actual tragedy. And as long as our leaders' preferred response to this tragedy is opportunism, we never will know. Millions of American children are on drugs for ADHD, anxiety, other mental health problems. But why? What is driving this? Why do so many kids have so many more mental health problems? It's not your imagination. It's real. It is measurable. It is being measured, though not addressed. In the past decade, teen depression has risen dramatically, as have teen suicides. They are connected, of course. Between 2008 and 2017, the percentage of adolescents with depression symptoms rose 52 percent. Among kids 15 to 24, suicides are up almost 50 percent. That's a horrifying number. No one mentions it. There are a lot of possible explanations for this. We don't seem to be talking about any of them. The kids in Colorado were, though. They chanted, "Mental health." And they are right. But it is not enough to say we need more mental healthcare. It is also worth asking why we need it. This could have been stopped if you have given me more power. Of course, in reality, Washington has been getting more and more power for decades and has not been making our kids happier or healthier. What vultures these people are. The students walked out of the vigil. For the politicians, devastated children and grieving families were just political props -- props they could use to increase their own power at the expense of other people's freedom. That is their reaction to every problem and every tragedy. Carlson: Congressman Jason Crow and Sen. Michael Bennet, both Democrats, attended the prayer vigil. They were not there to offer prayers. They were there to belittle prayer, and instead hold a campaign rally. The occasion involved the most recent school shooting, namely the one at a Denver-area charter school where a young man was killed trying to stop an assailant. The title of the story was Vultures treat the Colorado shooting like a political propour kids deserve so much more , and in it Carlson went from criticizing politicians who use heartbreaking situations and push for gun control to asking the REALLY BIG QUESTION: WHY ARE KIDS TODAY SO DIFFERENT? By Anne Dachel Someone in the mainstream media actually noticed that something is wrong with our children. On May 9, 2019 Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson editorialized on the state of our childrens health and our elected officials failure to deal with it. Carlson didnt include autism in his list, but he did note other neurological issues now so common today, and he asked, BUT WHY? something in the food? Yesand in the ever-increasing number of unchecked, unsafe vaccines we mindlessly inject into every child on the planet. (**And please take a look at Carlsons interview of Robert Kennedy, Jr. on vaccine safety back in 2017.) Carlsons statement, Millions of American children are on drugs for ADHD, anxiety, other mental health problems doesnt come close to describing how bad things really are. Carlson needs to look over the MORE THAN 4,000 news reports on LossOfBrainTrust.com Hed see stupefying stats from countries everywhere. Hed see that our kids are getting sicker and sicker and that no one cares. Carlson needs to pursue his question, BUT WHY? for each and every story Ive posted. Just to save time, I pulled a number of recent statements from news reports both here and abroad. But why? What is driving this? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released new statistics on autism. They estimate that there has been a 15% increase in the prevalence of autism across the USA, from 1 in 68 in 2012 to 1 in 59 in 2014. Thomas Frazier, Chief Science Officer of Autism Speaks, says this suggests that the new estimate of 1 in 59 is likely to be a significant undercount of autisms true prevalence in the USA. Given these factors, it is not surprising that 384 students in [Rockland, ME] District 13, or approximately 23.39 percent of the total student population, currently receive special education services. The number of special education students statewide with autism grew from 6,752 in 2000 to 37,435 in 2016, a nearly six-fold increase, according to the [New York State] Education Department. One in four teachers in the UK say they experience physical violence from their pupils at least once a week, and many say poor behaviour is making them want to leave the profession,... HAMILTON, Ontario One in five children suffer from a mental disorder with notable increases in depression and anxiety over the past 30 year. The number of [Seattle] children living with autism has jumped 15 percent over the past two years. And now many popular attractions are learning how to cater to that growing population. For schools across New Hampshire, special education is a growing need and a growing cost. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Manchester, the states largest district, where special ed expenditures have nearly tripled in the last twenty years. The Colorado Department of Educations government data reports that since 1992, Colorado student population grew by 49 percent while autism increased by over 400 percent. As the number of students who qualify for special education increases to record levels, educators are struggling to keep up. According to the Rodel Foundation of Delaware, the number of students who qualify for special education has risen by 18 percent or 3,141 students in a little over a decade. Statewide, over 20,000 students or 15 percent of all children enrolled in Delaware public schools receive some form of special education. One in 35 children in New Jersey are diagnosed [with autism] by this time. Around a third of the pupils [in Northern Ireland schools] are considered to be in the lowest quarter of the population academically, many have significant self-esteem issues and a negative attitude towards education. It said between 2015 and 2018, the number of special needs care plans [in England] grew 33%, while funding rose only 6%. Currently in [Northern Ireland], one in 34 children are diagnosed with a form of autism. Northumberland [UK] has seen a 50 per cent increase in the number of pre-school children with complex needs since 2013 and the number of pupils in special schools has risen by 32 per cent in this period. the number of students with autism spectrum disorder increases by more than 10 percent every school year. This growing trend in Montana and across the nation has been consistent for over a decade. With more Minnesota students enrolling in special education services and public aid failing to keep pace with the cost of providing those services, the shortfall that school districts have to cover by tapping into general education dollars continues to grow. And this against a background where more young people in Dorset [England] are reporting mental health issues while we are unable to meet the demand for mental health services. The figures from NHS Digital show 12.2 per cent of boys [in the UK] aged between five and 10 were found to be likely to be suffering from a mental disorder, along with 6.6 per cent of girls. The number of young students with autism is rising. Last year Auburn [ME] had to place eight incoming kindergarten students out of district at a cost of $298,383. Of the eight, seven had autism. In the fall of 2018, Auburn placed four incoming kindergarten students with autism at an estimated cost of $260,763. In both years those costs were unanticipated, Grondin said. Nearly 20 percent of Yonkers [NY] students have a disability One-third of the [Bridgeport, CT] district budget is spent on special education. The number of [Scottish] pupils identified with [additional support needs] rose from 118,034 in 2012 to 199,065 in 2018 - with the total now representing 28.7% of pupils. Carlson: But why? What is driving this? Is it the breakdown in the family? Is it too much screen time? Is it something in the food? We don't really know. Carlson should also consider that many people already do know whats driving this, and others simply don't want to know. lll Omniyat, a Dubai-based property development group, said it has marked another milestone with the sale of its second penthouse unit in One Palm, thus setting the record once again and making it the second-most expensive penthouse sold in the history of UAE real estate. The Emirati developer beat its own record back in 2017 by selling the most expensive penthouse in Dubai for Dh102 million ($28 million). It, however, did not divulge the details of the buyer who has scooped up the second-most expensive penthouse in Dubai for Dh73 million ($19.8 million). Located on the Palm Jumeirah, the penthouse owner will enjoy over 20,000 sq ft of luxury with stunning views and an immaculate landscaped rooftop terrace with a pool designed by world-renowned landscape designer Vladimir Djurovic, bringing to life the vision of One Palm as the pinnacle of affluence in the ultimate address. With the successful sale of the second penthouse, enquiries for the third one are already in the pipeline, said a top official. "We are confident that the sale of the third penthouse will beat the record again with a price estimated between the first and second penthouse," remarked executive chairman and CEO Mahdi Amjad. "The space is truly incomparable, it is the epitome of luxury perfectly balanced with modern elegance complementing the surroundings of One Palm. As curators of bespoke projects, we pay incredible attention to detail and source only the finest materials that attract the most discerning clients to the region," he added. Situated in a prime plot of the iconic Palm Jumeirah entrance, One Palm offers views of Dubai Marina's skyline and the Arabian Gulf. The building's architecture, which includes double- and triple-height spaces, provides unique indoor and outdoor living spaces and beautiful landscape sanctuaries with utmost privacy in mind. "Considering the modern lifestyle and high standards of living that the emirate offers, Dubai continues to cement itself as the most sought-after residential location of choice, with multi-millionaires shifting their home base to the country," said Amjad. "Dubai has always set the benchmark with its excellent living conditions and infrastructure, and at Omniyat, we aim to continue contributing to that vision," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Dr. Jason Holt has been named the new Aiken High School principal. Holt, who has been the principal at Paul Knox Middle School in North Augusta for two years, will start his new position in July. Before going to Paul Knox, Holt was the principal at Jackson STEM Middle School. He is a member of the 2019-20 Aiken County Public Schools' Principal of the Year Honor Court. The winning principal will be named June 4 during the annual Stars of Public Education staff recognition banquet. +2 Garen Cofer named director of Adult Education Center Garen Cofer has been named the new director of the Aiken County Adult Education Center and w The Aiken County School Board approved Holt's appointment Tuesday at its regular meeting. My time as a high school teacher and administrator was so rewarding. Ever since I left that environment, I have really missed a lot of the things I enjoyed at the high school level and felt I had a good skill set for, Holt said Wednesday in a news release from the Aiken County Public School District. Having spent the majority of my life in Aiken County, I have always been impressed by the tradition, community and pride that has been present at Aiken High School and displayed by teachers, students and alumni. Being a part of that legacy as an administrator was very attractive to me. Holt said he especially is looking forward to working with Aiken High's Cambridge International program. It really combines High Schools That Work and the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate all into one, and thats very exciting, he said. Aiken High is the first Cambridge International school in South Carolina. The Cambridge model focuses on creative thinking, inquiry and problem solving to prepare independent learners for an increasingly globalized world, according to the school district. The program also allows students to earn college credits while in high school. Aiken County Schools Superintendent Dr. Sean Alford said Holt has a proven track record as a dedicated, community-focused principal and forward-thinking administrator in Aiken County Public Schools. Dr. Holt has performed in an outstanding capacity in his administrative assignments, and we are thrilled to have his expertise and energy at Aiken High School for the 2019-20 school year, Alford said. Aiken High School has been uniquely positioned in our school district for great things in the future, and we look forward to everything they will accomplish and achieve under Dr. Holts leadership. In addition to his two principal positions in Aiken County, Holt has been a social studies teacher and then an assistant principal at South Aiken High School. Holt completed his doctoral studies in educational innovation at Augusta University after earning an Educational Specialist degree in educational leadership at Georgia Regents University. He also earned a Master of Arts degree in educational administration from the University of South Carolina in Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts degree in secondary education from USC Aiken. Current Aiken High School Principal Garen Cofer has accepted a new position during the 2019-20 school year as the director of the Aiken County Adult Education Center. 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. Abu Dhabis Burjeel Hospital has announced that it has successfully completed the Middle Easts first spine surgery to be conducted on the advanced lateral-to-prone (L2P) platform, an innovation delivered by global medical-technology provider Hill-Rom. The surgery was performed by Prof Amr El Shawarbi, consultant neurosurgeon and medical director of Neurosciences (VPS). The procedure, named oblique lateral interbody fusion (OLIF), which was carried out on April 23, used Hill-Roms Allen Advance Table L2P Platform, which is specifically designed for flexibility and safety during complex surgical operations. John Sunil, CEO, Burjeel Hospital, said: It is a great honour for us to be working with one of the leading global medical technology companies. The top-quality bed provided by Hill -Rom fits perfectly into our facility and the successful surgery reflects on our journey to maintain our standards as a highly reliable organisation. As leaders in the healthcare sector, we at Burjeel Hospital firmly believe that advanced technology and innovation is ushering a new era in quality care. It is enabling us to do so much more and also creating the best possible outcomes for our patients. Shawarbi said: The new technology provided by Hill-Rom through the Allen L2P Advance Surgical Table allows to reposition patients with an assurance of causing no harm and providing easy access for surgeons to reposition their patients. The L2P platform will shorten surgery time, reduce tissue injury, ensure better and safer performance to allow patients early mobilisation and reduce the amount of anasthesia given to them. It delivers an easy-to-use, flexible patient-positioning system for lateral spine surgery, also enabling smooth patient repositioning from lateral to prone, via Hill-Rom's 90-degree patient-rotation technology. A carbon-fibre platform provides superior fluoroscopic access during surgical procedures and an integrated, inflatable air-bladder provides further flexibility in patient movement. The system also locks at 90-degree intervals, features C-Arm and O-Arm access, and is functional for patients up to 181kg, said a statement. Hisham Hout, president, Middle East Africa, Turkey and Indian Sub-Continent at Hill-Rom, said: Hill-Roms Allen Advance Table series is at the very centre of our mission to improve treatment outcomes for every patient and caregiver. The systems versatility benefits the entire process and all of its stakeholders, delivering comfort, security and flexibility of treatment options during procedures. Samer Masri, managing director, FourMed said: Our mission is to provide high quality, innovative and cost-effective solutions to the healthcare sector in the region. Hill-Rom has been a frontrunner in delivering superior quality products and services and better understand patient requirements. We are pleased to associate with them and continue our efforts to deliver service excellence across all areas of patient care. Hill-Roms healthcare solutions in concert with Burjeel Hospitals expertise are driving better patient outcomes, and we are proud to support their journey. TradeArabia News Service GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip There has been speculation that Egypt has given up on mediating a reconciliation between rival Palestinian factions Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Fatah in the West Bank, but so far Egypt hasn't said it will throw in the towel. Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ziyad al-Nakhaleh told Al-Mayadeen May 7, Egypt will no longer oversee the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Nakhaleh arrived in Cairo May 3 upon invitation from Egypt to meet with intelligence officials to discuss the Palestinian political situation. Nakhaleh added in the interview that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is determined to strip the resistance of its weapons and consider the Palestinian resistance movements militias. Abbas said he will not return to Gaza as long as there are weapons, a situation Abbas doesn't expect to happen, Nakhaleh said. A high-ranking source in the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, which is trying to mediate a Palestinian reconciliation, told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The reconciliation has reached a dead end, but Egypt has not made a decision to end its mediation. The source added, Still, Egypt is upset that its previous efforts on the reconciliation issue have failed. To add insult to injury, Fatah took a sudden and unilateral step to form a new government without a national consensus. A main sticking point is the conflicting positions of Fatah and Hamas regarding ways to end the Israeli occupation. "Abbas insists on a legal and diplomatic track as a way to push the international community to pressure Israel to end its occupation, and he rejects armed resistance. Hamas, for its part, insists on armed resistance," the source said. Egypt intervened and proposed forming a factional commission reporting to the Palestine Liberation Organization to limit and control weapons. The source noted, The proposition [to form this commission] would have succeeded if it werent for additional spokes in the wheels, mainly Abbas refusing to integrate Hamas employees in Gaza within the PA framework and disburse their salaries. Additionally, Hamas didn't hand over the Gaza rule completely to the consensus government that Hamas and Fatah agreed to form in 2014. Hamas continued to govern some official institutions, like the security apparatus. Hamas spokesman Abdullatif al-Kanou blamed Fatah and its leader for the impasse. He told Al-Monitor, Abbas is obstructing the reconciliation, and Egypt is well aware of that. A major obstacle facing the reconciliation is Fatahs lack of faith in the national partnership rule, not just with Hamas but with all factions," he said. "Abbas is monopolizing Palestinian decision-making. He continued, When Fatah starts believing in partnership, the Palestinian division will no longer have a place. Meanwhile, he said, the dead end the reconciliation has reached can't harm Egypt-Hamas relations, as they are ongoing and continue to develop," adding, "Hamas and Egypt are in contact regarding several issues, mainly expanding trade and promoting border security." Abdullah Abdullah, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, told Al-Monitor, Although the reconciliation is frozen, I dont think Egypt has given up its sponsorship of the issue. He added, We reached a good reconciliation agreement in Cairo on Oct. 12, 2017, stating that Hamas would hand over control of Gaza to the consensus government. But we were shocked when an explosion targeted the convoy of then-Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah when he entered Gaza on March 13, 2018. This act revealed Hamas rejection of the reconciliation. Hamas is more interested in reaching a truce with Israel than reconciling with Fatah, according to Abdullah. Through a truce, Hamas wants to tighten its grip on the Gaza Strip, while Israel wants to cement the Palestinian rift and ensure that the PA will not return to Gaza, he added. Iyad al-Qara, a political analyst and journalist for the Hamas-affiliated Felesteen newspaper, told Al-Monitor, Nakhalehs claims that Egypt will stop overseeing the reconciliation indicate Egypts inability to pressure Abbas to commit to the reconciliation. He added, Since Hamdallahs convoy was targeted in March 2018 and Hamas accused PA intelligence of plotting the operation to foil the reconciliation, no progress has been achieved at this level. Egypt felt there was no more hope. Qara said Egypt has become convinced that Abbas leadership of the PA is complicating the reconciliation. Abbas is not cooperating in his stances with the Egyptian brokerage on several issues, mainly the truce between Gaza and Israel," Qara said. Political analyst Ahmed al-Shiqaqi, a reporter at the PIJ-affiliated al-Istiqlal newspaper, told Al-Monitor, Egypt is frustrated because of the reconciliation deadlock. Active Palestinian parties are now convinced the reconciliation is a distant prospect after Abbas took unilateral steps mainly disbanding the Palestinian Legislative Council and forming a new government without the participation of Hamas and the PIJ. Shiqaqi expects Egypts efforts for reconciliation to continue if it first succeeds in brokering a truce between Gaza and Israel. He added, Egypts vision now is to seek truce first then reconciliation. Qara agrees Egypt is now prioritizing a real truce between Gaza and Israel because it believes this issue is more pressing. Without a truce, the region will continue to witness battles between Israel and Gaza," he said. CAIRO Serious and swift actions to integrate the shadow economy in the official one are being made in Egypt. Prominent officials at the Ministry of Finance revealed May 6 that during its May 6-20 visit to Egypt the International Monetary Fund mission revises the reports on the performance of the Egyptian economy, including the governments plan to integrate the informal sector into the formal economy. Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said during a May 7 press conference at the ministrys headquarters that the Egyptian government has finalized the drafting of a bill regulating micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to ensure the integration of the informal economy into Egypts official one. A well-informed source at the Ministry of Finance, who declined to be named, told Al-Monitor that the government will submit the bill to parliament soon to allow the latter to discuss and ratify the bill, whether as is or after adding amendments. The source refrained from giving further information. The shadow economy refers to all business activities and enterprises mostly micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that operate under the states radar, contrary to the laws in force and without declared profits calculated in the gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, they are neither subjected to quality control nor tax supervision. A shadow economy is common in developing countries such as Egypt, and mostly includes restaurants, street food carts, street vendors, vendors in informal markets and unlicenced factories. There are different estimations as to the volume of Egypts shadow economy. Tarek Tawfik, chairman of the Federation of Egyptian Industries, noted April 15 that the shadow economy makes up 50% of the total Egyptian official economy. Former Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said at a press conference in November 2017 that the informal economy consists of 22% of Egypts official economy worth 8.2 trillion Egyptian pounds (roughly $481 billion). The state is giving special attention to the integration of the shadow economy enterprises into the official economy system. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on May 16, 2018, all parts of the informal economy to join the formal one by legalizing their statuses, offering them a five-year exemption from all taxes and tariffs in return. Speaking to Al-Monitor, Wael Nahas, an economic expert and financial consultant for a number of large investment companies, explained the states attention to such integration. He said that the state seeks to include the shadow sector in the formal one in order to increase its tax revenues, and that the commodities the informal economys institutions sell would be subject to the value-added tax when said institutions become part of the formal economy. He added that when included in the formal sector, and once the five-year exemption period is over, these companies would be subject to a tax on profits. A street vendor selling clothes in the Cairo district of Sayeda Zeinab told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, We know that the state is trying to make our businesses part of a legal economy to obtain more tax [revenues], which we are totally against. This is because taxation will lead us to lower profits and subsequently force us to increase prices on goods we sell to our customers. This is inconvenient for the popular areas such as Sayeda Zeinab, which mostly accommodates poor and low-income residents." He added, The state needs to realize that street vendors and the cheap goods they sell create a balance in the face of the high prices that its annual raise on fuel prices has caused. Kamal Amin, a street food vendor in Cairo's al-Amiriyeh area, told Al-Monitor that he would rather become a part of the formal economy, because the states licenses are only granted to restaurants, not to those selling food on the street. He noted that he cannot afford buying or renting a restaurant. Commenting on the reasons behind his opinion, he explained that he was issued various fines for not having the required official work permits, and added that this is costing him money that exceeds the taxes he would have paid. Rashad Abdo, an economic expert and the head of the Egyptian Forum for Economic and Strategic Studies in Cairo, told Al-Monitor that the integration of the informal sector into the formal economy does not only aim to increase the state's tax revenues, it also seeks subjecting the various economic activities to the relevant parties supervision, depending on the activity. For instance, the street food carts would be subjected to the supervision of the Ministry of Health and Population to make sure that the food they serve is fit for human consumption. He indicated that another goal is to appraise the real GDP per capita to identify the real poverty and unemployment rates and their spatial distribution. This would help the state to identify the affected locations in order to fight the issues. He added that the state would not be able to achieve such a goal in the absence of an evaluation of the largest part of its economy and GDP that the shadow economy represents. Commenting on the obstacles to the integration of the shadow economy in the official one, Abdo noted that such attempts were made initially under the rule of former President Hosni Mubarak, but failed for two reasons. The non-application of the law on shadow businesses has been one obstacle; some shadow businesses paid the excutive officials bribes to have them turn a blind eye to their cases. The second obstacle is the lack or abscence of incentives that would encourage these businesses to join the official economy. Abdo concluded by stating that the states success in integrating the shadow economy into the official one depends on the strict enforcement of the law on the small and medium-sized enterprises that refrain from legalizing their statuses, and on encouraging them to legalize their statuses, at the same time, via tax exemptions and loan facilities, to help them develop their businesses. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran will force the United States to retreat by "resistance," which he described as the only option against unrelenting US pressure. During a meeting with the country's top political elites, including President Hassan Rouhani and parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, Khamenei dismissed the possibility that the United States and Iran would go to war, stating that the Americans understand that any such conflict will not serve their interests. Khamenei reasserted his earlier stance that dialogue with the current US government is not an option: "As long as the United States is what it is now negotiating is but poison, and with this current administration that poison is twice [as lethal]." Khamenei praised Iran's missile program, stressing that it remains nonnegotiable. He underlined Iran's "self-sufficiency drive," which he said is being pursued by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). On the economic front, however, Khamenei admitted that Iranians, particularly the poor and the middle class, were under strain. At the same time, he rejected the idea that the economy is in a state of deadlock. The Americans "are right, these sanctions are unprecedented," he said. "But the point is that the Islamic Republic is made up of a powerful metal." Hard-liners took pride in Khamenei's statements, interpreting them as a sign of Iran's steadfastness. "It is the first time in the past 230 years that we are facing a superpower that has no courage for a military strike against Iran," wrote Abdollah Ganji, the editor-in-chief of Javan, which represents the views of the IRGC. "The supreme leader clarified the line: They [Americans] seek to negotiate over our points of strength. Such a negotiation is poison," Ganji added. But pessimism still prevailed among critics of the Islamic Republic, who argued that the continuous confrontation will not benefit Iranians. "There will be no war, nor any talks, but we will starve to death," one user wrote on Twitter, referring to Iran's economic hardship. Khamenei's speech was his first public reaction to a recent military buildup by the United States in the Persian Gulf, which has triggered speculations that the two sides are inching closer to a full-blown war. Yet, despite US threats, the official line adopted by Iranian authorities, even those who advocate rapprochement, has been one of defiance. "Increasing American military presence will push the region toward suicidal instability," tweeted Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a Reformist lawmaker who heads the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. "Thousands of non-Iranian warriors will move against the US and its regional allies, people who have lost at least one of their family members to US-made weapons. The Persian Gulf is in dire need of de-escalation." In yet another sign that it is not ready for compromise, Iran took a step forward in implementing a recently announced decision about "reducing its commitments" under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Tasnim, a conservative news agency, reported that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has now started putting into practice the measures, which were ratified by Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Under the new arrangements, Iran will no longer comply with a cap on its stock of low enriched uranium, which previously would have to be exported once it exceeded the 300-kilogram limit on uranium hexafluoride. As for its stockpile of heavy water, Iran will no longer commit to shipping excess water for storage in Oman when it passes the 130-ton threshold. On May 3, the Donald Trump administration revoked the sanctions waivers that allowed Iran to export low enriched uranium in return for natural uranium, and also to store Iranian heavy water abroad. Tasnim's report quoted an "informed source" as saying that, in the days to come, media representatives will be invited to cover the latest developments related to those measures at the Natanz and Arak facilities. Activities at the two sites were among the thorniest and most contentious issues during the nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers. The campus of Tehran University, Iran's oldest modern educational center, had a tense day May 13 as hundreds of students held rallies against mandatory hijab regulations they said have become more restrictive than ever. The students argue that a set of new laws imposed by university officials are worsening the educational environment by pressuring female students and provoking unnecessary tension. Some of those students claimed that as part of the new restrictions, university officials have allowed "morality police" patrols inside the campus enforce hijab regulations. Those patrols, already a highly controversial police practice, have been operating for years on the streets in the capital Tehran and other large cities, issuing warnings to women in what is deemed lax hijab." Tehran University's cultural affairs head, however, dismissed the idea of such patrols. Majid Sarsangi noted that the university's own security personnel have been active on campus to give "warnings" to those who "disrespect" the cultural norms, especially during the holy month of Ramadan. But the students maintain that new regulations come as part of a recently intensified crackdown on personal freedoms including an official order from the country's Ministry of Science setting out oversight and disciplinary action for certain social media activities. While reading out a final communique, the protesting students were purportedly attacked by a group of angry men. The protesters claimed that the attackers were non-students from outside the university and affiliated with the Basij, a conservative group with a history of violent responses to Iran's student movements. One video posted online showed such forces entering the campus as they chanted "God is Great." But the violence did not apparently affect just the students protesting mandatory hijab. A viral picture purportedly showed a protester trying to kick a female student in full hijab and wearing a chador. Students with conservative leanings also released videos of what they said were counter-rallies they had held against the main protests, which they claimed were instigated and manipulated by "leftist" forces with an anti-Islamic agenda. While the films and comments inundated social media, official news outlets remained largely silent on what happened on the Tehran University campus. Mardomslalari, which follows a pro-Reform editorial line, made a passing reference to the tensions, mainly focusing on the views of the university officials rather than those of the protesters. "Bread, jobs and freedom," some of the students chanted, indicating that the demands transcended the hijab issue and encompassed economic grievances including the high unemployment facing many educated Iranians. Tehran University has been an iconic epicenter of Iran's student movements. During the nationwide rallies that culminated in the collapse of the Shahs rule in 1979, the university has played a leading role in raising public awareness and mobilizing anti-establishment forces. In the post-revolution era, that role has by and large maintained its vigor. In 1999, an unspecified number of students were reportedly killed after their dormitory in central Tehran was hit in an overnight attack by angry mobs widely understood to be pro-government plainclothes forces. Several students were said to have been thrown out of windows and balconies. Similar incidents occurred in 2003 and again in 2009, when students sympathizing with the Green Movement shaped the backbone of mass protests against the country's disputed presidential election that year. Whether the new protests at Tehran University will continue in the days to come may depend to a great extent upon the way university authorities will choose to contain the outrage. There are already calls across social media not only for students at other universities to join in solidarity, but also for people from different walks of life to hold strikes as the government is squeezed by multiple outside pressure campaigns. Im telling you, I havent got involved with this and I dont believe I will get involved with this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on March 23. He was responding to Channel 12 interviewer Keren Marciano's question on whether he would advance legislation granting him immunity from prosecution if reelected April 9. My associates brought this up without my knowledge, said the man suspected of bribery and breach of trust. Netanyahu continued to play dumb during the surprise interview he gave ahead of the elections. Let us assume that the prime ministers allies went behind his back to initiate a legal reform designed to keep him out of jail. However, according to what he himself admitted to in the interview, he has been aware at least since end of March that his associates were trying to promote legislation that would place his personal interest far above the publics. He should have instructed them to stop their disgraceful efforts rather than appointing them as ministers in the government he is forming, or as chairs of Knesset committees. Instead of ordering them to stop, he has authorized them to conduct negotiations on his behalf with his prospective coalition partners. Netanyahu did not condemn or even deny that his get out of jail card, and that of other Knesset members suspected of criminal wrongdoing, is the focus of contacts his associates are conducting with the ultra-Orthodox and right-wing parties known as the Likuds natural partners. His associates are well aware of past Supreme Court rulings that struck down Knesset committee decisions granting immunity to lawmakers accused of corruption violations such as bribery or breach of trust. The court has ruled on several occasions that the committee was authorized to reject a lifting of immunity only if it was convinced that the attorney general had indicted a certain Knesset member out of political or other inappropriate considerations. Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, who heads the Likud partys negotiating team along with Natan Eshel, the Netanyahu familys yes man, are now attempting a preemptive strike. They are demanding that any agreement with potential government partners to form the next coalition include support for legislation preventing the Supreme Court from overriding laws and government decisions on the grounds of irrationality and disproportionality. In fact, the current proposal is even larger than previous controversial proposals for an override clause, as it refers not only to Knesset laws but also to government administrative decisions. Such legislation, known as the expanded override clause would be the death knell of the separation of powers, one of the basic principles of any enlightened democratic regime. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has announced plans to indict Netanyahu on charges relating to abuse of power and authority in order to promote personal interests, pending a hearing. Now, the Likud leader and/or his representatives are abusing the power voters granted the party in the recent elections to advance Netanyahus private interests. Attorney Joshua Shofman, who served for 14 years as deputy attorney general for legislative affairs, told Al-Monitor this week that if the immunity issue comes up within the coalition contacts and is reflected in agreements among the future government parties, the attorney general might have to intervene. Any involvement by Netanyahu in attempts to change the immunity law could be perceived as a conflict of interest, Shofman said. I assume that the reason he keeps saying that he is not dealing with this issue is that he does not want to tie himself in any way to those who are dealing with the issue with the fairly declared goal of preventing his indictments, he added. He noted that not only does the Likud have to present all written agreements with its coalition partners to the Knesset prior to a vote of confidence in the new government, it must also notify the Knesset whether there are any oral agreements related to the formation of the government. Another issue before the coalition negotiators, which also relates closely to Netanyahus personal interests, has to do with the Knesset vote on the appointment of the next state comptroller, expected on June 2. In an opinion piece on May 13 in Haaretz, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Or, who served as deputy director-general of the state comptrollers office, and attorney Shlomo Gur, formerly director-general of the Ministry of Justice, pointed out that the state comptroller was in charge of examining the conflict of interest declarations of prospective ministers and deputy ministers. The two, members of an NGO dedicated to public probity, noted further that the comptroller is the one who appoints the Permits Committee authorized to grant ministers waivers on various issues. This is a powerful position and one of great personal responsibility, as we are seeing these days, they wrote in a barely veiled reference to the committees rejection of Netanyahus demand for a waiver that would allow him to accept funds from a wealthy cousin for his legal defense. During deliberations on Netanyahus request to receive money from his cousin, steel tycoon Nathan Milikowsky, and an additional businessperson, certain facts came to light, raising suspicions of a conflict of interest between Netanyahus position as finance minister in the past and his cousins Israeli business holdings. In January 2019, Comptroller Joseph Shapira asked Attorney General Mandelblit to check why Netanyahu had received $300,000 from Milikowsky without reporting it to the Permits Committee. The comptroller provided Mandelblit with a document detailing allegedly false reporting by Netanyahu since being elected prime minister in 2009 regarding his personal assets. On May 13, the Permits Committee notified Netanyahus legal team that it would not reexamine his request to accept money from his cousin until he revokes his previous refusal to provide it with information regarding his assets in Israel and abroad, without exception. The committee also instructed the prime minister to provide detailed explanations regarding the nature of his links with the prospective donors, the extent of his legal fees, details of the fees paid to his lawyers so far, and an explanation of why he requires help from others to fund his legal defense. This summer, a new state comptroller will be entrusted with the keys to the Netanyahu familys declarations of capital. Knowledgeable sources say this could also be the key to Netanyahus exit door from his office with its comfortable armchair to the hard courtroom bench. All signs indicate that Israel is moving rapidly toward a constitutional crisis, unprecedented in the countrys history. It will be an apocalyptic event, centered on an all-out clash between two of the major branches of government: the judicial and the executive. It would be a situation in which the Supreme Court would overturn the rulings of the legislative body the Knesset which would, in turn, overturn the rulings of the Supreme Court. Trapped in the middle of this melee would be the police, the state attorneys office and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, with none of them knowing who to follow. It would be the kind of governmental chaos that none of the founders of the Jewish State imagined, just 71 years after the countrys founding. Throughout his years as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has been wary of assaulting the honor, status and independence of the Supreme Court. He also protected the authority and honor of the various bodies charged with enforcing the law, with particular emphasis on the attorney generals office. All efforts to restrict the attorney general or rein in the powers of the Supreme Court were thwarted by Netanyahu in one way or another, ever since he first came to power in 1996. He was not acting out of ideological conviction. Rather, he was reacting out of fear. Netanyahu knew that the various agencies charged with enforcing the law could put an end to his rule through a series of investigations and indictments, just as they did to his predecessor Ehud Olmert. He was not ready to challenge the system yet, so he presented himself as someone who recognized the systems status and defended its independence. All this changed over the last two years, for egoistic reasons. Until just a few years ago, Netanyahu refused to believe that the legal system would turn on him. He thought that he would be immune to investigation, mainly because of the control he wielded over the most important people in the system. He made sure that the attorney general, who could approve or prevent an investigation of the prime minister, would be appointed by him. He influenced the selection of police commissioners and the heads of their investigative divisions. In other words, he slept well at night. It worked, too, at least in the first few years. During Yehuda Weinsteins term in office, any material pertaining to Netanyahu that made it to the attorney generals office was filed away without any significant investigation. But then came Mandelblit. He was also one of Netanyahus own people, having been appointed by the prime minister in 2013 to serve as Cabinet secretary. In other words, he owed Netanyahu everything. Nevertheless, things started to deteriorate. Similarly, the police commissioner appointed by Netanyahu, the former Shin Bet senior officer Roni Alsheikh, failed to provide the goods as expected. He started looking into the different incidents, leading to a full-blown investigation, which led, in turn, to three indictments (pending a hearing). Within just two years, Netanyahu found himself transformed from an omnipotent leader, completely immune to the legal system, to someone accused of bribery. He responded by declaring war. These days, Netanyahu is busy putting together a coalition based on a very simple principle, i.e., erecting a wall of immunity around the prime minister. Everything else is secondary. If his potential coalition partners want him to establish a Palestinian state in exchange for immunity, they would get exactly that. It is Netanyahus good fortune that he is dealing with a right-wing coalition, which is demanding annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the shattering of the legal system and the gradual dismantling of democracy itself. Netanyahu goes along willingly with all of these demands. The bundle of legislation now being prepared in the backrooms of the coalition negotiations will turn Israel into another Turkey or some Middle Eastern version of Poland and Hungary, two countries that lost some of the most prominent features of democratic governance when the far right came to power. The constitutional crisis will look like this: The Knesset will pass a law making it easy for Netanyahu to hide behind his parliamentary immunity and shelve the indictments against him until he completes his term as prime minister. (Netanyahu wants to reinstate the 2005 immunity law, which enabled the Knesset Committee to overturn the attorney generals decision of lifting the immunity of a Knesset member.) The legislation will be brought before the Supreme Court, which will almost certainly overturn it. In a previous ruling, the Supreme Court determined that the only way a member of the Knesset under indictment can avoid the threat of legal proceedings is by proving that the attorney general acted unreasonably in submitting the indictment against him. In other words, Netanyahu would have to prove that Mandelblit is harassing him for illegitimate reasons. In order to remove the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning the new legislation, the Knesset will pass another law, containing the Override Clause, removing the Supreme Courts power to overturn Knesset legislation and also procedural decisions. The decision to grant Netanyahu immunity is a procedural decision, which will be legitimized through the aforementioned legislation despite the Supreme Court. How will the Supreme Court react? According to one scenario, it would overturn that legislation, too, based on the argument that democracy is defending itself. This would leave Israel facing a situation unlike anything it has ever faced before. The Knesset passes a law (the Immunity Law), the Supreme Court overturns it and the Knesset removes the Supreme Courts power to overturn legislation (the Override Clause), only to have that overturned by the Supreme Court, too. What does the attorney general do then? Does he indict the prime minister anyway, based on the Supreme Courts ruling, or does he fold? How do the police respond? What about the Israeli public? What do government officials do? Israel is now divided into two camps, almost equal in strength. About half of all Israelis consider Netanyahu to be the modern-day manifestation of the messiah, the immortal messenger of God, immune from indictments and all the other nonsense that pervades this world. These people consider everyone who conspires to bring Netanyahu down, as working in the service of Israels enemies. The other half of the Israeli public sees Netanyahu the same way that former Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir once did, when he described Netanyahu a populist angel of destruction, who would burn the house down with everyone in it just to avoid the risk of facing justice. This half of the population sees Netanyahu as the greatest enemy of Israeli democracy. Furthermore, as an internal enemy, he is far more dangerous than all of Israels external enemies, and there is no shortage of them. How will this conflict be decided? Right now, there is no way of knowing. The opposition, particularly the Blue and White party, promises an uncompromising fight in the Knesset, the courts and the streets. They intend to bring out the center-left supporters of the kind of liberal democracy originally intended for Israel, for a series of massive demonstrations. This, they believe, will underscore the fact that millions of Israelis are prepared to defend the Supreme Court with their bodies. Will Netanyahu step back at the last moment? We will all find out over the next few months. When Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz completed his first address to the Knesset May 13, the first person to jump up and rush to the podium to congratulate him was number two on his list, Knesset member Yair Lapid. It was hard to miss Lapids gesture, which included a warm hug followed by a pat on the back. He looked like a teacher glowing with pride after his student passed his rhetoric exam with flying colors. From the sidelines, at least, it looked like the two men had a cordial relationship. The same was true of a photo Gantz posted to Twitter shortly before his speech. It showed him and Lapid sitting together, smiling and acting like old buddies. The Knesset in action, Gantz wrote in the caption. Blue and White was established before the April 9 election. Lapids Yesh Atid partnered with Gantz new Israel Resilience Party, a union that won them 35 Knesset seats. But will the strong pre-election partnership survive? The problem is that beneath the surface and more recently, above it as well a very different picture seems to be emerging, one of growing tension within the partys leadership. Apparently, the main source of this tension is differences of opinion over the practical strategy that the largest opposition party should adopt. So the public gestures and Mondays tweets should be taken with a healthy dose of suspicion. Perhaps more telling was the odd way both party leaders acted in the Knesset on Monday. They almost seemed like leaders of two separate parties. Lapid called a special press conference at noon and then stood alone on the podium to address the journalists in reaction to news of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advancing immunity measures. It was an opportunity for Lapid to deliver a very focused and aggressive opposition screed against Netanyahus moves, claiming they are intended to spare him from his impending legal proceedings. Lapid explained that Netanyahu needs time to form his get-out-of-jail-free government in order to pass the Immunity Law and Override Clause, which is basically the law in Turkey. It is a law that will turn us into [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogans Turkey. With all due respect to Lapids remarks, what really intrigued the press was Gantz conspicuous absence. Why wasnt he standing beside Lapid? Was this the beginning of a split? Lapid pushed back against these questions adroitly, sending the message that it all was business as usual in Blue and White. He suggested that the press wait to hear Gantz speech. But the party did not hold its weekly Knesset meeting that day, and the rumors continued to fester. Gantz speech to the Knesset plenum just a few hours later was much more moderate, promising to fight for the rule of law in the squares, in the neighborhoods, in the schools, in the media and in the legal arena. As Blue and White stated that scheduling issues kept it from holding a party meeting that day, some observers commented that every party has its disputes among the leadership and over the agenda, just like [late Labor seniors] Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres did in their day. However, Blue and White is not the Labor Party, whose members had a party mechanism in place, along with an organizational structure and a legacy to hold them together. In contrast, Blue and White was formed just a few months ago, and most of its members are relative unknowns who did not go through primaries and were not active politicians. So visibility is extremely important. A big party like Blue and White, with 35 seats, must show off its tangible strength in the Knesset. This was especially on an important day like Monday, when it became chillingly clear that Netanyahu will do everything to avoid standing trial. On a day like that, Blue and White should have closed ranks and charged ahead as a consolidated force. Instead, the partys two most prominent leaders set out separately for battle, and it ended up weakening the front. Lapid is the key to understanding whats really going on behind the scenes. His recent actions make it perfectly clear that he has no plans to be a silent backdrop to the chairman. Lapid intends to stand out, even if at Gantz expense. In practice, this means that while Gantz proceeds at a moderate pace, Lapid is storming the media and grabbing more attention for himself than any other figure in the partys leadership. Since the election, Lapid has returned to his old rhetoric attacking the ultra-Orthodox while Gantz expresses reservations. Unlike Lapid, he considers the ultra-Orthodox factions potential partners in the future. Lapid is dismissive of this approach, claiming that if Blue and White shows strength, the ultra-Orthodox will cooperate. As part of this strategy, Lapid paid a visit to the periphery town Yerucham on May 12 and toured the Phoenicia bottle factory, which is facing the risk of closure. He did so after the extremist Ger Hassidic sect ordered its followers to boycott the factory because its production line operates on the Sabbath. This is the first step toward a Jewish-law state, and we must not allow that to happen, Lapid declared during his visit. It was, in fact, a show of independence by the number-two member of Blue and White who wanted to signal that he is also chairman of Yesh Atid, an independent party with 15 Knesset members of its own on the Blue and White list. Lapid was scheduled to be accompanied on this visit by a new Knesset member, former Yerucham Mayor Michael Biton, or at least thats what the press release said. But Biton was conspicuously absent, arriving only after Lapid left. Were there sudden issues that kept him from arriving on time? Sources in Blue and White believe that Biton, who is aligned with Gantz, did not want to be associated with Lapids assault on the ultra-Orthodox. That is why, in an interview with the ultra-Orthodox Hadrei Hareidim website, Biton expressed reservations over Lapids position toward the ultra-Orthodox. A source close to Lapid told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Lapid disagrees with Gantz approach to the ultra-Orthodox and his desire to embrace them. It is a source of tension between them, because Lapid wont toe the line with Gantz. He thinks it is a mistake that will ultimately be harmful to the Blue and White Party. There is also another reason some in Yesh Atid are critical of Gantz, who will soon hold the official title of leader of the opposition. Over a month has passed since the election, yet so far, he has failed to decide who will be the party's spokesperson. Gantz has no grace period before facing off against Netanyahus rapacious approach to politics, and of this Lapid is well aware. The popular former chief of staff at number four on the list, Gabi Ashkenazi, has all but disappeared from the political arena since the election and Gantz has failed to stand out. Lapid has thrown himself into the vacuum with a modicum of elegance. The battle over who will ultimately control the party has not yet become an open conflict. There is no blatant rift in the partys leadership. There is, however, tension between the advisers working for Gantz and Lapid. Blue and White is a party with one item on its agenda: seizing the reins of power from Netanyahu. But it got off on the wrong foot, so now it must invent itself on the opposition benches. About 200 million human beings in Europe and throughout the world will view the final Eurovision event taking place this year in Tel Aviv, with 41 participating countries. And thousands of tourists are in Israel for the popular Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would love to eliminate worked hard this past year to try to produce the most splendid, impressive, and largest event in the history of Eurovision, which was founded in 1956. The grandiose semifinal show May 14 adopted the competitions motto, "Dare to Dream," and even persuaded Madonna to sing at the finals. Madonnas recruitment to the artistic part of the competition was made possible by the donation of $1 million by Israeli-Canadian millionaire Sylvan Adams and half a million dollars more by another philanthropist who wants to remain anonymous. In its desire to present artistic power, Israel is making a statement to the world: that the country is not what you thought. It certainly does not resemble what you see on television news broadcasts about Gaza or the West Bank. The last time the Eurovision contest was held in Israel was 20 years ago, in Jerusalems International Convention Center. Much has changed since then: This time, Israel knew that if it held the competition in the holy city, many countries would consider boycotting the event. And the local Jerusalem ultra-Orthodox Jews would also not make it easy for the organizers. Tel Aviv was chosen as a compromise. The Israel of 2019 is far more religious, chauvinist, ultra-Orthodox and extremist than it was in 1998, when Dana International graced the event with her presence. In this spirit, the producers of the event prepared a humorous clip in the style of a musical called The Land of Sun and Honey. The clip included recommendations of sights to see in the country and sought to teach tourists something about the strange customs and the in-your-face (some would call it vulgar) behavior of the Israelis. The clip opened with Lucy Ayoub (one of the four Eurovision emcees) and Elia Greenfield (songwriter) receiving tourists in Ben Gurion Airport. Youve heard that this is a land of occupation and war, they sang, There is much more than that here. A human-rights organization, Breaking the Silence, tried to brandish a large black flag above the sea of colorful flags waving in the Eurovision site in Tel Aviv. The organization also placed a giant billboard at the entrance to Tel Aviv to remind the Eurovision tourists and Israelis that the country has another side to it that is far less smiling, happy and excited. On the left side of the sign is the lovely Tel Aviv seashore and a lifeguard hut, but on the right side is the separation wall that surrounds the West Bank city of Hebron and an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) guard station. The sign reads, Dare to dream of Freedom, which is this year's Eurovision slogan. The tourists and Israelis were also invited to join a tour with Breaking the Silence members in Hebron. Simultaneously, the organization wrote the following message on its Facebook page: Enjoy the sunny beaches and exciting nightlife, just dont forget that theres a lot more to this place than fun and games. We know its hard to tell by looking at Tel Aviv, but there is another side to Israeli society. An hour away from your hotel, throughout the occupied territories, millions of Palestinians are still living under military rule. Unsurprisingly, the Breaking the Silence sign created an uproar. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called the group a despicable organization and noted that again it finds the time to disseminate lies about the State of Israel. Erdan suggested that instead of inciting people against the settlers in the City of the Fathers, as Hebron is known, Breaking the Silence should take tourists on an introductory tour of the terrible human rights violations of the Hamas rulership in Gaza or of the Palestinian Authority that insists on funding terrorists and glorifying murderers. Politicians were not the only ones who became furious at Breaking the Silence. Many Israelis, who were raised on the narrative of the whole world is against us, felt that the organization acted as party poopers by sabotaging a rare opportunity for Israel to display itself in a better light. While European eyes are on Tel Aviv, and despite calls by boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) people and Roger Waters for a boycott of Eurovision, Israelis hope to set aside their security troubles for a moment. For just one week, they want to present Israel to the world as a high-tech powerhouse that also boasts beautiful ocean coastlines, diverse eateries for all palates, holy places for all religions and even a city like Tel Aviv, which long ago became one of the world's gay capitals. The question is the motives behind the provocative billboard. After all, the giant sign targeted tourists who did not heed BDS calls for a boycott and came to Israel only a few days after an armed conflict with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Were the Breaking the Silence people trying to dampen what little sympathy remained for Israel and instead increase international pressure on it? Surely the group knows that if it fails to convince the Israelis of the benefits of peace and ending the occupation that there is no chance that international pressure will bring about conciliation and certainly not pressure from European countries that are viewed by many Israelis as being prejudiced, even hostile to Israel, regarding the Palestinian conundrum. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Breaking the Silence CEO Avner Gvaryahu made clear that his organization has not given up on the Israelis. He said his organization continues its activities in schools and anywhere that we are given permission to enter and voice our experiences from our stint in the IDF and the injustices of the occupation. He also said the organization cannot keep silent when the [far-right] Smotrich-Netanyahu people are leading Israel into apartheid policies. The Breaking the Silence protest involving Eurovision was not a routine campaign for the group. Its leaders pondered quite a lot over the issue, but decided that this was not the time to remain silent; the occupation goes beyond internal Israeli affairs. Our political enemies, the right-wing organizations, use evangelists and work closely with fascist and even neo-Nazi groups, Gvaryahu said. We turn to people who come to celebrate, people with liberal and democratic orientations; human-rights issues are very close to their hearts. Imagine countries such as Hungary or Poland in which we see an accelerated process of the dismantling of democracy. Lets say one of them wins the competition in Tel Aviv so that the Eurovision will take place in their country next year. Dont you think there would be a struggle? Members of Polish or Hungarian civil society would surely use the opportunity to tell the international community, It is your duty not to ignore these dangerous processes, even though youll be celebrating a song competition in the very same second or minute. Gvaryahu said the Breaking the Silence protest is not designed to tell tourists, Dont come to Israel. He said, We are not in favor of boycotting Eurovision, but simply want to tell tourists celebrating freedom and equality and all the liberal values that Eurovision represents that we must not continue to hide our values in the closet. We, former soldiers, love the State of Israel but hate the occupation. Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel & Spa in Kuwait recently hosted its annual media ghabga event at the Layali Al Messilah Tent. The event was organised in celebration of the holy month of Ramadan and in recognition of the ongoing support and efforts made by the media sector. Upon arrival, the guests were welcomed by general manager at Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel & Spa, Savino Leone, along with the hotel management team. In his speech, Leone expressed his sincere appreciation to the media for their continued support and invited them to enjoy the distinctive true Ramadan hospitality of the special evening. He also extended his gratitude to Lincoln Alghanim, the diamond sponsors of Layali Al Messilah Ramadan Tent for the entire period of Ramadan. The evening was complemented by enlivening sounds of traditional live Arabic music and a sumptuous Ramadan buffet featuring a wide variety of Middle Eastern favourites as well as international delicacies. - TradeArabia News Service A picture on social media May 10 showed eight vulture carcasses lying side by side, all of them victims of poisoning. The snapshot sums up the tragedy of the griffon vulture population in the Golan Heights, which until a decade ago numbered about 130. Today, there are no more than five of them left. On May 12, the police reportedly arrested a 30-year-old man who is suspected of poisoning the vultures. The Eurasian vulture, also called the biblical vulture, weighs no more than eight kilos (about 18 pounds) and has a wingspan of up to 2.80 meters (9 feet). This vulture feeds on carcasses and is prevalent in Mediterranean basin countries. For many years, numerous vultures nested in the Gamla Stream cliffs of the Golan Heights and were a tourist attraction. Tens of thousands of visitors flocked to the nature reserve to observe the vulture colony that nested in the cliffs above the stream. However, over the years the vultures have fallen victim to systematic poisoning attempts. The worst instance of poisoning took place in 1998 when about 40 vultures were found dead after eating the carcasses of poisoned cattle or wild animals. Cattle breeders and farmers illegally scatter poison for various reasons, Ohad Hatzofe, an avian ecologist with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA), told Al-Monitor. Sometimes its because they want to eliminate predators wolves, jackals and foxes that threaten their flocks; sometimes its due to a dispute over grazing land. Most of the farmers are law-abiding citizens, but all you need is one person to place poison to harm the vultures. The reason that vultures are so vulnerable is because they live in flocks. Dozens of them surround a carcass to eat it, and if the carcass is poisoned, then all of them will be poisoned. Hatzofe is frustrated and angry, especially with regard to the current poisoning. We had equipped three of the poisoned vultures with GPS transmitters and they had tags and rings. We saw that they had stopped moving and that their body temperature fell; we understood immediately that a tragedy had taken place, he said. My greatest frustration is that I know it will happen again. There is no punishment, no control. The bullets of an entire gun cartridge are nothing compared to the potential of damage caused by poisoning. These criminals scatter substances in quantities that can poison dozens of human beings [as well]. INPA wants to use the current public outrage over the recent vulture poisoning to introduce legislation that will enable them to protect wild birds. It would be an amendment to Israel's Wildlife Protection Law in which the burden of proof would be shifted to any person found with a poisoned carcass in their possession on his land. Today, the burden of proof is on the state. With the new amendments, inspectors would be authorized to enter the private areas without a court order if they suspect poisoning. Another vital aspect that requires legislation or at least regulation is ramping up the supervision over the selling of pesticides. However, there are those who strongly object to increased regulation in this sphere. One notable example is Omri Sharon, one of the sons of deceased former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and chairman of the Israeli Cattle Breeders Association (ICBA). Sharon himself breeds cattle, sheep and goats, and he grows agricultural products. "What needs to be addressed is poison that is used illegally, Sharon told Al-Monitor, rejecting automatic accusations against cattle breeders. We cattle breeders dont even use that poison. Clear directives already exist in the law and these existing orders must be enforced. We oppose any tightening of regulation and punishment. There are 8,000 farmers in the country. The idea that someone will be allowed to freely conduct searches of farmers' storerooms is crazy. It is populistic, and its not the solution to the problem. We already suffer from overregulation and its not easy being a cattle breeder in Israel. Al-Monitor spoke to professor Yossi Leshem, a world-renowned Israeli ornithologist and senior researcher at Tel Aviv Universitys Zoology Department. He is also active in INPA. Leshem is furious at the lack of regulation and directs his anger at ICBA. The situation today is a bad joke, he said. The cattle breeders do whatever they want because they know that there is no enforcement in Israel. So they receive a fine of 5,000 Israeli shekels [$1,400] big deal. That doesnt deter a farmer who wants to kill the wolves that devoured his calves. In Spain, people are sent to prison for poisoning vultures, but not here. There was a big poisoning incident [in Israel] in 1998 in which dozens of vultures died and the police caught the perpetrator. He wasnt even slapped with a fine. If he would have spent a year in prison and paid a fine of a million shekels, the [current] tragedy would never have taken place. Leshem is not deterred by public battles. In the past, he founded the Under Our Wings initiative for the protection of vultures and other birds of prey together with the Israel Electric Corporation and INPA. He now aims to lead a widespread public campaign. The situation today is a catastrophe. Before the establishment of the state, there were a thousand pairs of vultures in Israel; today only 40 pairs remain," he said. "In Gamla, there had been 60 pairs; today, none are left. We have already recruited several public personalities to join us, including former Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein; former High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein; former head of the Police Investigations Branch Lahav 433 Meni Yitzhaki; Maj. Gen. (Res.) Noam Tibon and others. We will work together to change the law. We in INPA want to lead a public campaign under the title, Returning the Vultures to the Land of the Bible the vulture is mentioned 27 times in biblical Jewish sources and is part of the story of Israel. It just doesnt make sense to abandon it to poisoning attempts. Another threat to birds of prey that greatly troubles the organizations involved is the current establishment of electricity-producing wind turbine farms in the Golan Heights. The blades of the turbines harm birds and may kill the vultures and other large birds of prey. Due to the opposition of environmental activists, the decision was made to operate a system of observation posts and radar devices that will pinpoint birds nearing the turbine site and the engine will slow down to avoid harm to the birds. Leshem is skeptical of the plan. All this is simply bullshit. It wont work. In Spain, a thousand vultures a year are slaughtered by these blades. Two types of vultures that had been common in Israel were wiped out three decades ago. The threat to Israels birds of prey necessitate deep changes in our thinking. So long as that doesnt happen, no one should be surprised when the birds of prey population in Israel becomes history, he concluded. What was considered until a few weeks ago an estimate with high likelihood by the Israeli security establishment has turned more into a certainty in the last few days. Experts say that unless necessary, immediate, and substantive steps are taken, a violent conflict with the Palestinian Authority is unavoidable. Former army Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot expressed this concern in a May 7 conversation in Washington with President Trumps envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt. The West Bank could erupt before, during or after the presentation of the American peace plan, Eizenkot warned Greenblatt, according to a report on Channel 13, and from the moment the genie is out of the bottle, it would take five years to get it back in. In other words, Eizenkot, who ended his term four months ago and is now working at the Washington Institute in the American capital, warns of an outbreak of an extended intifada. According to the report, the situation in the West Bank is combustible and sensitive, among other things, as a result of the American cut to foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and the refusal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accept the authoritys tax revenues collected by Israel since Israel started deducting from them stipends paid by the authority to Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian Authority has been in a serious financial crisis for some time. Authority employees, including security services personnel, have been receiving only half of their monthly salaries lately and many of them cannot meet their financial commitments. Thus, many Palestinian families face imminent financial collapse, pressure is mounting and despair is felt in every corner of the West Bank, especially now during the month of Ramadan. After Eid al-Fitr, which takes place June 4, President Donald Trumps "deal of the century" is expected to be presented, which apparently includes a promise to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian infrastructure and welfare institutions. But it appears that this wont stop the fury and anger on the Palestinian street at Israel and to a great extent at the Palestinian Authority headed by Abbas, whose popularity among Palestinians is at an unprecedented low. All this puts in doubt the Palestinian Authoritys ability to sustain itself and not to collapse within a short time. The Israeli security establishments estimates that such a cataclysmic occurrence will happen grow more certain every day. What is Israel doing to prevent all this? Close to nothing. At one time official Israel lauded every move Trump took to cause economic damage to the Palestinians starting from ending aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to the cut in aid to Palestinian security mechanisms. While the Israeli security establishment warned repeatedly that an economic crisis could destroy the Palestinian Authority, the government did not listen. Instead, it rushed to advance legislation that would deduct monies from Palestinian tax revenues, ignoring the dangerous ramifications of the move. Now the moment of truth has arrived. As was reported in Al-Monitor last week, Israel tried to encourage the Qataris to invest in the West Bank and not just in Gaza, and the Qataris responded and promised extensive aid for infrastructure and job creation for Palestinians in the West Bank. But there is a long road before these plans can come to pass. In the meantime, the crisis is here and any small spark could ignite a fire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus new government, which has not yet been formed, will probably espouse an anti-Palestinian stance. Knesset member Bezalel Smortich and his colleagues in the United Right party and designated defense minister Avigdor Liberman would prevent Netanyahu from taking courageous steps to rescue a man, Abbas, they so hate. In this situation, the security establishment remains alone in the battle, with little chance of changing the reality on the ground. All that remains to do is to prepare for whats to come, and to prevent, as far as is possible, any unnecessary friction between Israelis and Palestinians that could spark the outburst. The Israel Defense Forces has recently decided to augment its presence in the field, especially at West Bank checkpoints, and to equip troops with riot dispersal gear. The police decided to prevent the entry of Jews to the Temple Mount compound on Jerusalem Day this year, which will take place June 2. This year Jerusalem Day coincides with the Ramadan fast, and friction between Jews and Muslims at such a sensitive and combustible place could be dangerous. Fearing a conflagration, the police are also considering limiting the route of the Israeli rights flag march that takes place every year in Jerusalems Muslim Quarter. These decisions could still change. A petition against the police has already been submitted to the High Court, and at the same time members of the Knesset from the United Right party and members of the Jewish Power faction, such as the provocative protester Itamar ben Gvir, will certainly pressure Netanyahu to allow Jews into the Temple Mount and to hold the flag march without restrictions. Indeed, Netanyahu might easily give in to them. In such a situation, the security establishment would find itself helpless in the face of the right-wing extremists who see actions to prevent a security escalation as capitulation to terrorism. We feel the pressure keenly, a Palestinian security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He said morale among the people charged with keeping Palestinian security is poor: People are not getting paid, they have debts, they cant bring home food for their children, their heads and hearts dont allow them to function as normal. The source said he is not connected to the security coordination that continues to exist with Israel, while also saying the atmosphere among his colleagues in the security services is bad. He said he believes the Palestinians should stop security coordination and not show Israel the other cheek. He and his colleagues have much criticism for Abbas. According to the source, the Palestinian president has not learned from Hamas leaders how to conduct himself toward Israel. Netanyahu and his government understand only force. Abbas cooperates with the Israelis and gets slapped every time. He learns nothing. See where its brought us, the source complained. The Palestinian Authority believes that the Israeli security establishment sees Palestinian despair and recognizes the danger in the Palestinian Authoritys collapse, but that the Israeli officials' hands are tied. They are responsible only for security; they have no capacity to change what Netanyahu decides, the source said. Senior Palestinian Authority officials say Israel is interested in a limited conflict that would function as a reason or an excuse to impose Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank in other words, annexation. Although this is a conspiratorial view that doesnt seem to be based on reality, it attests to the low level of trust between the two sides and the deep Palestinian fear of Israels actions in the near future. According to the Palestinian source, Palestinians consider Trumps plan, even before it has been presented and before they know what exactly it contains, as yet another blow, and as promising no chance for a positive change in their diplomatic, security and economic situation. As mentioned earlier, Eizenkot said it would take five years to get the genie back in the bottle if major violence breaks out again. From the experience of previous intifadas, each time the genie is bigger and more violent than the one before. ANKARA, Turkey A long black banner flaps in the wind down the side of the building of the Bar Association here. Its message expresses what lawyers in Turkeys capital think of the decision to cancel the Istanbul mayors election: Hukuksuzlugun tam da karssndayz! (We are totally opposed to lawlessness!) This shows how the eyes of the nations capital are turned toward a city 500 kilometers (300 miles) down the road. Across town, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan broke his Ramadan fast with the legislators of his Justice and Development Party in the party headquarters. He urged them to give their all for the new mayoral election in Istanbul. Every one of our lawmakers should call their fellow citizens in Istanbul and ask them to support our candidate, he said. Last week, after many recounts and sustained pressure from Erdogan, the Supreme Electoral Council decided to void the Istanbul mayoral election of March 31. It deposed the man who had been mayor for 19 days, Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition alliance of the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and the Good Party (Iyi). And it announced the election in Turkey's economic capital would be rerun June 23. Another politician commented on the elections nullification. Filiz Keresecioglu, the Ankara lawmaker for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), told the news website Bianet that the people in southeastern Turkey had seen the government depose their mayors many times. Now Turkey has seen that what is done in Kurdish regions can also be done in Istanbul and in the west," she said. The day after he was deposed, Imamoglu told Reuters, The Istanbul election has become a symbol for democracy. Already some un-democratic practices are emerging. The opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet devoted its front-page lead today to those Istanbulites who voted March 31 and have now been taken off the voter roll. The headline said, Missing Istanbulites. Emin Capa told the paper he was astonished when he found both his and his wifes names had been removed from the roll posted on the electoral councils website. I looked again and again because I could not believe it, he said. A second voter, Rashan Gulsan, found that not only had her name been struck off, but two people whom I dont know appear to be living in the apartment that I have occupied alone for the last 10 years. Unbelievable. The newspaper did not explain Gulsans ghostly house guests, but it seems that somebody has been adding voters from outside Istanbul to the roll. Ersin Kalaycioglu, a professor of politics at Istanbuls Sabanci University, told Al-Monitor that AKP officials had been speaking of expanding the voter roll to include hundreds of thousands of migrants who live in the city but who are registered as voters in the towns and villages from which they hail. The AKP has to bring in new voters to change the picture, Kalaycioglu said last week. Two days later the electoral council declared that the voter roll on June 23 would be the same as on March 31. But clearly somebody is trying to change the roll. Cumhuriyet took the issue to Canan Kaftancioglu, the head of the CHP in Istanbul. We know they can do anything, she said, adding the party was pursuing the matter. The paper quoted a lawyer as saying those voters who have been struck off the roll should file a written request at the Population Registration Office for the mistake to be corrected. As for the campaign itself, the ruling alliance of the AKP and the hard-right National Movement Party (MHP) will pursue different strategies to those of the opposition CHP-Iyi alliance. But both camps will try to mobilize supporters from the 15% of voters who did not cast ballots March 31. The AKP-MHP camp will ring the alarm bells that if (their supporters) dont go out and vote, they will lose Istanbul, said Sinan Ulgen, the chairman of the Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, a local think tank. He told Al-Monitor the AKP would also seek to create a sense of victimization among its supporters. The party is already doing this. Asked why the election was being rerun, the AKP candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, told a voter, Its very simple: Because they stole it. The phrase Because they stole it has become Yildirims key slogan. And unscrupulous campaigners have been coaxing young children to say it on camera. Videos are circulating on the Web in which an adult asks a child why the election is being repeated, and the child utters the slogan. Imamoglu condemned the videos as terrible. He told Bianet, I am, first of all, a father of three children. Do not ever take advantage of these children. Shame on you! The videos are the crude face of a contest to capture the sympathy vote. The role of the victim has traditionally been very influential in Turkish politics as Erdogans own political trajectory demonstrates, Ulgen told Al-Monitor. He was referring to the presidents portraying himself as the underdog opposed to the elite, as well as Erdogans having served four months in jail for incitement in 1999. For the repeat election, Yildirim will appeal for sympathy by claiming he was cheated March 31. Imamoglu, however, will try to appeal to the conscience of the AKP electorate by turning (the election) into a contest for a more robust democracy [and] the fact that he has been the victim of a democratic deficit with the decision of the Supreme Electoral Council, Ulgen said. When they play the victim card, both candidates will be addressing the grassroots of the AKP-MHP camp. As Ulgen pointed out, Imamoglu does not need to tell the opposition that he has been victimized. Instead, he will be trying to lure voters from the AKP camp. In the opposition camp, Imamoglu will also seek to mobilize those who stayed away March 31. Were going to see Imamoglu coming out stronger with a message of hope and change, that change is possible, Ulgen said. He will be telling his grassroots, Lets not squander this opportunity. It is widely said the CHP did not expect Imamoglu to win March 31, albeit by the tiny margin of 13,000 votes in an election of 9 million ballots. Now that the opposition voters have seen they can win, they will be more likely to vote. And CHP election monitors will be more determined to prevent fraud. There is one section of the electorate that both camps will endeavor to persuade: the Kurds. Nobody knows how many of Istanbuls 15 million people are Kurdish as ethnic origin is not a census question. Turkish sources tend to say the city has 2 million Kurds; Kurdish sources say 4 million. But it is known that the Kurds were decisive in Imamoglus victory. The pro-Kurdish party, the HDP, withdrew from the race for Istanbul mayor because it did not want to split the opposition vote, and its imprisoned leader, Selahattin Demirtas, told supporters to vote against the government. On May 2, in what appeared to be a bid to attract Kurdish voters, the government allowed lawyers to visit Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). It was the first such visit in eight years. We may expect some new initiatives involving Ocalan going forward to June 23, Ulgen said. He added that making gestures toward Ocalan was risky. By trying to capture the Kurdish vote, the AKP may end up alienating the nationalist vote, Ulgen said. It is said that for Yildirim to win, all that need happen is for Kurdish voters to stay at home June 23. But Abdulhakim Dash, the chairman of the Platform of Eastern and Southeastern Associations, an umbrella organization for groups that assist Kurds who migrate from southeast Turkey to Istanbul, told Al-Monitor, The people are not going to stay at home, nor are they going to vote for Binali Yildirim. Dash, who belongs to the HDP, said Kurdish voters in Istanbul were not impressed by the CHP, saying, It has nothing new to say on the Kurdish problem. Nevertheless, he said the Kurds will vote for Imamoglu to cut down the AKP. BATROUN, Lebanon Blaring music filled the air and the smell of the grilling fish overwhelmed the small beach. Dozens of people gathered around the grill to watch as the juices bubbled and dripped from the lionfishs skin. The Lebanese NGO Diaries of the Ocean launched its Eat the Lionfish campaign at Colonel Beer, a brewery and restaurant in the seaside city of Batroun, on May 11 in an effort to raise awareness about the lionfish and the significant threat it poses to the Mediterranean Sea ecosystem. The lionfish was first spotted in Lebanese waters in 2012 after entering from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal. Jina Talj, the NGOs founder, told Al-Monitor, Since then, it has spread everywhere along the coastline, especially in rocky shores, and most of our shoreline is rocky. Like 80% of it is rocky, so theres lionfish everywhere. Talj added that the lionfish has no natural predators in the Mediterranean and is able to rapidly reproduce because of that. The lionfish produces eggs all year and a single female can produce up to 2 million eggs in that time. It has a ferocious appetite and it eats everything, Talj explained. They can revert to cannibalism if they dont find enough food to eat. She said one of the lionfish that they were going to cook today had a baby lionfish in its mouth when they opened it. They are monsters! she exclaimed. Since the lionfish will eat most other fish and sea life, they threaten other species in Lebanese waters and could dominate the Mediterranean. According to Talj, the lionfish's numbers are still low, so there is still time to prevent an ecological disaster if people take action and one way of doing this is to eat it. They have very tasty meat, very nutritious. So we can increase pressure on the lionfish and control its population that way and, at the same time, we would be benefitting the fishermen, Talj explained. We would be creating an extra source of income for them and at the same time ridding our sea of this pest. Talj and Diaries of the Ocean held the event not only to promote their Eat the Lionfish campaign, but also to introduce Lebanese people to the invasive fish and to allow them to taste it. First of all, not many people know about it, she said, adding, Even fishermen! So part of our campaign is introducing fishermen to the lionfish, guiding them and supporting them with the lionfish because most of them are scared of it because of its spines. Whenever they catch it, they release it back to the sea, which is not good. It is the opposite of what we want. Prior to the campaign, members of Diaries of the Ocean talked with fishermen about the lionfish. They explained how to find the fish and the best methods and tools to catch it. They are also trying to convince restaurants to offer the lionfish on their menus so that the fishermen will have more incentives to catch them. However, due to its venomous spines, the fish has a reputation as dangerous and not edible. However, the spines are the only venomous part, and they must pierce the skin to inject the venom. Talj explained, Once we cut out the 18 venomous spines, the meat is perfectly safe to eat. Even if you keep a tiny bit of the spine or you do not clean it properly, once you heat it, the heat will denature the venom. So it is still safe to eat. Over 132 pounds of lionfish were caught along the Lebanese coast and grilled during the event, but with over 100 in attendance, each were only able to get a small taste. Lionfish is grilled at an event in Batroun, Lebanon, May 11, 2019. (Diaries of the Ocean) The lionfish was provided in part by the Dive the Med Club, a freediving and scuba school in Batroun. Volunteers took a week off of work to catch the fish. The clubs managing director, Kamal Greig, hopes that more people will demand lionfish be served in restaurants. Greig told Al-Monitor, Hopefully the taste will stick in their minds and they will start asking for it. And once they do, weve created a demand for that fish. And then the other part is teaching the fishermen to safely do the catch, giving them the equipment that they need, and therefore, you complete the cycle. He explained that the fish is not difficult to catch since it relies on its spines for protection and is not quick to flee. The challenge comes in locating the fish since it prefers deeper waters. Since the lionfish will eat nearly anything, Greig said that he and his colleagues have already begun to see the devastating effects that it can have on the seas ecosystem. We have seen a huge decline in all of the local species, he said solemnly. This has pushed us. It has given us motivation to stop what we are doing because we feel the threat. We feel that if we dont do anything about it, in 10 years time, we are not going to see anything but lionfish. Eventually it is going to be a disaster for the ecosystem. Colonel [Beer] already added a lionfish dish to the menu, she said. This is one of the objectives of the campaign, to make restaurants start selling it. Fishermen in the Batroun area helped us catch the lionfish for the event. They know about it now and that Colonel is selling it, and they know that people will be demanding the lionfish. Jamil Haddad, the owner of Colonel Beer, was quick to express his support for the campaign. Look, we are part of the sea life, Haddad told Al-Monitor. This invasive species, its killing, its eating all of the other local species. We have a responsibility. And our responsibility is to create awareness about this fish and also creating a demand for this fish. Haddad said that he was going to price lionfish on the menu lower than all of the other fish so that people will try it. He said, You can see all of the people who came for this event because they really care about nature and the sea, about the balance in the water. And people want to order it, so I believe that if you know how to market it and we really explain to people what the difficulties are, then people will order it. If not, then I will eat it every day. There appeared to already be an increase in demand, according to Talj, who said that people were already approaching her and Diaries of the Ocean and asking them to hold similar events in their areas. She smiled, They know that fishermen are catching lionfish in their area, so they want to give their support. ISTANBUL Turkey is intensifying diplomatic efforts with Russia to deescalate violence in the northwest Syrian province of Idlib, its foreign minister said Wednesday, as it seeks to stave off an all-out assault on the oppositions last stronghold that could spark a humanitarian disaster. Moscow and Ankara support opposing sides in Syrias eight-year conflict but have worked together to move the warring parties toward a political resolution. Their efforts include agreeing to a demilitarized zone last year for Idlib, which is controlled by militias fighting President Bashar al-Assads forces and where more than 3 million civilians are sheltering from the war. With Europe and the United States largely watching from the sidelines, Turkey has taken on a vigorous role in the Syrian end game and has cultivated closer ties with the war-torn countrys two other major foreign players, Iran and Russia. It's dented Turkeys relations with its Western partners, especially over Ankaras plans to buy a Russian missile defense system. Turkey and Russia will convene a working group as soon as possible to try to restore relative calm to Idlib, even as Assads army undermines the progress Ankara and Moscow have achieved, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in comments broadcast live on TV. We have intensified our efforts. The regimes aggressive stance must end, and the attacks [in Idlib] must stop. Assads troops, backed by Russia, began attacking Idlib late last month, killing as many as 400 people and forcing 150,000 others to flee the most intense fighting in the war in almost a year. Turkey has backed Assads opponents since 2011 and fears the attacks will push refugees to its border. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to rescue the deal he reached in September with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and told him in a phone call on Monday the Syrian government is seeking to sabotage Turkish-Russian cooperation. At risk is the process to draft a new constitution for a post-war Syria, Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish presidents press adviser, tweeted. The phone call coincided with media reports that Turkey and the United States were searching for a way out of their own diplomatic impasse over NATO member Turkeys purchase of the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system. Any delay or cancelation of the weapons deal could jeopardize convergence with Russia. Turkey is stuck in a difficult situation. It is trying to maneuver between Washington and Moscow and forge an independent policy in the face of enormous pressure from both countries, said Nicholas Danforth, a senior visiting fellow with the German Marshall Fund. The United States says the S-400s will compromise NATO security and that it is designed to shoot down the stealth F-35 fighter jets that Turkey is helping to build. Turkeys military, NATOs second largest, could face expulsion from the F-35 program when it takes possession of the Russian batteries in July. Ankara says it was compelled to buy the $2.5 billion anti-aircraft system because the Pentagon initially refused to sell it Patriot missiles. Last week US officials asked Ankara to postpone until 2020 delivery of the defense system to give each other time to resolve the crisis, according to press reports. But on Wednesday Cavusoglu denied Turkey would delay the purchase despite the threat of US sanctions. Acquiring the S-400s could trigger Congress Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which requires President Donald Trump to impose penalties on entities who engage in a significant transaction with the Russian intelligence or defense sector. No later than July we will know whether Turkey chooses to remain within its traditional and real Western alliance or trade that with a fictional so-called Eurasian one, said Aydin Selcen, a former Turkish diplomat who now works as an independent foreign policy analyst. Procuring the S-400s but leaving them unpacked or mothballed in Turkey, or sending those air-defense batteries to a third country like Qatar or Azerbaijan are not real options as CAATSA prescribes clearly sanctions once those are bought, he said in an interview. Sanctions could prove devastating for Turkeys brittle economy, in the throes of a recession that has driven unemployment to 14.7%, according to official job statistics released Wednesday. Taking a more cooperative stance with Washington whether by delaying the S-400 purchase or simply hinting at it would be one way to keep the economy on an even keel in the short term, Danforth told Al-Monitor. It is performing a delicate balancing act on a stormy sea. Another dispute with the United States is over territory in northeastern Syria now held by US-backed Kurdish militants whom Turkey views as terrorists. Turkey wants to take control of a safe zone there after a planned US withdrawal, while Washington has promised to protect the Kurds. Investor worries that Turkey is breaking up with the West, including backtracking on political and democratic rights, have shaved more than a quarter of the value off the lira in a year. A currency crisis erupted in August after Trump slapped largely symbolic sanctions on Turkey over its refusal to free Andrew Brunson, an American pastor jailed on espionage charges. Brunson was released in October, but other American citizens and Turks working at US diplomatic missions are either in prison or face prosecution. On Wednesday, an Istanbul court held the second hearing in the trial of Metin Topuz, who worked for the US Drug Enforcement Agency in Istanbul and was arrested in late 2017 on accusations he collaborated with coup plotters who failed to oust Erdogan in 2016. Topuz denies the allegations and faces life in prison if convicted. Jeffrey Hovenier, Washingtons acting ambassador in Ankara, was quoted as telling reporters at the courthouse there was "no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing" against Topuz and his government expected the trial to be conducted "swiftly, transparently and fairly." The court set the next hearing for June 28. That hearing could wind up being held just a few weeks before Trump makes his first visit to Turkey. Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, who met Trump in the Oval Office last month, said at the weekend talks were underway for the American president to visit Turkey in July. The restaurant at The Pecan on Broad hasnt even opened yet, and its already getting rave reviews. People call and say, Weve heard great things about The Pecan, and we havent served a plate of food yet, says Chris Bailey, who, along with Ryan Dunagan, owns the hottest new eatery in the Black Belt. Chris and Ryan bought the downtown Camden building in December and have been renovating it into a gourmet market and restaurant. At the end of April, the market side of the building made its debut to rave reviews at an open house. The restaurant will open mid-summer, Chris estimates. They didnt come to this small town, with a population of less than 2,000, with the intention of opening a restaurant. They were living in Mobile, where Ryan had an interior design studio, when a friend told them about an outstanding circa-1840 home that had come on the market. We had come to Gaines Ridge Dinner Club a few times, Chris says. In Camden, they found a place where "its like time stood still. When Chris looked at the house, a former cotton plantation located on seven acres, something about it lured me in, he says. The property has an interesting history. When the Orline St. John steamboat sank near Bridgeport Landing, just north of Camden, taking the lives of 40 passengers and crew, the survivors were brought there. And according to legend, during the Civil War, as the Yankees approached, locals went to the courthouse, took all the records and put them in caskets, which they buried in the homes back yard. It was widely presumed that even a Yankee wouldnt dig up a dead body. Ryan and Chris bought the home, which they named Riverbend, in July of 2017 as a getaway, but soon they started spending more and more time in Camden as they completely gutted the house and started renovating it. The more time we spent up here, the more we enjoyed being here, says Chris. Before they knew it, We were staying a month at a time without going back to Mobile. Having already fallen in love with their home, they soon fell in love with the people of Camden. Theyre the nicest, most genuinely kind people, Chris says. Finally, last fall they sold their home in Mobile and relocated to Camden full-time. Thats when they started working on the town itself, with enthusiastic support from the community. First, they purchased the old Wilcox County jail, which was built in 1889. At one time, the sheriff and his family lived downstairs, while inmates were held in cells upstairs. In the coming months, they will start transforming the building into a visitors center and museum, with Chriss private office upstairs. What they heard most often from their new neighbors was how desperately Camden needed a restaurant something Chris and Ryan had become painfully aware of already. Were in a food desert here, Chris says. The one thing I missed up here was food. They bought the former Williams Pecan building at 110 Broad St., in the heart of downtown Camden, and went to work renovating it. The space was originally two separate buildings, the Bank of Camden where the market is now and Williams department store where the restaurant will be. Miniature Williams Pecan pies are a staple at convenience stores all over the Black Belt. Pecans were shipped from Camden all over the country. Louise Williams, the widow of Joe Williams, gave Ryan and Chris a photo of her husband working in the store. It now hangs behind the hostess stand. And the name of the place, The Pecan on Broad, pays homage to the buildings history. When they started renovating the building, it was divided by some 20 walls that all came down. We had a huge mountain of debris, Chris says. One dump truck after another. A lot of locals hadnt seen the building in years, and they were amazed. In the market, which opened the second week of May, Chris and Ryan will sell as many Alabama products as possible, including coffee from Bigbee Coffee Roasters in Jackson, Kettle Bros. kettle corn from Rainbow City, Alabama Sweet Tea Co. from Montgomery and Cammies Old Dutch ice cream by the scoop, from Mobile. Their shelves are stocked with glass bottles, old-fashioned candies, honeys, jams and jellies and much more. Coolers along the wall will hold take-and-bake casseroles and a selection of meats. The former bank vault now serves as a wine cellar. A garage door rolls up to welcome customers inside. The dining room side of the building will hold about 40 people downstairs and 50 upstairs. The beautiful space, designed by Ryan, includes a gallery wall of portraits of Alabamians. Pews from The Steeple in Mobile line one wall, with tables and display pieces from Charles Phillips Antiques and Architecturals in Theodore. The upstairs has hardwood floors, exposed beams and an antique bar in the center that will serve craft beers you cant get anywhere else in Camden. Chris has been consulting with his friend Art Smith, who spent a decade working as Oprahs personal chef, on the restaurant, which Ryan describes as farm/hook to table, with fresh ingredients and a menu thats always changing. They hope to be able to offer a chef in residence program. Both Ryan and Chris see tremendous potential in the quaint town. Were hoping The Pecan is a springboard for revitalizing downtown Camden, says Chris, who already has his eye on a couple of other historical buildings there. We think it has the potential to be like Laurel, Mississippi, says Ryan. Alabama lawmakers aiming to challenge abortion rights nationally are one step from their goal of putting an almost total ban on the procedure into state law. The Senate tonight voted 25-6 to pass a bill to make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. The bill is a priority for the Legislatures Republican majority. Tonights vote sends it to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who could sign it into law. Lori Jhons, Iveys deputy press secretary, said in an email tonight that Ivey would not comment on the bill until shes had a chance to thoroughly review it. The bill passed exactly as it was introduced by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, about six weeks ago. It includes only one exception -- to allow abortions in cases of a serious health risk to the woman. The goal is to trigger a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade. I would say that were all very pleased to have this done, Collins said at a press conference after the vote. Were excited about the possibilities that it could mean. Its been difficult at times, and then at times its been really good. I felt really good about it all the way through. Under the bill, a woman receiving an abortion would not be criminally liable. The doctor would be charged with a Class A felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison. The bill passed the Senate on party lines after four and a half hours of debate, with all the Republicans who were present voting for it. No Democrats voted for the bill. With Republicans holding 27 of 35 Senate seats, passage of the bill was not in doubt. A key question was whether the Senate would add an amendment to allow abortions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, who handled the bill in the Senate, urged his colleagues to reject the amendment, saying that all unborn children deserve protection. Four Republicans sided with the Democrats in voting for the rape and incest exception, but it failed 21-11. Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, who proposed the rape and incest amendment, said it was disgraceful to leave out the exception. You just raped every woman whos been raped by a man, Singleton said, his voice rising with emotion. You just raped her all over again. Singleton said three rape victims were in the Senate gallery as his guests and talked about the hardships they went through. This is just a shame, this is a disgrace, this is a travesty," he said. Collins said her goal was to pass the bill in a form she thought would serve as the strongest challenge to Roe v. Wade. She said states could later decide what exceptions to allow if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. She said she would support a rape and incest exception if that happens. Ive answered many emails from people who have poured out their hearts with real stories that were true, Collins said. My goal with this bill is not to hurt them in any way. My goal with this bill, and I think all of our goal, is to have Roe vs. Wade turned over, and that decision be sent back to the states so that we can come up with our laws that address and include amendments and things that address those issues." There are only four women in the 35-member Senate, and two of them were among the most outspoken opponents of the bill on Tuesday. Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, proposed an amendment that would have required the state to provide prenatal care and medical care for the mother and the child in cases when a woman is denied an abortion because of the law. Democrats said a lack of support from Republicans on issues that can help low-income families, like Medicaid expansion, undermines their argument about protecting unborn children. The sin to me is bringing a child into this world and not taking care of them," Coleman-Madison said. "The sin for me is that this state does not provide adequate care. We dont provide education. And then when the child is born and we know that mother is indigent and she cannot take care of that child, we dont provide any support systems for that mother. Senators rejected her amendment 23-6. Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile, proposed three amendments -- to require Medicaid expansion, to require legislators who voted for the bill to bear the legal costs of defending the law in court, and to make it a felony for a man to get a vasectomy. All were voted down. Figures questioned Chambliss about the opposition to the rape and incest exception and its effect on victims of those acts. To take that choice away from that person who had such a traumatic act committed against them, to be left with the residue of that person, if you will, Figures said. To have to bring that child into this world and be reminded of that every single day. Some people can do that. Some people can. But some cant. But why would you not want a woman to at least have that exception for such a horrific act? Chambliss said, Because I believe that when that unborn child becomes a person that we need legal guidance on when that is." But that is not your business, Figures said. You dont have to raise that child. You dont have to carry that child. You dont have to provide for that child. You dont have to do anything for that child. You want to make that decision for that woman that thats what she has to do. I want to make the decision for that child, Chambliss said. About an hour after Republican senators voted down the rape and incest amendment, they voted to cut off the debate and force a vote on the bill. Chambliss, asked about the legal costs the state would incur if the bill becomes law and is challenged in court, as the sponsors intend, said it would be money well spent. Life is a gift of our creator and we must do everything that we can to protect life," Chambliss said. "And if it is a couple of million dollars, that is a small, small price for those lives. If Ivey signs the bill, it would take effect in six months. The ACLU of Alabama and Planned Parenthood said they would move to block it. This bill punishes victims of rape and incest by further taking away control over their own bodies and forcing them to give birth, ACLU of Alabama Executive Director Randall Marshall said in a statement. While lawmakers could have spent time finding solutions to keep open rural hospitals, increase pay for teachers, and address the critical issues facing Alabamas prison system, they decided to gamble with taxpayer dollars. Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates, called it a dark day for women in Alabama. Banning abortion is bad enough, Fox said. "But these added threats to doctors and victims of rape and incest goes beyond the brink. Alabama politicians will forever live in infamy for this vote and we will make sure that every woman knows who to hold accountable. In the coming days we will be mounting the fight of our lives -- we will take this to court and ensure abortion remains safe and legal. For now, our doors are open for the many patients who need access to care. Voting for the bill were Republican Sens. Greg Albritton of Atmore; Gerald Allen of Tuscaloosa; Will Barfoot of Montgomery; Tom Butler of Madison; Chambliss; Donnie Chesteen of Geneva; Chris Elliott of Fairhope; Sam Givhan of Huntsville; Garlan Gudger of Cullman; Andrew Jones of Centre; Steve Livingston of Trussville; Del Marsh of Anniston; Jim McClendon of Springville; Tim Melson of Florence; Arthur Orr of Decatur; Randy Price of Opelika; Greg Reed of Jasper; Dan Roberts of Birmingham; Clay Scofield of Guntersville; David Sessions of Mobile; Shay Shelnutt of Trussville; Larry Stutts of Sheffield; Jabo Waggoner of Vestavia Hills; Cam Ward of Alabaster; and Jack Williams of Wilmer. Voting against the bill were Democratic Sens. Billy Beasley of Clayton; David Burkette of Montgomery; Linda Coleman-Madison of Birmingham; Vivian Figures of Mobile; Singleton; and Rodger Smitherman of Birmingham. Malika Sanders-Fortier, D-Selma, abstained. This story was updated at 6:20 a.m. to add comments from Sens. Linda Coleman-Madison and Vivian Figures. Updated at 7:39 a.m. to add comments from the ACLU of Alabama and Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates. Alabama abortion ban: Read the bill Alabama lawmakers have passed a bill that would make it a felony for doctors to perform or attempt to perform an abortion in the state. The controversial bill contains no exceptions for victims of rape or incest but does allow for abortions in cases where the mothers life is at risk. Here is the text of the bill itself: SYNOPSIS This bill would make abortion and attempted abortion felony offenses except in cases where abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother. This bill would provide that a woman who receives an abortion will not be held criminally culpable or civilly liable for receiving the abortion. Amendment 621 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, now appearing as Section 111.05 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended, prohibits a general law whose purpose or effect would be to require a new or increased expenditure of local funds from becoming effective with regard to a local governmental entity without enactment by a 2/3 vote unless: it comes within one of a number of specified exceptions; it is approved by the affected entity; or the Legislature appropriates funds, or provides a local source of revenue, to the entity for the purpose. The purpose or effect of this bill would be to require a new or increased expenditure of local funds within the meaning of the amendment. However, the bill does not require approval of a local governmental entity or enactment by a 2/3 vote to become effective because it comes within one of the specified exceptions contained in the amendment. A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT Relating to abortion; to make abortion and attempted abortion felony offenses except in cases where abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother; to provide that a woman who receives an abortion will not be held criminally culpable or civilly liable for receiving the abortion; and in connection therewith would have as its purpose or effect the requirement of a new or increased expenditure of local funds within the meaning of Amendment 621 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, now appearing as Section 111.05 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended. BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA: Section 1. This act shall be known as The Alabama Human Life Protection Act. Section 2. Legislative Findings. (a) This state's statute criminalizing abortion, Section 13A-13-7, Code of Alabama 1975, has never been repealed. It has remained unenforceable as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and its progeny, which struck down as unconstitutional a Texas statute criminalizing abortion and which effectively repealed by implication and made unenforceable all other state statutes criminalizing abortion. (b) On November 6, 2018, electors in this state approved by a majority vote a constitutional amendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 declaring and affirming the public policy of the state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children. The amendment made it clear that the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 does not include a right to an abortion or require the funding of abortions using public funds. (c) In present state law, Section 13A-6-1, Code of Alabama 1975, defines a person for homicide purposes to include an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability. (d) In the United States Declaration of Independence, the principle of natural law that "all men are created equal" was articulated. The self-evident truth found in natural law, that all human beings are equal from creation, was at least one of the bases for the anti-slavery movement, the women's suffrage movement, the Nuremberg war crimes trials, and the American civil rights movement. If those movements had not been able to appeal to the truth of universal human equality, they could not have been successful. (e) Abortion advocates speak to women's rights, but they ignore the unborn child, while medical science has increasingly recognized the humanity of the unborn child. (f) Recent medical advances prove a baby's heart starts to beat at around six weeks. At about eight weeks, the heartbeat can be heard through an ultrasound examination. A fetal Doppler can detect a fetal heartbeat as early as 10 weeks. (g) Ultrasound imaging shows the developing child in utero. (h) As early as six weeks after fertilization, fetal photography shows the clear development of a human being. The Alabama Department of Public Health publication "Did You Know . . ." demonstrates through actual pictures at two-week intervals throughout the entire pregnancy the clear images of a developing human being. (i) It is estimated that 6,000,000 Jewish people were murdered in German concentration camps during World War II; 3,000,000 people were executed by Joseph Stalin's regime in Soviet gulags; 2,500,000 people were murdered during the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" in 1958; 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970s; and approximately 1,000,000 people were murdered during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. All of these are widely acknowledged to have been crimes against humanity. By comparison, more than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973, more than three times the number who were killed in German death camps, Chinese purges, Stalin's gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined. (j) The cases of Roe v. Wade and its progeny have engendered much civil litigation and legislative attempts to reign in so called abortion rights. Roe v. Wade attempted to define when abortion of an unborn child would be legal. Judges and legal scholars have disagreed and dissented with its finding. Section 3. As used in this act, the following terms shall have the following meanings: (1) ABORTION. The use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device with the intent to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with knowledge that the termination by those means will with reasonable likelihood cause the death of the unborn child. The term does not include these activities if done with the intent to save the life or preserve the health of an unborn child, remove a dead unborn child, to deliver the unborn child prematurely to avoid a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother, or to preserve the health of her unborn child. The term does not include a procedure or act to terminate the pregnancy of a woman with an ectopic pregnancy, nor does it include the procedure or act to terminate the pregnancy of a woman when the unborn child has a lethal anomaly. (2) ECTOPIC PREGNANCY. Any pregnancy resulting from either a fertilized egg that has implanted or attached outside the uterus or a fertilized egg implanted inside the cornu of the uterus. (3) LETHAL ANOMALY. A condition from which an unborn child would die after birth or shortly thereafter or be stillborn. (4) MEDICAL EMERGENCY. A condition which, in reasonable medical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of the pregnant woman that her pregnancy must be terminated to avoid a serious health risk as defined in this act. (5) PHYSICIAN. A person licensed to practice medicine and surgery or osteopathic medicine and surgery in Alabama. (6) SERIOUS HEALTH RISK TO THE UNBORN CHILD'S MOTHER. In reasonable medical judgment, the child's mother has a condition that so complicates her medical condition that it necessitates the termination of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function. This term does not include a condition based on a claim that the woman is suffering from an emotional condition or a mental illness which will cause her to engage in conduct that intends to result in her death or the death of her unborn child. However, the condition may exist if a second physician who is licensed in Alabama as a psychiatrist, with a minimum of three years of clinical experience, examines the woman and documents that the woman has a diagnosed serious mental illness and because of it, there is reasonable medical judgment that she will engage in conduct that could result in her death or the death of her unborn child. If the mental health diagnosis and likelihood of conduct is confirmed as provided in this act, and it is determined that a termination of her pregnancy is medically necessary to avoid the conduct, the termination may be performed and shall be only performed by a physician licensed in Alabama in a hospital as defined in the Alabama Administrative Code and to which he or she has admitting privileges. (7) UNBORN CHILD, CHILD or PERSON. A human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability. (8) WOMAN. A female human being, whether or not she has reached the age of majority. Section 4. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally perform or attempt to perform an abortion except as provided for by subsection (b). (b) An abortion shall be permitted if an attending physician licensed in Alabama determines that an abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother. Except in the case of a medical emergency as defined herein, the physician's determination shall be confirmed in writing by a second physician licensed in Alabama. The confirmation shall occur within 180 days after the abortion is completed and shall be prima facie evidence for a permitted abortion. Section 5. No woman upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed shall be criminally or civilly liable. Furthermore, no physician confirming the serious health risk to the child's mother shall be criminally or civilly liable for those actions. Section 6. (a) An abortion performed in violation of this act is a Class A felony. (b) An attempted abortion performed in violation of this act is a Class C felony. Section 7. This act shall not apply to a physician licensed in Alabama performing a termination of a pregnancy or assisting in performing a termination of a pregnancy due to a medical emergency as defined by this act. Section 8. The construction of existing statutes and regulations that regulate or recognize abortion in Alabama that are in conflict with or antagonistic to this act shall be repealed as null and void and shall recognize the prohibition of abortion as provided in this act. If this act is challenged and enjoined pending a final judicial decision, the existing statutes and regulations that regulate or recognize abortion shall remain in effect during that time. Section 9. Although this bill would have as its purpose or effect the requirement of a new or increased expenditure of local funds, the bill is excluded from further requirements and application under Amendment 621, now appearing as Section 111.05 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended, because the bill defines a new crime or amends the definition of an existing crime. Section 10. This act shall become effective six months following its passage and approval by the Governor, or its otherwise becoming law. A plan to allow voters to decide whether to set up a state lottery in Alabama advanced today in the House of Representatives. The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee approved the bill. The committee had held a public hearing last week but did not vote. Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range, is sponsor of the legislation, which passed the Senate. But the committee today approved a substitute for Albrittons bill by Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, who chairs the House General Fund budget committee. Clouses plan directs 75 percent of lottery revenues to the General Fund and 25 percent to the Education Trust Fund. Albrittons bill had split the money between the General Fund, a reserve account and the Alabama Trust Fund, with none going to education. The committee adopted an amendment today to allocate 0.25 percent of net lottery revenue to programs to help compulsive gamblers. The Alabama Constitution prohibits lotteries, so voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment to allow one. But first it has to get through the Legislature. That would require 63 votes in the House, three-fifths of the members. Clouse said he expects the vote to be close. He said he does not expect the bill to be considered in the House until next week. Clouse said there are two main factions opposed to the bill -- those who flatly oppose a lottery and those who oppose a lottery that doesnt include electronic machines in Macon and Greene counties, which have parimutuel betting and bingo. Those factions were in place in 2016, when a lottery plan proposed by Gov. Robert Bentley during a special session failed. Its getting to be exhausting as far as this whole issue of gambling as far as machines vs. just paper lottery tickets, Clouse said. And I think most legislators around the state are really getting frustrated with going home and their constituents asking them, particularly when theres big Power Balls around the nation, why is it that we cant buy our tickets here in Alabama. In 1999, the Legislature approved a lottery plan by Gov. Don Siegelman, but voters rejected it. The Legislative Services Agency estimates that a lottery would raise about $167 million a year in net revenue, after prizes and expenses are paid. This story will be updated. Alabamas passage of the nations strictest abortion law one that would make it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure passed the State Senate last night. Only Gov. Kay Iveys signature stands between the measure and enactment, a move that pro-choice groups said will trigger a wave of lawsuits. The bills passage, which came after weeks of controversy in the Alabama Legislature, has prompted responses from around the country. Heres what theyre saying: Film News.Co.UK Ava DuVernay leads stars vowing to fight Alabama abortion ban Condemning the bill and promising action, Selma filmmaker (Ava DuVernay) tweeted: "Don't move forward after reading this like everything is normal. Don't shake your head at Alabama and then keep going about your day. Realize that this is a warning. It's Alabama and abortion today. It's you and your rights tomorrow. Captain America star Chris Evans This is absolutely unbelievable. If youre not worried about roe v wade, youre not paying attention. This is why voting matters!! https://t.co/gZ5lrj7tQ1 Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) May 15, 2019 CNN Alabama Senate passes near-total abortion ban The state's Republican backers have pushed the legislation, which amounts to a near-total ban on abortion in the state, forward with the express goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case legalizing abortion. Alabama lawmakers join legislators in several other states in putting forth legislation to restrict abortion, such as Georgia's recent fetal heartbeat bill. Former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton The abortion bans in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi are appalling attacks on women's lives and fundamental freedoms. Women's rights are human rights. We will not go back. Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 15, 2019 The Guardian These 25 white men all Republicans just voted to ban abortion in Alabama There are only four women in the Alabama senate, who are among the eight-strong Democratic party minority in the upper chamber of the state legislature. Tom Perez, Chair of Democratic National Committee Lets call what happened tonight in Alabama what it is: Criminalizing doctors and putting women's lives at risk by barring their access to safe, legal abortion. Tom Perez (@TomPerez) May 15, 2019 NPR Alabama Lawmakers Pass Bill Banning Nearly All Abortions There are no exceptions in the bill for cases of rape or incest, and that was a sticking point when the Alabama Senate first tried to debate the measure last Thursday. The Republican-majority chamber adjourned in dramatic fashion when leaders tried to strip a committee amendment that would have added an exception for cases of rape or incest. Presidential hopeful and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren This ban is dangerous and exceptionally crueland the bills authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade. I've lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going backnot now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win. https://t.co/WNlr7Ys73q Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 15, 2019 Former presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee Oh no! Soon to be celibate Alyssa Milano will probably now demand sex to cease in AL and movies boycott being made there too. Will Alabama survive?? Yeah, they pay no mind to her there either. https://t.co/2grk8ejZWP Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) May 15, 2019 Comedian Michelle Wolf Do what the Alabama government refuses to do: help women by donating to the https://t.co/VxouPOI5gt. Donating is as easy as flicking an embryo out of a uterus should be. Michelle Wolf (@michelleisawolf) May 15, 2019 USA Today How does Alabamas near-total abortion ban bill compare to Georgias fetal heartbeat law? In 2019, more than a dozen states have either passed or attempted to pass stricter abortion legislation. Alabama's Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would be the most restrictive in the nation. Georgia's Gov. Brian Kemp has already signed a bill that would make performing an abortion illegal once a heartbeat is detected. That new law is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Actor John Cusack This only ends with impeachment - and people in the streets RT @AshleyBC137: https://t.co/Vp3avCA12n John Cusack (@johncusack) May 15, 2019 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Womens rights are under attack. This relentless and cruel Republican assault on womens health is designed to force a court battle to destroy Roe v. Wade. Democrats will be ready to defend health care and womens reproductive freedom. Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) May 15, 2019 Fox News Alabama restrictive abortion bill passes Senate Although the Alabama State House voted to pass the bill last month, 74-3, Democratic lawmakers pressed Tuesday, unsuccessfully, for amendments that would create exceptions in instances of rape and incest. "You don't have to raise that child. You don't have to carry that child. You don't have to provide for that child. And yet you want to make that decision," Democratic state Sen. Vivian Davis Figures said. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Democratic candidate for president Alabama just passed a near-total ban on abortion. No exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors could face 99 years in prison for providing abortions. This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell. https://t.co/lhwlbyeQsl Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) May 15, 2019 U.S. Senator from California and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris Outrageous news coming out of Alabama. This law would effectively ban abortions in the state and criminalize doctors for doing their jobs - providing health care to women. https://t.co/90utkxn7J2 Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 15, 2019 Leana Wren, M.D., President and CEO of Planned Parenthood In a state that has some of the worst health outcomes for women in the nation such as the highest rate of cervical cancer Alabama is putting womens lives at an even greater risk. Our full statement: pic.twitter.com/VJfNiJCOQv Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) May 15, 2019 U.S. Senator from Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders What Alabama is doing is blatantly unconstitutional and disrespects the fundamental right a woman has to make decisions about her own body. I say to Gov. Ivey: Veto this cruel bill. Stop the attack on womens rights. https://t.co/yByOIyJ6XL Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 15, 2019 CBS News Alabama just passed a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest "We will not stand by while politicians endanger the lives of women and doctors for political gain," wrote Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project, in an email to CBS News following the vote. "Know this, Governor Ivey: If you sign this dangerous bill into law, we will see you in Court" Former Democratic VP candidate Tim Kaine Alabamas extreme and unconstitutional ban on abortionseven for victims of rape and incestis the latest GOP demonstration of contempt for women. Theyve bitterly opposed wider access to health care and contraception, preferring to criminalize women and doctors. Unconscionable! Tim Kaine (@timkaine) May 15, 2019 Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Alabama lawmakers are making all abortions a felony punishable w jailtime,incl women victimized by rape+incest. Of course, no added punishments for rapists. Its going to @GovernorKayIveys desk. She will decide the future of womens rights in Alabama.https://t.co/IRR0EtsxHp Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2019 Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg This is an opinion column. Theres no one alive who can remember when Alabama and the federal government werent at odds over something. Our state motto is We dare defend our rights, but it should really be, Dont you tell us what to do. And this struggle has cost Alabama. About the time I graduated high school, Alabama briefly brought back chain gangs as a form of punishment for no better reason than public officials here believed it was badass and a majority of Alabama voters were eager to reward their 19th Century thinking. A few sensible lawmakers argued that shackling mostly black men in forced servitude along the interstate highway might not be a clean break with Alabamas past. It could give the wrong impression to out-of-state business developers and Yankee tourists on their way to the beach, they said. But Gov. Fob James whose grooming habits suggested he was unconcerned with his own image, much less Alabamas was undeterred. The state quickly ran into issues. There were obvious but for Alabama, unforeseen hazards in chaining together men with behavior control problems and then giving them bush axes and sling blades. The highway right-of-way turned into a bloody gladiatorial fighting pit, and a state prison guard had to shoot an inmate who tried to hack to death another prisoner. Civil libertarians and civil rights groups sued the state. The roadside bloodsports made the case a sure win. James relented and Alabama settled the lawsuit but not before people got hurt, and not before Alabama suffered another self-inflicted wound to its reputation. It was dumb. It was cruel. And it fit an old pattern of Alabama public policy. Slavery, segregation, mental health, prison overcrowding, anti-immigration laws, religious displays in state courthouses Alabama history is a cycle of learning all lessons the hard way, stubbornly refusing to reform, and then being forced into compliance by the federal government. But Alabamas new abortion law which sets up yet another struggle in the courts could break that cycle, steal the locus of control back from the federal government, and send America in a frightening direction. Historic costs This tension between Alabama and the federal courts began under Reconstruction and grew so strong during the civil rights movement that people began calling U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson Jr. the real governor of Alabama something that drove his former law school classmate George Wallace mad with jealousy. The conflict was deeply personal and dangerous. After Wallace told a crowd that Johnson needed a barbed wire enema, somebody tried to firebomb the judges home. Years later, when Wallace tried to make amends, Johnson relayed a message: If you want to get forgiveness, you can get it from the Lord. Both men are long dead, but the mutual antagonism between Alabama and the federal courts lives. The ceaseless need for judicial helicopter parenting should be embarrassing. But no matter if Alabama has any shame, it is also expensive. When the state loses one of these lawsuits, it must pay the plaintiffs legal fees, and those costs are mounting. Since 2013, Alabama has had to pay more than $3.7 million to the ACLU alone. And that figure represents only what Alabama paid for their lawyers. When asked for the states defense costs, officials have argued those figures would be too difficult to determine. The opportunity costs are much easier to figure. As AL.coms Anna Claire Vollers reported this week, the $3.7 million Alabama has paid the ACLU would be enough to pay 33 new educators in schools suffering a crippling teacher shortage. Or 44 state troopers on Alabama highways where patrol cars are sparse. Instead, that money paid for what exactly? Defending barbaric prison conditions, draconian immigration laws and obstinate same-sex marriage fights. And anti-abortion crusades. When the Alabama Legislature passed yet another abortion bill this week a bill so restrictive that it would require victims of rape and incest to have their rapists babies the ACLU shared a copy of its last check from Alabama. That one cost us $1.7 million. The message was clear: Well take your money again if we have to. During the debate Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers accused their Republican colleagues of picking another fight with the courts. (Republicans did not dispute this, and in fact, confirmed it.) The bill, Democrats said, was blatantly unconstitutional and would only cost the state more money. But that bill is only unconstitutional if the United States Supreme Court says it is, and theres another, more frightening scenario that could lie ahead: What if, this time, Alabama wins? Somethings different this time This struggle and this power dynamic between Alabama and the federal government has existed so long that many people here have accepted it as an immutable fact of life. But its not. Its like looking at a glacier and seeing it as a fixed, eternal thing: It was here when I was born, it was here when my grandfather was born, and itll be right there when Im long gone. But, no. It moves, and as the world gets hotter, it melts. And lately, this ice floe has been giving up a lot of water. The judicial branch has been shifting, in favor of Alabama, and its already having an effect on the rest of America because of Alabama. The first victims were voters. In 2010, Shelby County decided it was tired of living under the Voting Rights Act, which required it to get approval from the U.S. Justice Department to ensure new election practices were not racially discriminatory. The county sued the Justice Department and in 2013 won at the Supreme Court. No sooner had the court gutted the Voting Rights Act than Alabama approved Voter ID requirements. At nearly the same time, Gov. Robert Bentley attempted to close state drivers licenses offices in majority African-Americans counties just the sort of things the Voting Rights Act had prevented. And it wasnt just in Alabama: Across the South more than 800 polling places closed ahead of the 2016 election. And 10 of the 11 old Confederate states passed Voter ID laws. And that was while Obama was president. When President Trump took office the Justice Department shifted its attention to running undocumented immigrants out of the country. Under the leadership of Alabamas Jeff Sessions, the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division saw its caseload cut by more than 60 percent. This, more than anything to do with Russia or the special counsel, is Sessions legacy. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has been busy packing the courts with judges more open to an Alabama point of view especially on the Supreme Court. Now Alabama has a chance to force its will on the nation, instead of the other way around. And its first target is abortion. You could see it in the Alabama Legislature this week. Gone was any pretense that Republican lawmakers were protecting mothers or public health. There wasnt any code language or subterfuge. This abortion bill, its sponsors said, is a weapon for a new Supreme Court majority to kill Roe v. Wade. Alabama lawmakers believes the rules have changed, and they might be right. As one lawmaker said in Alabama Statehouse this week, It aint no fun when the rabbits got the gun. For as long as anyone can remember, the federal judiciary has protected Alabamians from Alabama. But with the courts shifting in the states direction, whos going to protect America from Alabama? Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group. Want access to the best analysis and in-depth reporting about Alabama each week? Sign up for the weekly Reckon Report newsletter and follow Reckon on Facebook and Twitter. Follow Whitmire on Twitter and Facebook, too. And Instagram. Tony Christon-Walker has seen how Alabamas current sex education law has harmed LGBTQ youth - both physically and emotionally. As the prevention director for AIDS Alabama, Christon-Walker has been allowed by four Birmingham City schools to teach sex education courses. Hes advised fourth graders to alert an adult when someone inappropriately touches their private areas and middle schoolers the different forms of HIV prevention. But when it comes to the LGBTQ community, the state's decades-old sex education law requires instructors to state that homosexuality "is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state." As a gay man himself, Christon-Walker refuses to say those words. If an LGBTQ student asks him a questions about sexual health, he just redirects the conversation somehow -- which can be harmful to a youth's self-worth. He thinks about Nigel Shelby - an openly gay Huntsville teen whose name has been spread across the nation after he died by suicide in April. To include LGBTQ youth in sex education conversations is not only necessary, Walker said, it's suicide prevention. LGBTQ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. According to a 2017 climate survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), 6.7% of LGBTQ students in Alabama received a sex ed course mentioning their sexuality or gender identity. "If Nigel were in a sex ed class and he heard a teacher say he was living a deviant lifestyle and that something was wrong with him, that would have only exacerbated the problem," Walker said. "It tells LGBTQ youth they are defective and unworthy." A bill thats currently sitting in the Alabama House of Representatives not only updates the language in the sex education law for all students who attend schools that have the course, but it also erases the homophobic language. Here are the changes the sex education bill will make. SB 140 was introduced by Sen. Tom Whatley, R-Auburn, in March. With a 26-1 vote from the Alabama Senate in April, the bill has been passed to the House, where it has been read twice. If passes in the House and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, the bill will become effective three months later. The bills passage will affect both straight and LGBTQ students. The first modification the bill makes is using the term sexually transmitted infections instead of sexually transmitted diseases. Comprehensive sex education advocates said using the word disease instead of infection can cause students to think that certain STIs, such as syphilis and chlamydia, cannot be cured and may prevent them from seeking treatment. It also replaces references of AIDs to HIV to be more medically accurate. An infected person is first diagnosed with HIV. HIV can become AIDs if left untreated. Another major change is requiring sex education course materials to be both age appropriate and medically accurate. The current law only requires the former and not the later. Matt Pagnotti, AIDS Alabama's policy and advocacy director, said most LGBTQ students the organization has served have received inaccurate information about HIV from their school's sex education curriculum due to the lack of medically accurate course materials. From 2015 to 2017, the Alabama Department of Health reported that nearly half of new HIV diagnosis occurred in Alabamians who were under 30. Around 30% of those new cases occurred in ages 13-24. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention said most new HIV infections among youth occur among gay and bisexual men, with young black and Hispanic/Latino gay and bisexual men especially affected. The CDC listed inadequate sex education as one of the challenges concerning STI prevention. The current law is also preventing LGBTQ youth from getting the knowledge they need to protect themselves physically, Pagnotti said. While Alabama's sex education guidelines do include contraception, abstinence is emphasized. Based on conversations Pagnotti has had with LGBTQ youth, most of them receive courses containing abstinence-only content. But abstinence isn't the only form of HIV protection, Pagnotti said. There are condoms and PrEP, which is a daily medication that prevents HIV-negative individuals from contracting HIV. "Its making sure that folks are taught the entire toolkit of prevention and not just what educators think is most relevant based on their experiences or what they think is the most 'morally correct,'" Pagnotti said. "Abstinence can be part of that toolkit, but we know that not all people are abstinent so you need to still to teach prevention beyond that." Pagnotti said sex education courses often don't mention LGBTQ identities due to bias and fear of violating the current law. The absence of acknowledging a student's sexuality and gender identity can also degrade their wellbeing. "To assume that you are going to have a heterosexual marriage, and that that is the destiny of all folks, and to have an experience different than that is not normal or acceptable...it contributes to more bullying and can lead to suicide," Pagnotti said. Christon-Walker said the current law also leaves transgender students in an uncomfortable position. Since some sex education courses are separated by gender, transgender students have to make a decision on whether they want to sit with a gender of their choice. "Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't," Christon-Walker said. "Transphobia is so rampant in our community, most trans students drop out or wait until after graduation (to publicly admit they identify as transgender). They don't come out or embrace themselves as trans in high school." Removing the discriminatory language toward LGBTQ youth from the statute is just one step in making sex education informative for all students. Pagnotti said while the homophobic rhetoric will be erased from the law, LGBTQ advocates need to team up with schools to make sure educators are using LGBTQ-affirming curriculums. This would include adding more examples of same sex couples or transgender individual in course materials as well as making sure biases are not mentioned during the course, Pagnotti explained. For example, using the term "female condoms" instead of "internal condoms" implies that only those who are identified as women at birth are receptive partners during sex, Pagnotti said. Often there is an assumption within the curriculum and within statements from educators that all people are straight or cisgender and all of their experiences are the same, he said. People have different forms of sex, and prevention sometimes looks different for sexual activitiesThose youth deserve the knowledge and tools to keep themselves healthy just like everyone else. This article was corrected at 6 p.m. because it incorrectly stated when the Alabama House of Representatives will vote on the bill. It is unknown at this time when representatives will vote on it. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin wants to increase each city councilors discretionary funds to $100,000 for the fiscal year that begins July 1. How can city councilors use these funds? AL.com readers submitted questions about Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfins proposed 2020 budget through a question service called Hearken. [See the mayors proposed budget here] Birmingham resident Michael Bullington asked, What does the council spend their discretionary funds on now? Why do they need to double it? What kind of limits are there on these funds? Discretionary funds, generally, are used to pay for items or services not otherwise included in the city budget and as decided on by the councilperson. For example, giving money toward building a new bus shelter in a neighborhood or toward a community block party. City councilors cant just write themselves a check for whatever they want. Councilors must submit a form outlining expenditures and documenting how the money is used, city officials said. All the money has to be accounted for. Additionally, the council has the power to transfer funds from each Neighborhood Association Fund to support an event or meet a need. An example of this happened during Tuesdays city council meeting when the council passed a resolution that allocated $1,500 for the family fishing rodeo happening at East Lake Park on June 8. The council took $125 each from the neighborhood association funds of these neighborhoods: East Lake, South East Lake, Thomas, Wylam, Druid Hills, Crestwood North, Eastwood, South Pratt, Brownsville Heights, Zion City, Killough Springs and Roebuck. Woodfin is increasing each councilors discretionary fund to $100,000 because his new budget takes funding for some nonprofit agencies and community events. The mayor says councilors can use their discretionary funds to support whatever nonprofit or event they wish to serve without needing a line item, and potentially hanging up the budget negotiation process. The 2019 amended budget gave city councilors, collectively, $419,150. If approved in the final 2020 budget, Woodfins $900,000 to the councilors would mark a $480,850 increase in the councils discretionary funds. Submit your questions about Birminghams 2020 general operating budget through the form below: The suspect in a Madison County slaying case told investigators he killed 28-year-old Eric Arredondo in self-defense, court testimony revealed. Larry Lee Jones is charged with murder in the Jan. 19 shooting death of Arredondo. It happened at Jones Yarbrough Road home in the Monrovia community. After hearing testimony from Madison County sheriffs investigator Stacy Rutherford, the lone witness at a hearing on Tuesday, District Judge Patty Demos ruled prosecutors have probable cause against 63-year-old Jones. The case now moves to a grand jury for consideration of indictment, which is a formal notice of charges. Defense attorney John Brinkley declined to comment. 63-year-old Larry Lee Jones told a @mcsosheriffAL investigator that 28-year-old Eric Arredondo came at him with his hands in his pockets, leaving no choice but to shoot, testimony revealed. https://t.co/zr4VsldO81 pic.twitter.com/SNKaCjTT9P Ashley Remkus (@aremkus1) May 15, 2019 While it became clear at Tuesdays hearing that Jones is claiming self-defense, the testimony shed little light on the circumstances surrounding the killing. Its unclear the extent of the relationship between Jones, Arredondo and a third man who apparently was at the home when the killing happened. In an interview after the killing, Jones told a Madison County investigator that Arredondo came at him with his hands in his pockets, leaving Jones no choice but to shoot, according to court testimony. After the shooting, Jones told the authorizes he had repeatedly asked Arredondo to leave his home, Rutherford testified. Jones said in the police interview that when Arredondo came to the house, he would always jump on Jason Wales, the third man at the scene that night, according to testimony. Rutherford didnt elaborate. Arredondo was on a couch in Jones living room when he suffered a fatal gunshot wound to his femoral artery, Rutherford testified. Arredondo was bleeding when he walked from the couch to a chair on the front porch, where he died. Jones is out of jail on $30,000 bail pending further court hearings. A Madison County man was killed Tuesday night when his ATV collided head-on with a car near Huntsville, Alabama State Troopers said. Scott Redard Colin, 29, of Toney, was operating a Honda ATV that collided with a 2003 Toyota Camry around 6:20 p.m., authorities said. Colin was pronounced dead at the scene on Pulaski Pike, about 10 miles north of Huntsville. The driver of the Camry was not injured in the incident, authorities said. Further information was not available as Alabama State Troopers continued to investigate the crash. This is an opinion column. Sen. Cory Booker has almost taken root in the state from which he has roots. The Democrat from New Jersey and 2020 presidential candidate was last here in March, speaking from the pulpit of historic Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, at the annual commemoration of the 1965 Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Last year, he toured two Black Belt cities, Tallahassee and Uniontown, and listened to residents share the effects of decades of environmental racism on their lives. He also visited Africatown, the cluster of near-all African-American neighborhoods in Mobile that are encircled by toxic industrial blight. Ive fallen in love with the state, he says during a telephone conversation Wednesday morning. I was really moved by the sacrifice and the willalthough their circumstances are toughof some communities, which wont stop fighting. I was inspired by that. Last year, Booker learned, too, of his own blood ties to the state, dating as far back as slavery. While participating in Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.s PBS Series Finding Your Roots, he discovered that his grandmothers grandparents fled Alabama and settled in rural Buxton, Iowa. Native American ancestors fought in the Alabama Creek War of 1814-15; at least one white ancestor was a Confederate soldier. I was surprised how much Alabama kept popping up, he says. He was not surprised on Tuesday when Republican lawmakers from the state whose heritage infuses his own DNA overwhelmingly passed what will be when signed the harshest abortion law in the nation one that transforms doctors who conduct abortions into felons, what Booker calls the most direct assault on womens rights and freedoms and ability to control their own lives. A predominantly male legislature decided to take away a womans freedom to control her own body, even if shes a victim of rape or incest. And to try taking down Roe. v. Wade. The assault on the law, Booker says, has been ongoing for decades as the courts at all levels were packed with conservatives by extremist politicians and by voter-suppression tactics designed largely to diminish African-American and low-income votes. It was a coordinated attack, he says. This [bill] is yet another blow. Like many of those vying for the opportunity to evict Donald Trump next year, Booker seized upon Tuesdays action to share his own views on reproductive rights and offer a less-Draconian solution to those seeking to stem abortions. We now have so much data showing that if you want to lower the rates of abortions, it can be done in a far more sound and unifying way, he says. The key word there is ifif the states Republican lawmakers wanted to lower the rate of abortions in Alabama. Which we know aint true. Supporters of the law unabashedly say it was created solely to be challenged up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they hope against hope its now-conservative majority will hear the case and obliterate a womans right to choose. If they wanted to lower abortion rates in the state, theres a proven strategy that invests in women rather than strips them of the right to decide for themselves what to do when they become pregnant. In Colorado, Booker cited, they achieved massive drops in teen pregnancies and abortions over the last decade, attributable almost solely to the states decision in 2008 to offer free or low-cost IUDs, implants and other long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) to women. Supported by a $28 million grant, reportedly from Warren Buffets family, the state provided LARCs to 36,000 women by 2015. Two years later, state health officials said teen pregnancies were down 54 percent while teen abortions declined 64 percent. Moreover, a study showed the state saved an estimated $70 million in labor/delivery, baby checkups, food stamps and child-care assistance due to fewer teen births. Saved money, rather than filling the coffers of lawyer friends with taxpayer money. This is one of the biggest public-health home runs that Ive seen in my 35-year public-health career, Dr. John Douglas, executive director of the Tri-County Health Department, told the Denver Post. With our big swing, Alabama, by contrast, hit ourselves in the head with the bat. Says Booker: Why hurt the state economically when [lawmakers] could be investing in strategies that empower women, are not an affront to women and contrary to the law. Even once the inevitable occurs and Gov. Kay Ivey signs the bill into law, it will likely be years before it lands at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Courtas its stifled by challenges, injunctions, and a clogged court system. Thats just one reason Booker says the battle to save Roe V. Wade can still be won. Its never too late, he says. The way to deal with injustice is action and organizingand electing leaders who respect Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. There have been so many assaults on women and children before, assaults that lead to high rates of infant mortality, lack of access to prenatal and postpartum care, which causes so many ill effects. We should want to affirm the decisions of women instead of endangering women. A voice for whats right and wrong in Birmingham and around the state, Roys column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Reach him at rjohnson@al.com and follow him at twitter.com/roysj A convicted felon from Selma was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison for possessing two guns, the U.S attorney in Montgomery said Tuesday. Michael Watts, 40, pleaded guilty Feb. 19 to charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The charges stemmed from Watts being stopped during a drivers license checkpoint in Dallas County in December 2018. At the checkpoint, Dallas County sheriffs deputies smelled marijuana before checking Watts license. They ordered Watts and a passenger in the vehicle to step out of the car. Thats when Watts, who had previously been convicted of assault and shooting into an occupied building, told them, I have two guns on me. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison for the felon in possession of a firearm charges, according to Richard Moore, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The fate of a bill aimed at trying to overturn abortion rights nationwide is now in the hands of Gov. Kay Ivey. The Alabama Legislature gave final passage Tuesday night - on a vote of 25-6 with one abstention - to a bill to make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. The bill would take effect in six months if its signed into law. The sponsors of the legislation say the intent is to spark a legal challenge that could advance to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Friday, Ivey said she would wait to make a decision on whether to sign the bill into law after the final version reaches her desk. Ivey, while at the opening of a Hyundai engine plant in Montgomery on Wednesday morning, says she has not seen the abortion bill yet and is not ready to say whether she will sign it. Asked about the lack of a rape and incest exception in the abortion ban, she said all human life is precious. Tuesday night the governors press secretary had said Ivey intends to withhold comment until she has had a chance to thoroughly review the final version of the bill the Senate approved. Ivey was asked about legal costs of defending the abortion bill in the expected upcoming court fights. Ivey said, You certainly cannot deter your efforts to protect the unborn because of costs. She was also asked if shes concerned about fallout from abortion bill hurting business recruitment. Alabama is wide open for business. Its a great place to do business, Ivey said. A key decision on that final version came Tuesday night when the Senate rejected an amendment that would have allowed abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. The Senate rejected that amendment, proposed by Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, by a vote of 21-11. Last week, Ivey declined to say whether she would sign a bill without the rape and incest exception. .@GovernorKayIvey not commenting on the abortion bill tonight. From deputy press secretary Lori Jhons: "The governor intends to withhold comment until she has had a chance to thoroughly review the final version of the bill that passed." #alpolitics Mike Cason (@MikeCasonAL) May 15, 2019 Ivey has previously made statements supporting pro-life positions, including bans without exceptions for rape or incest. In November voters in Alabama approved an amendment that would outlaw abortion in Alabama if the Roe v. Wade ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 protecting abortion rights is overturned by a new majority on that court. During her campaign last fall for election to her first full term as governor Ivey declined to debate on that and other issues. But she did issue a statement criticizing Democratic nominee Walt Maddox for his stance on the proposed amendment. Its unconscionable to me that Walt Maddox would join abortion rights activists from across the country in opposing this measure that simply recognizes the rights of our precious unborn babies, Ivey said in a press release. Maddox said he is pro-life but does not support the amendment because it did not include exceptions for the health of the mother, rape or incest. Ivey also released a statement on Aug. 22, 2018 regarding a ruling by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirming a lower court decision striking down the Alabama Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Act. I was supportive of the bill when it passed through the Legislature in 2016, and I signed it as president of the Senate. I am disappointed in the courts ruling today; however, we should not let this discourage our steadfast commitment to protect the lives of the unborn, even if that means taking this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. This ruling clearly demonstrates why we need conservative justices on the Supreme Court, and I look forward to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh (who was later appointed to the court). In May 2018 the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) announced its endorsement of Ivey for governor before the Republican Primary. An original member of our National Pro-Life Womens Caucus, Kay exemplifies the pro-life, pro-woman leadership SBA List exists to promote. She has championed compassionate legislation to limit abortion after five months of pregnancy. She will fight to protect unborn children and their mothers and keep Alabama taxpayers out of the abortion business. We urge voters to re-elect Kay as governor of one of the nations most solidly pro-life states. In accepting the endorsement Ivey stated in the press release that I am a pro-life conservative who believes every life is precious, and Im honored to be endorsed by Susan B. Anthony List, an organization that works tirelessly to save the lives of the unborn. As governor, I will always defend unborn life, starting at conception, and advocate for those who are unable to advocate for themselves." It was Chelisa Nicole Hunts first beauty pageant. The 6-year-olds blond ringlets were curled tight as she stood ready for the competition that Friday night at Thorsby Elementary School. Chelisa won second alternate and told her family she thought she wanted to compete in the next pageant, too. While her mother changed Chelisa out of her competition dress and got the girls ready to go to her fiance's house for the weekend, Chelisas sister, 7-year-old Chelsea Marie Hunt, played a game of Trouble with her dad. Chelsea won. The day after the pageant, the little girls were found dead in their future stepfathers Pelham home, their throats slit with kitchen knives. Their mom, Dedra Mims Hunt, 29, and her fiance, Randy Duke, 39, were found shot to death in Dukes home. The girls lived with their father in Thorsby to stay in the school they attended before the divorce, but stayed with their mother on the weekends. They arrived at the Duke house just after the pageant, and were murdered the next day. Duke, Hunt, Chelisa and Chelsea were killed on March 22, 1997. Randy Dukes son, Mark Anthony Duke, and his friend, Michael Brandon Samra, were convicted in the quadruple slaying the next year. According to court records, Mark Anthony Duke came up with the murder plot because Randy Duke refused to allow him to use a pickup truck. More than 22 years after the gruesome murders shocked Shelby County, Chelsea and Chelisas paternal aunt, Tara Hunt Simmons, can vividly recall the day of the pageant. The girls laughter that night is something Simmons will never forget. Little did we know there would be no other pageants, no more board games and after that weekend my brother would never go back to his home again, she said. He could not stand being there without his little girls. The home where he learned to cook and wash clothes, and how to put little girls hair into ponytails, would never be the same. According to court records filed by the Alabama Attorney Generals Office to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mark Duke and Samra brought two guns to Randy Dukes home, where the teenagers planned to kill everyone inside. Mark Duke fatally shot his father in the head, while Samra shot Hunt in the face. Although injured, Hunt fled upstairs with her daughters. Hunt and Chelisa sought shelter in an upstairs bathroom, while Chelsea hid under a bed. Samra and Mark Duke ran after them, and Mark Duke shot and killed Hunt after he kicked in the bathroom door. Then, out of bullets, Mark Duke got two knives and pulled Chelisa from behind the shower curtain and slit her throat. The teens then pursued Chelsea, who was fighting back from under the bed. As she struggled, Mark Duke held her down and Samra slit her throat. Samra eventually admitted to his role in the crime and was sentenced to death in 1998. Mark Anthony Duke was also originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was later overturned and changed to life in prison pursuant to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning execution for offenders who committed their crimes while they were juveniles. He was 16 at the time of the slaying. Because Samra was 19 at the time of the killings, his death sentence wasnt changed. Although his attorneys have argued that the ruling should apply to offenders up to the age of 21 at the time of their crimes, the nations highest court has declined to stay his execution or review the case. He is set to die Thursday at 6 p.m. by lethal injection at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Simmons plans to attend the execution with her brother, Hunts ex-husband and the girls father. Even though Hunt and the girls father were divorced, she was still very much part of the Hunt family. Dedra was a wonderful mother and she knew the girls living with their dad and remaining in the same school was what was best for them. So, she sacrificed and did what was best for them, Simmons said. Dedra was family, a piece of paper couldnt change that. Having divorced parents didnt make life awkward for Chelsea and Chelisa, Simmons said. They loved being around their family. Their parents always did what was best for them and [Hunt and her ex-husband] were still great friends. Simmons said Chelsea, the older of the girls, was a tomboy and loved life. She was a protector, and always watched out for her little sister. Chelisa was totally oppositeshe was prim and proper, Simmons said, and when people asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she always responded, a mommy. Hunt was blunt but tender hearted, Simmons said, a perfect mix of her daughters. Dedra was so much fun She stood for what was right even if she had to stand alone. She was a little guarded, but if she was your friend, she was a true friend that you could count on, Simmons said. She was one of the best friends Ive ever had. Before the murders, Randy Duke had recently proposed to Hunt, and she said yes. They had been together about a year and although Simmons said she didnt know him well, Randy Duke would come over with Hunt and was always sweet and attentive to both his new fiancee and her daughters. I did question Chelsea and Chelisa about Randy [Duke] and Mark [Duke], as any aunt would do. They always had the best things to say about Randy [Duke], Simmons said. Simmons favorite memories of the girls involve them smiling, laughing, and joking with everyone they knew. She said the girls loved spring and would help she and their other aunt plant flowers. One year we thought it would be cool to plant seeds and let the girls watch them grow, Simmons remembered. We had 40 plants that year that made it, so [Chelsea and Chelisa] came up with the sweetest idea and gave them to the mothers at church on Mothers Day. Another memorya vacation she didnt know would be the girls laststands out as one of Simmons favorites. All of my siblings, their kids and our parents went to the beach. Somehow [the girls father] and I ended up with all the kids in our room. We let them jump on the beds, have brownies for breakfast and stay up all night watching movies. We were on vacation after all! She remembers all the small, seemingly unremarkable moments with her young nieces, like going trick-or-treating every year, trying to make Chelsea like cashews, and putting a pet bird on Chelisas shoulder. As it turns out, Chelsea had to eat a whole bag of cashews to realize she didnt like them; Chelisa was worried the bird would eat her curls, which she desperately needed. And, as it turns out, those are some of Simmons most treasured memories. After the murders, the community came together to honor the girls and built an elementary school gym in their honor. The town of Thorsby and the little childrentheir classmatescame together not only during our darkest moment in life, but this communitys darkest moment, Simmons said. There were fundraisers for the gym and for the funerals. School officials brought in counselors to talk to the girls classmates and their teachers. The little girls were buried holding hands, just like they often did in life. They were so close, Simmons said. The best of friends, and they shared so many stories and secrets. Now they argued like sisters do, but you didnt see one without seeing the other somewhere close by. Hunt was buried next to her daughters. The Mims and Hunt families are close today and consider each other family, because as theyre often reminded, family is all they have. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Samras latest plea, and he currently is seeking clemency from Gov. Kay Ivey ahead of his execution. Mark Hall, the lead investigator on the slaying and now the mayor of Helena, said he believes Samra should finally face his punishment. I am not surprised by the request for a stay by the offender, but Im reminded that the innocent victims of these horrific and senseless murders-- two adults and two small children-- did not have that option on that terrifying night when they were brutally murdered," Hall wrote in a statement. "It is my opinion that when a court hands down a final sentence for violent and heinous crimes, and all other court appeals have failed, and a conviction is upheld by those courts, then that sentence handed down should be served. Convicted murderers, who have exhausted all means of the possibility of acquittal in a capital murder case should serve every day, every hour and every minute of the sentence they were given, and that includes the death penalty when it is imposed. "Those innocent victims, and the families of those victims, deserve no less. The need for aviation technicians is at a historical level, and companies with growing interests in south Alabama are developing new partnerships with local school systems and colleges to help meet that need. Coastal Alabama Community College recently held a signing day event at Foley-based Collins Aerospace for three Baldwin County high school seniors who are the first enrollees in the colleges new four-year Aviation Maintenance Technician apprenticeship. It is the first such partnership between Coastal Alabama and the former UTC Aerospace Systems, and will be implemented through the colleges Alabama Aviation Center. Carly Jo Davis, John Everett Mohler and Jalen Hicks will receive on-the-job training, college credit toward an associates degree in airframe technology and their Federal Aviation Administration airframe licenses as part of the program. The students are from Foley, Fairhope and Baldwin County high schools, respectively. The three toured the Collins Aerospace facility prior to signing their letters of intent and were impressed with everything the company does. Formerly known as UTC, the company merged with multinational conglomerate Rockwell Collins in 2018. The Foley facility employs more than 1,000 who design, build and support the aerodynamic structures that surround an aircrafts engine known as nacelles for commercial and military aircraft. Hicks, 18, said he has tried to stay informed about the growth of the aerospace industry in south Alabama, especially since his father works at VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering, located at the Brookley Aeroplex. The Bay Minette native is already working as a handyman while completing his senior year, and sees the Aviation Maintenance Technician apprenticeship as a way of leap-frogging people his age who also might want to work in the industry. Most people start later on, and this gives me a step up, Hicks said. Its a good opportunity. The AMT apprenticeship took nearly two years to develop, and was spearheaded by training coordinators at Collins Aerospace, working with their counterparts within the U.S. Department of Labor. The process was well underway when Mark Sloan took over the Alabama Aviation Center at Coastal Alabama Community College in 2018, but he arrived with a comprehensive understanding of the critical need for aviation mechanics. Citing a 2017 study by aerospace giant Boeing, Sloan said the U.S. aerospace industry will need 189,000 new aircraft technicians over the next 20 years, or 9,450 per year. Over 25 percent of the workforce is 64 years or older and the average age of an aviation technician is 51 years old, he said. If you were to take every school in the United States that teaches the FAA curriculum, we currently graduate between 7,000 and 7,500, Sloan said. We have a 20-year technician shortage that may be extended because we currently cant meet the aviation industrys demands. So this program is a big, big thing. Beginning with the fall 2019 semester, students Davis, Mohler and Hicks will learn alongside Collins mechanics in Foley, in addition to their responsibilities in the classroom. The first two years will earn them their associates degrees in airframe technology. And by the end of the four-year program, they will have their Federal Aviation Administration airframe licenses. Originally, the program was crafted to offer opportunities to just two students, but it was expanded to accommodate three based on the strength on the applicants. Sloan helped promote the apprenticeships by visiting local high schools looking for students with a passion for aviation. Apprenticeship shows the commitment, that Collins wants to invest in the next generation, and for an educator thats what I want to see, he said. I want to see that the kids are going to be taken care of when they hit the deck. In so many different areas in aircraft maintenance, theyre not. Theyre just another cog in the wheel. The May 2 apprenticeship signing at Collins Aerospace preceded another major announcement of opportunities for area high schoolers this one spearheaded by Airbus at Brookley. Gov. Kay Ivey was in town on May 8 to announce a pair of training programs: FlightPath9 and Fast Track. Like the AMT apprenticeship, those programs are for seniors, with an inaugural class of 25 introduced on Tuesday. The nine-month FlightPath9 initiative is an after-school training program that will take place two nights a week until the students accumulate 200 hours of instruction. Graduation from FlightPath9 leads directly into Airbus Fast Track program, a 12- to 15-week course designed to give new hires basic training in aerospace maintenance. Scott Hannah, the Foley MRO general manager for Collins Aerospace, said the apprenticeship partnership with Coastal Alabama Community College might not only create the next generation of skilled workers at the facility, but its future leaders, as well. Ultimately, we want them to be successful, he said. Because if theyre successful, then were successful. Duck boat tours will be returning to downtown Mobile this summer if fans of the unique service purchase more than $70,000 in advance tickets over the next few weeks. On Friday, Gulf Coast Ducks announced via its Facebook page that its three duck boats could resume their Mobile River splashes as early as June 12, which would end a five-month hiatus. The company started offering tours in 2016, but in early January shut down due to skyrocketing insurance costs in the wake of a 2018 tragedy in Branson, Missouri. Last July 19, 17 people drowned when their duck boat sank in Table Rock Lake due to heavy waves and winds gusting over 65 mph. But insurance companies have recently come to their senses, according to Gulf Coast Ducks co-founder Matt Zarzour, and if the necessary capital can be raised, the enthusiastic quacks of tourists will once again echo along the riverfront. A typical duck boat tour begins at Royal and Church streets downtown and spans land and water from USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, across the Mobile River twice and a few blocks short of Broad Street to the west. Guests are treated to a host of quirky local facts, tall tales and more than their fair share of jokes as the school bus-sized vehicles roll and float around the city center. Zarzour said the 2,500 advance tickets the company needs to sell is a conservative number based on the significant maintenance work that its three duck boats will require to be in top working order. The ducks, as theyre known, are repurposed DUKW amphibious vehicles first used to transport soldiers in World War II. That kind of initial deposit from our riders gives us the ability to invest in the ducks properly to get them rolling again, Zarzour said. With the majority of May to book tours, and an encouraging solid investment from the citizens already, he thinks the tours should resume as scheduled on June 12. Zarzour, his brother Grant and former Ducks General Manager Scott Tindle founded the company through their the firm Activation Management, which also operates the Fort of Colonial Mobile. But in the last month, Tindles share of Activation was purchased by the Zarzours. A new general manager is expected to be promoted from within, Matt Zarzour said. He also said that Tindle will remain ceremonially involved with Activation and the duck tours. He is the reason this thing exists, so we certainly want to keep him around. But he is moving on to other ventures that hes focusing on, Zarzour said. Tindle has formed the national business consultancy Experiential Design Group and has been focused on its growth since the end of December. Running that company requires a lot of travel away from Mobile, Tindle said, and hes currently working with clients in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and San Diego. Despite the required travel, I am as excited as ever to call Mobile home, and try and build a tremendous national business based out of our Port City, Tindle said. Zarzour said that Gulf Coast Ducks strict adherence to safety standards such as requiring its drivers to have boat captains licenses will continue unabated. We will not spare any expense when it comes to safety, he said. If the tours do indeed resume, the routes wont change in any noticeable way. And the tour guides will still present things with personalized style, or as, Zarzour said, put their own stamp on the rolling-and-floating show. We like to think that you could come once a month and get a completely different experience each time, Zarzour said. President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to deliver a brand new I-10 bridge if he wins the 2020 presidential election. Unfortunate for Alabama, the promise was made in Louisiana. The president, speaking in the southwest Louisiana city of Hackberry, promised to have the new bridge built about 325 miles to the west of Mobile in Lake Charles, La. At least one Alabama state official plans to request the Trump Administration deliver a similar promise to Mobile, home to arguably the presidents earliest and most successful campaign rallies in 2015. Im going to make him aware of a similar project in Alabama, said Alabama Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Mobile resident and a backer of Trump. I would like to work on a specific plan on how to pay for it with federal funds. Zeigler, in a news release Wednesday, said he is drawing up a request to the administration for funding of the $2.1 billion Interstate 10 Bridge and Bayway project from Mobile to Baldwin counties. Zeigler said he will advocate that Trump support the Alabama project as a way to eliminate a proposed $3 to $6 one-way toll levied on motorists who use the entire 10-mile span of the new structure once its completed in 2025. The Louisiana precedent is there to use the Trump infrastructure money for the I-10 Bridge, said Zeigler. Not only is the (Alabama) I-10 project similar, but its more for a case of federal funding. Its a safety issue on I-10 and through the tunnels and the Bayway and its an economic issue with tourists coming to the beaches, and for commuters who work in one county coming into the other. (Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com) Zeigler, a favorite among tea party Republicans, recently started a Facebook page objecting to the toll proposal that would be initiated to raise a lion share of the funding to pay for the Alabama project. There is also a website, www.stopthetoll.com. Zeigler has called the proposed toll irresponsible and economically dangerous, and his Facebook site has over 1,300 followers since it began on Sunday. Alabama Department of Transportation officials, during public hearings last week, said the tolls were necessary for the project to become a reality. Allison Gregg, an ALDOT spokeswoman for the project, said the state agency has been working with the U.S. Department of Transportation in securing funding through a variety of federal programs. ALDOT has applied for a $150 million Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation, and is seeking all other funding opportunities. Local elected leaders met with the Trump administration regarding the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, Gregg said in an email to AL.com. ALDOT leadership is open to conversations and will embrace additional funding opportunities from the federal government. A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope - who also opposes tolling Mobile and Baldwin county residents - said the congressmans office has worked with the Trump Administration and the U.S. DOT on the I-10 Mobile River Bridge project since Day 1. The project has been in the planning stages long before Trump took office. Congressman Byrne is very appreciative of all their assistance in moving this project along, and we will continue to work with them to ensure progress on the project continues and receives the support of the federal government, said Byrne spokesman Bradley Jaye. Trumps I-10 declaration in Louisiana comes with about one-week remaining in the public comment period for the Alabama I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project. The commenting deadline to the Alabama Department of Transportation is May 23, and Zeigler is encouraging residents to reference the presidents I-10 stance in Louisiana as a possible alternative toward assessing tolls on Mobile and Baldwin county residents. Trumps promise came during national Infrastructure Week and illuminated the presidents interests in pursuing a campaign promise to spend $1 trillion in repairing or replacing aging roads, railroads and bridges. Congressional Democratic leaders and Trump, in a rare moment of bipartisanship, agreed late last month to pursue a $2 trillion package this year. But there are no plans on how to pay for it. Trumps remarks in Louisiana also placed a national focus on the 67-year-old I-10 Bridge over the Calcasieu River in Lake Charles. The bridge has long been labeled structurally deficient, and was ranked as the No. 7 most dangerous bridge in the U.S. by Travel + Leisure Magazine in 2017. Estimates to build a six-lane bridge with modern lighting and walking-biking paths would cost between $400 million to $600 million. The project is still in the planning stages, with the Chamber of Southwest Louisiana just releasing a new proposal for the bridge in January. Thank you, @realDonaldTrump. Your commitment to building a new I-10 Bridge is a huge win for Southwest Louisiana. pic.twitter.com/2xICgOb8Rj Rep. Clay Higgins (@RepClayHiggins) May 14, 2019 Alabamas I-10 bridge project is much further along the development stage, and could be under construction by next year. A final record of decision needed to move forward with construction is expected to be released later this summer. Both projects are considered P3 developments, consisting of both public and private investments. And both projects, because of private sector involvement, require tolls. In Alabama, the proposed tolls of $3 to $6 assessed on both users of the new I-10 Bridge and Bayway and the 46-year-old Wallace Tunnel has generated concern among local lawmakers in recent weeks. Among them is state Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Daphne, who wrote a letter to ALDOT objecting to the project being financed with tolls paid for by motorists in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Well continue to lobby the (Trump) administration for additional federal funding, said Elliott, who was unaware of the presidents comments in Louisiana on Wednesday. Elliott and other members of the Alabama Senate spent the day focused on statewide legislation banning abortion. Elliott said that Alabama state lawmakers from Baldwin and Mobile counties plan to meet with ALDOT officials and Gov. Kay Iveys office soon to discuss spending alternatives to tolling. The DOT is aware of our concerns, said Elliott. Our challenge is to find the money for an increased public subsidy and to lean on the DOT to provide more money and prioritize more money for this up front. And that money should be commensurate with what they are doing in other parts of the state. Not everyone gets it, but the science is clear: Rapid climate change is upon us. Its cause is heat trapped by an atmosphere packed with greenhouse gases from carbon fuel use. And the costs are growing. Yet . . . good news! A conservative, bipartisan, market-based climate solution is at hand. Whats more, Alabamas U. S. senators are a perfect pair to champion that solution for a livable world and a robust new economy built with climate-friendly energy sources. Before the solution, the sciencebut dont take it from me! Instead, go to climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus for a rundown on what more than 90 percent of climate scientists are telling us. And for rebuttals to climate change dismissivesincluding a slim minority of outlier scientistscheck out skepticalscience.com. Truth is, the need for climate action is urgent. Last falls report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (report.ipcc.ch) warns that we must reduce global carbon emissions before 2030 if we are to avoid runaway damage to our food and water supplies, health, social stability, domestic security, species diversity, coastline, property, infrastructure, and (of course) economy. The economic damage will be uneven. A January Brookings Institution report (brookings.edu) forecasts county-by-county climate impacts on income across America by 2100. Brookings says the southeast will catch the greatest brunt. On Brookings list of Americas 100 most threatened metro areas, Birmingham stands at number 15. In statewide economic harm, Alabama ranks 5th behind Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Thankfully, market economics offers a direct and effective path toward climate stability and sustained prosperity. In January more than 3,500 U.S. economists of all stripesliberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, all four former Federal Reserve chairs, 27 Nobel economics laureates, 15 former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisors, and two former Treasury secretariesissued an unprecedented call for climate action. They recommended a carbon tax and dividend strategy to drive down carbon use and encourage technological innovation and large-scale infrastructure development. The signers stated that a carbon tax offers the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary. This tax should increase every year until emissions goals are met and be revenue neutral. Properly structured, the tax would replace the need for various carbon regulations that are less efficient. To protect American competitiveness, there should be border carbon adjustment levies on goods from countries lacking equivalent carbon controls, and thereby create an incentive for other nations to enact similar carbon pricing. Finally, to maximize fairness, especially for the poor, all revenue from a carbon tax should be returned directly to U. S. citizens through equal lump sum payments, not be used by government for other purposes. January also brought introduction of a bipartisan U. S. House bill meeting the economists specs: HR763, the proposed Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019. It sets a rising carbon tax and mandates monthly household dividend payments, refunding most families more in cash than theyll spend in increased carbon-driven costs. A widely respected economic modeling firm reports that not only will HR763 drawdown carbon use by 40 percent in 12 years, but its market nudge from carbon dependence to sustainable energies will grow 2.1 million new local jobs across America within a decade. HR763 as yet has no companion bill in the Senate. This is where Alabamas senators have a chance to makeand preservehistory. Richard Shelby and Doug Jones are wide apart in age, philosophy, and experiencethough probably no wider than the range among Januarys 3,500 economist signatories. Regardless, saving a human-friendly climate is not a right-left, red- blue, issue. Its about people recognizing a shared threat and rising to the challenge together. Imagine the powerful example here and across America should Alabamas senators together step to the fore to propose an HR763 companion for Senate action! We stand at a dangerous crossroads. The stakes couldnt be higher. For senators young and old, helping blaze a more secure path forward would be a worthy legacy. John Northrop is chair of the Birmingham chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, a volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan organization building political will for climate action. cclbhamal@gmail.com Protesters on Tuesday gathered outside the State House, while Alabama senators inside debated - and eventually approved 25-6 - a near-total abortion ban. Led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, the Power House, Montgomerys reproductive rights advocacy organization, and Planned Parenthood, protesters shouted Whose choice? Our choice holding coat hangers, an homage to the tools people once used to provide their own abortion care. The abortion ban bill would make almost all abortion illegal except for when the mothers health is in danger. Randall Marshall, director of the ACLU of Alabama, promised that he would fight against the bill if it passed and promised that clinics will remain open throughout the legal battle. We will prevail, Marshall said. The ACLU of Alabama fought an Alabama law in 2016 making doctors who provide abortions have hospital permitting privileges and won, costing taxpayers $1.7 million. Alabama Rep. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, who voted against the abortion ban bill in the House of Representatives, thanked all of the protesters for coming out to hold legislators accountable. She highlighted that out of the 140 members, there are only 21 women. Keep up the fight. Spread the word, the country is watching and listening, Coleman said. Three women dressed as characters from Margaret Atwoods book The Handmaids Tale stood with the protesters. They have been attending all of the hearings surrounding the abortion ban bill. The women, dressed in red cloaks, held signs and quoted lines from the book-turned-TV-Show such as under his eye. We wear them because we are terrified that as a country we may be sliding towards a similar future to the dystopian nightmare shown in The Handmaids Tale, in which women are forced to live as broodmares for the wealthy, said Margeaux Hartline, one of the women dressed as a Handmaid and an abortion clinic escort. Being forced to birth an unwanted child, or worse, being forcibly impregnated in the first place is something that this bill will bring about. Thats the point of it. So we wear the robes as a silent form of commentary on the parallels between our reality and the fictional future in the novel. The Alabama Senate voted not to include an amendment that would make exceptions for rape or incest, but as of publication had not voted on the actual bill. Alabamas near-total abortion ban would go into effect six months after the bill is signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama promised to halt any enforcement with a lengthy court battle. Rebecca Seung-Bickley, a spokesperson for the ACLU, said they are working on drafting litigation that would spur a temporary injunction at the federal level, and keep the law from going into affect. This will never go into effect, as long as ACLU is in litigation, Seung-Bickley said. Seung-Bickley referenced a case the ACLU brought against Alabama laws that prohibited a common abortion procedure in 2014. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson struck down the law, but Alabama again appealed. The case is now waiting to be heard by the Supreme Court five years later. Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, the bills sponsor, said the bills lack of exceptions is to encourage the Supreme Court to take on the legislation and revist the previous ruling on Roe v. Wade. But there are at least five other abortion ban bills vying to take on the Roe. Its so extreme that it is unlikely to be picked by the Supreme Court,Seung-Bickley said. What exactly is in Alabamas anti-abortion bill? The "Human Life Protection Act, or HB314, approved in the legislature and now pending Gov. Iveys signature, would make performing - by a doctor or someone else - an abortion a Class A Felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison, or attempting to perform an abortion a Class C felony. The bill makes no exceptions for a pregnancy as a result of rape or incest, but does make exceptions for serious health risk[s] to the unborn childs mother. The bill compares the number of aborted fetuses to the those who died in the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Is this now the strictest anti-abortion bill in the country? Alabama is the only state with a near-total abortion ban bill pending or already on the books. While other states are pushing for abortion bans after six weeks, also known as heartbeat bills, Alabama is pushing for a total abortion ban without exception. A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates told AL.com this bill would likely be the most extreme abortion ban, if signed into law, post Roe v. Wade. Why are states passing these bills now? States are rushing to pass abortion ban bills because of the newly changed landscape in the U.S. Supreme Court. With President Donald Trumps election of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court skews red, emboldening Republican majority states to try to overturn Roe v. Wade. What happens now? The bill says it will take effect six months following its passage and approval by the Governor. The bills sponsor, Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur said in a press conference Tuesday night she has been in contact with people surrounding Ivey and expects her to sign the bill into law. The ACLU of Alabama has already promised to challenge the ruling and would most likely seek a temporary injunction from a judge to block the law from being enforced. The process of court action, likely appeals and ultimately a review by the U.S. Supreme Court could take years. When will it actually take effect? How quickly will abortions become illegal in Alabama? Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, said HB314s purpose is solely to challenge the U.S. Supreme Courts 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. The Senate voted Tuesday to table two possible amendments to the bill aimed at changing the rape and incest language because it would hinder the bills chances of being challenged by the Supreme Court. Collins said she hopes after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade Alabama will be able to make a completely different law that determines abortion laws in the state. So can people still get abortions in Alabama? Will they be able to after its signed? Abortions are legal in Alabama right now. There are three clinics in Alabama that provide abortions, West Alabama Womens Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama Womens Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville and Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery. Ivey is expected to sign the bill into law and the law would go into effect six months later. The ACLU of Alabama said they will immediately challenge the law if passed and most likely ask a judge for a temporary injunction, which would halt enforcement of the law. Who will pay the cost to defend Alabamas law if its challenged? You. Alabama taxpayers pay for the states laws to be challenged. In 2016 the state paid the ACLU and Planned Parenthood $1.7 million after a law was passed requiring abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges was struck down as unconstitutional. What happens to women who have miscarriages? Collins did not address instances of miscarriage in the bill, but promised it is only the doctor that could face prosecution, not the people having abortions. Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville emphasized Tuesday that the bill would only apply once a woman is known to be pregnant." When asked whether a woman would have to prove she had a miscarriage and not an abortion, Chambliss responded the burden of proof would be on the prosecution," signaling a woman would be prosecuted and tried for miscarrying. Poles in conservative heartland support EU, but some cite strong national identity when supporting changes to the bloc. Torun and Sierpc, Poland Poland managed to dodge the economic crisis that ravaged EU countries a decade ago and instead became one of the worlds fastest-growing economies. A growing urban elite is typically liberal and pro-European. The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) relies on the support of the traditionally conservative rural areas. Its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski who holds no formal position in government but is Polands most influential political figure, has often railed against the Brussels establishment and has been at loggerheads with the EU over issues such as migration and the rule of law. The European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Poland in April, accusing the country of undermining judicial independence. The European Parliament elections on May 23-26 will see PiS face off an alliance of centrist, liberal parties, the European Coalition including the former ruling party, Civic Platform. The pro-European coalition lags just two points behind Law and Justice, according to polls. But Kaczynski has to reconcile his euroscepticism with an electorate that has seen the economy grow and opportunities for young people multiply since being part of the 28-member union. According to research conducted by the European Parliament in 2018, 54 percent of Poles believe being part of the European Union has been good for the country higher than the EU average. According to the Warsaw-based Public Opinion Research Centre (CBOS), support for Polands membership of the EU reached a record high in April, with 91 percent of Poles being in favour of membership. The far right and some corners of the PiS advocate for Polexit. Alongside far-right eurosceptic figures elsewhere in Europe, such as Italys Matteo Salvini and Frances Marine Le Pen, Kaczynski is rallying supporters behind the idea of changing the EU from within, calling for a looser union based on national identity and sovereignty. Al Jazeera spoke to people in Torun and Sierpc, conservative heartlands in central Poland, to speak about EU support and criticism of the bloc. Id like our voice to count more Lidia Maslanka, 49, tax adviser, Torun The election is important because we are the part of the EU, and an important part. How did we benefit from EU membership? I think we developed as a country: our infrastructure, education. I dont think [anything should change in the EU], but Id like our voice to count more. Poles should have the same level of earnings as the rest of the EU. We are a very well-educated nation, more than others in Europe. But they demand more from us than from others. Poland must remain Poland. We have our own preferences, habits and culture and everyone should respect that. The young generation is different. They leave, but we elders, we will always respect our culture. We will never be English, French or German. We will always be Polish because we have our own roots. And we will always strive for this, right? Europe is inseparable Agnieszka Janik, 59, market trader in Torun Agnieszka Janik says Europe is a melting pot [Ylenia Gostoli/Al Jazeera] Being in the EU changed a lot in my life, and voting for the new parliament means we have the chance to define the face of the EU for the next term. My son works in Germany. He can do so legally and with no hassle. I think that Poland is located almost at the centre of Europe and shouldnt be out of the European Union. Europe is a melting pot for me, where everything has been mixing through history, [and] what was before influences today. Thats why I think that Europe is inseparable. Poland and the EU are like kids in the playground Wojciech Witkowski, 48, fireman and painter, Sierpc Wojciech Witkowski believes Poland has benefited from being in the EU [Ylenia Gostoli/Al Jazeera] The EU is a blessing for Poland. Polands location is very specific. Were are always exposed to Russian influence. Without the EU things could have been different. Also, in terms of development, investments. My son lives in Berlin, he went to school there, and now he lives there. Im also seriously considering retiring abroad, for instance in Spain. I often meet artists and travel to countries that are not the EU members, for example, Ukraine. I travel there for art festivals, and the difference is huge. Poland, Ukraine and Belarus were starting from the same point [as former Soviet states]. Poland and the EU are like kids in the playground. Everyone sticks together, and Poland is the little child sitting in the sandpit and banging everyones head with a spade while saying, Play with me because Im important. And the group wonders why they should play with this evil boy. The Polish government has to have an enemy so that they can scare the citizens. This is being done to upset the EU. They keep on asking why we dont respect the rule of law, the constitution, and the government keeps on doing this to make the atmosphere more tense. Then they tell the citizens that the EU attacks Poland. There is a lot of negative coverage about the EU on state TV. But not right now, because there will be an election, and the EU is currently good. There are other enemies, but after the elections, it will be back to normal. The EU is good for farmers and other people Piotr Strzesniewski, 44, construction worker, Sierpc Piotr Strzesniewski is not certain who he will vote for in the coming elections [Ylenia Gostoli/Al Jazeera] I think [the EU] is good for farmers and other people. They also give some development money to youth, and things like that. Somehow [I feel I have benefited from being part of the EU], but I dont receive any subsidies myself. As for now, [I might vote for] Law and Justice, but Im not sure 100 percent. The government gave the 500 Plus [benefit for all second and subsequent children, equivalent to 116 euros per child, paid monthly until age 18]. The opposition doesnt like it and promised [more], but Im wondering what they would do if they were actually in power. In Poland, we have quite a strong national identity Zygmunt Manasterski, 21, student at the University of Warsaw Zygmunt Manasterski, a student, says Poland should have influence in European affairs [Ylenia Gostoli/Al Jazeera] I dont watch too much TV, and there arent many campaign billboards where I live, 50km from Warsaw. I think the campaign is subtle and less irritating this time. [The European Parliament] may not be as close as the local Parliament, but I think its very important that we have some influence over what is happening in Europe. I dont like it when somebody makes decisions for me. I would not be very pleased if, lets say, the French, Germans and Italians [draft] a law and say everyone has to abide by it. We once were in a federation of different countries and we didnt quite like it. So I think that there should be something in between. You cant just say that we all have to be separate. We have a shared economy and laws. Quite often it creates a bit of a problem when someone says that he feels pride about where he is from, then he is called a nationalist. In Poland, we have quite a strong national identity. We are proud of being from here, I was raised in this environment. I dont have a lot of memories of before the European Union. We have plenty of things that have been bettered from being part of the EU. I live in the countryside, in a village. I see how much even my primary school has benefited from it. The EU is a good idea. Amid lack of government support, farmers in Zamfara state say they live in fear due to impending attacks from bandits. Moriki, Nigeria When bandits attacked Moriki a small farming community in Nigerias northwestern state of Zamfara last year and killed 25 villagers, Shamsu Musa did not weep. He stood beside their graves, feeling the weight of Morikis sorrow on his shoulders. Few days after, he surveyed the hills and plain of Moriki wondering over what will happen to the little kids, widows and the old people when the assailants return. The bandits had left a note of warning, threatening to wipe out the remnants, and burn down the barns and silos and the lands upon which his harvest of millet, guinea corn and maize has flourished from birth. I wont live to see the fall of Moriki like some people who abandon their birthplace during the time of trouble, said 25-year-old Musa. But if a man runs away from his home, who would defend it? This crisis began as a small tit-for-tat community clash in 2011 between Hausa farmers and Fulani nomadic herdsmen over cattle rustling. Poor handling by local authorities, who have been accused by both sides of bias, resulted in distrust that partly led to its escalation. Since 2011, the conflict has left more than 4,000 people dead, destroyed farmlands, rustled more than 25,000 cattle and impacted about 500 villages, according to state Governor Abdulaziz Yari. The herdsmen have also accused villagers of killing their cattle. Deadly year The crisis peaked this year, claiming more than 300 lives so far, security experts said. And the toll might exceed 411 civilians who died in clashes with armed group Boko Haram in all of 2018, according to Amnesty International. Musa convinced other young people into forming a local civilian militia to protect their communities. The 35-man team, made up of young farmers, have watched over Moriki for the past one year, repelling attacks from the bandits. We waited for the government, but their help wasnt coming. The bandits were taking advantage of this gap to burn down houses and kill innocent people. Thats why we started protecting our own communities, he said. 180819221942335 By and large, the security structure put in place in Moriki is becoming a model for many impacted communities in Zamfara. Young people, who have lost confidence in the government are at the centre of their own security and that of their communities. The government has launched multiple military operations in the region since 2017 covering northwestern states of Katsina, Kaduna Niger, Kano and Sokoto all threatened by the conflict. The interventions have not recorded much progress because the government stepped into the crisis too late, said Adamu Abubaker of the Centre for Community Excellence (CCE), an NGO working to unite all the actors in the crisis for the past two years. If the government had done the right thing at the beginning, the situation would have been resolved, Abubaker said. It was a conflict that needed dialogue, negotiations and proper administration of justice system. But there was never that political will to even solve the issue in the first place, he told Al Jazeera. Complexity of the crisis The spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force in Katsina, one of the worst-hit states, Gambo Isa said that despite the immense progress recorded by multiple ongoing military operations in the region, the complexity of the crisis and short supply of military manpower and ammunition has slowed success. We cannot say we have stopped the attacks altogether, but we have curtailed them considerably. There are a lot of dimensions to this crisis (security operations is only one). There are political and economic dimensions. But we also have challenges of manpower and insufficient equipment, he said. While experts blame the government, Abubaker Muhammed, a local tricycle driver has perfected plans to restore Gobarcali his small village overrun by the bandits two years ago. He is leading over 30 youths who are willing to train under him to restore their communities. For them, the first journey leads to Tsafe a small village at the outskirt of Gusau city, which is notorious for its powerful charms and local gun factories and markets. Tsafe, a two-hour drive from Gusau, the capital city of Zamfara, wears a typical native look: the mud huts, planted between the bevy of rocks, deep valleys and scanty baobab trees. This is a conflict against hardworking people. No one is asking the government to give us food. We did not grow up hoping for any help from them. But if they provide peace, we can fend for ourselves, said 32-year-old Muhammed. Former farmers roam jobless in Gusau, and many of them want to return. But most of their areas are now governed by bandits. Many other communities are now emulating the success of Moriki community in tackling the bandit threat. Booming gun market To feed their mission, guns and charms markets are booming in many parts of the state and even the entire northwest region. These weapons, largely made by local blacksmiths, sell for $15-30. The trade is able to thrive because the government security forces are not in control of most of the regions remote villages largely where the small-scale weapon manufacturing and marketing happen. There is also a popular local charm, called odieshi, which is believed to make one impregnable in the face of attacks from material weapons. It comes in a powdery form and sells for $2. At Tsefa, there is a room where young people who receive this charm are tested with guns. It is in this small room capped with rusted zinc, a small opening and a cement wall that thousands of disenchanted youths find strength. Some people who received this charm have gone back to retake their communities. It is a good and tested charm. I have taken it. If you have gun, shoot me in the head, and the bullet will not enter, boasts Danladi Almed. Nearly everyone in Zamfara state has a weapon. People will remain armed even if the issue of the bandits is addressed. What will hungry and unemployed people do with guns? This conflict is surely breeding a bigger one, said Abubaker from the NGO. One in every five people in Nigeria rural communities owns weapons while one in every 10 people owns weapons in the urban areas, according to the Small Arms Survey group. Some of the weapons available in the market, it says, are muzzle-loading Dane guns, 9mm semi-automatic pistols, assault rifles and sub-machine guns as well as shotguns. But getting charms and guns is just one part of the story. Musa, for instance, undergoes tough drills on shooting, aiming, running and taking cover every week. The peak of his work starts at 8pm when each smaller group of five is assigned one of the community entry points. They hang in tall trees, rock beds and tunnels to monitor unfamiliar movements till dawn, while the women and kids sleep at home. But without the women, the efforts to keep the community safe would have collapsed, said Musa. Extrajudicial killings Every morning, the women go to the farms, while their men take some rest at home as attacks dont often occur in the daytime. Assisted by their sons and daughters, the women are able to make profits from the sales of their farm products which are used to feed the family and support their husbands. We are happy with what the women do every day. Though I am almost jobless doing this duty, my wife has carried the burden of the family. It is also the women who contribute to feed us every night, he said. Musa has emerged as a hero for the Moriki community. I cant let these people down even if death comes along the way, Musa said, his small eyes turning watery. But people like Kabiru Adamu, who heads Abuja-based American Society for Industrial Security, is worried about leaving security operations largely in the hands of the militia. Adamu said the nobility of the role these militia groups play today may be abused in the future as weapons may end up in the hands of criminals. Hausa militia has since been accused of extrajudicial killings, extortion and persecution of Fulani and other ethnic minorities in northern Nigeria. The conflict started because the government left security in the hands of the people. And there is no guarantee that things wont get worse in the future, Adamu, the security risk consultant, warned. Thousands of Palestinians rallied on Wednesday to mark Nakba Day, what Palestinians call the catastrophe that befell them in the war that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes. For more than a year, Palestinians in Gaza have been holding weekly protests along the fence, calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to the territory, as well as for an end to a 12-year blockade imposed by Israel. At least 47 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli soldiers during Wednesdays protests, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Witnesses said the soldiers fired live ammunition, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse protesters near the Israeli separation fence in eastern Gaza. The EU seems to be the only major power willing to stand up to the US on Iran. But does it have the strength to do so? The schism between the United States and Europe over Iran bears the hallmarks of their friction over Iraq prior to the 2003 US-led invasion. Their current dispute is mainly over means not ends, but could have major implications for transatlantic relations and the Middle East. Both the US and the EU would like to see the Ayatollahs Iran contained and constrained, preferably under new leadership just as they wanted to see Saddam Husseins Iraq before 2003 but as in the past, they disagree on how to go about it. To put it simply, it is a dispute over carrots or sticks or whether to bring Iran to its senses or bring it to its knees. The Europeans want to compel the Islamic Republic to change its behaviour using trade and investments in accordance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), while the US wants to coerce it into a much more debilitating deal through tough sanctions and the threat of force. But to paraphrase Mohamed ElBaradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is no donkey to be managed with carrots and sticks. It is a defiant regional power that demands a US u-turn on sanctions, an apology, and respect. As the crisis deepens, the disagreements between the US and Europe are also worsening in tone and substance. Europe, the hypocrite The Trump administration does not see eye-to-eye with the EU on several issues. First, it argues that the JCPOA was a terrible deal negotiated in haste to serve as President Barack Obamas foreign policy legacy, rather than to ensure nuclear-free Iran. The deal allowed the Islamic Republic to expand its regional reach and subsidised Iranian support for terrorism and the destabilisation of Washingtons Arab allies so the argument goes. Second, the Trump administration believes that even though the deal is the culmination of multilateral diplomacy, multilateralism is no substitute for doing the right thing. It has demonstrated it values international agreements and institutions only when these serve its policies and interests. The Trump administration, therefore, insists that any country that trades with Iran must pay the price for aiding and abetting an evil state sponsor of terror. It has gone as far as comparing a diplomatic approach to Iran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany. Third, Washington considers the Europeans hypocrites or ungrateful free-riders, who criticise US power, while benefiting from US military protection. It sees European caution as weakness: America acts because it can, Europe rails because it cant. In other words, Europe prefers carrots only because it lacks the big sticks. From the viewpoint of the Trump administration, if the Europeans are serious about having a say, they need to put their money where their mouth is, i.e. increase their military spending to at least meet their NATO commitments. If the EU expects the US to act when crises blow up in Asia, the Middle East or even in its own front and back yards, (say, in Kosovo or Libya), it is up to Washington to decide the when and the how, and it is up to Brussels to keep up or shut up. America, the bully Europe obviously has a rather different perspective on these issues. First, the Europeans believe that the Iran nuclear deal, while not perfect, fulfilled its mandate. It ensured Iran would not become a nuclear state and encouraged a change in behaviour. They argue that whatever Washington believes is missing, such as provisions on Irans missile programme and its controversial regional policies, can be negotiated separately. Why throw away a deal that the IAEA certifies has been working, when it could be strengthened and supplemented with additional protocols or agreements? Now that the US insists on going at it alone, it will have less leverage to pressure Tehran to come back to the table without the help of its European allies. Second, the EU sees the JCPOA as a successful multilateral effort that could set a precedent for reaching non-proliferation and other agreements in the future. By walking away from the deal and punishing those who honour it, the Trump administration is alienating its allies and setting a different kind of precedent: one that encourages other powers to act unilaterally and withdraw from important international accords, which could have damaging implications for world peace and security. The Europeans want to see the US lead by the power of its example, not by an example of its power. They would like to see it honour its commitments, not for Irans sake, but rather for the sake of maintaining and strengthening an international rules-based system, the Western substitute of the more neutral international law. Third, the Europeans, who admit to and even boast of learning from the horrors of at least two centuries of war, are troubled by a US refusal to learn from its own bitter experiences. Since World War II, the US has embarked on major wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, none of which have ended well, let alone in victory. And still, the US continues to act like a hyper-power, insisting on being the worlds self-appointed sheriff. Brussels hopes President Donald Trump is pursuing a new deal not a new war, but his senior administration officials may be itching to teach Iran a lesson by forcing it to make an impossible choice between total surrender and total defeat. The Trump administrations reliance on the coercive power of its military and economic dominance and its use of the same prisms and pretexts as the Bush administration in 2003 could push the crisis down a slippery slope towards confrontation one that promises to be far more costly than the Iraq war. And it may have already started. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos warning on Iran following the recent alleged attacks on two Saudi tankers has further irked Europe and left transatlantic relations severely strained. There are already reports that Washington is blaming Iran for the attacks and is considering the possibility of deploying 120,000 soldiers to the Gulf. Parallels are already being drawn with the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, when in 1964 the US government manufactured a military incident to deceive Congress and the public and justify its direct involvement in the Vietnam war. Two sides of the same West The bickering over Iran is only the latest of a series of crises and tensions that have been building up between the two sides of the Atlantic since the end of the Cold War. The EU and the US still have a lot in common, certainly more than they do with Russia or China, but they have been at odds over a growing number of issues, including the Middle East, Russian resurgence, weapons proliferation and climate change. As Europe asserts its global role mainly through its soft power and the US backs out of its global responsibilities while doubling down on its hard power, the gulf in transatlantic relations will only grow. While an exacerbated Iran crisis would damage but not break off US-EU relations, it could detonate the Middle East, if no one intervenes to stop the escalation. Unfortunately, both China and Russia the other two signatories of the JCPOA have so far tried to pass the buck hoping the other would stand up to the US over its economic sanctions and military deployment to the Gulf. This has left the EU trying on its own to salvage its huge investment in the deal with Iran. But assuming that Brussels could summon the will to act, it still lacks the means. It suffers from far too many internal divisions, disputes and crises to be able to stand up to the US. Even the French-German axis which held and advanced the cause of a united Europe for decades looks shakier than ever. So far the EU has failed to stop the US from launching a diplomatic offensive, a deception campaign, a public relations assault, an economic and psychological war on Iran. And, alas, there is no indication it can stop the Trump administration from taking its anti-Iran campaign to the next level. This may be another case of US cooking up dinner and leaving Europe to wash the dishes. Over the past few weeks, northwest Syria witnessed yet another serious military escalation. Russian and Syrian regime forces unleashed a deadly campaign of bombardment on parts of Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces, after two attacks by Hayet Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an armed group formerly linked to al-Qaeda, killed 22 pro-regime fighters on April 27. The recent escalation was the most significant one since Moscow and Ankara reached a tentative deal to avert a ground offensive by establishing a demilitarised zone in rebel-held areas in the northwest last September. Over the past few months, the terms of the agreement have been repeatedly violated, with bombardment and sporadic clashes killing close to 500 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Turkish troops were also targeted in two separate incidents in early May. Syrian regime forces shelled a Turkish observation post in northern Hama province, while Kurdish fighters from the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) attacked Turkish positions near Tel Rifaat, northern Aleppo province, killing one Turkish soldier. These attacks and the developments that followed demonstrate that significant cracks are appearing in the Russian-Turkish alliance, as the two sides struggle to implement the agreed ceasefires. So far Russia and Turkey have pinned their cooperation in Syria on the common interest of containing United States pressure. Yet major differences have become increasingly difficult to ignore: Moscow has run out of patience with Ankara and its inability to rein in HTS and secure the full implementation of the demilitarised zone, while the Turkish side has grown frustrated that Russian promises to push the YPG out of Tel Rifaat have remained unfulfilled. As the two are increasingly unable to agree on the way forward in Syria, Turkey has been trying to play both Russia and the US to secure its interests east and west of the Euphrates River. The latest military escalation was preceded by two recent developments which further deepened the distrust between Moscow and Ankara. On April 25-26, yet another round of Astana talks between Russia, Turkey and Iran were held which failed to produce a breakthrough. Moscow had hoped Ankara would help push through the formation of a joint constitutional committee between the regime and the opposition in order to advance the Syrian peace talks, but an agreement could not be reached. Then on May 2, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Ankara and Washington were getting close to establishing a security zone east of the Euphrates River, along the Syrian-Turkish border. Cavusoglus statement likely upset Moscow, which decided to up the pressure on the two main areas of Turkish concern: Tel Rifaat and Idlib. Tel Rifaat lies within a small triangle in northern Aleppo province (west of the Euphrates River), which the YPG managed to retain control over after a Turkish military operation expelled its forces from nearby Afrin in 2018. The area is not contiguous to the rest of the territories the YPG administers and is currently surrounded by Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army to the north, Iranian-backed forces to the southwest and the Syrian regime and Russian military police to the southeast. In February 2018, the Kurds entered into an agreement with Moscow and Damascus to deploy Russian military police and Syrian regime forces in the area, which further frustrated Turkey. While Russia and Iran are maintaining Tel Rifaat as a buffer zone to keep Turkey and its Syrian allies at arms length, Ankara wants to control the area to consolidate its gains in Afrin and push forward towards Manbij, in an effort to prevent the emergence of a vast connected territory controlled by the YPG, which it considers a terrorist group. The Turkish short-term objective is to fully control the Syrian-Turkish border west of the Euphrates River and open the Gaziantep-Aleppo highway, which would give Turkish businesses access to the Syrian market. Idlib is of strategic importance for Turkey as well. Ankara fears that if the Syrian regime takes the province and surrounding rebel-held areas, it would lose significant political leverage in the Syrian conflict and face another major wave of Syrian refugees fleeing to its borders. This would also restrict its influence to the Turkish-Syrian border west of the Euphrates River, encircled by Russian and Iranian influence and the YPG, which dominates the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). For Russia, Idlib also holds significant strategic value since roughly two-thirds of the M4 and M5 highways that link respectively Latakia to Aleppo and Damascus to Aleppo pass through the province. Regaining control over these key roads can help the Syrian regime with economic recovery. Russia also needs to secure certain areas in western Idlib to prevent further shelling of its Hmeimim military base in Latakia by rebel groups. Within these strategic constraints, Moscow seems open to offering Ankara the chance to expand into Tel Rifaat in exchange for a Russian advance in southern Idlib. Yet the terms of such a deal seem difficult to negotiate for a number of reasons. First, Russia seems unlikely to give a green light to the Turkish air force to bomb the city, as it did with Afrin last year. Second, it is also unlikely to secure Turkish approval of a large-scale ground operation on Idlib and knows too well that going forward unilaterally might push Ankara into Washingtons arms. Third, Iran, the Syrian regime and the YPG are all likely to object to a Russian-Turkish deal on Tel Rifaat. At this point, a limited give-and-take on both fronts may be feasible, as Russia and Turkey prefer to delay openly clashing over their diverging interests and instead opt for incremental deals without giving the impression that they are making concessions. Meanwhile, two other factors can complicate the situation for Ankara even further. First, the US recently asked the Turkish government to delay purchasing the Russian-made S-400 missile system and is offering a deal east of the Euphrates River. Washington has already made attempts to mediate between the Turkish side and the YPG. Going down that path could take Turkey out of the Astana process and sour relations with Russia. Second, Turkish silence on the Russian-led campaign in Idlib might hurt its standing with the Syrian opposition, which will ultimately increase the influence of HTS in Idlib and the surrounding areas at the expense of the Turkish-backed Syrian factions. Ongoing efforts by Tehran to mediate between Ankara and Damascus could also weaken Turkish clout over the Syrian opposition. By now it is clear that trying to have it all might not be the best strategy for Turkey to pursue. In the foreseeable future, it might have to decide whether its priority is a deal east or west of the Euphrates River, and most importantly whether it should give up Tel Rifaat, Manbij or Idlib and at what price. If the US doubles down on its stance on the S-400, Turkey may also be forced to choose between US sanctions that undermine the Turkish economy or a Russian offensive in Idlib that weakens Turkish influence in Syria. These factors, along with the persistent ambiguity in Turkish-Russian relations, promise further escalation and unpredictability in northwest Syria. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Tens of thousands accuse President Jair Bolsonaro of using education as a political weapon to advance his agenda. Sao Paulo, Brazil Tens of thousands of students, teachers and researchers across Brazil took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against government cuts and spending freezes to the education budget. Brazils National Student Union called for protests after the Ministry of Education said it was freezing nearly a quarter of discretionary spending due to budget restrictions across public services because of the current financial crisis in the country. But scholars across Brazil accuse President Jair Bolsonaro of waging an ideological attack against education, and of using budget cuts to pressure congressmen to approve a much-anticipated but controversial pension reform. This protest is against what is happening at MEC, said Celso Napolitano, president of the Federation of Teachers of Sao Paulo (FEPESP). The cuts in federal universities mean a death strike in the scientific production in Brazil. Protests took place in 27 cities across the country. Online, the hashtag education tsunami trended throughout the day. My weapon is my education In Sao Paulo thousands of protesters occupied the city centre for hours, chanting Bolsonaro Out, and holding signs reading my weapon is my education. Marcus Vinicius, 19, was part of a large group of students from the University of Sao Paulo, one of the leading institutions in the country. The minister says we only party, then I want to invite him to come to our school and see what we produce every day, Vinicius told Al Jazeera, referring to the Minister of Educations statement that universities are in shambles. Vinicius is studying public management and says his university has already made cuts to research, especially for post-graduates. The party we do is being here, protesting for education for our country, so that there is more inclusion, and people that really need public universities can have access to it, he added. Tens of thousands protest changes to the countrys education budget [Mia Alberti/Al Jazeera] Just a few metres away, Leticia Coelho and other teachers looked on the protests and their students. A group dressed in blue protested in defence of the survival of oceanography courses, while others wearing black t-shirts rallied for law courses and departments. It touches me to see them here but it also makes me really sad that we still have to be fighting for education in 2019, Coelho told Al Jazeera. She is an art history professor at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, and said many of her students come from lower classes and are the first generation of their families attending school. That makes it extra hard, she said. I think these cuts are scandalous and go against a long policy of investment in federal universities. Contingencies In a congressional hearing about MECs decision, Education Minister Abraham Weintraub said, There are no cuts, only contingencies. He said the contingencies were part of a government austerity plan and that all funds could be reinstated if the economy records any growth. Opposition politicians accused Weintraub and the government of using budget cuts as blackmail to move their agenda forward. In Brazil, the budget for universities is divided into mandatory expenses, such as salaries and pensions, which the government cannot reduce, and discretionary expenses, which includes water and electricity bills, housing for foreign students or maintenance work. The recently announced cuts will slash 30 percent of funds to the discretionary expenses budget. This represents a cut of about $1.8bn, or 3.4 percent of the total annual budget for universities, according to MEC. The minister says the cuts only regard water and electricity bills, considered non-mandatory, but a university cannot run without water or light, Napolitano said. Because those expenses have to be covered, and the council of deans have said this, they will have to end up cutting their financing for scientific research, he added. People demonstrate during a strike organised by National Students Union in Sao Paul [Nelson Almeida/AFP] Funding for federal universities has been on a steady decline for years. A report by the news channel G1, using government data, revealed that more than 90 percent of all federal universities in Brazil have had their budgets reduced since 2013. The study found the decline in funding reached an average of 28 percent, although student enrolment went up 10 percent. Investment in education has been a constant debate in Brazil, with pictures of schools with no light, holes in the roofs or cracks on the walls, constantly circulating on social media. For many, the announced budget cuts will deteriorate an already overwhelmed education system. Bolsonaro and many of his ministers have criticised what they say goes on in public universities, often suggesting students use drugs and party instead of studying. Earlier this month, during a Facebook Live broadcast, Bolsonaro said the money cut from federal universities will be reinvested in primary education, calling the education system in Brazil a house with an excellent roof but rotten walls. As thousands took to the streets across the country, Bolsonaro arrived in Dallas, Texas, for an event. Talking to reporters at the Dallas airport, Bolsonaro called those protesting useful idiots and imbeciles and that most were militants with nothing in their hands. 190504133421282 The governments plan also includes freezing 3,500 post-graduate scholarships across the country, which represent an investment of $12.5m. A representative of MECs office for post-graduate studies (CAPES) told Al Jazeera the money will not be re-invested somewhere else, but that if the economy recovers, the idea is that all scholarships are reinstated. Until then, no new scholarships will be given. Theresa May will attempt to get MPs support for her Brexit deal for the fourth and final time. British Prime Minister Theresa May is set for one last effort to save her much-derided European Union withdrawal deal but in doing so risks a total collapse of the Brexit project, ministers have suggested. May has acknowledged the unpopularity of her deal, which has already been rejected three times by parliament and has said she would resign once it passed. Her own Brexit minister on Wednesday admitted the withdrawal agreement would be dead if rejected again. I think the House will have to then address a much more fundamental question between whether it will pursue a no-deal option or whether it will revoke the entire Brexit process, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told the Lords EU Committee. 190506214543328 The talking point of a stark choice between no deal and no Brexit should Mays deal be defeated again, originated in Downing Street early on Wednesday, with the BBC reporting on similar language from Number 10. It was echoed later by International Trade Secretary Liam Fox following a speech at the Institute for Government, according to The Guardian. May will bring the deal back to the House of Commons in the first week of June, seeking the approval of MPs but the fourth attempt may prove similar to the previous three. If the prime minister brings the withdrawal bill to the Commons for a vote the question will be what has changed?' said Nigel Dodds, whose Democratic Union Party has a strategic alliance with Mays Conservatives. May faces opposition to the deal on several fronts. Hard line right-wing Eurosceptics within her own party say it doesnt go far enough, and largely leaves the United Kingdom within EU structures, such as the Customs Union. The DUP, on whose support May depends to command a majority in parliament, says efforts to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland keeping Northern Ireland largely aligned with the EU until a new trade deal can be agreed, also known as the backstop position undermines the integrity of the UK, creating a trade border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. And Labour, the principal opposition party, while politically committed to leaving the EU, also opposes the deal over issues of workers rights and those of EU nationals living in Britain and British nationals living within the EU. Growing numbers of Labour MPs and supporters are calling for a second referendum on EU membership. Six weeks of negotiations between Labour and the government appear to have borne little fruit. We have serious concerns about negotiating with a government that is in the process of disintegrating, a Labour spokesman said on Wednesday, Reuters news agency reported. We have made clear we cannot support the Brexit legislation without an agreement Without a compromise agreement, we would be voting on the same botched Brexit deal. The Green Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru, meanwhile, all oppose Brexit outright. But Labour may yet abstain in the fourth vote, allowing Mays deal to pass the first stage of parliamentary approval, and seek to change the text ahead of subsequent readings. Chuka Umunna, a former Labour MP who defected from the party to set up the centrist Change UK party, said in a tweet that Labour was offering Theresa May and her Brexit plan a lifeline. The Green Partys Caroline Lucas called for a new referendum. When will PM take the fingers out of her ears, she tweeted. MPs have already rejected her EU withdrawal agreement 3 times. Nothing has changed. Latest fighting potentially complicates a Houthi troop withdrawal intended to pave the way for wider peace talks. Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed pro-government forces battled in Yemens port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday, breaching a ceasefire as the UN Security Council held a meeting to discuss the devastating war. The latest clashes potentially complicate a troop withdrawal agreement intended to pave the way for wider peace talks, in which ports were handed over to Yemeni coastguard forces. Hodeidah port, which has been under Houthi control, is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis threatened by starvation because of the war as it is the main entry point for food imports and aid. The Houthi withdrawal from Hodeidah and two other Red Sea ports began on Saturday and was the most significant advance yet in efforts to end the four-year war. However, both sides reported renewed clashes on Wednesday, a day after the Iran-aligned Houthi movement claimed a drone attack that Saudi Arabia said had hit two of its oil pumping stations. Houthi-run media said pro-government forces had hit various parts of Hodeidah city, including the airport, with heavy and medium weapons. 190515055550113 It did not say if they were Yemeni troops or members of an international military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that backs President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadis Aden-based government. The coalition-backed forces said in a report that Houthi fighters tried to infiltrate Hodeidah and the al-Duraihmi area to its south but pro-government troops foiled them. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), leading members of the coalition, have yet to comment on the Houthi withdrawal. The coalition has forces massed on Hodeidahs outskirts and under the withdrawal plans first phase, they are supposed to eventually also draw back. Significant moment Lieutenant-General Michael Lollesgaard, the head of the United Nations committee overseeing the withdrawal, said in Hodeidah on Tuesday the UN now had full access to the ports, which would allow its inspectors to check ships docking for any Houthi arms imports. This moment is significant. But this is only the beginning. These redeployments must be followed by concrete actions of the parties to deliver on their obligations under the Stockholm agreement, Martin Griffith, UN special envoy for Yemen, said at the Security Council meeting on Yemen. The parties must ensure that the momentum is maintained by implementing subsequent steps of the mutual redeployments in Hodeidah and ensuring that the UN is able to increase its role in the ports. 190514075133749 The ceasefire in Hodeidah, agreed during peace talks in Stockholm in December, has largely held despite intermittent shelling and skirmishes, but violence continues elsewhere in the country. The Saudi-led coalition, which receives weapons and other support from the West, intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthi rebels overthrew Hadi from the capital, Sanaa. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia while his internationally-recognised government based itself in the southern port city of Aden. The war is seen as part of a wider regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, mostly civilians, and aid agencies say the humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world. The worst drought in more than a century is causing a severe grain shortage in a country known for surplus produce. A rare bulk shipment of wheat from Canada, due later this year, has added to concerns about the Australian grain industry, which is being hit by a perfect storm of severe drought and difficult trade conditions. The import is the first of its kind since 2007, and was approved by the Australian government on Tuesday after months of lobbying from grain users desperate for product. A shipment of high-protein wheat will arrive in the next six to eight weeks to be processed at Manildra Groups Shoalhaven Starches plant in the state of New South Wales. Due to the worst drought in 116 years, high-protein wheat is in short supply which is critical to the Shoalhaven Starches wheat-processing plant, the company said in a statement. The permit will secure hundreds of regional jobs and the continuation of wheat processing at the plant. James Maxwell, a commodities analyst for Australian Crop Forecaster (ACF) estimates the shipment would be around 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes. Surprise announcement Until recently, Australia has been better known as a net exporter of grain and had a record crop in 2016-17. The reason [the announcement has] garnered so much attention is that it just doesnt happen, Maxwell said. He told Al Jazeera that the drought on Australias east coast had led to a severe shortage of high-protein wheat as well as badly needed stock feed. Australian grain prices have risen sharply due to the drought [File: Peter Parks/AFP] As a result, eastern states are buying wheat from the countrys west, pushing up prices and damaging exports. Demonstrating the dilemma, the countrys largest listed agribusiness, GrainCorp, on May 9 posted a statutory net loss after tax for the half year of 59m Australian dollars ($41m). Its chief executive officer, Mark Palmquist, said the results reflected a particularly challenging period including severe drought conditions in eastern Australia and grain flows that had been disrupted by grain trade conditions. Rain means grain ACFs Maxwell said Australia currently was unable to compete with cheaper wheat from Russia and the Ukraine where production had gone through the roof. The sheer volume they can produce and the price they can grow it, means its just cheaper to buy it from there. It adds up to a headache for the Australian economy as the drop in farm production and the loss of exports to large customers such as Indonesia has been projected to subtract 0.2 percentage points from real GDP growth in 2018/19. All eyes are on the next wheat crop which is being planted now for harvest from September onwards. Rain means grain, said Maxwell. We need things to go pretty well to get a decent crop, but the future is probably going to be more extreme as the climate becomes more extreme. People who break Facebook rules would be restricted from using the live-stream service for set periods of time. Facebook has said it will introduce a new set of rules around its live-streaming feature as it increases efforts to combat hate speech aimed at curbing online violence in the aftermath of the mass shooting in New Zealand. The social media platform said on Tuesday that it was introducing a one-strike policy to Facebook Live, where people who break the rules would immediately be restricted from using the live-streaming service for set periods of time for example 30 days starting on their first offence. Before today, content that violated its policies such as hate speech, or terrorist activity was taken down and in some cases users were banned from Facebook altogether if they continued to commit such offences. 190509155258957 We recognise the tension between people who would prefer unfettered access to our services and the restrictions needed to keep people safe on Facebook. Guy Rosen, Facebooks vice president of integrity, said in a blog post. Our goal is to minimise the risk of abuse on Live while enabling people to use Live in a positive way every day, he added. The platform plans on extending these restrictions to other areas over the coming weeks, beginning with preventing those same people from creating ads on Facebook. Protecting Facebook Live from Abuse and Investing in Manipulated Media Research https://t.co/ubnt5TDfUc Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) May 15, 2019 The company did not specify which offences were eligible for the one-strike policy or how long suspensions would last, but a spokeswoman said it would not have been possible for the gunman to use Live on his account under the new rules. Facebooks vice president also said these new rules require technical innovation to stay ahead of the media manipulation the company experienced after the Christchurch attack when some people modified the video to avoid detection in order to repost it after it was taken down. To that end, were also investing $7.5m in new research partnerships with leading academics from three universities, designed to improve image and video-analysis technology, Rosen said. The new decision comes as national leaders from around the world gather for an Online Extremism Summit in Paris on Wednesday. The initiative, known as the Christchurch call, was pushed by New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Arden after a white supremacist killed 51 people in attacks on two mosques in New Zealand, live streaming the graphic footage via Facebooks Live service. There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook has taken additional steps today alongside the call and look forward to a long-term collaboration to make social media safer by removing terrorist content from it, Arden said. Representatives from Facebook, Alphabet Incs Google, Twitter Inc and other tech companies are expected to take part in the meeting, although Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will not be in attendance. The United States has warned of increasing threats to Western military forces from Iran-allied groups. Germany and the Netherlands have suspended their training of Iraqi soldiers, it emerged on Wednesday. Berlin has about 160 troops in Iraq and Amsterdam has about 50, with both missions based mainly in Erbil, the capital of Iraqs Kurdish region. After the United States announced the withdrawal of all non-essential staff from its embassy in Baghdad, global powers are wary of rising tensions between Washington and Iran. The German army has suspended the training, defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said, adding there was generally heightened alert, awareness for soldiers currently operating in the region. Flosdorff said training may well resume in the next days and there was no concrete threat at the moment. The Dutch defence ministry did not immediately comment, but public broadcaster NOS said the mission had been halted until further notice. France and the Czech Republic said they would continue with their military training activities in Iraq, Reuters News Agency reported. Drone attacks on a Saudi oil pipeline west of Riyadh on Tuesday have revealed an apparent significant leap in the capabilities of the Ansar Allah fighting group, otherwise known as the Houthis. The Aramco East-West pipeline, stretching across the country to the port and oil terminal at Yenbu, was damaged in two places as pumping stations were hit. The attacks caused minor damage but alarmed an international community already rattled by the sharp downturn in relations between Iran and the United States. Information on the attacks is scarce, posing more questions than providing answers. Signs of sophistication Drones have been increasingly used by the Houthis in operations against the Saudi-UAE-led coalition. In July 2018 a drone exploded at Abu Dhabi airport causing only minor damage but sending a message to the UAE that its economic interests were not invulnerable. In January 2019, a senior intelligence chief, along with several officers, were killed at the al-Anad air force base just outside Aden by a weaponised drone that exploded above the delegation. In March the Houthis released video footage of a drone flying past Saudis al-Shuqaiq water treatment and power plant, 130km from the Yemeni border. It was not attacked but the warning was clear, with water being a vulnerable resource and many Middle Eastern countries relying heavily on desalination plants. How have Houthis achieved this? Analysts are divided about the extent of the help given to the Houthis by Iran. A UN report submitted to the UN Security Council in January 2018 found compelling evidence that locally produced drones had an almost identical build and capability as the Iranian Qasef-1 UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle. The remains of an Iranian Qasef-1 drone, used as a one-way attack UAV to dive on targets [Cliff Owen/AP] This drone is GPS-guided to its target, often diving into the target to cause damage. While the Houthis have leant heavily on Iranian help in the past, Houthi drones have increasingly used parts that are commercially available in the international market, with the conflict itself acting as a catalyst for design innovations. Sami Hamdi, editor-in-chief of the International Interest periodical, is not surprised that drones are being used in increasing numbers. [The Houthis] claim they are creating their own drones, that theyve learnt how to make them. Outside of the war of Yemen, for example in Iraq, weve also seen this among Kurdish forces. They too have been able to create their own drones and use them So, it is not particularly strange that we find drones among the Houthis. Let us also not forget that they are backed logistically by the Iranians who continue to provide them with expertise on how to develop some of these weapons, Hamdi added. What is different about these drones? This latest attack signifies a big jump in abilities as the drone flew more than 800km into Saudi Arabia to successfully attack its target. The drone was guided using satellite technology, as beyond a certain range, drones need a satellite data link for information to be sent back to the pilot. Satellites technically allow drones to be flown from halfway around the world, as many military drones are, but they also need a second pilot station with line-of-sight access to take off and land. The is due to the delay in satellite communications albeit minor which causes delays that can be fatal for a drone coming in to land. The Iranians and Houthis have no known communications satellites and would need to rely on commercially available satellite space. All this means that imagery analysts, communications experts, uplink engineers, two-pilot crews, armourers and mechanics all need to work in unison for an attack to succeed. This implies increasingly sophisticated levels of training. Why did Saudi Arabia fail to detect them? A slow, unstealthy aircraft was able to fly for several hours deep into Saudi Arabia, and was not detected and intercepted in a time of war. This will ring alarm bells, as retired Jordanian air force general Mamour al-Nowar told Al Jazeera. Their air defence system completely failed to handle such attacks and the Houthis now have the ability to reach Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, potentially paralysing the country if they hit desalination water pumping stations or the [almost built] nuclear plant in Abu Dhabi. Why this target? Analysts are divided on whether the pipeline attack and the earlier alleged sabotage attacks against the tankers off the coast of the Emirati port of Fujairah are linked in some way. Oil and gas economist Cornelia Meyer is emphatic that a link is tangible: Absolutely, and what that tells me is that its not just an isolated rebel group doing this, its a very well-orchestrated campaign. Hamdi is more cautious: The circumstances of the sabotage attacks off Fujairah arent quite clear yet. The Houthis have announced that they are the ones responsible for the Riyadh attack but as far as Im aware no one has claimed responsibility for the act on the tankers in Fujairah. The pipeline is an interesting target for several reasons; it is on the same latitude as Riyadh, which means the Saudi capital is within range. It is also a graduated escalation, avoiding mass casualties and aiming at economic interests. While the damage was minimal, a warning was sent nevertheless. The pipeline itself was built during the Iran-Iraq war as an alternative to Saudi Arabia should the Strait of Hormuz be closed for any reason, as was the oil terminal at the Emirati port of Fujairah. The message sent, according to military analyst Elias Farhat, is that it is not safe for either the UAE or Saudi Arabia to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Despite the minor damage in the attack, there is now increasing concern that, given the current tension, small acts of military violence could spark a regional conflict. Qatars FM visits Iran to help head off the deepening crisis between the US, Iran and regional powers. Qatars foreign minister has held talks with his Iranian counterpart in recent days in Tehran aiming to defuse escalating tensions in the Gulf, a source told Al Jazeera. The purpose of the visit was to open new avenues to resolve the growing crisis between Iran and the United States and ease the volatile situation, said the highly-placed source familiar with details of the trip. The Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has visited Iran in the past few days and met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran, the source said. The source did not say whether Sheikh Mohammed met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani but confirmed the US was aware of the visit in advance. The source did not know whether the Qatari foreign minister was carrying a message from the US. The US recently deployed an aircraft carrier attack group and B-52 bombers to the Gulf, citing threats from Iranian forces. Tehran has accused Washington of psychological warfare. Washington applied new sanctions on Iran after pulling out of the landmark nuclear deal involving Tehran and world powers, which curbed the Islamic Republics atomic weapons programme in exchange for sanctions relief. The US last month also blacklisted Irans Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. Iran quickly dubbed the US a state sponsor of terrorism and designated US Central Command and its forces a terrorist group. Nuclear deal Iran announced on Wednesday that it officially stopped some commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal following an order from its National Security Council, ISNA news agency reported. Last week, Iran notified China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom of its decision to halt some commitments under the nuclear deal, a year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord and reimposed sanctions. Under the nuclear deal, Tehran was allowed to produce low-enriched uranium with a 300kg limit, and produce heavy water with a stock capped around 130 tonnes. Tehran could ship the excess amounts out of the country for storage or sale. An official in the countrys atomic energy body told ISNA that Iran now has no limit for the production of enriched uranium and heavy water. 190514155502867 Irans initial moves do not appear to violate the nuclear deal yet. But Tehran has warned that unless the other signatories put in place measures to protect its economy from US sanctions within 60 days, it would start enriching uranium at a higher level. In a speech broadcast on national television on May 8, Rouhani said Iran wanted to negotiate new terms with the remaining partners in the deal, but acknowledged the situation was dire. We felt that the nuclear deal needs a surgery and the painkiller pills of the last year have been ineffective, Rouhani said. This surgery is for saving the deal, not destroying it. The European Union and the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain said they were still committed to the deal but would not accept ultimatums from Tehran. The deal also caps the level of purity to which Iran can enrich uranium at 3.67 percent, far below the 90 percent of weapons-grade uranium. It is also well below the 20 percent level to which Iran enriched uranium before the deal. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday there will not be a war with the US despite mounting tensions. Khamenei also said Tehran would not negotiate with the US on another nuclear deal. Orchestrating conflict On Tuesday, Iranian officials accused hardliners in the US and elsewhere of attempting to orchestrate an incident that would ratchet up tensions with Tehran. Four ships two Saudi, one Norwegian and one Emirati were damaged on Sunday off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in what Emirati officials described as acts of sabotage near the port of Fujairah. 190513193300744 The incident happened 140km south of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-third of all oil traded by sea passes. We talked about the policies that hardliners in the US administration as well as in the region are attempting to impose, Irans Foreign Minister Zarif told Iranian state TV in India after a bilateral meeting with Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. We raised concerns over the suspicious activities and sabotage that are happening in our region. We had formerly anticipated that they would carry out these sorts of activities to escalate tension. Official data shows Israeli settlements funds in occupied West Bank rose from $330m to $459m after Trumps election. Israels government went on a spending binge on its illegal West Bank settlements following the election of US President Donald Trump, according to official data obtained by AP news agency. The government statistics, released by Israels finance ministry, showed Israeli spending in the West Bank in 2017, Trumps first year in office, rose to about $459m, from about $330m in 2016. The 2017 figures were the highest in the 15 years of data provided by the finance ministry, though spending also climbed in 2016. At the time, President Barack Obama, a vocal critic of the settlements, had cool relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In contrast, the lowest year of Israeli spending was 2009, when both Netanyahu and Obama took office, when it was about $210m. Hagit Ofran, a researcher with the anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now, said it appeared that Trumps election had emboldened Israels pro-settler government. They are not shy any more with what they are doing, she said. They feel more free to do whatever they want. Nabil Abu Rdeneh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, offered even sharper criticism. This proves that the current US administration encouraged settlement activities, he said. Since capturing the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, Israel has settled about 700,000 of its citizens in the two areas, which are considered occupied territory under international law. The international community has objected to Israels moving people into settlements in those territories as both illegal and a deliberate obstacle to any future Palestinian state. The Palestinians, who claim both the West Bank and east Jerusalem as parts of their future state, consider the settlements illegal land grabs. Scores of fast-growing settlements control strategic hilltops and swaths of the West Bank, making it increasingly difficult to partition the territory. For decades, the international community and the US have expressed concern over the settlements while doing little to halt their construction. But since taking office, Trump, whose inner circle of Middle East advisers have longstanding ties to the settler movement, has taken a different approach. The White House has urged restraint, but refrained from the blanket condemnations of its Republican and Democratic predecessors. The Trump administration is undoubtedly the most friendly American administration of all time, said Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy of the Yesha settlers council. In contrast, the [former US president Barack] Obama years were extremely hard for Israel. Now we are making up for lost ground. Near future In recent months, both Peace Now and settler advocates have released reports claiming that Trumps policies have laid the groundwork for a settlement boom in the near future. In a statement, the US Embassy in Jerusalem repeated the White House policy. While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity doesnt help peace, it said. The new data added to Palestinian distrust of the US, boding poorly for a new peace plan the administration says it is preparing. The Palestinian Authority cut off ties with the White House after Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital in December 2017 and subsequently moved the US Embassy to the contested city. US cuts of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for the Palestinians have further poisoned the atmosphere. Claiming the Trump administration is unfairly biased, the Palestinians already have said they will reject any US peace plan. Abu Rdeneh, the Palestinian spokesman, said the numbers were another reason why we think that the US plan is unfair. The finance ministry data is collected each year and shared with the US, which under a policy going back to President George HW Bush, deducts the sum from loan guarantees for Israel. It also includes a small, but unspecified sum spent in the occupied Golan Heights. Just a few thousand Israeli settlers live in the Golan, and Peace Now said the sums spent there were not significant. As Indias general election winds down, Al Jazeera reports on two most talked-about health initiatives in the country. New Delhi, India Vinod Prasad Jaiswal had lost all hope of recovery after he was diagnosed with oesophagal stricture, a condition in which the oesophagus gets narrow and makes swallowing food difficult. The 57-year-old scrap dealer needed immediate surgery but didnt have the money. It was then that somebody suggested he made use of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY, more popularly known as Modicare) scheme, a part of the federal governments Ayushman Bharat health programme. It was in Jaiswals hometown Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state in eastern India, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched his flagship PMJAY health insurance scheme in September last year. Modicare Billed as the worlds biggest healthcare insurance programme, PMJAY aims to provide free health cover of 500,000 rupees ($7,100) a year for serious ailments to 100 million poor families or about 500 million people. The federal government bears 60 percent of the premium while the state governments bear the remaining 40 percent. 190513082533710 We didnt have any health insurance, so we got the Ayushman health card made, Jaiswals son Gaurav Kumar told Al Jazeera. We had a lot of faith in that card. That faith made Jaiswal travel over a 1,000 kilometres to New Delhis privately-owned Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, where he became the first person to be admitted under the Modicare scheme. The surgery was conducted last month and he is now recovering. Incidentally, Jaiswal was the first beneficiary of the PMJAY health insurance scheme at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, which in turn is the first multi-speciality hospital in New Delhi to join the Ayushman Bharat panel. Vinod Prasad Jaiswal was the first beneficiary of Modicare at New Delhis Sir Ganga Ram Hospital [Vijay Pandey/Al Jazeera] New Delhi, along with Telangana and Odisha states, did not sign up for the Ayushman Bharat scheme. As a result, hospitals in the national capital could only treat people from outside the city. West Bengal state, which is ruled by a regional party opposed to Modi, pulled out after initially signing up to the scheme. 190507141853621 We went beyond our mandate to join the Ayushman Bharat scheme, Sir Ganga Ram Hospitals additional director of medicine Dr Satendra Katoch told Al Jazeera. At least three other hospitals in Delhi have made queries after we admitted our first patient. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao told Al Jazeera that more than 1.5 million people so far have benefited from the PMJAY scheme. It will take year or two to get completely streamlined because more and more hospitals are joining the scheme, he said, calling it a roaring success. Two models of primary healthcare Apart from the PMJAY scheme, the federal governments Ayushman Bharat programme also has a primary healthcare component called the Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs). Health experts say while the HWCs are a more comprehensive healthcare model, the money put in the programme is inadequate. The HWC is a gradual expansion of the existing healthcare system. It is a more integrated system because it is trying to strengthen not only clinical care but also other elements like preventive measures and diagnostics, Indranil Mukhopadhyay, who is an associate professor at OP Jindal University on the outskirts of New Delhi, told Al Jazeera. Mukhopadhyay argued that spending on a scheme such as PMJAY makes little sense since the thrust of the expenditure should be on primary healthcare. 190121054242345 Spending more money on primary healthcare will save more money in the long run. If you look at morbidity and deaths which were preventable, you would realise a good screening programme or access to basic medicines could reduce dependence on tertiary institutions. The poll manifesto of the BJP, which is hoping to be re-elected in the ongoing general election, said 17,150 HWCs have become functional across India while there are plans to upgrade 150,000 health sub-centres into HWCs by the year 2022. Meanwhile, In Indias capital, a health programme the Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics (AAMCs) launched by the city government run by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is also being talked about and even compared with the central governments health initiative. The refusal of the New Delhi government to join Ayushman Bharat, it seems, is also attributed to the AAPs confidence in its flagship AAMC programme. Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics Launched in 2014, the AAP promised 1,000 such clinics across New Delhi to cater to its 19 million residents, mainly the poor, apart from a large number of citys floating population of migrants. Each AAMC in New Delhi was planned within a radius of five kilometres, with a large number of them opening around lower-middle-class neighbourhoods and urban slums. Mehjabeen Khatoon, 36, said she had been visiting the AAMC in New Delhis Okhla area for the last two years. The medicines we used to buy from stores are costly while we find the same medicines here free of cost and the quality remains the same, she told Al Jazeera, adding that the consultancy at AAMCs was also free of charge. 170831125534448 The fee of any doctor is minimum 200 rupees [$3] in this area. If we include the expense for medicines, then the cost goes up to 300 rupees [about $5], she said. Afzal Khan, a doctor at the AAMC, said he sees at least 120 patients in a day. The benefits are for the patients who used to earlier go to hospitals and stand in long queues. They can now receive healthcare facilities in their own areas, he said. Doctor Afzal Khan at the Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinic in New Delhis Okhla area [Vijay Pandey/Al Jazeera] In the last four years, however, the New Delhi government has been able to establish less than 200 AAMCs compared with its plan of a thousand. 181018052734989 Shaleen Mitra, private secretary to New Delhis Health Minister Satyendra Jain, said acquiring land in the national capital for the construction of AAMCs has been the biggest challenge. Land has been one of the most critical aspects in achieving the target set up by the New Delhi government. Whatever land belongs to the state government has already been allotted to other agencies, he told Al Jazeera. Mitra said the AAP government is struggling because many of the approvals are still pending with the federal government. But the government has decided to complete the target of 1,000 clinics by the end of this year. Little political will However, experts such as Mukhopadhyay, who is also an activist associated with the Peoples Health Movement, feel there isnt enough political will in India to address the issue of healthcare. Currently, there is very little political will from the government to spend on healthcare in general, he said, though he conceded that the New Delhi government is making that investment. New Delhis AAP government this year allocated 6,729 crore rupees (nearly $1bn) for the health sector, which was an impressive 12 percent of its annual budget, including over 400 crore rupees ($60m) for the AAMCs. In stark contrast, the federal government spends around one percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health. Neighbouring Nepal spends 2.3 percent of its GDP on healthcare while Sri Lanka spends two percent. No other civilised country spends 1.15 percent of its GDP on health. It should be one-tenth of the government budget or at least 3.5 percent of the GDP, said Mukhopadhyay. Trump wants more money to return people to the moon by 2024. NASAs chief says that will get astronauts to Mars faster. Washington, DC Hours after the administration of President Donald Trump asked the United States Congress for more money to realise an accelerated timeline for returning astronauts to the moons surface, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said a lunar mission was just the beginning. Were going to the moon because we want to get to Mars with humans, Bridenstine said Tuesday at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, DC. Bridenstine said that NASAs timeline for the lunar mission had been sped up with a Mars mission in mind. The reason thats important, that we accelerate the lunar programme, we are by definition accelerating the Humans to Mars programme, he said. The original budget request for NASA, submitted on March 11, totaled $21bn. Of that, $10.7bn was allocated for the Exploration Campaign, which included a lunar-surface landing in 2028 and which would lay the groundwork for a mission sending humans to Mars. The White House now wants to return astronauts to the moons surface by 2024. On Monday, the Trump administration released an amended budget request that asked for an additional $1.6bn to facilitate that new target. The additional funds would bring the budget request total for the NASA programme to $22.6bn. In March, Vice President Mike Pence prepared the ground to speed up a lunar landing mission, telling the National Space Council that the US will return astronauts to the moon within five years by any means necessary, and that mission success will require more than just money. Pences remarks were considered to be in response to Chinas efforts to build a lunar research facility. The US-China space competition does not end with the moon. China has also stated that its vying to be the first space-faring nation to reach Mars. Partnering with private companies Key to the lunar mission is the development of a lander that can transport humans to the moons surface. Rather than develop the lander itself, NASA is looking to commercial space companies to make that happen. Proposals for the lander were due March 25. NASA is requiring it to be reusable and integrated into two facilities that are in the works: a surface outpost, and what is being called the Lunar Gateway a proposed office, laboratory and living space intended to orbit the moon. Last week, the world got a glimpse of one possible contender after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled Blue Moon, a mock-up of a human-class lander developed by his private space venture, Blue Origin. Tuesday at a NASA staff meeting, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier said that if Congress approves, he envisions inking contracts in October and embedding NASA engineers with commercial partners during the development stage. NASA employees that are there can reach back into the agency and pull in computational fluid dynamics, they can pull in more resources, etc to help these small companies move forward, so we can truly partner, Gerstenmaier said. Were building off what weve done with commercial cargo [and] what weve done with [the] commercial crew. We think thats good, and in general we support the acceleration of the lunar programme, Eric Salwan, director of Commercial Business Development for Firefly Aerospace, told Al Jazeera. Firefly is one of the nine companies NASA selected to submit proposals for lunar commercial cargo service. Salwan said, The CLPS [Commercial Lunar Payload Services] programme has [also] been accelerated. NASA has been looking for ways to explore and study space more cheaply for some time. In April the agency awarded a $69mn contract to SpaceX to launch the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission in 2021. That missions intent is to deflect an asteroid. Native Sherpa mountaineering guide breaks his own record of most successful ascents of the worlds highest peak. A Nepalese Sherpa climber Kami Rita has scaled Mount Everest for a 23rd time, breaking his own record for the most successful ascents of the worlds highest peak. Rita, a native of Thame village located in the shadow of Mount Everest, reached the 8,848-metre summit with other climbers via the Southeast Ridge route on Wednesday morning, tourism department official Mira Acharya said from the base camp. His latest ascent took him two summits clear of two fellow Sherpas, who have successfully climbed the peak 21 times, hiking officials said. Acharya said Rita, who goes by his first name Kami, reached the top at 7:50am (02:05 GMT) and is now descending to lower camps. She said about 30 other climbers were on the way to the summit and were expected to top the peak on Wednesday or Thursday, when the weather window is expected to remain open. Rita says he will try and climb the peak two more times. I am still strong and want to climb Sagarmatha 25 times, Kami had told Reuters news agency before leaving for the mountain in March referring to the Nepali name for Everest. Like a soldier Rita, 49, first scaled Everest in 1994 and has been making the trip nearly every year since, one of many Sherpa guides whose expertise and skills are vital to the safety and success of the hundreds of climbers who head to Nepal each year seeking to stand on top of the world. His father was among the first Sherpa guides employed to help climbers reach the summit, and Rita followed in his footsteps and then some. In addition to his nearly two dozen summits of Everest, Rita has scaled several other peaks that are among the worlds highest, including K-2, Cho-Oyu, Manaslu and Lhotse. Rita was at Everests base camp in 2015 when an avalanche swept through, killing 19 people. After that tragedy, he came under intense family pressure to quit mountaineering altogether, but in the end, decided against it. I know Mount Everest very well, having climbed it 22 times, but at the same time I know I may or may not come back, he told the Associated Press news agency last month. I am like a soldier who leaves behind their wives, children and family to battle for the pride of the country. Nearly 5,000 climbers have scaled the peak since the pioneering ascent, many multiple times. The climbing season ends in May and hundreds of climbers are currently on the Everest, trying to reach the top from both the Nepali and Tibetan sides of the mountain. Tourism, which includes mountain climbing, is the main source of income for cash-strapped Nepal, home to eight of the worlds 14 highest mountains. Two leaders of far-right party, who led protests against acquittal of a Christian woman, released by Lahore High Court. A Pakistani court has granted bail to two leaders of a far-right party responsible for countrywide protests against the acquittal of a Christian woman in a blasphemy case last year. The Lahore High Court on Tuesday granted bail to Khadim Hussain Rizvi and Afzal Qadri of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) religious political party. Rizvi, known for his firebrand speeches calling for those accused of blasphemy to be murdered, and Qadri had led countrywide protests against the acquittal of Aasia Bibi in November and were arrested shortly thereafter. During the protests, they had called the judges who acquitted Bibi apostates and urged their domestic staff and others to murder them. They also attacked Pakistans army chief, a rarity in a country ruled for roughly half of its 71-year history by the military. Earlier this month, Qadri tendered a written apology for the protests, promising to quit the party. I am very sorry for hurting the sentiments of the government, the judiciary and the chief of army staff, he said in a televised apology while still in custody. Rizvi, who has made his career holding agitational meetings across the countrys central Punjab province on the issue of blasphemy, did not make an apology, but was granted bail on medical grounds. Both men are expected to be released from custody on Wednesday, after paying bail of Rs 500,000 (about $3,500). Qadris bail extends until July 15, the date of the next hearing in the case. Blasphemy in Pakistan Blasphemy is a sensitive topic in Pakistan, where a conviction for the crime can carry a mandatory death sentence. Increasingly, blasphemy allegations have led to violent mob attacks or murders. Since 1990, at least 74 people have been killed in connection with blasphemy charges, according to an Al Jazeera tally. They include those accused of blasphemy, their family members, lawyers and judges. The TLP has twice held major countrywide protests in recent years on the issue. In November 2017, hundreds of TLP supporters blocked a major highway into the federal capital Islamabad for weeks, demanding that a minor change in an electoral law be reversed. The section pertained to members of the Ahmadiyya sect, who are considered non-Muslims under Pakistani law. 181201174906029 In October, after spending eight years on death row, Bibi was acquitted by the Supreme Court of all charges in a blasphemy case that had become emblematic of fair trial issues in such cases. The acquittal led to days of protests in Islamabad, the eastern city of Lahore, and elsewhere, where Rizvi, Qadri and other TLP leaders demanded that the verdict be reversed. The Supreme Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to convict Bibi and that the prosecutions case had been based on glaring and stark contradictions. [There is] the irresistible and unfortunate impression that all those concerned in the case with providing evidence and conducting investigation had taken upon themselves not to speak the truth or at least not to divulge the whole truth, wrote Asif Saeed Khosa, the judge presiding over the hearing. Bibi was granted asylum in Canada and she left Pakistan last week, after being held for months in protective custody by Pakistani authorities. Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim. Strong quake strikes late in the evening off New Britains coast, prompting officials to send teams to assess situation. Authorities in Papua New Guinea have dispatched teams in the Pacific island nations New Britain province to monitor remote communities for casualties and assess the extent of damage after a powerful, shallow earthquake rattled coastal towns. The magnitude 7.5 offshore tremor struck around 50km east of the main city of Rabaul at a depth of around 10km just before 11pm on Tuesday (13:00 GMT), according to the United States Geological Survey. It triggered an initial tsunami warning, though local officials said no waves were observed, nor any casualties reported yet but that they were seeking information on residents outside urban areas. Don Tokunai, Disaster Management Office coordinator in Rabaul, said there was no information as of yet of any injuries or deaths. We are conducting the assessment starting this morning, he told Reuters news agency by telephone. We have asked all the district response teams to come back to us by 2 oclock this afternoon (04:00 GMT). Garfield Tarabu, a spokesman at the National Disaster Centre, also told The Associated Press news agency that a disaster coordinator was on the ground assessing the situation but they had not yet gotten an update on the extent of the damage. 180307084332684 Police Sergeant Frank Kilaur described the tremor as very strong. [It] shook the whole place up, he said by telephone from the police station. At the moment we havent had any reports of damage We are OK here. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said dangerous tsunami waves were possible within 1,000km of the quakes epicentre along the coasts of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, before later saying the threat had passed. Tokunai said shortly after the tremor that villagers on islands closer to the epicentre and on the west coast of New Ireland reported the ocean receding, but no damaging waves or casualties. They said they just woke up and felt the shake, but that they are still OK there, he said. Papua New Guinea, one of the worlds poorest countries, sits on the geologically active Pacific Ring of Fire and is still rebuilding from a magnitude 7.5 quake that hit some 900km to the west early last year that killed at least 100 people. Ban puts US city at the forefront of increasing discontent over the technology used by government agencies for years. San Francisco has become the first US city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by police or other government agencies. Officials on Tuesday voted 8 to 1 to ban the purchase and use of facial recognition technology by city personnel, in a move to regulate tools that local Silicon Valley companies helped develop. The propensity for facial recognition technology to endanger civil rights and civil liberties substantially outweighs its purported benefits, and the technology will exacerbate racial injustice and threaten our ability to live free of continuous government monitoring, read the legislation. The order, which would also require city departments to submit surveillance technology policies for public vetting, can become final after a second vote next week by the citys board of supervisors. The action puts San Francisco at the forefront of increasing discontent in the United States over facial recognition, which government agencies have used for years and now has become more powerful with the rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies. 170503080336520 We have a fundamental duty to safeguard the public from potential abuses, Aaron Peskin, the city supervisor who championed the ban, said before the boards vote. Peskin said the order was not an anti-technology policy. It allows continued use of surveillance tools like security cameras; the district attorney or sheriff can make an appeal to use certain restricted technology in exceptional circumstances as well. Rather, Peskin said, the aim is to protect marginalised groups that could be harmed by the technology. Fears of unjust arrests For instance, Amazon.com Inc has come under scrutiny since last year for selling an image analysis and ID service to law enforcement agencies. Researchers said the service struggles to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin, prompting fears of unjust arrests. Amazon has defended its work and said all users must follow the law. Civil rights groups and companies including Microsoft Corp., which markets a facial recognition service, have called for regulation of the technology in recent months. This has added momentum to the effort in San Francisco and to a parallel ban reportedly in the works in nearby Oakland. While communities at the heart of the technology industry are moving to limit facial recognition, police elsewhere have increased their use, primarily to spot potential suspects in known offender databases after a crime has occurred. 190514055015401 The ban did not include airports or other federally regulated facilities. Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, said concerns that the US government would use facial identification for mass surveillance, like China has, were overblown. The non-profit includes technology industry representatives on its board. San Franciscos ban on facial recognition will make it frozen in time with outdated technology, he said. Several killed in attacks in northern Cabo Delgado province but aid groups say violence wont hamper cyclone relief. Macomia, Mozambique A series of deadly attacks across northern Mozambique has shaken the region in the aftermath of a cyclone disaster. According to the local anti-corruption NGO, Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), at least 13 people have been killed in attacks this month in remote villages across Cabo Delgado province, which was badly damaged by flooding after Cyclone Kenneth hit the coastal nation in late April. Over the past two years, an armed group has launched sporadic attacks on villages in the province, killing more than 200 people, according to the AFP news agency. Amid widespread public suspicion that a local Muslim group is behind the attacks, President Filipe Nyusi rejected the theory at a rally on Friday. There is someone commanding them. They have an objective. Let them tell us what this objective is, that they can say I am a Muslim,' he told crowds in Funhalouro, a rural district in south-eastern Mozambique, Mozambican news agency AIM reported. They camouflage themselves as Muslims, but we think this is a mask they are putting on, the president added. Remote villages targeted CIP, whose observers have been stationed at voter registration stations in the area before the general election in October, said that armed groups attacked several villages in Cabo Delgado between May 3 and 5, killing 13 people. In Nacate, a village around 200km northwest of Pemba, which was badly affected by Cyclone Kenneth, an armed group raided a local food storage facility and killed one person, while the group also attacked homes in the village, killing six people. In Minhanha, a village in the neighbouring district of Meluco, unknown gunmen reportedly killed three people and burned over 100 houses temporarily disrupting the election registration process. CIP said that four people were killed in the villages of Ntapuala and Banga. 180605154250559 Zenaida Machado, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera the violence was due to a security weakness in some areas. The violence continues because the insurgents have found a terrain where they can strike without meeting a strong resistance, she said in an email. Living in fear In Macomia, a small rural district over 200km northwest of Pemba city, residents were anxious about their security despite a strong police presence. The area was also battered by Cyclone Kenneth, which made landfall in Mozambique on April 25, bringing devastating winds and floodwaters that destroyed homes. Luis Jean Batista, 35, said that he had few options but to stay and rebuild his home. Im scared of what is happening, but this is the only place we have, Batista, an unemployed father of seven, told Al Jazeera. It will be hard for us to get over this cyclone, I hope that we will get the help needed, my family really needs food and a proper house, he added. Batistas home was destroyed by the winds and floods unleashed by the cyclone, but he has since built a temporary structure using mud and thatch grass. He hopes his family will receive support to help him build a permanent house. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but many locals, including Batista and his neighbour, Chuma Mogue, a bus ticket seller whose house was also destroyed by the storm, blame a Muslim armed group, known locally as al-Shabab. It has no known connection to the Somali-based armed group of the same name. They are the ones who are doing this, Mongue said. Nobody knows who is leading the al-Shabab they can cause a lot of damage but we already have these problems of the cyclone to deal with. The police declined to comment on who might be responsible for the attacks. The province of Cabo Delgado has a Muslim-majority population which has been largely excluded from the benefits of economic growth, despite recent oil and gas discoveries in the region, which may have contributed to creating an environment in which anti-state sentiment can thrive. When the group first emerged in Cabo Delgado in October 2017, it was known by the name Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama, meaning followers of the prophetic tradition in Arabic. Since the start of this year, at least a dozen raids have taken place on villages in the districts of Macomia, Mocimboa da Praia and Palma, according to local media reports. A burnt house in Bangale 2, a village which has suffered a string of attacks by suspected armed fighters in Cabo Delgado province [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera] Concern over humanitarian operations Following the attacks in early May, Jose Patricio, the deputy minister of national defence told the local newspaper O Pais that armed forces were on the ground to ensure the safety of the population. Despite Patricios assurances, the tensions in Cabo Delgado have raised concerns about ongoing humanitarian operations providing assistance to the more than 250,000 people affected by the heavy storm. Humanitarian agencies which met the government recently to discuss security issues in Pemba have said the violence will not hamper their operations. Saviano Abreu, head of communications for the UNs Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), told Al Jazeera that although UNOCHA was aware of the uneasy situation, getting relief to communities in need remained the priority. Humanitarian actors engaged in the Tropical Cyclone Kenneth response are familiar with local conditions. At times like these, when communities are dealing with the impacts of a devastating natural disaster and need assistance, we must help where we can and we are doing so, he told Al Jazeera. Gerald Bourke, communications officer for Southern Africa for the World Food Programme (WFP), told Al Jazeera that despite public concern over the safety of food relief efforts, the UN food agency would continue its operations. For WFP, its full steam ahead, we continue to scale up our operations in affected areas and we continue to provide food to over 10,000 people, he said. Cyclone Kenneth hit Mozambique six weeks after another deadly storm, Cyclone Idai, which killed at least 600 people in the countrys central region. As humanitarian agencies still struggle to reach thousands in need and some villages remain inaccessible by road, Cabo Delgados security challenges risk not only complicating emergency assistance operations but also the lives of those who survived the cyclone but lost their homes. Victims of the cyclone are now facing fear and insecurity, on top of hunger and diseases caused by the cyclones, said HRWs Machado. This situation is more worrying now as the government begins to close IDP camps and asks people to return to their homes and villages. Follow Tendai on Twitter and Instagram @i_amten Sri Lankan authorities said that Buddhist groups were likely to blame for a wave of anti-Muslim riots that swept the island this week in apparent retaliation for last months Easter bombings. The April 21 attacks, claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), targeted churches and hotels, killing more than 250 people and heightening fears of a backlash against the nations minority Muslims. In the anti-Muslim unrest that started Sunday, mobs moved through towns in Sri Lankas northwest, ransacking mosques, burning Qurans and attacking shops with petrol bombs, residents said. Authorities have arrested dozens of suspected rioters, including three described as Sinhala Buddhist hardliners who had been investigated for similar actions in the central province of Kandy last year. These are organised attacks on Muslim business houses and premises, Navin Dissanayake, minister of plantation industries, said during a government news conference on Wednesday about the security situation. Asked who was organising the attacks, Dissanayake said: I think these organisations that Amith Weerasinghe, Dan Priyasad, and Namal Kumara (are heading), referring to the three Buddhist hardliners arrested on Tuesday. 190427114108184 Local media reported on Wednesday that Priyasad was released on bail on Wednesday while Weerasinghe was remanded until May 28. The status of Kumara was not clear, according to the Reuters news agency. Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lankas population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Indian Ocean island was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government. The government stamped out the rebellion about 10 years ago. In recent years, Buddhist hardliners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or Buddhist Power Force have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying Middle Eastern influence had made the community more conservative and insular. Political aims In the same press conference, Ranjith Madduma Bandara, minister of public administration, said the group behind the attacks had political aims. This group is trying to tarnish the governments image and show the government is unable to handle the situation, he said, without naming the organisation. Authorities said the island was calm again, with no anti-Muslim violence reported on Wednesday. 190513144625670 Also on Wednesday, Sri Lankas army said it was investigating a video posted on social media that showed a man wearing what appears to be an army uniform walking away seconds before an anti-Muslim mob attacked a building this week. In the video, the man stands outside the building and then leaves. Seconds later, about two dozen people, including young men wearing motorbike helmets, run over and throw stones at the building. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the video. The attention of the army has been drawn to a video clip where a person dressed in uniform similar to that of the army was watching while a group of violent saboteurs were in action in the general area of Thunmodara, the army said in a statement announcing the investigation. Where do the measures they stand? And what are the chances that the issue will make its way to the Supreme Court? Several US states have taken action in recent months to curb abortion rights as conservatives and anti-abortion rights groups look to attempt to force the Supreme Court to reexamine the issue now that the countrys top court has shifted to the right. Earlier this month, Alabamas governor signed into law the most restrictive abortion legislation in the United States. The legislation bans abortion in nearly all circumstances, including rape and incest. The only exception to the ban are cases in which a womans health is at serious risk. Other restrictive bans have been passed in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio, among other states. Rights groups have challenged or have vowed to challenge most of the laws in the courts. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy organisation, 27 abortion bans have been enacted across 12 states so far in 2019. Additionally, the organisation reported that between January 1 and May 31, 479 abortion restrictions were enacted in 33 states, accounting for more than a third of the 1,271 abortion restrictions enacted since the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that legalised abortion. 2019 has become the year when anti-abortion politicians make clear that their ultimate agenda is banning abortion outright, at any stage in pregnancy and for any reason, Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute wrote earlier this year. Nash said the restrictions and bans are part of a long-term strategy to advance the cases to the Supreme Court. Which states have recently passed abortion bans? Alabama Alabamas law would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison for an abortion provider. The only exception is when a womans health is at serious risk. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit earlier this month aimed at blocking the law before it takes effect in November. 190515033549596 Arkansas In March, Arkansass Republican governor signed into law a measure banning most abortions 18 weeks into a womans pregnancy. The ban includes exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies. The state had already banned abortions 20 weeks into pregnancy. The ACLU has vowed to challenge the law in the courts. The state has also passed a trigger law, which would automatically trigger an abortion ban if Roe v Wade is overturned. Georgia Earlier this month, Georgias governor Brian Kemp signed a heartbeat bill, a law that bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks after conception before many women know they are pregnant. 190507152209589 The measure makes exceptions in the case of rape and incest if the woman files a police report first and to save the life of the mother. It also would allow for abortions when a fetus is determined not to be viable because of serious medical issues. The ACLU plans to challenge the measure in court. Kentucky After the ACLU filed a lawsuit, a judge in Kentucky blocked enforcement of the states heartbeat law, which seeks to ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat. A 2018 abortion law was struck down by a federal judge earlier this month. It would have halted a common second-trimester procedure to end pregnancies. The states governor has vowed to appeal. Kentucky has also recently passed a trigger bill. Louisiana Louisianas governor has said he will sign a bill passed this month that bans abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards would become the first Democrat this year to sign a ban on abortion when a heartbeat is detected, lending bipartisanship to the measure. The bills sponsor, state Senator John Milkovich, is also a Democrat. Mississippi If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to get an abortion there. 190123154813019 Like Kentuckys legislation, the Mississippi law seeks to ban most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. It is set to take effect on July 1, but the states only abortion clinic and the Center for Reproductive Rights have asked a federal judge to block it. Mississippi already mandates a 24-hour wait between an in-person consultation, meaning women must make at least two trips to her clinic, often travelling long distances. Missouri Missouri Governor Mike Parson recently signed a bill that bans abortions on or beyond the eighth week of pregnancy without exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Under the law, which comes into force on August 28, doctors who violate the eight-week cutoff could face five to 15 years in prison. Women who terminate their pregnancies cannot be prosecuted. A legal challenge is expected, although it is unclear when that might occur. The measure includes exceptions for medical emergencies, such as when there is a risk of death or permanent physical injuries to a major bodily function of the pregnant woman. 190531191406073 The state also moved to close the states only abortion clinic. Planned Parenthood, which runs the St Louis clinic, sued Missouri after state health officials said the licence for the clinic was in jeopardy because they were unable to interview seven of its physicians over potential deficient practices, court documents showed. Planned Parenthood said Missouri was weaponising the licensing process. Just hours before the clinics licence was set to expire, a judge issued a temporary order ensuring the facility could continue providing abortions. The clinics licence shall not expire and shall remain in effect until a ruling is issued on Planned Parenthoods request for a permanent injunction, the ruling read. A hearing is set for June 4. North Dakota Last month, North Dakotas governor signed legislation that makes it a crime for a doctor performing a second-trimester abortion to use instruments such as clamps, scissors and forceps to remove the fetus from the womb. Except in cases of an emergency, doctors performing the procedure would be charged with a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The measure says the woman having the abortion would not face charges. The bill would come into effect if a federal appeals court or the US Supreme Court allows its enforcement. This year, the governor has also signed a measure that requires abortion providers to tell women undergoing drug-induced abortions that its possible they could still have a live birth if they change their mind. The reversal method is controversial and has not been medically accepted. Other states have also passed similar measures. Ohio After years of debate, Ohios governor also signed a heartbeat bill this year, banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. 181205083314165 The ACLU has vowed to challenge the measure in the courts. Other trigger laws In addition to Kentucky and Arkansas, Tennessee also passed a trigger law this year. Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota already had similar trigger laws on the books. Whats expected in other states? South Carolina is halfway towards passing a fetal heartbeat law. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, Texas and West Virginia are also considering abortion restrictions. Why now? Will the challenges make it to the Supreme Court? Politicians behind the bans across the country have made it clear their goal is to prompt court challenges in hopes of ultimately overturning the 1973 Roe v Wade decision legalising abortion. 170326125731442 But activists and legal experts on both sides of the debate agree that getting a Supreme Court decision on such a defining case is unlikely any time soon. The bans may face difficulties just reaching the high court, given that Roe established a clear right to an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. The lower courts are going to find these laws unconstitutional because the Supreme Court requires that outcome, Hillary Schneller, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Associated Press. However, some federal appeals courts around the country, such as the 5th Circuit, which covers Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, are viewed as having grown more conservative with the addition of Trump appointees. If even one circuit breaks with Roe v Wade and upholds a heartbeat ban, that could be enough for the Supreme Court to take up the issue, said Justin Dyer, a political science professor at the University of Missouri. 190326182044232 Alternatively, the high court could agree to hear any of several less sweeping anti-abortion rights measures. Some would tighten restrictions on clinics; others seek to ban certain categories of abortions. What will happen at the Supreme Court is far from clear. Legal experts are unsure what effect the Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh might have, or where Chief Justice John Roberts stands in regard to Roe v Wade. Are there more abortions now? The renewed challenges come as the number of abortions performed in the US has steadily declined since reaching a peak of 1.6 million in 1990. 180121144023315 The latest 50-state tally was 926,000 in 2014, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Both sides say a final agreement on the make up of a legislative council will be completed soon. Sudans military leaders who seized power last month by overthrowing longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir have agreed with opposition groups to a three-year transition period to transfer power to a fully civilian administration. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Lieutenant-General Yasser al-Atta said a final agreement on the sharing of power, including the formation of the next ruling body the sovereign council would be signed with the protest movement the Alliance for Freedom and Change within 24 hours. We agreed on a transitional period of three years, Atta said. We vow to our people that the agreement will be completed fully within 24 hours in a way that it meets the peoples aspirations, he added. Wednesdays crucial negotiations are due to start at 9pm (19:00 GMT), said Khalid Omar Yousef, a leader from the protest movement the Alliance for Freedom and Change. The announcement is expected after midnight, he told AFP news agency. Satea al-Hajj, a Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces member, said: The viewpoints are close and, God willing, we will reach an agreement soon. 190501175500137 Thousands of protesters have been holding a sit-in outside the army headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, for weeks, demanding that the army generals, who took power after toppling al-Bashir on April 11, step down. Some expressed caution over the prospects for an agreement that would satisfy their demands. We are still sticking to our plan, said Altaj Blah, a protester in central Khartoum. The barriers are there and they are not moving until our demands are met. The army generals had initially insisted on a two-year transition period, while the protest leaders wanted four years. Atta also said, during the transition period, Parliament would be composed of 300 members, of which 67 percent would be from the Alliance for Freedom and Change and the rest would be from other political groups. The first six months of the transitional period would be allocated to signing peace accords with rebels in the countrys warzones, he added. Loss of life At least four people died and dozens were wounded during protests on Monday as the military rulers and opposition leaders said they had reached a partial agreement for the transition. 190513233212716 Opposition figure Madani Abbas Madani, speaking to a news conference alongside Atta just past midnight, said the transitional military council had formed a committee to investigate the attacks of protesters. He also said a joint committee was set up with the opposition to thwart any attempt to break up the sit-in at the army headquarters. Gunfire rang out in the capital into the night on Monday after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) whose head is the deputy of the military council had patrolled the streets using tear gas and guns to disrupt demonstrations. The protesters, who want to keep the pressure on the military for a swift handover, were back on Tuesday, blocking roads and bridges with bricks and rocks. Weve seen the protesters escalating their methods of trying to put pressure, Al Jazeeras Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said. They have reinforced their barricades on the roads that lead to the army headquarters sit-in, they have erected barricades on new roads and they have blocked main streets. The protesters will be waiting to hear if that transitional period will be headed by the military or by the opposition coalition that is going to be the decisive factor. New US sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the strengthening of the military presence in the Middle East are fuelling the conflict with Tehran that has set a course on a tough retaliation having no desire to stick to a number of provisions of the nuclear agreement. German mediator Michael Brzoska shares his opinion on the tense situation fearing further escalation. Simultaneously, neither Iran nor the US wants to give up their positions. Washington clearly formulated where it stands a year ago. The Trump administration is demanding that Iran no longer uses nuclear technology, ceases its missile development program and does not support proxy groups in the region that are waging war in Yemen or representing Shiites in Iraq. "These were the maximalist demands for Iran that it was not ready to negotiate," Michael Brzoska said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk. Maximum demands are Trump's favorite tactics in negotiations. So far, it remains unclear how much he is willing to reduce them when it comes to negotiations. The expert drew parallels with North Korea. In talks with Pyongyang, the US president also put forward maximum demands that he has not abandoned yet. But, unlike Iran, North Korea, at least, started the negotiations. "Of course, this is a very risky strategy, which the US is guided by in other cases including trade issues. It assumes that such decisive demands will force the other side to compromise," the mediator said. Washingtons current course resembles the one of 2003 when George W. Bush sent the US troops to Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his regime. Nevertheless, Brzoska marks the difference as "Donald Trump actually always showed he does not want to use military force. While after September 11, 2001, George Bush definitely made a bet on the military force." In the conflict with Iran, there is still hope for detente if there are negotiations, but not only mutual accusations. The expert recalled that the relations between the US and Iran are very emotional since the Iranian revolution: "The humiliation that the US then experienced has since actually penetrated Washingtons policy towards Iran. Much of what the US does with Iran is difficult to explain in terms of rational interests, but it has very strong emotional overtones. As another reason for the tough US anti-Iranian course, Brzoska cites the relations with Israel. Donald Trump is interested in being regarded as a close ally of the Israeli government. Europes ability to influence the conflict is limited. But Europe can do more than before. It comes to the issues of sanctions and how to mitigate the US sanctions against Iran. So far, Europe is keeping a distance. I believe, it is necessary to make clear for the US the impossibility of considering or supporting a military solution to the Iranian conflict. It is necessary to make it clear that such a scenario bears a great risk and will exacerbate the situation not only in the region but also in Europe and the US, the expert believes. Pro-democracy protesters vow to press on with sit-in after military council suspends talks after violence in Khartoum. Sudans pro-democracy protesters said on Thursday the ruling military councils suspension of talks was a regrettable setback to efforts to forge a new democratic era following the overthrow of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir. The Transitional Military Council (TMC) and protest leaders had been expected to come to an agreement on Wednesday over the make-up of a new body to govern Sudan for three years. But in the early hours of Thursday, the chief of Sudans ruling military council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced the talks had been suspended for 72 hours as the security in the capital had deteriorated. The Alliance for Freedom and Change, the group that is leading the protest movement and negotiating the transfer of power with the army rulers, said the move was regretable. It ignores the developments achieved in negotiations so far and the fact that Wednesdays meeting was to finalise the agreement, which would have stopped the escalations such as roadblocks. The protest movement vowed to press on with the sit-in outside the army headquarters and across the country. At least 14 people were wounded, some from gunfire, when security forces tried to remove demonstrators from central Khartoum, according to a group linked to the protest movement. Both the military and the opposition blamed each other for Wednesdays violence. We hold the military council responsible for attacking civilians, said Amjad Farid, a spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which spearheaded months of protests that led to the militarys removal of President Omar al-Bashir last month. They are using the same methods as the previous regime in dealing with rebels, he told Reuters news agency. But al-Burhan accused the demonstrators of breaking an understanding on the de-escalation process while talks were under way and said protesters were disrupting life in the capital by blocking roads outside a protest zone agreed upon with the military. He said bridges, roads and a railway line had been closed and there was an infiltration of armed elements among demonstrators who were shooting at security forces. On Thursday morning, several roadblocks in downtown Khartoum had been taken down with troops from the Rapid Support Froces (RSF) deployed in some areas, according to AFP news agency. Roadblocks on key thoroughfares in the capital are being used by demonstrators to pressure the generals to transfer power to a civilian administration. Tensions running high The developments came hours after protesters said troops in military vehicles using the logo of the RSF fired extensively as they tried to clear demonstrators on al-Mek Nimir Avenue in central Khartoum, near the foreign ministry. People were walking towards the barricades and they (security forces) were firing shots at them, a 20-year-old demonstrator, who asked not to be named, told Reuters news agency, showing a handful of empty bullet casings and referring to roadblocks set up by protesters. The RSF denied opening fire at demonstrators, state TV reported. The violence took place hours before the TMC was due to meet representatives of the umbrella opposition group Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) to try to hammer out the final deal for the transition period. Al Jazeeras Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, called the suspension of the talks a very significant development that showed the level of tension between the two sides. Looking ahead, there is a lot of tension and many challenges between the two sides in trying to form a transitional government. Deadly violence The violence came after the TMC announced earlier on Wednesday that after two days of talks it had brokered a deal with the DFCF alliance on the composition of a legislative council and a three-year transition period to a civilian administration. Under the agreement the opposition alliance would have two-thirds of the seats on a legislative council, the TMC announced. However, the two sides have yet to agree on the make-up of a sovereign council, the envisaged top tier of power during the planned transition period, with both wanting majority representation. Amid the back-and-forth discussions, protesters pushing for a civilian-led transition have remained on the streets, including outside the army headquarters where a sit-in started on April 6. Some roads in the centre of the capital have been blocked with stones, bricks, branches and slabs of concrete that security and paramilitary forces have occasionally tried to remove. 190514233712368 On Monday, after security forces opened fire while trying to clear some protest sites, an outburst of violence left at least four people dead, including three protesters and a military police officer. They were the first deaths linked to the protests for several weeks. Al Jazeeras Morgan said the TMC denied responsibility for the violence. The military council came out and said the people who fired at protesters were not part of their forces or from the RSF, she said, adding that the TMC said it would launch an independent investigation into the incident. The United States blamed Sudans military rulers for the deaths, however. The tragic attacks on protesters were clearly the result of the Transitional Military Council trying to impose its will on the protesters by attempting to remove roadblocks, the US Embassy in Khartoum said in a statement on Facebook. The decision for security forces to escalate the use of force, including the unnecessary use of tear gas, led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day that the TMC was unable to control. Al-Bashir charged Separately on Monday, Sudans prosecutor general announced that al-Bashir had been charged with inciting and participating in the killing of protesters during the mass protests that led to the end of his decades-long rule. There has been no comment from al-Bashir since his removal and arrest on April 11. The former president is reportedly being held at the maximum security Kobar prison in Khartoum. Demonstrations against the 75-year-old were sparked by a government decision in December to slash bread and fuel subsidies but quickly escalated into wider calls for him to stand down. Human Rights Watch, citing monitoring groups, said last month at least 70 protesters have been killed by government forces since the demonstrations began. Last week, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors put the death toll at more than 90. New Zealand PM Jacinda Adern has led a campaign against online extremism since Christchurch attack was live-streamed. The worlds most well-known technology companies have agreed to fight violent and extremist online content on several new fronts. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter adopted a nine-point action plan at a summit with world leaders in Paris on Wednesday. The Christchurch Call to Action, spearheaded by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, comes exactly two months after the deadly attack on mosques in Christchurch, in which 51 people were killed. The attack was live-streamed on Facebook and the footage was widely shared sparking wide-ranging condemnation of social media networks ability to control the content shared on their platforms. The terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March were a horrifying tragedy. And so, it is right that we come together, resolute in our commitment to ensure we are doing all we can to fight the hatred and extremism that lead to terrorist violence, read a joint statement from the five companies. The Christchurch Call announced today expands on the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), and builds on our other initiatives with government and civil society to prevent the dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content. Arden welcomed the tech giants agreement after Facebook announced earlier in the day it would set new rules for its live-streaming feature. 190510144412745 There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook has taken additional steps today alongside the call and look forward to a long-term collaboration to make social media safer by removing terrorist content from it, Arden said. Facebook has been under particular fire as French officials sought greater regulation of the far-reaching network. Cofounder Mark Zuckerberg met French President Emmanuel Macron last week as a preliminary report into a co-regulation trial period suggested Facebook could not be trusted to regulate itself. The inadequacy and lack of credibility in the self-regulatory approach adopted by the largest platforms justify public intervention to make them more responsible, the report said. On Wednesday, the five companies at the Paris summit said they would collaborate to help eliminate extremist material from the internet. We are sharing concrete steps we will take that address the abuse of technology to spread terrorist content, including continued investment in technology that improves our capability to detect and remove this content from our services, updates to our individual terms of use, and more transparency for content policies and removals, the joint statement said. We Jacinda have tech companies and countries. In the past weve had one, but not the other] While previous efforts to fight online extremism have not found great success, Macron said the Christchurch Call is different. For the past two years, we have started having exchanges with tech companies and heads of state but we want to go further, and the aim of the Christchurch Call is to be more specific about removing the content online, he told a press conference. We decided to widen it around the world, also we are setting a common framework for international companies to fight against terrorism as a result its now a global, worldwide initiative. As far as the method is concerned, we have tech firms and civil society, but also a political hue. Adern agreed. We [now] have tech companies and countries, she said. In the past, weve had one, but not the other. The distribution of extremist content will now be expressly prohibited by the terms and conditions of use agreements which users must agree before using the platforms. New tools for users to report violent content will also be built, the companies agreed. The five firms have said they will for the first time work together on crisis protocols, establishing with governments and other organisations a set of rules for responding to active terror events. Former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, now Facebooks head of global affairs, was joined by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at the meeting, along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. King Abdullah of Jordan and Britains prime minister, Theresa May, were also among the world leaders at the meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. The United States said it agreed with the overarching message of the Christchurch Call, but was not in a position to endorse it. Analysts warn action needs to be taken over deepening tensions between the United States and Iran in the Gulf. Iran-backed rebels attacking a Saudi oil pipeline with drones. A puzzling raid on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sabre-rattling between Washington and Tehran as US warships head to the region. Many details remain unclear about events in the Gulf over the past few days. But as facts emerge about apparent acts of sabotage, analysts on the oil-rich region warned that deepening tensions between the United States, its Gulf allies, and Iran could be coming to a head. There are more questions than answers right now, but its not looking good, Eckart Woertz, an expert on Gulf security and energy markets at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, told Al Jazeera. The attack on the tankers and the oil pipeline must be viewed against the backdrop of a US military build-up in the Gulf and worsening relations with Iran since the US unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal. 190515192700839 Tensions have ratcheted up between the US and Iran following Washingtons decision this month to try and cut Iranian oil exports to zero and to send a US aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf in response to an unspecified threat. I dont expect to see a full-scale land invasion, but Im watching for military escalations by the US or Iranian proxies in Iraq and any other strikes on oil facilities that prove more effective and actually disrupt the flow of oil, added Woertz. Houthi drone attacks On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on the east-west Petroline pipeline in an apparent long-range attack by Yemens Houthi rebels, some 320km west of the capital, Riyadh. The state-run oil company, Aramco, temporarily shut down the pipeline, which had suffered minor damage from a fire. The event sent crude prices up by 1.4 percent, settling at more than $71 a barrel. Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen claimed responsibility for the hit. They have been fighting a Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen since 2015 and are believed to have received drones, ballistic missiles, and other arms from Iran, according to United Nations reports. 190515060220386 The drone attack came two days after an apparent act of sabotage on two Saudi oil tankers, an Emirati vessel, and a Norwegian-registered oil product tanker that were bunkering close to Fujairah in the UAE. The UAE has not blamed anyone for that attack. US national security agencies have pointed fingers at Iran, the Houthis, or other Iranian proxies, but have not offered any conclusive proof. Iran has denied involvement. On Wednesday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric condemned both attacks and called for an investigation to determine the facts behind the tanker sabotage and for those responsible to be held to account. Dujarric also warned of hardening rhetoric in the region. In an email to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Britains foreign office warned of the risk of unintended escalation in a volatile region and cautioned Tehran against taking any escalatory steps. Warning of whats to come Analysts told Al Jazeera the attacks underlined the vulnerabilities of regional powers Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both governments have sought to open alternate oil export routes that avoid the Strait of Hormuz, a key seaway through which one-fifth of global oil passes but which is vulnerable to possible Iranian disruption. 190514184006381 Jim Krane, author of Energy Kingdoms and a research analyst on the Gulf at Rice University, said the attacks appear to have deliberately targeted oil transit routes that Saudi Arabia and the UAE established to skirt Hormuz. Whoevers behind these attacks seems to be signalling that no countrys oil exports are safe, Krane told Al Jazeera. The attacks seem to demonstrate that, even though the UAE and Saudi have taken steps to mitigate risk, theyre still at risk. Its a warning of whats to come if this standoff between the US and Iran escalates. Imad Harb, research and analysis director at the Arab Center think-tank in Washington, DC, described the attacks as a reminder of how vulnerable the hydrocarbon-exporting region was to oil price shocks. The Houthi attack has the added important goal of sending a message directly to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that the Yemeni insurgents can inflict great damage on their economies, Harb told Al Jazeera. This can be translated into leverage over how the war in Yemen develops in the future. The Houthis may think, correctly, that they can improve their position in any future negotiations if they prove that they can hurt Saudi Arabia and the UAE in this way. Smoke and mirrors US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran last year and has sharply increased economic sanctions on Iran. Under the 2015 accord, Tehran had agreed to curb its nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief. Meanwhile, the US provides military and logistical support to its allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, for their war in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthis and in support of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Some analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera feel the Trump administration is acting recklessly. Jonathan Cristol, an expert on Gulf security at Adelphi University, accused Washington of smoke and mirrors tactics. 190515081039448 Is there a threat from Iran? Sure. But thats a constant. Houthi activity against Saudi is also not new. So while this does not excuse Iranian activity, it is again the Trump administration reframing the routine as shocking and new, said Cristol. Sunjeev Bery, director of Freedom Forward, which campaigns for Washington to cut ties with foreign autocrats, said the deepening tensions were a wake-up call for Washington about how to pick friends in the Gulf. Another US war in the Middle East would be catastrophic for the region and the Trump administration needs to put a leash on National Security Adviser John Bolton, the biggest advocate for a conflict that no smart policymaker wants, Bery told Al Jazeera. Instead of hyperventilating about Iran, the US should cut ties with allies like Saudi and UAE, which fuel instability across the region with a bloody war in Yemen and support for military thugs in Libya and Sudan. United States President Donald Trump appears to be saying one thing and doing another as the shadow of a US-China trade dispute looms over the world. On Tuesday, Trump insisted trade talks with Beijing have not collapsed and described the US-China trade war as a little squabble despite the recent escalation. Expanding on a flurry of 10 optimistic early-morning tweets, Trump told reporters the dialogue with China is very good, and he touted his extraordinary relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. 190509161601903 We have a dialogue going. It will always continue, Trump said. We had a deal that was very close but then they broke it. They really did. On Tuesday, Chinas foreign ministry spokesman said the two sides had agreed to continue pursuing relevant discussions. Trump appeared to downplay the expanding scope of the trade war, which is already raising costs and disrupting supply chains across the globe. On Monday, the Trump administration revealed a list of some $300bn in additional Chinese goods earmarked for possible tariff hikes. And China announced it would raise tariffs on $60bn of US imports after Trump hiked levies on $200bn in Chinese goods on Friday. Were having a little squabble with China because weve been treated very unfairly for many, many decades, Trump said, referring to US complaints about Chinese intellectual property and subsidy practices. Markets responded favourably to Trumps toned-down rhetoric. After Mondays trade-related selloff, US stock markets regained their footing on Tuesday to close in positive territory. It will all happen Trump tweeted earlier on Tuesday that a deal would happen and that China should buy more US farm products. When the time is right we will make a deal with China, Trump wrote. It will all happen, and much faster than people think! 181130130736067 Hopefully China will do us the honour of continuing to buy our great farm product, the best, but if not your country will be making up the difference, he wrote in a post assuring US farmers that his administration would protect them. On Monday, Trump said his administration was planning to provide about $15bn in aid to help US farmers whose products have been targeted by Chinese retaliatory tariffs. The presidents other tweets on Tuesday referenced the steel industry, trade deficit, US competitiveness and his poor opinion of the World Trade Organization. He also mentioned the Chinese governments stimulus capabilities and implied that the US Federal Reserve should follow suit in easing monetary policy. Reciprocal tariffs Trump said on Monday that he expected to meet Xi at the G20 summit in Japan in late June. Based on the accelerated schedule laid out by the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) late on Monday, Trump will be in a position to launch 25 percent tariffs on nearly the entire remainder of Chinese goods not currently subject to punitive measures when he meets the Chinese president. USTR said it would hold a public hearing on the tariff list on June 17, with final comments expected a week later. The list includes a wide range of consumer goods, from mobile phones and computers to clothing and footwear, but it excludes pharmaceuticals, some specialty compounds and rare-earth minerals. 190513001332231 The prospect of the global economy being derailed by the US and China sliding into a fiercer, more protracted dispute has rattled investors. Some members of the US Congress who have been supportive of Trumps tough stance on China expressed concern that the president was escalating tariffs without an exit strategy. Lets be blunt: Its a tax on the American consumer and the American manufacturer whos paying about $1.4bn a month in new tariffs, Democratic Senator Chris Coons said in an interview with the MSNBC network on Tuesday. Trade talks stalled last week, reportedly after China tried to delete commitments from a draft agreement stating that its laws would be changed to enact new policies on issues from intellectual property protection to forced technology transfers. My understanding is that China and the United States have agreed to continue pursuing relevant discussions. As for how they are pursued, I think that hinges upon further consultations between the two sides, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing. Geng put the blame on Washington for going back on its word during previous rounds of talks. President declares national emergency to pave the way for the expulsion of the Chinese firm from US market. United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to stop US companies from using telecommunications equipment made by technology firms that pose a national security risk. The order paves the way for a ban on doing business with Chinas Huawei, though it did not name specific countries or companies. Such action was under consideration for more than a year, but was repeatedly delayed. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the president has the authority to regulate business decisions in response to a clear national threat, and the national emergency declaration directs the US Department of Commerce to lead enforcement efforts. The president has made it clear that this administration will do what it takes to keep America safe and prosperous, and to protect America from foreign adversaries who are actively and increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology infrastructure and services in the United States, the White House press secretary said in a statement. The order targets transactions that pose undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security or resiliency of United States critical infrastructure or the digital economy of the United States. Senior administration officials said that the specific guidelines and regulations will be written over the next 150 days, prohibiting firms designed or controlled by foreign adversaries. In addition, Huaweis placement on the Entity List for the Bureau of Industry and Security means a licence will be required for US suppliers to sell to Huawei. The announcement comes at a delicate time in relations between China and the US, as the worlds two largest economies levy tit-for-tat tariffs in an escalating trade battle. Retail sales in China slowed last month. Industrial production and investments were also weak. Unreasonable restrictions Following Trumps move, Huawei decried unreasonable restrictions on the US market and said it was willing to engage with the US government and come up with effective measures to ensure product security. Restricting Huawei from doing business in the US will not make the US more secure or stronger; instead, this will only serve to limit the US to inferior yet more expensive alternatives, leaving the US lagging behind in 5G deployment, and eventually harming the interests of US companies and consumers, it said in a statement on Thursday. In addition, unreasonable restrictions will infringe upon Huaweis rights and raise other serious legal issues, the company added. The statement came hours after David Wang, Huaweis executive director, said on Wednesday that new US restrictions on market access would have little effect on the tech giants business prospects. Huawei is the biggest global maker of switching equipment for phone and internet companies, but it has also spent a decade fighting accusations that it facilitates Chinese spying. Chinas first international tech brand has steadily expanded into new industry segments, including consumer electronics and consulting services, despite claims from the US and other governments that Huawei poses a security risk. Huawei is a tool of the Chinese government. James Andrew Lewis, Center for Strategic and International Studies Due to our global operations, any change in one country has little impact on our global business, said Wang. The companys worldwide sales rose about 20 percent last year to 721bn yuan ($105bn), as profits rose 25 percent to 59.3bn yuan ($8.6bn). Huaweis US market dried up after a congressional panel first labelled the company a security risk in 2012. The company says that had little effect on business in Europe and emerging markets, where it continues to report strong growth. Some experts and governments have misrepresented the technological problems of cybersecurity as political problems, said Wang, adding that conflating the two would not help to build a truly security-networked world. James Andrew Lewis, director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera that most of the espionage cases in the United States involve China, and Huawei is a tool of the Chinese government. Buying from Huawei just makes it easier to spy, and hurts our allies at the same time, added Lewis. Anti-espionage policies Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is the third-largest smartphone maker in the world. US security and intelligence agencies believe equipment made by the company could be used by the Chinese government for spying. We are concerned that China could compel actions by network vendors to act against the interests of US citizens and citizens of other countries around the world, Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyberpolicy at the US Department of State, told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. Huawei denies allegations that its gear creates security vulnerabilities. And the companys chairman, Liang Hua, said on Tuesday that his company is even willing to sign no-spy agreements with governments that commit the firm to making our equipment meet the no-spy, no-backdoors standard. The US has been actively pushing other countries not to use Huaweis equipment in next-generation 5G wireless networks, which it calls untrustworthy. 190307181920819 The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to deny China Mobile Limiteds bid to provide telecommunications services within the US last week. In January, US prosecutors said Huawei had conspired to steal T-Mobile trade secrets and also charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with bank and wire fraud on allegations that the company violated sanctions against Iran. In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the US government itself from using equipment made by Huawei and another Chinese provider, ZTE Corporation. While the big US wireless companies have already cut ties with Huawei, an estimated one-quarter of small rural carriers continue to rely on both Huawei and ZTE switches because they tend to be cheaper. New figures show parts of Chinas economy slowing as Beijing tries to reach an agreement with the US over trade. Key parts of Chinas economy slowed down in April, underscoring the challenges faced by the government as it tangles with the United States in a trade war. Retail sales grew at their slowest pace in 16 years. Industrial output and investments were also weak. Despite the sobering data dump, the government described the economys performance as reasonable. Boosting domestic consumption is crucial for China to withstand the impact of slower exports when trade tariffs hurt, said CMC Markets analyst Margaret Yang in a research note. Retail sales grew by 7.2 percent year-on-year in April, significantly lower than the 8.7 percent growth recorded in March. Industrial production expanded by 5.4 percent, far lower than the 8.5 percent growth recorded in March, which was a four-and-a-half-year high. Trade tensions Tensions between the US and China intensified this week after China announced on Monday that it would raise tariffs on $60bn worth of US goods from June 1 onward. The move was in response to Washingtons decision last week to hike tariffs on $200bn worth of goods from China, and possibly another $300bn in the coming weeks. US President Donald Trump has said he will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Japan next month to try and hammer out a trade deal. On Tuesday, Trump toned down his hawkish trade rhetoric, insisting that talks with Beijing have not collapsed and framing the escalating trade war as a little squabble. The US and China are locked in a trade war. [FILE: Jason Lee/Reuters] The talks stalled last week, reportedly after China tried to delete commitments from a draft agreement stating that its laws would be changed to enact new policies on issues from intellectual property protection to forced technology transfers. In response, China has blamed the US for going back on its word during previous rounds of talks. Some analysts said the April slowdown in key indicators for Chinas economy was to be expected following rapid growth rates in March. The retail data somewhat overstate the slowdown in the retail sector, with the comparison base having been skewed by additional working days in April, Yue Su, a China economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), told Al Jazeera. In line with the EIU forecast, the unusual lift in March was mainly tied to seasonal factors. The EIU does not see the April statistics as raising significant concerns about the GDP outlook, Su said, referring to gross domestic product, the most common indicator of the strength of an economy. More stimulus? Some analysts say the government may have to roll out more economic stimulus measures. It has already started making it easier for companies to borrow money to build infrastructure projects. But the latest figures show that investment in things like buildings, equipment and land so-called fixed assets rose by 6.2 percent between January and April compared with the same period last year. This growth was below analysts forecasts. The main concern for the government is the slowing down in fixed-asset investment, despite the efforts to raise the supply of credit. Therefore, the failure of policy loosening to stimulate investment alongside renewed US-China trade tensions may point to a lengthier period of easing, said Su. In March, the Chinese government lowered its economic-growth forecast to between six and 6.5 percent for 2019, down from a previous estimate of around 6.5 percent. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has struggled to redefine its role and now faces a new challenge from China. Merkel will quit politics when she steps down as German chancellor, and has privately made clear shes not interested in leading the EU. Buzz Feed News reports in its article Angela Merkel Doesnt Want Either Of The EUs Top Jobs that Angela Merkel is not interested in becoming the next president of either the European Commission or the European Council the two most senior positions in the European Union. A senior European government official told BuzzFeed News that Merkel has privately made clear that she will not put her name forward for the posts, and doesnt want to be asked by other EU leaders to take the jobs either. Merkel announced last year she would quit politics when her fourth term as German chancellor ends in 2021, but speculation that she could resign early for a career in Brussels has not gone away. She was clear that she should not be part of the equation when the top EU jobs are discussed, the senior official, who is not from Germany, said. She isnt playing games. A second source with knowledge of Merkels thinking said, She is totally clear that when her term as chancellor ends she will not seek any other political post. EU leaders will meet in Brussels later this month to begin the process to decide the next leadership of the European Commission the EUs executive branch and the European Council the EU institution consisting of the blocs heads of government and state that sets the EUs overall direction and priorities. The two posts, as well as the head of the European Central Bank and the EU foreign policy chief, will become vacant later this year, and months of vigorous haggling among EU leaders is expected. The positions are instrumental in defining the shape of the EUs political and economic direction. Under the EUs treaties, the EU leaders nominate the president of the European Commission, but the candidate then needs to be approved by the European Parliament. At a meeting of EU leaders in Sibiu, Romania, last week, the current president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, confirmed that the leaders would meet May 28, days after the European parliamentary elections, to start the nomination process to decide the EUs new chiefs. Tusk told reporters after the meeting that he wants the process to be quick. My intention is to carry out the election of heads of EU institutions in a swift, smooth and effective manner, he said. He added that it was his intention for the EU leaders to be in a position to nominate the new leadership at a European Council summit in mid-June. Going into the meeting in Romania, several EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, voiced their opposition to the Spitzenkandidat (leading candidate in English) concept, the idea that the nominee of the largest parliamentary group after the European Parliamentary elections gets the presidency of the European Commission. Other leaders, such as Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, back the process. Based on current polls, the process would see German MEP Manfred Weber, the lead candidate of the centre-right European Peoples Party, succeed Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission's current president. The social democrats' lead candidate is the Dutch politician Frans Timmermans, the current vice president of the European Commission. A senior European government official told BuzzFeed News that the two main Spitzenkandidaten would most probably fall short after this months EU elections, paving the way for a third candidate with the EUs Brexit chief negotiator Michel Barnier seen as the frontrunner decided by EU leaders. The top jobs would unlikely be agreed on the basis of right versus left or party political lines, said the official, but would be determined primarily by nationality, geographical and regional dynamics, and personal chemistry." The role of the Masters of the Universe ("MotU") in the coup d'etat is overlooked. As long as they are in control of the internet the main communication line in our modern society the coup is alive. With this control, handed to them by the Obama administration; huge financial resources; troves of private information on ordinary citizens, politicians, and officials; and most revenues coming from abroad, their power cannot be overestimated. Even a glimpse reveals an enormous contribution by MotU in launching and sustaining the coup. That includes but is not limited to the development of the conspiracy theories purporting to justify the coup: the allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The impact is so pervasive that its many components need to be separated into multiple categories. Here, only Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Yahoo are considered. 1. MotU denied the U.S. government, including law enforcement and counterintelligence, access to their expertise in network and information security. Almost immediately after Trump's inauguration, MotU and more than a hundred other tech corporations converged in opposition to the government. According to the MSM, they were triggered by the travel ban. Such extreme animus toward the elected administration, combined with extensive knowledge about its members and employees (practically everybody in the tech industry is on Microsoft LinkedIn), intimidated the whole industry against saying or doing anything perceived as beneficial to Trump, including challenging cyber-attribution and social media components of the Russian hoaxes. The climate of fear in the cyber-security community was almost palpable, although not entirely caused by Big Tech. 2. Google and Microsoft put their weight as technological powerhouses behind the DNC contractor CrowdStrike and its fraudulent methodology of cyber incidents attribution. Google endorsed and propped up CrowdStrike by investing (together with other parties) $300M in the company in 20172018. Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter took it upon themselves to "protect democracy" and "election integrity" in the U.S. and other countries. 3. Facebook and Twitter falsely "admitted" Russian government interference in the elections via their platforms, manufactured "research" purported to show that it was in Trump's favor, and then widely spread these false allegations. Consequently, when the Democrat-MSM complex hassled MotU about receiving a few thousand dollars from IRA, a troll farm in Saint Petersburg, they quickly made a deal with the Democrats. MotU should have admitted they don't believe in U.S. sovereignty and that aiding foreign governments by carrying their propaganda in the U.S., including interference in the elections, was part of their business model. Then they should have explained that Russia didn't interfere in the elections through their platforms, using numbers and a representative sampling of the IRA posts. Indeed, Facebook and Twitter made a weak effort in that direction, and then they rushed to concur with the allegations of Russian interference. They manufactured (by cherry-picking data and back-fitting criteria) "research" that the alleged interference favored Trump and amplified these claims in the media. Later, they frequently used this fabrication to ban or restrict conservatives on their platforms. 4. Facebook, Twitter, and Google's YouTube created an atmosphere of false trust on their platforms. They allowed anybody, anywhere in the world, to create accounts, appearing as adult, responsible American citizens. MotU routinely convey political propaganda, both paid and "organic," from foreign governments and political parties to U.S. audiences without registering as foreign agents. Even worse, starting from mid-2016, MotU made content censorship and promotion obligations to the E.U. They are now effectively controlled by the E.U. through tax, copyright, content, privacy, and myriad other policies, and, consequently, they make many of their bans and content ranking decisions in the U.S. under the direction of the European Commission and certain E.U. member governments. Thus, MotU routinely act as agents of foreign governments, apparently in violation of 18 U.S. Code 951. Agents of foreign governments ("espionage lite"). The social media business model of MotU makes all claims of foreign interference through social media sound plausible. Twitter also encourages bots, and it acknowledges that it cannot distinguish between bots and humans on its platform. 5. Google and Yahoo sent false alerts of "foreign government backed hacking" to their web mail users. In the period November 2016February 2017, Google sent batches of such alerts to high profile individuals engaged in discussion of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Among the recipients were former U.S. diplomat Michael McFaul, Russia-born columnist and self-proclaimed expert Julia Ioffe, Paul Krugman, and Jonathan Chait. These alerts, universally perceived as an authoritative technical assessment and understood as referring to the Russian government, caused waves of panic and made it difficult to publicly dissent from the DNC-Brennan-Clapper line. Alexandra Chalupa, the DNC contractor engaged in soliciting and receiving election interference by the Ukrainian government against Trump, received an alert from Yahoo that her personal account was "the target of state-sponsored actors." That happened a few months before Yahoo (now owned by Verizon) announced an earlier data loss affecting half a billion of its user accounts. Hacking happens all the time. Around September 2016, the number of phishing emails exceeded the number of legitimate ones. Spearphishing (individually targeted phishing) constantly occurs, too. Google cannot distinguish state-sponsored attempts from nonstate sponsored ones. Most likely, Google didn't specifically intend to cause panic. Its employees, incited by their hyper-partisan management, accepted the DNC theory of Russian hacking, then selected users who were most active with the Russian hacking topic on the web. Their software interpreted spearphishing emails sent to them as "Russian government sponsored hacking," and then Google issued alerts. These alerts served as further evidence of "Russian hacking," in a circular fashion. Google had an additional interest. The main cause of credentials theft in Gmail is its design flaw: the user interacts with it through a browser, like with any ordinary website. Phishing and spearphishing weren't that easy against older email services that required specialized client software such as Microsoft Outlook. Furthermore, Google has failed to acquire or otherwise secure domains that contain its name and are misleadingly similar to its brand. A phishing attack is simple. An attacker sends an email luring a victim to enter his username and password on the attackers' website, after which the attacker pwns the user. For example, Baratov, a Canadian citizen from Kazakhstan, used the domain accounts-google.net to provide services of targeted email hacking for a fixed price of $60. A guarantee cost an extra $25. By the way, I don't see any reasons not to sue Google for deceptive marketing. 6. Google and Facebook artificially prop up fake news media and Wikipedia, promoting the collusion and Russian interference conspiracy theories. They do this with cash and web traffic. Without that, some of the news media would have recognized that it had lost the trust of viewers and corrected itself, and the rest would fade out. MotU openly adopted the philosophy that the public should be conditioned to trust the news media, as opposed to the idea that the news media must be honest to earn and maintain public trust. Wikipedia is part of the fake news media -- it publishes about events immediately (news), and it usually repeats fake news. Because it is considered authoritative by many, Wikipedia is a big force within the media echo chamber. 7. MotU suppressed pro-Trump media in general. In addition to that, they suppressed specific researchers and specific materials that debunked "Russian" conspiracy theories. Examples: Twitter QFD-shadowbanned the cyber-security researcher Adam Carter, who has disproved that Russia hacked the DNC. Google deleted YouTube videos of former intelligence experts debunking the so-called Intelligence Community Assessment from January 2017 and videos of Hillary saying, "Our goal is to help strengthen Russia," obviously contradicting the allegation that Putin had motives to desire Hillary's defeat. Suppression by MotU of conservative and libertarian media is well known, but only a few popular authors and websites attract attention, if any. Focused suppression of debate and dissent about the MotU-MSM-DNC narrative on subjects with large scientific or technical components, such as climate related science and cybersecurity, is rarely noticed and causes disproportionately more damage. The coup is not over until MotU are defanged and their part in the coup is investigated fully. Leo Goldstein has updated his search engine, covering the American Thinker and more than 400 other non-fake-news websites. Your visits and opinions about it are welcome. Its apparent to all but President Trumps most deranged critics that Obamas FBI was indeed spying on his campaign. So, its worth pointing out that, in addition to the FBIs Crossfire Hurricane operation, the Obama administration was running another concurrent higher-level counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian efforts to aid Trumps campaign that hasnt gotten nearly as much attention. Details of the second investigation were leaked by high-level Obama administration officials for a June 2017 Washington Post story headlined, Obamas secret struggle to punish Russia for Putins election assault. The anonymously sourced accounts of meetings only attended by a handful of intelligence bureau chiefs and their inner thoughts and objectives could have only been provided by people in the uppermost echelon of the intelligence community under Obama, like Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, and FBI director James Comey. CIA Director John Brennans Intelligence Bombshell According to the Post, sometime in the summer of 2016, Brennan received, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putins direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race. But it went further. The intelligence captured Putins specific instructions on the operations audacious objectives -- defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump. The Post is cagey about exactly when Brennan received this intelligence bombshell. All we know for sure is that it must have been in or before early August, since thats when he sent it to the White House with instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides. But Brennan couldnt have wasted much time before apprising Obama of information deemed so important. So, he must have received the momentous intelligence report in late July or early August. After consulting Obama, Brennan, convened a secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI They worked exclusively for two groups of customers, officials said. The first was Obama and fewer than 14 senior officials in government. The second was a team of operations specialists at the CIA, NSA, and FBI who took direction from the task force on where to aim their subsequent efforts to collect more intelligence on Russia. Since Crossfire Hurricane began on July 31, Brennans investigation must have begun at around the same time. Even apart from some of his team coming from the FBI, we know that Comey was fully involved in Brennans investigation from its inception since, according to the Post, the evidence produced was initially shown only to Comey, Clapper, Susan Rice, and Loretta Lynch. Moreover, it appears that Peter Strzok, who according to Lisa Pages testimony initiated Crossfire Hurricane, may have also been a member of the team working for Brennan! The Post reports that the Obama administrations January 6, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment alleging that the Russians conducted cyberespionage on Trumps behalf was based largely on the work done by Brennans investigators. This is confirmed by Clappers testimony to the Senate that the ICA was the product of two dozen hand-picked analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA. Apart from the Post using the words several dozen instead of two dozen, thats exactly how they describe Brennans team. But, according to Paul Sperry, [a] source close to the House [of Representatives Intelligence Committee [Russia] investigation reports that Peter Strzok was was one of the authors of the ICA and the intermediary between Brennan and Comey. Independently of Sperrys source, before he was fired, Strzok led the FBIs Counterespionage section. So, it makes sense he would be one of the FBI agents Brennan chose and Comeys representative. And Sperrys source received confirmation by recently revealed text messages between Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page discussing a meeting between Strzok and Clapper in the weeks before the ICAs release. Given that 1) Comey was intimately involved in Brennans investigation, 2) Brennan had agents from the FBI on his team, and 3) it appears Peter Strzok numbered among them, contra the recent assertion by Ben Rhodes, Obamas deputy national security advisor, its tough to believe that a hard partition existed around the FBI investigation. And the question is raised of exactly what information might have been shared and how much information about Crossfire Hurricane made its way to President Obama. The Steele Dossier Evidence has emerged that the Clinton-campaign-funded Steele dossier was used to justify Crossfire Hurricane. And the fact that Brennans task force was responsible for the January 2017 ICA also raises questions about whether portions of it might have also comprised the intelligence bombshell used to justify Brennans shadow investigation. Paul Sperry also reported that Obamas National Security Agency director Michael Rogers stated in a classified letter to Congress that the Steele dossier played a role in producing the ICA. Indeed, according to Sperry, Adm. Rogers told congress a two-page summary of the dossier appears as an appendix to the classified version. And, as Sperry notes, James Clapper has confirmed that Brennans task force used the Steele dossier. But the Washington Post mentions Adm. Rogers too, reporting that he was reluctant to view the intelligence which Brennan used to justify his investigation with high confidence because it came from another country. According to a November 2017 story appearing in the Guardian, Brennan received the report used to justify his investigation from none other than British intelligence agency GCHQs then head, Robert Hannigan, who "flew to the US to personally brief him. The Washington Post tells us that the intelligence bombshell Brennan received from Britain came from a highly-placed source within the Russian government who alleged that Putin had instigated a cyberintelligence operation whose aim was to defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect Donald Trump. And, it just so happens that Steeles first memo, dated June 20, 2016, alleges the existence of a Russian espionage operation to help Trump that was supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin based on information from a former senior [Russian] intelligence officer. Indeed, Steeles August 5 memo describes this operation as designed to aid Trump and, using the Posts exact words, damage Clinton. Steeles July 19th memo also says that these efforts included state-sponsored cyber operatives working in Russia. In short, everything the Post says was included in the report from British intelligence used to justify Brennans investigation happens to have been in the memos already produced by ex-British spy Christopher Steele! Much attention has been paid to Crossfire Hurricane and rightly so. But its well past time that more attention was given to Obamas other higher-level shadow investigation into Russias alleged efforts to put Trump in the White House to determine what information was shared, if Brennans operation also involved any spying on Trumps campaign, and whether it was justified by the completely discredited, Clinton-funded Steele dossier. Michael Thau is a contributor at American Greatness and blogs at Aclearerpicture.net. On Sunday, the Dallas Morning News published an op-ed by Muslim Brotherhood linked anti-American Omar Suleiman. In this editorial, the Dallas-based imam claims that the accusations of anti-Semitism by Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, Fox host Lou Dobbs, and others following Suleimans delivery of the invocation last Thursday, May 9 are motivated by hate and are comparable to the hate that led to the New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pittsburgh, and San Diego massacres. After giving the invocation in Congress last week, I have been attacked online and threatened with violence. This hate is similar to the hate that led to the other massacres above. Its a hate that seeks to fracture the communities it targets. Its a hate that takes the most vulnerable communities in the country and intimidates them into silence so that the only thing they can do is brace for another attack. From his rhetoric its easy to forget that Suleiman has provided no direct evidence of any threats of violence and that he has also neglected to mention that the criticisms lobbed against him are based on his social media footprint. In other words, the haters are using fact-based evidence to make an argument. Its also easy to forget that, in terms of growing influence, Suleiman has had a pretty good year. He has 1.3 million Facebook followers and just last year he was able to convince Google to alter its algorithm on searches related to Islam and Muslim-related issues. This year his fellow Islamists Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar occupy seats in Congress. And on Thursday, May 9, 2019, Suleiman, by the request of Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, delivered the invocation from the House floor. Suleimans prayer was innocuous enough, calling for peace, not war; love, not hate; benevolence, not greed; unity, not division. Such calls for love and not hate were also part of his rhetoric last December when Suleiman and 32 others were arrested at the Tijuana-San Diego border in the Love Knows No Border rally in support of immigrants and asylum seekers. But a closer look at his speeches and his social media footprint reveal his disdain for the country he calls home. Suleiman was a keynote speaker at the Muslim American Societys (MASs) West Coast Conference in November 2018. The organization is described by law enforcement as being founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. In the opening of his talk, Suleiman described the United States as a white supremacist country that could not accept the presidency of Obama because of his blackness. According to Suleiman, this racism at the core of the nation is institutionalized so that at the end of the day its 96% of the wealthiest Americans being white, or over 80% of Congress remaining white, or every president except for one remaining white. Its [white supremacy] enshrined in all of these different things and a lot of the time we dont see it because we focus on the outcome At a December 2017 rally in front of the White House, in protest of President Trumps decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, Suleiman had this to say: "We should understand that, if anything, what this announcement has done is it has exposed what we've known for a very long time -- that the United States is anything but an honest broker," he said. "Never has been. Previous administrations were not Our blind support and loyalty to a government [Israel] that has disregarded all international forms of accountability because it knows that it has our backing is shameful. It has made us not only an unprincipled and contradictory nation in regards to our policies, it has also put us at odds with the vast majority of nations around the world who can see right through our claim to greatness and our claim to being the moral superpower of the world." [emphasis added] Suleimans depiction of the United States as dishonest, immoral, shameful, unprincipled, contradictory and unworthy of power are reminiscent of Omars statement in March 2019 that Trump is not human. This depiction of the United States also happens to fall in line with the views of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Suleiman has posted support for in this Facebook post in 2013. Of course, one shouldnt forget Suleimans tweet from just a few weeks ago when he quoted his Palestinian Christian relative who said that Jesus was a Palestinian. A pattern is emerging here. Jesus the Jew is a Palestinian because Suleiman wants Jesus to be a Palestinian, and he wants American evangelicals to side with the Palestinians against Israel. In the same way, he has stated publicly that the first Muslims came to Texas in 1854 even though there is no record of a mosque anywhere in the United States until the 1920s. Suleimans vision for the United States is a curious mixture of Marxism and progressivism and, yes, Sharia. This is the man who publicly posted an image of the Rabia in 2013, who gave the invocation on the floor of the House on May 9, 2019. In a talk uploaded to YouTube in November 2015 on Slavery and Islamic Law, Suleiman discusses the humanity of taking a concubine as a prisoner of war as such actions will safeguard the concubine from a life of prostitution. Suleimans charisma is unmistakable. However, the appearance of the man is not the same as the man himself. Beneath the smiling and peaceful exterior, Suleiman is a radicalized individual who views the United States as flawed, immoral, and corrupted by unearned privileges and undeserved wealth. From his speeches and social media posts, it would seem that Suleiman would love to see a redistribution of wealth, open borders, and a magnificent growth of the Dar al Islam within the country. For the last four decades, the United States has often engaged in trading away its future by running up debt and selling assets instead of products. This brought about the stagnant living standards and incomes experienced by the U.S. middle class during the presidencies preceding Trump. The countries with which the U.S. had the largest trade deficits (goods and services) in 2018 were: China - $379 billion Mexico - $78 billion Germany - $67 billion Japan - $58 billion. These countries accounted for 93% of the total, with China, by itself, accounting for 61% of the U.S. trade deficit. Donald Trump was elected by the people who have borne the brunt of this policy failure, with a mandate to fix it. On Friday, President Donald Trump took a huge step toward doing just that. He raised the U.S. tariff rate from 10% to 25% on $200 billion per year worth of Chinese goods that were being imported into the United States. Back in July, when Trump had initially imposed the 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, China responded by imposing tariffs on $110 billion of U.S. exports to China. Trump also threatened to place tariffs on the other Chinese goods being imported each year into the United States. This gives the U.S. leverage that China cant match. As a result of its mercantilist strategy, China exported $540 billion worth of goods to the U.S. but only let $121 billion worth of U.S. goods into China in 2018. (Mercantilism is the beggar-thy-neighbor economic strategy of maximizing exports and minimizing imports in order to grow at ones trading partners expense.) China has been engaged in economic warfare against the U.S. for decades. China leverages all available means to achieve its mercantilist ends -- from manipulation of its currency, to tariffs, to non-tariff barriers, to forced technology transfer, to outright stealing of technology. The negative consequences of Chinas trade policies have hit many parts of the United States and many regions of the U.S. economy. Innovation, marriage, health, and welfare suffered as a result of what economists term the China shock. The massive trade surpluses accumulated by China have reflected and catalyzed the massive transfer of technological and manufacturing capacity from the free world to China's censored, repressed, firewalled, and very much unfree world. By 2013 many millions more workers were employed in manufacturing in China than across the entire Western world. There are still many who would have us continue the Biden-Bush-Clinton-Obama approach -- accept fig-leaf promises of change from China while allowing China to continue its depredations. Far too many who pretend allegiance to the banner of "free trade" would have Trump do just that. But unilateral free trade has brought us to the current fix. Free trade with China is like "free trade" with the thief who stole your car. Keep buying it back from him whilst doing nothing to punish the theft and you will keep getting poorer while confirming the thief in the view that you are an easy mark. As negotiations with China enter a difficult and vital phase, America is very lucky to have a president with the gumption and determination to chart a different path. The trade war with China is one that the U.S. must, can, and will win. And when it comes to the tariffs proposed so far, the U.S. has not yet begun to fight. If the current negotiations lead to a trade agreement, many sectors of the U.S. economy -- including agriculture -- will benefit immensely. China already keeps out almost all U.S. meat on one pretext or another. When the completed negotiations require more balanced trade, China will suddenly find that it can accept many more U.S. agricultural products, cars, motorcycles, and other goods. Trumps first successful trade agreement was completed with South Korea in 2018. The South Korean government agreed to let in more American agricultural products. In 2018, U.S. agricultural exports to South Korea surged 21%, while U.S. trade with South Korea became much more balanced. If China prefers to remain mercantilist, Trump should continue to ratchet up his unilateral actions. He should expand his 25% tariff to all Chinese goods exported to the United States, just as he has threatened. Then if China responds with even greater restrictions on U.S. imports, Trump could set our tariff rate to be proportional to our bilateral trade deficit. In other words, Trumps future step could be the scaled tariff we first proposed nearly a decade ago in which the rate is scaled so as to take in half of our bilateral trade deficit as tariff revenue. The more that China reduces its imports from the U.S., the higher our tariff rate on Chinese goods would climb. In contrast, if China were to import more from the U.S., our tariff rate on Chinese goods would go down. (We recommend that our Scaled Tariff be included in any long-term trade agreement that Trump negotiates with China.) Trumps tariffs would work even if they dont lead to a trade agreement. U.S. importers would find new sources for the goods that we now buy from China. Trade with those countries would work the way it is designed to work -- they would buy more from us when we buy more from them. Meanwhile, Chinas mercantilism would fail, resulting in isolation, disinvestment, and containment. If Trump hangs tough, China's mercantilism will be Trumped. The Richmans coauthored the 2014 book Balanced Trade published by Lexington Books, and the 2008 book Trading Away Our Future published by Ideal Taxes Association. Jeyla Seyidova's music destiny was predetermined from her birth. Her father is Peoples Artist of Azerbaijan Uran Seyidov, violinist, concertmaster of the Azerbaijan State Chamber Orchestra, her mother is Honored Artist of Azerbaijan Samira Ashumova, pianist, professor of the Baku Academy of Music, her elder brother Anar is a winner of republican and international violin competitions and festivals, a presidential scholar, graduate of Moscow conservatory. Jeyla Seyidova, the first violinist of the Azerbaijan State String Quartet, who, like her brother, was included in the 'Golden Book of Azerbaijan's young talents', shared her vision of classical music with Vestnik Kavkaza. - About 7-8 years ago they were speaking about you being a young talent, and today you are a famous violinist, winner of competitions, a famous person in the music world. It seems that gifted musicians grow up very quickly, because they play complex compositions and experience adult emotions as kids. In your childhood, did you feel different from others? After all, not all violinists manage to reach such heights. - It's not just about a talent, luck and ambitions also play a role. Since childhood, I set myself certain goals. Every time I entered Bulbul school, saw portraits of our musicians and thought that I wanted to be near them. This needed practice, playing at concerts. Already after my first concert, I realized that it's not just a pleasure for me, it also gives me tremendous emotions and energy for the audience. At first, of course, I did not understand that I was different from others. Understanding came when my teacher Fatima Idiatullina asked me to learn a difficult piece that usually is not performed in childhood - Caprice Staccato by Henryk Wieniawski. I came home and started to practice this piece, my brother told me: "You play staccato with amazing ease! He brought my parents to listen to me playing it. Then everyone was surprised with my staccato stroke [A stroke is a specific movement of the bow to achieve a desirable sound for the embodiment of artistic conception - VK]. It turned out that I have this natural stroke. Usually either you have it or you don't. Such a stroke can be found in virtuoso works by Sarasate, Wieniawski, Paganini. Kids told me then: "You just have a comfortable bow. Try another!" I played with another bow - and still I had it. They told me: "Play three times slower, we will look at your hands." I played. They tried all the options to repeat this stroke, but no one did it. By the way, I haven't found one single person with this stroke in Moscow... As a child I liked to play melodious, sad music. I feel empathy for music works like a grown-up. I remember touring in Paris, in the hall of UNESCO, accompanied by a youth symphony orchestra. I was 12 years old and I performed the theme music by John Williams from 'Schindler's List'. Shortly before, my dad watched this movie at home, and I saw a small piece, just three minutes. When I played a work by John Williams, I had flashbacks of those scenes. In general, when I'm on stage I never see what is happening around me, I'm somewhere else. For each work I have my own unique image. I see pictures from life or, for example, a painting that I saw in a museum - it all came up from my mind. - You were born in a family of musicians. A few years ago, scientists conducted a study among violinists, trying to find the answer to the question of why not everyone reaches the heights they wanted. It turned out that out of ten great violinists only one achieves outstanding results. The researchers concluded that the main key to success is being born in a family of musicians. - Of course. From the first days of my life I heard music in every room. When my brother grew up, he immediately started to take violin lessons, and my mother wanted me to start playing the piano. However, when I was 6, I have already known that I want to play exactly the violin. At home I heard sounds of both a piano and a violin. And I liked the violin better. When I was four I took it in my hands and imagined me playing this instrument. - An outstanding teacher and violinist Peter Stolyarsky said that having a talented mother sometimes means more than being a talented child. What was your musical education at home - were you forced or persuaded to practice, controlled or gently directed? - In our family, children were not brought up rudely, they never raised their hands to a child. I would not forgive such an attitude. My parents did not persuade me, but of course there was certain control. Having studied at school with a teacher, I continued classes with my dad at home in the evening. It's very important to teach a kid proper hand position. If hands are put incorrectly, then it will be difficult to correct it later. I perfectly understood my duties: I woke up, had breakfast and went practice, and only after it I could have a rest. I started to especially like it after the first concert, when I realized that performing on stage is for me. - When did you realize that you want to devote your life to music? They say the first trip to the opera shocked Tchaikovsky and he realized his vocation. And what's your story? - I was eight years old, and I played 'The March of the Tin Soldiers' on the stage of the Baku State Philharmonic Society, accompanied by a chamber orchestra. I dreamed that I would stand in a magnificent pink dress, lights in the hall would be turned off, with only me being in a pink spotlight. When it came true, I really liked it and remembered it forever. - You are the representative of two music schools at once - Azerbaijani and Russian: you graduated from the Baku Academy of Music and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. What do you have from Azerbaijani teachers, from Azerbaijani education and what from Russia? - In Baku, I was lucky to have a teacher who managed to teach me the right position, so when I arrived in Moscow, I didnt have to do anything with it. In Moscow, I was taught austerity, put into some kind of bounds. I came as a person with a free manner of performance: I played like I felt. But at the conservatory I had a terrific teacher Eduard Davidovich Grach, People's Artist of the USSR. Being in his class was a dream of any young violinist. He is a very difficult person, it is not easy to win his respect and love. But Eduard Davidovich and his wife, who was my accompanist, treated me like their granddaughter. They told me later: "We had a lot of students, but you is like a family for us." The teacher did not try to change my ideas, he said that each musician is an individual. But some moments should be performed according to his rules - this is fingering, strokes, his notes. Even if I tried to change my finger, I asked: "Can I take the third one instead of the second?", He replied: "No. When you learn this piece, it will be convenient for you exactly as I said." Or I asked: "Can I take this piece for an exam?" Eduard Davidovich replied: "You can, but I think it would be better if you choose another piece." Only later I realized that he knew me better than I did. He picked up a specific repertoire for each student. Three minutes was enough for him to understand what a violinist is capable of. For the last state exam, he recommended Paganinis Moses, performed on one string. I told him that I could not do it. But Eduard Davidovich said: "Try it, play, then we will decide together." As a result, it was a success at the state exam - I realized that it was very convenient and easy for me. - Eduard Grach created a wonderful Moscovia Chamber Orchestra, where he invited only his students, graduates. Why didn't you stay there? - I played in this ensemble, but then I was tired of orchestras, because I had been playing with them since the age of seven, starting with the Teymur Goychayev children's chamber orchestra. When I arrived in Moscow to enter the fourth year, I learned that none of the exams I passed in Baku would be counted, and I need to pass them again. It was hard, there was no time for it. Only in the second year of my studies at the Conservatory, I started playing at the Moscovia - we performed in Dubna, Ivanovo, at the at the Moscow Conservatory Great Hall. I learned a lot in this orchestra, because only strong musicians were there - soloists, laureates of international competitions. When you work in good team, play high-quality music, your ear for music dont get spoiled as in orchestras, where your performance gets worse, because you practically dont hear yourself and lose a purity of intonations. And we had a chamber line-up, where everyone were great. It also stimulated me to play better. - What do you play with the greatest pleasure? - Hora Staccato by Grigoras Dinicu - this is virtuosity, this is a stroke. - Do you improvise? Does it happen, for example, that something unexpected or not rehearsed is born right on stage? - Not. I'm afraid to improvise on stage. At home it happens. Sometimes my dad asks me: "What are you doing now? Where is it from?" I answer: "I do not know. This is from above." I do not write anything down. I played it once and the music is gone. I have not come to this yet, probably. - Have you considered other professions than a musician? - Yes. Maybe it will seem ridiculous, but for some reason I see myself in military uniform. Now, of course, it's too late to think about it. And from the creative professions - TV presenter. - Where do you like perform the most? - I played in many halls. I remember the Column Hall in Moscow, where I was fortunate enough to perform at the age of 13; It is also an honor for the musician to perform at the Conservatory Great Hall, where great people played. The acoustics of this hall puts you to a special state. I was lucky to perform on that stage three times. At the graduation ceremony, I played Hora Staccato there - then I was the only violinist from the whole course. The Moscow Philharmonic is also great. I once almost missed my exit there - I was so nervous. My entry was already announced, and I am standing backstage, thinking: "When is my way entry." Then the girl from the orchestra turns to me: "Jeyla, go to the stage!" I dropped the jacket, ran out of the wrong exit. Eduard Davidovich was conducting, and said right from the stage: "Dancers go out from there!" And my favorite stage is the Baku Philharmonic. This beautiful hall is very convenient. The Heydar Aliyev Center also has a very good stage. - All violinists dream about playing some historical violin. Although very often you can hear from eminent violinists that the person who plays the violin is important, and not the violin itself. Which violin would you like to play? - I would like to try Guarneri and Stradivari. I want to understand why the current masters cannot solve the mystery of these violins - the secrets of glue, wood. So far I have not had such an opportunity, but I love my instrument and always say that it is the best. A good musician can play an ordinary violin, because a touch to the instrument is more important. - Should there be a connection between the artist and the instrument? - Of course. I feel sorry for the pianists, who every time use a new instrument. Pianists are always jealous of violinists: "You are always have your violin, both on tour and in hotels." Although you get used to the bow in one day as well. It takes time. - How often do new pieces appear in your repertoire? - I pick up the repertoire depending on the concept of the concert, selecting a program that the public may like, appreciate. They come to get good emotions, not to sit there and think: "When will it end?" I pick up something spectacular, melodic, usually a small piece. I play completely different music of Azerbaijani and European composers, trying to find something interesting. Sometimes they ask me: "What was it? Can I take your notes?" I answer: "Now everything is on the Internet, you just need to take time to find something interesting." I am always looking for beautiful music, usually accompanied by a piano. I change my repertoire quite often. - Today they say that interest in classical music is falling. How do you feel about the new generation of violinists, like David Garrett, Vanessa Mae, Edvin Marton. - Very well. They make a classic crossover. This is very good, very interesting. They all have a great school. David Garrett is a terrific violinist, he had excellent teachers. He is a super violinist who played everything he could and made it even more interesting. This effect, this fire, this virtuosity! He plays complex music, interfering it with some rhythms. I would also like to do it, but it is very difficult. - Does the violin fit any musical genre? - Yes. Even rock. The violin is multifaceted, you can make different sounds with it - from flute to vocal, lead the line, as vocalists do. Unfortunately, today classical music goes into the background. Classical musicians, trying to attract people, make different experiments, even with clothes and image. But there is nothing higher than classical music! I listen to any music except rock. However, when there's a new good song, you listen to it several times and get bored. But the classic remains forever. People should love it, teach their children to it, instead of giving them iPads with ridiculous games. - After the 12-year-old Yehudi Menuhin played three concerts in Berlin, Albert Einstein exclaimed: "Now I know there is God in heaven!" Einstein loved the violin and even came to the Academy of Sciences with his instrument. Do you agree that classics forms a cultural environment? - Of course. But one should bring it up since childhood. My mother always took me to concerts, performances, to Russian drama, to the opera. If I had not seen this since childhood, now I would not be so interested. Today, sometimes you invite a person to the philharmonic, and he asks: "Where is it?" Classical music does not teach you bad. Listening to music a person enters a special state where there is no dirt. Listening to it, you think out the words yourself, picture gentle images. Classic directs you to the right track. - In one of the interviews you said that you dream of performing a concert program not just playing the violin, but also the piano and even sing. What stage are these plans at? - It's in the process. Everything has its time. I hope, soon I will realize the dream which I had since childhood. There will be no piano. Only vocals and violin. The piano era has ended a long time ago for me - I have never really seen myself behind this instrument. - But I heard you playing In the style of Bach by Kara Karaev from A Man Drops Anchor, and it was amazing ... - I just love this piece. I asked my mother to help me with it, but she said: "Do not disgrace me!" Then I prepared it myself, and after an audition in the Great Hall in Baku, I was invited to play at a concert. Then my mother did not enter the hall, standing in the doorway. This is good, otherwise I would not have played a single note of excitement. When I studied in Moscow, I also had to play on the piano exams and accompany some instrument. It was unusual for me - usually people accompany me, and here I have to sit at the piano and accompany violinists. But I had to do it. I had to practice the piano at night. When I came to the repetition room, at the conservatory there was a queue for classes from 11 pm. There is a cafe under the conservatory, and, standing in line, I looked at the people sitting there, and thought to myself: "It's fine, my day will come, I will also sit there and look at this line." I was so angry, I realized that it would be better to devote more time to the violin than the piano, but still the piano is an important instrument. For me, besides the violin, there is an instrument, the timbre and sound of which makes me want to cry. This is a balaban. I bought a balaban, I wanted to learn how to play on it, but it didn't work out. Not a single sound came out of me. - You often take part in concerts prepared by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in different countries, you participated in the Days of Azerbaijan in the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland. Does the perception of Azerbaijani culture abroad change after such events? - Of course. It is very important to bring our music to a foreign audience. We always play at these concerts the most beautiful works of Azerbaijani composers, and all concerts are a great success. There was no such concert when the audience were not on their feet in the end. It is very nice, but very difficult. After all, they hear you for the first time, and hear the music you play also for the first time. Listening to Azerbaijani music played on a violin is not easy. But after each concert, people always come to me and invite me to return here. We are always very well received. - They say in order to be a good musician, it is not enough just to be a musician, one must also live a talented and bright life. Do you agree? - One should live, enjoying every moment, what you do, even ordinary things. Seeing beauty is also a kind of talent. I think I live finely, because I share positive emotions with people, and if I dont feel good, I try to keep the negative in myself, not to spoil people's mood. Every day I try to give people positive emotions and get emotions doing something with joy. If I know that I'm bad at something, I simply will not do it. Probably, music is my only talent. But my mom says that cooking as well. I cook rarely, but aptly! Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker came out strongly this weekend against Islamic terror and vowed if elected to fight it relentlessly. "So, when I'm president of the United States, I'm taking a fight to this issue like folks have never seen before[.] ... We are not going to give thoughts and prayers, which to me is just b-------," he told CNN's David Axelrod. The link is here. Oops, a small addendum: Booker did say, "Thoughts and prayers are b-------." He did say he's taking a fight to this issue like never before. However, he was referring instead to expanding controls on American citizens' rights to own arms. That's what he's going to bring the full force of government against. There's no record of whether Axelrod, or anyone else, asked whether thoughts and prayers for those mowed down by Islamic terrorists are "BS" and should be replaced with forceful action. Reports of anti-Semitic rhetoric and actual physical attacks on American Jews have become a common occurrence in many American Jewish communities throughout the United States. Despite the denial of most American Jews that I run into during my visits to the tristate area, including my current visit, anti-Semitic rhetoric and physical violence are blatantly condoned and publicly tolerated not only by a small, select group of political representatives who have become media darlings and celebrities, but more importantly by mainstream Democratic Party and Progressive political organizational leaders, many of whom are Jewish themselves. This relatively minor and small group of highly visible media personalities is becoming disproportionally tolerant of expressing anti-Semitic rhetoric, empowering Jew-haters to act uninhibitedly against Jews anywhere and everywhere. Polls show that Americans have a positive view toward Israel, ranking it among the ten countries they most favor, above many longtime allies. The greater majority of Americans do not hold anti-Semitic beliefs and do not condone acts of anti-Semitism. This being the case, how can we explain headline after headline and Democratic political tolerance and complicity in light of anti-Semitic rhetoric broadcast and printed daily among America's leading media outlets? The recent anti-Semitic cartoon in the New York Times is only the latest example of this alarming trend. Should our conclusion be that anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence are a result of a hate industry operated by small and highly active individuals and groups who are disproportionately affecting and influencing the public discourse and media dialogue? How long can we continue to blame Muslim congressional freshmen who express a pervasive revulsion of Jews and Israel condoned only because of a pervasive bigotry of low expectations in regard to their behavior and abilities? Can a process of inoculation to anti-Semitism become a counter-balance to the ever increasing mainstreaming of anti-Semitism by a disproportional small cadre of Democratic Party politicians, veteran Democratic Jewish politicians, and progressive leaders? Recent remarks by Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib on the Holocaust and the shameless media blitz and public support she received from Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi encapsulate the problem with today's Democratic Party and the empowerment its members give to blatant Jew-haters and enemies of the State of Israel. Tlaib began by explaining to Late Night host Seth Meyers how many of her ancestors "died" or "gave up their livelihood" to provide that safe haven for Jews, which she wanted to "recognize and honor." Tlaib unapologetically offered her false anti-Semitic version of history and falsely claimed that the Palestinian Arabs welcomed Jews to the Middle East when Palestinian leader Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini was actually an ally of Adolph Hitler and coordinated attacks that killed tens of thousands of Jews, many of whom were recent Holocaust-survivors. Tlaib was widely condemned by GOP lawmakers such as Republican Senator Ted Cruz, as well as President Trump, who accused her of "tremendous hatred." The Democratic support and the support of Progressive allies for stating the notion that she was "calmed" by the Holocaust is at the heart of the mainstreaming and the legitimizing of the rampant anti-Semitism that is spreading across America. When social media spread the word of hating Jews and hating the State of Israel, believers from both the extreme left and the extreme right are inundated with messages and narratives within their world of social media that make it OK to hate Jews. Individuals and groups who constantly seek affirmation for these hated related beliefs and find their redemption through elected political leaders and a major political leader such as Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi. Then it's a relatively small step to go to fulfill anti-Semitic ideation as acts, crossing the emotional threshold and walking into a synagogue to shoot Jews praying. America has joined many parts of the world in which Jews are increasingly unwelcome. Being a Jew now means risking physical violence. Both Jews and Jewish institutions are being targeted with extraordinary cruelty and viciousness. We hear Israel being compared to Nazi Germany and that the Jews control the world, being the source of the world's maladies. Jews are seen as carriers of a uniquely trans-generational evil. Rampant Jew-hatred and violence against Jews have made a huge comeback only because major Democratic politicians and progressive opinion-makers such as the New York Times are creating a pervasive atmosphere for them. The writer, a 25-year veteran of the IDF, served as a field mental health officer. Prior to retiring in 2005, he served as the commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGOs implementing psycho-trauma and psycho-education programs to communities in the North and South of Israel. He is former strategic adviser at the Office of the Chief Foreign Envoy of Judea and Samaria. To contact: medconf@gmail.com. A Guatemalan man involved in large-scale distribution of false ID documents in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area was sentenced this week to six months time served and ordered deported back to Guatemala. Good news or bad news? Here is the case, as reported in mLive dot com: GRAND RAPIDS, MI A man who provided fraudulent documents for sale in West Michigan expects to be deported and leave behind his family. Benjamin Morales-Sales was sentenced Monday, May 13, in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids to six months in prison, with credit for six months already served, after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce and traffic in fraudulent identification documents. Judge Janet Neff ordered Morales-Sales be remanded to the custody of U.S. marshals. Here is the government side: A federal prosecutor said the defendant, with alleged ties to a Chicago organization, caused significant problems in West Michigan. Those involved in the conspiracy and others "flooded the Grand Rapids area with fraudulent identification documents," Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay West wrote in a sentencing memorandum. And here is the defense side: Morales-Sales, 33, of Grand Rapids, was described as a hard-working family man who cared for his girlfriend and her children, along with a child they had together. A citizen of Guatemala, he entered the U.S. in 2001 after an earlier unsuccessful try and moved to Michigan four years later[.] ... A school social worker said that his family is devastated to lose him. She works with two of the girls who consider Morales-Salles their father. She diagnosed the girls with post-traumatic stress disorder. Here is my take: he's part of a criminal gang and in America illegally. His girlfriend and children are free to join him in Guatemala. The SpyGate coup to elect Hillary, prevent the election of President Trump, and sabotage Trump's presidency is far worse than Watergate. It will be proven so with the investigation by U.S. attorney Durham, appointed by Attorney General Barr. The Democrats and the corrupt media know this, which is the reason they are attacking A.G. Barr. The Democrats, led and aided by a compliant media that reported the FBI leaks, and some Republicans, forced Richard Nixon to resign. The immediate cause was the so-called smoking gun tape of June 23, 1972 where Nixon suggested that the CIA tell the FBI to back off its investigation. The tape was released by Nixon on August 5, 1974 following a Supreme Court decision. The 1972 tape was the basis for the obstruction of justice argument against Nixon. Watergate started as a breaking into the DNC offices to search and copy records. Compare this to the Obama Justice Department and FBI clearing Hillary of the email scandal and trying to sabotage Trump's election and his presidency. The corrupt media led and assisted the Obama DOJ and FBI and now continue to drive the attack on President Trump, despite the Mueller Report that found no collusion. There is no serious dispute about the facts. An excellent summary is Greg Jarrett's book, The Russia Hoax (Harper Collins, 2018). The Obama DOJ and FBI cleared Hillary of obvious violations of numerous laws over her use of a private email server so she could run for the presidency and win. Obama knew that Hillary wasn't using the approved secure State Department email system because Hillary communicated with Obama with the unsecure email system. A prosecution of Hillary would involve Obama. Hillary would have argued that Obama knew of her use of a private email server and thus approved her use, which would have been a good defense. Obama had motive to protect his legacy as well as helping Hillary beat President Trump. Moreover, Obama announced that Hillary made a "mistake" but did not intend to break the law. This was a clear signal to James Comey's FBI, which not surprisingly came to the same Obama conclusion. But it wasn't enough to give Hillary a pass on her violations. The Obama DOJ and FBI then used the unverified Steele "Dossier," full of false charges, to obtain FISA warrants, without probable cause, to spy on the Trump campaign. In addition, the Obama FBI tried to insert informants into the Trump campaign. The Obama DOJ and FBI, aided by their cheerleaders in the media, and the NeverTrump Republicans, could not and did not defeat Trump. The next step was to destroy the Trump presidency to nullify the votes of over 63 million Americans. Obama knew what his DOJ and FBI did during the campaign. FBI agent Lisa Page texted FBI agent Peter Strzok on September 2, 2016: "Potus wants to know everything we're doing." Trump fired Comey. In retaliation, Comey leaked FBI memos to force the DOJ to appoint his friend, Robert Mueller, as special counsel to investigate the unfounded charges of Trump's collusion with Russia to win the presidency. There was no credible evidence to warrant the special counsel. After two years, Mueller and his gang of 19 Hillary-Obama attorneys had to conclude there was no collusion because there was no collusion. Mueller knew this on the day of his appointment. How is Nixon saying that the CIA tell the FBI to back off worse than the Obama DOJ and FBI using the Hillary-paid-for dossier to try to beat Trump, and then to remove Trump, and having the FBI clear Hillary? Nixon was trying to protect his men from criminal prosecutions for a stupid breaking and entering to steal DNC records. Nixon did not have the DOJ, FBI, and CIA investigate George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee. Obama's DOJ and FBI used the courts to obtain warrants based on the Hillary-paid-for dossier that they knew was not verified. They intentionally failed to inform the FISA court that the information relied upon for the warrant was unverified and bought and paid for by Hillary. In the Nixon case, the FBI did not stop its investigation. At worst, there was a discussion of an attempt by having the CIA ask the FBI to stop. But the CIA refused. At least Nixon's CIA, unlike Obama's CIA and DOJ, had integrity. The Obama-Hillary gang did not merely "ask." You cannot get more active than by filing four applications for warrants, not based on probable cause, to a FISA court, and trying to insert informants. If we apply the Nixon standard, then A.G. Barr was correct to appoint a U.S. attorney, Durham, to investigate the FISA warrants, which means investigation of Obama, Hillary, Comey, Strzok, McCabe, Lynch, Page, Brennan, Clapper, Ohr, and others. Further, the Senate should establish a committee similar to the Watergate committee so the public can see this bunch testify. Image: David via Flickr (cropped). The Left is raising a hullabaloo over an Alabama law passed in the state Legislature restricting abortion solely to cases where the life or health of the mother is seriously endangered. Here is how the local AL.com is summing up the matter: After several hours of contentious debate, the Alabama Senate on Tuesday night voted 25-6 to pass what many say will be the strictest abortion ban in the nation. The bill makes abortion a felony in Alabama. A similar measure already passed the Republican-controlled House but controversy erupted last week in the Senate after an attempt to add amendments that would allow exceptions for victims of rape or incest. Another attempt to add rape and incest exceptions on Tuesday also failed and led to a filibuster attempt. Proponents of the measure pushed for a "clean bill" without amendments in order to clear the way to a legal fight in the U.S. Supreme Court and a review of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion. The bill now goes to Gov. Kay Ivey, who will decide whether to sign it into law. News outlets such as the New York Times, the Associated Press, and NPR have all suggested it's Armageddon for "abortion rights," characterizing it as the work of legislators emboldened by the ascent of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court with a cynical agenda to see the matter taken there to force a revision of Roe v. Wade. The Times and the Associated Press on their front pages featured above-the-fold photos of a women dressed in Handmaid's Tale red costumes at the Alabama legislative offices as if to get the message across that sex slavery for women was imminent. Those photos were disguised editorials. Hysteria, anyone? Meanwhile, the ACLU is speaking out against the law, too, calling it a violation of federal law and vowing to sue to get it taken off the books. PSA: Abortion is still legal in all 50 states. Its true that states have passed laws trying to make abortion a crime, but we will sue in court to make sure none of those laws ever go into effect. ACLU (@ACLU) May 15, 2019 Really? No states' rights for Alabama? Back when the topic was sanctuary cities, the ACLU was all in for states' rights. ACLU president Susan Herman wrote a piece called "States' Rights Arguments Aren't Just for Segregationists" back in 2017 to argue just that. Funny how they go off the rails when the topic is abortion, shifting their principles for the topic... The thing is, the law is not at all extreme, given the voter sentiment in Alabama, and more significantly shifts in public sentiment nationally. Making abortion less common is perfectly in tune with current prevailing trends in polling, which suggest that voters are growing increasingly more pro-life. A Marist poll last January showed that a whopping majority (61%) of voters who consider themselves pro-choice favor strong restrictions on abortion, leaving it to the first trimester at most. The pro-lifers, who likely form a solid majority in Alabama, wouldn't, if they are pro-life, want any abortion at all. What's more, several states have moved to restrict abortion in what are called "heartbeat" bills, which acknowledge that nobody should be killed who has a beating heart. The Alabama Legislature's law, which moves a tad farther in this direction, was well within this range of mainstream voter opinion. What's really extreme is what's been going on on the pro-choice side of things in contrast. Virginia under blackface Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam attempted to pass a bill allowing abortion up to and beyond the moment of birth, for one. "The infant would be kept comfortable," Northam assured ahead of what would amount to a decision to murder him. Besides the attempt to practically legalize murder in Virginia, there have been other states that have passed measures "to fortify legal protections for the procedure" as the New York Times euphemistically put it extending abortion up to the moment of birth as well. New York under its leftist law lit up the World Trade Center to celebrate that far-from-mainstream expansion of abortion "rights." Meanwhile, individual extremists out there have ramped up extremist acts to stand up for abortion, as Pennsylvania legislator Brian Sims did, attempting to dox pro-life girls, ages 13 and 15, who were praying at a Pennsylvania abortion facility. He still hasn't apologized. It's as if abortion is not a thing that can be subject to a political pendulum, or shifting sentiment among voters, or new experiences and perspectives to permit new laws, but something that can only be expanded, widened, super-funded, and eventually forced or taken to the born-baby murder level, which we have actually seen attempts at in Virginia. There's no such thing as states or voters ever having a right to change their minds, or adjust their laws to match their values. There's extremism all right, but it's not in Alabama - it's coming from the left. The Alabama law is a bid to restore the right to life of every living baby, rationalizing a very bad trend seen elsewhere - and going with legitimate shifts in public sentiment. The left, meanwhile, is going full bore to legalize ever more killing to very little outcry or discussion. Image credit: TitiNicola via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Here's some news that will never see the front page of the New York Times: President Trump is soaring among older Millennials, according to a poll from Zogby, of all places. And that unexpected report from the left-leaning pollster just happens to coincide with the nosedive that Trump's socialist challenger, Bernie Sanders, has taken among youth in a separate Morning Consult poll. According to the Daily Mail: President Donald Trump's job approval rating surpassed the half way mark in a Zogby Analytics poll published Tuesday. In the poll, Trump earned 51 per cent approval from likely voters and 48 per cent disapproval 2 per cent say they are unsure. Among younger millennials, those between 18-29, Trump received 51 per cent approval, but among older millennial voters, those between 25-35-years-old, 53 per cent approval of Trump's job as president. Hannity, meanwhile, reports this, citing The Hill: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign took another turn for the worse this week, with new surveys showing his support among younger voters -once a key aspect of his political base- plummeting just months before voters head to the polls. According to a recent report from Morning Consult, Sanders support among voters aged between 18 and 29 has plunged from 45% to just 33% in May. "Sanders's support with the youngest voters, who propelled his surprising challenge to then-Democratic contender Hillary Clinton in 2016, has steadily declined in the poll since topping out at 46 percent in late February," reports The Hill. Not too long ago, Vox reported that young people hate Trump. Today, it looks as though Trump is eating Sanders alive. Three years ago, Sanders was a novelty among the young, and Sanders's most impassioned supporters. Today, Bernie is a has-been, an also-ran, a guy who got gulled by the Hillary Clinton Democratic Party machine and didn't complain much about it. Chris Cillizza has noted that the rise of Trump among the young has been going on as a trend, as a matter of fact. Young voters are starting to flock to Trump, and it may well be that it's at Bernie Sanders's expense. There are no news accounts or interpretive analytics explaining why this might be the case, but anecdotally, this looks a bit like the silent generation asserting itself once again. Back in 1972, with the unpopular Vietnam War going on, the conventional wisdom propounded in the mainstream press held that all the young people would leap to vote for George McGovern for president over Richard Nixon owing to his extensive liberal platform. They didn't. In fact, on election night, oodles of young people were waving their Nixon signs and buttons, proud to stand up and be counted when no lefty could stop them. It also seems to resemble the dynamics of the 1980 presidential election that elected the great Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter, which is the one where I cast my first ballot. As a teen in a public high school in San Diego, I recall how the press and the intellectuals running our advanced placement classes tried to foist the green agenda on us and told us that we would have to start accepting "small is beautiful" as a philosophy, as Jerry Brown said. There would never be jobs for us (though we noticed that the people telling us this were comfortable enough), and our lives were over before life had begun; it had all been used up by those who came before us, so suck it up. There was other blather about the importance of accepting socialism even if it meant we could never reach our potential. In my class, this whole indoctrinated picture seemed to ignite support for Reagan. Slowly, slowly, a grassfire rebellion began to take place in the class. At the beginning of the semester, our lefty community college instructor asked the class to raise their hands as to whom they wanted for president, and most hands shot up for Carter. By the end of the semester, the ratio had flipped severely, and pretty much everyone among the college-bound seniors said they wanted Reagan. It was good to defy the teacher. And more important, it shifted our prospects to something more to our liking as our bet proved right, and the Reagan jobs boom began after 1982. Young people were the biggest beneficiaries. One wonders if the same thing might be happening now among the Millennials, especially the older ones who remember the long Obama years and its subpar-growth economy, as well as nonstop propaganda about the wonderfulness of "going green." How did these years unfold for young people, with little to offer them, in their defining young work years, which set the tone for one's career? Were they too told there would never be jobs for them? Yes, as a matter of fact they were as President Obama claimed that high growth was a thing of the past. With Trump proving something very different and unemployment dropping below 4%, it's pretty obvious they realized they'd been lied to. Did they have enough of Mom's basement? Seems like it. Which would explain why Sanders has become a tiresome bore for them and they are looking for someone new. The youth fascination with the elderly socialist has always been a bit of a mystery, though he is pretty well spoken. Perhaps his money scandals (multiple houses and a private jet after life in public office) have drawn away support, or his failure to fight the Clinton machine, or his socialist schtick has just gotten boring. Whatever the case, Trump is cleaning up as his numbers go up in the polls. That's a thing of beauty and Trump should have fun with it, out on the 2020 campaign trail. Following the disclosure that U.S. attorney John Durham has been tasked with investigating and prosecuting potential crimes in the origin of the Russia Hoax, we learned some very encouraging facts that suggest that the Russia Hoax will be fully aired and miscreants brought to justice. Like Howie Carr, who had a front-row seat when John Durham went after corruption in the FBI Boston office, I am "cautiously optimistic" (Howie's term) that Durham and his boss A.G. Barr want to get to the bottom of the hoax and put those who may have committed crimes in prison. In Boston, Durham faced a gigantic scandal that was very damaging to the FBI and did not blink. He got John Connelly, Whitey Bulger's protector, sentenced to 40 years in prison. This does not sound like a prosecutor who can be persuaded to lay off getting to the truth in order to protect the reputations of important people and institutions. But we must concede that there are plenty of reasons to worry that that the biggest political scandal in American history the political weaponization of both the federal intelligence and law enforcement communities to spy on political opponents of the sitting president and remove a duly elected president from office will be swept under the rug. Even a sober-minded man of integrity like William Barr might be persuaded that the harm to public trust in our system would be too profound and that our allies and foes overseas might see us as so weakened that they would take actions inimical to our interests. Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh provided a fascinating insight into the level of distrust the conservative base has in the ability of our institutions and their leaders to right themselves. After reviewing what Durham could accomplish, he came back after a commercial break and said: Holy cow. Some of you people are on fire out there today. I checked the email during the break, and I got a bunch of people sending me notes. "I don't care about this guy's resume. I'm fed up with hearing about people's resume!" They're talking about the guy that Barr has appointed. "I'm gonna wait see results. I don't care what this guy's done. You know, that's all we get. We get resumes, we get past history, we get performance, we get our hopes raised, we get our expectations raised, and then nothing ever happens. "So you can stuff this guy's resume, Mr. Limbaugh, as far as I'm concerned. I'm waiting to see if anybody delivers on this." I understand the sentiment, folks. I understand the sentiment. I can count as easily as you can the number of times over whatever length of time in the past you want, 30 years, 10 years, 15, five, it doesn't matter. The number of times we've been led to believe that heads are gonna roll, things are gonna happen, the bad guys are gonna get caught. I mean, for two years we've been, "Breaking news! Breaking news! "The bottom's gonna fall out tomorrow," and it never does. "Breaking news! Breaking news! Heads are gonna roll tomorrow," and they never do. "Breaking news! Breaking news! Full operation exposed, details tomorrow morning," whatever. Never happens. I understand that. Keeping in mind the need to understand how fiercely the permanent bureaucracy and globalist faction in both parties want to frustrate President Trump's agenda, and how damaging a thorough housecleaning would be for them, let's review the reasons to hope that there will be a serious follow-through by Barr, Durham, and John Huber (the U.S. attorney for Utah who was tasked by A.G. Sessions with investigating the Clinton Foundation and surveillance abuses), especially after the I.G. Horowitz report is released, as is expected within the next 2 or 3 weeks. Eric Felten noticed something already on the public record last October: that Durham already was investigating leaks to the media from the FBI. This means that at least seven months before his role was revealed, and months before William Barr took office, Durham was on the case. The revelation came not from a leak, but from testimony by James A. Baker, the FBI's general counsel under James Comey. The testimony is excerpted by Felten in RealClearInvestigations. The great Jim Jordan of Ohio was quizzing Baker: "So did you talk to Mr. Corn about anything that the FBI was working on," Jordan asked, "specifically the now infamous Steele dossier?" Suddenly, Baker's lawyer, Dan Levin, jumped in: "One second," he said before he and his client had a conversation off the record. When the microphones were back on, Levin declared he would "not let [Baker] answer these questions right now. You may or may not know, he's been the subject of a leak investigation which is still a criminal leak investigation that's still active at the Justice Department." And so Levin concluded, "I'm sorry. I'm cutting off any discussion about conversations with reporters." North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows wanted to make clear what Baker's lawyer was claiming: "You're saying he's under criminal investigation? That's why you're not letting him answer?" "Yes." Levin and the lawmakers sparred a bit over whether Baker was invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, and the congressmen finally got around to asking who was leading this criminal probe: "There is an ongoing investigation by whom?" Jordan said. "The Justice Department," Levin responded. "I mean, is the inspector general looking at this or is this" "No," said Levin, "it's Mr. John Durham, a prosecutor." The specter of Durham haunts the rest of the interview. Baker can't talk about what he told his old friend David Corn in their conversations about the dossier because it would put Baker in legal jeopardy. The fact that this was kept secret so long, even in the face of this admission slipping out and remaining unnoticed, suggests that the Durham investigation and maybe Huber's too is doing exactly what effective prosecutors do: keeping grand jury proceedings secret, applying pressure to witnesses to sing, maybe offering deals for lighter prosecution and sentence recommendations if they implicate higher-ups, and going for convictions by trial juries, not in the court of public opinion. The very same James A. Baker, interestingly enough, is anticipating release of the Horowitz report, and conceding that the IG will find "mistakes." Baker, who admitted last week the inspector general makes him "nervous," said the government watchdog will probably find some errors. "The inspector general is looking at everything we did," Baker said on CNN. "If the IG usually finds mistakes that we made, so I expect him to find mistakes this time." Baker said last week at an event in Washington, D.C., that he took a leading role in overseeing the FISA warrant applications to obtain the authority to spy on Page. Baker said on Monday he does not believe there was any intent from the people he worked with to do "anything wrong or illegal," including politically motivated spying. A second serious implication of all of this is that when Barr was recruited to become AG for the second time, he knew that Durham already was at work on busting open at a minimum the collusion between FBI senior officials and media figures to perpetrate the Russia hoax on the public and lead to the appointment of a special counsel via the resulting public pressure. Photo credit: Department of Justice. I have long believed that the only reason a man like Barr, who was earning millions of dollars a year as a DC lawyer at the very top of his profession, could be lured back into the snake pit of DC politics under Trump would be his devotion to the integrity of our legal/judicial system. If he were a cynic just interested in preserving the establishment that let him succeed so mightily, why not just stay where we was? He had to know that taking on the task of rescuing the system from its abusers would lead to the sort of vilification he now is enduring. I think that the same logic can be applied to another revelation we learned yesterday: that Durham has enlisted the CIA's head Gina Haspell to aid in his probe. Is this a danger sign or an indication that someone highly knowledgable is on the case? My friend Mike Nadler observes in an email: "As a career bureaucrat, Haspell seems to love her agency and may not tolerate its misuse for partisan political purposes." I would add to that historically the CIA was very much a boys' club. Haspell's reputation was as a devoted career official, who no doubt endured a lot as a woman coming up the ranks. She may not be part of the club, but rather a harbinger of a new order at the CIA. However, it must be considered that she could be implicated, in which case she could be obfuscating and trying to torpedo the investigation (which seems unlikely if Barr and Durham are as serious as I suspect they are) or alternatively that she is spilling what she knows. Sundance asks: Who was the CIA Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action over Europe, while John Brennan and Peter Strzok were running their European 2016 counterintelligence operations?. And Sundance says that it was Haspell. She probably knows a lot. Global premiums held over the week ended on May 14, while tin prices on the London Metal Exchange have been erratic and frequently at odds with record-low global stocks. Thin spot trade in the United States provides no basis for change but some offers trend down. Price volatility inhibits European trade. Chinese premiums extend lengthy flat-line trend. The US premium for tin ingot was steady for the first time in three weeks but with signs of buyers gaining the upper hand amid notably little US spot buying in a market that both sellers and buyers agreed was oversupplied.Fastmarkets assessment of the premium for 99.85% grade-A tin ingots in-warehouse Baltimore was $450-600 per tonne on Tuesday May 14, unchanged from the previous week after falling for the past two weeks from $480-600 per tonne on April 30 and $525-600 per tonne on April 23.Only big buyers could command the new lower premiums below $500 per tonne, sources told Fastmarkets last week.This week, one smaller buyer - who is used to paying around $600 per tonne for a truckload or less - was offered the same grade-A quality tin at $475 per tonne, yet bought none because he is well stocked, end demand is mediocre and he has scrap alternatives, he said.I cant remember how long it is since I was offered tin so low but it has been at least a year, he said. I told them, Make me an offer that I cannot refuse.This demonstrates the sluggish state of a US domestic tin market with surplus supply, notwithstanding official global tin stocks being extremely low.Tin stocks on the London Metal Exchange surpassed the 1,000-tonne level on Wednesday for the first time since late March, moving to 1,095 tonnes from 890 tonnes a day earlier. But stock levels for May were averaging less than 867 tonnes as of May 14, down by nearly 64% from the more than 2,393 tonnes held in LME warehouses in May 2018.Tin landed in LME warehouses in the US this spring, a rare occurrence. Tin is also being held outside of the LME network that is not recorded in the exchange's stocks.Tin reportedly changed hands at a premium of just $410 per tonne after arriving at an LME warehouse in Baltimore in March, where most of it has remained.In Europe, Fastmarkets assessed the premium for 99.9% standard-grade tin ingot, with 300ppm lead content on an in-warehouse Rotterdam basis, at $410-450 per tonne on May 14, maintaining a range held since April 2.Physical tin market participants continue to report a subdued buying appetite for 99.9% tin ingots this week amid ongoing uncertainty over the full resumption of Indonesian exports, with volatility in tin forward spreads along with LME prices further quieting the European market.Indonesian state-owned producer PT Timah continues to dominate exports from the region - the worlds second-largest tin producer - with participants reporting that the producer is offering material at around $440 per tonne, Fastmarkets heard.PT Timah dropped their premiums about a month ago to sub-$400-per-tonne levels to shift volume and have now raised them by $30-50 per tonne, which might not be attractive in the current market, a Europe-based tin trader told Fastmarkets.Meanwhile, downstream by-product tin sectors such as brass, bronzing and tinplate are reportedly struggling this year, a second Europe-based tin trader said.I spoke to a large tinplate producer and their business is down by 40-45% compared with 2018, the trader added. They have to rely on the domestic [European] market because they cant export to the US due to the 25% import duties.A third trader confirmed that the current market is limiting long-term business, with merchants and producers traditionally offering metal forward amid volatile backwardations and prices.Tins cash/three-month spread was recently in a backwardation of $210 per tonne, widening from $105 per tonne last week.The spreads are so unknown, you dont know where youll be pricing with this backwardation. Wider backwardations add more cost and with a volatile three-month outright [price], price-fixing has become harder, the trader source said.Elsewhere, the latest Indonesia Commodities & Derivatives Exchange (ICDX) data shows 2,410 tonnes of tin have traded for export in Indonesia so far in May, following 5,660 tonnes traded in April.The LME futures tin price has broadly been trending lower despite deliverable LME stocks remaining at their lowest level since 1989, with just 555 tonnes on-warrant.In China, Fastmarkets assessed the premium for 99.9% tin ingot cif Shanghai at $230-250 per tonne on May 14, unchanged from the previous week, largely because the import window was closed.Theres no chance to do imports or exports currently and in domestic China, business is as quiet as usual, a Shanghai-based trader said on May 14.Tin stocks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose by 1,181 tonnes week on week at 8,477 tonnes on May 10, with weak domestic demand cited as the main reason for the increase.Elsewhere, Fastmarkets assessment of the 99.9% tin ingot premium cif Taiwan was at $200-220 per tonne on Tuesday, unchanged since December 4.Click on the image above to view the table in full size.Hassan Butt in London and Violet Li in Shanghai contributed to this report. Turkey is not discussing postponement or suspension of the delivery of the Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. "Postponement or suspension is not on the agenda. It's a done deal, why would we discuss a delay?" he said. Cavusoglu said negotiations continue with the United States regarding a joint commission on S-400s and F-35 fighter jets. "If there will be a working group, we would like to carry on without any prerequisites. Let the experts decide (on S-400 and F-35 compatibility). We have a constructive offer; if the U.S. trusts itself then it should accept the offer," Daily Sabah cited the minister as saying. You may place a quality value on a service you pay for or subscribe to, but by the same token some of those businesses also place a quality value on you as a customer. AT&T would seem to be one of those companies. In comments (transcribed here) given by AT&Ts CEO & President, Randall Stephenson during a J.P. Morgan Conference this week, Stephenson explained how this year was a clean up year for DIRECTV NOW. Advertisement Initially, these comments were in reference to the content with Stephenson pointing to contract negotiations as how the service was being cleaned up. Recently, DIRECTV NOW relaunched with a new channel lineup which placed a much greater emphasis on content owned by AT&T. However, when padding out the answer, Stephenson also made it clear that this year was just as much about cleaning up the customer base as it is the content. Stephenson explained how this was already in effect and can be seen in the significant subscriber losses DIRECTV NOW has seen in the past six months. Advertisement According to Stephenson, the customers leaving are primarily low-ARPU (Average revenue per user) customers with the suggestion being they matter less as they do not generate enough revenue for AT&T to be concerned about their departure. Stephenson reiterated this statement by noting how once the customer cleanup has been completed, the service expects to be profitable thanks to the high-quality customers that are still on the books. Reading between the lines, it does seem that AT&T views the current reduction in users to be not just an acceptable loss, but an encouraged one. This is in spite of DIRECTV NOW being the reason it has these low-ARPU customers in the first place DIRECTV NOW has taken a highly aggressive approach in the last couple of years by greatly reducing the price of its plans (including completely offsetting the cost to some existing AT&T customers) in a bid to attract users to the video platform. Advertisement Now that it has what it considers to be enough users, it has begun to clean up the customer base by removing those individuals that dont generate an acceptable level of revenue. One of the reasons AT&T probably cares less about these low-ARPU customers is its upcoming direct-to-consumer solution which it expects to be a big-hitter when it arrives, attracting tens of millions of subscribers. Stephenson argued that people do not currently have an appreciation for what this product will bring to bear and pointed to the wealth of Warner Bros. content AT&T now has direct access to. Advertisement Speaking of which, Stephenson also suggested that wide pool of content will not just be available through the new WarnerMedia-focused streaming service, but will likely only be available through its service. What was explicitly said is AT&T plans to bring media rights, licensing rights back to ourselves for the purpose of promoting the SVOD service. The clear suggestion here is some of the most popular shows now owned by AT&T wont be available at the same time through other streaming services. Friends, Seinfeld, and The Big Bang Theory were all name-dropped during the comments as prime examples of the content that is likely to be removed from other services in favor of exclusivity on the upcoming WarnerMedia service. HMD Global will be able to continue developing and selling new Nokia devices with Qualcomm technology inside, including the latest iterations of those, following a recently revealed direct worldwide license arrangement covering branded single-mode and multimode devices. Details surrounding the deal are slim but it does include royalty-based licensing of 3G, 4G, and 5G technologies. In statements associated with the announcement, Qualcomm Technology Licensing executive Alex Rogers indicates that the agreement builds on previous arrangements with HMD Global and alludes to 5G transitional technology. HMD Global CEO Florian Seiche points to the technology enabling further innovation and devices that get better over time. No financials tied to the deal have been released. Advertisement 5G Nokia, anyone? Nokia, as a brand, is no stranger to 5G and has taken part in multiple tests of the next-gen networking tech over the past several years. Those have included tests performed alongside Qualcomm and at least one test rollout that built the foundation for 5G in the Middle East with Zain Saudi Arabia. But this may be the first official indication that a 5G smartphone is on the way from the HMD Global-run mobile side of the brand. Rumors first cropped up about the possibility of a Nokia 5G handset back in January and, if speculation is to be believed, the first of those will be a direct follow-up to the device HMD Global launched in February. While the Nokia 9 Pureview is very nearly a flagship in its own right, it didnt actually come with the latest hardware on board and 5G certainly wasnt part of the package. Advertisement Priced to sell at $699, that device was a Snapdragon 845-powered 5.99-inch handset with five 12-megapixel cameras, software to match, and a whopping 6GB RAM with 128GB storage. The display panel on that is a Quad HD+ P-OLED screen. A 20-megapixel selfie camera and 4,000mAh battery packed into a modern design, bringing everything together. Rumors of a 2019 follow-up to that have centered around a similarly powerful device with improvements such as the inclusion of a 5G-capable Snapdragon 855 processor. RAM and storage could get a boost as well as the battery and cameras, building off of recent trends in the market pushing the boundaries on both fronts. Its not immediately clear whether or not the device would ship with 5G enabled by default or in different configurations with only one of those supporting the next-gen networks. Is 2019 a good timeline? Advertisement Another detail noticeably missing from Qualcomms announcement of the deal is a time frame expected before handsets begin hitting the market with technologies covered by the agreement. With the Nokia 9 Pureview now only a few months old and 5G infrastructure still serving only a very small percentage of the world population, it seems unlikely that 2019 will see the launch of a 5G Nokia handset. A significant portion of the growth in terms of 5G isnt expected until well into 2020 or 2021, varying from region to region. Advanced variants of 4G LTE are much more widespread and can offer speeds in excess of 500Mbps based on widely reported tests. So being among the first to release handsets capable of taking advantage of 5Gs reduced latency and increased speed may not be among HMD Globals top priorities just yet. Courtesy of OnLeaks and CashKaro, a few renders and a 360-degree video reveal the yet to be announced Sony Xperia 2. These leaks come before the Xperia 1 announced back in February is even available. The Xperia 2 is expected to launch in September of this year. The renders reveal the devices design and specs. For starters, the phone will have a 6.1-inch display with the same 21:9 aspect ration of the Xperia 1. The entire device will measure out at 158 x 68.3 x 8.3mm. The phone will be powered by 6GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 855 processor from Qualcomm, and will also have a 3,000mAh battery with wireless charging. It appears Sony will continue with the vertically aligned three-camera setup. Advertisement Sony unveiled the Xperia 1 back in February at Mobile World Congress. That device featured a 6.5-inch display and otherwise looks the same as the Xperia 2. It doesnt make a lot of sense for Sony to be working at releasing another phone so soon when the Xperia 1 is not even available for ordering yet in the United States. Neither phone shows any signs of bleeding edge technology in the design department. Relatively slim bezels house the front-facing camera and speaker. The design doesnt look bad by any means its simply just not as ambitious as other manufacturers releases. Smartphones are getting taller and bigger as time goes on, and the Xperia 2 definitely follows this trend. The tall aspect ratio makes the device narrow and slender. The design is a bold move by Sony and is aimed at enhancing media consumption for users. The Xperia 2 also follows the trend of being leaked well ahead of the official announcement. Devices now can hardly pass through the internet without being shown to the entire world. Renders and photos often leave nothing left to be desired, though companies do usually keep a surprise or two up their sleeves for the official announcement. Advertisement Sony is continuing with its recent trend of putting out two flagships per year, even though there isnt much difference between the two. Typically Sony releases one flagship in February at Mobile World Congress and a second in August at IFA. That appears to be what it is planning to do again this year, with the Xperia 1 and Xperia 2. Sony has never had tremendous success in the mobile industry. It previously reported a loss of $140 million in its mobile division, but it is still working to compete in the mobile industry due to the success of its other businesses like PlayStation and its cameras, which are offsetting the mobile divisions losses. The company is not giving up though, and appears to be going all in with these 21:9 aspect ratio displays that they first showed off earlier this year on the Xperia 1, 10 and 10 Plus. The renders for the Xperia 2 do look pretty promising and do offer a few changes for Sony, including a return to a flat backside, something that the Xperia 1 did not have. Not to mention a vertical triple camera setup on the rear. Considering Sony is a camera company, and is now using its Alpha team to make these cameras, they should do pretty well. United States President Donald Trump is signed an executive order that essentially bans Huawei from conducting any kind of business in the country, the White House confirmed moments ago. The move cripples stateside ambitions of any firm posing a national security risk to the U.S. Its meant to prevent American companies from doing business with such entities, meaning Huawei is now being prevented from e.g. selling its devices via Amazon, which is something that its been doing so far for select models even as wireless carriers were unwilling to risk picking up its products and attracting the wrath of the U.S. government. Washington already banned the federal use of Huawei-made devices and services last summer, with Congress doing so via an amendment to the last iteration of the U.S. spending bill which specifically named the Shenzen-based company, as well as ZTE, another Chinese firm specializing in smartphones and telecommunications equipment. Advertisement Both Huawei and ZTE repeatedly denied any sort of wrongdoing, describing U.S. campaign against their equipment as fearmongering stemming from Washingtons trade negotiations with Beijing that have been ongoing for over a year now, having yielded little results so far. Several months back, the Department of Justice also doubled down on the anti-Huawei sentiment by unsealing close to two dozen indictments against the company, alleging it violated fraud laws, intellectual property regulations, committed obstruction of justice, and was guilty of several other transgressions. At the same time, its Chief Financial Officer and founders daughter Meng Wanzhou is fighting a U.S. extradition request in Canada after the DOJ accused her of organizing an illegal banking scheme that defrauded several financial institutions and saw Huawei violate trade sanctions imposed on Iran. At the end of the day, the government isnt so concerned about what Huawei may have done or failed to do in the past but what it could realistically be compelled to do moving forward; existing intelligence collection laws in the Far Eastern country provide Beijing with essentially limitless powers of compelling both individuals and entities into doing their bidding on the data collection front. Given how spying on private citizens is even an established problem that raises government overreach concerns in the U.S., its frivolous to assume the same isnt happening in China where the political power is held by a more oppressive regime; one that isnt concerned about winning fair elections. Advertisement Theres virtually nothing Huawei can do at this point but redistribute its resources originally intended for U.S. expansion plans to other markets, which is exactly what its been doing since last year. Europe has been the biggest beneficiary of that turn of events, even though many countries on the Old Continent are presently debating whether to ban Huawei-produced telecom solutions that the company is trying to push as a fast track toward the fifth generation of wireless networks. The U.S. has been eager for its European allies to follow its lead but ended up pulling some counterproductive moves by being too aggressive in its insistence they do so. E.g. thats precisely what made Germany reconsider its stance on Huawei, with Berlin stating theyre now willing to give the Chinese firm a fair chance at competing in the 5G market and wont be blocking it just because. Ukraine has imposed new economic sanctions against Russia banning supplies of certain groups of goods and introducing special duties, the country's Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman said today. "Those are tit-for-tat measures - embargo and special duties on Russian goods," he said at a cabinet meeting. According to him, the restrictions will be applied to those goods that "are fully produced" in Ukraine or may be replaced with alternative supplies. Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv, in turn, said that the ban concerns certain types of "industrial goods, mineral fertilizers, agriculture products, transport vehicles, plywood and others, TASS reported. A human skull was discovered in the stream in Ayntap village of Armenia's Ararat region, the press service of the the country's Emergency Ministry reported. On May 14, at around 20:13 local time, the Masis police station received an alarm about the discovery of a skull. Police officers discovered a human skull in the stream passing in front of house No.28 on the 3rd street, wrapped the skull and sent it for forensic medical expert examination. A report is being prepared, News.am reported. Marysville, CA (95901) Today A few showers early, becoming a steady light rain for the afternoon. High near 45F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.. Tonight Cloudy with showers. Low 41F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph. Boom Supersonic is using Dassault Systemes Reinvent the Sky industry solution experience based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to support product development from concept through manufacturing and certification. By using this industry-leading solution, Boom Supersonic can cut development time of its first prototype in half and improve product quality by reducing program complexity, inefficiency, costs and resources, thus lowering the barriers to market entry. Overture takes new advances in aerodynamics, materials, and propulsion and uses them to revolutionise long-haul commercial airline travel. We need powerful design tools to deliver our vision of a supersonic future, and that is exactly what Dassault Systemes provides, said Joshua Krall, co-founder and VP, technology, Boom Supersonic. As a start-up, we arent constrained by legacy software systems and aim to keep IT costs low. We quickly and easily deployed Dassault Systemes 3DEXPERIENCE platform and expect to scale up to hundreds of users as our project matures. In response to increasing passenger travel and demand for new products and services, aerospace startups, new market entrants and small original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are shaking up traditional aviation industry dynamics with new and emerging aircraft design concepts that aim to overcome technical challenges of the past. Tailored for product innovation by small OEMs and start-ups, Reinvent the Sky offers scalable access to digital design and simulation applications in a single, secure, and standards-based environment. Boom Supersonics engineers, program managers and chief test pilot can collaborate in real time to define requirements, access and reuse common processes and parts with full traceability. Aerospace companies are working to deliver faster, lighter, more efficient aircraft without sacrificing passenger comfort, said David Ziegler, vice president, Aerospace & Defence Industry, Dassault Systemes. Smaller innovators need tools for their product development programs that offer them the infrastructure of more established companies yet allow them to stay nimble and incur minimal IT-related expenses. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform delivers this support. Boom Supersonic can create the next generation passenger experience with digital applications that have long been at the core of the industrys major milestones. Boom Supersonic is currently building XB-1, its two-seat demonstrator aircraft, to prove key technologies for supersonic flight. Once operational, the companys flagship airliner, Overture, will become the fastest commercial airplane in history, flying Mach 2.2 from New York to London in 3.25 hours and from Tokyo to San Francisco in 5.5 hours. The real-life working conditions offered by the Practical Training Program make it the most useful and comprehensive program available from any OEM, said Jean Kayanakis, senior vice president, worldwide customer service and service centre network. Trainees obtain access to the latest Falcon technologies and maintenance standards while benefiting from the hands-on experience of seasoned Dassault Aviation technicians and engineers. The academy, established in 2013, offers Falcon customers a full portfolio of training options covering the entire life cycle of their aircraft, from entry into service onward. With two locations in France Merignac, near Bordeaux, and Paris-Le Bourget the Dassault Training Academy offers accredited, two-week, model-specific courses for technicians on all Falcon 900 and Falcon 2000 models, as well as the Falcon 7X and 8X. Falcon Practical Training, the academys baseline course, is designed to complement theoretical instruction provided by CAE, FlightSafety International and Global Jet Services, Dassaults Authorized Training Providers. It is open to qualified maintenance technicians from operator flight departments, Dassault owned service centres and Falcon Authorized Service facilities. A key component of the Practical Training syllabus is Falcon Immersive Practical Training, a unique 3D virtual reality tool that allows up to ten trainees and their trainer to access any component or part (even in the narrowest, hardest-to-reach areas of the airplane) without using actual hardware. The Dassault Training Academy also offers a range of specialised offerings such as Structural Repair Training, a five-day course in mapping and handling corrosion and composite repair. Offered in partnership with Aerocampus Latresne near Bordeaux, this course enables maintenance crews to examine a Falcon aircraft for structural damage and deliver repair in line with Structural Repair Manual (SRM) or Dassault-designed repair schemes. To meet increasing demand and satisfy operator requests for more targeted training, the academy is looking to further develop its specialised course offerings, for example in the areas of pilot maintenance familiarisation servicing tasks and cabin system maintenance. President Emmanuel Macron said last month he was not opposed to a a contemporary architectural gesture that could make Notre-Dame even more beautiful. But many in France have called for Viollet-le-Ducs spire to be restored as it had been built. Irish Times Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that "there is not going to be any war" with the United States, according to his official website. In a speech to state officials, Khamenei said the showdown between the Islamic republic and the United States was a test of resolve rather than a military encounter. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the U.S.) seek war. They know it will not be in their interest," Khamenei.ir cited him as saying. "The definite decision of the Iranian nation is to resist against America," Iran's supreme leader said, adding that "in this showdown America will be forced to retreat... because our resolve is stronger." Employment generation would focus on education, skills, livelihood, human resource development. CII would focus on high growth sectors like manufacturing, automobiles, information and communication technology as part of its move to enhance industry's core competitiveness, said Southern Region Chairman Sanjay Jayarathnavelu. Chennai: Trade body Confederation of Indian Industry CII would focus on enhancing industry's competency and employment generation under its seven point charter for the southern region this year, its Southern Region Chairman Sanjay Jayarathnavelu said on Wednesday. The seven points would be -- policy and regulatory excellence, enhancing industry's core competitiveness, employment generation, strengthening the small and medium enterprises, bridging the urban-rural divide, developmental growth and active membership engagement programme, he said. CII would focus on high growth sectors like manufacturing, automobiles, information and communication technology as part of its move to enhance industry's core competitiveness, he said. Employment generation would focus on education, skills, livelihood, human resource development. According to him, CII was working towards a 'Model State Budget' in select States to encourage specific action and promote fiscal discipline. 'Under the Competitiveness of South India Inc India@75: Forging Ahead' theme, CII would focus on policy advocacy, ease of doing business, education and skill development, start-ups, micro, small and medium enterprises, among others. Thrust would be given on advisory services on Intellectual Property Rights, capacity building programmes for micro, small and medium enterprises, he said. On its move towards employment generation, he said major engagement would be "skill-gap" study in labour intensive areas and to facilitate industry centric policy in Southern States. The carrier's Chief People Officer Rahul Taneja has also put in his papers. Dube's departure marked the end of his 21-month long tumultuous tenure during which the once-storied carrier shuttered operations due to cash crunch after more than 25 years of "happy flying. Mumbai: In top level exodus at grounded Jet Airways, four senior executives, including chief executive Vinay Dube and his deputy Amit Agarwal, have quit the ailing airline. Amid lenders scrambling to find a suitor, the cash-starved carrier on Tuesday announced the exit of three executives -- Dube, Agarwal and Company Secretary Kuldeep Sharma -- while a source said the carrier's Chief People Officer Rahul Taneja has also put in his papers. Except for Agarwal, who quit on Monday, the rest resigned on Tuesday. Dube's departure marked the end of his 21-month long tumultuous tenure during which the once-storied carrier shuttered operations due to cash crunch after more than 25 years of "happy flying." "We wish to inform that Vinay Dube, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), has resigned from services of the company with immediate effect due to personal reasons," Jet Airways said in a filing. An Indian-American, Dube deboarded Jet Airways a day after Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer Amit Agarwal quit. Before joining Jet Airways as CEO in August 2017, Dube had served in various roles at companies including Delta Airlines, Sabre Inc and American Airlines. He took over the reins of Jet Airways almost 15 months after the exit of his predecessor Crammer Ball. During this period, Agarwal was the acting CEO. Agarwal quit with effect from May 13 due to personal reasons, as per another filing. "We wish to inform you that Kuldeep Sharma, Company Secretary and Compliance Officer, has resigned from the services of the company with immediate effect," Jet Airways said in another filing on Tuesday. Taneja told PTI that it was a tough decision to leave the airline. "It was a very tough decision to make, really gut wrenching," he said. Shares of Jet Airways, which stopped flying from April 17 after it ran out of cash, plunged over 7 per cent on the bourses on Tuesday. Last month, Independent Director Rajshree Pathy, Non-Executive and Non-Independent Director Nasim Zaidi as well as Whole Time Director Guarang Shetty had quit. In late March, Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal along with his wife Anita Goyal as well as Etihad Airways' nominee director Kevin Knight stepped down from their respective positions following a debt-recast plan. Naresh Goyal also stepped down from the post of chairman. Etihad is a strategic investor in Jet Airways. In November last year, independent directors Vikram Singh Mehta and Ranjan Mathai had resigned from Jet Airways' board. At present, Etihad nominee Robin Kamark, Ashok Chawla and Sharad Sharma are the only directors on Jet Airways's board, as per the airline's website. On behalf of the lenders, SBI Caps had sought bids for sale of up to 75 per cent stake in Jet Airways. After the first round of bids, private equity firms IndiGo Partners and TPG, Etihad Airways and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) were shortlisted. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways submitted its bid to acquire a minority stake in Jet Airways with a lot of riders that involved finding more investors, leaving little hope for the airline's survival. "Etihad re-emphasises that it cannot be expected to be the sole investor, and that, amongst other requirements, additional suitable investors would need to provide the majority of Jet's required recapitalisation," Etihad said in a statement on May 10, which was the last date for submission of bids. Apart from Bala, Vijan is also producing Arjun Patiala, Made in China and Angrezi Medium. We told you recently that the dilemma that prolific producer Bhushan Kumar is in when he makes multiple films and is unable to find dates. Rubbing shoulders with him in the new film factory is Dinesh Vijan. The Ayushmann Khurrana-Bhumi Pednekar-Yami Gautam starrer film Bala, shepherded by Stree director Amar Kaushik recently started filming. Vijan had also produced Stree and hence planned the film with his director. After wrapping the Mumbai schedule, the team will head off to Kanpur and finish the film by the end of June. But then, Dinesh has a huge issue about finding the right release date. Apart from this, his marketing team also needs to find enough time and bandwidth to promote the film and they are also busy with other films such as Diljit-Kritis Arjun Patiala, that was waiting long for a release date and the Rajkummar-Mouni starrer Made In China. Other films in the pipeline include Imtiaz Alis film starring Kartik Aaryan and Sara Ali Khan and the Irrfan Khan-Kareena Kapoor starrer Angrezi Medium. So they need to figure out a release date and it does not seem that it will happen this year, says a trade source. While November could have been a good option the Ayushmann Khurrana-Amitabh Bachchan film Gulabo Sitabo just announced its arrival during that time. Hence Bala which is based on premature balding will have to wait. Sanskriti Media Aiyar is no stranger to controversy. He infamously used the chaiwala remark in 2014 against Mr Modi. New Delhi: Even before the furore over Sam Pitrodas remark on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots hua toh hua could die down, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar put the party into another embarrassing position by not only justifying his neech aadmi jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, first made in late 2017, but also called him the most foul-mouthed PM the country has ever seen. As the Congress was left red-faced, the Prime Minister tried to turn Mr Aiyars comments to electoral advatange. I consider their abuses as a gift. I will not reply to them, you (public) will reply by voting for the BJP, Mr Modi said at a campaign rally at Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. In 2017, just before the Gujarat Assembly polls, Mr Aiyar had called Mr Modi neech aadmi, after which he was suspended from the Congress. Justifying that remark, Mr Aiyar said in an article: Modi will, in any case, be ousted by the people of India on 23 May. That would be a fitting end to the most foul-mouthed Prime Minister this country has seen or is likely to see. Asked to clarify his comments, Mr Aiyar told reporters: There is a whole article, picking out one line from it and saying now talk on this... Im not ready to be involved in your games... I am a fool, but not a big fool. He added: Thank God. This government will go in 10 days. The BJP also hit out at Mr Aiyars remarks. The partys spokesperson, Mr G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, tweeted: Abuser-in-chief Aiyar had returned to justify his 2017 neech jibe,,, Aiyar then apologised & hid behind poor Hindi excuse. Now he says he was prophetic. Congress revoked his suspension last year for filthy outburst. Double speak & arrogance of Congress on display again! The Congress yet again condemned Mr Aiyars remarks. Its communications chief Randeep Singh Surjewala said: We completely reject and condemn the remarks of the likes of Mani Shankar Aiyar and every other person who is violating the time-tested principle of self-discipline in political discourse, of mutual respect and adherence to ideas and ideology, and not to verbally abuse while fighting an election, to give due regard even to your worst political enemy as was shown by Rahul Gandhi on the floor of Parliament. The Congress leader further claimed that it was Mr Modi who had seriously lowered the prestige of the office of Prime Minister by his choice of words, anger, uncontrollable rage, and by his quest to seek revenge against every Opposition leader, particularly Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his family. Mr Aiyar is no stranger to controversy. He infamously used the chaiwala remark in 2014 against Mr Modi. But the new article comes as the Congress is in damage control mode over the comments of Sam Pitroda. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. He will meet her before flying to Punjab for campaigning ahead of the last phase of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Rahuls visit to Alwar is seen as damage control and an attempt to send a message to Dalits that his party will fight for them. (Photo: File) Mumbai: Congress president Rahul Gandhi will fly to Rajasthan on Wednesday to meet the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly gangraped in Alwar on April 26. He will meet her before flying to Punjab for campaigning ahead of the last phase of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The Rajasthan police allegedly delayed the filing of a First Information Report (FIR) in the case. The FIR was filed only after a video of the sexual assault was circulated on social media. Five men had raped the woman after assaulting her husband and allegedly filmed the rape. According to NDTV, Rahuls visit to Alwar is seen as damage control and an attempt to send a message to Dalits that his party will fight for them. The state government has removed Alwar police chief Rajiv Pachar and suspended another officer, Sardar Singh, who was in charge of the police station where the survivor had approached. Four more policemen have been taken off duty. BJP youth wing convenor Priyanka Sharma said she would fight this case and would not apologise. She said, 'My bail was granted yesterday (Tuesday), but still wasn't released for another 18 hours. They didn't allow me to meet my advocate and family.' (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Kolkata/New Delhi: BJP youth wing activist Priyanka Sharma, who walked out of jail on Wednesday after being arrested for posting a morphed picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook, said she would not apologise. "I don't have any regrets. I have not done anything for which I will have to apologise," Sharma told a press conference at the BJP office here. She was released at 9.40 am from the Alipore jail after five days following a Supreme Court order. The BJP activist alleged that she was harassed and tortured inside jail. "I was tortured in the jail. Even the jailer pushed me yesterday. I told them I am not a criminal that you are pushing me into the jail room like this," she said. "They behaved very rudely. The condition inside was very bad." Local BJP leaders and her mother were present outside the jail in south Kolkata when she was released. "Me and my family has gone through much agony which I think I don't deserve," Sharma said. Her brother, Rajiv Sharma, alleged that the jail authorities violated the Supreme Court order by not releasing her on Tuesday. "When we went to the jail yesterday, officials said they needed a hard copy of the order. I am in Delhi and it took time to get the hard copy of the order and therefore the delay. They did not abide by the Supreme Court order of immediate release," he said. Earlier on Wednesday, the Supreme Court termed as "prima facie arbitrary" the arrest of BJP's youth wing leader for allegedly posting morphed image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media and pulled up the West Bengal government for the delay in releasing her. A vacation bench comprising justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna was informed by the counsel of activist Priyanka Sharma's brother that she was not released from jail on Tuesday despite the apex court's order granting her bail and ordering her immediate release. However, the counsel for West Bengal government informed the bench that she has been released from jail at 9:40 am today. "Why 9:40 am today? The order was passed in your presence," the bench told the state counsel. When the state's counsel referred to the jail manual, the bench shot back, "Jail manual can't have precedence over an order of the Supreme Court." "No. This is not done. First of all the arrest was prima facie arbitrary," the bench said. Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Priyanka's brother Rajib Sharma who filed the plea in the apex court, told the bench that despite the apex court's Tuesday order granting her bail she had to spend another night behind the bars. Kaul told the bench that jail authorities Tuesday told them that they have to either bring certified copies of the apex court's order or approach the court of the chief judicial magistrate concerned for her release. "If she is not released, the consequences will follow," the bench said and warned it will issue contempt to officials concerned if Sharma was not released from jail immediately. "She should be released from jail within half an hour," the bench said. The bench asked Kaul to get instructions whether she has been released from jail or not. After a few minutes Kaul informed the bench that Sharma has been released from jail on Wednesday. Kaul told the court that they have moved a separate application, in which they have said that though the closure report in the case was filed in the trial court on May 13, the apex court was not informed during yesterday's hearing. "If the Supreme Court was informed yesterday that the closure report has been filed in the trial court, then the apex court might not have asked her to apologise," Kaul said. The apex court had Tuesday granted bail to Sharma and asked to apologise for posting the morphed image of Banerjee. During the hearing on Wednesday, Kaul said the counsel for West Bengal was present in the apex court during yesterday's hearing but did not appraise the court about the closure report. "You know very well what happens to a counsel appearing for the state," the bench observed. To this Kaul said, "I am not on the counsel but I am on the conduct of the state." However, the bench told Kaul to check up whether Sharma has been released from jail or not. "If she is not released, we will issue contempt," the bench said. However, Kaul said when the apex court had on Tuesday said that Priyanka should be released forthwith, why jail authorities did not release her. "Does West Bengal state or the police have right to detain her even for a minute after the Supreme Court's order," Kaul asked. He told the bench that their application be listed for hearing next week. However, the bench said since Sharma has been released there was no urgency and the application will be heard in July after the summer vacation. After taking instructions, Kaul told the bench that Sharma has been released from jail but jail authorities "forced" her to give an apology before being released from the prison. Sharma was arrested on May 10 by the police under section 500 (defamation) of the IPC and under other provisions of the Information Technology Act on a complaint of a local Trinamool Congress leader Vibhas Hazra. She was sent to 14-day judicial custody by a trial court there. The apex court, which initially said Sharma's apology will be a bail condition, later clarified that it will not be a condition for bail but she should apologise for sharing the post at the time of her release. The court had also sought response from West Bengal government on whether a person can be arrested for sharing a post or meme on social media and posted the matter for further hearing after the summer vacation. Also Read: Say sorry for morphed Mamata photo, SC tells Bengal BJP leader, gives bail On Monday, Kaul had mentioned the matter in the top court for urgent hearing, saying Sharma was forced to move the apex court as there was a complete strike in local courts till May 14 in Howrah and moreover, she had been remanded in 14-day judicial custody by a Howrah court on May 11. Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) entails punishment for defamation with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. Read: Bengal BJP leader held for pasting Mamata face on Priyanka Chopra's MET Gala look Sharma had allegedly shared on Facebook the photo in which Banerjee's face has been photo-shopped on to actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from the MET Gala event in New York. Her arrest was followed by protests from the BJP and other social media users. The Iranian foreign minister paid a brief visit to New Delhi on Tuesday to hold talks with Ms Swaraj. New Delhi: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday told visiting Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif that India would take a decision on continuing oil imports from Iran after the elections are over, keeping in mind our commercial considerations, energy security and economic interests, government sources said on Tuesday. On the oil imports issue, it may be recalled that India has been in the process of totally stopping its oil imports from Iran to escape sanctions by the United States. However, the new government that is expected to be in place within the next three weeks in New Delhi is expected to take a final decision on the matter. The Iranian foreign minister paid a brief visit to New Delhi on Tuesday to hold talks with Ms Swaraj. The external affairs ministry issued a brief statement, saying Ms Swaraj and Mr Zarif held constructive discussions on all bilateral issues of mutual interest and that there was a good exchange of views on the evolving regional situation, including Afghanistan. The Indo-Iranian strategic cooperation on Chabahar port was also discussed, with government sources saying both sides expressed satisfaction at the operationalisation of the interim contract on Chabahar Port. New Delhi has been worried over the impact that American policy against Iran will have on the Indo-Iranian strategic partnership for the development of Chabahar port in Iran that gives New Delhi crucial sea-land connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. It may be recalled that the United States had earlier given six-month waivers to eight countries including India, China, Japan and South Korea for exemption from the November 4 deadline last year of stopping Iranian oil imports completely. India relies heavily on foreign oil imports to meet its energy demands. The US had then set that deadline for countries across the globe to either fall in line or face US sanctions. But the US recently decided not to extend the waivers beyond the six-month period, which ended on May 2, which means any nation now importing Iranian oil will face US sanctions. On the Iranian nuclear deal issue, Ms Swaraj told her Iranian counterpart that India would like all parties to the agreement to continue to fulfil their commitments and all parties should engage constructively and resolve all issues peacefully and through dialogue, government sources added. The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was inked in 2015 that had then paved the way for lifting of US sanctions on Iran. The United States under then President Barack Obama had pushed for the deal strongly four years ago. But with President Donald Trump announcing the US pullout last year, the US has again turned on the heat on Iran. On Tuesday, a government source said: The visit of the Iranian foreign minister took place at his own initiative to brief the Indian side on the Iranian approach to the recent developments in the region, including on JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal), and to review bilateral cooperation. This was part of their consultation with other countries in the region including Russia, China, Turkmenistan, and Iraq over the last few days... On the purchase of oil from Iran, EAM reiterated the position that a decision will be taken after the elections, keeping in mind our commercial considerations, energy security and economic interests. Russia regrets rising tensions surrounding the Iran nuclear deal and believes that the United States actions are the reason, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "We clearly understand that Iran makes such decisions in response to the pressure that runs counter to the spirit and letter of the JCPOA," TASS cited Peskov as saying.. "Unfortunately, we are witnessing rising tensions and Irans decisions [to reduce its commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]," the spokesman said, adding that "regrettably, the situation leads to further escalation." "Unfortunately, concerns remain," he added. The Kremlin spokesman noted that U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo had not given any assurances on the issue at Tuesdays meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The DMK had already explained that KCR had paid a courtesy call, but that did not cut ice with many. Thoothukudi/Chennai: Tamil Nadu BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan on Tuesday triggered a war of words with DMK chief M.K. Stalin in claiming he was negotiating a post-poll deal with her party leadership. Reacting sharply, Mr Stalin not only denied her allegation but also challenged her to prove it or else quit politics. On his part, he said he would leave politics if she was able to deliver the proof. Speaking to reporters at Thoothukudi, with AIADMK leader and state food minister R. Kamaraj seated next to her, Dr Tamilisai responded with a broad smile to a question on whether Mr Stalin was in talks with the BJP. Thats true and everyone knows it. They change colours on one side Rahul, K. Chandrasekhar Rao... and Modi on another side, she said, obviously referring to the Telangana CMs visit for talks with Mr Stalin Monday. The DMK had already explained that KCR had paid a courtesy call, but that did not cut ice with many. Senior AIADMK minister D. Jayakumar raised a question: Courtesy call for over an hour? In his opinion too, Mr Stalin and the DMK have been in touch with the BJP in the hope they could get strike a deal with the BJP to get four or five Cabinet berths in return for the support of DMK MPs. DMK alone has the capability to sail in three boats at the same time, the minister said. Hitting back, Mr Stalin said despite coming from a political family known for uprightness, Dr Tamilisai has now stooped low in uttering a blatant lie. It was he who had proposed Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate of the Opposition combine and it was he who had spearheaded the campaign to unseat Mr Modi from being PM. The BJP was sowing confusion as it was now terrified being on the verge of defeat, Mr Stalin said in a statement. The DMK chief also recalled that he had consistently attacked Mr Modi, described him as fascist, sadist and authoritarian, whose government must be unseated in this election for heaping untold miseries upon the people in the past five years. And he has been talking against Mr Modi not just in Tamil Nadu but also at the Mamata Banerjee-sponsored rally of Opposition parties in Kolkata. As for Telangana CM KCR, he had met him last year too while the Monday rendezvous was just a courtesy call, insisted Mr Stalin. The DMK would not be involved in any backdoor dealings in making alliances. The DMK has been transparent. We have made clear who should be the Prime Minister and who should be not. The DMK is determined Modi should not become PM again, Mr Stalin said, adding: We are even more clear that Rahul Gandhi should head the next government. The DMKs ally, the Congress, also hit out at Dr Tamilisai, with PCC president K.S. Alagiri accusing her of uttering falsehoods only out of desperation and scared of defeat in the elections. When even West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had refused to speak to Mr Modi when he called her to discuss Cyclone Fani, what is Stalin going to discuss with the PM? asked Mr Alagiri. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Gandhi recounted comments made by Mr Modi on different subjects in his interviews, one by one, to take a dig at him. Congress president Rahul Gandhi offers prayers at Tilbhandeshwar Mahadev temple ahead of an election rally in Tarana, Madhya Pradesh, on Tuesday. (Photo: PTI) Bhopal: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday made reference to recent interviews given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the media while raining jibes at him. Addressing an election meeting at district headquarters of Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Gandhi recounted comments made by Mr Modi on different subjects in his interviews, one by one, to take a dig at him. He took a swipe at the PM for his remarks that clouds had helped Indian Air Force fighter jets evade Pakistani radar during the attack on terror camps in Balakot, quipping, Clouds, rains, and storms help aircraft evade radar. Kamal hai! Mr Gandhi also cited Bollywood star Akshay Kumars interview of the Prime Minister, where the latter expressed his fondness for mangoes, and said, Mr Modi taught us how to peel mangoes and eat them. But, he did not say why there is joblessness in the country. Mr Gandhi lamented that Mr Modi had hurled abuses at his late father Rajiv Gandhi and said, I will rather prefer death to talking ill of Mr Modis parents, because I am a Congress man. The more you hurl abuses, the more I will shower love on you, he declared.The leader also highlighted steps taken by the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh to uplift farmers. Our government in MP waived the loans of farmers whereas the previous BJP government in the state opened fire on peasants, he said recalling the June 2017 incident where police officers fired on agitating farmers in Mandsaur in MP, killing six demonstrators. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. Earlier, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had condemned the attack and mentioned that an inquiry will be done. Violance erupted during the roadshow of BJP President Amit Shah in Kolkata on Tuesday.(Photo: ANI) New Delhi: The TMC on Tuesday sought a meeting with the Election Commission over the destruction of a statue of Bengali writer and philosopher Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during clashes between workers of the ruling party and the BJP. Supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive road show by Amit Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by the police. Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence as his convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. "Trinamool parliamentary team comprising Derek O'Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Manish Gupta, Nadimul Haque seeks meeting with EC in aftermath of attack on Bengal's heritage after Shah roadshow in Kolkata. BJP outsider ruffians resort to arson and break Vidyasagar's bust," the TMC said in a tweet. Earlier, Brien, also TMC spokesperson, took to Twitter and alleged that "violent mob of outsiders" were behind the attack. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analysis et al. Happy reading. The Eiffel Tower, a landmark in Paris, celebrates 130 years. In 1900, when the effect of fashion was over, there was a risk that the Tower is destroyed because considered superfluous, outdated. (Photo: Pexels) France: It measures 324 meters in height, weighs 7,300 tons and attracts more than seven million visitors each year: the Eiffel Tower, strongly contested during its construction, has become the symbol of Paris, which is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year. This property of the City of Paris celebrated all over the world has not always been liked: its construction was accompanied by a "huge controversy, complaints and petitions" of opponents, says the deputy in charge of culture at the city hall of Paris, Christophe Girard. On the occasion of the Universal Exhibition of 1889, which marked the centenary of the French Revolution, a great competition was launched, won by the industrialist Gustave Eiffel, much to the chagrin of many artists of the time including the writer Guy de Maupassant. Built in two years, two months and five days, the one based on more than 18,000 pieces of iron is the symbol of a "technical and architectural performance". In the nineteenth century, "it is the symbol of a France that catches up with its industrial power" and becomes "the highlight of the 1889 exhibition," said Bertrand Lemoine, architect and historian. Since then, his fame has grown steadily, attracting more than 20 million admirers from all over the world to watch him, sometimes to climb and immortalise him. "The Eiffel Tower is a must," said Laurie, who came from Canada. Like her, Regina Rossmann, a 46 year old German, did not hesitate a single second to return with her children even if, "compared to 20 years ago, the price of the ticket is expensive": 9, 70 euros for a young person from 12 to 24, and 19.40 euros for an adult, to reach the summit by means of a lift and staircase. "Since the incident of Notre-Dame, we realise that the monuments are fragile and that accidents can happen," says Greta Rama, 23, an Albanian living in Brussels. The fire of the cathedral "awakened the conscience of the importance of our heritage", on the fact that it "can disappear or be damaged", estimates Mr Girard. "It's a realization that despite the years has more and more successful," notes Agnes Sorlier, 59, a Parisian whose office overlooks the Iron Lady, who admits, however, a little embarrassed, that she "does not look at her anymore". She regrets that "the work, the fences, the glass wall around the building ... create something infernal!" and give the image of a "Eiffel tower barricaded". The Eiffel Tower "undergoes the time, which is security," concedes Christophe Girard, "but it is stronger than all that". Proof if necessary: "She beat Jeanne Calment", French died at 122 years. Las. The old Iron Lady tires and suffers from a "saturation" of visitors. His painting should soon be refreshed, "for the 18th time since its origin", while the accumulation of layers "is problematic," says the specialist Bertrand Lemoine. Over the years, it has also found a place on the international scene by carrying political or even humanist messages, as evidenced by the many times it goes out in tribute to the victims of "terrorism" or the victims. "In 1900, when the effect of fashion was over, there was a risk that the Tower is destroyed because considered superfluous, outdated," said Bertrand Lemoine. "But Eiffel, who was aware of this fragility, has demonstrated its usefulness: the Eiffel Tower served as a radio antenna, has made it possible to ensure communications between Paris and the Franco-German border," added the expert. "From then on, there was a strategic and military interest in keeping it." Mamata Banerjee plans protest against damage to Vidyasagar statue today. BJP president Amit Shah waves at supporters during a roadshow ahead of the last phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Kolkata on Tuesday. (Photo: Abhijit Mukherjee) Kolkata: Bengali polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagars statue was vandalised during two rounds of violent clashes, including arson, between Trinamul Congress and BJP supporters, marring BJP president Amit Shahs mega roadshow in central Kolkata on Tuesday evening. Sixteen people involved in the clashes were arrested. Furious over the violence, TMC supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of destroying the icons statue, before visiting the college at night to take stock of the extent of damage. She announced a protest rally on Wednesday against the vandalisation of the bust of Vidyasagar. Threatening to capture the BJP office in a second, she also declared to spare none. To counter the West Bengal chief ministers allegations, Mr Shah put the blame on her party for the violence. He also complained that the Election Commission has been silent on complaints of violence perpetrated by Trinamul workers during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. As the violence broke out, Mr Shah was escorted to safety by police but was forced to cut short the jamboree. The afternoon roadshow by the BJP chief, who on Monday dared Ms Banerjee to arrest him, was marked by controversy since beginning. It was earlier scheduled to start from Sha-hid Minar in Esplanade before ending at Swami Vivekanandas house in Manicktala. The location was changed to Dharmatola later due to lack of permission. When the grand campaign rally was passing by Calcutta University on College Street in the evening, a group of supporters rushed out and showed black flag shouting Amit Shah Go Back slogan. Agitated, the BJP activists hurled water bottles and pelted stones on them. The area turned into a war zone instantly with both sides engaged in a street-fight. The second round of clash unfolded at around 6.45 pm when the roadshow was near Vidyasagar College (New Campus) at 17 Bidhan Sarani in Amherst Street area. Violence erupted after stones were pelted on the procession allegedly by Trinamul supporters from the college campus. In retaliation, BJP workers torched two motorbikes and a cycle. Storming the college with sticks and rods they went on the rampage and triggered arson. Shards of broken glass littered the lobby of the college where a bust of Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was smashed to smithreens. Lambasting Mr Shah, Ms Banerjee said, Each vote against the BJP will be revenge for attack on Vidyasagars statue. Mr Shah brought people from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in his rally. The BJP workers broke Vidyasagars statue to pieces. Such a shameful incident never happened in Kolkata earlier, not even during the Naxalites time. It will take a second to take over the BJP office if we want. Calling Mr Shah a goonda, she earlier told a rally in Behala in the city, If you lay your hands on Vidyasagar, what will I call you other than a goonda. Coundering the TMC chief, Mr Shah said, There was an attempt by TMC hooligans to attack me. Mamata Banerjee tried to provoke violence. But I am safe. The BJP president said, I appeal to the people of Bengal to give their reply to violence through their votes peacefully in the last phase of the election. Defeating the Trinamul is necessary to end violence in Bengal forever. In a rare charge of bias against the EC, the BJP president said, History-sheeters are arrested across the country but in Bengal the EC has turned a blind eye to the Trinamul. If the EC has to maintain its establishment, it has to order the arrest of the goons roaming freely. The Trinamul Congress alleged that the BJP brought outsiders for his road show in Kolkata who were responsible for the violence. Ms Banerjee also raked up Mr Shahs Kangal Bangla remark and said that Mr Shah should be made to squat holding his ears for it. She alleged that the BJP is transporting money in CRPF vehicles for distribution among people of the state. Before the clashing mobs took over the streets of central Kolkata, Mr Shah led a saffron surge in parts of the city as chants of Jai Shri Ram, Jai Jai Shri Ram alternated with frenzied chorus of Modi, Modi. Clad in a kurta-pyjama ensemble and a pink Modi jacket to boot, Mr Shah smiled broadly from atop an open roof vehicle, waving at people and thrusting a clenched fist into the air while a massive crowd followed him in the BJPs show of strength five days before the final phase of general election. A virtual carnival unfolded during the roadshow. Women in traditional Bengali white sarees with red borders, tribals donning the BJPs trademark saffron turbans and carrying bows and arrows danced as the caravan inched through the cramped streets of the capital city. With the state polarised along communal lines like never before during an election, the parade had men dressed like Ram, Hanuman and the Vanar Sena, the army of apes that helped the Lord defeat demon king Ravan, according to epic Ramayana. BJP workers and supporters lined the streets, as did curious onlookers.The partys Kolkata north and Kolkata south candidates Rahul Sinha and Chandra Kumar Bose were on the vehicle with Mr Shah. Along the way, Mr Shah and his entourage were showered with flower petals by women from terraces and rooftops. Mr Shah also sprinkled the crowd with flower petals. Mr Shah declared that the BJP will win more than 282 seats in the Lok Sabha election, the number of constituencies it had clinched in 2014. TMC spokesperson Derek O Brien wrote on Twitter, Desperate BJP goons from outside Bengal smash statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar inside the college. Violent mob of BJP outsiders in presence of Pukeworthy Shah. How little you know about Bengal, its rich history, its culture. Bengal will never forgive for what you did today. (sic). TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray tweeted, Hired goons of BJP vandalised Calcutta University and Vidyasagar College, bikes set ablaze, bust of Vidyasagar demolished today during roadshow of BJP president in Kolkata today. What a tribute to Vidyasagar on the eve of his bicentenary (sic). Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses etc all. Happy reading. The government has taken several mitigation measures in order to provide relief to drought-affected people. CM Fadnavis said that the administration should cautiously take mitigation measures to provide relief to the drought-affected farmers. Mumbai: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday directed the Nagpur district administration to remove silt from rivers, ponds and drains. He has also instructed them to avail required water through tankers regularly. The CM held a drought review meeting with the sarpanchas and gram sevaks of Nagpur, Wardha, Washim, Nanded and Hingoli districts at his official residence at Varsha. Thus far, Mr Fadnavis has taken a review meeting of 21 districts drought situation. The government has taken several mitigation measures in order to provide relief to drought-affected people. On Sunday, Mr Fadnavis had directed all guardian secretaries to check the implementation of instructions, which were issued for the arresting the drought situation in the state. Mr Fadnavis said that the administration should cautiously take mitigation measures to provide relief to the drought-affected farmers. Water supply through tankers should be made regularly and water should be provided as per requirement. Drought has been declared in 306 villages of Mukhed, Degalur and Umari Talukas of Nanded district. Mr Fadnavis directed the Hingoli district administration to make special efforts about reconstructing old water supply schemes. The MSRDC has asked for permission from the police department to arrange the roadblock on the expressway. Mumbai: A roadblock will be held on the Mumbai-Pune expressway for 7 days. The block will be arranged at Adoshi, Khandala and Bhatan tunnel for one-and-a-half hour daily, and has been called for loose scaling work at the landslide-prone area. With all agencies preparing for the monsoon, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd (MSRDC), too, has planned to start its loose scaling work to avoid landslides during the rainy season. The MSRDC has asked for permission from the police department to arrange the roadblock on the expressway. The work begun from Tuesday, and will continue for the next four days i.e. till May 17. Work will be stopped for three days from Saturday, May 18 to Monday, May 20 for Mumbai-Pune travelers. Thereafter, work will resume between May 21 and May 23. On these days, the traffic towards Pune and Mumbai will be stopped for 1 hour and 30 minutes. The work will start in the morning at 10 am and will end at 4 in the evening. There will be a 30 minutes gap after each 15 minutes of work. The Mumbai police has denied work permission between 4 pm and 4.15 pm. Also, the pol-ice has asked the MSRDC not to stretch work for more than 15 minutes and allow traffic to pass through. The police has also suggested that MSRDC display signages to inform about work activity on the e-way. The other memory that may remain is a sub-plot the rise of the BJP and the decline of the Left in West Bengal. T At a moment in history, when the description of a particular agenda in politics as the Left is staging a revival in polities that have jeered at Leftists or have jailed them as Commies in the past, dismissing them as radical and marginal troublemakers, the survival of the parliamentary Marxist Left personified in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is in question in India, more specifically, in the once impregnable red bastion of West Bengal. Will the party dwindle to a signboard, as it struggles to handle the onslaught of the BJP and the confrontations with the Trinamul Congress? The best remembered part of the 2019 elections could be the uninterrupted bombardment by the Trinamul Congress against the BJP, of Narendra Modi spewing fire and venom at Mamata Banerjee, which she returns with interest. These exchanges of fire have served to hoist the BJP to the position of the undisputed challenger to the Trinamul Congress in West Bengal. The other memory that may remain is a sub-plot the rise of the BJP and the decline of the Left in West Bengal. The enlarged image of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections is just that; an enlargement of its actual or estimated strength in the states politics, because its real size and strength are still unknown. The results on May 23 may sort out the confusion about what is the BJPs real strength in West Bengal has it pushed out the CPI(M)-led Left Front from its number two slot, or is the BJP now number three? In the 2016 elections that Mamata Banerjee won with a huge majority, the BJPs voteshare was just under 11 per cent. The CPI(M) and its partners in the Left Front bagged 26 per cent votes, outstripping the BJP by several lengths. But, by 2018, when the panchayat elections were held, and this was one of the more violent and contentious elections in West Bengals history of turbulent hustings, the BJP had emerged as the party with the second highest number of representatives at the grassroots, surpassing the Left. The question is: Where does the Left, more specifically the CPI(M), stand in West Bengals changing politics? And where is it headed? The question itself provides a clue about the difficult times that the CPI(M)-led Left is going through, as it struggles to stabilise its strength and overcome its weakness. That is not to say that the CPI(M) is not opposing or confronting the BJP as the principal enemy in West Bengal and of course across the country. It is. But it is a weak fight. The marginalisation of the Left and its voice in the anti-BJP Opposition is in part its inability to heal the party in West Bengal and begin staging a comeback. The CPI(M) would be probably better off examining why its voters made what was a rational choice for them, voting BJP. It is weaker in 2019 than it was in 2016. It is fully aware that chunks of its voter base swung to the BJP in the 2018 panchayat elections, in which the incoming saffron tide pushed the party into second place at the grassroots. As a consequence, the CPI(M) had to axe over a hundred party members. And the confession of at least one of its candidates in this election points to the internal problems of the party that he is working to bring back voters who had switched to the BJP in 2018. These voters are not politically naive. The missing self-critical appraisal required to investigate the reasons for its declining strength will indicate a crippling loss of confidence and a paralysis of thought. Unless the CPI(M) puts up a strong fight, including facing up to violence, to prevent the strategic destruction of the political consensus to maintain communal harmony and uphold secular values in West Bengal, it will probably further marginalise itself, because it would lose credibility as an alternative in politics. For sophisticated voters, the CPI(M) may still be, with all its faults and weakness, a symbol of difference and a choice signifying opposition to Hindutva and neo-liberal, neo-imperialist policies, but at the grassroots, it needs to articulate a simpler message and practice that has meaning for the poor, the backward and the marginalised. The official version of the steady decline of the Left, by the CPI(M), has an unreal feel. On the one hand, its retired but best-known leader, with an impeccable reputation and greater popularity than the current leadership, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has been outspoken on the perils that face the party in the state. He has warned the CPI(M)s support base and cadres that voting for the BJP is like jumping out of the Trinamul frying pan into the saffron fire. On the other, the present leadership seems to be groping for ways in which it can reconnect to the masses. The reiterations by Mamata Banerjee that the CPI(M) and the Congress have encouraged the BJP and assisted its growth in the state reflects the concern that other parties must pull their weight to retain and restrain voters from choosing the BJP. The CPI(M) and the Left have countered this by accusing the Trinamul Congress of working as the Trojan horse of the BJP. Good as this rhetorical flourish may sound, politically it makes very little sense in the very real crisis that has been precipitated by the rise of the BJP. The fact is that the Left has lost both voters and leaders. The 21st century challenges are different from that of the last millennium. What Sabarimala was to the CPI(M) in Kerala was what Singur-Nandigram was to the party in West Bengal in 2007. It was a confrontation of opposing ideologies that challenged the social and political base of the party. The party in Kerala is energetic, popular and successful, even after it was involved in a fight that was danger-ous enough to have derailed its politics, because it plunged the CPI(M) into a confrontation over religious practice and change on over Sabarimala issue. The same party in West Bengal is like a wounded and endangered creature; neither able to fight nor fly away. Until now, only 12 humans -- all American male astronauts, have walked on the Moon, but never a woman. Trump has reportedly challenged NASA to land at the south pole of Moon by 2024. It probably took NASA additional funds by President Donald Trump to plan on sending a woman to the Moon. Until now, only 12 humans -- all American male astronauts, have walked on the Moon, but never a woman. According to CNN, NASA is planning to send the first woman ever and the first man in nearly five decades to the lunar surface by 2024. The announcement follows after Trump added USD 1.6 billion to NASA's budget to return to space exploration. Trump has reportedly challenged NASA to land at the south pole of Moon by 2024. NASA has revealed that its new mission will be called Artemis - named after the Greek goddess of the moon. Two junior pilots, belonging to Electronic Attack Squadron, reportedly had a good chunk of time on their hands after a training session. When their sensation was completed, the pilots flew some distance further away to take a good look at it and laugh. (Photo:AP) Washington: For almost two years, little was reported and said about the outrageous sky penis which was scrawled across Washingtons airspace using the exhaust from a navy jet. Applauded and cherished by some and declared childish by few, the illustration over the Okanogan Highlands prompted a full inquiry into the unit in question. Credit to Navy Times and The Washington Post we finally have insights from the creators themselves. The publication filed a request under Freedom of Information Act and obtained plenty of details regarding the phallic affair, which allegedly was due to boredom and later led to sheer regret. Two junior pilots, both belonging to Electronic Attack Squadron 130, reportedly had a good chunk of time on their hands after a training session on November 16, 2007. They even noticed that their EA-18G Growler jet was emitting particularly strong contrails. Navy aviation continually strives to foster an environment of respect and dignity, Shoemaker wrote in a statement that time. (Photo:AP) What happened next is best narrated by the officers themselves; their casual not-safe-for-work exchange was picked up by the cockpits video recording system and published by Navy Times. Lets draw a giant penis, wouldnt that be awesome? the electronic warfare personnel sitting in the back seat said to the pilot. You should totally try to draw a penis. Yes, I could definitely draw one; that would be easy, responded the pilot. I could draw an eaight (8), turn around and come back. I am going to go down, grab some speed and hopefully get out of the contrail layer to make sure they are not connected to each other. The pilot further went on saying: Dude, this would be so funny. Airliners coming back on their way to Seattle, just this big, giant penis. We could even draw a vein in the middle of it, too. They worked out the logistics of their drawing in real quick time, displaying skilful aeriel artistry despite accepting the fact that some of the peniss features will be distorted. When their sensation was completed, the pilots flew some distance further away to take a good look at it and laugh. They even clicked pictures of their work, according to the Navy Times. Oh yesss, that was amazing, said the pilot. This is very obvious. His cockpit partner agreed, stating, Thats a big one. . . Dude, Im amazed that we actually pulled this off. (Photo:Youtube Screengrab) But the overjoyed lieutenants suddenly realized they had a problem: Their artwork was lingering longer than they expected. The pilot would later acknowledge about his failed venture to scribble it out with more contrails. The squads executive officer soon learned of this distasteful event. His disappointment was further matched by their commanding officers, who were fuming, reported the Navy Times. The executive officer wrote whether the pilots had any idea what the consequences of their actions would be. The squadron swiftly issued an alert to the Office of Naval Operations Chief, warning them about the contrails in the air depicting a derogatory symbol when viewed from the ground. As pictures of the penis taken from the ground circulated and went viral, Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker decided to look into the matter. Navy aviation continually strives to foster an environment of respect and dignity, Shoemaker wrote in a statement that time. Immature acts of sexual and obscene nature have no place in Naval aviation today. The two culprits responsible were not identified in the report, and it was not immediately clear what disciplinary charge they faced. An inquiry submitted to the Navys public affairs division was also not returned. An investigator wrote in the report that the lieutenants actions were crude, immature and unprofessional. But the investigation determined that the incident was further left untouched. A ceremony has been held to inaugurate Azerbaijan`s pavilion at the Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition, Beijing Expo 2019 on May 14. The ceremony was attended by Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva. Themed 'Azerbaijan: harmony of nature and art', the national pavilion showcases the country`s carpets, traditional musical instruments, and national clothing, as well as eye-catching trees and flowers. The pavilion also highlights the importance of environmental protection. Leyla Aliyeva viewed Azerbaijan`s stand at an exhibition arranged as part of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said he wanted to 'fully restore' strained ties between US and Russia. Putin also praised the Mueller report, despite its findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. (Photo:AP) Sochi: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said he wanted to "fully restore" strained ties between Washington and Moscow, during a visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "I would very much like your visit to Russia to benefit Russia-US relations and promote their development," Putin said as he received Pompeo at his residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Putin also praised the Mueller report, despite its findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. "Despite the exotic nature of Mr Mueller's commission, on the whole he conducted quite an objective investigation and confirmed the absence of any collusion between the US administration and Russia," he said. Moscow has rejected these claims "from the very beginning as complete nonsense". Pompeo earlier told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that US President Donald Trump was committed to improving relations with Moscow. Pompeo underlined to Putin that Trump wanted to make "our two peoples more successful and, frankly, the world more successful, too." "President Trump wants to do everything we can and he asked me to travel here to communicate that. "Some of our cooperation has been excellent -- on North Korea, on Afghanistan, we've done good work -- (and) counter-terrorism work -- together. These are things we can build upon." Jacinda Ardern announced bans on military styled semi-automatic weapons, high capacity magazines and rifles. New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern is baffled to see why the US has not passed stronger gun laws yet. (Photo:AP) Paris: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern is baffled to see why the US has not passed stronger gun laws yet, even after a string of mass shooting events in US and around the globe. She made the statement in a CNN interview in her visit to the French capital at a summit to curb online extremism. Jacinda Ardern announced bans on military styled semi-automatic weapons, high capacity magazines and rifles days after the March 15 mass shootings on 2 mosques in Christchurch which nearly claimed 50 deaths. She then called for various Internet platforms to curb extremism and to remove hateful content online after the Christchurch mosque shooting was livestreamed on Facebook. It was then shared on Youtube and Twitter. She further pressed at the interview that guns do have a practical purpose in New Zealand but that simple doesnt mean that citizens should have access to semi automatic and military styled weapons and assault rifles. She vowed that Australia changed its gun laws after after experiencing a massacre. New Zealand, too were quick to change its laws after Christchurch but she is bewildered to see the US doing nothing to implement a gun ban. The summit was organised by Emmanuel Macron and Jacinda Ardern. It will see numerable world leaders and tech executives, including people from Google and Twitter, sign a pledge named as the Christchurch Call, which aims for complete end to use of social media in acts of terrorism. Ardern said that the meeting is not a call for regulation but a firm step to bring all the tech moguls to the table. She further added that she has complete backing and support from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The main focus will very much be on violent extremism, she said, adding that the pledge will not limit or curtail "the freedom of expression". Facebook removed closed to 1.5 million videos of Christchurch attacks in the first 24 hours of the attack itself. It further blocked another 1.2 million videos at upload, which means users were not able to see the videos. Lastly she concluded that the way the attack was broadcasted online needed a global solution and hence it was essential to get in touch with various international leaders to find a collective response. There were no incidents of violence overnight and people responsible for taking part in attacks have been arrested, police said. The government imposed the island-wide curfew on Monday after the violence against the Muslim community, who account for 10 per cent of the country's population. (Photo: AP) Colombo: Sri Lankan authorities said they have arrested 60 people linked to the communal riots as a nationwide curfew was lifted on Wednesday, which witnessed Sinhalese mob attacks on Muslim-owned shops and businesses in the aftermath of the deadly Easter blasts. The government imposed the island-wide curfew on Monday after the violence against the Muslim community, who account for 10 per cent of the country's population. The curfew was briefly lifted on Tuesday before being reimposed for a second straight night following reports of fresh violence in some parts of the country. "The curfew imposed in the North-western Province and Gampaha Police division was removed at 6 am Wednesday while the curfew in the other areas of the island ended at 4 am," Police said. The situation in the province is returning to normalcy, authorities said. There were no incidents of violence overnight and groups of people responsible for taking part in mob attacks have been arrested, they said. "Thirty-three suspects arrested in connection with the anti-Muslim riots have been remanded and over 60 people have been arrested. The suspects can be sentenced to 10 years in prison under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. The police media spokesman said the illegal activities committed by the persons engaged in violence will be noted in their police certificates. The academic activities of all schools and all the state institutions in the province were resumed on Wednesday, the Wayamba Province Governor Peshala Jayaratne said. The recent violence is a fresh backlash from the Easter attacks. Muslims said that rioters went about destroying their properties and setting fire to them even after curfew hours. They accused the security forces and the police for becoming silent watchers to the rioting. Muslim political parties said at least one person was killed in the riots. The attacks come during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramazan. The government also reimposed a ban on social media following the violent clashes. The government which blocked Facebook and WhatsApp on Tuesday extended the blockade to Twitter. The social media blockade is meant to prevent the spread of rumours and hate comments, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said. 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. Russian President Vladimir Putin received U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at his Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi yesterday. Prior to the meeting, Pompeo held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. It was Pompeo's first visit to Russia as the top U.S. diplomat. Following Russia-U.S. talks, Vestnik Kavkaza asked the experts whether should one expect the parties to return to dialogue on disarmament, lifting or easing of sanctions, as well as what is the likelihood of the restoration of full-fledged relations between Moscow and Washington in the near future. First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov noted that although it is too early to talk about the parties returning to the INF Treaty or any disarmament negotiations, but still there are areas where Moscow and Washington not only can, but must cooperate. "In the first place I mean the fight against international terrorism. We have seen that in Syria we can and must cooperate. Among other issues are stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan, resolving Irans problems," he said. "And, of course, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries is desirable. Unfortunately, Americans say one thing, but in fact they never miss a chance to interfere," the expert said. Speaking about improving Russian-American relations, the senator recalled that there is nothing impossible in politics. "Although I would not associate any warming of our relations with the lifting of sanctions," he urged. "And its not for nothing that our president recently said that we shouldnt count on some kind of breakthrough in the lifting of sanctions. We must expect that sanctions work against us and it will continue, but it should not prevent us from moving forward. Yes, it will be more difficult , but only when we can move forward under sanctions, those who impose them will understand that they are meaningless, and, probably, will refuse from this practice," Vladimir Dzhabarov concluded. The senior research fellow at the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Olenchenko, noted that Russia and the United States really have to strive to restore full-fledged relations. "The more normal our relations are, the more stable global security will be and the more stable the development of the world community will be. We are aware of this and trying to achieve this understanding among Americans, the expert explained. The main and first stage is the meeting of the presidents of Russia and the United States. It is necessary in order to determine the immediate priorities in restoring relations and undertake their implementation," the senior research fellow at the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences said. At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the United States was carried away by its sanctions activities, but realized that it does not bring them the expected dividends. Commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's statement that Moscow and Washington can cooperate in solving key problems, he pointed out that these are just common words for now. "I realize that at the moment it's just a slogan of the American side for two reasons. First, they need to show that the United States is ready to start or continue the dialogue. And second, Pompeo just covers himself, because the current administration has its opponents inside the country," Vladimir Olenchenko concluded. The company said that strong demand has come from new and existing institutional and retail investors. Grant Dearlove said that the capital raise, which has been led by Bell Potter Securities, shows that investors see the potential for the business. The strong investor support for AFL through the IPO process is testament to the significant opportunity available to it to become the largest national family law firm in Australia, he said. Currently our market is worth $1.1bn in revenue per annum, and in contrast to personal injury law, there is no dominant or national player despite the fact the markets are of a similar size, he said. This represents a significant opportunity for AFL. Dearlove was brought in by the business in January from listed law firm Shine, where he was the head of growth and markets. He is proposed to be the new chairman of the firm when the transaction is complete. Edward Finn, founder and managing director of AF Legal, is proposed to be the new chief executive and managing director of AFL once the transaction is complete. Joshua McKean and Malcolm Keefe, directors of Navigator Resources, are expected to resign. The new board of the company will then welcome Finn, as well as Peter Bergin as executive director. This vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) service will be deployed in Audi cars starting with the e-tron A4 , A6, A7, A8, Q3, Q7 and Q8 that will roll off assembly lines starting mid-July. At first, it will only be available to customers in the carmakers hometown of Ingolstadt, but from 2020 the service will expand to other European cities.Audis V2I system will offer drivers information about time-to-green and the speed the car needs to travel to be able to catch the next green light. Both features are meant to facilitate the flow of traffic in congested cities.In essence, by taking information from the public infrastructure cities need to have compatible technologies deployed for the system to work - Traffic Light Information tell the drivers how fast to go within local speed limits to be able to pass the next traffic light on green, but also shows a countdown displaying the seconds remaining until the next green phase.Andre Hainzlmaier, Audi head of apps development, says the challenges posed by the European infrastructure when it comes to this system are far greater than the ones the carmaker had to face in the U.S The main difficulty is the fact that, whereas American traffic light systems were designed uniformly over a large area, the European ones were created locally, not being connected to one another.How quickly other cities are connected to this technology depends above all on whether data standards and interfaces get established and cities digitalize their traffic lights, Hainzlmaier said.For now, Audi did not say whether the feature will be offered at an additional cost. kWh With the official presentation of the car last week, Volkswagen also opened the pre-booking platform , one that was instantly hit with a surge of registrations that caused headaches for the carmakers IT department: 10,000 orders have been placed for the ID.3 in the first hours.Since then, the enthusiasm somewhat died down, if we are to judge solely by the huge number of orders on the first day. From 10,000 in 24 hours, the cue grew to just 15,000 over the following seven days.But thats still huge if we look at it from another perspective. Pre-booking is available only for the ID.3 1st edition, of which only 30,000 will be built. That means in just one week the Germans got potential customers for half of the production target.The ID.3 will be offered with a variety of battery options. The 1st edition is fitted with a medium-sized battery and comes complete with free charging for a year or a total of 2,000, voice control, and navigation system.This version costs just under 40,000, or 10,000 more than the entry-level version that will be offered once production truly starts.The pre-booking platform is still live for those willing to be among the first in Europe to drive an electric Volkswagen, and only 1,000 is required as a down payment to express interest.The money is fully refundable, provided the customer cancels the order before the start of the 2019 Frankfurt International Auto Show this fall, when production is scheduled to begin.Deliveries for the ones ordering now are expected to begin in mid-2020. ABC The woman, whose identity hasnt been made public, left all 7 kids alone in her car for roughly 30 minutes while she went shopping at the mall. The car had only one baby seat inside and the woman didnt roll down the windows before leaving. However, police tellaffiliate WJLA , she did leave the doors unlocked.The kids panicked and one of them, believed a boy of 4 years, picked up the phone and called the police. He didnt know where they were, but police used a GPS tracker to locate the vehicle.When officers arrived at the scene, they found a black Chevrolet Monte Carlo and 7 children inside, aged 2 to 4, all of them scared and sweaty. About 10 minutes later, the woman in charge of them returned to the vehicle and admitted to the police that 2 of the kids were hers and 5 of her friends. She was supposed to be babysitting the 5.The woman was charged with confinement of minors in a motor vehicle, which carries a $500 fine and a few days worth of prison, or both. Additional charges may be pending.It is against the law to leave a child under the age of 8 unattended inside a motor vehicle if the caregiver is out of sight of the child unless a reliable person at least 13-years-old remains with the child, the Charles County Sheriff's Office says in a statement on the incident.As news of the incident spread online, people on social media blasted the woman for failing to care for her own kids and those that had been entrusted to her. On a lighter note, some also wondered how she was able to pack 7 toddlers inside a car without them tearing it apart.Recent estimates show that an average of 37 children die yearly in the U.S. after being locked or forgotten in hot cars, either by parents or caregivers. AMG Born in 1928 in Buenos Aires, the founder of De Tomaso fled to Italy in 1955. He raced for Maserati, Scuderia Centro Sud, and O.S.C.A. before turning his attention to building racing cars and road-going models. At one point, Alejandro was in control of Moto Guzzi and Maserati as well as Ghia and Vignale in addition to the Innocenti car company De Tomaso died in 2003, and the trademark was therefore acquired by Gian Mario Rossignolo in 2009. Following the Deauville concept at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, De Tomaso was nothing more than a shadow of its former self up until Project P came into being.Ideal Team Ventures bought De Tomaso in 2014 with the purpose of getting the business back on track in half a decade. Five years later, a working prototype has been put together just in time for the Festival of Speed. Details surrounding the Panteras successor are scarce, but dont hold your breath for a Cleveland V8 under the hood.What we do know about the mid-engine supercar is that De Tomaso has co-developed the newcomer with world-renowned technical partners. Speaking of which, Ideal Team Ventures bought Gumpert in 2016, coming up with the Intensa Emozione in 2018. The Apollo IE develops close to 800 ponies from a 6.3-liter V12 developed by Autotecnica Motori and HWA AG.Given that HWA AG is a racing team that develops and builds racing cars for Mercedes-, the engine could come in the guise of the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 from the GT. On the other hand, the engine from Affalterbach isn't suited for mid-engine applications such as Project P.Whatever propels the Project P, De Tomaso wont disappoint us with fewer than eight cylinders. A source with knowledge of the matter reported to City A.M. about the development, and most of the jobs that will be phased out include white collar, salaried employees. Even management positions are getting the ax, but who could blame Ford given the lack of results?The move doesnt come as a consequence of Brexit, and Ford confirmed a voluntary separation program for salaried employees. Chief executive officer Jim Hackett is the architect of the turnaround, but like the higher-ups before him, the Blue Oval is looking to please the shareholders instead of improving the design of their vehicles or after-sales services.Hackett entered the scene in May 2017, following a position in the board of directors at the Ford Motor Company that he assumed in 2013. Hes also the man behind the Ford Smart Mobility division. All told, the Blue Oval plans to cut $3 billion by reducing costs wherever possible.Elsewhere in Europe, Ford will reduce more than 5,000 jobs in Germany including temporary staff. The Bridgend Engine Plant in South Wales will lose up to 400 jobs, and the numbers dont stop there. The automakers target is a six percent profit margin in Europe, a region thats never been lucrative for non-European brands as opposed to German automakers.From the standpoint of management, Ford of Europe should start by reducing the bureaucracy and by eliminating the less value-added positions in the management apparatus. Once thats done, the Blue Oval then has to work its magic on cars and crossovers in addition to the commercial division.In related news, the Detroit-based automaker published a press release a few days ago titled self-driving robot makes life easier for Ford employees. The piece of AI-enhanced technology has been on trial for almost a year now, and the robot is capable of freeing up 40 employee hours daily.Named Survival, the robot has performed faultlessly to-date. Its become quite a valuable team member, declared Garcia Magraner. Hopefully we can put it into full-time use shortly and expand into other Ford facilities. At talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Russias Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin said he wanted to see restart of contacts between the intelligence agencies of the two countries and a higher level of cooperation between them. "In a very brief on the go conversation after the main talks with Mr. Pompeo, I expressed my impressions and a wish that we restart contacts and cooperation at a higher level," Naryshkin said when asked whether cooperation between the intelligence agencies had been discussed at their talks yesterday. "Against the background of a growing political conflict inside the US and with the arrival of [CIAs new chief] Gina Haspel, its not that these contacts have stopped," TASS cited him as saying. Naryshkin added that Moscow and Washington continue exchanging time-sensitive information, especially on fight against international terrorism - but "they have decreased somehow." When President Trump began threatening China with tariffs, the Chinese initially played the role of obsequious couriers in an effort to avoid a head-on conflict. But since raising tariffs to 25% on their goods, China has reversed course and is making clear its intent to take the conflict with the U.S. to the proverbial mattresses. The state of play: In a commentary published last week on its WeChat account, China's state-owned People's Daily warned the U.S. to "not even think about" concessions. "China does not want a trade war but is not afraid of it," Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing on Monday. "We will not succumb to any external pressure and have the determination and ability to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests." Background: Heading into 2018, China's long-held philosophy had been to speak softly and carry a big stick. Its military was working to dominate Southeast Asia by land and sea, it was growing its Belt and Road Initiative globally and making loans to low-income countries to win friends and strategic allies. As Trump began his confrontation, China agreed to many concessions, including buys of more U.S. goods, pulling back cyber-espionage, amending the law to ban forced technology transfers and cracking down on IP infringement in order to get "a bit of elbow room," Keyu Jin, associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics, wrote in January. But the time for reconciliation looks to have passed and a new, emboldened China is emerging, one that is not afraid to take the fight directly to the U.S. There are differing factions inside China, Jin tells Axios. "Some want to cave in ... some want to stay strong and resist." President Xi Jinping and the country's policymakers appear to now be siding with the latter faction. What's next? "[W]e will have another type of Cold War," Da Wei, professor at the University of International Relations in Beijing, said on PBS' "Frontline." "I think it is a comprehensive confrontation. ... If that happens it will last for quite a long time. That's a tragedy for everyone." Why it matters: Market analysts at both Morgan Stanley and Bank of America-Merrill Lynch have predicted a prolonged trade war could lead to an outright global recession. The bottom line: Tuesday's stock market rebound shows investors haven't quite gotten that message. Go deeper: Trump's long trade war Pakistani authorities have arrested more than two dozen Chinese nationals involved in allegedly selling Pakistani women into forced marriages in China. Why it matters: Human rights groups have documented numerous cases of women sold to Chinese men struggling to find wives due in part to the gender imbalance in the country. A report by the U.S. State Department says such women have been deceived, forced into unwanted pregnancies, confined for forced concubinism and subjected to prostitution. Pakistani authorities say a crackdown over the past two weeks has exposed an organized crime network involved in trafficking such women. The latest: Around 30 Chinese nationals allegedly seeking or helping to sell brides have been arrested in raids in multiple Pakistani cities, according to law enforcement officials. Local agents accused of luring poor families into marrying their daughters to Chinese men have also been arrested. The raids followed cries for help from several Pakistani women in China. Approximately 20 women were rescued, and some have since described brutal physical and sexual abuse, and even fears their organs could be sold. A court released two Chinese nationals married to Pakistani women after their spouses testified they had willingly married the men. Chinas embassy in Pakistan released a statement saying China supports the Pakistani crackdown if laws are being broken, but also said Chinese investigations had found no forced prostitution or sale of human organs for Pakistani women living in China. China has sent a task force to coordinate with Pakistani authorities and "jointly safeguard China-Pakistan friendly relations." Pakistan is an ally of China, and a number of Chinese workers live there. China has also withheld visas for 90 Pakistani women who were to travel to China with their spouses. The big picture: There are documented cases of women being trafficked to China from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea and Pakistan, says Heather Barr, acting co-director of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. The pull factor, Barr says, is the gender disparity in China, which was exacerbated by the one child policy because many parents wanted their only child to be a son. There are 30 to 40 million more men than women in China, and projections suggest that by 2030, more than 1-in-4 Chinese men in their late 30s won't be married. Barr says, is the gender disparity in China, which was exacerbated by the one child policy because many parents wanted their only child to be a son. There are 30 to 40 million more men than women in China, and projections suggest that by 2030, more than 1-in-4 Chinese men in their late 30s won't be married. The push factor is conflict and desperate conditions in countries like Myanmar which leave women vulnerable to trafficking. The bottom line: The State Departments anti-human trafficking watchdog has stated that Beijing has not met its minimum standards for the prevention of human trafficking. President Trump is running a 2019 campaign against the world, picking fights on four continents and putting his pugilistic "America First" to a grand international test. Why it matters: Trump has been buoyed for two years by a strong economy and relative global stability. Now, he may confront a hot war or a self-inflicted economic shock as he heads into the heat of his re-election campaign. The hottest spots: China: The trade war looks increasingly likely to disrupt American business and create volatility in the capital markets. And, as Axios reported yesterday, the two sides are so far apart that the tariff fight could extend into 2020. The trade war looks increasingly likely to disrupt American business and create volatility in the capital markets. And, as Axios reported yesterday, the two sides are so far apart that the tariff fight could extend into 2020. Iran: The administration has begun serious war planning and the Pentagon has begun building up serious forces in the Persian Gulf, including an aircraft carrier strike group, and B-52 bombers and F-15 fighters flying deterrence sorties. Americas allies in Europe are warning that the administration's actions may incite war. The administration has begun serious war planning and the Pentagon has begun building up serious forces in the Persian Gulf, including an aircraft carrier strike group, and B-52 bombers and F-15 fighters flying deterrence sorties. Americas allies in Europe are warning that the administration's actions may incite war. North Korea: Despite Trump's insistence that a deal remains in the works, Kim Jong-un's two missile tests were a clear effort to assert leverage. Despite Trump's insistence that a deal remains in the works, Kim Jong-un's two missile tests were a clear effort to assert leverage. Venezuela: Conditions are worsening despite U.S. intervention, and the failed uprising by opposition leader Juan Guaido has left thuggish, anti-American President Nicolas Maduro in power. Conditions are worsening despite U.S. intervention, and the failed uprising by opposition leader Juan Guaido has left thuggish, anti-American President Nicolas Maduro in power. Europe: The continent's leaders remain at odds with Trump across the board, most recently on his imposition of sanctions on countries that buy Iranian oil. While relations are deteriorating with adversaries and allies alike, Trump is looking for cooperation in an unlikely place: Russia. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled there yesterday in search of "common ground." Mike Pompeo traveled there yesterday in search of "common ground." But Axios World editor David Lawler points out: Given that Washington and Moscow are at odds on just about all of the issues above, it doesn't look like there's much to be found. Be smart: All this is unfolding with the U.S. political system under stress from deep divisions along racial, political and class lines. Go deeper: Trump's long trade war 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren revealed a plan Wednesday designed to increase military readiness for climate change that would require the Pentagon to reach net-zero carbon emissions on non-combat bases by 2030. The big picture: Instead of rolling out one comprehensive, one-size-fits-all climate plan, Warren is choosing to release multiple climate proposals. Last month, she proposed a ban on oil and gas drilling offshore and on public lands. She also proposed an executive order that would require that 10% of U.S. electricity generation must come from renewable sources located offshore or on public lands. Context: Warren highlighted the fact that three major U.S. military bases received billions of dollars in damage from extreme weather events in the past year, highlighting a Pentagon concern that its military bases are ill-equipped to handle the issue. Details: Warren says the plan, released by her campaign and as a bill to be introduced in the Senate, is "consistent" with the Green New Deal. The plan would require military contractors to meet the net-zero carbon emissions requirement or force them to pay a fee of 1% of their contract that would then be reinvested in military infrastructure. Warren plans to invest billions of dollars in a new, 10-year research program at the Defense Department targeted at microgrids and advanced energy storage. She wants to create a new senior position at the Pentagon to monitor the climate threat. The plan also would mandate an annual report on climate vulnerability for Pentagon assets. Go deeper: Elizabeth Warren on the issues, in under 500 words The House Intelligence Committee is investigating whether 4 Trump family lawyers obstructed justice in the Russia investigation by helping Michael Cohen shape his false testimony to Congress and offering a potential pardon in exchange for his loyalty, according to letters obtained by the New York Times. "Among other things, it appears that your clients may have reviewed, shaped and edited the false statement that Cohen submitted to the committee, including causing the omission of material facts. In addition, certain of your clients may have engaged in discussions about potential pardons in an effort to deter one or more witnesses from cooperating with authorized investigations." House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff Details: The panel's investigation stems from claims Cohen made during his February testimony before the House Oversight Committee, including that Trump's personal lawyers edited his sworn statement before he sent it to Congress. Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sent document requests to the following lawyers, who are part of a joint defense agreement with the president's allies, per the Times: Jay Sekulow, who represents President Trump Alan S. Futerfas, who represents Donald Trump Jr. Alan Garten, who represents the Trump Organization Abbe D. Lowell, who represents Ivanka Trump In a statement on behalf of the group, an attorney for Sekulow said Schiff was pursuing "a truly needless dispute this one with private attorneys that would force them to violate privileges and ethical rules." Their attorneys also sought to cast doubt on the reliability of Cohen, who is currently serving a prison sentence for lying to investigators. Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 about the length and scope of his work on plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. In his testimony in February, Cohen said he briefed Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump on the project's progress about 10 times. What's next: Schiff is prepared to issue a subpoena for the requested documents and testimony if the men do not cooperate, a senior committee aide told the Times. The letters: At a special meeting on U.S.-Iran tensions with Israel's intelligence chiefs and top military brass, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would make every effort not to get dragged into the escalation in the Gulf and would not interfere directly in the situation, Israeli officials tell me. The backdrop: Israel was one of the main sources of intelligence on alleged Iranian plots against the U.S. and its allies in the region. The U.S. has spread the alarm about such threats and deployed additional military assets. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke on the phone earlier this week with Netanyahu to coordinate their responses to rising U.S.-Iran tensions, the officials say. The assessment from Israeli intelligence is that there is not imminent risk of attack by Iran or its proxies against Israel in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq as a result of recent escalation, according to Israeli officials. 1 big thing: The new sharecroppers Invisible to most of us, an underclass of labor has evolved behind the artificial intelligence revolution thousands of low-wage workers in the U.S. and across the globe who painstakingly inventory millions of pieces of data and images, giving power to AI programs. Some critics call them the new "sharecroppers." Kaveh and I report: These workers people who affix labels to data so computers can understand the information are starting to attract the interest of social scientists and other experts. They say labelers may at least in part explain the nagging conundrum of American income inequality and perhaps how to fix it. Background: AI seems all-knowing, but actually it's only partly so. When it comes to the AI behind driverless technology, for instance, sensors can take fantastically granular pictures of streets and hazards of all types, and AI can be fed with the experience of every type of driving situation. But autonomous technology companies still need humans to inform the AI what it's looking at to circle things like trees, stop signs and crosswalks. Without human labeling, AI is dumb. It doesnt know a skyscraper from a spider. It doesnt know a skyscraper from a spider. But that doesn't mean companies pay labelers well. Instead, they are compensated like bottom-of-the-barrel workers. pay labelers well. Instead, they are compensated like bottom-of-the-barrel workers. In the U.S., companies say they are paying such workers $7$15 an hour, but that may be the top of the pay scale. Labelers also take on piecework from crowdsourcing platforms. In Malaysia, the pay can be around $2.50 an hour. The big picture: The winners are AI companies, which are mostly in the U.S., Europe and China. The losers are workers in both rich and relatively poor countries who are paid little. How the companies are managing the labelers: Nathaniel Gates, CEO of Alegion, a Texas-based crowdsourcing platform, said his firm intentionally reduces the job of labeling to the simplest, most routine task possible. While this narrows a worker's chance to move up the skills and wage ladder, Gates argues that he is at least "opening new doors that were never available to them." We are creating digital jobs that didnt exist before. Oftentimes, the folks doing this work are coming from farms and agriculture or factories that dried up because of automation, Gates tells Axios. But some experts say such practices builds inequality into the AI economy. In a new book called "Ghost Work," Microsoft Research's Mary Gray and Siddharth Suri argue that workers such as labelers are a significant part of one of the most dynamic parts of the economy. "Ghost Work," Microsoft Research's Mary Gray and Siddharth Suri argue that workers such as labelers are a significant part of one of the most dynamic parts of the economy. "Economists don't have a handle on how to price the market," Gray tells Axios. "We've been pricing this labor as a durable good, but it's the collective intelligence that's the value proposition." James Cham, a partner with Bloomberg Beta, the venture capital firm, thinks that AI companies are gaming the system. Russia's Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin believes that the trade war between the United States and China can reduce the prices of Russian resources. "It is clear that this whole story will have a negative impact on the demand for Russian products, he said, noting that this also applies to commodities. "So this scenario, of course, will mean lower prices for key resources: oil, metals, coal - what is exported from Russia," TASS cited Oreshkin as saying. In addition, there will be a deterrent effect on non-commodity exports from the Russian Federation due to weakened global demand, the minister added. Top of the Morning Uber shares have inched higher since their first two days of dismal trading, but not nearly to the point of making all of the company's private investors whole. And that has got to worry other money-losing "unicorns" that operate in similar sectors. In descending order of fear factor: Micro-mobility: Bird, Lime. Bird, Lime. Judging by how the public markets have treated Lyft even worse than Uber, it suggests that they are most skeptical of the "ride" story. Other ride-hail: Didi Chuxing, Grab, Ola. Didi Chuxing, Grab, Ola. Foreign markets change the math a bit, and some of these companies have significant diversification into other areas (such as Grab Finance). On-demand delivery: DoorDash, Instacart, Postmates. DoorDash, Instacart, Postmates. These companies insist their have better unit economics than ride-hail, because their marketplaces are three-sided instead of two-sided. Their big question is how much value the public markets are ascribing to Uber EATS. Of the aforementioned, only Didi and Postmates are believed to be planning 2019 IPOs. But that means many of the others will seek out new rounds of growth capital, likely from the same investors who are currently taking baths on Uber and Lyft. If these companies' most recent financings were benchmarked to Uber's valuation, at least in part, then we could be in for a series of high-profile down-rounds. Or orphaned unicorns. These things have a tendency to feed on themselves. The bottom line: Uber's coat-tails may have frayed. WeWork this morning announced that it's raised $2.9 billion (so far) for a fund that buys commercial properties in which WeWork would be the primary tenant. CEO Adam Neumann tells me that the fund's fiduciary duty is to its limited partners, not to WeWork, and that the fund managers do not report into him. Trade wars: Last week we noted how the U.S.-China trade war helped to kneecap Uber's IPO. But we could see a reverse impact when Chinese coffee shop chain Luckin goes public this week, particularly if investors believe that the Chinese government will seek to whip up consumer nationalism (i.e., buy your lattes from Luckin, not from Starbucks). Today in Abraaj: Khawar Mann has stepped down as CEO of the $1 billion healthcare fund at the center of the Abraaj Group's downfall, per Reuters. Mann himself was never charged with fraud, unlike several other Abraaj execs, but is out nonetheless. TPG took over management of the fund last week, and said that fund COO Andrew Currie will lead day-to-day operations on an interim basis. Pro Rata Podcast digs into how Apple's App Store is under siege, including by the Supreme Court. Listen here. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) broke from his fellow conservatives on Tuesday, voting against President Trump's federal judge nominee, Michael J. Truncale, after he vilified former President Obama, calling him an "un-American imposter" in 2011, reports the Washington Post. Why it matters: Romney was the only voting senator to break from the party line and vote against the nomination. He has been one of the more vocal Republicans to come out against the president consistently since Trump entered the White House, commenting that Trump has "not risen to the mantle of the office," and in April, saying he was "sickened" by the findings of the Mueller report. Details: Truncale was confirmed by the Senate by a 49-46 vote to the Eastern District of Texas, per the Washington Post. He claimed his comments about Obama were "merely expressing frustration by what I perceived as a lack of overt patriotism on behalf of President Obama," reports Politico. "He made particularly disparaging comments about President Obama. And as the Republican nominee for president, I just couldn't subscribe to that in a federal judge. This was not a matter of qualifications or politics. This was something specifically to that issue as a former nominee of our party." Sen. Mitt Romney in an interview with Politico Editor's Note: Bullock dropped out of contention for the Democratic presidential nomination on Dec. 2, 2019. Below is our original article on his candidacy. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock thinks he's the Democratic candidate who can win over Trump supporters. He's successfully kept his spot in the Montana governor's mansion even though his state swung hard for President Trump in 2016. Key facts about Steve Bullock: Current position: Governor of Montana elected in 2012 Governor of Montana elected in 2012 Age: 53 53 Born: Missoula, Mont. Missoula, Mont. Undergraduate: Claremont McKenna College Claremont McKenna College Date candidacy announced: May 14, 2019 May 14, 2019 Previous roles: Lawyer, Attorney General of Montana Steve Bullock's stance on key issues: Education: Bullock's plan would double federal K-12 spending and oppose vouchers for for-profit charter schools and school privatization. It would provide free tuition for community college and allow employers to contribute up to $5,250 each, year tax-free toward an employee's student loans. Bullock's plan would double federal K-12 spending and oppose vouchers for for-profit charter schools and school privatization. It would provide free tuition for community college and allow employers to contribute up to $5,250 each, year tax-free toward an employee's student loans. Health care: Bullock expanded Medicaid in 2013, and later renewed the expansion in 2019. He has invested in mental health and substance abuse resources, and added permanent funding for Title X, protecting reproductive rights, in Montana's state budget. Bullock expanded Medicaid in 2013, and later renewed the expansion in 2019. He has invested in mental health and substance abuse resources, and added permanent funding for Title X, protecting reproductive rights, in Montana's state budget. Climate change: Bullock has taken a business approach to climate change and clean energy. He adopted the "Blueprint for Montanas Energy Future" in 2016 with the goal of pushing the state toward more renewable energy, creating new jobs and providing a tax incentive for those who comply. Bullock has taken a business approach to climate change and clean energy. He adopted the "Blueprint for Montanas Energy Future" in 2016 with the goal of pushing the state toward more renewable energy, creating new jobs and providing a tax incentive for those who comply. Campaign finance reform: Bullock signed the Montana DISCLOSE Act in 2015, one of the strongest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country in an effort to stop dark money from entering politics. The law requires the disclosure of all donors to any independent group spending money on state elections. Bullock signed the Montana DISCLOSE Act in 2015, one of the strongest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country in an effort to stop dark money from entering politics. The law requires the disclosure of all donors to any independent group spending money on state elections. Net neutrality: Bullock was the first governor in the country to protect net neutrality through an executive order to ensure people had internet freedom. Bullock was the first governor in the country to protect net neutrality through an executive order to ensure people had internet freedom. Gender pay gap: Bullock established the Equal Pay for Equal Work task force with the goal of making Montana the first state to close the gender pay gap. Bullock established the Equal Pay for Equal Work task force with the goal of making Montana the first state to close the gender pay gap. Racial equality: Bullock told the Breakfast Club he would make sure federal contracts are "inclusive" and guarantee the Department of Treasury invests in entrepreneurs of color. Key criticism of Steve Bullock: Notoriety: Bullock is a late entrant into a packed Democratic field and he's a largely unknown entity on the national political stage. 1 fun thing about Steve Bullock: Bullock used to deliver newspapers to the Montana governor's mansion when he was a kid. Go deeper: Everything you need to know about the other 2020 candidates The U.S. will not sign onto the "Christchurch call to action" against online extremism expected to be released Wednesday, citing concerns that the pact would violate free speech protections in the First Amendment, the Washington Post reports. The big picture: The document, negotiated by New Zealand and French officials as a commitment to study and stop the spread of online extremism that motivated the Christchurch mosque shootings earlier this year, is expected to be signed by Australia, Canada and the U.K., among others. It also has the support of major U.S. tech companies, including Facebook and Google, whose platforms were used to livestream and host videos of the attack. What they're saying: The White House indicated on Tuesday that it would not support the effort, saying, "We continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online while also continuing to respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Further, we maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech, and thus we emphasize the importance of promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging." Go deeper: Christchurch shooting video puts platforms on the spot Calls for Robert Kocharians release from custody voiced by Nagorno-Karabakhs present and former leaders reflect public opinion in the Armenian ex-presidents native region, the speaker of the Karabakh parliament said on Wednesday. In a joint letter to Armenias Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian sent last week, Karabakh President Bako Sahakian and is predecessor Arkadi Ghukasian said Kocharian should be freed at least until a verdict in his trial. They cited his huge contribution to the Armenian victory in the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan. Davtians office said in response that he is no longer in a position to grant such requests because the case has already been sent to a court in Yerevan. The Karabakh leaders made a similar appeal to the court on Tuesday on the second day of Kocharians high-profile trial. They said they can guarantee that the ex-president will display appropriate behavior and not obstruct justice if set free. The presiding judge responded by saying that both Sahakian and Ghukasian must come to the court and personally offer such guarantees. According to Kocharians lawyers, both men are ready to do so. Ashot Ghulian, the Karabakh speaker, sought to justify those appeals during a visit to Yerevan. I think that what has been presented and said is enough to understand that we are talking about not influencing the trial but changing the [pre-trial] arrest, Ghulian said after holding talks with Armenian parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan. I want us to view that as being the result of purely humanitarian and friendly relationships, he told reporters. Im sure -- and you probably also know that -- that there is such sentiment in Artsakh (Karabakh) and its impossible not to react to that sentiment. Ghulian noted in that regard that Karabakhs three leading parliamentary parties jointly urged Kocharians release in late December, three weeks after the latter was again taken into custody on charges stemming from the 2008 post-election violence in the Armenian capital. One of those parties is led by the speaker. Born and raised in Karabakh, Kocharian governed the Armenian-populated territory from 1992-1997. He denies the charges as politically motivated. Armenias current government and law-enforcement bodies deny any political motives behind his prosecution. Kocharians continuing imprisonment provoked last week a war of words between Vitaly Balasanian, a senior Karabakh security official, and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians press secretary, Vladimir Karapetian. Balasanian criticized the Armenian authorities for not heeding the current and former Karabakh presidents appeals. Mirzoyan, who is a key Pashinian ally, dismissed talk of mounting tensions between the authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert. But he did rebuke Balasanian, implying that the retired army general is already gearing up for a presidential election that will be held in Karabakh next year. I can understand that the pre-election period has already started in Artsakh but I would suggest that our partners dont get ahead of events, Mirzoyan told at a joint news conference with Ghulian. With regard Mr. Balasanians statements, I would call for statements made in front of TV cameras to match assurances made in the absence of TV cameras. Armenia has become more democratic than ever before since last years mass protests that brought down its former government, the U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, Lynne Tracy, said on Wednesday. Tracy praised the current Armenian authorities for holding free, fair and democratic parliamentary elections in December and combatting corruption. I dont need to tell you that democracy in Armenia is stronger than ever, she said, addressing members the American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia (AmCham). And as the events of last spring showed us, change starts with and is driven by Armenians. I plan to continue to support the Armenian people as they make choices to develop and solidify their democracy in a way that bolsters the rule of law and protects human dignity, she said. I am especially encouraged by the governments efforts to root out corruption and promote transparency, Tracy went on. This will help level the playing field and signal to the international community that Armenia is a country that respects the rule of law and is open for business. This is particularly important given the strong potential for improved U.S.-Armenian economic relationship. In a September 2018 letter to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, U.S. President Donald Trump praised the velvet revolution and expressed readiness to help the new Armenian government implement sweeping reforms promised by it. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo similarly saluted the remarkable changes in Armenia. Pashinian complained in March, however, about Washingtons zero reaction to democratic change in his country. He seemed unhappy with the fact that there has been no significant increase in U.S. economic assistance to Yerevan since the revolution which brought him to power. Tracy countered afterwards that in 2018 the United States provided $26.7 million in assistance to Armenia in addition to an ongoing $66 million aid program implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The U.S. ambassador again cited these figures in her latest speech. She also emphasized that overall U.S. assistance to the South Caucasus nation has totaled over $2 billion since 1992. And she confirmed that Washington will allocate up to $16 million in fresh aid to Yerevan this year. U.S. and Armenian government delegations announced an agreement on that aid allocation last week after holding talks in Yerevan described by them as strategic dialogue. The U.S. delegation was led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent. Tracy described the talks as fruitful and frank. The alliance with Russia does not prevent Armenia from forging close ties with the United States and the European Union, a senior U.S. diplomat insisted on Wednesday. We understand that as a reality of geography and history Armenia maintains strong ties to Russia, said U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy. But I think most Armenians agree with me that the Armenian-Russian relationship should not and does not preclude Armenia from also pursuing strong, mutually beneficial relations with the United States, the European Union, and other partners. And while Armenias geography and history link it to Russia, your values connect you to the West, Tracy stressed in a speech delivered in Yerevan. These relationships are not mutually exclusive. Foreign affairs is not a zero-sum game, she added, echoing statements made by her predecessor, Richard Mills. Successive governments in Yerevan have sought to complement Armenias membership in Russian-led defense and trade blocs with close partnership with the Western powers. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has essentially stuck to this foreign policy strategy since he came to power one year ago. He had previously called for Armenias withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union. Tracy said that although Washington and Yerevan do not agree on everything they deal with issues of mutual interest through an open and honest dialogue. She praised Armenias continuing participation in the NATO-led missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo. The envoy also made clear that the U.S. will continue to work together with Russia in trying to broker a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The two nations as well as France co-chair the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Today I am more encouraged than ever with the Minsk Group process, Tracy said in reference to high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations held in the last several months. It has been a long road and there are no easy solutions. But the events of recent months have led me to believe that progress is possible. By Leman Mammadova Azerbaijan is making efforts to improve product quality in the country as well as improve the efficiency of labor by applying high technologies in the agriculture industry. The country will begin to use drones since summer 2019 to determine the state of agricultural lands, Toghrul Gafarbayli, head of the protocol at the Ministry of Agriculture, told Interfax Azerbaijan. He noted that so far, the ministry has purchased only one drone, adding that the number of these drones will be increased to 10-15 in the near future. The drones will be handed over to the Plant Production Institute under the Agriculture Ministry, and upon the request of the farmers, the specialists will go to the site and conduct the necessary research, he said. In Gafarbaylis words, drones are needed to conduct surveys in hard-to-reach areas of agricultural land. They can determine how well the irrigation was conducted as well as the condition of the soil and identify weed plants. In general, the drones have 10 functions and they are made in Hong Kong, he stressed. Gafarbayli also noted that the procurement of such drones requires the permission of the State Security Service, the Ministry of Defense, the State Border Service and the Special State Security Service. Drones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) managing with various degrees of autonomy, originated mostly in military applications, although their use is expanding in commercial, scientific, recreational, agricultural and other spheres. The agriculture sector is considered one of the important directions in the countrys development, because this sector plays a special role in the diversification of the economy, providing the population with food, the development of regions, reducing poverty, addressing social problems and other issues. Therefore, any innovations in this industry are welcome. Today, agriculture sector is one of the biggest technology and innovation consumers in the world. Agriculture is one of the most promising areas of application of drones. Drones can be effectively used for planning and controlling the stages of agricultural production, as well as for chemical processing of crops and other plants. The main criterion for the introduction of UAVs is the economic feasibility. Drones allow to receive relevant and effective information when it is needed; in addition, the information accumulated over a long period allows to analyze the processes in dynamics. Moreover, UAVs are capable of collecting planting information sufficient for accurate use of pesticides and herbicides where chemicals are needed. This promises farmers the opportunity to save on the use of chemicals, and also protects the environment. At the same time, drones allow to create a cartographic base with the exact coordinates of all objects, to further conduct a visual analysis of objects with a resolution of up to several cm per pixel. This allows calculating the exact area, distance, resource requirements, etc. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova As the role of entrepreneurs has grown in the society, development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been in the spotlight of Azerbaijans economic policy. Azerbaijans Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) will expand cooperation with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization of Turkey (KOSGEB) in order to use its rich experience in Azerbaijan, the Agency said in a message. Azerbaijans Deputy Minister of Economy Niyazi Safarov and Chairman of the Agencys Board Orkhan Mammadov met with KOSGEB Chairman Cevahir Uzkurt in Ankara. The parties discussed exchange of experiences, expansion of relations between SMEs of both countries as well as prospects of joint activities and implementation of joint projects. At the same time, the sides informed each other in detail about their activities, support mechanisms for entrepreneurs and services rendered to them. At the meeting, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Azerbaijans Agency for the Development of SMEs and KOSGEB. During the visit, the Azerbaijani delegation also held meetings with Minister of Industry and Technology of Turkey Mustafa Varank and his deputy Cetin Ali Donmez, representatives of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, organization Katilim Bankciligi and Eximbank of Turkey, and leadership of the regional office of the Islamic Development Bank. At the meetings, opportunities for cooperation in relevant areas were discussed. Small and medium-sized businesses play an important role in the development of Azerbaijans economy. Development of SMEs leads to the growth of entrepreneurship, which is one of the priority directions of Azerbaijans economic policy. The share of SMEs in employment in Azerbaijan was 76 percent last year, and in recent years, comprehensive work has been carried out for the development of SMEs. In particular, inspections of business entities have been suspended and the process of obtaining licenses has been simplified. The share of SMEs in Azerbaijans foreign trade is planned to increase to 40 percent after 2025. The Agency for the Development of SMEs aims to ensure the consistency of reforms, as well as the improvement of the business regulation system and the application of effective coordination, enhancement of the role and competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses in the country's economy, and the compliance of the management system of this sphere with modern requirements. As a single structure with special powers, the Agency organizes, coordinates, evaluates and regulates the services provided by government agencies and organizations in this area through SME houses. Recently, the Agency and Kazakhstans Damu Entrepreneurship Development Fund have signed a memorandum of understanding and adopted a road map. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova The introduction of local products at international exhibitions and successful organization of export missions to overseas to promote national products under the Made in Azerbaijan brand boost the non-oil sector of the Azerbaijani economy as well as strengthen business ties with foreign countries. The Sial China 2019 exhibition is being held in the Chinese city of Shanghai on May 14-16. As many as 12 Azerbaijani companies participate in the exhibition and present their products at the country's single stand "Made in Azerbaijan". Azerbaijani companies are part of an export mission to China, organized with the support of the Ministry of Economy and Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO). The mission, covering May 13-18, includes companies engaged in the production of food, wine and other alcoholic beverages. During the exhibition, Azerbaijani businessmen hold meetings with colleagues from foreign countries, as well as discuss issues on the sale of products. Sial China is Asia's largest food innovation exhibition. This year, more than 4,300 professional suppliers from 67 countries gathered to present valuable market insights, trends and innovations in 21 food categories. It should be noted that Ministry of Economy and AZPROMO organized the first export mission of this year to Beijing, China on February 25 March 1. The mission included 16 Azerbaijani companies operating in the fields of food, wine and other alcoholic drinks. Introduction of local products of Azerbaijan to international markets boosts the non-oil sector of the economy and strengthens business ties with foreign countries. Therefore, Azerbaijan organizes a number of export missions to promote national products under the Made in Azerbaijan brand. Export missions are a supporting measure to identify opportunities for accessing new markets, strengthen local product positions in existing markets and provide these markets with new products. Launched in 2016, the Made in Azerbaijan brand envisages a large-scale promotion of local non-oil products in foreign markets. Promotion of export-oriented local products under the Made in Azerbaijan brand in a wider geographic area also helps to attract foreign investment. The export of non-oil products will stimulate the expansion of the production of these products and will further strengthen the non-oil sector's share in the structure of Azerbaijans GDP. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Sochi he hoped to improve relations with the United States. The Russian leader noted that the conclusion of the special counsel investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election meant that was possible. "Despite all the exotic work of Mr. Mueller's commission, I have to give him his due: on the whole, he conducted an objective investigation and confirmed the absence of any traces of a conspiracy between Russia and the current administration," Putin told Pompeo at his residence outside the city. The Russian president said that Mueller's investigation had spoiled relations between the U.S. and Russia but that "Today I am hoping the situation is changing." According to the Russian president, the areas of common interest include the preservation of strategic stability, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, resolution of regional crises, the fight against organized crime, efforts to tackle environmental and poverty issues, TASS reported. By Trend In Azerbaijan, until May 13, 2019, 506,000 citizens received compensation under the decree by President Ilham Aliyev On additional measures to resolve problem loans of individuals in Azerbaijan, Trend reports with reference to the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan (FIMSA). The compensation issued to citizens amounted to 84 percent of the total amount of compensations, according to the report. The compensation issued to 243,000 citizens served to reduce overdue loans. In turn, compensation was issued to 263,000 Azerbaijani citizens in cash and by accrual on a plastic card. The compensation payment of problem loans to individuals started in Azerbaijan on April 22, 2019. The payments are made through branches of banks and Azerpost postal operator. As expected, 602,347 people will receive compensation. The compensation is planned to be fully paid till late May 2019. Earlier, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures in connection with solving the issue of the individuals problem loans. The decree envisages the payment of compensation to citizens whose loan burden increased as a result of the devaluation of the manat in February and December 2015. According to the decree, opportunities are created for restructuring both US dollar loans and manat loans with a delay of more than 360 days on concessional terms. If the amount of compensation exceeds 500 manats, these funds will be transferred to the account of the individual; otherwise, the payment will be made via money transfer. The corresponding plastic cards to be received by individuals are issued free of charge for a period of one year. Banks and postal operator are not entitled to charge fees for issuing or conducting operations with these cards or for making money transfers. (1.7 AZN = 1 USD on May 15) --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade The development of agriculture is constantly in the spotlight of the Azerbaijani government, so the competitiveness of local agricultural products is growing and export opportunities are expanding in the most of areas. Caspian Agro 2019, the 13th Azerbaijan International Agriculture Exhibition, is being held in Baku from May 15 to May 17. Inam Karimov, Azerbaijans Minister of Agriculture, stated at the exhibition that growth in Azerbaijans agriculture reached 3.6 percent in the first quarter of 2019 and this trend will continue until the end of the year. The minister also stressed significance of innovations and food safety in agriculture. Touching upon latest innovations in agriculture, Karimov emphasized that the exhibition will create opportunity for farmers to get familiar with them. The exhibition features companies operating in the field of agriculture and food safety from Azerbaijan and other countries, he said. The minister also added there is noticeable growth of the exhibition from year to year and this is the result of reforms being implemented in Azerbaijan. Caspian Agro, one of the largest and most visited exhibitions in the region, is designed to promote sustainable agriculture, the implementation of advanced technologies in the agro-industrial complex of Azerbaijan, the exchange of best practices, and strengthening of mutually beneficial business ties between local and foreign farmers. This year, more than 200 companies from 25 countries take part in the exhibition. Representatives from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, the U.S., Israel and other countries present lines of new products. Moreover, the exhibition includes bilateral B2B business meetings where industry experts are able to discuss cooperation opportunities and establish new and strengthen the existing contacts, while looking for partners and customers both among the guests of the exhibition and among their fellow participants. -- Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova "From Regions to Regions" Creativity Festival continues its journey through Azerbaijan. Kurdamir region of the country has hosted the festival, which is held on the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, Trend Life reported. The Ministry of Culture representatives, heads of regional culture departments, public representatives and artists attended the event. Head of the Kurdamir Region Executive Power Jeyhun Jafarov and Head of Kurdamir Regional Department of Culture Elman Mammadov noted the importance of the festival. Girls in Azerbaijani national clothes holding trays with national sweets and drinks met the guests of the event. The festival featured various products of arts and crafts, as well as picturesque paintings. At the same time, the concert program with participation of folklore, music and dance groups was held. The main goal of the "From Regions to Regions" project is to promote the cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people, who have rich traditions of statehood, demonstrate the cultural potential of the regions, strengthen interregional exchange. The festival serves to familiarize with the cultural diversity of all Azerbaijani regions, the heritage of craftsmanship and art, the expansion of cultural exchange between the regions and the emergence of new initiatives. By Abdul Kerimkhanov The Royal Windsor Horse Show, organized in honor of the Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and attracting the attention of horse lovers from around the world, has wrapped up. A group of riders on the Karabakh horses of Azerbaijans State Border Service and a dance ensemble participated in this event with organizational support from the Equestrian Federation of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani representatives presented the show composition Kelaghayi and Karabakh Horses of Azerbaijan, which attracted the special attention of the British Queen Elizabeth II, members of the royal family and other spectators. Before the Azerbaijani representatives performance, the show host stressed that one of the main elements of the Azerbaijani show composition, kelaghayi, which is more than 1,500 years old, was presented by Prince Albert to his wife Queen Victoria two centuries ago - in 1851. Hundreds of thousands of people watched every day the show composition presented by the Azerbaijani delegation at the event held on the territory of the ancient Windsor Castle. It is also worth noting the millions of viewers admired the beauty of Karabakh horses, performing to the sounds of national music, heroism and courage of riders, temperamental and emotional dances of dancers. In its report on the Royal Equestrian Show in Windsor, British Internet portal Dailymail.co.uk particularly noted that the show composition with the participation of Karabakh horses of Azerbaijan is one of the most favorite performances of Queen Elizabeth II. Having viewed the Kelaghayi and Karabakh Horses of Azerbaijan show composition, Queen Elizabeth II received Azerbaijani delegation members - Vice-presidents of the Equestrian Federation of Azerbaijan Sakit Mammadov and Bahruz Nabiyev and athlete Khadija Gulubeyli. The Queen's spouse, the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, the grandson of the Queen, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and other officials also attended the meeting. Queen Elizabeth II was presented with a painting by people's artist of Azerbaijan Sakit Mammadov called "Bahar Gizi" and an Azerbaijani kelaghayi. During the presentation of the gifts, it was noted that the image depicted in "Bahar Gizi" is one of the ancient symbols of the ancient Azerbaijani holiday Novruz. Queen was also informed about the poetess Natavan, Karabakh horses, national musical instruments and the Khari Bulbul flower depicted on the kelaghayi. Queen Elizabeth II expressed deep gratitude to the representatives of Azerbaijan for the grandiose show composition, the presented painting and national kelaghayi. Windsor Castle's first encounter with the Karabakh horse dates back to 1956 when a Karabakh stallion called Zaman was presented to the Queen. Beautiful national horses, famous for their dense chestnut color, have already participated in the Royal Horse Show several times. Equestrianism has a long history in Azerbaijan, which was one of the first regions in which the horse was domesticated. The Karabakh horse, originating in the Azerbaijani Karabakh region, is renowned for its good temper, loyalty, strength and speed. The Karabakh horses are mountain horses, so they are not very tall, 1.48-1.52 metres (up to 15 hands). They are slim, with attractive faces and are kind and gentle by nature. Despite their delicate appearance they are known for their stamina and they have been very successful racers. Their suppleness also made them the ideal mount for traditional games like Chovgan and Surpapag. Karabakh horse is also included on the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Admirers of contemporary art have gathered at the 58th prestigious international exhibition the Venice Biennale. Azerbaijan participates in the 58th Venice Biennale, the International exhibition of arts, with the national pavilion on the Virtual Reality topic, arranged by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. The exhibition, which opened in the Lezze Palace of 14th century in Campo Santo Stefano, presents works by artists and sculptors Zeygam Azizov, Orkhan Mammadov, Zarnishan Yusif, Kanan Aliyev and Ulviyya Aliyeva. Topics of multimedia works, installations and sculptures in the pavilion cover daily meetings of people with a stream of various news. Every person in the world checks their phone about 150 times a day, more than two billion people use social networks. Fake news in social networks is shared much more often and most of the discussions are not related to their reliability. Venice Biennale is considered the most prestigious exhibition in the field of contemporary art. Azerbaijan has been participating in this international project since 2007. The 58th International Art Exhibition, titled May You Live in Interesting Times, takes place from May 11 to November 24. The title is a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse that invokes periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; "interesting times", exactly as the ones we live in today. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation was established on the grounds of the nations wish to express its esteem for the memory of Heydar Aliyev. This person entered Azerbaijani history as a builder of the independent state, and the necessity of reflecting his rich moral heritage, underlining the importance of the Azerbaijanism philosophy for the country and cultivating the national statehood ideas in children. Starting its activity since 2004, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation has been actively participating in building a new society and contributing to the social and economic development of the country, by implementing various projects in spheres such as education, public health, culture, sports, science and technology, environment, and social and other spheres. President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation is Azerbaijan's First Vice-President, UNESCO and ISESCO Goodwill Ambassador Mehriban Aliyeva. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The final document following the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels dedicated to the 10th anniversary of launching the EU Eastern Partnership program was not planned to be adopted at all, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg Fuad Isgandarov said. Isgandarov, who is also the head of the Azerbaijani representative office to the EU, was commenting on the information that Azerbaijan did not agree with the final document following the meeting and that the use of veto right by Azerbaijan was connected with the lack of references to the country's territorial integrity, Trend reports on May 14. The ambassador stressed that the issue was voiced by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov during a high-level conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership (for information, please visit https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-172103). The final document following the ministerial meeting in Brussels, dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership, was not planned to be adopted at all, Isgandarov added. "The discussions, which were held during the process of making the proposals for the adoption of a single document of the Eastern Partnership, all EU member-states and European institutions, were procedural, he said. Such issues as whether the document will be concise or expanded, comprehensive and focusing on all aspects were discussed, as it was at previous summits. He continued by saying, Azerbaijan was a proponent of inclusion of the issues, which are fundamental for all EU member-states and Eastern Partnership countries, in the case of adoption of the final document. He added, In this context, the issue of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all Eastern Partnership countries was jointly proposed by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova. To decrease the volume of the document, an agreement was reached that it would include the references to the documents of previous summits and thereby reflect the abovementioned principles during the discussions among the Eastern Partnership countries, the EU institutions and member-states, Isgandarov said. The document entitled 'Chairmans Final Notes', signed by High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, contains all references to the documents from previous summits, he added. Isgandarov once again emphasized that territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence were unequivocally recognized at all Eastern Partnership summits. In his words, in conclusion, an agreement was reached that this short document which was not a declaration should be presented as "Chairmans Final Notes". In contrast to the abovementioned facts, the celebration of the "non-recognition of territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan in the Armenian press is absurd, he said. "If the opposite side carefully reads the document, it will see the references to the documents adopted at the previous summits," the ambassador said. He emphasized that Azerbaijans foreign policy is based on the countrys interests and the norms and principles of international law. "Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs current visit to Brussels is the most vivid example of this attitude," the ambassador said. Isgandarov reminded that a number of high-level meetings were held during the visit and the events dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Eastern Partnership are still underway. The Azerbaijani foreign minister also participates in these events and Azerbaijans position based on its national interests is voiced during all the discussions. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended the opening of a new building of the country`s Embassy in Brussels, the Kingdom of Belgium. Azerbaijan`s Ambassador to Belgium Fuad Isgandarov and designer of the building, well-known Belgian architect Philippe Vanhereveqe informed the head of state of the work carried out here. Located on Avenue de Tervueren in Brussels, the building was purchased by the Embassy of Azerbaijan in 2014. The building underwent a major overhaul. The Azerbaijani President cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the building and then viewed the conditions created here. President Ilham Aliyev posed for photographs together with the Embassy staff. On May 14, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev completed his working visit to the Kingdom of Belgium. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva has met with President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries Li Xiaolin in Beijing. Li Xiaolin recalled her visit to Azerbaijan last year, as well as her meetings with President Ilham Aliyev and first lady Mehriban Aliyeva. Highlighting the association`s relations with Azerbaijan, Li Xiaolin said that close cooperation with the Heydar Aliyev Foundation gives a great impetus to the development of friendly relations between the two nations. Hailing fruitful cooperation between the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Leyla Aliyeva highlighted the events organized as part of this collaboration. The sides expressed confidence that joint projects will be continued. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva has met with Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Yucheng in Beijing. Noting that relations between the two countries are successfully developing in all areas, Le Yucheng said that China will continue its efforts to deepen cooperation with Azerbaijan even further. He underlined that Azerbaijan boasts unique cultural heritage and added that various events highlighting Azerbaijan`s culture have been held in China in recent years. The Chinese vice minister stressed that such events make significant contributions to deepening friendly ties between the two nations. Le Yucheng hailed Azerbaijan`s active participation in the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing and the events organized on the sidelines of the conference. Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva said that the deepening of cooperation between the two countries in a variety of fields contributes to developing the two nations` friendly relations, which date back to the ancient Silk Way. Recalling Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev`s participation in the second "One Belt One Road" International Cooperation Forum in Beijing last month, Leyla Aliyeva noted that Azerbaijan is one of the first countries to support this initiative of China, and also tries to deepen economic, humanitarian and cultural cooperation under this project. The Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation pointed out that there is a big interest in China, its culture, language and traditional medicine in Azerbaijan. Leyla Aliyeva noted that the Heydar Aliyev Foundation is interested in deepening cooperation with China on these fronts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Great Steppe: Cultural Heritage and Role in the World History international forum will be held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on May 15, due to which Rafael Huseynov, chairman of the Committee on Culture of the Azerbaijani Parliament, and Azerbaijani MP Javanshir Feyziyev are currently in France, Trend reports. The large-scale event, attended by well-known statesmen from many countries, historians and Turkologists, is held by the International Turkic Academy. The 650th anniversary of the birth of poet Imadaddin Nasimi, the 150th anniversary of the great Turkologist Ahmad Aghaoghlu, and the 100th anniversary of the start of the Turkish National Movement by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk will be marked on an international level during the forum. The visit will end on May 19. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Russia's crude export duty will be increased by $5.8 to $110.4 per ton from June 1, 2019, according to the Russian Finance Ministry's website. Russia's current crude export duty is $104.6 per ton. From April 15 to May 14, the average price of Urals petroleum mix was $72.22921 per barrel or $527.3 per ton. By Trend Azerbaijan is building relations and cooperation with international organizations as part of the interests of the state and the people, chairman of the Nizami district organization of New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) and Azerbaijani MP Sadagat Veliyeva told Trend. According to her, the decisive position and authority of the country in relations with the UN, OSCE, PACE, OIC and the Non-Aligned Movement have always laid the foundation for protecting and considering national interests. In this context, the ties with the EU are no exception. Veliyeva said that the EU is the main trade partner of Azerbaijan, and its member states are the leading investors in the country. "Azerbaijans ties with 9 EU member states are strategic in their nature. Interests of countries, producers, consumers and transit countries of energy projects, in which Azerbaijan acts as an initiator and a participant, are jointly defended within the framework of their cooperation," she said. Veliyeva noted that, at the same time, Azerbaijan plays an important role in the implementation of the East-West transport corridor, and the country successfully cooperates with the EU in the transport sector. According to the MP, the statements of persons who are trying to undermine the country's international image are unfounded, biased and not objective. "In the "Partnership Priorities" document initialed between Azerbaijan and the EU last year in Brussels, support was once again expressed for Azerbaijans sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders." Veliyeva went on to say that, despite the fact that the so-called general consumer-level opposition existing in Azerbaijan organized a smear campaign in the West on the directives of anti-Azerbaijani centers on the eve of the visit of President Ilham Aliyev to Brussels, these actions proved to be futile. "The position and the opinions voiced at the meetings held by the head of state during the visit proved once again that the EU sees an important and reliable partner in Azerbaijan, and attaches particular importance to strategic cooperation. The success achieved during the visit of the President of Azerbaijan to Brussels exposed the anti-national activities composed of the fabrications of the radical opposition," she concluded. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was on a working visit to Belgium on May 13-14, 2019. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Over 2 years, the number of employees in Azerbaijan whose labor activity has been legalized has exceeded 250,000 people, thanks to the efforts of Azerbaijans Commission on Regulation and Coordination of Labor Relations, Ali Ahmadov, Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan and Deputy Chairman and Executive Secretary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP), said at an event titled The Role of the Private Sector for Implementing Sustainable Development in Baku, Trend reports. Ahmadov stressed that the private sector holds an important place in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. "In a short span of time, Azerbaijan has achieved success in many fields and has become a country with a higher than average income level," said the deputy prime minister. Ahmadov also touched on the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan in recent years, noting that the government provides concessional loans to entrepreneurs and pays great attention to the development of self-employment. "We need to ensure the social security of the people and do everything possible to increase wages in the private sector," he said. Ahmadov also stressed that sustainable development in Azerbaijan is observed in all fields and in all regions of the country. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade Azerbaijan is gradually becoming a large gas-producing state due to the grand projects and discovery of gas fields. Galmaz underground gas storage facility plays a big role in managing the gas transmission system and a lot of work has been done to meet current needs. SOCAR has put into operation a new compressor station within the territory of the Galmaz underground gas storage facility, the company informed on May 14. Thanks to the launch of the new compressor, the productivity of Galmaz will rise by 30 percent, which means that it will reach 13 million cubic meters of gas per day. This creates conditions for pumping additional volumes of gas and extracting them in a much bigger volume in winter, when demand for gas grows. The commissioning of the new compressor station allows increasing gas storage volumes from one billion cubic meters to 1.5 billion cubic meters. The station, which is able to operate in one-stage and two-stage mode, was constructed by SOCARs Oil and Gas Construction Trust. Renovation of Galmaz will allow Azerbaijan to get additional gas storage volumes required to provide natural gas transportation across its territory and export local gas. The Galmaz underground gas storage facility is located 75 kilometers south-east of Baku. It was commissioned in 1955. Usually underground gas storage facilities can reach a relatively high utilization rate of main gas pipelines in summer and cover increased natural gas consumption in winter. There are two gas storage facilities Galmaz and Garadagh in Azerbaijan. In general, SOCAR plans to expand capacity of underground gas storage facilities, so a lot of construction works have been carried out, which included introduction of advanced technologies and increasing the efficiency of gas storages. -- Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The largest Italian oil and gas company Eni is considering the possibility of entering the market of Uzbekistan. This was reported in the press service of the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs following the meeting of the Uzbek Ambassador to Belgium Dilier Hakimov and Fabio Marchetti, Senior Vice President of Eni S.p.A. The parties discussed the cooperation prospects of the Italian company in the Uzbek energy market. "Based on access to information on energy resources and data analysis, Eni will consider the possibility of preparing a draft memorandum of understanding and opening a representative office in Uzbekistan," the message said. The company also intends to participate in the 23rd international exhibition "Oil and Gas of Uzbekistan 2019", which will be held in Tashkent on May 15-17. The event will bring together over a thousand delegates from 30 countries, including international speakers, company leaders. Founded in 1953, the Italian oil and gas company Eni is operating in 83 countries. Eni extracts raw materials, in particular, in Africa, Russia and Kazakhstan, and sells in Italy and other European countries. In 2017, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) recognized Eni as one of the leading oil and gas companies on the Climate A List. Eni is heading increasingly towards the decarbonization of the energy system. Natural gas represents an opportunity for the company to strategically reposition itself, given its lower carbon intensity and the possibility of integrating it with renewable sources in the production of electricity. Eni wants to invest in the methane supply chain in order to continue to reduce CO2 emissions. In 2018, oil production in Uzbekistan decreased by 8.2 percent compared to the previous year - to 746,400 tons. At the same time, natural gas production increased by 6.1 percent and amounted to 59.84 billion cubic meters. Until 2030, the country plans to implement 30 investment projects worth $36.5 billion in geological exploration, production and advanced processing of hydrocarbons. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev instructed Uzbekneftegaz to pay special attention to oil and gas chemistry and to increase the share of gas processing into high value-added products from two percent to seven percent by attracting investors from Japan, the U.S., the UAE and Europe over 10 years. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Production localization is an important direction for the automotive industry development in Uzbekistan. South Korean company Hyundai plans to annually produce up to 10,000 electric vehicles in Uzbek Kokand city, Uzbek media reports. The project cost is $300 million, and the first electric car production is expected by 2023. Cars mass production will be organized in the "Kokand" free economic zone. Plant construction with a capacity of 10,000 electric vehicles per year is expected to begin in 2021. The project involves South Korean Hyundai, Evergreen Motors (the official distributor of KIA and Hyundai in the CIS), the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade and the Fergana region administration. As a result of the project implementation, as many as 1,000 jobs will be created. This is not the first Hyundai project in the automotive industry of Uzbekistan. The company will also set up the trucks assembly with a capacity of one to 50 tons, intercity and tourist buses, as well as special vehicles in the Namangan region. Hyundai Auto Asia is the official distributor of the Hyundai brand in Uzbekistan. The autocomplex sells cars, provides warranty service, professional maintenance, repair and restoration works, sale of original spare parts, components and accessories for Hyundai cars. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree on the abolition of entry visas for Uzbek truck drivers for a period of 30 days, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan. The corresponding resolution was signed on May 9 by the president of Turkey and entered into force on May 10, 2019. Uzbek-Turkish Strategic Cooperation Council of the highest level was established at the end of April 2018 within the framework of the state visit of Erdogan to Uzbekistan. In 2018 the volume of trade between the two countries increased by 40 percent - up to $2.1 billion, about 75,000 citizens of Turkey visited Uzbekistan, which is almost two times more than the previous year. At the end of October 2017, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Turkey for the first time. During the talks, the parties signed more than 20 documents on the development of cooperation, as well as agreements and contracts worth more than $3.5 billion. During the return visit of Erdogan to Uzbekistan at the end of April 2018, the parties signed agreements worth about $3 billion, and also agreed to bring the trade to $5 billion in the medium term. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Consulate of Turkmenistan, together with representatives of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran, held a briefing in Russias Astrakhan city on the first Caspian Economic Forum to be held August 12 in Turkmenistans Avaza tourist zone, Trend reports with reference to the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper. The event was attended by employees of the ministries of the Astrakhan region: international and foreign economic relations, industry, transport and natural resources, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Astrakhan Fund for the Support of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The forum aims to intensify multidimensional interaction in the Caspian Sea basin and the creation of a new geo-economic space that unites Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and Baltic regions, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia. At the briefing, focus was made on the significant economic, transport and logistics, innovation and recreational, as well as tourist potential of Turkmenistan, which creates wide opportunities for effective cooperation for the sustainable development of the region, the report said. In turn, the diplomats and trade representatives of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran made presentations on the economic, transport and logistics potential of their countries in the context of the priorities of interaction among the Caspian states. The Forum Organizing Committees website states that the agenda includes creation of conditions for major projects, discussion on the role of the economy of the Caspian region in a global context, investment attractiveness in oil and gas, electricity, transport, trade, agro-industrial, tourism and other industries of the Caspian littoral states of mutual interest. The event will feature discussion of the prospects of joint investment projects and programs. In anticipation of the forum, a meeting of ministers of the competent authorities of the parties responsible for the implementation of agreements between the governments of the Caspian states on trade and economic cooperation and cooperation in the field of transport will be convened. In parallel, the draft Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Business Council of the Caspian states will be discussed. In addition to the delegations of the Caspian states, representatives of interested states close to the Caspian region, leaders and representatives of international economic, financial, transport, environmental and other organizations are invited to the forum. The forum consists of three parts - an international conference, an exhibition of innovative technologies and a legal part (the signing of contracts, agreements). --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Russias and the United States approaches on Syria remain fundamentally different, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, commenting on the meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. According to the diplomat, the situation in Syria was discussed in every detail at the meeting. "Our U.S. counterparts show only verbal interest in expanding cooperation and areas of common interest on Syria," Ryabkov stressed, adding that approaches of Russia and the U.S. "remain fundamentally different in terms of content." "The grass might literally have been greener elsewhere, but people in Bakersfield, including the Jewish people, are salt of the earth. This is a place where people look out for each other, take care of each other. If someone's in trouble they all rally to help that person. I sensed a real community here." Rabbi Cheryl Rosenstein, on what kept her serving the community for 26 years. Pull Quote CALM's 36th Birthday Bash When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday Where: CALM, 10500 Alfred Harrell Highway Admission: Free for kids up to 12 years old (with an adult) and for CALM members and military/veterans; $10 adults, $7 seniors Information: 872-2256 or calmzoo.org Iran officially suspended the execution of part of its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a representative for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said. The Supreme National Security Council of Iran made this decision, according to the source. "The society will be informed on the undertaken steps in the next several days; we will also declare our plans on providing access to mass media representatives to sites in Arak and Natanz," ISNA cited him as saying. According to the source, Tehran, as it had previously warned, may renew work on uranium enrichment and stop the updating of the heavy water reactor in Arak if the participants to the deal fail to fulfil their obligations under the deal within 60 days. Chewing gums reveal the oldest Scandinavian human DNA The first humans who settled in Scandinavia more than 10,000 years ago left their DNA behind in ancient chewing gums, which are masticated lumps made from birch bark pitch. This is shown in a new study conducted at Stockholm University and published in Communications Biology. There are few human bones of this age, close to 10 000 years old, in Scandinavia, and not all of them have preserved enough DNA for archaeogenetic studies. In fact, the DNA from these newly examined chewing gums is the oldest human DNA sequenced from this area so far. The DNA derived from three individuals, two females and one male, creates an exciting link between material culture and human genetics. Ancient chewing gums are as of now an alternative source for human DNA and possibly a good proxy for human bones in archaeogenetic studies. The investigated pieces come from Huseby-Klev, an early Mesolithic hunter-fisher site on the Swedish west coast. The sites excavation was done in the early 1990's, but at this time it was not possible to analyse ancient human DNA at all, let alone from non-human tissue. The masticates were made out of birch bark tar and used as glue in tool production and other types of technology during the Stone Age. "When Per Persson and Mikael Maininen proposed to look for hunter-gatherer DNA in these chewing gums from Huseby Klev we were hesitant but really impressed that archaeologists took care during the excavations and preserved such fragile material", says Natalija Kashuba, who was affiliated to The Museum of Cultural History in Oslo when she performed the experiments in cooperation with Stockholm University. "It took some work before the results overwhelmed us, as we understood that we stumbled into this almost 'forensic research', sequencing DNA from these mastic lumps, which were spat out at the site some 10 000 years ago!" says Natalija Kashuba. Today Natalija is a Ph.D. student at Uppsala University. Exciting link between material culture and human genetics The results show that, genetically, the individuals whose DNA was found share close genetic affinity to other hunter-gatherers in Sweden and to early Mesolithic populations from Ice Age Europe. However, the tools produced at the site were a part of lithic technology brought to Scandinavia from the East European Plain, modern day Russia. This scenario of a culture and genetic influx into Scandinavia from two routes was proposed in earlier studies, and these ancient chewing gums provides an exciting link directly between the tools and materials used and human genetics. Emrah Kirdok at Stockholm University conducted the computational analyses of the DNA. "Demography analysis suggests that the genetic composition of Huseby Klev individuals show more similarity to western hunter-gatherer populations than eastern hunter-gatherers", he says. "DNA from these ancient chewing gums have an enormous potential not only for tracing the origin and movement of peoples long time ago, but also for providing insights in their social relations, diseases and food.", says Per Persson at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. "Much of our history is visible in the DNA we carry with us, so we try to look for DNA where ever we believe we can find it", says Anders Gotherstrom, at the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University, where the work was conducted. The study is published in Communications Biology. ### DOI: 10.1038/s42003-019-0399-1 Contact information: Natalija Kashuba, lead author of the study and Ph. D. student at Uppsala University: phone: +46702112406, mail: natalija.kashuba@arkeologi.uu.se Per Persson, archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo: phone +4795170690, mail perap@khm.uio.no Anders Gotherstrom, Professor in Molecular Archaeology and director of the archaeogenetics at the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University: phone +4673 992 78 64, mail This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The U.S. State Department ordered the departure of government employees from Iraq, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said in a statement. The department ordered "nonemergency U.S. government employees," at both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil, to leave the country. The order applies primarily to full-time diplomats posted to Iraq by State Department headquarters in Washington, and an embassy statement said that visa services in Iraq would be suspended as a result, the New York Times reported. The statement recommended those affected depart by commercial transportation as soon as possible. Oregon Coast's Heceta Head Lighthouse Changes and Challenges During 125-Year Anniversary Published 05/12/2019 at 11:53 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Florence, Oregon) Shes 125 years old but doesnt look a day over 80. One the big beauties of the Oregon coast is the Heceta Head Lighthouse, just north of Florence and not far south of Yachats. This year, the guiding light celebrates 125 years, with one more big event coming up, but lots to talk about on those daily tours. Theres many changes brewing in the ancient structure as well. Ben Ervin is a volunteer park ranger at the lighthouse and head of its interpretive program, among other things on the grounds. Technically its all managed by the Siuslaw National Forest and the feds, in concert with Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department, sitting in what is known as Heceta Head Lighthouse State Scenic Viewpoint and Devils Elbow State Park. He is often at the helm, certainly when it comes to dealing with the public. Ervin offered some insights into this anniversary and other aspects of the lighthouse. The largest celebration just ended: the day-long festival that included the lighthouse keepers quarters (which is a separate bed and breakfast operation.) Still coming up, however, is a special spot on May 19. Next well be a big part of the parade at Florences Rhododendron Festival, Ervin said. We were made the grand marshal of that parade, so well be there with our replica of the Heceta Head lighthouse marching in the parade. Except for mentions during the daily tours (which are weather- and staff-dependent), thats about it for the birthday parties. Those interpretive tours, which happen 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., will hopefully soon have some new life. For a few months, access to the inside of the lighthouse has not been available. Ervin said its been about a few maintenance issues, which included replacing some lights and an inspection from a structural engineer that revealed some parts needed replacing. That may change very soon. Were hoping in the next two weeks, Ervin said. Ervin said its been a few years since officials stopped giving tours to the very top where the light is, and that is not likely to return once access to the lower interior is granted again. The big issue is the spiral staircase going all the way up, which can only handle so much stress. But theres a lot of wear and tear on the stairway, Ervin said. It wasnt built to accommodate thousands of people a year. Its rather unique, and not like a lot of other lighthouses, in that the spiral stairway is only connected at the top. Theres not more than one landing along the way. Its that stairway that helps perpetuate a constant rumor about the lighthouse: that it vibrates just a little when the winds hit it. Things do vibrate and shake a little, but thats only the stairway, as people walking on it cause it to jiggle. This gives the impression the entire structure is moving. Theres no way the tower moves, Ervin said. Indeed, there is kind of a psychological trick the top of the lighthouse can play on you when the winds get stirred up. But its only an illusion. Ive been up there too, and when the wind is really blowing, and theres puffs of air that come through, and you swear its moving, he said. Meanwhile, the Heceta Head Lighthouse is still a working light, actually used for navigation, Ervin said. While all mariners these days utilize GPS and other forms of electronic navigation, if their gear goes out while in the area the lighthouse can still be used for getting around. In fact, Ervin said, if for some reason the light goes out they are required to notify maritime authorities. Heceta Head Lighthouse Fun Facts: Construction was started in 1892 and the light went live on March 30, 1894. During those two years, the lighthouse was built in phases, starting with the lighthouse keepers home. Its one of the rare lighthouses on the Oregon coast still with its keepers quarters. During World War II, the Navy was stationed here with a heavy presence. They built their own fort here, complete with barracks, a mess hall and more. 75 men lived and worked here. They had a pack of dogs which they used to patrol the beaches of the central Oregon coast. The last lighthouse keeper retired in 1963: since then the whole operation has been automated and run by electricity. Heceta Head Lighthouse website. 541-547-3416. Lodgings in Yachats - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours 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 A 25-year-old South Korean man who was attending the University of Texas in Tyler was sentenced Tuesday by a U.S. District judge on seven counts of false statements while purchasing firearms, according to information from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Heon Jong Yoo was sentenced to 97 months in prison and will be deported to South Korea at the end of his sentence, officials said. A Bexar County jailer was arrested and another fired after an unsupervised inmate experienced a medical episode that led to his death, officials said. Detention Deputy Mishal Mathew, 23, was arrested at 5:57 p.m. Tuesday by the Public Integrity Unit and charged with tampering with a government record, a third-degree felony. His bail had yet to be set late Tuesday. Probationary Deputy Lucio Camacho was terminated Tuesday, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said. Salazar said a discrepancy came to light following the death of Jarnell Kimble, 45, on March 29. Kimble had been in physical distress when Camacho was working the overnight shift. The deputy overnight should have known and just didnt, Salazar said. He didnt do sufficient checks. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Kimble was in jail since Feb. 28, charged with felony possession of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance and evading arrest or detention, according to county records. It appears that he was non-compliant with medications, which many times is what happens in jail, Salazar said of Kimbles death. Camacho is not facing any criminal charges because there is no evidence that he falsified any records. At this point it just looks like an administrative violation, Salazar said. Were going to continue to investigate, if it does cross the line into criminal, hell be held accountable for that. During Mathews shift, he wrote in a log that he checked all of the cells, but an electronic record indicates that not all cells had been checked, Salazar said. The electronic log is kept separately and registered when a deputy presses a metal fob against a device adhered to the wall next to each cell. Thats tampering with a government record. Thats a textbook example, Salazar said. It was during Mathews shift that Kimble was reportedly discovered at 10:35 a.m. March 29, Salazar confirmed. RELATED: SAPD: Suspect burglarized home with daughter, punched officer According to a previous report, Kimble was alert and responsive when he was taken to Downtown Metropolitan Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 8:52 p.m. Mathew has been on administrative leave since April 5 in connection with the incident. He will now remain on unpaid administrative leave in accordance with civil service rules for violation of the Texas Penal Code, officials said. Both internal affairs and the public integrity units are investigating the case. Salazar said the incident has been reported to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards as they work to regain compliance. Jacob Beltran is a reporter covering San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA General surgeons said the most challenging aspect of their job was dealing with many rules and regulations, according to Medscape's 2019 general surgeon compensation report. Four report details: 1. Fifty-four percent of surgeons don't use either physician assistants or nurse practitioners in their practice, while 33 percent use physician assistants and 29 percent use nurse practitioners. 2. Fifteen percent of general surgeons said difficulties getting fair reimbursement is one of the most challenging aspects of their job, while 12 percent cited working with an EHR system as a top challenge. 3. Forty-three percent of general surgeons said they spent 20 or more hours on paperwork every week, while 41 percent said they spend 10 to 19 hours. 4. Male general surgeons said they spend 40 hours a week seeing patients, while female physicians spend 38 hours. Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina, Calif., proposed a multiyear development project that would bring an ASC to the area by 2022, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Four details: 1. The renovation and construction project would increase the hospital's square footage by nearly 50 percent, adding 490,000 square feet to the hospital's existing 1 million square feet. 2. The first phase of construction would involve establishing a medical office building, an ASC and a parking structure, as well as updating the emergency room and ICU, from 2020 to 2022. 3. For the following four years, the hospital would focus on building a medical office tower with up to six stories. Several new buildings and an additional parking structure would be added later down the line. 4. Community residents had the opportunity to comment on the project May 14. A representative of the nearby Torrey Pines Apartment Homes was the only person to comment, proposing limitations on the height of the hospital's planned parking lot. Druva, Inc., the leader in cloud data protection and management, today announced the opening of its new office in Singapore to support Asia-Pacific enterprises increasingly turning to the cloud to protect and manage their most critical asset - data. Focused on expanding its headcount and tripling revenue in the region, Druva will deliver enhanced support through focused, local expertise and a partner network of more than 600 existing customers in Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific region boasts one of the fastest growing technology markets in the world, with market research firm IDC forecasting* a 32.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for cloud services revenue between 2016-2021, exceeding the worldwide average of 21.9 percent. As enterprises embrace cloud technology to meet the growing demands of data, Druva is helping IT teams streamline management, visibility and compliance of swelling data sets - all without the burden of unnecessary hardware, capacity planning, or software management. "Emerging businesses in Asia-Pacific, and around the globe, understand that an effective way to grow quickly and meet market demands is by deploying technology that can scale with your business," said Jaspreet Singh, CEO and founder, Druva. "Our new Singapore office will support our goal to provide every business with a better and simpler way to manage their most valuable IP, enterprise data." China Aviation Oil Corporation is the largest physical jet fuel trader in Asia-Pacific and the key supplier of imported jet fuel to China's civil aviation industry. "We welcome Druva's expansion in Asia-Pacific," said Wayne Choe, IT Infrastructure Manager, China Aviation Oil Corporation. "Our IT team already relies on Druva to protect our data, restore files, and meet any regulatory needs and we are excited to have a local team that can also support us as our data demands continue to grow." Comprised of eight schools and colleges, Nanyang Technological University is the second largest university in Singapore with more than 33,000 students and 10,000 faculty. "The use of cloud-based technology like Druva's comprehensive backup and recovery has been critical to protecting the data of our faculty, employees and students," said Alan Loe, Deputy Director, e-Learning and IT services, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University. "Druva offers rapid restores, scalability and cost-effectiveness that exceeds our expectations and we look forward to strengthening our relationship with Druva in Singapore." Druva has also secured SG:D Accreditation from the Singaporean government; a recognition of Druva exceeding stringent technology and industry standards. With this certificate, Druva will also be able to service the country's government agencies and top organizations "We are very pleased to work with Druva as it scales in the APAC region through the opening of the new Singapore office," said Edwin Low, Director of Accreditation@SG Digital. "Druva's innovative de-duplication technology coupled with its cloud-native architecture makes the company a global leader in the market. As we've seen, the shift to cloud infrastructure enables organizations, across government and industry, to reap significant gains." The Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system broke ground May 14 on a major expansion in Manchester, N.H., the Manchester Ink Link reports. Three highlights: 1. The 90,000-square-foot project entails an ASC, as well as expanded lab, imaging and pharmacy space. 2. The ASC will include operating rooms designed for pediatric patients. 3. The following leaders from Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock attended the groundbreaking ceremony: University of California San Diego delayed notifying women in an HIV research study that their information may have been exposed in October, an inewsource investigation discovered. The EmPower Women study comprised 24 HIV-positive patients who were being evaluated on why they avoided treatment. The lead researcher told university officials in October that the women's names, audio-taped conversations and other sensitive data was accessible by employees at a partnered nonprofit organization. UC San Diego partnered with Christie's Place, a San Diego nonprofit that supports women with HIV and AIDS, to recruit women for the study. The nonprofit organization allegedly stored the study participants' information on a database it uses to track patients' clinical care. The nonprofit was accused of intentionally storing the data on the clinical care database to "inflate" their patient numbers. By storing the information on that specific database, Christie's Place staff, interns and volunteers had access to the study participants' information. Patients' information was supposed to be password-protected and only accessible to authorized researchers. After an internal investigation, Christie's Place board of director's president said the allegations were false. "Christie's Place did not misuse client data, did not breach client data to inflate patient numbers, did not misrepresent the services we provided, and did not improperly bill the county of San Diego," she said in a statement to inewsource. Once Jamila Stockman, the lead researcher, became aware of the security breach, she went to university officials. It was then that Ms. Stockman claims she was met with resistance to alert study participants of the data breach. After seven months of back and forth through emails and meetings, university officials agreed earlier this month to inform study participants of the breach. The process will begin in one to three weeks, university officials said. The EmPower Women project was funded by the UC system, meaning federal agencies could not monitor or enforce how UC San Diego handled the security breach. More articles on cybersecurity: Oregon State Hospital alerts patients of phishing attack Memorial Hermann employee 'improperly' used patients' credit card info First cybercrime hotline unveiled in Rhode Island The Physicians Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that supports physician workflow and patient care, is forming a fund dedicated to improving EHR interoperability and state health information exchanges. The Physicians Foundation Interoperability Fund will help medical practices use HIEs to share patients' health data with other physicians and hospitals. The fund will launch with $500,000 and will be awarded to health practices on a first-come basis. The program is in collaboration with six state medical societies: the Connecticut State Medical Society, Medical Association of Georgia, Louisiana State Medical Society, Missouri State Medical Association, Medical Society of New Jersey and South Carolina Medical Association. As hospital CFOs navigate organizational goals and today's industry challenges, there are various philosophies, events or people that influence their leadership styles. The following hospital and health system finance chiefs have shared these with Becker's Hospital Review since January: 1. Daniel Widawsky, senior vice president, vice dean and CFO of New York City-based NYU Langone Health, shared his experience observing American business executive Jack Welch Jr. in action: "He had three attributes that in tandem were effective. He was curious. Of course, he was smart. But most important, he was dogged. Until he had an answer, an explanation, a way forward that made sense to him, he wasn't going to move on. He didn't want to be the smartest person in the room, the one with all the answers. On the contrary, he wanted to be surrounded by the smartest people in the room to challenge them and be challenged by them. It was formidable to witness." 2. Jim McManus, CFO of Greenbrae, Calif.-based Marin General Hospital, recognized board members: "Over the years, I have established a personal board of directors that I interact with from time to time. I will call on them and seek their guidance, especially when I am encountering a situation that I may be unfamiliar with. This board is comprised of business professionals, community members and long-established friendships. They are all people I have trusted and respected throughout the years." 3. Michael Breslin, CFO of New York City-based NewYork-Presbyterian, also discussed learning from board members, as well as his predecessor: "Watching and learning from our trustees is an incredible experience. We learn from them every day. Also, I have the benefit of my predecessor, Phyllis Lantos, working with the organization in an advisory capacity. Phyllis and I speak and meet regularly, and I welcome her advice and counsel. I work hard every day to further her legacy of fiscal competence coupled with transparency and collaboration." 4. Robin Damschroder, executive vice president and CFO of Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System, said many mentors have influenced her leadership style: "I like to be inclusive and collaborative, and that comes from being transparent. That's transparent about the data. I like to share the same information that I drew upon to reach my conclusion so that other reasonable people would come to the same place or challenge assumptions to ensure that we come to the right outcome. Key mentors in my life have underscored the importance of being inclusive, being collaborative and causing the conversation. And to cause the right conversation, you have to share the data and be transparent about your intentions and your interest." 5. Ben Carter, executive vice president, CFO and treasurer of Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, talked about the leaders who influenced him: "I am a student of great leaders and aspire to great leadership because it brings people together and accomplishes great things. I read a lot about and from different types of leaders from presidents like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, as well as business people like John Francis "Jack" Welch Jr., Alan Mulally and Steve Jobs. In addition, I have studied under great mentors in all of the four organizations in which I've worked. I try to take the best of what I see and what I read and then try to mold my own brand of leadership. I enjoy these pursuits, and I keep trying to hone and sharpen my leadership skills based on my belief in the power of ongoing, continuous learning." 6. Ben Spence, chief financial and business service officer of Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health, talked about his late father, Park Spence: "He was the type of leader people admired because he had great business insight, focus and discipline, but equally as important was how he treated people with great care and respect. He had a way of encouraging those around him to bring out their very best, and his warm smile helped bring up spirits when challenges were intense. He gave me a paper on 'commitment' that I will never forget. It stated that 'commitment is the words that speak loudly of intentions and the actions that speak louder than words.' His life example helps me daily to strive to bring out the best in myself and all those I interact with." 7. Bert Zimmerli, executive vice president and CFO of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, shared the lessons he learned earlier in his career: "In one of my first reviews at Ernst & Young, the feedback I received was that while hard work was commendable, I was being paid for results. I never forgot that message, which was tough at the time. A results orientation, and getting results in the right way, has driven me ever since." The Council of the District of Columbia voted May 14 to close United Medical Center, the city's only public hospital, within four years, according to The Washington Post. The hospital closure was part of a $15.5 billion budget the council approved for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget also included funding restrictions that could force United Medical Center to significantly scale back services before it shuts down, according to the report. United Medical Center has received tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies in recent years. Closing the hospital will limit the city's losses, according to D.C. Council Member Vincent C. Gray and others who support shutting down the facility. Critics say closing the 234-bed hospital could cut off vital medical care for low-income neighborhoods already struggling with fatal drug overdoses, high rates of infant mortality and other problems. The council will vote a second and final time on the budget at the end of May. More articles on healthcare finance: Florida hospital recoups contested Medicaid payments These 10 physician specialties generate the most revenue for hospitals 7 CFOs on the philosophies, events or people that influence their leadership style Citrus Memorial Hospital in Inverness, Fla., has recouped $2.65 million in Medicaid payments after a battle with CMS, according to the Citrus County Chronicle. The hospital is operated by Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, but the Medicaid payments at the center of the dispute date back to before HCA began leasing the hospital in 2014. The group that operated Citrus Memorial Hospital prior to the HCA lease failed to register it as a disproportionate share hospital, a designation that provides a higher reimbursement rate for hospitals that treat a disproportionally high number of indigent patients. This resulted in the hospital being underpaid by Medicaid during 2013 and 2014. The hospital board filed a petition seeking payment for the Medicaid cases it was underpaid for when the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration audited the hospitals payments for the past several years, according to the report. The Florida AHCA said the audit revealed the hospital had received $5.8 million in Medicaid overpayments between 2006 and 2016, and that the agency would recoup the money from future Medicaid payments. In response, lawyers representing Citrus Memorial claimed that the hospital was underpaid by Medicaid in 2013, 2014 and likely several other years. Under a recent agreement between CMS and the hospital board, the hospital recouped the $2.65 million in contested payments. The agreement also halts CMS from seeking the $5.8 million from future Medicaid payments, according to the report. The $2.65 million will go to a local charitable foundation that provides funding for nonprofit organizations that offer healthcare services. More articles on healthcare finance: These 10 physician specialties generate the most revenue for hospitals Private equity pushes into healthcare: 7 latest deals Kentucky hospital on brink of closure seeks new management Republican and Democrat representatives on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have released draft legislation to protect patients from surprise medical bills, according to Vox. Nine things to know: 1. Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., released the draft bill May 14. 2. The draft bill is designed to address unexpected charges patients see after they receive emergency care at an out-of-network hospital or receive nonemergency services from an out-of-network provider at an in-network facility. 3. Under the draft bill, a patient's cost-sharing and out-of-pocket responsibilities for out-of-network emergency care would be limited to in-network amounts, according to Vox. 4. The draft bill prohibits balance billing. This refers to situations in which a patient receives services and is billed for the difference between what the patient's insurer decides to pay and what the provider determines the care is worth. 5. The draft bill also requires insurers to pay out-of-network providers a minimum amount for the patient's care, based on the amount the insurer pays to nearby in-network providers, according to Vox. The publication notes the federal law would not supersede any state laws related to setting those payments. 6. For scheduled care, the draft bill reportedly requires that patients receive written and oral notice about the network status of their providers. 7. Commenting on the draft bill, Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden said in a joint statement that they now "look forward to receiving constructive feedback on ways to build upon our proposal, so we can advance a bipartisan solution that protects patients from costly surprise medical bills." 8. The draft bill comes less than a week after President Donald Trump's administration called for federal legislation to protect patients from surprise medical bills. 9. The Senate has also been working on legislation to address the issue. More articles on healthcare finance: Nonprofit hospitals 'well-positioned to compete' amid healthcare disruption, S&P says Ohio lawmaker proposes budget amendment to address surprise medical bills Where healthcare stakeholders stand on surprise billing St. Louis-based Mercy closed its hospital in El Reno, Okla., in April, but the community still has access to emergency care thanks to an agreement between SSM Health and the city. In November, Mercy announced it was ending its lease of Mercy Hospital El Reno due to declining inpatient volumes, which caused financial losses. The hospital officially shut down April 30. Before the hospital closed, the City of El Reno had already secured a new agreement to ensure local residents would continue to have access to emergency care. Under a lease agreement that took effect May 1, Oklahoma City-based SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital began operating the emergency department of the hospital in El Reno. "SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital is pleased to have been selected by the City of El Reno to be the community's healthcare partner," SSM Health-Oklahoma President Joe Hodges said in a press release. "We look forward to expanding our ministry into El Reno and keeping important healthcare services within the community." Since the facility no longer offers acute inpatient care, patients who need a higher level of care than the freestanding emergency department provides will be transferred to local hospitals. More articles on healthcare finance: Alabama hospital in danger of closing as physicians leave town Private equity pushes into healthcare: 7 latest deals Kaiser's net income more than doubles to $3.2B in Q1 Access to behavioral healthcare remains a challenge for many Americans, but there are opportunities for hospitals to expand their efforts and work with policymakers to address the issue, according to a new report from the American Hospital Association. "Nearly one in five Americans is affected by a behavioral health disorder but often dont receive the care they need," Jay Bhatt, DO, American Hospital Association senior vice president and CMO said in a news release. "The behavioral health [report] shares ways hospitals and health systems are identifying and addressing behavioral healthcare needs in their communities, the strategies they are using to increase access and the barriers to broader progress." Three takeaways from the report: 1. In 2016, 57 percent of the 44.7 million adults with mental illnesses did not receive treatment, according to data from the HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 2. The American Hospital Association said hospitals and health systems are implementing strategies to increase access to behavioral healthcare. These strategies include community partnerships, integrating physical and behavioral healthcare in primary care settings, and re-examining the role of emergency departments. 3. Given these efforts, the association said policymakers can show support by working with healthcare organizations, patients and community-based organizations to develop policies that address the social, structural and financial barriers to appropriate behavioral healthcare use and access. If an annual public board meeting held by UPMC's board of directors turns into "an hour-long, scripted PR session," it will be a failure of the system and the public, according to an opinion piece published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's editorial board. Pittsburgh-based UPMC's annual public board meeting is set for May 28 at UPMC Montefiore in Pittsburgh. According to past attendees, UPMC CEO Jeffrey Romoff will likely not attend the hourlong, heavily structured meeting, which "board members exit the building afterward like rats off a sinking ship," according to the Post-Gazette. Members of the public, who are required to preregister for the meeting, are not allowed to speak, past participants told the newspaper. "UPMC board members should want the views of the people served (or not served) by UPMC. Even card-carrying Highmark members (personas non grata) really, anyone who lives in Pennsylvania are impacted by UPMC," the editors said. In light of a controversial split between UPMC and Pittsburgh-based Highmark, editors from the Post-Gazette said more than ever UPMC and patients need to step up. For the full opinion piece, click here. More articles on leadership: Addressing behavioral health barriers: 3 ideas Nurses union calls for CHS chief's ouster; health system affirms his board support Mayo Clinic Health System to lay off employees in Wisconsin The Sights and Sounds of Freedom By A. Kevin Grantham Joint Base Andrews held their bi-annual AIR & SPACE EXPO over the May 10-12 weekend. This year was somewhat unusual as the show featured aerial demonstration teams from both the U.S. Air Force and Navy, something which hasnt happened since 2007. The Blue Angles took the skies first during Fridays show, illustrating just how much skill it takes to be a Naval Aviator. The Blues have a rich history dating all the way back to when the team first formed in 1946, flying Grumman F6F Hellcats no less. In 1986 the team celebrated their 40th anniversary by unveiling their present platform, the F/A-18 Hornet, which they are currently scheduled to field through the 2021 air show season. The Thunderbirds followed later in the day with an equally impressive performance, thrilling on-lookers with their consummate aerial prowess. The team formed initially as the 3600th Air Demonstration Unit at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Arizona during May, 1953. However, it wasnt long before they adopted the name Thunderbirds, influenced by the Native American culture of the southwest United States. On Saturday the teams switched their performance order, and both teams dazzled the spectators with high-speed precision flying coupled with thunderous jet engine noise. Other aerial performers included Michael Goulian, Kent Pietsch, Sean Tucker, and Patty Wagstaff. These highly professional pilots performed gravity-defying feats harking back to the barnstorming days of the 1920s. Additionally, the Geico Skytypers, flying 70-year-old North American SNJ-2 trainers, put on a precision aerial demonstration similar to the military aerobatics teams just at a much slower speed. A significant contingent of vintage military aircraft also attended the event. Larry Kellys gleaming North American B-25J Mitchell Panchito (44-30734) flew for the crowd, as well as Jim Beasleys P-51D Mustang Bald Eagle (44-73029). Beasley is a veteran warbird pilot, and his aerial display clearly showed why the Mustang is considered as one of the best fighters to see service in World War II. The Class of 45 air show segment featured Scott Scooter Yoak in P-51D Mustang Quicksilver (45-11439) and Jim Tobul in Vought F4U-4 Corsair Korean War Hero (Bu.97143). Yoak and Jim Tobul sped over the airfield in a joint routine, simulating ground attack maneuvers, highlighted by pyrotechnic explosions. The Commemorative Air Forces Red Tail Squadrons P-51C Tuskegee Airman rounded out the group of warbirds flying in the show. As most readers will known, this particular aircraft is a flying memorial to the often-overlooked history of the Tuskegee Airmen who flew the same type of fighter in World War II. There were plenty of static military fighters, bombers, and transport aircraft to view on the ramp as well. The Department of Defense also sponsored a variety of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) activities for visiting children and their parents. Joint Base Andrews very own 1st Helicopter Squadron (1HS) celebrated an anniversary at the AIR & SPACE EXPO. 1HS provides contingency support in the National Capital Region and is the only unit in the USAF with the training to conduct remote operations with a single pilot with night vision goggles. Fifty years ago, the Bell UH-1H Iroquois (better known as the Huey) entered squadron service, and to recognize this milestone 1HS decided to give some of the working press a helicopter ride over Washington, DC. The path for this flight tracked over nearby Bolling Air Force Base, then up the Potomac River and around the citys monument area; a fitting, once-in-a-lifetime journey to celebrate the longevity of a group of aircraft that has served the 1HS for half century. Joint Base Andrews AIR & SPACE EXPO is a fabulous event, which really has to be experienced to fully appreciated. However, while once an annual event, it has become a biennial affair in recent times. However, a positive way of looking past the long pause until the show returns in 2021 is to realize you only have to wait another 104 weeks before once again you can enjoy THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF FREEDOM. The author would like to thank SSgt Abby Richardson and all of the Public Affairs personnel at Andrews for doing such a good job in helping the working press. I would also like to thank the members of the 1st Helicopter Squadron, with a particular focus on our pilots, Maj. Adam Smith and Capt. Luke Sarro, and a special thank you to SMSgt David Barr who not only handled his flight engineering duties during our flight, but also acted as our guide and trip narrator. The American Medical Association rolled out a digital continuing education portal for physicians and other clinicians, designed to reduce the administrative work associated with earning and reporting continuing medical education credits. The portal, called "AMA Ed Hub," offers CME opportunities, as well as tracking and reporting functions. AMA Ed Hub currently offers activities from JAMA Network, the AMA's STEPs Forward program and the American College of Radiology. The association plans to expand partnerships with other organizations to add to these offerings. The portal also automatically reports CME credits for physicians licensed under the American Board of Internal Medicine or American Board of Pediatrics, as well as any physician licensed in Tennessee or North Carolina. The AMA plans to expand direct reporting as it partners with other medical specialty groups and state medical boards. "Physicians are committed to lifelong learning to continually improve patient care. We also know that physicians are time pressed, so we want to make learning and the process of obtaining credits for that learning as effective and as streamlined as possible," AMA President Barbara McAneny, MD, said in a press release. Find the Ed Hub here. More articles on physicians and integration issues: Viewpoint: Health systems prevent patients from following physicians to new practices Delaware physician accused of trading drugs for sex loses medical license Physicians quit Maine hospital as morale hits 'all-time low' Nurses at Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., have scheduled a one-day strike for May 24 amid contract negotiations, the California Nurses Association announced. The hospital has failed to negotiate in good faith, and hospital management won't work to retain experienced nurses and schedule enough staff to provide optimum patient care, union officials said in a news release. "No one wants to go on strike. We want to be at the bedside taking care of our patients," said Kelli Teteak, RN. "I have worked at Barton for 18 years. This is where I get my care, and this is where my family gets care. But Barton has made it clear they don't want us to have a voice in patient care, and they are determined to bust the union." Barton Memorial Hospital nurses voted to unionize in November 2017. Nurses and hospital management have been in contract talks since March 2018. Both sides have agreed on some issues during negotiations, but they have not hashed out wages and benefits, according to SouthTahoeNOW.com. Nurses threatened to strike Feb. 15, but the strike notice was withdrawn, and negotiations continued. Mindi Befu, Barton Health's director of marketing, public relations and patient experience, told SouthTahoeNOW.com that the hospital has hired replacement workers from an agency to prepare for the May 24 strike. Since a five-day contract is required, she said, current nurses who strike would not be able to return to work until their next scheduled day on or after May 29. "Since the last strike was withdrawn by CNA, we have met six times with the union, including four sessions with a federal mediator," said Ms. Befu. "Proposals were passed by both sides. Previously, we achieved 26 tentative agreements. We have yet to discuss wages and benefits, and are eager to discuss an economic package for our nurses. "Unfortunately, this is delayed when the union asks our nurses to go on strike. Barton will continue to provide exceptional patient care during the strike. We've hired qualified replacement nurses who are specially trained for this type of work and will work alongside Barton staff and physicians." The strike is set to begin at 7 a.m. and end at 6:59 a.m. May 25. More articles on human capital and risk: ER nurses allowed to combine rest breaks, US labor board rules Hospitals and unions: 8 recent conflicts, agreements Kaiser Permanente agrees not to outsource Northern California landscaping The Supreme Court on May 13 affirmed a federal appeals court's ruling that expands the amount of time whistleblowers have to file actions under the False Claims Act. In Cochise Consultancy Inc. v. United States, ex rel. Hunt, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a second statute of limitations that Congress added to the False Claims Act in 1986 applies to whistleblower suits in which the federal government declines to intervene. In affirming the decision, the Supreme Court extended the amount of time whistleblowers have to file false claims actions by up to four years, according to The National Law Review. Prior to the Supreme Court's ruling, there was a consensus among the courts that the six-year limitation period to bring a false claims action could be extended by up to a total of 10 years if the Department of Justice brought the action and late discovery of the violation prevented compliance with the six-year rule. However, it was unclear whether the extension was available to whistleblowers who brought false claims suits without involvement by the Justice Department. In light of the Supreme Court's ruling, companies, including those in the healthcare industry, are vulnerable to False Claims Act cases brought by whistleblowers for up to 10 years post-violation, according to The National Law Review. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: 11 latest healthcare industry lawsuits, settlements Federal agencies launch investigation into secret recordings at California hospital Florida physician charged with manslaughter after patient dies of overdose In a first for the nation, Maryland will allow its residents to sign up for health insurance when they file their taxes in 2020, according to American University Radio station WAMU 88.5. Under the measure, signed into law May 13 by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, Maryland residents can check a box on their tax forms that will ask, "Are you insured now?" If residents check no and are eligible for Medicaid, residents will be automatically enrolled in the program unless they object. Maryland predicts about 360,000 people in the state are uninsured, and possibly half of those residents may qualify for Medicaid or subsidized health insurance. Maryland officials predict the state's uninsured rate could drop from 6.1 percent to 4.1 percent after the 2020 tax season because of the measure, according to WAMU 88.5. Residents who don't have health insurance when they file their taxes may face a $695 penalty, according to the report. More articles on payers: Judge steps down from UnitedHealth case over 'immoral' denial of cancer treatment House Democrats unveil Medicare expansion plan: 8 things to know Humana posts $566M profit in Q1 Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro accused Purdue Pharma of fueling the opioid epidemic in the state in a lawsuit filed May 14, according to The Hill. In the lawsuit, Mr. Shapiro claims the drugmaker misled physicians in the state about its drug by downplaying its addiction risk and saying there was no maximum dose. Additionally, the suit said the drugmaker made more sales visits in Pennsylvania than any other state except California. "Simply stated, Purdue [Pharma] took advantage of addiction to make money," the lawsuit reads, according to the report. Purdue Pharma faces similar accusations in lawsuits filed by more than three dozen states and 1,600 U.S. cities. A rally in Monsey, N.Y., drew hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who attended a "vaccine symposium" featuring leaders of the anti-vaccination movement, according to The New York Times. The May 13 event's speakers included Rabbi Hillel Handler and pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky, MD. Rabbi Handler spoke of a conspiracy that aimed to use the measles outbreak in the Jewish community as a way to deflect attention from the diseases brought by Central American migrants. Dr. Palevsky said that failed "lots" of vaccines given to Jewish communities in New York may be causing a new strain of measles, a claim that has not been substantiated. Public health officials called the rally and symposium an attempt to spread the anti-vaccine message and stoke fear in parents. In a joint statement about the rally, Rockland County Executive Ed Day and Rabbi Chaim Schabez said: "This type of propaganda endangers the health and safety of children within our community and around the world and must be denounced in the strongest language possible." The CDC reported that as of May 10, there had been 839 measles cases in the United States, of which 723 are in New York. Rockland County has reported 225 of those cases. State and local officials have attempted to stem the rise in cases using several tactics, including ordering mandatory vaccinations for residents in four ZIP codes. Rockland County officials decided to ban unvaccinated children from enclosed public areas in March, but a New York judge put a hold on the decision. Lubbock-based Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center received a nearly $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase its telemedicine services in rural areas of the state, KVIA, an ABC affiliate, reports. In February, the university launched telemedicine services to provide care for trauma patients in rural areas before the individuals could be transported to a tertiary trauma center at Amarillo-based Northwest Texas Hospital. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Chief Health Informatics Officer Ogechika Alozie, MD, said the grant will help support telemedicine technology on mobile platforms, according to the report. "How we engage in healthcare and how we engage in technology is very mobile," Dr. Alozie told KVIA. "It should be mobile. It should be personal, it should be portable and that is really what we are going to focus on. We are going to work with the USDA and our outlying sites to provide access to our physicians and our clinicians in a way that suits them best." Businesses in towns like Larne can expect to pay three times more than counterparts in London, says research Small businesses in Northern Ireland are operating at a massive disadvantage to their counterparts in Britain, according to new research. A report produced by two Larne businessmen has claimed that up to 130m has flowed into the Northern Ireland block grant under the Barnett formula in the past three years on the back of additional funding for small businesses across the water. But the research from Tom and Paul McMullan found that just 9m appears to have been allocated here for supporting small businesses. Tom McMullan is a former senior civil servant turned consultant, while Paul McMullan runs the East Antrim Electrical retail business in the centre of Larne. They have called for a Northern Ireland Select Committee to launch an inquiry into the impact of the non-domestic rates burden on the small business sector here. Last week the Department of Finance (DoF) announced a fresh review of business rates in Northern Ireland. It followed sustained lobbying from within the retail and hospitality sectors. Tom McMullan believes the review should be overseen by an independent board. A former director of the C2K IT programme for schools, he has worked in consultancy roles for major international firms. He also owns commercial property in the east Antrim town. He said the research is self-funded. Mr McMullan said the report has documented that Northern Ireland is by far the most expensive region in the UK for business rates. "We have set out how poorly the rates relief scheme available to small businesses in Northern Ireland compares with those available elsewhere in the UK. We have identified how a small business operating out of premises with a similar NAV (net annual value) can expect to pay up to three times more if they operate, for example, in Larne as compared to operating in London," he said. "We have calculated how some 130 businesses operating in a typical Northern Ireland high street such as Larne Main Street will, over a three-year period, expect to pay 1.25m more in rates than would be the case if they were in Scotland." Announcing the rates review, DoF permanent secretary Sue Gray said: "In an environment where we are working without ministers, there are limitations to what we can do by way of policy change. But we need to be ready with updated advice for incoming ministers for their return to office. This fundamental review is therefore a critical part of this process." Oxford, Conn. May 15th, 2019 Signature Flight Support, the worlds largest network of Fixed Base Operations (FBOs), announced that it will partner with the D-Day Squadron in its journey to return original C-47 and DC-3 aircraft to the skies they once flew in defense of freedom. Over 130 US FBOs in Signature Flight Supports North American network are preferred destinations for Squadron aircraft as they travel to Oxford, Connecticut (KOXC) and Goose Bay Airport (CYYR) to begin their historic mission. Signatures comprehensive handling will continue as the Squadron stops at domestic and international locations as the aircraft travel to Europe for the 75th anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy and return, with services continuing at other Squadron stops into the Fall of 2019. After departure, the aircraft will cross the North Atlantic to arrive in Duxford Airfield in the U.K., where the D-Day Squadron will join with its European counterparts, Daks over Normandy, to participate in multiple events on June 2nd-5th, 2019. The combined fleet of historic aircraft will then cross the English Channel on June 5th, fly over Normandy, France, and participate in multiple events at Caen-Carpiquet Airport from June 5th-9th, 2019. Signature is honored to provide fueling and handling support for the fleet of aircraft of the D-Day Squadron, noted Shawn Hall, Chief Commercial Officer for Signature Flight Support. The Squadrons mission to return C-47s to the skies over Normandy commemorates the endearing sacrifices made by the armed forces during WWII, and we are proud to walk in the footsteps of Allied ground crews from 1944. Whats driving this whole effort is the desire to honor those very people that made such an incredible sacrifice so many years ago, declared Lyndse Costabile, Corporate and Donor Relations, for the D-Day Squadron. But that desire needs to be backed by preparation, planning and the core basics such as fuel and ground support, which is why the services Signature is providing are so critical to the success of our mission. The Squadron reports that Signature Flight Supports staff have left an impression on their flight crews. As we crossed the U.S. in our DC-3, our first stop was St. Louis, where Signature provided great service, a top up on fuel, as well as transportation to and from our hotel, explained Captain Joe Fisher of the DC-3 Flabob Express. Our next stop was Syracuse NY, where we received the same expert line service, and Signature Flight Support was our sponsor at the 80th anniversary of AOPA, where we found the staff and hospitality to be outstanding. Thats why the crew and passengers of the Flabob Express would like to send our gratitude for the great support we received from Signature Fixed Base Operations. The start of the final push to Normandy is just days away. Follow the latest news and events from Oxford Connecticut from May 13th to May 19th 2019, as the D-Day Squadron starts the final drive to Normandy. About the D-Day Squadron The D-Day Squadron is the part of the Tunison Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. In June 2019, the D-Day Squadron will lead an American fleet of historic, restored C-47 World War II military aircraft in Daks Over Normandy, a flyover of more than 30 international aircraft to drop more than 200 paratroopers over the original 1944 drop zones in Normandy commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The event will honor the citizen soldiers of the War, whose bravery led the Allies to the liberation of France, and then to an end of the devastating War in Europe. The Squadrons education program takes the compelling story of the citizen soldier to audiences at airshows and events off the flight line to honor these brave Americans and ensure their memory and significance is appreciated for generations to come. The groups efforts are funded through the generous tax-deductible contribution of their supporters. Learn more at DDaySquadron.org. About Signature Flight Support Signature Flight Support, including Signature TECHNICAirTM and EPIC Fuels, provides premium, full service flight and home base support including refueling, ground handling and MRO services through the worlds largest fixed base operation (FBO) network for B&GA users with around 200 locations covering key destinations in North America, Europe, South America, Caribbean, Africa and Asia. EPIC Fuels is a provider of aviation fuels, supplies and services. New companies in Northern Ireland are being urged to enter InterTradeIreland's 280,000 (243,000) seedcorn investor readiness competition. Businesses in the seed, start-up and early stages of business development, who are seeking to ramp up their funding, could be in with a chance to win a share of a 280,000 (243,000) cash prize fund. The overall winner will take the 100,000 (87,000) prize. The competition mirrors the challenging real-life investment process. Participants are advised on how to develop their business plan, present business propositions, improve their 'investor readiness', benefit from exposure with venture capitalists, angel and other investors and get the chance to increase the profile of their business. An information session will take place on Friday May 17 (12-1pm) in Propel at Ormeau Baths, Belfast. Shane O'Hanlon, funding for growth manager at InterTradeIreland, said: "Seed finance can be notoriously hard to attract, and this competition is an opportunity for ambitious start-ups to get their new ideas off the ground. "We would encourage young Northern Ireland companies that meet the criteria to submit their entries before the closing date of 1pm on Friday, May 31, 2019 and take advantage of this fantastic opportunity." Two companies in Northern Ireland are guaranteed to take away 20,000 (17,400) each as regional winners before going on to compete in the all-island final and a chance to win the overall title or category title with cash prizes of 100,000 and 50,000 respectively. Northern Ireland's unemployment rate has hit a record low of 2.9%, but a leading economist has warned that it "flatters" the situation here. The figures for the first three months of 2019 show the unemployment rate dropped by 0.9 percentage points in the last quarter, taking the rate here well below the UK average of 3.8% during February, and even further below the Republic's rate of 5.4%. The percentage of people in work also hit an all-time high of 71.3%. Northern Ireland's unemployment rate is now below that of the United States (3.6%) and Germany (3.2%). But Ulster Bank chief economist Richard Ramsey said that while it's arguably one of the most important measures for an economy, the headline unemployment rate "significantly flatters" the performance of the local labour market. He said: "An outsider looking at a headline unemployment rate of 2.9% would be forgiven for thinking that Northern Ireland was in some sort of labour market nirvana. "Clearly, the reality is somewhat different." The local economic inactivity rate did fall to 26.5% between January and March, one of the lowest rates on record. But it's still the highest among the UK regions. "That means over one-quarter of the local working age population are neither in work or looking for work," said the economist, who added that the 71.3% employment rate was the second lowest of all UK regions. Next month's Quarterly Employment Survey, which measures the actual number of jobs in the economy, is expected to provide a more accurate picture of the number of jobs being created in the Northern Ireland economy. "Next month's release is expected to show a fresh record high in the number of employee jobs," said Mr Ramsey. "However, given the economic headwinds facing the local economy, employment is expected to fall back from these record highs in the second half of 2019. "Notwithstanding the great strides Northern Ireland's labour market has made over the last decade, particularly in relation to employment growth, significant challenges remain. "Alongside tackling economic inactivity, productivity remains a long-standing weakness within the economy. "In terms of the latter, Northern Ireland continues to lag well behind the UK, which in turn lags behind its key international competitors. "If the Northern Ireland economy managed to secure superior productivity and employment rate performance that would be much more significant, economically speaking, than having a headline grabbing low unemployment rate." The Ulster Farmers' Union has joined with its counterparts in Britain to call on the MEPs returned in next week's European elections to guarantee that a no-deal Brexit is avoided The Ulster Farmers' Union has joined with its counterparts in Britain to call on the MEPs returned in next week's European elections to guarantee that a no-deal Brexit is avoided. The farming unions have launched a new document ahead of today's start of the Balmoral Show, identifying areas where they say that action is needed "to help deliver a profitable, productive and progressive farming sector". Yesterday's joint statement from the farming bodies put Brexit alongside five other issues - trade and standards, climate change, environment, healthy plants and animals and science and innovation. "However long UK MEPs are in post, it is important they understand and engage with UK farmers," said the presidents. "Our industry provides the quality ingredients for our safe, traceable and affordable supply of food and underpins the UK food and drink sector, worth 122bn. "Whatever the outcome of Brexit we need a policy environment that allows farming businesses to continue to deliver benefits for the public such as high quality, affordable food and protection for our wildlife and countryside. "These ambitions are not only hugely relevant for the UK but also across the EU and they start with ensuring that developments on Brexit prioritise the needs of farm businesses and the long-term prosperity of the agri-food sector. "We must maintain our positive relationship with our European neighbours and work in partnership with them to develop an enabling regulatory regime that allows our sector to thrive." The presidents said that they want MEPs to work to ensure that a no-deal is avoided and that there is not another "cliff edge scenario". They also urge leaders to engage with EU colleagues to limit any negative effects of Brexit on UK and EU farmers and to meet with UK farmers on a regular basis to understand their specific concerns and act with those concerns in mind. At the Ulster Farmers' Union annual dinner last month, president Ivor Ferguson warned that a no-deal Brexit would be "economically disastrous" for the industry. He said that it was "unbelievable" that the situation of farmers in Northern Ireland, the Republic and Britain meant that they were still operating without certainty on a future trading relationship". "This is having real world business consequences right now as well as causing unnecessary stress and huge anxiety for farmers who simply don't know what trading conditions they will be operating under in the future," added the UFU president. The theme of this year's Foster Care Fortnight is Change a Future - and one south Down couple have witnessed at first hand the incredibly positive influence foster carers can have on the lives of young people living in care. Garry and Loretta Harper began their journey when they adopted their youngest child in 2011 and, having seen just how much of a stable and positive influence her foster carer had on her, a seed was sown. "We felt that if we could do half as good a job as our youngest child's foster carer did then we would be okay," says Garry. Two years ago the Harpers became foster carers themselves and in that time they have provided a home for 14 young people through long term, short term, emergency and respite fostering. Garry enjoys his mentoring role in supporting teenagers in the fostering community. He is passionate about providing activities that promote physical and mental wellbeing. And the results have been very positive. "Fostering was something we had spoken about maybe 15 years ago, but with children of our own we wanted to wait until our youngest was a bit older," he says. Three of the Harpers' children, Josh (30), Ciaran (26) and Oisin (21), have now flown the nest. Together with their adopted sibling they were very much a part of the family conversation on whether their parents should become foster carers and have enjoyed extending their family. "The boys are very supportive, as is our daughter, which is great," says Loretta. "Fostering is now a big part of our daughter's life and she thrives on the opportunity to include children in our family. We felt this is something we could do, we felt we could provide that stable base for these young people. "I remember when we became approved foster carers we received a call the next Friday afternoon asking if we could care for an 18-month-old baby. We haven't looked back since." Garry recalls the mad panic in preparing the house for the arrival of another baby. Expand Expand Previous Next Close Taking care: Loretta and Garry Harper with one of their children The couple in their Co Down home / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taking care: Loretta and Garry Harper with one of their children "Our children had grown up so it was a case of dashing down to Tesco to buy bottles, nappies, a high chair and all the other equipment needed for a baby," he recalls. (Foster carers are reimbursed by the Southern Trust for this kind of expenditure). "It's like riding a bike and all those parenting skills we had came flooding back. Loretta and I were so proud to see that little baby reach her milestones by walking, talking and eventually going to pre-school." Foster Care Fortnight, which began on Monday and runs until May 26, is the UK's biggest foster care awareness-raising campaign, delivered by leading fostering charity, the Fostering Network. Established for almost 20 years, the campaign showcases the commitment, passion and dedication of foster carers. It also supports fostering services to highlight the need for more foster carers. This year's theme for Foster Care Fortnight is #changeafuture which is something the Harpers have been doing for every child who has come into their home. "We believe that foster care changes futures - the futures of fostered children and young people and the futures of the foster families who care for them," says a Fostering Network spokesperson. "Have you ever had a moment in your life which you can look back on and see that your future changed at that time? "Perhaps it was a teacher telling you that you were really good at something that is now your career? Or a relationship which led you to move? Or a trip overseas which gave you a different outlook on life? What was your moment? "Fostering has the potential to be life-changing for fostered children and young people - it can #changeafuture. "This Foster Care Fortnight we want you to know that fostering is about changing futures. And, if you think you have the relevant skills and experience, we're calling on you to consider becoming a foster carer." It is a timely message as foster carers are desperately needed at a period of unprecedented pressure on Northern Ireland's care system. There are more than 3,000 children in care, with around 16 young people newly admitted each week in the 2017-18 year. The Southern Trust area is experiencing significant demand for foster carers. "Finding a bigger range of carers who can look after children with different needs is a priority," says Colm McCafferty, assistant director of corporate parenting with the Southern Trust. "There has never been a higher number of looked after children in Northern Ireland," he says. "There's unprecedented pressures on the foster care system to meet the needs of children coming in." As of March 2018, there were 3,109 children in care - a figure which increased by almost a quarter since 2011, according to the Department of Health. The Southern Trust had the largest proportion of admissions across all of Northern Ireland's five health trusts in the 2017-18 year. Mr McCafferty, who has been a social worker for 25 years, said that while the Trust is successful in placing around one in three children with their extended family, the rest need other placements. He said foster carers who can care for siblings, look after young people with disabilities, and carers from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are particularly welcome. "Every child is unique, every foster carer is unique. Every foster carer has his or her own priorities, whether it's to their own family or, in many circumstances, to the foster children they're already committed to," Mr McCafferty says. "Our priority as a Trust is to have a broader pool of carers to enable us to get that match right from the outset for the child and foster family. "The vast majority of those children (in care in the Southern Trust) are in very settled, long-term foster placements and become very, very ingrained into that family. It's a two-way relationship. I certainly know foster carers who see the benefits and see a child making progress. It's exceptionally rewarding." For anyone wrestling with the idea of becoming a foster carer but not sure if they are cut out for it, Loretta has this simple message. "Pick up the phone and speak to the Family Placement Team at the Southern Trust - nothing ventured, nothing gained," she says. "If you can show love for these children, if you can show understanding to these children, if you can show empathy for them and be open-minded and accepting of any differences then you need to pick up the phone and get involved. "People often say, 'I couldn't foster as I would get too attached'. And yes, it is tough, but you just have to get over yourself. "It was heartbreaking for Garry and me when that little one left our home, but she went to live with a loving grandmother who has encouraged us to remain a part of her life. She has been able to form healthy attachments and we are incredibly happy about that. There can be tough times but I can assure you the good times far outweigh the bad. "And it is incredible just how many amazing people you meet through fostering - it has been very rewarding for us and I am delighted to say that two of my sisters now share in the challenges and joy of fostering." Loretta says the support shown to her and Garry from the Southern Trust and from the Fostering Network has been invaluable. "We certainly feel supported in our fostering," she says. "Our link worker from the Trust is fantastic and we get great support from the Fostering Network - there is always someone on hand with help and support. The ongoing education courses provided are invaluable in helping foster carers understand the needs of children in their care." If you are interested in becoming a foster carer or want to find out more about fostering then get in touch with the Southern Trust's Family Placement Team on tel: 3756 0750 or email: fosteringandadoption@southerntrust.hscni.net. A fostering information evening in Armagh City Hotel is being held next Tuesday (May 21), 7pm-9pm. Find out more about the Fostering Network at www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk Concern is growing that antibiotic misuse is leading to resistant bacteria A medical expert has warned that antibiotic resistance could become a danger to public health in Northern Ireland. Dr Anne Loughrey, a consultant medical microbiologist at the Belfast Trust, said steps must be taken to address the issue to ensure the future of lifesaving operations such as transplant surgery. Read More "It is a current problem and it is an increasing problem," she said. "Do we have the potential to reach a pre-antibiotic era? We're not there yet and we're trying very hard not to be there. "The time isn't here yet, but the potential is there and antibiotic resistance is a significant risk to public health." Dr Loughrey, who has specialised in microbiology for the majority of her 35-year medical career, said antibiotic resistance is increasingly becoming a problem for doctors trying to treat patients. "We are trying to get the right antibiotic, at the right time, at the right duration," she said. But as a growing number of bugs become resistant to antibiotics, treatment options are reduced, which in turn impacts on patient care. She explained: "The choice of antibiotic to use is reduced and you may have to use an intravenous drug instead of oral. This means you are more likely to have to stay in hospital and stay longer in hospital, you may have more side-effects because you haven't been able to choose your first choice of antibiotic." A GP based in west Belfast has also warned of the dangers of the inappropriate use of antibiotics and said family doctors are faced with patients needlessly demanding such medication on a daily basis. Dr Michael McKenna said: "You have patients coming in with self-limiting illnesses that don't need an antibiotic and they are of the opinion that their GP should prescribe one. "It is quite a significant issue within general practice." The doctors were speaking out ahead of the publication of a five-year strategy to halt the increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria. Antibiotics have become a crucial part of healthcare since they were first discovered in 1928. Since then they have been used to save millions of lives from infection. However, health professionals have warned that an over-reliance on the drugs is making them less effective against a growing number of bugs. The UK Government has added a stalled compensation scheme for abuse victims to the agenda of Stormonts power-sharing talks. Northern Ireland Secretary of State Karen Bradley wrote to victims groups on Tuesday night to inform them political parties would be invited to consider the issue as part of negotiations to restore devolved institutions. A redress scheme, in which victims would have been paid between 7,500 and 100,000, was one of the recommendations of Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI). Expand Close Karen Bradleys letter to victims groups (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Karen Bradleys letter to victims groups (PA) Expand Close Karen Bradleys letter to victims groups (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Karen Bradleys letter to victims groups (PA) Its proposals have never been implemented due to the Stormont impasse and Mrs Bradley has been under mounting pressure to introduce the scheme via Westminster. She has now written to the head of the Northern Ireland civil service David Sterling asking him to include the redress scheme on the agenda of one of several cross-party working groups set up as part of the latest talks process. In her letter to victims, Mrs Bradley said: All of the main Northern Ireland political parties have expressed to me their desire to see the issues to redress taken forward. The current talks are the best opportunity for these complex issues such as the total redress payment to be discussed by local politicians. I have therefore written to David Sterling today to ask that he invite the parties to consider these issues under the Programme for Government strand of the talks and identify where there is consensus on the outstanding issues. I believe this is the quickest possible way to bring this issue to resolution. I have therefore made clear to Mr Sterling that it is vital that we make progress on these HIAI issues along with the other issues to be discussed, in line with the talks framework of the end of May. Mr Sterling and fellow civil servants have drawn up legislation required to set up the redress scheme. A public consultation exercise has been conducted but the draft legislation can only be enacted with ministerial sign-off. With no sign of an imminent return to power-sharing, Mrs Bradley has faced intensified calls to introduce the scheme at Westminster. In her letter, Mrs Bradley said if no consensus was reached she would consider next steps. She added: Be assured that this matter is of great importance to me and I will continue to ensure that progress is made without unnecessary delay. If Karen Bradley thinks for one minute that she is going to use victims as a pawn or some form of facilitator to get Sinn Fein and the DUP to get some form of agreement then she is barking up the wrong treeMarty Adams Representatives of the Survivors Together campaign group, who along with DUP MLA Edwin Poots met Mr Sterling at Stormont on Tuesday, warned victims could not be used as pawns by the Government. Spokesman Marty Adams expressed concern the issue was being used as a way to force the parties to come to an overall agreement. If Karen Bradley thinks for one minute that she is going to use victims as a pawn or some form of facilitator to get Sinn Fein and the DUP to get some form of agreement then she is barking up the wrong tree, he said. Mr Adams said if that was the Secretary of States intent she should resign. A Co Antrim man jailed for an attack on another man who was discovered naked and battered in a taped-up wheelie bin five years ago has died suddenly in Spain. Teri Lau (32), from Dunclug Park in Ballymena, was found dead in the popular seaside resort of Benidorm on Sunday. In September 2013, Lau was part of a trio involved in trapping a naked party-goer in a taped up wheelie bin left in a wooded area of Ballymena. Lau was handed a three and a half year sentence at Belfast Crown Court in 2015 following the attack on Adam Robinson. Mr Robinson, who was 21 at the time, was found battered and naked in the bin by a man walking his dog in Sentry Hill. He was only discovered when the dog sniffed out the bin, covered with parcel tape, in dense undergrowth. Two other people were also jailed for their part in the same attack carried out after a "drink and drugs-fuelled party" in Ballymena which lasted for days. Lau served half his sentence in prison before being released on licence. A family notice said he was the "much loved son of Bernadine and Kan Tong and loving brother of Shannon, Toni and Barry". Lau's body is expected to be flown back from Spain ahead of his funeral in Ballymena, but details have yet to be released. A mother-of-eight from west Belfast could have survived being shot in the face if she had been given urgent medical attention, an inquest has been told. (stock photo) A mother-of-eight from west Belfast could have survived being shot in the face if she had been given urgent medical attention, an inquest has been told. The inquest at Belfast Coroner's Court is examining the deaths of 10 civilians across three days in August 1971 in Ballymurphy. Dr Benjamin Swift presented a report by current pathologists acting for the coroner, Ministry of Defence, and relatives of four people who were shot dead on the first day of internment. In it they agreed that Joan Connolly was shot up to three times before she bled to death in a field opposite Henry Taggart Army base on August 9, 1971. "The initial period of survival is likely to be measured in tens of minutes," Dr Swift said. The experts agreed with an original postmortem carried out just two days after she was struck by the high velocity bullets. One caused "a gaping ragged wound" to the left side of her face and another entered her right thigh severing a major artery. A third wound on her hand was consistent with being shot. The 1971 report concluded that she died due to the combined effect of severe shock and haemorrhaging. However, the inquest was told she would have remained conscious. When asked if eyewitness accounts of Mrs Connolly "calling out for help" for a period of time longer than tens of minutes could be true, Dr Swift said "yes". The witness was then asked if Mrs Connolly could have survived her injuries if she had been given prompt medical treatment. "I believe so, yes," he replied. Dr Swift said Mrs Connolly was possibly shot while "in a head down position" but added that there was nothing to suggest the shots were fired at close range, as he accepted that eyewitness testimony is an important factor in determining her final movements. A legal representative for Mrs Connolly's family questioned how she could have had 23mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood as she was not known to drink. Dr Swift explained this could have been as a result of micro-organisms beginning to fragment as a result of decomposition. He also agreed with an original autopsy report which found that Daniel Teggart (44) was killed after sustaining as many as 14 bullet wounds to his arms, back and right thigh. Dr Swift said it is not possible to say exactly how many bullets struck the father-of-13 but said it could have been over a period of time as he lay in the field being subjected to crossfire. The coroner was told that Noel Phillips (19) sustained non-fatal gunshots to his wrist and buttocks in addition to two strikes on his neck, at least one from a 9mm bullet which could have been fired from a pistol or sub machine-gun. Dr Swift agreed one of the bullets lacerated Mr Phillips' right lung filling the chest cavity with blood and causing rapid death, but said he would have been conscious for several minutes. He said the fatal shot could have been fired from the waste ground area where Mr Phillips was found, but not from a close range of less than one metre. Joseph Murphy (41) died of kidney failure as a result of septicaemia 13 days after being shot on August 9 and after having his right leg amputated. Dr Swift said there was no evidence to support allegations that he was beaten, kicked or struck by a rubber bullet. Belfast City Council has launched an investigation after a little girl was mauled by a dog. Wednesday's Irish News reports the eight-year-old needed 80 stitches both to her head and body after being attacked by a pit-bull type dog. Annie McFadden was pinned to the ground and attacked and, after she was able to free herself, was set upon once again. Doctors told the family one injury was just 2cms from piercing the girl's heart. She is to meet with doctors at the end of the week for possible nerve damage to her shoulder. I feel disgusted that the dog was off the lead, especially a dog like that, with kids playing, grandmother Anne-Marie ODwyer said. She said her granddaughter has suffered nightmares since the attack. She just keeps saying Why did the dog jump me?' She just doesnt understand. She didnt go near the dog. The dog went to her. She could be dead, without a doubt." The incident happened in the Cliftonville Road area near to Girdwood Community Hub on Sunday evening at around 6pm. Police said the incident was reported to them and the matter passed to the council's dog warden for investigation. Belfast City Council confirmed it was investigating. Facebook has banned Britain First leader Paul Golding from its site. Far right group Britain First has ended a legal attempt to have one of its pages reinstated on Facebook. Injunction proceedings were issued against the social media giant at the High Court in Belfast. Lawyers representing Britain First had sought an order compelling Facebook to restore the page 'Britain First Northern Ireland' to its platform. But the court was told on Wednesday the application was no longer continuing, with judgment entered for the defendant. Britain First brought the action amid claims of political discrimination. Facebook first removed pages linked to the grouping and its leaders in March last year. The decision was made for posting material deemed to have broken community standards. Last month the company imposed a ban on a number of far-right organisations and individuals it said "spread hate". Among those on the prohibited list were Britain First, its leader Paul Golding and former deputy leader Jayda Fransen. A disgraced councillor twice convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl has escaped going to jail after a judge suspended his prison sentence. Imposing a four month jail sentence on 73-year-old Brian Duffin, but suspending it for three years, Judge Melody McReynolds told the pensioner his actions towards his teenage victim had been "reprehensible, belittling, humiliating and disrespectful". Judge McReynolds praised the victim as a "very brave young woman who stood up to you practically and literally" during and after the incident on June 16, 2016. Duffin, a father and grandfather from the Cargin Road in Toomebridge, was first convicted of sexual assault in June last year following a short contest at Antrim Magistrates Court and was handed a four month prison sentence. He appealed that decision and sentence but at the end of another hearing last November, when the victim had to testify against him for the second time, Duffin was again convicted of sexual assault, this time by County Court Judge McReynolds. The court heard that Duffin had "stuck his tongue" into the mouth of the 17-year-old girl, had one hand on her breast and the other on her inner thigh during the sexual assault on June 16, 2016. The assault happened when she began to get upset talking about her ill grandfather, and Duffin put his arm around her and asked her for a kiss. During her sentencing remarks yesterday, Judge McReynolds acknowledged that Duffin's conviction had caused "massive reputational damage" given his clear record and "many years of public service" as a councillor. "Despite the widespread publicity in the case no one else has come forward to make any further allegations," said the judge. She told Duffin, who sat in the dock with his head bowed throughout the 20 minute hearing, it was her view the circumstances of the case and his background were such to "justify suspension" of the prison sentence including his "maturity and unblemished character". The former SDLP councillor, who became an independent representative on Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council in February 2018, was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for the next seven years. An MI5 agent has told a Belfast court how security services were able to secretly record and film three men allegedly discussing a failed attempt to murder police. However, even before he was sworn in at the Crown Court, counsel for the three accused said they intended to challenge the audio evidence allegedly obtained. Colin Francis Duffy (51), Henry Fitzsimons (50) and Alex McCrory (57) all deny preparing and directing terrorism and IRA membership. Fitzsimons and McCrory also deny attempting to murder police and possession of two assault rifles and ammunition. Counsel told Diplock trial judge Mr Justice O'Hara that they would be seeking to exclude the three audio exhibits "at the core of the prosecution case". The covert audio recordings captured in Lurgan's Demesne Park were made in December 2013 under the codename 'Contraction', the court heard. A video of the scene, codenamed 'Succinctness', was also made, as was a second video at the entrance of the Forest Glade area, designated 'Idealistic'. Mr Justice O'Hara was told the defence had put the prosecution "on notice" in relation to the integrity of the audio recordings, as there were allegedly question marks surrounding their provenance and handling before they reached experts for examination. A prosecution lawyer revealed that a separate undercover operation was also carried out in Santa Ponza with the assistance of Spanish authorities. However, after giving evidence screened from the main body of the court by a blue curtain and guarded by a plain-clothed policeman, the MI5 technical officer with the personal identification number (PIN) 9281, refused to give any details about the workings of the various audio and, in particular, video devices. Time and again 9281 told counsel: "I am not sure I can answer that on national security grounds." At one stage counsel put it to the officer: "If I asked you any question on the functionality or capability of any of these devices, will the answer be the same?". "Yes, My Lord," came the reply, before telling the court after further questions: "My Lord, I can say that I can't answer that on the grounds of national security." Regarding the audio devices deployed in Demesne Park, he said if they were capable of being formatted, they would have been formatted, and if they required formating before deployment, they would have been. Questioned about his statement of evidence concerning the deployment and retrieval of the various devices, he accepted that "each statement was prepared by someone else and I adopted it as mine". However, there appeared to be differences in what he said about what had occurred during the various operations on the ground and statements on record. In one it was recorded that he had installed devices and that maintenance was carried out on them, and that in addition a further device was installed. Initially, he said that the reference to "maintenance" meant maintaining the correct protocols for the deployment of the audio devices. When pressed, he appeared to accept that he had carried out maintenance and installed a further device, only later to say that he had a total of 15 devices and all were deployed and later recovered. This was based on the serial numbers given to the various 15 devices, which although redacted, were recorded. The officer said the difference was because of the use of his "terminology ... phraseology" in what was in the various statements, and that the meaning of "maintenance" was the removal of the devices. PIN 9281 said that recordings from the various devices were downloaded to three USB flashdrives, designated Blue, Green and Purple by the defence. However, it later transpired that the Purple USB, which could have been used as a "master", has since disappeared. The court also heard that it was also accepted by both prosecution and defence that two viruses had been found on two separate copies of the Blue USB drive. At least of one the viruses "could have opened the door" for the recordings to be altered. It has also transpired that the computer used to download onto the USB devices had since been "decommissioned". Asked later by Mr Justice O'Hara what would have been wrong with setting out what he had done in a notebook, the officer replied that he "wrote it down on a piece of paper". The trial continues. Stephen McIlwaine Sr and Stephen McIlwaine Jr are jointly charged with four counts of burglary. A father and son are to stand trial accused of jewellery raids on homes across Co Antrim, a judge ordered. Stephen McIlwaine Sr, 46, and Stephen McIlwaine Jr, 20, appeared together at Belfast Magistrates' court jointly charged with four counts of burglary. The pair, both of Shanvis Court in the city, allegedly broke into the properties on dates between September 11 and October 8, 2017. Jewellery was stolen from dwellings at Millbank Road in Templepatrick, Willcroft Meadows in Ballyclare, Carntall Road and Old Manse Road - both in Newtownabbey, according to the charges. They are also accused of taking cash, iPods, a laptop computer, mobile phones, wallets, identity documents, perfume and reading glasses from the houses targeted. Three of the burglaries allegedly occurred on the same day. Both men are further charged with two counts of receiving stolen goods. At a preliminary enquiry hearing they confirmed that the understood the allegations against them, but declined to give evidence or call witnesses at this stage. Defence lawyers did not contest prosecution submissions that both McIlwaines have a case to answer. District Judge Fiona Bagnall then granted an application to have them returned for Crown Court trial on a date to be fixed. She remanded Stephen McIlwaine Sr back into custody, and released Stephen McIlwaine Jr on continuing bail. Hundreds of mourners gathered in Co Londonderry yesterday to bid a fond farewell to "hero" firefighter David Brown. Mr Brown (54) was on a motorbike on the Magherafelt Road in Moneymore on Friday afternoon when he suffered a heart attack. The father-of-three served in the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service for 22 years after leaving his previous role as a corporal in the Royal Marines. His fire service colleagues formed a guard of honour as his remains were carried into Calvary Free Presbyterian Church in Magherafelt yesterday afternoon. Mr Brown's funeral cortege travelled from his home at Fern Close in the town to the church, led by a fire engine. Mr Brown is survived by his wife Geraldine, children Laura, Emma and Andrew, six grandchildren, his mother Wendy and siblings Derek and Michelle. He was predeceased by his father Dermot and brother Stephen. Rev William McCrea, who assisted at the funeral service, said yesterday: "David was a giant of a person, who had a big heart for people. It was a privilege and an honour to have known him since his childhood. "He was a loving husband, great father, devoted son and a tremendous friend who reached out to the whole community. "His friends in the fire service regarded him as someone who they could always depend on. They have recalled that if ever something needed to be done, David was always a willing worker. "David's sudden death has been a huge shock and he will be much missed by so many people. Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The funeral of firefighter David Brown at Calvary Free Presbyterian Church, Magherafelt Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of firefighter David Brown at Calvary Free Presbyterian Church, Magherafelt Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of firefighter David Brown at Calvary Free Presbyterian Church, Magherafelt Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph David Brown / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The funeral of firefighter David Brown at Calvary Free Presbyterian Church, Magherafelt "In particular his mother, Wendy, has faced a lot of heartache having now lost a second son after her husband died last year, but God has given her tremendous grace," Rev McCrea added. Mr Brown was laid to rest afterwards in Polepatrick Cemetery, Magherafelt. Vigils were held for Ian Ogle after his murder. A man charged with murdering Belfast community worker Ian Ogle could not be found for six weeks after the killing, a court heard. Details of police attempts to locate 40-year-old Mark Sewell emerged as he was refused bail. Mr Ogle, 45, was beaten and stabbed 11 times by up to five men shortly after praying with a pastor near his Cluan Place home in the east of the city on January 27. Police have linked the killing to a long-running feud between the victim's family and others in the area. Sewell, of Aigburth Park in Belfast, is the third man to be charged with the murder. Opposing his bid to be released from custody, police set out details of his alleged connection to the attack. A detective told Belfast Magistrates' Court that Sewell had been identified on CCTV. It was claimed, however, that when police subsequently went to try to question him, he "could not be found for six weeks". Sewell's legal representatives insisted there was no evidence he had left Northern Ireland, adding that detectives accepted this. A defence lawyer referred to tensions in east Belfast and emphasised how his client later handed himself in to police for questioning. The court also heard the accused will be "robustly protesting his innocence". But despite being told Sewell was willing to abide by a curfew and wear an electronic tag, District Judge George Conner denied bail. Mr Conner cited concerns over his alleged "disappearance" and potential interference with witnesses. Sewell, who can appeal the ruling to the High Court, was remanded in custody to appear again by video-link later this month. Members of an international body backed the need for an Irish language commissioner for Northern Ireland. Eleven language commissioners from Canada, Spain, Wales, Ireland, Kosovo and Belgium have signed a letter of support for the role to be created. The letter was sent to Irish language organisation Conradh na Gaeilge. The signatories are from the International Association of Language Commissioners, an umbrella group for language commissioners in a number of countries. The principal role of the commissioner would be to promote and facilitate use of the language. They would also police the standards required of public sector bodies in delivering services in Irish. Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir said the position would be "vital" in protecting language rights and help facilitate its use. Irish language speakers are entitled to the same language rights as enjoyed by citizens who live their daily lives through the medium of English," he said. There needs to be Irish language rights and legal protections in the north, just as there is elsewhere on these islands. The British Government has an onerous obligation to promote the Irish language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages." Expand Close A protest at Stormont in February last year in favour of an Irish Language Act / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A protest at Stormont in February last year in favour of an Irish Language Act The call for an Irish language legislation to be enacted in Northern Ireland has been a major sticking point during power-sharing talks, with both main unionist parties opposing an Irish Language Act being introduced. TUV leader Jim Allister told the Belfast Telegraph he opposed an Irish language commissioner for Northern Ireland and that Irish language legislation would result in the alienation of the unionist community. It should come as no surprise that quangos should support the creation of another quango," he said. "They are hardly going to say my post is pointless and the industry - funded entirely out of the public purse - should not exist." Mr Allister said under proposals produced by Sinn Fein in 2015, an Irish language commissioner would force public bodies to promote the language and make it a criminal offence for refusing or failing to co-operate with the work of the Irish language commissioner. We have seen from proposals floated by Sinn Fein that Irish language legislation would result in discrimination against non-Irish speakers when it comes to employment, particularly in the legal profession and the civil service and huge cost in providing a fully bilingual public service with endless and needless expenditure on translation in courts, councils and Assembly," the North Antrim MLA said. He added: "[Sinn Fein] seek to make those who dont see themselves as Irish feel alienated in their own land. Thats why many people from a unionist/Protestant background left the Irish Republic after de Valera introduced the aggressive promotion of Irish in the 1930s." A man killed in a Co Antrim road crash has been named as 22-year-old Calvin Dripps. Mr Dripps was originally from the Magherafelt area. The one vehicle crash happened on the Roguery Road, Toomebridge at around 9.30pm on Tuesday. Inspector McCarron said: It was reported that a blue Seat Leon car was involved in the incident. Enquiries are continuing and we would appeal to anyone who witnessed the incident or who may have dash-cam footage available to contact police on 101, quoting reference number 1462 14/5/19. The road has been reopened to traffic. Sinn Fein MLA Declan Kearney expressed his condolences to Mr Dripps' family and friends. I am deeply saddened to hear that another young life has been lost in a tragic traffic accident on the Roguery Road, just outside Toome last night," he said. This is such heart-breaking news for the young mans family and friends. It is also a sad reminder of the need for greater awareness of, and attention to rural road safety. I want to extend my deepest and heartfelt sympathy to the family and friends of the young man who died as a result of this tragic accident, and I would appeal to anyone who may have been on the Roguery Road last night to assist the police in their inquiries. The mother of a 12-year-old girl killed by the Army in 1976 has died. Majella O'Hare, from the south Armagh village of Whitecross, was on her way to church on 14 August, 1976, when she was shot twice in the back. At the time, Private Michael Williams, of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment, claimed he had fired in response to an IRA sniper attack. He was tried for manslaughter in 1977 but acquitted by Lord Justice Maurice Gibson who accepted there had been a gunman in the area. Majella's mother, Mary, who was in her 90s, passed away yesterday, almost 43 years after her young daughter was killed. A family friend said that in that time, she had remained "heart-broken but always dignified". In August 2010, the Historical Enquiries Team said it supported the findings of the original RUC investigation which had found that Private Williams was not returning fire at a gunman and recommended to prosecutors that he be charged with manslaughter. In March 2011, Mrs O'Hare received an official apology from the Ministry of Defence. It was only the second time an apology had been offered for the Army's behaviour during the Troubles. The letter corrected the Army's account and acknowledged the soldier's courtroom explanation was "unlikely". At the time, Mrs O'Hare's son Michael said while the apology did not "bring closure to the family", it did "help reach an acceptance of what happened to Majella". The man in charge of Northern Ireland's health service has warned the system will slip into irreversible collapse unless it is reformed. Permanent secretary Richard Pengelly was speaking at the launch of a progress report on transform of healthcare in Northern Ireland. He also said transformation would not deal with waiting lists, estimating it would take up to 1billion to deal with them. Mr Pengelly said reform was delivering "real change" but had to continue in order to ease pressure. Successive government reports show waiting time targets are being missed with health officials saying reform can only address the issue. This is why health and social care is changing... #Transformationprogressreport#DeliveringTogether pic.twitter.com/PqVmO6NFTU Department of Health (@healthdpt) May 15, 2019 Mr Pengelly said: We are clearly living through a defining era in health and social care. Todays report charts significant progress in the two and half years since the publication of Delivering Together, the 10 year roadmap for transforming the way services are delivered. Without this push for change, the system would now be slipping over the edge into irreversible collapse. The update report on Delivering Together details examples of projects taken forward and supported by transformation funding. As part of the programme, public consultations are being held on reshaping stroke and breast assessment services. Reviews are also underway in other key areas including urgent and emergency care, oncology, neurology, paediatrics, and day surgery. The day surgery transformation has already seen prototype elective care centres opened for cataract and varicose veins. The department is planning a public consultation later this year on plans to transfer thousands of other day case routine operations to dedicated elective care centre locations. The specialities involved are general surgery and endoscopy, urology, gynaecology, orthopaedics, ENT, paediatrics and neurology. Another major transformation initiative involves the roll-out of Multi-Disciplinary teams at GP surgeries. This sees GPs working with teams of mental health specialists, physios and other experts to provide local people with the right support. Mr Pengelly paid tribute to the commitment of staff in helping delivering the change. We clearly still have a long way go, with serious challenges right across NI. Too many people are waiting too long for care and staff are under immense and growing pressure," he added. These problems are serious symptoms of an outdated health and social care system that cannot keep up with growing demand. Without reform, they will get worse year on year. The long term answer to hospital waiting lists involves reshaping services to improve capacity and provide more diagnoses and treatments. Likewise, staffing pressures are clearly linked to services being spread too thinly across too many locations. Without reform, staffing challenges will keep growing and bills for agency and locum cover will continue to climb. The man is being questioned by detectives A 49-year-old man arrested as part of an investigation into dissident republican activity has been released He was detained in Belfast by detectives from the PSNI's Terrorism Investigation Unit on Wednesday and taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite for questioning. He was released unconditionally, police said on Thursday. Police are investigating after two incidents of criminal damage which saw paint thrown over houses and vehicles in Londonderry. The incidents happened on Monday evening in the Lincoln Court area of the city. Inspector Spence said: It is believed that black paint was thrown over the front door of a house and also over a Ford Fiesta parked nearby at around 11pm on Monday. Just a short time after, at approximately 11.30pm, black paint was thrown at a second home in the area and also over the windscreen of a Volkswagen Jetta. "We are appealing for anyone who has information about either incident, to contact us on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 257 of 14/05/19." A shop worker was grabbed by the throat and forced to the floor and another threatened with a hammer during a robbery at a store in east Belfast. The incident happened at around 10pm on Tuesday when two men wearing masks and gloves entered the shop on the Gilnahirk Road. One of the men, described as being in his mid-thirties, grabbed a shop worker by the throat and forced him to get down on the ground. When a second member of staff attempted to raise the alarm, she was threatened with a hammer. The suspects fled from the store with a sum of money and a quantity of cigarettes. Detective Sergeant Dave Stewart said: "This must have been a frightening and distressing ordeal for the staff members who, while not physically injured, have been left badly shaken. "The first suspect is described as 6' tall and of medium build. He is reported to have worn a mask over his mouth and eyes, a dark-coloured hoodie with the hood up and dark 'Adidas' bottoms with three stripes down the side. "The second suspect is described as being smaller and of a slimmer build. He was reported as being aged in his mid-forties and wore a dark hooded top with the hood-up. "He wore a mask that had horizontal stripes and dark 'Adidas' track bottoms that had stripes on the outside of the legs from below the knee. "I want to appeal to anyone who has information about this incident, or who saw two males matching the description of the suspects in the area around 10pm to call us on the non emergency number 101, quoting reference number 1508 of 14/05/19." Information can be passed anonymously to independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The heartbroken sister of a young father-of-one who took his own life after being targeted on social media has urged the Government to clamp down on internet trolls. Kenny Gregg, a 27-year-old chef from Dundonald, died by suicide earlier this year, leaving behind his devastated family and his little daughter, Esme, who turned two last month. His younger sister Carolyn, who has now started an online petition to mark Mental Health Week, said she hopes to persuade the government to introduce a law to prevent people being targeted on social media. Carolyn explained how Mr Gregg was caused great distress when he was targeted by an online troll. "He always worried about what other people thought of him so when that happened he couldn't think of any other way out. My mum found him dead in bed," she said. "He had sent me a message just before he died, telling me he loved me, but I didn't see it until after I heard the terrible news." She added: "People shouldn't be able to get away with making somebody feel so low that taking their life is the only outcome. "With suicide being rife in Northern Ireland and the world, I'm taking a stand against it." Carolyn's call comes on the day that the UK's first suicide prevention minister said that social media platforms need to clamp down on internet trolls and harmful content, to stop the "Wild West" nature of the internet. Jackie Doyle-Price said tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter should put more emphasis on removing worrying content like hurtful comments and self-harm videos in order to create a less toxic online environment. And she called for a "cultural change" which would mean online trolling would be deemed as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. Single mum Carolyn (25), who has one son, Carter-Lee (8), and two daughters, Darcy (5) and Niyah (18 months), said her mother Ann and father Kenneth (both 55) are, like her, still struggling with their only son's death. "Kenny went through a bad period from July 2018; he was depressed and put on anti-depressants by the doctor," the waitress supervisor said. "We thought he was getting better but we now know he was struggling... we never saw the pain behind the smile." Carolyn added: "Things were also written about him on social media and he couldn't deal with it. "He had actually emailed some of the negative material to his solicitor the day before he took his own life." Carolyn said her mother found Kenny's lifeless body in his bed in the home he shared with his parents on January 3 after he took an overdose. She said that before his suicide, he had sent her a message on Facebook telling her he loved her, while he had also posted an image of a single heart on his home page on the social media site. "I didn't get his message until the next morning - but when I saw that, and then the heart, I put two and two together and I knew what he'd meant to do," she said. "Before this all happened Kenny was always happy and he made other people happy; he was always smiling." Her petition on change.org attracted over 200 signatures in less than 24 hours and Carolyn said she is hoping to get the 10,000 needed to make a difference. "So many people are quick to judge our health care system but not a lot of people actually know the social media side-effects of things and there should be harsher consequences for trolls," she said. "I would like this petition to get enough signatures to put in front of our government, to put a stop to people being targeted on the internet and social media. "I would like our government to make a law against this, so people cannot get away with making somebody feel this low that taking their life is the outcome. Something needs to be done about this sooner rather than later - and definitely before we lose more lives." A government consultation is currently under way over how to make users safer on the internet. The Online Harms White Paper proposes establishing a new duty of care towards users, overseen by an independent regulator. Companies will be held to account for tackling a comprehensive set of online harms, ranging from illegal activity and content to behaviours which are harmful but not necessarily illegal, the Government said. Failure to fulfil this duty of care will result in enforcement action such as a company fine or individual liability on senior management. If you, or anyone close to you, is affected by any issues in this article, please contact the Samaritans free on 116123 or Lifeline on 0808 808 8000 The package was found at an address on College Street. Credit: Google Maps A street in Belfast City Centre was sealed off after a 'suspect package' was found on Wednesday afternoon. The package was found at an address on College Street, reported to be a Government building. A PSNI spokesperson said there are no further details at this time. The crash happened near the Annaghnaboe Road in Co Tyrone. Credit: Google Maps Two people were taken to hospital after a light aircraft crashed in Co Tyrone. Emergency services were called to the scene near the Annaghnaboe Road in Coalisland at around 8.30pm on Wednesday. Police, fire crews and the ambulance service attended the scene. It is understood two people who were on board the plane when it crashed were able to walk away from the scene with minor injuries. A PSNI spokesperson said: "Two persons on board the light aircraft were treated at the scene and were then transferred to hospital for further checks and treatment." A 67-year-old woman who was unable to shower by herself and needed help with her meals after breaking her arm was discharged from a Belfast hospital without a care package in place. The Belfast Health Trust has been ordered by the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman (NIPSO) to apologise to the patient for the inconvenience, upset and anxiety caused as a result of failings in the care and treatment she received. It was also told to pay her 750 compensation and put in place an action plan to address the failings identified in the case. According to a NIPSO report, the unnamed patient was admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast after suffering a fall at home in April 2016. She fractured her right arm and was admitted to the hospital's fracture ward for surgery on May 17, 2016. However, she complained to NIPSO that trust staff had failed to provide her with a thorough assessment by an occupational therapist or social worker. The report said: "She complained that in failing to do so, trust staff further failed to appropriately provide her with a care package. "The patient had to refer herself to the Northern Health and Social Care Trust's re-ablement team on May 23, 2016." The NIPSO investigation found evidence that the patient had raised concerns about her ability to cope at home with hospital staff. In addition to her arm injury, she had a history of Crohn's disease, chronic back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as weakness in her left leg due to reported nerve damage. The patient was concerned that her medical problems, combined with the fact that she lived alone in a two-storey house, would result in her having difficulty coping. She was also worried because her next of kin was a 72-year-old cousin who also suffered from various health conditions. After contacting the Northern Trust, a plan was put in place for her to receive help to get dressed in the morning and with getting breakfast. A visit was also made in the evening to assist her with tea time. A care plan remained in place until July 20, 2016, when an assessment showed she no longer required assistance. In her findings, Ombudsman Marie Anderson said: "I am satisfied that the failures in care and treatment I have identified caused the patient to experience the injustice of inconvenience and upset. "She lost the opportunity to have a suitable care package in place post discharge. "I also consider the failures in care and treatment and maladministration caused her the injustice of having to wait for a care package; upset, distress and anxiety in having to care for herself over the weekend period, and having to independently source a care package assessment three days after discharge." She also recommended that the trust implement an action plan to put in place a series of recommendations "and should provide me with an update within three months of the date of my final report". These mostly relate to the improvement of record keeping. The Belfast Trust was unable to provide a comment on the report yesterday. However, during her investigation, Ms Anderson was told by the Belfast Trust that it had "offered an apology in relation to her dissatisfaction with her discharge from Ward 4B". Two young women were threatened by a knife-wielding man during an aggravated burglary in Belfast. The incident happened at a house on Cadogan Street on Tuesday night. At around 10.15pm two women aged in their 20s were in an upstairs room in the house when the man entered downstairs armed with a knife. He made his way upstairs and threatened the women before leaving with cash. As the man made his way out of the house he was approached by a man and woman who were entering the property. The man then threatened the pair with the knife, demanding money from them. He made off towards the Ormeau Embankment area with money and jewellery. Detective Sergeant Gardiner said: He (the suspect) is described as being 56 in height and of medium build. He was wearing a dark tracksuit with a grey t-shirt underneath, a dark hat and spoke with a local accent. Enquiries are continuing and we would appeal to anyone who saw anything suspicious in the area to contact detectives on 101, quoting reference number 1533 14/5/19. "Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime. Anastasia Kriegel who was found dead in a derelict farmhouse outside the village of Lucan, Co Dublin (Family handout/PA) The blood of schoolgirl Ana Kriegel was found on the boots of one of the teenage boys accused of her murder, a court has heard. The 14-year-olds blood was also found on a long stick discovered at the derelict house where she was killed. Blood expert and DNA specialist John Hoade told the Central Criminal Court that the blood evidence shows one of the accused, known as Boy A, either assaulted Ana or was in a very close proximity when she was assaulted. Anas naked body was found in the derelict house in Lucan, Co Dublin, days after she went missing in May last year. Two 14-year-old boys, who cannot be identified due to their age, are standing trial accused of her murder. Expand Close Ana Kriegels parents, Geraldine and Patric Kriegel arriving at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ana Kriegels parents, Geraldine and Patric Kriegel arriving at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin (PA) Boy A has pleaded not guilty to murder and sexual assault involving serious violence of the schoolgirl. Boy B has pleaded not guilty to murder. Black boots that Boy A was wearing on the day Ana disappeared were examined and found to have blood stains on nine separate areas. The blood stains all matched Anas DNA profile. Mr Hoade told prosecuting counsel Brendan Grehan SC that he used a microscope to examine the stains because they were not immediately obvious or easy to see. He told the court that Anas blood was found around the laces, toe area and to the side of the right boot, while blood spatter and staining was also found on the sole. Her blood was also located on the heel and two stains were discovered at the front of the boot. The witness explained that blood spatter occurs when an external source is applied to exposed blood and it moves through the air and lands on a surface. Expand Close Blood matching Ana Kriegels DNA pattern was found on a boot and stick (Family handout/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Blood matching Ana Kriegels DNA pattern was found on a boot and stick (Family handout/PA) He said the best example of spatter he found was on the front of the right boot. In my opinion the pattern indicated that (Boy A) either assaulted Ana or was in very close proximity when Ana was assaulted, he said. The jury was also shown a long wooden stick and concrete block that were removed from the scene. The wooden stick, which was charred at one end, measured 92cm in length and 4 x 3cm in width. There was also a nail or staple protruding from both ends. The stick was blood-stained throughout with blood spatter found at both ends. The witness told the court there was heavy blood staining at the charred end of the stick, and these stains all matched Anas DNA profile. He said that a further blood pattern found on the stick would usually occur when an object with wet blood is swung through the air and impacts on a surface. He said this happens as a result of a stick being swung through the air as if someone was hitting something. He added that the patterns on the stick indicate it was used as a weapon in an assault. He also told the court that only Anas DNA was found on the stick. The concrete block, which was a section of a nine-inch block, had blood stains on all six surfaces. He told the court that he didnt sample any of the blood found on the concrete block. When asked why he had not examined the blood he said: It was my understanding that the block was not used as a weapon in the assault. Hair was also found on the block. The trial continues. Irelands first socially assistive AI robot Stevie II from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean (Brian Lawless/PA) An Irish University has developed a robot to help battle loneliness amongst the elderly and those living in care homes. Engineers from Trinity College, Dublin, unveiled Stevie II on Wednesday, an upgraded version of Irelands first socially assistive robot with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features. The new and updated version of Stevie I can be deployed in long-term care environments to help seniors and people living with disability. Stevie II, a more mobile and dextrous model of its predecessor, uses advanced sensing technologies including laser rangefinders, depth cameras and vision sensors to interact intelligently with humans and its surrounding environment. The Trinity team consulted with a wide range of experts during the robots development, including nurses and caregivers, as well as older adults living at home or in long-term care facilities. Among those partners is ALONE, a national organisation that supports older people to age at home. ALONE currently provides and uses technology to support older people to remain independent and socially connected. The concept behind Stevie was initially to carry out menial chores in care homes like automatically reminding residents of time to take medication. However, researchs found that the those living in homes enjoyed the social aspect of Stevie, noting that he was fun to talk to and lifted their spirits. Expand Close Stevie II is unveiled at the Science Gallery in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stevie II is unveiled at the Science Gallery in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA) The robot being so expressive helped to humanise the technology and led researchers to believe Stevie could have a wide range of high-impact uses, performing assistive tasks, helping caregivers and provide access to existing technologies like video calling, which can be inaccessible to older adults. Stevie has face and voice recognition, which means he can address those he is speaking to directly, and understand and reply to commands. One elderly resident, Tony McCarthy, who worked as part of Stevies focus group said as an asthma sufferer, having Stevie around gives a sense of security. I have asthma and he reminds me what medications I have to take, he said. More importantly, the capacity the robot has to directly make a phone call to emergency services to bring help if a person is incapacitated, I think that is very positive. Especially for people who have a fall, and couldnt reach their panic button, with Stevie, he would directly be able to call emergency services. Expand Close With researcher Niamh Donnelly (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp With researcher Niamh Donnelly (Brian Lawless/PA) Niamh Donnelly, who specialises in the artificial intelligence behind Stevie, says a more humanised side of robotics is the most requested feature. She said: When we brought Stevie around people rather than them expecting him to pick something up for them, they really just wanted to interact with Stevie, have a conversation with him or get some information from him. That turned our focus towards the more social aspect of it. When we were testing the pilot, even from a technical background what I was doing a lot of the time was talking to people and trying to figure out what they wanted from the technology. In the future, Id love to work on small talk with Stevie. Its extremely difficult as its very context dependent, so Id love to see Stevie develop that ability. Wed like him to be able to have some banter with people. Over the coming months, the team are planning several more pilots of the technology, including a trial in the UK, where Stevie will be tested in long-term care facilities in the Cornwall region as part of the European-funded EPIC project. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed details of the private companys investment in the National Broadband Plan in the Dail on Tuesday (Michelle Devane/PA Wire) The preferred bidder for the National Broadband Plan will invest 220 million euro in initial funding to the rollout of the multimillion-euro project, the Taoiseach has confirmed. But Leo Varadkar said Granahan McCourt, the private consortium behind the bid, would be responsible for investing 2.4 billion euro over the next 25 years. The total cost of the project will be about 5 billion euro. The Government had been under increasing pressure from opposition parties to divulge the financial details of the plan since it gave the project the green light last week. Every home, farm, school & business in Ireland will have access to high speed broadband under the National Broadband Plan approved by Govt today. It will ensure that those in rural areas have the same digital opportunities as those in urban areas. #NBP #broadband pic.twitter.com/UFgK2VwccE Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) May 7, 2019 Ministers approved Granahan McCourt, the last remaining bidder in the tendering process, as the preferred bidder for the rollout of high-speed broadband to more than 540,000 homes and businesses across the country, despite warnings from senior civil servants that the plan posed unprecedented risks to the taxpayer. Mr Varadkar told the Dail on Tuesday that it was the consortium, and not the state, that was taking all the risk. If this project is successful, yes this company will get its equity back and return on that, he said. But if rollout is delayed, as some people predict it will, if take-up isnt as fast, then the company will have to put in more equity. Thats the crux of this. The private company, National Broadband Ireland (Granahan McCourt), is taking the risk here. Their risk is not capped. The risk to the state is. Amid sustained criticism of the plan from Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, Sinn Fein head Mary Lou McDonald and Labour leader Brendan Howlin during Leaders Questions, the Taoiseach appealed to the opposition not to rule out supporting the plan. Expand Close Micheal Martin (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Micheal Martin (Brian Lawless/PA) There isnt a better option, he said. Any alternative option will involve delays, it will be slower, will cost as much, if not more, and may not even meet that objective of connecting all homes, farms and businesses. Spend some time to hear the arguments, spend some time to consider it, because if we do not sign this contract in a few months time it is back to square one, and the rural divide between urban and rural Ireland will remain and will deepen. Asked by Mr Martin whether he agreed with civil servants at the Department of Public Expenditure on the level of risk to the taxpayer, Mr Varadkar replied: No I dont agree that this is an unprecedented investment, nor do I think it is an unprecedented risk. In response to Ms McDonald, Mr Varadkar told the Dail he was confident in the companys capacity to deliver the project. Jeremy Corbyn has urged voters to back Labour in next weeks European election to challenge the voices in the far right across Europe. The Labour leader said there was a vacuum of leadership caused by the Government which was being used by people who spew hatred and cause division. Writing in the British Asian newspaper Eastern Eye, Mr Corbyn said: The upcoming EU election has become a target and a battleground for far-right voices. The discontent over the Tories handling over Brexit has left our country in crisis, and jobs and industries at risk. Individuals and parties that are known to spew hatred and cause division are now using this vacuum of leadership caused by the Government to win support in the EU elections next week. We need real solutions, not scapegoats. We need real solutions, not scapegoats. A vote for Labour in the EU elections will help combat the rise of the far right across Europe.https://t.co/dorfidFWOX Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 15, 2019 He went on to say: A vote for Labour in the EU elections will challenge the voices in the far right throughout Europe and beyond. Labour will address the inequalities that helped fuel the Brexit vote by investing in our communities and people, ending austerity and creating a fairer society. It is Labour that wants to bring our country back together. With the far right rearing its ugly head, it is more important than ever to use your vote next Thursday (May 23). So, whether you voted leave or remain in 2016, I urge you to vote Labour, a party that is determined to bring people together, tackle discrimination, and take on the entrenched power of the few. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) He said Labours plan for Brexit would end the chaos caused by the Tories and let us focus on the other big issues facing our country, and he criticised Nigel Farages Brexit Party. As we know all too well, Farage sees migrants who have made enormous contributions to our great nation as a threat and his vision of a no-deal Brexit seeks to serve only the richest in our society, Mr Corbyn wrote. His views on privatising the NHS are very concerning too. This is a snake-oil salesman whos trying to divide the country further. Mr Corbyns comments came after the Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd called for the Conservative Party to campaign in the election to stop extremist parties filling the political vacuum. The Government does not know how many British users may have been affected by a terrifying WhatsApp security breach, MPs have heard. Shadow digital secretary Tom Watson warned a security flaw in the messaging app could be used by states to monitor human rights groups. Digital Minister Margot James said the likelihood of there being UK victims of the attack is being investigated but said, as yet, there is no information about how many people could have been targeted. Expand Close Shadow digital secretary Tom Watson asks an urgent question in the Commons (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Shadow digital secretary Tom Watson asks an urgent question in the Commons (PA) Asking an urgent question in the Commons, Mr Watson said: Another day, another serious, major data breach from a Mark Zuckerberg company. He added the spyware, called Pegasus, had been created by an Israeli security company, the NSO Group. The West Bromwich East MP said the malicious software is transmitted via a phone call and is then able to access everything. Mr Watson said: It can even use the phones camera and microphone to record the users surroundings. That is terrifying. He added 1.5 billion people worldwide use WhatsApp, with millions of users in the UK. The attack could have been carried out by a state actor, he said. For the Government, Ms James replied: I agree that these transgressions are happening far too frequently. Expand Close Concerns have been raised with Sir Nick Clegg (right), who heads up public affairs for Mark Zuckerbergs Facebook, which owns WhatsApp (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Concerns have been raised with Sir Nick Clegg (right), who heads up public affairs for Mark Zuckerbergs Facebook, which owns WhatsApp (Niall Carson/PA) She said Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright has already raised his deep concern with former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Nick Clegg, who is now the global head of public affairs for Facebook, which owns WhatsApp. Ms James added: I share the concerns that this type of attack could be used by a state to monitor human rights activists. Responding to questions of how many UK users may have been affected, Ms James said the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is investigating and the advice from WhatsApp is to install the newest updates of the app. She said: I am assured by the NCSC that the advice they are giving at the moment is what we should all be following, and they are investigating the likelihood of any UK users having been victims of this latest attack but, as yet, I dont have any further information on that particular point to inform the House. Conservative MP Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) said people largely believed WhatsApp was a safe app before adding: Now we suddenly discover perhaps it isnt after all. This is deeply worrying. She added: Can she give assurances that Mr Zuckerberg has fixed the flaw and will be brought to task? Ms James said data laws implemented last year put in place the strongest privacy standards and rules and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has resources to deal with such issues. I'm sure the minister will want to encourage the increasing number of her colleagues with their own budding leadership WhatsApp groups to update their WhatsAppLabour MP Darren Jones Nigel Huddleston, Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire, said the ICO could implement a fine of up to 4% of global revenue and noted: Facebooks quarterly revenue last quarter was over 16 billion. That could go quite a long way towards helping cover the cost of our security services to counter some of the challenges weve got in the digital space. Ms James said the law is connected to protecting the privacy of UK users, adding: It remains to be seen if UK users have been affected by this particular breach but Im sure if they have been the ICO will be making further inquiries. Labours Darren Jones (Bristol North West) joked: Im sure the minister will want to encourage the increasing number of her colleagues with their own budding leadership WhatsApp groups to update their WhatsApp. Dame Emma Thompson should stop preaching to people about flying less especially when she travels first class, Labour former cabinet minister David Blunkett has said. Although not naming the actress directly, peers were left in little doubt who was the target of the veteran politicians jibe. Lord Blunketts intervention at Westminster comes after Dame Emma was accused of hypocrisy for flying from Los Angeles to London to join climate change protests. Responding to criticism of making the 5,400 mile journey to join Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrators in the capital, Dame Emma argued it was very difficult to do my job without occasionally flying. While urging people to fly less, the 60-year-old, whose credits include Sense And Sensibility and Love Actually, pointed out she was in the very fortunate position of being able to offset her carbon footprint. Expand Close Lord Blunkett took a swipe at the Hollywood actress (David Cheskin/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lord Blunkett took a swipe at the Hollywood actress (David Cheskin/PA) Lord Blunkett made his criticism during a question in the Lords on plans for a third runway at Heathrow. The peer, who heads a skills taskforce linked to the airports expansion plans, said: Does the minister agree that investing in alternative fuel sources for flights in the future would be more beneficial than people who use airlines regularly preaching to other people that they should stop using them to go on holiday or for commercial purposes particularly when they have the comfort of flying first class? Ducking the controversy, Transport Minister Baroness Vere of Norbiton said: I will comment on sustainable fuels, which is probably wise in the circumstances. They are very important; so many people within the aviation sector are making great strides and are doing it as private companies. They are not being forced, but are doing it because they know that it is the right thing to do. BA is partnering with Velocys to produce sustainable aviation fuel from municipal solid waste the plant will be in Scunthorpe. Virgin is partnering with LanzaTech also to produce sustainable aviation fuel. They have demonstration plants already in the US, Belgium and China. The man accused of lying about a Westminster VIP ring of child abusers and killers is himself a committed and manipulative paedophile, a court heard. Carl Beech, known by the pseudonym Nick, hid his sexual interest in young boys behind a secret app on his iPad, tried to frame someone else, and only later admitted a series of charges, jurors were told. Beech told police in 2016 that he and other children were sexually abused by powerful figures including the former prime minister Ted Heath, the head of the Army and security chiefs in the 1970s. Others he named included the former MP Harvey Proctor, the late Lord Brittan and other Army generals, claiming three children were murdered by the ring. Newcastle Crown Court has now been told that Beech admitted making and possessing indecent images of children and voyeurism at a previous hearing. At the same time as he perpetuated these lies about Harvey Proctor and so many others, he was also viewing indecent images of the gravest kind and spying on small boysTony Badenoch QC Northumbria Police was tasked with investigating the 51-year-old after the Metropolitan Polices 2 million Operation Midland ended without making a single arrest. Officers raided his rented Gloucester home and seized electronic devices on which they found indecent images of young boys, covert images of schoolboys taken by him, and recordings. Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said: These child sex offences were committed whilst he was speaking to investigating police officers. At the same time as he perpetuated these lies about Harvey Proctor and so many others, he was also viewing indecent images of the gravest kind and spying on small boys. He had installed on his own iPad a secret app. It was an app which looked to all and intents and purposes like a calculator. Only it wasnt. Two codes were required to look at the content stored behind the calculator image. What was that? Indecent images of young boys of the most serious kind and a covert recording. The evidence demonstrates that Carl Beech is a committed and manipulative paedophile, capable of deceit to investigators and limitless manipulation when requiredTony Badenoch QC Beech was prosecuted and tried to frame someone else until he pleaded guilty, after a jury had been sworn in, Mr Badenoch said. That took 18 months, and included the former nurse and Care Quality Commission employee fleeing the country, Mr Badenoch added. He said: The evidence demonstrates that Carl Beech is a committed and manipulative paedophile, capable of deceit to investigators and limitless manipulation when required. The sort of individual concerned only for himself, unconcerned with the impact upon others; whether it is falsely accusing them of heinous crimes. It also demonstrates that Carl Beech has an interest in child pornography. Not something which is learnt behaviour from something which happened, but the reverse. After he was charged with the indecent images offences, Beech fled to Sweden and grew a lengthy beard as a rudimentary disguise and bought a 17,000 property in a remote forested area, jurors were told. Mr Badenoch said Beech sought to evade justice, leading to a manhunt being launched. He received almost 60,000 from an early retirement pension from the NHS and travelled to Calais in February 2018. Beech moved to Sweden and tried to set up a new life, taking on a new identity and moving around the country under false names, with multiple hotel stays using pre-payment cards that were hard to trace, the court heard. But he could not evade the Swedish authorities and he was arrested on a train in Gothenburg in October, Mr Badenoch said. The court was played drone footage of Beechs remote woodland property. Earlier, the court was told Beech craved attention, made money from his claims and intended to become an international speaker on survivors. The father-of-one, from Gloucester, denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud relating to a payment in 2013 of 22,000 for criminal injuries. Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street, London, for the House of Commons for Prime Ministers Questions. Theresa Mays Brexit deal will be dead if MPs reject if for a fourth time, ministers have admitted. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay acknowledged it would be the end of the road for the deal thrashed out with the European Union if the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) is defeated when it is brought to the Commons in June. Defeat would also deal a heavy blow to the Prime Ministers already fragile authority and, although the WAB vote would not be a formal confidence motion, Number 10 sources acknowledged its significance wont be underestimated. The legislation writes the Brexit agreement into law and represents a fresh attempt to secure Parliaments support for a deal which has already been rejected three times by MPs, including the heaviest defeat ever suffered by a Government. Mr Barclay said the WAB would be published as soon as possible and would have its second reading in the Commons, the first legislative hurdle it would have to clear, in the week beginning June 3. He told the Lords EU Committee: I think if the House of Commons does not approve the WAB then the (Michel) Barnier deal is dead in that form. Number 10 said efforts were continuing to find a sustainable majority for the deal, with discussions involving DUP and Labour MPs. Expand Close Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said the deal would be dead if the legislation is defeated (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said the deal would be dead if the legislation is defeated (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Asked whether the vote would be considered a confidence vote for the Prime Minister, a source said: Thats not the world that we are currently in but clearly the significance of this piece of legislation cant and I suspect wont be underestimated. The Prime Minister has already said she will step down once the first phase of the Brexit process is completed and will meet senior Tories on the executive of the backbench 1922 Committee to discuss her future on Thursday. Mrs May insisted the legislation delivers on Brexit. Speaking after attending an international summit in Paris, the Prime Minister said: What we have been doing is talking with the official opposition, we have been talking with MPs across the House looking at the issues that they have had concerns with in relation to the deal that we agreed with the European Union. What this Bill does is delivers on Brexit. When MPs come to look at this Bill, when they come to vote on this legislation, Im sure that they will be thinking of the duty that we have to ensure that we deliver on the vote of the British people. This is the Bill that delivers Brexit. Both Mr Barclay and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox warned Eurosceptics that the possibility of Brexit not happening at all would increase if the WAB was defeated. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) That would leave just two options when the October 31 deadline looms, a no-deal Brexit, which has previously been rejected by MPs, or the revocation of Article 50, cancelling the entire process. Cross-party Brexit talks between Labour and the Tories have so far failed to produce a compromise agreement. Jeremy Corbyns spokesman repeatedly said the party would not support the WAB if no cross-party agreement was reached, but refused to say whether Labour MPs would abstain, which could allow the Bill to receive its second reading, or vote against it and potentially consign it to defeat. The spokesman said that unless there was an agreement based on real compromise and movement by the Government then the WAB would be based on the same botched Brexit deal that has been rejected three times already by Parliament. The spokesman said the talks with the Government were not an unlimited process and Labour had serious concerns about negotiating with a government that is in the process of disintegration because any deal struck with Mrs May could be scrapped by her replacement. At Prime Ministers Questions, Mrs May was challenged by Tory Eurosceptic Peter Bone, who said activists in his constituency favoured a no-deal Brexit and wanted her to quit before the May 23 European elections. Expand Close Theresa May speaking during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons earlier (UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May speaking during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons earlier (UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA) He told the Press Association I just dont follow the logic of bringing the deal back to the Commons. It was the definition of madness to keep repeating the same thing and expecting to have a different result. Former Brexit minister Steve Baker also questioned the Prime Ministers decision to bring the legislation for her failed deal before Parliament and suggested it would do little to counter the threat posed by Nigel Farages Brexit Party. He said: If the Brexit Party were demanding we pass this Withdrawal Agreement, a vote might just make sense. But they arent. Quite the reverse. And driving it through over the heads of the DUP appears to eradicate the Governments majority. DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds said: Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again. Tory and Labour officials were continuing the efforts to reach an agreement on Wednesday and the Prime Ministers Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins was in Brussels for a second day of talks about the potential to make changes to the Political Declaration setting out the future UK-EU relationship. The legislation will go before the Commons in the same week US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly spoken out about the Brexit process, is due to make a state visit to the UK. Mr Trump and his wife Melania will be in the UK from June 3 to June 5. On June 6, a by-election will also be held in Peterborough to find a replacement for MP Fiona Onasanya, who lost her seat through a recall petition after serving time in prison for lying about a speeding offence. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims is proposing a new A new proposed definition of Islamophobia could undermine counter-terrorism laws, one of the UKs most senior police officers has warned. Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council, said the term under consideration could cause confusion among officers and hamper the fight against terrorism. The definition proposed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims is: Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. We are concerned that the definition is too broad as currently drafted... and could be used to challenge legitimate free speech on the historical or theological actions of Islamic statesMartin Hewitt, National Police Chiefs' Council Its report on the definition said it had been reached after widespread consultation with academics, lawyers, local and nationally elected officials, Muslim organisations, activists, campaigners and local Muslim communities. Mr Hewitt said: We take all reports of hate crime very seriously and will investigate them thoroughly, however we have some concerns about the proposed definition of Islamophobia made by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims. We are concerned that the definition is too broad as currently drafted, could cause confusion for officers enforcing it, and could be used to challenge legitimate free speech on the historical or theological actions of Islamic states. There is also a risk it could also undermine counter-terrorism powers, which seek to tackle extremism or prevent terrorism. It is important that any definition of anti-Muslim hostility is widely consulted on and has support across the Muslim community. So this article based upon a leaked letter from @MHewittNPCC to @theresa_may makes an extraordinary and disturbing claim that a definition seeking to protect British Muslims will undermine Counter terrorism powers and tactics. The following questions must be urgently addressed Sayeeda Warsi (@SayeedaWarsi) May 15, 2019 Baroness Warsi, treasurer of the APPG, called the terrorism claim extraordinary and disturbing and said the definition does not seek to stop criticism of Islam. The Times newspaper published a leaked letter that Mr Hewitt wrote to the Prime Minister raising his concerns. Baroness Warsi said on Twitter that she had written to Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill about the leak because the issues involve national security. The Prime Ministers official spokesman declined to comment on the letter but said: Any hatred directed against British Muslims and others because of their faith or heritage is completely unacceptable. We are conscious that the APPGs proposed definition has not been broadly accepted, unlike the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism before it, which was adopted by the UK Government and other international organisations and governments. This is a matter that will need further careful consideration. Shadow minister for women and equalities Naz Shah said if the Prime Minister rejects the definition, the message she sends to the Muslim community will be heard loud and clear. She went on: It has been a great struggle to get the police to record Islamophobia as a specific crime, so it is deeply worrying to see the National Police Chiefs Council bringing terrorism into the discussion about tackling Islamophobia. This shows a worrying trend of seeing British Muslims through the lens of terror and security, and the Prime Minister must distance herself from this immediately. But National Secular Society chief executive Stephen Evans called the definition vague and unworkable. He said: If the Government adopts this definition it will restrict important discussion and debate and, as the criticism of senior officers shows, undermine the polices ability to keep people safe. We urge the Government and public bodies not to join the rush to adopt this definition. We must resist the urge to respond to anti-Muslim bigotry by going along with the censorious whims of some Muslim community leaders, chilling free expression and undermining social cohesion. British troops facing investigation over alleged historical offences will be granted stronger legal protections, the new Defence Secretary is set to announce. Penny Mordaunt will propose legislation to ensure veterans and serving personnel are not subjected to repeated investigations on historical operations. However, the measures will not apply to cases arising in Northern Ireland. The proposals, subject to a public consultation, include measures to introduce a statutory presumption against prosecution of current or former personnel for alleged offences committed in the course of duty abroad more than 10 years ago. It will stipulate that such prosecutions are not in the public interest unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as if compelling new evidence emerged. Ms Mordaunt, who is expected to unveil the new measures within days, said: We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to our Armed Forces who put their lives on the line to protect our freedom and security. It is high time that we change the system and provide the right legal protections to make sure the decisions our service personnel take in the battlefield will not lead to repeated or unfair investigations down the line. The Cabinet minister is also expected to reaffirm her commitment to derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) before the UK embarks on significant military operations. In 2016, Theresa May announced that the Government will adopt a presumption that it will take advantage of a right to suspend aspects of the ECHR at times of war. Mrs May said at the time that the move should end an industry of vexatious claims which has seen veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan pursued through the courts over alleged mistreatment of combatants and prisoners over a decade after the supposed events took place. Separately, Ms Mordaunt is due to address the First Sea Lords Sea Power Conference on Wednesday morning. Virgin Mobile will compensate customers after many were left unable to make calls, send text messages or use mobile data. UK users of the mobile network voiced their frustrations about the fault on Tuesday morning. Virgin Mobile said the disruption was due to a technical issue. We apologise for the disruption and inconvenience some of our Virgin Mobile customers have experienced today. This was due to a technical issue which weve now resolved. We will be compensating our customers for the loss of service and will let them know the details shortly. Virgin Media (@virginmedia) May 14, 2019 A spokesman said on Tuesday night: We apologise for the disruption and inconvenience some of our Virgin Mobile customers have experienced today. This was due to a technical issue which weve now resolved. We will be compensating our customers for the loss of service and will let them know the details shortly. Many users complained that the issue meant they could receive texts and calls but could not make them and could not access the internet through mobile data, however the fault appeared to affect some customers in different ways. Service outage tracking website Is The Service Down said complaints about the issue on social media began at 8.20am, with comments surging shortly after 11am and into the afternoon. Prime minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern has turned down an 11-year-olds bribe to conduct research on dragons and telekinesis. Victoria Amende (Tori) wrote to Ms Ardern, bribing her with $5NZ (around 2.50) to encourage her to look into finding dragons. Ms Ardern returned the money, along with a note letting her know that dragon research wasnt on the governments to-do list. A hand-written addition to the letter read: P.S. Ill still keep an eye out for those dragons. Do they wear suits? Deseret Amende, Toris sister, posted the Prime Ministers response on Reddit, where it reached over 3,000 upvotes. Deseret told Press Association: She (Tori) has the best imagination and is very creative, but also shy. She said that she loves Stranger Things and so she wanted powers like Eleven from the Government. And wanted to know if they had been looking into dragons, and if any other countries had found them yet, so she could train them. She said the money was to ensure they were looking into it, and to kick-start their investigations if not. The post proved popular with Reddit users, receiving plenty of comments from people who were amused by the letter. One user suggested that while dragons might not be researched by the Government at the moment its a good thing Tori didnt ask about aliens. Deseret said: Tori has really enjoyed how far it has reached, and how many people are loving it. She has loved all of the supportive comments she has received. They (her family) have now framed the letter. A Chicago zoo is celebrating after one of its gorillas gave birth on Mothers Day. Rollie, a western lowland gorilla at Lincoln Park Zoo, gave birth to a male on May 12 which was Mothers Day in the States. As with any birth, we are cautiously optimistic about the latest arrival, said curator of primates Jill Moyse. Rollie is an experienced mother who is displaying appropriate maternal skills and care. According to the zoo, the as yet unnamed baby is staying tucked in close and clinging to Rollie as a newborn should. The birth is the second for Rollie, who also delivered a female Nayembi back in 2012. Expand Close (Christopher Bijalba/Lincoln Park Zoo) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (Christopher Bijalba/Lincoln Park Zoo) The infant swells the zoos gorilla troop to eight, including Rollie, Nayembi and silverback Kwan, as well two more adult females and two more juvenile females. Its really amazing to see this family group grow and adapt, said Moyse. Lincoln Park Zoos last gorilla birth was in 2015 when the troop welcomed newborn Bella. Expand Close (Christopher Bijalba/Lincoln Park Zoo) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (Christopher Bijalba/Lincoln Park Zoo) Its an exciting time to visit Regenstein Centre for African Apes where you can see different life stages of the gorillas from newborn infant to full-grown silverback. Western lowland gorillas, which are native to central Africa, are critically endangered in the wild because of poaching and loss of habitat. Sherpa climber Kami Rita has scaled Mount Everest for the 23rd time, breaking his own record for the most successful ascents of the worlds highest peak. Mr Rita reached the summit with other climbers on Wednesday morning and all were reported to be safe, according to Nepalese government officials. The Sherpas two closest peers have climbed the 8,850-metre (29,035ft) peak 21 times each, but both of them have now retired from mountain climbing. Expand Close It is Mr Ritas 23rd successful ascent of Everest (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp It is Mr Ritas 23rd successful ascent of Everest (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The guide said last month before his trip to the mountain: It is my profession, but at the same time I am setting new world record for Nepal, too. The 49-year-old first scaled Everest in 1994 and has been making the trip nearly every year since, one of many Sherpa guides whose expertise and skills are vital to the safety and success of the hundreds of climbers who head to Nepal each year seeking to stand on top of the world. He follows in the footsteps of his father, who was among the first Sherpa guides employed to help climbers reach the summit. In addition to his nearly two dozen summits of Everest, Mr Rita has scaled several other peaks that are among the worlds highest, including K-2, Cho-Oyu, Manaslu and Lhotse. Mr Rita was at Everests base camp in 2015 when an avalanche swept through, killing 19 people. After that tragedy, he came under intense family pressure to quit mountaineering altogether, but in the end decided against it. Expand Close Mr Rita checks oxygen cylinders and other supplies needed for climbing Mount Everest, in Kathmandu (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mr Rita checks oxygen cylinders and other supplies needed for climbing Mount Everest, in Kathmandu (AP) I know Mount Everest very well, having climbed it 22 times, but at the same time I know I may or may not come back, he said last month. I am like a soldier who leaves behind their wives, children and family to battle for the pride of the country. Mr Rita has been an advocate for other Sherpa guides, who he said do not get the recognition they are due. He said that before climbers reach the summit to take their photographs announcing their success, there are months of hard work carried out by Sherpas. The Sherpas are the ones who take care of setting up the camps, carrying the loads on their backs, cooking food and carrying oxygen tanks. Expand Close Mr Rita has broken his own record for ascents of Everest (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mr Rita has broken his own record for ascents of Everest (AP) Perhaps most importantly, it is Sherpas who each year fix ropes and ladders over crevasses and icefalls that make things safer for the hundreds of climbers who will follow them. However, when these climbers reach the summit, only their names are highlighted and nothing mentioned about the hard work done by the Sherpas, Mr Rita said last month. Sherpa tribespeople were mostly yak herders and traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides and porters. Expand Close Mr Rita does not believe Sherpas are given enough credit for their efforts (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mr Rita does not believe Sherpas are given enough credit for their efforts (AP) On Tuesday, it was a team of Sherpa guides who again were the first to reach Everests summit this year, completing their advanced work of setting up ropes and lines. There are 41 different teams with a total of 378 climbers who have been permitted to scale Everest during this years spring climbing season. There are an equal number of Nepalese guides helping them to get to the summit. Each May, there are usually only a few windows of good weather near the summit, during which climbers can attempt to scale the peak. President Donald Trump has issued an executive order aimed at stopping foreign adversaries from taking advantage of technological vulnerabilities to threaten US communications systems. The order, which declared a national emergency in response to the threat, does not name specific countries or companies but the administration has been trying to stop allied nations including the UK from using equipment from the Chinese tech company Huawei. Meanwhile, the Department of Commerce, which has 150 days to come up with regulations, also put Huawei and its affiliates on a list that requires them to obtain US government approval to purchase American technology. In August, Mr Trump signed a bill that barred the US government from using equipment from Huawei and Chinas ZTE Corp. Expand Close The US has voiced fears about Huawei (Steve Parsons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The US has voiced fears about Huawei (Steve Parsons/PA) The US, which is embroiled in an escalating trade war with China, has sounded warnings about Huaweis efforts to expand into Europe. The US worries that China could use Huawei to gain access to private, commercial or other information that could compromise Nato and allied intelligence operations. Huawei is the worlds biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies but has been seen by the US as a front for spying by the Chinese military or security services allegations denied by the company. Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai applauded Mr Trumps executive order, saying it would safeguard the US communications supply chain. Given the threats presented by certain foreign companies equipment and services, this is a significant step toward securing Americas networks, he said. Earlier this year, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Huawei, a top company executive and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets, misled banks about its business and violated US sanctions. The sweeping indictments accuse the company of using extreme efforts to steal trade secrets from American businesses, including trying to take a piece of a robot from a T-Mobile lab. The executive charged is Huaweis chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December. The US is seeking to extradite her. Two US Coast Guard search at the site of a collision between two float planes (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) The bodies of two more people have been found after small sightseeing planes crashed in Alaska, the US Coast Guard said. Coast Guard Lieutenant Brian Dykens said six people died in the collision on Monday afternoon near Ketchikan, a popular destination for cruise ships in Alaska. Mr Dykens said his agency and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad found the two bodies near the crash site of the smaller plane involved in the collision, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver. Ten people, all Americans, were injured, with three of them released from a hospital on Tuesday. The missing passengers were from Canada and Australia, Princess Cruises said. The larger plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3 with 10 passengers and the pilot, was returning from Misty Fjords when it collided with a smaller sightseeing plane, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver carrying four passengers from the same cruise ship and a pilot. The cause of the crash in relatively good weather, high overcast skies with light southeast winds, was not known. The crash occurred about eight miles from Ketchikan, near George Inlet. The planes came down about a mile-and-a-half apart. The Otter, operated by Taquan Air, was initially travelling at an altitude of about 3,800ft, according to Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, whose investigators arrived in Ketchikan on Tuesday afternoon. He said the Otter had descended to an altitude of around 3,300ft when it collided with the Beaver as both headed to Ketchikan. The smaller plane was partially submerged in the shore of George Inlet after the single-engine plane overturned and hit some trees before crashing, according to Mr Dykens. The larger Otter landed in water and sank, he said. (1/2)We are deeply saddened by the tragic plane accident in Ketchikan yesterday, and are offering our full support to the investigating authorities as well as the traveling companions of guests involved. Princess Cruises (@PrincessCruises) May 14, 2019 Three of the four who died were among the five people aboard the Beaver, according to Mr Dykens. Princess Cruises in its release said two passengers and the pilot were among those killed in this plane. Canadian officials said on Tuesday that one of its citizens was among the dead. Global Affairs Canada expressed condolences but did not identify the person because of privacy reasons. The smaller plane, which operated independently and not as an official excursion flight booked through the cruise ship, was owned by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan, which did not immediately return a call on Tuesday. Expand Close Emergency response crews transport an injured passenger on Monday (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Emergency response crews transport an injured passenger on Monday (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) The Beaver appears to have broken apart in midair, according to Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said the planes tail and a section of the fuselage were 900ft from the aircrafts floats, which landed near shore. After the crash, the 10 injured people were initially taken to a hospital in Ketchikan. Four patients were later transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, suffering various broken bones, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Three survivors were released from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in Ketchikan on Tuesday. Hospital spokeswoman Marty West says the remaining three are in fair condition. The Royal Princess left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and was scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. We are extending our full support to the investigating authorities as well as the travelling companions of the guests involved, the company said in a statement. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP) Russia and the United States have voiced hope that strained relations could begin to improve. With tensions running high over Iran, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed vindication from the investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 US presidential election and said he thought it was time to move on. Meanwhile, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo conveyed President Donald Trumps interest in restoring better ties. Expand Close Vladimir Putin said he hoped Russias relationship with the US would improve (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Vladimir Putin said he hoped Russias relationship with the US would improve (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) In the highest-level face-to-face contact between the two countries since special counsel Robert Muellers report was released last month, Mr Putin told Mr Pompeo he hoped relations with the US would now improve. Still, his claim of vindication covered only allegations that Russia and the Trump campaign colluded to hurt Hillary Clintons candidacy. Mr Putin did not address Mr Muellers conclusion that Russia actively interfered in the election. However exotic the work of special counsel Mueller was, I have to say that on the whole he has had a very objective investigation and he confirmed that there were no traces whatsoever of collusion between Russia and the incumbent administration, which we said was absolutely fake, Mr Putin said as he opened the meeting with Mr Pompeo in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. As we said before there was no collusion from our government officials and it could not be there. Still, that was one of the reasons for the certain break in our inter-state ties, he said. Im hoping today that the situation is changing. Mr Pompeo did not specifically mention election meddling in his brief reply to Mr Putin, although he did say the Trump administration would protect our nations interest. Earlier, though, Mr Pompeo made clear that any repeat of the 2016 meddling would not be tolerated. Interference in American elections is unacceptable, Mr Pompeo told reporters at a news conference with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. If Russia were to engage in that in 2020, it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it is. We have encouraged them not to. We wouldnt tolerate that. Our elections are important and sacred and they must be free and fair. After meeting with Mr Putin, Mr Pompeo told reporters: So its not about moving on. Its about trying to find solutions, compromises, places where there are overlapping interests you can make progress unlocking some of the most difficult problems that are facing us. Mr Putin told Mr Pompeo his recent telephone conversation with Mr Trump raised hopes for an improvement in relations. As you know, not long ago, a few days ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the president of the United States by telephone, he said. For me, it created the impression that the president intends to restore Russian-American connections and contacts to resolve joint issues that present mutual interests. Mr Pompeo spoke of truly overlapping interests that the two countries can build on, and most importantly, President Trump very much wants to do that. He cited co-operation in Afghanistan and counter-terrorism more broadly, but also a shared goal of getting North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons. But he also told Mr Putin that just as you will, well protect our nations interest. Mr Trump and his administration have denied they want war with Iran (AP) The US military has countered doubts expressed by a British general about the potential threat Iran poses to the US and its allies amid fears America is sliding towards war with the Islamic Republic. Maj Gen Chris Ghika, a senior British officer in the US-backed coalition fighting Islamic State (IS), exposed international scepticism over the American military build-up in the Middle East, a legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was predicated on false intelligence. US officials have not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat amid other signs of allied unease. Sailors assigned to the USS Nitze (DDG 94) participate in visit, board, search and seizure training. Nitze, as part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (ABECSG), is deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. https://t.co/AOYUbZIx67 pic.twitter.com/2nhTwc54UD U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) May 14, 2019 As tensions in the region surge, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said British officials are worried about the risk of a conflict between the US and Iran which neither side intends. Mr Hunt told reporters in Brussels: We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict. What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking. US president Donald Trump also denied a report that his administration has updated plans to send more than 100,000 troops to counter Iran if necessary. Mr Trump then stirred the controversy further by saying: Would I do that? Absolutely. "Militarily, we continue our campaign to ensure the lasting defeat of Daesh. But we cannot do it ourselves: campaigns cannot be won by fighting alone." - MG C. Ghika. Watch his comments live now at https://t.co/e6Ps5EIt9K pic.twitter.com/bD3H8WR0h2 Inherent Resolve (@CJTFOIR) May 14, 2019 On Tuesday, Spain temporarily pulled one of its frigates from the US-led combat fleet heading towards the Strait of Hormuz. That was followed by the unusual public challenge to the Trump administration by Maj Gen Ghika. The general, speaking in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad, said: No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. He told reporters at the Pentagon that the coalition monitors the presence of Iranian-backed forces along with a whole range of others because thats the environment were in. But he added: There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we dont see any increased threat from any of them at this stage. Later in the day, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, US Central Command said Maj Gen Ghikas remarks run counter to the identified credible threats from Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East. Expand Close Russian President Vladimir Putin and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo meet in Sochi (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Russian President Vladimir Putin and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo meet in Sochi (AP) In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq, the statement said. At the White House, Mr Trump, who has repeatedly argued for avoiding long-term conflicts in the Middle East, discounted a New York Times report that the US has updated plans that could send up to 120,000 troops to counter Iran if it attacked American forces. Would I do that? Absolutely, he told reporters. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Expand Close The Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) Reinforcing Mr Trumps denial, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference in Sochi with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov: We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: Major General Ghika speaks as a military officer in the US-led Coalition focused on the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. His comments are based on the day-to-day military operations and his sole focus is the enduring defeat of Daesh. He made clear in his Pentagon briefing that there are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in this part of the world. There always have been, that is why we have a very robust range of force protection measures. The UK has long been clear about our concerns over Irans destabilising behaviour in the region A Trump administration official said a recent small meeting of national security officials was not focused on a military response to Iran, but instead concentrated on a range of other policy options, including diplomacy and economic sanctions. Mr Lavrov said Mr Pompeo told him that a potential deployment of 120,000 US troops to the Middle East was only a rumour. The Russian foreign minister added that the international community needs to focus on diplomacy with Iran, including on the potentially explosive issue of Irans nuclear programme, which is constrained by a US-brokered deal in 2015 that Mr Trump abandoned. US Iranian envoy Brian Hook told reporters travelling with Mr Pompeo in Brussels that the secretary of state shared intelligence on Iran with allies since Europe shares our concerns about stability in the Gulf and the Middle East. Last week, US officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on American forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. The US has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 2,000 in Syria as part of the coalition campaign to defeat the Islamic State group there. It also has long had a variety of air and naval forces stationed in Bahrain, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf, partly to support military operations against IS and partly as a counter to Iranian influence. Maj Gen Ghikas comments came amid dramatically heightened tensions in the Middle East. The US in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. It also is moving a Patriot air-defence missile battery to an undisclosed country in the area. As of Tuesday, the Lincoln and its strike group had passed through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. The USs top aviation regulator has assured Congress that the Boeing 737 Max, grounded after two deadly accidents, will only return to flying when a government analysis shows that it is safe. The Federal Aviation Administration is under scrutiny for how it relied on Boeing to certify the Max and then did not ground the plane until after the second crash, in March. Acting FAA chief Daniel Elwell told the House aviation subcommittee that his agency welcomes scrutiny that helps make us better. In the US, the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAA's analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do soDaniel Elwell Mr Elwell listed several reviews of the FAAs handling of the matter, adding, however, that only the FAA would decide when the Max is safe enough to allow back in the air. In the US, the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAAs analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so, Mr Elwell said. 346 people died in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash & the Lion Air Flight 610 crash. Congress has an obligation to the traveling public & the victims of these accidents & their families to ensure the safety of air travel. @TransportDems Rep. Rick Larsen (@RepRickLarsen) May 15, 2019 House Aviation subcommittee chairman Rick Larsen said he expects answers about the FAAs certification of the Max, the role of Boeing employees in assessing key features on the plane, and FAAs role in developing pilot training for the plane. The FAA has a credibility problem, he said. From Chair @RepPeterDeFazios prepared remarks at our hearing on the status of the Boeing 737 MAX: The tragedies of the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX accidents in a span of five months have shocked the aviation industry and the flying public around the globe (1/2) Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (@TransportDems) May 15, 2019 Mr Larsen added a note of economic urgency to the grounding of the Max, Boeings best-selling plane and one that is built in his home state of Washington. He said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because if they dont fly, airlines dont need to buy airplanes, and then there will be no jobs in aircraft manufacturing. Representative Peter DeFazio criticised Boeing for pilot manuals that did not mention a new automated flight-control system implicated in both accidents, and for a design that pitched the planes nose down based on readings from a single sensor that could fail. Expand Close An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 sits grounded at Bole International Airport (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 sits grounded at Bole International Airport (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) The two plane crashes in Ethiopia in March and in Indonesia last October killed 346 people. Mr DeFazio, who heads the full transportation committee, also said Boeing has not yet provided documents that he and Mr Larsen requested, saying he hoped the company would provide them voluntarily and soon. Boeing has yet to provide a single document, he said. Weve got to get to the bottom of this. Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined to comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. The Transportation Departments inspector general and a Senate committee are looking into the FAAs relationship with Boeing, and the House subcommittee is likely to follow a similar path. Expand Close Daniel Elwell (Andrew Harnik/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Daniel Elwell (Andrew Harnik/AP) The hearing before the House panel is expected to cover the FAAs review of a flight-control system on the Max that was not present on earlier versions of the 737. In both accidents, the automated flight system pushed the nose of the plane down and pilots were unable to regain control. The Dallas Morning News reported that American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in November, shortly after the first Max crash, on potentially grounding the planes and pushed for a quick software fix from the plane maker. We dont want to do a crappy job of fixing things, and we also dont want to fix the wrong things, a Boeing employee responded, according to a recording reviewed by the newspaper. Mr Elwell was scheduled to be joined at the House hearing by Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. No Boeing representative was scheduled to give evidence. Meanwhile President Donald Trumps nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration said he was committed to making any changes recommended by groups looking into how the agency certifies the safety of airliners. Under questioning during a Senate committee confirmation hearing, Stephen Dickson said he would never abdicate his responsibility for making sure planes are safe. There is no doubt that the greatest crisis to affect British politics since the end of the Second World War has been Brexit. It has destabilised the British parliamentary system, which is now in a state of constant crisis and disastrous indecision over the referendum decision to leave the European Union. Both the Conservative and Labour parties, who have dominated Britain since the war, have been convulsed and fragmented over Brexit. The Conservatives are on the verge of splitting institutionally as a party, such is the depth of passion and ideological divergence over the continued union with Europe. Less so the Labour party, but its divisions are also extremely difficult to resolve. The British parliament has, to the bemusement of the Europeans, been incapable of finding a workable consensus as to how to actually leave Europe. Arising out of that failure is the current participation of the UK in this month's European elections. There is a supreme irony in the UK having to conform to the rules of the European Union and hold elections, whenever it is supposedly on the way out. Not that Europe wishes to have the participation of the UK in its parliamentary proceedings, nor in the determination of future key appointments such as the President of the Commission or the European Council. Far from it, they are in fact worried that some newly elected British MEPs will try to sabotage or damage important decisions, including the budget for the European Union. Current opinion polls show that the Conservative Party is likely to be the biggest loser in these elections. The newly-formed Brexit Party, formed by Nigel Farage only a month ago, is likely to be the biggest winner with 34% of the vote, at the expense of the Conservative Party and Ukip. It is also predicted that the Europhile Liberal Democrats will do well with 12% of the vote, probably at the expense of the Labour Party. But Brexit is not just a problem for British politicians, but a deeply worrying problem for Ireland, north and south. While Britain will suffer economically and financially as a result of Brexit, Ireland will suffer disproportionately more. Brexit is a huge disaster for both parts of this island and it would be best if it did not happen at all, such is its potential destructive impact . The best we can hope for is the holding of a People's Vote, including a repeat question on whether or not to leave the Union. While nobody can be sure, there are at least good indications by the pollsters, that the British people would now vote to remain within the European Union. Meanwhile, the European election here will be a fascinating contest for the third seat, as the first two seats are guaranteed to Sinn Fein and DUP under the iron law of sectarian allocation. In filling this last seat, it is crucially important for a remainer to be elected to Brussels, in order to send a very clear signal that Northern Ireland wishes to stay within Europe. This would reaffirm the decision here in June 2016 when 56% of the electorate voted in favour of remaining. The beauty of that remain vote was that it transcended the traditional sectarian differences. Within that vote, there was a very significant unionist minority in favour of remaining. Expert academic analysis estimates this minority to be 30% of the unionist vote. That being so there are thousands of pro-remain unionist voters who will not be voting for the DUP nor the Ulster Unionists, who have inanely adopted a pro-Brexit position. This was done despite the best efforts of former leader Mike Nesbitt to make the Ulster Unionists European friendly. The nomination of the pro-remain Danny Kennedy will only confuse unionist voters. It is extremely difficult in all the circumstances of this election to see Danny Kennedy repeat the Houdini-like votes of Jim Nicholson and win the third seat. In 2014, the SDLP were only 2,000 votes behind the Ulster Unionist Jim Nicholson and this time, as the opinion polls now indicate, it is likely Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, will push Danny Kennedy into fourth place. The last seat, will be a contest between Colum Eastwood and Naomi Long, with Colum Eastwood having a very definite advantage as the SDLP is predicted to be in third position with 13% on the first count. Even allowing for her good local election results, for Naomi Long to overtake Colum Eastwood, is too much of a stretch given that in the last election the Alliance candidate only got 44,000 votes, about half of the SDLP's 81,000 votes. To overtake Eastwood is defying reality. In the event, the good money must be on SDLP's Colum Eastwood to defeat Danny Kennedy and clinch the last seat. Concern is growing that antibiotic misuse is leading to resistant bacteria One of the most important advances in medicine came in 1928, when Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic properties of the fungus penicillium and developed penicillin, the first antibiotic. Since then a great range of antimicrobial medicines have become a critical part of human healthcare and veterinary medicine, both treating and preventing infections. Read More The problem is that bacteria and other microbes mutate, evolve and acquire new characteristics. New strains emerge which are resistant to particular antibiotics or other antimicrobial treatments. Resistance can even jump from one species to another. New, resistant strains are emerging faster than we are developing new antibiotics or other antimicrobials. We are now seeing cases of tuberculosis that are incurable, because they are resistant to every antibiotic that we have. Antibiotics are used in surgery to prevent infection. If the drugs don't work, procedures that are routine will no longer be safe, for example, caesarean sections or having your appendix removed. In 2015, it is estimated that 33,000 people died because of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Europe. And this figure might be an underestimation. Reducing our use of antibiotics is one of the best ways we can tackle this growing crisis. AMR is one of the most serious threats to health across the world. As certain antibiotics lose their ability to kill particular strains of microbe, and if we cannot develop new drugs that can beat those bugs, then by the year 2050 we can expect about 10 million deaths per year, worldwide, from drug-resistant infections. Resistance is much wider than human medicine. It is also about farming, veterinary medicine, the food chain and the environment. These are all inextricably linked, which is why we need to work across disciplines and between organisations to deal with the threat if we are to avoid a post-antibiotic disaster. This collaborative approach is known as One Health. This week we are launching a five-year action plan for Northern Ireland to address antimicrobial resistance. Only a 'One Health' approach can keep our antibiotics working, and help us to invent new classes of antibiotics for the future. The action plan also includes measures to reduce the need for antibiotics through preventing infection by improving hygiene, biosecurity measures and implementing effective vaccination strategies. Each of us can join in the fight. One of the most effective weapons that we have is soap and water. Washing our hands is the best way to prevent infections occurring in the first place, and reduce the need for antibiotics to treat them. Also, trust your vet or doctor and accept their advice that an antibiotic may not be appropriate for every infection. Vets and doctors have the knowledge and diagnostic tools to decide the best treatment for you and your animals. And if we don't demand an antibiotic for a cold or flu, that too can help to defend our defences. Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer Robert Huey, Chief Veterinary Officer Maria Jennings, Director, Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland Filipino environmentalists gather outside the Canadian embassy in Manila demanding an urgent return of Ottawa's reeking garbage that was shipped to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014, May 7, 2015. The Philippine government said Wednesday that Canada had not met a deadline set by Manila for taking back tons of garbage that Ottawa exported to the Southeast Asian country, but it expected the trash to be shipped out within three weeks. President Rodrigo Duterte had earlier berated the Canadians about the trash, giving them until May 15 to take it back. Citing information from the foreign affairs department, Dutertes spokesman, Salvador Panelo, said the delay in shipping out the waste was due to processing of documents. If its just a slight delay, the president is a reasonable man, Panelo told reporters. What is important is they will take back their waste. Panelo emphasized that Canada should also pay a storage fee and other penalties, or else we will throw back their trash back at them. The Canadian Embassy in Manila did not immediately return calls from BenarNews seeking comment. From 2013-2014, more than 100 shipping containers filled with about 2,500 tons of household waste, such as plastic bottles, bags and used adult diapers, were shipped to Manila and falsely labelled as recyclable materials. The argument ripened last month when Duterte gave Canada an ultimatum and threatened extreme steps if Ottawa didnt take back its rubbish. I will not allow that kind of s -- t, Duterte said at a news conference. The outburst caught Canada by surprise, and its federal environment minister, Catherine McKenna, immediately assured the Philippines that Ottawa was taking steps to repatriate the trash. She said the containers were mistakenly shipped to Manila. Reynaldo San Juan, deputy executive director of environmental group BAN Toxics, urged Duterte to ban the importation of hazardous waste and other garbage to avoid a repeat of Canadas case. The righteous anger that Filipinos have expressed over the continued presence of the Canadian trash continues to be frustrated by the long delays in its return to Canada, San Juan said. President Duterte expressed our collective anger, and we need to channel this by taking concrete action and ratify the Basel Ban Amendment immediately, he said. The Basel Ban Amendment prohibits the export of hazardous wastes from rich to poorer countries, such as the Philippines. It is an amendment to the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, an international treaty designed to reduce and control movement of hazardous wastes between countries. San Juan said the Philippines ratified the Basel Convention in 1994 and had yet to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment. We appeal to President Duterte to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment immediately. Put the responsibility of policing hazardous waste exporters to the country of export, such as Canada, he said. At least 26 shipping containers of the Canadian trash had been dumped in a private landfill in Capas town in Tarlac province, north of Manila, according to Philippine lawmakers. The local consignee of the trash shipment, Chronic Plastics, and two Filipino customs brokers were charged in 2016 with violating a local law that bans the movement of toxic wastes. But the trash remained in the country despite a court order to ship it back to Canada. Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, my take on the first leg of the Trump-O'Reilly History Tour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Dryness and inflammation in eyes increases the incidence of eye allergies. Increasing incidence of eye allergies among children due to rising pollution and exposure to mobile phone screens is leading to thinning of cornea and blurred vision, said ophthalmologists of Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital. The condition, called keratoconus, is a progressive eye disease in which the cornea becomes thin and begins to bulge into a cone-like shape. This cone shape deflects light as it enters the eye on its way to the retina, affecting the ability of the child to see properly. Said Dr. Raghu Nagaraju Senior Consultant, Cornea & Refractive Surgery, Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital, Bengaluru: The incidence of eye allergies among children is rising due to increasing pollution. Also, widespread exposure to artificial lights and computer and mobile screens is causing dry eyes. Dryness and inflammation is a vicious combination which leads to eye allergies. When children keep rubbing their eyes due to allergies, it causes keratoconus. If keratoconus has progressed beyond moderate grade, children cannot hope to get 100 percent vision back even if they start wearing the best of correctional glasses or contact lenses. The treatment of keratoconus involves collagen crosslinking, but this can only halt further progression of the disease, not fully restore the vision which has already been lost. In severe cases, cornea transplant is the only solution. Dr Ravi, Medical Director, Senior Consultant, Cataract Oculoplasty Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital, Bengaluru added: About one child in 1,500 in India suffers from keratoconus. Children between 10 to 15 years are especially vulnerable. If eye allergy is severe, children as young as 8 years can suffer from the condition. Since keratoconus is a progressive disease, it can keep advancing for years, worsening vision gradually, unless treatment is taken. Cases of keratoconus have risen by 10% in India in the last five years, mainly due to rise in the incidence of eye allergies among children. Luckily, with advances in diagnostic tools, it is possible to diagnose the condition in very early stages. In Dr Agarwals eye hospital we have seen an average of 20-25% raise in patients who are freshly diagnosed to have keratoconus. In 2017-18 we had diagnosed 400 cases of keratoconus and in 2018-19 we had seen 480 patients with keratoconus. There is significant raise in patients who have undergone treatment for keratoconus. Symptoms of keratoconus include blurred vision even after using correction glasses. Patients often feel itching in the eye, sensation of a foreign body in the eye, or some sort of visual disturbance that troubles them in their day to day activities. Dr Preethi, Consultant Ophthalmologist Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital, Bengaluru Said: Any child who is rubbing eyes frequently needs treatment for allergy, as well as eye examination by a corneal specialist to rule out keratoconus. This condition is also suspected in cases where blurred vision does not improve even after wearing glasses. As precaution, parents should limit exposure of children to dust, get treatment for allergies, avoid too much artificial light, limit exposure to computer, phone or TV screens. Dr Raghu Nagaraju of Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital showcased the treatment of a 32-year-old patient Yuvraj who was suffering from keratoconus in one eye. His eye condition turned severe with best vision reduced to only 6/60. Initially, the doctors tried non-surgical interventions, but the patient was not very comfortable. Since his cornea was very thin with scarring, surgeons therefore opted for optical keratoplasty (cornea transplant). The patients vision drastically improved to 6/9 post-surgery and he can now see well. How Grasshoppers began Remaining relevant What do you think has been the secret to Grasshoppers' longevity and success in the market? Grasshoppers are still handmade in the traditional way in the original factory in the Southern Cape. Why stick with this artisanal method of shoemaking? Can you speak to how the Grasshoppers factory has enriched the surrounding Great Brak community throughout its years of operation? Over the last 3 decades, SAs clothing and textile industry has suffered a debilitating amount of factory closures and thousands of job losses. How has Grasshoppers managed to maintain its local manufacturing business during this trying period? How has the profile of the Grasshopper customer evolved over the years? How are you working to keep the Grasshoppers brand relevant going forward? Grasshoppers are designed to be worn for long stretches of time, and the company's promise of delivering "the most comfortable shoe ever made" has seen its product worn everywhere from the school playground and the office, to the factory floor, casual social gatherings and weddings.Perhaps most admirable is that these iconic South African shoes are still painstakingly crafted using time-honoured shoemaking techniques at the original production facility in Great Brak River in the Southern Cape. More than 20 million shoes have left the factory to date, with around 750,000 hand-finished Grasshoppers produced every year.The factory, both directly and indirectly, employs some 1,000 local craftsmen some of whom are third generation artisans living in Great Brak and the surrounding Southern Cape area.The history of Grasshoppers dates back to 1859, when a toll-gate was established at Great Brak River to toll the ox wagons transporting goods between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. The transporters walked the 800km next to the oxen and did not ride on the goods-laden wagons. The tollkeepers noticed that these people wore through their shoes quite quickly and hence started a shoe and boot factory in the village.By 1890, it was a formal factory registered with the Cape government and soon became known nationally. Many brands have been manufactured there over the years, but Grasshoppers has been the most successful.It's no small feat for a local footwear business to not only survive, but thrive, in a tough manufacturing climate. Now forming part of the Bolton Footwear stable, the Grasshoppers brand may be as relevant today as is ever was, its shoes becoming known as somewhat of a street style staple among the millennial crowd. While traditionally popular among men, its female fanbase is growing too.Perhaps the company is dead on then in its belief that if they can get a pair of Grasshoppers on somebody's feet, they'll wear them forever.Here, Grasshoppers CEO Alan Fleetwood shares the history of the brand, its artisanal approach to shoemaking and the fruitful relationship forged between the original Grasshoppers factory and its surrounding Southern Cape community.The Grasshoppers brand was launched in 1966 and the 20millionth pair came off the production line recently. Its success is simple to understand - it is the most comfortable shoe ever made. Grasshoppers have always been made according to shoemaking constructions that ensure great comfort and using materials of trusted quality, handmade by highly-skilled people to exacting standards.The construction types include California, Moccasin and Stitchdown. These are very specialised construction methods and not many factories around the world can do them well. There are specialised designers who ensure that Grasshoppers remains comfortably fashionable through all age groups.The unique materials that are used in Grasshoppers such as full grain leathers, pure crepe rubber soles, special high-quality threads used in the handlacing of the moccasins are of a nature that the people who work with these materials make decisions continuously throughout their handling of them. The performance of a purely machine-made shoe will not stand up to what human eyes can ensure a pair of Grasshoppers offers.Since around 1859, the village arose because of shoe manufacturing. So the area needs the factory and the factory equally needs the people. It is a symbiotic relationship. We support education in the village by sponsoring teacher posts so as to improve the teacher-pupil ratio, and we offer some tertiary bursaries to all youngsters in the village to get them going on their academic road.In the late 1990s, the greater part of the factory was divided into mini-businesses and given to separate groups of workers who organised themselves into several sustainable business units. Today, there are 13 of these self-sufficient businesses supplying Bolton Footwear. The success of this true empowerment action, long before BEE was enforced, can be measured in the doubling of footwear volumes from that time to the present.With assistance from the DTI, a Footwear Cluster was established in the village. This provides training and working opportunity for interns, most of whom have succeeded and entered full-time employment with the company. There is also a successful training school where school-leavers are taught manufacturing skills and are equipped to offer their skills to employers other than just the company itself.Today there are 160,000 clothing, textile and footwear SA jobs being held by Chinese workers in China for goods imported into our country that were previously made, and still could be made, here. In SA, 260-million pairs of shoes are consumed annually and only 60-million are manufactured in SA.I'm sure SA retailers have made the connection that the more they imports at the expense of SA manufacturing, the fewer consumers they will eventually have, as their customers become jobless and stop consuming. It is a very sad phenomenon and the recent closures of two very large footwear factories have taken about 4,200 consumers out of the economy.Grasshoppers survives because it offers relevant footwear of unique construction at excellent value for money. Sizeable volumes also provide an economy of scale which allows value over Chinese imports. The company also manufactures many other brands such as Crockett & Jones, Barker, Watson, Step-on-Airs, Bronx and manufactures under house-brands for chains.The continuous growth of Grasshoppers happens because the brand fulfills on its promise of appropriate fashion with value for money and unbeatable comfort. Thus, it appeals to people of all ages who can identify with a good shoe. Customers who are exposed to the brand from a young age, remain loyal throughout their lives.We continue to bring comfortable fashionability into the design of the shoe. We research changing podiatry trends and adapt accordingly. Importantly, we are ensuring the availability of the shoes on our stockists' shelves at all times so that it is available when the consumer needs it.We will never compromise on ensuring that Grasshoppers are the most comfortable shoes ever made. Tiso Blackstar's Sunday World shut down perturbs Sanef The shut down of Tiso Blackstar's Sunday World and its plan to retrench staff across a number of its publications including the Sowetan, Business Day, The Herald and Daily Dispatch, has made the South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef) worried about the continued job losses in the media industry. In the past two years, scores of journalists lost their jobs due to retrenchments by Tiso Blackstar, Media24, Independent Media and the shutdown of Afro Worldview, previously known as ANN7, by Multichoice. Sanef is calling on media owners to think creatively and responsibly about implementing new, sustainable business models that are built on the integrity and trust of our readers, viewers and listeners place in us to tell the country's stories without fear or favour. This job expired on 31 May 2019. A printed state map was the centerpiece of an interactive workshop held recently at the Outing Club to teach students about the history of colonization in Maine. Several recent initiatives at Bowdoin have encouraged students to pursue a deeper understanding of the impact of colonial history on Native Americans, and to learn how Native people today are contributing to the state's politics, culture, and environment. A New Relationship to the Land: The Outing Club In late February, student trip leaders gathered at the Schwartz Outdoor Leadership Center for an interactive workshop about the effects of European colonization in Maine and the treatment of Native people by the US government. Many of the Bowdoin students said this was a story they had never learned in full. The workshop, offered by a joint state-Wabanaki initiative called REACH, is meant to be easily recreated at churches, libraries, businesses, and schools. Designed for non-Natives, its intention is to reflect on Maine's colonial past, as well as the state's current relationships with Native people. To bring Native issues to the forefront of the Outing Club and the wider campus community, Tess Hamilton, assistant director of the Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC), invited REACH to offer its student workshop at Bowdoin, and she is also organizing a daylong event for faculty and staff at the end of May. So far seventeen people have signed up for this workshop, and she says there is room for more. Jacqueline White lives in the same small house a young Brandon man left to serve his country 75 years ago and never returned. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Jacqueline White holds a postcard telling her about the young soldier who used to live in the house she now lives in. The postcards were mailed out to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Juno Beach campaign during the Second World War. (Bud Robertson/The Brandon Sun) Jacqueline White lives in the same small house a young Brandon man left to serve his country 75 years ago and never returned. On Tuesday, White received a postcard from the Juno Beach Centre Association telling her a little bit about the young man, Walter John Klos, who was born to Joseph and Antonia Klos on July 1, 1917 and died June 6, 1944, during the Juno Beach campaign in northern France. 206 12th St. North. Klos was a 26-year-old corporal with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. "It is really, kind of, a little overwhelming to find out that somebody (who served in the war) actually lived here," said White, who has lived in the house at 206 12th St. North for about three years. "This is pretty awesome," she said of the postcard. "You have a connection with someone." 1925 Princess Ave. White said she plans to keep the postcard in a safe place to remember the soldiers sacrifice. "I knew what Juno Beach is," she said. "I guess it makes you aware that these things really did happen." The association, which is dedicated to commemorating Canadas role in the Second World War, mailed out postcards to the former homes of soldiers who died in the first five days of the pivotal D-Day campaign, which helped secure victory for allied troops against Germany. 645 14th St. The commemorative project is meant to honour the 75th anniversary of the D-Day campaign. Whites postcard was one of six mailed out to Brandon homes. A few blocks away, at 26 Eighth St. North, another young man also left his home to serve overseas. 26 8th St. North Eugene J. Woronchuk, who was also 26 and a rifleman with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, died the same day as Klos. Its not outside the realm of possibly they knew one another back home, perhaps even enlisting together. Now located across from the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium, the house at 1925 Princess Ave. was once the home of Hugh Archibald Munroe, a corporal with the Regina Rifle Regiment. Munroe, 24, died the same day as Klos and Woronchuk, on June 6. 116 16th St. Wilfred Howard Way, a 23-year-old flight lieutenant with the Royal Canadian Air Force, died the next day. Flanked by a pair of tall trees, his home at 645 14th St. is now undergoing renovations. Austin Ralph Fuller also lived in a modest house at 116 16th St. The 26-year-old lance corporal with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles died the day after Way, on June 8. Joseph Arthur Elwood Kinnaird, the youngest of the six men, was only 22 when he was killed on June 8 as well. Calling 218 12th St. his home, Kinnaird served as a gunner with the Royal Canadian Artillery. 218 12th St. An estimated 156,000 British, American and Canadian troops stormed a 75-kilometre stretch of beach in northern France beginning on June 6, 1944. The 14,000 Canadian soldiers were assigned to an area dubbed Juno Beach, where they were eventually tasked with reaching a local rail line and beating back the assault from German troops. The 76-day campaign exacted a high death toll from all nations involved, with 903 Canadians perishing in the first five days. Mike Bechthold, executive director of the Juno Beach Centre Association, told The Canadian Press researchers mined attestation records from the soldiers, preserved in a combination of government archives and genealogy sites. More than half of the addresses listed on those documents are no longer valid, he said, replaced by new developments or rendered obsolete by changing geographical boundaries. Valid addresses were found in nearly 400 cases. Bechthold a historian by trade said the postcards should be seen as the letters that the slain soldiers "would have sent home if they could have." He said he hopes they will also help Canadians to connect the dots between the increasingly distant past and the lives they lead today. "Theres history all around us, yet its almost like we walk around with blinders on," he said. "The people living in these houses ... have no concept of what happened there. This is an opportunity to sort of open their eyes and get them attuned to a different wavelength." brobertson@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press Twitter: @BudRobertson4 OTTAWA - Finance Minister Bill Morneau's former chief of staff Ben Chin will start a new job as a senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Canadian finance minister Bill Morneau's chief of staff Ben Chin is seen during a press conference following Morneau's speech and discussion about the 2019 Federal Budget in Toronto, Wednesday, March 20, 2019. Ben Chin, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau's chief of staff, will start his new role as senior advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston OTTAWA - Finance Minister Bill Morneau's former chief of staff Ben Chin will start a new job as a senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week. Before joining Morneau's office in fall 2017, the veteran political aide worked for former British Columbia premier Christy Clark and former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty. Chin, a former TV journalist, will be reporting to Trudeau's chief of staff Katie Telford starting Friday. He has spent much of his political career out of the headlines but over the winter his name came up during testimony by former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould about the SNC-Lavalin affair. Wilson-Raybould asserted that Chin warned her staff about the political impact of potential job losses during a Quebec provincial election if the embattled Montreal-based engineering firm was unable to secure a plea-bargain-type deal with prosecutors over alleged corruption in Libya. Morneau has insisted Chin didn't do anything inappropriate in discussing the SNC-Lavalin case with Wilson-Raybould's staff. The company is facing a possible 10-year ban from lucrative federal government contracts because of 2015 bribery and fraud charges. OTTAWA - Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she used a G20 ministers' meeting in Japan to press her Chinese counterpart for the evidence behind Beijing's bans on Canadian canola. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA - Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she used a G20 ministers' meeting in Japan to press her Chinese counterpart for the evidence behind Beijing's bans on Canadian canola. The overture follows last week's intervention by Canada at a major World Trade Organization meeting to demand China deliver proof that Canadian canola is contaminated. China has stonewalled requests for Canadian experts to examine Chinese evidence that two canola shipments had pests, and there was no sign Wednesday the Canadian food inspectors would receive travel visas from Beijing any time soon. Bibeau made clear Canada's persistent prodding of China and her Chinese counterpart would continue as the uncertainty and strain of declining Sino-Canadian relations was on full display. "All of the G20 was about having a rule-based trade order and I'm confident that he will relay our conversation to his colleague responsible for customs China," Bibeau said. China's rejection of Canadian food products is part of the escalating tension following the RCMP's December arrest in Vancouver of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou. The Chinese telecom giant is at the centre of a mounting political battle, which was on display Wednesday, over whether it will equip Canada's fifth-generation wireless networks. Nine days after Meng's arrest, China imprisoned two Canadians ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor and accused them of violating China's national security. Spavor received his seventh consular visit Wednesday, a day after Kovrig's seventh, as both men remain locked in a Chinese prison without formal charges and no access to lawyers. Meng's arrest has outraged China's communist leaders. Meanwhile, Huawei denies the U.S. allegations that its new, next generation digital communications equipment is an organ of Chinese-state espionage. President Donald Trump effectively banned Huawei from the U.S. on Wednesday when he signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over what the Commerce Department deemed as "threats to the information and communications technology and services supply chain by foreign adversaries." Conservatives mounted more pressure on the Trudeau government Wednesday to follow Trump's lead and ban Huawei from supplying equipment for the Canada's fifth-generation wireless networks. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the government should have already selected one of Huawei's rivals to be Canada's next 5G provider. "They should have made a decision much earlier. Had they done that, they could have taken this off the table," Scheer said after meeting with his caucus. "We have two Canadians being held illegally in China. We've seen actions against Canadian canola exports now moving into pork exports," he added. "All along the way, the government of China is escalating the situation and Justin Trudeau has done absolutely nothing about it." Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the government will take the time it needs to make an informed decision about which company it will select to serve its 5G needs. "It is a huge enabling new technology that has enormous potential, but it also carries with it, depending on the supply chain, some significant risks," he said, "and we want to make sure that all of that is factored very carefully into a Canadian decision so we get the advantages of the technology, but we do not in any way comprise national security." Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government will take "a measured approach to how we deal with companies in Canada and with our international relations." FREDERICTON - Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques took time from his busy schedule on the International Space Station Wednesday to encourage young students to pursue science telling them they are the future. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, from on-board the International Space Station, speaks to students attending the Canada-wide science fair in Fredericton on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Bissett FREDERICTON - Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques took time from his busy schedule on the International Space Station Wednesday to encourage young students to pursue science telling them they are the future. Hundreds of students from across Canada are gathered in Fredericton this week for the 2019 Canada-Wide Science Fair at the University of New Brunswick. Saint-Jacques spoke to the students via a live video link from the space station orbiting 400 kilometres above earth. "Remember, our future is in the hands of young people like you, everybody in the audience, people who want to make a difference. You can make a difference. You are the future," he said. Saint-Jacques announced the winners of the Little Inventors Inventions for space contest. More than 3,000 students entered the contest, but Connor Brown from Acton, Ont., and Amy Claerhout of Beaumont, Alta., both Grade 7 students, were selected the winners. Brown designed different imprints for the bottom of space boots to identify the footprints of different astronauts on the moon or other planets. "Most boots have the same zigzag pattern on the bottom of the sole. But with my idea, astronauts can see their designed boot imprint marks on the moon. With my invention we can also tell which imprint belongs to who," Brown told the audience. Saint-Jacques said he thought it was a very creative idea. "And you know Canada has joined a group of nations to go back to the moon and we'll need boots for that. So maybe your invention will have a future. Keep thinking and keep inventing," he said. Amy Claerhout designed a mini Canadarm for the washroom on the space station to keep personal hygiene items such as brushes, tweezers and tooth brushes from floating away. Saint-Jacques said it was an item that would be very useful because the astronauts on the space station have things float away all the time. Claerhout said she was amazed that Saint-Jacques spoke directly to her and knew who she was. Both students said they would like to see their inventions put to use, and will follow their interest in science. About a dozen students from across the country got the opportunity to ask Saint-Jacques questions ranging from "What happens to fizzy liquids like soda pop in space?" to questions about growing food in space, and how to encourage the next generation of thinkers in Canada. Reni Barlow, executive director of Youth Science Canada said a lot has changed at student science fairs over the years and the ideas from students are more complex than volcanoes made with vinegar and baking soda. "Primarily it's because they want to help people. They are passionate about a particular question. They want to make the world a better place. They are not afraid to tackle challenging problems and bigger questions and to go out and find the answers and the resources to come up with some pretty amazing projects," he said. Barlow said many of the students are interested in topics like politics and climate change. "Students are very tuned in to the global problems and local problems and they want to make a difference," he said. At the start of the brief event with the students, the International Space Station was over the northern Pacific Ocean and was south of Africa by the time it was complete. Saint-Jacques arrived on the space station last December for a six-and-a-half month mission, which has included a space walk. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In this photo taken Thursday, May 30, 2013, Companion Cannabis, by Holistic Therapeutics, a Marijuana medicinal tincture for dogs and cats is seen at La Brea Compassionate Caregivers, a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles Thursday, May 30, 2013. Parliament Hill is going to the dogs today as veterinarians lobby MPs to authorize the use of medical cannabis for critters. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Damian Dovarganes Five stories in the news for Wednesday, May 15 VETS WANT OTTAWA TO AUTHORIZE POT FOR PETS Veterinarians are lobbying MPs today to authorize the use of medical cannabis for animals. The vets are bringing five dogs to Parliament Hill to draw attention to what they see as glaring omissions in the legalized regimes for medical and recreational marijuana. The law does not allow veterinarians to prescribe pot for pets, even though preliminary research suggests it could be beneficial in treating pain, seizures and anxiety. Dr. Sarah Silcox, president of the Canadian Association of Veterinary Cannabinoid Medicine, says some people using products sold for human consumption or unregulated "black market" products marketed for animal use, but about which veterinarians have concerns about safety and purity. CANADA IN 'CLIMATE-CHANGE EMERGENCY': LIBERALS Both the Liberals and the federal New Democrats are pushing motions this week to declare climate change a national emergency. The Liberal motion, which is to be debated Thursday, asks MPs to recommit to the Paris climate-change accord by meeting the existing targets for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and toughening them. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna was not hiding the strategy behind the Liberal motion get the Conservatives to declare their support for the Paris agreement targets, or tip their hand on Andrew Scheer's yet-unreleased climate-change plan by voting against them. COURT TO RULE ON REFERRAL POLICY FOR DOCTORS Ontario's highest court is expected to rule today on whether doctors in the province are obligated to give referrals for medical services that clash with their moral or religious beliefs. A group of doctors has asked the Court of Appeal for Ontario to overturn a divisional court decision that upheld the referral requirement. The requirement is part of a policy issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to address issues surrounding, among other things, assisted dying and abortion. Last year, the divisional court found that while the policy does infringe on doctors' religious freedom, the benefits to the public outweigh the cost to physicians. UPDATED FISHERIES LAW COULD STEM STOCK LOSS An ocean conservation group says changes coming to the way fisheries are managed in Canada could give hope for the rebound of some species and the protection of others. Bill C-68 was introduced a month after the Liberal government was sworn in and had its second reading in the Senate in December. Josh Laughren of Oceana Canada says the proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act would prompt the government to rebuild stocks that fall below sustainable levels. An expert panel convened by the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 found Canada had seen more than half of its fish biomass disappear since 1970. 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF WINNIPEG GENERAL STRIKE Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of one of Canada's most notorious strikes. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 brought the city to a virtual standstill as some 30,000 workers walked off the job. Mounted police and special constables were brought in, strike leaders were arrested and one worker was shot and killed as police charged at a massive group of workers on Main Street. After six weeks, workers returned to their jobs in what was a defeat for the labour movement. But in the long run, the Winnipeg strike led to many changes. A royal commission that examined the strike warned that workers were suffering while the manufacturing class was prosperous. ALSO IN THE NEWS: Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is in Washington to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, the new North American trade deal and relations with China. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Paris today for Christchurch Call, a meeting with global leaders aimed at stopping social media being used to organize and promote terrorism. Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Toronto Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy with a departure ceremony as part of the commemorative journey across Canada. OTTAWA - Canadians appear increasingly concerned about situation at the border even if the overall numbers of crossers are down which experts warn could harden attitudes against newcomers and fan populist sentiment. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Migrants from Somalia cross into Canada illegally from the United States by walking down this train track into the town of Emerson, Man., Feb.26, 2017. The number of asylum seekers crossing the border "irregularly" into Canada has slowed compared to early last year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods OTTAWA - Canadians appear increasingly concerned about situation at the border even if the overall numbers of crossers are down which experts warn could harden attitudes against newcomers and fan populist sentiment. Federal statistics show the Mounties apprehended 3,944 irregular migrants between official border crossings through the first four months of this year, a 48 per cent drop compared to the 7,612 crossers detained over the same period in 2018. Despite the drop, polling data suggests Canadians are increasingly concerned about immigration levels in Canada due in large part to the influx of irregular migrants. Polling from Ipsos Public Affairs presented at an immigration summit suggested Canada ranks among the top three countries in the world where citizens believe more steps need to be taken harden immigration rules. Company CEO Darrell Bricker told the conference that further data suggesting only 38 per cent of Canadians believe immigration has had a positive impact on the country, means conditions are ripe in Canada for a strong voice to come along to fan the flames of nativism a form of populism that focuses on protecting the interests of native-born Canadians over newcomers. "The problem we've got on the immigration issue right now in terms of public opinion is that Canadians are really only seeing what's going on at the Quebec border and that's defining what they think about the issue," Bricker said, referencing the migrants who walk across the border through a forest path in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle. Bricker said Canadians appear to believe the irregular migrant influx shows Canada's border is "anything but" a well-managed system. "That's bad for people's attitudes on immigration. The government really needs to get this file under control," he said at the conference, held last week in Ottawa. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen pointed Wednesday to a newly launched "immigration matters" campaign designed to share positive stories of newcomers giving back to their communities. But he acknowledged that Canada is not immune to a "wave of right-wing populism" sweeping through Western countries. "Recent polling points to the worrying trend that some are falling prey to misinformation and fear mongering, peddled by some politicians and emerging far-right groups," Hussen said in a statement. "The Business Council of Canada urged politicians not to make immigration a key issue in the next election because the business community understands that immigrants will be the only way to fill skills and labour shortages today and in the near future as all baby boomers retire. We must remind ourselves that Canada benefits from immigrants and that when faced with misinformation, we must fight fear with facts." The public, however, does not differentiate between refugees and immigrants who come to Canada through economic or family reunification streams, said Fen Hampson, executive director of the World Refugee Council. Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Centre, said her time as a policy adviser for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and as an attache for the U.S. embassy in Ottawa has convinced her a majority of the public hold moderate opinions about immigrants. She said she would like to hear more from this silent majority to make the political debate over immigration less partisan and less extreme. "I want to see more moderates be militant," she said at the conference. "The debate is here, it's in the middle, because that's where solutions arise, not at the extremes. Let's talk about and activate people to get stuff done to make co-operation and negotiation popular again, because that's how you get things done." Hampson told attendees that Canada's migrant influx is nothing compared to the global refugee crisis. More than 68 million people were driven from their homes in 2017 due to wars, persecution and natural disasters, according to the United Nations refugee agency's 2018 global trends report. In the same year Canada received 50,000 refugees seeking protection. "Uganda has over a million forcibly displaced (migrants). They're a very poor country, with very low per capita income. We're a very rich country and our problems should be put into perspective they're trivial," Hampson said. Follow @ReporterTeresa on Twitter. OTTAWA - A mid-trial appeal about sensitive evidence concerning sexual activity could endanger the timely completion of Joshua Boyle's assault case, a lawyer for the former Afghanistan hostage told a judge Wednesday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Joshua Boyle arrives at court in Ottawa on Monday, March 25, 2019. A lawyer for Boyle is suggesting a mid-trial appeal on a point of evidence could endanger the timely completion of the former Afghanistan hostage's assault trial.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick OTTAWA - A mid-trial appeal about sensitive evidence concerning sexual activity could endanger the timely completion of Joshua Boyle's assault case, a lawyer for the former Afghanistan hostage told a judge Wednesday. Eric Granger said the legal challenge by Boyle's estranged wife Caitlan Coleman, the alleged victim, is resulting in "fragmented proceedings" amid the pressures of a schedule intended to ensure the constitutional right to be tried within a reasonable time. Boyle, 35, has pleaded not guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice to offences against Coleman, 33, including assault, sexual assault and unlawful confinement. The offences are alleged to have occurred in late 2017, after the couple returned to Canada following five years as captives of Taliban-linked extremists who seized them during an ill-fated backpacking trip to Asia. Boyle's trial, which began in late March, is suspended indefinitely while the dispute over evidence plays out in Ontario Superior Court. At a one-day hearing Wednesday, Coleman's lawyer Ian Carter asked the court to review a recent ruling by trial judge Peter Doody that allows Boyle's defence to introduce evidence concerning certain consensual sexual activity with his wife. Granger, the defence lawyer, said the Superior Court review is unnecessary because sufficient safeguards are already built into the process followed by the trial judge. The issue is significant because the law limits the extent to which an accused person can bring up an alleged victim's sexual history during a trial. Such information is only supposed to be admissible if it's directly relevant to the case, and not to be used to suggest that a complainant is untrustworthy or was more likely to have consented to sexual activity because of his or her history. As a result, the Superior Court's decision here, expected some time next month, is likely to have broad implications for such trials in spelling out whether a complainant can challenge a ruling under the so-called rape-shield provisions. Carter, Coleman's lawyer, argued Wednesday that Doody's analysis was flawed and that his ruling should be tossed out. Granger's co-counsel, Lawrence Greenspon, said the judge conducted a thorough evaluation and considered relevant factors in coming to a ruling that some of Boyle's and Coleman's history can be brought into the trial. "He got it absolutely correct," Greenspon said. Legislative changes that took effect in December gave complainants in sexual-assault cases a bigger say in proceedings on allowable evidence. Howard Krongold, representing the Criminal Lawyers' Association as an intervener, argued Wednesday that the new measures are limited to the trial level and do not open the door to the sort of challenge Coleman is making. Krongold said the criminal justice system should not be permitted to grind to a halt when a party believes a trial judge has made a mistake. "A system that does that will not function." Gillian Hnatiw, representing another intervenor, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, said concerns about potential delays stemming from challenges in sexual-assault cases "are somewhat alarmist" and premature. Carter also downplayed the notion that Coleman's application would "open the floodgates" and make such challenges commonplace. Boyle's trial is tentatively slated to resume July 2. But timing will depend on the pending Superior Court decision and whether it is appealed, resulting in additional delays. Follow @JimBronskill on Twitter VANCOUVER - A Metro Vancouver woman died with her husband and brother in a float plane crash in Alaska on Monday, and friends and family are remembering them as driven, passionate people who will be deeply missed. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This May 13, 2019 photo provided by Ryan Sinkey, shows a Coast Guard Station Ketchikan response boat crew searching for survivors from a downed floatplane in the vicinity of George Inlet near Ketchikan, Alaska. Two floatplanes carrying cruise ship tourists collided Monday near the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan. (Ryan Sinkey via AP) VANCOUVER - A Metro Vancouver woman died with her husband and brother in a float plane crash in Alaska on Monday, and friends and family are remembering them as driven, passionate people who will be deeply missed. Elsa Wilk, 37, from Richmond, B.C., and Ryan Wilk, 39, originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, were married and lived together in Metro Vancouver where they worked in the tech sector, friends and colleagues said. Elsa Wilk in a handout photo. Friends and colleagues are mourning a Metro Vancouver couple who were active in the region's booming technology industry before their lives were cut short in a float plane crash in Alaska.Thirty-seven-year-old Elsa Wilk from Richmond, B.C., and Ryan Wilk, 39, originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, were among six people killed when two sightseeing planes collided on Monday.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Brianne Rigetti MANDATORY CREDIT An American named Louis Botha, 46, also died in the crash. Elsa Wilk's ex-husband Ian Brink said the man was her brother, and at one point Botha lived in San Diego with his wife and kids. Brink said Elsa Wilk's maiden name was Botha and she was born in Pretoria, South Africa, where they met. They were married from 2006 to 2012 and immigrated to the Vancouver area together because she had a sister in Richmond, he said. Friends and teammates said she competed in taekwondo at the national level. She was passionate about the sport and worked hard to achieve her black belt, said Brink. "We were young and had a thirst for life, and taekwondo was her thing," he said. "She had this itch to always push herself, her body and her mind, so I think it was a good way to confront that push yourself to the maximum and see what you're made of." He said he hadn't kept in touch with her in recent years, but when he knew her she loved technology and computer games, and was an avid runner who participated in the Vancouver Sun Run. Brianne Rigetti, a former taekwondo teammate on the B.C. Senior Women's Pattern Team, said Elsa Wilk was a "fierce friend and competitor with a work ethic like no other." "It didn't matter if you hadn't spoken for months or hours, it was always like no time had passed at all. She would be there for you at a moment's notice, sometime even when you didn't know that was exactly what you needed," Rigetti said. "I am so fortunate to have called her my friend, to have travelled and competed with her and to have shared a part of my life with her. She touched so many lives that are better for meeting her and there are a lot of people who lost an amazing friend, competitor, teammate and companion." Members of Metro Vancouver's booming technology industry also mourned the couple, with former co-worker Derek Bolen saying Elsa Wilk brought a sense of healthy competition to everything she did. "When we worked together she was a highly driven, incredibly intelligent and supportive person who you could always rely on for personal or professional advice and I considered her a close friend," he said. They worked together at Clio, a legal software company. The marketing team once made red "Elsa Army" T-shirts for staff to support her when she was competing in taekwondo, he remembered. Her LinkedIn page said she had worked in marketing for several technology companies and helped launch CryptoKitties, a video game based on a growing technology called blockchain. Ryan Wilk's LinkedIn account described him as vice-president of product and market innovation at NuData Security, a Mastercard company. A Mastercard spokesperson said in a statement they are deeply shocked and saddened by his death. "Ryan joined NuData in 2014 and quickly became the face of the business across the regions. He has been a cherished member of the team and will be deeply missed by colleagues right across Mastercard and NuData," the statement said. "We extend our most heartfelt sympathies to Ryans family and friends. Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time. A local tech-industry member remembered she saw Elsa Wilk speak about CryptoKitties at a B.C. blockchain event in 2017. "She was very passionate about the project," said Rama Ibrahim, co-founder and chief operating officer of Next Decentrum Technologies Inc. and founder of a group called Women in Emerging Tech. "It's rare to find a woman talking about blockchain and stuff related to this. It's a really tiny community in Vancouver." The float planes were carrying tourists from the Royal Princess cruise ship when they collided near the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan. The death toll was initially reported as four, with two people missing. The U.S. Coast Guard said the bodies of the two missing people were recovered near the crash site Tuesday night. Ryan Wilk was an American citizen. The other victims were identified as 62-year-old Cassandra Webb and 46-year-old pilot Randy Sullivan, both Americans, and 56-year-old Simon Bodie, an Australian. The Royal Princess left Vancouver for Anchorage on Saturday and was to return on May 25. It's not known how the planes collided. U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigators are at the site. Follow @ellekane on Twitter. QUEBEC - The Quebec government is giving municipalities more tools to deal with potentially dangerous dogs, including allowing towns to order the animals put down if they injure someone. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. QUEBEC - The Quebec government is giving municipalities more tools to deal with potentially dangerous dogs, including allowing towns to order the animals put down if they injure someone. Public Security Minister Genevieve Guilbault tabled amendments Wednesday giving all Quebec municipalities a set of rules and the flexibility to adopt stricter ones if they see fit. Guilbault says while no law could eliminate all risks or incidents involving dogs, only about half of municipalities have a bylaw on the books. Guilbault says the rules will establish clears rules for dog ownership. Dog owners would have to register their animals and assure they always wear a collar and are on a leash when in public. There would also be strict rules covering inspections and seizures, with penal provisions for those who disobey the law. She said the ruling on whether dog is dangerous will fall to a veterinarian, but the province opted not to go with any type of breed-specific amendments. "It's really complicated to establish the specific breed of a dog. We've talked with a lot of people on that," Guilbault said. The stricter rules come amid several dog attacks in recent years. In 2016, Christiane Vadnais, a Montreal woman, was killed in her own backyard by a dog in the city's Pointe-aux-Trembles district. The issue came to the forefront again last March when a jogger was attacked and severely injured in Potton Township, about 125 kilometres southeast of Montreal. Guilbault noted that Potton, for example, didn't have any set rules in place, but its mayor has said he intended to enact a bylaw once the Quebec government legislative changes were completed. PARIS - Canada is offering softwood lumber and steel to help with the reconstruction of Paris's famed Notre Dame Cathedral, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday after touring the iconic monument that was partially destroyed by fire in mid-April. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Paris, France on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Trudeau is in France to attend the Tech for Good Summit. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld PARIS - Canada is offering softwood lumber and steel to help with the reconstruction of Paris's famed Notre Dame Cathedral, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday after touring the iconic monument that was partially destroyed by fire in mid-April. Not long after arriving in Paris, Trudeau visited Notre Dame alongside the cathedral's rector, Patrick Chauvet, and French Culture Minister Franck Riester. He said it was an honour to be able to exhibit some of the solidarity Canadians feel toward their French cousins. "Canada will stand with France and ensure we offer all the support whether it's steel or wood or whatever help we can," Trudeau said. "This is truly a piece not just of French history but of world history that needs to be preserved and we will be there to be part of it." Restoration Project Chief Architect Phlippe Villeneuve gives Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Rector-Archpriest of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral Patrick Chauvet a tour of the remains of the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral in Paris, Wednesday, May 15, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld A fire devastated the 12th-century cathedral on April 15, with the dramatic blaze playing out live on television across the globe. Firefighters finally managed to gain control the blaze after several hours. The main structure and relics were preserved, but the cathedral's roof and its famous spire were destroyed. Philippe Villeneuve, the architect responsible for the church's restoration, explained to Trudeau the extent of the damage and what it will take to bring the building back to life. "This was a terrible, terrible fire, but you can't help but marvel at how so much was saved even as we did lose so much," Trudeau said Wednesday. The Canadian Steel Producers Association and the Forest Products Association of Canada have already indicated their support for the government initiative. In a letter sent to French President Emmanuel Macron this week, Trudeau said Canada was proud to support France in the reconstruction. "The success of these sectors reflects the talent and hard work of Canadians, and we will be happy to put these assets to work for France," Trudeau wrote. Trudeau was in Paris to take part in a series of meetings in the fight against extremism and online violence, some two months after an attack at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, left 51 dead. Alongside Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Trudeau attended the Christchurch Call to Action summit and adopted the "Christchurch Appeal," which is a plan to stop the spread of hate online. He is also scheduled to speak Thursday at the VivaTech summit, an annual event celebrating innovation that brings together startups and industry leaders. Trudeau also has several bilateral meetings scheduled with the leaders of Jordan and Norway on Wednesday and France and New Zealand on Thursday, when the two-day visit wraps up. Significant changes could be coming to the way fisheries are managed in Canada, giving hope for the rebound of some species and the protection of others, says an ocean conservation group. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Boats remain tied to the wharf in Clark's Harbour, N.S., on Monday, November 26, 2018. Significant changes could be coming to the way fisheries are managed in Canada, giving hope for the rebound of some species and the protection of others, says an ocean conservation group. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan Significant changes could be coming to the way fisheries are managed in Canada, giving hope for the rebound of some species and the protection of others, says an ocean conservation group. Josh Laughren, executive director of Oceana Canada, said proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act would prompt the government to rebuild stocks that fall below sustainable levels. And while the changes still include an "off ramp" for government to make decisions in the interest of short-term economics over longer sustainability, they would require those decisions to be made public, which Laughren said is a step toward ensuring past mistakes aren't repeated. "We've kind of slept walked through this incredible decline in abundance and it's been hidden by some of the economics of it," Laughren said in an interview. More than half of the entire value of Canadian fisheries now comes from Atlantic invertebrates like lobster, crab and shrimp, he said, pointing to a 2015 report by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Not only does that make the industry more vulnerable to pathogens and disease, but the profitability of those fisheries have obscured the depletion of others like groundfish. Since 1970, Canada has seen fish biomass decline by 55 per cent, an expert panel convened by the Royal Society of Canada found. In the United States, fisheries laws have more bite because they clearly define "overfishing," and when it occurs, action to stop and reverse the impacts is required within months. Forty-five stocks have been recovered since the law was introduced and 28 of the most successful ones were generating 54 per cent more revenue than when they were overfished, he said. Bill C-68 was introduced a month after the Liberal government was sworn in and had its second reading in the Senate in December. Laughren said he's very hopeful the bill could improve biodiversity in a way that also creates more economic opportunity. "Abundance provides options, abundance makes allocation a hell of a lot easier and provides more value. I think we've kind of forgotten about how important that is," he said. Others are more wary. Paul Lansbergen, who represents commercial fisheries as president of the Fisheries Council of Canada, said that beyond protecting fish stocks the law should also protect "sustainable" fishing rights. "The most significant policy issue facing the sector is a concern of stability of access to the fishing resource," he told the Senate standing committee reviewing the bill. "The use of fisheries is missing in the current wording of the bill." Lansbergen said the council will reserve an opinion on the law until accompanying regulations are revealed. But he told the committee it represents a significant change that will have long-standing implications for the sector and the health of the oceans and fish resources. Canada's seafood industry employs 80,000 people and accounts for $7 billion in exports to more than 130 countries. Lansbergen said Canada is already a "global leader" in sustainable fisheries management, noting that 80 per cent of wild seafood production is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. He warned against forcing commercial fishermen to give up their licences. "Taking away long-standing licences and quotas does not respect past investments and has eroded the sector's confidence to invest and could undermine conservation efforts," he said. Martin Mallet, executive director of the Maritime Fishermen's Union, said he's hoping the bill passes without too many hiccups, adding most fishermen associations in Atlantic Canada support the bill. Mallet said the union particularly likes the way the bill would enshrine an existing owner-operator policy into law so it can be better enforced. It would give stronger protection to East Coast fishermen against unaffordable quota costs that have made fishing more expensive than it's worth in some other jurisdictions, he said. "The West Coast fisheries are an example of what could happen if you don't have this type of regulation. You end up having companies and investors basically buying the rights to the fish," he said, with fishermen then leasing the quota from them. It can mean less economic benefit funnelled into local communities, he said. Bill C-68 also provides new authorities for Indigenous participation in the fisheries along with their co-management. Terry Teegee, regional chief with the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, said he generally supports the bill but would like even stronger protection for First Nations' inherent and constitutionally protected rights. Many of the sections regarding Indigenous participation use language like "may" instead of "shall," which means it doesn't compel action, he said. Teegee said Indigenous knowledge systems should be recognized on a level playing field with government science. Committing to rebuild fish stocks and habitat restoration could be seen as an act of reconciliation, he said. "I think the bill itself is better than it was but certainly I think there can be improvements and more commitments to Indigenous people," he said. The clock is ticking on the bill head of the federal election this fall but Teegee said fisheries protection shouldn't depend on who holds power. "Right now we're seeing climate change and we're seeing fish stocks declining. We need to really fix things and make some interventions," he said. TORONTO - Supreme Court Justice Clement Gascon, who briefly went missing in Ottawa last week, recently explained that his disappearance was caused by a panic attack. Here's a look at the science and the stigma around the issue: Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/5/2019 (955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Supreme Court of Canada Justice Clement Gascon speaks during a welcoming ceremony at the Supreme Court of Canada Monday October 6, 2014 in Ottawa. Gascon says he suffered a panic attack the afternoon he went missing last week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld TORONTO - Supreme Court Justice Clement Gascon, who briefly went missing in Ottawa last week, recently explained that his disappearance was caused by a panic attack. Here's a look at the science and the stigma around the issue: WHAT IS A PANIC ATTACK? Andrew Jacobs, a psychologist with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, said panic attacks are "a sudden surge in anxiety or an uncomfortable feeling that go from zero to 60 within a few minutes." Panic attacks are defined by a certain set of symptoms that can include increased heart rates, nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath, sweating and a fear the person is dying. Jacobs said a person must experience four out of 13 symptoms as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. WHAT CAUSES AN ATTACK? The Canadian Mental Health Association says panic attacks can be brought on by stress, fatigue or even excessive exercise. Jacobs says there are two types of panic attacks: cued and uncued. "Cued attacks happen as a result of someone already being very worried or fearful of something that can escalate into panic," he said. "Uncued, which feels like the panic attacks come literally out of nowhere it can even happen in the middle of sleep." Gascon said in his statement that on the afternoon he went missing, he was affected by both a change in medication and a "heart-rending career decision." He announced in September he plans to retire. HOW DOES A PERSON COPE WITH A PANIC ATTACK? There are many options for treating anxiety and panic attacks, including medication and counselling. One in particular is called cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. According to St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, CBT can include such methods as confronting a feared situation, as well as breathing techniques and replacing anxious thoughts with realistic ones. In Gascon's case, he said his recent episode had been "taken care of and treated with the necessary medical support." CAN YOU RETURN TO WORK AFTER A PANIC ATTACK? Gascon said in his statement that he is "fully capable" of performing his duties as a judge, and Chief Justice Richard Wagner said in his own statement that Gascon continues to have his "full support and confidence." Jordan Friesen, the national director of workplace mental health at the Canadian Mental Health Association, said it should be "relatively simple" for Gascon to return to work, given that panic attacks tend to be time-limited. "I think the question becomes, for him and for his employer, is to understand what to do if a situation like that happens again," said Friesen. "My hope would be that if he's experiencing symptoms of a panic attack again that he's able to go and identify this to his employer and seek appropriate support much like you would if you were at work and started feeling ill with the flu." HOW HAVE ATTITUDES TOWARD MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS? Last year, the family of late Supreme Court justice Gerald Le Dain went public with the story of his departure from the court in 1988, saying then-chief justice Brian Dickson forced Le Dain out after he was hospitalized with depression. A former top aide to Dickson had previously written that the decision was made because the Supreme Court had a heavy load at the time and could not handle being short a judge, but Le Dain's family told CBC he would have returned after a short time off to recuperate. In contrast to the way Le Dain was allegedly treated, the response to Gascon's public statement has been overwhelmingly positive. Wagner said Gascon's explanation took courage, while Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould thanked him for sharing his struggle. Doron Gold, a former lawyer who now works as a psychotherapist with Homewood Health, said the response illustrates the way attitudes have shifted though he added there's still much work to be done. "Things are so much better than they used to be, and they're so far away from where they should be," said Gold. A High Court challenge has been brought by a group representing oyster fishermen over a decision to grant licences allowing the farmed fishing of oysters in Lough Swilly. The action has been brought by the Co Donegal based Lough Swilly Wild Oyster Society Ltd (LSWOS) whose members have been engaged in the fishing of native oysters in Lough Swilly for over 25 years. It fears the lack of proper controls over the farming of oysters in the Lough is an "environmental disaster". The group, represented in court by Peter Finlay SC, claims the licences, awarded by the Minister for Agriculture and upheld on appeal by the Aquaculture Licence Appeals Board last February, allow the farmed fishing of a species in Lough Swilly known as Pacific Oysters. LSWOS claims the farming of these foreign oysters is eroding the natural occurring fishing grounds and are having a detrimental effect on their ability to fish for native species. They claim licences were given to parties to farm Pacific oysters that were either abandoned or neglected. This resulted in a mass of untended pacific oysters that have spread out and taken over the beds of the native oysters. The State, it is claimed, has done nothing to control the proper farming of oysters in the Lough, LSWOS claims. The aquaculture and foreshores licences at the centre of the actions were granted to Mr Alan O'Sullivan and the Lough Swilly Shellfish Growers Co-Operative Society Ltd. LSWOS says it makes no criticism to make of the proposed licences and says that in principle it has no objections to the granting of properly regulated licences to farm oysters in Lough Swilly. Mr Finlay told the court his clients claim the decisions to award the licences are flawed and should be set aside, on various grounds including the appeals board refusal to grant his client an oral hearing after LSWOS lodged its appeal against the Minister's decision in 2017 to grant the licences. Counsel said there was a lack of fairness in the manner in the process which the appeals board adopted when considering his client's appeal. Counsel added that contrary to the EU Habitats Directive the appeals board also relied on information concerning the Lough Swilly that was some six years out of date and did not take into account the proliferation of the Pacific Oyster in the Lough. In judicial review proceedings, the LSWOS seeks various orders and declarations including an order quashing the decisions of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine, as well as the decision by the Aquaculture Licence Appeals Board confirming the Minister's decision. They also seek a declaration that the decision to grant the licences is in breach of natural and constitutional justice, damages and for a stay to be put on the licences. Both Mr O'Sullivan and the Lough Swilly Shellfish Growers Co-Operative Society Ltd are notice parties to the action. Permission to bring the challenge was granted on an ex parte basis, by Mr Justice Seamus Noonan. It will come back to court in July. Dell Technologies has appointed a new general manager for its Irish business as it increasingly focuses on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. Former BT and Microsoft executive Mark Hopkins, who has been Dell's public sector and northern director for a year, will take over the general manager's role from Aisling Keegan. Irish exporters appear to have shaken off concerns over Brexit and global trade wars but only for the time being while consumer spending remains lacklustre, according to the evidence of official data and surveys. In welcome news for exporting firms battered by the slump in sterling since the UK voted to leave the EU almost three years ago, CSO figures showed exports from the Republic to Britain climbed to more than 3.6bn in the first three months of the year, up 9% from a year earlier. And in a healthy sign of overall trade, the value of goods imported from Britain climbed 16% to almost 5.1bn in the same period. Analysts have long pointed out that the plans of Brexiteers could end up being self-defeating for British interests because the value of the goods the Republic imports from Britain is much larger than the goods it exports to Britain. However, the threat that the UK could still tumble out of the EU without signing up to a transition deal remains a big risk for the Irish economy. Against the euro, sterling slumped to 87.16 pence as markets bet that Theresa May would lose her last gamble to get her EU withdrawal deal through the Commons. Moreover, many international experts have warned that the global trade war between the US and China will inevitably have widespread effects for Irish exporters and importers. Capital Economics in London has warned any escalation that leads to President Donald Trump in setting his sights in the coming weeks on rewriting the US trade agreements with Europe would have severe effects on Irelands economy. In a new report, Capital Economics said it believes the financial markets are too complacent in pricing in the risks of trade rows dragging in Europe. In its latest assessment for the UK, it predicts Britain will probably be buffeted by global trends, pushing UK stock prices 10% lower and sterling down from $1.29 to about $1.25. However, a Brexit deal later this year would help boost UK economic growth in the next two years, meaning that UK stock markets would regain current levels by the end of 2021. For Europe, any escalation by the US in its China dispute, such as extending tariffs to car duties, would have significant effects. Looking ahead, we have long been of the view that stock markets in the eurozone (and elsewhere) would fall this year as the global economy slowed, and that in the event equities in Italy would fare especially badly owing to problems at home, Capital Economics said. However, should the US extend tariffs to all imports from China and/or impose duties on its imports of autos, we suspect that the Dax (Frankfurts stock index) would do just as poorly and that the Cac (Paris stock index) would also fall sharply, it said. Meanwhile, the latest consumer spending index (CSI) survey by Visa which measures all spending by cash, cheques and by cards in Irish stores and online suggests that Brexit and trade worries continue to weigh on consumers here. Although in positive territory for the second month running, the CSI pointed to a relatively modest pace of growth compared with the series history, it found. The survey found that Irish instore spending rose 1.2% in April compared to April 2018, helped by spending in bars and restaurants, while eCommerce spending rose 2.2% its lowest rate since January 2018. A Cork engineering and software firm has said it will create up to 180 new jobs after opening a new customer innovation centre. Little Island-based Crest Solutions, which was founded in 1998 and provides services to multinational pharma and medical devices clients in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US, said it would hire 80 engineers, project managers, analysts and technicians by the end of this year. The firm said it was also aiming to add an additional 100 by the end of 2021, having grown from 20 in 2011 to 135 currently. With offices in Cork, Westport and Corby in the UK, Crest invested in a joint venture with Vistalink in 2012 to grow in the Benelux and Scandinavian regions. It has also established partnerships in the US to provide services on multiple global sites for pharmaceutical clients, including J&J, Allergan, Baxter Healthcare, MSD-Merck, BD, and Abbott. Revenue at the firm grew 1,000% between 2012 and 2018 to more than 40m. Chief executive and founder of the firm, Frank Madden said it plans to grow group revenue to over 150m over five years. Business Minister Heather Humphreys, who was on hand to open Crest's new customer innovation centre in Little Island, said: The company has seen phenomenal growth over the last number of years through its partnerships with multinationals and serve as an example for other homegrown businesses to follow. Meanwhile, research from a jobs website found Cork had 10% less job vacancies compared to a year ago, in contrast to Limerick and Waterford which saw 5% and 12% increases respectively. Irishjobs.ie said hotel and catering roles had increased 9% year-on-year, with a 13% rise in the last three months. General manager of Irishjobs.ie, Orla Moran said with tourism consistently providing strong job growth, fears around the rise in Vat from 9% to 13.5% in last year's Budget had not played out, particularly outside of Dublin. "Growth in hospitality jobs will make for encouraging reading for those who feared rise in Vat rates in Budget 2019 would hurt hotels and restaurant industry," she said. With virtual full employment, keeping education flexible and modern, as well as encouraging foreign workers to plug shortages in talent was also key, Ms Moran said. The IDA and Enterprise Ireland were in Cork and Dublin for events focusing on connecting indigenous Irish suppliers with multinationals. More than 400 meetings between 188 Irish suppliers and 96 multinationals are due to take place over two days, Enterprise Ireland said. A decision by a Dublin airport-based airline services firm to discriminatorily dismiss a man with dyspraxia was informed by one of the firms managers carrying out a Google search on dyspraxia. In the case before the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), it has ordered Sky Handling Partner Ltd to pay 15,000 in compensation to Stephen Dunne for his discriminatory dismissal as an Aircraft Service Agent. The firm discriminatorily dismissed Mr Dunne in April 2018 after a report by one of Sky Handling Partner's managers, referred to as Mr B, concluded that Stephen Dunne is not suitable for a position within the ramp department in Dublin Airport. Mr Dunne - who took the case to the WRC with the assistance of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) - told the hearing that he holds a full driver licence and drives all the time without issue. Mr Dunne was dismissed without formal explanation only a month into his employment as an Aircraft Service Agent for Sky Handling Partner in April 2018. What is dyspraxia? Dyspraxia is a common disorder affecting fine and/or gross motor coordination in children and adults and individuals may vary in how their difficulties present. In her ruling, WRC Adjudication Officer, Valerie Murtagh said that the report carried out by one of the firms managers, referred to as 'Mr B', is grounded on assumptions and generalisations about persons with dyspraxia but is not grounded on actual facts about the complainants specific condition. 'Quite astonishing' In response to questioning from Ms Murtagh at the hearing, Mr B stated that his research involved doing a Google search on dyspraxia on his PC. In her findings, Ms Murtagh states: It is quite astonishing, in my opinion, that Mr B compiled a report on the complainant without ever having met him or obtaining expert independent advice on the specifics of the complainants condition. In her adjudication, Ms Murtagh found that Sky Handling Partner had failed to provide Mr Dunne with reasonable accommodation related to his disability and found that he was discriminatorily dismissed on the grounds of his disability. In his report, Mr B concluded that Dublin Airport can be a hazardous environment due to the large amount of aircraft traffic every day As Stephen is suffering from dyspraxia, this may place him more at risk by working in an already hazardous environment. Spatial awareness is a vital key within this role and everybody within the airport always needs to be aware of what is happening around them. Mr B stated that the ramp environment is a place where there is very little margin for error and a person with difficulties in co-ordination and/or unfamiliar environments may have difficulty adapting to the workplace. Mr B concluded that based on all facts given and received, I do not feel that Stephen Dunne is suitable for a position within the ramp department in Dublin Airport. The hazard identification and associated risk factor have increased due to his condition and the nature of the environment and my opinion is factored on ensuring the safety of Stephen and our employees. In his argument at the WRC, Mr Dunne contended that Mr Bs report is based entirely on speculation not grounded on facts about persons with dyspraxia and in particular on any actual facts about him. Mr Dunne asserted that it is clear that Mr B did not have the necessary information or expertise to make such a report. Mr Dunne added the Mr B report was dated the day after he was told by HR Business Partner, Ms H that he could not be employed by Sky Handing Partner as he would be a hazard. Mr Dunne contended that as a result, Mr Bs report appears to be a retrospective attempt to provide a justification for terminating his employment. Mr Dunne was dismissed on April 20, 2018. Sky Handling Partner told the WRC that Mr Dunne did not complete the required training for the position and therefore could not conduct the role for which he was employed. Mr Dunne submitted that the decision to dismiss him was a discriminatory dismissal and made purely on the basis of his disability and a non-fact based perception that he would not be suitable for the role. Review of procedures In her findings, Ms Murtagh found that Mr Dunne has demonstrated a nexus in relation to his termination of employment and his disability and Sky Handling Partner has not rebutted the evidence. Along with ordering Sky Handling Partner pay Mr Dunne 15,000, Ms Murtagh has ruled that the firm must conduct a review of its procedures in relation to employment policies and practices to ensure compliance with the Employment Equality Acts. Mr Dunne today welcomed the outcome. He said: I feel happy with the outcome, I was just very disappointed with the company after the way they handled my employment. I want to thank, the Commission, my solicitor and the barrister for taking my case. Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, Emily Logan also welcomed the ruling. Plans for the development of a mosque and Islamic cultural centre in Kilkenny city have been rejected by An Bord Pleanala. The proposal by the Kilkenny Islamic Trust was granted planning permission last year by Kilkenny County Council but a number of appeals were lodged with the board and a decision was made this week to overturn the council's grant. Included in the proposed development were a mosque, a two-storey community building, two two-bedroom guest apartments, two two-storey four-bedroom semi-detached houses for the head of the local Islamic community and a staff member, classrooms, a cafe and a halal shop. The Islamic community wanted to build on a site at the Hebron Industrial Estate on the edge of Kilkenny city. The plan caused controversy last year and there were angry scenes at a public meeting held to provide information to local people. An Bord Pleanala has decided to overturn the planning permission because of the proposed development's location and scale, on the grounds that it would be "contrary" to the Hebron Road design strategy of 2017 and would "seriously injure" the amenity of adjoining properties and would be contrary to the proper planning and development of the area. About 40 objections were lodged with Kilkenny County Council following the original application for permission, with one objector collecting over 1,000 signatures against the proposal. The nearby O'Loughlin Gaels GAA Club, which caters for hundreds of adult and children members, made a submission regarding its concerns for local traffic, saying that the area is already subject to traffic congestion at certain times. One of the objectors, Eugene McGuinness, who is a brother of Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness but is standing in the forthcoming local elections as an independent candidate, said he was "absolutely delighted" with the board's decision. I have put in 14 months on this... It's been a difficult 14 months because as soon as you object to a development with a religious aspect to it you're branded a racist or a xenophobe. That surprised me. He said his problem with the proposal wasn't on religious or anti-Islamic grounds, but because of its location and the already existing traffic problems near Hebron Road. "We have an Islamic community in Kilkenny and, as such, they are entitled to their place of worship." He said the county council made a mistake in granting permission: "I think the planners in Kilkenny were bulled into it, not by the Islamic community, but by keyboard warriors." The online Kilkenny Journal, whose editor Michael McGrath is standing in the local elections as an independent, described the decision on its Facebook page as "better than an All-Ireland victory". The Imam, Ibrahim Ndoor, said the decision had cast "a gloomy cloud" over the Islamic community in Kilkenny. "We have had huge expectation on this project and have been working very very hard to get a place that we can call our own Islamic Centre that will give us a place of worship, a place to congregate, a place to socialise and a place of education," he told KCLR Live, adding that they have been looking for a site in Kilkenny "We really want a place of worship. Our community is growing and the needs of our community are also increasing on a yearly basis." Blood matching that of Anastasia Kriegel's was found on boots worn by one of the boys accused of her murder, the Central Criminal Court has heard. Forensic scientist John Hoade told the trial that the blood pattern on the boots indicate that: "[Boy A] either assaulted Anastasia Kriegel or was in very close proximity to Anastasia Kriegel when she was assaulted." The accused, who are both 14, cannot be named because they are minors. They have each pleaded not guilty to murdering the 14-year-old Kildare schoolgirl at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Road, Lucan on 14th May last year and are on trial at the Central Criminal Court. Boy A is further charged with the 14-year-olds aggravated sexual assault in a manner that involved serious violence to her. He has pleaded not guilty to that count also. Mr Hoade today told Brendan Grehan SC for the prosecution that he examined the black Timberland boots that Boy A said he was wearing on May 14 last year, the day Ana disappeared. Mr Hoade sampled nine areas of blood staining on both boots and found the DNA from that blood matched a sample taken from Anastasia Kriegel. He said he used a microscope to identify the areas of blood as they were not easily visible to the naked eye. Mr Hoade pointed out various areas of staining on the boots to the jury. He said one area of staining was evidence of blood spatter, which he said results from force applied to a source of liquid blood. Based on that he formed his opinion that Boy A either assaulted Ana or was very close to her when she was assaulted. The scientist also examined a 92cm long by 4cm by 3cm stick that gardai found near Ana's body. Showing the stick to the jury he pointed out that it was charred on one end and had blood stains along it with heavy blood staining on the charred end. This was, he said, transfer blood staining which results from contact with a blood bearing surface. He described another area of blood staining as "percussive" explaining that such stains are caused when there was already blood on the stick and it was swung and impacted on a surface. The DNA from that blood matched Anastasia Kriegel's, he said. He added that the stains he saw on the stick were what he would expect to see if it was used as a weapon in the assault on Anastasia Kriegel. Mr Hoade also identified for the jury a section of a nine-inch concrete block which, he said, was taken from the scene. He agreed with Mr Grehan that it was heavy and awkward and would require two hands to manipulate. He noted blood stains on all six sides of the block but told Mr Grehan he did not sample those stains. When Mr Grehan asked why, he said it was his understanding that "there was no suggestion the block was used as a weapon in the assault." The jury has spent much of the morning viewing a video of Boy A in an interview with gardai at Clondalkin Garda Station. Detective Garda Marcus Roantree told Mr Grehan that Boy A, his father and a solicitor came to Clondalkin Garda Station on May 24, 2018. Det. Gda Roantree formally arrested Boy A at 8.07 that morning on suspicion of Ana's murder. He told Mr Grehan that he was satisfied that Boy A understood the caution given to him before his interview and said gardai went to great lengths to explain everything to him. The trial continues in front of Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of eight men and four women. When gardai told one of the two boys accused of Ana Kriegel's murder that her blood was found on his boots he replied, "are you joking me" and asked: "Are you actually being serious about this?" the Central Criminal Court has heard. Gardai put it to the boy that the only way he could have Ana's blood on his boots was if he was in the room when she was assaulted and asked him if he was in that room. He replied: "No." Boy A also told gardai in interview that his interests included "anatomy, the human body" and the "inner life, the skeleton". The accused, who are 14, cannot be named because they are minors. They have each pleaded not guilty to murdering the 14-year-old Kildare schoolgirl at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Road, Lucan on May 14 last year. Boy A is further charged with the 14-year-olds aggravated sexual assault in a manner that involved serious violence to her. He has pleaded not guilty to that count also. Detective Garda Marcus Roantree told Brendan Grehan SC for the prosecution that Boy A, his father and a solicitor came to Clondalkin Garda Station on May 24, 2018. Det Gda Roantree formally arrested Boy A at 8.07am that morning on suspicion of Ana's murder. He told Mr Grehan he was satisfied that Boy A understood the caution given to him before his interview and said gardai went to great lengths to explain everything to him. Detective Garda Tomas Doyle told Gerardine Small BL for the prosecution that he interviewed Boy A six times at Clondalkin Garda Station in the presence of the boy's father and a solicitor. In the first interview Boy A's solicitor put on record his objection to the fact that material he had sought from gardai was not made available and he was therefore unable to properly advise Boy A and his family. Gardai began by explaining to Boy A the definition of murder. When asked if he understood the difference between right and wrong he said "leaving the door open for somebody" would be an example of right. He added: "Tripping somebody up is wrong." He agreed that taking a bar of chocolate without permission would be wrong. He explained the difference between truth and lies by saying: "Truth is if you tell somebody what happened. A lie is if you don't tell somebody what happened." Gardai told Boy A that they were only interested in truth and wouldn't tell him any lies. Boy A told gardai that his interests include "anatomy, the human body". He explained that he was interested in the "inner life, the skeleton". When gardai asked if he was interested in drawing live people he replied: "No, more evolutionary." He said his friends were not interested in that kind of thing. Garda Doyle then read a statement Boy A had previously made in which he said he was attacked by two men in the park on the same day that Ana went missing. He said he suffered injuries including to his arms, back and legs after being grabbed from behind, knocked to the ground and kicked. In his second interview on May 24 Boy A told gardai that he had met Ana in the park on May 14 but said he was not with her in the lead up to to the time when she was reported missing by her parents that evening. Gardai then showed Boy A CCTV footage from that day. Boy A identified himself and Boy B in footage taken from private CCTV outside a house at 4.11pm. Boy A said he had a bandage on his arm from a fall some weeks previously. On another piece of CCTV footage taken nearby that evening Boy A said he could see two males and added: "They look like the lads that beat me up on that day." He asked for gardai to zoom in but they were unable to do so. Having viewed more footage he said: "That might be good news. I think that might be one of the males that beat me up. Is there any more footage?" Gardai then showed him footage of a male and female walking nearby on the same evening. He told them the female could be Ana Kriegel but then added that he didn't remember Ana having white patches on her leg. He then agreed with gardai when they suggested it was Ana. Gardai showed him footage taken at 4.58pm that evening which they said showed a male with a backpack not wearing gloves. At 17.05pm they said a male with a backpack could be seen wearing gloves. Boy A said he could see that. They asked him if he thought they were the same person and he replied: "Do you think it's the same backpack?" Boy A's solicitor then expressed a concern. Before Boy A left with his solicitor the garda told him: "Just to answer your question I do think it's the same backpack." The derelict house and farmyard on the Clonee Road, Lucan where the body of Anastasia Kriegel was found. When Boy A returned Garda Doyle put it to him that forensic analysis showed Ana's blood was on his boots. He replied: "Are you joking me?" Garda Doyle replied: "No." The boy said: "Are you actually being serious about this?" He asked to be allowed out to get air. His solicitor asked him if he was going to be sick and he was given a glass of water. The interview continued with Garda Doyle saying: "I want to be clear, this is significant and serious." Boy A replied: "I'm aware." Gardai then showed Boy A some Tescon branded tape and asked him if he had ever been in possession of tape like that. "No," he replied. He was then shown a black hoodie and said he thought Ana was wearing "something like that" when he met her on May 14. Gardai said they believe the CCTV footage showed that the route Boy A told gardai he took on that day was not correct. They also said that Ana's blood was on his boots and asked him if there was anything else he wanted to tell them that would help their investigation. "No, there's nothing else," he replied. The garda continued: "What I'm saying to you is the only place you could have got the blood on your boots was in that room so were you in that room?" "No," he replied. The garda then asked him if what he said in his earlier statement on May 15 was the truth and he replied: "Yes. That's the truth." Garda Doyle said gardai had searched his home and found a backpack. Gardai showed a photo of the backpack to Boy A and asked him if he had that bag with him in the park at any stage on the day he met Ana. He said he did not. He also denied that the male in the footage he was shown earlier on CCTV was him. Scientist John Hoade of Forensic Science Ireland earlier told Mr Grehan that blood on both of Boy A's boots matched that of Ana Kriegel. He added that the blood pattern indicated that: "[Boy A] either assaulted Anastasia Kriegel or was in very close proximity to Anastasia Kriegel when she was assaulted." The scientist also examined a 92cm long by 4cm by 3cm stick with a nail or staple in both ends that gardai found near Ana's body. Showing the stick to the jury he pointed out that it was charred on one end and had blood stains along it with heavy blood staining on the charred end. This was, he said, transfer blood staining which results from contact with a blood bearing surface. He described another area of blood staining as "percussive" explaining that such stains are caused when there is already blood on the stick and it is swung, impacting on a surface. The DNA from that blood matched Anastasia Kriegel's, he said. He added that the stains he saw on the stick were what he would expect to see if it was used as a weapon in the assault on Anastasia Kriegel. Mr Hoade also identified for the jury a section of a nine inch concrete block which, he said, was taken from the scene. He agreed with Mr Grehan that it was heavy and awkward and would require two hands to manipulate. He noted blood stains on all six sides of the block but told Mr Grehan he did not sample those stains. When Mr Grehan asked why, he said it was his understanding that, "there was no suggestion the block was used as a weapon in the assault." The trial continues in front of Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of eight men and four women. A number of prominent politicians have called on the Government to establish an immediate State inquiry into forced and illegal adoption. Independent TD Clare Daly introduced a motion in the Dail calling for the inquiry and was supported by a number of other independent TDs including Mick Wallace, Joan Collins, Catherine Connolly, Maureen O'Sullivan, Thomas Pringle and Thomas Broughan. The motion also called for a redress scheme to be introduced without delay for the survivors of the Mother and Baby Homes. Ms Daly said it was clear from evidence already in the public domain with regard to illegal adoptions that a separate inquiry into adoption practices in Ireland was required. She pointed out that children's minister Katherine Zappone's decision to launch a scoping exercise into illegal birth registrations was not appropriate and did not go far enough. "The review itself is limited to looking for evidence of illegal registrations and not illegal adoptions. The issues around this are much broader than illegal registration, and they are not presently being examined. "On top of that, we were promised that the audit would be released by Easter. Has the Minister received it? If not, why not? When can we expect it to be published? It will inform some of the other areas of work that have to be dealt with," she said. The Irish Examiner revealed in April that the long-delayed scoping exercise is Read More: Instead, records are being compared against a set list of 24 labels or "markers" which might indicate an illegal birth registration has occurred. It is unclear if any completed adoption orders are being examined as part of the inquiry. The scoping exercise was announced by children's minister Katherine Zappone last May following the discovery by Tusla of 126 cases in which births were illegally registered between 1946 and 1969 in the records of the former St Patricks Guild adoption agency. Katherine Zappone Some of these records were marked "adopted from birth". The records transferred to the agency in 2016. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) had previously declined to reveal the sample size of the 150,000 records to be examined as part of the review or the methodology involved. Ms Daly cited the "heroic word" done by the Irish Examiner in exposing forced and illegal adoption practices since 2010. She pointed to the case of Jackie Foley* revealed by the Irish Examiner in December. Ms Foley was just 16 years old in 1974 when she signed a consent form in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home form to have her son adopted. However, she did not sign her own name on the form. Instead, under instruction from and nun, she signed the name Micheline Power* - a woman who does not exist. Her mother and a solicitor were also present in the room. An adoption order, issued by the States regulatory body, the Adoption Board, was contracted on the basis of these false identities. In 2017, staff handling Jackies case in Tusla were instructed in emails not to refer to situations like hers as illegal but instead as possible illegal registrations. Reference is made to having to hold our powder because that stuff is FOIable... and it could be used against us if someone takes a case. In response, Ms Zappone said the issue of forced and illegal adoption, and issues surrounding Mother and Baby homes, had "left a stain on our nation" but said the current Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes had "sufficient scope" to examine the issues. "The scope of the investigation includes questions on the care, welfare, entry and exit pathways for the women and children who were residents of these institutions between 1922 and 1998. "Notably, a specific focus of the commissions work is to investigate institutional patterns of referral and relationships with adoption societies and other intermediaries involved in the placement of children. "The Government is satisfied this independent commission has sufficient power and scope to examine and make a determination on a broad range of relevant concerns," she said. * This name has been changed to protect the identities of those involved The developer of a new housing estate in Tallaght, Dublin, is suing an insulation board manufacturer after floors in some of the new homes allegedly started sinking. Kelland Homes is building the 370-home "Elder Heath" development at Kiltipper. It claims it will cost at least 2.2m to fix the defects in the houses, some of which are already occupied. It says it used allegedly defective underfloor insulation boards manufactured by Ballythern of Ballyconnell, Co Cavan and supplied by Clondalkin Builders Providers and James McMahon (Dublin). Kelland says floors in some houses experienced settlement resulting in the ground floors sinking below the level of the skirting boards. Repair works involve breaking the ground floor slabs in the houses, taking up and replacing the insulation, and reconstructing and reinstating the floor slab and covering. Kelland says the residents affected have to be temporarily rehoused and compensated. Kelland's negligence and breach of duty claim is against Ballytherm, Clondalkin, James McMahon and a Dutch company called Covestro which supplied Ballythermwith a pre-mixed foam system containing a chemical which was used in the manufacture of the underfloor boards. All defendants deny liability. Ballytherm claims Covestro is liable for any defects which may have been present the product. Covestro denies this claim and asserts that any loss or damage sustained by Kelland was caused by Ballytherm. Ballytherm, Clondalkin Builders and James McMahon have sought an indemnity against Covestro. Separately, Ballytherm is suing its insurers/underwriters, Brit UW Ltd, Leadenhall Street, London, claiming it has wrongfully refused to provide an indemnity under the product liability cover of its contracts liability insurance. In that case, Ballytherm says it is entitled to an indemnity, subject to a limit of 6.5m. It says the value of claims already notified exceeds 6.5m. In a pre-trial application, Kelland sought an order requiring Covestro to produce for inspection eight emails over which the Dutch firm asserts a claim of litigation privilege. The emails, sent on August 8, 2018, were between Covestro's corporate insurance expert and its regional sales manager as well as between an insurance loss expert and the sales manager. Mr Justice Michael Quinn ordered Covestro to make discovery of the emails in preparation for the trial which is set down for later this month. He found Covestro failed to discharge the onus of proving the dominant intention of the emails was for this litigation. Therefore the claim of privilege failed. Donald Trump is to visit Ireland in June, according to a number of senior sources. The US President will spend some days in Co Clare after his state trip to the UK. Government officials are preparing for the US President to visit Ireland between June 5 and 8. President Trump will arrive after a three-day visit to the UK to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Sources said the US President will visit his Doonbeg resort in Co Clare on June 5, before going to France on June 6 for more commemorations and then returning to Ireland. He is expected to meet Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during the visit, with staff from the Taoiseach's office checking out security and logistical issues at sites in Co Clare this week. Sources also said US officials have started booking accommodation in Clare and Limerick for the trip. A government spokesman says there has been no official confirmation from the US side of the visit. But US sources said it has been given the green light and will likely be confirmed in the next week. President Trump cancelled a previously planned visit to Ireland last year and officials are wary of making an announcement too soon should the same thing happen again. Protests had been organised for last year's planned visit and calls to cancel the trip are likely to be repeated. Gardai have met with Muslim leaders in Limerick as fears spread through the local migrant community following a number of suspected racially motivated attacks in the city. Officers are investigating two such alleged attacks occurring over a 48-hour period, it has emerged. Two Muslim men were beaten and kicked near the Al Furqan mosque on Windmill Street, around 8pm, Sunday, May 5, after the pair had attended prayers there as part of Ramadan. Gardai have confirmed they are also investigating a second suspected racially motivated assault on a Bangladesh man, on May 7th in the Steamboat Quay area. According to sources in the migrant community, the incident was filmed on a mobile phone. The injured party was sitting in his car when he was approached by a man, believed to be Irish, who allegedly started to verbally abuse him. The injured party is believed to have been punched a number of times during the alleged incident. Senior gardai met with local Imams on Tuesday to hear their concerns. Speaking today, Superintendent Derek Smart, Henry Street garda station, said he was treating the matter extremely seriously. Weve had a meeting with the local Imams. It is causing concerns in the migrant community, Supt Smart said. Investigations into the two alleged attacks are ongoing. I would appeal for anyone with information or who witnessed any of these alleged attacks to contact us. Superintendent Smart said he was not aware of video footage of the alleged attack on May 7. If people have any (video) footage wed be happy to take it, he added. Fianna Fail local election candidate Abdul Kalam Azad Talukder, who is hoping to become Limericks first Muslim councillor, said migrants there are fearful of further attacks: The whole community is very scared and worried. Everybody is very worried, the whole community. Most people don't know what to do; They are scared to go to (the mosque) to pray, or, scared to go out for a walk. Mr Talukder said he understands video footage of the May 7 assault was captured on a mobile phone by a witness who may have been associated with the alleged assailant. A few days ago somebody in a local supermarket pulled the hijab from a Muslim womans head, he added. He said minor racist incidents often go unreported out of fear more problems will come. They are afraid to report. Mr Talukder said migrants wearing traditional dress are sometimes compared to Al Qeada Taliban Osama bin Laden or told to go back to your country. However, the Bangladesh businessman, who has lived in Limerick for the past 19 years, said he believes the majority of Irish people are not racist. He praised the actions of two Irish men who came to the aid of the victims in the alleged attack on May 5. I know it's a minority of people trying to spread hatred. A small minority do not represent Ireland. My children were born here and I strongly believe in an Ireland for everybody, Mr Talukder said. A 48-year-old man arrested on Monday in connection with the seizure of drugs in Dublin is to appear in court this morning. Gardai seized 292,000 worth of drugs following the search of a house in the Ballyfermot area of Dublin on Monday night. The family of a man who has been missing for almost a week have appealed to the public to report any sighting of him after he was spotted in Co Donegal. Aidan Baldrick was last seen in Derry last Friday, May 10. A jury has returned a verdict at an inquest into the death of a 59-year-old man whose partner was acquitted of his killing. Desmond Sullivan (aged 59) shared a home with Desmond Duffy at Somerville Park in Rathmines, Dublin 6. The pair went to the pub together at 4pm on May 23, 2016, an inquest into Mr Sullivans death heard. They returned home again at 9pm. Detective Inspector George McGeary told the inquest that an altercation took place after they returned home. An altercation took place. As a result, the deceased collapsed in the kitchen. An hour later emergency services were called, DI McGeary said. Mr Sullivan was pronounced dead at his home address at 23.27pm. Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy performed a post-mortem examination. The cause of death was manual strangulation. An investigation commenced and a man was arrested and questioned in relation to the death, DI McGeary said. A criminal trial took place last year and this concluded in November 2018 when a jury found the person charged not guilty. The cause of death at autopsy was compression of the neck with heart disease and acute alcohol and diazepam intoxication as contributory factors. The coroner explained to two family members present why the inquest was taking place. If following a criminal trial there has been no finding by the criminal trial judge then there is an obligation on the coroner to hold an inquest, Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said. The jury returned a narrative verdict setting out the facts of the case. The coroner offered condolences to the family. My condolences to the family, youve been through a number of processes and its been very difficult for you. I hope the conclusion of this inquest assists you as you come to terms with your loss, Dr Cullinane said. A nun who only speaks for an hour a day due to a vow of silence has until December to find a new home after being brought to court by Cork County Council over an alleged breach of planning laws. The local authority claimed that Sr Irene Gibson had constructed a two-storey cladded building near Leap in West Cork, incorporating a wooden chapel, as well as a wooden shed and timber fence and unauthorised access to the road. Sr Irene has been a Carmelite Nun of the Holy Face of Jesus for 30 years, and was joined just this week in her hermetical way of life by Sr Anne Marie from New Zealand. Those in the order take vows of obedience and poverty and the court heard that due to the vow of silence, they speak for just one hour a day. Cork County Council had brought proceedings before Skibbereen District Court, alleging a breach of Section 154 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. Solicitor for the local authority, Patricia Murphy, told Judge James McNulty that there had been a failure to comply with an enforcement notice, and that the entire settlement at Corran South near Leap was entirely unauthorised. Photographs of the buildings taken in June 2018 were shown to the court and Ms Murphy said the local authority had received complaints from members of the public in the vicinity in relation to the settlement, which led to the initiation of proceedings in 2016. Sr Irenes solicitor, Letty Baker, said: All the buildings are for religious purposes, for prayer and contemplation. Where they are living is very basic. They are selling the property and they are hoping that will remedy everything. Ms Baker told the court that some elements of the construction had already been removed since last year and the rest was for sale. The court heard YouTube videos showed construction of the buildings and that a site inspection carried out Monday this week showed that it was still a substantial construction. Local authority executive planner Philip OSullivan said of his Monday visit: To say that that entrance is dangerous is an understatement. It was explained that Monday was the day Sr Anne Marie entered the order, doubling the community to two, that the entrance was normally closed to traffic, and that 25 people had been present for what Ms Baker said was a joyous day. However, Mr OSullivan said a large crane had been at the site as recently as April, reducing the building to one storey, adding: This has gone on a very long time. I feel very sorry for the residents. Ms Murphy said she liked to think the county council had done all they could to avoid bringing the matter to court and that the sale of the property would not rectify the situation regarding planning permission. It would be dreadful if there was a criminal prosecution against this lady. They have nowhere else to go, Ms Baker said, adding that it had been hoped that others would join the order in Leap. It hasnt worked out and they are moving on. Judge McNulty granted an adjournment until December 10, saying: We are subject to the law. The judge also wondered if one of the many orders in West Cork or the Diocesan authorities could offer the nuns a new home, and might also consider offering a location for the West Cork Women Against Domestic Violence project, which is seeking a site for a refuge. Maybe they could do some great good by providing a place for a refuge and a little place for the defendants, he said. An RNLI volunteer saved a life yesterday just days after qualifying as one of Irelands youngest helms. Jonathan Connor, 21, who lives in Kinsale, Co Cork, was at the wheel of the Kinsale lifeboat which was tasked today to reports of a missing swimmer in the Sandycove area. About 5% of our shouts tend to be time critical so it was a baptism of fire alright, Jonathan said. The alarm was raised at around 8am after three swimmers came ashore and reported their friend was overdue. Jonathan, who qualified as an RNLI helm just last week and who has almost completed his first year of sustainable engineering in CIT, launched with his three crewmates on board the Miss Sally Anne Baggy II. The combination of their training and local knowledge was vital, he said. I had a hunch the casualty would have tucked into a certain area for shelter so I swung the boat in towards that area on the way to Sandycove and there he was, he said. The swimmer was close to exhaustion and was showing the early signs of hypothermia when he was recovered by the lifeboat crew. A range of other assets which had been tasked by Valentia Coast Guard, including local coast guard and cliff rescue units, the Waterford-based coast guard helicopter and the LE Samuel Beckett, were then stood down. We picked him up, got him on board and got him warmed up slowly and made for home. He was a bit incoherent when we got back to base but he was checked out by paramedics at the lifeboat station and was deemed medically fine, Jonathan said. At 21 since last October, Jonathan is one of the youngest RNLI helms in Ireland. He, and fellow Kinsale RNLI helm, Lenny Fourie, passed out last week following the RNLI's rigorous training programme in Poole England. Helms are responsible for the safety of their crews and for all operational decisions made during emergency call-outs. Jonathan is already an experienced sailor and a qualified commercial diver. He plays the saxophone in his spare time. That calm approach was evident within days of him joining the crew. He was doing his radio training at the lifeboat station in 2016 when he noticed a fishing trawler was in difficulty in Kinsale harbour. He alerted the lifeboat crew to be on standby before the official distress call came through. Their readiness helped buy vital time which saw them get to the stricken Sean Anthony and save the lives of all three fishermen on board before the vessel sank. Mr Connors father, a former crew of Baltimore RNLI, is a shore-based member of the Kinsale crew. A number of people have escaped unharmed after the house they were in was shot at in Drogheda in Co Louth overnight. In the early hours of this morning, a property on Beechwood Drive was targeted. The government has nothing to hide in relation to the 3bn National Broadband Plan and will explain its decision and the project costs in due course, the Tanaiste says. Simon Coveney has also challenged critics of the plan - branded by the opposition as the worst deal ever seen after it emerged that the selected private operator will own a 3bn asset despite investing just 200m in the scheme - to show how they could deliver high-speed broadband to rural Ireland cheaper and more effectively. He was speaking after attending a government rural funding roadshow in North Cork today with Minister for Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring, and the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys. Mr Ring, who was in Castletownroche for his departments fifth Rural Opportunity event flagging the range of funding and supports available to rural communities, said broadband is raised at every single meeting he attends in rural Ireland. Seventy years ago, they were talking about rural electrification. The same people were saying we shouldnt put it into every house. Broadband is the new electricity, he said. Mr Coveney said the government has debated the issue for a decade amid claims that a silver bullet technology solution would emerge, and following a very active and challenging debate within Government, the time had come for a decision with full knowledge of the costs. We have made a political decision which I believe to be the right one. We are going to leave no home, no business, no farm, no person behind," he said. Yes its expensive, but I would challenge the critics to show how this can be done more cheaply or more effectively. In 20 years, in 10 years, people will be asking how could we ever have thought that not rolling out fibre to every home could have been acceptable across Irish society. He also dismissed suggestions that Fine Gaels handling of this deal, on the back of the National Childrens Hospital costs controversy, has damaged its image as a party of strong fiscal control. Decisions on the hospital project were based on incorrect cost estimates whereas decisions on the broadband deal were made based on full cost information, he said. Repeatedly we have shown that when others have, through policy mistakes, destroyed and undermined an economy, we have been put into Government to fix a broken economy, and we have done that over the past eight or nine years, he said. Fine Gael is a party of prudence and responsible economic management. But we are also a party of big ideas. We are a party that is planning 20 years ahead. Todays event heard how the government has allocated some 138.4m to rural programmes and schemes this year alone. It heard from several speakers how such funding has helped them deliver projects that benefited their communities, including the Charlie Chaplin Comedy Festival in Waterville and the Banteer Community Sportsfield project. Colm Murphy, the CEO of Firebird Heating Solutions, said his company, which employs 150 people, has thrived in a rural area thanks to research, development and innovation supports from Udaras na Gaeltachta. The Health Minister has warned hospital managers that they cannot recruit staff "willy-nilly" and must stay under budget. Simon Harris denied that there is now a recruitment embargo in the health service but said measures have been taken to ensure individual hospital groups and community health organisations across the HSE live within their allocated budget. It comes as the new HSE director general Paul Reid sent out a stark warning to his senior management team on spending across the health service. In the Dail, Mr Harris said: "It should not be seen as a radical concept that when the House passes a budget which allows for the hiring of a certain number of additional staff, hospital managers across the country and others are expected to live within those budgets. "Where individual hospital groups or CHOs have not submitted staffing plans in line with their budgets certain measures and controls regarding recruitment have been put in place. If a hospital or CHO puts a plan in place that is in line with its budget and the plan is approved, it can conduct recruitment but if it has not bothered to produce a plan it cannot simply make up its recruitment plans willy-nilly. Mr Harris also confirmed that he will establish a stakeholder forum to provide reassurance to clinicians following the High Court ruling in the case of terminally-ill Limerick woman Ruth Morrissey over her CervicalCheck smear tests. Medics had raised concerns around the ruling which asked for "absolute confidence" in passing a slide as normal. Meanwhile Mr Harris met with Rehab last night in a bid to solve funding difficulties which the organisation has said will force them to close their services from next year. Speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Harris said: "I am looking at Rehab as a specific case here. I am listening to their specific needs in relation to the services that they are providing for people with disabilities across the country and I hope and expect that we can make progress on it in the coming days. "The HSE and Rehab have been engaging intensively over the last week and I think they have both been engaging in good faith sharing lots of documentation and information about the financial situation." Mr Harris said the broader issue of funding other voluntary organisations also needs to be looked at and he will be bringing proposals to Cabinet soon. "I think the point about the broader consequences is an important one, myself and Finian McGrath are very aware that the whole issue of how we fund Section 39 organisations needs to be looked at." The Tanaiste has rejected suggestions that Fine Gael is denying voters the right to hear what their candidates have to say by banning Sean Kelly and Andrew Doyle from tomorrow night's Irish Examiner hustings. Sitting Cork MEP Deirdre Clune is the only Fine Gael candidate who will take part in the debate, but Simon Coveney explained that this is purely down to the party's election strategy. Mr Doyle denied suggestions that Ms Clune is receiving preferential treatment from Fine Gael. "I have no comment to make on who is and who isn't a protected species," the Wicklow Minister of State said. "I am not going to get dragged into anything that relates to divisions of party, resources or otherwise. I have the resources of the moral support and the effort on the ground of my colleagues that will do me well enough. The rule has been given that I shouldn't attend, so that's fine. Mr Doyle said he is confident that Fine Gael can claim three seats in the five-seater constituency. The hustings event, which will take place in the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork city tomorrow evening, will be livestreamed. Mr Coveney said there was "no secret" around the decision to stop the two candidates from taking part. We have three really good candidates in Ireland South. They are geographically placed in different areas in that overall constituency and so the candidates have agreed that they would focus their campaigns on those geographical areas. Deirdre Clune is the candidate from Cork, the debate is taking place in Cork, and just like if the debate was taking place in Kerry, Deirdre wouldnt be there or if it was up in Wicklow, Deirdre and Sean wouldnt be there either because Andrew Doyle would be there. "So when big events take place in those localised areas, well then the candidate that is campaigning in those areas, linked to the overall party strategy, is the person who is at the debate." Carlow TD Pat Deering said Mr Doyle is the most experienced candidate in the field before adding: "As you know there is a Fine Gael strategy and the area is divided up equally and we have kept to that strategy." The Taoiseach has been urged to "put manners" on the insurance companies with new laws to combat crippling premiums. Sinn Fein has called on Leo Varadkar to introduce major reforms on how insurers do business. It comes as the European Commission has opened a formal anti-trust investigation into Insurance Ireland. The Commission is formally investigating whether Insurance Ireland is reducing drivers choice of insurance policies by preventing companies from being included in a pool of firms offering cover. Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald told the Dail that the investigation will be welcomed by motorists across the State who are being "crippled" by the increased cost of insurance. However, she said insurance is not purely a problem for motorists and rising costs are impacting businesses, farmers and community festivals and events across the country. "It is beggars belief that it has taken the EU Commission to step in here when it is clear that insurers have been ripping off policyholders for years and the Government has consistently refused to act on serious issues that have been raised," said Ms McDonald. We need to see a commitment to bring down prices and changes to rewards brought in and crucially we need new legislation to put manners on the insurance industry. Mr Varadkar said tackling the issue of insurance costs is a priority for his Government. "We have seen some progress, motor insurance for example is down about 20% from its peak in 2016, it needs to now fall further," said Mr Varadkar, adding that health insurance costs have also stabilised. He said the next step is Judicial Council Bill, which will provide guidelines around appropriate levels of compensation. The Taoiseach said he hopes to have this Bill though the Oireachtas by the summer recess. But he warned: "It may be a year or two after the law is enacted before you see those results in premiums moderating or falling." A woman who slipped on a patch of ice in a car park in Tipperary fracturing her ankle has lost her action for damages before the High Court. Mr Justice Kevin Cross said he could not say on the balance of probabilities the subsidence in the car park surface where ice had accumulated was due to negligent or bad workmanship. The judge also awarded costs of the one-day hearing against 61-year old Mary Burke who had sued Tipperary County Council over her fall on ice as she walked away from a pay station in a car park in Thurles town three years ago. Mr Justice Cross said costs must follow the event and it was unfortunate as Mrs Burke, who he described as most pleasant, was a most deserving person. He said he would be pleased if the Council decided it would not enforce the costs order against Mrs Burke. Mary Burke, Kylecrue, Drombane, Thurles, Co Tipperary had sued Tipperary County Council as a result of the fall at the Council car park at Friar Street, Thurles on February 15, 2016. Mrs Burke had gone to the pay station which was on a raised concrete plinth and after paying for her ticket she stepped down on to the macadam surface when she slipped on the ice. She had claimed there was an alleged failure to ensure the groundwork was properly compacted before laying the tarmacadam and there was an alleged failure to properly design the surface of the car park or to grit it. The claims were denied. Mr Justice Cross said Mrs Burke had suffered a very nasty fracture of her left ankle and had to have an operation and had to have a plate and pins inserted in her ankle. The judge said he accepted Mrs Burke fell on ice and that it happened as she stepped down from the plinth at the pay station. The car park had been there since 2003 and the judge accepted the surface was relatively new and it was designed so that surface water would drain off. However, the judge found as a fact that ponding had occurred and he accepted this was caused by subsidence and the water had frozen into ice which caused Mrs Burke to slip. Mrs Burke's side had submitted the subsidence was caused by poor workmanship. Mr Justice Cross said there no question of contributory negligence on the part of Mrs Burke. The failure to grit the car park he said was not a grounds to succeed. The real issue the judge said was whether on the balance of probabilities the subsidence was caused by defective workmanship Dismissing the case, the judge said he could not say on the balance of probabilities the subsidence was caused by negligent or bad workmanship. By The Associated Press May. 08, 2019 | 10:12 PM | FRANKFORT Gov. Matt Bevin says Kentuckians are depending on lawmakers to "do the financially responsible thing" as he seeks support for his struggling pension-relief proposal. The Republican governor sent a letter to lawmakers Wednesday promoting his measure and outlining his views on multiple issues involved in the pension mess. It shows the complexity of both the pension problem and the task of building support for the relief measure in a special legislative session he wants to call. Bevin said he opposes merely freezing pension contribution rates for regional universities and quasi-public agencies for a year while lawmakers work on a pension proposal for next year. "The days of 'kicking the pension can down the road' are over," Bevin wrote. Bevin reached out to lawmakers after some of their leaders said recently his proposal lacked the votes to pass in the Republican-dominated House. "I truly appreciate the difficulty in the decision before us," Bevin said in his three-page letter. "Future generations of Kentuckians are depending on us to do the financially responsible thing." Inaction, he warned, would strain the state's quasi-public agencies and lead to some bankruptcies, elimination of staff and loss of critical services for Kentuckians. House Speaker David Osborne responded that House Republicans are involved in a "deliberate process to ensure that this is the very best product possible given the circumstances we have inherited." GOP House members are "acutely aware" of the pension issue's importance for regional universities and quasi-governmental agencies, Osborne said in a statement. He said the governor's efforts show he's "equally committed" to the issue. Bevin said his proposal "meets Kentucky's legal parameters" and is consistent with past legislation supported by the lawmakers. The governor said he's prepared to call the special session as soon as enough House and Senate members signal they're prepared to take action. His letter lays out "the gravity of the pension crisis" facing regional universities and many critical state-funded agencies. Those universities as well as county health departments, rape crisis centers and many other quasi-governmental agencies face ballooning pension costs on July 1. Bevin's plan has been endorsed by regional university presidents and picked up support from some representatives of local health departments, mental health centers and other agencies. His proposal replaces a pension measure that he vetoed after lawmakers passed it in late March. His action took legislators by surprise. Legislative leaders have said it's up to Bevin to craft a new bill and line up support. The governor is grappling with the politically treacherous issue as he seeks reelection this year. Bevin's team has briefed lawmakers and provided financial and actuarial reviews of the proposal. His proposal allows the agencies to stay with the Kentucky Retirement Systems at full cost; leave the retirement system by paying a lump sum equal to future projected benefits payments; or buy their way out in installment payments over 30 years. It extends a freeze on pension costs for another year for the regional universities and quasi-public agencies. Bevin's letter said it's his understanding some lawmakers are withholding support unless the proposal includes language allowing some employees to decide to stay in the system even if their employers exit it. "This concept is wrought with legal issues, a heavy financial cost and a crippling administrative burden," Bevin wrote. Responding to Bevin's letter, House Democratic leaders said their caucus wants to resolve the issue but said the governor's proposal "isn't the solution we or Kentuckians were promised." "We continue to believe the pension problem is too large to be solved by the governor and a few people in closed-door meetings," the Democratic leaders said in a statement. "We call upon the governor to open the process up to both chambers, both parties, the public and experts." A tenant sharing a six-bed house with 17 other people has said they cannot afford to rent a bedroom to themselves in Dublin. They are being charged 400 a month to stay at the house in Clontarf, but have never met their landlord. 33-year-old Brazilian student, Cassiano, said it is impossible to find an affordable room to rent in Dublin Four fridges are provided in the kitchen but the housemates share one washing machine and one dryer. He said with four people in his bedroom, it is often hard to sleep: "We don't have good ventilation in this room, so the guys try to open all the windows at night because it's too warm." He said after moving to Dublin, sharing a room quickly became a reality. "When you arrive here and you realise that it's 1,000 or 900 per month to have your own single room, it's impossible to find something that's better than this," he said. Cassiano said the housemates pay 400 cash each month to a house manager. He said: "We don't know the landlord, we have a house manager who works or manages the properties of these other people." He added that he feels very insecure with his living arrangements, saying: "The guy comes here and says 'if you are not happy with this, take your stuff. We don't need tenants like you. Just go out and find another house'." CEO of Threshold John Mark McCafferty said, while this case is extreme, it is not unique He said affordable rent is needed quickly. The US embassy in Iraq said the state department has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. The alert, published on the embassy's website, comes after Washington last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests. By The Associated Press May. 09, 2019 | 10:10 PM | FRANKFORT Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's administration can push ahead with subpoenas sent to school districts as part of an investigation into teacher sickouts, a federal judge ruled Thursday. U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves denied a temporary restraining order sought by the state's attorney general to block the subpoenas. The case escalating a feud between the state's governor and attorney general stems from teacher protests at Kentucky's Capitol while the Republican-led legislature was in session this year. The sickouts forced some schools to close. The protests over several education bills were part of a wave of teacher activism that began last year in West Virginia and spread to other states, including Oklahoma and Arizona. The subpoenas in Kentucky seek the names of teachers who might have used sick days to attend the statehouse rallies. The state's Labor Cabinet has the authority to fine public employees for participating in illegal work stoppages. Attorney General Andy Beshear on Thursday called the judge's ruling disappointing but said the case is "far from over." He added that "our teachers should be respected, not attacked." State Labor Cabinet spokeswoman Haley Bradburn said the ruling "correctly recognized the harmful impact of the 'sickouts' on Kentucky students, parents, employers and taxpayers." The ruling will allow the cabinet to "fulfill its statutory obligation to all Kentuckians," she said. The case is wrapped up in election-year politics. Bevin, a Republican, is seeking reelection this year, and Beshear hopes to prevail in this month's Democratic primary to try to unseat him. Bevin has ridiculed the lawsuit seeking to block the subpoenas as "an absolute stunt" and told reporters recently that Beshear was "ginning up things to try to help his campaign." After the ruling, Beshear vowed to "continue to fight this governor's attempts to punish and fine our teachers $1,000 per day." Beshear initially sued in state court to block the subpoenas sent to 10 school districts. He claims the state's labor secretary exceeded his authority in issuing the subpoenas because the teachers were not involved in a strike or work stoppage. Bevin's legal team says students and parents were harmed by school closings and the labor investigation should continue. The case was shifted to federal court recently after state Labor Cabinet attorneys filed a notice of removal from state court. In his ruling, Reeves said most information sought in the subpoenas has been provided to labor officials. Education officials recently gave Bevin's administration the names of teachers possibly involved in sickouts after receiving a subpoena from the state. During a recent hearing before Reeves, attorneys said the records handed over by education officials contained names and some other information, such as doctors' excuses, but not everything sought by the Labor Cabinet, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Reeves' ruling also said that refusing to block the subpoenas "protects third parties from harm and promotes the public interest." Bevin's attorneys have argued that sickouts that closed schools left parents scrambling for child care. There's a public interest in the cabinet's ability to investigate sickouts, the judge said. "The citizens of Kentucky pay the salaries of the school employees involved in the 'sickouts,'" Reeves wrote. "Public education is not free. And if teachers violate the law, the Labor Cabinet should be able to investigate. An injunction prohibiting the Labor Cabinet from doing its statutorily authorized duty ... jeopardizes the public perception of the government." Some might think the lawsuit's claims "stand logic on its head and they may be correct," the judge said. "Students are expected to attend classes," he said. "If they fail to do so without a valid excuse, their absence is duly-noted and appropriate action is taken. But the teachers at the center of this controversy expect different treatment." The judge added that he also denied the motion for a restraining order because plaintiffs "have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims." Teachers and parents say they are "dismayed" at glitches in the NAPLAN online platform that are causing dropouts for many students during the assessments, raising concerns about the validity of this year's national tests. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which is responsible for the tests, said it is investigating the "connectivity issues" and has told schools they can revert to pen and paper if needed. The disconnection message that flashed up on students' screens while they were sitting NAPLAN on Tuesday. Credit:Twitter The NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said she has raised her concerns with ACARA. A Sydney teacher said students have been left distressed after continued test dropouts. Interested in buying original art but have no idea where to start? An event coming to Melbournes Exhibition Building later this year might help. About 3000 artworks will be on display and for sale at the Affordable Art Fair in September. Sixty galleries will showcase their artists, bringing about 50 pieces each. About a third will be Melbourne-based, a third from elsewhere around the country and the remaining from international galleries. An example of work from the show is The Ride by Craig Parnaby, acrylic on linen, 40 x 60cm. Credit:Courtesy of Salt Contemporary Art Established by Will Ramsay in London in 1999, the Affordable Art Fair was inspired by him feeling alienated by the traditional gallery experience; he talks about democratising art. Since then, Ramsay has added shows in Hong Kong, Hamburg, New York, Singapore and Milan and beyond. He was one of those involved in establishing the Hong Kong event that was purchased by Art Basel. Over the past 18 years, approximately 2.1 million people have visited an Affordable Art Fair and Ramsay estimates that more than $408 million worth of contemporary art has been sold. Hopefully therell be something for every price range but weve worked hard on not having anyone leaving feeling they couldnt afford anything, he said. If the book was unerringly focused on Cullen, the film engages with the co-dependency between Cullen and Jensen, forsaking exposition for immersive uncertainty. The difference between the two texts was immediately apparent to Toby Wallace (Galore, television's Romper Stomper series), the 23-year-old actor who was Wright's choice to play Erik Jensen alongside Daniel Henshall (Snowtown, Ghost in the Shell) as Adam Cullen. "The script was very much about Adam and Erik's relationship and the dynamic between them," Wallace says. "When I read the book it's about Adam, and Erik tries very hard to separate himself from the story, although I think there's still so much of him in there. "That's what interested me the most: how did this friendship and relationship go for so long and why did Erik stay?" Daniel Henshall as Adam Cullen. Speaking a few days before shipping out for a promotional campaign in the United States for the new American Netflix teen mystery series The Society, Wallace remembers how he spent hours talking with Jensen, asking questions and trying to understand his mindset. He had Jensen record a passage of speech on his phone, so he could study the diction, he talked to former colleagues and later, during pre-production, he would dress in costume as Jensen, who favoured a gaudy fashion flourish as a young writer, and wander around the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba so he could experience the judgemental gaze of locals. "The thing I related to the most about Erik was during that time he was a young guy with a lot to prove, mainly to himself," Wallace says. "For me, personally, it was a time when I became unbelievably aware of myself and that was terrifying you either dive into that or push it down. Erik wanted to make something bigger than he was." While Jensen believes that biography and acting are "fundamentally different things", he was struck by the perceptiveness of Wallace's queries. Jensen didn't think he was being appraised, as he had previously done with Adam Cullen, but then during the film's tight 25-day shoot he found himself in a recreation of the Sydney Morning Herald newsroom he'd once worked in, looking at Wallace in character as him. Toby Wallace as Erik Jensen. "Toby looks precisely nothing like me, but I felt an uncanny sense of stepping back into my old life," Jensen says. "The newsroom felt exactly as it had been and Toby has all of the insecurity and anxiety and need to make sense of the world that I remember feeling at the time. All these mannerisms that I was largely unaware of suddenly struck me as horribly familiar." Jensen describes this unsettling sensation as being "an act of empathy", and the way that one moment can encompass divergent meanings is typical of the film's wrenching insight and reach. Last year, when Acute Misfortune debuted at the Melbourne International Film Festival and won The Age Critics Prize for best Australian feature, Wright told me he despised the traditional cinema biopic and wanted instead to destabilise the narrative. "It doesn't look anything like a biopic," agrees Wallace. "We wanted to go internal. Erik said yes to everything no matter what it made him feel. From the get go it was Erik's story. It was from his point of view." "The film opens up all sorts of questions that we don't have to answer in non-fiction about the motive of ourselves as writers, why we're there and why we keep going back," Jensen says. "Questions that I had quieted in the process of actually living it because my answer was always, 'It's journalism, that's what we do', which is an unsatisfactory answer when you're making a film." Adam Cullen with his Archibald Prize-winning portrait of David Wenham, and Wenham, in 2000. Credit:Patrick Cummins Wright kept Wallace away from Henshall, who had spent several years preparing to play Adam Cullen, until the first day of shooting, so as to facilitate the sense that we were actually seeing these two men meet for the first time. London: British broadcaster ITV has cancelled a popular, long-running daytime reality show after the death of a guest who failed a lie detector test during a recording. The case has renewed debate about the ethics of tabloid television, and sparked a parliamentary inquiry into the regulation of programs that put members of the public under intense scrutiny. Tabloid TV show host Jeremy Kyle has had his namesake show canned. ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall said on Wednesday The Jeremy Kyle Show was being scrapped "given the gravity of recent events". The tabloid-style talk show, which had run for 14 years and specialised in emotive, confrontational showdowns, was pulled after 63-year-old Steve Dymond was found dead at a home in Portsmouth, southern England, on May 9. The Nationals are directing members to ignore how-to-vote cards and vote below the line in the Senate, in a spectacular collapse of Coalition unity following Jim Molan's rogue campaign for his own re-election. But Senator Molan defended himself by blaming former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who made below-the-line voting easier in his 2016 suite of Senate voting reforms. Liberal senator Jim Molan is mounting a rogue re-election campaign, asking supporters to vote below the line. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen In an email to members on Wednesday, the Nationals' NSW state director Ross Cadell and chairman Bede Burke accused Senator Molan and his supporters of breaching the Coalition agreement by campaigning for a "below the line" vote. This left the junior Coalition partner with "no choice but to follow suit", the pair wrote. Employers fear Labor's promised wage theft tribunal could expose them to a deluge of "double dipping" claims for leave entitlements by casual workers who have already been paid loadings. Bill Shorten, who has promised to set up a new body to deal with claims of up to $100,000 if he is elected prime minister on Saturday, would not rule out allowing casuals - who are paid a loading of up to 25 per cent instead of entitlements like holiday pay - to pursue such claims. Bill Shorten won't rule out allowing casual workers to pursue annual leave claims in his promised wage theft tribunal. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright said he the tribunal could become a "no-risk casino" where workers try their luck at hitting the jackpot. "Let's not scare people," Mr Shorten said when asked about the matter in Perth on Wednesday. Tarana Burke, founder of #metoo, said recently, I think this is the first wave people squirming and becoming uncomfortable, but we need a deep dive Fair Agenda, the community organisation campaigning for fairness for women, has just released its election score card rating the policies of the Liberal, Labor and Greens parties on their action to address workplace sexual harassment. Sydney Peace Prize winner and #MeToo campaign founder Tarana Burke. Credit:AP The score card is a collaboration between Fair Agenda and NOW Australia. It compares party policy along five key areas: dedicated prevention to address the underlying gendered drivers; stronger and clearer legal duties; access to fair, effective and efficient complaints processes; appropriate advocacy and support for workers; and accessible reporting tools. These areas followed the calls to action embedded in The Power to Prevent, a joint statement from a coalition spearheaded by Victoria Legal Aid and signed by 100 organisations including the score card collaborators. The brother of Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, the man who killed restaurant owner Sisto Malaspina in last year's Bourke Street terror incident, has pleaded guilty over a plot to gun down New Year's Eve revellers at Federation Square. Ali Khalif Shire Ali, 22, was preparing to stand trial in the Supreme Court but on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a single terrorism charge over his planned massacre. Ali Khalif Shire Ali in November 2017. Credit:Joe Armao Ali was arrested in November 2017 and police at the time believed he planned to arm himself with an automatic rifle and shoot as many people as he could on December 31 that year. The then-university student, an Australian-born Muslim, was arrested not far from his Werribee home and has been in custody ever since. He had been monitored by police for months before his arrest. Matt McLaren and Cecilia Devine spent hundreds of hours collaborating in an inner Newcastle music studio between 2015 and 2017 crafting Ms Devine's debut solo album Liberty. The 10 tracks showcased Ms Devine's prodigious singing and songwriting talents but also served as a personal memoir and window into her battle with mental illness. Cecilia Devine was last seen leaving a hotel in Katoomba on September 6. Her remains were found in a nearby dam. Credit:NSW Police "Those sessions with her were some of the best work I've ever done in the studio," McLaren told the Newcastle Herald. "Music was her therapy for what happened in her past." The daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran says she is determined to make things right for everyone who has felt the pain of her addiction after she was caught with the drug ice. Harriet Wran, 31, pleaded guilty in April to possessing drugs, goods in custody and not displaying P-plates, less than three years after she was released from jail over her role in the robbery and murder of a Sydney drug dealer. Harriet Wran leaves Wyong Local Court on Wednesday. Credit:AAP Wran was charged after she was pulled over by police at a service station at North Wyong, on the Central Coast, in the early hours of February 27. Officers found 0.96 grams of crystal methamphetamine and a number of items including mail, identification cards and electronic equipment. The first national audit of psychotropic drug use in 150 aged-care facilities found a "prescribing culture" whereby staff were quick to medicate nearly half of all residents in some homes, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has been told. Juanita Westbury, from the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania, said her study involving 12,150 aged-care residents, found some homes were "very quick to rush to medication for management, whereas other homes were much more prudent". Dr Juanita Westbury told the aged care royal commission she found a prescribing culture in many aged-care homes. "As for antipsychotic medication rates in some homes, you had 45 per cent of residents taking an antipsychotic every single day, but, on the other end of the scale, you had some with 6 per cent of residents," she said. Dr Westbury, a pharmacist who studied for her PhD on psychotropic drug use in aged care, in 2014 examined the culture of use of these drugs, which work on the brain and central nervous system affecting mood, behaviour and emotions. Queensland's Labor government has ruled out further state money to bail out short-term delays in the National Disability Insurance Scheme funding after a shortfall between Queensland and federal disabilities payments was outlined on Tuesday. Federal Labor has promised to set up an NDIS Future Fund, which it says will safeguard ongoing payments to the NDIS, a spokesman confirmed on Tuesday night. "The Liberals Budget shows they will short-change the NDIS by $1.6 billion in the next year alone and because of their staff caps and delays, over 23,000 Queenslanders are missing out on the NDIS," a Labor campaign spokesman said. "Labor will establish an NDIS Future Fund to protect the scheme from the Liberals' cuts. The NDIS Future Fund will contain the $1.6 billion the Liberals have ripped from the NDIS, along with any future underspends." Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad provided an additional $6 million to extend for 12 months the taxi subsidy scheme used by more than 10,000 Queenslanders with a disability. About 150 Richmond residents have attended a follow-up meeting on the safe injecting room, with a majority of residents voting in favour of a motion that the facility be moved out of Richmond and a 30-person residents' committee selected. After a "venting" meeting about the controversial centre last month, a mix of young families, elderly couples, local workers and politicians including Reason Party MP Fiona Patten packed the All Nations Hotel beer garden, across the road from the injecting room, on Wednesday evening. City of Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly addresses a second meeting of residents concerned about the safe injecting room in Richmond. Credit:Michael Fowler The "solutions meeting", organised and chaired by City of Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly, did include multiple anecdotes from fearful and frustrated residents. One man said he'd lived in his family home across the road from the injecting centre for 50 years but now had "one foot out the door". A West Australian policeman who tasered a driver during a scuffle after a random breath test has been found guilty of two counts of assault. The incident in Fremantle in March 2017 was largely captured on video by a rear-seat passenger of James Bartlett, who appeared annoyed after he had a yellow sticker defect notice placed on his Jeep for a non-compliant light bar on the roof and oversized wheels. Senior Constable Grantley Keenan said he feared for his life. Credit:9 News Perth Mr Bartlett said words to a junior officer along the lines of "you're so poor, you couldn't afford my vehicle", which prompted Senior Constable Grantley Keenan to walk towards the car to "have words". Keenan testified during his Perth Magistrates Court trial that as he approached, Mr Bartlett flashed the light bar, which caused "temporary flash blindness". Two city blocks along Elizabeth Street would be closed to cars under a plan to transform one of the last eyesores in Melbournes CBD into a more pedestrian and cyclist friendly gateway to the city. Under the plan, to be considered by Melbourne City Council next week, the blocks between La Trobe and Little Lonsdale streets and Little Bourke and Bourke streets would be completely shut off to cars and trucks. An artist's impression of some of the planned changes. The area would be revitalised with widened bluestone footpaths, bike lanes and street furniture along with al fresco dining. The blocks between Little Lonsdale and Lonsdale streets and Bourke and Little Collins Streets would also be blocked to southbound traffic, with footpaths on the eastern side of Elizabeth Street extended to the tram tracks. Trump's views on the proposals were not immediately clear. In general, he has sided with ending US military involvement in wars overseas, although he has identified Iran as a chief adversary and sought to demonstrate a tough stance on nations challenging the United States. He is surrounded by officials with hard-line views on Iran led by his National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has advocated for regime change in Iran. Iranian worshippers burn a US flag during a rally after Friday prayer in Tehran. Credit:AP Iranian and American leaders say they do not want a war but warn that they are prepared to use military might if provoked. Speaking during a visit to Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had made clear "that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." Ayatollah Khamenei, in a series of messages on Twitter, also warned the US would be forced to withdraw from a confrontation with Iran. "We don't seek a war nor do they," he said. "They know a war wouldn't be beneficial for them." Nevertheless, the increasing tension has fuelled concern that the two countries might accidentally slide into conflict, with Britain and the European Union encouraging further negotiation on the deal. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting with governmental officials in Tehran on Tuesday. Credit:AP Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal last year. It was signed with Iran, the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany to ensure Iran would not enrich uranium in return for economic benefits and the gradual easing of sanctions. The comments from Khamenei and Pompeo came after four ships belonging to US allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Norway were attacked near the Persian Gulf, an act for which US officials suggested Iran may be responsible. The incident followed a series of US steps designed to isolate Iran, including the designation of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and a raft of new sanctions. The damaged Emirati-flagged bunkering tanker A Michel off the coast of Fujairah, UAE. Credit:AP Becca Wasser, a policy analyst at Rand Corp, said those steps fuelled suspicions between the United States and its allies on one hand and Iran on the other, raising the risk of a small incident snowballing into a larger confrontation. "It's fairly common to have Iranian patrol boats harass US carriers and other ships in the strait," she said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway off Iran that is key to global commerce. "You can imagine with some of the heightened tensions, that there could be a greater risk of that exploding into something larger." "In different times, an accident or a mistake could be resolved because of open lines of communication between Iran and the United States," she added. "Now it could lead to the United States and Iran accidentally stumbling into some form of escalation." Typically a range of options is presented by military officials when requested by civilian leaders. Sometimes, policymakers select one course of action. Other times, they decide to do nothing. The Saudi-flagged oil tanker Amjad anchored off the coast of Fujairah was one of four "sabotaged" ships. Credit:Maxar/AP US Central Command maintains a host of contingency plans that are updated periodically, especially when policy or threat information changes. Military officials, who have privately voiced a strong desire to avoid conflict with Iran, have nevertheless described the recent intelligence as sobering and say they believe that Iran is actively planning attacks on US forces. Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for US Central Command, said the alert level for forces in Iraq and Syria had been increased in response to the recent intelligence, pushing back against a statement by a British general serving in Baghdad as part of the US-led coalition who said there was no amplified threat from Iranian backed forces there. That operation "is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq," Urban said. More than 5000 US troops are in Iraq, and less than half that are in neighbouring Syria. Pentagon and congressional officials said the elements that contributed to the worrisome intelligence picture included Iranian military and other threats against diplomatic facilities in Baghdad and Erbil, Iraq. Officials also said they believed that Iran may be preparing to mount rocket or missile launchers on small ships. Military officials say they do not know why Iran appears to be embracing a more hostile stance but say it is probably a result of mounting economic and diplomatic pressures. Since the United States withdrew from the nuclear agreement a year ago, it has penalised almost 1000 Iranian individuals and entities. Sanctions on financial transactions and oil exports, in particular, have had a devastating effect on the Iranian economy. International nuclear monitors have said that Iran has continued to meet its commitments under the 2015 agreement but that it has threatened to resume the stockpiling of enriched uranium unless the European Union finds a way to facilitate sanctions relief within 60 days. The Europeans, while striving to keep the nuclear accord alive, are stuck between the hard-line positions staked out by Washington and Tehran. The uptick in tensions has also rattled the State Department's top officials in charge of diplomatic security, who on Tuesday postponed a major forum of regional security officers from most embassies and consulates worldwideas senior personnel need to "remain in the field to assess and respond to potential threats," according to a State Department memo. The damaged Norwegian-flagged oil tanker MT Andrea Victory off the coast of Fujairah, UAE, on Monday. Credit:UAE/AP The event is scheduled every three to four years and involves 300-plus people, said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss internal logistics. "It's no small potatoes that Diplomatic Security chose to cancel this," the official said. Making matters more complicated, Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are often accused of being Iranian proxies, carried out multiple drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities on Tuesday, a day after the Saudi Arabia oil tankers were damaged. Washington: The United States has broken with 18 governments and top American tech firms by declining to endorse a New Zealand-led response to the live-streamed shootings at two Christchurch mosques, saying free-speech concerns prevented the White House from formally joining the largest campaign to date targeting extremism online. French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern attend a meeting at the Elysee Palace. Credit:AP The "Christchurch Call", unveiled at an international gathering in Paris, commits foreign countries and tech giants to be more vigilant about the spread of hate on Facebook and posted afterward on other social media. It reflects heightened global frustrations with the inability of Facebook, Google and Twitter to restrain hateful posts, photos and videos that have spawned real-world violence. Leaders from across the globe pledged to counter online extremism, including through new regulation, and to "encourage media outlets to apply ethical standards when depicting terrorist events online." The companies also said they'd work more closely to ensure their sites don't become conduits for terrorism. They also committed to accelerated research and information sharing with governments in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Washington: Venezuelan activists are ignoring a trespassing warning and remain holed up in their country's embassy in the United States, highlighting a dispute over who is the legitimate leader of the South American nation. The activists, who consider socialist Nicolas Maduro to be the legitimate president, have protested inside the embassy in Washington for more than a month, sometimes chanting slogans from the windows of the red-brick building as opposition supporters heckle them from the street. Despite their dwindling numbers and no power, activists vow to stay inside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. Credit:AP They said they planned to stay in the building despite warnings from law enforcement, defying US government recognition of congressional leader Juan Guaido's claim to be Venezuela's rightful leader. "We are not following the order," activist Kevin Zeese told reporters from a window on the second floor. He said there were four protesters inside and that they still have enough food and water to continue the sit-in. After a highly politicised start to the year for brokers - during which industry leaders regularly engaged politicians and regulators at the highest levels - the federal election is finally just days away. In preparation for Saturday, Australian Broker has compiled a list of the most industry-relevant campaign promises and party stances. Property owners and investors If the liberal government is re-elected, the housing market will likely see an uptick as consumers draw confidence from the status quo being maintained. The rate of property price decline has been slowing, and the Housing Industry Association (HIA) has reported a significant increase in new home sales, with both trends estimated to hold into the coming months. If Labor wins, the party plans to unroll two major tax policies regarding property investment: the removal of negative gearing for people who buy existing properties, as well as the lowering of the capital gains discount. Both changes will apply to properties purchased after January 1 2020, which may result in a short-term spike in the market as investors rush to get grandfathered into the old policies in the latter half of 2019, with a likely drop-off predicted for early 2020. First home buyers (FHBs) The Coalition and Labor have now both committed to the $500m scheme which allows eligible FHBs to buy with only a 5% deposit rather than the standard 20%. The program will be available to FHBs with an income of up to $125,000 or couples with a joint income of up to $200,000, and will kick in from January 2020, but will only be made available to 10,000 borrowers. The scheme has been welcomed by the Customer Owned Banking Association, as the policy favours applicants who borrow from smaller banks or non-bank lenders. The FBAA has cautiously voiced support, but clarified more information is needed to know the propositions true value. While some market commentators have expressed concern that the policy may lead to an environment of negative equity, others say the risk is minimised by the 10,000-buyer cap, just 10% of recent FHBs. Small businesses If the liberal government is re-elected, Morrison has promised to cut taxes from 30% to 27.5% for small businesses earning less than $50m, with an assurance it will be further lowered to 25%, although no timeline has been provided for the additional drop. The party plans to extend instant asset write-offs to $30,000, with additional promises to help cash flow and provide better access to finance. Morrison has also pledged to create 250,000 new small and family businesses over the next five years. If Labor wins, Shorten has promised to cut taxes from 30% to 25% for small businesses by 2022. The party has also discussed tax cuts for assets, as well as an increased threshold for write-offs. Additionally, the party plans to establish a new government position focused on ensuring the voices of small businesses are heard. Personal tax cuts Both parties have promised a tax refund of up to $1,080 a year to Australians earning between $50,000 and around $100,000 annually. Labor has separated itself from the Coalition government by promising a larger cut for those earning less than $45,000 and by planning to increase the top rate of tax by 2% for those earning more than $180,000. With either government, the personal tax cuts will infuse money back into Australian households and could prove crucial to stimulating the economy on a larger scale, which may have implications on future RBA cash rate decisions. Royal commission recommendations The Morrison government has decided not to prohibit trails as per Commissioner Haynes counsel, with plans to revisit the topic in three years. Additionally, the party has made clear its intentions to remain in close communication with industry leaders to work towards maintaining a healthy environment of competition and protecting consumer outcomes. While Labor has pulled back from its initial support of the suggested customer-pays remuneration model, the party plans to institute the remaining 75 of the 76 recommendations, both prohibiting trail commissions and introducing a fee capped at 1.1% of the value of a loan. Latest News MoneyMe to acquire SocietyOne Deal brings together two of the fastest-growing brands in the non-bank space Resimac makes key broker channel hires Two new GMs to bolster broker support A regtech has partnered with Australian neobanks Xinja and Novatti Group in a bid to help the disruptors tackle the largest problem in financial services globally. According to Melbourne-based FrankieFinancial, 70% of the IT budget at banks globally is spent on maintaining legacy systems, a strategic mistake that costs the big four Australian banks up to $4bn each year. Traditional institutions are struggling to integrate their legacy systems with updated internal procedures, external software or data providers. FrankieFinancial CEO Simon Costello said, The rise of neobanks in Australia has been led by consumers dissatisfaction of banks being unable to do seemingly basic tasks. Customers who apply for credit cards or mortgages are often frustrated when the bank asks for a 100 point check and statements even when theyve been a customer for 15 plus years. It's not that banks aren't aware of these inefficiencies or poor customer experience, it's that theyre hamstrung by legacy systems that dont communicate well, store data in silos and are expensive to maintain, he added. The financial systems aggregator has connected more than 100 different vendors and data sources in a single hub that leads to intelligent, data led decision-making around programming, as well as to better-informed compliance and risk assessments. Xinja CEO Eric Wilson said, We are excited about using Frankie's platform to maintain our zero legacy state. Connecting the best of breed technologies and reducing cumbersome interdependencies to ultimately service our customers better, is perfectly aligned with Xinja's mission. FrankieFinancial began as a challenger bank itself, before it identified a larger market demand for its back-end platform from competitors. A report by Juniper Research estimates that regtech firms will outnumber fintechs by 2023, with global spending exceeding $115bn. FrankieFinancial has expressed interest in expanding internationally in the near future, with the US and APAC likely among the first overseas markets to be explored. Caylee Campbell JD19 is still a few days away from receiving her law degree, but shes already made her presence felt as an advocate for justice. Campbell taught law classes to teenage mothers at an alternative high school in Salem. She created resources for sexual assault survivors in southern Oregon. And she supported legislation to protect children from online pornography as a legal researcher in London. Now shes wrapping up an externship with the U.S. Attorneys Office in Portland and eyeing a career prosecuting violent crimes, with a particular interest in child exploitation cases. Its been a remarkable journey for Campbell, who never thought about pursuing a law degree until a college advisor urged her to consider it four years ago. I didnt know I would go to law school, Campbell said. Id always been interested in social justice issues, but I wasnt sure how it would turn into a career. Im so grateful I took that leap of faith. When the Billings, Montana, native arrived at Willamettes College of Law in 2016, she jumped into service and never looked back. She spent three years directing Street Law, an alternative high school program aimed primarily at teen parents and early-college high school students in the Salem area. Students learn the basics of the legal system and wrap up their studies by participating in a mock trial at Willamette. It was a diverse group of students with radically different backgrounds, Campbell said. It was rewarding when we discussed custody issues some of the young high school moms could apply what theyd learned to their everyday reality. They were invested. The summer after her first year, she worked with attorneys on business-related matters as a law clerk for Saalfeld Griggs PC in Salem. She also volunteered for the Victim Rights Law Center, creating information packets for sexual assault survivors who live in Jackson County, Oregon. The packets help survivors navigate the process of changing their names and/or genders on legal documents. Campbell entered an entirely different realm during her second year of law school, spending five months in London as an extern for Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT-UK). She conducted extensive research on legislation aimed at minimizing childhood exposure to online pornography. Her work culminated in a report that will be published in the International Journal of the Jurisprudence of the Family. The United Kingdom is on the forefront of trying to tackle this harmful exposure problem, and I met a lot of people who were instrumental in bringing about that legislation, Campbell said. I got their honest assessment on the effectiveness of the legislation, and their observations were encompassed in the report I wrote. Campbell found out about the opportunity while she was working with Warren Binford, professor and director of the clinical law program, at Willamettes Human Rights and Immigration Clinic. I never would have envisioned living in London for five months and writing a law review article, Campbell said. Professor Binford is the person who encouraged me to pursue the work that motivated me: stopping the exploitation of children. She connected me with ECPAT and made the externship possible. When she came back to the States, Campbell secured a position as a law clerk for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Portland. Working in concert with assistant U.S. attorneys, she conducted legal research, drafted various motions and documents, and appeared in federal court. The experience inspired Campbell to pursue a career in public service law, ideally with the U.S. Department of Justice. I would love to end up working in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the DOJ, Campbell said. My interest in sexual assault and sex trafficking issues was the impetus for me going to law school. I want to make a meaningful difference in that area. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams Williamsburg Jews suffered a string of senseless attacks earlier this month, leaving members of the neighborhoods Orthodox Jewish community fearing for their safety, according to a local rabbi. People merely walking on the streets here feel like sitting ducks, worrying that they must look over their shoulder in fear of being hurt because of their faith, said Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg. A group of men attacked a 42-year-old man wearing religious garb on Lynch Street near Broadway at 1:15 p.m. on May 4, shouting anti-Semitic slurs, before socking him in the face, according to police. Three days later, a teenager snuck up behind an Orthodox Jewish man on Marcy Avenue near Rodney Street at 7:03 on May 7, when he brutally sucker punched the man, before fleeing, cops said. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with the May 7 attack Wednesday morning, charging with him assault as a hate crime, according to police. Both attacks come at a time when hate crimes citywide are soaring, with 145 hate crimes reported between Jan. 1 and April 30, a 67-percent increase over the 87 reported hate crimes reported during the same period in 2018. Of those, more than half targeted Jews in the first quarter of both 2018 and 2019, with 82 attacks against Jewish New Yorkers this year alone. Gov. Andrew Cuomo chimed in to condemn the attacks, and offered the NYPDs Hate Crimes Task Force state resources to help track down the culprits. This abhorrent act of hate-fueled violence is deeply disturbing, especially in the wake of a reported spike in hate crimes and anti-Semitic incidents over the past year, Cuomo said. The rise in hate crimes occurs during an outbreak of the deadly measles virus in Brooklyn, which has largely been confined to Williasmburgs Orthodox Jewish community, and has infected more than 460 people borough-wide. In April, a Jewish man accused an MTA bus driver of attempting to refuse him service on the B57 line in Williamsburg, and then shouting about the measles after he was able to run down and board the bus. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams Bensonhursts Bishop Kearney High School will close its doors for good on Aug. 31, according to the head of the all-girls schools parent organization, who cited several factors in the painful decision. Over the last few years, declining enrollment, changing demographics, reduced income and increased expenses have required cuts to faculty and services, said Sister Helen Kearney, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph. The Roman Catholic school, located at 2202 60th St., has been educating teenage girls in Kings County since 1961, according to the schools website. While the 2019 class will graduate as planned, school reps have assigned coordinators for each lower grade to assist with transferring students to other educational institutions for the upcoming academic year. Before the decision to close was made, the Board of Trustees had approved the 2019-2020 academic year tuition of $10,825. The school, which claimed a 100 percent graduation and college attendance rate, had projected to welcome 227 incoming freshman next year, according to its website. Grief-stricken alumni took to social media on Tuesday to express their sorrow at the closing of the beloved institution. So sad, it was a great school that launched successful and good women, said Tina Ombrellino. Im happy to have spent my high school years there. One graduate of Bishop Kearneys 1989 class, who called the announcement absolutely heartbreaking, used the occasion to reflect on the sense of community she felt at the school. Those 4 years at Kearney were the best. So many people, who were not a part of the kind of sisterhood we had at Kearney, look back at high school and are thankful its over. Me? I would do it over in a heartbeat, wrote Nanine DeLuca. So thankful for my time spent at Kearney. One 1984 graduate spoke of how the school affected her future, and mourned what the schools current students will lose after Mondays announcement. Those 4 years with the Sisters of Saint Joseph gave me the courage and optimistic attitude to continue on to University and Graduate School, said Rosina Mason. I am crying right now at what our future girls will miss out on. I pray that all the girls find good, clean, and safe schools to finish out your academic years. God bless all the nuns and teachers who devoted their time and lives to our girls. Once the school officially shutters in August, the Diocese of Brooklyn will make a determination about the future of the building, according to Bishop Kearneys website. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams 72nd Precinct Sunset ParkWindsor Terrace Smash bro Cops are hunting for the vandal who smashed a guys car window on 56th Street on May 4. The victim told police he left his car parked between Seventh and Eighth avenues at 7 a.m., and returned that evening to find his driver-side window smashed. Mr. Knife Guy A knife-wielding crook robbed a teenager at the 25th Street subway station on May 5. The victim, 16, told police the thief pulled the knife on him inside a Manhattan-bound R train at 11:45 a.m. You know the drill, the bandit growled. The kid forked over his iPhone 7, Bose headphones, and student MetroCard, and the baddie fled into the station, according to police. So-nata A thief drove off with a womans 2011 Hyundai Sonata her daughter left on 46th Street on May 9. The victim told police her kid left the car parked near Fourth Avenue key in the glove box at 8:30 p.m., but discovered her four-door stolen the next morning. Lit Police cuffed a man for allegedly having an illegal knife on 55th Street on May 8. The arresting officer claimed he pulled the suspect over near Fourth Avenue after spotting him driving with a busted headlight at 12:50 am, when he detected a lit joint burning in the center console. Upon further inspection, the cop discovered an open container of whiskey and a large knife tucked underneath the armrest of the seat. The suspects Kia Sedona bore Texas plates, cops said. Colin Mixson High-Grade Extensions to Golden Age Perth, May 15, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Blackham Resources Limited ( ASX:BLK ) ( OTCMKTS:BKHRF ) (Blackham or the Company) is pleased to provide an update of drilling results from the high-grade, free milling Golden Age orebody and the nearby Gap Pit (see Figure 1 in link below), closely located to Blackham's 1.8Mtpa Wiluna Gold Plant. With the latest round of drilling complete and all assays received, resource estimates and mining studies are currently being updated and optimised.Highlights- Golden Age production increased to 1,490oz in the month of April (compared to 1,966oz mined from underground during all of the March quarter), with further increases expected when GAL stoping commences in June- Underground development at Golden Age Lower (GAL) has now intersected high-grade mineralisation, including recent face grades up to 94.9g/t and averages of 12.8g/t- New drilling below current GAL development levels confirm extension of high-grade mineralisation down dip and down plunge, which remains open, including:o 5.61m @ 13.26g/t 63g*m GARD0081o 12.80m @ 2.34g/t 28g*m GARD0085o 2.00m @ 14.02g/t 28g*m GARD0066- New drilling at Golden Age North (GAN) shows excellent grades below the current pit, including:o 8m @ 8.92g/t from 16m, incl. 4m @ 17.00g/t 71g*m WURC0740o 3m @ 12.48g/t from 139m, incl. 2m @ 17.95g/t 37g*m WURC0740o 7m @ 5.18g/t from 162m, incl. 1m @ 32.50g/t 36g*m WURC0738o 6m @ 3.69g/t from 119m, incl. 1m @ 9.16g/t 22g*m WURC0737- Studies are in progress on potential open pit cut-back and/or shallow underground operations at the high-grade GAN gold structure, which remains open at depth- New drilling below and surrounding the historical Gap Pit at the Western End of Golden Age, demonstrates strong grades at shallow depths, including:o 3m @ 58.91g/t from 71m 177g*m WURC0763o 8m @ 6.07g/t from 10m, incl. 2m @ 20.04 g/t 54g*m WURC0766o 8m @ 2.22g/t from 25m 18g*m WURC0764 (Republic Reef)o 4m @ 4.86 g/t from 51m, incl. 1m @ 12.70 g/t 19g*m WURC0765 (Republic Reef)Blackham's Executive Chairman, Mr Milan Jerkovic commenting on the recent results, stated "The recent drilling results at Golden Age are very exciting, as they demonstrate the ability for Blackham to continue to extend immediate mining activities at its highest-grade ore body, with increased levels of gold production. This is consistent with Blackham's strategy to focus on the mining of its highest margin free milling ore bodies whilst pursuing its low-cost expansion pathway to 120kozpa gold production with long mine life(see Note below)."Golden Age Lower - Underground Mining/DevelopmentDevelopment continues at GAL on the 800m and 825m RL drives (see Figure 2 in link below). The high-grade mineralisation has been intercepted as expected on the 825m RL drive (see Photo 1 with grades up to 95g/t) with development on the 800m RL drive expected to be in ore in May. The high-grade quartz lode to date is as expected with development faces assaying at 5-20g/t.GAL, Blackham's highest-grade ore source, has been consistently extended over the last 2 years and has successfully maintained a rolling mine life of at least 6 months. If dual underground mining areas (GAL and GAN) can be mined simultaneously, it will significantly increase the volume of high-grade ounces delivered to the plant.Blackham's strategy for GAL is to expand the resource and mining rate substantially above historical production of approximately 700-1,000 ounces per month. Recent underground core drilling was aimed at extending the Golden Age Lower (GAL) mineralisation down dip and down plunge. Best intercepts included:5.61m @ 13.26g/t 63g*m GARD008112.80m @ 2.34g/t 28g*m GARD00852.00m @ 14.02g/t 28g*m GARD00660.78m @ 17.75g/t 14g*m GARD00639.50m @ 2.16g/t 21g*m GARD00682.00m @ 5.38g/t 11g*m GARD00702.60m @ 5.72g/t 15g*m GARD00761.45m @ 5.30g/t 8g*m GARD00771.00m @ 7.24g/t 7g*m GARD0080Resource modelling and mining studies are in the process of being completed to confirm the potential for further extensions to GAL mining inventory.Golden Age NorthMining of the Golden Age Fault in the initial Golden Age North (GAN) open pit was completed in April 2019. The Golden Age Fault is a semi-planar and continuous quartz zone 1-3m wide on average and over 600m in length. Recent drilling tested the potential for extensions to the GAN pit, both along strike and down dip, with results including:8m @ 8.92g/t from 16m, incl. 4m @ 17.00g/t 71g*m WURC07403m @ 12.48g/t from 139m, incl. 2m @ 17.95g/t 37g*m WURC07407m @ 5.18g/t from 162m, incl. 1m @ 32.50g/t 36g*m WURC07386m @ 3.69g/t from 119m, incl. 1m @ 9.16g/t 22g*m WURC07376m @ 3.40g/t from 156m, incl. 1m @ 18.30g/t 20g*m WURC07554m @ 4.61g/t from 144m, incl. 1m @ 12.25g/t 18g*m WURC07462m @ 5.38g/t from 152m, incl. 1m @ 9.79g/t 11g*m WURC0750Grade control drilling towards the base of the GAN pit also returned excellent grade zones with greater than 20 gram-metre intercepts, further reinforcing the mining potential below the GAN pit. These results support the potential for a new shallow underground mining front to complement the existing operation and introduce greater economies of scale.Optimisation and financial modelling will now be completed aimed at defining the optimal method of extracting further Golden Age ore, either through deepening the existing pit or through underground extraction. The mineralisation remains open at depth and a further drill program will be planned to systematically test the Golden Age Fault extensions.Gap Pit - Western End of Golden AgeThe shallow Gap Pit was mined in the 1990's and subsequently back-filled. It is located at the confluence of the Bulletin Shear and Golden Age and Republic Faults. Recent RC drilling was aimed at testing further free-milling oxide ores below and surrounding the existing pit. Eighteen RC drill holes were completed for 1,539m in April 2019. Best results include:3m @ 58.91g/t from 71m 177g*m WURC07638m @ 6.07g/t from 10m, incl. 2m @ 20.04 g/t 54g*m WURC07668m @ 2.22g/t from 25m 18g*m WURC0764 (Republic Reef)4m @ 4.86 g/t from 51m, incl. 1m @ 12.70 g/t 19g*m WURC0765 (Republic Reef)The latest drilling has also been successful in identifying the free milling cross cutting quartz reef structures (WURC0764 and WURC765). A review of the existing resource model is in progress and subject to positive mining studies, a Gap Pit cut-back will be included in the mining schedule in the second half of 2019.Further drilling between the Gap Pit and GAN deposits is required to understand the interaction of these mineralised structures and the potential for any further extensions to mineralisation.Note: Refer to ASX release dated 28 February 2019To view figures, please visit:About Wiluna Mining Corporation Ltd Wiluna Mining Corporation (ASX:WMC) (OTCMKTS:WMXCF) is a Perth based, ASX listed gold mining company that controls over 1,600 square kilometres of the Yilgarn Craton in the Northern Goldfields of WA. The Yilgarn Craton has a historic and current gold endowment of over 380 million ounces, making it one of most prolific gold regions in the world. The Company owns 100% of the Wiluna Gold Operation which has a defined resource of 8.04M oz at 1.67 g/t au. In May 2019, a new highly skilled management team took control of the Company with a clear plan to leverage the Wiluna Gold Operation's multi-million-ounce potential. 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 Before Terry Gou received a divine message to run for Taiwans presidency, the Foxconn founder said that he had stayed awake at night wondering what he could do for todays youth. Thats an admirable sentiment, but doesnt much help his own shareholders when they need him most. The companys major client, accounting for half of sales, is facing the biggest challenge in more than a decade. 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 Hinduja group would be keen to take over Jet Airways, provided lenders agree to take a substantial haircut on their dues and founder Naresh Goyal gives his consent to the takeover. A top official of the group said it sees value in the airline, which is going through a crisis. We may look at the airline provided banks agree to take a haircut on debt. The high debt is unsustainable, said a source close to the development. Jet Airways owes Rs 9,000 crore to banks and has defaulted to banks, suppliers and employees. Its operations have shut down due to lack of ... Indias largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki (MSIL) is likely to transport at least half of its cars via Indian Railways by 2030. This is a major fillip for the railways as the Gurgaon-based carmaker had transported only 500,000 cars via the rail route in the last four years. MSIL sold a total of 1.75 million vehicles in the domestic market in 2018-19, up 6 per cent from 1.65 million in 2017-18 (FY18). MSIL has drawn up a plan, based on which at least 50 per cent of its cars will be transported through the railways, said a senior government official. The national ... Taco Bell, the global Mexican fast-food major, is planning to open 600 outlets in India over the next 10 years. If implemented successfully, this can make India the second-largest market for Taco Bell, after the US, said Liz Williams, president, Taco Bell International. India is one of the most important markets outside the US and its diverse nature offers an opportunity to Taco Bell, as we are adept at embracing change. 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 A new investor, KTB, and existing investors, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital, were also part of the funding Round F, raising the stakes in the high competition grocery market. The company, which has been able to hold its own against players, including Bigbasket and Amazon Now, said it would be using the latest round to expand into new markets, further building its supply chain, warehousing infrastructure, and private label ... 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 Japan has complained at the World Trade Organization about India's duties on mobile phones, base stations and routers, and the circuit boards and other components that go into them, a WTO filing showed on Tuesday. Japan's complaint, the first step in a legal dispute, said India had sought to foster domestic production by adjusting various taxes including customs duties, especially since it launched the "Make in India" campaign in September 2014. Some of the tariffs on goods of substantial interest to Japan were now "clearly in excess" of the rates ... In an unprecedented move, the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday said campaigning in West Bengal for the nine seats that go to the polls on Sunday will end nearly a day earlier. It also relieved two bureaucrats of their respective posts with immediate effect. The EC said campaigning for the remaining Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal will end at 10 pm on Thursday instead of the scheduled end at 5 pm on Friday. EC officials said this was the first time they invoked Article 324 of the Constitution to pass such an order. The order drew immediate reactions from Bengal Chief Minister ... Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on Tuesday, two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates, and the US military said it was braced for "possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq" from Iran-backed forces. The attacks took place against a backdrop of US-Iranian tension following Washington's decision this month to try to cut Iran's oil exports to zero and to beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats. Tuesday's attacks on the pumping stations more ... Three United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) (I) cadres have been apprehended in Tinsukia town of Assam. The three men were apprehended along with sophisticated arms and ammunition by security forces in Tarani Reserve Forest on Tuesday. The ULFA is a separatist outfit operating in North-East India for the indigenous Assamese people. Their main aim is to establish a sovereign Assam with an armed struggle. The Central government had banned ULFA in 1990 citing it as a terrorist organisation, while the United States Department of State lists it under "other groups of concern. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Srinagar based no. 51 squadron of the Indian Air Force, also called "sword arms" is using new shoulder patches which showcases the bravery of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman by calling itself the 'Falcon Slayers' to commemorate the downing of an F-16 belonging to the Pakistani Air Force during an aerial battle on February 27. The squadron, which has a fleet of MiG-21s, also calls itself "AMRAAM dodgers" as its aircrafts evaded four to five AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles fired by PAF F-16 jets. The patch shows a MiG 21 in the foreground and red-coloured F-16 in the background with 'Falcon slayers' written on top and 'AMRAAM dodgers' written at the bottom. The patches have been designed by Saurav Chordia. On February 27, a day after the IAF bombed terrorist camps in Pakistan's Balakot, PAF attempted to carry out an attack on Indian military installations in Jammu and Kashmir. The attack was foiled by the heroics of IAF pilots, who used specific manoeuvres to dodge the multiple AMRAAMs fired by PAF F-16s. The missiles were defeated. A MiG-21 piloted by Varthaman shot down an F-16 using a Russian air-to-air missile. However, his plane also crashed and he was taken into custody by the Pakistani Army after crossing over to the neighbouring country. Under severe pressure from India and several other nations, Pakistan released Abhinandan on March 1. He was later moved out of Srinagar and shifted to an airbase on the western border due to security concerns. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four inmates lost their lives while 33 others, including 20 police officers, were injured after riots broke out at the Pul-e-Charkhi prison here on Tuesday (local time). The clash began after the police started searching some cells at the prison, according to Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior Affairs. "Attorney General Office and Ministry of Interior Affairs had ordered a search of Special Narcotics Blocks of Pul-e-Charkhi Prison. Four buildings were searched in the morning. But later violence broke out at midday during the search of remaining buildings after a group of prisoners attacked police, injuring 10 police officers," Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman from the ministry, told Xinhua. The police personnel fired in the air during the face-off, which saw the inmates trying to grab the police forces' weapons. The situation was later brought under control. Investigations have been launched into the incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday announced a memorial in or around Bargari for those who lost their lives in the police firing in Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in 2015. Ridiculing BJP leader Parkash Singh Badal's claim of Bargari and other sacrilege cases being bygones, the Chief Minister said people never have, and never will forget the desecration of their holy scriptures, and the Shiromani Akali Dal supremo should be ashamed of even suggesting the same. "How can anyone forget what happened during the rule of the Badal's? Not one or two but 58 Sri Guru Grant Sahibs were desecrated, not to count the Gutka Sahibs. Bhagwad Geeta, the Bible and the Quran were burnt or torn," he said at an election rally here. "What happened in those months, including at Bargari, and the incidents of police firing on those protesting peacefully against sacrilege, right under the nose of Badal is not something that Punjab can ever forget," he said. The Chief Minister was addressing a public rally here, along with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in support of Congress' Faridkot candidate Mohammad Sadique. He was referring to a series of desecration incidents of the Sikh Guru Guru Granth Sahib and subsequent protests that took place in Punjab in October 2015. The first incident of desecration was reported from Bargari, Faridkot district, and many people lost their lives in the police firing during the protests. "Badal, and the rest of the Akalis, know what had happened was wrong and that the people had neither forgotten nor forgiven them for the same, this is why they are now running around desperately for votes," Singh said. Punjab will see polling for all 13 Lok Sabha seats on May 19 in the seventh and final phase of the elections. The counting of votes will begin on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Altaf Hussain, leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Wednesday appealed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be "cautious" before signing any agreement with unreliable countries like Pakistan. Hussain, in his latest tweet, pointed out to the "respected" IMF authorities that Pakistan will "start breaking all of its promises" as soon as the IMF signs the bailout package with the debt-ridden country. The MQM leader added that Pakistan has been assuring the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the IMF that it will take action against all banned religious outfits and extremist organisations. Ahead of reaching an agreement with the IMF, Pakistan on Tuesday released clerics Khadim Hussain Rizvi and Peer Afzal Qadri on bail for orchestrating violent protests against the acquittal of Asiya Bibi, a Pakistani Christian earlier accused of blasphemy. Rizvi and Qadri have been aligned to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) a renowned religious outfit operating in the country. Hussain said it is well-known that Islamabad was under siege by the "armed terrorists" of TLP in November 2017, which carried out attacks on police stations, public and private properties at the behest of Rizvi and Qadri. "Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had not only supported the terrorists of TLP but also distributed money to these notorious terrorists during Islamabad sit-in in November 2017," Hussain claimed. He alleged that Pakistani courts have released Rizvi and Qadri on order of Pakistan Army and the ISI. The MQM leader called it a "first explosion of breaking down of condition and agreement between Pakistan and the IMF." He went on to say that the Pakistan Army, as well as the jihadi outfits, are still on the same page. Hussain added that if the judiciary would have been independent in Pakistan, thousands of activists and leaders of different political parties would not seek asylum in the West. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday held a silent protest at Jantar Mantar here against the violence that took place during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday. Many top leaders of the party, including Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Dr Jitendra Singh and Vijay Goel, were seen sitting with a finger on their lips, holding placards that read - 'Save Bengal Save Democracy'. The leaders also wore black bands as a mark of protest. On Tuesday, clashes had broken out between BJP supporters and Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) activists after stones were allegedly pelted at Shah's convoy as it passed through College Street. The protest left several injured and the police later told Shah to immediately end the roadshow. Bengali polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue was also vandalised during the clashes. After the silent protest, Goel told ANI that Mamata Banerjee knows that she is losing which is why she is instigating violence across the state. "There is no place for violence in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee is regularly fanning violence across the state. She knows that TMC is losing and BJP is moving ahead. This is absolutely not acceptable to anybody that the president of the largest party which is at the Centre is not allowed to conduct a roadshow," he said. Polling for nine seats in Bengal is scheduled to be held in the seventh phase of Lok Sabha election on May 19. 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.) BJP youth wing member Priyanka Sharma was freed by West Bengal authorities on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court ordered her immediate release. Sharma, arrested for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee, reached her party's office in Kolkata by noon after walking out of Alipore Correctional Home. Earlier in the day, the top court had censured the West Bengal government after Sharma's counsel contended that her release was being delayed. "Why was she not released immediately?" the bench asked the counsel of the state government. The two-judge bench threatened to issue a contempt notice against the state government after Sharma's lawyer told the court that his client was not being allowed to walk free despite the top court's directive of immediate release yesterday. Advocate NK Kaul, appearing on behalf of Sharma, told the court that she was being made to sign apology letter prepared by the state Police declaring that she will not post such content in the future. The apex court also said that it will hear the BJP member's plea seeking action against West Bengal Police, in the first week of July. Sharma was granted bail by the court on Tuesday and asked to tender a written apology after release. A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna had earlier directed the 25-year-old to furnish an apology before release. Later, the court called her counsel back and informed about the changes in its directive. Priyanka Sharma was taken into custody on May 10 on a complaint by a TMC member and produced before a Howrah court the next day which sent her to 14-day judicial custody. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers on Wednesday staged protests across various parts of the country against the violence that took place during party chief Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday. Clashes broke out during Shah's mega road show in Kolkata after sticks were hurled at his convoy. Police had to resort to lathi charge to disperse the crowd. The protest left several injured, due to which Shah was asked to end the roadshow. Bengali polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue was also vandalised during the clashes. Condemning the same, Kolkata BJP women cell workers held a silent protest near Mahatma Gandhi's statue, holding placards and raising slogans against the TMC. "The attack on Amit Shah and Vidyasagar's statue was pre-planned. Mamata is doing vote bank here. Everything will come out once police get the CCTV footage of the incident. The public has understood Mamata's tactics, which will be seen in the results of Lok Sabha polls," one of the protestors told ANI. In Bhopal, BJP cadres took out a peaceful march and observed silence at Roshanpura area. The protestors were carrying banners of Prime Minister Modi and Shah saying "save Bengal, save democracy". Protestors in Mumbai's Nariman Point were seen with black gags on their mouth while others raised slogans against the Mamata Banerjee government and its "anarchist" rule. At Jantar Mantar in the capital, hundreds of BJP supporters and leaders gathered to raise their voice against "goonda tantra" and elimination of democracy in West Bengal. "The people of India and the revolutionary people of Bengal are in anger. Mamata Banerjee has turned Bengal into the land of goons. The people of Bengal have decided that they will contribute to the winning of Modi. Mamata Banerjee will get the answer for creating violence in Bengal. The responsibility of the central government is to maintain the law and order in every part of the country," Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said at Jantar Mantar. He also appealed the Supreme Court to take action in the matter. 'The apex court should suspend the government in Bengal which is defaming the country. And it should take a recommendation from the President of India." Since the Lok Sabha elections began on April 10, BJP and TMC have been at loggerheads in West Bengal. Workers of two parties have repeatedly clashed with each other on polling days. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 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.) In an unprecedented action, the Election Commission on Wednesday cut short the campaign period in West Bengal by a day for the final phase of Lok Sabha elections in view of the violence during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow on Tuesday. "No election campaigning to be held in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal, namely Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata, from 10 pm tomorrow till the conclusion of polls," Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar told media. Campaigning was originally scheduled to end at 5 pm on Friday for the nine constituencies that will go to polls on May 19. Tensions mounted yesterday after violence erupted during Shah's roadshow when the statue of iconic social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised in a college named after him. The decision was taken by the EC after the three-member commission held a meeting via video conference with the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal and other officials in the wake of Tuesday's incidents over which BJP and the Trinamool Congress traded mutual allegations of being responsible for it. The official said this is probably the first time the EC has invoked Article 324 in this manner, adding that it may not be last in cases of repetition of lawlessness and violence which vitiate the conduct of polls in a peaceful manner. "The Commission is deeply anguished at the vandalism done to the statue of Vidyasagar. It is hoped that the vandals are traced by the state administration," he said. The Commission also directed that the controversial police official Rajiv Kumar, ADG CID, be relieved from his post and attached him to the Ministry of Home Affairs. "He should report to MHA by 10 am tomorrow." It also relived Principal Secretary, Home and Health Affairs of West Bengal government from his current charge immediately for having interfered in the process of conducting polls. The Chief Secretary will look after the Home Department, an EC order said. The Commission also announced a ban on the sale of liquor and other intoxicating substances in polling areas of these constituencies till the end of elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a veiled attack at TMC, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday said that if a common citizen is heard chanting 'Jai Shri Ram', "allies of Congress" will put that individual behind bars. "In Himachal Pradesh, you are lucky that when you chant 'Jai Shri Ram', at least you are not arrested. Today in India, there is a state where if a common citizen merely says 'Jai Sri Ram' allies of Congress put that person in jail," she said at a public rally in Palampur, which falls under Kangra Lok Sabha constituency, while campaigning for sitting MP Shanta Kumar. Many top BJP leaders, including Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, have dared West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to arrest them if they chanted 'Jai Shri Ram'. Recently, a video had gone viral on social media where three people were reportedly arrested for chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' when Banerjee's convoy was passing by in West Bengal. Irani said she has never witnessed a situation in India where the president of a political party was "attacked by Congress' allies" for holding a roadshow. "I have never seen in the history of India's that the president of a party is being attacked by the allies of Congress just for holding a roadshow. Congress and its allies tore posters of Narendra Modi. I have never seen in the history of India's where people are being killed just for putting BJP flags," she added. On Tuesday, clashes broke out after miscreants threw sticks at Amit Shah's convoy in Kolkata during a roadshow. The incident took place on College Street when TMC supporters allegedly began sloganeering. Furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the Calcutta University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. During the clashes, a bust of the 19th-century social reformer, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was allegedly vandalised by BJP workers at Vidyasagar College. While BJP accused the Banerjee government of "murdering democracy", the TMC claimed that the saffron party instigated the violence. Irani said that the voters will exercise their franchise not only for the candidate and Modi, but for those "innocent people" who lost their lives due to the "authoritarian" rule of Congress' allies. "I have come here to tell you that on May 19, when you come out to vote, this vote is not for the BJP candidate or Modi ji. This vote is for the innocent people who lost their lives. And what crime did they commit -- to free the people from the authoritarian rule of Congress and its allies," Irani said. Launching a scathing attack on the Opposition's comments against Modi, Irani said the Prime Minister remains committed to the "path of development" despite facing obstacles. "Perhaps this is the first time in our country's history that a Prime Minister is being abused by Congress. He is being attacked on the basis of caste and religion. Some people in Congress says he is a 'neech'. Some of them abuse his mother. Others say whether he is a real OBC or not," she said. "But Modi ji gave a befitting reply saying that if he is being asked about religion, then he belongs to Hindustan and his caste is poor. Modi ji remained committed to the path of development despite facing obstacles and a volley of abuses," Irani further said. Himachal Pradesh, which has four Lok Sabha seats, will go to polls on May 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.) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Wednesday strongly condemned the vandalisation of the bust of 19th-century social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and demanded the Election Commission to launch an investigation into the violent clashes during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow. "During Amit Shah's roadshow, a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised. We condemn this despicable act. Vidyasagar was an icon of the Bengal Renaissance. He was a leader in modernising our society and gave a thrust to our freedom. This is a serious matter," CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters here. Describing the incident as a "serious matter", Yechury said CCTV footage should be examined by the EC, adding that the poll body should take "appropriate punitive action" against perpetrators. "EC should take cognisance of this serious matter. The CCTV footage should be investigated. If the police were not doing its job properly, they should be probed and action should be taken against them," he said. On Tuesday, clashes broke out after miscreants threw sticks at Shah's convoy. The incident took place on College Street when TMC supporters allegedly began sloganeering. Furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the Calcutta University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. During the clashes, Vidyasagar's bust was vandalised by BJP workers at Vidyasagar College. While BJP accused the Mamata Banerjee government of "murdering democracy", the TMC claimed that the saffron party instigated the violence. Slamming Banerjee's recent comment that voting for CPM meant voting for BJP, Yechury asserted that the Left Front is "very much in the electoral fray" and "surprising results" would come from West Bengal on May 23. "I am surprised by the ridiculous statement made by the Chief Minister. Both BJP and TMC are running a deliberate campaign saying that it is a fight between TMC and BJP only. Left Front is very much in the fray and is contesting on all seats in Bengal. There will be surprising results in Bengal. This is not polarisation between TMC and BJP," the CPM leader said. Alleging that free and fair polls were not being held in the state, Yechury said voters were not being allowed to exercise their franchise due to booth capturing. "In the last few phases, there has been a huge disturbance where many booths have been captured. Voters are not being allowed to vote. We brought this matter up to the EC. But unfortunately, nothing has been done," he added. The BJP has urged the EC to bar Banerjee from campaigning ahead of the last and final phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, alleging a breakdown of constitutional machinery in West Bengal. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 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.) The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to lawyer-cum-businessman Gautam Khaitan on a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking cancellation of his bail in a money laundering case. Justice Chander Shekhar asked Khaitan to file his reply and fixed July 18 as the next date of hearing. The agency had on Tuesday approached the high court challenging the bail given to Khaitan by a special CBI court on April 16. He is also an accused in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam case. On March 25, the ED had filed a 1500-page charge sheet against Khaitan, alleging that he deposited a huge amount of money in offshore accounts. It has also accused him of not disclosing Rs 6,000 crore in his income tax return. The charge sheet was filed under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior sub-inspector (SSI) of Delhi police was found dead inside a police training centre here on Tuesday night. According to police, the 51-year-old deceased was staying in the training centre situated in Wazirabad area of Delhi since April 1. A post-mortem will be conducted to ascertain the actual cause of death. In the initial probe, it was found that the official died due to a heart attack. More details in this regard are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Wednesday condemned the smashing of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue terming it an insult to the people of West Bengal. Taking to micro-blogging website Twitter, Patel wrote, "We condemn the destruction of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue. This insult to the people of Bengal by BJP will never be forgiven. Greed for power will see the BJP dismantle every icon of Bengal, their legacy and the culture that they helped build." Patel's statement comes a day after clashes broke out during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Wednesday. Security forces later got down to control the situation but a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised at Vidyasagar College during the clashes. Shah too had condemned the violence at his roadshow and accused "TMC goons of resorting to violence due to frustration". On Tuesday a BJP delegation also met the ECI in connection with the clashes and urged it to bar West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from campaigning in the last phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha election. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Emma Thompson is in talks to join Emma Stone in the upcoming Disney live-action 'Cruella'. Set in the early 1980s, Stone will play the role of infamous fashionista villain Cruella De Vil, who hates dogs and covets the furs of 101 Dalmatian pups to design a perfect coat for herself. The villain was first seen in the 1961 animated classic '101 Dalmatians,' played by Hollywood actor Glenn Close, who was recently seen in 'The Wife'. The exact details of Thompson's character are not clear. The upcoming origin story has been penned by Tony McNamara and is scheduled to release on December 23, 2020, Variety reports. The direction of the film is being handled by Craig Gillespie, Marc Platt, Kristin Burr, and production by Andrew Gunn. Thompson is not new to the world of Disney. Her past credits include multiple Disney films including, 'Beauty and the Beast' (2017), and 'Saving Mr Banks' (2013). Apart from these Disney films, the actor's past credits include an impressive list of films, including 'The Children Act', 'Brave', 'A Walk in the Woods' and 'The Love Punch'. The actor will be next seen in Amazon Studios comedy 'Late Night' and 'Men in Black: International'. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after his mega road show in Kolkata was marred by violence, BJP president Amit Shah held Mamata Banerjee accountable for it, asserting that he wouldn't have been able to escape if CRPF was not deployed in the area. Shah alleged that West Bengal Police was "a mute spectator to the violence unleashed by TMC goons". "It would have been almost impossible for me to escape from there if CRPF personnel wouldn't' have been there. TMC can go up to any extent. It is by luck that I managed to get out of there," Amit Shah said at a press conference on Wednesday. He accused Election Commission of being biased in favour of TMC and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. "Election Commission is just a silent spectator, it should intervene. In West-Bengal history-sheeters are allowed to roam free at the time of elections by taking a bond, which is contrary to the practice elsewhere. I appeal Election Commission to at-least ensure a free and fair election in the last phase in West Bengal," said Shah. He claimed that Banerjee has issued open threats to BJP leaders from the election rallies but the poll body never took cognizance of such matters. The BJP president said that TMC members vandalised the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar for political gains and blamed his party for it. "We were outside and the gates of the college (Vidyasagar College) were locked. The gate is not broken because TMC goons were inside hurling stones and petrol bombs at us. Moreover, the statue of Vidyasagar was locked inside the college room and still vandalised. The administration is of the Mamata Banerjee government. Statue was vandalised by TMC for political gains," he said. Shah charged Banerjee and her party for poll violence in all the 6 phases of elections. "Mamata Banerjee blames BJP for the violence, I want to tell that she is fighting on only 42 seats while BJP is contesting in various states across the nation. We are contesting against several regional players and Congress and nowhere any violence took place except in West Bengal. This proves that Mamata Banerjee and TMC is responsible for the violence," he said Clashes broke out on Tuesday during Amit Shah's mega road show in Kolkata resulting after sticks were hurled at his convoy and police resorted to baton-charge to disperse the crowd. Nine seats are all set to go for polls in West Bengal in the last round of Lok Sabha polls in May 19. The results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's healthcare market is all set to reach a total value of USD 372 billion by 2022, driven by rising affluence, longevity, population and health awareness. The ever-growing demand for healthcare has resulted in a strong network of hospitals and modern healthcare facilities with state-of-the-art equipment, which have cropped up in almost all major cities. However, these facilities are extremely expensive for the average Indian, leaving a huge amount of untapped and affordable healthcare service demand from over 70 per cent of the population residing across India. When it comes to the healthcare industry, a great venture is to open your own clinic. Opening a private clinic is not that easy. 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This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday said the filing of a First Information Report (FIR) against BJP president Amit Shah for the attacks on his road show in Kolkata is a 'mockery of democracy and due process'. "The FIR against BJP President, Shri AmitShah for the attacks on his road show in Kolkata is a mockery of democracy and due process," Singh tweeted. On Tuesday, clashes broke out during Shah's mega road show in Kolkata after sticks were hurled at his convoy. Police had to resort to lathi charge to disperse the crowd. The protest left several injured, due to which Shah was asked to end the roadshow. Bengali polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue was also vandalised during the clashes.Taking on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for misusing state machinery to stifle democratic rights of the people, Singh said, "West Bengal Govt is misusing the state machinery to stifle democratic rights of the people. These attempts at intimidating the leaders and workers of a political party will fail miserably." The Union Minister further expressed concerns over the increasing incidents of political violence in the state. "It seems that the Law and Order situation is worsening further in the state with every passing phase in the ongoing General Elections. The Law and order is a primary responsibility of a State government and its Chief Minister. The West Bengal government and Chief Minister, Sushri Mamata Banerjee should own the responsibility of the prevailing situation in the state."Kolkata police had registered an FIR against Shah in connection with the violence during his roadshow, at Amherst Street police station yesterday. In the FIR, students of Vidyasagar College and Calcutta University named the BJP president as an accused. The students are said to be affiliated to Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad (TMCP), the student wing of the Trinamool Congress. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi in West Bengal today said "the ground is slipping from under the feet" of chief minister Mamata Banerjee whose frustration at the public support for the BJP in the state will help his party form a government with overwhelming majority. The West Bengal Chief Minister is afraid of the Lok Sabha election results and "scared to see her own shadow", Modi said at an election rally here, a day after violence at BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. A bust of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also desecrated and BJP and Trinamool Congress have blamed each other for the violence. "The reason for organised attacks on BJP rallies in West Bengal is your fear. Didi, your nervousness and the public support which BJP is getting in the state has assured me that Bengal will ensure that BJP crosses 300 in these elections," Modi said at an election rally here. "All the surveys are giving BJP a full majority on its own, but Didi after seeing your frustration and the support from the people of Bengal, I'm saying that Bengal will help us win more than 300 seats," he said. PM Modi also offered condolences to the BJP workers who had lost their lives in poll violence in West Bengal and said he sympathised with those who were injured and added that their sacrifice will result in the Mamata Banerjee and TMC being thrown out of power in the long run. "I offer my condolence to the families of BJP workers who were murdered by TMC in the recent past. I also extend my sympathies to the workers injured in yesterday's Kolkata rally and elsewhere, I wish you a speedy recovery. Your sacrifices will not go in vain, one day it will uproot Mamata's atrocious rule from West Bengal," Modi said. "TMC is anti-democracy and anti-development," the prime minister alleged. The Prime Minister was campaigning for Sayantan Basu, BJP state general secretary and candidate from the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat. West Bengal will see polling for nine seats of the state's 42 seats on May 19 in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The counting of votes will begin on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi High Court on Wednesday disposed of a petition filed against actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan over his controversial remark that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse was a 'Hindu terrorist.' The bench presided by Justice GS Sistani and Justice Jyoti Singh questioned the jurisdiction of the petition filed by BJP spokesperson Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and said that he should have approached the Madras High Court as the comment was made in Tamil Nadu. The petition had sought direction to the Election Commission of India to take appropriate action against Haasan, who is the president of the Makkal Needhi Maiam over his comment that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse is "independent India's first Hindu terrorist." "Speaking at an election rally for his party candidate in Aravakurichi Assembly constituency, where bypolls will be held on Sunday (May 19), Mr Haasan had said 'the first terrorist post-India's independence is a Hindu. His name is Nathuram Godse'," the petition said. The court also directed the Election Commission to consider the representation made by Upadhyay. The EC's counsel told the court that Upadhyay approached before it just two days ago and his complaint is pending. On May 12, Haasan had stirred a controversy by asserting that first terrorist in independent India was a Hindu, referring to Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. "I am not saying this because many Muslims are here. I am saying this in front of Mahatma Gandhi's statue. The first terrorist in independent India is a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse," Haasan had said while campaigning in Tamil Nadu's Aravakurichi assembly constituency for the by-election. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ilapuram Raja took charge as the Right to Information Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday in the presence of state chief secretary LV Subrahmanyam. Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan cleared Raja's name on May 7, and he took charge as RTI commissioner today after a government order was released in this regard on May 14. He will serve in this position for the next five years. Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government had recommended two names to the governor for filling up the position of Information commissioner on March 7. However, on March 11, the governor had returned the file to the state government citing Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as the reason. The state government then sought clearance from the ECI on March 29 for the appointment of a new RTI commissioner. On April 4, the file was again sent to the governor. The state government sent two names - Ilapuram Raja and Eerla Srirama Murty. The nod for Raja was given by the governor on May 7. Raja is a hotelier, president of Vijayawada Hotel Owners Association and son of a former MLC. Opposition parties alleged that TDP politicised the institution of information commissioner. Meanwhile, a petition is filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court stating that Raja's appointment is invalid. Jana Chaitanya Vedika president Lakshman Reddy filed a lunch motion petition. His lawyer argued that the act categorically restricts appointing businessmen for the position. The Andhra Pradesh high court bench adjourned hearing to May 29 and ordered the government to file counter on that day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 19 Pakistani prisoners returned home from the Attari-Wagah border after being released by Indian authorities on Tuesday. They had been put in Indian jails on charges ranging from espionage to staying in the country illegally. "I was caught in 2009 without a visa in India. I stayed in the country for four years without a visa and was convicted for 10 years," Vikas Ahmed, one of the prisoners who was freed after completing his term, said. "I'd love to come back to India but with due legal procedure this time. No more sneaking around under the wires, I'll come with a visa again," he added. "I'd just like to request the governments of both India and Pakistan to release prisoners of the other nationality from their respective jails," said Mustaffa, a fisherman, who was released after spending 13 months in an Indian jail. Both the sides have spruced up efforts in releasing prisoners belonging to the other nation in recent times, with Pakistan recently releasing 60 Indians -- including 55 fishermen -- at the Wagah border on April 30. The released Indian citizens had completed their prison term and most of them had served much longer than the sentence awarded by Pakistani courts. India had sent a note verbale to Pakistan on April 9, urging it to make necessary arrangements for immediate release and repatriation of Indian prisoners who had completed their jail term. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Abhay Kumar, who has been appointed as India's Ambassador to Madagascar, presented his credentials to President Rajoelina on Wednesday. Kumar, who joined the Indian Foreign Service in 2003, has earlier served in various diplomatic capacities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kathmandu and Brasilia. He is the 21st Ambassador of India to Madagascar, which has over 18,000 people of Indian origin. Indian bilateral relations with the island nation are emerging strong. President Ram Nath Kovind visited Madagascar in March 2018 during which a bilateral Defence Cooperation agreement was signed. India has extended USD 27.5 million Line of Credit to Madagascar for the development of Agriculture. Also, a Radiotherapy machine worth a million dollars has been installed in Madagascar's capital by India for the treatment of cancer patients. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Chairman of Apollo Hospital Dr PC Reddy on Wednesday said medical evaluation in the ongoing probe on former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's death should be done by medical experts itself. While referring to the Justice Arumughaswamy Commission which is probing Jayalalithaa's death case, Dr PC Reddy said, "Our request was that medical evaluation should be done by medical experts and that is all we asked. The Supreme Court has said yes." This comes weeks after the top court stayed proceedings of the Arumughaswamy Commission in connection with the case. The order was passed by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi which also comprised Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna in an appeal by the hospital last month. Popularly known as 'Amma', Jayalalithaa was taken to Chennai's Apollo Hospital on September 22, 2016, where she was treated for 75 days before she breathed her last on December 5. In September 2017, Justice Arumughaswamy was appointed to head the probe into the death of the former Chief Minister. Over a year later, the hospital demanded the constitution of a medical board comprising doctors and medical professionals to examine Jayalalithaa's medical records. In an affidavit filed to the Arumughaswamy Commission, the hospital raised the demand saying errors crept in due to the inability of a typist to comprehend and type correct medical terms. Apollo Hospitals further said that words like 'intubation' were recorded as 'incubation', apart from other fatal errors. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The annual Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, which is scheduled from June 8 to September 8, will for the first time incorporate a computerised draw of lots to select pilgrims, with preference being given for senior citizens and fresh applicants, external affairs ministry announced Wednesday. "Preferences of fresh applicants and senior citizens have been incorporated into the new software used for the draw of lots, which is being held for the first time for the Yatra," Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters here. A new helpline has also been launched for Yatris, Gokhale said. "Emails received from Yatris are regularly monitored and applicants are suitably advised in a time-bound way," he added. "It is our hope and endeavour that we provide the first chance to those who did not have the chance to go to the yatra, the first-time applicants and we give priority to them. And, of course, to senior citizens as well," Gokhale said. The Ministry of External Affairs organises the annual Yatra via two different routes - Lipulekh Pass (Uttarakhand) and Nathu La Pass (Sikkim). Thousands of devotees participate in the Yatra through a treacherous route that crosses territorial boundaries of India, Nepal and China. This year 3021 applications were received, the foreign secretary said. "It has been the Ministry's consistent effort to get as many applications as it can as the Yatra is important not only for those going for spiritual or religious purposes but also to build relations between India and China, " Gokhale said. According to the schedule this year, 18 batches will trek across the Lipulekh pass in Uttarakhand while 10 other batches will go via the Nathula route to Sikkim, the foreign secretary said. Each batch comprises 50 people. While the Liplekh route passes through a very mountainous area, the fully motorable Nathu La route that opened a few years ago requires minimum walking and will, therefore, help senior citizens participating in the yatra. "Since last year, we have also decided to keep two liaison officers with each batch of yatris. This also assists senior citizens, help in better coordination," Gokhale said He further noted that consistent efforts have been made to make the Yatra website as pilgrim-friendly as possible. The Foreign Secretary also urged the pilgrims to strictly observe safety norms, for themselves and also for their fellow pilgrims, particularly on the Liplekh route which is a very mountainous area. He also urged travellers to help "protect and preserve" the fragile environment in the Himalayas. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) on Wednesday issued a clarification on its chief Kamal Haasan's statement that 'first terrorist in independent India was a Hindu," saying 'it has been taken out of context.' In a statement issued by R Mahendran, Vice President of the party, MNM stated: "Kamal Haasan was calling for religious tolerance and co-existence amongst all religious groups and condemned extremism in whichever form and religions." Asserting that confusion was made among citizens, the party further said: "This has been taken absolutely out of context and the speech has been painted as anti -Hindu, with a malafide intent. This has created complete confusion and utmost anxiety amongst many common citizens who are not privy to this larger conspiracy." Earlier on Tuesday, BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay moved the Delhi High Court seeking direction from Election Commission (EC) to take action against actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan, who stoked controversy by referring Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse as the "first Hindu terrorist in independent India." "I am not saying this because many Muslims are here. I am saying this in front of Mahatma Gandhi's statue. The first terrorist in independent India is a Hindu. His name is Nathuram Godse," Haasan had said while campaigning in Tamil Nadu's Aravakurichi assembly constituency on Sunday. Haasan's comment drew flak from the BJP leaders and Hindu outfits. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A BJP delegation on Wednesday met Vice President Venkaiah Naidu at his residence and submitted a memorandum to demanding appropriate action to be taken in connection with the violence at party president Amit Shah's Kolkata roadshow. The BJP delegation comprised Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Vijay Goel, spokespersons Anil Baluni and GVL Narsimha Rao, and Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha. The delegation demanded that report of the matter be sought and appropriate action should be taken. "The protection of BJP Rajya Sabha members is the responsibility of House and Chairman. We have submitted a memorandum to the Vice President on it and demanded that a report be sought and appropriate action be taken," Javadekar told reporters after the delegation met Naidu. Stating that the repeated attacks on Shah was a "matter of serious concern", the Union minister alleged that the violence was sponsored by the TMC. "This is an attempt to silence the voice of Amit Shah and BJP. The violence was sponsored by TMC," Javadekar said. On Tuesday, clashes broke out after miscreants threw sticks at Shah's convoy. The incident took place on College Street when TMC supporters allegedly began sloganeering. Furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the Calcutta University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. During the clashes, a bust of social reformer Vidyasagar was allegedly vandalised by BJP workers at Vidyasagar College. While BJP accused the Banerjee government of "murdering democracy", the TMCclaimed that the saffron party instigated the violence. Since the Lok Sabha elections began on April 10, both BJP and TMC have been at loggerheads in West Bengal. Workers of two parties have repeatedly clashed with each other on polling days.Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 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.) In view of the depleting water level of river Indravati, the locals are now gearing up to save what they call is the lifeline of Bastar region of the state. The residents of Bastar are holding a foot-march to press for their demand to save the river, for which they are demanding the release of water from Katiguda dam in Odisha, as per the water agreement between the two states. Their foot-march entered seventh-day on Wednesday. The residents walked along the stretch of the river holding placards and raising slogans -- "Save Indravati." For long, the protesters have been generating awareness among locals about the need to save the river from further degradation. The foot-march has been launched from Bhejapadar village situated along Chhattisgarh-Odisha border from where the river enters into Chhattisgarh. "The level of water in the river is going down every year. This is due to the indifferent attitude of Odisha government. Chhattisgarh is not getting the volume of water required to save Indravati, which is almost dry at several stretches," said a protester. "The depleting water level in the river has created a major water crisis for the villagers. It is getting worse day by day. The forest, villages and in fact the whole ecosystem along river Indravati are in trouble," said a social activist. "The administration must act now or never. The river Indravati flows till 250 km in Bastar and is the lifeline of almost 200 villages, which are dependent on its water. The people are supporting Indravati Bachao Abhiyan, with full vigour. It is going to be a big movement," said another protester. It is worth mentioning that Indravati is a stream of the river Godavari. Its starting point is found to be the 'ghats' of Dandakaranya range from a hilltop village Mardiguda of Thuamula Rampur block in Kalahandi district of Odisha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ace Special Forces operative and Sri Lanka war veteran Major General AK Dhingra has been appointed as the first head of country's first tri-services Special Operations Division comprising commandos from all three services. The Armed Forces Special Operations Division has been set up by the government to undertake joint operations by three services and will have elements from the Army's Parachute Regiments SF, Marine Commandos (MARCOS) of the Navy and the Garud Commandos of the Indian Air Force. "Maj Gen Dhingra is a Special Forces veteran and is from the elite 1 Para Special Forces Regiment. He has done Special Operations courses in the US also and has been appointed as the first chief of the AFSOD," Army sources said. The officer was also part of the Indian Peacekeeping Force Operations in Sri Lanka and has seen real combat from close quarters, they said. The new division will work under the tri-services Integrated Defence Staff and will get its headquarters as per ongoing discussions in the Defence Ministry at either Agra or Bangalore, sources said. The Division is also expected to be the first choice of the government for undertaking any major counter-terrorism operation both within and outside the country. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra and the three services chiefs have played a major role in the implementation of the decision to set up three new agencies for Space, Cyber and Special Operations warfare. The proposal to set up the three agencies was given final approval by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Combined Commanders' Conference in Jodhpur last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hours after the Election Commission curtailed election campaign period in West Bengal for the final phase of Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the poll body of acting at the behest of BJP and termed the decision as "unfair" and "politically biased". Further, the Trinamool chief demanded action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. "This is not EC's direction, it is BJP's direction. This is the direction of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. The EC's decision is unfair, unethical and politically biased. Are you waiting for Prime Minister Modi to finish his two rallies tomorrow? You could have stopped campaigning from today evening?" Banerjee told reporters here. In an unprecedented action, the EC cut short the campaigning period in West Bengal by a day for the final phase of the ongoing Sabha elections in view of the violence during Shah's roadshow on Tuesday. The Commission also directed that the controversial police official Rajiv Kumar, ADG CID, be relieved from his post and attached him to the Ministry of Home Affairs "No election campaigning to be held in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal, namely Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata, from 10 pm tomorrow till the conclusion of polls," Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar told media in New Delhi. Campaigning was originally scheduled to end at 5 pm on Friday for the nine constituencies that will go to polls on May 19. Tensions mounted yesterday after violence erupted during Shah's roadshow when the statue of iconic social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised in a college named after him.Continuing her tirade against EC, the TMC supremo questioned the poll body's "unprecedented decision", asking why it did not issue a showcause notice to Shah. "Election Commission is running under the BJP. This is an unprecedented decision. Yesterday's violence was because of Amit Shah. Why has EC not issued a showcause notice to him or sacked him?" Banerjee questioned. "BJP goons were brought from outside. They created violence wearing saffron clothes similar to when Babri Masjid was demolished (in 1992)," she said. Banerjee took on the Prime Minister for not condemning the violent clashes during Shah's roadshow. "Amit Shah created violence through his meeting. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue was vandalized, but Modi did not feel sorry for that today. People of Bengal have taken this seriously. Action should be taken against Amit Shah," she said. Countering claims by BJP that her government was "murdering democracy", Banerjee said, "Amit Shah today did a press conference and threatened EC. Is this the result of that? Bengal is not scared. Bengal was targeted because I am speaking against Modi." "Bengal is not Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Tripura. Bengal is Bengal. Barring few incidents where central forces were there, such things would have been avoided had state forces been deployed during elections," she said while slamming BJP's decision of imposing president's rule in the state. Asserting that she would continue to fight against the Prime Minister, Banerjee said that Modi should be "kicked out" from the country. "Narendra Modi, you cannot take care of your wife. How can you take care of the country? You should be kicked out of the country. My fight is against you and will continue fighting. People of Bengal will give you a befitting reply," the TMC supremo said. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 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.) In a fresh jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday shared a meme explaining the term 'Modilie', which he claimed is a new entry to the English dictionary that meant "to constantly modify the truth". "To lie incessantly and habitually" and 'to lie without respite' are the other meanings of the word, which has been formed by a combination of the words Modi and lie, claimed the Congress leader. In a post on Twitter, Rahul said: "There's a new word in the English Dictionary" .He attached a screenshot of the entry in the 'English Living Dictionaries', which described the word as a noun. In the picture that the Congress president shared, there are three "meanings" of "Modilie" shown along with their use in sentences. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi took some time out from his busy campaign schedule to drive a tractor in Punjab's Ludhiana. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Bittu and Congress leader Asha Kumari were also sitting on the tractor when it was being driven by the Congress president. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Egyptian scholar-producer Moez Masoud will be helming 'Hello Brother', a film about the terror attacks that took place on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The plot will follow a family in Afghanistan which is facing death and destruction following which they escape. The story of the family will intertwine with the recent attacks by a 28-year old white supremacist on the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Center. Variety quoted Masoud saying, "In Christchurch, on March 15, the world witnessed an unspeakable crime against humanity." He added, "The story that 'Hello Brother' will bring to audiences is just one step in the healing process so that we might all better understand each other, and the root causes of hatred, racism, supremacy and terrorism." 'Hello Brother' will be produced by Mohamed Hefzy, Eric Lagesse under Moez's Academia Pictures banner. He is also credited for co-writing the script of the film with Rick Castaneda. Members of the film crew are visiting Christchurch to meet officials and the families of victims, and the survivors. Moez also emphasised on positive dialogue and said, "bring people all over the world together to discuss that day and continue a positive dialogue for a future based on genuine mutual understanding." On March 15, Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old suspected white supremacist from Australia, stormed into two mosques during congregational prayers and indiscriminately opened fire on the assembled, as per the police. Earlier this month, the death toll in the Christchurch attacks rose to 51 after the death of a Turkish man in the hospital. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday reviewed the situation and restoration work undertaken in the state in the aftermath of the destruction caused by cyclone Fani. The meeting was attended by senior state and district officials. Talking to media after the meeting, the Chief Minister expressed his sadness on damage caused to Puri. "I am deeply saddened by damage caused to Puri. We will make Puri into a World class heritage city," the Chief Minister said after the meeting. Acknowledging that Puri district gets its electricity sourced through three lines, all of which were badly damaged, the Chief Minister said, "With thousands of workers working day and night on a war footing basis - one line is getting restored today." "With the restoration of this one line, power supply to start in Puri town, Nimapara NAC and Konark NAC from tonight in a phased manner. With so many uprooted trees, tree safety is an important aspect of power restoration. I appeal to everyone to cooperate in this humongous task as we are almost re-electrifying Puri District. He also expressed "deepest condolences" to the family of Mangaraj Rao who sacrificed his life while working on this on Tuesday. The Chief Minister also promised that kerosene oil at the rate of 2.5 litres per family will be made available free of cost every 10 days in the affected areas till restoration of power is completed, rice at the rate of 50 Kg. per family will be made available for all non-ration-card holders also. "House building damage and other assessment as per Relief Code has been started and will be completed within a week. 10 lakh candles will be available in next few days for free distribution," said the chief minister. He also said that sanitary napkins will be made available for free of cost for the next two months. Later in the evening, Hemant Sharma, Energy Secretary of Odisha said that electricity has been restored in Jagannath temple and nearby areas. Patnaik too took to twitter to post, " Extremely happy to share that electricity supply has been restored to Srimandir and Bada Danda now. Thank thousands of workers from so many states who are working day and night to ensure electricity supply to #Puri. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Training guns at Narendra Modi ahead of the last phase of polling, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday asserted that the Prime Minister is "very good with publicity." Addressing an election rally here, Priyanka claimed that Modi's does not consist of development but of "publicity" and "lies". "A leader should always say the truth to people. Prime Minister Modi is doing based on lies and publicity. There is no development. Our Prime Minister is very good with publicity and his party is rich in both properties and publicity," she added. Comparing her father Rajiv Gandhi to the incumbent Prime Minister, Priyanka said, "I was ten years old when my father became Prime Minister and an MP from Amethi. No one has ever done the amount of development my father did. Modi, on the other hand, only believes in advertising." Priyanka, who is Congress' general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, went on to claim that development in Varanasi was not the same as advertised by Modi, who is contesting the ongoing polls from this constituency. "Prime Minister Modi's advertising also had an influence on me. So I went to Varanasi to check the development in the town. The only development is that a 15 km long stretch of road connecting the airport to Varanasi city has been built. That too was cleared during Congress' rule " she claimed. Thirteen seats of Uttar Pradesh are scheduled to vote in the last phase of polling on May 19, and results will be declared on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her 'anarchist behaviour' in the state and said her nephew Abhishek Banerjee's office will be 'locked' up soon after the results of Lok Sabha polls. "After election results, Didi's nephew office will be locked. I was told that his office, as per Trinamool Congress (TMC) tradition, was built after occupying the public road. Didi, your party has earned a lot by tolabaaji (extortion), at least do not occupy public roads for the construction of nephew's office," said Modi at an election rally here. Abhishek Banerjee is the sitting MP of the Diamond Harbour parliamentary constituency in south 24 Parganas District. Prime Minister Modi also cornered TMC supremo for violence, during BJP chief Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. "The whole country has seen what happened in Kolkata yesterday. Didi's administration and goons tried its best to harm BJP's roadshows in the city. But people of Kolkata have foiled their attempts," he said. "Everyone knows how TMC has turned the republic into 'goonda tantra', BJP has been preventing from putting its viewpoint before the public. Our candidates are being prevented from contesting the elections. Now, Didi's 'goonda tantra will not work." Modi said. He further accused Mamta of putting pressure on the state machinery. "There is a lot of pressure on bureaucracy and police here, an example of this is the suicide of a former IPS officer. I am making a serious allegation, the person who spent his whole life protecting the common man of West Bengal was forced to end his life." "Gurudev himself had never imagined such state of West Bengal. It has become a state where people are living in fear, IPS officer does not get justice. It is not difficult to guess that 'bua-bhatija' (nephew-aunt) jodi has a big role to play in it," he said. Taking a jibe at TMC supremo, Prime Minister said: "It is Didi's generosity that people are completely free from fear in West Bengal? But who are these people? They are smugglers and intruders. Didi's tolabaaz and her syndicate, leaders involved in chit fund scam and coal mafias are roaming free without any fear." "Here, teachers and government employees might not get their salaries and increment on time but rented goons of TMC are paid on time. Those who are corrupt have a problem with Modi and Vande Mataram. These are people who have problems with surgical strikes and air strikes. But Didi, this is not a time to take revenge, this is a time to bring change in Bengal," the Prime Minister said. Prime Minister Modi further gave assurance of citizenship to refugees who migrated from Bangladesh, be it Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, or Christians as promised in BJP's 'Sankalp Patra'. BJP will also ensure that Bengal's border gets modern fencing and infiltration is dealt with. "Intruders will be identified and their biodata will be inspected. Borders will be protected via modern fencing. Not only this, the refugees who had faced sufferings due to faith, not need to worry. We are going to amend the Citizenship Act so that every child of Maa Bharti who has no place other than India gets citizenship," he said. Since the Lok Sabha elections began on April 10, both BJP and TMC have been at loggerheads in West Bengal. Workers of two parties have repeatedly clashed with each other on polling days. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 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.) Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi's husband Robert Vadra on Wednesday in a Facebook post hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for mocking others about 'VIP treatment' while his own brother demands police escort for himself. "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones"! This holds true for our PM who mocks everyone about "VIP Treatment"! Now, his dear brother sits on a dharna demanding escort vehicle. Kya ye hain achche din?" Vadra said in a post on Facebook. Vadra's post came in the wake of reports that Prahlad Damodardas Modi, the brother of the prime minister had sat on a dharna at a police station in Rajasthan on Tuesday. He was apparently miffed that the state government did not give a separate vehicle for policemen escorting him. Modi's brother's sat on a dharna at Bagru police station on the Jaipur-Ajmer Highway after he accused police of denying him adequate security. Vadra also said his security cover was reduced by half a couple of years ago but he accepted the decision gracefully. "A couple of years back, my security cover was reduced to half, increasing the threat perception. Well, I simply accepted and managed. Not only this, the two security people from my mother's home were removed. We accepted that decision also gracefully," the post read. Vadra said: "Now WATCH how PM's BROTHER is sitting on DHARNA for want of escort vehicle." Earlier on March 8, Vadra had cornered Prime Minister Modi for not addressing real issues and said: "I am shocked to hear my name again in your rally. There are glaring issues such as poverty, joblessness, women empowerment etc which are staring right at you, but you chose to talk about me, out of everything else. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A political slugfest has erupted over the violence that marred on Tuesday the road-show of BJP chief Amit Shah, who said here on Wednesday that he managed to escape safely only because of the personnel of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Talking to media persons here, Shah blamed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the violence, which was allegedly "unleashed by Trinamool Congress (TMC) goons." He also alleged the state police was "a mute spectator to the violence." "It would have been almost impossible for me to escape from there if the CRPF personnel won't have been there. TMC can go to any extent. It is by luck that I managed to get out of there," Shah said. However, TMC hit back at the BJP. "Anybody can come and do a procession, but what were the outsiders for.....Who is this fellow Tejinder Bagga? Who is he? He was arrested. Is he not the same guy who slapped somebody in Delhi? You have taken in your outsider goons," said Derek O'Brien, spokesperson of TMC. O'Brien, who was talking to media persons here, said: "We have two more pictures to show. This is to do with the elections. We have nothing personally against the Central forces. We have two startling pictures to expose what we have been saying that the Central forces are in cahoots with the BJP in Bengal." The BJP chief also accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of being biased in favour of the TMC and Chief Minister Banerjee. "The Election Commission is just a silent spectator. It should intervene. In West Bengal, the history-sheeters are allowed to roam freely at the time of elections by taking a bond, which is contrary to the practice elsewhere. I appeal to the Election Commission to at least ensure a free and fair election in the last phase in West Bengal," said Shah. Shah also alleged that TMC members vandalised the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar for political gains. "We were outside and the gates of the college -- Vidyasagar College -- were locked. The gate is not broken because TMC goons were inside hurling stones and petrol bombs at us. Moreover, the statue of Vidyasagar was locked inside the college room and still vandalised. The administration is of Banerjee government. The statue was vandalised by the TMC for political gains," he said. Charging Banerjee with violence in all six phases of the elections, Shah said: "Mamata Banerjee blames BJP for violence. I want to tell that she is fighting on only 42 seats while the BJP is contesting in various states across the nation." "We are contesting against several regional players and Congress. Nowhere any violence took place except in West Bengal. This proves that Banerjee and TMC are responsible for the violence," he said. In Kolkata, BJP Rajya Sabha member Roopa Ganguly accused the TMC of creating disruptions during Shah's road-show, saying that protest is allowed in a democracy, but "throwing stones is not a protest." "Anyone can protest but it doesn't mean tearing down all the posters. It is not legal. TMC people can stand to give a speech but the question is tearing poster-banner and throwing stones are not a protest," Ganguly told ANI. Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel condemned the smashing the statue of Sir Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar by terming the act as an insult to the people of West Bengal. Taking to Twitter, Patel wrote: "We condemn the destruction of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue. This insult to the people of Bengal by BJP will never be forgiven. Greed for power will see the BJP dismantle every icon of Bengal, their legacy and the culture that they helped build." Meanwhile, BJP workers held a silent protest at Jantar Mantar against the Kolkata violence. Many top leaders of the party including Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Dr Jitendra Singh and Vijay Goel were seen sitting with a finger on their lips, holding placards that read - 'Save Bengal, Save Democracy.' The leaders also wore black bands as a mark of protest. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prince William and Kate Middleton, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, finally met their little nephew Archie. A palace representative told People that William and Kate paid a visit to new parents Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on Tuesday, at their Frogmore Cottage home. The private gathering took place after Kate and Harry concluded their royal engagements for the day. Meghan Markle gave birth to her and Harry's first child on May 6. During a photo-call on May 8, they introduced their newborn to the world. The royal couple later announced that they have named their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, who was also blessed by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. "It's magic, it's pretty amazing. I have the two best guys in the world so I'm really happy," Meghan said during the photo-call. Meghan and Harry got married in a lavish ceremony on May 19 last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Protests were held in London and Kotli in Pakistan on Wednesday to mark the sixth death anniversary of Kashmiri political activist Arif Shahid. Protestors also sought the arrest of those behind his killing. Activists of the Jammu Kashmir National Independent Alliance (JKNIA) gathered outside Pakistani Embassy in London and shouted slogans against Pakistan government. They also accused Islamabad of orchestrating the killings of political activists in the country and demanded an expeditious inquiry into the killing of Arif Shahid and the arrest of the perpetrators of the heinous crime. Shahid, 62, was the chairman of the All Parties National Alliance (APNA). He was killed on May 14, 2013, at his residence in Rawalpindi by some unidentified gunmen. He was a vocal critic of Pakistan for its illegal occupation of parts of Kashmir and other human rights abuses. "Today, we have gathered here to demand the arrest of the killers of one of our tallest leaders Arif Shahid," said JKNIA activist Sajjad Raja. "Shahid wasn't an exclusive case of Pakistan's barbarity. The country has seemingly mastered the art of eliminating activists and leaders voicing their independent opinion." "If they believe that by killing Arif Shahid they can suppress the voice demanding rights, the voice of truth and voice of people dissenting in the region, then they are mistaken. Things will never transpire that way," he added. In Kotli district, a large number of people held candle march and peaceful demonstrations to commemorate his death anniversary May 13 is observed as the martyrdom day of Shahid, who many believe was eliminated by Pakistan's infamous Inter-state Services Intelligence (ISI) as he questioned Pakistan's occupation of part of Kashmir, in Rawalpindi in 2013. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday favoured the restoration of "full-scope relations" with the United States during a meeting with the US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo here. The Russian leader's comments come as the United States announced its intent to withdraw from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, citing breaches by Russia as the reason behind the decision. The US is slated to withdraw from the accord by August this year, warning that the treaty will terminate if "Russia does not return to full and verifiable compliance" with it, according to an official statement. During the meeting with Pompeo, Putin outlined his recent phone conversation with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, left the impression that the US wanted to restore relations as well. "As you know, a few days ago I had the pleasure to talk to the US president over the phone, I had an impression that the president was in favor of restoring the Russia-US ties, contacts, jointly resolving the issues of common interest," Sputnik quoted Putin as saying. "On our part, we have repeatedly said that we would also like to restore the full-scope relations," he added. Pompeo, on the other hand, said that the two countries would hold more extensive conversations on arms control in the "weeks ahead." "We'll have a more extensive set of conversations both on arms control and an opportunity to discuss all broad strategic security issues between our two countries in the weeks ahead," Pompeo said. "As for its extension, what we agreed to do is gather teams that will begin to work not only on New START... and its potential extension but on a broader range of arms control issues," the US official also said. This comes as US suspended its obligations under the INF treaty, which aimed to curb the arms race between the US and Russia. Moscow, in retaliation, mirrored Washington's move immediately. The Russian leader also welcomed the probe undertaken by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential elections in the United States. He said that Mueller conducted an "objective" investigation, which proved no Russian interference in Trump's 2016 Presidential campaign. "We should give (Mueller) credit. In general, he conducted an objective probe and confirmed the absence of any traces and collusion between Russia and the current administration, which we initially characterised as complete nonsense: there was no interference on our part in the elections in the United States at the state level, and could not be," Putin stated. Before meeting with Putin, Pompeo held talks with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov welcomed talks between the Presidents of the two nations during the upcoming G20 summit, the idea of which was floated by Trump. "We heard statements by president Trump that he expects to hold a meeting with President Putin, including during the G20 Summit in Osaka. If we receive an official invitation we will respond positively. We talked about that today with Mike Pompeo," he said. The Russian minister also said that he handed Pompeo an "unofficial memorandum of sorts" which lists "factual proof" of US interference in Russia's domestic affairs. The two sides also spoke on other issues, like North Korea and Venezuela during the meeting. The two officials also held a joint presser, during which Lavrov said that Russia-US tensions have a negative impact on the "global situation." "Russia is interested in normalizing bilateral dialogue with the US and we are convinced that it is quite possible to conduct this dialogue on the basis of mutual respect and consideration of each other's interests," Lavrov said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said he intends to rebuild and improve the 'fully-fledged' diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States in order to solve the issues of mutual interest. Putin, who met US Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo here on Wednesday said, "We would like to rebuild fully-fledged relations, and I hope that right now a conducive environment is being built for that." The Russian leader's comments come as the United States announced its intent to withdraw from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, citing breaches by Russia as the reason behind the decision. The US is slated to withdraw from the accord by August this year, warning that the treaty will terminate if "Russia does not return to full and verifiable compliance" with it, according to an official statement. During the meeting with Pompeo, Putin outlined his recent phone conversation with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, left the impression that the US wanted to restore relations as well. "As you know, several days ago I had the pleasure of talking to the President of the United States on the phone, and I had the impression that the President intends to rebuilding relations," he said. The Russian leader also welcomed the probe undertaken by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential elections in the United States. He said, "However exotic the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller was, I have to say that on the whole he had a very objective investigation and he confirmed that there are no traces whatsoever of collusion between Russia and the incumbent administration, which we've said was absolutely fake." Putin also said, "We know the United States (inaudible) a major oil producer. In this regard, Russia has something to discuss regarding the stability of global energy markets. There are also other facets for our cooperation in economic security." Pompeo, on the other hand, said that the two sides engaged in "a productive set of conversations." "There are places we disagree. There are places with truly overlapping interests where we can build on, and most importantly, President Trump very much wants to do that," Pompeo said. "Always, just as you will, we'll protect our nation's interests, but there are places that our two countries can find where we can be cooperative, we can be productive, we can be cumulative, we can work together to make each of our two peoples more successful and, frankly, the more successful too," he added. The US top diplomat further noted that the two sides had some excellent discussion on topics related to North Korea, Afghanistan and counterterrorism measures. Before meeting with Putin, Pompeo held talks with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who welcomed talks between the Presidents of the two nations during the upcoming G20 summit in Japan, the idea of which was floated by Trump. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the United States imposed visa restrictions on three senior Pakistani interior ministry officials because of a row over the repatriation of deportees. Qureshi on Tuesday told the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that visa curbs had been applied by the US on three officials of the Interior Ministry, Dawn reported. The officials who are facing visa restrictions include an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry, as well as the director general passports. The sanctions have been put in place after a row between the two countries over the deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other allegations. Qureshi said the US authorities intended to deport more than 70 Pakistanis, but the government had asked them to fulfil legal requirements. The US has over the past 18 months deported over 100 Pakistanis, all of whom were accepted back. It is the first time Pakistani authorities have insisted on verification of credentials of the deportees. The Foreign Minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. Consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad are functional and visas are being granted to eligible applicants, Qureshi said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Supremo and Rajya Sabha Member from Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar wrote a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over the drought condition across the state. Pawar, in his letter, urged the state government to take necessary steps to alleviate one of the most severe droughts Maharashtra is facing since 1972. "There is a severe drought situation in the entire state of Maharashtra including Satara, Solapur, Beed and Ahmednagar district. In terms of severity, the situation is most grave since 1972. Sincere measures should be taken into consideration and the state government should take all possible decisions for the entire drought situation on a prior basis," his letter reads. Pawar has also sought time for a meeting with the Chief Minister to discuss crucial issues in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Long gestating Adam Driver- starrer English romantic musical 'Annette' is being revived and the shooting is set to begin soon. According to Variety, Charles Gillibert's CG Cinema has come on board to help revive the on-again-off-again project, which will start shooting in mid-August. CAA Media Finance brokered the deal with Amazon for release of the film in US. Tracing the rise and fall of two star-crossed Hollywood lovers and the exceptional destiny of their daughter, 'Annette' will bring together the rock band 'Sparks', which is composing original songs and celebrated music producer Marius de Vries, famed for 'La La Land,' 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Cats'. CG Cinema will produce the film with Paul-Dominique Vacharasinthu at Tribus P Films. The list of co-producers include the French-German channel Arte, with Kenzo Horikoshi from Japan's Eurospace, Fabian Gasmia from Germany's Detail Film, and Genevieve Lemal and Benoit Roland from Belgium's Scope Picture & Wrong Men. Kinology will handle international sales of the movie in association with Logical Pictures. Over the course of his 30-year career, Carax has garnered a few directing credits, though his films have won attention for their artistic flair, including 'Boy Meets Girl,' 'Mauvais Sang,' 'Les Amants du Pont Neuf' and 'Holy Motors.' The film was first announced in 2016 with another French producer but failed to get off the ground as financing was not in place. CG Cinema's current films in their bucket includes Assayas' 'Wasp Network,' a Cuba-set spy thriller produced with RT Features, starring Penelope Cruz, Pedro Pascal and Edgar Ramirez, which just wrapped up shooting and is being sold by Orange Studio. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Recreating scenes from the partition of India and Pakistan was the most challenging part of shooting 'Bharat', revealed director Ali Abbas Zafar. Tweeting pictures from the sets of his upcoming Salman Khan-starrer film, Zafar wrote, "Partition was the most challenging part of Bharat_TheFilm shoot, to recreate the scale of this defining moment of history and to keep the emotions Zinda in the middle of that chaos ..is the soul of an extraordinary journey of an ordinary man #BHARAT." The pictures feature Jacky Shroff, among a large group of people, struggling to board a train. A similar scene also features in the trailer of the film. The trailer, which was released in April, showcased Bharat's (played by Salman Khan) life being described in five different avatars spanning over a period of over 60 years. Helmed by Zafar, the film is produced by Atul Agnihotri, Bhushan Kumar, and Krishan Kumar. Apart from Salman Khan, the film also stars Katrina Kaif, who plays the female protagonist in the film, and Jackie Shroff, who essays the role of Salman's father. The cast list also includes Sunil Grover, Nora Fatehi, Disha Patani and Tabu in pivotal roles. 'Bharat' is scheduled to release on June 5. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A special CBI court on Wednesday cancelled a Non Bailable warrant (NBW) issued against Aditya Talwar in connection with a money laundering case. Special CBI judge Anuradha Shukla asked Talwar to appear before the court on May 28. The court was hearing an application seeking cancellation of the warrant issued against Aditya, son of corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar. Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate moved Delhi's Rouse Avenue court seeking to declare Aditya a fugitive economic offender as per provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The plea, which was filed through ED counsel Nitesh Rana, is likely to come up for hearing tomorrow. The ED had, on March 30, filed a charge sheet against Deepak Talwar in the court, in which his son Aditya was named as an accused in the case. CBI judge Anuradha Shukla Bhardwaj, after taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the ED on March 30, had issued production warrants against the father-son duo in the money laundering case. ED's counsel had earlier told the court that investigation revealed that Deepak Talwar, who is currently lodged in Tihar jail, obtained "undue favours" for private airlines using his contacts. It was also alleged that he had acted as a middleman to favour foreign private airlines in seat-sharing on Air India's profitable routes, causing huge loss to the carrier. Central agencies are probing various other cases related to money laundering against Deepak Talwar. He was arrested after being deported from the United Arab Emirates on January 30. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi [India], May 15 (ANI): In a first in the history of Delhi University's St Stephen's College, its panel to interview students for undergraduate admissions this year will include one member of the college's Supreme Council, which comprises six members of the Church of North India (CNI) The decision taken in a meeting of college's Staff Council has irked college teachers who have condemned the decision calling it as "illegal and unacademic". According to teachers, the decision is in violation of the college's constitution which categorically states that the supreme council shall have no jurisdiction in the administration of the college. "The 1992 judgment of the Supreme Court that upheld the minority status of the College had permitted the college to have a separate admissions process including an interview with 15 per cent weightage only because the interviews were conducted solely by the teachers of the college," read a statement issued by the teachers on Monday. "Never in the history of the College has a non-academic person from outside the faculty of the College been a member of the admissions process," it added. The teachers also said that in the meeting of the Governing Body held on March 14, no such decision had been announced by Principal John Varghese. "He has made this unilateral announcement in the Staff Council. Hence, he has acted in violation of the powers of both the Governing Body as well as the Staff Council, as laid down in Ordinance XVIII of Delhi University," the statement read. "There is a clear conflict of interest in the Principal bringing in another member of the Supreme Council into the interview panel for admissions, as it is the Supreme Council that selects the Principal, and will also take a decision about the renewal of his appointment for another term of five years," it said. Professor Nandita Narain told ANI that the decision will diminish the merit of admissions. In view of the above-mentioned contentions, the teachers have urged authorities to withdraw the decision. Nandita Narain, Associate Professor said, "The Supreme Court had ruled that St Stephen College is a minority institution. And it has the right to take 50 per cent, Christian students. We also have a right to separate admission process with interviews. In our interviews, teachers conduct the interviewing process." "Earlier there was three-member interview panel including two teachers from the department and the principal or his nominee. In 2013, the principal added a second nominee. In a staff council meeting, he announced that a member of the supreme council will be there in the interview," she said. Highlighting that the move has violated college's constitution, Narain said: "The supreme council is a body of six members of the governing body which are all affiliated with the church of North India. They only have a role to play in religious instructions. But the college constitution does not allow them to have any say in college administration matters. We objected since it violated the constitution." St. Stephen's alumni Bharat Sharma said, "It is incorrect on the part of college administration to allow somebody from a religious background. That person has nothing to do with college academics. It is totally against students and college's ethos." Siddharth Yadav, State Secretary, ABVP Delhi said: "An inclusion of a member of a council i.e. father of a church into the admission process is totally arbitrary. There is no requirement for it. ABVP and DUSU will condemn including members on a religious basis in the admission committee. We demand that they should roll back the decision." The Supreme Council is a subset of 6 members of the Governing Body (Managing Committee) all members of the Church of North India. The chairperson of both the Council and Governing Body is the Bishop of Delhi and Member Secretary of both is the principal. According to the St Stephen College's constitution, the supreme council will control religious and moral instruction of students of the college and of all matters affecting its religious character as a Christian college of the church of North India. It shall have no jurisdiction over the administration of the college. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan on Wednesday defended his "first Hindu was terrorist" remark against Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse saying what he stated in Aravakurichi was a "historical fact". While campaigning in Thoppur, Haasan said, "I will not speak anything that will hurt the sentiments of Hindu religion because I have members in my own family who follow the religion... But if I speak historical fact people get angry. It is not enough if you be tolerant towards other religion, we need to accept them and co-exist peacefully." "If you are in Chennai or Delhi, you can't cheat people. This government will be defeated and needs to be defeated. We will defeat in a democratic manner. Ask the common man, and their love for me can reflect their stand. Don't try to force stop me and prevent me from campaigning, the common man will carry the battle," he added. "I will continue my journey to meet the people and will fight it democratically and legally if people try to stop me," added Haasan, whose two campaigns earlier were cancelled after not getting permission from the police. "I am deeply hurt at the insinuations cast at me. People who don't understand the context of the message I said on Nathuram Godse please watch my movie 'Hey Ram!' It says the same message 20 years back. Truth is bitter, but it is the medicine to solve the problems," he said. Haasan had earlier stoked controversy by referring to Nathuram Godse as the "first Hindu terrorist in independent India." "I am not saying this because many Muslims are here. I am saying this in front of Mahatma Gandhi's statue. The first terrorist in independent India is a Hindu. His name is Nathuram Godse," Haasan had said while campaigning in Aravakurichi assembly constituency on Sunday. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) American actor-comedian Tim Conway passed away on Tuesday at the age of 85 in Los Angeles. Howard Bragman, Conman's representative, confirmed the news to People. The actor was suffering complications from Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH) and had no signs of dementia or Alzheimer's. 'The Carol Burnett Show' actor is survived by his 35-year-old wife, his step-daughter, six children and two grand-daughters. Conway's family would like donations to be made to The Lou Ruvo Brain Center at the Cleveland Clinic, Las Vegas. Tim Conway won the hearts of people with his characters like the Oldest Man and Mr Tudball, whose accent the actor had told was inspired by his Romanian mother. Conway earned a Golden Globe Award for 'The Carol Burnett Show' in 1976 and Emmy Awards in 1973, 1977 and 1978. Before joining Hollywood, Conway also served in the army, which was followed by his work at a local station in Cleveland. Conway in an interview given to LA Times said, "I had no professional training. I had a sense of humour and had been in front of a microphone." After featuring as a guest actor in 'The Carol Burnett Show', he was made regular in 1975. The actor had his own sitcom 'The Tim Conway Show' that lasted for one season in 1970. Before his wedding to Charlene in 1984, Conway was married to Mary Anne Dalton from 1961-78. They share seven children: sons Jaime, Tim Jr, Pat, Corey and Shawn and daughters Jackie and Kelly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation on Wednesday met the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday and submitted evidence to show that violence seen during BJP president Amit Shah's Kolkata roadshow on Tuesday was perpetrated by BJP workers. He said that the TMC delegation has handed over the video footage to the Election Commission, which show BJP workers had vandalised the statue of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. "Today, we showed the video footage to the Election Commission (EC) has proof. Proof one is that everybody who jumped in was BJP because of the colour they were wearing. Proof two is that they were caught on camera breaking that statue," he said. TMC leader Derek O'Brien told media after meeting the EC that "We live in the hope that the people of West Bengal once and for all will overthrow Modi and Shah. The same tricks they used in Gujarat in 2002. They are trying it everywhere. The only difference is in Bengal there is Mamata Banerjee." "We are disappointed and there is a lot of deep sadness... What happened yesterday was very bad. Outsiders were brought. Students were protesting peacefully with black placards and flexes. The outsiders didn't accept this democratic protest... What eventually happened is that they didn't need a key to open the gate. They jumped over the gate, there is credible video footage. Amit Shah's press conference proved again that he is a liar. He is a puke-worthy liar," he added. "Modi comes to Bengal and call Mamata Banerjee a 'speed breaker'. For once I agree with Modi. She is a speed breaker. She was a speed breaker for him in 2014 when despite sweeping all over the country, TMC won 24 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Modi you are right, she is a speed breaker for you again this time. Speed breaker because you will not be Prime Minister," he added. Earlier in the day, BJP president Amit Shah had said that he escaped safely after clashes erupted at his Kolkata roadshow on Tuesday only because CRPF was deployed in the area. "The central forces are working in cahoots with the BJP in West Bengal," TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien claimed. The two parties also sparred over vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar's statue during the BJP rally. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused the TMC goons for creating violence at Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pregnancy and childbirth is a beautiful experience, but it leaves many women with postpartum depression. According to a recent study, treating postpartum depression (PPD) in low-income mothers of colour requires an understanding of each person's lived experience. The study also suggested that practitioners should consider interventions that develop broadly from a community level in order to improve outcomes for their clients. "Social workers need to do more than simply work with the mother. Focus on the mothers, but get into the communities where they live and draw on supports from neighbourhood organizations like churches, clinics, and other services a parent or child would access," said says Robert Keefe, an associate professor in the UB School of Social Work and the study's lead author. Keefe's research, published in the journal Families in Society, contributes valuable knowledge to an understudied area and for the first time provides guidance for social workers that can better inform their practices with this particular population. Nearly 20 per cent of the 4 million women who give birth in the U.S. each year will develop PPD. Findings of the study were published in the journal of Families in Society. "Most mothers when discussing their PPD describes a horrible process. They've gone through this wonderful experience of having a child then feel shame for what they coin as negative feelings. They often don't know where to turn or even if they should turn for help," said Keefe. While many of these mothers do eventually get help and find the treatments effective, the mothers in Keefe's study talked about the professional care they've received as being largely ineffective, often worsening their depression. According to Keefe, this leads to intense frustration with mothers taking ownership of the false belief that "this is what being a mother is all about," a claim echoed by many of the study's participants. "The current therapies are not addressing what these low-income mothers have to face on a day-to-day basis. These therapies are individually focused, and sometimes family focused, which is a good start, but to stop with the individual or family is to ignore the community issues they're often facing," Keefe explained. Keefe reports one mother told him "it doesn't matter how much antidepressant medication they give me, I still have to face living in poverty, not having enough food for my children to eat, or having any transportation to get a job." Impoverished mothers of color are at greater risk of PPD than white middle-class women, but most of the research has focused on the latter group. Researchers in disciplines outside of social work has done some research on low-income mothers, but Keefe says this information, while beneficial in some contexts doesn't have immediate utility for social workers. For the study, Keefe and his research team interviewed 19 African-American and 11 biracial or Hispanic low-income mothers between the ages of 18 and 44. Four themes emerged from the discussions including recognizing depression, isolation, community violence and living with depression. "When we were conducting the interviews these themes kept coming up," said Keefe. The mothers in the study all expressed financial pressures, but help was often out of reach, because of the limitation of their jobs, inconvenient appointment times and services that were often difficult to access. Keefe says social workers need to advocate for agencies to expand hours of operation, and to provide childcare and transportation services. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Telugunadu Students Federation(TSF) president P Sharatchandra on Wednesday demanded suspension of Minister Jagadeeshwar Reddy for the goof-up in the intermediate results announced recently. "We demand Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) government to announce compensation for the families of victims who have committed suicide and to suspend the Minister. If the government fails to take action before May 17 all student organisations will protest in front of Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao's house and Minister Jagadeeshwar Reddy's house," Sharatchandra told ANI. Asserting that democracy in Telangana has died, the TSF president said, "Democracy in Telangana died when students were arrested for protesting against intermediate results goof-up. TRS working president KT Rama Rao responds to everything and in every meeting, he speaks about education standards in Telangana. But when 23 students committed suicide because of your government's fault, you just respond through social media." On Wednesday, student leaders of all the opposition parties, youth and women organisations addressed a press meet about the intermediate results goof-up at Maqudam Bhavan here and threatened to protest on May 17 seeking justice for intermediate students. Over three lakh students reportedly failed in the intermediate exams conducted by the BIE in the state. This led to protests by students and their parents alleging large-scale discrepancies in the examination process. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A month after Wendy Williams filed for a divorce from her longtime husband Kevin Hunter, the American TV host is "reclaiming her life". E! News cited Wendy telling her audience on her show, "I go out a lot because I am a good time girl. I like to have fun. I am right now a young and pretty New York City girl." She also added that "I'm really, really reclaiming my life." After Wendy addressed her pictures with a man at an NYC fundraiser, her personal life came into a public view. However, she later confirmed that the man is a part of her show security team and not her boyfriend. "I don't have a boyfriend, but I must admit I am rediscovering my love of men. I do date and I date pretty often," Williams told the audience. She also made a hilarious remark and said, "The parade of men will continue." On the matter of privacy, the presenter said, "It's hard to say 'give privacy' because I don't give privacy when I'm doing the rest of the stories, so you do what you want--you always do." Wendy and Kevin are parents to a son, who is currently home and visits both of his parents, Wendy said on the show. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Having rejected UK Prime Minister Theresa May' Brexit deal thrice already, the British Parliament will vote on an exit deal again in the first week of June, according to a Downing Street spokesman. Political lines across the UK have been divided over conditions on which the UK will leave the European Union. UK already missed the March 29 deadline to do so, now having until October 31 to leave the bloc. "This evening the Prime Minister met the Leader of the Opposition (Jeremy Corbyn) in the House of Commons to make clear our determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU," the spokesman said. The latest vote coincides with US President Donald Trump's visit to the UK from June 3 to 5. The vote is slated to take place before lawmakers leave for summer recess, the statement added. "We will, therefore, be bringing forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week beginning June 3," he said, adding that official talks are ongoing. "It is imperative we do so then if the UK is to leave the EU before the summer Parliamentary recess," the spokesman also stated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saharanpur Police has arrested a Government Railway Police (GRP) inspector and two others for allegedly robbing a businessman in Saharanpur. Superintendent of Police, GRP Abhishek Yadav said, "Lalit was the incharge of the control room in Agra. He has been arrested by Saharanpur Police based on a loot case against him. Two others also have been arrested. Two other GRP personnel are wanted. They've been suspended and matter is being probed." The police said that GRP inspector Lalit looted Rs 8.43 lakh from the businessman in the wee hours on May 13. Upon arrest, Rs 4.94 lakh was recovered from the possession of the accused. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States does not fundamentally seek war with Iran, said US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo during a presser with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov here on Tuesday (local time). Diplomatic tensions have been high between the US and Iran, with the United States designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Outfit (FTO) recently and refusing to grant extensions in sanction waivers for Iranian oil imports to eight countries. The presser was held following talks between Pompeo and Lavrov, during which a wide range of bilateral and global issues were discussed between the sides. Pompeo called on the Russian President Vladimir Putin after holding talks with Lavrov. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran. We are looking for the regime to simply stop conducting assassination campaigns throughout Europe; to cease their support of Hezbollah that threatens interests all across the Middle East, their support for the Houthis that are launching missiles into areas where there are Russians and Americans traveling," Sputnik quoted Pompeo as saying during the joint presser in Sochi. He added that if American interests are "attacked" by Iran, Washington will "most certainly respond in the appropriate fashion." Just last week, the United States deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force at the Persian Gulf as a message to Iran, according to the US National Security Advisor John Bolton. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader Ahmed Patel came down heavily on the Election Commission after it cut short campaigning period in West Bengal. The senior party leader questioned the poll body's decision and asked if the situation in the state was severe, why did the commission not ban campaigning with immediate effect. Taking to Twitter, Patel asked, "If the situation in Bengal is so severe that campaigning must be stopped, why is EC waiting until tomorrow? Is it because PM has scheduled rallies tomorrow?" "Isn't it unprecedented that EC claims it's an unprecedented situation in West Bengal but yet is waiting for PM to complete his public meetings?" he tweeted. On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address election rallies in Mathurapur and Dumdum. On Wednesday, the Election Commission decided to cut short the campaign period in the state after the violence was reported during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow on Wednesday. "No election campaigning to be held in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal, namely Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata, from 10 pm tomorrow till the conclusion of polls," Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar told media. Campaigning was originally scheduled to end at 5 pm on Friday for the nine constituencies that will go to polls on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Western Air Command, Raghunath Nambiar visited Kumar post at 17,000 feet in Siachen Glacier on Wednesday to review air maintenance operations and preparedness along the Indo-Pak border. Siachen Brigade Commander Brigadier Bhupesh Hada also accompanied him. Nambiar, a Kargil war hero was appointed the new chief of Western Air Command on February 28. He took over from Air Marshal Chandrashekharan Hari Kumar. Air Marshal Nambiar is credited for shooting five of the eight Laser Guided Bombs on the Pakistani positions during the Kargil war from his plane. The WAC is headquartered in the capital and controls the area from north of Bikaner in Rajasthan up to Siachen Glacier and controls almost 40 per cent of the air bases of the Indian Air Force. Nambiar has the distinction of having the highest number of flying hours on the Mirage-2000 in the IAF, with over 2300 flying hours on the aircraft to his credit, and a total of 5100 hours of flying experience. He is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and was the Project Test Pilot for the Light Combat Aircraft "Tejas". Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar has been a Flight commander of a Mirage-2000 Squadron, the Senior Test Pilot and Commanding Officer of the Flight Test Squadron at Aircraft System Testing Establishment (ASTE). He has commanded the oldest Squadron of the IAF, the prestigious No. 1 Squadron. He flew the Mirage-2000 in combat during the Kargil conflict and has flown 25 operational missions. Nambiar was also awarded the Vayu Sena Medal for Gallantry by the President of India for the Kargil Operations. He was awarded a Bar to the Vayu Sena Medal for flight testing the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) in 2002, during its first phase of flight testing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP youth wing member Priyanka Sharma, who was released on Wednesday after spending five days in jail for posting a meme on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said that she will not apologise as she has done "no wrong". "I will not apologise for it. I will fight the case because I have not done anything," Sharma told media persons after she walked free from jail this morning. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered her release from jail, but she was freed over 18 hours "I was kept in prison and tortured by the jail authorities. I was pushed by a jailer yesterday and given sub-standard food to eat," she claimed. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court censured the West Bengal government after Sharma's counsel contended that her release was being delayed. She also contended that even though the court had directed her to tender a written sorry after release, she was "forcefully" made to sign an apology letter by the authorities before releasing her. "I insisted them to let me talk to my family and advocate first, but they did not pay heed to it," Sharma alleged. The BJP activist was arrested on Friday in West Bengal and was sent to two weeks' judicial custody for allegedly sharing a morphed photo on her Facebook timeline in which Mamata Banerjee's face was photoshopped on the form of actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas at the MET Gala in New York. Mounting a scathing attack on Mamata Banerjee, Sharma said that she should be arrested for spewing poison against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "If anyone says anything about TMC, will they beat them every time? This is not justice. Police forces have been bought by the TMC government," Sharma said. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court had also said that it will hear the BJP member's plea seeking action against West Bengal Police, in the first week of July. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 'destroying the strength of Indian economy' and said without 'made in Ludhiana', India cannot challenge 'made in China'."Narendra Modi has destroyed the strength of the economy and the people with the implementation of demonetisation. But I want to tell you that without made in Ludhiana, India cannot challenge 'made in China," Gandhi said while addressing an election rally here. "You have to understand how much the chowkidaar has looted you. Demonetisation was a financial madness of Prime Minister Modi. Don't know what he had in dinner at around 8 pm that he took such decision which destroyed the backbone of our economy," he said. Gandhi scion called unemployment the biggest challenge faced by the youths today. "The biggest challenge today is unemployment, the second challenge is farmers poor condition. Who will create job opportunities? Without empowering micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), we cannot create job opportunities in the country. I guarantee you, whatever efforts are required to encourage MSMEs, we will surely do."Stressing on Nyunatam Aay Yojana (NYAY), Gandhi said, it will not only benefit five crore families and 25 crore people but would also help the economy by boosting the business of small and medium traders. "NYAY is not only for poor. It will mostly benefit middlemen and youths of Ludhiana. Narendra Modi took out the money from people's house and sent it to Anil Ambani. Therefore, you stopped buying products from the market, which caused a huge set back to small-scale industries," he said. "Nyay will give you justice. Those who earn less than Rs 12,000 will be benefitted from Nyay. Nyay will help you in developing markets, which will boost both the demand and supply chain. PM Modi wants to close small scale industries and want only 15-20 rich people to run the economy of this country," he added.Targetting BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Rahul said: "Shivraj asks us what we have done for Madhya Pradesh after coming into power. I want to tell him that we not only waived off loans of farmers in the state but also of his brother. We have shown that the government has enough money to waive off loans of farmers."Gandhi further promised a separate farm budget and filling of 22 lakh vacant posts in the government sector within a year if Congress comes at the Centre. "Farmers asked us to present farmers' budget in Lok Sabha. We agreed to it. Two budget will be made in the Lok Sabha -- Kisan budget and the budget. No farmers will be put behind the bars if failing to repay loans. We will also take immediate steps to quickly fill 22 lakh vacant posts in the government sector."All the 13 Lok Sabha seats of Punjab will go to polls on May 19 in the seventh phase of general elections. The results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seeking to play the religious card, Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday alleged that the West Bengal government tried to ban Durga Puja to accommodate Muharram procession. "The whole country, including Uttar Pradesh, observed Durga puja and Muharram together. No violence took place in my state as I had given prior warning to people. Why could not West Bengal do the same? TMC government here is very undemocratic. I am sure that after May 23, a nationalist government will be formed and will rule West Bengal," he said. Later addressing a press conference, Yogi Adityanath said Banerjee was against idol worship and had attempted to ban Durga Puja twice which she could not succeed. Adityanath's statement came just days before nine seats are scheduled to go to polls in West Bengal on May 19. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Board of NESCO vide circular resolution dated 14 May 2019, have approved- (i) Resignation of Alka Adatia from the directorship of the Company with effect from 10 May 2019; (ii) Appointment of Amrita Chowdhury as an Additional Director (Non-executive, Independent) with effect from 14 May 2019 to hold office till the conclusion of the ensuing Annual General Meeting of the Company. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With ballot option NOTA (None of The Above) seen to play a role in poll outcomes, especially in seats won by narrow margins, there is growing interest in its impact in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections results expected on May 23. NOTA -- which allows voters to indicate their disapproval of the candidates in the fray -- impacted poll results since its introduction in the Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections in 2013 following a Supreme Court verdict. It attracts more votes than the combined vote of smaller parties and several political parties blame it for the seats they lose by narrow margins. Experts however, feel that the proportion of NOTA votes may not increase in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls and that major parties may only benefit from narrow margin victories in varying degrees. "The percentage of NOTA votes is unlikely to significantly change in these elections from 2014," said Sanjay Kumar, Director, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). Maj. Gen. Anil Verma (retired) of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), however, felt the percentage of votes polled for NOTA may see a marginal rise this time. "Urban voters exercise the option more than the rural ones, who are not aware of it. But for its better implementation, NOTA needs to be given more teeth. The option must give the voters the ability to reject candidates..." he said. Referring to the impact of the option, ADR's Jagdeep Chhokar said that in many constituencies in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the votes polled under NOTA were more than the difference of votes between the winning and losing candidates. He however, added that NOTA had not been implemented properly by the Election Commission. "What the Supreme Court said in its 2013 judgment -- that political parties would be compelled to put up better candidates if more and more voters opt for NOTA -- has not been implemented in letter and spirit. "The EC should follow in the footsteps of the Haryana and Maharashtra State Election Commissions, which last year announced that the candidates in the fray would be replaced if more voters opt for NOTA," Chhokar said. According to ADR data, there were 60,02,942 (1.08 per cent) NOTA votes in the 2014 elections, which was the winning margins of many constituencies put together. The Nilgris constituency in Tamil Nadu secured the highest (46,559) NOTA votes, while Lakshadweep garnered 123, the lowest number. The option has collectively secured 1.33 crore votes in all the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections held since it was introduced in 2013. On an average, it secured 2.70 lakh votes in the Assembly elections between 2013 and 2018. According to a survey done by the CSDS during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the upper caste voters may have chosen NOTA more than any other caste group. But the option saw a declining trend in the 2018 Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, said Kumar said. The decline was from 1.9 per cent to 1.4 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, 1.9 per cent to 1.3 per cent in Rajasthan; 3 per cent to 1.9 per cent in Chhattisgarh, and 0.6 per cent to 0.4 per cent in Mizoram. In Telangana, there was a marginal increase from 0.7 per cent to 1.0 per cent. However, in some elections -- like bypolls in Bawana constituency of Delhi and Nandyal constituency in Andhra Pradesh in 2017, NOTA got the fourth highest number of votes. --IANS pgs/ps/rtp/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The case of a Christian couple on death row in Pakistan after being convicted of blasphemy has reportedly been taken up by the lawyer who defended Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman who was cleared of blasphemy charges after spending eight years on death row. Shagufta Kousar and Shafqat Masih were accused of sending blasphemous text messages to a Muslim man. They were sentenced to death, but have appealed to the high court in Lahore, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. Lawyer Saiful Malook, who briefly fled Pakistan after receiving death threats when Bibi's conviction for blasphemy was overturned last October, is to appeal against the couple's 2014 conviction under the same law. According to Malook, Kousar is being held in the same cell in which Bibi was imprisoned before being moved into protective custody after her sentence was overturned. The couple, who have four children, are from Gojra, Punjab province, where Kousar was employed as a cleaner at a church school. A Muslim man in the city complained to officials at his mosque that he was sent blasphemous messages in English on his phone, and the complaint was passed on to the police. Kousar and Masih were arrested and charged with "insulting the Quran" and "insulting the Prophet". Musih, who is disabled, admitted sending the messages but later said he his confession was made under duress, as he feared for his wife's safety. The couple are illiterate and have argued they could not send text messages in English. They also said the sim card used to send the text messages was bought in Kousar's name after her identity card was stolen. "They did not get a fair trial. They are innocent," Malook said. Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association which campaigned for Bibi's release, said Kousar and Masih's case was part of a "worrying trend of Christians accused for derogatory text messages and social media postings", the Guardian reported. Malook fled to the Netherlands in fear for his life after Islamic extremists launched violent protests when Bibi's conviction was overturned, but later returned to Pakistan. Bibi, a former farm labourer who spent eight years on death row before being freed, arrived in Canada last week where she was reunited with her family. Her case drew international attention, and two high-profile political figures were assassinated after supporting Bibi and calling for reform of Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Christians make up only 1.59 per cent of Pakistan's population of more than 200 million, but about half of those accused of blasphemy in the country are non-Muslims. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday strongly condemned the violence "perpetrated" by the BJP in Kolkata on Tuesday. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief alleged that after desperately trying to destabilise the West Bengal government through the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department, the BJP was now resorting to direct violence which shows its true colours. "Vandalising the statue of a great reformer like Sri Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is an indication of the pseudo-nationalism practiced by the BJP. This incident underlines the need for all the opposition parties to stand united against the destructive tactics of Amit Shah-led BJP," Naidu tweeted. The TDP leader, in his tweets in Telugu, alleged that Amit Shah during his rally in Kolkata used vandals to create violence. He said in the past people of the country saw how Narendra Modi used Amit Shah to create hatred among people in Gujarat. He said in West Bengal where BJP has no strength, the party is trying to create disturbances targeting a senior woman leader like Mamata Banerjee and maligning her government. --IANS ms/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Anil Kapoor will be felicitated by the Council of European Chambers of Commerce (CEUCC) in India and an European Union delegation as part of the 'Europe Day' celebrations here on Friday, an official spokesperson said. The actor will be the chief guest for the celebrations, which will also be attended by EU Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski, EU Member states Consuls and senior representatives from the European and Indian corporate world. Europe Day is celebrated every year on May 9 to mark the formation of the European Union (EU). "Anil Kapoor will be felicitated for his decade-long support to promoting the cause of children's rights and his collaboration with the EU and Plan India in their girls' rights endeavours," said an official. The event will highlight how Europe has always been a favourite shooting destination for Indian filmmakers for many decades. Bollywood movies have for long been using the picturesque locales of the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy and now even places like Greece, Hungary, Austria and Romania are gaining popularity for their natural beauty. --IANS qn/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said that she does "not understand" why the US has not passed stronger gun laws in the aftermath of mass shooting events. The visiting Prime Minister made the remark during a CNN interview on Tuesday here ahead of a summit on online extremism slated to begin in the French capital on Wednesday. Ardern announced a ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons, assault rifles and high-capacity magazines only days after the March 15 mass shootings on two mosques in Christchurch, which claimed 51 lives. She then spearheaded a call for the world's biggest internet platforms to remove extremist content online after a livestream of the suspected gunman's attack was shared on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. She told CNN on Tuesday that guns have a "practical purpose" in New Zealand but "that does not mean you need access to military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles". "Australia experienced a massacre and changed their laws. New Zealand had its experience and changed its laws. To be honest, I do not understand the US." The summit was organised by Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron. It will see world leaders and tech executives, including representatives from Twitter and Google, sign a pledge called the "Christchurch Call", which aims to end the use of social media for acts of terrorism. Ardern told CNN that the meeting "is not about regulation, it is about bringing companies to the table", adding that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has given "Facebook's support to this call to action". The focus will "very much be on violent extremism", she said, adding that the pledge will not limit or curtail "the freedom of expression". Facebook removed 1.5 million videos of the Christchurch attacks in the first 24 hours after the massacre. It also blocked 1.2 million of them at upload, meaning they would not have been seen by users. "When it came to the way this attack was specifically designed to be broadcast and to go viral, (responding) to that needed a global solution, so that was why we immediately got in contact with international counterparts," Ardern added. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of the release of his film "India's Most Wanted", actor Arjun Kapoor on Wednesday requested people to pay tribute to the unsung heroes of the country. Arjun took to Instagram and uploaded a video message, appealing to citizens to take out time to thank the "unsung heroes", who protect the country. He said: "I launched the 'Vande Mataram' song yesterday and I realised 'Vande Matram' means a salute to motherland. I started thinking we don't salute the people who actually protect the motherland. We don't take out time to remember them and to be kind and grateful to them. "Away from everything else, our film is about unsung heroes and we never got a day to celebrate them. We always waited for the perfect opportunity and perfect day. So, today I am requesting you all to take out 10 seconds from your time and thank those unsung brave people for their services. Jai Hind." The 33-year-old actor also tagged Anil Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon in his post, asking them to continue this "salute and tag their friends and family to take it forward." Directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, "India's Most Wanted" is based on true events and is about five men who saved the lives of billions of people by hunting down a terrorist. It is slated to release on May 24. --IANS sim/dc/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after Congress MLA Aditi Singh was attacked by unidentified men in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli, the Congress on Wednesday hit out at the BJP saying the incident exposes the law and order situation in the state under the Yogi Adityanath government. Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said that the party will not be deterred by the BJP's tactics of threat, violence, intimidation and criminal conspiracies against its leaders or workers. "Scared of an imminent defeat at their doorstep, the BJP was using the most reprehensible modus operandi to target its political opponents. Hooliganism and violence is embedded in the character of the BJP," the Congress leader said. His remarks came a day after Singh was attacked by unidentified men while she was on her way to the district panchayat office where voting was taking place on a no-confidence motion against Panchayat head Avadesh Singh. The Congress leader said that the BJP's Lok Sabha candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh, who is staring at a monumental defeat in Rae Bareli has unleashed a criminal conspiracy against the Congress, where his brother attacked the convoy of the sitting MLA from Rae Bareli Sadar. "This is beyond condemnation and requires a full blown investigation so that Awadesh Singh (brother of Dinesh Pratap Singh) and the 15 masked assailants who attacked Singh's convoy should be immediately arrested and face the law," he said. "Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government of Uttar Pradesh has miserably failed to provide safety and security to members of Panchayat in Rae Bareli who had given notice of no confidence motion against the Chairman of Panchayat Rae Bareli, namely Avadhesh Singh on April 15," he said. Khera said that despite repeated requests, the Rae Bareli Superintendent of Police colluded with Panchayat head Awadesh Singh under the influence of his brother Dinesh Singh. Khera said that just prior to the scheduled date of the no confidence motion on May 14 all the police stations lodged FIRs against almost all the elected members and started to take them into custody including their family members. "They did not spare the ladies and children to create pressure upon the members to support the Chairman," he said, adding that several other Panchayat members, who were on their way to vote against Awadesh Singh, were also stopped from entering the city. He also alleged that none of the members supporting the no confidence motion were allowed to reach the place of the meeting. He said that supporters of Congress MLA Aditi Singh were also not spared and they suffered injuries due to the assault by supporters of Dinesh Singh. "Fifteen masked assailants reportedly opened fire at the convoy of Aditi Singh. These were the people of BJP candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh. The assailants riding in two-three SUVs attacked the convoy twice at the Harchandpur and Baccharawa toll plaza while it was heading from Lucknow to Rae Bareli between 9.40 a.m. and 10 a.m. "It was nothing but a pre-planned attack to defer the no-confidence motion against Awadesh Singh," he said. He said that the party demands that the administration and local police take strict action against the culprits and a judicial enquiry must be ordered which will nail the criminal conspiracy by the BJP. --IANS aks/rs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A week after a 22-year-old girl was attacked by her brothers with acid in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida, the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Wednesday asked Uttar Pradesh DGP O.P. Singh to enforce a ban on the sale of acid. Citing media reports over the attack on the 22-year-old girl, the Commission in a letter to the Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police said, "The NCW has come across a media report in various national dailies wherein it has been reported that a woman was allegedly attacked with acid by her two brothers who later dumped her in Kot village in Greater Noida." Sharma in her letter said the Commission was disturbed by the rise in acid attacks in Uttar Pradesh. "Considering the gravity of the matter, it is requested that action be taken to enforce the ban on sale of acid in the state and a detailed action taken report in the matter be sent to the Commission at an early date," the NCW chairperson said. The 22-year-old woman, who was attacked on May 9 lost her sight after an acid attack on her in Greater Noida for which she blamed her two brothers. The woman named her brothers as the attackers and said they had tried to kill her earlier, too. --IANS aks/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) K. Surendran, the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate from Kerala's Pathanamthitta parliamentary constituency, has declared 240 criminal cases against himself, topping the list of those with criminal records contesting the general elections. Hailing from Kasaragod, he is one of the state BJP General Secretaries. According to the National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 129 of the charges in these cases are of serious nature. The second highest number of criminal cases was declared by the Congress candidate Dean Kuriakose from the Idukki constituency in Kerala. He has 204 criminal cases pending against him, in which he faces 37 charges of serious nature. Atiq Ahmad, who is contesting as an Independent from Varanasi, came in the third place with 80 serious charges in the 59 cases against him and BJP's Bapu Rao Soyam, contesting from Adilabad in Telangana, is fourth with 55 serious charges in the the 52 cases he faces. With 19 serious charges in the 42 cases against him, the Congress' Telangana candidate Anumula Revanth Reddy is fifth in the list. --IANS nks/ksk/vd/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the heat of the Lok Sabha elections reaches its pinnacle, a BSP candidate has gone missing. An FIR registered in a Varanasi police station accuses him of sexual assault. Atul Rai, the BSP candidate from the Ghosi seat in Mau district, has been missing from the campaign scene for the past fortnight. Rai is reportedly absconding ever since the FIR was registered against him on May 1 by a college student, who alleged that he had sexually assaulted her. Fearing arrest, Rai went underground and has not been canvassing. "We are campaigning for him and the people of Ghosi know that he is being framed. We apprehend that he may be arrested if he comes here for campaigning," said a Rai supporter. According to reports, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has asked her cadres to continue the campaign for Atul Rai and ensure his victory. Samajwadi President Akhilesh Yadav has issued similar instructions to his party workers. Mayawati, along with the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, on Wednesday held a rally in Ghosi in which they urged the people to vote for the SP-BSP alliance candidate. "It is a piquant situation where the candidate is missing and the party is campaigning for him," said Mohsin Raza, a journalist. In Ghosi, once a Left stronghold, there are talks that Atul Rai has flown to Malaysia to escape arrest. Senior Superintendent of Police Anand Kulkarni said that there were chances of Atul Rai fleeing to another country and the police have issued a lookout notice for him. Rai's lawyers moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking stay on his arrest till May 23, when the votes polled for the 17th Lok Sabha will be counted. A Vacation Bench will be hearing the petition on Friday. The BSP candidate's lawyers contended that it was a politically motivated move to prevent him from campaigning in the elections and thereby, sabotage his prospects as a candidate. Mayawati during her Wednesday rally said that Rai has been a victim of conspiracy by the BJP who wants to defame him. "It is our responsibility to get Atul Rai elected and defeat the conspiracy against him," she said. The Ghosi constituency goes to polls on May 19 in the final phase of elections. --IANS amita/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, 77, may have been out of the Indian Army for decades now but he is proud to have served the nation in uniform. But this tactical advance into the opponent's political territory by associating fellow 'faujis' (ex-servicemen) seems unparalleled. He has been striking a cord during his election meetings by saying from the dais: "I am seeing too many 'faujis' here. How many of you participated in the 1965 India-Pakistan war?" Keeping his humorous side alive, Captain Amarinder Singh, who had served as an army captain during the war and often greets his contemporaries by saluting them, does not miss an opportunity to remind the gathering by saying BJP actor-turned-politician candidate Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur is a 'filmy fauji' while 'I am a real fauji'." At time, he goes nostalgic with the ex-servicemen, a major vote bank in the border towns and villages of Punjab. Invoking his Army background, Amarinder Singh, whose book "Honour and Fidelity: India's Military Contribution to the Great War 1914-1918" talks about the massive contribution of Indian soldiers, had gone nostalgic when he met an Army war veteran in Bathinda at an election meeting last week. He met Captain Mall Singh (retired) of 2 Sikh, who had sustained nearly half a dozen bullet injuries as part of Charlie Company in the 1965 war, and got himself photographed with him. Going down memory lane, Amarinder Singh, the scion of the erstwhile Patiala royal family and a prolific military historian, Amarinder Singh in a tweet on May 12 wrote. "This painting brings to life memories from 1966 when I was serving in the Indian Army as ADC to Lt. General Harbaksh Singh. Proud to have served the nation in uniform." Terming the Pulwama terror strike an act of cowardice, Amarinder Singh does not forget to lash out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for seeking votes in the name of those who died in the attack and in the name of the Balakot air strike carried out by what Modi claimed to be "his" army. "It is not Modi's 'fauj' (army), but India's 'fauj' which has fought all the battles and made sacrifices," said Amarinder Singh, who has to his credit several books on war and Sikh history, at an election rally. He also called Modi's attempt to take credit of the armed forces' valour "abominable". "Nobody ever saw Indira Gandhi taking credit for dividing Pakistan in 1971. She gave full credit to the armed forces," said Amarinder Singh, who joined the Congress in 1980 under Rajiv Gandhi. Describing Modi as a self-obsessed man, the Chief Minister, who resigned as a Congress MP and left the party in 1984 to protest against Operation Bluestar and returned to the party in 1997, drew a sharp contrast between the Prime Minister's handling of the Balakot success and Indira Gandhi's achievement in splitting Pakistan to create Bangladesh during the 1971 war. (Vishal Gulati can be reached at vishal.g@ians.in) --IANS vg/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government intends to sell a further 15 per cent stake in its railways undertaking RITES India under the Offer-For-Sale (OFS) route, according to an official announcement on Wednesday, The stake sale would augment the government's stake sell-off kitty for the current fiscal by Rs 700-Rs 750 crore at the prevailing price of RITES shares. "The GOI (Government of India) intends to disinvest 15 per cent paid up equity capital of RITES Ltd out of its shareholding of 87.40 per cent, through "Offer for Sale of shares by promoters through the stock exchanges as per Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Rules and Regulations", the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) announcement said. In 2017-18, the Centre came out with the RITES initial public offer (IPO) by which it divested 12.60 per cent of its stake, which currently stands at 87.40 per cent. Official sources here said that the OFS could take place in July. DIPAM has already issued RFP for appointment of merchant bankers and selling brokers for the OFS. At the current share price of Rs 230, the RITES issue may fetch Rs 700-Rs 750 crore for the government. RITES was listed at Rs 190 per share against the issue price of Rs 185. During the current financial year so far, Rs 2,350.25 crore have been garnered through divestments against the annual target of Rs 90,000 crore on this count. This year, the DIPAM has completed disinvestment in another railway subsidiary -- RVNL. RVNL's IPO was the first such issue in the current fiscal which fetched the government Rs 480 crore by divesting 12.12 per cent stake in RVNL. According to sources, government is also looking at offering shares at a discount to eligible employees of RITES. The extent of discount would be decided in due course. --IANS ana/sn/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) of the Delhi Police died after complaining of chest pain at the Police Training Centre at north Delhi's Wazirabad early on Wednesday morning, a police officer said. Suresh Kaushik, 52, was sleeping in his barrack when he complained of uneasiness and chest pain to his roommates. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared brought dead by the doctors. "Kaushik was promoted as an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) last month following which he joined a three-month-long indoor training at the Police Training Centre from April 1. He went on five days election duty this month and resumed his training on Monday," Anil Mittal, Additional PRO of the Delhi Police told IANS. Kaushik's family, however, alleged that he died due to a delay in the arrival of the ambulance. "He was a heart patient and we had already informed the Police Department about it. However, he was given rigorous tasks and strict punishment during his training due to which his health suffered," said Ramesh Sharma, a family member. Mittal denied the allegations saying: "Medical investigation showed that Kaushik wasn't feeling well for a while that night. But by the time he informed his roommates his condition had deteriorated. The ambulance was called on time and he was immediately taken to hospital but he died on the way." The APRO also denied allegations of the deceased being punished during training. "It was a very easy indoor training on law and IPC (Indian Penal Code) Sections. A joint physical training (PT) session was held for the cadets every morning, but no strict punishment was ever meted out to Kaushik," he said. "The cause of the ASI's death will be established after the autopsy," the officer added. --IANS sp-rag/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Police on Wednesday told a city court that no offence is made out against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for making a statement against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleged to be derogatory in a complaint in 2016. The police in a report filed before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal have given a clean chit to Gandhi on the statement he made on the PM, stating that no charge of sedition is made out, and it is a case of defamation. "It is submitted that as per the contents of the complaint, no cognizable offence is made out. Gandhi made the defamatory statement against PM, for which a suit may be filed by the individual against whom the statement was made," said the police in their report. On April 26, the court had directed the police to file an Action Taken Report (ATR) on a plea seeking registration of a criminal case under sedition law against Gandhi. Advocate Joginder Tuli had moved the court seeking direction for the police to register an FIR against Gandhi for accusing the PM for hiding behind the blood of soldiers and taking advantage out of their sacrifices. --IANS ss/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Meng Wangzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei who has been detained in Canada since last December, has written to the company's 188,000 employees to thank them for support she says has filled her "with power". Meng is awaiting a hearing on her possible extradition to the US, where she faces federal charges in New York for her role in an alleged scheme by Huawei to circumvent American sanctions on Iran, CNN reported on Tuesday. "Every time a court hearing has finished, I have seen Huawei employees staying up all night just to follow my case in distant time zones," Meng wrote in a letter that was published Monday on the company's internal online forum. "This has brought me to tears." The case against Meng was filed amid a broader campaign against the Chinese tech company by the US government, which claims Huawei's networking equipment poses a national security threat. The company also faces charges in Seattle that it tried to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile . Meng and Huawei have pleaded not guilty across the board. Meng said in her letter that she had been encouraged by messages of support posted in the Huawei forum and the sight of former employees lining up outside the court in Vancouver. She was released on $7.5 million bail nearly two weeks after her arrest. She agreed to surrender her passports, live in one of two homes she owns in the city, pay for an around-the-clock security detail and wear a GPS ankle bracelet, CNN reported. "Despite being physically restricted to a very limited space during my time in Vancouver, my inner self has never felt so colourful and vast," Meng said in the letter. Her high-profile detention has led to a diplomatic standoff between Canada, China and the US, and complicated trade talks between Washington and Beijing, which has called for her release. Last week, uawei, which is world's biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, decried "political factors at play during the extradition process", which it said could infringe on Meng's "legitimate rights". She had filed a civil lawsuit in March accusing Canadian authorities of violating her rights when they first detained her. Meng's expected to appear at a Canadian court again in September. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the Election Commission's decisions to curtail election campaigning and remove two senior officers have been taken on the direction of the BJP, its President Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She also claimed that RSS people have been inducted into the Election Commission. Mamata wondered if the directives were due to the "threat" issued to the poll panel by Shah during a media meet in New Delhi on Wednesday morning. Addressing a media meet here, the Chief Minister said: "Some emergency situation has arisen due to some directions of the Election Commission. I don't consider these as EC's decision. These have been taken as per the direction of the BJP, Modi and Amit Shah." "In the morning, Shah held a press conference in Delhi, where he threatened the Election Commission. "Is this a fallout of that?" she asked. Banerjee said Bengal was being targeted as Modi knew that she was challenging him. "I am challenging him, talking against him, we are countering him on every point. Modi is afraid of Bengal, afraid of me." Banerjee said she had remained mum despite so many incidents that occurred during the election proess. "With due respect, I tell the Election Commission that so many incidents have happened, I did not utter a single word." She also accused Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain of making all arrangements for Shah's road show. "He had given a letter. It is with Kolkata police. I also have a copy". Taking umbrage against the EC relieving her favourite police officer and presently ADG CID Rajeev Kumar from the post and asking him to report to the Union Home Ministry in Delhi, she asked: "Why are they so cut up with Rajeev Kumar? Is it because he has been intercepting hawala money?" "How can EC send somebody to central deputation? This is the state's prerogative. IPS and IAS officers are under the state government. How can they interfere like this? EC is doing whatever the BJP is telling it to do. Never in my life have I seen such an Election Commission." Banerjee declared she would not be silenced, and said the decision taken under section 324 of the Representation of the People Act to curtail the campaign period was not legal as there was no law and order problem in her state. Banerjee questioned why the EC did not show cause Shah, "who orchestrated the May 14 violence". She alleged the directives were issued to deflect people's attention as a big sentiment had developed in Bengal over the vandalisation of Vidyasagar's bust. "The decision is unconstitutional, unprincipled, unethical, and smacks of political bias," she said. --IANS ssp/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.) A suicide note recovered on Wednesday from the home of the 41-year-old mother and her 19-year-old daughter, who set themselves ablaze a day before, has revealed that family issues were behind the extreme step, and was not provoked by the risk that their home would be seized by bank officials for non-repayment of housing loan. Lekha and her daughter, Vaishnavi, doused themselves with kerosene and ignited the fuel in their bedroom on Tuesday. Hearing their cries, neighbours rushed in to rescue by breaking open the doors. While Vaishnavi died on the spot, her mother passed away at the hospital. The police probe team that arrived on the scene on Wednesday saw mother's suicide note stuck on the wall in another room. A message written on the wall held four people are responsible for the twin suicides - Lekha's husband, Chandran, her mother in law, her sister and the sister's husband. The note also said that Lekha was taken to a person specializing in black magic. Speaking to the media later, the police official investigating the case said there was no mention of any bank recovery proceedings in the note, which said that Lekha was being constantly harassed by her mother-in-law. "The letter reveals everything and we have taken all the four into custody and have recorded their arrest. The charge levelled at the moment is that of abetting suicide and the probe will continue," the official said. Chandran, however, told reporters that he has no clue about why he has been taken into custody by the police. "I was abroad and returned just six months back. I knew that my mother and my wife were often engaged in verbal duels. I have no other clue at all," said Chandran, while his mother said she is also innocent and has done no wrong. "I had given my consent to sell the house, after recovery proceedings began. I have done nothing wrong," Chandran's mother said. There was a huge public outcry on Tuesday after it surfaced that Canara Bank officials have been after the family for recovery of the balance of housing loan. On Wednesday morning, various political outfits protested against the Canara Bank, while Congress party activists went on a rampage here causing damage to the regional office of the bank. Thereafter, three branches of the bank near the home of the suicide victims remained shut as a matter of precaution. The protests were called off, however, when it emerged that the suicides were provoked by family issues. In an official statement on Tuesday, Canara Bank had said Chandran had availed a Rs 5 lakh loan in 2005, which was declared a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2010, and that legal proceedings had been initiated in the matter. --IANS sg/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As part of $7.25 million worth of a lawsuit settlement, Google has agreed to pay up to $500 to the owners of faulty Pixel and Pixel XL devices that were manufactured before January 4, 2017. The proposed settlement has grouped owners of the 2016 Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL phones into four categories to determine the level of compensation to which they are entitled. "The highest payout is due to be owed to anyone who returned a Pixel with a defective microphone, only to receive another defective device from the manufacturer. These claimants could be paid up to $500 in the settlement. Any owners who had just a single defective device could get up to $350, while anyone who had to pay an insurance deductible could have its value repaid. Even Pixel owners who experienced no issues with their phones at all could get up to $20 from this settlement," The Verge reported on Tuesday. The search-engine giant first admitted that there was an issue with some of the phones back in March 2017 when it said that less than 1 per cent of Pixel phones had a "hairline crack in the solder connection on the audio codec" which was causing issues with calling and the phone's voice assistant functionality. Less than a year later, the company was slammed with a lawsuit by angry owners against Google's decision of continuously selling the phones despite knowing about the issues, the report added. The court's final hearing on the settlement approval in the Pixel case is due to take place on June 5. Earlier in April, the search-engine giant agreed to settle a lawsuit relating to Nexus 6P devices, which suffered from a bug that could trap them in a boot-looping issue. As part of that lawsuit, Google and Huawei agreed to a $9.75 million settlement and the final decision on that lawsuit is due to be made after a hearing on October 10. --IANS rp/rs/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Condemning the vandalism at a Kolkata college and destruction of Bengali polymath Vidyasagar's bust during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow on Tuesday, the Congress on Wednesday said "federal fascism" was embedded in the BJP's DNA. Addressing the media here, the party's Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal and spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: "Federal fascism is embedded in the BJP's DNA. The power hungry (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, (Amit) Shah are hell bent in bulldozing the cultural identity of Indian states. "Congress strongly condemns the violent desecration of national icons like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the great educationist," he said adding that this was symptomatic of a bigger issue. "Under Modi-Shah, mobocracy is being actively encouraged and abetted by the ruling party. And we have seen repeated examples of this in the last five years. We have seen irreversible damage to the cultural identities of the state it has been doing," he said. Singhvi's remarks came a day after clashes broke out between members of the Trinamool Congress students' union and BJP supporters who participated in Shah's massive roadshow in north Kolkata on Tuesday evening, following which a group of saffron party activists allegedly resorted to vandalism inside the Vidyasagar College campus and destroyed a bust of Vidyasagar. Slamming the ruling BJP at the Centre, Singhvi said that the government has been specializing in negative of destruction, demolition and desecration. "These are all facets of federal system of decentralization and diversity. Each of them is under unprecedented attack by the ruling dispensation. The ruling party is specializing in the negative of destruction, demolition and desecration. These are three new Ds and thereby vitiating the political atmosphere of the country," the Congress leader said. Singhvi said that the BJP was using this tactic to super impose its monolithic supremacy and bigoted agenda on each state and thereby weakening the federal polity. He said that the Congress will continue its battle against this. He said Congress President Rahul Gandhi has taken him (Modi) on to protect language and culture. "For him (Rahul Gandhi), insignia of diversity is everything. You might see Rahul Gandhi as fighting in two constituencies but he does not see it like that. He attempts to demonstrate inclusiveness all under an umbrella, north and south parts of a united India. It is much more symbolic than fighting in two constituencies. "But we know how Modi and Shah view it," he said. Taking a pot shot at the BJP, Singhvi said: "Disrespect for national icons and the hegemony of the BJP reflects its mindset. "Who is H Raja? He is one of the senior most members of the BJP in Tamil Nadu. He pledged to destroy the statue of Periyar. And later, Ram Madhav justified such a statement and pulling down of statues. What action was taken -- a wink, a nod? Actually encouragement. "A bust of national icon B.R. Ambedkar was found painted red in north Chennai. Regional parties have ruled Tamil Nadu for decades but this never happened," he said. "In February this year, a right wing lunatic fringe group clearly associated with the Sangh Parivar re-enacted the scene of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, with an air pistol and a small effigy of Mahatma Gandhi. And they did it after garlanding the picture of Nathuram Godse. Did we have this kind of terrible tragic incidents in last 70-75 years?" Singhvi questioned. --IANS aks/pg/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Christian Villages Hit Along New 'Front Line' in Syria Rebel militias caused the death of at least four Christian teenagers (three girls and a boy) and their teacher on Sunday. Artillery and missiles fired by rebel militias on the Syrian town of Al-Sqaylabiyeh, in the governorate of Hama, mostly inhabited by Orthodox Christians, continued on Monday 13 May. During the attempted offensive in the north-western area of Hama province in 2014, the Islamist militias of Jabhat al-Nusra and those of the so-called 'Free Syrian Army', FSA had repeatedly tried to occupy Sqaylabiyeh and the nearby town of Mhardeh. Some of the young people and the wealthy of those villages helped to create the so-called 'National Defense Units', militias supporting the army of Damascus. The mortar fire on Al-Sqaylabiyeh is part of the new escalation of the Syrian conflict, now concentrated in the northwestern province of Idlib, around areas still controlled by Islamist militias and the Free Syrian Army. Sources and organizations opposed to the Syrian government spread news about raids on areas carried out by the army of Damascus and by Russian planes on Idlib, as an anticipation of an imminent all-out military operation that the Syrian army's military is apparently preparing to regain the entire area. Syrian official media believe the rebel militias are violating the 'de-escalation' agreement reached last year between Russia and Turkey, continuing to hit with heavy artillery cities and residential areas beyond the buffer zones that surround Idlib, in violation of the ceasefire. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her government of misusing the state machinery to intimidate BJP leaders and workers. The reaction came a day after the Kolkata Police registered a FIR against BJP President Amit Shah in connection with the violence during his roadshow on Tuesday. Expressing concern over the increasing political violence in the state, Singh said in a series of tweets: "The FIR against BJP National President for the attacks on his roadshow in Kolkata is a mockery of democracy and due process." He said the West Bengal government was misusing the state machinery to "stifle" the democratic rights of the people. "These attempts at intimidating the leaders and workers of a political party will fail miserably." Expressing concern over the increasing incidents of political violence in the state, he said it seemed that the law and order situation there was worsening with every passing phase of the ongoing general elections. "The law and order is the primary responsibility of a state government and its Chief Minister. The West Bengal government and the Chief Minister should own responsibility for the prevailing situation," he tweeted. --IANS bns/rtp/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian Air Force officials on Tuesday (May 14) went into a tizzy after a suspicious looking objected was found within the Air Force School compound of the IAF base in Lohegaon, here. A staff member found the unidentified object on the school ground, which is adjacent to a civil residential area and immediately alerted the officials at the base. An IAF security team, along with the bomb disposal squad of Pune Police rushed to the school ground, cordoned it off and finally identified it as a pyrotechnic object, or a fire-cracker. The pyrotechnic was safely disposed of by the teams without any damage to humans or property and the IAF has launched an investigation, said an IAF statement on Tuesday. --IANS qn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Elections have moved into the final phase, politicians are looking towards post-poll calculations and, apparently, have no time for the rape victim who allegedly set herself on fire in protest against police inaction on her complaint. The incident has not found a place in any of the election speeches of top political leaders. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in between his election meetings, has simply ordered an inquiry into the delayed action by the police after receiving a letter from the Delhi Commission for Woman. Congress claimed that the incident was a classic case of 'Beti darao, balatkari bachao' and slammed the ruling BJP for not providing any help to the rape victim, who is now being treated for 80 per cent burn injuries in Delhi. Samajwadi Party spokesman Juhie Singh said: "We have always said that women are not safe under the Yogi government and the Hapur case proves it. The police apathy forced the young woman to set herself on fire and the Chief Minister dismisses the case with a simple inquiry." The BSP spokesman refused to comment on the incident 'in view of contradictory reports'. Mamta Singh, a woman activist, was more forthcoming when she said, "The Alwar rape case has received political attention because the victim was a Dalit and belonged to a particular vote bank. "In this case, the victim does not belong to a particular vote bank. Moreover, elections in Hapur are over and political parties are not interested. It is a sad state of affairs." The contradictory reports that the BSP spokesman was referring to are the statements of the victim's father who has denied having "sold off" his daughter. Talking to reporters, the victim's father said that he had not sold her off but had got her married in 2010. "She got divorced after seven months and in the affidavit for the second marriage, she declared her first husband 'dead'. She then ran off with another man one and a half year ago and was living with him," he said. The father of the youth she was living with in Moradabad also told reporters: "We have tried to make him understand that it was not right to stay with a married woman like this. But when he did not heed our advice, we ended all relations with him a year ago." The victim's father also rubbished his daughter's rape allegations. Villagers of Shyampur Jatt, to which all the alleged rapists belong, have given a memorandum to Superintendent of Police Hapur Yashveer Singh claiming that the charges are false. Yashveer Singh said that the woman had earlier made several complaints regarding custody of her three children, dowry and rape. "But whenever the cops tried to reach her to verify the allegations, she was unavailable," he said. Police officials claim that the allegations need investigations. "The victim and her live-in partner did not inform the police when she got burnt. It was the district hospital in Moradabad that informed us when she was admitted," said an official. --IANS amita/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With declared assets of over Rs 1,107 crore, Ramesh Kumar Sharma is the richest candidate in the Lok Sabha elections, his affidavit shows. An independent contesting against BJP MP Ram Kripal Yadav from Patliputra in Bihar, Sharma says he is fighting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his fake promises. The 63-year-old with a Chartered Engineer certificate owns nine vehicles including a Volkswagen Jetta, a Honda city and an Optra Chevrolet, the affidavit says. Sharma has declared total assets worth Rs 11,07,58,33,190, of which assets worth Rs 7,08,33,190 are movable. Sharma told IANS: "With demonetization, Modi took money away from people. There is crime happening all around and they are looting the country. I am fighting this election against Modi, the 'jumlebaaz'." The aspiring politician is "more than 100 per cent confident of his win" even if BJP President Amit Shah contests against him. Sharma is the only independent in the top five richest candidates in the Lok Sabha battle. The other four are from the Congress. The second richest is Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, the Congress candidate from Chevella in Telangana, with Rs 895 crore assets. He has movable assets worth Rs 8,56,38,18,770 and immovable assets worth Rs 38,63,60,400. Nakul Nath, the Congress candidate from Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh, is the third richest man in the fray with assets worth Rs 660 crore -- the movable and immovable assets are worth Rs 6,18,41,72,757 and Rs 41,77,74,000 respectively. The fourth richest man is Vasanthakumar H., the Congress candidate from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, with assets worth Rs 4,17,49,30,444, of which Rs 2,30,49,30,444 are movable. With assets worth over Rs 374 crore, Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, contesting from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, is the fifth richest candidate. He was also the richest candidate in the just concluded sixth phase of polling. --IANS nks/rtp/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iran has officially ended its compliance with several commitments of the countrys 2015 nuclear deal, the country's atomic energy body said on Wednesday. An official from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran told the semi-official ISNA news agency that "the country has begun to stop implementing some of its obligations under the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as underlined in an SNSC (Supreme National Security Council) statement", Efe news reported. "Stopping programmes related to compliance with the ceiling for production of enriched uranium as well as the unlimited production of heavy water at the Arak facility are programmes seriously pursued as stressed during the first 60-day period related to Iran's first step in response to the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal," the official added. On May 8, President Hassan Rouhani warned that Iran would begin to withdraw from key aspects of the agreement if global powers failed to keep their commitments within the next 60 days. With Washington tightening its sanctions on the Islamic republic, Rouhani issued a 60-day suspension for the rest of the signatories of the pact to fulfil Iran's demands and save the country's banking system and oil trade from international sanctions. He specified that the measure, which would mean Iran will not abide by the condition to sell its enriched uranium and heavy water beyond given limits, had a 60-day deadline, during which Tehran would wait for a response from the deal's remaining parties. The announcement came exactly one year after the US abandoned the JCPOA it had signed with Iran along with Russia, China, France and the UK as co-signatories. The agreement limits Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for lifting international sanctions but has been weakened after Washington's exit. On the other hand, tensions between Iran and the US have escalated after the latter announced it would reinforce its troops deployed in the Middle East by sending USS Arlington and the Patriot missile system to join USS Abraham Lincoln with more fighter-bombers. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ruled out the possibility of war with the US and added that there would be no renegotiation of the deal. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Wednesday asked the police to file on Friday the status report on the rape of a minor in Bandipora which triggered widespread protests. Chief Justice Gita Mittal took suo motu notice of the crime and asked the Inspector General of Police to file the report. A three-year-old was raped in Bandipora district on May 8. The accused has been arrested and a special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the police was investigating the case. --IANS sq/pg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Days after creating a row with his Hindu terrorist remark, Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder Kamal Haasan reiterated on Wednesday that independent India's first extremist was a Hindu. Campaigning in Thiruparankundram Assembly constituency for his party candidate contesting in May 19 by-election, Haasan said: "In Aravakuruchi I said independent India's first extremist was a Hindu. It is an historical truth." Haasan said some people were getting angry over his remark. Haasan said all his family members were Hindus and he would not talk in any manner to hurt their feelings. According to him, people without listening fully to his speech at Aravakurichi were alleging that he was creating enmity amongst communities. He said truth will always be bitter and that bitterness will turn into medicine. On Sunday, at the Aravakuruchi Assembly constituency, Haasan, while campaigning for his party candidate, said about the killer of Mahatma Gandhi: "The first extremist of independent India was a Hindu -- Nathuram Godse. It all started from there." Tamil Nadu Minister for Milk and Dairy Development K.T. Rajenthra Bhalaji said the actor-politician's tongue should be cut. Meanwhile, Haasan has applied for anticipatory bail in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court as a case has been registered against him for his Avarakuruchi speech. --IANS vj/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday termed as "prima facie arbitrary" the arrest of BJP's West Bengal youth wing leader Priyanka Sharma for allegedly publishing a morphed image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media. A vacation bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Sanjiv Khanna also took exception to the West Bengal government's delay in keeping Sharma behind the bars despite the court's Tuesday order for her "immediate release". The apex court's observation came after Sharma's counsel, senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, mentioned that despite the court's order, Sharma was kept in jail for an extra day. The court said: "This is not done. First of all, her arrest was arbitrary... if she is not released, consequences shall follow." Counsel for the West Bengal government told the court that Sharma has been released at around 9.40 a.m. from the jail on Wednesday. The state government did not release her earlier due to lack of a certified copy of the top court's order, as per the state jail manual, counsel said. At this, the court said: "The order was passed in your presence... jail manuals can't have superintendence over the SC. "If she is not released, we will take contempt action." The apex court had on Tuesday passed direction for Sharma's immediate release and asked her to tender apology upon her release for posting the meme. Meanwhile, Sharma's counsel also informed the court that her brother had found that police had already filed a closure report in the case. "There was no question of apology... has counsel for state disclosed this earlier," Kaul asked. He also told the court that he will file an application on behalf of the petitioner for action against the state government and also modification of the court's order. The court said there isn't any urgency. "We will hear it in the first week of July", the court said. According to the court's schedule published on the website, the matter has been listed in the first week of July. Sharma was accused of sharing on social media a photo of Banerjee photoshopped on a picture of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra from last week's MET Gala event in New York City. --IANS ss/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Monsoon is expected to arrive in India on June 6, a delay of five days, but it is likely to be "near normal", state forecaster India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Wednesday. This comes a day after private forecaster Skymet had said that monsoon was expected to arrive on June 4 and was likely to be mostly "below normal", with 15 per cent chance of drought. The IMD had last month said that monsoon this year will be "near normal" -- around 96 per cent of the the Long Period Average (LPA) of 887 mm. The average or normal rainfall in the country is defined between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of the 50-year average for the entire four-month monsoon season. The Skymet, on the other hand, had said that monsoon was likely to be "below normal" at 93 per cent of the LPA owing to developing El Nino in the Pacific Ocean, which posed higher risk of the eastern parts and major portion of Central India being rain deficient. The IMD has ruled out any adverse impact of El Nino on the monsoon such as erratic rainfall, saying that it will start weakening by June, thus ensuring that the country got normal rainfall, which will be beneficial to the farmers during the kharif season. El Nino is a sea surface temperature situation over Pacific Ocean that is said to have strong negative influence on Indian monsoon. Developing situations and the factors responsible for the south-west monsoon were "not favourable" this time, which may lead to less rainfall than the average, the Skymet had asserted. It said the monsoon this year was also likely to be "jerky" as its progression across India would not be smooth. If monsoon proved to be "below normal" with sluggish progression, the farm sector could take a hit as long gaps between rainfall spells can lead to crop loss. According to the Skymet, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand in eastern India and Maharashtra's Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, parts of Madhya Pradesh in Central India and parts of Gujarat were at risk of being rain deficient. It may lead to drought. Comparatively, northwest India and the South Peninsula were expected to do "fairly well" this time with the odds in favour of rainfall being "normal". --IANS spk/arm (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.) A Nepalese Sherpa climber on Wednesday reached atop Mount Everest for the 23rd time, becoming the only mountaineer in the world to hold the record for most summits on the world's highest mountain. According to Mingma Sherpa, Company Chairman at Seven Summit Treks, Kami Rita Sherpa, 49, from Thame village of Solukhumbu district successfully reached the top of Everest at around 7.50 a.m., breaking his own record for most summits on the roof of the world, reports The Himalayan Times. On May 16, 2018, Kami Rita made history by summiting Everest for the 22nd time. According to base camp officials, Kami Rita started his summit from Camp IV on Tuesday night and reached the summit point on Wednesday morning. Kami Rita has already climbed most of the peaks above 8,000 metres including K2, Cho-oyu, Lhoste and Annapurna among others. "The climbers have now been descending to the lower camps safely," Mingma Sherpa told The Himalayan Times. Kami Rita made his first ascent of the giant peak in 1994 when he was 24 years old. One of his 23 climbs was made from the Chinese side in 2016. He plans to reach the summit at least 25 times. "I have a goal to climb Everest for 25th time - or maybe more than that," he told Efe news in April before leaving for his expedition. The 2019 Everest climbing season officially began on Tuesday with eight Nepali climbing guides making it to the peak. These highly-skilled mountaineers prepare the route to the top of the 8,848m mountain for other climbers. This season, nearly 1,000 people, including 378 paying climbers, will attempt the summit. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said that neither the BJP nor the NDA it leads will be able to form a government after the Lok Sabha elections. On the other hand, a non-BJP, non-NDA government would be formed, he told the media. Azad said that Narendra Modi would not become the Prime Minister for a second time. "The elections are in the last phase. I can say that neither a BJP nor a NDA government will be formed. It is my assessment after visiting all over the country," he said. The former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister said the BJP would be reduced to 125 seats in the Lok Sabha but he refused to say how many the Congress was likely to win. Without naming Congress President Rahul Gandhi, he said it would be better that after the elections a consensus should emerge that the government should be led by a Congress leader. --IANS ik/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajasthan-born writer-director Harsh Lom says an unnecessary controversy has been created regarding his upcoming film "Yeh Hai India" over a few dialogues but he is not perturbed. Lom, who recently returned to India after living in Australia, says: "I love India and stand for the freedom of expression given by my nation." A judgment on a movie should be given after watching it and not based on a few dialogues, Lom said, when questioned about a YouTube video in which a Pakistani woman has criticized some dialogues from the movie's trailer. One of the dialogues is: "Lekin humain sirf ye kehna hai ki wakai main agar kanoon aur vyavastha sabke liye ek samaan nahi hai toh bana dijiye ek naya Pakistan" (If law and order is not the same for everyone, then create a new Pakistan). The woman who has raised a concern identifies herself as "social activist" Saba Sikander. In a YouTube video, she said: "Once again Bollywood has pitched a demand to divide the nation and it has again tried to belittle our nation the same way it has been doing so since years... Pakistan does have objections on this film." Lom said these comments don't hold ground as he stands with the freedom of expression granted to all artistes in India. "As a writer, I have the freedom to put forth my thoughts in the best way and this controversy holds no water as people should first watch the film and then make a viewpoint," he added. His film "Yeh Hai India" has been to FOG Film Festival in San Francisco, and he says it has been appreciated. Lom had settled down in Australia for a few years, but recently came back to India giving up his Australian citizenship. "I left Australia thinking why should I give my entire life to a country where I was just not born," said Lom, who was honoured with a 'Youth Ambassador For Peace Award' by Universal Peace Federation in Delhi. He has also helmed short films "Chicken Biryani" and "Chicken Biryani 2". --IANS arc/rb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The opposition Congress and CPI-M sought directions from the Supreme Court to hold fresh polling for the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat, although the constituency has already gone to the polls twice, party officials said on Wednesday. Re-polling was held on May 12 in 168 of the total 1,679 polling stations in the constituency as electoral malpractices were detected during the first round of voting held on April 11. The Communist Party of India-Marxist sitting Lok Sabha MP and party candidate Sankar Prasad Datta said that their lawyers on the advice of the Supreme Court vacation bench, on Wednesday filed a writ petition in the Tripura High Court. "Accordingly the writ petition was filed in the Tripura High Court, which is yet to give a date of hearing for the case," Datta told the media here. Tripura Pradesh Congress Vice-President and senior lawyer Pijush Kanti Biswas told IANS here that the writ petition, which was filed in the apex Court on Tuesday, sought fresh polling in 433 of the 1,679 polling stations. State Congress President Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarman said that despite the Returning Officer to the Tripura West seat in his report to the Election Commission (EC) had admitted that the election process was vitiated in 433 booths, re-polling was held in only 168 stations. "A team of senior lawyers led by senior Congress leader and lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi are doing the legal process to seek a direction from the apex court against the EC's unjustified decision," Debbarman told IANS over the phone. The CPI-M and the Congress have been agitating for re-polling after they alleged large-scale rigging, booth capturing, intimidation and attacks by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists on April 11. The BJP, however, has dismissed the allegations. --IANS sc/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The brother-in-law of Mumbai terror attack mastermind and proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has been arrested for hate speech and criticizing the Pakistan government, the police said on Wednesday. Abdul Rehman Makki, who is the head of the JuD's political and international affairs wing and in-charge of its charity arm Falah-i-Insaniat (FiF), was detained during a crackdown by the government on outlawed organisations, Geo News reported citing an Interior Ministry source. Makki is accused of delivering a hate speech in Gujranwala against the crackdown and criticizing the steps taken by the Pakistan government under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines. The FATF is an inter-governmental body which combats money laundering and terror financing. Makki was arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order Act and shifted to a jail in Lahore, the report said. He was designated by the US in 2010 and consequently targeted by the US Treasury Department. The crackdown on the outlawed groups was initiated by the Pakistan government earlier this year under the National Action Plan. In March, Islamabad announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council. Within weeks, the government said it had taken control of 182 seminaries and detained over 100 people as part of its push against proscribed groups. On May 11, the Interior Ministry banned 11 organisations under the Anti-Terrorism Act for their alleged affiliation with proscribed outfits JuD, FiF and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). JeM chief Masood Azhar was declared a global terrorist by the UN Security Council earlier this month. The US has been asking Pakistan to take sustained and irreversible action against terrorist groups that are operating from its soil, deny them safe haven and block their access to funds. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A New Jersey-based website is under fire for publishing a photoshopped image of a Sikh Mayor that depicts him as an Arab dictator, the media reported. The website, "Hudson Mile Square View", ran an image of Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla that resembled the lead character played by British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in the comedy film "The Dictator", the American Bazaar reported on Tuesday. The photo was part of a story titled, "Ravi Bhalla goes to the mattresses... for his tax increase". It accused Bhalla of "summoning all the powers" of his office to "reinstitute a tax increase" that was not approved by the city council. According to the website, Bhalla had proposed a 3 per cent tax increase but the council slashed it to 1 per cent. The story said now "the pushback from the Mayor's office to take back the tax reduction is underway". Sikh activists denounced the image as racist. Community speaker and activist Simran Jeet Singh tweeted on Tuesday: "Ravi Bhalla is the first-ever turbaned Sikh elected as Mayor in US history. "He's endured immense racist abuse, from flyers calling him a terrorist to death threats against him and his family. Now, someone is photoshopping Ravi to depict him as a despot. This is racist and wrong." Later on Tuesday night, the website said that the image was submitted by a reader. However, the Mile Square View had used a similar photo of Bhalla last August, the American Bazaar said. The site has a history of using photoshopped images of the Mayor. In February 2017, it posted a photo of Bhalla with a "Pinocchio" nose. Hudson Mile Square View, which calls itself "Hoboken's biggest website covering government, politics and corruption", has been critical of Bhalla right from the beginning of his mayoral term in 2017. Soon after his election, flyers calling him a terrorist were circulated in the city. --IANS ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Alitalia New Delhi-Milan flight made an emergency landing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following the death of an Indian man onboard the flight, Indian Embassy officials said here. The victim Kailash Chandra Saini, 52, from Rajasthan, was accompanied by his 26-year-old son Heera Lal, reports the Khaleej Times. "The flight made an emergency landing (at the Abu Dhabi International Airport) on Monday night. The body was taken to Mafraq Hospital. The formalities have been completed. The death certificate was issued today (Tuesday). The body will be repatriated on an Etihad flight, hopefully by Wednesday morning," Embassy counsellor M. Rajamurugan said on Tuesday. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi flew to Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday to meet Congress legislator Aditi Singh and members of the zila panchayat who had been injured in an attack on them on Tuesday. Priyanka arrived in Rae Bareli in the afternoon and went to the zila panchayat office to meet members who had been assaulted on Tuesday. Aditi Singh and members of the zila panchayat were on their way to vote on a no-confidence motion against the zila panchayat head Avadesh Singh when they were attacked by a group of men in which three cars in the convoy overturned. Avadesh Singh is the brother of Dinesh Pratap Singh, the BJP candidate from Rae Bareli. The outgoing MP and the Congress candidate on this seat is UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Aditi Singh has blamed Dinesh Singh and his brother for the attack. An FIR has been registered against Dinesh Singh, his brother and 12 others. Aditi Singh alleged that some zila panchayat members are missing after the incident. Priyanka Gandhi told the party leaders that she would now take this battle to its logical conclusion. "Ab yeh meri ladai hai. Aap log pareshan na ho," she said. Inspector General of Police S.K. Bhagat said that necessary action was being taken in the matter. --IANS amita/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Taking the SAD-BJP combine head-on over the sacrilege issue, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday warned of strong action against the culprits behind the Bargari and other cases of desecration of the holy scriptures. Recalling his earlier visit to the region, which was rocked by a spate of sacrilege incidents and the 2015 Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing incidents, Gandhi said those who insulted religious scriptures did not deserve any mercy. Two people were killed and many others injured in Behbal Kalan village on October 15, 2015, when police resorted to unprovoked firing on hundreds of people protesting the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Bargari village in Faridkot days ago. Addressing rallies, along with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, in support of the Congress candidate Mohammad Sadique from Faridkot and Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana, Gandhi lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for insulting Punjab, and the rest of India, by claiming that no development was done in 70 years and the nation was sleeping till he came to power. "Where were you when the Punjab farmers were driving the Green Revolution?" he asked Modi, lashing out at the Prime Minister for believing that he alone could run the country. It is the people of India who are running the country with their blood and sweat, he said, asserting that the Congress believed in taking every Indian, irrespective of caste, region, community, along for the development of the nation. While reiterating employment generation and farmer welfare as the key priorities of the Congress, the Congress President reached out to the people in Ludhiana with the promise to put all the party's strength into reviving small and medium businesses. India cannot challenge China without 'Made in Ludhiana', which has to be an integral part of 'Make in India', he said, adding that without reviving small and medium businesses even employment generation could not be successful. Listing NYAY, a separate farmers' budget, and promise of employment for youth as the major planks of the Congress manifesto, Gandhi said the Modi government had not only failed the people on all counts but had stolen money from the people to fill the pockets of a handful of rich industrialists. Questioning what had happened to Modi's promise of 'achche din', he said after five years Modi was not talking of any subject on which he had come to power, including jobs, Rs 15 lakh in individual bank accounts, doubling of farm income and corruption. From making fun of Manmohan Singh and his progressive economic policies, Modi had ended up becoming the butt of India's joke in five years, having cheated the nation with his brazen lies and open deception. Modi had ruined the nation's economy, which NYAY would revive, said Gandhi. Modi's fear was showing in his pre-written media interviews with prepared answers to planned questions, said Gandhi, ridiculing the Prime Minister over his 'personal' interview, in which he spoke only of irrelevant things like how he eats mangoes and how he fits his clothes into the suitcase. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, in his address, asked the people to decide if they wanted the current Prime Minister, who thinks like the Akalis and tries to destroy the nation's secular fabric by trying to polarise the people, or someone who respects all religions and considers all Indians as one. The Chief Minister lashed out at the Akalis for destroying Punjab's economy, which his government was trying to revive with the limited resources available to them. Despite the fiscal crunch, his government had launched the farm loan waiver scheme, becoming the only state to give up to Rs 2 lakh under it. He reiterated his demand for in toto implementation of the M.S. Swaminathan Committee report to make agriculture remunerative for farmers. --IANS vg/rs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran actors Rishi Kapoor and his wife Neetu Kapoor spent some "wonderful moments" with actors Vicky Kaushal and Boman Irani here. Rishi has been in New York for several months for medical treatment, and film fraternity members are ensuring they meet the couple whenever they are in the city. After meeting Vicky for the first time, Neetu praised the "Uri: The Surgical strike" actor on Instagram. "Our library of wonderful moments is only getting bigger... met our very own Kamli (Vicky's character from 'Sanju') for the first time. Such a humble, well brought up boy with goodness written all over him," she wrote along with a photograph in which Vicky is seen posing with the Kapoors. Vicky shared screenspace with Neetu and Rishi's son Ranbir Kapoor in the film "Sanju". He was seen as Ranbir's on-screen best friend Kamli. Neetu even shared a photograph featuring Boman and said they had a "two hour laugh riot" with him. "He is all heart and so positive," added the actress, who has been by Rishi's side, and keeps fans updated with photographs of some of their special moments. Various Bollywood stars, including Aamir Khan, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Deepika Padukone and Anupam Kher have met Rishi in New York. Just last month, Rishi's brother Randhir Kapoor said the 66-year-old actor will be back in India in a few months, amid reports that he is now "cancer free". --IANS sim/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A new report on black money would be submitted in July and the next government will have action points ready for curbing the menace. Declining to share the details of the report, Vice Chairman of SIT on black money Justice Arijit Pasayat said that all the required measures have been put in the report. "The seventh report will come in the first week of July. We have put out everything in our report. This will be the seventh report on black money. All the earlier reports had been submitted to the Supreme Court," Justice Pasayat told IANS. The issue of black money was the major political plank of the ruling BJP in 2014 general election. After coming to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in black money case to be headed by former Supreme Court judge M.B. Shah. It was the first meeting of Union Cabinet chaired by Modi. In case the Modi government returns after May 23, it will have suggestions on the table for fighting black money. Not many recommendations of the Supreme Court-monitored panel have been implemented by the Modi government, but with more details available in the new report, a fresh action plan could be expected. As part of its crackdown on black money, the Modi government demonetised high value notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 besides an amnesty scheme for illicit money stashed abroad and within country. Its outcome has, however, been debated with many economists and policy-makers doubting the effectiveness. Policy-makers have often compared the outcome of various black money measures by the Modi government with that of Indonesia which saw tax-dodgers declaring assets worth over $350 billion. Compared to this, under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS)-2016, a total of Rs 65,250 crore had been disclosed by Indians. Prior to this, the foreign black money window had brought Rs 2,428 crore into the tax kitty. The Modi government has, however, taken various other measures to check black money generation. Key among them are restricting cash holding limit and plugging loopholes in tax laws. --IANS nk/sn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday accused Trinamool Congress "goons" of vandalising the statue of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during his roadshow in Kolkata the previous day. Addressing the media at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters, Shah said: "Six phases of the elections have been completed throughout the country but incidents of violence are happening only in West Bengal. "(Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee is alleging that the BJP is spreading violence in the state. She is contesting on only 42 seat but the BJP is contesting across the country. No incident of violence have been reported from anywhere except Bengal. This means Trinamool is responsible for the violence." He said three attacks took place during his roadshow but the state police remained mere spectators. He also accused Banerjee of conspiring to vandalise Vidyasagar's statue in an effort gain sympathy. "The gate of the college was closed and the BJP workers were outside. Trinamool goons were pelting stones from inside. This was a conspiracy and drama by Mamata Banerjee to gain sympathy. Vandalising a statue for vote bank makes it clear that the Trinamool Congress is losing badly in this election. "All these proves that Trinamool Congress goons vandalised the statue," he said. Shah also claimed that he survived on Tuesday because of the CRPF's presence in Kolkata. "It would have been difficult for me to come out unharmed if the CRPF was not there," he said showing photographs. --IANS bns/ksk/pg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Sri Lankan Army has launched an investigation after a man in uniform was seen in a footage watching rioters attacking Muslim-owned shops, homes and mosques during communal clashes earlier this week in the wake of the Easter suicide bombings. The Army headquarters said that its attention was drawn to a video showing the man dressed in a uniform similar to that worn by the Army, watching as a group attacked property in Thummodara area of the North-Western Province, the Colombo Gazette reported on Wednesday. The Army said the investigation was launched to identify the man and verify if he was a soldier. Authorities said that if the man was confirmed to be a soldier then disciplinary action will be taken against him. Sri Lanka has been on the edge since the April 21 attacks which killed over 250 people and injured hundreds. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Sri Lanka military on Wednesday said the situation in the country was now "totally under control" following anti-Muslim violence earlier this week in several areas that left one person dead and dozens of shops and mosques destroyed. A military official told Xinhua news agency that security still remained heightened in the North-Western Province and Gampaha district on the outskirts of Colombo which were affected by the unrest on Monday, but there were no incidents of violence on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, a curfew was re-imposed in the North Western Province and Gampaha district till 4 a.m. Thursday while the nationwide curfew that was in force since Monday night was lifted on Wednesday morning, the Daily Mirror reported. The police said that 78 people were arrested and remanded in connection with violence in the North-Western Province during which a Muslim man was stabbed to death while over 500 rioters torched Muslim-owned shops, homes and vandalized mosques on Monday. These people were arrested from Kurunegala, Kuliyapitiya, Nikaweratiya and Chilaw areas. The Army also sought public assistance to identify some of the perpetrators involved in the violence. Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, meanwhile, on Wednesday urged all members of political parties to maintain law and order and not to aggravate the already sensitive situation. "The responsibility of protecting all citizens and maintaining law and order by us as leaders is the need of the hour," he tweeted. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also asked the Ministers not to comment on the investigations being conducted on the Easter attacks. "What we require now is not to reveal everything related to the investigations to the media and try scoring points but ensure the investigations are completed swiftly." The government has assured the safety of all communities and warned of stern action against anyone spreading hate. Tensions have been running high in Sri Lanka since the Easter Sunday suicide bombings on three churches, three luxury hotels and two other locations, killing over 250 people and injuring hundreds. The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka has no requirement to bring in the US Army or armies of other countries in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said. His comments came as the country witnessed a spate of attacks on Muslim-owned homes and shops as well as mosques following the April 21 killings by Islamist militants on three churches, three luxury hotels and two other locations which claimed over 250 lives. The carnage was blamed by the Sri Lankan government on local Islamist group National Thowheed Jamath which is believed to have ties with the Islamic State (IS) terror group. The IS claimed the attacks. "We have no need to bring in the armies of the US or any other country. However, when taking measures against an international terror outfit, US intelligence agencies have vast experience and so do intelligence agencies of England, Europe and Australia," Samaraweera was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror on Wednesday. He said only the intelligence expertise of foreign countries was sought to contain the terror situation in the country. The Minister also claimed that security had been restored in the country. "If we love the country, we should allow students to go to schools and get back to our day to day life to restore normalcy. Not only Sri Lanka, even developed countries such as the US, the UK, New Zealand, France and Germany have faced international terror threats." Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Air Force spokesman Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne said that helicopters would be deployed day and night to assist in controlling illegal assemblies and acts of violence in the country. "We have already taken measures to obtain aerial photographic evidence of those involved in such (violent) activities and to direct such evidence for legal action against lawbreakers," he said, adding that helicopters would also be used to airlift troops for rapid response. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Calling BJP President Amit Shah a "liar and cheater", the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday accused the BJP of vandalizing Bengali polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue during clashes at his roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday. "BJP people indulged in the violence during Amit Shah's roadshow. Roadshow is just a roadshow, you are not supposed to paste posters on government buildings and other places," TMC MP Derek O'Brien told the media here. O'Brien showed two videos in which people were seen vandalizing public property. The TMC leader claimed he had 44 more such videos which he said can prove that "BJP goons" were involved in the violence in Kolkata. "These videos establish that the BJP President is a liar and cheater." Another TMC leader, Manish Gupta, accused the BJP of bringing "goons" and keeping them in hotels to indulge in violence. O'Brien also accused the central forces of helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal. "The Central forces are in league with the BJP in Bengal. They are in alliance with the BJP." O'Brien said he along with a TMC delegation will meet the Election Commission and lodge a complaint regarding the violence, and also hand over the videos which he said were "authentic proof" against the BJP. --IANS rak/mr/pg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump dismissed a New York Times report about US top security officials reviewing a plan to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter Iran. "I think it's fake news, okay? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Xinhua quoted Trump as saying to reporters at the White House. "Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," he added. The New York Times reported on Monday that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had presented an updated military plan to the Trump administration's senior security officials which envisions sending up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons. The updated plan, which does not call for a land invasion of Iran, was ordered by hardliners led by National Security Adviser John Bolton, reported the paper, citing anonymous sources. Over the recent weeks, Washington has ratcheted up pressure against Tehran with a series of sanctions, designations and military threats, following Washington's year-long campaign against Iran after US exit from the landmark Iran nuclear deal in May last year. In response, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday Tehran's withdrawal from complying with the restrictions of the Iran nuclear deal on the country's enriched uranium reserves and heavy water supplies. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator on Wednesday urged Myanmar authorities to guarantee access for humanitarian assistance and to find solutions for the 270,000 people displaced due to conflicts in their regions. Ursula Mueller emphasized the rights of those displaced to return voluntarily to their homes, "in safety and in dignity, or resettle to another place of their choosing", in a statement on Twitter released after she concluded a six-day visit to Myanmar. The mission included a visit to Rakhine state in western Myanmar, where some 700,000 people need humanitarian assistance, including 128,000 of the Rohingya and Kaman minorities living in camps since 2012 after sectarian violence broke out with the Buddhist-majority Rakhine inhabitants, Efe news reported. The UN envoy said that "we must do more together to address the root causes of displacement and vulnerability" of the Rohingya, a minority community whose citizenship the Myanmar authorities do not recognize. "It is critical that the strategy be implemented in a way that addresses the root causes of displacement. The closure of camps must be linked to improvements in freedom of movement and access to services and job opportunities," Muller said. "Muslim people living outside of camps, whose freedom of movement and ability to access health and education is severely restricted, are facing extremely difficult circumstances," she added. Myanmar's military offensive in Rakhine, which was condemned worldwide for its human rights abuses, was described as "ethnic cleansing" by the UN and led to the exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh. Mueller also expressed concerns over the rise in violence between the Arakan Army -- a guerrilla group of the minority Rakhine -- and the Myanmar Army which has led to over 30,000 people being displaced in the last six months. She praised the humanitarian assistance operations by local and international organizations to assist more than 200,000 people. During her visit, Mueller met Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye and de facto leader of the government Aung San Suu Kyi with whom she said she exchanged views to improve the cooperation of aid for those who need it most. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Taliban's chief negotiator has claimed that the US is on the verge of defeat and will quit Afghanistan soon "either of their own accord or they will be forced out", the media reported. The remarks were made by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai in an April 28 speech to an "internal gathering" in Doha, Qatar, just two days before he led his team of insurgent negotiators into fresh talks with US interlocutors, the Voice of America news outlet reported on Tuesday. Pro-Taliban social media outlets last Friday released video of Stanekzai's speech, one day after US special envoy on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and his team wrapped up the week-long negotiations with Taliban representatives in the Qatari capital. In the speech, Stanekzai praised what he called the "bravery of the Afghan nation" for defeating past British and Soviet invasions of their country and resisting the current foreign military presence, referring to the US-led coalition, which is training and advising pro-government forces in battles against the terror group. "God has helped us defeat three super powers in the last century. The third super power that we are currently confronted with is also on the verge of defeat, inshallah (God willing). You will soon hear they also will withdraw (from Afghanistan) either of their own accord or they will be forced out," he said. The Taliban chief negotiator also criticized Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and compared him as well as other pro-government leaders with those who had supported Moscow during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Last week, former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that the Taliban might retake control of the country if American troops were pulled out of Afghanistan. After wrapping up the sixth round of talks with the Taliban last week, US special envoy Khalilzad had said they made "steady but slow progress". --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US State Department on Wednesday ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees from Iraq amid increasing tensions with Iran and warned American citizens not to travel to the country, citing a "high risk for violence and kidnapping". The announcement comes on the heels of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's unannounced trip to Iraq where he said he spoke to officials about the country's ability to protect Americans. The action also represents the latest manoeuvering by the Donald Trump administration in the Middle East, where the Pentagon has positioned a carrier strike group and a bomber task force, CNN reported. The department said in a statement that employees working in the US Embassy in Baghdad and the US Consulate in Erbil were instructed to leave Iraq and that "normal visa services will be temporarily suspended at both posts". According to the statement, American Citizens Services employees who were working in the Embassy in Baghdad "will continue to provide consular services to US citizens in Basra". The department said the sudden changes came due to the US government's "ability to provide routine and emergency services to US citizens in Iraq is extremely limited" and that as a result, the threat of "terrorism, kidnapping and armed conflict" aimed at Americans in the country was too great a risk. It added that Americans "should not travel through Iraq to Syria to engage in armed conflict" as they may face similar threats there and face "legal risks" from both Washington and Damascus. The orders from the State Department come a day after US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said that the Pentagon has increased the threat risk for US troops in Iraq and Syria. There is a tense situation in the Middle East after President Trump decided not to re-issue the sanctions waivers for major importers to continue buying Iran's oil when they expired in early May. --IANS soni/vd (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Stubble burning creates a huge environmental problem and farmers of Punjab are aware of it but still resort to this practice, saying their is no viable alternative available. Now, an innovative experiment aimed at creating a new market for rice straw by converting this waste material as an energy feeder in boilers may turn out be a real game changer for the state's farmers, offering them a new economic outlet while at the same time conserving the Worldwide Fund for Nature India (WWF India) is working closely with a major Ludhiana manufacturer and supplier of Swedish multinational IKEA to use rice straw as an energy feeder in boilers. The company currently uses pellets made of groundnut shell and wood chips for feeding in boilers. However, supply of groundnut shells is erratic and expensive while wood chips are voluminous and come with high moisture levels. Rice straw, on the other hand, is abundant and plenty but needs to be densified, states Baljeet Gill, Procurement Head of Jawandsons, which supplies textiles to IKEA. "We have undertaken testing of rice straw samples provided by WWF India and found that the calorific value of the straw almost matches with the other two raw materials," he pointed out. "We are working with a boiler manufacturing company to test the techno-commercial feasibility of using rice straw in boilers and, if successful, it will open up an income generating source for Punjab's farmers," he added. Resham Singh of Mehma Sarkari village near Bhatinda is one of the first farmers to benefit from this new initiative. "With the help of a baler, I made about 200 bales of paddy straw for which I received almost Rs 4,000," he disclosed. Similarly, Ishwar Chand of Mandali village in Mansa district has been able to dispose of his rice straw satisfactorily without polluting the "We are ready to sell our paddy straw for very little amount and this year I am very happy that WWF India has facilitated the purchase of my paddy straw for Rs 4,000." In a bid to check stubble burning, the Punjab government recently announced an 80 per cent subsidy on the purchase of happy seeders. These are tractor-mounted machines that cut straw, sow wheat and deposit the straw over the sown area as mulch. There is no need to clean the field or burn stubble after using the combine machine, but it has few takers. However, most of the cooperative societies don't have funds to buy the machines even after the huge subsidy, Jasbir Singh pointed out. "Farmers cannot afford such costly equipment. Another problem is that many of us do not have balers so it is difficult to clear our fields. Hiring of labour to clear the fields is another added cost." Many farmers are also skeptical about the happy seeder as they feel the new crops will not grow properly unless paddy straw is completely cleared from the fields. "The window for sowing has been reduced by the state government and we need more time to prepare the land for wheat cultivation. Thus, we have no option but to burn the stubble," said Shamsher Singh, also of Harraipur village. Kanwaljit of Tata Trusts, WWF India's partner in the project, dismissed such arguments. "The farmers must change their mindsets. The state government gave the directive for delayed sowing because of water shortage and paddy requires a lot of water," he explains. "The delay has been called to coincide with the rains so that groundwater is not unnecessarily wasted." Under the project, the rice straw pellets are being sold to a boiler manufacturing company, A2P (Agri to Power), situated on the outskirts of Ludhiana. Co-founder Sukhmeet Singh says they are working with farmers at three levels - during pre-harvest for straw collection by mapping fields with the dates of harvest; during harvest for buying baled straw and storing them in stockyards; and post-harvest for manufacturing and sale of pellets for energy generation. Jawandsons was approached by WWF India through IKEA (a WWF partner). The pellets are produced by A2P and were first tested at Jawandsons lab. The pellets are now being used at Jawandson's factory for energy generation. The WWF India-Jawandsons-A2P initiative is showing promising results, claimed Sumit Roy, Associate Director of WWF's Sustainable Agriculture Programme (SAP) division. "There are almost 5,000 small to large textile and home furnishing industries in Punjab. The results of the pilot project can be communicated as an immediate step for these industries to adopt such responsible and cost-efficient practices," he stated. India produces 500-550 million tonnes of crop residue every year, with Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh being the highest producers. (Nitin Jugran Bahuguna is a senior freelance journalist. She can be contacted at nitinjug2002@yahoo.com) --IANS nitin/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's re-election bid was likely to have hinged on subjects he has tried to showcase during his tenure -- ease of doing business, cutting red tape and the big heave-ho that was delivered to the Indian economy. The term used to describe him early into his prime ministership was "Disruptor". Nationalism was meant to be the muscular padding that kept the vote bank safe. But, General Election 2019 will be known for the virulent abuse-fest that it has become. Each epithet appears to get a momentum all on its own. On May 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at Congress President Rahul Gandhi's father Rajiv Gandhi and said the former PM's life ended as "corrupt no 1". "Your father was termed 'Mr Clean' by his courtiers, but his life ended as 'Bhrashtachari No 1' (corrupt number 1)," he said. That remark drew the battlelines, with forces arraigned on either side -- those who felt insulting a former Prime Minister who had been assassinated was reprehensible and others who felt that being assassinated or martyred did not mean Rajiv Gandhi could not be criticised for his record in government. For the record, the Prime Minister has raised the matter again. Modi is no stranger to personal attacks on him and this election has been no different. As he accused the Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati of shedding crocodile tears over the Alwar rape case, the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister countered it by asking, "How can he respect others' sisters and wives when he has left his own wife for political gains? It is my special appeal to women of this country not to vote a person like this. PM Modi, in this election, kept changing his caste according to the situation." Mayawati continued: "In BJP, married women leaders get scared when they see their husbands around PM Modi. They fear that this Modi will separate them from their husbands," she said at the press conference in Lucknow. That very day, the BJP and the Trinamool Congress traded insults in West Bengal. At an election rally, BJP President Amit Shah said about Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, "We will restore the glory of Bengal. Mamata Banerjee has turned 'sonar' (golden) Bangla into 'kangal' (pauper) Bangla. She is only interested in protecting infiltrators to secure her vote bank. But her vote bank won't be able to save her from imminent defeat." Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien retaliated with the words "puke-worthy" and low life in a tweet, "That puke-worthy Shah had the audacity to use the term 'Kangal Bangla' today at a rally. The people of Bengal will give him and Modi a fitting reply in Phase 7. That #LowLife insults Bengal." BJP members say that Congress should be blamed for lowering the discourse. They point in this connection to the 'Chowkidar chor hai' slogan coined by Rahul Gandhi. The sharp personal attack on Rajiv Gandhi, political observers believe, has been triggered by this very remark. The Prime Minister and BJP members have consistently targeted the former Prime Minister on corruption and for allegedly using the INS Viraat to host friends on a holiday trip. For their part, some indefatigable Modi baiters in the Congress have shown no signs of backing down. One of them is the former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar who justified the offensive 'Neech Aadmi' remark against the Prime Minister -- he was suspended by the Congress for two years following that remark -- in two opinion pieces. That was preceded by Sam Pitroda's "Hua to hua" remark on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In response, head of BJP's IT cell Amit Malviya tweeted: "Upset that Sam Pitroda was getting all the attention, the irrepressible Mani Shankar Aiyar pulls Pitroda's foot out of his mouth and puts it in his..." -- IANS am/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the West Bengal government over the delay in the release of BJP Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma from jail despite its order for her "immediate release". On Tuesday, the apex court granted bail to Sharma, who was arrested on May 10 for a meme on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, adding that she should apologize in writing upon her release for posting the morphed picture of the Trinamool Congress supremo. Sharma's counsel and senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul informed the court on Wednesday that she was not freed on Tuesday as jail authorities wanted certified copies of the court's order. He said Sharma was finally released at 9.40 a.m. on Wednesday. A vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna still wanted to know why Sharma was not released immediately after the apex court's order. The bench told the government counsel that if Sharma had not been released, the court would have issued contempt. The top court observed that the arrest was prime facie arbitrary. Kaul also informed the bench that the police had prepared a closure report in the matter but it did not bring it on record during the court the proceedings on Tuesday. The court said it will take up the apology issue in July. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader was accused of sharing on social media a photo of Banerjee photoshopped on a picture of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra from last week's MET Gala event in New York City. --IANS ss/ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The victims of the latest WhatsApp spyware attack may have lost important personal information including location data and email content, say experts. A bug in the Facebook-owned messaging app's audio call feature allowed hackers to install spyware onto Android and iOS phones just by calling the target. The spyware was reportedly developed by the Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group. "The bug can be exploited based on a decades-old type of vulnerability - a buffer overflow," Carl Leonard, Principle Security Analyst at cybersecurity company Forcepoint, said in a statement on Wednesday. "While no details of the actions taken by this malware have emerged, one could assume that an attacker may seek out bulk contact lists, email data, location data or other personal information," Leonard said. WhatsApp has not yet shared much details on the nature of the attack and its implications, but it said it had provided information to the US law enforcement to help them conduct an investigation. "We are early in our investigation and we don't have numbers to share though this is a relatively small amount of people," said WhatsApp, while urging its 1.5 billion users to update the app. The company did not immediately share how the attack impacted users in India. "Unbeknownst to the victims, the attackers obtained complete access to everything on the their mobile devices: personal and corporate information, email, contacts, camera, microphone, and the individual's location," Brian Gleeson, Mobile Product Marketing Manager at Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. WhatsApp, however, said that earlier this month, it identified and "promptly" fixed the vulnerability that could enable an attacker to insert and execute code on mobile devices. The spyware developed by the NSO Group had the capability to attack both Android and iOS devices. In fact, according to a report in the Financial Times, the secretive Israeli company called in its sales people last month to talk about its software that can even breach the privacy of iPhone users. The executives from the NSO Group made a claim that it had figured out a way to "drop its payload", a piece of software called Pegasus that can penetrate the darkest secrets of any iPhone, using just one simple missed call on WhatsApp, said the report citing one unnamed person at the meeting. The phone starts revealing its encrypted content shortly after the missed call. "It then transmits back the most intimate details such as private messages or location, and even turns on the camera and microphone to live-stream meetings," said the report. While the software itself is not new, the WhatsApp hack was an enticing new "attack vector", the person was quoted as saying. "The WhatsApp hack illustrates that despite their best efforts, Apple and Google cannot completely secure the users of mobile devices running their operating systems," Gleeson of Check Point said. "In order to ensure users are properly protected, a mobile threat defence solution must be in place that can prevent spyware from gathering intelligence on their targets," he added. --IANS gb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) What makes him so uncomfortable about this grouping, which he assumes is homogenous and uniformly opposed to him? The interview in The Indian Express suggests that he thinks all habitues of Khan Market are upscale, liberal westernised elites who disdain him and his brand of politics. Since most of the people who visit an area that figures among the worlds 25 most expensive retail real estate are busy shopping for upscale ... 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 In my view, we should link voting with Aadhaar where all eligible voters can cast their vote online on some portal after authenticating their biometrics with Aadhaar database with the government of India. I know that in the current atmosphere of Aadhaar-bashing, many people are going to frown at this idea but still I see the merit in proposing this for open debate to improve voter turnout in all elections in India. Apart from being cost effective and easy, this will bring many other tangible benefits to the entire electoral process. There will be huge savings for the entire economy as no EVMs ... Ten members of a mountaineering club from Pune in Maharashtra Wednesday summitted the 8,586- metre Mount Kangchenjunga, the world's third highest peak. With this, the club members have summitted seven peaks, including the world's highest Mt Everest, in the list of 14 mountains that rise above the formidable altitude of 8,000 metres. The Giripremi Kangchenjunga Eco Expedition team left Pune on March 31 and reached the Nepal-side base camp of the peak on April 15. The main peak is close to the Indian border with Nepal. "They reached Camp 4, the summit camp, Tuesday evening. After a bit of rest, they set out for the summit and reached the top at 5.30 am on Wednesday," the club's vice president, Chandan Chavan, told PTI. There were other climbers, including five Indians and few foreigners, who were at Camp 4 to attempt the summit, Chavan said, adding most of them would also have reached the top. This is the first ascent of the peak this season, and the maiden summit in two years. A team of six high altitude sherpas, the lifelines of mountaineers who assist in such climbs, laid the fixed rope to "open the route" on Tuesday, which was used by the climbers, he said. Earlier, a team of mountaineers from the state attempted the peak in 1988 and even crossed the 8,000-metre level. Hrishikesh Yadav, a climbing member of the 1988 team who went on to lead India's first successful civilian climb of the Mt Everest in 1998, congratulated those who reached the Mt Kangchenjunga peak on Wednesday. "The final portion is very technical with rocky patches and a real challenge for mountaineers. This peak is definitely more difficult than the Everest," he said, adding that it is also a long climb from the summit camp. Giripremi's achievement under its leader Umesh Zirpe will help in popularising mountaineering in India and should also hopefully take people to other peaks beyond the glamour of Mt Everest, he added. The Kangchenjunga summiteers from Giripremi are Ashish Mane, Rupesh Khopde, Bhushan Harshe, Anand Mali, Prasad Joshi, Krishna Dhokle, Sumit Mandle, Vivek Shivde, Kiran Salastekar and Jitendra Gaware, Chavan said. The club earlier ran a successful crowd-funding campaign to raise Rs 2.25 crore required for the expedition. It built it up as an environment-friendly expedition and also planned a clean-up along the climbing route and some of the 120-odd glaciers in the vicinity. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 23 people have died in storms and lightning strikes in the past few weeks in Assam, the ASDMA has said. The two natural disasters have also affected around 22,801 families in 18 districts of the state in the current year, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said in a statement on Tuesday. The worst-hit districts are Golaghat, Sivasagar, Dhubri, Sontipur and Cachar. While ten persons died in the storms, 13 persons have died after being struck by lightning, the ASDMA said. The state government has directed all the deputy commissioners (DCs) to release ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh to the next of kin of each of the deceased persons within 48 hours. The DCs of the storm-affected districts have also been directed to take immediate steps for assessing the loss of property. This has to be done for the expeditious release of the rehabilitation grant for the fully or severely damaged houses as per the Government of India norms. The norms stipulate that rehabilitation grant should be released for pucca or kutcha houses at the rate of Rs 95,100 in the plains and Rs 1,01,900 in the hilly areas. For each of the partially damaged pucca houses the rehabilitation grant should be released at the rate of Rs 5,200, while for each of the partially damaged kutcha houses it should be at the rate of Rs 3,200. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three directors of a Mumbai-based firm manufacturing surgical instruments have been booked for allegedly cheating an insurance company and a bank in Thane district of Maharashtra, police said Wednesday. According to a complaint filed by the New India Assurance Company Limited, it made a payment on July 31 last year of Rs 34,11,205 through a private bank here to the Bombay Surgical Company for a fire-related claim filed by it, a police spokesperson said. Later, the insurer, due to an oversight, again credited the same amount into the surgical company's account on August 7, 2018, she said quoting the complaint. However, the surgical company's officials, despite knowing about the double credit, allegedly did not return the amount to the insurer and thus, cheated the latter and the bank, the official said. Based on the complaint, the surgical firm's three directors - Mustanshir Gandhi, Hussain Gandhi and Asghar Gandhi - were booked on Tuesday by the Dombivali police here under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust), the official said. No arrest was made so far, she said, adding that a probe was underway into the case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four Rajasthan government officials, including two policemen, were Wednesday arrested from different parts of the state for allegedly accepting bribes, an Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) spokesman said. Girdawar Ramesh Kumar, employed with the land record wing of the district collectorate office in Banswara, was arrested while taking a bribe of Rs 800, he said. In Bhilwara, Block Development Officer Sarjeet Yadav, posted at the Sirdiyas village panchayat, was arrested for taking a bribe of Rs 2,000 to issue land allotment, he added. Head Constable Mohan Singh was arrested in Bharatpur for accepting Rs 8,000 to remove names of women in a police case, while clerk Rajesh Tiwari, posted at the accounts section of the Jaipur police commissionerate, was arrested for accepting a bribe of Rs 8,000 in lieu of releasing special duty allowance. All accused were booked under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and further investigation is on, the ACB official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A total of 60.23 per cent of the 3,36,203 students passed the matriculation (class 10) examination the results of which were declared on Wednesday by the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA). Meghashree Borah of Sankardev Shishu Bidya Niketan in Lakhimpur topped the examination with 594 marks out of 600, which is 99 per cent. Chinmoy Hazarika (Don Bosco High School, Baghchung, Jorhat) and Pratyasha Medhi (St Mary's HS School, Guwahati) came second with 593 marks, while Afreen Ahmed (Christjyoti School, Nagaon) and Anushree Bhuyan (St Mary's HS School, Guwahati) stood third with 591 marks, SEBA said. The pass percentage of boys was 62.65 while that of girls was 57.95 per cent. A total of 1,02,713 boys out of 1,63,945 passed, while the number for girls were 1,05,105 out of 1,81,385 across the state, the results gazette said. The number of students who passed in the first division was 48,599 students while those in second division and third division were 71,020 and 82,889 respectively. The pass percentage last year was 56.04 per cent. In the Assam High Madrassa (AHM) examinations, the total pass percentage is 58.18 out of the 9,127 students who appeared, SEBA said. In the AHM examination, the top position was secured by Selim Ahmed of Rakhaldubi High Madrassa in Goalpara scoring 93.5 per cent, which is 561 out of 600. Abdul Aziz (Pipirakuchi Anchalik High Madrassa, Darrang) came second with 553 marks and Ilias Ali (Ambari Kartimari High Madrassa, Goalpara) stood third with 547 marks A total of 600 students passed in first division, 2,102 in second division and 2,608 in third division. The state-controlled SEBA conducts both HSLC and AHM examinations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) More than a month after a 23-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district, a case has been registered against the two accused, police said on Wednesday. The action came on the directive of the senior superintendent of police following protests. According to the complaint, the woman was raped on April 8 at a village in Purkazi area by the accused, who also recorded a video of the incident to blackmail her, the police said. Police have registered a case under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the two accused on Tuesday. The woman has been sent for medical examination, Superintendent of Police (City) Satpal Antil said. The accused has not been arrested yet, the officer added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chief Minister on Wednesday invoked Ram Manohar Lohia to suggest that is set to run the country for many more years because of his focus on providing toilets and fuel for the poor. In an interview to PTI, the chief minister expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win 74 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in his state, three more than it bagged on its own in 2014. Adityanath said the socialist leader's dream has been fulfilled by Prime Minister and the will form the government with a clear majority after the 2019 elections. "Dr Lohia told Shrimati Indira Gandhi ji in Parliament that this country lives in the villages. The day every poor person in this country has a toilet in his home and his fuel requirements are met, whoever is the PM then shall rule for at least 25 years," he said. He said Lohia addressed the then prime minister around 1966 or 1967 but it is only now that his desire has come true. "I think there are a lot of people who do politics in the name of Dr Lohia but his dream has been fulfilled by PM Modi," Adityanath said. He said this election will be the first one to shatter all forecasts around caste, religion, region and vote banks. The chief minister said during Modi's term houses have been provided to 1.5 crore poor people, power connections to four crore people and free cooking gas connections to seven crore women. In these five years, 10 crore toilets were built, 12.5 crore farmers helped under the Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, 15 crore young people benefited from the Mudra Yojana and 37 crore Jan Dhan accounts opened. "These are statistics which are not based on caste, region, religion, vote bank or language. Considering the respect that the common man has today for the PM, the public is inclined towards him," the leader said. He stressed that general elections are different from bypolls as they decide who shall be the prime minister. "The will win this election in Gorakhpur, Phulpur, Amethi, Azamgarh and Badaun -- and it will be more than 74 seats in Uttar Pradesh," Adityanath said, listing the constituencies where the BJP has not done well in the recent past. "It is the first time after independence that a poor person has got a home, a power connection and a cooking gas connection," he said. Adityanath attacked rival Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav for corruption in his laptop distribution scheme when the party was in power in the state. In contrast, his own government has used technology to benefit the poor, he claimed. "Ask 'babua' of the Samajwadi Party that your laptop scheme was the root of cheating and corruption. You robbed the state, Adityanath alleged, targeting Akhilesh Yadav. Today our Digital India policy connects the common man with governance and facilities," he said. Yadav had alleged that Adityanath doesn't know how to use a laptop and that is why he is not distributing them. The chief minister said the state government has used the Digital India scheme to scrap 37 lakh fake ration cards and distribute 3.5 crore genuine ones. "Today, we have installed point of sale machines at 80,000 ration shops and linked them with Aadhaar. People are getting rations on their doorsteps and the state is saving Rs 1,200 crore annually," he said. He said the state government is paying Rs 1,860 for per quintal of wheat to farmers at procurement centres compared to Rs 800-900 per quintal earlier. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who had to move the high court after election officials refused to grant him permission for overnight halt in Jind on Friday citing the model code of conduct, has now written to the Election Commission asking if he can stay in state capital Chandigarh when it goes to polls on May 19. Stranded due to bad weather, Khattar was allowed to stay at a guest house in Jind only after the Punjab and Haryana High Court conducted a late night hearing on a plea by his aide. Haryana's Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan had said earlier that the Jind deputy commissioner, who is also the Returning Officer, had cited the model code of conduct while refusing permission to Khattar and reasoned that after the campaigning is over, ministers and MLAs cannot stay overnight in constituencies except where they are registered voters. Khattar is a registered voter in Karnal, from where he is an MLA. After the peculiar situation on Khattar's stay on Friday, his additional principal secretary has now written to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora seeking clarification on whether he can stay in Chandigarh after the campaigning ends there on Friday. The letter written on behalf of the chief minister mentioned the circumstances under which Khattar's aide had to move the high court earlier on his behalf. . The letter of the law, if taken to its extreme, would mean that the chief executive of the state cannot stay anywhere in the state for any purpose during this period (when campaign ends till polls are held) except where he is a registered voter. This becomes even more piquant in the case of Haryana where the state capital does not fall within the limits of the state jurisdiction. "Thereby, the chief minister would also have to leave his official residence in the state capital in Chandigarh on May 17 evening as elections in UT Chandigarh is due on May 19 and the chief minister is not a registered voter in Union Territory, Khattar's additional principal secretary wrote to the CEC. The chief minister would like to be advised by the Election Commission of India on the course of action that has to be followed given the circumstances as mentioned, he wrote seeking to know if Khattar can stay in Chandigarh when poll campaigning comes to a close in the UT on Friday. Chandigarh, which is the common capital of both Haryana and Punjab, goes to polls in the seventh and final phase on May 19. The chief minister, whose chopper could not take off for Chandigarh from Sirsa due to inclement weather on Friday evening, had decided to head to the state capital by road, but was stuck due to a dust storm. He then decided to make a night halt at a government guest house at Narwana in Jind, which lies in Sonepat constituency, but the Returning Officer orally informed an aide of the CM that he could not stay overnight there due to the poll code after which the court was approached. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The AISA Wednesday expressed solidarity with the teachers of DU's St Stephen's College who were issued warning letters by the administration for objecting to the inclusion of a member of institution's Supreme Council in the interview panel for selection of students. The left-wing student organisation said it was an attempt by the church to intervene in academic matters of the colleges. "AISA stands for the minority status of institutes across the country, from Jamia Milia Islamia to St Stephen's to Khalsa Colleges. However, the intervention by the religious bodies in academic processes is condemnable," it said. "AISA stands with the students and teachers of St Stephen's college resisting this move by the church," it added. Rasal Singh, a member of the varsity's Academic Council, said the statutory bodies of the college should only be involved in the admission process. "DU and its colleges won't be run by a Pope sitting in Europe. There are statutory bodies in the college that will run the college. This step by St Stephen's is a move to bring in privatisation and will be opposed," Singh said. The Supreme Council is a subset of six members of the Governing Body (Managing Committee) and comprises all members of the Church of North India. According to the college constitution, the Supreme Council of the college shall have the control of the religious and moral instruction of students of the college and of all matters affecting its religious character as a Christian college of the Church of North India. The three members -- Nandita Narain, N P Ashley and Abhishek Singh -- condemned the "illegal and unacademic decision taken by the Principal", that "could compromise the academic integrity of our admissions process" while demanding its withdrawal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn's NY Cinemas Wednesday tied up with realty firm Elan group for setting up a 5-screen multiplex in a Gurugram shopping mall which is being developed at a cost of Rs 450 crore. This is the first ever tie-up of NY Cinemas in north India. Currently, NY Cinemas has 15 operational screens across the country and has already signed 60 more. Devgn, who launched a multiplex chain under the brand name NY Cinemas, is targeting 250 screens in the next 4-5 years. Elan Group is investing Rs 450 crore to develop a luxury retail project 'Elan Epin' at Gurugram with a built-up area of 7.5 lakh sq ft. This project will house a 5 silver screen multiplex with an area of 46,000 sq ft. On the tie-up, the Bollywood star said, "By being their marquee cinema, we take a step closer towards providing a world-class cinema experience to movie lovers and promoting an inclusive environment." On expansion, Devgn said NY Cinemas intends to have presence in every parts of the country. When asked about threat to cinemas from digital media, the actor said: "Experience of cinema has not gone down globally." NY Cinemas CEO Rajeev Sharma said the company has acquired single screen cinemas and converted into multiplex at Hapur and Gazipur in Uttar Pradesh. The company would look out for such acquisitions and also tie up with developers for expansion, he added. Elan group MD Ravish Kapoor said, "We are confident that this association will not only enhance the experience of movie goers in Delhi/NCR, but also allow NY Cinemas to offer its services to much wider audience." Kapoor said this shopping mall and multiplex will become operational in 2021-22. Elan group already has a tie-up with PVR Cinema for 15 screens in its various commercial projects in Gurugram. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Wednesday attacked Narendra Modi over his nationalism narrative, wondering how could the prime minister "boast about" this when he and the BJP were "hell bent" upon "dividing the country on religious lines". "He (Modi) is raising the issue of nationalism. How could you brag about it when you are trying to divide the country on religious and caste lines and destroy its strength of secularism and diversity," Singh said while addressing a poll rally here in favour of his wife and Congress nominee from Patiala Lok Sabha seat Preneet Kaur. Targeting Modi, the chief minister said a nation cannot be run with a mindset of "nothing is possible without me". Singh asked voters to choose between Modi and the Congress in the polls, saying they have to decide who can protect the country and the future of their children. The CM accused Modi government of "fostering tensions" with Pakistan and China which could lead to serious problems for the border state of Punjab and posing a grave threat to country's safety and security. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are on an agenda to escalate tensions at the borders to divert attention of the people from their failure to implement a single promise in the past five years," he alleged. He also raised the problems of Punjab traders at Attari-Wagah border, saying goods were not going through the land route. "But they were being routed through Kandla port into Karachi," he pointed out, adding that Punjabis were suffering huge losses. He flayed the prime minister for "ruining" the economy with demonetisation and GST. Polling to all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab will be held on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As summer air fares rise on high-volume routes connecting major Indian cities with Doha, Qatar Airways Wednesday said it has asked Indian aviation authorities to permit additional flights on such routes on temporary basis. "Our contingency plan is designed to make an additional number of seats available on certain high volume routes (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore), but only a temporary basis and without formal changes to the current weekly seat capacity entitlement established under the 2009 Qatar-India bilateral aviation framework," said the airline. With Jet Airways shutting down its operations on April 17, there has been sudden reduction in the number of flights connecting Indian cities with Qatar's capital Doha. Consequently, the air fares for the peak summer season have shot up on these routes. "Qatar Airways' temporary contingency plan, which has been formally submitted to the relevant Indian authorities, aims to offer a viable travelling alternative to thousands of Indian families and children that otherwise would be left without concrete options," the airline said. The national carrier of Qatar said that without its contingency plan, Indian travellers will be forced to either choose expensive last-minute tickets or complicated and burdensome re-routings. As per the 2009 bilateral aviation framework between India and Qatar, one country's airlines can fly maximum of 24,292 passengers per week to other country. Qatar had asked the Indian government in November 2016 to more than double this weekly seat capacity entitlement. However, the Indian government refused to accede to this request. According to a senior Indian government official, major Indian airlines have repeatedly expressed their fears that their international expansion plans may get hit if Qatar's weekly seat entitlement is increased as Qatar Airways would be able to carry a lot of forward traffic to Europe, Africa and America through Doha. According to the latest numbers from the Ministry of Interior of Qatar, there are more than 7,00,000 Indian expats living in Qatar, which account for about 25 per cent of the total population. Qatar Airways said Wednesday, "The sudden reduction in the number of seats offered between Doha and various Indian cities, combined with the imminent peak in traffic demand due to summer vacation, are already putting enormous upward pressure on costs in a restricted market that is unlikely to offer new seats or re-distribute existing capacity in sufficient numbers to meet demand. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A series of tweets by Donald Trump playing up the chances of a trade deal with China provided a much-needed boost to Asian equities Wednesday but investors trod cautiously as analysts warned of more volatility to come. After more than doubling tariffs on USD 200 billion of Chinese goods last week -- sparking a retaliation from Beijing -- Trump has threatened to hit a further USD 300 billion with more levies if he does not get his way in high-stakes talks. However, in a series of tweets Tuesday the president gave markets some hope that a deal between the economic titans will eventually be struck with his counterpart Xi Jinping. "When the time is right we will make a deal with China", he wrote, adding that his "respect and friendship with President Xi is unlimited". He went on to say: "We can make a deal with China tomorrow, before their companies start leaving so as not to lose USA business" and called on the Federal Reserve to "match" whatever the Chinese central bank does to support the US economy. The remarks, while again accusing China of backsliding in the trade talks, provided some optimism and in early trade Shanghai was up 0.8 per cent while Hong Kong put on 0.6 per cent and Sydney rose 0.5 per cent. Seoul added 0.6 per cent, while Taipei, Wellington, Manila and Jakarta were also well in positive territory. Seoul was barely moved. However, Tokyo went into the break 0.8 percent lower. Both sides have said they will resume talks in Beijing but with no date yet set dealers are looking ahead to a possible meeting between Trump and Xi at the G20 in Japan at the end of June. "It's just too early to tell if this is a buy (on equity markets), on slightly oversold conditions, or if it's the start of stabilisation," Gina Martin Adams, chief equity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Bloomberg TV. "Our working thesis is that we're going to be in for a period of volatility for most of the next month as we await the G20 meeting." And OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley warned that "sentiment remains fragile and subject to the whims of trade headlines on either tickers or social media accounts". He added that while some gains could be expected "one suspects a lot of money will remain on the sidelines as we await more clarity on the trade situation". Oil prices dipped in Asian trade on Wednesday following a surprising rise in US crude stockpiles but remain propped up by tensions in the Middle East. Major producer Saudi Arabia said Tuesday a pumping facility on the Red Sea had been attacked by armed drones, an act claimed by Yemeni rebels. That came days after sabotage attacks on four ships, including two Saudi Arabian oil tankers, in the United Arab Emirates. "Trade issues will continue to cap gains in Asia, but if anything, the incidents on opposite sides of Saudi Arabia will bring home how vulnerable the flow of oil is from the Middle East," said Halley. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Enforcement Directorate moved a Delhi court Wednesday seeking to declare Aditya Talwar, son of corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar, a fugitive offender in a case related to negotiations favouring foreign private airlines and causing losses to national carrier Air India. Special Judge Anuradha Shukla Bharadwaj posted the application for hearing tomorrow. In its application, ED's special public prosecutor Nitesh Rana told the court that Aditya was not cooperating with the investigation. The court, meanwhile, cancelled the non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Aditya and directed him to appear before it on May 28. Aditya's counsel had sought cancellation of the NBW saying the ED summons had not reached Aditya's address and hence the probe agency's contention that he was not cooperating in the probe had no ground. To this, Rana submitted ED sent the summons to Aditya's last known address. Talwar was deported from the UAE last week in connection with a money laundering case and is currently in judicial custody. ED had earlier told the court through advocate A R Aditya that it needed to interrogate Talwar to get the names of officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, National Aviation Company of India Ltd and Air India, who favoured foreign airlines, including Qatar Airways, Emirates and Air Arabia. The agency had claimed entities directly or indirectly controlled by the accused received exorbitant amounts from Qatar Airways, Emirates and Air Arabia and submitted a chart totalling USD 60.54 million received by firms directly or indirectly owned by Talwar between April 23, 2008 to February 6, 2009. His alleged role in some aviation deals during the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) regime at the Centre is under the scanner as well. Talwar was booked by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in criminal cases of corruption, while the Income Tax Department charged him with tax evasion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced identical resolutions in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate that would require the to develop a list of scientific and engineering institutions affiliated with the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). The bill seeks to prohibit individuals employed or sponsored by these Chinese military institutions from receiving student or research visas to the Senators Tom Cotton, Chuck Grassley, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio have introduced the legislation in the Senate. Congressmen Mike Gallagher and Vicky Hartzler have introduced the bill in the House. The lawmakers alleged that Chinese military scientists continue to research advanced dual-use technology in the US and other western countries. According to some estimates, over the past decade, the PLA has sent over 2,500 military engineers and scientists to study abroad. At times, these scientists have not disclosed their connection to the Chinese military, they alleged. "In recent years, the PLA has sponsored thousands of scientists and engineers to conduct sensitive research abroad, including in the United States," Congressman Gallagher said. "The PLA openly admits that it leverages these efforts to support the development of new military technologies and we cannot ignore the threat this poses to our national security," he added. This is a common-sense bill that will help ensure China's military arm is not collaborating with US universities and researchers on sensitive information, said Congressman Hartzler. Many of these individuals often mask their PLA and Chinese Communist Party ties, allowing them to work at top universities without the schools' knowledge of their military affiliation. "This legislation takes an important step to protect our universities from China's efforts to exploit our free and open society," Hartzler said. The PLA is being armed with help from American colleges and tech companies. Keeping PLA scientists out of US research laboratories is a basic act of self-defence. It is stunning that this practice is not already prohibited, said Senator Cotton. "Student and research visas ought to be reserved for those foreign nationals who want to contribute to our universities and research institutions, not for our foreign adversaries and spies that wish to do us harm. has taken advantage of us for too long," said Grassley. must be vigilant in protecting the research, training, expertise and innovation that the Chinese Communist Party has been stealing and exploiting for military and industrial purposes, Senator Cruz said. "We cannot allow Chinese military institutions to obtain visas that give them a technological advantage," said Blackburn. "Permitting PLA members to access and research dual-use technologies in our universities and labs is damaging to our national security. We can no longer provide them access to the same research opportunities afforded to Americans," he added. For too long, China's communist government has been exploiting the US student visa system to spy on American universities and steal its technology. This bill will keep the Chinese military away from critical research on American college campuses and curb China's economic espionage activities in the US, said Hawley. BJP activists held a protest here Wednesday against the alleged attack on party president Amit Shah's rally in Kolkata. BJP president in Telangana K Laxman hit out at Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, alleging that democracy faced threat in her rule. "Because of the high-handedness, aggressiveness under TMC, doubts are raised whether democracy is there in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee is doing by believing in violence, for the sake of power," Laxman told reporters. Political rivals of TMC are not allowed to campaign freely in the state, he alleged. Hindus in Bengal rebelled when their sentiments were hurt and permissions were not given for Durga Puja, he claimed. Hurdles were created whenever Shah visited the state for campaign and violence erupted Tuesday, he claimed. The TMC is unable to digest the growth of BJP in the state, he alleged. Banerjee indulged in personal criticism against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he alleged. During the protest, BJP workers raised slogans like 'Save Democracy' near a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Secunderabad here. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive roadshow by Amit Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence as his convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. Furious BJP supporters retaliated and were seen exchanging blows with their TMC rivals outside the college entrance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Wednesday said the media in Himachal Pradesh should boycott the Congress to protest its leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's objectionable behaviour with reporters. "This is probably the first time that anyone has used such abusive language against the media, considered as the fourth pillar of democracy," BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told reporters here. He asked the media to boycott the Congress over the issue. Reacting to it, state Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore said he was not aware of the incident involving Aiyar. "I am unaware about any such happening. Moreover he was not on official tour to Shimla," he said. Aiyar on Tuesday pushed aside microphone, made fists and used an expletive at reporters who questioned him about his neech jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress leader lost his temper at TV reporters who met him at the Punjab government guest house here and questioned him over an article he wrote, recalling a slur he directed at Modi in 2017 which was latched onto by the BJP to target the Congress during the Gujarat polls. Hussain also hit out at Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, saying 'both Aiyar and Sidhu are fond of abusing Indian Prime Minister and applauding Pakistan Prime Minister" and claimed Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh forbade Sidhu from campaigning in the state. "Have you ever heard that star campaigner of any party is not doing electioneering in his home state. While Amarinder forbade him from campaigning, Sidhu made excuse of sore throat.' "Punjab minister and Congress star campaigner Navjot Sidhu is fond of issuing pro-Pak statements like another Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar who once said during his Pakistan visit that Pakistan's help is required to remove Modi. "That is why Amarinder has forbidden Sidhu from campaigning in Punjab as the former knows that whatever Sidhu says will benefit the BJP,'" Hussain said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union minister Nitin Gadkari Wednesday said while the BJP is concerned about resolving the people's woes, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is worried about how her son and Congress president Rahul Gandhi becomes the prime minister. He was addressing a rally at Alirajpur under Ratlam Jhabua Lok Sabha seat in Madhya Pradesh. "We are worried about how people should get power, farmers get right price for their produce, but Sonia ji is worried that how Rahul should become the prime minister," he said. "In Congress, a prime minister is born to a prime minister, a chief minister to a chief minister, an MP to an MP and an MLA is born to an MLA. There is no existence of a common woker in that party," he said. Warning Pakistan over cross-border terrorism, he said India will be forced to take a tough decision of stopping its share of water from three common rivers. Addressing a rally in Manwar under Dhar Lok Sabha seat earlier, Gadkari said although only 30 per cent of the Ganga river has been cleaned so far, it has enabled Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to undertake Ganga Yatra. He said with the Ganga clean up work carried out so far, the river water has become clean and its flow has improved. "We have built a waterway. Priyanka Gandhi travelled from Allahabad to Varanasi through this waterway. But, she commented on us. I have asked her how she could have travelled, if we did not develop it (waterway)," he asked. He said that when Indira Gandhi became the prime minister, she had promised to remove poverty and the same promise was made by Rajiv Gandhi (former PM) and the Manmohan Singh government under the leadership pf Sonia Gandhi. "But they failed to do so...Now, Rahul Gandhi has been promising to eliminate poverty. Tell me whether the Congress has kept its promise," he asked the gathering. Although BJP chief Amit Shah was earlier scheduled to address these rallies, his visit was cancelled and Gadkari was deputed in his place. Polling in Dhar and Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha seats will take place on May 19. The BJP has fielded GS Damor from Ratlam Jhabua seat against sitting Congress MP Kantilal Bhuria. In Dhar, the saffron party has fielded Chhatar Singh Darbar against Dinesh Girewal of Congress. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP's Rajasthan unit on Wednesday condemned violence at the party president Amit Shah's election rally in West Bengal and handed over a representation to Governor Kalyan Singh here against the incident. BJP and TMC supporters clashed on the streets of Kolkata on Tuesday, during a massive roadshow of Shah who had to cut short the event mid-way due to the violence. "West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is functioning like this due to her dictatorial attitude. For her, this (fight) is about forthcoming assembly polls in West Bengal, it is not about Lok Sabha elections and she has done wrong," BJP state president Madan Lal Saini said. He said people of West Bengal will give a fitting reply to the violence in the polling on May 19. Saini led the delegation comprising former BJP state president Ashok Parnami, MLA Kalicharan Saraf, Rajya Sabha MP Ramkumar Verma and others, and handed over the representation, which is addressed to the President, to the Governor. Earlier Wednesday, BJP chief Amit Shah in New Delhi blamed West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress for violence during his roadshow in Kolkata and accused the Election Commission of "double standards" for remaining a "mute spectator" to rigging and violation of the poll code in the state. He rejected TMC's allegation that BJP workers vandalised a bust of educationist and social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, claiming the regional party was behind it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Wednesday said the BJP has already crossed the majority mark after sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls and appealed to voters here to re-elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a record margin. Flagging off a motorcycle rally of women, Swaraj said the "relationship between you and Modi has become more strong...like a family in the past five years". "Today I have come as a representative of PM Modi and the NDA government to give details of the work done in various fields," she said and listed the government's performance on national security, economy and external affairs fronts. She referred to the surgical strike on terror launch pads and air strike in Balakot to highlight the government's success on national security front. "The Mumbai terror attack was the worst but the UPA government did nothing, whereas the NDA government under PM Modi's leadership retaliated with surgical strikes and air strikes soon after the Pulwama terror attack to give a strong message to Pakistan and also isolated it on international platform...," she said. Swaraj also highlighted her efforts to help Indians abroad. She laid emphasis on the success of Bharatiya Pravasi Diwas organised here. On the economic front, she said the Indian economy has become the sixth largest in the world, whereas during the UPA regime it was counted among the first five fragile economy. Referring to the late premier Rajiv Gandhi's remark that only 15 paisa of every rupee meant for welfare of downtrodden reaches them, Swaraj said the NDA government has completely ended this "commission system". She appealed to the voters to ensure Modi's victory with the highest margin in the country. Varanasi goes to poll in the seventh and last phase on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP staged a silent protest at the Jantar Mantar here on Wednesday to condemn the violence in Kolkata after the alleged attack on the party president Amit Shah's convoy. Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Vijay Goel and Harsh Vardhan wore black bands and put fingers on their lips while sitting on the podium. Some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers were also carrying placards which read: "save Bengal, save democracy". The leaders hit out at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly "throttling democracy" in the West Bengal. "Yesterday, our national president's (Shah's) rally was hit by violence, but if it wasn't for the CRPF, our party president would not have come back safe," Sitharaman told reporters. "I think the forthcoming defeat has left the CM of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, completely rattled and she has been provoking her cadre to indulge in violence." The defence minister wondered how noted reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue, which was inside the college campus in a locked room, was vandalised. She alleged that the Trinamool Congress workers, who she said were present inside the campus, were behind the attack. Sitharaman accused Banerjee of trying to shift the blame to the BJP workers, saying "total lies" were being spread. The minister alleged that democracy was under "threat" in the state and blamed the chief minister for it. She also referred to the arrest of BJP youth wing activist Priyanka Sharma for sharing a meme. Singh, meanwhile, claimed that the violence was a conspiracy to put hurdles in the BJP's "peaceful" campaign in the state. "What kind of a democracy will we allow to flourish in our country? One riddled with violence or oppression or one without oppression and violence?" Singh asked. "A democracy cannot flourish if it is not free of violence. Our party president has called on people to exercise their right through ballot boxes and ensure a peaceful democracy flourishes in the state." Vardhan urged the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the President to dismiss Banerjee's government. "They (TMC) are using their administration to indulge in hooliganism. Sometimes, she (Banerjee) doesn't allow the helicopter to hand, sometimes they remove posters and BJP workers are being murdered. No proof is needed for it," Vardhan said. "West Bengal was known as the land of scientists and intellectuals, but its name has been ruined in the world now," he added. Goel, who organised the protest, said Banerjee wanted to "throttle democracy" and was "scared of the popularity" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The BJP will fight against this. She is backed by those elements who were backing the communists earlier. The more she does this, the more support BJP will get from the people. We will fight this oppression," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP's Jammu and Kashmir unit staged a protest here on Wednesday against the alleged attack on party president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, terming the incident as "an onslaught on democracy". Led by BJP leader Ashok Kaul, scores of party workers assembled near the statue of Maharaja Hari Singh at Tawi bridge in the heart of the city and staged a "silent sit-in" protest. The protesters were carrying placards and banners against the Trinamool Congress government in the state led by Mamata Banerjee. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during Shah's roadshow. The BJP chief escaped unhurt, but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. Party leader Yudhvir Sethi alleged that there was "total lawlessness" in West Bengal. "Sensing defeat in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections... the opposition is hell bent to let the nation burn, so that they can rule according to their own whims and fancies making their riches grow every other day," the BJP leader said. BJP leader Narinder Singh said, "Mamata Banerjee is frustrated by the BJP's growing base in the region, which forms the basis of her panicked and ugly political moves. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NCP chief Sharad Pawar has predicted a 13-day Vajpayee regime-like fate for the BJP if it tries to form the next government after the Lok Sabha poll results are announced on May 23. Pawar also said he does not think the BJP will be able to prove majority in Lok Sabha even if invited to form the new government. Speaking to a Marathi TV channel, he said opposition leaders will come together in Delhi a day or two before the counting of votes and discuss giving a stable government at the Centre. The BJP had emerged as the single largest party in 1996 general polls. On May 16, 1996 Atal Bihari Vajpayee took oath as the prime minister, only to resign 13 days later after he failed to get the majority on the floor of the House. Pawar said this time around, the BJP won't be able to prove majority in the Lok Sabha even if the President invites it to form the government. "He (the President) will give them 10 days, 15 days or three weeks to prove majority inside the House. I don't think the BJP will be able to prove majority," Pawar said. "Like Atal ji had become prime minister for 13 days, we may get to see a BJP prime minister for 13 days or 15 days," Pawar said. Pawar noted that the opposition parties didn't project any prime ministerial face for the current polls and contested separately, as they did in 2004. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 15 persons, including a senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), were arrested following a raid on a dance bar in Colaba at South Mumbai early on Wednesday, police said. The raid was conducted at the Platinum Bar and Restaurant by a special team of additional commissioner of police South region, comprising local police around 12.30 am, an official said. "During the raid, police arrested nine members of the hotel management staff and six customers, which includes an officer rank of deputy municipal commissioner," he said. A businessman, a government official and some high profile persons were among those arrested, he said, adding that the female staff of the bar was let off. The action was taken under different IPC sections and the Maharashtra Hotels Establishment Act, he said. All the accused were produced before the court, which released them on bail, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British Airways Wednesday said its new A350 aircraft business class Club Suite would fly to India later this year. "Bangalore will be the first city in India, and just the fourth destination on the airline's worldwide network, to welcome its new A350 aircraft," the airline said in a release. The newly-branded Club Suite offers direct-aisle access, a door for greater privacy and luxurious flat-bed seats. "As well as a new 56-seat Club World cabin, the three-cabin A350 will feature the latest World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) cabin, with 56 seats... The World Traveller (economy) cabin offers 219 seats," the release said. PTI * * Gulf Oil Q4 net profit jumps 15% to Rs 47.57 croreHinduja group company Gulf Oil Wednesday reported 15 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 47.57 crore in three months to March over the year-ago period owing to a double digit growth in personal mobility, infrastructure and industrial distributors segments. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 41.36 crore in March quarter of 2017-18, a release said. The net sales grew 16.85 per cent to Rs 436.20 crore as compared with Rs 373.31 crore in January-March 2017-18, it said. For the fiscal 2018-19, net profit surged 12.12 per cent to Rs 177.78 crore as against Rs 158.56 crore in fiscal 2017-18, the release stated. The total sales during 2018-19 grew 28.04 per cent to Rs 1,705.80 crore as compared with Rs 1,332.26 crore in the year ended March 2018, it said. * * * * * Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance to settle 'Cyclone Fani' claims Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Wednesday said it has set up an expeditious process to settle death and disability claims for its customers in the cyclone Fani affected states Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. The company said it would make efforts to settle maximum claims within 72 hours of claim registration. A nominee of the deceased or the policyholder will have to submit minimum documents such as the certified list having name of life assured issued by either government hospitals or police or government authorities of the affected states where death certificate is not available, KYC of nominee along with bank details for enabling NEFT, among others to process the claim. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Theresa May's government will publish draft legislation in the first week of June that would allow Brexit to proceed if approved by parliament, a Downing Street spokesman announced on Tuesday. The statement came after talks between May and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on a possible compromise that would end a deadlock on Brexit in parliament. May met with Corbyn "to make clear our determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU". "We will therefore be bringing forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week beginning June 3," the spokesman said, referring to a draft law based on the divorce deal agreed with EU leaders. May was seeking a "stable majority in parliament that will ensure the safe passage of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill and the UK's swift exit from the EU", the spokesman said. For the past six weeks, ministers and their Labour counterparts have been discussing how parliament might accept the agreement May struck with the European Union (EU) last year. Progress has been painfully slow, and there are growing calls in May's Conservative party to abandon the process. But her ministers discussed at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday "the compromises which the government was prepared to consider" and agreed to keep talking, May's spokesman said. They also said it was "imperative" that any exit plan be approved by parliament before MPs go on their summer holiday, which normally begins at the end of July. "What she (May) is working to do is to get a deal passed as soon as possible," the spokesman said. MPs have already rejected May's Brexit deal three times. She turned to Labour last month in the hope of finding a way through, but the party is insisting on a close trading relationship with the EU that many Conservative MPs reject. A Labour party spokesperson said Corbyn had raised "concerns about the prime minister's ability to deliver on any compromise agreement". "He raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments," the spokesperson said, following statements by Conservative MPs seeking to replace May. After twice delaying Brexit, Britain is reluctantly taking part in European Parliament elections on May 23, almost three years after the referendum vote to leave the bloc. The government had hoped to get the London parliament's agreement for the divorce deal in the coming weeks so British MEPs would never have to take their seats. But the goal outlined on Tuesday, of getting the bill to ratify the treaty passed by the end of July, suggests they will have to. "The factual position is if MEPs are elected and (the British) parliament has not approved a withdrawal agreement bill which has achieved royal assent by June 30, they will take their seats," May's spokesman said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The family of the 52-year-old businessman who was stabbed to death in West Delhi's Moti Nagar after he objected to his neighbours' alleged lewd comments on his daughter met Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday. The victim's daughter, wife and father were accompanied by Union Minister Vijay Goel, rebel Aam Aadmi Party MLA Kapil Mishra and senior Janata Dal (United) leader K C Tyagi. "The family has no complaints with the police but I urged Rajnathji to ensure that the accused don't go scot-free and a watertight case is made against them," Goel said. "Four of the accused have been caught but the family is alleging that the women (of family of the accused) were also involved and should be arrested. We said their role should also be ascertained," he said. Goel said it appears that people no longer fear police. "There have been murders on Delhi roads without logic. The two families did not have any history of enmity but the businessman was stabbed to death for protesting against the accused because they passed derogatory remarks about her (deceased's daughter)," he said. "It should be reviewed that why such crimes are taking place in the city," he said, adding that the readiness for action that the police has shown in this case should be shown in other cases as well. In a letter submitted to the home minister, Tyagi urged him to ensure that the victim's dependents, who was the sole breadwinner of the family, be given a job, compensation of Rs 50 lakh and security. Mishra also held a candlelight vigil at India Gate demanding justice for the victim's family. Carrying banners which read -- "Where is the award-wapsi gang now?", "Justice for the family", protesters marched from Boat Club to India Gate. The victim's 19-year-old son, who tried to intervene, was also stabbed in the stomach by the accused. The teenager is in the ICU. A 45-year-old man and his 20-year-old son have been arrested in connection with the killing. Two other sons of the 45-year-old man, who are minors, have also been apprehended. The boys made indecent gestures and passed lewd comments on the businessman's 27-year-old daughter when they were returning home on a two-wheeler from a hospital, police had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after the violence on the streets of Kolkata during a roadshow by BJP president Amit Shah, the BJP's Chhattisgarh unit Wednesday took out a 'peace march' here to protest against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Large number of BJP leaders and workers, wearing black bands, took part in the peace rally commenced from the party's capital office 'Ekatma Parisar' and culminated at the Town Hall. The state BJP, in a memorandum to Raipur Collector, sought the Election Commission (EC) ban on all political activities of Mamata Banerjee till the ongoing Lok Sabha election gets over. "It is very unfortunate that during this festival of democracy, the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal led by Mamata Banerjee, openly attacked the road-show of BJP chief Amit Shah in Kolkata," BJP national general secretary Saroj Pandey said. "The Mamata Benerjee government has made a mockery of democracy. Police and the EC are silent there. She has tried to prove that she doesn't believe in democracy," Pandey said. In a statement, the state BJP said, "Violence and arson have marred the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal. BJP leaders are being murdered. At the behest of Mamata Banerjee the TMC goons have been influencing polls and threatening people to vote in their favour." "At a time when the biggest festival of democracy is underway and people are enthusiastically participating in it in the country, Mamata Banerjee has been murdering democracy in West Bengal," it said. After the peace rally, former chief minister and BJP vice president Raman Singh, Saroj Pandey, state general secretary (organisation) Pawan Sai and other senior state leaders handed over a memorandum to Raipur district collector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Eleven women allegedly paid to be surrogate mothers have been released on bail after agreeing to keep the babies, Cambodia's trafficking czar said Wednesday, as the poor Southeast Asian nation seeks to regulate the womb-for-hire trade. The women were charged in November with human trafficking and acting as intermediaries for surrogacy agents after they were discovered in a raid on a house in the capital Phnom Penh. They have been in custody since the raid, with some giving birth behind bars. Cambodia issued a snap ban on commercial surrogacy in 2016 after neighbouring Thailand pulled the plug on the trade the previous year -- putting an abrupt end to a thriving industry for hopeful parents, many from Australia and the US. An Australian nurse who ran a surrogacy clinic was jailed for 18 months, and quietly released last year after the term was served. But demand for commercial surrogacy remains high after China eased its one-child policy and shadow markets in Cambodia continue to offer the service. According to an agency, desperate couples -- mostly from China -- are willing to pay between $40,000 to $100,000 to surrogacy agents to find a Cambodian woman who can carry their child in her womb. The 11 women arrested in November refused to tell authorities who they were carrying the babies for, according to Chou Bun Eng, vice-president of the National Anti-Human Trafficking Committee. "They were released on bail last month after they promised not to give up their babies," she told AFP. But the charges against them stand and the women could be prosecuted at any time if "they sell the babies", she said, adding that a draft surrogacy law is still under discussion, and could see the trade formally outlawed. Rights groups have criticised authorities for coercing women to raise babies who bear no biological ties to them in order to avoid jail time. But Chou Bun Eng said Cambodian law means they must take care of the babies. "They are the mother of the children," she added. Surrogates are typically from poor communities and receive a fraction of the sum paid to agents -- typically between $10,0000 to $15,000 to carry a child to term. Sam Everingham, founder of Families Through Surrogacy, an Australian non-profit, said the case of the 11 women is "tragic", with the surrogates and intended parents being the victims. "The young infants are simply collateral damage," he told AFP. "The real felons here are the surrogacy agents and agencies who convinced naive surrogates and intended parents" to act in an environment where the practice is unlawful. In December, 32 Cambodian women paid to carry babies for Chinese clients were also released on bail after agreeing to keep the children. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) French Culture Minister Franck Riester says that a month after a fire engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral, the edifice is still being made safe enough for its restoration to begin. Riester and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wore hard hats for a visit Wednesday inside the Gothic church. Trudeau said he wanted to show Canadians' solidarity "toward our French cousins." After the devastating April 15 fire, he said, one "can't help but marvel at how so much was saved." The French culture minister said that operations to secure and conserve the cathedral must be completed before restoration works can start. He said robots, for instance, were removing gravel from inside the cathedral, to be examined both by ministry experts and police seeking clues about the fire's origin. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cate Blanchett is set to feature in Australian TV psychological drama "Stateless". According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar winner was earlier attached to make her full-fledged directorial debut with the show but will now serve as a co-creator along with Elise McCredie and Tony Ayres. Now, Jocelyn Moorhouse and Emma Freeman are directing the series. "The Handmaid's Tale" star Yvonne Strahovski is joining Blanchett in the show. The limited run, six-episode series will have an all-female writing and directing team. Based on the true story, the show follows a German Australian woman, Cornelia Rau, who in 2004 escaped a frightening cult only to be trapped in a labyrinth of psychiatric and legal systems, landing her in Australia's notorious Baxter Immigration Detention Center. Talking about "Stateless", Blanchett said, "Whilst this story centers on Australia, the dilemmas that it explores through four absorbing characters will resonate globally: the desire for personal freedom, the need for social stability, an escalating lack of faith in the political process and the deeply unsettling impact this has on individual lives." The script is penned by McCredie and Belinda Chayko. McCredie is also serving as showrunner and executive producer. Liz Watts will executive produce too. The series will also feature Jai Courtney, Asher Keddie, Fayssal Bazzi and Dominic West. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's second Moon mission that is planned for a July launch will have 13 payloads and one passive experiment from American space agency NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Wednesday. "Thirteen Indian payloads (8 on orbiter, 3 on lander and 2 on rover) and one passive experiment from NASA," said in a mission update, but did not specify them or their objective. The spacecraft with a mass of 3.8 tonnes has three modules--Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). All the modules are getting ready for launch during the window of July 9 to July 16, 2019, with an expected Moon landing on September 6, the space agency had said earlier this month. The orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, while lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of moon, and Rover (Pragyan) will conduct in-situ experiments. The orbiter and lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an integrated module and accommodated inside the GSLV MK-III launch vehicle, said. They added that the rover is housed inside the lander. After launch into earth-bound orbit by GSLV MK-III, the integrated module will reach the lunart orbit using orbiter propulsion module, and subsequently, lander will separate from the orbiter and soft land at the predetermined site close to lunar South Pole. Further, the rover will roll out for carrying out scientific experiments on the lunar surface, has said, noting that instruments are also mounted on lander and orbiter for carrying out scientific experiments. ISRO Chairman K Sivan had said in January, "We are going to land at a place where nobody else has gone-the Moon's South Pole... it is unexplored region." mission, is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission about 10 years ago. Chandrayaan-1 had 11 payloads- five from India, three from Europe, 2 from USA and 1 from Bulgaria, and the mission had the credit for discovery of water on the lunar surface. The 1.4 tonne spacecraft was launched using PSLV and the orbiter had orbited 100 km from the lunar surface. China on Wednesday objected to the French government granting asylum to the wife of former Chinese Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who is currently on trial here for alleged corruption, saying that there is no political persecution in the case. Grace Meng, who had declined to return to China after her husband was arrested last year while on a visit here, alleged his political persecution by the Chinese government. Reacting to her asylum, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, I don't have the specifics. I can say that Meng was suspected of taking bribes and is being prosecuted by the Supreme People's Procuratorate." The case is ongoing and it is a normal criminal case. No political factor in it. There is no political persecution. The wife of Meng applied for asylum in France, it is abuse of French procedures. Hope China and France will hold proper and sound cooperation and deal with this case properly, he added. Meng, 65, once a rising political star of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) held the powerful post of vice-minister of public security before being appointed as the the country's first official to head the Interpol. He was expelled from the CPC and removed as the head of Interpol for serious disciplinary violations and suspected of graft. Grace told media in France on Tuesday that she and her children have been granted political asylum by the French government. "If France hadn't protected me, I would have been killed ages ago. It's a second life for us, me and my children, Meng said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised his Sri Lankan counterpart Maithripala Sirisena full support in combating terrorism and boost the country's counter-terrorism capabilities, nearly a month after the massive Easter Sunday bombings. Expressing China's strong condemnation of the terror attacks in Sri Lanka, Xi said China is ready to stand alongside the Sri Lankan government and people. Xi met Sirisena on Tuesday as the Sri Lankan president visited Beijing to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations hosted by the Chinese president. During the meeting, Xi said China will support Sri Lanka in combating terrorism, and help the country enhance its counter-terrorism capacity building to safeguard national security and stability. China stands ready to work with Sri Lanka to constantly push forward their strategic cooperative partnership that features sincere mutual help and long-term friendship, Xi said. He called on the two sides to maintain regular high-level communication, firmly grasp the general direction of friendly cooperation, and staunchly support each other, China's official Xinhua agency reported. The two countries should steadily advance the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), promote cooperation in major projects, and accelerate livelihood projects to benefit the people of Sri Lanka, Xi said. Sri Lanka is a major beneficiary of investment projects financed by China. One such investment project was the Hambantota port, which was leased to China Merchant Port Holdings Limited for 99 years for USD 1.12 billion in 2017. The deal, critics say, is an example of Beijing's so-called 'debt diplomacy'. He also called for deepening security law enforcement cooperation and jointly addressing non-traditional security threats including terrorism. A series of coordinated bombings on Easter Sunday rocked Sri Lanka, killing over 250 people and wounding 500 others. The attacks were the deadliest on the island nation since the end of its civil war 10 years ago, and targeted three churches as well as three luxury hotels in the capital, Colombo. The Islamic State has claimed the attacks, but the Sri Lankan government has blamed local Islamist extremist group National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) for the bombings. Thanking China for its long-term support, Sirisena said Sri Lanka always regards developing relations with China as a priority, and is willing to work with China to enhance Belt and Road cooperation, and deepen development and security cooperation. An agreement was also signed promoting more closer cooperation in the defence sector of the two nations during the meeting, Sri Lanka's Daily reported. The Chinese government has agreed to provide a financial grant of Rs 2.6 billion for the activities of security forces during the emergency situation in the country, First website reported. The Sri Lankan Presidential media division said that the Chinese President agreed to provide 100 Jeeps worth Rs 1.5 billion to the Sri Lankan Police department immediately. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Trade body Confederation of Indian Industry would focus on enhancing industry's competency and employment generation under its seven point charter for the southern region this year, its Southern Region Chairman Sanjay Jayarathnavelu said Wednesday. The seven points would be -- policy and regulatory excellence, enhancing industry's core competitiveness, employment generation, strengthening the small and medium enterprises, bridging the urban-rural divide, developmental growth and active membership engagement programme, he said. CII would focus on high growth sectors like manufacturing, automobiles, information and communication technology as part of its move to enhance industry's core competitiveness, he said. Employment generation would focus on education, skills, livelihood, human resource development. According to him, CII was working towards a 'Model State Budget' in select States to encourage specific action and promote fiscal discipline. 'Under the Competitiveness of South India Inc India@75: Forging Ahead' theme, CII would focus on policy advocacy, ease of doing business, education and skill development, start-ups, micro, small and medium enterprises, among others. Thrust would be given on advisory services on Intellectual Property Rights, capacity building programmes for micro, small and medium enterprises, he said. On its move towards employment generation, he said major engagement would be "skill-gap" study in labour intensive areas and to facilitate industry centric policy in Southern States. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Attacking the Election Commission of India for curtailing the campaigning for the last phase of polls in West Bengal, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee Wednesday said it is an "unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical gift" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah by the poll panel. Banerjee, also the chief minister, said she had never seen this type of EC which is "biased and full of RSS people". "There is no such law and order problem in West Bengal that Article 324 can be clamped. It is unprecedented, unconstitutional, unfair, unethical and politically biased decision" against which the state will move the Supreme Court, she said. "Mr EC has given a gift to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah (by invoking Article 324) in West Bengal for vandalising the statue of Vidyasagar," she claimed at a press conference held at her Kalighat residence. Kolkata witnessed wide-spread violence during BJP president Amit Shah's massive road show Tuesday. A bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised during the violence. No violence had taken place during any other rally of Modi or Shah in the state earlier, she said and asked, "So where is the lawlessness?" "The ECI is taking all the decisions at the behsest of the BJP. I have never seen this type of ECI ever. I think all the RSS people have been included in the ECI. The ECI is biased," she alleged. In the first such action in India's electoral history, the EC on Wednesday invoked Article 324 of the Constitution to curtail the campaigning for the last phase of the election on May 19 in the wake of violence between BJP and Trinamool Congress workers in Kolkata on Tuesday. It ordered that campaigning in nine seats will end at 10 pm on Thursday, a day before its scheduled deadline. "I have never criticised any constitutional body but today the people of Bengal are under attack, the federal structure is under attack. The great son of this soil is under attack. There is a limit to humiliation and insult," she said. The chief minister said she and the people of the state will fight this battle boldly. "They can kill me or send me to jail but I am not afraid. I feel that the people of Bengal will give a suitable reply to you (Modi and Shah) through the ballot," she said. Banerjee also alleged that Shah was solely responsible for carrying out Tuesday's violence in the city which was a "pre-planned criminal conspiracy". "You (EC) have not taken any action against the culprits. There was no problem in any of the rallies other than that held by Amit Shah yesterday. Why was he (Shah) not showcaused? The EC is doing whatever the BJP is asking it to do," the TMC chief said. Questioning the timing of the curtailment of campaign, Banerjee said, "Why hasn't the EC stopped campaigning from this moment? Is it because Modi has two rallies scheduled for tomorrow?" She said the state government will move the Supreme Court to challenge the decision of the EC. "Of course we will go to the Supreme Court after the elections. Now, the people are supreme and we will go to the people. They know everything," she said. The poll panel also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajiv Kumar from their postings in West Bengal. Banerjee said, "What wrong has the home secretary done? He has only written a letter asking the EC to take help of the local police. Law and order is a state subject." Describing Rajiv Kumar as a good officer, she said, "Why are you (BJP) scared of Rajeev Kumar? You removed him because he is capturing hawala operators. Both the officers were removed not by the EC, but by Modi and Shah." Banerjee has been claiming in her poll rallies that the BJP brought crores of rupees through hawala to be distributed among the people to buy votes. She said till the sixth phase of the polling in West Bengal, only the central forces had opened fired and not the state police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Wednesday condemned the attack on its Rae Bareli legislator Aditi Singh, blaming it on what it called the "hired goons" of BJP in Uttar Pradesh. It sought a judicial probe to nail the criminal conspiracy behind the incident. Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the incident shows the true Modi-Shah model of governance in force in UP. He said the attack on Aditi Singh by "BJP goons" exposes the law and order situation in UP under the Yogi Adityanath government. "The Congress demands that the administration and local police take strict action against the culprits and a judicial enquiry ordered which will nail the criminal conspiracy by the BJP goons," he told reporters. "The Congress shall not be deterred by BJP's tactics of threat, violence, intimidation and criminal conspiracies against its leaders or workers. Scared of an imminent defeat at their doorstep, the Bharatiya Janata Party is using the most reprehensible modus operandi to target its political opponents. Goondaism and violence is embedded in the character of the BJP," he told a press conference. Khera claimed that BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Rae Bareli Dinesh Pratap Singh who was "staring at defeat", has unleashed a criminal conspiracy against the Congress party and alleged his brother Awadesh Singh was involved in the attack on Aditi Singh's convoy. "Ajay Singh Bisht (Yogi Adityanath) led BJP Government of Uttar Pradesh has miserably failed to provide requisite safety and security to elected members of Zila Panchayat, Rae-bareli who had given notice of no confidence motion against the Chairman of Zila Panchayat Rae-bareli, namely; Avadhesh Singh on April 15, 2019," he said. He charged that prior to scheduled date of no confidence motion, all police stations lodged FIRs against almost all elected members and started to take into custody the members, their family members and even the ladies and children to create pressure upon the members to support the Chairman. Several other Zila Panchayat members, who were on their way to "vote against" Awadesh Singh, were also stopped from entering the city, he claimed. He alleged that one of the Congress leaders has suffered serious injuries in the attack. District Magistrate of Rae-bareli had been requested several times to provide security to elected Zila Panchayat members, he said. He alleged that 15 masked assailants reportedly opened fire at the convoy of MLA Aditi Singh and it was nothing but a pre-planned attack to defer the no-confidence motion against Awadesh Singh. "When a MLA is attacked in broad daylight then you can very well imagine how safe would be the common people in the state. There is total anarchy in the state and after sensing their defeat in 2019 Lok Sabha Polls, now BJP has resorted to such cheap tricks," he charged. Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev expressed deep shock at what she termed an "organised attack" on Aditi Singh and the elected zila parishad members on May 14, while they were on their way to the District Panchayat office to attend a vote of no confidence which was scheduled to take place against the Panchayat head Awadesh Singh. "I strongly condemn this act of violence...It was no accident, it was planned and organised only to ensure that Avadesh Singh continues in power as undoubtedly he was going to be defeated at this No-Confidence motion," she said. Earlier, Congress leader K C Venugopal said, the attack on Aditi Singh is an "epitome of the lawlessness" that prevails in the state of UP. This is nothing but a blot to democracy. I condemn it in the strongest terms and demand stringent action on the perpetrators along with an inquiry on the serious security lapse. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mounting its pressure on the Gujarat government over the issue of underweight fertilizer bags of the GSFC sold to farmers, state Congress leaders called on Governor O P Kohli over the issue and demanded a judicial inquiry under sitting high court judge. While the Congress termed the sale of underweight DAP fertilizer as a "huge scam", state Agriculture minister R C Faldu claimed that farmers lost only Rs 16 lakh for purchasing fertilizer produced by the state PSU- Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals (GSFC). The Congress delegation was led by the leader of opposition in the Assembly, Paresh Dhanani, and senior party leader Arjun Modhwadia. Dhanani claimed that the government is trying to cover up the "scam", which he alleged, has been going on since the last many years. "This government is trying to cover up the scam in the name of investigation. The SFC is producing around 2 lakh bags of DAP fertilizer everyday and farmers are being given 500 grams less since the last many years. We demanded a judicial inquiry from a sitting high court judge," Dhanani said after meeting the governor. Earlier Monday, Sujit Gulati, Managing Director of GSFC had said moisture loss, coupled with a technical error in the automatic weighing machine at the company's plant were responsible for lighter DAP fertilizer bags, each weighing 50 kgs. Refuting the allegations of any misdeed, Faldu said the company has been told to pack 125 grams extra in each bags from now onwards. "Congress people see scams in each and everything. This is not a scam or theft. The total loss is of just Rs 16 lakh. The state government has already asked the company to take care in the future. We have also asked GSFC to pack 125 grams extra in each bag," said Faldu. The issue came to the fore a week back when farmers in Rajkot district had complained that 50-kg DAP fertilizer bags were lighter by around 400 grams after some of them carried out a check at the GSFC's fertilizer distribution depot in Jetpur town. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Asserting that the Congress will be losing the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday claimed that the party has fielded "two batsmen" to defend the "naamdar" (dynast). In a veiled dig at Congress leaders Mani Shankar Aiyar and Sam Pitroda, Modi said they were tasked by the party to take responsibility for its poor poll show. "One says 'hua to hua' (it happened, so what) on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, while the other one, who has been behind the curtains after abusing me during the Gujarat elections, is attacking me again," the prime minister said. While Pitroda faced the wrath of Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his remarks, Aiyar in an article raked up his controversial "neech" remark against Modi, saying his comments turned out to be prophetic. Referring to the huge gathering at the meeting, Modi said it was a "live example of what would happen on May 23". "The Congress has understood this very well. That is why it has started preparing for the results. Now you will think, when the BJP-NDA is winning, why the Congress will prepare? Its preparation is, 'uska thikra, party mein, kiske sir mein phode' (on whose head the defeat should be thrust upon)," the prime minister said. "The Congress cant say that they lost elections for 'naamdar', which will be against the principles of 'vansvad' (dynasty). It was only after the fifth phase that the two nearest 'darbaris' (courtiers) of the family started batting on their own," he added. "They don't have the courage to not take the field and play the match without asking the captain. There is an exodus in the Congress to become martyrs (take blame)." The prime minister has often targeted Gandhi, calling him "naamdar". The Congress, Modi said, has proposed to do away with the sedition law, which would embolden terrorists, naxalites and their supporters. "But the BJP will not allow that to happen. Our government attacked the terrorists in their den." Warning the tribals against "mahamilawati" (adulterated) thoughts, Modi said his government was committed to the indigenous people. "Those sitting in Delhi don't bother about the tribals. When Santhali language was introduced in the railway announcement system, all the occupants in the compartment clapped. The language could have been introduced earlier. But they had arrogance." Attacking the Congress leadership, Modi said, "What the rule by one family could not do in 55 years, the BJP-led government did in 55 months." "The country has seen development and there has not been a single taint on the government. When I say this from Babadham (temple town of Deoghar) I feel proud that the people have given me the responsibility to head an honest government." Recalling how Atal Bihari Vajpayee created Jharkhand and introduced tribal affair ministry at the Centre, Modi said he drew inspiration from the former prime minister for development works in tribal areas. With road and rail development and airport under construction, more tourists would come to Deoghar and the setting up of AIIMS in the temple town will help not only the Santhal Pargana people but also those from West Bengal and Odisha, Modi said. Two-time BJP MP Nishikant Dubey is contesting from Godda Lok Sabha seat, under which Deoghar falls, and is facing Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) candidate Pradip Yadav, who is backed by the opposition grand alliance. Godda, Dumka (ST) and Rajmahal (ST) will be voting in the last phase of the Lok Sabha polls on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court in Maharashtra's Thane has acquitted four persons of charges of dacoity at the residence of a television actor here in 2016. District and Sessions Judge S B Bahalkar in his order on Tuesday said the prosecution miserably failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the charges against the accused. According to the prosecution, on the intervening night of February 3 and 4, 2016, actor Lovey Sasan, a resident of a housing society on Mira Road area here, went to her aunt's house for a party. Her neighbours called her up in the early hours of February 4, saying her house was burgled. After the actor reached home, she found that robbers had decamped with cash and jewellery worth around Rs 4.07 lakh. The prosecution told the court that the robbers beat up the housing society's watchman when he stopped them from entering the premises and also locked doors of the neighbouring houses from the outside. The actor later lodged a complaint based on which the police registered a case against four persons under Indian Penal Code sections 395 (dacoity), 397 (robbery, or dacoity, with an attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) and 458 (house trespass). On February 27, 2016, the police arrested Sanjay Kalyan Kale (28), Ramesh Kalyan Kale (33), Suresh Vishram Kale alias Santosh Devidas Chavan (38) and Ashok Rajendra Shinde alias Raja Vishram Kale (40), for their alleged involvement in the offence. The advocates of the accused contested the case and pointed out that the identification parade of their clients was not held. They said in the CCTV footage of the housing society, the faces of the accused were covered, and also there was no recovery of the booty said to have been stolen by them, the defence argued. They prayed that the accused be given benefit of doubt and freed. After hearing both sides, the judge accepted arguments put forth by the defence counsels and acquitted the four accused. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A jawan of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was Wednesday killedin an accidental fire from his service rifle in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, an official said. The deceased was identified as head constable Arvind Kumar Pandey, who belonged to the CRPF's 150th battalion. "He died following an accidental discharge of fire from his service rifle AK 47 in the afternoon while a briefing to security personnel was in progress in Temelwada camp under Chintagufa police station area," a CRPF official said. "The bullet pierced his throat and exited through the head, in which he died on the spot," he said. Pandey hailed from Champaran district of Bihar. The mortal remains of the jawan was being taken to Raipur from Sukma, he added. A probe is being carried out into the incident, a local police official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Daniel Craig, who was injured on the sets of "Bond 25", is reportedly expected to resume shooting on the film "within the week". The new James Bond film hit another roadblock after Craig fell while sprinting on the film's sets in Jamaica last week and was flown to the US for X-rays. The shooting, which was scheduled to take place at London's legendary Pinewood Studios, was suspended till further notice. According to The Sun, the actor will be able to resume production while being careful not to aggravate the injury. Citing an unnamed source, the publication stated that Craig's injury was not as bad as initially feared. "Things were deemed to be a disaster at first. But the injury is not as severe as believed, and he will be able to film while not over-exerting his ankle. He will be back on set within the week," the source told The Sun. The new film in the Bond franchise has had a tumultuous journey. It was previously set to be directed by Danny Boyle with a release date of November 8, 2019. After Boyle dropped out of the project over "creative differences", along with frequent collaborator, screenwriter John Hodge, the film's release date was moved to February 14, 2020. Cary Joji Fukunaga is now attached as director, with Scott Z Burns hired by MGM studio to pen a new script. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have already drafted a version of the script but it is being reported that the studio is unhappy with their story. Recently, "Fleabag" creator-actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge came on board the movie to "polish" the script of Bond 25. The release of the film was recently pushed back to April 8, 2020. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Officials of Darwin Platform Group of Companies and SBI Caps Wednesday held discussions on the Group's unsolicited bid for crisis-hit Jet Airways. Darwin Platform Group, which has investments across various sectors including oil and gas, hospitality and realty, among others has offered Rs 14,000 crore to acquire the grounded airline, its CEO Rahul Ganpule said. The Group had participated in expression of interest (EoI) and also submitted its financial bid on May 8, he said. "They (SBI Caps) had called us. We wanted to understand the liability and assets of Jet Airways," Ganpule told reporters after the meeting. He said the Group had done due diligence before submitting the financial bids but wanted some more details which were not publicly available. Ganpule said there is limited information available about the airline in Registrar of Companies and other public sources, and has requested SBI Caps to provide more details about the actual liability of the airline. "The solicited bidders have been given access to the actual information but unsolicited bidders do not have," Ganpule said adding that access to data will only be given after a decision from consortium of lenders. He said the Rs 14,000-crore offer made by the Group is to take over the entire liabilities of the grounded airline. Last week, the State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders to Jet Airways said it has received bids from Etihad Airways and from a few unsolicited parties to acquire stake in the troubled airline. The bids were examined by the lenders on Monday and they reportedly found Etihad's bid conditional. The consortium of seven lenders, which owns 51 per cent in the airline, had invited EoI between April 8 and 12 and had received four preliminary bids. The last date to submit financial bids was May 10. The lenders who are offering 31.2-75 per cent stake in the airline, have mandated SBI Caps for the stake sale process. The airline ceased its operation on April 17 due to acute financial crisis. Private equity firms IndiGo Partners and TPG, Etihad Airways and the sovereign fund NIIF were shortlisted on April 12 after the first round of bidding. The airline owes more than Rs 8,000 crore to the consortium of lenders. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man allegedly found a dead lizard in a food item served at the snacks major Haldiram's outlet here, a Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) official said on Wednesday. The incident took place at the outlet located at Ajani square on Tuesday morning. The picture of the dead lizard found in 'vada sambar' went viral on the social media. "The man and a woman accompanying him, both from Wardha, had ordered vada sambar at the outlet. But while eating, the man found a dead lizard in the food. They brought this to the notice of the outlet's supervisor, who later on threw it away," assistant commissioner of FDA (Nagpur) Milind Deshpande told PTI. "They were later admitted to a private hospital and discharged on Wednesday," he adsded. The duo, however, neither spoke to media, not lodged a complaint in this regard. "The FDA was informed about it in the evening, after which we immediately visited the the Haldiram's outlet and conducted an inspection. We found certain deficiencies in its kitchen. The windows of the kitchen need to be fitted with nets, which was missing," Deshpande said. "The FDA has closed the outlet till they complete the compliance as per the Food Safety and Standards (Food business licences and Registration) regulations 2011. They have submitted a compliance report to us. We will inspect the premises and if we find the steps taken are satifsactory, only then we will allow it to reopen," he added. When contacted, a senior office-bearer of Haldiram's told PTI that they doubted the veracity of consumers' claim. "But we admitted them to nearby hospital. They were kept under observation for 24 hours and their medical reports were normal. They have been discharged today. "We have submitted a compliance report to the FDA," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi minister Rajendra Pal Gautam Wednesday made a surprise inspection of a blind school and hostel in North Delhi's Kingsway Camp area and took stock of the facilities being provided to students there, according to an official statement. According to an official, around 140 students are currently staying at the facility. "The social welfare minister took note of the cleanliness, bedding, books, clothes, lodging and other facilities provided to them. He is happy to see the results and surroundings of the premises," the statement said. Gautam inspected the kitchen and found the food is of good quality and prepared in a homely manner, it stated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after the violence during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a broadside against Mamata Banerjee Wednesday saying that democracy has turned to "goondacracy" in West Bengal. Banerjee, he alleged, had created a state of Emergency in the state and said her government is out to destroy everything in the state. Only people's conviction and courage will evict her "torturous rule", he told election rallies at Taki on the Indo-Bangla border in North 24 Parganas district and at Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district ahead of the last phase of polls. The days of the "bua-bhatija" government in the state are numbered going by the mood of the people and help BJP win the majority of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, Modi said. The prime minister was referring to Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who is considered the number two in TMC and is seeking re-election from Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat. "Everybody has the feeling that elections in the state are being held after Emergency. You (Banerjee) have created a state of emergency in the state. Your fight is against the people of West Bengal, not BJP". People will have to decide whether democracy needs to be protected in West Bengal. "Democracy has turned into goondacracy in West Bengal. But goondacracy will not work any more. TMC goons have made life hell for the people of the state," he said. The people of West Bengal have shown respect to Banerjee by making her the chief minister of the state. "But her hunger for power has throttled democracy in the state. Didi should not be kept in power", Modi said. The entire nation had seen (on TV) how the roadshow of BJP president Amit Shah was attacked by the TMC goons and is anxiously watching the outcome of the poll results in West Bengal, he said. Shah's roadshow in Kolkata was attacked Tuesday after Banerjee had asserted that TMC will take revenge against BJP, Modi claimed. "Didi's (Mamata) goons carrying guns and bombs are bent upon destruction ... Her government is out to destroy everything in the state... People's conviction and courage will evict the torturous rule," the prime minister said. "Didi is frightened by the rise of BJP in West Bengal .... In 2019, Didi will be finished. The kind of violence which she is commiting will help BJP get win the majority of the 42 parliamentary seats in the state and help it cross the 300 mark in the Lok Sabha polls", Modi said. The people of Bengal have made up their mind to end Banerjee's "despotic rule" he claimed and added that once BJP comes to power infiltrators will be identified and refugees will be given protection and made citizens, he said. The BJP manifesto has promised the introduction of the National Register of Citizens across the country. Keeping up his attack on Banerjee, Modi said "You have looted peoples' money in chit fund scams and when they sought explanations you abused them". He also held her responsible for destroying the state's culture of 'Bhadra Lok'. Modi said that Bengal is the land of the seer Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Netaji. "People will not tolerate Didi anymore. The people have made up their mind and now is the time to get rid of her....The youth are facing a challenge. Revolt is being noticed among the people". He alleged that BJP leaders are not allowed to hold rallies and its candidates are being attacked. Stating that the TMC supremo does not have faith in the country's prime minister, Modi said "She has difficulties believing in surgical strikes or air strikes. She relies more on the prime minister of Pakistan. Is this democracy ?" In a scathing attack on Abhishek Banerjee, Modi said he will lose the elections this time and once the results are announced his office would be locked. He criticised Banerjee also for sending BJP youth wing activist Priyanka Sharma to jail for morphing a picture of her on Facebook. "What happened to you Didi? I heard you are also a painter and your paintings were bought for crores (a reference to her paintings being bought by Saradha group chief Sudipta Sen). I request you to draw one nasty picture of me and come to my residence to gift it. I will preserve it in my lifetime," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This doctor-turned-scribe from Karnataka has a different hobby--contesting elections against political bigwigs. However, he is disappointed that he could contest the Lok Sabha elections against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi but not against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi where his nomination was rejected. U P Shivananda, a medicine graduate had given up his medical practice to run a local Kannada daily newspaper and highlight the ground issues in Puttur district of Dakshina Kannada. For Shivananda win or loss does not matter, contesting elections is his passion. "I just want to contribute my bit to the democratic system of the country and it is not by just casting my vote but by being in the poll fray. It is a hobby, it is a passion. Whenever I go for campaign I always tell I am not here for votes but just to send out a message," he told PTI. "I had filed my nominations from Amethi as well as Varanasi because I wanted to fight the elections against Rahul Gandhi and Modi as the Lok Sabha fight has been reduced to between two of them. While I contested the Amethi polls, my same form for nomination in Varanasi was rejected citing incomplete documents. If the same documents were enough to compete in Amethi why not Varanasi?," he added. Shivananda, who has filed a complaint before the Election Commission of India on the issue. However, this is not the first time that Sivananda has headed out to pursue his "hobby". He had contested the Assembly polls in Karnataka in 1985 where he had fought the elections from four constituencies. "I had filed my nomination from four constituencies from where the top contenders for the Chief Ministerial post were contesting then--Puttur, Baswanagudi, Karkada and Sorabha and was pitted against Ramakrishna Hegde, Veerappa Moily and Sarekoppa Bangarappa. Hegde was elected as the Chief Minister finally," he said. Sivananda had also contested 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Dakshin Kannada in Karnataka against BJP's two-time MP Nalin Kumar Kateel. "I had got over 4800 votes then. I always chose a different issue for contesting elections. This time my election agenda was 'gram swaraj' which is the real democracy and power process and structure has to be from villages to Delhi or state capital," he said. While he has not heard from Election Commission on his complaint, he is in Varanasi conducting awareness drives for voters ahead of polling day on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission on Wednesday issued directions for adding Rs 1.74 lakh to the election expenditure of Bollywood actor and BJP candidate from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat Sunny Deol after he failed to respond to its query on a Facebook page being run in his support. The order came following a complaint filed by Punjab Congress, claiming that the Facebook page, 'Fans of Sunny Deol', was being run without any prior permission of poll watchdog. Punjab's Chief Electoral Officer S Karuna Raju said the Congress had lodged a complaint to the EC on May 6 in this regard. An enquiry was conducted by nodal officer of Media Certification and Monitoring Committee Gurdaspur. A notice was also served to the admin of 'Fans of Sunny Deol' page and BJP candidate to seek their explanation. But both failed to reply within stipulated time frame, Raju said in a release. Relying on the veracity of the complaint, the committee decided to add Rs 1,74,644 to the expenditure of Deol, Raju said. Deol is pitted against sitting MP and Punjab Congress candidate Sunil Jakhar from Gurdaspur constituency. A candidate for Lok Sabha election in Punjab can spend a maximum of Rs 70 lakh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three people, including two women, have been arrested by the ED in connection with an alleged multi-crore ponzi and investment fraud scheme that duped many investors in Telangana, the agency said Wednesday. It said Nowhera Shaikh, Molly Thomas and Biju Thomas were placed under arrest under the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Tuesday in the case related to the Heera group of companies. They have been sent to 7-day Enforcement Directorate custody by a special court in Hyderabad, it said. The three were already in jail in a police case and the ED sought the court permission to take them in its custody. The case pertains to the fraudulent money circulation scheme perpetrated by the Heera group in Hyderabad and the ED filed a criminal case of money laundering in the instance based on a Telangana Police FIR and few other complaints. "Heera group is accused of fraudulently collecting investments from lakhs of innocent victims on the promise of providing very high returns of about 36 per cent by indulging in gold trading among others." "The scheme was unsustainable and the group has defaulted in the repayment of the principal amount and promised returns to its investors," the agency said in a statement. The accused, it said, fraudulently executed a money circulation scheme and multiple FIRs have been registered by aggrieved depositors across the country against Shaikh and others. The ED found that the accused persons and their group companies have collected more than Rs 3,000 crore from a total of 1,72,114 investors across India on the pretext of investments. "Deposits were also collected from victims in Hyderabad, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and other states in India and also from NRIs in UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries," it said. Investigations revealed that the group companies do not have any substantial business activity by which they can earn the promised profits or returns and Shaikh and others have diverted the collected amounts to their personal accounts through their company bank accounts/benamis for wrongful gain and amassed huge movable and immovable properties by utilising the diverted funds, the ED claimed. It charged that Shaikh operated 24 entities in the name of Heera group and operated 182 accounts in different banks in various parts of the country. "10 bank accounts were also opened in countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia," it said. Talking about the role of Biju Thomas, it said he was the MD of Suvan Technologies Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Kerala and "has developed software for the Heera group of companies and all the account details are maintained by his firm." Molly Thomas worked as the personal assistant to Shaikh. "ED is questioning the accused persons in connection with their different companies, bank accounts and multiple properties identified across the country.Further investigations are under progress," the agency said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State-owned Engineers India Ltd (EIL) Wednesday said it has signed an agreement to provide project management consultancy for a new 1.5 million tonne refinery being set up in Mongolia. The pact was signed with Mongol Refinery State Owned LLC, the company said in a statement here. The contract was signed in the presence of D Sumyaabazar, Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry of Mongolia. India had extended a USD 1 billion (about Rs 7,000 crore) line of credit to Mongolia during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. The Mongolian government is in the process to set up 1.5 million tonne per annum greenfield crude oil refinery in Sainshand province, under the line of credit extended by India. EIL had carried out a Detailed Feasibility Study for the project and was subsequently pre-qualified and shortlisted for providing project management consultancy services to Mongol Refinery for the project. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At an average of Rs 48 lakh per bond, the State Bank of India (SBI) has issued 10,494 electoral bonds in nine phases so far, worth over Rs 5,029 crore, an RTI response has revealed. SBI is the only commercial bank which has been authorised by the Centre to issue electoral bonds ever since it was envisaged last year. In a response to Mumbai-based RTI activist Manoranjan Roy's query on the total numbers of electoral bonds issued and the names of companies or individuals giving the donations, the bank said it has issued 10,494 bonds worth Rs 5,029 crore till phase nine which was completed on May 4. Bank, however, did not disclose the names of companies or individuals giving donations to political parties citing it to be "third party" information which is exempted under under Section 8(1)(E)(i) of the RTI Act. Replying to another query on how many of the electoral bonds issued have been submitted for withdrawal, it replied that (out of 10,494 issued) 10,388 bonds have been withdrawn/redeemed till the phase nine. "The value of these redeemed bonds amounts to Rs 5,011 crore," CPIO and Deputy General Manager (TB Sales & SME) Naresh Kumar Raheja further stated. Commenting on the reply, Roy said, "Augmentation of electoral bonds are nothing but a legalised route to have an unholy nexus between political parties and corporate entities and it will lead to the highest level of corruption in the country." "It can be little less destructive if this is made transparent by revealing the names of bond-seekers," the RTI activist said. Roy further suggested that corporate entities could spend this huge amount of money through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) schemes or individuals can benefit the needy and marginalized people in the society rather than donating to political parties "who spend the amount to woo voters". Notably, the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018, notified by the Centre in January last year, has been challenged in the Supreme Court. Only those political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) and which secured not less than one per cent of the votes polled in the last general election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly of the state, shall be eligible to receive the bonds. The bonds may be purchased by a person who is a citizen of India "or incorporated or established in India," the government had said in a statement last year. These remain valid for 15 days and can be encashed by an eligible political party only through a bank account with the authorized bank within that period only. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a voluntary group working in the field of electoral reforms, has demanded a stay on the sale of electoral bonds while the CPI(M) has challenged it before the Supreme Court in separate petitions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Pakistan president on Wednesday secured interim bail from the Islamabad High Court in six corruption cases that are being probed by the country's anti-corruption watchdog. The 63-year-old Pakistan People's Party (PPP) co-chairperson is named in 36 inquiries and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) claims that his role has been established in at least eight cases, according to an 11-page report submitted by the bureau to the court on Tuesday. A two-judge bench led by Justice Umar Farooq heard the cases regarding Zardari's pre-arrest bail in six different cases before granting interim bail to him and his sister Faryal Talpur. The court granted Zardari interim bail in the money laundering case until May 30. He was also granted an interim bail in inquiry pertaining to the Opal 225 property that is owned by the Zardari group until June 12 against surety bonds of Rs 500,000. He also received an interim bail in the Park Lane probe until June 12. The IHC extended Zardari's interim bail in the Tosha Khana vehicles inquiry until June 20. In an investigation pertaining to suspicious transactions, Zardari's interim bail was extended until May 21. In a probe related to Harish and Company, the court adjourned the hearing until May 30. Justice Farooq, during the hearing of the pleas, remarked that "it seems like there is a flood of bail (applications)". According to media reports, the NAB has issued arrest warrants for the former president only in the Park Lane case, while it has filed two interim cases against him. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is investigating more than 30 people in relation to money laundering from fictitious accounts, including Zardari and his sister Talpur. Several 'benami' accounts at multiple private banks were opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees were made, Geo News reported. The amount, according to FIA sources, is said to be black money gathered from various kickbacks, commissions and bribes, it said, quoting FIA sources as saying. Zardari served as the 11th President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013. India's export growth slid to a four-month low of 0.64 per cent in April as shipments of engineering goods, gems and jewellery, leather and other products declined, widening the trade deficit to a five-month high, official data released Wednesday showed. Imports increased by 4.5 per cent, the highest growth in the last six months as crude oil and gold shipments shot up in the month. Merchandise exports stood at USD 26 billion in April while imports at USD 41.4 billion, leading to a trade gap of USD 15.33 billion, the widest deficit since November 2018, the trade data showed. The country's merchandise exports were down because of the negative growth in key sectors such as engineering, gems and jewellery, leather, carpet, plastic, marine products, rice and coffee during the month under review. Previously, exports had recorded a low growth rate of 0.34 per cent in December 2018. Oil imports grew by 9.26 per cent to USD 11.38 billion and non-oil imports expanded by 2.78 per cent. Gold imports rose by 54 per cent to USD 3.97 billion in April. Certain exports sectors which recorded positive growth include petroleum, handicrafts, ready-made garments, and pharmaceuticals. Commenting on the data, Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) said that the growth figure April is "not very impressive". "However we sustained the positive momentum. Additionally, a pleasant pattern has been observed in tea, spices, fruits and vegetables which a great sign of exports supporting agri- produce," TPCI Chairman Mohit Singla said in a statement. Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said export numbers are not at all encouraging as almost all the labour-intensive sectors are into negative territory. "These sectors are still facing the problem of liquidity besides various other challenges including the global trade war, protectionism, fragile global conditions and constraints on the domestic front," he said. Gupta also expressed concerns on the rising trade deficit primarily on account of swelling crude import bill with the further northward movement of prices and ban on Iranian imports along with rising gold import. He added that with rising trade tensions between the US and China, the global trade scenario may further worsen, putting more pressure on Indian exports in months to come. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The family members of the 52-year-old businessman, who was stabbed to death allegedly by his neighbours after he objected to their lewd comments about his daughter, met Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday. The daughter, wife and father of the victim were accompanied by Union Minister Vijay Goel and rebel Aam Aadmi Party MLA Kapil Mishra as well as senior JD(U) leader KC Tyagi. The victim's 19-year-old son was also injured in the attack after he was stabbed in the stomach allegedly by the accused. He is still in the ICU. "The family has no complaints with the police but I urged Rajnathji to ensure that the accused don't go scot-free and a watertight case is made out against the accused. "Four of the accused have been caught but the family is alleging that the women were also involved and should be arrested. We said their role should also be ascertained," Goel said. Goel also said the incident sends out a strong message for the Delhi Police to remain more alert. "There have been murders on Delhi roads without logic. The two families did not have any history of enmity but the businessman was stabbed to death for protesting against the accused because they passed derogatory remarks about her," he said. In a letter submitted to the home minister, Tyagi has urged him to ensure that the dependents of the businessman, who was the sole bread-earner of the family, be given a job, a compensation of Rs 50 lakh and security. Two men -- a 20-year-old and his 45-year-old father -- has been arrested. Two other sons of the 45-year-old man, who are juveniles, were apprehended in connection with the incident. The boys made indecent gestures and passed lewd comments on the businessman's 27-year-old daughter when they were returning home on a two-wheeler from a hospital, police had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A fire broke out at dawn Wednesday aboard an Italian car transport ship loaded with 1,843 vehicles off the Mediterranean island of Majorca, Spanish maritime emergency services said. Fifteen of the 25 crew of Grimaldi Lines' Grande Europa were taken off the 183-metre vessel by helicopter before the blaze was brought under control around midday. The remainder stayed behind to tackle the blaze. "No one was hurt," a spokeswoman for the services told AFP. "We do not know the cause," of the fire which started when the ship was 25 nautical miles off Majorca, she said. It was "virtually extinguished" by 1100 GMT, the spokeswoman said, and the ship was being towed to port on Majorca. The Vessel Finder website said Grande Europa sailed from Salerno, southwestern Italy, on Tuesday evening heading for Valencia on the Spanish mainland. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Peruvian judge Tuesday sentenced former Lima mayor Susana Villaran to 18 months' preventive detention for accepting illegal campaign funds from Brazilian construction firms Odebrecht and OAS. The Odebrecht bribery scandal, which has washed through Latin America, runs deep in Peru, where the country's last four presidents are accused of receiving illegal payoffs. Villaran, Lima's mayor from 2014-2018, is accused of taking millions of dollars from Odebrecht to finance a recall referendum in 2013 -- which she won -- and from OAS for a failed re-election bid in 2014. Judge Jorge Chavez of Lima's Third Special Investigation Court for Corruption Crimes denied prosecutors' request to impose a 36-month sentence but justified a jail sentence saying there was evidence of "hindering and concealment of evidence" by Villaran. She was also a flight risk, he said. Prosecutor Angela Zuloaga told the court that Peru's former Odebrecht chief, Jorge Barata, testified that he contributed USD 3 million to Villaran, a former presidential candidate who ran in the 2006 election. "Jorge Barata said that the mayor thanked him for his contribution," the prosecutor told the court. The money from Odebrecht and OAS "was not free, but was due to two public works", she said. Villaran admitted that she received campaign contributions from Brazilian companies, in contrast to the denials of the former presidents under investigation. The former mayor also said she was ready to go to jail. "I am not one of those people who run away, who evades justice. I am one of the people who faces up to things. I have a family to which I respond with the truth by showing my face. I believe in justice. I will never evade justice," she told the court. She is accused of conspiracy, bribery and money laundering. Zuloaga, the prosecutor, said Latin America's largest engineering firm had made the contributions in return for lucrative road contracts in Lima. OAS also contributed USD 3 million to her campaign in 2014, allegedly through a Lima municipality official, Miguel Castro. The prosecution has also called for 36 months in preventive detention for him. Five other Villaran associates are under investigation in the case. The Brazilian constructor has admitted to paying millions of dollars in bribes to government officials in Peru in return for public works contracts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh's wife passed away early on Wednesday due a heart attack. Saroj Kumari, 84, passed away in her sleep and suffered cardiac arrest, doctors who checked on her in the morning told the family. Kumari was admitted at the AIIMS for six weeks and had only returned home on April 25. She will be cremated at her hometown Churhat in Madhya Pradesh, the family said. Kumari was living with her daughter, Veena Singh, in Noida for over two years. Veena Singh said Kumari's two sons were arriving in Delhi and would take the body to their hometown later in the day after embalming. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP's Uttarakhand unit Wednesday accused TMC chief Mamata Banerjee of "unleashing her goons" to attack a roadshow by his party chief Amit Shah and said the act bore testimony to her "growing frustration" in the face of impending defeat and her "dictatorial" approach. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive roadshow by Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. "Mamata Banerjee is frustrated as her party is heading for a defeat at the hands of the BJP in West Bengal. She also seems to have lost her balance seeing the growing popularity of the BJP. Out of sheer despair, the TMC boss unleashed her goons on the streets of Kolkata to attack BJP president Amit Shah's massive roadshow," Uttarakhand BJP chief Ajay Bhatt said in a statement here. Citing a threat to Shah's life in West Bengal, Bhatt said he would not have escaped unharmed if the central forces had not rescued him. "The TMC vandals hurled stones at BJP workers and indulged in arson to disrupt the BJP's historic roadshow. The situation in West Bengal is serious and shows Mamata Bannerjee's dictatorial attitude," Bhatt said. Accusing the TMC supremo of using abusive words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP national president out of frustration, he said this is a "clear indication" of the imminent fall of her government. Bhatt also rued the cancellation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's rally scheduled Wednesday in Kolkata as the administration did not allow the stage to be erected for the purpose. The BJP leader warned that people will "teach the TMC a lesson" in the Lok Sabha polls and urged the Election Commission to take stern action against the "anarchic elements" in West Bengal to ensure free, fair and peaceful polling. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hardline Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani Wednesday hailed the goodwill gesture by India and Pakistan to release prisoners from their respective jails and called for use of such measures as permanent feature of relations between the two countries. Thirteen Pakistani nationals, including four fishermen, were repatriated to Pakistan on Tuesday through the Attari-Wagah border. Last month, Pakistan released 55 Indian fishermen and five civilians as a "goodwill gesture". "The mutual well-wishing (steps) in the month of holy Ramadhan should be a permanent feature of the bilateral relations of the two countries," Geelani said in a statement. The separatist leader hoped that as important parties to the Kashmir dispute, "India and Pakistan should use these gestures to release all the prisoners belonging to Jammu and Kashmir, languishing in Indian jails". The Hurriyat leader reiterated his stand that Kashmir is "purely political and humanitarian problem" which is in dire need of an early resolution for a prosperous South Asia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) German authorities have carried out raids on eight individuals and 11 banks in an investigation of suspected tax evasion stemming from the leaked Panama Papers. agency dpa reported that Frankfurt prosecutors said Wednesday's raids in various parts of Germany also targeted the offices of four tax advisers. The wealthy individuals are suspected of setting up letter-box companies via a former subsidiary of Deutsche Bank and evading taxes. Prosecutors did not specify which banks were searched in the operation, which followed searches at Deutsche Bank in November. Deutsche Bank said the investigation was directed against private individuals, not against the company, that it is cooperating with prosecutors and wasn't a target of the current raids. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Goa government has launched a high-level inquiry into the disappearance of a woman, who had accused Congress Panaji bypoll candidate Atanasio Monserratte of rape, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Wednesday. He also said the "truth about the missing woman" would be revealed soon. A 19-year-old woman, who had accused Monserratte of raping her in 2016, when she was a minor, has gone missing from a Rehabilitation Centre in South Goa since April 28. "The government has initiated a high-level inquiry into the episode of the missing woman, and I am getting reports on a daily basis...Very soon, the truth behind the missing of the woman would be revealed," the chief minister told reporters. Monserratte is contesting the upcoming Panaji bypoll on the Congress ticket against the BJP's Siddharth Kunkolienkar and Goa Suraksha Manch's Subhash Velingkar, besides others. Sawant said the state government has launched a massive search operation to trace the woman. "The woman was not in the custody of the state government. She was referred to a rehabilitation centre on the advice of the Child Welfare Committee constituted as per the court directives," he said. He said he has asked the police department to give him daily report of its efforts to trace the woman. The Congress has blamed the state government over the disappearance of the woman. Goa-based NGO, Hope Foundation, whose one member is a witness in the case, told reporters on Wednesday that the state should provide protection to the witnesses. "The witnesses in this case should be given protection. Efforts should be made to trace the girl as soon as possible," Andrea Pereira, director of the NGO told reporters. She said the state government should question everyone, including the accused in the case to know the whereabouts of the woman. Meanwhile, the Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM) demanded the resignation of the chief minister over his government's "failure" in protecting the rape survivor. "We demand Sawant's resignation as he has failed to take any action in the case," GSM president Atmaram Gaonkar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The retirement age of CAPF personnel is set to be fixed at 60 years after the Supreme Court recently dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the government against the direction of the Delhi High Court to resolve an existing anomaly, official sources said Wednesday. The sources in the security establishment said the central government has time till May-end to implement the directive of the Delhi High Court and after consultations with all the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), it is "certain" that the age of superannuation in all the forces will be made uniform, well before the deadline. "The order will be issued after final approval of the Ministry of Home Affairs. After few rounds of consultations by the ministry with all the forces, it is analysed that the age of retirement for all the personnel, from jawan to senior officers, should be settled at 60 years as compared to 57 in certain cases at present," a senior official said on the condition of anonymity. The Supreme Court on May 10 dismissed an SLP filed by the Union government in which the latter had stated that such decisions were in the realm of policy decisions and not for the courts to decide. Ankur Chibber, counsel for a retired CAPF official who first petitioned the Delhi Hight Court over the discrepancy, told PTI that as the SLP has been dismissed by the apex court last week, the government will now have to "implement the Delhi High Court order by May-end which had said on January 31 that uniformity should be maintained across all ranks and forces when it comes to the age of retirement." "Even the 7th pay commission had said so," Chibber said. The six CAPFs are the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Assam Rifles. These forces are deployed to undertake a variety of security tasks in the country, ranging from guarding borders to conducting anti-Naxal operations and combating terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. According to the present policy, all personnel in the CISF and the Assam Rifles retire at the age of 60 while in the rest four forces, personnel in the ranks of constable up to commandant (senior superintendent of police equivalent) retire at the age of 57, while those above them superannuate after attaining the age of 60. The Delhi High Court, in its January order, had called the current policy of different age of superannuation in four paramilitary forces -- CRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSB -- as "discriminatory and unconstitutional" and said it created two classes in the uniformed forces. It had given four months time to the government to implement the order. A Delhi high court bench of Justices Muralidhar and Sanjeev Narula had struck down these rules, saying such discrimination would lead to "lowering of the morale" of the CAPF personnel. The court had also noted that the Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC), which had examined the issue, by a majority of 2:1 had favoured enhancement of the retirement age of the commandant and below ranks in those CAPFs which do not have such a system. The forces, after the conclusion of a series of meetings on the subject over the last few months, had recommended to the government that "in case retirement age is raised to 60 years, it may be explored if a system is put in place to make yearly assessment to weed out those who are not fit to continue in the force consistent with its objective." The CRPF, thickly deployed in operations in Left Wing Extremism affected states and in the counter-terrorism grid in the Kashmir Valley, has been the lone dissenter of the proposal as it argued that it requires to keep its age-profile young keeping in mind its heavy occupation in various combat theatres within and outside the country. "This subject is being debated on technical issue and while the argument put forth by the over three lakh personnel strength CRPF is valid, it has been found that no other force is opposing it," another official, representing the CAPFs in meetings with the ministry on the issue, said. "The problems that could be faced by the country's largest paramilitary once the retirement age is enhanced and settled at 60 years, will be resolved in due course," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) America's year-long trade war with China is pushing US companies to source more from GSP countries such as India, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Turkey, a report said Tuesday, warning that cancelling GSP benefits to India would only help China. The Coalition for GSP, a group of American companies and trade associations, in a report said the latest official trade figures shows that the Generalised System of Preference or GSP saved American companies USD 105 million in March, an increase of USD 28 million (36 per cent) from March, 2018 and the second-highest level on record. In the first quarter of 2019, the GSP saved American companies USD 285 million. That is USD 63 million more than the first quarter of 2018 -- itself a record-shattering year. The GSP is the largest and oldest US trade preference programme and is designed to promote economic development by allowing duty-free entry for thousands of products from designated beneficiary countries like India. On March 4, President Donald Trump announced that the US intends to terminate India's designations as a beneficiary developing country under the GSP programme. The 60-day notice period ended on May 3. According to the Washington DC-based Coalition for GSP, products hit by Section 301 tariffs when imported from China account for 90 per cent of increased GSP imports in 2019. Overall, GSP imports rose by about USD 760 million, with USD 672 million coming on products on China Section 301 lists. GSP imports of products on those Section 301 lists increased 19 per cent while GSP imports of other products increased by just five per cent. Noting that imports from China, subject to new tariffs, are down significantly, the coalition said countries from which GSP imports of products on China Section 301 lists have increased the most in the first quarter of 2019. According to the report, India benefits the most from this. "For India, 97 per cent of increased 2019 GSP imports are on the China Section 301 lists. GSP imports on Section 301 lists increased by USD 193 million (18 per cent), while imports of everything else increased by just USD seven million (two per cent)," it said. Similarly for Turkey, 97 per cent of increased 2019 GSP imports are on the China Section 301 lists. For the Philippines, GSP imports of products on China 301 lists growth helped offset declining GSP imports of all other products. South Africa, Brazil and Egypt saw similar increases in Section 301-affected products offset losses of other products, it said. The GSP imports from Indonesia grew only twice as much on affected products, the report said. Yet, even here, growth rates are faster for products on the Section 301 lists: GSP imports of products affected by new China tariffs grew by 22 per cent, while imports of other products grew by 15 per cent. "Not only would terminating GSP for India, Turkey or others under review (Thailand, Indonesia) hurt many American companies and workers that have relied on GSP for years, it would also reduce viable sourcing options for companies looking to buy less from China in response to Section 301 tariffs -- thereby undermining the president's own objectives," the coalition said. In another report, the coalition said cancelling the GSP for India would benefit China. Referring to the results of a recent survey, the coalition said 30 per cent of companies would look to source more from China if GSP benefits went away. That was about the same share of companies reporting they would source more from any of the approximately 120 remaining GSP countries and much higher than those would source more from non-China, non-GSP countries (NAFTA, EU, Japan etc.). While President Trump has tweeted about raising tariffs on China to create additional negotiating leverage, terminating GSP for India would undermine it, the report said. For some products such as luggage, simultaneously ending GSP for India and raising List 3 tariffs from 10 per cent to 25 per cent would make Chinese products more competitive compared to India, not less, it said. That is because there is a significant overlap between products imported from India under GSP and Chinese imports targeted by the Administration for Section 301 tariffs, it said. Over 75 per cent of India's GSP imports are included on one of the Section 301 lists. Given the head-to-head competition between India and China on many of these products, ending GSP for India would have the same effect as lowering tariffs on China, the report said. "And we can see that the Administration's tariffs on China do seem to have impacted both imports from India under GSP and from China so far in 2019," it said. In the first two months of 2019 (most recent data available), GSP imports from India are up significantly for products on the Section 301 lists, but down slightly for products where China does not face new tariffs, according to the coalition. It is the opposite for China: imports are down significantly for products facing new tariffs, and up slightly for those that do not, it said. "New tariffs on China presumably would amplify these trends -- but new tariffs on India would mitigate them. That puts the Administration at a crossroads: is increased leverage on China or India a higher priority? Because the data show you cannot raise tariffs on one without helping the other," the coalition said in its report. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Juan Guaido accused the Venezuelan government of trying to "gag" congress after security forces prevented opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly on Tuesday, two weeks after the opposition leader's failed uprising against President Nicolas Maduro. Deputies said members of the National Guard, who provide security for the building, along with police and SEBIN intelligence agents, blocked access to the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The move came as Amnesty International said it believes the Venezuelan authorities have committed crimes against humanity in their crackdown on anti-government protests, and urged the International Criminal Court to investigate. "SEBIN agents, using the excuse that there's an explosive device within the facilities, took over the federal palace. We're surrounded by intelligence agents," lawmaker Manuela Bolivar told AFP. Guaido said the security forces used "brute force", adding that congress was "occupied militarily". He tried to incite an uprising against Maduro on April 30 but only around 30 members of the armed forces joined him, and the revolt quickly petered out. It did however spark two days of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces. Since then, the Maduro regime has ramped up pressure on Guaido's allies and supporters. The Constituent Assembly, a rival legislative body that was created by the Maduro government and is packed with people who support him, voted Tuesday to strip immunity from five more opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly. That brings to 14 the number who will presumably go to trial for backing the failed insurrection. The charges include treason. One of them, deputy assembly speaker Edgar Zambrano, was arrested by SEBIN agents last week. Another fled to neighbouring Colombia while three others sought refuge in diplomatic compounds. Guaido -- the National Assembly president -- has accused Maduro of trying to dismantle the legislature. "They're trying to hold the legislative power hostage while the dictator entrenches himself alone in a palace where he shouldn't be," Guaido said on Twitter. He has previously accused the socialist leader of terrorism for his heavy-handed response to demonstrations. Amnesty said Maduro's government responded with "a systematic and widespread policy of repression" in late January, when anti-government protests swept the country after Guaido declared himself acting president. The London-based rights group said at least 47 people were killed during the protests from January 21 to 25. At least 33 were shot dead by the security forces and six by government supporters. "Eleven of these deaths were extrajudicial executions," said Erika Guevara, Americas director for Amnesty International, who presented a report in Mexico City, following February's fact-finding mission to Venezuela. Some Maduro opponents were tortured while 900 people, including children, were arbitrarily detained, Amnesty said. "The nature of the attacks... the level of coordination by the security forces, as well as the signs of similar patterns in 2014 and 2017, leads Amnesty International to believe that the Venezuelan authorities committed crimes against humanity." Maduro himself "knew about these public and appalling acts and took no measures to either prevent or investigate them", Amnesty added in its statement. Guaido's declaration that he is the country's legitimate acting president, which has been supported by more than 50 countries, plunged Venezuela into a political crisis. It came about after the National Assembly branded Maduro a usurper over his controversial re-election last year in polls widely regarded as fraudulent. The oil-rich, cash-poor country has been stricken by recession and a humanitarian crisis in which almost a quarter of its 30 million population is in urgent need of aid, according to the United Nations (UN). The UN also says that more than 2.7 million people have fled the country since 2015. Those remaining behind face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines, and failing public services including water, electricity and transport. From early Tuesday, the security services cordoned off the building housing the National Assembly. Bullet-proof vehicles and a tow truck were parked in the surrounding streets. "This is a recurring theme. It's not the first time it's happened," said Bolivar, who claimed this was part of "a policy to weaken the Assembly" and "intimidation" related to the power struggle between Guaido and Maduro, who retains the support of the armed forces. Guaido insisted the move would not stop lawmakers from doing their job. "Tomorrow we will be in session again, we'll reconvene and let the regime decide if it wants to continue with a type of political harakiri," he said. "Whether it's in a square, in the annex buildings, under a bridge, the Assembly will sit and there will be a session," said congressman Luis Stefanelli. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In the wake of some incidents of Dalit wedding processions being stopped by some groups in parts of Gujarat recently, the BJP government in the state Wednesday assured to take stern action against such elements. The Congress, however, said that such "hollow promises" by the government fails to provide "justice" to the Dalits. Talking to reporters in Gandhinagar, Minister of State for Home, Pradeepsinh Jadeja, accused the Congress of creating a rift between Dalits and other communities. He was referring to an incident in Lhor village in Mehsana, where some local leaders, including the sarpanch, gave a call of social boycott after a Dalit groom took out his procession riding on a horse two weeks ago. "The Gujarat government is always with the Dalits. They also have the right to take out wedding processions like others. Our government is also concerned about some recent incidents. I want to assure you that stern action will be taken against those who were behind these incidents," Jadeja said. "Some people are trying to create a rift between communities for their political gains. In Lhor village, we have already arrested five persons, including the sarpanch, for announcing social boycott of Dalits. Notably, the sarpanch is a Congress supporter. Another accused is a local Congress delegate," the minister added. Jadeja also urged people from all walks of life to work with the government to establish and preserve social harmony in the society. Slamming the BJP government over this issue, Gujarat Congress in-charge, Rajeev Satav, claimed that the government only gives hollow promises instead of taking action. "Atrocities on Dalits in Gujarat have increased in recent years. After every incident, the state government gives hollow promises of stern action. However, Dalits never get justice," Satav told reporters. "This government has failed to maintan law and order. The administration is being run through remote control from Delhi. This is the reason why such atrocities are on the rise," he said. Meanwhile, BJP's Dalit MLA and film actor, Hitu Kanodia, appealed to the people to treat everyone equally. "Though this is the 21st century, we are still stuck in such issues. This is matter of shame and pain. We all need to change our mindset to establish harmony and a sense of brotherhood. I request all to treat everyone equally," Kanodia said. On Sunday, police had to resort to a baton charge after members of the Patidar community allegedly stopped a Dalit man's wedding procession in Aravalli district of Gujarat, and the two sides hurled stones at each other. In another incident the same day, the wedding procession of a Dalit bridegroom at a village in Sabarkantha district had to be provided police cover after members of the Thakor community objected to the groom offering prayers at a local temple. The procession, however, passed off peacefully, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The brother-in-law of Mumbai terror attack mastermind and proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief has been arrested for hate speech and criticising the government, police said on Wednesday. Abdul Rehman Makki, head of JuD's political and affairs wing and in-charge of its charity Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), was arrested during a government crackdown against the outlawed organisations, Geo News reported, quoting an Interior Ministry source. Makki has been arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order Act, Punjab Police said. He is accused of hate speech against the crackdown and criticising steps taken by the government under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines, the report said. The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings him to justice. In February, Paris-based terror financing watchdog FATF decided to continue the 'Grey' listing of for its failure to stop funding of terrorist groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the JuD. The government has launched a crackdown against the outlawed organisations under the National Action Plan 2015 to eliminate militancy and extremism from the country's soil. The Imran Khan-led government has also announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council. The government banned 11 organisations for having links with the proscribed outifts JuD), FIF and JeM on Saturday. After the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 Indian security personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based JeM, prime minister Khan had said Islamabad would not spare any group involved in militancy or using Pakistani soil for any kind of terror activity against other countries. The FIF, like the JuD, was also banned in March by the Pakistan government. Recently, the government announced to take control of more than 30,000 religious seminaries. The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014. Outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawa's top leader and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's brother-in-law Hafiz Abdur Rehman Makki has been arrested for hate speech and criticising the Pakistan government, police said on Wednesday. Makki, head of JuD's political and international affairs wing and in-charge of its charity Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), was arrested during a government crackdown against the outlawed organisations. Punjab police spokesperson Nabila Ghazanfar confirmed Makki's arrest. She, however, did not explain the charges under which he was arrested. Sources said Makki has been arrested for making a hate speech in Gujranwala city, some 80-km from Lahore. The sources also said his arrest should be seen in connection with the government's steps to comply with the requirement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings him to justice. Saeed is keeping a low profile and currently living at his Lahore residence under high security. For the first time in two decades, Saeed was not allowed to enter and deliver weekly sermon at JuD headquarters in Lahore since early this March. The JuD and its sister organization Falah-i-Insaniat (FIF) leadership has already gone underground in the wake of the government's action against the proscribed organizations. In February, Paris-based international terror financing watchdog FATF decided to continue the 'Grey' listing of Pakistan for its failure to stop funding of terrorist groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the JuD. The Pakistan government has launched a crackdown against the outlawed organisations under the National Action Plan 2015 to eliminate militancy and extremism from the country's soil. The Pakistan government had arrested over 100 members of banned outfits including the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar's son and brother and taken control of JeM, JuD and FIF properties including seminaries and mosques across the country apparently under immense international pressure. The government termed the action in accordance with the National Action Plan and meeting the obligations of the Financial Action Task Force. The Imran Khan-led government has also announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council. The government banned 11 organisations for having links with the proscribed outifts JuD, FIF and JeM on Saturday. After the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 Indian security personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based JeM, prime minister Khan had said Islamabad would not spare any group involved in militancy or using Pakistani soil for any kind of terror activity against other countries. The FIF, like the JuD, was also banned in March by the Pakistan government. Recently, the government announced to take control of more than 30,000 religious seminaries. The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court declined Wednesday to entertain the PIL which referred to actor-cum-politician Kamal Haasan's remark about Mahatma Gandhi's assassin being a Hindu terrorist and sought directions for the EC to "restrict" misuse of religion for poll gains. A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Jyoti Singh said the cause of action for the PIL by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay was the remarks by Haasan which was made outside the jurisdiction of the high court here and therefore, it cannot hear it. "The cause of action has not arisen within the jurisdiction of this court... We find no grounds to entertain the petition," it said. During the hearing, the bench said the incident happened in Tamil Nadu and therefore, the petitioner ought to have moved the high court there. Upadhyay's lawyer contended that they had made a representation to the Election Commission on May 13 against the remarks, but it has done nothing yet. EC's lawyer told the court that the representation was made only on May 13 and the Commission will need time to look into it. The court subsequently asked the EC to expeditiously decide Upadhyay's representation against Haasan's remark and dismissed the petition which had also sought debarring of candidates and deregistration of parties that "misuse" religion for electoral gains. Upadhyay, also a lawyer, had alleged that Haasan "deliberately" made the statement in the presence of a Muslim majority crowd for electoral gain. The petition contended that this was clearly a corrupt practice under the Representation of the People Act (RPA) 1951. Haasan, the president of Makkal Needhi Maiam, had in an election rally speech for his party candidate on Sunday termed Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse as independent India's first "Hindu terrorist". He had made the comment while speaking at an election rally on Sunday for his party candidate in Aravakurichi Assembly constituency, where by-polls will be held on May 19, the petition had said. "Haasan has violated the Model Code of Conduct in addition to section 123(3) of the RPA 1951. Kamal Haasan is deliberately promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony and brotherhood, which is an offence under section 153A of the IPC. "It is a deliberate and malicious act, intended to outrage religious feelings of millions of Hindus, which is an offence under section 295A IPC," the petition had also claimed. It had also said that despite the alleged misuse of religion for electoral gain by Haasan, the EC has not done any thing in this regard yet. In his plea, Upadhyay has also sought a direction to EC to refer to respective investigation agencies the complaints relating to misuse of religion, race, caste, community and language by contesting candidates and political office bearers for electoral gain. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a petition by MNM chief Kamal Haasan seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him over his "free India's first extremist was a Hindu" remark made during an election campaign meeting in Aravkurichi Assembly segment. Justice B Pugalendhi of the Madurai Bench said such pleas cannot be taken up as emergent petitions during the vacation. However, the judge said if an anticipatory bail application was filed, then it could be taken up for hearing. The FIR was registered by Aravakurichi police Tuesday for his "free India's first extremist (theeviravathi) was a Hindu" statement made in Tamil. The case was registered under Sections 153A and 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which deal with 'outraging religious feelings' and 'promoting enmity between different groups' respectively. Haasan had said on Sunday that "free India's first extremist was a Hindu", referring to Nathuram Godse who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Bypoll to Aravakurichi Assembly segment is scheduled on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lawyers seeking 'senior' designation will no longer need the recommendation from three senior advocates of the Bar, given they fulfil all the eligibility criteria, as the Delhi High Court Wednesday stayed the earlier rule. A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice A J Bhambhani directed the matter to be placed before a full court for reconsidering the rule mandating recommendation from a panel of three senior advocates. The bench also asked the high court registry to issue a public notice about the stay of the rule as well as its reconsideration by the full court. The High Court of Delhi Designation of Senior Advocate Rules, 2018, notified on March 13, states that an advocate may be considered by the high court for being designated as a senior either through a suo motu action or on a joint proposal by three senior advocates. The plea by lawyers Nandita Rao and Farrukh Rashid, filed through advocate Ruchi Singh, alleged that this prerequisite of recommendation from three senior advocates is not based on the point system and is ultra vires of the Constitution as they create a "subjective entry barrier" to designation. Senior advocate Siddhartha Dave, who appeared for the two lawyers, said the notification restricts meritorious candidates from applying thus bypassing the objective system laid down by the Supreme Court. "The entry barrier of three recommendations from senior advocates and the number of recommendations they can give are completely subjective and have no nexus with the rational criteria for selection of senor advocate stipulated by the Supreme Court thereby making the said rules arbitrary and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution," the plea has said. The power vested upon the court to form an opinion on the ability of an advocate to be designated as a senior cannot be delegated to senior advocates of the same Bar without any statutory mandate for such delegation, it has said. It has contended that such a requirement of three recommendations creates an artificial and opaque gateway to the process of getting designated thus preventing access to professional advancement for young, meritorious and aspiring lawyers. It has alleged that this requirement of getting recommendation from seniors "creates a monopoly" and with no restrictions on recommending chamber juniors and briefing counsels, such recommendations are "subjective and promote a coterie rather than merit and excellence". The plea has also alleged that all the senior lawyers have been "pre-booked" by lawyers applying for designation and have issued letters favouring lawyers, without consideration of merits as stipulated by apex court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HDFC Wednesday said it has partnered with India Mortgage Guarantee Corporation (IMGC) for a mortgage guarantee-backed home loan. Mortgage guarantee is a financial product which compensates lending institutions for losses that may arise if a home owner defaults on a mortgage loan. The risk of the home loan gets transferred from the bank/FIs to the mortgage guarantee company. With this partnership, HDFC will be able to further penetrate home loan market and access an enlarged customer base, it said in a release. It will help the company offer more loan to a home loan customer on an enhanced eligibility as also it helps customers to avail loans beyond their retirement period. HDFC said the finer details of the product are being worked out and will be known to market soon. "Mortgage-guarantee is already a popular product in international market and this partnership will help diversify our offerings to a wider segment of customers. "This will also help us to support the government's mission under Prime Minister Awas Yojana Scheme to provide Housing for all by 2022," HDFC Managing Director Renu Sud Karnad said. The partnership aims to address middle age-salaried customers, self employed customers and young salaried customers as also a wide segment of unserviced customers. "We are witnessing great acceptance of our product in the Indian housing finance sector. We see stepped-up interest in using mortgage guarantee as an effective risk mitigant across lending categories," said Mahesh Misra, CEO, IMGC. Mortgage guarantee or mortgage insurance as it is known in some markets, is well-established in the US, Australia, and Canada with market penetration of 15 per cent in the US and 22 per cent in Canada. In India, mortgage guarantee is on the rise with market penetration between 5-20 per cent across lenders who are leveraging the product to grow their books, HDFC said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP national president Amit Shah has rebutted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's charge that he is an "outsider" in West Bengal and said he has come to the state to campaign for his party. Shah wondered if he is called an outsider for coming to West Bengal, "which is very much a part of India", then why not Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee be labelled as an "outsider" when she visits New Delhi? The BJP leader was addressing a meet of intellectuals in the city on Tuesday. "I am president of a national party and I am here to campaign for my party. "I am being called an outsider for coming to West Bengal. What kind of statement is this? If a person from West Bengal goes to Mumbai or Bengaluru, will he be called an outsider? When Mamata didi goes to Delhi will she be called an outsider?" Shah asked. Shah's remarks came following Banerjee's repeated allegations about Shah being an "outsider" who comes to the state to "create division" among the people. "If the BJP wins the assembly polls in West Bengal, a Bengali will be the chief minister. Neither I nor Kailash Vijayvargia will be the CM," Shah said. Vijayvargiya, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, is the BJP's national general secretary, who is in charge of the saffron party in West Bengal. Shah also criticized a section of the media for blaming BJP workers for Tuesday's violence during his roadshow in north Kolkata. "A section of media is presenting it in such a way as if we started the clash. The should be that TMC goons attacked the convoy. But a section of organisations are trying to paint it in a different way," Shah said. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive roadshow by Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NCP chief Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar appear to be on different pages on the use of EVMs in polling with the latter saying he has "no doubt" about functioning of the machine. Ajit Pawar, without naming the BJP, said "they" would not have lost polls in five states if the electronic voting machines (EVMs) could be tampered. The former Maharashtra deputy chief minister did not name the states. The Assembly polls were held in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram in November and December last year. The BJP lost power in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh, and failed to make a mark in the other two states also. The NCP chief is among the key opposition leaders who have been raising questions over the use of EVMs and pitching for the use of ballot papers in elections. "Several people have doubts about EVMs. They feel it could be tampered with, which is detrimental to democracy," Ajit Pawar told reporters here on Tuesday. "I don't think so, but these people keep saying this. If that was the case, they (the BJP) would not have lost (polls in) five states," he added. This was not the first time that he defended the EVMs. Speaking to media persons in Nagpur on October 30 last year, Ajit Pawar said he personally trusted these machines. Sharad Pawar last week said he himself had seen vote cast in favour of his party reflecting in the BJP's kitty. "I am also concerned about the machine. In Hyderabad and Gujarat, some people kept an EVM before me and asked me to press a button. I pressed the button against 'watch' (the NCP's symbol) and the vote got cast in favour of 'lotus' (the BJP's symbol). I saw it happening myself," the former Union minister said in Satara. The Maratha strongman last month also addressed a joint press conference with leaders like Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on the issue, voicing concerns over the use of EVMs. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India joined France, New Zealand, Canada and several other countries on Wednesday in launching a major initiative in Paris to combat terrorism and extremism online and secure the internet. The initiative -- 'Christchurch call to action' -- was named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in an attack on mosques, officials said. "A free, open and secure internet is a powerful tool by which to promote connectivity, enhance social inclusiveness and foster economic growth," the declaration on Christchurch call to action said. It said the internet is, however, not immune from abuse by terrorist and violent extremist actors, and there was a need for collective efforts globally to secure the internet from terror groups. "This was tragically highlighted by the terrorist attacks of 15 March 2019 on the Muslim community of Christchurch terrorist attacks that were designed to go viral. "The dissemination of such content online has adverse impacts on the human rights of the victims, on our collective security and on people all over the world," it said. The declaration said the Christchurch attack highlighted the urgent need for action and enhanced cooperation among the wide range of actors with influence over this issue, including governments, civil society, and online service providers, such as social media companies, to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The event to launch of the initiative was attended by several world leaders and high-ranking officials including from India, diplomatic sources said. The initiative outlines collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers intended to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online and to prevent the abuse of the internet. "All action on this issue must be consistent with principles of a free, open and secure internet, without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression. "It must also recognise the internet's ability to act as a force for good, including by promoting innovation and economic development and fostering inclusive societies," it said. The countries which were of the initiative expressed commitment to ensure effective enforcement of applicable laws that prohibit the production or dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content, in a manner consistent with the rule of law and international human rights law, including freedom of expression, according to the declaration. It said they will also to counter the drivers of terrorism and violent extremism by strengthening the resilience and inclusiveness of their societies. Those who are part of the initiative will also encourage media outlets to apply ethical standards when depicting terrorist events online, to avoid amplifying terrorist and violent extremist content. They will also support frameworks, such as industry standards, to ensure that reporting on terrorist attacks does not amplify terrorist and violent extremist content, without prejudice to responsible coverage of terrorism and violent extremism. It was also decided to implement immediate and effective measures to mitigate the specific risk that terrorist and violent extremist content is disseminated through live-streaming, including identification of content for real-time review, said the declaration. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India is working towards making it easier for foreign film units to shoot in the country not only by overhauling clearance-granting mechanisms, but also by providing incentives like tax refunds and subsidies to international movie projects. This was revealed by Amit Khare, the information and broadcasting secretary, during the opening function of the India Pavilion at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. "We are in the process of talking to film industry players here, especially those based in France, to take this new initiative forward," Khare said. "The Indian government is keen to do whatever it takes to make it more attractive for foreign producers to film in India." He added: "What is most encouraging is that many state governments are coming forward to offer their locations for foreign film shoots. They have realised that there is a close connection between cinema, tourism and the economy." The Marche du Film (Cannes Film Market) head Jerome Paillard, who also addressed the opening session in the India Pavilion, said: "We hope to have enhanced collaborations with India. If we can contribute to expanding the partnership between the two countries in any manner, it will be important for us."Discussions are on for various India-France co-productions, he added. The opening day in the Pavilion was dedicated to the promotion of the 50th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), scheduled from November 20 to 28 this year. A poster of the upcoming festival was launched along with the latest edition of the India Film Guide, a handbook that spells out the facilities that are available in India as a film location. Khare referred in particular to the difference that the Film Facilitation Office, which was set up a few years ago, has made to streamlining clearances for foreign film units. "A film crew does not have to seek separate permissions anymore to shoot in a heritage building, on a railway property or in a forest area. Single-window clearance is now an established reality." "We now also want to incentivise foreign film units by exploring the possibility of refunding taxes and granting subsidies to them when they shoot in India," Khare said. The inauguration of the India Pavilion was attended, among others, by Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chairman Prasoon Joshi, the joint secretary of the information and broadcasting ministry Ashok Kumar Parmar and veteran film producer Bobby Bedi, who moderated the session. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India will export its first batch of missiles this year to the South East Asian and the Gulf countries after receiving "increasing interests" from them, a top defence official said here on Wednesday. Speaking at the IMDEX Asia 2019 exhibition, Commodore S K Iyer, Chief General Manager for HR at Aerospace, said the first missile export contract awaits a government-to-government approval. "A number of South East Asian countries are ready to buy our missiles," he said. "It will be our first export and we have received increasing interests in the missiles form the Gulf countries," Iyer said at the the three-day international maritime conference and exhibition which began here on Tuesday. Indian defence sector sees good opportunities for exports to the South East Asian and the Gulf countries where slower economic growths have put budgetary pressure on acquiring viable, cost-effective and reliable solutions. India- joint venture and defence company L&T Defence of Larsen & Toubro Ltd are showcasing a wide range of defence equipment at the IMDEX for the South East Asian markets. They said that some of these small economies are looking for renewals of older assets through platform upgrades with latest technologies. Budgetary constraints on defence procurement means life-span extension of older assets, said Martyn Allen, regional director for Asia at QinetiQ, a UK-based defence company with partners in India and a recently-opened regional office in Kuala Lumpur. Export opportunities through collaboration with Indian defence industry were underlined by Captain Nick Macdonald-Robinson, a senior naval advisor at the Defence and Security Organisation of the UK Department of International Trade. British companies are already establishing relationships with Indian shipyards which have a vast number of architects and huge amount of experience, Robinson said. He pointed out that the large-scale expertise in Indian yards were not only involved in building indigenous designs, but also taking products from India- joint venture into the export markets. More than 236 defence companies are participating in the IMDEX 2019 exhibition. Over 10,500 delegates and trade visitors are also attending the event where 23 warships from 30 countries are on display after conducting regional maritime exercises. Over 400 delegates from the naval defence sector are attending the International Maritime Security Conference on "Safe and Secure Seas: Promoting Mutual Securities in our Maritime Commons". An Indian national has been jailed for two weeks for falsely accusing two persons of forcing her into prostitution as she did not want her husband to find out how she was earning a living in Singapore. Kalaiselvi Murugiyan (24) made a police report last year claiming that a man and a woman had forced her to become a prostitute, The Straits Times reported on Tuesday. She pleaded guilty to giving false information to Police Inspector Mohamed Raffiq Mohamed Ishak of the Central Police Division. Court documents did not say what she was working as in Singapore. The court heard that Kalaiselvi went to the Rochor Neighbourhood Police Centre on November 1 last year to make a report. She was referred to the Central Police Division to have her statement recorded. The Specialised Crime Branch then investigated the case. Deputy Public Prosecutor Grace Goh told the court that Kalaiselvi lied to Inspector Raffiq while giving her statement at the Police Cantonment Complex on November 1. The man and woman were later arrested. Kalaiselvi owned up to her lies at around 2.30 pm the next day. Kalaiselvi, who was not represented by a lawyer, told District Judge Christopher Tan on Tuesday that she did not want to go to jail. She pleaded for forgiveness and said she had to take care of her family members in India. Before handing down the sentence, Judge Tan stressed that two persons had been falsely implicated and arrested as a result of her lies. "Valuable police resources were wasted," he said. For giving false information to a police officer, Kalaiselvi could have been jailed for up to a year and fined up to SGD 5,000. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two warships of the Indian Navy--INS Kolkata and INS Shakti--are participating in a three-day Asia Pacific naval and maritime event being held here, according to an official statement. The International Maritime Defence Exhibition Asia (IMDEX Asia-2019) commenced on May 14 and will also witness the participation of some of India's leading engineering and ship building firms, including Larsen & Toubro and BrahMos, which makes the state-of-the-art air, sea and ground launch cruise missiles. "Vice-Admiral M S Pawar, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff led the delegation to the Asia Pacific gathering of naval and maritime event," the Indian High Commission here said in a statement. INS Kolkata is an advanced stealth destroyer capable of engaging multiple threats from the air, sea and underwater and has been designed and built in India. INS Shakti is a fleet support ship to provide fuel, provisions and munitions to warships at sea. Following IMDEX, Indian Naval ships together with an Indian Navy surveillance aircraft P8I will participate in the 26th edition of Singapore India Maritime Bilateral Exercise (SIMBEX) scheduled from May 16 to 22, 2019. SIMBEX is the longest uninterrupted naval exercise that India has with any other country, the statement said. Regular participation by the Indian Navy in the IMDEX and SIMBEX reflects the importance India attaches to the exercises and the broader strategic partnership with Singapore and it also reaffirms our Act East Policy, it said. The 26th SIMBEX is taking place 6 months after the last edition that took place in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal from November 11 to 21 last year. It involved live weapon firings and complex military maneuvers, including those of aircraft and submarines. The 25th SIMBEX was witnessed by Singapore's Minister of Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen. Earlier in October 2018, India's Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Singapore to participate in the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting-Plus. The Indian Army and the Singapore Army recently held their 12th edition of the annual exercise Bold Kurukshetra, an annual joint training exercise for Armoured Units from April 8 to 12, 2019, at the Indian Army training facility at Babina in Utta Pradesh, the statement said. Likewise, Air Forces of both countries will exercise together later this year in India, it said. India and Singapore share a strong and rapidly growing defence relation which is the key pillar of India Singapore strategic partnership based on deep mutual trust and goodwill and shared interest in rules based order, maritime security and an open, inclusive and peaceful Indo-Pacific region. Our defence relation include annual ministerial dialogue, Secretary level defence policy dialogue, Staff talks between the three wings of the armed forces, mutual logistics support, regular exercises and exchange of ship visits, the statement said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump on Wednesday predicted that Iran will "soon" want to negotiate and denied any discord in the White House over moves that critics say could lead to war in the Middle East. "Different opinions are expressed and I make a decisive and final decision -- it is a very simple process," Trump tweeted. "I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon." Trump blasted the media reports about a turmoil in the White House over a series of steps taken by the administration to up pressure on Iran, saying "there is no infighting whatsoever." The United States on Wednesday ordered non-essential staff to leave its embassy in neighbouring Iraq, claiming there is an "imminent" threat from Iranian-linked Iraqi militias. Ten days ago, Trump also ordered an aircraft carrier and nuclear-capable bomber planes to deploy to the Gulf. Democrats in Congress demanded that the Trump administration brief them on what it considers to be the Iran threat, warning that the US legislature has not approved military action against Tehran. Opponents of Trump say that hardliners led by national security advisor John Bolton, who has long advocated toppling the Iranian government, are pushing the country into war. The White House says that Iran, a longtime enemy and rival of US allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, is sowing instability across the region. Washington also says that Tehran is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, despite having agreed to strict controls under an international accord that Trump abandoned after winning election in 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir Police Wednesday booked certain "social media reporters" for revealing the identity of a minor girl who was allegedly raped in Ganderbal area earlier this week. The victim, a teenager, was raped by 20-year-old Muhammad Aasif Wani in Harran village of Ganderbal area on Sunday. A police spokesperson said it was noticed that certain "social media reporters" had violated legal provisions about non-disclosure of a rape victim's name. "In this regard, the Principal Juvenile Justice Board, (CJM) Ganderbal, has taken cognisance of the matter and passed directions to police for taking legal action against such social media reporters," the spokesperson said. "Accordingly, Ganderbal police registered a case FIR No. 102/2019 under section 23 the POCSO Act, 228-A of the RPC against social media reporters who have publicised the identity of the rape victim," he said. Section 23 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act prohibits publishing any matter which may disclose the identity of a minor rape victim. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai and Floor64, Inc. aka Techdirt.com, its founder and CEO Michael Masnick, and its Editor Leigh Beadon (collectively, "Techdirt") are pleased to announce that they have reached a settlement of the defamation lawsuit filed by Dr. Ayyadurai against Techdirt in U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts (the "Lawsuit"). The lawsuit concerned statements made in 14 articles published at Techdirt.com between September 2014 and November 2016 that challenged Dr. Ayyadurai's claim that he invented the modern system of email (collectively, the "14 Articles"). On September 6, 2017, largely on First Amendment grounds, the District Court granted Techdirt's motion to dismiss the case; however, Techdirt's motion under California's Anti-SLAPP law to strike Dr. Ayyadurai's complaint and award attorneys' fees was denied. The parties filed cross-appeals with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (the "Appeal"). To resolve this dispute on non-financial terms, without the need for further involvement of the U.S. court system, the parties have now agreed: (1) that Techdirt shall post a hyperlink reading "Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai's Response to this Article and Statement on the Invention of Email," at the top of each of the 14 Articles, which will link to a statement titled "Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai's Statement on the Invention of Email: A Response to the 14 Articles About Him at Techdirt.com (posted Sept. 2014 to Nov. 2016)" (the "Dr. Ayyadurai Statement"), and (2) all parties shall execute mutual releases, jointly dismissing with prejudice the Appeal and the Lawsuit, with each side agreeing to be responsible for his/its own legal fees and costs. The parties are pleased to have resolved this matter. Source: Harder LLP, legal counsel for Dr. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kamala Harris says she is "open" to a debate over reforming the Supreme Court. Campaigning in New Hampshire on Wednesday, the Democratic presidential candidate and California senator said she'd consider increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court. She said she'd also consider term limits and limiting the number of nominees a president can put forward. Her comments come after Alabama approved a ban on nearly all abortions, a move that's part of a larger effort by conservatives to press the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Harris and other Democratic presidential candidates have roundly criticized the measure. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As a local court in Senegal reportedly began hearing the case about extradition of alleged gangster Ravi Pujari Wednesday, authorities in Karnataka said they were optimistic over getting him back, as they have furnished 'solid evidence' against him. "Legal procedure has begun there. We are quite optimistic of getting him back. The cooperation we got from the Senegal authorities was quite encouraging," said a top official in the State criminal investigation department. The officer, who wished not to be named, underlined the fact that without the cooperation from the Senegal authorities, the gangster would not have been caught. He said India would continue to get "exemplary" cooperation from Senegal. "It will not be an exaggeration if I say that their conduct so far has been very positive. It will be good in future also," he added. He, however, was not sure when the extradition would finally happen. "We cannot say how much time it may take (to get him back). We cannot say anything definite in the legal process about how much time it may take. It depends on the judicial appreciation of evidence. We have furnished solid evidences," the officer added. The extradition would also depend on the provisions for appeal and how the accused applies for it. Pujari, wanted in many cases including extortion and murder, was caught in West African nation Senegal in January based on the information given by the Karnataka police. The State government claimed that after H D Kumaraswamy took over as chief minister, he directed police to pursue the matter seriously and ensure Pujari's arrest as he had been operating through his henchmen in various parts of the country, especially in Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra. The Indian authorities got in touch with their counterparts in Senegal and ensured his arrest from a barber shop in January. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) Wednesdaydemanded that Karnataka government should relax norms under the 'ease of doing business,' emphasising that the affordable housing in the city was set to boom. "From CREDAI, we are emphasising the government for the ease of doing business in Karnataka because long procedures for approvals and clearances is delaying the projects," said R National Vice President of CREDAI, Nagaraj Reddy told reporters here. He appealed to the state government to reduce the stamp duty to one per cent for affordable housing on the lines of Telangana government. "Stamp duty in Telangana for Affordable Housing is just one per cent. As of now it is 6.6 per cent (in Karnataka). For plan sanction and licence fee, we are almost paying around Rs 80 per sq ft inclusive of all the clearances. For affordablehousing, we have asked the government to fix the rates at Rs 20 per sq ft,"Reddy said. Noting that Whitefield, Hosur Road, Sarjapur Road and Mysuru Road up to Bidadi was set to develop in terms of affordable housing due to Metro Rail connectivity, Reddy said the segment ranges between Rs 45 lakh to Rs 65 lakh, which is in great demand. "Our sales capacity in Bengaluru is 45,000 to 60,000 apartments per annum. Our production capacity is not that much. CREDAI members can only produce 35,000 apartments per annum. Some unsold stocks of luxury apartments may beavailable. As per the affordable segment there is no stock atall," Reddy said. Another segment would be 300 to 400 square ft apartments, on the outskirts of the city. Those having the capacity to pay an EMI of Rs 10,000 can buy an apartment. "Those who are staying on rent paying Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 will be able to buy a house. The government has a policy of housing for all by 2022. We also want to contribute for it," Reddy underlined. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Karnataka government Wednesda Wednesday said it would take up cloud seeding by the end of June, amid reports forecasting deficit rainfall. The government has already called for tenders for two years and will spend an estimated Rs 88 crore forthe purpose. "In newspapers we are seeing that in 2019 there is a possibility of deficit rainfall. We have already takenprecautionary measures regarding this- for 2019-20 and 2020-21-for two years we have decided to implement cloud seeding,"Rural Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said. He said the government would award the tender in a week to 10 days. "By June end, we will begin the cloud seeding process in the state. The tender has been called for two years together. Anexpert committee had also given similar recommendation," he said. For two years together, the estimated cost would be Rs 88 crore, he said, briefing mediapersons after Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's video conferencing with Deputy Commissioners of districts andCEO of Zilla Panchayats on drought in the state. Pointing out that cloud seeding earlier used to be done by August, by which time the monsoon would have almost ended, Gowda said that to avoid it, the government decided this time to go forthe exercise at the onset of the monsoon. There will be two centres at Bengaluru and Hubbali for cloud seeding, with two aircraft, he said. "If there is good rain in one region, the centre there can be shifted as additional centre to where there is lack of rain. It will also be based on cloud cover," he said. Revenue Minister R V Deshpande said the government was taking steps to manage drought on a "war footing" and that he hasdirected all Deputy Commissioners and CEOs to tour the districts to assess the situation. Tahsildars have also been asked to travel to villages, panchayat headquarters nd urban areas to understand the ground reality and work effectively, he said. He also termed as 'far from the truth,' Opposition leader B S Yeddyurappa'scriticism of the government's management of drought and pointed out that due to the model code of conduct in force, the Chief Minister and Ministers had no powers to holdreview meetings until recently, when they were permitted by the Election Commission to do so. The ministers said the government has taken steps to provide drinkingwater through tankers, wherever there was shortage. In most places there was fodder stock for 12 weeks and corrective measures were being taken in areas facing shortage. Gowda said a total of 2,999 villages in the state faced acute drinking water shortage. Among them in 1632 villages, 2322 tankers are being used to supply water and 1873 borewells have been taken on rent to provide water to 1367 villages. Of the total of 6,428 urban wards, 451 wards are being provided water through tankers, he added. "DCs have Rs 713 crore, it should be used for borewell and tanker payments. Wherever new borewells are needed taskforces have been given Rs 200 crore by RDPR department," they said, adding that call centres have been started at everytaluk, district and also state level to address drinking water shortage. Jobs were also being provided under MNREGA to stop migration of people from affected areas, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid the 'Siddaramaiah for CM' clamour in Karnataka, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has said Congress veteran M Mallikarjun Kharge should have been given the position a long time ago and "injustice" was done to the leader. His remarks come amid a bitter spat between the leaders of the ruling coalition partners Congress and JD(S) to make Siddaramaiah the state chief minister once again. But the comments gave fresh ammunition to the BJP to target the alliance government. BJP state unit chief B S Yeddyurappa asked Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) to immediately vacate the post for Kharge, the leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha. Kharge, a nine-time MLA and two-term Lok Sabha member who has never tasted electoral defeat, termed Kumaraswamy's remarks as "election-time statement." Addressing a meeting in Chincholi assembly segment for a by-election attended by Kharge on Tuesday, Kumaraswamy said the Congress leader should have become chief minister long ago. "Mallikarjun Kharge should have become the chief minister long ago. I feel injustice has been done to him. I would like to clearly say Kharge has not been given recognition for the work he has done (for his party)," Kumaraswamy said, adding there has been a "fault somewhere". Kharge could have become the CM in the current coalition government but he said he will abide by the Congress leadership's decision, Kumaraswamy revealed. Latching onto the remarks, Yeddyurappa asked Kumaraswamy to resign and make Kharge CM. "He (Kumaraswamy) has said he (Kharge) should have become CM long ago. To make his dream come true, let him resign tomorrow itself and make Kharge the chief minister," the BJP leader told reporters in Kalaburagi Wednesday. Senior BJP legislator Basanagouda Patil Yatnal termed Kumaraswamy's remarks a conspiracy aimed at creating a rift between Siddaramaiah and Kharge to continue in power. "If he wants to make Kharge (CM), he can give up the seat for him. It is kind of a drama (by Kumaraswamy)," he said, adding no one, even in Congress, was interested in making Kharge CM. Yeddyurappa, however, claimed the Congress-JD(S) government would fall due to a rift between both parties. "I have never said we will topple the government. We are not making attempts. JD(S) and Congress are fighting each other and because of their differences, the government will collapse," he said. Siddaramaiah, the coalition coordination committee chairman, has termed the growing clamour within Congress to make him the chief minister as an expression of supporters' affection, but said he still stands by his word to not contest the next assembly election. Chincholi assembly seat will go to bypolls on May 19. Subhash Rathod is the Congress candidate there. Kharge has been elected twice from Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency and has been a central cabinet minister during Congress rule in the past. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Kremlin Wednesday expressed concern that tensions over Iran keep escalating despite assurances from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Russia that Washington was not seeking war. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Pompeo met with President Vladimir Putin. "We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side," Peskov said, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Iran. Speaking in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Tuesday, Pompeo assured Russia that his country did not want war with Iran, despite a spike in tensions that has seen the Pentagon dispatch nuclear-capable bombers to the region. But Peskov sought to play down those statements. "There were no assurances from Pompeo," Putin's spokesman told reporters. "And one can hardly talk about some sort of assurances. There is an obvious situation which unfortunately tends to escalate further." Washington last year pulled out of a nuclear deal backed by Europe, Russia and China, which curbed Iran's nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief. Since then it has slapped sweeping sanctions on Iran in an all-out effort to reduce Tehran's regional clout. On Sunday, mysterious attacks by unknown assailants against four ships in the region, including two from Saudi Arabia, sent war talk up another notch. Washington has accused Iran of planning "imminent" attacks in the region and on Wednesday, the US ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and consulate in Arbil. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan Army has launched an investigation after a man in uniform was seen in a video watching rioters attacking Muslim-owned shops, vehicles and mosques during the communal violence that broke out in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, Army Headquarters said that its attention has been drawn to a video showing a man dressed in uniform similar to that worn by the Army, watching as a group attacked property in the Thummodara area, the Colombo Gazette reported. The Army said that an investigation has been launched to identify the man and verify if he is a soldier. Army Headquarters said that if the man is confirmed to be a soldier then disciplinary action will taken against him. Sri Lankan authorities said they have arrested 60 people linked to the communal riots as a nationwide curfew was lifted on Wednesday in the island nation, which witnessed Sinhalese mob attacks on Muslim-owned shops and businesses. The government imposed the island-wide curfew on Monday after the violence against the Muslim community, who account for 10 per cent of the country's population. The curfew was briefly lifted on Tuesday before being reimposed for a second straight night following reports of fresh violence in some parts of the country. The recent violence in which a man was hacked to death is a fresh backlash from the Easter attacks where nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan authorities said they have arrested 60 people linked to the communal riots as a nationwide curfew was lifted on Wednesday in the island nation, which witnessed Sinhalese mob attacks on Muslim-owned shops and businesses in the aftermath of the deadly Easter blasts. The government imposed the island-wide curfew on Monday after the violence against the Muslim community, who account for 10 per cent of the country's population. The curfew was briefly lifted on Tuesday before being reimposed for a second straight night following reports of fresh violence in some parts of the country. "The curfew imposed in the North-western Province and Gampaha Police division was removed at 6 am Wednesday while the curfew in the other areas of the island ended at 4 am," police media spokesman's office stated. The situation in the province is returning to normalcy, authorities said. There were no incidents of violence overnight and groups of people responsible for taking part in mob attacks have been arrested, they said. "Thirty-three suspects arrested in connection with the anti-Muslim riots have been remanded and over 60 people have been arrested. The suspects can be sentenced to 10 years in prison under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. The police media spokesman said the illegal activities committed by the persons engaged in violence will be noted in their police certificates. The academic activities of all schools and all the state institutions in the province were resumed on Wednesday, the Wayamba Province Governor Peshala Jayaratne said. The recent violence is a fresh backlash from the Easter attacks where nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others. Muslims said that rioters went about destroying their properties and setting fire to them even after curfew hours. They accused the security forces and the police for becoming silent watchers to the rioting. Muslim political parties said at least one person was killed in the riots. The attacks come during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramazan. The government also reimposed a ban on social media following the violent clashes. The government which blocked Facebook and WhatsApp on Tuesday extended the blockade to Twitter. The social media blockade is meant to prevent the spread of rumours and hate comments, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said. 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.) Sri Lanka's police reimposed night curfews in vulnerable areas on Wednesday and arrested over 100 people in connection with the communal riots which targeted Muslim-owned businesses in the aftermath of the deadly Easter Sunday bombings. The police announcement came hours after authorities lifted the nationwide restrictions on people's movements and assembly. The curfew will be imposed in the North Western province and the Gampaha Police division from 7 PM tonight till 4 AM Thursday, First quoted police spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekara as saying. The Air Force would deploy helicopters at day and night to assist with controlling illegal assemblies and acts of violence, Sri Lanka Air Force spokesman Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne said. "We have already taken measures to obtain aerial photographic evidence of those involved in such activities and to direct such evidence for legal action against lawbreakers," he said. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said at least 78 people were arrested from the worst-affected North-Western Province (NWP) for the anti-Muslim violence. Rest of the suspects were arrested from other parts of the country, he said. "In addition to the 78 arrested and remanded after they were produced in court, video footage from the incidents are being reviewed to make more arrests," Gunasekera said. The majority Sinhala community mobs vandalised Muslim-owned properties in NWP and adjoining Gampaha district in the Western Province, a senior police officer said, adding that the mobs even defied the curfew to attack Muslim properties which resulted in the death of one person. Gunasekera said among the arrested were state and private sector employees. They have been remanded till 29 May. The island-wide curfew was imposed on Monday after violence against the Muslim community which accounts for 10 per cent of the country's population. The curfew was briefly lifted on Tuesday before being reimposed for a second straight night following reports of fresh violence in some parts of the country. "The curfew imposed in the North-western Province and Gampaha Police division was removed at 6 AM Wednesday while the curfew in the other areas of the island ended at 4 AM," police media spokesman's office stated. Earlier, Gunasekara said: "Thirty-three suspects arrested in connection with the anti-Muslim riots have been remanded and over 60 people have been arrested. The suspects can be sentenced to 10 years in prison under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)". The police media spokesman said the illegal activities committed by the persons engaged in violence will be noted in their police certificates. The academic activities of all schools and state institutions in the province were resumed on Wednesday, the Wayamba Province Governor Peshala Jayaratne said. The recent violence is a fresh backlash from the Easter attacks where nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others. Muslims said that rioters went about destroying their properties and setting fire to them even after curfew hours. They accused the security forces and the police for becoming silent watchers to the rioting. Muslim political parties said at least one person was killed in the riots. The attacks come during the Muslim holy month of Ramazan. The government has imposed a ban on social media following the violent clashes. The government which blocked Facebook and WhatsApp on Tuesday extended the blockade to Twitter. The social media blockade is meant to prevent the spread of rumours and hate comments, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said. 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.) Lupin Wednesday said it has received three observations from the US health regulator for its Aurangabad-based manufacturing facility. The (USFDA) carried out the inspection at the plant from May 6 to May 15, Lupin said in a statement. "The inspection at the Aurangabad facility closed with three observations. The company is confident of addressing them satisfactorily," it added. Shares of Lupin ended 3.22 per cent lower at Rs 783.10 apiece on wednesday. Three women were killed when an unidentified vehicle knocked them down while they were on a morning walk in Maharashtra's Pune district on Wednesday, police said. The vehicle driver sped away after crushing the women to death near Udapur village in Junnar tehsil on Ahmednagar- Kalyan Highway, an official at Otur police station said. "It seems the incident took place between 5.30 am and 6 am when an unidentified vehicle hit the women while they were on a morning walk. All the three women died on the spot," he said. The deceased were identified as Meerabai Dhamale (60), Kamal Dhamale (65) and Changunabai Gaykar (70), all residents of Dhamalemala area in Otur town, he said. A case was registered and a search was on for the vehicle and its driver, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP leader and Union minister Mahesh Sharma has described the "mahagathbandhan" of non-BJP parties as a gathering of "opportunists" who have no ideology of patriotism, growth or development and are interested only in "their pound of flesh". Sharma also called them "private limited companies" unable to stand with the expectations of people. In an interview to PTI, he said the leaders fighting BJP do not want a strong government at the Centre, so that each one of them can have an opportunity to sit on the chair of the prime minister. More than 20 regional parties had come together during a rally hosted by the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata in January, vowing to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in Lok Sabha polls. More such rallies were planned as a non-BJP front of regional parties started taking shape. But the idea tapered off amid signs of differences among the leaders over seat-sharing and PM candidate. Several regional leaders, including N Chandrababu Naidu, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, however have refuted any suggestion of contradiction among themselves and some of them have said they will decide their PM candidate together based on the election results on May 23. They have also said there are several leaders who can become the prime minister. "Mahagathbandhan is a cluster of opportunists. There is no ideology in this so-called mahagathbandhan," Sharma said, referring to the coming together of the regional parties. "I do not see any ideology of rashtravaad (patriotism) or any ideology of growth and development. All the leaders in this mahagathbandhan want to draw their pound of flesh," he said. The BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh, which sends the highest number of 80 members to Lok Sabha, said people know this time they would be voting for the wider interest of the country. This election, he asserted, is about a government which can take India "50 years ahead", adding there's a "sea change" in the vision of the people who want a stable government and an able leader. "People are looking for a strong, decisive, hard working and honest prime minister who can work above casteism and above family That leader is Modi ji," he said. Sharma expressed confidence the BJP will win a "thumping victory" in the general election and more than 22 seats in West Bengal. Asked whether Modi was holding rallies in Bengal to make up for losses in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, Sharma said the eastern state was a matter of "concern" for his party. "It is burning and trailing in the indicator of development scale. So our prime minister is very, very concerned about West Bengal. That's the reason he is visiting it so frequently," he said. Sharma accused Banerjee of appeasement and responsible for lack of development. "Where is West Bengal today? Why is it the most loan-burdened state in the country? Why is it not moving in the same pace in which other states of the nation are progressing?" he said, raising also the issue of illegal immigrants and demographic imbalance. When pointed out that Modi and Shah have repeatedly stated that the National Register of Citizens would be introduced in Bengal if BJP wins the election under way, and Banerjee is opposing it, Sharma emphasised there is an "urgent need" to introduce NRC to identify illegal immigrants living here after March 24, 1971. "We have limited resources. If we continue to permit this infiltration from different parts of the world to our country... We have to put checks and balances," he said. Sharma alleged Bengal has become an "entry point" of terrorists from neighbouring countries. "It's quite true that West Bengal has become a safe haven for terrorists. There are porous borders and all this is happening under the protection of the state government," he alleged. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after violence marked BJP chief Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, Union minister Narendra Tomar Wednesday alleged that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was trying to trample her political opponents, sensing her defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. "The base of Trinamool Congress is violence and it is heading for a defeat in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. She is totally flustered and that is why she is throwing the Constitution, law and protocol to the wind and trying to trample her opponents," Tomar told reporters here. "I strongly condemn the act of instigating the riot to stop the BJP chief's roadshow," he said, adding that Banerjee should remember that his party has come out stronger whenever it was oppressed. He said the TMC would lose badly and the BJP would come to power with a huge mandate on May 23. "It is unfortunate for WB that earlier the Communist parties had resorted to dictatorship there," he added. He said Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had no right to speak against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP and corruption. "The country has already decided that it does not need a tainted person, but strong Modi as the PM," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The hearse bearing the coffin travelled along a road lined with people holding flags, banners, and pictures of the late patriarch. The ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and the UAE expressed their condolences. In a telegram, the Pope calls Sfeir "a great figure in the history of Lebanon". Beirut (AsiaNews) The Government of Lebanon has proclaimed two days of national mourning in honour of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, who died on Sunday a few days short of his 99th birthday. All public buildings will remain closed, along with schools. Flags will fly at half-mast. From the Hotel-Dieu de France Hospital in Ashrafieh, where his body was placed in a coffin made of olive wood from Qannoubine, the so-called "valley of the saints", where Maronite monks first settled in the 10th century, the patriarch travelled on the mountain road towards Bkerke, amid crowds waving flags, holding banners in his honour, as well as pictures of the "guardian of national unity", who worked for intercommunal reconciliation and against the Syrian and Israeli occupations of the country. For the past three days, Lebanese and international leaders have been offering their condolences. The Saudi ambassador Walid Boukhari travelled to the presidential palace in Baabda to express his condolences. Other ambassadors including those of Iran, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates went to Bkerke to present their condolences to Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi. Yesterday, the Vatican Press Office released the text of the telegram Pope Francis sent to Cardinal Rahi, the current patriarch of the Maronite Church, stressing his predecessors "gentleness and determination". The pontiff also noted his commitment as an "architect of encounter, peace and reconciliation" and as an "ardent defender of the sovereignty and independence of his country", which made Nasrallah Sfeir "a great figure in the history of Lebanon". West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday conducted a protest march against the vandalism during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in the city on Tuesday. Accompanied by leading intellectuals of the city, Banerjee walked for about 6 km from the Gandhi Bhavan in Beleghata to Shyambazar five-point crossing in north Kolkata. area in the northern part of the city. TMC supporters who took part in the march shouted slogans against Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and condemned shattering of the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Kolkata witnessed wide-spread violence during BJP president Amit Shah's massive road show Tuesday. A bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised during the violence. Carrying posters and replicas of Vidyasagar's bust, TMC cadres demanded immediate arrest of the culprits involved in the vandalism. Banerjee and several top TMC leaders have changed profile pictures of their Facebook and Twitter profiles with photo of Vidyasagar on Wednesday to protest desecration of the bust of the great social reformer. Trinamool Congress's official profile on Twitter and Facebook was also changed with an image of Vidyasagar. The vandalism took place at Vidyasagar College, an institution named after the icon. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Alleging the attack on BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow was carried out at the behest of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat Wednesday said democracy is being "throttled" in West Bengal as she is "frustrated" at the prospect of defeat. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive roadshow by Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. Both the parties have now engaged in claims and counterclaims over the incident. "As the prospect of defeat looms large, the TMC supremo is frustrated. She seems to have lost all faith in democracy. Whatever is happening in West Bengal amounts to throttling democracy," Rawat said. "The West Bengal administration first refused to grant permission to Yogi Adityanath to campaign at Banerjee's behest. Then our party chief's roadshow was attacked. All the violence is being perpetrated by TMC workers on her direction," he said. Alleging that BJP workers are being killed in West Bengal, he said the TMC's impending defeat at the hustings had left Banerjee in a state of "frustration". "The BJP chief was not allowed to hold a rally in Jadhavpur as she knew her nephew Abhishek was sure to lose if it was held. She will get a fitting reply for her acts on May 23 as people of West Bengal have made up their mind about putting an end to her "misrule" and Hitler like governance," Rawat said. BJP's Uttarakhand unit also condemned violence during Shah's roadshow with its state president Ajay Bhatt accusing the TMC supremo of "unleashing her goons" on the streets of Kolkata to disrupt the event, saying it bore "testimony to Banerjee's growing frustration in the face of impending defeat and her dictatorial approach". "Mamata Banerjee is frustrated as her party is heading for a defeat at the hands of the BJP in West Bengal. She also seems to have lost her balance seeing the growing popularity of BJP. Out of sheer despair, the TMC boss unleashed her goons on the streets of Kolkata to attack BJP president Amit Shah's massive roadshow," Bhatt said in a statement here. Citing a threat to the life of Shah in West Bengal, Bhatt said his party's national president would not have escaped unharmed if the central forces had not come to his rescue. "The TMC vandals hurled stones at BJP workers and indulged in arson to disrupt the BJP's historic roadshow. The situation in West Bengal is serious and shows Mamata Bannerjee's dictatorial attitude," Bhatt said. Accusing the TMC supremo of using abusive words against the prime minister and the BJP president "out of frustration", he said this is a "clear indication of the imminent fall of her government". Bhatt also rued the cancellation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's rally scheduled to be held in Kolkata Wednesday as the administration did not allow the stage to be erected for the purpose. "People will teach the TMC a lesson in the Lok Sabha polls," the BJP leader warned and urged the Election Commission to take stern action against the "anarchic elements" in West Bengal to ensure free, fair and peaceful polling. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former prime minister may have to sit out of the for sometime till a sitting member resigns after being elected to the Lok Sabha, as his term comes to an end this June. Singh has been a five-time member and his current six-year term ends on June 14. The has announced elections on June 7 to fill the two seats from Assam, one of which is represented by Singh and the other by Santiuse Kujur, also a member. The does not have the required numbers in to get Singh re-elected to the Rajya Sabha as the BJP is in power in the state. There is speculation that the BJP may offer one of the seats falling vacant to Union minister and ally leader Ram Vilas Paswan, who is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections this time. Sources say if the Congress decides to give another term, he will have to be adjusted among seats falling vacant after some of its Rajya Sabha members win the general elections. Six Rajya Sabha seats are falling vacant in July from Tamil Nadu, where the DMK may offer one of the seats to Singh, in case the party wants. Otherwise, he may have to wait till April 2020 when 55 seats in various states will fall vacant and the Congress will get some of them. To fill up the two vacancies, the commission has announced biennial election on June 7, for which a notification will be issued on May 21. The counting of votes will be held on the evening of June 7, an hour after the polling concludes at 4.00 pm. Rajya Sabha members are elected by a method of indirect election. They are elected by the members of the legislative assembly of that state in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. Computerised draw of lots for selecting pilgrims for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra was held here Wednesday, in which for the first time, preference for fresh applicants or route choice of senior citizens was incorporated into the software, MEA officials said. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale presided over the draw of lots held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan, and also urged pilgrims to help "protect and preserve" the fragile environment in the Himalayas. Ministry of External Affairs organises the Yatra during June to September each year through two different routes - Lipulekh Pass (Uttarakhand),and Nathu La Pass (Sikkim). Known for its religious value and cultural significance, it is undertaken by hundreds of people every year. For Kailash Mansarovar Yatra 2019, the ministry received 2,996 applications, out of which 2,256 are male applicants, and 740 females. As many as 624 senior citizens had applied for the yatra. For Lipulekh route, there are 18 batches with 58 pilgrims per batch and for Nathu La, 10 batches with 48 yatris per batch. Two liaison officers will assist each batch of yatris. "It is our hope and endeavour that we provide the first chance to those who didnt had the chance to go to the yatra, the first-time applicants and we give priority to them. And, of course, to senior citizens as well," Gokhale said. He said, consistent efforts have been made to make the Yatra website as pilgrim-friendly as possible. "We also have a helpline now for applicant yatris. And, emails received from them are regularly monitored and applicants are suitably advised in a time-bound way," he added. A senior official said, the Nathu La route is less arduous compared to Lipulekh route and so preferred by senior citizens. "Earlier they would tell us their route choice while applying for the yatra, and we would try to accommodate their request in the overall process. This year, we have incorporate the preferences of first-time yatris and the senior citizens in the algorithm of the software used for the draw of lots, which is for the first time," he said. The Yatra involves trekking at high altitudes of up to 19,500 feet, under inhospitable conditions, including extreme weather, and rugged terrain, and may prove hazardous for those who are not physically and medically fit. Gokhale urged yatris to strictly observe safety norms, for themselves and also for their fellow pilgrims. The yatra is organized with the support of the state governments of Uttarakhand, Delhi, and Sikkim; and the cooperation of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). The Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN), and Sikkim Tourism Development Corporation (STDC) and their associated organisations provide logistical support and facilities for each batch of Yatris in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Mexican government said Tuesday that its embassy in Venezuela has taken in opposition lawmaker Franco Manuel Casella to provide him "protection and safety," even as Mexico City insists it is not meddling in the Venezuelan crisis. "In line with its diplomatic tradition, the government of Mexico received National Assembly deputy Franco Manuel Casella today at its diplomatic residence in Caracas to provide him protection and safety," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The foreign ministry added that Mexico "reiterates its commitment to respect, protect and promote the human rights of all people, regardless of their political affinity." The Mexican government reiterated the position of non-intervention in the Venezuelan conflict that the government of leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has maintained since he took office on December 1. "The government reaffirms its position of non-intervention, its openness to dialogue and its firm commitment to collaborate in finding a democratic, peaceful solution through dialogue," the statement read. Unlike other large Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, Mexico still recognises the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and not that of opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido. Guaido has challenged Maduro's authority since January, considering his re-election as illegitimate. Last week, the Mexican government said it was concerned about the arrest of Venezuelan National Assembly deputy Edgar Zambrano for his involvement in a failed military uprising against Maduro last month. The pro-government Constituent Assembly, a separate body that enjoys plenipotentiary powers, stripped five opposition lawmakers of their immunity earlier Tuesday for their participation in the uprising, bringing the total number to 14 so far. Three other lawmakers involved in the uprising have taken shelter at diplomatic offices and another has fled to Colombia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Wednesday condemned the violence during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata while accusing the Narendra Modi-Shah duo of promoting "mobocracy" in the country and damaging the cultural identity of the states. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi also condemned the desecration of the statue of national icon and social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during the violence, terming it a "shameful act". "A new where 'mobocracy' is being actively encouraged and abetted by the ruling party -- the BJP -- in the country has gained ground in the past five years. Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah-led BJP are squarely responsible for systematically damaging the cultural identity of each state in India. The Modi-Shah duo are responsible for promoting mobocracy in the country," he told reporters. Singhvi alleged that the federal structure, respect for regional aspirations, culture, language, food habits and the identity of indigenous people are under attack by the BJP in every state of the country. "This negative of 'destruction, demolition and discretion' are methodically vitiating the political atmosphere of the country. The BJP wants to exert its monolithic supremacy and bigoted agenda on each state, thus weakening the federal polity," he alleged. Singhvi said "federal fascism is embedded in the BJP's DNA and the power hungry Modi-Shah duo are hell-bent on bulldozing the cultural identity of states." He said the Congress strongly condemns the violent discretion of the statue of national icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a great educationist who changed the Bengali alphabet, sanskrit scholar and reformer who brought in the widow remarriage act and fought for women's education. "We are deeply pained that such a shameful incident took place," he said. Singhvi said Congress president Rahul Gandhi has taken upon himself to protect the culture, identity and language of the various states that make India. "This is one of the strongest reasons why Rahul Gandhi is fighting elections from both north India (Amethi) and south India (Wayanad) so that all parts of India feel united under the common umbrella of the Congress party," he added. The Congress leader alleged that disrespect for national icons and hegemony of its own ideology was reflective of the BJP's mindset and recalled how BJP H Raja had pledged to destroy the statue of social reformer Periyar in Chennai. BJP general secretary Ram Madhav "actively justified pulling down statues, but no action was taken against him", he claimed. Singhvi alleged that a bust of national icon B R Ambedkar was found splashed with red paint in north Chennai and in February this year, members of a fringe right wing group associated with the Sangh Parivar "shamelessly" re-enacted the scene of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination by shooting his effigy with an air pistol after garlanding a picture of his assassin Nathuram Godse in Uttar Pradesh. He said the current situation was the result of "condemnable policies" of the Modi government for various states, including not granting special status to Andhra Pradesh, and "systematic mauling" of the federal structure as had happened during government formations in Goa, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur. "The Modi government's of division was in full form, after it brought in the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), which was opposed tooth and nail in many states of the northeast. This was a direct assault on the indigenous people of the region," Singhvi said. In Jammu and Kashmir too, he said this government promised Rs 80,000 crore, but gave only 31 per cent of the package and so was the case in Bihar, where a total of Rs 1.25 lakh crore was promised but nothing reached the state. "PM Modi, who paraded co-operative federalism as an 'article of faith', hasn't even released the funds to states, with reports stating that the Centre has achieved only a third of devolution, thereby starving states of funds needed for vital welfare schemes like education and health," he alleged. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi Wednesday lashed out at Narendra Modi, saying the Prime Minister thinks "only person can run the country while actually it is the people who run the nation. Gandhi noted that Modi used to make "fun" of former PM Manmohan Singh "but after five years now Modi ji does not make fun of Manmohan ji.Today the country is making fun of him (Modi)". Addressing a poll rally at Bargari in Faridkot in favour of Congress candidate Mohd Sadique from Faridkot Lok Sabha seat, Gandhi referred to sacrilege incidents in 2015 and promised strict action against those involved in desecration of religious scriptures. I recall coming here when your 'dharam' (Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib) was disrespected. And those who did wrong, strict action will be taken against them and I give you guarantee on this, said Gandhi. On Tuesday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, while addressing a poll rally in Bathinda, had lashed out at the BJP's ally SAD over the sacrilege issue. Attacking Modi, Gandhi said here, "The PM thinks only one person can run country, but actually it is people who run it. Gandhi also raised the Rafale jet deal issue and dared Modi to hold a debate with him on corruption. Criticising the BJP government for demonetisation and Gabbar Singh Tax, he claimed these two decisions of Modi government had destroyed the economy and left lakhs jobless. The Congress President also hit out at Modi for not crediting Rs 15 lakh in accounts of every citizen, saying the prime minister "lied" to people on this and on giving two crore jobs. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The monsoon is likely to be delayed this year as its arrival expected on June 6, five days after its normal onset date, the India Meteorological Department said on Wednesday. "This year, the statistical model forecast suggests that the monsoon onset over Kerala is likely to be slightly delayed," the IMD said. "The southwest monsoon onset is likely to set over Kerala on 6th June with a model error of plus or minus 4 days." "Conditions are becoming favourable for advance of southwest monsoon over the southern part of Andaman Sea, Nicobar Islands and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal during May 18-19," it added. The normal onset date for monsoon over Kerala is June 1, which also marks the official commencement of the four-month rainfall season. The IMD and private agency Skymet were unanimous on the prediction of the late arrival of monsoon this year. The Skymet had said on Tuesday that the monsoon would hit the Kerala coast on June 4, with an error margin of two days. If the monsoon arrives late, it will be third such instance since 2014 when it arrived on June 5, followed by June 6 in 2015 and June 8 in 2016. The delay in the arrival of monsoon may not necessarily have an impact on the overall rainfall. Last year, it had hit Kerala on May 29, three days before the normal onset date. Yet, the country received 'below-normal' rainfall. Similarly, in 2017, the monsoon arrived in Kerala on May 30, but the overall rainfall was 95 per cent of the long period average (LPA), which falls under the below normal category. In its initial forecast released in April, the IMD had predicted a near-normal rainfall with an LPA of 96 per cent, which falls on the border of 'below-normal' and 'normal' rainfall category. On the other hand, the Skymet has predicted a 'below-normal' rainfall with an LPA of 93 per cent. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bengaluru-based Morning Fresh said sales of its hangover detox is witnessing exponential growth and it plans to expand operations nationally by the end of current fiscal. The product is already available in Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai markets and it was launched in Hyderabad Wednesday. "We will go to Pune, Delhi, Kolkata and markets like Goa in the next six to eight months. By the end of this financial year we should be fairly national," Morning Fresh Founder, Mitali Tandon told reporters here. The start-up's vision is to build the "Morning Fresh" into a Rs 25-30 crore brand within the next three to five years. It claimed the is a natural detox drink that flushes out toxins, reduces hangovers and protects the liver. "The product's formulation is rich in and vitamins and it contains Vitamin C, mulberry leaf extract and silk proteins," said Tandon. "Morning Fresh" is currently available in four flavours (in 60 ml bottles) and the has plans to increase their number and also launch in sachet/powder format. "We have two large manufacturing plants in The manufacturing is completely done in-house. Morning Fresh had a turnover of Rs one crore last fiscal and we are looking between Rs three crore to Rs five crore in current financial year," she added. The Supreme Court Wednesday termed as "prima facie arbitrary" the arrest of BJP's youth wing leader Priyanka Sharma for allegedly posting morphed image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media. The apex court's observation came after counsel for Sharma's brother mentioned the matter before it and said that despite the court's order on Tuesday the activist has not been released from jail. However, the counsel appearing for the West Bengal government told a vacation bench comprising justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna that Sharma has been released from jail at around 9:40 am on Wednesday. "This is not done. First of all the arrest was prima facie arbitrary," the bench said and warned it would issue contempt against officials concerned if Sharma is not released immediately from jail. The bench then asked the counsel representing Sharma's brother Rajib Sharma to take instruction on whether she has been released from jail or not. After a few minutes the counsel apprised the court that she has been released from jail. The apex court had yesterday granted bail to Sharma and had asked her to tender a "written apology" at the time of her release from jail for sharing the meme on Banerjee. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP youth wing activist Priyanka Sharma, who walked out of jail on Wednesday after being arrested for posting a morphed picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook, said jail authorities pressured her and extracted an apology for the post. Sharma, however, asserted she had no regrets for sharing the post for which she had to spend five days behind bars. She claimed she was "mentally tortured" in jail and was not even given enough water to drink. Sharma was released from jail at 9:40 a.m. after the Supreme Court Wednesday called her arrest "prima facie arbitrary" and pulled up the West Bengal government for the delay in releasing her. The apex court had Tuesday ordered Sharma's release on bail but directed her to tender a "written apology" for sharing the meme on Banerjee saying that freedom of speech of an individual ends when it infringes upon others' rights. "The detenue, Priyanka Sharma, is directed to be immediately released on bail. The detenue shall, however, at the time of release, tender an apology in writing for putting up/sharing the pictures complained of on her Facebook account. It is made clear that this order is being made in the special facts and circumstances of this case and shall not operate as a precedent," the court had said. The vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna, which initially said Sharma's apology will be a condition for bail, later clarified that it will not be so but she should apologise for sharing the post at the time of her release. Sharma was arrested on May 10 under section 500 (defamation) of the IPC and under other provisions of the Information Technology Act on a complaint by a local Trinamool Congress leader Vibhas Hazra. She was sent to 14-day judicial custody by a trial court in Howrah, and had moved the Supreme Court for bail as lawyers are on a strike in the state to protest alleged police high-handedness against their colleagues. However, addressing a press conference after her release, Sharma defiantly said,"I don't have any regrets. I have not done anything for which I will have to apologise." "I was tortured in the jail. Even the jailer pushed me yesterday. I told them I am not a criminal that you are pushing me into the jail room like this," she said. "They behaved very rudely. The condition inside was very bad." Later, talking to PTI Sharma claimed she was shifted from one cramped cell to another several times during her stay in jail. More than 40 prisoners were kept in one cell in hot and humid conditions, she alleged. "I was not given enough water to drink. They did not allow me to speak to my family members or my lawyer. It was like a mental torture. I think she (the jailer) was doing it at the behest of the state government," she alleged. "The jailer came to me and told me to sign a paper saying I am apologetic about my action. I was told that I have to sign the paper in order to get released from jail. So, I signed the paper. I had no other option," Sharma said. She said inside the jail she had no information about what was happening outside and that she was not aware of the Supreme Court order. The Supreme Court was furious on Wednesday when the counsel of Sharma's brother, who had moved the bail petition, informed it about the delay in her release. However, the counsel for West Bengal government informed the bench that she was released from jail at 9:40 a.m itself. "Why 9:40 a.m. today? The order was passed in your presence," the bench tersely asked the state counsel. When the state's counsel referred to the jail manual, the judges shot back, "Jail manual can't have precedence over an order of the Supreme Court." "No. This is not done. First of all the arrest was prima facie arbitrary," the court said. Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Priyanka's brother Rajib Sharma, told the bench that despite the apex court's Tuesday order granting her bail she had to spend another night behind the bars. Kaul told the bench that jail authorities Tuesday told them that they have to either bring certified copies of the apex court's order or approach the court of the chief judicial magistrate concerned for her release. "If she is not released, the consequences will follow," the bench said and warned it will issue contempt to officials concerned if Sharma was not released from jail immediately. "She should be released from jail within half an hour," the bench said. Kaul then told the court that the petitioner has moved a separate application which said that though a closure report in the case was filed in the trial court on May 13, the apex court was not informed about it during Tuesday's hearing. "If the Supreme Court was informed yesterday that the closure report has been filed in the trial court, then the apex court might not have asked her to apologise," Kaul said. A closure report is filed by police when it has no evidence to proceed against an accused. A magistrate is at liberty to accept or reject the report. If the magistrate is in agreement with the police report, the case is closed. Sharma was accused of sharing on Facebook an image in which Banerjee's face was photoshopped onto actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from the MET Gala event in New York. Her arrest had provoked protests by the BJP and social media users. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Securities Appellate Tribunal Wednesday directed IL&FS Securities Services to approach National Securities Clearing Corporation regarding its plea for annulment of certain trades that were executed for stock broker Allied Financial Services. IL&FS Securities, a clearing member, had contended that settlement of trades were done on the basis of fraudulently transferred collateral by Allied Financial and sought annulment of certain trades. In its 16-page order, the tribunal also said that Sebi cannot deny IL&FS Securities the opportunity to be heard as it was a party affected by the irregularities committed by Allied Financial. IL&FS Securities is part of crisis-hit IL&FS group. In November 2017, both entities entered into a clearing member-trading member agreement, wherein Allied was obligated to place the margin with IL&FS Securities. The latter was clearing the trades of Allies in Futures & Options (F&O) segment of the National Stock Exchange. The mutual funds provided by Allied were transferred to IL&FS Securities Services' demat account and then to the approved custodian account of NCL. The issue pertains to Allied selling certain F&O contracts on Nifty in December 2018 and it was alleged that Allied also received an upfront premium of around Rs 380 crore. IL&FS Securities was required to clear the contracts using the mutual funds. Before the mutual funds could be utilised, Sebi passed an order in February 2019 against Allied and other entities for various irregularities. Mutual funds of Novjoy Emporium Private Ltd, OCL India Ltd and Dalmia Cement East Ltd were alleged to be illegally transferred by Allied to IL&FS Securities Services as a collateral for margins of Allied. In this case, the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) directed IL&FS Securities not to deal with the securities till further orders. The EOW's direction has been challenged by IL&FS Securities before the Delhi High Court. IL&FS Securities moved the tribunal after Sebi rejected its plea to modify the February order passed against Allied and other entities. In its appeal, IL&FS Securities also sought annulment of the trade undertaken by Allied in December 2018. Noting that IL&FS Securities is a clearing member and not a trading member, the tribunal asked the company move an appropriation application to National Securities Clearing Corporation for annulment of the trade. "If such an application is filed, the said clearing corporation will decide the matter at the earliest after hearing all concerned parties," it noted. Sebi's ex-parte interim order against Allied Financial and other entities had observed that Allied Financial committed various violations by misappropriating clients securities which need to be returned. "Such securities were given to the appellant (IL&FS Securities) as collateral to square off the trades of Allied. "In our view, the appellant is an affected party. We thus, leave it as that and hold that in the event the appellant applies for being heard and for protection of its interests the Whole Time Member of Sebi cannot deny the opportunity of it being heard," the tribunal said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With prayers on his lips, a Muslim man drove his auto-rickshaw as fast as he can in a curfew-hit town, so that a Hindu woman who was in an advanced stage of labour could reach the hospital on time. They made it and a boy, aptly named 'Shanti', was born on Sunday when curfew was in force in Hailakandi following communal clashes just two days ago. Accompanied by district Superintendent of Police Mohneesh Mishra, Hailakandi Deputy Commissioner Keerthi Jalli visited the residence of Rubon Das and Nandita, parents of the new-born, on Wednesday and said, "We need more such examples of Hindu-Muslim unity and amity." She also congratulated Maqbool, Rubon's neighbour, for helping his friend at the time of distress, overriding the communal tension prevailing in the district. One person was killed in police firing and at least 15 people were injured, while more than 15 vehicles were damaged and 12 shops vandalised and set on fire in some parts of the town during communal clashes on Friday, forcing the authorities to clamp an indefinite curfew in the district. Two days later, Rubon was frantically calling his near and dear ones for help. He needed an ambulance to take Nandita to hospital as she was writhing in labour pain. In between the calls, Rubon said, "I was trying to calm my wife down saying someone will surely come to take us to hospital in Hailakandi town." The S K Roy Civil Hospital is a few kilometres away from their Rajyeshwarpur Part I village. However, no help came for them in the curfew affected area and, in the meanwhile, Nandita's pain increased. At that time, Rubon's friend and neighbour Maqbool heard his predicament and rushed to his residence with his auto-rickshaw. As Maqbool was driving the vehicle, speeding along the deserted roads, the only thing haunting him was whether he would make it on time to the hospital. "I was trying to comfort them.... telling them everything will be fine. But I myself was praying," said Maqbool. His timely help paid off and Nandita delivered a healthy boy at around 5.30 pm. Both friends heaved a sigh of relief after knowing that the condition of both the mother and the child was fine. Rubon at once decided to name his son 'Shanti' who was born amid curfew following a communal strife. The good spread, with the Administrator of the hospital Bhaskar Das describing the incident as a classic instance of Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. Cuddling the baby, Jalli said, "It's good to know that the baby has been named Shanti by the parents with the hope that lasting peace will return to Hailakandi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Wednesday admitted the intervention plea filed by state-owned Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) claiming dues of Rs 195 crore from Vikram Bakshi, the estranged India partner of US-based McDonald's. A two-member bench headed by Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya accepted the intervention plea filed by and suggested the parties to settle the issue. " intervention is accepted," said the The bench has listed the matter on May 27 for next hearing. Fast food chain McDonald's has reached an out-of-court settlement with Bakshi, buying out Connaught Plaza Restaurants Ltd, which runs the restaurants chain of the US-based fast food major in north and east India, from their joint venture. has filed an intervention application before the NCLAT, seeking its dues from Bakshi, before the deal with McDonald's is over. During the proceedings, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing HUDCO informed the appellate tribunal that a matter related to the dues of Rs 195 crore is going on at Delhi-based Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT). "There cannot be a settlement as the matter is still pending there (DRT)... How can they do it," said Mehta adding that Bakshi would first have to clear HUDCO's dues before disposing his stake in CPRL. According to him, the DRT has restricted Bakshi from selling or transferring his shares held in CPRL. However, counsel from Bakshi and McDonald's requested the appellate tribunal to proceed as their settlement was almost close and requested to withdraw their respective petitions filed against each other at On this, Justice Mukhopadhaya said: "We cannot annul a tribunal's order." He further said: "If the settlement is contrary to law, then we can not admit it." "You settle it (with HUDCO)...," added the chairman. During the proceedings, counsel from Bakshi and McDonald's informed about settlement and requested to withdraw the cases. However, HUDCO opposed the move. In 2013, HUDCO had filed a criminal case under the Negotiable Instruments Act against Bakshi in a 2012 cheque bounce case and said its dues owed to Bakshi had crossed Rs 75 crore. HUDCO had also filed cases against Bakshi under Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act. Earlier on May 6, estranged partners McDonald's and Bakshi had informed NCLAT that they were working towards an out-of-court settlement to end their dispute. On May 9, they announced an out-of-court settlement with the US fast food chain agreeing to buy Bakshi from their joint venture that operated outlets of the chain in north and east India. The details of the pact, including financial terms, were not disclosed. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad Wednesday claimed that neither BJP nor NDA will form the government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections. Narendra Modi will not become prime minister for second time after the election as a non-NDA, non-BJP government will be formed at the Centre, he claimed. "We are in the last phase of elections and I can say on the basis of my experience during campaigning across the country that neither BJP nor NDA is going to return to power at the Centre. "Narendra Modi is also not going to become the prime minster for the second time ... Non-NDA non-BJP government will be installed at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections," he told reporters here. Azad said it will be good if there is a consensus on Congress leader's name for heading the government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha election results are out but "we are not going to make it an issue that we (Cong) will not let any other (leader) to become the PM, if it is not offered to us (Cong)." The Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said the sole objective of the Congress is to stop the NDA from forming the government at the Centre and installing a non-NDA government. BJP would be reduced to 125 Lok Sabha seats, he claimed while refusing to divulge as how many seats Congress will win in the elections. Azad said the BJP has been "thoroughly exposed" after coming to power at the Centre in 2014 as it has followed its ideology of "creating hatred and divide" in the society. He said the BJP government's policy and principle have been exposed as the party of "capitalists and industrialists". Azad alleged that the BJP government has followed a "pro-rich" policy. All the major sections of the society - farmers, youths, women and labourers are a depressed lot today because of the "wrong" policy of the Central government, he said, adding that youths were "promised" 10 crore jobs by Narendra Modi in five years but it instead snatched 4.73 crore jobs due to demonetization and faulty implementation of GST. Taking a swipe at PM's statement on science related issues, he said that "After seeing the PM's statement relating to science, I think I should commit suicide." Azad condemned the smashing of the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, during the clash between BJP and TMC supporters during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday and said stern action should be taken against those responsible for it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- After having bagged the 7th rank on the list of cleanest cities in India, Navi Mumbai is slowly on its way to earn a spot on the coveted list of happiest cities as well. To make this vision a reality, the citizens of Navi Mumbai came together to participate in Wellness Fest - a city-wide monthly event that provides experiential sessions on well-being, including methods of relaxation for inner peace. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887583/Wellness_Fest.jpg ) The initiative is undertaken by the dedicated team of the Heartfulness Institute - a global non-profit organization whose trainers use relaxation and meditation techniques to help develop holistically educated communities. Brighter Minds, an organization that caters to discovering the unlimited potential of children's minds using neuroscience and spiritual values of positivity, joined hands with the Heartfulness Institute to make Wellness Fest a roaring success. NetBiz Systems Pvt. Ltd., a 360-degree digital performance-driven agency that provides marketing and content solutions, recognised the potential of Wellness Fest as an opportunity to give back to the community. Coming aboard the initiative as the digital and creative partner, NetBiz took on the responsibility of creating content and generating buzz for the one-of-a-kind event. From curating information about the highlights of the fest to designing different formats of content across social media, NetBiz sought to spread awareness about the Wellness Fest through its digital platforms. This was to ensure that maximum number of people attend the fest and feel the impact its sessions can have, as they take their first steps towards health and happiness. The first edition of the Wellness Fest, which was conducted from 5th to 7th April 2019, saw a footfall of over 8,000 people. The fest is scheduled to become year-long event that will be organised for 3 days every month, and it promises to attract eager participants, looking forward to stimulating sessions of karayobics, yoga, meditation, talks on health and nutrition, brain exercises and much more. About NetBiz NetBiz Systems Pvt. Ltd. is a 360-degree data-driven performance marketing agency in Mumbai that provides integrated marketing and content solutions built on robust brand planning and boundless creative ideas. With strategies built on meaningful insights, the agency intensifies user experience by providing hybrid advertising solutions, harmonised with thoughtful concepts. NetBiz devises the perfect blend of varied platforms and technology for brands, coupled with a digital system that works best for them. Combining creativity, dynamism and innovation to create better brand experiences, NetBiz has been transforming brands since 2003 by ensuring that their concepts are designed well, developed immaculately and delivered timely. Source: NetBiz Systems Pvt. Ltd. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Scientists have developed a bowl-shaped electrode which can efficiently convert carbon dioxide into fuels, helping combat the climate change threat posed by rising atmospheric CO2. An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit, like air or electrolyte. Researchers, including those from the University of Bath in the UK, believe the design will eventually allow the use of renewable electricity to convert CO2 into fuels and chemicals without creating additional atmospheric carbon. Using this reaction, known as the reduction of carbon dioxide, has exciting potential, according to the study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. However, two major obstacles are poor conversion efficiency of the reaction and a lack of detailed knowledge about the exact reaction pathway. The new electrode addresses these challenges with higher conversion efficiency and sensitive detection of molecules created along the reaction's progress -- thanks to its innovative shape and construction. The bowl shaped electrode works six times faster than standard planar -- or flat -- designs, researchers said. The bowl-like shape of the design concentrates electric fields on its hot edges -- the rim of the bowl -- which then concentrates positively charged potassium ions on the active sites of the reaction, reducing its energy requirements. The Copper-Indium alloy electrode can also be useful to sensitively study the reaction process. "There is evidence that CO2 increases surface ozone, carcinogens, and particulate matter, thereby increasing death, asthma, hospitalisation, and cancer rates," said Professor Ventsislav Valev, from the University of Bath. "It is therefore crucial to keep researching new ways for lowering the CO2 levels in the atmosphere," Valev said. The team wants to continue research to develop the most efficient catalyst to perform carbon reduction. "CO2 is causing climate change, making our planet warmer. By using clean electricity, we can convert CO2 into chemical fuels, which can be used again," said Professor Liwu Zhang, from Fudan University in China. "This builds a cycle of CO2, with no increment of CO2 concentration and will help save our world," Zhang said. However, researchers said in order to improve the efficiency of transforming CO2 into chemical fuels, it is extremely important to know the reaction pathway, and find the most suitable catalyst. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lost in a jungle without his mobile phone and wallet in the night, a Chinese national was rescued by a policeman, who went beyond his call of duty to reunite the foreigner with his group in Greater Noida despite language barrier. The Chinese national has been identified as Xing Fu, who has come here for some work in a mobile manufacturing company but had lost his mobile phone and wallet somewhere, according to the police. Xing, who cannot understand Hindi or English, also got separated from his group and lost his way into the jungles earlier in the day, the police said. Sub-inspector Komal Kuntal, in charge of a police outpost under Kasna station limits, was out on patrolling in the area near the Gautam Buddh University around 9.30 pm on Tuesday when he noticed some suspicious movement on a road along a jungle. "I stopped my vehicle to find out more and there appeared to be a man near some bushes. I asked who it was and the only response I got was 'please help'," Singh told PTI. "These are perhaps the only two words he knew and English. Nothing in Hindi. I also don't know Chinese. But he appeared really distraught and was profusely perspiring, suggesting he was in trouble. He also signalled that he was very hungry," the SI said. Kuntal said he gestured the man to come along in his car, tried to explain he was from the police to help him and somehow managed to convince him. "Soon I called up a personal acquaintance of mine who works in a private agency as a translator, thinking he could help us. Most luckily, he knew Chinese and then I put on the call on speaker and got the two talking and my acquaintance interpreting everything to me," Singh said. Kuntal, in charge of the Army Welfare Housing Organisation (AWHO) police outpost in Greater Noida, said he got to know that Xing was staying in Greenwood Society, Phase 2, which was some six or seven km from the spot where they met. The two soon reached the society where the policeman located the other members of Xing's group, who too did not know Hindi or English properly but were worried about his disappearance. "He had midway gestured that he was hungry. I offered food but then he signalled he wanted an ice cream when he saw a cart along the road in the city. We stopped and had ice creams," Kuntal said. "He had turned very emotional after reuniting with his group. Said thank you in broken Hindi. I was overwhelmed he knew those words, however broken his language. He thanked the police and hailed India as great," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One person was killed Wednesday when he was hit by a vehicle in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. The accused driver was arrested within an hour of the incident, they said. Sansar Singh, a resident of Pallad village, was hit by a rashly driven Punjab-bound load carrier at Kalibari on Jammu-Pathankot highway this morning, resulting in his death, a police official said. The driver sped away to escape the arrest, he said. All checkpoints along the route were alerted and one of the teams managed to intercept the vehicle near Kharote Morh and apprehended the erring driver, Balkar Singh of Punjab, the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 35-year-old man was arrested after the police seized ganja worth Rs 6 lakh from him in Thane district of Maharashtra, police said on Wednesday. Acting on a tip-off, the police nabbed Irshad Iqbal Inamdar near a toll plaza in Mumbra town here on Tuesday night and seized 39.7 kg of the contraband from him, a police spokesperson said. The man was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Finding himself in the centre of a raging controversy over his "free India's first extremist was a Hindu" remark, Makkal Needhi Maiyam founder Kamal Haasan Wednesday said he had only spoken about what was a 'historic truth.' The actor-politician asked his detractors to make "valid allegations", asking if he could cater to only one section of people after entering active politics. "They got angry for what I spoke at Aravakurichi. What I spoke (there) is historic truth. I did not lure anyone to a brawl," he said during a by-poll campaign at Tirupurankundram near here. He said truth would triumph like the "historic truth I mentioned." "Understand the meaning for the word extremist. I could have used the word terrorist or murderer (against Godse)... ours is active politics, there won't be any violence," he said while resorting to wordplay in Tamil to drive home his point. The MNM leader alleged his speech was edited selectively and took a dig at his detractors, saying the charges levelled against him "apply to my media friends also." He asked if his critics could show instances of his remarks that could incite violence and said the accusations against him had hurt him. "They are saying I hurt Hindu sentiments. There are so many Hindus in my family. My daughter is a believer," he said. Stoking a controversy, Haasan had said on Sunday that "free India's first extremist was a Hindu", referring to Nathuram Godse who killed Mahatma Gandhi. "I am not saying this because this is Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi. Free India's first extremist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it (extremism, apparently) starts," he had said in bypoll-bound Aravakurichi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid a raging debate over banning of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) in the country, including e-cigarettes and flavoured hookah, more than 3,000 users of these devices have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to legalise them. In their petition, they claimed their health has improved significantly after they switched to vaping from smoking conventional cigarettes. "I am 51 and have successfully quit a 20-year habit of smoking over 40 cigarettes a day with the help of vaping, also known as as e-cigarettes. I have regained stamina, my heart condition is better and there is no smoker's cough. There are thousands like me whose lives have been positively impacted," said Jagannath Sarangapani, a professional from Hyderabad. Sarangapani, who initiated the petition to counter the misinformation surrounding ENDS, said smoking is among the toughest habits to give up, with almost every smoker trying to quit but failing and stressed that they need more options to wean away from deadly cigarettes and ENDS are now the most effective means of doing so. "A ban will force me back into smoking," he added. In August last year, the Union Health Ministry issued an advisory to all states and UTs to stop manufacture, sale and import of ENDS after the Delhi High Court took strong exception to the Centre's delay in coming up with appropriate measures to tackle the "new emerging threat" of e-cigarettes. The advisory was subsequently challenged in Delhi High Court which ruled it to be non-binding on states and government bodies. However, 13 states in India Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Jharkhand and Mizoram have already banned use and sale of e-cigarettes, Vape and E-Hookah. Professor Rajesh Sharan from North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong, who recently published a meta-analysis of 229 studies on ENDS, said, "Within the limits of available information, our study indicates that these devices pose minimal health and safety concerns when compared to conventional cigarettes. "Our study establishes that new generation ENDS may serve as an efficient means of meeting the nicotine demand of a person addicted to smoking, without the grave health consequences of conventional cigarettes. Rational policies are required to extend the benefits of ENDS to smokers, while preventing their misuse, especially by adolescents and non-smokers." A major year-long clinical trial into e-cigarette use published in peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine in January found that ENDS are twice as effective as traditional nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) such as gums and patches in helping smokers quit. According to market research agency Euromonitor, over 40 million smokers across the world have switched to ENDS in less than a decade. Dr Rohan Sequeira, cardio-metabolic physician at Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai, said authorities should understand vaping is much less harmful than smoking. A number of countries have done research and found the toxicological profile to contain significantly lower harmful substances than in cigarette smoke. "The so-called dangers of ENDS are grossly exaggerated and misrepresented. E-cigarettes should be embraced as another effective NRT and should be legalised and regulated instead of imposing a ban," Sequeria said. Harm reduction advocate and director of Association of Vapers India Samrat Chowdhery said the Indian government is pushing for a ban on vaping while the world's 65 most advanced nations such as the US, 28 EU countries including the UK, along with Canada and New Zealand have embraced e-cigarettes. A ban will deprive our country's 12 crore smokers of an effective means to reduce tobacco harm while ensuring continued revenue for the tobacco industry by killing off competition to cigarettes that cause nearly 10 lakh annual deaths in India. "The government should put the lives of people before industry profits," Chowdhery said. "Teen uptake is a problem across risk behaviours, from alcohol use to underage driving, and most significantly with smoking as nine out of 10 current smokers began when they were minors. This issue needs to be tackled through sound regulation, but it should not be as an excuse to deny millions of citizens a pathway to avoid tobacco-related mortality and morbidity," he stated. The government action against e-cigarettes has also faced resistance from some NGOs. The Information Technology ministry in January proposed to ban information related to ENDS on online platforms. Over 30 civil society and industry organisations, including Amnesty, Internet Freedom Foundation, FICCI and COAI, opposed the amendment stating the ban would be arbitrary, unjustified and in violation of constitutional laws. However, a group of doctors, students and civil society organisations urged the Prime Minister to enforce a ban on ENDS before it becomes an "epidemic in India", especially among the youth. A sub-committee group constituted by the ministry, on health effects of ENDS, considered 251 studies/reports and concluded that there is evidence to prove that ENDS and its variants, are harmful to users. This committee of doctors from AIIMS, NCDIR and public health experts have concluded that ENDS are as harmful as any another tobacco product in terms of causing premature deaths and morbidity. According to the committee, there is no evidence to show that they are less harmful, safe and helpful towards cessation efforts. The medical communities across the globe have also questioned the acceptance of ENDS as a harm reduction or tobacco cessation strategy. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The home of the American ambassador to Greece was vandalised with paint on Wednesday, police and the ambassador said, a move likely carried out by domestic radical anarchists. "I woke up to more childish vandalism this morning outside the residence and will continue to work with Greek authorities to punish the culprits according to law," ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said in a tweet. "Destruction of property is not peaceful protest," he said. Police said a group of ten persons on motorcycles approached the ambassador's residence and threw paint. Radical anarchists and domestic far-left outfits regularly carry out acts of violence against diplomatic missions in Greece. Anarchists in recent days have carried out vandalism attacks in support of a jailed prominent member of the far-left Greek extremist organisation November 17. Dimitris Koufodinas, the organisation's main hitman who is serving multiple life sentences, went on hunger strike this month after a furlough request was denied. November 17 launched dozens of attacks between 1975 and 2000 that killed 23 people, including the CIA station chief in Athens, several prominent Greek businessmen and the British military attache. The group was dismantled in 2002. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Pakistani Christian couple, who has been sentenced to death for sending blasphemous text messages, did not get a fair trial, said the lawyer who successfully defended Aasia Bibi in the high-profile blasphemy case. Advocate Saiful Malook will plead for the innocence of the Christian couple, Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Masih, who was awarded death sentence by a district court in Pakistan's Punjab province in April 2014 and also imposed a fine of Rs 100,000 each. Kausar is the second woman after Bibi to be ordered capital punishment and is lodged in the same death cell, where Bibi was imprisoned before her acquittal in the blasphemy case last year. The couple has appealed to the high court in Lahore. "They did not get a fair trial," Malook told Fox "They are innocent." Lawyer Saiful Malook, who briefly fled Pakistan after receiving death threats when Bibi's conviction for blasphemy was overturned last October, is to appeal against the couple's 2014 conviction under the same law. The couple, believed to be in their late 30's, hail from the city of Gojra in the Punjab province in Pakistan's east, and were living with their four young children in a church compound. Kausar was working as a cleaner and servant at the church school. Her husband is paralysed from the waist down, having fractured his spine in a 2004 accident. According to the complainant in the couple's case, he received an SMS containing blasphemous remarks while offering prayers at a mosque on July 18, 2013. He showed the SMS to his friends and thereafter approached his counsel for legal proceedings on the basis of the SMS. While sitting in the office of the council, he received five more SMSes. When the counsel tried to contact the number, he (lawyer) also received three to four SMSes on his mobile phone. The police claimed that both the convicts confessed to committing blasphemy. After the investigation, police in its report alleged the couple was involved in the commission of an offence and would face trial. However, the court's order was challenged by the couple on many grounds. Their appeal contends that the witnesses produced by the prosecution during the trial were related to the complainant and were inimical' towards them and their statements required independent corroboration which is lacking in this case. The convicted couple also claimed that about eight to nine months prior to the case, a minor quarrel took place between their children and of the neighbour's, who developed a grudge against them. The texts were alleged to have been written in English, and both Kausar and Masih are illiterate and neither have a knowledge of English or its alphabet. Kausar alleged that the neighbour succeeded in obtaining the copy of her National Identity Card (NIC) and purchased a SIM in her name and later misused that SIM and forwarded the alleged blasphemous messages to the complainant, who was in collusion with their neighbour. Malook said there is no evidence that they either sent the texts nor purchased the incendiary chip. He also contends that Masih was forced under torture into making a bogus confession ahead of the trial. Kausar is being held at Multan prison while her husband is imprisoned about 150 miles away at the Faisalabad District Jail. They have not seen each other since before their sentencing. Their four children, aged between nine and fifteen, are now in the care of a paternal aunt. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) on Wednesday decided not to lift its airspace ban for Indian flights till May 30, as Islamabad is awaiting the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls in India. fully closed its airspace after an strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camp in Balakot on February 26. However, opened its airspace for all flights except for New Delhi, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur on March 27. "The top officials of defence and aviation ministries held a meeting on Wednesday to reconsider opening its airspace for Indian flights. They decided that Pakistan's airspace will remain banned for the Indian flights till May 30, a senior government official told PTI after the meeting. He said the Civil Aviation Authority has also notified the decision to the airmen. The authority issued a notification (Notam) after the meeting to pilots, advising them of circumstances relating to the state of flying. The official said the government will now consider lifting of the ban on Pakistan's airspace for Indian flights on May 30. Palm oil imports dropped 9.17 per cent to 7,07,450 tonnes during April this year, industry body Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) said Wednesday. Imports of palm oil stood at 7,78,884 tonnes in April 2018. Palm oil accounts for over 60 per cent of the country's total vegetable oil imports. India's total vegetable oil imports also showed a decline of 11 per cent to 12.32 lakh tonnes in April from 13.86 lakh tonnes in the same month last year, it said in a statement. "In last one year, global prices of various edible oils have gone down in the range of 11 to 20 per cent due to excess supply in the world market, but rupee has depreciated by nearly 6 per cent in last one year," the SEA said. Among palm oil products, import of crude palm oil declined to 4,49,762 tonnes during April this year from 5,56,822 tonnes in the same period last year, as per SEA data. However, shipments of RBD palmolein rose marginally to 2,38,479 tonnes from 2,09,772 tonnes, while that of crude palm kernel oil (CPKO) increased to 19,209 tonnes from 12,290 tonnes. Among soft oil, import of sunflower oil declined to 2,42,462 tonnes in April 2019 from 2,94,450 tonnes, while that of soyabean oil fell to 2,48,851 tonnes from 2,64,750 tonnes earlier. India, the world's leading vegetable oil buyer, imports palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, and a small quantity of crude soft oil, including soyabean oil, from Latin America. Sunflower oil is imported from Ukraine and Russia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Diversified technology firm Panasonic India is betting big on its energy-related business and expecting to clock around Rs 700 crore in revenue by 2021 from this vertical, said a top company official. The company has divided its energy space business into two segments -- energy storage and mobility solutions, Panasonic President and CEO Manish Sharma said. Panasonic Wednesday introduced its smart electric vehicle charging service 'Nymbus' to tap emerging opportunities in the mobility sector. "This is a very important segment for us. Over all, from all energy related business by 2021, we are looking at a revenue of Rs 700 crore," Sharma told PTI. According to him: "The market opportunity would be around Rs 5,000 crore by then. This would include battery energy and electric charging business." Nymbus is a charging service that combines charging stations, swap stations, on board charges, telematics systems and the virtual components like cloud service, analytics, intuitive dashboard and artificial intelligence. The company has presently introduced Nymbus in Delhi NCR region and is currently available for two and three-wheelers only. Panasonic has plans to expand charing solutions for other vehicle categories and to expand to 7-8 cities in the next three years. "We have currently deployed our solutions in Delhi NCR. We aim to expand to 25 cities in the next five years targeting approximately one million vehicles," said Panasonic India Head Energy Systems Division Atul Arya. As part of the first phase, Panasonic has partnered with electric mobility service providers' SmartE and qQuick, wherein Panasonic will be deploying the EV charging service on 150 SmartE electric three-wheelers and on 25 Quick 2-wheelers in the Delhi NCR region. Panasonic is also expanding its storage battery system, which is based on Lithium Ion battery. "This business is going on with reasonable pace, in line with the the rate of adoption which is happening in our country," he said adding that such adoptions is happening in the areas of telecom towers and ATMs. "I believe that in the next three years, it would have rapid expansion in critical applications, where diesel gensets are used such as hospitals, data centres etc," Sharma said. Panasonic energy business is part of its B2B business in India, which is presently contributing around 25 per cent in its revenues. The company expects that in the next five years, its B2C and B2B to equally contribute 50:50 in its revenue, Sharma said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Peace Party president Mohamed Ayub has surrendered before a court here after it issued a bailable warrant against him in connection with an alleged violation of model code conduct in 2017, police said on Wednesday. Chief judicial magistrate Rakesh Gautam released him on bail on Tuesday after furnishing two bonds of Rs 20,000. According to the prosecution, a case was registered against Ayub during the 2017 assembly election for allegedly publishing objectionable advertisement without permission. The police had also filed a charge sheet against him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US-based cigarette maker Philip Morris has urged the Indian government to create a regulatory environment for scientifically substantiated smoke-free alternatives. Philip Morris said in a statement that the US Food and Drug Administration recently certified that IQOS, its electrically heated tobacco system, is appropriate for protection of public health and is authorised for sale in the US. IQOS is a pen-like electronic device that includes an electronically controlled heating blade that warms a tobacco stick and releases a vapour with the taste of tobacco but fewer harmful chemicals than cigarette smoke. The multinational company said it hopes a regulatory environment is also created in India, after the certification, where a variety of scientifically substantiated smoke-free alternatives can be made accessible. "Hopefully the Indian government can one day create a regulatory environment where a variety of scientifically substantiated smoke-free alternatives can be made accessible to the more than 100 million adult smokers in India," Alexander Reisch, managing director, wholesale trading, of India Philip Morris was quoted as saying in a statement. "The FDA order sets out clear commercialisation guidelines, including marketing requirements, that maximize the opportunity for adults to switch from cigarettes, while minimising unintended use. We fully support this objective, and would welcome the opportunity to engage with the Indian authorities to develop a set of similar high standards for commercialisation of such products in India, which will ensure that these products reach only the right audience current adult smokers," Reisch said. "The decision to authorize IQOS in the US is an important step forward for the approximately 40 million American men and women who smoke. Some will quit. Most won't, and for them IQOS offers a smoke-free alternative to continued smoking," he added. The company said it is building a "future on a new category of smoke-free products that, while not risk-free, are a much better choice than continuing to smoke". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ravi Bhalla, the first ever Sikh mayor of a city in New Jersey, has been allegedly racially targeted after his photoshopped image as an Arab dictator was published on a local website. The New Jersey-based website, "Hudson Mile Square View", ran an image of Hoboken Mayor Bhalla that resembled the lead character played by British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in the comedy film "The Dictator". The photo was part of a story titled, "Ravi Bhalla goes to the mattresses... for his tax increase". It accused Bhalla of "summoning all the powers" of his office to "reinstitute a tax increase" that was not approved by the city council. According to the website, Bhalla had proposed a 3 per cent tax increase but the council slashed it to 1 per cent. The story said now "the pushback from the Mayor's office to take back the tax reduction is underway". Sikh activists denounced the image as racist. Community speaker and activist Simran Jeet Singh tweeted on Tuesday: "Ravi Bhalla is the first-ever turbaned Sikh elected as Mayor in US history. " "He's endured immense racist abuse, from flyers calling him a terrorist to death threats against him and his family. Now, someone is photoshopping Ravi to depict him as a despot. This is racist and wrong." Audrey Truschke, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University and author of the book Aurangzeb, too, expressed her solidarity with Bhalla. She tweeted: "Disagreeing with politics is OK, discrimination and racism is not. Read this thread, and the thread it references at the end, to educate yourself about ongoing prejudice in America. Such hate will cease when we all reject bigotry. Solidarity with @RaviBhalla". Later on Tuesday night, the website said that the image was submitted by a reader. The website has earlier also photoshopped his images. In February 2017, it posted a photo of Bhalla with a "Pinocchio" nose. Hudson Mile Square View, which calls itself "Hoboken's biggest website covering government, politics and corruption", has been critical of Bhalla right from the beginning of his mayoral term in 2017. This is not the first time that Bhalla, the first Sikh mayor of Hoboken, has experienced racist attacks over his religion and turban. Soon after his election in 2017, racist flyers calling him a terrorist were circulated in the city. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Piramal Group's real estate arm Piramal Realty plans to double its portfolio to 30 million sq ft in the next two years and is also in talks with global investors for raising funds, a top company official said. The company currently has over 15 million sq ft of saleable area under development across five projects and plans to take it to nearly 30 million sq ft, which will be a mix of residential and commercial real estate. "In the year 2018, we clocked nearly Rs 3,400 crore of revenues from our various projects and sold an inventory worth Rs 80,000 crore in the last calendar year. "We want to continue expanding our portfolio and we are looking at either outright buyouts or through entering into joint venture or joint development with developers," the company's founder Anand Piramal told reporters here. He further said the company is in talks with global funds for raising money to invest in both commercial and residential projects. However, Piramal did not divulge any details on the same. At present, two global private equity majors Goldman Sachs and Warburg Pincus have invested around USD 434 million in the company at the entity level, which is one of the largest PE investments in Indian real estate. "There is a lot of interest of global funds in the Indian real estate market. Traditionally it was more focused on the commercial side, mainly because of the characteristics of the asset and guaranteed returns. However, we are now seeing the shift towards residential real estate as well," he said. In the last two years, out of the total PE inflows in the country, Singapore-based funds comprised 41 per cent or USD 3.5 billion. This was followed by the US and Canada-based PE investors that have a cumulative contribution of USD 3.8 billion in the last two years. Asked if the company would be expanding to other cities, Piramal said, "There is still a lot of opportunity in and around Mumbai especially for residential real estate and we will continue focusing here. For our commercial portfolio, we may look at opportunities outside as well." PTI had last month reported that Piramal Realty and Omkar Developers are close to extending their existing partnership to a new residential project in Mahim. There were reports that the two firms were also coming together to jointly develop a 2 million-sq ft office complex at Mumbai's Andheri. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 52-year-old Delhi police personnel has died at a training centre in Delhi, police said on Wednesday. The deceased, Suresh Kaushik, was taken to a hospital after he complained of uneasiness on Tuesday night. Kaushik died during treatment at the hospital, the police said. Kaushik was undergoing training as an assistant sub-inspector of police at the training centre in Wazirabad since April 1, the police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States and Russia have agreed on ways to break a deadlock in finding a political solution in war-ravaged Syria, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after talks with President Vladimir Putin. Pompeo said that Syria - where the United States and Russia are on opposite sides - was a major topic of conversation during the talks Tuesday evening at Putin's dacha in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. He said that the two powers both backed establishing a committee tasked with drafting a post-war Syrian constitution -- a key step that has been bogged down by disagreements over its composition. "We had a very productive conversation on pathways forward in Syria, things we can do together where we have a shared set of interests on how to move the political process forward," Pompeo told reporters at the airport before leaving. "There is the political process associated with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 that has been hung up and I think we mutually now can begin to work together in a way to unlock that," he said. He voiced hope to "get that process to at least take the first step of forming that committee". UN Security Council Resolution 2254, passed unanimously in 2015, called for a UN-backed, Syrian-led political process. But successive UN envoys working to end the eight-year war, which has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions, have struggled to make headway on the constitutional committee. Pompeo said that Russia and the United States also discussed other areas of cooperation in Syria which he could not reveal in public. The US pointman on Syria, Jim Jeffrey, was one of the only three US officials to accompany Pompeo in his nearly two-hour meeting with Putin. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after an alleged attack on Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra slammed the state government and local administration, terming the incident an attack on democracy. This is an attack on democracy. Nothing of this sort has ever happened in Rae Bareli. Country-made weapons, bricks and lathis were used in the attack. Zila panchayat members were dragged from their vehicles," Priyanka Gandhi alleged. She also alleged that one of the zila panchayat members was run over by a vehicle. "What kind of democracy is this? It is the BJP government in the state when such incidents are taking place while the entire administration is sitting idle," she said after a meeting with party workers here. Priyanka Gandhi maintained that the party would raise the issue at every level. Our leaders are meeting the Governor in Lucknow. In Delhi, we are meeting the Election Commission. We will take legal recourse and file a complaint against the local administration if required, she said. Priyanka Gandhi, who was scheduled to take part in a roadshow in Varanasi later in the day, said they had told the administration that something of this kind could take place but precautionary measures were not taken. The MLA was on her way to oversee the voting for a no-confidence motion against zila panchayat chairman Avadhesh Pratap Singh, who is the brother of BJP's Lok Sabha candidate Dinesh Singh. She was allegedly attacked by Avadhesh Singh's henchmen, armed with iron rods and bricks in Harchandpur area. According to Congress sources, the MLA's vehicle had overturned as its driver lost control over it due the attack. An FIR was registered against Avadhesh and his brother Dinesh Singh later in the night on the complaint of zila panchyat member Rakesh Awasthi. Awasthi had alleged that he too was attacked along with two other members, in an effort to prevent them from participating in the no-confidence motion against Avadhesh Singh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after an alleged attack on Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called it an assault on democracy while a party delegation met Governor Ram Naik, demanding a judicial probe. The Congress has alleged that the MLA was on her way to oversee the voting for a no-confidence motion against zila panchayat chairman Avadhesh Pratap Singh, who is the brother of BJP's Lok Sabha candidate Dinesh Singh. "This is an attack on democracy. Nothing of this sort has ever happened in Rae Bareli. Country-made weapons, bricks and lathis were used in the attack. Zila panchayat members were dragged from their vehicles," Priyanka Gandhi alleged. In Lucknow, a delegation led by UP Congress chief Raj Babbar sought a judicial probe into the alleged attack. Priyanka Gandhi claimed that one of the zila panchayat members was run over by a vehicle. "What kind of democracy is this? It is the BJP government in the state when such incidents are taking place while the entire administration is sitting idle," she said after a meeting with party workers here. Priyanka Gandhi maintained that the party would raise the issue at every level. "Our leaders are meeting the Governor in Lucknow. In Delhi, we are meeting the Election Commission. We will take legal recourse and file a complaint against the local administration if required," she said. Priyanka Gandhi, who was scheduled to take part in a roadshow in Varanasi later in the day, said they had told the administration that something of this kind could take place but precautionary measures were not taken. "We have demanded to cancel proceedings of the no-confidence motion and fix a new date for it," the Congress stated in an official release here. The MLA was allegedly attacked by Avadhesh Singh's henchmen, armed with iron rods and bricks in Harchandpur area. According to Congress sources, the MLA's vehicle had overturned as its driver lost control over it due the attack. An FIR was registered against Avadhesh and his brother Dinesh Singh later in the night on the complaint of zila panchyat member Rakesh Awasthi. Awasthi had alleged that he too was attacked along with two other members, in an effort to prevent them from participating in the no-confidence motion against Avadhesh Singh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to meet Thursday a Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped in front of her husband in Rajasthan's Alwar district, party sources said. Gandhi, who was earlier scheduled to arrive here Wednesday, will be visiting on Thursday instead, they said. On April 26, six miscreants accosted the woman and her husband on the Thanagazi-Alwar bypass and took them to an isolated place, where they allegedly raped her in front of him. An FIR was lodged on May 2 and the accused circulated a video clip of the crime on May 4. Subsequently, five accused, who allegedly raped the woman, and the one who shot and circulated the video clip, have been arrested. The incident triggered widespread protests in Alwar, Jaipur, Dausa and nearby areas and a protest march led by BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Kirori Lal Meena had turned violent in Dausa on Tuesday, leaving over half a dozen people injured. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BSP supremo Mayawati and other leaders have condemned the incident. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the party's state unit president and Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot would accompany Gandhi on Thursday, the sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of twisting facts about the Alwar rape case and said it does not behove the prime minister of the country to politicise such an incident. He claimed that there was an undercurrent against Modi in the Lok Sabha election and people of the country will "rightly decide" and vote him out. "It does not behove the prime minister to twist facts about the Rajasthan rape case. The moment the incident came to light, an FIR was lodged on May 2 itself which was much before the second phase of polling in the state on May 6," he told reporters here. "But the way the prime minister is campaigning to woo Dalit voters, he is trying to use this shameful incident and give political colour to it," the senior Congress leader added. Gehlot was referring to Modi's attack on the Congress, alleging that the Rajasthan government was trying to suppress facts and not register a case on the Alwar rape incident in view of elections in the state. "Is it fair to do over such an incident," he asked. On the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls, he said, "There is an undercurrent against Modi and the people of the country will rightly decide by voting him out." Gehlot also wondered how can BJP chief Amit Shah "fear for his life" after violence during his roadshow in West Bengal. On Tuesday, Shah had said that he would not have escaped unhurt without CRPF protection when his convoy was allegedly attacked in Kolkata. "Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are the only people in power in the country and not the BJP. How can Amit Shah have any fear?" Gehlot said. The Rajasthan chief minister said Congress president Rahul Gandhi would be visiting the rape victim in Alwar on Thursday and he would accompany him there. Gandhi was supposed to visit Alwar on Wednesday but he could not due to inclement weather. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Rajasthan government will construct 174 flats with modern facilities in Vidhayak Nagar (west) at a cost of Rs 250 crore for the members of legislative assembly, an official spokesperson said Wednesday. Besides, a parliamentary museum will also be set up in the assembly building at a cost of Rs 10 crore, he said. The decisions were taken in a high-level meeting chaired by Assembly Speaker C P Joshi. The Rajasthan Assembly has 200 members. An empowered committee chaired by the chief secretary will be constituted for the project and a supervisory committee headed by the speaker will review the progress, the spokesperson said. Information pertaining to political integration and history of Rajasthan will be on display in the museum, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Central Information Commission has directed the Union home ministry to respond to an RTI applicant who wanted to know the number of people killed between 2010 and 2017 on suspicion of cow slaughter. Sameer Khan filed the RTI application with the ministry seeking to know state-wise statistics of number of people killed and injured in incidents related to cow slaughter, their names and compensation paid by the government to the families of the victims. The ministry did not respond to the application following which Khan approached the Commission, the highest appellate authority in the matter of RTI, seeking directions to the ministry to furnish the information. The facts provided by the applicant make clear that no response has been furnished to him, Chief Information Commissioner Sudhir Bhargava noted. He said under the RTI Act it is mandatory to respond to RTI applications within given period. Bhargava said since neither the applicant nor the respondent (MHA) appeared for hearing in spite of notice from the Commission, the situation is not clear. The Commission directed the central public information officer, home ministry, to furnish a response, in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act, to the applicant within four weeks. In case any information has been provided to the applicant, a copy of that response should be provided to the Commission along with a copy to the applicant, Bhargava said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that attacks on two of its oil tankers and a major pipeline targeted not only its own security but that of the world's supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, just outside the Gulf on Sunday. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage ... do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening. Tuesday's drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Stait of Hormuz is closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in as yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman off the United Artab Emirates on Sunday, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or any oil spill. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have yet given details on the exact nature of those attacks, which come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Riyadh's arch rival Tehran. The Saudi cabinet called for "confronting terrorist entities which carry out such sabotage acts, including the Iran-backed Huthi militias in Yemen." Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of oil, currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day of which around seven million bpd are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (ANSA) - Catania, May 15 - A preliminary investigations judge (GIP) in Catania on Wednesday shelved an investigation against captain Marc Reig Creus and mission chief Ana Isabel Montes Mier of the migrant-rescue vessel operated by Spanish NGO ProActiva Open Arms. The pair were under investigation on charges of criminal association for illegal immigration for taking to Pozzallo, near Ragusa, 218 migrants they had rescued off Libya in March 2018. The decision was taken at the State attorney's request. Ragusa prosecutors are still investigating allegations of aiding illegal immigration and abuse. Police chiefs and Muslim groups in the UK have clashed over a proposed official definition of Islamophobia as part of efforts to tackle anti-Muslim crimes in Britain. The definition, proposed by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims based on wide consultation over the issue, reads: "Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness." But the UK's National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) warned in a statement on Wednesday that the definition may be too broad and cause confusion. "We take all reports of hate crime very seriously and will investigate them thoroughly. However, we have some concerns about the proposed definition of Islamophobia made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims," said NPCC Chair Martin Hewitt. "We are concerned that the definition is too broad as currently drafted, could cause confusion for officers enforcing it and could be used to challenge legitimate free speech on the historical or theological actions of Islamic states. There is also a risk it could also undermine counter-terrorism powers, which seek to tackle extremism or prevent terrorism," he said, calling for wider consultation on any definition of anti-Muslim hostility. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which had made a "resounding call" for political leaders to adopt the definition when it was released as part of the APPG on British Muslims report at the end of last year, attacked the NPCC stand. MCB general secretary Harun Khan said: Our understanding is that the police and security forces will rightly fight terrorism based on intelligence and a scrutiny of the evidence. "Anti-terrorist operations can only be hampered' if counter-terror officers have been targeting Muslims because of their identity (or Muslimness as the definition states), categorising them as security concerns. If this is the case, it confirms long-voiced concerns about the disproportionate focus and impact of counter-terror operations on Muslim communities." The row comes ahead of a UK Parliament debate on whether to formally adopt a definition of Islamophobia. The debate, initiated by MPs from the APPG on British Muslims in the House of Commons on Thursday, is expected to mount pressure on the Theresa May led government to accept the formal definition. The definition, which has been accepted by Opposition parties such as Labour and the Liberal Democrats as well as the London Mayor's Office, followed concerns of a rising number of Islamophobic attacks in the UK. Home Office data notes that 52 per cent of religious hate crimes recorded by the police was against Muslims. The APPG's report concluded that the lack of an official definition was hampering efforts to counter Islamophobia, harming Muslims and wider British society. It said: "The aim of establishing a working definition of Islamophobia has neither been motivated by, nor is intended to curtail, free speech or criticism of Islam as a religion. "No open society can place religion above criticism and we do not subscribe to the view that a working definition of Islamophobia can or should be formulated with the purpose of protecting Islam from free and fair criticism or debate." Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative Party chair who has called for an inquiry into Islamophobia within the Tory party in the past, also countered the view that a formal definition would interfere with police work. "The report makes clear that the definition does not seek to protect or stop criticism of Islam to suggest it would, is disingenuous and divisive," she said. "The inability of senior police officers to understand how Islamophobia the plethora of everyday microaggressions impacting British Muslims is not the same as hate crime shows a worrying lack of understanding of the communities they seek to police, she said. A minister is set to present the UK government stand on the definition of Islamophobia at the end of the Commons debate this week, but it looks unlikely that it would be formally adopted. A UK government spokesperson said it was conscious that the APPG's proposed definition has "not been broadly accepted" and the matter needs further careful consideration. Any hatred directed against British Muslims and others because of their faith or heritage is utterly unacceptable, the spokesperson said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A right to information activist has been shot at by four unidentified men in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district, police said on Wednesday. Krishanpal had gone to the fields at Dhindhwali village on Tuesday evening when the four miscreants opened fire at him. The 35-year-old was rushed to a hospital in a serious condition, Superintendent of Police (City) Satpal Antil said. Prima facie, a complaint that Krishanpal had filed about illegal possession of government land is suspected to be the reason behind the attack, the officer added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Moscow was sorry to see Iran's nuclear deal falling apart but stressed Russia was not "a fire brigade" to "rescue everything." Tensions have sharply escalated between arch-rivals Washington and Tehran since US President Donald Trump withdrew last year from the Iran nuclear deal which removed sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear programme. Putin spoke to reporters after hosting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday for the highest-level bilateral talks in nearly a year. "We regret that the deal is falling apart," Putin said following talks with Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen on Wednesday. "After the signing of the agreement Iran was and still is the world's most verifiable and transparent country in this sense." "Iran is fulfilling all of its obligations," said Putin, citing the International Atomic Energy Agency. He urged Iran not to quit the 2015 agreement but added there was only so much Moscow could do. "Russia is not a fire brigade," Putin said. "We cannot rescue everything that does not fully depend on us. We've played our part." Putin also said that after Washington's withdrawal Europe could do "nothing" to salvage the deal. Earlier Wednesday Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed concern that tensions over Iran escalated despite assurances from Pompeo that Washington was not seeking war. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Peskov said. "We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side," Peskov added, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Iran. In Sochi, Pompeo said his country did not want war with Iran, despite a spike in tensions that has seen the Pentagon dispatch nuclear-capable bombers to the region. Peskov sought to play down those statements. "There were no assurances from Pompeo," Putin's spokesman said. "And one can hardly talk about some sort of assurances." Washington last year pulled out of a nuclear deal backed by Europe, Russia and China, which curbed Iran's nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief. Since then it has slapped sweeping sanctions on Iran. On Sunday, mysterious attacks by unknown assailants against four ships in the region, including two from Saudi Arabia, pushed talk of war up another notch. Washington has accused Iran of planning "imminent" attacks in the region and on Wednesday, the US ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and consulate in Arbil. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rahul Gandhi's visit to Bargari on Wednesday evoked a sharp reaction from the Shiromani Akali Dal which accused the Congress of politicising the sensitive issue of desecration of religious scriptures to "divert people's attention from zero performance of Amarinder Singh government. Bargari had witnessed the first incident of desecration of the holy 'Guru Granth Sahib' in 2015. Addressing a rally there, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday raised the issue and promised strict action against those involved. The visit of Rahul Gandhi at Bargari is the saddest day in the history of Sikh religion as the perpetrator of genocide and demolishing of Akal Takht has come wearing a mask of falsehood to portray sympathy, Akali leaders Bikram Singh Majithia and Manjinder Singh Sirsa said in a statement here. Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal accused Gandhi of committing sacrilege by visiting Bargari village to politicize the grave issue. The Akali leader said she has "prayed to the almighty that divine wrath may fall on those who committed desecration of Guru Granth Sahib as well as those who were politicizing it. The two parties have been trading charges over the 2015 incidents with the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government blaming the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state for it. The zero performance of Amarinder's rule of two and half years is directly linked to Gandhi's visit because the CM wanted to divert attention of the people, said Majithia and Delhi Gurdwara Committee chief Sirsa. Harsimrat Kaur Badal also referred to Operation Blue Star in 1984 when Rahul Gandhi's grandmother Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. Rahul came to Bargari to politicize this tragic incident. His guilt is proven from the fact that he had no remorse for the destruction of hundreds of religious scriptures during the attack on Darbar Sahib.... "Rahul Gandhi has not regretted the burning of Gurdwaras in 1984 in Delhi, she said referring to the anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An oil pipeline that runs across Saudi Arabia was hit Tuesday by drones, the Saudi energy minister said, as regional tensions flared just days after what the kingdom called an attack on two of its oil tankers near the Persian Gulf. While both US President Donald Trump and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said they were not planning for conflict, the volatility was felt in oil markets with benchmark Brent crude trading over USD 71 a barrel, up more than USD 1 on the day. The pipeline that runs from the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province to a Red Sea port was shut down, but Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih Al-Falih vowed that the production and export of Saudi oil would not be interrupted. The Houthis, who are at war with Saudi Arabia, said earlier Tuesday they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations, without elaborating. They later claimed responsibility for the pipeline attack in comments broadcast by Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari. In a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, al-Falih called the pipeline attack "cowardly," saying recent acts of sabotage against the kingdom were targeting not only Saudi Arabia but also the safety of the world's energy supply and global economy. The attacks demonstrated the increased risks in a region vital to global energy supplies amid heightened tensions following the Trump administration's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and the subsequent re-imposition of US sanctions to cripple the Iranian economy. Iran has since said it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels by July 7 if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal. The Saudis did not immediately assign blame for the drone assaults, which targeted two oil pumping stations west of the capital supplying the pipeline that runs from the east of Saudi Arabia to the Yanbu Port on its western coast. Still, al-Falih in his statement named Yemeni rebel Houthis as a group that must be internationally confronted and accused them of being backed by Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival. Saudi Arabia has been at war with the Houthis and their allies in Yemen since March 2015, targeting the Iranian-allied rebels with near daily airstrikes. "This is a message to Saudi Arabia: Stop your aggression," Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam told The Associated Press. "Our goal is to respond to the crimes they are committing everyday against the Yemeni people." Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said that as a precaution, it temporarily shut down the East-West Pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramco's oil and gas supplies were not affected. Saudi Arabia said the two petroleum pumping stations that were struck by drones are located in the greater region of Riyadh, home to the landlocked capital. The stations, targeted around the same time early Tuesday, are located in al-Duadmi and Afif, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west and 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Riyadh city, respectively. Saudi Arabia built its pipeline in the 1980s amid fears that the Iran-Iraq war would cut off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) pipeline is actually two pipes that have a total capacity of 4.8 million barrels of crude oil a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The two oil pumping stations are over 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Yemen's northern border with the kingdom. The drone strikes reflect how the Houthis have tried to expand their capabilities during the four-year war. The rebels have targeted Riyadh with missiles and used drones to disrupt air traffic at Saudi airports near the Yemen border. Iran has been accused by the US and the UN of supplying ballistic missile technology and arms to the Houthis, which Tehran denies. In Washington, Trump told reporters he would "absolutely" be willing to send troops to the Middle East, but that he's not planned for that and hopefully won't have to plan for that. While Trump dismissed a report in The New York Times that the White House is reviewing military plans against Iran that could result in sending 120,000 US troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks American forces or steps up work on nuclear weapons, he said if the US was going to get into a military conflict with Iran, "we'd send a hell of a lot more" troops. Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader who has final say on all state matters, was quoted by state TV as telling senior officials that his country won't negotiate with the United States, calling such talks "poison." But he also said, "Neither we, nor them is seeking war. They know that it is not to their benefit." At a Tuesday evening gathering, he reportedly added: "This is not a military confrontation, because no war is going to happen." Washington recently deployed an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged, still-unspecified threats from Tehran. The US has recently warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region. Meanwhile, the details around alleged acts of sabotage to four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, off the coast of the UAE's port of Fujairah remain unclear. Satellite images obtained Tuesday by the AP showed no visible damage to the vessels, and Gulf officials have refused to say who they suspected was responsible. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from "an unknown object," its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images of the Norwegian ship, which the company said was "not in any danger of sinking," showed damage similar to what the firm described. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said Wednesday that attacks on two of its tankers and a major pipeline targeted the security of global oil supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, on Sunday. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage ... do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening. Tuesday's drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in as yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman off the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or any oil spill. An Emirati official said three Western countries -- the US, France and Norway -- would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The ships -- which also included the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory and an Emirati vessel -- were docked in the sea off the coast of the emirate of Fujairah, the official added. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have yet given details on the exact nature of those attacks, which come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Riyadh's arch-rival Tehran. OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of which around seven million bpd are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi cabinet called for "confronting terrorist entities which carry out such sabotage acts, including the Iran-backed Huthi militias in Yemen". Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in case of a military confrontation with the United States. On Wednesday, the United States ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil after accusing the Islamic republic of planning "imminent" attacks in the region. The US has already strengthened its military presence in the region, including deploying a number of strategic B-52 bombers in response to alleged Iranian threats. Russia expressed concern tensions over Iran keep escalating despite assurance from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit that Washington was not seeking war. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Pompeo met with President Vladimir Putin. "We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side," Peskov said, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Iran. Iran and the US have engaged in a war of words in recent weeks since Tehran began to roll back commitments set out in a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal last year and has unilaterally reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that Iranian crude oil output fell in April to 2.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level in over five years, and could tumble in May to levels not seen since the 1980s war with Iraq. Shiite-majority Iran rivals Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia for influence in the Middle East, with the two taking opposing sides in multiple regional conflicts including in Yemen. A military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, intervened in the Yemen war in March 2015 to bolster the efforts of the internationally recognised government against the Huthi rebels. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and left up to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation according to UN agencies. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Researchers in Germany have unearthed a new species of flying dinosaur that flapped its wings like a raven and could hold vital clues as to how modern-day birds evolved from their reptilian ancestors. For more than a century and a half since its discovery in 1861, Archaeopteryx -- a small feathered dinosaur around the size of a crow that lived in marshland around 150 million years ago -- was widely considered to be the oldest flying bird. Palaeontologists from Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich and the University of Fribourg examined rock formations in the German region of Bavaria, home to nearly all known Archaeopteryx specimens. They came across a petrified wing, which the team initially assumed to be the same species. They soon found several differences, however. "There are similarities, but after detailed comparisons with Archaeopteryx and other, geologically younger birds, its fossil remains suggested that we were dealing with a somewhat more derived bird," said lead study author Oliver Rauhut from LMU's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. They called the new bird-like dinosaur Alcmonavis poeschli -- from the old Celtic word for a nearby river and the scientist who discovered the fossil, excavation leader Roland Poeschl. The study, published in the journal eLife Sciences, said Alcmonavis poeschli was "the most bird-like bird discovered from the Jurassic". As well as being significantly larger than Archaeopteryx, the new specimen had more notches in its wing bones that pointed to muscles which would have allowed it to actively flap its wings. Significantly, this "flapping" trait found in Alcmonavis poeschli is present in more recent birds, but not in Archaeopteryx. "This suggests that the diversity of birds in the late Jurassic era was greater than previously thought," Rauhut said. The discovery is likely to fuel debate among dinosaur experts over whether birds and dinosaurs developed the ability to flap their wings from earlier gliding species. "Its adaptation shows that the evolution of flight must have progressed relatively quickly," said Christian Foth, from the University of Fribourg, and a co-author of the research. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra government Wednesday appointed senior IPS officer Deven Bharti as the chief of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the state. Bharti, a 1994 batch officer, was currently posted as the Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police. The state home department issued orders of transfers of 19 officers of the ranks of Inspector General of Police (IGP) and Additional Director General of Police (ADG). Current ATS chief Atulchandra Kulkarni was transferred as the ADG of Crime Investigation Department (CID), Pune. Deven Bharti was earlier the JCP (Law and Order) for around four years, which is considered the longest term of any officer in Mumbai Police. He was shifted to the EOW on the directions of the Election Commission (EC). Bharti has investigated several high-profile cases, including the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and murder of senior crime journalist J Dey. He is also known for his crackdown of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen. He was one of the officers, who supervised the entire investigation of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. He also oversaw the operation leading to the death by hanging of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab. Ashutosh Dumbre, who was posted as the JCP (Crime), has been promoted as the ADG Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB). Sukhvinder Singh, who was posted as the IGP of Force One, was promoted on the same post. Anup Kumar Singh, Vinit Agrawal, Sunil Ramanand, Pradnya Saravade and Sanjeev Singhal were promoted as the ADG. IPS officer Santosh Rastogi will now head the Crime Branch of Mumbai Police. Krishna Prakash, who was posted as the IGP of State Intelligence Department (SID), was transferred as the JCP (Administration). Rajwardhan has been posted as JCP (EOW), whereas Amitesh Kumar will be new JCP of SID. Deepak Pandey has been posted as the IGP Prisons Department. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Bharat" director Ali Abbas Zafar on Wednesday said filming Partition sequences in the Salman Khan-fronted film was the "most challenging part" of the shoot. The film, which is scheduled to release on June 5, is a remake of 2014 Korean drama "Ode To My Father". Ali said the soul of the film lies in keeping the humanity intact in the middle of chaos during Partition 1947. "Partition was the most challenging part of @Bharat_TheFilm shoot, to recreate the scale of this defining moment of history and to keep the emotions Zinda (alive) in the middle of that chaos... is the soul of an extraordinary journey of an ordinary man #BHARAT," the director wrote on Twitter. Ali, who has previously worked with Salman in "Sultan" and "Tiger Zinda Hai", also shared some photographs from the film sets. The film is touted to be the journey of a country and also a person, both of whom go by the name of Bharat. It features Salman, 53, in several looks, depicting the changing decades. Produced by Atul Agnihotri, the film also features Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover, Disha Patani, Sonali Kulkarni, Jackie Shroff and Tabu. "Bharat" is slated to be released on June 5. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Qazi Nayyer Jamal rides his motorcycle to Jajmau, an industrial suburb of Kanpur along the Ganges, from his home in the city area, passing through several old tanneries, to reach the leather factory his father started about 50 years ago. It's closed for three months, still he goes there often. Jamal's Makhdoom Enterprises is among several tanneries in Jajmau which were shut for the Kumbh Mela, and he fears they are likely to remain so. "We were ordered to shut our tanneries for three months from December to March for Kumbh. We did it out of respect for the Hindu festival. But we never thought we would be left in the lurch after the Mela, since no order has come to reopen the units," the 60-year-old said. Tanneries pump out highly polluted water into the Ganga river and this was a major reason they were ordered to close ahead of the Mela. But many families are dependent on the local industry that earned Kanpur the moniker of "Leather City". "We have followed all norms for discharge of effluent into the river but authorities made a scapegoat out of us, portraying us as the main reason behind the pollution of the river," Jamal said. The leather industry in Kanpur began about 150 years ago under the British Raj. Later, Indians entered the trade and it flourished, drawing buyers from far away places, including Europe and the United States. Mohammed Arshi, 38 and vice-president of city-based Leather Industries Welfare Association (LIWA) of about 125 small and big tanneries, said Kanpur is a famed leather city and India exports leather products like belts, shoes and horse saddles to Europe and the US, besides domestic consumption by the armed forces and civilians. All that is likely to stop soon, he said. Arshi said the industry has been "targeted" as tannery-owners are not really seen as a vote bank by the ruling or other parties, adding the uncertainty has led to importers moving to other markets in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Jamal agreed with Arshi. He said the tanneries are dying a slow death. "I may be attached to the legacy of my father but my two sons have moved away. Seeing the trouble I face, they have also asked me to quit it," Jamal lamented. "Many second or third-generation families have quit the trade," he said. One of his sons is a fashion designer, who graduated from NIFT and now works in Jordan, and the other is a marine engineer, he said. Jamal hopes the new government will do something to rescue the industry. Uttar Pradesh MSME Minister and BJP candidate from Kanpur Satyadev Pachauri, however, said the tanneries were polluting the Ganga river by discharging effluent, including chromium, and the owners will have to either upgrade technology to curb pollution or move to other sources of livelihood. "We will not compromise with the cleanliness of Ganga as envisioned in the National Mission for Clean Ganga of the central government," Pachauri said. Arshi, the LIWA vice president, said the industry has lost Rs 7,000 crore in three months due to closure. The effluent from a tannery first goes through one of the four pumping stations and then, eventually, through a central treatment plant as per the norms. So, we want to ask the state government and the pollution control authorities, how are we polluting the river? he said. "In the name of pollution and because it's a Muslim-dominated industry, we have been made a villain," he alleged. Under previous governments, Arshi said, tannery-owners used to voluntarily stop work for three days before each 'nahaan' (holy dip) of the Kumbh. There are about 400 registered tanneries in Kanpur, of which 262 were operating. After the Kumbh Mela, only 26 are operating, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (ANSA) - Milan, May 15 - An MEP for former three-time premier and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party and the Lombardy head of Italian industrial employers group Confindustria were placed under investigation for illegal party funding on Wednesday. FI MEP Lara Comi is under investigation for illegal party funding in a big Milan graft probe involving politicians, businesspeople and allegedly the Calabrian-based 'Ndrangheta mafia, sources said Wednesday. At least two regional FI high-ups have already been implicated in the probe, in which a total of 43 people were arrested earlier this month. Marco Bonometti, the president of Confindustria's Lombardy chapter and president of the Brescia-based company Officine Meccaniche Rezzatesi, is also being probed by Milan's DDA anti-mafia investigators for illicit funding, investigative sources said Wednesday. Bonometti is also being investigated as part of the sweeping kickbacks probe by Milan anti-mafia prosecutors in which the 43 arrest warrants were issued in Lombardy and Piedmont eight days ago. Bonometti, who is considered close to FI by investigators, was questioned by magistrates over illicit funding worth 30,000 euros allegedly given to Comi, according to the sources. A key suspect in the Milan probe into kickbacks between politicians and businessmen allegedly involving the 'Ndrangheta mafia remained under house arrest this week. Fabio Altitonante, an FI Lombardy regional councillor, saw his plea to be released rejected Monday after a judge found he was still "influential". Altitonante could still commit crimes, the judge said, meaning he had to stay under house arrest. Altitonante and an FI European election candidate, Pietro Tatarella, were among those arrested in the kickbacks probe by Milan anti-mafia prosecutors on May 7. FI councillor Altitonante, regional undersecretary for the Expo area for the Lombardy regional government, was taken into custody along with Milanese city councillor, deputy FI regional coordinator, MP and European Parliament candidate Pietro Tatarella. Altitonante and Tatarella had both had a precocious start leading to promising careers in the party of former three-time premier and media magnate Berliusconi, and had been dubbed 'golden boys'. Also arrested was a businessman in the waste management and environmental clean-up sector, Daniele D'Alfonso, who owns the Ecol-Service company. Prosecutors said Tatarella was on D'Alfonso's "pay book" and received 5,000 euros a month for steering contracts of waste company AMSA his way as well as other contracts in Varese and Novara, where another FI MP, Diego Sozzani, was said to be "active". Sozzani said he would resign if there were a "shadow" of proof against him. Tatarella was caught on a wiretap urging other suspects: "let's try and get into the area of the former Expo". Another of those arrested, ex FI provincial coordinator in Varese Gioacchino Caianiello, was said to be the "puppet master" for many of the kickbacks. Illicit funding to the nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI) party was also unearthed, prosecutors said, a claim the party denied. Prosecutors said there was also an episode of "instigation to corruption" regarding Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana, who is the injured party and is not under investigation. "I'm the injured party, I'll talk to the prosecutors," Fontana said. Prosecutors said they were "evaluating the position" of Fontana, who is accused of abuse of office in relation to the appointment of a former law partner to a regional post. Overall, some 43 warrants were issued in the probe against two criminal groups, operating between Milan and Varese and made up of local politicians, civil servants and business people, some with alleged 'Ndrangheta links. Those served warrants are accused of conspiracy to commit crimes aggravated by setting up a mafia type organisation, corruption and bid rigging, aimed at sharing out pubic contracts. At a height of slightly over six feet, turbaned Sukhdeep Singh stands out from most Hongkongers and patients stare at him strangely, but when the aspiring Sikh doctor speaks to them in their own dialect, their faces light up. Singh, 23, is a final-year medical student at Chinese University. When he graduates next year, he will become one of the few doctors in the gleaming city to ever wear a turban. Some people who assume I don't understand Cantonese would comment on my turban in front of me, and on the MTR (Hong Kong's public transport network), people would rather squeeze themselves into more crowded rows than take the empty seats next to me," Singh told South China Morning Post. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Singh grew up surrounded by Cantonese speakers, including his own father, a civil servant. But he only realised the importance of speaking the language when he enrolled in medical school. Patients look at me strangely, and that's normal. But whenever I speak to them in their own dialect, their faces light up, he said. The sad reality is, when I'm wearing scrubs and a lab coat, I get treated differently. If I'm wearing normal clothes, no one would believe I am a medical student, says Singh, who is one of about 12,000 Sikhs in the former British colony, now a special administrative region of China. While he has overcome communication barriers, Singh continues to be wary of the way patients perceive him, and keeps his beard tied and tucked in a low bun. At home, it's always free flowing, but at the hospital, I keep it up because you don't want to scare sick patients even more. As a community, we still need to address these sensitive issues through education. The Sikh Hongkonger wants to change attitudes towards ethnic minorities in the city. Patients might develop a different perspective on people with turbans in Hong Kong when they see me, a turbaned doctor, and, hopefully, start to view other ethnic minorities differently, he told the daily. Although he struggled with Cantonese vocabulary at first, Singh is now fluent in the language and able to write in Chinese. He is determined to eventually speak like a local, saying: If I really am a Hongkonger, I should embrace every part of the culture. In the coming year, he hopes to improve his Mandarin to serve more patients. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan authorities on Wednesday said the situation is now totally "under control" after the communal violence and there is no requirement to bring in armies of other countries in the island nation. Military spokesman Sumith Atapattu said there were no incidents of violence overnight and security forces have arrested nearly 100 people for taking part in mob attacks. "The situation is now totally under control," Atapattu was quoted as saying by media reports. Anti-Muslim riots left one man dead and caused extensive damage to homes, businesses and mosques. The communal violence is a fresh backlash from the Easter attacks where nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others. Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said Sri Lanka has no requirement to bring in the US Army or armies of other countries in the aftermath of the terror attacks. Responding to allegations made by the Opposition MPs, the minister said only the intelligence expertise of foreign countries had been sought to contain the terror situation in the country. We have no need to bring in the armies of the US or any other country. However, when taking measures against an international terror outfit, US intelligence agencies have vast experiences and so do intelligence agencies of England, Europe and Australia. "They offered their expertise and helped us in fighting and containing international terrorism in Sri Lanka. What they offered helped us to eradicate this menace, the minister was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror. He said the Army Commander and the heads of other security forces had made it clear that the security has been restored. If we love the country, we should allow students to go to schools and get back to our day to day life to restore normalcy. Not only Sri Lanka, even developed countries such as the US, the UK, New Zealand, France and Germany have faced international terror threats, he said. He admitted that the government had its shortcomings at first but said now it had rectified all those. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Offers Irresistible Tour Packages across Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa SOTC - one of India's leading travel and tourism companies, today announced their 'Last Minute Deals' sale for travelers who missed enjoying the benefit of advance booking this holiday season. The 10 day sale will be valid from 8th May to 17th May and will be an opportunity for spontaneous travelers to book attractive tour packages across Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa. Asia and Europe have always trended as preferred destinations for Indian travelers, especially during summer. With holiday season currently at its peak, consumers across demographics are presented with an opportunity by SOTC to avail holiday experiences at best prices through carefully designed tour packages for domestic and international destinations catering to diverse budgets. With 7 decades of experience, this is another unique initiative by SOTC, a leader in the travel sector to cater to the preferences of the new age experiential Indian traveler. Indian customers today are opting for last minute holiday deals, and seek value for money offers. With the soaring airfares this summer season, SOTC has optimised demand by launching this enticing sale with well-curated packages and deals, for customised holidays anywhere between May-September this year across Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. These packages include return airfares, accommodation, sightseeing, transfers, breakfast, Indian dinners and a local/Indian tour manager for sightseeing among other assistance. Bookings for the 'Last Minute Deals' sale can be made online (mobile and website) and offline, through SOTC Travels and the SOTC Holiday Carnival. Commenting on the sale, Mr. Daniel D'Souza, President and Country Head (Leisure), SOTC Travel said, "With years of experience in providing expert travel assistance, SOTC understands the need of discerning and value-driven traveler across the country. This Summer Season with the soaring airfares, we want travelers not to postpone their holiday plans. As a leading Tour Operator, we have the inventory to offer our consumers priceless holiday experiences at competitive prices. To cater to the demand of the last minute Indian traveler, we have introduced our exclusive 'Last Minute Deals' to offer attractive and experiential holidays to preferred domestic destinations like Leh-Ladakh, Bhutan and international destinations of Asia, Australia, Africa Europe at unbeatable prices. With the emerging trend of customers wanting the best vacation deals even at the last minute, we have specially curated this enticing sale to channel the summer holiday demand across demographics. We urge travelers to make the most of this 10-day sale and continue to create memorable experiences with SOTC." Asia Holidays Starting @ 28,600, With Airfare Included:1. 5-Day Thailand INR 28,6002. 7-Day Malaysia & Singapore Offer: Child Stays Free Special Price Starting at INR 69,6003. 6-Day Scenic Bali Special Price: INR 61,300Europe Holidays Starting @ 1,23,000 With Airfare Included:1. 7-Day Best of Switzerland INR 1,40,5002. 8-Day Amazing European Visit: France and Switzerland INR 1,48,4003. 10-Day Europe Splendor Visit: Italy, Vatican, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and France INR 1,61,4004. 8-Day Europe Getaway Visit: Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium INR 1,23,000Other Popular Holidays Starting @ 1,35,400 With Airfare Included:1. 8-Day Mysterious China INR 1,36,0002.7-Day Kenya Safari INR 1,35,4003.10-Day South African Splendor with Kwantu INR 1,72,9004.11-Day Wonders of Australia INR 2,67,800Domestic Holidays With Free Movie Tickets for 6 Months:1.6 Day Ladakh @ INR 35,600 and 6 Day Bhutan @ INR 43,100Book a Summer Holiday and Get a 4-Day International Holiday Free. One can choose from among Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Bali, Dubai, Egypt, and Mauritius. The Holiday includes Accommodation, Sightseeing, Transfers, and Breakfast. About SOTC Travel Limited SOTC Travel Limited (Formerly SOTC Travel Pvt. Ltd.) is a step-down subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings Group; held through its Indian listed subsidiary, Thomas Cook (India) Limited (TCIL). SOTC India is a leading travel and tourism company active across various travel segments including Leisure Travel, Incentive Travel and Business Travel. SOTC was established in 1949. Since then, it has escorted lakhs of travelers across the globe for more than 68 years to various destinations around the world. It is one of the leaders in segments, namely Escorted Group Tours, Customized Holidays, Holidays of India and Incentive Travel amongst others. A new age innovative holidaymaker, SOTC strives to make holidays a priority for every Indian. 'We are for holidays' and we want Indians to prioritize their holidays. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Claiming that BJP is "afraid" of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav Wednesday said the combine would "wipe out" the saffron party completely in the Lok Sabha election's last phase of polling to be held on May 19. Thirteen of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in the last phase. "The BJP is afraid of our alliance. Till the sixth phase, people have discarded the saffron party, and in the seventh phase they will be completely wiped out as people are supporting our alliance which is for social justice, farmers and the poor," Yadav said. Addressing a joint election rally in Mau with BSP supremo Mayawati, he alleged that the BJP governments both at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh have been a "failure" and a new India would be formed when the alliance "gives a new prime minister" to the country. BSP chief Mayawati said, "People are fed up with the BJP government's anti-people policies and they will throw them out of the power. The BJP is using all tricks to win elections and people should remain alert." Alleging that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh was harassing BSP candidate Atul Rai, she said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should "be prepared to return to his math" after the elections. Both the leaders addressed joint rallies in Deoria also. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A special peace court in Colombia ordered on Wednesday the "immediate release" of a former left-wing guerrilla leader wanted by the United States for drug trafficking. Jesus Santrich, a blind former leader of the FARC rebels, was arrested in April 2018, suspected of participating in the trafficking of 10 tons of cocaine to the United States. However, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) ordered him released to comply with the "non-extradition guarantee" that formed part of the historic 2016 peace accord that brought an end to FARC's 50-year insurrection, converting the former rebels into a political party. Colombia's Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez responded to the order by resigning. The JEP is the special court tasked with judging crimes committed during Colombia's half century of armed conflict. It had previously suspended an extradition order against Santrich, whose real name is Seuxis Paucias Hernandez. The 52-year-old is accused of involvement in drug trafficking between June 2017 and April 2018, crucially after the peace accord was signed in December 2016. The agreement stipulated that former guerrillas who commit crimes after the pact was signed would be tried in a normal court and would lose the benefits afforded by the accord, such as a ban on extradition. FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that has subsequently become the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force political party, has denounced the accusations against Santrich as a "judicial set-up." Explaining his resignation, Martinez said "my conscience and my devotion to the rule of law prevents me" from liberating Santrich. "That's why I've presented my irrevocable resignation," he added. Santrich's case had caused a schism between Martinez and the JEP over different interpretations regarding the scope of the special court's jurisdiction. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor-turned politician Kamal Haasan Wednesday said he only spoke a 'historic truth' after his remark that free India's first extremist was a Hindu, a reference to Mahatma Gandhi assassin Nathuram Godse, triggered a huge controversy. The Madras High Court, meanwhile, refused to entertain a petition by Haasan, the founder of new political outfit Makkal Needhi Maiam(MNM), seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him. The FIR was registered by Aravakurichi police Tuesday under Sections 153A and 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which deal with 'outraging religious feelings' and 'promoting enmity between different groups' respectively. The MNM claimed that Haasan's comments had been taken "completely out of context." In his first response after the Sunday remarks that landed him in trouble with court and police cases, Haasan asked his detractors to make "valid allegations", asking if he could cater to only one section of people after entering active politics. "They got angry for what I spoke at Aravakurichi. What I spoke (there) is historic truth. I did not lure anyone to a brawl," he said during a by-poll campaign at Tirupurankundram near Madurai. He said truth would triumph like the "historic truth I mentioned" and not caste and religion. "Understand the meaning for the word extremist. I could have used the word terrorist or murderer (against Godse)... ours is active politics, there won't be any violence," he said while resorting to wordplay in Tamil to drive home his point. The MNM leader alleged that his speech was edited selectively and took a dig at his detractors, saying the charges levelled against him "apply to my media friends also." He asked if his critics could show instances of his remarks that could incite violence and said the accusations against him had hurt him. "They are saying I hurt Hindu sentiments. There are so many Hindus in my family. My daughter is a believer," he said, but did not specify as he has two daughters. Haasan said many others in his family were Hindus and wondered why he would make remarks that could hurt them. He suggested that rather than tolerance towards each other, there should be a concept of co-existence. "Will you tolerate or accept another faith...co-existence is the need. You can tolerate headache, but have to accept younger brother," he said in a veiled reference to minorities. "To insult me, don't harp on my ideology, you will lose. Because honesty is the basis of my ideology which you dont have. "You have made lies your basis and building a castle upon that.. you may be anywhere, whether in Delhi or Chennai, you can't fool people for long by saying lies," he said without mentioning anyone. Haasan, whose MNM roughly translates into English as 'People's Justice Centre', said he would always serve all sections of society, irrespective of their caste, creed or race. "Otherwise what justice can people get?" he asked. Stoking a controversy, Haasan had said that "free India's first extremist was a Hindu". "I am not saying this because this is Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi. Free India's first extremist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it (extremism) starts," he had said in bypoll-bound Aravakurichi. Meanwhile, MNM Vice President R Mahendran said his party chief's Aravakurichi speech "has been taken completely out of context with a malafide intent and view to promote enmity amongst people and for the ulterior benefits of such groups." This was done at the "behest of certain political groups," he alleged in a statement. "In the speech Mr.Kamal Haasan was calling for religious tolerance and co-existence amongst all religious groups and condemned extremism in whichever form and religion. "This has been taken absolutely out of context and the speech has been painted as anti-Hindu, with a malafide intent. This has created complete confusion and utmost anxiety amongst many common citizens who are not privy to this larger conspiracy," Mahendran added. Justice B Pugalendhi of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court said pleas for quashing the FIR against Haasan cannot be taken up as emergent petitions during the vacation. However, the judge said if an anticipatory bail application was filed, then it could be taken up for hearing. In another development, the Delhi High Court declined to entertain the PIL for action against Haasan's remark and seeking directions to the Election Commission to "restrict" misuse of religion for poll gains. Keeping up the heat on Haasan, the BJP said it was not a subject to be spoken on at a public meeting and asked who emboldened him to rake up Mahatma Gandhi's killing years after it happened. BJP state unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan took a swipe apparently at the Congress for supporting Haasan on the matter, saying those who lost their leader to extremism were now backing the actor on his controversial statement. Meanwhile, a Vaishnavite saint hit out at Haasan for his remarks, and threatened to hold protests if he continued to make such remarks. Chendalankara Sampath Kumara Ramanuja Jeeyar of Mannargudi asked if Haasan was hobnobbing with banned Islamist outfits and therefore making such remarks against Hindus. "He is saying such things for his own benefit. He is a good actor, and is now acting in public. All Hindus are against him and if he repeats such statements, his free movement will be hindered. We will hold protests against him," he told reporters in Tiruchirappalli. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Intensifying his attack on the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday promised strict action against those involved in the 2015 desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib. Recalling his previous visit to the Punjab town, where the first incident of sacrilege took place and two people died in police firing at protesters, Gandhi said, Your 'dharm' was disrespected. Strict action will be taken against the perpetrators, he promised. I give you a guarantee on this. The row over the 2015 incidents continues in Punjab with the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government, blaming the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state for it. At another rally on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi's sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had also tried to corner BJP's ally SAD over the issue. The Congress focus on the desecration religious scriptures comes at a time when the BJP has renewed its attack on the party over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, both emotive issues in state which goes to the polls on Sunday. Gandhi also taunted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly failing to keep poll promises. He contrasted the UPA government at the Centre headed by Manmohan Singh with the BJP government led now by Narendra Modi. Modi used to make fun of Manmohan Singh. But after five years now, Modi ji does not make fun of Manmohan ji. Today the country is making fun of him, he said. He accused Modi of not keeping promises like the creation of two crore jobs and putting Rs 15 lakh into the bank account of every citizen. Gandhi targeted Modi for likening the country's economy under the UPA government as sleeping elephant, and asked where he was when the hard- working Punjab farmers ushered in the green revolution. Accusing Modi of destroying the economy with his two decisions, he said had the PM taken the advice of Manmohan Singh he would not have rolled out demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Gandhi referred to it as the Gabbar Singh Tax. He claimed that the former PM had rightly predicted the fall in the country's GDP due to these decisions. Taking a dig at Modi for his TV interviews, the Congress leader said the prime minister does not talk about issues like unemployment and farmer suicides. The PM thinks only one person can run the country, but actually it is the people who run it. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced a memorial at Bargari for those who lost their lives and sustained injuries in the 2015 police firing. Polling for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab will take place in the last phase of elections on May 19. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sudan's army rulers on Wednesday suspended talks on installing civilian rule until demonstrators remove roadblocks put up in parts of Khartoum, protest leaders told AFP. "The military council has suspended the talks. They asked us to dismantle barricades in parts of the capital," said Rashid al-Sayid, a spokesman for the Alliance for Freedom and Change. He was referring to barricades put up by demonstrators on some key roads that have angered the generals. "The military council has told us that the protesters must dismantle the barricades and go back to the sit-in" outside the army complex where thousands have camped for weeks, Sayid said. Another protest leader, Ahmed al-Rabie, confirmed the ruling military council's condition for a resumption of negotiations with the protest movement. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : In a new twist in the case relating to suicide of a mother and her teenaged daughter at nearby Neyyatinkara, four family members, including the husband and mother-in-law were arrested Wednesday for alleged mental torture over dowry. The family had alleged Tuesday that the woman and her daughter had ended their lives, fearing attachment of their home and property over non-payment of loan arrears. They had taken Rs five lakh home loan from Canara Bank's Neyyatinkara branch in 2005 and had repaid around Rs eight lakh so far. Some more amount was outstanding. The bank had denied pressurising the family, forcing the two women to end their lives. Chandran had said Tuesday that his 19-year-old daughter Vaishnavi and wife Lekha (43) had committed suicide due to continuous pressure from bank officials over non-payment of loan dues. However, the case took a new turn after forensic and police officials found a three page letter written by the mother-daughter duo pasted on the wall of the room in which they ended their lives, which pointed to family problems. Thiruvananthapuram Rural Superintendent of Police B Ashok told reporters that four family members-- Chandran, his mother Krishnamma (80), her sister Shanta and husband Kashi were taken into custody this morning. The four were arrested and a case for abetment to suicide was registered against them, he said. Police said the suicide note, which has the signatures of the two women, has been sent for forensic tests. There was no evidence against the bank as of now. "We have not seen the bank documents", the official said. Ashok said Lekha stated in her suicide note that she was constantly mentally harassed for dowry by the four accused, especially her mother-in-law. They used to perform black magic and Chandran never took any steps to prevent attachment of the house and property, the note stated. Chandran, who had returned from the Gulf a few months back, wanted to get married again, the letter stated. Lekha alleged that Krishnamma had tried to poison her and took her to a black magician, instead of a doctor. Ashokan said the letter clearly stated that the duo committed suicide due to family problems. It did not make any mention of the pressure put by the bank authorities. "We got the letter this morning and it is being scientifically verified", he said. Meanwhile,Youth Congress activists staged a demonstration in front of Canara Bank's office near Palayam here this morning and raised slogans against the bank. They later dispersed after television channels flashed reports about the contents of the suicide note. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With an intent to put in place a consolidated platform for its consumer business and become a leader in the FMCG segment, Tata Group Wednesday announced the transfer of the branded food business from Tata Chemicals to Tata Global Beverages in an all shares deal that will create an over Rs 9,000 crore giant. Under the agreement, Tata Global Beverages (TBGL) will buy the business of selling edible salt, spices, and lentils and give shares in return to Tata Chemicals (TCL). TGBL will rename itself as Tata Consumer Products after the deal. "The trigger (for merger) is that Indian market is poised for rapid growth and now we have businesses in both the enterprises (TGBL and TCL) which are of scale and size which makes them to bring together. Also, we didn't want to do this till we establish our clear leadership position in both the companies in key categories," TGBL Managing Director Ajoy Misra told reporters during a conference call after the announcement. "Today, since both the companies have achieved it, we thought this is the right time to come together. Also the vision we have of scale and synergy and that's the outcome of the efforts taken," Misra said. The boards of directors of Tata Global Beverages and Tata Chemicals approved the de-merger of the consumer products business of TCL into TGBL. Also, each shareholder of TCL will get 1.14 new equity shares of TFBL for every one equity share held. The proposed transaction will create a focused consumer products company with a combined turnover of Rs 9,099 crore and an EBIDTA of Rs 1,154 crore, Misra said. "One of the key objectives of the announcement made is to put in place a consolidated platform to the consumer business of the Tata Group, which is essentially FMCG business," Tata Sons Brand Custodian Harish Bhat said. A statement issued by the group said that the combination of the two consumer-focused businesses will benefit both sets of shareholders who will be able to participate in a larger business poised to grow their share of the foods and beverages market with a broader exposure to the attractive and fast growing FMCG sector. TGBL sells tea under Tetley and Tata Tea brands as also coffee under Eight O'Clock brand and bottled water. TCL, the world's third-largest producer of soda ash, will focus on its core chemicals business after this deal. As per the arrangement, TCL shareholders will retain their ownership of a focused science-led chemistry solutions and specialty products company with a leading portfolio of products in basic and specialty chemicals and strong cash flows to support future growth. Speaking about the deal, TCL Managing Director and CEO R Mukundan said the rationale is to create two platforms with one being becoming a science and chemistry based solution company and the other is being a leader in the consumer product FMCG space. He further said this combination provides significant benefits to its shareholders by unlocking the value of its consumer products business. When asked whether the company was planning to consolidate its coffee business as well, Misra said, "Tata Coffee, which is a subsidiary of TBGL is more of a B2B business. It will continue to chart its own journey of growth. We have also made an investment in the greenfield instant coffee facility in Vietnam. So it will continue to be a part of TBGL." Misra further said that in addition to being an Indian consumer brand company, the international brands are very much a part of the TGBL's Indian growth voyage and it will continue to nurture and invest in those international brands through Tetley and Tata Tea brands, among others. "As we continue to restructure and grow our international business mainly focused on Indian diaspora, that efforts will continue. TGBL has a great presence in Canada and the UK, among others, the new products will also get access to both markets. This will strengthen our products in India and we will also be exporting," he added. Commenting on the announcement, N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons said, "Tata Consumer Products consolidates our current presence in food and beverages in the fast-growing consumer sector. Through this combination, we have created a strong growth platform to meet the growing aspirations of Indian consumers." When asked on the prospects of the cement business of Tata Chemicals, Mukundan said, "it (cement business) is a small part of TCL and we have several times looked at it (for divesting). But we have now concluded to run it as a part of our business but the focus market will continue to be in Saurashtra in Gujarat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (ANSA) - Rome, May 15 - German migrant rescue NGO SeaWatch on Wednesday said it had rescued 65 migrants off Libya. The rescue took place 30 nautical miles, or 60 kilometres, from the Libyan coast, it said. The struggling migrant boat was spotted by a civil reconnaissance plane, it said. SeaWatch said Libya, Malta, Italy and the Netherlands "have been informed, with no response". It said "in the Mediterranean witnesses are dropping, but not departures". Interior Minister and anti-migrant League party leader Matteo Salvini has sealed off Italy's ports to migrant NGO rescue ships. Tata Steel has not given up on its plans of merging its business in Europe, a top company official said while terming the European Commission's feedback on the proposed joint venture with Thyssenkrupp as a "speed breaker". The company's aim is to make European business stronger for which it will continue to explore various business options including merger, Tata Steel Managing Director T V Narendran told PTI over phone. "This was something we were working on for last few years but European Commission based on the market feedback decided that it can not recommend JV...So (its) fine. I look (at) it like a speed breaker. These things happen," Narendran said on the collapse of Tata Steel's proposed joint venture (JV) with German conglomerate Thyssenkrupp. On May 10, Tata Steel and the German conglomerate decided to call off their proposed steel JV, expecting the deal to be rejected by the European Commission (EC) over "continuing concerns". Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp had signed definitive agreements in June 2018 to combine their steel businesses in Europe to create a 50-50 pan European joint venture company which could have formed the continent's second-largest steel company after Lakshmi Mittal's ArcelorMittal. Narendran said that Tata Steel Group has been performing well despite challenges in Europe. Tata Steel termed the proposed JV as an important strategic initiative for the company to create a sustainable portfolio in Europe, and now it being thrown off-track, it said, it would explore all options to achieve similar outcomes in the future. "The journey of de-leveraging continues and creating structurally strong enterprise continues, (however) the JV could have made it a bit faster in terms of reducing our debt," he said. He further noted that in Europe, the main players for the auto industry are ArcelorMittal and Thyssenkrupp and because of this the EC got adverse feedback from the automobile majors about the merger, as instead of three strong suppliers the automobile majors would have had two strong suppliers. "We have already made significant investments in Netherlands to supply to the auto industry. So we continue to be a strong player in auto industry," he noted. While answering to a question on whether Tata Steel's options also include any acquisition plan like JSW Steel, which had acquired a plant in Italy, Narendran said, when the company looks at options, it will not be to grow its footprint in Europe, it would be to find a partner like Thyssenkrupp because Europe is not about growth, it is about making the business stronger. Currently, around two-thirds of Tata Steel's business is in India. With the commissioning of the 5 million tone phase 2 of the Kalinganagar plant in the next 30 months with value added product mix, its share of business along with its profitability is expected to increase further. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump's son Donald Jr has agreed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian election meddling, US media have reported. The agreement resolved a looming fight between the Congress and the White House after Donald Jr was subpoenaed by the Republican-led committee last week. According to reports, he had initially agreed to testify behind closed doors and then backed out for unclear reasons. But President Trump is battling any cooperation with Congress in the Russia meddling investigation, claiming that he has already been "totally exonerated" of collusion and obstruction of justice by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report completed in late March. The Senate panel has interviewed Donald Jr once before, and is believed to be seeking clarification on his knowledge of contacts between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russians. Some Democrats suspect he may have lied about what he and his father knew of a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton, as well as other connections between the two sides. Seeking to complete their own report on Russian election interference, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr risked the wrath of the White House and his Republican party by issuing a subpoena for Donald Jr. Finally, according to multiple reports, Donald Jr. agreed to testify in early or mid-June, behind closed doors and with limits on time and the questions he will answer. Meanwhile congressional Democrats on Tuesday scheduled former White House lawyer Don McGahn to testify about events described in the special counsel's report, setting up another clash with President Trump. McGahn has not confirmed his attendance at the House Judiciary Committee's May 21 hearing, and Trump has indicated he will assert executive privilege to resist Democrats seeking materials or testimony related to Russian meddling and alleged collusion. "I've had him testifying already for 30 hours," Trump told Fox last week. "So I don't think I can let him and then tell everybody else you can't." The White House is seeking to shield a large swathe of material - including redacted portions of Mueller's report -- that was subpoenaed by lawmakers seeking to exert their oversight responsibility. The report details how Trump's lawyers and advisors, including McGahn, repeatedly rebuffed the president's attempts to halt Mueller's investigation -- which some analysts say amounts to illegal obstruction by the president. The House committee's chairman, Democrat Jerry Nadler, has said he wants Mueller himself to testify but no date has been sent. Trump said this month that Mueller should not testify before Congress, but he reversed course last week, saying he would leave that decision up to Attorney General Bill Barr. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump plans to hold off on imposing steep tariffs on imported autos while the US negotiates deals with key trading partners, industry sources told AFP Wednesday. Trump has threatened to impose 25 percent punitive duties on autos, which has worried the European Union and Japan in particular, as well as Mexico and Canada. Facing a deadline to announce a decision by Saturday on whether to implement the tariffs based on national security concerns, the sources said Trump would hold off as negotiations proceed. New tariffs risk exploding already tense trade relations with Washington's major trading partners, who are angry about punitive duties on steel and aluminum. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two sisters were killed when a truck hit their scooter in Nagpur district of Maharashtra on Wednesday morning, police said. The mishap took place near a temple in Pardi area around 7 am, an official at Kalamana police station said. The women were going on their two-wheeler to purchase milk when the truck hit their vehicle from behind, he said. The duo fell from their vehicle and got crushed under wheels of the truck, the official said. The deceased were identified as Laxmi Shahu (21) and Aanchal Shahu (19), he said. The bodies were sent for postmortem, he said, adding that an investigation was underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UAE said it will "retaliate hard" if Yemen's Huthi rebels attack civilian facilities, a day after rebels claimed drone attacks that shut down a key Saudi oil pipeline. "We will retaliate and we will retaliate hard when we see Huthis hitting civilian targets like what happened in Saudi Arabia," the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, told journalists in Dubai. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Bank of India (UBI) Wednesday said it plans to raise up to Rs 6,000 crore this fiscal through securities to meet its capital requirement. The board of the company, in a meeting held on Wednesday, approved raising "total capital fund up to Rs 6,000 crore during FY 2019-20," UBI said in a regulatory filing. Approval of the shareholders for raising the equity capital would be sought at the Annual General Meeting of the company, to be held on June 28, 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UN has sanctioned ISIS' South Asia Branch, a terrorist group formed in 2015 by a Pakistani national and a former commander of the TTP, for its links with al-Qaeda and involvement in several deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed over 150 people. The United Nations Security Council's 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee on Tuesday sanctioned Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan (ISIL-K), which is also known as 'ISIS' South Asia Branch, ISIL Khorasan, Islamic State's Khorasan Province' and 'South Asian Chapter of ISIL'. The listing comes two weeks after the Sanctions Committee designated Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as "global terrorist" on May 1, capping a decade-long effort by India and its allies including the US, the UK, France to sanction the mastermind of several attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the February 14 Pulwama terror attack which killed 40 CRPF soldiers. The group is now subject to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. The Sanctions Committee said in a statement that ISIS-K was formed on January 10, 2015 by a former Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander and was established by former Taliban faction commanders "who swore an oath of allegiance" to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISISK has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Sanctions Committee said the group was listed as being associated with ISIS or al-Qaida for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating" acts or activities by supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel. It said the group engaged in "other acts or activities indicating association with al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any cell, affiliate, splinter group of al-Qaeda in Iraq". The group had announced its formation in an online video in January 2015. ISIS spokesman Abou Mohamed al Adnani had announced its expansion into the area historically known as Khorasan, by acknowledging ISISK leader's pledge of allegiance to al-Baghdadi and claiming the leader of the Islamic State had accepted his pledge and appointed him as governor of the Khorasan Province. The Sanctions Committee said ISIS-K had carried out numerous attacks since its formation that have killed more than 150 people. In November 2016, the group carried out a suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 50 people and injured over 100 people, it said. In December 2017, the outfit claimed multiple suicide bombings at a Shia cultural center and agency in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed more than 41 people, including women and children, and injured over 84 people, it added. In July 2018, the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside a polling station in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 31 people and injured over 24 people. According to leading Washington-based think tank for defense and national security Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in 2014, Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan was chosen to spearhead ISIL-K province as its first "emir". Khan, a senior TTP commander, "brought along other prominent TTP members including the group's spokesman Sheikh Maqbool and many district chiefs - when he initially pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in October 2014," the CSIS, a nonprofit policy research organisation, noted on its website. The website said the group's "early membership included a contingent of Pakistani militants who emerged in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province around 2010, just across the border from the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan". It also said many of these militants were "estranged members" of TTP and Lashkar-e Islam, who had fled Pakistan to escape from the security forces. According to Combatting Terrorism Center, academic institution at US Military Academy in New York, as of 2017, some members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had also "defected" to ISIS-K. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro was stepping up a crackdown on the opposition-controlled National Assembly and called on countries to respond with concrete actions. The council met behind closed doors at the request of European countries to hear a briefing on the political and humanitarian crises in Venezuela and details of an EU-backed diplomatic push to end the stalemate. US Acting Ambassador Jonathan Cohen raised alarm over the arrest on May 8 of Edgar Zambrano, a senior opposition leader and first vice president of the National Assembly. "We are concerned that Zambrano's arrest is a major escalation of the ongoing crackdown by the Maduro regime against the National Assembly," said a statement from the US mission to the United States. "The United States calls on all member states to be prepared to take concrete actions in response to the Maduro regime's repression throughout Venezuela," it added. The US is among more than 50 countries backing opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president on January 23 but has since failed to force Maduro to step down. Guaido blames Maduro for Venezuela's economic problems, which have forced millions of Venezuelans to flee the country in search of livelihoods abroad. The council heard a report from French Deputy UN Ambassador Anne Gueguen on a plan by the EU-backed International Contact Group to end the standoff in Venezuela. The contact group, made up of about a dozen European and Latin American countries, plans to send envoys to Caracas soon to discuss holding elections. The group "has the capacity to push the parties to engage in a political process that would lead to free, credible and transparent elections", Gueguen told AFP. The UN is stepping up plans to address the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, where 7 million people -- 25 per cent of the population -- are in need of food, medicine and other basic supplies. The UN resident coordinator met Monday with Maduro and other government officials in Caracas to discuss a proposed UN humanitarian response plan, UN officials said. The UN plans to appoint a humanitarian coordinator soon to oversee a rollout of aid to Venezuela. Maduro has repeatedly maintained that there is no humanitarian crisis in his country and that US sanctions are to blame for the hardships of Venezuelans. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Six Catholic dioceses in the United States rolled out a "compensation program" Tuesday as an alternative to court proceedings for minors sexually abused by clergy. The program by the dioceses, all of which are located in California, will be managed by two independent monitors who have handled similar programs in New York and Pennsylvania, the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez said in a letter to worshippers. "We are joining with five other dioceses in California in a new initiative to provide pastoral care and financial support to any person who has been sexually abused as a minor by a diocesan priest," Gomez wrote. "We also understand that some victim-survivors are reluctant to come to the church for assistance. Our hope with this new program is to give these people a chance to seek redress and healing through an independent program." According to California church officials, the program will be open to anybody who was abused by a priest as a minor, including people residing in the US illegally and those for whom the statute of limitations to prosecute their abuser has expired. No lawyer will be necessary, and the process will be free and conducted in a "non-adversarial" manner that respects victims' privacy, according to the letter. The six dioceses involved in the program represent some 10 million Catholics in California, many of whom have origins in Latin America where the church is particularly strong. The Catholic Church both in the US and across the globe is struggling to deal with an epidemic of sexual assault by priests, much of it directed at minors. The abuse has often gone on for decades and been covered up by church hierarchy. The program's announcement came the same day that five Catholic molestation victims filed a lawsuit in a Minnesota federal court asking a judge to compel the Vatican to open its archives and release details of abusive priests. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A US embassy staffer denied espionage charges as his trial resumed in Istanbul on Wednesday - part of a growing rift between Washington and Ankara. Metin Topuz, a Turkish citizen and liaison for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was arrested in 2017. He was accused of contacts with police and a prosecutor suspected of ties to US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says ordered an attempted coup in 2016. Topuz has denied all allegations against him and told the court on Monday that all his contacts were "part of my job", an AFP reporter said. "I am not a decision maker. I have done what I was ordered to do" by my boss at the DEA, he said. His defence lawyer presented a list of his phone calls with police, saying they were entirely work-related. US embassy and consular officials, who have dismissed the charges as being without merit, were also at the courthouse to observe proceedings. The trial comes at a time when the NATO allies are increasingly at odds over Syria, Turkey's decision to buy a Russian missile defence system and the US refusal to extradite Gulen. According to his indictment, Topuz is accused of espionage as well as arranging arms trafficking through exchanges on the WhatsApp messaging service. Since the failed 2016 coup against Erdogan, tens of thousands of people have been arrested over suspected ties to Gulen and more than 100,000 people have been sacked or suspended from public sector jobs. Gulen rejects the coup accusations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) TEL AVIV - Poland's ambassador to Israel was physically and verbally attacked on Tuesday by a passerby while he was near the embassy in downtown Tel Aviv, Yediot Ahronot reported on Wednesday. The paper said the diplomat was able to photograph his assailant who was apprehended by police shortly after the attack. The Israeli ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, on Wednesday morning was summoned by the Polish foreign ministry for clarifications. Polish Premier Mateusz Morawiecki reacted on Twitter: "I am very worried in hearing of a racist attack against Poland's ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski. Poland forcefully condemns this xenophobic attack. Violence against diplomats or any other citizen must never be tolerated". The incident was reported a few days after Poland cancelled a meeting with an Israeli delegation to discuss the issue of the handover of assets of Jewish Polish citizens who were killed in Nazi concentration camps. The US on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, ramping up alarm over an alleged Iran threat even as allies appeared less than convinced. A senior Democratic senator demanded President Donald Trump's administration brief Congress on the Iran threat, warning that the US legislature has not approved military action against Tehran. And Moscow expressed concerns that both Washington and Tehran were dangerously stoking tensions, as the Pentagon ramped up its forces in the Gulf with B-52 bombers, Patriot missiles and an aircraft carrier task force. The embassy evacuation came 10 days after Trump's national security advisor John Bolton announced the military deployment in response to intelligence on an unspecified "imminent" plot by Iran to attack US forces or allies. The State Department warned Wednesday of numerous "terrorist and insurgent groups" active in the country, including "anti-US sectarian militias" who could "threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq." The warning did not mention Iran specifically, but "anti-US sectarian militias" points to Iran-backed groups. A State Department spokesman told AFP the departure of non-emergency personnel came in response to "the increased threat stream we are seeing in Iraq." Washington says it has received intelligence on possible attacks by Iranian or Iranian-backed forces, possibly targeting US bases in Iraq or Syria. Some observers speculate that Tehran is seeking to retaliate to Washington's decision in April to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a terrorist organization in an effort to stymie their activities across the Middle East. But since the first US warning on May 5, the only activity seen has been a still-mysterious "attack" Monday on four tankers anchored off Fujairah, a UAE port at the strategically crucial entrance to the Gulf. One or more vessels incurred light hull damage, but what caused the damage and who was behind it remains unknown. US allies in Iraq have refrained from echoing Washington's warning cry. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said Tuesday there was no special heightened alert, and that OIR troops were always on guard against possible attacks. After Ghika's comments drew a sharp retort from the US Central Command, Britain's defense ministry said Wednesday they have "long been clear about our concerns over Iran's destabilising behavior in the region" -- while still not confirming any new imminent danger. Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday they were suspending training of soldiers in Iraq; German defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said there was "generally heightened alert, awareness" among soldiers in the region, but gave no specifics. Separately, the Netherlands' defense ministry said it was suspending a training mission in Iraq due to "threats," according to the Dutch ANP agency. Both Washington and Tehran said Tuesday they were not seeking war. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran," echoed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Sochi, Russia. But Russia, a major backer of Tehran, expressed concern Wednesday that Pompeo's assurances had not quelled the crisis. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Pompeo met with President Vladimir Putin. Peskov said Washington had provoked Iran, but added that "we are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side." In the US Congress Democrats demanded to know why the Trump administration was boosting its forces in the Gulf and, according to media reports, considering military plans including the possibility of sending 120,000 US troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks American assets. "The Trump administration has not provided any information to this committee on the intelligence behind their decisions, or what they plan to do in Iraq or Iran," said Senator Bob Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations panel. He demanded a briefing "immediately" on the threat intelligence, any plans for war and the decision to order embassy staff out of Iraq. "Congress has not authorized war with Iran... If (the administration) were contemplating military action with Iran, it must come to Congress to seek approval," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, as tensions mount between the United States and Iraq's neighbour Iran, prompting Kremlin concern. Washington has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days, accusing Iran of planning unspecified "imminent" attacks in the region, and bolstering the American military presence in the Gulf. A State Department advisory announcing the partial embassy closures warned of numerous "terrorist and insurgent groups" active in Iraq, including "anti-US sectarian militias" who could "threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq." The US last year shut its consulate in the protest-hit southern Iraqi city of Basra, blaming "indirect fire" by Iran-backed forces. Tensions have sharply escalated between arch-rivals Washington and Tehran since US President Donald Trump withdrew last May from the 2015 international Iran nuclear deal which removed sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear programme. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- who has made rolling back Iranian influence in the region a top priority -- last week paid a surprise trip to Baghdad in a move to bolster ties with Iraq. He has declined to go into further detail on the alleged plot, which has been met with skepticism in numerous quarters, including from Democratic lawmakers who fear Trump's administration is seeking to spark a war with Iran. A State Department spokesman on Wednesday told AFP the departure of non-emergency personnel came in response to "the increased threat stream we are seeing in Iraq." The Pentagon has said its deployments were "in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests". But Russia, a major backer of Tehran which has blamed the current crisis on Washington's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, expressed concern Wednesday that tensions keep escalating despite assurances from Pompeo. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Pompeo met with President Vladimir Putin. "We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side," Peskov said, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Iran. Ruled by Shiite clerics, Iran has a strong influence in Iraq, especially in the country's Shiite-majority south. Pompeo told reporters he had made his trip because Iranian forces are "escalating their activity" and said the threat of attacks was "very specific." The top US envoy met with Iraqi President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, and spoke to them "about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it's able to adequately protect Americans in their country." Diplomatic security is a key priority for the United States. Blasts involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) occur in many areas of Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, the advisory warned, adding that normal visa services would be suspended. Arbil is the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital, in northern Iraq. National Security Advisor John Bolton warned that Washington would respond with "unrelenting force" to any attack by Tehran, including by its regional allies. On Sunday, mysterious attacks by unknown assailants against four ships in the region, including two from Saudi Arabia, sent war talk up another notch. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have given details on the exact nature of those attacks. The Pentagon said last week it was sending several massive, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the region in response to indications of an alleged plan by "Iranian and Iranian proxy forces" to attack US forces. But a British general said Tuesday there had been "no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria." The comments by Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, drew a sharp retort from US Central Command. Both Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Pompeo have this week played down fears that their countries were headed for conflict. Khamenei told Iranian officials the standoff "is not military because there is not going to be any war." Pompeo told Russian officials in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that the US "fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran." Playing down the statements by Washington's top diplomat, Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters: "There were no assurances from Pompeo," and "there is an obvious situation which unfortunately tends to escalate further. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Erbil, as tensions mount between the United States and Iraq's neighbour Iran. Washington has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days, accusing Iran of planning "imminent" attacks in the region, and bolstering the American military presence in the Gulf. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States and Russia share the same goals on North Korea as Washington tries to negotiate a nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after talks with President Vladimir Putin. "I think we share the same objective and I hope that we can find ways that we can work together," Pompeo told reporters after the talks late Tuesday in the Russian resort of Sochi. "He understands that the US is going to be in the lead, but I think there are places we can work together," Pompeo said. During their nearly two-hour talk in Putin's summer home, Pompeo said they spoke at length about North Korea, weeks after Putin held a summit with leader Kim Jong Un in the Far Eastern port city of Vladivostok. Kim used the occasion to accuse the United States of acting in "bad faith" after his second summit with President Donald Trump ended in stalemate in Hanoi. Pompeo, who visited Pyongyang four times last year, has taken a leading role in seeking to negotiate an accord with North Korea under which the authoritarian state will give up its nuclear arsenal. In a key point of contention, Pompeo has rebuffed demands from North Korea, which has the backing of Russia and China, for an early lifting of sanctions before a final deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot Wednesday condemned the vandalisation of a bust of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, saying it is a politically motivated step ahead of elections. A bust of Vidyasagar in a college named after the reformer was vandalised in violence between BJP and TMC workers on Tuesday. The violence broke out during a roadshow of BJP president Amit Shah in Kolkata. "It is a politically motivated move to break the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. We condemn such an incident," Pilot said at a rally here. He exuded confidence that the Congress-led UPA will form the next government. "The Modi government is on its way out. They will be defeated because people of this country are fed up with their misrule. They have not fulfilled a single promise they had made during elections in 2014. They will be defeated in this election," the Congress leader said. Asserting that there is a "wave of change" across the country, Pilot said the BJP's "desperate" bid to "polarise" voters by raising emotive issues will not pay any dividend. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut Wednesday slammed the West Bengal government over the attack on BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, describing the incident as "unfortunate" for the country's democracy. Talking to reporters here, Raut, who is the Rajya Sabha MP, said there can be no restrictions on anyone to campaign anywhere the country. "West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not want Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in Bengal. Did anyone stop Mamata from campaigning in Gujarat?" Raut asked. It is unfortunate that the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was desecrated, he said. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during Shah's roadshow. The BJP chief escaped unhurt, but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. Reacting to NCP chief Sharad Pawar's remarks that a Modi-led minority government would not last long, like the Vajpayee government in 1996, Raut said there will be lot of speculations till May 23 (when the Lok Sabha results will be declared). "I think the NDA will retain power. In the past, several minority coalition governments had completed their terms. This time, too, it would sail through," the Sena leader said. Over the drought in the state, Raut said Shiv Sena has started the relief work across 18 districts. "We are helping in fodder camps, providing water tankers to the needy people. Even though Uddhav Thackeray is out of the country, he is taking daily briefings about the drought condition," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amidst a raging controversy over Pakistani girls being trafficked to China after fake marriages, the Chinese embassy here has withheld visas of 90 Pakistani brides, according to a media report. China's Deputy Chief of Mission in Pakistan Lijian Zhao said on Tuesday that 140 applications have been received this year from Chinese nationals, seeking visas for their Pakistani brides. Only 50 visas were granted, while the remaining requests were withheld, he said, adding that the embassy had received 142 such applications in 2018, The Express Tribune reported. The Pakistan Government has recently ordered the Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) to take action against the gangs involved in smuggling of Pakistani girls to China on the pretext of contracting marriage. According to the local media reports, poor Christians girls, are lured, with money and promises of 'good life', by the illegal matchmaking centres to marry Chinese men who are either visiting or working in Pakistan. These centres produce fake documents of Chinese men showing them either as Christians or Muslims. Most of the girls reportedly became victims of human trafficking and are forced into prostitution. This sudden spike in number of transnational marriages alerted the officials and we approached our Pakistani counterparts who have launched an investigation into the matter, the Chinese diplomat said. However, Zhao said that the media reports twisted the facts as there was no evidence to prove that the women were forced into prostitution and subjected to heinous crime of organ harvesting. The diplomat denied that all marriages were fake, saying the Chinese nationals, who applied for visas of their Pakistani spouses last year, have completed all the legal formalities before moving the application, the report said. He said that there were few complaints of Pakistani women being tortured by their husbands in China, which would be addressed accordingly. He asked the Pakistani authorities to review the on-arrival visa policy for Chinese businessmen as some marriage bureaus in Pakistan were misusing it. The FIA has already launched a crackdown against fake marriages and human trafficking operations by the Chinese. The FIA Lahore Zone-I busted a Chinese gang from Johar Town in Punjab province and arrested 11 Chinese nationals and their two Pakistani facilitators. China on Friday said its ministry of public security had sent a task force to Pakistan to cooperate in the crackdown. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Keeping up the heat on Kamal Haasan over his "free India's first extremist was a Hindu" remark, the BJP Wednesday said it was not a subject to be spoken on at a public meeting and asked who emboldened him to rake up Gandhi's killing years after it happened. BJP state unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan took a swipe apparently at the Congress for supporting Haasan on the matter, saying that those who lost their leader to extremism were now backing the actor on his controversial statement. Stoking a controversy, Haasan had on Sunday said that "free India's first extremist was a Hindu", referring to Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi. "I am not saying this because this is a Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi. Free India's first extremist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it (extremism, apparently) starts," he said in bypoll-bound Aravakurichi. Soundararajan said terror had no religion and questioned why TNCC chief K S Alagiri and Dravidar Kazhagam leader K Veeramani were "celebrating" Haasan's remarks. "First of all, Kamal Haasan should understand that what he is speaking is wrong... we cannot and should not accept extremism in any form," she told reporters here. "But what is a matter of concern is the support by some political leaders and organisations. Because, one party which has lost its leader to extremism is now speaking in support of the same," she said in an apparent reference to the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber of the banned LTTE at Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991 during an election rally. Incidentally, India had on Tuesday extended the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for five years with immediate effect. The BJP leader further sought to know who had emboldened Haasan to rake up the issue now. "Who emboldened Kamal to rake up Gandhi's killing now and link it with Hindu extremism? This is not a subject to be spoken at a public meeting for a by-poll," Soundararajan said. "Is someone misleading Kamal or directing him or is he himself making such amateur remarks, we don't know," she added. Reiterating her party's demand that the Election Commission should ban him from campaigning, Soundararajan pointed out at the election body taking similar action against some leaders in northern India. The BJP leader said she had no faith in him as a political leader as he had earlier threatened to leave the country when his film 'Vishwaroopam' faced roadblocks after Muslim groups opposed the portrayal of the community in the movie. "He should withdraw his remarks," she added. Meanwhile, a Vaishnavite saint also hit out at Haasan for his remarks, and threatened to hold protests if the actor-politician continued to make such remarks. Chendalankara Sampath Kumara Ramanuja Jeeyar of Mannargudi asked if Haasan was hobnobbing with banned Islamist outfits and therefore making such remarks against Hindus. "He is saying such things for his own benefit. He is a good actor, and is now acting in public. All Hindus are against him and if he repeats such statements, his free movement will be hindered. We will hold protests against him," he told reporters in Tiruchirappalli. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The wife of a Sri Lankan suicide bomber, who blew himself up at the St Anthony's Church, delivered their first baby two weeks after the deadly Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 250 people including the attackers, the Colombo magistrate's court has been told. Alawddin Ahmed Muath, the 22-year-old law graduate, was one of the nine suicide bombers who carried out a series of coordinated attacks on three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday. During a court hearing on Tuesday, Muath's 59-year-old father Ahmed Lebbe Alawddin informed Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne that the bomber was the fourth of his five children. He was about to be enrolled into the Colombo Law College to further his law studies. Muath got married 14 months ago and his wife delivered their first baby on May 5, he told the judge. Alawddin said that he last saw his son on April 14 when he visited his elder sister after the delivery of her first baby on April 13. On the day of the attacks, Muath's wife had called his eldest brother to find out if he had visited parents house. Alawddin informed the court that he identified his son by the remains of his head. He said that he had arranged to send Rs 30,000 for the expenses of his son every month. Muath's mother said that he was not employed but had been married to a woman in Sainthamaruthu. One of Muath's brothers-in-law said that he had written a note to the husband of one of his sisters which said, "please do not look out for me, I will not be coming hereafter. Please look after parents well and pray for me". The note was only found after his death. Meanwhile, two brothers of the bomber were taken into custody by the Criminal Investigations Department upon detention orders issued by court. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group, the National Thawheed Jama'ath (NTJ), for the bombings. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Air Force has given new shoulder patches with titles 'Falcon Slayers' and 'AMRAAM Dodgers' to Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman's MiG-21 Bison squadron in a tribute to his bravery in shooting down a F-16 jet of Pakistan during the aerial combat on February 27, officials said. The new patches given to the 51 Squadron of IAF depict a MiG21 in the foreground along with a red-coloured F-16 with 'Falcon Slayers' written on top and 'AMRAAM Dodgers' written at the bottom of it. A fleet of Pakistani fighter jets had unsuccessfully targeted various military installations in Jammu and Kashmir on February 27, a day after India carried out air strikes on a terrorist training camp deep inside Pakistan's Balakot. The IAF foiled the Pakistani retaliation, and in the dogfight, Varthaman downed a F-16 fighter jet of the Pakistan Air Force, showing grit, determination and bravery. Soon after he brought down the F-16, Varthaman was captured by the Pakistani Army as his MiG-21 Bison jet was hit. Varthaman was released on the night of March 1 by Pakistan. The IAF had said the Pakistani F-16 fighters fired AMRAAM beyond visual range air-to-air missile during the aerial combat. After he was captured, Varthaman showed courage and grace in handling the most difficult circumstances for which he was praised by politicians, strategic affairs experts, ex-servicemen, celebrities and people in general. Varthaman had became the face of the military confrontation between the two countries. Last month, he was shifted out of Srinagar and posted to a frontline air base in the western sector. The IAF is recommending wartime gallantry medal Vir Chakra to Varthaman. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ROME - The German non-profit organization Sea Watch on Wednesday announced that it had rescued 65 people 30 nautical miles from the Libyan coast after being sighted by civil reconnaissance aircraft. It added that Libya, Malta, Italy, and the Netherlands had been informed but no response had been received. The organization added that witnesses to what is happening in the Mediterranean were being reduced but not migrant departures. It added that among the 65 migrants rescued there were 11 women, 15 under the age of 18 including 8 that were unaccompanied by adult relations, 5 children, 2 infants, and one disabled individual. Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini reacted by saying that "I have just signed a warning against approaching Italian territorial waters. Our ports are, and will remain, closed." The UN envoy for Yemen warned Wednesday that despite a rebel withdrawal from key ports, the country still faced the threat of plunging into all-out war. "Despite the significance of the last few days, Yemen remains at the crossroads between war and peace," Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council. Yemen's government and Huthi rebels must press on with further redeployments of forces and return to the negotiating table for talks on a broader peace settlement, he said. "There are signs of hope," he added, but there are also "alarming signs" of war. The envoy delivered the warning after the Huthis pulled out of three Red Sea ports, in line with a ceasefire deal reached in Stockholm in December. The pullback from Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa marked the first concrete step to implement the Stockholm agreement, which was hailed as a breakthrough in efforts to end the war. The Huthis handed over control of the ports to a "coast guard", but some government officials said these forces were in fact rebel fighters in different uniforms. The pullback from the ports had been delayed over disagreements on the makeup of local security forces that are to be deployed to those facilities. Griffiths acknowledged that the first phase of the redeployment was incomplete, and that an agreement on the local security forces was still under negotiation. Despite the complications, Griffiths hailed "a new beginning in Hodeida", saying that "change is now a reality". Danish General Michael Lollesgaard, who heads a redeployment commission, told reporters by videolink from Hodeida that the Huthi handover of the ports would be verified by all sides at a later stage. "We are not sidelining the government of Yemen in any way," he said. Hodeida is the main entry point for the bulk of Yemen's imports and humanitarian aid, providing a lifeline to millions of people who are on the brink of famine. Talks are continuing on the second stage of the redeployment which will see pro-government forces and the Huthis pull back from the city of Hodeida, but Lollesgaard declined to give a timetable for that withdrawal. "I've stopped making predictions," he said after acknowledging that he had previously underestimated the difficulties involved in reaching a deal. The conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has had a devastating toll on civilians and triggered the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations (UN). The head of UNICEF, the UN children's agency, said that while a ceasefire was largely holding in Hodeida, fighting was raging "across 30 active conflict zones -- home to nearly 1.2 million children". "Hospitals, clinics and water systems are in ruins -- with half of the country's hospitals and clinics destroyed," Henrietta Fore told the council. "We are at a tipping point. If the war continues any longer, the country may move past the point of no return." A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March, 2015 to push back an advance by the rebels, who continue to hold the capital Sanaa, and to restore to power President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Zimbabwe has sold nearly 100 elephants to China and Dubai for a total price of USD 2.7 million over six years, the country's wildlife agency said Wednesday, citing overpopulation. Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesman Tinashe Farawo told AFP Zimbabwe's elephants were overcrowding national parks, encroaching into human settlements, destroying crops and posing a risk to human life. "We have 84,000 elephants against a carrying capacity of 50,000," he said, justifying the sales. "We believe in sustainable use of resources, so we sell a few elephants to take care of the rest. Farawo said 200 people have died in "human-and-animal conflict" in the past five years, "and at least 7,000 hectares of crop have been destroyed by elephants". The animals' natural habitat has been depleted by climate change, he added, while recurrent droughts have added to strain on the overburdened national parks, forcing the pachyderms to seek food and water further afield. Farawo said money from the legal sales was allocated to anti-poaching projects, conservation work, research and welfare. According to the Zimbabwe Chronicle newspaper, 93 elephants were safely airlifted to parks in China and four to Dubai between 2012 and 2018, They were sold in a price range of between $13,500 and $41,500 each. Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have called for a global ban on elephant ivory trade to be relaxed due to the growing number of elephants in some regions. But over the past decade, the population of elephants across Africa has fallen by about 111,000 to 415,000, largely due to poaching for ivory, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jubilant FoodWorks, owner of Domino's Pizza and Dunkin' Donuts, concluded the financial year 2018-19 on strong note, both in terms of growth and profitability, driven by same store sales growth which touched a seven year high. The Noida-based company has reported 56.4 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 322.80 crore as compared to Rs 206.40 crore in the last fiscal. "Revenue from operation stood at Rs 3,530.66 crore in FY19 as compared to Rs 2,980.44 crore in FY18, registering a y-o-y growth of 18.5 per cent," Jubilant FoodWorks said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday. The operating profit (EBITDA) climbed 36.2 per cent y-o-y at Rs 607.80 crore, while operating margin stood at 17.2 per cent, up by 220 bps. Domino's Pizza Same Store Sales Growth (SSG) stood at 16.4 per cent in FY19 versus 13.9 per cent in FY18, the company said in the exchange filing. During January-March quarter, profit after tax increased to Rs 73.94 crore from Rs 68.06 crore, posting a growth of 8.6 per cent on the yearly basis. Operating revenues for Q4FY19 stood at Rs 865.20 crore, representing an growth of 10.9 per cent over the same quarter last year. Also Read: IIFL Holdings consolidated profit jumps 23% to Rs 1,252.90 crore in FY19, revenue up 16% "The revenue growth was driven by Same Store growth (SSG) of 6 per cent and new stores opened during the year in Domino's Pizza," the company said. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the March quarter was up 15.5 per cent over Q4 FY18 at Rs 147.60 crore. EBITDA margin grew by 70 bps to 17.1 per cent. Commenting on the financial performance, Pratik Pota, CEO and Whole time Director, Jubilant FoodWorks said, "Lapping our strongest quarter from last year, we delivered a robust revenue growth of 10.9% in Q4. We closed the year with revenue growth of 18.5% for FY19, driven by a 7-year high same-store sales growth (SSSG) of 16.4%. We are confident that Domino's will continue to drive strong growth in the year ahead." "This quarter also marked our entry into the Chinese Fast Casual segment as also into the Bangladesh market with the launch of our first Domino?s Pizza restaurant in Dhaka. I am delighted to share that both of these are off to strong starts and should be significant growth drivers for us in the future," he added. During the March quarter, Jubilant FoodWorks ventured into Chinese Fast Casual segment with its first home-grown brand 'Hong's Kitchen'. Hong's Kitchen opened its first restaurant in Gurugram. Also Read: Nestle India Q1 net profit jumps 9.2% at Rs 463 crore; domestic sales up 10.2% Domino's Pizza opened 30 new stores in India and also opened its first restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh in March quarter. "The store got off to a strong start and broke the global Domino's record for the highest number of orders for its first week and the first month of operations," it said. The company's board has recommended a dividend of Rs 5 (i.e. 50%) per equity share of Rs 10 each for the financial year 2018-19 subject to requisite approval. Boosted by strong earnings, shares of Jubilant FoodWorks ended trade at Rs 1,243.20 apiece, up 3.32 per cent, against previous closing level of Rs 1,203.20 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Edited by Chitranjan Kumar Days after India-born industrialist brothers, Srichand and GP Hinduja, reclaimed the title of Britain's wealthiest with fortunes of 22 billion pounds to their name, the buzz is that they have been approached to buy a stake in the grounded Jet Airways. Even as its lenders are scrambling to find a suitor, the cash-starved carrier has witnessed a top management exodus in the past two days. CEO Vinay Dube as well as the airline's CFO, company secretary and chief people officer have all put in their papers. Sources in the know told The Economic Times that the Hinduja Group started showing interest after Etihad representatives approached GP Hinduja, the elder brother, who heads the group. He, in turn, passed the ball on to Ashok Hinduja, the younger brother leading the India business. "The Hinduja Group is non-committal [on Jet], but will keep its options open," a senior executive told the daily, adding that the Group would meet Etihad executives and Jet Airways' lenders in the coming days, though no date had been fixed yet. The talks are still at an exploratory stage and no formal meeting or dialogue has taken place yet. Jet Airways had grounded operations on April 17 after banks refused an emergency infusion of Rs 400 crore requested by the airline in order to continue services. Back in March, the lenders had taken control of the company's board after founder Naresh Goyal and his wife exited the company. The SBI-led consortium of 26 lenders had then initiated a bidding process to sell stake in the airline to recover some of its Rs 8,500 crore dues. Of the four entities that had submitted expressions of interest, Etihad, which owns 24 per cent of Jet Airways and is the second largest stakeholder, was reportedly the only one to submit a bid on Friday. "Etihad Airways today confirmed its interest to re-invest in a minority stake in India's Jet Airways, subject to conditions," an Etihad spokesperson said earlier this week, pointing out that India was one of the world's fastest-growing air transport markets and a significant economic partner of the UAE. However, the Gulf carrier reiterated that it couldn't be expected to be the sole investor in Jet. "Amongst other requirements, additional suitable investors would need to provide the majority of Jet Airways' required recapitalisation," the spokesperson added. According to the daily, Etihad has not only refused to increase its current shareholding but also said it would invest only up to Rs 1,700 crore in the airline. It was also non-committal about taking on Jet Airways' liabilities and had asked banks to take a 70-80% haircut on the airline's debt. As things stand, turning around the now wingless Jet Airways is not for the fainthearted, or the tight-fisted. The lenders have reportedly said they want to rework all lease and engineering contracts of the grounded airline, halve lease rentals and demand a significant reduction in maintenance reserves. However, even if these cuts come through, investors estimate that Jet Airways will need up to Rs 20,000 crore over the next three years to fly again. The Hindujas certainly have deep enough pockets to pull this off. Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja posted a hike of 1.35 billion pounds in their fortunes over the previous year to grab the top spot on The Sunday Times Rich List 2019. They had secured the number one rank back in 2014 and 2017. The duo along with two other brothers, Prakash and Ashok, control more than 50 companies with a total turnover of nearly 40 billion pounds worldwide in 2018. More importantly, the Group has been interested in the aviation space for a while now. In 2001, the Hinduja Group had bid for Air India, when the government had put up 40% of the carrier for sale in its maiden attempt at privatisation. It was reportedly the only bidder apart from a consortium of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines to show interest in the Maharajah. The government had simultaneously put up 26% of Indian Airlines for sale, and the Hindujas had shown interest along with Videocon International. The stakes sales were eventually scrapped but the Group had reportedly been disqualified from the bidding process due to the brothers' alleged involvement in the Bofors scam. There's another factor that may influence the Hindujas' interest in Jet Airways - the brothers have not only stuck to a majority stake in the companies they own but have also kept away from companies that are embroiled in ownership disputes or hostile takeovers. The existing out-of-job employees of the airline will be keenly watching developments here on. With PTI inputs Also read: Britain's wealthiest: Hinduja brothers return to top of UK rich list, Lakshmi Mittal slips six spots Also read: Jet Airways shares continue to fall for 3rd day; tank nearly 7 pc Rain lashed parts of Delh-NCR region is the morning today bringin the much needed relief to those who were baking in the Delhi summer. The rain hit the Delhi-NCR region around 8 am and there are reports that other parts of North India too witnessed heavy rainfall. Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a warning for rainfall and thunderstorm. "Intense rain and thundershower activities are lashing most parts of Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and Faridabad," Skymetweather wrote on Twitter. Other states that were affected by the weather were Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. There are also chances of the formation of cyclonic circulation over West Rajasthan, West Bengal and Sikkim as per the IMD. The formation of cyclonic circulation could lead to heavy rainfall in the regions. The air quality in the national capital improved significantly after this morning's downpour, authorities told PTI. The level of PM2.5 (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres) was recorded at 64 and PM10 at 156, the SAFAR said, according to news agency PTI. Delhi's air quality was oscillating between 'very poor' and 'severe' for the last few days due to a dust storm in northwest India, which led to a sharp increase in the PM2.5 level. Meanwhile, monsoon showers are expected to hit Kerala coast on June 4 and deliver less rainfall than average in 2019, the country's only private weather forecasting agency said on Tuesday, dampening prospects of higher farm and economic growth in the $2.6 trillion economy. Also Read: Monsoon 2019: 3 things to know about its onset Exchange of harsh words has reached different heights - or low - this election season. But that has not stopped our leaders from continuing their jibes at each other. In the latest, Congress President shared a dictionary entry-type of meme, explaining the term 'Modilie'. Needless to say, this portmanteau is formed of two words - Modi and lie. In the meme posted by Rahul Gandhi, one can see the entry on 'English Living Dictionaries'. 'Modilie' has been described as a noun, meaning "To constantly Modify the truth". Two forms of usage of the term is said to be as follows: To lie incessantly and habitually To lie without respite The meme even shows how to use the word in sentences with examples such as "He is such a Modiliar", "He just keeps Modilying" and "Look look there goes a Modiliar". There's a new word in the English Dictionary. Attached is a snapshot of the entry :) pic.twitter.com/xdBdEUL48r - Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 15, 2019 The tweet has been shared and retweeted multiple times. At the time of publishing of this article, the tweet had 1.6K retweets and 4.3K likes. Rahul Gandhi's jibe comes after Modi claimed to have used a digital camera to take LK Advani's photo and email it to a newspaper in Delhi in 1988. In the same interview, Modi claimed to have suggested defence experts to go ahead with the Balakot strike on an overcast day as the jets would have gone undetected by the radar because of the clouds. Modi came under severe criticism for his comments. The Internet fact-checked his claims and pointed out that Internet was rolled out for the public in India in 1995 by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL). Moreover, according to Mashable, Kodak DSC 100 the first commercially available digital camera was launched in 1991. On top of that the price was a staggering $10,000. Also read: Rahul Gandhi says NYAY will revive the economy hit by demonetisation, GST Also read: Narendra Modi got 722 hours of TV airtime in April, Rahul Gandhi only 252 hours Share price of YES Bank fell almost 6 per cent to a new 52-week low at Rs 146.85 on Wednesday, after the private bank informed the exchanges about appointment of an additional Director on its Board by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Shares of YES Bank started on a negative note after opening 1.25 points below the last close of Rs 156.15 and fell to intraday low at Rs 146.85, down by almost 6 per cent, also its new 52-week low. The stock was top loser on Nifty in the early trading session. YES Bank stock price has fallen 9 per cent in one week, 44 per cent in one month, and over 57 per cent in the last one year. The share price has been below the 30, 50, 150 and 200-day SMA. At 12:45 pm, the share price of YES bank was trading lower by 5.22 per cent or 8.15 points on BSE at Rs 148 and on NSE, the price was down by 5.20 per cent or 8.10 points at Rs 147. Mustafa Nadeem, CEO at Epic Research said, "Prices are in a bearish trend. Since the last few quarters, the stock has been in the news. Due to concern over its balance sheet, asset quality, exposure to IL&FS, directors and now RBI appointing an additional director for two years. It is a concern for investors and anyone who is looking to hold the stock for the long term. Technically, there were some pullbacks as the stock was coming out from oversold zone and pushing levels up. But that was in the short term and was the outcome of price structure. Some good immediate recovery did get two digit returns. But at present, this is not a stock that can be kept with confidence in the portfolio. At present - support is there at lower levels of 125 - 126 and prices can test them in coming days. We may see some price pullback given they are in oversold territory. But the trend remains negative and it's a stock that is a sell on any rise towards 165 - 168." The bank said in the filing, "Reserve Bank of India informed that in exercise of powers conferred under Banking Regulation Act, 1949, appointed Shri R Gandhi, Ex Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India as Additional Director on the Board of the Bank for a period of 2 years with effect from May 14, 2019 to May 13, 2021 or till further orders, whichever is earlier." The filing further added that the board of the Bank has heartily welcomed the appointment of R Gandhi, given his impeccable background and track record as a highly respected regulator in India. "This appointment will significantly strengthen YES Bank's Board's composition and the bank will immensely benefit from his experience and wisdom," the statement read. (Edited by Rupa Burman Roy) Also Read: Share Market Live: Sensex up 192 points, Nifty above 11,266; Tata Steel, Eicher Motors top performer Also Read: Sensex, Nifty start on a positive note as Trump hints possibility of a trade deal with China Qatar Airways has asked the Indian authorities to allow them to increase the number of seats on their flights to India. Qatar Airways has sought the addition of more seats on high volume routes such as Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore. The arrangement has been requested on a temporary basis and without formal changes to the existing weekly seat capacity entitlement under the 2009 Qatar-India bilateral aviation framework. Qatar Airways' request to be allotted more seats comes amid the Indian government's decision to cut the number of seats allotted to Jet Airways in the route. The government has cancelled 65 per cent of the Jet Airways' international traffic rights (around 5,670 seats per week) on the India-Qatar route, leaving it with just 2,889 seats per week, CNBC TV 18 reported. On India-UAE (Dubai) route, Jet's traffic rights on 45 per cent seats (5,852) per week stand withdrawn, leaving Jet with just 7,154 seats. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has also temporarily withdrawn Jet Airways' traffic right to other Southeast Asian cities like Hong Kong (50 per cent), and Singapore (13 per cent). In its request, Qatar Airways has said if the number of seats were not increased, Indian travellers would be "forced to either choose expensive last-minute tickets or complicated and burdensome re-routings". More than 7 lakh Indians live in Qatar and many of them visit their home country during summer holidays. Jet Airways' lenders, Etihad approach Hindujas to buy stake in airline: report "Qatar Airways believes that the proposed contingency plan is a sound and practical way to address the financial and emotional stress that Indian travellers are set to experience in the coming weeks. We are extremely proud of the great contribution made by Indian nationals to our airline and to our nation and we seek to be a loyal and reliable partner in the face of adversity," the Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar Al Baker said. The overall reduction in the number of seats between Gulf and Indian cities combined with the imminent peak in traffic demand due to summer vacation may put enormous upward pressure on costs for airlines, say experts. Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube had resigned on Tuesday with immediate effect citing "personal reasons". He is the fifth top-level official to quit the beleaguered company after its deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer Amit Agarwal and company's Chief People Officer (CPO) Rahul Taneja put in their resignation papers. The airline ceased operations temporarily around mid-April due to an acute liquidity crisis. Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube resigns a day after CFO Amit Agarwal quit company PwC today called on Government to make a number of proposed changes to the Irish Tax System in the upcoming Budget in October that would support Irish entrepreneurs and family businesses in the current uncertain business climate. The proposals are the result of a detailed consultation process undertaken by PwC with members of the DCU National Centre for Family Business and the Family Business Network. PwC say there are a number of areas where the Irish tax code could be improved to better support Irish owned businesses. The group believes these proposals are straightforward and inexpensive and would help Irish entrepreneurs and family businesses create jobs, retain key talent, raise investment as well as help intergenerational succession. The key proposed changes include: Remove the arbitrary 3m cap on the value which can qualify for Retirement Relief on the transfer of shares for those aged 66 years of age and older Increase the threshold for capital gains which can qualify for the reduced 10% rate of CGT under Entrepreneurial Relief (e.g. in UK the first 10 million of gains attract relief compared to 1 million in Ireland) Remove anomalies from how CGT Retirement Relief is calculated to avoid confusion and to ensure that it operates on a consistent basis with Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) Business Relief Introduce a future use test to ensure that any business assets (including cash) which are considered essential for the future success of the business, are not excluded from Business Relief on the transition of a business to the next generation Remove the 90% cap to provide full relief from CAT under Business Relief, similar to the equivalent relief in the UK Speaking this week, Tax Partner, PwC Entrepreneurial & Private Business Practice, Ronan Furlong said, "The Irish tax system has been very successful in supporting the economy through the encouragement of Foreign Direct Investment. However, based on our consultation, there are a number of areas where the Irish tax code could be improved to better support Irish owned businesses." He added, "These proposals are straightforward and inexpensive and would help Irish entrepreneurs and family businesses create jobs, retain key talent, raise investment as well as help intergenerational succession. This becomes even more important in the light of Brexit as Irish private businesses want to compete on a level playing field with their counterparts in the UK." Source: www.businessworld.ie NAPLES - Palestinian activist Rinad Hames is one of five women from North Africa and the Middle East named "Water Heroes" by the Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI) in Marseille. The center has launched an award for women who are working to find solutions to water shortage in their home country. "I grew up in a small Palestinian village, in a society that imposed rules on how a woman should live", said Hamed. "I am now a researcher in the sector of hydric resources and my objective is to be recognized at an international level and to continue to learn from new experiences around the world", she said. "In this way, stereotypes can be broken on what Palestinian women from rural areas are able to achieve". The project on "Water Heroes" started in 2018, during a workshop on water dedicated to youths, called "Natural solutions for safe water in the Mediterranean". It continued over the past weeks with the 2019 workshop on the theme "Water and migrations" at the end of which young women researchers spoke about their stories. "For a long time - representatives of the French institute explained - women represented a symbol of resilience. This is also true for the water sector. In the Middle East and North Africa, the world's regions with the highest hydric stress, women are playing their part in protecting water resources and fighting drought". The debate was joined by young activists from the Mediterranean Youth for water (MedYWat), a community of researchers with professional experience in hydric resources in the Mediterranean created in 2017 and managed by CMI. The debate revealed how professional achievements go hand in hand with the emancipation of women, which is still difficult. "It is extremely beautiful to see women from my country who chose to work in the water sector to help solve the problem of water scarcity in the Mediterranean", said Portugal's Rita Amaral, one of the Water Heroes. "The next step is now to occupy leadership positions that have long been dominated by men". "The most common mistake on women - added Zeineb Ettih, the head of the migration department of the Tunisian research institute on peace and conflicts - is that we are not as devoted to work as our male colleagues because our family obligations prevent us from being efficient. As a working mother, I have been able to excel in the workplace while being present in the family. It's a challenge that men don't have to face". The other 'Waterheroes' are Tunisia's Ines Gasmi, a university researcher in agronomics and coordinator of the group MedYWat, and Morocco's Fatine Ezbakhe, a civil engineer specialized in hydric resources. CBRE Hotels have confirmed their instructions to offer to the market one of Dublins most successful five-star hotels, The Marker, for sale by Private Treaty with a guide price of 125m. The Marker enjoys a waterfront location within the Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, and is immediately adjacent to the Bord Gais Energy Theatre and Facebooks headquarters. CBRE Hotels say this area has become the centre point of Dublins new office and residential developments and a global destination for many national and international tech and corporate occupiers including Google, Facebook, AirBnB and Salesforce. As a result, the Hotel benefits from a wealth of corporate demand drivers as well as access to Dublins main tourist attractions and transport links. The Marker is a short stroll to the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) and is close to the soon to be constructed U2 Visitor Centre on Hanover Quay, which is set to become a major tourist attraction for the city. The Bord Gais Energy Theatre, operated by Live Nation and next door to the Marker, has a capacity of over 2,100 and is thriving with numerous events hosted throughout the year. CBRE Hotels say the Marker provides hotel investors with a rare opportunity to acquire a luxurious hotel property with fashionable interiors, 187 guest bedrooms (including 18 Executive Rooms and 3 Suites), ground floor Brasserie and Marker Bar, sumptuous Spa facilities, the Marker Rooftop Bar & Terrace and extensive conference and banqueting facilities. Furthermore, the hotel property comes with the benefit of full planning permission to add an additional three floors which will provide for a new rooftop bar and brasserie that will trade all year round and an additional 60 guest bedrooms bringing the total number of bedrooms to 247. Commenting on the opportunity, Head of Hotel Investment Properties UK & Ireland at CBRE Hotels, Paul Collins said, "The sale of The Marker offers an exceptional opportunity to acquire a luxury hotel, free of branding or management, which provides a purchaser with flexibility and a range of options for future asset management initiatives." He added, "Since its opening in 2013, the Hotel has established itself as a true landmark in the city and has played host to a myriad of celebrities, politicians and business people. The very valuable planning permission to increase the bedroom count to 247 keys will further improve the already strong trading performance of the Hotel." Source: www.businessworld.ie President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China's Huawei, three U.S. officials familiar with the plan told Reuters. The order, which will not name specific countries or companies, has been under consideration for more than a year but has repeatedly been delayed, the sources said, asking not to be named because the preparations remain confidential. It could be delayed again, they said. The executive order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The order will direct the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement, the sources said. If signed, the executive order would come at a delicate time in relations between China and the United States as the world's two largest economies ratchet up tariffs in a battle over what U.S. officials call China's unfair trade practices. Washington believes equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's third largest smartphone maker, could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei, which has repeatedly denied the allegations, did not immediately comment. The White House and Commerce Department declined to comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a daily briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that the United States had been "abusing its national power" to "deliberately smear" and suppress certain Chinese companies. "This is not honorable, nor is it just," he said. "We urge the United States to stop using the excuse of security issues to unreasonably suppress Chinese companies, and provide a fair, just, non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies carrying out normal investments and operations in the United States." The United States has been actively pushing other countries not to use Huawei's equipment in next-generation 5G networks that it calls "untrustworthy." In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using equipment from Huawei and another Chinese provider, ZTE Corp. In January, U.S. prosecutors charged two Huawei units in Washington state saying they conspired to steal T-Mobile US Inc trade secrets, and also charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with bank and wire fraud on allegations that the company violated sanctions against Iran. The Federal Communications Commission in April 2018 voted to advance a proposal to bar the use of funds from a $9 billion government fund to buy equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks. Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said last week he was waiting for the Commerce Department to express views on how to "define the list of companies" that would be prohibited under the FCC proposal. The FCC voted unanimously to deny China Mobile Ltds bid to provide U.S. telecommunications services last week and said it was reviewing similar prior approvals held by China Unicom and China Telecom Corp. The issue has taken on new urgency as U.S. wireless carriers look for partners as they rollout 5G networks. While the big wireless companies have already cut ties with Huawei, small rural carriers continue to rely on both Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be cheaper. The Rural Wireless Association, which represents carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers, estimated that 25 percent of its members had Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks, it said in an FCC filing in December. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. senators raised the alarm about allies using Chinese equipment in 5G networks. The Wall Street Journal first reported in May 2018 that the executive order was under review. Reuters reported in December that Trump was still considering issuing the order and other media reported in February that the order was imminent. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie Distinctions-based program empowers Indigenous people to improve skills and find jobs May 15, 2019 Winnipeg, Manitoba Employment and Social Development Canada The Government of Canada and Metis Nation have taken significant action to ensure Metis people have greater opportunities for employment and can achieve lifelong prosperity for themselves, their families and their communities. Working in partnership is the best way to ensure better outcomes for Metis people. Today, the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, alongside the Metis National Council and the Manitoba Metis Federation, announced the launch of the Metis Nation Labour Market Strategy, under the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training (ISET) Program. The Government and Indigenous partners co-developed the implementation of the ISET Program, which is a result of efforts to renew relationships with Indigenous peoples. The program builds on the success of its predecessor, the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy (ASETS), which has served approximately 375,000 Indigenous people. Partner organizations, such as the Federation and a broad network of Indigenous organizations across Canada, deliver the ISET Program to provide skills development programs and job training services for Indigenous people so they can improve their skills and meet their long-term career goals. Each organization designs and delivers programming based on the needs and priorities of their communities. In Budget 2018, the Government committed a historic $2 billion investment over five years, and $408.2 million per year ongoing to create the new ISET Program. It will improve support for Indigenous partners through increased funding flexibility and longer-term agreements. These enhancements reflect the Governments commitment to advancing reconciliation and fostering a better future for Indigenous people and all Canadians. Government of Canada to give Canadians the support and security they need to advance their careers Media advisory Government of Canada to give Canadians the support and security they need to advance their careers The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, will announce how the Government is helping Canadian workers to adapt and prepare for the jobs of tomorrow. A photo opportunity and media availability will follow. Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local . DATE : Thursday, May 16, 2019 TIME : 11:00 a.m. PLACE : Saskatchewan Polytechnic 1130 Idylwyld Drive North Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Contacts FOR INFORMATION (media only) : Media Relations Office Employment and Social Development Canada 819-994-5559 media@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca Follow us on Twitter by Sumon Corraya The government carried out inspection of dozens of agencies across the country. Thirty-seven Bangladeshis died off the Tunisian coast. For the countrys Foreign Minister, migrants were trafficked from a Middle Eastern country. Sylhet (AsiaNews) Bangladeshi authorities have carried out checks on dozens of travel agencies across the country after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, claiming the lives of some 70 people, 37 of them from Bangladesh. The Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (ATAB) announced that at least 88 agencies in the Sylhet area are involved in human trafficking, including Yeahia Overseas, which organised the trip of three people who died off the Tunisian coasts. The incident in question occurred on 10 May some 40 miles from the city of Sfax, Tunisia. The boat had left the Libyan city of Zuara the day before full of migrants heading towards Europe. This is the worst tragedy in the Mediterranean since January. The Tunisian Navy and local fishermen have recovered only 16 people so far, including 14 Bangladeshis. Bangladeshi Foreign Affairs Minister AK Abdul Momen confirmed that Bangladeshi nationals were on board of the boat that was trying to reach an Italian port illegally. He also noted that his government does not allow Bangladeshis to travel to war zones like Libya, so those who died probably entered Libya via any of the Middle Eastern countries with the help of human traffickers. Sujor Ahamad is one of the survivors. Recalling the event, he said, We swam eight hours, if the fishermen came ten minutes later, we all might be dead now. Six of the 37 Bangladeshi migrants who drowned came from Sylhet. The victims' families have asked Bangladeshi authorities to repatriate the bodies of their loved ones. At the same time, they are demanding exemplary penalties for human traffickers and their intermediaries that promise work and well-being to poor young people. According to relatives of the dead, those responsible had assured them a direct flight to Italy; instead the migrants were put on a boat in order to enter the country illegally. ROME5 - The number of victims in Libya since the start of clashes last month has risen to 600, including 140 children, 150 women and 25 health professionals, according to an updated estimated provided to ANSA by medical sources. Six mass graves were discovered while the wounded were 3,500, including 450 in serious condition; eight ambulances were hit. The updated estimates were given to ANSA by the president of the Association of doctors of foreign origin in Italy (Amsi), Foad Aodi, who is in close contact with Libyan doctors on the ground. Libyan doctors, Aodi said, "also denounce the disappearance of 200 girls since the start of the conflict". The displaced, he said, are estimated to be "75,000, the majority women and children, and yesterday 100 families left Tripoli for Sirt". 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. Turkey supplying anti-tank rockets to Syria opposition Against Russian and govt offensive in NW (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MAY 15 - Syrian anti-regime armed opposition groups that have been facing a Russian and regime offensive in the northwestern part of Syria have just received military supplies from Turkey, Syrian media reported on Wednesday. These supplies include anti-tank rockets to use against Syrian troops. The Syrian opposition sources were quoted in an exclusive by Enab Baladi, one of the most authoritative Syrian media sources on what is happening in the northwestern part of the country. A ceasefire in the region was agreed in September 2018, with Turkey and Russia as guarantors. Turkey has soldiers and observation posts in Idlib and near the region. Russia is supporting the Syrian regime offensive along the frontline between Hama and Idlib and conducting airstrikes in other parts of the region. Among the opposition groups present in Idlib are ones close to Turkey and ones linked to al-Qaeda. (ANSAmed). The Central University of Kerala has invited applications in a prescribed format from eligible candidates for filling 67 Group B and C Non-teaching vacancies comprising Assistant Engineer (Civil), Security Officer, Private Secretary, Nursing Officer, Personal Assistant, Hindi Translator, Sr. Computer Technical Assistant, Security Inspector, Pharmacist, Technical Assistant, Lab Assistant, LDC, Hindi Typist, Cook, MTS, etc posts. The online application process towards the same starts from May 22, 2019 and closes on June 30, 2019 CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Group B & C Posts Organisation Central University of Kerala Educational Qualification Class 12/HSC or equivalent; possess Masters Degree; Bachelor's Degree; B.Sc in Nursing; Diploma in Pharmacy Experience As detailed in the notification Job Location Kerala Salary Scale As per the University standards Industry Education Application Start Date May 22, 2019 Application End Date June 30, 2019 Age Criteria And Fees Candidates applying for Group B & C posts through Central University of Kerala Recruitment must meet the prescribed age criteria as per the norms of Central University of Kerala, with relaxations (upper age limit) to reserved categories as per University guidelines. Candidates must pay a specified amount of Rs. 1000 (Gen/OBC/EWS) and Rs 500 (SC/ST/PWD) respectively as application processing fee through online (net-banking/credit/debit etc payment gateways) mode only. However, Women candidates are exempted from paying the application fee. OFB Recruitment 2019 For 1704 Chargeman Posts; Earn Up To Rs. 34,800 Per Month Vacancy Details Post Name No. Of Vacancies Group C 55 Group B 12 Total 67 Educational Criteria Desirous candidates applying for Group B & C posts through Central University of Kerala Recruitment must have passed Class 12/HSC or equivalent; possess Masters Degree; Bachelor's Degree; B.Sc in Nursing; Diploma in Pharmacy from a recognized University/Institute Selection And Pay Scale The selection of candidates to Group B & C posts through Central University of Kerala Recruitment will be done through Shortlisting, Written Test/Skill Test as applicable and Interview Candidates selected to Group B & C posts will be paid an emolument as per the University standards RIE Bhopal Recruitment For 63 Asst. Professors, PGT, TGT And Other Posts Through 'Walk-In' Selection How To Apply Candidates applying for Group B & C posts through Central University of Kerala Recruitment must submit their applications through online mode only on the official CUK website at http://www.cukerala.ac.in/index.php?lang=en or or at https://www.ibps.in/ from May 22, 2019 onwards, and submit it on or before June 30, 2019 Detailed Group B Notification https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xUK2XoilACslbLLdIsZqAxpQPZ_J18Ls/view Detailed Group C Notification https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vSvhF12XU-44RViDD74qapM47MXA8fKx/view Group B and C Short Notification https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TKQmWZlWxBp66sgLNuvc5Jt384jMyFGE/view For more details click here http://cukerala.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2762:employment-notification-of-recruitment-of-various-group-b-and-group-c-posts-in-the-central-university-of-kerala-2&catid=25&Itemid=185&lang=en An instinct for self-preservation has carriers dipping their toes into the smart home technology space, but no U.S. insurer has taken a full plunge so far. The industry hasnt settled on how it should get devices such as water-leak detectors and upgraded fire-prevention sensors into their customers homes. Carriers have only just begun to collect the data needed to show how effective smart home technology can be for loss control. They at least conceptually realize that these devices have significant potential to mitigate risks and reduce claims, said Brad Russell, an analyst for Parks Associates, a market research firm based in Dallas that focuses on the Internet of Things. But without hard data, what amount of premium discount is that worth? Its kind of a chicken or egg conundrum for the insurance industry, Russell said. They have to put these devices in 100,000 homes to quantify the savings. Russell said he is aware of only one carrier that offers an insurance product fully coupled with smart home technology: Neos, a startup carrier that launched in the United Kingdom in 2016. Neos sends its customers an array of sensors designed to reduce risks from fires, water damage and break-ins, which are installed by the policyholder. Alerts go to a 24-hour response center that can dispatch contractors if needed. The price is included in the policy premium. In the United States, by contrast, insurers have launched a variety of pilot products. For example: Earlier in May, Farmers Protective Mutual Insurance Co. announced a partnership with Roost, a home telematics provider based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Policyholders will be offered sensors to detect water leaks connected to home wi-fi systems. In February, Berkshire Hathaways Guard Insurance Cos. announced that it has teamed up with Triple+ to offer its policyholders water-leak detection sensors at discounted prices. The equipment will shut off the main water supply if it detects flooding, the companies said. Last October, Travelers announced that it had teamed up with Amazon to offer policyholders in participating states discounts on smart home kits, including security cameras and water-leak detectors. Russell said the enormous popularity of video doorbells should be a signal to insurers that their involvement cant be limited to offering discounts on products. According to Parks Associates research, 25 percent of U.S. households with broadband Internet access plan to install a video doorbell in 2019. Whats more, 40 percent of U.S. households with broadband would switch insurance carriers in order to obtain smart home products, the company said in a white paper. Smart home technology also offers insurers an opportunity to differentiate themselves from competitors, Russell said. Consumers often view insurance like a commodity; that is, theres not much difference among providers other than the cost. By offering a superior level of service, insurers can gain market share, he said, which means carriers that dont will steadily lose customers. It doesnt hurt that market research has shown consumers trust insurance companies more than any other type of service provider, Russell said. Its part of the model that the insurance company is there to protect, he said. Its in the very nature of the customer relationship. Russell said the true value of smart home technology, as far as insurers are concerned, is data collection. The question is how to best obtain access to that data. For American Family Insurance, the answer is a partnership with Neos, the U.K. property insurer that has gone full bore into smart home technology. American Family has formed a partnership with Neos to offer smart home technology to policyholders. Andy Kearns, state product director for American Family, said the contract allows his company to essentially borrow Neos business model for U.S. customers. He said American Family will offer its policyholders access to the same array of smart home products that Neos provides to its customers. The carrier is starting with a pilot project for customers in Arizona and Washington that will be rolled out in August. Kearns said the pricing structure has not yet been worked out. He noted that American Family picked Arizona and Washington for its pilot because both have adopted rules that specifically encourage the use of smart home technology. He said insurance regulations can be an obstacle because carriers are generally prohibited from offering rebates that are not disclosed in rate filings. American Family has been dabbling in smart home projects for a while. In 2015, it announced a partnership with Nest to offer policy discounts to customers in Minnesota who installed the Nest smoke and carbon monoxide detector. Also in 2015, American Family teamed up with Ring to offer policyholders $30 discounts on video doorbells. Kearns said the purpose of all of the partnerships is to collect information on what customers want while at the same time gathering data on how smart technology devices impact insurers losses. He said if American Family is going to offer discounts for smart home technology, it needs to first work with regulators to provide data that can withstand actuarial rigor. A white paper written by American Family in conjunction with the Internet of Things Insurance Observatory outlines the carriers reasoning for investing in smart home technology. Citing Insurance Information Institute data, the paper says damage caused by water and freezing is the second-most common cause of loss for property insurers, with 2.05 claims for 100 policy years, behind only wind and hail damage in claim frequency. The average water and freezing damage claim costs $10,234. For customers who have not experienced water loss, water damage prevention is not top of mind, the white paper states. However, customers are highly receptive to avoiding such loss after a recent incident. Crawford & Co., the Atlanta-based third-party administrator, is offering another route to get smart home technology to policyholders. In April, Crawford & Co. launched a subscription service for insurance carriers that links policyholders to water-leak detection sensors. Michael Beverly, property product manager for the company, said customers install the devices on their own. Once they are hooked up, they are connected to both the homeowners smart phone and a 24-hour call center. If any leak is detected, the water-detection device will shut off the flow of water and send an alert. Crawford & Co. will dispatch a contractor who will be on site within an hour, he said. We are all about servicing, Beverly said. A lot of the carriers are getting the alert level. The rapid alert is great, but you still have to have some quick intervention. Allianz SEs giant investment business saw managed assets grow to a record as clients added 18 billion euros ($20 billion) in the first quarter, reversing outflows at the end of last year. The new money lifted the amount the company oversees for outside clients to 1.55 trillion euros, Munich-based Allianz said Tuesday. The insurer owns U.S. bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co. and Allianz Global Investors in Germany, making it one of the biggest investment companies globally. Including money overseen for Allianzs insurance business, the firms now manage a combined 2.1 trillion euros, also a record. Chief Executive Officer Oliver Baete, 54, has been seeking to revive growth at Europes largest insurer by exploring deals, including in asset management, and pushing into growth markets in Asia, where it trailed many of its European rivals. But large acquisitions have proven elusive, leaving Baete to pursue smaller transactions and returning excess cash to shareholders, including 1.5 billion euros that hes earmarked for a new share buyback program this year. We are going to look at incremental deals, Chief Financial Officer Giulio Terzariol said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. We can do bolt-on acquisitions in Europe and we can also go to other regions where we want to expand our footprint. Shares of Allianz rose 0.7% at 9:02 a.m. in Frankfurt trading, bringing gains this year to 13%. Profit Beats Both operating profit, at 3 billion euros, and net income exceeded analysts estimates for the quarter, and Allianz confirmed a full-year target of 11.5 billion euros in operating profit. Zurich Insurance Group AG said last week its on track to meet or exceed its targets this year as pricing trends improve and will continue to review deals following the acquisition of Australia & New Zealand Banking Groups life insurance division. Zurich was one of the potential acquisition targets Allianz evaluated, Bloomberg reported last year, with other companies also being examined. More highlights from Allianzs first-quarter earnings: Net income rises 1.6% to 2 billion euros; analysts had estimated 1.87 billion euros Operating profit 3 billion euros, up 7% Non-life operating profit 1.46 billion euros, up 14% Life and health operating profit 1.1 billion euros, an increase of 2.5% Asset management operating profit 573 million euros, down 3.7% The jump in managed assets was driven by market swings and 21 billion euros in inflows at Pimco, which continued to attract new money this quarter, Terzariol said. Pimcos purchase of Gurtin Municipal Bond Management, a manager of $12 billion in muni bonds for high-net-worth clients, also added new money. Allianz Global Investors suffered 3 billion euros of outflows. The firm, which has been seeking to attract new money by touting the benefits of active asset management, saw just 56 percent of third-party assets outperform benchmarks before fees over the past three years. At Pimco, that figure stood at 95 percent. Allianz didnt give a number for performance net of fees. Allianz had been looking at the feasibility of combining its asset management business with that of DWS Group, the asset manager owned by Deutsche Bank AG, people familiar with the matter said earlier this year. Deutsche Bank also held talks with other firms about the business, though discussions for now appear to have stalled. Despite record assets, operating profit at the fund-management business fell because of higher investment in the unit. Allianzs property and casualty division posted the strongest performance. Allianz said lower claims from natural catastrophes and higher premiums led to a 14 percent increase in the non-life divisions operating profit from a year earlier. Allianz estimated it will pay out about 100 million euros ($112 million) of claims tied to mine disruptions at Vale SA and the crash of a Boeing 737 Max plane and the subsequent grounding of the aircraft. Terzariol said about half of that amount was related to the plane crash. The German insurer is one of the companies that insured Boeings airline manufacturer liability policy. Settling claims from the two airplane crashes could cost $1 billion, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence estimate based on prior cases, but legal experts agree the payouts could be even higher. Boeings insurers expect to pay an additional sum for the worldwide grounding of the 737 Max planes. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Do not criminalize NGOs saving migrants, says Germany Minister comments on Malta ruling against Lifeline captain (ANSAmed) - BERLIN, MAY 15 - The Germany government is against the generalized criminalization of rescuing migrants at sea by private entities, the spokesman for the interior minister said Wednesday. He was responding to a question on the recent ruling against and heavy fine imposed on Claus-Peter Reisch, the German captain of the Lifeline ship, which had rescued migrants in distress at sea on behalf of a German NGO. The spokesman for Horst Seehofer, Soeren Schmidt, said that Berlin had asked that the EU and NATO put forth efforts to find a European-wide solution as soon as possible to the migrants issue, based on solidarity and humanity, and that it function in a systematic, long-lasting manner. Noting that Germany had several times offered to take in migrants onboard ships that had problems getting permission to land, he announced that 40 Germany cities had said they were willing to take in migrants. German government spokesman Ulrike Demmer did not comment on the sentence by the Valletta court but reiterated that "every death in the Mediterranean is one death too many". (ANSAmed). Asian shippers and refiners have put ships heading to the Middle East on alert and are expecting a possible rise in marine insurance premiums after recent attacks on Saudi oil tankers and pipeline facilities, industry sources said on Tuesday. On Monday, armed drones attacked two of Saudi Aramcos oil pumping stations and forced the state producer to briefly shut its East-West pipeline, known as Petroline. The attack came two days after the sabotage of four oil tankers two of them owned by Saudi Arabia near the United Arab Emirates. The attacks pushed up global oil prices by more than 1% on Monday, adding to rising costs for Asian refiners, who are now paying the highest premiums in years for spot cargoes in an already tight market after Washington stopped sanction waivers for Iranian oil buyers this month. Its a headache for North Asian refiners who are heavily reliant on Middle East oil supplies. We are currently monitoring the situation. Its an unfavorable factor for the overall crude oil market driving up prices, said a North Asian oil refining source, declining to be named due to company policy. Asia gets nearly 70 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East, and any disruption to oil production, loading facilities or key shipping routes such as the Strait of Hormuz could have a severe impact on Asian economies. Oil tankers typically refuel at UAEs Fujairah port, one of the worlds largest bunkering hubs, where the ship attacks occurred. Following Sundays attack on oil tankers, oil and shipping companies said they would have to alter their routes or take precautions near Fujairah. We had a ship which was refueling at Fujairah when the incident occurred. Fortunately nothing happened, said KY Lin, spokesman at Taiwans Formosa Petrochemical Corp. There are no other (bunkering) choices nearby. We may choose to refuel at Singapore instead, Lin said. Japanese shipper Nippon Yusen has already decided to refrain from sending tankers to Fujairah for bunkering, maintenance or crew swaps except for emergencies, a company spokesman said. If its tankers need to anchor at the port, they are advised to shorten their stay as much as possible, the spokesman said. Ashok Sharma, managing director of shipbroker BRS Baxi in Singapore said: There seems to be no increase in risk (insurance) premia as of yet. Risk premium increases would be inevitable, however, if security in the region continued to deteriorate, he added. No Loading Disruptions So Far Noriaki Sakai, an executive officer at Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd , Japans second-largest refiner, told reporters on Wednesday that while there is no impact on oil loading or ship operations, the company is closely watching the situation. The second set of attacks was on Saudi Arabias Petroline, which mainly transports light crude from the kingdoms eastern fields to its western port of Yanbu. Saudi oil exports to Asia were not disrupted because ships chartered by Asian refiners call mainly at the ports of Ras Tanura and Juaymah in the Gulf, the industry sources said. But Petroline is important because it is an alternative route for Saudi Arabias oil exports that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, one of the sources said. This attack doesnt affect physical supply, but the psychological effect is big, the source said. The pipeline attacks likely represent an Iranian effort to expose the vulnerabilities of oil export infrastructure that can bypass the Strait of Hormuz, analysts with risk advisor and consultancy Eurasia Group said in a note. U.S. security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have attacked the four tankers at Fujairah rather than Iranian forces themselves, a U.S. official familiar with the latest U.S. assessments said on Tuesday. Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks. (Additional reporting by Jane Chung in SEOUL, and Chen Aizhu and Roslan Khasawneh in SINGAPORE.) Buzzi Unicem 1Q19 benefits from better weather ICR Newsroom By 15 May 2019 Buzzi Unicem's first-quarter turnover rose by 21.7 per cent to EUR656m (US$735.2m), having fallen by 8.4 per cent a year earlier, with turnover having improved in all countries apart from Brazil. Net debt at the end of March was 16.1 per cent higher at EUR1033.5m. Cement deliveries improved by 16.9 per cent to 6Mt, while group ready-mixed concrete deliveries advanced by 7.3 per cent to 2.6Mm. The Italian turnover improved by 16.6 per cent to EUR119.6m, thanks to the better weather conditions as well as higher volumes being exported. Because of a later Easter there were also an increased number of working days. Cement prices also showed some improvement. In ready-mixed concrete, volumes were little changes, but prices did recover. German cement volumes in grey cement were ahead thanks to better volumes and prices. Ready-mixed concrete deliveries improved, as did prices. The turnover rose by 24.4 per cent to EUR137.1m, helped by the acquisition of Seibel, without which the advance would have been 19.6 per cent. The Luxembourg and Netherlands turnover improved by 11.8 per cent to EUR453.5m with cement and clinker shipments stable, but prices showed an improvement, while in ready-mixed concrete both volumes and prices advanced. In Poland cement deliveries recovered, while ready-mixed concrete volumes declined, but prices recovered. The turnover rose by 41.8 per cent to EUR23.4m, in spite of a EUR0.7m negative rate effect. Czech cement deliveries were higher as were local price, while the ready-mixed concrete deliveries in Czechia and Slovakia were slightly lower, but price were better. The turnover improved by six per cent to EUR28.5m, in spite of a EUR0.3m negative exchange rate effect. The Ukrainian turnover recorded a 58.8 per cent advance to EUR18.5m as cement shipments recovered strongly, though ready-mixed concrete demand was weak. There was EUR1.4m from the recovery of the local currency. In Russia turnover improved by 23 per cent to EUR40.2m, while measured in local currency there was a 31.7 per cent increase. The US operations saw turnover rise by 22.8 per cent to EUR252.8m, helped by the recovery of the US dollar. Cement deliveries did benefit from better weather and prices were improved. Ready-mixed concrete deliveries recovered well, but prices were little changed. The Mexican associate Corporacion Moctezuma registered a 0.4 per cent reduction in turnover to EUR150.5m. Cement deliveries were slightly lower as were prices were higher in local currency and ready-mixed concrete deliveries were also slightly lower. The Brazilian associate saw an improvement in cement and clinker deliveries, but the weakness of the currency led to a 4.5 per cent decline in the turnover contribution to EUR33.3m. Published under Aumund to supply nine machines for Aslan plant modernisation 15 May 2019 Germanys Aumund Fordertechnik GmbH has won an order from Aslan Cement Inc, comprising of nine machines in total. The order forms part of the complete modernisation of Aslans plant in Darca, Kocaeli province, Turkey, which will see it ramp up clinker production capacity to 6600tpd. The company will supply a 225tph BWZ-L bucket elevator to feed the raw meal, as well as three different models of BWG belt bucket elevators with capacities of up to 500tph. The latter models will be used for raw meal silo feed as well as to transport raw meal to the dosing hopper and heat exchanger, according to a press release. In addition, the order includes three KZB-type pan conveyors of 350tph capacity, which will convey clinker from the cooler to the silo. As well as two LOUISE BEW rotary discharge machines, each with a 3m diameter and 400tph capacity. The machines are due for dispatch in September and commissioning is expected at the beginning of next year. Published under As he wraps up his second year as principal of Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School (LFO), Charles Chance Nix is receiving state honors from the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG). The 2010 Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC) graduate has been recognized by the TCSG Foundation as an Alumnus of the Year for 2018. Nine years ago, Mr. Nix first graduated from GNTC with an Associates Degree in Criminal Justice. However, what led him down the educational path was his first position at LFO. In 2006, Mr. Nix was the school resource officer for the Catoosa County-based high school. It would be one of the schools former principals, Jack Sims, who would encourage him to look into a career in education. He saw something in me, said the TCSG Foundation honoree. and that turned everything around. Mr. Nix saw himself one day being a teacher. But never a principal. Mr. Nix continued his education at Lincoln Memorial University (TN) and Valdosta State University (GA) to earn a masters degree in Education and an Educational Specialist Degree, respectively. His first stop on the teaching circuit would be at Heritage High School in Ringgold, where Mr. Nix would teach Law and Justice classes. His first administrator role was at Catoosa Countys Westside Elementary serving as the assistant principal with Principal Dr. Mike Rich. Serving first as an assistant principal at LFO, Mr. Nix officially got the call in spring of 2017 to move up to replace LFO administrator Terri Vandiver as principal for the upcoming 2017-18 school year. Looking back, going to GNTC was a good fit and a good start for the 49-year-old LFO Principal. At Georgia Northwestern, I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, friendly professors, and convenience to work and family life, said Mr. Nix. He and his wife, Heather, have been married since 1994. She is currently a teacher at Ringgold Primary School in Catoosa County. They have two children, Hailey, 20, and Savannah, 17. The couple will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary this July. To learn more about the TCSG Foundation or the GNTC Foundation, or information on any of the more than 200 programs offered at GNTC, visit the college at GNTC.edu. You can also contact any one of our six campus locations at 866-983-4682. GNTC offers classes online and on-campus at the Catoosa, Floyd, Gordon, Polk, Walker, and Whitfield Murray Campuses in Northwest Georgia. KZ106 will present The Black Jacket Symphony: The Eagles' Hotel California at the Tivoli Theatre on Sept. 28 for two shows at 5 and 9 p.m. Tickets are $35 and $40 and available here Friday. Review for The Black Jacket Symphony: The Black Jacket Symphony returns to the Tivoli Theatre to perform The Eagles' Hotel California album in its entirety. The Black Jacket Symphony offers a unique concert experience by recreating classic albums in a live performance setting with a first class lighting and video production. A selected album is performed in its entirety by a group of handpicked musicians specifically selected for each album. With no sonic detail being overlooked, the musicians do whatever it takes to musically reproduce the album. Following the album and a brief intermission, the Black Jacket Symphony returns to the stage to perform a collection of greatest hits by the evening's artist. For more info on The Black Jacket Symphony or to view videos of past performances, visit blackjacketsymphony.com or facebook.com/blackjacketsymphony. Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn announced today that 11 schools have received the Tennessee STEM School Designation, bringing the total number of STEM designated schools to 26. This designation, developed in collaboration with the STEM Leadership Council and the Tennessee STEM Innovation Network, is designed to recognize schools that promote and implement rigorous STEM-related learning opportunities for all students that lead to postsecondary achievement and high-quality careers. Governor Lee set a bold vision to triple the amount of STEM designated schools in the state of Tennessee during his first term, and with this announcement we are well on our way to meeting that goal, Comm. Schwinn said, adding Careers in STEM fields, particularly information technology, engineering and advanced manufacturing, and healthcare are among the fastest growing in Tennessee and we owe it to our students to prepare them for the jobs of the future. "The department is proud to recognize these schools as STEM Designation Schools because they are providing students with the knowledge and skills to be successful in high-demand STEM careers. Each school was evaluated through a rigorous application process," officials said. Schools were asked to complete a self-evaluation, participate in interviews and host site visits with the Tennessee STEM Designation review team. The designation rubric included five focus areas: infrastructure, curriculum and instruction, professional development, achievement, and community and postsecondary partnerships. As a part of the process, schools were required to submit a plan of action for implementing and sustaining STEM education for the next five years. All K-12 schools serving students in Tennessee, both public and private, were eligible to apply. From this process, a total of 11 public schools received the Tennessee STEM School Designation. They are: Carmel Elementary School, Clarksville-Montgomery County School District Charleston Elementary School, Bradley County School District Croft Middle Design Center, Metro Nashville Public Schools Discovery School, Murfreesboro City School District Farragut High School, Knox County Schools Hickerson Elementary School, Coffee County School District Oliver Springs High School, Roane County School District Park View Elementary School, Bradley County School District Prescott South Middle School, Putnam County School District Elk Valley Elementary School, Campbell County School District Station Camp Elementary School, Sumner County School District "STEM education is a unique approach to teaching and learning that fosters creativity and innovative thinking in all students," officials said. "It is focused on building critical and creative thinking and analysis skills by addressing how students view and experience the world around them. Strong STEM teaching and learning opportunities rest on inquiry, technology, and project-based learning activities and lessons that are tied to the real world." For more information about the STEM school designation process or how to implement STEM education, contact Deborah Knoll, director of Student Success, Deborah.Knoll@tn.gov. The Duggar family sure seems wholesome, but the world has watched the family implode on more than one occasion. When news broke that Joshua Duggar, the eldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle molested his siblings as a teenager, TLC was swift to act. The familys show was canceled, but it wasnt long before they found their way back onto television screens. While their media empire continues to move along, the residents of Springdale, Arkansas arent as enamored with the family as the rest of the country. In fact, many are concerned that the Duggars are up to no good at least as far as their real estate holdings are concerned. Why are residents of Springdale, Arkansas peeved at the Duggars? The Duggar family scooped up the Baylor Mansion, an expansive home modeled after a Frank Lloyd Wright property, for just over $200,000. They have recently listed it for sale for a staggering $1.8 million after years of renovations. While fans of the family see the property rehab as a good thing, locals are concerned that its just the latest move by the family to take over the town. Locals allegedly call Springdale, Arkansas Duggartown, and believe Jim Bob has spent years trying to buy up the town in an effort to curry political favor. The father of the supersized family has had long-held political aspirations, but it seems his systematic purchases are designed to buoy his clout to get his way, and locals are not thrilled. Residents have complained about the family in the past Jim Bob has talked at length about his commercial real estate company, but not everything seems to be exactly legal. Residents recently took issue with the patriarch of the Duggar clan attempting to re-zone land for public use. According to The Hollywood Gossip, the re-zoning project aimed to create a high-end RV park on protected land. Locals have also complained, for years, that the father of 19 has failed to file the proper paperwork. They also allege he has wholly circumvented the construction permit protocol and has systematically rolled over smaller business owners in an effort to amass further wealth. Many of Jim Bobs business practices have failed to endear himself to locals. Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar with severl of their children | Photo by D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Extra Duggar has apparently run afoul of the state in the past, too. In 1988 Duggar apparently failed to file the proper paperwork for a business he began with wife Michelle. The state shut down the company when the family missed several filing deadlines. The incident was years before the family became famous and may have been an oversight. Fans think its indicative of troubling business practices that may have helped the family amass their enormous wealth. Family is everything for the country lifestyle. Its no different for Miley Cyrus family. Cyrus is the daughter of the king of country music, Billy Ray Cyrus, and married to actor Liam Hemsworth. So what does Billy Ray think of his son-in-law? In this article, were going to explore exactly how Billy Ray feels about daughter Mileys husband, Liam. When did Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth get married? Liam Hemsworth | Matthias Nareyek/Getty Images Last December, Billy Rays daughter, Miley, married longtime beau Liam. The couple decided to have a hush-hush, intimate ceremony at Mileys home in Tennessee. As soon as the wedding became public, there were rumors that Billy Ray had skipped the ceremony because he disapproved of the match. However, those were quickly put to rest, when photos were shared showing both Billy Ray and his wife, Trish Cyrus, at the wedding. In fact, Miley honored her parents by getting married in the same way they tied the knot 25 years before. Billy Ray and Trish were married in their Tennessee living room, just like their daughter and new husband chose to do. Why did Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth decide to get married? Miley and Liam have been together, off-and-on for over 10 years since they met filming The Last Song. They had previously been engaged and called off the wedding when Miley decided she wasnt ready. What made them get married now? The California wildfires that destroyed the couples Malibu home. Miley told Vanity Fair: What Liam and I went through together changed us. Im not sure without losing Malibu, we wouldve been ready to take this step or ever even gotten married, who can say? But the timing felt right and I go with my heart. No one is promised the next day, or the next, so I try to be in the now as much as possible. Miley also appeared on the Howard Stern Show, where she expressed how grateful she was to Liam for saving their animals from the fire. So actually, Liam- Ive never loved him more for this, he was so incredible. He got all the animals out in his truck Miley continued by telling Stern exactly how thankful she was. He got a lot of action for saving the animalsWe had to make that he knew I was very thankful. How Liam Hemsworth won Billy Ray Cyrus over Billy Ray told People Now about the moment Liam won him over. He said: I love Liam, so much. I was doing a show, down in Nashville and Miley had been all over the world, shed been going nonstop. Her and Liam surprised me at my show. She said, Liam said, Hey, lets go on down and surprise your dad, come on, lets go. And I told him, I said, Man, thats the coolest. From now henceforth till ever, you dont ever have to get me a birthday, no Christmas present. Hes paid in full. How Billy Ray Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth bond In an interview with the Australian talk show, The Morning Show, Billy Ray, again gushed about how much he likes Liam. He called Liam a great guy, and said the members of Liams family are great people. Liam even spent two weeks on tour with Billy Ray, where he posted a video of Billy Ray performing, with the caption: My man @billyraycyrus rocked the pants off it tonight at #cmafest #legend. When asked about his time with Liam, Billy Ray commented: He drove my truck to Atlanta, he drove my truck through cornfields, swamps- he had the best time. Does Billy Ray Cyrus approve of Liam Hemsworth? Considering the above quotes, where Billy Ray really does seem to enjoy his son-in-laws company. And the fact that after the wedding, Billy Ray posted photos to Instagram, like a proud papa, with captions like: Congratulations @mileycyrus and @liamhemsworth! Long live love! It certainly appears that Billy Ray does approve of Liam. Thats got to be a relief to Miley. Even though she seems like the type of girl to do what she wants anyway, things are always easier when the family gets along. The Big Bang Theory will finally come to a close May 16. As fans everywhere prepare to say goodbye to the characters they have come to know and love, other former viewers issue a sigh of relief. While The Big Bang Theory is one of the most successful sitcoms currently on air, many fans feel that the writing, over the last few seasons, has grown cheap. The show was initially aimed at satisfying self-proclaimed nerds and geeks. However, as time went on, the jokes began to represent the very stereotypes people hoped the show would subvert. The Big Bang Theory has come to rely on nerd culture as a source of mockery; meaning, viewers are meant to laugh at the scientists, instead of with them. The Big Bang Theory | Photo by Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images Those who have kept up with the show and have been following the narrative arcs religiously since the 2008 premiere may not have noticed the sexist undertones that race through the series. However, how could you not notice sexism? According to Sarah Manavis of New Statesman America, its been disguised via the unthreatening male. The Big Bang Theory and misogyny by way of the dork The socially awkward scientists placed front and center in The Big Bang Theory comprise what many would consider a group of unthreatening males. Meaning, by way of their nerd status, they do not comply with the heteronormative standards and behaviors associated with typical masculinity. So, what does this mean for The Big Bang Theory? As the Pop Culture Detective explained, they get away with sexist comments and misogynistic actions on the grounds that they are adorkable. When discussing The Big Bang Theory, The Pop Culture Detective stated, Its their status as nerdy nice guys that lets them off the hook for a wide range of creepy, entitled, and downright sexist behaviors. Because they are blissfully unaware of the harm that their behaviors (stalking) and words (asking women if theyre menstruating) may cause, their actions are seen as acceptable, for they dont know what theyre doing. But shouldnt they? What right do they possess to be held to a different standard? Some people say that when it comes to love, nice guys finish lastbut those people clearly haven't met The #BigBangTheory's Leonard Hofstadter! pic.twitter.com/UjdcUiHhVr The Big Bang Theory (@bigbangtheory) May 13, 2019 In The New Statesman America article, Manavis references what the Pop Culture Detective labels adorkable misogyny; meaning, letting women handle all the chores around the house a 1950s trope that should be rejected is dismissed because it is humorously adorkable in this case. Because those propagating the damaging misogyny are of the unthreatening kin, the show argues that they pose no actual threat to progress. If this wasnt true, the show would not be the huge success it is today. By relying on nerd stereotypes and societys acceptance of them to permit sexism, the show continues to bring in millions of viewers each episode. Via adorkability, the scientists are permitted to ignore standards no one should be allowed to ignore. Many believe that the writers argue the scientists minds are too filled with academia to be bothered with social doctrine. What does this mean? You cant be bothered to treat people with respect. The Big Bang Theory and its off-screen issues concerning sexism While the writers are doing a dandy job of reminding millions of people that its okay to return women to happy homemaker status (if youre a nerd and dont fully understand the damage), some off-screen occurrences have smudged the shows reputation as well. Kaley Cuoco stated that she wasnt a feminist back in 2015, which, whether knowingly or not, implied that she was accepting of the gender pay gap in Hollywood. Mayim Bialik was even accused of blaming Harvey Weinsteins victims for the traumatic abuse they suffered. Not to mention, for years, two of the female leads Bialik and Melissa Rauch were initially paid much less than the other cast members, and are still making quite less, at approximately $425,000 per episode (while most of the others make nearly $1 million). The Duchess of Sussex wasnt able to attend her 20th high school reunion, but she had a really good excuse she was set to deliver a baby at any moment. Meghan Markle made up for the absence by sending a letter of apology to her schoolmates. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage Meghan Markle missed her high school reunion Markle was undoubtedly one of the most famous faces to graduate from the Immaculate Heart High School, so its likely that her classmates were hopeful that shed attend the reunion so they could catch up. Who wouldnt want to get some insider information about the royal family? The timing, however, wasnt ideal, as the reunion was held the day before Markle gave birth to baby Archie. The Duchess of Sussex did, however, send a letter to the class of 1999 at Immaculate Heart High School on Kensington Palace stationary. In the letter, she apologized for missing out on the reunion, which was attended by 37 women who graduated in 1999, out of a class of more than 50. One of her former classmates shared: Everyone was disappointed that they did not get to catch up with Meghan given everything that has happened to her. But the whole group was super excited about her giving birth to the first British-American prince, it was all anyone talked about. The friend continued: They were so excited to get that letter from her. She is remembered as someone who is very thoughtful, and to get that kind of attention now that she is a Royal went down really well. While Markle wasnt able to make the 20th reunion, her classmates are hopeful shell make an appearance at the 25th reunion and bring Harry and Archie as well. Markles high school reunion for the class of 1999 and other classes from years ending in 4 and 9, was held on Sunday, May 5. On May 6, Prince Harry and Markle welcomed their first child, a baby boy, who they named Archie. The school congratulated the couple in a Twitter post, writing: Immaculate Heart High School & Middle School congratulates IH alumna Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, on the birth of their son. The school community extends best wishes of happiness to the Royal Family on this joyous event! Immaculate Heart High School & Middle School congratulates IH alumna Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, on the birth of their son. The school community extends best wishes of happiness to the Royal Family on this joyous event! pic.twitter.com/PU5QZvVH3i Immaculate Heart (@IHPandas) May 6, 2019 Classmates and teachers remember Markle Markle is well-regarded by former classmates and teachers, who shared some special memories of the now Duchess. One friend, Michelle Fanara shared fondly how Markle wrote a note to her and put it in her yearbook, encouraging her as she struggled in coping with the death of her great aunt. Fanara told Inside Edition: To have someone reach out and say, Hey, if you ever need someone, that is pretty special. I wanted to retreat into my own shell and Meghan was like, No you cant do that. Youre here. Youre here for a reason. She kept pulling me out of my shell. One of her teachers, Christine Knudsen, told ABCs 20/20 that Markle had a lot of inner strength. She was spunky. She was feisty. She loved to sing. She loved to act, but she also had that depth, which kind of moved into all of her other subjects. And that was what came through in the end. Since March, Prince William and Kate Middletons relationship has been plagued by affair rumors following an alleged fallout between the Duchess of Cambridge and her best friend and her husbands alleged mistress Rose Hanbury, aka the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. However, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (along with the palaces communications office) has yet to confirm or deny any of the rumors. And, instead, have let their actions speak for themselves. Up ahead, see the recent photos of Prince William and Kate Middleton that prove their relationship is strong, despite affair rumors. Plus, a recap of Prince Williams rumored affair. Prince William and Kate Middleton | Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage Prince Williams affair Before we ooh and aah over the adorable photos of Prince William and Kate Middleton, lets take a look back at the Duke of Cambridges alleged affair with Rose Hanbury. How did the rumors start? Rumors of a possible affair between Prince William and Kate Middletons best friend, Rose Hanbury first circulated in March when The Sun reported on a falling out between the Duchess and the Marchioness. It is well known that Kate and Rose have had a terrible falling out, an unnamed royal source told the publication. They used to be close but that is not the case any more [sic], they added. This information sparked more rumors, pointing at a potential affair between the future king and his wifes best friend. And, some publication, like The Daily Mail came to the Duke of Cambridges defense, calling the allegations false. However, the rumors persisted and things started to get ugly on social media. Twitter users confirmed the allegations Several reporters, including gossip reporter Giles Coren, took to Twitter to unpack the rumors. Yes, it is an affair, Coren wrote in a now-deleted tweet. I havent read the piece but I know about the affair. Everyone knows about the affair, darling. Reporter, Nicole Cliffe, also used Twitter to add her opinions about the allegations, claiming that the affair might be why Prince William and Prince Harry havent been getting along. Wills would absolutely have told Harry about the affair, Cliffe wrote. And I think that Harry was like this is exactly what ruined our childhoods. Prince Williams lawyers got involved but Twitter was not having it Following the tweets and media coverage, Prince Williams lawyers apparently got involved, trying to put the whole thing to rest. But, Twitter wouldnt have it, especially after a Prince William-less Kate Middleton joined Prince Harry for an Anzac Day engagement. Despite having a good reason to miss the event Prince William was away in New Zealand visiting with Christchurch mosque shooting survivors the Duke of Cambridges absence sparked rumors once more. Only, this time, social media users were outraged at the British press, claiming they use negative stories about Meghan Markle to distract from affair rumors. Meghan Markle will breathe and the British media will start shaming her for no reason but when Prince William has an affair, they barely talk about it, one user wrote. Prince William and Palace courtiers have done a deal with the British press. In exchange for staying quiet about his affair, they will allow them to smear and slander Meghan, another claimed. However, the alleged deal is unconfirmed. So where does that leave us? Back to Prince William and Kate Middleton, who have managed to ignore the rumors and go on with their lives, proving that either it never happened which is totally possible, given the lack of confirmation from the royals and unnamed sources or that they are moving on from the mishap and stronger than ever. Here are some recent photos of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge looking happy and in love. They shared a loving look aboard a coastguard search and rescue helicopter Prince William and Kate Middleton | Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage Prince William and Kate Middleton gazed lovingly at each other while exiting a coastguard search and rescue helicopter on a joint royal engagement in Caernarfon on Wednesday, May 8, 2019. They walked along the beach in Newborough Prince William and Kate Middleton | Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage While in North Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge strolled down a sandy pathway while visiting Newborough Beach. The two explored the beachs wildlife habitat with Menai Bridge Scouts and, clearly, enjoyed each others company. They laughed together at the launch of the Kings Cup Regatta Prince William and Kate Middleton | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Prince William and Kate Middleton have enjoyed quite a few joint engagements recently. Earlier this month, the two shared an adorable laugh at the launch of the Kings Cup Regatta at the Cutty Sark, Greenwich in London. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Prince Harry and Meghan Markle might be new parents to their human baby, Archie, but they have quite the experience as a dog mom and dad. How are the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs dogs coping with a new baby in the house? Find out, ahead. Prince Harry and Meghan Markles dogs Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | DOMINIC LIPINSKI/AFP/Getty Images Before meeting and marrying Prince Harry, Meghan Markle was the proud fur mama two rescued pooches, a beagle named Guy and a Labrador-shepherd mix named Bogart. However, upon her big move across the pond, the Duchess of Sussex had to leave her beloved Bogart behind, as he was too old for the trek. But, dont worry, Bogart is in good hands and living with close friends in Canada, where Meghan Markle once resided. The Duchess of Sussex couldnt stay a one dog girl for long. Soon after marrying her prince, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry adopted their first dog, together. The couple got the dog believed to be a Labrador in early summer [2018], People reported. The dogs name is still unclear. Many believed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex named their fur baby Oz, but Meghan Markle threw everyone off by stating people keep getting her name wrong. How are Prince Harry and Meghan Markles dogs coping with the royal baby? What do Meghan Markles fur babies think of their new human brother? Its not entirely clear. However, beagles and Labradors are said to be great with babies and children. Beagles are incredibly curious and sweet dogs, Canna-Pet confirms. They can make terrific family dogs because they are good with children and very playful. According to She Knows, Labradors are also excellent family pets. They are easy to train, excellent watchdogs, and loyal with a more mellow personality. Did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle adopt a Labrador puppy on purpose for this reason? Its possible. When preparing for a babys arrival, many dog owners choose to be proactive about their tactics. As a long-time dog owner, Meghan Markle likely helped prepare her pooches for Baby Archies arrival. According to the American Kennel Club (AKC), the breed isnt the only thing to keep in mind when introducing a dog to a baby. Dogs can be eager learners, but they can also exhibit jealousy because they are no longer the center of attention, the AKC notes. They go on to explain how making subtle changes to a dogs routine might help with the introduction. With that in mind, Meghan Markle might have stopped paying as much attention to her dogs in the weeks ahead of the royal babys arrival, to help them with any potential jealousy issues. In addition, she and Prince Harry might have changed their sleeping arrangements or walk schedule to better align with a babys potential schedule. Some also play recordings of baby sounds to help their dogs get used to the noise, which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might have tried. When bringing a new baby home, AKC suggests greeting a dog on its own so that it doesnt jump onto the baby. They also recommend allowing the dog to get used to the babys sounds for a few days before introducing them in closer proximity. On top of that, they note on the value of paying attention to your dog when its around the baby. You dont want him to decide good things only happen when the baby isnt around, they remark. Prince Harry and Meghan Markles plan for introducing their dogs to Baby Archie isnt known yet, at least but its possible that they tried some of these tactics to help their fur babies and human baby adjust to sharing parents. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! The actor Keanu Reeves (of The Matrix fame) was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert recently. At one point, Colbert asked his guest, What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves? Both men are no stranger to tragedy. Colbert lost his father and two of his brothers to a plane crash when he was ten. Reeves and his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, lost their daughter a month before she was due. Syme later died in a car accident. Reeves paused, considered, then replied simply: I know that the ones who love us will miss us. After Reeves answered Colberts question, the host paused, looked into the camera, and smiled. If a man dies, shall he live again? A twenty-four-year-old Norwegian woman rescued a puppy she found while vacationing in the Philippines. She brought the puppy back to her resort, where she washed it and played with it. Her family later told reporters that she received small scrapes from the dog. When she returned home, she fell ill. She was admitted to a hospital on April 28, where physicians determined she had contracted rabies from the dog. She died on May 6. In other news, two sightseeing planes collided Monday afternoon off the coast of Alaska. Six people were killed. And a traveling carnival worker has confessed to killing two women and a teenager within an eighteen-day period in Virginia. Humans face no more relevant question than the one asked by Job so long ago: If a man dies, shall he live again? (Job 14:14). Be not wise in your own eyes As John F. Kennedy noted, We are all mortal. Given the reality of death, I am amazed by the degree to which people are willing to bet their eternity on their personal opinion. Imagine Stephen Colbert asking Keanu Reeves, What do you think happens when you contract cancer? Would Reeves respond to a malignancy based on his subjective beliefs or on an oncologists professional experience? Our opinions dont change reality. The Queen of England exists whether I believe she exists or not. Heaven and hell are real, whether I believe they are real or not. Isaiah warned his day and ours: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:2021). Wise King Solomon cautioned us: Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil (Proverbs 3:7). Paul, the brilliant apostle, agreed: Never be wise in your own sight (Romans 12:16). Nonetheless, when it comes to our eternal destiny, our secular culture is convinced that opinion is fact. Has Satan fostered a more dangerous and popular deception today? How Satan tempts believers Its easy for Christians to reverse the equation. Followers of Jesus know better than to claim that our eternal destiny depends on our subjective beliefs. We understand that we have eternal life only through our Saviors death on our behalf (Romans 5:8; Acts 4:12). So, our enemy tempts us to treat the present in the same way our secular culture treats the future. Since our salvation is assured, we can be persuaded to live as we wish while here on earth. We know we can confess our sins and be forgiven for them (1 John 1:9). We know that no sins we commit in this life can keep us from heaven in the next life. As a result, we can be wise in our own eyes, basing our decisions on popular opinion and personal agendas. We can go along to get along, living for this world in this life and trusting that we will live for the next world in the next life. But this is not authentic Christianity. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23 Jesus was clear: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me (Luke 9:23). Paul testified, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). He called us to follow his example: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (Romans 12:1). How sweet are your words to my taste If we live like the world, why would the world want what we have? Conversely, if we live for Jesus now, we will have joy and peace the world cannot offer (Philippians 4:4, 7). Others will be drawn to his light in us (Matthew 5:16). And they will find the abundant life of Jesus now (John 10:10) and eternal life in our Lord (John 11:26). Gods wisdom is as near as his word: How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way (Psalm 119:103104). And his wisdom is as close as our next prayer: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him (James 1:5). As you make decisions today, will you be wise in your own eyes, or will you seek the wisdom of God? NOTE: How do you think God feels about America? I asked myself that question before writing my latest book, How Does God See America? And the many pressing issues of our day made me wonder: Have we strayed too far? Or is God being patient? The answer awaits you in How Does God See America? Click here to request your copy today. For more from the Denison Forum, please visit www.denisonforum.org. The Daily Article Podcast is Here! Click to Listen Publication Date: May 15, 2019 Photo Courtesy: Getty Images/Dimitrios Kambouris/Staff Five young Christian children have been killed in Syria while playing outside a monastery. The kids, aged between six and ten, were struck by a rocket attack in the northwestern Syrian town of al-Suqaylabiyah on Sunday, May 12. Those behind the attack are thought to be Islamic extremists who were specifically targeting the faith community. "The kids went out to play after some days of calm," Father Maher Haddad, a local priest, told the Associated Press. Then, out of nowhere, there was an enormous explosion resulting in the death of the children and eight others, including a 35-year-old woman. The deadly silence of the persecution of the Christians of Syria. Terrorists killed 5 children and their teacher in an attack on a Sunday school in Suqaylabiyeh/Hama, in northwest Syria yesterday, noted A Demand For Action, a group that advocates for the protection of Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac Christians and other minorities in the Middle East. State news agency SANA reported that Syrian troops had fired retaliatory shells into the rebel-held area thought to be the site from which the fatal rocket was launched, according to ABC News. There is speculation that an Al-Qaeda-linked group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was responsible for the attack. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports on the atrocities occurring in Syria on a daily basis, also confirmed that children were among the dead. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, an uptick in violent clashes between Syrian government troops and various rebel factions has resulted in the death of over 120 people since April, and the displacement of some 180,000. "The Syrian Civil War is a sad example of the indiscriminate killing of civilians and senseless violence, said Claire Evans from persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. As the situation escalates, many have warned that an increase of targeted massacres would be the result. It has startedwith Christians paying a high cost as they are often viewed as vulnerable, second-class citizens. She added: Their villages have become a pawn in a greater strategy for the multiple factions involved in the civil war. We must keep the families of the deceased in our prayers, and offer up continued prayers for the safety of those believers who find themselves caught between Syria's warring sides." Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Aladdin Hammami With this article, I begin a new column in which I will share reflections on American Christianity, but especially evangelical Christianity. Ive been embedded in the movement for over five decades, so I should have something to say by now. And what I have to say about the movement is more or less what I have to say to myself, as I see in myself the same shortcomings and potential that I see in the movement at large. The title of the column, The Elusive Presence, is deliberately borrowed from The Elusive Presence: The Heart of Biblical Theology by Samuel Terrien, originally published in 1978 (its now published by Wipf & Stock with the subtitle Toward a New Biblical Theology). I read the book soon after it was published, but today I dont consciously remember much from it except the title (though I suspect it has formed me in ways I remain unaware of). As this series goes on, the careful reader will understand why this is an apt title for the column. If you want to be alerted to these weekly offerings, sign of up for The Galli Report. Its hard to know when the current crisis of evangelicalism started, because one characteristic feature of the movement is its relentless self-criticism. Evangelicalism is a reform movement, and one object of evangelicals is to reform themselves. I do remember when I became aware of a personal crisis that gave me insight into the challenge we all face. I cannot remember the time and place, but I do remember my reaction. It may have been as the result of hearing a sermon, or perhaps reading a book. But I distinctly remember thinking that my Christian life was sorely lacking in the love of God. I didnt have any affection for or yearning to know and love God. I wasnt angry with him. I didnt doubt his existence. I wasnt wrestling with the problem of evil. I was being a faithful Christian as best I knew how. But it occurred to me that I didnt feel any love for God. I also realized that even though I prayed and read Scripture regularly, not much in my life would be different if I didnt pray and read my Bible. That is, I was living as a practical atheist, meaning my personal relationship with God did not really affect much inside me. I was at the time managing editor of Christianity Today, so naturally I edited and wrote a lot of things that were Christian to the core. But I realized that if I never prayed again, that I could still be a very good editor at a Christian publication, and a very good church member at my local parish. I knew how to get along with others, to manage staff, to work with my superiors, to work with fellow church members, and to write on Christian spirituality. But prayer wasnt necessary to do all that. These other matters were all learned skills that had more or less become good habits. My personal relationship with God really didnt make any difference. My next thought was, Well, if I call myself a Christian, I should have greater love and desire to know God more deeply. Perhaps I should pray for that. And thats when something occurred to me with great force: I wasnt sure I wanted that. I recognize that was an odd admission for a person who claimed to be a good Christian. But there it was. I didnt think I really wanted to love God more. The reasons for that are complex and will be touched on later, but the bottom line was: I really didnt want to love God. Id immersed myself in enough Scripture and Christian theology to know that there was no greater desire than to yearn for God, no greater joy or happiness than to know God more and more intimately. And yet I had to admit that as I looked at my heart and my will, I had little to no interest in that. Article continues below I also realized at that moment that there was no hiding all this from God, and that God had known the state of my heart and will for some time, and that he was patiently and mercifully waiting for me to see it for myself. Thats when I also realized that the most honest prayer was simply this: Lord, help me to want to love you. There is a danger to universalizing ones personal experience, assuming it applies to others, even an entire body of believers. But I actually believe it worked the other way. For some decades now, as evidenced in my writing, Ive believed that American Christianity has been less and less interested in God as such, and more and more at doing good things for God. Weve learned how to be effective for him, to the point that we dont really need him any longer. It was that continuing concern that finally took hold of me, making me realize that this was not their crisis but a crisis we all share. If I were to pick a moment when evangelical Christians began wondering out loud about the state of the movement and where it should be headed, Id point to the 1995 publication of Dave Tomlinsons The Post-Evangelical. He described the books genesis two years earlier when at the Greenbelt Festival in Britain a friend made a passing reference to we post-evangelicals, although he wasnt sure what that even meant. Tomlinson decided to figure out what it meant, since the term resonated with him and his friends. The book, in his words, was a pastoral essay directed at those (and there are many) who struggle with restrictions in evangelical theology, spirituality, and church culture. The book made a big splash in Britain, and the like-minded in America began to take notice. From this and other influences arose the Emergent Church movement, which sought, among other things, to adapt evangelical theology to postmodern sensibilities. Perhaps the most well-known attempt was Brian McLarens New Kind of Christian trilogy, first published in 2001 and concluded with A New Kind of Christianity in 2010. By the publication of the latter book, McLaren was not merely questioning evangelicalism but also many doctrines of orthodox Christianity. For him and many other emergent leaders, the crisis of evangelicalism was also the crisis of traditional Christianity. Both, as McLaren argued, were mired in the spirit of modernity, of theological rigidity, literal reading of Scripture, cold to mystery, more interested in proclaiming answers than in living the questions. McLarens disillusionment was intensified by the increasing alignment of conservative Christians with politics of the right. Fast forward to November 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump was elected president, and the disillusionment had spread, and had turned into anger for many evangelical leaders when we were told that 81 percent of voters who identified as evangelical voted for Trump. Fuller Theological Seminary president Mark Labberton summarized the crisis of evangelicalism at a national gathering of evangelical leaders at Wheaton College in 2018. He called it political dealing, and he castigated evangelicals for grasping at political power, for racism, for nationalism, and for lack of concern for the poor. As is obvious, he was only talking about conservative evangelicals, but to him and many elite evangelicals, it is these evangelicals who constitute the crisis of evangelicalism today. No question that the crisis today is more intense than it has ever been, with leading evangelicals (usually those who want to distance themselves from anyone who seems to support Donald Trump) dropping that label, preferring to be labeled as a follower of Jesus or a red-letter Christian or just Christian. That discomfort with the name has been around for years, starting with those who felt more attuned to labels like post-evangelical or emergent. So troublesome are these developments that InterVarsity Press commissioned a book devoted to the meaning and future of the movement: Still Evangelicals? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning (of which I was a contributor). Article continues below Of course, others have located the crisis at the other end of the political and theological spectrum, and did so some 20 years earlier in The Compromised Church: The Present Evangelical Crisis, an anthology with contributions by John MacArthur, Mark Dever, David Wells, Albert Mohler, and Philip Ryken, among others. For these writers, the evangelical church had become shallow theologically, biblically, and in its worship. Their views also have a lot to commend themselves. Another view comes from journalist and historian Molly Worthen. In Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in Evangelicalism, she argues that evangelicalism is rife with contradictions and confusion because the movement has never had a single authority to guide its life and faith. This may have been an insight to non-evangelicals, but those in the movement just said, Well, yeah. This is the great strength and weakness of evangelicalism. Its lack of structured authoritywith only the Bible and each persons reading of ithas allowed it to be a dynamic movement that shapes the faith attractively to each generation and each culture. But that lack of a central authority inevitably creates arguments and divisions, and therefore in some ways an ongoing crisis. These are but a few of the crises that those inside and outside the movement name. Each of the critics have been right in more than one respect. As editor in chief of Christianity Today, embedded in the culture of evangelicalism for over half a century, I recognize the measure of truth in each of these many complaints. They are not to be dismissed with a sweep of the hand. There is indeed a political crisis (but its both on the right and left in my view). And a crisis of racism (certainly among whites, but also increasingly among minorities). And a theological crisis. And a biblical crisis. And a crisis in worship (and not just because of thin worship songs). A crisis in marriage and family. A crisis in evangelism. A crisis in social justice. A crisis in pastoral care. A crisis in discipleship. And on it goes. Along the way, weve seen an increasing number of predictions of evangelical demise. Ten years ago, the late blogger Michael Spencer sparked one of the first social media conversations about the viability of evangelicalism with his essay, The Coming Evangelical Collapse, and Why It Is Going to Happen. Among other things, he said this: This collapse, will, I believe, herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian west and will change the way tens of millions of people see the entire realm of religion. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become particularly hostile towards evangelical Christianity, increasingly seeing it as the opponent of the good of individuals and society. The response of evangelicals to this new environment will be a revisiting of the same rhetoric and reactions weve seen since the beginnings of the current culture war in the 1980s. The difference will be that millions of evangelicals will quit: quit their churches, quit their adherence to evangelical distinctives and quit resisting the rising tide of the culture. Many who will leave evangelicalism will leave for no religious affiliation at all. Others will leave for an atheistic or agnostic secularism, with a strong personal rejection of Christian belief and Christian influence. Many of our children and grandchildren are going to abandon ship, and many will do so saying good riddance. Article continues below I was skeptical at the time he wrote this, and said so in print. But today I admit that Spencer was more right than he was wrong. Recent events and surveys bear out many of his predictions. We truly are in a moment of crisis in the American evangelicalism. To be clear, I have no money in this game, meaning it doesnt matter to me if, as many predict, the movement known as American evangelicalism fades away with the sunset. God has raised up many reform movements since the day of Pentecost, and has seen many diesome of which I suspect he has killed off. If evangelicalism fades away, he will in his mercy raise up another movement that will revive his people. The future of the church in America does not hinge on the health of evangelicalism; it hinges on the power of God. Id say were in good hands. That being said, American evangelicalism has had a unique beginning, one that energized it and carried it along for two centuries and more. And it has been one of the most revolutionary movements in church history, changing the face not only of North American Christianity, but with the 19th century missionary movement, the entire globe. This history has many troubling elements, as many have pointed out. This is not surprising, because it is a movement full of sinners. But God has been good and has nonetheless used it to enable people from all walks of life and every corner of the world to know the unsurpassable grace of Jesus Christ. Still, contemporary evangelicalism is in serious trouble. Actually, its crisis is the same one that afflicts all Christianity in America. At the risk of hubris, and the risk of merely adding one more item to the seemingly endless list of crises, I believe that the crisis lies at the heart of what ails large swaths of the American church. Alexander Solzhenitsyn named it in his speech upon receiving the Templeton Prize in Religion in 1968. He was talking about Western culture when he used it. I apply it to the American church, evangelical and not: We have forgotten God. [The Elusive Presence will continue next week.] Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today. Believing in perfect, heavenly Father will 'radically change' 'fatherless generation': Louie Giglio Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment In a society where fatherlessness has reached epidemic proportions, Pastor Louie Giglio is calling on people to embrace God as their perfect, heavenly Father. It's a decision he believes will radically transform lives, and, in turn, the world. When people start seeing God as their perfect heavenly Father, they begin to walk in acceptance, and not for acceptance, Giglio told The Christian Post. When Jesus started His ministry, a voice came from Heaven and said, In Him, I am well pleased. "But Jesus hadnt performed any miracles yet. So what was God pleased in? God was essentially saying, My son already has my acceptance and blessing. So Jesus moved into His public ministry with the blessing, not for the blessing. Ive seen that happen in a lot of peoples lives: they stop living in the hope of getting accepted and loved, he continued. They start moving in confidence because they know they already have it. Thats a big game changer for us and will radically change society. Giglio recently released his latest book,Not Forsaken: Finding Freedom As Sons and Daughters of a Perfect Father, which helps readers embrace God as their Father regardless of their relationship with or absence of their earthly father. In his book, Giglio writes that though every individual has a unique experience with their earthly father, what unites people is the need woven into every soul, the need to be loved, and treasured, and noticed and accepted by our father. Giglio is the pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia, which draws more than 8,000 people each week. Along with his wife, Shelley, Giglio also founded Passion, an annual conference that seeks to empower and guide college-age adults. Since 1997, Passion events have drawn over a million students and reached people all over the world. The pastor said hes seen a theme among the people hes ministered to over the years: broken relationships with their fathers. He cited statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, which estimates that more than 1 in 4 children live without a father in the home. Theyre calling this the fatherless generation, and its time for us to speak a message of hope to these people, Giglio said. The idea that I could know a sovereign, eternal God on an intimate level was a game-changer for me as a young man. I realized that God as a judge, king, and ruler is all within the embodiment of God as a Father. All of a sudden, I got this glimpse of God as bigger than I ever couldve imagined, but also more intimately than I could ever hope for. The pastor cited Galatians 4:6, which reads: Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. Abba is a New Testament word for God, and its not really daddy, as most people think, he said. Its more like an intimate father, like what a father would call his son or daughter. It changed my relationship with God in a powerful way. Giglio told CP that initially, he was writing on a different subject when God told him to pen Not Forsaken. I felt a stirring on my heart, he said. God said to me: You need to write a book about me being a perfect heavenly Father, and the time is right now. Ive been sharing this message for over 25 years and Ive seen the power of it, especially for those whose relationship with their earthly dad wasnt perfect. But Not Forsaken isnt just for those who have a troubled relationship with their earthly father, Giglio said, explaining that every Christian needs to discover more of what it means to be a loved son or daughter of the King. There is always another step we can take in our relationship with God; all of us can get closer to Him and know Him on a more intimate level, Giglio said. Thats the possibility in this book. When people tell me, I have a great relationship with my dad, I say, Great. Youre a step ahead of those who didnt have that relationship. You trust God because you trusted your earthly father. Its standing on that foundation, but recognizing, My dad was great and he did his best but he wasn't perfect and he wasn't God. But he can be a stepping stone for me to come to know my heavenly Father, he added. God is not the reflection of your earthly father; He is the perfection of your earthly father. When people start seeing God as their perfect heavenly Father, theyre able to do something almost unthinkable, Giglio said. In the power of the resurrection, theyve been able to forgive their fathers, he said. The power of the resurrection and the Gospel is strong. It may not fix our relationship, but it allows us to extend forgiveness. Forgiveness frees us the moment we extend it. I've seen people whose dad really dealt them a difficult hand, and through the power of the Gospel, they were able to forgive their dad and actually bless a father who never blessed them, he added. That is a picture of the power of the Gospel that we carry and proclaim. Thats a pretty stunning outcome for us discovering who we are as loved by God. After Sri Lanka bombings, 60 Christian refugees flee homes over revenge threats Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Persecuted Christian refugees and asylum seekers in Sri Lanka are in hiding inside a police station as a result of death threats from angry Sri Lankans following last months Easter Sunday bombings that claimed the lives of over 250. Multiple human rights organizations are raising an alarm as several migrant communities in Sri Lanka who originated from South Asia or the Middle East have been forced to seek legal protection as communal revenge violence has escalated in the wake of the bombings. Although enraged Sri Lankans have primarily targeted peaceful Muslims and their property in response to last months bombings claimed by the Islamic State, asylum-seeking Christians from Afghanistan and Pakistan who fled the country over religious persecution are also in fear for their lives. Anton Kyanq, a Sri Lankan pastor who has traveled the country to bring assistance to Christians in need, told The Christian Post in an interview that as many as 60 Pakistani and Afghani Christian refugees are currently housed inside of a police station in Negombo (one of the three cities where the Easter suicide bombings have occurred). Kyanq has worked with the London-based charity British Pakistani Christian Association to provide aid to the displaced Christian refugees at the Negombo police station. He estimates that as many as 160 asylum seekers are being sheltered at the station. Sri Lanka is home to about 1,600 asylum seekers from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran who fled religious, political or ethnic persecution in their homelands. About 800 asylum seekers live in rented homes in Negombo with the backing of United Nations assistance. The other 100 migrants house at the station are of the Muslim faith, he said. People were told it was a terrorist attack from an Islamic background. So they thought maybe [since] these people are also from a background similar, maybe these people are also connected to these groups, Kyanq explained. So they were angry at them. Inside the police station, Kyanq said that the migrants have been given nothing but mats to sleep on and must deal with the mosquito bites, the cold breeze, and the rain. The migrants are allowed to go back to their rented homes and come back to the police station should they want to risk their safety. For the time being, the protection is fine but we cannot say what will happen tomorrow, Kyanq explained. We dont see any progress. Kyanq said that the UNHCR is providing food to all the asylum seekers in the police station, even those that had been rejected by the agency for resettlement in another country. However, Kyanq stressed that the food the UNHCR gives out is not good. Throughout Negombo, hundreds of Ahmaddiya Muslims, who follow a sect of Islam that advocates for peace and tolerance, have been forced to flee their rented homes. Kyanq said the Pakistani Christians and Ahmadi Muslims in Sri Lanka essentially live as part of the same community as persecuted minorities from a hardline Muslim-majority country. They live as a community together. Even the Christians also get along with Ahmadi Muslims because both of them are persecuted, Kyanq explained. One Christian asylum seeker from Pakistan told the Daily Mirror that she was forced from her home the day after the April 21 Easter bombing claimed around 100 lives at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo. I was cooking when a group of people arrived and shouted at us to leave, the asylum seeker named Hafza was quoted as saying. Then, the house owner said if we dont leave, he would also be attacked by them. We just had to leave with our kids. According to Kyanq, the government plans to eventually move the asylum seekers out of the police station to some sort of restricted area where they could be protected. Such place will be selected and they would be put into the camp or something. The government will handle everything. This is what they say, Kyanq said. But now the [government] allows people to leave if they want, but some people don't find it's safe for them to move. Human Rights Watch, a leading international human rights watchdog organization, reported that hundreds of asylum seekers have sought shelter in an Ahmadiyya mosque in Negombo while others have been sheltered at a local school. HRW joined over a dozen other human rights agencies in issuing a joint statement last week calling on the Sri Lankan government to deploy adequate law enforcement to ensure the protection of the vulnerable refugee communities seeking shelter in mosques, police stations, and other locations. The joint statement estimates that about 1,200 people from Pakistan and Afghanistan, most of them Muslims, have fled their homes in Sri Lanka due to the fear, threats, and intimidation following the Ester bombings. The organizations call for the Sri Lankan government to urgently relocate refugees seeking shelter in the Negombo police station and houses of worship to appropriate locations with adequate sanitation, sleeping space, and security. The joint statement stresses that the Sri Lankan government should work with UNHCR to ensure that the settlements for these refugee communities are not de facto detention centers. Ala. lawmakers pass bill making abortion a felony; Gov. Kay Ivey defends it Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A bill that would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in Alabama was defended Wednesday by Gov. Kay Ivey after the states Senate voted to pass what many say will be the strictest abortion ban in the nation. If the bill becomes law, it would be a Class A felony for a doctor to perform an abortion and a Class C felony for attempting to perform an abortion in six months. The only exemption under the bill is if there is a serious health risk to the mother. There is no exception in the bill for victims of rape or incest. The fate of the controversial bill, which was passed 25-6 in the Senate on Tuesday night and passed earlier by the Alabama House, now rests in the hands of Ivey, who told reporters Wednesday morning that all human life is precious when asked about victims of rape and incest being forced to carry their babies to term. The measure, which was designed to challenge and overturn Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, is expected to trigger a costly legal battle for the state. Even though she wont make a decision on the bill before she has a chance to review it late Wednesday, Ivey said defending the unborn shouldnt be limited by cost. You certainly cannot deter your efforts to protect the unborn because of cost, even if it means going to the United States Supreme Court, she said. Live Action founder and President Lila Rose celebrated the anti-abortion crusade on Wednesday as inspiring. So proud of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio. Of all the women & men that stood up against the abortion industry & the crusade of lies, misinformation & fear-mongering, & said we will fight so our laws protect LIFE. We will make our states a safer home for mothers & children, she tweeted. And Georgia! The work of these states in the last six months has been incredible and inspiring. One state, one community at a time: eradicate the industries that profit from deaths & make our communities safer for children & families. As pro-life advocates celebrated the passage of the bill, abortion advocates, including many 2020 Democrat presidential candidates, decried it as a backward step for women. The Alabama Senate voted to outlaw nearly all abortions. These hypocrites decry big government, yet they want to control every aspect of women's bodies, private decisions, and futures. Our job is to fight at every step to protect reproductive rights, Sen. Bernie Sanders noted on Twitter. Andrew Yang, said he doesnt believe government should be involved in making decisions for women. The Alabama law banning and criminalizing abortion even in cases of rape or incest is a dramatic step in the wrong direction. Government should not be making decisions on behalf of women. I would protect womens right to choose, he tweeted Wednesday afternoon. Staci Fox, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates, told The New York Times, Today is a dark day for women in Alabama and across this country. Banning abortion is bad enough. Imprisoning doctors for providing care goes beyond the brink. Alabama politicians will forever live in infamy for this vote and we will make sure that every woman knows who to hold accountable. Democrats nix So help me God from swearing-in oath; conservatives rankled Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Since taking control of the House, Democrat leaders of several key committees have nixed the phrase so help me God from a swearing-in oath for individuals testifying before them. I think God belongs in religious institutions: in temple, in church, in cathedral, in mosque but not in Congress, Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, the chairman of the Judiciary Committees Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties told The New York Times. What Republicans are doing, he continued, is using God. And God doesnt want to be used, he said. Rev. Franklin Graham, who serves as president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has blasted the move as backward. Why has the Democratic Party turned its back on God? @RepCohen of TN said, I think God belongs in religious institutions: in temple, in church, in cathedral, in mosquebut not in Congress, Graham said in a series of tweets Tuesday in response to the report. We need more of God, not less! What @RepCohen is suggesting is what Communism did in Eastern Europe & is still doing in places around the world like Cuba. Communism only allows worship inside approved churches, he continued. God is our Creator & the maker of the universe. He is present everywhere; He is not limited to churches or temples. The root of the issue is that many politicians dont want God in any part of their politics or our countrys business because His standards condemn their sins. Republican lawmakers, The New York Times reported, are also staging a form of protest, by pointing out each time the phrase is omitted in real time. I am a sinner, I make mistakes every single day, but I do think that we could use a little more of God, not less, Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana reportedly told his colleagues seated around the dais of the House Natural Resources Committee. When Democrat Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, who leads the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee, recently omitted the phrase to swear in a witness earlier this year, Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, pointed out that the oath was incorrect and incomplete. This is the oath we use, and thats the oath were going to use today, DeGette insisted. Degette was praised by a coalition of secularist groups, led by the Center for Inquiry. The rest of Congress could learn something from Chairwoman DeGettes support for the constitutional separation of church and state, Jason Lemieux, Director of Government Affairs for the Center for Inquiry said in a statement. She stuck to her guns in upholding the secular character of our government, and lo, the world did not come to an end. Instead, she helped the approximately 95 million nonreligious Americans feel represented by their government. Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, who is lobbying for the oath to return to its original form, argues that some would believe including so help me God is mere symbolism but it has much greater meaning for those who believe. The intention behind it was to express the idea that the truth of what was being said was important not just in the moment, but would go into eternity, and someone was watching and would ultimately be our judge, Johnson said. Some would call that mere symbolism, but to many of our founders, it was deeper than that. Woman, 61, fighting to stay alive after Texas hospital pulls life support against familys wishes Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A 61-year-old Texas mother is now fighting to stay alive two days after a local hospital removed her from life support against her familys wishes after declaring their efforts to save her life futile under the 1999 Texas Advance Directive Act. The law allows health care facilities to discontinue life-sustaining treatment ten days after giving written notice if the treating medical team considers further life-sustaining treatment futile. The mother, Carolyn Jones, had been living with the help of a ventilator at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston for the last six months and gave her until May 13 before they pulled the plug, her daughter Kina Jones told 12NEWS. Two days later however, Carolyn Jones is still fighting to stay alive after suffering a stroke in 2017. "They've refused all requests to wing her off of the ventilator and to try breathing on her own," Kina said of the medical team. "They were just saying she's not stable enough or she's in a critical condition." In an appeal Tuesday seeking to raise $50,000 to help keep the defiant mother alive, Texas Right to life said: Carolyn was originally scheduled to die on Monday when the hospital used the abominable 10-Day Rule to shut down her ventilator. And when that didnt work (didnt kill her), hospital administrators withheld dialysis from the conscious woman. (Carolyn was undergoing dialysis before her hospitalization.) If they don't give her dialysis , she's going to succumb to the fluid in her," Kina told 12News. "This is not right for people to be able to make a decision for anyone to live or die when they are alive," Donald Jones, Carolyn's husband added. While they were not able to comment specifically on Carolyns case due to patient privacy laws, Memorial Herman Southwest Hospital said in a statement to 12NEWS that we are committed to delivering patient-centered care and respecting the rights of our patients and their loved ones. We understand how painful it can be when difficult medical decisions must be made, and our hearts go out to families in these circumstances. End-of-life decisions are made by physicians after careful and thorough consultation with patients, their families, the healthcare team, and a medical ethics committee. The decision-making process is outlined in Texas law and can take many months. The law provides a tool to balance the tough choice between carrying out patients and families wishes and the ethical duty not to increase or prolong patients suffering, the statement said in part. A GoFundMe campaign is now seeking to raise $35,000 to help keep Carolyn alive. Carolyn Jones is STILL ALIVE! Now the family faces another heartless act by Memorial Hermann Hospital Southwest campus refusing to give dialysis care EVEN THOUGH she is still alive and responsive. There have been a facility to come forth and agree to accept Mrs. Jones and provide care but this requires funding... please find it in your heart to help Mrs. Jones stay alive and beat the 10-day rule!! the campaign which had raised just under $1,000 as of Wednesday morning said. On Tuesday, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would give families that disagree with a hospital's decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from a gravely ill patient up to 45 days to find a different hospital or health care facility instead of the current 10. "Everyone, I think, agrees: That is not long enough," Mineola Sen. Bryan Hughes said, according to the Texarkana Gazette. "Many times these folks are at the end of their lives, and so their families, rather than spending time in communing with them, praying with them and enjoying their company, instead their families are fighting feverishly to keep them alive, calling hospitals, calling doctors, trying to find someone who will take their loved one and allow them to pass away naturally." Hughes said Texas 10-day rule is among the shortest such time constraint among similar legislation nationwide and noted that his bill would move Texas to the middle ground. He said cases involving families and hospitals disagreeing over the application of the law is very rare. "Most hospitals and doctors in Texas are not taking advantage of this law," he said. "We are blessed with wonderful hospitals filled with caring people, physicians, nurses, all kinds of professionals unfortunately, because of holes in the law, there are a few places where these cases continue to arise." The bill had initially proposed requiring treatment be provided indefinitely but studies, he said, show that 45 days would be enough. "Of all the cases we're aware of 45 days would be long enough to transfer each one of those people or for them to die a natural death," he said. "These families aren't expecting miracles, but they don't want their loved ones' deaths to be hastened by the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment." Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment It's a rare day when Vice President Mike Pence isn't criticized for something in the mainstream media. And last weekend, after Pence's commencement speech at Liberty University, his detractors had plenty to work with. There's just one problem. The Left is picking a fight over his warning that American Christians are being persecuted forgetting, apparently, that they've helped make he and his wife Exhibit A. Professor John Fea fired the first shot in his Washington Post feature: "Dear Mike Pence: The Real Persecution of Christians Isn't Here in America." Of course, the piece itself couldn't be more ironic. Here is Fea, trying to dismiss the idea that believers are being targeted in the U.S. and yet he spends a whole column doing exactly that. He lifts the part of Pence's remarks where he warns graduates that they'll be "ridiculed" for their faith and then suggests that the vice president "needs some perspective." Of course, in his desperation to make that point, Fea does conservatives a favor by shining an enormous spotlight on the religious freedom crisis affecting Christians all across the globe. "According to one estimate, in 2016, a Christian was killed for his or her faith every six minutes. Today, the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities is rampant, especially in the Middle East. The Islamic State has forced nearly 5 million Syrian Christians to flee for their lives." He goes on to cover the horrors of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka sounding more like a member of Open Doors USA than an opinion writer for the Washington Post. But as appreciative as we are for the coverage of these atrocities, Fea's preaching to the choir. There's no one who understands the situation better or has raised more awareness on the issue of faith-based persecution than the man the story's about: Mike Pence. He's spent the better part of three years warning global leaders that as far as this administration is concerned, religious freedom is non-negotiable. And not just for Christians but the Uyghurs, Rohingya, Jews, Falun Gong, Sikhs, and more. The torture of innocent people for their faith is not news to the Donald Trump White House. But, more frustrating is the suggestion that Mike Pence or anyone else in this administration has ever compared the world's suffering to the harassment of Christians in the U.S. At no point has the vice president, whose family and beliefs have been more fiercely attacked than anyone in leadership, attempted to suggest that what men and women of faith here experience is anything like the torture, serial rape, and killing overseas. That's not even responsible journalism. And yet, Fea still accuses Pence of having a "persecution complex," which, he argues, shouldn't surprise us. "Evangelicals in America have seen themselves as victims since the 1960s ... The movement gains strength by scaring evangelicals into believing that they are constantly under attack. Without this discourse of victimhood, the donations will stop, and the Christian Right will lose its hold on the levers of power within the Republican Party." With all due respect to Fea, Christians don't think they're victims of religious discrimination they are victims of religious discrimination. No, they aren't having their faces scanned or being thrown behind bars (although some have been), but you'd have to be living under a rock not to see the trend of the last ten years to punish, fine, suspend, fire, bankrupt, vandalize, and attack dozens and dozens of men and women of faith. And in all walks of life! From the Senate chamber to a corner bakery, Christians with natural or biblical views of marriage and sexuality have had a bullseye on their backs. They've had the fight of their lives in courtrooms, city councils, and human rights commissions just to exercise what the founders died to give us: the right to religious belief and expression. This isn't a figment of the church's imagination. When Fea says, "American evangelicals should have more important issues on their plates than worrying about a few misguided progressives who do not like Christian schools," he's grossly minimizing the breadth of the crisis for one and the ferocity of the opposition, for another. Smoke always precedes the fire. This growing hostility in America is a warning. And we ignore it at our own peril. Originally posted at FRC.org. Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment LGBT activists are scratching their heads following the abrupt closure of a widely followed investment fund that was focused on LGBT advocacy and invested only in the stocks of companies which demonstrated outspoken support for LGBT acceptance and approval in the workplace. The ALPS Workplace Equality ETF (exchange traded fund), which traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker EQLT, was launched on February 24th, 2014 and ceased trading two weeks ago on April 26th, 2019. During its five full years of trading, EQLT enjoyed massive global exposure, high praise from major media outlets and even above average performance over most timeframes. EQLT was praised as the golden-child of a new age of progressive values among supposedly forward-thinking businesses and investors. But EQLT was a complete failure. EQLT Failure After five years, massive publicity and solid performance, EQLT only managed to attract $16.7M in assets under management by the time it was liquidated last month. A statement issued by the funds Board of Trustees at ALPS ETF Trust explained the reasons behind EQLTs demise: The decision to close the Fund was made by the ALPS ETF Trusts Board of Trustees after consultation with ALPS Advisors, Inc., the investment adviser to the Fund. On consideration of the Funds inability to attract significant market interest since the Funds inception, its future viability as well as prospects for growth of the Funds assets in the foreseeable future, the Board determined that it was in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders to liquidate the Funds shares, which are listed on the NYSE ARCA. The last day of trading for the Fund is scheduled to be Friday, 26 April, 2019. What happened? If the medias insistent message that the mainstream current is in support of LGBT advocacy, and that holding to the biblical definition of marriage and sexuality is, as The New York Times put it in an article on the subject, squarely at odds with that of nearly all of corporate America, then how is it that a fund like EQLT was a flop? And EQLT is not the only pro-LGBT fund that is struggling. The UBS InsightShares LGBT Employment Equality ETF (ticker: PRID) was launched January 10th, 2018. PRID follows a similar investment methodology to the failed EQLT of investing in companies identified by LGBT activism powerhouse, Human Rights Coalition (HRC), as supporters of the LGBT agenda. PRID offers an expense ratio of 0.65%, trades on the New York Stock Exchange and is managed by subadvisor Vident Investment Advisors, an affiliate of Vident Financial, which also offers their own stable of principles based investment funds. More than a year later, PRID claims just a scant $2.65M in assets under management according to data sourced from Morningstar. Biblically Responsible Investing Success Meanwhile, support for biblically responsible investing (BRI) is skyrocketing. I recently wrote an article highlighting some examples of the explosive growth of the biblically responsible investing movement: A $520M investment advisory firm making the decision to transition all of their assets into biblically responsible investing portfolios; My own biblically responsible investing firm, Inspire Investing, growing from $250M in assets under management to $465M just since the start of this year; The launch of two new biblically responsible investing ETFs from BRI fund company, Timothy Plan, which both have over $40M in assets in just the first week since launch; Inspire Investing being nominated as a finalist for Best Thematic ETF of the Year award in the annual ETF.com Awards. By the grace of God, we are seeing a massive expansion of the BRI movement across the country and around the world. Across the pond in Spain, a startup Catholic fund company named Altum Faithful has caught the European investment worlds eye and gained assets at a rapid pace. Altum has also recently released a research paper analyzing the performance of the S&P 500 compared to a biblically screened version of the S&P 500 with compelling results. The Real Picture Why is there such disparity between the ongoing success of the biblically responsible investing movement and the surprising failure of pro-LGBT investment funds? I believe that the bottom line is that contrary to popular media opinion there are still lots of people in this world who believe in biblical values, love God and want to glorify Him in everything they do, including how they invest His money. In fact, data from Pew Research, Economic Policy Institute and the US Census indicates that Christians control approximately two-thirds of the assets in U.S. retirement funds, a whopping $21 Trillion dollars. As Christians we are called to love our neighbors in the LGBT community, and we should seek to be a blessing to them as ministers of Christs love on earth. And while I hope that most people want to support and love LGBT people, I believe that most people do not support or accept homosexuality as a moral or appropriate lifestyle choice and do not want to get involved in LGBT activism. The success of biblically responsible investing and failure of pro-LGBT funds suggests this is the real picture. What do you think? Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Confrontational evangelism: "the kind of evangelism that communicates the Gospel in an abrasive, in-your-face way." I'll never forget taking an outside escalator in Las Vegas down to the street level with my then 12-year-old daughter Kailey. There were hundreds of people on the sidewalk below us as we descended toward the large crowd. At the bottom of the escalator was a man with a repent sign and, no joke, a bullhorn. He incessantly yelled "Repent!" at all the people coming down the escalator and others walking by. My daughter turned to me and asked, "Daddy, what is that man doing?" I replied, "He is attempting to share the Gospel with the crowd here." She said, "Daddy, I think your way is much more effective." My way isn't really even my way. It's the way you see modeled in Scripture. It's good news people sharing the good news of Jesus in a good news way. You may be thinking, "Well, didn't Jesus preach to people on the street?" And, you'd be right. But he did it in a relational way. He provided healing for their bodies and food for the stomachs. And he shared hope with them in a loving and powerful way. And, yes, Paul did "street preaching" too. But he did it in a relational way, not an abrasive way. In Acts 17:22,23 he starts his outdoor sermon with these words, "Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: To an Unknown God. This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one Im telling you about." Instead of just screaming "repent" and reminding his audience of pagan philosophers that they were on a highway to hell, he found common ground and used it to introduce them to the Gospel story. In a sense, all evangelism should be relational. In other words, it should be done in a way that seeks to build bridges instead of walls. Some would call confrontational evangelism any kind of evangelism that happens outside of an already existing relationship. The idea is that if you don't have a relationship then you haven't "earned the right to be heard" with that person. But Jesus had no previous relationship with the woman at the well in John 4. But, in a very relational way, he asked her for a drink of water. This shocked the woman because Jewish men didn't talk with Samaritan women in this culture. And, of course, this led very quickly to a conversation and a conversion. Was that "confrontational evangelism"? I submit that it was more relational than confrontational. Of course there are truths that confront people's hearts when we share the Gospel. We share the good news that God loves us and then the bad news that our sins separate us from him before we share the great news that Jesus died in our place for our sins. And, sometimes, the truth about sin stings. So we double down on communicating these hard truths in a loving way. Here's how Paul instructs Timothy to share the Gospel with opposing false teachers in 2 Timothy 2:24-26, " A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those peoples hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devils trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants." Sounds pretty relational to me. My friend Dave Gibson is the most relational evangelist I know. From friends, neighbors, baristas, flight attendants and restaurant servers he is constantly engaging people in conversations. He then gently turns the conversation toward spiritual things and, inevitably, gets to the Gospel. I've witnessed him witness to countless people and have never seen him do "cold turkey" evangelism in a confrontational way. He turns cold turkey into a warm panini and then serves it up with a smile. He does all of his evangelism, like Jesus, in a relational way. At Dare 2 Share we train teenagers to "ask, admire and admit" when they share their faith. They ask questions to get to know somebody, admire what they can about what they believe and then admit the reason they're a Christian is that they are so messed up they need Jesus to save them. Then we train teens to naturally move on to have a Gospel conversation. This relational way of engaging Gospel conversations can be done with strangers and with friends alike. What we have seen is that the more teenagers can learn to have Gospel conversations the less likely they are to make evangelistic presentations. This is a powerful, practical and super relational way to share the good news. Sometimes Christians tell me they never share the Gospel with a stranger because they only believe in relational evangelism. Many of these believers categorize any evangelism style they are not comfortable with as "confrontational" and, sadly, miss many opportunities to share the Gospel with people they meet throughout the day. I think Satan has built a stronghold in many believer's hearts when it comes to evangelism. He built it to keep them from evangelizing. Here's what God's Word tells us about strongholds, "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Let's demolish the strongholds in our hearts that are keeping us from speaking the truth in love to friends, neighbors, family members and the "strangers" we meet along the way. Let's do all evangelism in a relational, non-confrontational way that seeks to win people over before winning their souls. Let's be good news people who speak the good news of Jesus in a good news way. No more confrontational evangelism please! Originally posted at gregstier.dare2share.org. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment As an evangelist and the founder of Think Eternity, I find that a solid half of our ministry today happens online. So its hard for me to imagine a time when I owned neither a computer nor a phone! But its true. I used to brag to my friends in Bible college that I didnt need a cell phone. Even though they were becoming more common at that time, I was determined to curb their influence in my life. Years later I learned that my ancestors on my dads side were German Mennonites who immigrated to the United States and found the flat plains of Kansas and southern Minnesota to be much like their former home. Mennonites traditionally regard technology with more suspicion than most people, so maybe my bragging about not having a phone was an unconscious echo of my ancestors beliefs! So perhaps I have deeply rooted reasons for being slow to get on social media. My older brother even forced me onto one of the early platforms by signing me up himself, but as I began to blog, my mind slowly changed. I realized I could use social media on my phone and computer for ministry. In many ways, the digital world is our new missions frontier. I now spend a lot of my life online, as do most of us. In fact, its an incredible time to be a Christian because a Wi-Fi connection has given us a larger megaphone than ever before to talk about Jesus. On one of our ministry trips to the East Coast years ago, I had a powerful encounter that taught me a lesson about the opportunity and responsibility we have with our online megaphones. A warm blast of late spring air greeted us as we drove to our hosts home in northern Virginia. My wife, Michelle, and I, along with another couple, had been on a preaching tour across the Midwest and down the East Coast for nearly two months. On the last leg of our journey, we anticipated ministering to some great churches on the outskirts of our nations capital. As we stepped into our hosts home we were greeted by pictures on the walls of our host with various US presidents and other world leaders. The hallway was lined with thank-you cards and personal greetings from presidents and celebrities. Our stay had been God-ordained, a needed pit stop after months of travel, and we developed a meaningful, timely friendship with Doug, our host, who is also one of the best writers I know. We spent several weeks with Doug and his wife, and they would make us a big breakfast every morning and shower us with kindness and encouragement. At the time, Id been working feverishly on my first book, and in the course of our conversations, Doug offered to review my draft. Without my even asking, he wrote one of the kindest endorsements I couldve asked for. I felt undeserving to have a New York Times bestselling author and former assistant to a US president endorse my writing, but that is just the way he and his wife were: gracious and hospitable in a way that bordered on being magical. Dougs endorsement for my book read in part, Matt Brown is like a Francis Schaeffer for a new generation. That was the first Id ever heard of Schaeffer, so I tracked down a half-century-old book by him called The Mark of the Christian, and I sensed Gods divine nudge about the importance of truth plus love. Sometimes even a single passage can change your life: This attitude [of love toward other Christians and the balance of love and holiness] must be constantly and consciously developedtalked about and written about in and among our groups and among ourselves as individuals. In fact, this must be talked about and written about before differences arise between true Christians. We have conferences about everything else. Who has ever heard of a conference to consider how true Christians can exhibit in practice a fidelity to the holiness of God and yet simultaneously exhibit in practice a fidelity to the love of God before a watching world? Whoever heard of sermons or writings which carefully present the practice of two principles which at first seem to work against each other: (1) The principle of the practice of the purity of the visible church in regard to doctrine and life, and (2) the principle of the practice of an observable love and oneness among all true Christians. If there is no careful preaching and writing about these things, are we so foolish as to think that there will be anything beautiful in the practice when differences between true Christians must honestly be faced? Before a watching world, an observable love in the midst of difference will show a difference between Christians differences and other mens differences. The world may not understand what the Christians are disagreeing about, but they will very quickly understand the difference of our differences from the worlds differences if they see us having our differences in an open and observable love on a practical level. Boom. Wow. Who writes like that anymore? And how we need this message today! The necessity for Christians everywhere to walk in both truth and love has only grown since Schaeffer wrote those words. Today we face bigger giants than ever. Christians all over the world now have something Francis Schaeffers generation never had: the internet and social media. Now every Christian who is, by default, a representative of Jesus to the watching world, either for good or bad, has a megaphone through their social media accounts. They can instantly proclaim whatever comes to their mind and whatever half-thought-through response they have to any given subject, political issue, or tragedy, whether or not its what the Bible says about that subject. More voices are shouting more loudly and more frequently than ever before, and therefore our need to understand truth and love is greater than ever before. Taken from Truth Plus Love by Matt Brown. Copyright 2019 by Matt Brown. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.TruthPlusLoveBook.com Matt Brown is an evangelist, author, and founder of Think Eternity, a ministry dedicated to amplifying the gospel every day to millions through devotionals, videos, live events, and more. Matt and his wife Michelle and their two sons live in Minnesota. You can follow Matt on social media at @evangelistmatt and at thinke.org Academics, faith leaders fear 'climate of self-censorship' if Islamophobia definition is adopted An open letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid is urging him to reject a proposed definition of Islamophobia over fears that it will shut down legitimate debate around Islam and be used to shield extremists. A report by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for Muslims says, "Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness." The definition has been formally adopted by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Conservatives Plaid Cymru and the Mayor of London. The open letter to Mr Javid acknowledges an "urgent need" to address hatred and acts of violence against Muslims, such as the recent attack in Christchurch, but warns against any "uncritical and hasty" adoption of the APPG's definition of Islamophobia. It argues that the definition is "vague and expansive" and has been adopted without proper consideration of the possible negative consequences for freedom of expression, and academic and journalistic freedom. It further warns that the definition will "undermine social cohesion - fuelling the very bigotry against Muslims which it is designed to prevent", and could even lead to harmful practices or extremism going unreported. "We are concerned that allegations of Islamophobia will be, indeed already are being, used to effectively shield Islamic beliefs and even extremists from criticism, and that formalising this definition will result in it being employed effectively as something of a backdoor blasphemy law," the letter reads. It has been signed by a wide range of academics, faith leaders, journalists, politicians and campaigners, including Professor Richard Dawkins, Lord Alton, Lord Singh, Baroness Cox, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, the President of Hindu Forum of Britain Trupti Patel, Christian Concern's Head of Policy Tim Dieppe, and National Secular Society CEO Stephen Evans. The letter continues: "Evidently abuse, harmful practices, or the activities of groups and individuals which promote ideas contrary to British values are far more likely to go unreported as a result of fear of being called Islamophobic. "This will only increase if the APPG definition is formally adopted in law. We are concerned that the definition will be used to shut down legitimate criticism and investigation." The signatories argue that existing law already provides sufficient protection against attacks and unlawful discrimination on the basis of religion. They propose that the term 'anti-Muslim hatred' be adopted instead. "No religion should be given special protection against criticism," they say. "Like anti-Sikh, anti-Christian, or anti-Hindu hatred, we believe the term anti-Muslim hatred is more appropriate and less likely to infringe on free speech," they say. "A proliferation of 'phobias' is not desirable, as already stated by Sikh and Christian organisations who recognise the importance of free discussion about their beliefs." They added: "Rather than helping, this definition is likely to create a climate of self-censorship whereby people are fearful of criticising Islam and Islamic beliefs. "It will therefore effectively shut down open discussions about matters of public interest. It will only aggravate community tensions further and is therefore no long term solution." The Government has said the definition needs to be given more consideration. A spokesperson said: "Any hatred directed against British Muslims and others because of their faith or heritage is utterly unacceptable." The spokesperson added: "This is a matter that needs further careful consideration." Supporters of the APPG's definition include former Conservative party chairman Sayeeda Warsi, who has dismissed concerns raised by Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council, as "irresponsible scaremongering". The Muslim Council of Britain told Buzzfeed that it was "truly astonishing the Government thinks it knows better than Muslim communities". "If this free speech rationale is true, it would mean that the government believes that defining the racism that targets Muslims or expressions of Muslimness somehow impinges on free speech. Defining antisemitism does not do so, but defining Islamophobia does," the organisation said. Calls for peace after escalation of religious intolerance following Sri Lanka church attacks Attacks on Muslims in the wake of the Easter suicide bombings on churches and hotels are "pushing Sri Lanka backwards", the United Nations has warned. There are reports that retaliatory attacks have been carried out on mosques and Muslim-owned businesses following the terrorist attacks last month that killed over 250 people, many of them Christians who were attending Easter Sunday services. The north-west has been particularly badly affected by the ensuing violence, with Muslims attacked in Kurunegala, Gampaha and Puttalam districts. In one of the worst incidents, police reported on Monday that a 45-year-old Muslim man had been killed by a mob after it stormed his carpentry workshop. A statement of concern from the UN said that nationalist and extremist views on identity were growing in influence and putting religious minorities at risk. It is calling upon the Sri Lankan government to take urgent action to put a stop to the violence and work to support peaceful relations between the country's diverse ethnic and religious groups. In the statement, the UN said that the Sri Lankan government needed to show "that it will not tolerate the spread of prejudice and hate among groups within its population". "It is in the interest of all ethnic and religious groups in Sri Lanka, as well as the Government, the opposition, civil society and the security sector, to work collaboratively in taking appropriate action and immediately stop these hateful attacks," said the statement issued jointly by Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Karen Smith, UN Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect. "The country is trying to move forward from a traumatic period of inter-ethnic armed conflict, but these attacks are pushing Sri Lanka backwards. If not adequately dealt with, the recent violence has the potential to escalate even further." They continued: "Sri Lanka has a pluralistic society. To be a Sri Lankan is to be a Buddhist, to be Hindu, to be a Muslim, to be a Christian. "All these communities are entitled to their identity, to freely exercise their religion and to live in peace and security in Sri Lanka, as recognized by the country's Constitution. We call on all Sri Lankans to respect one another." The Sri Lankan religious liberty campaign group Minor Matters has also condemned the violence. In a statement, it appealed to Sri Lankans to refrain from violence and respect the law as it warned that acts of retaliation were "plunging our nation further into chaos". "In a time when our nation is facing a crisis, we can ill afford such senseless and brutal acts of aggression, which only serve in heightening tensions and increasing polarisation between communities," it said. The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka said that the attacks on Muslims had left the country in a state of shock and only served to polarise communities further. It has called for an investigation into the attacks to bring the perpetrators to justice and urged people to turn away from violence and "hateful discourse". "Let us transcend hate, fear and suspicion toward one another and make every effort in compassion and love to understand, reconcile, and move forward together as one nation," it said. "Let us especially consider those feeling vulnerable, afraid and marginalised during this time, extending to them our solidarity and support in the aftermath of these senseless acts of violence." Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of the UK-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide, called on the Sri Lankan government to end the "culture of impunity" surrounding the acts of religious intolerance. "CSW also calls on the international community to assist Sri Lanka in the combatting of religious intolerance wherever possible," he added. India's evangelicals fear more persecution if Modi is re-elected Hundreds of millions of Indians are casting their votes in the world's biggest democratic elections, but the country's evangelicals fear that another term under Narendra Modi will not be good news for Christians. Vijayesh Lal, General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, told Spanish website Protestante Digital that the competing parties have carried out a "very vicious campaign". "People have not kept the boundaries of common decency, be it the ruling party or the opposition," he said. Up to 900 million eligible voters have been selecting their representatives since the polls opened on April 11. Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist, has led the country since 2014 but Indians will have to wait until May 23 to find out whether he has managed to secure his re-election. Mr Lal is worried about the prospect of Modi and the BJP ruling for another term. He says they are a "threat" to India's democracy and minority groups. "Modi's government have closed its eyes when minorities have been attacked," he said, adding that it had "continuously promoted an anti-minority speech without thinking about the consequences". "That kind of speech worked in 2014 and some elections after that, but I hope it will not work in these elections," he said. Under Modi's government, India has slipped down the Open Doors World Watch List of 50 countries where Christians suffer the most persecution. In 2016, it ranked 17th, but in the most recent list published in January this year, it was at number 10. The change in ranking is significant because it is the first time India has been in the top 10 world's worst persecutors. Explaining the decision, Open Doors said: "The BJP-led government promotes an extremist militant Hindu message. To put it simply, the message is that to be Indian, you have to be Hindu." One pastor told Open Doors that the BJP had "done nothing for Christians and other minorities". "All the decisions they make are against minorities. I fear for the future of my country and my family, especially my children," the pastor said. A report from EFI's Religious Liberty Commission published soon after the Open Doors World Watch List cited 77 incidents of hatred and violence against Christians in the first two months of 2019 alone, up from 49 in the same period last year. The situation is particularly serious for Christians in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where 40 per cent of the 325 recorded attacks on Christians in India last year occurred. Mr Lal said India's Christians were being attacked "almost on a daily basis". "Physical violence remains a constant, as well as gender violence. Christian women are constantly attacked or targetted," he said, adding that false accusations against Christian pastors and evangelists were also a problem and that many believers no longer feel safe even praying in their homes. "Generally, the government does not respond when religious freedom is violated," he said. He warned that the elections were a "fight to see if India will remain as the world's largest democracy or not" and that he was praying for a government that would be "close to the heart of God". "If Modi wins again, the persecution of Christians and Muslims in India will continue to grow. If Modi doesn't win and somebody else comes, maybe somebody of the BJP or the candidate of the Congress, even then, we think the persecution will continue," he told Protestante Digital. UK Government is complicit in debt crisis crippling developing countries, says Christian Aid Spiralling debt is preventing developing countries from being able to fund vital health services and is instead keeping them trapped in poverty, Christian Aid has warned. Christian Aid said the UK Government was complicit in the debt crisis as it has direct responsibility for many of the loans given to developing countries under English law or by British-based banks. It is calling upon the UK Government to change the law to make lending transparent and to stop vulture funds profiting from the debt crisis faced by the world's poorest countries. Although many international debts were cleared at the start of the 2000s, the situation changed after the financial crisis that hit western countries, including the UK in 2008. Christian Aid said that the financial crisis had triggered a "boom in irresponsible lending" to countries in the Global South, creating a trap of costly debt repayments that are diverting money away from essential services. The aid agency's concerns are laid out in a report published on Wednesday, The New Global Debt Crisis, which warns that the debt repayments are exacerbating an already desperate situation. The report, published in collaboration with the Jubilee Debt Campaign, highlights the case of Sierra Leone, which was forced to take out loans from the International Monetary Fund to combat the outbreak of Ebola in 2014. It took two years to bring the outbreak under control, during which time the country lost 4,000 people to the disease, including 10 per cent of its health workers. READ MORE: An answer to the prayers of Sierra Leone's desperate mothers It warns that large debt repayments are making it harder for the Sierra Leone government to properly fund clinics, health training and even the provision of ambulances. The lack of adequate healthcare facilities is compounding the dire maternal health situation in the country, where 1,360 mothers die out of every 100,000 live births - the highest death rate in the world. Christian Aid said the UK had a "moral responsibility" to avert the debt crisis affecting developing countries. It is also calling upon the Government to write off loans to Sierra Leone. Laura Taylor, Christian Aid's director of policy and public affairs, said: "It is shocking that developing countries find themselves yet again on the brink of a global debt crisis, 15 years after the last major round of debt relief. "Countries like Sierra Leone, the most dangerous place in the world to become a mum, face huge debt repayments which deprive them of resources to protect their own citizens. "It is unacceptable for the UK Government to be complicit in this new debt crisis, which sees some of the poorest countries in the world struggling and unable to get back on their feet following major humanitarian emergencies. "The UK has a strong history of helping these countries when they are most in need; but too often the lack of transparency in the loans means we are giving with one hand and taking away with the other." Metal rabbit or the ultimate, all-encompassing modern icon? Art critic and author Blake Gopnik plugs Jeff Koonss iconic, era-defining sculpture into 500 years of art history, tracing its lineage back to the moment when High Art was born A terrifying bunny that must be as close to pure oxymoron as you can get. Yet the irreconcilable differences captured in that phrase are what make Jeff Koonss Rabbit such a deeply compelling work. More than almost any other object by Koons, that scary bunny helped establish him, already in 1986, as one of the most important artists of our era. The terrors of Koonss stainless-steel rabbit are cited by almost every writer who encounters it one called it sinister; another described it as menacing with a weird evilness even as the object itself seems to bear witness to an evident and inescapable jollity. Youd think that the sparkle of its surface and the glee of its goofy subject would just about deny any notion that it might provoke nightmares. At most or worst the sculptures split personality seems likely to give it a pleasing dose of absurdity (think the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) or an easy jolt of shock-value (think the vicious doll in the Chucky slasher flicks). Yet it turns out that its duality is about much more than silliness or shock. The tense binary in Koonss Rabbit plugs in to tensions that took off in Western art at least 500 years ago, at just the moment when the High Art tradition that we live in now was born. Thats when the gleam that fills our eyes when we look at Koonss sculpture began to seem more suspect than cherished. At least as early as Homeric Greece, and probably for millennia before that, the effulgent reflection off polished metal had been the perfect stand-in for the effulgence of divine power and grace. As the philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly have argued, when Homer describes Helen of Troy as shining among women, and then catalogues the golden gifts that she has received, the poet is invoking a world-view where the sparkle of beauty is a source of sacred wonder. Once Homers descendants had perfected large-scale bronze casting, their temples overflowed with lifelike figures polished to a brassy gleam that could easily pass for gold. The tarnished greens and browns and blacks that we now see when we come across the bronzes of antiquity are an accident of ageing and chemistry; it wasnt at all what the Greeks and Romans were after in their own metalwork. Civic decrees commanded that statues be cleaned to a shine. In the Middle Ages, after artists had abandoned the glories of lifelike bodies, they stuck with the glory of polished metal. The painters of Byzantine icons revelled in the licks of golden dazzle called chrysography actual beaten gold glued down and burnished as lightning bolts of splendour that spread across the surface of any sacred figure. You can tell the power and status of Byzantine saints by the amount of effulgence they release in a painting. The sparkle of Byzantine mosaics was likewise much more than a surface effect: it reflected literally the dazzling illumination of Christian faith. When medieval philosophers wrote about aesthetics, claritas was a central concept they invoked, and it had a lot to do with brilliant glow. This taste for gleam survived into the early years of the Italian Renaissance. Artists formed an image of the classical past that was partly shaped by the culture they saw surviving among the Romans of Byzantium, with their golden icons and mosaics. For much of the 15th century, when Renaissance culturati imagined the glories of antiquity they imagined a world of wildly ornate decoration and ostentatious glow, not of drab white togas billowing among dull white columns. Their paintings conceived of the bronze idols worshipped by the pagan Romans more accurately than we do: they portrayed them with almost as high a polish as Koonss rabbit. Theres a good chance that in the early decades of the 15th century, when Florentine artists cast the first life-sized bronzes since antiquity, they buffed them to shine like the golden gifts of Helen. The irrepressible, inescapable shine of Koonss Rabbit has, says Gopnik, come to stand for retrograde and forbidden pleasures. Artwork Jeff Koons The green and gloom of tarnish and patina only struck those statues and, you might say, us decades later, when gleam somehow got dropped from the repertoire of antique imaginings, and also from serious high art. Already in the 1430s, Leon Battista Alberti, the first modern intellectual to write at length about art, was launching an anti-gleam movement that soon gathered force. Some artists use a lot of gold in their paintings, wrote Alberti. They think it lends them heft. Im not in favour of it. An artist deserves more praise if he can capture the sparkle of gold by means of paint. A matte and dulled reality took over the surface of paintings; the dazzle of gold got exiled to their frames, as second-class ornament. Five centuries later, Albertis view had more force than ever. No ornament can any longer be made today by anyone who lives on our cultural level Freedom from ornament is a sign of spiritual strength, wrote the architect Adolf Loos in 1913, in a famous essay that equated the decorative with ignorance and crime. With Looss words, gleam and sparkle, the ultimate in decoration and once a sure sign of pure spirit passed out of acceptable use in the most serious modern art. Which is what made them so very powerful 73 years later, in Koonss Rabbit. Its irrepressible, inescapable shine has come to stand for retrograde and forbidden pleasures. Those pleasures still carry the odour of power and spirit that they did for the first few millennia of human metalwork, but now that power strikes us as threat, not grace. The rabbits effulgence is demonic and dissolute, not heavenly. To be properly modern, the beasts surface ought not to shine. Its sheen stood for a shining materiality that had become a purely surface effect, with no promise of underlying power Economics played a role in our change of heart. Over the course of the 19th century, paper money and credit replaced shiny coinage and gold as the sign and vehicle of wealth. By 1959, the gold-obsessed Auric Goldfinger seemed the perfect superannuated supervillain for Ian Fleming to pit against James Bond, most modern of spies. To kill a beauty who has betrayed him to Bond, Goldfinger covers her naked body in a glossy coat of golden paint. Its a lugubrious modern twist on the ancient Greek story of Danae, with the difference that when Zeus visited that princess in a shower of gold it wasnt meant as punishment but as a sign of special favour. (The great hero Perseus was the result of that gleaming rape.) Its no surprise that when Ian Fleming describes Bonds bespoke, post-war Bentley convertible, the secret agents customisation included having her painted matte gray and Bond loved her more than all the women at present in his life rolled, if that were feasible, together. In contrast, Fleming gives Goldfinger, gilder of women, an ancient, boxy Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost whose body is made of solid gold. In 1971, the Gold Standard that had structured the world economy for the previous century finally came to an end. The drab virtuality of market forces took full control instead. Gold tumbled from being the lynchpin of global wealth, imbued with a power that was at once purely symbolic and utterly material, to being the stuff of nouveau-riche baubles and rappers teeth. Koonss terrible bunny was just the latest, or last, avatar of the gleaming feeding machine in Chaplins Modern Times or of the evil robot-woman in Fritz Langs Metropolis. Artwork Jeff Koons Jeff Koons was 16 at this moment when gleam lost whatever gloss of numen it once had. Fifteen years later, when his shiny rabbit was born, its sheen stood for this emptying out for a shining materiality that had become a purely surface effect, with no promise of underlying power. The anxiety provoked by his bunny comes partly from the emptiness we recognise in it: its gleam no longer carries the meaning that millennia of human culture had led us to expect. Worse yet, the bunny reflects, in every sense of the word, the emptiness that all art seemed to suffer from in that first fully post-Modern moment. Modernisms pretence of depth had finally been peeled away. Or maybe modernity hadnt completely excised the power and meaning of gloss. It still carried one notable charge, but it was hardly spiritual and it could have dark implications. Early in the 20th century, when Constantin Brancusi began making bronze sculptures that came polished to a golden sheen, their finish had less to do with the divine gleam of Greek sculpture (the sculptor could not have known that had ever existed) than with the polished brass of steam fittings and ships propellers. Gleam had come to stand for modern industry and its precision parts; in a strange reversal, shine could now be seen as part of Looss modernist paring-away, but spirit got pared away in the process. In one final step, the brass that had powered the earlier Industrial Revolution (and Brancusi) gave way to the chrome and stainless steel favoured by the artists and designers of the Bauhaus and their successors including, in the end of days, Koons. Modernitys perilous gloss acquired extra threat, ironically, from being applied to Koonss silly rabbit But by the time of Rabbit, art had almost completely left behind the technophilia found in the gleaming skyscraper sculptures that Man Ray and John Storrs had conceived before the Second World War. In the 1980s, the American economy was reeling from industrys disappearance and the American environment was showing clear symptoms of that industrys ill effects; glossy perfection was coming to hold more threat than promise. Koonss terrible bunny was just the latest, or last, avatar of the gleaming feeding machine in Chaplins Modern Times or of the evil robot-woman in Fritz Langs Metropolis, two early predictors of the eventual fall from grace of the machine-polished surface. Modernitys perilous gloss acquired extra threat, ironically, from being applied to Koonss silly rabbit. That rabbit stands for representation at its most basic, as just about the easiest creature for any kid or unskilled adult to draw. (If you get the two floppy ears youve captured a bunny, whereas dogs, mice, koalas and cats need more care and detail not to be confused with each other.) Which means the rabbit also stands for everything that might be represented. It becomes the ultimate, all-encompassing modern icon, but in a kind of devilish parody of the original all-encompassing One, the Christ Pantocrator of Byzantine art. Sign up today The Online Magazine delivers the best features, videos, and auction news to your inbox every week Subscribe Markov Lineal Star Holdings announced plans to purchase a Houston-based engineering and procurement firm as part of its strategy to offer a full range of engineering, procurement, specialty construction and upstream, midstream and downstream field services. "While it is necessary for us to keep the name of our planned acquisition confidential until closing, this is a well-respected engineering firm with internationally experienced industry leaders who will continue to operate the firm and drive new growth in partnership with the Lineal team," Chief Operating Officer Craig Crawford said in an announcement. "We believe the two combined companies will be a powerful combined resource for our clients." The new Houston energy startup Spur Energy Partners said it will partner with the private equity firm KKR & Co. for financing to develop oil and gas acreage in the booming Permian Basin. Spur Energy was founded by Jay Graham and his team after selling Houston's WildHorse Resource Development for $3 billion late last year to Chesapeake Energy. KKR said it expects to develop a multibillion-dollar partnership with Spur Energy moving forward. While Spur will initially focus on the New Mexico portion of the Permian, WildHorse was an oil and gas company that honed in on the northeastern portion of the Eagle Ford shale outside of College Station. Spur is a private corporation - at least for now - while WildHorse was publicly traded. RELATED: Houston driller WildHorse acquired by shale pioneer Chesapeake Spur Energy will start out relatively small, with 22,000 net acres in New Mexico, and plans to grow with the help of New York-based KKR's financial muscle. But Spur Energy also will look to develop other U.S. shale assets throughout the Lower 48. "KKR is the ideal partner for Spur as we look to build a large scale business in the oil and gas sector that creates value through exceptional technical and operational execution," Graham said. "We look forward to working together as we make our first investment in this high-quality asset with a strong existing production base and attractive development potential." KKR will fund the partnership through what it calls its Energy Real Assets strategy, which has invested $4 billion through 12 transactions since 2015. Restaurateur Claire Smith has announced she will close her Canopy restaurant and adjacent Woodbar in Montrose. After 10 years in Montrose at 3939 Montrose, the side-by-side operations the restaurant and its sister property, an all-day coffee and cocktail bar will have their final service on May 26. The owners of the popular Hungry's restaurants in Houston are expanding into the suburbs with their new brand, Local Table. Next stop, Cypress. The casual neighborhood restaurant serving a menu of fresh, Mediterranean-inspired fare with Southwest influences, will open June 3 at 10535 Fry Road in the Lakeland Village Center, Cypress. It is the second Local Table concept after the first opened in Villagio Town Center in Katy in 2016. JOINING FORCES: Cafe Annie takes on powerful Houston restaurant partner "Bringing familiar inner-city vibes to the suburbs, Local Table offers a cool yet comfortable place where our neighbors can relax, unwind, dine, celebrate special events and enjoy quality time with family and friends over healthy meals," said Hungry's owner Ashkan Nowamooz. "As their lives have evolved and they start their own families, many have moved beyond Houston proper. Local Table brings what they know and love from town without the drive to their own neighborhood." Shervin and Neima Sharifi, Local Table owners and nephew of Hungry's founder Fred Sharifi, are opening the restaurant with a focus on fresh, locally sourced ingredients used in a globally inspired menu. Appetizers include hummus, spinach artichoke dip, quesadillas, baked goat cheese, and a variety of soups including Cuban black bean, Southwestern chicken tortilla or fire-roasted tomato basil. There are burgers, wraps, stuffed pitas and tacos. The menu moves on to salads and bowls, pizza, and entrees including gyro plates, kebabs with rice, meatloaf, lemon pasta, penne with fire-roasted tomato cream sauce, Mediterranean salmon, poblano chicken, Tuscan grilled chicken, honey ginger glazed salmon, and Southern chicken-fried chicken. Vegetarian, vegetarian and gluten-free options, too. ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Craft breweries, distilleries find a happy home in Houston The new restaurant, designed by Palmer Schooley and Laura Young of Schooleydesign, features a contemporary design of brick, wood, steel and lighted CTX marquee letters against a copper accent wall. The dining room can accommodate 150 including a 15-seat bar and a dog-friendly patio with another 40 seats. Local Table is located in Cypress' Bridgeland master-planned community. The restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner daily, weekend brunch, and weekday happy hour from 3 to 6. Greg Morago writes about food for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter. Send him news tips at greg.morago@chron.com. Hear him on our BBQ State of Mind podcast to learn about Houston and Texas barbecue culture. The Houston area homeless population decreased by 5 percent this year after an uptick in 2018 attributed to the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey, according to results of an annual count released on Wednesday. The 2019 Homeless Count & Survey, conducted from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24, found a total of 3,938 individuals experiencing homelessness in the Houston, Pasadena, Harris County, Fort Bend County and Montgomery County areas. Global oil demand will grow more slowly than previously thought following an economic lull in Asia, the International Energy Agency said, while warning that supplies stand to tighten due to U.S. sanctions on Iran. Disappointing fuel consumption in China, Japan and Brazil meant 2019 started with a tough quarter, the agency said, lowering its global demand estimate for the first time since October. As a result, world oil inventories surprisingly swelled during the first three months of the year. Nonetheless, stockpiles are set to plunge sharply this quarter as demand picks up and as U.S. sanctions squeeze production in Iran, which could fall this month to the lowest since the countrys war with Iraq in the 1980s, the IEA said. ATTACKED: Saudis halt oil pipe on attack claimed by Iran-backed rebels There is a modest offset to supply worries from the demand side, the Paris-based agency, which advises major economies on energy policy, said in its monthly report. Even so, slower demand growth is likely to be short-lived, as we believe that the pace will pick up during the rest of the year. Oil prices are holding just above $70 a barrel in London as traders await the full impact of American sanctions on Iran, and clarity on how quickly other OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia raise production to offset any losses. Tensions in the Middle East flared this week as Riyadh said two oil tankers and some facilities came under attack. The IEA slashed estimates for global oil demand in the first quarter by 400,000 barrels a day, and for the year as a whole by a more modest 200,000 a day. As a result, the growth rate for 2019 was lowered by 90,000 barrels a day to a still healthy 1.3 million a day. Because of the unexpected weakness in demand, oil stockpiles ballooned by 700,000 barrels a day in 1Q -- about seven times as much as previously estimated -- even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners reduced production to keep markets balanced. AT SEA: Saudi oil tankers attacked on way to Persian Gulf The surplus though seems about to turn into tightness as demand recovers, the agency cautioned, with inventories poised to decline by a similar amount this quarter. Stockpiles in developed nations fell by 25.8 million barrels in March and in terms of the levels required to meet projected demand, have already slipped to the lowest since July. Irans oil production has already slumped to the lowest since September 2013 with the onset of renewed U.S. sanctions, to 2.6 million barrels a day, and may plunge to the lowest in decades this month as the penalties take full effect, the IEA said. The agency said it welcomed signals from other producers that theyre prepared to fill the gap. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said in late April that the kingdom will ultimately accommodate Irans customers, though wont rush to increase production. For the time being the Saudis and other OPEC members are keeping output steady, pumping 30.2 million barrels a day last month, according to the IEA. Key OPEC nations will confer with partners such as Russia and Kazakhstan in the Saudi city of Jeddah this weekend on how to manage supplies during the second half of the year. 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Oil rose after a government report showed shrinking U.S. gasoline supplies, suggesting more demand ahead for crude as tensions flare in the Middle East. Futures in New York gained 0.4%, closing at the highest in a week. The Energy Information Administration on Wednesday said domestic gasoline inventories fell 1.12 million barrels, about four times deeper than analysts forecast. Refinery activity also ticked higher, showing crude processors are gearing up consumption after an unusually long maintenance season. That offset a 5.43 million barrel increase in American crude supplies that was less than some of the most bearish estimates had suggested. PREVIOUSLY: Oil rises as drones strike Saudi pipeline and trade fears recede "It's a good demand indicator," said Brian Kessens, who helps manage $16 billion in energy investments at Kansas-based money manager Tortoise. "The market is taking this report in stride or even seeing it as a bit better than many had expected." Prices rose on Tuesday after a drone attack in Saudi Arabia highlighted vulnerabilities in the world's biggest oil exporter. In another ominous sign, the U.S. ordered all non-emergency American government staff to leave Iraq, citing a rising threat from Iranian-backed forces. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery gained 24 cents to $62.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent for July settlement rose 53 cents to $71.77 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. RELATED: IEA cuts oil-demand forecast, but sees market tightening on Iran Oil has swung between gains and losses this month as investors weigh an increasingly tense situation in the Persian Gulf and supply disruptions in other OPEC nations against an escalating U.S.-China trade conflict that threatens to curb consumption. The International Energy Agency on Wednesday cut its forecast for demand growth, citing weak economic data in Asia. "We've become used now to the ongoing supply worries," IEA Head of Oil Industry and Markets Neil Atkinson said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The latest attacks in the Gulf appear not to have caused any "sustained damage" and the market "remains focused on the underlying fundamentals." --With assistance from Amanda Jordan, James Thornhill and Sharon Cho. 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing premiered 30 years ago this summer, and a rewatch of the film reveals the story's ideas still are relevant today. Perhaps the biggest difference in the days of Do The Right Thing's release and 2019 America is the reception the movie would receive. In 1989, Do The Right Thing didn't even earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in a year when Driving Miss Daisy the ideological opposite of Lee's movie took home the award. The Montgomery City Council has awarded the bid for the Stewart Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant lift station relocation. The council unanimously approved the recommendation of Jones and Carter to award the bid to the Veritas Management Company, LLC DBA Black Castle General Contractor for $1.09 million and 180 days. If the project is not completed within that period, the contract includes a $500 penalty per day until the job is done. We have worked with them multiple times in the past they have done good work for us, Katherine Vu with Jones and Carter said. The lift station is being relocated for the Shoppes of Montgomery development off Texas 105, which will make room for a new Chick-Fil-A, Vu said. Construction will begin as soon as the paperwork is completed following Tuesdays approval, which Vu anticipates will be in about a week. She said a total of five contractors submitted bids for the work. After a review of qualifications, the contractor was determined to be the most advantageous bidder due to the cost and time for the project. Other bids received included R&B Group, 5 J Services LLC, B-5 Construction Co. Inc, Peltier Brothers Construction Ltd, By: PB, LLC; its general partner. These bids ranged between $1,088,100- $1,347,679; and from 210-240 days. The project is partially funded by Texas Water Development Board funds and The Shoppes at Montgomery developer, according to City Administrator Jack Yates. Yates said $200,000 has been provided from the developer and the remaining funds will come from the approved TWDB project and will be funded by the TWDB loan. The council also unanimously approved awarding the bid to DL Glover, Inc for the construction of the remaining portion of the 18-inch gravity sanitary sewer line from the sewage treatment plant to the new location of lift station No. 1. for the proposed amount of $135,984. The city has received payment for this line from The Shoppes of Montgomery developer who is responsible for the costs, per the 380 Development Agreement, according to Yates. While Jones and Carter have not worked with the contractor before, the firm recommended the option due to the price difference. The other two bids received included Randy Roan Construction, Inc at $149,163. and R Construction Civil, LLC and $478,770. The council weighed whether to select the lowest bidder due to concerns that have been raised in the past about the value of the work following issues with past projects, including on Baja Road and Martin Luther King Blvd. Jones and Carter have worked with Randy Roan Construction, which the council pointed out was also a local contractor, who also completed the first phase of the project. Ultimately, the council chose to go with the recommendation of Jones and Carter with a unanimous vote for DL Glover, which recently completed a similar project in Houston and had good feedback from the reference. mellsworth@hcnonline.com SUGAR LANDWhite star-shaped balloons. Pink heart-shaped balloons. Silver and pink crown-shaped balloons that said "princess." All floated away into the pale sky as the sun set Wednesday, carried northwest by the wind until several hundred onlookers, gathered in a Sugar Land park to honor missing 4-year-old Maleah Davis, could see them no more. A group of friends who knew Maleah's mom growing up organized the event in the missing girl's honor. They wore pale blue T-shirts with the image of Maleah's face. As the balloons floated away, one wrapped her arm around the other, who wiped away tears. They wanted to add a moment of positivity to a story that otherwise felt so tragic, Dominique Bryant said. "We're doing this for Maleah," said Bryant, 27. It had been more than a week since Maleah was reported missing. The live-in boyfriend of her mother, Brittany Bowens, was taken into custody related to the case. The girl has not yet been reported found. The crowd who came to honor the girl included neighbors, relatives and strangers. Gathered at the park was a neighbor of Maleah's, who remembered seeing her outside. A cousin of her biological father, who thanked everyone for their support. And the father of Jazmine Barnes, a 7-year-old shot in her mother's car in what was initially believed to be a racially motivated incident. He saw in Maleah's case another example of a child lost to violence. "It's a relapse moment for us," her father, Christopher Cevilla said. And then there were complete strangers, many of them mothers. If it were their child, they would want people looking. ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Protesters mob Maleah Davis mother after court hearing for her boyfriend There were two prayers. Poetry. Words from the audience. Some still held out hope she was alive. Others were less certain. They urged everyone to report abuse if they saw it and not let a scenario such as Maleah's be repeated. "I feel like she's my own," Valarie Berniard said. "It's heartbreaking. It's very much heartbreaking." Berniard had been off from her job at a nearby nursing home since 2 p.m., but stayed in the area to be a part of the event. Before it started, she found herself in a conversation with Carol Smith, 65. They shared their concern for what happened. "When anything happens to a young child... it touches your heart, and you want answers," said Smith, 65, a monitor technician at St Luke's. The search for Maleah on Wednesday continued in the small Brazoria County community of Rosharon as a small crew from Texas EquuSearch scoured the area where her mother's boyfriend once worked a mail route, organizers said. Later on Wednesday, Texas EquuSearch found Tim Miller said they would be suspending their operations in the search for Maleah until something more substantive turns up. "It is frustrating. We've been here before with other cases," Miller said. "We're hoping some new information comes in." His search and rescue outfit would "continue to work closely with investigators, and follow-up on credible tips & leads," Miller said in a written statement. Derion Vence, the live-in boyfriend of Maleah's mother who faces charges of tampering with a corpse, reported the girl missing May 4, only to have his claims that she was abducted break down as the Houston Police Department continued its investigation. Blood linked to the girl's DNA was found inside the family's apartment in the 9800 block of South Kirkwood Drive where Maleah lived with her mother, Brittany Bowens, and Vence, her fiance, police said. Adding to the grim prospect that Maleah may have been killed is that two police dogs sniffed out "the scent of decomposition" in the silver Nissan Altima that Vence was driving the night of the girl's reported disappearance, documents state. The car was found in a Missouri City parking lot with a gas can and a laundry basket in the trunk. Vence worked as a mail carrier, Miller said, and had a route in the Rosharon area. Equusearch has received several tips over the last few days indicating she might be in the area, or somewhere in Fort Bend County. Miller said that Vence once indicated to family that he would hide a body in the marshy area. "He actually said to his mother-in-law a year ago, he said, 'man, if I ever killed anybody, I've got some places down in Rosharon where they'd never find the body,'" Miller said. He corroborated that with family members, he said. He offered his support to family and community members grappling with Maleah's disappearance. "This is a baby," Miller said. "This baby did not choose where it's at right now and doesn't want to be where it's at right now. It's heartbreaking. We're human. I wish we weren't. I wish we didn't have feelings. Unfortunately, we do. I don't want our emotions to get in the way. At times, that happens. God bless her. We're not going to quit. We may suspend, but we'll never quit." emily.foxhall@chron.com jay.jordan@chron.com Although construction was originally expected to finish by the end of 2019, the completion date for the bridge being built over U.S. 290 from FM 1960 to Highway 6 has been delayed according to Mike Zientek with HNTB, management consultant for the U.S. 290 program. Zientek gave a construction update on U.S. 290 improvements during a Greater Tomball Area Chamber of Commerce mobility and transportation committee meeting Tuesday, May 14. Zientek said the bridges projected completion date has been pushed back into 2020. TxDOT is working with a contractor to revise the schedule for the construction of that bridge, he said. The bridge over U.S. 290 is meant to relieve traffic congestion at the intersection where Hwy. 6 becomes FM 1960. It would allow drivers to avoid the clogged intersection of U.S. 290 and FM 1960 by going over Jackrabbit Road, the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, U.S 290 and Hempstead Road, or entering U.S. 290 on a direct connector from SH 6. RELATED: TxDOT aims to complete a SH 6/FM 1960 bridge over US 290 by late 2019 Zientek said the delay is caused by issues with surrounding infrastructure rather than the actual bridge construction, including unexpected pipelines in the intersection. A lot of pipelines not only relocated but pipelines that no one knew about that were not marked, not mapped and were abandoned, so we have to find out if theyre active and who they belong to, he said. The direct connector ramp from Hwy. 6 to U.S. 290 inbound is currently open for use by drivers, Zientek said. While the bridge lags behind 12 other U.S. 290 improvement projects, Zientek said main lane work is nearly complete on the 290 program overall, minus some final striping and reflector button installment. 12 of our 13 projects are 92% complete or more, which is pretty good, he said. The last piece that had to be opened was a piece between Telge and Mueschke and the contractor opened that about two weeks ago. RELATED: Overhead signs, concrete planned for U.S. 290 during March They want to open the fourth eastbound lane and it will be from Mueschke to Barker Cypress. If it all goes well and thats open by 5 a.m. Monday (May 20) morning, all of our westbound and eastbound main lanes will be open in their final capacity. The construction timeline depends on the weather, especially on the weekends, Zientek said. Several U.S. 290 projects last year were delayed into 2019 due to heavy rain events. Aside from the bridge over 290, all U.S. 290 projects are on track to be complete in 2019. The question we get a lot is, When will you be done like, done; finished? Zientek said. We expect to have all of our main lane work which includes striping and then reflector buttons, all of our cross-street work, all of our frontage road work done by the end of this year. Hwy. 6 is a challenge. The big challenge there is building a new bridge. For more information on U.S. 290, visit my290.com for updates. chevall.pryce@chron.com courtesy of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office A Woodlands woman was taken into custody earlier this week for allegedly burglarizing office suites and vehicles in a Shenandoah strip mall and is accused of stuffing the seized items in a stolen wheeled trash can she was hauling. Morgan Quinn Hall, 31, of The Woodlands, was charged Sunday with two counts of burglary of a building and three counts of burglary of a vehicle. Hall was in possession of passports, a wallet, a cell phone and other items. Officers investigating three vehicle burglaries Hall allegedly committed, found surveillance footage of Hall burglarizing two office suites, according to a Shenandoah release. Alice Rivlin, a master of budgetary policy who held senior positions in the executive and legislative branches of government - notably as founding director of the Congressional Budget Office - and whose stewardship of the District of Columbia Financial Control Board guided the once-insolvent city to solid financial footing, died May 14 at her home in Washington. She was 88. The cause was cancer, said her son Douglas Rivlin. Dr. Rivlin, a centrist Democratic economist known for evenhanded analysis and an unflappable demeanor, weaved in and out of government service over a career spanning more than five decades. During her long affiliation with the Brookings Institution in Washington, she did not push a particular school of economic thought but served as a moderating influence on politically driven ideologies. "She was the decathlete of public policy," said Robert Reischauer, an economist who helped Rivlin set up the Congressional Budget Office in 1975 and later headed the agency. "There is almost no area of public policy where she wasn't active and contributing at a very high level, and that's extremely unusual." As head of the Congressional Budget Office from 1975 to 1983, Rivlin weathered intense political head winds and set the agency on course to be Congress's highly respected arbiter of fiscal policy. In 1994, President Bill Clinton made her the first female director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. From 1996 to 1999, she was vice chair of the Federal Reserve. She had long led analysis of the District of Columbia's increasingly precarious financial condition. In 1990, she headed a commission that warned of imminent financial crisis and called for drastic measures to address a projected deficit of up to $700 million in 1996. The report cited a bloated bureaucracy and cost overruns as central reasons for the impending calamity. Meanwhile, public services were decaying, businesses and middle-class taxpayers were fleeing, the crack cocaine epidemic was raging, and a surge in violent crime earned the city designation as the "murder capital" of the United States. Mayor Marion Barry served six months in prison after being convicted of drug possession, and Sharon Pratt Kelly, his successor in the early 1990s, proved an inexperienced administrator unable to stabilize the city's finances. The city continued to bleed life and money, even worse than under Barry, who made a surprise mayoral comeback in 1994 under the campaign pitch: "I'm in recovery and so is my city." The next year, Congress set up the control board, officially named the D.C. Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, largely on the basis of the report from Rivlin's task force. Local leaders rebelled, with Barry calling the congressional intervention a "rape of democracy." Many civic and community figures who had fought for home rule saw their independence ceded to Congress with the federally appointed panel that stripped the mayor of operational control and installed a chief management officer to run the city government. Andrew Brimmer, a Harvard-trained economist and the first black member of the Federal Reserve Board, was named to lead the panel, and he became a high-profile target of Barry's wrath. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., who once supported the financial takeover, criticized the Brimmer board as acting with an "imperial" style that set "a deeply adversarial tone." Brimmer stepped down after his three-year term ended, by which time the city's fortunes were beginning to make a turnaround. "He took on a really thankless job in 1995," Rivlin later told The Washington Post. "He was deeply unpopular. His office was picketed, and he was called all sorts of names. But he stuck to it and turned things around. He did the really tough work." Rivlin succeeded Brimmer, serving as chairwoman until the board completed its work in 2001. She avoided most of the partisan and racially tinged rancor surrounding the board, preferring to stay in the background. In a 2001 tribute to Rivlin, then-Mayor Anthony Williams compared her to the North Star, which, contrary to popular belief, is not the brightest in the sky - that distinction goes to Sirius - but it is still relied upon for true navigation. The low-key Rivlin "doesn't have the biggest radiance and the biggest candlepower," Williams said, but she was central to bringing the District back from the brink. "She helped save Washington, D.C.," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican budget analyst who ran the CBO from 2003 to 2005. "She never talked about it and she never took credit for it, but the outcome was fantastic - the city was solvent." Georgianna Alice Mitchell - she always preferred her middle name - was born in Philadelphia on March 4, 1931. Her father was a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later became a professor. Her mother was a national officer of the League of Women Voters. She graduated in 1948 from the private Madeira School in McLean, Virginia, and in 1952 from Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. She received a master's degree in 1955 and a doctorate in 1958, both in economics, from Radcliffe College in Massachusetts. Her first marriage, to lawyer Lewis Rivlin, ended in divorce. In 1989, she married Sidney Winter, an economist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. Besides her husband, of Washington, survivors include three children from her first marriage, Catherine Rivlin of Palo Alto, California, and Allan Rivlin and Douglas Rivlin, both of Washington; two stepsons, Jeff Winter of Mendocino, California, and Kit Winter of Los Angeles; and five grandchildren. Rivlin was working at Brookings when, in 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson named her - then a rising researcher on budgetary and social programs - deputy assistant secretary for program analysis at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. After the Watergate scandal drove President Richard Nixon from office in 1974, Congress created the CBO in response to what it perceived as executive branch overreach. The agency offered Congress independent economic analysis that would at times challenge the administration's Office of Management and Budget. In her roles across government, Rivlin avoided ideology while deflating overly rosy presidential and congressional economic projections. She often saw greater costs and fewer savings than many political leaders were willing to acknowledge. In 1977, the CBO assessed President Jimmy Carter's energy program and found that energy savings would not measure up to his promises. "It made the Carter Administration unhappy," Rivlin told the New York Times in 1982. "It also made [House Speaker Thomas 'Tip' O'Neill Jr., D-Mass.] unhappy. He was fighting for the legislation and the CBO wasn't helping." During Ronald Reagan's first administration, she projected deficits far higher than those anticipated in his budgets, leading the president to pronounce her numbers "phony." When conservatives wanted to replace her, she hung tough and kept her job. She left in 1983 after her term expired, heading back to Brookings. During her years at the CBO, Rivlin joined a group of high-powered women who took trips and met regularly to discuss policy. She was cautious about publicly expressing feminist beliefs, but, during a stint as a Washington Post editorial writer in 1974, she wrote an essay highlighting the daily acts of male condescension that professional women face. She discussed one man who "urged me to apply for a minor administrative post at his third-rate university because 'they want a woman, and it's an awfully important job to consider a woman for.' " She said other men - including a U.S. senator - expressed surprise upon meeting her that a serious female economist would not be "chunkier" or "wear a tight bun and sensible shoes." In 1983, Rivlin received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, often called a "genius grant." Her other awards included a $100,000 prize from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research in 2016 for her efforts to improve everyday lives through economic policy. She taught at Harvard, Georgetown and George Mason universities and wrote or co-wrote books including "Caring for the Disabled Elderly" (1988) and "Reviving the American Dream" (1992). In a 1994 Post profile, Rivlin was criticized as having a political blind spot. An anonymous congressional source, recalling her time at the CBO, said she tended not to anticipate such questions as: "What are the political ramifications of this? Who's going to be [teed] off? Do you give a heads-up here or there? Some things are so clear to her that she thinks surely everyone must think this way." Rivlin acknowledged a degree of truth in the description. But, she added, "If you get too cautious, you'll end up saying nothing at all." When Victor Vescovo's submarine hit the floor of the Mariana Trench, it sent the sediment swirling. "At bottom," the Texas businessman-turned-extreme-explorer said into his headset. "Repeat: At bottom." In a control room some 35,853 feet above, Vescovo's dive team clapped and cheered. Congratulations were in order: they had just set a record. The American had descended deeper into the ocean than any person before him. An upturned Mount Everest would still be a mile from where his vessel then sat. Vescovo spent four hours down there, he told The Washington Post. The crevice in the western Pacific Ocean is one of the most remote places on Earth, where the sun doesn't shine and the pressure is crushing. He was literally charting new territory, mapping his route for future researchers, when he noticed something familiar among the otherworldly terrain. Trash. Some sort of plastic waste. Initial reports indicated it was a bag, or maybe a candy wrapper. But those theories weren't quite right, officials now say. Whether it was flotsam or jetsam is secondary. The find is, no matter what, the imprint of a species that has polluted the planet like none other. A people whose detritus precedes them. Vescovo spotted it from his titanium cocoon. He was looking out over the Challenger Deep, Earth's deepest known point, in the trench's hadal zone, a region of the ocean named after the underworld god of Greek mythology, Hades. What he saw was sublime and serene. Translucent creatures undulated around his craft, Vescovo said. He was struck at how alive his surroundings were. "There was definitely life at the very bottom of the ocean," he said. "It was not dead by any means. ... I felt very excited, privileged to get to see it, but also very much at peace because it really is a quiet, peaceful, place." The expedition identified at least three new species of marine animals, its scientists said, including a kind of amphipod, a crustacean that resembles a shrimp. Yet, even as the team discovered new life, it could not escape signs of the man-made havoc that will likely kill off many more species faster than humans can discover them. "I was disappointed to see human contamination in the deepest point in the ocean," Vescovo said. "With over seven billion people on the Earth, the oceans are going to be impacted negatively by mankind, but I hope we can at least minimize it in the future." Reports of Vescovo's findings prompted Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, which advocates for ocean cleanup projects, to pose a dire question on Twitter: "A sub dive 7 miles deep in the ocean at the Mariana Trench finds possible new species of shrimp and a plastic bag. How long will the former survive if there's more of the latter?" An alarming, landmark United Nations report released this month illustrated a version of Clinton's point: as the population of humans has rapidly increased, the population of everything else has steadily declined. "How long can the two trend lines continue to head in opposite directions?" asked the author Elizabeth Kolbert in an essay for the New Yorker. "This is the key question raised by the report, and it may turn out to be the key question of the century." A summary of the report warned that, "Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history - and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating." The report's nearly 150 authors found that human actions have "severely altered" 66 percent of the world's marine environments, threatening a third of all marine mammals with extinction. The lone piece of waste Vescovo sighted isn't going to single-handedly kill off an entire species. But its very presence is yet another reminder of humanity's far-reaching impact. In a study published earlier this year, British researchers analyzed amphipods - similar to the ones Vescovo identified - captured in six of the ocean's deepest trenches, including Mariana. They found plastic particles in more than 70 percent of the creatures they tested and in all of the amphipods from the Mariana Trench. The study's implications are striking: before we even discover some of these underwater species, they're already all too familiar with one of man's most prolific creations. Before they even enter the taxonomy, they have plastic coursing through them. "We can now say with confidence that plastic is everywhere," the study's lead author Alan Jamieson told National Geographic. The Deep-sea Debris Database, maintained by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, allows for an up-close examination of some of this trash, including a few pieces found on dives into the Mariana Trench. Vescovo's find would be the deepest piece of debris in the database. Vescovo's expedition was the third time a team had dived to the bottom of Challenger Deep. Before him, the filmmaker James Cameron made the trek in 2012. U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and the Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard were the first to do it in 1960. But neither team dove as deep as Vescovo, who also became the first person to repeat the feat, over a week in late April and early May. The journeys were part of his Five Deeps Expedition, which is being filmed for the Discovery Channel. The submarine technology has improved so much, Vescovo said, that he sees this as the beginning of a golden age of underwater exploration. His vessel, made by a company called Triton, recently gained commercial certification, which means more could soon be made. "Such a thing has never existed before," Vescovo said. "... We can make more of them, to really open up the 90 percent of the ocean that has heretofore remained unexplored." If and when that happens, a legion of scientists and adventurers could follow Vescovo to depths never-before explored, destined to make countless crucial discoveries. But when those subs ascend back toward the waves, and the silt settles in their wake, they'll leave behind the trash that beat them there, the unmistakable trace of humanity. by Vladimir Rozanskij Moscow (AsiaNews) - For the past few weeks the Patriarch Emeritus of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, the 90-year-old Filaret (Denisenko), has been in conflict with the new Metropolitan Epifanyj (Dumenko), his former secretary and successor at the helm of the "national" Orthodox Church . Filaret has threatened to separate from Epifanyj, to create an independent patriarchy, of which he intends to convene a founding synod. The elderly hierarch of Soviet times, who was the first to separate from the patriarchate of Moscow in the 1990s, complains about the young metropolitan's lack of attention to him, despite having retained the primatial name. From the establishment of the new autocephalous Church in early February, Epifanyj would have met Filaret no more than five times. Instead, the patriarch emeritus would like to remain at the side of the successor and first metropolitan of the new Church, to guide the flock of the faithful together and "defend our Church", especially after the April elections in which the president "protector of the Church", Petro Poroshenko, was replaced with the much more secular Volodymyr Zelensky. The new president has already met Epifanyj, without however making promises to the local Orthodox, who nonetheless declared that they wanted to support him. Filaret claims to be named as patriarch in all liturgies of the Orthodox Church, which happens only in some churches, while the name Epifanyj is mentioned in litanies everywhere. The old patriarch continues to deem the jurisdiction he founded to be active, separating himself from Moscow in 1992, and sends his letters on the headed paper of the "Patriarchate of Kiev". He claims to have been "forced" by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople not to advance his candidacy to the founding council last December, otherwise the new Church would now have him as its guide, and he would make use of patriarchal status. The patriarch is not even satisfied with the statute approved by Constantinople with the Tomos of autocephaly, which effectively puts the Ukrainian Church in close dependence on the ecumenical patriarchate, as happens in variable mode for all the other Orthodox Churches, except the Russian one. It is not by chance that the only patriarchies that have the title "metropolitan" are the ancient ones of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem (apart from the papacy of Rome), to which Moscow then forced its addition. The other autocephalous churches have different titles, even patriarchal, but always "national" (patriarchate of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, etc.), to indicate a more local function, where as the "holy cities" have rather a universal value. It is the historical claim of Moscow to be the "Third Rome", and Filaret would like to attribute this symbolic value also to Kiev, the ancient "mother of Russian cities". Filaret's statements are creating a lot of confusion among the faithful, where a good part of the clergy is still very attached to the patriarch emeritus, while some groups of lay people have already circulated protests against the interference of the old Soviet hierarch. Someone even puts forward the hypothesis of a revocation of the Tomos, in the event of excessive internal divisions of the new Church. For his part, Metropolitan Epifanyj has not commented on the criticisms and threats of his former mentor turned opponent, but some of his statements have created further discussions. According to the Metropolitan of Kiev, "the union with the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, headed by Major Archbishop Svyatoslav (Shevchuk), with whom he has found considerable synthesis. Speaking to Espresso.TV, Epipanyj recalled that "with the Greek-Catholics we are carrying out many important projects, and we are participating together in many demonstrations", and apparently there is already discussion of a possible unification. "In a meeting with His Beatitude Svjatoslav, we talked about further deepening our collaboration. In it we develop a dialogue, and we do not know how far it will take us; theoretically, it is even ultimately possible to reach union ". In the opinion of the head of the autocephalous church, all the Ukrainian Orthodox are destined to unify, meaning both those of Muscovite obedience, and Greek-Catholics. There is no shortage of candid opinions on British actress Jameela Jamil's Twitter feed. Aside from starring on NBC's "The Good Place," the 33-year-old is best known for being an outspoken activist, often weighing in on issues from body positivity to sex and consent. This week, Jamil joined the chorus speaking out against highly restrictive abortion legislation being passed or considered by a number of states nationwide. In a series of impassioned tweets on Monday criticizing Georgia's "heartbeat bill," Jamil revealed she had an abortion - a choice, she said, she does not regret. "I had an abortion when I was young, and it was the best decision I have ever made," she tweeted. "Both for me, and for the baby I didn't want, and wasn't ready for, emotionally, psychologically and financially." The actress rebuked the bill that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, R, signed into law last week, banning abortions after doctors are able to detect a "fetal heartbeat in the womb," which usually occurs about six weeks into pregnancy. At that time, most women don't even know if they are pregnant. "This anti-abortion law in Georgia is so upsetting, inhumane, and blatantly demonstrative of a hatred of women, a disregard for our rights, bodies, mental health," Jamil tweeted, describing the bill as "essentially a punishment for rape victims," who are forced "to carry the baby of their rapist." She added that the law disproportionately affects women "without the means/ability to move state." "Women who are marginalized, poor or disabled will, as ever, be the ones to suffer the most," she wrote in another tweet. "The wealthy will have so much more freedom." With her tweets this week, Jamil inserted herself into a national debate that is only becoming more intense as state legislatures rush to challenge Roe v. Wade under a newly reconstituted Supreme Court by passing increasingly strict bans on abortion. Late Tuesday, the Alabama Senate passed what has been described as "the nation's most restrictive abortion ban," which doesn't make exceptions for victims of rape or incest, The Washington Post reported. States including Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio have also passed "heartbeat" laws. Jamil was praised by activists who thanked her for using her platform to "destigmatize conversations around abortion." "Each person who speaks openly about their abortion is helping to destroy the expectation of silence and increase collective compassion!" one person tweeted. In the aftermath of Kemp signing the "heartbeat bill," Jamil wasn't the only celebrity to come forward about having an abortion. Last week, actress Busy Philipps tearfully spoke about how she got an abortion when she was 15 years old on her late-night show, "Busy Tonight." "I know that people feel very strongly about abortion, but let me just say this: Women and their doctors are in the best position to make informed decisions about what is best for them," Philipps said. "Nobody else. Nobody." She went on to say that laws criminalizing abortion wouldn't stop anyone from making "this incredibly personal choice," adding that the legislation would more likely put women at risk. "I'm genuinely scared for women and girls all over this country," Philipps said. But while Jamil and Philipps both publicly addressed having abortions, "The Good Place" star faced intense outcry from critics who were irked by her suggestions that an abortion was the "best decision" for the unborn fetus and that banning the procedure could result in "so many children" ending up in foster homes. "So many lives ruined," Jamil wrote on Monday. "So very cruel." Many argued that the fetus was not given a choice. Others shared personal stories defending the foster care system and adoption. About 20 minutes after sharing her abortion story, Jamil posted another tweet clarifying her comment about foster homes. "[T]his isn't any diss at ALL to foster homes," she wrote. "I'm in awe of people who take in children in need of a family and a home: but if Georgia becomes inundated with children who are unwanted or unable to be cared for, it will be hard to find great fostering for them all." The tweet did little to quell the outrage, and Jamil continued to respond to her detractors on Tuesday. "This is me watching people who don't know me... especially men (who have no idea what motherhood or pregnancy is like...) tell me that I should have had the baby I didn't want and wasn't ready for..." she tweeted. When the news broke late Tuesday night that the Alabama bill would not have an exception for victims of rape and incest, Jamil's reaction was blunt. "Truly disgusting," she tweeted. Curious just how far your dollar goes in Houston? 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 rental in Houston if you're on a budget of $800/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. 10950 Briar Forest Drive (Briarforest Area) Here's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment located at 10950 Briar Forest Drive. It's listed for $800/month. The building features a swimming pool and a fitness center. In the furnished unit, you'll get a dishwasher and stainless steel appliances. Pets are not welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that this location is somewhat walkable, is bikeable and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Take a gander at the complete listing here.) 7000 Greenbriar Drive, #2386 (University Place) Next, check out this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment that's located at 7000 Greenbriar Drive, #2386. It's also listed for $800/month. Neither cats nor dogs are welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the surrounding area is moderately walkable, is very bikeable and has excellent transit. (Check out the complete listing here.) 915 Silber Road, #4541 (Greater Uptown) Listed at $800/month, this one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment is located at 915 Silber Road, #4541. Animals are not welcome. Future tenants needn't worry about a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the area around this address is somewhat walkable, is bikeable and has a few nearby public transportation options. (Take a look at the complete listing here.) 7901 Amelia Road (Spring Branch East) Next, there's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom over at 7901 Amelia Road. It's listed for $800/month for its 740 square feet of space. Building amenities include on-site laundry, secured entry and outdoor space. In the unit, there's air conditioning, hardwood flooring and a balcony. Luckily for pet owners, both dogs and cats are welcome. According to Walk Score, the surrounding area is somewhat walkable, is very bikeable and has some transit options. (Check out the complete listing here.) 6700 Chimney Rock Road (Gulfton) Finally, check out this 575-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's located at 6700 Chimney Rock Road. It's listed for $799/month. In the unit, you'll have air conditioning, hardwood flooring and a balcony. When it comes to building amenities, expect on-site laundry, a fitness center and a swimming pool. Good news for animal lovers: both dogs and cats are welcome here. Walk Score indicates that the surrounding area is quite walkable, is relatively bikeable and has good 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. by Marian Demir The mother says my son did not convert to Islam. We are Armenians and Christians. The boy had been invited to a live TV event. The theologian Nihat Hatipoglu, who led him to make the Islamic profession of faith, also changed his name. For the Armenian community, this is a genocidal act because it involves the forced conversion of a minor without the presence and permission of the parents. Istanbul (AsiaNews) A 13-year-old Armenian boy was converted to Islam on live TV in Turkey. The case was the top news item in Turkish media. However, the boys parents plan to take the programmes producers to court for tricking their child. Last Saturday, on ATV television, theologian Nihat Hatipoglu, rector of Gaziantep University of Science and Technology, introduced Arthur, a 13-year-old Armenian boy who "wanted" to convert to Islam. In front of thousands of viewers, Arthur became a Muslim, following Hatipoglu by repeating the Islamic profession of faith. Soon after, Hatipoglu asked him if he wanted to change his name, taking his name, Nihat. Hatipoglu then said that Arthur/Nihat was a minor, his mother had been asked for authorisation. In fact, the boys mother, Alina Y., told the website lurer.com that my son did not convert to Islam. We are Armenians and Christians. If I had known, I would have been with my son. Arthur is a naive 13-year-old boy. A Syrian friend of his told him: Come, well talk on live TV. They will give us toys, and we will eat with the stars. And my son went with him. He's a child, he made a mistake, but he did not convert nor was he circumcised." The mother contacted Garo Paylan, a member of the Turkish parliament with the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), to explain that her son was invited to the programme without parental authorisation. Paylan said he would file a child abuse complaint against the programmes producers. For the Armenian community, Hatipoglus action violates the Lausanne Treaty since forced conversion represents a breach of its clauses on the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. What is more, the conversion of children without the presence of their parents is tantamount to forced conversion, which falls within the definition of genocide. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Wednesday used an annual event that honors slain law enforcement officers to highlight the case of a Northern California police corporal allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant and to call on Congress to toughen immigration laws. "Not one more life should be lost because our lawmakers fail to secure our borders," Trump said in remarks at the National Peace Officers' Memorial Service on Capitol Hill. The president contended that the United States has "a corrupt and broken system that can be changed in 20 minutes" and called for several policy changes, as well as construction of his long-promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump's address at the event, which was attended by senior lawmakers from both major parties, came as he prepares to formally unveil an immigration plan this week developed by his son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner. Congress has struggled to reach a compromise on immigration that would address the 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally; the president has embraced a hard-line position. In his remarks, Trump highlighted the slaying of Cpl. Ronil Singh of the Newman, California, Police Department during a traffic stop in December. The man charged in the case is an undocumented immigrant who authorities say crossed into Arizona from Mexico in the past few years and had been working as a farm laborer in California's Central Valley. Trump said Singh's "vicious killer" could have been kept out of the country by a border wall or "whatever the hell it takes." "People are trying to come into our country because our country's doing well," Trump said. "They can't come in like this killer came in." Trump invited Singh's brother and wife to speak to the crowd and relayed that he had invited them to the White House, where they took pictures in the Oval Office. During his remarks, Trump also called for the swift execution of people who kill police officers. "The trial should go fast," he said. "It's got to be fair, but it's got to go fast." Trump has repeatedly called for the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer. In many states as well as in federal cases, killing a law enforcement officer is already on the books as an aggravating factor that can warrant a death sentence. The annual event honors law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. "Your loved ones were extraordinary and selfless Americans," he said at the outset of his remarks. "They embodied our highest ideals, our greatest aspirations." - - - The Washington Post's Mark Berman and Rachael Bade contributed to this report. A Fairfax County, Virginia, supervisor who is running for board chair hired a lawyer to investigate suggestions that his family acquired its five-bedroom home through a quid pro quo arrangement with two local developers. Jeff McKay, D-Lee this week released his lawyer's report, which called the accusations part of a politically driven "witch hunt" meant to smear the supervisor's character. The allegations against McKay, contained in a memo by two lawyers who won't say who paid them to write it, have injected an unusual level of drama into the crowded but mostly polite Democratic race for board chair. McKay - the front-runner among four candidates in the June 11 Democratic primary - confirmed that a developer who is also a close friend built his family's home in the Alexandria portion of his district. But he called the memo's suggestions that the price was a discount related to his support for the 2016 rezoning of a portion of the nearby Kingstowne Towne Center "borderline libelous." Sale records show that McKay and his wife, Crystal, bought the home for $850,000 in 2017, slightly more than its assessed value. "It's totally false to suggest anything was done improperly or any special treatment was given," said McKay, whose campaign agreed to pay $3,000 to have his lawyer investigate the allegations. "It was bought at market rate. He made a profit off the house. This is all smoke and mirrors that's been made up by a political opponent." The memo about McKay began circulating to Fairfax officials and news organizations - including The Washington Post - in early March, from an email account titled "truthfairfax157@gmail.com." Initially, the sender insisted on anonymity. Later, in response to emailed questions, Solomon Wisenberg, a Washington-based partner with the law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, disclosed he had written the document with a colleague. Wisenberg declined to say who hired them to investigate McKay. Two of McKay's Democratic opponents - Georgetown University law professor Alicia Plerhoples and county School Board member Ryan McElveen - said their campaigns were not involved. The fourth Democrat seeking the nomination, developer Tim Chapman, declined to say whether he commissioned the research. Republican Joseph Galdo, who will face the Democratic nominee in November, did not immediately return a call for comment. The memo uses public documents to suggest a timeline for the purchase of McKay's house that coincides with the June 2016 rezoning of a five-acre portion of the massive Kingstowne development, in the Alexandria section of Fairfax. The rezoning allowed residential development on the site, which is owned by the Halle development firm. The Fairfax Board of Supervisors approved the change unanimously. The memo notes that Warren Halle, chief executive of the Halle company, has been a major contributor to McKay. Businesses affiliated with Halle have donated a total of $50,000 to McKay's bid for chairman, public records show. The memo also says that, around the time the vote on the rezoning was set to occur, Michael A. McGhan, McKay's developer friend, was in the process of buying land on Roxann Road owned by Halle that, eventually, would include McKay's home. "The events in the Kingstowne vote and the property development are so close it defies credulity that they would not be related," the memo states. McKay said he didn't know McGhan had purchased the land on Roxann Road until nearly a year after the rezoning, in spring 2017, when McGhan contacted him about the house he planned to build. If McKay had a business relationship with Halle during the time the rezoning was being considered, under state law, he would have had to disclose it as a conflict of interest. Former Fairfax supervisor John F. "Jack" Herrity was convicted of a misdemeanor in 1986 for failing to disclose a relationship with a builder. The memo next appeared in late March as a post on the "Fairfax Underground" online community forum, with "Truth Fairfax' listed as the sender. In late April, an ethics complaint about McKay was sent by the same email address to the Board of Supervisors and other Fairfax officials, including County Attorney Elizabeth Teare. County officials said no investigations into criminal conduct or a breach of ethics by McKay are underway. Nevertheless, McKay's campaign decided to hire Grayson Hanes - a veteran land-use and real estate attorney in Fairfax - to investigate the memo's claims. Hanes, a senior counsel at the Reed Smith law firm, said he agreed to the assignment on the condition that he would be allowed to draw his own conclusions from land records and interviews. What he found, he said, were loosely connected facts assembled to make it appear that McKay did something wrong. "This witch hunt should be rejected," Hanes wrote in a May 9 report sent to McKay and the rest of the board. For example, Hanes wrote, the original memo lists five smaller houses in the same general area of Fairfax that, at around the same time, sold for a price close to the $850,000 McKay paid. Hanes said those comparisons are faulty because the five houses were in more expensive neighborhoods than McKay's. Halle, the Kingstowne developer, told Hanes he entered into negotiations with McGhan over the lot on Roxann Road without knowing that McKay eventually would buy a home there. McKay was not involved in the transaction, Hanes reports McGhan as saying. Neither Halle nor McGhan responded to requests for comment. McGhan and the McKays negotiated a purchase contract for a 4,300-square-foot home, while McGhan reserved a larger house he built across the street for his own family. The McKays sold their old house and used the $292,400 profit they received as a down payment for the new place, while securing a $582,000 mortgage for the balance, Hanes wrote in his report. McKay said he asked the county tax office to withhold his name from the listing of the new property on its website as a precautionary measure against being harassed - a move stemming from a 2014 incident with an angry constituent. The Nelson Mullins memo portrayed that request as an attempt to cover up the house purchase, even though McKay's name is on publicly available purchase documents. The memo was inaccurate, Hanes said in an interview, but it served to "create an atmosphere of a scandal." McKay's primary opponents say they believe the questions raised by the original memo merit further examination into supervisors' relationships with developers, though they could not specify what McKay did wrong after seeing his response. Given that the county board regularly decides land-use cases, "We need stronger internal board policies to try to keep developers at arm's length," Plerhoples said. McElveen said that, despite McKay's rebuttal, "I remain concerned about a conflict of interest." Chapman called the allegations "serious and troubling" and said the Board of Supervisors should seek an investigation. Several board members said the memo's claims would be concerning if true but added that they are wary of the way they have been shared. "I don't really like anonymous accusations, because you don't know what the agenda is," said Supervisor John Cook, R-Braddock). Board Chair Sharon Bulova, D-At Large, a McKay supporter, called the claims "really rotten." "Jeff is squeaky clean and careful and would never operate on the board or privately in a way that wasn't completely ethical," she said. McKay said the memo "proves that anybody could say anything they want about someone and generate a story when it's totally untrue." by Mathias Hariyadi The winner in last months presidential race between incumbent President Joko Widodo and challenger Prabowo Subianto will be announced on 22 May. So far, 82.35 per cent of the votes have been counted with the moderate Widodo leading by 15 million votes. Supported by right-wingers and extremists, Prabowo said he would not accept "deceptive results". Meanwhile, the authorities have deployed the military across the capital. Jakarta (AsiaNews) The anti-terrorism unit of the Indonesian police announced today the arrest of at least ten jihadists, suspected of planning attacks on the day set for the announcement of the results of last Aprils presidential election. The General Elections Commission (Komisi Pemilihan Umum, KPU) will announce the winner on 22 May. The two candidates were the incumbent, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, and challenger Prabowo Subianto. As the vote counting progresses, Widodo's lead seems to be consolidating. Supported by right-wingers and Islamic extremists, Prabowo warned yesterday that "he would not accept deceptive results", calling on his voters to do the same by denouncing electoral fraud. The situation has led to rising tensions across the whole country. There are fears that riots might break out. More than 32,000 soldiers and policemen have been deployed to ensure public order in the capital alone. With 82.35 per cent of the ballots counted, KPU this morning said that the president was leading with 70,945,538 votes against 55,198,953 for his challenger. The 15 million gap represents 12.48 per cent of the ballots cast. Prabowo yesterday reacted trying to undermine the legitimacy of the Commission by claiming that "countless frauds and irregularities" had taken place, thus further inflaming the political climate. On the evening of 17 April, shortly after the polls closed, Prabowo had already contradicted data provided by accredited pollsters saying that "someone is striving to make it seem we lost". Most Indonesians listened to the statements with scepticism. He had claimed victory in 2014, when he was defeated by Widodo. Last week, Prabowo supporters held two demonstrations at the headquarters of the General Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), calling for action against alleged irregularities. For many Indonesians, Prabowos conduct is irrational. Already on election day, he had claimed that he had won 62 per cent of the votes, whilst now he is claiming 54.24 per cent. Prabowo, who was once married to the daughter of the late dictator Haji Mohammad Suharto, has not revealed his sources, but insists he has evidence of wrongdoing. Five of the seven members of the KPU were appointed in 2017 by parties that joined his coalition. Complicating matters, Prabowo said he wont recognise the results of the presidential election but will accept those of the parliamentary elections held on the same day. Prabowos position has caused a rift within his coalition. The Democratic Party (DP) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) have both distanced themselves from their candidate. At the same time, the police are investigating some of the most radical leaders in Prabowos faction, something that is further isolating him. Still, prominent figures like Retired General Kivlan Zen and fundamentalist lawyer Eddy Sudjana had threatened to resort to street protests, in a "peoples power" style, against Widodo and the KPU. The judges released Khadim Hussain Rizvi and his deputy Pir Afzal Qadri, both for health reasons. Rizvi is the head of the radical Islamic group Tehreek-Labaik Pakistan that last year paralyzed Pakistan after the acquittal of the Christian mother. A video posted online of a man who travelled to Canada to kill Asia. Lahore (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Lahore High Court has ordered the release on bail of Khadim Hussain Rizvi, leader of the Islamic fundamentalist group Tehreek-Labaik Pakistan (Tlp). He is the radical "crowd agitator" arrested last year on charges of terrorism for paralyzing Pakistan with street protests and violence following the acquittal of Asia Bibi, the Christian mother sentenced to death for blasphemy after nine years in prison. His deputy, Pir Afzal Qadri, was also released along with the extremist. Both obtained a suspended sentence until 15 July, for health reasons. The judges' decision comes a week after the liberation of Asia, who was finally able to leave the country and reached Canada where her daughters are already. The release on bail seems to be motivated by the objective of restoring harmony to Pakistan. However, yesterday Wilson Chowdhry, president of the Christian group British Pakistani Christian Association (Bpca) that in recent years has supported the woman's family, denounces new threats against Asia. A video has been posted online portraying an Islamic radical who is in Canada with the intent to kill her and threatens "the enemies of Islam and the Jewish government that freed Asia Bibi". Asia Bibi was acquitted of charges of blasphemy on October 31, 2018, after having spent nine years in prison, sentenced to death and awaiting an appeal process that was continually postponed due to fundamentalist groups' pressure and threats on the judges. Following the sentence that declared the Christian mother "not guilty", in November the Islamic radicals of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (Tlp) party set the country on fire and contested her acquittal. To prevent the escalation of violence, the government of Imran Khan came to terms with the demonstrators and agreed to a revision of the Supreme Court verdict. Later, Asia was released but could not leave the country because on that agreement with the radicals. In January this year the judges of the Supreme Court pronounced a courageous sentence that once and for all also rejects the petition of Islamic radicals who wanted to overturn the sentence of acquittal against the Christian woman. File/Google A shooter is on the loose after killing a man Tuesday night at Keith-Weiss Park in north Houston, according to police. The suspect opened fire at the 500-acre park at 12300 Aldine Westfield Road around 6:45 p.m. and fled, authorities said. The Texas Rangers will conduct a separate investigation into the death of Pamela Turner, a 44-year-old woman who was fatally shot by a Baytown police officer, the police chief announced Wednesday. "While Chief (Keith) Dougherty has full faith and confidence in his investigators, he has also heard and understands the public demands for transparency," spokesman Lt. Steve Dorris said. "He wants the family of Ms. Turner and the community to have the same faith and confidence in their police department, and the officers who work hard every day to keep our community safe." Evidence and information that has been collected has been turned over to the Texas Department of Public Safety's Texas Ranger Division, Dorris said. The Baytown Police Department will conduct a separate investigation through its internal affairs division, and the Harris County District Attorney's Office will bring evidence to a grand jury to determine whether the officer will be formally charged in the encounter. The announcement came hours after dozens of protesters, led by rapper Trae Tha Truth, gathered in an east Houston parking lot to call for an indictment in Turner's death. At the end of the day, my main thing is I don't want this to be a situation where it gets swept under the rug, Trae Tha Truth said. Baytown police have yet to identify the officer who shot and killed Turner while trying to arrest her at her apartment complex on Garth Road. Police said that Turner attempted to use the officers own Taser against him before he fired five shots. Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, whos working with Turners family, said that the woman had paranoid schizophrenia, meaning the officer had a duty to respond differently in arresting her. Certain procedures should have taken place, he said. You dont approach someone that you know to be suffering from a mental health condition the same way that you approach the average citizen. The Baytown Police Department hasnt identified the officer, who is an 11-year veteran. A spokesman said they will investigate whether Turner had mental health issues, and whether that was known to the officer. samantha.ketterer@chron.com A study by Peace Now shows that some 630,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. According to the NGO, the Israeli government is digging a pit" for the country. In 2017, the government spent NIS 1.650 billion on settlements. Jerusalem (AsiaNews) Israel has built nearly 20,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank in the past decade under Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership, anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now notes in its annual settlement report, which highlights how the issue complicates the chances of resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. About 630,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in tense proximity to three million Palestinians. But the report does not include Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the mainly Palestinian sector of the city. "The Israeli government is digging the country a pit to fall in," the NGO says in a statement accompanying the report. "Even if the government does not believe that peace can be achieved in the near future, there is no logic to expanding the settlements and making the solution impossible." The report comes as Netanyahu begins a fifth term after April's general election and the White House gets ready to unveil a peace proposal it has been working on for months. It notes the construction of 19,346 settler homes between 2009 -- the year that Netanyahu became prime minister for a second time -- and the end of 2018. Last year alone, the annual average of construction was 9 per cent above the average since 2009. Furthermore, about 70 per cent of construction was in isolated settlements. During his election campaign, Netanyahu said he would start annexing the West Bank settlements if he was returned to power. At the time, his main rival, Benny Gantz, described the policy as irresponsible. Even US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to comment it, despite the strong tie between Netanyahu and the US administration under President Donald Trump. The settlements are communities inhabited by Israeli civilians and military and built in the territories conquered after the Six-Day War in June 1967, namely the Sinai, West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights and Gaza Strip. In 1982, Israel pulled out of the Sinai after signing a peace agreement with Egypt in 1979. In 2005 the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the dismantling of 17 colonies in the Gaza Strip. Currently, there are Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. All of them are illegal under international law. Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran said that a two-state solution could demand the relocation of about 150,000 settlers. Such a number would be a political impossibility for the right-wing Netanyahu. In 2017, the government spent NIS 1.650 billion (US$ 460 million) on the settlements, compared to NIS 1.189 billion (US$ 330 million) in 2016. This was the largest sum spent on the settlements in at least a decade. Spending on West Bank roads, schools and public buildings spiked by 39 per cent in 2017. For Peace Now, Trumps election seems to have encouraged Israel's expansionist policy. "They are not shy anymore with what they are doing," Hagit Ofran explains. "They feel more free to do whatever they want." A man was hospitalized Wednesday morning with a gunshot wound to the chest after a security guard found him lying on the side of the road in northwest Houston, according to Metro Video. The man's current condition is unclear. The security guard found him on her way to work around 2:40 a.m. on the side of the road near North Loop West and Directors Row, Metro Video reported. A state district judge on Wednesday ruled Proposition B, the voter-approved measure that grants Houston firefighters the same pay as police of corresponding rank and seniority, unconstitutional and void. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought in November by the Houston Police Officers' Union, in which the group contended that the charter amendment conflicts with the Texas constitution. Accenture is more than doubling its downtown Houston innovation hub. For the past two years, its 13,500-square-foot space has provided Fortune 500 companies with new ideas and technologies. Now, Accenture is growing the innovation hub to nearly 30,000 square feet as it seeks to help additional companies and to tackle more ambitious projects. "There's so much demand and opportunity here to help grow this part of the economy," said Brian Richards, director of the Houston innovation hub. Other Houston innovation news: MassChallenge names managing director for new Houston location Accenture, a strategy and consulting firm, tackles a wide variety of demonstrations, workshops and projects from its downtown innovation hub. It's a place where corporate executives can learn about artificial intelligence, virtual reality and cyber attacks. It has hosted more than 400 workshops to brainstorm companies' specific challenges, and these have spurred a few dozen projects to implement the new ideas. Chevron Corp., for instance, approached Accenture to brainstorm crane safety. Cranes are used on offshore oil rigs to lift and move cargo, and workers sometimes find themselves beneath these operations. Chevron and Accenture created a prototype using tracking technology and virtual crane telemetry sensors to know where workers and crane operations are occurring at all times. The workers then have a small device, about the size of a credit card, that vibrates if they get too close to crane operations. "It's that project demand and that workshop demand that's driving the growth," Richards said. At HoustonChronicle.com: Venture fills gaps in connecting Houston's tech startups and big energy players Doubling the innovation hub's floor space is Phase I of construction, and it's already begun. Construction should be completed later this year. Phase II will involve cyber security and industrial applications, with Accenture providing more details at a later date. Ultimately, Richards envisions this innovation hub as an important player in Houston's tech ecosystem. It's a place where big corporations can meet and learn from innovative startups. "We see ourselves as a critical component to bring those two worlds together," he said. by Melani Manel Perera The All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama group speaks. Leader Moulavi Farood Farook says the bombers of April 21 "have neither religion nor faith"; this is why their bodies were not cremated in the Islamic cemetery. Christian leaders call for peace and non-violence. Colombo (AsiaNews) - Muslim religious leaders are asking forgiveness on behalf of the whole Islamic community of Sri Lanka for the Easter Sunday massacres and for other incidents that are creating havoc in the country. The appeal for forgiveness was made yesterday during a press conference organized in Colombo attended by Asiri Perera, bishop of the Methodist Church, Diloraj Kanagasabai, bishop of the Church of Ceylon [Protestant] of the diocese of Colombo, and Moulavi Farood Farook, president of the local division of the Muslim group All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama. The initiative is an important gesture in the country devastated by the massacres of April 21st. The attacks on three churches and three hotels in Colombo were claimed by the Islamic State, although the government continues to attribute the responsibility to the local Islamic faction National Thowheed Jamath. Moulavi Farook stressed that "there is no tiny link with the Muslim community, this is the dirty work of a certain terrorist group. We, as believers of Islamic philosophy, strongly condemn this act of terror. There is not even a recommendation in the Koran or [pronounced] by the prophet [Muhammad] . The religious leader points out that "in 2014, when we heard about the organization of the Islamic State, we stated publicly that Muslims have no ties to this group. Suicide bombers have joined [IS] in foreign countries and received training there, undergoing brainwashing ". "Since there is no relationship between them and Islam - he adds - their bodies have not been allowed to be cremated in our cemetery. They have neither religion nor faith ". In turn, Bishop Pereira said: "We want to give all Muslims a message: "We forgive you ". It was not you who perpetrated this disaster, but a group that used your good name in doing so. You, on the other hand, have been truly loyal to ask for forgiveness." He then recalled that the first to forgive his executioners "was Jesus on the Cross". He also urged: "Together we support our religious values in times of crisis". Bishop Kanagasabai appealed to the population: "My dear people of Sri Lanka, I appeal to you in the name of God and humanity, so that you protect the lives of all people. Keep away all forms of violence, obey the laws of the country and demonstrate what it means to be a Sri Lankan citizen who loves, cares for and cares about others. Remember that Muslims are not terrorists. Since we have always lived together with unity and love, we have a duty from the supreme power that governs our lives to take care of others, guarantee their safety and their life together with ours. " Referring to the recent violence against the Muslim community, he invoked: "Keep calm, avoid all violence. May Sri Lanka be healed of its wounds ". Let there be low-cost light. Thats the mission of electricity retailer PacificLight, which since April 2018, the date when Singapores consumer electricity market began its liberalisation, has been providing affordable electricity to residential households across the country. The city-states Energy Market Authority (EMA) started deregulating the energy market in 2001, when it opened the retail electricity market to competition to allow business consumers choose their electric provider. PacificLight is one of those retailers, with a natural gas power plant that began operation in 2014 on Jurong Island. Non-commercial customers, however, could only purchase electricity from Singapore Power (SP) Group, a government-owned electricity and gas distribution company. Everything changed on 1 April 2018, when EMA rolled out a pilot test of the Open Electricity Market (OEM) that extended the liberalisation of the electricity market to residential customers. Today, households in Singapore can choose to stay with SP or switch to any of the 12 EMA-authorised retailers participating in the OEM including PacificLight. PacificLight was ready for the transition. Preparing for the shift from business-to-business to consumer commerce sparked a transformation within the organisation, including the development of consumer-friendly web and mobile portals, a new telephony system, and extensive integration with existing back-end systems. The company also needed to deploy new retail pricing and billing systems. A collaborative culture, careful planning, and a clutch of knowledgeable software vendors helped make the expansion to the residential market a success. On top of that, the improvement of the retailers IT systems has led to the development of new business models that previously were not possible. According to a paper published in Energy Policy , supply competition and the recent liberalisation policies have led to a combinatorial estimated decrease in wholesale electricity prices by up to 9.11%, accounting for the influence of oil prices and other volatility components. Deploying the right tech for a new market Stephen Lo, Head of ICT at PacificLight for the last six years, was in charge of securing a smooth transition from business to consumer retail operations. Lo worked on three major, concurrent IT projects: website development, a call centre system, and a retail customer management system. Each of them aimed at enhancing the overall quality and efficiency of the companys customer experience, with a focus on effective service management. The initial scoping for the first IT project commenced in 2016 and by 2018 they were all fully implemented. The months preceding the OEM trial were intense, says Lo. A range of new software solutions were required, including a CRM system, a revamped website, an online sign-up portal, a cloud-based telephony system with call centre and call-flow configurations, as well as integration with PacificLights existing accounting and risk management systems. Key challenges included meeting tight timelines, ensuring that residential customers understood how the liberalised electricity market works, and managing the influx of competitors. The new website, sign-up portals, risk management pricing, billing and settlement systems had to be in place before the beginning of the first phase of the OEM. With the overall market framework in place, PacificLight then defined the requirements for each project, says Lo. For each individual IT asset, a detailed breakdown of the requirements was created with time management, resource requirements, user and system integration testing specifications in mind with the end goal of achieving an optimal customer service experience for all customer interaction. Each IT development project included a mix of representatives from both PacificLight and the respective vendors. Where possible, Lo looked for vendors who had proven systems and were familiar with deregulated retail markets. For the development of our website and online portal, we worked with a company which assisted with our marketing strategy, while acting as our one-stop, integrated website designer, says Lo. For our call centre system, we adopted an interactive voice response (IVRS) call-flow to effectively manage both inbound and outbound calls, as well as computer telephony integration (CTI) for our CRM and call centre systems. These platforms together provided customers with menu options for simple queries along with the opportunity to get personal assistance for more extensive issues and concerns. The retail customer management system was deployed by an experienced international software vendor familiar with retail markets in the region. Lo explains that the vendors exhaustive understanding of Singapores energy industry speeded up the process and facilitated a smooth transition. Both the call centre system and retail customer management system were based on existing commercial software which were then customised for PacificLights specific requirements. The new website was a bespoke development which put an emphasis on making a mobile-friendly, intuitive, visually enticing and informative site. Collaboration to the rescue The detailed framework and associated business processes were developed by the EMA in conjunction with industry players, including PacificLight, and used to define the detailed scope of each IT project. PacificLight also identified the criteria for each project such as time management, resource requirements, user and system integration testing specifications to help ensure all systems were optimal. We established a Steering Committee within the company to manage each project, says Lo. The Steering Committee helped shaped the projects direction through direct involvement by senior management and ensure timely delivery of various components and outcomes. User acceptance testing (UAT) and integration testing were done with a parallel team of IT and user representatives. Although the process of developing the entire system proved challenging due to the aggressive delivery timeline, Lo says that effective internal communication among the various internal stakeholders contributed to the success of the undertaking including PacificLights retail and customer service teams, who ensured that the project effectively met customer needs and expected service standards. According to the Head of IT, the organisation prides itself in cultivating a collaborative working culture. In addition to weekly project status meetings with detailed action items, stakeholders also participated in informal group chats to resolve urgent issues, thereby reducing project delays. Collaborative processes extended to external vendors with team members overseas and in different time zones, from suppliers and partner companies to internal departments. PacificLight used a variety of open and transparent communication tools to keep every involved party abreast and aligned with the objectives and progress across all related projects. The result, Lo says, was that all projects were delivered on time and met all the required deliverables. Preparing for battle in a new market In this extremely competitive market, where 12 retailers as well as SP Group are fighting to attract the 1.4 million households and business accounts eligible under the OEM, what is PacificLight doing to stay ahead of the curve? The companys chief differentiation, explains Lo, is to provide end-to-end, seamless customer service to customers. In a climate of increasing cybersecurity threats, the Lo says that the retailer is also adopting the best-in-class practices for data security when developing its systems. As part of the contract sign-up process, PacificLights customers need to provide certain personal and sensitive data, including NRIC or FIN number, date of birth and email address. We take responsibility for this data seriously and we have developed robust IT policies to govern the storage and access of any personal data collected, says Lo. PacificLight has certified professionals carrying out regular vulnerability assessments and penetration tests on essential system components to ensure the best response in case of a cyberattack. Lo assures that the measures in places are effective and security rating reports show that PacificLight has an advanced rating within the energy sector. Moving forward, PacificLight is looking at the adoption of cloud-based solutions across a range of their services and systems to improve their ability to scale customer operations at a faster rate. Judging by the giant transformation accomplished in such a short period of time, that transition seems well within the electricity retailers reach. India has to play catch-up Although India has been on US manufacturers radar for many years, India has growing pains to meet manufacturing production support demands and therefore their confidence. Indias completely unhinged economic development ecosystem and political instability cant compete with Chinas 10% year over year economic and technological growth as well as cheap labor. Last year, Samsung opened in India, what Samsung claimed is the worlds largest mobile phone plant in order to meet the global phone demand. In January of this year, Apple moved some of its iPhone assembly from Foxconn China to Foxconn India. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., better known as Foxconn, known for its ill treatment of its workers and stated to be the worlds largest multinational electronics manufacturing company that has its headquarters in Taiwan. Foxconns customer list includes Amazon, Apple, Blackberry, Nokia and Sony just to name a few. Samsung does its own manufacturing as well as some of Apples and has reported making more money from its manufacturing for Apple over its own Samsung mobile phones. The view is If US manufacturers help build it the growth and benefits will come. Indias infrastructure and quality assurance issues along with an increased delivery timetable are major obstacles to solidify confidence with major manufacturers. Indias dynamically economic and political culture is so opposed to the USs. Inadequate roads, electricity, water and transportation along with unavailable off-the-shelf and needed plant and production line parts imposes additional costs and production delays therefore inconsistent delivery. Those that afford to maintain backup parts can reduce maintenance costs and delays. Indias archaic internal licensing and approval process is another deterrent. Manufacturers have reported that just to build a commercial plant and gain a license for use of electricity for commercial means may take as much as a year. Due to a report of over 200 US company inquiries through the US-India Strategic Partner Forum, President and CEO Mukesh Aghi hopes that India can rise to the task. Whoever wins the current elections in India will determine Indias manufacturing priorities, how India will invest in its future and its global economic reception. Vietnam ready and waiting According to the recent survey of the American Chamber of Commerce, in South China 219 manufacturing companies responded with a possible move out of China but not to the US. 64% of US manufacturers in China are looking to South East Asia as well, with Vietnam at the top of the list. Vietnam is a close neighbor of both China and India is on high energy recruitment for US manufacturers still looking for a more advantageous production environment. Vietnam has continued to keep their labor costs down despite its fast GDP rise. With a population of over 2 million and a deep-water port Haiphong, Vietnam has become a highly successful manufacturing port boasting of the economic growth of 17% last yearmore than any other city. An expressway was built from Haiphong to Hanoi and to China along with an airport creating part of the necessary infrastructure lacking in India. Skyscraper five-star hotels span the skyline poised to attract global business travelers giving them luxurious surroundings. Vietnam is on the move and many manufacturers like Nike are beginning to produce more goods from Vietnam than China. Mexico is perfect for some Although Mexico has about 40% higher labor cost, it may prove more advantageous to some US manufacturers due to its location and friendly cooperation with the US. Speed to market as well as less risk may be the just the ticket after all. Taking advantage of Chinas plight with the US, Mexico is continuing to build free tariff trade agreements with over 50 countries in Europe, South America and Africa. Typically manufacturing in Mexico is a cost reduction of approximately 50% over the US but much more than South East Asia labor. The close proximity reduces shipment costs, product losses and improved customer satisfaction. Mexico is beginning to look much more attractive already having a successful infrastructure, reduced labor costs, less unrest and above all free tariffs. Protection of a manufacturers Intellectual Property (IP) is guaranteed under the recent United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USCMA) which is a major point of contention between the US and China. Chinas ZTE accused of IP theft paid $1 billion in fines and another $500 million in escrow as a safeguard to possible future bad behavior for US IP theft. After so many years of Made in China stamped on a majority of products in your home, Made in India, Made in Vietnam and Made in Mexico may take its place. Competition is typically beneficial for the buyer not necessarily the current seller. Although adjustments within the market will be made by some resilient businesses to maintain relevancy, others will pop up overnight to take their place and the market will survive. In the end the market will adjust, and goods and services will still be delivered because demand will continue to push supply no matter where the goods are made or shipped from. by Wang Zhicheng There are only a few brief quotes in Chinese newspapers abroad. China is too absorbed by the trade war with the US. Catholics stress the cardinal's "silences": he does not talk about the persecutions and oppression of the Patriotic Association. "Sinicization is only the beginning: afterwards comes elimination [of the Church]". Beijing (AsiaNews) - Three days after its publication, there is still no complete Chinese translation of the long and important interview that Card. Pietro Parolin granted to the Global Times (newspaper linked to the People's Daily, official organ of the Chinese Communist Party). Although this was a first for a Chinese newspaper to give space to a Catholic cardinal, not one sentence has been reported in Chinese in the main national papers. Some brief quotations are carried by those dailies that publish outside China, especially those in which the cardinal expresses appreciation for the Chinese government and for its religious policy. A journalist from the capital states that "the relationship between China and the Vatican does not matter at present. The country is completely focused on the trade war issues, which is trying the Chinese economy ". Others point out that the interview was published just after the failure of the commercial dialogues between China and the United States. And the interview - currently available only in English - could be a kind of signal to the Western world that "the Vatican is with us" (ie with China and not with the United States by Trump). The comments posted online by Catholics who read the text in English, are not positive. Several point to Card. Parolins "silences". "Why didn't the cardinal say a word about the destruction of the crosses and the persecutions that are happening now in China? Why, while many underground priests are crushed by the Patriotic Association, does the Vatican only want to talk about peace with the government, avoiding all mention of the Patriotic Association's harassment? " Another commented: "The cardinal did his duty: to talk about trust and optimism, with beautiful but somewhat theoretical phrases, without many concrete details. It seems similar to the behavior of us priests when we go to visit a seriously ill person in the hospital: we feel it our duty to say words of encouragement and trust, with the good intention to console the sick, without being able to heal him. In one of the answers the cardinal mentions the difference between inculturation and sinicization, and seems to indicate the possibility that they are "complementary". Here the comments are clear: "Sinicization is only the beginning: afterwards comes elimination [of the Church]". Cookie Preferences Cookie List Cookie List A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website when visited by a user asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes: Strictly Necessary Cookies We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. 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Targeting Cookies We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated sale of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website. A.O. PRIMARIA MEA este in cautare de o companie IT sau de un intreprinzator individual pentru crearea si dezvoltarea unei pagini web a organizatiei For over a decade in Somalia, the Pentagon held that its operations against al-Shabaab, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, had resulted in zero civilian casualties. But common knowledge on the ground said differently, according to Amanda Sperber, a freelance journalist who has reported from East Africa for the better part of five years. In the fall of 2018, Sperber traveled to Somalia to investigate for herself. From Mogadishu, Somalias capital, Sperber identified more than two dozen Somalis who had been displaced by airstrikes to the many crowded camps that surround the city and invited them for interviews. Their stories were often heartbreaking. A middle-aged woman told Sperber she had watched three young boys disappear in an explosion that also broke her hips and left her body covered in burns. A farmer, who lost his uncle and a brother in another strike, said he was questioned at the site of the blast by Somali soldiers and then, in turn, tortured by al-Shabaab fighters who accused him of being a government informant. As an American, I just felt so apologetic, Sperber says. At the time, strikes in the country were on the rise. In March 2017, the Trump administration had declared parts of Somalia areas of active hostilities, a move that loosened restrictions on the military designed to prevent civilian harm. In 2018, US Africa Command (AFRICOM), which is responsible for all Department of Defense activities on the continent, reported 45 strikes in Somalia for the year, by comparison to 35 in 2017 and 14 in 2016. (According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US conducted more strikes in Somalia in 2017 and 2018 than in the previous ten years combined.) ICYMI: Rethinking foreign reporting at the AP During her reporting, Sperber received frequent pushback from AFRICOM officials. In one instance, when she approached them with the account of the man who had been tortureda man whose wounds Sperber had seen herselfshe was told bluntly that the account was not credible. Im given to understand that not credible doesnt mean his story is false but that AFRICOM didnt have enough information to investigate or verify it themselves, Sperber says. It doesnt mean hes not a rational witness. She offered to connect officials directly with sources, to pass along a phone number or a WhatsApp contact, but they always declined. In the end, after months of repeat interviews with survivors and discussions with dozens of US, Somali, and international officials, as well as aid workers and activists, Sperber found convincing evidence that not only had US strikes resulted in multiple incidents of civilian harm but that the US had also likely launched strikes not accounted for in the reports AFRICOM makes public on its website. Her findings were published in The Nation this February, in partnership with Type Investigations. For many years in the global war on terror, with few exceptions, reporting on civilian casualties was conducted on the backs of studies and reports by NGOs and international outfits. In recent years, though, as strikes have spiked in certain countries, such as Somalia and Yemen, and as violence has receded in some locations, such as parts of Iraq, a spate of journalists has set out to bear witness to the human cost of the global war on terror. And according to Chris Woods, who heads the civilian watchdog group Airwars, their work is getting results. There is no doubt that high-quality reporting on the ground has helped change our understanding of these conflicts, Woods says. The narrative for far too long was that this is a precision war and in precision wars civilians dont die. I dont think [the military] would claim that today. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Disclosure: Between 2013 and 2015, I deployed to parts of Afghanistan and East Africa as an officer in the US Navy. The Uncounted, by Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal in The New York Times Magazine, is an often-cited standard bearer of civilian casualty investigations. In Iraq, over 18 months between 2016 and 2017, Khan and Gopal toured the wreckage of nearly 150 strike locations on foot; recorded the GPS coordinates of the sites; took photos and 3D-mapped residential compounds using a commercial drone; and then painstakingly cross-checked their findings with pre and post-strike satellite imagery, local news sources, and government records and testimonies. Published in November 2017, their story demonstrated that, in the US-led war against ISIS (which began in 2014), one in five strikes had resulted in civilian deathsa rate 31 times that of the militarys own estimates. Khan and Gopal uncovered many discrepancies in the militarys documentation of strikesfor example, an instance in which multiple strikes were conducted over the course of an hour but only one was logged. This is a huge deal, Khan tells CJR. If they cant track their own airstrikes, if theyre only recording some coordinates, and if the number one reason for denying casualties is that they dont have a record, that means the process is truly flawed. The story prompted immediate calls for increased oversight and, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee later told Khan, ultimately helped win a new provision in Congresss annual military spending bill that mandated the designation of a senior civilian official to supervise the militarys casualties assessment and reporting processes. If they cant track their own airstrikes, if theyre only recording some coordinates, and if the number one reason for denying casualties is that they dont have a record, that means the process is truly flawed. Similar coverage, by Mike Giglio for BuzzFeed News, has compelled the US-led coalition fighting ISIS to accept responsibility for 36 civilian deaths in strikes that occurred between 2016 and 2017. Work by the Associated Press, also from Iraq, has shown that over 9,000 civilians were killed in the months-long battle for Mosul; reporter Susannah George found that the coalition was likely responsible for 3,200 of those casualtiesten times what it claimed. In Yemen, Maggie Michael and Maas al-Zikrytwo of the AP reporters who last month were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reportingdiscovered that roughly a third of the people killed by US drone strikes in 2018 were either civilians or pro-government forces (meaning they were on the side backed by the US in the countrys ongoing conflict). According to Woods of Airwars, this coverage fills a gap left by the militarys own casualty assessments, which Woods says are incomplete and insufficient. In particular, he says, the military relies largely on observable information to assess the presence of civilians, such as imagery from manned aircraft or dronessometimes the ones that carry out the strikes in the first place. But casualties are often unobservable, Woods says, especially in urban environments where buildings and rubble might mask the presence of civilians. I think the military would concede that its own systems just arent capable of properly understanding the levels of civilian harm caused by multiple warfighting techniques, he says. As a military spokesperson told Khan in a 2016 email, citing the extremely challenging environment in Iraq and Syria, Traditional investigative methods, such as interviewing witnesses and examining the site, are typically not available. For journalists, the task is no less daunting, and the particulars of each conflict and culture often complicate reporting efforts. In Somalia, for instance, many people use the Islamic or Somali calendars, Sperber explains, making it tough to easily match a strike reported by a source with one in military records. Similarly, the local names and spellings for settlements in Somalia regularly differ from what is written on maps, which tend to be incomplete or out-of-date anyway due to migratory lifestyles in parts of the country. Brian Castner, who has investigated civilian casualties for Amnesty International, describes the challenge of identifying locations with Somali sources: Well ask, Where you live, whats the closest town? They tell us, Awdheegle. Okay, great, we know where Awdheegle is. So, if you were going to walk from Awdheegle to your house, how would you do it? And then we follow them down the road on our maps, all the turns along the way. Then we say, Okay, youve arrived, and what is this place called? They tell us that the local name is Farah Waeys. Okay, Farah Waeys appears on no maps, but in satellite imagery we can see theres a migrant settlement there. In March, Amnesty released a lengthy report that examines five airstrikes in Somalia over the past two years, in which 14 civilians were killed and eight were wounded. Its not journalism, per se, due to its express advocacy, Castner says, but it nevertheless stands on a great deal of reporting, including hundreds of interviews. Our goal was not to look at all the airstrikes in Somalia that resulted in civilian casualties, Castner, who is a former US Air Force officer, says. It was to say, You say, Zero. But the answer is not zero. Its at least 14, and you should admit that. In April, AFRICOM publicly admitted that it had mistakenly killed two civilians, a woman and a child, in an airstrike in April 2018. Amnesty was cited directly in the press release, though AFRICOM broadly disputed the findings in the groups March report. Dan Mahanty, who directs the US program at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), a nonprofit which liases regularly with the government, says it is common for officials to bristle at the framing in reports, or to suggest that they have intelligence which contradicts reporters findings to which those reporters are not privy. But privately, Mahanty says, officials have expressed appreciation for the thoroughness of journalists work. On the heels of The Uncounted, Mahanty says thenSecretary of Defense Jim Mattis met with CIVIC to discuss Khan and Gopals findings. That meeting doesnt happen without that piece, Mahanty says. In the case of Sperbers work, too, he adds, There were a lot of specific details in that coverage that allowed me to go to AFRICOM behind the scenes and discuss, you know, What is it that allows this to happen? The Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment from CJR. John D. Manley, a spokesperson for AFRICOM, says that on-the-ground reporting by journalists and NGOs plays an integral role in the commands understanding of casualties. We encourage and applaud their efforts, because this unfortunate reality of war deserves the scrutiny it receives, Manley writes. Sperber, for her part, says she has seen a modest shift in tone from AFRICOM in recent months, as she has continued reporting from Somalia; while she was investigating a new casualty allegation for Foreign Policy, for example, officials asked her for contact information for the family of the individual who had been killed. Recent developments are cause for optimism, Mahanty says. Some worry, though, that the extraordinary time investment and cost of supporting civilian casualty investigationsnot to mention the challenge of keeping journalists safe in conflict zonesmight threaten sustained attention by publications to the issue. Sperber relied on a grant to support her investigation for The Nation. And to begin work on The Uncounted, Khan left a job and cashed out her retirement. But Mahanty hopes newsrooms will not be deterred: Journalists who are willing to stick it out, to gather those inscrutable details and to do the analysis, theyre the ones who are ultimately going to get DoD to change its public posture on this. ICYMI: How a problematic NYT article shows how newsrooms are out of touch with the communities they cover Correction: This article originally misstated Brian Castners former branch of service. He was in the Air Force, not the Navy. It was also updated to clarify the circumstances of Dan Mahantys meeting with the former Secretary of Defense. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Andrew McCormick is an independent journalist and former CJR Delacorte Fellow. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the South China Morning Post, and more. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewMcCormck. A split decision by the Iowa Supreme Court last week resolves the issue in one state, but the question of whether third-party administrators can be held liable for the tort of bad faith remains unsettled in much of the country. Iowas high court held May 10 that Broadspire Services could not be held liable for the tort of bad faith for failing to pay workers compensation benefits because it did not have a contractual relationship with the claimant. The question was put to the court by the federal district court in Sioux City to decide if a federal lawsuit against Broadspire by claimant Samuel De Dios could proceed. The Supreme Court had held previously that Iowa workers compensation carriers can be held liable in bad faith actions because state statues place an affirmative obligation on insurance carriers to act reasonably. But those statutes do not place similar requirements on third-party administrators, the Supreme Court said. A third-party administrator is not in an insurer/insured relationship with anyone, the court said in a 5-2 majority opinion written by Edward M. Mansfield. And unlike a self-insured employer, a third-party administrator does not have to meet rigorous financial requirements and is not under the ongoing supervision of the workers compensation commissioner. De Dios claimed that Broadspire did not conduct even the most basic investigations the workers compensation claim he had filed against his employer, Brand Energy & Infrastructure Services, after his vehicle was rear-ended by a co-worker. He alleged that the claims adjuster never contacted the employee who manned the guard shack at his workplace, who would have confirmed that his vehicle was struck after he drove into the fenced job site and was on his way to a parking area designated by his employer. The courts opinion said that there is little case law in Iowa to guide it. The opinion notes that about half of U.S. bar even first-party bad-faith claims in the workers compensation context. De Dios had urged the court to adopt the approach taken by The Colorado Supreme Court, which held in 1991 that an independent claims adjuster had a duty of good faith when processing a workers compensation claim. But the Iowa high court said that ruling was based on Colorados statutory and regulatory scheme, which is not the same as Iowas. At least two other Western states California and Washington have reached conclusions similar to Colorados. Merton E. Marks, an insurance defense attorney affiliated with the Gordon and Rees law firm in Phoenix, Arizona, said in 2017 the Washington Court of Appeals ruled in Merriman v. Am. Guar. & Liab. Ins. Co. that third-party administrators and claims adjusters can be held liable for bad faith. Similarly, the California courts have also held TPAs liable in bad-faith claims under the theory that they act in a joint venture with insurance carriers. In fact, at least one California law firm markets its services for bad-faith litigation against TPAs. Under joint venture liability theory, the policyholder alleges that, unlike agents or employees of the insurer, the TPA entered into the business of insurance as a joint venture with the insurer, a January 2018 blog post by the McKennon Law Group in Newport Beach states. As such, both the TPA and the insurer may be held legally accountable for their bad faith conduct. Attorney Robert McKennon said Monday the he was unable to comment on the Iowa Supreme Court decision because he had not read it and was busy preparing for litigation. Marks said the question of whether a third-party administrator can be found liable for bad faith hasnt been settled in his home state of Arizona, but he would advise claims officials to presume that they are vulnerable to such suits. He noted that in a 2015 decision, the U.S. District Court held that a claims administrator was liable for bad-faith as a matter of law after it delayed paying workers comp benefits owed to a claimant for 10 months after recognizing that it had miscalculated the amount due. As it happens, that case was filed against the insurer, not the TPA directly, but Marks said he thinks Arizona courts would rule that a TPA can be held liable for bad faith. However, Marks said that Arizona courts wont award damages for bad-faith if mere negligence is involved. The insured must show that the claims administrator had some evil motive. These are fairly rare cases, Marks said. It has to be really egregious conduct. Boeing Co. has started storing 737 Max jets at a vast Texas maintenance base as the planemaker continues to churn out the single-aisle aircraft while waiting for regulators to lift a global grounding. Planespotter Chris Edwards picked up the radar track of the first factory-fresh Max to be parked outside the Seattle area as it headed to San Antonio on Tuesday from a paint shop in California. Boeing spokesman Doug Alder confirmed his account. The Boeing San Antonio site will temporarily store airplanes as part of our inventory-management plan, Alder said by email. The jets eventually will return to Washington state where they will be delivered to our customers. Maintaining and storing the growing fleet of newly built 737s and managing the inventory costs is a key concern for Boeing as the grounding enters a third month following two deadly crashes. The planemaker, which is still allowed to do test flights, will eventually need to get the jets to customers once deliveries are cleared to resume. But it may need to do so on a staggered schedule if regulators from China to Canada conduct their own safety reviews. For now, Boeing employees are working to reduce out-of-sequence work on the jets. Suppliers from Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. to an engine maker owned by General Electric Co. and Safran SA are working to overcome inconsistent deliveries, Cowen & Co. analyst Cai von Rumohr said in a note to clients last week. 100 Jets Boeing is finalizing an update to Max software that has been implicated in the two accidents. The manufacturer also is meeting with customers, and briefing flight attendants and pilots, as it works to restore confidence in the newest version of the 737. The length of the grounding could hinge on an upcoming Federal Aviation Administration summit of global regulators, von Rumohr said. The meetings, which Boeing wont attend, will be held May 23 in Fort Worth, Texas. Meanwhile, Boeing has parked about 100 Max jets across four sites in the Seattle area, according to Edwards, a blogger who tracks 737 production. The company reduced output at its 737 factory in Renton, Washington, by 19% in April to a pace of 42 jets a month. But Boeing has avoided layoffs as it seeks to avoid disrupting operations once production ramps up again. Boeing San Antonio is the largest maintenance, repair and overhaul site within the companys global-services division, Alder said. Located at Port San Antonio, the site sprawls across 168 acres with 1.6 million square feet of building and hangar space. U.S. aviation regulators were directly involved in approving the flight-control system implicated in two fatal crashes on Boeing Co.s 737 Max, a top administration official told Congress on Wednesday, pushing back on complaints that the company had too much of a role overseeing itself. Federal Aviation Administration acting chief Daniel Elwell, in his first appearance before the House committee that oversees his agency since the regulator grounded the 737 Max, said in written testimony submitted to the committee that the involvement of FAA specialists included participation in a test flight of the system that drove down the nose in the two accidents. The FAA has come under fire for approving the feature known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, and for giving the planemaker too much authority to regulate the safety of its planes. After a sensor on 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia malfunctioned, MCAS continually attempted to make the aircraft dive. Boeing is redesigning the system to make is less prone to operate in error. As our work continues, I offer this assurance: In the U.S., the 737 MAX will return to service only when the FAAs analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so, Elwell said before the House aviation subcommittee. Elwell is expected to face skeptical questioning from lawmakers. Subcommittee Chairman Rick Larsen, a Washington Democrat, issued a press release Tuesday seeking answers from FAA on the crashes. The committees investigation is just getting started, and it will take some time to get answers, but one thing is clear right now: The FAA has a credibility problem, Larsen said. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, said in prepared remarks that the committee is still in the early stages of its review of how the plane was certified by FAA. But the tragedies are shocking, including for families of victims, he said. They deserve answers and accountability, as does the general flying public, DeFazio said. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt will also testify. The NTSB is assisting Ethiopian and Indonesian authorities in their investigations of the two crashes. Sumwalt in his written testimony said he cant comment beyond what investigators in those two countries have said under the United Nations treaty governing accident probes. The 737 Max, Boeings best-selling aircraft, was grounded on March 13 after it became clear that an Ethiopian Airlines crash three days earlier had similar underlying causes to a Lion Air crash on Oct. 29 near Jakarta. MCAS was added to the 737 Max to make it less likely to enter an aerodynamic stall. It automatically commands a relatively modest dive if it senses a planes nose has gotten too high. In the accidents, it repeatedly pushed down the nose despite efforts by the pilots to counter it. The crashes killed 346 people. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. In Norfolk, Virginia, officials are taking action to reduce their citys vulnerability to flood risks. Flooding in Norfolk does not just happen during major storms. It can happen when the sun is shining, if the tide is high or the winds are right. A participant in the Rockefeller Foundations 100 Resilient Cities program, the city adopted a resilience city strategy in 2015. In 2016, Norfolk prepared a forward-looking plan, which responds to sea level rise expected in 2100, and includes principles to guide the development of a new comprehensive plan during 2019-2020. To help reach their goals, city planners collaborated with Dr. Phil Berke, Jaimie Masterson, American Institute of Certified Planners, and their team from the Institute of Sustainable Communities at Texas A&M. As a project partner of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC), they are funded by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). This research project led to the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard (PIRS), a novel planning approach that helps prevent people and investments from being in harms way, and ultimately save lives and resources. This planning tool enables communities to effectively reduce their vulnerabilities to hazards across their network of plans including transportation, parks, economic development, hazard mitigation, emergency management and comprehensive land use, explained Eleanore Hajian, S&Ts program manager for the CRC. The CRC is a consortium of more than 30 university, public and private sector partners from across the nation led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partnership with Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. The Scorecard in Action The research team and local planners worked together using PIRS to improve the integration of disaster mitigation across the communitys network of plans, so they can better work together to reduce vulnerabilities to hazards. This is especially important in regards to plans that guide decision-making for construction and development in hazardous areas. Between December 2016 and September 2017, researchers worked with city staff to analyze a broad range of spatial data through geographic information systems mapping technology. They also conducted a spatial evaluation of local plans to identify and target the geographic areas most vulnerable to hazards. Researchers identified hazard zones and planning districts, analyzed how the two overlapped, and then scored those districts based on vulnerability. They used six of Norfolks city plans (such as for comprehensive land use, emergency management and community development) to determine their level of integration, helping the city identify two low-income neighborhoods that were at the greatest risk and allowed the city to focus project resources on those zones. Norfolk has adopted a diverse network of plans that have a guiding influence on land use and development decisions in areas exposed to coastal flooding and sea level rise. Among the 17 official plans adopted by the city, the local team identified six plans to be included in the study as they were considered to have the most significant influence on development decisions in the city. The Resilience Scorecard was a great tool to allow us to evaluate our existing plans and policies against the backdrop of resilience, said George Homewood, interim director of development with the City of Norfolk. Perhaps most revealing were not inconsistencies in our plans, but that we had not fully incorporated all our policies and actions aimed at resilience into our most important policy document, our comprehensive plan. Next Steps Following Norfolks use of PIRS, the city amended their citywide comprehensive strategy to more fully incorporate their Hazard Mitigation Plan. As we kick off the drafting of our next comprehensive plan, we plan to revisit our scores from the Resilience Scorecard to better guide future development and investments that will maximize our opportunities to transform Norfolk into a resilient waterfront community, Homewood said. Berke and his teams spatial analysis methodology considers that an areas topography has to be studied in conjunction with the civic goals, community vulnerabilities (both physical and social), and current and proposed investments and development priorities. Like a physician advising a patient about living a healthy lifestyle, Berke (a professor of Land Use and Environmental Planning) knows that saving people from disasters isnt just about heroic measures in emergency situations. It is also about prevention. We figured out a way to communicate the risks inherent in certain localities, directly to the vested stakeholders, Berke said. With that clear picture, stakeholders can make informed decisions about communities, investments and their shared future. Since the Norfolk engagement, and being featured in one of Federal Emergency Management Agencys PrepTalks, more communities across the nation have reached out to Berke and his team about starting their own PIRS pilots, including the town of Nashua, New Hampshire. Additionally, the City of Rockport, Texas, which is recovering from Hurricane Harvey, is applying the Scorecard in creating a new integrated comprehensive plan to guide long-term recovery. The groundbreaking work by Berke and Ms. Mastersons team is a great example of the real-life impact our investments in science can make toward reducing our nations vulnerability to natural hazards, said Hajian. How It Works PIRS is user-friendly, and allows local practitioners (planners, emergency managers, engineers) to self-evaluate their communitys plans. The strategies can be precisely tailored to each communitys specific needs. There are three phases within the scorecard process: Assemble all relevant community plans that guide development decisions in hazard areas by creating a digital map with overlapping layers where the plans are stacked one on top of the other. Evaluate and analyze the stacked map to identify geographic areas or populations that are most vulnerable. Score the different areas of the municipality based upon their level of hazard vulnerability and degree of integration of hazard mitigation methods. The genius of the Resilience Scorecard tool is that looking over the stacked overlays, one can easily see the areas that have been targeted for capital investment and redevelopment, but are unfortunately right in the crosshairs of severe repetitive loss from recurring flooding disasters, Berke said. By using the Scorecard, all the stakeholders can understand the big picture and see exactly how the existing risks impact their individual approaches, policies or plans for development. Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate Speaking in Russia, where he met Lavrov, the US secretary of state tries to dampen the winds of war in the Middle East. The goal is to force Tehran to behave like "a normal nation". Khamenei: "We are not looking for a war, nor are they". Iran has suspended part of its commitments provided for in the nuclear agreement. Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Despite the growing tensions in the Middle East region, with the sending of warships and bombers to Gulf waters and mysterious naval incidents, the United States is not looking for a war with the 'Iran, according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The diplomat is currently visiting to Russia, where he said that Washington's goal is to ensure that the Islamic Republic behaves like "a normal nation"; however, he did not rule out harsh responses in the case of attacks on interests or allies. In the meeting between the US secretary of state and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Sochi, the distances between the White House and the Kremlin emerged once more. These are fueled by Russian support for the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the (alleged) Russian interference in view of the 2020 presidential elections and the Ukrainian dossier, with the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Yesterday, US President Donald Trump also tried to dampen the winds of war, denying a New York Times report that he is studying the dispatch of 120,000 troops to the Middle East in the event of an Iranian threat. "We have no plans in this regard," said Trump, who hoped he would not have to "examine this type of eventuality". The attempt to dampen - at least in words - the bellicose tones of the United States has found strange convergence in the highest political and religious authorities in Iran: the supreme leader Ali Khamenei has affirmed that there will be no war with the Americans. With a statement entrusted to his Twitter account, the great ayatollah stressed that he does not intend to renegotiate the nuclear agreement and then he adds that "we are not looking for a war, and neither are they". In May 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and imposed the toughest sanctions on Iran in history. As noted by the International Monetary Fund, this decision has negatively impacted Irans economy, especially its oil exports, which was the goal of the second wave of sanctions that came into effect on 4 November 2018. Still on the subject of nuclear power, in these hours Iran has officially suspended some commitments set by the 2015 agreement as anticipated last week to the nations still involved in the Jcpoa. According to an official Iranian source, for the future Tehran will not take into account the limits set by the plan for the production of enriched uranium and heavy water. About the photo: Emergency response crews transport an injured passenger to an ambulance at the George Inlet Lodge docks, Monday, in Ketchikan, Alaska. The passenger was from one of two sightseeing planes reported down in George Inlet early Monday afternoon and was dropped off by a U.S. Coast Guard response boat. (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) ANCHORAGE, Alaska A team of federal accident investigators is expected to arrive in Alaska Tuesday to try to piece together what caused a deadly midair collision between two sightseeing planes. Four people were killed after the floatplanes carrying cruise ship tourists collided Monday near the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan, the Coast Guard said. Two others were missing, said Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios, a Coast Guard spokesman. The Washington, D.C.-based investigative team from the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to arrive in Ketchikan Tuesday afternoon, agency spokesman Peter Knudson said. He said board member Jennifer Homendy also is traveling with the so-called Go Team, which investigates major accidents. The floatplanes collided under unknown circumstances, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said in an email to The Associated Press. Floatplanes have pontoons mounted under the fuselage so they can land on water. The passengers were from the cruise ship Royal Princess and were on sightseeing flights, one of which was operated by flightseeing company Taquan Air. Eleven people were inside Taquans single-engine de Havilland Otter DHC-3 when it went down as it returned from Misty Fjords National Monument, which is part of the Tongass National Forest, the nations largest. Ten people were taken to a Ketchikan hospital. All patients were in fair or good condition, according to Marty West, a spokeswoman for PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center. Three people who died were among five people aboard the second plane, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, according to Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens. Its unclear which plane carried the fourth victim, whose body was recovered during a Monday night search, Rios said. Local emergency responders worked with state and federal agencies and good Samaritan vessels to help rescue and recover victims. Its been a long day and the crews have been working really hard to rescue people and recover the deceased, Deanna Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, the local government, said Monday evening. A spokeswoman for Taquan Air, operator of the Otter, said the company had suspended operations while federal authorities investigate the deadly crash. We are devastated by todays incident and our hearts go out to our passengers and their families, Taquan said in a statement. Cindy Cicchetti, a passenger on the Royal Princess cruise ship told the AP that the ship captain announced that two planes were in an accident Monday. She said the ship is not leaving as scheduled and there werent any details as to how the accident will affect the rest of the trip. The ship left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and is scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their lives and the families of those impacted by todays accident. Princess Cruises is extending its full support to traveling companions of the guests involved, Princess Cruises said in a statement. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. Weather conditions in the area on Monday included high overcast skies with 9 mph (14 kph) southeast winds. Its not the first time a major plane crash has occurred near Ketchikan, a popular tourist destination. In June 2015, a pilot and eight passengers died when a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter operated by Promech Air Inc. crashed into mountainous terrain about 24 miles (39 kilometers) from Ketchikan. The NTSB later determined that pilot error and lack of a formal safety program were behind the crash. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Clevelands got a quiet crisis: Persistent failure to help young people learn the skills they need to find rewarding work. The mis-match harms the future of our children, hurts local businesses, and hobbles the regions economy. It doesnt have to be this way. Elsewhere, schools and businesses solve this problem together. Children get deeply exposed to career options starting in seventh grade. Before they graduate from high school, theyve got the skills local businesses need. How can Northeast Ohio do this better? We traveled to Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands to find out. Well share those stories starting this Sunday, in a multi-part series were calling Pathways to Prosperity. CLEVELAND, Ohio City Council President Kevin Kelley plans to hold hearings within weeks on the citys failed bid for a new police headquarters and two security breaches at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Kelley pledged earlier this year to have council look into both issues given that the administration of Mayor Frank Jackson has so far declined to fully address either of them publicly. In an interview with cleveland.com this week, Kelley said he wants to schedule the hearings before council goes into summer recess on June 3. What happened with the police deal? The Jackson administration announced last June that it intended to move the police headquarters from the downtown Justice Center into the former home of The Plain Dealer at 1801 Superior Ave. The administration chose the building from among 24 proposes. The project was a $60 million deal that included the purchase and alteration of the building to accommodate about 600 police officers. But the deal fell apart last fall, for reasons the administration has never shared with council or the public. In a September letter to developer Fred Geis, the city simply said it no longer wished to work with GLP Superior, Geis' company, to buy the building. While looking for another site, the administration is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent to Cuyahoga County to remain in the old police headquarters at the downtown Justice Center. Kelley has asked Councilman Matt Zone to set up a Safety Committee hearing to get some answers using the oversight authority granted to council under the city charter. We were under the belief that the 1801 site was the best site available, Kelley said. What are our plans for the police headquarters moving forward? What about the airport security breaches? The first breach occurred on Oct. 25 and involved two high-ranking members of the Jackson administration. But the administration has refused to give a detailed public accounting of the incident. What is known about the incident comes from records relating to an investigation by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and from cleveland.com sources. According to records, TSA determined that Fred Szabo, then serving as assistant airport director, escorted Jacksons chief of operations, Darnell Brown, around TSA screeners so Brown could catch a flight. Brown initially cleared security, but then returned to a car to retrieve a cellphone, records state. Szabo then arranged for Brown to bypass screeners and board a flight to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The outcome of the TSA investigation remains a mystery. The city contends TSA didnt provide a report on the findings of the investigation. TSA officials told cleveland.com that the agency gave a report to the city in February. A second breach of security occurred in February, when a driver crashed through a security gate at Hopkins, drove across the airfield and then pushed through a fence to exit the secured area. That incident, too, drew scrutiny from TSA. Kelley wants a council committee to also question airport officials about a cyberattack that shut down flight and baggage information boards in the terminal for a week along with the airports internal email system. The FBI identified malware in the system as a form of ransomware. The airport ultimately regained control of its systems without paying a ransom. But the administration drew criticism for being tight-lipped for a week before acknowledging the computer attack. What power does City Council have? Cleveland's charter envisions City Council serving as a check on the powers of the mayor and grants the body the power to hold hearings, collect sworn testimony and compel people to appear. Cleveland.com noted in January that while City Council frequently held informational sessions and required the administration to explain legislative proposals before they are enacted, it did not often hold investigatory hearings. Kelley bristled at the notion that City Council was not conducting oversight. A public hearing might present more drama, but other approaches -- such as researching an issue and following up with phone calls to department heads -- can also hold the administration accountable, he said then. But the issue is one that is driving a group circulating petitions on charter changes that would reduce the number of council seats and members pay. It has accused the council of being a rubber stamp for the mayor. What has happened recently? Hearings have been held on a variety of issues. The Utilities Committee recently quizzed leaders from Cleveland Public Power about frequent power outages on the West Side, a concern as summer approaches and air conditioning use will push up power demands. CPP officials assured council that improvements were in the works that would help to solve the blackout issue. Other hearings have focused on safety issues raised by firefighters, installation of LED streetlights and high-definition security cameras across the city and staffing for the police sexual assault and domestic violence units. SOLON, Ohio -- By a split vote, City Councils Safety and Public Properties Committee has renewed its call to raze the century home known as the Lynch House. And following the recommendations of the city's Master Plan, a request to assess the costs of preserving the Bull house -- perhaps the oldest home in Solon, named for one of the city founders -- was referred May 8 to the Finance Committee. The latest recommendation -- and there have been several similar ones in recent years -- once again came over the objections of the Solon Historical Society, which would like to see both homes kept and restored. Safety and Public Properties Committee Chairman Bill Russo said the issue would keep getting bounced back if action is not taken, with preliminary repair costs estimated at more than $80,000 for the Lynch home. This has been going on for a number of years, Russo said, alluding to earlier plans that included a search to move the Lynch House off-site. We have the option of investing in it or razing it. Solon Historical Society Treasurer Ken Kvacek disputed those figures, especially the $18,300 quote for painting the exterior of the Lynch House (built in 1905), with their estimate coming in nearly $10,000 cheaper. When Solon bought the Lynch House in 2005, the city says there were never plans to keep it, although the century home did come in handy as lodgings for firefighters for 14 months before Station No. 2 was opened in 2008. (Tom Jewell, special to cleveland.com)Tom Jewell/Special to cleveland.com Councilman Doug Magill called it an incomplete proposal, noting that any time you get into restoration costs, youre going to run into something that you dont expect, with roof replacement already estimated at $13,000 and a new porch coming in at almost $20,000. City Public Works Commissioner Bill Drsek noted that the Master Plan calls for the Lynch House -- situated on Bainbridge Road between the Bull House and the Solon Historical Society in the former Disciples of Christ Church -- to be cleared for Town Center green space. At the same time, the Master Plan says the house and city named after Lorenzo Solon Bull "should be repaired and renovated to as close to the period-correct design and color so the historical value of the century home can be preserved," Drsek added. And that has been the plan, at least since the city acquired the Lynch House about 15 years ago. Kvacek countered that when city officials updated the Master Plan, "they certainly didn't get any feedback from the Solon Historical Society," which would like to use the Lynch House for storage, programming and possibly offices. Planning Director Rob Frankland said that when the Lynch House was bought in 2005, the city never intended to keep it, although it did come in handy as lodgings for firefighters for more than 14 months before Station No. 2 was opened in 2008. The Bull house is named for the city's founding family, including Lorenzo Solon Bull, one of the town's early postmasters. (Tom Jewell, special to cleveland.com)Tom Jewell/Special to cleveland.com Mayor Ed Kraus, who was in attendance at the May 8 meeting, agreed. "Looking at the two houses, the goal was always to restore the Bull home to its original era," Kraus told the committee. Councilman Jeremy Zelwin cast the lone vote against the proposed $15,500 demolition of the Lynch house, saying that on a recent tour, he was impressed by condition of the interior. At this point, the cost for repairs to the Bull House -- not included in the citys 2019 budget -- are estimated at about $43,000, including a new roof ($8,000 plus sheeting), painting ($15,000) and windows ($20,000 plus labor). Kvacek said the Lynch house has up to now been mothballed by the city, with the heat still being kept on through the winter months. Magill noted that the city might have other "climate-controlled" space to store local artifacts. As for the proposed green space -- another point of contention with the Solon Historical Society -- Russo said at the outset that this has nothing to do with the discussion of a (proposed) amphitheater. We are so far removed here from even considering that. It is believed that the Lynch home was actually built later on the property originally occupied by other Solon settlers, the Robbins family. Read more news from the Chagrin Solon Sun. NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio -- Drunken driving, Royalton Road On April 14, police observed a dark Chevrolet van traveling 20 mph in a 35 mph zone on York Road. The van was pulled over on Royalton Road. The driver, who had her 3-year-old daughter in the car, apologized for traveling slowly. She told the officer she was headed to the police station to bond out her boyfriend. While talking to the woman, the officer smelled booze. It turned out that she had a suspended license out of Pennsylvania. The driver denied drinking at first; however, she then admitted to having drank two tall Budweiser Ice beers four hours earlier. After failing a field sobriety test, during which she was shaking and nearly fell over, the woman was arrested for drunken driving. The boyfriends father picked up the little girl from the police station. Later, the woman also admitted to having drank a bloody Mary. The driver was also cited for child endangering, slow speed and driving with a suspended license. Stolen car, Ridge Road On April 15, police were dispatched to Albion Auto to speak to an employee who had reported his Acura stolen from his Ridge Road apartment complex.The man said he had both sets of keys. There are no suspects. Police are investigating. Dog running loose, Louis Drive On April 17, police were dispatched to Louis Drive after a resident complained that the neighbors dog was on their property and had gotten into the garbage. The man said he took a photo of the dog and the garbage. The officer recognized the dog from previous similar calls. The canine belonged to another Louis Drive resident. The officer went to the dog owners home, where he told the owner he was being cited for dogs running loose. The owner became very upset and started yelling. He followed the officer back to his car. The man eventually took the citation. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page . Read more news from the Sun Star Courier here. MEDINA, Ohio -- On Monday (May 13), 25 members and guests of the Medina County Historical Society met at the A.I. Root Candle Co. community room to hear Judy Davanzo assume the persona of Elsie Bennett Wilson, early Medina suffragette and library supporter. Davanzo, dressed in a vintage suit with white gloves and a wide-brimmed hat, told the story of Bennett Wilson in Elsies words. Elsie was born in Medina in 1889 and graduated from Medina High School in 1908, attended college in Cleveland for two years, then stayed at home to care for her three younger brothers after the death of her mother. Her father was the founder of the Medina Bending Works, which later became known as Bennett Lumber, now home of the Habitat ReStore on East Smith Road. Elsie was very active in the womens suffrage movement and gave a speech promoting womens right to vote in 1913 at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland. She said, I did not believe in protest demonstrations, but preferred lady-like speakers in support of our cause. By 1916, Elsie had met and married Floyd Stein of Wadsworth, the county prosecutor. Tragically, Stein died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1920 at age 33. They had a daughter, Ann, who attended Smith College and became a lawyer, later practicing in Medina County. In 1926, Elsie married Carl Wilson and gave birth to two more children, Bennett and Jane. Bennett also became an attorney. Jane, a resident of Indiana, raves about her mothers baking to this day; apple and lemon pies were her specialties. Carl and Elsie lived in the home at 940 E. Washington St., next to the hospital. In 1932, Elsie was the first woman from the 14th District to attend the Republican National Convention; Herbert Hoover was the Republican nominee. Another passion of Elsies was her commitment to public libraries. For 50 years, she was a member of the Board of Trustees at the Franklin Sylvester Library in Medina (now the Medina branch of the Medina County District Library). When the childrens wing was built at the library, it was named the Elsie Bennett Wilson Annex. For her service, she was named to the Ohio Library Association Hall of Fame and to the Medina High School Hall of Fame. Davanzo ended her presentation by urging members of the audience to vote: Its your duty, right and privilege, and to check out a book from the library in Elsies honor. Historical society president Brian Feron adjourned the meeting after encouraging guests to also visit the Smart House Museum at 206 N. Elmwood Ave., which currently offers a display about prominent women in Medinas history. He also announced that the June 10 membership meeting and potluck picnic will be held at the Brunswick Historical Societys Heritage Farm, 4613 Laurel Road, Brunswick. The public is welcome. Call 330-722-1341 for more information. Read more news from the Medina Sun here. Also, check out the stories from the Brunswick Sun. PARMA, Ohio -- Stolen vehicle, Redfern Road On May 7, a Redfern Road resident left her car running while she went back into her home. When she returned to the driveway, the car was gone. There are no suspects. Police are investigating. Drug abuse, Lucerne Avenue On May 8, a concerned resident called police about a suspicious man seen in a Lucerne Avenue home. An arriving officer located the Mercer, Pa., man, who was arrested for possessing suspected felony drugs. He was cited for drug abuse. Aggravated burglary, Essen Avenue On May 6, an Essen Avenue resident called police after returning home to find out that someone had stolen property. An arriving officer talked to the resident, who showed the officer how a thief had used forced entry to break into the home. The suspect got away with cash, handguns, a laptop computer and a video game station. There are no suspects. Police are investigating. Arson, Lucerne Avenue On May 6, police were dispatched to a Lucerne Avenue residence regarding a garage fire. An arriving officer located a Broadview Heights man who was suspected of setting the victims detached garage on fire. The suspect was arrested for suspected arson, obstructing official business, inducing panic and criminal trespass. Breaking and entering, West Pleasant Valley Road On May 7, police were dispatched to a West Pleasant Valley Road residence after a homeowner discovered that someone had entered their detached garage and removed several tools. There are no suspects. Police are investigating. Theft, Brookpark Road On May 3, police were dispatched to the T-Mobile on Brookpark Road after a man and a woman stole an iPhone. An arriving officer located the thieves, who attempted to flee in their car but were eventually pulled over. The Lorain man and woman were arrested for theft, failure to comply/fleeing, criminal damage and obstructing official business. The driver was also cited for driving with a suspended license. Drug abuse, Alber Avenue On May 4, an Alber Avenue resident called police about their loud neighbors. While talking to the loud couple, police learned that the man had a warrant. He was arrested. Also, police found drugs. The Parma man and woman were both charged with drug abuse. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page . Read more news from the Parma Sun Post here. AKRON, Ohio -- An Akron man was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with parole eligibility after 25 years in connection with the November murder of a 21-year-old man. A jury last week found Devon Williams, 22, guilty of felony charges including murder with gun specifications, attempted murder with a gun specification, felonious assault with a gun specification and carrying a concealed weapon. The charges stem from a Nov. 20, 2018 shooting at Family Foods convenience store on Arlington Road in East Akron. Shawn Prude, 21, and a 22-year-old friend pulled up to the store around 10 a.m., police reported. Williams shot at them, striking Prude multiple times. Prude was pronounced dead at the scene. To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comment section. Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.coms Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. CLEVELAND, Ohio Employees of a hemp manufacturing company owned by a man who promised to bring 650 jobs into Clevelands impoverished Glenville neighborhood have not gotten paid, according to a lawsuit. The suit filed Monday in federal court in Cleveland lists several excuses that North Coast Natural Solutions and its owner Tierney Ty Williams gave employees about not receiving their paychecks within the past month. It said the company issued checks last week but that they did not clear. (You can read the lawsuit here or at the bottom of this story.) Williams said Tuesday that issues surrounding pay arose because of TeNita Bryant, the companys former vice president of human resources and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He vowed that all employees would be paid by the end of this week. Williams, who runs the Washington, D.C.-based consulting and financial company Level 5 Global Corp., has made the rounds in recent months to tout his new venture. He obtained a building at 12735 Kirby Ave. from the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, and Williams said that will be used to manufacture multiple hemp goods. This includes hempcrete, a biodegradable version of concrete made from the cannabis plant. The Cleveland native said the hundreds of jobs would have starting wages of $17 an hour, and Williams has worked to recruit workers through churches and organizations throughout the city. He told a Crains Cleveland Business reporter that he raised $46 million from private investors, though he declined to name them. If were going to build it in their neighborhood, we have to make sure these people have an opportunity to get a job there, Williams told the cleveland.com/Plain Dealer editorial board in September. However, the lawsuit paints a picture of a company with financial woes that caused workers to not be paid, sometimes for months. It has caused strife with some workers, one of whom put his hand through a wall at Cuyahoga Community College, according to a police report. City Councilman Mike Polensek, who appeared at the editorial board meeting with Williams and ministers, said he has received complaints from workers about not getting paid. He said he spoke with Williams, whom he said assured me that this endeavor is still going forward. Lawsuit allegations In addition to Bryant, Theodore McQueen is named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Bryant worked as vice president of human resources from January until her firing in April, while McQueen was hired April 1 as a manufacturing worker, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks to recover wages and other damages for those two and other current and former employees. Williams said he had 183 employees, though that number recently dropped after he fired people for cause. North Coast offered Bryant a job in December, complete with a $131,000-a-year salary and a $25,000 signing bonus, according to an offer letter attached to the lawsuit. Bryant accepted the following month but said she never received the signing bonus. Bryant and McQueens attorney Claire Wade-Kilts said her client was never paid for the three months she worked at the company. Many of the employees hired on and after April 1 took part in training through a program at Tri-C, Wade-Kilts said. Tri-C spokesman John Horton wrote in an email that North Coast contracted with the school for non-credit courses for industrial safety and shop math and measurement. It also let the company use classroom space so it could hold its own training sessions, Horton said. On April 15, Williams told McQueen and other employees that U.S. Bank could not process all the paychecks in a timely fashion, the suit says. Three days later, Williams told them his payroll was switched to Automatic Data Processing, a human resources management software company more commonly known as ADP. He also told them he would give them a $150 bonus per day for each day their paychecks were late, according to the suit. However, Williams told the workers April 22 that ADP could not do the companys payroll because it was a hemp manufacturer, the suit states. The excuses continued, according to the lawsuit. Williams told McQueen and other employees on April 26 they would get their pay and the promised bonus later that week. On April 30, he told them investors did not want to cover the entire payroll at once and that employees would receive two checks, according to the suit. By May 3, the company provided employees pay stubs that showed the number of hours worked. Three days later, McQueen told workers that the bank could not print the checks because the bank ran out of paper, the suit states. The company issued checks to McQueen and other employees on May 7, according to the lawsuit. Those checks bounced. On Sunday, the company told the employees that the bank froze the companys assets. Bryant, McQueen, and similarly situated employees have not received any wages from Defendants to-date, the suit states. Not going to go anywhere Williams said Tuesday that the lawsuit is not going to go anywhere when a cleveland.com reporter informed him of the employees named as the plaintiffs. He said payroll issues were caused by Bryant, who caused tax forms to be improperly filled out. Her actions led to her firing, Williams said. He also said Bryant never fully worked for the company, but instead volunteered while she wrapped up work at her previous job. The reason we are in this situation is because of TeNita Bryant, he said. Wade-Kilts disputed this and said her client was not involved in payroll. She said she believed her client was fired because she was asking when she and other employees would get paid. I dont know what the guys end game is, Wade-Kilts said. As for the paychecks, Williams said the instructions given to employees who received their checks on May 7 were to not immediately cash or deposit them. He said it was caused by new bank account, which caused issues. Some employees still cashed tried to deposit or cash the checks, he said. Williams said some employees have been paid and that by the end of this week everybody will be paid in full. Series of issues Still, the lawsuit is the latest of a series of issues. The Kirby Avenue building will not be ready for use by June as Williams originally said, he explained. The soil on the site is contaminated and that he is having additional tests conducted to see what it is and what needs to be done to ameliorate the issue, he said. Additionally, it will take six to eight months to renovate the building. Williams said operations will be run out of a temporary site near East 79th Street and Woodland Avenue until those renovations at the Kirby Avenue building are finished. It appears tensions boiled over with other employees. An employee in training told Tri-C police that he got mad and hit a well a few times in frustration after being told he wasnt going to get a paycheck, according to police reports. He left a hole in the wall and damaged a trash can by kicking it, according to the reports. Other reports showed that workers were arrested at Tri-C for outstanding warrants. Horton said that recent concerns expressed by North Coast employees led the college to offer them career readiness sessions and a job fair this month at the Metropolitan Campus. He said the colleges Career Center and Job Link Services office are contacting employees. Williams said he took responsibility in front of his employees for the pay issues and that work is going forward. He said he gave workers $30,000 of his own money to cover their expenses. He also said he has a $95 million hempcrete contract with TR Construction, an Akron company in Akron. Two phone numbers listed for the company online were either disconnected or did not let a caller leave a message. Polensek, the Cleveland City councilman, wrote an email to Williams on Monday and said, from what hes heard, that I cant help but feel that I was mislead and used in this effort to secure the building from the Cuyahoga County land bank. He said he has spoke to Williams after sending the email and hopes the issues he heard about are just bumps in the road. If not, Polensek said he will seek an investigation. I dont know what to make of it, Polensek said. I really dont. The South Korean government takes up UN agencies appeal The Unification Ministry: "Food aid is an obligation, both from a humanitarian perspective and as a compatriot". Last year, North Korean agricultural production reached its lowest level since 2008. 40% of the population is in urgent need of food. Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - South Korea believes that food shortages in North Korea are serious and that Pyongyang needs external assistance, despite media reports that rice prices are falling, says Lee Sang-min, spokesman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul. Some media reports say that in recent times the cost of cereal in North Korean markets is dropping, suggesting that the country could avoid the food crisis feared by United Nations (UN) agencies. But Seoul denies the rumors. "We recognize the assessment made by the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as official indicators and targets," says Lee Sang-min. ""Given the nature of the North Korean regime, it is thought that there are many limits to estimating the food situation there with (market) indicators other than official prices or those provided by official organizations," he added. "Our stance remains unchanged that it is necessary to provide food from a humanitarian and compatriots perspective. Based on a visit to North Korea earlier this month, the WFP and FAO reported that last year's agricultural production in the country reached its lowest level since 2008, adding that around 10 million people , accounting for around 40% of the population, are in urgent need of food. Earlier this week, WFP executive director David Beasley expressed serious concerns about North Korea's food situation and urged Seoul to make additional donations. CLEVELAND, Ohio A woman from Orange Village was sentenced to two years in federal prison for misusing $300,000 in investor money. Lauren Wolf took money in 2016 from three investors in Sustainable Coatings Inc. She made false claims about her companys ownership of paint coatings technology, misled investors about the companys ability to fulfill sales orders and how the investor money was used. Wolf, 63, pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi in Akron, during a sentencing on Tuesday, also ordered Wolf to pay $300,000 in restitution. The judge allowed Wolf to report to prison at a later date. She told her investors that she had the sole ownership rights to the paint coating product. In reality, it belonged to another person and Wolfs company did not have the exclusive rights to manufacture, market and sell it, according to charging documents. She used the $300,000 invested in her company, in which she gave promissory notes in return, on personal expenses and misled investors about her companys financial condition. To cover up her acts, she provided false financial statements to investors, prosecutors said. Wolfs plea agreement called for a sentence of between 21 and 27 months. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian McDonough argued in a sentencing memo that Wolf should receive a 27-month sentence due to the severity of the crimes and the harm she caused to the victims. Wolfs attorney Catherine Meehan suggested in her sentencing memo that Wolf should be put on probation that includes some home form of confinement. She asked the court to consider Wolfs otherwise law-abiding life and that her client was cooperative with the government. The attorney also wrote that Wolf suffers from several physical and mental health issues. Overall, Defendant has been overwhelmed by the humiliation, and damage her actions have caused, and wants to do everything she can to remedy her wrongs, Meehan wrote. If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Wednesdays crime and courts comments section. GREEN, Ohio A Green woman was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries Tuesday after she walked into traffic following a crash on Interstate 77, according to the Summit County Sheriffs Office. Deputies responded around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to a report of a single-car crash on Interstate 77 north near the Akron-Canton Airport in Green, Inspector Bill Holland said in a news release. The driver, a 55-year-old woman, exited her 2010 Honda Odyssey and spoke with a deputy about the crash, Holland said. The deputy then interviewed witnesses about the crash, at which time the woman walked into the right lane of traffic and was hit by a Dodge Ram. Paramedics brought her to Summa Akron City Hospital. She has not been released as of Wednesday morning, Holland told cleveland.com. The crash is under investigation, Holland said. Investigators have not determined whether anyone will be charged. To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comment section. BRUNSWICK, Ohio -- A man suffered a fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wound Tuesday at a Giant Eagle in Brunswick, police said. The man shot himself about 2:45 p.m. inside the store on Center Road near North Carpenter Road, officials said. No other injuries were reported. The Brunswick Police Department did not immediately release any more information. A Giant Eagle spokeswoman said in a statement that the store is closed in the wake of the shooting. It will reopen by Wednesday morning. We are heartbroken over the tragic event that took place in our Brunswick Giant Eagle this afternoon, the statement says. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted by the incident, including our Team Members and customers. We are grateful for the efforts of the first responders and are continuing to work with the authorities as they investigate the matter. Giant Eagle is also offering support to its customers and employees, the statement says. To comment on this story, visit Tuesdays crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Cleveland man shot by a Metro by T-Mobile employee during an attempted robbery also committed a hold-up days earlier at another cellphone store, court records say. Amhad D. Jones, 25, is charged with aggravated robbery in an April 19 incident at a separate Metro by T-Mobile store on Kinsman Road near East 147th Street, according to court records. Jones has been in custody since an employee shot him in the stomach, left leg and right hand April 23 at another of the chains locations on Harvard Avenue at East 93rd Street, according to police reports and court records. He is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $50,000 bond. The latest charge accuses Jones of stealing several hundred dollars during the April 19 armed robbery, according to police reports. In that incident, a robber walked into the cellphone store just after 5 p.m. and pointed a gun at an employee. He walked behind the counter and ordered the employee to open a register, police reports say. The robber took the money before he left the store and ran north on East 147th Street. Investigators have not said how they identified Jones as a suspect. Jones has been in custody since a Metro by T-Mobile employee shot him April 23 at another store on Harvard Avenue at East 93rd Street, according to police reports and court records. Surveillance video from the store showed Jones point a gun at the employee, police reports say. The employee, who told investigators he acted in self-defense and has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, was not charged in the incident. The employee and the co-worker each told police that Jones came into the store and said he wanted to pay his phone bill. He pulled out a gun and told both employees not to move, police reports say. One of the employees grabbed his own gun, and Jones threatened to kill him, police reports say. The employee fired three shots at Jones, who fell to the ground. The employee kicked Jones gun away from him and asked the co-worker to call 911. Officers arrived to find Jones hurt on the ground behind the counter. The surveillance video from the store was extremely clear and mirrored what the employee and his co-worker described, investigators wrote in police reports. An ambulance took Jones to MetroHealth for treatment. He was later released and taken to the Cuyahoga County Jail. A Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted him May 3 on charges of aggravated robbery, robbery and having weapons under disability. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, court records say. To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comment page. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- President Trumps repeated claims that China would pay for increased tariffs is reminiscent of his false claim that Mexico would pay for the Trump border wall. Its also yet another reminder that Trump isnt the business savant and master dealmaker hes portrayed himself as and his voters believed him to be. Trump has more than doubled tariffs on over $200 billion worth of imports from China. China responded by imposing tariffs on $60 billion worth of American products. On twitter, Trump has been insisting China is bearing the costs of tariffs. Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S. Tariffs will bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal deal of the traditional kind. Also, much easier & quicker to do. Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch! The New York Times has exposed that the Art of the Deal coverboy actually lost $billions in business deals during the Eighties and Nineties. Now Trumps own twitter posts are exposing that he also doesnt understand the basics of tariffs and international trade. Countries dont pay for tariffs, companies producing and purchasing products pay the tariff costs, and ultimately, consumers pay for the costs when those companies increase prices to cover the increased production and import costs. Economists are in agreement that consumers are and will pay the price for the tariffs. The Atlantic reports that economic consultant firm, Trade Partnership, has estimated that American consumers would end up spending $800 more a year on purchases due to tariff induced price increases. The Atlantic also reports that in a paper written by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia and Princeton, they estimated that by the end of 2018, tariffs that had already been imposed by Trump, had been costing consumers a total of $1.4 billion in income a month. Trumps own Chief Economic Adviser, Larry Kudlow. has even acknowledged Americans will indeed pay for the tariffs. In fact, both sides will pay. Both sides will pay in these things, Kudlow told Chris Wallace on Fox News. The only indirect acknowledgment from Trump on who is really bearing the brunt of the tariffs, is his plan to offer subsidies to farmers impacted adversely by the tariffs. Those subsidies are of course taxpayer funded. Another simplistic response from the simpleton Trump is that consumers and companies should just buy products from non-tariffed nations. That ignores that fact that many products companies may need are only produced in China. There is no arguing that China is indeed a bad actor in many ways in international trade. But Trump imposing increased tariffs in the trade war amounts to American companies, farmers and consumers getting hit by friendly fire. Is Trumps contention that hes winning the trade war the reason hes also now waging the war dog at Iran? CLEVELAND, Ohio -- All the pieces came together at the right time for Cleveland hardcore band Harvey Pekar to create its newest album, Paris Green. The band (which is named after the late, great Northeast Ohio graphic novelist responsible for the American Splendor book series) recorded and mixed the work months ago with Mansfield producer Ryan Foltz. Then, Harvey Pekar was chosen to receive a grant from the Panza Foundation in 2019. Not long after, the band was offered a chance to sign to Steadfast Records. Putting out records is always this frustrating process of hurry up, and wait, but this time everything just came together out of the blue, said guitarist Elliott Frank. We planned less this time than we have in the past, and I actually think it helped a little. Harvey Pekar has been rocking in Clevelands hardcore and rock scenes for more than seven years. And the group knows what its like to remain fluid, shifting its sound between rock and roll songs and heavy hardcore depending on the time. (Weve long since given up on trying to write towards a specific sound, Frank said.) The bands membership has been fluid, too. Over a dozen different musicians have shifted into and out of Harvey Pekar over the years. The current version of the band consists of Frank, drummer Ian Douglas, vocalist Nick Kratsas and bassist Nick Schmitt. It used to freak me out that wed go through years with a stable lineup and then periods of rapid change, but Ive come to appreciate how this band has afforded me the opportunity to play with so many truly talented people, Frank said. Harvey Pekar will release Paris Green on June 1. Hear a sneak peek of the album with the first song on it, Predation In Shadow Position, below. Like Harvey Pekars last release, The Astral We, the new album follows a science fiction storytelling format, told from the perspective of an alien who has been watching humanity and fears mankinds actions. Paris Green is the search for some shred of goodness among all the uniquely vile characteristics that define human beings -- from our individual selfishness to the oppressive nature of our governments and social constructs, Kratsas said. Musically, the album is full of the same eclectic inspirations you would hear on past Harvey Pekar releases. I love that we can write songs that have sing-alongs, ambient stretches and the occasional dumb mosh part, Frank said. Maybe that wide-ranging musical appeal is part of the reason behind why Harvey Pekar has had such staying power within Clevelands hardcore music scene. Frank says hes grateful for the permanence the band has had in his life. This band has been perhaps the only constant in my life for close to eight years, but it seldom feels that way, Frank said. With a few notable exceptions, Cleveland hardcore bands are not known for their longevity, and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of something that has lasted this long. Youll be able to hear the new music at an album release show on June 1 at Now Thats Class. Harvey Pekar will perform along with Pillars, Minority Threat and Heart & Lung. Tickets cost $8 in advance and $10 the day of the show. Want more Cleveland music news and features? Sign up for Listen Up Cleveland, an email newsletter delivered on Thursday mornings. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- LeBron James is teaming up with Walmart to feed the hungry and inspire positive change in Akron and across the country. The former Cavaliers star will be featured in the retailers Fight Hunger Spark Change campaign, which raises money through donations and the purchase of participating products at Walmart. In return, Walmart will keep the pantry at James I Promise School stocked with food, toiletries, clothing and other basic necessities. The pantry and its contents are available to the schools students and their families. What we hope to accomplish together with LeBron is to magnify each others efforts. We would love to help this model that hes creating lead to a situation where it could help even more people, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a video announcing the partnership. While the campaign so far has raised $74 million, resulting in 749 million meals, Walmart believes James can help the company reach its goal of one billion meals. Its an honor and a privilege for me in my community and what Im doing here to partner with such a heavy hitter in Walmart, James said in the video. He and Walmart will also support each others education programs, starting with James being featured in the stores Back to School campaign in the summer. Editor's note: This is a two-part series on chef Michael Symon, host chef of the upcoming Five Star Sensation. Tuesday: Why he is involved with Five Star Sensation. Wednesday: The state of the culinary industry in Northeast Ohio. CLEVELAND, Ohio It doesnt take much for a foodie or casual culinary passerby to see that Clevelands restaurant scene has boomed steadily over the past several years. The secret to future success, as Michael Symon sees it, is whats in the heart of the chef. He sees that on his travels - throughout Northeast Ohio; to Detroit, where he runs Roast, a carnivore's heaven. To Sara's in Las Vegas; to haunts in New York and Atlantic City and the West Coast. He's always on the lookout for epicurean wonders. "I was in Dallas for a charity event," said Symon, who will return as host chef of the Five Star Sensation fundraiser on Saturday, June 15, at Cuyahoga Community College's Eastern campus. "We went to this little restaurant called Revolver Taco. It literally was the best taco I have ever had. I'm still thinking about it. I came home, and Liz was 'Quit talking about the tacos.' It was because the chef was from a specific part of Mexico. He was doing (food from) exactly where he grew up. They are different and unique from anything I have ever experienced. "When you think of any food - Italian, Mexican, whatever it is - you think of a specific dish. Sometimes you forget in other countries like the United States there are very regional specific things. Hundreds of different kinds of tacos in Mexico. Italian food is different from Florence to Tuscany to Rome - it's completely different." And therein lies the food future: "As culinary scenes grow, things will become more regionally specific." He sees that type of growth happening throughout Cleveland. "If you think about from 20 something years ago to now, look at Ohio City, Tremont, downtown - a lot has happened," he said. "I think in Cleveland we've really seen it grow. We opened Lola 23 years ago in March, to see how much it's grown in that time is unbelievable. I think in its initial growth a lot of the restaurants were the same. A lot had some success, a lot mimicked that success. Youre always going to have that a little bit. "I think what's happening now, which is so great in Cleveland, is you're starting to see so much diversity in the food. Like vegan pierogies. (Symon was referring to the recent startup example of Flamin' River.) People are finding different niches, things that strike a chord with them, and theyre following through with that. Thats what makes a great restaurant. The great restaurants are always when the food being served comes from a place from the person. And is specific in that manner. "It's why independent restaurants in my opinion are typically better than chains because they are not replicating. A lot of chain restaurants replicate what has been successful for an independent restaurant." So, Symon said, if a vegan-pierogies restaurant takes off, then "three other people make vegan pierogies and they are a bunch of carnivores, it doesnt have that soul anymore or that thoughtfulness." Restaurants continue to pop up throughout the area, and while Symon's empire has expanded beyond Ohio, part of his attention will always be drawn to Cleveland. Sherla's Chicken & Oysters is in the works. It will replace Lolita, at 900 Literary Road in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood. That restaurant opened in 2005 and closed after a fire ravaged the space in 2016. "We dont have an ETA, we're still plugging along," he said. "We got through everything with the building. We're hoping to start working on the building, hopefully within the next couple of weeks to a month. We're getting there." As Symon sees it, it's consumers who control the balance for growth in the local restaurant scene. "I think creativity goes as far as the consumer allows it to go," he said. "When you're talking about chefs or brewers you are talking about, for the most part, creative artsy people. As a chef you always want to push the envelope. You push it until you get resistance. And then you find your spot. "Creativity is going to continue to grow. Restaurants that are doing different kinds of cuisine and food continue to become more prominent - we see more Asian, Middle Eastern, regional specific types of cuisine. That's really when a culinary scene truly explodes in a city, when you have all kinds of great foods from all kinds of different cultures. "Thats," he said, "where you start building depth." Related coverage Why Five Star Sensation is important to Symon Five Star Sensation returns to Cleveland CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Bay Village native Patricia Heaton is headed back to CBS. The actress, who spent nine seasons at the network on Everybody Loves Raymond, will star in Carols Second Act starting in the fall. The series was one of eight new shows CBS picked up for the upcoming season. Heaton, who wrapped up nine seasons on ABCs The Middle last year, plays Carol Kenney, a 50-year-old retired teacher who, after raising her kids and getting a divorce, pursues her dream of becoming a doctor. Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) co-stars as Dr. Frost, the attending physician supervising Carol. Look for Carols Second Act this fall Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. following Mom. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Cleveland man is charged in the death of his girlfriend in a case police initially considered a fatal drug overdose. Reinaldo Dejesus Jr., 36, is charged with murder in the July 27, 2018 death of Rachel Mack, a 27-year-old mother of five young children. Dejesus is not in police custody and a warrant was issued Wednesday for his arrest. Macks body was found at their shared home on West 54th Street, just south of Clark Avenue. Her sister called Cleveland police from Michigan about 11:30 a.m. and asked for an officer to perform a welfare check, according to police reports. The caller told police that Dejesus called her despite not speaking with each other for about a year because he was trying to get in touch with Macks mother, who also lived with them, police reports say. Officers spoke with Macks mother who said she hadnt seen Mack that day. She thought her daughter was asleep in her bedroom. Macks bedroom door was locked and officers forced it open, according to police reports. The officers found Mack lying face down on the bed, fully clothed and partially covered with a bed sheet. She was unconscious and had no pulse, police reports say. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Homicide detectives and drug detectives were both called to the scene. A police spokeswoman said three days later that the death was a suspected overdose. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office did not rule the death a homicide until eight months later, when they ruled Mack died of a homicide by strangulation, according to court records. Medical Examiner spokesman Chris Harris said Macks autopsy report was not yet finished, but that the ruling was made. Homicide detectives filed the charge against Dejesus on Wednesday, but court records do not say how they linked him to the crime. Mack was a mother of five young children between the ages of three and 11, according to police reports and her obituary. The homicide makes 130 for 2018, tying the previous years total. The four councilors were also elected: Fr. Fabio Motta, from the mission in Guinea Bissau; Fr. Xavier Lourdh, from the mission in Japan; Brother Massimo Cattaneo, from the Bangladesh mission; Fr. Raffaele Manenti, a former missionary in India and Thailand, up until now the spiritual director in the PIME theological seminary. Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Fr. Ferruccio Brambillasca was re-elected PIME Superior General for a second term today, the feast day of St. Matthias Apostle. Voting for the new superior took place this morning at the International Center for Mission Animation, where the XV General Assembly of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions is taking place. Fr. Brambillasca, born in Monza (MB), on 11 June 1964, was elected for the first time as superior general in 2013. From 1998 to 2013 he was a missionary in Japan, where he also served as regional superior . A graduate in dogmatic theology in Naples, he has been a priest for 30 years. He spent some years as a formator in Italy, at Ducenta (1989-1993) and in India as a Formator in the Pune seminar. The PIME general secretariat, giving the news of the election, asks "God's paternal blessing on him and on our whole family of apostles". The elections for the councilors were also concluded by the end of the morning. Fr. Fabio Motta, 42, born in Treviglio (Milan), ordained in 2004 has been elected first councilor and vicar general. He spent a few years in missionary animation in Italy before travelling to Guinea Bissau on mission in 2009. The second counselor is Fr. Xavier Lourdh, 46, born in Kazipet (Andhra Pradesh), ordained in 2003; he worked for many years in India. In 2013 he was assigned to the Japanese mission, in Takahata (Tokyo). The third councilor elected is Brother Massimo Cattaneo, 58, born in Saronno (Milan). Immediately swearing his oath to the institute, in 2004 he was sent on mission to Bangladesh. The fourth councilor is Fr. Raffaele Manenti, the oldest of the group, as he is 62 years of age and has 37 years of priesthood. He carried out his mission in Italy (1982-1986), in India (1998-2005), and long periods in Thailand (1987-1998; 2005-2016). For the last three years he has been spiritual director of the PIME theological seminary. In the picture, from left: Fr. Lourdh, Fr. Manenti, Fr. Brambillasca, Fr. Motta, Br. Cattaneo. By Fabian Dawson When it comes to China and seafood, C Pearls team of culinary artists in Shanghai, Beijing, Fuzhou, and Wuxi know that British Columbia produces some of the best shellfish the world has to offer. That is why Xu Shuang Shuang, the companys purchasing and marketing director, is making a beeline for this years B.C. Seafood Expo. The event in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island on June 12 and 13 is one of the largest seafood industry trade shows in the Pacific Northwest. The Expo is wrapped around the 2019 BC Seafood Festival which will be held from June 7 to 16. C Pearl Oyster Dining is a China-based restaurant group that is famed for its focus on bringing the freshest flavors from the sea to our guests, said Xu. He is looking to import oysters, clams, mussels and scallops from BCs harvesters. Like C Pearl, two dozen other Asian seafood companies together with others from Europe and North America will be attending this years B.C. Seafood Expo to seek out the bounty of BCs seas. This is the largest international buyers delegation in the history of the BC Seafood Expo, said said John Watson, executive director of the Comox Valley Economic Development, the organization that collaborates with a wide range of seafood organizations and institutions to develop the Expo annually. The demand for BC seafood in Asia has been growing every year and this event brings provides a venue to network with industry leaders, international buyers, distributors, and educators for every type of fish, seafood, and seafood-related products and services, said Watson. This year the visiting Asian nations include China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand. Over the years, Expo organizers, have worked with the Ministry of Jobs Trade and Technology, Global Affairs Canada, BC Salmon Farmers, and BC Shellfish Growers to host scores of seafood buyers, the majority from key Asian markets. Trade and Invest B.C, which helps international businesses source sustainable local natural resources, said British Columbias high-quality seafood products are in demand globally. The province is rapidly increasing exports to growing markets such as China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. With a strong reputation for quality products and a strategic geographic location on the west coast of Canada, B.C. seafood producers are in a position to continue expanding exports in a growing global market, the agency said. South Korea is a developing opportunity for our seafood exports as more than 90% of Canadas exports are eligible for duty-free access to South Korea. In China, the rapidly expanding middle class has resulted in increased demand for the high-quality seafood products B.C. can provide. Seafood exports, particularly crab, geoduck clams, hake, and herring are top Canadian exports to China. British Columbia exported $257-million worth of wild-caught seafood to China by wholesale value in 2017. With a strong reputation for abundant, diverse produce and a strategic geographic location on the West Coast of Canada, B.C. agrifoods producers are in a position to continue expanding into the growing markets in Japan and Korea, said a joint statement by Bruce Ralston, Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology, and George Chow, Minister of State for Trade, after their trade mission to Asia last March. Several of the British Columbias trade and investment representatives from Asia are expected to attend the Seafood Expo. Markets in Asia are showing huge potential for BC salmon with year-over-year growth more than doubling in many markets, said John Paul Fraser, the executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association. He said farm-raised salmon is B.C.s highest valued seafood product, the provinces top agricultural export, and generates over $1.5-billion towards the B.C. economy, resulting in over 6,600 jobs. About BC Seafood Expo Trade Show 2019 The BC Seafood Expo Trade Show 2019 will provide businesses the opportunity to meet face-to-face and showcase their products & services to seafood buyers, exporters, distributors and other providers from throughout BC and the pacific northwest. For more information and how to register go to https://bcseafoodexpo.com/ The Asian buyers and what they are looking for CHINA Abysmal Sea World Fishier - Geoduck, Dungeness Crab, Lobster, Oyster Alibaba-Hema - Dungeness crab, new lobsters, cold water shrimp, clam, geoduck, fish Pearl Oyster Dining - Oysters, mussels, clams, scallops. Guotong Logistic City Co., Ltd - Lobsters, Crabs, Geoducks, Oysters Pacific Rich Resources Limited - Black cod, Halibut, Wild caught salmon, Dungeness crabs, and lobsters Qingdao Beiyang Jiamei Seafood Co., ltd - Coldwater shrimp, halibut, crab, black cod, salmon, clams Shanghai SeaWorld International Trading Co., Ltd. - High-quality spot prawns which are certified by Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). SOUTH KOREA Elbon F&B - Snow Crab, Salmon Roe, and other premium seafood in both raw and processed forms Shinsegae Food - Salmon (jerky and candy), Shrimps, and other premium seafood SSG.COM - Canadian Lobster, salmon. SINGAPORE Angliss Singapore Pte Ltd - Various type of Seafood, Live, Fresh and Frozen Evergreen Seafood Pte Ltd - Live Dungeness Crabs, Live Canadian Oysters, Live Geoducks Indoguna (Singapore) Pte Ltd - Oysters & other molluscs, Fish portions and fillets, lobsters and other crustaceans. HONG KONG Eurosia Group - full range of frozen marine products. Sun Wah Marine Products (HK) Co Ltd - salmon, sea cucumber, shellfish for food service and retail customers in Hong Kong and Macau. VIETNAM Ha Long Canfoco Danang Co. Ltd. - Canned/Pouched Tuna, mackerel, sardine and frozen Seafood Hung Long Food Company - wild Pacific salmon, farmed Atlantic salmon, Pacific sardine, Sea cucumber Red Sun - Salmon, Crab, Snow crab, crawfish, lobster, squid (Loligo and Illex), shrimp, tuna, oyster, mussel, clams, cold water shrimp and seafood related products. Thanh Phuong Tratechen Co., Ltd - Dungeness crabs, geoduck, wild Pacific salmon, sablefish, Pacific halibut, Pacific sardine, shellfish, groundfish, sea urchin, sea cucumber Thao Tien Co., Ltd - Fish Mackerel, Salmon, Tuna Thien Vuong Foods (Ace Foods) - Salmon, Spot prawns, Shrimp, Black cod, Oyster and Crab. JAPAN Hokubu Foods Inc./ Hokkaido Sanchoku Foods. Co., - Sockeye salmon, Silver cod, Kazunoko, Sockeye green row and other seafood. Ihara & Company, Ltd. - Primarily spot prawns and hake and roe on kelp. Kurahashijima Kaisan Co., Ltd. - Sockeye, Rock fish, Shellfish, crab RELATED STORIES B.C. Seafood Expo 2019 to showcase bounty of our oceans BC Seafood Expo 2019 Chef Line-up CLEVELAND, Ohio A 61-year-old motorcyclist died after crashing into a median on the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway, police said. Edward Schmitt of Cleveland died in the crash, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner said. The crash happened about 8:45 p.m. in the westbound lanes near the West 49th Street ramp. Schmitt was riding his 2013 Triumph motorcycle when he hit the median curb, causing him to lost control of the bike. He was ejected from the motorcycle and landed in the grass median. An ambulance took him to MetroHealth, where he died. Police initially said they believed Schmitt crashed into another car, but later no other vehicle was involved in the crash. CLEVELAND, Ohio One person died Tuesday in a motorcycle crash on the Memorial Shoreway, police and EMS said. The crash happened about 8:15 p.m. in the west lanes near the West 45th Street exit, according to police. The motorcycle and a car collided, police said. One person was taken MetroHealth in unstable condition, according to an EMS supervisor. The person died at the hospital, police said. The departments accident investigation unit is investigating what caused the crash. No other information was immediately released. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Heartbreak Hotel is a song about loneliness and suicide made famous by Elvis Presley. The lyrics are said to have been inspired by the death of a heartbroken man who jumped to his death from a Miami hotel window. Before taking his life, the man wrote a short note. It simply read: I walk a lonely street. Cuyahoga County has its own emerging version of a heartbreak hotel. Its called the Cuyahoga County Jail. Its a place where broken men are increasingly turning up dead. The morbid heartbreak hotel occupancy decreased by one this past week when Nicholas Colbert, 36, was found dead. The National Guard veteran hanged himself last Friday in the downtown Cleveland facility. Colbert was a heroin addict. For the decade since he left the armed forces, his family says he wrestled a losing battle with addiction. He sought treatment on his own. Other times, treatment was court ordered. It never worked. The cycle of addiction slowly cost Colbert everything. Heroin cost him the life of his first wife. She died of a heroin overdose in 2013. The drug cost him custody of his two children. At least three times, he overdosed on heroin and would have likely died had he not been revived by Narcan, according to his mother. Now, the drug has cost him his life. Colberts journey is a familiar but heart-wrenching story that countless American families endure. Last Tuesday, his desperate existence entered its final stage when he was arrested on a fourth-degree drug possession charge in Maple Heights. Bond was set at $1,500. By posting $150 (ten percent of the bond) Colbert would have been released from jail to await court proceedings. He didnt make bond, and his mother was relieved. She told a reporter that she wanted him in jail. She felt that it was the only place where he would be safe from the relentless demons that haunted him. She was wrong. I expected to lose him out there, (in the streets) but I didnt expect to lose him in jail. It was the one place I wanted him to be so he could be alive, Laura Colbert told Cleveland.com reporter Adam Ferrise. The grossly overcrowded Cuyahoga County Jail is a troubled place. Few, if any, argue that it is safe or well-managed. Calling it a modern-day dungeon may not be too far of a stretch. The Ohio Attorney Generals office and the FBI continue to conduct investigations into civil rights violations at the jail. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michael Nelson, Sr. has pointedly called for federal oversight of the jail. In the meantime, inmates continue to die questionable deaths at the Cuyahoga County Jail. Since June 2018, nine inmates have died while in the jails custody four by suicide. The rise in suicides and attempted suicides have continued to dramatically escalate as cost-cutting measures have been debated and inmate overcrowding has been sorely exacerbated. In 2016, 23 inmates attempted to take their own lives. Last year, the number of attempted suicides rose to 69. In the midst of the ongoing jail debacle there is a glimmer of hope. Both Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court and Cleveland Municipal Court operate strong drug courts with a special outreach to military veterans. Success stories of people battling their addictions and winning routinely emerge from these courts. Far too often, however, we hear stories of people who relentlessly struggle with addiction and then die. Stories like that of Nicholas Colbert. Desperate families are left to pray that their loved ones will be arrested and removed from the temptations and drugs that surge through the streets. But, the Cuyahoga County jail is not a safe place. Its a place where broken men are increasingly going to die. Colbert hanged himself in a pod reserved for military veterans. The heartbreak hotel is a thriving business at the county jail. Change in leadership and direction is needed now. The Cuyahoga County Jail must stop doubling as the Cuyahoga County morgue. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The 34th annual Police Memorial Commemoration takes place this week with ceremonies, services and events nearly every day. As part of the week, the Cleveland Police Museum is holding a Heroes Roll Call, which will honor Cleveland officers who lost their lives while serving and celebrate current Cleveland Police officers. The event is open to the public. Admission is $10, which includes food. There will be a cash bar and part of the proceeds will go to the Cleveland Police Museum. Reporter Hannah Drown will be live on cleveland.coms Facebook page today around 4 p.m. to broadcast the heroes toast, roll call and find out more from organizers. Do you have questions, thoughts or comments? Be sure to put them in the comments section once the Facebook Live video broadcast begins. The video will appear at the top of the cleveland.com Facebook page once the broadcast begins. It also will be added to this post. Free trial of Project Text throughout May from Hannah Drown about live reports: Weve engaged with each other plenty through my coverage on Facebook Live, and we can get to know each other even better on the more friendly platform of Project Text. Sign up for a free trial through May 31. No credit card is required. Learn more and sign up here. COLUMBUS, OhioDemocrats on an Ohio House committee hearing a controversial clean-energy bill walked out of a hearing Wednesday for more than an hour after the committees Republican chair wouldnt allow a Democratic lawmaker to ask questions of a witness supporting the measure. Democrats, whose votes are considered important to pass House Bill 6, also said they were kept in the dark until the last minute about Wednesdays hearing itself, as well as a lengthy list of GOP-authored changes unveiled at the meeting. House Democrats have already expressed concern about HB6, which seeks to scrap the states green-energy mandates in favor of subsidies to clean-energy power producers. Supporters say it would save Ohioans money on their electric bills and rescue two Northern Ohio nuclear power plants, while opponents claim the bill is a bailout for FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the plants. The walkout came after Joe Price of Canton-based TimkenSteel kicked off a long list of witnesses set to testify in favor of the bill before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee. After two Republican committee members asked Price questions, committee Chair Nino Vitale declined to allow Democratic state Rep. Kristin Boggs of Columbus to question Price, citing his earlier announcement that the committee would only spend a total of five minutes on each witness. Without comment, the five Democrats on the committee stood up and walked out of the room. "If this is just going to be a show trial, then we'll let them do it by themselves," said one of those Democrats, state Rep. David Leland of Columbus, in the hallway. State Rep. Michael OBrien of Warren said that he and other Democrats on the committee weren't told about Wednesdays hearing until Tuesday morning, 12 minutes before the mandatory 24-hour notification deadline. Democrats also werent told by House Republicans about the changes they made to HB6 on Wednesday until they were outlined at the beginning of Wednesdays hearing, OBrien said. By contrast, OBrien said that House Republicans clearly gave more notice about the hearing to supporters of the bill, who packed the committee room Wednesday wearing green ribbons pinned to their shirts. About 90 minutes later, Democrats on the committee returned to the room. Vitale said he reached an agreement with Democratic state Rep. Sedrick Denson of Cincinnati, the committees ranking member, to allow time for minority party committee members to question witnesses. Price was brought back before the committee to field Democrats questions, which centered on his earlier testimony about how HB6 is needed to keep TimkenSteel competitive against out-of-state steelmakers. Examining this bill, I know my monthly [electricity] bill will go down, Price said. Vitale told reporters afterward that part of his job as chair is to find a balance between facilitating discussion and keeping meetings running on schedule. Sometimes an agreement is negotiated, and then when things actually happen...they dont happen exactly the best way they should, said the Champaign County lawmaker. He added later: Hopefully were getting back on track to talk about the bill, not the process. House Bill 6 would scrap Ohios existing requirements that by 2027, utilities must obtain 12.5 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar, as well as reduce demand through energy-efficiency programs. If HB6 passes as written, the $4.39 average monthly surcharge paid by Ohio electricity customers for these mandates would be eliminated. Instead, starting in 2021, ratepayers would pay a new monthly surcharge of $2.50 for residential customers, $20 for commercial customers, $250 for industrial ratepayers and $2,500 for very large power users. (The new surcharge would start in 2020, but at much-reduced rates as the existing green-energy surcharges wouldnt end until the end of next year). That pool of money, estimated to total about $300 million per year, would then be distributed among power generators that either create zero carbon emissions or that will make a significant contribution toward minimizing emissions in the future. Those two groups would be paid a clean-energy credit" of $9.25 for each megawatt-hour of electricity they create. Among the changes the committee made to the bill on Wednesday was adding language that appears to more explicitly allow owners of coal and other fossil-fuel power plants to be eligible for ratepayer-funded clean-energy subsidies if they take significant steps to reduce the amount of pollution their plants emit. Under the new version of the bill, fossil-fuel plant owners could get clean-air credits for reducing emissions not just of carbon dioxide, but any physical, chemical, biological, or radioactive air pollutant, as defined by the federal Clean Air Act. Lawmakers also moved to address concerns that some small businesses with multiple electricity meters would see massive rate hikes under HB6. Cleveland.com found one Northeast Ohio welding shop whose utility bill would have risen from $800 per month to $1,800 per month because its located in a building with several meters. In response to such concerns, a new provision of HB6 states that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio must set up the new surcharge in a way that avoids abrupt or excessive total electric bill impacts for typical commercial and industrial customers. LEWIS CENTER, Ohio Mr. Farhan Warfaa was a 17-year-old farmer when he was abducted. In December 1987, he and other men and boys from his village were rounded up and taken to the base of the 5th Mechanized Brigade of the Somali National Army, in Gabiley, a town in northwestern Somalia, where Col. Yusuf Abdi Ali ( akaTukeh) was the commander. On Monday, May 13, 2019, after more than 31 years, a trial began in a U.S. courthouse in Virginia that will allow Mr. Warfaa, 48, to face Col. Tukeh over Tukehs alleged role in the torture and attempted extrajudicial killing of Mr. Warfaa. The case was filed on Mr. Warfaas behalf under the U.S. Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability. CJA is a nonprofit organization committed to bringing to justice human rights violators and war criminals living in the United Sates. Ali Mohamed of Lewis Center, Ohio, is founder and editor of Gubanmedia.com, which carries news analysis and commentary about the greater Horn of Africa region. According to a CJA press release, The case alleges that Col. Tukehs soldiers tortured and interrogated Mr. Warfaa while he was imprisoned at a military base in Northern Somalia, and that Col. Tukeh himself shot Mr. Warfaa five times at point blank range, leaving him for dead. Miraculously, he survived. Mr. Warfaa alleges that he was persecuted because he is a member of the Isaaq clan. In late 1980s, the tyrannical Siad Barre regime, a military dictatorship that misruled Somalia from 1969 to 1991, was conducting a vicious military campaign to quell an uprising led by the Somali National Movement, a north Somalia-based group fighting against the scorched-earth policy of the Siad Barre military, and for a free and representative government. Col. Tukeh has been accused of committing appalling crimes during Somalias civil war: He allegedly tortured people, committed extrajudicial killings, and engaged in ethnic cleansing of the Isaaq clan, the dominant clan in northern Somalia. He tied [my brother] to a military vehicle and dragged him behind, one villager told Canadas CBC, according to a CNN story. He shredded him into pieces. Thats how he died. In 1991, when the Siad Barre regime was overthrown, Col. Tukeh fled to Canada. But two years later, his application for asylum in Canada was rejected, and he was deported back to the United States because the Canadian authorities learned his past alleged human rights violations in northern Somalia from the fifth estate, an investigative program of Canadas CBC network. He voluntarily left America and returned to the United States through a visa his Somali wife, then a U.S. citizen, procured for him. In 2006, his wife was convicted of naturalization fraud for claiming she was an asylee from the same clan that Col. Tukeh was allegedly terrorizing. Col. Tukeh has been residing in northern Virginia, where a CNN investigative unit found him working at Dulles airport near the nations capital, as a security guard, in 2016. His case also demonstrates how, while our broken immigration system can be effective for our government to bring in immigrants, prosecuting or removing human rights violators or war criminals is a tedious and painstaking process, if not impossible. This is because the United States does not have the laws to prosecute human-rights violators who are non-U.S. nationals for crimes committed abroad. The current unit within Immigration and Customs Enforcement dedicated to the task -- the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes unit -- is currently pursuing more than 1,750 leads and removals cases that involve suspected human-rights violators from 95 different countries, according to its website. The unit is understaffed and underfunded, with a budget of around $5.3 million out of ICEs $4.9 billion for Enforcement and Removal operations, according to New Republic magazine. More troubling, a special unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that handles war crimes may be shut down imminently, according to a report by justsecurity.org. Col. Tukehs presence in the United States is unjust and a painful reminder to Mr. Warfaa and other victims, survivors and their families. I have contacted Sen. Rob Portman, a member of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over ICE, to look into why ICE has failed to take any action against Col. Tukeh. The United States should not be a safe haven for individuals like Col. Tukeh who are suspected of engaging in the commission of war crimes, genocide, torture and other forms of human-rights abuses in conflicts around the world, including Somalia. Col. Tukeh is taking advantage of the cracks in our broken immigration system and Americas justice system based on due process, a justice that Mr. Warfaa and other victims, survivors and their families were denied in their own country. Ali Mohamed is the editor and founder Gubanmedia.com, a 24/7 online magazine of news analysis and commentary about the greater Horn of Africa region. To reach Ali Mohamed: aliadm18@gmail.com ************* Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Follow option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. CLEVELAND, Ohio When Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh was an assistant prosecutor in her mid-20s, her opposing counsel shouted from the judges office. Little girl! the man yelled. Are you coming in here, little girl? Walsh didnt reply. My mind was kind of spinning like, how should I handle this? Later, she imagined responses. Should I have said, Im coming, old man? The sexist comment has stuck with Walsh for decades. Other influential women have similar stories. Cleveland.com collected advice and anecdotes from 16 of the most influential women in Northeast Ohio, in hopes of helping the next generation of female leaders succeed. Despite the humiliating moments, the women urge others to confront such discrimination though they recognize thats hard. I think as women we should respond by directly saying something if somebody says something inappropriate as soon as it happens, Walsh said. But I think thats sometimes easier said than done. Because I think what happens in most of these scenarios is you arent expecting it, so youre caught off guard. Something is said. You know its a problem or its not appropriate and you just kind of hesitate on how to handle it. Progressive Insurance chief Tricia Griffith, one of 24 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, started her career at the insurance giant, writing estimates. Men hooted at her when she went underneath cars to write estimates, while wearing a skirt suits and panty hose mandated by the companys dress code. First of all, the intimidation of just walking into a body shop, which is predominately male, and concentrating on not tripping, not sliding on grease, but then as a young woman having guys hoot at you and stuff, she said. In response, she adopted a no-nonsense attitude, and made sure she did a good job. She focused on the cars; she ignored the mens behavior. I was young and didnt have enough confidence to call out men that didnt treat me with respect based on my gender, she said. I dont know if it was the time or me, or likely a little of both, but I would want any woman at Progressive to know that they should demand respect. Griffith said women should address sexism immediately. I think what people sometimes do, they might say, Well, yeah he hit on me but, its not a big deal because we were all out and whatever, she said. No. Youve got to address it right away because likely it wont stop. You really do need to think about the women that come after you and to me it is really setting the stage for treating people with respect. Walsh suggests that women think about possible responses to sexism, so theyre more prepared to address the issue in the moment. She suggested telling the man that a comment made you uncomfortable, or that its inappropriate. If the issue is more serious, you could report it. In addition to speaking up, women should find a tribe of support, because theyre likely not alone in their experiences, said U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, of Warrensville Heights. I advise women to have the confidence to speak up, Fudge wrote. Chances are, you are not the first or the only one experiencing sexism in your workplace. I tell any woman entering a new work environment to create a network of women around you who can be a sounding board and give you the support needed. Speaking out, she said, could change your workplace culture. No matter how great or small the offense, women standing up and speaking out lets employers and coworkers know that sexist comments and behaviors will not be tolerated, Fudge said. Jill Van Auken, principal at Van Auken Akins Architects, said shes had to push back against men on job sites who didnt like that she was the boss. She once climbed on a roof when she was eight months pregnant to check tiny details. Theres some big burly guys out there that dont really want to take direction from a woman, she said. I had a lot of instances where I had to put my foot down and just say, Youre wrong. Lets talk about it and lets correct it. But you need to realize that I do know what Im doing." They dont report because of the status of the perpetrator, fear of repercussions and because the incidents are often endemic to the workplace, said IBA LPRU Legal Advisor Kieran Pender who led the project. These issues affect all parts of the profession, from entry-level trainees to attorneys-general. We must take responsibility and develop standards of conduct to make it clear that this behaviour has no place in our profession. The launch event for the report Us Too? Bullying and Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession was held at Herbert Smith Freehills London office on 15th May. The report found that workplaces are not doing enough to prevent or adequately respond to misconduct, with policies regarding bullying and sexual harassment present in only 53% of workplaces; and just one in five workplaces have conducted training in recognising and reporting problems in these areas. Lawyers and other legal professionals must be able to work in environments that are safe and supportive. Bullying and sexual harassment is never appropriate, and the profession must do all it can to stamp out such misconduct, said Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC, Director of the IBAs Human Rights Institute. The full report is available at https://www.ibanet.org/bullying-and-sexual-harassment.aspx The round was BOCs fifth to be issued in international capital markets specifically to support the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of the Chinese government. KWM said that the bonds issued by the Sydney branch have a 3.5-year Australian dollar floating rate and ratings of A1/A/A, on par with BOC. KWM is currently involved in a range of Belt and Road projects and advising BOC Sydney on this issuance is another way in which the firm can help progress this international initiative, Harvey said. BRI looks to bolster economic co-operation and pave the way for simplified trades between countries along the ancient Silk Road, and we are proud to be involved in progressing projects that serve to promote exchange and mutual learning in the region. In the past three years, KWM has acted in bond issuances of BOCs Sydney branch totalling $2.7bn. KWM is also a frequent adviser to the Australian branches other major Chinese banks, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, and Agricultural Bank of China. PeopleImages | Getty Images Whether it's lifetime income, tax deferral or the prospect of protection from falling markets, an annuity can sound like a good idea for many investors. But clients ought to bring plenty of questions and some skepticism to the table before they commit. "We know that there are people in this industry who have annuities in their bag, and if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail," said Skip Schweiss, managing director of retirement plan solutions and advisor advocacy at TD Ameritrade Institutional. Generally, annuities are insurance contracts that provide investors with a stream of income in exchange for a cash lump sum up front. From there, it gets complicated: There are different flavors of annuities, with some offering market exposure and others crediting interest. Investors can also opt for extra features, if they're willing to pay. Living benefits, for instance, may give consumers additional income in the future. There are plenty of catches, including contract expenses and surrender schedules a set period of time in which consumers pay a fee if they withdraw their investment too soon. "You have to look at the whole lifetime in which you'd have the annuity," said Scott J. Witt, founder of Witt Actuarial Services in New Berlin, Wisconsin. "It's not just the accumulation in the contract that matters, but also how will you get the money out of it?" Annuity flavors Bavaria, Germany, Europe Getty Images Primarily, there are three types of annuities. Variable annuities allow consumers to invest in the equity markets via subaccounts, which are similar to mutual funds, and defer taxes on appreciation. Investors experience both the upside and downside of the market, so their account balance may fluctuate. The types of subaccounts available for investors to select will differ from one insurance company to the next. Be cognizant of fees. In 2018, so-called B-share variable annuities charged an average all-in of 2.366%, plus 0.991% for a cost of a living benefit rider, according to Morningstar. Fixed annuities encompass a broad array of annuities. Fixed-rate annuities credit a stated rate of interest to the amount of money invested in the contract for a specified period of time. Taxes are deferred on the growth. Income annuities are also a type of fixed annuity: They offer customers a stream of income payments in the present (what's known as an immediate annuity) or in the future (what's known as a deferred income annuity). Indexed annuities grant customers a rate of interest, which is based on the gains of a market index. Contract holders aren't directly invested in the index, so they aren't fully exposed to market activity. Insurance companies use derivatives to keep the account value from declining when the index falls. The amount of interest an insurance company will credit an indexed annuity is subject to limitations imposed by the insurer. These are known as "rate caps," "participation rates" and "spreads." You have to look at the whole lifetime in which you'd have the annuity. It's not just the accumulation in the contract that matters, but also how will you get the money out of it? Scott J. Witt founder of Witt Actuarial Services With these restrictions, the index tied to a customer's account might go up by 10%, yet the client might only capture 5% of that increase. Financial advisors have been using indexed annuities as a way to counter equity exposure, said Scott Stolz, president of Raymond James Insurance Group. "It's being used as a fixed income alternative," he said. Fees charged on fixed and indexed annuities aren't explicit, the way they are with variable annuities. Instead, insurers charge an implicit fee through rate caps, participation rates and spreads. That way, they can adjust the amount of interest customers receive. Tax implications Fertnig | E+ | Getty Images Kicking the tires The CEOs of companies with outsized exposure to China are anticipating that the United States will escalate trade tensions even further by extending tariffs to more Chinese products, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Tuesday. Though President Donald Trump's trade strategy is "flawed," a 25% tariff on all Chinese imports could force the country to change its practices, he said. "Even CEOs who would never vote for Trump are willing to see their own earnings cut if it means they can get a more level playing field down the line," the "Mad Money" host said. "Yeah, their trade practices are really that bad and only the 'punditocracy' refuses to admit it, either because they've bought into the myth of China's invincibility or they believe in free trade at any cost to our working people." Chinese companies have long been accused of stealing intellectual property from the U.S., and Trump placed particular focus on what he saw as a trade deficit between the countries. After hiking tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25% last Friday, Trump is threatening to add a 25% duty on another group of merchandises worth about $300 billion. Cramer said the tariffs have the potential to add another $100 billion a year to the U.S. government's purse, which could be leveraged to pay down the budget deficit. Though American consumers will ultimately pay the price for those high duties, Trump will frame it as a tax on the Chinese, the host said. "So even though the trade war means that earnings per share might go lower short-term for a handful of obvious companies or more if the tariffs trigger a global slowdown our CEOs seem to be willing to take the pain because they've had it up to here with the People's Republic," Cramer said. "I've talked to these execs for a long time and I keep coming back with one vital conclusion: China has overplayed its hand." The U.S. will find it difficult to collaborate with other trade partners, such as Europe, to cordon off China and push them to change, Cramer said. Europeans, he said, would be more willing to come to terms with the Chinese if it means that BMW and Mercedes Benz in Germany can take market share from Ford and General Motors. "There's no way to form a united front against China on trade because they can play us off against each other," Cramer said. Get more of Cramer's insight here The Impossible Burger made by Impossible Foods Source: Impossible Foods "The only consumer we care about is the hardcore meat lover." A statement from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association? Hardly. Those words have become a sort of mantra from Pat Brown, founder and CEO of Impossible Foods, the Redwood City, California-based company behind Brown's brainchild, the plant-based Impossible Burger, and No. 27 on the 2019 CNBC Disruptor 50 list (the company first landed a spot on the Disruptor 50 list in 2015). "I love vegetarians and vegans as much as the next guy," said the Stanford biochemist turned entrepreneur and himself a longtime vegan, "but that is not the customer we care about." In 2009, Brown blended soy protein, potato protein, coconut oil, sunflower oil and bloodlike "heme" to create the Impossible Burger, which looks, feels, smells, cooks and according to many hardcore meat lovers tastes like a cow-based patty. Two years later he launched his company, steadfastly courting carnivores from the get-go. And he's winning them over. Last month, after a brief but spectacular test in 59 St. Louis stores, Burger King announced a nationwide rollout of the Impossible Whopper in its nearly 7,300 locations by the end of 2019. That headline news overshadowed Impossible's two-year strategic marketing campaign to introduce America to its better-for-you burger by way of more than 7,000 establishments across the country from high-end restaurants to college cafeterias as well White Castle, Red Robin and other chains. Impossible Foods touts data revealing that the majority of those who try its product believe it's from an animal. More than 1,500 consumers have taken sensory tests in which they can't tell the difference between a traditional meat burger and the Impossible Burger, and Impossible Foods' flavor scientists conduct at least 100 internal taste tests per week. Our products are going to get tastier, healthier, more affordable and better in every way, continuously into the far future, and the incumbent meat industry is just standing there, waiting for the tsunami. Pat Brown Impossible Foods founder and CEO White Castle recently marked the first anniversary of its Impossible Slider. "It's a great way for us to offer variety to our customers," said company vice president Jamie Richardson, especially to younger vegetarians and vegans who now have an option on the meat-centric menu. That tactic runs counter to Impossible's focus on the meat lover, representing an interesting marketing dichotomy. "We call it Paradox Alley," Richardson said, "because we're the nation's first hamburger chain partnering with a company that wants to put meat purveyors out of business." More proof of the plant-based meat concept came on May 2, when Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat stunned Wall Street with a blockbuster IPO. Initially priced at $25 per share, trading opened at $46 and surged 163% by day's end. Within four days, shares had nearly tripled, valuing the company at $4.4 billion. As recent high-profile Silicon Valley disruptors like Uber and Lyft have endured disastrous trading debuts and are now below IPO prices, Beyond Meat has continued to stand out, up another 16% on Tuesday to a share price of roughly $80. In 2018, Beyond Meat reported revenue of $87.9 million, up 170% from the previous year's net sales of $32.6 million. Contrary to Impossible's focus on food service, Beyond sells its plant-based burger, sausage and other products mostly at retail, though a growing number of chains, such as Carl's Jr. and TGI Fridays, now carry them. On Wednesday, Restaurant Brands International announced its Tim Hortons chain will be testing three breakfast options made with a Beyond Meat meatless patty. There is speculation that privately owned Impossible, which doesn't report revenue, also will go public, especially after Beyond's remarkable debut. But for now Brown said, "we have the money we need to grow our business." Impossible Foods announced a $300 million round of funding on Monday, which brings its venture total to $750 million. The latest round valued the company at $2 billion, according to published reports. Since an initial raise of $9 million in 2011, the company has secured multiple rounds of capital from venture firms and celebrities, including Bill Gates, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Serena Williams, Google Ventures, Horizons Ventures, UBS and Viking Global Investors. The company said this week it has no plans to go public anytime soon. "I can tell you in all honesty at this point we're not thinking of an IPO at all," Brown told CNBC's Aditi Roy in an interview about the fundraising. "We have plenty of money to do the things that we want to do right now. And we want to really focus on just scaling our production, pushing ahead on further on R&D and so forth. More from CNBC Disruptor 50: Uber CEO says Elon Musk is wrong about robo-taxi timing Airbnb is opening its first hotel Zipline's lifesaving drones take flight in Ghana Veggie burgers made from tofu, grains, black beans, mushrooms and other non-meat ingredients have been around for years, yet they clearly cater to vegetarians and vegans. Now Impossible, Beyond and other start-ups are pioneering a new and different category at an opportune time, said Steven Barr, consumer markets leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, pointing to a convergence of several key factors. "We're experiencing a shift in demographics, with millennials and Gen Zers influencing more purchasing behaviors," Barr said. Another trend is a shift toward wellness as a lifestyle, which includes eating healthier, more sustainable food that doesn't negatively impact the environment. Meanwhile, advancements and investments in food technology have produced meat-mimicking products that consumers really like, Barr said, coupled with ingenious marketing campaigns centered around taste rather than shame for eating animals. "The plant-based movement is attracting folks because it's creating an impression that there's an attribute that is desirable versus one that is critical, a brilliant shift in strategy," the analyst said. $16 billion invested in plant food companies The capital markets' appetite for the movement keeps growing, too. The Good Food Institute (GFI), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that supports the plant-based food industry, just released a report highlighting that more than $16 billion has been invested in such companies, including $13 billion in the last two years alone. Investors were buoyed by the $3.7 billion retail market for plant-based alternatives last year, per GFI's calculations, a 17% boost from 2017. Sales of plant-based meat alone generated $684 million in 2018, a 23% jump over a year earlier though a pittance of the $270 billion in annual U.S. meat industry sales. Alison Rabschnuk, director of corporate engagement for GFI, concurs with Barr on the wisdom of that plant-based food industry's strategy. "Consumers still want to eat meat," she said, "so let's just give them meat made in a better way." Legacy food giants want in on the action, as well. Tyson Foods, a former Beyond Meat investor, recently announced it will introduce an alternative-meat product this year. Kellogg's Morningstar Farms brand, which already makes veggie burgers, will expand its chicken imitation products. Unilever acquired The Vegetarian Butcher, a Dutch maker of plant-based meat. Nestle makes a veggie burger offered at McDonald's in Germany, expanding an already robust meatless-foods market in Europe. A rush to keep up with demand inside Impossible The Impossible Burger is heading offshore, reporting a threefold increase in sales in Asia this year. Combined with its meteoric growth stateside, though, the company has admitted to a product shortage, raising questions about its ability to keep up with demand. "After we introduced the Impossible Burger 2.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, there was a surge in demand over a short window of time," Brown said. "So we had to scramble to accelerate a bunch of things we already had planned to increase production capacity." Steps included increasing its 70-employee workforce at its sole manufacturing facility in Oakland, California, where it's currently adding a third shift and building a second production line. In the short term, Brown personally recruited more than 100 volunteers from Impossible's R&D ranks to work 12-hour shifts in production, packing burgers into boxes and manning conveyor belts in 40-degree temperatures. As global energy demand grows from our increased population, so too does the level of CO 2 . LanzaTech has the carbon-capture solutions to address this dilemma. The Skokie, Illinois-based company uses microbes and carbon-rich waste gases including those from the steel industry to make ethanol. The ethanol can then be turned into chemicals and fuels, including low carbon products like jet fuel. Read More: FULL LIST 2019 CNBC DISRUPTOR 50 In fact, for the first time, the company and Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747 in October from Orlando to London using LanzaTech's jet fuel, greatly cutting down on the amount of CO 2 produced. There have been other developments as well. In May 2018 the company started its first commercial case by taking the emissions from a Shougang Steel Mill in China and converting it into millions of gallons of ethanol that can later be used as fuel or to make other products that would otherwise come from petroleum. So far, it has produced more than 4 million gallons of ethanol for the Chinese road transport market. And in August it partnered with Indian Oil to set up a pilot plant to convert CO 2 to Omega 3 fatty acids. The lipids that result can then be used for medicine, food or fuel. This could save India 1 million metric tons of CO 2 a year. LanzaTech has raised $268 million from venture capital investors, including Khosla Ventures, Mitsui and China International Investment. Exchanging one currency for another can be expensive. Banks and currency-exchange kiosks can charge anywhere from 5% to 10% of the total amount you're looking to send. Money transfer company TransferWise set out to change that. It charges that day's bank exchange rate, which is the best possible exchange rate at the time of a given transfer. It also tells you exactly how much you'll pay in fees on every single transfer, which can be as low as 1% of the total, depending on the currency. Read More: FULL LIST 2019 DISRUPTOR 50 Today more than 4 million customers send over $4 billion each month on the platform, according to the company. It has more than 1,400 employees worldwide. In January the London-based company said it was opening an office in Belgium to avoid any potential impact on its business from Brexit. TransferWise co-founders Taavet Hinrikus, the first employee at Skype, and Kristo Kaarmann, a former management consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, came up with the idea for TransferWise when they tired of the fees they were paying big banks to transfer money between their jobs in Estonia and London. They were on to something. TransferWise has been growing steadily and became profitable in 2017, even as it seeks to raise another $300 million in a round that would value the company at $4 billion. Its last fundraising round came in 2017, when investors including Old Mutual Global Investors and Silicon Valley venture capital firm IVP contributed $280 million, giving TransferWise a valuation at the time of more than $1.6 billion. Live like a king on $100,000 in Memphis, Tennessee. It turns out the "Home of Blues, Soul and Rock 'n Roll" is the best U.S. city to live in if you're stretching a six-figure salary, according to a recent analysis by GOBankingRates. The personal finance site compared 50 major cities across the country, calculating net income after state and federal taxes and looking at how much is left over after rent, groceries, utilities and health-care costs. "The cost of living is a huge deal, and it's not a coincidence that many of the top-ranked cities are in states that don't tax income," said Andrew DePietro, lead researcher at GOBankingRates. In all, there are seven states that forgo individual income taxes: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Currently, Tennessee levies a 2% tax on interest and dividends, but salaries are exempt. This so-called Hall Income Tax, named for the state senator who introduced the bill to institute the levy in 1929, will be fully phased out by 2022. New Hampshire residents also pay a 5% tax on dividends and investment income, but taxes aren't levied on wages. Senator Rodger Smitherman (D) speaks during a state Senate vote on the strictest anti-abortion bill in the United States at the Alabama Legislature in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. May 14, 2019. Chris Aluka Berry | Reuters Alabama lawmakers late Tuesday passed the strictest abortion ban in the country. The move is expected to test whether the Supreme Court's longstanding prohibition on such measures can withstand the addition of President Donald Trump's two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The law, which now requires the signature of Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion at any point during a pregnancy, punishable by up to 99 years in prison. Attempting to perform an abortion can lead to a sentence of 10 years. The legislation provides an exception for cases in which the procedure is necessary to prevent a serious health risk, but not in cases of rape or incest. People who receive abortions do not face punishment under the law. The measure was approved by the Alabama state Senate 25-6 on Tuesday after passing in the lower chamber last month. "This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn, because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection," said Rep. Terri Collins, who sponsored the legislation in Alabama's House of Representatives, according to the Alabama Political Reporter. It is not immediately clear whether Ivey will sign the legislation. A spokesperson for the governor told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Ivey plans to "withhold comment until she has had a chance to thoroughly review the final version of the bill that passed." Fighting the bill Groups that defend abortion rights, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood, have already pledged to fight the bill in court. Those who drafted the law expected those challenges, and welcomed them, hoping that the case eventually winds up before the nation's top court. It's a strategy that has been adopted by a number of other state legislatures. But the Alabama legislation marks the latest, and most brazen, effort by a conservative state to goad the Supreme Court into reviewing Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that held that the constitutional right to privacy applied to abortion access. Many of those efforts have culminated in so-called heartbeat bills that ban abortions after six weeks, a time frame so restrictive that critics say it effectively bans abortions for most people seeking them. This year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have passed such legislation, though none of the laws has taken effect yet. The flurry is directly related to the addition of Trump's two appointees. During the presidential election, Trump pledged to nominate justices who would "automatically" overturn Roe. "Now is our time," Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life in Columbus, told The New York Times for an article published in April. "This is the best court we've had in my lifetime, in my parents' lifetime." Virtually every Democrat running for president condemned Alabama's move, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner, who wrote in a post on Twitter that "Roe v Wade is settled law and should not be overturned." While both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch said during their nomination hearings before the Senate that Roe is settled precedent, both their critics and defenders questioned whether those pledges would translate into votes to protect the precedent once confirmed. Fending off challenges Sean Gallup | Getty Images Germany's automotive sector could fall as much as 12% over "three bad trading days," if President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on European car manufacturers, one analyst told CNBC. Trump has until Friday midnight (Washington time) to decide whether to impose duties on car imports. This would likely hurt Germany, the EU's traditional growth engine, given that it is one of the largest direct car exporters to the U.S. The German stock market could fall as much as 6% and its automobile and components sector, specifically, could see losses of up to 12%, according to Christoph Schon, executive director of Axioma, a risk management solutions provider. He told CNBC over the phone that the losses could happen over a period of three trading days, or over five to 10 sessions. Germany's DAX is up by about 14% so far this year, while the overall European auto sector is higher by about 11% this year. Volkswagen and Daimler are up by around 7% and 15%, respectively. Trump threatened to impose 20% tariffs on European cars back in 2018, arguing there's a trade imbalance threatening the U.S.'s national security. The EU is the largest exporter of motor vehicles in the world, whereas the United States is the largest importer. "Germany is the tail on the U.S.-China trade war dog and at the end of the day, 47% of GDP (gross domestic product) from Germany is exports the majority of that going to those two trading partners. If they blow up in a trade war, Germany is probably the place that gets hits worse," Mark Phelps, chief investment officer at AllianceBernstein. told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" Wednesday. The EU has made every effort to ensure these tariffs are avoided. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker traveled to the U.S. last year and agreed with Trump to work together to bring existing tariffs toward zero on non-auto industrial goods; to buy more liquefied natural gas from the U.S. and to find ways to bring their standards closer together. In any case, the impact on sentiment would be worse than the actual direct impact from the tariffs. Florian Hense European economist at Berenberg bank However, both sides have not yet started discussing a trade deal. The ongoing escalation in tensions between China and the U.S. has created more jitters in Europe, with analysts expecting Trump to keep a strong stance against the EU too. "If indeed we get U.S. car tariffs on imports from the euro zone not just their announcement, you could forget our economic forecasts completely. No chance of a sustained pick-up in activity throughout the second half as we expect," Florian Hense, European economist at Berenberg bank, told CNBC via email. The euro zone economy has lost steam recently, with weaker manufacturing and growth data. The European Central Bank (ECB) even had to cut its growth projections for the year back in March. Growth in the EU is highly sensitive to external shocks, due to its export-driven economy. The Volkswagen T-Cross model stands on a lifting platform in a car tower on the Volkswagen factory premises. picture alliance | picture alliance | Getty Images President Donald Trump's next trade battle could involve the U.S. slapping steep tariffs on auto imports from Europe but that wouldn't really be the White House's ultimate goal, one expert said Wednesday. Instead, such a move may well prove to be a "Trojan horse" for a bigger deal on agriculture, according to David Hauner, head of cross-asset strategy and economics for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Now that Trump has imposed more tariffs on Chinese goods, all eyes are turning to a potentially brewing trade war between the U.S. and Europe. The president had threatened as early as last year that he would slap a 25% tariff on car imports from the European Union. So far, however, the tariffs have not been imposed but Trump is due to make a decision on European auto imports by May 18. According to Hauner, however, the White House may have a tough road ahead. "We think there will at least be an attempt by the U.S. to push for some sort of concessions from Europe. It's gonna be very difficult particularly if Trump actually starts a discussion about agriculture," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box." He added: "Some say that car tariffs might ... be a Trojan horse to actually start discussions about agriculture, because that's where really the big business for the U.S. and Europe would be. Agriculture and Europe is politically very very sensitive when it comes to allowing American imports." Farmers a key political constituency for Trump have seen their fortunes suffering from the trade war with China, and that's potentially a concern for the president ahead of his 2020 re-election bid. Since his tariff threat against European autos, Trump has met the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive body, and both decided to seek an agreement over trade and avoid tariffs. Nearly a year since their meeting, both sides have yet to start those official trade talks. Europe is really collateral damage here because Europe has not enough domestic growth. It really depends so much on trade and that is now really its Achilles' heel David Hauner Head of cross-asset strategy and economics for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Bank of America Merrill Lynch But analysts have pegged the tariffs on Chinese goods as a sign of what's to come for Europe. Last Monday, European auto stocks fell more than 3% following Trump's tariffs announcement over the weekend. There could still be a deal as long as the U.S. keeps the trade discussions with the European Union to autos only, according to Hauner. But, he said, "If the discussion will include agriculture, then it gets really, really dicey." "Europe is really collateral damage here because Europe has not enough domestic growth. It really depends so much on trade and that is now really its Achilles' heel," Hauner added. Barclays analysts have questioned the ability of UBS to achieve satisfactory returns, suggesting market expectations of the Swiss investment bank are too high. In a note published Monday, Barclays European banks analysts Amit Goel, Jun Yang and Krishnendra Dubey cut their price target for UBS by 6%, and suggested the bank may need a strategy overhaul to avoid weak profitability. However, they also noted that no imminent changes were expected. Justifying their "underweight" position on UBS compared to the neutral industry view, the analysts said that while the market environment may be challenging, competitors focusing on niche products were "generating much higher RoEs (return on equity)." "Many investors we speak to believe that UBS should also be able to achieve higher returns, and have been frustrated for some time in this regard." The note specifically referenced Swiss private bank Julius Baer, which most recently reported underlying pre-tax return on tangible investment (RoTE) of 33% for 2018. UBS is currently targeting RoTE of 12.5% in 2019, although sell-side analysts do not currently expect the group to achieve this. Along with questions of organization, the note also questions whether more broadly, it would make sense to "break up" the UBS group, and whether the "costs of size are more than outweighing the benefits?" The analysts acknowledged the common justifications offered for weak profitability, including the global nature of the business and structural costs of spanning different jurisdictions. The fact that the group's U.S. business has a structurally low operating margin, but is "tax efficient," was also cited along with the significant amount of capital tied up in the investment bank. However, the note called into question whether the current business model could optimize returns, and whether the profitability potential of the group could in fact decline further from here. An aerial photo shows several Boeing 737 MAX airplanes grounded at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. The meeting attendees included Mike Sinnett, a Boeing vice president; Craig Bomben, a top Boeing test pilot; and senior lobbyist John Moloney. The meeting was first reported by The Dallas Morning News. Pilots asked Boeing at a private meeting in November to take emergency action that would have likely grounded the Max, but Boeing officials resisted, according to an audio recording of the meeting reviewed by CNBC. Weeks after the first of two 737 Max crashes, American Airlines pilots angrily pushed Boeing to fix the anti-stall software suspected in the deadly disasters. Sinnett told the pilots at the meeting that the company was working on a software fix that would be ready in as little as six weeks, and it would not rush the process. He also said it was unclear whether the new system was to blame in the October Lion Air crash, which killed 189 people. "No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane," Sinnett said at the meeting, which took place at the Allied Pilots Association headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. The group represents American Airlines pilots. Five months after the Indonesia disaster, another Boeing Max crashed, killing 157 people in Ethiopia. The union recorded the meeting without Boeing's knowledge and shared the audio with media, including CNBC, because it was concerned Boeing wasn't treating the situation as an emergency at the time. "American Airlines pilots have been pressing Boeing for answers because we owe it to our passengers and the 346 people who lost their lives to do everything we can to prevent another tragedy," APA President Daniel F. Carey told CNBC. Boeing did not respond to CNBC's request for comment about the recording. At the November meeting, the pilots said they were not aware of the Max's anti-stall software system, known as MCAS. And they were angry that the system was not disclosed to them until after the October crash in Indonesia. "These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane nor did anybody else," American Airlines pilot Michael Michaelis said at the meeting. Michaelis, the union's head of safety, also told Boeing to push the Federal Aviation Administration to issue an additional emergency airworthiness directive in order to update the software. "My question to you, as Boeing, is why wouldn't you say this is the smartest thing to do?" Michaelis asked. "Say we're going to do everything we can to protect that traveling public in accordance with what our pilots unions are telling us." Todd Wissing, another American pilot, was angry the MCAS system was not included in the Max training manual. "I would think that there would be a priority of putting explanations of things that could kill you," Wissing told Boeing executives. Sinnett said the company did not believe that pilots needed to know about the software, since they were already trained on how to behave in emergency scenarios. Wikipedia has been blocked in mainland China since April, according to a press report which cites a statement from the Wikimedia foundation. The BBC said Wednesday that all languages of the online encyclopedia were now unavailable to Chinese-based internet users. Beijing officials had already banned the Chinese language version of the site. In a subsequent statement Friday, the foundation confirmed the that Wikipedia was no longer accessible in the People's Republic and this had impacted 1.3 billion people. "Based on our internal traffic reports, Wikipedia is currently blocked across all language versions. Most other Wikimedia projects, such as Wikimedia Commons, a site that holds 53 million freely licensed media files, are still available." Wikimedia said teh online encyclopedia had been blocked intermittently in China dating back to 2004 and the Chinese language Wikipedia had been blocked in China since June 2015. Other language Wikipedias had remained available until now. The Wikimedia Foundation called on Chinese authorities to reverse their decision. "We regret the Chinese authorities' decision to further limit internet freedom and urge them to restore access to Wikipedia." Thousands of websites cannot be accessed in China, with many often taken offline temporarily during the anniversaries of political events such as the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 when authorities killed thousands of student activists. Gross domestic product (GDP) in Europe's largest economy expanded by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter, the Federal Statistics Office said. This was in line with analysts' expectations. The German economy returned to growth in the first quarter, helped by higher household spending and a booming construction industry, preliminary data showed on Wednesday. A worker at the Siemens gas turbine factory on January 8, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, the economy grew 0.7%, calendar-adjusted data showed. This was also in line with the forecast. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told Reuters that the growth figures were a "first ray of hope" following two quarters without expansion, but this was no reason to give the all-clear. "The international trade disputes are still unresolved. We must do everything possible to find acceptable solutions that enable free trade," Altmaier said. Altmaier, a confidant of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, repeated a call to support companies by cutting red tape and taxes. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, has declined to cut corporate taxes. The Statistic Office said growth was mainly driven by construction and increased household spending. It confirmed that the German economy contracted by 0.2% in the third quarter of last year and stagnated in the fourth. Hero Images | Hero Images | Getty Images Got a home in a tourist destination? A cash windfall and a few tax breaks could be yours this summer. Though it's only May, a number of locales are becoming standouts for summer travel. In particular, the number of bookings to Rosarito, Mexico, are up 548% year over year, while reservations to short-term rentals in Destin, Florida, have increased by 419% from 2018, according to Airbnb. A home with the right details will command a hefty price tag and a fine bit of income for the owner. For instance, a two-bedroom apartment with beach views in Destin is going for $206 a night, Airbnb found. While the prospect of a side income is attractive, homeowners hoping to rent their properties have to navigate the tax code. That's where things get tricky. About 1 in 7 homeowners polled by Vacasa, a vacation rental company, said that they didn't know what they need to submit on tax forms as rental owners. The company polled 1,006 individuals who own their primary residence and earn income from renting one of their properties. "From a tax perspective, it's important to understand how the home is classified: Is this a personal residence or a rental property?" asked Robert Westley, CPA and a member of the American Institute of CPAs' personal financial specialist credential committee. A true rental or residence? Matteo Colombo | DigitalVision | Getty Images Whether your home is primarily a residence or a rental will depend on how often you use it. If you're using your beach house for personal purposes for the greater of 14 days or 10% of the total days you rent it to others, then the IRS considers the dwelling a residence. Further, if you're using the abode as a residence and you rent it for no more than 14 days, you don't have to report the rental income to Uncle Sam. Though this can be a great deal if you rent your home during popular seasonal events, you should also know that you can't deduct any of the rental expenses. "You can get a good amount of rental income in a short period of time," said Westley. Get to know your state and local tax rules on vacation rentals, said Paul Garza, tax accountant for Vacasa. You may be subject to licensing requirements, as well as sales or lodging taxes. Renting your dwelling A Lake Michigan beach in Traverse CIty, Michigan William Slider / EyeEm | EyeEm | Getty Images Maybe you only use your lake house once in a while. In other words, you're renting it to others for more than 14 days and you use it yourself for no more than 14 days. In this case, you would pay income taxes on the money you earn from collecting rent, and you would be able to write off your expenses from that activity. More from Personal Finance What you don't know about this 401(k) fund could cost you How to save $1 million for retirement College costs have jumped 55% in a decade Just make sure that you keep complete financial records and that you maintain a log of when you're renting the dwelling and when you're using it. "You have to allocate the expenses attributable to personal use versus rental use," said Westley. When the time comes to file your taxes, you can report income and expenses related to your rental on Schedule E. Protect yourself People walk past brownstone townhouses in the Fort Greene neighborhood Drew Angerer | Getty Images Donald Trump Jr. thrusts his fist after speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, July 19, 2016. The June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr. and a lawyer with ties to the Kremlin who claimed to have dirt on then Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, is one of half a dozen areas of focus, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter . Beyond discussing the testimony of Michael Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for his father President Donald Trump, Intel Committee members want to review some testimony from Trump Jr.'s previous hearing in December 2017, according to those familiar with the deliberations. That all changed after a pressure campaign from his legal team and associates, which led to the committee's agreement to limit the questions to six topics. The hearing is expected to take place in mid-June, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Donald Trump Jr. received a subpoena a few weeks ago ordering him to return to testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The hearing was expected to be unlimited in scope. While representatives from the committee declined to comment, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, denied that any deals were made with Trump Jr. "We've made no compromises with any of our witnesses," Warner said Tuesday. "We have made, with all of the witnesses we have not set parameters, all witnesses are proceeding on the same basis as prior witnesses," he added. An attorney for Trump Jr. did not return a request for comment. In February, Cohen testified in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka Trump took part in the Trump Tower Moscow deal that never materialized. "The company [Trump Organization] was involved in the deal, which meant that the family was involved in the deal," Cohen said at the time. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 that he knew "very little" of the efforts being made to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. "I was peripherally aware of it, but most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks," Trump Jr. told that panel behind closed doors, according to a published transcript. In the buildup to the agreement between Trump Jr. and the committee, the president's Republican allies went on offense against the committee's GOP chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the president's staunchest supporters, said in an interview with Fox News that Trump Jr. should ignore the subpoena and labeled Cohen's previous testimony as meritless. "Anything based on what Michael Cohen said is worthless testimony. Michael Cohen is a worthless witness, and if I were Donald Trump Jr.'s lawyer I would tell him, 'You don't need to go back into this environment anymore, you've been there for hours and hours and hours,'" Graham said. Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted his outrage, calling for an end for the investigations surrounding the president and his family. "Endless investigationsby either partywon't change the fact that there was NO collusion. It's time to move on. It's time to focus on ISSUES, not investigations," he said. Tweet: President Trump himself weighed in on his son coming back to testify at a Monday news conference. "It's really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100 percent OK," Trump said. "And now they want him to testify again. I don't know why. I have no idea why, but it seems very unfair to me." An Indian commuter and yellow taxi crossed behind the wall graffiti displaying in a alley in support of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate for the upcoming general election, in Kolkata, India on Thursday, 9th May , 2019. Sonali Pal | NurPhoto | Getty Images KOLKATA The eastern border state of West Bengal is an important battleground in the 2019 Indian parliamentary election in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fighting to return to power. But for many small and medium-sized businesses in the state capital of Kolkata, the last five years under Modi's leadership have been tough. West Bengal, with a population of close to 100 million people, is one of the major states in India that sends 42 elected representatives to the lower house of Parliament. In the last election, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party had won just two seats in the state, where the local government is dominated by a regional party, All India Trinamool Congress, and its leader, Mamata Banerjee who is also the state's chief minister. In the ongoing election, West Bengal is one of several states to hold polls in all seven phases. The capital city, Kolkata, is set to vote on May 19. Analysts say West Bengal has become a key battleground in the 2019 parliamentary election for Modi, who held multiple campaign rallies in the state. "West Bengal is very important," Akhil Bery, an analyst at political consultancy Eurasia Group, told CNBC. The BJP is focused on making inroads there, as well as in the neighboring state of Odisha, to try and make up for some of the seats it is expected to lose in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous and politically important state, according to Bery. "Looking at the campaign rallies and the message it's very much fit into the Hindu nationalist tone that the campaign has turned towards," Bery said. "The BJP is attempting to latch onto Hindu discontent in the state and emphasizing that the BJP will stand for Hindu rights while trying to portray Mamata Banerjee as only being sympathetic to Muslim voter concerns." For her part, Banerjee had been vocal with her criticisms of Modi's landmark policy reforms overhauling India's tax system and legal tenders. Earlier this year, she said if a non-BJP alliance came into power following the elections, she would launch an investigation into demonetization and review the Modi-backed Goods and Services Tax. Demonetization and GST Sentiment on the ground toward Modi's policy reforms appeared mixed. In late 2016, Modi's government unexpectedly withdrew all 500 and 1,000-rupee banknotes from circulation and issued new 500 and 2,000-rupee denomination notes. The aim was to tackle the country's massive shadow economy, Modi had argued. But the sudden move left scores of people with serious cash shortages and millions lined up outside banks for hours to exchange or deposit their old notes. "November 8, I still remember that day," Akash Basu Roy, a restaurant owner, told CNBC. He said his fiancee had called him that night to warn about the move, which was just being announced. "She called me up and she said, 'You know what? Don't take 500 and 1,000 (rupee) notes. It's getting shut down today.'" He hung up on her multiple times in disbelief, he said, "She called me again." Earlier that day at around 3 p.m. local time, Roy said he sold his car. The transaction, of about 300,000 rupees (around $4,290), was done entirely in cash specifically in 500 and 1,000-rupee notes that he had been planning to bring and deposit into his bank account the next day. As a result of demonetization, India limited the total sum of old notes people could deposit or exchange at banks everyday to just 4,000 rupees initially. That amount was then raised to 4,500 rupees and then reduced to 2,000 per person. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi , center, holds a canvas displaying a portrait of himself during his election rally in Chittorgarh, in the western state of Rajasthan, on April 21, 2019. Himanshu Sharma | AFP | Getty Images Roy said lines outside banks in Kolkata stretched for several miles and that the city was hit harder than others like Mumbai and New Delhi, where digital payments were more prevalent. "In Kolkata, people use a lot of cash. They were not much into online or cards or banking," he said. Altogether, Roy said, he had liquid cash of around 500,000 rupees when demonetization happened. He used a portion of that money to pay his monthly rent well before it was due by the end of November, settled salaries of his restaurant staff, and the rest of the amount he was able to deposit into his bank account by working various contacts he had at banks. "I had contacts. I used my contacts, I took out my money. I helped a lot of people from the back end to get out their money," he said. Just as the chaos of demonetization began to settle, India rolled out one of its most ambitious economic reform plans in 70 years to boost tax receipts and provide simplicity for businesses: the Goods and Services Tax. That levy was designed to replace a thicket of indirect central and state taxes that critics previously argued blunted India's economic competitiveness. Last month, local media reports said gross GST revenue collected was the highest since the policy was rolled out in July 2017. Still, revenue collection in preceding months had been sluggish as businesses adjusted to the overhaul of India's tax infrastructure. In Kolkata, among the small business owners who spoke to CNBC, the attitude toward the new tax system proved mixed. While some argued that the standardization of state and central taxes would benefit India in the long run, others pointed to the negative impact on their businesses. Sumit Sardar works for a local agriculture product manufacturing company called Divine Trap Industries, which makes fly traps to replace the use of pesticides in farming. Because of GST, he said, the business benefited. Sardar explained that the company pays an 18% tax on a specific chemical that is processed and converted into the final product that is sold. Under the previous tax infrastructure, that product was exempted from any value-added taxes. Currently, he said, he is able to charge a 5% GST on every unit sold and it's not hurting sales. "We can't see any effects of demonetization or GST on the business. Our demand keeps growing," he told CNBC in Bengali. On the other hand, Susanta Ram, who runs an electronics and information technology business called S.R. Infotech out of Kolkata, said "there was maximum effect" on his business from the new tax system. Ram said most of his corporate customers do not pay up front and so it takes at least two months for him to get paid for every sale he makes. But now, the company still has to file for the GST immediately after creating an invoice. For example, if an invoice is worth 500,000 rupees, then Ram said he needs to pay 90,000 rupees in taxes before the payment deadline or he risks being fined. That means he is investing out of his pocket first on the product, then on the GST, and then he has to pay his interest dues to the bank. "By the time the full payment comes through, the transaction is running at a loss," he said in Bengali. On average, Ram said, he ends up paying somewhere between 400,000 to 500,000 rupees in taxes. Business is growing at only 25% of what it used to before the GST kicked in and is running at a loss, he told CNBC. Still, cash transactions remain dominant in Kolkata. Another restaurant owner explained that many small companies declare only a certain amount of their earnings to qualify for the so-called GST Composition Scheme the measure is available to businesses with an annual turnover of up to 15 million rupees where they pay levies at special rates that are comparatively lower than the normal tax brackets but are unable to claim a tax credit. Meanwhile, other transactions are done in cash and their records are usually not kept in the books. Long-term impact A four-year-old start-up called Indigo Ag is the No. 1 company on the 2019 CNBC Disruptor 50 list. Indigo Ag is out to feed the world and help farmers make a good living without harming the planet. And one secret to its recent growth is hidden in the stars. Using satellite imaging and geospatial intelligence, it's created a living map of the world's food supply. The quest to increase food production remains critical as the global population grows from around 7.5 billion today to a projected 9.8 billion by 2050, according to data from the United Nations. Intensification of food production in the last decade has contributed to deforestation, declines in soil health and freshwater resources, plus an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers and other food businesses are now struggling to rein in their negative environmental impacts. With 920 employees, Indigo Ag is best known for making non-GMO seed treatments that help farmers maximize their yield on row crops, including soybeans, rice, wheat, corn and cotton. The treatments consist of naturally occurring microbes, like plant-friendly bacteria and fungi. Farmers apply them to their seeds as a spray or powder coating before planting. Eventually, the start-up plans to develop microbes to aid the growth of other crops, including coffee and high value nuts, fruits and vegetables. But for the time being, the company is focused on grains. Indigo Ag's newer seed coatings aim for more than yield improvements they encourage desirable traits in plants, like soybeans that yield more oil, or grains that are more palatable to certain livestock, for example. They also reduce farmers' needs for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, says Indigo Ag CEO David Perry. Traditional chemical "inputs," as they're called in the industry, can cause water pollution, harm wildlife, have damaging side effects on soil and hurt the health of people who work with or ingest them. In one famous case, a team of scientists led by Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium found a New Jersey-size "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, caused largely by the runoff of fertilizers and other waste from farms around the Mississippi River. According to Ben Riensche, a sixth-generation farmer in Iowa who grows corn and soybeans on 18,000 acres, Indigo Ag's seed coatings improve crop yields, typically by more than 10%. He has been working with the company for three years as a customer and a research partner. Indigo Ag tests and runs control groups in four of his fields when they're developing new seed treatments. Riensche says Indigo Ag's approach is appealing to farmers who want help growing through rough conditions like drought or when a disease or pest infestation is threatening to encroach. But farmers also want to improve their bottom line. "Let's face it, crops face stress every year. No two years are alike. Hot, cold, wet, dry, early or late I'll tell you what has to be the fertilizer strategy. But if you can help my plants overcome stress in the field, and help me produce the same yield with less inputs, or produce higher-value crops using something from the biome? It's better for my business and better from an environmental standpoint." In 2017 Indigo Ag had notched a few hundred customers. By 2018 that number had ballooned to 5,000 food producers growing food on 1 million acres. The company expects to see 25,000 growers using its technology to produce food on 4 million acres by the end of this year. The company is on target to surpass annual revenue of $1 billion in 2019, Perry says, partly owing to its international expansion. It now operates outside the U.S., in Argentina, Brazil and Australia, along with a joint venture with Mahyco Grow in India. Agricultural Revolution 2.0 Indigo Ag's chief of operations for North America, Rachel Raymond, says it's been hard for the agriculture industry to attract a next generation of farmers, including in the U.S. That's because most farmers here are figuring out how to cope with increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather. At the same time, they have been hit by new tariffs and uncertainty around trade negotiations between the U.S. and China, previously a major buyer of soybeans and other row crops. The USDA expects net farm income in 2019 a measure of farms' profitability to clock in 49% below its highest level of $136.1 billion in 2013 and below farms' historical average of $90 billion from 2000 to 2017. Perry and Raymond say that by bringing better forecasting, transparency and products to the market, they're out to make farming less of a commodity business and more reliably profitable. Since farmers want to grow profits as well as crops, Perry has pushed Indigo Ag to expand its offerings beyond microbiology into software and services for farmers. Geoffrey von Maltzahn, co-founder of Indigo Ag, with company CEO David Perry: on a quest to help feed the world Source: Indigo Agriculture Indigo Ag rolled out a farmer's answer to eBay or Amazon the Indigo Marketplace with select customers in June and a public launch in September last year. The platform connects growers with buyers who want the ingredients they purchase to meet exacting specifications. For example, to meet local environmental standards or hit corporate sustainability goals, some businesses will want to buy grains that were grown using less water or producing lower amounts of greenhouse gas emissions than average. For the convenience of getting just what they want, with no phone calls or travel required, buyers are willing to say how much they'll pay ahead of a harvest. That's a good thing for farmers trying to anticipate prices or demand. More from CNBC Disruptor 50: This app has saved Americans $10 billion on prescriptions so far Impossible Foods' mission to mass-produce the fake burger of the future Zipline's lifesaving drones take flight in Ghana Perry says the Indigo Marketplace has already seen $30 billion worth of bids. One major buyer on it is Anheuser-Busch InBev, the holding company behind beers including Budweiser, Stella Artois and Hapi (from China's Harbin Brewery). After the marketplace gained traction, Indigo Ag began hearing more from farmers about their other needs like transporting their grains to customers or storing their grains safely and quickly when floods were threatening to destroy their crops. In the same way that Google maps can tell you anytime a new Starbucks appears on the corner, we want to have that same level of information about our food supply. David Perry Indigo Ag CEO So Indigo Ag rolled out another service, Indigo Transport, which links carriers to growers and other bulk commodity shippers across the U.S. Indigo Ag has also been gathering genomic information on plant microbes, which it uses to predict whether a certain bacteria or fungi will help a plant survive and thrive in shifting environmental conditions. In December 2018, Indigo Ag acquired Tellus Labs, a company that parses complicated images from satellites to figure out what's growing, where on Earth and in what conditions, each day. Incorporating this technology allows Indigo Ag and its customers to monitor the world's food supply and figure out where to focus their efforts next. As Perry explained: "In the same way that Google maps can tell you anytime a new Starbucks appears on the corner, we want to have that same level of information about our food supply. As an example, we now know every field that corn and soy is growing on in North or South America. We can estimate the yields on those and update that on a daily basis." Farmers look at this information and make decisions about what to plant, when to harvest and when to take certain protective measures, he added. The company has also introduced new seed treatments for smaller grains, including oats, barley and rye, says Raymond. She's looking forward to the day that whisky and beer made with her customers' crops show up at her favorite watering holes. Indigo Ag directly challenges the business interests of some of the largest companies in the agricultural sector where M&A and venture investing have accelerated in recent years including Nutrien, Mosaic, BASF, Sygenta (now part of Chinese giant ChemChina), Corteva (DowDuPont's agricultural sciences division) and Bayer (which acquired Monsanto). Bayer has lost nearly 50% of its value since the Monsanto merger and a series of billion-dollar court settlements related to its Roundup weedkiller. DUBAI Iran is officially ending one of its key commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal, local media reported Wednesday, citing a senior official at the country's Atomic Energy Agency. A "program has been launched" to stop some of Iran's obligations on orders from the country's Supreme National Security Council, the Iranian Students' News Agency reported. The official, who was not named, highlighted suspension of compliance with the nuclear deal's cap on enriched uranium and heavy water production. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced last week Tehran's plans to abandon some of its commitments under the deal, officially known as the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), in the face of crippling U.S. sanctions and the President Donald Trump administration's "maximum pressure campaign." If Europe does not step in to protect Iran from those sanctions within 60 days, Rouhani said salvaging trade with its oil and banking sectors in violation of U.S. rules the country would return to higher levels of uranium enrichment, which would potentially pave the way for bomb-making capabilities. Now, it appears to be scrapping that 60-day waiting period, according to the local report. After a quarter-century in Congress, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York stands on the brink of an outsize role in American political life. As Judiciary Committee chairman in the Democratic-controlled House, Nadler leads his party's efforts to exercise oversight of President Donald Trump and his administration. If Democrats pursue the fourth serious presidential impeachment effort in American history, Nadler would wield the gavel when it starts. Nadler, now 71, first took on the future president as a New York assemblyman in the 1980s when he joined the resistance to a massive Trump development project on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Trump won that battle, though his development got downsized. In today's confrontation, the entire country holds a stake. Nadler and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California face difficult political choices. Trump drew less than 20% of the 2016 vote in both their districts, but some Democratic colleagues fear a 2020 backlash from impeachment. So party leaders have moved cautiously in the wake of the Trump-Russia special counsel report. Over scrambled eggs at Westville Hudson in the lawmaker's New York City district, Nadler sat down to discuss the challenge. What follows is a condensed, edited transcript of the discussion. John Harwood: Unlike many people in Congress, you actually have experience from the 1980s in confronting Donald Trump, or disagreeing with Donald Trump. What did you learn from that experience? Jerry Nadler: I didn't actually learn that much because we didn't have very much personal contact at all. I think I met him two or three times personally. But he threw a lot of money and political influence around. And he wanted to get his way. And I battled him because I disagreed with him. John Harwood: The story I read said he called you Fat Jerry. Jerry Nadler: Yeah, but, was it at that time or later? I don't remember. When he first proposed the gargantuan project, everybody opposed it. It was ridiculous, a 150-story building surrounded by seven Chrysler Buildings. Much too big. And, this runs from 1985 to 1991. In '91, a compromise was reached. A much smaller project, but still gargantuan. And a lot of the groups that had opposed it supported it, and some of the civic groups did, because you're going to get a nice park and various other things. Most of the other legislators switched from opposition to support. I did not. I didn't like the compromise either. You know, one man's compromise is another man's sellout. John Harwood: Does anything about that experience inform your approach to the current situation? Jerry Nadler: Not really. We knew he was unscrupulous, but you knew that from just his general dealings in New York. I just thought he was overbearing and felt he could get his way no matter what, because he had the immense money and the resources. And that was wrong. John Harwood: Do you think of that experience as a fight with Donald Trump that you won, unequivocally, because it wasn't built? Jerry Nadler: No, we didn't win. The so-called compromise, which was much too big and large, was built. The rail yard stopped. No, I don't think it was a win at all. Quite the contrary. John Harwood: What do you think he is doing now? There are some people who believe that Trump is trying to goad the Congress into impeaching him because he thinks he will get a political benefit from that. There are others who think he's just an impulsive person who acts the way he acts, and it's not a larger strategy. Jerry Nadler: It's more the second than the first. I think he is very impulsive, he's very willful, and he's very ignorant. I mean, unlike Richard Nixon, who knew exactly what he was doing when he was violating the law and violating norms and so forth, he just goes ahead. He doesn't know what the law is. He doesn't know what the constitutional history is. He doesn't know the implications of half of what he does. John Harwood: Do you agree with Speaker Pelosi, who said the other day that he is self-impeaching by his conduct, making it impossible for you to avoid that? Jerry Nadler: He's making it increasingly difficult. Our major goal has to be to vindicate the rule of law. No questions are being answered about any subject. And then, when subpoenas are being issued, there's a blanket command, disobey all subpoenas. Nobody should testify, and nobody should give documents to Congress. Well, that's a way of neutering Congress, of making sure that Congress can't do its job, of turning the country into a dictatorship of a monarchical president. You can't function if you don't have information. John Harwood: That's why you call it a constitutional crisis? Jerry Nadler: Yes. John Harwood: He ridiculed that idea, said that you guys were just putting on a show and rallying your political base. The president says, "3.2 percent economic growth in the first quarter. What are you talking about? I'm making people's lives better." The idea of a constitutional crisis is not something people can see, feel, or touch. Jerry Nadler: That's right, but you know, we fought a Revolutionary War over that. It affects people's lives ultimately. Whether the president is doing a good job in the economy or not is one question. He may be. But, if he's destroying all the norms, and destroying all the practices, and destroying the laws, and arrogating all power to the presidency so that the people through Congress have nothing to say, that's a very different crisis. John Harwood: Is that an argument that you can make the American people see and understand and accept? Jerry Nadler: I think so. I mean, we have to hold hearings, and we have to get people to testify. And not just on the collusion with the Russians and obstruction of justice, but in all kinds of issues where they're refusing. The president goes out and lies, he says "I'm for health care." And he's trying to eliminate it in court. We have to get information on that so we can act, if necessary. John Harwood: I was reading over the weekend about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in the 19th century. And the advocates of impeachment then struggled with the question of, do we articulate narrow, concrete, easily understandable grounds for going after him? Crimes that he might have committed, or clear violations of his oath of office, or do we articulate a broader argument, but namely that the impeachable violation is that he was thwarting the aims of the Civil War, or the outcomes of the Civil War by interfering with the creation of a new society. Do you think of it that way as you're investigating President Trump? And if there's a larger issue about him and his conduct, what is it? Jerry Nadler: Certainly on many issues, you have to deal with the specifics. And the larger issue well, you've got three issues, really. It starts off with, this president and his campaign. If you read the Mueller report, there was tons of evidence that they knew the Russians were interfering with the election on their behalf. They welcomed it, they wanted it, and they coordinated with it. Colluded, in a word. There's no question about that. John Harwood: Despite Bill Barr saying over and over, "no collusion." Jerry Nadler: Bill Barr is just a liar. And, he's just representing the president. The second clear conclusion is, there are 12 episodes of obstruction of justice. Beyond all that is the basic question: They're trying to say that Congress, representing the American people, can't get information, and therefore, can't function. The effect of that is to make the president a monarch, to make him a dictator. And that's what we've got to fight. John Harwood: Do you believe, in fact, that the president is compromised by Russia? Jerry Nadler: Trump was saying throughout the campaign, "I have no dealings in Russia. I have no dealings of whatever kind." We now know that in fact, they were negotiating for Trump Tower Moscow right to the end of the campaign. They were lying and lying about it. Putin knew that they were having these negotiations. He knew that Trump was lying to the American people about it, and that gave him leverage, because he could have revealed that during the campaign. Whether there is leverage now, I don't know. There are a lot of questions. John Harwood: You actually think Bill Barr is just lying, as opposed to being a defender of the person who put him in the attorney general's job? Jerry Nadler: You could have two interpretations of Bill Barr's motives. The less charitable interpretation is he's doing whatever he has to do, to protect the president personally. And he'll hide whatever he has to hide. Lied may be too strong a word, but he certainly misrepresented very strongly what was in the report. The more charitable interpretation is that he simply believes in the so-called unitary theory of government, and this tyrannical theory that any president cannot obstruct justice, that as long as he believes that he didn't do anything wrong, he can stop an investigation. Which is a terrible doctrine because it would mean that you can't investigate any president for doing anything. And that he is acting now to protect that point of view. They're both dangerous. One would have him being very dishonest, the other would have him being honest but very dangerous to the republic. John Harwood: There was a poll that was done recently in which a solid majority of Americans said they believed that before he was president, President Trump committed crimes. Is that relevant? Jerry Nadler: The president can be impeached only if two things, only for misuse of presidential power while president or for cheating in the election that gave him the presidency. Other than that, if he did something terrible before he was president, he robbed the bank, that's not impeachable. It's a crime, but it's not impeachable. John Harwood: Do you believe he's committed crimes while in office? Jerry Nadler: Yes I do. Mueller lays out very strong evidence of a number of obstructions of justice. Those are crimes. Yes, of course he did. John Harwood: I wonder if the larger idea is that Democrats think that Donald Trump is a con man, and they are justified in finding ways to get a con man out of the White House. Jerry Nadler: I would very much oppose that point of view. Donald Trump is a con man. He is thoroughly dishonest. He lies all the time. We know that. None of those are grounds for impeachment. They're grounds for defeating him for reelection. They're grounds for why he shouldn't have been elected in the first place. But that's up to the American people. Impeachment is a weapon or a tool to protect the functioning of government and to protect liberty and to protect the structure of government. The president can be impeached ... only for misuse of presidential power while president or for cheating in the election that gave him the presidency. Other than that, if he did something terrible before he was president, he robbed the bank, that's not impeachable. It's a crime, but it's not impeachable. Rep. Jerry Nadler chairman, House Judiciary Committee John Harwood: Several of your colleagues have told me that their approach is, you pursue investigations of the president not an impeachment process, but it could become an impeachment process, especially if public sentiment or your Republican colleagues shift in favor of that. Is that how you think of it? Jerry Nadler: Impeachment is a decision for down the road. But we have to get the facts. Ultimately, impeachment or not impeachment is a political act. And before you do it, the American people have to support it. John Harwood: Do you think Republican opinion and public opinion are susceptible to change at this point? Jerry Nadler: The American people have to be educated and understand the dangers of what's going on. I think the American people are intelligent enough to understand that once the facts are laid out, once they see what's going on, what the challenges are. John Harwood: When you talk about potential witnesses who could move public opinion, is that first and foremost Bob Mueller and maybe Don McGahn after that? Jerry Nadler: Those are the first two, but then you want a lot of others. John Harwood: When you say, "The question of impeachment is down the road," do you have a clock in your head? Does it need to be this calendar year or not at all? Jerry Nadler: I don't mean just in terms of time. It depends what comes out. It depends where the American people are, whether they want to go that way or not. I don't want to make it sound as if we're heading for impeachment. Probably we're not. John Harwood: You really believe that? Probably we're not? Jerry Nadler: Probably, but I don't know. John Harwood: What I hear from your colleagues is the reverse probably we are, but not yet. Jerry Nadler: Maybe. It's hard. I don't know. John Harwood: I had the lunch the other day with Bill Cohen, who was a young Republican congressman during the Nixon impeachment process. He said he thinks Trump deserves impeachment, and that what we're seeing now from Trump is worse than anything Nixon ever did. Do you agree with that? Jerry Nadler: Yeah, I do. Nixon never posed the kind of existential challenge to separation of powers and to limited government that Trump does. John Harwood: Are you enjoying the responsibility? Jerry Nadler: Well I don't know if I'd say I enjoy it. I'm in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time. You've got to do your job and you've got to do your duty. In one sense, I've prepared for it my entire life, because my motivation getting involved in politics, coming back to when I was 12 years old, was protecting civil liberties. I remember reading newspaper stories when I was 11 or 12 about Supreme Court decisions that infuriated me, upholding convictions based on confessions that were physically beaten out of prisoners. I remember getting very angry and saying, "I have to do something about this." John Harwood: President Trump and some conservative Republicans say that the media, social media companies, the "deep state," are suppressing or constraining the civil liberties of conservatives or Republicans, or President Trump. Jerry Nadler: It's nonsense. They're going off on nonsensical quests what's the origin of the investigation? We know what the origin was. And even if the origin wasn't good, which it was look what it found. It found the Russians making a concerted effort to rig an American election, and various people in the United States supporting that, and then trying to cover it up. That's the issue. John Harwood: Do you think your Republican colleagues will grapple in good faith with the questions of constitutional checks and balances and civil liberties that you think you are vindicating? Jerry Nadler: I hope so. I see no evidence of it yet. John Harwood: Why do you think that is? You've served with these people for a long time. Jerry Nadler: The reason is that President Trump is running, what, 85% among Republican voters? People are terrified of primaries. The only people you see doing what I think is the right thing are people not running for reelection. John Harwood: Lessons from Peter Rodino or Henry Hyde? Jerry Nadler: I don't remember in detail about Rodino, except that he presided with dignity and fairness and he was reluctant to do it. In fact, the story is that when the committee voted to impeach the president, he went into his office and cried, even though he had helped to engineer the vote. John Harwood: Are you going to go in your office and cry? Jerry Nadler: I don't think I'll cry. I'm not that emotional. He was crying, presumably, that it was necessary. If it's necessary, you've got to do it. We have to protect the Constitution, and protect a democratic form of government. If we succeed in doing that, maybe I'll cry out of happiness. Henry Hyde, I think he lost perspective. John Harwood: Now, one thing that you said during that impeachment process was that an impeachment lacks legitimacy if it's done by only one party. If you have no Republican member of Congress supporting it, does that mean it can't happen? Jerry Nadler: No. If you think that the evidence is so stark, about deeds so terrible, that by the end of the inquiry when it's laid out, then you'll have some appreciable Republican support, then you can do it. John Harwood: Should you be concerned with the electoral impact of what you're doing on candidates from districts very much not like yours, where Trump got 19% of the vote? Jerry Nadler: If you're going to do anything, you need the votes of people from districts not like mine, so obviously you have to take account of it. But, again, the ultimate measuring rod is saving liberty. The ultimate test is, do we hand down to our children as robust a democratic form of government as was handed to us? John Harwood: What about financial impacts? Your district encompasses Wall Street. If you thought the turmoil of an impeachment process was going to be damaging to the American economy, would that be a reason to shy away from it? Jerry Nadler: The American economy is very large and very resilient. But number two, no. That would not be a reason. I suppose if you thought it was going to cause a major depression like the '30s, you'd have to think about it. But that's not real. Our job is to preserve the rule of law, to make sure that nobody is above the law not the president or anybody else and that we have a form of government where the people rule. That's what is threatened. John Harwood: I talked to a Democratic senator the other day. He said, "I'm concerned that if we have an impeachment of Trump, what seems like an all-out assault on Trump, we could have violence in the streets." Do you believe that? Jerry Nadler: I would hope not. I hadn't thought of that. We have never had such considerations since the Civil War. We had the impeachment of Nixon, we had the impeachment of Clinton nobody talked that way. The United States has to be ruled by votes, not by violence in the streets. John Harwood: Would censure of the president be an effective remedy for a constitutional crisis or violation? Jerry Nadler: I don't know. I'm skeptical personally of censure. John Harwood: Why? Jerry Nadler: Because I don't know that it means much anymore. It was done once in American history, when Andrew Jackson was censured in 1830 or '31, and then it meant something. But that was in the era of duels. When someone insulted you, you took them to a duel. Today, I'm not sure anybody would care about a censure resolution. They'd laugh it off. I'm not sure it would mean anything at all. Democratic candidate for President former Vice President Joe Biden addresses a crowd at a restaurant on May 13, 2019 in Hampton, NH. Former Vice President Joe Biden is getting ready for his first fundraising blitz in New York as a 2020 candidate for president, CNBC has learned. Biden and his allies are setting up at least two fundraisers that are expected to take place June 17 and 18, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. While the venues are still to be determined, the events will be in New York City, these people said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who recently indicated to friends that he's planning to open his formidable fundraising network to Biden, will likely be invited to attend, those with knowledge of the plans said. Some of Biden's most ardent supporters are based out of New York, including hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, founder and president of Kynikos Associates. The famed short seller will be attending one of the events, according to a source who has seen the growing guest list. Chanos told CNBC in February that he was committed to backing Biden's 2020 run. Jon Cooper, formerly a major bundler for President Barack Obama and now a backer of Biden in New York, told CNBC he can't wait to attend the events. "As a longtime supporter of Joe Biden, I'm anxiously awaiting his first New York fundraiser. I'll be there with bells on. A lot of my friends are chomping at the bit to help Joe's campaign, and they likewise can't wait to attend," he said. Political fundraisers, also sometimes known as bundlers, have been critical components in helping candidates raise millions of dollars behind the scenes. A Biden spokesperson declined to comment. Chanos did not return a request for comment. New York is considered a hot spot for campaign fundraising. During the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, donors throughout the state combined to give more than $617 million to political causes, with 71% going to Democrats, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That year, only California ranked higher with $756 million contributions. Biden's trip to New York comes after a successful swing through Hollywood, where he raised more than $700,000 at an event with a host committee that included Hollywood luminaries such as DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, executive and producer Peter Chernin, actor Rob Reiner and Terry Press, president of CBS Films. The development of Biden setting his sights on New York's donors follows his rival, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, making his way to the Big Apple for a donor event of his own on Monday. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has also recently traveled to the city for fundraising events. Biden has been leading the way in the overall fundraising game. He beat out all of the 2020 contenders in their first-day hauls, raking in $6.3 million. He finished just ahead of O'Rourke and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Before his trip to New York Biden will be in Florida where he's set to be at a fundraiser hosted by attorney John Morgan, who has been a fierce advocate of legalizing marijuana. Biden also plans to head to Nashville, Tennessee. Meanwhile, the former Delaware lawmaker is surging in early polling. A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday shows Biden making inroads in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, where he leads President Donald Trump 53% to 42%. With voters over the age of 65, Biden leads 58% to 38%. A Morning Consult poll that was updated Monday has Biden up by at least 20 percentage points over his rivals for the Democratic nomination among primary voters. Employees work on a turbine at the General Electric plant in Belfort. General Electric's power business is still struggling, but the company is sugar coating this in communications with investors, according to a top analyst at J.P. Morgan. "We believe a full accounting of the situation with a closer look at the data, even a rudimentary review, supports our view that GE is indeed losing market share in a stable" heavy-duty gas turbine market, J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen Tusa said in a note to investors. "We see nothing here to change our negative view on Power, more so evidence of a company that appears to manage to headlines rather than on-the-ground fundamentals," Tusa added. The analyst gained a wide following on Wall Street for his early warnings on GE's stock decline, beginning nearly three years ago. Tusa's notes, especially when J.P. Morgan adjusts its GE estimates, often move the company's stock. His analysis of GE's power business focused on the company reporting 4.5 gigawatts in orders for heavy gas turbines in the first quarter. Tusa said this is well above what competitors reported. Tusa said management explained the discrepancy by saying "there were several 'partner orders' that don't go reported in units that bridge the gap." "GE's 4.5 GW order number has generated a buzz across a Street consensus hungry for positive data points," Tusa said. "We believe that the headlines do not tell the whole story." Here is how Tusa broke down the total reported units sold versus the "actual externally ordered" turbines last quarter. "Beyond this cut of the data, however, the dynamics here raise concern around communications from a company that continues to get material benefit of the doubt around credibility, though appears to us to be stopping short of telling the whole story," Tusa said. J.P. Morgan's analysis comes even after CEO Larry Culp told investors in March that GE's power business "is in a serious turnaround mode." Culp also told CNBC that GE has "a number of problems we need to work through this year," adding that "this is the year that we share with the world what those issues are." The company did not return a call for comment. GE shares slipped 0.87% Wednesday morning from Tuesday's close of $10.32 a share. J.P. Morgan has an underweight rating and a $5 price target on GE's stock. Watch: GE will be transparent about its challenges in its turnaround plan, CEO Larry Culp says Mnuchin testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that he and his department had not yet made a formal decision on whether to comply with the subpoenas for six years of Trump's tax returns. But he added that lawmakers can probably "guess which way we're leaning." Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was subpoenaed by a House committee to hand over years of President Donald Trump's tax returns, signaled Wednesday that the ongoing dispute could be headed to the courts. The subpoenas, which were lodged by the Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee last week, gave Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig a Friday deadline to provide Trump's returns. Mnuchin has said that prior requests for the tax documents lacked a "legitimate legislative purpose." There is a "difference in interpretation between Congress and us," Mnuchin testified Wednesday morning at the hearing. "That not only impacts this president and this Congress, but has a very big impact on every single taxpayer in weaponizing the IRS." He added: "This is why there are three branches of government, so if there is a difference of opinion this will go to the third branch of government to be resolved." Mnuchin also testified that he has had no conversations with Trump or anyone else in the White House about the issue of whether to release Trump's tax returns. But he said he has spoken with IRS and Treasury legal teams, as well as with Rettig, who "independently concurred with my decisions." Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., and other Democrats argue they are entitled to look at any taxpayer's returns under a section of the IRS Code that says the executive branch "shall" provide Congress with a taxpayer's information upon request. Trump broke with the longstanding precedent of presidential candidates by refusing to disclose his tax information during the 2016 presidential election. Trump claimed during the campaign and after the election that he could not release his returns until the completion of an audit. But there is no law precluding him from releasing them during an audit. "I know there's a lot of interest on both sides" of the issue, Mnuchin said. But where there's a dispute between the executive and legislative branches of government, "I think it's better that we have the court's interpretation," he said, rather than "establish a precedent that is weaponizing the IRS." WATCH: Mnuchin says Treasury will follow the law regarding Trump's tax returns PARIS The leaders of New Zealand and France on Wednesday urged technology giants to clean their platforms of extremist content at a meeting of world leaders and tech executives, where the United States was nowhere to be found. French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiled plans to rein in tech companies over the unfettered sharing of toxic content like hate speech and terrorist material online. Measures announced Wednesday included the development of tools to block people from downloading violent content, increased transparency around how tech platforms find and remove content, and the requirement that tech companies' algorithms do not direct users to violent content. The so-called Christchurch call, a summit aimed at signing countries and companies up to a pledge to clamp down on hateful content, comes after shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, in which the gunman broadcast the attacks live on Facebook. Facebook said the video was viewed 4,000 times before it was taken down, but that didn't stop the clip from being spread on the social network and other platforms including YouTube and Twitter. France's and New Zealand's leaders said that governments alone could not tackle the problem of online extremism, and that tech companies must also play a role. Juul "downplayed" the danger of nicotine in its flavored pods, the complaint alleges, saying a "typical JUUL pod is so strong and addictive that it is nearly three times the permissible concentration allowed for sale in a number of countries for people of all ages." "JUUL targeted young people as customers. As a result, vaping has become an epidemic among minors," North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said in a statement. "JUUL's business practices are not only reckless, they're illegal. And I intend to put a stop to them. We cannot allow another generation of young people to become addicted to nicotine." It is the latest suit against the company that claims it is intentionally promoting nicotine use among underage buyers. North Carolina sued e-cigarette maker Juul on Wednesday, accusing the vaping company of targeting young consumers and misrepresenting the potency and danger of nicotine in its products. Stein said the company deliberately designed its products to attract young consumers and targeted them on social media by paying influencers to promote their product. The lawsuit also claims Juul used negligent age-verification methods for online purchases, allowing young consumers to buy their products. "Because of JUUL's lackadaisical and, at times, willfully blind approach to age verification, enormous numbers of underage users have easily obtained JUUL products, often simply by ordering them online," the lawsuit said. Juul said in a statement that it has not seen the complaint yet. It said the company shares Stein's concerns about youth vaping, "which is why we have been cooperating with his office and why we have taken the most aggressive actions of anyone in the industry to combat youth usage." The complaint cited data that said in 2017 nearly 17% of North Carolina high school students and more than 5% of the state's middle school students reported that they had used an e-cigarette in the previous 30 days. It also said e-cigarette use among high school and middle school students across the nation skyrocketed by 78% and 48%, respectively, from 2017 to 2018. Stein is asking the court to force the company to stop selling e-cigarettes to minors in North Carolina, limit the number of pod flavors sold in the state, cease advertising practices that appeal to young consumers and delete all customer data for any consumers under age 18. Juul is partially owned by tobacco giant Altria and dominates the e-cigarette market. It said it has already stopped selling nontobacco and nonmenthol-based flavored pods in retail stores, "enhanced" its online age-verification process and shut down its Facebook and Instagram accounts "while working constantly to remove inappropriate social media content generated by others on those platforms." Juul has also pledged to invest $30 million over the next three years on research, youth and parent education and engagement and said it "strongly" advocates raising the legal tobacco-use age to 21. Altria, which has a 35% stake in Juul, did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Stein's accusations are just the latest claims that the e-cigarette maker marketed its products to young consumers, leading to a rapid increase in vaping among youths. Last year Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced she was investigating the company for failing to stop minors from buying its products. Healey, who said the Massachusetts probe was the first of its kind, is investigating how many minors use Juul's products and how the company monitors its age-verification system. WATCH: Former Massachusetts AG joins Juul government affairs team Mayor Bill de Blasio officially entered the 2020 race for president Thursday morning, vowing to make his campaign a battle against corporations and the wealthy especially fellow New Yorker Donald Trump. In an announcement video, de Blasio touted his familiarity with the president: "I know how to take him on." "Donald Trump must be stopped," he added. Trump did not waste much time in ripping de Blasio's candidacy. "He is a JOKE," the president tweeted Thursday morning. TRUMP TWEET After the announcement, de Blasio travels to Iowa and South Carolina for multiple stops over the course of four days, NBC News reported Wednesday. De Blasio, 58, has faced more resistance to his presidential aspirations including from his own constituents than nearly any other Democrat in the race. Recent polls from Quinnipiac University show the mayor's approval rating underwater in New York City, and 76% of New Yorkers told the pollster in April that de Blasio should not run for president. De Blasio's staunchly progressive rhetoric appears to have turned off New York Republicans: 70% of them disapproved of their mayor, according to Quinnipiac's April poll. He is not particularly popular in early surveys of Iowa and New Hampshire either. Nevertheless, de Blasio took a number of steps signaling his intention to run for the White House. The New York Times reported that de Blasio traveled to battleground states, held pricey donor events and spoke at high-profile political conferences. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks at her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 2, 2019. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet with President Donald Trump's top trade negotiator Wednesday during a key stretch for the White House's trade policy, a senior Democratic aide said. Pelosi, joined by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., will huddle with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in the afternoon. They will primarily address the president's updates to the North American Free Trade Agreement but will likely discuss the widening trade war with China as well, according to the aide. The meeting comes as Pelosi and top House Democrats show reservations about approving an updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has dubbed the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. They have expressed concerns about whether the deal has sufficient environmental and labor protections. They have also worried about whether certain provisions could increase drug costs. Pelosi has shown no rush to bring the agreement to the House floor for ratification. When asked last week about how far away an approval vote is, she said "we're as far away as getting an enforcement agreement." The meeting also follows escalations in the trade war between the U.S. and China. After the Trump administration hiked tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods last week, Beijing retaliated by raising duties on $60 billion in American products. The move raised fresh concerns about damage to American businesses particularly farmers and higher costs for consumers. Pelosi has agreed with the broader aims of Trump's push to crack down on what he calls Chinese trade abuses. Last week, she said "the president is correct in asserting what we have to do with China." But she contended his tactics are "empowering [China] to hurt our people." The House speaker has said she has a good relationship with Lighthizer, who led the administration's North American negotiations and heads its talks with China. The U.S. trade representative is seen as more aggressive on China trade policy than Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Read more: There is 'no chance' Trump will back down in the China trade war, Steve Bannon says Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon who helped to inspire the president's 2016 campaign pledges to target Beijing told CNBC he thinks the president and Lighthizer are on the same page. "There's no gap between Lighthizer and President Trump," Bannon said Wednesday. "Lighthizer is the guy that does the execution." Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. In 2018, more CEOs were ousted due to ethical lapses than company financial performance or struggles with a company's board, according to a new study from PwC's Strategy&. It is the first time in its 19-year history that the study has found the majority of CEOs were dismissed because of ethical issues. For its annual CEO Success study, Strategy& (the consulting arm of PwC) analyzes the world's largest 2,500 public companies, defined by their market cap on Jan. 1. The study defines CEO dismissals due to ethical lapses as "the removal of the CEO as the result of a scandal or improper conduct by the CEO or other employees; examples include fraud, bribery, insider trading, environmental disasters, inflated resumes, and sexual indiscretions." The Washington Post reports that 39% of CEO oustings in 2018 were due to ethical lapses (including Les Moonves at CBS), 35% were due to financial performance and 13% were the result of conflicts with the company's board. That breakdown is very different than previous findings. For example, as the Post points out, at the height of the crisis in 2008, 52% of CEO dismissals were due to financial performance, 35% were due to board conflicts and 10% were due to misconduct. "The rise in these kinds of dismissals reflects several societal and governance trends, including more aggressive intervention by regulatory and law enforcement authorities, new pressures for accountability about sexual harassment and sexual assault brought about by the rise of the 'Me Too' movement, and the increasing propensity of boards of directors to adopt a zero-tolerance stance toward executive misconduct," the study states. The number of forced turnovers for CEOs in 2018 overall, the study found, was in-line with long-term trends, at 20%. Additionally, the study found that the share of incoming women CEOs in 2018 was 4.9%, slightly lower than 2017's all-time high of 6%. Don't miss: This is America's richest ZIP code and it's not in New York or California Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! There are many reasons to accept a job, but some millennials are searching for employers who offer an emerging benefit: student loan repayment assistance programs. Harvir Humpal, 24, is in that camp. Humpal graduated last year with a master's in biomedical engineering and about $60,000 in loans, he tells CNBC Make It. Student loan debt was top-of mind, so finding an employer willing to help pay that off was a big incentive. It led to his decision to accept a job with Abbott, a healthcare company that focuses on medical devices, diagnostics and nutrition. Last June, the company rolled out its Freedom 2 Save program, which helps employees pay down their student debt while staying on track with their retirement savings. "It was one of the main focal points of me wanting to come to Abbott," Humpal says. Harvir Humpal, 24, says that one of the big reasons he was drawn to work at healthcare company Abbott was their student loan assistance benefit. Source: Abbott He's not alone in wanting these types of programs. Nearly nine out of 10 recent graduates with student loans are looking for jobs with employers who offer student loan repayment assistance, according to a recent survey by Abbott of about 2,600 U.S. adults. And 62% of working American adults say they would consider switching to a company that offered this benefit. This assistance hits home with many younger workers because it's something so many are dealing with. But some of these programs may look more attractive than they really are, or may not be the right fit for everyone, Ross Riskin, assistant professor of taxation at the American College of Financial Services, tells CNBC Make It. "Just because something comes out and it's popular doesn't always mean its good," he adds. You shouldn't accept a job just because the company provides this type of assistance either. The salary offered, other benefits and your passion for the work are just as important. "It shouldn't be the main driver for them to take the job," Riskin says. Here are three questions that recent college grads and those interested in student loan repayment assistance should ask before accepting a job with an employer who offers this type of benefit. 1. How is the program structured? The way in which a company's student loan repayment program is set up can play a big part in how beneficial it is, experts say. It's worth getting the details before accepting a job offer. "We're seeing a bunch of variations of this employer-provided assistance coming out," Riskin says. Still, there are relatively few employers that offer this benefit: Only about 4% of companies offer student loan repayment assistance to their employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. In some programs, like Abbott's, the company provides a matching contribution to your retirement savings while you pay down your student loans. In Abbott's case, the company pays of 5% of an employee's salary into their 401(k) plan if they can show they're putting at least 2% of their pay toward their student loans. Yet the more popular option, currently, is a program where the company matches the amount you're contributing toward paying off your student loans. In that case, your employer makes direct payments on the loan on your behalf. "Some employers are going to mimic the Abbott structure, but many won't because it's fairly complicated. It's easier to just pay the money to the lender then to make the contributions to the 401(k)," Mark Kantrowitz, an expert on student debt, tells CNBC Make It. But while that may be easier for the company, an employer payment toward your loans is considered taxable income, which means you'll be on the hook for those contributions when you file your annual taxes. So it's not entirely free money. Riskin says it's important to keep in mind that you don't need an employer-based repayment program to pay off your student loans. You can always repay them on your own without any additional taxable income to consider. And, "if you're going to be taxed on that assistance, you may be better off trying to negotiate for a higher salary," Riskin says. For example, say you get an offer from a potential employer that has a program that will pay an extra $10,000 toward your student loans. But you get another offer from a company that is giving you a higher salary that's more even after factoring in loan assistance. "The financial benefit from the greater salary might exceed the benefit from the student loan payment," Kantrowitz says. 2. How much money are you getting for your loans? Many employers have limits on these programs, both yearly and lifetime. For example, health insurance company Aetna offers to match up to $2,000 in student loan payments each year for full-time employees and caps the total assistance at $10,000. Part-time employees are eligible for $1,000 a year and up to $5,000 total in student loan payments. Other places, such as education company Chegg, do not have caps on the total loan repayment employees can receive, but they do limit the yearly contributions. If you plan on staying with the company for a while, this type of program may end up paying more in the long run. 3. What are the restrictions? In addition to asking if there are any financial caps, it's important to know if the company has any other limitations on its programs. Some employers may require that you work at the company for a specific amount of time before you're eligible to participate. At other places, the program may only be available to full-time employees within a specific role. For example, technology company Nvidia offers a $500 monthly reimbursement for student loans to employees that have graduated in the past three years and work at least 20 hours a week, up to $30,000 in total. But interns, co-ops and other temporary employees are not eligible. You also need to work for the company for at least three months before applying. For Humpal, doing his homework paid off. He had three to four offers, but by choosing Abbott, he estimates he's ahead on his loans. "Because of Freedom 2 Save, I'll save about $7,000 in principal interest by my estimation and I'll be able to pay off my loan debt four or five years faster," he says. Don't miss: Memphis has pledged to help its city employees pay off their student loans Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! Dusseldorf police are asking for help to trace the thief of this rare Ferrari GTO. Police in Germany are still on the hunt for a man who drove off with a rare Ferrari while taking it for a test drive. Dusseldorf police say after a two-hour drive on Monday the seller left the car to swap back into the driver's seat. While he was out of the car, the unknown man simply pressed the accelerator and drove away. After police appealed for witnesses, the car was found on Tuesday evening in a garage in Dusseldorf city center but the opportunist suspect remains at large. On Wednesday, German police released a photograph of the man inspecting the car before the test drive began. If not for the trade war, both oil and gasoline prices could be much higher than they are now on rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Analysts say oil could be more than 10% higher, but if there is a resolution of trade issues, and the situation in the Middle East intensifies, there are risks of price spikes that take oil to as high as $100 a barrel this summer. "If you do get a trade war resolution, a better economy coupled with Iran sanctions, that's a recipe for higher oil," said Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities and derivatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Blanch said under that scenario, one incident could trigger a spike in Brent, the international benchmark, to $100 a barrel. "I think the real risk is Iran misreads [President Donald] Trump and Trump misreads Iran. I do think the real risks are increasing for sure," said Blanch. His forecast is for Brent to reach $82 per barrel during the summer. West Texas Intermediate futures are flat this week at just around $62 per barrel and down 2.2% for the month so far, even though the U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier and bombers to the Gulf due to unspecified threats, which U.S. officials say are the work of Iran. The U.S. Wednesday ordered all non-emergency diplomatic staff to leave Iraq, after two separate attacks in the region and as the U.S. responds to other nonspecific threats. This week, two Saudi tankers were among four ships attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and Houthi rebels, who have ties to Iran, claimed responsibility for a separate drone attack on a key Saudi Arabian pipeline. While it's not clear Iran was involved, analysts expect more such incidents. "Senior Iranian officials have made veiled and not-so-veiled threats to obstruct the ability of its regional rivals to export oil and exponentially raise the economic costs of remaining on the current policy course. They have also warned of 'planned accidents' which could lead to direct confrontation," notes Helima Croft, global head of commodities strategy at RBC. The Houthi, operating from Yemen, have previously attempted attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure. Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a proxy war in Yemen. Iran also provides funding for Hezbollah, a Lebanon based group designated as terrorists by the U.S. The Saudi Aramco oil pipeline was temporarily closed after the drone incident. It is a 1,200 mile oil artery the Saudis built to bypass the Straits of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq war. Croft said the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain would likely discourage Iran from trying to close the Straits of Hormuz, though it could could use its proxies and stage one-off attacks on ships. "It is important to note that these are not the only flash points in the region, and while an off-ramp may yet emerge, the hawks appear in ascendancy, which leaves oil's risk premium set to take center stage," she noted. Croft said while the Trump administration has not blamed Iran in the attacks this week, they are "under a very heavy cloud of suspicion and there is growing concern that the region's long simmering cold war may be poised to become a hot one." John Kilduff of Again Capital, said that scenario is one side of the tug of war on oil prices. "The battle in the oil market is the geopolitical premium versus the slowing global economy, which is the fallout from the trade war," said John Kilduff of Again Capital "WTI would be pressing $70, and Brent would probably push on $80 to $85." Brent futures were just under $72 per barrel. But those prices have not moved much higher in last few weeks, even as it became clear the U.S. would play hardball with Iran and pressure its oil sales to zero. It's been a year since the U.S. dropped out of the agreement between Iran and six nations, which prohibited Iran from working on its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. The U.S. is the only nation to break from the agreement. Iran has threatened to restart elements of its nuclear program, unless the European signatories of the accord help allow it to make oil sales. "Historically, with this kind of tension in the Gulf, there would definitely be a security premium in the price. We haven't seen it this timeso far," said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit. "The two big reasons are the trade war, and its potential effect on economic activity and the huge growth in U.S. supply." Yergin said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made it clear when speaking to oil industry leaders that the boom in U.S. oil production has helped give the U.S. flexibility. "This is a case study of how the growth in shale, and the change in the U.S. position affects perceptions about security," said Yergin. In the past year, the U.S. has surged past Russia to be the world's largest oil producer. Last week, U.S. oil production was at 12.1 million barrels a day, while exports surged to 3.3 million barrels a day. "You have this firewall of U.S. output," said Kilduff. "The Saudis can really turn the spigot on at will. There's a lot of cushion as we go into this situation with Iran." Saudi Arabia and OPEC, have been attempting to keep the oil market in balance under an agreement with Russia and other non-OPEC producers. The joint monitoring committee for that group meets this week. "There was chatter in the market that this weekend, they could agree to raise the production cap to respond to the loss of Iranian crude," he said. Analyst said Iran exports have already fallen below 1 million barrels a day and it could drop more, to as little as 200,000 barrels a day. Analysts say the potential for more incidents in the Gulf is increasing, as Iran gets more desperate and its economy gets weaker under U.S. sanctions. President Donald Trump this week denied reports that the U.S. was considering sending as many 120,000 troops to the Middle East to deal with Iran. But he added if troops were necessary, he'd send "a hell of a lot more." Trump's advisers, however, are seen as more hawkish than the president, and it was his national security adviser John Bolton, former U.N. Ambassador, who advised President George W. Bush in the war against Iraq. "It's a flammable situation and with lots of room for miscues and miscalculations," said Yergin. Blanch said Iran has several options, including dropping out of the nuclear agreement, but the most likely is that Iran will take indirect actions through proxies. "There's no sense they're going to come back to the negotiating table," said Blanch. "Iran could see being more proactive against U.S. aggression, for the home audience. At the end of the day, the loss of market share for Iran is a gain for the rest of the region. Other than letting others pocket money for the barrels you no longer can sell, you could target those barrels and maybe in the process push the price up and put some pressure on the Trump administration which doesn't want to see higher gasoline prices. It's a fine line to walk." Kilduff said the market is more on edge, even if prices aren't rising. "Because of the maximum pressure campaign the U.S. is putting on Iran, there's little doubt the Iranians will try to act out through proxies in the areas. We're tripping into conflict. That's the sense in the market," said Kilduff. Some of America's highest paying jobs such as surgeons, lawyers and psychiatrists require years of school and multiple degrees. But star of ABC's "Shark Tank" and business mogul Kevin O'Leary says that going to college isn't the only route to getting rich. "I don't recommend college for everybody," O'Leary tells CNBC Make It. "The fact is, there's a lot of trade schools that would help you make a lot more money. "Be a plumber, they get rich," he says. "Everybody has to have a plumber, even in a recession." The best way to think about school is to figure how much debt you'll incur and how you plan to use your education to pay that off, O'Leary previously told CNBC Make It. "You have to think about education as an investment because it's going to cost you money and it's going to create debt for you in many cases." To that point, trade schools are often less than four years and the cost tends to be less than a traditional university education, especially when compared to out of state or private colleges. With U.S. student loan debt setting a new record of $1.5 trillion owed in 2018, a new report from Merrill Lynch and Age Wave found that 36% of college graduates paying off student loans say that taking on that debt wasn't worth it. (Though there is research that shows increased educational attainment drives positive outcomes like longer life expectancy, higher earnings and lower unemployment.) Meanwhile, CNBC Make It found seven occupations that pay more than $55,000 a year that are rapidly hiring workers and do not require a college degree. Those jobs include makeup artists, construction and building inspectors and electrical power-line installers and repairers. O'Leary says such "pragmatic careers" are a good option. "Think about all the trades roofers, construction, home building," O'Leary says. "There's so much demand for this that people often overlook them saying 'I'm going to poo poo that career.' Why? You can get rich there a lot faster than getting a history major." In particular, O'Leary advises if you're looking at trade schools, consider studying to be an electrician or a plumber. "Every single building on earth wants to have electricity and plumbing working," he says. "Think about it that way. I don't care where you are, people are going to want your services." Indeed, plumbers were ranked 59 on U.S. News & World Report's 100 Best Jobs for 2019, ahead of occupations like market research analyst, veterinarian and sales manager. Plumbers made a median salary of $52,590 in 2017, according to the ranking, although the best-paid 25% made $69,710, while the lowest-paid 25% made $39,470. The occupation has an unemployment rate of 4.7%, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a 15.6% employment growth for plumbers between 2016 and 2026. As the U.S. News & World Report ranking notes, the most common way to become a plumber is through an apprenticeship. "Find something where people spend on it every single day" O'Leary adds. "These are careers that actually can help you provide for your family forever." Don't miss: Walmart says its US store managers make an average of $175,000 a year Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank." Ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who might seem like ideological opposites, agree on at least one issue: China trade. Bannon, whom diehard Democrats view as the antichrist, and Friedman, who works at what President Donald Trump calls "the failing New York Times," both feel the president is right to go after Beijing. While it may seem surprising, the two have agreed on Trump's China policy for some time. Friedman, while critical of Trump on many issues, wrote about a year ago that the economic fight with China is "worth having," adding the president's "instinct is basically right" to hold the line "before China gets too big." The country is so polarized politically that the mere mention of Bannon and Friedman being on the same page on anything becomes a watershed event. "I really agree with so much of what Steve said," said Friedman, who was guest-hosting CNBC's "Squawk Box" during the Bannon interview Wednesday morning. "The stakes of this moment, I think, people don't fully appreciate," referring to the economic clash of the world's two biggest superpowers. "There is no chance that Donald Trump backs down from this. I think he's looking at the good of people on a global basis," Bannon said in the "Squawk Box" interview. Bannon said previous presidents Bill Clinton , George W. Bush and Barack Obama passed the buck on addressing and fixing the problems of China's protectionist economy. But Trump is not shying away from the fight, he added. "China has been running an economic war against the industrial democracies for now 20 years," said the hardline ex-White House chief strategist, who helped craft Trump's nationalist message. There is "no chance" President Donald Trump will back down in the U.S. trade war with China, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told CNBC on Wednesday. Under Trump, Washington has taken a tougher stance on China than his recent predecessors. In addition to disputes around trade and the alleged Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property, American intelligence chiefs expressed their distrust of Chinese tech giant Huawei and Chinese telecom company ZTE. The standoff with China "cuts to the core of what the United States is going to be in the future," Bannon said. "With 'Made in China 2025,' 'one belt-one road,' and Huawei's 5G rollout, this is a master plan to become an economic hegemon," he added, referring to Chinese policies on its economy and trade. U.S. officials have repeatedly said the Chinese stock market and economy have suffered more than those in the U.S. from the tariff fight, and will continue to bear the brunt. On Wednesday, China reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April, adding pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus as the trade war with the United States escalates. "We have all the cards," Bannon said. "The Chinese business model cannot continue. It won't continue." For its part, China's Communist Party has remained defiant, putting out a rallying cry in state media. The deal that Trump has said China backed out of was not really about trade, Bannon said. "They refused and basically walked away from the deal because they understood that they've been running an economic war in this. And this is not a trade deal. This is a truce in an economic war, an armistice so to speak, and that they weren't prepared to do it." With trade talks at a stalemate, the U.S. is considering putting tariffs on the remaining billions and billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods coming into the U.S. Last week, the Trump administration followed through on its threat and increased duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese products from 10% to 25%. On Monday, in retaliation, China announced plans to raise tariffs, some to as high as 25%, on $60 billion in U.S. goods. Trump's tweets and tough public rhetoric aside, negotiators for both sides led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and China Vice Premier Liu He need to get behind closed doors, "take the heat down" and work hard on getting an agreement, Bannon said. "This is not going to take place overnight." Addressing a question about whether the Chinese would have rather negotiated with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin than China-hawk Lighthizer, Bannon praised Lighthizer. "There is no gap between Lighthizer and President Trump." Since May 5, when Trump surprised investors with tweets threatening higher tariffs on China, the S&P 500 had lost about $1.1 trillion in value the type of decline that if it were to persist could put a real drag on U.S. economic growth. The index made some of that back with Tuesday's nearly 1% recovery after Monday's 2.4% decline. Despite the knock from trade concerns, the S&P 500 was still only 4% away from its May 1 all-time intraday high as of Tuesday's close, and up more than 20% since the 2018 low on Christmas Eve. The China dispute certainly makes for strange bedfellows, with Trump facing calls from allies on Wall Street and free-trade conservatives to reach a deal. U.S. stocks opened lower Wednesday. Meanwhile, Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are urging the president to extract the most concessions possible from China. Bannon, a Goldman Sachs alum who became a proponent of nationalism, said he believes the China issue will frame the 2020 presidential campaign in favor of Trump. "This is history in real time. This is the most significant thing that any president can possibly do," he said, adding that Trump won't bow to the pressure and make a superficial agreement that doesn't address all the ways Beijing is cheating economically. On Tuesday evening, former Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was on the same wavelength as Bannon, tweeting, "Tariffs might be an effective negotiating tool." CNBC digital correspondent in Singapore Yen Nee Lee and Reuters contributed to this report. A Jeep Renegade 4x4 e is presented at the Geneva Motor Show March 5, 2019. Signage in the background says"'FCA Fiat Chrysler Automobiles," to which Jeep belongs. Check out the companies making headlines midday Wednesday: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford Motor, General Motors Shares of the companies got a boost on news that the White House plans to hold off on slapping tariffs on autos by six months. These tariffs are seen by President Donald Trump as leverage in trade negotiations with Europe and Japan. Fiat gained 1.9% while Ford and GM rose 1.2% and 0.9%, respectively. Alibaba Alibaba ticked 1.6% higher in midday trading following strong results reported before the bell Wednesday. The company reported its cloud business grew by 76% in the period, boosting its overall results. Alphabet Alphabet rose 4.1% after Deutsche Bank raised its price target on the stock to $1,400 from $1,300. Deutsche Bank said Google's parent company has one of the best ad product pipelines, making the bank more confident in Alphabet's 2020 outlook. Zillow Group Shares of Zillow jumped 4.5% after Guggenheim upgraded the company to buy from neutral. Guggenheim cited strength in the company's Offers business, which lets homeowners sell their houses. Applied Materials The chipmaker's stock rose 3.7% after an analyst at Susquehanna upgraded it to positive from neutral. The analyst said Applied Materials had secured "major memory wins." JD.com The Chinese e-commerce company's stock rose 2.6% after an analyst at Nomura Instinet upgraded it to buy from neutral. The analyst cited a more positive margins outlook for JD.com. Boeing The aerospace giant's stock rose 0.8% after the Federal Aviation Administration said it expects the company to submit its 737 Max software fix in "the next week or so." Macy's The stock popped as much as 4% after the retailer reported better-than-expected first-quarter results, but it later fell 0.5% after the company warned it could see impact from the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China. Macy's reported earnings per share of 44 cents on revenue of $5.504 billion. Wall Street was expecting earnings per share of 33 cents on revenue of $5.505 billion, according to Refinitiv. Same-store sales, a key metric for retailers, also surpassed analyst expectations. Salvatore Ferragamo Salvatore Ferragamo surged 9.2% after the Italian luxury fashion company reported strong first-quarter sales. The company announced a 17.7% increase in revenues from retail channels in China. The company also reported net profit of 11 million euros. CNBC's Nadine El-Bawab and Maggie Fitzgerald contributed to this report. Every strike in the U.S.-China trade war has captivated markets this month, sending the tumbling 3% and the VIX volatility index racing to 2019 highs. But, with Wall Street so focused on the short term, the options market may be discounting even more big swings coming down the pipeline. "What we've seen with the options market is that it often tends to price events in at the very last minute," said Pravit Chintawongvanich, equity derivatives strategist at Wells Fargo, told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday. "A lot of times the options market is very slow about doing so." For example, in the lead-up to the midterm elections last year and the 2016 presidential election, the options market did not price in elevated volatility until at least two weeks out from the event. Chintawongvanich now sees a similar setup for two market-moving events in June: the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting and the G-20 Osaka summit in Japan at the end of the month. The G-20 summit, especially, could break new ground in trade negotiations when U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet. "But, if you look at the options market, they're not pricing in a ton of event risk or event premium around that event," said Chintawongvanich. "The options market is pricing in a lot of volatility in the next one to two weeks which makes sense given we're playing headline pingpong here with the markets with any tweet moving the market up or down." S&P 500 forward volatility through to May 24 is expected to come in at 19.3, Chintawongvanich said. However, the options market is currently looking for volatility relatively subdued at below 16 in June. That means that options covering that period are comparatively cheap, he said. "A lot of people kind of bought protection when the trade stuff first started flaring up a couple of weeks ago. If you have stuff that's expiring soon I would suggest definitely look at some of those options and what we call rolling them out, so selling those near-dated options and buying options that expire on July 5. That will capture both the G-20 meetings, June 28 and 29, and the next FOMC meeting." The Trump administration plans to delay auto tariffs by up to six months, stopping itself for now from widening global trade disputes, four sources told CNBC. The White House faces a Saturday deadline to decide whether to slap duties on car and auto part imports over national security concerns. After Saturday, the administration would have another 180 days to come to a decision as long as it is negotiating with its counterparts. President Donald Trump sees the tariffs as a way to gain leverage over trading partners such as the European Union and Japan during ongoing talks. But the president risks sparking fresh global trade clashes if he goes through with car duties. The European Union, for example, has already prepared a list of retaliatory duties to implement if Trump targets autos. Stocks gained back their their losses Wednesday following news of the administration's plans, which were confirmed by a source briefed on the talks, an administration official and two foreign officials. Shares of automakers such as Ford and General Motors jumped. As the clock ticks to advance the Trump administration's North American Free Trade Agreement replacement deal, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, are expected to discuss a process to remove steel and aluminum tariffs that have been in place for close to a year. Lighthizer is expected to "float a proposal" to remove the tariffs and "chart a path forward" for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, according to a senior administration official. A GOP senator in touch with the White House confirmed the U.S. was looking at removing the tariffs to build support needed to pass the deal. Three aides say the White House hopes to send paperwork soon to Congress that would line up a vote before a monthlong recess begins in late July. But several lawmakers including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa have told the White House it would go nowhere if the U.S. does not limit tariffs. In a hearing on the budget for the Treasury Department, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., asked Secretary Steven Mnuchin about when the U.S. would remove the tariffs on Canada and Mexico. "The president has instructed us to try to figure out a solution," Mnuchin told the Senate Appropriations Committee. "I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada. I've spoken to the finance ministers. Amb. Lighthizer is leading the effort on this, but I can assure you it's a priority of ours." Later, Mnuchin told reporters that the administration is "trying to resolve the tariff issues as part of an agreement with USMCA," but that doesn't necessarily mean lifting the tariffs outright. It's unclear what the resulting remedy will be and whether Canada and Mexico would find it politically palatable. A Canadian official would only say that tariffs are expected to be a topic of discussion during Freeland's Washington meetings. Mexico's economy minister told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday that "we are, I think, close to negotiating the lifting of the tariffs." Administration officials have previously suggested that a quota system would replace the tariffs, to the consternation of U.S. companies, who say they would prefer to pay more in tariffs to get a product than to limit the supply altogether. Industry executives have suggested their preferable outcome would be stricter enforcement on so-called transshipments of steel and aluminum whereby Canada and Mexico become stopovers for oversupply of metals from places like China. In the six months since the three countries signed the USMCA, the steel and aluminum tariffs have posed the primary obstacle to the deal, which lawmakers must ratify in all three countries. Canada and Mexico have said they will not take up the deal unless the U.S. removes the tariffs a view echoed by Republican senators without whose votes the deal would die. Grassley has repeatedly demanded the tariffs be rolled back and brought groups of Senate Republican colleagues to the White House to appeal to the president directly. "The whole message from everybody in the Senate delegation that went there was: We gotta get rid of the tariffs, or nothing's gonna happen," Grassley told reporters in late March after several Senate Republicans met with the president on the issue. Democrats, who control the House, have raised concerns about enforcement, labor and environmental issues. Mexico passed a labor law in late April to mitigate some of the concerns. CNBC's Stephanie Dhue contributed to this report. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House, after attending morning services, in Washington, Sunday, March 24, 2019. President Donald Trump's top White House lawyer on Wednesday told a leading Democrat that Congress does not have the right to "pursue an unauthorized 'do-over' of" special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. The lawyer, Pat Cipollone made that claim in a 12-page letter that pushed back very hard against the House Judiciary Committee's demands for testimony from current and past Trump administration officials, as well as for documents. A senior White House official later accused the committee of engaging in "illegitimate oversight attempts." Cipollone did not reject all of the Judiciary Committee's demands outright although he did so in some cases. But even as he suggested that the Judiciary Committee "narrow the sweeping scope" of each of its requests to address Cipollone's concerns about them, he urged the panel drop its probe altogether. "The appropriate course is for the Committee to discontinue the inquiry," Cipollone wrote Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. "Unfortunately, it appears that you have already decided to press ahead with a duplicative investigation, including by issuing subpoenas, to replow the same ground the Special Counsel has already covered." On March 4, the committee announced it was launching an investigation "into the alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power by President Trump, his associates, and members of his Administration." "As a first step, the Committee has served document requests to 81 agencies, entities, and individuals believed to have information relevant to the investigation." The Judiciary Committee more recently voted to recommend that Attorney General William Barr be held in contempt for failing to appear before the panel to discuss the Mueller report and its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Cipollone's letter called the rush to recommend a contempt finding for Barr "legally indefensible" because the Judiciary Committee has failed to lay out "any proper legislative purpose" for pursuing issues that Mueller already investigated. "Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized 'do-over' of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice," Cipollone wrote. The letter did not say that Trump was formally exercising executive privilege over materials and testimony that Nadler has requested. Nadler fired back at Cipollone's letter, saying, "Our investigation into this as well as other troubling conduct by this Administration will continue." In a prepared statement, Nadler called the letter an "extraordinary demand that the Committee discontinue its inquiry into obstruction of justice, public corruption, and abuses of power, including as set forth in the Mueller Report." "We will do no such thing," Nadler said. "The White House position appears to be that the Justice Department cannot hold the President accountable, since it purportedly cannot indict him. Now it adds the extreme claim that Congress cannot act either, because that would duplicate the Special Counsel's work. This flies in the face of the American idea that no one is above the law, and I reject it." He added: "The White House also claims it is willing to cooperate with this Committee while at the same time refusing to work with Congress to produce redacted portions of the Mueller Report, underlying documents and other materials; refusing to provide responses to our requests for information regarding family separation and the decision to not defend the ACA; and after the President has already declared that he is 'fighting all the subpoenas.' The Committee remains willing to discuss any reasonable accommodations, but accommodation takes two." The White House has previously objected to a variety of requests for information from Democratic lawmakers on the grounds that those requests do not serve a legitimate legislative purpose. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently refused to hand over six years of Trump's tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, in part for that reason. A senior White House official told reporters Wednesday that, "The problem is the chairman [Nadler] doesn't like the results of the investigation" by Mueller. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, accused Nadler of trying to orchestrate a "show trial" and "political theater" for Trump administration officials. "Does anyone doubt that Chairman Nadler already has his own conclusions about what happened back in 2016?" the official asked. If Nadler wants to get the documents and testimony he has asked for, the official said, he "has to do a better job of laying out a legitimate legislative purpose for what he's doing." "It's not really the president's fault if the Congress is engaging in illegitimate oversight attempts," the official said. "The president is not acting in an imperial fashion, it seems to me Congress [and Nadler] are acting imperiously ... by setting forth demands for documents that are secret, that are privileged." Read White House Counsel Pat Cipollone's letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler: President Donald Trump walks with South Korea's President Moon Jae-in at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 11, 2019. President Donald Trump will meet with Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, as part of his travel to Asia for the G-20 summit of world leaders in Japan in late June, the White House said Wednesday. The two will meet in South Korea to discuss efforts to rid the country's northern neighbor of its nuclear program, one of Trump's signature foreign policy priorities, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. Trump and Moon met last month at the White House. Trump said at the time he was still seeking to make a "big deal" with North Korea, but noted that there may be smaller deals made along the way. "The big deal is we have to get rid of the nuclear weapons," Trump said. That effort has shown little signs of progress since a historic summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a year ago failed to bring about a detailed agreement. Trump cut short a second summit, hosted by Vietnam in February, after Kim called for the removal of all U.S. sanctions. The announcement that Trump will meet Moon comes as tension between the U.S. and North Korea escalates. On Tuesday, the rogue nation demanded the return of a cargo ship the United States seized for alleged sanctions violations. And on Thursday, the president said that "nobody's happy" after the Pentagon reported ballistic missile launches in the country, the second set of launches in a week. "They're talking about negotiating, but I don't think they're ready to negotiate," he said. Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey gestures while interacting with students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi on November 12, 2018. The Trump Administration on Wednesday opened an online form where Americans can share instances in which they've been censored by social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. tweet The form asks users to share their contact information, social media links, their citizenship and residency status and links or screenshots of any social media content they've posted that was censored by Facebook or its Instagram service, Twitter, or Google's YouTube. "This permission grants the U.S. Government a license to use, edit, display, publish, broadcast, transmit, post, or otherwise distribute all or part of the Content (including edited, composite, or derivative works made therefrom)," reads the user agreement for the form. The White House's new form comes as more politicians are pushing for regulation against online platforms, with a focus on Facebook specifically. Multiple 2020 Democratic presidential candidates including Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have said they would consider breaking up Facebook. Meanwhile, Facebook is expecting to be hit with a fine of up to $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission related to the company's March 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consulting firm improperly accessed the data of 87 million Facebook users. WATCH: Here's how to see which apps have access to your Facebook data and cut them off UniCredit has stepped up preparations for a potential bid for Germany's Commerzbank by drafting in investment bankers including a former top German official, three people familiar with the matter said. The Italian bank had engaged Lazard and its banker Joerg Asmussen, the former German deputy finance minister, along with JP Morgan for a possible takeover, the sources said, raising the prospect of a deal that could allow UniCredit to pivot away from its struggling domestic market. UniCredit said in statement responding to the Reuters report that it wanted to clarify that no banking mandate had been signed in relation to any potential market operation. The bank reiterated that its current business plan is based on organic growth and a new plan will be unveiled on Dec. 3. Although it is unclear whether and when a bid could be made, UniCredit has long been interested in expanding in Germany, said several sources familiar with management's thinking. It already owns HVB, a large German lender based in Munich. But the Italian bank, which has been concentrating on its own turnaround plan, had been waiting on the outcome of merger talks between Commerzbank and its larger Frankfurt neighbor, Deutsche Bank. Those talks unraveled in recent weeks, placing Commerzbank back on the agenda for UniCredit Chief Executive Jean Pierre Mustier, who will be running the rule over a target worth about 9.3 billion euros ($10.4 billion) compared with UniCredit's market capitalization of 24.4 billion euros. Commerzbank shares rose on the news, climbing 4.7% by 1400 GMT, with UniCredit shares down 2.4%. UniCredit's advances come as Dutch bank ING Groep has also shown interest in Commerzbank, sources familiar with the matter said. One person with knowledge of those informal talks described them as "intensive". Mustier has hired Lazard in the hope that Asmussen can lobby for the deal with finance minister Olaf Scholz. Both have roots in the German Social Democrat Party. Asmussen, who studied business administration at Milan's Bocconi University, has previously served on the executive board of the European Central Bank (ECB) and as state secretary at the Federal Ministry of labour and social affairs. UniCredit, JPMorgan, Lazard, Commerzbank and Germany's finance ministry declined to comment while Asmussen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ING also declined to comment. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was lower at around 2.382%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also lower at around 2.828%. Yields move inversely to prices. The 10-year yield was also about five basis points from hitting its 2019 low. U.S. government debt prices rose on Wednesday as investors looked for safety after the release of disappointing data from the U.S. and China. Retails sales in the U.S. fell 0.2% last month, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected an increase of 0.2%. Meanwhile, industrial production in the U.S. fell 0.5% in April after rising 0.2% in March. Chinese industrial production rose 5.4% in April, well below a Refinitiv estimate of 6.5%. The print was also the weakest since May 2003. "I think the weak Chinese data is kind of confirmation the trade war matters, which is more fuel on the fire of the worries we've seen over the past two weeks," said BMO Treasury strategist Ben Jeffrey. The weak economic data comes as trade tensions between China and the U.S. have reignited. Earlier this week, China hiked tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. The move came after the U.S. raised levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. President Donald Trump said in a tweet Tuesday that the U.S. is in a "much better position now than any deal we could have made." CNBC's Fred Imbert and Patti Domm contributed to this report. China's President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. Investors will be closely watching the G-20 summit in Japan next month, as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet amid their escalating trade war but the odds of striking a deal at that meeting "are about 50-50," said a former U.S. ambassador to China. "So far, President Trump has been hot and cold he says things are great one day, and then he blames China the other day, so that's very hard to tell," Max Baucus told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday. At the previous G-20 summit in Argentina last December, the two leaders agreed on a 90-day trade ceasefire that put their tariff war on hold for months until last week. Last Friday, the U.S. more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods in the midst of ongoing negotiations, prompting China to retaliate with its own set of tariffs. Beijing announced Monday that more than 5,000 American products could see duties rise as high as 25% from June 1. Workplace stress costs the American economy billions of dollars a year, according to researchers but many employees don't feel comfortable asking to take a break from their workplace to practice self-care. And burnout isn't limited to people who don't enjoy their jobs one in five U.S. workers reported feeling both highly engaged at work and high levels of burnout, according to a study conducted by Yale University last year. Across the board, research from Gallup found that nearly a quarter of U.S. workers feel burned out at work "very often or always." Wellness app Shine asked almost 2,000 of its 4 million members how they felt workplaces could help prevent employee burnout, finding that 97% of people who had taken a mental health day felt it improved their performance. However, only a quarter of respondents felt comfortable asking their boss to take mental health leave. Shine co-founders Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayashi are working with employers across the U.S. to arrange a nationwide Mental Health Break on Wednesday at 3 p.m., hoping it will help workplaces foster environments where mental health is no longer a taboo subject. Workplaces will encourage employees to take a break, whether that means a half day or just 20 minutes away from their desk. More than 50 companies are taking part, including Lyft, Dropbox and Becca Cosmetics. Lidey and Hirabayashi told CNBC over the phone this week that people suffering with burnout or poor mental health often entered a "spiral of silence," where they felt they couldn't admit to problems at work and self-blamed. "People told us they didn't necessarily want employers to put formal, set policies in place, but show they support employees (by letting them) take the time they need," Lidey explained. "Wednesday's action isn't just something that's been written in a document no one reads it's giving employees the opportunity to get creative about practicing self-care. Support doesn't have to be overly formal, but it does have to have buy-in from company leadership." Data suggests that burnout isn't something employers should brush under the carpet, as it can cause unexpected absenteeism and comes with financial costs. Gallup's study found that burned out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day, while 2016 research from Eastern Kentucky University found workplace stress was costing U.S. employers $300 billion a year. And high levels of burnout aren't just costly for companies. According to the Harvard Business Review, it leads to an estimated $125 billion to $190 billion in healthcare spending every year. Hirabayashi told CNBC that because of the costs associated with burnout, it was beneficial for both employers and employees to take a preventative approach. "The biggest thing people can do is make self-care a regular practice take a more preventative approach rather than (being forced into) crisis response," she said. "Ambition can co-exist with rest and recharging, but often we're hard on ourselves. Follow the advice you'd give to other people and treat yourself like a friend when you look at yourself through that lens it's amazing the impact it can have in terms of treating yourself better." Chinese President Xi Jinping chats with President Donald Trump during a welcome ceremony in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017. WASHINGTON A group of President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress introduced legislation on Tuesday intended to prohibit anyone employed or sponsored by the Chinese military from receiving student or research visas to the United States. The bill would require the U.S. government to create a list of scientific and engineering institutions affiliated with the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and prohibit anyone employed or sponsored by those institutions from receiving the visas. The bill was introduced as the United States and China have escalated a trade war following difficult negotiations last week. Trump said on Monday he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next month. It also comes as some U.S. officials have expressed concern about the possibility of the theft of intellectual property or even espionage by Chinese nationals at U.S. universities and other institutions. Many U.S. and university officials also warn about overreacting, however, arguing it is important to acknowledge the important role Chinese scholars and students play at U.S. institutions while being aware of security risks. The bill was sponsored by Republicans Sens. Chuck Grassley, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley. A companion bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mike Gallagher. U.S. Marines walk past the front of the American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq . Washington ordered the departure of non-emergency government employees from Iraq on Wednesday, after repeated U.S. expressions of concern about threats from Iranian-backed forces. The U.S. State Department has ordered the pullout of the employees from both the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, the embassy said in a statement. "Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended," it said, recommending those affected depart as soon as possible. It was unclear how many staff would leave. On Tuesday, the U.S. military reaffirmed concerns about possible imminent threats from Iran to its troops in Iraq, although a senior British commander cast doubt on that and Tehran has called it "psychological warfare." U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has stepped up sanctions pressure by ending waivers for some countries to purchase Iranian oil part of efforts to roll back the Islamic Republic's expanding regional clout. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday he was getting indications from talks with both the United States and Iran that "things will end well" despite the rhetoric. Washington has sent additional military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles in a show of force against what U.S. officials have said is a threat to its troops and interests in the region. A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has said Tehran would retaliate against any aggressive U.S. moves. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the decision to withdraw non-emergency staff was based on a security assessment, but would not give details on how many personnel were leaving. "Ensuring the safety of U.S. government personnel and citizens is our highest priority and we are confident in the Iraqi security services' (ability) to protect us," he said. "But this threat is serious and we want to reduce the risk of harm." Rent the Runway CEO and co-founder Jennifer Hyman is currently on maternity leave. She plans to take three to four months off from day-to-day leadership of her billion-dollar start-up. Rent the Runway The 2019 CNBC Disruptor 50 list has a first: One of the CEOs, Rent the Runway's Jennifer Hyman, is currently out on parental leave with her second child. A second, 23andMe's Anne Wojcicki, is nearing her due date and about to take parental leave as well. Just 16% of civilian workers in the U.S. have access to paid family leave, according to the December 2017 National Compensation Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But with persistent gender gaps across leadership in a range of industries, corporate giants and start-ups alike are increasingly looking to improve benefits, in part to keep women in the workplace after they have children. "Men and women both deserve to take this really special time when they have a newborn at home and bond with the newborn and be with their family," said Hyman in a phone interview while pumping breast milk for her two-week-old baby. "If the woman is really the only one at home at the beginning, it sets up a dynamic where she's the one in charge of her kids and the one in charge of childcare. Given how much work that is, it will set her back in her career if that's not equally distributed with her husband." Hyman says she plans to take three to four months off from running the company, which rents clothing accessories and home decor and is ranked No. 5 on the 2019 Disruptor 50 list. Her leadership team will run the company day to day, while from home she checks in and reads emails, with plans to attend a board meeting. Yahoo's former CEO Marissa Mayer famously returned to work two weeks after giving birth to her first child, building a nursery in the office. Hyman says while she won't check out entirely, in contrast, she wants to demonstrate to her employees that they can really take the three months of paid leave and two months of flexible leave that the company allows. "It's really important as the CEO to show all my employees that they can be rock stars at work and also take time away from work to be with their families during amazing moments like parental leave and during difficult moments like bereavement leave." Expanding benefits in tight labor market About a year ago Rent the Runway expanded its benefits that corporate employees received to all 1,800 of its workers, including its hourly employees working at its warehouse, customer service and stores. Now all of those employees have equal access to leave for bereavement, a new baby, family sick leave or a sabbatical. Hyman says the expense is worth it, because of the cost of acquiring and training new employees and, on the flip side, the value of having tenured employees, who are far more productive. "Our distribution center is in New Jersey, one of the most competitive places for warehouse talent in the U.S.," says Hyman. "It's much more expensive for me to try to recruit new talent and train them in dry-cleaning, quality control ... than it is to actually provide an equal life benefit to those employees." Hyman says that in the past year, the company has seen higher loyalty and lower employee churn. Men and women both deserve to take this really special time when they have a newborn at home and bond with the newborn and be with their family. Jennifer Hyman Rent the Runway CEO "As CEO, my compensation is much higher than the average warehouse employee; however, we shouldn't be distinguishing whose newborn child is more important, or whose sick parent is more important, or whose bereavement leave is more important," Hyman said. She says that the only time she would not be able to take parental leave and turn day-to-day operations over to her team is when she is fundraising. Rent the Runway has raised over $540 million from investors, closing its most recent round this spring. More from CNBC Disruptor 50: Inside Impossible Foods' mission to mass-produce the fake burger Uber CEO says Elon Musk is wrong about robo-taxi timing This app has saved Americans $10 billion on prescriptions so far Across the country at 23andMe's Mountain View, California, headquarters, CEO Anne Wojcicki is in her third trimester, with her third child, but the company was not yet ready to discuss her plans for maternity leave beyond indicating the CEO will take some time off. But similar to Rent the Runway, comprehensive parental leave is central to the personal genomics company's benefits. Head of recruiting Jennifer Mease, who is pregnant herself, explained 23andMe's policy to give both new moms and new dads 16 weeks of 100% pay. "It gives employees the confidence that they're cared for. This feeling creates a more productive, invested employee," says Mease. 23andMe, which ranked No. 46 on this year's CNBC Disruptor 50 list, also offers family planning benefits: up to $20,000 for fertility-related expenses and surrogate fees. And to help parents once kids are born, the company offers up to 10 days paid of subsidized child-care or elder-care backup. Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday. I'm a graduate from the Missouri School of Journalism and former reporter with the Missourian. Currently, I'm a working for a law firm in Dallas, Tx before beginning law school later this year. Reach me at @ByHunterGilbert on Twitter Follow this search Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today In 2018, 5,783 graduates left, more than three times than in 2013. Almost a third moved to Japan, which is experiencing labour shortages. South Korea has the most highly educated youth in the OECD with three-quarters of high school students going to college. Although exporting graduates, South Korea is also forced to import blue-collar workers. Seoul (AsiaNews) More and more South Korean graduates are taking part in government programmes to find overseas positions because of unprecedented unemployment at home. State-run programmes such as K-move, rolled out to connect young Koreans to quality jobs in 70 countries, found overseas jobs for 5,783 graduates last year, more than triple the number in 2013, its first year. Due to the growing demand, the government boosted the relevant budget from 57.4 billion won (US$ 48.9 million) in 2015 to 76.8 billion won in 2018. Almost one-third moved to Japan, which is experiencing a historic labour shortage with unemployment at a 26-year low, whilst a quarter went to the United States, where the jobless rate dropped to the lowest in nearly half a century in April. The South Korean programme has the advantage that it does not include an obligation to return home. In fact, the Brain drain isnt the governments immediate worry. Rather, its more urgent to prevent them from sliding into poverty even if it means pushing them abroad, said Kim Chul-ju, deputy dean at the Asian Development Bank Institute. In 2018, South Korea generated the smallest number of jobs since the global financial crisis, only 97,000. Nearly one in five young Koreans was out of work as of 2013, higher than the average 16 per cent among the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. In March, one in every four Koreans in the 15-29 age group was not employed either by choice or due to the lack of jobs, according to government data. Yet whilst increasing numbers of college graduates are moving overseas for work, South Korea is bringing in more foreigners to solve another labour problem an acute shortage of blue-collar workers. South Korea has the most highly educated youth in the OECD, with three-quarters of high school students going to college, compared with the average of 44.5 per cent. Despite the glut of over-educated and under-employed graduates, most young people refuse to accept less prestigious jobs. For this reason, South Korean companies are forced to incur higher costs to hire immigrants from countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. NUS proposes tougher sanctions against sexual misconduct for consultation Following the nation-wide uproar on its light measures against sexual misconduct, National University of Singapore (NUS) has proposed tougher sanctions recommended for further consultation. In an email sent out to the university alumnus, NUS said its Review Committee has conducted a comprehensive review of the sanctions framework. Student representatives from student groups and hostels, and subject matter experts have been consulted, the university added. This is to "ensure that the proposed changes reflect best practice, and the needs and expectations of our whole community". "There is a clear need to recalibrate the sanctions framework and toughen the penalties for sexual misconduct to serve as a strong deterrent, and to reflect the severity of the offenses," NUS said in the email. Photo courtesy: NUS The committee has proposed a minimum one calendar year suspension period from the University for sexual misconduct offenses. For severe offenses, the perpetrator will be expelled. A certification of rehabilitation by a counsellor and/or a medical professional is also required before any sexual misconduct offender can be permitted to return to campus. This applies to both suspensions and expulsions. In addition, there will be a notation on the transcript (disclosed for internships and employment) of sexual misconduct offenders, to reflect their suspension. The notation will remain on the transcript for a period of time after graduation. The university proposed the establishment of a dedicated Care Unit for victims of sexual misconduct offences. The unit will be staffed by trained and experienced care officers to support victims from the point of incident until special care is no longer required. The proposal is currently being reviewed by the committee. The email added that the committee is pro-active in seeking wider consultation on the changes already put in place by the University, and the proposed recommendations to strengthen the sanctions framework. The Committee will publish its final report by mid-June. Saleem Hadi: Singapore never fails to surprise me Saleem Hadi wears many hats. He is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, director, writer and theatre practitioner of Singapore. He is the first Singaporean to have won the Reel Studio Ideas Cannes 2008 Distinguished Community Documentary Award for his short film (documentary) Take. He also bagged the Best Director Award in Natchathiram in 2010, an island-wide Tamil talent search competition programme aired on the Mediacorp Tamil ChannelVasantham. Having lectured at various educational institutions and being active as both a producer and director, Saleem Hadi started his own creative firm, Blackspice Media Solutions that primarily conducts various media-related workshops, specialising in short film making. Saleem Hadi is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, director, writer and theatre practitioner of Singapore. Photo courtesy: Saleem Hadi He has directed 14 short films till date. In 2016, he also won the 2nd prize in the Singapore Heritage Short Film Competition organised by Singapore Film Society and National Heritage Board. Saleem has also excelled in the field of writing. He has written plays such as Saakadai, Karuppu, Charger Erukka, Sikhs of Serangoon and Therupori (commissioned by Indian Heritage Centre for Singapore Heritage Festival 2017). He has also been commissioned by the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society (SIFAS) to write a play for 70th-anniversary event Natya Yatra Celebrating 100 Years of Indian Classical Dance in Singapore, happening at Esplanade. Utilising his expertise, Esplanade is conducting a two-day Tamil playwriting workshop christened Maedai Kadhai on June 1 and 2. The workshop introduces aspiring playwrights to the processes and techniques of Tamil playwriting. Connected to India conducted a free-wheeling interview with Saleem Hadi to bring out the real persona of this multi-talented artist. CtoI: You are a filmmaker, actor, theatre practitioner and writer all rolled into one. How did you start this journey and became adept in all these fields? Saleem Hadi: Being an introvert once, I needed an outlet to express my viewpoints, thoughts and feelings on several issues happening around me. So that's when arts and media came to me as powerful tools. Arts required me to be disciplined. Media required me to be aware of the current trends. Both required me to write, talk and show. Both challenged many of ideologies and my limiting belief systems I was grappling with. I would thank industry practitioners and gurus from various disciplines who taught me. CtoI: Singapore is a land of many hues, cultures and races. How has Singapore shaped you in evolving your personality and talent? Saleem Hadi: Singapore never failed to surprise me. Just when I think this is all Singapore has to offer, I will be sweetly surprised, either by the people I meet, the conversations I have, or the things I see at the back alleys, or in the newness I discover in the old. Exploration is such an integral part of our survival for the longest of time. In my exploration within Singapore, I get lost and discovered at many points and I'm embracing this journey where I constantly evolve in entirety. CtoI: You are the first Singaporean to have won the REEL STUDIO IDEAS Cannes 2008 Distinguished Community Documentary Award for the documentary Take. How did the idea of the film come about and the poignant question Are you afraid to die asked to the people in the documentary shape up? Saleem Hadi: It was during the period of Sichuan Earthquake that happened in 2008. I was personally disgusted with the way some Singaporeans were sharing their empathy on TV which lacked sincerity. It was more like they were merely doing lip service since they were in front of the camera. That's when some thoughts came to me. Would they really know what it means to lose someone? Have they actually lost someone? What would it be if Singapore were to have a natural disaster? How would Singaporeans see death when it happens in their life? That's when TAKE evolved. With just two simple questions, my team and I wanted to immediately grab the attention of people and collate their responses into a documentary. Singapore has played an important role in evolving the personality and talent of Saleem Hadi. Photo courtesy: Facebook page of Kalaa Utsavam CtoI: What do you usually keep in mind while working on short films? Saleem Hadi: My earlier short films were films based on my world - my fears, my anger, my unhappiness, my doubts, etc. As I started to enter the world of films, I began to realise the true essence of storytelling. I slowly began to understand that films can change people and their mindsets. I realised the power of visual narratives. I got to understand that I can't be selfish and be self-indulgent in my creative pursuits and take the viewers' time for granted. I need to strongly believe in the works I put out to my people and the world to see. Since then, before I embark on any film projects, I ask myself four things: 1) Why do I have to make this film? 2) Why must this story be told now and not later? 3) Who am I making this film for? 4) How badly do I want to make this film? CtoI: Tell us about the activities and purpose of the non-profit organisation Singapore Indian Theatre & Film Explorers (SITFE) you created in April 2016 . Saleem Hadi: Singapore Indian Theatre & Film Explorers Ltd, also known as SITFE, is a non-profit organization that educates and empowers individuals with knowledge and essential tools to produce, act in or direct films & theatre productions. The organisation provides platforms to showcase an individual's creative potential and hidden talents, paving opportunities for employment, life-long learning and skills development. We organise networking sessions for people to bond and collaborate; conduct workshops, talks and screenings and carry out productions (theatre & film). A two-day Tamil playwriting workshop christened Maedai Kadhai will be conducted at Esplanade on June 1,2. Photo courtesy: Esplanade- Theatres on the Bay CtoI: You will be conducting the Tamil playwriting workshop Maedai Kadhai on June 1-2 . What is the future of Tamil writers and playwrights particularly in Singapore? Saleem Hadi: I strongly feel the future of Tamil writers is looking brighter than before. Maedai Kadhai is one opportunity that never existed before and youngsters should be hungry for knowledge and jump at any avenues that fuel their learning. In the former years, there was only a pool of writers who were ruling the writing arena. Writing was seen as a thing for the professional. Things have changed so much in the past decade. Compared to youths before, the youths now are facing more new challenges that even their own parents have trouble understanding, let alone give solutions. More youngsters want to be heard now and the platforms they are using to be heard, seen and understood gives them instant feedback. Youths now need affirmations which sadly even their own families fail to give. Hence, they resort to interact with strangers online. These youths are becoming authors, writers and creators, with their own following. This is definitely a good sign. Indian youths are understanding the beauty and importance of Tamil language. The youths now might come across as individuals who are not bothered about the language. But with the number of initiatives and events churned out by Tamil speaking youths during the Tamil Language Festival this year, it shows that the future of Tamil writers and playwriters, without a dew of doubt, is promising. CtoI: What has been the response of the people in Singapore to the nationwide Indian short film archival project, THEINDBOX which will feature all the Indian short films done in Singapore till date? Saleem Hadi: So far, we are very happy with the response we are receiving. More youths got to know of THEINDBOX initiative by SITFE and started submitting their short films to be part of the collection, without any hesitations. Teachers have started using films from this archival as conversation starters to get students to discuss some issues in their classes. However, we feel more mainstream support is still lacking. Once we get it, I believe this initiative will serve as a very important historical collection for the Indians and Singaporeans. Mays deal faces moment of truth next month Prime Minister to face PMQs after vowing to put Withdrawal Agreement to MPs Daily Telegraph under pressure from a deeply frustrated Cabinet The Sun to whom she delivered a plea/rant against absolutism Twitter Up to two dozen Labour MPs may switch sides Daily Mirror Gove tells plotters to back off The Sun Theresa May will put her Brexit deal to the Commons next month in a vote that will determine her remaining time as prime minister. She told Jeremy Corbyn last night that in the week commencing June 3 she will bring in legislation implementing the divorce agreement with or without Labours support. We are approaching the moment of truth, a cabinet minister said of the prime ministers decision, which effectively puts her premiership on the line. Mrs May has so far held back from introducing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill as she sought agreement from Labour that it would not vote it down. The Times >Today: ToryDiary: Brexit. May kicks the can towards the edge of the cliff. as Robbins jets to Brussels to negotiate temporary customs union Theresa Mays top Brexit negotiator jetted into Brussels last night to start thrashing out the possibility of a Customs Union compromise with the EU. Olly Robbins met with officials close to Council chief Donald Tusk to discuss the likely terms of a temporary customs deal lasting until the next election. He will hold more negotiations with Michel Barniers deputy, Sabine Weyand, today in a bid to break the stalemate as cross-party talks near collapse. The pair will explore updating the trade blueprint to add a temporary Customs Union, which could be made permanent if Labour wins power in May 2022. The Sun UK too divided to exploit splits in Brussels Politico More: Leadership contenders threaten to tear up soft-Brexit deal The Sun which McDonnell says has not helped talks Daily Mail Editorial: May should realise the customs union erodes our sovereignty The Sun >Yesterday: Henry Newmans column: The Tory poll collapse is nothing to do with Mays Withdrawal Agreement. MPs should vote for it and deliver Brexit Leadership 1) Poll suggests change of leader will not stave off electoral disaster Tories try to avoid crisis as European election looms FT Blunt urges Brexit Party pact The Sun Expert says result will make Farage a political force Daily Express The cost of Labours Brexit muddle FT Farage says he might even prop up Corbyn The Sun Ousting Theresa May and replacing her with a Brexiteer will not save the Tories from electoral annihilation, according to a new poll that shows the Conservatives 12 percentage points down. The ComRes survey on voting intention found Labour leading on 27 per cent, with the Tories neck-and-neck with the Brexit Party on 20 per cent, and the Lib Dems trailing on 13 per cent. That represents a five percentage point fall for Labour since last month while the Lib Dems vote share rose by six percentage points If the parties were to achieve these vote shares at a general election it would result in Labour being the largest party but 13 seats short of a majority and Nigel Farages party emerging with 36 seats, according to Electoral Calculus (Con 199, Lab 313, SNP 55, Brex 36, LD 24, Grn 1, PC 4, CHUK 0). Daily Telegraph More: Johnson faces more lawfare over 350 million referendum claim FT Lords suddenly press for MEPs to lose parliamentary passes Daily Mail Is the party over for the centre-right? FT Comment: May is doing irreparable damage, so why wont MPs oust her? Katy Balls, Daily Telegraph Pro-EU Tories lack the courage to stand and fight Max Hastings, The Times The Prime Minister could have neutralised Farage Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph >Today: Daniel Hannan MEPs column: Eight reasons to vote Conservative in next weeks Euro-elections >Yesterday: Andrea Gee in Comment: Im standing in this Euro-election in Scotland to help deliver Brexit and defy Sturgeon Leadership 2) Truss warns against anti-wealth sentiment Wealth is turning into a dirty word among suspicious Brits, a Tory leadership contender will say today. Treasury Chief Secretary Liz Truss will warn of an insidious notion being allowed to infect Britain that peoples riches are never deservedly earned. The Cabinet minister will claim: Whatever the risk someone has taken, whatever the hard work they have put in, it is subject to suspicion. I think this anti-success attitude is hugely damaging. The ambitious ministers intervention will be seen as a thinly veiled attack on PM Theresa Mays hostility to boardrooms through out her premiership with her bids to introduce fat cat pay limits and more say for workers. The Sun Local businesses criticise clueless opposition to online sales tax Daily Mirror Comment: Its McVey for me Robert Taylor, Daily Telegraph >Yesterday: Hilton Brown in Comment: Im as loyal as they come, but enough is enough. May must go. Leadership 3) Rudd rails against politics of grievance and outrage May tells Cabinet shell punish disloyalty The Times Amber Rudd railed against the politics of grievance and outrage last night, urging the Tories not to leave the centre ground in an apparent attempt to shape the Tory leadership contest In a speech to a Tory think tank, Miss Rudd said the language of betrayal and treachery fuelled violence against MPs. And she also warned that Conservatives were facing the fight of our lives against Jeremy Corbyn. The Work and Pensions Secretary made the remarks in a speech to the centrist think tank Onward in which she backed the Tories to be a pragmatic, compassionate centre-Right government. Daily Mail Editorial: Hunt is right on defence The Sun >Yesterday: James Fraynes column: These Tory leadership candidates havent grasped the scale of the collapse of confidence in their party The Times: A new definition of Islamophobia may cause more problems than it solves Globally speaking, Britain is a fine country in which to be a member of any minority, yet no one could deny that anti-Muslim prejudice exists. Accusations of rampant Islamophobia in the Tory party, particularly, are long-running, with Mohammed Amin, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum, warning only yesterday in an article for the ConservativeHome website that the partys coping strategy was not working. Yet, even as a word, Islamophobia is un- comfortably broad The division is not always clear, but there are grave free-speech implications in allowing the scholarly or even casual critique of a religion to be defined as bigotry. The Times May demands tech companies take down sickening terror content The Sun Terror police warn against new rules on Muslim hate The Times Comment: Complex problem of defining prejudice Dominic Kennedy, The Times >Today: Tom Wilson in Comment: How this Islamophobia definition would weaken the Governments counter-terror strategy >Yesterday: Mohammed Amin in Comment: How the Conservative Party should fix its Muslim problem Mordaunt announces new protections for troops except Ulster veterans Northern Irish exception risks angering Tory right The Guardian We owe a huge debt of gratitude Daily Express Minister compares social media trolls to drunk drivers Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt will today announce plans for new laws to protect brave veterans from legal witch hunts. She wants new legislation to prevent serving and ex-troops being charged after a time limit of 10 years unless overwhelming new evidence comes to light. But the MoD admitted it would not apply to Northern Ireland veterans only those who served on operations overseas. Mordaunt will announce a short consultation today on the idea in a written statement to parliament. It is expected to begin within weeks. If passed the new law would protect ex-troops by giving them a statuary presumption against prosecution after 10 years. The Sun Social media trolls are as bad as drink drivers, the Governments Suicide Prevention Minister has suggested as she called for society to treat them with the same level of revulsion. Jackie Doyle-Price said some online behaviour would never be tolerated in the streets and people needed to make clear we dont find that acceptable. She compared online trolling to someone 30 years ago driving after drinking four pints something that was socially acceptable at the time but which now most people would take a very dim view of. Meanwhile, she said social media platforms needed to clamp down on internet trolls and harmful content to stop the Wild West nature of the internet. Daily Telegraph Time to put the brakes on HS2 David Davis MP, Times Red Box Leaked Labour plan to nationalise energy Corporate leaders urged to speak out against Corbyn FT as former minister quits over antisemitism Britains power and gas networks would be nationalised under a Labour government and replaced with a complex system of national, regional and municipal energy agencies. Streets, villages and housing estates could be handed responsibility for operating and maintaining the electricity cables and meters that supply their homes, a leaked document showed. The plans, expected to be announced within days, suggest that shareholders in companies that own the networks would be unlikely to be paid the market value for their assets, estimated to be worth 64 billion. The document says that the compensation would be decided by parliament, which could make deductions for factors such as the state of repair of assets and state subsidies given to the energy companies. The Times A former Labour minister has quit the party after 45 years in a furious protest at Jeremy Corbyns record on Brexit and tackling anti-Semitism. Bridget Prentice, who was MP for Lewisham East from 1992 to 2010, claimed the party had been destroyed under Mr Corbyns leadership. In a fiercely-worded attack she said that in all the major issues of the day, you have called it wrong. Ms Prentice, who served as a whip and junior justice minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said enough is enough. She said she was resigning with deepest sadness and some anger after 45 years of party membership. Daily Mail Change UK attacks farce of second referendum campaign Police call for reform of cumbersome protest laws Change UK has accused the leading second referendum campaign group of taking orders from Labour after an effort to select a single Remainer candidate for the Peterborough by-election collapsed. Anna Soubry, who quit the Tories to help to form Change UK this year, said that the attitude of Peoples Vote to Labour was a farce and that the cross-party group was in dangerous territory. An attempt by pro-Remain parties to unite behind an independent candidate for the June 6 by-election collapsed last week. Change UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party were ready to endorse Femi Oluwole, an activist for a second referendum. He withdrew after what Change UK said was pressure from Labour within Peoples Vote. The Times Britains slow and cumbersome laws on policing protests need to be updated after the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations that cost 7.5 million in extra police costs, the countrys most senior officer has said. Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the ancient public order laws needed to be looked at because they prevented the police from acting swiftly and purposefully to tackle the protests which brought parts of London to a standstill. She said the offences for which protestors could be charged were minor, carrying fines in most cases of just 200 and a maximum of 1,000, which failed to act as a deterrent. Daily Telegraph MI5 probed over potential data compliance breaches FT News in Brief: Nigel Evans is MP for Ribble Valley and is a member of the Executive of the 1922 Committee. As an ardent Brexiteer, I campaigned ceaselessly in the 2016 referendum to persuade as many people as possible that leaving the EU was in all our interests. It was a hard-fought battle with families and work colleagues divided and friendships destroyed. Claims were made on both sides of the campaign over a period of many months, and the electorate had to discern what they thought was the most credible argument and they voted. I remember the excitement when it became apparent that the UK had told its elites that they were not buying into the incredible string of scare stories which filled news agendas on a relentless basis. Project Fear backfired big time and the people decided to leave. This was a great victory. Sadly, it turned out to be the last one that the Leave campaign achieved. David Cameron made way for a new Prime Minister, and I initially backed Boris Johnson as a committed Brexiteer and quite frankly as a winner on the doorsteps. His charisma certainly helped persuade the public that Leave was the right vote, and he was helped by a number of other brave politicians who took to the stump. After he left the campaign I spoke with Theresa May on the phone. She promised me that Brexiteers would be put in charge of the process at every stage. And she also promised me that we would not have one foot in the EU and one foot out: we would be leaving in its entirety. Her clear and bold message helped me to feel that Brexit was safe in her hands. In the end, my support didnt matter as Andrea Leadsom voluntarily left the race, and Theresa was crowned Premier without any endorsement from the membership. That must never happen again. Later, the Prime Minister was emboldened by a 24 per cent poll lead, and called a snap election. It was a disaster from the publication of the manifesto onwards. Theresa must carry the blame for a document so toxic that we might as well have put a photo of the grim reaper on the front cover. As a result, 33 of my Conservative colleagues paid with their jobs as the public threw them out. Bad advice was taken by the Prime Minister, who refused to address the problem until very late in the day, despite being told by many colleagues that it was costing us dear. It was clear that, confronted with the facts, Theresa was sticking to her original decision with a very slight tweak to the policy but the message was nothing has changed. At that election, however, both Labour and the Conservatives said they would respect the result and 80 per cent of the public voted for one of those two parties. The fiasco of the election though resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Prime Minister then relying on the DUP for our majority. This consideration clearly went out of the window, though, when she junked her original clear Brexit position for the backstop-laden Chequers deal. Until that time, Theresa had just a handful of Conservatives rebelling against her, but that turned into over 100 opposing her deal first time round. Her mantra that no deal was better than a bad deal was effectivelt replaced by my deal or no Brexit. The disaster and grand canyon of a hole we are standing in has been haplessly created by a Prime Minister who has lacked leadership or vision. Her approach has resulted in countless loyal Ministers resigning, thousands of Party members ripping up their membership cards, over 1,300 councillors losing their seats with new life breathed into both Nigel Farage and the Liberal Democrats the creation of two new political parties, the fighting of elections to the European Parliament, money drying up from supporters, the most dismal polling in my 44 years as a member of the Party, her deal being rejected three times, a small number of her own MPs colluding with opposition MPs to take control of the Order Paper, Theresa having 117 of her own colleagues vote against her in a vote of no confidence, over 70 senior Party members from around the country asking for an unprecedented emergency meeting of the National Convention to conduct their own vote of no confidence in her, the Prime Minister in direct discussions with the Labour Party to come to a compromise softer Brexit/Brino, (Brexit in name only)and the date of Brexit being delayed from March 29th, to April 12th, to June 30thto October 31st. You could not make this up. In the meantime we have had a load of indicative votes in Parliament which have all failed from second referendums through to revocation of article 50. The current talks with Labour are going no where and nor should they. Indeed, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party has now declared that Labour is the Party of remain and reform. So why are we talking to them? They have changed their position to one of delivering Brexit to one in effect of being in a Customs Union and Single Market. That is simply not Brexit. The Prime Minister cannot sign up to this so therefore what is this all about? These talks also prevent us from exposing the betrayal of the position that Labour took during the election. Theresa is in a hole, and the Labour Party are throwing her spades to dig deeper. If can-kicking were an Olympic sport Theresa May would have the gold medal proudly around her neck. The Cabinet yesterday had the opportunity today to say enough, but they have decided that this farce should carry on. The Prime Minister now seems set at having a fourth go at passing her deal in the Commons. Why not instead try listening to the 17.4 million people, Prime Minister? Why not try listening to democrats in the country who, in a rather sophisticated way, at the local elections told both major parties that we were a shambles. We were mauled though the Labour Party none the less actually lost seats overall, which is not impressive for a party that should be the main beneficiary of the Governments unpopularity. Meanwhile, the country is being treated to a BBC expose on Guy Verhofstadt and his appalling antics, whilst Olly Robbins heads back to his favourite country to carry on his disastrous negotiations with EU bureaucrats. My message to Theresa May is straightforward: the existential threat to my Party is so real that every day of continued dithering and delay means that the bad place we are in becomes worse, and her successor will be handed a mission impossible of a job. Recharge, and reflect on where we are. Show leadership. Remember when you were campaigning for the leadership of our Party. No Customs Union, no Single Market, no billions into the EU, no justiciability by the EU Courts, free Trade deals around the world and the control of our borders. That was what people voted for and that was what you said you would deliver. Call off the talks with Labour who have betrayed their election promise. Get on the offensive against their betrayal. Talk with the DUP on what is acceptable as far as a reformed deal based on what people voted for, with no backstop and test the will of Parliament on that basis. If the EU dont like it, at least its Brexit and not Brino and we can look the voters straight in the eye. If the Prime Minister isnt prepared to deliver Brexit, then clearly others are waiting to do so. The leadership election to succeed her is in full throttle, despite Theresa not having declared when she is going. This is beyond a farce. The time is now for the Prime Minister to announce the date of her departure with or without progress being made. Some in the Cabinet want her to deliver some form of Brino so that they can promise to undo it later. This is not the leadership that backbenchers are looking for, and it will stain all would be contenders in the current cabinet with leadership ambitions. The policy of those who want to thwart Brexit has been one of delay, dilute and ditch. They have succeeded in the first, they are in talks with the Labour Party about the second, and the confirmatory referendum is the Remainers final card in order to ditch Brexit completely. Game, set and match to Remain. Democracy is on a drip feed and we have put it there. MPs have played games whilst the public have looked on in dismay. The Westminster bubble in which most MPs operate is about to burst and the fallout will be huge and unprecedented in modern times. I for one will not sit and watch this happen to my Party. I am not prepared to delay, dilute or ditch the peoples will. Its a matter of trust. Tom Wilson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Security and Extremism Unit at Policy Exchange. Later this week, Parliament will hold a debate on Islamophobia and, specifically, on the APPG on British Muslims proposal for a formal definition of the term. While many may feel there are bigger questions on the national agenda, what is decided now will have significant ramifications for long to come. A definition of Islamophobia is being proposed that, if adopted, could tie governments hands on a number of vital areas of future legislationnot least on counter-terrorism. The concern here is whether once accepted this definition might impact media freedom, and freedom of expression more widely still. There is common agreement that where it occurs, prejudice and discrimination against minorities should be combatted in all its manifestations. If that were all that the term Islamophobia was concerned withas many well intentioned people seem to believethen there could be little objection to the term. Unfortunately, Islamophobia is a word that comes with a deeply problematic history. As our new report published for Policy Exchange explains, this is a term that was always intended to go far beyond simply protecting individuals from persecution. The definition proposed by the APPG states that Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. If formally adopted by government, there is critical question of whether such a vague and expansive definition would undermine both existing and future legislationparticularly in the area of security and counter-extremism. Conceivably, we could expect to see this definition used to challenge legislation in the courts and quite possibly there would be a further impact at the level of Judicial Review of how existing powers are used and implemented. As Richard Waltonthe former head of Counter Terrorism Command at the Metpointed out on ConservativeHome recently, under the terms of the Islamophobia definition, measures in the Human Rights Act 1998 regarding discrimination could well be used against the police in their efforts to pursue and prosecute terrorists. Furthermore, there is the fear that definition might cause particular difficulties for local authorities, several of which have precipitously moved to adopt the APPGs definition independent of national government. Opponents of the counter radicalisation Prevent programme have previously argued that local authorities face a conflict in being able to uphold both their Equalities duty and their obligations under Prevent. Notably, in the Runnymede Trusts 2017 report on Islamophobia, the argument was made that Prevent effectively conflicts with the public sector equality duty on account of being discriminatory against Muslims. This claim is dubious. Yet the risk is that by endorsing the Islamophobia definition, we might see campaigners challenge local government on its implementation of Prevent by arguing that councils are conflict with their own Islamophobia definition. Many of those minded to offer their backing for the definition without necessarily being aware of the ramifications for important areas of policy, do so out of a well-intentioned desire to show support for people who have been the victim of prejudice. But one of the great flaws in the definition concerns the groups that it leaves out. Several prominent Muslim figures have been critical of the failure of the APPG to address intra-Muslim hatred. Commenting on our new study, Baroness Falkner noted that the APPGs own Islamophobia report, was as silent on the impact of Islamism as it was on the very real discrimination that Muslim minorities and secular Muslims face from within their own faith. The APPGs definition does nothing to address this form of prejudice. The targeting of minorities within Islam by extremists should be of considerable concern in the UK, and particularly in Scotland where Asad Shaha member of the Ahmadiyya communitywas murdered in Glasgow in 2016. Given that it is reported that the political parties there have now adopted the APPGs definition, they must ask whether that definition is adequate given its neglect of intra-Muslim hatred. Baroness Falkner spoke out about her own first hand experience of this form of prejudice during a Lords debate on Islamophobia in December. During that same debate, Lord Singh also noted the experience of other minorities when observing the particular attention that Islamophobia receives in public debates. As he explained, other minority groups look at this long running focus on Islamophobia and feel as if they are falling off of the governments radar on account of lacking a culture of complaint. This is something those considering adopting the definition of Islamophobia have to take into account. It has been reported that Labour, the Liberal Democrats and London City Hall have all adopted the APPGs definition of Islamophobia. There were similar reports that the Scottish Conservatives may have accepted the definition, although the details here remain unclear. What is notable is that so far the Conservative Government has resisted doing so. This after all is a maximalist definition, and as our report documents, highly problematic groups and individuals of the type kept at arms length by the last Labour government as well as its Conservative successors have played a prominent role in campaigning for an Islamophobia definition. Several appear to have fed into the definition now being proposed. A more reasonable definitionor perhaps simply a national strategy on combatting anti-Muslim hatredmight easily have won near universal backing. Instead, this definition has become a matter of contention and may yet be rejected altogether. The emergency National Convention meeting is looming, and the early signs are bad for the May On Saturday June 15th, in central London, there will be an Extraordinary (in every sense of the word) General Meeting of the Conservative National Convention. It is taking place as a result of a petition from 65 Convention members who called for the following: We, members of the National Convention recognise the difficult task our Prime Minister has had in trying to extricate the UK from the EU after over 40 years of membership and we honour her work and commitment in that endeavour. It has, however been almost 3 years since we voted to leave and after 2 extensions to the original departure date, we no longer feel that Mrs May is the right person to continue as Prime Minister to lead us forward in the negotiations. We therefore with great reluctance ask that she considers her position and resigns, to allow the Conservative Party to choose another leader, and the Country to move forward and negotiate our exit from the EU. We call on the National Convention Officers to call an EGM to consider this motion. The call was led by Dinah Glover, the Conservative Area Chairman for East London. The Conservative Party website describes the National Convention as effectively the parliament of the Voluntary Party. It totals around 800 people. For a start there are the association chairmen from over 600 constituencies. It also has officers from Areas and Regions as well as 42 representatives from Young Conservatives and the Conservative Womens Organisation. They are all representatives, not delegates. Those who attend are entitled to vote as they choose. It should be noted that for many, turning up is quite a good effort. Someone coming from Cornwall or Scotland faces a long journey and has to pay for their own travel costs. So only those who feel strongly either way will be likely to make the effort. However, from soundings I have been taking across the country, many Association Chairmen have decided to consult their members and vote according to the outcome. Such local arrangements are not officially sanctioned nationally. The Conservative Party is witnessing an outbreak of informal, DIY, bottom up democracy. Chatham and Aylesford Conservatives have been ahead of the pack. Andrew Kennedy, their Chairman, says on Facebook, he had no hesitation in consulting the wider membership: Each member was sent a ballot paper and reply paid envelope and given ten days to respond. It is worth noting the closing date was Friday 3 May, so the votes were cast before the results of the local elections were known. Regardless of my personal views, I pledged to cast my vote as directed by our local membership. At the end of the day, my views as Chair are not worth any more or any less than the views of our members, in whose interests I serve. The votes were counted this morning in the presence of two independent witnesses, and the result of the ballot was I have NO CONFIDENCE in the Prime Minister 75.7 per cent I have CONFIDENCE in the Prime Minister: 24.3 per cent Turnout of members: 68 per cent. This ballot took place before the local election results. Andrea Thorpe, the Conservative Chairman in Maidstone and Weald, emailed the membership and got over a hundred replies. 86 per cent urged her to back the no confidence motion. In Hammersmith (where I am a member) Mark Higton, the Association Chairman, has written to members to say the officers of the Hammersmith Conservative Association have resolved to Ballot our Members to seek your views on how our Chairman should vote at that meeting. You will be asked whether you support, reject, or abstain from the motion. He adds: Our Ballot will open on the 15th May, and close on the 29th May, and you will receive a link to the ballot, and suitable reminders until you have cast your vote. We will be writing to members who cannot vote electronically, and will knock up members accordingly. The National Convention Ballot is not binding, and it will be up to the Board of the Party, in conjunction with Andrew Sharpe, Chairman of the Convention, to determine how the result is implemented. The Hammersmith Ballot is being conducted with the consent of Andrew Sharpe, and Clare Hambro, our Area Chairman. Your vote will be anonymous, and remain confidential. The result will be verified by independent adjudication. York, Fareham and Tunbridge Wells are among other constituencies which I hear are holding ballots. Chingford and Woodford Green are holding a meeting and are likely to put the issue to their members by email and by post for those that are not on email. Others are being more tentative. Crystal Pearce, the St. Austell and Newquay Conservative Association Chairman writes to members to ask what your view is of this motion. SANC was not one of the associations who signed the motion but our views are just as important as those who did. If enough of you think it is a good idea, we could have an informal debate regarding it. Over the weekend a letter appeared in the Sunday Telegraph. It didnt refer directly to the meeting on June 15th. But it did say: We must give the people the Brexit for which they voted without delay. If Theresa May cannot and will not do that, then she must be replaced. MPs must do that urgently or risk disaster at the next election. Among the 600 signatories were the association chairmen of Bosworth, Gravesham, Twickenham, Maidstone and Weald, Peterborough, Cheadle, Faversham and Mid Kent, Barking, Chorley, Canterbury, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, North West Leicestershire, Lewes, South East Cornwall and Bexhill and Battle. Clwyd South Conservatives have already held a meeting that passed a motion of no confidence in Theresa May. As have those in Canterbury. I understand an equivalent meeting is planned for Clwyd West. One could argue that this is a relatively small sample. But on the other hand where are the opposing voices calling for May to continue as Leader? As one Association Chairman in the south west told me: Im not aware of a single neighbouring association backing the Prime Minister. The members ended up with no say in electing her. But they do want a say in removing her. Another, in the North West, added: When it comes to supporters of Theresa May the silence is deafening. A point made by many was that they hoped that May would already have resigned before June 15th thus allowing the meeting not to take place. One of those I spoke to said she was undecided but hoped it wont be necessary to go through it. Some may be unenthusiastic about May but will still oppose the motion, should the meeting take place. Staunch Remainers might be concerned a new Brexiteer leader would be willing to pursue a no deal Brexit with us leaving the EU on WTO terms. For example, I am told that Bob Hughes, the Chairman of Guildford Conservatives and the former MP for Harrow West, comes under that category. It is right that members views are heard and taken into account. Those who grumble about the cost or time involved in asking them might also consider the consequences of lost volunteers and subscriptions if members are ignored. Association Chairmen are to be commended on their humility in seeking out what the members think. Once this process is over it will mean we will all have a better chance to come together again. There is still time for constituency associations that have not undertaken a consultation to do so. UPDATE Bob Hughes has been in touch to clarify his position. He says: Contrary to what you were told I have not concluded how I might vote if I attend. I am more likely to support it. However, I believe that the meeting will be obsolete because we will be in the middle of a leadership election. Andrew Gimsons PMQs sketch: May shows grace under pressure, but no sign of having found the answer Theresa Mays grace under pressure remains impressive. She has doubtless been familiar since childhood with Rudyard Kiplings lines: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too Among the men to doubt her today were Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough) and Nigel Evans (Con, Ribble Valley). Bone said he had been out with 40 Conservative activists at the weekend and they all want her to resign now. The Prime Minister replied that she had just received more encouraging tidings from Rachel Maclean (Con, Redditch), which is true. In Redditch, the Tories are not all calling for her to resign. May told Bone the Government wants to deliver Brexit, and if everybody had voted for her deal we would already have left the EU. Evans wanted reassurance that we will, as promised, deliver the full Brexit. The Prime Minister replied that the Conservative manifesto promises a smooth, orderly Brexit. One could not help feeling that for Evans, and others, the two expressions do not mean the same. A tannoy announcement broke in upon the Houses deliberations: May I have your attention please. May I have your attention please. The test is now complete. The disembodied voice, a mans, sounded rather spooky. Were we getting a message from beyond the grave? May must believe her test is not yet complete, and she still has a chance of passing it. What a wonderful surprise that would be. But the atmosphere in the Chamber today was becalmed, as in a class room where the pupils have completed, with huge gaps, the test, but are being allowed a bit more time, just in case they suddenly and implausibly remember the answers. Pete Wishart (SNP, Perth and North Perthshire) remarked that the Conservative benches looked a bit threadbare. Quite a lot of MPs on both sides of the House had not turned up, because they were certain nothing much would happen. Jeremy Corbyn was there, and accused the Government of being in the pockets of a super-rich elite. He is trying out his lines for the general election, when he hopes very much that May will still be leading the Tories. Some said that Theresa May would bring the Withdrawal Agreement back to the Commons before next weeks European elections. Others, that she would this week publish the Bill intended to put it into effect. Others still, that she would hold a series of indicative votes before next Thursday. Others yet that she would do nothing at all. In the end, she has taken the course she was always most likely to namely, to let it be known that the Bill will be introduced, at long last, when the Commons returns in June after the Whitsun recess. This plan serves two main purposes. First, the timing is intended to put maximum pressure on Labour, not to mention Conservative MPs, after both the main parties get a mauling from the Brexit Party in next weeks elections, and perhaps in the Peterborough by-election on June 6 too. Second (and more urgently) the announcement is also crafted to stave off the 1922 Committees Executive, which meets with her tomorrow to demand a clear timetable for her exit from Downing Street. For she will now be able to tell them that there is one irrespective of whether the Bill gets a second reading or not. If it does, she has promised to quit, though with no clear timetable. If it doesnt, she could clearly not survive in office, for all her tenacious grip on it. Her intention is now reported to be to stand down, either way, before the Conservative Party Conference in October, but the precise timing is unclear. And there is many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. After all, Number Ten has promised votes before that have not materialised. And why should it not balk at one that it is set to lose thus bringing an end to the Prime Ministers term in office? For the DUP are still not supportive of the Agreement. Nor are the Spartans. Some of those Tory MPs who supported it third time round might revert to opposing it as they did first time round. None the less, May clearly still hopes to get Labour onside. To stand a chance of that, she would have to concede on formal Customs Union membership, perhaps at committee stage. Which would flout her manifesto, split her Party and finally drive Liam Fox, and some other Brexiteering Cabinet Ministers, to resign. The 22 Executive will want to probe her closely on that point tomorrow. They will also want a firm date for her departure. Frankly, today would do as well as any other: the longer she stays in Downing Street, the more poisoned the well will be for her successor. But the commitment to introduce the Bill in early June, plus the naming of a date, would doubtless be enough to satisfy the Executive. All in all, the Prime Minister could yet find some way of wriggling out of a June vote. However, in such a circumstance the 22 Executive would have no alternative but to change the leadership challenge rules, and in the aftermath of next week and Peterborough there would almost certainly be a ballot. Even if May survived it, the next hurdle would be that National Convention Meeting on June 15. She is the past master or mistress of kicking the can down the long and winding road but, this morning, the end of her unhappy journey really does seem to be in sight. That can is being kicked towards the edge of a cliff. Luxembourg is a microscopic country which punches well above its weight in terms of financial muscle so its unsurprising UK contractors are asking about contracting there -- Europes eighth tiniest nation, writes Nikolas Papageorgiou, country manager for Europe at Access Financial . Luxembourg for contractors: in a nutshell The capital, Luxembourg City, is an important financial centre and is the European headquarters for major global tech companies, including eBay and Skype. This is partly due to it being a low tax economy, which also means that a high percentage of the workforce are engaged as contractors. Due to the tiny size of the country and to the high costs involved in renting/ buying property, most of the workers are cross-border (frontaliers). This enables them to benefit from higher remuneration, while paying a fraction of the housing costs of residents. In practice, many contractors reside in Germany, France or Belgium and commute daily to Luxembourg City for work. Contractors who are EU/EFTA nationals, can come and go without any restriction, nor any obligation to register in Luxembourg. Otherwise, they must hold a valid work permit in an EU/EFTA country and a valid employment contract, on which it is clearly stated that they might need to work for some days of the month in Luxembourg. What are the benefits of working in Luxembourg as a contractor? The top four benefits contractors most often cite to us about working in Luxembourg are: Relatively high pay and low taxes The quality of social security support and coverage Great quality of life Security due to the low crime rate What about worker take-home pay in Luxembourg? The maximum salary retention available to you depends on the way you work in Luxembourg. If you choose a local employment solution, you will retain around 56-62%. If you are self-employed you will retain 61-68% and if you operate through your own limited company, you can expect 65-75%. What are the levels of taxation in Luxembourg? Taxation in Luxembourg is on a progressive scale. Married couples pay less tax in general. For example, an individual having a gross salary of 4,500 (3,905) a month will pay a tax of 334 (290) a month when married, as opposed to a tax of 915 (795) a month when single. For household earnings of 8,300 a month, one will pay a tax of 1,574.6 a month when married, as opposed to a tax of 2,501.3 a month when single (according to the 2018 tax rates). What are Luxembourgs social security requirements? Luxembourg is known for the quality of its social security. All contractors are required to pay towards health coverage, unemployment benefits and pension. The levels of each of these available in Luxembourg are notably high, too. How do I register locally in Luxembourg? Within three days of your arrival in Luxembourg you must register at the nearest commune (town hall). Do I need a permanent local living address in Luxembourg? As an employee in Luxembourg you can choose to live in the country itself or you can also live in the border countries, France, Germany or Belgium. If you are self-employed, you may still live in the aforementioned countries, however, you will need to register a physical office in Luxembourg. Hence, if you choose self-employment, you might want to live in Luxembourg from the beginning and use a separate room of your residence as an office. Whats covered and not covered in Luxembourgs claiming expenses process? As an employee in Luxembourg, you will find commuting expenses are tax-deductible, in addition to life insurance contributions (if you use a Luxembourgish provider), and also interest paid on bank loans in Luxembourg. If you are self-employed or working through your own limited company, then your expenses relating to the conduct of your business in Luxembourg, which are proven by receipts, may be tax-deductible. As a rule of thumb, 30% of your gross income can be claimed as expenses, dependent on approval from the tax authorities. Can I just use my Personal Service Company (PSC) for a contract in Luxembourg? Absolutely. Working in Luxembourg through your limited company is ideal if net retention is important to you, and if you wish to be fully compliant with all local laws. But compliancy depends on your registration with the commune on arrival. Then, for our contractors at least, its simply a case of providing your permanent address, as well as whether you plan to work on an employed or self-employed basis. Will I pay UK taxes depending on my duration in Luxembourg? If you stay in Luxembourg less than 183 days in any given year, then you are going to pay taxes in Luxembourg -- just on the income that you earn in Luxembourg. If you stay longer than 183 days, then you will be liable to pay taxes on your worldwide income, in Luxembourg. What is the best solution for my circumstances? As weve outlined before, the solution which is best for you and your needs will depend on your individual circumstances. It will depend on the nature of your business and the working model you prefer. If you already operate through a limited company registered in an EU country, then using your PSC in Luxembourg is relatively simple and the most tax-efficient way of working. How does employment in Luxembourg work for non-EU nationals? To retain a residence and work permit in Luxembourg, you will need to be qualified to at least (bachelors) degree level. You must also have a clean criminal record and earn a gross monthly salary of 4,500 a month or more. Luxembourg Solutions Chart Employment Self-employment Personal Services Company (PSC) Eligibility All nationals EU nationals or third country nationals with a valid work permit and a base in Luxembourg EU nationals Taxes Payable in Luxembourg Payable in Luxembourg Payable in Luxembourg and any EU country where the PSC is registered Social Security Charges Luxembourg employed social charges: Employer 13.12% Employee 12.45% Luxembourg self-employed social security of 25% unless you hold a self-employed A1/Certificate of coverage under a social security treaty. Social security will be paid in Luxembourg unless an A1 is held. The A1 may be from where you are normally resident or where your employer is based. Income taxed on Contract value less employer and employee social charges. Contract value less expenses and self-employed social charges. Local salary (employer and employee charges are tax deductible). Dividends are taxed where the contractor is tax resident at withdrawal. Social benefits Unemployment benefits, health insurance and pensions, depending on period of stay and salary earned. Health insurance and pensions, depending on period of stay and earnings. Unemployment benefits, health insurance and pensions, depending on period of stay and salary earned. The future Luxembourg has one of the highest standards of living in the world, coupled with high pay and relatively low taxes. This makes it one of the most appealing destinations for foreign workers in Europe. Around 40% of workers in Luxembourg are foreign nationals, so multilingualism is a way of life for locals and English is widely spoken. For contractors with a background in finance and IT, work opportunities abound. Luxembourgs location makes it very easy to travel to France, Germany or Belgium and other European destinations are easily accessible by air, rail or road. With Brexit potentially making Luxembourg a more appealing location for international businesses, opportunities for skilled workers are set to increase, likely making this small country a big destination for Britons with a penchant for contracting overseas. 60% Website alter-telecom.fr uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery and Boostrap. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of 122633 bytes (119.76 kb uncompressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-11-21, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. 60% Website mufa-tv.ro uses latest and advanced technologies. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 22467 bytes (21.94 kb uncompressed) and 9946 bytes (9.71 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-08-11, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. Esequias Pereira, Embraco, presents during ATMO Australia 2019 Participants in the ATMOsphere Australia 2019 conference, held last week in Melbourne, were among the first to hear the news that the international Electrotechnical Comission (IEC) had overtuned a crucial vote. Thereby increasing the charge limit for A3 (flammable) refrigerants from 150g to 500g and increasing the charge limit for A2 and A2L (low flammable) refrigerants from 150g to 1,200g in self-contained commercial refrigeration cabinets under IEC standard 60335-2-89. On the morning of 8 May (day one of the ATMO conference, organised by shecco, publisher of this website), Jan Dusek shecco's business development mananger in the Asia Pacific informed participants of the reversal. Today, at four in the morning, I got the confirmation that this update will go ahead," said Dusek. "The standard vote was revised by the IEC Central Office...therefore the Final Draft for the International Standard for edition 3 of IEC60335-2-89 was APPROVEDThis is going to have a big impact on our industry," he said. Conference participants which included several of Australia's leading HVAC&R industry stakeholders including end users, suppliers, policymakers and educators reacted with immediate applause. Over the next two days, several of these participants reflected on the impact the decision could have on the Australian market. Reduced costs for R290 cabinets Ricky Gatti, general manager at Coolphase, a refrigeration, air-conditioning and electrical contractor based in Queensland, said that the decision would have a big impact on the cost of technology and its adoption in the Australian market. "For us and our little part of the world, it means that the [R290] cases become more affordable," Gatti said. "One of the R290 freezer cabinets that we are bringing in that's on R290 has two circuits. So instead of two, now, that potentially will go to one, and then the cost of that would dramatically go down." Gatti said that Coolphase had recently begun importing R290 refrigerated cabinets into Australia after seeing the systems operate in Europe. In light of the news, Coolphase will be looking to import more of the cabinets in the coming months, according to Gatti. "It makes them more affordable for our customers, which is going to be a good thing because more people will use them," he predicted. In addition to reduced upfront costs, the increased charge limit and the resulting simplified design could also have an impact on maintenance costs. R290 technology supplier Embraco announced during the conference that it was now offering locally manufactured R290 plug-in systems to the Australian market. Woolworths' Sustainable Innovations Engineer Dario Ferlin said that the increased charge limit could potentially reduce the number of condensing units needed for larger multi-deck refrigerated cabinets. "Wearing a retailer's cap," said Ferlin, "and thinking about the potential maintenance implications of having so many condensing units in the store, reducing that number would be much more attractive". "In light of recent developments, have you been working on or do you already have market-ready solutions which can go up to 500g and therefore reduce the number of condensing units?" Ferlin asked Embraco. "Yes," replied Esequias Pereira Junior, Embraco's senior sales manager for Asia Pacific. "We are very happy with this news that the refrigerant charge can be increased to 500g. Some research and development was already ongoing while the decision from the IEC was going in parallel. So very soon we are going to present solutions even bigger than what we are currently offering," Pereira Junior said. Emerson is another company that had already been anticipating the change. Shannon Lovett, the company's senior business manager for cold chain solutions, highlighted the company's recently released horizontal scroll compressor for R290. The product was developed in anticipation of the rise in charge limits for R290, according to Lovett. Regarding availability in Australia, Lovett said that "at the moment, it is not commercially released here". "But with yesterday's news, I think that opens up a lot of opportunities. "Actually," Lovett revealed, "there is one of the local case manufacturers that has got some test units that they are testing. So it is available for testing at this stage, if that was something someone was interested in." Though still early, the news energised participants in the ATMOsphere Australia conference. "It's a great surprise," said Embraco Senior R&D Manager Andre Paz Rosa. "It's positive news. We were in favour of this direction and I think that it will push a lot of the technologies that we have to new limits. We're gonna see a lot of hydrocarbons in much more applications and larger applications. So, it will be a good challenge." "However, we will consider that it will not be immediate. There are safety measures to take so it will take a while but the future ahead is quite interesting." May 18 election Axe the privateers As the presidential race approaches the May 18 finish line, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his entourage continue to dish out largesse in marginal seats. Millions of dollars are there for the taking by boy scouts, church and other organisations with children all in the name of security. The Liberal and Labor Parties and media have turned the election campaign into a US-style personality battle between two leaders. At every opportunity the Liberals accuse Labor of high taxing and reckless spending. Labors promised tax cuts are more progressive than those of the Coalition but neither partys offers address those whose incomes are below the tax threshold. Age pensioners, the unemployed and other recipients of social security payments have little if anything to look forward to. Housing crisis More than 100,000 people are homeless in Australia and another 300,000 to 400,000 more are experiencing housing stress due to high rents or mortgage repayments. This is set to increase as more people come off interest-only repayments and are forced to repay some of the principal borrowings. The question of public-versus-private lies at the heart of this housing crisis. In the mid-20th century local and state governments built public housing. Since then they have failed to properly maintain housing stock and wound back their public works departments. Public housing has been largely privatised, with valuable land in cities sold off to developers. Labor is offering a subsidy of $8,500 a year over 15 years to investors who build new homes for people on low and middle incomes to rent at an affordable rate 20 percent below market rent. The program aims to produce 20,000 affordable units over three years, building to a much larger target of 250,000 dwellings over ten years. This will fall far short of current needs, let alone future ones. The policy relies on the private sector, with the public purse subsidising the housing and the private sector pocketing the returns. It is another example of corporate welfare. State and local governments should be building public housing. Labors policies to tackle negative gearing rorts and reduce capital gains concessions hit the wealthy. They would not apply to existing investments, despite all the lies spread by the Coalition. Labor hopes to bring in an additional $32 billion over 10 years by restricting negative gearing to new dwellings and reducing the capital gains tax concession from 50 to 25 percent of a persons marginal tax rate. It also believes this will increase the incentive for private investors to build new dwellings and reduce the cost. The Coalition established a $1 billion fund for states and local governments and has released some Commonwealth land for housing. These funds will be soaked up by government bureaucracies and the private sector. The Australian Greens have all but been shut out of the public eye, with little chance to counter the lies and distortions of their policies, by the Coalition and extreme right parties. The Greens argue that governments should provide sufficient public and community housing to meet current need and projected demand with a minimum target of 20 percent affordable and public housing. TAFE Years of privatisation and cuts by state and federal governments have almost destroyed TAFE (technical and further education). The private for-profit vocational education and training (VET) has mushroomed with hundreds of thousands of students. The sector has been riddled with scandals and corruption, milking governments of millions of dollars with no results to show. An analysis done by the NSW Greens in 2016 using federal government figures found that private vocational courses cost taxpayers seven times as much as public TAFE courses. TAFE has had its funding gutted, courses closed, staff sacked and buildings sold off to the private sector. TAFE is now a shadow of its former self with a little under 10 percent of the students in the VET sector. At the same time employers are crying out for more skilled labour and apprentices. The Victorian Labor government promised 100,000 free TAFE places in last years elections but TAFE is struggling to meet the demand because of cuts. Federally, Labor has promised to waive fees for 100,000 students to enable them to access TAFE courses with a view to assisting them gain employment in areas where there are shortages. In addition, the aim is for at least 50 percent of those places to go to women. TAFE was once free, providing many working class youth access to education and training and a second chance to those who had dropped out early. It also provided programs for women seeking to return to work after a break. Only the Australian Greens have opposed the privatisation of TAFE and promised to make TAFE and university education free. Early childhood education Privatisation is also an issue in the area of early childhood education. Every wage increase is passed on in fees by the private, for-profit sector so as to maintain profits. Last week, Labors early childhood education funding proposals did enter the campaign, with promises of government funding to increase the wages of early childhood educators by 20 percent over eight years. These workers are low paid, despite their qualifications, skills, the demanding nature of their work and the responsibilities it carries. The thinking behind the policy is to provide a much needed wage rise without it having an impact on fees. Fees are already unaffordable for many parents, usually women, on low to middle incomes who all-too-often find they are only working to pay the fees with little or nothing left over. Labor says it would ensure that the companies providing the services also continued to pay wage increases during those years, so that its subsidy actually resulted in a boost to income. Any extra income is always welcome, but the approach being proposed does not go to the heart of the problem. Early childhood education is education whether it is 15 hours per week, which is being offered for free, or whether it covers the hours of parents working full-time. Like primary and secondary school it should be free, public and universally accessible. State and federal governments should take responsibility for providing and fully funding pre-school education through the public education system. As soon as a service is provided by the private sector on a for-profit basis, the profit motive drives the business, not the interests of the young children in their care. Aged care There is a similar problem with aged care which has seen a massive growth in private for-profit centres. The present royal commission into the sector illustrates starkly the consequences as businesses (care providers) chase profits above all. Also, the low pay and appalling working conditions no doubt contribute to the calibre and shameful conduct of some staff. Chronic under-staffing and lack of training result in the horrendous outcomes that are being highlighted in the royal commission. Once private profits enter the equation, there is a conflict of interest and care takes a long second place. This is also another vital service that should be funded and provided by the public sector instead of tax cuts for the wealthy. The failure of the Coalition to address climate change and the looming environmental dangers reflects the power of the corporate sector in particular mining companies and the influence it has on the government. The private sector and the failure of governments to take responsibility for the well-being of society and the planet are issues of critical importance. On a positive note, many younger voters are very aware of climate and the environmental crises facing us, and support change. The strong desire for change amongst workers was reflected in the well-attended May Day actions held around Australia last week. Protesters demanded full restoration of penalty rates, a living wage, the right to strike, the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, an end to the privatisation of public services, increased funding to public hospitals, TAFE and schools, and immediate action on climate change. The immediate aim in the May 18 election is to defeat the Coalition, to ensure it does not have control of either House. The Communist Party of Australia supports giving first preferences to left and progressive candidates with Coalition candidates followed by extreme right independents and parties last. The revolution in Venezuela will stand firm! A bunch of lies was recently spread by the mass media about a coup dEtat carried out by members of the Bolivarian Armed Forces early on April 30. It was claimed that the military base La Carlota was taken but really a small group staged an attack on the airbase which was in fact the break out of a representative of the opposition Leopoldo Lopez who was in custody. News outlets such as CNN, The New York Times and others presented the news as a huge rebellion and that a number of troops were backing Juan Guaido on his call to take up arms against President Nicolas Maduro. The truth was that some 20 low rank soldiers deserted and later sought asylum in the Brazilian Embassy. It was also reported that opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and his wife had sought asylum in the Spanish Embassy. All calls that have been made and all attempts to overthrow the legitimate presidency of Nicolas Maduro have failed. The Guaido forces are working for the United States seeking to destroy the Bolivarian revolution by any means including the military option. Of serious concern was the reported declaration by US South Command Chief Craig Fuller who pledged support to Juan Guaido including military support at any time required saying we are ready to help overthrow President Nicolas Maduro and reinstate order in Venezuela. It is obvious that the US hasnt learnt anything, as the Civico Militar Alliance in Venezuela backs President Maduro and will not betray the Bolivarian revolution. There is no crisis in Venezuela, what is affecting the people is the inhumane economic and financial blockade imposed by the United States. The blockade has implications for all spheres of the economy. It affects the health system, transport, food and other essentials. However, Venezuela is not alone. Millions of people around the world mobilise every day in solidarity with President Maduro and the Bolivarian revolution. In Washington for example, the solidarity movement is protecting the Venezuelan Embassy which is being attacked by Guaido supporters. Even water and electricity cuts orchestrated by the US administration in breach of the Vienna Convention has not halted the protection of the diplomatic mission. All communist, left, democratic and progressive forces must unite in solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution. The Australian government must also assert its independence and withdraw its recognition of Juan Guaido. Nicolas Maduro is the legitimate President leading the government elected by the Venezuelan people on May 20, 2018. All out in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, Respect to self-determination. The Bolivarian revolution will prevail and succeed! Disability in the spotlight Australias hidden shame the treatment of disabled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is to be put under the spotlight as part of a $527 million royal commission into the abuse and neglect of disabled Australians. Launch of First Peoples Disability Network Australia (FPDN)s National Our Way Disability Planning Resource in Townsville. Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced the royal commission, which will take three years and include Aboriginal woman Andrea Mason as one of five commissioners. First Nations Disability Network chief executive Damian Griffis welcomed the announcement, saying it was a positive step towards addressing the violence, abuse and neglect encountered by many disabled people. We are anxious to make sure that our people with disabilities are heard in the commission, he said. To make sure of that, Aboriginal organisations that have experience with disabilities have to be well resourced to do that work and to get out into communities. Griffis told the Koori Mail that the 2016 Census had revealed that a staggering 45 percent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had some form of disability or long-term health condition. That is twice that of the rest of the Australian population, which is 19 percent. Griffis said one concern about the announcement was that the royal commission doesnt include the measure of psychosocial disability or mental health. It would be very unusual for Aboriginal people not to have experienced depression and anxiety. He said however that commission would include the 7.7 percent of all Aboriginal people with severe or profound disability, which meant serious limitations on mobility or ability to understand certain things because of intellectual disabilities. As someone who has worked in this sector since I left high school, I have always heard lots of stories of violence, abuse and neglect, but much of it has been hidden away, Griffis said. Some of the institutions where Aboriginal people have been locked away are the most secret in the country, even more so than prisons. From an Aboriginal perspective theres always been rumours of the high numbers of Aboriginal people who grew up in the most notorious institutions in Australia who were often even denied their own Aboriginality. These are important stories that need to be told. We are expecting to get funded to provide support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their families but need significant resources to do this. It will require a workforce that can get around the country. Most of our staff here have a disability or are close to someone with a disability and we will be aiming to employ even more people with disabilities to get out and support our people. And while he welcomed the royal commission, Mr Griffis said it was disturbing news that the National Disability Insurance Scheme had been underspent by $1.6 billion, which was returned to prop up the Budget surplus. The Budget surplus is being created on the back of people with disabilities, which is terrible, Griffis said. We support the NDIS in principle, but it is broken and people with disabilities are now sharing stories about how poorly the NDIS is working for them. In announcing the royal commission, Morrison said the three-year investigation would be based in Brisbane and would be headed by former Federal Court judge Ronald Sackville. Labor leader Bill Shorten said he was pleased the royal commission had been called before the imminent federal election. A royal commission into people with disabilities is overdue, he said. Greens senator Jordon Steele-John has led the charge for a royal commission. This is a great victory for the disability rights movement in Australia, for the Greens who have been campaigning alongside activists now for five years to get this done. The government expects the royal commission to release an interim report by the end of October next year, with a final report due by the end of April 2022. Koori Mail Ripe for corruption Water sales in the stricken Murray-Darling Basin river system will be of major concern to many voters in the federal elections, following recent shocking revelations over commercial water deals. One deal of particular concern involved Barnaby Joyce, former federal Minister for Water and Agriculture. Two years ago he approved the purchase for $79 million of floodwater rights for two farms in southern Queenslands Condamine-Balonne region owned by Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA). The government claimed the deal would provide extra water for the environment. But the transaction, conducted without a tender process, has raised major issues about corruption in the governments management of rivers under the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) Plan. Angus Taylor, current Minister for Water and Agriculture, co-founded EAAs parent company in 2013 before he entered Parliament and relinquished control of the company. The Condamine-Balonne farm deal provided EAA with a $52 million profit, much of which appears to have been banked in the Cayman Islands by EAAs parent company. As part of the deal the government paid $16 million for a dam on one of the farms. However, under the governments policy of causing minimal impact on local production and employment (i.e. preserving the vested interests of corporate farm owners) the dam is still used by EAA, and the government has no right to store water in it for release during droughts. And in any case, theres no guarantee that floodwater from the EAA farms will ever benefit the river environment. Once floodwater leaves the farms flowing back to the river, its no longer publicly-owned. It could legally be taken from the river immediately by the giant Cubbie Station just downstream, so long as the amount extracted was within its water entitlement. A really bad deal In 2015, EAAs parent company contributed $55,000 to the coalition. Mike Kelty, northern basin commissioner for the Murray-Darling Basin, describes the links between political donations and water licence transactions as ripe for corruption. Floodwater is notoriously unreliable. In 2015 the Queensland Labor government therefore recommended outright purchase of the farms, including the land and rights to river water extraction, for $123 million, in order to return 57,000 megalitres of water annually to the environment. However, the federal government only purchased the floodwater rights. It kept its business mates happy by avoiding buying back an entire property, a practice that irrigation companies hate because it could threaten the future viability of the irrigation industry. And EAA should be very happy indeed, having got a top price for the low-value floodwater entitlements, with little if any impact on its future profitability. In documents provided to a Senator about the EAA transaction the government redacted all financial data. However, the floodwater price for one of the EAA farms is known to have been based on 1922 to 1995 floodwater figures provided by a consultant who was a former EAA director and business partner of Taylor. If the estimate had been based on independently-sourced 1985 to 2009 figures, which show a sharp decline in floodwater flows, the market value would have been almost nine percent lower. And if future trends had been taken into account the price would have been even lower. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that floods in the Condamine-Balonne region will become increasingly rare under climate change. The EAA water buy-back deal was very good for the company and very bad for the taxpayer. Time to change course Apart from Antarctica, Australia is the worlds driest continent. The Murray-Darling river system is a vital national asset, but is now extremely endangered because it has become a greed-ridden corporate market. The water industry is worth $2 billion and the price of 1,000 litres of water extracted from the river is 59 times higher than it was 20 years ago. The prices paid are beyond the reach of many small farmers. Moreover, in allocating water licences the government places no restrictions on types of agriculture that demand high rates of water consumption, like the cultivation of cotton or rice. And it deliberately ignores the connection between climate change and drought. PM Morrison has offered farmers drought relief funding, but is blocking essential climate change initiatives, including conversion to electric vehicles and renewable energy production. One coalition candidate has even accused the Bureau of Meteorology of falsifying weather data in order to perpetuate global warming hysteria. The public knows virtually nothing about the many buyback transactions that have occurred since the MDB Plan was introduced. However, the Condamine-Balonne water buyback scandal demonstrates with absolute clarity that the government is obsessed with enhancing corporate profits and preserving the domination of the fossil fuel industries. Protecting the public from the terrible impacts of climate change just isnt on its agenda, and it must be dumped in the coming elections. Report from Cuba Defying the Trump threats Considering the level of belligerence and hostility coming from the empire of the North one might expect that the powerful May Day march through the Plaza of the Revolution might take on a defensive military overtone. But Cuba is never that way and instead they show their resolution and defiance cloaked within their humanity. Just as the sun started to rise the march to celebrate the International Day of the Workers began and behind the banner that read Unity, Commitment and Victory were not soldiers with weapons but waves of doctors, soldiers in white, who had recently been expelled from Brazil by the right-wing government of Bolsonaro leaving vast areas of Brazil without medical professionals. Vibrant demonstrations also marked the occasion in all 15 provinces of Cuba and the Isle of Youth. No one really talks about the numbers here but it took almost two hours for the marchers that filled the wide Paseo Avenue to pass the towering statue of Jose Marti. This years theme featured thousands of people who work in medical services and medical research along with contingents from medical universities like the Latin American School of Medicine that is the largest medical university in the world. Organised by the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC), thousands of trade unionists representing 103 unions from 87 countries participated. Hundreds of solidarity activists were there including 300 who are attending the 14th May Day Brigade at the Julio Mella Camp in Caimito. The largest delegation in the camp this year comes from the United States. US protectionism and threats Today, at the CTC trade union meeting at the Palace of the Conventions, Ana Teresita Gonzalez Fraga, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, explained to the assembled supporters of Latin American unity and sovereignty that we were in a complex period where US Imperialism was trying to hold on to its international hegemony through all out protectionism, the advancement of the Monroe Doctrine, the threat of war, political lies and the use of unconventional warfare against legitimate governments. As she was speaking the first lawsuits from Title III of the Helms Burton Act were being filed in Federal Court in Miami against Carnaval Cruise Lines for its use of the docks in Havana harbour. Title III is a unique measure of acquiring the rights to regain former property that Cubans who fled the revolution in 1959 by somehow magically turning it into US property because those Cubans later became US citizens. This legal stretch had been shelved by previous administrations from the pressure of European allies who will be affected. Also going into effect is Title IV that prohibits entry into US territory people being sued under Title III. It remains to be seen how deep the new sanctions will be until they are written into law. In 2018 over one million Americans, including Cuban Americans, visited Cuba and in the vicious minds of Trump, Pompeo, Bolton and Pence this type of family and human interaction has to end, to squeeze even harder in an economy that has been blockaded since 1962 for being a disobedient colony and positive example to the world. Trump says he will limit family visits and remittances to $1,000 every three months that will primarily affect small private enterprises. Even before the laws are in effect intimidation is already taking place. In the Miami airport, after passing normal security checks passports were being re checked at the gate and before Cuban Americans could board the plane to Havana their carry-on bags were being opened and searched by Federal Police while a police dog was aggressively checking everyone as they walked down to the plane. What else could this be but to create a chilling effect on Cuban travel? The charade of Guaido The failure of the amateurish coup attack on April 30 in Caracas only strengthened the forces of Chavismo in Venezuela according to the Venezuelan ambassador to Cuba Adan Chavez at the CTC meeting. The attacks on the Bolivarian Revolution started on day one but one thing we know now is that we will never again be a US colony. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez made it possible to achieve victories that will not regress. The coup that didnt happen was built up in the corporate media but it has now fizzled out of the airwaves and the reality of installing Guaido, their selected president, is evaporating and that is starting to sink in on Wall Street and their impatience is starting to show. Forbes, the Capitalists Tool, begrudged, We are not making money ... We are all waiting for the catalyst that leads to change in Venezuela. Maduro has outlasted all expectations. Hes entrenched in Caracas. How low can you go? John Bolton, the criminal architect of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that directly led to the death of a million Iraqis and the displacement of millions more, has come up with the latest attack to include both Cuba and Venezuela. Along with claiming that Venezuela has been colonised by Cuba he is also repeating the cynical and outrageous claim that the Cuba-Venezuela cooperative agreement that provides 20,000 Cuban medical professionals to every province, in cities and rural areas of Venezuela are in actuality Cuban soldiers and security forces. That is something they would do, as they have in 177 countries, with more than 800,000 soldiers on 800 bases. Trump is picking up the lie saying it over and over so that the US public will hear it so much that ... well, it must be true. This lie is to justify the threats and tightening of all sorts of sanctions on both countries. The shackling of Venezuela is a key component of the US strategy in the destroying of Cuba, but as was on display here in Havana, in Caracas and in the defence of the integrity of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, the resistance is a force they have to reckon with. Resumen Latinoamericano North America bureau Continue Reading Below Advertisement The Twelves Tribes community in Cambridge, a small town in the hinterlands of the Empire State, live in what many call a commune, but which can probably more accurately be described as a messianic cult. They established a company called Common Sense Farms to produce skincare products in partnership with cosmetics behemoth Estee Lauder. It was a lucrative contract for the freewheeling, ponytailed, Yahshua-loving group, until they were accused of making little kids do a significant amount of the labor. Continue Reading Below Advertisement Estee Lauder terminated their contract with Twelve Tribes after a 2001 inspection revealed children working in the facility used to make the Origins line of products. (Yes, the one every beauty magazine was pimping at the time.) The accusations of child abuse were immediately denied and waved off as kids innocently helping their dads out. The New York Department of Labor didn't find much evidence, so not much was done ... until an undercover investigation in 2018 revealed children as young as nine working on assembly lines making the popular Acure and Savannah Bee products sold in Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods stores across the country. Continue Reading Below Advertisement They also found bamboo rods ominously hanging on the walls of the commune, where "beatings are a way of life," according to the reporter. The authorities have launched another investigation, and in the meantime, Acure has severed ties with the factory, Walmart has taken its products off shelves, Target is considering doing the same, and Whole Foods had ... um, no comment. Child labor is technically organic? Between 2019 and 2023, 41 new expedition ships will be delivered from 17 cruise operators, introducing over 8,500 berths to the market and easily doubling 2018 capacity, according to the 2019 Expedition Market Report by Cruise Industry News. That was the orderbook outlook as of May 13, 2019, well up from the 28 ships that were on the projected forward-looking orderbook the prior year. More impressively, it does not include a number of projects pending from established players, options that will be confirmed, and a number of new market entrants expected to be announced shortly. Expedition ships are built for rough operating environments, with strong ice-class hulls and months of fuel and provision space. They are also much smaller than the average newbuild of the major cruise lines, with an average orderbook size of about 214 guests each. The new ships have brought a new era to expedition cruising, which was more or less made possible when the Soviet Union collapsed, freeing up well-built Russian research ships for charter operations in Antarctica or the Arctic As tour operators built their portfolios of business and developed programs over the years, the ships changed too, helped in part by older smaller three-star cruise vessels converted to expedition service. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises was among the early innovators with two ice-class niche vessels sailing year-round adventure itineraries. Hurtigurten was able to take their prowess from the Norwegian coast and harsh conditions and convert to a tourism program, including Antarctica and is now expanding to 10 year-round expedition ships by 2021. Silversea and Ponant followed in the late 2000s with dedicated, luxury expedition ships, essentially uncorking the market. Now the possibilities are endless, from the new 100-guest Magellan Explorer set to debut for Antarctica21 later this year to the recently introduced 530-guest Roald Amundsen from Hurtigruten. For many niche and luxury brands, expanding into the expedition market means keeping their customer base. After cruising in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Alaska and Asia, affluent cruisers with time money are looking to the new frontiers: Antarctica and the Arctic. --- About the Expedition Market Report: The 2019 Expedition Market Report by Cruise Industry News is a comprehensive overview of the booming expedition market, profiling 39 operators, over 40 new ships and projecting capacity growth through 2027. The 196-page PDF is a deep dive into all aspects of the expedition cruise market. Report Preview | Table of Contents | Download Now Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media BRIDGEPORT Lace up your sneakers and head over to Seaside Park for the next few Saturdays for the annual Get Healthy Walk n Talk. The citys Health & Social Services Department kicked off the annual walks on Saturday, May 4. The six-week community walking series will run through June 8. Those interested in attending should meet at Seaside Park near the horse stables at 9 a.m. The walks go until 10:30 a.m. BRIDGEPORT Despite questions about whether Mayor Joe Ganims administration drove a hard enough bargain, a City Council committee has approved a five-year police contract with 9.5 percent total raises. It sends the wrong kind of message, Councilman Ernie Newton, a Contracts Committee co-chairman, told his colleagues, Sgt. Chuck Paris, head of the police union, and Labor Relations Director Janene Hawkins on Tuesday night. Newton was referring to the 1 percent retroactive raise the cops would receive for the first year of their new pact, which begins July 1, 2016, and is part of a total 9.5 percent pay hike. The proposed contract now heads to the full City Council for a vote on approval. In 2016, Ganim, a Democrat who ran the city in the 1990s, had just been re-elected and he and the all-Democrat council were trying to balance that years budget with labor concessions. Newton noted that other municipal employees gave up raises in the first year of new contracts. I was always under the impression the police department had agreed to a zero increase, Newton said. I need to understand how this 1 percent got in here. ... Most (other) unions I spoke to say, Ernie, why you treating the police department better than us? Bridgeports Finest rejected a proposed cop contract with a one-year pay freeze in January 2018 in a setback for Ganim, who received strong support for his 2015 comeback from Paris and his members. The two sides resumed negotiations, resulting in the pending deal cops approved in late April. On top of the 1 percent salary increase, union members would receive two other retroactive raises 2.5 percent for 2017 and 2 percent for 2018 plus 2 percent increases this coming July and next. Hawkins told Newton that because the city and union were involved in a binding arbitration process, where an independent third party could eventually force a settlement, the administration decided it was cheaper to reach a deal that included all five raises. Newton argued that the city caved, and other staff will going forward use the threat of arbitration to get what they want. Unions will say, All we gotta do is go to binding arbitration, Newton said. Paris argued there was no guarantee the arbitrator would have supported a pay freeze in the first year of the contract. And, the union president added, the contract provides savings and new revenue to the city benefits that could ultimately have been rejected by the arbitrator should that process have continued. For example, while officers working outside overtime for construction contractors would see their hourly $56.23 rate rise, the proposed cop pact simultaneously ups what those contractors and utilities reimburse the city for use of those police by $7 an hour. Paris estimated that would add up to around $700,000 annually. Give and take The new contract would also curtail overtime by reducing from eight to four the mandatory hours an off-duty officer called in on a day off must be paid. Its not a big savings, but its a good-faith effort, said Council President Aidee Nieves. And the deal also limits the amount of time officers under investigation could be placed on paid leave to 180 days unless there is an agreement with the city. This was a joint effort by the Ganim administration and union to expedite months-long internal probes that leave their subjects in limbo. As long as theyre sitting home, theyre not doing any good and theyre getting paid, Paris said. Councilwoman Maria Zambrano Viggiano, who sits on the Contracts Committee and co-chairs the Budget Committee, cast the lone no vote on Tuesday for the police contract. She took issue with guaranteeing off-duty officers a minimum of four hours of pay if called to work. Bridgeports Finest already are notorious for racking up large overtime payments and annually running a few million dollars over their overtime budget. I was a teacher, Viggiano said. On paper I worked 40 hours. Off paper, 70. I didnt get paid for those 30 hours. Paris tried to address any resentment other city workers might feel about Bridgeport police. We do have some things other unions might not have, and we respect and appreciate that, he said. Were not trying to be unreasonable at all. The Contracts Committee barely discussed another benefit cops would receive in the five-year labor pact a one year freeze on an increase in health care contributions. Since 2012, under Mayor Bill Finch, new officers have seen their contributions currently around 32 percent rise 1 percent per year, eventually capping off at 50 percent. In 2018, Paris attributed the defeat of the contract to newer recruits frustration with the health plan. Theyre paying 31 percent over $200 a week, Paris said at that time. Theyre lowest paid in the department and forced to pay the highest cost for health care. And, Paris noted, newer officers also do not enjoy post-retirement health care. Another lingering dispute between the cops and the city switching the police to a state health care initiative that Paris had claimed offered a better plan with a lower cost was settled last spring when the Ganim administration concluded that moving all municipal unions into the state plan would save millions of dollars. MILFORD A Hamden man was charged Wednesday with raping a 14-year-old girl inside the movie theater at the Connecticut Post Mall in February. Ifa Gordon Jr., 22, faces charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor in the case. He was also charged last month with raping the girl at her Monroe home. Gordon was arraigned in the Milford case Wednesday, where Judge Donna Wilkerson Brillant set his bond at $25,000 and continued the case to June 5. According to an arrest warrant, Gordon is a friend of the victims family. In February, police said Gordon and the girl went to the movie theater in Milford on his 22nd birthday and raped her while they were watching the movie. Police said on a later occasion Gordon and the girl were watching a movie in the girls home when he grabbed her and raped her. They said the girl told her mother what happened, and the mother called police. Gordon allegedly admitted the sexual assaults in interviews with police, but claimed the encounters were consensual. Sex with a minor is illegal. MONROE Bollywood Boutique and Studio, 477 Main St., will host a free yoga class for Monroe middle and high school students from 6 to 6:45 p.m. Monday. Learn ways to manage stress through breathing, awareness, meditation and healthy movement while at home or in school. No experience necessary. RSVP by calling the the studio at 203-340-0317 or emailing jigna@bbandstudios.com For questions about yoga, contact Christina at yogawithchristina.ct@gmail.com BRIDGEPORT The manager of a local KFC was arraigned Wednesday on charges that she threw scalding water into the face of an irate job applicant. Bhagmattie Persaud, 45, of Stevens Street, is charged with second-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace. We contend she acted in self defense and intend to defend her vigorously, said her lawyer, James Jay Ruane. The case was continued to June 17. On May 3, police were dispatched to the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Boston Avenue for a dispute. When officers got there, 22-year-old Karielys Ayala, of Pembroke Street, was being taken to Bridgeport Hospital where she was treated for second-degree burns to her face, neck, arms, chest and stomach. She was later charged with second-degree assault. Police said Persaud, the restaurant manager, told them Ayala had attacked her with a metal pipe and she had thrown scalding water at Ayala in self-defense. Persaud told officers that earlier she had gotten a phone call from Ayala complaining that she had applied for a job at the KFC but had not been called in for an interview, police said. Persuad told Ayala the manager was unavailable. A few minutes later, police said, Ayala arrived at the restaurant. She confronted Persaud who admitted she was, in fact, the manager. At that point, Persaud told officers that Ayala became angry and began using profanity, calling Persuad names. Persuad then ordered Ayala to leave the restaurant telling her she would not hire a person with such a nasty attitude. Police said the surveillance video then showed Ayala pick up a small piece of a metal display and strike Persuad with it on the side of the head. Persaud then threw a container of scalding water at Ayalas face, police said. Police said when they later went to Persauds home, they said she was lying in bed and continued to claim she had been struck with a pipe. Waiting more than a decade for one group of road projects to be finished was just one of the construction issues I-95 drivers have faced. In another section, the wait could be decades. Thats because the East Coasts Interstate 95, which is one of the busiest routes in the country, has some of the worst deteriorating sections in the U.S. Meanwhile, expensive projects target small sections that can take years to finish. Heres a look at whats happening and whats needed to fix the 1,917-mile route from Miami to Houlton, Maine. Congested traffic I-95 already serves more than a third of the U.S. population. It has more than 1,000 miles in urban areas, most of which are already heavily congested, according to the I-95 Corridor Coalition . Even more, heavy congestion is projected to get worse, with truck transportation expected to double by 2040 and the nearby population expected to increase by 36 million people during that same time frame. We have highways that were designed to last generally 20 years or so. Many of them are now over 50 years old. Their use has vastly increased, said Norman Augustine , who chaired a committee with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that produced a report about the countrys interstate highway system. The first section of I-95 was laid out in the 1950s, and the entire interstate was finally completed in 2018 when a section near the Pennsylvania and New Jersey state line was opened more than 60 years after the interstate first opened. But ongoing road projects will continue to bring changes for many drivers routines, where already packed sections will have fewer lanes than usual while workers make much-needed repairs. Ongoing costs Several states already are in the midst of construction projects with costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Adding lanes, repairing bridges and replacing and removing ramps are some of the projects underway across multiple states. The Philadelphia Inquirer said an ongoing project there, which involves rebuilding an 8-mile stretch, will cost $2.7 billion. The newspaper said other work on the interstate around Philadelphia should end by the time your grandkids are driving . Still, the rebuilt highway should last 75 to 100 years, Pennsylvania transportation Secretary Leslie Richards told the newspaper. In Massachusetts, a project involving a 15-mile stretch surrounding Boston began in 2003. It was finished just last month. The project included adding a lane in each direction, rebuilding bridges, reconstructing roads and upgrading interchanges, among other improvements. The projects final cost, according to contract figures provided by the state, was $413.5 million. Delaware, which also is replacing part of the interstate, has an approximately $200 million reconstruction project that will begin next year. That project will force both directions of I-95 traffic to use one side at a time while crews repair the opposite side. Problems range from a deteriorating median barrier to substandard guardrails and 19 bridges in need of rehabilitation. Other solutions Spending isnt the only way to help the busy interstates issues. The I-95 Corridor Coalition identified a multi-pronged strategy in its 2040 vision report. Recommendations ranged from increasing rail passenger ridership to shipping more by rail and doubling transportation investments. The coalitions report also called for investing in additional airport capacity, including the development of new reliever airports for key markets. There are also calls for an overhaul in the way road projects are funded. The interstate highway system was first approved in 1956, and really, there have been no full-aperture looks at the highway system since that time, yet a lot has changed, Augustine said. His committee with The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine delivered a congressionally mandated report and recommended Congress bring a legislative overhaul to the highway system, including increasing a federal fuel tax and adding fees, such as tolls or other measures. RICHMOND, Va. - Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, is launching a political action committee to help other Democrats get elected around Virginia, becoming the second woman in the legislature to do so as a possible step toward running for statewide office. Carroll Foy, 37, a criminal defense lawyer, was among the Democrats who won seats held by Republicans in 2017, nearly wiping out the GOP majority in the House of Delegates. Republicans hold each chamber by two seats. Carroll Foy said her new Virginia for Everyone PAC is aimed at helping the party gain control of both the House and the Senate in elections this fall. "It's to raise the money so we can continue to mobilize and organize volunteers everywhere to ensure we win everywhere in November," Carroll Foy said in an interview. She said she was still gathering funds for the PAC and did not yet have an initial dollar amount to announce. Carroll Foy raised her profile in this year's General Assembly session by leading efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment - which ultimately fell short - and being outspoken on issues of gender and criminal justice reform. She also began signaling to others within the party that she has ambitions to run for statewide office in 2021. She has company. State Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, earlier this month announced her own leadership PAC, called Virginia United. It launched with $50,000 in seed money. Both McClellan and Carroll Foy are members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. No woman of color has ever been nominated for statewide office by either major party. Many Democrats are hunting for fresh faces after a series of scandals that came to light in February hobbled the state's top three executive branch leaders, all Democrats. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has defied widespread calls for his resignation over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, depicting one person in blackface and another in Klan robes. Northam initially took responsibility for the photo, then disavowed it but admitted to wearing blackface that year in a dance contest. Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring admitted his own blackface incident, saying he darkened his face for a college fraternity party in 1980. And Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax denied two separate allegations that he sexually assaulted women in the early 2000s. Those scandals have clouded prospects for Democrats in this year's elections, in which all 140 seats in the legislature are on the ballot. Democrats had hoped to build on momentum from strong performances in both 2017 and 2018. But the scandals have damaged the fundraising abilities of their top three elected leaders. Carroll Foy's PAC is aimed partly at filling in that gap. She said she wants to aid Democrats who might not be on the radar of the state party apparatus, as well as candidates running for local offices around the state. "I want to be able to take the experience I gained . . . from the 2017 elections, where we won big. A lot of that was attributed to the huge turnout from women and young people and people of color, and we're making sure our efforts are also focused on those groups," Carroll Foy said. She's recruited some help to manage and administer the PAC, including her longtime aide Josh Crandell, who previously worked at USDA during the Obama administration, as well as Polly Pfeiffer, the former finance director for Northam's gubernatorial campaign. Carroll Foy has also enlisted Tim Lim, an expert in digital strategy, and Jess O'Connell, former chief executive of the Democratic National Committee and former executive director of Emily's List. As for her own future, Carroll Foy said she's focused on this fall's election in which she's running against Republican Heather Mitchell in House District 2. But beyond that: "I will step into any role that helps me have the most impact for the greatest good for the most people," she said. HACKBERRY, La. - President Donald Trump used an official White House event here on Tuesday to make overtly political attacks on an assortment of his presidential rivals in 2020, handicapping and mocking the Democratic field during a visit to promote his energy agenda. Trump drew out the pronunciation of Pete Buttigieg's uncommon last name, saying: "We've got Boot-edge-edge." Using a derisive nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the president mused: "Pocahontas, I think, is probably out." Trump also said former vice president Joe Biden "doesn't look like the guy I knew" while taking aim at "crazy" Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has a "lot more energy than Biden . . . but it's energy to get rid of your jobs." And Trump ridiculed former congressman Beto O'Rourke, D-Texas, for a Vanity Fair interview in which O'Rourke claimed that he was "just born to be in" the presidential race. "He was made to fall like a rock!" Trump said at an event designed to tout his energy policies at a liquefied-natural-gas plant in this southwestern Louisiana town. "What happened to him?" And in a gift to Louisiana politicians in attendance, Trump drew his biggest cheers by promising to build a bridge for one of the state's main highways, Interstate 10, if reelected. "I didn't know it was going to be that popular," Trump said. During the rest of the 50-minute speech, as he was flanked by dozens of plant workers onstage behind him wearing hard hats and construction vests, Trump promoted his energy agenda and made his case that he was turbocharging the economy. Trump praised the roughly 10,000 employees at the Cameron LNG plant, where natural gas is supercooled into liquid form to be shipped abroad. To an enthusiastic crowd, the president also mocked the Green New Deal, telling the crowd of plant workers that they would lose their jobs under the plan advanced by some Democrats and saying: "That's a hoax, like the hoax I just went through," an apparent reference to the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. In the past, "our leaders pursued policies that were anti-American energy and anti-American worker and anti-American wealth," Trump said. "Now we have an 'America First' energy policy, just like we have an 'America First' policy. It's music to people's ears." The president's speech in Hackberry, about 230 miles west of New Orleans, was the latest in a series of White House events highlighting Trump's energy agenda. Last month in Crosby, Texas, Trump signed executive orders that would effectively make it easier for firms to build oil and gas pipelines and more difficult for state agencies to stop them. After the speech, Trump headed to the New Orleans suburb of Metairie for a fundraiser. Both the Trump and Obama administrations have worked to greenlight gas export terminals like Cameron facility in Louisiana, which is set to begin exports as soon as this month and join three other large-scale export terminals already in operation. An additional three terminals are under construction to help bring the recent boom of fracked gas to market. Energy executives heaped praise on Trump. "This administration and its forward-looking energy policies deserve a lot of credit," Jeffrey Martin, chief executive of Sempra Energy, the majority owner of the Cameron LNG export facility, said before Trump's speech. Trump, for his part, was happy to take the credit, claiming "this was not going to happen with someone else in office." In fact, Energy Department approval for the Cameron terminal began in 2016 under President Barack Obama. For those setting U.S. foreign policy, the exported gas isn't just fuel for buyers, such as those in Brazil or Thailand, to light and heat their homes. It is also a geopolitical tool. The United States hopes to ween European countries off gas from Russia, which has used its trade relations as a cudgel against Ukraine by cutting off its energy supply. Since 2016, the United States has sold liquefied natural gas to a dozen European countries, including Poland and Lithuania. But another geopolitical rival, China, threatens to limit that nascent export business. Chinese officials announced Monday that the country is raising tariffs on U.S. liquefied natural gas amid its escalating trade dispute with Trump. - - - Grandoni reported from Washington. Apparently "Death to America" should be taken seriously but not literally. At least that's the implication of the quote that Iran's supreme leader gave to state media on Tuesday: "There won't be any war," said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "We don't seek a war." In light of recent events, this seems a bit weird. Last week, the U.S. announced the early deployment of an aircraft carrier and bomber task force to the Persian Gulf to deter what Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan called a "credible threat by Iranian forces." Over the weekend, the United Arab Emirates reported that four vessels in its territorial waters, including two Saudi tankers, were attacked by sabotage. So far, the Emiratis have not said the culprit was Iran. On Tuesday, Yemeni Houthi forces (who are aligned with Iran) launched a drone attack on two Saudi oil facilities. So is the 79-year-old Khamenei finally succumbing to senility? Perhaps. But if these attacks are in fact connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, then it's worth noting what is missing so far from the target list: Americans. Indeed, the deputy commander of the mission against the Islamic State said Tuesday that he had seen "no increased threat" from Iran against U.S. and coalition troops in Syria and Iraq. (The spokesman for U.S. Central Command later issued a statement saying U.S. forces are on "a high level of alert.) If the deputy commander is right, it makes sense. Iran may be sinister, but it is not stupid. Khamenei knows that Iran will lose a military confrontation with the U.S. - as it did in 1988, when the U.S. launched an air and sea assault against Iran's navy. The result of that battle was that the Mullahs lost their navy. The question for Khamenei now is which Donald Trump to believe. As usual, that's hard to know. On the one hand, the U.S. president has made it clear that he wants the U.S. military out of Syria. He has derided America's involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And he has limited his actions against Iran to diplomatic and economic war. On the other hand, unlike his predecessors, Trump has made it clear that his policy toward Iran will not be constrained by Europe or the United Nations. He is neither ruling in nor ruling out a military option. On Tuesday, he dismissed as "fake news" reports of a plan to send 120,000 troops to a war in Iran - then added that if he was going to attack Iran, he would send "a hell of a lot more troops than that." While the U.S. has been clear that it will respond with force to an Iranian attack on U.S. forces or facilities, it has been ambiguous about what it would do if Iran escalates attacks against American allies. Shanahan, for example, tweeted only that the U.S. "will hold the Iranian regime accountable" for any such attacks. Given Iran's bellicose mood, this ambiguity could be seen as an invitation. This presents an opportunity for Congress. There's no need for a war resolution against Iran, and Trump would be a fool to launch an invasion. For one, Americans would not support it, and for another, the Iranian people should be the authors of their own liberation. Also, the U.S. has military options short of a full-scale invasion to respond to an attack from Iran or its proxies. But there is ample evidence that Iran responds to pressure and threats. So a non-binding congressional resolution warning Khamenei not to escalate against U.S. forces or allies in the region might serve as a useful deterrent. Signaling America's seriousness of purpose would go a long way toward persuading Khamenei's henchmen that they, too, should want to avoid a war with the U.S. --- Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI. Many Connecticut legislators say they care about children, and that this is a major influence on how they vote in many areas, such as education, health care and gun control. That is why it seems so wrong that many of these same legislators are supporting a bill that would damage thousands of children. Even the strongest advocates of legalizing marijuana admit that smoking it causes brain damage in young people. As reported in The New York Times and elsewhere, tests on teenagers of brain functions show losses in the ability to think abstractly and drops in IQ scores of those who are regular smokers of marijuana. These losses are not temporary; theyre permanent. Advocates say this doesnt matter; the laws will be set up to keep people under 21 from buying. Thats not an answer, though; its just trying to hide from the basic facts. If marijuana is legalized and readily available, everyone knows that its use will spread, and it will be easier for everyone not just those over 21 to get. Is there anyone who can deny this? So the result of legalizing marijuana will be more children who will have their brains damaged than would have occurred without legalization. If you say you care about children, how can you support something that you know will hurt them? Its said that Connecticut should legalize marijuana because it will thereby gain tax dollars through sales. This may be true, but if those tax dollars come in a way that will damage thousands of children, are they worth it? No legislator can seriously say they care about children and at the same time support legalizing marijuana. Were human organs stolen in 20-year conflict between Beijing and Falun Gong? RFI, France/May 14, 2019 By Jan van der Made Twenty years ago today, Falun Gong, a meditation movement, organised a major demonstration in the Chinese capital. More than 10,000 adherents surrounded the centre of government in Beijing. The protest lead to persecution and an on-going propaganda war involving claims of human organ harvesting. It came to me as a total surprise, in 1999 when the government decided to prosecute these people, says Zhang Erping, volunteer spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Information Center in New York, speaking to RFI. Because the government was promoting it, and suddenly they reversed the policy. So a lot of us tried to stop the prosecution. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, combines routines derived from qigong, a set of movements that facilitate the flow of vital energies or life forces throughout the body, along with Buddhist and Daoist concepts. It also warns against materialism and moral degeneration. "Falun Gong comes from Chinese culture," explains Alain Tong, president of the Falun Dafa Association in France. "If we look behind it, it is simply a method of Chinese meditation. It is aimed at acquiring energies to be in good health and good spirits." Initially welcomed Practitioners are attracted by claims that by controlling the Dharma Wheel, which is said to revolve in the body, one can cure a wide range of ailments and diseases, including diabetes and cancer. But Falun Gong teachings also say that the races in the world are not allowed to be mixed up [ ... ] mixed races have lost their roots, as if nobody in the paradise will take care of them. They belong to nowhere, and no places would accept them. Apart from that, the Falun Gong warns that some people not only are bent solely on profit, but also stop at nothing in doing evil. They commit all manner of crimes for money, killing and framing innocent people, redeeming lives with money, practising homosexuality, taking drugs among many other things." But if one is open to the teachings, The Zhuan Falun promises supernatural powers which allows people to see through a wall or into a human body. And Li Hongzhi claimed in a memorable interview with Time Magazine in May 1999 that modern technology is controlled by aliens. Initially Chinas Communist Party welcomed the Falun Gong. The movement was created during a surge in interest in qigong during the 1980s and early '90s, thus forming part of state-sanctioned meditation techniques that had their roots in ancient tradition. In 1992, Li Hongzhi, a state official-turned-mediation- guru, created Falun Gong. One year later the movement was officially incorporated into the Scientific Qigong Research Association under the Ministry of Health. Beijing argued that meditation and a healthy lifestyle could reduce pressure on Chinas bankrupt healthcare system. Within a few years, Li Hongzhi had set up a nationwide network of practice centers, giving lectures to audiences of up to 20,000 people. In the process, he created a body of millions of followers who came together to practice meditation in parks and public places all over China. They were guided by Lis 242-page core scripture Zhuan Falun (The Rotating Dharma Wheel). His writings also include titles like The Great Way to Spiritual Perfection, Hong Yin, a collection of annotated poems dating back to 1976, and transcripts of his lectures at mass gatherings. Massive crackdown But when Falun Gongs membership was rumored to exceed that of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, estimated to have 80 million members), Beijing grew nervous and its relationship with the movement changed. Falun Gong was kicked out of the Qigong research association and, in 1995, Li Hongzhi left China to settle in the US. The final showdown came after Li - during a brief stay in Beijing - ordered the 25 April 1999 mass demonstration in the capital's Zhongnanhai government zone, protesting against increasing pressure from the Chinese authorities. Within two months, the CCP declared the movement an evil cult, forbade it, and rounded up its members. Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are, still today, said to be in jail, their fate documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other international organisations. Harming people vs organ harvesting Since 1999, Falun Gong and the Chinese government have been locked in a war of words. "Ma Jianmin, a retired worker in north-east China, had been a Falun Gong follower for two years," writes the CCP-sanctioned propaganda booklet Li Hongzhi and his Falun Gong - cheating the public and harming people, published by the New Star Publishing House in Beijing in 1999. "In those years he became convinced that the Wheel of Law was embedded in his stomach, turning and rotating. In search for eternal life he decided to take it out. He did so with a pair of scissors. He bled to death, lying on the floor of his kitchen." The story is accompanied by gruesome pictures of alleged slaughter committed in the name of Falun Gong, and is one the examples the CCP cites to prove the evil nature of the movement. The Falun Gong rejects the allegations, calling them outright vituperative lies aimed at inciting hatred against the practice. Meanwhile, the movement says Beijing has a systematic programme of organ harvesting, allegedly using the organs of large amounts of Falun Gong practitioners before they were executed, selling them on the international market. Allegations of organ harvesting first emerged in 2006, when stories appeared that the Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital in Shenyang was involved in collecting organs from Falun Gong prisoners. The claims were supported by an international investigation carried out by Canadians David Matas, a lawyer, and David Kilgour, an independent member of parliament. Human rights organizations are not disputing the fact that organ harvesting of prisoners takes place in China, but Human Rights Watch said that it has not substantiated claims that any one community is particularly targeted for this treatment, partly as a result of government-imposed restrictions on research. Today, the total number of Falun Gong practitioners in jail in China is unknown and the subject remains taboo on social media. Outside China, Falun Gong is headquartered in upstate New York, but members insist it has no hierarchical structure. Local Falun Gong associations, created after 2000 to raise awareness about the persecution of the movement in China, are involved in organising commemorative activities. On 25 April, Falun Gong members will hold demonstrations in front of Chinese embassies worldwide to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Beijing protest. To see more documents/articles regarding this group/organization/subject click here. Cyber-Attacks On Maritime Oil Tankers Four tankers have been attacked outside the strategically important Strait of Hormuz between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The vital waterway provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. Local reports suggest the attackers jammed GPS to prevent the ships from evading attack. The oil tankers were all operating near the bunkering port of Fujairah located in the United Arab Emirates and the attacks took place over the weekend of 11th and 12th of May. In a separete incident, two pump stations on Saudi Arabias most strategically important pipeline were attacked by armed drones causing a fire that was soon extinguished. Saudi Arabias energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, in a statement, called it terrorism and sabotage" Indications are that these incidents could develop to include cyber-attacks on vessels operating in the region. Itai Sela, a former senior officer in the Israeli military and CEO of maritime cybersecurity firm Naval Dome commented: It is highly likely that vessels operating in high-risk areas could be targeted, systems hacked and GPS spoofed in order to render vessels immobile or re-directed as part of wider actions. There has been increased activity in the cyber domain over the last few months, which is very worrying. "Shipowners with operations in the area must be vigilant and carry out inspections of all their PC-based navigation and machinery control systems. Ship operators should not allow crew members or technicians to plug-in USBs or external devices onboard or download maps and charts for specific areas, unless they absolutely need to do so. We also advised that operators check their insurance policies to ensure that OT systems are covered in the event of any cyber damage. A Saudi government statement blamed the Iranian-backed Houthis engaged in the civil war with the Saudi-backed government in Yemen. Iranian proxies are also fingered for the recent barrage of rockets and cyber attacks on Israel from Hamas-run Gaza.. US national security advisor John Bolton warned of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings regarding Iran. Forbes: Naval Dome: You Might Also Read: Has President Trump Lost The Cyber Plot? The Maritime Shipping Industry Should Be On Red Alert: Our own Bruce Siwy and Eric Kieta talk about their true-crime cases in Return To View: The Roundtable Clinicians could prescribe fitness apps to help cancer survivor's exercise Fitness apps could be prescribed by clinicians to help patients recovering from cancer increase their physical activity levels, new research in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship reports. In the first ever study of its kind researchers from the University of Surrey and Universidad de Oviedo in Spain evaluated fitness apps and their suitability for helping cancer survivors increase their physical activity. Clinical guidance recommends physical activity and exercise for those recovering from cancer to improve quality of life, reduce fatigue and lessen on-going symptoms. However, limited information is available on how this can be achieved in a real world setting. Smartphone fitness apps could provide a form of 'virtual' exercise supervision to patients, but cancer clinicians often lack confidence in what to recommend, as evidence on their quality and content is limited. During this unique study researchers examined 67 fitness apps on iOS and Android to assess their suitability for improving physical activity for those recovering from cancer. Apps which required payment, the use of wearable technologies or those with inappropriate content for people with cancer (due to negative body images/unfounded claims of effectiveness) were excluded. Over half the apps were available on both iOS and Android, with content in 46 per cent of them focussing on a combination of aerobic/strength training or stretching and 39 per cent providing solely aerobic content. Researchers screened apps using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) which examines engagement, functionality, aesthetics and information within the apps and for the first time included additional considerations such as awareness and knowledge. Behaviour change techniques such as goal setting and monitoring were also examined and all were rated on a five point scale (one being inadequate with five being excellent). One fifth of fitness apps examined contained content suitable for people affected by cancer showing that they could be an effective tool in helping to improve physical activity. These focussed on aerobic-based activities and tended to include goal setting, monitoring and feedback which provides reassurance to health professionals as both have been found to be successful in changing health related behaviours. Researchers found that apps available on iOS were more likely to target attitudes and help-seeking, compared to those on Android, and performed slightly better in terms of content and quality. This information paves the way for providing clinicians the confidence and knowledge to prescribe fitness apps to their patients. Jo Armes, Reader in Cancer Care and Lead for Digital Health at the University of Surrey, said: "Fewer than 25 per cent of cancer survivors meet physical activity guidelines which is concerning. Not only will physical activity help improve the quality of life of survivors, it lessens their risk of developing new conditions such as osteoporosis or diabetes. "However, there is currently little in place to help those recovering from cancer to increase physical activity levels. With over 80 per cent of the adult population owning a smart phone, fitness apps could potentially fill this void by providing easily accessible instructions, helping them to monitor their progress and set goals for themselves." Jenny Harris, Research Fellow at the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey, said: "Clinicians are often hesitant to recommend fitness apps to help cancer survivors increase physical activity levels, as they are unsure of the quality and suitability of the information provided. Our ongoing research in this area has found that there are suitable fitness apps to help increase activity levels and this will help equip clinicians with the knowledge and confidence in prescribing them, helping patients to benefit from the positive impact of physical activity." ### This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Are you lost in the wild? Sorry, but the page you're looking for has not been found Try checking the URL for errors, goto home or try to search below. Dear Editor: Right now, New Yorks Legislature is working to legalize the recreational use of cannabis for adults. Revenues in the first year alone are estimated in the billions. The pending legislation provides that in exchange for these billions, large cannabusinesses will pay a few hundred million in taxes, provide some jobs and take most of those billions out as profits. Instead of looking only at the limited tax pie, New York should think bigger. If done right, cannabis legalization can be a huge boon: revitalizing communities throughout the state, helping our neighbors set up small businesses, prioritizing women and people of color, starting with our farmers. The proposed law ignores New Yorks small farmers, craft producers and cooperatives, missing the chance to create tens of thousands of good local jobs for regular New Yorkers. The craft farm cannabis industry could follow the successful craft brewery industry, but be bigger and more valuable. As farmers, we know how to grow crops outdoors, employing regenerative practices to responsibly produce pesticide-free crops that are healthier for humans and respect the planet. Regenerative agriculture, if practiced broadly, can literally stop climate change by capturing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere and sequestering them in the soil. Contrast that with industrial indoor cannabis cultivation, which relies on synthetic chemicals and is one of the worst carbon polluting industries in the U.S. Done right, we can use cannabis to change our corporate culture and agriculture, shifting the paradigm towards practices that regenerate life on Earth. Andi Novick Rhinebeck, N.Y. The writer is co-founder of the New York Small Farm Alliance of Cannabis Growers and Supporters. HARRISBURG The Bishop Shanahan High School STEM team was named Grand Champion and won the overall Medical Category Award at the fifth annual Governors STEM competition held Friday at the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg. This years theme for the competition was Improving Pennsylvania Through STEM. The competition challenged STEM teams to develop communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity skills to address the needs of Pennsylvanians. Through this competition, students are showing us how they can take the STEM skills theyve learned in the classroom and put them to use on real-world projects, said PA Department of Education Executive Deputy Secretary David Volkman. The official BSHS presentation team included Michael Alec Gomba 19, Alana Pappas 19, David Carangan 19, Julia Hirs 19, and Brian Whiteford 19. Carlo Ursal 19, the Teams IT Specialist, and Brendan Pappas 22, one of next years team leaders, also attended the competition. Faculty advisor, John P. Janasik, PhD, mentored the students in preparation for the competition, and received the Faculty Advisor Award. Shanahan competed against 26 other high school teams representing each of their Intermediate Units from across the State. Each team qualified for the state-level event by winning regional competitions, with a total of 95 teams from all of the 27 Intermediate Units. These high schools included public, charter, private, and career and technical education centers in Pennsylvania. Teams presented their findings and explained the practical applications of their device to a panel of judges. The Bishop Shanahan High School (BSHS) winning device, the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Lifesaving Assistant (CRLA), improves the success rate of CPR. The CRLA portable device detects and monitors pressure and compression rates to assist administers of CPR, both trained and untrained. With the support of community partners and after extensive research and several prototypes, the BSHS team developed the projects final prototype presented at the State Competition. CTDI (Communications Test Design Inc.), a global engineering company based in West Chester, and Suzanne Vietri, a health educator and CPR certified instructor, assisted the team throughout the research and project development. The Shanahan teams CRLA life-saving device also went on to win first place at the Chester County Intermediate Units Innovative Inventions Competition and West Chester Universitys Business Idea Competition. School officials said such partnerships provide real world experience about the implementation of skills students will need to be successful in postsecondary STEM opportunities. There was a school of thought that said former Vice President Joe Biden would begin to sink in the polls the moment he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Bidens first day in the race, the thinking went, would be his best day. In fact, the opposite has happened. Since formally becoming a candidate on April 25, Biden has shot up in the polls. On announcement day, Biden held a 6.3-point lead over second-place Sen. Bernie Sanders in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Today, that lead is 23.5 points. That is a big change. Polls do not tell us who will win an election months from now. But they do tell us what is happening at this moment. And at this moment, Democratic voters, who are sometimes said to be moving left and itching to transform the United States with a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and through-the-roof taxes on the rich, are in fact responding to a decidedly more centrist appeal. That appeal, from Biden, is a promise not to fundamentally remake American society, but to restore things to the way they used to be. And the way they used to be means before Donald Trump. Obviously, Democratic voters want to replace a Republican president with a Democratic president. But they are especially dismayed by Trump and some, driven by increasingly strident news coverage, seem to have gone nearly round the bend about him. But for some center-left Democrats, the solution to the Trump Problem that is, the fact that Trump is president might not be the Green New Deal or Medicare for All. It is to restore the pre-2017 order in American politics. And Biden, Barack Obamas vice president from 2009 to 2017, is the physical embodiment of that old order. That is what Biden promises. Nearly every day, he repeats some version of his core campaign pledge: I want to restore the soul of this country. Bidens unexpected choice of the 2017 events in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the theme of his announcement was a way of saying that something has gone terribly wrong in the United States and that he wants to return to the pre-Trump past. Addressing a real or imagined moral crisis is one way for an opposition candidate to run against an incumbent president whose term has brought solid economic growth, low unemployment and higher wages. How long will Bidens lead last? Who knows? There is simply no telling how the Democratic race will play out. In the last two Republican nomination contests, we saw one race, in 2012, in which several candidates alternated holding the lead before Mitt Romney finally won. In the other, in 2016, we saw Trump lead a big field virtually the entire time. Now, with an even bigger Democratic field, the race dynamics are not yet clear. Plus, for Biden specifically, there will always be the issue of age. Biden will be 78 years old on Inauguration Day 2021. That is the same age Trump would be upon leaving office, should he serve eight years. But Biden would be just beginning his presidency nearing the age of 80. That is totally uncharted territory in United States history. (By the way, one other candidate, Sanders, is even older.) Even if Democrats want to restore the old order, they might decide a younger candidate should do the job. They might also want a candidate without Bidens record of fizzling out in presidential campaigns. In his first run for president, in 1988, Biden withdrew amid a plagiarism scandal before any votes were cast. In his second run, in 2008, he quit after finishing fifth in the Iowa caucuses. So he has run twice and never even made it to the New Hampshire primary. Now, though, Biden stands ahead of the field. Democrats know how old he is, they know he has lost in the past, and they still like him. Theres a truism that elections are always about the future, not the past. Thats often the case. But what if it isnt this time? A lot of political truisms did not hold up in the 2016 election, which was won by a man with another promise of restoration, to Make America Great Again. Now, many Democrats seem happy to support a candidate who pledges to take them back a few years. Again, that could change, but for the moment it shows how many Democrats yearn to return to a time before Trump. (Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.) Losing a loved one is the most traumatic experience many people will ever endure. And the crushing sadness of bereavement is too often exacerbated by a mountain of bureaucracy. One laborious chore is applying for probate the legal authority to administer an estate when somebody dies. It is a melancholy task, but one the Government appears intent on making as painful as possible for devastated families. The crushing sadness of bereavement is too often exacerbated by a mountain of bureaucracy. One laborious chore is applying for probate the legal authority to administer an estate when somebody dies (stock photo) In a cynical money grab earlier this year, ministers sneaked out a 185million-a-year death tax, masquerading as probate fees. Charges will spiral from a flat fee of 215 to a maximum of 6,000 depending on the estates value. Hundreds of thousands of families in Middle Britain will be punished with larger bills. Until these fees are paid, they cannot receive a penny from the will. But bungling ministers have not confirmed a date to introduce the death tax (which, with jaw-dropping short-sightedness, discourages the Tory ideal of prudence). In a cynical money grab earlier this year, ministers sneaked out a 185million-a-year death tax, masquerading as probate fees (stock photo) Consequently, people are rushing to attain probate ahead of a steep rise. This has sent the system into meltdown with some applicants suffering delays of 12 weeks, compared to, typically, ten days. Some registries have a backlog of 2,000 cases. Predictably, Whitehalls new computers cannot cope fuelling the chaos. Bereaved families, at their most vulnerable, deserve much, much better. They say the only certainties in life are death and taxes. To that we might add: This Governments spectacular incompetence. Shameful witch-hunt On a dark, violent night, a young woman is shot dead on a British street. Murderous thugs wearing paramilitary masks taunt the police. Supine politicians wring their hands. A month since 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee was gunned down in Londonderry, the authorities have failed to catch the dissident New IRA killer. Contrast this shameful inaction with the boundless enthusiasm for hounding retired British soldiers who risked their lives fighting terrorism during the Troubles. New Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt vowed to bring down the curtain on the reprehensible witch-hunt. Weasel words! For today, the Mail reveals secret Government plans to continue inquiries More than two decades since the Good Friday Agreement, police are still investigating every Army killing in Ulster. This week, new Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt vowed to bring down the curtain on the reprehensible witch-hunt. Weasel words! For today, the Mail reveals secret Government plans to continue inquiries. Ex-servicemen, many in their 70s, will fear a knock at the door from the Orwellian-sounding Historical Investigations Unit and being hauled to court on old charges. Pursuing them while IRA terrorists who murdered hundreds of civilians sleep soundly after being given immunity by Tony Blair is a monstrous travesty of justice. Politicians pontificate grandly about the military covenant the promise that in return for their sacrifice troops will be cared for when their service ends. Yet away from the cameras, they treat our veterans disgracefully. Voice for the nation Congratulations to Simon Armitage, the new Poet Laureate. The ex-probation officer follows in the footsteps (or should that be penstrokes?) of such literary luminaries as Ted Hughes, William Wordsworth and John Betjeman. Appointed by the Queen, the 351-year-old post reward: A barrel of sherry traditionally entails producing poetry for national occasions and royal events. Ex-probation officer Simon Armitage follows in the footsteps of such literary luminaries as Ted Hughes, William Wordsworth and John Betjeman Recently, some have argued the accolade has bowed to aching political correctness. But this working class Yorkshireman is an inspiring, deserving choice. His wry, down-to-earth portrayals of everyday life are wonderfully accessible, equally to the bookish salon and the classroom. Describing languages power in the poem Zoom, he writes: Its just words. Maybe so. But now his speak for the nation. Nearly a month ago, a 29-year-old journalist called Lyra McKee was shot dead in Londonderry by terrorists belonging to a hard-line republican group called the New IRA. Although Northern Irish police have made several arrests, no one has yet been charged with the murder of this innocent young woman on a British street. Meanwhile, politicians in Northern Ireland continue to show far more interest in the deaths of people 40 or 50 years ago during the Troubles than in Lyra McKees recent tragic demise. Journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead in Londonderry by terrorists belonging to a hard-line republican group called the New IRA. Its time to move on, time to stop fighting yesterdays battles, and to concentrate on todays such as the appalling, but neglected, murder of Lyra McKee Sinn Fein, which was the political wing of the IRA during the Troubles, is anxious that members of the security forces should be brought to justice for those who died at their hands during incidents such as Bloody Sunday in 1972. The truth is, of course, that the IRA was guilty of infinitely greater atrocities. During the Troubles, the terrorist organisation committed some 1,700 murders, almost half the total death toll. This is the background to the Governments announcement that former British soldiers will be given much stronger legal protection against prosecution for alleged crimes. Except, that is, in Northern Ireland. Penny Mordaunt, the new Defence Secretary, says troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan wont be investigated over incidents more than ten years old unless compelling new evidence comes to light. A picture shows the floral tributes placed at the scene in the Creggan area of Derry in honour of Lyra McKee. Although Northern Irish police have made several arrests, no one has yet been charged with the murder of this innocent young woman on a British street This is welcome. It comes after former soldiers have been persecuted by the authorities. Most egregiously, a unit called the Iraq Historic Allegations Team investigated opportunistic allegations of murder, torture and wrongdoing by British troops. Over seven years, 3,688 claims were made, costing the taxpayer 60million. Not one resulted in prosecution. The plug was pulled in 2016 after the collapse of the ambulance-chasing law firm Public Interest Lawyers, and the disgrace of its leading solicitor, Phil Shiner. Why shouldnt soldiers who served in Northern Ireland (there are thought to be a quarter of a million of them still alive) enjoy the same statute of limitation being offered to colleagues who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan? Its a good question. And, indeed, Penny Mordaunt, declared yesterday that she would like to see the amnesty extended to veterans who spent time in Northern Ireland. She is going to have her work cut out. The Historical Investigations Unit should be killed off. It threatens to be an exorbitantly expensive exercise which will damage veterans more than former terrorists, who are the true villains The reason is the Historical Investigations Unit, which is expected to spend five years (lets call that ten) at a cost of 150million (lets double that) as it examines 1,700 unsolved murders in the province from 1969. Attentive readers will note that the Historical Investigations Unit sounds very like the ill-fated Iraq Historic Allegations Team. I wont be surprised if it turns out to be a similar waste of time and money. What it means, so far as army veterans are concerned, is that any time of the day or night they could hear a knock on the door from the boys in blue in relation to an allegation dating back several decades. Its true that ex-terrorists who murdered people in cold blood might also receive a knock on the door. But heres the rub. The Ministry of Defence will be required to hand over an enormous amount of paperwork to the unit. However, the IRA, as well as loyalist terrorists responsible for hundreds of murders, didnt keep any record of their foul activities. And how many people will be prepared to testify against former killers? The likelihood is that more soldiers than ex-terrorists will find themselves under forensic examination which is of course exactly what Sinn Fein wants. The British Army will be in the dock. This is utterly wrong. As Lord Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009, rightly argued yesterday morning on Radio 4s Today Programme, there is no moral equivalence between brutal terrorists and soldiers upholding the law. This is what he said: Soldiers did their duty. Got up in the morning, went on patrol and sometimes came under attack and they returned fire. They didnt set out to murder people. Terrorists set out every morning to murder people, and successfully did so. Doubtless there were instances when soldiers were guilty of excessive force or gratuitous violence, but they were few and far between, and in marked contrast to the cruel and barbaric behaviour of all terrorists. How is it that our politicians have contrived to put veterans and former terrorists in the same dock, as though they are on the same moral footing, and should be judged in the same light? The truth is, of course, that the IRA was guilty of infinitely greater atrocities. During the Troubles, the terrorist organisation committed some 1,700 murders, almost half the total death toll [File photo] In fact, former terrorists have often received preferential treatment. Following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Tony Blair covertly authorised letters of comfort to more than 200 suspected terrorists guaranteeing them that they would not face prosecution. Such an assurance led in 2013 to the collapse of the trial of John Downey, a suspect in the 1982 IRA bombing in Hyde Park, which killed four soldiers. Patrick Magee, who in 1984 planted a bomb in the Grand Hotel in Brighton which killed five people and injured many more, was released from prison after only 14 years in 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Yet the authorities are still pursuing former soldiers for alleged crimes, sometimes repeatedly interviewing suspects who have been previously cleared after thorough investigations. The latest case concerns an unnamed former British paratrooper who has been charged with the deaths of two civil rights protesters in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday. Penny Mordaunt, declared yesterday that she would like to see the amnesty extended to veterans who spent time in Northern Ireland. She is going to have her work cut out Maybe his prosecution is justified in light of the facts. We will see. But his case still seems shocking compared to the indulgence extended towards hundreds of cold-blooded terrorists. Why wont the Government spare veterans who served in Northern Ireland the anxiety of prosecution so many years after the event? The answer has to do with low politics rather than high principle. Mrs May and Karen Bradley, the rather clueless Northern Ireland Secretary, are favouring Sinn Fein in order to tempt them back into the suspended devolved government in the province, while the DUP are indulged despite not supporting the Prime Minister over Brexit. Sinn Fein, of course, hopes to blacken the British through the Historical Investigations Unit. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Theresa Mays parliamentary allies in Westminster want to besmirch the IRA in the same process. In short, an amnesty for veterans in Northern Ireland has been rejected by Mrs May and Mrs Bradley because Sinn Fein and the DUP want to perpetuate their differences through what Penny Mordaunt yesterday described as the lawfare [as opposed to warfare] issue. The Historical Investigations Unit should be killed off. It threatens to be an exorbitantly expensive exercise which will damage veterans more than former terrorists, who are the true villains. It also envisages a maximum sentence of two years for those found guilty, which would be regarded as inadequate by those who are driven by the politics of grievance. The amnesty should be extended to veterans who served in Northern Ireland. And if the cost is to include erstwhile terrorists, we can console ourselves with the thought that most of them have already been let off scot-free. Its time to move on, time to stop fighting yesterdays battles, and to concentrate on todays such as the appalling, but neglected, murder of Lyra McKee. Stewart Copeland, 66, (pictured) reveals the items of personal significance inside his studio at his house in Brentwood, Los Angeles. The composer is currently preparing for an orchestra performance in Birmingham, Manchester and London 1 MUSIC MAN I love this place, which I call The Sacred Grove its like my giant train set. Musicians like Snoop Dogg and Ben Harper come over to jam with me. I keep treasured instruments in here, like this pygmy drum from my trip up the Congo in 1984, and the snare drum in front, which I used on all The Polices hits, with its crisp, cracking sound that could bring a bird down from the sky. I also have many cheap instruments, like the Chinese cello Im holding, bought over eBay. 2 DEAR GRANNY Im intrigued by my grandmother, seen here in Paris in 1913. She was a diva in the Paris Opera. As the First World War started, she escaped to London, and married an eminent neurosurgeon. Pictures of them together are very Downton, with him in tweeds and her in strange dresses, with a fun-loving look. I only met her when I was very young by then she was a widow living in quiet seclusion. 3 GUITAR HERO This was my first electric guitar, a 1968 Broadway, which I had when I was boarding at Millfield school in Somerset. My dad Miles was very musical and wanted his kids to be, so he filled the house with instruments. Stewart treasures this image of his grandmother taken in Paris during 1913 I soon bought better guitars, so I took the strings off this one and used to leap around to Jimi Hendrix with it, until one day I broke the neck off it. 4 MY PRIZED FENDERS I got the Fender Stratocaster on the right in 1978 while on tour with The Police in New York. We got a call saying, Hey boys, the money has landed youre rich, so we went to Mannys Music and bought nearly the entire shop. Sting got the same Fender in black. Mine stays in the studio and has barely a scratch on it. I bought the Fender on the left last year to tour with. Fender specially adapted it for me, paring it down, as in 40 years of playing Ive only used one setting flat out. 5 TOP BRASS When we have forest fires here my dads trumpet is the first thing I grab. As a session musician in New York he played with big bands. When the Second World War broke out he went into the National Guard, later joining counter-intelligence and becoming one of the first members of the CIA, working in the Middle East. I spent a lot of my childhood in Lebanon where we were friendly with Kim Philby and his family, before he defected to the Soviet Union. My father had met my mother Lorraine during the war, when she was working for the British Special Operations Executive in London, and she later became an archaeologist. 6 MAKING A SPLASH This waterphone is one of my weirder instruments. I used it in my score for the 1925 silent film Ben-Hur when I did a live orchestral rendition of it in 2016. The metal bars sit around a basin of water and make a whining sound like whale song if you play them with a bow, or clang if you hit them with a mallet. A film composer needs the widest set of musical skills of all. My first film score was for Francis Ford Coppolas Rumble Fish in 1983 the arrogance of my youth helped me. As told to Andrew Preston. Stewart Copeland Lights Up The Orchestra is in Birmingham on 26 March, Manchester on 29 March and London on 30 March, stewartcopeland.net A campaign featuring one of the UK's first plus-size male models and another with vitiligo is aiming to help men overcome body insecurities. The campaign features Londoners of different body types and races, hopes to raise awareness around how the pressure to have a perfect body is negatively affecting men and not just women. While campaigns from brands such as Dove and Missguided have made strides in diversifying the way women are represented in the media, there hasn't been a campaign before celebrating different body types on men. Manual, a mens health and well-being website, is running the campaign to raise awareness on how misrepresentation in advertising is affecting men, and in particular their mental health. Ben Whittaker, 26, one of the men featured in the campaign, told Femail he felt pressure to look like a a male model growing up. Aimed and improving male mental health, the campaign features men of different body types and races, hopes to raise awareness on around the pressure to have a perfect body is negatively affecting men and not just women 'I'm the UK's first plus-sized male model. Growing up seeing men on social media, and seeing this "Men's Health" body - that's hard.' 'Being told that all men have to look a certain way, and they have to have chiseled chests and rock hard abs, it put a strain on my mental health' he said. 'A lot of my mates were smaller than me and they were toned and I was the biggest in my class, I did feel depressed and think 'am I meant to look like this?'. Bashir Aziz, 24 who lives with Vitiligo, said that he took on the Drake song 'You only live once' Bashir said you just need to do what makes you happy and not waste any time doubting yourself Ben Whittaker, 26, one of the men featured in the campaign, told Femail he felt pressure to look like a male model growing up 'I'm the UK's first plus-sized male model. Growing up seeing men on social media, seeing this "Men's Health" body, being told that all men have to look a certain way, and they have to have chiseled chests and rock hard abs, it put a strain on my mental health' Ben (pictured) said 'But there's no such thing as a perfect body, it doesn't actually exist, all bodies are unique in their own ways. 'I lost my hair at the age of 21, when I started thinning, I used to try and cover it up, pile in products. 'Then last year I just shaved it off and thought "enough is enough" and now I feel a lot more confident than I did. I don't always go out of the house with a hat, and to me, that's a big thing. Also, I think the beard helps!' Research from Manual suggests that 78 per cent of men don't believe any of their friends look like a 'Gillette model' - the tanned, square-jawed, clean shaved Adonis often seen in ad campaigns. Also featured in the campaign is Kenny Ethan Jones, 24, (pictured) who is a trans model and activist Kenny said that going to the gym was a huge part of overcoming any insecurities he had about his body The aim of their campaign is to include representation of the 'ideal man' in advertising. Kenny Ethan Jones, 25, who features in the campaign is a trans model and activist. He said: 'There's also an entrepreneurial side to me. 'I'm a Forex trader, which means I trade stocks and currencies. Going to the gym was a huge part of me overcoming any insecurities I had about my body. Sylvester Campion, 32, who also features in the campaign had an accident when he was younger which screwed up his leg and they had to cut open his brain 'People say you can't wear this, you can't look like that, but the only thing you have to do is just be you' - Sylvester (pictured) said 'I was skinny - I weighed about seven stone - and then I went up to ten stone. So that added weight made me feel a bit more masculine, stronger and gave me that confidence; when you feel that confidence, you radiate it out to everyone else and they feel it, too. 'My advice to anyone is, whatever makes you feel happy and feel more confident, just do it and do more of it! George Pallis, Co-Founder of Manual, added: 'If you only look at the men in adverts, you would think that all men have six-packs, the perfect amount of stubble and permanently bronzed skin. 'It is completely unrealistic and doesn't reflect what masculinity really looks like. Yeohan Kim, 32, one of the models in the campaign, livea in South London, but is originally from South Korea Yeohan added: 'My tip for maintaining good mental health is to be grateful for what you have. The way I look at it is even though I dont have what some people would consider the "perfect body", Im alive, healthy and very fortunate. Im also a firm believer in affirmations. I like to wake up in the morning and say to myself, I look good and Im well' 'In a world where opening up about mental and physical well-being is arguably more crucial than ever before, it's vital that we all work together to de-stigmatise men's wellness and improve the health and happiness of men everywhere.'. Sylvester Campion, 32, who also features in the campaign explained: 'I play in a band called The Dirty Blonds. George Pallis, Co-Founder of Manual said that if you only look at the men in adverts, is completely unrealistic and doesn't reflect what masculinity really looks like. Manual, a health and fitness app, who are running the campaign, aim to raise awareness on how misrepresentation is affecting men, and in particular their mental health 'When I was a kid I had a very bad accident and that screwed up my whole leg and cut open my brain, I was in a coma and a wheelchair for a while. 'That made me think about how I use my body and how important it is to appreciate what your body is and what it can do. 'People say you can't wear this, you can't look like that, but the only thing you have to do is just be you' James King (pictured) 28, said his relationship with his body was 'atrocious.' 'I would always think about how much I hated my body and to get to where I am now, its been a real journey,' he said 'Im still not 100% there and I even got the fear today,' James said, 'but I find things like this shoot push me out of my comfort zone' James King, another of the models added: 'My relationship with my body was atrocious. 'I would always think about how much I hated my body and to get to where I am now, it's been a real journey. A massive part of all this is changing your mindset. 'It's really easy to get stuck in a negative cycle. I'm still not 100 per cent there and I still have to regularly say to myself "stop hating your body so much!" Jonathan Cann, 63, is also featured in the campaign promoting body positivity among men Bashir Aziz, 24, who lives with Vitiligo, added: 'Im from London and I would consider myself to be a full-time artist. You know that Drake song, "You only live once." 'I took that on board and realised you just need to do what makes you happy and not waste any time doubting yourself. Were not cats around here, we only live one life. 'Back then, my mental health wasnt great, but my body was fantastic, I just never knew.' Before they can speak, babies use special body language cues to tell their parents when they're hungry, full, feeling playful or sleepy. While it's not the same for every newborn, the majority of them will exhibit these signs, said Melbourne fertility nurse and midwife educator at Tiny Hearts Foundation Cate Wade. A post shared by the foundation showed how children use their hands to convey feelings - and it had an unprecedented response online. 'Studies have shown that when a newborn is hungry, their hands will be in a tight, fist-like gesture,' the status read. Before they can speak babies use special body language cues to tell their parents when they're hungry, full, feeling playful or sleepy (stock image) A post shared by the foundation showed how children use their hands to convey feelings - and it had an unprecedented response online 'As they progress into their feed, their hands will slowly start to loosen, resulting in a relaxed palm. This means they've had enough of the good stuff and are full.' However, they did warn parents who were concerned in the comments section that their own child didn't follow these 'rules' that this body language wasn't the same for all young children and it may not happen 'every time'. 'It may, in fact, be the opposite because you know babies like to make life a guessing game,' it said. 'New parents think crying is the only way a newborn can communicate their needs to them but even from the early days parents should start observing their behaviour,' Cate told FEMAIL. HUNGER CUES Babies have a special way of conveying their hunger to adults. If they are asleep and suddenly stir and begin gurgling, showcasing they're awake, this can be an indication that they're craving food. 'Opening their mouth and turning their head from side to side "seeking" the breast are also indicators of a hungry bub,' Cate said. If they suddenly increase their physical activity and begin kicking out, or put their hand into their mouth, these are also signs (stock image) If they suddenly increase their physical activity and begin kicking out, or put their hand into their mouth, these are also signs. Crying can also be seen as a means of conveying hunger in this case. PLAY CUES Immediately after a baby finishes their feed they will be content enough to engage in play with their eyes wide and bright. 'There will be a lot of eye contact and smooth non-jerky movements,' Cate said. Alongside the more relaxed state they will likely reach their arms towards an authority figure at the same time. Immediately after a baby finishes their feed they will be content enough to engage in play with their eyes wide and bright (stock image) SLEEP CUES One of the most obvious indicators of tiredness is yawning, whether you're a child or an adult. But you'll quickly notice that youngsters especially will become disengaged in activities and lose eye contact while engaging in play, if they need a nap. 'Frowning, become quite stiff and arching their back are all signs they are ready for sleep,' Cate said. One of the most obvious indicators of tiredness is yawning, whether you're a child or an adult (stock image) The baby will stop sucking as soon as they are full which is often the best indicator, as well as open up their hand (stock image) FULL CUES When you're feeding your little one it's a good idea to listen to them sucking on the breast or bottle, to know they are actually taking in nutrients. The baby will stop sucking as soon as they are full which is often the best indicator, as well as open up their hand. 'In general they will act more relaxed than they were before,' Cate said. Adorable tiny hoglets are brought in to the Harper Asprey Wildlife rescue center in this week's episode of Saving Britain's Hedgehogs. Two young hedgehogs, dubbed Luke and Leia, are rescued by the Harper Asprey center in Windlesham, Surrey, after they were abandoned by their mothers. Everything was going well for Luke and Leia and their two siblings until their mother, named Chris, contracted an infection and left the nest. While two of the hoglets did not make it, Luke and Leia were taken in by Anne Brummer and Lynne Powell. Baby hedgehogs Luke and Leia (pictured) are taken in by the shelter after their mother Chris contracted an infection and left the nest in this week's Saving Britain's Hedgehogs Four hoglets who were abandoned by their mothers and harassed by a cat are also rescued and looked after by the shelter While their mother is being treated with antibiotics for her infection, the hoglets haven't been fed in 18 hours and are severely dehydrated. Anne and Lynne do their best to keep the pair alive, massaging their spines so they don't give up and die. 'We get so many good days,' says Lynne, 'and then we get this kind of days, which is so hard.' But thanks to Anne and Lynne's determined care, the youngsters rally and the two women can start injecting them with fluids. Luke (pictured) almost gives up after being rescued by Anne Brummer and Lynne Powell, as he struggles to take his fluids, and all his energy is spent on protecting his vital organs Lynne (right) and Anne (left) have to massage the hoglets to keep them alive before they can inject them with fluids Pictured: Three out of four hoglets that were rescued after being abandoned by their mother and harassed by a cat 'When the body gets dehydrated, the little energy and fluids that is has protects the vital organs,' explains Anne as she injects fluids in the hoglets' mouths through syringes. 'So if we tried to put food in now, it would remove that energy away from the vital organs, as it would take energy to digest the food.' With the hoglets really struggling to swallow the fluids, Luke almost dies. But Anne manages to keep him alive and to give him enough energy to take in the much- needed fluids. In order to help the babies survive, Anne and Lynne have no choice but to inject the fluids directly into the tiny hedgehogs' skins. The procedure is unpleasant for the hoglets, but it's a necessary evil, as it might just save their lives. As the pair seems to be perking up, Anne and Lynne give them a break, which hopefully will help the babies gather more energy. At the end of the episode, we find out that Luke and Leia are doing much better, thanks to the loving care of Anne and Lynne. The weakest of the four hoglets (pictured) has to be fed fluids before he can have food, but quickly perks up Hoglets a week older than Luke and Leia are also rescued by the centre, as it revealed they've harassed by a cat. Just like the younger hoglets, these ones are dehydrated and need fluid to survive. Anne is experienced when it comes to saving hedgehogs, but she advises people to call the nearest rescue center for advice before taking matter into their own hands, as each hoglet is different. But the strongest ones are soon spoon fed as Anne and host Steve Backshall swoon over the little balls of cuteness. 'Hes got his little foot on my finger, that is so cute' Steve says. 'Anne, what are you doing to me, you're destroying my reputation,' he jokes, still holding the baby hedgehog in his hand. 'I'm supposed to be about deadly animals, you've got me up to my neck in cute.' Saving Britain's Hedgehogs airs at 8pm tonight on Channel 5 Steve Backshall's tough guy image is put to the test has he feeds a tiny hedgehog off a spoon to help him muster some energy Steve (pictured) cannot help but swoon over the tiny baby hedgehog as he feeds him Two Army veterans opted for a non-traditional, and cheap, wedding venue after they decided to get married on the New York City subway this past weekend. Robert Musso, 30, and Francis Denmark, 32, both live in New York City and decided to get married on Saturday evening on the Q train while the subway went over the Manhattan Bridge. Speaking to the New York Post, Francis explained why she and her new husband decided to go the non-traditional route for their wedding. Unique venue: Robert Musso, 30, and Francis Denmark, 32, both live in New York City and decided to get married on a New York City subway car Love: At first, Francis was not keen on the idea of getting married on the subway because 'it's dirty', but she was later convinced by her husband-to-be 'I was mesmerized,' Francis, who is originally from Georgia, told the publication. 'Speechless as I walked on. While I was saying my vows, behind him was the bridge and the water.' The location was originally Robert's idea, and it took some convincing on his part to sell Francis on the idea. 'At first I was skeptical,' she said. 'When he mentioned it, [my response was] "No, its dirty and Im not gonna do that."' Francis later agreed to having their wedding on the subway, as she thought it would be a 'unique' location to start their lives together. For the event, Robert boarded the Q train with a wedding party of 10 people near Prospect Park. The group, with the help of two assistants and a photographer, then decorated the subway cart to the amusement of other passengers. The bride-to-be then later boarded the subway cart at a different stop with her father and nephew while clad in a white off-the-shoulder dress that fell just below her knees. Robert opted for a navy blue suit for the evening wedding. City people: The couple got married right as the Q train was on the Manhattan Bridge heading into the city. They then got off the train at Union Square Romantic (and cheap): Both veterans served a tour in Afghanistan before meeting at a base in 2016 and plan to move to Brooklyn near a Q train stop The couple who both did a tour in Afghanistan before meeting at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington in May 2016 then said their vows as to each other as the subway cart was crossing over the Manhattan Bridge and into the city. But they confessed there was one rowdy passenger who was not pleased by the nuptials at first. 'He was like, "Youre in my way, get out of my way,"' Francis said. 'He apologized afterwards once he realized what was going on.' Other riders accidentally in attendance joined in on the fun of the surprise wedding, according to the New York Post. One woman even helped fix Francis' hair so it was perfect for the pictures. New York-based photographer Emily Chan was present for the entire event so the couple could get adorable pictures both on and off of the subway. When asked about the venue decision, Robert said: 'The MTA is like a marriage, they both need work, but they can both take you to beautiful places.' The couple plans to move to Park Slope in Brooklyn where they will be off of the Q stop on the subway. Every Australian knows the best part about election day is a good sausage sizzle. But with every leading supermarket store selling different versions of the humble snag, it's hard to know which ones taste best. Now consumer organisation CHOICE has voted for the tastiest supermarket sausage after putting Aldi, Coles and Woolworths to the grill. The advocacy group asked its staff members to elect their favourite sausage based on flavour, ingredients and value in a poll vote - and the results may surprise you. Consumer organisation CHOICE has voted for the tastiest supermarket sausage, and Woolworths (right) takes the lead for the best snag, followed by Aldi (left) Taking out just 21 per cent of the vote, Coles (pictured) finished last, offering the lowest meat and fat content and the highest sodium Woolworths takes the lead in the poll after snagging an impressive 45 per cent. The experts found the 24-pack sausages, retailed at $9.50, contained 73 per cent of meat - and surprisingly had the lowest in sodium but highest in fat. 'Believe it or not, fat is something you actually do want in a good sausage,' CHOICE said. German discount retailer Aldi came in second, with 34 per cent, sitting safely in the middle between its rival candidates. The 24-pack snags were the cheapest out of the three supermarkets, costing just $8.99 - just 38 cents per sausage. Battle of the supermarket sausage Every Australian knows the best part about election day is a good sausage sizzle (file image) WOOLWORTHS Price: $9.50 for 24-pack Price per sausage: 40c % meat: 73% Fat content (/100g): 21.8g Sodium content (/100g): 580mg COLES Price: $10 for 22-pack Price per sausage: 45c % meat: 70% Fat content (/100g): 16.8g Sodium content (/100g): 750mg ALDI Price: $8.99 for 24-pack Price per sausage: 38c % meat: 71% Fat content (/100g): 21.4g Sodium content (/100g): 634mg Advertisement Every Australian knows the best part about election day is a good sausage sizzle (file image) Despite its meat content was unspecified, the sausages did contain 97 per cent of Australian ingredients, which is good for the budget and farmers. Taking out just 21 per cent of the vote, Coles finished last, offering the lowest meat and fat content and the highest sodium. The snags were the most expensive out of the three brands, retailed at $10 for a 22-pack, costing 45 cents. Despite the price, experts found Coles sausages contained at least 99 per cent of Australian ingredients - which seems to show support for farmers. The Langham Hotel has transformed one of their guest rooms into a charity suite complete with flowing pink champagne, a free mini bar, breakfast in bed and valet parking. The $900 a night room in Sydney, called The Pink Hope Suite, has been opened in conjunction with breast and ovarian cancer charity Pink Hope, with all proceeds from the sales of this room going directly to the foundation. Guests of the space will be treated to a full VIP experience, and will be greeted with pink decor the likes of which would make the perfect Instagram shot. The Langham Hotel has transformed one of their guest rooms into a charity suite complete with flowing pink champagne, a free mini bar, breakfast in bed and valet parking At the end of their stay guests will be gifted a hamper of gorgeous goodies from brands like Short Story, The Daily Edited, Slip Scrunchies, Joico and Lumira. All-you-can-eat ice cream, movies and even an invite for your pet pooch will also be supplied. Customers will be able to check in from 3pm with complimentary parking underneath the hotel, before champagne and macarons are provided upon entry to the room. The $900 a night room in Sydney, called The Pink Hope Suite, is in conjunction with breast and ovarian cancer charity Pink Hope At the end of their stay they will be gifted a hamper of gorgeous goodies from brands like Short Story, The Daily Edited, Slip Scrunchies, Joico and Lumira At 5pm guests are encouraged to relax in the Observatory Bar and enjoy the winter cocktail menu with a $100 voucher. Then they're free to relax and unwind in the pink-coloured heaven that is the room. At 8.30am the following morning your continental breakfast will be served on the terrace to prepare you for the day. Drawn to the work of Pink Hope because of their own young daughters, both The Langham's General Manager, Gaylord Lamy, and Director of Sales and Marketing, Lachlan Harris, got behind the idea when looking for unique ways to promote their work. There is no rush to leave with The Langham offering lack checkout until 12pm 'Joining hands with Pink Hope has allowed us to assist in building a strong community for the charity, one which we love to support,' Mr. Harris said 'Joining hands with Pink Hope has allowed us to assist in building a strong community for the charity, one which we love to support,' Mr. Harris said. 'We are thrilled to launch this offering to the market not only because it is an exciting Australian first, but because it will help to raise much needed funds within the preventative health space.' The Pink Hope Suite is available to book from 1st June 2019 through until 30th September 2019. Neelam Gill has revealed the shocking racism she was exposed to as a child growing up in Coventry. The model, 24, who has posed for the likes of Burberry, Abercrombie & Fitch and Vogue, recalled how being called a 'p***' on her way to school was an every day occurrence and made her hate the colour of her skin. The activist, who was one of the first British Asian women to become the face of a major campaign when she was chosen as the face of Burberry in 2014, also called for the fashion industry to stop using ethnic minority models as 'token' faces. Scroll down for video British Burberry model Neelam Gill, 24, has revealed the shocking racism she was exposed to as a child growing up in Coventry and called for the fashion industry to change its 'tokenism' In a candid interview with Stylist, Neelam remembered: 'I remember being a kid and walking to school and someone shouting 'Paki' out the window. That was just so normal.' She added: 'I'd get comments like, 'does your Dad own the corner shop?' or 'Is he a taxi driver?' It makes me feel really angry. I could never imagine doing that to someone. It's not something I'd stand for now and now I'm very outspoken about it. 'When I was younger I was very insecure and I didnt think I was pretty because I thought being fair was what made you beautiful. I would always hate the colour of my skin.' The activist, who was one of the first British Asian women to become the face of a major campaign when she was chosen as the face of Burberry in 2014, also called for the fashion industry to stop using ethnic minority models as 'token' faces The model, 24, who has posed for the likes of Burberry, Abercrombie & Fitch and Vogue, recalled how being called a 'pa**' on her way to school was an every day occurrence. She is pictured as a child Admitting there has been a change in the representation of ethnic minorities in the fashion industry, Neelam argued that more needed to be done. The model revealed how many brands appeared to use minority models 'just to cover their backs', and even spoke about how her model pals had been missed out on jobs because the designers 'already had a black girl in the show'. Neelam rose to prominence after making her debut for none other than Fashion Week favourite Burberry after being scouted at the tender age of 14, and has credited them for making her a household name. Talking about her modelling dream, she previosly told Elle magazine: 'I didn't think I could be a model! I had glasses and braces. I was not one of the hot girls in school. 'I was scouted when I was 14, but my parents said, 'Okay, just stay in school and then do it before college. 'I didn't even tell people in high school that I was interested in modeling, or that I'd been scouted, because when people found out, they were like, "What? Her?!" There was a joke about me in school: "Oh, Neelam's a modelshe's a foot model".' The Crown Princess of Denmark put on a stylish display as she arrived at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit on Wednesday. Princess Mary, 47, opted for a floral frock which reached just above the ankle and featured a high- low hemline, teaming it with a smart black blazer and matching shoes and a clutch bag. The royal was joined by Eva Kruse, CEO & President of Global Fashion Agenda at the event, who looked chic in a white oversized blazer suit. The event has established itself as the worlds leading business event on sustainability in fashion. Scroll down for video The Crown Princess of Denmark put on a stylish display as she arrived at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit on Wednesday, joined by Eva Kruse, CEO & President of Global Fashion Agenda (left) Convening major fashion industry decision makers on a global scale, the Summit has become the nexus for agenda-setting discussions on the most critical environmental, social and ethical issues facing our industry and planet. Marking its 10th anniversary, the next edition of Copenhagen Fashion Summit takes place on 15-16 May 2019 at the Copenhagen Concert Hall under the patronage of HRH The Crown Princess of Denmark. The Summit is organised by Global Fashion Agenda, a non-profit leadership forum on fashion sustainability that works to mobilise the global fashion system to change the way we produce, market and consume fashion, for a world beyond next season. Princess Mary, 47, opted for a floral frock which reached just above the ankle and featured a high- low hemline, teaming it with a smart black blazer and matching shoes and a clutch bag Princess Mary looked chic at the event, which has become the nexus for agenda-setting discussions on the most critical environmental, social and ethical issues facing our industry and planet Mary made a solo appearance at the event, taking a break from her busy family life. Mary married Prince Frederik in 2004, and the couple share four children Prince Christian, 13, Princess Josephine, 12, and twins Princess Isabella and Prince Vincent, eight. The love story between Princess Mary and Prince Frederick has been well documented; the couple met in a Sydney bar and Mary, born in Tasmania, moved to the northern hemisphere to be with Frederik. Mary is a patron for the event, which has established itself as the worlds leading business event on sustainability in fashion In a previous candid interview with Australian Women's Weekly, the Crown Princess revealed that moving to the other side of the world was difficult. She said: 'I did experience a feeling of loneliness - short-term - when I first moved to Denmark,' she told the magazine. 'Moving to Denmark was a huge change in my life - a new culture, new language, new friends, and another way of life.' 'So, I see it as quite natural that at times I felt quite alone or a little bit like I was on the outside looking in.' Mary of Denmark. Crown Princess participates as a patron of the Global Fashion Agenda in Copenhagen Fashion Summit A Kate Moss lookalike has opened up about what life is like getting 'papped' on a daily basis as photographers regularly mistake her for the British supermodel. Denise Ohnona, 38, from Ormskirk, Lancashire, had lost her fashion sense, gained weight and led a 'boring' life after giving birth to her first child and going through a divorce in 2011, before leaning into her look. After regularly being stopped in the street to be told she looked like Kate Moss, the mother-of-two overhauled her wardrobe and hit the gym to play up to her likeness. Now, just over a year into her transformation, Denise explains that she regularly gets photographed by confused paparazzi and mobbed for selfies in clubs and supermarkets. Denise Ohnona, 38, (pictured) from Ormskirk, Lancashire, is often mistaken for Kate Moss and has opened up about what life is like getting 'papped' on a daily basis as photographers regularly mistake her for the British supermodel The real Kate Moss, 45, (pictured) is seen attending the Michael Kors dinner in London last week, and faces stiff competition from mum Denise Denise, a full-time mum, said: 'When I first started to get papped, I used to get very shy and felt like a fraud became I am a Fake Moss. 'But then as time went on I started to enjoy it and now find it very flattering - who wouldn't want to get mistaken for Kate Moss? She's one of the most incredibly iconic women ever! 'I get mistaken for her on a daily basis now - especially when I am out in central London - that's where the paps tend to find me. 'However even members of the public get us confused, and I get asked to pose for selfies in nightclubs and in the supermarket all the time. 'It's amazing that I've been able to find something that has transformed me from my frumpy mum lifestyle, to a glamorous 'supermodel'.' After regularly being stopped in the street to be told she looked like Kate Moss, the mother-of-two overhauled her wardrobe and hit the gym to play up to her likeness (seen papped enjoying brunch) After getting divorced from her husband in 2011, Denise claims that she completely disregarded her appearance and just focused on being a single mum. However after making heads turn for her Moss-likeness, she decided to turn her life round and feel like the model she is often mistaken for. She said: 'When I split up with my ex-husband eight years ago, I went a bit 'mumsy,' I lost my sense of fashion and gave up on the gym. 'I would look after the kids day and night and it was more important to run around after them than look after myself. Denise is pictured with daughter Elise, now eight, before she regained her confidence and transformed into 'Fake Moss' Denise, seen being papped in a taxi, explains that she regularly gets photographed by confused paparazzi and mobbed for selfies in clubs and supermarkets. 'Then I started getting people mistaking me for Kate Moss when I would go anywhere. 'Being told that I could look like Kate Moss picked me back up and I started focusing on myself again. 'I got back into the gym and looking after my appearance and the comments started all over again!' Having spent one year basing her appearance around the icon, Denise claims that she gets papped and stopped for selfies on a regular basis. But, unlike many real celebrities, Denise says that she loves to be shot by the paparazzi as it has given her the confidence boost she always needed. Having spent one year basing her appearance around the icon, Denise claims that she gets papped and stopped for selfies on a regular basis - pictured at the Ritz Would the real Kate Moss please stand up! Denise is seen in London, left, while the real Kate Moss is pictured last week, right She said: 'The last time I visited a club in London there was a crowd lining up for photos with me - it was so much fun meeting so many great people. 'When people see me they get very excited, and when I tell them I am not really Kate Moss they love it anyway and still want selfies. 'But some people never ask me straight out if I am Kate Moss - they usually point and whisper to each other 'that's Kate Moss'. 'I am super proud that I have finally got over my shyness and lack of confidence - and getting snapped by photographers and stopped by fans has helped this massively. 'I have always held myself back but I am a new woman and regularly step out of my comfort zone.' The Duchess of Cambridge revealed her son Prince Louis is already a handful - and hinted the boisterous one-year-old is walking. Mother-of-three Kate, 37, spoke about her youngest child during an outing to Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, on Tuesday afternoon. Speaking to former Bletchley Park worker Georgina Rose, Kate admitted Louis is keeping her and William 'on their toes'. Mother-of-three Kate, 37, spoke about her one-year-old son Prince Louis (right) during an outing to Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, on Tuesday afternoon, as seen left Mrs Rose, who was a Teleprinter Operator during the Second World War, offered Kate her 'congratulations' on her 'beautiful family', to which Kate revealed that little Louis, one, is proving a handful. The Duchess replied: 'Thank you so much. Louis is keeping us on our toes. I turned around the other day and he was at the top of the slide - I had no idea!' The comment suggests Prince Louis, who celebrated his first birthday last month, might now be walking. The Duchess of Cambridge previously revealed that the toddler was moving around with the help of a walker. The Duchess of Cambridge revealed Louis is keeping her and William on their toes during a conversation at Bletchley Park yesterday. Pictured, Kate during the engagement Speaking to parents at a London community centre in March, Kate revealed Louis was 'cruising' - when a child pulls themselves up and uses furniture to move around. She told one mother named Kriti: 'Louis just wants to pull himself up all the time. He has got these little walkers and is bombing around in them.' Kriti, who was there with her son Kameron, later added: 'She [the Duchess of Cambridge] took one look at Kameron and said, "Oh he wants to go walkies." The Duchess of Cambridge revealed in March that Louis was 'cruising' - when a child pulls themselves up and uses furniture to move around. The toddler prince looked full of beans in the portraits released to mark his first birthday last month, one pictured above 'Apparently her son is cruising and she said she was running after him all the time.' The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are also parents to Prince George, five, and Princess Charlotte, four. The couple finally met their new nephew Archie in Windsor yesterday, although their children did not join. She had a high flying finance career before marrying the King of The Netherlands, and today Queen Maxima went back to her roots during her official visit to Ethiopia. The monarch paid a visit to the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Ministry of Finance in Addis Ababa as she wrapped up her two-day trip to the East African country. Donning a beige dress adorned with splatters of vibrant green at the waist, Maxima beamed as she shook hands with official in the Ethiopian capital. Showing off her penchant for co-ordination, she matched her outfit with a mint green clutch and peep-toe sandals in a similar shade. Maxima Queen of the Netherlands (pictured) looked elegant on the last day of her two-day trip to Ethiopia where she visited the National Bank and Ministry of Finance Maxima, 47, also talked about development with the Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (not pictured) this morning Maxima held talks this morning with the Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia, Dr. Yinager Dessie. Her visit is part of her duties as UN Secretary Generals Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, a title she's held since 2008. In this role she advises the Secretary General and works worldwide to promote safe and affordable access to financial services for all. Yesterday, Maxima attended an United Nations conference on development in the morning. Maxima speaking during the talk with the National Bank of Ehtiopia's Governor in Addis Ababa this morning (pictured) Maxima listened carefully during her meeting at the NBE on the second and last day of her Ethiopia tour She later met with locals at a beer brewery and observed their work in the afternoon, touring the property and chatting with the brewery and farm owner. Today she is set to meet with several officials, including Ahmed Shide, Minister of Finance and Dr Getahun Mekuria, the Minister of Innovation and Technology. Queen Maxima visited Ethiopia in December 2013 on behalf on the UN and at this years World Economic Forum in Davos she met with Prime Minister Dr Abiy Ahmed. Maxima (left) met with several officials when she visited the National Bank of Ehtiopia and the Ministry of Finance in Addis Ababa this morning Ethiopia is a member of the United Nations Economical Commission for Africa, which aims 'to promote the economic and social development of its members, foster intra-regional integration, and promote international cooperation for Africa's development.' according to its mission statement. In late 2017 the country launched a national strategy aimed at improving access to financial services for its citizens. Currently around 65 per cent of the adult population do not have access to financial services such as a bank or savings account, insurance, a loan or digital payment methods, reports the Global Findex 2017. A schoolgirl beauty vlogger bought herself a luxury car for her twelfth birthday - despite being too young to drive. Natthanan Sanunrat, who boasts more than one million followers across social media, splashed out on a BMW 7 series worth 150,000 (6million baht) to celebrate the occasion last month. The schoolgirl, of Thailand's Chonburi province, admitted she is still not tall enough to reach the pedals - and said she will have to wait another eight years until she is old enough to get a licence. Thai vlogger Natthanan Sanunrat, who boasts more than one million followers across social media, splashed out on a BMW worth 150,000, pictured, to celebrate her 12th birthday Natthanan, who is known as Nong Pear, first picked up a make-up brush at just three years old and has since built up a devoted following online. Pictured, with some of her make-up Natthanan, seen applying make-up in her car, is still not tall enough to reach the pedals - and said she will have to wait another eight years until she is old enough to get a licence In the meantime her mother, Natcha, and father, Rong, will drive the car. Natthanan, who is known as Nong Pear, first picked up a make-up brush at just three years old, was first featured in a YouTube tutorial aged four, and has since built up a devoted following online. She now juggles school with working at fashion events, including London Fashion Week in 2018. Speaking this week from her new car, Natthanan said: 'I've been doing makeup every day since I was four years old, when I started to do makeup tutorials and post it on YouTube. Natthanan, pictured at home with just some of her make-up collection, now juggles school with working at fashion events, including London Fashion Week in 2018 The schoolgirl's parents described their daughter, seen in her car, as 'very mature' Natthanan, seen doing make-up in the rear view mirror, loves experimenting with looks 'I just felt like I enjoyed doing it and it became my dream to become a makeup artist. 'Every look I want to do, I just flow. Natural look, fancy look, special effects that I've learned from YouTube, I like to do, too. 'I went to London Fashion Week in April of 2018. My teacher gave me a really big opportunity to go there. I did the makeup for the models and for the kids, the young models, too. I want to be a makeup artist forever.' The talented 12-year-old, seen in her car, even travelled to the UK for London Fashion Week Natthanan, who boasts 292,000 followers on YouTube, said that while she loves her BMW she wants to own a Porsche by the time she's old enough to drive. Proud mother Natcha, 40, added: 'We encourage and support Natthanan with her work, but we don't push her at all. We don't need to, because she loves doing makeup so much and she's very mature and organised. 'We're very proud of her and we will drive the car for now, to take her to makeup events and fashion shows. I'm sure that the first car she drives herself will be a Porshe.' Prince Charles once revealed he felt he had 'second-class appeal' at events when that he attended with then-wife Princess Diana. The comments were revealed in a new memoir by retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, published this week, who met the royal couple in Washington, D.C in 1985. Stevens recalled Diana was 'unforgettably beautiful' and 'the centre of attention', People magazine reported. He wrote in his new book 'The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years,' that Prince Charles, now 70, was well aware his popular wife overshadowed him. Prince Charles revealed in 1985 that he felt he had 'second-class appeal' at events to his then-wife Princess Diana. Pictured: The couple dancing in Melbourne during a royal tour of Australia in 1985 'Charles remarked about his second-class appeal whenever he and Diana were in joint attendance at similar events,' Stevens said. Stevens met the royal couple in 1985 while at a formal dinner at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He reveals that Diana was dazzling, and she caught the attention of the room. He said: 'Diana, an unforgettably beautiful and gracious woman, was the center of attention for one group of admirers after another.' Prince Charles, pictured with Diana on a visit to Bonn, Germany in 1987, admitted to feeling overshadowed by his then-wife Diana Stevens went on: 'I remember standing with Charles nearby as he remarked about his second-class appeal whenever he and Diana were in joint attendance at similar events.' In the same year, 24-year-old Diana caught headlines across the globe as she danced with handsome A-listers including John Travolta, Tom Selleck and Clint Eastwood at a White House gala. As Diana's profile rose, making headlines and drawing interest around the globe, Charles was eclipsed. Prince Charles revealed he was well aware of how dazzling Princess Diana, who caught hearts and headlines around the world Diana, was just 19 when she married 32 year old Prince Charles and was catapulted into the public spotlight. The Princess would go on to capture headlines and hearts of those around the globe, and was famously known as 'The People's Princess'. The couple, who were married for 15 years, went on to divorce in 1996, with the Princess tragically dying in a car crash a year later. It comes as it was revealed Princess Diana's older sister Lady Jane Fellowes was one of the first to meet Prince Harry's new son Archie, giving yet another indication of Harry's dedication to his mother's side of the family. Prince Charles and Princess Diana, pictured with sons Prince William and Prince Harry, went on to divorce in 1996 The revelation comes as Prince Harry invited Princess Diana's sister Lady Jane Fellowes to be one of the first to meet his new son with wife Meghan Markle According to The Telegraph, Lady Jane, 62, was one of the first to drop in to meet Baby Sussex last week, ahead of senior royals including Prince Charles, Camilla and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Prince Charles, who was away in Germany for the birth of his new grandson, is expected to meet Archie this week. Prince Harry has made clear that Diana has been on his mind since the birth of his son, and poignantly included her family in Archie's official birth announcement. The royal has remained particularly close to Princess Diana's family since her death, and invited Lady Jane to give a reading at the royal wedding last May. Meghan Markle's former stylist Jessica Mulroney has revealed her excitement over impending travel plans with her daughter, leading many to believe she may be travelling to London to meet baby Archie. The mother-of-three, from Toronto, is close friends with Meghan, 37, and is believed to be a front runner to become the royal baby's godmother. Jessica shared a snap of her daughter on Instagram, alongside the caption: 'Packing for our first mother/daughter trip and I'm screaming with excitement. Are matching shoes too much?'. Meghan and Prince Harry, 34, welcomed their first child, Archie Harrison, last Monday. Jessica Mulroney posted a picture to Instagram saying she was 'screaming with excitement' about an upcoming trip with her daughter. Many royal fans believe she could be due to fly to London and meet baby Archie Jessica, who is rumoured to be a front-runner to become the royal baby's godmother, is very close to Meghan, having met while she worked on the TV series Suits Jessica lives in Toronto and met Meghan when the then actress was filming Suits. Her three children were involved with the royal wedding, with her daughter Ivy acting as a bridesmaid. Meanwhile twin sons John and Brian, of whom Meghan is godmother, carried the Duchess of Sussex's train. Jessica would be among the select few who have met baby Archie so far, and one of Meghan's first friends to visit the new family. Meghan and Prince Harry welcomed the royal baby last Monday, and have recieved a steady stream of visitors since And today she sent royal fans into a frenzy when she shared a post to Instagram suggesting she was excited about an upcoming trip. Alongside a picture of her daughter Ivy sitting with a matching pair of adult and child-sized shoes, Jessica wrote: 'Packing for our first mother/daughter trip and I'm screaming with excitement.' She went on: 'Are matching shoes too much?' Royal fans were stunned and couldn't help but wonder if she was making her way to London. Jessica's children were part of the royal wedding alongside Kate Middleton's children. Her daughter Ivy, pictured, was a flower girl, while her twin sons carried Meghan's train A friend of Jessica's said: 'Will be a very special trip for both of you.' One excited fan added: 'Hope you're coming to London!', while another commented: 'Are you going to visit Archie?'. Elsewhere one royal fan commented: 'Perfect... oh those eyes. Are you going to visit Archie?' Another wrote: 'I hope to London to meet Archie.' Royal fans were left in a frenzy after the post as they believe Jessica hinted at visiting baby Archie Meghan and Harry welcomed their son Archie last Monday, and he has had a flurry of guests since. The little boy received a visit from Prince Harry's grandparents, the Queen and Prince Phillip, last week, alongside Meghan's mother Doria Ragland. Grandmother Doria has been staying with the family at Frogmore Cottage since before the birth. Meanwhile the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge finally met their nephew for the first time yesterday. Meghan and Jessica have been close friends for years since meeting while both lived in Toronto Prince Harry and Meghan are understood to have had a handful of visitors at Frogmore Cottage since the baby was born Princess Diana's older sister Lady Jane Fellowes was also among the first to meet baby Archie, according to reports. Appearing on Good Morning America on Monday, royal commentator Omid Scobie said: 'Archie's first week at home with mum and dad was quiet, they wanted that personal space with their newborn. 'This week it's all about the visitors, with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visiting tomorrow and the Prince of Wales visiting later this week.' As I finish running what looks like a chunky pair of straighteners through a section of my hair, I watch amazed, as a tight and glossy ringlet emerges. I take another section of hair and repeat the move, this time more quickly. The result is a looser, but still glossy, curl. Using the gadget at a different angle gives me a relaxed beachy wave, while flipping it upside down results in curls and waves that spiral in the opposite direction. Is this the holy grail? A styling tool thats finally made creating curls and waves as easy as straightening? Claire Coleman tested the new GHD Oracle curlers, pictured, which have been six years in the making and require customers to have a lesson in how to use them at a hair salon Thats certainly what GHD is hoping with this weeks launch of its latest creation, the GHD Oracle. It has been more than six years in the making and when, two years ago, I was invited to the GHD laboratories in Cambridge, sworn to secrecy and given a sneak peek at what was known as Project Goldilocks, I couldnt wait to get my hands on one. How the competitors stack up Cloud 9 The Curling Wand, 109, cloudninehair.com The Cloud 9 wand has three temperatures Temperatures of 125C, 150C and 175C, the length of time hair is on the barrel, and the angle that you wrap it at, gives different waves and curls. This is the method most hairstylists use as you can easily create the style that you want. But I still manage to burn a finger or an ear or my neck every time! Babyliss Curl Secret, 120, babyliss.co.uk The Babyliss curler creates tighter curls when a higher temperature is used Launched in 2013, this has been my go-to curler since then. It sucks up strands of hair into a chamber, and heats them at 180c, 200c or 230c. Higher temperatures and longer time settings make for tighter curls. Ive never had tangles, or hair caught, but other people have. Dyson Airwrap, from 399.99, dyson.co.uk This curler costs 399.99 and comes with several different barrel sizes Hair is wrapped around a barrel and dried into a curl at 150c. Different barrels give different sizes of curl, or curls that go clockwise or anticlockwise. The lower temperature means hair doesnt hold the curl for that long, and the air it blasts out can creates frizz and flyaway locks. A lot of money for gadget that doesnt seem that effective. Advertisement This is the company that, after launching its first straighteners in 2001, became almost single-handedly responsible for giving every woman between the ages of about 20 and 40 the sleek, swingy curtain of uber-flat hair that dominated the early noughties. Could GHD the name stands for Good Hair Day revolutionise curling and waving in the same way? Curling hair is technically a lot harder than straightening it, after all, and its not as if this GHDs first attempt. It has its own versions of all the wand and tong designs that have been around for decades (although usually each of these tools can make only one kind of curl). This, however, is the first time the Leeds-based brand has tried developing an entirely new technology. Babyliss, Dyson, Cloud Nine and many other retailers have tried to transform the market in curling tools, and as a curl-lover Ive tried them all with varying degrees of success. So far, nothing for curls has had the effortless impact, and the resulting ubiquity, of straightening irons. What makes this new gadget so special? While it looks like a wide pair of straightening irons, the plates inside are not flat. It looks more like a crimper, with a protruding spine on one side slotting into a U-shaped section on the other. Like straighteners, and most curling tools, its designed to be used on dry hair. The spine is the only bit that heats up to 185c, which GHD say creates a style but doesnt damage hair while the two outer bits that make up the U-section dont heat up at all. The company say the contrast in temperatures between the different plates is the clever bit that creates perfect curls. This means it heats hair to the optimum temperature and then sets the hair by crash-cooling it, with a temperature differential of over 100c, to ensure the style is set and that the curls last, says Steve Elstein, vice president of product development and research. I still cant quite understand how the curl is made. hair stylist Adam Reed, who worked on the development of the Oracle, explains. Do you remember when you were a kid and you used to use the blade of a knife or a pair of scissors to create a curl in a ribbon? Thats the same sort of principle, he says, as he deftly creates curls. He makes it look so easy, but Im worried. For years people have been telling me that straighteners can be used to create curls, but Ive never been able to master the technique. The company is clearly concerned that that might be the case. Because at the moment, you cant just go into a shop, or online, and buy one of these. You have to go to one of the more than 90 Rush (rush.co.uk) hair salons around the country, for a free tutorial in how to use it. When GHD first launched its straighteners, it was totally new to the UK market and you could only get it in salons because the company felt it was important that people were shown how to use them, says Adam. The same is true for the Oracle its versatile, but theres a knack. Claire, pictured, said she got the hang of making the same curl every time after some practice at her local salon She said the biggest difference was that you got a shine on each curl because it was clamped The idea is that you take a small section of hair the smaller the section the more curl you get and hold it up in the air, so that when you open the jaws of the styler, you can get them right to the root. Then you clamp down, rotate the styling head 90 degrees, and slowly slide it down the hair. The problem was that I couldnt get the same uniform curls every time. Sometimes they were perfect corkscrews, sometimes they were flat with a ringlet at the end, sometimes they were soft waves. But after practice and a revision session at my local salon Ive got the hang of it. Id been taking sections that were too large, and I also hadnt realised that whether you take a vertical or horizontal chunk of hair affects the result. The single biggest difference I found was that because the hair is clamped throughout, you get shine on a curl that Ive never seen with any other curling gadget (this is because it smooths the hair cuticle) and the variation in curls and waves it creates is a bonus. Claire said that she would get quicker with more practice, but that the product is not cheap But, as for creating a longer-lasting curl, that wasnt how it worked for me. Higher temperatures might damage hair more, but for me at least, thats what means my curls stay put the next day rather than dropping. Theres no doubt that as my technique improves, Ill get quicker, but having to curl smaller sections means that at the moment, it also takes longer than my usual method (the Babyliss Curl Secret see left). At 175, its not cheap, although less than half the price of Dysons offering, and on a par with a high end set of straighteners. Still, I have no doubt it will sell well like straighteners did in 2001. For people who want to get rid of tongs and wands in multiple sizes, and are looking for hair-friendly temperatures, what price a gadget that can create bouncy waves, ringlets or curls, without damaging your hair? One of my first memories is of having measles when I was four. I was so unwell I slept in my parents bed until the fever broke, Dad relegated to the settee while Mum lay awake, checking my temperature, stroking my hair and singing: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey. Whenever mum sang, I knew everything was going to be OK. Twenty-five years later, I sang the same song to my son as he lay in a hospital cot with suspected meningitis, with my mother humming the melody quietly beside me as we waited anxiously for the test results. Mum loved to sing, pop songs, hymns or just invented ditties about what we were going to have for tea. She couldnt hit a note, but her joy in music was something we shared, a language we both understood. Max Riddington, pictured with her son and mother in 1990, said how her musical bond with her mother became a lifeline after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2002 Years later, when she was diagnosed with Alzheimers, this bond became our lifeline a strange connection whose power I recalled, vividly, when I watched the recent BBC1 show Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure. Dad was a council worker and Mum a shop assistant, so there wasnt a lot of money or books at home, but we did have music. It came from a radio (always Radio 2) and from Saturday nights at the working mens club. Music guided Mum though some rough days. Her older sister, Barbara, was a schizophrenic at a time when mental health was rarely discussed. But Mum always took care of her. On her day off, shed go round to Barbaras flat to clean and make sure everything was OK. In the school holidays, I would tag along. As a child, I didnt understand my aunts moods, and Mum, sensing my reticence, would sing Onward Christian Soldiers as we marched vigorously in step to our destination. Id soon get lost in the rhythm and my fears would fade. When she was growing up Max's mother, pictured together, would always sing songs to her Mum had a special tin at the back of the cupboard where she kept her rainy day money. Every Friday pay day before she took off her coat, she would head for the cupboard and put whatever money she could inside. One summers day just before her 50th birthday, Mum summoned Dad and me into the lounge. Ive got something to tell you, she said. There was a new love in Mums life: a handsome, sleek radiogram she had secretly been saving for. Each time she used it, she would lift the lid with a magicians flourish to reveal the turntable and radio, as if for the first time. She even joined the library in the city centre, a bus ride away, after discovering you could borrow records there. Max, pictured, said that her mother became calmer, less agitated when music was played Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra were regular visitors in our house, along with Glenn Miller, a favourite from her youth. Mum would kick off her slippers and teach me to jive: her skirt billowing, me dizzy with excitement. Years later, we played Glenn Miller at my fathers funeral. He died suddenly from cancer, only a few months after Mum was diagnosed with Alzheimers. They had been married almost 60 years and she was in shock, unable to process what had happened and constantly asking where he was. As Glenn Millers In The Mood filled the church, Mum started singing along, a smile on her face as she remembered the 18-year-old young man she had met at the Palais de Dance in Leicester when she was just 16. I found my first love at 16, too. He was a student at Bristol University and we met on a family trip to the Norfolk Broads. Mum always described my boyfriend as a holiday romance until a flat, square parcel arrived on Valentines Day. Mum joked: Thats a funny bunch of flowers, while I unwrapped Roberta Flacks record, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. We listened to the song together, her eyes filling with tears. Max, pictured, cared for her mother at home after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and was there in her final moments Next time that boys back from university, bring him for my lamb stew, she said. Forty years later, we may no longer be romantically involved, but that boy and me are still the greatest of friends, and he always requests Mums stew when he comes for dinner. He was one of the first people I called when Mum was diagnosed. She had been making basic mistakes, such as forgetting what comes next when making a cup of tea and how to sign her name. I knew something wasnt right when she badly burned her hands on the oven, which she had happily cooked on for years. I took mum to the GP, who referred her to a memory clinic. After more tests and a brain scan, we had the devastating diagnosis that mum had Alzheimers. That was in September 2002. The following February, a day before his 77th birthday, my father died at home three weeks after discovering he had cancer. During this life-changing time, I remembered Mums words from decades before when we had discussed getting older and the inevitable: I want to die at home no ifs or buts. It was down to me to make sure her wish was fulfilled. I didnt know how I was going to make caring for Mum work. I was commuting to London, my marriage was falling apart and my son was doing GCSEs. But, having lost one parent, I was fiercely protective of the other. In the end, we were lucky. From 2003 until Mums death in 2010, she had a team of compassionate, skilled carers provided by the local authority. In addition, she had wonderful neighbours, an Age UK volunteer who visited every week and eventually an overnight carer. Max's father died three months after her mother's diagnosis and her mum sang along to Glenn Miller at his funeral and smiled as she remembered the young man she fell in love with Its true Mum forgot my name, the one shed insisted on giving me which is Maxine, although my dad called me Max from the start and it stuck. She had no idea where I lived, or what I did with my life. However, she visibly relaxed when I was with her, the lines around her mouth softening, her hands uncurling. She moved towards me as I kissed her, a spark illuminating the dullness in her eyes. Deep down, she still knew it was me. I was her only daughter and she was my mum, and not even Alzheimers could steal that truth from us. In 2010, after eight years with Alzheimers, Mum developed pneumonia and was clearly dying. I moved into her bungalow. I never imagined all those years ago, when we were belting out Tom Joness Delilah together in my bedroom, just how vital singing would become for Mum and me. She was always calmer, less agitated when music played. Id sing Lionel Richies Three Times A Lady to her because Dad used to. Mum wasnt one for classical music, but she did respond to Ludovico Einaudis beautiful piano music, and it was playing in the background at the moment of her very peaceful death. I held her hand, and told her she was, and always would be, my sunshine when skies are grey. While a mothers joy in her new baby is timeless, theres much about modern motherhood that previous generations would observe with bafflement. From gender-neutral baby clothes to organic mashed vegetables and even what a mothers circumstances are likely to be. Not least among these changes is the age at which women have their first child, which has been rising for decades with the average first-time mum now 30 years old. A startlingly high proportion are classified as geriatric mums by the NHS, meaning that they are over 35. Among them, of course, is the 37-year-old Duchess of Sussex, proud mother to ten-day-old Archie. As a sign of how times have changed, Meghans mother-in-law Diana was 20 when she had her first child Prince William, while the Queen was 22 when she had Prince Charles, her eldest. Four mothers, who had their babies in their late 30s or 40s, have revealed what its like to be an older mother. Pictured left to right is Sarah Pree with Marnie, Catherine O'Learly with Eden, Clare Hill with Grace and Rosie Phelps-Goggin who is 28-weeks pregnant with triplets And yet, with a 50 per cent increase in first babies born to women aged 40-plus, and women over 40 giving birth to more babies than those under 20 for the first time, the active, healthy and glowingly beautiful Meghan hardly fits the label geriatric. Dr Geetha Venkat, medical director of the Harley Street Fertility Clinic, says there is a good reason for this label. After this age, a womans ovarian reserve begins to decline, increasing the risks of pregnancy. These are compelling reasons why, medically, this is seen as a cut-off point. She believes the idolisation of celebrity mothers like Meghan, and others including actress Rachel Weisz who gave birth last year aged 48, has encouraged a generation to delay children. But while being older can increase risk in pregnancy, once the baby arrives an older mum may be able to give her child better outcomes. A UK study found older maternal age was associated with fewer hospital admissions and unintentional injuries for children up to age five perhaps because older mums are more confident, capable and ready for the stresses of parenting. So, whats life like for the geriatric mums who are, increasingly, the new normal for our society? We spoke to four women about their experiences... IM NOT TOO PROUD TO ASK FOR HELP Catherine OLeary, 37, is a client director and lives in Morden, South West London, with her husband Ryan, 38, and their sons Austin, two, and Eden, seven months. She says: Catherine O'Leary, 37, pictured with seven-month old son Eden, said she is in a better position financially to cope with living on maternity pay after saving up during her working years Looking around my once pristine home, now overtaken with baby paraphernalia, Im constantly amazed at how much my life has changed. But Ive never been happier. These days I think nothing of asking mums Ive just met about anything from the colour of babies poo to advice about breastfeeding and the best foods for weaning. I think being an older mum means Im happier to ask for help like when Im exhausted and I ask my mum Susan, 67, to mind the boys for an hour so I can sleep. Id advise Meghan to be the same. Theres no point having an ego when it comes to mothering. It wasnt my plan to be a geriatric mother my husband and I started trying for a baby when I was 30. But I lost our first at 11 weeks in 2013, and was crushed. Then month after month went past with no positive test. In 2015, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries and told I wasnt ovulating every month. I was prescribed Clomid, a drug which stimulates ovulation, and five months later conceived Austin, who was born in July 2016. When he was a year old, I started to take Clomid again. Ryan and I desperately wanted a second baby, and Eden was born in September 2018. Those years of unexplained infertility were incredibly hard, but Ive accepted I just wasnt meant to have my babies younger. Ive taken two maternity leaves in quick succession ten months with Austin and Im planning to be off for a year with Eden. Im lucky that my company is very supportive and runs sessions to help parents transition back to work. I dont feel taking time to have my babies will hinder my career, if anything its given me a boost. Im also in a better position financially to cope with living on maternity pay, thanks to savings I stored up in my childless years. Having time to progress our careers before children has meant Ryan and I have a good income to give the boys the best lifestyle we can. Geriatric mother is a term I cant relate to and I doubt Meghan can either. It conjures up images of women debilitated by pregnancy and babies. Maybe it was more relevant in the past, but not now. PEOPLE ASK IF SHE WAS A MISTAKE Sarah Pree, 44, is a full-time mum from Horsmonden, Kent. She and fiance Colin, 45, have daughter Marnie, one. Sarah Pree, 44, pictured with one-year-old Marnie, said the biggest surprise since becoming an older mother is how quick people are to comment about her decision to have a baby Before I met Colin in 2014, I was sure my baby days were behind me. My son and daughter from a previous marriage were teenagers. But I felt an overwhelming desire to have another child with him, particularly because he didnt have children. I was 42 but felt reasonably confident Id be able to conceive naturally. Id never had any fertility problems. I was aware I had a higher risk of miscarriage and having a child with a chromosomal condition. Like a lot of women though, I just thought Itll never happen to me. Sadly, it did. I lost our first baby 11 weeks into pregnancy and was devastated. Within two months I was pregnant again. I felt a great sense of relief at the 12-week mark. But as the sonographer studied the screen at our scan, I had a sinking feeling that something was wrong. WHO KNEW? The number of mothers over 40 has tripled since the 1980s one in 25 of all UK births are now to a mother over 40. Advertisement Our baby was diagnosed with Downs Syndrome a week later, after I opted to have invasive testing. I was devastated, but termination was never an option I loved this child already. I had a normal delivery at 39 weeks in March 2018. Holding Marnie after her birth, I felt overwhelmed with love. To me, she was perfect. A year on shes just like any other child. We spend our days like any other mum and baby, going to music classes, walking with the pram and having fun. I know shell be my last child, so I cherish every moment with her, probably more than with my elder children. I also have more patience now! I know its likely that Marnie will have developmental delays, but were prepared for that. Im planning to take her to a specialist speech group soon. But Ive leaned that theres still stigma around Downs syndrome. I was left speechless when someone looked at Marnie in her pram and said what a shame. No one has ever openly linked my age to Marnies condition, but the biggest surprise since becoming an older mother is how quick people are to comment about my decision to have a baby. Ive been asked by close friends was Marnie a mistake, and told several times I was mad to have had a baby at my age. I just ignore those comments. I dont want to be pitied, theres nothing about Marnie Id change, and thankfully attitudes to Downs syndrome are improving. Im very active on social media and often get messages telling me Ive changed someones perception of Downs syndrome with my positive messages. My younger self wouldve felt anxious raising a child with special needs, but Ive learned to take things one day at a time. I hope Meghan feels that confidence, too. I do think its one of the advantages of being an older mother that you have the maturity to trust your instincts. I was told Id never conceive naturally... so when the doctor told me I was expecting triplets I was dumbfounded Rosie Phelps-Goggin, 40, has a three-year-old daughter and is expecting naturally conceived triplets Rosie Phelps-Goggin, 40, is a marketing director. She lives in Somerset with husband Brad, 44, a pilot, daughter Gabriella, three, and is pregnant with triplets. She says: For years, I had a deep fear of childbirth. My doctor told me if I wanted children to frankly get on with it but it was only when I hit my mid-30s that I felt ready. After university I served in the military, spending time in Iraq and Afghanistan, then ran my own company. When we did start trying, I had two early miscarriages, which were devastating. I felt like I had failed, and of course I wondered if Id tried earlier, would I have saved myself such heartache? I had my daughter Gabriella at 37. The first six weeks of her life were the hardest the constant worry I wasnt doing things the right way. However, as she began to sleep better I got more rest, and suddenly everything felt easier. After her birth I developed such severe endometriosis I was told Id never conceive naturally again. We were just about to start IVF when I discovered I was pregnant. Then, at our first scan, the sonographer said, Its not one baby its three. I was dumbfounded. To naturally conceive triplets at 40 seemed nothing less than a miracle! Older mothers have a higher chance of multiple births because our ovaries can release more than one egg per cycle, but in my case one egg split into two, then one half split again. So the babies, who are girls, are identical. It means my age had nothing to do with it, it was just a fluke of nature. A 200-million-to-one chance, according to my doctors. I just cant wait until theyre in my arms and although we only planned to have two children, I feel so blessed that Im going to have four. Still, if being pregnant at 37 was tiring, its exhausting at 40, and I know it will take my body longer to recover this time. Weve hired a nanny from Norland College, where Kate and Williams nanny was trained, to help us cope when they first come home. If my daughters wait until my age to have their own families, it means I probably wont have long with my grandchildren, which makes me sad. That said, having children later in life means Ive had time to focus on myself and my career, and Im ready to pour energy into them. Im sure Meghan and Harry would like a sibling for their baby, and my advice would be dont delay. It only gets harder as you get older! Advertisement IVE HAD PLENTY OF TIME FOR MY CAREER Clare Hill, 36, is a finance consultant. She lives in East Sheen, London, with her husband Gavin, 38, a chief financial officer, and six-month-old daughter Grace. She says: Claire Hill, 36, said some moments with her baby Grace have been tough but that she believes being an older mother makes her more patient and devoted to her needs Gavin and I have been together for ten years, but I wasnt in a hurry to start a family. It felt natural to wait until my mid-30s thats the norm in my social and professional circles. The women I know want to focus on their careers, finances and travel before becoming mothers. Seeing older friends get pregnant meant I never panicked about my fertility. Once I turned 35, I felt ready and became pregnant in 2017. However, at 12 weeks I miscarried. We tried again and in January 2018 found out I was expecting Grace. I was surprised when, at an early antenatal appointment, the midwife told me my age was considered a risk factor. It seemed a bit silly if Im honest, 36 is hardly ancient! It feels like a very out-of-touch description to me. I had an easy pregnancy, which I attribute to years of running and yoga. Although I stopped both once I became pregnant, as I was quite anxious following my miscarriage. But my body coped really well. Meghan looked glowing after giving birth and Im sure her very healthy lifestyle has really helped her. Needless to say, were besotted with Grace and I believe being older makes me more patient and devoted to her needs. Im content having my life revolve around hers, I dont resent having less time for myself and I attribute that to being an older mum. Motherhood can be so restrictive, but Ive had plenty of time for me now its time for her. Thats not to say there havent been some tough moments. No one can prepare you for the crippling exhaustion of those early weeks. Meghan is in the thick of that now. But its wonderful, too I felt such incredible, pride introducing Grace to everyone. Something Ive learned is how invaluable mum friends are. Meghan should seek out other new mums, especially of a similar age, because that solidarity is really important. Some of my friends have older children starting primary school, but a few have babies closer in age to Grace and that breadth of experience and knowledge is invaluable, especially as my mum isnt around to help me. I hope Meghan can still have that normal experience of motherhood, despite her position. Billionaire Australian pub baron Justin Hemmes has announced he will be offering half-price drinks across all of his Sydney bars for the month of June. Those keen to indulge at any one of Mr Hemmes' 39 establishments can enjoy an extended happy hour which runs between 5-7pm each night. The 49 per cent off deal applies to cocktails, spirits, beer, wine and champagne and is available across all Sydney locations. 'Sydney is the best city in the world when everyone is out having a great time. This is our way of saying: "It may be the end of the financial year but it's just the beginning of the party",' Mr Hemmes said. Cheers to that! Pub magnate Justin Hemmes has announced he will be offering half price drinks for the month of June Those keen to indulge in a tipple at any one of Mr Hemmes' hip establishments can visit between 5-7pm each night to enjoy the extended happy hour Patrons keen to take up the offer should listen out for specially selected tracks which are played to mark when happy hour starts. Last year Dolly Parton's 'Nine to Five' rang out across establishments on weekdays and James Brown's 'I Feel Good' played to patrons on weekends. This year's tracks are yet to be revealed with the Merivale group stating they want to 'keep it a surprise' until June 1. This stunning gin cocktail (pictured) is just one of the many offerings patrons can indulge in as part of the deal For two hours drinks will be 49 per cent off. This is the maximum discount allowed by regulators for alcohol. The offer is available on drink orders to the value of $200. 'Last year, we launched 49 per cent off to say thank you to Sydney and give our guests even more reason to enjoy everything the city has to offer,' Mr Hemmes said. 'Sydney loved it and so did we, so much that this year we're doing it again.' Justine Hemmes (pictured) has recently earned a spot on Australia's rich list with an estimated fortune of $1.05billion Those wishing to enjoy a glorious view and delicious half-price drinks can do so across 39 locations including the Coogee Rooftop Bar (pictured) Which bars are offering great deals? Ash St Cellar: A glass of 2017 Mas Que Vino 'Ercavio Joven' La Mancha, Spain (tempranillo) for $6.63 Tank Stream Bar: A glass of prosecco for $5.61 El Loco: Margaritas $8 Coogee Pavilion: Aperol spritzes for $8.76 The Paddington Bar: Veuve Clicquot champagne for $81.60 Advertisement Mr Hemmes' offer will include margaritas at El Loco for $8 and Aperol Spritzes at the Coogee Pavilion for $8.76. Tank Steam Bar is offering a glass of prosecco for $5.61 while wine aficionados can enjoy a glass of 2017 Mas Que Vino 'Ercavio Joven' La Mancha for $6.63. The CEO of the group said the celebratory month also comes with a theme: 'Just because'. 'Just because you've been working hard. Just because it's June, and winter doesn't mean we can't have fun. Just because you've made it through Monday, or your couch needs a break. 'Whatever it may be, there's always an excuse to get out and experience our city,' Mr Hemmes said. The celebratory month of cheap drinks also comes with a special theme: 'Just because' The extensive list of bars taking part also includes Sydney party favourite El Loco (pictured) Justin Hemmes, a 45-year-old father-of-two has recently broken into the 'billion-dollar club. He is understood have amassed a $1.05 billion fortune via his 89 properties which include popular Sydney venues The Ivy, Coogee Pavilion and The Newport Arms. His massive earnings have also seen him land 89th place on this year's rich list. Sitting at the top of this list is Anthony Pratt and family with a $13.14b fortune while the 250th position is held by Michael Gregg with investment earnings of $320m. Chef Tom Kerridge has reignited the 'cream or jam first' debate just in time for summer. The Michelin-starred chef, who owns celebrated gastro-pub The Hand and Flowers, has re-lit the touch paper on an argument that has garnered opinion from a host of celebrities including the doyenne of baking Mary Berry. Kerridge, who famously shed 12 stone after turning to healthy eating, piped up on Twitter that it was 'bonkers' to suggest that the jam should be spread on a scone before the cream. Scroll down for video Brave man: Chef Tom Kerridge, who's been in the US in recent weeks, waded into the cream vs scone debate on Twitter saying he was a '#creamfirst' man Comedy star Dawn French, a passionate advocate for a layer of jam beneath a layer of cream on the traditional afternoon tea leapt in, writing: '#jamfirst. Always. Come to the light, darlin' The chef wrote: 'Youre bonkers mate.... its definitely cream first, and a truckload of it!! #creamfirst' He was responding to comedian Dawn French, a passionate advocate of the Cornish way, which is to put jam on first. She had written: 'Of course you are at liberty to stack your scone with the cream first, should you prefer....just as you are at liberty to lick Satans bum. Your choice. If it were me, Id do it the RIGHT way... #jamfirst. Always. Come to the light, darlin.' Last summer, it appeared Mary Berry had defused the debate by saying it was possible to be in camp 'Devon' or 'Cornwall'. Mary, 84, offered a third option to lovers of afternoon tea - but Kerridge remains resolute that jam first is the only way, saying the cream would 'slide off' if it had to sit on a layer of jam. The cook, oft-described as the 'queen of baking', controversially said that she puts jam first, and then clotted cream in the Cornish style on one side of her scone, and then cream followed by jam on the other side, as Devonshire dwellers do. It came after Philip Schofield, who grew up in Cornwall, proved how fierce the debate was after he was criticised for a snap where he is enjoying scones that have jam on top of the cream in the Devon style. Mary Berry (pictured at the Cath Kidston Largest Cream Tea Party in 2018) often wades into intense baking debates and last year offered her verdict on the jam or cream first on a scone, saying both! Last year's cake war: Daytime TV host Philip Schofield was criticised for enjoying some scones in the Devon style with cream on the bottom followed by jam (left), despite growing up in Cornwall The host of This Morning committed the faux pas after uploading a picture to Instagram in support of Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital for the NHS's 70th anniversary. He received an angry backlash from fans who accused him of forgetting his Cornish roots. Kay Gough wrote: 'I thought you're supposed to be a Cornish boy! Sort it out. Jam first. The proper Cornish way!' The daytime TV host enjoyed some in the traditional Cornish fashion however with jam first, and cream on top. Usually, afternoon tea fans have a Marmite-esque attitude when it comes to putting jam or cream first on a scone, and never switch between the two. But Mary Berry is offering a peaceful solution to the issue which divides Britain, which could solve tensions between the southwestern counties of Devon and Cornwall once and for all. Jam first or cream? Cornish cream tea lovers put jam first on their scones, while in Devon, it is only acceptable to spread the cream first before jam Mary told Country Living as she hosted the Cath Kidston World's Largest Cream Tea Party at Alexandra Palace in north London last weekend that she opts for the diplomatic approach to garnishing scones as she is 'fairly neutral' about most things in life. The 83-year-old added that the reason for her unusual application of cream and jam is so she doesn't 'upset anyone in either Devon or Cornwall'. DOES SCONE RHYME WITH 'GONE' OR 'CONE'? A 2016 YouGov poll stated the key to answer was all down to where you grew up. Those who rhyme the word with gone predominantly live in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North of England, whereas those who pronounce it like cone are found in Southern Ireland, London and the Midlands. Advertisement However she hasn't always sat on the fence with her opinions on scones. Last year, she told Varsity magazine that she prefers to spread jam on her scone before cream. But she also added that afternoon tea fans should 'do what they want' - and clearly, she has come around to the Devon way of thinking in the last 12 months. Mary also revealed that the perfect scone must be made on the day it is eaten, and needs a 'wet mixture' to rise properly. She said: 'Often when children make them at school, they are handling it so much and it's usually rather dry so they don't get a good result. 'Scones should be a wet mixture that sticks to your hands and then handled very little before it's cut out and then it wants to be baked at a high temperature for a fairly short time.' In May, Mary also reignited the debate about how to pronounce 'scone' on her show, Britain's Best Home Cook. The cooking doyenne said that the word must rhyme with 'gone' and not 'cone'. Men who have sex with men should be getting the equivalent of an 'anal Pap' smear, some doctors are advising. Rates of anal cancer are on the rise, as is HPV, a common sexually transmitted infection that can cause both cervical and anal cancers. Women are supposed to get a Pap smear to check for abnormalities in the cervix every year. A similar test for precancerous lesions in the anus - called anal cytology - is available, but not widely used, in spite of the fact that HIV positive men and women and men who have sex with men (MSM) are at the highest risks anal cancer. But some doctors say it should be, and are testing whether early - if uncomfortable - swabs can help curb the exploding rates of anal cancer in the US. Doctors are testing how effectively 'anal Pap smears' - really called anal cytology - can detect precancerous lesions and reduce the risk of anal cancer in men who have sex with men Anal cancer is still considered rare, but it's a growing concern. Across Western countries, rates of the disease have climbed by 2.2 percent each year. That may not seem steep, but every year another 8,300 men and women are diagnosed with the cancer - and 1,280 die of the disease. The most talked-about STI of the last several years, HPV, may be to blame. And some suggest that increases in the number of people - among all genders and sexual orientations - are to blame. In 2017, a SKYN Condoms survey found that over a third of millennials engage in female anal sex and 15 percent engage in male anal sex. Anal sex puts everyone - but especially the 'bottom' partner - at greater risk of STI transmission than other forms of sex do. This is because the lining of the anus is relatively thin and more easily damaged than, say, the vaginal lining. Damage to the tissue leaves it vulnerable for bacteria and viruses, including HPV and HIV, to slip in and infect that person. This is particularly dangerous for people who are already HIV positive, and can in turn raise their risks for anal cancer. 'The main reason is that a high proportion of people in the general population who are sexually active get exposed to HPV at some point' - roughly 80 percent of people, over the course of their lifetimes - 'but, for most, the immune system controls the infection very well,' explains Dr Joel Palefsky, chair of the HPV Working Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). 'But those who are immunocompromised have more difficulty clearing the virus, and persistent infection is a major risk factor for developing these lesions and cancers.' HPV can cause precancerous lesions in the cervix or anus, and Dr Palefsky and his lab at UCSF want to test for and treat them in the anuses of high risk populations. No one - including Dr Palefsky - is suggesting that everyone start getting 'anal Pap smears,' but the screening isn't currently recommended for everyone, though the UCSF team thinks that maybe it should be. WHAT IS HPV? THE INFECTION LINKED TO 99% OF CERVICAL CANCER AND 91% OF ANAL CANCER CASES Up to eight out of 10 people will be infected with HPV in their lives Human papilloma virus (HPV) is the name for a group of viruses that affect your skin and the moist membranes lining your body. Spread through vaginal, anal and oral sex and skin-to-skin contact between genitals, it is extremely common. Up to eight out of 10 people will be infected with the virus at some point in their lives. There are more than 100 types of HPV. Around 30 of which can affect the genital area. Genital HPV infections are common and highly contagious. Many people never show symptoms, as they can arise years after infection, and the majority of cases go away without treatment. It can lead to genital warts, and is also known to cause cervical cancer by creating an abnormal tissue growth. Annually, an average of 38,000 cases of HPV-related cancers are diagnosed in the US, 3,100 cases of cervical cancer in the UK and around 2,000 other cancers in men. HPV can also cause cancers of the throat, neck, tongue, tonsils, vulva, vagina, penis or anus. It can take years for cancer to develop. Advertisement 'It's not considered standard of care yet in any of those groups and the main reason is that professional bodies that make these standard of care guidelines want to see evidence that treatments of cancer precursors have the intended consequence of reducing the risk of anal cancer,' he explains. Through their ANCHOR study, which is investigating smear testing for precancerous lesions and treating them, the UCSF team is trying to provide that evidence, as well as treat these lesions. 'When you find and treat high-grade cervical lesions by removing them, it dramatically reduces the risk of cancer,' Dr Palefsky says. 'We're hoping the same is true for anal cancer...and if the study shows that it reduces the chance of anal cancer, anal cytology will become a more routine part of care for people who are at risk.' The ANCHOR study only enrolls people with high grade precancerous lesions, but in the process of screening HIV positive men and women to see if they qualify for the study, Dr Palefsky says his team finds 'a lot, as expected' of high grade disease. In fact, he estimates that about half of the HIV positive men he's seen and a third of HIV positive women have lesions, which the 'anal Pap' (a colloquial but incorrect nickname for anal cytology) can tip doctors off to. However, anal cytology is more difficult to perform, very few people are trained to do it, and treating anal lesions is more complicated and potentially less efficient at preventing cancer compared to the removal of cervical lesions. 'Data collected from other studies suggests that one treatment can remove lesions about 70 percent of the time in one go, but some lesions require several treatments and another issue is the development of new lesions,' Dr Palefsky says. 'From a numbers point of view, let's say we're only able to prevent 10 percent of cancers, compared to [cancer rates in] people being followed without treatment - the costs and discomfort may not be worthwhile, and treatment is a cost-benefit decision.' The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 93 percent of cervical cancers could be prevented by screening for HPV and vaccination. Currently, the HPV vaccine is recommended for boys and girls at age 11 and 12. Anal cytology could be the missing piece to preventing anal cancers. 'What we're hoping for is that we can prevent anal cancer at similar rates to the way we're able to prevent cervical cancer,' says Dr Palefsky. A mother has shared the emotional turmoil of watching one of her twins thrive after being given a new heart while the other remains chronically ill waiting on the transplant list. Mila Costa's identical two year olds, Benjamin and Enzo, suffer from the same deadly heart deformity, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Doctors put the boys on the top of the transplant list, with their hearts failing rapidly, working at less than 20 per cent. After waiting an agonising 15 months in the transplant queue, everything changed for one of the twins in March this year. A new heart became available, and in a traumatic turn of events, Benjamin, who has the weaker heart, fell ill and was not able to undergo surgery. Instead, doctors gave Enzo a new heart on May 9, and Mrs Costa and her husband David, both 35, were ecstatic to see him bounce back to life almost immediately after the procedure. But the celebration has been bittersweet, as they watch Benjamin continue to deteriorate waiting for a compatible organ. With no cure for the defect, which can cause heart failure, the only solution is a compatible heart from another baby the same height and weight who has died. Mila Costa, pictured while pregnant, found out her identical two year olds, Benjamin and Enzo Costa, suffer from the same deadly heart deformity, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) After waiting an agonising 15 months in the transplant queue, everything changed for one of the twins in March this year when a new heart became available. Pictured together, Enzo on the left and Benjamin in the right Doctors gave Enzo, pictured, a new heart, and Mrs Costa and her husband David, both 35, were ecstatic to see him bounce back to life almost immediately after the procedure The twins, who were born healthy in March 2017, pictured, were diagnosed aged eight months DCM causes the heart's main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, to become stretched and weakened, therefore unable to push blood effectively around the body. Inherited DCM is caused by a change or mutation in one or more genes. If you have DCM, there is a 50 per cent chance that your child will inherit the condition. But it can also be caused by viral infections, uncontrolled high blood pressure and excessive amounts of alcohol The condition affects people of all ages, including infants and children, but is most common in men ages 20 to 50, according to the Mayo Clinic. WHAT IS DILATED CARDIOMYOPATHY? Dilated cardiomyopathy is one type of cardiomyopathy disease, a disease of the heart muscle that affects its size, shape and structure. The condition is usually inherited. All three main types of cardiomyopathy are: Hypertrophic - heart wall is thickened - heart wall is thickened Dilated - heart muscle becomes stretched and thin - heart muscle becomes stretched and thin Arrhythmogenic right ventricular - heart muscle cells cannot be kept together All of these types of cardiomyopathy affect the heart's ability to pump blood around the body efficiently. They can also impact the way electrical signals make the organ beat. There is no cure, however, in most cases people's quality or length of life is unaffected. Therapies may include medication, treatment to normalise heart rhythm, pacemakers and, in rare cases, heart surgery or transplants. Dilated cardiomyopathy If you have DCM, the left ventricle of your heart becomes dilated (stretched or 'baggy'). As a result, the heart muscle becomes weak, thin or floppy and is unable to pump blood around the body efficiently. DCM is a common form of cardiomyopathy and research has shown that with proper treatment and follow-up, most people with the condition live a normal life. However, because there is a very small risk of getting a life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm, a small proportion of people with DCM are at risk of sudden cardiac death. Source: British Heart Foundation Advertisement Studies suggest that around one in 2,500 people have DCM, although this may be an underestimate, according to Cardiomyopathy UK. It's the first time doctors in Brazil, where the family are from, have reportedly dealt with a case like this, as they say it's rare for babies - and even rarer, twins - to have the condition. Physicians at the National Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo have been battling to keep the boys alive and stable with medication. The twins, who were born healthy in March 2017, were diagnosed at eight months old when their Mrs Costa noticed they had breathing difficulties, reduced appetites and were gaining weight. Mrs Costa said: 'It started with Benjamin getting tired really easily and struggling to breathe after playing. We thought he had the flu so we took him for a check-up.' She was shocked by her doctor's reaction. Mrs Costa said: 'He told me, "We need to get your child to a hospital immediately because he is dying".' The family put Enzo through the same tests and discovered, to their horror, that he had the same disorder. The boys continued to be active and playful but their health rapidly deteriorated. In desperation the family moved 1,450 miles (2,333km) from their home town Imperatriz in Maranhao, north east Brazil, to live closer to InCor hospital in the south east of the country. In December 2017, the brothers were catapulted to the top of the waiting list for paediatric heart transplant. Doctors, carrying out a battery of tests to discover how they contracted the disease, found they also carried a de novo gene mutation - one that is present for the first time in one family member. The genetic variation, apparently never detected before in Brazil's population, is currently undergoing long term scientific research to discover what the variation and physiology means. It's the first time doctors in Brazil, where the family are from, have dealt with a case like this, as they say it's extremely rare for babies - and even rarer, twins - to have the condition. Pictured, a scan from when they were in the womb The celebration of Enzo's new heart has been bittersweet, as Mr and Mrs Costa watch Benjamin continue to deteriorate waiting. Pictured, the family together Mrs Costa noticed her sons had shortness of breath, a loss of appetite and weight gain. It is unclear when this photo was taken - Enzo is on the left and Benjamin on the right The chances of finding a donor is especially slim for children in the South American country since organ size matters for liver, heart, and lung transplantation and there are not many deaths in younger children that are of the right match in size. Mrs Costa got a phonecall on March 7, while Mr Costa was away, to say that there was a possible donor after a tragic road accident in Goiania, some 600 miles (957km) from Sao Paulo, claimed the life of a 19 months old boy. In the midst of their grief following the car crash, the bereaved family agreed to donate their baby's organs, becoming one of the few in the country to do so. Mrs Costa said: 'I was immediately overwhelmed with a mixture of sadness, concern, worry and elation. 'There was absolute terror knowing this was a chance for one twin tinged with anxiety that we could lose him during the long and risky operation; fear that our other twin's health would get far worse as he continued to suffer and wait for a donor; sadness that it had taken the life of another to give us so much hope and elation that we were being given this generous chance. 'As a mother, it would have been impossible for me to choose which one of my children should be given the heart.' Thankfully, the doctors made the crucial decision for her the next day. Benjamin, who was born first, was at the top of the waiting list with his heart failing fast and registering 11 per cent function. Enzo's was at 18 per cent. But on the day the donor heart became available, Benjamin became sick with a viral infection which increased the risk of complications arising during surgery. It meant Enzo, who was second in line, took his place. After an eight hour operation, the transplanted heart was a success. It started beating on its own the moment they replaced Enzo's sick and swollen one. Pictured, after the op A video shows the touching moment, the adorable twins were reunited after being separated for nearly two months following the critical surgery Mrs Costa said: 'Neither of my sons are interchangeable so which ever one went first could only be seen as a blessing. 'Doctors said Enzo stood a better chance and I trusted their decision. I kissed and hugged him and told the medical team "take care of child, my joy, and don't forget I'm going to have to go through this again". 'I made the sign of the cross on his forehead and asked the doctors to return him to me alive.' After an eight hour operation, surgeons reported that the transplanted heart was a success. It started beating on its own the moment they replaced Enzo's sick and swollen one. And there was no need for artificial stimulation or medical intervention. According to paediatric heart surgeon Luiz Fernando Caneo, the cardiopulmonary bypass pump, which temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery, was turned off and the new organ immediately generated enough pressure for the blood to circulate throughout the body. 'It was as if the heart was made especially for Enzo,' he said. Although the child suffered a temporary setback last month when he contracted an infection, he was discharged last week once surgeons were satisfied the heart was not being rejected. Mrs Costa said: 'Enzo's body has adapted to his heart. He walks, plays and eats almost like a normal child. 'Before he used to be very pallid now he has a rosier colour. He's put on some weight. It's like he has been born again.' It's been hard for his brother, Benjamin. A family video made at the end of last month shows the touching moment, the adorable twins were reunited after being separated for nearly two months following the critical surgery. Benjamin is on medication to prevent his heart from suffering ventricular fibrillation a life-threatening cardiac disturbance that causes fast chaotic heart rhythms. Mrs Costa said: 'Ben's heart is very weak. A sudden fright or a strain on it from catching a cold or the flu could be fatal. He is only being kept alive by controlled doses of medication. 'But I believe that these crises in life are not sent to destroy us but to make us stronger and Ben's chance of a new and healthier life will come in time.' A care home worker has saved his fiancee's life by giving her one of his kidneys. Geraldine Chingosho, 22, was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease soon after meeting Aldo Cataldi in 2017. The trainee nurse told him they shouldn't pursue a relationship because she'd be in and out of hospital and 'didn't think it was fair to lumber him with a sick person'. But Mr Cataldi stuck by her - and when relatives turned out to be incompatible donors, he came up as a perfect match. Geraldine Chingosho, 22 with her fiance and kidney donor, Aldo Cataldi, 27, after the transplant Ms Chingosho was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in May 2017, just as she started dating Mr Cataldi Ms Chingosho, from Leicester, said: 'I never would have ever asked or expected my fiance to give me his kidney. 'I was completely stunned to find that we were even a match. Aldo has saved my life and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him.' Chronic kidney disease (CKD), also called chronic kidney failure, describes the gradual loss of kidney function. Kidneys filter out waste products and excess fluids from the blood before they are excreted through urine. They also help maintain blood pressure. The couple moments before their kidney transplant at Leicester General Hospital in February Mr Cataldi wakes up in the hospital after having his kidney removed. The care home worker demanded to be tested and said it was a 'no-brainer' to go through with the operation Ms Chingosho's scars following the surgery that saw doctors cut her open and connect the organ to her blood vessels and bladder As CKD advances, the kidneys do not function properly and dangerous levels of waste build up in the body. CKD does not usually cause any symptoms until it has reached an advanced stage. It can be detected early on via blood and urine tests. WHAT IS CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE AND HOW CAN YOU SPOT IT? Chronic kidney disease (CKD), also called chronic kidney failure, describes the gradual loss of kidney function. Our kidneys filter out waste products and excess fluids from the blood before they are excreted through urine. They also help maintain blood pressure. As CKD advances, the kidneys do not function properly and dangerous levels of waste build up in your body. The risk of CKD increases as you age. CKD does not usually cause any symptoms until it has reached an advanced stage. It can be detected early on via blood and urine tests. Symptoms include: Nausea Vomiting Loss of appetite Fatigue and weakness Sleep problems Changes in how much you urinate Decreased mental sharpness Muscle twitches and cramps Swelling of feet and ankles Persistent itching Chest pain, if fluid builds up around the lining of the heart Shortness of breath, if fluid builds up in the lungs High blood pressure that is difficult to control Those with the condition have a greater risk of having a stroke or heart attack. It can also cause kidney failure, when sufferers will need to have dialysis or a possible transplant. However, lifestyle changes and medication can stop the disease from getting worse if it is diagnosed at an early stage. To reduce your risk: Follow instructions for over-the-counter medications. Taking too many pain relievers can lead to kidney damage Maintain a healthy weight Don't smoke. Smoking cigarettes can cause kidney damage Source: Mayo Clinic Advertisement Mr Cataldi, also a nurse, added: 'Donating my kidney to my fiance was such a normal thing for me to do - I didn't really think about it. 'The most important thing is she'll feel better and have a better quality of life. I didn't do it for the spotlight or anything - but because it was the right thing to do.' The pair met in January 2017 while both working at a care home. Their first date came just days after she was diagnosed with the disease in May 2017. Ms Chingosho said: 'I told Aldo that he should leave me and that we shouldn't pursue a relationship because I'd be in and out of hospital. 'I didn't think it would be fair on him to be lumbered with a sick person. 'But he told me it didn't matter that I was ill and that he would be there for me no matter what. 'It was really early days and we weren't even boyfriend and girlfriend at the time.' Ms Chingosho was told her kidney function had plummeted to just 20 per cent. She needed daily dialysis, meaning she was in and out of hospital. She said: 'He would come from work after a 12 and a half hour shift in the hospital and bring me food. 'He'd help me get dressed and would speak to the doctors to find out exactly what was going on. 'He was superman - my own superhero - while I was poorly. 'He took care of me and my whole dialysis regime. He basically became my carer.' Doctors later told the trainee nurse she would need a kidney transplant as her organ was on the verge of failing. Ms Chingosho's family members were tested to see if they were a match in early 2018 - but they were all incompatible. She said: 'I was really panicking. I felt suicidal and was suffering from depression. It was a lot to deal with. Aldo said he wanted to get tested. 'I told him, "But you're a white Italian. You're not going to be a match. We're different ethnicities". 'But he wouldn't give in. He kept saying, "Just let me get tested".' While waiting for the results, the couple went to Portugal on holiday to celebrate her birthday. He proposed on an empty beach while on a private boat trip on July 31, 2018. Later that day they found out he was a match and was given the go ahead to donate his kidney. Chingosho (after the surgery) told her fiance they shouldn't pursue a relationship because she'd be in and out of hospital and 'didn't think it was fair to lumber him with a sick person' The trainee nurse said: 'Aldo has saved my life and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him' 'He received the news over the phone while I was sleeping and woke me up in tears,' she added. 'He kept saying, "I'm a match". I told him, "You're lying, it's impossible, you can't be". 'We were both in complete shock but we were over-the-moon. It was like all my birthdays had come at once.' The pair underwent the kidney transplant on February 21 this year at University of Leicester Hospital. Heart-warming footage has captured the moment a grandmother took her first unaided steps in three years. Karen Scott was born with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a crippling condition which left her confined to a neck brace and wheelchair. However, the 51-year-old wasn't diagnosed until June 2018, with doctors believing she had chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME. For 30 years the married mother-of-two battled symptoms which forced to retire from her job as a finance director in 2016 aged 48. The condition left her spine so weak she could hardly hold her head up, feeling as though she had a 'bowling ball head on a paper straw neck'. After speaking to someone at a wedding with EDS, she realised her symptoms were similar, and, after seeing a specialist in London, was diagnosed in June 2018. Mrs Scott, from Hartfield, East Sussex, can now walk again after paying 100,000 for an eight-hour operation in Spain to strengthen her spine using two titanium rods. Heart-warming footage shows the moment Karen Scott, 51, took her first unaided steps in years after a rare condition left her with a 'bowling ball head on a paper straw neck' Mrs Scott, 51, from Hartfield, East Sussex, was born with debilitating disease Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which has left her using a wheelchair and other walking aids for three years The condition left her spine so weak she could hardly hold her head up. Thanks to 100,000 trip to Barcelona, Spain, for a pioneering eight hour operation in which doctors strengthened her spine using two titanium rods, Mrs Scott can walk again unaided. Pictured, after WHAT IS EHLERS -DANLOS SYNDROME? Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is the name for a group of rare inherited conditions that affect connective tissue. Connective tissues provide support in skin, tendons, ligaments, blood vessels, internal organs and bones. There are several different types of EDS that may share some symptoms, including: The different types of EDS are caused by faults in certain genes that make connective tissue weaker. Depending on the type of EDS, the faulty gene may have been inherited from one parent, or both parents. Sometimes the faulty gene isnt inherited, but occurs in the person for the first time. EDS can affect people in different ways. For some the condition is relatively mild, while for others their symptoms can be disabling. Some of the rare severe types can be life-threatening. Source: NHS Advertisement Mrs Scott, who is recovering from the surgery on May 2, said: 'Thanks to this surgery, I have walked for the furthest I have walked without any mobility aids for the first time in three years. 'I was overjoyed and overcome with emotion but also shocked that it's been so successful and had such quick results, I'm elated. 'The surgery will allow me to support my own head properly without it crushing my nerves.' At Centro Medico Teknon Hospital in Barcelona, Mrs Scott had two ribs taken out to fuse two titanium rods from her head to her thoracic spine - the longest part of the spine that runs from the base of the neck to the abdomen. Surgery is an option for some EDS patients, but there remains very little in the surgical literature to support this approach and therefore it is considered high risk. Mrs Scott knew from a young age something was wrong and would routinely dislocate her joints. The Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a group of connective tissue disorders that generally cause joint hypermobility, stretchy skin and tissue fragility. But Mrs Scott claims she spent three decades being told by doctors she was 'crazy' and was misdiagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). She said: 'It was only when I got to about 23 I knew something was wrong. I've had almost 30 years of doctors saying you're crazy, there's nothing wrong. For 30 years the married mother-of-two battled symptoms which forced to retire from her job as a finance director in 2016 aged 48. Pictured, resting in bed As well as taking away the ability to walk (pictured, in her wheelchair), for years the disease robbed Mrs Scott of the ability to control her own body, leaving her with uncontrollable shakes Mrs Scott said she overjoyed, elated and shocked that she has seen such quick results following the operation. Pictured, taking her first steps on video 'The skin came off my hands and feet without any explanation. I could eat something one day and be fine but if I could eat it again the next day and come out in rashes and difficulty swallowing, and then I would suffer fainting and blackouts. 'There were various things that were going on, I was developing allergies to lipsticks and other silly things and it was getting harder and harder for me to walk without crutches. 'I worked up until 2016 doing three day weeks as a finance director but in order to do that I was spending the other four days in bed exhausted. 'I had no quality of life and I was beginning to feel scared that I wasn't just a danger to myself but I was a danger to other people around me.' As well as taking away her legs, for years the disease robbed Mrs Scott of the ability to control her own body, leaving her with uncontrollable shakes, random bouts of sickness and fatigue, and a complete loss of control over her heart rate and temperature. Mrs Scott, pictured in hospital, said: 'The surgery will allow me to support my own head properly without it crushing my nerves' Pictured with family in hospital after the surgery, Mrs Scott claims she was told by doctors that she was crazy and there was nothing wrong with her Mrs Scott had two ribs taken out (pictured) to fuse two titanium rods from her head to her thoracic spine - the longest part of the spine that runs from the base of the neck to the abdomen Despite feeling a bit sore, and being left with a large scar, Mrs Scott has thanked everyone who supported her and helped raise the money she needed for the operation Mrs Scott was first diagnosed with EDS in June last year. WHAT SURGERY DID KAREN SCOTT HAVE ON HER SPINE? The cervical spine performs several crucial roles, including supporting the head and its movement, helping it to move flexibly. It is structured with bones, nerves, muscles, ligaments and tendons, and protects the spinal cord which controls all sorts of movements in the body. Cervical spine surgery is generally used to treat either nerve and spinal cord impingement or spinal instability. The two procedures, decompression surgery and fusion surgery, are often combined, as a decompression may de-stabilize the spine and create the need for a fusion to add stability. A tool such as a metal plate may be used to help add stability to the spinal construct. Spinal fusion joins two or more vertebrae together by placing an additional section of bone, taken from somewhere else in the body such as the hip, in the space between them. To improve the chance of fusion being successful, some surgeons may use screws and connecting rods to secure the bones. It helps to prevent excessive movement, lowering the risk of further irritation or compression of the nearby nerves and reduces related pain. Advertisement She said: 'I went to a colleagues wedding and the groom's mother came to speak to me and told me she had EDS and the symptoms were very similar to ME. 'When I went away and started to read about it I just knew that EDS was what I really had, it explained everything. I went to get a professional diagnosis from a doctor in London and he confirmed what I thought.' The prevalence of all types of EDS appears to be at least one in 5,000 individuals worldwide, according to the National Institute of Health. It is difficult to determine the true figure, as those with mild joint and skin problems may be undiagnosed. The prognosis for people with EDS varies by subtype. Life expectancy is usually not affected, but in the most severe type, vascular EDS, the average life expectancy is 48 years. Mrs Scott was also diagnosed with craniocervical instability, an abnormality of the bones and structures that join the head and neck. It can be caused by EDS, and Mrs Scott said she could be 'internally decapitated' at any time. She said: 'It feels as if my neck is a paper straw and my head is a bowling ball and Im two inches shorter than I once was due to spinal issues.' Since the start of this year, Mrs Scott raised the 100,000 needed to go to Barcelona where doctors were prepared to undertake the risky surgery. Mrs Scott said she was given cervical spine surgery, but she said it was not available to her on the NHS which only funds procedures they deem worth the risk. Mrs Scott said: 'My husband, David (pictured), is amazing, he does everything, he's a superhero' Mrs Scott, pictured with her son, Henry, said she had 'no quality of life' before the surgery She said: 'Even now I've had my operation, I'll have to wear my neck brace when I'm outside the house or on transport until this has properly fused together but I'm so happy and overwhelmed that I've got to this stage and actually had the operation successfully. 'I feel so lucky. I look like I've been attacked by a shark, but given the circumstances I feel really good.' Post-op, Mrs Scott says that many of her symptoms have already disappeared, and despite feeling a bit sore, the brave gran has thanked everyone who supported her along the way. She said: 'I have had a lot of support from lots of different places, I've been truly humbled by the support I've had from everyone, especially my family. My husband, David, is amazing, he does everything, he's a superhero. 'There are so many others like me though that are still having to fundraise hundreds of thousands to come and have the same surgery done here in Barcelona or in the US. 'There needs to be more awareness around Ehlers-Danlos, we need to raise the profile of this illness because it is not rare, there are thousands of people in the same position, who have suffered, not knowing their own disease for a long time.' An NHS England spokesperson said: 'Despite the rarity of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, the NHS does fund surgery when it is recommended by clinicians. 'However, the decision to undertake such complex procedures has to be based on whether the benefits to the individual patient outweigh the risks.' Adults in the UK get drunk more often than anywhere else in the world, rankings show. Britons reported getting intoxicated an average of 51.1 times in a 12-month period, almost once a week. In comparison, the global average is just 33, according to an analysis of data from people living in 36 countries. English-speaking countries led the way for how often people get drunk, with the US, Canada and Australia closely following the UK. The findings come from the eight annual Global Drugs Survey, thought to be the largest poll on substance use in the world. Critics say the findings dispute a major study last week which showed Britons are drinking less alcohol than they did ten years ago. Britons reported getting intoxicated 51 times in a 12-month period - almost once a week. They were closely followed by people in the US and Canada (map shows how many times in a year the average adult gets drunk) HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE GET DRUNK A YEAR ON AVERAGE IN YOUR COUNTRY? UNITED KINGDOM US CANADA AUSTRALIA DENMARK INDIA IRELAND MEXICO CZECH REPUBLIC FINLAND BELGIUM NEW ZEALAND FRANCE SPAIN SWEDEN SLOVAKIA BALKANS ITALY AUSTRIA NORWAY NETHERLANDS SWITZERLAND BRAZIL HUNGARY ARGENTINA COLOMBIA GERMANY PORTUGAL CHILE 51.1 50.3 47.9 47.4 41.7 41 40.7 38.2 36.8 34.9 34.7 33.6 32.2 31.9 31.9 31.7 31.5 30 29.2 29 28.6 28.1 27.3 24.9 23.6 22 21.5 20.2 16.4 Advertisement Experts believe this is being driven by young people, the 'millennial' generation, who tend to be far more restrained in their drinking habits than older groups. Researchers based in London surveyed 5,400 people from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and more than 120,000 globally. Professor Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drugs Survey, said while fewer people were drinking, many who were are doing so in a potentially harmful way. He added: 'We get told too much is bad, and it is, but current guidelines fail to accept the pleasure of intoxication and give little guide on difference between being a little drunk and a lot drunk, and doing it three-four times a year versus weekly. We need to have that conversation. 'In the UK we don't tend to do moderation, we end up getting drunk as the point of the evening. 'Until culture changes and we become more European and moderate in our drinking, we might have to bite the bullet and think about how to advise people to get drunk drinking less. 'Getting drunk carries risks of injury and health harm, but we need to start highlighting the risks at different levels of drinking even if they are above safe limits.' Current NHS guidelines say adults shouldn't drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week - around six pints of beer. The survey found the UK is second behind Australia in how many people sought emergency treatment following alcohol use in the last 12 months - 3.7 per cent of respondents. UK drinkers regretted just under a fifth (18.5 per cent) of their drinking sessions, compared to 20 per cent globally. Women consistently reported feeling post-drinking regret more often than men, while German women over the age of 25 were most likely to be concerned about their sessions. But the Alcohol Information Partnership, an alcohol industry body which promotes balanced debate, dismissed the findings. A spokesperson said: 'This report runs contrary to the vast weight of the data. THIRD OF WOMEN HAVE BEEN TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF SEXUALLY WHILE DRUNK OR HIGH Some 29.3 per cent of women who took part in the global survey said they had been taken advantage of sexually. One in four of them said it had happened in the last year. Two thirds took place in a private house, while 70 per cent involved someone they knew. The incidents involved unwanted kissing, oral sex, sexual touching and penetration. Almost all respondents who said this happened within the previous year did not report the incident to police. Forty-three per cent chose not to because they felt partly responsible. Researcher Alexandra Aldridge said people can feel reluctant to use the words sexual assault because they may believe their experience is less valid if they are intoxicated. She added: 'Clearly people are feeling responsible in some way for their actions, and I think a lot of people who experience harassment or being taken advantage of can really relate to that.' Advertisement 'Major reports by globally-respected organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the ONS have consistently shown that drinking in the UK has been falling for more than a decade and Brits are actually drinking less than many of our European neighbours. 'The industry remains committed to tackling harmful drinking. The evidence shows that the way people drink in the UK is changing with people increasingly choosing fewer, better quality drinks, which is a positive move in the right direction. 'This survey suggests that we as a society have a long way to go, but robust recent data clearly indicates we are on the right track. 'The vast majority of adults who drink alcohol do so at a level which is within the Government's guidelines, and a recent report published in The Lancet demonstrated that drinking levels in the UK have been falling over the past 30 years.' Scientists have released fascinating 3D images which reveal exactly how a baby's head is squashed during childbirth. The changes occur during the second stage of labour, when the baby leaves the uterus and is pushed through the birth canal. But, until now, the details of foetal head moulding remained unclear, and only one previous study had captured images of the process. Now, MRI scans captured by French researchers reveal the huge stress that a baby's skull goes through. MRI scans have captured 3D images that show how infants' brains and skulls change shape as they move through the birth canal just before delivery The baby's head changes shape as it is pushed out by the mother, or when it is delivered by C-section. Gynaecologists, led by Dr Olivier Ami of Auvergne University, used 3D MRI scans to capture detailed images. Seven babies' skulls and brains were scanned before and during the second stage of labour, the part where the baby is delivered. The analysis, published in the journal PLOS One, revealed foetal head moulding during the second stage of labour in all seven babies, with different parts of the skull overlapping to varying degrees among the babies. After birth, five of the newborns' skull and brain shapes returned to their pre-birth state, but the changes persisted in two of the babies. WHAT IS A BABY'S HEAD LIKE AFTER BIRTH? A baby's head is soft and malleable before the head bones meet and fuse. Sometimes a baby's head is moulded unevenly while passing through the birth canal. In other cases, the head shape changes after birth as a result of pressure on the back of the head when the baby lies on his or her back. There are two soft areas at the top of the baby's head where the skull bones haven't yet fused together. Called fontanels, the gaps allow a baby's relatively large head to move through the narrow birth canal. They also accommodate for rapid brain growth during infancy. Because a baby's skull is soft, a tendency to rest the head in the same position can result in an uneven head shape. This is known as positional plagiocephaly. Advertisement Two of the three babies with the greatest degree of foetal head moulding were delivered by emergency C-section. In a C-section, the baby is pulled out of the womb through an incision in the mothers stomach that is around 10-20cm long. A caesarean section is an operation where a doctor makes a cut in the abdomen and womb and lifts the baby out through it. But the third was delivered vaginally within 15 minutes with minimal effort. Overall, the researchers said that their findings suggest that babies experience greater skull stresses during birth than previously thought. They said that potentially underlies the brain and retinal bleeding seen in many newborns after vaginal delivery, occurring in up to 43 per cent of vaginal births. Study leader Dr Ami said: 'During vaginal delivery, the foetal brain shape undergoes deformation to varying degrees depending on the degree of overlap of the skull bones. 'Foetal skull moulding is no more visible in most newborns after birth. 'Some skulls accept the deformation and allow an easy delivery, while others do not deform easily. 'The fact that one of one of the children in our series showed the biggest deformation of its skull during the birthing process, was born easily after only a few maternal efforts, and showed signs of fetal distress despite continuous normal monitoring until the expulsion phase, raises the question of the relevance of our actual definition of a normal birth.' He added that a larger study is needed to confirm their findings, but that their work shows the value of 3D MRI in capturing foetal head moulding. After marijuana is legalized in a state, fewer people seek chronic pain diagnoses and treatment, but more wind up in hospitals being treated for car crash injuries, overdoses or alcohol poisoning, according to a new study. Marijuana is now legal in the majority of US states and many see it as a win, offering better access to non-prescription treatment for pain and nausea. But states are just beginning to see the broader implications of legal weed. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that after Colorado legalized marijuana, hospital admissions for chronic pain fell by five percent. Ten percent more Coloradans, however, were seen in hospitals for car crash injuries, and five percent more were treated for problems related to drugs or alcohol. Legal weed is good for chronic pain rates, but bad for high driving, overdose and alcohol related injuries, new research suggests Marijuana itself is generally safe to use and has minimal side effects. The only possible overdose death linked to it was that of an infant. Smoking or ingesting marijuana can lead to heart rate increases, a 'high' feeling and slower reaction times. Its interactions with the brain's endocannibinoid system can create a feeling of calm and relaxation and alleviate pain. These effects are all well and good and safe on their own and in the safety of your home. But because it was only so recently legal anywhere in the US, marijuana's broader public health consequences couldn't be thoroughly studied until recently. To inform future policy and precautions, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers looked to Colorado as a test case. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in December 2012, so the study authors compared hospitalization data from the state from 2010 to 2014 to data from the same time period from New York and Oklahoma. WHY WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW HIGH IS TOO HIGH TO DRIVE Car crashes and fatalities have consistently increased in US states after they legalized. States with legal recreational marijuana saw increases of car crashes of between 5.2 and six percent following legalization. Stopping high driving is not as simple as introducing a breathalyzer, like police use to check for drunk driving. Marijuana tolerance varies wildly from person to person. Compared to alcohol, marijuana leaves the bloodstream very quickly, but continues to have effects long after it's virtually undetectable there because it lingers in fat and other tissues. Plus, THC - the psychoactive component of marijuana - can actually move back into the bloodstream hours or days after inhaling or ingesting it. Alcohol makes drivers drowsy, slows their comprehension and hampers hand-eye-foot coordination. THC, on the other hand, can change a driver's perception of time, make them more indecisive and slow their reflexes. As a result, the same field sobriety tests won't work for gauging drunk and high driving. Researchers are trying to develop a marijuana-specific field sobriety test that could be used in conjunction with breath, blood or urine tests. Advertisement From records on 28 million people in the three states, there were 16 million hospitalizations. Overall, the number of people hospitalized was unaffected by the legalization of marijuana, the researchers found. But 'the harms and benefits of marijuana legalization may be somewhat idiosyncratic to different individuals and contexts,' said senior study author Dr Gregory Marcus, a cardiologist at UCSF. Using the other two states as controls - in case other factors could have influenced an increase or decrease in hospitalizations - the researchers found that more people were treated for injuries, but less for chronic pain in Colorado. In a post legal weed world - perhaps unsurprisingly - hospital admissions for so-called cannabis abuse shot up much more steeply in Colorado following legalization in 2012 as compared to either New York or Oklahoma. Plus, the number of people hospitalized for car crash injuries increased by 10 percent, and drug and alcohol-related hospitalizations increased by five percent in Colorado. 'Given this information, it's clear that, as a society, we need to recognize the importance of avoiding driving under the influence of cannabis just as we do with alcohol,' says Dr Marcus. 'Cannabis is not necessarily benign, so people should not be so naive to believe that the the drug doesn't involve any risks.' On the other hand, that doesn't mean that cannabis is all bad, Dr Marcus says, given that cannabis legalization was linked to a reduction in hospitalizations for chronic pain. 'This suggests that there may be a beneficial role for cannabis,' says Dr Marcus. 'I worry a little bit that the harms that we observed and report could be interpreted as evidence that legalization was a mistake, but, in fact, in my mind, it's the opposite. 'Legalization is exactly what can enable more rigorous research and a better understanding of what cannabis is actually doing.' Madelyn Frederick was always known as the 'clumsy' member of her family. She thought it was nothing more than a lack of balance that left her constantly stumbles and unable to ride a bike. But at 13 years old, after she was rushed to the hospital in her hometown of Dallas, Texas, with a higher than normal heart rate, further tests determined that she wasn't clumsy at all. In fact, doctors told her she was actually suffering from a rare genetic disease called Friedreich's Ataxia, which gradually causes the loss of sensation in arms and legs and can impair speech over time. Frederick has gone from being able to walk with minor balance issues to needing to use a walker around the house and a wheelchair when she goes out. The 20-year-old was worried that her condition would deny her of fulfilling her dream of becoming a teacher. But Frederick has used her pupils' curiosity about her wheelchair as a teaching opportunity to raise awareness for FA among the next generation. Madelyn Frederick, 20 (left and right), from Dallas, Texas, was always known as the 'clumsy' member of her family. She constantly stumbled and was unable to ride a bicycle In December 2012, at age 13, Frederick was rushed to the hospital after running a mile when her pulse rate reached 234 beats per minute (bpm), higher than the maximum of 200 bpm. Pictured: Frederick doing a test to measure her oxygen levels while exerting energy 'I would stumble down the stairs a few times a week and I was never any good at riding a bike, but my parents didn't think anything of it,' Frederick said. She began getting chest pains during physical education classes in middle school and, at first, she was diagnosed with exercise-induced bronchospasms. This occurs when the muscles along the walls of the airway constrict, which reduces airflow and makes it difficult to breathe. But in December 2012, at age 13, Frederick was rushed to the hospital with a pulse rate of 234 beats per minute. At this age, the average maximum heart rate should be no higher than 200 beats per minute, according to the American Heart Association. It led doctors to investigate Frederick's condition further and, in March 2013, she was diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia (FA). FA is a rare genetic disease that affects the nervous system and causes a progressive loss of movement. Peripheral nerves, which carry signals between the brain and the body, degenerate overtime as do nerve fibers in the spinal cord. Symptoms typically emerge between ages five and 15, and include difficulty walking, poor balance, slurring speech and muscle weakness. There is no cure so treatment focuses on providing sufferers with wheelchairs, walking aids or prostheses so they can retain independence. Three months later, in March 2013, Frederick (left and right) was diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia. FA is a rare genetic disease that affects the nervous system and causes a progressive loss of movement Frederick uses a walker within her house and she uses a wheelchair when she goes outside. Pictured: Frederick, far right, with her family in Greece 'I had rapidly declined prior to my diagnosis,' Frederick said. 'I was sleeping through the day and I was in severe pain due to muscle spasms and neuropathy. So, I didn't know how much worse it could get.' Since her diagnosis six years ago, Frederick say that some days are harder than others and that her loss of movement has progressed. 'My walking...was barely noticeable back then, but now it's obvious when I walk,' she said. 'I used to hold on to someone's arm lightly for stability, but now it's more like I'm tugging and almost knocking them down.' Fredrick uses walls and furniture to help her get around her bedroom and a walker within her house. When she goes outside, she uses a wheelchair 'mainly to conserve energy and reduce anxiety', she says. 'Occasionally I don't use it,' Frederick said. 'For example, if I'm going to eat with friends or going to church because I can walk in and sit down, and I just hold someone's arm to walk in.' Frederick said she still hopes to accomplish her dream of becoming a teacher. Pictured: Frederick (center) with her friends She says she uses her pupils' curiosity about her wheelchair as a teaching opportunity to raise awareness for FA amongst the next generation. Pictured: Frederick doing a test to measure her oxygen levels while exerting energy Frederick has had to learn to adapt to her limitations, but she hasn't lost hope that she will accomplish her dream of becoming a teacher. 'At the school I teach in, the children are very curious about my condition and about the wheelchair,' she said. 'Honesty is the best policy, so I hide nothing. I do have to simplify my description of FA, but I love seeing the innocence and immediate acceptance of children. It's like they immediately see past the difference.' Frederick says that she's been able to do many things she thought were impossible post-diagnosis; such as traveling to Italy and Greece, learning to drive and walking across the stage to receive her diploma during her high school graduation. Now, she says she wants to inspire others living with FA that life doesn't have to revolve around their condition. 'There's so much I would like to show through my journey but most of all it's that life is what you make of it, no matter what your circumstance,' she said. 'Choosing positivity will get you so much further than negativity. A happy, successful, fulfilled life is possible despite my challenges.' LED lights can permanently damage the retina and disturb natural sleep rhythms, France's government-run health watchdog has said. The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) warned powerful LED lights are 'photo-toxic'. In a 400-page report, the body cautioned it can cause an irreversible loss of retinal cells and lead to a common cause of blindness. ANSES urged officials to revise the maximum limit for exposure to LED lights, which emit 'blue light' at much higher quantities. LED phone, tablet and laptop screens do not pose a risk of eye damage - but the intense bulbs used in car headlights may, it suggested. The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) warned exposure to an intense and powerful LED light is 'photo-toxic' The report distinguished between acute exposure of high-intensity LED light, and 'chronic exposure' to lower intensity sources. While less dangerous, even chronic exposure can 'accelerate the ageing of retinal tissue' and contribute to poor vision, the agency said. Long-lasting, energy efficient and inexpensive, LED technology has gobbled up half of the general lighting market in a decade. And industry experts predict its share will continue to rise, topping 60 per cent by the end of next year. LED uses roughly a fifth of the electricity needed for an incandescent bulb of a comparable brightness. The basic technology for producing a white light combines a short wavelength LED such as blue or ultraviolet with a yellow phosphor coating. HOW CAN YOU REDUCE YOUR BLUE LIGHT EXPOSURE? USE a blue light filter on your phone, tablet or computer to shield skin and eyes at night, advises Dr Alejandro Sanchez de Miguel, a postgraduate researcher at the environment and sustainability institute at the University of Exeter. APPS which filter blue light towards the evening include f.lux for your computer and phone. Others such as Twilight or the night mode setting on your device will reduce blue light emitted at any time. EVERYONE should wear factor 50 suncream with five-star broad spectrum protection, to block UVA and UVB light, as well as iron oxides, which protect against blue light, says Dr Andrew Birnie, a consultant dermatologist and skin cancer specialist at the William Harvey and Kent and Canterbury Hospitals. VITAMIN C serums can also provide antioxidant protection against blue light, says consultant dermatologist Dr Emma Wedgeworth. AVOID using your phone or PC in the dark, as your pupils will dilate and take in more blue light, says Dr Ajith Karunarathne, an assistant professor in the University of Toledos department of chemistry and biochemistry. Advertisement The whiter or 'colder' the light, the greater the proportion of blue in the spectrum. LEDs are used for home and street lighting, as well as in offices and industry. They are also increasingly found in auto headlights, torches and some toys. LED phone, tablet and laptop screens do not pose a risk of eye damage, Francine Behar-Cohen, an ophthalmologist, said. He explained they have a lower risk because their luminosity is very low compared to other types of lighting. But these back-lit devices - especially when they are used at night or in a dark setting - can 'disturb biological rhythms, and thus sleep patterns'. Because the crystalline lens in their eyes are not fully formed, children are particularly susceptible to such disruptions, the ANSES noted. Interfering with the body's circadian rhythm is also known to aggravate metabolic disorders such a diabetes, as well as cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer, noted Dina Attia, a researcher and project manager at ANSES. In addition, a stroboscopic affect in some LED lights - provoked by tiny fluctuations in electric current - can induce 'headaches, visual fatigue and a higher risk of accidents,' the report said. For domestic lighting, ANSES recommended buying 'warm white' LED lighting, limiting exposure to LED sources with a high concentration of blue light, and avoiding LED screens before bedtime. ANSES also said that manufacturers should 'limit the luminous intensity of vehicle headlights', some of which are too bright. Finally, the agency cast doubt on the efficacy of some 'anti-blue light' filters and sunglasses. The UK's chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies has previously said blue light is an 'important area of investigation'. More babies in the UK were born underweight than in Turkmenistan, Albania and Cuba, shocking research shows. Around 56,000 British newborns weighed less than 5.5lbs in 2015, approximately seven per cent of all live births that year. The UK fell behind the likes of Albania, which saw 4.6 per cent of its babies born underweight, Cuba (5.3 per cent) and Turkmenistan (5.6 per cent). The average newborn weighs about 8lbs and anything under 5.8lbs is considered underweight. Older mothers face a higher risk of having a smaller baby. The ten worst countries for underweight newborns (shown) were revealed in a global study that analysed 281million births in almost 150 nations Low birthweight babies struggle to feed, gain weight, fight off infections and can develop breathing difficulties. As they grow older, they are also known to face a greater risk of suffering problems such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In developing countries, poor growth in the womb is one of the major causes of low birthweight. In Western nations, low birthweight is often associated with prematurity - a baby born earlier than 37 weeks gestation. The analysis was done by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization (WHO). They reviewed 281million births in almost 150 countries, sifting through national databases and surveys. Lead author Dr Hannah Blencowe said if the current progress continues - a 1.2 per cent yearly decline - the world will fall well short of its WHO target. She said: 'To meet the global nutrition target of a 30 per cent reduction in low birthweight by 2025 will require more than doubling the pace of progress. 'Despite clear commitments, our estimates indicate that national governments are doing too little to reduce low birthweight. 'We have seen very little change over 15 years, even in high-income settings where low birthweight is often due to prematurity as a result of high maternal age.' WHAT ARE THE RISKS UNDERWEIGHT BABIES FACE? The average newborn weighs about 8lbs and anything under 5.8lbs is considered underweight. Low birthweight babies struggle to feed, gain weight, fight off infections and can develop breathing difficulties. As they grow older, they are also known to face a greater risk of suffering problems such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In developing countries, poor growth in the womb is one of the major causes of low birthweight. In Western nations, low birthweight is often associated with prematurity - a baby born earlier than 37 weeks gestation. Low birthweight is often due to prematurity as a result of high maternal age. Smoking, medically unnecessary caesarean sections and fertility treatments can also all increase the risk of a baby being born with a low birthweight. Advertisement Smoking, medically unnecessary caesarean sections and fertility treatments can also all increase the risk of a baby being born with a low birthweight. Dr Blencowe added: 'These are the underlying issues that governments in high-income countries should be tackling.' The proportion of women over 40 giving birth in England and Wales has trebled in the last 30 years, according to estimates. The average age for a woman to have her first child in the UK is now 30. A staggering one in 25 of all UK births is now to a mother over the age of 40. The analysis showed almost three-quarters of the underweight babies were born in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where data is most limited. In Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, rates of babies being born underweight have plateaued since 2000. Overall, the UK has experienced a yearly decline of 0.3 per cent since 2000. But rates were on the rise in some high-income countries. The Czech Republic saw a yearly increase of two per cent, Ireland 1.3 per cent, Portugal 1.2 per cent and Spain 1.1 per cent since 2000. Researchers found global underweight baby rates fell slightly from 17.5 per cent in 2000 (22.9million) to 14.6 per cent in 2015 (20.5million). Authors called for international action to ensure all babies are weighed at birth and to promote public health action to tackle the problem. 'Every newborn must be weighed, yet worldwide, we don't have a record for the birthweight of nearly one third of all newborns,' says study co-author Julia Krasevec from UNICEF. 'We cannot help babies born with low birthweight without improving the coverage and accuracy of the data we collect. 'With better weighing devices and stronger data systems, we can capture the true birthweight of every baby, including those born at home, and provide better quality of care to these newborns and their mothers.' More than 20 million newborns from around the world weighed less than 5.5lbs in 2015, a global study looking into more than 200million births found More than 80 per cent of the world's 2.5million newborns who die every year have a low birthweight. One of the lowest rates of underweight babies in 2015 was estimated in Sweden at just 2.4 per cent. This compared to the US (eight per cent), the UK (seven per cent), Australia (6.5 per cent) and New Zealand (5.7 per cent). Anna Kettley, of UNICEF, said: 'The UK's low birthweight rate has stagnated at seven per cent for more than a decade, highlighting the need to improve care for the one in seven babies born alive in the UK who require specialist neonatal care. 'This places the UK behind other countries such as Turkmenistan, China and Cuba, despite our world-class National Health System.' A woman has become the first transgender person in the world to have vagina-reconstructive surgery using the skin of tilapia fish. The woman, known only as Maju, underwent sex-reassignment surgery in 1999, however, the botched operation caused her genitals to narrow and 'collapse'. With sex being agony, she resigned herself to a life of celibacy. However, Maju then heard about a surgeon in Fortaleza, north-east Brazil, who was creating vaginas for women born without genitals using the freshwater fish's membrane. The 35-year-old had a neovaginoplasty on April 23. This involves creating an incision where the vagina should be before inserting a genital-shaped mould lined with tilapia skin. This is then absorbed into the body where it speeds up healing and is transformed into tissue similar to which lines the vaginal tract. Three weeks on, Maju, who works as a florist, is 'thrilled' with the results and finally feels like a 'real woman'. Surgeons even think she may be able to have sex in just a few months. Scroll down for video A woman known only as Maju (left) has become the first transgender person in the world to have vagina-reconstructive surgery using the skin of tilapia fish. The operation was carried out by Professor Leonardo Bezerra (right) of the Federal University of Ceara The skin (pictured) gets absorbed into the incision between a patient's rectum and bladder. It speeds up healing and is transformed into tissue similar to that which lines the vaginal tract The operation was carried out by surgeons at the Federal University of Ceara and led by Professor Leonardo Bezerra. 'We were able create a vagina of physiological length, both in thickness and by enlarging it, and the patient has recovered extremely well,' Professor Bezerra said. 'She is walking around with ease, has no pain and is urinating normally. In a couple months we believe she will be able to have sexual intercourse.' Maju added: 'I'm absolutely thrilled with the result. For the first time in my life I feel complete and like a real woman.' In the three-hour procedure, doctors inserted a tubular mould wrapped with the skin of the freshwater fish. The sterilised, odour-free skin was left inside Maju for six days, where it got absorbed into her body. Surgeons then inserted a 'big tampon' made from silicone. This will be left inside Maju for six months to prevent her vaginal wall closing. Tilapia fish skin releases growth factors that transform the membrane into the patient's tissue Maju discovered she was a woman living in a man's body in her early teens and decided to transition 20 years ago. 'I was the fourth person in Brazil in 1999 to have, what was then, experimental surgery,' she said. 'But ten years ago I developed vaginal stenosis.' Vaginal stenosis is the narrowing or loss of flexibility in the vagina, which is often accompanied by dryness. 'The opening of my vagina started to get narrower and shorter and the canal collapsed,' Maju said. According to Professor Bezerra, vaginal stenosis is a common complication in trans women who have undergone a sex change. 'In the traditional procedure, most of the inside parts of the penis are removed and the penile skin is folded into the space between the urethra and the rectum,' he said. 'The outside skin of the penis then becomes the inside of the vagina. 'But because the patient has had hormonal treatment to develop female characteristics, there is penile and testicle atrophy resulting in shrinkage in the size of the penis caused from the loss of tissue. This means the vagina can also be small.' This caused Maju constant discomfort and prevented her from having sex with her partner, who she was married to and had been with for 12 years. Once sterilised and exposed to radiation to kill viruses, the skin is vacuum packed (pictured) Tilipia skin is resilient and can withstand stretching. It is therefore also used for wound healing After getting divorced, Maju went to live with her mother in Sao Paulo, where she learnt how Professor Bezerra is creating vaginas for women who were born without fully functioning genitals. Since developing the technique three years ago, the medic claims he has successfully treated ten women who were born with an underdeveloped or absent vagina or uterus. Maju was unable to afford to travel the 1,950 miles (3,140km) from Sao Paulo to Fortaleza. Surgeons therefore agreed to do the operation at the nearby Centre for Comprehensive Care for Women's Health in Campinas. But before they operated, the doctors discovered Maju still had spongy erectile tissue in her collapsed vagina from her first surgery. 'The presence of these leftovers of the penis aggravated the closure of the vaginal tract, worsening the symptoms,' Professor Bezerra said. To correct this, a skin graft, typically from the intestines, is usually required to increase the width and length of the canal. 'The great benefit of our technique is it's minimally invasive and there's no need to do abdominal incisions,' Professor Bezerra said. To construct a vagina, the skin is wrapped around a genital-shaped mould (pictured) Surgeons are pictured wrapping the skin around the mould ahead of its insertion Before Maju, Professor Bezerra operated on Jucilene Marinho in April 2017. The 23-year-old was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hause (MRKH), which left her with no cervix, uterus or ovaries. After the operation, Miss Marinho said it 'felt so good to have something the majority of women take for granted' and she could now enjoy a 'satisfying' sex life with her partner. In November last year, the surgery was carried out for the first time on a 41-year-old woman recovering from vaginal cancer. Elisiane Gusmao, a teacher from Minas Gerais, had her vagina reconstructed after its structure and tissue were damaged by pelvic radiotherapy. The fish skin is intensively sterilised (pictured) before it is deemed suitable for medical use Before tilapia skin is used medically, it is subjected to a rigorous process of sterilisation at the Nucleus of Research and Development of Medicines (NPDM), part of the UFC. Once sterilised, it undergoes radiation therapy to kill any lingering viruses. It can then be stored for up to two years if refrigerated. This means the material can be safely distributed to treatment centres across Latin America and abroad. Tilapia skin is also increasingly being used on burns due to it being rich in moisture and collagen. This is thought to interact with a patient's immune system to speed up healing. The skin is removed after around one week, with no need for daily dressing changes. Tilipia skin has been shown to be more resilient than the previously used pig skin, which enables it to withstand stretching. It is taken as a by-product of the food industry, with farmers being happy to provide it for free due to the 'medical and humanitarian impact', according to Carlos Roberto Koscky Paier, a biotechnology technician at the Federal University of Ceara. And tilapia skin has recently even received space-age status. NASA announced this month it is planning to test samples of the dressing in orbit to see how it reacts under atmospheric conditions of radiation, gravity and pressure. US giant Walmart - the world's biggest retailer - is 'seriously considering' listing Asda on the stock market, it has emerged. The change in strategy comes after the UK competition watchdog blocked a proposed merger of Asda and Sainsbury's last month. Going public? Asda's US owner, Walmart, is considering listing the UK supermarket after the Sainsbury's merger was blocked The deal between the UK's second and third biggest supermarkets would have created a 50billion rival to Tesco, but the watchdog feared it would lead to higher prices for shoppers. Walmart, which bought the cut price UK grocery chain twenty years ago for 6.7billion, told Asda managers on Tuesday that it is mulling a stock market float but said any preparations would 'take years'. Judith McKenna, Walmart's international boss, said: 'While we are not rushing into anything, I want you to know that we are seriously considering a path to an IPO - a public listing - to strengthen your long-term success.' 'Walmart does not have a one-size-fits-all approach to operating its international markets, but a consistent focus on strong local businesses powered by Walmart,' she added. The 12billion merger between Asda and Sainsbury's was blocked by the UK competition watchdog last month The Competition and Markets Authority's decision to veto the audacious Sainsbury's-Asda merger triggered speculation that Walmart may seek a new suitor for the Big Four chain. After years of decay, Asda has enjoyed a return to form with seven consecutive quarters of sales growth. It has invested in price cuts, own-brand products and improving the online business as it comes under pressure from industry incumbents Aldi and Lidl. Asda is currently the only privately owned 'Big Four' supermarket. Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons are all publicly-traded companies. Sainsbury's shares sunk to a 30-year low of 2.09 last week. Disappointed investors sold out when the deal with Asda was halted fearing that Sainsbury's would be unable to keep pace without it. The grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircrafts, last year's hot summer, this year's late Easter, Brexit uncertainty and rising competition in Spain have all taken their toll on Tui's latest results. In the six months to 31 March, the holiday group's losses swelled from 148million to 261million. Bookings in its package holiday and airlines business for this summer fell by 3 per cent, while selling prices rose just 1 per cent amid tough market competition. Trouble in paradise? In the six months to 31 March, the holiday group's losses swelled from 148million to 261million The company has issued warnings over its profits twice so far this year, blaming the one on the UK market and another on the grounding of the Boeings, but it has still held firm on profit guidance for the year. Tui chief executive Fritz Joussen said: 'Tui is on track, both strategically and operationally, and is well positioned. That is why 2019 will be another solid year. 'Our core businesses with our own hotels, cruises and destination experiences and activities remain strong and currently deliver around 70 per cent of our earnings. 'Tui will emerge as a stronger, more efficient and more profitable group from the current consolidation of our sector in Europe.' In March, Tui warned that the grounding of Boeing's 737 Max planes could cost the group up to 261million and today confirmed the issue had eaten into its profits. The planes were grounded in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March which killed 157 people, months after the Lion Air crash in Indonesia which killed 189 people. Tui's fleet, which comprises around 150 aircraft, currently includes 15 grounded 737 Max planes for the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. A further eight 737 Max aircraft had been on order. The firm also said the results reflected the knock-on impact of last summer's heatwave, a shift in demand from Spanish holidays to eastern Mediterranean destinations and uncertainty surrounding Brexit. But, turnover rose 1.7 per cent to 5.8billion as it hailed a strong performance by its hotels and cruise ships business. Tui chief executive Fritz Joussen said: 'Tui is on track, both strategically and operationally, and is well positioned' Shares: Tui's share price is up 0.22 per cent or 1.80p to 807.00p this afternoon Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'Expectations have been very low for holiday companies in light of lower bookings across the sector as consumers worry about how Brexit might impact flights and their own personal finances. 'Fortunately pushing back the Brexit deadline has given a nice lift to the leisure sector as the public regains confidence in wanting to buy their two weeks in the sun. 'Tui's results are far from a disaster which explains why the shares are up on the news. Parts of the market remain in oversupply such as Spain which is having an impact on prices and therefore its margins. It has also had to contend with the impact of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft being grounded. Yet there is some good news.' He added: 'Investment in cruises, hotels and experience holidays is paying off and differentiated content is helping to make Tui stand out from the crowd, which helps to drive up the number of people taking its breaks and ultimately should lift the price they pay. 'While earnings could take another hit if it cannot resume flying 737 MAX aircraft by mid-July, Tui's management are doing their best to reshape the business to thrive over the longer term. They just need to navigate what is likely to be a bumpy journey.' Tui's share price is up 0.22 per cent or 1.8p to 807p. The Co-op is launching a digital pharmacy that will let customers manage their NHS prescriptions through a smartphone. The move is part of ambitious plans to return to healthcare, which boss Steve Murrells will set out at its annual general meeting on Saturday. The Co-op bailed out of the health market five years ago when it sold its pharmacy business for 620million in the wake of a financial crisis at its banking arm, which is no longer part of the group. Online pharmacy: Co-op boss Steve Murrells will outline the firm's ambitious plans to return to healthcare at its annual general meeting on Saturday But it is now venturing back as it seeks to put itself at the centre of Britain's communities.The healthcare app will let users place orders for repeat prescriptions on their phone. In future, it could also offer patients so-called e-consultations, where they can speak to pharmacists over phones, iPads and other devices, and for a click-and-collect service using the Co-op's vast network of shops. The technology behind the digital pharmacy was developed by Dimec, a start-up that the group bought last year. The launch is a key plank of the retailer's strategy to make itself more central to community life, a theme Murrells will stress at the meeting on Saturday. In a speech referencing the spirit of the Rochdale Pioneers who set up the Co-op in 1844, Murrells will argue that Brexit has 'exposed deep divisions in society' and that more must be done to support communities . He will say: 'The Co-op was founded in times of similar need 175 years ago by a group of people who cared about their community and wanted to change things for the better. 'They saw the answer in co-operation, bringing people together so everyone could play a part in making things better. 'In today's uncertain world, there's as great a need for co-operation as at any time in our history, so we need to kick-start a new generation of co-operation.' The return to healthcare comes as other big players move into the digital prescriptions business, including Amazon, Boots and Superdrug. Dimec was acquired through the Co-op Ventures arm in September. One aim of the digital pharmacy will be to ease pressure on the NHS. The prescription of medicines is the most common contact that most patients have with the NHS and, after staff costs, is the second-highest area of spending. Co-op's other businesses span groceries including the Nisa Local and Costcutter brands funerals, insurance and legal services. It has also branched out to become a sponsor of academy schools across the UK, with 20 in its trust so far. It educates more than 20,000 pupils, including sixth-formers, and has plans to take on another 20 schools over the next three years, potentially doubling its intake. Pupils are given opportunities to take on apprenticeships with it and this year, for the first time, it is set to offer sixth-formers grants that will allow them to do paid work while studying. As part of its community support, Murrells is also expected to say the Co-op's schools will make their own halls and other spaces available for public use. It comes as it rides high on the back of a strong financial performance in 2018. Co-op boasted group turnover of 10.2billion in the year to January 5, boosted by its takeover of Nisa last spring. Customer complaints about financial companies hit a five-year high last year, with a spike in criticisms of payday lenders being blamed for the rise. Payment protection insurance, known as PPI, became the most complained about financial product ever, the Financial Ombudsman Service reported, with the service receiving its two-millionth complaint last year. But in a sign that the scandal which has hung over Britain's banks for more than a decade might have peaked, the FOS said for the first time in 10 years complaints about PPI made up fewer than half of the 388,000 complaints it received. Figures published today by the FOS found there was a 130 per cent rise in the number of complaints about payday loans reported to it in 2018-2019. Wonga may be a distant memory having gone into administration in August last year, but its death throes can still be seen in the latest Financial Ombudsman figures The staggering increase in reports to the watchdog appears to chime with recent statistics about households increasingly turning to debt to finance their day-to-day spending. It also highlights that the payday loan industry remains controversial, despite rule changes by the Financial Conduct Authority and the demise of flagship firm Wonga which went bust in August 2018. New complaints about payday loans, the number of which rose from 17,000 in 2017-18 to 39,715 last year, helped increase total complaints by 14 per cent compared to 2017-18. It is possible the administration of Wonga played a role in the spike in payday loan complaints, with those who thought they were poorly treated trying to claim compensation by complaining to the ombudsman rather than Wonga's administrators. In March auditors Grant Thornton, who are carrying out the lender's post-mortem, revealed more than 40,000 people who borrowed from Wonga were attempting to make compensation claims at the time it went bust. That was over four times the number initially expected to be affected. Separate data published last week by complaints website Resolver found customer complaints about payday loans rose 419 per cent between 2017-18 and 2018-19. Breadline Britain: FOI figures previously reported by This is Money found Britons borrowed 1.2bn in payday loans in 2018. Birmingham was the payday loan capital, with 37m taken out The FOS report also revealed it received over 12,000 complaints about fraud and scams last year, a 40 per cent rise on the year before. It said authorised push payment scams, where a victim transfers money into a fraudster's bank account, were one of the fastest-growing types of fraud. A new code of practice designed to clamp down on APP fraud and make it easier for victims to get their money back is due to come into force at the end of this month. The FOS said it hoped the code would be 'part of a long-term solution' to the issue. The watchdog also said it was 'clear some banks are not getting a handle on the individual impact IT failures have on consumers', with 150,000 complaints brought to the service about IT failures relating to banks and credit card providers, an 8 per cent rise on 2017-18. At the end of last April up to 1.9million TSB customers were locked out of their accounts or beset by problems following an IT meltdown triggered by an attempt to move its systems over to those managed by new owner Sabadell. However, separate figures from the FCA published in April found two in five complaints it received in the second half of 2018 were still about PPI. Firms paid out 4.3billion last year in compensation to those claiming they'd been mis-sold PPI, the FCA said. Consumers who feel as if they were mis-sold have until August 29 to make a claim. The figures from the FOS only detail the number of complaints it received, and do not say how many were answered or the average time a customer waited for their complaint to be resolved. In January a whistleblower told Parliament's Treasury Select Committee three times as many cases were waiting to be heard by the FOS as there had been before a 2016 restructuring. Chief executive Caroline Wayman told the committee at the time 8,000 consumers were waiting for a decision on their cases. Commenting on today's figures, Wayman said: 'Too often we see that the interests of consumers are not hard-wired into financial services. 'This marks a five-year high in the number of complaints that consumers have brought to us, and the behaviour we've seen from some businesses is simply not good enough. 'While we do see examples of businesses responding well to customer concerns, we also see many firms who don't. Our message to businesses is that practices must improve. 'If someone has a problem with a financial service, they can come to us with confidence and we will work with them and the business to resolve the issue.' Millions of frail over-65s could be missing out on an important benefit worth either 58.70 or 87.65 a week if they need help and support caring for themselves. Low awareness of and confusion over the name 'attendance allowance' - which implies you are receiving home visits from a carer - could be putting people off, according to retirement home developer McCarthy & Stone. The firm helps its residents claim any benefits to which they are entitled. But some three-quarters of the 4,000 people it has assisted over the past three years had failed to apply for attendance allowance until it informed them of its existence. Attendance allowance: Millions of frail over-65s could be missing out on the benefit, worth either 58.70 or 87.65 a week The realisation that such a significant proportion of its 18,000 residents were losing out on this particular benefit prompted the business to flag up the issue more widely. It says Government figures on how many people have reached state pension age and also have a disability suggest millions of over-65s could be eligible without knowing it. 'For many people, it isnt just the perceived difficulty of applying to receive the payment, but there is also a widespread misconception that in order to be eligible for attendance allowance you will have someone visiting your home to provide general help or care,' says Colin Cuthbert, senior entitlements adviser at McCarthy & Stone Over 65? The ten pots of cash and freebies you could be entitled to - and how to claim them. Read more here. 'This can be an off-putting thought for those who want to maximise their independence in retirement, but it is simply not the case. 'The eligibility criteria does not necessarily require that the claimant receives help in their home.' The full rules on who can claim are here, but they include: * You have reached state pension age, and have a physical or mental disability * Your disability is severe enough for you to need help caring for yourself or someone to supervise you, for your own or someone elses safety * You have needed that help for at least six months, unless youre terminally ill. Attendance allowance rates Rate Level of help needed 58.70 Frequent help or constant supervision during the day, or supervision at night 87.65 Help or supervision throughout both day and night, or youre terminally ill Source: Gov.uk. It says the other benefits you get can increase if you receive attendance allowance. You do not have to have someone caring for you in order to claim, but if you have a carer they could qualify for carers allowance if you have substantial needs. McCarthy & Stone believes the majority of over 65s who have a disability do not know about or understand attendance allowance and end up missing out on something that could improve their life. Cuthbert says: 'As our results have proven, many people over the state pension age are not accessing entitlements that could make a real difference to the quality of life in their later years. 'This is particularly startling when you consider that the overwhelming majority of people we have helped over recent years were classed as having a disability, and they were missing out on thousands of pounds of benefits that could help provide a much-improved standard of living. Colin Cuthbert: There is a widespread misconception that in order to be eligible for attendance allowance you will have someone visiting your home to provide general help or care 'The benefit has been put into place to support people who are 65 or over and have care or supervision needs because of an illness or disability. 'It is there to help with extra costs if a person has a disability severe enough that they need someone to help look after them.' In total, McCarthy and Stone has helped residents to get 6million in benefits to which they were entitled over the past three years. They received an annual 1,471 on average as a result. See the box below to find out the other benefits they have helped residents to claim. Cuthbert said his firm was helping the people living in its homes, but he was certain many more retirees were missing out. 'We know that if customers in our developments across the UK have left millions of pounds worth of benefits unclaimed, then there must be many more across the nation in the same situation and who do not have ready access to assistance to guide them through the entitlements process.' He suggests people who need advice on claiming benefits should contact entitlements officers at charities and groups such as Age UK or Citizens Advice, or specialist charities for illnesses like the Parkinsons Society. This is Money asked the Government to comment on the experience of McCarthy & Stone residents, which points to widespread lack of awareness about the attendance allowance among those who might qualify. A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: 'Attendance allowance is important support for some of our most vulnerable pensioners, and we want everyone who is eligible to claim. 'Thats why we urge people to check what benefits they are entitled to and to report a change of circumstances. 'We provide plenty of information online and through other outlets and do outreach work and join-up with organisations including Age UK to encourage take-up.' A stray dog in China has been killed after a PhD graduate from a top university beat it with a wooden club to stop it from barking. The doctor from Tsinghua University said the dog, nicknamed 'Little Black' by local residents, deserved to be punished because it had barked too much at night. The man told the press that it was 'perfectly reasonable' to beat the dog because it had disturbed his sleep. Footage from China's Red Star News shows the well-educated man (pictured) as he explains how the stray dog disturbed his sleep. He cruelly beat the dog last week, causing it to die One resident, known as 'Aunt Liu', said stray (pictured) known as 'Little Black' had lived in his neighbourhood for around two years. She condemned Liu's cruel act towards the animal He claimed he had not intended to kill the dog and he had only wanted to drive away the dog. Speaking to Chinese news outlet Red Star News, the man known as Liu Fei boasted about his 'bravery' while assisting the police to 'get rid of it' last Wednesday in the city of Chengdu. It is said that Liu held a wooden club and chased the dog into a neighbour's house. He then called the police, asking them to send officers to help him catch the dog. Liu and officers tied a rope around the dog's neck before putting the animal into a sack, but the struggling pooch tore open the sack with its teeth. 'It's not that I want to praise myself. At that time seeing that the police officers were terrified and needed help, I pinned down the dog and firmly bound its legs with more ropes.' Police officers then took the dog away, he added. 'I felt very happy at the time. The thing that had disturbed my sleep for more than 20 days was finally gone.' 'I felt very happy at the time. The thing that had disturbed my sleep for more than 20 days were finally gone,' said Liu. The picture appears to show him catching the dog with police officers Liu claimed that he was not aware that the dog had died until reporters found him. Some of Liu's neighbours were shocked by his act and condemned his cruelty. One resident, known as 'Aunt Liu', said 'Little Black' had lived in his neighbourhood for around two years. '[It] was beaten to death by a man who had just moved in and claimed that the dog stopped him from sleeping. It was too cruel,' complained Ms Liu to Red Star. But many web users in China defended Liu, lauding him for his 'effort to help the neighbourhood'. One user on China's Twitter-like Weibo wrote: 'Stray dogs surely should be dealt with. What if they bite people?' Another commentator agreed: 'Stray dogs impact [people's] live and work in residential neighbourhood. What this person did was not wrong.' It remains unclear if Liu will face any police investigation. There is no law in China to stop animal cruelty and penalise those who abuse dogs (file photo) While China has legislation safeguarding land-based and aquatic wildlife, it currently lacks any laws to protect animal welfare or prevent cruelty towards animals. On the other hand, multiple cities in China have set new rules and policies on dog-keeping to ease the tension between those who have pets and those who don't. Last year, the city of Wenshan launched a ban to prohibit pet owners from walking their dogs from 7am to 10pm in a bid to 'improve public safety'. While in the city of Yuncheng, homebuyers must promise to never keep pet dogs before being allowed to buy flats developed by a major real estate company. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Tehran does not seek war with the United States despite mounting tensions between the two arch-enemies over Iranian nuclear capabilities and its missile program. In comments to senior officials carried by state television, Khamenei also reiterated that the Islamic Republic would not negotiate with the United States on another nuclear deal. 'There won't be any war. The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance,' Khamenei was cited as saying by the state media. 'We don't seek a war, and they don't either. They know its not in their interests.' President Trump withdrew the United States a year ago from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers under which Tehran curbed its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, and won sanctions relief in return. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (above) said his country is not seeking war with the United States Since then, Trump has ratcheted up sanctions on Iran, seeking to reduce its lifeblood oil exports to zero, to push Tehran into fresh negotiations on a broader arms control deal, targeting in part the Iranian ballistic missile program. '(Such) negotiations are a poison,' Khamenei said. The United Arab Emirates reported on Sunday that four commercial vessels including two Saudi oil tankers had been sabotaged offshore from the UAE emirate of Fujairah just outside the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have been behind the attacks. Iran has rejected the allegation and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that 'extremist individuals' in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies, stoking a war of words with Washington over sanctions. Trump warned on Monday Iran would 'suffer greatly' if it targeted U.S. interests after Washington deployed an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Middle East. President Trump warned on Monday Iran would 'suffer greatly' if it targeted U.S. interests after Washington deployed an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Middle East Coalition forces in Iraq and Syria sent conflicting signals Tuesday over Iran's alleged threat, with a British general appearing to take issue with Washington's alarms over an imminent danger posed by Tehran to the U.S. and its allies. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said that they did not sense any intensified threat from Iran in the region, even though the U.S. military was boosting its forces in the Gulf. 'There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria,' Ghika told reporters via teleconference at the Pentagon. That brought a sharp retort from the U.S. Central Command, which in the past nine days has accelerated the deployment of an aircraft carrier task force to the Gulf, adding to it B-52 bombers, a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious assault ship, in the face of the alleged Iranian threat. The image above from May 9 shows the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group being deployed to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House A B-52H Stratofortress bomber is being refueled in mid-air over Southwest Asia on Sunday. The White House ordered the aircraft to deploy to the Persian Gulf region Ghika's comments 'run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region,' Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban said. The mixed signals underscored questions about the U.S. ramping up its forces in the Gulf without having explained the intelligence behind the move. On May 5, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the Pentagon was sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the region 'in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings' related to Iran. In the week since, the Pentagon said it would also position a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious assault ship in the region as a warning to Tehran. Iran has denied planning anything and U.S. allies have warned of the danger of escalation, saying it heightens the chance that an accident could set off a major conflict. Both Washington and Tehran said Tuesday that they were not seeking war - but, in Sochi, Russia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again issued a warning. 'We have also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion.' The news comes after an American military team claimed Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies used explosives to blow large holes in four ship (pictured, A. Michel, one of the tankers damaged) anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday Norwegian oil tanker Andrea Victory, another of the four damaged boats, pictured with a large dent in its stern on Monday morning Ghika's comments, and the lack of any details on what Washington believes Tehran was planning, has fed suspicions among critics that President Trump's administration was firing up tensions in the region without justification. 'We've seen no change in the posture or laydown' of the Shia Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi paramilitary group with close ties to Tehran, Ghika said. 'Of course PMF is a very broad range of groups. Many of them are compliant and we have seen no change in their posture since the recent exchange between the U.S. and Iran.' Ghika denied he was contradicting his U.S. partners, and said the Inherent Resolve forces were already postured against a range of threats. 'I don't think we're out of step with the White House at all,' Ghika said. But Central Command's Urban said that in fact alert levels had been stepped up due to the Iran threat. 'U.S. Central Command, in coordination with Operation Inherent Resolve, has increased the force posture level for all service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria,' he said in a statement. 'As a result, OIR is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq.' Two gunmen opened fire at diners at a restaurant in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen on Monday night, killing one person and injuring 11 others. The Attorney General's office in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo said the horrifying attack at the Cerveceria Chapultepec was directly connected to a criminal organization that was seeking a 'piso' fee, which in English means extortion payments, from a business owner. A cellphone video showed the carnage left by the unknown gunmen, who reportedly got off their motorcycles and unleashed a hail of bullets at 9.45pm local time at the eatery in the Caribbean coastal town. Cerveceria Chapultepec is located just blocks away from five major resorts while other top rated all-inclusive hotels are nestled to the south off the shores of the Caribbean Sea. Playa del Carmen is one of Mexico's top destinations for international tourists despite being one of the country's most dangerous towns. According to Mexican outlet La Jornada, as of Monday night, Playa del Carmen had reported 86 assassinations in 2019. WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT Restaurant patrons (pictured) tend to a victim of a shooting that left one person dead and 11 wounded on Monday night in the Mexican resort city of Playa del Carmen A paramedic in Playa del Carmen places a shooting victim inside an ambulance after two men allegedly shot up a restaurant in what government officials said was related to a criminal organization seeking extortion payment Authorities block out access to a restaurant in the tourist-favorite city of Playa del Carmen where at least 12 people were shot, including one who died Government statistics for the first quarter of 2019 were released in late April and revealed that homicides in the municipality of Solidaridad, where Playa del Carmen is located, increased six times in contrast with the same period last year. There were 55 homicides in the city from January to March, compared with nine in the first three months of 2018. In April, the United States Department of State issued a travel advisory for American travelers visiting Mexico but excluded Quintana Roo. The warning cautioned travelers to stay away from the states of Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan and Sinaloa, which have high crime rates. Tourists were also told to be mindful of the crime and kidnapping that has engulfed the state of Tamaulipas. The attackers left several men and women sprawled near the sidewalk dining tables and inside the eatery. The restaurant is located on a section of the strip that is packed with restaurants, shops and sightseeing attractions, including a museum honoring Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. Images rapidly shared on social media showed survivors being tended to by their friends and loved ones before ambulances ushered them away. The wounded were taken to area hospitals for treatment. The names of the victims were withheld by law enforcement authorities investigating the frightening attack. The coastal town of Playa del Carmen, a top destination for tourists visiting Mexico's Caribbean coast, is located in the municipality of Solidaridad Cancun, another top destination spot located in the northeastern part of Quintana Roo, has been far more dangerous than Playa del Carmen. Through the first four months and a half of 2019, there have been 159 murders tallied, four that claimed the lives of police officers. The government responded with a tactical plan to combat crime by increasing the presence of the police in Cancun and Playa del Carmen, but it still has not been enough to quell the terror. The coastal town of Playa del Carmen is located in the municipality of Solidaridad. The city is also home to Xcaret, the Mayan archaeological site. There were no arrests announced as of Tuesday. One of the organizers of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville two years ago said it would not have taken place had Donald Trump not become president. 'There is no question that Charlottesville wouldn't have occurred without Trump' leader for the 'alt-right', Richard Spencer, said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine. 'It really was because of his campaign and this new potential for a nationalist candidate who was resonating with the public in a very intense way,' Spencer said. 'The alt-right found something in Trump,' he added. 'He changed the paradigm and made this kind of public presence of the alt-right possible.' Organizer of a notorious white supremacist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, nearly two years ago (shown above) said it would not have taken without Donald Trump 'There is no question that Charlottesville wouldn't have occurred without Trump' leader for the 'alt-right', Richard Spencer (left), said in an interview The rally in Charlottesville took place six months after President Trump took office. It originated after white nationalists and Spencer scheduled a protest, named 'Unite the Right', about the city's plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Several hundreds of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists - many carrying tiki torches - marched on the University of Virginia campus chanting slogans such as 'Jews will not replace us' and 'Blood and soil.' The rally and subsequent counter-protest the following day led to a 21-year-old neo-Nazi serving life in prison after he drove his car into a group of counter-protesters. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and dozens of other people injured when James Alex Fields Jr drove his car into the crowd. Several hundreds of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists - many carrying tiki torches - marched on the University of Virginia campus chanting slogans such as 'Jews will not replace us', to ostensibly demonstrate against the removal of a confederate statue Heather Heyer (right), 32, was killed and dozens of other people injured when James Alex Fields Jr drove his car into the crowd Trump drew broad criticism following the Charlottesville violence when he spoke of 'very fine people' and 'blame on both sides' of the conflict (James Alex Fields, left, is pictured at the rally) The counter-protesters had gathered in opposition to the white supremacists who had come to the university town ostensibly to protest the removal of the Confederate statue. Trump has been accused of giving tacit encouragement to white supremacists by failing to unequivocally condemn their ideology and his anti-immigration policies have mostly targeted Muslims, Africans and Latinos. Trump drew broad criticism following the Charlottesville violence when he spoke of 'very fine people' and 'blame on both sides' of the conflict, appearing to establish a moral equivalence between the white supremacists and those who opposed them. The incident turned Charlottesville into a symbol of the growing audacity of the far right under Trump. Spencer, one of the organizers of the 'Unite the Right' rally, told the Atlantic that Trump was 'being honest and calling it like he saw it.' 'I was proud of him at that moment,' he said. Two teenage girls have been stabbed after a brawl involving 30 teenagers broke out at a park near a shopping centre in Melbourne's southeast. Police say a fight between two groups of females occurred at Max Pawsey Reserve in Narre Warren on Tuesday around 9.30pm. Four teenage girls were injured, with one 16-year-old sustaining a serious stab wound to her back and arm. She was later transferred to a children's hospital for treatment. A 17-year-old girl was taken to hospital after she was treated by paramedics at the scene for non-life threatening injuries. A 20-year-old girl sustained injuries to her hand but declined further medical treatment at the scene. A second 17-year-old was treated for a gash hand but was later discharged. Photos posted on social media show police at the scene. One girl was rushed to the hospital with a stab wound, another stab victim took herself to the hospital, while another woman was treated at the scene Victoria MPs have taken to social media to weigh in on the ongoing issue and calling action Blood stains were found at the park as well as at bus stop 500 metres from Westfield Fountain Gate mall, the Herald Sun reported. Police only learned of the incident after the stab wound victim arrived at the hospital, Detective Senior Sergeant Trevor Smith told reporters. By the time officers arrived, most of the girls had fled the scene. Victoria Police were asking anyone who may have any information relating to incident to come forward. It came just days after the mall hired more security to patrol the shopping centre following a crime wave involving a string of robberies and assaults. Business owners had expressed concern over groups of up to a dozen teenagers storming stores, damaging and stealing items. Several retailers told the Cranbourne Leader their stores had been 'ransacked' by gangs in recent weeks and a poll of 3000 locals found 74 per cent admitted they steered clear of the centre due to fears of violence. Victoria MPs, incluing La Trobe MP Jason Wood, had taken to social media to weigh in on the ongoing issue and calling for the government to take action. 'Gang violence is absolutely out of control, once again youth gangs have targeted Fountain Gate. I have laws to deport foreign-born thugs, and now the AFP will be targeting violent gangs in the South East," Mr Wood said. 'Bill Shorten and Labor are still opposing this, and say I'm overreacting as there is NO youth gang problem,' he said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. Gembrook MP Brad Battin also took to social media saying, 'this is not the Fountain Gate we have known for decades.' 'Shop owners say they are helpless, parents fear for their children as robberies increase, and now overnight, reports of a riot and possible stabbing', he said. The wave of crime at Fountain Gate Westfield, in Melbourne's south-east, has prompted centre management to hire more security guards in an effort to regain control. Pictured above In 2017 a woman was attacked with an axe in the salon she worked in and was rushed to hospital (pictured) 'How can we stop this rot, how can we make it safer?' An army of security guards, dressed in cream coloured khakis and blue polo shirts, have been patrolling the mall that has been dubbed the 'most unsafe' in Victoria. Earlier this month one cafe worker told how one group of teens came to her shop and 'literally went through and flipped up all the tables and chairs'. A woman said her 14-year-old son was attacked and mugged by a gang of six teenagers in the food court last month. 'One of his friends was asked by the gang to hand over his jacket or he'd be stabbed. The boys were then told they would be bashed if they didn't hand over all of their cash,' she said. In February 2016 a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in a brazen daylight attack near the shopping centre. The mother was disappointed with how security and management had handled the incident, saying that security didn't call to let her know what happened, and that police weren't even notified about the incident by security. On a Casey Crime Facebook page, a woman claimed that she was attacked by six teenage girls on April 20, while security watched. In March two teenage girls (pictured) attacked a chicken shop worker and stole the days earnings of $5,000 in the middle of the shopping centre Another woman claimed a lady smacked her six-year-old granddaughter across her face, and centre management and security didn't do anything about it after she reported the incident to them. A Fountain Gate worker said a bunch of teenagers are known to come into her store and try to distract staff in a bid to steal from the tip jar. Last month, two teenage girls brutally bashed a chicken shop worker in a failed attempt to rob her of the day's takings in front of stunned onlookers. The shop worker had been holding $5,000 when she was attacked by the teenagers, who punched her in the back of her head and flung her to the floor, before continuing to kick her. It's understood she later required 13 stitches in her leg after she tripped on a vase. In 2017, a mother-of-two who worked in a salon at the shopping centre was attacked by a 45-year-old man with an axe. The woman was rushed to hospital and survived but the bloody incident left co-workers and bystanders extremely shaken. The alleged attacker was charged with attempted murder. Despite the lawlessness, police said there were regular patrols of the precinct, and a strong partnership with management. 'Police from Narre Warren, Cranbourne and Endeavour Hills regularly patrol the shopping centre with more serious offences followed up by detectives from Casey crime investigation unit,' Acting Inspector Dean Grande said. A spokeswoman for Scentre Group told news.com.au: 'The safety and security of our customers, retail partners and employees is always our priority. 'As a social hub and meeting point in the local community, Westfield Fountain Gate strives to ensure all our customers feel welcome, comfortable and safe when visiting,' the spokeswoman said. 'Every situation is different and our experienced teams make decisions on how to manage situations on a case-by-case basis always with the safety of our customers in mind.' Embattled rugby union player Israel Folau appears to have taken one last social media swipe at his bosses as he waits to learn the future of his career. The Wallabies star took to Instagram on Tuesday to change his profile picture, which until then, showed him playing for the Waratahs and raising his hand to the sky. In place of the rugby photo, Folau uploaded a graphic with the words 'God First'. Folau, 30, faces the axe over a controversial Instagram post that said homosexuals and other 'sinners' were destined for hell. Rugby Australia found him guilty of a high-level breach of the player's code of conduct over the April 10 post. A three-person independent panel was expected to hand down their punishment as early as Wednesday Embattled rugby union player Israel Folau appears to have taken one last swipe against the sporting board as he waits to learn the future of his career Folau faces the axe over an Instagram post that was deemed homophobic after he said homosexuals and other 'sinners' were destined for hell In place of the picture of him celebrating, Folau has uploaded an image of the number one, comprised of the smaller words, 'God' (pictured) His new profile picture adds to his short biography on his social media account, which reads, 'Living for Jesus Christ'. It's understood Folau told the disciplinary panel at the hearing that 'God spoke to me' when he made the controversial April 10 post, Sydney Morning Herald reported. It also emerged his legal representatives said that Folau would be willing to admit to a low-level breach and acknowledged his posts had hurt not only the code but also fans and players. Had it been accepted, Folau would have faced much lesser sanctions instead of the possible termination of his four-year, $4million contract. It's understood Rugby Australia's case for terminating Folau's contract was based on his lack of remorse, refusal to delete the post and admission he could post similar comments in the future. Rugby Australia had offered him a $1 million settlement to walk away from his contract, though Folau turned that down. During a church service in Sydney on Sunday, he revealed he had turned down several opportunities to save his $4 million contract and that he refused the 'temptation' to take down his social media post. 'The way Satan works is he offers you stuff that could look good to the eye and makes you feel comfortable, and if you follow that path all the worries and troubles will go away. (But) it is always the will of God that comes first,' he said at The Truth of Jesus Christ service. If Folau is stood down, he will become the first Australian athlete dismissed for expressing fundamental religious beliefs. The ongoing saga could be dragged out even further if Folau decides to appeal, which result in a new panel being formed, and beyond that lay the option of taking his case to the civil courts. Folau has defended his controversial post (pictured) and said it was religiously motivated, and appears to have used faith as the basis of his latest taunt on social media A con artist who lied about having cancer, being pregnant and her parent's being sick, won't have to pay back the $200,000 she took from colleagues over six years. Monique Alana James worked as an accountant at logistics group Toll in North Bundaberg, Queensland where she had stolen more than $34,000. The mother-of-one, who worked with her husband in the same company, paid him a higher salary by transferring funds from another employee. She also made a separate transfer of $18,000 to her bank, which included customer payments and gave $700 worth of free services to her mother's workplace. Monique Alana Jones, 33, lied about having cancer as she stole $200,000 from colleagues in the span of six years (stock image) James was arrested and charged for stealing the large sum but did not face court and escaped to Victoria. She moved back to Cairns in far-north Queensland, where she was hired as an accounts manager for a smash repair business. James stole a further $126,000 by diverting money into her account, which included wages of her colleagues and invoices of customers. James had also taken money through a government employment grants program, News Mail reported. The fraudster even tricked a business into giving her a picnic worth $700. After being confronted by her boss, James blamed the previous accounts manager for the missing money and said she had reported the matter to police. The fraudster made a $10,000 deposit on a home, worth more than $1 million and refused to pay the rest of the money owed. The mother-of-one told the home owner she was unable to pay off the house by lying about being pregnant (stock image) James lied to the owner saying she hadn't paid the full sum because she was undergoing chemotherapy to treat her cancer, while she was pregnant. She also said her mother was going through weight surgery and her father was going through an operation for his heart. James' elderly parents moved into the home and proved to them she had paid off the property in full by showing a forged real estate certificate. The owner was forced to pay more than $24,000 in unpaid rent. The 33-year-old pleaded guilty to 15 charges of fraud, stealing and falsifying record changes at Brisbane District Court. The court heard James had previously pretended to be a lawyer and lied about her stepfather being a judge. James was described as 'devious' and 'dishonest' by Judge Vicki Loury, who sentenced her to five years in jail on Tuesday. She was eligible for immediate release after having spent one year in prison on remand and won't pay back any costs. Up to 24 Hurricanes Could Affect Mexico This Season May 17, 2019 Update: According to Conagua, the 2019 Hurricane Season forecast for the Mexican Pacific includes 19 storms: 8 Tropical Storms; 5 Category 1 or 2 hurricanes; and 6 more that could reach Category 3, 4, or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. On the Atlantic side, 14 storms are forecast for the 2019 season - which officially begins on June 1st. Six of them will be Tropical Storms; five Category 1 or 2 hurricanes; and three at Category 3, 4, or 5. Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico - The 2019 Mexican Pacific hurricane season begins today, Wednesday, May 15, and up to 24 cyclones are forecast for this year, according to Christian Dominguez, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Center for Atmospheric Sciences. According to the UNAM researcher, more hurricanes (between 13-14) could affect the Pacific Coast than the Atlantic (less than 12) due to the "El Nino" weather phenomenon, which raises sea temperatures and causes the atmospheric circulation to change. The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1, and is expected to be "below average, meaning there will be fewer cyclones than usual, but they are expected to be categories 1, 2 or 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale," he said. On the other hand, some of the tropical cyclones on the Mexican Pacific could reach categories 4 and 5, and Baja California Sur and Sinaloa can expect a very active hurricane season, according to the specialist's estimates. The 2019 hurricane season will end in both zones on November 30. Though tropical cyclones usually pass Puerto Vallarta without incident, hurricanes can, and have reached, or affected, the Banderas Bay area. Being prepared is always a good idea, and NOW is a good time to develop a natural disaster plan with your family. Everyone should know where the safest place in the house is, a specific meeting place in the event you get separated, and an out-of-state contact person to help coordinate if needed. You should also decide where you will go if instructed to evacuate, what you will bring with you, and how to secure your home in your absence. Disaster plans should include provisions for your pets, too. Every household should also have a disaster kit. It doesn't have to be huge, but at minimum, your kit ought to include: A Basic First-Aid Kit. You should also keep a list of any prescription medicines handy so you don't forget to include them in the kit in case you need to refill them. Potable Water: A gallon per day per person for a few days is a good rule of thumb. Food: Non-perishable items that don't require cooking. Remember things like can openers, paper plates, cups, plastic knives, trash bags, etc... Flashlights/Candles: Remember to pack extra batteries and matches! Blankets and Extra Clothes: You need extras of everything just in case someone needs something dry to put on or it gets really chilly. No-Wash Hand Sanitizer/Baby or Cleansing wipes, and whatever else you think your family might not be able to do without for a few days. Spend some time keeping your family safe by developing a strategy for safety in the unlikely event of a hurricane. Then you can get back to the business of enjoying your time in Puerto Vallarta. A mum was left 'sick to the stomach' after finding a syringe half a metre from where her nine-month-old son was playing at a public swimming spot. Emma Massey was celebrating Mother's Day with her boyfriend and infant son at Ross and Locke Reserve in Cairns on Sunday when they made the discovery, Yahoo News Australia reported. 'It was about half a metre away from where my son was sitting and playing in the water,' said Ms Massey. 'We were all barefoot.' Emma Massey was celebrating Mother's Day with her boyfriend and infant son at Ross and Locke Reserve, Cairns, when they discovered a syringe 'We were both shocked at finding it and felt sick to the stomach when we realised what a close call it could have been.' Ms Massey took a photo of the syringe by the water's edge to post on social media as a warning to others wanting to visit the Reserve, before the couple disposed of it using an empty water bottle. After quickly looking around to see if there were any others, the family left the reserve, stating that they 'didn't feel very comfortable being there after that'. Ms Massey took a photo of the syringe by the water's edge to post on social media as a warning to others wanting to visit the Reserve Other people have expressed outrage at the situation, with one stating it was 'disgusting'. Another commented: 'What if a child stands on that besides the risk of blood-borne viruses, that would be very painful'. A spokesperson for Cairns Regional Council stated: 'Residents are warned to never touch syringes found in public places but rather report these directly to council so crew can dispose on the item safely'. Failure to discard of syringes properly carried a two-year prison sentence in Queensland. A 70-year-old former police senior sergeant has been fined $8,000 for groping the breast of a female colleague. Keith Zhao admitted to touching the woman's chest in 2017 but argued in Perth Magistrates Court on Tuesday but said the action was to point out something about her shirt. The court found that Zhao approached the woman at work and commented on her shirt before he reached down under her bra and groped her breast. The victim, who can't be identified, testified in court and said that there was a pattern of harassment and sexual remarks before he finally touched her. 'I said if you ever touch me again, you're a dead c**t,' she said according to WA Today. Keith Zhao, 70, admitted to touching the woman's chest in 2017 but argued against touching her breast directly and added that he did not wish to pursue a sexual relationship with her (stock image) 'Every conversation would end up in some sexual comment.' She said Zhao would show her pornographic images of Asian women while they worked together, questioning her on bondage. She initially chose not to report Zhao as she believed him to be a dangerous man and didn't have faith in her superiors at the time. Another officer who worked with the man said they once observed Zhao sniffing the chair of the victim and said he would frequently make inappropriate sexual comments about other staff. Zhao, who has since retired, said in court he touched the chest of his colleague to highlight that her breast was visible through her shirt. He argued that this was not a sexual action and denied putting his hand down her shirt and bra. 'I would not do that to a woman,' Zhao said. Following her assault the victim initially chose not to report Zhao as she knew him to be a dangerous man and didn't have faith that her superiors would deal with the issue (stock image) The woman said on another occasion the senior sergeant put his arm around her daughter who was visiting the police station and sent her an inappropriate text message making reference to the girl's lips. Magistrate Dianne Scaddan said the woman was a credible witness and she was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that she had been assaulted. Zhao was fined $8,000 for his actions, $4,000 of which will be paid out to the woman. Australia will begin importing grain from overseas for the first time since 2007 as the worst drought in 100 years shows no signs of stopping. The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources approved a permit to import grain from Canada with several other permits still waiting approval. The domestic price for grain has increased after the drought destroyed winter crops on Australia's east coast. The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources approved a permit to import wheat from Canada for the first time since 2007 The shipment is alleged to be of a high-protein grain which will mainly be used in milling but must meet biosecurity standards. The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources announced the grain import approval via a statement. 'An Australian importer has been issued a permit to import bulk wheat from Canada,' the statement said. 'The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources issued the permit for a single shipment of bulk wheat, subject to strict conditions to manage any biosecurity risk.' Importers are looking for crops overseas as the price of domestic grain continues to climb due to limited supply Importers are looking for crops overseas as the price of domestic grain continues to climb due to limited supply. Robobank senior grains and oilseeds analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon said the winter crop has dropped considerably due to the drought. 'We forecast a total winter crop near to 29 million tonnes, down 23 per cent year-on-year and 30p per cent on the five-year average,' Ms Kalisch Gordon told Farm Weekly. The department is assessing 11 applications to import grain into Australia with canola, wheat, corn and sorghum being highly sought after. The statement outlined the strict import conditions for the grain which will ensure animals and other crops won't be impacted 'The import conditions require that the grain is sourced from areas assessed as presenting a low plant and animal biosecurity risk and impose strict movement, storage and processing controls within Australia,' the department said. 'The shipment is expected to arrive in Australia in the next six to eight weeks.' An Australian UFC fighter has been taken to hospital in Chile with a blood infection after falling seriously ill during a flight back home. Alexander 'The Great' Volkanovski, 30, from New South Wales' Illawarra region, shocked Brazilian spectators with a thrilling underdog victory against local legend Jose Aldo on Sunday. The 30-year-old started complaining of sore feet after leaving his Rio de Janeiro hotel on Tuesday, but pressed on and began the long journey to Sydney. During a connecting flight to Chile, Volkanovski's condition worsened and his left foot began to swell, his manager Rhys Dal Cin told the Illawarra Mercury. Australian UFC fighter Alexander 'The Great' Volkanovski (right) has fallen seriously ill with a blood infection just days after beating Brazilian legend Jose Aldo (left) Volkanovski (pictured with wife) complained of sore feet after leaving his Rio hotel on Tuesday, and was rushed to hospital before boarding his connecting flight in Chile When the flight touched down in Santiago, Volkanovski was examined by a local doctor and immediately rushed to hospital. 'Alex is being treated for a type of blood infection. His expected release from hospital has not been determined,' Mr Dal Cin said. 'A full report on his condition will be provided at a suitable time when all information has been communicated by medical staff. Alex is in good spirits.' Volkanovski's wife Emma told the publication she would be waiting by the phone for the results of his hospital tests. Volkanovski's wife Emma said she would be waiting by the phone for the results of his hospital tests The health scare came after Volkanovski shocked UFC legend Aldo in three rounds. The judges unanimously awarded the fight to the Australian fighter 30 to 27. Volkanovski was thrilled with the win but said his sights were already set on his next fight in an interview moments after the victory. 'Mate, it feels incredible, I mean, Ive just beaten one of the greatest featherweights of all time. This will open all sorts of doors for me,' he told Perth Now. 'When it comes to me fighting Max Holloway, yeah, lets get it sorted, and on the same Australian card as Rob and Israel Adesanya.' Controversy is swirling around a foul-mouthed teen YouTuber after a journalist accused her of bigotry against Muslims and the platform removed the video under scrutiny. The young YouTube star known as 'Soph', a 14-year-old high school freshman from the Bay Area, became the center of debate after a highly critical Buzzfeed article was published on Monday. The article highlights a crude video called 'Be Not Afraid,' in which Soph dresses in a chador and explains sarcastically that she has become 'devout follower of the Prophet Muhammad' and laments that she gets 'raped by my 40-year-old husband every so often'. The rest of the 20-minute video goes on to blast internet outrage culture and encourage young people to speak their minds without fear of being offensive. The video was banned for 'violating the company's policy on hate speech' within a day of the Buzzfeed article, which blasted YouTube executives for allowing Soph's channel and stirred a wave of online outrage. YouTube banned Soph's video 'Be Not Afraid' (above) after a Buzzfeed article highlighted its crude mockery of Muslims. The teen girl vows not to stop making controversial videos The Buzzfeed article described Soph as 'a cherubic white girl mocking Islamic dress while lecturing her hundreds of thousands of followers about Muslim 'rape gangs,' social justice 'homos,' and the evils wrought by George Soros.' It points out instances in which the teen's 'comedy' videos seem to veer into racism or anti-gay sentiments. The author goes on to criticize YouTube for allowing Soph's controversial videos, which the teen has defended as being comedic. A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to DailyMail.com: 'YouTube is an open platform where anyone may post videos as long as they comply with our Community Guidelines. This may include content that some find offensive. 'We enforce our policies rigorously and last quarter alone, removed more than 8 million videos. Responsibility remains our number one priority and we continue to invest heavily in our teams, technology and processes to protect the platform.' According to YouTube, Soph's channel had been reviewed and while two videos were removed, the company found that the vast majority of her videos did not violate their policies. Soph, whose channel grew about 10 per cent to 880,000 followers in the day after the Buzzfeed article, responded in a tweet directed at the author, Joseph Bernstein. 'I cannot thank you enough @Bernstein,' she wrote. Conservative commentators responded to the Buzzfeed article and the subsequent ban of the 'Be Not Afraid' video by accusing journalists of targeting the teen and attempting to get her banned. 'There are adult journalists who hunt down kids on YouTube to report for [saying the] wrong thing. (Which in this case is biting social commentary and funnier than anything on network TV)' wrote right-wing talk show host Dave Rubin on Twitter. Soph got her start on YouTube not in politics, but as a nine-year-old video game streamer under the monicker 'LtCorbis'. She says she writes her scripts with a collaborator, and edits and scores her videos herself. Last summer, another of her videos was banned after she threatened YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki over the platform shutting down comments on her videos. 'Susan, I've known your address since last summer,' Soph said in the video. 'I've got a Luger and a mitochondrial disease. I don't care if I live. Why should I care if you live or your children? I just called an Uber. You've got about seven minutes to draft up a will. ... I'm coming for you, and it ain't gonna be pretty.' Soph (above) makes videos mocking PC culture, and her defenders say she is being targeted by a left-wing outrage mob after a Buzzfeed article urging YouTube to ban her SOPH'S BIGGEST CONTROVERSIES Last month it was revealed that Soph had called for the 'mass genocide of Muslims' on the gaming chat app Discord. 'Please kill Muslims,' she wrote in the rant, calling it a 'service to society'. Soph, who admitted she had written the comments, also wrote that she hoped for a 'Hitler for Muslims' to 'gas them all'. The YouTube star also came under fire for her video 'Multiracial White Supremacy'. In the sketch video, Soph plays clips from a Dr Phil segment in which an African American teen said she did not identify as black. 'African Americans are loud, rude, obnoxious, and just all together fat and ugly,' the teen declares. 'I thought she was supposed to be racist,' replies Soph, acting as an FBI agent. 'She's just stating indisputable facts so far.' And last month after Soph's comments were deactivated to help protect her from child exploitation, she threatened to kill YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. 'Susan, I've known your address since last summer,' she said in the video. 'I've got a Luger and a mitochondrial disease. I don't care if I live.' 'Why should I care if you live or your children? I just called an Uber. You've got about seven minutes to draft up a will. I'm coming for you, and it ain't gonna be pretty.' Advertisement In the newly banned video, 'Be Not Afraid', Soph appears to drop her sarcastic persona at the very end and delivers a message vowing that she will not stop making videos. 'You could beg me kicking and screaming to stop disseminating the ideas I believe in, and it wouldn't make a f**king difference,' she says. 'Not only am I inoculated to that bulls**t, most of Gen Z is too. Millennials grew up with MTV and nowadays watch Colbert. We, on the other hand, grew up with the internet, so we have no centralized source of information that controls what we think,' she continued. 'We filter out the truth for ourselves; we're not lazy. No one is brainwashing kids. Kids are simply learning from having free access to information, and there's nothing you can do about it,' Soph said. She concluded: 'If you're still pretending to be mad at me...suck a fat c**k in hell. If you're a Gen-Z-er, never censor yourself and speak freely until the day you die.' Chilling footage shows a woman's final moments walking away from a hotel before she disappeared - as human remains found in a dam are confirmed to be hers. Staff at a water treatment facility in Katoomba in New South Wales' Blue Mountains found the human remains on March 19. Following extensive forensic testing, they were on Wednesday confirmed to be Cecilia Devine, 42, who had been missing for almost eight months. Following extensive forensic testing, the remains were confirmed to be Cecilia Devine (pictured), 42, who had been missing for almost eight months Detectives from Blue Mountains Police Area Command were treating her death as a homicide, launching Strike Force Eking to investigate. Ms Devine was reported missing from Waratah, in suburban Newcastle, on September 5 last year, with police saying they held grave concerns for her safety when she vanished. A desperate plea for information on her whereabouts was made on December 21 - on what would have been her 42nd birthday. NSW Police launched a public appeal on Wednesday as they continued to investigate the circumstances around Ms Devine's death. As part of the ongoing investigation, CCTV footage was released showing Ms Devine wearing a bright yellow cardigan, black pants and carrying an orange handbag. She was filmed walking away from a hotel in Katoomba before turning down a driveway on September 6. Blue Mountains Police Area Crime Manager, Detective Inspector Scott McAlpine, said investigators are trying to piece together Ms Devine's last movements. Chilling footage shows Ms Devine's final moments (pictured) walking away from a hotel before she disappeared Ms Devine was reported missing from Waratah on September 5 last year, with police saying they held grave concerns for her safety when she vanished 'One of the last known sightings of Cecilia Devine was her leaving this hotel and walking down one of the main streets of Katoomba,' Det Insp McAlpine said. 'We believe there are people out there who spoke with Cecilia or saw her at the time and we urge them to come forward. 'We're all wanting the same outcome to find answers for Cecilia's loved ones. They need to know what happened to her and how she came to be where she was.' She was filmed walking away from a hotel in Katoomba before turning down a driveway on September 6 Convicted drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury has posted a touching Mother's Day message online from her prison cell in Colombia, hinting that she could be free as early as next year. 'Happy Mothers' Day to all the mums out there. The most important woman in our lives is our mother. And this is the last year I am away from mine,' the message posted in Spanish on her Instagram reads. The then 22-year-old was sentenced in November 2017 to six years behind bars after working out a plea deal but, with good behaviour, this could be reduced to three years - which would see her out in 2020. Convicted drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury (right) has posted a touching Mother's Day message online to her mum (left) 'Happy Mothers' Day to all the mums out there. The most important woman in our lives is our mother. And this is the last year I am away from mine,' the message posted in Spanish on her Instagram reads The sentence could also potentially be commuted with her serving the remainder in home detention in Bogota. It appears Sainsbury has patched things up with her mother after a public feud in which she claimed she was trying to make money by selling her story without permission. She had previously revealed she was having a difficult time in prison with other prisoners targeting her and referring to her as a 'gringo.' Convicted drug mule Cassie Sainsbury (pictured) will be spending her second Christmas locked up in a Colombian prison Sainsbury was arrested while trying to fly out of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, in April 2017. She is pictured after her arrest She recently spent her second Christmas in jail and hinted to the media she may have started a relationship with another prisoner. Sainsbury's first Christmas in jail was marked by fellow inmates holding up signs saying 'Cassandra asks freedom immediately' and claims she was being targeted and bullied. El Buen Pastor jail is Bogota's largest female prison. Sainsbury - who became known as 'Cocaine Cassie' - last month hinted she has taken a same-sex lover while behind bars. Speaking from her Colombian prison cell, Sainsbury told New Idea her romance was 'something that's just starting'. Sainsbury also opened up about teaching English to both inmates and prison guards and her friendships with rumoured drug dealers. She revealed details about her first few months in prison, telling the publication she initially struggled with the food but has since adapted to life behind bars - and even made friends. Sainsbury (pictured centre) said she initially struggled with being prison but has since adapted to life behind bars Sainsbury (pictured left and right being led by authorities) said she has made friends in prison but keeps her distance from others 'I have a friend called Gina, the other one is Margary and the other one is Stella. I think Gina is in prison for selling drugs,' Sainsbury said. 'I've met a lot of people that are here for murdering several people or terrorist attacks. Basically, I keep my distance from them.' Sainsbury broke-up with former fiance Scott Broadbridge after she was sentenced but they continued to pretend they were together until April. The February break-up came just months after the couple revealed they would be having a 'lavish' prison wedding - and that Mr Broadbridge would 'be there til the end'. She told KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O show the couple 'kept their break-up very quiet' for months - giving the illusion they were still together. Sainsbury has been behind bars in El Buen Pastor prison (pictured) since her arrest Sainsbury has hinted at a same-sex lover behind. She is pictured here with her former fiance Scott Broadbridge. The couple broke-up earlier this year 'For quite some time things just weren't good between us. From the moment I got in here the relationship was doomed,' she said. Sainsbury has always maintained her innocence. She previously claimed she was unable to remember the password to her phone, which she claimed contained vital evidence in relation to her case. Sainsbury could be released as early as 2020, with good behaviour and time served, if early release is approved by a Colombian judge. Alabama lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday banning nearly all abortions, including those in rape and incest cases. The 25 to six vote makes it the most restrictive anti-abortion measure passed since pro-life campaigners were defeated in the landmark Roe v. Wade case in 1973. That ruling stated that depriving women of the right to an abortion except to save the mother's life was unconstitutional. Under the Alabama bill, the only exceptions are to safeguard the health of the mother, while doctors could face 10 years in prison for attempting an abortion and 99 years for actually carrying out the procedure. Scroll down for video The bill was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign it but generally is a strong opponent of abortion (senators speak during a state Senate vote on the strictest anti-abortion bill in the United States) The bill will now go before Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who despite not having publicly committed to signing the legislation, is seen as strongly opposed to abortion and is expected to sign the bill into law. The law would take effect six months after being signed but is certain to face a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups who have vowed to sue. The bill comes as part of a multi-state effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced in 16 states this year, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. Georgia recently signed into law the so-called heartbeat bill to outlaw abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable - typically around the six week mark. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time. People who perform abortions would be subject to a felony, although a woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The law, which passed 25-6, would take effect six months after being signed by the governor, but is certain to face legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups who have vowed to sue (protestors demonstrate outside of Alabama's state senate) The Republican-controlled Alabama Senate also defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape and incest. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa law that was passed last year. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life for the unborn child transcends other rights, an idea they would like tested. Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss, arguing in favor of the Alabama bill, said the whole point was 'so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe versus Wade.' The high court, now with a majority of conservative justices after Republican President Donald Trump appointed two, could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade - something that would prove seismic in the fight between pro-life and pro-abortion campaigners. Republican lawmaker Terri Collins, sponsor of the legislation, said: 'Our bill says that baby in the womb is a person.' Just this year, Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio have also outlawed abortion under the heartbeat law. Democratic state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison called the Republicans hypocritical for advocating small government that ought to stay out of private matters but 'now you want in my womb; I want you out.' Actress and activist Alyssa Milano has called for a sex strike under the social media hashtag #SexStrike. It comes in response to the campaigns against abortion rights, urging women to refuse sex with men 'until we get bodily autonomy back.' The anti-abortion measures taking effect around the nation have prompted support and disgust in equally fervid measure. The heartbill bill was thrown into stark focus again when it emerged an 11-year-old in Ohio who allegedly became pregnant after being raped by a 26-year-old would have no right to an abortion under the new state legislation signed into law last month. Ohio passed the bill banning abortion in April. As the bill will not come into effect until July, the victim, who cannot be named, will be allowed to have abortion if she chooses, but thousands of other victims will soon be denied the same right. The legislature also means many women will only discover they are pregnant after the time period for a legal abortion has passed. The case has raised serious questions about the so-called 'heartbeat bill', which four other states have passed so far. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa law that was passed last year Troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be protected from legal witch-hunts under plans announced last night. Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt unveiled proposals for a law that will stop soldiers being investigated over incidents more than ten years old unless compelling new evidence comes to light. The amnesty will include a statutory presumption against prosecution that will say action after that time-scale is not in the public interest except in exceptional circumstances. Troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would be protected from legal witch-hunts under plans announced last night (stock image) However, the ten-year ruling would not apply to veterans who served in Northern Ireland. The new limit would aim to stamp out relentless police probes into serving soldiers and veterans who have already been quizzed about their actions on the battlefield. Under the proposals, the law would be applied both retrospectively to those personnel who have served overseas and will also apply to future conflicts that Britain is involved in. Announcing a consultation, Miss Mordaunt said: It is high time that we provide the right legal protections to make sure the decisions our service personnel take in the battlefield will not lead to repeated or unfair investigations down the line. Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt (pictured) unveiled proposals for a law that will stop soldiers being investigated over incidents more than ten years old unless compelling new evidence comes to light Military chiefs are understood to be furious that soldiers are still facing investigations despite politicians repeatedly promising an end to such probes. Miss Mordaunts pledge comes after the Mail revealed that dozens of Iraq War veterans are still being investigated over incidents a decade ago. British troops are also still facing a criminal probe into incidents that occurred in Afghanistan. Miss Mordaunt will establish a short consultation that will look at legal protections for those facing historical allegations. And she will apply lessons from investigating allegations in Iraq and Afghanistan to Northern Ireland legacy cases. Miss Mordaunt will establish a short consultation that will look at legal protections for those facing historical allegations An MoD statement said: A short public consultation will propose legislation to ensure service personnel and veterans are not subjected to repeated investigations on historical operations, many years after the events in question. The Defence Secretary will also pledge her commitment to derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights when it applies to the battlefield. Ministers are pushing ahead with plans for a new taxpayer-funded unit to investigate Northern Ireland military veterans. The Government will respond to a public consultation in the coming days on how to deal with the legacy of the Troubles. A report will conclude that an overwhelming majority of those who responded to the consultation do not support an amnesty or a statute of limitations for troops and terrorists. It will say that instead, there is broad support for proposals set out by ministers, which include a new body to examine 1,700 deaths during the Troubles from as far back as 1968. A Florida agency is investigating potential animal cruelty charges after Clearwater lawyer Thomas Cope (pictured) posted video of himself shooing a raccoon off his boat into the Gulf of Mexico A Florida agency is investigating potential animal cruelty charges after a lawyer posted video of himself shooing a raccoon off his boat into the Gulf of Mexico. The raccoon appeared growling and hissing on Clearwater attorney Thomas Cope's boat, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) out in the Gulf of Mexico, Cope told the Tampa Bay Times. Cope posted the video to Facebook showing the raccoon falling off the boat into the water, as a man's voice can be heard saying, 'So long, sucker.' Cope told DailyMail.com he was sorry for his actions, and that he wished he could have returned the animal to shore but that it was 'running around the boat hissing and growling.' Raccoons can swim, and the animal is shown treading water in the video, but it's not clear whether one would be able to make it 20 miles back to shore as it would have had to do to survive in this case. Social media users called out the behavior in the clips, with one person writing, 'I see no hissing and see only you act like a Jack a** calling him a sucker. F**k you man.' The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a statement that it learned of the video on May 8 and began an investigation and that 'these vile acts of animal cruelty' are intolerable. DailyMail.com left a message for Cope seeking additional comment but did not immediately receive a reply. Cope first posted the videos in three separate chunks in a private group called 'Center Consoles Only (CCOG),' where it was recorded and shared by a person named Jeff Wenzel, whose Facebook account lists him as being from Cleveland, Ohio. Cope told DailyMail.com on Wednesday: 'I apologize for my actions on the boat earlier this week. I sincerely wish there was some way I could have safely returned to shore to release the raccoon. 'The fully-grown male raccoon had hidden away on the boat for several hours and didnt come out until we were well offshore. The animal was running around the boat hissing and growling, making it impossible for me or my friend to drive the boat. 'Knowing raccoons can be rabid and unpredictable, the only realistic option we could think of in that moment was to get the raccoon off the boat. I feel bad for the animal and Im sorry for what I did.' While raccoons are considered dangerous because they may carry rabies, only one human has ever died from the raccoon strain of rabies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Further, 'a rabid raccoon is usually dead within 1-3 days of becoming infectious, and even if you're bitten by a rabid raccoon, effective post-exposure treatment is available,' the Humane Society website reads. Cope's footage doesn't appear to show any aggressive behavior from the raccoon, as it started by showing the animal climbing on the ledge of the boat with a man yelling, 'Get off my f**king boat!' Cope posted the video to Facebook showing the raccoon falling off the boat into the water, as a man's voice can be heard saying, 'So long, sucker.' He later apologized, but said the raccoon was 'hissing and growling' Social media users called out the behavior in the clips, with one person writing, 'I see no hissing and see only you act like a Jack a** calling him a sucker. F**k you man' Another voice asks, 'Are you videoing this s**t?' to which the first voice replies, 'Yeah!' as the raccoon jumps into the boat from the side. As the raccoon climbs around, the man's voice continues. 'What the f**k's wrong with-get off my boat!' With the animal now at the front of the boat, the man yells, 'God d**n coon, get off my boat!' With the raccoon climbing on the ledge of the boat, as a man yells, 'Get off my f**king boat!' With the animal now at the front of the boat, the man yells, 'God d**n coon, get off my boat!' It sounds as if someone is stomping off-camera, as the man says, 'Dude get the gaff, we're just gonna have to push him off,' as the raccoon has moved to the right side of the boat It sounds as if someone is stomping off-camera, as the man says, 'Dude get the gaff, we're just gonna have to push him off,' as the raccoon has moved to the right side of the boat. 'Yah!' the man yells, as the raccoon clings to the side of the ledge. As the man backs up to grab the gaff from his friend, the raccoon then falls off, and the man says, 'There he goes,' while approaching the edge of the boat with the metal took in hand. 'Here, put it in gear,' the man says, while pointing the camera at the water to show that raccoon swimming. 'So long sucker!' he yells, as the video ends. 'Yah!' the man yells, as the raccoon clings to the side of the ledge. As the man backs up to grab the gaff from his friend, the raccoon then falls off, and the man says, 'There he goes,' while approaching the edge of the boat with the metal took in hand. 'Here, put it in gear,' the man says, while pointing the camera at the water to show that raccoon swimming. 'So long sucker!' he yells, as the video ends The videos were then reposted by Wenzel on May 8, with a caption that read: 'Share this so people know what a real POS Thomas Cope is...(let the video run) its one thing to hunt animals for food or maybe not even like a particular animal, but to leave one 20 miles out in the ocean to suffer a horrible death is not what true "outdoorsman" do. Its what cowardly entitled scumbag degenerate dirtbags do. This raccoon was just being a raccoon' The videos were then reposted by Wenzel on May 8, with a caption that read: 'Share this so people know what a real POS Thomas Cope is...(let the video run) its one thing to hunt animals for food or maybe not even like a particular animal, but to leave one 20 miles out in the ocean to suffer a horrible death is not what true "outdoorsman" do. Its what cowardly entitled scumbag degenerate dirtbags do. This raccoon was just being a raccoon.' Most who commented on the post agreed with Wenzel, lambasting Cope in the comments. Most who commented on the post agreed with Wenzel, lambasting Cope in the comments Alex Pushkina wrote, 'that raccoon will drown no doubts about it. You just sent a living animal to its death just because that raccoon accidentally showed up on your f**king boat! That animal is in the middle of nowhere. Hope karma will get ya' 'Disturbing that any human being thinks this is Acceptable - heartless disgusting spineless soulless a**hole is exactly what This man is and I see a poor helpless raccoon that is terrified,' wrote Shelley Zahos Schefke. Alex Pushkina wrote, 'that raccoon will drown no doubts about it. You just sent a living animal to its death just because that raccoon accidentally showed up on your f**king boat! That animal is in the middle of nowhere. Hope karma will get ya.' Another called Cope a 'F-ing Jerk,' writing, 'Seriously leaving him out there to drown. What a baby man. He would have just ridden in with you.' Another called Cope a 'F-ing Jerk,' writing, 'Seriously leaving him out there to drown. What a baby man. He would have just ridden in with you' Others called for criminal repercussions for Cope's actions, which the state's wildlife agency is looking into Others called for criminal repercussions for Cope's actions, which the state's wildlife agency is looking into. 'Hope he gets done for Animal cruelty. The animal would have kept it's distance until they reached shore. What an a**hole,' Peter Duffy wrote. In a statement the agency said, 'It is still too early to speculate as to what violations took place in this incident. However, the FWC would like to state that we believe these vile acts of animal cruelty have no place in our state or anywhere else.' Others like Joe Magalski took issue with the characterization of the act as one of animal cruelty. Magalski wrote, 'These animal cruelty claims are insane.' Others like Joe Magalski took issue with the characterization of the act as one of animal cruelty. Magalski wrote, 'These animal cruelty claims are insane' One user said, 'Has nobody encountered a wild raccoon before, or more specifically one you accidentally cornered like in a garage, or a boat? Just because it's cute doesn't mean it won't inflict serious damage' Dale Luginbill disagreed with the comments suggesting the boat should have been taken back to shore with the raccoon on board, but still criticized Cope The investigation into the incident remains open at this time. Cope is pictured One user said, 'Has nobody encountered a wild raccoon before, or more specifically one you accidentally cornered like in a garage, or a boat? Just because it's cute doesn't mean it won't inflict serious damage.' Dale Luginbill disagreed with the comments suggesting the boat should have been taken back to shore with the raccoon on board, but still criticized Cope. 'Wow. You people have no clue and have clearly never been close to any wildlife. Raccoons are no joke. Cornered or frightened they will lash out. I wouldnt have filmed it and I wouldnt have just kicked him over board to swim around. I wouldve killed it and that would be that,' Luginbill wrote. 'If youre the type of person that says youd like to throw him over board...damn, you have your priorities all f**ked up.' The investigation into the incident remains open at this time. Anyone with additional information about what happened has been asked to call the Wildlife Alert Hotline at 1-888-404-3922. 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 The mother of a three-week-old baby who stopped breathing while she carried him in a baby sling said she collapsed when nurses told her he had died. Tattika Dunn relived the devastating moment nurses realised her baby Harvey had stopped breathing during a standard check-up on April 8. In an emotional interview with Kyle and Jackie O, Ms Dunn said she dropped to the floor inside the Long Jetty Community Health Centre on the NSW Central Coast 'and just started screaming' while a medical team around her tried to resuscitate her son. 'I was on the floor watching my baby try to get resuscitated and I could do nothing to help him,' she said through tears. Tattika Dunn walked her newborn son Harvey (pictured) to the Long Jetty Community Health Centre for his postnatal check up on April 8 Ms Dunn (pictured with Harvey) said she made the short trip from her home to the medical centre and spoke with nurses for eight to 10 minutes before unwrapping him from the sling There hadn't been anything out of the ordinary in the morning or days leading up to Harvey's check up. He wouldn't lay in his pram, but he never did. Ms Dunn carried the newborn everywhere. 'Every time I laid him flat he would scream straight away. It was like he was in pain. I would say it to the nurses,' she said. 'He was in the sling [the morning of his death]. He never went in the pram as when I laid him flat he started screaming.' She said she thought his response to laying flat on his back may have been related to his birth. In an emotional interview with Kyle and Jackie O , Ms Dunn said she dropped to the floor inside the Long Jetty Community Health Centre on the NSW Central Coast 'and just started screaming' while a medical team around her tried to resuscitate her son Ms Dunn's labour was induced and the medical team were required to perform a forceps delivery, but Harvey was not believed to have any underlying conditions. 'The labour was a horror scene. He came out not breathing, with a big blood clot on his head, it was all scabbed up and bleeding and he was covered in bruises from the forceps,' she said. 'Every time I would lay him flat he would scream, I would say that to the nurses but they told me it was normal. I did everything they told me to do'. To soothe his discomfort, Ms Dunn often carried baby Harvey, and chose to walk to his postnatal check up with him wrapped in his baby sling. The parents said their other sons, twin four-year-olds Seth and Bailey (pictured together with Harvey) will now grow up without their baby brother She didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until she unwrapped him from the fabric baby sling she had carried him in and handed him over to the neonatal nurse 'It was a routine morning. I had a coffee and walked to the bakery and he was feeding, but between 9am and 9.10 something happened.' She said her whole world came to a standstill as medical teams brought in resuscitation machines and worked on her son, only to tell her that nothing more could be done. Investigators are still trying to establish a cause of death. Ms Dunn said as it currently stands, the report says there is no cause. Police were initially investigating whether the baby sling had anything to do with his death, but are now also considering whether he died from a case of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), The Daily Telegraph reported. The 36-year-old and her husband Bill said they 'will never stop loving, missing, and grieving for the loss of their son'. They also said their other sons, twin four-year-olds Seth and Bailey will now grow up without their baby brother. Tattika and Bill gave birth to their baby boy Harvey on Tuesday, 12th of March 2019 Ms Dunn said the boys often ask 'if she is crying about baby Harvey' but that she tries her hardest to stay strong for them. 'I had to explain to them that their heart stopped and say your brother's died and he's not coming back. To say that.. there's nothing worse. To tell them he's not coming back,' she said. She shared a post to Facebook days after Harvey's death discussing the fragility of life. 'Life is precious,' Ms Dunn wrote. 'Cherish every moment and hold your loved ones close.' 'It's still very raw to me, but recently I lost my three-week-old baby for 'no known reason'.' 'I am experiencing so much grief and not coping, but I had a community of people who I would now call family stand and take over for me,' she said. A GoFundMe page was established on the family's behalf to help ease the financial burden in the coming months. The community has set up a GoFundMe page to help ease the financial pressures on the family 'This family will soon face bills and the hardships that follow laying a child to rest,' the page reads. 'Your donation will help give them the financial help and support they need to have time to process, grieve, and attempt to heal after experiencing the worst event that could ever happen to a parent. 'It's unimaginable to most of us to even comprehend what they must be going through. There is nothing that can be done to ease the pain that comes with such an unexpected tragedy. Harvey's body was sent to a Newcastle morgue. A post mortem report will be presented to the Coroner and an inquest into his death is expected to be held. Harvey's father, Bill, has been described as an upstanding member of the community who often patrols the beach While police are now investigating other potential causes for Harvey's death, the chief midwife at Red Nose Australia, Jane Wiggill, said regulations surrounding fabric slings are currently quite lax in Australia. She said there are currently no regulations or standards in Australia relating to their use. 'Using baby slings is a suffocation risk, especially if a baby is placed incorrectly in a sling,' she said. 'This is because babies do not have the physical ability to move out of dangerous positions that can block their airways. This includes lying in a sling with a curved back, with their chin to chest; or lying with their face pressed against the fabric of the sling or the wearer's body as it makes it difficult to turn their head when pressed against the fabric. She said the slings pose a greater risk to babies under four months of age, those who were born premature or those who already have breathing difficulties. Bridget Prentice has quit the Labour Party in frustration and anger over Jeremy Corbyn A former Labour minister has quit the party after 45 years in a furious protest at Jeremy Corbyn's record on Brexit and tackling anti-Semitism. Bridget Prentice, who was MP for Lewisham East from 1992 to 2010, claimed the party had been 'destroyed' under Mr Corbyn's leadership. In a fiercely-worded attack she said that 'in all the major issues of the day, you have called it wrong'. Ms Prentice, who served as a whip and junior justice minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said 'enough is enough'. She said she was resigning with 'deepest sadness and some anger' after 45 years of party membership. In her resignation letter to acting general secretary Karie Murphy she said she had 'watched in horror as Jewish members have begged for support' and been met with a 'slow, reluctant and inadequate' response. She accused him of 'mealy-mouthed words' rather than speaking out against the 'bullies and bigots'. 'It is easy to say Jeremy is not racist. But there is the sin of omission,' she said. By 'not standing up to the bullies and the anti-Semites' Mr Corbyn 'showed no leadership'. On Brexit, she said it was 'clear to any objective observer that Jeremy has no wish to remain in Europe' and in his 'limited thinking' he viewed the EU as a 'bad thing'. She claimed Mr Corbyn was 'apparently completely ignorant of the benefits it has brought to working people in this country'. The former MP accused Corbyn of having 'limited thinking' over the European Union She added that it was 'pandering to the baser views of racists' to suggest EU workers were the cause of lower wages for Britons. Ms Prentice said that he had 'deliberately ignored' young members over the issue of Brexit, failing to join them on the People's Vote march. She said he was 'like Macavity' and when issues 'directly affect people in this country, but the answers don't sit cosily with the ideology, he's not there'. 'Yet he can attend marches, show solidarity with regimes which are murdering their people, harassing women and LGBT communities and destroying their economies.' A Labour spokesman said: 'It is disappointing that Bridget Prentice has left the party but many claims in her letter are plainly untrue. 'The Labour Party is absolutely committed to challenging and campaigning against anti-Semitism in all its forms and wherever it occurs.' Party sources suggested Ms Prentice was 'aggrieved' that she was not re-nominated to serve as Labour's representative to the Electoral Commission. It came after Mr Corbyn's leadership was also questioned by current MPs at a stormy meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday, with concerns raised on both sides of the Brexit divide. At the meeting of the PLP, Mr Corbyn was told by one critic that his leadership was 'a bigger issue for us than Brexit'. Explaining his decision to speak out, Wes Streeting said: 'I only said what too many say in the tea room, but won't say to Jeremy's face, about what voters are saying on the doorsteps. 'It wasn't this bad with Ed (Miliband). Some of us warned back then that we'd lose in 2015. We weren't listened to then, either, leading to Tory majority and Brexit.' The pro-Remain MP Peter Kyle told the Labour leader the party's message on a second referendum had been too complicated and had left voters perplexed. 'I urge you to simplify our policy so people realise we are speaking with absolute sincerity,' he told Mr Corbyn. The pro-Brexit MP John Mann called on Mr Corbyn to give Labour MPs a free vote on Brexit issues to reflect the divisions within the party and the country. 'Labour voters are divided in a very big way. If you don't get this right you cannot be prime minister,' he told him. Mr Corbyn acknowledged the MPs 'frustrations' and said he understood the need to simplify their message, telling them: 'I get that.' Yesterday, shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner told BBC's Politics Live: 'We want to bring both parts of the country back together again. We are the only party going into these European elections that is actually trying to appeal both to people who want to leave and people who previously voted to remain, saying 'let's see if we can get a compromise in the middle'.' He added: 'We are saying that we want to have a situation where we can have a deal that respects the result and leaves the EU.' Trump was all smiles on Tuesday after a Louisiana governor greeted him wearing a pair of novelty socks that featured the president's hair and face. The president appeared in a buoyant mood ahead of the meeting in Lake Charles with Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, who flashed the playful socks to Trump and the assorted press before the pair shook hands. The socks, made by Gumball Poodle, are available to buy on Amazon for $25 and are described as 'Donald Trump socks with soft, luxurious hair you can style, comb over, clip and tease. Change the President's style to suit your mood!' The president appeared in a buoyant mood ahead of the meeting in Lake Charles with Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, who flashed the playful socks to Trump and the assorted press before the pair shook hands The socks, made by Gumball Poodle, are available to buy on Amazon for $25 and are described as 'Donald Trump socks with soft, luxurious hair you can style, comb over, clip and tease. Change the President's style to suit your mood!' The lieutenant governor then shared numerous images on social media of his exchange with the president. He added that he asked Trump if he would tweet his support for a local American Idol contestant who is among the show's final three competitors. He said in a tweet: 'I asked @POTUS [Trump] today if he would tweet his support for Laine Hardy on American Idol. I reminded him that LA supported him, while CA and NY, the homes of the other 2 finalist, did not. Trump responded and said, 'Billy, I will see what we can do!' The president spent much of the day in Louisiana, speaking to workers at Cameron LNG Export Terminal in Hackberry in the afternoon. He was scheduled to attend a fundraiser in the evening before returning to Washington, D.C. Earlier in the day he singled out four of his challengers for ridicule mocking Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke and Bernie Sanders and predicting one of them will win the 2020 Democratic nomination. 'Boy, you got some beauties there!' he said during a speech about energy infrastructure. 'Three hundred and fifty million people and that's the best we can do?' The president spent much of the day in Louisiana, speaking to workers at Cameron LNG Export Terminal in Hackberry in the afternoon. He was scheduled to attend a fundraiser in the evening before returning to Washington, D.C. 'It's going to be one of these people,' he said. So far 23 different Democratic White House hopefuls have declared their candidacies. He poked fun at O'Rourke for quickly losing what a month ago looked like juggernaut momentum. He jeered Sanders as a lunatic and sneered at Biden's low-intensity campaign style. And he scoffed at Buttigieg's name, hinting that he believes the South Bend, Indiana mayor is too lightweight to warrant real criticism. 'I think we're going to win it big,' he said, forecasting a second term in the White House. 'I'm looking at the competition. You sort of dream about competition like that, but who knows?' 'I got "Boot-edge-edge." I got them all,' he said. More women are taking part in BBC shows than ever before but it seems most of us have failed to notice. An internal report says the 50:50 Project which aims to have women making half of all contributions to BBC shows by next year has already made big strides. Flagship programmes including The Andrew Marr Show, The One Show and BBC Breakfast have achieved a balance, but a quarter of the 500 BBC teams taking part in the project are still too male-heavy, according to the report. BBC shows have been making attempts to achieve a 50/50 gender balance Flagship programmes including The Andrew Marr Show, The One Show and BBC Breakfast have achieved a balance, but a quarter of the 500 BBC teams taking part in the project are still too male-heavy, according to the report The initiative was launched following a survey last year which pointed out that two-thirds of all reporters, analysts and commentators were men. A survey found that only a third of viewers had noticed more females on screen, says the report. But one in five said women increased enjoyment and younger viewers were more likely to approve. The BBC says it has been difficult to achieve an exact balance because of the need to cover staff holidays and because the worlds of politics and business are very male-dominated. But Miranda Holt of BBC Live said: Our teams success in 50:50 has given us the satisfaction of seeing new voices politicians, journalists and commentators on all our live political programmes. Other media groups such as the Financial Times, ABC News and STV in Scotland are set to copy the BBCs drive to monitor and promote gender balance. Director general Lord Hall said: I want the BBC to lead the way on equality and fairness and this project demonstrates what can be achieved. Better representation is something the whole media industry needs... so Im really pleased others are now following us. Former Vice President Joe Biden defended himself on Tuesday against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's criticism of his environmental approach, advising her to look at his record on the issue. The New York Democrat slammed politicians who took a 'middle of the road' approach to climate change, an apparent critique of the former vice president. 'You never heard me say middle of the road. I've never been middle of the road on the environment,' Biden told reporters at The Works Cafe in Concord, New Hampshire. 'Tell her to check the statement that I made and look at my record. She'll find that nobody has been more consistent than taking on the environment and the green revolution than I have.' 'I don't think she was talking about me,' Biden added. Joe Biden defended himself against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's criticism of his environmental approach, advising her to look at his record on the issue Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed politicians who took a 'middle of the road' approach to climate change, an apparent critique of Biden He wore a 'PROTECT PEOPLE, NOT POLLUTERS' sticker on his lapel during the campaign stop, which came on the second day of his two-day swing through New Hampshire. He added that 'you'll hear very shortly the totality of what I plan on doing.' Biden told New Hampshire voters on Monday that he'll deliver his policy plans on the environment by the end of the month. 'I'm laying out a major speech in detail by the end of the month on my specific pieces on the environment. We need an environmental revolution,' he said at a pizza parlor in Hampton, New Hampshire. But, he noted, 'we do need to finish this green revolution in a way that's rational.' While she never mentioned him by name, Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a linked to a Reuters article reporting Biden 'is crafting a climate change policy he hopes will appeal to both environmentalists and the blue-collar voters who elected [Trump].' She slammed the idea with her own added commentary: 'This is a dealbreaker. There is no 'middle ground' w/ climate denial & delay. Blaming 'blue collar' Americans as the main opponents to bold climate policy is gas lobbyist 101. We're not going to solve the climate crisis w/ this lack of leadership. Our kids' lives are at stake.' Younger, more progressive Democratic voters have named climate change one of their top issues. The 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez has led the charge through her Green New Deal, a series of policy proposals that includes having all power used in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources. Progressives - including presidential contenders Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar - have embraced her ideas while moderates have pushed back at its goals and costs. Joe Biden told New Hampshire voters on Monday that he'll deliver his policy plans on the environment by the end of the month Biden wore a 'PROTECT PEOPLE, NOT POLLUTERS' sticker on his lapel during the campaign stop at The Works cafe in Concord, N.H. Ocasio-Cortez also was fired up about the issue Monday night at an event in Washington, where she was trying to rally support for her legislative agenda. 'I will be damned if the same politicians who refused to act then are going to try to come back today and say we need to find a middle-of-the-road approach to save our lives,' she said. 'That is too much for me,' she added. But Biden's press secretary pushed back on the characterization of Biden's forthcoming plan. 'Reuters got it wrong,' TJ Ducklo wrote on Twitter. '@JoeBiden has called climate change a "existential threat," and we look forward to discussing his plan to address it in a meaningful and lasting way in the coming weeks. Just imagine an intruder roams at will around your home, unnoticed. He rifles through your possessions, listens to your conversations and observes your most private doings. That, in effect, is what has happened to users of the WhatsApp messaging system, after hackers exploited a software flaw to install spyware developed by a secretive Israeli firm called NSO Group. Such programs turn mobile phones into powerful tools of surveillance. They can switch on your phones camera and microphone without you knowing, track your movements and snoop on anything that appears on the screen or is typed into the keyboard. Such programs turn mobile phones into powerful tools of surveillance. They can switch on your phones camera and microphone without you knowing (stock image) NSO insists that the spyware, called Pegasus, is sold only to government agencies for use in strict accordance with the law. But this assurance is little comfort given the brutal, lawless behaviour of authoritarian regimes. People who dismember their opponents with bone saws (the Saudis), lock them up in mind-control camps (Chinese), or poison them with nerve agents (Russians) are unlikely to flinch at interfering with peoples privacy. The full scale of the breach is as yet unknown, and few of those affected WhatsApp has 1.5 billion users expect any compensation. The bitter truth is that when you start using a new technology, you sign away your rights and privacy. Most worryingly, WhatsApp is not a gimcrack product of some ingenious start-up. For five years, it has been owned by Facebook, the worlds biggest social media company. The full scale of the breach is as yet unknown, and few of those affected WhatsApp has 1.5 billion users expect any compensation (stock image) So how have we ended up in this plight? The answer is peoples reckless appetite for novelty and convenience, coupled with a complacent and cheapskate approach to security. Mobile phones were initially marketed as handy devices for making calls on the move. Next came the ability to send and receive text messages. Many users were happy with just these capabilities. But those days are long gone. Modern smartphones are far more powerful than a full-size desktop machine of a few years ago. The processing power and memory of even the humblest model dwarfs anything the Apollo astronauts had at their disposal. For many of us, it is no exaggeration to say that they run our lives. Mobile phones were initially marketed as handy devices for making calls on the move (stock image) Our phones have become such intimate companions, it is difficult to imagine being without them. We entrust them with our secrets. They know with whom we communicate, when, where and why. Yet no less astonishing than these devices capabilities are their security weaknesses. At the touch of a button, we can install all kinds of apps programs that promise to make life easier or more enjoyable. But, at the same time, we are opening windows onto our private lives. I have just installed PlantSnap a brilliant, free way of identifying plants and flowers. You can take a picture, upload it and, within a second or two, some unseen computer tells your phone what plant you are looking at. Yet even I, who takes cyber-security very seriously, did not check who was behind this innocent-seeming app. For all I knew, it could contain hidden surveillance software. (As far as I can see, it doesnt.) The truth is, WhatsApps woes are just the tip of the iceberg. At the touch of a button, we can install all kinds of apps programs that promise to make life easier or more enjoyable (stock image) Modern software and hardware are so fiendishly complicated, and designed with such little attention to security, that nothing is truly secure. Shockingly, weak security is not the only problem thats consuming WhatsApp. The messaging system is also implicated in the spread of scare stories and fake news. False rumours that Metro Bank was heading for bankruptcy sparked a panic among depositors in some parts of London last weekend. And in India and Pakistan, disinformation spread via WhatsApp has helped to form lynch mobs, with lethal results. Innocent people wrongly accused of offending religious sensibilities such as eating beef, which outrages strict Hindus have been hacked to death. In Pakistan, mob vengeance on Christians wrongly accused of blasphemy has been incited over WhatsApp. How ironic, too, that, despite the security flaws that allowed Pegasus to infiltrate the network, WhatsApp itself cannot monitor material its users are sending including abusive or extremist content because messages are encrypted. By contrast, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook can police the material publicly shared on their platforms. In effect, WhatsApp is blind to the abuse of its system. Of course, the intelligence services can use spyware such as Pegasus to get inside individual devices. But they need to know who to investigate. In Pakistan, mob vengeance on Christians wrongly accused of blasphemy has been incited over WhatsApp (stock image) Despite a well-connected friend warning me months ago that WhatsApp was insecure, I was unconcerned. My familys use of the platform consists chiefly of group messaging in which we pester each other about dog-walking, shopping and other chores. For more sensitive material, such as my work on Russia and China, I use other software: Signal for messaging and ProtonMail for email. But with WhatsApp in effect leaving the front door open to Pegasus and other forms of surveillance, there is little point in such precautions. Your information can traverse the internet with military-grade encryption but its journey still starts and finishes on a computer or phone that can be hacked. In short, if someone looking over your shoulder can read your screen, so can spyware hiding inside your device. WhatsApps problems chiefly relate to the privacy of us as individuals. Of far greater national concern is the potential for widescale espionage and the sabotage of our networks by hostile foreign powers. Central to these concerns is the notorious Chinese technology giant Huawei, which is a world leader in making the hardware needed for mobile communication. Its ownership is murky and its products according to British intelligence are dangerously ramshackle. But our Government has declined to follow the U.S., Australia and other allies in banning Huawei from the next generation of mobile phone communications, the so-called 5G standard. False rumours that Metro Bank was heading for bankruptcy sparked a panic among depositors in some parts of London last weekend (stock image) This will bring together not just individuals, but household devices, industrial systems, infrastructure and other parts of modern life. Yet, as the rumpus over WhatsApp shows, our computers and networks are already dangerously vulnerable. Do we really want to adopt technology from a company whose ultimate masters are the Chinese Communist Party? It is hard to see how we can defend ourselves or our society. We can uninstall WhatsApp from our phones but the intruders will find another way of breaking into them. We could try forswearing electronic communication altogether. For their most sensitive material, Eastern and Western spy agencies are returning to the days of manual typewriters, cardboard files and carbon paper: these physical items are harder to steal than digital data. But, for most of us, pen and paper along with cash and landline telephones are increasingly impractical. Of course, our competitiveness as a country requires us to embrace new technology. The price we pay is to risk our privacy and our security. We have stumbled into a new world of seamless electronic communication, one that offers huge opportunities to our foes and rivals and with no way back. Edward Lucas is the author of Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security And The Internet. Adopting an official definition of Islamophobia could hinder British counter-terror efforts, a police chief has claimed. Martin Hewitt said the proposed wording could 'undermine many elements of counter-terrorism powers and policies'. In a letter to Theresa May he said it could prevent authorities from shutting down extremist groups or conducting searches at ports. Advocates of an official definition believe it could help Muslims report crime against them and improve relations between Islamic communities and the government. But critics say it could restrict legitimate debate about Islam and confuses criticism of the religion with hatred of individual Muslims. MPs will discuss the matter tomorrow. Adopting an official definition of Islamophobia could hinder British counter-terror efforts, a police chief has claimed (file photo: armed police officers in London) What is the UK law on Islamophobia? There is no specific law against Islamophobia in the UK. However, there are numerous laws which might be used to prosecute offenders. Stirring up religious hatred is an offence under the Public Order Act 1986. It can carry a sentence of up to seven years in prison. Criminals may also be handed longer sentences for other offences if they are found to have been motivated by racial or religious hostility. There are separate laws covering online abuse. In addition, the Equality Act 2010 stops discrimination based on 'protected characteristics' including religion. If a new, official definition is adopted, it could be used to block government actions in the courts. Terror legislation could be subject to such judicial reviews, it is claimed. An unofficial 1997 wording defined Islamophobia as 'unfounded hostility towards Muslims'. The suggested new one says: 'Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.' Advertisement The proposed definition calls Islamophobia a 'type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness'. Mr Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said an official wording could weaken terror laws and prevent stop-and-search at ports, The Times reported. The term was 'perhaps misleading in the context of hate crime... hate crime seeks to protect Muslims and not Islam,' he warned the Prime Minister. A group of opposition MPs led by Labour's Wes Streeting and Anna Soubry of Change UK have pushed for an official definition. The group, chaired by Ms Soubry, recently published a 72-page report arguing that 'the lack of a widely adopted working definition... has led to an increase in Islamophobia in society to devastating effect'. A new official definition could allow victims of Islamophobia to challenge government decisions in the courts. The report said the lack of a definition 'would allow for the continued denial of Islamophobia as a real lived experience'. A definition would mean 'British Muslims would be able to trust the government, which would assist in decreasing the disaffection British Muslims often experience in relation to the government,' the authors claimed. 'Not recognising that Islamophobia is a specifically racial and religious form of discrimination leaves Muslims vulnerable to abuse without recourse to legal or political remedy,' they said. The lack of a proper wording would also 'prevent the analysis of incidents around the country, and continue to weaken the way in which Islamophobic incidents are addressed,' the report argued. Responding to criticism about free speech, it said: 'The aim of establishing a working definition of Islamophobia has neither been motivated by, nor is intended to curtail, free speech or criticism of Islam as a religion.' 'Criticism of religion is a fundamental right in an open society and is enshrined in our commitment to freedom of speech.' Independent Group MP Anna Soubry (pictured) is the chair of a group of MPs which is advocating for an official definition of Islamophobia One Muslim man said he had been stopped at Heathrow airport because of the clothes he was wearing. 'I cannot report it because the police do not see this as Islamophobic behaviour,' he said. In the most recent Home Office figures, more than 52 per cent of religious hate crimes recorded by police were Islamophobic. In a written parliamentary answer last month, the Government said it was considering adopting an official wording. On Thursday MPs will hold a 'general debate' in the Commons chamber to consider the matter. The Muslim Council of Britain has backed calls for an official definition. However, it suggested a different wording, emphasising 'the curtailment of the ability of Muslims to articulate their Muslimness'. Theresa May (pictured at 10 Downing Street yesterday) has been warned against adopting an official definition by a senior police chief The National Secular Society has opposed the change, saying last year that the terminology was 'vague and unworkable'. 'While we believe that in a liberal secular society individuals should be afforded respect and protection, we are clear that ideas should not,' they said in a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid. 'We are concerned that the report's proposed definition of Islamophobia conflates hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims with criticism of Islam. 'Expressions of Muslimness can effectively be translated to mean Islamic practices. In a society which is free and open, such practices must remain open to scrutiny and debate.' The debate echoes that over an official definition of anti-Semitism which engulfed the Labour party last year. Labour was beset by a months-long row over whether to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. Critics of the IHRA approach have claimed it could restrict their ability to criticise the Israeli government's actions. Producer and Cambridge scholar Moez Masoud (pictured) will helm the movie A dramatised film about the Christchurch mosque massacre is in the works just months after the attack left 51 people dead and dozens injured. Producer and Cambridge scholar Moez Masoud will helm the movie alongside Rick Castaneda. The pair are believed to have written the script together, and began talks only nine days after a white supremacist opened fire on the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic center during Friday prayers on March 15. The film will follow a family who have escaped a life of death and destruction in Afghanistan and moved to Christchurch. Prior to the terrorist attack, New Zealand was considered one of the safest places in the world. 'In Christchurch, on March 15, the world witnessed an unspeakable crime against humanity,' Masoud told Variety. Talks for the movie began only nine days after a white supremacist opened fire on the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic center during Friday prayers on March 15 Masoud said he hopes his film will 'bring people all over the world together to discuss that day and continue a positive dialogue for a future based on genuine mutual understanding' 'The story that 'Hello Brother' will bring to audiences is just one step in the healing process, so that we might all better understand each other, and the root causes of hatred, racism, supremacy and terrorism.' The working title - Hello Brother - is a reference to the first words that were allegedly spoken to the shooter when he entered the mosque, moments before he began aimlessly shooting at worshipers. Members of the film crew are believed to have already visited Christchurch and spoken with victim's families and survivors. Castaneda was spotted in Christchurch on Monday and is believed to have met with mosque leaders. Brentan Tarrant is currently facing trial in New Zealand accused of storming the mosques and opening fire on civilians during their Friday prayers He confirmed the movie would be dramatised, but hoped to be able to bring people 'closer to the truth'. Masoud said he hopes his film will 'bring people all over the world together to discuss that day and continue a positive dialogue for a future based on genuine mutual understanding.' Brenton Tarrant is facing trial in New Zealand accused of storming the mosques and opening fire on civilians during their Friday prayers. The 28-year-old is believed to have live streamed the entire attack on social media, and had shared hate speech and a racist manifesto leading up to the shootings. Masoud's last movie, Clash, opened the Cannes film festival in 2016. If Australia is the lucky country then Corangamite would have to be the capital based on election promises. More than $3 billion in funding has been pledged to residents in the marginal seat west of Geelong in Victoria. The record-breaking pork barrelling in the electorate has been lead by the Liberal Party which has promised $26,500 per citizen across 41 different proposals More than $3 billion in funding has been pledged to residents in the marginal seat of Corangamite including a fast train pledged by the liberals that will cost $2 billion The big money has also poured in from Labor which has offered $34 million across 14 promises. The $2 billion fast train linking the Surf Coast electorate to Melbourne is the big ticket item hoped to draw votes, The Age reports. The Liberal party's Sarah Henderson is hoping to cling on as Labor's Libby Coker makes a push for the marginal seat in one of many close contests that could decide Saturday's election. A redistribution has made Corangamite a notionally Labor seat, which means Ms Henderson, a former crime show host, has to increase her vote just to remain in Parliament. Opinion polls and betting market odds show the Coalition is facing an uphill battle to be returned and will need to win Labor electorates in western Sydney, Townsville, Tasmania and Darwin to have a slim chance of clinging to power. The Liberal party's Sarah Henderson is hoping to cling on as Labor's Libby Coker makes a push for the marginal seat with 41 different promises to the election The Liberal Party is also facing possible losses in normally safe seats, including former prime minister Tony Abbott's electorate of Warringah, on Sydney's northern beaches, where independent challenger Zali Steggall is polling strongly. Spending this federal election is said to be higher than previous campaigns with more than 1000 policies and projects promised to voters, from 50 new railway station car parks to new roads and change rooms at local sporting clubs. Other Coalition-held electorates set to be big winners, were the government to be re-elected, include Capricornia, Forde, Dunkley, and Gilmore. Capricornia in Rockhampton has received 32 separate spending pledges including a new convention centre and upgrades to a crocodile farm. Forde, south of Brisbane, has been pork barrelled with 41 promises while Dunkley in Melbourne has been targeted with 46 announcements. Gilmore on the NSW South Coast has had 26 big ticket items announced to woo voters, where the Liberal Party is fielding former Labor national president Warren Mundine. Labor has been the biggest spenders with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten promising to boost health, education and climate change spending by $120billion in a bid to win the Lodge He has forked out $22 billion for infrastructure, $16.2 billion for climate change and $8.6 billion on healthcare. Angela Merkel's plane was left dented by an over-excited fan who left the handbrake off her van as it rolled forward. The woman, who worked at Dortmund Airport in Germany, had been driving when she spotted the German Chancellor's aircraft and jumped out her vehicle to take a photo. But the van rolled into the plane's nose causing a dent - forcing Ms Merkel to delay her return to Berlin, Der Spiegel reports. Flughafen Dortmund: Transporter rammt Flieger der Kanzlerin https://t.co/LBUB2ui0tq pic.twitter.com/q22bvnWbog DER SPIEGEL (@derspiegel) May 13, 2019 The over-eager fan had seen the the 'Federal Republic of Germany' sign on the side of the plane and forgot to pull the handbrake when she ran to take a snap. The German Chancellor, who was not in the plane at the time, had to fly by helicopter while the damage was examined. Photos posted by Der Spiegel show a red van underneath the Global 5000 jet, which was gorunded following the low-speed collision. Ms Merkel, who was travelling back from visiting Junior University in Wuppertal, close to Dortmund, was actually not at the airport at the time of the crash. The accident comes as Ms Merkel has seen a number of highly publicised breakdowns of planes causing delays, as well as shortages of aircrafts around the country. Harriet Wran has escaped jail after admitting to possessing ice and stolen goods, less than three years after she was released from custody over her role in the robbery and murder of a Sydney drug dealer. In an emotional letter to the court, Wran said she had relapsed about three months before her arrest following years of sobriety, leading her to keep 'the wrong company' and to find herself back in front of a judge. The 31-year-old said she was 'determined to make things right' both for her mother who has stood by her through her battle with ice, and for 'everyone who has felt the pain of my addiction'. As she walked out of Wyong Local Court on Wednesday, Wran, 31, had a colourful tattoo on her left forearm, featuring a scaled creature with a dragon-esque face. Her tattoos are rarely seen, with Wran wearing long sleeves to past court appearances and her father Neville's funeral. Wran was arrested on the NSW Central Coast on March 27. She pleaded guilty in April to possessing drugs, goods in custody and not displaying P-plates. She was fined $550 for the drug and P-plate offences and was handed a 12-month community corrections order for the goods on premises offence. Scroll down for video Harriet Wran (pictured) has escaped jail after being caught with 0.96g of methamphetamine on March 27 Magistrate Caleb Franklin said at Wyong local court the drug and P-plate offences were unremarkable and noted the small quantity of the drug involved As she walked out of the court, the 31-year-old showed off her substantial forearm tattoo Magistrate Caleb Franklin said the drug and P-plate offences were unremarkable and noted the small quantity of the drug involved. He also agreed she had good prospects of rehabilitation. In her letter to the court, Wran said she was so physically ill from drug use in the lead-up to her arrest that most days she could not leave the house. 'As a direct result of the drugs and my desperate cravings for them, I kept the wrong company and thus landed in dark situations, one of those being the night of my arrest,' she said. 'Mum was horrified and devastated, barely able to look at me. I was frail, angry and unpredictable. It was not fair on her. None of this is fair on her. She suffers as a result of my failure. 'I am determined to make things right, for her and for me and for everyone who has felt the pain of my addiction.' Wran had been in a rehabilitation facility in Sydney's inner-west since her arrest on March 27, and is believed to have finished her treatment earlier this month. She is now participating in a three-month residential program at another facility. Court papers revealed Wran was stopped by highway patrol officers after being seen driving a Holden ute in an industrial estate on the Pacific Highway at North Wyong. Officers searched Wran's ute and allegedly found 0.96 grams of crystal methamphetamine, as well as drug paraphernalia and more than 30 other items. Among the suspected stolen items police found six credit and debit cards, three mobile phones, six laptops, an iPad, unopened mail and an academic transcript. Police alleged all the items were stolen during a recent spate of break and enters in the area. Court papers also showed that since Wran was released from prison in September 2016, she had been receiving an $800-a-fortnight payment from a family trust fund. Wran's latest drama comes two-and-a-half years after she was released from prison. She was jailed for two years for her role in a robbery, which led to the murder of drug dealer Daniel McNulty in August 2014. Wran's arrest came two-and-a-half years after she was released from prison Harriet Wran (pictured leaving court in April) is now participating in a three-month residential program at a rehabilitation facility Wran was with her ex-boyfriend Michael Lee and his friend Lloyd Haines when they spontaneously robbed Mr McNulty at his inner-Sydney housing commission flat. A struggle broke out and 37-year-old Lee stabbed Mr McNulty to death. Lee was sentenced to at least 13 years for the 'senseless' stabbing murder. Haines, 31, who knew Lee had a knife but did not think he would use it, was jailed for at least 11 years. Wran was arrested after a sleepless six-day ice bender. She said she thought the men would only rob Mr McNulty, not kill him. She was given a maximum four-year term for being an accessory to the August 2014 murder, robbery in company and harbouring her killer boyfriend afterwards. Her father Neville Wran was the Premier of NSW from 1976 to 1986. He died in April 2014, aged 87. A day after New Yorks mayor held a provocative news conference in his fathers building, President Trumps son, Eric, said the city has 'gone to s***' under the mayor's leadership. Eric and Donald Trump Jr slammed Bill de Blasio on Monday after the mayor accused them and their father, President Trump, of evading taxes and stiffing workers for decades. The fact that the Mayor of a major city would attack an iconic organization (which employs thousands of hardworking New York taxpayers) for his own political gain is an abuse of power, unethical and simply counterintuitive, Eric Trump tweeted on Monday. 'Most Mayors do all they can to support great businesses - here in NYC, businesses are attacked for headlines and "political points" and is this very mentality that is causing people to leave our great city in droves. Eric Trump (left) and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (right) got into a heated Twitter feud on Monday. Trump was reacting to de Blasio's news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Monday Trump slammed de Blasio for 'attacking an iconic organization for his own political gain' Trump said de Blasio was 'causing people to leave our great city in droves' Eric, who is executive vice president of the Trump Organization, called de Blasio's news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower on Monday 'simply childish' 'Maybe one of these days we can work together, an invitation which remains open to you anytime,' Eric Trump tweeted at de Blasio 'If [de Blasio] ever think[s] there is an initiative that would be great for New York, I would be happy to come to city hall and visit [him] anytime. 'But forcing a pop-up press conference in our lobby is simply childish. 'Maybe one of these days we can work together, an invitation which remains open to you anytime. 'I wish you and our great city the best.' Eric was referring to the chaotic news conference that de Blasio staged in the lobby of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Monday. While touting a city anti-pollution law, the mayor was heckled by President Trump's supporters and said he will announce this week whether he's running for president. De Blasio commandeered the Trump Tower lobby on Monday to threaten the Trump Organization with massive fines for flouting the city's global warming law, but protesters made the event a circus Speaking at a podium steps from the spot where Trump announced his own run in 2015, the Democrat said he had come to warn the president that Trump Organization buildings could face a combined $2.1 million in annual fines by 2030 if they don't comply with a new law requiring skyscraper owners to cut greenhouse gas emissions. 'President Trump, you're on notice. Your polluting buildings are part of the problem,' he said. But de Blasio's speech was all-but drowned out by a throng of Trump supporters who demonstrated behind him on the building's escalators, booing, whistling, chanting and holding up signs with messages including, 'Failed mayor' and 'Worst mayor ever.' The mayor responded to Eric Trumps tweets on Tuesday, writing: Spare me. You and your dad have spent decades evading taxes and stiffing your workers. NYCs Green New Deal is one law the Trumps wont get away with breaking. Fix your buildings or pay the price. This prompted Eric Trump to respond: Spare me? First you have never created a job in your life. Second, our great city has gone to s*** under your leadership' De Blasio then posted a graphic which showed the potential fines that the Trump Organization could face for carbon emissions The mayor responded to Eric Trumps tweets on Tuesday, writing: Spare me. You and your dad have spent decades evading taxes and stiffing your workers. NYCs Green New Deal is one law the Trumps wont get away with breaking. Fix your buildings or pay the price. This prompted Eric Trump to respond: Spare me? First you have never created a job in your life. Second, our great city has gone to s*** under your leadership. Crime is up, the men & women of the NYPD detest you, homelessness is rampant, our streets are dirty and people are leaving our city in record numbers. Erics brother, Donald Trump Jr, chimed in: Owned!!! It seems @NYCMayor has been a bit too busy getting whopping crowds of 4 & 5 people in the primary states to see the damage hes inflicted on NYC. 'I look forward to his presidential run being even less successful than his time as mayor... if thats even possible.' The mayor then posted another tweet accusing the Trump children of 'throwing a temper tantrum.' '[President Trump] is running scared from NYCs Green New Deal,' de Blasio tweeted. Eric Trump's older brother, Donald Trump Jr (left), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (right), also took aim at de Blasio Erics brother, Donald Trump Jr, chimed in: Owned!!! It seems @NYCMayor has been a bit too busy getting whopping crowds of 4 & 5 people in the primary states to see the damage hes inflicted on NYC' Giuliani, who was mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, backed up the Trumps and attacked de Blasio with a tweet of his own. It is painful to see the quality of life, in the city I love, deteriorate, Giuliani, who is now working as a lawyer for President Trump, tweeted 'The temper tantrum his organization threw at Trump Tower today is proof. 'You're on notice, Donald: we won't let you mortgage our future for your real estate. 'Fix your buildings or pay the price. We WILL collect.' De Blasio then posted a graphic which showed the potential fines that the Trump Organization could face for carbon emissions. Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, backed up the Trumps and attacked de Blasio with a tweet of his own. It is painful to see the quality of life, in the city I love, deteriorate, Giuliani, who is now working as a lawyer for President Trump, tweeted. 'Mayor Bloomberg preserved it. The incumbent inherited a well run, and maintained, city. 'It took awhile for him to ruin it but now everyone sees it and comments on it. Its a shame.' All aboard the love express - next stop happiness - or Strathfield. Commuters on a Sydney train were shocked and amused when they were greeted in an extremely bizarre way on Tuesday evening. A train travelling to Strathfield in the city's inner west welcomed passengers with a flirtatious announcement. A commuter recorded the announcement which read 'Welcome aboard the dating express'. A traveler filmed the event and uploaded it to YouTube with the confused caption 'Uh'. The train carriage was filled with only a few people. 'Welcome aboard the dating express' was the welcome passengers received The train was travelling to Strathfield on Tuesday evening when the announcement was made The electronic information bar is usually filled with upcoming destinations. There was no known reason behind the romantic welcome but it brightened up the day of those lucky enough to board the 'dating express'. Transport NSW has been contacted for a comment. Australia is heading to the polls on Saturday, and people are already readying their barbecues for the big day. The Democracy Sausage has quickly become a staple at schools and church halls around the country during elections, with 2019 federal election gearing up to be the biggest snag day yet. Voters will be able to plan their day ahead of time by using a special website, allowing them to find their nearest democracy sausage. The Democracy Sausage website maps booths with a sizzle, while also putting a worrying 'no sausage here' status on booths without the treat. Australia is heading to the polls on Saturday, and locations around the country are ready to help voters with election day snacks in the form of electoral sausage sizzles (pictured) Voters will be able to plan their day ahead of time by using a special website, allowing them to find their nearest democracy sausage The Democracy Sausage has quickly become a staple at schools and church halls around the country during elections, with 2019 federal election gearing up to be the biggest snag day yet Crowdsourcing data from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, the website is able to map out where sausages will be available from on Saturday. There's also the option of checking which booths will have cake, coffee, bacon and egg rolls, vegetarian and even halal options available. At this stage, there are 1049 polling booths with sausage sizzles around the country, leaving an estimated 2.1 million Aussies (20.7 per cent of voters) with access to their democracy snag. The electorate of Moore in Western Australia takes the top spot in the country for amount of voters with access to a sausage sizzle, with 66.2 per cent with the option of picking up a snag on Saturday. Bean in the ACT comes in second with 60 per cent of voters with access to the democracy sausage. However, on the other end of the scale, Hinkler in Queensland and Parkes in NSW come in at the worst in the country, with no voters having access to a sausage sizzle. In New South Wales, just 575,877 voters (16.4 per cent) will have access to a democracy sausage, with multiple locations across Sydney showing the promising sausage icon. In New South Wales, just 575,877 voters (16.4 per cent) will have access to a democracy sausage, with multiple locations across Sydney showing the promising sausage icon (pictured, greater Sydney) Australians will head to the polling booths on Saturday for the federal election, and hopefully a snack Almost half of residents in the ACT will have access to their democracy sausage, while in Western Australia just 35 per cent will get their hands on a snag. In Victoria just 22 per cent will have access to election day snacks, while in SA it sits at 18.4 per cent of voters and 17.7 per cent in QLD. In Tasmania, just 14.2 per cent of voters will be able to devour a democracy sausage, with even less in the Northern Territory, sitting at 6 per cent. Senior 'sausage analyst' Annette Tyler helped build the website and encourages voters to report in on their local booth on election day. Pictured is locations in Sydney's inner city and surrounding suburbs where sausages will be available on Saturday 'You can send us booth reports on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, message our Reddit account, or submit booth information directly via the democracysausage.org website,' she said. 'Our service wouldn't exist without all of the wonderful volunteers out in the field, snagging freshly-grilled data for the site.' This year, Instagram has launched a new way to share democracy sausages, with election-themed products released for the app. In collaboration with artist Tony Albert, democratic stickers will be available for users to post, as well as an interactive Story called 'Aus Votes', available from Thursday. The products allow Aussies to connect with more information about voting, such as how to find their closest voting booth and further information on voting. Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten eats a sausage sandwich at Strathfield North Public School polling booth as part of the 2016 Election Day in Sydney In Queensland, just 17.7 per cent of voters will have access to a democracy sausage on Saturday Head of Politics and Government at Instagram, John Tass-Parker, said these features are encouraging young people to express themselves on Saturday. 'Around the world, we see voters using Instagram to engage with major civic moments and elections. Here in Australia, we're celebrating the election through a customised product, designed in collaboration with Tony Albert to bring a uniquely Aussie flavour,' Mr Tass-Parker said. Twitter has also launched a special edition chatbot to give voters all the information they need heading into election day on Saturday. Users can get involved by heading to @TwitterAU, clicking on the DM button and the chatbot will help with telling people where they can vote, who their candidates are and of course where to find their Democracy Sausage. The ritual of the sausage sizzle has been linked with voting for many years, but the term 'Democracy Sausage' kicked off in 2013 and gave the unique Australian experience a name. However, it wasn't until the 2016 federal election that the term really took off and was even named Word of The Year. Politicians have since taken to eating the Australian delicacy in front of cameras, often sparking debate about where the onion is placed. Prime Minister Scott Morrison cooks sausages at a campaign rally in Launceston, Tasmania, Thursday, April 18, 2019 Kerri-Anne Kennerley launched a scathing attack on the Labor leader today, boldly declaring: 'If Bill Shorten gets in, it's the end of life as we know it.' The Studio 10 host took aim at Labor policies on Wednesday morning - and was swiftly accused by the party of spreading 'fake news.' Her criticism appeared to take colleagues by surprise as Sarah Harris joked: 'Tell us what you really think.' Ms Kennerley's spiel began during a discussion of a recent study which found that lower paid workers would be less than $1 per week better off under a Labor government Kerri-Anne Kennerley attends the Sydney screening of Avengers: End Game at Hoyts Entertainment Quarter on April 23, 2019 Ms Kennerley's spiel began during a discussion of a recent study which found that lower paid workers would be less than $1 per week better off under a Labor government. The veteran host, 64, slammed Labor's plan to set up a tax payer-funded National Gender Centre to support transgender people. 'One thing I'm seriously outraged about, the millions and millions they'll spend on a Gender Commission,' Ms Kennerley said. 'These kids out there who are gender confused, and there's a percentage of people out there gender confused, they will put up this Commission and we, like Tasmania, will have a child and it won't be male or female, it will be gender-free. 'That'll be national.' Ms Kennerley was referring to Tasmania's new policy of making gender optional on birth certificates - although Mr Shorten has said he will not implement this nationally. She then claimed that parents would lose the right to decide their child's gender - although there is nothing in Labor's plans to suggest this would happen. 'And if your child is confused, the rights of your child will go to them, you will have no rights as a parent,' she said. 'That child will go, 'I want to be either a boy or girl, please give me whatever I need' and you as a parent will have no choice.' In a later segment on the show, Ms Kennerley said she had been contacted by Labor and accused of spreading fake news. She read out sections of an email from Labor, saying: 'Earlier this morning, Kerri-Anne... fake news on your program, Labor spending "millions and millions" to set up a Gender Commission.' The Studio 10 host made her voting intentions clear with an excoriating and somewhat confused attack on Labor policies Bill Shorten made a pitch to big business in Perth on Wednesday, promising he would consider changes to workplace laws to allow long-term 'greenfields' bargaining The email said Labor will not spend 'millions and millions' on the centre which will 'provide awareness of transgender issues in the wider public.' Ms Kennerley said she 'stands corrected,' but added: 'Apparently they're not spending millions and millions, because they haven't costed it yet.' The host also attacked Mr Shorten's economic policies, including his proposed changes to the way profits from shares are taxed. She admitted that she had to google what franking credits were but went on to criticise Mr Shorten's planned changes to them anyway. 'Taking money retrospectively, as they will do, that franking credits, I had to google that, this is the way (for) self-funded retirees not to leech off the government pension. 'They look after themselves. They've got a plan. He's going to rip that off them.' She also criticised Mr Shorten's plan to remove tax breaks for property investors. 'He'll put in negative gearing... no more investment into houses so your rent will go up.' She also criticised Mr Shorten's plan to remove tax breaks for property investors (stock image) Ms Kennerley went on to attack Labor's plan to reduce the cost of cancer care as 'all smoke and mirrors'. 'Throwing money at cancer is just feeding the chooks,' she said. 'Don't believe it. Dig a little deeper. Just dig a little deeper. 'Anybody who believes they'll be better off if Shorten and the Greens get in is under some whoopy-do cloud. It will never, ever happen. You will tank.' Her attack came as Mr Shorten, who is favourite to be Australia's next PM, made a pitch to big business in Perth, promising he would consider changes to workplace laws to allow long-term 'greenfields' bargaining. A greenfields agreement is an agreement between a union and a new employer, that does not yet have employees. He said massive projects which are expected to last beyond three years would fall under the plan. The proposal would benefit major resources efforts, with Western Australia the key beneficiary. The Labor leader said he wanted to deliver 'win-win' outcomes for business and workers. Mr Shorten, who is a former Australian Workers' Union national secretary, reflected on his negotiating experience. 'I've spent my adult lifetime negotiating and delivering win-win outcomes for employees and employers,' he told business leaders. 'I also understand that achieving win-win outcomes is only possible when everyone plays by the same rules.' While not backing away from describing Saturday's election as a referendum on wages and the cost of living, Mr Shorten said he wanted to bring unions and business to the table. Australian Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his wife Chloe are seen after attending the 'Leadership Matters' breakfast event at Crown Towers in Perth 'I think this country works best when we work together,' he said. He said modest wage rises would help the overall economy, noting the current rate of zero per cent inflation was unhealthy. 'An anorexic economy is not the shape of a healthy economy.' Mr Shorten said average wage rises under the coalition had been 2.2 per cent, while under Labor governments pay had gone up 3.6 per cent. 'That doesn't mean the sky is going to fall in,' he said, stressing the average was not his nominated number on wages growth. Mr Shorten said controversial businessman and Senate candidate Clive Palmer played 'fast and loose' with the rules. 'Thanks to the preference deal he's done with Scott Morrison, Clive Palmer can turn up on day one with a political IOU almost as big as his ego,' the opposition leader said. He committed to holding a summit between unions and big and small business in Perth in early June. Greek Coca Cola heir Alki David posted $300,000 bail and fled St Kitts on-board his private jet on Tuesday, a day after he was arrested on drugs charges for allegedly smuggling $1.3 million in cannabis plants onto the island. David, 50, who traveled with his fellow billionaire business partner Chase Ergen, and the actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, insists the transportation of the '5,000' cannabis plants was legal and 'intends to develop a cannabis businesses in the region.' The billionaire heir to the Leventis-David group, which owns the Coca-Cola Hellenic bottling plants, is scheduled to return to the island on September 23 to appear in court on charges of possession with an intent to supply, possession of controlled drugs and importation of a controlled drug into the federation. The large haul of hemp cloned plants and seeds were seized as evidence, but St Kitts authorities will now have to assume care of the plants until his court date, according to David, by which time it looks likely cannabis will be legal on the island following a recent court decision overturning some of the country's anti-drug laws. Scroll down for video Greek Coca Cola heir Alki David posted $300,000 bail and fled St Kitts on-board his private jet on Tuesday, a day after he was arrested on drugs charges for allegedly smuggling $1.3 million in cannabis plants onto the island The billionaire heir to the Leventis-David group, which owns the Coca-Cola Hellenic bottling plants, is scheduled to return to the island on September 23 to appear in court on charges of possession with an intent to supply, possession of controlled drugs and importation of a controlled drug into the federation Speaking exclusively to the DailyMail.com about his intended venture, David said: 'There are very exciting plans to invest and transform the area with new plantations, I will drive that through in every way I can. 'There has been a lot of crazy and insane drama this week and I now want to move on from these episodes in a spirit of love and harmony.' The billionaire also expressed his love of the island and hoped his planned venture would bring prosperity to the island, adding: 'I want to help this special island. Youth unemployment is very high and there is a chance to give a total boost to the area. 'I want do positive things for the beautiful island. I love St Kitts and I love their people. A near future awaits where we will grow thousands of acres of special plants.' David, Ergen and Meyers were pulled aside by custom officials and held for eight hours after arriving on Saturday May 11. All three were later released but David was subsequently arrested Monday as he tried to leave the island David, Ergen and Meyers were pulled aside by custom officials and held for eight hours after arriving on Saturday May 11. All three were later released but David was subsequently arrested Monday as he tried to leave the island. After posting $300,000 bail David was able to leave. Ergen remains in hospital on the island for unspecified reasons, although it is understood he has family locally. Meyers was held briefly and allowed to depart. He was with his wife and mother-in-law and in understood to be longterm friends with David, but unconnected to the business. A statement from Alki David's legal team said: 'Alki David has cleared up the situation with the authorities in St. Kitts-Nevis and his passport has been returned to him. 'He looks forward to continuing plans to develop the medicinal cannabis industry on the island, bringing new prosperity to its citizens.' Footage obtained by the DailyMail.com shows David boarding the private jet minus the cannabis plants but with his SwissX CBD oil products that he planned to unveil on the island still boxed. Alki David four time St. Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas, and Chase Ergen on the tarmac in St. Kitts. David and Ergen were arrested accused of carrying $1.3 million worth of cannabis into the country David, 50, pictured during his arrest, and Chase Ergen, heir to satellite fortune, are said to have transported an estimated 5,000 cannabis plants as part of their new business to 'develop legal cannabis businesses in the region' Ergen was then arrested for drug possession days later and remains locked up, according to David who says the ketamine he was found with is his medication for bi polar In a statement to The Daily Express St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force confirmed David had been charged with intent to supply, possession of controlled drugs and importation of a controlled drug into the federation. David told DailyMail.com on Monday: 'Jonathan Rhys Meyers' mother-in-law and wife were cavity searched. We left the airport after the search but were then arrested after trying to leave the island a few days later.' Ergen was then reportedly arrested for drug possession days later after being found with what David claims is medicinal ketamine and remains locked up. Their actor pal Jonathan Rhys Meyers was also on board the private jet David called his business partner's arrest a 'set up' and said the additional drugs were in fact his medication. He added: 'This was his medication for bi polar. He was talking to Prime Minister Harris when he was suddenly arrested. He is going into his second night behind bars.' A statement from the two men said they were 'working to make sure the island takes its rightful place as a leader in the world's fastest growing industry - legal CBD hemp. 'Our intention is to work with the government, the courts, the banks, the business sector, and the farmers to develop a fair system that creates thousands of jobs on the island and uses Swissx's international distribution network to make St. Kitts-Nevis cannabis products among the most sought after in the world. 'It is our intention to quickly see a surge in the nation's GDP that will benefit everyone. This is an economic development initiative for raising the quality of life in conjunction with local SKN Caribbean partners. Former PM Denzil Douglas is working closely with us. 'We've have met with Prime Minister Harris to talk about coordinating support efforts before we leave next week for meetings in Dominica and other Caribbean island nations that have shown great interest in our cooperative partnership. 'Those talks have broken down and led to the arrests of David and Ergen. David and Ergen's legal team has arrived from the UK and will be filing lawsuits against PM Harris and the government this week.' It is believed that were carrying hemp clone plants, hemp seeds and Swissx CBD oil products Speaking to the DailyMail.com David, pictured, calls his business partner's arrest a 'set up' and said the additional drugs were in fact his medication But lawyer Dr. Henry Browne told The Kitts Nevis Observer: 'The mere possession of marijuana seeds is not a crime. What is a crime is to have the seeds and to come to an agreement to plant the seeds. 'Planting the seeds for the purpose of cultivation is a crime. The mere possession of the marijuana plant is illegal.' In a statement the Office of Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris said: 'Non-nationals would not be permitted to secure advantages over nationals as we set about to build out a marijuana industry. 'The government has not granted any license to anyone to import plants or seeds into the Federation and that [the] administration has not had any conversation with any foreigner about setting up businesses to trade in cannabis.' Cannabis Bill, 2019, is set to be passed in St Kitts and Nevis that will allow the use of cannabis for medicinal, religious and recreational purposes, according to the Observer. David has already hit the headlines this month after he was forced to pay $11 million to a former employee after losing a sexual harassment lawsuit. DailyMail.com has contacted The Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force and a representative of Rhys Meyers for comment. Australian suburbs in Liberal electorates have seen the steepest decline in house prices, a new report has revealed. Figures obtained by real estate group Domain show a majority of affluent districts in the country's eastern coast have been experiencing the worst of the ongoing trend. A list of 20 districts with the highest declines show nine of the affected areas are in Victoria and 11 in New South Wales. Plunging house prices appear to be more common in Liberal districts, however the largely Labor-held division of Macnamara, in Melbourne's south, tops the list after seeing a 29.4 per cent dive in the past year. Nine electorate districts in Victoria, including Macnamara, Melbourne and Goldstein, have seen a steep decline in house prices in the past year. Pictured above are residential homes in Mooney Valley The largely Labor-held division of Macnamara, in Melbourne's south, tops the list after seeing a 29.4 per cent dive in the past year. The division, a wealthy, inner-city electorate represents most of what used to be called Melbourne Ports before it was renamed in 2018, and includes Albert Park, Caulfield, South Melbourne and St Kilda TOP 20 DISTRICTS WHERE HOUSE PRICES HAVE PLUNGED THE MOST ELECTORATE STATE PERCENTAGE Macnamara VIC 29.4% Chisholm VIC 19.6% Kooyong VIC 19% Higgins VIC 19% Bennelong NSW 18.5% Cook NSW 18.2% Melbourne VIC 17.9% Hotham VIC 16.3% Watson NSW 15.9% Menzies VIC 15.9% Barton NSW 15.4% Goldstein VIC 14.8% Banks NSW 14.4% Reid NSW 14.3% Hughes NSW 14.0% Grayndler NSW 12.4% North Sydney NSW 11.8% Deakin VIC 11.8% Mitchell NSW 11.7% McMahon NSW 11.7% SOURCE: DOMAIN Macnamara, a wealthy, inner-city electorate represents most of what used to be called Melbourne Ports before it was renamed in 2018, and includes Albert Park, Caulfield, South Melbourne and St Kilda. The median house price in the area is $1,200,000 and residents earn an average $1,866 a week - well above the national average. Chisholm, a Liberal-held district which includes Melbourne eastern suburbs such as Burwood and Blackwood, comes in second place with a drop of 19.6 per cent. Kooyong, in the city's inner-east, and Higgins, which includes south-eastern suburbs, both saw house prices fall by an even 19 per cent. In NSW, Bennelong, which includes Macquarie Park, Marsfield, Chatswood West and Eastwood, suffered the worst drop in prices in the state with 18.5 per cent. Economist Shane Oliver told Daily Mail Australia the price drops in wealthy suburbs is due to a combination of a large increase in supply of apartments as well as difficulty in obtaining loans. It also follow five years of very strong prices. Domain economist Trent Wiltshire said it could also be due to the types of homes on the market. 'Higher priced houses generally held by owner-occupiers aren't changing hands much, whereas there's more activity at the lower end of the market, contributing to the big decline,' he said. Eleven districts in NSW, including North Sydney, Bennelong and Grayndler have seen house prices plunge Prices in North Sydney, which includes Kirribilli, Milsons Point and Middle Cove, dropped by nearly 12 per cent It is also believed home buyers and sellers are waiting until after the federal election to make a move. David Wood, director of Hocking Stuart in Albert Park, which has seen some of the worst declines, said residents feel the market will improve after Saturday. The housing market has been a focus in the 2019 federal election with both Labor and Liberal making promises to help home owners and buyers. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a new scheme at the Liberal election campaign launch in Melbourne on Sunday that will mean a home buyer would only have to save for a five per cent deposit. Labor was quick to steal his thunder, saying it will match the plan. Mr Morrison said a similar scheme had been successfully running in New Zealand for a number of years. Under the plan, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation - which Mr Morrison established when he was treasurer - would guarantee the difference between five per cent of the purchase price and the 20 per cent deposit. 'This will make a big difference,' Mr Morrison told the party faithful on Sunday. 'Cutting the time taken to save for a deposit by at least half and more.' Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said Labor would match this commitment. 'After six years of failure, and six days before an election, the Liberals are desperately trying to tell young Australians they understand their struggles to buy their first home,' Mr Bowen said in a statement. He said first home buyers knew the Liberals were out of touch and were only for the top end of town. 'We back genuine support for first home buyers - that's why we are also reforming negative gearing for future purchases, so young Australians don't have to keeping losing out to wealthy property speculators,' he said. The Property Council said the deposit plan was a 'smart proposal' and will provide some confidence for the housing construction sector. A pilot who died in the fatal collision of two sightseeing sea planes in Alaska has been identified. Randy Jason Sullivan, 46, was piloting the de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver owned by Mountain Air Service that collided with a larger de Havilland Otter DHC-3 on Monday afternoon in Ketchikan, Alaska. Sullivan was among the six killed in the crash, officials confirm. The Coast Guard on Tuesday confirmed the identities of the other five fatalities as: Simon Bodie, 56, from Tempe, New South Wales, Australia Simon Bodie, 56, from Tempe, New South Wales, Australia Cassandra Webb, 62, from Saint Louis, Mississippi Ryan Wilk, 39, from Utah Louis Botha, 46, from San Diego, California Elsa Wilk, 37, from Richmond, British Columbia, Canada According to a post by his mother on Facebook, Sullivan had been a pilot with Mountain Air since 2012, flying tour groups over the rugged wilderness of Alaska's Inside Passage, a popular cruise ship route. Ten survived the collision with injuries. The Coast Guard concluded the search for bodies on Tuesday after finding two missing passengers dead, bringing the death toll to six, and the focus of authorities turned toward investigating the cause of the crash. Randy Jason Sullivan, 46, was piloting the de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver (above) owned by Mountain Air Service that collided with a larger sightseeing plane on Monday Father-of-two Sullivan had been a pilot with Mountain Air since 2012 Reports indicate that a larger a single-engine de Havilland Otter operated by Taquan Air (like the one above) descended sharply before colliding with the Beaver piloted by Sullivan 'This is not the outcome we hoped for,' said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Stephen White, offering the searchers' condolences to the families of the dead. The round-the-clock search lasted 27 hours and covered 93 nautical miles, officials said. Federal accident investigators said the larger of the two flightseeing floatplanes involved in the deadly midair collision had rapidly descended in altitude when it collided with Sullivan's aircraft. Spokesman Peter Knudson with the National Transportation Safety Board says the larger of the planes, a single-engine de Havilland Otter operated by Taquan Air, was initially traveling at an altitude of about 3,800 feet. He says the plane had descended to an altitude of 3,200 to 3,300 feet when it collided with the smaller plane, the Beaver piloted by Sullivan, as both planes headed to Ketchikan with cruise ship passengers. Knudson says the Beaver had been flying at a 3,300-foot altitude. A team of 14 NTSB investigators has been sent to the site and divers will start working on Wednesday to pull up the wreckage of the two planes. The NTSB team began investigating on Tuesday and is unlikely to determine the cause during the week it will spend at the scene, NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy told a news conference. Sullivan (above) was one of six people killed in the horror mid-air collision Pontoons from one of the crashed planes are seen as the Coast Guard searches for survivors U.S. Coast Guard crew searches for survivors from downed aircraft in the vicinity of George Inlet near Ketchikan, Alaska on Monday The two floatplanes collided in mid-air Monday near the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan Three survivors of the horror plane collision were released from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center on Tuesday, hospital officials said. Hospital spokeswoman Marty West says three others are in fair condition. Four others were initially treated at the hospital following Monday's collision of two sightseeing floatplanes. Those survivors were later flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with injuries that Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Susan Gregg says include 'fractures to ribs, pelvis, arm and spine.' Gregg said Tuesday morning that a 67-year-old man is in serious condition in intensive care. She says the three other patients are two women and a man in their 60s and that they are in satisfactory condition. The planes that crashed Monday were carrying a total of 16 people - 14 cruise ship passengers and the pilots. Officials have confirmed that a Canadian is among the six who died. Global Affairs Canada said in an emailed statement Tuesday that the name and hometown of the victim is not being made public for privacy reasons. A Coast Guard Air Station Sitka MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew hovers while searching for a survivor from a report of two aircraft colliding in the vicinity of George Inlet Emergency response crews transport an injured passenger to an ambulance at the George Inlet Lodge docks, Monday in Ketchikan The Washington, D.C.-based investigative team from the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to arrive in Ketchikan Tuesday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration says the floatplanes collided under unknown circumstances. Floatplanes have pontoons mounted under their fuselages so they can land on water. The passengers from the cruise ship Royal Princess were on sightseeing flights. The Royal Princess left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and was scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. 'We are extending our full support to the investigating authorities as well as the traveling companions of the guests involved,' the company said in a statement. The Royal Princess, which can carry up to 3,600 people, was among four city-sized cruise ships in the tiny coastal community on Monday. Two U.S. Coast Guard 45-foot response boats drift through George Inlet as part of a search effort on Tuesday near Ketchikan, Alaska, at the site of a collision between two float planes During port stops, visitors can shop in tourist stores or take part in several excursions, such as visiting an Alaska Native village, tour the backcountry, or visit a raptor center. Another popular trip is flightseeing in Misty Fjords National Monument. Visitors marvel at the lakes, snowcapped peaks and glacier valleys in the wilderness area. Trips cost about $260 each. The smaller plane, which operated independently and not as an official excursion flight booked through the cruise ship, was owned by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan, which didn't immediately return a call Tuesday. The Beaver appears to have broken apart in midair, according to Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said the plane's tail and section of the fuselage were 900 feet from the aircraft's floats, which landed near shore. Residents of a small mining town have labelled a proposal to build the world's biggest lollipop as an 'eyesore' and 'tacky'. Yummylicious Candy Shack in Ravensthorpe, 40km south-east of Perth, want to build the seven-and-a-half metre tall by four-metre wide colourful landmark. The proposal was first thought of nearly two years ago to be built in the town's main street but attracted a string of complaints from sour residents. The local shire council on Tuesday night voted unanimously to approve the structure after a petition from supporters including Aussie rock icon Ian Moss. The lollipop would set a Guinness World Record and join other supersized attractions across Australia including the big pineapple on the Sunshine Coast, the big banana in Coffs Harbour and the big lobster in Kingston in South Australia. Residents of a small town have labelled proposals to build the world's biggest lollipop as an 'eyesore' and 'an extra-large tacky symbol' (pictured: an artist's impression) 'Surely we would like our town to be recognised for other values than a kitsch, grotesque confectionery structure,' one angry resident wrote. 'The sheer thought of Ravensthorpe playing host to Australia's largest lollipop is enough to make any reasonably enlightened person to cringe in shame and embarrassment,' another wrote. One resident added: 'The sheer naffness and crassness of such an endeavour will appeal to the dregs of Australian society.' The swirl lollipop structure will have a colour combination of teal, yellow, purple, red and orange. A giant red ribbon will be tied on the stick. The council approved the building application after receiving support from at 353 people and all six councillors. The time frame for the lollipop's completion is unknown but the council have begun discussing the next steps with engineers and applicants. Yummylicious Candy Shack owner Belinda McHurg said she had been waiting for the approval for 'so long' and had 'fought hard for it'. A former Chicago Police commander has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $363,000 in social security benefits intended for his mother 23 years after she died. Kenneth Johnson received widespread praise for his work reducing violent crime rates in Englewood before he retired from the force last August. On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds and that he did not notify the Social Security after his mother's death in May 1994. Former Chicago Police Department commander Kenneth Johnson, (pictured), pleaded guilty to stealing more than $363,000 in social security benefits for his mother 23 years after she died The agency subsequently continued to lodge money into a joint bank account he and his mother shared until November 2017. Over that 23 year period, the Treasury Department deposited around $363,064 into her account and Johnson did not return any of that amount, according to his plea agreement. Guidelines call for Johnson to be sentenced to up to about two years in prison. U.S. District Judge Manish Shah set his sentencing for September 11. Johnson, 55, appeared in court and Shah asked him if he understood his rights and the punishments he may face, the Chicago Tribune reported. Johnson responded: 'I want to plead guilty, your honor', when the judge asked him of his intentions during the proceedings. On Tuesday, Johnson pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds, admitting that after his mothers death in May of 1994, he did not notify the Social Security Administration Johnson, who worked with the police department for 32 years, retired last August and was charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office three months later. His police pay was $169,500 a year Johnson, who worked with the police department for 32 years, retired last August and was charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office three months later. His police pay at that time was $169,500 a year. In a statement obtained by the Chicago Tribune after the hearing, Johnsons attorney, Michael Clancy, claimed that he 'took responsibility for mistakes made after the death of his mother that he has regretted and lived with for a number of years.' He added: 'He apologizes to the City of Chicago and the citizens he faithfully served and hopes this does not diminish the good work he was honored to be part of in the community,' the statement read. Johnson, (pictured), received widespread praise for his work reducing violent crime rates in Englewood before he retired from the force last August Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at the time charges were filed that he was 'shocked and very disappointed' to learn of Cmdr. Johnsons alleged crime. 'I knew Cmdr. Johnson well from his efforts to reduce violence in Englewood, but if proven, these allegations erode the publics trust and tarnish his service to Chicago,' the superintendent said in November. In a tweet before he retired, Chicago Police Department's official site, said of Johnson: 'It's Official... Please help us congratulate Commander Kenneth A. Johnson on his retirement. A great leader, teacher, mentor, friend to #CPD & the Englewood Community. Thank you for 32 years of service. @ALDERMANWBC. Police sources claimed at the time the department was not aware of the theft, and he was never investigated by the department over the matter. A couple's holiday was ruined after thugs allegedly mugged them and stole the scooter they rented before they were told to pay $25,000 by a hire company. Eugene Aathar, 24, and his wife Dolly Ho, 22, were holidaying in Bali and got lost on their way back to the La Vie Villa in Kuta on May 6. The pair said they were riding down a Kuta back street at about 2am when two men rode up beside them and attempted to steal the phone Mrs Ho was using to navigate, The Straits Times reported. Eugene Aathar, 24, and his wife Dolly Ho, 22, (pictured) were holidaying in Bali when they allege thugs mugged them and stole the scooter they rented before they were told to pay $25,000 by a hire company As the two vehicles rode side by side one of the assailants allegedly kicked the scooter out from under the couple causing them both to fall hard to the ground. Mr Aather suffered minor injuries while Mrs Ho suffered a minor concussion and a fractured shoulder, Must Share News reported. The pair allege a bystander seemed like he was there to help at first and asked about the location of their scooter. After they told him where the scooter was they allege he picked it up and rode away. The pair had rented to scooter from the villa they were staying at. As the pair recovered in hospital the villa allegedly contacted them and informed them they would have to pay a fee of around 250 million rupiah (AUS$24,965) for the stolen scooter. As the pair recovered in hospital the villa they were staying at (pictured) allegedly contacted them and informed them they would have to pay a fee of around 250 million rupiah ($23,700) for the stolen scooter They also alleged the villa threatened to block them from leaving the country until the fee was paid, despite having rented the scooter for 125,000 rupiah (AUS$12). After a back and forth with the villa Mr Aathar says they were finally satisfied after he paid 12 million rupiah (AUS$1,198) for the stolen scooter. The pair were able to leave Bali unhindered and arrived back home in Singapore before Mrs Ho was admitted to the National University Hospital (NUH). She was discharged on Monday and is recovering well. Daily Mail Australia contacted the La Vie Villa for comment. Democrats and abortion advocates have reacted with swift fury to a bill passed in Alabama that would ban abortion in nearly all cases. Alabama's state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday to outlaw nearly all abortions, creating exceptions only to protect the mother's health, as part of a multistate effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. The country's strictest abortion bill was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign but is generally a strong opponent of abortion. 'Women's rights are under attack,' wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, in a tweet. 'This relentless and cruel Republican assault on women's health is designed to force a court battle to destroy Roe v. Wade. Democrats will be ready to defend health care and women's reproductive freedom.' Margeaux Hartline, dressed as a handmaid, during a rally against HB314, the near-total ban on abortion bill, outside of the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Alabama on Tuesday Other high-profile Democrats joined the outcry on Twitter, denouncing the move by Alabama's Republican-controlled state government. 'Outrageous news coming out of Alabama. This law would effectively ban abortions in the state and criminalize doctors for doing their jobs - providing health care to women,' wrote Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California who is seeking the party's presidential nomination. 'Alabama just passed a near-total ban on abortion. No exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors could face 99 years in prison for providing abortions. This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell,' wrote Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who is also running for president. Senator Elizabeth Warren, also seeking the Democrat nomination, chimed in: 'This ban is dangerous and exceptionally crueland the bill's authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade. I've lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going backnot now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win.' Democrat Beto O'Rourke, a former Texas Congressman and 2020 hopeful, wrote: 'HB 314 is not only unconstitutional - it's a radical attack on women across Alabama and America. We won't back down when it comes to fully protecting Roe v. Wade, fighting dangerous efforts to roll back reproductive health care and defending a woman's right to access an abortion.' Nancy Pelosi (left), Alyssa Milano (center) and Rochelle Ritchie were among critics of the bill Anti-abortion ban bill protesters, dressed as handmaids, from left, Bianca Cameron-Schwiesow, Kari Crowe, Allie Curlette and Margeaux Hartline, wait outside of the Alabama statehouse after HB314, the near-total ban on abortion bill, passed the senate on Tuesday Hollywood celebrities joined the hue and cry as well. Actress Alyssa Milano wrote of the Alabama senators who voted in favor of the bill: 'Not one uterus. NOT ONE UTERUS.' Milano was on Chris Cuomo's CNN show on Tuesday night to renew her call for women to go on a sex strike. 'These bills make sex and getting pregnant extremely dangerous for women so at some point we have to consider what it means,' she said. 'This can't happen under our watch. Woman need autonomy over our own bodies or we have nothing,' wrote actress Natasha Lyonne, best known for her role in Orange Is The New Black. Comedienne Michelle Wolf, famed for her performance at the 2018 White House Correspondent's Dinner, wrote: 'Do what the Alabama government refuses to do: help women by donating to the yellowhammerfund.org. Donating is as easy as flicking an embryo out of a uterus should be.' Chloe Bennet, best known for her role on the television series Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., tweeted that 'the doctors in Alabama who are performing the abortions could get MORE jail time than the actual rapists.' The law, which passed 25-6, would take effect six months after being signed by the governor, but is certain to face legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups which have vowed to sue. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time. Those performing abortions would be committing a felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison, although a woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The Republican-controlled Alabama Senate also defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape and incest. Alabama's State Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton spoke out harshly against the measure after the body rejected an amendment that would add an exception in the case of rape or incest. 'You don't care anything about babies having babies in this state, being raped and incest,' Singleton said on the Senate floor after the amendment's defeat. 'You just aborted the state of Alabama with your rhetoric with this bill.' 'You just raped Alabama with this bill,' he added. A desperate search is underway for a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was last seen on a Brisbane street. The girl was last seen on Wednesday about 6pm on Shakespeare Street in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo. Police are concerned for the girl's safety as they believe her behaviour is out of character. A desperate search is underway for a 15-year-old schoolgirl (pictured) who was last seen on a Brisbane street She is about 160cm tall with a 'proportionate' build, long, blonde hair and blue eyes. The girl was last seen wearing a white, hooded jumper with stripes, black tracksuit pants, socks and thongs. Police have asked for help from the community to find the girl. Anyone with information has been asked to come forward and speak to police, The new promise will mean young people only have to save a 5% home deposit Scott Morrison announced his new plan to help first home buyers with deposits Almost half of young Australians are living at home with their parents for longer because the cost of living is unaffordable. Young adults aged 20-24 are increasingly choosing to stay put, with 43 per cent choosing to stay in their family homes, new data reveals. The Australian Institute of Family Studies report suggests young people are delaying flying the coop in an attempt to save more money. 'The cost of housing in capital cities and time spent in higher education have contributed to a growing trend for more young people to delay moving out in recent decades,' AIFS director Anne Hollonds said. Almost half of young Australians are living at home with their parents for longer because the cost of living is unaffordable 'Overall, as all of these young people got older, fewer remained at home with only around 7% still in the family residence by the time they were 3034.' The data comes just days after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced his new plan to help first home buyers break into the housing market. Mr Morrison slashed the deposit required for a house from 20 per cent to five per cent, telling voters the Commonwealth would make up the difference in a bid to get more youths on the property ladder. Opposition leader Bill Shorten said he would match the policy if elected. The data comes just days after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced his new plan to help first home buyers break into the housing market. Opposition leader Bill Shorten said he would match the policy if elected The scheme will allow struggling singles, couples and families to break into the property market, even if they can only stump up a quarter of the deposit typically needed for a house. 'This will make a big difference,' Mr Morrison told the party faithful on Sunday. 'Cutting the time taken to save for a deposit by at least half or more.' Mr Morrison said a similar scheme had been successfully running in New Zealand for a number of years. While young men are the most likely to live with their parents longer, females have seen the greatest jump in recent years and are fast catching up. While young men are the most likely to live with their parents longer, females have seen the greatest jump in recent years and are fast catching up 'The percentage of young men living at home only increased slightly between 1981 and 2016, while the proportion of young women living with their parents rose from 27 per cent in 1981 to 39 per cent in 2016,' AIFS researcher Lixia Qu said. 'While the statistics don't offer a full picture of what's underlying this trend, one of the factors is likely to be that fewer of today's young women leave the family home to get married as was once more common.' Ms Qu also said cultural factors are more increasingly influencing some young people's decisions to stay in their family homes for longer. 'Among young adults born in Australia, those with Asian, Middle Eastern, African or southern and eastern European ancestry are more likely to live with their parents,' she said. A mother of four has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter after two children died when her Toyota smashed into a classroom. Maha Al-Shennag accidentally drove her Toyota Kluger into Banksia Road Public School where she was dropping off her child in November 2017. Two eight-year-old boys who were best friends died in the crash and three girls were injured. Maha Al-Shennag (pictured) is accused of killing two boys by crashing her 4WD into a NSW classroom Maha Al-Shennag accidentally drove her Toyota Kluger (pictured at the scene) into Banksia Road Public School where she was dropping off her child in November 2017 One of the boys was trapped under the car and the other was knocked to the ground. In the chaos that ensued, 16 ambulances were sent to the scene but the boys died in hospital from cardiac arrest. There were 24 students in the classroom at the time of the crash. Al-Shennag, a widow, appeared a Burwood Local Court on Wednesday where she denied two counts of manslaughter, according to the ABC. She pleaded guilty to three other charges which related to the injured children. They were two counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct and one count of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm. A magistrate ordered that Al-Shennag, who is on bail and banned from driving, will stand trial either late this year or early next year. The young boys (left and right), who were reportedly 'best friends', died after being seriously injured in the Banksia Road Public School crash where several other students were injured Al-Shennag, a widow, appeared a Burwood Local Court on Wednesday where she denied two counts of manslaughter. Pictured: The scene A drug-using mother who killed her young son in a car crash while high on ice has been caught driving under the influence while on bail. Stacey Panozzo's seven-year-old son Jackon was killed and his twin brother and 2-year-old daughter were severely injured in the November 2017 crash. The 35-year-old was on bail after being charged with dangerous driving causing death and injury and faces a life sentence and 10-year driving ban if found guilty. Panozzo (pictured )was high on methamphetamines when driving her three kids home from a holiday in Adelaide The car smashed into a tree (pictured) killing Ms Panozzo's son Jackson Panozzo had pleaded guilty to one count of causing aggravated death by dangerous driving and one count of causing aggravated harm by dangerous driving. The mother-of-three was again caught driving under the influence of a methamphetamine in May and busted driving with a suspended license in April. Prosecutor Kelly Smith told the District Court on Tuesday that Panozzo had repeatedly breached her bail by taking illicit drugs. Panozzo's defence lawyer Stephen Ey said his client had acquired a brain injury as a result of the crash and raised concerns whether she would be able to receive proper medical treatment in prison. Jackson (pictured) was just 7 years old when he died at the scene after suffering injuries from the crash During the crash, Ms Panozzo's car was reported to have smashed into a gum tree after swerving around a kangaroo in Kuitpo, Adelaide while driving her family back from a holiday. Jackson died on the scene whilst his twin brother and 2-year-old sister survived, sustaining serious head and chest injuries. The 2-year-old toddler was thrown from the car and Ms Panozzo was trapped inside for over an hour, suffering critical injuries. The South Australian woman had her bail revoked by Judge Paul Cuthbertson and will appear again in court in July. The body of another dead whale was found stranded in the San Francisco Bay area, officials confirmed on Tuesday, making it the tenth discovered since March 10. The whale's body was spotted floating near Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica on Tuesday before running ashore, The Marine Mammal Center spokesperson Giancarlo Rulli told the San Francisco Chronicle. California Academy of Sciences inspectors were pictured alongside the animal's carcass performing a preliminary examination later in the day. The ninth dead whale found in Northern California was reported on May 6 on Ocean Beach. WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES The body of another dead whale (shown) was found stranded in the San Francisco Bay area, officials confirmed on Tuesday. It's the tenth discovered since March 10 The tide appeared to recede enough for an early look at the whale found on Tuesday, with inspectors pictured alongside the whale's body. A necropsy conducted on the whale found on May 6 by the Marine Mammal Center indicates it may have been struck by a ship. This, unfortunately, is not uncommon; the center says three previous whales were struck by ships, while another four died from malnutrition. The cause of death of a whale found on April 30 at Limantour Beach has not been determined. The whale's body was spotted floating near Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica on Tuesday before running ashore The tide appeared to recede enough for an early look at the whale found on Tuesday, with inspectors pictured alongside the whale's body A Pacifica city worker uses a measuring tape to measure the length of a dead gray whale as sits on the beach near Pacifica State Beach on Tuesday The center says biologists have spotted gray whales in poor condition during this year's annual migration from Mexico to Alaska. They suspect some are having trouble finding enough to eat as warming ocean conditions cause changes to their food supplies, which can range from krill and small shrimp-like animals to small fish. The mammals are believed to be taking a detour on the 11,000-mile migration route between Mexico and Alaska into the Bay in search of sufficient food. 'Normally when a whale floats in, it ends up on its back,' Dr. Padraig Duignan, the Marine Mammal Center's chief pathologist, told ABC7. 'It gives us easy access to the abdominal cavity.' 'Back of the head, back of the thorax, consistent with blunt trauma from something big like a ship,' the researcher added. Marine mammal experts are concerned about the death of a gray whale that washed ashore in San Francisco. The whale found Monday on Ocean Beach was the ninth discovered in the San Francisco Bay Area since March The Marine Mammal Center conducted a necropsy to determine what killed the animal found on May 6. They say it was likely struck by a ship While an average of five to 10 gray whales typically wash ashore over the course of an entire calendar year, that number has now been reached in a matter of weeks. The National Marine Fisheries Service had reported a total of 48 gray whales found dead on the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska as of Saturday. The whale found on Tuesday brings that total up to 49. Several charges against an alleged paedophile who has been accused of raping a schoolgirl in a dance studio bathroom have been dropped. Anthony Peter Sampieri, 55, has been hauled before the courts over an attack against a seven-year-old at Kogarah, in Sydney's south, last November. Fifteen charges have been brought against him after he allegedly raped, choked and filmed the child during the attack. Police allege Sampieri had a scalpel on him at the time and held the girl at knife point and threatened her if she screamed during the attack. Two men later burst into the toilets to intervene, before Sampieri allegedly stabbed good Samaritan Nick Gilio multiple times in the torso and neck. A separate 100 charges were also brought against him after making offensive phone calls to women from August, though some of those have since been dropped, the Daily Telegraph reported. Several charges have been dropped against alleged paedophile Anthony Peter Sampieri (pictured) who has been accused of raping a schoolgirl in a dance studio bathroom Sampieri allegedly raped, choked and filmed a seven-year-old girl he held captive in a Kogarah dance studio bathroom (pictured) The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions told Central Local Court on Wednesday it would withdraw 21 charges relating to the harassing phone calls. The prosecution did not provide any reason as to why the charges were being laid off. Even so, Sampieri - who appeared in court via videolink from Silverwater Jail - still faces more than 80 charges after allegedly making phone calls with intent to harass or menace. While his case has been adjourned until July 10, a leading senior constable prepares to front court after he was charged with neglect of duty over one of the calls. NSW Police said an internal investigation revealed a woman filed a complaint about an offensive call from Sampieri at St George police station on October 26. At the time Sampieri was on parole after being jailed for raping a 60-year-old woman at knifepoint in his Illawarra home in 2012. Had police at St George notified the parole board of the complaint, Sampieri's release could have been investigated and revoked, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told reporters last year. Police suspended the leading senior constable with pay following the internal investigation. The 31-year-old was also charged with four counts of neglecting duty. Bill Shorten has once again been captured with an 'accidental mullet' again while campaigning ahead of Saturday's Federal Election. Mr Shorten appeared to be rocking the curly blonde hairdo of Boothby Labor Candidate Nadia Clancy in Adelaide on April 30 in footage that has just surfaced. The Labor leader was at a press conference talking about tackling climate change when he was filmed from an unfortunate camera angle. Mr Shorten had a similar mishap just weeks before when he was caught with a straightened mullet during a live Sky News interview. The footage was uploaded on journalist Eryk Bagshaw's Twitter captioned 'Bill's mullet 3.0'. And in 2014 he was spotted with the unintentional hairstyle after he was snapped with a woman behind him by journalist Denham Sadler. Mr Shorten has been pictured with another accidental mullet after Boothby Labor Candidate Nadia Clancy stood behind him in a press conference Bill Shorten spoke in Adelaide while campaigning ahead of Saturday's Federal Election The Opposition Leader became a viral sensation when he was first spotted rocking a dark mullet in 2014 Mr Shorten was joined by Deputy Leader of the Opposition Tanya Plibersek and Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Hindmarsh MP David Butler during his latest bad hair day. Kingston MP Amanda Rishworth can be seen in the background of Mr Shorten's accidental mullet. Mr Shorten's latest mullet shot was uploaded to Reddit captioned 'Business in the front, political party in the back' on Wednesday and attracted a mass of comments. 'This is the mullet Australia had to have,' one user wrote. 'It'll make a great coffee table book in the future, The Many Mullets of Shorten,' another wrote. One added: 'And with this, for the first time in 6 years, Bill takes over as preferred PM.' 'I'm starting to think a mullet could win this election,' one said. Pamela Smart, the woman who had her teenage lover and three of his friends murder her husband in 1990, was denied parole on Wednesday in her final appeal attempt 30 years after orchestrating the murder. Smart, 51, has been in prison for the last 30 years for conspiring to kill her husband Gregory. Smart was a 25-year-old high school media coordinator and was having an affair with student William Flynn at the time. She convinced him and three of his friends to kill 25-year-old Gregory in her New Hampshire apartment in a staged burglary not long before her first wedding anniversary. After police found his body, the four young boys buckled and confessed. She petitioned New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununzaru and a five-member council that approves government appointments, contracts and pardons to grant her a hearing for parole consideration or reduce her sentence. The council, which declined a similar request 14 years ago, voted 4-0 Wednesday to deny a hearing. One member abstained. Pamela Smart (seen left in her 1990 mugshot and right in a 2014 HBO documentary) is fighting to be released from prison Her trial was the first to be televised in the country and the story inspired both a novel and a film which starred Nicole Kidman. The teenage boys are all now free, having cooperated with authorities, and Pamela remains behind bars. Smart, a high school media coordinator, was convicted of plotting with student William Flynn to murder Gregory Smart in 1990. She denied knowledge of the plot. Flynn, who was 16 when he shot and killed her husband, cooperated with prosecutors, as did three other youths. They served prison terms and were released. The trial was a media circus and one of the first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school staff member and a student. It inspired the Joyce Maynard novel 'To Die For,' which, in turn, was made into the movie 'To Die For.' Flynn testified that Smart told him she needed her husband killed because she feared she would lose everything if they divorced. He said she threatened to break up with him if he didn't kill Gregory Smart. Smart conspired to have her husband, Gregory, shot and killed in their home in 1990 She was having an affair with 16-year-old William Flynn and convinced him and four of his friends to stage a burglary. He shot Smart dead in his New Hampshire apartment. He spent 25 years behind bars but was freed in 2015 Patrick Randall (left) was one of Flynn's friends. He held a knife to Gregory's face and Flynn shot him. He served 25 years behind bars but was freed in 2015. Vance Lattime (right) was the getaway driver and waited outside while his friends committed the murder Smart, in a letter to Sununu, called her decision to become involved with Flynn while the two were volunteering for a self-esteem project 'the worst mistake of my life.' In addition to earning two master's degrees in prison in Bedford Hills, New York, she has tutored fellow inmates and works as an AIDS educator and president of an inmate liaison committee. Many letters of support from inmates, supervisors, celebrities and activist Gloria Steinem are included in her application. Smart's trial (pictured) was the first to be televised in the country and was the first public tale of a female teacher having sex with a student Smart's appeal notes that other states have commuted life-without-parole sentences for cases in which the defendant was a bystander, or played an 'ancillary role,' like a getaway driver or lookout. It also argues there was juror and judicial misconduct during the trial and evidence that Flynn falsely testified. Flynn, who served nearly 25 years in prison, declined to comment on Smart's request, according to his lawyer. The attorney general's office opposes Smart's appeal and finds her arguments without merit. Associate Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin said in the response that Smart 'has never accepted full responsibility' for the crimes she committed: being an accomplice to first-degree murder; conspiracy to commit murder; and tampering with a witness. What happens in other states is not binding in New Hampshire, Strelzin said, and disputed the idea that Smart played only an ancillary role in her husband's murder. Rather, she orchestrated it, chose the killer and encouraged him to carry out the crime, he said. Gregory Smart's family told The Associated Press that Pamela Smart is where she belongs. 'Knowing that nothing can ever bring Gregg, the true victim in all of this, back to us, justice has been served,' the family said. A man has been taken to hospital after he was shot by police at a Sydney train station. Paramedics were called to Campbelltown train station, in Sydney's west, at 2.45pm on Wednesday. The man, believed to be in his 30s, was speaking with officers when he drew a knife and allegedly lunged at them. He was tasered but continued trying to threaten police, and was eventually shot. A man has been taken to hospital after he was shot, reportedly by police, at a Sydney train station A bullet casing can be seen at the scene of the shooting at Campbelltown Train Station The man, believed to be in his 30s, was speaking with officers when he drew a knife and allegedly lunged at them Three ambulance crews and one medical team attended the scene, where they treated a man for a gunshot wound to the stomach area. Witnesses at the scene claimed they saw a police officer holding a gun shortly before the man was shot. He is currently on the way to Liverpool Hospital, a NSW Ambulance spokesman told Daily Mail Australia. Officers have cordoned off the area and remain on the scene. The incident occurred just outside the train station in the bus interchange. Buses in and out of the area have been diverted to avoid the scene, Transport NSW confirmed. People travelling via bus in the region are being advised that buses will not be stopping or picking people up from the Campbelltown station bus interchange, and will now be stopping on the other side of the road. Trains have not yet been affected by the shooting. A man was arrested at Campbelltown train station near the bus interchange Three ambulance crews and one medical team attended the scene, where they treated a man for a gunshot wound He was tasered but continued trying to threaten police, and was eventually shot A school student named Emma called in to 2GB radio station after witnessing the incident. She said some of her schoolmates 'were crying because they saw it'. 'There's people everywhere. Schoolkids are stranded,' she said. She said she was told to get off the bus in the middle of another street and was unsure how she was going to get home. Police are not searching for anyone else in relation to the incident, and no police or other members of the public were injured. A Critical Incident Investigation Team has been established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shooting. A Critical Incident Investigation Team has been established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shooting Witnesses at the scene claimed they saw a police officer holding a gun shortly before the man was shot The man was believed to be armed, but police have reportedly secured the weapon A dramatic blaze which engulfed a warehouse sparked delays for rush-hour motorists this morning. London's North Circular was closed in both directions after a fire broke out at a commercial building in Neasden, however it has since re-opened. The blaze halted traffic on the ring road in both directions between Neasden Lane North and Staples Corner, where the key route meets the M1, in the early hours. Fire fighters were still on the scene this morning as a fire can still be seen inside the building, right The fire was pictured blazing through the building in the early hours of this morning on the A406 Authorities have now said the blaze is under control. The London Fire Brigade (LFB) said 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters had been tackling the fire on the first floor of a nearby warehouse. The Metropolitan Police said they had also sent officers to the scene. Scotland Yard tweeted: 'We're assisting @LondonFire at a warehouse fire on the A406 in #Neasden, Road closures likely to severely affect North Circ Rd, Staples Corner and other key routes into morning rush hour. Drivers should avoid the area.' LFB tweeted: 'Ten fire engines & around 70 firefighters are tackling a blaze in a commercial building on North Circular Road in #Neasden. Half of the first floor is alight' Fire engines lined the streets this morning, and police officers remained on the scene as the blaze was controlled Fire fighters were seen outside of the building in the early hours of this morning, while police had officers at the scene Earlier this morning TfL tweeted: 'The A406 North Circular Road is CLOSED BOTH WAYS between Neasden and Staples Corner Flyover due to a large building fire between the two,' TfL Traffic News tweeted. 'Heavy @LondonFire presence and it's expected to remain closed during the morning peak period.' The cause of the fire is not yet known. Advertisement The woman who could be Australia's first lady in a few days has shown she is prepared to get her hands dirty for a political cause. Wearing a red dress and goggles, Chloe Shorten held a trowel handle and banged a brick into place, as her husband Bill Shorten looked on at a Perth TAFE campus. She even did her bit to protect her husband's image, holding his blue tie as he did his own spot of bricklaying so the cement mud wouldn't stick. Scroll down for video Chloe Shorten held a trowel handle and banged a brick at brick into place at a Perth TAFE campus as her husband Bill Shorten looked on, demonstrating she is prepared to get her hands dirty for a political cause in a marginal seat She even did her bit to protect her husband's image, holding his blue tie as he did his own spot of bricklaying so it wouldn't get dirty as the Labor power couple visited the Clarkson TAFE campus in the city's far north The Labor power couple appeared with apprentice tradies on Wednesday morning, in the outer northern suburb of Clarkson, and built a wall inside a large, covered shed. Politically, their visit had more to do with demolishing an electoral wall protecting Attorney-General Christian Porter in his seat of Pearce, which the Liberal Party holds by a slender margin of just 3.7 per cent. 'It's great to be here in my 83rd day in Western Australia since I've been Opposition Leader,' Mr Shorten told reporters at the North Metropolitan TAFE. Flanked by Western Australia's Labor Premier Mark McGowan and the party's federal candidate Kim Travers, Mrs Shorten showed she had a steady hand when it came to applying some mortar. Her husband used his media appearance to promise another $12million to encourage women to become tradies, as Labor vows to boost apprenticeship numbers by 150,000 within its first term. 'It's part of Labor's vision for an equal society between men and women,' he told reporters. Flanked by Western Australia's Labor Premier Mark McGowan, Mrs Shorten showed she had a steady hand when it came to applying some mortar Mrs Shorten was happy to help Labor's candidate for Pearce Kim Travers (pictured right) as she attempts to demolish Attorney-General Christian Porter's electoral wall With just three days to go until the election, the Shortens were campaigning in Perth where the Liberal Party is seeking to protect a swag of marginal seats including Hasluck, where Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt is defending a 2.1 per cent margin. In the neighbouring seat of Swan, Labor is also running Hannah Beazley, the daughter of former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, in an electorate where backbencher Steve Irons is fighting to safeguard his 3.6 per cent buffer. Across the Swan River, the Opposition is also targeting the electorate of Stirling, hoping to win it for the first time since 2001, following the retirement of former justice minister Michael Keenan. Should Mr Shorten win this Saturday's election, he would be the first-ever Australian prime minister to have been divorced and remarried, like American Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. Should Mr Shorten win this Saturday's election, he would be the first-ever Australian prime minister to have been divorced and remarried, like American Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump Since Federation in 1901, Labor's Julia Gillard has been Australia's only unmarried PM while Country Party leader John McEwen was a widower who remarried. Mr Shorten, who turned 52 on Sunday, has been married to Chloe since November 2009. BILL SHORTEN MILESTONES *Born May 12, 1967, in Melbourne * Has a twin brother, Robert * Married to second wife, Chloe, daughter of former governor-general Quentin Bryce * Has three children - stepson Rupert, stepdaughter Georgette and Clementine * Collingwood supporter * Member for Maribyrnong in Melbourne's west since 2007 * Worked as a lawyer * Joined union movement in 1994 * Served as national secretary of Australian Workers Union * Came to prominence as the public face of Beaconsfield Mine disaster * Former minister for workplace relations, education, financial services, superannuation and assistant treasurer * From ALP right faction * One of the so-called faceless men behind the knifing of Kevin Rudd as PM in 2010 * In June 2013 switched loyalty back from Julia Gillard to Kevin Rudd * Leader since October 2013, winning the inaugural Labor national postal ballot against Anthony Albanese Advertisement He had previously been married to businesswoman Deborah Beale, the daughter of millionaire former federal MP Julian Beale. Chloe Shorten, the 47-year-old daughter of Australia's first and only female governor-general Dame Quentin Bryce, has two children from her first marriage to prominent architect Roger Parkin, a man 23 years her senior. Bill Shorten, the man favoured by opinion polls and betting markets to become Australia's next prime minister, is a stepfather to Rupert, 17, and Georgette, 16. The Shortens are parents to seven-year-old Clementine. The Labor leader, who is also a Collingwood supporter, would also make history as the father of Australia's first blended family of children to live in The Lodge. Ms Gillard's stepchildren, from her relationship to hairdresser Tim Mathieson, were already adults when their stepmother was prime minister from 2010 to 2013. Mr Shorten entered Parliament in November 2007 as the member for Maribyrnong in Melbourne's western suburbs and was instrumental in bringing down Ms Gillard and reinstalling her Labor nemesis Kevin Rudd into the top job six years ago. The former national secretary of the Australian Workers Union came to prominence in 2006, following the Anzac Day Beaconsfield mine disaster in northern Tasmania, which saw Todd Russell and Brant Webb trapped for two weeks in a steel cage. The powerbroker from Labor's national right faction has promised to introduce a series of left-wing policies - including the abolition of negative gearing for existing properties and the scraping of tax refunds for share-owning retirees who don't pay income tax. This is so more money can be spent on free dental care for pensioners, more generous childcare subsidies, 200,000 more university places and a vow to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030. TAFEs and universities alone have been promised an additional $10billion over the next decade. A Newspoll released this week showed Labor leading the Coalition, 51 per cent to 49 per cent, after preferences. If replicated uniformly, Labor would pick up half a dozen seats for a slim majority in the House of Representatives. The Labor leader, who is also a Collingwood supporter, would also make history as the father of Australia's first blended family of children to live in The Lodge Major General Chris Ghika, deputy commander of anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, said he sees no increased Iranian threat A British commander of anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria has seen 'no increased threat' from Iran despite the US insisting the country is behind attacks on its allies. Major General Chris Ghika, deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters that he was monitoring Iran and its proxy forces but had seen no reason to adjust his stance towards them. Ghika's remarks seemed to be at odds with US claims that Iran and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels were behind attacks on two Saudi oil tankers and pumping stations. There are fears that America is squaring up for direct conflict with Iran after two carrier groups were deployed to the Arabian Gulf. Ghika denied that his remarks were out of step with Washington, though US Central Command later issued a rare rebuke to an allied military officer. The general's remarks 'run counter to the identified credible threats', a spokesman said, adding: 'As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq.' Norwegian oil tanker Andrea Victory, one of the four damaged boats, pictured with a large dent in its stern on Monday morning Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said attacks on the pipeline (file picture) from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea took place early this morning and called it 'an act of terrorism' that targeted global oil supplies Britain's Ministry of Defence later backed their general, while at the same time denying he was contradicting Washington: 'Major-General Ghika speaks as a military officer in the US-led coalition focused on the fight against Daesh [Isis] in Iraq and Syria. 'His comments are based on the day-to-day military operations and his sole focus is the enduring defeat of Daesh. 'He made clear in the Pentagon briefing that 'there are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in this part of the world. There always have been, that is why we have a very robust range of force protection measures.' 'The UK has long been clear about our concerns over Iran's destabilising behaviour in the region.' Fears of all-out conflict jumped this week amid rumours that President Trump was about to deploy 120,000 troops to the region, though he later slapped these down. 'Would I do that? Absolutely,' he said. 'But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. 'If we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that.' Tensions ramped up further on Wednesday as the US ordered non-emergency staff evacuated from its Baghdad embassy due to an 'imminent' threat from Iranian-linked Iraqi militias. Trump sought to portray the situation as under control, saying there was no discord in the White House and that Iran would want to negotiate. 'I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon,' he tweeted. He also blasted media reports of White House turmoil, saying 'there is no infighting whatsoever.' Despite international skepticism, the US government has been pointing to increasing threats from Iran, a long-time enemy and rival of US allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the threat came from Iraqi militia 'commanded and controlled' by Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. 'It is directly linked to Iran, multiple threat streams directly linked to Iran,' said one official. 'This is an imminent threat to our personnel,' said a second official. 'There is no doubt in my mind that under the circumstances, a partial ordered departure (from the embassy) is a reasonable thing to do.' Tensions began building on Sunday when four oil tankers - including two belonging to America's ally Saudi Arabia - were apparently sabotaged off the UAE coast. U.S. investigators were asked to get involved and subsequently blamed Iran and its allies, with divers saying it appeared magnetic explosives were used. President Hassan Rouhani (pictured last night) has warned Iran is 'too great to be intimidated by anyone' after the Pentagon claimed Tehran used explosives to sabotage four commercial ships anchored off the UAE coast Donald Trump is mulling over the idea of sending 120,000 troops to the Middle East while Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has warned his country is 'too great to be intimidated by anyone'. Tensions were increased further today in the region as Iran-aligned Houthi rebels claimed to have carried out drone attacks on Saudi oil installations That sparked a furious exchange of words between the US and Iran, with a key adviser to Iranian president Rouhani warning of a looming conflict. He also mocked Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton, saying: 'That's what happens when you listen to the mustache.' Tensions heightened further Tuesday after two pumping stations on a major Saudi oil pipeline were attacked by explosive-laden drones, halting the flow of crude along it. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said attacks on the pipeline from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea took place early yesterday morning, and called it 'an act of terrorism' that targeted global oil supplies. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels took responsibility for the attack, and said it was carried out using explosive-laden drones. The Houthis are fighting against Saudi-backed forces in Yemen's civil war, which has been raging since 2015. But both sides today tried to calm the situation. On Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted the showdown between the Islamic republic and the United States was a mere test of resolve. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war," he said. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed that sentiment, saying in Sochi, Russia: "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran." Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on a visit to Tokyo that his country was exercising "maximum restraint", accusing Washington of an "unacceptable" escalation in tensions. Tehran remains "committed" to the nuclear deal thrashed out with world powers despite Washington's withdrawal, Zarif said, adding that Iran had been assessed as in compliance with the multilateral agreement. Despite the insistence that neither party wants conflict, world powers have rushed to urge calm and voiced concern over the escalating tensions. CCTV footage has shown the moment police officers shot an Adelaide man after he rushed towards them while wielding a knife and an ignited gas cylinder. The video shows an officer opening fire as the 20-year-old runs in their direction during a dramatic confrontation. The clip from The Advertiser showed two offices facing the man but retreating backwards as he charged at them. CCTV footage has shown the moment police officers shot an Adelaide man after he rushed towards them while wielding a knife and an ignited gas cylinder One office appeared to stagger as the man ran towards him as two bright flashes came from the other officer's gun barrel. The man who had been shot slight faltered in his effort to chase the officer. He was then rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a serious condition on Tuesday, but his injuries were described to be non life-threatening. He is still in hospital on Wednesday afternoon and has not be charged with anything. Officers were called to a house in Ingle Farm, about 12 km north-east of Adelaide's central business district, just before 2.30am following a domestic dispute between the injured man and an 18-year-old woman. Armed officers shot and wounded a 20-year-old man, who allegedly threatened them with a knife and a lit up gas cylinder, after they failed to taser him Officers were called to a house in Ingle Farm, about 12 km north-east of Adelaide's central business district, just before 2.30am on Tuesday following a domestic violence dispute between the injured man and an 18-year-old woman Police said the man, who was armed with a knife, confronted the officers and lit the gas cylinder. He was instructed to drop the cylinder, but he kept advancing towards the officers and made threats. Both officers used their taser on the man, but were unsuccessful. 'At this time both police officers produced their firearms and shot at the man,' the police said in a statement. Assistant Commissioner Paul Dickson said the matter will be fully investigated. 'A police shooting is treated very seriously and there will be a significant investigation into the shooting,' he said. 'The police officers realise the seriousness of the matter, they are shaken from the incident but they are doing quite well. 'Obviously they were very concerned for their own personal safety.' Police said the man, who was armed with a knife, confronted the officers and lit the gas cylinder The injured man was given first-aid at the scene by the officers before he was taken to the hospital. The 18-year-old woman was also rushed to the same hospital with facial injuries. Investigators from Major Crime, Eastern Adelaide CIB and Internal Investigation Section conducted an investigation into the incident along with Crime Scene officers. Today the court heard Beech (pictured in police interview) was a convicted paedophile VIP sex ring accuser Carl Beech is 'a committed and manipulative paedophile, capable of deceit to investigators and limitless manipulation' the jury at his trial were told today. The court heard the former nurse pleaded guilty at a separate trial after Northumbria Police seized devices at his home and found indecent images of young boys, covert images of boys taken by him, and recordings. Prosecutor Tony Badenoch said: 'These child sex offences were committed whilst he was speaking to investigating police officers.' It was also alleged that Beech had used compensation he was paid over the claims to buy a 64,000 Ford Mustang. Under the pseudonym 'Nick', Beech, 51, made heinous accusations against prominent men. They included former Prime Minister Edward Heath, former MPs including Harvey Proctor, a former Army chief, and the heads of MI5 and MI6. His claims sparked an 18-month, 2million Met Police investigation into the men, which was was wound up with no arrests. A separate investigation by Northumbria Police then quickly unravelled Beech's allegations - Newcastle Crown Court heard his claims were found to be 'totally unfounded, hopelessly compromised, and irredeemably contradicted by other testimony'. They heard Beech viewed a news article giving guidance to victims of Jimmy Savile, who he also claimed had abused him, about how they could receive compensation. And that he had fled to Sweden as police closed in, buying a cabin in the woods and going under multiple false names to try to evade capture. Beech fled to a remote cabin in wooded northern Sweden (pictured) and lived under several false names as he tried to evade capture Referring to the alleged crime of making and possessing indecent images of children and voyeurism, based on indecent images of children found on devices in Beech's Gloucester home, prosecutor Tony Badenoch said: 'At the same time as he perpetuated these lies about Harvey Proctor and so many others, he was also viewing indecent images of the gravest kind and spying on small boys. 'He had installed on his iPad a secret App in the form of what looked to all and intents and purposes like a calculator. 'Only it wasn't. Two codes led investigators to the content behind the calculator image. What was that? Indecent images of young boys of the most serious kind.' He said Beech had been prosecuted for this crime separately, pleading guilty after initially contesting the charge and attempting to blame someone else. The process took 18 months, including the time Beech was a fugitive abroad. He said: 'This evidence demonstrates that Carl Beech is a committed and manipulative paedophile, capable of deceit to investigators and limitless manipulation when required. 'The sort of individual concerned only for himself, unconcerned with the impact on others; whether it is falsely accusing them of heinous crimes or seeking to attribute blame to another for child pornography. 'It also demonstrates that Carl Beech has an interest in child pornography. Not something which is learnt behaviour from something which happened, but quite the reverse. 'He watches child pornography concerning boys, possesses it, records young boys covertly, and writes about it over hundreds of pages. It all suggests that he also wants to be a part of it, and so he also talked about it to the Metropolitan Police, intending for them to take it seriously and enable him to continue to do so.' Yesterday the jury was shown a photograph of the pen-knife Beech claimed MP Harvey Proctor has first threatened to cut off his genitals with, then given him as a gift Beech told police he had a life-long fear of water which was used against him by his accusers who dunked his head and threw him off boats. Pictured: a photograph of Beech swimming, shown yesterday to the jury who heard he had a 'lifetime' of happy memories in the water Did he make up a second victim, too? By Glen Keogh Claims supposedly made by a second victim were fabricated by Beech himself, jurors heard. Beech is accused of creating an encrypted email address to pose as a man called Fred in order to corroborate his own accounts. It was Fred who told Scotland Yard investigators: Nick and I went through hell together. But when officers from Northumbria Police investigated Beech for allegedly making false claims, they found the ProtonMail account, based in Switzerland, was in fact registered to the email address beechfamily1@gmail.com. Beech claimed that he and Fred had been part of a group of boys subjected to sadistic child abuse in the 1970s by public figures including Sir Edward Health and Tory MP Harvey Proctor. Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC told the jury: Unsurprisingly, investigators wanted to speak to Fred, When trying to make contact with Fred, investigators initially went through Beech. Mr Badenoch added: Ultimately, Fred made contact by email with the Metropolitan Police. Or so it appeared. When the investigation was completed by police officers, they went to the email provider. The encrypted email address from which Fred was corresponding had not been set up by Fred. The person behind the email account was Carl Beech. Mr Badenoch said that the Fred account was emailing Scotland Yard officers as Beech continued to make allegations about the paedophile ring to police. All of this was going on while individuals were being traced, their houses being searched and their lives being turned upside down, he added. The court was shown extracts of emails between Fred and investigating police officers and psychologists, where they asked if they could meet him. In one, Fred said his name in childhood was John. He later said he had concerns about meeting, adding: I have received a threat that I take seriously. I have not told Carl about this, but if they can trace me, they can trace him. Mr Badenoch told the jury Beech knew a man called John, who was best man at his wedding. The real John has never witnessed any abuse or been abused, he added. This, of course, adds up to a straightforward conclusion, he said. There was no John abused with Nick in the way he alleged. He was a fabrication from beginning to end. The jury was shown sketches Beech had produced for Scotland Yard that were said to depict places where he was abused as a child. Addresses included the Carlton Club, where he said he had been abused by Mr Proctor, among others, and Dolphin Square, in Pimlico, also in central London, which was home to a number of politicians in the Seventies. He also provided officers with a list of names of alleged abusers and addresses. Beech told officers he had drawn the sketches and provided names from memory, but jurors heard he used a work computer to make searches for images of and information about places including the Carlton Club and Dolphin Square. Advertisement Earlier the jury heard Beech bought a 64,000 Ford Mustang using money he fraudulently claimed from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, it is alleged. Newcastle Crown Court heard today the white supercar was found at his home on Gloucester, the deposit paid directly from cash Beech received from the CICA after falsely claiming he'd been abused. Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC said Beech's motives for purchasing the flashy car were unclear but 'others have said that he craves attention'. He said Beech got 22,000 in April 2015 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority following his false claims and the 10,000 cash deposit for sports car 'identifiably came from that fraudulent claim' He added that Beech was also 'heavily indebted and spending beyond his means' with holidays to Sweden and America, and intended to become an international speaker on the subject of abuse survivors. He told the court Beech was an attention seeker who 'liked an audience', saying: 'This may be a useful starting point in this case. Carl Beech spent around twenty hours making these allegations in recordings with the Metropolitan Police. He therefore had an 'audience'. 'He also spent many hours with Metropolitan Police officers attending the 'scenes of the crimes', receiving support as to the process moving forwards to court, and updates as to progress in relation to those he had accused. 'It extended to appearances on mainstream TV as a shadowy figure using the pseudonym 'Nick'. ' Beech, the court was told, gave police another name of a boy he claimed had been abused along with him - Aubrey. Police discovered he had a childhood friend of that name but the boy had not been abused. The jury also heard Beech invented a witness with the codename 'Fred' and produced a string of bogus emails to support his false claims. Beech, said 'Fred' suffered abuse alongside him, but Fred was actually a figment of his imagination, according to prosecutors, and his email account originated with Beech. The jury were shown pictures of Carl Beech aged around 10 in his final year of primary school when he claimed the abuse began Beech's 13 charges Beech denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud. The charges allege he: Made a false allegation of witnessing the child homicide of an unnamed boy committed by Harvey Proctor Made a false allegation of witnessing the homicide of a boy called Scott Made a false allegation of witnessing the homicide of another boy Falsely alleged that he had been sexually and physically abused by a paedophile ring, with senior military officers, military intelligence, a TV presenter and other unidentified men accused as members Falsely alleged that he had been sexually and physically abused by a paedophile ring, with politicians accused as members Provided a list of sexual abusers and locations falsely alleging he had been physically and sexually abused by said abusers at said locations Provided sketches of locations at which he claimed he had been abused, falsely claiming he had produced them from memory Provided the name Aubrey, falsely alleging Aubrey had been present and subjected to physical and sexual abuse when with him Provided a pen knife and two military epaulettes falsely alleging he had retained them from when he was abused as a child Falsely claimed that he had been seriously injured by sexual and physical abuse inflicted as a child Falsified a 'Proton' email account, and provided false information purportedly sent from 'Fred', an individual he had claimed was present when he was abused Went together with investigators on site visits and falsely alleged that it was at locations identified by him during those visits that he had been subjected to physical and sexual abuse by a paedophile ring Falsely claimed 22,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority saying he was subjected to abuse by a paedophile ring, knowing this to be untrue and intending to make a gain for himself Advertisement Newcastle Crown Court heard Beech agreed to act as an intermediary between investigating officers from the Metropolitan Police and Fred. Officers received emails from the 'witness' on an encrypted account, which appeared to support Beech's claims. But 18 months later when Beech himself became the focus of an investigation they were found to be an elaborate sham, jurors were told. When Northumbria Police were called in to investigate Beech as a suspect in 2016, their detectives traced the email account to Proton Technologies in Geneva, Switzerland, encrypted email account software which Beech knew how to use. They quickly discovered the account was registered with the address beechfamily1@gmail.com and realised it was Carl Beech who had created the 'Fred' address, the court heard. During the correspondence Fred revealed himself as being called John. Mr Badenoch said Beech had modelled 'Fred' on John Prance, who was best man at his wedding. Beech's wife Dawn left him before the police investigations began, the court heard. Mr Badenoch said Mr Prance matches the description of the person being given the pseudonym 'Fred' but had never witnessed any abuse nor been the subject of any abuse. Mr Badenoch said: 'This of course all adds up to a straightforward conclusion. There was no 'John' abused with 'Nick' in the way he alleged. He was a fabrication from beginning to end. ' Earlier the jury were shown a video of Beech telling police he didn't know why he'd kept a pen-knife he claims MP Harvey proctor threatened him with. The clip shows Beech handing the knife to a Metropolitan Police officer in 2014, along with three journals, black books with post-it notes within them, which contained his notes and drawings. He tells the officer: 'It's been in a box with other stuff, I don't know why I kept it really.' Mr Badenoch said yesterday Beech had asked the Met whether any forensic results had been produced from the knife. H said 'He was informed they were negative on 23 February 2015. 'Of course they were going to be, it was yet another fabrication.' He said when Northumbria Police spoke to Beech's wife, she told them Beech had not only already shown it to her, but kept it in his 'happy memory box'. The jury also heard how Beech's ex-wife Dawn had never heard of the allegations that he would eventually make to the police. Mr Badenoch said: 'There was no word of these allegations concerning politicians, the military or intelligence services to her during over 20 years of marriage. 'They had been together since he was in his very early twenties until he was around 44. That would have been just five or so years after the 'abuse' concluded that they met. 'He was just 20 and if he is to be believed, he was at that stage still carrying the physical and mental scars of sadistic torture.' Beech 'conducted online research into those he accused and places he claimed abuse happened' Despite telling investigators that he had not done any internet research prior to coming forward with his allegations, Beech conducted online searches on some of the alleged abusers and some of the places he claimed abuse was carried out, the jury was told as they were presented with screenshots of the evidence. Among the names and places he looked up online were: The jury saw evidence of Beech having looked at websites for Dolphin Square and the Carlton Club, where he would later allege he was abused The Carlton Club - an exclusive gentlemen's club in St James', popular with senior members of the Conservative party Dolphin Square - an exclusive apartment building which many MPs made their London home The Cavalry and Guards Club - searched in an attempt to find information on places senior military personnel might spend time, the Crown claims Field Marshall Sir Roland Gibbs Diplomat Peter Hayman Field Marshall Lord Brammall Beech searched to find out about compensation paid to Savile's victims Wikipedia entries on the 'Dirty Dozen' a gang of paedophiles who sexually abused boys in the 1970s was also viewed by Beech, as well as details on prolific paedophile Jimmy Savile, whom Beech would falsely claim had also abused him, the court heard. One of Beech's searches even brought up an ad with the headline: 'How to apply for compensation after Jimmy Savile.' Advertisement Details of Beech's alleged search history were shown to the jury, who were told Beech told police he had not done any internet research. Mr Badenoch said evidence showed that, prior to coming forward to the Metropolitan Police, Beech had searched for locations he would later cite as places where he was supposedly abused, including the Carlton Club and Dolphin Square. He said Beech also searched for London gentlemen's clubs and military clubs, and for biographical details of those he would go on to abuse including Lord Brammall, diplomat Peter Hayman, and Field Marshall Sir Roland Gibbs. Court sketch of Carl Beech, 51, from Gloucester, known as Nick, at Newcastle Crown Court The court also heard Beech fled to a cabin in the Swedish woods with his web of lies 'unravelling before his eyes'. On January 23 2018 he received just under 60,000 from the NHS as an early retirement pension - with 752 per month payable - and on February 6 ghe boarded the Eurotunnel to Calais. Beech began preparing a new life in Sweden. He purchased property in his real name for approximately 17,000 in a remote forested area of northern Sweden, Overkalix. He then, it's alleged, entered into an agreement for a second property using the name 'Sam Williams' in Sleddo around two hours from Overkalix. Beech grew a lengthy beard to disguise himself and stayed in hotels under pseudonyms, regularly travelling hundreds of miles between cities, bought a Ford Kuga 4x4 and began the process of changing his name, jurors heard. Among the names he used in Sweden were 'Carl Andersson' 'Oskar Andersson', 'Sten Andersson' and 'Samuel Karlsson' the court was told. He paid cash for his goods and sometimes used gift cards in stores around the country. Beech fled to Sweden and bought a property in the woods, growing a long beard and regularly travelling hundreds of miles in attempt to remain a step ahead of Swedish and British police Beech's remote cabin in the Swedish wilderness was a 20 hour train ride from Gothenburg Drone footage, of the remote cabin in Overkalix that Beech purchased after Northumbria Police started to look into him, was shown to the jury Tony Badenoch said: 'All of this was to no avail as a European Arrest Warrant had been issued for him, circulated internationally, including to the Swedish authorities. 'The Swedish Fugitive and Special Target ('FAST') Team were engaged to find him and they worked closely with Northumbria Police. 'Carl Beech could only remain one step ahead of them for so long. 'The false names, remote forest property, multiple hotel stays, and repeated travel for hundreds of miles to at least eight Swedish cities could last for only so long with the Swedish FAST team, National Crime Agency, and Northumbria Constabulary engaged. 'It led to his arrest on a train scheduled to leave Gothenburg on 1st October 2018 booked in the name of 'Samuel Karlsson'. 'Images of him and his property were taken in accordance with Swedish Protocol. 'He had with him his UK Passport in the name of Carl Beech. Gothenburg is over twenty hours by train from his remote forest properties.' Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor was accused of rape and murder by Beech. The court heard he is still 'enraged' by the accusations Yesterday as prosecutors laid out their claims against Beech, the court was told that: Beech had lived as a fugitive abroad before he was tracked down in Sweden; He accused former Tory MP Harvey Proctor of murdering another young boy; He also gave police a pen-knife which he claimed had been a gift from Proctor; Beech named London Zoo, the Carlton private member's club and military bases among the alleged places of abuse; He also made sketches of the places where he claimed he was abused, which were shown to the court; The defendant was accused of making up a story about a childhood friend being killed by a car; Edward Heath's yacht was not as described by Beech, who claimed he had been abused there; Beech claimed he was afraid of water - but prosecutors showed pictures of him swimming. Beech's claims led to raids on the homes of prominent and elderly people including former army chief, D-Day veteran Lord Brammall, whose wife of 64 years died during the investigation, before his named was cleared. Field Marshall Lord Brammal, pictured with his wife of 64 years Dorothy, who died before his name was cleared The charges relate to claims Beech made that former prime minister Edward Heath (left), ex-home secretary Leon Brittan (right) and others were part of a child abuse ring Beech made extraordinary unfounded accusations against a list of prominent men including: Former PM Sir Edward Heath: he said he was sexually abused at Heath's home in London and on his yacht Former head of the army Lord Brammall: he said Brammall repeatedly raped him and was present at the first meeting of 'the group' Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor: he said Proctor demanded oral sex, abused him with a pen knife, and murdered two children, one after tying him to a table, raping, and stabbing him Former head of MI5 Michael Hanley, and former head of MI6 Maurice Oldfield: said to be responsible for abuse and torture including spiders being tipped over him, electric shocks, and having darts thrown at him, culminating in threats 'to make him disappear' His step-father, Major Ray Beech: he said his step-father frequently and repeatedly abused, raped, and beat him, the first time in a public toilet at a wildlife park Former Home Secretary Leon Brittan: He said Brittan murdered a child, describing him as a 'mini-Harvey' who was sadistic and enjoyed putting his head under water The Met Police spent 18 months and 2.5million investigating Beech's claims of a Westminster paedophile ring Timeline of Beech's alleged falsehoods and the investigations they launched 2014/2015: Over more than 20 hours of recorded police interviews, Carl Beech makes lurid allegations of child rape and murder against senior Establishment figures including Ted Heath and Lord Brammall. November 2014: The Met Police launch Operation Midland, which raids the homes of several elderly men looking for evidence to support Beech's claims. A detective calls the accusations 'credible and true'. April 2015: D-Day veteran and former Army chief Lord Brammal interviewed. June 2015: Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, whom Beech accused of child murder, interviewed under caution. March 2016: Beech notified no further action was to be taken in respect of the allegations he had made. 2016: Northumbria Police conclude Beech's claims are 'totally unfounded, hopelessly compromised, and irredeemably contradicted by other testimony'. November 2, 2016: Police arrive to raid Beech's home in Gloucester. January 23, 2018: Beech got 60,000 as an early pension from the NHS February 6, 2018: He travels to Calais preparing to flee to Sweden, where he buys a cabin in the woods and lives under a series of assumed identities, travelling hundreds of miles from city to city to stay on the run October 1, 2018: He was tracked down by Swedish and British police and arrested in advance of a 20-hour train journey to Gothenburg booked in the name of 'Samuel Karlsson'. 2018: A highly critical review of Operation Midland reports police 'acted like they were searching for bodies' during raids on homes. 2018: Beech pleads guilty to possessing indecent images of children, in a separate trial. December 2018: restriction on reporting of Carl Beech's real identity lifted. May 2019: Beech goes on trial for perverting the course of justice. Advertisement As well as Heath's home and yacht, Beech claimed the venues for the abuse included Dolphin Square and the Carlton Club in London, Stowe School, London Zoo, and military bases including Imber, St David's Barracks, Erskine Barracks which at the time was the HQ of the British Land Forces. Beech accused 12 men: Major Ray Beech, his step-father; Lt General Beach; General Gibbs; Lord Brammall; Jimmy Savile; Peter Hayman; Harvey Proctor; Leon Brittan; Greville Janner; Edward Heath; Michael Hanley; Maurice Oldfield. Mr Badenoch said the 12-week trial would show Beech's accusations against the men were 'demonstrably untrue.' The Metropolitan Police's disastrous 2 million Operation Midland investigation into Beech's unsubstantiated and unsupported claims collapsed in 2016 with no arrests, despite a senior detective saying Nick's stories were 'credible and true'. The Met has since paid six-figure sums in compensation to distinguished former Field Marshall Lord Brammall and to Lady Brittan whose late husband Leon was also accused by Beech. The Met is yet to agree any compensation deal with former Tory MP, Harvey Proctor, 70, who was falsely accused of rape and murder and lost his home and his job as a result. It is thought Mr Proctor, who received a personal apology from the then Met Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, is seeking more than 500,000 for loss of earnings and damage to his reputation. Leon Brittan and another accused, Greville Janner, both died within a year in 2015, the year following these allegations. Dorothy Brammall, who was married to Edwin Brammall for 64 years, died during the course of the investigation and before Lord Brammall's name was cleared. During the probe, teams of more than 20 officers mounted dawn raids on the homes of some of the suspects, many of them now old and in poor health. Last year a review of the flawed investigation, conducted by retired High Court judge, Sir Richard Henriques, said the police had acted as if they were 'looking for bodies or bodies parts', when carrying out the searches. Sketches handed to police show Beech's 'memory and drawing skills improved immeasurably' after he made the claims, prosecutors say Prosecuting barrister Tony Badenoch QC told the jury at Newcastle Crown Court Carl Beech, 51, from Gloucester, had produced sketches to show his abuse. But he added wryly Beech's skills as a sketch artist had 'improved immeasurably', as had his memory, between a police interview in 2012 and another 2014 - a difference he put down to deliberate falsehoods by Beech. The jury were shown bizarre sketches by Beech showing shadowy 'demons' with long talons subjecting what appear to be children to bloody tortures. One picture was captioned with the words: 'please, no more.' In one of the sketches, Beech described a pool where boys were sexually abused, writing on the paper: 'Each man selected one of us. 'You then stuck with them unless they wanted to swap you with someone else. There would be a lot of touching.' This sketch from Carl Beech's notebook carries the message: 'Please no more' The jury at Newcastle Crown Court were shown pages from Beech's sketchbooks. Beech described a pool where boys were sexually abused, writing : 'Each man selected one of us' Carl Beech provided a counsellor with a drawing which to use her words; 'took her breath away'; a body map on which he had marked fractures to his head and body, puncture wounds to the groin, and burns to his back The prosecutor said in 2012 Beech produced sketches 'any self-respecting toddler could probably manage' Mr Badenoch said: 'When he spoke to Wiltshire Police in 2012 he provided sketches which any self-respecting toddler could probably manage. 'Two years later when speaking to the Metropolitan Police his sketching skills had improved immeasurably as had his memory, if he is to be believed. Neither of those propositions is true. 'The conclusion? Carl Beech copied pictures off the internet and told Metropolitan Police officers that he had been raped and sadistically abused at these locations when he hadn't. 'It is like everything else, a falsehood. An embellishment to a false story said to be from memory.' 'There is nothing in his records to substantiate his claims and he has refused to be examined.' Beech told the Metropolitan police that the 'group' had somebody he understood to be a doctor, who would 'patch up' the boys when the abusers had gone too far. Nobody noticed injuries from this savage abuse over nine years of his life between the ages of seven and 16, the court heard. Some of the later sketches of locations of alleged abuse looked to have been copied from internet photos The court heard one picture Beech said was drawn from memory - of the Carlton Club in London where he claimed to have been abused by Harvey Proctor and Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath - had the exact number of front steps as the real building Dawn Beech met him around five years later when he was in his early twenties and was then married to him for 22 years, she didn't notice any marks on his body, and he didn't complain of pain to his feet. There wasn't anything physical that she saw that supported his claims of electric shock treatment nor any savage abuse. Carl Beech also provided a counsellor with a drawing which to use her words; 'took her breath away'. It was a body map on which he had marked countless fractures to his head and body, puncture wounds to the groin, and burns to his back, to name just a few. He said Beech's medical records tell a completely different story. They show nothing that suggest injuries that were 'the result of infliction of electric torture, fractures and burns.' 'The reason?' asked Mr Badenoch. 'He hadn't been sadistically tortured and abused in the manner in which he described to Metropolitan Police Officers.' The sketchbooks also contain hand drawing of the places he was abused for police and said they were' done from memory.' But on his computer imagery and photographs of the locations were found, which he had used to produce the drawings, the prosecution alleges. One of his pictures of the Carlton Club in London, where he claimed to have been abused by Harvey Proctor amongst others, even had the exact number of front steps as the real building. Unknown figures are seen in these sketches made by Carl Beech, seen by the trial jury Another of the images drawn by Carl Beech who denies perverting the course of justice These drawings from Beech's notebook have been shown to jurors at his Crown Court trial Another of the images which Crown prosecutors have shown to the jury in Newcastle These extracts from Beech's notebooks show a mixture of words and sketches A human figure is seen in this sketch from Beech's notebook alongside written words These pages from Beech's notebooks were also seen by jurors at Newcastle Crown Court The brother of a terrorist who stabbed a cafe owner to death has himself pleaded guilty to planning a mass shooting to 'advance the cause of Islam'. Somali-Australian Ali Khalif Shire Ali, 22, admitted trying to get a firearm and ammunition in a plot to attack Melbourne's Federation Square, a popular public place, on New Year's Eve in 2017. The Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday heard Ali planned the attack to 'advance the cause of Islam through violence', ABC News reported. Ali Khalif Shire Ali (pictured), 22, tried to get a firearm and ammunition in a plot to attack Melbourne's Federation Square on New Years Eve in 2017 Ali is the younger brother of 30-year-old Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, who fatally stabbed Pellegrini's Espresso Bar owner Sisto Malaspina, 74, in November last year. The killer was shot at the scene by police and later died in hospital. The younger sibling had previously denied his terror charge in a committal hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court. He had been subjected to a lengthy police investigation, with a phone tap in place from October 2016 until his arrest, the court was told at the committal hearing. Ali was also subject to physical surveillance and his spending activity was tracked. He has been in custody since November 2017, when police arrested him at a Werribee shopping strip. It was alleged he attempted to buy a gun for the attack, was described as an 'ISIL sympathiser' and allegedly accessed an al-Qaeda guidebook with information on how to commit a terrorist act and use firearms. Police at the time said the human cost of the plot would have been 'catastrophic ... horrendous'. Ali's brother Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured), 30, was shot dead by police after setting his car on fire and stabbing a 74-year-old cafe owner to death on November 9, 2018 Federation Square, opposite Flinders Street Station, is popular spot to watch the New Years fireworks on the Yarra River (pictured is New Years Eve at Federation Square in 2013) It is not the first time Federation Square has been the target of terrorism plots. In November last year, Ibrahim Abbas was jailed for 24 years after admitting he planned a terror attack on Federation Square, Flinders Street Station and St Paul's Cathedral for Christmas Day 2016. His co-conspirators Hamza Abbas, Abdullah Chaarani and Ahmed Mohamed are yet to be sentenced after being found guilty by a Supreme Court jury. The plot was foiled just days before the attack by police who had been listening to their preparations and watching as they carried out reconnaissance at Federation Square. A pre-sentence plea hearing for Ali has been set down for August 23. A grandmother who killed an eight-year-old girl and a 52-year-old man after veering across a road and hitting a ute while yawning and making a hands-free phone call won't be jailed. Olivia Douglas was in the back of Leona Pauline Paraha's car on the way to a netball carnival in Bundaberg, north of Brisbane, on September 14 2018, when she was killed in a head-on collision. Paraha, 69, who was travelling in a convoy from the Gold Cast to the netball carnival, veered across the road and fatally hit Shane Old's ute. The grandmother recalled yawning and calling her husband of 45 years via bluetooth before the fatal accident, News-Mail reported. Olivia Douglas (left) was in the back of Leona Pauline Paraha's car on the way to a netball carnival in Bundaberg, north of Brisbane, on September 14 2018, when she was killed in a head-on collision. Paraha, 69, who was travelling in a convoy from the Gold Cast to the netball carnival, veered across the road and fatally hit Shane Old's (right) ute Paraha was sentenced on Tuesday by Magistrate Terry Duroux to five months' imprisonment wholly suspended for a two year operational period and she was disqualified from holding a drivers licence for 12 months. The relatives of the victims have been left disappointed by the sentence. Olivia's step-father, Tim Stark said: 'We were told very early on not to expect justice out of this'. Olivia's mother Tegan Mitchell said she couldn't help but feel disappointed after the verdict. The step-father of Mr Old, Kevin Tyson, said the both families are devastated and suffering from the deaths 'but life's got to go on'. 'You can see by this tragic accident that she should have pulled over and rested or got another driver,' he said. Paraha said she was terribly sorry for the accident and that she thinks of her victims every day. 'There's nothing I can say or do to bring (them) back. What can you do or say but learn from the lesson today, to go forward, to live your life for them,' she said. Paraha was sentenced on Tuesday by Magistrate Terry Duroux to five months' imprisonment wholly suspended for a two year operational period and she was disqualified from holding a drivers licence for 12 months Paraha said she taught and loved 'Livvy'. The court heard Paraha was driving her granddaughter and Olivia who were in the back of the car watching a movie on a tablet. She became tired and her husband phoned her before the fatal accident. Sergeant Grant Klaassen said the conditions at the time of the accident were clear and there was no evidence to indicate Paraha had used her breaks before the collision. Olivia and Mr Old died at the scene due to their injuries, while Paraha and her granddaughter were taken to hospital. Olivia and Mr Old died at the scene due to their injuries, while Paraha and her granddaughter were taken to hospital Defence lawyer Marcin Lazinski said Paraha had no criminal history, limited traffic history and alcohol or speed were not a factor of the accident. A psychologist report found Paraha was attending weekly counselling services for her guilt and she would be forever burdened by the accident. Magistrate Duroux said Paraha should have stopped driving once overcome with tiredness. He understood Paraha was well-regarded in the community and had also suffered due to the tragedy. Kady Lee outside Manchester Magistrates' Court where she was convicted of causing a nuisance to the public A teenager who repeatedly threatened to jump from a motorway bridge because she had 'nothing to live for' following the death of her mother has been convicted of causing a public nuisance. Kady Lee attempted to throw herself into the path of traffic travelling along the M602 at Eccles near Manchester in the wake of losing her mother who had died suddenly the previous year, aged just 47. She had also lost her grandmother and uncle in the same year. The 18-year-old told police 'her life wasn't worth living' but was eventually talked down from the 12-inch ledge by officers. The motorway had to be closed for 20 minutes while 16 officers dealt with the incident. As magistrates convicted the teenager, they told her 'no one wants to be subject to this sort of inconvenience', and urged the youngster to 'move forward with her life'. The court heard that Lee, from Swinton, had recently left a hospital after being admitted for self harm. Police recognised her because they had been called out on five previous occasions to save her when she threatened to jump off the same bridge. But prosecutors said almost 1,000 motorists were delayed and taxpayers would have to pay 560 towards the costs of policing the incident. Kady Lee attempted to throw herself into the path of traffic travelling along the M602 at Eccles near Manchester when she was left unable to copy after losing her mother who had died suddenly the previous year, aged just 47 At Manchester Magistrates' Court, Lee admitted an offence of 'cause a nuisance to the public by threatening to jump off the motorway bridge'. Magistrates ordered her to complete a 12 month community order warning the teenager she had caused 'massive inconvenience.' In mitigation, defence lawyer Peter Broderick said: 'My client has been recorded as saying she 'has nothing to live for'. 'On May 17 last year she lost the most important person in her life and in January of this year she lost her grandmother who she was very close with and who was very important to her. 'In April this year she lost her uncle who again was a very important influence in her life. All of these hardships got the better of her and this is why she has acted like this. Lee admitted an offence of 'cause a nuisance to the public by threatening to jump off the motorway bridge' 'She suffers from an unstable personality disorder. This is the first time she has appeared in court and she should be given maximum credit for her early guilty plea. She is a low risk to the public.' Lee was also ordered to pay 200 in costs and surcharges. Magistrates told Lee: 'Use this [community order] to deal with your bereavement. This has caused a massive inconvenience to the public and no one wants to be subject to this sort of inconvenience. 'You must move forward with your life. This sort of behaviour doesn't cause anyone any good least of all you.' A Malaysian teenager plunged to her death after conducting an Instagram poll on whether she should kill herself, police say. The 16-year-old was found dead at the foot of a three-storey shop in the city of Kuching, on the island of Borneo, around 8pm on Tuesday. The schoolgirl, who has not been named, had run a poll on the photo-sharing app with the question 'Really Important, Help Me Choose D/L', hours before jumping off the roof of the building. The 'D/L' meant 'Death/Life', and the poll had showed 69 per cent of the girl's followers chose 'D', district police chief Aidil Bolhassan. 'We are conducting a post-mortem to determine whether there were other factors in her death,' he said, adding that the girl had a history of depression. The 16-year-old was found dead at the foot of a three-storey shop in the city of Kuching (pictured), on the island of Borneo, around 8pm on Tuesday Bolhassan said the girl had posted a message on Facebook which said: 'WANNA QUIT F****** LIFE I'M TIRED.' Her depression seemed to stem from the fact that her stepfather had married a Vietnamese woman and seldom returned home, Bolhassan added according to news site Astro Awani. The girl's body has been taken for a post-mortem, but officers say the death is not being viewed as suspicious. Instagram reviewed the teenager's account and found that the online poll, which ran over a 24-hour period, ended with 88% percent votes for 'L', said Wong Ching Yee, Instagram's head of communications in the Asia-Pacific. Aidil, however, said that the poll's numbers may have changed after news of the girl's death spread. The case had sparked concern among Malaysian lawmakers who called for a wider probe. Ramkarpal Singh, a lawyer and member of parliament, said that those who voted for the teenager to die could be guilty of abetting suicide. 'Would the girl still be alive today if the majority of netizens on her Instagram account discouraged her from taking her own life?' he said in a statement. 'Would she have heeded the advice of netizens to seek professional help had they done so?' The teen wrote an Instagram post which said 'Really Important, Help Me Choose D/L', where 'D' stood for 'die' and 'L' stood for live. After 69 per cent of people voted 'die', she killed herself Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman also called for a probe, saying that rising suicide rates and mental health issues among young people needed to be taken seriously. Under Malaysian law, anyone convicted of abetting the suicide of a minor could face the death penalty or up to 20 years' jail and a fine. Instagram extended its sympathies to the teenager's family, and said the company had a responsibility to make its users feel safe and supported. 'As part of our own efforts, we urge everyone to use our reporting tools and to contact emergency services if they see any behaviour that puts peopleas safety at risk,' Wong said. In February, Instagram banned graphic images and content related to self-harm from its platform, citing a need to keep vulnerable users safe. The changes came following pressure from the parents of a British teenager, who believed that viewing Instagram accounts related to self-harm and depression contributed to their daughter's suicide in 2017. A professional wrestler has been arrested in Japan after allegedly wrestling a man to the ground in a row over a parking space. Kenji Abe, 40, was arrested on suspicion of assault in Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture on Sunday after the shocking incident took place in a supermarket car park. Police in the city said the altercation took place at around 6pm on Sunday after Abe and a 47-year-old man had an argument. The incident took place in a supermarket car park in Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture on Sunday Abe admitted grabbing the mans neck with both arms, then wrestling him to the ground in the dispute. He claimed he became enraged after the man allegedly cut in front of him while he was about to enter a vacant space in the parking lot. The victim suffered minor injuries, including bruises and cuts to his head. A man has been captured on camera subjecting a woman to sickening sexual harassment for 15 minutes as she travelled home from work on a tram in Manchester - and at one point, he stood in front of the barrier and 'pretended to have sex' with her. Disturbing footage shows the man making lewd comments and pestering Charlotte Green, a Manchester Evening News local democracy reporter, as she travelled on an East Didsbury line service Metrolink on Monday evening. The man first complimented Ms Green's shoes and hair when he got on the tram at Failsworth, Oldham, before he asked for her phone number. Disturbing footage shows the man making lewd comments and pestering Charlotte Green, a Manchester Evening News local democracy reporter, as she travelled on an East Didsbury line service Metrolink on Monday evening. She said: 'He stood in front of the barrier pretending to have sex with me [pictured]' The man first complimented Ms Green's shoes and hair when he got on the tram at Failsworth, Oldham, before he asked for her phone number. (Charlotte Green is pictured) The man (seen above in the foreground) subjected Ms Green to sickening sexual harassment for 15 minutes as she travelled home from work on the tram in Manchester But Ms Green, 26, said no and asked the man, who was sitting opposite, to leave her alone. The situation escalated and the man approached her, making sexual gestures as well as vile, explicit comments. He continued to pester her until he got off the service at Exchange Square. Another passenger did attempt to intervene and asked if she would like to move down the tram, but she declined and the harasser began to turn aggressive towards the other man. Ms Gren has since reported the incident to police and Transport for Greater Manchester. TfGM have responded on Twitter to advise passengers to press the emergency call button to connect to the tram driver, but Ms Green said this would have just aggravated the situation. She said: 'He got on between 8pm to 8.05pm at Failsworth. He was saying he liked my hair and shoes, and I said thanks. And then he said "Could I have your number?! 'I said I am not interested I don't want to give you my number. He made sexual gestures with his hands. Another passenger did attempt to intervene and asked if she would like to move down the tram, but she declined and the harasser began to turn aggressive towards the other man 'And then he would start pestering me for my number. He stood in front of the barrier pretending to have sex with me. 'He said, "If I was your man, I would be pulling your hair all of the time". Another passenger got on at Victoria and said do you want to move down the tram. I said I was fine, I don't want to stand up because I thought he would touch me.' Ms Green added: 'To press the driver intercom, it isn't really realistic, it would have only made it worse or I would be relying on strangers to do it for me. 'It is like all of the pressure is put on yourself to protect yourself. They did have the travel safe officers, but I haven't seem them for weeks. 'This is the most serious incident, in a ream of incidents, I have seen on the tram recently. 'It has made me think of travelling to and from work as a really unpleasant experience. I can see why people choose not to take the tram because it doesn't make you feel safe.' Greater Manchester Police have confirmed the incident was reported to them and they have launched an investigation. The man is described as black, over 6ft tall and aged in his 30s. TfGM's Head of Metrolink, Danny Vaughan, said: 'It's extremely important to me that as well as being safe, our passengers feel safe and confident when they travel with us. 'It is not acceptable for anyone to experience this type behaviour and, although rare, will not be tolerated. 'The TravelSafe Partnership patrols the network every day and uses intelligence and data from a range of sources to ensure they are deployed in key areas and at key times. All our trams and stops are also equipped with CCTV and we will not hesitate to hand this to police when such incidents occur. 'As well as the police, those who witness an incident can, if they feel able, contact Metrolink staff via the call points on all trams and stops or by phone or across social media.' Anyone with further information can contact GMP on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111. This is the heart-stopping moment a climber plummets down the face of a never-before-scaled cliff after almost making it to the top on his ninth attempt. James McHaffie, 38, was near the summit of Nesscliffe Crag in Shropshire last week, when he failed to grip onto the rock and took a dramatic 50ft tumble. Miraculously, the mountaineering expert, from Llanberis, North Wales, escaped unscathed due to his safety equipment and is determined to try again. James McHaffie was nearing the summit of Nesscliffe Crag in Shropshire last week (left) when he suddenly lost his grip (right), and took a 50ft tumble Mr McHaffie said: 'This cliff has never been climbed before and is the hardest to climb in the UK, but it is a project I have been working on. 'If I had got my left hand down a little bit I would have done it, I had felt confident until then. 'Falling was pretty scary, I didn't fall in a brilliant position and it did hurt a bit but I escaped with only rope burn and bruises.' In the video, filmed by his friend Ray Wood, Mr McHaffie can be seen eagerly and patiently trying to get to the top. He twice reaches for chalk for his hands and looks up for his next move. But near the end he moves his left hand upwards and fails to connect, meaning he plummets down the wall. Mr McHaffie takes a hard tumble down the cliff (left and right), but is saved by his safety equipment. He is now determined to attempt the feat again when the weather is not too hot Mr McHaffie plans to attempt the feat again when the weather is not too hot, as sunshine can lead to sweaty hands which makes it harder to properly grip the rock. One of his motivations for being the first person to successfully scale the cliff is the chance to then name the summit - a tradition among climbers. Mr McHaffie, who works at the British Mountaineering Council, said: 'I had planned to call it 'endarkenment'. 'It comes from the David Mitchell books The Bone Clouds - it's from a world where the anti-science crew have taken over. 'I thought I'd call it that after all the anti-science fake news which has been going around.' Ruslan Pyrch, 10, suffered severe burns in the incident A boy suffered horrific injuries after neighbours accidentally set his grandfather's coffin on fire in Ukraine while visiting his house to pay their respects. The neighbours came to say goodbye to the deceased in the village of Yuskivtsi in western Ukraine's Ternopil Oblast region. and left a lit candle on the coffin. But after they left the candle set the coffin on fire, and the blaze quickly spread to the next room where the boy was sleeping. Schoolboy Ruslan Pyrch woke up when 'he felt that his face was burning' and the 10-year-old found himself trapped in the burning room and hid under his bed in a panic. He told local media: 'I woke up in pain and saw that my room was on fire. 'My face was burning and I covered it with my hands. I jumped on the floor and climbed under my bed. 'I did not understand what was going on.' The boy's grandmother Tamara Pyrch was standing in a courtyard near their house when she noticed the smoke. The boy was sleeping in a room next door to where his grandfather's coffin was being displayed as mourners arrived at the house to pay their respects A group of neighbors were said to have lit candles but failed to put them out before they left The terrified woman rushed into the house to save her grandson. She said: 'I was going to run into his room but the door was on fire. I rushed outside, broke the window and got in. 'I found him lying motionless on the floor and carried him to the window.' Witnesses who had already gathered near the burning house helped Mrs Pyrch to pull Ruslan out through the window and called emergency services. The boy was rushed to the intensive care unit with severe burns to his head, face, hands and back. Volodymyr Bilynskyi, the head deputy of the Ternopil Regional Children Hospital said: 'The boy got severe burns to his body. Doctors managed to stabilise his condition. His life is not in danger now.' The coffin (pictured) and the deceased were damaged in the fire, reports say, and the boy's grandfather was buried soon after Ruslans father Yury Pyrch said the fire was accidentally caused by his neighbours. He said: 'My father died and the coffin with his body was in the house. In the early morning, some neighbours came to say goodbye to the deceased. 'They lit a candle and put it on the coffin.' 'Leaving the house, they did not put out the candle which then set the coffin on fire.' The coffin and the deceased were damaged in the fire, reports say. The grandfather was buried soon after the incident. Police are now investigating the incident and the father could be fined for failure to ensure the safety of the boy, reports say. The boy suffered severe injuries to his hands and bodies as he took cover under his bed from the flames A woman who kept two Thai prostitutes as slaves and threatened them with exposing nude photos if they tried to run away has been found guilty. Rungnapha 'Lisa' Kanbut was found guilty by a NSW District Court jury on Wednesday of two counts each of intentionally possessing a slave, exercising powers of ownership over a slave and dealing with the proceeds of crime. The two Thai women, who voluntarily came to Australia from Asia to do sex work, lived with Kanbut and her husband at their home in 2004 and 2005 respectively. They testified at Kanbut's trial that she took their passports and returned them once they had each paid off a $45,000 'debt' which took some months. The Crown alleged the 57-year-old 'exercised complete control' over the women, but Kanbut's barrister contended the pair instead had an 'economic relationship' with her. The two women lived with Kanbut, 57, and her husband at their Sydney home in 2004 and 2005 respectively, the court heard. The first sex worker, who couldn't speak English and had little money of her own, was told by Kanbut that she had no where else to go if she tried to run away. Rungnapha 'Lisa' Kanbut, 57, has been found guilty of keeping two Thai women as slaves in 2004 and 2005 when she claimed they owed her $45,000 '(Kanbut) said to her 'Don't think about running away because there's nowhere for you to run',' crown prosecutor Peter Neil SC said. Kanbut told the woman to keep a book of how many sex working jobs she took to pay off the money she claimed she 'owed'. Mr Neil said the woman was also told a man in Thailand had naked photos of her which, if released, would have brought great shame upon her. The Crown alleged Kanbut 'exercised complete control' over the women, and threatened one of them with exposing her naked photos if she ran away from her inner-west Sydney home 'The photos were security that I was not going to run away because if I were to run away then the photos would be put up to shame me,' she told the court in April. She told the court about the process behind her coming to Australia as a sex worker, including that she had to take 'completely nude' photos beforehand but 'passed the test' of being 'beautiful enough' to be sent overseas. The woman told the court that clients 'quite often' spat on her and caused her bruises and that she told Kanbut about her treatment. She said Kanbut's response was 'to take certain medicines, to just put up with it until the time was up and to just keep the customer'. The second sex worker came to Sydney in 2005 and previously gave evidence that she was also taken to Kanbut's home. She was told she owed a debt and was driven to and from work at various brothels in the city until it was paid off. The first woman came to Australia in 2004 when a man back in Bangkok organised her three-month tourist visa. She said the man took her phone, told her not to have a big bag otherwise 'it would look like I wasn't coming back' and told her not to pack sexy underwear. The 57-year-old said she wouldn't let the women go until they paid off their $45,000 'debt', and would drive one of them to and from brothels in the city The man took her Thai bank account book and told her she would live with a person named 'Rung' in Sydney. The woman said she didn't have a 'working name' for Australia or Thailand but back home she 'had a number'. 'Everyone has a number on their shirt and when a client comes, they get to choose which number they want,' she said. On Wednesday after a week of deliberations, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all of the charges. A jury found Kanbut guilty of two counts each of intentionally possessing a slave, exercising powers of ownership over a slave and dealing with the proceeds of crime. Kanbut was refused bail and is next due to face court in September. Wesley Bate, 42, fell from the vessel in waters around Koh Samui island on Monday A British-Australian tourist has been missing for two nights after falling into the sea during a 'drunken' speedboat trip around a Thai island. Wesley Bate, 42, was flung from the vessel in waters around Koh Samui island on Monday after the captain said he and his four friends ignored repeated warnings not to sit on the bow of the boat without life-jackets. Chaktham Jaijong, 23, said he asked the group of four men and one woman to move to the passenger seats inside as they journeyed over windy and choppy waters. Chaktham claimed the group - who had hired the boat to go snorkelling and sightseeing - were already drunk when he collected them earlier in the day. Mr Bate is understood to have been thrown into the water while the group were returning back to the island a couple of hours before sunset, at around 4pm local time. Police, coastguards and fishing boats have now been searching for the holidaymaker since Monday afternoon without success. The boat's captain, who was quizzed by police on Tuesday, said: 'They didn't listen to me when I told them to sit properly because it was very dangerous to sit on the boat's head. The speedboat the group of British tourists were riding in on Monday for snorkelling and sightseeing Mr Bate's friends wait outside a police station on Monday night after the incident Mr Bate's friends outside the police station on Monday evening - they had experienced choppy waters while out on the speedboat 'They looked very angry, so I didn't want to keep bothering them, so I just let them sit there.' Chaktham said that he had taken the group on a trip from Koh Samui to Koh Tean, which is also surrounded by several small uninhabited islands. But the rough weather began tossing the boat when they returned, the missing man is said to have lost his balance and fell into the sea in front of his friends. Boat captain Chaktham Jaijong, 23, is quizzed by police after the incident - he said the passengers were already drunk when he picked them up Thai officials search the waters for the group - the tourist has now been missing for two nights Police Major Worasak Akarakul, the inspector of Koh Samui police station, said on Wednesday that they had still not found the tourist Chaktham told police he stopped the boat and sailed around the area where he believed the man had disappeared. Mr Bate was still not found after three hours of searching with help from nearby fishermen. The rest of the tourists were dropped off at the island of Koh Samui before the boat captain reported the missing man to the sheriff and the police. Officials spent another two hours looking for the tourist before they decided to delay the search due to the wind and darkness. The operation with Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation help, including rescuers and divers, resumed at 9.30am of the following day. Police Major Worasak Akarakul, the inspector of Koh Samui police station, said on Wednesday that they had still not found the missing man. He said: 'Officers have questioned the boat captain and the owner of the vessel. Their statements will form part of the investigation. 'Rescue teams are co-operating to search for the tourist and all vessels in the area have been notified alerted.' A Foreign & Commonwealth Office spokesperson said: 'We are in contact with the Australian embassy in Thailand, which is leading on a consular case following an incident involving an Australian-British dual national.' Jurors were given a first look inside Keith Raniere's alleged sex lair in video footage featuring the accused Nxivm cult leader making crude jokes about women. The short clip shows Raniere, 58, sat at a desk in the 'Executive Library' in Halfmoon, New York, reports the NYPost. He is seen chatting to two men, one filming him while the other takes photographs, as he flicks through a photo album. Raniere then says calling women 'piggies' is pretty bad, but adds that 'to tease a woman about her odor, to say she's a fish-hole, it's official, she's a fish-hole' is worse. The room, in a home owned by Nxivm president Nancy Salzman, was reportedly where at least two female 'slaves' had sex with Raniere. The short clip shows accused Nxivm cult leader Keith Raniere, 58, sat at a desk in the 'Executive Library' in Halfmoon, New York, as he makes jokes about insulting women The room, in a home owned by Nxivm president Nancy Salzman, was reportedly where at least two female 'slaves' had sex with Raniere Mark Vicente, a former member of Nxivm, testified that another part of the library, not seen in the video, has an elevated bed with a hot tub underneath, reports the NYPost. Prosecutors say they found a hard drive containing child pornography and explicit photos of Nxivm members inside the library. Nxivm claimed to be a self-help group, but is alleged to have contained a secret society where woman were shamed into having sex and branded with Raniere's initials on their pelvis. Last month, Smallville star Allison Mack pleaded guilty to blackmailing two women into becoming sex slaves. Raniere has been accused of sex trafficking and possession of child pornography among others. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors say they found a hard drive containing child pornography and explicit photos of Nxivm members inside the library The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards warned his men were 'on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy,' the Fars news agency reported. Major General Hossein Salami, named head of the force last month, added: 'This moment in history, because the enemy has stepped into the field of confrontation with us with all the possible capacity, is the most decisive moment of the Islamic revolution.' The United States has sent further military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles, in a show of force against what U.S. officials say are Iranian threats to its troops and interests in the region. Major General Hossein Salami, pictured, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard said his men 'were on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy' As a result of the increased tension, America has ordered all of its 'non-emergency government employees' to leave Iraq immediately amid escalating tensions with Iran. The U.S. State Department ordered the pullout of the employees from both the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, the embassy said in a statement. 'Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended,' it said, recommending those affected depart as soon as possible. It was unclear how many staff would leave. On Tuesday, the U.S. military reaffirmed concerns about possible imminent threats from Iran to its troops in Iraq, although a senior British commander cast doubt on that and Tehran has called it 'psychological warfare.' It comes against the backdrop of tinderbox relations between Tehran and America and as tensions escalated further with the sabotage of four tankers off the coast of the UAE on Sunday - an act US officials initially suspected of being carried out by Iran or its proxies. Yesterday, Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed to have carried out drone attacks on key Saudi Arabian oil installations with the kingdom calling it a 'terrorist act'. Amid an escalating war of words, US President Donald Trump has said Tehran would 'suffer greatly' if it enraged Washington while Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last night that enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels would not be a difficult task for the country. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad (pictured) has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff on Wednesday to leave Iraq immediately amid escalating tensions with Iran. Washington did not publicly provide any evidence to back up claims of an increased threat from Tehran Amid an increasing war or words, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured yesterday) claimed that enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels would not be a difficult task for the country - the latest threats from Tehran as tensions roil the region amid the unraveling of the 2015 nuclear deal Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments late Tuesday came after Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a coordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia. A satellite image (pictured) obtained by AP shows one of the two pumping stations attacked by the drones apparently intact In his same speech last night, Khamenei tempered his veiled threat by insisting that 'no one is seeking war'. A senior Iranian official said today that Tehran was ready for all scenarios from 'confrontation to diplomacy' but the United States could not afford another war in the Middle East. Any conflict in the region will have 'unimaginable consequences,' the official told Reuters. Those comments came after Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a coordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia. A satellite image obtained by The Associated Press shows one of the two pumping stations attacked by the drones apparently intact. This morning Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said forces of the internationally recognised Yemeni government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition, killed 97 Houthi forces and captured 120 in the governorate of Al-Dhalea. The drone assault is just the latest incident in the Mideast to shake global energy markets, as authorities allege oil tankers anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were targeted by sabotage. Benchmark Brent crude prices remained around $71 a barrel in early trading Wednesday. The United States also is deploying an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the region in response to the still-unspecified Iran threat, further ramping up tensions a year after President Donald Trump withdrew America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Fears of all-out conflict in the region jumped this week amid rumours that President Trump was about to deploy 120,000 troops to the region, though he later slapped these down. Norwegian oil tanker Andrea Victory, one of four ships sabotaged on Sunday off the UAE, is pictured with a large dent in its stern Meanwhile, Germany has halted its training of soldiers in Iraq, a defence ministry spokesman. Defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff added that there was 'generally heightened alert, awareness' for soldiers currently operating in the region. Flosdorff said training may well resume in the next days and that there was 'no concrete threat' at the moment. Germany has about 160 soldiers deployed in Iraq, including 60 in Taji, to the north of Baghdad, and 100 in Erbil, in Kurdish-controlled territory. The Dutch government has also revealed it is suspending a mission in Iraq that provides assistance to local authorities due to a security threat. Dutch military personal help train Iraqi forces in Erbil, northern Iraq, along with other foreign troops. The report gave no details about the nature of the threat. Speaking Tuesday night in Tehran at an iftar, the traditional dinner Muslims have when breaking their daylong fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Khamenei's reported comments first focused on him downplaying the chances of a wider conflict in the Mideast with America. He reportedly told senior officials that his country won't negotiate with the United States, calling such talks 'poison.' But he also said, 'Neither we, nor them is seeking war. They know that it is not to their benefit.' British general undermines US claims of increased threat from Iran amid military buildup in Middle East and accusations Tehran is behind attacks on tankers and pipelines Major General Chris Ghika, deputy commander of anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, said he sees no increased Iranian threat A British commander of anti-ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria has seen 'no increased threat' from Iran despite the US insisting the country is behind attacks on its allies. Major General Chris Ghika, deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters that he was monitoring Iran and its proxy forces but had seen no reason to adjust his stance towards them. Ghika's remarks seemed to be at odds with US claims that Iran and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels were behind attacks on two Saudi oil tankers and pumping stations. There are fears that America is squaring up for direct conflict with Iran after two carrier groups were deployed to the Arabian Gulf. Ghika denied that his remarks were out of step with Washington, though US Central Command later issued a rare rebuke to an allied military officer. The general's remarks 'run counter to the identified credible threats', a spokesman said, adding: 'As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq.' Fears of all-out conflict jumped this week amid rumours that President Trump was about to deploy 120,000 troops to the region, though he later slapped these down. 'Would I do that? Absolutely,' he said. 'But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. 'If we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that.' Tensions began building on Sunday when four oil tankers - including two belonging to America's ally Saudi Arabia - were apparently sabotaged off the UAE coast. U.S. investigators were asked to get involved and subsequently blamed Iran and its allies, with divers saying it appeared magnetic explosives were used. That sparked a furious exchange of words between the US and Iran, with a key adviser to Iranian president Rouhani warning of a looming conflict. He also mocked Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton, saying: 'That's what happens when you listen to the mustache.' Tensions heightened further Tuesday after two pumping stations on a major Saudi oil pipeline were attacked by explosive-laden drones, halting the flow of crude along it. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said attacks on the pipeline from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea took place early yesterday morning, and called it 'an act of terrorism' that targeted global oil supplies. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels took responsibility for the attack, and said it was carried out using explosive-laden drones. The Houthis are fighting against Saudi-backed forces in Yemen's civil war, which has been raging since 2015. But both sides today tried to calm the situation. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there 'won't be any war' while U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said the U.S. 'fundamentally does not seek any war'. Advertisement In Wednesday's edition, the state-run IRAN newspaper carried his comments on the nuclear program, his first since Iran announced it would begin backing away from the accord itself. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment in 60 days if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. 'Achieving 20% enrichment is the most difficult part,' Khamenei said, according to the newspaper. 'The next steps are easier than this step.' It was a telling remark from the supreme leader - Iran is not known to have enriched beyond 20% previously and it's unclear how far Tehran is willing to go in this process. Khamenei has final say on all matters of state in Iran. Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are at war with Saudi Arabia and are believed by the West to receive weapons from Iran, said earlier Tuesday that they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations. That included two pumping stations along its critical East-West Pipeline, which can carry nearly 5 million barrels of crude a day to the Red Sea. A. Michel, one of the tankers damaged, is pictured anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday Spain has temporarily pulled one of its frigates, the Mendez Nunez (centre front) that's part of a U.S.-led combat fleet from near the Persian Gulf because of mounting U.S.-Iran tensions Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said attacks on the pipeline (file picture) from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea took place early this morning and called it 'an act of terrorism' that targeted global oil supplies Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said that as a precaution, it temporarily shut down the pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramco's oil and gas supplies were not affected. An image from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that the AP examined on Wednesday shows Saudi Aramco's Pumping Station No. 8 outside of the town of al-Duadmi, 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of the kingdom's capital, Riyadh. The photo, taken Tuesday after the attack, shows two black marks near where the East-West Pipeline passes by the facility. Those marks weren't there in images taken Monday. The facility otherwise appeared intact, corroborating in part Saudi Arabia's earlier comments. The website TankerTrackers.com, whose analysts monitor oil sales on the seas, first reported about the black marks. Details around alleged acts of sabotage to four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, off the coast of the UAE's port of Fujairah remain unclear. Satellite images obtained Tuesday by the AP from Colorado-based Maxar Technologies showed no visible damage to the vessels, and Gulf officials have refused to say who they suspected was responsible. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from 'an unknown object,' its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images of the Norwegian ship, which the company said was 'not in any danger of sinking,' showed damage similar to what the firm described. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, has said the other three showed damages as well. Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said Wednesday that attacks on two of its tankers and a major pipeline targeted the security of global oil supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, on Sunday. 'The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage ... do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy,' it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening. An Emirati official said three Western countries - the US, France and Norway - would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy published its order telling all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country. It comes after Washington last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests. That contradicts what British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said Tuesday, insisting 'there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria.' Later, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, U.S. Central Command said Ghika's remarks 'run counter to the identified credible threats' from Iranian-backed forces in the Mideast. In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, British Embassy staff in Baghdad are said to be 'operating as normal' and there are 'no plans' to withdraw them. Julian Richer announced he has transferred 60 per cent of his holding in the business into an employee ownership trust Staff at Richer Sounds are 'buzzing with excitement' today and ready to splash the cash after the owner of the company announced he has relinquished control of the business to his employees. Julian Richer, owner of the hi-fi-to-TV firm, has created a John Lewis-style ownership structure of the company. The 60-year-old has transferred 60 per cent of his holding in the business into an employee ownership trust will be run on behalf of the 522 employees at his 53 stores. He will retain 9.2million for the stake, while 3.5million is being handed back in bonuses to staff. Each of its employees will pick up 1,000 for every year worked at the firm, meaning an average payout of 8,000. The move comes as a shot in the arm to some 39 long-serving staff who have clocked up more than 20 years at the group - and will now pick up hefty windfalls. The move delighted staff and customers at the firm's London Bridge branch today. Charlie Smith, deputy manager, said the cash would go towards paying off debts and getting a mortgage to buy his first house. The 30-year-old, who has been working for the company for five years, said: 'I was at the meeting with Julian on Tuesday when he announced the move. He was in a big room and said "I've got a nice surprise for you." 'It was fantastic news. What a generous thing to do. He thanked everybody for their hard work over the years and said this was a way of giving something back. 'Everybody was really happy. The atmosphere in the room was fantastic. It was brilliant.' Julian Richer will retain 9.2million for the stake, while 3.5million is being handed back in bonuses to staff The firm started in budget hi-fi, but in more recent years has also gained a significant reputation in TV, home cinema systems and premium audio Who is the man who has built the Richer Sounds empire? Julian Richer began buying and selling hi-fi separates at school when he was 14. In 1978, aged 19, he opened his first shop on London Bridge Walk with the help of the late Vic Odden, a photography retailer. He now has some 53 stores nationwide, online, as well as a telesales and business to business departments. He started in budget hi-fi, but in more recent years has also gained a significant reputation in TV, home cinema systems and premium audio. Mr Richers offers him employees perk including access to company-paid holiday homes around the world, including in Paris, Venice and Barcelona. Other benefits include private doctor consultations and subsidised gym membership. Mr Richer said the 'time was right' to hand over the ownership of the business to staff - an announcement that also came as he stepped down from the day-to-day running of the firm. Mr Richer, who has no children, had long planned to hand control of the firm to staff and had already written the plan into his will, but wanted to ensure he could oversee the transition. It donates 15 per cent of all profits, which last year stood at 9.6m, to charity. More than 400 charities last year received donations from the company. Richer Sounds refuses to use zero-hours contracts and 'has doors on shops to protect colleagues from the prolonged dangers of pollution'. It also offers a Helping Hand Fund provides for staff in cases of emergency. Richer Unsigned, a not-for-profit organisation set up in 2014, helps aspiring musicians. The company also says: 'We pay our bills on time (or even early!), doing our bit to help our suppliers avoid cash flow problems. In fact our average payment time is 18 days over twice as fast as the national norm.' Advertisement Mr Smith said he would pay off some debts and spend the rest on a mortgage, adding: 'There's not many businesses at all that would do that. It's a very generous move. I've always felt this company looks after its workers and this is a great example of that. 'He said 60 per cent was being given away and he explained the situation. We were all stunned and shocked. 'I think it shows you what the firm is about - rewarding people for hard work.' He said employees are waiting to find out how much they will receive but he knows it will be a healthy amount. He added: 'We're buzzing. I'm looking to buy my first house and this will go towards that. 'So it's a really big thing for me. It's a huge moment in anybody's life and for the company to help with that is really positive. 'Everybody thought of John Lewis and what they did. It's the same sort of thing. Morale at the company is really high. It's made people even happier. 'I've always felt staff welfare has been a high priority here and this is a very good example. 'It's going to be very interesting to see what happens. We're in a great position - it's very exciting.' Another staff member at the store, who did not want to be identified, said he was 'very pleased' with the news. He said: 'We're all talking about it. It's brilliant. We are very pleased.' Customers of the branch were also 'chuffed to bits' for the staff. Mike Lowery, 58, said he is a regular visitor to the store and the customer service of staff at the London Bridge store was a big part of that. The banker, who lives in Sissinghurst, Kent, said: 'If you do a good job then I think you should be rewarded. The guys here are always very good. 'I'm really pleased for them. I come here often for various things and I'm always happy with the service. 'They deliver what you want. I heard what the company owner had done when I heard it on the radio. It's fantastic. 'More companies should look to also reward their employees for hard work and good service.' Paul Jacobs, an IT contractor, said he was pleased to hear the news. The 50-year-old, of Ilford, Essex, said: 'It's good to hear bosses looking after their employees and rewarding them. Julia Richer pictured at one of his stalls in 1991. He opened his first shop in London in 1978 'I imagine it came as a pretty big shock to them! I'm always very happy with the service I get here. It's great.' Danny Lucas, 34, of Blackheath, south east London was visiting to look for a new television and said he was 'chuffed to bits' for the workers. The software engineer said: 'I didn't know anything about it until I just went in. They look very happy and I'm not surprised. 'I think staff need to be rewarded. Sometimes there's too much focus on customers. These guys are working hard and making money for their bosses. I imagine retail and customer services is tough - so they deserve it.' Announcing the move today, Mr Richer said: 'I have always planned to leave my company in trust on my death for the benefit of the colleagues in the business. 'Having hit the ripe old age of 60 in March, I felt the time was right, rather than leaving it until I'm not around, to ensure that the transition goes smoothly and I can be part of it.' Delighted current and former Richer Sounds employees have thanked Mr Richer, with one saying he was 'always as big as his stated values' He plans to stay involved in the business, but passes over the daily running to the management board, along with a newly set up colleagues' advisory council and trustees. The colleagues' advisory council will be chaired by a trustee and will be made up of current staff and will represent their interests and concerns. David Robinson, chairman of Richer Sounds, said: 'It's incredibly exciting times and allows our colleagues to feel even more connected to the company. 'They have a real stake in the success of the business and can take pride in knowing that they are shareholders, building for the future.' Richer Sounds has been working on the employee ownership trust plans for the past 18 months with legal and accountancy firm RSM. Called the Richer Sounds Trust, the employee ownership plan will run according to a set of principles to make sure the firm 'continues to operate in a responsible manner, and is based on honesty, commitment, trust and respect', according to the group. Do YOU work for Richer Sounds? Get in touch at amie.gordon@mailonline.co.uk The Eurovision Song Contest has sparked fury among both Muslims and Jews as competitors head to Tel Aviv for Saturday's contest. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have complained that the musical showpiece will 'desecrate' the Jewish day of rest. While the competition in Tel Aviv will not begin until after the Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday, rehearsals and production preparations are expected to take place earlier in the day. On top of that, Muslim worshippers at a mosque in Tel Aviv have voiced concerns over a 'Eurovision Village' pavilion which they say is disrupting Ramadan. The Hassan Bek mosque (right) is seen opposite the Eurovision Village, an area dedicated for fans of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, in Tel Aviv The minaret of the Hassan Bek Mosque is seen behind the Eurovision Village which has angered worshippers during Ramadan '[The pavilion] is in the wrong place because it is close to the mosque,' said worshiper Sa'd Abu Zakariya. 'When we pray inside there is no feeling of solemnity because of the sound ... We stand here and we can hear the noisy songs.' Mohammad al-Akra, a Palestinian labourer from the occupied West Bank who prays at Hassan Bek, said people were throwing parties 'where people drink alcohol and everything'. 'Because of the noise we close the windows and doors,' said Abed al-Kareem Mohammad, another worshiper. The ultra-Orthodox rabbis called for prayer in response to the expected desecration of the Jewish holy day of rest. Ultra-Orthodox Jews strictly respect religious law prohibiting work on the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. Eurovision organisers were set 'to desecrate our holy and glorious Sabbath publicly and glaringly, God preserve us,' Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky said in a handwritten missive endorsed by another senior religious leader, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein. The Eurovision Village is seen from above in Tel Aviv. Muslim worshippers have complained about the noise and drinking there People visit a burger stall called Susu & Sons at the Eurovision Village in Tel Aviv with the minaret of a nearby mosque seen on the far left Lucy Ayoub, Erez Tal and Bar Refaeli host the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest held at Tel Aviv Fairgrounds on Tuesday 'They are also forcing many Sabbath-observant Jews to work on Saturday, and we can't foil their scheme, and this (desecration) is a danger to our presence here in the Holy Land,' the 91-year-old spiritual leader said in the letter circulating on religious media. 'We must call out and intone and beg God to protect us,' Kanievsky said, calling on followers to convene in synagogues and religious colleges at midnight on Friday 'for prayers and saying atonements and asking for mercy'. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured the leaders of ultra-Orthodox political parties that Eurovision was an international event 'not controlled by the government'. 'The Israeli government does not seek to desecrate the Sabbath, and most of the participants in the event are from abroad and not Jewish,' Netanyahu wrote in a letter to them. Netanyahu is currently in negotiations, including with ultra-Orthodox parties, to form a new governing coalition following a general election last month. He is facing a May 29 deadline to form a new government. The Sabbath was said to be one of the reasons Eurovision organisers and Israeli hosts decided against holding the event in the religiously conservative city of Jerusalem. A man in east China has been detained by police for insulting city government officers by naming his pet dogs after their job titles. The 31-year-old man in Yingzhou, Anhui province named his four-month-old puppy Chengguan, which refers to city management officials and another younger pup Xieguan, which refers to traffic wardens. The dog breeder, surnamed Ban, was given a 10-day detention on Monday for 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble.' The 31-year-old man, surnamed Ban, in Yingzhou, Anhui province named his four-month-old puppy Chengguan (above), which refers to city management officials The man named another younger pup Xieguan (above), which refers to traffic wardens 'Chengguan' are officials employed in urban areas to enforce bylaws related to the environment, sanitation, work safety, pollution control and other non-police issues. However, evidence of chengguan brutality revealed in recent years have prompted nationwide anger towards these officials. In a statement posted on their official Weibo account, Yingzhou officers said they received a reported that a man had been posting information that insulted law enforcement personnel on social media platform WeChat. Screenshots of Ban's WeChat account released by Fuyang News show him posting photos of his black dogs for sale in March and April, calling them Chengguan and Xieguan. In a statement, Yingzhou officers said they received a reported that a man had been posting information that insulted law enforcement personnel on social media platform WeChat 'Posting two photos of Chengguan - up for sale,' the man wrote on his WeChat account 'His name is Chengguan. He just eats and sleeps!' the man said, adding the dog is up for sale for 3,800 yuan (428). 'I caught Chengguan stealing a pair of shoes; when Xieguan showed up, they began fighting,' another post reads. Ban, who was described as remorseful, told officers that he gave the dogs the names 'for fun.' 'I didn't know the law, I didn't know this was illegal,' he said, according to Fuyang News. Police added in their statement that the detention was given 'in accordance with the relevant provisions of the People's Republic of China Law on Public Security'. The incident has divided public opinion on Chinese social media. Some supported the penalty while others questioned whether the punishment was legitimate. Ban, who was described as remorseful, told officers that he gave the dogs the names 'for fun' 'Which exact law are you referring to under the People's Republic of China Law on Public Security?' one comment said on Weibo. 'Which law stipulates that we can't name our dogs Chengguan?' another user questioned. 'Did the man got arrested because he insulted the dog by naming it Chengguan?' one person commented sarcastically. 'Even if you hate chengguans, you shouldn't joke about it. In fact, chengguans have contributed to the city's construction,' one user said. Zhang Xinnian, a lawyer from Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, said that although the dog names Chengguan and Xieguan were ill-suited, they do not violate the relevant laws and perhaps it was inappropriate for police officers to punish the man for the crime of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble.' 'Picking quarrels and making trouble' is a catch-all crime under Chinese law which can cover anything from public nuisance to political protest. It has been increasingly used to police online speech in recent years, according to the New York Times. A scooter rider who was hit by a bus in east China has survived the horrific accident thanks to her helmet. The woman, who was four months pregnant, was trying to avoid colliding with the bus at a busy junction in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province on Monday when she fell off her scooter and got run over. Horrified passers-by and traffic police officers rushed to help the woman out of the undercarriage of the bus. She was rushed to hospital with minor injuries, according to police. The woman, who was four months pregnant, was trying to avoid colliding with a bus at a junction in Wenzhou, east China on Monday when she fell off her scooter and got run over Photos of the black helmet - which appear undamaged - show the words 'I love you, my wife' written across it. The lucky mother-to-be said the helmet saved her life in the accident Shocking footage released by Wenzhou traffic police on Tuesday shows the woman on the scooter approaching the crossing as the bus makes a right turn. Unable to brake in time, the woman lost her balance and fell off her scooter, with the large vehicle then mowing her down in the middle of the road. She was trapped under the wheel and passers-by and officers quickly teamed up to save her. Another footage released by Passion News shows the woman sitting up after being pulled out of the undercarriage. Shocking footage released by Wenzhou traffic police on Tuesday shows the woman on the scooter approaching the crossing as the bus makes a right turn Unable to brake in time, the woman lost her balance and fell off her scooter, with the bus then mowing her down in the middle of the road 'I avoided injuries to my head because I had a helmet on,' she said while lying on a hospital bed. 'I would wear a helmet every time I ride the scooter - everyone in our family has a helmet,' she said. 'I'm so lucky.' Police said that the husband had bought his wife a high-quality helmet, which had helped her avoid serious injuries. The woman was trapped under the wheel and passers-by and officers teamed up to save her. Another footage released by Passion News shows the woman sitting up after being pulled out 'I avoided injuries to my head as I had a helmet on,' the woman said from her hospital bed Photos of the black helmet - which appear undamaged - show the words 'I love you, my wife' written across it. 'It was an expensive helmet! My husband wrote those words,' the smiling mother-to-be said. In their Weibo post, Wenzhou traffic police further stressed the importance of wearing a helmet to protect the lives of scooter or motorbike riders. Thirty hammerhead sharks captured off the Great Barrier Reef have died in a French aquarium. The last of the 30 scalloped hammerheads exported to an aquarium near Calais, France, died last month after they were allegedly mistreated. Nausicaa, Europe's biggest aquarium, is facing a lawsuit over the deaths which happened between 2011 and 2018. Sea Shepherd France is bringing legal action against the aquarium, which initially claimed the sharks' deaths had been caused by a fungal infection. But the conservation group claim that some of the sharks attacked and ate each other after being abused, and the activists are now calling for live export of the sharks to be outlawed. Thirty scalloped hammerhead sharks captured on the Great Barrier Reef have died, some reportedly attacked and ate each other, at a French aquarium (file picture) Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, said her organisation has sought access to all documents related to the care and transport of the sharks. 'It's all very blurry from Nausicaa,' Ms Essemlali told The Guardian. 'That is why we are asking in our lawsuit for a deep investigation of everything that happened from the moment they imported them in 2011.' Scalloped hammerhead sharks are currently listed as 'conservation dependent,' meaning commercial fishing of the animals is allowed. Some experts say the number of scalloped hammerhead sharks has declined in Queensland waters, and others believe they can become extremely stressed in captivity. The Australian government said it was not aware of the deaths. Penny Mordaunt appeared ready to go to war with fellow ministers today as she revealed her hope of ending repeated investigations into alleged offences by British troops who served during the Troubles. The new Defence Secretary unveiled plans for a new law that will stop soldiers from being probed over incidents more than ten years old unless compelling new evidence comes to light. While the amnesty will not immediately extend to those who served in Northern Ireland, Ms Mordaunt said it was a 'personal priority' of hers to make this a reality in the future. Such a move would be at odds with plans by the government's own Northern Ireland office, which will soon announce a new taxpayer-funded unit tasked with investigating the alleged offences of Northern Ireland veterans. It comes after a public consultation found an 'overwhelming majority' did not support such an amnesty, while there was 'broad support' for such a body set up to examine 1,700 deaths during the Troubles dating back to 1968. Ms Mordaunt, making her first major speech as Defence Secretary, faced immediate criticism for not extending the amnesty to veterans of the Troubles (pictured) Penny Mordaunt today unveiled proposals for a law that will stop soldiers being investigated over incidents more than ten years old unless compelling new evidence comes to light Ms Mordaunt said she had secured agreement with Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley that the concerns of defence, including the veterans, would be formally considered in her next steps. She added that she feared the Government was in danger of repeating the mistakes of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) with veterans of the Troubles. 'I do think [additional protection] should cover Northern Ireland,' she said during a conference at the Royal United Services Institute. 'The problem is that we have failed on the whole 'lawfare' issue because we have been waiting for other things to happen. This is not going to be resolved overnight.' 'This is not about preventing someone who has committed a crime facing justice. This is about stopping an industry that surrounds these processes which is not about the pursuit of justice.' The amnesty comes amid calls for many British military veterans, now in their sixties and seventies, to be jailed for their roles in violent clashes almost 50 years ago. The cabinet minister (pictured last week) said she hopes to extend protection to troops from repeated investigations into historical allegations to cover veterans of Northern Ireland Up to 200 ex-soldiers and police have been investigated for alleged crimes while serving in Northern Ireland The Ministry of Defence has estimated there are between 150 and 200 former soldiers and police officers under investigation for alleged historical offences. There are at least three prosecutions against British soldiers under way, including one against Soldier F, who is due to face murder charges over his role in Bloody Sunday in 1972. Another veteran, known as Soldier B, is in his seventies and said to be unwell but faces prosecution for allegedly shooting dead 15-year-old Daniel Hegarty and wounding his cousin Christopher in Londonderry in 1972. The figures will reignite fears of a witch-hunt which would see British military veterans, now in their sixties and seventies, jailed for their roles in violent clashes almost 50 years ago. Last year, the Hegarty family won the right to seek the prosecution of Soldier B again after the High Court quashed the PPS's 2016 decision not to bring criminal charges, ruling it was based on 'irredeemably flawed' reasoning. The Government has said Soldier B will be offered 'full legal support', although the decision to prosecute another soldier over Troubles violence has sparked fury among ex-servicemen. One former paratrooper who served with Soldier B said: 'What makes the blood boil is that there is nothing even-handed about this or the Bloody Sunday charges because those from the other side who killed soldiers and civilians are not being pursued with the same determination.' Advertisement Among those currently facing prosecution is a former soldier, known as Soldier F, who has been charged with the killing of two people during Bloody Sunday in 1972. Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who is refusing to vote for party legislation until it ends such historical inquires, said the law was a 'good start' but needed to go further. 'It's unfair to all sides, and the only people who are enjoying this process and making something are legal teams,' he told Sky News. 'Northern Ireland represents a particular challenge, the way that conflict was framed in the time, it was not classed as war even though it had many traits of wartime activity. 'We need to redouble our efforts and see what we can do to apply legislation to stop this process taking place.' The chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, Conservative MP Julian Lewis, welcomed the moves to prevent soldiers being 'lawyered to death'. He suggested a South African-style 'truth recovery' process for Northern Ireland, where deaths were investigated but there were no prosecutions to follow. 'Given that sort of immunity has already been effectively granted to so many people on the terrorist side of that bitter and awful conflict, what's good enough for Nelson Mandela should be good enough for us and we ought to draw a line in this way,' he said. The former head of the Army, General Lord Dannatt, said peers would try to amend the legislation to extend it to Northern Ireland when it comes to the House of Lords. 'What we can't allow to go forward is the presumption that those deaths in which the military were involved were wrong,' he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. 'Soldiers did their duty, got up in the morning, sometimes they came under attack. They returned fired. 'They didn't set out to murder people. Terrorists set out every morning to murder people and successfully did so. There is a huge distinction to be drawn.' Among those currently facing prosecution is a former soldier, known as Soldier F, who has been charged with the killing of two people during Bloody Sunday in 1972 (pictured) Row over prosecutions comes at the same time as Ballymurphy inquiry The row over how ex-soldiers are treated comes as a coroner in Belfast is examining the deaths of 10 civilians, including a mother of eight and a Catholic priest, across three days in August 1971. Rioting had been ongoing since early on August 9, after the British army moved into republican areas across Northern Ireland to arrest IRA suspects after the introduction by the Stormont administration of the controversial policy of internment without trial. The incident was part of a three-day series of shootings from August 9-11 which has become known as the Ballymurphy Massacre. In 2011, Northern Ireland's Attorney General John Larkin directed that new inquests be heard after a long campaign by family members who claimed the original coroners' probes in the aftermath of the shootings were inadequate. Former members of the Parachute Regiment were today branded rogue 'psychopaths' by a witness at the inquests. Advertisement The proposals, which will be subject to a public consultation, include measures to introduce a statutory presumption against prosecution of current or former personnel for alleged offences committed in the course of duty abroad more than 10 years ago. It will stipulate that such prosecutions are not in the public interest unless there are 'exceptional circumstances', such as if compelling new evidence emerged. Ms Mordaunt said: 'We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to our armed forces who put their lives on the line to protect our freedom and security. 'It is high time that we change the system and provide the right legal protections to make sure the decisions our service personnel take in the battlefield will not lead to repeated or unfair investigations down the line.' The Defence Secretary is also expected to reaffirm her commitment to derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) before the UK embarks on significant military operations. In 2016, Theresa May announced that the Government will adopt a presumption that it will take advantage of a right to suspend aspects of the ECHR at times of war. General Lord Dannatt said peers will try to amend the legislation to cover the Northern Ireland Trouble A timeline of Bloody Sunday and the Troubles August 1969 - British Government first send troops into Northern Ireland to restore order after three days of rioting in Catholic Londonderry. 30 January 1972 - On 'Bloody Sunday' 13 civilians are shot dead by the British Army during a civil rights march in Londonderry. British troops in Northern Ireland during the Troubles which began in the late 1960s and lasted until 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement March 1972 - The Stormont Government is dissolved and direct rule imposed by London. 1970s - The IRA begin its bloody campaign of bombings and assassinations in Britain. April 1981 - Bobby Sands, a republicans on hunger strike in the Maze prison, is elected to Parliament. He dies a month later. October 1984 - An IRA bomb explodes at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Margaret Thatcher is staying during the Tory Party conference. Early 1990s - Margaret Thatcher and then Sir John Major set up a secret back channel with the IRA to start peace talks. The communications was so secret most ministers did not know about it. Johnathan Ball (left), 3, and Tim Parry (right), 12, were killed in 1993 after IRA bombs exploded in the small town of Warrington, Cheshire 1993 - Two IRA bombs hidden in litter bins detonated on Bridge Street in Warrington Cheshire, killing 12-year-old Tim Parry and three-year-old Johnathan Ball and injuring dozens of civilians. April 1998 - Tony Blair helps to broker the Good Friday Agreement, which is hailed as the end of the Troubles. It establishes the Northern Ireland Assembly with David Trimble as its first minister. 2000s - With some exceptions the peace process holds and republican and loyalist paramilitaries decommission their weapons 2010 - The Saville Report exonerates the civilians who were killed on Bloody Sunday leading to a formal apology from then Prime Minister David Cameron to the families. 2019 - Prosecutors announce whether to brig charges against the 17 surviving Paras who fired shots that day. Advertisement Q&A: All you need to know about Soldier F and the Bloody Sunday prosecution One Army veteran a former lance corporal in the Parachute Regiment known only as F is to be prosecuted for two murders and four attempted murders on Bloody Sunday. Here are some of the key questions on the landmark announcement by Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS). Were prosecutors able to rely on the testimony and findings of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry? No. The long-running probe by Lord Saville ran under the terms of the Tribunal of Evidence Act 1921. As such, it was not bound by strict rules of admissibility of evidence that criminal proceedings are governed by. So while Saville may have reached certain conclusions about the soldiers, the PPS could not rely on the same evidence for criminal proceedings and effectively had to prove the cases afresh. Explaining why 18 suspects avoided prosecution, the PPS repeatedly highlighted this issue stressing that evidence given to Saville, sometimes by the soldiers themselves, was inadmissible. Lord Saville chaired the Bloody Sunday inquiry, looking into the events of 1972 (PA) Can the families challenge decisions not to prosecute? Yes. All families have the right to formally request a review of a PPS decision not to prosecute. If that independent assessment of the decision does not recommend a reversal, there are other legal options. Bereaved relatives could ultimately challenge the decisions in the High Court by way of judicial review. What next for Soldier F? An official summons to appear before a district judge will be served. When he receives that letter, proceedings become active. The case will then progress through the magistrates' court before a decision is taken on whether it will be passed to the crown court for trial. Experience with the Northern Ireland legal system would suggest it could be many months, potentially years, before the cases comes to trial. MP calls for Parliament to mark death of his army captain at the hands of the IRA An MP whose commanding officer was murdered by the IRA has called for Parliament to mark his death amid a row over draft proposals on the prosecution of Armed Forces veterans. Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) paid tribute to Captain Robert Nairac in the House of Commons as a number of MPs spoke about reports saying plans to block prosecutions against ex-military personnel would not apply to Northern Ireland. Rising to make a point of order, he said: '42 years ago in the early hours of that morning, a brave British soldier who was from 3 Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards was abducted by the IRA. 'Captain Robert Nairac was my captain, a gentleman that in the boxing ring broke my nose, the first person to have done so. 'We still do not know what happened to him. This country owes a great debt to our soldiers in Northern Ireland, and particularly those who have given the utmost for their country. 'Mr Speaker do you think there is any way that I can mark 42 years of Captain Robert Nairac giving his life for this country and for the peace of Northern Ireland?' His tribute was echoed by Tory MP and former army officer Bob Stewart (Beckenham), who said Captain Nairac had received a George Cross posthumously, after being 'tortured heinously' by the IRA. He said he had 'died in an incredibly gallant way and I agree we should recognise the great gallantry of this man'. In reply, Commons Speaker John Bercow said he was 'very open to the idea of recognition in the way that he suggests', and called for Sir Mike to visit him to discuss it further. But it led to further points of order, with the DUP's Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) saying that he sought assurances from the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox earlier this year that any proposal to protect veterans from prosecution would 'apply equally across the UK', and that he was told it would be 'plainly wrong if it didn't'. So he said he was 'perturbed' to read that plans will not apply to Northern Ireland, saying: 'It shows scant disregard for people the length and breadth of this United kingdom who stood to protect our interests, our values and our democracy.' Tory James Grey (North Wiltshire) asked whether any bill which excluded Northern Ireland could be amended to out it back in, with Mr Bercow agreeing in principle, saying 'with very few exceptions bills are amendable'. And fellow Conservative Richard Drax (South Dorset), another ex-military officer, called on the Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley to make a statement to the Commons on the matter. He added: 'This pursuit of our armed forces, our veterans, 200 of them for things allegedly done many, many years ago is totally unacceptable and it must end forthwith.' Advertisement Where would a potential trial be held? While family members might like to see Soldier F brought back to Londonderry to face justice, security concerns would likely prevent the trial being heard in the city's Bishop Street courthouse a building targeted by a dissident republican car bomb earlier this year. Belfast Crown Court is a more realistic venue. This is where other major Troubles related cases are held. The building is linked to a local police station, making it easier to transport high-profile defendants to court. Will there be a jury? This is a timely question. For decades, any cases linked to the Troubles have been held without a jury. A judge instead decides guilt or innocence in proceedings formerly known as Diplock trials. However, another military veteran who is facing a conflict-related attempted murder charge 77-year-old Dennis Hutchings is currently challenging the decision to sit without a trial in the UK Supreme Court. The judgment in that case may well impact whether Soldier F's trial will be tried by judge or jury. Will the soldier's identity be revealed? Anonymity orders covering the 17 soldiers and two suspected Official IRA men were imposed during the Bloody Sunday inquiry and remain in place. The decision on whether Soldier F's identity will continue to be kept from the public will be addressed during the future court proceedings. In respect of other cases, some veterans have retained their anonymity, others have not. If convicted, would Soldier F be eligible for a reduced sentence, like paramilitaries found guilty of Troubles-related offences? Security forces veterans are eligible to apply for early release. Anyone convicted of a Troubles-related offence and serving their sentence in Northern Ireland would be covered by the terms of the controversial element of the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, which enabled hundreds of convicted terrorists to walk free on licence after serving two years behind bars. As it stands, the scheme would not include Bloody Sunday, as it only covers offences committed between 1973 and 1998. But legislation proposed by the Government to give effect to a range of new legacy mechanisms set out in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement includes a provision to extend the early release scheme to cover offences committed before 1973, changing the start date to January 1968. So, if that becomes law, anyone convicted of an offence related to Bloody Sunday (January 1972) would be covered by the early release scheme. Those proposals, which have been subject to a recent public consultation, would also extend the provision to those serving sentences in Great Britain. How much evidence did the PPS examine? The Police Service of Northern Ireland murder probe was launched in 2012 and the first soldier was arrested and questioned in 2015. The first police evidence files were passed to prosecutors in November 2016. Additional files were handed over in March and September 2017. In total, they included 668 witness statements. Also numerous photos, video and audio evidence. A total of 20 suspects were interviewed 18 soldiers and two Official IRA men. One of the veterans died last December so the PPS consideration of his case was discontinued. Four other soldiers included in the Saville Report died before the police had completed their investigation. The evidence files given to the PPS accounted for 40 lever arch files, containing a total of 20,000 pages. The PPS also examined the full Saville Report 5,000 pages and 100,000 pages of additional underlying material spanning the years 1972 to 2010, including the 1972 Widgery Report. So, 125,000 pages all together. What about other legacy cases? Is there a disproportionate focus on investigating security force members, as some claim? In the last eight years, the PPS has taken prosecutorial decisions in 26 other cases related to the Troubles. Thirteen of those related to alleged offences involving republican paramilitaries, with eight prosecutions taken. Eight of the 26 cases related to alleged loyalist paramilitary activity, with decisions to prosecute in four instances. Three cases involved former soldiers, with prosecutions mounted in each one. Two cases involved police officers and both resulted in a decision not to prosecute. Could there be a future amnesty for veterans? This remains an issue of intense controversy in Northern Ireland. Last year, the Government angered some of its own backbenchers, and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, when it did not include a statute of limitations on prosecutions of ex-service personnel among proposals for dealing with Northern Ireland's toxic past. Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley said such a measure would be unacceptable, because it would also have to cover terror suspects accused of historic crimes. The prospect of a statute of limitations met with vocal opposition in Northern Ireland. Both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists voiced concern, as did the Irish Government and representatives of the victims sector. The DUP and some military veterans in Northern Ireland made the point that any such statute would, by law, have to be extended to also cover former paramilitaries something they branded unacceptable. Mr Williamson is still considering the potential of a statute of limitations for ex-service personnel focused on overseas conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Victims campaigners insist such measures must not include Northern Ireland. Theresa May's Brexit deal and her leadership looked dead in the water today after politicians lined up to say they would crush a final attempt to secure her legacy before leaving office. Labour, the Prime Minister's allies in the Democratic Unionist Party and even her own backbenchers indicated thatthey would oppose her desperate attempt to get the plan agreed with Brussels past MPs at the fourth attempt. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay warned this morning that failure to pass the package this time would leave it 'dead' - and mean a binary choice between a No Deal Brexit or not leaving at all. There is little sign that the cajoling and threats are winning round restive Tories as they look down the barrel of being trounced by Nigel Farage's Brexit Party in European elections next week. Downing Street announced last night that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) will be brought to parliament in the first week of June after three failed attempts to win MPs approval. Labour appeared to throw the embattled premier a lifeline by hinting that Jeremy Corbyn might order his MPs to abstain rather than kill off the plan - but later distanced itself from the idea. The manoeuvring came ahead of a showdown between Mrs May and senior backbenchers on the 1922 Committee executive tomorrow, in which she has been told to present a roadmap to stepping down as Tory leader. The Prime Minister is under growing pressure to quit as the Conservatives face finishing fifth in the European elections on May 23 with opinion polls putting them up to 18 points behind Nigel Farage's Brexit Party. Losing yet another Brexit vote could prove the end of the line for her leadership with her party desperate for her to quit. Mrs May today begged Tory MPs to show that they are the 'real Brexit Party' by backing her deal - as she faced more brutal criticism from her own troops during the weekly PMQs session. In the Commons this afternoon, Mrs May told MPs: 'If people want to vote for a party that not only is a Brexit party but also is a party in government that can deliver Brexit, they should vote Conservative'. Mrs May addressed MPs at Prime Minister's Questions today after revealing MPs would vote on a Brexit deal again next month Steve Barclay said that failure to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in June would leave Parliament facing a choice between a No Deal Brexit or not leaving at all Theresa May plans to bring Brexit legislation before the Commons in the first week of June and is Paris this evening where world leaders are meeting to find ways to stop acts of violent extremism from being shown online The Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage (front and centre today in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales) is leading the polls for the European elections, with the Tories languishing in fifth Mr Barclay faced a grilling from the Lords' EU Committee this morning as Tory Brexiteers and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lined up to attack the plan and suggest they will vote against it. Few voters think Tories OR Labour have a clear vision of Brexit - poll The scale of the problem facing the two main parties over Brexit has been laid bare in a new poll which reveals fewer than one in five people think Labour or the Conservative Party have a clear policy. Research from YouGov shows that 13 per cent of voters think Labour has a clear Brexit policy, while 17 per cent think the Conservatives do. Just 21 per cent of Labour voters in 2017 thought Labour had clear Brexit policy, while 26 per cent of their Tory counterparts said the same of the Conservatives. The two largest parties were the least clear on Brexit of all the national parties, according to the poll. In the YouGov poll, the Brexit Party was the only party that a majority thought was clear on the issue, with 59 per cent of respondents saying it had understandable policy. The Liberal Democrats were perceived to be the clearest of the anti-Brexit parties, with 41 per cent of the whole sample and just over half of Remain voters saying they thought policy was clear. The Greens and Change UK, which are both campaigning for a second referendum on Brexit, saw around a third of people (34 per cent and 31 per cent respectively) that thought their policy was clear. YouGov surveyed 1,655 adults in Britain between May 13 and 14. Advertisement Mr Barclay said: 'I think if the House of Commons does not approve the WAB then the Barnier deal is dead in that form and I think the House will have to then address a much more fundamental question between whether it will pursue... a no-deal option or whether it will revoke.' Mr Barclay suggested the government had given up hope of getting the legislation through before July 2. Asked if MEPs will take up their seats following the elections due to be held on may 23, he said: 'Yes.' Downing Street confirmed that there will be a crunch second reading vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week of June 3. A spokesman for the PM repeatedly refused to say whether the Brexit deal will be 'dead' if the Bill is voted down. Asked about Mr Barclay's comments, the spokesman said: 'He has expressed an opinion in the event of an outcome that we are all working to avoid.' The spokesman also refused to rule out a fifth vote taking place on the deal. A spokesman for Mr Corbyn insisted Labour would not be backing the deal unless stalled talks with the government came up with a compromise. But he repeatedly refused to confirm that the party will vote against the Bill - leaving open the possibility that it could abstain. 'There is no agreement and we need the Government to make further moves,' the spokesman said. 'Without an agreement and real compromise and movement by the Government coming out of these talks then we are talking about a Withdrawal Agreement Bill that is based on the same botched Brexit deal that has been rejected three times already by Parliament.' Former Brexit minister Steve Baker was among the senior Tories making clear they still oppose the PM's plan Mrs May faced yet another call to resign at Prime Minister's Questions this lunchtime, from veteran Brexiteer Sir Peter Bone. Top TIG in Scotland quits just 12 weeks after the party started and joins the Lib Dems David Macdonald (pictured) left Britain's new remain party Change UK with just eight days until the European elections on May 23 - infuriating co-founder Chuka Umunna (right) Change UK's top candidate in Scotland quit today and has backed the Liberal Democrats at the 11th hour instead 'to avoid splitting the Remain vote'. David Macdonald left Britain's new party with just eight days until the European elections on May 23 - and three months since the TIGger group was formed. Embarrassingly Mr Macdonald will still appear on the ballot despite campaigning for a new party because it is too late to change the paperwork. It is another major blow to Change UK - also know as The Independent Group or the TIGgers - who could get as little as one per cent of the vote next week according to a recent opinion poll. Mr Macdonald spoke in Edinburgh today, surrounded by Lib Dem activists and said Change UK have a 'very similar' platform to his new party in Scotland and could split the remain vote. The party's co-founder Chuka Umunna, who defected from Labour this year, said; 'It is obviously disappointing that this candidate has chosen to pledge allegiance to another party - he has let down his fellow candidates and activists'. Advertisement He cited the hard work of Tories in his Wellingborough constituency, saying: 'They have lost confident in the Prime Minister and wish her to resign before the European elections. 'Prime Minister, what message do you have to say to these dedicated and loyal Conservatives?' She replied by saying that she was working to 'deliver Brexit' and blamed MPs for the UK not having left the EU already. It came after she met with Jeremy Corbyn last night to discuss the stalled Brexit talks with Labour. Jeremy Corbyn is understood to have said Labour will not support it without a cross-party deal in place. That would leave Mrs May needing a heavy rebellion from Jeremy Corbyn's Leave- reconciled backbenchers in areas which voted for Brexit. A source told the Daily Mirror 20-25 might be on the verge of backing a deal, but that may not be enough to get it through. Tory MP Henry Smith told MailOnline Mrs May was stuck in a 'fantasy'. 'Unless there is substantial enough change to the EU Withdrawal Agreement then I think it's fantasy MPs will support it,' he said. 'Theresa May could and should use her prerogative powers as Prime Minister to exit the UK fully now; the election promise we both stood on was no deal is better than a bad one.' A Tory former minister slammed Mrs May as the 'worst PM in living memory'. 'They are living in a completely different world,' they told MailOnline. 'It has failed to get through three times and she has been repeatedly told it is still unacceptable. The worst PM in living memory.' International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said a failure to back the deal would leave MPs with a choice between a No Deal Brexit or staying in the EU. He told an an event at the Institute for Government think tank: 'Members of Parliament will need to look and see whether they want to continue down a path which inexorably takes us either to the potential of revocation of Article 50 or leaving without a deal and asking if they think that is the best course? 'I hope my colleagues will take the opportunity ... to follow what I think was not advice but an instruction from the voters and they will have to consider what the political consequences would be of failing to carry out their part of the bargain.' But DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds made it clear the party will still oppose the PM's plan. 'Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again,' he said. Truss: Why I'd back no deal Liz Truss said last night she would support No Deal if presented with a choice between that and revoking Brexit altogether. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is positioning herself to succeed Theresa May as Tory leader, said her ideal option would be to get a deal. But asked if she agreed that the only way to stave off Nigel Farages Brexit Party was to embrace No Deal, she replied: If we face a straight choice between revoking Brexit and No Deal-ing, we have to No Deal. Its a matter of trust. Some ministers fear the EU will refuse to postpone Britains departure again in October when the current deadline falls. Miss Truss said: Were living in a kind of purgatory at the moment waiting for something to happen. Advertisement 'The Prime Minister has not pursued the one option that has ever achieved a positive vote for something in Parliament. 'Alternative arrangements to the backstop won easily whilst everything else has failed. For the bill to have any prospect of success then there must be real change to protect the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom and deliver Brexit.' Senior Brexiteer 'Spartan' Steve Baker also questioned the wisdom of trying to ram through legislation. He said: 'If the Brexit Party were demanding we pass this Withdrawal Agreement, a vote might just make sense. 'But they aren't. Quite the reverse. And driving it through over the heads of the DUP appears to eradicate the Government's majority. 'What is Government thinking?' In a high risk move, Mrs May told the Cabinet that she would finally bring forward the WAB legislation with or without a deal with Labour in the hope of getting a version of her deal through Parliament at the fourth attempt. That is the same week that President Trump is due to make a three-day state visit to the UK. Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) is demanding a customs union deal and is under pressure from his own MPs to demand a second referendum too It will also come just after the May 23 European elections in which the Tories are expected to take a huge battering from voters over delays to Brexit. Allies of Mrs May last night denied that she was setting out a timetable for her departure from No 10 in the summer. But the vote is likely to determine her political future. She is expected to tell Tory grandees tomorrow that she is prepared to step aside at the end of July if her deal has gone through. But senior Tories believe that she could not survive her deal being rejected by MPs for a fourth time. She is up against an October 31 deadline, when Britain is currently scheduled to leave the EU after an extension was agreed last month. For Britain to leave with a deal she will have to win a majority for her withdrawal agreement and pass the Bill which enacts it into domestic law. Downing Street said the Cabinet agreed it was now 'imperative' that the legislation is passed before Parliament breaks up for the summer at the end of July meaning it will be brought forward with or without a deal with Labour. May vote plan sets up explosive few days for UK politics in June MPs will get a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the first week of June, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay said today, setting up a busy few days for the Government. The legislation will be tables in the week beginning June 3, which is also when US president Donald Trump and his wife Melania visit the UK. They will be in the country from Monday June 3 to Wednesday June 5. On Thursday June 6, a by-election will be held in Peterborough to find a replacement for MP Fiona Onasanya, who lost her seat through a recall petition after serving time in prison for lying about a speeding offence. There are also due to be a host of events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day the same day. Advertisement The fresh Commons votes will come shortly after European elections in which the Conservatives are predicted to poll badly. Some polls have shown the Tories dropping to fourth or even fifth behind Labour, the Brexit Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens. The PM may be hoping that a disastrous Conservative result will spook her MPs into supporting a deal to get Brexit over the line. In addition, giving MPs a vote on the Bill - as opposed to the 'meaningful votes' which have taken place already - may help persuade Speaker John Bercow to allow another vote. Citing a convention that dates back to 1604, Mr Bercow said in March that the PM could not keep bringing the same package back to the Commons unless it was substantially different. The new deadline is a significant concession to Brexiteer cabinet ministers, led by Andrea Leadsom. Arriving at Cabinet yesterday, Mrs Leadsom said: 'We've got to get on with Brexit so whatever that takes, we have to deliver Brexit urgently'. After weeks of deadlock, Mrs May surprised Westminster by requesting a face-to-face meeting with the Labour leader last night to decide whether there is any prospect of the two sides agreeing a soft Brexit compromise. The PM told Mr Corbyn that the timetable set a two-week deadline on the cross-party talks that have limped on for six weeks. Earlier, Mrs May briefed the Cabinet on the concessions she was willing to offer in return for Mr Corbyn's support in getting her Brexit deal through Parliament. Chancellor Philip Hammond arriving in Downing Street this morning. He will be alongside Theresa May when she faces MPs at Prime Minister's Questions at noon. Labour is increasing the gap between them and the Tories, a new opinion poll revealed today Conservative Party Chief Whip Julian Smith outside Downing Street today, as uncertainty over Brexit continues Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in Downing Street today. Cabinet ministers were told yesterday about plans to bring in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in June Sources said Mrs May indicated she was prepared to agree a temporary 'customs arrangement' that would see Britain remain in the customs union in all but name until the next election. She also warned ministers that she was willing to sign a deal that would see the UK's labour laws and environmental standards in lock step with the EU after Brexit. Pressure yesterday intensified on Mrs May to abandon talks with Labour's hard-Left leader. Former defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon described the talks as 'a blind alley taking us into a customs union' which would be worse than staying in the EU. In an ominous development, the Tories' backbench shop steward Sir Graham Brady joined 13 former cabinet ministers in warning that a deal with Labour would 'split our party' and create such division that it would probably fail to gain a majority. It came as: Former Tory minister Crispin Blunt said the Conservatives would 'almost certainly' have to sign an electoral pact with Nigel Farage's Brexit Party to survive the next election; Tory sources blamed the shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer for 'undermining' the cross-party talks by pushing for a second referendum in order to burnish his own leadership prospects; Jeremy Hunt warned that both main parties would be 'crucified' by voters if they failed to deliver on the 2016 referendum result; The Government's chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins prepared to open talks with the EU today on whether some of Labour's demands could be added to the deal agreed with Mrs May last year; Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell performed a U-turn on calls for a second referendum, saying that the option to remain in the EU should be on the ballot six months after he said that would fail to 'respect the last referendum'; An opinion poll gave Labour a nine-point lead over the Conservatives, potentially putting Mr Corbyn on track for No 10 at the head of a coalition government. Jeremy Corbyn will be smiling today after a new opinion poll put Labour nine points ahead of the Tories if there was a general election At a three-hour Cabinet meeting Mrs May said the public wanted politicians to reach a compromise. She said the Tories had to resist calls to follow Mr Farage in pursuing a No Deal Brexit, saying: 'We can't give in to absolutism.' But Mr Hunt, who is among the favourites to succeed Mrs May, said the decision to take No Deal off the table in March had undermined negotiations, allowing the EU to not be 'as flexible as they might otherwise have been'. Senior Tories believe that Mr Corbyn and his closest allies are interested in striking a deal that would allow him to portray himself as a statesman. But one Tory source said: 'It's as clear as day that Starmer is trying to position himself as the hero of Remain in order to take over from Corbyn.' A Downing Street spokesman said: 'This evening the Prime Minister met the Leader of the Opposition to make clear our determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU. 'We will therefore be bringing forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week beginning the June 3.' Tories slump to FIFTH place behind Lib Dems and Greens as EU election voters flock to Farage's Brexit Party The Brexit Party is enjoying a growing lead in a new EU election poll with the Tories now in fifth The Tories face the ignominy of finishing fifth in the EU elections as Nigel Farage continues to give them a battering, a new poll revealed yesterday. The Brexit Party is racing ahead with a predicted 34 per cent of the vote on May 23 - but Theresa May's Conservatives are heading for just 10 per cent, a YouGov survey found. This would put the Prime Minister's party in fifth place behind the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, who were on 15 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. The collapse in support for the Conservative Party is piling pressure on Mrs May to set a date for her departure from No 10 - but Labour is also down five points on 16 per cent, with confusion over their Brexit position continuing. Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Brexiteer European Research Group of Tories, appealed for disillusioned Conservatives to stick with the party for the sake of Theresa May's replacement. He said: 'I would appeal to their loyalty, to their tradition and to say that the Conservative Party will get a new leader at some point. We have gone from 40 per cent to 10 per cent in the polls and those are Eurosceptics. It is forgetting about them that is destroying the Tory party's vote'. Advertisement Calls for Mrs May to leave office have intensified since this month's local elections when the Conservatives lost 1,300 seats. Ministers now fear a bloodbath at the hands of Nigel Farage's Brexit Party next week when the country goes to the polls for European parliament elections that would not have taken place if the UK had left the EU on time. A YouGov poll yesterday found that the Tories were on course to slump to fifth place behind the Greens in next week's elections. The survey for the Times put the Brexit Party on 34 points, well ahead of Labour on 16, the Liberal Democrats on 15 and the Greens on 11. The poll put Tory support on just 10 per cent. Despite today's positive general election poll furious Labour MPs rounded on Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit last night as he appeared in front of the party's backbenchers. During a mammoth meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, MPs from both sides of the debate turned on their leader, questioning his lack of a clear stance on Brexit and his ability to become Prime Minister. It came as party deputy leader Tom Watson added to Labour's confusion over Brexit by declaring it was now the party of 'remain and reform'. At the party meeting, second-referendum campaigner Peter Kyle told Mr Corbyn: 'Jeremy, I urge you to simplify our policy so people realise we are talking with absolute sincerity.' Brexiteer John Mann said: 'We are losing votes in the North and Midlands. If you cannot get this right, you cannot be Prime Minister. 'There should be free votes for Labour in this Parliament. Labour voters are divided in a very big way.' Wes Streeting told Mr Corbyn: 'We need clear leadership in order to win the next general election.' Yesterday a former Labour minister under Tony Blair quit the party in protest at Jeremy Corbyn's record on Brexit and tackling anti-Semitism saying: 'I joined the Labour Party. Not a cult'. Bridget Prentice, who was MP for Lewisham East from 1992 to 2010, claimed the party had 'been destroyed' under Mr Corbyn's leadership. In a strongly-worded attack she said that 'in all the major issues of the day, you have called it wrong'. Ms Prentice, who served as a whip and junior justice minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said 'enough is enough' and she was resigning with 'deepest sadness and some anger' after 45 years of party membership. Theresa May's cabinet met again today and discussed how to move Brexit forward in a two hour discussion Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary, and Liam Fox, International Trade Secretary, may favour the PM bringing back her deal Theresa May (pictured last night) is being urged to turn her back on Labour for the good of the Tory party - while Andrea Leadsom, pictured today, said: 'Brexit has to be delivered, whatever it takes' Labour's John McDonnell reveals talks with May have STALLED and says 13 ex-ministers saying a new Tory PM would tear up any cross-party deal 'hasn't helped' as EU reveals it is already preparing to extend Brexit til 2020 Labour's John McDonnell today revealed that Brexit talks with the Tories have stalled badly declaring: 'We are nowhere near what we want'. The shadow chancellor also said that a gang of Theresa May's former cabinet ministers telling her any deal could be scrapped by her successor 'has not helped' chances of a breakthrough in cross-party talks. A group of 13 former ministers and senior Tories including leadership favourite Boris Johnson have written to Mrs May today, saying she will lose the 'loyal middle' of her party if she strikes a deal with Labour, branding it a 'blind alley'. Mr McDonnell, whose party wants a permanent customs union and may also demand a second referendum as the price for any deal, said this afternoon that the PM's crumbling powerbase 'gives us no security'. He said: 'We are not near what we want. Boris Johnson is certainly going to be in contention for the leadership. Very likely to be the next leader, in a situation where he in his letter today says he is not going to accept a customs union, and, actually, he will overturn the deal that we negotiate'. Today it emerged that EU officials are already talking about a further extension of Article 50 to June 2020 because they don't expect any breakthrough in Westminster before the current October 31 deadline, according Charles Grant from the respected Centre for European Reform. Talks with Labour resumed yesterday after seven weeks without any breakthrough, and today the Prime Minister came under intense pressure from ministers at a Cabinet meeting this morning Brexiteers urged her to pull the plug immediately. Ministers agreed to continue Brexit talks with Labour but acknowledged it was 'imperative' to get withdrawal legislation through Parliament before the summer break, Downing Street said. But one Cabinet source told MailOnline the two-hour discussion had 'pretty much kicked the can further down the road' - another insisted they had avoided any major confrontation over how to proceed. Theresa May (pictured last night) is being urged to turn her back on Labour for the good of the Tory party - and shadow chancellor John McDonnell revealed that chances of a breakthrough look slim Today's incendiary letter to Mrs May, signed by Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Esther McVey and chairman of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady, warned of the risk of a 'democratic deficit' if a backroom deal with the opposition is hatched. It is also implicit that the rebel group, made up of leadership contenders, would try tear up any soft Brexit agreement with Labour once Mrs May resigns. Cabinet had an 'extensive' two hour discussion on the Brexit talks this morning, the Prime Minister's official spokesman has said. Her de facto deputy David Lidington also gave an overview of the discussions with Labour, and a 'very significant' number of ministers spoke, he said. The meeting stressed the 'pressing need to get on with delivering the result of the referendum' and cabinet agreed to continue the discussions with Labour to 'see what was possible', the spokesman revealed. But ministers concluded that it was 'imperative' the Withdrawal Bill based on Theresa May's deal should be brought forward and passed before the summer recess. Former Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon, who also signed the letter drawn up by ex-ministers, said today he would rather stay in the EU than sign up to the customs union after Brexit - and urged the Prime Minister to sack off talks with Mr Corbyn now. The letter, signed by Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Esther McVey and chairman of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady, warned of the risk of a 'democratic deficit' if a backroom deal with the opposition is hatched He said: 'The talks clearly aren't getting anywhere. It's a blind alley. It's far better to concentrate on the arrangements in Northern Ireland, the one thing there is a majority for. If a [Labour] deal is going to include a permanent customs union then frankly we are better off staying in the EU because at least then we'd have a voice. We can't say we are leaving then half-stay in it'. Mrs May is set to let MPs decide on how to break the Brexit deadlock as her own furious ministers urged her to end talks with Labour immediately. The Prime Minister will offer the Commons a series of 'definitive votes' to try to settle the matter after the European elections conclude on May 23 - a plan backed by remainers in her cabinet. Brexiteer ministers including Andrea Leadsom are said to prefer bringing back her deal to the Commons and concentrating on getting the EU to change the Irish backstop clause of Britain's divorce deal. Some 13 former ministers, together with the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, have written to the Prime Minister urging her not to concede Labour's key demand of a customs union and potentially a second referendum. The signatories also include Gavin Williamson, who she sacked as defence secretary this month. Advertisement With the First World War came an increasing need for a solution for facial injuries. And by 1917 the first skin graft had been performed by a doctor from New Zealand who reconstructed the face of a man burnt during combat. Sir Harold Gillies used a technique called Tube Pedicle Flaps to take skin from the forehead or the chest and swing it in to place without cutting it entirely from the body. A British sailor named Walter Yeo had been horribly burned in combat. His nose was shattered and his eyelids removed. Using skin from Yeos neck and upper chest, Sir Gillies made a mask of skin that he transplanted across Yeos face. This helped repair the damage that had been done, hiding his disfiguration and allowing him to close his eyes. The absence of antibiotics meant skin could not be removed from another part of the body such as the leg to then be placed on the face. Instead the skin was cut away, while remaining attached, and stitched in to a tube shape to ensure blood still flowed and risk of infection was reduced. Over time the new tissue fused with the old to form a new layer of skin over the wound and these photographs of men at London's King George Military Hospital show the improvement the technique made. Photographs taken at London's King George Military Hospital between May 1, 1917 and May 13, 2018 show the recovery of this soldier with the surname Field. In fact, just a year after reconstructive surgery begins, he has recovered enough to be able to hold a cigarette between his lips - despite the fact his bottom lip had previously been blown away When the entire bottom left-hand side of his face was blown away by a shell this soldier, with the surname Sabau, had to have skin grafted on to his cheek using the tubed pedicle flap. In the first photo the tube can be seen as skin has been taken from his neck and brought up to his cheek. In a final photo, taken in May 1917, Sabau has on a moustache and a fake nose to attempt to hide the remaining scaring. The final two photos are taken on the same day showing Sabau as he looks normally, and how a moustache and nose accessory hide the majority of his scarring. A comment underneath the final photograph notes: 'fake nose and moustache'. Though his left eye is sightly more drooping than the right he looks almost entirely healed This soldier, named Dawson, completely lost his chin and bottom lip when he was injured in early 1917. But despite having a gaping wound when the first photograph was taken on April 17, 1914 by the same month the following year all that reveals he ever had any surgery at all is a slightly smaller bottom lip. The wound has entirely healed and only limited scarring can be seen A First World War soldier with the surname Dempsey shows his recovery after a stay at London's King Gorge Military Hospital between June and July 1918. Skin that was previously swollen and darker has cleared up with just limited scaring still visible. Sir Harold Gillies had the help of pioneering cleft palate surgeon Sir William Arbuthnot Lane to develop the technique. Reputedly the largest hospital in the United Kingdom, the King George Hospital opened at the end of May 1915. The first convoys of wounded men were brought by boat train to Waterloo station nearby Sloan shows his recovery after a stay at the hospital between September 1918 and March 1919. Where his flesh had been left exposed in the first photograph the wound seems entirely healed just six months later. For those carrying out these procedures during the first world war it was important to try to let the wound heal as much as possible before surgery. Tunnels under the hospital allowed soldiers to be brought from Waterloo Station to the the hospital without being seen Winch has suffered a large injury to his nose. It could be that a bullet grazed the side of his face but it is unknown what caused the wound. Just four months after receiving treatment for the injury it has been reduced to a slight scar and a disfigured nose. Sir Harold Gillies was knighted in 1930 for his pioneering work with facial reconstruction surgery during the first world war. At London's King George Military Hospital there were 149 clinicians, both resident and visiting. At the time the hospital was criticised for having so many medical staff at a time when there was a shortage of doctors to serve in the army Widely considered the father of plastic surgery Dr Harold Gillies was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1882, he was educated at Wanganui College in New Zealand, and Cambridge University. Gillies went on to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, England, to study the speciality of otolaryngology before joining the war effort. He went on to persuade the Army's chief surgeon, William Arbuthnot-Lane, to create a facial injury ward at Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot A soldier with the surname Spiuk was photographed May 6, 1918, July 31, 1918 and October 21, 1918. By the final photo his injury, which had left him with no bottom lip, has healed to the extent that he can hold a cigarette in his mouth. The remains of the tubed pedicle flap can be seen over his bottom lip as the skin from another part of his face was stitched over his wound Potter was photographed in 1916 when his wound has been covered up by the remaining skin around the wound. Although a section of his right cheek had been completely blown away in the first photograph, by the time his treatment at the hospital had finished the wound has healed leaving behind a star shaped scar. At the outbreak of war in 1914 Sir Harold Gillies joined the army and while in France rapidly became aware of the horrific facial injuries sustained in trench warfare Taylor's lip injury is healed in four months after the pioneering technique of the tubed pedicle flap was used. While in France Sir Gillies saw the work of the dentist and oral surgeon Charles Valadier and the French surgeon Hippolyte morestin (aka The Father of the mouths) as they worked to help soldier's whose faces had become disfigured by shrapnel These two fairly similar looking photos were taken four months apart to document Gibbs' recovery from surgery in 1918. Facial surgeons were dealing with the major loss of soft tissue and bone as well as infection. On his return from France Sir Gillies told the War Office they needed to provide a facility to deal with facial injuries and, with the help of pioneering cleft palate surgeon Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, he was allocated beds at the Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot This man was left unable to close his mouth after he was injured in 1917. But after surgery he was not only able to close his mouth but could even smile for the update photograph was taken on August 6, 1918. Due to an absence of antibiotics skin could not be taken from other parts of the body. Instead it was partly cut away from the forehead or chest, sewn in to a tube shape and allowed to grow before being connected to the part of the face that was wounded and gradually left to heal Sergeant Marsden suffered burns to his face and hands after a shell blast. His skin was left completely blackened by the heat of the explosion. But these photographs, taken between June 22, 1916 and September, 7, 1916 show the speed of his face's complete recovery. The tubed pedicle flap method was not used for the first time until 1917 when Sir Gillies operated on a sailor who had received horrific burns in the battle of Jutland in October of that year Sergeant Butcher pictured in 1919. Gillies realised 3D imaging could transform the work of the plastic surgeon. A team of sculptors were brought to Sidcup to make plaster casts of the mens faces. Artificial ears, noses and chins were added before surgery to show how a soldiers face might look after the operation Before and after: A hit from shrapnel destroyed this man's face before plastic surgery was used to repair his chin. After time has passed Nolley cannot hide his smirk as he shows the effect of the pioneering surgery. Sir Gillies published a book called Plastic Surgery of the Face in 1920 to show and celebrate the effects of his research and work during the war. London's King George Military Hospital was set up between 1915 and 1919. The building had just been built as a five-storey warehouse for the H.M. Stationery Office in Stamford Street and Cornwall Road before being used as a Red Cross military hospital Skin has been brought over from Farrow's neck to fill in the gap left by his injuries. At London's King George Military Hospital, afternoon drives entertained recovering patients. If there were not enough cars available, omnibuses and charabancs were hired. In one week, some 1,590 convalescents had afternoon drives. The bedridden were entertained by concerts or similar events and readings were organised in the common rooms on Friday afternoons Crewes lower chin and neck were lost when shrapnel hit his face in early 1918. But Sir Gillies ensured by late December the same year his injuries were barely noticeable. Traditionally, the edges of facial wounds were simply stitched together, but when scar tissue contracted faces were left twisted and disfigured. So instead Sir Gillies grew more skin to go over the space A politician has revealed that she once contracted an STI while calling for an end to stigma around sexual health. Labor MLA Tara Cheyne, 32, revealed she was diagnosed with chlamydia at age 21 while putting forward a motion in the ACT Legislative Assembly to improve sexual health outreach. The Member for the Ginninderra reiterated her statement on Facebook and gave a glimpse into what help she had gotten. Tara Cheyne (pictured) revealed she was diagnosed with chlamydia outside the ACT Legislative Assembly as she put forward a motion to improve sexual heath outreach by going out into the community to talk about it She said that she decided to share her experience as she wanted to help break the stigma 'I got tested, diagnosed and got a dose of antibiotics. That's it. It wasn't a big deal. And it was all free,' she said. What is chlamydia? Chlamydia is a bacterial infection and can infect the sexual organs in men and women. People are typically unaware they have it until they are tested. If untreated it can cause inflammation of the upper genital tract and infertility in men. While women can end up with pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause ectopic pregnancies, chronic pelvic pain and infertility. It also increases the possibility of getting other STIs or HIV. Chlamydia is treated with anibiotics. In 2011 it was the most reported condition in Australia and in that year more women than men said they had it. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics Advertisement She said that she decided to share her experience as she wanted to help break the stigma. 'We're probably the most sexually aware generation in history, but STI rates are rising and blood-borne viruses remain prevalent,' she said. 'There's plenty of evidence that many people are living with STIs and BBVs without knowing it. 'The sexual and other health impacts when you're not being treated can be lasting or permanent, and, in some cases, life-threatening.' She said that talking about sexual health will have a better impact on how people view and deal with it. 'I'm not saying that everyone should be going around talking about when and if they are getting testing and what those results are,' she said, according to the ABC. 'Or how many boxes of condoms they might be buying weekly.' Police in Las Vegas have released shocking surveillance footage showing the moment a woman violently pushed an elderly passenger off a bus to his death as she now faces murder charges. Serge Fournier was reportedly telling the unruly woman on the bus to be nicer to other passengers after she was heard cursing when he was shoved off the vehicle and landed head first on the sidewalk. Video shows the 74-year-old being shoved down the steps of the public transit bus and smashing his face on the concrete ground. In the CCTV clip taken from the bus' security cameras, a woman can be seen talking to Fournier as he walked past carrying a walker and heading towards the door. Then as his back was turned she violently shoved him with both hands, sending the elderly man crashing down the steps. Serge Fournier was shoved from a bus in Las Vegas and died of his head injuries in hospital a just over a month later In video footage released by Las Vegas police, Fournier could be seen falling face first into the sidewalk after being pushed from the vehicle Cadesha Michelle Bishop, 25, was arrested Monday on a murder warrant for the death of 74-year-old Serge Fournier Cadesha Michelle Bishop was arrested on a murder warrant last Monday after he died in hospital of his injuries. Bishop was allegedly yelling and swearing at others on the bus when Fournier asked her to stop during the March 21 incident at around 4.50pm. Fournier initially survived but spent a month in hospital before he succumbed to his injuries, KSNV reports. Clark County coroner ruled his death was a homicide resulting from his injuries on April 23. A police report says Fournier was moving up the aisle of the Regional Transportation Commission bus when he asked a woman who had been cursing at other people to be nicer to passengers, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. In police documents Bishop is accused of shoving Fournier out the door 'with enough force that he never touched any of the steps' before hitting his head about eight feet (2.4 meters) from the bus. According to the arrest report, witnesses saw her walking away from the bus without offering Fournier help, grabbing her sons hand and leading him away. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released footage of the altercation on Tuesday in an appeal for more witnesses to come forward. A judge ordered Bishop, 25, to be held on $100,000 bail pending a preliminary hearing of evidence May 21. Fournier reportedly told a woman to stop shouting and cursing at fellow passengers as he walked down the aisle of the Regional Transportation Commission bus on March 21 Serge Fournier hit his head on a sidewalk during the incident and the Clark County coroner ruled his death a homicide resulting from his injuries a month later 'No matter what his age, she should not have done that. People need a little more patience than what they have these days,' said the man's neighbor, Trevor Taylor. Taylor asserted that Fournier was a 'wonderful person' and shared that he would never forget his friend. 'He was an excellent neighbor. Very nice, religious person,' he added. Fournier leaves behind a wife, who is disabled. 'I know it caused several financial problems for his wife,' said Ken Mallen, who was familiar with the couple. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Bishop was identified in part by a 'Love' emblem on her jacket and her son's distinctive Spider-Man backpack. Police said she was seen in the security video, which has yet to be released, walking away holding the boy's hand. Court records show that Bishop was convicted twice, in 2014 and 2015, of misdemeanor domestic battery charges. An inventor has spent three years creating a human carwash, complete with rotating brush and emergency stop button - and has released a video showing how it works. Matti Paaso, 70, from Helsinki, Finland went through four prototypes to create the 4,100 machine which he claims will help those in hospital and with mobility issues. It is built with two motors which rotate the brush and move it up and down during the shower - similar to the brushes in a real car wash. Matti Paaso (left and right demonstrating the machine), 70, from Helsinki, Finland went through four prototypes to create the 4,100 machine which he claims will help those in hospital and with mobility issues Mr Paaso said: 'I couldn't find anything like this when I was doing my research on YouTube. 'It is fitted with two motors which control the rotating brush and the vertical movement of the brush. 'It also has an emergency stop button and automatically stops after 15 minutes.' He continues: 'I designed it for people who have mobility issues, or are injured or are older and struggle to shower themselves.' Mr Paaso hopes the unique shower instalment, which means users don't need to scrub with their hands, will fill a gap in the market. The machine (left and right demonstrated by Mr Paaso) also has an emergency stop button (bottom right in each picture). He claims installation is very straightforward, with the machine simply having to be mounted next to a shower He said: 'It could be a very useful tool in a hospital or for care providers, it only uses the same amount of space as a normal shower. 'The user can wash their entire body in two or three minutes, but as the brushes are designed for a gentle massage the normal washing time is about 10 minutes. 'One of the prototypes was trialled in a hospital for one month and they loved it.' To operate the Humanwash, users must press the foot pedals or buttons installed on the side of the device. He claims installation is very straightforward, with the machine simply having to be mounted next to a shower. Advertisement A series of photos taken at the height of the Great Depression have revealed the squalid conditions families were forced to live in. Humanitarian photographer Lewis Hine, who used his eye-catching snaps to call for social reform, took the pictures while working for the American Red Cross to show how citizens were economically crippled as a result of the stock market crash of 1929. One striking image shows a shivering child sitting barefoot in the snow as he digs for scraps of coal to fend off the cold, while another features a dejected mother clinging to her child in a ramshackle hut. At the time, as many as one in five Americans had no job prospects and no means to provide for their families during the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialised world. In one photo, a young boy barefoot in the snow two days before Christmas as he tries to find usable coal for the family fire Another striking image, taken at the height of the Great Depression, shows a mother hugging her child close by as she sits in the doorway of her cabin Humanitarian photographer Lewis Hine, who used his eye-catching snaps to call for social reform, took the pictures while working for the American Red Cross. These four boys were photographed in threadbare clothes in 1937 Pictured: the Johnson family. Their father lost his job, like millions of other Americans, forcing them to live in squalid conditions A desperate family in Tennessee converted a houseboat into this ramshackle hut as shanty towns popped up across the U.S. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers, especially in key industries such as mining and farming. By 1933, when the Great Depression was at its most severe, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country's banks had failed. Some towns faced unemployment levels as high as 80 or 90 percent, especially in rural locations. The economic plight of the U.S. citizens was alleviated somewhat by the election of Frank D Roosevelt in 1932 who introduced sweeping reforms in his 'New Deal'. The Second World War, which the USA entered in 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbour, eventually saw unemployment levels drop and factories operating at full capacity once again. The photos were intended yo show how citizens were economically crippled as a result of the stock market crash of 1929. Pictured: a miner's child Here, Reverend Lovelace and some children from an orphanage conduct the Sunday afternoon service in Tennessee, in October 1933 A building formerly used to house miners and their equipment was turned into a nursery as desperate parents struggled to work A group of children play with bricks as their out-of-work miner parents can't afford to buy them toys during the economic downturn of the 1930s A family huddle around a fire for warmth as one of the little boys cuddles up to a dog while their mother plays the guitar Pictured: Young helpers at a local community centre in West Virginia. Some towns faced unemployment levels as high as 80 or 90 percent, especially in rural locations In West Virginia, a nursery was set up in an abandoned mine building as families struggled for work at the height of the Great Depression In this family home, newspaper was used instead of wallpaper. Pictured: the family sitting down for supper Work was extremely hard to come by and many families were left desperate - here, several generations are seen helping out on a Tennessee farm to make molasses By 1933, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country's banks had failed. Pictured: a community enjoying a Christmas carol American citizens who find themselves in distress in Austria can now seek support at an unusual address - McDonald's. Under a new partnership, outlets of the US fast food chain throughout Austria will help American citizens to get in touch with their embassy if - for example - they have lost their passport. 'Staff (at any McDonald's in Austria) will assist them in making contact with the US Embassy for consular services,' the embassy wrote of the scheme, which starts today. According to the US Embassy in Austria, US visitors can now enter a McDonald's outlet to 'report a lost or stolen passport' or simply 'to seek travel assistance'. McDonald's branches in Austria will be able to help US citizens reporting a lost or stolen passport or seeking travel assistance The US embassy did not immediately return a request for comment if Austria was the only country offering such services at McDonald's. Facebook users commenting on the post wasted no time in coining terms such as 'McVisa' and 'McPassport'. While some hailed the move as 'awesome', others seemed less impressed. 'Because apparently we are too incompetent to look up the US embassy online??' one user wrote. Other consular services such as issuing passports will only be carried out at official embassies and consulates McDonald's spokesman Wilhelm Baldia said the fast food company had been chosen due to 'the great fame of the brand'. Baldia said: 'We were approached with the request by the US Consulate. Firstly, because of the brand's great fame among Americans, and secondly, because there are a lot of branches in Austria.' He added that the McDonald's team will aid Americans in calling the 24/7 embassy hotline but will not issue new passports or perform other consular services as these will exclusively remain at embassies and consulates. Authorities in China have blocked all language editions of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia's owner said today, ahead of the country's most politically explosive anniversary. 'In April, the Wikimedia Foundation determined that Wikipedia was no longer accessible in China,' Samantha Lien, spokeswoman for the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, said in an email. Previously, most editions of Wikipedia - besides the Chinese language version, which was reportedly blocked in 2015 - were available. Authorities in China have blocked all language editions of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia's owner said today, ahead of the country's most politically explosive anniversary The 1989 massacre, which is also known as the 'June Fourth Incident', remains a major taboo in China and any form of public commemoration of it is strictly prohibited 'After closely analysing our internal traffic reports, we can confirm Wikipedia is blocked across all language versions,' Lien said. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites have long been blocked in China. Individual Wikipedia articles about sensitive issues, such as 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the Himalayan region of Tibet, have long been blocked in China, however, even while the main site is accessible. Suspicion of a total block on Wikipedia surfaced in late April when some Chinese internet users took to social media to complain that the site was no longer accessible. A celebrated image of a man trying to stop the tanks entering the square in Beijing Tests run by GreatFire.org revealed that the site had not been accessible from within China since April 23. The Cyberspace Administration of China, which oversees China's internet censorship, did not respond immediately to a faxed request for comment. Since 2015, Wikipedia's Chinese-language site was blocked by China's 'Great Firewall', which prevents internet users from accessing certain foreign websites. Versions in other languages, however, have largely remained accessible, albeit with occasional interruptions. Lien said the Wikimedia Foundation had not received any notice that would explain why the block had been imposed. 'When one country, region, or culture cannot join the global conversation on Wikipedia, the entire world is poorer,' Lien adds. This June will mark 30 years since the army used force to suppress the pro-democracy protests centred around Tiananmen Square 'Blocking access to all language versions of Wikipedia for internet users in China is just symbolic,' he told AFP. 'It symbolises the fear that the Chinese authorities have of the truth' Internet authorities in China often ramp up censorship before major political events or sensitive anniversaries. This June will mark 30 years since the army used force to suppress the pro-democracy protests centred around Tiananmen Square. The massacre, which is also known as the 'June Fourth Incident', is a major taboo in China and any form of public commemoration of it is strictly prohibited. 'At the end of the day, the content that really matters is Chinese-language content,' said Charlie Smith, the pseudonym of one of the co-founders of Greatfire.org, which tracks online censorship in China. 'Blocking access to all language versions of Wikipedia for internet users in China is just symbolic,' he told AFP. 'It symbolises the fear that the Chinese authorities have of the truth.' A song by Hong Kong pop icon Jacky Cheung (pictured) has been removed from Apple Music in China due to its association with the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown Last month, a song by Hong Kong pop icon Jacky Cheung was removed from Apple Music in Chna due to its association with the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The song 'The Path of Man' was missing from Apple Music's China service as well as streaming platform QQ Music, according to Hong Kong Free Press. This month marked the 100th anniversary of the May 4th movement, which began as student protests against imperialism but quickly grew into widespread protests against the government. Authorities have long played the element of political liberalism in that movement. Later this year, China will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. An acclaimed writer has been left in a state of distress after Qantas barred her from boarding a flight with her disability support dog. Fiona Wright, 36, has a flight booked from Sydney to Alice Springs on Friday to attend the NT Writers' Festival. The Sydney-based writer is now unsure if she can attend the event after Qantas denied her request to allow her dog Virginia to board too. Fiona Wright, 36, has a flight booked from Sydney to Alice Springs on Friday to attend the NT Writers' Festival The Sydney-based writer is now unsure if she can attend the event after Qantas denied her request to allow her dog Virginia to board too Ms Wright has Virginia to help with her mental health conditions, which includes anxiety. Virginia was trained and certified by mindDog, a not-for-profit organisation based in New South Wales. Despite providing extensive documentation seven weeks ago, Mr Wright's request has been denied, with Qantas claiming the service dog does not meet the required standards to fly in the cabin. 'It's been incredibly stressful and this is the case for a lot of people who live with disability, and especially psychiatric disability, ' she told ABC News. 'I've done everything they've asked, spent hours chasing up qualifications and letters and forms from all of the people I've worked with, even answered insulting and probably-illegal questions about the nature of my disability,' she said on Twitter. Who is Fiona Wright? Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic from Sydney She wrote Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays on Hunger won the 2016 Nita B. Kibble Award and the Queensland Literary Award for non-fiction Her book was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the NSW Premiers Douglas Stewart Award Her first poetry collection, Knuckled, won the 2012 Dame Mary Gilmore Award Advertisement 'All of my evidence that my dog is a fully-trained and certified assistance dog is not enough for Qantas. 'This whole process has been deeply upsetting and taken up a ton of my time and energy. This is out and out discrimination Qantas, and I will be following this up with the Human Rights Commission,' she said. A Qantas spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the airline understood that 'this is disappointing for Ms Wright'. He said they would be following up with the author. 'We've been working with her for several weeks to explain Qantas' requirements, including the requirements we need to ensure that the dog is trained appropriately to travel inside the cabin. Qantas is claiming the service dog does not meet the required standards to fly in the cabin 'Qantas is bound by federal legislation including CASA regulations to ensure all service dogs travelling in the cabin meet the required standards, including training standards. 'Unfortunately in this case, on the information provided, Qantas could not be satisfied that mindDog training met the training standards required. 'Qantas has successfully worked with dozens of other training providers to ensure their standards met Qantas' obligations under legislation and CASA regulations.' Cath Phillips, the head of the mindDog organisation, told ABC News they stand behind their clients and their dogs. 'Qantas won't fly mindDogs although all of the other airlines do ... Virgin, Jetstar, and so far all international airlines that have been asked carry our dogs with no problems. China is rallying public support around its position in a trade dispute with the United States - with the help of Chairman Mao's quotes and Chinese revolutionary poster art. The ruling Communist Party is taking a more aggressive approach amid escalating tensions with the US - projecting stability and stirring up nationalistic sentiment in the process. 'All trade wars are paper tigers,' said a riff on a Communist propaganda poster showing People's Liberation Army soldiers stamping on a pile of skulls. The poster alludes to Mao Zedong's famous pronouncement in 1956 that 'All reactionaries are paper tigers' - a derogatory term which he also applied to American imperialism. 'All trade wars are paper tigers,' said a riff on a Communist propaganda poster showing People's Liberation Army soldiers stamping on a pile of skulls. The poster alludes to Mao Zedong's famous pronouncement that 'All reactionaries are paper tigers' - a derogatory term which he also applied to American imperialism China is rallying public support around its position in a trade dispute with the United States - enlisting Chairman Mao's (left) quotes, tilapia, and Chinese revolutionary poster art 'If you want to negotiate, the door is open,' anchor Kang Hui said Monday on state broadcaster CCTV. 'If you want a trade war,' however, he added, 'we'll fight you until the end.' 'After 5,000 years of wind and rain, what hasn't the Chinese nation weathered?' Kang said. The toughly-worded monologue on the banner evening news program followed days of muted official responses to President Donald Trump's decision to hike tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Trump startled financial markets with his May 5 announcement that US tariffs would rise to 25 per cent from 10 per cent as of Friday. After negotiations in Washington ended last week with no agreement, China retaliated Monday with higher tariffs on US$60 billion worth of American goods, raising duties of 5 per cent to 25 per cent. President Donald Trump (right) expanded his tariff regime to include practically everything China exports to the US; Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) retaliated Monday but said his own tariffs won't go into effect until June. The pair are pictured in November 2017 A social media post exhorting Chinese consumers to buy more tilapia to offset the effects of China's ongoing economic dispute with the United States is published on WeChat Then came the government's public relations onslaught. 'Overnight, we saw official media - in the People's Daily, China Daily, CCTV - all run spots about the United States as being a problematic negotiating partner,' said Jake Parker, vice president of China operations for the US-China Business Council. President Xi Jinping, the ruling party's most powerful leader in decades, has made China's foreign policy more assertive while nurturing the growth of a red-blooded but tightly controlled nationalism. The approach reflects a new willingness to allow a shift in domestic public opinion where the trade war is concerned, Parker said. Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform which generally censors political discourse, has featured an unusual amount of tariff-related content since Monday. The site's ranking of 'trending topics,' usually dominated by celebrity news, highlighted Kang's monologue and the subject 'American stock market plunges.' President Donald Trump is not backing off from his 'squabble' with China over trade, regardless of the toll the dispute takes on the stock market and the US economy Chinese President Xi Jinping is emerging as Trump's most potent economic adversary on the world stage as he works to protect China's trade advantages which Trump claims are the result of former presidents' mishandling China announced Monday it would raise tariffs on $60 billion in US exports by next month, responding in kind to President Donald Trump's decision last week to hike duties on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese merchandise Internet users shared patriotic memes expressing confidence in China's economy and contempt for the US The commentary echoes earlier times when the US and China were adversaries in the Korean War and for decades afterward. Still, the nationalistic bent of social media comment is a poor measure of Chinese public opinion. In the past, the government has paid people to publish posts supporting party policies, and any expression of dissent faces strict censorship. One Weibo post simply asked what impact the trade war will have on ordinary people. A counter at the bottom of the post indicated that it had 1,290 comments, but none were viewable, and further comments were 'prohibited.' A number of Chinese exporters contacted by The Associated Press refused to comment on the record because they fear government retribution. 'Let's unite and buy, buy, buy', reads a Chinese revolutionary poster art circulating on WeChat A Chinese worker adjusts a hydraulic lift at a factory which produces construction machinery for export to many countries, including the US, in Jinan, in east China's Shandong province Beijing is trying to reassure worried Chinese businesses and consumers that the country is strong enough to withstand the trade conflict. 'I think this administration is different from previous ones in its diplomatic policies,' said Li Chanjuan, a manager at an insurance company. 'People expect the government to make a tougher gesture.' There are limits to how far the party will go in pushing public sentiment. David Bandurski, a co-director of the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project, said the country's current aim is to promote stability rather than foment patriotic fervor. 'China is keen to project calm,' he said. 'The last thing it needs or wants is to whip up popular anger, which can turn quickly,' sometimes in ways that the party can neither predict nor control. People's Daily, the party's official mouthpiece, called the trade war 'no big deal.' China's imports of soybeans from the US, once its biggest supplier, have dropped massively during Trump's trade war; the president said Tuesday that he's prepared to make up the gap through subsidies paid for with money from his anti-China tariffs It also paid tribute to Jane Austen's famed novel 'Pride and Prejudice' in a tongue-in-cheek critique of the Trump administration. 'Pride makes it impossible for other people to love me, while prejudice makes it impossible for me to love others. Today a few American politicians are just like the characters that Austen assailed,' the paper said. CCTV on Wednesday aired interviews with both Chinese and American economists who condemned the US's approach. The state broadcaster also emphasised how the tariffs will hurt American consumers. Meanwhile, the Hainan Tilapia Sustainability Alliance, an industry group on the southern island province, is appealing to Chinese taste buds. China's exports of the popular fish are a target of Trump's tariffs. In an article calling for Chinese consumers to eat more tilapia to help the industry survive, the group said: 'There's no problem that eating cannot solve.' An elderly couple were taken to hospital after their car shot backwards, smashing through railings and falling 20ft onto the beach below. Emergency services were scrambled to Colwyn Bay Beach in north Wales at 5pm yesterday after the silver Toyota tore through the railings at the Rhos-on-Sea promenade. Witnesses claim the vehicle narrowly avoided hitting a woman walking her dog as it sped backwards over two kerbs and a pavement before ploughing through the railings. They believe the man driving the car hadn't realised he had put the car in reverse. Emergency services are pictured cutting an elderly male driver out of his car after it reversed through railings and onto the beach 20ft below at the Rhos on Sea promenade at Colwyn Bay Beach in north Wales yesterday afternoon The male driver is pictured being stretchered to an ambulance. The passenger was also taken to hospital A crane was used to pull the car off the beach, with considerable damage left to the metal railings Police officers were seen approaching the car with a breathalyse the driver before he was cut from the vehicle and taken to hospital. MailOnline has contacted North Wales Police for comment. A crane was used to pull the car off the beach, with considerable damage left to the metal railings. A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesman told the North Wales Pioneer: 'We were called on May 14 about 4.55pm to reports of a car having fallen onto the beach from the promenade at Rhos on Sea. The broken metal railings at the Rhos On Sea promenade, north Wales are pictured Emergency services were scrambled to Colwyn Bay Beach in north Wales at 5pm yesterday after the silver Toyota shot through the Rhos-on-Sea promenade 'We responded with one rapid response vehicle and two emergency ambulances.' A North Wales Fire And Rescue spokesman also told the paper: 'We were called at 5.01pm and the stop time was at 6pm. 'One vehicle was involved and we assisted the ambulance. We used hydraulic cutting gear to remove two people from the vehicle. 'Two appliances attended - one from Llandudno and one from Colwyn Bay.' The Israeli national broadcaster's webcast of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final in Tel Aviv was hacked with images of explosions over the city, which it blamed on Hamas. As the European music competition got underway on Tuesday night the internet broadcast was interrupted by footage showing missiles pounding the streets and menacing music played in the background. Kan said hacking of the website did not affect the standard television relay of the show in Israel or abroad. Israel's hosting of the 2019 version of the European music competition comes as fierce fighting raged in the Gaza strip earlier this month with Hamas. The video was accompanied by a zooming in effect on locations in Tel Aviv and the appearance of graphical explosions and clouds of black smoke Towards the end of the video sickening messages appeared warning of missile attacks and claiming Israel was not safe Kan played down the hack, noting that the evening ended without further incident as Greece, Belarus, Serbia, Cyprus, Estonia, Czech Republic, Australia, Iceland, San Marino and Slovenia made it through to Saturday's finals. 'We know that at a certain stage there was an attempt, apparently by Hamas, to commandeer our digital broadcast,' Kan CEO, Eldad Koblenz, told Israel's Army Radio. 'But I am happy to say that within a few minutes we managed to assume control over this phenomenon.' Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, had no immediate comment. Earlier this month it engaged in three days of fighting with Israel that included hundreds of rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli air strikes in the enclave. Orthodox rabbis in Israel are outraged at 'desecration of the Sabbath by Eurovision Song Contest' This year's competition is being held in Tel Aviv, and while the finals will not begin until after the Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday, rehearsals and production preparations are expected to take place earlier in the day. Ultra-Orthodox Jews strictly respect religious law prohibiting work on the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. Eurovision organisers were set 'to desecrate our holy and glorious Sabbath publicly and glaringly, God preserve us,' Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky said in a handwritten missive endorsed by another senior religious leader, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein. Lucy Ayoub, Erez Tal and Bar Refaeli hosting the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv on Tuesday 'They are also forcing many Sabbath-observant Jews to work on Saturday, and we can't foil their scheme, and this (desecration) is a danger to our presence here in the Holy Land,' the 91-year-old spiritual leader said in the letter circulating on religious media. 'We must call out and intone and beg God to protect us,' Kanievsky said, calling on followers to convene in synagogues and religious colleges at midnight on Friday 'for prayers and saying atonements and asking for mercy'. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured the leaders of ultra-Orthodox political parties that Eurovision was an international event 'not controlled by the government'. 'The Israeli government does not seek to desecrate the Sabbath, and most of the participants in the event are from abroad and not Jewish,' Netanyahu wrote in a letter to them. The Sabbath was said to be one of the reasons Eurovision organisers and Israeli hosts decided against holding the event in the religiously conservative city of Jerusalem. Reporting by AFP Advertisement Palestinians and their foreign supporters have called, so far fruitlessly, on countries to shun the Tel Aviv songfest as part of wider efforts to isolate Israel internationally. Many boycott calls have targeted Madonna, who arrived in Israel on Tuesday, ahead of the American pop star's guest performance at the Eurovision final. The second semi-final is on Thursday. Rebuffing the pressure, Madonna said she would 'never stop playing music to suit someone's political agenda'. Earlier this month missiles flew through the skies over Israel as tensions flared with Hamas in the Gaza strip (pictured: a missile is fired from Israel's Iron Dome air defence system along the Israeli-Gaza border on May 5, 2019) A missile fired from Israel's Iron Dome air defence system intercepts a rocket fired from Gaza on May 5, 2019 along the Israeli-Gaza border The European Broadcasting Union, which oversees the contest, did not have a number to hand for worldwide viewers of Tuesday's show. But an EBU spokesman said that, last year, a total of 186 million people watched both semi-finals and the finals. Kan said on Wednesday that an Israeli truck driver injured a day earlier while unloading technical equipment in the parking lot of the Eurovision venue had died. 'Our thoughts and condolences go to his family,' the broadcaster said in a statement, adding that it was working with authorities to ensure safety at the competition. An air passenger from China has sparked an outrage on an international flight after allegedly making 160 passengers wait for her daughter who was late due to a shopping spree. The emotional passenger tried to prevent the cabin crew from shutting the plane door for takeoff while other travellers were stuck on the aircraft during wee hours, accused a furious traveller on board. Footage posted by the eyewitness shows the mother sitting on the jet bridge outside the aircraft as an airline worker talked to her. Footage trending on Chinese social media shows cabin crew trying to calm down travellers stranded on the plane after one passenger insisted that the plane wait for her daughter Clips of the incident were trending on Chinese short-video platform Douyin today. The uploader of the videos, known as 'da meng ya', claimed to be a passenger on the plane. She alleged that one female passenger was attempting to stop the plane from leaving because her daughter had not arrived yet. The daughter was said to be late because she was shopping. The incident took place today on a flight from Bangkok to Shanghai operated by Chinese budget carrier Spring Airlines. The flight 9c8892 was scheduled to take off at 3:30am from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport. The duty-free shops at the airport open 24 hours. Footage posted by the eyewitness also shows the mother sitting on the jet bridge outside the aircraft as an airline worker talked to her. The four-hour flight was delayed for 30 minutes The passenger (not the one above, file photo) was allegedly shopping at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport which caused her to be late for her flight back to Shanghai The Shanghai-based carrier has confirmed the incident to MailOnline after watching the trending clips, but did not specify the relation between the two passengers or their gender. The airline company said the flight was due to carry 162 passengers, including the passenger who had boarded and the passenger who had failed to arrive at the boarding gate. A spokesperson said the passenger who had boarded the plane was emotional and tried to block the cabin manager from closing the door. The passenger also claimed that her accompanying traveller, alleged to be her daughter, had called the airport police to demand the flight wait. The daughter had allegedly told the police she had checked in two pieces of luggage and left hand luggage on the plane - presumably through her mother. The incident took place today on a flight by Chinese budget carrier Spring Airlines (file photo) The four-hour flight was delayed for 30 minutes after the two passengers agreed to give up their journey. The plane landed in Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 9:14am, more than one hour behind the schedule. Spring Airlines condemned the passengers' 'uncivilised' behaviour while Chinese web users urged the tourism authority to blacklist them. China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) in 2015 launched a series of regulations to penalise unruly tourists - a move from Beijing aimed at raising the public awareness of travel etiquette. Tourists deemed uncivilised by the authority could have a 'bad behaviour record' for up to ten years, which is likely to restrict their future travelling and harm credit record. People have been punished for various reasons, from throwing boiling water towards a flight attendant to sitting on top of an iconic Communist statue. Embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro cannot go out in public and is sleeping in a bunker as his grip on power slips, a top US official has said. Mauricio Claver-Carone, the senior director of the White House National Security Council, told a conference in Bogota, Colombia, that Maduro is increasingly paranoid and can no longer trust his inner circle of advisers as those who were once loyal to him have moved their allegiances. He also claimed the uprising called by opposition leader Juan Guaido that saw demonstrators take to the streets and clash with Maduro's National Guard had not been a failure, despite it not successfully ousting the president from power. Speaking at the Concordia conference in Colombia's capital on Tuesday, Claver-Carone added that the 'ambitions' of some of the conspirators had led them 'to become greedy' and doomed the plot, according to the Miami Herald. He also claimed the amount of Russian and Cuban backers Maduro has now surrounded himself with show the loss of support he has suffered since his country descended into chaos. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro delivering a speech to the troops during the march of loyalty in Vargas, Venezuela, yesterday Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaking during a rally. He is said to have become increasingly paranoid as his grip on power slips Mauricio Claver-Carone, Senior Director National Security Council said the attempted uprising called by opposition leader Juan Guaido was not a failure Claver-Carone, who is one of the Trump administration's key national security advisers, said: 'One of the positive elements [of the uprising] is that there were many people involved. And the amplitude of [the conspiracy] is much larger than has been reported. 'I can count the people who support Maduro on one hand. If pro-Maduro sentiment existed, he wouldn't have to be surrounded by Cubans and Russians.' Despite a wave of support and the threat of high level defections, the coup failed after one of Guaido's key allies got spooked by a last-minute change of plans and pulled out, according to the Washington Post. Chief Justice of Venezuela's Supreme Court, Maikel Moreno had agreed to pull the plug on Maduro's rule by issuing a decree declaring his government illegal, giving the military a legitimate reason to join with Guaido. Maduro delivering a speech to his troops during the march of loyalty today in Vargas, Venezuela. He is said to be sleeping in a bunker after the coup attempt which began on April 30 Members of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Police standing guard outside both the opposition-led National Assembly and the pro-government National Constituent Assembly in Caracas today But at 1am on April 30 a series of messages forced the plotters to rush their scheme forward after it appeared Maduro was about to move against them. Moreno stopped communicating and never issued his decree, even as Guaido went to the La Carlota airbase in Caracas to say Maduro had lost military support. Moreno suggestion he should take over as interim president once Maduro was toppled also soured the deal, the Post reported. On Sunday a Venezuelan general called on the country's armed forces to rise up against President Maduro, who has relied on the backing of the military to hold on to power despite an economic collapse. Ramon Rangel, who identified himself as an air force general, said the Venezuelan government is being controlled by the 'communist dictatorship' in Cuba - a key Maduro ally. While Rangel's pronouncement marked another blow to Maduro after a handful of similar defections by senior officers this year, there was little to indicate his calls will tip the scales against the president. A three-year-old boy found a gun at his home in Tennessee and fatally shot himself in the face as his mother was doing drugs, police said. Responding officers found Chrisaiah Arrington suffering from a single gunshot wound on Saturday, a Jackson police statement said. He was hospitalized and later died. His mother, Linda Arrington, 25, and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Antonio Dancer, were being held in the Madison County Jail on charges including negligent homicide. A Jackson police statement says responding officers found Chrisaiah Arrington suffering from a single gunshot wound on Saturday. He was hospitalized and later died Linda Arrington, 25, and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Antonio Dancer, were being held in the Madison County Jail on charges including negligent homicide. It was the second time that the toddler had gotten his hands on a weapon in the home. A month earlier, he found a gun under the pillow in his mother's room. Both Arrington and Dancer told authorities that they were aware of the weapons in the home, the Jackson Sun reports. It was the second time that the toddler had gotten his hands on a weapon in the home. A month earlier, he found a gun under the pillow in his mother's room Dancer added that he kept the gun under the mattress. It was recovered from a dumpster near the home. The 43-year-old was additionally charged as a felon in possession of a firearm - he had already been convicted of felony auto burglary in 1996. Police say investigators determined that Arrington and her boyfriend were under the influence of drugs when the unsupervised Chrisaiah found the unsecured weapon. The boy's mother - who has another child - admitted in court that she suffered from mental health problems related to anxiety and mood disorders. She also shared that she had a heroin problem. Her bail has been set to $35,000 while Dancer has a bail of $50,000. Chrisaiah's aunt shared a GoFundMe that she launched to help pay for his funeral arrangements. It has raised just over $1,155 of its $2,500 goal. 'No one was prepared for this loss as baby Chris had an entire life to live,' the fundraiser said. 'Our family was devastated at the news that on Saturday 5/11/19, we lost one of our babies.' A devoted husband has been arrested on suspicion of murder over a suspected 'mercy killing' of his elderly wife. Frank Long, 80, was arrested after the body of his wife Mavis, 78, was discovered at their bungalow last Friday. Police discovered Mrs Long's body when they were called to the couple's whitewashed bungalow in the quiet village of Pennant, near Aberaeron, West Wales. Neighbours claim she had been ill for several years and it is understood police are probing whether she died in a 'mercy killing' but this has not been confirmed. Retired engineer Mr Long has been freed on police bail as police continue their investigation. Frank Long, 80, was arrested after the body of his wife Mavis, 78, was discovered at their bungalow in the village of Pennant, West Wales last Friday The pensioners had lived in their home together for 25 years - but neighbours said they were very private people. A tribute from Mrs Long's family said: 'This was an extremely tragic incident in which we have lost Mavis, who was loved and will be sorely missed. 'We would like to thank the local community for all their kind words and support at this difficult time. 'We would now like time to grieve and would ask for privacy in which to do so.' One man said: 'I hadn't seen them for many years as they kept themselves to themselves. 'First we we heard that she had gone missing but then we heard she had been found dead. It's a horrible surprise for such a quiet place. 'We hardly see any police around here so a murder inquiry is very strange.' Local councillor Dafydd Edwards said: 'My first reaction is one of concern for the family, but without knowing the facts it's very difficult to comment further. 'The family in question have lived in the area for a long time and are extremely well respected in the village.' A spokeswoman for Dyfed Powys Police said an investigation was launched after Mrs Long was found dead last Friday. She said: 'An 80-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the death, and has been released on bail pending further police enquiries. 'People living in the area will be aware of an increased police presence. 'We would like to reassure the community that the police are not currently looking for anyone else in connection with the death.' An Islamist has threatened to kill Asia Bibi, the woman who fled to Canada after being released from death row in Pakistan where she spent years jailed on false blasphemy charges. In a harrowing video threat posted on Facebook which has since been removed, the unnamed man said he had 'reached' Canada to give her a 'terrible death and send her to hell'. 'I will make sure to bring a terrible end to the blasphemer Asia Bibi,' he said, according to a translation by the the British Pakistani Christian Association. The man did not show his face in the video but filmed his shirt instead. He said he had gone to Canada to 'stop' her from saying 'blasphemous' things against Islam again. Scroll down for video Asia Bibi is shown in this 2010 photograph (right) taken when she was jailed for blasphemy for allegedly offending the Prophet Mohammed during a conversation with Muslim women The unnamed man filmed a video and uploaded it to Facebook on Tuesday claiming to have arrived in Canada to 'stop' her. It was taken down by Facebook Bibi, a devout Christian in her early 50s, was jailed in 2010 after being accused of speaking against the Prophet Muhammad during a heated argument with Muslim women. She denied the claims, insisting she had not, and her conviction was overturned last year, a decision which prompted protests from Taliban supporters. She was freed in Pakistan and held in a remote location until being offered refuge by Canada earlier this month. Authorities in Canada have not yet commented on the validity of the video threat or on her safety. She is living in an undisclosed location with her daughters who arrived in Canada in December. Upon her arrival in Canada last month, a source close to Bibi told Daily Mail: 'This has been an extremely stressful few months. After being released from death row, she thought she was finally free. Bibi was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed when she rejected calls from Muslim women to convert to Islam 'But the row over her release exploded and she found she was literally being hunted by extremists who wanted her dead. 'So despite being acquitted of blasphemy, for the last few months she has been living in fear for her life. 'Canada's Prime Minister has been incredibly helpful. When no other country was coming to her aid, he offered her and her family refuge.' Bibi's husband is also believed to be with her in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to comment. Pakistan was accused of not doing enough to protect Bibi after her release as tensions in the country raged. The government insisted however that it was 'fully behind' ensuring her safe departure from the country. Three Muslim workers at an Amazon warehouse in Minnesota accuse the company of discrimination and retaliation for denying them time and space to pray. A federal complaint filed last week claims Amazon created a hostile work environment for the three black women from Somalia at its Shakopee warehouse. One of the women claims she stopped taking breaks to perform ablutions before prayer, break her Ramadan fast, and even stopped going to the bathroom because she feared her rate of pay would be decreased or she'd be written up and face termination. They allege Somali and East African employees were denied promotions and training that went to white workers and were assigned more difficult tasks, such as packing heavy items. The women - referred to as 'Ms. A, Ms. B, and Ms. C' - say they were under pressure to meet certain quotas. Women from Somalia accuse Amazon of discrimination and retaliation for denying them time and space to pray at the Shakopee, Minnesota warehouse. Some Somali workers are pictured with representative Ilhan Omar as she speaks during a rally at the Amazon fulfillment center on December 14, 2018 The Anonymous women say they worried about taking breaks to pray or go to the bathroom because they were under pressure to meet certain hourly packing quotas They claim that if they didn't make a certain 'rate' of production they risked being punished for it. Two of the women in the lawsuit still work at the company while one was constructively dismissed in December. The plaintiffs also state they 'noticed a campaign of retaliatory harassment' after they participated in a rally regarding racial disparities and working conditions, the same month one of them was let go. It was claimed by many of the December 14, 2018 rally participants that Amazon offered inadequate space and time for its Muslim workers to pray. However the women allege conditions have not improved since. They claim employees who follow Islam could be punished simply because they attempted to observe their religious obligations to pray. Ms B alleges in the lawsuit that she was written up when she fell short of her hourly packing target during Ramadan. It was despite her abstaining from food or drink throughout the daylight hours when there was not adequate air conditioning, the suit alleges. Federal complaint filed last week claims they created hostile work environment. Amazon told DailyMail.com: 'Associates can pray whenever they choose'. Prayer breaks less than 20 minutes are paid and associates can request an unpaid prayer break to take advantage of 'adjusted productivity expectations' On top of that they claim workers did not receive sufficient time during breaks to properly break their fasts during the Holy Month. The lawsuit states workers also reported being told by Amazon management to quit when they requested time off for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that directly follows Ramadan. 'Ms. B and Ms. C have repeatedly received more difficult and less favorable duty assignments since the protest. In an intimidation tactic, Ms. B has had her everyday conversations repeatedly video recorded by her supervisors. All three of our clients have received pretextual write-ups, which are a step towards terminations,' a letter from Muslim Advocates states. 'When our clients attempted to report the improper write-ups to management or to Human Resources, Amazon has uniformly failed to adequately investigate or address their claims. And in retaliation for reporting the initial retaliation, Ms. C even received an additional retaliatory writeup the day she was told that the investigation into her claims had yielded no results. 'Amazons message to Somali workers has been clear: Since they protested Amazons discriminatory actions, Amazon management would now create an environment so harassing and hostile that they would be forced to quit.' It was claimed by many of the December 14, 2018 rally participants that Amazon offered inadequate space and time for its Muslim workers to pray. However the women allege conditions have not improved since They point out that Under Title VII, not only is it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers in decisions of hiring and firing, but it's also the case for assignments and promotions within a company. Referring to Title VII, Muslim Advocates points out the obligation on employers to 'reasonably accommodate the religious practices of their employees'. A lawyer for Muslim Advocates said while many employees hail from East Africa, the vast majority of managers at the warehouse were white. The letter is signed by Racial Justice Fellow, Nabihah Maqbool, Staff Attorney Nimrah Asmi and Interim Legal Director Sirine Nebaya. Brenda Alfred, Operations PR Manager supporting Amazon operations in Minnesota, told DailyMail.com: 'Diversity and inclusion is central to our business and company culture, and associates can pray whenever they choose. 'Prayer breaks less than 20 minutes are paid, and associates are welcome to request an unpaid prayer break for over 20 minutes for which productivity expectations would be adjusted. Amazon added in a statement to DailyMail.com: 'We encourage anyone to compare Amazons pay, benefits, and workplace to other retailers, and to come take a tour and see first-hand.' However Amazon refused to address specific aspects of the lawsuit. 'We respect the privacy of employees and dont discuss complaints publicly.' A judge has declared a missing Florida newlywed legally dead, almost two years to the day she disappeared while honeymooning in the Bahamas with her sailor husband who is facing prison time in her death. Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Scott Suskauer issued an order last week declaring that 41-year-old Isabella Hellman is presumed dead at sea. Her 42-year-old husband, Lewis Bennett, faces sentencing in his wife's death later this month after pleading guilty in November 2018 to involuntary manslaughter. Isabella Hellman, 41 (pictured left), was declared dead at sea last week, nearly two years to the day after she disappeared while honeymooning in the Bahamas with her sailor husband, Lewis Bennett, 42 (left and right), who last year pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter The FBI said holes in the hull of the newlyweds' 37-foot catamaran, Surf into Summer, were inflicted from the inside, and hatches were opened in a deliberate attempt to sink the boat Bennett claimed he was asleep below deck and discovered his wife missing when their catamaran took on water (pictured after sinking) The plea agreement caps his potential prison sentence at eight years. Bennett, who is British-Australian, was found alone in a lifeboat packed with food, water, and suitcases filled with $100,000 worth of stolen coins. He repeatedly claimed he was asleep below deck and discovered his wife missing when their 37-foot catamaran, Surf into Summer, took on water on May 14, 2017. Bennett made an SOS call and claimed the vessel struck an unknown object while he was in a cabin inside the vessel. He was rescued by the US Coast Guard between Cuba and the Bahamas. Authorities searched for Hellman for four days, but never found her body. The FBI said an inspection found that holes in the hull were inflicted from the inside, and hatches were opened below the waterline in a deliberate attempt to sink the boat. After returning to the US, Bennett immediately took the couple's toddler daughter to the UK where his family lives, refusing to let Hellman's family see the child. Then he filed a motion with Florida courts asking for his wife to be declared dead and possession of the Delray Beach condo in her name be given to him. A judge rejected the motion. A judge last week ordered that $18,000 from Hellman's estate be placed in a trust fund for her and Hellman's daughter, Emelia (pictured, who turns three in July Hellman's body was never recovered. Investigators believe Bennett sabotaged the boat to inherit his wife's estate and to free himself of 'martial strife' Prosecutors claimed the couple's 'marital strife' was a motive for the alleged murder, along with his alleged desire to inherit her estate. 'Hellmans murder would remove the marital strife from the defendants life, allow the defendant to live his life as he pleased, and would enable him to inherit money from Hellmans estate,' a prosecutor previously said. Text messages from the Colombian-born Hellman said she noticed a change in Bennett's behavior after their daughter Emelia was born in 2016 and he became very angry with her. One of the texts sent by Hellman to Bennett, included in court documents, said: 'Sometimes I can be a pain in the a** and more but you need to change your attitude... you make me crazy shouting, yelling, swearing... YOU ARE PUSHING ME AWAY.' Bennett is said to have thought the baby had come at the 'wrong time' and was 'super angry' about the spelling of the child's name. In August 2017, Bennett was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, but last fall he agreed to plead guilty to the less charge of involuntary manslaughter. In January, Bennett read aloud this apology letter in court, invoking the 'unimaginable pain' of Hellman's family Judge Suskauer on Thursday ordered the FBI to give the keys to Hellmans condominium in Delray Beach to an attorney representing her parents so it can be sold, the South Florida SunSentinel reported. The condo is valued at $130,000 and her bank accounts totaled $41,117. She had $8,524 in credit card bills. The judge also ordered that $18,000 be placed in a trust fund for Bennett and Hellman's daughter, Emelia. The child, who turns three in July, now lives with Bennetts parents in Scotland. The remaining money will go toward debts and defense attorney fees. Bennetts sentencing is set for May 28 in Miami. He apologized to Hellmans family in a letter read aloud in court in January, noting their 'unimaginable pain.' Opposition Leader Bill Shorten made an awkward fumble during his latest television appearance before vowing to help a family facing deportation. Appearing on The Project on Wednesday, the Labor leader made a last-minute bid for voters ahead of this weekend's Federal Election. Mr Shorten effortlessly spun lines about his party's policies while being grilled about climate change and coal mining. But Mr Shorten stumbled midway through a pitch about transitioning from coal and into more renewable energy sources as he got distracted by host Pete Helliar's eyes. Mr Shorten stumbled midway through a pitch about transitioning from coal and into more renewable energy sources as he got distracted by host Pete Helliar's eyes 'This is the equivalent of moving from a horse to a motorcar...we need a government in Canberra who's got a plan to transition us. 'Did you know, for instance, we are proposing to roll outyou've got very blue eyes haven't you Pete?' The hosts erupted in laughter but the jovial quips did not last long and it quickly turned the talk back to policy. During the interview Mr Shorten was asked what he would do to help a Tamil asylum seeker family who are facing deportation. Refugees Nadesalingam, Priya and their two daughters have been in immigration detention since March last year. The family are set to be sent back to to Sri Lanka, where they claim they will face persecution. 'Did you know for instance, we are proposing to roll outyou've got very blue eyes haven't you Pete,' he said before laughter erupted from the hosts Mr Shorten has promised to reopen the case and urged the government not to deport the family before Saturday's election. 'I'm promising to reopen the matter and I'm promising to give it consideration. 'This family, as I understand, has exhausted a range of legal appeals. It's right back on the minister's desk.' The tight-knit Queensland town of Biloela, where the family had originally settled, has been fighting to keep them in Australia. On Tuesday, the High Court dismissed their case for review. Following Sri Lanka's civil war, the pair moved to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013. They were placed in an immigration detention centre in March last year. A spokesperson from the Australian Border Force told ABC the 'family's case has been assessed, over many years, by the department, various tribunals and courts, including the High Court of Australia'. 'Non-citizens who do not hold a valid visa and who have exhausted all outstanding avenues to remain in Australia are expected to depart to their country of citizenship.' Disgraced GP Alan Tutin, pictured, is facing jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting 15 women between 1980 and 2004 A trusted GP who believed he was 'untouchable' while molesting dozens of patients over two decades during 'sexually motivated' intimate examinations is facing jail. Alan Tutin, 71, groped women and girls as young as 12 at the Merrow Park Practice in Guildford, Surrey, between 1980 and late 2004. He sexually assaulted the patients 'under the guise of breast examinations or vaginal examinations' and the court heard he even squeezed a patient's breasts in a 'really immature Benny Hill way' as if they were 'a couple of melons'. A court heard he groped women during breast exams for totally unrelated conditions including a head cold and appendicitis. Tutin, of Tonbridge, Kent, was first accused of sex attacks against patients in 1999, leading to two trials at which he was cleared both times. He was later accused of sexual assault by another woman in 2003, but the General Medical Council opted to take no further action, instead sending him a warning letter about the need for chaperones during examinations with female patients. However another criminal investigation was launched in 2013 following several complaints and letters were sent to thousands of former patients at the practice asking about his conduct. Tutin was convicted of 15 counts of indecent assault against victims as young as 15 after a nine-week trial at the Old Bailey. He was cleared of a further seven charges at that trial, and then cleared of three more sex assault allegations at a retrial at Blackfriars Crown Court. Tutin was also struck off for abusing five patients for his own sexual gratification by the GMC in 2009. He strenuously denied the latest claims, insisting: 'I have always tried to do my best for patients throughout my career.' The case can now be reported after Judge Nigel Peters QC, lifted reporting restrictions following the latest verdicts at Blackfriars Crown Court. Tutin qualified as a doctor in 1974 and spent the next few years doing hospital jobs in general medicine. He then moved into general practice and after completing his year as a trainee GP, spent a year in a practice in Essex before joining the Merrow Park Practice in Guildford in 1980. He remained a partner there for over 25 years, initially as a junior, rising to become senior partner. His wife Angela was also a GP there and they lived with their four children in Guildford. Sally O'Neill QC, prosecuting, said: 'It seems that Alan Tutin ran the financial side of the practice and was undoubtedly someone who wielded a lot of influence. 'He appears to have had quite a dominant personality and perhaps a somewhat arrogant and brusque way of dealing with both patients and staff. 'He may also have been somewhat old-fashioned in his approach to patients and did not explain to them all the time what he was doing before he did it and why it was necessary.' She added: 'He may have felt himself to be untouchable and unchallengeable at the time because of his position both in the practice and in society and no doubt, you will want to bear in mind that things have changed over the years in relation to how a doctor should conduct himself towards a patient.' Tutin was cleared of sexually abusing other women following two trials in 1999, then cleared of inappropriately examining eight women in routine check-ups after a General Medical Council hearing in 2001. Two years later another woman came forward with a complaint and Tutin was eventually arrested in 2006 after more allegations were made, but no action was taken. One of his victims was 17 when she went to see Tutin to be prescribed the pill between 1981 and 1983. She told jurors Tutin used both hands to rub her breasts during the 'uncomfortable, creepy, horrible' appointment. In 1984 or 85, an insurance company required a midwife at the practice to have a medical. Tutin, pictured, was previously cleared of sex attacks at two trials in 1999, but was arrested again in 2013 when more victims came forward, prompting a five year investigation that ended in his conviction. He was cleared of 10 further allegations in this case, and will be sentenced on Friday Tutin used 'totally inappropriate language' when he told her to 'get her kit off' and commented on the size of her breasts. The midwife said she 'felt dirty and violated' and afterwards told two of her colleagues while she was in tears. Another woman described feeling 'mortified, embarrassed and ashamed' when the GP groped her while she was a teenager after going to see him for something innocuous like a wart on her foot. The court heard how another woman went to see Tutin in around 1986 when she was 19 only to be groped by the doctor. Another teenager described how Tutin molested her when she was 15 and said the GP grabbed her breasts whilst supposedly checking for appendicitis. Tutin 'embarrassed' a 16-year-old girl who went to see him in 1994 when he appeared to be 'feeling her breasts' instead of checking for lumps as he claimed. Another woman told jurors Tutin cupped her breast when she was just 12 after asking her to remove her top when she came in to see him over a head cold. In 1995 or 1996 Tutin abused a 26-year-old woman during a vaginal exam while another 26-year-old woman told police how Tutin 'panted' as he groped her inside her bra for 'a good handful and a feel' of her breast before 'rubbing her vagina'. The GP squeezed a patient's breasts in a 'really immature Benny Hill way' as though they were 'a couple of melons' when she was in her early twenties, between 1996 and 1999. Ms O'Neill said: 'She is not now sure whether she also removed her bra but she does recall that he then touched her breasts with both hands, fondling and squeezing them in what she described as a really immature 'Benny Hill' way as though he was feeling a couple of melons.' The victim believed there may have been at least two other times when he did the same before she changed doctors. An air hostess in her mid-twenties reported how the 'smirking' doctor groped one of her breasts and appeared to be 'staring' at them during an appointment for a renewal of her contraceptive pill in 1999. Tutin worked at Merrow Park Practice, pictured, in Guildford, Surrey, between 1980 and late 2004 and committed the offences there A 46-year-old woman was fondled during a breast exam after she lost her voice in 1999. The court heard Tutin 'tried to stimulate' another patient in her early thirties during breast and vaginal examinations later that same year. He behaved in a similar way towards another patient, in her mid-forties, during an internal examination also in 1999, only stopping when she cried out that he was hurting her. An 18-year-old girl told police she was made to feel embarrassed after Tutin groped her breasts during a check-up in 2003. Louise Sweet, QC, defending, said the most recent investigation followed 'publicity and intense gossip of a salacious and poisonous nature' in the wake of the earlier trials. She claimed Tutin's accusers were simply 'misunderstanding' or 'misremembering' what happened to them. She urged the jury not jump on the 'there's no smoke without fire bandwagon'. Tutin will be sentenced at the Old Bailey this Friday and has been remanded in custody. Two more allegations of indecent assault were ordered to lie on file. Ms Sweet referred to this 'awful part of Dr Tutin's life' when the first allegations were made which, she reminded jurors, 'he came out of completely exonerated'. 'This investigation postdates publicity and intense gossip of a salacious and poisonous nature,' she continued. Tutin told jurors: 'I totally deny that I have sexually assaulted any patient. I have always tried to do my best for patients throughout my career.' His wife said the allegations had left her husband feeling 'suicidal'. She said: 'It's been absolutely horrendous. His self-esteem has plummeted to almost nil and he has become very badly depressed from it all. 'It has become very difficult at home and at the surgery. At times he has become suicidal. 'All he ever wanted was to be a doctor. He had to fight to do that, and when he became a doctor he wanted to be the best doctor. 'He was very thorough during examinations but if you're no thorough, you don't find anything.' Speaking after Tutin's retrial concluded Detective Chief Inspector Richard Haycock, who was in charge of the investigation, said: 'Alan Tutin completely abused his position to sexually assault his female patients of a variety of age ranges over a long period of time. This was a gross breach of the trust that they placed in him as a doctor. 'Whilst there had been previous proceedings and investigations, we were committed to a thorough and meticulous investigation to reveal the true extent of his offending. 'I have nothing but praise and respect for the victims and everyone who has come forward and given us their accounts and evidence. I want to pay particular recognition and admiration to those who have had the courage to give evidence against Tutin in court. 'Many of them did not come forward at the time because they were embarrassed or were unwilling to complain for fear their allegations against a doctor would not be believed. 'I hope that the guilty verdicts reached in the first trial has given them, and others in a similar position, the confidence that even if you are making allegations against a person in a position of trust or authority and even if these allegations happened a long time ago, you will always be taken seriously and a thorough investigation will always be carried out. 'I also hope that the guilty verdicts will allow Tutin's victims and all those affected by this dreadful set of events to put this ordeal behind them and finally get on with their lives.' DCI Haycock continued: 'This has been a lengthy, complex and challenging investigation over five years. 'I am very proud of the small team of officers in Surrey Police's Complex Abuse Unit, and would like to thank and commend them for working tirelessly on this case to ensure that Tutin was brought to justice for his indefensible crimes.' He will be sentenced at the Old Bailey this Friday. Concerned pilots confronted Boeing over safety issues with the 737 Max 8 jet after the Lion Air disaster - four months before the second deadly crash in Ethiopia, a new audio recording reveals. In the weeks following the deadly crash 737 Max 8 jet in Indonesia back in October, American Airlines pilots called a meeting to press Boeing executives to urgently address a series of safety issues. The call for action, which could have required the best-selling aircraft model to be temporarily grounded, was made during a November 27 meeting between the American Airlines pilots union and officials from the aircraft manufacturer. Pilots voiced a particular concern about the jets MCAS anti-stall system during the conference, but Boeing executives resisted, insisting they didnt want to rush out a fix and they believed pilots would be capable of handling any glitches in the system. Weeks after a Lion Air flight crashed in October, American Airline pilots urged Boeing to address safety concerns regarding the new MCAS anti-stall system (pictured: AA Boeing 737 Max 8 takes off from JFK, March 2011) One pilot asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8 - which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time - in the wake of the Lion Air disaster (Rescue workers lowered parts by the plane crash Lion Air JT 610 aircraft on Saturday 3 November 2018 Boeings Vice President, Mike Sinnett, said the company was investigating potential design flaws with the aircraft including the anti-stall software but refused to take more any further action saying the circumstances surrounding the Lion Air Crash that killed 198 people were still unclear. No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane, Sinnett can be heard saying in November, according to The New York Times. The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one. Less than four months after, another 737 MAX 8 crashed in Ethiopia, leaving no survivors among the 157 people on board. An investigation into each of the crashes has since suggested that the contentious anti-stall system played a part in each of the disasters. The 737 MAX 8 is currently grounded worldwide while further investigations into the aircrafts development are carried out, and its design addressed. We're the last line of defense to being in that smoking hole. And we need the knowledge Alongside Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration is also facing fierce scrutiny for its part in certifying the jet as well as waiting several days before grounding the MAX after the second crash. In Novembers meeting, held at the Fort Worth headquarters of the American Airlines pilots union, members expressed that they werent told enough about the MCAS system, a new feature of the 737 MAX 8. These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else, said Mike Michaelis, head of safety for the pilot's union. No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane, Sinnett can be heard saying in the November meeting An investigation into each of the crashes has since suggested that the contentious anti-stall system had played a part in each of the crashes (pictured: Rescuers work at the crash site of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302) In the conference, Michaelis urged Boeing to push the FAA to enact an emergency airworthiness directive. The FAA had previously issued a directive after the Lion Air flight crashed, in which they instructed airlines to amend their flight manuals to include information on how to respond to an MCAS malfunction. But in a letter obtained by AFP, Michaelis said the instructions weren't sufficient for pilots to know how to handle malfunctions with the anti-stall system. The New York Times said Michaelis asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8 - which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time. 'I don't know that understanding this system would've changed the outcome on this,' Sinnett told the congregated pilots, insisting the Lion Air crash would be an isolated incident. 'In a million miles, you're going to maybe fly this airplane, maybe once you're going to see this, ever. So we try not to overload the crews with information that's unnecessary so they actually know the information we believe is important.' Another 737 MAX 8 crashed in Ethiopia (above) in March, leaving no survivors among the 157 people on board. The aircraft was been grounded globally since But tensions became heated, with one dissatisfied pilot saying: 'We're the last line of defense to being in that smoking hole. And we need the knowledge.' Boeing assured the pilots it would make software changes, projecting a six week completion period, but said it didn't want to rush anything. 'We want to make sure we're fixing the right things,' an official said in CBS' exclusively obtained recording. 'That's the important thing. To make sure we're fixing the right things. We don't want to rush and do a crappy job of fixing the right things, and we also don't want to fix the wrong things.' These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane - nor did anybody else That fix was still in development when the second 737 Max crashed in March, leading to the worldwide grounding of the plane. As the meeting drew to a close, spokesperson for the union, Dennis Tajer, asked the Boeing board if they were still confident in the aircraft. Do you feel comfortable that the situation is under control today, before any software fix is implemented? Tajer asked. Sinnett replied: Absolutely. Boeing assured the pilots it would make software changes, projecting a six week completion period, but said it didn't want to rush anything. That fix was still in development when the second 737 Max crashed four months later Airlines and governments worldwide ordered the 737 MAX 8 to stop flying in the days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Boeing has been working on a software fix for the flight system and hoping for quick approval from regulators, but it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season. American Airlines told Dallas News it has the 'utmost confidence' in its fleet. 'We remain confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the MAX, will lead to re-certification of the aircraft soon,' the airline said in a statement. 'Our team continues to work collaboratively with the FAA, Boeing and the Allied Pilots Association in this process.' One Colorado resident woke up to an unbearable surprise after realizing he hadn't locked his car overnight. It wasn't a thief that had broken inside, and nothing had been stolen. But the interior was almost completely unrecognizable, thanks to one very hungry bear. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) posted a video of the car, which had been parked in front of a home in Estes Park, on its Facebook page on Friday. Scroll down for video One Colorado resident woke up to an unbearable surprise after a bear broke into his unlocked car overnight. Colorado Parks and Wildlife posted a video of the car damage on its Facebook It showed that the interior of the car had been completely ripped to shreds, with the seats torn up so badly that the foam stuffing was coming out. The driver side door was also completely destroyed and the ceiling of the car had been pulled down as well. CPW revealed that this was actually the second bear break-in to occur that very night. 'This video from last night's incident shows what can happen to your vehicle if you leave your car doors unlocked,' the caption read. It showed that the interior of the car had been completely ripped to shreds, with the seats torn up so badly that the foam stuffing was coming out 'Bears are exceptionally smart, which means us humans have to be exceptionally Bear Smart!' Just the day before, CPW revealed there had been several reports of bears getting into cars in the past two weeks in Estes Park, which is 40 miles north of Boulder. 'If you live or visit in bear country, please double check EVERY evening that your car doors/windows are LOCKED and completely closed,' it warned in the caption. 'Also be sure to keep your car clean. No visible soft drink cups in the cup holder and no food or groceries in plain view from the car windows.' CPW revealed that this was actually the second vehicle that a bear had broken into just that very night Just the day before, CPW revealed there had been several reports of bears getting into cars in the past two weeks in Estes Park, which is 40 miles north of Boulder. Pictured are two cubs who got into a car in Colorado in a previous incident 'Please do your part to prevent bears learning this behavior and help keep them WILD.' Black bears in Colorado are known for being 'curious, intelligent, and very resourceful,' according to the CPW website. These bears will explore 'all possible food sources' and if they find any near a home, camp, or car, they'll come back looking for more. 'Bears will work hard to get the calories they need, and can easily damage property, vehicles, and homes,' it warns. 'Bears that become aggressive in their pursuit of an easy meal must often be destroyed.' 'Every time were forced to destroy a bear, it's not just the bear that loses. We all lose a little piece of the wildness that makes Colorado so special.' A student who helped thwart a shooting at a suburban Denver high school says he was still pinning one of the attackers down when he decided to his mother. Joshua Jones, an 18-year-old senior at STEM School Highlands Ranch, said during a news conference Tuesday he was watching The Princess Bride in his British literature class when a classmate pulled a gun and told everyone to stay still. Jones said he was acting on instinct when he, Kendrick Castillo and Brendan Bialy subdued one of two students who attacked the school south of Denver on May 7. 'We rushed him. I pulled him to the ground, Kendrick got the gun out of him, I shoved him to the wall,' Jones explained. He was shot twice in one leg but said he is recovering quickly. Joshua Jones, front, who was wounded while trying to stop a gunman involved in the attack on the STEM School Highlands Ranch last week, speaks during a news conference as his father, David, listens Tuesday, in Littleton, Colorado Lorie Jones, back, smiles as her son, Joshua, says he called her while pinning school shooter to the ground 'There wasn't a whole lot that was going through my mind at the time. Adrenaline and tunnel vision are a crazy thing,' said Jones, who described himself as just a normal teenage kid. 'They make it so that you don't really focus on anything but what's right in front of your face at that moment.' He did, however, have the presence of mind to call his mother Lorie Jones while pinning suspect Devon Erickson. 'She always has been a problem solver for me,' he said, adding that she told him not to worry. 'It was a pretty quick conversation. Devon Erickson (pictured Wednesday), along with a juvenile who prefers to be called Alec McKinney, will appear in Douglas County court in Castle Rock 'It was really just something like, "Hey, Mom. There's been a school shooting. I've been involved. The authorities are on the way. They're going to get an ambulance and I'm going to go to the hospital. That's all I got right now for you".' Lorie Jones says she asked her son if he was bleeding and he replied 'just a little', she reveals in a video from Fox Denver. Jones said he'd always been taught to get away in a situation like last week's but he did what he thought was best for him. Castillo is to be honored at a memorial service on Wednesday at a Highlands Ranch church. The 18-year-old robotics enthusiast and aspiring engineer was shot dead as he charged at the shooters in an effort to disarm them. Just three days shy of graduation, Castillo was pronounced dead at the scene. The second shooter was captured by an armed security guard. Authorities have said these acts of bravery helped minimize the bloodshed from the attack, which also wounded eight students, all of whom have since been released from the hospital. 'We're going to hear about very heroic things that have taken place at the school,' Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said shortly after the shooting. Devon Erickson, 18, and 16-year-old Alec McKinney, who is listed in court records as Maya Elizabeth McKinney but who identifies as male, are accused of walking into the school through an entrance without metal detectors and opening fire in two classrooms. The teen said Lorie Jones had always been a problem solver for him and told him not to worry Lorie Jones says she asked her son if he was bleeding and he replied 'just a little' Investigators have not offered a motive and declined to say how the students got the handguns that were used in the attack. The two are being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, and prosecutors are expected to reveal Wednesday if they are going to charge McKinney as an adult. Colorado law allows prosecutors to file adult charges of serious felonies against 16- and 17-year-olds without prior approval from a judge. Jones declined to talk about the shooters Tuesday, instead focusing on Castillo and his own physical and emotional recovery. He said he is 'still in a bit of a funk' emotionally ... 'but physically, I'm recovering incredibly well. I'm healing fast. I mean, I'm a young kid.' The shooting happened nearly three weeks after the neighboring town of Littleton marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School attack that killed 13 people. The two schools are separated by about 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Denver. Jones spoke about how Kendrick Castillo and Brendan Bialy tackled the teen who opened fire David Jones, back, considers a question as his son, Joshua, looks on during a news conference Two teenagers accused of fatally shooting a classmate and wounding eight others at a Denver-area high school last week are set to return to court on Wednesday for the formal filing of charges. They were both arrested on suspicion of a single count of first-degree murder and 29 counts of attempted murder immediately after the shooting spree. The two teens made their initial court appearances last week in separate hearings before Douglas County District Judge Theresa Slade, who ordered them both held without bond. Denvers ABC affiliate television station has reported that the two pistols used in the attack were stolen from the home of Erickson, whose parents had purchased the guns legally. Court documents relating to the case have been sealed. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office has declined to comment. STEM School Highlands Ranch senior Brendan Bialy, second from right, sits with his father, Brad Bialy, left, attorney Mark Bryant, center, and mother, Dena Martin, right, as he speaks to the media on May 8 The attack occurred less than a month after the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in nearby Littleton, in which two students shot 13 people to death before dying by suicide. Five months ago, a school district official urged the STEM schools director to investigate allegations of student bullying and violence by a parent who feared they could lead to the next 'Columbine'. The director said an investigation found no evidence to support the allegations. The STEM school had no sworn police officer at the 1,850-student campus, after a dispute with the sheriffs office over the previous school resource officer's role ended that relationship last year, the school said last week. Instead a private security company was hired to patrol the kindergarten-high school campus. An armed security guard responded to last weeks shooting. ABC News, citing an unnamed law enforcement official, reported last week that the security guard may have mistakenly fired on sheriffs deputies called to the scene and wounded a student in the chaos. The CBS News television affiliate in Denver reported that a special prosecutor from neighboring El Paso County is probing the actions of the security guard. A spokeswoman for El Paso County District Attorney Dan May declined to comment on the report. Kendrick Castillo was killed as he tried to save the lives of others. A display grows outside the STEM School Highlands Ranch (right) a week after the attack on the school that left one student dead and others injured A 17-month-old girl has died after she was sexually assaulted at a Virginia motel after she was left with a person her mother trusted. Nariah Ivy Brown died Friday after she was violently abused by a man two days earlier. Her mother, Aija Brown, said she left her daughter at a motel in Richmond. Brown said the suspect was someone she trusted but when she returned to the motel she found her daughter wounded. Scroll down for video Seventeen-month-old Nariah Ivy Brown (pictured) has died after she was sexually assaulted at a Virginia motel Nariah (left and right) died Friday after she was violently abused by a man two days earlier. Her mother, Aija Brown (left), said she left her daughter with the man at a motel in Richmond She immediately rushed her daughter to a local hospital. 'I was giving my baby CPR in the back seat,' Brown told WTVR. 'Because I thought she wasn't breathing.' Nariah was then hospitalized for two days until she tragically passed away on Friday. Brown said her daughter was born prematurely, and fought to live for three months. 'I was gonna always do anything to protect her,' Brown told the station. 'She was loving. She would go up to strangers hug them and smile.' Richmond police confirmed that they do have a person of interest in custody. Authorities said the suspect was arrested by US Marshals on a probation violation, Crime Insider sources told WTVR. However, no one has been charged with the grisly crime. Authorities haven't released Nariah's official cause of death. A GoFundMe was created to help Nariah's family with funeral expenses. Brown (pictured with Nariah after she was born) said her daughter was born prematurely, and fought to live for three months. 'I was gonna always do anything to protect her,' Brown told the station. 'She was loving. She would go up to strangers hug them and smile' Authorities haven't released Nariah's official cause of death. Richmond police confirmed that they do have a person of interest in custody in Nariah's case However, no one has been charged with the grisly crime 'Nariah was an outgoing, happy and loving baby, who life was snatched away from a mother, grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles and a host of family who loved her deeply,' the account reads. 'She had plenty of different loving personalities and loved to dance. Nariah Ivy Brown will be truly missed. Please continue to keep her family in your prayers during this incredibly tragic time.' A vigil was held for the toddler Tuesday night. Several family members and friends shared video of the vigil as they released dozens of balloons. 'Just heart breaking. May we all find peace in our hearts knowing she is with our King. In absolute peace and infinite glory,' the caption of the video reads. An Ohio woman has been sentenced to just 15 days in jail after she hit and killed a young girl while leaving church. Gloria Bartek, 77, was exiting the Mary Queen of the Apostles Parish in Brook Park last September when her Chevy Cruz crossed the street and crashed into eight-year-old Khloe Nida in the yard of her home. The third-grader was reportedly in the process of bringing milk to her grandparents when she was mowed down by the vehicle. On Monday, a judge ruled that Bartek could complete her prison time staggered over the course of five years, meaning she'll only spend three days of every 12 months behind bars. She'll serve the three days each year from September 8th - the date that Nida was killed. Khloe Nida, eight, was killed last September after she was struck down by a vehicle which plowed into front yard of her Brook Park home Gloria Bartek, 77, was behind the wheel of the Chevy Cruz that struck and killed Nida. She was sentenced to 15 days in prison on Monday Bartek's driver's license was also suspended for five years and she was slapped with a $500 fine after pleading no contest to the misdemeanor charge of negligent vehicular homicide. The elderly lady's Chevy had no mechanical issues, and she reportedly failed to step on her brakes or sound her car horn as the vehicle sped across the street and plowed into the young girl. The light sentence came after Bartek failed to apologize to Nida's parents, who are still struggling to come to terms with their daughter's death. W. Craig Bashein, who is acting as the Nida family lawyer, spoke with The New York Daily News on Tuesday and described Bartek's 'lack of remorse' as ''incomprehensible'. Nida's distraught parents spoke to the packed courtroom about the grief they feel following their young daughter's death The light sentence came after Bartek failed to apologize to Nida's parents Nida was remembered for 'her strong leadership skills and always having a smile on her face' The family are now pursuing a civil lawsuit, and hope that it will be able to provide further answers into how the tragedy occurred. Prior to sentencing, Nida's parents broke down in tears as they spoke to courtroom about the loss of their child. 'Khloe was my best friend, we did everything together,' sobbed mother Amanda Nida, in video obtained by Fox 8 Cleveland. Nida's shock death caused an outpouring of grief in the Brook Park community last September. A GoFundMe account set up by the victim's aunt raised more than $18,000 dollars and a candlelight vigil was held at the Brook Park Memorial School. The third grader was remembered for 'her strong leadership skills and always having a smile on her face'. Police dashcam video shows emergency crews responding to the incident last September Chrissie Curtis is pictured with her three-year-old spaniel Luna A mother-of-three was horrified when she realised her pet dog had been bitten by a venomous snake. Chrissie Curtis returned from a walk in the woods with her three-year-old spaniel Luna to find her whimpering in pain. Soon after they arrived home in Buxton, Derbyshire, the retired nurse noticed Luna's leg swell up so she took her to the vets. Experts discovered she had been bitten twice by an adder - the only poisonous snake in the UK - and was in need of urgent treatment. Ms Curtis, 58, was told the bites could have proved fatal if she hadn't rushed her to the vets. She said: 'Luna is used to long walks and she is a tough dog, so to hear her crying in pain was a real shock. 'I knew immediately something was wrong, but I thought she had just pulled a muscle. 'I tried to examine her, but I couldn't see anything apart from that her leg had started to swell so I drove her to the vets 20 minutes away. 'They asked my permission to sedate her and I thought she would be ready in about an hour, so I went for an ice cream. I had no idea she had been bitten by a snake.' Luna's hind legs turned a deep red and purple after she was bitten twice by an adder After initial checks, vets discovered Luna had been bitten by the poisonous snake twice, with two sets of teeth marks discovered on her hind right leg. Ms Curtis was horrified she could have unwittingly made the situation worse by allowing Luna to continue walking, inadvertently spreading the poison around her body. She added said: 'When I realised it was an adder bite I was devastated, I thought I was going to have to say goodbye to her. It was horrendous. 'The vets said adder bites are rare, I'd seen my friend's dog suffer a snake bite and not make it, so I was immediately thinking the worse. Ms Curtis, 58, was told the bites could have proved fatal if she hadn't rushed her to the vets Are there any poisonous snakes in Britain? The only venomous snake native to the UK is the adder. Adults are roughly 50-60cm long and have a black/brown zigzag pattern along their back and V or X shaped marking on the back of the head. They are most commonly found in the south and south west of England, western Wales and Scotland where their preferred habitats are sand dunes, rocky hillsides, moorland and woodland edges. Adders are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, this means its an offence to kill, harm, injure, sell or trade them. Adder bites are fairly rare. Snakes generally only bite in self-defence, so normally bites occur when a snake is stepped on or disturbed by your dog. The majority of bites in dogs seem to occur between April and July, most commonly in the afternoon when the adders are most active. Advertisement 'It was lucky I took her to the vets so promptly because she was put on fluids and antibiotics and given antivenom to counteract the bite.' Luna is now recovering at home after a two-night stay at the vets but there is still a small chance the working dog may need a skin graft. Her owner says she is now avoiding walking in the woods near her home and any walks around water. Ms Curtis, who also has a cat, said: 'Luna still has a lump on her leg, the size of an egg. 'Luckily, vets have told me there is a 90 per cent chance she won't need a skin graft. 'I am so relieved that she is still here. It's so great to have her home. 'I'd never thought about adders while walking Luna before but now I am more cautious about where she goes. It puts you off and makes you think. 'People have told me now that walking spreads the venom around the body so just to carry the dog rather than let them walk.' 'Luna is a working dog, so she often goes pheasant beating in the bushes but I'm keeping a close eye on her now. 'I haven't gone back there since, we're lucky that there are a lot of walks near where I live.' Vascular surgeon Dr. Michael Watkins is facing a variety of charges after he was involved in One of Boston's top doctors has been charged after he allegedly plowed his car into three pedestrians while under the influence of alcohol. On Tuesday, Dr. Michael Watkins, 64, pleaded not guilty to assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene after causing personal injury. Police claim Watkins was driving in Boston's South End shortly before midnight on Friday when he honked at a man and two women while they were crossing the street. They say he then put his foot on the accelerator to speed up and crash into them. The trio were taken to nearby hospitals where they were treated for minor injuries. Watkins is a prominent vascular surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he serves as the Associate Director at their Center For Diversity and Inclusion. He is also listed as an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. A graduate of both NYU and Harvard, Watkins has been a practicing surgeon for more than 20 years. Watkins appeared in court on Tuesday (pictured), where he plead not guilty to all charges The incident happened at this busy crosswalk in Boston's South End on Friday night He has been released on $1,5000 bail and is set to return to court in July. It's unclear whether Watkins deliberately rammed into the pedestrians, but Friday's incident was witnessed by several people. He is said to have honked at the three pedestrians, before one of them pointed to the crosswalk sign to indicate that they had right of way. Witnesses say Watkins then beeped four more times, before accelerating and crashing into them. Watkins is a top surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital (pictured) Watkins is also listed as an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School The surgeon did not stop following the incident, and officers found him parked in his car a short distance away. A police report filed afterward said he 'smelled of alcohol'. On Tuesday, Massachusetts General Hospital released a statement saying it is following the matter closely. 'The thoughts of the MGH community are with all those who have been affected by this very difficult and unfortunate incident,' it read. 'We wish the pedestrians involved a full and speedy recovery. Dr. Michael Watkins is a highly regarded senior vascular surgeon who has long been a leader on the MGH medical staff as well as in the community.' A man has been arrested at taser point after he allegedly attacked the windows of a court with a hammer. Footage taken by a bystander shows a man repeatedly smashing glass windows of Parramatta Bail Court with a hammer. While another video shared online shows three NSW Police officers surrounding the suspect. Two of them have their tasers out while another shouts instructions at the man. One officer can be heard shouting: 'Get down on the ground. Get down.' While initial reports said the man had been tasered by the police a NSW Police spokesperson said that was not the case. Seven News reported that hearings at the court are likely to be interrupted as there is 'major damage' to the building. Footage taken by a bystander shows a man repeatedly smashing glass windows of Parramatta Bail Court with a hammer A four-year-old girl is in a coma after having her scalp ripped off by a lioness at a zoo in South Africa. Dina-Marie de Beer was on a family trip to the Weltevrede Lion Farm in Heilbron when she was brutally attacked by the animal despite being in her father's arms. The young lioness reportedly 'clawed Dina's skull' through a section of fence as father Pieter walked close to the cage. The lioness was said to have stretched through the fence of her enclosure and clawed the girl's skull. Pictured: A lioness reclining at the Weltevrede Lion Farm A tour guide told the Independent that Pieter 'got a bit too close, the lion grabbed him through the fence'. Pieter was said to have received minor injuries in the melee but Dina's scalp was ripped off and her skull was 'penetrated' by the lionesses' claws. After the horror incident she was put in an induced coma at Netcare Union Hospital in Alberton and had part of her skull removed to relieve pressure on the brain. The farm's manager called the attack a 'freak accident' but said staff at the centre are hopeful Dina will make a 'quick recovery'. The girl was airlifted to hospital and put in an induced coma at Netcare Union Hospital in Alberton. Pictured: A group of lions at the farm After the incident the Weltevrede Lion Farm posted an update on their Facebook account warning people of the dangers posed by lions. The guides were posted alongside the caption: 'New signs. Hope this will help people understand and follow our rules.' Two young sisters were attacked at the same lion farm in 2010, Beeld Newspaper reported. On that occasion they both escaped with minor injuries. Guests at one Atlanta wedding over the weekend got quite the surprise when the bride began her walk down the aisle accompanied by none other than Oprah Winfrey. The former queen of daytime flew down to Georgia so that she could be there when Lizhuwani Gloria Rapalalani said 'I do' to her new husband in front of her friends. Oprah looked flawless and decades younger than her 65 years as she accompanied the bride down the aisle, choosing to wear a cafe-au-lait-colored chiffon caftan for the ceremony. She kept her look completely understated beyond that, choosing to wear a flower on her hand as is tradition, and appeared to eschew all jewelry with the exception of her glasses. Rapalalani, who was one of the first graduates from Oprah's girls-only leadership academy in South Africa, was also accompanied by one of her professors from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Elizabeth Burns. Scroll down for video They do: Oprah Winfrey walked Lizhuwani Gloria Rapalalani down the aisle on Saturday in Georgia (with Elizabeth Burns on right from SCAD) Mama O: The trip also allowed Oprah to spend Mother's Day with a number of the girls from her academy (Thando Dlomo above with Oprah on Sunday) The trip also allowed Oprah to spend Mother's Day with a number of the girls from her academy, one of whom paid tribute to the television host by posting a photo of the pair on Instagram. 'The love in this one speaks for itself. Happy Mothers Day to the woman who has cradled my dreams and heart since I was 12; stood firmly in the face of my demons and helped me fight my way through them,' wrote Thando Dlomo. 'The day my mother passed she sat with me on my little twin sized bed and held me until I stopped crying. Thank you for the honor of being your daughter-girl, @Oprah.' Oprah also posted a photo of herself with all the girls. 'This is my first Mothers day on earth without a mother,' wrote Oprah as she stood with a dozen young women. 'So happy to share with all my daughter girls from South Africa and my niece @chrishaundalee . Celebrating Glorias wedding yesterday and Mothers day today! Blessings to all the Mothers.' It was the second time that Oprah was spotted with Rapalalani in the past month, having also accompanied her when she got her wedding dress at Saks in April. The iconic television personality shared a photo on her Instagram Saturday that showed her enjoying some very meaningful retail therapy with one of her girls as she gets ready to walk down the aisle. 'Ive known these girls since they were 12 and 13 coming to my school. Graduating from college. Grad school. Now our first wedding. Looking for the perfect dress. #biglifemoment,' wrote Oprah in the Instagram post. She included a photo of her and her three former students, including the bride-to-be who was seen holding a $10,000 bridal gown from Berta. Oprah and her girls made an entire day out of the shopping excursion, first stopping off at Spago for food before hitting up the Saks Fifth Avenue bridal salon in Beverly Hills. The salon was of course not open to the public at that time, allowing the group to shop for the perfect look without being interrupted by Oprah's fans. Oprah and her girls made an entire day out of the shopping excursion, first stopping off at Spago for food before hitting up the Saks Fifth Avenue bridal salon in Beverly Hills Morgan Mpungose, who holds her masters degree in architecture from the University of Southern California, was one of the women on the trip and shared some snaps of the day. So did Mpumi Nobiva, who recorded one video of herself running through the store while holding one of the custom dresses against her body. Practicing for when my turn comes? ... lol helping pick a dress was SO fun. Now... we wait for the groom to arrive in about ... 10 years - at least - I hope (or more) #monatempolaye,' wrote Nobiva. Nobiva, who was just 9 when she lost her mother to an HIV/AIDs-related illness, is an international speaker. She too has her master's degree, in strategic communications. Oprah's commitment to the education of young girls in Africa has paid off in a big way, and every year she makes a point of being in attendance to watch as at least one of her graduates accepts their degree from American colleges. The three young women were all part of the inaugural class at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Oprah said she made a promise to Nelson Mandela back when her school first opened that she would attend the graduations of the first group of girls. She did that and then some, also going to watch them collect their master's degrees and now wedding dress shopping at Saks. The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa is a girls-only boarding school that opened in 2007 near Johannesburg. Oprah said she wanted to open the school given her own struggles in her youth. There were 72 girls in the first graduating class, who began at the school when they were in the eighth grade. Every single one of those girls received a full college scholarship, and as part of her promise Oprah will be there whenever one of them accepts her degree. A 70-year-old Oklahoma man was found driving through Arizona with his dead wife after a Carl's Jr employee spotted her naked corpse upside down in the passenger seat. Rodney Puckett was only wearing underpants when he was pulled over by police in Eloy, Arizona, on Monday and an officer noticed the dead body in the front seat. The deceased was identified as Rodney's 74-year-old estranged wife Linda Puckett. Her body was upside down, with her head resting in the wheel well and legs up in the air, according to police. Authorities were tipped off to the situation after Rodney stopped by the Carl's Jr in Eloy and ordered a burger. Maria Davis, who was manning the drive thru at the time, said Rodney initially caught her attention because he was honking his horn and appeared to be naked. She then looked over to the passenger side of his car and saw a woman completely naked with her face in the wheel well and legs in the air. 'It wasn't normal,' Davis told KOLD. 'There was like a blue cover he had in the front, and he was like trying to cover her, like her behind, but her legs were still sticking up in the air. 'I kept telling my coworker: "I can't believe what Im seeing before my eyes."' Rodney Puckett, 70, (left) was arrested Monday while driving through Eloy, Arizona, with his wife Linda's naked corpse in the passenger seat. He claimed that the 74-year-old (right) died at a hotel in El Paso, Texas, while they were on a road trip from Oklahoma to California Authorities were tipped off to the situation after Rodney stopped by the Carl's Jr in Eloy and ordered a burger. Maria Davis (above), who was manning the drive thru at the time, said she couldn't believe her eyes when she spotted the customer's striking passenger Davis tried to remain calm and stall Rodney for long enough to get a license plate number. 'I was shaking, scared,' she said. 'My heart felt like it was going to stop, it was beating so fast. I was trying to keep eye contact with him, but I was scared.' After he pulled away she contacted police, who stopped Rodney on Interstate 10 a short time later. The Carl's Jr location on N Toltec Road where Rodney allegedly stopped to get a burger before his deceased passenger was spotted is pictured above The car Rodney was driving when he was pulled over on Interstate 10 is pictured above The map above shows the more than 1,000 miles between Rodney and Linda's home in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, and where the husband was arrested on Monday in Eloy, Oklahoma Rodney told police that the couple, who live in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, were on a road trip when he found Linda unresponsive at a hotel in El Paso, Texas. He said he moved her body into the car and continued driving toward their destination in California. Police obtained a video which reportedly shows Rodney rolling his wife's blanketed body out of the hotel on a luggage cart. Eloy is nearly 370 miles from El Paso, an approximately five-and-a-half hour drive. 'I have been in law enforcement and with the Eloy Police Department for 17 years and this is the most bizarre case I have ever seen in Eloy,' Sgt Kristie Barnette said. Rodney is pictured above in his mugshot. The 70-year-old is jailed on a charge of abandonment or concealment of a corpse Linda's body was turned over to the Pinal County Medical Examine to determine the cause of death. Officials said there were signs of blunt force trauma on her body. The Eloy Police Department and Texas authorities have teamed up to determine whether she was the victim of a homicide. Rodney is currently being held at Pinal County Jail on a charge of abandonment or concealment of a body. The investigation is ongoing and police say additional charges may be filed against him at a later date. Rodney and Linda had been married since 2011 and were in the middle of a divorce. Linda filed for divorce and sought a protective order against her husband earlier this year. The order was granted on February 6 and continued on Monday, according to court records obtained by ABC15. According to the Arizona outlet, Rodney was reported missing in April and a Silver Alert was issued, stating that he had bipolar disorder. The alert was canceled when authorities learned that he hadn't been heard from because he was in a Kansas jail for eluding police. Linda Puckett is seen above in an undated photo released by her family after her death A purse snatching suspect accused of targeting Asian women with expensive bags has been arrested for a handbag robbery that saw a mother and her young daughter being violently dragged down a flight of stairs. Pablo Cabrera, 26, was caught on surveillance video targeting the woman and her child at an outdoor office block in San Jose, California on May 6. Surveillance footage from the building showed the mother holding her daughter's hand as they walked up the flight of stairs. Pablo Cabrera, 26, (bottom left) was caught on surveillance video targeting the woman and her child at an outdoor office block in San Jose, California on May 6 The video showed a man approaching from a distance before he followed the pair up the stairs and lunged for the woman's purse. Police said Cabrear 'violently pulled' the bag from the victim, which caused the woman and her daughter to be dragged down the stairs. Detectives said surveillance video of the robbery showed Cabrera fleeing the area in a black Lexus. Using a description of Cabrear and his vehicle, police said they were able to link Cabrera to other purse snatching robberies. Police said all of Cabrear's other alleged victims were Asian female carrying expensive purses. The video showed Cabrera approaching from a distance before he followed the pair up the stairs and lunged for the woman's purse Surveillance footage from the building showed the mother holding her daughter's hand as they walked up the flight of stairs before Cabrera approached from behind The video showed Cabrera approaching from a distance before he followed the pair up the stairs and lunged for the woman's purse 'Cabrera attacked victims from behind, grabbed their purse, and ran to his car,' police said. Cabrear was eventually arrested at his home on Saturday and police say they found evidence linking him to other robberies. He was out on parole for burglary. Cabrear was subsequently booked into Santa Clara County Jail for robbery and parole violation. 'We are fortunate this predator was caught before any more members of the public were victimized,' San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia said. Donald Trump appears more youthful as a campaigner than some of his younger Democratic opponents, Joe Scarborough said Wednesday and the president was quick to troll him for the unexpected praise. 'Yes, Democrats, he is going to be hard to beat, because he does look like he is about 20 years younger than a lot of Democratic candidates,' Scarborough said on his MSNBC 'Morning Joe' program. Trump, 72, trolled him in a tweet less than three hours later. 'Thank you Joe and remember, the BRAIN is much sharper also!' he wrote. 'Morning Joe' Scarborough said Wednesday that President Donald Trump looks '20 years younger' on the campaign trail than his Democratic rivals Trump, pictured hamming it up in Louisiana on Tuesday, fired back at Scarborough on Twitter The president, age 72, said his brain is sharper than the Democrats who want his job Former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, is cmapaigning in New Hampshire and drawing hundreds where Trump typically attracts thousands DailyMail.com first injected candidates' age into the 2020 equation on April 26, asking Trump at the White House whether the 76-year-old former vice president Joe Biden was too old to be president. 'I think that I feel like a young man. I'm so young!' a gleeful Trump exclaimed, turning the question into a one-person focus group about his own vitality. 'I'm the youngest person! I'm a young, vibrant man,' he said. 'I look at Joe, I don't know about him. I don't know,' Trump added then. 'I would never say anyone's too old but I know they're all making me look very young both in terms of age and in terms of energy.' Biden will be 78 years old on Inauguration Day in 2021. Trump was 70 years, 220 days old when he took office, making him the oldest first-term president in history. Ronald Reagan entered office at the age of 69 years, 349 days. The former VP told a Michigan crowd in October: 'I think its totally appropriate for people to look at me and say, if I were to run for office again, "Well, God darn, you're old." Well, chronologically, I am old.' At 77, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is the oldest mainstream candidate in the 2020 field; former Alaska Gov. Mike Gravel, a long-shot who has said he doesn't intend to win, is 89 Trump hasn't yet adopted a regular campaign schedule but his rallies and public speeches tend to draw massive crowds who are hungry for the swagger that won him the White House in 2016 DailyMail.com asked Trump on April 26 if Biden is too old to be president; he responded that he feels like a 'young, vibrant man' Two other Democratic candidates are even older than Biden: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would be 79 if he were to take the presidential oath of office. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel would be an eye-popping 90. Scarborough, a onetime Florida Republican congressman, seemed to recognize on Wednesday the peril his adopted political party faces. 'Let's just be blunt about Donald Trump. That guy can do on a campaign stage what nobody else can do,' Scarborough said. 'He can engage the audience. He can engage viewers, despite the hateful rhetoric, despite everything else. You can see that guy is gearing up for 2020.' More than 120 MPs have called for an urgent inquiry into the way the family courts in England and Wales treat victims of domestic abuse or rape and their children. It comes after campaigner Sammy Woodhouse, a survivor of Rotherham's child exploitation scandal, called for a law change after revealing the man who raped her as a teenager had been given a chance to play a role in her son's life. The MPs are pushing for the review after a number of cases where people have complained they have had to face their abusers in the courts. They are also backing calls for a change in the law to make it more difficult for abusers to have contact with children conceived through rape. More than 120 MPs have called for an urgent inquiry into the way the family courts in England and Wales treat victims of domestic abuse after campaigner Sammy Woodhouse, pictured, a survivor of Rotherham's child exploitation scandal, called for a law change after revealing the man who raped her as a teenager had been given a chance to play a role in her son's life Ms Woodhouse, pictured with her son after she gave birth aged 15, has argued men who father children through rape should lose parental rights Labour MP Louise Haigh is attempting to introduce the change with her Parental Rights (Rapists) and Family Courts Bill. The proposals would remove the automatic parental right of men who have fathered a child through rape. Ms Haigh said that more than 120 MPs are now calling for an independent inquiry into the treatment of domestic abuse and violence in the family courts. Under the Children Act 1989 there is no no absolute right for any parent to have contact with a child and courts are free to determine what is in the best interests of the child. Courts have discretion to consider the facts and circumstances of each case, including the actions of the parents, and the wishes and feelings of the child, and any evidence of risk of harm, and to come to a decision in the facts of each case. Another controversial case that has led to calls to change the law is the death of Ellie Butler, six, at the hands of her father Ben. She was violently battered to death by the 39-year-old at the family home in Sutton, south London, in 2013, The year before the Family Court had ruled she should be returned to his care despite the objection of her grandparents. Ellie Butler, pictured right, was battered to death by her father Ben, left with Ellie and partner Jennie Gray, 11 months after the Family Court ruled he should be returned to his care despite being taken away from him when she was shaken as a baby Ellie's grandfather Neal, pictured, has demanded an apology from Family Court judge Mrs Justice Hogg after objecting the to decision to return Ellie to her father Ellie had lived with maternal grandfather Neal Gray and her grandmother Linda after she was shaken as a newborn - but was handed back after her manipulative and violent father convinced the judge Mrs Justice Hogg it was an accident. Mr Gray last year wrote a letter to the judge demanding an apology. He said: 'Justice Hogg. To say that Ellie's death has caused complete and utter devastation to us is an understatement. Ellie was our shining light. She was a beautiful, bubbly, intelligent little girl who always had a smile on her face. 'It would be helpful if you acknowledge our pain and anguish, to support the need for an inquiry and simply say sorry'. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'The family court system should never be used as a way to coerce or re-victimise those who have been abused. 'The law places a child's welfare as the paramount consideration but we continue to work with other relevant departments and stakeholders to consider how we can better protect vulnerable mothers and children in our family courts.' A Mexican woman who allegedly oversaw the finances of El Chapo's billion dollar drugs empire is set to plead guilty in a United States federal court later in May. Guadalupe Fernandez Valencia is alleged to have been the highest-ranking female in Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel. Fernandez Valencia was nicknamed 'La Patrona' - meaning 'The Boss' - and federal investigators allege she was part of the cartel's scheme to use airplanes, submarines, vehicles and tunnels to sneak huge amounts of drugs into the U.S. The 58-year-old was indicted by a Chicago court in 2014 and charged with trafficking cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana. She was also accused of money laundering. She was arrested in February 2016 in Culiacan, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, and extradited to the Chicago in November 2017. Guadalupe Fernandez Valencia is said to have been the highest-ranking female in Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel. She is set to appear in a Chicago court on May 25 and plead guilty Guadalupe Fernandez was said to be a top aide of the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzmans - pictured center after being extradited to the US in 2017 Fernandez Valencia fell in the crosshairs of the U.S. government well before the Mexican federal police apprehended her, as she was placed in the notorious 'kingpin' list. That means any assets that she owns in the U.S. territory can be seized. The Sinaloa Cartel is alleged to have distributed drugs in wholesale quantities in the U.S. through a syndicate operated by Chicago twins, Pedro and Margarito Flores. The funds were then laundered back across the border to Mexico. The Flores brothers at one time moved drugs for both the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltran-Leyva Organization. But they turned on the criminal organizations and worked as key witnesses for the government in bringing down key leaders in both cartels. A court in Chicago indicted Fernandez Valencia (bottom left) for her alleged role in trafficking cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana as well as money laundering Guadalupe Fernandez Valencia was arrested in Mexico in February 2016 and extradited to the United States in November 2017 The charges filed against Fernandez Valencia also alleged that she was a lieutenant for El Chapo's son, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, who took over running the cartel after his father's arrest. Fernandez Valencia is set to appear in court on May 25 for a change of plea hearing at a Chicago district court. El Chapo was convicted in February of running a criminal enterprise, among other narcotic-related charges, and remains in custody in a federal prison in Manhattan, New York. He is due to be sentenced on June 25. La Partona's brother, Manuel Fernandez Valencia, another alleged member of the Sinaloa Cartel, was sentenced in December 2017 to 27 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to transporting large amounts of cocaine to the Chicago area. Advertisement Britain is basking in glorious spring sunshine today while Corsica shivers under a thick blanket of snow. Scotland has already had its hottest day of the year with the mercury hitting 77F (25.2C) this afternoon, while large parts of northern England enjoy warmer-than-usual temperatures too. Sunbathers were out in full force during their lunch breaks in London and other parts of the south east. The Met Office has warned Britons to apply sun screen if they are heading out to enjoy the good weather, as UV levels are particularly high today. With a record of 78F (25.8C) to beat, if temperatures manage to creep up just a little bit, today could be the hottest year of 2019 for the whole country. Meanwhile parts of the Mediterranean are covered in snow, with popular summer holiday destination Corsica battling temperatures of just 37F (3C). A lightly-dressed runner jogs along a beach in Weymouth, Dorset as the nation basked in sunshine today People flocked to Glasgow's Kelingrove Park with picnics and rugs as Scotland enjoyed its hottest day of the year so far Seven students from the Aerial Edge Circus School relaxed in the sunshine with a picnic in Kelvingrove Park And revellers descended on Silver Sands beach in Aberdour, Scotland to soak up the sunshine on the nation's warmest day so far St James's Park was a hotspot for people in central London to hang out in, with one woman even bringing her own hammock which she strapped to a tree by the lake Sunbathers were out in full force during their lunch breaks in London (pictured) and other parts of the south east Sunworshippers are pictured basking in temperatures of up to 68F (20C) outside St Paul's Cathedral in central London today Loch Lomond looked stunning under blue skies today as Scotland experienced the warmest day of the year so far Meanwhile parts of the Mediterranean are covered in snow, with popular summer holiday destination Corsica battling temperatures of just 37F (3C) A three-day weather forecast shows Scotland, parts of northern England and the Midlands covered in sunshine today and tomorrow before rain and cooler conditions creep in on Friday and throughout the weekend Weather experts are urging people up and down the UK to make the most of the good weather before rain and cooler temperatures move in later this week. The weekend could mean low cloud, heavy showers and thunder for some as the mercury dips on Friday and into Saturday. Met Office spokesman Helen Roberts told MailOnline: 'Nearly everyone in the country has had sunshine today and tomorrow will be a decent day again for most with more sun. 'As we move into Friday an easterly wind will bring cold weather to large parts of the country. The weekend will be sunny spells and showers with temperatures in the mid teens.' Met Office meteorologist Craig Snell added: 'We're going to be expecting very dry weather with plenty of sun within the next three days. 'The temperature will peak on Wednesday, reaching 24C in parts of Scotland and northern England. 'We're going to see some rain creep in the the second half of the week, as temperatures will begin to settle down on Friday.' A woman is pictured walking her dog on the beach at Boscombe in Dorset while people sunbathe outside their beach huts Cliveden House in Taplow, Buckinghamshire was covered in sunshine today as walkers enjoyed the pleasant conditions Tests for Covid and isolation rules for travellers will stay in place until at least the end of January, according to aviation sources. Such a move would add to the woes of an already beleaguered travel industry. Thousands of holidays for Britons during the festive period - including cruises and Austrian skiing trips - have been cancelled due to coronavirus restrictions imposed by destinations. 'We don't anticipate any measures being scrapped until at least the end of January. Even with the promise of a review every three weeks by the Department for Transport, there have been suggestions they'll be in place for two or three months,' one senior aviation insider told The Times. In a bid to tackle the Omicron variant, all international arrivals to the UK must currently take a PCR test on or before the second day following their arrival in the country - and they have to self-isolate until they test negative. Travellers also have to take pre-departure lateral flow or PCR tests. (Pictured left: skiers in the Italian resort of Bormio have their Covid-19 'green passes' checked; top right: Heathrow Terminal 5, on Friday; and bottom right: passengers at Heathrow's Terminal 3.) New York police are searching for a man who sexually abused a hospital patient while she was unconscious, authorities said on Tuesday. The suspect walked into the woman's room at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx at approximately 3pm on Monday, the NYPD said in a release. He was seen sexually abusing the 68-year-old victim before fleeing the scene. Scroll down for video The NYPD is searching for a man believed to be approximately 55-years-old and who is said to have sexually abused an unconscious 68-year-old woman, The man has been described as being approximately 55-years-old. He is said to be 5'7" and has a slim build. He was last seen wearing a black hat, black jacket, white button down shirt with a tie, light colored pants and red shoes. Footage shows him getting into the elevator as he fled. The suspect walked into the woman's room at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx at approximately 3pm on Monday Police report that the suspect walks with a limp. His victim's condition is currently unknown. The NYPD is currently looking to identify the suspect. The author of 'Fire and Fury' has more inside stories on the Trump administration. Michael Wolff's 'Siege: Trump Under Fire' comes out June 4, Henry Holt and Company announced Wednesday. Like the million-selling 'Fire and Fury,' which came out last year, 'Siege' promises a juicy, behind-the-scenes look at the current White House and a president who is 'volatile, erratic, and exposed.' The new book will focus on tensions amid Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged ties between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign. Another head-to-head book: Michael Wolff infuriated Trump with his first book, Fire and Fury, and is now set to release the sequel on June 4, Siege: Trump Under Fire New title: Siege will be released on June 4 as a sequel at Fire and Fury, which was published in January 2018 According to Holt, Wolff spoke to more than 150 'sources,' although the publisher declined to say whether any are currently in the administration. 'Fire and Fury' was among the first books to extensively document the ongoing conflicts in the Trump White House. It portrayed a chaotic White House in Trump's first year as president, based on extensive interviews with Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon and others. Trump claimed Wolff had 'zero access' to him or the White House and tweeted angrily about it - and even threatened to sue, which only increased interest in the book. It sold more than 28,000 copies in the United States in its first week, according to NPD BookScan. Personal attack: Trump responded to the allegations in the salacious book by writing on Twitter that Wolff was 'a total loser' Wolff himself called his book an 'international political event' in an interview with The Guardian shortly after its publication.. 'I got to a truth that no one else had gotten to. Everyone around Trump thinks he's a charlatan, a fool, an idiot and someone ultimately not capable of functioning in this job,' he said. He also said the president is 'deeply unpredictable, irrational, at times bordering on incoherent, [and] self-obsessed in a disconcerting way.' Bloomberg estimated that Wolff was likely to earn $7.4 million from Fire and Fury, a figure which his publisher never confirmed or denied. An exclusive nightclub has made the bold move to ditch its social media accounts in a bid to protect high-profile guests. Revellers at Melbourne's daHa bar, lounge and supper club, which opened this week, will struggle to find the nightspot on Instagram or Facebook. While guests will be able to take pictures and film inside the bar, they won't be able to tag the venue. Revellers at Melbourne's daHa bar, lounge and supper club, which opened this week, will struggle to find the nightspot on Instagram or Facebook Social media has become a major tactic for hospitality businesses over the past few years, with pictures of Instagram and Facebook used to entice other customers Social media has become a major tactic for hospitality businesses over the past few years, with pictures of Instagram and Facebook used to entice other customers. Manager Dale Reeves has revealed the reason for the bold decision on the social media ban was a way to protect guests. 'I think the whole concept of Instagram and Facebook is killing the human spirit,' he told the Herald Sun. 'I'm not saying it's evil, but I'm saying I want to do it the old school way, where people find us, or spread the word by saying it's good service, it's a nice place, and the people are cool, and doing it the old fashioned way. 'When people come to your venue, they have to be respected, they need their space, and they have the right to not be interrupted.' The opening of daHa bar spells the end of a six year hiatus for Mr Reeves, who was a major player in Melbourne nightlife scene. A medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Eric Garner says the New York police officer's chokehold set into motion 'a lethal sequence of events' that led to his death five years ago. Dr Floriana Persechino detailed the findings in testimony on Wednesday at Officer Daniel Pantaleo's disciplinary trial. Persechino said hemorrhaging in neck muscles was indicative of a chokehold that set off an asthma attack and led to his death. She also reviewed video of the confrontation as well as security video showing Garner an hour earlier. Garner's mother heeded a warning from the administrative judge and left the room so she didn't have to see autopsy photos. Persechino also said Garner suffered from obesity and an enlarged heart - factors Pantaleo's lawyers say caused his death. The doctor's testimony comes a day after NYPD Inspector Richard Dee testified that Pantaleo used a lethal chokehold that had been banned since the 1990s to wrestle Garner to the ground. Scroll down for video Dr Floriana Persechino, who performed an autopsy on Eric Garner (right), says New York Officer Daniel Pantaleo's (left on Monday) chokehold set into motion 'a lethal sequence of events' that led to his 2014 death 'When I heard that, I was just wondering: Why is Pantaleo still on the payroll? Because that sounds like it should be immediate - I mean, immediate - dismissal,' Garner's mother, Gwen Carr (pictured), said after Dee testified on the second day of a trial that could last two weeks Cell phone video of the July 2014 confrontation shows Garner coughing after Pantaleo wrapped an arm around his neck - an indication that pressure on Garner's windpipe obstructed his breathing, Dee said in testimony at a disciplinary trial that could lead to Pantaleo's firing. 'I'm not saying he intentionally did that, but that's where his arms are,' Dee, who is in charge of training recruits for the department, testified. He said the restraint technique Pantaleo used on Garner 'meets the definition' of a chokehold. Dee is the latest high-ranking official to say what Garner's family has long believed: that Pantaleo's conduct in grabbing Garner and wrestling him to a Staten Island sidewalk violated department rules and ran counter to his training and the repeated warnings officers receive to avoid tactics that could hinder breathing. 'When I heard that, I was just wondering: Why is Pantaleo still on the payroll? Because that sounds like it should be immediate - I mean, immediate - dismissal,' Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, said after Dee testified on the second day of a trial that could last two weeks. The NYPD banned chokeholds in 1993 after a spike in deaths of people being apprehended or in police custody. The department's patrol guide, a mammoth volume of practices and procedures, states that officers 'will NOT use chokeholds'. It defines the ban to include 'any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air'. Garner died in 2014 after Pantaleo grabbed him and wrestled him to a Staten Island sidewalk. In this still image Garner is seen on the ground unresponsive as officers try to talk to him A section on chokeholds in the police academy manual issued to Pantaleo in 2006 puts it more bluntly: 'they're deadly.' At first, Dee said, it appeared Pantaleo was going for an arm bar, arm lock or what's known as a 'seat-belt hold' as he grappled with the 350-pound Garner. All of those are approved restraint techniques. Then, Dee said, Pantaleo is 'kind of just wrapped around his neck and shoulder and is trying to just throw him down'. 'He's kind of taking a little ride on his back,' he said. Pantaleo's lawyer and union contend he was using the 'seat-belt hold'. They say his training instructor will testify that he taught Pantaleo the technique at the police academy. Dee questioned that, saying the academy didn't teach the technique until 2011 - five years after Pantaleo joined the force. Dee said there's no indication in police department records that Pantaleo learned the move during later training sessions. 'With something as serious as a takedown, it would not be appropriate to teach something that wasn't approved and wasn't in the lesson plan,' Dee said. In the days after Garner's death, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the police commissioner at the time, Bill Bratton, both said it appeared to them that Pantaleo had used a chokehold, and the medical examiner ruled that a chokehold caused Garner's death. The autopsy is expected to be the focus of Wednesday's testimony. An internal affairs investigation completed five months after Garner's death also reached the conclusion that a chokehold was used and that Pantaleo should face disciplinary charges. But the police department put its case on hold, saying it was deferring to federal prosecutors who were looking into potential civil rights charges. Last year, however, police officials said they were out of patience and cleared the way for a police watchdog agency to pursue a disciplinary case against Pantaleo. The NYPD's disciplinary process plays out like a trial in front of an administrative judge. Normally the purpose is to determine whether an officer violated department rules, but that's only if disciplinary charges are filed within 18 months of an incident. Because Pantaleo's case languished, the watchdog Civilian Complaint Review Board must show that his actions rose to the level of criminal conduct, even though he faces no criminal charges and is being tried in a department tribunal, not a criminal court. The final decision on any punishment lies with the police commissioner. Penalties range from the loss of vacation days to firing. Pantaleo denies wrongdoing. He has been on desk duty since Garner's death. A 22-month-old boy who went missing from his home in rural eastern Kentucky was found safe near an old mine this afternoon, after surviving nearly three days alone in rough terrain. State police said in a tweet Kenneth Howard was discovered alive just before 2pm in Floyd County in the area of an old strip mine. He was taken by a helicopter to a pediatric trauma center to be examined. A photo from the rescue operation emerged late Wednesday afternoon showing Kenneth wearing only a diaper and surrounded by volunteers. Captain Carter Conley, of the Magoffin County Rescue Squad, said the young boy is being treated for dehydration, but is otherwise 'in remarkably good condition.' His parents have been notified of his discovery. Scroll down for video 'Mountain boy': Kenneth Howard, 22 months old, is pictured surrounded by rescuers on Wednesday afternoon in rural eastern Kentucky Found! Officials found the toddler at 2pm Wednesday after an intense search (pictured left and right before his disappearance) A search and rescue team is pictured jumping for joy after learning that Howard has been found alive and well Kenneth was last seen playing in the yard of his family's home in Magoffin County (pictured) at 7.30pm on Mother's Day According to officials, Kenneth, who is just two months shy of his second birthday, was discovered at the bottom of a steep 50-foot hill located 1,755 feet away from his home, reported WTVQ. A search team with an expert tracker heard the toddler's cry and then used a basket tied to a rope to pull him to safety. One official marveled at the child's ability to make his away across the treacherous terrain and get as far as he did, calling him 'a true Kentucky mountain boy,' reported WYMT. News outlets reported earlier that Magoffin County Emergency Management Director Robert Prater said the original search area was a half-mile radius from the home but widened to about 1 mile and included the old, overgrown mining operation. Chief Conley said crews and volunteers were using bloodhounds, horses, ATVs, helicopters and drones with thermal cameras to comb through the rugged terrain in search of the toddler. Kentucky State Police spokesman William Petry previously said there was no evidence of foul play. Kenneth was last seen in his front yard at Racoon Hill at around 7.30pm on Sunday and was reported missing by his family an hour later. His mother, Samantha Moore, said in an emotional interview with WTVQ on Tuesday that her son was outside their home with his father late on Mother's Day when he went around the back of the house. The boy's parents, Elden Howard (left) and Samantha Moore (right) pleaded for their son's safe return nearly three days into his disappearance When Kenneth's dad, Elden Howard, went looking for him, the boy was nowhere to be found. 'Its like he just disappeared,' Moore said in a barely audible, hoarse voice. 'Like hes just gone.' In a separate interview with WYMT, Elden Howard speculated that someone may have taken his son, given that so far all their search efforts have come to naught. 'I would just like to see him come home safe,' the father said. 'I can't rest, can't eat.' Search and rescue crews were using bloodhounds, horses, ATVs, helicopters and special drones to search rugged terrain A bloodhound is seen trying to pick up a scent as part of the expand search for Kenneth Howard on Wednesday Howard described his young son as a curious toddler full of energy. He was offering a $5,000 reward for the boy's safe return. Vigils were held Tuesday night in eastern Kentucky, with attendees praying for Kenneth and his family. Two teenagers who plotted a 'Columbine-style' massacre at their high school and drew up a 'kill list' of their classmates have been jailed for 40 years. Alfred Dupree, 19, and Victoria McCurley, 18, wanted to set a record for the highest mass murder in recent US history and prepared a 'hit list' that included a teacher plus all of the school's black and disabled students. The pair were arrested in October 2017 after police received a tip off they were planning to bomb Etowah High School in Woodstock, Georgia. According to Cherokee County Assistant District Attorney Rachelle Carnesale, the two students planned to deploy smoke bombs to 'corral' students and faculty into a section of the school. They then planned to use 'napalm and firearms' in order to 'kill as many people as they could' during the 2017 plot, prosecutors said. Alfred Dupree (left), 19, and Victoria McCurley (right), 18, were both jailed for 40 years at Cherokee County Superior Court in Canton, Georgia, over the school bomb plot Under the pseudonym 'Box of Anger' McCurley made a number of disturbing posts on Instagram (pictured), which referenced at a high school massacre 'starring' the Columbine killers Cherokee Sheriff Frank Reynolds said the defendants planned to use a flammable device, similar to a Molotov cocktail, against school staff before 'picking people off' as smoke filled the halls. Officers found homemade explosives, a 'hit list' and a map of the school building in the homes of both Dupree and McCurley. Last Friday the couple pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit murder one count of conspiracy to commit arson, and one count of unlawful possession of a destructive device. Both defendants will serve 20 years in prison before serving the next 20 years on probation, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. At Cherokee County Superior Court in Canton, McCurley admitted on Friday that he told investigators: 'We'd like to get our numbers up higher than Las Vegas.' 'Las Vegas' is a reference to the October 1, 2017, mass shooting in the city, which left 58 people dead and more than 400 wounded making it the worst massacre in the US in modern times. McCurley also posted several pictures of what appears to be the Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, including one where she wrote the threatening message: 'Fear the nobodies' McCurley shared multiple photos of guns and knives on her Facebook page. In this Instagram post, she shared a news story about a school providing bulletproof blankets to kids to help tackle mass shootings in school Dupree (left) and McCurley (right) were arrested in October 2017 for plotting to attack their high school with napalm and guns Investigators later learned the pair made a number of chilling posts on social media under secret pseudonyms about mass shootings and suicide. One post, by McCurley, showed a picture of the High School Musical movie poster, which had been altered to read 'High School Massacre' and showed photo-shopped images of students being gunned down. A classmate told WMAZ-TV that at lunch Dupree would make jokes about high school shootings. Skylor Webb, 16, said: 'He would make jokes about school shootings and stuff but, he would make funny jokes about them. 'Like everybody at the table that we were sitting with at the time, laughed. So, we never really took that as a sign.' In another post seemingly about the Columbine massacre, McCurley shared a surveillance footage still with the caption: 'Outrun my gun' Authorities believe that if they waited to act, the pair would have carried out their plan to massacre students and teachers at Etowah High School in Cherokee County, Georgia (above) In another provocative post, McCurley wrote 'hail Satan' on top of a drawing on a pentagram Both Dupree and McCurley were 17 when they were arrested but were charged as adults due to the nature of their crimes. 'During the writing [of the attack plan], it wasn't serious, but then it escalated to being serious,' McCurley said in her testimony at court last week. In court, Dupree said he was fascinated with the Columbine High School massacre of 1999. Two students from the school in Littleton, Colorado, used bombs and guns to kill 13 students and faculty before they killed themselves in attacks that left 21 people injured. Dupree said he first began to take an interest in the Columbine incident when he was 13-years-old. He said he began reading extensively about the massacre and looked at photographs. Dupree and McCurley had 'a container of flammable and combustible material with the intent that it would be used to kill, injure and intimidate students and staff at Etowah High School and to destroy Etowah High School,' according to court documents Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) on tape during their shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in April 1999. Dupree and McCurley told authorities that they were inspired by the Columbine massacre which killed 15 people, including the gunmen According to the indictment, Dupree and McCurley were arrested for 'collecting and preparing flammable and explosive materials writing a 'kill list' (and) creating a map of a portion of Etowah High School.' According to court documents, the 'kill list' included the names of five students and one teacher - all of whom were in a special education class with Dupree and McCurley. The list included nicknames and slurs, which referenced specific disabilities. Authorities believe that if they waited to arrest the pair, they would have followed through on their plans. Dupree and McCurley had 'a container of flammable and combustible material with the intent that it would be used to kill, injure and intimidate students and staff at Etowah High School and to destroy Etowah High School.' Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officials are being deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border to assist in dealing with migrants arriving at the southern border. The TSA workers will be temporarily helping with immigration duties, and, according to an internal email obtained by CNN, the assignment will create 'some risk' of depleted resources in aviation security during a 'very busy summer' travel season. Those deployed will including air marshals, who fly in civilian clothes on commercial flights to prevent terror attacks. 'There is now immediate need for more help from TSA at the SW border,' Gary Renfrow, a senior TSA official, wrote in the email to the agency's regional management. 'TSA has committed to support with 400 people from Security Ops,' he said, adding that they will be deployed in waves 'similar to support for past hurricanes.' President Donald Trump's administration is deploying hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers to the southern border to assist with immigration duties Although the deployments will not initially include uniformed TSA screeners, it will include law enforcement officials and air marshals, which the administration says would likely produce 'some risk' in airport security during the 'very busy summer' travel season. The TSA assignment comes as illegal border crossings spike and apprehensions hit a 10-year high In addition, TSA will initially send 42 law enforcement officials to the border from six different cities, and that number will eventually grow to 175, according to two sources. Other parts of TSA will be asked to contribute around 10 per cent of its workforce, but the efforts will not include unformed airport screeners, Renfrow said in the email. The law enforcement officials will be designated as immigration officers following legal training, according to a source familiar with the plans, and the individuals deployed will assist Customs and Border Protection employees with their work. Before she was ousted as Department of Homeland Security secretary last month, Kirstjen Nielsen asked volunteers from DHS, including those working for TSA, 'to assist CBP and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] in responding to the emergency at the southern border.' Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan, who used to run CPB, took over for Nielsen, and TSA Administrator David Pekoske was selected as his deputy at DHS. Before her ousting last month then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asked volunteers from DHS, including TSA employees, 'to assist... in responding to the emergency at the southern border' The acting DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan (pictured), used to run CPB, and TSA Administrator David Pekoske was selected as his deputy An internal TSA email noted Pekoske's (pictured) dual role. The border effort is 'a high priority for DHS, and our Administrator,' the email reads The recent email notes Pekoske's dual role and describes the border effort as 'a high priority for DHS, and our Administrator.' The TSA plans come as illegal border crossing apprehensions hit a 10-year-high. Acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan said recently that there are 4,300 active duty military and National Guard troops already assisting at the border. Customs and Border Protection also moved 750 of its officers last month from other assignments to assists with Border Patrol. 'TSA, like all DHS components, is supporting the DHS effort to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border. TSA is in the process of soliciting volunteers to support this effort while minimizing operational impact,' TSA spokeswoman Jenny Burke said in a statement. The assignment will result in a decrease in about 8 per cent of federal air marshal operations and 20 per cent in Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response patrol operations. In February, following a budget fight with Congress over border wall funding, President Donald Trump declared a humanitarian crisis at the border, citing illegal crossings and the rise in crime, including human trafficking and drug smuggling. A four-year-old Illinois boy died after being shot multiple times outside his Peoria home in what police are calling an ambush attack intended for someone else. Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said on Tuesday that Jeremiah Ward succumbed to massive internal bleeding caused by three gunshot wounds to the back and arm. The toddler was fatally shot and a 23-year-old man was wounded when 22 rounds were fired in the parking lot of the Lincoln Terrace Apartments complex on West Ann Street. Justice for Jeremiah: Police in Peoria, Illinois, are hunting for the person who shot dead four-year-old Jeremiah Ward (left and right) in front of his mother on Monday A bullet-riddled vehicle stands in the background while a police crime scene investigator works a shooting scene littered with 19 evidence markers in Peoria, where Ward was killed in Monday's ambush intended for the driver of this car Peoria Police Chief Loren Marion III says the boy's killing appears to be an ambush whose intended target was the 23-year-old who was behind the wheel of the car that Jeremiah, his mother and another person were sitting in at the time of the incident. According to officials, at around 5.45pm on Monday, the car carrying four people, including the toddler, pulled over outside the apartment complex. ard emerged from the vehicle and headed towards the building, but then turned around and was walking back towards the car when someone opened fire from a distance, shooting the toddler, reported Peoria Journal Star. Ward was rushed to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead from his injuries at 6.30pm. Ward's mother, Lexii Moore, is seen clutching a teddy bear at a vigil honoring her slain son Moore was sitting in the car when her son was caught in a hail of 22 bullets intended for someone else, namely, the driver of the vehicle The driver was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the leg. Another passenger in the car fled the scene is now wanted for questioning. Ward's mother, Lexii Moore, who was also in the car, was not physically harmed, reported WEEK. Police say the 23-year-old driver was known to them, but they would not elaborate. His relationship to Moore and her son is unknown. Chief Marion said at a press conference on Tuesday he couldnt understand why people werent coming forward with information about the child's slaying. About 300 people, many carrying stuffed animals and balloons, gathered Tuesday in the Peoria parking lot to remember Jeremiah. His mother clutched a teddy bear and sobbed uncontrollably. Jeremiah died of massive internal bleeding. He was remembered as a smart and handsome boy with an infectious smile who loved giving people hugs Pastor Chuck Brown of the Victory Christian Church urged witnesses to come forward, saying, 'If you have seen it, step up and talk. Talk!' At-Large City Councilwoman Rita Ali addressed the person responsible for the child's death directly. 'Your soul is never going to be at peace until you take responsibility for Jeremiah's death,' she said at the vigil, according to ciproud.com. Those who knew Jeremiah described him as a smart and handsome boy with an infectious smile who loved giving people hugs and showing off his new clothes and shoes. A GoFundMe page has been launched to help Moore and her family with her son's funeral expenses. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than $1,300 has been raised. The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send Sol Prendido or HEARST an email! Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter forBorderland Beat?We love to have you in our team, sendoran email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been labelled 'terrifying' by health experts, who warned that the virus is now out of control. Dr Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust, which has been active in aid operations in the country, said he believes the outbreak is the 'worst in history' and warned that it is getting worse. Figures from the World Health Organisation show more than 1,600 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began - resulting in over 1,000 deaths. 'I'm very concerned as concerned as one can be,' said Dr Farrar. Scroll down for video A man displays an Ebola information leaflet for residents in Mangina, Democratic Republic of Congo Health workers undertaking the burial of an eleven-month old child in Beni, North Kivu province this month 'Whether it gets to the absolute scale of west Africa or not, none of us know, but this is massive in comparison with any other outbreak in the history of Ebola and it is still expanding.' According to the Guardian, Dr Farrar has called for a ceasefire among warring rival factions to allow health teams to reach the sick in the DRC and protect others in the community. And he says measures need to be taken quickly by the UN to stop the virus spreading. 'It's remarkable it hasn't spread more geographically but the numbers are frightening and the fact that they are going up is terrifying,' he added. It comes after an expert last week told MailOnline the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo could end up as disastrous as the West Africa epidemic of 2014. Dr Osman Dar, a global health expert at Chatham House and member of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh and Public Health England, warned the situation must change. Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever, killed at least 11,000 across the world after it decimated West Africa and spread rapidly between 2014-2016. Since the latest Ebola outbreak began ten months ago, the vast majority of those killed have been women and children. A health worker sprays disinfectant on his colleague after working at an Ebola treatment center in Beni The number of deaths is said to be rising steadily and the fatality rate is higher in this case than in previous disasters - with more than 67 per cent of those infected perishing. David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee, has called for a 'reset' in the response to the crisis. 'The situation is far more dangerous than the statistic of 1,000 deaths, itself the second largest in history, suggests and the suspension of key services threatens to create a lethal inflection point in the trajectory of the disease,' he said. 'The danger is that the number of cases spirals out of control, despite a proven vaccine and treatment.' Relief efforts have been repeatedly hampered over the past year by fighting among local militias. According to WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: 'Cases are increasing because of violent acts that set us back each time.' There have been '30 different incidents and attacks against elements of the response' to the outbreak, according to Doctors Without Borders. The medical aid group has temporarily suspended its operations at two of its centres in Congo after arsonists set fire to them. Torched cars after attackers set fire to an Ebola treatment centre run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in the east Congolese town of Katwa Efforts to control Congo's Ebola outbreak are being hampered by a 'toxic' security situation including a series of attacks on treatment centres. Pictured: A Medecins Sans Frontieres facility destroyed by fire in February Doctors Without Borders president Joanne Liu said: 'The existing atmosphere can only be described as toxic. It shows how the response has failed to listen and act on the needs of those most affected.' As a result, people are still reluctant to bring the sick to treatment centres. More than 40 per cent of Ebola deaths are still taking place in communities rather than at treatment centres, according to the group. The use of security forces in the area is also complicating efforts, Ms Liu said. 'Using police to force people into complying with health measures is not only unethical it's totally counter-productive,' she said. Congo has seen periodic outbreaks of the Ebola virus since it was first identified in 1976, though its latest epidemic has now become the second most deadly in history worldwide. Health workers treating patients in the current epidemic have had far more tools at their disposal than they did back in 2014-2016 when more than 11,000 people died of Ebola in West Africa. This time around, more than 80,000 people have been vaccinated against the disease. Dash-cam footage released by authorities in Florida captured the dramatic moment officers apprehended a suspect wanted on child abuse charges, following a high-speed car chase. Several squad cars from the Florida Highway Patrol can be seen perusing a vehicle driven by Clayton Pafford, 23, at speed in Tallahassee on May 7. Pafford was wanted by police after he allegedly abused his girlfriends two-year-old daughter, which led to the child being hospitalized with severe injuries. Officers spotted Paffords car driving down Black Forrest Road last week and attempted to pull him over using a stop stick, but the accused swerved out of the way and into the direction of a deputy. Police say Pafford refused to pull over and continued to try and invade officers onto Old Woodville Highway. Clayton Pafford (left) was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse, fleeing and eluding, resisting arrest with violence, among other charges. The girl's mother, Heather Reid (right), was arrested on child neglect charges Several squad cars from the Florida Highway Patrol can be seen perusing a vehicle driven by Clayton Pafford, 23, at speed in Tallahassee on May 7 One patrol car can be seen turning sharply into the rear-left wheel of Paffords silver car, sending in spinning off of the road and bringing it to a stop among a line of trees Eventually, deeming Paffords driving to be a danger to the surrounding public, officers made the decision to use a PIT maneuver to conclude the chase. One patrol car can be seen turning sharply into the rear-left wheel of Paffords silver car, sending it spinning off of the road and bringing it to a stop among a line of trees at the roadside. The University of Florida student was arrested soon after and charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse, fleeing and eluding, resisting arrest with violence, injuring a police dog, false imprisonment and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. The toddlers mother, 26-year-old Heather Reid, was also arrested earlier the same day and charged with two counts of child neglect with great bodily harm. Deputies from the Leon County Sheriffs Office had been summoned to Reids home on the morning of May 6, to reports of possibly child abuse. Upon arriving at the scene, police were advised that the two-year-old girl was in need of immediate medical attention. Officers say Reid claimed her daughter has sustained a number of series injuries by falling down the stairs. A police report shows the girl suffered a liver laceration, two brain bleeds and retinal hemorrhaging, which they believe was caused by Shaken Baby Syndrome. The young girl was also found to have an ulcer form severe diaper rash, burn marks and a series of abrasions, bruises and scratches. Police say Pafford refused to pull over and continued to try and invade officers onto Old Woodville Highway A witness says he saw Pafford holding the childs bloody and limp body in his arms, after hearing a 'thud' in the girls bedroom (pictured two days before the alleged assault) Both Reid and Pafford admitted to noticing the child's injuries and failing to report them, arrest documents show Several of the injuries appeared to be older and in various stages of healing, doctors said. According to a police summons, Pafford who lived with the girls mother had been watching the toddler while Reid was at the store. A friend present at the property during the time recalls hearing a thud come from the girls bedroom, as he was doing laundry downstairs. Rushing up the stairs to investigate, the witness says he saw Pafford holding the childs bloody and limp body in his arms. What did you do?, the witness is said to have asked. But rather than respond, Pafford is said to have called out for Reid, instead of dialing 911 for help. When the witness called for paramedics, Pafford reportedly became upset and said Im leaving. Dont tell anyone I was here, before storming out of the home. Pafford had left the scene before officers arrived. Members of the U.S. Marshals Violent Task Force and the Florida Highway Patrol conducted an over-night search for him, WCTV reported. Reid had been out grocery shopping when when the witness found her daughter bloodied and limp, police say He was spotted in his car the following day and arrested. Police say he refused to comply with their demands of surrender and a K-9 had to be used to help in getting him into custody. A passenger was in the car at the time of his arrest, but authorities say he refused to let them get out. Both Reid and Pafford admitted to noticing the child's injuries and failing to report them, arrest documents show. Deputies also say Pafford denied causing the child's injuries, but did admit to fleeing the scene during a medical emergency. The two-year-old girl remains in hospital being treated for her injuries. A South African farmer was stabbed to death and his wife scalded with boiling water by four robbers in balaclavas as the couple were heading to church. Tool and Liezel Wessels, both 55, were leaving their home in Bonnievale, Western Cape, to take part in choir practice on Monday night when they were attacked. The police said the pair were held hostage, but that Mrs Wessels managed to escape despite a stab wound and being burned with boiling water. The mother-of-two alerted the police who later found Mr Wessels dead 200 yards from the house. Tool and Liezel Wessels, both 55, with their daughters Annelie and Jana - the husband and wife were set upon by four armed robbers as they left their home for church in Bonnievale, Western Cape on Monday evening Mr Wessels was discovered dead by police around 200 yards away from the house after his wife was able to escape and alert the authorities Mrs Wessels was reportedly stabbed in her chest and had water burns down her back, the house was ransacked and the safe was missing. Police said on Wednesday they had arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with the murder and attempted murder. Colonel Andre Traut told News 24: 'One of the firearms stolen during the incident, a .22 rifle has been seized. The suspect is scheduled to make a court appearance once he has been charged.' The sisters, Annelie and Jana Wessels, both students at Stellenbosch University, are said to be too afraid to return home The robbers are understood to have made off with guns and cash. Their two daughters Annelie and Jana are reportedly too terrified to return home. 'I do not want to know the details,' Annelie, 23, told Netwerk 24, 'I have asked everybody not to tell me.' The daughters, both students at Stellenbosch University, have been at their mother's side in hospital, News 24 reported. Mrs Wessels is said to a be an accountant for one of the local wineries. One of the Wessels' friends, Lize Simon, wrote on Facebook: 'Lord, I deliver the Wessels to you tonight. I pray for Aunt Liezel for speedy healing and recovery. 'Lord, I pray that you will bless this family. I pray that you cure their hearts piece by piece. I pray that you take the dreaded pictures out of their mind.' A Royal Navy warship escorted a Russian destroyer through the English Channel this afternoon. Devonport-based Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland was scrambled to meet the Severomorsk, a Udaloy-class guided missile destroyer earlier today. The destroyer was making its way back to its home port in Russia after operations in the Mediterranean. Devonport-based Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland, in the foreground, was scrambled to meet the Severomorsk (pictured behind it), a Udaloy-class guided missile destroyer earlier today And the Navy protected UK waters from threat by escorting the foreign ship through the English Channel. A navy spokesman said: 'The Russian ship passed through the English Channel on the way back to her home port after operations in the Mediterranean. The Navy ship, right, protected UK waters from threat by escorting the foreign ship, left, through the English Channel The 7,000 tonne vessel, which makes up Russia's Northern Fleet, is heavily armed with anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and gatling guns 'HMS Northumberland is one of the Royal Navy's ships kept at high readiness to protect the integrity of UK waters.' Commander Ally Pollard, HMS Northumberland's commanding officer, said: 'This has been a particularly intense period for HMS Northumberland. 'It is credit to the team on board that they have been able to switch from the demands of anti-submarine warfare to conduct escorting duties through home waters with such ease. 'This is normal business for the Royal Navy, being prepared at all times to respond to any foreign warships in the UK's area of interest.' On May 30, 2017 the Russian ship passed through the Dover Straight of the English Channel towards the North Sea after taking part in operations in the Mediterranean. At the time Russian Captain Vadim Serga told the Daily Star: 'Today, large anti-submarine ship of the Northern Fleet, Severomorsk, passed through the Dover Strait, the narrowest part of the English Channel, and then the Russian ship will cross the strait zone to the North Sea and then to the North-east Atlantic areas.' Severomorsk Armament: 2 4 SS-N-14 "Silex" anti-submarine missile lanchers 8 8 SA-N-9 "Gauntlet" surface-to-air missile launchers 2 SA-N-11 "Kortik" surface-to-air missile launchers 2 100mm / 70 caliber Dual-Purpose (DP_ deck guns 4 30mm Close-in weapon systems (CIWSs) 2 4 553mm SS-N-C5 torpedo tube 2 RBU- 6000 Anti-submarine rocket launchers Range: 10,502 nautical miles Speed: 35 knots (40mph) Size: (l) 534.6ft beam - 63ft Crew: 300 Advertisement Huma Abedin sported her signature dark sunglasses while taking her son to school today, marking the first time she has been seen since Anthony Weiner was released from a halfway house. The 42-year-old was photographed in exclusive DailyMailTV photos dressed in a long cream coat over a $4,000 Gucci patchwork dress, paired with $325 Sarah Flint pumps, as she dropped off son Jordan, seven, at school in lower Manhattan. It's the first sighting of the Hillary Clinton aide since Weiner left the Bronx facility at 6am on Tuesday morning, marking the end of his 21-month sentence for having illicit contact with a 15-year-old girl. Later that afternoon, Weiner was spotted wearing his wedding ring in the Financial District leaving a U.S. District courthouse, where he has to register as a level 1 sex offender. Abedin filed for divorce the day Weiner, 54, entered into his guilty plea for sexting a 15-year-old girl, which DailyMail.com exposed in September 2016, but she has since withdrawn her request, deciding to settle privately. Huma Abedin sported her signature dark sunglasses while taking her son to school on Wednesday morning, the first time she's been seen since Anthony Weiner was released from a halfway house on Tuesday The 42-year-old was dressed in a long cream coat over a $4,000 Gucci patchwork dress paired with $325 Sarah Flint pumps as she dropped off her son Jordan, seven, at school in lower Manhattan Later that afternoon, Weiner was spotted wearing his wedding ring in the Financial District leaving a U.S. District courthouse, where he has to register as a level 1 sex offender Also on Wednesday, Weiner's father Mort was seen suited up in a helmet and bike gear leaving his Brooklyn home on a motorcycle. On Tuesday, Weiner told reporters that he hoped to get back to his family and 'make up for some lost time.' He added: 'I hope to be able to live a life of integrity and service, and Im glad this chapter of my life is behind me,' he said before getting into a waiting car.' The disgraced politician was released from prison in February but has been living in the halfway house since then. Now, he must be registered as a level one sex offender for the next 20 years. Because of his low-level designation, Weiner's information won't show up in the state's online sex offender registry but will be available via a toll-free telephone number. It is unclear where he will now go. He could stay with Abedin and their son, or stay with his parents in Brooklyn. Also on Wednesday, Weiner's father Mort was seen suited up in a helmet and bike gear leaving his home in Brooklyn on a motorcycle (pictured) It is unclear where Weiner will go; to Abedin's Manhattan home or to his parents in Brooklyn Abedin filed for divorce the day Weiner, 54, entered into his guilty plea for sexting a 15-year-old girl, which DailyMail.com exposed in September 2016, but she has since withdrawn her request, deciding to settle privately Because of his low-level designation, Weiner's information won't show up in the state's online sex offender registry but will be available via a toll-free telephone number It's the first sighting of the Hillary Clinton aide since Weiner left the Bronx facility at 6am on Tuesday morning (pictured), marking the end of his 21-month sentence for having illicit contact with a 15-year-old girl. Since being released, Weiner has been touting a book deal and asking for investors for a marijuana business. Within days of being released from prison, he was spotted at a coffee shop in Union Square trying to win business. A source told DailyMail.com of the meeting: 'Weiner was advising the other man on how to approach investors and said, ''Tell them you have this great venture and then be like, I know the perfect guy''. 'Weiner appeared to be referring to himself and explaining how to get other money on board but conceal his involvement.' He told one potential investor that the 'sexual stuff shouldn't matter'. Weiner was released from jail in February after he was sentenced to 21 months in November 2017 for sexting a 15-year-old girl. Shown are some of the shirtless selfies he sent her The 15-year-old girl shared her story with DailyMail.com in 2016 The 'stuff' he referred to were explicit text messages he exchanged with a 15-year-old girl while he was married in September 2016. Among them was one text which read: 'I would bust that tight p***y so hard you would leak and limp for a week.' He originally made contact with the girl on Twitter. Since being released from prison in February, he has spent his days trying to get a book deal. Sources told The New York Post last month that there was zero interest in it from publishers. The sexting scandal was revealed during the fever pitch of the 2016 presidential elections and was the reason James Comey, the former FBI director, reopened the case into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server days before the polls opened. Wasting no time: Within days of being released from prison, Weiner met with a potential investor for a marijuana business at a coffee shop in Union Square in February (pictured) Weiner was held at the Devens Federal Medical Centra in Devens, Massachusetts, pictured While investigating Weiner's sexts, law enforcement agents seized computers from his home including his wife's. It revealed that she had been using the laptop to work on behalf of Clinton while she was Secretary of State. Abedin has said nothing since the scandal broke. In May 2017, she filed for divorce but the pair withdrew it in January this year. A mother has claimed her autistic son was shamed by teachers who forced him to wear a 'high-vis vest' and hung 'Stop William' posters around the corridors. The mother said the posters feature her seven-year-old son's face circled in red with a red line through the middle. According to the woman, teachers at Grey Main School in Greymouth, on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island, put the posters up around school in a bid to stop him escaping. The mother, who has remained anonymous to protect her son's identity, said he was required to wear a hi-vis vest while in class even when he was being taught alone, Stuff reported. She claims the school tried to take the autism out of him and would condemn him for 'naughty' or 'wrong' behaviour. A mother claims her autistic son was shamed teachers who forced him to wear a 'high-vis vest' and hung 'Stop William' posters around the corridors According to the woman teachers at Grey Main School in Greymouth, on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island, put the posters up around school in a bid to stop him escaping 'The school have seen my son in social environments and called him awkward, pointed out errors that he has made, constantly naming and shaming him,' she said. The mother asked for the posters of William to be removed but it took them a week to take them down, causing 'huge' emotional stress to her daughter who was questioned by peers about why her brother's face was everywhere. William was four when he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and has also been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. 'I understand my son has behaviours that at times are challenging, however, he is a very bright, intelligent boy who is eager to learn,' she said. William spends most of his time with a teacher aide as he is a risk to other students, a suspension report from the principal says. The mother said she met with the school's board of trustees to work on a behavioural plan for the child. The mother, who has remained anonymous to protect her son's identity, said her son was required to wear a hi-vis vest while in class (stock image) He was suspended for hurting a teachers aide with scissors and a report said the school had 'exhausted' its resources to manage William's behaviour. On February 28, the board decided to remove him from the school and he has since enrolled at a new institution. Mandy O'Sullivan, the principal at Grey Main School, wold not comment on individual students. 'We would not make decisions around exclusions lightly, but instead would use this as a last resort for very serious matters,' she said. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the school for comment. A teenager has been found guilty of murder after he stabbed a high school classmate 76 times and then beheaded him in a dispute over a girl. Mathew Borges, now 18, was convicted of first-degree murder in Salem, Massachusetts on Tuesday over the gruesome 2016 death of 16-year-old Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino. Borges, who was 15 at the time but was tried as an adult, faces 25 to 30 years in prison for premeditated murder and extreme cruelty and atrocity. The jury deliberated for two days before handing down their verdict. Mathew Borges, now 18 (left), was convicted of first-degree murder in Salem, Massachusetts on Tuesday over the gruesome 2016 death of 16-year-old Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino (right) Borges was accused of fatally stabbing Viloria-Paulino 76 times in November 2016 before cutting off the victim's hands and decapitating his body. He dumped his classmate's body by the banks of the Merrimack River where it was discovered about two weeks later by a person walking their dog. Viloria-Paulino's head was found close by but his hands were never found. Borges was arrested in December 2016. During the two-week murder trial, prosecutors detailed how Borges and the victim had been classmates at Lawrence High School at the time. They argued that Borges had become jealous that Viloria-Paulino was spending time with a girl he liked. The girl, Leilany Dejesus, testified during the trial that Borges was consumed by rage and jealousy after seeing her talking to the victim. Borges, who was 15 at the time, was accused of fatally stabbing Viloria-Paulino 76 times in November 2016 before cutting off the victim's hands and decapitating his body. He is pictured above following his arrest in December 2016 Broges dumped his classmate's body by the banks of the Merrimack River where it was discovered about two weeks later by a person walking their dog. Viloria-Paulino's head was found close by but his hands were never found. Pictured above is the crime scene Dejesus cried in court as she described how Borges accused her of flirting with Viloria-Paulino and that he scolded her for just talking to him. She said that Borges became so angry that at one point that the school dean had to escort him from the cafeteria. On the night Viloria-Paulino was killed, police said surveillance video captured the victim and Borges walking together toward the river. Borges later told police that he and Viloria-Paulino had gone to the river to smoke marijuana but they later parted ways. Four boys testified that they had plotted with Borges to rob the victim's home that same night and steal his clothes, belts and PlayStation. Borges was chosen out of the group as the person who should lure Viloria-Paulino to the river, the court heard. Prosecutors said Borges killed the victim at the river while the other boys were carrying out the robbery. During the two-week murder trial, prosecutors detailed how Borges and the victim (above) had been classmates at Lawrence High School at the time. They argued that Borges had become jealous that Viloria-Paulino was spending time with a girl he liked The girl, Leilany Dejesus, tearfully testified during the trial that Borges was consumed by rage and jealousy after seeing her talking to the victim. Photo courtesy of CBS The court heard that Borges then called his group of friends and told them that he had killed Viloria-Paulino, saying: 'I killed him. He's dead.' The four boys have all admitted to breaking into Viloria-Paulino's home. Borges' attorneys had argued during the trial that there was no physical evidence to link their client to the death. But prosecutors argued that there was a 'mountain of evidence' against him, including texts he had sent to friends and ex-girlfriends, as well as journal entries that appeared to point to premeditated murder. 'I think of killing someone and I smirk,' one of his earlier text messages to a female friend read. 'It's all I think about everyday but I control myself...I like the sound of it - the idea of causing pain in someone getting in my way or causing me pain.' Borges is scheduled to be sentenced on July 9. A blazing row between diners at a Wetherspoons escalated to the point where a woman tried to grab the mobile from a teenage girl who was filming her. Georgia Grantham and her mother offended the diners at the next table with their conversation, sparking a massive argument. Georgia, 19, shot the footage as she and her mother were branded 'disgusting' and 'vile' by a man and woman at the neighbouring table. However, the dispute, at a pub in Sheffield, intensified when Georgia asked her mother if they could 'move back down to London'. The woman at the next table declares 'all Londoners are like that' and reaches out to grab the teen's mobile. Georgia Grantham (pictured), 19, was with her mother at a Wetherspoons in Sheffield on Monday when she was caught up in a blazing row with diners at a neighbouring table, who called the girl and her mum 'vile' and 'disgusting' The dispute escalated when Georgia asked her mother if they could 'move back down to London'. The woman (above, in yellow top) at the next table declares 'all Londoners are like that' and reaches out to grab Georgia's mobile Georgia has not revealed what she and her mother and a friend were talking about but the video opens with a man (on the same table as the woman in the yellow top) saying: 'You're horrible, I've never heard anything as bad coming out of someone's mouth as bad as what you're coming out with' Wetherspoons said both parties were ejected following the meltdown at The Wagon and Horses in the Chapeltown suburb of the city on Monday. Georgia has not revealed what she and her mother and a friend were talking about but the video opens with the man at the next table saying: 'You're horrible, I've never heard anything as bad coming out of someone's mouth as bad as what you're coming out with. 'You're disgusting, you're vile, speaking to your daughter like that, talking about people, slagging people off, she's doing her job.' Off camera, Georgia's mother can be heard to say: 'It's my business not yours.' The man responds: 'Is it? Well I don't want to hear it.' Her mother then says: 'Well I don't want to hear your opinion either.' The man then calls her 'a horrible woman'. The woman on the neighbouring table in the yellow top in the clip said: 'My kids will never speak like that, f**king idiot.' Georgia, herself a waitress, can then be heard taunting her and said: 'I've been called a lot worse babes, don't you mind me.' Wetherspoons said both parties were ejected following the meltdown at The Wagon and Horses (pictured) in the Chapeltown suburb of the city Georgia, who lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, but spent much of her childhood in the capital, then adds: 'Can we move back down to London, please?' The dark-haired woman then gets up from her chair before attacking Georgia. She said: 'Oh f**k off, the quicker the better, imagine all Londoners are like that.' She adds: 'Are you videoing me? Are you videoing me you f**king idiot? Delete it now.' Georgia posted the clip with the caption: 'Imagine being assaulted in a Wetherspoons and the manager asking you to leave.' Georgia claims her friend was branded a 'ginger tramp' before she started recording. A Wetherspoons spokesman said: 'The customers in question were being anti-social and asked to leave the pub, due to racist comments and being verbally abusive about staff.' Asked if both parties had been asked to leave, he replied: 'As I understand it, yes.' And asked for further details, he replied: 'Sorry, don't know as manager is now off.' But Georgia today insisted: 'There were most certainly no racist comments made. 'The only comment made was me saying that I would like to move back to my hometown in London to which the woman who snatched my phone told me to "f**k off back there". 'We were embarrassed and felt sorry for the other people in the pub trying to eat their food. 'They had been watching us since we sat down at the table next to them. When they started calling us names, that is when I began recording.' Georgia's insurance commissioner has been charged with defrauding his employer out of more than $2million over five years. Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Jim Beck, 57, allegedly devised an elaborate fraudulent invoicing scheme while he was a general manager of operations for the Georgia Underwriting Association (GUA). The association was created to provide high-risk property insurance to Georgia homeowners. Beck, a Republican, allegedly used the millions to splurge on himself, to fund his statewide election campaign and to make sure he had money in the bank for personal investments, retirement and savings. An indictment says Beck, a married father-of-one, also used the funds to buy and improve personal rental property and for personal state and federal income taxes. Georgia's insurance commissioner, Jim Beck (pictured on election day in November) has been charged with defrauding his employer out of more than $2M On Tuesday, US Attorney Byung Pak (pictured) announced the 38-count indictment against Beck. The indictment says Beck, a married father-of-one, used the funds to buy and improve personal rental property and for personal state and federal income taxes He was elected by the GUA board of directors and served as the general manager from January 2012 until he was sworn in as insurance commissioner on January 14 of this year. On his election website, Beck describes himself as a 'Christian, Conservative, Republican Candidate for Insurance Commissioner'. Ironically, Beck's website says that one of his top priorities is 'defending against fraud'. 'Day one, I will defend our seniors and any veteran, by doubling the penalties on insurance companies guilty of victimizing them. 'I will consistently guard against fraud of any kind and order stiff penalties, whenever it is found,' he wrote. On Tuesday, US Attorney Byung Pak announced the 38-count indictment against Beck. Pak acknowledged that the alleged crimes preceded Beck's swearing in as insurance commissioner. 'However, holding a powerful position does not shield you from the sins of your past criminal activities,' Pak said at a news conference. 'Justice and rule of law will catch up to you eventually.' Bill Thomas, a lawyer for Beck, said in an emailed statement that Beck 'strongly denies' the allegations. 'He acted legally and in good faith,' Thomas wrote, adding that Beck, 'looks forward to clearing his good name'. Beck, a Republican, allegedly used the millions to splurge on himself, to fund his statewide election campaign (signage pictured) and to make sure he had money in the bank for personal investments, retirement and savings While serving as general manager of GUA, Beck also had controlling financial interests in two businesses, Creative Consultants and the Georgia Christian Coalition, the indictment says. Beck convinced four associates to form four separate businesses with the stated purpose of providing services to GUA, the indictment says. Those companies are named in the indictment only as Company A, B, C and D. Beck then used an elaborate fraudulent invoicing system to produce false documents and, in his role as general manager, approved payments from GUA to the four companies, the indictment says. He then sent false invoices from Creative Consultants and The Georgia Christian Coalition to the four companies and directed his four associates to pay the invoices from the funds they'd been paid by GUA, investigators said. The scheme ran from February 2013 through August 2018, the indictment says. Beck's lawyer, Bill Thomas, said that his client 'strongly denies' the allegations and that he 'looks forward to clearing his good name' Pak said the investigation is continuing and wouldn't comment on whether additional indictments would follow. At least two of the companies provided no services for the money that they invoiced, and while the other two provided some services they also acted as a pass-through for billing for one of the other companies. Chris Hacker, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Atlanta, said the investigation began about 10 months ago, before Beck's election as insurance commissioner, and was based on a referral from the Georgia inspector general. 'Evidence established the fact that Beck abused the trust of friends and his employer, GUA, in an elaborate scheme to enrich himself at GUA's expense,' Hacker said. According to the Georgia Constitution, whether Beck is suspended from office while under indictment depends on whether the charges are determined to relate 'to the performance or activities' of that office. Once the governor receives the indictment, he must wait 14 days and then, if he believes the charges relate to Beck's performance of his responsibilities as commissioner, appoint a review commission made up of the attorney general and two other public officials. The commission would have 14 days to hold a hearing and make a determination. If the commission decided that 'the indictment relates to and adversely affects the administration of the office of the indicted public official and that the rights and interests of the public are adversely affected' by that, the governor would suspend him immediately pending the outcome of the case or the expiration of his term, whichever comes first. Beck was indicted on federal charges of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. A man was arrested after allegedly slapping his girlfriend in the face and kicking her down the stairs during a fight. Kyle Jamison Jones woke his sleeping partner by hitting her with a meat patty snack, then pulling her hair and repeatedly kicking the victim, police said. When deputies arrived at the scene in Martin County, Florida, officers said the woman visibly upset and 'covered with particles of the food item'. Martin County Sheriff's Office said deputies were called to the home Jones shared with his girlfriend on May 4. The 30-year-old admitted becoming involved in an argument, but refused to say anything about getting into a physical confrontation with the victim, sheriff's officials said. Kyle Jamison Jones, 30, allegedly woke his girlfriend up by slapping her in the face with a cheeseburger in Martin County, Florida In a Facebook message posted on Tuesday, Martin County Sheriff's Office, wrote: '30-year year Kyle Jamison Jones wanted it his way. When he didnt get it, things between him and his girlfriend escalated. 'Deputies were called to Jones home by his live-in girlfriend, who said Jones abruptly woke her up by slapping her in the face with a cheeseburger. 'The victim said the attack continued as Jones pulled her hair and kicked her down the stairs. 'When deputies arrived, the victim was visibly upset and covered with particles of the food item. 'Jones admitted only to a verbal dispute, but refused to say anything about becoming physical with the victim.' Jones was arrested and charged with battery then taken to the Martin County Jail, police added. In December last year, Florida man Frank Caponi, 57, was arrested on a prostitution charge after offering an undercover police officer a hamburger in exchange for oral sex. Taylor Allen Stephens, 23, was arrested in 2014 by the Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office for throwing a cheeseburger at a pregnant womans face and pushing her over during an argument, according to Time magazine. Brant Goodwin Stephens, 43, was handed a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge for hurling a cheeseburger at another vehicle in the drive-thru of a Fort Pierce McDonalds. Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes Monsignor Thomas J. Benestad Monsignor Thomas J. Benestad is one of the 300 clergymen named in the grand jury report. In 2011, the Allentown Diocese was approached by a man who alleged that Benestad sexually abused him from 1981 to 1983. The victim was nine years old when the alleged abuse began. The allegation was reported to the Northampton County District Attorneys Office, which investigated the matter and found that the boys accusations were credible. The victim told authorities that when he was a boy enrolled in Catholic school, he was taken out of class by a nun and sent to Benestads office because he had worn shorts to Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) study. Since wearing shorts were sinful, the boy was told to get on his knees and start praying once inside Benestads office. Benestad then unzipped his pants and told the boy to give him oral sex, the grand jury report alleges. The boy did so. Afterward, Benestad squirted holy water into the boys mouth and told him it was to purify him. No charges were ever brought because the alleged crimes took place beyond the statute of limitations. Other alleged victims also complained about Benestad, who was allowed to continue to minister. Benestad, who has denied all of the allegations, is now retired in Boca Raton, Florida. Reverend Thomas J. Bender In 1972, the Allentown Diocese received a report from a Deacon who also happened to be a Pennsylvania State Trooper. The Deacon reported that another Trooper found Bender in a car with a male student from Nativity High School in Pottsville, where the clergyman was assigned. Both Bender and the boy had their pants off, according to the Deacon. Thomas J. Welsh, who was the Bishop of the Diocese, received the report. It stated that the Trooper gave Bender a 'lecture and sent him on his way.' When Bender was confronted about the incident, he claimed this was the first time this had happened. He was allowed to continue as a priest. In 1984, a young male came forward and told church officials that three years earlier, when he was in seventh grade, Bender sexually abused him. This abuse entailed oral and anal sex while Bender and the boy were in bed together. Church officials sent Bender to psychotherapy, but still allowed him to continue to minister. In 1986, the victim overdosed on drugs and was admitted to a psychiatric institute. The victim and his family reported Bender to the authorities and filed a lawsuit against the church. The next year, Bender was placed on a leave of absence. In 1988, he was arrested and convicted. Bender was given a light sentence of probation. He was kept on a leave of absence until 2002, when he successfully applied for retirement benefits, including health insurance, life insurance, a living allowance, retreat fees, and car insurance. In 2004, the Diocese received more reports of alleged abuse by Bender. Those allegations, some stemming from as far back as 1966, were reported to the authorities in Pennsylvania. In 2006, Bender was arrested by an undercover police officer in New York State who posed as a '14-year-old boy' whom the former cleric tried to lure to a hotel room on Long Island. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and lifetime probation. Bender is a registered sex offender in the State of New York. Father Ronald Yarrosh In 2004, Father Ronald Yarrosh was found to be in possession of a tremendous amount of child pornography. A week later, Yarrosh was removed from his priestly ministry and ordered to undergo evaluation and treatment. In May of that year, Pennsylvania State Police charged Yarrosh with 110 counts of sexual abuse of children. Yarrosh was found to have had hundreds of child pornography photos, books, magazines, video, and DVDs in his possession, according to the grand jury report. During a subsequent investigation, Yarrosh was also found to have embezzled $23,000 from his parish. A year after his arrest, he pleaded guilty to theft and possession of child pornography. He struck a plea bargain and agreed to serve between three and 23 months in prison. Yarrosh ended up serving just three months. Upon his release, he registered with Pennsylvania State Police as a sex offender. After his release from prison, Yarrosh was allowed to continue as a priest. The Diocese granted him residence at St. Francis Villa in Orwigsburg - even though church officials considered him a moderate to high risk to again use pornography and/or consort with prostitutes. In November 2006, authorities learned Yarrosh took trips to New York City with a seven-year-old child. Yarrosh was also found to be in possession of child pornography - a violation of his court-ordered supervision. Pennsylvania authorities sentenced Yarrosh to four-to-10 years behind bars. In June 2007, the Diocese removed Yarrosh from the priesthood. Reverend Joseph Zmijewski In October 2004, the Allentown Diocese received a complaint from an adult woman who alleged that one of its priests sexually abused her when she was a child. The victim told the Diocese that she was a member of the St. Mary Greek church in Reading. She also attended Catholic school at St. Peter. When she was in ninth grade in 1950, she met Father Joseph Zmijewski. She said she frequently sought Zmijewskis advice as she was having difficult meeting new friends and being acclimated to a new school. Zmijewski came recommended by another priest because he was a registered psychologist. The woman said that Zmijewski recommended that she come to his home in order to be treated with hypnosis. She agreed to the hypnosis sessions. The first three sessions did not go well and she was becoming frustrated. During the fourth session, Zmijewski tried to hypnotize her once more. He told her to undress until she was naked, and she complied. He then left the room while she was naked and did not return for some time. After Zmijewski came back into the room, he instructed her to get dressed. She never returned for another session. The woman kept the story to herself until well into adulthood. Zmijewski died in 1968. The Allentown Diocese referred the woman to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which served the area at the time since there was no Allentown Diocese as of yet. Very Reverend Henry Strassner In August 1988, the Allentown Diocese received a complaint from a 19-year-old man who alleged that Father Henry Strassner kissed him four times on the lips 'in the same way a woman would kiss.' The alleged incident occurred during a counseling session which Strassner administered to the man. Strassner, when confronted about the incident, first denied knowing the man. But then he admitted to the claims, saying that he 'did not intend anything sexual.' Strassner later claimed the victim 'was essentially parentless and I wanted to simply affirm his sense of self-worth.' He was was sent to see a counselor who then told the Diocese that there was 'a lot more going on here than Father Strassner has admitted.' In 1991, the Diocese received more complaints about alleged sexual abuse of children at the hands of Strassner. One victim claimed Strassner molested him on more than one occasion when he was between the ages of six and nine. The victim also claimed that another priest was involved in the abuse. Another victims gave a much more detailed description of Strassner's behavior. The victim's mother invited Strassner to their home after hearing him give a lecture on drugs. During a counseling session, the victim, who was told to trust Strassner, confided in him. At one point, Strassner told the victim he needed to 'touch him.' Strassner then began to masturbate the victim and perform oral sex on him. After this incident was reported, Strassner was reassigned to a local Catholic high school. The Diocese possessed documents indicating that between 25 and 30 people complained they were sexually abused by Strassner. The victims reported post-traumatic stress, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, and suicidal thoughts in the years after they were assaulted. Strassner was never removed from his position by the church. He died in 2009. Reverend A. Gregory Uhrig In May 2010, a 44-year-old woman submitted a complaint to the Allentown Diocese alleging that Father A. Gregory Uhrig sexually abused her when she was a 13-year-old girl. The woman said the abuse took place when she was a seventh-grade student at St. Anthony Catholic school in Easton. She said at the time she was working in the parish answering telephones. During her time spent in the office, she got to know Uhrig, who was often invited to her familys home for dinner. Uhrig developed a relationship with the girl, who was suffering at the time from low self-esteem. The priest would often compliment her as a way of building up her confidence. The relationship became more physical, as Uhrig would hug her, hold her hands, and at times even kiss her on the lips. The touching eventually escalated to full-scale groping, as Uhrig cupped her breasts through her clothing. Uhrig also forced the girl to touch his leg and thigh area. He even pointed out when he had an erect penis. These incidents took place in the rectory and in Uhrigs car. The woman said that these incidents contributed to three failed marriages. The Diocese apparently knew of allegations against Uhrig back in 1995 and reported them to authorities. But he was never prosecuted due to statute of limitations. Reverend Bruno M. Tucci In 1991, the Allentown Diocese received a report from a male who said that he was sexually molested by Father Bruno Tucci when he was 14 years old. Tucci tickled him and put his hands down the back of his pants, the victim said. The priest, on a different occasion, unbuttoned his pants and the victims pants. Tucci then pulled both his pants and the victims pants down and forced skin to skin contact. In order to avoid suspicion, Tucci would tickle the boy in front of his parents. The victim also said that when his parents were at church for Christmas Eve mass, Tucci took off his pants and played with him. That same evening, when the whole family was at midnight mass, the victim served at the altar for Tucci. When the Diocese was told of these allegations, officials confronted Tucci, who confirmed them exactly as the victim reported. Tucci said it was just touching and that he did not commit sodomy. Tucci was reassigned to a church position in New Mexico. He was then allowed to return to active ministry as a pastor in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania. In 1993, the victim told the Diocese he wanted to confront Tucci, who was allowed to continue as a priest. This outraged the victim. In 2002, Tucci offered to resign. The Bishop accepted. That same year, the Diocese received another letter from a man who said that Tucci sexually molested him when he was a minor. The crimes took place between 1977 and 1978. Tucci responded by saying that he could not recall specific details. In 2005, Tuccis request for him to be laicized was granted. Tucci was last known to be a resident in Salisbury, Maryland. Reverend Andrew Aloysius Ulincy In 1981, Father Andrew Ulincy was reported to the Bethlehem Police for allegedly fondling a 17-year-old boys penis after he took a shower in a rectory. Ulincy is alleged to have offered the boy alcohol. He also offered to dry him off after the shower. The priest then pinned the boy down on a bed and anally penetrated him, the victim told an investigator working for the Diocese in June 2010. The police knew of these details in 1981, and Ulincy admitted that the victim was telling the truth. But no criminal charges were ever filed. The Diocese was not only aware of the 1981 incident, but another that took place a decade later. While a group of contractors were renovating St. Joseph church in Frackville, Ulinsky, who was living in the rectory at the time, dropped his pants, in front of a 25-year-old male workers. Ulinsky was said to be drunk at the time. It is also believed he targeted the male for indecent exposure. A report was submitted to law enforcement, but nothing came of it after the contractor was paid $2,500. It wasnt until September 2010 - almost 30 years after the first report of sexual assault - that he was removed from active ministry. Reverend Thomas C. Kelley The late Reverend Thomas C. Kelley preferred mutual masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex with men between the ages of 18 and 25. At least five men came forward to accuse Kelley of inappropriate sexual conduct. One victim was paid $34,500 as part of a lawsuit in which Kelley was named. His superiors in the Diocese, upon hearing of one of the complaints against Kelley, sent him to a treatment facility for psychotherapy in 1995. Kelley was dissuaded from returning to the Erie Diocese because of his past behavior. Instead, he relocated to Texas, where he was allowed to serve as a minister. Kelley died in 2005. Monsignor Thomas Snyderwine In 1996, a young girl enrolled at St. Boniface Catholic school told a nun that she was forced to take a shower with her godfather, Monsignor Thomas Snyderwine, who proceeded to touch her in ways that made her uncomfortable. The girl said the incident took place when she stayed overnight five years earlier in Snyderwines trailer. Snyderwine bought the girl dresses and showered her with gifts. The girls parents asked the nun, Sister Steff, to talk to Snyderwine. When the nun confronted Snyderwine, she threatened to report him to the Bishop Michael Murphy of the Erie Diocese if the behavior was repeated. The matter was not revisited until 2002, when news media reports about massive sex abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church were common. Sister Steff brought up the matter with Bishop Donald Trautman, who said he would speak to the Review Board and later decide on Snyderwines future. But Trautman said he was stymied when Sister Steff refused to give him the name of the victim. The victim, who was now a freshman in college, and her parents had no interest in pursuing the matter. Snyderwine was also said to have said mass for the family when a relative died. Trautman eventually decided there was no need to report the issue to authorities. Reverend Philip A. Altavilla On December 15, 1998, Father Philip A. Altavilla drove a 13-year-old girl home after she helped as an altar server during midnight mass. After mass, Altavilla gave the girl alcohol and gave her a ride home. On the way, he pulled the car into an empty parking lot. Altavilla then swung the girls legs across his lap, touched her feet, and worked his hands up her thigh towards the girls vagina. When the girl told him to stop, he did. It wasnt until April 2014 that Altavilla was arrested and charged with indecent assault and corruption of minors. He admitted to authorities that he had fetishes with feet, legs, pantyhose, strangulation, and chloroform. Soon afterward, he resigned from the Scranton Diocese. Altavilla had admitted to the alleged victim in a consensual phone intercept that he had touched her inappropriately, according to a letter written by the Diocese. But the case against him was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired. A civil lawsuit was brought against Altavilla in 2014. That case was eventually settled. The Scranton Diocese has encouraged more potential victims of Altavilla to come forward. Reverend Robert M. Timchak On December 9, 2008, the Scranton Diocese received an anonymous letter alleging that Father Robert M. Timchak was downloading child pornography. The Diocese turned over the material that was received to the Pike County District Attorneys Office. After a police investigation, Timchak was charged with possessing child pornography. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to state prison. On January 24, 2014, Pope Francis granted dispensation to Timchak. Reverend W. Jeffrey Paulish In 2013, Father W. Jeffrey Paulish was caught having sex with a 15-year-old boy on the campus of the University of Scranton. He was arrested in September of that year and charged by the Lackawanna County District Attorneys Office. Paulish eventually pleaded guilty to corruption of a minor and was sentenced to between eight and 23 months in prison. The Scranton Diocese urged parishioners who were either aware of similar situations involving Paulish to report them to law enforcement. Reverend Samuel B. Slocum Despite a history of inappropriate relationships with young boys and girls going back 30 years, Father Samuel B. Slocum was never reported to the authorities by the Erie Diocese. In 1980, a fellow priest reported Slocum to a senior church official after it was learned he maintained an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl. That same year, Slocum was also engaged in inappropriate relations with a 16-year-old boy. Slocum admitted to the grand jury last year that these relationships gave him emotional or sexual gratification. He denied touching the girl, but did say that he engaged in physical wrestling, tickling, and touching with the young boy. Slocum ingratiated himself with the childrens parents - a practice known as grooming - as a way of gaining their trust and cementing his relationship with the kids. He was known to have done this with at least four children before he was arrested. In 2012, he was convicted by a jury of concealment of the whereabouts of a child and corruption of minors. Slocum told the grand jury that a 14-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl were in love with him and wrote him love letter. He touched one of the girls thighs and buttocks, though he insisted it was accidental. When one of the girls came forward to complain, he enlisted the assistance of a third party to apply pressure and have her recant her accusation against him. Slocum was also known to have showered another minor with gifts from Abercrombie and Fitch. In 1995, the Diocese became aware of an unhealthy relationship Slocum had with a high school senior, including offers of cash, invitations to drink beer, and working with the student late into the night. The boys mother was a teacher employed by the Diocese. She submitted a complaint at great risk to her employment. It wasnt until 2011, when criminal charges were filed against him, did the Diocese remove Slocum from ministry. A British widower whose bride died on their honeymoon two days after arriving in Sri Lanka was allowed to return home after a court lifted a travel ban. Khilan Chandaria, 33, said he would probably return to London on Thursday, adding: 'When I heard that I can go back, the realisation finally hit me that I am going back to a life without my wife.' He said the remains of his wife Usheila Patel, 31, were repatriated on Wednesday as the courts decided to put off a full inquest into the death until August. A court official said Galle magistrate Pavithra Pathirana revoked the travel ban as Chandaria was not regarded as a suspect in the death of his wife. Khilan Chandaria, husband of Usheila Patel, 31, who died in Sri Lanka last month just two days into their honeymoon, outside the courthouse in Galle on Wednesday Mrs Patel (left) has also been repatriated today following the travel ban being lifted on her widower Mr Chandaria Khilan Chandaria and Usheila Patel (left during their wedding celebrations) were on their honeymoon when they both became ill The couple checked into the five-star Amari Galle hotel on April 23, four days after their wedding, and were taken ill two days later. Mr Chandaria was in court with three lawyers. He said he was touched by the kindness shown by Sri Lankans and wanted to thank all of them before leaving the island. 'If I was a foreigner in the UK and this happened, no one would have helped me as much as the help I got here,' he said adding that friends and relatives back home too were very supportive. He said he wanted to keep his wife's memory alive by offering his time for charity work. The inquest into Patel's death will resume in August, officials said, but Mr Chandaria is not required to attend. Prior to his release Mr Chandaria told The Sun: 'The authorities are not treating me as a culprit but aren't treating me like a victim either. I don't want to leave without her. 'I still talk to Usheila at night when I look at the stars. She was supposed to be with me for the rest of our lives.' Mrs Patel's parents said: 'Two healthy newlyweds left for their honeymoon and days later our beautiful daughter has left us. From cloud nine to a living hell. Just want to see our beloved daughter one last time.' The couple married in Brent, North London, on April 14, before travelling to Sri Lanka for a two-week, 6,600 trip. Mr Chandaria (left) and Usheila (right) Mr Chandaria (pictured above) had previously said he did not want to leave Sri Lanka without his wife The couple married in Brent, North London, on April 19, before travelling to Sri Lanka for a two-week, 6,600 trip. Whilst at Heathrow Airport the pair purchased vodka and Sprite. After arriving at the 100-a-night Amari hotel, Mr Chandaria said he had noticed a 'smell' in their room. A cleaner attended and after the maintenance team left, the couple shared a sandwich and chips. The pair both felt sick shortly after, with Mr Chandaria saying he and his wife were 'feverish and vomiting blood'. The couple phoned for help at around 3am and three staff came with a wheelchair before the newlyweds were rushed to Co-operative Hospital, according to Mr Chandaria. His massage therapist wife was then transported to the city's Karapitiya hospital. Mr Chandaria stands outside the courthouse in Galle on Wednesday with his legal team Phone shop manager Mr Chandaria said today: 'The realisation finally hit me that I am going back to a life without my wife' Phone shop manger Mr Chandaria said a post-mortem showed his wife had died from dehydration and vomiting. Amari spokesman Russell Cool told AFP last week that the couple initially declined medical treatment at a local hospital, but asked for help a few hours later. 'The couple consumed a light meal prepared by the hotel, as did other guests at the same time and who remain fine,' Mr Cool told AFP. The couple met on dating app Tinder before going on a date to the Finchley Lido cinema to watch London Has Fallen, which was released in 2016. They started dating officially in March that year and two years later Mr Chandaria asked Usheila to be his wife, they were married on April 19. The Government does not know how many British users may have been affected by a 'terrifying' WhatsApp security breach affecting users worldwide, MPs have heard. Digital Minister Margot James said the likelihood of there being UK victims of the attack is being investigated but said, as yet, there is no information about how many people could have been targeted. The vulnerability allowed attackers to install malicious code on iPhones and Android phones by ringing up a target device. The code could be transmitted even if users did not answer their phones and a log of the call often disappeared, according to reports. The company said it was still investigating the breach but believed only a 'select number of users were targeted through this vulnerability by an advanced cyber actor.' Responding to questions in the House of Commons about how many UK users may have been affected, Ms James said the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) was investigating and the advice from WhatsApp is to install the newest updates of the app. She said: 'I am assured by the NCSC that the advice they are giving at the moment is what we should all be following, and they are investigating the likelihood of any UK users having been victims of this latest attack but, as yet, I don't have any further information on that particular point to inform the House.' Digital Minister Margot James told MPs the likelihood of there being UK victims of the attack is being investigated Shadow digital secretary Tom Watson warned a security flaw in the messaging app could be used by states to monitor human rights groups. An an update released by WhatsApp to stop hackers injecting 1.5bn phones with surveillance software may not be enough to protect users, experts today warned. Shadow digital secretary Tom Watson warned a security flaw in the messaging app could be used by states to monitor human rights groups. Asking an urgent question in the Commons, Mr Watson said: 'Another day, another serious, major data breach from a Mark Zuckerberg company.' He added the spyware, called Pegasus, had been created by an Israeli security company, the NSO Group. The West Bromwich East MP said the malicious software is transmitted via a phone call and is then able to access 'everything'. Mr Watson said: 'It can even use the phone's camera and microphone to record the user's surroundings. That is terrifying.' He added 1.5 billion people worldwide use WhatsApp, with millions of users in the UK. The attack could have been carried out by a 'state actor', he said. Ms James replied: 'I agree that these transgressions are happening far too frequently.' WhatsApp is one of the world's most popular messaging tools and has touted its high level of security and privacy She said Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright has already raised his 'deep concern' with former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Nick Clegg, who is now the global head of public affairs for Facebook, which owns WhatsApp. Ms James added: 'I share the concerns that this type of attack could be used by a state to monitor human rights activists.' WhatsApp said on Tuesday that a security breach on its messaging app had signs of coming from a government using surveillance technology developed by a private company, and it may have targeted human rights groups. WhatsApp, a unit of Facebook, said it had notified the U.S. Department of Justice to help with an investigation, and it encouraged all WhatsApp users to update to the latest version of the app, where the breach had been fixed. WhatsApp is one of the world's most popular messaging tools. It has touted its high level of security and privacy, with messages on its platform being encrypted end-to-end so that WhatsApp and third parties cannot read or listen to them. Alabama's governor has signed the most stringent abortion ban in the nation. Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed the measure on Wednesday. The law will make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison. The law contains an exception for when the pregnancy creates a serious health risk for the woman, but not an exception for rape or incest. There would be no punishment for the woman receiving the abortion, only for the abortion provider. 'Today, I signed into law the Alabama Human Life Protection Act,' Ivey said in a statement. 'To the bill's many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God,' she continued. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey is seen signing the bill into law on Wednesday. She called the new law 'a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious' Alabama Governor Kay Ivey discusses the bill while visiting a car factory at Montgomery, Alabama on Wednesday shortly before signing it into law Gov. Ivey's full statement on HB314 'Today, I signed into law the Alabama Human Life Protection Act, a bill that was approved by overwhelming majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. To the bill's many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God. 'To all Alabamians, I assure you that we will continue to follow the rule of law. 'In all meaningful respects, this bill closely resembles an abortion ban that has been a part of Alabama law for well over 100 years. As today's bill itself recognizes, that longstanding abortion law has been rendered 'unenforceable as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.' 'No matter one's personal view on abortion, we can all recognize that, at least for the short term, this bill may similarly be unenforceable. As citizens of this great country, we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions. Many Americans, myself included, disagreed when Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973. The sponsors of this bill believe that it is time, once again, for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur. 'I want to commend the bill sponsors, Rep. Terri Collins and Sen. Clyde Chambliss, for their strong leadership on this important issue. 'For the remainder of this session, I now urge all members of the Alabama Legislature to continue seeking the best ways possible to foster a better Alabama in all regards, from education to public safety. We must give every person the best chance for a quality life and a promising future.' Advertisement The bill passed the state senate 25-6, after being approved by the state's lower house 75-3. The new law will not go into effect for six months, and in the interim abortions will remain legal in Alabama, which has three abortion clinics. The law will likely to be challenged immediately in court, potentially setting up a case which could allow anti-abortion groups to force a Supreme Court hearing in which they would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade. Democrats accused Alabama Republicans of leading a charge to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. A series of the 2020 presidential candidates warned that Republican-controlled legislatures around the country may follow suit, emboldened by President Donald Trump's two conservative justices and a warning from one of the liberal justices that abortion rights were now in play. Democrats say that abortion opponents are hoping that the 5-4 conservative majority on the court - put in place by Trump installing Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - will rule in their favor, and tear up the 1973 ruling which makes abortion a federal right. An anti-abortion bill that pass both houses of Alabama's legislature has Democratic presidential candidates up in arms Conservative court: Chief Justice John Robert now presides over a court with five justices - himself included - seen as anti-abortion, two of them Trump's picks: Brett Kavanaugh (top right), and Neil Gorsuch (top left) Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is warning what the bill's authors have readily admitted, that the legislation is meant to be a mechanism to get abortion before the Supreme Court again Under the Alabama law, the only legal abortions would be those performed to protect a woman's life. Doctors could face 10 years in prison for attempting an abortion in any other circumstance, and 99 years for actually carrying out the procedure. Other Republican-controlled states, including Ohio, have passed less restrictive 'heartbeat bills' which effectively ban abortion after six weeks. Roe v. Wade established it was legal in the first and second trimesters. Many pro-life groups have acknowledged they are looking for a case which would allow them to directly challenge Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. Anti-abortion activists hope the high court will be willing to reconsider Roe. 'It is clearer than ever that Roe is far from being settled law in the eyes and hearts of the American people, and this is increasingly reflected in state legislatures,' said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List. 'The American people want a fresh debate and a new direction.' The Supreme Court affirmed women's constitutional right to abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. President Donald Trump has added two conservative members to the court, changing its dynamic in a way that could end the case's authority. Legal fights are likely ahead over the Alabama measure if Ivey signs it into law. Similar abortion restrictions are under consideration or already enacted in other conservative-leaning states. Republican state Senator Clyde Chambliss, arguing in favor of the Alabama bill, said the point was 'so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade.' Republican lawmaker Terri Collins, who sponsored the legislation, said: 'Our bill says that baby in the womb is a person.' Courts this year have blocked restrictive abortion laws in Kentucky and Iowa. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life for the unborn child transcends other rights, an idea they would like tested. In the case of Alabama, if passed, the law is certain to be challenged in federal court in the state and almost surely will be blocked because it plainly conflicts with Supreme Court precedent. Review by the federal appeals court in Atlanta would come next, and only then would the Supreme Court be asked to weigh in. Emergency appeals by either side could put the issue before the justices sooner, but that would not be a full-blown review of the law. Abortion-rights activists say they have no alternative but to file lawsuits challenging every tough abortion ban passed. 'Were we not to challenge them, they would go into effect,' said Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project. 'There's no strategy of 'Maybe we leave this one and challenge that one.'' The ACLU and its allies expect lower-level federal courts to honor Roe by blocking the abortion bans. The ultimate question, Dalven said, is whether the Supreme Court will decide to revisit Roe by agreeing to hear an appeal from one or more of the states whose ban was blocked. 'It would be an extraordinary thing for the Supreme Court to take away an individual constitutional right,' she said. WHERE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES STAND ON ABORTION Swing vote Chief Justice John Roberts George W. Bush appointee. Voted in favor of abortion restrictions until Justice Anthony Kennedy left the bench. In only abortion case since then, voted to provisionally block new restrictions in Louisiana. As swing justice, seen as wanting to avoid the Supreme Court being associated with entrenched political positions. Could do his best to avoid a Roe v. Wade challenge coming to the court. Position if one did is now unclear Liberal wing Stephen Breyer Clinton appointee. Warned in May that that the conservative majority could overturn a 1992 decision upholding Roe v. Wade. Has consistently voted pro-choice Elena Kagan Obama appointee. Has consistently voted pro-choice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Clinton appointee. Has consistently voted pro-choice Sonia Sotomayor Obama appointee. Has consistently voted pro-choice Conservative wing Clarence Thomas George H.W. Bush appointee. Said this year that Roe v. Wade was 'notoriously incorrect' and compared it to Dred Scott, the case which upheld slavery before the Civil War. Has consistently voted for anti-abortion positions Samuel Alito George W. Bush appointee. As a federal appeal judge, he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law which required women to tell their husbands they planned to have an abortion. As Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, his ruling was overturned in the Supreme Court the next year, in a ruling Stephen Breyer says could be overturned itself. Has consistently voted for anti-abortion positions Neil Gorsuch Trump appointee. Only vote on abortion-related case was in February, on whether to block restrictions on clinics in Louisiana pending a full appeal. Gorsuch voted for them to go into place but the block was kept in place by Roberts voting with the liberal wing. Federal court career has no abortion votes. Seen as likely to vote for anti-abortion positions Brett Kavanaugh Trump appointee. Like Gorsuch, only vote on abortion-related case was in February, on whether to block restrictions on clinics in Louisiana pending a full appeal, when he joined Gorsuch in losing minority. As federal appeal court judge had one significant abortion vote, against allowing a 17-year-old illegal immigrant in detention to seek a termination without delay. Seen as likely to vote for anti-abortion positions Advertisement Justice Stephen Breyer offered the latest recognition of the difficulty his liberal side of the court faces in a dissent in a case unrelated to abortion that the court decided Monday, one in which the five conservatives voted to overturn a 1979 decision. Breyer, joined by liberal colleagues Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, cited the 1992 abortion decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey in a dissent that concluded: 'Today's decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the court will overrule next.' Justice Clarence Thomas is the only member on record as supporting overruling the court's abortion precedents. In his most recent comments on the topic in February, also in a case unrelated to abortion, Thomas likened Roe to the court's 1857 Dred Scott decision, which said African Americans weren't citizens. Both, he wrote, were 'notoriously incorrect.' But Chief Justice John Roberts also has a track record of preferring smaller bites before making significant changes in constitutional law. 'You do see consistently in the chief justice's career a willingness to go incrementally and only decide what the court needs to resolve in the case before it,' said Michael Moreland, a Villanova University law professor. Roberts also is aware of the questions the court would face if a conservative majority of justices, all appointed by Republican presidents, were to reverse the abortion decisions, Moreland said. Still, Roberts has, with one exception, favored abortion restrictions. His provisional vote to block the Louisiana clinic law was the only time he voted in support of abortions rights in more than 13 years on the court. The Alabama vote set off outrage among Democrats. 'This is wrong. This is unconstitutional,' Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar tweeted. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke wrote on Twitter: 'We will fight these dangerous efforts with everything we've got in legislatures across the country.' Former vice president Joe Biden, the early Democratic front-runner, touted his anti-abortion credentials, tweeting on Wednesday: 'Republicans in AL, FL, GA, and OH are ushering in laws that clearly violate Roe v Wade and they should be declared unconstitutional. Roe v Wade is settled law and should not be overturned. This choice should remain between a woman and her doctor.' South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg criticized Alabama lawmakers for 'ignoring science, criminalizing abortion, and punishing women.' 'Instead, the government's role should be to make sure all women have access to comprehensive affordable care, and that includes safe and legal abortion,' he wrote. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told CNN on Tuesday: 'It's certainly the intention of President Trump and the Republican Party to overturn Roe v. Wade.' Gillibrand observed on Twitter that that Alabama bill includes '[n]o exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors could face 99 years in prison for providing abortions.' 'This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell,' she added. Alabama Democratic state Sen. Roger Smitherman is pictured speaking in opposition to HB314, which now sits on Gov. Kay Ivey's desk awaiting her signature Gillibrand also claimed in an MSNBC interview on Wednesday that the public won't stand for any interference with legal abortion rights. 'This is not something the American people support. Seventy percent of Americans want safe, legal abortion to be available to women when they need it,' she claimed. 'This ban is dangerous and exceptionally cruel and the bill's authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade,' Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote Tuesday night. 'I've lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going back not now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win.' 'I say to Gov. Ivey: Veto this cruel bill,' tweeted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. 'Stop the attack on women's rights.' Alabama Democratic state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison called the Republicans hypocritical for advocating small government that ought to stay out of private matters but 'now you want in my womb; I want you out.' Anti-abortion protesters are hopefully awaiting a day when Roe v. Wade can be reopened in light of 46 years of shifting public sentiments on abortion rights Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke wrote on Twitter: 'We will fight these dangerous efforts with everything we've got in legislatures across the country' Anti-abortion protesters demonstrated this week in front of the Alabama State House in Montgomery Former top Obama administration officials are at odds over which of them may have pushed the infamous golden showers dossier be included in an assessment of Russian election interference and existing email records hold the key to who is correct. A former Republican congressman is touting the available digital evidence, as a new investigatory climate focuses on those involved in decisions to look at the Trump campaign in 2016 amid Russian election interference. Attorney General William Barr has appointed a top prosecutor to examine the origins of the Russia probe the latest of several efforts to 'investigate the investigators.' Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey Once again, former FBI Director James Comey is a central figure to the matter. Fox News reports that in a late-2016 email chain, Comey tells subordinates that the dossier should be included in an intelligence community assessment of Russian interference and that it was at the direction of former CIA Director John Brennan. Special Counsel Robert Mueller hunted down the details of the Kremlin-backed interference campaign and included it in his report, and the DOJ issued indictments. But a former CIA official says it was Comey who wanted the dossier included in an Intelligence Community Assessment not former CIA director John Brennan or former National Security Agency director James Clapper. A former CIA official says it was Comey who wanted the dossier included in an Intelligence Community Assessment, not former National Security Agency director James Clapper (pictured) or Brennan Former Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan, who had access to Russia information during 2016, has become a fierce Trump critic, even calling Trump's conduct 'treasonous' All three are targets of President Trump and have blasted his conduct while in office. Emails refer to the dossier, which included unverified information about Donald Trump's alleged conduct in a Moscow hotel room during the 2014 Miss Universe pageant, as 'crown material.' A former CIA official told the network: '"Former Director Brennan, along with former James Clapper, are the ones who opposed James Comeys recommendation that the Steele Dossier be included in the intelligence report," the official told the network. 'They opposed this because the dossier was in no way used to develop the ICA," the official added. "The intelligence analysts didn't include it when they were doing their work because it wasn't corroborated intelligence, therefore it wasn't used and it wasn't included. Brennan and Clapper prevented it from being added into the official assessment. James Comey then decided on his own to brief Trump about the document." The dossier was developed by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who relied in part on his Russia contacts to develop the information. Comey famously briefed Trump on the contents of the dossier and its salacious unverified claims after the election, during the transition. Trump would ultimately fire Comey after complaining about the Russia probe, in an incident that featured in Mueller's probe of possible obstruction of justice by the president. Former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy hyped the emails an appearance on Fox, Trump's favorite network. 'Whoever is looking into this, tell them to look into emails,' he said. 'Comey has a better argument than Brennan, based on what I've seen,' Gowdy said. With the release of the Mueller report, which the president declared a 'total exoneration' but which also sketches out numerous Trump campaign contacts with Russians, Barr named the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, John Durham, to review the origins of the probe. Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz is examining the FBI's actions during the probe. Judiciary Committee Chairman Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had promised his own probe, said he doesn't want to interfere in the Barr-ordered probe, which Trump praised publicly. Robert Weinstein tried to quit, but they pulled him back in. The brother of disgraced mogul Harvey suffered a big loss in court in Tuesday when Judge Barbara Jaffe denied his motion to be dismissed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by a former company employee. It was also ordered that Robert submit his response to the initial complaint within 20 days, and a pre-trial hearing was set for late July. Robert was named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed by Sandeep Rehal last year in New York Supreme Court. Rehal said she was forced to set up Weinstein's love nest during the two years she worked at the company, provide him with the shot of Caravject that would be injected into his penis before sex and then clean up the aftermath of those encounters. Weinsetin denied he allegations, and claimed that Rehal was never his assistant ina response filed last month. Scroll down for video Clink: A judge dismissed Robert Weinstein's motion to dismiss an action brought against him by an employee of his brother Harvey (Harvey and Robert above in 2015) Weinstein stated that he could not recall when or if Rehal worked for the company before later stating that the damages she may have suffered were caused by herself because of her own behavior. 'Plaintiff Sandeep Rehal was a female employee of Defendants employed as a personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein in TWC's New York City office located in the County of New York from approximately February 2013 to February 13, 2015,' wrote Rehal's lawyer in the complaint. In his answer, it is that claim which elicits the strongest response from Weinstein. 'Denies that Plaintiff was employed as Weinsteins personal assistant, and denies having knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the remaining allegations,' wrote Weinstein's lawyer. In an interview with the Deccan Chronicle last year, Rehal detailed how she came to work at The Weinstein Company. 'I was friends with his wife, Georgina Chapmans second assistant [at the time],' said Rehal. 'My friend told me HWs office was hiring and thought I would be a great fit. I passed her my resume, the director of his office called me, I met HW and I had the job.' Weinstein also denied that he 'created a sexually hostile work environment' before stating in his second affirmative defense: 'The damages allegedly suffered by [Rehal] were caused in whole or in part, or were exacerbated by, [Rehal's] own negligence and/or culpable conduct and, accordingly, [Rehals] claim is therefore barred or diminished in the proportion that such negligence and culpable conduct bears to the total culpable conduct causing the alleged damages.' Sandeep Rehal (above) said in a 2018 compliant that she was forced to clean up semen on a weekly basis, gather used condoms and even give Harvey Weinstein penis shots Rehal initially filed her lawsuit in federal court before moving it to New York Supreme Court in February 2018 after her action was thrown out by a judge for the Southern District of New York who cited a lack of jurisdiction. Weinstein's brother and the company's former head of human resources Frank Gil and the Weinstein Company were also named as defendants in the lawsuit. Rehal was just 26 when she began working for Weinstein in February 2013, according to court filings. Two years later she quit, claiming in her complaint that this decision was made because of the sexual harassment, gender discrimination and physical and emotional abuse she dealt with at the hands of her boss. 'Much of Ms. Rehal's work as an employee of TWC involved catering to Harvey Weinstein's sexual appetites and activities, and catering to his demeaning and often abusive family members,' states the complaint. Examples of this include Rehal being forced to 'take dictation of emails from Weinstein while he was naked,' Weinstein calling her a 'c***' and a 'pussy' on a daily basis and being pawed at by her boss despite her efforts to minimize that behavior, states the complaint. It was also Rehal who was tasked with maintaining the mogul's now infamous list, with asterisks added alongside some of the women to indicate they were his 'sexual partners', according to Rehal. 'Harvey Weinstein also ordered Ms. Rehal to obtain and set up an apartment close to the office for him to use with one of his sexual liaisons, and purchase women's lingerie for the woman in that apartment as well as gifts for other women,' states the complaint. She then claims that the head of human resources even knew about her giving Weinstein penile injections. '[Rehal] was required to manage the stock of Caverject shots for his erectile dysfunction. She had to obtain the shots and keep them stocked in cabinet behind her desk at Harvey Weinstein's TWC office,' reads the complaint. 'Every time Harvey Weinstein went to meet a woman at a hotel, in the office, or elsewhere, which occurred on average at least three times a week when he was in New York, Ms. Rehal was required as part of her job to provide Harvey Weinstein with a shot, which she placed in his jacket pocket or in a brown paper bag.' Things became a problem however when the shots were not available in London during one trip. 'Harvey Weinstein ordered Ms. Rehal to find a supply in the United States and gave her a bonus of $500 paid by TWC for doing so. [HR head] Frank Gil, knowing that the bonus was for Ms. Rehal's procurement of erectile dysfunction drugs, authorized the payment,' writes Rehal's lawyer in the initial court filing. Rehal claims she was also tasked with attending to the aftermath of these liaisons as well, especially if they took place in Weinstein's office. 'Ms. Rehal had to pick up Harvey Weinstein's used Caverject shots, which he tossed on the floor in his office, hotel rooms and his apartment,' states the complaint. 'She also had to pick up his used condom, and clean up rooms before housekeeping personnel would do their work.' And while Weinstein was in New York, Rehal allegedly had to 'clean up the semen on the couch in Harvey Weinstein's office.' That happened 'three or so times a week' according to her complaint. Rehal, who now lives in California, is demanding damages to be determined by a jury following trial. Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris on Wednesday turned the speculation that she would make a perfect running mate to Joe Biden back around on him and said he'd be a great number two to her. 'I think that Joe Biden would be a great running mate,' she said in response to a question from the DailyMail.com. 'As vice president he's proven he knows how to do the job. And there are certainly a lot of other candidates that would make for me a very viable and interesting vice president,' she added after a town hall meeting here. Kamala Harris turned the speculation that she would make a perfect running mate to Joe Biden back around on him Harris said Joe Biden would be a great running mate on her ticket Harris has slammed speculation from the chattering class that it would take a white male to beat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. And Politico reported last week that several black lawmakers wanted to see the California senator as Biden's running mate. But Harris made it clear to voters in New Hampshire that she is running for the top spot on the Democratic ticket. 'I fully intend to win this election,' she said. She also disagreed with an assertion by Biden that the 1994 crime bill did not lead to a mass incarceration. 'I have a great deal of respect for Vice President Joe Biden but I disagree with that,' she said. 'That 1994 crime bill - it did contribute to mass incarceration in the country.' 'We had a federal three strikes it funded. It funded the building of more prisons in states,' added Harris, who served as attorney general of California and was a career prosecutor in San Francisco before she became a senator. Biden argued at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Tuesday that 1994's Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which was criticized for leading to mass incarceration, particularly of African-Americans, did not do such a thing. 'Folks, let's get something straight: 92 out of every 100 prisoners behind bars are in a state prison, not a federal prison,' he said at a house party in Nashua. 'This idea that the crime bill created mass incarceration - it did not create mass incarceration.' And Harris would not agree with Biden's assertion that Trump is an illegitimate president. 'I believe he's incompetent,' Harris told reporters after the town hall meeting. Biden greed with a woman on Tuesday who called President Trump an 'illegitimate president' and joked she should be his running mate. Harris greets supporters after her town hall meeting in New Hampshire The exchange came about at a house party in Nashua, N.H., when the former vice president was taking questions from the crowd of voters. 'I have a very severe case of what is called Trump derangement syndrome,' the woman said to cheers and whoops. 'He is an illegitimate president in my mind,' she said. 'Would you be my Vice Presidential candidate?,' Biden responded to laughter and cheers. Then he agreed with her charges. 'Folks look I absolutely agree,' he said. 39-year-old Christine Tenney, of La Marque, Texas, pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated robbery and obstruction of justice A Texas woman has admitted to her role in the deaths of a couple who were killed at a Kansas fair after one suspect ordered the murders as part of a 'carnival mafia' initiation. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said 39-year-old Christine Tenney, of La Marque, Texas, pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated robbery and obstruction of justice. Tenney was charged after the July 2018 deaths of Alfred 'Sonny' Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter, both of Wichita, at the Barton County Fair in Kansas, where they were vendors. Their bodies were discovered in a national forest near Van Buren, Arkansas, in shallow graves Three other people were charged with murder in their deaths. Fifty-four-year-old Michael Fowler Jr., of Sarasota, Florida, pleaded guilty in March to first-degree murder. Tenney was charged after the July 2018 deaths of Alfred 'Sonny' Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter, both of Wichita, at the Barton County Fair in Kansas Rusty Frasier, of Aransas Pass, Texas, and Kimberly Younger, of MacIntosh, Florida, also known as Myrna Khan were also charged with capital murder in the deaths. Frasier is charged with obstructing apprehension. Three other people were charged with murder in their deaths. Fifty-four-year-old Michael Fowler Jr., of Sarasota, Florida, pleaded guilty in March to first-degree murder Younger allegedly posed as a carnival mafia member named 'Frank Zaitchik' and texted others last month to kill the Carpenters on the fairgrounds at Great Bend, Kansas, where the couple were vendors, according to Van Buren, Arkansas, police. Detectives discovered Younger had a Facebook page in the name of Frank Zaitchik while examining her phone, according to police reports. Police said Fowler told investigators that Frasier stabbed Alfred Carpenter before Fowler shot him. Fowler then went into the couple's camper and shot Pauline Carpenter, according to police reports. Fowler told investigators that the killings were initiation into the carnival mafia, police said. Asked whether there was even such a thing as a carnival mafia, Van Buren police spokesman Jonathan Wear said in an email that was something the woman 'definitely made up.' Rusty Frasier, of Aransas Pass, Texas, (left) and Kimberly Younger, of MacIntosh, Florida, (right) also known as Myrna Khan. Frasier and Khan were also charged with capital murder in the deaths. Frasier is charged with obstructing apprehension Zaitchik also told texted others to clean the inside of the camper and to dispose of the bodies, Fowler allegedly told investigators. The four suspects loaded the couple's bodies into the camper and dumped them in a creek bed north of Cedarville, Arkansas, according to police reports. Tenney's sister-in-law told authorities Tenney called and said she was kidnapped by three others who had murdered an elderly couple and that she's being held against her will, police said. Authorities found the suspects at an apartment complex. The Bahamian restaurant owner who lost $50,000 in life savings after the Fyre Festival fiasco says she was almost scammed a second time when a friend tried to take away half of the money donated to her in a GoFundMe campaign. Maryann Rolle, who runs the Exuma Point Bar and Grille, gained international attention earlier this year when she appeared in a Netflix documentary about the infamous and widely publicized festival. Rolle revealed that she was forced to pay local staff working the festival out of her own pocket when Fyre organizers failed to pay her for catering the 2017 event. Her story prompted an outpouring of sympathy and support and a friend - Pamela Carter - set up a GoFundMe page with Rolle's permission. It quickly raised more than $200,000 with donations pouring in from across the world. Maryann Rolle, who runs the Exuma Point Bar and Grille, gained international attention earlier this year when she appeared in a Netflix documentary about the infamous Fyre Festival But in an interview with VICE, Rolle said the friend she trusted to handle the GoFundMe donations eventually tried to 'screw' her over. 'One of my wonderful friends assisted me by sending up a GoFundMe account,' Rolle said. 'When people watched the documentary they contribute - some $5, some $10, some $20,000. 'I felt very good about it. I realized if you do things from the heart, it pays off.' The GoFundMe page, which said it was set up by a woman named Pamela Carter in Franklin, Tennessee on behalf of Rolle, has raised $230,000 from 9,000 individual donations since January. After all the donations kept rolling in, Rolle claims her friend tried to make her sign a contract that would entitle her to half of the contributions. 'It's so unfortunate that a few dollars come in the midst of good friendship. I didn't have a link to my own GoFundMe account because I just trusted that person to deal with this for me,' Rolle told VICE. Rolle said the friend she trusted to handle the GoFundMe donations eventually tried to 'screw' her over when she asked her to sign of contract that would give her half the money raised The Netflix executive producer for the Fyre documentary even tweeted out a link to the GoFundMe page after Rolle allowed her friend to set it up on her behalf 'So I depend on her as a friend and then she tried to screw me right up by signing a contract that she gets almost a half of my money. 'Fyre screwed you, you go to GoFundMe, now you get some money this person wants to screw you. 'It was like a gun to my head: 'Sign here or you lose your money'.' Rolle refused to sign the contract and asked for the money to be returned to those who donated it. 'So I say you know what, let the money go back to the senders because it's not fair to them. It's not for me to share,' Rolle said. She said GoFundMe stepped in to ensure she would be receiving the donations. 'They heard my story and they knew it was the truth and they were willing to work with me,' Rolle said. Rolle said she was grateful for the support and thanked those who had donated. 'I just want to say thank you to everyone all over the world... for lending a helping hand to someone when they needed you the most,' she said. Rolle said she plans to use some of the donations to help her restaurant (above) but she will also give some to those who need it on her island Rolle, pictured with her husband, refused to sign the contract. She said GoFundMe stepped in to ensure she would be receiving the donations Rolle also added that she was amazed by her overnight fame as a result of the Fyre Festival and said tourists often stopped by to ask for photos now. 'I am amazed, I didn't know I would ever be a celebrity in my lifetime but here I am,' she said. She said she plans to use some of the donations to help her restaurant but she will also give some to those who need it on her island. She will also give 10 percent to her church to help those across the Bahamas. 'They want a few dollars and you know I just want to be able to, if not give them a lot, give them a little,' Rolle said of distributing the money. 'It's not a lot of money but a little is much if you give it from the heart.' Billy McFarland, the creator of the failed Fyre Festival, was given a six-year prison sentence as a result. He admitted defrauding investors of $26 million in the 2017 music festival and over $100,000 in a fraudulent ticket-selling scheme after his arrest in the festival scam. Billy McFarland, organizer of the Fyre Festival, is currently serving a six-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire and bank fraud Two California teenagers have come under fire for their racist prom proposal sign that displayed the n-word on a poster. A photo of the teenagers smiling and posing with a sign that reads: 'Bianca, You are racist but I would give anything for you to go to prom with me.' On the poster, certain letters were painted in bold and capitalized to spell out the n-word. The image was circulated on Twitter and Instagram and shows teens Bianca Daalfonso and Nick Zwygart, as identified on social media, who attend Palos Verdes High School in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. Two California teenagers identified on social media as Bianca Daalfonso and Nick Zwygart have come under fire for their racist prom proposal. The sign says: 'Bianca, You are racist but I would give anything for you to go to prom with me' with capitalized bold black letters spelling out the n-word This photo of their racist sign that spelled out the n-word in bold letters says is circulating on Instagram and Twitter The racist photograph has sparked outrage among students and parents who demand that the school investigate the image and ban the students from attending prom for their blatant display of racism. The school's prom is set for Saturday. 'I'm flabbergasted that we still have to deal with this in this day and age,' a parent said to NBC4. 'It spelled out the N word.' 'I just dropped off my daughter and saw the news crew. We need to demand that these kids NOT go to the prom!! These kids need to know that there are consequences to their actions,' one angry mother wrote on Twitter. 'It's chilling how proud these young people are of their racism. They have a choice, to better the world or make it worse. They've chosen villainy,' an outraged Twitter user added. 'These kids should be expelled,' another added. 'I saw the promposal of that, and it didn't sit well with me,' junior Joey Quinn said to the outlet. 'I know a lot of my friends are nothing like that and I just don't think it represents our student body at all.' The photo sparked backlash and outrage among students and parents, some demanding the students involved in the proposal be banned from attending the prom this Saturday One Palos Verdes student shared the picture on her Instagram writing 'Disgusting' adding 'This sign does not well represent the behavior of the school, as I have grown up in this community my whole life.' That student said a random Twitter account shared the picture, not the couple featured in it. Palos Verdes High School Principal Allan Tyner released a statement saying the two students and their families have been contacted 'to inform them that we are forming a response and anticipate severe consequences'. 'In accordance with our values and expectations for respectful conduct in our district and at PVHS, this sign is unacceptable,' Tyner said. 'We are also continuing to investigate the situation to determine who else may have been present when the photo was taken, and who took the photo. Palos Verdes High School pictured above Palos Verdes High School Principal Allan Tyner released a statement saying the two students and their families have been contacted 'to inform them that we are forming a response and anticipate severe consequences' 'However, we will not discuss the details of any school action or potential consequences for students as we have a strict obligation to protect privacy rights. 'At this time, I am asking all teachers and parents in our school community to join me in reminding our students that we live in a society that must respect diversity and tolerance.' Tyner also said in a letter posted on the school's website that he will meet with all students on Wednesday to 'review appropriate behavior and how the use of hurtful racial slurs is unacceptable'. 'Racist words and racist acts have no place in our school community. We will rise above this, learn from this, and be a better school community because of it,' Tyner said. But this isn't the first racist promposal of its kind. Just two weeks ago a student at an Ohio high school senior was banned from his prom after he made a proposal sign that read: 'If I was black I'd be picking cotton but I'm white so I'm picking u for prom'. Signs with the same message were used by a Texas high school student and an an Arizona senior - resulting in suspensions. Also earlier this month an investigation was launched for an 'inappropriate and unacceptable' prom proposal in a Plesantville, New York high school. The proposal led to increased anti-bias education for students - but the details of it were not revealed. Three people are facing felony charges after posing as psychics in order to swindle a Las Vegas lawyer out of $1.5 million in assets. Sherry Marks, 52, David Marks, 48, and Peaches Marks, 43, may serve jail time for the elaborate months-long scam which saw them dupe Stacey Tokunaga into giving them luxury cars and cash. Tokunga is a high-powered attorney who specializes in workers compensation law and runs a firm under her own name, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. The deceit began partway through 2017, with the trio reportedly leaving a flyer on the doorstep of Tokunga's home in the affluent Nevada suburb of Summerlin. It advertised a tarot card reading, and the lawyer promptly responded. David Marks (left), Sherry Marks (center) , and Peaches Marks (right) may serve jail time for the elaborate months-long scam that saw them pose as psychics At the reading, Tokunga was told 'her chakras were off balance', before she was quoted $1,500 for a 'chakra clearing.' In order for that process to be successful, the attorney was informed that she would need to purchase both a journal and a 'white singing bowl' for $30,000. She paid the five-figure sum, but investigators later found a similar journal and bowl on Amazon for just $18. Later, Tokunga shelled out $30,000 cash on another journal as the trio's alleged scam became increasingly devious. At one point, they told the attorney that she needed to sleep with a mason jar under her bed that was filled with water and covered with a black cloth. When Tokunga woke up, the water had turned red, and the 'psychics' declared she would need to 'fix the rooted evil in her bloodline'. The lawyer then began spending even more frenetically, funding a trip for one of the 'psychics' to go to New Orleans. The scam began when Tokunga responded to an advertisement for a tarot card reading (pictured) She was also convinced that she needed to purchase two $130,000 BMW's in order 'to truly clear the bad karma' that she was afflicted with. Rapidly running out of money, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports that Tokunga 'collected upward of $500,000 that Tokunaga pulled from her firms coffers and a line of credit'. She also handed over '$350,000 of heirloom jewelry', before her accountant found out and contacted authorities. Sherry Marks and David Marks are due back in court later this month, charged with conspiracy, extortion and four counts of obtaining money under false pretenses. Peaches Marks is expected to appear at a later date. It's unclear how the trio are related, and lawyers for Sherry Marks would not publicly disclose that information. However, however Marks is also facing a dozen counts of theft and one count of fraud in a separate case,. She has been charged alongside her daughter, who is also named Peaches Mark, but has a different date of birth. English Democrats leader Robin Tilbrook (pictured) says he is 'very confident' of victory in his Brexit court battle The leader of the English Democrats has said he is 'very confident' of proving that Britain has already left the EU - despite government claims that his case is 'hopeless'. Robin Tilbrook said his movement had raised 58,000 for the High Court battle and enjoyed an 'upsurge of people joining our party'. The pro-Brexit campaigner vowed to press ahead with the legal challenge despite government lawyers calling his case 'totally without merit' and trying to have it thrown out. He said officials were just as dismissive of the Gina Miller case in 2016 - a case which she went on to win. The case turns on whether Theresa May had the legal power to delay Brexit past the initial March 29 deadline. Mr Tilbrook says she had the power to start the two-year withdrawal process, but not to amend it. As a result, he says the extension was invalid and that Britain left the EU on March 29 as originally planned. Government lawyers counter that Mrs May had implied powers to change the Brexit date and that Parliament approved the delay. A court date is yet to be set but Mr Tilbrook has asked for the case to be expedited. Speaking to MailOnline last night, he said the government was taking the case 'really seriously'. He said: 'I'm very confident. As much as you can be confident of anything in life, I think this is a pretty strong one.' The English Democrats argue that Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street today) did not have the power to delay Brexit beyond March 29 this year Robin Tilbrook said the case of Gina Miller (pictured centre) - who took the government to court over Article 50 and won - was a helpful precedent for his party's own legal bid Explaining his party's case, he said: 'It's quite simple. If your notice expires, then you're out. 'They served their notice under that Act of Parliament. If you look at the Act in question, it's 137 words. 'It just says that she's got power to serve notice to withdraw the UK from the EU. It doesn't say she's got any other powers. 'That's the crux of the case: that she's properly served the notice, and at the end of that period of notice of two years, you're out.' He said the Gina Miller case - when Ms Miller forced the PM to win parliamentary backing to begin the Brexit process - was a helpful precedent for his party. Government lawyers say that Mrs May had prerogative powers to agree a Brexit delay with Brussels. But an Act of Parliament supersedes prerogative powers - a point made by the Supreme Court in Miller, said Mr Tilbrook. Theresa May talks to European Council chief Donald Tusk (left) and German chancellor Angela Merkel (right) at the Brussels summit where the extension was agreed Pro-Brexit protesters calling for a no-deal exit on WTO rules hold up placards outside the Palace of Westminster earlier this year Boris could face private prosecution over Brexit comments Boris Johnson could be prosecuted privately for comments made in the run-up to the EU referendum. Marcus Ball, 29, is bringing the private case against Mr Johnson for allegedly abusing public trust. A judge has agreed to hold a public hearing on the matter, the campaigner has said. Mr Ball alleges that the former foreign secretary committed misconduct in public office by endorsing and making statements which he knew to be false at a time when he was mayor of London and an MP. The allegation relates to the much-trumpeted claim by the Vote Leave campaign that the UK sends 350 million a week to the European Union. It was found to be misleading by the UK Statistics Authority. A public hearing will take place at Westminster Magistrates' Court on May 23. Advertisement 'It displaces all other executive rights to do anything in that area without another Act, and they haven't got one,' he said. Mr Tilbrook launched the legal challenge after Mrs May agreed a delay with EU leaders, having failed to win Commons backing for her withdrawal agreement. He has called it an 'opportunity to make history' and said it could save Britain a 39billion divorce bill. But in a scathing response, Government lawyers said the legal claim was 'totally without merit' and called for the case to be dismissed. 'If the claimant is right, the UK would have withdrawn from the EU by accident,' they said. That would be 'directly contrary to the evident intention and belief of Parliament and the other member states of the EU', they claim. 'That would be a startling legal position indeed.' The 2017 Act which allowed the PM to trigger Article 50 did not set a date for Britain to leave, Government lawyers wrote. Therefore, it did not restrict the Government's power to change the date, they say. The 2018 Withdrawal Act foresees a situation in which the exit date is amended, they added, meaning Parliament had accepted that possibility. And earlier this year the Commons and Lords both approved an extension. Mrs May was forced to ask for a delay (pictured, the results of an extension vote being announced in the House of Commons) after MPs rejected her withdrawal deal 'Parliament has acted on the basis of those lawful extensions and given effect to the extension of the withdrawal date,' they said. Calling the English Democrats' claim 'hopeless', they said it should be thrown out and declared 'totally without merit'. Mr Tilbrook's lawyers have since fired back, saying that 'a claim of such constitutional importance' should be heard in court. A valid extension would 'frustrate the legislative intension of Parliament', they submitted. Ms Miller launched her legal challenge in 2016, saying that Parliament had to approve the triggering of the Brexit process. The High Court and Supreme Court both found in her favour, forcing MPs to vote on Article 50. Ms Miller has since become a prominent advocate of a second referendum on Brexit. Two Denver high school students accused of fatally shooting a classmate and wounding eight others last week appeared in court on Wednesday to be formally charged with murder. Colorado prosecutors have now charged both Devon Erickson, 18, and Alec McKinney, 16, with murder, attempted murder, and a series of other counts relating to the shooting at the STEM School Highlands Ranch on May 7. McKinney, who was listed on the court docket by the name Maya Elizabeth McKinney but identifies as male, will also be tried as an adult, the court confirmed. Erickson and McKinney were arrested at the high school after investigators say they opened fire on their fellow students in two different classrooms using handguns that had been concealed in a guitar case. Devon Erickson (pictured), 18, and Alec McKinney, 16, have been charged with murder, attempted murder, and a other counts relating to the shooting at STEM Unlike his court appearance last week, Erickson appeared more involved and engaged during Wednesday mornings proceedings The two teens made their initial court appearances last week in separate hearings before Douglas County District Judge Theresa Slade, who ordered them both held without bond. Denver's ABC affiliate television station has reported that the two pistols used in the attack were stolen from the home of Erickson, whose parents had purchased the guns legally. Unlike his court appearance last week, Erickson appeared more involved and engaged during Wednesday mornings proceedings. Instead of looking down at his feet with his face concealed by his pink and black dyed hair as he had before, Ericksons face was visible while he looked forward to address the judge directly. Wearing a prison uniform, Erickson was shackled by his wrists and ankles throughout the hearing, as Judge Theresa Slade denied a motion to have them removed. Alongside his charges of murder and several counts of attempted murder, Erickson is also facing charges of theft and arson in relation to the attack. Court documents in the case remain sealed. Slade denied the prosecution's request to make some of the documents public but said she will address the issue at the next hearing on June 7. Instead of looking down to his feet with his face concealed by his pink and black dyed hair as he had before, Ericksons face was visible while he looked forward to address the judge directly Wearing a prison uniform, Erickson was shackled by his wrists and ankles throughout the hearing, as Judge Theresa Slade denied a motion to have them removed Alec McKinney, 16, who was listed on the court docket by the name Maya Elizabeth McKinney but identifies as male, will also be tried as an adult, the court confirmed Joshua Jones, an 18-year-old senior at STEM School Highlands Ranch, said during a news conference Tuesday he was watching The Princess Bride in his British literature class when a classmate pulled a gun and told everyone to stay still. Jones said he was acting on instinct when he, Kendrick Castillo and Brendan Bialy subdued one of two students who attacked the south Denver school. We rushed him. I pulled him to the ground, Kendrick got the gun out of him, I shoved him to the wall,' Jones explained. He was shot twice in one leg but said he is recovering quickly. 'There wasn't a whole lot that was going through my mind at the time. Adrenaline and tunnel vision are a crazy thing,' said Jones, who described himself as just a normal teenage kid. 'They make it so that you don't really focus on anything but what's right in front of your face at that moment.' He did, however, have the presence of mind to call his mother Lorie Jones while pinning suspect Devon Erickson. 'She always has been a problem solver for me,' he said, adding that she told him not to worry. 'It was a pretty quick conversation. 'It was really just something like, "Hey, Mom. There's been a school shooting. I've been involved. The authorities are on the way. They're going to get an ambulance and I'm going to go to the hospital. That's all I got right now for you".' Reports say the two pistols used in the attack were stolen from the home of Erickson, whose parents had purchased the guns legally Joshua Jones, front, who was wounded while trying to stop a gunman involved in the attack on the STEM School Highlands Ranch last week, speaks during a news conference as his father, David, listens Tuesday, in Littleton, Colorado Lorie Jones, back, smiles as her son, Joshua, says he called her while pinning school shooter to the ground Lorie Jones says she asked her son if he was bleeding and he replied 'just a little', she reveals in a video from Fox Denver. Jones said he'd always been taught to get away in a situation like last week's but he did what he thought was best for him. Slain student Kendrick Castillo is to be honored at a memorial service on Wednesday at a Highlands Ranch church. The 18-year-old robotics enthusiast and aspiring engineer was shot dead as he charged at the shooters in an effort to disarm them. Just three days shy of graduation, Castillo was pronounced dead at the scene. The second shooter was captured by an armed security guard. Authorities have said these acts of bravery helped minimize the bloodshed from the attack, which also wounded eight students, all of whom have since been released from the hospital. 'We're going to hear about very heroic things that have taken place at the school,' Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said shortly after the shooting. Jones declined to talk about the shooters Tuesday, instead focusing on Castillo and his own physical and emotional recovery. He said he is 'still in a bit of a funk' emotionally ... 'but physically, I'm recovering incredibly well. I'm healing fast. I mean, I'm a young kid.' The shooting happened nearly three weeks after the neighboring town of Littleton marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School attack that killed 13 people. The two schools are separated by about 7 miles (11 kilometers). Kendrick Castillo was killed as he tried to save the lives of others. He will be honored in a memorial service later today Erickson and McKinney are accused of walking into their school with handguns and opening fire in two classrooms last week Five months ago, a school district official urged the STEM schools director to investigate allegations of student bullying and violence by a parent who feared they could lead to the next 'Columbine'. The director said an investigation found no evidence to support the allegations. The STEM school had no sworn police officer at the 1,850-student campus, after a dispute with the sheriffs office over the previous school resource officer's role ended that relationship last year, the school said last week. Instead a private security company was hired to patrol the kindergarten-high school campus. An armed security guard responded to last weeks shooting. ABC News, citing an unnamed law enforcement official, reported last week that the security guard may have mistakenly fired on sheriffs deputies called to the scene and wounded a student in the chaos. Russia is set to free controversially captured killer whales over the next month, but not return the animals to their original habitat despite expert advice, a scientist said Wednesday. Instead the animals will be released from their pens in Russia's Far East and may 'disrupt vacationers' at resorts nearby, said Vladislav Rozhnov, a member on the council involved in talks over the whales' fate. Nearly 100 belugas and orcas were captured last summer and kept in small pens by commercial firms who had planned to deliver them to aquariums, including in China where the industry is booming. An aerial view of pools in the marine animals adaptation centre where illegally caught 11 orcas and 90 belugas that were to be sold to Chinese amusement parks are being kept, in Srednyaya Bay near the city of Nakhodka in Russia's Far East Ten killer whales, or orcas, will be released 'in late May to early June,' Rozhnov said during a briefing at the Russian environment ministry. He said it would be better to transport them, as Russian and foreign scientists have advised, but this has been deemed too costly. Instead they will be freed near their captivity location near the town of Nakhodka - over 800 miles (1300 kilometres) south from where they were caught in the Sea of Okhotsk. Russian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into the illegal capture of the animals after it was reported that 1 orca and 3 beluga whales are missing in February Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Russian Environment Ministry and Russian Agriculture Ministry to look into the matter Here there is a risk that the whales will 'stay near the pens where they were fed' and bother humans. 'Science gives recommendations, but the decision is taken by government authorities,' said Rozhnov, who heads the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Environment and is part of a council on the fate of the whales together with other agencies. 'We hope that the released animals will go north and return to their native waters,' Rozhnov said. Russian officials last month met with US-based conservationists experts Jean-Michel Cousteau and Charles Vinick, who visited the facility with the killer whales and 87 beluga whales, also captured last year. A killer whale in a pool in the marine animals adaptation centre where illegally caught 11 orcas and 90 belugas that were to be sold to Chinese amusement parks are being kept, in Srednyaya Bay near the city of Nakhodka in Russia's Far East A handler strokes the nose of a killer whale in captivity in Srednyaya Bay near the city of Nakhodka in Russia's Far East Rozhnov said there was no precise decision on the beluga whales. In a statement Wednesday, Cousteau's team said releasing them near the facility where they are being held carries a 'high number of significant risks', including potential conflict with people and boats in the area due to 'aggressive behaviours observed in some of the orcas'. Such a release 'leads to likely long-term costs and diminished potential for survival,' the team said in a statement, advising once again to take the whales where they were captured following an 'acclimatisation period' in remote enclosures. Russia is the only country still catching wild orcas and belugas, and the murky trade of marine mammals has boomed in recent years together with the aquarium industry in China, which uses Russian animals in its new marine parks. The fisheries agency has defended the capture as a legitimate industry, though scientists argue it threatens the species' populations. The animals will be freed near town of Nakhodka, near their current pens - over 1300 kilometres (800 miles) south from where they were caught to save on transport costs On April 27 Norwegian fisherman discovered a beluga whale wearing a tight harness with a camera attachment - sparking speculation the animal belongs to the Russian Navy. The crew worked together to release the animal from the straps, which had 'equipment of St Petersburg' written on them. One of the fisherman told Norway's state broadcaster NRK they jumped into the freezing water to help the animal. A beluga whale found wearing a harness marked 'equipment of St Petersburg' is now refusing to stray far from the Norwegian harbour where he was discovered This has prompted speculation the animal may have escaped from a Russian military facility, which has been reported on in the past (harness pictured) Inspector Joergen Ree Wiig of the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, who was at the scene, said the harness featured a mount for an action camera - and said the whale had most likely been trained by the Russian military for surveillance. Russia has dismissed claims its 'spy whale' had been caught snooping on the fishing vessels of a NATO country despite the Defence Ministry in Moscow previously admitting to experiments using these mammals for espionage. The harness it was wearing, pictured, appeared to have a mount for a camera - sparking fears it had been trained by the Russian military for surveillance Two years ago its official TV station Zvezda revealed a programme experimenting with whales for military purposes. The aim was to use the sea mammals or underwater warfare roles including potentially killing intruders, it stated. The work was done alongside Russia's attempts to deploy seals and dolphins for military purposes. Another theory proposed by Viktor Baranets, a retired colonel, is that the whale he whale had escaped from a civilian research institute in St Petersburg. Others believe it may have come from St Petersburg in Florida, but Professor Audun Rikardsen at the Arctic University of Norway said this was simply too far away to be likely. Now Rikardsen is asking residents to stop feeding the whale so it can learn to forage on its own and hopefully survive in the wild. President Vladimir Putin warned Washington that Russia was not 'a fire brigade' and could not 'rescue everything' as tension rise between the US and Iran. Tensions have sharply escalated between arch-rivals Washington and Tehran since US President Donald Trump withdrew last year from the Iran nuclear deal which removed sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear programme. Putin spoke to reporters after hosting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday for the highest-level bilateral talks in nearly a year. Russian president Vladimir Putin, pictured, said Moscow would not be able to act as 'a fireman' to settle a dispute between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear deal Mr Putin met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, on Tuesday in Sochi, Russia Tensions are increasing in the Gulf after the MV Al Marzoqah oil tanker under Saudi Arabian flag was attacked on May 12, 2019 outside Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates 'We regret that the deal is falling apart,' Putin said following talks with Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen on Wednesday. 'After the signing of the agreement Iran was and still is the world's most verifiable and transparent country in this sense.' 'Iran is fulfilling all of its obligations,' said Putin, citing the International Atomic Energy Agency. He urged Iran not to quit the 2015 agreement but added there was only so much Moscow could do. 'Russia is not a fire brigade,' Putin said. 'We cannot rescue everything that does not fully depend on us. We've played our part.' Putin also said that after Washington's withdrawal Europe could do 'nothing' to salvage the deal. Earlier Wednesday Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed concern that tensions over Iran escalated despite assurances from Pompeo that Washington was not seeking war. President Donald Trump has warned he has naval assets in the region, such as the USS Abraham Lincoln, pictured here being replenished at sea by the support ship USNS Arctic 'So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject,' Peskov said. 'We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side,' Peskov added, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Iran. In Sochi, Pompeo said his country did not want war with Iran, despite a spike in tensions that has seen the Pentagon dispatch nuclear-capable bombers to the region. Peskov sought to play down those statements. 'There were no assurances from Pompeo,' Putin's spokesman said. 'And one can hardly talk about some sort of assurances.' Washington last year pulled out of a nuclear deal backed by Europe, Russia and China, which curbed Iran's nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief. Since then it has slapped sweeping sanctions on Iran. On Sunday, mysterious attacks by unknown assailants against four ships in the region, including two from Saudi Arabia, pushed talk of war up another notch. The Andrea Victory, pictured, was holed before the waterline as a result of the attack Washington has accused Iran of planning 'imminent' attacks in the region and on Wednesday, the US ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and consulate in Arbil. The US on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil, ramping up alarm over an alleged Iran threat even as allies appeared less than convinced. A senior Democratic senator demanded President Donald Trump's administration brief Congress on the Iran threat, warning that the US legislature has not approved military action against Tehran. And Moscow expressed concerns that both Washington and Tehran were dangerously stoking tensions, as the Pentagon ramped up its forces in the Gulf with B-52 bombers, Patriot missiles and an aircraft carrier task force. The embassy evacuation came 10 days after Trump's national security advisor John Bolton announced the military deployment in response to intelligence on an unspecified 'imminent' plot by Iran to attack US forces or allies. The State Department warned Wednesday of numerous 'terrorist and insurgent groups' active in the country, including 'anti-US sectarian militias' who could 'threaten US citizens and Western companies throughout Iraq.' The Norwegian-flagged vessel was one of those damaged in the sabotage attack The warning did not mention Iran specifically, but 'anti-US sectarian militias' points to Iran-backed groups. A State Department spokesman told AFP the departure of non-emergency personnel came in response to 'the increased threat stream we are seeing in Iraq.' Washington says it has received intelligence on possible attacks by Iranian or Iranian-backed forces, possibly targeting US bases in Iraq or Syria. Some observers speculate that Tehran is seeking to retaliate to Washington's decision in April to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a terrorist organisation in an effort to stymie their activities across the Middle East. But since the first US warning on May 5, the only activity seen has been a still-mysterious 'attack' Monday on four tankers anchored off Fujairah, a UAE port at the strategically crucial entrance to the Gulf. One or more vessels incurred light hull damage, but what caused the damage and who was behind it remains unknown. US allies in Iraq have refrained from echoing Washington's warning cry. Major General Chris Ghika, a British spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition fighting ISIS, said Tuesday there was no special heightened alert, and that OIR troops were always on guard against possible attacks. After Ghika's comments drew a sharp retort from the US Central Command, Britain's defense ministry said Wednesday they have 'long been clear about our concerns over Iran's destabilising behavior in the region' - while still not confirming any new imminent danger. Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday they were suspending training of soldiers in Iraq; German defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said there was 'generally heightened alert, awareness' among soldiers in the region, but gave no specifics. Separately, the Netherlands' defense ministry said it was suspending a training mission in Iraq due to 'threats,' according to the Dutch ANP news agency. In the US Congress Democrats demanded to know why the Trump administration was boosting its forces in the Gulf and, according to media reports, considering military plans including the possibility of sending 120,000 US troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks American assets. 'The Trump administration has not provided any information to this committee on the intelligence behind their decisions, or what they plan to do in Iraq or Iran,' said Senator Bob Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations panel. He demanded a briefing 'immediately' on the threat intelligence, any plans for war and the decision to order embassy staff out of Iraq. 'Congress has not authorized war with Iran... If (the administration) were contemplating military action with Iran, it must come to Congress to seek approval,' he said. The United States believes Iranian proxies were involved in the attacks on two Saudi registered oil tankers off the United Arab Emirates. The UAE had said on Sunday that four commercial vessels were attacked near Fujairah, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs. The port lies near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important oil export waterways. Iran's foreign ministry described the incidents as "worrisome and dreadful" and called for an investigation. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the largest and third-largest producers respectively in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). A student-run magazine at Harvard has apologized for printing an offensive image showing Anne Frank's face super-imposed onto Heidi Montag's post-plastic surgery bikini body. The image published in The Harvard Lampoon over the weekend sparked outrage on social media as it was condemned as offensive and anti-Semitic for trivializing the Holocaust. The poorly-Photoshopped image was run with the headline: 'Gone Before Her Time: Virtual Aging Technology Shows Us What Anne Frank Would Have Looked Life if She Hadn't Died.' Under the picture were the words: 'Add this to your list of reasons the Holocaust sucked.' The Harvard Lampoon sparked outrage by publishing an image with Anne Frank's face superimposed over the post-plastic surgery, bikini-clad body of reality star Heidi Montag The original photograph of Frank, taken when she was just 11 years old in 1942, is shown above The Lampoon was accused of hyper-sexualizing Frank by putting her head on the body of reality TV star Montag, who was photographed in a skimpy swimsuit in Las Vegas in 2010 The Lampoon's co-presidents and issue editor released a statement responding to the backlash, in which they took responsibility for the misguided attempt at humor and said they 'realize the extent of offense' inflicted. 'We as individuals and we as an organization would like to apologize for our negligence in allowing this piece to be created for and printed in our latest issue,' the statement reads. 'We are sorry for any harm we have caused. Furthermore, we want to both affirm and emphasize that the Lampoon condemns any and all forms of anti-Semitism.' The statement goes on to say that the publication will be reorganizing to improve its review process. 'We realize that our publishing process lacks sufficient editorial oversight, so we are going to restructure our review process for issues to prevent the publication of content like this,' it said. 'These steps will be published on our website in the summer. However, they will constitute part of an ongoing process of change.' The offensive image was featured in the latest edition of The Harvard Lampoon. The cover of the student-run magazine is shown above A statement from the Lampoon's co-presidents and issue editor is shown in full above A spokesperson for Harvard denounced the image as 'deeply offensive' and insulting to Frank's legacy. 'It is not aligned with the values that Harvard College works tirelessly to promote, and we have already begun discussions with the students and organization involved to ensure that appropriate action is taken,' spokesman Aaron Goldman said in a statement to the New York Post. The German-born Jewish girl who penned a diary of her Holocaust experience before dying in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at just 15 years old is one of the most prominent faces of the atrocities under the Nazi regime. Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, executive director of Harvard Hillel, penned an enraged email to the magazine's editors comparing the photo to the 'obscenity of the Nazis'. 'Your depiction of Anne Frank's face grafted to pinup imagery goes far beyond the distastefulness and provocativeness you obviously intend,' Steinberg wrote. 'It is the sexual violation of a child one who, in life, was subjected to the most hideous of crimes.' Robert Trestan, head of the Anti-Defamation League's New England office, told the Boston Globe: 'They crossed the line from humor into anti-Semitism. 'They're using humor as an excuse to trivialize the Holocaust, and it's deeply offensive.' The image was credited to Lampoon contributor Cristobal de Losada Lopez de Romana, who has not returned media requests for comment. Heidi Montag is an American reality TV personality who starred on The Hills. The White House fired back at House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler Wednesday, accusing him of orchestrating a 'show trial' and re-do the Mueller probe is it dug in once again on his information requests. Days after Nadler's committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt, White House counsel Pat Cippolone fired off a letter accusing Nadler with lacking a 'legitimate' legislative purpose in his requests for documents such as the un-redacted Mueller report. A senior administration official, on a press call organized by the White House, said the longtime member of Congress was seeking a 'do-over' of the Mueller report. 'That's essentially what he's trying to do, by doing it in some kind of show trial. He wants to drag witnesses up he wants to hold them in contempt,' said the official. President Donald Trump stands with Attorney General William Barr during the 38th Annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Washington. The White House counsel asked Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler to halt his investigation Wrote Cippolone: 'Lost in the Committee's legally indefensible rush to recommend a contempt citation is the reality that the Committee has not articulated any proper legislative purpose for pursuing inquiries that duplicate matters that were the subject of the Special Counsel's inquiry.' He continued: 'Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized 'do-over' of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice. He accused Nadler of trying to conduct a 'pseudo law enforcement investigation.' He claimed Nadler's inquiries 'bear no relation to any articulated goal of legitimate congressional oversight. Instead, they amount to little more than an unprecedented effort to interfere with the President's ability to perform his constitutional duties.' 'We will do no such thing,' said Nadler, in response to a White House claim he should end his pobe President Trump has lauded Attorney General William Barr's move to open an investigation of the early days of the Russia probe Barr reportedly joked to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and asked whether she had brought her handcuffs Democrats so far have been unable to secure the testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller The counsel even asked Nadler to halt his inquiry. 'Under the circumstances, the appropriate course is for the Committee to discontinue the inquiry discussed in the March 4 letter. Unfortunately, it appears that you have already decided to press ahead with a duplicative investigation, including by issuing subpoenas, to re-plow the same ground the Special Counsel has already covered,' he wrote. Nadler, who regularly cites the role of Congress as a coequal branch of government with recognized investigatory power, countered that the White House is claiming President Trump 'is a king,' CNN reported. Nadler said in a statement: 'Today, the White House made the extraordinary demand that the Committee discontinue its inquiry into obstruction of justice, public corruption, and abuses of power, including as set forth in the Mueller Report. We will do no such thing.' He continued: The White House position appears to be that the Justice Department cannot hold the President accountable, since it purportedly cannot indict him. Now it adds the extreme claim that Congress cannot act either, because that would duplicate the Special Counsel's work. This flies in the face of the American idea that no one is above the law, and I reject it.' 'Our investigation into this as well as other troubling conduct by this Administration will continue,' vowed Nadler. 'The White House also claims it is willing to cooperate with this Committee while at the same time refusing to work with Congress to produce redacted portions of the Mueller Report, underlying documents and other materials; refusing to provide responses to our requests for information regarding family separation and the decision to not defend the ACA; and after the President has already declared that he is 'fighting all the subpoenas.' The Committee remains willing to discuss any reasonable accommodations, but accommodation takes two.' Amid the tension in what Nadler has called a constitutional crisis was a bit of levity Wednesday, when Trump joined lawmakers for a peace officers memorial at the Capitol. Barr, upon greeting Pelosi, jokingly and asked whether she had brought her handcuffs in reference to her comment last week about jailing people held in contempt. 'Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?' Barr asked her, ABC reported. Pelosi smiled told Barr the House Sergeant at Arms was present if needed. An heiress of the Bahlsen biscuit empire in Germany has apologised for claiming her company treated forced labourers 'well' during World War II, and said she should learn more about her firm's history. Verena Bahlsen, who owns a quarter of the company, said she 'deeply regrets' comments she made about people forced into working at the biscuit factory during the Second World War under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. 'It was a mistake to amplify this debate with thoughtless responses. I apologise for that,' she said in a statement on the Bahlsen family's website. Verena Bahlsen, heiress of the Bahlsen biscuit empire, sparked outrage after claiming her firm treated forced workers 'well' during World War II 'Nothing could be further from my mind than to downplay national socialism or its consequences.' The 25-year-old had dived headlong into controversy first with her unashamed claim of being a capitalist who 'wants to make money and buy yachts with my dividends'. As critics reminded her on Twitter that her company profited from forced labourers during Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, she hit back, telling newspaper Bild that 'we paid forced labourers as much as Germans and treated them well'. Her comments drew a furious outcry from politicians and historians alike. Verena Bahlsen, whose father owns the Bahlsen company, said the firm, which employed some 200 forced labourers during World War Two, 'did nothing wrong' then. Pictured: Workers at Bahlsen's Hanover factory in 1929 The Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre, based in Berlin, said her case illustrated a lack of understanding about the plight of those made to work against their will by Hitler's regime. On social media, there were calls to boycott Bahlsen's products, while others had urged the wealthy heiress to do a year of civic service to gain a better understanding of social realities. 'I also recognise that I need to learn more about the history of the company whose name I carry,' added a contrite Bahlsen in her statement. 'As the next generation, we have the responsibility for our history. 'I expressly apologise to all whose feelings I hurt.' Founded by Verena Bahlsen's great grandfather at the end of the 19th century, the biscuit company employed around 200 forced labourers, mostly women, between 1943 and 1945. Verena Bahlsen (left) is one of four children of company owner Werner Bahlsen (right) Claims were made against Bahlsen by victims after the war, but they were rejected because of the statute of limitations. The Social Democratic Party's general secretary Lars Klingbeil also criticised the Bahlsen heiress. 'Someone who inherits such great wealth, also inherits responsibility and should not be so arrogant.' On social media, some critics have launched a call to boycott the company's products, others have urged Ms Bahlsen, one of four children of company owner Werner Bahlsen, to do a year of civic service to gain a better understanding of social realities. Founded by Verena Bahlsen's great grandfather at the end of the 19th century, the biscuit company employed around 200 forced labourers, mostly women, between 1943 and 1945. The firm now has annual sales exceeding 500 million euros (435million) Karljosef Kreter, who leads a team on the remembrance culture in Hanover, said the Bahlsen heiress' comments were 'thoughtless'. 'Bahlsen was considered as an important company for the war effort and as such was provided with workers from eastern territories,' he told regional newspaper group RND. 'Forced labourers lived in conditions that were close to incarceration,' he said. Spiegel magazine said that while the young Bahlsen heiress could not do anything to change the past of her company, 'she must face up to its historical responsibility. 'It doesn't change the fact that her obliviousness to history is now the trend,' it added. Founded by Verena Bahlsen's great grandfather at the end of the 19th century, the biscuit company employed around 200 forced labourers, mostly women, between 1943 and 1945. Claims were made against Bahlsen by victims after the war, but they were rejected because of the statute of limitations. Most of the forced labourers at Hanover-based Bahlsen were women, many from Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Pictured: The Bahlsen production line in 1930s Germany Part of a memorial to the victims of forced labour under Nazi rule in Germany is seen at the former Buchenwald concentration camp site in Schwerte, Germany In a statement, Bahlsen, which has annual sales exceeding 500 million euros (435million), said it was aware of the moral responsibility that comes with being one of dozens of German companies that used forced labour during the Nazi dictatorship. 'The company is aware of the great suffering and injustice that forced labourers as well as many other people had experienced and recognises its historical and moral responsibility.' Bahlsen says it voluntarily paid some 1.5 million deutschmarks (about 750,000 euros) in 2000-2001 to a foundation set up by German firms to compensate 20 million forced labourers used by the Nazis. Former forced labourers have failed in individual lawsuits to obtain compensation from Bahlsen. German courts have cited statute of limitations laws. Founded by Verena Bahlsen's great grandfather at the end of the 19th century, the biscuit company employed around 200 forced labourers, mostly women, between 1943 and 1945 Germans voiced anger at the heiress on social media. 'Bahlsen is now officially the official snack food of the AfD,' one Twitter user wrote, referring to the far-right Alternative for Germany party that won its first seats in parliament at the last national election in 2017. 'The Bahlsen package is rather blue,' the user added, referring to the blue colour of both the biscuit box and the AfD party flag. Other Twitter users called for a boycott of the Bahlsen brands. 'never buy #Bahlsen,' tweeted Walter Petermann. Verena Bahlsen was earlier criticised for boasting about her wealth and her love of conspicuous consumption. 'I own a fourth of Bahlsen and I am very happy about that,' she said at a business event in Hamburg earlier this month. 'I want to earn money and buy a sailing yacht.' According to the Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre, based in south-east Berlin, 26 million people including prisoners of war, concentration camp internees, Jews, Roma and Sinti worked against their will for the Nazi regime. Attorney General Bill Barr publicly asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if she brought handcuffs to arrest him at an event at the Capitol on Wednesday. 'Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?' Barr asked Pelosi loudly after shaking her hand, according to an ABC News reporter. The reporter said that sources confirmed Pelosi smiled and indicated that the House Sergeant at Arms was present at the event and would be able to make an arrest if necessary. The Sergeant at Arms is elected by members of the House of Representatives, and serves as chief law enforcement and protocol officer. The current Sergeant at Arms is Paul Irving, who has served since 2012. The interaction between Pelosi and the attorney general occurred at the National Peace Officers' Memorial Service, which took place on Capitol Hill. The annual event honors law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty. Attorney General Bill Barr publicly asked Nancy Pelosi at the annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service on Capitol Hill Wednesday, 'Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?' Memorial moment: Families of fallen police officers were saluted by other members of law enforcement as they arrived for the service Pelosi shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the event Wednesday. On May 2 she said Barr committed a crime by misleading Congress in his testimony Pelosi accused Barr earlier this month of committing a crime by misleading Congress in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on April 9 and Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1. 'Attorney General Barr's decision to mislead the public in his testimony to Congress was not a technicality it was a crime,' Pelosi tweeted on May 2. Special Counsel Robert Mueller completed his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election in March, and handed it over to Barr on March 28. That last weekend of the month, Barr released a four-page summary of the 448-page report, where he said the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Kremlin or obstruction of justice on the president's part. In April, Barr released a redacted-version of the report where 10 per cent was blacked out for security purposes and other reasons. Democrats say that 10 'episodes' Mueller outlined in the report prove obstruction and are grounds for impeachment proceedings against the president. Gathering place: Law enforcement officers and their families gather for the annual memorial service for fallen personnel Barr also released a 4-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report where the attorney general said there were no findings in the report of Trump colluding with Russia or obstructing the investigation Mueller also indicated that he felt Barr's summary of the report 'did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions.' Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have subpoenaed Barr to give them an untouched version of the report, complete with grand jury testimony. Barr refused to comply with the subpoena and Democrats are moving forward with holding him in contempt of Congress. However, under federal law, if Barr were to turn over information that was discussed before a grand jury, he could be held in contempt of court. Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said he would continue to negotiate with Barr to get him to give Congress an unredacted copy of the Mueller report. Barr was supposed to again appear before the House Judiciary Committee a few days after testifying in the Senate earlier this month, but said a day before that he would not be showing up, objecting to the committee's request that lawyers as well as lawmakers be allowed to question the attorney general. French right-wing firebrand Marine Le Pen has claimed she was tricked into making a white power symbol. Ms Le Pen, the runner-up in France's 2017 presidential race, was pictured making a circle with her left thumb and index finger in a sign which has been used by white supremacists. She posed for the picture in Tallinn with Ruuben Kaalep, an Estonian who has been accused of Holocaust denial. The French politician demanded that the picture be taken down from Facebook after claiming she had 'never heard' of the gesture's link to the far right. French right-wing firebrand Marine Le Pen has claimed she was tricked into making a white power symbol with Estonian Ruuben Kaalep (above) Brenton Tarrant, an Australian who is custody in New Zealand charged with the murder of 51 people during attacks on two Christchurch mosques in March, made the sign during a court appearance. Faced with accusations that the White Power sign was a 'Nazi dog whistle', Ms Le Pen admitted she had made it at Mr Kaalep's request but thought it meant 'OK'. Ms Le Pen said on Wednesday: 'I was later told that it may have an alternative meaning. 'As soon as I became aware of that, I immediately asked that the photo be removed from the Facebook account. 'I've never heard of the second meaning of this trivial gesture.' Mr Kaalep, 26, is the head of Blue Awakening, EKRE's youth wing, and has been accused of questioning the veracity of the Nazi Holocaust. He is also said to have links with National Action, the highly secretive British neo-Nazi organisation recognised in Britain as a terrorist group. Ms Le Pen's party, now known as the National Rally, is tipped to perform strongly in this month's European Parliament elections amid widespread anger at President Emmanuel Macron. Ms Le Pen came second in the 2017 French presidential election, losing to Emmanuel Macron (she is seen during a TV debate that year) She has tried to steer the party away from the racist and anti-Semitic connotations it had under her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The party severed ties with Mr Le Pen senior, now 89, last year. His daughter is trying to build a right-wing coalition in the European Parliament with parties across Europe. Polls in France currently show the National Rally running neck and neck with Mr Macron's LREM party before the May 23 poll. Ms Le Pen reached the final round of the 2017 presidential election after polling ahead of the traditional socialist and conservative parties in the first round. However she lost the run-off vote to Emmanuel Macron, whose party also swept to victory in parliamentary elections that year. Her father Jean-Marie shocked France by reaching the run-off in 2002. He was heavily beaten by then-President Jacques Chirac as voters rallied to keep Mr Le Pen out. The stepdaughter of a 44-year-old woman who was seen in a shocking video getting shot and killed by a police officer after shouting 'I'm pregnant' says Baytown police were aware that she was schizophrenic prior to Monday's fatal incident. Baytown Police Lt. Steve Dorris said on Tuesday that contrary to her statement, Pamela Turner was not pregnant. According to police, Turner, who was black, struck a Hispanic officer in the groin with his own Taser, shocking him. In response, the cop fired multiple rounds at the woman, striking her at least once. Scroll down for video Pamela Turner, 44, a mother-of-two and grandmother-of-three, has been identified as the woman who was shot and killed by a police officer in Texas Monday (pictured right in an April 25 mugshot) Footage circulating on social media shows the officer following Pamela Turner through the car park in Baytown, Texas, as she tells him he is 'harassing' her According to multiple witness accounts, the officer, who has been on the force for 11 years, lives in the same apartment complex as Turner. CBS News reported that when Lt Dorris was asked whether the department knew that Turner suffered from mental health problems, he demurred. 'I don't know that to be diagnosed fact,' he said. 'So I'm kind of cautious about commenting on that.' He then went on, saying: 'Those are things that we have to look into. But, again, that mental capacity or that mental concern, I'll call it, does not negate the fact she took our officer's Taser from him. She resisted arrest. She had outstanding warrants.' Turner's sister, Antoinette, previously said that the 44-year-old mother-of-two and grandmother-of-three was taking medication for schizophrenia. The officer who shot and killed Turner has been placed on paid administrative leave, as per department policy. The agency is reviewing whether the shooting was in line with its policy on the use of deadly force. Spray paint marks the spot at a Houston-area apartment complex in Baytown, Texas, Tuesday, where Turner was fatally shot by a cop From left, Felicia Young, 28, Susan Cummings, 61, and Bryon Cummings, 22, demonstrate outside Baytown Police Department over the death of Pamela Turner The unnamed cop was patrolling the Brixton Apartments complex on Garth Road Monday night and attempted to arrest Turner. Turner had three outstanding misdemeanor warrants for two separate incidents, according to Harris County court records. She was accused of criminal mischief and assault on April 25 after a manager at her apartment complex told police that Turner scratched her face and broke her glasses during a confrontation over an eviction notice. On May 2, court records show, Turner was again accused of criminal mischief for damaging the back window of a woman's car. Following her May 2 arrest, Turner was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation, according to court records. In the video of the shooting circulating on social media, Turner is heard saying, 'Youre actually harassing me' and 'Im actually walking to my house.' The 44-year-old woman is on the ground and appears to reach toward the officer when she seems to be heard saying 'Im pregnant.' Moments later he fires five shots, killing her. Police claim Turner fired the officer's Taser at his groin before he opened fire on her KPRC spoke to Turner's sister, Antoinette, who said Pamela has two children in their 20s and three young grandchildren, the youngest of whom was born just days ago. According to the sister, the officer who killed her sister was Turner's neighbor in the apartment complex and she had previously complained about his harassing her. Turner had three outstanding warrants on charges of assault and criminal mischief (pictured in old mugshot) On Tuesday afternoon, Turner's neighbors gathered not far from an orange ring painted on the apartment complex parking lot to mark where she was shot. Standing amid the modest brick and aluminum homes, one of Turner's neighbors said the incident frightened her. 'It's just sad - very sad - when you see somebody for the past six months walking around,' Jennifer Sims said. 'Even though you don't talk to them, you keep an eye on them, you know. And then you wake up and realize, 'Oh, my God. She was shot so close to home.' That's scary, and very sad.' Outside the city's police station Tuesday, about a dozen protesters gathered carrying signs with 'No Justice. No Peace' and 'Black Lives Matter' written on them. 'This is another black woman who has lost her life,' said Ashton P. Woods, an activist with Black Lives Matter Houston. 'Another black person who has lost their life, for senseless violence. Five shots. Unarmed.' Court records show that Turner's criminal history included an arrest on April 25 on charges of disorderly conduct and public intoxication. Police are seen on the scene at the Brixton Apartments in Baytown, Texas, Monday night, where an officer shot Pamela Turner five times, killing her Turner and the cop were neighbors, and police say he knew she had outstanding warrants Advertisement New photos have captured the dramatic rescue of a seven-year-old Honduras boy who nearly drowned on the Rio Grande while trying to cross the border. The young boy was rescued from the river, which separates the US-Mexico border, by Border Patrol agents on Friday. Four adults and four other children were also rescued after they tried to cross the river in inflatable children's pools near Eagle Pass, Texas. The pools capsized, sending the group into the rushing water. New photos have captured the dramatic rescue of a seven-year-old Honduras boy who nearly drowned on the Rio Grande while trying to cross the border The young boy was rescued from the river, which separates the US-Mexico border, by Border Patrol agents on Friday Agents rescued the group and then took them into custody. The river is especially strong between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico. Earlier this month four people, including a 10-month-old baby and a seven-year-old boy, drowned after their raft flipped over on the Rio Grande. A young girl and an adult male were also killed. The young boy had tried to cross the river with a group using inflatable children's pools The boy had fallen out of the makeshift raft and lost hold of his mother, falling into the river Pictured are the group of migrants who tried to cross the Rio Grande in inflatable children's pools last week Border Patrol agents from the Eagle Pass South Station detained a 27-year-old man from Honduras for illegally crossing into US territory, who said that their raft had overturned in the waters. He told agents that his baby son and nephew had been swept away, along with another child and an adult male. The agents searched for the victims, pulling the man's wife and his elder son from the muddy water, cold but alive. Another man and his 13-year-old child were rescued nearby. The children were hospitalized for observation. 'What we're dealing with now is senseless tragedy,' said Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz. 'The men and women of the US Border Patrol have been doing everything in their power to prevent incidents like this. And yet, callous smugglers continue to imperil the lives of migrants for financial gain.' Border Patrol Agents rescue two children from Honduras after their makeshift raft turned over with their mother in it as they were attempting to cross the Rio Grande River Four adults and four children total were rescued after they tried to cross the river in inflatable children's pools near Eagle Pass, Texas on Friday Migrants often try to cross the river, mostly in poorly constructed rafts with no safety gear, and the water can be deceptively high and fast-moving. The Border Patrol made 99,000 apprehensions on the southern border just in April. Most were adults and children from Central America expected to seek asylum. That month, border agents rescued 10 people in a sinking raft in the same area, including a three-year-old child who had become separated from her mother on the Mexico side. During the last budget year, US Customs and Border Protection rescue teams responded to more than 4,300 emergencies. There were 283 deaths, including those who drowned or died in the deserts. The number of border crossings last month reached a 12-year high. More than 103,000 people were encountered, including more than 53,000 people traveling as part of families. Migrants often try to cross the river, mostly in poorly constructed rafts with no safety gear, and the water can be deceptively high and fast-moving. Pictured here are migrants crossing the Rio Bravo towards the US in February 2019 A raft carrying nine migrants capsized on the Rio Grande last month. A 10-month-old baby from Honduras was found dead and three other migrants, including two children, were reported missing Homeland Security officials say the system is straining under the crush of families who require different care and have different needs from the people agents and officers were used to seeing cross the border - mostly single men from Mexico. The White House has since asked Congress for an additional $4.5billion in funding for the border. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told a Senate subcommittee the department needed supplemental funding to help manage the crush of migrants and to provide proper care. But Democrats are wary of giving the administration more money, especially after the longest government shutdown in history over President Donald Trump's demand for border wall funding. Trump eventually declared a national emergency to circumvent Congress to get the funding elsewhere. The new emergency funding would not be used to build any of the wall, officials said. Florida woman Coffii Castellion, 29, was arrested on Monday after she allegedly hit a hospital worker with a used feminine pad A Florida woman has been arrested for striking a hospital worker with a used feminine pad she removed from her own pants, police said. Coffii Castellion, 29, was arrested on Monday after she hit the hospital worker at Mease Dunedin Hospital and stole several hospital bathing cloths and slippers estimated to be worth a combined $10.79. She had brought herself to the emergency room to receive treatment when she is accused of stealing the items. After she stole the goods she allegedly 'took a feminine pad from underneath her pants and threw it at a health care provider', according to the police report. She was hit with a felony charge for stealing the items and battery on a health service personnel. She also has two prior theft convictions, as per The Smoking Gun. On Monday she brought herself to Mease Dunedin Hospital for care but the stole several hospital bathing cloths and slippers estimated to be worth a combined $10.79. Then she hit the hospital worker with the sanitary pad She posted $7,000 bond Tuesday morning and was freed from county jail. Castellion has a lengthy rap sheet, previously convicted of narcotics possession, battery on a law enforcement officer, obstruction, violating probation, filing a false police report, failure to appear in court, and providing a false name to police. According to her social media she works at Waffle House and lives is from Clearwater, Florida. Mandeep Singh (pictured), 37, reportedly killed his two young children before setting their bodies on fire and killing himself A Texas father reportedly killed his two young children and set their bodies on fire before fatally shooting himself on Mother's Day. The Cooke County Sheriffs Office identified the dad as Mandeep Singh, of Fort Worth, who they believe killed his four-year-old son, Ajit Singh Birring, and daughter, three-year-old Mehar Kaur Birring. Singh, 37, then put their bodies in a vehicle and set them on fire. Officials said they received a call that a vehicle was on fire in the middle of the roadway in rural northwest Cooke County on Sunday. The fire department responded, extinguished the fire and located the remains of the two children in the back seat. One child had been placed in the car seat and the other was sitting nearby. A medical examiner is conducting autopsies to determine how the children were killed. Cooke County Sheriffs Office deputies and investigators, Texas Rangers and Fire Marshall conducted an investigation and determined that the car appeared to be intentionally set on fire. Singh was sought on a capital murder warrant in the deaths of the two children when his body was found. On Monday around 12.30pm, authorities found Singh's body about a mile away from the crime scene. Investigators said it appeared that Singh died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities believe the case was a murder-suicide, but they are waiting on all three autopsies to confirm. 'No motive has been established,' Cooke County Sheriff Terry Gilbert said in a press release. The Cooke County Sheriffs Office said first reponsders discovered the bodies of four-year-old, Ajit Singh Birring, and three-year-old Mehar Kaur Birring, inside a burning car on Sunday. Pictured are first responders at the area where the burning car was found Cooke County Sheriffs Office deputies and investigators, Texas Rangers and Fire Marshall conducted an investigation and determined that the car appeared to be intentionally set on fire. Authorities believe the case was a murder-suicide But Gilbert did say a divorce with, Narinder Pal Kaur, the mother of Singh's children, had been filed in Tarrant County. According to the Star-Telegram, Singh was arrested in October 2016 in Fort Worth on a charge of assault with bodily injury against his then-wife, Kaur. Kaur, 38, told authorities that Singh had assaulted her. Singh was sentenced to 15 months probation in May 2017 and the charges were dropped once his probation had been completed. The couple stopped living together in October 2016 and in July 2017, Kaur and Singh both filed for divorce, according to the Telegram. Singh had asked the court to order his wife to pay child support and health insurance premiums for coverage of the children while the case was pending. He and his wife were in court for several months during the divorce. A divorce was granted in November 2018, but Singh and his ex-wife continued to have court hearings this year, records show. The case remains under investigation. A New York man has been charged with savagely beating three puppies that he adopted with his new wife. Ellie Knoller, 29, of Mineola, has been slapped with three counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, as well as three counts of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals. His bride, Jessica Kuncman, 30, been also been charged with three counts of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals, in a case that has shocked District Attorneys. According to prosecutors, two of the couple's dogs died after sustaining injuries inflicted by Knoller, while their third pup was rescued in severe distress. Prosecutors allege Ellie Knoller, 29, (left) savagely beat three puppies that he and wife Jessica Kuncman, 30, (right) adopted earlier this year Court documents reveal Knoller and Kuncman adopted their first puppy back in February of this year. The pair picked a male Shepherd mix named Tucker from a rescue shelter on Long Island. However, just nine days later the dog was dead - reportedly suffering a ruptured kidney as a result of 'blunt force trauma' at the hands of Knoller. Just a day after that dog's death, the couple allegedly went out to purchase another pup. Knoller and Kuncman bought a Goldendoodle named Cooper from a breeder in Pennsylvania - but just three days later, the canine went into cardiac and respiratory arrest and died. Vets discovered that Cooper, like Tucker, had suffered from severe internal bleeding that as likely inflicted by his owner. Shockingly, Knoller and Kuncman soon returned to the same breeder and complained that they had been sold a sick animal. They then adopted another Goldendoodle by the name of Bella. The couple's Goldendoodle, Bella, was in a critical condition when she was finally brought to the hospital by Kuncman According to The New York Post , the female pup was 'allegedly choked, beaten and suffered several broken bones' According to The New York Post, the female pup was 'allegedly choked, beaten and suffered several broken bones'. Kuncman is accused of ignoring the sick dog for 15 hours, before finally taking her to a vet. The distressed puppy required more than $18,000 worth of medical bills. Knoller and Kuncman have plead not guilty to the cruelty charges. Knoller faces up to 2 years in prison, while Kuncman could serve 12 months. The pair are due to return to court on June 3. Houston police are hunting two suspects who robbed a Jack in the Box and were hilariously filmed having to run after their getaway car. Authorities say that the duo, identified as two males, entered the Shell/Jack in the Box at 12777 East Freeway. Video shows one of the suspects - wearing baggy jeans, a black hoodie and a black bandanna - running up to the clerk and pointing a gun at him. Authorities say that the duo, identified as two males, robbed the Shell/Jack in the Box at 12777 East Freeway in Houston Video shows one of the suspects - wearing baggy jeans, a black hoodie and a black bandanna - running up to the clerk and pointing a gun at him The second suspects hops over the counter and demands that the employees lay on the floor as he robs the cash register. The duo then run from the scene and try to reach a silver utility vehicle that was waiting for them. But the pair don't reach their getaway truck in time, and are forced to run after it. The second suspects hops over the counter and demands that the employees lay on the floor as he robs the cash register The duo then run from the scene and try to reach a silver utility vehicle that was waiting for them The clip comes to a close and shows the robbers sprinting after the truck. According to the Houston Police, the two suspects are said to have attempted to rob O'Reilly Auto Parts while the store was closed on April 2nd and 3rd. They tried to get access to the business via a locked front door but were unable to open it. The suspects fled the scene on both occasions. Police describe the first suspect as being a black male who is believed to be between 18 to 30 years old. He is said to be approximately six feet tall and 170lbs. The second suspect is described as being 18 to 30 years old and approximately 5'10". He was wearing a black hoodie, dark pants and white shoes. A U.S. Navy SEAL is expected to formally accept a plea deal on Thursday for his role in the 2017 strangulation death of a U.S. Army Green Beret in Africa. Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Adam Matthews is one for four U.S. service members charged with murder and related counts in the death of Army Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar, a Texas native. The five men were stationed in the African country of Mali. Charging documents describe a situation in which some of the nation's most elite military personnel - including two members of the famed SEAL Team Six - broke into Melgar's bedroom while he was sleeping, bound him with duct tape and put him into a choke hold. A special court martial hearing for Matthews is scheduled for Thursday at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. Two US Navy SEALs and two Marines have been charged in the 2017 death of Army Green Beret Logan Melgar (pictured) while they were stationed in the African country of Mali It could offer new details about what happened that night. Publicly released charging documents have not revealed a specific motive. Matthews' attorney, Grover Baxley, said Matthews will plead guilty to hazing, assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Charges of murder and involuntary manslaughter will be dropped, Baxley said. Baxley said that Melgar's death 'was an unforeseen accident that has dramatically impacted the lives of everyone involved.' The attorney added that Matthews will take full responsibility for his role in the incident and help the Navy to resolve the case. 'He looks forward to detailing what happened that night in Mali almost 2 years ago, and hopes that his explanation of events will assist the Melgar family in finding some semblance of closure,' Baxley said in a statement. Melgar was a native of Lubbock, Texas. He had deployed to Afghanistan twice before his death in Bamako, Mali, in June 2017, Army officials said. The two Marines charged in the case are listed as being part of Special Operations Command. The SEALs belong to the Navy Special Warfare Development Group. The unit is better known as SEAL Team 6, which participated in the May 2011 raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden at his compound. Melgar, 34, died from asphyxiation on June 4, 2017 in the home in Bamako that he shared with the two SEAL Team 6 members accused of killing him and covering up the incident. The SEALs are Petty Officer 1st Class Anthony E. DeDolph and Matthews. Accused of participating in the slaying are Marines Gunnery Sgt. Mario Madera-Rodriguez and Staff Sgt. Kevin Maxwell, were assigned to Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Two Special Operation sources alleged that Melgar (above) was targeted because he'd discovered the pair of SEALs were skimming off of the top of an informant fund The service members face charges that include murder, hazing and obstruction of justice. Details of the long-simmering feud between Melgar and his SEAL housemates were revealed last month by The Washington Post. Melgar, assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group, detested his Navy housemates and accused them of bringing prostitutes back to the safe house and skimming cash from a fund used to pay local informants, the Daily Beast previously reported. 'I freaking hate them,' Melgar told his wife Michelle in one of the messages she handed over to authorities. The SEALs had their own beef with Melgar though, according to the documents. In the weeks leading up to the assault, Melgar brought foreigners to the residence, angering his fellow troops, another soldier who also lived there later told Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents, according to the military documents. The soldier also said that Melgar had engaged in 'frat-like' behavior and had acted in ways that got them both 'uninvited' from events at the U.S. Embassy. The soldier also confessed that everyone in the safe house engaged in drinking, in contravention of military regulations for deployed troops. The soldier told investigators that the SEALs became so incensed with Melgar that they banned him and another Special Forces soldier from their operations center. On the night Melgar died, the soldier said that he incited the SEALs' fury by ditching them on the way to a party at the French Embassy. He claims that when Melgar returned to the safe house a few hours later, he boasted that he had made the right decision leaving the Navy men behind, because it had been a 'high class' event. The soldier said that Melgar said he had two or three beers at the Embassy party. It was previously reported that Melgar didn't drink alcohol. The furious SEALs went out on the town for a night of heavy drinking, and hatched a plan for revenge over whiskey and beer at the Appaloosa bar and a nightclub called Byblos, according to the documents. Petty Officer 1st Class Anthony E. DeDolph (above) is one of the four men charged According to documents, the SEALs decided to haze Melgar as payback, and enlisted the help of the Marines who lived nearby. The Marines retrieved some duct tape and a sledgehammer from their residence, planning to burst through Melgar's door to 'surprise him', Matthews stated in a stipulation of facts effectively admitting to his involvement. DeDolph, a former professional mixed-martial-arts fighter and a Purple Heart recipient, jumped on Melgar and put him in a chokehold on his bed sometime after 5am, two of the men later told authorities. Matthews, the other SEAL, grabbed Melgars legs, while the two Marines sought to duct-tape them, according to the confessions. As they moved to duct tape Melgar's hands, they realized he wasn't breathing. The troops began performing CPR and retrieved a defibrillator, and performed an emergency procedure on Melgar's throat to open his airway. They decided there was no time for an ambulance and took Melgar to a clinic, where he was pronounced dead. According to the Military Times, DeDolph and Matthews initially told investigators they found Melgar unresponsive in his room. Meglar's superiors suspected foul play and dispatched an investigating officer to the scene within 24 hours. The SEAL pair then tried to cover their involvement by telling superiors that Melgar was drunk during combat training - or hand-to-hand fighting exercises - and that is how he got himself knocked out and killed. Brig. Gen Donald Bolduc, who is the Commander of the Special Ops Command-Africa, was allegedly skeptical of the SEALs stories and the initial reports about Melgar's death, and told commanders in Mali to preserve any evidence. Melgar's wife Michelle was apparently also suspicious, three sources told the Daily Beast. She approached commanders about her concerns regarding his cause of death and allegation that he had been drinking. She also gave investigators the emails her husband sent her about the problems he was having with the two SEALs. Melgar, who was from Lubbock, Texas, served two tours in Afghanistan. He graduated from Texas Tech in 2006, and enlisted in the Army in 2012 as an off-the-street Special Forces recruit. He graduated from Special Forces Qualification in 2016. A former economic adviser to President George W. Bush told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday that Donald Trump's Chinese trade adversaries think he's 'a 10-out-of-10 narcissist.' Larry Lindsey, who chaired the National Economic Council during Bush's first two years in office, told top GOP House members and committee chairmen that he engaged a pair of psychiatrists to evaluate the president, according to Politico. Lindsey, who was invited to talk to Republican leaders by Trump ally and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, attributed Trump's 'total' narcissism to his childhood. The president, he claimed, had a mother who 'didnt pay him adequate attention,' Politico reported. China believes President Donald Trump is a '10-out-of-10 narcissist,' according to a former Bush-era economic adviser who spoke to Republican congressional leaders on Tuesday Larry Lindsey claimed to have engaged a pair of psychiatrists to evaluate Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, but didn't say if they provided the analysis of what the Chinese think of the U.S. president Xi is engaged in a tit-for-tat battle with Trump over trade, involving tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods The newspaper's report, included in one of its afternoon email newsletters, did not say if the psychiatrists' findings lined up with China's view of Trump, or if one informed the other. Asked if he could connect the dots or untangle the nonsequitur, Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring told DailyMail.com: 'Think you would have to ask Larry Lindsey to do that.' A spokesperson at Lindsey's consultancy did not respond to a request for clarification. Trump is embroiled in a protracted trade was with China's president Xi Jinping that shows ho sign of slowing down. Each country has levied punitive tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the other's exports. Trump boasted on Tuesday: 'We always win.' Lindsey was a vocal supporter of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primary race and said his economic plan should get 'a top grade.' He predicted on Election Day in 2012 that Mitt Romney, now a U.S. Senator representing Utah, would defeat President Barack Obama. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump ally, invoted Lindsay to speak, only to hear him bad-mouth the president Trump and Xi are pictured meeting at last year's G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina Politico's report cited him Tuesday as saying Trump lacks long-term strategic plans, and 'has the long-term decision-making ability of an empty chair.' On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement. Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry Lindsey hasn't expressed significant public support for Trump since his victory, but privately told the Republicans on Tuesday that he agrees with his China trade policy. Lindsey himself opined that Trump could be able to strike a trade deal with Beijing, and agreed with him that the U.S. is better positioned than China. It's important that Trump doesn't back down, he said. It's unclear what Lindsey's hired-gun psychiatrists decided about the president, but they concluded Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are 'very different people,' according to someone who heard Lindsey speak. It's unethical for a psychiatrist 'to offer a professional opinion' about someone he or she hasn't evaluated in person, according to the Principles of Medical Ethics. Breaking that rule 'is irresponsible, potentially stigmatizing, and definitely unethical,' the American Psychiatric Association's then-president Maria A. Oquendo wrote at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. Doris Day's grandson, her only heir, has spoken out for the first time since her death to claim that they were not close in her final years and that he was 'kept' from her by opportunistic managers. Ryan Melcher , 37, is star's only grandson. He is the only son of Doris's only son, Terry Melcher, who died in 2004 after battling melanoma. When news of her death emerged on Monday, it was announced by her charity, The Doris Day Animal Foundation. In a lengthy Facebook post on Wednesday, Melcher said it had been an 'emotional 24 hours' since he learned of her death. Ryan Melcher , 37, star's only grandson. He is the only son of Doris's only son, Terry Melcher, who died in 2004 after battling melanoma He said he was proud of his 'grandma' who he described as a 'cultural icon', 'philanthropist' and 'advocate' for animal rights. He also, however, told of how they had drifted apart in the years before her death from pneumonia. 'I received the news of my grandmothers passing like many of you I awoke and read the news in a social media feed Monday morning. 'I received the news of my grandmothers passing like many of you I awoke and read the news in a social media feed Monday morning. 'Sadly, due to a divorce that I was thrown into the middle of while still an underaged child, I have not been allowed to see my grandmother for quite some time.' He said that the last time he spoke to her was after his father's 2004 death when she invited him to dinner. Melcher said that he was intercepted by a manager who instead insisted on meeting him at the family-owned Cypress Inn where he was asked: 'Why do you want to see Doris?' 'I was shocked not only at the question, but also that it was coming from someone who was a stranger and outsider. 'I just responded, "um....she is my grandmother!" 'He replied, "I'm afraid you aren't going to be able to see your grandmother," citing the divorce between my parents as his excuse,' he wrote. Melcher shared a lengthy Facebook post on Tuesday about his grandmother's death. It can be read in full at the bottom of the article Without naming the manager, he went on to claim that he fired the board of her charity and kept her isolated in her home. Day devoted the last part of her life to animal rights 'Looking back, I should have said more; should have drove to her home and not let a stranger come between us, but unfortunately the tall fences and 24-hour guard under her new business manager's direction prevented me taking a stand and reconnecting with my family. 'She had been so happy to talk to me and we were both excited for our upcoming dinner together just a week before, and this man was clearly manipulating the situation,' he said. Melcher added that he tried to 'get the word out' about what was happening but that he stopped once he heard from people surrounding his grandmother that her mind 'had begun slipping'. 'I feared my outreach would only cause more stress due to the new folks surrounding her. 'I could not bring myself to continue to fight an uphill battle at the expense of her wellbeing or my familys,' he said. Melcher also claimed that his father's wife stopped him from seeing him in his final days. 'When youre young, you believe the adults when they say you are the problem, however no child or adult for that matter should be told who they can and cant love. Especially family. 'I will forever be grateful for the time I had with both my father and my grandmother. 'When I was younger our family was so close and I was so fortunate to have such special people raise me. Its taught me to live in the moment and not leave things unsaid. Melcher became a musician but died in 2004 after battling melanoma. He looked after his mother as an adult and helped her rebuild her fortune after his stepfather squandered it. They are shown, in 1984 'Its a hard truth, however it is my truth and one I hope others can learn from,' he said. Day, 97, died on Monday surrounded by 'close friends' at her estate in Carmel, California. She was a Hollywood icon and silver screen darling who stole America's hearts with her wholesome image and stunning looks. Over the span of 20 years, she filmed an incredible 39 films and sang in most of them. Her private life was however a far cry from the happy, wholesome one she often portrayed on camera. She had four failed marriages and, at the end of the third, was left penniless because of her husband's squandering of her fortune. She retired from showbusiness in the 1970s and retreated quietly into a life devoted to saving animals. Members of the community where she lived said she would often be seen grabbing stray cats and dogs at night and bringing them home with her to live. In its announcement of her death, the charity said she did not want a funeral or memorial service and that instead, she wants fans to donate to The Doris Day Foundation. Ryan's father Terry was Day's first and only child. She had him with her first husband, the trombone player Al Jorden, who she said beat her during her pregnancies. Terry was a successful musician. He had Ryan with his second wife, the actress Jacqueline Carlin. Ryan lives in Carmel and works as a real estate agent for Sotheby's. President Donald Trump will visit South Korea to huddle with President Kim Jae-in, following North Korea's latest provocative missile tests. Trump is already scheduled to visit Japan as he attends the G20 summit in late June. The White House announced the trip in a statement that did not mention North Korea's latest missile testing. 'President Donald J. Trump will visit the Republic of Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in, in conjunction with his travel to the region to attend the G20 Summit in late June,' said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. In this file photo taken on September 24, 2018 US President Donald Trump (R) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in gesture after signing a trade agreement at a bilateral meeting in New York, a day before the start of the General Debate of the 73rd session of the General Assembly. The White House announced Trump would visit South Korea around his June trip to Japan 'President Trump and President Moon will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The two leaders will also discuss ways to strengthen the United StatesRepublic of Korea alliance and the friendship between our two peoples.' Trump held his second historic meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in Vietnam in March. However it resulted in no agreement, causing embarrassment to both sides. 'Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times,' Trump said afterward. Efforts to negotiate an agreement on denuclearization have stalled since then. Last week North Korea launched short-range missile tests, the second such exercise in a week. People watch a TV showing a news program reporting North Korea's missile launch, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, May 5, 2019. North Korean state media on Sunday showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observing live-fire drills of long-range multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a new short-range ballistic missile, a day after South Korea expressed concern that the launches were a violation of an inter-Korean agreement to cease all hostile acts North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un supervises a military drill in North Korea, in this May 10, 2019 photo supplied by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) People watch a TV showing a news program reporting North Korea's missile launch, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, May 5, 2019 NO DEAL! In this file photo taken on February 27, 2019, US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un following a meeting in Hanoi. - Trump voiced confidence on May 4, 2019, that North Korea's Kim Jong Un would not "break his promise," after South Korea said Pyongyang had launched several unidentified projectiles into the sea Trump has noted that North Korea has failed to conduct nuclear testing since the two sides reached a vague agreement following their Singapore summit. It also has adhered to a stoppage of long-range missile tests that could reach the U.S. mainland a more provocative act that ultimately helped bring about Trump's North Korea talks following his own threat to bring down 'fire and fury' early in his term. Following a test last week, Trump tweeted that Kim 'does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!' President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China's Huawei Technologies Co. The executive order invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The order directs the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement within 150 days. Banning moved: Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk The order, which has been under review for more than a year, is aimed at protecting the supply chain from 'foreign adversaries to the nation's information and communications technology and services supply chain,' said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. 'Under President Trump's leadership, Americans will be able to trust that our data and infrastructure are secure,' he said. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Trump was expected to take action on the long-awaited proposal this week. The order does not specifically name any country or company, but U.S. officials have previously labeled Huawei a 'threat' and actively lobbied allies to not using Huawei network equipment in next generation 5G networks. The executive order comes at a delicate time in relations between China and the United States as the world's two largest economies ratchet up tariffs in a battle over what U.S. officials call China's unfair trade practices. Washington believes equipment made by Huawei could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei, which has repeatedly denied the allegations, did not immediately comment. The United States has been actively pushing other countries not to use Huawei's equipment in next-generation 5G networks that it calls 'untrustworthy.' In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using equipment from Huawei and another Chinese provider, ZTE Corp. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, who has called Huawei a threat to U.S. security, said Wednesday that 'given the threats presented by certain foreign companies equipment and services, this is a significant step toward securing Americas networks.' Target: Washington believes equipment made by Huawei could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei, which has repeatedly denied the allegations, did not immediately comment. The order directs the director of U.S. National Intelligence to produce an assessment by late June on the risks to the United States and critical infrastructure 'from information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary.' In January, U.S. prosecutors charged two Huawei units in Washington state, saying they conspired to steal T-Mobile US Inc trade secrets, and also charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with bank and wire fraud on allegations that the company violated sanctions against Iran. The FCC in April 2018 voted to advance a proposal to bar the use of a $9 billion government fund to purchase equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks. The FCC voted unanimously to deny China Mobile Ltds bid to provide U.S. telecommunications services last week and said it was reviewing similar prior approvals held by China Unicom and China Telecom Corp. The issue has taken on new urgency as U.S. wireless carriers rollout 5G networks. While the big wireless companies have already cut ties with Huawei, small rural carriers continue to rely on both Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be cheaper. A businessman who gassed himself and his family to death was preparing to flee to the Philippines and was 'inadvertently overcome' by fumes, an inquest has heard. Fernando Manrique, 44, Maria Lutz, 43, and their children Elisa, 11, and Martin, 10, were found dead, along with the family dog, in their Sydney home in October 2016. Manrique had set up an elaborate system of pipes in the ceiling to spray odourless carbon monoxide gas throughout the house. His body was found face down in the hallway of the family home while his dead wife and children were discovered in bed. Fernando Manrique, 44, killed his entire family to death after his wife discovered his affair with a woman in the Philippines and demanded a divorce, an inquest has heard Manrique had set up an elaborate system of pipes in the ceiling to spray odourless carbon monoxide gas throughout the house. Pictured: Bodies being taken from the home The possibility he may not have intended to kill himself was raised at the start of the inquest last month - and now a police report has supported that theory. Police believe he was going to flee to the Philippines where he was dating a 19-year-old woman named Jamie whom he had met on business trip there. According to the Daily Telegraph, a report by Detective Sergeant Tim Pooley said: 'I believe that he did not mean to commit suicide but was inadvertently overcome by gas. 'Fernando had intentions to move to the Philippines and to live with Jamie. He had no intention of taking his own life.' The inquest heard Manrique had tried to call his Filipina girlfriend that night and was found dead next to a packed suitcase and $750 in cash. But Counsel Assisting the Coroner Adam Casselden cast doubt on the theory, saying that Manrique knew how toxic carbon monoxide was but had shut all the doors and windows before his death. Mr Casselden also said he had no flights booked and his suitcase may have been packed because he often went away with work. The inquest concludes on Thursday. During the inquest last month, former friends and colleagues revealed the secret wild life Manrique was leading while living in Asia. Police believe Manrique was going to flee to the Philippines where he was dating a 19-year-old woman named Jamie whom he had met on business trip there. Pictured: The family home Maria Lutz, 43 and her children Elisa, 11, and Martin, 10, were found dead, along with the family dog, in their Sydney home in October 2016 Manrique, was an 'awkward IT executive' up until he began doing stints in Asia between 2015 and 2016. 'He had absolutely no interpersonal or people skills. I have no idea how he got himself into senior positions,' an Australian businessman said. One friend said he got a sleeve tattoo and enjoyed riding elephants while medical records showed he went to the doctors after having unprotected sex twice in a month in 2014 and was prescribed Viagra. Another former friend said he had turned into a 'predator' who pursed dozens of young women while living away from his family. Former colleagues have described how Manrique would go bar hopping and even dabbled in cosmetic enhancements during his time in Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. He would spend up large, running up massive credit card bills while out partying with young women. With his young family back in Sydney, Manrique indulged in high-price escorts in Asia. He even dabbled in Viagra, a former friend said. When Ms Lutz (pictured with her family) discovered Manrique's affair she demanded a divorce Young Martin's body was found in a room beside the family's bull mastiff Tequila (pictured) He eventually began seeing a woman he had met during a night out at Kim's Tavern in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City and started buying her lavish gifts. When he started introducing her as his girlfriend, former business colleagues raised concerns. A former colleague told him he was 'being played' when the woman announced she was pregnant. 'I said: ''Everything she's doing to you, she's probably done to 20 other people''.' Manrique reportedly responded saying: 'I'm a rock star, I know what I'm doing'. He later went on to pursue more women in Bangkok, Taiwan and Japan, colleagues said. While living in the Philippines he paid rent on an apartment for a 17-year-old girl, named during the inquest as Jamilyn. The inquest heard Ms Lutz, a lawyer, was devoted to her children and was planning to return to work after getting help from the National Insurance Disability Scheme The beloved dog died beside the young autistic boy, inside the house as collateral damage The inquest heard Manrique had transferred $3,400 to his teenage mistress in the days leading up to the deaths, despite the family being almost broke. FROM COLOMBIA TO SYDNEY: A TIMELINE Early 2005: Fernando Manrique and Maria Claudia Lutz move to Sydney, Australia from Colombia. February 2005: The couple purchase a home in Davidson, in Sydney's north, for $590,000. May 2005: Their first child Elisa is born. August 2006: Mr Manrique and Ms Lutz's son Martin is born. Both their children have non-verbal autism. January 2009: Ms Lutz's parents visit the family in Sydney. November 2009: Ms Lutz's brother and sister-in-law travel to Sydney for a holiday. 2012: Elisa starts school at St Lucy's School for children with disabilities in Wahroongah. 2013: Martin starts school at the same place. Their mother was a regular helper at the school canteen and well-liked within the community. November 2013: Mr Manrique starts work at Drake Business Logistics as Chief Technology Officer. May 2015: He is named the Executive Director of Drake Business Services Asia. The father frequently travels for work with this new role. October 2016: Family and their pet dog found dead at their home. Believed to have been deliberately gassed. Advertisement Detective Sergeant Timothy Pooley told the inquest the alleged killer owed the Australian Tax Office more than $15,000 and had a debt of $28,000 on his credit card. The family had just $6 on its trust account, a few thousand in other accounts, and were only paying the interest on two mortgages totalling more than $500,000. According to a friend, Colombian-born lawyer Maria Claudia Lutz discovered her husband's infidelity through a transaction for a strip club on a bank statement. Their relationship ended in late September 2016 but Manrique convinced her to let him stay for a few more weeks while he found a new place to live. During this time his 'evil plan' got underway. He made four trips to Bunnings and ordered two cylinders of carbon monoxide 10 days before the family's death in order to set up a gas delivery system in the family house. Police forced their way into the house in Davidson, on Sydney's northern beaches, on October 17, 2016 after the family didn't turn up to work or school. Mr Manrique's body was in the living room, Ms Lutz and Elisa were next to each other in a bedroom, and Martin was found in a third room beside their bull mastiff Tequila. Ms Lutz has been described as a vivacious and loving woman who is believed to have spent many sleepless nights caring for her children, who needed frequent therapy and doctors appointments. She often posted about her children on social media and said her 'worst nightmare' was either of her kids getting lost or going missing. Weeks after the deaths, a friend revealed Ms Lutz was calling family services 'nine times a day' as she struggled to cope with looking after the children. She was only supported by the government about five hours every week. In addition to investigating the deaths, the inquest would examine whether tighter restrictions on obtaining poisonous gasses were needed. For confidential support in Australia LIFELINE: 13 11 14 www.lifeline.org.au . Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467 A badly decomposed body was found in the basement of a Brooklyn apartment building after being there for weeks. Police received a 911 call about an unconscious man in the basement at 25 Joralemon Street just before 10 am on Wednesday. They found the adult male unresponsive when they arrived at the scene. The body of an adult male, believed to have been decomposing in a basement water catchment in a Brooklyn apartment building, was removed from the scene on Wednesday The man, who is believed to have been homeless, was pronounced dead and police are working to identify him through a tattoo on his neck, sources told the New York Post. The body, which was found in a basement water catchment, was so badly decomposed that authorities couldnt immediately identify any signs of trauma. One resident told the New York Post: 'We went searching. There is a big pool of water down there because this used to be an old fire station. 'When we looked down at the water, it was clear that it was a dead body in there, so I called 911 right away.' The body was taken away from the scene on Wednesday afternoon as a Medical Examiner will work to establish the cause of death. It is unclear how long the body had been in the catchment, but the resident who found it said there was a bad smell in the building which began weeks ago. The body was removed from and taken to the Medical Examiner's office for a post-mortem The body, which was found in a basement water catchment, was so badly decomposed that authorities couldnt immediately identify any signs of trauma The resident added: 'There was a stench coming from my bedroom. It was going on for weeks and it was getting stronger and stronger. 'I thought it was a bunch of dead rats because they are doing construction next door.' Learning about the discovery of the body, the resident said: 'I was shocked. But there is really nothing you can do but kind of freeze up in that moment and then do what you are supposed to do, which is call the cops.' The building is a one-story former pump-house, (pictured), built in 1902 that has now been converted into a residential building A resident began to smell something foul in her bedroom several weeks ago, leading police to suspect that the body had been there all that time The building is a one-story former pump-house built in 1902 that has now been converted into a residential building, according to records. The basement is still linked to the East River through pipe dating back to its use as a pump-house. This led investigators to initially consider that the body had washed into the building from the water. However police ruled out that theory after examining the pipe and finding that it had a sharp downhill angle. Britain has gone into crisis mode over tensions in the Gulf between the US and Iran. The UK and its European counterparts have been given a 60 day deadline by Iran to try to persuade it not to abandon its commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal. Whitehall officials are working round the clock to try and stop what they believe could escalate into a new Middle East conflict. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Al Khamenei, pictured, has said there will be no war between the United States and his country One option could be to pay the 450million owed to Iran from a botched arms deal a sum Iran has long demanded. Crisis mode is a formal status which can see staffing increased to 24 hours per day at the Foreign Office in London. It comes as the US embassy in Baghdad ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave Iraq immediately in response to an imminent threat directly linked to Iran. British embassy staff are staying in Iraq. In a further twist yesterday, the Ministry of Defence was forced to defend comments made by the top British military chief in the fight against Islamic State. Major General Chris Ghika laid bare scepticism over the US military build-up in the Middle East, resulting in the US publicly contradicting him. The general, speaking in Baghdad, said: No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. Major General Chris Ghika said there was no increased threat by Iranian-backed forces in either Syria or Baghdad He said the coalition monitors Iranian-backed forces along with a range of others because thats the environment were in. But he added: There are a substantial number of militia in Iraq and Syria; we dont see any increased threat. Later in the day, in an extraordinary public rebuttal of an allied military officer, US Central Command said Maj Gen Ghikas remarks run counter to the identified credible threats from Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East. In London, an MoD spokesman defended him, saying: His comments are based on the day-to-day military operations and his sole focus is the defeat of Daesh. Iran has given Europe and China a two-month ultimatum to stand up to the US and its ambassador to the UK warned Europe it has 60 days to ease Iranian oil sales or see the end of the nuclear deal. Bill Shorten will make the case for a 'vote for change' in his final major address of the election campaign. The Labor leader is set to give the speech at Blacktown's Bowman Hall in Sydney's west, with the finish line on Saturday's election tantalisingly close. It's the site Gough Whitlam delivered his 'It's Time' address at the start of the 1972 election campaign which was the first time Labor won government in 23 years. Meanwhile the prime minister Scott Morrison will be at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday to make his final major speech of the five-week campaign, and is expected to focus on economic growth. Bill Shorten (pictured with his wife Chloe in Perth) will make the case for a 'vote for change' in his final major address of the election campaign The key theme for Mr Shorten's speech is 'vote for change', with the address not expected to heavily hark back to Mr Whitlam. Instead it will show this election, like 1972, is a generational decision for voters. Mr Shorten will argue a new generation, in a new decade has a new decision and 'the door stands ajar'. Climate change will be a major feature of the speech. Mr Shorten will also warn of the risks posed by a coalition of chaos, a Morrison-Palmer-Hanson minority government. He will urge Australians to vote for a united and stable alternative with a vision for the future. Meanwhile the prime minister Scott Morrison (pictured with his wife Jenny in Sydney) will be at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday to make his final major speech of the five-week campaign Mr Shorten will be joined by Labor's leadership group, western Sydney MPs and hundreds of supporters. Mr Whitlam's 1972 speech began a tradition of him beginning with the words first delivered by wartime Labor prime minister John Curtin: 'Men and women of Australia!' It's understood Mr Shorten chose the location because he wanted to speak at a place that means something to Labor and Australia. The opposition leader campaigned in Perth on Wednesday, targeting Attorney-General Christian Porter's seat of Pearce. At a TAFE campus in the northern suburbs electorate, which the Liberals hold by 3.7 per cent, Mr Shorten urged apprentices to vote Labor. He pointed to climate change and tool subsidies. Labor also focused on industrial relations, promising to create a new authority sitting alongside the Fair Work Commission to deal with wage theft claims of up to $100,000. Mr Morrison is expected to focus his pitch on the coalition's central theme of economic growth. 'My message is this: now is not the time to turn back,' he is expected to say. 'Now is the time to get on and keep on with the work of building our economy by backing in the choices Australians are wanting to make every day and to enable them to plan for their future with confidence.' The prime minister will also take aim at Labor's alternative 'big taxing, big spending' agenda. 'This week is about focusing Australians on that choice and the price of that choice.' As of Wednesday morning, about 27 per cent of enrolled voters or 4.5 million people had either sought a postal ballot or lodged a pre-poll vote. It's widely predicted the record of 31 per cent set in 2016 will be beaten before the polls open on Saturday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ordered the suspension of all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela on Wednesday, citing reports of unrest and violence around airports in the South American country. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan has determined 'conditions in Venezuela threaten the safety and security of passengers, aircraft, and crew traveling to or from that country,' the agency said in a press release on Wednesday. The order on Wednesday will impact only a small group of Venezuelan carriers, as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) previously barred all US-operated aircraft from touching down in the South American country. Last week, US President Donald Trump's administration expanded the scope of its Venezuela sanctions to the defense and security services sectors to try to crank up economic pressure on disputed President Nicolas Maduro. The moves are part of a now-four-month-long campaign against Maduro as the US ramps up its support for opposition leader Juan Guaido. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin K. McAleenan (pictured) has ordered the suspension of all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela on Wednesday Many international airlines had already stopped flying to Venezuela because of security concerns and disputes over money they say the government owes them, disputed President Nicolas Maduro's struggle to stay in power amid challenges opposition leader Juan Guaido from has dragged on since January Many international airlines had already stopped flying to Venezuela because of security concerns and disputes over money they say the government owes them, as Guaido struggle to wrestle power from Maduro has dragged on since January. The FAA issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) on May 1 prohibiting all US carriers and pilots from flying lower than 26,000 feet through Venezuela airspace 'due to increasing political instability and tensions in Venezuela and the associated inadvertent risk to flight operations.' The NOTAM applied to all US carriers and pilots flying under FAA licenses, but had exempted those flying a US-registered aircraft on behalf of a foreign carrier. With this new order from the Department of Homeland Security, no commercial or cargo flights by either US or foreign operators can eiither depart the US to Venezuela, or touch down in the US after originating from the country in the throes of political unrest. The order on Wednesday will impact only a small group of Venezuelan carriers, such as Venezuelan Avior Airlines (aircraft shown) as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) previously barred all US-operated aircraft from touching down in the South American country Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (left) approved the indefinite suspension of foreign aircraft traveling between the US and Venezuela on Wednesday and Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao (right) implemented the order Secretary of State Mike Pompeo approved the indefinite suspension and Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao implemented the order. Venezuelan company Avior Airlines, which has been offering service to Miami, is among the small group of foreign-operated airlines affected. Neither Venezuela's Information Ministry or a representative for Avior immediately responded to a request for comment. American Airlines had self-imposed its own ban in March. The airline, which was previously the largest carrier providing service between the United States and Venezuela, said at that time that it was indefinitely suspending its flights to the country. Proposals for an official definition of Islamophobia were rejected by the Government yesterday. Supporters of the idea say that formalising the term will help to counter hostility toward Muslims. But Downing Street said the suggested definition had not been broadly accepted, adding: 'This is a matter that will need further careful consideration.' Home Secretary Sajid Javid, pictured, has been warned that tightening the definition of Islamophobia could hit police anti-terror operations while stifling the freedom of the press Martin Hewitt, pictured, of the National Police Chiefs' Council said: 'We are concerned the definition is too broad as currently drafted' What is the UK law on Islamophobia? There is no specific law against Islamophobia in the UK. However, there are numerous laws which might be used to prosecute offenders. Stirring up religious hatred is an offence under the Public Order Act 1986. It can carry a sentence of up to seven years in prison. Criminals may also be handed longer sentences for other offences if they are found to have been motivated by racial or religious hostility. There are separate laws covering online abuse. In addition, the Equality Act 2010 stops discrimination based on 'protected characteristics' including religion. If a new, official definition is adopted, it could be used to block government actions in the courts. Terror legislation could be subject to such judicial reviews, it is claimed. An unofficial 1997 wording defined Islamophobia as 'unfounded hostility towards Muslims'. The suggested new one says: 'Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.' Advertisement Ministers are expected to appoint two independent advisers to draw up a 'less legally problematic' definition, the Times reported. More than 40 religious leaders and experts wrote to Sajid Javid yesterday, telling the Home Secretary that the definition could be a 'backdoor blasphemy law' and limit free speech. Police warned it could undermine counter-terrorism operations. MPs and peers on the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims want the Government to define Islamaphobia as 'rooted in racism or a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness'. However, the letter's signatories, who include prominent Muslims, said: 'We are concerned that allegations of Islamophobia will be indeed already are being used to effectively shield Islamic beliefs and even extremists from criticism, and that formalising this definition will result in it being employed effectively as something of a backdoor blasphemy law. 'Evidently abuse, harmful practices, or the activities of groups and individuals which promote ideas contrary to British values are far more likely to go unreported as a result of fear of being called Islamophobic. 'We are concerned that the definition will be used to shut down legitimate criticism and investigation.' Ian Murray of the Society of Editors said 'badly-worded descriptions of what Islamaphobia is taken to include' could 'prevent sensible and genuine debate' and would 'undoubtedly have a chilling effect on Press freedom'. Martin Hewitt of the National Police Chiefs' Council added: 'We are concerned the definition is too broad as currently drafted, could cause confusion for officers enforcing it, and could be used to challenge legitimate free speech on the historical or theological actions of Islamic states. There is also a risk it could also undermine counter-terrorism powers, which seek to tackle extremism or prevent terrorism.' The definition has already been accepted by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. The Labour Party was forced last September to adopt an internationally-agreed definition of anti-Semitism following months of controversy. Esther McVey, Tory MP for Tatton, said better rail links for northern cities should be the priority instead The case for spending 56billion on HS2 has been skewered by a panel of economic heavyweights including two former chancellors. They said ministers had failed to make a compelling argument for the countrys biggest ever infrastructure project more than a decade after it was conceived. Concluding that the North was being short-changed, the House of Lords economic affairs committee said the main beneficiaries will be London commuters travelling to nearby Milton Keynes. The peers, including former chancellors Alistair Darling and Norman Lamont, demanded a major rethink on the line but stopped short of calling for it to be scrapped. Officials say the line will ease pressure on the rest of the network, reducing overcrowding on packed trains on the West Coast and East Coast main lines. But the report said this did not stack up. It cites a Department for Transport analysis showing fast long-distance trains serving the same cities that will be on the HS2 route are among the least crowded even during peak times. These include the Virgin West Coast service in and out of Birmingham and the LNER service on the East Coast line. In contrast, the report said there would be limited benefit for northern commuters using slow, overcrowded and unreliable train services every day. Former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey demanded last night that HS2 be axed, describing it as an out-of-date and unpopular vanity project and a huge waste of taxpayers money. Joe Rukin, of the campaign group Stop HS2, said the report confirmed fears that tens of billions will be spent on moving largely empty trains at speeds of 225mph up and down the country primarily to help commuters in the capital. The Lords committee said DfT forecasts for passenger demand were exaggerated and outdated, and warned HS2 should not go ahead without new assessments. It also noted costs appeared to be out of control, with estimates warning the budget could top 100billion. Concluding that the North was being short-changed, the House of Lords economic affairs committee said the main beneficiaries will be London commuters travelling to nearby Milton Keynes. Pictured: An artist's impression of part of the HS2 route The first phase of HS2, which has been approved by Parliament, will link London with Birmingham. The second phase, yet to be backed by MPs, will take in northern cities including Leeds and Manchester. Miss McVey, Tory MP for Tatton, said better rail links for northern cities should be the priority instead. The DfT said it fundamentally disagreed with parts of the Lords report, adding: HS2 will deliver additional rail capacity, significantly improve connections and provide opportunities for economic growth with around 92billion in benefits for people and businesses across the North. j.salmon@dailymail.co.uk Google's plans in China which once included a Government-censored search engine will make the country more open, claimed the firm's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. The businessman, 64, presented a comprehensive defence of the tech company's operations in China during an interview with BBC's Newsnight on Monday. Mr Schmidt also defended the manner in which Google handles its tax affairs, which is both ethical and compliant with all regulations, he said. The firm has recently hired a Dutch company to help minimise its tax obligations and has transferred 19.9 billion (17.3 billion/$22.3 billion) into a tax haven. Scroll down for video Google's plans for China which once included a Government-censored search engine will make the country more open, claimed the firm's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt (pictured), on Monday Mr Schmidt, 64, defended the nature of Google's operations in China during an interview with BBC's Newsnight programme on May 13, 2019. The company relocated its China-based operations to Hong Kong in 2010, following the discovery that it and the Gmail accounts of various local human-rights activists had been subjected to cyber-attacks by Beijing. When the tech firm relocated, it also closed down its Google.cn search engine service, redirecting users to its Google.hk site, hosted in Hong Kong, instead. Google.hk provides an uncensored search service, unlike Google.cn, which adhered to Chinese censorship rules by blacklisting certain search results. According to Mr Schmidt, he had thought that this relocation was a mistake. 'I believed they would be better to stay in China, and help change China to be more open,' he said. In this vein, the last year has seen Google renew its interest in the both Chinese market and establishing a presence in the county efforts which have included setting up 700 China-based employees working on local advertising and development. And just last year, the New York Times and the Intercept reported that Google was working on a new search engine for use in China, dubbed 'Dragonfly'. Like Google.cn, Dragonfly would have complied with China's censorship rules but, unlike its predecessor, would not tell users when search results had been barred. This censoring includes allowing the Chinese authorities to prohibit certain search terms as well as controlling certain data such as those relating to air quality. Blacklisted phrases would have included the Mandarin expressions for 'human rights', 'student protest' and 'Nobel prize'. The Dragonfly project attracted criticism both internally and externally. More than 1,400 Google employees signed an internal petition condemning the lack of transparency around the planned search engine. Following the backlash and a number of prominent resignations in response to the revelation, Google announced that it was no longer working on the project. Last year, the New York Times and the Intercept reported that Google was discreetly working on a search engine for use in China that would comply with Beijings strict censorship rules. The plans were met with protest, such as the one pictured above, outside Google's Madrid HQ When asked why employees only heard about the project in the media, Mr Schmidt said he had no direct involvement in the work. 'I can tell you that, certainly, the people who were building all these products knew about it,' he said. However, an unnamed Google employee with knowledge of the Dragonfly project told The Intercept that this was not the case. 'Probably 90 percent of engineers [in Googles search department] had no idea [about Project Dragonfly] and were very upset when they learned that their work was contributing to this,' they apparently said. WHAT IS GOOGLE'S 'PROJECT DRAGONFLY' SEARCH ENGINE? 'Dragonfly' was a rumoured effort inside Google to develop a search engine for China that would censor certain terms and news outlets, among other things. Reports claimed the tool ties users' Google searches to their personal phone numbers to help the Chinese government monitor its citizens. Outside of high-profile leaks, few details have emerged on what the search engine entailed as Google has kept tight-lipped on the project. A former Google employee warned of the web giant's 'disturbing' plans in a letter sent to the US's senate's commerce committee in August 2018. Jack Poulson said the proposed Dragonfly website was 'tailored to the censorship and surveillance demands of the Chinese government'. In his letter he also claimed that discussion of the plans among Google employees had been 'increasingly stifled'. Mr Poulson was a senior research scientist at Google until he resigned in July 2018 in protest at the Dragonfly proposals. Advertisement 'The world is a very interconnected place,' Mr Schmidt said. 'There are many, many benefits [for] interacting, among other things, with China.' This is not a sentiment shared by US officials, however. Google's work in the country 'indirectly benefits the Chinese military and creates a challenge for us in maintaining a competitive advantage', chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Joseph Dunford, told the BBC. Such objections were brushed aside by Mr Schmidt, who said: 'That's like saying America makes pencils and pencils are used by the Chinese.' In 2017, the firm opened the Google AI China Center in Shanghai, which works to conduct research into the development of artificial intelligence and to recruit local talent in the fields of machine learning techniques. Mr Schmidt also defended the manner in which Google handles its tax affairs, which is both ethical and compliant with all regulations, he said Mr Schmidt served as Google's chairman between 2001 and 2011, after which he became the firm's executive chairman, a role in which he remained until 2015. It was during this period that Google's motto was revised from 'Don't be evil' to the new 'Do the right thing'. At the end of 2017, Mr Schmidt stepped down from his role as the CEO of Alphabet, Google's parent company, although he still sits on the board of the former. The businessman plans to step down from Alphabet's board in June 2019. During the same interview, Mr Schmidt also defended Google's record on tax. Google employs a Dutch company to help lower its tax bill, a choice which has been met with some criticism. 'The global tax system is incredibly complicated,' Mr Schmidt said. 'We are required to follow tax rules when those tax rules change, of course, we will adopt them,' he added. 'But there is a presumption we are doing something wrong here.' 'We were following the global tax regime,' he concluded. 'Would you like us to give more, voluntarily, to these governments?' he asked. Financial documents filed in the Netherlands have revealed that Google has transferred 19.9 billion (17.3 billion/$22.3 billion) to a shell company located in the tax haven of Bermuda. Google has asserted that it adhere to the local tax rules of all of the countries in which it operates its business. 'We feel very comfortable with what we have done,' Mr Schmidt said, asserting that the firm's tax affairs have been managed ethically. He added: 'I will defend the company, and how it works, for a very long time.' Tech giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter have promised a clampdown on extremism following a meeting with world leaders - but failed to say how or when the measures would be implemented. Amazon and Microsoft were also among those who agreed on a nine-point plan of action after the meeting in Paris, named the Christchurch Call to Action. The meeting, hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, was in response to the terror attack on mosques in Christchurch in March, in which 51 people were killed in an atrocity livestreamed on Facebook. However the U.S appeared to snub the other world leaders by declining to send a delegation to Paris. And the White House later confirmed that it will not join the international bid to stamp out violent extremism online, while stressing that Washington backs the initiative's aims on principle. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (left, today) co-chaired a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron (right) in Paris today urging world leaders and chiefs of tech companies to sign the 'Christchurch Call,' a pledge to eliminate violent extremist content online. Hours earlier, Facebook said it would now ban users from livestreaming for 30 days if they break the site's rules in a new crackdown 'While the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement, we continue to support the overall goals reflected' in the so-called 'Christchurch Call,' the White House said. In a joint statement, the tech companies said they would each take individual steps to improve their policies on violent content, as well as increase collaboration in order to fight the spread of such content. But the text, which is not legally binding, did not outline any concrete steps that would be taken by individual firms, nor set any timeframe for putting any new measures in place. French President Emmanuel Macron (right) is pictured greeting Prime Minister Theresa May ahead of the talks at the Elysee Palace today Ardern played a central role in the Paris meetings, which she called a significant 'starting point' for changes in government and tech industry policy. French President Macron (right) is pictured sitting next to Ardern for talks that also involved European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (left) and Prime Minister Theresa May (in red) Facebook is introducing a 'one strike' policy for those who violate its most serious policies in response to the live broadcasting of the Christchurch shooting on its platform where a self-described white supremacist used Facebook Live to stream his rampage at two mosques Hours before the meeting today, Facebook announced it would ban users from livestreaming for 30 days if they break the site's rules. The social network said it was introducing a 'one strike' policy for those who violate its most serious rules - but did not specify exactly what violations would earn a ban or how it will better detect this kind of activity on line. A Facebook spokeswoman has said today it would not have been possible for the Christchurch shooter to use Live on his account under the new rules - but they did not say what rules he would have violated. Prime Minister Ardern welcomed Facebook's pledge. She said she herself inadvertently saw the Christchurch attacker's video when it played automatically in her Facebook feed. The nine-point plan The online content sharing service providers committed to the following: Five Individual Actions Updating terms of use , community standards and codes of conduct to explicitly prohibit terrorist, violent or extremist content , community standards and codes of conduct to explicitly prohibit terrorist, violent or extremist content Establishing better methods for users to report or flag inappropriate content Enhancing and investing in technology that detects and removes terrorist and violent content, including AI that detects and removes terrorist and violent content, including AI Conducting appropriate checks on livestreaming to reduce risk of extremist content being disseminated online to reduce risk of extremist content being disseminated online Publishing regular transparency reports on content that is flagged and removed Four Collaborative Actions Working collaboratively to share technological developments with the other companies, governments, NGOs and educational institutions with the other companies, governments, NGOs and educational institutions Creating a protocol for responding to emerging or active events on an urgent basis, so relevant information can be quickly and efficiently shared, processed and acted upon by all stakeholders with minimal delay on an urgent basis, so relevant information can be quickly and efficiently shared, processed and acted upon by all stakeholders with minimal delay Educating the public about terrorist and extremist violent content online and reminding users how to report it or otherwise not contribute to its dissemination about terrorist and extremist violent content online and reminding users how to report it or otherwise not contribute to its dissemination Combat hate and bigotry by attacking the root causes of extremism and hate online Read the full statement here Advertisement 'There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook has taken additional steps today... and look forward to a long-term collaboration to make social media safer,' she said in a statement. Ardern played a central role in the Paris meetings, which she called a significant 'starting point' for changes in government and tech industry policy. Twitter, Google, Microsoft and several other companies took part, along with the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia, Jordan and the European Union. The CEOs and world leaders were looking to agree on guidelines they will call the 'Christchurch Call,' named after the New Zealand city where the attack on a mosque took place. In a joint statement, tech firms said: 'The terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March were a horrifying tragedy. And so it is right that we come together, resolute in our commitment to ensure we are doing all we can to fight the hatred and extremism that lead to terrorist violence. 'The Christchurch Call announced today expands on the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), and builds on our other initiatives with government and civil society to prevent the dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content. 'Additionally, we are sharing concrete steps we will take that address the abuse of technology to spread terrorist content, including continued investment in technology that improves our capability to detect and remove this content from our services, updates to our individual terms of use, and more transparency for content policies and removals. 'Terrorism and violent extremism are complex societal problems that require an all-of-society response. For our part, the commitments we are making today will further strengthen the partnership that governments, society and the technology industry must have to address this threat.' The five companies have each agreed to individually update their terms of use to expressly prohibit the distribution of such content, as well as establishing new tools to make it easier for users to report violent content. The agreement also includes pledges to invest in new technology to better find and remove inappropriate posts, as well introduce new checks on livestreams and publish regular transparency reports. Collaboratively, the five firms have said they will for the first time work together on crisis protocols, establishing with governments and other organisations a protocol for responding to active terror events. The companies have also committed to increase the amount of shared technology development taking place in the industry, as well as offering more education for users on how to report and respond to such content. The 'Christchurch Call' was discussed as over 80 CEOs and executives from technology companies gather in Paris for a 'Tech for Good' conference meant to address how they can use their global influence for public good - for example by promoting gender equality, diversity in hiring and greater access to technology for lower income users. Twitter, Google, Microsoft and several other companies also took part, along with the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia, Jordan and the European Union. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pictured with Emmanuel Macron at the Elsee Palace today Facebook said today that it would tighten access to its livestreaming feature as New Zealand's premier Jacinda Ardern (left, today) and French leader Emmanuel Macron (right) launched a 'Christchurch Call' initiative to tackle the spread of violence and extremism online European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was among those invited to talks today in Paris Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, had earlier told reporters, 'I think everybody agrees that a higher level of responsibility is demanded from all of the platforms ... I mean there still are videos of shootings available on the net. That's inexcusable, simply unacceptable.' 'What you have to work out is a way to guarantee you're not censoring legitimate discussion. And it's a hard line to draw sometimes,' Kerry said. Earlier, Facebook said that its new ban would be applied from a user's first violation. Vice president of integrity at Facebook, Guy Rosen, said that in the violations would include a user linking to a statement from a terrorist group with no context in a post. The restrictions will also be extended into other features on the platform over the coming weeks, beginning with stopping those same people from creating ads on Facebook. Mr Rosen said in a statement: 'Following the horrific recent terrorist attacks in New Zealand, we've been reviewing what more we can do to limit our services from being used to cause harm or spread hate.' Prime Minister Ardern co-chaired the meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris today urging world leaders and chiefs of tech companies to sign the 'Christchurch Call,' a pledge to eliminate violent extremist content online. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (left) arrives ahead of a 'Tech For Good' meet-up at Hotel Marigny in Paris today Orange CEO Stephane Richard (right) and Google's Jacquelline Fuller (left) were among those who met for talks at the Paris 'Tech For Good' meeting The political meeting was run in parallel with an initiative launched by Macron called 'Tech for Good' bringing together 80 tech chiefs in Paris. Jack Ma, co-founder and executive chair of the Alibaba Group, was among the tech bosses attending the 'Tech For Good' meeting at Hotel Marigny in Paris Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (pictured in Paris today), a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told reporters that there was widespread consensus 'a higher level of responsibility is demanded from all of the platforms' Users who break certain rules relating to 'dangerous organisations and individuals' would be banned from Facebook Live for a set time. Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) was expected to attend a Paris meeting of world leaders and tech companies to sign the 'Christchurch Call' but will now be represented by his deputy Nick Clegg Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had been expected to attend the summit, was absent. He was instead represented by vice president for global affairs and communications Nick Clegg, the former British politician. A lone gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15 while livestreaming the attacks on Facebook. HOW TO REPORT A LIVE VIDEO Facebook uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect objectionable material, while at the same time relying on the public to flag up content that violates its standards. To report live video, a user must know to click on a small set of three gray dots on the right side of the post. When you click on 'report live video,' you're given a choice of objectionable content types to select from, including violence, bullying and harassment. You're also told to contact law enforcement in your area if someone is in immediate danger. Advertisement Footage spread across the web after the gunman live-streamed his spree on Facebook. Coming under fire for its delayed and insufficient reaction to the incident, the social media platform said it removed 1.5 million videos on its site in the 24 hours after the incident. According to the company, the video was viewed fewer than 200 times during the live broadcast but about 4,000 times in total. None of the people who watched live video of the shooting flagged it to moderators, and the first user report of the footage didn't come in until 12 minutes after it ended. According to Chris Sonderby, Facebook's deputy general counsel, Facebook removed the video 'within minutes' of being notified by police. The delay however underlining the challenge tech companies face in policing violent or disturbing content in real time. Facebook's moderation process still relies largely on an appeals process where users can flag up concerns with the platform which then reviews it through human moderators. A lone gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15 while live streaming the attacks on Facebook. The image shows Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, where one of two mass shootings occurred Currently Facebook relies on human reviewers through an appeals process and in some cases - such as those relating to ISIS and terrorism - automatic removal for taking down offensive and dangerous activity. The latter includes AI driven machine learning to assess posts that indicate support for ISIS or al-Qaeda, said Monika Bickert, Global Head of Policy Management, and Brian Fishman, Head of Counterterrorism Policy in a blog post from November 2018. 'In some cases, we will automatically remove posts when the tool indicates with very high confidence that the post contains support for terrorism. We still rely on specialised reviewers to evaluate most posts, and only immediately remove posts when the tool's confidence level is high enough that its 'decision' indicates it will be more accurate than our human reviewers.' Ms Bickert added: 'At Facebook's scale neither human reviewers nor powerful technology will prevent all mistakes. That's why we waited to launch these automated removals until we had expanded our appeals process to include takedowns of terrorist content.' Mr Rosen added that technical innovation is needed to get ahead of large amounts of modified videos designed to get past sensors, like those uploaded after the massacre. 'One of the challenges we faced in the days after the attack was a proliferation of many different variants of the video of the attack. 'People - not always intentionally - shared edited versions of the video which made it hard for our systems to detect.' Facebook said in a blog post in late March that it had identified more than 900 different versions of the footage. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube all raced to remove video footage in the New Zealand mosque shooting that spread across social media after its live broadcast. The companies are all taking part in the summit this week in Paris to curb such online activity The company has pledged 7.5 million dollars (5.8 million) towards new research partnerships in a bid to improve its ability to automatically detect offending content after some manipulated edits of the Christchurch attack managed to bypass existing detection systems. It will work with the University of Maryland, Cornell University and The University of California, Berkeley, to develop new techniques that detect manipulated media, whether it is imagery, video or audio, as well as ways to distinguish between people who unwittingly share manipulated content and those who intentionally create them. 'This work will be critical for our broader efforts against manipulated media, including DeepFakes,' Mr Rosen added. 'We hope it will also help us to more effectively fight organised bad actors who try to outwit our systems as we saw happen after the Christchurch attack.' Google also struggled to remove new uploads of the attack on its video sharing website YouTube. The massacre was New Zealand's worst peacetime shooting and spurred calls for tech companies to do more to combat extremism on their services. During the opening of a safety engineering centre (GSEC) in Munich on Tuesday, Google's senior vice president for global affairs, Kent Walker, admitted that the tech giant still needed to improve its systems for finding and removing dangerous content. 'In the situation of Christchurch, we were able to avoid having live-streaming on our platforms, but then subsequently we were subjected to a really somewhat unprecedented attack on our services by different groups on the internet which had been seeded by the shooter,' Mr Walker said. The French Council of the Muslim Faith is using laws that prohibit 'broadcasting a message with violent content abetting terrorism'. President of the French Council of the Muslim Faith Mohamed Moussaoui (pictured) Mr Macron has repeatedly stated that the status quo is unacceptable. 'Macron was one of the first leaders to call the prime minister after the attack, and he has long made removing hateful online content a priority,' New Zealand's ambassador to France, Jane Coombs, told journalists on Monday. 'It's a global problem that requires a global response,' she said. In an opinion piece in The New York Times on Saturday, Ms Ardern said the 'Christchurch Call' will be a voluntary framework that commits signatories to put in place specific measures to prevent the uploading of terrorist content. Ms Ardern has not made specific demands of social media companies in connection with the pledge, but has called for them 'to prevent the use of live streaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks. Firms themselves will be urged to come up with concrete measures, the source said, for example by reserving live broadcasting to social media accounts whose owners have been identified. An Islamic group is even suing Facebook and YouTube for hosting footage of the New Zealand terror attack. The French Council of the Muslim Faith is using laws that prohibit 'broadcasting a message with violent content abetting terrorism' in its attempt, made after the shootings in March. Scientists can now check which varieties of water dwelling creatures live in lakes and rivers can now be to the shedding of DNA. Experts can compare genetic material from blood, bodily waste and cells left in a body of water to tell which species left them behind. The UK Environmental Agency, which began exploring the potential of the technique seven years ago, will be rolling out DNA-based monitoring programmes in 2020. It will be used to track the spread of non-native species driven by rising temperatures such as the highly invasive demon and killer shrimp. Scroll down for video Researchers can determine which aquatic species live in a given body of water from just a water sample all thanks to the shedding of DNA (stock image) The UK Environment Agency is responsible for monitoring the health of rivers, lakes and other bodies of water in the UK. Keeping count of the number of species living in a given one of these environments can offer a good proxy for the health of the water both. Seeking efficiency savings, the organisation began to investigate the potential of applying environmental DNA or 'eDNA' to their work in 2012. This DNA is left floating in lakes and rivers after animals leave behind cells, blood and waste in the water. Advances in rapid DNA sequencing technologies, along with our growing catalogue of reference genomes, have now made it possible to use these chemical footprints. Comparing DNA samples from water bodies to known DNA sequences, researchers can determine which species left the signals behind. Their findings suggest that eDNA analysis is now not only viable, but can also be the most accurate way to determine the presence of aquatic species. 'eDNA is no longer a concept,' Environment Agency researcher Kerry Walsh told the New Scientist. To monitor aquatic life, scientists have conventionally relied on capturing organisms in order to study them directly. This is achieved, for example, by using nets or scraping underneath boulders. The problem with these methods, however, is that they are extremely time-consuming, require considerable training before researchers can undertake them and can also have the potential to harm the species being studied. For example, the capture of fish is often achieved by using electricity to stun them, which sometimes can accidentally kill the animals. The use of environmental DNA offers a cheap, quick and simple alternative that does not require marine life to be disturbed at all. In fact, the pervasiveness of eDNA means that the technique can capture information on animals that other techniques, like the use of nets, might miss. 'Some fish become aware of nets and stay away. Whereas with eDNA its in the water, its mixed,' said Dr Walsh. A recent eDNA analysis undertaken in Windermere, Cumbria (pictured, stock image) succeeded in detecting 14 of the 16 fish species ever recorded in the lake In fact, a recent eDNA analysis undertaken in Windermere, Cumbria, succeeded in detecting 14 out of the 16 species of fish that have ever been recorded in the lake including eel and pike. This is around three times the number of species that are typically detected in one sitting using conventional monitoring approaches. 'Fish are great because they are slimy and releasing eDNA all the time,' she added Walsh. Dr Walsh and her Environment Agency colleagues hope that environmental DNA will help the organisation monitor the presence of invasive species within UK waters. Scientists expect that rising temperatures will help these intruders spread. 'If weve got the tools to detect them early before theyre established, its much easier to deal with them,' said Dr Walsh. The Environment Agency is devising procedures to spot four priority non-native species: the demon shrimp, killer shrimp, quagga mussel and zebra mussel. These monitoring efforts are expected to begin in 2020. Dr Walsh and her Environment Agency colleagues hope that environmental DNA will help the organisation monitor the presence of invasive species (such as the Demon Shrimp, pictured) Environmental DNA analysis does have its limitations, however. The technique may be well-suited to determining the number of species to be found in a body of water, but it cannot provide reliable information on the abundance of the given species detected, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology expert Francois Edwards told the New Scientist. In addition, floating eDNA can outlive the animals that shed it. Given this, it can be hard to tell whether DNA detected in a lake, for example, has come from creatures that are still present in the water, or those that were there a year ago and have now died off. The same longevity causes different issues in rivers, Dr Edwards added, where eDNA can end up travelling downstream and ultimately be detected far away from where the actual animals are living. A recent eDNA analysis undertaken in Windermere, Cumbria (pictured, stock image) succeeded in detecting 14 of the 16 fish species ever recorded in the lake Global warming will reduce the amount of carbon stored in forests, warns a new study. Scientists say it is down to the fact that trees tend to 'live fast and die young' in the world's continually warming climate. The research team, led by Cambridge University scientists, said that increasing temperatures boosts annual tree growth but slashes their lifespan. The overall result, they claim, is a reduction in the amount of carbon stored in forests as it returns to the environment when they die. Carbon from plants and trees enters into the carbon cycle when they die and this eventually manifests itself as carbon dioxide - a greenhouse gas. Scroll down for video Cambridge University scientists found that as temperatures increase, trees grow faster - but they also tend to die younger (stock) Warm temperatures provide ideal growing conditions for trees which, the researchers believe, doesn't prepare the plant for adversity. They say the lack of 'toughening up' often leads to the trees perishing when those grown in cooler climates would survive. The researchers said their findings have implications for global carbon cycle dynamics and, ultimately, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. As the Earth's climate continues to warm, they say tree growth will continue to accelerate, but the length of time that trees store carbon - the so-called 'carbon residence time' - will diminish. During photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to build new cells. The research team explained that long-living trees, such as pines from high elevations and other conifers found across the high-northern latitude forests, can store carbon for many centuries. Study lead author Professor Ulf Buntgen, of Cambridge University's Department of Geography, said: 'As the planet warms, it causes plants to grow faster, so the thinking is that planting more trees will lead to more carbon getting removed from the atmosphere. 'But that's only half of the story. The other half is one that hasn't been considered: that these fast-growing trees are holding carbon for shorter periods of time.' Professor Buntgen uses the information contained in tree rings to study past climate conditions. He explained that tree rings are as distinctive as fingerprints: the width, density and anatomy of each annual ring contains information about what the climate was like during that particular year. By taking core samples from living trees and disc samples of dead trees, scientists are able to reconstruct how the Earth's climate system behaved in the past and understand how ecosystems were, and are, responding to temperature variation. As the Earth's climate continues to warm, they say tree growth will continue to accelerate, but the length of time that trees store carbon - the so-called 'carbon residence time' - will diminish (stock image) For the current study, Professor Buntgen along with colleagues from Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Russia, sampled more than 1,100 living and dead mountain pines from the Spanish Pyrenees and 660 Siberian larch samples from the Russian Altai. Both are high-altitude forests that have been undisturbed for thousands of years. The researchers used the samples to reconstruct the total lifespan and juvenile growth rates of trees that were growing during both industrial and pre-industrial climate conditions. They found that harsh, cold conditions cause tree growth to slow, but they also make trees stronger, so that they can live to a great age. But trees growing faster during their first 25 years die much sooner than their slow-growing relatives. The negative relationship remained 'statistically significant' for samples from both living and dead trees in both regions, according to the findings. The idea of a carbon residence time was first put forward by co-author Professor Christian Korner, of the University of Basel in Switzerland, but the study is the first time that it has been confirmed by data. The link between growth rate and lifespan is comparable to the relationship between heart rate and lifespan seen in the animal kingdom, explained the researchers, as animals with quicker heart rates tend to grow faster but not live so long. Professor Buntgen added: 'We wanted to test the 'live fast, die young' hypothesis, and we've found that for trees in cold climates, it appears to be true. 'We're challenging some long-held assumptions in this area, which have implications for large-scale carbon cycle dynamics.' The full findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. A former military castle that experts think served as a gate to Egypt's eastern border protecting it from the Persians 2,600 years ago has been unearthed. Discovered in North Sinai, the fortress is believed to date to 664-610 BC in the Psamtik era - the last before the Persian invasion in 525 BC. Photos released from the dig reveal a number of items including metal arrow heads, stone daggers and figurines. Scroll down for video An Egyptian archaeological mission has discovered remnants of a military castle (pictured) that dates back to Psamtik era from 664-610 BC in North Sinai province The building was discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission and has been dated to almost three millennia ago, a hundred years before the Persian invaded Egypt. According to Mr Hussein, it has encountered serious attacks that destroyed most of its buildings. The remnants indicated two castles on the site and it's thought the main castle which has 16 towers was built on the structure of an unfinished construction. During the excavation work, some rooms for the soldiers who were tasked with securing the castle were found. Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a statement: 'The mud brick-constructed castle that belonged to the 26th dynasty is the oldest historically,' He added that the 85-meter-long southern wall of the castle was built on a structure of another unfinished castle. Discovered in North Sinai, the fortress is believed to date to 664-610 - the Psamtik era - the last before the Persian invasion in 525 BC. The photo above shows metal arrow heads discovered at the castle's excavation site in Sinai The remnants of two castles were found and it's thought the main castle with 16 towers was built on the structure of an unfinished construction that came before. The above pictures released by Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities shows an aerial views of the excavation In a post on Facebook by the Ministry of Antiquities, the government agency said that it had located a tower previously standing on the north-East corner and the remains of the South-East Corner Tower, as well as parts of a southern wall. 'So far, the excavation works are completed to discover the remains of architectural installations inside the castle,' the post said. 'This is the historic castle that the mission revealed on its eastern wall in 2008 and was built on the ruins of this castle another castle that has been previously revealed on the site.' The Psamtik era which lasted from from 664-610 BC was also known as the 26th dynasty, after which a battle led by Persian King Cambyses II defeated Psamtik III's army at the Battle of Pelusium, a city on Egypts eastern frontier Photos released from the dig revealed a number of items including metal arrow heads, stone daggers and figurines (pictured). The castle was discovered by an Egyptian archaeological mission and has been dated to almost three millennia ago The castle stood a hundred years before the Persian invasion of Egypt in 525BC and could have acted as a main gate guarding the country's eastern boarder. Stone daggers (pictured) and figurines were also revealed in the dig at North Sinai Discovered in North Sinai (pictured), the fortress is believed to date to the Psamtik era (664-610). King Psamtik III lost the battle at the city of Pelusium and was later executed by the invading Persians. The excavation indicated two castles on the same site with the later castle which has 16 towers was built on an unfinished construction. The occupation of Egypt, which began in 525 BC extended the Persian Empire, shown in purple above from what is now Turkey to Afghanistan After only six months on the throne, Psamtik II went into battle with the Persian invasion led by King Cambyses II. The Persians crossed Sinai with assistance from the Arabs, where the battle ensued at Pelusium. The Egyptian military withdrew to Memphis, the traditional capital near Cairo and Cambyses besieged the Sinai and captured it, seizing Psamtik III. The former king was initially well treated, but he was later executed for conspiracy against the Persians. The Persian empire extended to a vast area that includes modern day Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and lasted from the 6th century BC to the 20th century AD. Microsoft has issued a patch for some of its older systems to fix a vulnerability that could allow malware to spread in a similar way to the 2017 WannaCry attack. WannaCry affected computers in at least 74 countries, including Russia, Turkey, Germany, Vietnam, and the Philippines It exposed a vulnerability in the system of computers and was spreading at a rate of up to five million emails an hour. Many of the computers were either infected or had to be turned off as a precaution. The fix is one of a range of patches issued by the computing giant to repair systems it has since stopped supporting, such as Windows 7 and XP. The vulnerability allowed for hackers to access the system remotely and spread malware - in a similar way to WannaCry. Scroll down for video The fix is one of a range of patches issued by the computing giant to fix systems it has since stopped supporting, such as Windows 7 and XP (file photo) Microsoft says the vulnerability affects a part of the Remote Desktop Services feature on some previous versions of Windows. This could allow devastating malware attacks to pass from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer, as WannaCry did. Updates were released to cover 79 vulnerabilities, with 19 being classified as critical, according to Microsoft. Issuing a fix to old systems is a drastic step and hints at the level of severity that the vulnerability posed. Windows XP was a wildly popular operating system released almost 18 years ago and has been replaced in several forms in the intervening years, including 7, Vista and 10. WannaCry notably hit parts of the NHS in May 2017, disrupting 80 trusts across England alone. The NHS was forced to cancel almost 20,000 hospital appointments and operations as a result of the hack, while five A&E departments had to divert patients to other units. Simon Pope, Microsoft's director of incident response, said it had found 'no exploitation' but warned it is 'highly likely that malicious actors will write an exploit for this vulnerability and incorporate it into their malware'. He added: 'It is important that affected systems are patched as quickly as possible to prevent such a scenario from happening.' The flaw affects devices running Windows XP and Windows 2003, as well as Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 - which are still currently supported (file photo) The flaw affects devices running Windows XP and Windows 2003, as well as Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 - which are still currently supported. Microsoft's most recent operating systems, Windows 8 and Windows 10, are unaffected. Renaud Deraison, CTO and Co Founder of Tenable, told MailOnlne: 'This month patch Tuesday fixes a number of security issues - more notably a major security issue in Remote Desktop. 'Remote Desktop is a component of Windows that is often enabled in the enterprise and allows users to connect to their system remotely. 'A shodan survey also shows it's very often directly connected to the internet. This vulnerability is critical and is a prime candidate to be used by another wave of ransomware in the near future.' U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai on Wednesday proposed allowing phone companies to block unwanted 'robocalls' by default in a bid to reduce the flood of unwanted calls. Pai said many service providers have held off developing and deploying default call-blocking tools because of uncertainty about whether the tools are legal under the FCC rules. Allowing the default call-blocking could significantly increase development and consumer adoption of the tools, Pai said. Scroll down for video FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Wednesday proposed allowing phone companies to block unwanted 'robocalls' by default in a bid to reduce the flood of unwanted calls WHAT DOES THE FCC PROPOSAL SAY? The new rule would make it easier for carriers like AT&T and Verizon to automatically sign up customers for call-blocking technology. Consumers would be allowed to block any callers that are not included in their list of contacts. The tool would not block emergency calls. The FCC is not requiring that the call-blocking service be free, but it's expected that it won't cost consumers extra. Advertisement 'By making it clear that such call blocking is allowed, the FCC will give voice service providers the legal certainty they need to block unwanted calls from the outset so that consumers never have to get them,' Pai said. The U.S. telecommunications regulator is expected to take action on Pai's proposal at its June 6 meeting. Pai and the other four FCC commissioners are set to testify later on Wednesday before a U.S. House panel amid frustration in Congress and among U.S. consumers over the flood of robocalls. YouMail, a company that blocks robocalls and tracks them, estimated there were 4.9 billion unwanted U.S. calls last month after nearly 48 billion in 2018, which was up nearly 60 percent over 2017. Three-quarters of the U.S. Senate back legislation to provide regulators and law enforcement authorities the additional tools to prevent illegal robocalls and punish robocallers. The bill would also make it easier for the FCC to impose financial penalties. In May 2018, Pai called on companies to adopt an industry-developed 'call authentication system' aimed at ending the use of illegitimate spoofed numbers from the telephone system. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (pictured) said that by giving carriers the 'legal certainty' to roll out robocall blocking tools, they can ensure consumers never have to deal with the annoying calls Pai said this week he expects major phone providers to implement those caller ID standards this year and will host a summit on July 11 to review the industry's progress. 'We chose this industry-led path because it is the fastest way to help consumers, but I remain committed to taking regulatory action' if carriers do not act this year, Pai said in a statement on Monday. In November, Pai wrote to the chief executive officers of major providers including AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, demanding they launch the system no later than 2019 to combat robocalls. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said this week the FCC should require call authentication technology and make available free tools to consumers to block the calls. She also urged the FCC to set up a robocall enforcement division. Archaeopteryx is widely believed to be the first bird to ever live, but it may not have been alone in the skies 150million years ago. A rival has been found to the famed flying dinosaur as archaeologists uncover the remains of a similar creature which may have even been a better aerial navigator. It is thought to have been much larger than its more famous cousin but only a single, right-side wing of the bird was preserved. Scroll down for video The new species is thought to have been much larger than its more famous cousin but only a single, right-side wing of the bird was preserved (pictured) The birds we see today are thought to be the descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs. The oldest-known flying member of this lineage is Archaeopteryx, which bore feathered wings, sharp teeth and a long bony tail. Since its first fossil was found in 1861, Archaeopteryx has been the only bird-like dinosaur known from the Jurassic, the period between 199.6145.5 million years ago. However, it now seems this early bird may not have been catching the worm alone. Palaeontologist Oliver Rauhut of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and University of Fribourg geoscientist Christian Foth have reported the identification of a second bird-like dinosaur from the same period. The animal, which has been named Alcmonavis poeschli, was unearthed in Schaudiberg quarry, near Mornsheim, in southern Germany's Altmuhl Valley. Only a single, right-side wing of the bird was preserved in the fossil, which dates back to around 150 million years ago. 'At first, we assumed this was another specimen of Archaeopteryx,' said Professor Rauhut. 'There are similarities, but after detailed comparisons with Archaeopteryx and other, geologically younger birds, its fossil remains suggested that we were dealing with a somewhat more derived bird,' he added. 'This suggests that the diversity of birds in the late Jurassic era was greater than previously thought.' The birds we see today are thought to be the descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs. The oldest-known flying member of this lineage is Archaeopteryx, which bore feathered wings, sharp teeth and a long bony tail Archaeopteryx is widely believed to be the first bird to ever live, but it may not have been alone in the skies 150million years ago. An Archaeopteryx fossil was also unearthed from the same limestone unit as the new species, which suggests that the two creatures lived at the same time An Archaeopteryx fossil was also unearthed from the same limestone unit as the new species, which suggests that the two creatures lived at the same time. At this time, southern Germany was covered in a shallow, subtropical sea punctuated by of tree-speckled reef islands. It exhibits many traits that were lacking in Archaeopteryx but can be found in more recent birds suggesting that it was better adapted to active, flapping-powered flight. For example, Professor Rauhut said, 'the wing muscles indicate a greater capacity for flying.' The discovery has implications for the debate over where birds and their ancestors first developed active flight as an adaptation of gliding The discovery has implications for the debate over where birds and their ancestors first developed active flight as an adaptation of gliding. 'Its adaptation shows that the evolution of flight must have progressed relatively quickly,' said Dr Foth. 'The origin of birds and their flight has been heavily debated in the field of evolutionary biology since the late nineteenth century,' said Professor Rauhut. The newly-discovered fossil species has been named both for Alcmona, the old Celtic word for the river Altmuhl and also for its discoverer, Roland Poschl. The full findings of the study were published in the journal eLife. Alcmonavis poeschli , was unearthed in Schaudiberg quarry, near Mornsheim, in southern Germany's Altmuhl Valley A new company is looking to develop a plane that can get passengers from New York City to London in just 90 minutes. According to multiple reports, the aerospace company Hermeus, has received initial seed funding in its efforts to build supersonic propulsion technology that it hopes will power commercial planes within the next decade. The amount of funding has not yet been publicly disclosed. Hermeus says its aircraft would travel at speeds of 3,300 miles-per-hour with a range of 4,600 miles, and will be powered mostly by existing technology. According to Ars Technica, the company's craft will be built using mostly titanium and Hermeus looks to have a functional demo version ready in the next five years. Scroll down for video Hermeus is the latest competitor in the race to develop ultra-fast aircraft and is looking to develop a vehicle capable of traveling at 3,300 miles per hour Hermeus' technology isn't the only thing that's high-powered. The company is staffed with two former higher-ups at Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-backed aerospace company, as well as former employees of SpaceX, the Elon Musk-owned competitor to Blue Origin. 'With experience from the best of NewSpace companies, the Hermeus team is well positioned to disrupt the hypersonics industry,' said Rob Meyerson, former President of Blue Origin in a statement. Other founders at Hermeus worked previously at a company Generation Orbit where they helped to develop the X-60A, a hypersonic rocket used by the U.S. military to test the viability ultra-fast vehicles. In it's endeavor to supercharge air travel, Hermeus will compete with a host of other companies already developing supersonic planes. Among the competitors is Boom Supersonic, which entered the field three years ago and has made significant headway in bringing its planes to the public. The company could have the craft ready by 2020 with Virgin Group and Japan Air collectively ordering 30 of the companies planes according to Ars Technica. A plane traveling as fast as Hermeus could theoretically get passengers from New York to London in 90 minutes While Boom's planes may be first to market, Heremeus plans to edge out their competitors with sheer speed. Boom's planes will travel about a third of the speed of Hermeus, making hypothetical trips from New York City to London in a little more than three hours as compared to an hour and a half. For companies like Boom and Hermeus, the development of crafts capable of hypersonic travel -- classified by speeds of 3,800 miles per hour and more -- hasn't been the primary challenge, it's been mitigating the extreme heat caused by the technology. Last year, the Defense Advance Research Agency, DARPA, announced a program to help pioneer new materials and infrastructure that can withstand conditions of hypersonic travel in what it calls the Materials Architectures and Characterization for Hypersonics (MACH) program. Hermeus is far from alone in its quest to develop a faster airplane. Boom Supersonics could have a craft ready by 2020. With existing materials and technology the coupling of extreme heat and speeds quickly degrades turbines and the sometimes delicate components inside. Challenges, however, haven't stopped interest from government around the world, especially when it comes to hypersonic propulsion's application toward weapons technology. The U.S., Russia, and China are all locked into a race to develop hypersonic weapons that can travel up to 10,000 miles per hour and making them unstoppable for any modern defense system. While America's interest in the technology has vacillated throughout the last several decades, recent technology and funding his renewed the development. When comparing to competitors across the world, however, the U.S. may be playing catch up. Russia's President Vladimir Putin said that the country will begin deploring a hypersonic weapon sometime this year Facebook claims it will now ban users from using its 'Live' function for 30 days if they breach rules laid out by the firm as it cracks down on violent content. It comes as part of a widespread attempt to erradicate hate crimes and violence form the web across all outlets following the devastating Christchurch massacre. The social network says it is introducing a 'one strike' policy for those who violate its most serious rules. Facebook's announcement comes as tech giants and world leaders meet in Paris to discuss plans to eliminate online violence. Representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter were present at the meeting, hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. A non-legally binding text was issued which failed to outline any concrete steps that would be taken by individual firms. Representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter were present at the meeting, hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (left). World leaders, including Theresa May (right) attended A lone gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15 while live streaming the attacks on Facebook. The image shows Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, where one of two mass shootings occurred A spokeswoman said it would not have been possible for the Christchurch shooter to use Live on his account under the new rules. The firm says that the ban will be applied from a user's first violation. Vice president of integrity at Facebook, Guy Rosen, said that in the violations would include a user linking to a statement from a terrorist group with no context in a post. The restrictions will also be extended into other features on the platform over the coming weeks, beginning with stopping those same people from creating ads on Facebook. Mr Rosen said in a statement: 'Following the horrific recent terrorist attacks in New Zealand, we've been reviewing what more we can do to limit our services from being used to cause harm or spread hate.' The announcement comes as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern co-chairs a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris today urging world leaders and chiefs of tech companies to sign the 'Christchurch Call,' a pledge to eliminate violent extremist content online. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had been expected to attend the summit, will be absent. He will instead be represented by vice president for global affairs and communications Nick Clegg, the former British politician. A lone gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15 while livestreaming the attacks on Facebook. Footage spread across the web after the gunman live-streamed his spree on Facebook. Coming under fire for its delayed and insufficient reaction to the incident, the social media platform said it removed 1.5 million videos on its site in the 24 hours after the incident. According to the company, the video was viewed fewer than 200 times during the live broadcast but about 4,000 times in total. None of the people who watched live video of the shooting flagged it to moderators, and the first user report of the footage didn't come in until 12 minutes after it ended. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube all raced to remove video footage in the New Zealand mosque shooting that spread across social media after its live broadcast. The companies are all taking part in the summit this week in Paris to curb such online activity According to Chris Sonderby, Facebook's deputy general counsel, Facebook removed the video 'within minutes' of being notified by police. The delay however underlining the challenge tech companies face in policing violent or disturbing content in real time. Facebook's moderation process still relies largely on an appeals process where users can flag up concerns with the platform which then reviews it through human moderators. Currently Facebook relies on human reviewers through an appeals process and in some cases - such as those relating to ISIS and terrorism - automatic removal for taking down offensive and dangerous activity. HOW TO REPORT A LIVE VIDEO Facebook uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect objectionable material, while at the same time relying on the public to flag up content that violates its standards. To report live video, a user must know to click on a small set of three gray dots on the right side of the post. When you click on 'report live video,' you're given a choice of objectionable content types to select from, including violence, bullying and harassment. You're also told to contact law enforcement in your area if someone is in immediate danger. Advertisement The latter includes AI driven machine learning to assess posts that indicate support for ISIS or al-Qaeda, said Monika Bickert, Global Head of Policy Management, and Brian Fishman, Head of Counterterrorism Policy in a blog post from November 2018. 'In some cases, we will automatically remove posts when the tool indicates with very high confidence that the post contains support for terrorism. We still rely on specialised reviewers to evaluate most posts, and only immediately remove posts when the tool's confidence level is high enough that its 'decision' indicates it will be more accurate than our human reviewers.' Ms Bickert added: 'At Facebook's scale neither human reviewers nor powerful technology will prevent all mistakes. That's why we waited to launch these automated removals until we had expanded our appeals process to include takedowns of terrorist content.' Mr Rosen added that technical innovation is needed to get ahead of large amounts of modified videos designed to get past sensors, like those uploaded after the massacre. 'One of the challenges we faced in the days after the attack was a proliferation of many different variants of the video of the attack. 'People - not always intentionally - shared edited versions of the video which made it hard for our systems to detect.' Facebook said in a blog post in late March that it had identified more than 900 different versions of the footage. The company has pledged 7.5 million dollars (5.8 million) towards new research partnerships in a bid to improve its ability to automatically detect offending content after some manipulated edits of the Christchurch attack managed to bypass existing detection systems. It will work with the University of Maryland, Cornell University and The University of California, Berkeley, to develop new techniques that detect manipulated media, whether it is imagery, video or audio, as well as ways to distinguish between people who unwittingly share manipulated content and those who intentionally create them. 'This work will be critical for our broader efforts against manipulated media, including DeepFakes,' Mr Rosen added. HOW DOES FACEBOOK MODERATE ITS CONTENT? Currently Facebook relies on human reviewers and moderators and in some cases - like those relating to ISIS and terrorism - automatic removal for offensive and dangerous activity. The manual moderation relies largely on an appeals process where users can flag up concerns with the platform which then reviews it through human moderators. However, none of the 200 viewers of the live broadcast of the Christchurch, New Zealand terror shooting flagged it to Facebook's moderators. In some cases, Facebook automatically removes posts using an AI driven algorithm indicates with very high confidence that the post contains support for terrorism including ISIS and al-Qaeda. But the system overall still relies specialised reviewers to evaluate most posts, and only immediately remove posts when the tool's confidence level is high enough that its 'decision' indicates it will be more accurate than that of humans. According to ex-Facebook executive Monika Bickert, its machine learning tools have been critical to reducing the amount of time terrorist content reported by users stays on the platform from 43 hours in the first quarter of 2018 to 18 hours in the third quarter of 2018. Ms Bickert added: 'At Facebook's scale neither human reviewers nor powerful technology will prevent all mistakes.' Advertisement 'We hope it will also help us to more effectively fight organised bad actors who try to outwit our systems as we saw happen after the Christchurch attack.' Google also struggled to remove new uploads of the attack on its video sharing website YouTube. The massacre was New Zealand's worst peacetime shooting and spurred calls for tech companies to do more to combat extremism on their services. During the opening of a safety engineering centre (GSEC) in Munich on Tuesday, Google's senior vice president for global affairs, Kent Walker, admitted that the tech giant still needed to improve its systems for finding and removing dangerous content. 'In the situation of Christchurch, we were able to avoid having live-streaming on our platforms, but then subsequently we were subjected to a really somewhat unprecedented attack on our services by different groups on the internet which had been seeded by the shooter,' Mr Walker said. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter are all taking part in the summit. Mr Macron has repeatedly stated that the status quo is unacceptable. 'Macron was one of the first leaders to call the prime minister after the attack, and he has long made removing hateful online content a priority,' New Zealand's ambassador to France, Jane Coombs, told journalists on Monday. 'It's a global problem that requires a global response,' she said. In an opinion piece in The New York Times on Saturday, Ms Ardern said the 'Christchurch Call' will be a voluntary framework that commits signatories to put in place specific measures to prevent the uploading of terrorist content. Ms Ardern has not made specific demands of social media companies in connection with the pledge, but has called for them 'to prevent the use of live streaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks. Firms themselves will be urged to come up with concrete measures, the source said, for example by reserving live broadcasting to social media accounts whose owners have been identified. An Islamic group is even suing Facebook and YouTube for hosting footage of the New Zealand terror attack. The French Council of the Muslim Faith is using laws that prohibit 'broadcasting a message with violent content abetting terrorism' in its attempt, made after the shootings in March. An advanced research arm of the U.S. government's intelligence community is looking to develop AI capable of tracking people across a vast surveillance network. As reported by Nextgov, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has put out a call for more information on developing an algorithm that can be trained to identify targets by visually analyzing swaths of security camera footage. The goal, says the request, is to be able to identify and track subjects across areas as large as six miles in an effort to reconstruct crime scenes, protect military operations, and monitor critical infrastructure facilities. The US government wants to track subjects using cameras across a vast network using an algorithm that is trained on other human subjects To develop the technology, IARPA will collect nearly 1,000 hours of video surveillance from at least 20 camera networks and then, using that sample, test various algorithms effectiveness. The agency's interest in AI-based surveillance technology mirrors a broader movement from governments and intelligence communities around the globe, many of whom have ramped up efforts to develop and scale systems. Facial recognition in particular has seen a flurry of interest from law enforcement throughout the last several years. As reported by the Washington Post, some law enforcement agencies now have the ability to use facial recognition software to assess mugshots of criminals, or in some cases even police sketches, and match those images with security footage. In U.S. airports, facial recognition software has been particularly popular, with the Department of Homeland Security planning to roll out what it calls the 'biometric exit' in nearly all major air travel hubs across the country over the next several years. The idea mimics methods used in China to track its citizens using cameras. A recent report shows that the county's program has gone even further. Stock image The technology would use pictures of passengers face to monitor their travel and run their face profile against national databases. IARPA's proposed system would go a step above those facial recognition applications, however, looking to identify subjects across multiple cameras and conditions. Perhaps the broadest known application of advanced AI surveillance has taken shape in China, where camera networks monitor hundreds of thousands of faces every day in search of suspected terrorist, many of whom happened to be of a particular ethnic minority, the Uyghurs. In a recent report from Human Rights Watch, the organization details how the AI systems have been coupled with an Orwellian 'app' that also tracks subjects blood type, height, vehicle registration, medications, and more to deem whether or not a person is 'dangerous.' In the report, the organization warns that technology used to monitor citizens in China could be easily exported to the rest of the world, constituting a dangerous breach of human rights and privacy. A month after Israeli non-profit SpaceIL crashed its lunar lander into the surface of the moon, NASA says it thinks its spotted the site of impact. Israel attempted to become the first country to land a private spacecraft on the moon on April 11. But, things quickly unraveled shortly after the Beresheet lander began its descent. Mission control was forced to reset the main engine when it was around a dozen miles from the surface but ultimately failed to get it all working again; unable to slow itself down, Beresheet plummeted and broke apart. A new image captured by NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on April 22 shows a fresh impact site on a region of the moon called Sea of Serenity likely created by the high-speed collision. Scroll down for video A series of before images of the area from the last decade and as recently as 16 days before the crash revealed a new feature in line with what Beresheet would have created. NASA has used a 2016 photo (above) for comparison because of the lighting conditions on that day THE BERESHEET CRAFT Beresheet is about 5 feet (1 meter) tall by 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) wide with its landing gear and legs deployed Beresheet will stay in Earths orbit for about a month, slowly widening its ellipse until it reaches apogee, or its farthest point from here, at nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometres) away. It will then be slowly introduced to the orbit of the moon. Lunar surface operations are meant to last just two days. Beresheet will measure the magnetic field at the landing site, and send back data and pictures. A time capsule is aboard the lander - which includes a picture of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died aboard space shuttle Columbia in 2003. Advertisement LRO was about 56 miles (90 kilometers) above the surface when it captured the image with its camera array. From this distance, it could not make out whether or not a crater formed as a result of the collision, but a white impact halo can clearly be seen where it did not exist prior. Its possible the crater is just too small to show up in photos, NASA says. Another possibility is that Beresheet formed a small indent instead of a crater, given its low angle of approach (around 8.4 degrees relative to the surface), light mass (compared to a dense meteoroid of the same size), and low velocity (again, relative to a meteoroid of the same size; Beresheets speed was still faster than most speeding bullets). Radio tracking allowed scientists to pinpoint the landing site to within a few miles, according to the space agency. This, along with a series of before images of the area from the last decade and as recently as 16 days before the crash revealed a new feature in line with what Beresheet would have created given its size and speed. SpaceIL was hoping to complete a landing of Beresheet on the moon and make Israel the fourth country to manage the feat - behind the US, Russia and China. While it was unable to achieve this accomplishment, the mission still makes Israel only the seventh country to ever each lunar orbit. A new image captured by NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on April 22 shows a fresh impact site on a region of the moon called Sea of Serenity, shown on left and right. The right image has been enhanced Radio tracking allowed scientists to pinpoint the landing site to within a few miles, according to the space agency. This, along with a series of before images helped scientists to discover the new feature Israel said not long after the crash that it planned to conduct another mission within the next few years. SpaceIL's Beresheet was part of a 'ride share' with Elon Musk's SpaceX, as the mission could not afford its own rocket. After travelling over 3.4 million miles (95.5m km) around the Earth and drawing ever closer to the moon, the spacecraft finally swung into the moon's elliptical orbit on April 4. The landmark attempt began shortly after 3pm ET (8pm BST) and in a live-streamed event held by Contact Global Broadcasting Services. King Canute (artist's impression) lived between 989 and 1035 AD, the son of King Sweyn Forkbeard King Canute, also known as Cnut the Great, is famed for one particular tale which has permanently etched his name into English folklore. Canute is popularly known by the story that he tried to teach his advisors the limits of his power by instructing them to carry him to the beach. The King then ordered the tide to stay out. When the water rose and wet his feet, the story written 100 years after his death, said, he cried to his courtiers: 'How empty and worthless is the power of kings!' However, the popular memory of the story is that a deluded Canute was trying to show his own supernatural strength. The story became a proverb frequently cited when the rich and famous try to limit unwanted publicity or politicians attempt to prevent inevitable developments. He was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden, sometimes called the North Sea Empire. Canute won the throne of England in 1016 and maintained his power by unifying Nordic and English traditions, rather than simple brutality. He ruled England for nineteen years and the protection he gave against Viking raiders - many of whom were under his command in the first place - helped to restore prosperity. He won the English throne via invasions of the country with his Viking warriors, ascended to the Danish throne via blood-right in 1018 (he was the grandson of legendary Dane Harold Bluetooth) and claimed the crown of Norway in 1028. He was married twice, to lfgifu of Northampton and Emma of Normandy, and his offspring were some of the most notable in European history. His son Harthacnut would become the last Scandinavian ruler of England while Edward the Confessor became known as the last king of Wessex and died without an heir. Edward the Confessor was succeeded by Harold II, who was to be the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England, his brother-in-law. The resources he commanded in England due to this influx helped him to establish secure control in Scandinavia as well. Canute's reign and deeds were told of in Norse poetry, where he was portrayed as a fierce Viking warrior. In the Knytlinga Saga, Canute is described as 'exceptionally tall and strong, and the recognised of men, all except for his nose, that was thin, high set and rather hooked.' He is said to have had a fair complexion and thick head of hair. The great king died in 1035 and was succeeded by his son Harold Harefoot. British Airways has caused a real stir among its passengers, by introducing an afternoon tea - that doesn't actually come with a cup of tea. This omission has generated several irate outbursts on Twitter, with one user calling it 'appalling'. BA added the 'centenary edition afternoon tea' to its short-haul menu earlier this month. The centenary afternoon tea offered by British Airways. For 5 you get a scone, jam and clotted cream - a cup of tea is another 2.50 According to BA's menu description, it's an 'afternoon tea, a celebratory edition of a true British classic' that comes with 'an indulgent sultana scone served with traditional clotted cream and delicious strawberry preserve'. But the menu then adds: 'Pair it with a hot cup of Tea Pigs Everyday Brew for an authentic cream tea experience.' It costs 5 and an extra 2.50 for a cup of tea to go with it. The menu does hint that the tea is extra, but many fliers have taken umbrage. One passenger, Jon Campling, wrote online: 'FYI @British_Airways you don't get to call it #Afternoontea if it doesn't include the tea! Pretty appalled by your entirely misleading menu sleight of hand. Storm in a tea cup? Passengers took to Twitter to slam the airline for not including a cup of tea with the afternoon tea offering 'You owe me 2.50 I paid cos felt sorry for the staff who had to explain and apologise for the poor price info.' Another, Mark Whiteside, said: 'Um, @British_Airways does your afternoon tea onboard not actually come with tea? I'm paying a fiver just for the scone and the tea's extra? .... What?' Daniel Seiderer tweeted: 'An afternoon tea that doesn't come with a cup of tea is a rip-off. BA added the 'centenary edition afternoon tea' to its short-haul menu earlier this month 'I can't believe that @British_Airways is seriously offering this - this represents misleading advertisement. #fail.' And Ben Fletcher wrote: 'Let me guess, @British_Airways, you removed the tea from afternoon tea based on customer feedback in order to enhance the afternoon experience?' MailOnline's etiquette expert William Hanson said: 'Really BA should be terming this a "cream tea" as that is all they are offering - a scone with cream and jam. "Afternoon tea" implies the full works of sandwiches, scone and a selection of small cakes. But in either instance it could seem churlish to not include a cup of tea to pair with the sweet treats.' A British Airways spokesperson said: 'Whether its a traditional cup of tea, our new espresso martini or a bottle of champagne, we offer a wide range of beverages to allow customers to choose which option they pair our popular afternoon tea with.' Years And Years Rating: Bear's Mission With David Walliams Rating: Nothing cheers us up like a good worry. Theres something soothing about imagining the worst and Russell T. Davies must be feeling very cheerful and soothed indeed. In the first hour of his cataclysmic family serial, Years And Years (BBC1), the writer fretted frantically about the prospect of President Trumps re-election next year, the disappearance of butterflies, sex robots, Russias annexation of Ukraine, compulsory porn lessons for 11-year-olds and nuclear war with China. Years And Years (BBC1) covers the prospect of President Trumps re-election next year, the disappearance of butterflies, sex robots, Russias annexation of Ukraine, compulsory porn lessons for 11-year-olds and nuclear war with China The premise of the tale is that civilisation has been spiralling towards disaster since the banking crisis of 2008 and, if you think things are bad now, theyll be a whole lot worse in five or ten years. The era when humanity made great discoveries and wrote sublime music is gone, lamented Stephen (Rory Kinnear): Our brains are devolving. Russell T is 56. I have a theory that when men who are getting on a bit start predicting the end of the world, they are really projecting their fears for their own mortality on to the rest of creation. The Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, 76, for instance, has been warning that the end is nigh ever since he turned 60, with asteroid impacts and rogue robots being two of his major concerns. Years And Years didnt stop to worry about the likelihood of a stray comet crashing into our orbit. Russells bugbears were oddly old-fashioned: as the atom bombs began to fly, his characters were holed up in a remote country house for birthday celebrations with their gran (Anne Reid). Her response was to make a pot of tea. The rest of the family looked like they werent sure whether to build a nuclear shelter out of mattresses and doors, or go full Lord Of The Flies and start dancing naked around bonfires. Even amid the gathering mushroom clouds, the whole programme had a smug glow. All the worlds problems were caused by people who were insufficiently right-on or virtuously Leftie. In one dismissively sneering touch, the script foresaw the death of the Queen in 2022. Granny Anne was the only person who cared, wearing a black dress and standing to attention. Russell has a problem writing likeable female characters. The women in Years And Years are nags, bullies, racists or raving narcissists all four in the case of Emma Thompson, who plays a populist politician fuelling divisions across the country. The premise of the tale is that civilisation has been spiralling towards disaster since the banking crisis of 2008 However, one clever prediction involves a digital face mask called a filter, which projects cartoon emojis to convey emotions. When the wearer is happy, for example, a gurgling baby-faced smiley appears. Russell Ts filter has probably worn out its worried sick emoji. If Bear Grylls were an emoji, however, hed be that crazy one with the rolling eyes and the drooling tongue, delirious with glee. Bears Mission With David Walliams (ITV) saw him hurtling in all directions across Dartmoor in a Land Rover, before urging the Britains Got Talent judge to abseil down sheer cliffs and finally climb a rope ladder up an aqueduct. This man is not letting go! Bear crowed fatuously. Good job, too the drop was at least 100ft. Despite the dangers, David seemed to have trouble taking it seriously. He quipped constantly that Bear was trying to kill him, because he knows it would make good television, and he hates the idea of anyone being more successful than him. Dinner was rat on a stick, which both men insisted was delicious. As a fast food, itll never catch on. She has landed a huge gig in Los Angeles filming her own television show. And Gemma Collins, 38, pulled out all the stops when she shot scenes with her pal Jonathan Cheban, in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. While she looked gorgeous in her floral wrap dress, the TOWIE star suffered an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction when the floaty number blew open. Uh oh: Gemma Collins, was spotted filming for her new show with pal Jonathan Cheban in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, but didn't appear to notice she suffered a wardrobe malfunction As she strolled around in the sunshine with her Celebrity Big Brother pal, Gemma didn't notice that her pretty dress had come unwrapped. Confident in her good looks, the GC was keen to show off her summer style, snapping a montage of selfies while on the move. She teamed the flimsy dress with a chic Christian Dior tote bag and platform sandals. Flash: While she looked gorgeous in her floral wrap dress, the TOWIE star suffered an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction when the floaty number blew open Summer style: She teamed the flimsy dress with a chic Christian Dior tote bag and platform sandals for her fun day out As Gemma got settled into the Los Angeles lifestyle, Jonathan introduced the former TOWIE star to the top plastic surgeon on the A-list scene. Having lost two stone in weight after Dancing On Ice, the television star lamented her face hadn't got 'any thinner'. The Instagram sensation vowed to get the 'fat sucked out' of her chin and promised to show her legion of 1.3million followers the results. Reunited: Gemma had a great day with Jonathan, who she struck up a close friendship with on Celebrity Big Brother Selfie queen! Gemma snapped selfies while she filmed her show, as she unveiled plans to get the 'fat sucked out' of her chin Long time no catch up! The former TOWIE star pulled out all the stops on her fashionable appearance when she shot scenes with her friend in his home town She's gorgeous! Confident in her good looks, the GC didn't miss a moment to document her floral print dress as she snapped a montage of selfies while on the move She told her viewers: 'I can't wait to show you the results... I need this fat sucked out my face pronto. Lost two and a half stone but the face doesn't get any thinner.' Jonathan took the Essex beauty on a whistlestop tour of all the so-called 'Food God' haunts across Beverly Hills. The Food God apologised to Gemma's fans as he claimed she may not come back to 'rainy' England because she will lap up the lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles. Work it! Gemma turned the camera on her pal as she filmed Jonathan when they climbed out of the car during their day out Big plans: As Gemma got settled into the Los Angeles lifestyle, Jonathan introduced the former TOWIE star to the top plastic surgeon on the A-list scene Hard work pays off! Having lost two stone in weight after Dancing On Ice, the television star lamented her face hadn't got 'any thinner' Ultra glam: Gemma applied her lip gloss to ensure she kept her look fresh while out in LA He said: '[We're] shopping all day, sorry she might not be coming back to the UK.' Showing her round, the pair zoomed down the streets in the flashy Rolls Royce car before they enjoyed a luxurious shopping spree. The Celebs Go Dating star has just arrived in Los Angeles to film scenes for her very own television show. Changes: The Instagram sensation vowed to get the 'fat sucked out' of her chin and promised to show her legion of 1.3million followers the results On the move: Jonathan took the Essex beauty on a whistlestop tour of all the so-called 'Food God' haunts across Beverly Hills Living her best life: The Food God apologised to Gemma's fans as he claimed she may not come back to 'rainy' England because she will lap up the lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles Meanwhile, Gemma's boyfriend James has reportedly been sacked from their hit ITV show TOWIE after allegedly testing positive for cocaine, according to The Sun. The publication reports that James, 31, failed a routine drug test and a result, was let go from the programme, with his friends now worried about his health. A source said: 'Its a shame but James problems flared up again, and he failed a routine test. 'As a result Lime Pictures arent working with him, and it has sparked more concerns among his friends who fear he isnt looking after himself. Life in the fast lane: Showing her round, the pair zoomed down the streets in the flashy Rolls Royce car before they enjoyed a luxurious shopping spree Exciting times: The Celebs Go Dating star has just arrived in Los Angeles to film scenes for her very own television show Reunited! The friends were delighted to see each other once again and shared an affectionate hug in the streets Delicious! The GC let the Food God taste a sip of her milkshake when they hit the road 'His weight has rocketed recently which he says he plans to tackle, but getting back involved with drugs is even worse. Its a dangerous path he is going down.' The paper also reports that James voluntarily agreed to the routine test before he returned to filming because of concerns over his previous issues with drugs and alcohol. The source added that the production crew of TOWIE are very fond of him and hope he can overcome his issues. A spokesperson for Lime Pictures added to the publication that there are no plans for the show to film with James at the present time Sassy: The golden-haired beauty ensured she stood out with her bright red sunglasses Direction: The pair made the most of the sunshine as they enjoyed the wind in their hair while taking a spin in the roofless car The Block's Jess Eva has spoken candidly about her battle with postnatal depression, revealing what it's like to be on antidepressants to treat it. Speaking on her radio show, Triple M Sydney's Moonman in the Morning, the 33-year-old former reality TV contestant said that the medication made her 'emotionally numb.' The mother-of-two said she was on antidepressants for five years after the birth of her son Freddie, five, and has only just recently gone off them. Candid: The Block's Jess Eva has spoken candidly about her battle with postnatal depression , revealing what it's like to be on antidepressants to treat it (Pictured with husband Norm on The Block) 'There's certain things in life that I didn't find scary, cause you get emotionally numb, that I'm finding a little bit scary to do now that I'm off them and can feel emotion,' Jess said. She explained how the meds made her 'flat line'. 'The lows were so low, you sacrifice the highs to not get the lows,' she recalled. Jess - who rose to fame on The Block with builder husband Norm - said that she went on a slippery slide at Sydney's Luna Park over the weekend and loved the experience, because she can now finally feel emotion. 'You get emotionally numb': The mother-of-two said she was on the medication for five years after the birth of her son Freddie, five, (pictured) and has only just recently gone off them 'It's wild!' Jess - who rose to fame on The Block with builder husband Norm - said that she went on a slippery slide at Sydney's Luna Park over the weekend and loved the experience, because she can now finally feel emotion 'Have you ever been down a slippery slide without your meds (sic)? Oh my God, it's wild!' 'Normally on my meds (sic), I would be like, "sit on the slide. Wee, this is nice." 'I haven't felt emotion for five years, this is awesome. It was truly incredible. But I'm fine.' Jess and Norm share two children together, daughter Matilda, two, and son Fred, five, with the family recently adopting an adorable Moodle puppy. Family: Jess and Norm share two children together, daughter Matilda, two (pictured), and son Fred, five, and the family recently adopted an adorable Moodle puppy In February, Jess shared a candid Instagram snap of herself crying in the bathroom as she dropped Freddie off to school for the first time. 'He was fine, I wasn't,' she said at the time. 'Going home to have a wine. This is too much for my soul.' She added: 'It makes me want to breed like crazy... my ovaries are yelling out... don't grow up, but at the same time I'm so proud of you. Hand me a glass... Mamma needs to take the edge off. Love ya.' If you or anyone you know is struggling, contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14. Dax Shepard reunited with his television wife Joy Bryant on Tuesday at the ABC Disney Upfront Presentation in New York City. The 44-year-old actor and Joy, 44, hugged on the carpet as they arrived for the network presentation. Dax wore a grey newsboy cap along with a long-sleeved dark blue T-shirt, grey suspenders and matching grey trousers. Network star: Dax Shepard wore a grey newsboy cap and matching suspenders on Tuesday to the ABC Disney Upfront Presentation in New York City He completed his outfit with black sneakers with white trim and accessorized with a watch. Joy donned a long, sleeveless red dress and polished off her look with leopard-print heels. The Antwone Fisher star accentuated her natural beauty with matching bright red lipstick and had her long braided hair parted down the middle. Dax played Crosby Braverman in the NBC comedy-series Parenthood and had a son Jabbar with his girlfriend Jasmine Trussell, portrayed by Joy. Together again: Joy Bryant reunited with her television husband Dax at the network event Parenthood stars: Dax and Joy played love interests Crosby and Jasmine on NBC's Parenthood from 2010 to 2015 Crosby and Jasmine married in season three and later had a daughter Aida. Dax has been starring along with Lake Bell, 40, in the new ABC sitcom Bless This Mess. Lake and Dax portray married former New Yorkers who move to a Nebraska farm and both also are executive producers. Wedding episode: Joy as Jasmine and Dax as Crosby are shown in the Parenthood season three episode My Brother's Wedding New sitcom: Lake Bell is shown with Dax last month in a still from the new sitcom Bless This Mess on ABC Joy will star in the new mid-season ABC series For Life inspired by the life of Isaac Wright Jr, who was convicted of being a drug kingpin, but studied law and successfully appealed his conviction. Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson via his G-Unit Film & Television company is an executive producer. Dax has been married since 2013 to actress Kristen Bell, 38, and they have two children together. Joy has been married since 2008 to stuntman Dave Pope. Kate Fischer is back - and she's looking better than ever. The '90s supermodel, who now goes by the name Tziporah Malkah, flaunted her sensational figure at the beach in Sydney on Monday. Having lost a staggering 50kg over the past few months, Tziporah wore a patterned swimsuit that highlighted her slimmed-down frame. She's still got it! Tziporah Malkah, formerly known as Kate Fischer, flaunted her remarkable 50kg weight loss in a patterned swimsuit in Sydney on Monday She completed her look with purple sandals and a beach bag emblazoned with a quote by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. She also wore a pendant necklace and, rather bizarrely, carried a pink bedsheet. On Tuesday night, Tziporah spoke about her dramatic weight loss on Channel Nine's A Current Affair. Transformed: Having lost a staggering 50kg over the past few months, Tziporah wore a patterned swimsuit that highlighted her slimmed-down frame Enjoying the view? Tziporah's swimsuit drew attention to her toned back and pert derriere Reflecting on her journey, she said: 'I was above 120kg. I've gone from a size 24 to a 12. I'm about half my size now.' She attributed her weight loss to 'clean eating', meditation, regular exercise sessions and hypnosis therapy. Tziporah added that she felt depressed after being diagnosed as 'morbidly obese' several years ago and 'hid away' from the public eye. Intellectual: Tziporah completed her look with purple sandals and a beach bag emblazoned with a quote by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei She previously told New Idea magazine: 'I [used to be] in a bad shape, mentally and physically... But now I no longer hate myself, I actually really like me!' The former actress claimed she dropped the kilos with long daily walks and gym sessions with a personal trainer. Furthermore, she has stopped snacking on chips and cheese and instead reaches for carrots and celery when she's hungry. Ready for a nap? She wore a pendant necklace and, rather bizarrely, carried a pink bedsheet Sharing her secrets: On Tuesday night, Tziporah spoke about her dramatic weight loss on Channel Nine's A Current Affair Half her size: Reflecting on her journey, Tziporah said: 'I was above 120kg. I've gone from a size 24 to a 12. I'm about half my size now' Back in the day: Many Australians will remember Tziporah, then known as Kate Fischer, for her engagement to James Packer in the '90s 'I'm elated, I can't stop dancing around, acting like a little kid,' Tziporah said, adding that she is now the lightest she's been since she was 35. She also feels much more confident now and is ready to pursue whatever modelling and TV opportunities come her way. Many Australians will remember Tziporah, then known as Kate Fischer, for her engagement to James Packer in the '90s. Weight battle: Tziporah was diagnosed as morbidly obese two years ago, but now weighs less than 70kg. Pictured left: on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here in 2017, and right: in 1996 She's a new woman! Tziporah told New Idea last week she is 'a different person' after losing 50kg. Pictured in Sydney on November 6, 2000 She also appeared in the Australian film Sirens, about the hedonistic and creative lifestyle of artist Norman Lindsay, alongside Elle Macpherson and Portia de Rossi. Tziporah weighed 118kg when she appeared on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! in 2017 but lost 12kg in the South African jungle. She put the weight back on due to a foot injury, but by January 2019 had managed to lose an impressive 30kg. At the time, Tziporah said that she hoped to drop an additional 20kg by the end of the year - something she managed to achieve in just a few months. The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London Rating: Boris Johnson. Saint or sinner? Brilliant political strategist or village idiot? National saviour or botched haircut on legs? Whatever you make of Bojo, there are those of us who cant help enjoying the spectacle he makes of himself. I suspect Jonathan Maitland is one. His new comedy about the twice mayor of London, former foreign secretary and would-be PM features an endlessly watchable performance from Will Barton as the mop-top Machiavellian schemer. Will Barton plays a very watchable mop-top Machiavellian schemer Boris Johnson in Jonathan Maitland's new play Barton delights as Johnson: he has absolutely nailed the rolled shoulders, shifty eyes and fingers tucked, cowboy style, into the belt below his bulging middle. But there are delicious spoofs throughout I found myself engrossed by the brilliant Dead Ringer quality impersonations, and laughing out loud at the snappy dialogue (including Boriss withering assessment of our post-Brexit PM Dominic Raab: two As and a B). It kicks off at the infamous Islington dinner party of 2016, the night Boris decided to throw his weight behind Brexit. Michael Gove is there; so too is the owner of the London Evening Standard, Evgeny Lebedev though Boris is disappointed that busty Liz Hurley is a no-show. Still, he consoles himself with fantasies of walking with destiny; and is visited by the ghosts of Margaret Thatcher and his hero Winston Churchill. After the interval, the action moves to 2029. Boris is, once more, in the political wilderness but itching to sign a 9million book deal for the sixth volume of his Churchill biography and planning his fourth attempt on No 10. There is no great last temptation; and the plot does go a bit wobbly: like Boriss vision before a quivering cleavage. But I wasnt there for the story, and found myself engrossed by the brilliant Dead Ringer quality impersonations, and laughing out loud at the snappy dialogue (including Boriss withering assessment of our post-Brexit PM Dominic Raab: two As and a B). Barton delights as Johnson: he has absolutely nailed the rolled shoulders, shifty eyes and fingers tucked, cowboy style, into the belt below his bulging middle. But there are delicious spoofs throughout. The real Boris Johnson, pictured. In the play, the character is visited by the ghosts of Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill Steve Nallon from Spitting Image made me roar as Mrs Thatcher as though her latex puppet had risen from the grave. And Tim Wallers covers not just Lebedev, but an oleaginous Tony Blair and an immaculate Huw Edwards, eyes pointed and eyebrow cocked. Dugald Bruce-Lockhart is pure mischief as Michael Gove, lower lip jutting upward beneath specs. Do we learn much about the real Johnson (if such a thing exists)? Of course not. Maitland suggests he doesnt know his own mind any more than we do. Or, to misquote his beloved Churchill talking about the Soviet Union: You cannot forecast his next move. He is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But perhaps there is a key to the inner workings of his brain self-interest. He's one of the great success stories from The Biggest Loser. So it's hardly surprising that fans are calling for handsome firefighter Sam Rouen to be next year's Bachelor. The 30-year-old addressed the rumours on Tuesday's episode of Studio 10, joking that all the contestants would 'walk out on the first day' if he was the suitor. 'It would be the shortest season ever': On Tuesday's episode of Studio 10, The Biggest Loser's Sam Rouen (pictured) addressed rumours he could be the next Bachelor When asked if he'd accept an offer to be the Bachelor, Sam replied: 'No, that would be the shortest season ever.' He joked that everyone would 'just walk off' on the first night after meeting him at the cocktail party. Earlier in the interview, Sam confirmed he was 'currently single' after calling off his engagement two years ago. How modest! Sam joked that everyone would 'walk off' on the first night if he was the Bachelor Reality television: The Bachelor is one of Australia's most popular dating franchises. Pictured: Cast members from Bachelor in Paradise 'I was seeing someone recently and it was pretty special, but that kind of ended,' he added. Daily Mail Australia understands that Sam and his ex-fiancee Daniella Schot called off their wedding sometime in 2017. Last year, the Sydney-based firefighter was spotted on dating app Bumble. Singleton: Sam is still looking for love after calling off his engagement to Daniella Schot (left) On the prowl! Last year, the Sydney-based firefighter was spotted on dating app Bumble Sam's profile photos on Bumble did not give any indication that he had only recently been engaged to be married. His bio simply read: 'I indicate out of roundabouts. That pretty much sums me up.' Meanwhile, Sam reflected on his weight loss journey on Instagram last week, almost 11 years after he won the third season of The Biggest Loser. 'Eleven years ago today, I stood on a stage and realised that I committed to something. It was one of the first times in my life that I put my mind to something, gave it my all and achieved what I wanted,' Sam captioned a before-and-after post. Transformed! Earlier this month, Sam reflected on his weight loss journey, 11 years after winning the third season of The Biggest Loser. Pictured left: in 2008, and right: in 2019 Reflecting on the 11-year anniversary, Sam added: 'In the weeks leading up to 29/04/08, I was running up to 60km a day and eating to a timetabled scheduled. I was disciplined. 'I proved to myself that I could do what I put my mind to. I still face demons and challenges, but this day empowered me to realise my worth and self empowerment. 'I hope that everyone has that opportunity to reflect on themselves, and realise how amazing they are, what they can achieve, and what they are worth.' Sam, who was then a university student, lost 72kg on The Biggest Loser in 2008. His prime time ABC talk show was canceled in its first season. But that didn't keep Alec Baldwin, 61, from making an appearance at the 2019 Disney Upfronts on Tuesday with his wife Hilaria, 35. The actor and the yoga instructor had their hands all over each other for the red carpet appearance. In love: Alec Baldwin, 61, and his wife Hilaria Baldwin, 35, put on a handsy display at the 2019 Disney Upfronts in New York City on Tuesday Alec seemed to be channeling his 30 Rock character, Jack Donaghy, with his classy suit. The Mission: Impossible Fallout star was dressed in a charcoal outfit with a matching tie and a pale lavender pocket square. Hilaria complemented the dark look with her own all-black outfit. Elegant cool: Alec seemed to be channeling his 30 Rock character, Jack Donaghy, with his classy suit Gray scale: The Mission: Impossible Fallout star was dressed in a charcoal outfit with a matching tie and a pale lavender pocket square Back in black: Hilaria complemented the dark look with her own all-black outfit The Spanish-born beauty was dressed in an edgy black sweater featuring a cut-out over her cleavage. The sweater featured a strip of fabric connecting her left sleeve to the turtleneck, and her hands were nearly swallowed up by the long sleeves, which featured thumb holes. She paired the intriguing top with a high-waisted pair of pleated black slacks tied together with a thick black drawstring. She showed off her straight blonde locks after having died her raven tresses earlier this year. Avant garde: The Spanish-born beauty was dressed in an edgy black sweater featuring a cut-out over her cleavage Covered up: The sweater featured a strip of fabric connecting her left sleeve to the turtleneck, and her hands were nearly swallowed up by the long sleeves, which featured thumb holes Tied up: She paired the intriguing top with a high-waisted pair of pleated black slacks tied together with a thick black drawstring Last year, Alec premiered The Alec Baldwin Show on ABC, originally in a prestigious prime time Sunday timeslot, though it was later moved to a less desirable Saturday spot. The series was an adaptation of his radio talk show for WNYC, in which he interviews important artists, politicians and tastemakers. The show struggled in the ratings, and received mixed to negative reviews. Though ABC eventually yanked it from the schedule, its cancellation wasn't official until today's Upfronts. Cancelled: The Alec Baldwin show, based on his WNYC radio program, officially got the ax after one season Back at it: But the BlacKkKlansman actor will continue to host the rebooted Match Game when it returns for a fifth season in the summer But the BlacKkKlansman actor is still a fixture for the wider range of Disney brands. Since 2016, he's hosted the rebooted Match Game for the same network, ABC. Alec will return for a fifth season during the summer months, when the broadcast networks focus more on unscripted content. In addition to his TV work, he'll also be featured in the Edward Norton directed-and-starring adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn later this year, based on the acclaimed novel by Jonathan Lethem. Just like reality television, the fashion world can be notoriously cut-throat: one day you're famous, the next day you're a has-been. Married At First Sight's Nasser Sultan learned that lesson the hard way on Tuesday, when he was refused entry to an event at Australian Fashion Week. After arriving for the People Vs runway show at Sydney's Carriageworks, organisers told Nasser he had the wrong media pass. 'Don't you know who I am?' Married At First Sight's Nasser Sultan had a meltdown at Australian Fashion Week after being denied entry to a runway show Oh, dear! After arriving for the People Vs runway show at Sydney's Carriageworks on Tuesday, organisers told Nasser he had the wrong media pass Nasser was dressed to impress in a short-sleeved navy shirt and pants, which he paired with a thick, white tie. After being denied entry, he was seen frantically calling his 'people' on the phone and telling them to 'sort this f**king mess out'. According to a source, Nasser's pass only gained him entry into the forecourt, where he was photographed by the media wall. But it did not allow him access to the runway show itself. Not on the list! After being denied entry, Nasser was seen frantically calling his 'people' on the phone and telling them to 'sort this f**king mess out' Furious: Nasser's pass only gained him entry into the forecourt, where he was photographed by the media wall - but it did not allow him access to the runway show itself An onlooker told Daily Mail Australia: 'Nasser was furious and screaming down the phone. He was literally turning purple with rage. 'For weeks, he's been boasting about being a legitimate celebrity unlike the other MAFS stars, so this was a humiliating snub.' Meanwhile, Nasser's arch nemesis Dean Wells surprisingly managed to gain entry to the People Vs show despite his slovenly choice of attire. Rubbing salt in the wound: Nasser's arch nemesis Dean Wells (pictured) surprisingly managed to gain entry to the People Vs show despite his slovenly choice of attire Grumpy: An onlooker told Daily Mail Australia: 'Nasser was furious and screaming down the phone. He was literally turning purple with rage' It comes after The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday that 'wannabe social climber nobodies' weren't welcome at Fashion Week this year. An unnamed publicist said: 'If you haven't supported the brand or the PR all year and think you are getting onto the front row - think again. 'Editors, buyers, digital influencers and content creators are in and C-list reality wannabe social climber nobodies are out.' After dating for three years, Nicholas Hoult is opening up about working with his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence, on X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Hoult, 29, and Lawrence, 28, first met on the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, and started dating that year before they split in 2014. While promoting his new film Tolkien, which hit theaters last weekend, Hoult opened up about working with Lawrence again on Dark Phoenix, in theaters June 7. Opening up: After dating for three years, Nicholas Hoult is opening up about working with his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence, on X-Men: Dark Phoenix Nicholas and Jennifer: Hoult, 29, and Lawrence, 28 (seen above in 2012), first met on the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, and started dating that year before they split in 2014 'Its like going back to school after the summer holidays,' Hoult, who plays Beast, said about reuniting with Lawrence, who plays Mystique. 'The reality of [the X-Men franchise] is there are lots of characters, so everyone was together for brief periods, but not every day for four months,' he added. Hoult's Beast character and Lawrence's Mystique character had hints of romance between them as well, in the most recent X-Men trilogy. Mystique and Beast: Hoult's Beast character and Lawrence's Mystique character had hints of romance between them as well, in the most recent X-Men trilogy Lawrence and Hoult were first cast as Mystique and Beast in 2011's X-Men: First Class, which showcased the first class of mutants to come together under Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), set in the 1960s. They both returned along with the other main characters in 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past, was set in the 1970s and essentially erased the first X-Men trilogy that consisted of 2000's X-Men, 2003's X2: X-Men United and 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand. The third installment, 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse was set in the 1980s, with next month's X-Men: Dark Phoenix, set in the 1990s. Mystique: The third installment, 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse was set in the 1980s, with next month's X-Men: Dark Phoenix, set in the 1990s As for Hoult and Lawrence's personal lives, they have both moved on and are in serious relationships. Hoult has been dating model American model Bryana Holly Bezlaj since 2017 and they welcomed their first child in April 2018. Lawrence started dating art gallery owner Cooke Maroney in 2018, and they became engaged in February 2019. Jen and Cooke: Lawrence started dating art gallery owner Cooke Maroney in 2018, and they became engaged in February 2019 X-Men: Dark Phoenix is believed to be the last of the X-Men films, now that 20th Century Fox has merged with Disney. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner confirmed earlier this year that all decisions involving the X-Men films will be up to Disney, but no plans have been revealed yet. Projections from Pro.BoxOffice.com put X-Men: Dark Phoenix's opening weekend at $47 million, with a projected domestic gross of $113 million. Hoult's Tolkien earned just $2.4 million in its opening frame last weekend. Marja Jacobsen, a contestant from Richie Strahan's season of The Bachelor in 2016, has given birth to her first child. The Sydney-based yoga instructor and her partner, Joao da Costa, welcomed a son on Friday and have named him Kai Lyon. Announcing the baby's arrival on Wednesday, 37-year-old Marja revealed that Kai was born 'naturally' via a water birth. Baby joy! Yoga teacher Marja Jacobsen, from Richie Strahan's season of The Bachelor, has welcomed her first child with partner Joao da Costa 'Welcome Earthside to our little man Kai Lyon Jacobsen da Costa. Born naturally in the water on Friday 10th May 5.11am,' she wrote on Instagram. 'You are ridiculously wonderful and already so full of personality and spirit. We are overjoyed and feel so blessed.' Marja accompanied her social media announcement with a photo of herself cradling the child alongside her partner. Baby makes three! Marja accompanied her social media announcement with several photos of herself, Joao and their newborn son Kai Lyon Marja first announced her pregnancy in November last year. In a statement to Daily Mail Australia at the time, she said: 'Joao and I are thrilled with the news of our baby boy. We feel our little man is coming into the world at the perfect time, in the perfect way. 'Like most first time parents, we have no idea what to expect, but we know that if we continue to work as the awesome team that we are it will be wild, fun and full of new exciting adventures. We cant wait!' Thrilled! Marja first announced her pregnancy in November last year The couple, who are both yoga teachers, met through a mutual friend. Marja rose to fame as one of the 25 women vying for the heart of Richie Strahan on the 2016 season of The Bachelor. She was sent home in the fourth episode alongside Sophie Edwards. Christian Wilkins appeared to be in his element when he stepped out for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Wednesday. The 24-year-old model happily hammed it up for the cameras as he posed for photos alongside his longtime boyfriend, Andrew Kelly. There was no missing the two young men, with both stepping out in colourful ensembles. Scroll down for video Fashion forward: Christian Wilkins (left) and longtime boyfriend Andrew Kelly (right) stepped out for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Wednesday Christian, who is the son of veteran TV presenter Richard Wilkins, 64, donned a cobalt blue skirt, which he teamed with a white shirt that fell off the shoulders. He also wore a cropped emerald green knit vest over the top, and rounded out his look with a pair of lace-up black combat boots and black socks. His long blonde hair was worn sleek in a low ponytail, and he shielded his eyes in a pair of round gunmetal sunglasses. Pushing the limits: There was no missing the two young men, with both of them stepping out in colourful ensembles Working the camera: The couple playfully posed for photos, kicking up their heels as they hammed it up for photographers Sweet: At one stage, Andrew was seen draping an affectionate arm around his boyfriend's shoulders, with Christian clutching his hand Meanwhile, his partner opted for a hot pink, purple and grey crocheted skirt, which he wore with a black velvet blazer. He also donned a pair of brightly coloured pink, orange and grey sneakers, and carried what appeared to have been a large quilted handbag. Andrew capped off his outfit with a Boy George inspired black hat. Sealed with a kiss: Christian also planted a sweet kiss on Andrew's cheek, with the two men seen closing their eyes Out of the blue: Christian, who is the son of veteran TV presenter Richard Wilkins, donned a cobalt blue skirt, which he teamed with a white shirt that fell off the shoulders Centre of the social set: It's been a busy few days for the pair, with them having been a fixture at this year's Fashion Week Unique style: Andrew opted for a hot pink, purple and grey crocheted skirt, which he wore with a black velvet blazer The couple playfully posed for photos, kicking up their heels, and draping an arm around each other's shoulders. At one stage, Christian planted a sweet kiss on Andrew's cheek. It's been a busy few days for the pair, with them having been a fixture at this year's Fashion Week. Regular updates: Christian has been documenting his appearances at the event on Instagram Stories, sharing a series of photos and videos 'I love using Fashion Week as an excuse to drink in the morn,' he captioned a photo of himself sipping a cocktail Puppy love: A second photo shared to Christian's Instagram Stories showed Andrew getting his face licked by a small dog Christian has been documenting his appearances at the event on Instagram Stories, sharing a series of photos and videos. 'I love using Fashion Week as an excuse to drink in the morn,' he captioned a photo of himself sipping a cocktail. A second photo shared to Christian's Instagram Stories showed Andrew getting his face licked by a small dog. She a two-time Oscar winner with a slew of Hollywood blockbusters under her belt. But Cate Blanchett is making a welcome return to the Australian small screen with a new six-part series, Stateless. Set to be filmed in Adelaide, the local production will follow four strangers stuck in an Australian detention centre. 'This will resonate globally': Cate Blanchett is set to produce and star in Australian immigration detention series Stateless Co-created with Cate's husband Andrew Upton, and also starring Asher Keddie and The Handmaid's Tale star Yvonne Strahovski, Cate, 49, says the new series will have 'global resonance.' The mother-of-four said in a statement: 'Whilst this story centers on Australia, the dilemmas that it explores through four absorbing characters will resonate globally. 'It's the desire for personal freedom, the need for social stability, an escalating lack of faith in the political process and the deeply unsettling impact this has on individual lives.' Aussie cast: The six-part series also stars Asher Keddie (right) and The Handmaid's Tale star Yvonne Strahovski (left) Cate has become the latest Hollywood celebrity to make the move to TV, joining the likes of fellow Hollywood A-listers, Meryl Streep, Tom Hardy and Julia Roberts. It comes after the star revealed she goes to her own children for career advice, telling Who last year she 'seeks their opinions all the time'. The seven-time Oscar nominee, shares four kids - Dashiell, 17, Roman, 15, Ignatius, 11, and Edith, five - with her theatre director Andrew. Family: The two-time Oscar winner, 49, shares four children - Dashiell, 17, Roman, 15, Ignatius, 11, and Edith, five - with her theatre director husband Andrew Upton. Pictured in January 2017 'My son gave me some great career advice a few years ago. He said, "Mum, when are you going to make a blockbuster?" 'I said, "I was in Lord of the Rings!" And he said, "Yeah for about 30 seconds." So it didn't really count. I had no brownie points with my children! She added: 'They think I'm really uncool and embarrassing.' She's starred in every movie genre imaginable, and now Halle Berry is showing off her impressive action film qualifications. The John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum actress was featured in a short video posted by the film's social media accounts on Monday that showed her shooting up an obstacle range as well as her fictional counterpart. The 52-year-old star was joined by an impressed Keanu Reeves, 54, who watched from the sidelines. Steely: Halle Berry, 52, was featured in a short video posted Monday showing her impressive skills at the firing range ahead of her performance in John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum The video, which is edited together from multiple sessions at the range, show's Halle clad in a sporty top as she whips out a handgun. The range features a number of wooden plaques standing in for people, which she quickly fills with holes. The Oscar winner had to navigate multiple large obstacles in her way, and the range featured other targets, including a rusted-out bullet-riddled car. Rapid draw: The video, which is edited together from multiple sessions at the range, show's Halle clad in a sporty top as she whips out a handgun Bullet-riddled: The range features a number of wooden plaques standing in for people, which she quickly fills with holes Obstacle course: The Oscar winner had to navigate multiple large obstacles in her way, and the range featured other targets, including a rusted-out bullet-riddled car Like a boss: Most impressive about the video is Halle's demeanor and her aim Most impressive about the video is Halle's demeanor and her aim. She shows off the steely cool befitting her character, a trained assassin and friend to Keanu's John Wick. But Halle also hits most of the targets in rapid succession. Unlike a standard shooting range, in which the shooter is stationary while firing at a target in the distance, she's constantly moving forward and side to side, exploring the environment as she let's loose. Playing the part: She shows off the steely cool befitting her character, a trained assassin and friend to Keanu's John Wick On the move: Unlike a standard shooting range, in which the shooter is stationary while firing at a target in the distance, she's constantly moving forward and side to side, exploring the environment as she let's loose At one point the instructor compliments Halle on her double tap, the firing of two aimed shots in quick succession without changing the aim. Keanu steps out from behind her at the end of the video, clearly impressed by her shooting skills. The Matrix star previously was featured in his own behind-the-scenes training video prior to the release of 2017's John Wick 2. The actor showed off his own strong skills on the same range. Special skill: At one point the instructor compliments Halle on her double tap, the firing of two aimed shots in quick succession without changing the aim Nice one: Keanu steps out from behind her at the end of the video, clearly impressed by her shooting skills Game recognize game: The Matrix star previously was featured in his own behind-the-scenes training video prior to the release of 2017's John Wick 2 Halle stars in the neo-noiraction hybrid as Sofia, a friend of Wick's whom he calls upon after a $14 million bounty is put on his head, making him the most valuable target for the world's most elite assassins. He was excommunicated from the network after shedding blood in a no-kill safe space. Though she fires a welcoming shot into his bullet-proof suit in the film's trailer, Halle seems to stick with him throughout the film. John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum will be released nationwide on May 17. He's tried out a variety of roles since wrapping up the Harry Potter series in 2011. Now Daniel Radcliffe, 29, is coming to American television scenes with the new TBS comedy Miracle Workers. He was joined by his co-star, Blockers' Geraldine Viswanathan, 23, at the show's premiere Tuesday in New York City. New series: Daniel Radcliffe, 29, repped his new TBS comedy series Miracle Workers at the show's premiere Tuesday in New York City Red hot: Geraldine set pulses racing as she gave a busty display in her fiery vermilion dress Daniel arrived to the premiere in a low-key casual outfit. The Swiss Army Man star had on a black sweater with dark gray plaid panels over the shoulders, as well as black jeans and matching black sneakers. He sported a thick beard, a far cry from his days as a baby-faced wizard. He stars in Miracle workers as Craig Bog, an entry-level angel working in heaven who's tasked with responding to the prayers of all humankind. Joined by Geraldine, who plays Eliza Hunter, a recent transfer from the Department of Dirt, the two try to stop God (Steve Buscemi) from destroying the Earth after he gets bored with his creation. Dark: The Swiss Army Man star had on a black sweater with dark gray plaid panels over the shoulders, as well as black jeans and matching black sneakers Thankless job: He stars in Miracle workers as Craig Bog, an entry-level angel working in heaven who's tasked with responding to the prayers of all humankind Saving the day: Joined by Geraldine, who plays Eliza Hunter, a recent transfer from the Department of Dirt, the two try to stop God (Steve Buscemi) from destroying the Earth after he gets bored with his creation Geraldine set pulses racing as she gave a busty display in her fiery vermilion dress. She paired the spaghetti strap outfit with a pair of black open-toe heels. The Hala star kept her accessories minimal, and had her wavy raven-colored hair in a playful bob. Lovely: The Hala star kept her accessories minimal, and had her wavy raven-colored hair in a playful bob On top: The show marks Steve Buscemi's highest profile TV role since starring in HBO's Boardwalk Empire Though Steve Buscemi is best known for his many film roles, including acclaimed performances in Fargo and The Big Lebowski, he's maintained a steady presence on television with numerous guest spots and large roles on The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. He rocked a relaxed look at the Miracle Workers premiere with a midnight blue button up shirt and windbreaker over a black pair of jeans. Karan Soni of the Deadpool franchise was attired in a brown polo shirt with a blue denim jacket and a pair of khakis. Also featured at the premiere was the series' creator, Simon Rich. He previously created the FXX series Man Seeking Woman, and has written for Saturday Night Live and Pixar. No fuss: Karan Soni of the Deadpool franchise was attired in a brown polo shirt with a blue denim jacket and a pair of khakis She's known for her quirky taste in fashion almost as much as for her acclaimed film roles. Helena Bonham Carter didn't disappoint when she arrived at New York City's JFK airport on Tuesday. The 52-year-old Ocean's 8 star showed off a brilliant red floral dress as she arrived in the Big Apple. Striking figure: Helena Bonham Carter, 52, showed off her intriguing fashion sense with a red floral dress as she arrived at NYC's JFK airport on Tuesday Helena's long red dress was adorned with white flowers featuring small green splotches. A panel sewn in around her thighs featured black fabric with green and red flowers in the same style. In addition to the long dress, the 5ft2in Harry Potter star sported a pair of black platform boots and a pearl necklace. She covered up in a black down jacket and toted a black leather handbag over her shoulder while gripping a dark green suitcase. Her voluminous chestnut hair was held up in a bun, secured with a red polka dotted hair clip and a large green bow. Unmissable: The long red dress had a black and green panel sewn in over her thighs Helena is set to appear in the upcoming third and fourth seasons of the hit Netflix series The Crown. She takes over the role of Princess Margaret, originally portrayed by Vanessa Kirby in the first two seasons. The show's principal roles were set to be recast with more age appropriate actors ever two seasons, to avoid the use of excessive aging makeup. Royal takeover: Helena is set to appear in the upcoming third and fourth seasons of the hit Netflix series The Crown, taking over for Vanessa Kirby; pictured May 9 in London The former wife of Tim Burton is also set to voice one of the character in The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance. The forthcoming Netflix series functions as a prequel to The Dark Crystal, the 1982 fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Though it has since become a cult classic thanks to its inventive design and impressive puppetry and animatronics, the film was originally shunned by audiences turned off by its dark tone. She was snapped wearing a white bed sheet near her home in Melbourne back in 2016 and later in 2018. Now, Tziporah Malkah, formerly known as Kate Fischer, has recreated the iconic bed linen moment again on social media following her remarkable 50kg weight loss. In a series of posts shared to Instagram on Wednesday, the '90s supermodel, 45, revealed her slimmed-down physique as she stripped down to a pale pink bed sheet. 'Is it ok now that I'm no longer morbidly obese?!' Tziporah Malkah (pictured), 45, recreates THAT bed sheet photo after her remarkable 50kg weight loss 'My latest pink sheet work - enjoy at your leisure,' she captioned a slideshow of images. Tziporah also shared a clip of herself walking through a park as she secured the sheet around her chest with her jewellery-laden arm. 'Here I am. I'm 70kg,' the I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! star announced in her piece-to-camera. 'But look at me! What is wrong with me...I am dressed in a bed sheet.' 'Clearly mentally ill,' she added in jest. 'Here I am. I'm 70kg!' The '90s supermodel, 45, revealed her slimmed-down physique as she stripped down to a pale pink bed sheet 'Or is it OK now that I'm no longer morbidly obese to be dressed in a be sheet? Am I no longer crazy?' Tziporah continued to reflect on how her latest bed sheet stunt might be perceived following her slim down, saying: 'As long as you're gorgeous -it's OK right?!' 'Wow,' she said with a laugh before adding :'We have a long way to go as a society.' 'Yoo Hoo folks! Ol crazoid is baaaack!' Tziporah captioned the video. In 2016, Woman's Day published photos of her wrapped in a white bed sheet near her home in Melbourne. 'As long as you're gorgeous - it's OK right?!' Tziporah continued to reflect on how her latest bed sheet stunt might be perceived following her slim-down, sharing: 'As long as you're gorgeous - it's OK right?!' Last year, she claimed that those photos, while upsetting at the time, changed her life and allowed her to resume her media career after a period working in aged care. Tziporah told Today Extra in August 2018: 'If it wasn't for the fact that paparazzi had sat outside of my house for weeks to get a shot of me in a sheet, looking vulnerable and revolting... I would still be doing in aged care, strugglingstill depressed. 'That sheet [photo] was so terrible, so cruel, so devastating and now I have a media career again. It's only because that paparazzi did that. It's easier for me now than it was being an aged care worker, because I'm now back in the media.' In July 2018, Tziporah was pictured wearing nothing but a hot pink bed sheet and a pair of fluffy slippers outside a Sydney bottle shop. Channel 10 have released a statement denying allegations regarding the recent Celebrity Name Game winner scandal. Andrew Logue appeared on the Grant Denyer-hosted quiz show with his brother on Monday night, going on to win the $10,000 major prize. However, it was not disclosed to viewers that he was previously employed by a production company connected to the network, working on shows such as The Living Room and Studio 10. Denied: Channel 10 has denied that Celebrity Name Game winner Andrew Logue is a former network employee Speaking to The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, a network spokesperson said: 'There is some misinformation circulating regarding Celebrity Name Game. 'All is above board and fits with the terms and conditions of the show,' they added. The network claims that Andrew didn't actually work for Channel 10, but solely for the production company behind the The Living Room. Yet, as TV Blackbox reports, the production company, WTFN, is actually within the Channel 10 offices in Sydney's Pyrmont. The publication also claims that everyone that works for WTFN has Channel 10 security passes and can access every corner of the building. Employment history: Andrew was employed by WTFN for four years until November 2018. His LinkedIn profile (pictured) states that he previously worked on The Living Room It's also been revealed that Andrew had in fact worked for WTFN as recently as last year. Furthermore, he worked on Studio 10 until around March 2018. The terms and conditions set out for Celebrity Name Game clearly state that contestants must not have worked for Channel Ten in the past two years. Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting that Andrew Logue was employed by Channel Ten. Celebrity Name Game is hosted by Grant Denyer, who was previously quizmaster on Family Feud between 2014 and 2018. The show tests contestants' knowledge of pop culture and also features famous guests, including Lisa Wilkinson, Courtney Act and Beau Ryan. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel 10 for comment. She is often praised for her age-defying looks. And ahead of her 57th birthday on Wednesday, Lisa Curry took to Instagram to express her surprise at the milestone. 'I cannot believe I am 57 today!' the stunning blonde wrote alongside a picture of herself with husband, Mark Tabone. 'I cannot believe it!': Lisa Curry (R) expressed her surprise at turning 57 on Wednesday as she prepared to celebrate her birthday in Sydney. Pictured with husband Mark Tabone 'I don't feel it but some mornings I very much look it. Oh well, very long birthday...' she continued. Lisa told her army of fans that she will be flying to Sydney with Mark to celebrate her birthday. 'We're flying from Perth to Sydney so my birthday will be Australia wide!' she gushed. 'Thank you for all my birthday wishes already and thank you to my gorgeous husband and kids for always making me feel special @mark66andrew @jaimileekenny @morgangruell @jertkenny.' 'I cannot believe I am 57 today! I don't feel it but some mornings I very much look it. Oh well, very long birthday,' she wrote via Instagram on Wednesday. Pictured in another Instagram photo It comes after Lisa celebrated another milestone last week - her one-year wedding anniversary with her Elvis impersonator spouse. They married in an intimate ceremony last year at their $1.125 million property on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. The former Olympic swimmer shared a cute photo from their special day to Instagram, as the pair posed for a loved-up photo on a vintage convertible. Memory: It comes after Lisa celebrated another milestone last week - her one-year wedding anniversary with her Elvis impersonator husband Mark (R). Pictured on their wedding day early last year 'One year anniversary today and more in love than ever... my beautiful husband I love you,' she wrote in the gushing post. Lisa looked every bit the beautiful bride in a pink wedding gown in the throwback photo, with her bridal headpiece flowing back over the car's bonnet. Mark, meanwhile, wore a dashing black suit and waistcoat - accentuated with an open-neck white shirt and a white flower on his lapel. Glowing: Lisa looked every bit the beautiful bride in a pink wedding gown as she walked out on her wedding day with her son Jett Kenny (L) Their wedding was a star-studded affair, with Bachelor in Paradise couple Keira Maguire and Jarrod Woodgate in attendance. The newlyweds then jetted off to India for their romantic honeymoon, showing their love in a touching snap of them at the Taj Mahal. Model and former Miss Universe Australia Tegan Martin and comedian Julia Morris were also guests at the wedding. Mr and Mrs: Since the happy day, the pair have been quick to share their love for each other Since the happy day, the pair have been quick to share their love for each other. Lisa and Mark first confirmed their relationship in 2015. She was previously married to former Ironman Grant Kenny - with whom she shares three children. Their summer crime thriller 21 Bridges is set for release on July 12. And it seems the movie needed some reshoots as Sienna Miller and Chadwick Boseman were seen filming scenes together on location in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday. The two stars were snapped in character as cameras rolled in the Flatbush neighborhood. Action: Their movie 21 Bridges is set for release on July 12. And it seems some reshoots were needed as Sienna Miller and Chadwick Boseman were seen filming in Brooklyn on Tuesday Miller, 37, was seen in handcuffs as Boseman, 41, flagged down a police patrol car. Boseman kept an arm around her as they stood on the street. She was then placed in the back seat of a cop cruiser by a NYPD officer. In character: Miller was seen in handcuffs as Boseman flagged down a police patrol car during the scenes shot in the Flatbush neighborhood Under arrest: Miller was then placed in the back seat of a cop cruiser by a NYPD officer Meaty role: Boseman, 41, stars as NYPD detective Andre Davis who is engaged in a search for cop killers only to discover a massive conspiracy that links cops to a criminal drug enterprise Plot clue? Miller plays a detective who works on the case with Boseman's character Back on the big screen: The action thriller marks a return to big Hollywood movies for the actress who has been more focused on her stage career the last couple of years or so The first trailer for the movie dropped last month as the Black Panther star returned to the big screen in Marvel's record-breaking blockbuster Avengers: Endgame. The candid shots from Tuesday's shoot might give something of the plot away - or they might not. Boseman, 41, stars as NYPD detective Andre Davis who is engaged in a city-wide search for cop killers only to discover a massive conspiracy that links cops to a criminal drug enterprise. Rising star: The first trailer for 21 Bridges dropped last month, just hours before the release of Avengers; Endgame in which Boseman reprised his Black Panther role The trailer opens with a young version of Boseman's character at the funeral for his father, a cop killed in the line of duty. Fast forward 18 years, he's also a cop and attends the scene of a robbery gone wrong that leaves eight NYPD officers dead. Two suspects are on the run and Boseman is tasked by superior officer J.K. Simmons to track them down. Boseman orders the closure of all 21 bridges that connect the island of Manhattan to the rest of the five boroughs. He also orders the four tunnels shut down, trains blocked and subways confined to a loop. 'Then we flood the island with blue,' he tells his colleagues. That means no-one can enter or leave Manhattan and ultimately Boseman starts to wonder if he is, in fact, not the hunter but the hunted. Unprecedented move: In order to catch the suspects on the run, Boseman orders the closure of all 21 bridges that connect the island of Manhattan to the rest of the five boroughs Cut off: He also orders the four tunnels shut down, trains blocked and subways confined to a loop Man with a plan: 'Then we flood the island with blue,' he tells his colleagues 21 Bridges is directed by Brian Kirk whose credits include episodes of Game of Thrones, Luther and Penny Dreadful. Boseman also serves as a producer on the movie along with his Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo. 'When I read the script, I could tell that this was gonna be a ride,' he shared with slashfilm.com. 'Its a ride when you watch it. At the same time, it took me back to my theater days where you have the fast-paced language I lived in New York for years. I feel like this movie sort of captured that sort of things,' he said. Target? With no-one able to enter or leave Manhattan, Boseman starts to wonder as the hunt goes on if he is, in fact, not the hunter but the hunted Paris Hilton laid into her former friend Lindsay Lohan during the 'Plead the Fifth' segment of Bravo's Watch What Happens Live on Tuesday. The 38-year-old hotel heiress-turned-DJ told host Andy Cohen: 'She's beyond.' Andy, 50, said: 'Thats good. Thats pretty nice for you to say shes beyond.' Paris then had to clear up that she actually meant '[beyond] lame and embarrassing.' No holding back: Paris Hilton brands former friend Lindsay Lohan 'beyond lame and embarrassing' on Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live on Tuesday The feud between Paris and Lindsay was even going strong back in 2017 when Paris discussed that famous night out with Britney Spears from 11 years before. She said: ' It was just Brit and I out, and then she just, like, chased us to the car and got in. She wasn't invited. Then, when an MTV Australia host said Lohan seemed to be doing well, Hilton giggled and said, 'Yeah...sure.' The American Meme star has previously called the Beach Club star, 32, - whom she used to party with in the mid-2000s - a 'pathological liar' and 'firec*****.' Paris had far nicer things to say on the the boozy Bravo talk show about her former assistant, Kim Kardashian West, who stars in her upcoming music video for B.F.A. (Best Friend's A**). 'I think it was the media making things up,' Hilton said of her 2008 'cellulite in a trash bag' diss. 'But I just did a video called My Best Friend's A** and had the most famous a** in the world in my video and [Kim's] a** is hot. I love it. We've known each other since we were literally two years old.' The reality TV icon also revealed that she's considering attending her high school reunion with yet another famous childhood pal, Nicole Richie. You used to call me on your cell phone: Paris used to be friends with Lindsay, but those days are long gone (pictured in 2006 with Karl Lagerfeld) Hater: The American Meme star has previously called the Beach Club star - whom she used to party with in the mid-2000s - a 'pathological liar' and 'firec*****' 'We've known each other since we were literally two years old': Paris had far nicer things to say on the the boozy Bravo talk show about her former assistant, Kim Kardashian West, who stars in her B.F.A. music video (pictured May 2) Hilton said of her 2008 'cellulite in a trash bag' diss: 'I think it was the media making things up' She continued: 'But I just did a video called My Best Friend's A** and had the most infamous a** in the world in my video and [Kim's] a** is hot. I love it' 'I love Nicole!' Paris - who earned a GED certification - gushed. 'We were actually just texting like three days ago because it's our high school reunion so she was reminding me of the date. I want to [go but] I'm supposed to be like out of the country.' The troublemaking, irreverent BFFs famously pranked their way through Fox/E! reality series The Simple Life (2003-2007). Montclair Prep? The reality TV icon also revealed that she's considering attending her high school reunion with yet another famous childhood pal, Nicole Richie (pictured in 2018) Paris - who earned a GED certification - gushed: 'I love Nicole! We were actually just texting like three days ago because it's our high school reunion so she was reminding me of the date. I want to [go but] I'm supposed to be like out of the country' Sanasa! The troublemaking, irreverent BFFs famously pranked their way through Fox/E! reality series The Simple Life (2003-2007) 'I probably never will be': Later on, Hilton admitted she'll 'never' get married following her November split from fiance Chris Zylka when asked about whether she'd ever become a Real Housewife Later on, Hilton admitted she will 'probably never' get married following her November split from fiance Chris Zylka when asked about whether she'd ever become a Real Housewife. 'First of all I'm not a housewife, I'm not married, I probably never will be,' snapped the perfume mogul, who said her tagline would be 'That's hot.' Joining the Donald Trump supporter in the live studio audience was her big sister, Nicky Hilton Rothschild, who Insta-storied some BTS snaps. Sibling support: Joining the Donald Trump supporter in the live studio audience was her big sister, Nicky Hilton Rothschild, who Insta-storied some BTS snaps Glittery: For her TV appearance, the celebutante paraded her slim 5ft8in figure in a silver embellished creation and matching pumps Mirror, mirror: Paris' eye-catching metallic mini-dress featured cut-outs around her shoulder blades Never change: As usual Hilton, gave her platinum blonde bob a boost with hair extensions and make-up artist Eva Lukas made sure she was fully-contoured with lashes and a glossy pout For her TV appearance, the celebutante paraded her slim 5ft8in figure in a silver embellished creation and matching pumps. Paris' eye-catching metallic mini-dress featured cut-outs around her shoulder blades. As usual Hilton, gave her platinum blonde bob a boost with hair extensions and make-up artist Eva Lukas made sure she was fully-contoured with lashes and a glossy pout. They star among the superheroes in the latest X-Men installment. And Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain proved their style is as super as their roles on Tuesday evening as they dazzled while attending the glitzy premiere for X-Men: Dark Phoenix in Mexico City, Mexico. The 23-year-old newlywed, who tied the knot with her beau Joe Jonas earlier this month, was feeling racy in a bralet with matching trousers while The Help actress, 42, opted for bold colour blocking in red and pink. A vision: Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain proved their style is as super as their roles on Tuesday evening as they dazzled while attending the glitzy premiere for X-Men: Dark Phoenix in Mexico City, Mexico Sophie looked sensational in the saucy look which comprised of a silk blue bralet with matching high-waisted trousers and a waist-cinching belt. She added in a boxy cropped jacket with a white trim which coordinated with the white inserts in her trews while accessorising with full-length leather gloves. To best display her stunning features, she slicked back her tresses in a harsh ponytail while opting for statement make-up with slick white eyeliner. Jessica meanwhile was more covered-up but made a statement through her pink and red colour-blocking - which she pulled off to perfection. Wowing the crowds: The 23-year-old newlywed, who tied the knot with her beau Joe Jonas earlier this month, was feeling racy in a bralet with matching trousers while The Help actress, 42, opted for bold colour blocking in red and pink Leather lady: She added in a boxy cropped jacket with a white trim which coordinated with the white inserts in her trews while accessorising with full-length leather gloves Thanks! She was gifted a sobrero with her name adorned between applique flowers Her bold pink dress - which matched her neon shoes - nearly hit her ankles in length while ruching along the length of her leg. Her trademark flame-hued locks were the perfect added contrast against the ensemble, while she went for dewy and natural make-up. The film has a star-studded cast with the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy all involved. Sophie and Jessica posed for some snaps with Fassbender, who plays Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto. Pretty in pink (and red): Her bold pink dress - which matched her neon shoes - nearly hit her ankles in length while ruching along the length of her leg Strutting her stuff: Sophie looked sensational in the saucy look which comprised of a silk blue bralet with matching high-waisted trousers and a waist-cinching belt Strutting her stuff: The X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world The movie is slated for release on June 7 in the USA and June 5 in the UK and tells the story of Jean Grey, played by Turner, who begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. The X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world. Picking up in 1992, nearly a decade after the events of that film, the movie's final trailer finds Jean earning her mutant stripes after a rescue mission in deep space goes horribly wrong, resulting in her being engulfed by a powerful explosion that decimates her ship. Against the odds she survives unscathed, and stunned students at Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters give the the name Phoenix a reference to her unique ability to quite literally rise from the ashes. Having a laugh: The X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world Hey there! The ladies were peacocking in style as they strutted across the stage She is said to be completely fine with her beau's strong ties to his ex, Kourtney Kardashian. And Sofia Richie, 20, proved she was still going strong with Scott Disick, 35, as the pair headed out in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. The model looked incredibly chic in a black sheer top, matching trousers and towering open-toe heels as she strutted along while the father-of-three followed. Looking good: Sofia Richie, 20, looked chic in a black sheer top and matching trousers as she headed out in Beverly Hills on Tuesday Sofia, who has been dating reality star Scott since 2017, completed the sensational look with a glamorous blowdry and a pair of black shades. Scott proved to be more casual in a black top and jeans as he enjoyed the outing with his other half. Their sighting comes after an insider claimed Sofia is '100 per cent' fine with her beau's relationship with Kourtney, after the exes were told they are 'soulmates' on an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. 'Sofia doesn't care about the "soulmate" thing,' a source told US Weekly. '[She] is 100 percent fine with his and Kourtney's relationship. They have no issues and they get along'. Handsome: The father-of-three proved to be more casual in a black top and jeans as he enjoyed the outing with his other half Chic: Sofia, who has been dating reality star Scott since 2017, completed the sensational look with a glamorous blowdry and a pair of black shades It said Kourtney and Scott 'will always be connected through the three kids, but at this time there's no romantic connection'. 'They're simply two people that care for each other and for the family that they're raising together,' the source said. Scott and Kourtney share Mason, nine, Penelope, six, and Reign, four, together. 'No issues': This comes after an insider claimed Sofia is '100 per cent' fine with her beau's relationship with Kourtney Kardashians, after the exes were told they are 'soulmates' The publication's source said Kourtney 'approves' of Scott's relationship with Sofia, adding that she is 'happy that Sofia seems to bring out a positive side to Scott.' Scott and Sofia were first seen spending time with each other in the summer of 2017; they began dating in September of that same year. The couple split briefly in June 2018, but got back together soon after. Coronation Street has had no shortage of star-studded appearances, from Cheryl to Holly Willoughby to Prince Charles. But fans were convinced that Johnny Depp would be making a cameo on the soap on Saturday, after Chris Gasgoyne, 51, posted a throwback snap with the Hollywood star. The black and white Instagram snap led many die-hard fans of the soap to theorise that Johnny, 55, must be set to show his face in the Rovers Return very soon. Look who it is! Coronation Street fans were convinced that Johnny Depp would be making a cameo in the soap, after Chris Gascoyne posted a throwback snap with the star on Instagram Chris - who plays Peter Barlow on Corrie - couldn't hide his excitement in the black and white snap as he posed with Johnny, thought it is unclear when or where the pair have crossed paths. While the post was not captioned, fans were delighted by the unlikely meeting, with some guessing whether Johnny could be showing his face in Weatherfield. One wrote: 'Wait is Johnny making a cameo on Corrie?' while another added: 'That's one night out I would have liked to have been on.' A third added: 'OMG so jealous of each of you.' Soap star: Chris has played Peter Barlow on Coronation Street on and off since 2000, and has recently been at the centre of fan suspicion around the Underworld Factory roof collapse What? After Chris posted the snap, many fans shared their delight at the unlikely pairing, with many convinced that Johnny would be appearing on the soap soon Big spender: Johnny would be right at home in the Rovers Return, after admitting he had spent 'far more' than $30,000 on wine in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone Sadly a representative of Coronation Street confirmed there are no plans for Johnny to appear on the soap. The iconic actor would be right at home in the Rovers Return, after admitting he had spent 'far more' than $30,000 on wine in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone. The Pirates of the Caribbean star would have joined a long list of legends who have set foot in the Rovers Return, with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield making the most recent appearance in July 2018. Big star: Many other stars have made guest appearances on Corrie during its 59 year history, including Cheryl, who visited the Rovers in 2013 for a Text Santa sketch Legends: Status Quo also featured in three episodes of the show in 2005, and even performed their most famous hit Cheryl also made a cameo in honour of Text Santa in 2013, and Status Quo had a recurring role on the show in 2005. His Royal Highness Prince Charles also made a one-off appearance at the pub in 2000, to celebrate the soap going live to for its 40th Anniversary. Several other stars also kicked off their careers on the soap with bit parts, including Sir Patrick Stewart - who played a fireman in 1967 - and Anna Friel in 1991. Big name: His Royal Highness Prince Charles also visited the iconic pub in 2000, to celebrate the soap going live for its 40th Anniversary She joined a legion of supermodels on the red carpet earlier in the night. And later on, Alessandra Ambrosio headed out for a glamorous dinner in the midst of the start of the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday. The 38-year-old Brazilian beauty looked incredible in a clinging rust-coloured gown which clung to every inch of her figure while a slash along the extent of her entire leg meant her lithe pins were on display for all to see. A vision: Alessandra Ambrosio headed out for a glamorous dinner in the midst of the start of the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday Alessandra looked incredible as she stepped out in the clinging dress which was designed to display her stunning figure to perfection. While the top was covered up and featured long sleeves and a polo-neck, the base featured a racy slash which gave a glimpse of her endless legs. Ensuring she kept out any chill, she held a nude shawl over her arm while making her way out of the lavish eatery among the fellow attendees of the event. Adding in metallic, strappy heels, she boosted her already statuesque height to add to the sleek and flawless look with aplomb. Legs eleven: The 38-year-old Brazilian beauty looked incredible in a clinging rust-coloured gown which clung to every inch of her figure while a slash along the extent of her entire leg meant her lithe pins were on display for all to see She's a vision: Alessandra looked incredible as she stepped out in the clinging dress which was designed to display her stunning figure to perfection Her brunette tresses were coiffed into a stylish beehive with lengthy tresses falling over her shoulders while her make-up was flawless. Absent from her night out on the town was her current beau, Nicolo Oddi, who founded and runs the Italian knitwear brand Alanui. The two were first linked together in July 2018, when they were seen getting close at the HQ2 Nightclub in Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to Page Six. Brunette beauty: Her brunette tresses were coiffed into a stylish beehive with lengthy tresses falling over her shoulders while her make-up was flawless Breathtaking: She joined a legion of supermodels on the red carpet earlier in the night 'The two were very affectionate with each other, kissing and, when she wasn't dancing, they had their arms around each other,' a source told the site at the time. Since then, the two have been nearly inseparable. Prior to that, Alessandra was engaged to the father of her children, Jamie Mazur, for ten years. The couple split in March of last year, though they reportedly have an amicable relationship due to their two shared children Anja, 10, and Noah, six. Daniel Craig will reportedly return to Bond 25 filming within the week after injuring his ankle as filming concluded in Jamaica. The Sun reports the 007 actor, 51, tweaked his ankle ligaments after falling during filming for a high-octane scene for his fifth outing as the iconic Secret Service Agent. The Layer Cake actor is said to have flown to New York City for treatment, but is thought to be 'furious' that he injured himself - causing filming to be suspended - after months of gruelling preparation for the role. Comeback: Daniel Craig will reportedly return to Bond 25 filming within the week after injuring his ankle as filming concluded in Jamaica (pictured April 2019) Action-packed: The Sun reports the 007 actor, 51, tweaked his ankle ligaments after falling during filming for a high-octane scene for his fifth outing as the iconic Secret Service Agent (pictured in 2012's Skyfall) A source told the website: 'Things were deemed to be a disaster at first. But the injury is not as severe as believed and he will be able to film while not over exerting his ankle. 'He will be back on set within the week. 'Daniel was furious that he had suffered an injury after spending months getting into prime physical shape.' Daniel, who is reprising his role as Bond for the fifth and final time, was said to flown to the US for X-rays and was allegedly examined by the same surgeon who treated England captain Harry Kane's ankle injury. Hard worker: The Layer Cake actor is said to have flown to New York City for treatment, but is thought to be 'furious' that he injured himself after months of gruelling preparation for the role (pictured in 2008'S Quantum Of Solace) MailOnline has contacted Daniel's representatives for comment. The updates comes after production for the upcoming James Bond movie was reportedly suspended after Daniel's injury. According to The Sun, filming at Pinewood Studios in London, which had been scheduled for this weekend, has been cancelled. Taking a break:The updates comes after production for the upcoming James Bond movie was reportedly suspended after Daniel's injury (pictured in 2012's Skyfall) A source told the publication: 'He was sprinting during filming when he slipped and fell quite awkwardly. 'He was in quite a lot of pain and was complaining about his ankle. 'As you'd expect he was also pretty angry that it had happened. He threw his suit jacket on the ground in sheer frustration.' MailOnline has contacted Daniel's representatives for comment. Ouch: The English actor, 51, is said to have hurt himself whilst filming the upcoming movie - currently dubbed Bond 25 - in Jamaica (pictured in the 2008 Bond film Casino Royale) Bond 25 has been blighted by drama from the beginning, with Daniel's involvement in the film initially thrown into question when he claimed that he would rather 'slash his wrists than reprise the role', before making a complete U-turn and signing up for the movie. Filming for the movie began last month, four years after the previous Bond film, Spectre, was released. Yet it has been claimed that the screenplay for the untitled film is being endlessly re-written by a committee consisting of director Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and 007 himself, Daniel. One to watch: Bond 25 cast (L-R) Lea Seydoux, Ana de Armas, Daniel, Naomie Harris and Lashana Lynch began filming the new movie last month 'She's writing a re-write of a re-write,' a film-making source told the Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye of Waller-Bridge's recent involvement in the project. 'Daniel's writing. Cary's writing. The crew reckon they're working on a well-polished s**t show. 'They have an outline of plot, but dialogue is all last-minute. It's not the way to make a movie. I would imagine they'll sort it out in the cutting room. That's where most movies get made anyway. But you'd think the Bond lot would be more together.' The cast, led by Craig, Naomie Harris, Lea Seydoux, Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas, have been on location in Jamaica but are heading back to Europe to link up with Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw. Bond 25 has been beset with production problems. Original director Danny Boyle left by mutual consent, after proposing to kill off 007. Boyle was replaced by Fukunaga, who installed Scott Z. Burns to re-jig a script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Craig felt more improvements were needed, and enticed Fleabag and Killing Eve superstar Waller-Bridge to give the piece another polish. Quit: Bond 25 has been beset with production problems. Original director Danny Boyle left by mutual consent, after proposing to kill off 007 The unnamed film scheduled for release next April and rumoured to be a remake of 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service starring George Lazenby opens with Bond having left active service. Unfortunately his retirement is interrupted by the arrival in Jamaica of his CIA friend, Felix Leiter, who persuades him to help rescue a kidnapped scientist. Bond's arch-enemy will be played by Oscar-winner Rami Malek, who starred as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. She has been in the throes of romance with her broker beau Theo Chambers for several months. And Natasha Oakley looked a picture of happiness on Wednesday as she flaunted her flawless physique while on holiday in Bali. The 28-year-old sported a skimpy black bikini as she stood on the shore and let the waves splash against her toned legs. Holiday vibe: Natasha Oakley looked a picture of happiness on Wednesday as she flaunted her flawless physique while on holiday in Bali Natasha also showcased her pert derriere and elegant curves as she embraced the freedom of her cliff-side getaway. While the Monday Swimwear model usually chooses to let her blonde locks flow down past her shoulders, she chose instead in her latest snap to tie her hair back for a more breezy look. Her classy but casual appearance was accentuated by a black hoodie she let hang loosely from her arms. Change-up: While the Monday Swimwear model usually chooses to let her blonde locks flow down past her shoulders, she chose instead in her latest snap to tie her hair back for a more breezy look 'Life is too short to be serious all the time,' she wrote in the Instagram post's caption as she shared her holiday with her two million followers. Natasha's Indonesian getaway comes as she continues to enjoy a blossoming romance with Theo, the son of Chambers Cellar tycoon Steven Chambers. Theo confirmed their relationship status on New Year's Eve, taking to Instagram to share a loved-up photo of the couple. New beau: Natasha's Indonesian getaway comes as she enjoys a blossoming romance with broker Theo Chambers (left), the son of Chambers Cellar tycoon Steven Chambers 'Starting the new year with a smile,' he captioned the snap. In 2014, Natasha spun her online fame into a popular brand, and co-founded Monday Swimwear with her close friend and business partner Devin Brugman. She's got a starring role in one of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival's most anticipated screenings. And the morning after the glitzy premiere for her new film The Dead Don't Die, Selena Gomez was back on the promotional trail in the South of France. The multi-talented star looked gorgeous in a chic navy and gold suit as she posed with her co-stars Chloe Sevigny, Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton during a photocall on Wednesday. All eyes on her: Selena Gomez looked gorgeous in a chic navy suit for The Dead Don't Die photocall at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday Selena, 26, showed off her elegant sense of style in the fitted navy jacket and wide-legged trousers. The two piece featured a gold trim and matching buttons, while the beauty accessorised with sandals. She continued the chic vibe with a sleek hair style and hoop earrings. All-star cast: The multi-talented star looked gorgeous in a chic navy and gold suit as she posed with her co-stars Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny and Bill Murray From head to toe: The two piece featured a gold trim and matching buttons, while the beauty accessorised with sandals Suits you: Selena, 26, showed off her elegant sense of style in the fitted navy jacket and wide-legged trousers Chic cast: Tilda and Chloe also dressed to impress for their moment in front of the cameras The popstar and actress also modeled a more toned-down beauty look for the daytime event, working with make-up artist Hung Vanngo for the event, who used an array of products by Marc Jacobs Beauty on the brunette. First, he prepped her skin with the brand's Youthquake Hydra-Full Retexturizing Gel Creme, before perfecting her complexion with the Shameless Foundation and the Accomplice Concealer & Touch-Up Stick. To combat the warm weather, the products were then set with the Accomplice Instant Blurring Beauty Powder, before the finishing touch was applied in the form of the Le Marc Lip Creme Lipstick in Shakedown. Chloe, 44, meanwhile was looking quirky in her black and white dress with a dramatic collar and sleeves. Tilda, 58, was also dressed to impress, showing off her statuesque frame in cropped metallic trousers paired with a crisp white jacket and towering heels. The ladies were joined by Hollywood legend Bill Murray, who stood out in his orange shirt. Stunning: The brunette beauty looked picture perfect in the beautiful setting Ready for her close-up: She continued the chic vibe with a sleek hair style and hoop earrings Starry lineup: (L-R) Sara Driver, Tilda, Selena , writer and director Jim Jarmusch, Chloe and Bill lined up for a group shot Time of her life: Selena looked delighted to be at the prestigious film festival for the first time Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, The Dead Don't Die sees Disney Channel alum, Selena, play Zoe, and Star Wars actor, Adam Driver, as Officer Ronald Peterson, as they fight for survival when the undead begin to plague the sleepy town of Centerville. Tilda will star as Zelda Winston, Bill as Chief Cliff Robertson and Chloe as Officer Minerva Morrison, while Iggy Pop and Sara Driver will play 'Coffee Zombies' with Steve Buscemi starring as Farmer Miller. The Dead Don't Die, which is tipped for release in the UK on July 19, is in the running for numerous awards at the ten-day event, including the coveted Palme D'Or award - the highest accolade presented at the festival. Legend: Selena stars alongside some huge Hollywood names including Tilda Girl power: Selena stars as Zoe who must fight for survival when the undead begin to plague the sleepy town of Centerville. Tilda will star as Zelda Winston, Bill as Chief Cliff Robertson and Chloe as Officer Minerva Morrison A vision: Tilda looked incredible in her chic cream ensemble as she strutted her stuff This is the life! The star was in great spirits as she giggled with the snappers Anticipated: The Dead Don't Die, which is tipped for release in the UK on July 19, is in the running for numerous awards at the ten-day event Leading the way: Selena was the star of the show as she made her latest appearance in Cannes on Wednesday afternoon In the running: Jim's movie is up for the coveted Palme D'Or award - the highest accolade presented at the festival His vision: Jim (left) has reunited with Broken Flowers star Bill for his new release, as well as enlisting critically acclaimed talent like Chloe Poser: Bill had some fun with the snappers at the morning photocall, breaking out his best poses He's a pro: The Hollywood veteran couldn't resist lightening the mood And pose! The Disney star looked completely at ease in front of the wall of cameramen Laugh out loud: Selena couldn't contain her giggles as she posed for the cameras Leggy display: Chloe flaunted her toned figure in the lacy Victoriana inspired gown It will go up against Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie, Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You and 18 other hopefuls for the gong. The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival will showcase 21 competition titles, plus out-of-competition, midnight and special screenings at the Palais des Festivals from Tuesday until May 25. Elton John's highly-anticipated biopic, Rocketman, starring Taron Egerton and Richard Madden, will make its debut during the film event, it's set for release in UK cinemas on 22 May. Actress Elle Fanning, French graphic novelist Enki Bilal and the Oscar-nominated director of The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos, will be among jury members during the annual event. All white? She looked sensational as she sashayed out of the photocall Always chic: Chloe later changed into a pretty little black dress and brogues All star: The cast also took part in a lively press conference after the photocall All eyes on her: Tilda was welcomed with camera phones as she went to sit down Pals: Selena shared a cosy chat with Bill before the press conference got underway Next up: Canadian director Monia Chokri (R) and Canadian actress Anne-Elizabeth Bosse (L) posed during the photocall for 'A Brother's Love' (La Femme de mon frere) on Wednesday Pose: Monia showed off her posing skills as she greeted the world's press Dynamic duo: The actresses looked the best of friends as they posed She is a former reality star who always commands attention with her stylish outfit. And Kimberley Garner looked incredible as she attended the ELA London party on Tuesday. The ex Made In Chelsea star, 29, revealed her toned legs in a candyfloss pink tiered lace dress with a thigh-high split as she posed up a storm in a doorway. Leggy: Kimberley Garner looked incredible as she attended the ELA London party on Tuesday The frothy lace dress with bold black straps featured a bustier top which flashed the star's ample cleavage and cinched in at her slender waist with a shimmering sash. Layers of frothy lace made up the waterfall hem of the skirt, while the star completed the pastel pink look with matching leather brogues. Her caramel tresses were styled in loose waves while she opted for her signature make-up look of bold brows, metallic shadow and glossy coral lips. Kimberley is back in London following her recent house-hunting trip to Miami, but insists the British capital will always be her home. Pretty in pastel pink: The ex Made In Chelsea star, 29, revealed her toned legs in a candyfloss pink tiered lace dress with a thigh-high split as she posed up a storm in a doorway In a chat with MailOnline, the blonde admitted she flew to Florida after purchasing a dream home in the coastal city. 'I worked very hard last year and had even moved home for a few months to save money,' she explained. 'I really had my head down working to concentrate on goals, but achieved it on New Years Eve, praise God, and flew over here. Completing the sale on the plane over.' Devoted: The star attended the event with her beloved cocker spaniel Sasha Smile: Kimberley looked in great spirits as she attended the glittering event Bronzed: Kimberley revealed her glowing tan as she was whisked away Reflecting on her new home, the swimwear designer confessed it is a world away from her former busy life in London. 'Its right on the beach, and really is a dream come true,' she explained. 'I am over doing the interior design, going for a beachy chilled vibe for the place. 'I wont be moving here, as London is one hundred percent home, but really overjoyed and proud to have achieved it.' Although the reality personality is a swimwear designer, she is now following in her familys footsteps and venturing into high-end property development. After extensive renovations, the former reality star is said to have increased the value of a house which she bought in 2013 for 1.2 million, by over 1 million. The starlet's choice to go into property has resulted in her London pad doubling in value over a five-year period. Home bird: Kimberley is back in London following her recent house-hunting trip to Miami, but insists the British capital will always be her home Shes said to be enjoying an abstinence based lifestyle after giving up alcohol, and it was a fresh healthy and very relaxed Kate Moss who ventured out in rural France on Tuesday. Lifting her vest top, the celebrated supermodel flashed her abs while taking a stroll through picturesque medieval town Saint Paul de Vence. Revealing a nicely toned torso, Kate, 45, caught the eye as she chatted to a group of friends before making her way towards a waiting car. Here we go: Kate Moss flashed her abs as she took a stroll through rural French town Saint Paul de Vence on Tuesday The model added to her look with a pair of casual black patterned flared trousers, while seasonal white sandals rounded things off. Accessorizing tastefully, Kate opted for distinctive white rimmed sunglasses and a simple black leather handbag during her latest public appearance. With a car waiting, the model quickly puffed on one last cigarette before climbing into the rear and setting off. Hard to miss: Revealing a nicely toned torso, Kate, 45, caught the eye as she chatted to a group of friends before making her way towards a waiting car Looking good: The model added to her look with a pair of casual black patterned flared trousers, while seasonal white sandals rounded things off Finishing touches: Accessorizing tastefully, Kate opted for distinctive white rimmed sunglasses and a simple black leather handbag during her latest public appearance Last autumn it was revealed Kate had been teetotal for an entire year after deciding to focus on her health following the premature deaths of some of her closest friends. A source told The Sun on Sunday: 'Kate is like a new woman and a much better version of herself. She is focused, professional and glowing with health. 'Everyone is amazed at how well she has done in not drinking for a whole year, considering what she used to be like.But she has found it easier as time has gone on.' Don't mind me: Kate puffed on a cigarette as she made her way towards a waiting car Tough habit to quit: The model recently gave up drinking, but cigarettes have clearly been a more challenging proposition Don't mind me: Kate looked relaxed as she made her way across the street on Tuesday In good company: The supermodel was joined by a female friend while strolling through the picturesque French town picturesque Teetotal: Last autumn it was revealed Kate had been teetotal for an entire year after deciding to focus on her health Meanwhile Kate will reportedly tie the knot with her boyfriend Nikolai von Bismarck - with friends suggesting the pair will wed next summer. Nikolai, 32, is said to have confided in friends he wants to 'do things properly with a traditional proposal and church wedding' as he is 'madly in love' with the supermodel. A source told the Sun: 'Kate and Nikolai's relationship is going brilliantly and they have chatted about getting married. Quite a difference: 'Kate is like a new woman and a much better version of herself. She is focused, professional and glowing with health,' a source explained Striking: The decision to embrace abstinence has worked wonders on the model, who has looked fresh and vibrant during her recent public appearances She's off: Kate offered a beaming smile as she climbed into the rear of her car 'Nikolai has confided in friends about it and wants to do things properly with a traditional proposal and church wedding. 'He is an old-fashioned guy and is madly in love with Kate so wants to put a ring on it. 'They have talked about marriage for a long time, but now they are both leading a sober and healthy lifestyle it has become more of a reality.' Cheerful: The British model was in high spirits during her latest outing She is the expectant mother who also dotes on 13-month-old Oscar Nash. And Amy Williams showed off her blossoming baby bump as she stepped out in Bath to attend a yoga class on Sunday. The former skeleton runner and Olympic gold medallist, 36, was in good spirits ahead of the exercise session, and she looked cosy in a grey tank top. Bumping along nicely: Amy Williams showed off her blooming baby bump in a grey top and black leggings as she headed to yoga class on Sunday Enjoying the warm weather, Amy donned a pinstripe white shirt to wrap up for the outing, while she donned black leggings for comfort. The sportswoman wore her blonde locks in a half-back style, while she wore a light palette of make-up to accentuate her pretty features. Amy kept her look simple as she stepped out in leopard-print trainers, and then accessorised with a watch and a pink bracelet. Cosy: Enjoying the warm weather, Amy donned a pinstripe white shirt to wrap up for the outing, while she donned black leggings for comfort Amy and her husband Craig Ham married in the summer of 2015, only 18 months after meeting on Tinder. They 'matched' on the dating app when Amy was coincidentally travelling on a train close to where Craig lives. He proposed three months later and now live close to Bath, where Oscar was born. The little one arrived before his due date after Amy was induced when midwives were concerned he wasnt moving enough. Speaking to Hello at the time, she explained: 'I didnt sleep the night Oscar came home, I was on a high from the hormones and adrenaline. And it took a few days to realise we can kiss and cuddle him as much as we like, that hes our little boy.' Family life: Amy and her husband Craig Ham married in the summer of 2015, only 18 months after meeting on Tinder, and then they welcomed their first son Oscar Nash in May last year Of her determination to be a working mum, the TV presenter said: 'Im never going to turn down a job If I was offered one next week and my mum was free to come with me, I would take it. 'Im always looking for challenges. I want to do things that Im passionate about and keep fit and active.' Nonetheless, she is dedicated to her new role as a mum, and reckons Oscar is already taking after his active parents. 'Hes got large hands and when he spreads them out it already looks like he could hold a rugby ball,' she said. 'On day two he could lift his head off my chest and I was like, "Should he be able to do that already?"' She's currently living the American dream after jetting off to LA this week in a bid to become even more famous and launch her own reality show. And Gemma Collins, 38, has already visited a cosmetic surgeon in a bid to have fat removed from her face after losing 2.5 stone. Dr Simon Ourian, a favourite of the Kardashians, was recommended to Gemma by her CBB pal Jonathan Cheban, who is best friends with Kim. LA, baby! Gemma Collins visited the Kardashians' favourite cosmetic surgeon, Dr Ourian, in LA on Wednesday, to get fat sucked out of her face after her 2.5 stone weight loss Taking to Instagram Stories on Wednesday, the former TOWIE star shared a video from her consultation with the acclaimed surgeon. She told her fans: 'Guys, I'm with the top, top cosmetic surgeon in LA Doctor Ourian.' Jonathan then says that Dr Ourian, who has a three month waiting list, had worked with a ton of A-listers and not just 'Instagram stars'. Asking for advice: Taking to Instagram Stories, the former TOWIE star shared a video from her consultation Gemma said: 'They've all been here and now I'm here and I can't wait to show you the results' Gemma said: 'They've all been here and now I'm here and I can't wait to show you the results.' Pointing out her chin, she said: 'I need this fat sucked out of my face pronto because I've just lost 2.5 stone but the face don't get any thinner.' She also posted a picture of a coffee that at the surgery which had her face sprinkled into the frothy milk. The Food God: Jonathan Cheban, who starred with Gemma on CBB, has been showing her the sights Friends in high places: Jonathan is Kim Kardashian's best friend and Dr Ourian has worked with the Kardashian family Now that's a treat: While at the surgery, Gemma shared a picture of this extra special coffee she had with her face on it Gemma has been living it up since arriving in LA and was pictured outside celebrity haunt, the Chateau Marmont. On Tuesday, Gemma was super excited when Jonathan picked her up in a Bentley. She roared down the street: 'Is this a Bentley? You brought me a BENTLEY!' [It was a Rolls-Royce. Jonathan has been showing Gemma the sights, taking her on trips to various restaurants, the Beverly Wilshere, Rodeo Drive and the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. She even had a diamond specialist come and let her wear expensive jewels while Jonathan fed her dessert. MasterChef contestants were set the task of impressing guest judge Nigella Lawson on Wednesday night by cooking a Victorian-inspired banquet. But the famous chef was left unimpressed after one of the teams failed to cook the chicken properly for their main course. Judge George Calombaris recalled Team Burgundy's dish midway through service - and Nigella slammed the group for their 'dangerous' meal. It's still pink! Nigella Lawson was left unimpressed after one of the MasterChef teams failed to cook the chicken properly for their main course Although she credited the team for the rest of their service, the British food connoisseur said the error in their Chicken Marylands was costly. 'I liked the spices and your feel but you cant have a sentence that says 'if the chicken had been cooked that would have been a wonderful dish,'' Nigella said. 'You cant do it (undercook chicken) because it is dangerous,' she added before urging the chefs to learn from their mistakes in the elimination cook-off. Disaster : Although Nigella credited the team led by Steph De Sousa (pictured) for the rest of their service, the British food connoisseur said the error in their Chicken Marylands was costly The 10-chef strong team led by captain Steph De Sousa were deemed the losing team on the night, despite Team Purple also undercooking their fish dish. Reflecting on her team's mistake, the HR specialist, 45, said she had to take full accountability. 'This is totally my responsibility - I should have checked the chicken and I didn't,' she said before eventually managing to fully cook their main course. Mistake: 'You cant do it (undercook chicken) because it is dangerous,' she added before urging the chefs to learn from their mistakes in the elimination cook-off But judge Gary Mehigan praised them for their chocolate ganache dessert. The chicken-related mishap is the second time the meat has appeared to be under-cooked on MasterChef this week. On Monday night's episode, some fans online claimed the roast chicken was pale - rather than the crispy texture described by the judges. One person tweeted: 'Is Abbey's chicken still alive?' after seeing Abbey Rose's roast dinner. She is used to jetting around the world for her superstar engagements. Yet Dua Lipa proved she is still a family girl at heart as she emerged for a family dinner on Tuesday evening to celebrate her sister Rina's 18th birthday alongside her brother Gjin, 14, her beau Isaac Carew, 32, and her famously hunky dad Dukagjin. The 23-year-old One Kiss hitmaker looked sensational in volumunious camel-coloured trousers and a crop top as she led her beloved family for a night at Mayfair's swanky Park Chinois restaurant. Happy days: Dua Lipa proved she is still a family girl at heart as she emerged for a family dinner on Tuesday evening to celebrate her sister Rina's 18th birthday alongside her brother Gjin, 14, her beau Isaac Carew, 32, and her famously hunky dad Dukagjin Dua looked sensational for her outing as she paired her sexy black crop top with the wide-leg bottoms and a pair of sky-high leopard print boots. She slicked her brunette tresses down into a low chignon at the nape of her neck while falling from a centre parting to show off her pretty features. Proving style runs in the family, Rina was clad in an edgy ensemble comprising of a red skirt and tough jacket while Gjin wore funky striped trousers. Cutting a low-key figure, Isaac sported a denim jacket with a cross-body bag while wearing his hair in a loose wavy style. The whole gang: The 23-year-old One Kiss hitmaker looked sensational in volumunious camel-coloured trousers and a crop top as she led her beloved family for a night at Mayfair's swanky Park Chinois restaurant Happy day: She was strutting her stuff alongside her family Cool: Proving style runs in the family, Rina was clad in an edgy ensemble comprising of a red skirt and tough jacket while Gjin wore funky striped trousers In February, Dua's fans were sent wild by her hunky dad's smouldering good looks, which were on full display during the family outing. Dukagjin, who is something of a rock star in his native Kosovo, caused dozens to flock to social media to purr over the Kosovar Albanian's good looks. The discovery of the 'DILF' also prompted a hurried trawl through his social media for fans who found Dukagjin's personal Instagram account - which reached 178,000 followers in the aftermath of the award show. The former musician also founded his own music festival in his native land, in a bid to change any lingering false perceptions of Kosovo as being war torn and unwelcoming. Dark and dusky: She slicked her brunette tresses down into a low chignon at the nape of her neck while falling from a centre parting to show off her pretty features Out we go: She looked sensational while joining her beau The Sunny Hill festival, held in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, had his daughter headline with support from rapper Action Bronson and tropical house duo Bondax. 'We want to give people a sense of belonging, of European living and the idea that we are part of Europe,' Dukagjin told the Observer ahead of its opening. 'This is the greatest way to promote Kosovo as a peace-loving and music-loving country that welcomes all our neighbours and all visitors who want to have fun.' She is an icon to millions thanks to her Playboy days and her starring role on Baywatch. But Pamela Anderson has only just been awarded her first ever Vogue cover, starring in the new issue of Vogue Czechoslovakia in a sizzling sixties style shoot. Photographed by Dan Beleiu, the stunning images show the blonde bombshell, 51, posing against the beautiful backdrop of Cassis in France. Bombshell: Pamela Anderson has been awarded her first ever Vogue Cover, starring in the new issue of Vogue Czechoslovakia in a sizzling sixties style shoot The cover line Who Wants to Kill Pamela Anderson? references the shoot's inspiration - the 1966 Czech cult film Who Wants to Kill Jessie? starring Olga Schoberova. The retro styling sees Pamela posing with bouffant hair as she lounges on her stomach on the edge of a jaw-dropping infinity pool. Showing off her famous curves, the beauty is dressed in a bright print shirt and bikini bottoms. Another stunning shot shows Pamela shot in profile as she stares out to sea while dressed in sheer black shirt, which flashes a hint of her tanned skin. A third image shows the actress crawling across rocks toward the camera while rocking red satin heels and glam curled locks. The accompanying interview sees a candid Pammie asked about her sex symbol status, which she calls 'a cliche.' Sizzling: Photographed by Dan Beleiu, the stunning images show the blonde bombshell, 51, posing against the beautiful backdrop of Cassis in France 'Every girl wants to feel sexy. I think of myself as a socialist feminist. I love men. I dont like authority,' she added, before offering some advice: 'Be careful who you share your weaknesses with. Some people cant wait for the opportunity to use them against you.' Of the trolls and critics the defiant star insisted 'I try not to listen. I realize there is an image of me. That over the years evolved to a kind of cartoon.' 'But people cant really believe it to be who I really am. Its hard to accept it. Im always in a ridiculous battle - to convince people that I have something to say. And even people closest to me try to protect me.' 'Dont use this photo its too sexy. Dont do this. Dont do that. F**k off! Let me be me. Ill tell you who that is!' The star admitted she knows her looks will fade with time, but so far she's been 'lucky'. 'Its not the easiest thing. My mother warned me all about it. How one day youd look in the mirror and not recognize yourself. Your hair would thin (not in my case). My neck would go next, she said.' 'Im lucky so far but definitely feel it. I dont want to chase youth. Its funny how youth chases me. Im hard to keep up with.' She kicked off her Cannes Film Festival appearances with a bang as she slipped into three striking ensembles on Tuesday. And Alessandra Ambrosio maintained her style savvy ways as she stepped out for a stroll in Cannes, France, on Wednesday afternoon. The supermodel, 38, ensured she garnered attention during her walk along the French Riviera as she went braless underneath a semi-sheer white shirt dress by Jacquemus. Working it! Alessandra Ambrosio maintained her style savvy ways as she stepped out for a stroll in Cannes, France, on Wednesday afternoon Catwalk queen Alessandra's thigh-skimming outfit featured a trendy wrap detail along the front, teamed with quirky balloon sleeves. The former Victoria's Secret Angel boosted her physique in a pair of ankle-strap heeled sandals, and toted an orange handbag. Protecting her eyes from the sun in a pair of tinted Aviator-style shades, Alessandra wore her light tresses into loose waves. Wow-factor! The supermodel, 38, ensured she garnered attention during her walk along the French Riviera as she went braless underneath a semi-sheer white shirt dress by Jacquemus She was every inch the style chameleon on the opening night of the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival, rocking a whopping three numbers. Absent from her appearances was her current beau, Nicolo Oddi, who founded and runs the Italian knitwear brand Alanui. The two were first linked together in July 2018, when they were seen getting close at the HQ2 Nightclub in Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to Page Six. Striking: The catwalk queen kicked off her Cannes Film Festival appearances with a bang as she slipped into three glam ensembles on Tuesday (pictured at opening ceremony and the premiere of the film The Dead Don't Die) Stunning: Alessandra displayed her model legs in a racy slashed gown as she stepped out for a post-red carpet dinner following the Cannes launch Busy bee: Earlier that day, the former VS model flashed her bra in a chic white jumpsuit 'The two were very affectionate with each other, kissing and, when she wasn't dancing, they had their arms around each other,' a source told the site at the time. Since then, the two have been nearly inseparable. Prior to that, Alessandra was engaged to the father of her children, Jamie Mazur, for ten years. The couple split in March of last year, though they reportedly have an amicable relationship due to their two shared children Anja, 10, and Noah, six. She has joined a legion of stars who have descended on the French Riviera for the annual Cannes Film Festival. And after working her model prowess on the red carpet, Izabel Goulart slipped into a $540 blue Valentino bikini as she hit the beach on Wednesday. The Brazilian beauty, 34, showed off her incredible figure as she frolicked along the shoreline in the high-waisted two piece. Beach babe: After working her model prowess on the Cannes red carpet, Izabel Goulart slipped into a $540 blue Valentino bikini as she hit the beach on Wednesday Izabel oozed confidence in the logo bikini, flaunting her enviably-toned stomach in the square neckline halterneck top. The Victoria's Secret model put on a cheeky display in the high-waisted bottoms which also sported the brand's logo and red piping. Looking every inch the bronzed goddess, Izabel complemented her beach get-up with white cat eye sunglasses and gold hoop earrings. Designer gear: The Brazilian beauty, 34, showed off her incredible figure as she frolicked along the shoreline in the high-waisted two piece Peachy: The Victoria's Secret model put on a cheeky display in the high-waisted bottoms which also sported the brand's logo and red piping Gorgeous: Izabel oozed confidence in the logo bikini, flaunting her enviably-toned stomach in the square neckline halterneck top Gazing out to sea: Izabel showed off her supermodel poses as she sat on the pier After strolling along the shoreline, Izabel headed into the sea for a refreshing swim before drying herself off with a fluffy white beach towel. Earlier in the day, the brunette beauty showed off her sartorial flair in a blue patterned maxi dress, which skimmed over her slender physique. She accessorised the look with a pale pink bag and wore her locks in crimped beachy waves. Izabel, who is best known as having been one of the Victoria's Secret Angels from 2005 to 2008, looked in her element as she worked the cameras Bronzed beauty: Looking every inch the bronzed goddess, Izabel complemented her beach get-up with white cat eye sunglasses and gold hoop earrings Taking a dip: After strolling along the shoreline, Izabel headed into the sea for a refreshing swim before drying herself off with a fluffy white beach towel Izabel's trip to the beach comes a day after she joined fellow model Romee Strijd for a screening of horror flick The Dead Don't Die. The beauty opted for a skin-tight purple gown with a cut out panel across her back. A pair of barely-there black heels completed the ensemble and boosted her model frame even further. The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival will showcase 21 competition titles, plus out-of-competition, midnight and special screenings at the Palais des Festivals from Tuesday until May 25. The place to be: Izabel has joined a legion of stars who have descended on the French Riviera for the annual Cannes Film Festival Life's a beach: Izabel dried her hair off after her idyllic swim in the sea Soaking up the scenery: Izabel had the time of her life as she hit the beach for her morning swim Supermodel figure: The Victoria's Secret angel looked picture perfect as she emerged from the sea Actress Elle Fanning, French graphic novelist Enki Bilal and the Oscar-nominated director of The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos, will be among jury members during the annual event. Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will preside over the panel that decides on prizes, including the top Palme D'Or award. The beauty was last seen putting on a very racy display for the Rio Carnival in Brazil. Izabel had returned to her home country just two weeks after she enjoyed a break in Paris with her fiance Kevin Trapp. Fun in the sun: The star dried herself off with the help of a white fluffy towel Confidence: While Izabel is an international model now, school was a particularly rough time for Goulart, as she was made fun of for her slim build and was called names such as 'giraffe' Embracing Cannes: The star enjoyed a swim in the sea near the Martinez Hotel, where all the stars are staying Strong swimmer: Izabel showed off her impressive swimming skills as she submerged herself in the water Sun-kissed: Izabel topped up her tan as she strolled along the sand Hitting the red carpet: Izabel's trip to the beach comes a day after she joined fellow model Romee Strijd for a screening of horror flick The Dead Don't Die Basking in the sun: The Brazilian star headed to a sun lounger at the hotel after her morning swim Floral queen: Earlier in the day, the brunette beauty showed off her sartorial flair in a blue patterned maxi dress, which skimmed over her slender physique Gorgeous: She accessorised the look with a pale pink bag and wore her locks in crimped beachy waves Stepping out in Cannes: The beauty opted for comfort on her feet with a pair of white loafers The couple's love story goes back to when they first started dating in 2016. However, the couple have kept their romance fairly low-key in the limelight. The lovebirds very happily announced their engagement in July last year during their romantic break to Mykonos, Greece. Spot on: Izabel accessorised and shielded her eyes from the rays with a pair of quirky white shades She ended a hot and cold romance with her Bachelor in Paradise co-star Jules Bourne earlier this month. And Alisha Aitken-Radburn showed the ex-Army veteran what he's missing on Wednesday as she stepped out at Fashion Week in a dazzling yellow jumpsuit. The reality star, 26, flaunted her ample cleavage in the low-cut one-piece as she attended the Justin Cassin show at Luna Park's Big Top in Sydney. New start: Alisha Aitken-Radburn showed her Bachelor in Paradise ex-boyfriend Jules Bourne what he's missing on Wednesday as she stepped out at Fashion Week in a dazzling yellow jumpsuit Alisha put her slender figure on full display in the close-fitting attire while tussling her blonde hair in her left hand. She kept her long locks off her shoulders, allowing her to showcase her flawless visage. Adding to her brightly-coloured ensemble, she wore a pair of golden drop earrings and a pair of cream platform heels. Taking the plunge! Alisha flashed her cleavage in the eye-catching outfit A brown Louis Vuitton clutch bag completed Alisha's ensemble as she prepared to watch the designer fashion label's runway show. Her appearance at the event comes after she ended her romance with Jules once and for all in front of a live studio audience during the Bachelor in Paradise reunion episode. Alisha slammed her ex-Army beau for sending mixed signals by sleeping at her house and talking about children, before finally calling time on the relationship. Designer look: A brown Louis Vuitton clutch bag completed Alisha's ensemble as she prepared to watch the Justin Cassin runway show 'This is my night for closure,' Alisha insisted, stating she'd rather Jules be a 'fun girlfriend' in her life than a male lover. Alisha was visibly upset as she claimed Jules dropped 'children and grandchildren' into conversation, without realising the impact of his statements. The former University of Sydney student appeared in Bachelor in Paradise this year after appearing on Nick Cummins' season of The Bachelor in 2018. When the first European Parliament elections were held in June 1979, they were hailed as the worlds first international elections. Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party stated in the opening paragraph of its manifesto that Britains future lies unequivocally within the European Community. Fast-forward 40 years and Britain faces a very different political picture ahead of the EU elections on 23 May, just months before Brexit. This fascinating shift in political views and campaigning is captured in the UK's largest and oldest-established collection of election literature held at the University of Bristol. As political parties old and new, along with independent candidates, begin to send election addresses, manifestos, and related publicity, the University's Special Collections Library is urging the electorate not to throw away any material, but to collect them and help capture this historic vote. It would like members of the public to send in material from all political parties and independent candidates, from all constituencies in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to ensure all sides of the political spectrum are represented. The extensive archive holds over 30,000 election addresses from every British general election since 1892. The treasure trove of political propaganda helps researchers get a clear picture of how the European Parliament elections were fought, capturing which issues were of interest to the electorate and candidates. The UK became a fully-fledged member of the European Economic Community (as it then was) on 1 January 1973 a move which proved controversial at the time, prompting a referendum on whether the UK should remain part of the Community. After a 67 per cent vote in favour of continued membership, the British public then voted in the first European Parliament elections in 1979 alongside the other eight member states. The main parties manifestos for previous European Parliament elections chart their shifting views on EU membership. In 1979, the Conservative Party said it would be 'absurd' for Britain to threaten to break up the EU 'simply because it dislikes some particular policy'. Labour were more sceptical about the EU in 1984, with its manifesto claiming 'membership has helped to speed up our economic decline' and pledging that its MEPs would 'fight for the people of Britain'. However, by 1994, Labour described stated that leaving the EU would 'isolate ourselves from our biggest market, with all the further job losses that would bring'. To do so would 'cut Britain off from mainstream international affairs where our voice is so urgently needed'. Ten years on and the debate about being in the EU still rages on. Conservative Party leaflets highlight then Prime Minster David Cameron's promise to hold an in/out referendum on Europe if people voted for the Conservatives in 2014. They promised 'a stronger economy at home' and 'renewed respect abroad'. The archive also gives an insight into the public's perceptions on Europe. An article in The Independent on 13 June 1994, written by Steve Blame, managing editor and presenter of MTV News said: "Euroconsciousness is high among the under 30s and has a definite cut-off age. Older people are more interested in domestic issues. In this way, Europe acts like a new musical genre, appealing to the young and alienating the old." Hannah Lowery, Archivist and Special Collections Manager, said: "Special Collections has an extensive collection of election addresses from the first European Election held in Britain in 1979, until the forthcoming election to be held on 23 May. "This upcoming election is particularly significant as it comes at a time of strong sentiment towards the EU, with new parties emerging and huge uncertainty around Britain's future relationship with Europe. "We would ask people in all 12 constituencies in the UK to send materials from all political parties to us. This material will help academics, students, members of the public, politicians, and others find out what was discussed now in the future." Please send election addresses, manifestos, and related publicity from any constituency and party (ideally in one batch) to: Special Collections Arts and Social Sciences Library University of Bristol Tyndall Avenue Bristol BS8 1TJ Further information is available on the Special Collections blog. She recently left fans in tears with her Mummy Diaries Wedding Special, giving viewers an intimate glimpse into her nuptials with husband Greg Shepherd. And Billie Faiers looked sensational as she arrived at the airport in Nice with her beau on Wednesday, before the pair headed to their accommodation. The mother-of-two, 29, put on a stylish display in a white crop top which she paired with beige straight-leg trousers. Chic: Billie Faiers put on a stylish display in a white crop top and beige trousers as she arrived at Nice airport with husband Greg Shepherd on Wednesday Billie kept to a specific colour-theme for the outing, as she wore a white cardigan and trainers, and she also kept her personal items in a beige handbag. Her blonde locks were brushed into a sleek straight style with a middle parting, and she shielded her eyes with a pair of robust shades. Greg kept things casual as he donned a navy blue rain jacket over a white shirt and matching chinos, while his footwear matched his wife. The pair are in France to work with Givenchy beauty in conjunction with the Cannes Film Festival, which began on Tuesday and runs until May 25. Coordinated: Billie kept to a specific colour-theme for the outing, as she wore a white cardigan and trainers, and she also kept her personal items in a beige handbag This month, the Mummy Diaries' long-awaited wedding special left die-hard fans weeping with joy as they finally saw the moment that Billie and Greg tied the knot. In a 90-minute special the couple finally said 'I do' in front of 95 guests in a beautiful Maldives ceremony, after five years together and more than a year of planning to reach the big moment. Viewers took to Twitter to share their delight at finally seeing the couple exchange their vows, after the build-up was fraught with drama and chaos. We're married! In a 90-minute special the couple finally said 'I do' in front of 95 guests in a beautiful Maldives ceremony, after five years together and more than a year of planning Mr and Mrs: Despite a frantic day which saw Greg waiting in the hot sunshine, the groom was left stunned as Billie finally made her way down the aisle in a beautiful lace wedding gown Despite a frantic day which saw Greg waiting in the hot sunshine, the groom was left stunned as Billie finally made her way down the aisle in a beautiful lace wedding gown. As they exchanged their vows, the delighted couple admitted that they were completely entranced by one another, as Greg paid a cheeky tribute to Billie's amazing figure by joking she had 'the best a**e in the business.' Sam also paid a touching tribute to her sister in an incredibly moving speech that the mother-of-two close to tears. And when Billie and Greg were finally declared husband and wife they sealed the moment with a kiss to Mr Blue Sky by The Electric Light Orchestra. Coronation Street's Nick Tilsley is finally set to go on trial for stealing 80,000 from his grandmother Audrey. Actor Ben Price was spotted filming the dramatic scenes as he arrived in court with his brother David on Wednesday, hinting fans will finally see his crime exposed in the coming weeks. It comes as Nick also remains a prime suspect in the Underworld Factory collapse, as sources have claimed fans will discover the culprit behind the disaster in the coming weeks. Dramatic: Coronation Street's Nick Tilsley (left) is finally set to go on trial for stealing 80,000 from his grandmother Audrey, as he filmed court scenes with brother David on Wednesday Both Nick and David (played by Jack P Shepherd) were suited and booted as they prepared to film the scenes in the courthouse, after weeks of trying to cover up their involvement in the theft. They were also joined by David's supportive fiancee Shona Ramsey (Julia Goulding) who looked effortlessly chic as she arrived to film in the blazing sunshine. Nick and David have been walking on eggshells for weeks, as they desperately try to cover the theft of Audrey's (Sue Nicholls) inheritance. The salon owner received a massive windfall after the death of her on-off love Lewis Archer (Nigel Havers). Chic: Julia Goulding (who plays Shona Ramsey) was also dressed to support Nick, as it appears his crime will finally be exposed Sharp: Actor Ben Price was suited and booted as he arrived with his on-screen brother Jack P Shepherd, who plays David Stylish: Shona is also set to be embroiled in an explosive storyline, as her husband-to-be David kisses another woman in the coming weeks But after Nick was revealed to have stolen Audrey's money to pay his mounting depths, newcomer Natalie also admitted she knew about his crime, and has been blackmailing him ever since. While it remains to be seen how Nick is exposed, he could be facing jail time if he is found guilty of the massive theft. This is just the latest worry for the businessman as he also remains a suspect in the Underworld Factory Roof Collapse. Happy: Despite the impending legal case, the Platt clan were in good spirits as they headed into the courthouse Suave: Imran Habeeb (Charlie de Melo) was also seen on set for the scenes, as it seems Nick's lies are finally set to catch up with him Suspicious: Nick also remains a prime suspect in the Underworld Factory roof collapse, as sources claim the culprit of the disaster will finally be exposed in the coming weeks David first became suspicious of his brother after he admitted the collapsed roof could result in a huge insurance payout that would be enough to save the factory from going under. It comes as sources have also claimed that the culprit of the disaster will finally be exposed, and will also set the stage for a sinister new villain to emerge. The disaster has already caused the death of fan favourite Rana Habeeb, and sparked the mental breakdown of Carla Connor. Jail bound? Despite the coming scenes, actor Ben seemed to enjoying the blazing sunshine as he arrived for filming Smart: Actor Jack cut a dapper figure in a blue checked suit as he arrived in court to film the scenes Happy pair: It remains to be seen whether the Platt family will have to face another member of their family heading to prison, as Shona and Imran head out to support Nick A source told Inside Soap: 'Following weeks of speculation, we are finally going to learn which local has blood on their hands. 'Viewers will learn the truth, although the rest of the Street still has a little way to go before they clock on. 'It's a story that is going to run and run, and the outcome is not going to be cut and dried.' MailOnline has contacted representatives for Coronation Street for comment. Coronation Street continues on Wednesday 15th May at 7:30pm and 8:30pm on ITV. Bond 25 filming ground to a halt last week, following an ankle injury. And just days before the news arose, Daniel Craig was spotted throwing himself into filming with force as he was seen larking around in the sea while sporting a loose-fitting grey T-shirt which gave a glimpse of his eye-popping muscles. The 51-year-old actor proved he has been working hard on his super-sleuth physique as he showed off his incredibly toned arms just days before he was headed for disaster earlier this month with his worrying injury. Wowee! Daniel Craig was spotted throwing himself into filming with force as he was seen larking around in the sea while sporting a loose-fitting grey T-shirt which gave a glimpse of his eye-popping muscles It was recently reportedly Bond 25 filming will resume within the week after Daniel injured his ankle while filming concluded in Jamaica. The Sun reported the 007 actor tweaked his ankle ligaments after falling during filming for a high-octane scene for his fifth outing as the Secret Service Agent. Prior to this he was seen shooting his stone skimming scenes before chatting away to director Cary Joji Fukunaga in intense talks. The Layer Cake actor is said to have flown to New York City for treatment, but is thought to be 'furious' that he injured himself - causing filming to be suspended - after months of gruelling preparation for the role... Hunky: The 51-year-old actor proved he has been working hard on his super-sleuth physique as he showed off his incredibly toned arms just days before he was headed for disaster earlier this month with his worrying injury Tough: Daniel, who is reprising his role as Bond for the fifth and final time, was said to flown to the US for X-rays and was allegedly examined by the same surgeon who treated England captain Harry Kane's ankle injury Way back when: He is returning to the role for the fifth time (pictured in 2015's Spectre) A source told the website: 'Things were deemed to be a disaster at first. But the injury is not as severe as believed and he will be able to film while not over exerting his ankle. He will be back on set within the week... 'Daniel was furious that he had suffered an injury after spending months getting into prime physical shape.' Daniel, who is reprising his role as Bond for the fifth and final time, was said to flown to the US for X-rays and was allegedly examined by the same surgeon who treated England captain Harry Kane's ankle injury. MailOnline has contacted Daniel's representatives for comment. Ripped! He was showing off his ripped arms while his hunky frame was clear from under the top Shock: The updates comes after production for the upcoming James Bond movie was reportedly suspended after Daniel's injury In-depth: He was later seen in an intense chat with director Cary Joji Fukunaga Hashing it out: Daniel seemed to be getting stuck into the details of the scene He's back: Despite previous denials of any involvement in the next film, Daniel was later confirmed to be playing Bond once more (pictured in 2012's Skyfall) The updates comes after production for the upcoming James Bond movie was reportedly suspended after Daniel's injury. According to The Sun, filming at Pinewood Studios in London, which had been scheduled for this weekend, has been cancelled. A source told the publication: 'He was sprinting during filming when he slipped and fell quite awkwardly. He was in quite a lot of pain and was complaining about his ankle. 'As you'd expect he was also pretty angry that it had happened. He threw his suit jacket on the ground in sheer frustration.' Skimming along: One of the scenes saw him skimming stones on the water front Brooding: He was seen taking in his surroundings between shots Working through it: They were chatting away ahead of shooting the latest scene Open and honest: Filming for the movie began last month, four years after the previous Bond film, Spectre, was released Bond 25 has been blighted by drama from the beginning, with Daniel's involvement initially thrown into question when he claimed that he would rather 'slash his wrists than reprise the role', before making a complete U-turn and signing up for the movie. Filming for the movie began last month, four years after the previous Bond film, Spectre, was released. Yet it has been claimed that the screenplay for the untitled film is being endlessly re-written by a committee consisting of director Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and 007 himself, Daniel. 'She's writing a re-write of a re-write,' a film-making source told the Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye of Waller-Bridge's recent involvement in the project. Daniel's writing. Cary's writing. The crew reckon they're working on a well-polished s**t show. On-set: The cast, led by Craig, Naomie Harris, Lea Seydoux, Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas, have been on location in Jamaica but are heading back to Europe to link up with Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw Chucking it: He was a picture of health before the shocking injury took him out of action 'They have an outline of plot, but dialogue is all last-minute. It's not the way to make a movie. I would imagine they'll sort it out in the cutting room. That's where most movies get made anyway. But you'd think the Bond lot would be more together.' The cast, led by Craig, Naomie Harris, Lea Seydoux, Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas, have been on location in Jamaica but are heading back to Europe to link up with Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw. Bond 25 has been beset with production problems. Original director Danny Boyle left by mutual consent, after proposing to kill off 007. Boyle was replaced by Fukunaga, who installed Scott Z. Burns to re-jig a script. Craig felt more improvements were needed, and enticed Fleabag and Killing Eve superstar Waller-Bridge to give the piece another polish. Larking around: Daniel was frolicking in the water as he headed into filming Sorting it out: They plotted the scene in action before Daniel's painful accident The unnamed film scheduled for release next April and rumoured to be a remake of 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service starring George Lazenby opens with Bond having left active service. Unfortunately his retirement is interrupted by the arrival in Jamaica of his CIA friend, Felix Leiter, who persuades him to help rescue a kidnapped scientist. Bond's arch-enemy will be played by Oscar-winner Rami Malek, who starred as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Way back when: The unnamed film scheduled for release next April and rumoured to be a remake of 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service starring George Lazenby opens with Bond having left active service She is a regular attendee of the annual star-studded Cannes Film Festival. And Eva Longoria put on a stylish display for a photo shoot with her 10-month-old son Santiago on Wednesday. The 44-year-old was smiling from ear-to-ear as she posed for pictures with her baby boy on an idyllic beach on the South of France's French Riviera. She's one stylish mama! Eva Longoria put on a stylish display for a photo shoot with her 10-month-old son Santiago on Wednesday She slipped her toned figure into a one-shoulder yellow jumpsuit that showcased her petite physique. The brunette beauty's long tresses were styled in luscious waves that cascaded down her delicate shoulders. On set, she carried her baby boy who looked adorable in his black and white outfit. The actress appeared to enjoy her time with her son on set, lifting him up in the air and making him giggle. Sweet: The 44-year-old was smiling from ear-to-ear as she posed for pictures with her baby boy on an idyllic beach on the South of France's French Riviera Chic: She slipped her trim and toned post-baby figure into a one-shoulder yellow jumpsuit that showcased her petite physique Cute: The brunette beauty's long tresses were styled in luscious waves that cascaded down her delicate shoulders Adorable: The Desperate Housewives star lovingly carried her baby boy who looked adorable in his black and white outfit The mother and son also shared a tender moment together when little Santiago rested his head on her chest. Eva smiled as she lovingly cradled her baby boy and later playfully posed with the youngster. The sweet shoot comes after she impressed fashion fans with her elegant ensemble earlier that day. Tender moment: The mother and son also shared a tender moment together when little Santiago rested his head on her chest, she smiled as she lovingly cradled her baby boy Giggles: The actress appeared to enjoy time with her son on set and making him giggle Bonding: The stunner even was seen lifting him up in the air during the beach photo shoot Smiles: Following her afternoon by the sea with her baby son Eva headed to an event Act casual: Eva posed up a storm for the swarms of waiting paparazzi Radiant: Eva looked glowing in the vibrant yellow ensemble The Desperate Housewives star looked undeniably body confident as she was seen out and about at the French Riviera during the film festival. She oozed daytime glamour in a one-shouldered black jumpsuit which cinched in her tiny waist, teamed with towering heels. Eva completed her look with sultry black eyeshadow and a contoured base while her brunette locks fell in effortless waves. Beauty: The stylish and adorable fashion shoot comes after she impressed fashion fans with her elegant ensemble earlier that day Sensational: She oozed daytime glamour in a one-shouldered black jumpsuit which cinched in her tiny waist, Eva boosted her petite height in a pair of towering heels Stunning: The asymmetrical number fell at a striking midi-length level as she enjoyed her day Standing tall: Eva teamed the look with sultry black eyeshadow and a contoured base while her brunette locks fell in effortless waves The night before Eva dazzled at the Palais des Festivals for the opening screening of competition horror flick The Dead Don't Die. Eva stunned in a gorgeous dusty pink gown with a daring thigh-high split. The dress, which gathered in pleats across her left shoulder, was strapless on one side, with the beautiful silk fabric flowing to the ground. Gym bunny: Eva has admitted to 'torturous' workouts over the course of six months in preparation for Cannes Film Festival She paired her statement gown, which featured a metallic panel across opposite sides of her chest and waist, with nude pointed kitten heels. Given her star status, all eyes were on Eva, who gave birth to her first son Santiago with husband Jose Baston ten months ago, as she sauntered along in the sunshine. This comes after she revealed that she's been in 'torture' for the last six months preparing for the Cannes Film Festival with trainer Grant Roberts. The actress has been attending Cannes Film Festival for almost 15 years and first made her debut on the red carpet in 2005. They announced they were reuniting as a band back in February, following a six year hiatus. And now The Jonas Brothers have come together once again for their Paper Magazine. Kevin, 31, Joe, 29, and Nick, 26, were dressed as nerds in a hilarious retro style family shoot that looked stolen from the 1970s. Picture Day! The Jonas Brothers turned into retro nerds for Paper Magazine on Wednesday - their first cover since reuniting as a band earlier in the year A group shot saw the boys all dressed in colorful and vibrant sweaters as they let their personalities shine through. Joe, on the far right, was in a statement sweater on top of a red turtleneck and was seen staring into the distance. Brother Nick, who sat in the middle, opted for a floral style ensemble and flashed a cute and sweet smile at the camera. Brothers: Appearing in Paper Magazine, Kevin (middle), 31, Joe (top), 29, and Nick (bottom), 26, were dressed as nerds in a hilarious retro style family shoot A solo image saw Nick opt for a shirt that was too large for him, underneath a knitted sweater vest NASA: With a space like background, it appeared as though Kevin was trying to channel his inner astronaut, dressed in a white set with multiple ties On the far left, Kevin, accessorized with a large pair of thinly framed glasses and wore a long sleeved top underneath a T-shirt. Another group shot had both Joe and Kevin wearing vintage Fendi jackets and a complementary tie. The boys were also seen with various ferrets as their accessories. 1, 2, 3: A group shot saw the boys all dressed in colorful and vibrant sweaters as they let their personalities shine through Vintage designers: Another group shot had both Joe and Kevin wearing vintage Fendi jackets and a complimentary tie Speaking candidly to the publication about their hiatus and reuniting once again, Nick said it all came to a halt when they felt like they didn't know what next to say. 'We lost touch with what we wanted to say, because we were trying too hard to say something different from what we said in the past, musically and creatively,' he confessed. He added that with the fan frenzy and their growing success brought on anxiety of ensuring their songwriting and music too at the same standard - leading to their split. Show-stopper: Kevin stole the show with a lilac colored tracksuit bottoms and a complimentary jacket Animal lover: Ferrets were a part of the shoot for the brothers Trendy! Channeling their inner nerds, the boys sported old school style glasses over their faces While it has previously been revealed that youngest brother Nick was the one who pulled the plug, Paper writes that it all came down to Nick and Joe's different tastes in music - evident in Nick's solo career and Joe's new band, DNCE. 'It really took the last six, seven years to figure out who we were as people and what kind of music we wanted to make,' Nick added. 'If we had continued to try to push things forward the way we were operating, it might have been difficult. Perhaps we would have had to make bolder statements... shocked people into understanding who we are.' Joe x Joe! The school photo style pictures also had another shot of themselves muted in the background Surprise! The Jonas Brothers revealed they were a band once again back in February Needed a break to come back together: 'It really took the last six, seven years to figure out who we were as people and what kind of music we wanted to make,' Nick revealed Say cheese! Taking to their respective social media accounts, all three brothers shared shots from their shoot, using the hashtag: '#PAPERPictureDay' He continued: 'I think the world is more accepting of us as adults than they would have been if we insisted, "This is who we are now, accept us".' Taking to their respective social media accounts, all three brothers shared shots from their shoot, using the hashtag: '#PAPERPictureDay.' And while fans will learn more about the brother's clash in their upcoming documentary, Chasing Happiness, coming out on Prime Video on June 4, it appears as though they're all closer than ever. Lunch date! Tuesday saw Nick and Joe step out for a lunch date together at Sweet Butter in Sherman Oaks, California Tuesday saw Nick and Joe step out for a lunch date together at Sweet Butter in Sherman Oaks, California. The brothers both kept things casual and walked along the street holding iced coffees. Joe, who married partner Sophie Turner, in a surprise Vegas wedding following The Billboard Awards earlier this month, kept things casual in a white T-shirt and blue trackpants. Nick, who tied-the-knot to Priyanka Chopra at the end of last year wore a head-to-toe black look with a green and white bomber jacket over the top. The brother's sat outdoors and appeared to be in relaxed spirits and enjoying each other's company. The Jonas Brothers' newest album, Happiness Begins, will be released on June 7. She talked about the breakdown on her relationship with Tyga and when she found out he was dating Kylie Jenner during her appearance on the Wendy Williams Show. And Blac Chyna is gearing up for the premiere of her upcoming documentary The Real Blac Chyna, which is set to premiere this summer on The Zeus Network. The 31-year-old reality star was seen arriving to her mansion in her luxury car while rocking pastel tresses and matching bubblegum pink tutu. Here she is: And Blac Chyna is gearing up for the premiere of her upcoming documentary The Real Blac Chyna, which is set to premiere this summer of The Zeus Network In the 53-second teaser for the documentary, an aerial view of Los Angeles is seen first. Her house comes into view - a beautiful white hued mansion featuring black shutters and an enormous driveway. Viewers see her white Porsche on her driveway and a glance of her playscape in the back by her gorgeous pool. Chyna is seen pulling in with her white Rolls-Royce with the convertible down. Vibes: The 31-year-old reality star was seen arriving to her mansion in her luxury car while rocking pastel tresses and matching bubblegum pink tutu Impressive: Her house comes into view - a beautiful white hued mansion featuring black shutters and an enormous driveway Views: Viewers see her white Porsche on her driveway and a glance of her playscape in the back by her gorgeous pool She is seen sporting bright pink curly hair and close ups of her long lashes with hot pink eyeshadow flash on the screen. Chyna is seen putting lip gloss on her pout before they are seen up close; she donned a statement choker necklace. The mother of two is seen stepping out of her Rolls Royce and showing off her blue, pink, purple and green butterfly accented heels. She's arrived: Chyna is seen pulling in with her white Rolls-Royce with the convertible down Home: Chyna is seen getting home in her pricey car Ready for her closeup: She is seen sporting bright pink curly hair and close ups of her long lashes with hot pink eyeshadow flash on the screen Nice: Chyna is seen putting lip gloss on her pout before they are seen up close; she donned a statement choker necklace The star, who has a two-year-old daughter named Dream with ex fiance Rob Kardashian, flaunted her toned legs in the bright look. Chyna donned a pink tutu with a matching top while carrying a furry white handbag to round out her look. She turns around before getting to her front door and stares straight into the camera. The mother of two is seen stepping out of her Rolls Royce and showing off her blue, pink, purple and green butterfly accented heels A look: The star, who has a two-year-old daughter named Dream with ex fiance Rob Kardashian, flaunted her toned legs in the bright look Star power: She turns around before getting to her front door and stares straight into the camera The teaser trailer ends with the documentary title - The Real Blac Chyna - flashing on the screen before it says Coming Soon. The documentary, who debuts this summer, will debut on The Zeus Network; viewers must pay the $3.99 a month subscription fee to be able to watch the show. Chyna shared an excerpt of the trailer to her Instagram page on Wednesday morning, adding: 'Everyone has their truths. Some good, some bad, and some ugly. At the end of the day we're all human. I've teamed up with @TheZeusNetwork to tell my story.' She continued: 'I'm excited to announce my very [own] docu-series "The Real Blac Chyna' executive produced by myself' [sic]. Chyna said: 'Follow my journey as a mother, a business owner, a philanthropist and a friend!' The teaser comes as Chyna, born Angela White, candidly spoke to Wendy Williams during her Wednesday appearance on the show. Grand entrance: The teaser trailer ends with the documentary title - The Real Blac Chyna - flashing on the screen before it says Coming Soon Real talk: Chyna shared an excerpt of the trailer to her Instagram page on Wednesday morning, adding: 'Everyone has their truths. Some good, some bad, and some ugly. At the end of the day we're all human. I've teamed up with @TheZeusNetwork to tell my story' The star admitted on the show that her ex fiance Rob, 32, was a far better 'lover' than rapper Tyga, 29. She said: 'Can I choose neither?' Laughing, she added: 'A better love? Rob.' The TV star spoke out about her relationship with Tyga, whom she shares son King, six. She said that she thought something was wrong when Tyga threw Kylie Jenner a 17th birthday party but then it didn't really hit home when she was 'kicked out' of the mansion they shared with their son. Open: The teaser comes as Chyna, born Angela White, candidly spoke to Wendy Williams during her Wednesday appearance on the show Chyna said to Wendy that there was 'no cheating' and that just grew apart, but suggested that something had 'expedited' the breakup of their family. 'Sometimes things don't work out and then also, sometimes things just spread you different ways and I guess that's what was going. The way it went about publicly wasn't right. Even not publicly it wasn't right.' She said that was when he started dating Kylie and threw her a 17th birthday party. 'After that happened, that's when the [Kardashian] family kind of, and it was like "Ok, well bye girl" and threw underneath the bus.' However Chyna said that she has no problems with Kylie despite the Tyga situation: 'On my side, the last time we spoke and whatnot, because it was Dream's auntie and stuff and when me and Robert was together, we kind of put those differences aside and from now on, I'm fine on my side and I'm hoping we're good.' Chyna and Rob dated from 2016 until they split for good in February of 2017; in between they were on and off. Laura Dern wore a fun green dress with a belt that read World Lovers as she hit the BUILD series in New York City on Wednesday. The 52-year-old actress was joined by her Trial By Fire cast mate Jack O'Connell as well as the film's director Edward Zwick and screenwriter Geoffrey S Fletcher. This comes after the acting vet looked tormented while being held by her husband during a scene in the trailer for Big Little Lies 2. Green touch: Laura Dern wore a fun green dress with a belt that read World Lovers as she hit the BUILD series in New York City on Wednesday They all came! L to R, director Edward Zwick, star Jack O'Connell, Dern and screenwriter Geoffrey S Fletcher At BUILD, Dern was the definition of elegance in her bright green button down dress that went over her knees in an A line cut. The top portion had one pocket and a collar with short sleeves. And the daughter of acting vet Bruce Dern added playful, pointy heels. The Rambling Rose actress wore her hair down and she had on flattering makeup. Hoop earrings made the critically acclaimed actress look on trend. A bold statement: After she did her interview, the Jurassic Park star was seen leaving the studio. At this point the LA native wore a snakeskin coat with black leather piping and stripes After she did her interview, the Jurassic Park star was seen leaving the studio. At this point the LA native wore a snakeskin coat with black leather piping and stripes. She also slipped on a fun pair of light pink sunglasses. In the trailer for BLL 2, Dern was seen on the verge of tears as her screen husband hugs her. The clip was full of drama. Meryl Streep wants answers and the 69-year-old acclaimed actress could be seen grilling Nicole Kidman's character over the circumstances surrounding her son's death. The trailer opened with Reese Witherspoon's acid-tongued socialite character Madeline telling her daughter's school principal to 'shove it'. In the trailer's opening scene, Principal Warren Nippal (played by P.J. Byrne) told Madeline she's 'not the only parent complaining, just by far the loudest'. Another parent then offered the diminutive but quick-witted blonde a cupcake, which she readily accepted. 'I don't even like to chew, I just shove it down... maybe you can give one to Warren, so he can shove it too.' 'Oh... and we're off,' the school administrator commented dryly. Tears? This comes after the acting vet looked tormented while being held by her husband during a scene in the trailer for Big Little Lies 2 A montage of quick-cut images then showed Reese's character dancing and drinking with the other main mothers from season one of the show. These include Nicole Kidman's Celeste Wright, Dern's Renata Klein, Zoe Kravitz's Bonnie Carlson and Shailene Woodley's Jane Chapman. The women were collectively referred to as 'the Monterey Five' in the first trailer for the new season, a reference to the Californian seaside community in which the women all live. 'It's a classy crop of moms, these ones,' Principal Nippal can be heard to comment sarcastically, over images of the Monterey Five sipping champagne at a costume party. The principal then described Dern's high-strung socialite as 'the Medusa of Monterey'. This over images of Renata posing for a photo shoot out by her pool, before cutting to a scene of Renata berating Nippal in his office. 'I will squash you like the bug that you are,' ranted Dern's character. We then see Madeline's husband Ed Mackenzie (played by Adam Scott) dryly comment: 'Let the second grade begin'. Watch out: The principal then described Laura Dern's highly strung socialite as 'the Medusa of Monterey' Threats: 'I will squash you like the bug that you are,' ranted Dern's character 'It's gonna get us. It's gonna get us all,' an anxious Bonnie told Madeline in one moment from the trailer. 'Who are you talking about?' Madeline asked, apparently perplexed. 'The lie,' replied Kravitz's character. The lie to which she referred was a pivotal moment in the show's first season, in which all five women banded together to help cover up the suspicious death of Celeste's husband Perry (played by Alexander Skarsgard). A flashback to that season showed Bonnie clearly pushing Perry down the set of stairs where he met his demise. This new trailer showed Detective Adrienne Quinlan investigating Perry's death, who, according to Madeline, 'is trying to put the pressure onto us until one of us breaks'. Ooooh: The trailer opened with Reese Witherspoon's acid-tongued socialite character Madeline telling her daughter's school principal to 'shove it' Whoops: A flashback to the first season showed Bonnie clearly pushing Perry down the set of stairs where he met his demise Ominous: 'It's gonna get us. It's gonna get us all,' an anxious Bonnie told Madeline in one moment from the trailer And it wasn't the only area from which the women received pressure. In the trailer's most powerful scene, Celeste's mother-in-law Mary Louise Wright (played by three-time Academy Award winner Streep) grilled Celeste about what really befell Perry that night. 'You don't believe my son just slipped,' began Mary Louise, ominously. Interrogation: In the trailer's most powerful scene, Celeste's mother-in-law Mary Louise Wright (played by three-time Academy Award winner Streep) grilled Celeste about what really befell Perry that night Chills: 'My son is dead, and I want answers,' continued the grieving mother, in a powerhouse scene between two Oscar winning actresses 'My son is dead, and I want answers,' continued the grieving mother, in a powerhouse scene between two Oscar winning actresses. 'I gave you answers,' replied Kidman's character. 'Yes, but you left things out, didn't you?' retorted Mary Louise. The lineup: Here the women are seen side by side after a death took place at a school event 'You were planning to leave him. And you learned of his infidelity just ten seconds before he died.' 'Oh, you left that out, too,' she concluded, before the trailer ends. Big Little Lies is set to return to HBO on June 9 and will see the addition of Meryl Streep as Mary Louise, a woman determined to get to the bottom of a death that rocked the group in its inaugural season. According to Kidman, Meryl signed up for the show without even reading the script. She instead sent an email to Nicole, who co-produces Big Little Lies with Reese, after it won a Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film in 2017 and insisted she had to join them. She welcomed her daughter Amazonie a month ago with husband Vincent Cassel. And Tina Kunakey made her first red carpet appearance since giving birth as she attended the premiere of Les Miserables at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. The French model, 22, looked radiant as she arrived at the star-studded event wearing a strapless navy gown, complete with a satin belt around her waist. New mama! Tina Kunakey made her first red carpet appearance since giving birth as she attended the premiere of Les Miserables at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday Tina's gown boasted a full and pleated skirt which consisted of both velvet and satin panels, which also featured in the structured top half of the garment. She added glitz to her look with a pair of bejewelled perspex stilettos which were adorned with a glittering sun-shaped emblem on the toe. The mother-of-one added further detailing to her ensemble with a pair of statement earrings which were embellished with delicate diamonds. Glowing: The French model, 22, looked radiant as she arrived at the star-studded event wearing a strapless navy gown, complete with a satin belt around her waist Storming the red carpet: Tina's gown boasted a full and pleated skirt which consisted of both velvet and satin panels, which also featured in the structured top half of the garment Tina wore her curly locks in a loose and voluminous style, while accentuating her natural beauty with light touches of make-up in bronze hues. French actor Vincent, 52, announced the birth of baby daughter Amazonie, his third child but first with Tina, in a sweet Instagram post last month entitled 'Amazonie est nee (Amazonie is born).' The post showed a waterfall in the idyllic Brazilian rainforest, and prompted more than 62,000 of the La Haine actor's followers to like the post. Joy: French actor Vincent, 52, announced the birth of baby daughter Amazonie, his third child but first with Tina, in a sweet Instagram post last month entitled 'Amazonie est nee (Amazonie is born) New arrival: Tina and The Black Swan actor announced their pregnancy in a sweet Instagram post in January this year, just four months after their wedding The baby's name is an apparent tribute to Brazil, where the happy couple reside for part of the year, though Vincent had shared the image from Paris, France. Tina and The Black Swan actor announced their pregnancy in a sweet Instagram post in January this year, just four months after their wedding. The couple posed on a beach during their romantic getaway to Bahia, with Vincent cradling his wife's growing belly, to break the news to fans. Vincent and Tina married in a private ceremony at the city hall in Bidart, south-west France, on August 24 last year. Glitz and glam: The mother-of-one added further detailing to her ensemble with a pair of statement earrings which were embellished with delicate diamonds George and Amal Clooney cut a stylish figure as they attended the premiere of his new mini-series Catch-22 at The Vue cinema in Westfield, London, on Wednesday. The Ocean's Eleven star, 58, and human rights lawyer, 41, made a rare red carpet appearance with Amal's mother Baria Alamuddin at the star-studded event. Amal exuded glamour in an extravagant black sequined dress with a gold bodice as she cosied up to her actor husband. Power couple: George and Amal Clooney cut a stylish figure as they attended the premiere of his new mini-series Catch-22 at The Vue cinema in Westfield, London, on Wednesday The glitzy gown featured a skirt with black embellished layers that caught the eye on the red carpet. The stunning human rights lawyer wore her sleek raven tresses in bouncy curls and opted for dramatic eye makeup and a red lip. She finished the look with a pair of black stilettos, gold earrings and a stylish clutch bag. George, 58, looked as dapper as ever in a monochrome outfit, wearing a dark grey suit and shirt which he wore slightly open. Rare outing: The Ocean's Eleven star, 58, and human rights lawyer, 41, made a rare red carpet appearance with Amal's mother Baria Alamuddin at the star-studded event Elegant: Amal exuded glamour in an extravagant black sequined dress with a gold bodice as she cosied up to her actor husband Dapper: George, 58, looked as dapper as ever in a monochrome outfit, wearing a dark grey suit and shirt which he wore slightly open Glamorous: The stunning human rights lawyer wore her sleek raven tresses in bouncy curls The dashing Hollywood star smouldered for the camera and sported grey facial hair which added to his rugged good looks. Amal's mother, Baria Alamuddin, a well-known political journalist, looked a vision of elegance in a green ensemble with a chiffon coat. She wore a stunning jewelled necklace with matching earrings and opted for glamorous makeup. Amal, a human rights lawyer, gave birth to their twins in June 2017, three years after she wed George during a romantic Venice wedding in 2014. Stunning: The raven-haired beauty donned a dazzling pair of drop-earrings Family bonding: Amal's mother, Baria Alamuddin, a well-known political journalist, looked a vision of elegance in a green ensemble with a chiffon coat Sensational: She finished the look with a pair of black stilettos and a stylish clutch bag Gorgeous: Amal opted for dramatic eye makeup and a red lip to complete her glamorous look This way! George led his leading lady down the red carpet as he held her hand Pout it out: The married couple smouldered for the camera as they posed for snaps Family matters: Amal and mother Baria oozed glamour as they accompanied George at the London premiere of his latest film And only recently, George didn't miss a moment to gush about his little ones and their mother while on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. 'They obviously got my wifes brains,' he told the talk show host. 'Theyre not quite two and they can count from one to 20 in English and Italian. Im still trying to do the English part!' He added: 'Theyre very smart. I dont like that either. I got a lot of dumb relatives, man. Awful easy!' Co-stars: George posed with Catch 22 co-stars Christopher Abbott (C) and Kyle Chandler (R) Standing proud: George stood with the film's producer Grant Heslov (L) and fellow actor Christopher Abbott (R) Teamwork: George flashed a wide smile as he posed with his colleagues (Pictured L-R Gerran Howell, Ellen Kuras, Grant Heslov, George Clooney, Christopher Abbott and Kyle Chandler) Dapper: Martin Delaney, Gerran Howell and Josh Bolt added pocket squares to their suits Happy times: The three pals couldn't hide their delight as they posed together George sat in the director's chair for his latest project, an adaptation of the novel Catch-22, which premiers on Hulu May 17, and stars Christopher Abbott and Hugh Laurie. Early reviews were released for the six-part military tale this week, with many journalist commending the adaptation on the 1961 novel by Joseph Heller. The Ocean's 11 star produces the new series, directs the first two episodes and also appears in the show as Lieutenant Scheisskopf. Supportive wife: Amal stood by George's side ahead of the screening in London All smiles: Hugh Laurie attended the London Premiere of new Channel 4 show Catch-22 Chatting: The star sat between Tessa Ferrer and Kyle Chandler on stage Dapper: Hugh looked dapper in a smart navy suit and red shirt Well done: Hugh and Kyle hugged it out following a Q&A at the event Sleek: After the event the hot couple headed to the after party Pose: George wrapped his arm around his wife's waist as they posed for snaps Guests: Amal's mother Baria also headed to the after party following the screening She's racked up an impressive holiday album as she's treated herself to a whopping seven holidays in just three months. And Millie Mackintosh continued to enjoy the luxuries of her globetrotting lifestyle as she was spotted in Cannes, France on Wednesday. The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, flashed a glimpse of her slim waist in a white crop top and cropped jeans during a sunshine stroll. Casual in Cannes: Millie Mackintosh, 29, continued to enjoy the luxuries of her globetrotting lifestyle as she was spotted in Cannes, France on Wednesday Keeping warm, Millie wrapped up in a stone coloured long-line cardigan, whilst shielding her eyes with perspex-framed sunglasses. The reality star added a twist to her simple ensemble with a pair of lobster-embroidered mules. Millie draped the long gold strap of her pale blue handbag over her shoulder and accessorised with a smattering of delicate jewellery. The Quality Streets heiress styled her long locks leek and straight and opted for deftly touches of bronzed make-up. Looking good: The former Made In Chelsea star flashed a glimpse of her slim waist in a white crop top and cropped jeans during a sunshine stroll Protected: Keeping warm, Millie wrapped up in a stone coloured long-line cardigan, whilst shielding her eyes with perspex-framed sunglasses Her trip to Cannes comes just a week after she enjoyed a gifted trip to East Portlemouth, Devon, with her husband Hugo Taylor, 32, during the bank holiday weekend. Millie has recently visited Ibiza, the Maldives, Azerbaijan and Finland in the past three months all on gifted stays, reaping in the benefits of her influencer status. Earlier this year, the TV star was among 16 stars and influencers who had breached Advertising Standards Authority rules surrounding paid posts on Instagram. She is far from alone in having flouted advertising guidelines in this way as Instagram is often flooded with famous faces who promote products, arguably without making it clear they are being paid for the sponsorship. Lucky for some! Millie Mackintosh and her husband Hugo Taylor recently enjoyed a gifted trip to East Portlemouth, Devon, during the bank holiday weekend That is why the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) conducted an investigation into concerns that social media stars are not properly declaring when they have been paid, or otherwise rewarded, to endorse goods or services. All the stars identified in the investigation, which began last August, agreed to change their ways. Under consumer protection law, influencers are required to clearly state if they have received payment for products they endorse - either in gifts, money, or by loan of the products. FALLS TOWNSHIP >> The Falls Township Board of Supervisors took steps to create more than 500 new jobs on Dec. 20. The board approved a minor subdivision and lot line change for Stalwart Equities, the developer of a large-scale warehouse planned for more than 95 acres along the Delaware River. The companys sketch plan, which the board reviewed last year, called... She has recently enjoyed trips to the Dominican Republic, Dubai and Amsterdam. But Olivia was back on home turf when she attended the launch party for Dark Horse Wine, which was hosted at the Union Club in Soho, London, on Wednesday night. The Love Island star, 25, showcased her glowing tan in a pink lace bustier, which flaunted her more than ample assets as she arrived at the reality star-studded event. Glowing: Olivia was back on home turf when she attended the launch party for Dark Horse Wine which was hosted at the Union Club in Soho, London, on Wednesday night Olivia teamed her lingerie-inspired garment with an equally eye-catching lime green blazer, which featured chunky button detailing down the front. She also wore a pair of very distressed blue jeans which were ripped at the knee and belted with a thick white leather belt, which cinched her svelte waist and accentuated her hour glass frame. Olivia added inches to her petite frame with a pair of barely-there heels, which boasted a stylish leaf-print pattern all over. Chic: She was joined at the bash by some of her reality star pals, including former Geordie Shore star Vicky Pattison, who opted for a casually chic outfit Glam: Ensuring she stood out from the crowd, TOWIE's Georgia Kousoulou made her entrance wearing a thigh-grazing black mini dress In her hand the reality star toted an oversized Moschino clutch bag, which featured the designer brand's logo in vibrant rainbow lettering. Olivia sleeked her dark blonde locks into a neat bun, while opting for a thick pallet of make-up in peach tones with a dramatic mascara-heavy eye look. She was joined at the bash by some of her reality star pals, including former Geordie Shore star Vicky Pattison, 31, who opted for a casually chic outfit. Vibrant: The Love Island star, 25, showcased her glowing tan in a pink lace bustier, which flaunted her more than ample assets as she arrived at the reality star-studded event Vicky rocked a basic black T-shirt tucked into a pair of light rinse blue jeans, which she teamed with a pair of statement leopard print boots. The TV personality toted a black leather bag in her hand, while simply accessorising her look with a pair of black rounded shades. She wore her glossy chestnut locks in loose glamorous curls and covered her pretty visage with light touches of neutrally toned make-up. Eye-catching: Olivia teamed her lingerie-inspired garment with an equally eye-catching lime green blazer, which featured chunky button detailing down the front Bronzed babe: Olivia sleeked her dark blonde locks into a neat bun, while opting for a thick pallet of make-up in peach tones with a dramatic mascara-heavy eye look Leggy: She wore the dress over a Pretty Little Thing polar neck top and belted the garment with a thin black belt, which brought together her whole ensemble It's a look! Vicky rocked a basic black T-shirt tucked into a pair of light rinse blue jeans, which she teamed with a pair of statement leopard print boots Ensuring she stood out from the crowd, TOWIE's Georgia Kousoulou, 27, made her entrance wearing a thigh-grazing black mini dress. She wore the dress over a Pretty Little Thing polar neck top and belted the garment with a thin black belt, which brought together her whole ensemble. Adding a quirky touch, Georgia teamed her look with a pair of statement cowboy boots, while carrying her essentials in a small black leather bag. Other familiar faces at the event included Georgia's TOWIE co-star Chloe Meadows and Celebs Go Dating's Pete Wicks and his pal Sam Thompson. Cowgirl: Adding a quirky touch, Georgia teamed her look with a pair of statement cowboy boots, while carrying her essentials in a small black leather bag Guests: Other familiar faces at the event included Georgia's TOWIE co-star Chloe Meadows and Celebs Go Dating's Pete Wicks and his pal Sam Thompson Lumberjack style: Pete Wicks rocked an open plaid shirt over a plain white T-shirt with blue jeans Wahey! Sam Thompson appeared in high spirits as he arrived at the boozy event Pals: Close pals Vicky and Pete enjoyed a giggle together at the event Team: The gang all posed together while enjoying a glass of wine He stars in Rocketman, one of the most anticipated films of the year. And Richard Madden was seen jetting into Nice Airport on Wednesday, ahead of the film's premiere at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. The Bodyguard star, 32, tried to keep a low profile as he quickly made his way through arrivals wearing a pair of black sunglasses. He's here!: Richard Madden was seen jetting into Nice Airport on Wednesday, ahead of his film Rocketman's premiere at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival Richard looked dapper in a pink suede jacket by Mr P, which he teamed with a black shirt, trousers and boots, while toting a leather bag. In the biopic, Madden will play Elton John's former lover and manager John Reid alongside Taron Egerton, who stars as the iconic musician. The Bodyguard hearthrob recently spoke to The Sun about what it was like filming a nude sex scene with Egerton for a scene where the musician loses his virginity to his music manager. Keeping a low profile: The Bodyguard star, 32, tried to keep a low profile as he quickly made his way through arrivals wearing a pair of black sunglasses Handsome: Richard looked dapper in a pink suede jacket by Mr P, which he teamed with a black shirt, trousers and boots, while toting a leather bag He said: 'Sex scenes are never fun to shoot but I only ever do these things if theres a real justification for them. 'This is the first time Elton ever had sex with anyone so thats why its a relevant scene, in terms of his progression.' The actor has had a whirlwind year after starring in BBC's Bodyguard which earned him a Golden Globe and a global sex symbol status. Role: In the biopic, Madden will play Elton John's former lover and manager John Reid alongside Taron Egerton, who stars as the iconic musician (both pictured dressed as their characters) Candid: The Bodyguard hearthrob recently spoke to The Sun about what it was like filming a nude sex scene with Egerton for a scene where the musician loses his virginity to his music manager (Taron pictured as Elton) Biopic: Elton himself - and husband David Furnish - have been heavily involved in the production of Rocketman, and recently revealed he wanted his life story to be portrayed as honestly as possible (pictured together at the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party) He is also reportedly single after splitting from his girlfriend, Ellie Bamber, 22, earlier this year. Reflecting on the last few months, he added to the publication: 'Im in a very happy, positive place. I made a big effort to focus on that in the past six months, to really find happiness and pursue it and Im doing that. Touch wood, its working.' Elton John's highly-anticipated biopic, Rocketman, starring Taron Egerton and Richard Madden, will make its debut during Cannes Film Festival. The film is due for release in UK cinemas on May 22, and in the USA on May 31. She has closed the book on her role as Sansa Stark in Game Of Thrones. But Sophie Turner was promoting another of her projects on Wednesday night, as she attended a press conference for X-Men Dark Phoenix with her co-star Jessica Chastain in Mexico City. The actress, 23, opted for a chic look as she answered questions about the new film where she plays Jean Grey, an extremely powerful mutant with telepathic powers. Pastures new: Sophie Turner was promoting another of her projects on Wednesday night, as she attended a press conference for X-Men Dark Phoenix with her co-star Jessica Chastain in Mexico City Sophie put her endless pins on display in a stylish leather skirt with textured detailing across the front, which she teamed with a cropped black jacket. The recently married star added an orange and black printed blouse to her look, offering her otherwise dark ensemble a vibrant pop of colour. Sophie also wore a pair of black stilettos with a silver toe and accessorised with a pair of oversized hoop earrings to complete her look. Question time: The actress, 23, opted for a chic look as she answered questions about the new film where she plays Jean Grey, an extremely powerful mutant with telepathic powers Work it: Sophie put her endless pins on display in a stylish leather skirt with textured detailing across the front, which she teamed with a cropped black jacket Sophie wore her signature blonde tresses in loose glossy waves, while highlighting her pretty features with light touches of make-up in pink tones. Looking equally stylish, Jessica attended the event wearing a bright orange power suit with a deeply plunging neckline and rolled up sleeves. She matched the boyfriend-style blazer with a pair of fitted cigarette trousers, completing the look with a pair of black Christian Louboutin court shoes. Golden girl: The recently married star added an orange and black printed blouse to her look, offering her otherwise dark ensemble a vibrant pop of colour Chatting: Sophie also wore a pair of black stilettos with a silver toe and accessorised with a pair of oversized hoop earrings to complete her look The movie is slated for release on June 7 in the USA and June 5 in the UK and tells the story of Jean Grey, played by Turner, who begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. The X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world. Picking up in 1992, nearly a decade after the events of that film, the movie's final trailer finds Jean earning her mutant stripes after a rescue mission in deep space goes horribly wrong, resulting in her being engulfed by a powerful explosion that decimates her ship. Against the odds she survives unscathed, and stunned students at Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters give the the name Phoenix a reference to her unique ability to quite literally rise from the ashes. Stylish: Sophie wore her signature blonde tresses in loose glossy waves, while highlighting her pretty features with light touches of make-up in pink tones She has joined a host of stars in France for the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival. And Eva Herzigova ensured all eyes were on her as she opted to go braless whilst clad in a sheer black gown to attend the Dior and Vogue Paris dinner at Fred L'Ecailler on Wednesday. The supermodel, 46, confidently flaunted her womanly curves through the long-sleeved sequinned top her dazzling frock as she posed for photographs upon arrival. Wow! Eva Herzigova, 46, ensured all eyes were on her as she opted to go braless whilst clad in a sheer black gown to attend the Dior and Vogue Paris dinner at Fred L'Ecailler on Wednesday Her full-bodied skirt was adorned with multicoloured sequins and the frock were cinched at the waist to highlight her trim frame. Eva boosted her statuesque figure in a pair of black stilettos with a jewel embellished strap. The blonde beauty accessorised by wearing dazzling blue pendant earrings and a statement cuff on her wrist. Fun times: Her full-bodied skirt was adorned with multicoloured sequins and the frock were cinched at the waist to highlight her trim frame Bold: Fun times: The supermodel confidently flaunted her womanly curves through the long-sleeved sequinned top her dazzling frock as she posed for photographs upon arrival Chic: Eva boosted her statuesque figure in black stilettos with a jewel embellished strap Dazzling: The blonde beauty accessorised by wearing dazzling blue pendant earrings and a statement cuff on her wrist Oops! The star looked mesmerising in the glittering ensemble as she accidentally dropped her statement cuff Mesmerising: The star looked sensational in the monochrome ensemble as she attended the glitzy event Wow: Bella Hadid also stepped out for the Dior And Vogue Paris dinner on Wednesday The Dior muse styled her golden locks in glamorous waves into a slicked-back wet look as highlighted her pretty features with a generous application of smudgy black eyeliner. With decades of modelling experience under her belt ever since she won the 1989 beauty contest in Prague, it was no surprise Eva demanded the attention with her enticing display. The star of the iconic 1994 Wonderbra 'Hello Boys' campaign swore of marriage after a turbulent divorce from Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres. Star-studded: Also attending were the likes of Ashlee Simpson and her husband Evan Ross Beauty: With decades of modelling experience under her belt ever since she won the 1989 beauty contest in Prague, it was no surprise Eva demanded attention The supermodel is a doting mother to sons George, 10, Edward, four, and Philip, seven. In an interview with Hello!, Eva shared details on her thoughts on motherhood saying: 'I breathe for my boys and there are times when my husband reminds me to be a bit more selfish and to think of myself as well.' But the blonde beauty announced her engagement to the father of her three children, Gregorio Marsiaj, last March, after a 16 year romance. There was something reassuring about seeing Mum (appropriately). Particularly as we'd just lost Fleabag - the series and Phoebe Waller-Bridge's protagonist. Stefan Golaszekski's comedy and his heroine Cathy returned at the perfect time, to take their place in a way. Mum: Stefan Golaszekski's comedy and his heroine Cathy (pictured) returned at the perfect time, to take their place in a way Admittedly they never seemed to have that much in common. But in fact they were definitely related. Cathy is a kind of EveryMum after all: the mother everyone would want, even Fleabag. Especially her you could say, given the issues she had with her family. Perhaps this was why the third and final series stepped into Fleabag's shoes as the best comedy on television so easily. Not only the funniest and the sharpest, but the saddest too potentially if Golaszekski doesn't give Cathy a happy ending. Her search for love/contentment with Michael (Peter Mullan) and Fleabag's relationship with Andrew Scott's 'sweary priest' was just one of the parallels between the two series. Plot: Her search for love/contentment with Michael (Peter Mullan) (right) and Fleabag's relationship with Andrew Scott's 'sweary priest' was just one of the parallels between the two series Mum and Cathy may not be as 'deep' or 'edgy', but are a more sensible, old-fashioned, version of Fleabag. As an example of a woman living in Britain/London, Cathy is just as contemporary and nuanced. Both are looking for someone to share their life with, something to give it meaning, and be recognised particularly by/within their own family. Cathy's crisis was becoming adrift from and feeling judged by her son. Fleabag's her father. Both shows also featured an exemplary study of snobbery - a classic staple in British comedies/sitcoms. Role: Dorothy Atkinson was wonderfully appalling as Pauline (pictured), dominating Episode One like her character Pauline was Cathy's sister-in-law-to-be and a horror to rival Fleabag's monstrous godmother played by Olivia Colman - in the tradition of Fawlty Towers' Sybil (Prunella Scales), The Good Life's Margot Leadbetter (Penelope Keith), or Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party. Dorothy Atkinson was wonderfully appalling as Pauline, dominating Episode One like her character. Unusually, it was set away from the suburban hell that is Chingford in a huge, deluxe, house in the country that Cathy's brother Derek had rented for a week to celebrate his birthday. 'Sorry to keep you waiting! I was by the pool!' Pauline cooed, greeting Cathy, her son Jason and his girlfriend Kelly with a glass of champagne in her hand and not sorry at all. 'I was wondering where you'd got to. As I was sitting by the pool' Saintly as ever, Cathy endured Pauline's tour of the house with remarkable grace and patience. Not ideal: Saintly as ever, Cathy endured Pauline's tour of the house with remarkable grace and patience 'It's just got the three reception rooms, the two dishwashers, and 4.5 acres of grounds but it will do!' 'This hallway's nearly as big as my house!' Cathy laughed. 'Yes,' smiled Pauline. 'But it feels bigger... Quite a good space if you want to read a broadsheet or check the FTSE 100 index.' The ice-machine, the larder, and even the gravel in the driveway were all highlighted. 'I don't suppose you've ever had a larder have you Cathy?' Pauline tutted. In the kitchen, she pointed out: 'It's got an island.' Cathy admired the piano only to find herself being corrected: 'it's pronounced pee-arno.' Mum is gentler than Fleabag so thankfully Pauline wasn't as savage or damaging as Fleabag's nemesis. Corrected: Cathy admired the piano only to find herself being corrected: 'it's pronounced pee-arno' She had infected Cathy's brother but Derek's attempts at snobbery were still fairly hapless. 'I've been listening to Radio 4 !' He boasted to Michael, explaining oafishly: 'It's a radio station where they don't play music and you can't phone in!' Britain's attitude to foreigners is another traditional element in comedies like this that goes back to the likes of Dad's Army, It Ain't 'Alf Hot Mum, and Til Death To Us Part. Fleabag avoided this, but Mum showed it is more old-fashioned/out-of-date. Their xenophobia certainly made Cathy's brother and father less likable. Their xenophobia certainly made Cathy's brother Derek (left) and father Reg (right) less likable 'I'll tell you what, I'd rather be dead than French!' blustered Derek. 'I hate the Dutch!' Reg countered. 'I mean what do they even do all day?!' Her son's girlfriend Kelly has also been dismissed as a classic/cliched ditzy blonde. Then again she's the sort of person we all know. 'With the long hours you'd always feel like you're at work!' she mused about the disadvantages of being an astronaut, adding: 'I think I'd really miss gravity' which was either idiocy or genius. Whatever her faults, Kelly was the character who showed Cathy at her best and the series at its most touching. Girlfriend: Her son's girlfriend (centre) Kelly has also been dismissed as a classic/cliched ditzy blonde 'You know everything. You're basically the best person I've ever met,' Kelly cooed sweetly, claiming to be asking 'for a friend', she said, who was 'a little bit pregnant. Six weeks and four days... She was wondering whether it's normal to get little pains in your tummy. Twinges. Down here?' Having assured it was, Cathy was more concerned: 'how does she feel?' 'Disgusting!' Kelly declared instantly, poignantly. 'She feels constantly sick. Sort of like she's the tiredest and ugliest person in the universe. And she's always been the stupid one' 'Is she happy?' asked Cathy, tentatively, reducing Kelly to overwhelming, beaming, tears. Jason was more problematic. He's so hostile to Michael and so jealous of his mother having a new man in her life (replacing Jason and his father his hero), he's becoming impossible to tolerate, let alone like. Jason (centre) was more problematic. He's so hostile to Michael and so jealous of his mother having a new man in her life (replacing Jason and his father his hero), he's becoming impossible to tolerate, let alone like Michael and Cathy were conducting their relationship behind Jason's back, in secret, like teenagers at the cinema and now seemingly in bed. (Cathy had left her watch and glasses at Michael's house in her rush to get home before Jason.) 'We should probably do it again some time!' she sniggered. 'Oh God yeah!' Michael cheered. 'Anything you want to do no matter how depraved!' 'You don't think he suspects anything,' she fretted later. As thick as Jason may be, the sad fact was he probably did. He niggled at Michael throughout, unable to conceal his antipathy. 'My dad would have loved it here,' he reiterated. 'He would have found the chandeliers, the fancy furniture funny though,' pointed out Michael, a family friend before he became Cathy's. 'No. I don't think so actually,' Jason huffed, whining: 'why did you come? Why aren't you in Spain?' Of course the crux of this series, like the last, is whether Cathy's romance with Michael will have a happy ending. We can only hope this is one similarity that Mum doesn't share with Fleabag and that it fares better than her's did with her priest. Amy Schumer enjoyed a sunshine stroll with her husband a week after giving birth to their first child. The 37-year-old, who welcomed son Gene on May 5, and Chris Fischer were spotted out together in New York on Wednesday. Amy announced the birth of her child last Monday with a nod to Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan's first child Archie by referring to her son as 'our royal baby'. We're out and about! Amy Schumer enjoyed an outing with her husband Chris Fischer in New York on Wednesday Baby joy: The couple welcomed son Gene on May 5 and shared the news with fans the following day The Snatched star - who announced her pregnancy in October, around the same time as The Duke and Duchess of Sussex - found her pregnancy 'tough' as she struggled with hyperemesis gravidarum, a form of extreme morning sickness, and documented the ups and downs on her Instagram page. Amy was hospitalised for the condition and was forced to postpone some of her stand-up shows in November. She has since revealed that she was immediately relieved of the symptoms following the birth of her child. No more morning sickness! Amy endured hyperemesis gravidarum throughout her entire pregnancy and was relieved when the symptoms immediately subsided following the birth Amy recently took to social media to reflect on her pregnancy and thank her doula Domino Kirke. A doula is a non-medical companion who supports a birthing woman by providing continuous care before, during, or after childbirth. In a lengthy Instagram post, the 'Trainwreck' star wrote: Ok here's my post baby annoying post and my takeaway from pregnancy. Women are the s**t. Men are cool and whatever but women are f***ing warriors and capable of anything. I was lucky enough to get to have a doula. 'She [made] me and Chris feel totally secure and supported throughout my pregnancy and the birth process. I really recommend getting one if you can.' 'Women are f***ing warriors': Amy has documented her pregnancy highs and lows on social media with her trademark candor Tired but happy: The couple looked in great spirits on the outing Amy also thanked her doctor and the medical staff at the hospital where she gave birth for 'everything' they did to help her through the process, and spoke about her battle with Hyperemesis. She continued: 'Doctor Brill and all the nurses and pediatricians at Lenox Hill and all the other hospitals i spent time in this year, thank you for everything. I did Pilates with strong women and went for walks. 'I threw up violently and felt sick mostly every day of my pregnancy. Hyperemesis is real and it's awful. But f**k, what they say is true. The second you give birth it's gone. @hgmoms has the best research I found on the condition The only thing that helped me with my nausea was products from @thelordjones (sic)' What a journey: Amy has shared her unfiltered account of pregnancy and post-partum life with her fans She closed off her post by thanking her friends for their support, as well as giving a shoutout to her husband and their newborn son. She wrote: 'All my friends. Friends I've had for 30 years or people who encouraged me to 'keep going' or telling me 'it will be worth it'. Thank you. 'Every woman I encountered is so willing to help and advise you and I felt all their strength. And you were right. Thank you ladies from my family. Chris, Gene and of course Tatiana #t*tsleaking #wearingadiaper (sic)' Jokes: Amy announced the birth of her child last week with a nod to Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan's first child - who was born hours later - by referring to her son as 'our royal baby.' The royal couple are seen on Wednesday in Britain It's one of the most successful series on TV right now. But fans of The Big Bang Theory will have to say goodbye to their beloved nerds when the show ends its 12-season run on CBS Thursday. The one-hour double episode will follow the crew as they wait for big news, keep secrets and engage in their typical hijinks. End of an era: Fans of The Big Bang Theory will have to say goodbye to their beloved nerds when the show ends its 12-season run on CBS Thursday Episode 278, The Change Constant, will follow Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and wife Amy (Mayim Bialik) as they 'await big news' about their Nobel Prize contending project. Then in The Stockholm Syndrome, the gang wraps things up as 'Bernadette and Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg) leave their kids for the first time.' Meanwhile 'Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) try to keep a secret, Sheldon and Amy stick together and Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) makes a new friend, as the gang travels together into an uncharted future.' The Big Bang Theory had been a hit since it first came onto the airwaves in 2007, earning blockbuster ratings, seven Emmy awards, and its own spin-off, Young Sheldon. Laughs: The one-hour double episode will follow the crew as they wait for big news, keep secrets and engage in their typical hijinks Suspense: Episode 278, The Change Constant, will follow Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and wife Amy (Mayim Bialik) as they 'await big news' about their Nobel Prize contending project Talent: Above actors Kunal Nayyar, Simon Helberg, Joshua Malina and Johnny Galecki are seen from left to right Parental supervision: In The Stockholm Syndrome, the gang wraps things up as 'Bernadette and Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg) leave their kids for the first time' Lips are sealed: Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) try to keep a secret Buddied up: Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) makes a new friend Success: The Big Bang Theory had been a hit since it first came onto the airwaves in 2007, earning blockbuster ratings, seven Emmy awards, and its own spin-off, Young Sheldon Saying farewell to her 'TV family' on Instagram, Kaley shared a photo of their 'last supper' together. Mayim also marked the occasion on social media, posting a group photo with the caption: 'These kids.' The core cast opened up about their experiences on the top-rated comedy, and about what they'll do next with the Associated Press while shooting their final show. Kaley Cuoco explained: 'There's a lot of emotions going on, very bittersweet. It's very strange that a lot of people are coming up to me saying, "How are you?" like someone died.' Last hurrah! Saying farewell to her 'TV family' on Instagram, Kaley shared a photo of their 'last supper' together Gang's all here! Mayim also marked the occasion on social media, posting a group photo with the caption: 'These kids' Parsons picked things up saying how the series finale is 'a real rite of passage moment in your life.' 'And much like more "normal rites of passage," be it a bar mitzvah or a wedding or a graduation, there is a feeling of accomplishment,' he continued. 'And like those events people also tend to cry, even if they are happy and they know that this was organic and the way life is supposed to go.' Kaley had some ideas about how the show should wrap up, telling AP: 'It should just end with all of us around the table eating Chinese food, like we always do. Simple as that. Referencing one of the show's longstanding bits, she added: 'And I want them to fix the elevator. Or not fix it, but address it in some way.' The Big Bang Theory's two-part series finale airs Thursday, May 16 at 9pm EST. She may have endured a long haul flight to travel Down Under. But Rosie Huntington-Whiteley showed no signs of jet lag as she touched down in Sydney on Thursday morning. In fact, the stunning supermodel was absolutely glowing, and looked incredibly chic in a stylish grey pants suit for her arrival. Scroll down for video A suit-ably stunning arrival! Rosie Huntington-Whiteley looked flawless as she touched down in Sydney on Thursday morning The British stunner made quite the entrance at Sydney airport, strutting through the terminal in a pair of embellished designer stilettos. She toted a large black leather Celine handbag, and shielded her eyes with a some oversized sunglasses. The 32-year-old flaunted her sunkissed tan by wearing minimal makeup and had her golden tresses styled out and around her shoulders. Rosie is in Australia to attend the beauty event of the year, Meccaland. Glowing: The stunning supermodel was absolutely glowing, and looked incredibly chic in a stylish grey pants suit for her arrival The bareMinerals Beauty Ambassador will be joined by Hollywood makeup artist and fellow bareMinerals ambassador, Nikki DeRoest, and the pair set to hit the Main Stage for a beauty masterclass on Friday. Rosie appeared to be travelling solo, leaving her husband Jason Statham and their son Jack back in Los Angeles. The former Victoria's Secret star and her beau have been together since 2010, and got engagement back in January 2016. Statuesque stunner: The British stunner made quite the entrance at Sydney airport, strutting through the terminal in a pair of embellished designer stilettos Rosie and Jason announced in February 2017 that they were having their first child, a son named Jack, who was born in July 2017. The beauty was first discovered at the age of 16, securing her first modeling gig with Levi's. She signed to Victoria's Secret in 2006, making her Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debut that year. Masterclass: Rosie is Down Under to attend the beauty event of the year, Meccaland Rosie transitioned to acting with a starring role in 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and later starred as The Splendid Angharad in 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road. Jason most recently put in an appearance at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, to promote his Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw with Dwayne Johnson. The spin-off, which also stars Idris Elba, Eiza Gonzalez and Vanessa Kirby, is slated to hit theaters on August 2. He is also slated to star in an untitled Hong Kong action thriller from director Kurt Wimmer. Chic: She carried a large black leather Celine handbag and shielded her eyes with designer sunglasses Work trip: Rosie appeared to be travelling solo, leaving her husband Jason Statham and their son Jack back in LA Dave Warby knows "cowboys" willing to strap themselves to jet boats, hoping to eclipse his father as the fastest person on water, are likely to be obliterated while travelling at hundreds of kilometres per hour. Bravery and willpower are required to attempt the record, but those traits alone can prove as dangerous as any mechanical malfunction. Warby himself is hoping a team of slow and thorough nitpickers will help him comfortably break his father Ken's record in the coming weeks or months. The Warby Motorsport team will conduct trial runs on NSW's Blowering Dam this weekend. Ken Warby became a household name in 1977 when the boat he built in his backyard, the Spirit of Australia, reached 464 kilometres per hour on the dam in the NSW Snowy Mountains. The mechanical engineer bested that feat the following year, smashing through the 500km/h barrier. He still holds the water speed record of 511km/h but the title has attracted plenty of people willing to enter the history books at any cost. "There have been many challengers," Dave Warby told AAP. "Anyone can buy a jet engine and post online that they're going for the water speed record but how many get to a running boat dwindles to a handful." For those that do get on the water, death is a real possibility. In 1967 one of the world's most famous speed seekers, Don Campbell, became the highest-profile casualty. His hydroplane, the Bluebird K7, was travelling close to the current record when it took off from Britain's Coniston Water, spun in the air and smashed back into the lake's surface, killing Campbell instantly. Ken snatched the record from American Lee Taylor a decade after Campbell died but, while Taylor was trying to retake the crown in 1980, he too lost his life. His rocket-powered boat hit a shifting current on Lake Tahoe and disintegrated as his family watched aghast from the shore. The heir to a legendary record-breaking family, Craig Arfons, also died when his Rain X Challenger lifted off the surface of a Florida lake, somersaulted and blew apart in 1989. Warby thinks his father's eye for detail was critical. "People from other countries thought 'If a guy can build one in his backyard in Sydney I can (too) with a few million dollars' - but they've really overlooked a lot of the basics." Like his father, Warby has built his own boat - the Spirit of Australia II - on a shoestring budget in suburban NSW. His workshop is in a corner of a hangar-like shed wedged between a rail line and a pub in Newcastle. He works as a disability case manager and spends his spare time in the shed. Tools, lights and workbenches line one wall and piles of scrap and spare parts - including a Rolls Royce Orpheus engine with 5000 pounds of thrust salvaged from an Italian jet fighter plane - are heaped alongside the other. But while other challengers have put money into afterburners, Warby has invested in a team that keeps meticulous log books and conducts safety checks with military-like obsession. "I don't think you can buy the team we've got," Warby said while rattling off the names of people who've helped do everything from wind-tunnel testing to corralling traffic at Blowering Dam. His dad is among them. As are retired RAAF elite Wing Commander Dave Applebee - who was in charge of a team of apprentices when Ken achieved his record - and Squadron Leader Phil Frawley who's a veteran pilot trainer. "We want to break the record three or four times unofficially before the (official) attempt," Frawley said. Warby adds: "We want it to be easy." Manly NRL player Dylan Walker has had his suspension lifted after he was found not guilty of assaulting his fiancee, Alexandra Ivkovic. The 24-year-old had charges of domestic violence-related assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault dismissed in Manly Local Court on Friday. The Manly Sea Eagles centre was charged after Ms Ivkovic initially told NSW Police that Walker pulled her by the ponytail to the ground while she was cradling a baby on the driveway of their northern Sydney home. She suffered grazes to her shoulder, leg and feet during the incident in December 2018. But Ms Ivkovic changed her story and steadfastly stuck to it, saying she'd overreacted and Walker had simply touched her shoulder to turn her around, accidentally grabbing her hair in the process. Magistrate Michelle Goodwin on Friday said Ms Ivkovic's unwavering commitment to the new version of events under "stringent cross-examination" couldn't be ignored. The NRL on Friday said it had lifted Walker's suspension following the verdicts, meaning he's likely to return to the field next weekend. A man is due to face court in Sydney on charges of negligent and dangerous driving causing death after a fatal crash which left 200 metres of the M4 sprawled with debris. Irish tradesman Francis Shanley, 36, was killed in the pile-up involving at least eight cars and a truck at the Church Street off-ramp in Mays Hill before 6am on Thursday. Police arrested a 53-year-old man on Friday night and charged him with dangerous driving occasioning death, negligent driving occasioning death, fail to stop and assist after vehicle impact causing death and two counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct. The Ropes Crossing man was allegedly driving a Toyota Echo that changed lanes on the motorway and then stopped, causing multiple collisions as a result. He was refused bail and is due to face Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday. Surrounded by family and women, Bill Shorten wanted to drive a stark contrast home as the Labor leader went head-to-head with the Liberal campaign launch. Female candidates flanked Mr Shorten as he rounded the home turn heading into Saturday's federal election at a campaign rally in his Melbourne seat of Maribyrnong. In another part of the Victorian capital, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was launching his party's campaign almost single handed. Mr Shorten celebrated his 52nd birthday on Mothers' Day, four days after he tearfully defended his mother Ann's story in response to accusations he omitted details of her life. "In the final sprint to the finish line the choice becomes clearer every day," he said on Sunday. Wages, action on climate change, health and education were central to his pitch. He also wanted to stress differences on infrastructure spending in Victoria, a key battleground where Labor is confident of making inroads. The opposition will splash $10 billion on the Suburban Rail Loop, a 90km rail ring around Melbourne with 12 new underground station's connecting the city's major train lines. The project will cost $50 billion in total and was a key policy that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews took to a devastating election win in November. Addressing the rally, Mr Shorten described the underground train system as the "mother of all infrastructure projects". That promise went up against the coalition's $4 billion pledge to build the East-West Link, a road which state Liberals took twice to elections without success. "We will finally defeat the proposition that to get anywhere else in Melbourne you have to go into the middle," Mr Shorten told party faithful. Labor's candidate for the blue ribbon seat of Higgins in Melbourne's east, Fiona McLeod, introduced the opposition leader with a brutal sledge to Scott Morrison. "I also want the next prime minister of Australia to know that he isn't an oxygen thief because the current bloke certainly is," she said. Mr Shorten described Higgins as "marginal" with polling showing the opposition is making headway in a seat the government holds with a 7.4 per cent margin. He also compared opposing frontbench line-ups. The Labor leader chided Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton who said last year Victorians were scared to go out to dinner because of African gangs. "I am reliably informed that tens of thousands of Melburnians were too scared to go out to dinner last night - in case they ran into Peter Dutton," he said. He also gave coalition ministers a whack for their absence during the campaign, zeroing in on Environment Minister Melissa Price. "With six days days to go, there is more chance of the Tasmanian tiger holding a press conference than the current minister for the environment," Mr Shorten said. He had the crowd laughing when he compared Labor's choice for deputy prime minister Tanya Plibersek with Nationals leader Michael McCormack. While the Liberal Party eschewed history at its launch on Sunday, Labor is doing the opposite in the final days of the campaign. The Labor leader will on Thursday give a speech in the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown at the same spot Gough Whitlam delivered his It's Time address in 1972. Scott Morrison has come bearing flowers and a vision for "the promise of Australia" as he seeks re-election this week. The prime minister spruiked a coalition campaign launch free from "party hoopla" and delivered on his commitment in spades. The typical trimmings were stripped bare in Melbourne on Sunday as Mr Morrison focused on selling his softer, human side directly to voters. Cabinet ministers were on hand to mingle with members of the blue shirt brigade, but past Liberal leaders were nowhere to be seen. Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and John Howard were all noticeable absentees. The low-key affair was less of a traditional campaign launch than it was the Scott Morrison Show. And the prime minister focused primarily on his personal life during his unusual Mothers' Day family outing. He and wife Jenny talked about how they met, his "terribly unromantic" marriage proposal, and their 14-year struggle to fall pregnant. Their two young daughters spoke in a video of his penchant for cooking bolognese and boiled eggs. Mr Morrison choked back tears talking about his disabled brother-in-law. The family took to the convention centre stage alongside the prime minister's mother Marion. Mr Morrison presented his mum and wife with big bunches of flowers before wrapping his arms around each of his daughters. His election pitch was more of a values statement, countering accusations his campaign has lacked vision. "It is my vision for this country, as your prime minister, to keep the promise of Australia to all Australians," he told the party faithful. Looking to the future, the prime minister shared lessons from his past. "Life's about what you contribute not what you accumulate," Mr Morrison said. "It's about serving others, because in life, it's people that matter. "My family story is not uncommon. Australians quietly going about their lives with simple, decent, honest aspirations." Two of his ministers made brief contributions, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cracking jokes and Nationals Leader Michael McCormack giving a stump speech. Junior minister Sarah Henderson also got laughs for stealing one of his favourite gags. "Ladies and gentlemen, how good is Scott Morrison?" But the prime minister soaked up most of the spotlight as he tries to shape the election into a presidential-style race between himself and Bill Shorten. Mr Morrison announced plans for a new loan deposit scheme to help first home buyers into the market. There was also extra money for new parents to undergo peri-natal depression checks. "This is a cause close to our family, as it has hit close to home. Too many parents suffer in silence," he said. His speech started off on a positive note, before switching gears to attack Labor's "tax and spend" agenda. "I'm not getting into a spend-a-thon with Labor," he declared. Dozens of anti-Adani protesters gathered outside, clanging metal drums and chanting their opposition to the central Queensland coal mine. Inside the auditorium, Mr Morrison also committed $4 billion towards the scrapped East-West Link road project, as the coalition tries to sandbag a handful of Victorian seats. Labor is growing increasingly confident of winning five key Victorian contests, including in the blue-ribbon seat of Higgins, held by retiring minister for women Kelly O'Dwyer. The prime minister's pitch wrapped up the same way it began, surrounded on stage by the four main women in his life. A man mistaken for a car jacker may lose the use of his arm after he was seriously injured during a botched police raid in Melbourne. Nik Dimopoulos was arrested outside a bookshop on Johnston Street in Fitzroy around 2.30am on Saturday after police tracked a stolen car. "The man police arrested was mistakenly identified as the suspect police were searching for that had fled the stolen vehicle nearby," a Victoria Police spokeswoman said on Sunday. The stolen car was allegedly involved in a home invasion and car jacking, and was spotted speeding on the Eastlink before it was tracked to an address in Fitzroy. But bookshop owner Rowland Thomson said on social media at no stage did police identify themselves or what they were doing. "They just stormed into a dark room shining torches and it was impossible to identify them as police," he wrote on Facebook. The injured man had his hands tethered behind his back "way beyond what can be endured", he said. He may lose the use of his left arm and would have to undergo surgery, according to Mr Thomson. Premier Daniel Andrews said his government was reaching out to Mr Dimopoulos and his family to offer their support. "It would have been terrifying, he's obviously got serious injuries and I want to assure every Victorian he's getting the very best of care," Mr Andrews said on Sunday. "We will look very closely at what has happened." The police has acknowledged the distress the situation caused the victim and an investigation is underway into the incident, a Victoria Police spokeswoman confirmed. Three men and a woman have been charged with drug supply at a Sydney music festival. Police say another 32 people were charged with drug possession and eight were issued drug criminal infringement notices at the Midnight Mafia Music Festival at Olympic Park on Friday. A 30-year-old man and 26-year-old woman were arrested at the festival after allegedly being found in possession of 26 MDMA capsules and cash. Police allege a subsequent search of a vehicle parked outside the event revealed another 50 capsules. The Blacktown man was charged with three counts of supplying a prohibited drug and knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime, while the West Wollongong woman was charged with two counts of supplying a prohibited drug and knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime. A 24-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were also charged with drug supply after they were each allegedly found in possession of MDMA capsules. The older man was also charged with knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime. Another man, 38, was charged with knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime after he was allegedly found with $41,000 cash. Police say 165 festival-goers sought medical treatment at the event with paramedics taking nine people to hospital, six of those for drug-related issues. A South Australian Senate candidate is pushing to end business class travel on short-haul domestic flights. The proposed legislation would see all see candidates, elected MPs and Senators only book economy class airfares for domestic flights of two hours or less paid for with taxpayer funds. Centre Alliance Senate candidate Skye Kakoschke-Moore launched her Business Class Boycott Campaign on Sunday. If elected, Ms Kakoschke-Moore wants all federal candidates to commit. She said the "common sense" move would save taxpayers millions of dollars. "In 2018 nearly $12 million was spent on domestic airfares by federal politicians," Ms Kakoschke-Moore said. "Before essential community services are asked to make do with less, politicians should look inwardly to see where they can reduce their own spending." She said the proposed business class booking ban would not apply to overseas travel on official parliamentary business. Scott Morrison is targeting first home buyers and "quiet Australians" as he centres his re-election pitch on the aspirations of ordinary families. The prime minister focused heavily on supporting people going about their lives with "simple, decent aspirations" while launching the coalition campaign in Melbourne on Sunday. Mr Morrison drew from his own story, and those of people he has met on the campaign trail over the past four weeks, in a speech to hundreds of Liberal Party members. He spoke at length about the "promise of Australia" while outlining his values statement. Mr Morrison shared a lesson from his parents while making his pitch to voters. "Life's about what you contribute, not what you accumulate," he said. His speech opened with largely positive tones before switching gears to hit out at the opposition. "I'm not getting into a spend-a-thon with Labor, they're welcome to it," Mr Morrison said. "Reckless spending is not a vision, Australians. It's a burden on current and future generations. So I say to Australians, do not allow Labor's reckless spending to start." The prime minister announced a scheme to give first home buyers help with their deposits if he is re-elected on May 18. First home buyers would only need to save five per cent of the purchase price - down from 20 per cent - with the government underwriting the balance. Buyers would also save about $10,000 by not having to pay lenders mortgage insurance. "The support would stay in place for the life of the loan," Mr Morrison said. "They've got their first leg on the first rung of the ladder." Mr Morrison also pledged money for new parents to receive peri-natal depression checks. His wife Jenny and their daughters, Abbey and Lily, along with his mother Marion, joined him on stage at the the Mother's Day event. The four main women in his life introduced the prime minister to the crowd after a video presentation focused on Mr Morrison and his family was played. "They are the women in my life. I couldn't love them or if I tried. And they couldn't love me more if they tried," he said. Earlier, Liberal MP Sarah Henderson, who is fighting to hold onto her Victorian seat of Corangamite, was chosen to introduce the prime minister. "Ladies and gentlemen, how good is Scott Morrison," she told the laughing crowd, borrowing one of his favourite catch phrases. Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg received a standing ovation when he took to the stage, using his speech to hammer Labor for its platform of higher taxes. "This is no normal election. This is an election which will shape the future of our country," Mr Frydenberg said. "So this election, on 18 May, the choice for 25 million Australians could not be clearer. "Vote for Scott Morrison and the coalition government for a stronger economy and a brighter future." Nationals Leader Michael McCormack was also on hand to talk about the coalition's "plan, passion and positivity" to serve another term in government. Mr McCormack described the prime minister as a man who "gets things done" and cuts through the bureaucracy, highlighting his efforts on tackling the drought. Former prime ministers John Howard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull were noticeable absentees at the launch. But outside the convention centre, anti-Adani protesters were on hand to rally against the controversial coal mine project in Queensland. Police have arrested a 26-year-old man on NSW's north coast over a violent death on the Gold Coast. Dre Nova, 38, was found with serious upper-body injuries at a Surfers Paradise home at 5pm on Friday, and was dead by the time emergency services arrived. About 5.10pm on Sunday, NSW Police officers arrested a 26-year-old Queensland man in a car park on the Pacific Highway in Coffs Harbour. The man is due to appear before the Coffs Harbour Local Court on Monday where Queensland detectives will apply for his extradition. Earlier on Sunday, Gold Coast police said they believed a 26-year-old man wanted for questioning over a violent death may be in NSW. Acting Detective Inspector Matthew Ward said he was known to the victim, and was at the property around the time of the incident. "He will be able to contribute significantly to us developing a greater understanding of the injuries which were sustained to Dre Nova," he said. A post-mortem was being carried out on Mr Nova's body on Sunday. First home buyers will get government support with their 20 per cent house deposit whoever wins the federal election on May 18. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a new scheme at the Liberal election campaign launch in Melbourne on Sunday that will mean a home buyer would only have to save for a five per cent deposit. Labor was quick to steal his thunder, saying it will match the plan. Mr Morrison said a similar scheme had been successfully running in New Zealand for a number of years. Under the plan, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation - which Mr Morrison established when he was treasurer - would guarantee the difference between five per cent of the purchase price and the 20 per cent deposit. "This will make a big difference," Mr Morrison told the party faithful on Sunday. "Cutting the time taken to save for a deposit by at least half and more." Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said Labor would match this commitment. "After six years of failure, and six days before an election, the Liberals are desperately trying to tell young Australians they understand their struggles to buy their first home," Mr Bowen said in a statement. He said first home buyers knew the Liberals were out of touch and were only for the top end of town. "We back genuine support for first home buyers - that's why we are also reforming negative gearing for future purchases, so young Australians don't have to keeping losing out to wealthy property speculators," he said. The Property Council said the deposit plan was a "smart proposal" and will provide some confidence for the housing construction sector. "It will deliver some welcome assistance for aspiring first home buyers who have been confronted by the ever-increasing size of the deposit required to buy a home as the market has risen in recent years," the council's chief executive Ken Morrison said in a statement. The prime minister said the plan would allow singles earning less than $125,000 a year and couples earning less than $200,000 a year to get into the housing market for the first time. "The support would stay in place for the life of the loan," the prime minister said. "They've got their first leg on the first rung of the ladder." To boost competition the scheme would give preference to smaller banks and the non-bank lenders, who will still do the normal checks on the borrowers to make sure they can meet their repayments. "This isn't free money," Mr Morrison said. The scheme, which would start next year, would run alongside the government's first home supersaver scheme and other state-based initiatives. Mr Morrison had another dig at Labor's plan to limit negative gearing to new properties and doubling capital gains tax. "I'll tell you what we won't do, what we won't do is undermine the value of the home you have saved so hard to buy," he said. Scott Morrison didn't so much launch the Liberal campaign as launch his own personal mission to tell Australia about him. The sparse campaign launch was in Melbourne, a troubled city for the Liberals after an internal war between conservative factions. Just two of Morrison's cabinet ministers featured - Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cracked jokes and Nationals leader Michael McCormack gave a stump speech. Instead the prime minister featured heavily on his own and with his wife Jenny. She has featured more and more in the campaign as the coalition bids to show voters the softer, human side of the nation's leader. The couple talked in a video about how they met, Morrison's"unromantic" marriage proposal, and their 14-year struggle to have children. The big policy announcement was a plan to underwrite housing deposits so banks can more easily lend 95 per cent mortgages to first home buyers. But the main thrust of the launch was selling Morrison the dad, the husband, and the leader. The contrast with Labor's launch was stark. Labor had arch-enemies Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd walk in together to show the party's unity. There were no former Liberal prime ministers willing to bury the hatchet in Melbourne. The entire Labor front bench was on stage in Brisbane last Sunday to show off Bill Shorten's united team, but Morrison's team were firmly planted in their front-row seats. On Mothers' Day, Morrison made special mention of the record seven women in his cabinet to highlight his track record of promoting women. But the only female MP who spoke was junior minister Sarah Henderson. Labor had deputy leader Tanya Plibersek and foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong. In a Morrison-centric launch the Liberals doubled down on what they see as their major advantage over Labor - the battle between the two leaders. Where Shorten can point to his unified and diverse team, Morrison is hoping voters who dislike the Labor leader will stick with the Liberals instead. But the launch lived up to its billing as a low-key affair to let voters know who Morrison is. He'll find out in six days whether they like what they see. Expanding Chinese maritime power in the Pacific and Indian oceans has caused a fundamental rethink of Australia's relationship with India and Indonesia, which analysts say will foster closer military ties and lead to increased naval deployments. However, all three countries are going to go to the polls in the first half of this year, Australia on May 18, India's month-long poll will end on May 29 while Indonesian President Joko Widodo won a second term in April, though his new government will not be sworn in until October 1. Mohan Malik, of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies, said new governments would be tested by two strategies; a trilateral relationship between Australia, India and Indonesia, or the Indo-Pacific strategy which also includes the US and Japan. He said Australia and Indonesia were the "quintessential Indian-Pacific powers" "Indonesia wants to be a global maritime fulcrum,"Malik added. "How it can play that role is open to question, it's a lofty concept." Each strategy would require increased military spending on both sides of Australia, joint-patrols, and more naval exercises like the Indo-Pacific Endeavour 19; an Australian-led deployment with India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Australia has already signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Indonesia, which is expected to ink a similar pact with India later this year, after announcing their joint-development of a 40 metre-deep port at Sabang on the northern tip of Sumatra. India is also bolstering its eastward reach across the Andaman Sea and expanding military facilities at Port Blair, including new airstrips. "That sends a very strong signal to China," Malik said. Beijing deeply upset Jakarta by claiming Natuna Island - long recognised as Indonesian sovereign territory -and has ignored its obligations under the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea and lost claims on islands held by The Philippines in an international tribunal. Its claim over Natuna Island prompted Jakarta to rename the southern maritime zone in the South China Sea as the North Natuna Sea. "They do see the South China Sea as potentially quite a dangerous flashpoint," Don Greenlees, a senior fellow with the Australian National University, said. "They've got their territorial problems there with China, north of Natuna, and so it's a bit of balancing act and I think it's the same balancing act, frankly, that everybody's trying to grapple with," he said. Through its Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese companies invested and lent heavily to countries that can ill-afford to repay, then seized their assets. Sri Lanka lost control Hambantota Port and Australia had to outbid China for control of a debt-trapped port in Fiji. Both ports are strategically important. Malik said the trilateral relationship was the easier option as it was underpinned by three regional powers with common interests and not tainted by US involvement, or its trade war with China, an important issue with the Indo-Pac strategy and for the prospects of expanding it. "Other countries are torn between China and the US," he said. Smaller regional countries fear risking Chinese investments if they side with Indo-Pac, widely seen as a maritime policy designed to counter Beijing's maritime ambitions, and that includes Indonesia, which is reluctant to offer support for the strategy publicly. "What is very off is the security orientation or connotation that this concept has acquired under the US-Trump administration; free and open Indo-Pacific, which is seen as putting countries on notice in terms of choosing sides," Malik said. The 10 countries that make-up the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN) are also divided over how to handle China. Cambodia, a Chinese economic dependent, has backed Beijing's maritime claims where disputes have also festered with Vietnam, The Philippines, and Malaysia. Wary of falling into another debt trap, newly elected Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad even cancelled $A25.13 billion worth of Chinese projects. But Brunei, also a claimant, and landlocked Laos, which has a say in the ASEAN diplomatic arena, are beneficiaries of Chinese largesse and have been notably quiet on the hotly disputed waterways that extend north to Japan, the two Koreas and Taiwan. Greenlees said a balance had to be struck "between the economic opportunity presented by China and minimising the risk that might go along with that." "It's not an easy one for anybody to resolve," he said. "And it's difficult to find the right formulae when nobody completely knows what China is going to do. It's quite possible China hasn't decided how far it's going to push things." In Australia it's an issue that both sides of the political divide have been criticised for ignoring during the election campaign, but Greenlees added Indonesia was quietly trying to pursue "the same strategy Australia is trying to engineer". His sentiments were backed by Kevin O'Rourke, an analyst with PT Reformasi Info Sastra which analyses politics and policies in Indonesia. He said the Indonesian economy would remain Jokowi's top priority and that he was reluctant to risk potential Chinese investment. But foreign minister Retno Marsudi and her bureaucracy have been solid proponents "of efforts to discuss the Indo-Pacific strategy". "That inclination for an Indo-Pacific strategy is going to continue." A police officer has been hospitalised after being stabbed in the neck with scissors at a shopping centre in Brisbane's south. Police allege two officers were attempting to speak with a man in Inala about 2.10pm on Sunday when he picked up a pair of scissors from a shop bench nearby. The man swung them at the officers and a male acting senior constable was struck and stabbed in the neck and shoulder area, police say. The second constable tasered the man who was momentarily incapacitated before running off. She provided first aid to her colleague before he was treated by Queensland Ambulance Service and taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition. About 3.15pm, police attended a home in Inala after a call alleging a man was armed with a shovel, attempting to steal a car and threatening the occupants of a house. It's alleged the man threatened officers and was taken into custody after a Taser was deployed. The occupants of the house were uninjured. The grieving family of a Sydney apprentice crushed to death by scaffolding has called for the introduction of "Christopher's Law". In April 18-year-old apprentice Christopher Cassaniti was crushed to death after 15-metre high scaffolding collapsed on him and a co-worker at a construction site in Macquarie Park. Paramedics were initially unable to reach the formworker who was trapped under rubble. He was pronounced dead at the scene a few hours after the incident. His mother Patrizia Cassaniti told 60 Minutes on Sunday night that her son's lungs were crushed and he died of asphyxiation. When she was told her son had died, Ms Cassaniti said she was in denial. "I just screamed, because I thought, it's not possible that he has died," she said. His father Rob Cassaniti said viewing his son's body was "the toughest thing I've ever done". "He still looked beautiful...But as a parent you don't want that, you don't want to see that, but unfortunately, we had to," Mr Cassaniti said. Earlier in May, the couple called for harsher punishments for employers whose employees die in industrial incidents. Workers in the construction industry are calling for uniform industrial manslaughter laws, 60 Minutes reported on Sunday. "I promise you to continue until it's done because Christopher and all the others that have died on job sites will not have died in vain," Ms Cassaniti said in footage shown by 60 Minutes. "It's just going to be a law, and I'm going to call it Christopher's Law," she said. The circumstances of his death are being investigated by SafeWork NSW and police. Scott Morrison is confident his plan to make it easier for some Australians to buy their first home won't backfire by inflating house prices. "I don't buy that at all. What I know it will do is help first home buyers get into the market," the prime minister told Nine's Today on Monday. Under the new home deposit scheme, the government would offer loan guarantees for one in 10 eligible first home buyers, allowing them to buy properties with deposits of just five per cent, at a cost of $500 million. Labor has committed to matching the plan, blunting the prime minister's pitch on housing affordability. Mr Morrison is eager for people to know that Labor wants to scrap another scheme that helps people save for their first home by withdrawing voluntary contributions to their superannuation "You can't support programs and then walk away from all the other things that makes it possible," he said in a live Facebook video. "It's fine for Bill Shorten to try and mimic us, but what he can't mimic is our ability to implement policy, design policy and do it in a way that doesn't increase taxes." The housing stoush comes as Labor remains in the box seat to win the federal election in five days' time, with Bill Shorten receiving a boost to his personal rating. The latest Newspoll shows the campaign race remains tight, with the coalition lifting its primary vote to 39 per cent. But Labor still leads by 51 to 49 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, with its primary vote also up slightly to 37 per cent. Mr Shorten has also closed the gap on Scott Morrison in the "better prime minister" stakes, The Australian reports on Monday. Just seven points now separate the pair, with the opposition leader lifting three points to 38 per cent and Mr Morrison falling back one point to 45 per cent. Some 17 per cent of voters remain undecided. "This will be a very close election all the way around the country," Mr Morrison said. Both leaders are campaigning in Sydney on Monday morning. The opposition leader is harnessing lingering anger with cuts in the coalition's 2014 budget as he heads into the home stretch. Five years after that budget went down like a lead balloon, Bill Shorten is honing in on its "savage" cuts, five days from Saturday's federal election. He said the budget locked in two terms of cuts to schools, hospitals, pensions and essential services. Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen also says the coalition is hiding a range of budget cuts it plans to make until after the election. So far the coalition hasn't explained how it will pay for more than 40 election commitments worth $6 billion, he argues, including funding it has offered for the East West Link in Victoria and Perth Freight Link. Queensland detectives will seek the extradition of a man arrested in NSW over the violent death of a man on the Gold Coast. The 26-year-old was arrested in a car park at Coffs Harbour on Sunday afternoon. Police had been hunting for him since Friday after Dre Nova, 38, died from serious upper-body injuries at a Surfers Paradise home. Queensland detectives will apply for extradition when the accused killer fronts the Coffs Harbour Local Court on Monday. Before the man's arrest police said they were hunting for Coskun Marius, who knew the victim and had been at the Gold Coast property where the victim was found. Torres Strait Islanders are going to the United Nations to accuse the Morrison government of breaching their human rights over its inaction on climate change. The group, who say they are losing their homes to rising seas, will on Monday lodge an official complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland. Their complaint argues the government's failure to adequately cut emissions and build defences such as sea walls has violated their basic human rights to life and culture. Environmental law charity ClientEarth is supporting the islanders' action. It says the complaint will be the first climate change litigation brought against the Australian government, based on human rights. It's also the first legal action worldwide brought by inhabitants of low-lying islands against a nation state, the charity says. "We're currently seeing the effects of climate change on our islands daily, with rising seas, tidal surges, coastal erosion and inundation of our communities," complainant and Sue Island resident Kabay Tamu said in a statement. Lead lawyer Sophie Marjanac says the complaint will demonstrate how climate change inaction is violating people's basic rights to live safely and in their ancestral homelands. "Australia's continued failure to build infrastructure to protect the islands, and to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, constitutes a clear violation of the islanders' rights to culture, family and life," she says. Eight islanders from four Torres Strait islands are making the complaint, and have also launched a petition demanding a series of commitments from the government. They want Australia to stop using and exporting thermal coal for electricity generation and achieve zero net emissions before 2050. They're also seeking at least $20 million for protective infrastructure such as sea walls and to help islands adapt so they can remain habitable. The Gur A Baradharaw Kod (GBK) Sea and Land Council is the peak native title body for the Torres Strait region. GBK chairman and Yam Island traditional owner Ned David says the rights of Torres Strait Islanders to their culture, homelands, history and future are on the line. "The Australian government needs to act, and quickly," he says. "We extend an invitation to Australia's next Prime Minister, whoever that is after this week's federal election, to visit our islands, see the situation for themselves and commit to protecting First Nation peoples on the climate frontline." An increase to Australia's family visa program could put more pressure on NSW hospitals, the state's treasurer says. Dominic Perrottet said NSW would be left to pick up the bill for federal Labor's temporary parents' visa. NSW Treasury modelling, published by the Australian on Monday, suggests more than 37,000 elderly parents of migrants could arrive in the state under a federal Labor government. "Federal Labor cannot leave state governments to pick up the tab for their expensive immigration policies," Mr Perrottet told the Australian. File picture of Thioune's supporters, called 'Thiantacounes,' protesting outside a Dakar prison in October 2012 to demand his release. The placard reads "Proud to be Thianta" A Senegalese court on Tuesday began the long-awaited trial of a religious leader and 21 disciples accused in the murder of two renegade followers seven years earlier. In a case freighted with repercussions, one of the accused is Sheikh Bethio Thioune, who leads a major group in the Mouride Brotherhood -- a Sufi order of Islam that wields great political influence in Senegal. The trial, unfolding over six sessions at Mbour, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Dakar, began amid tight security. The case turns on the gruesome killing on April 22, 2012 of two young men, whose badly-beaten bodies were found 800 metres (yards) from Thioune's home, in Keur Samba Laobe, western Senegal His followers are accused of brutally killing the pair at his residence and tossing their bodies in a shallow grave. Thioune was arrested the next day and was charged with accessory to murder. He was granted bail in February 2013. The murder has turned a spotlight on the role of charismatic leaders in Senegal, where 90 percent of the population are Muslim and many are members of the Mouride Brotherhood. His followers, known as "Thiantacounes" rioted in the streets of Dakar in October 2012. Human rights groups, as well as relatives of the accused who have spent years in pre-trial custody, have attacked the long time it has taken for the case to come to court. Twenty-two people are on trial, facing charges ranging from murder with acts of barbarity to criminal association, unauthorised burial and non-reporting of a crime. The victims, according to an autopsy, bore signs of violence caused by "sharp and blunt weapons and firearms." - Defence motion rejected - One of the defence attorneys, El Hadji Mamadou Ndiaye, said the sheikh had excluded one of the two murdered men from entering his home. The man, according to this account, had been accused of worshipping Thioune and even comparing him to God -- an act of sacrilege. He refused to obey the ban on entering the residence, which prompted Thioune's outraged supporters to kill him and one of his friends, the lawyer said. Thioune, a civilian office worker by profession, has 29 children. He has been charged with "failure to report a crime, being absent at the moment of the deed," which carries a penalty of between two months and three years in jail, and a fine of up to a million CFA francs ($1,700, 1,530 euros). He "vigorously contests" the charge, one of his lawyers, Moussa Sarr, told AFP before the trial. Defence lawyers asked for the prosecution of Thioune to be suspended, contending that he had left the country in January to receive "intensive" medical treatment in Bordeaux, France. Civilian plaintiffs said that medical claim was bogus. The judge dismissed the defence's motion, after prosecutors said the medical file had not been made available to them. Judge Thierno Niang said the court had not received a medical file from the defence and ruled that Thioune, believed to be aged around 80, be tried "in absentia." Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi talks to traders after the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange where the ride-hailing giant's shares slipped in their first trading session Uber shares skidded Friday in a disappointing Wall Street debut following a massive public offering from the global ride-hailing giant. After pricing at $45 for the initial public offering (IPO) -- translating to a market value of $82 billion -- Uber shares began the trading day lower, and closed with a loss of 7.6 percent at $41.57. The decline, in a volatile session for Wall Street, came amid doubts over Uber's path to profitability despite one of the biggest tech IPOs ever. The drop was a "big disappointment" and suggested lower demand than expected for a major name like Uber, said Matt Kennedy, senior IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital. Kennedy said that both Uber and US rival Lyft were lower on concerns about hefty losses at the ride-hailing services. "Silicon Valley may not care about losses, but Wall Street does," he said. Ross Gerber of the investment firm Gerber Kawasaki said Uber had been overhyped, despite concerns about its business model, and estimated Uber's value at no more than $60 billion. "I don't buy ride sharing and the current economics," Gerber tweeted. "Questionable employment practices. And an unsustainable pricing structure. We're passing on $uber and $lyft for now." Despite the staggering valuation, Uber dialed back some of its earlier ambitions for a value exceeding $100 billion after a rocky start for Lyft earlier this year. Lyft, meanwhile, slumped more than seven percent, bringing its shares down about 29 percent since its March debut. - NYSE fanfare - Top stock exchange listings by market value Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi and an Uber team rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange after the firm raised about $8.1 billion in the IPO. While Uber has lost billions since launching its first rides in 2011 in San Francisco, the company is aiming to develop a global brand that helps transform local transportation. Whether Uber can drive to profitability using this model as it disrupts traditional taxi and transport services is a key question. Daniel Ives at Wedbush Securities was upbeat on Uber despite the weaker-than-anticipated valuation. Ives said in a research note that Uber has "established itself as the clear number one player in the ridesharing industry and is paving a similar road to what Amazon did to transform retail/ecommerce and Facebook did for social media." - Risks to business model - The "Fearless Girl" statue, by sculptor Kristen Visbal, stands outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) ahead of the market debut for ride-hailing firm Uber Some of the risks surrounding Uber and its rivals were highlighted Wednesday as thousands of drivers turned off their apps in a US-wide strike over pay and working conditions. The strikes targeting Uber and Lyft highlighted a dilemma for rideshare firms, which have faced challenges from regulators and traditional taxi operators for using a business model relying on independent contractors. One group protested outside the New York Stock Exchange, some holding signs that read "Invest in our lives -- Not their stocks." "While we aim to provide an earnings opportunity comparable to that available in retail, wholesale, or restaurant services or other similar work, we continue to experience dissatisfaction with our platform from a significant number of drivers," Uber said in a filing with securities regulators. Drivers hold up a protest sign in front of the New York Stock Exchange to express displeasure over ride-hailing working conditions as Uber made its market debut In a securities filing on Thursday, Uber said it had reached an agreement with a large majority of the roughly 60,000 drivers contesting their status as independent contractors and who had instituted arbitration proceedings against the firm. The company anticipates the total cost of the individual settlements, combined with attorneys' fees, will fall between $146 million and $170 million. Uber maintained it was sticking to its plans on how it classifies drivers. "Our business would be adversely affected if drivers were classified as employees instead of independent contractors," the company said. Uber's IPO was underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and other large banks. - Sharing the future - Uber envisions becoming the "Amazon of transportation" in a future where people share instead of owning vehicles. If all goes to plan, commuters could ride an e-scooter to a transit station, take a train, then grab an e-bike or e-scooter to complete a journey using the Uber smartphone app. Uber is also taking to the sky with an Elevate project to have electric aircraft carry people between "skyports," taking off and landing vertically. Fake German heiress Anna Sorokin is led away after being sentenced in Manhattan Supreme Court following her conviction last month on multiple counts of grand larceny and theft of services A German-Russian fraudster who tricked New York high society into believing she was a wealthy heiress and stealing more than $200,000 was jailed Thursday for up to 12 years. Anna Sorokin, 28, a Russian truck driver's daughter who had been living in Germany, reinvented herself as socialite Anna Delvey on arrival in the US in 2016, spinning an elaborate back story she hoped would help her swindle millions of dollars. She had been convicted of multiple counts of grand larceny as well as theft of services, having conned several banks into granting her loans of tens of thousands of dollars. "Anna Sorokin committed real white-collar felonies over the course of her lengthy masquerade," District Attorney Cyrus Vance said after her conviction. New York judge Diane Kiesel passed a sentence of four to 12 years and ordered Sorokin -- wearing a somber but chic black dress and thick-framed glasses -- to pay a fine of $24,000 and restitution of nearly $200,000. Her scams began soon after her arrival in the US, as which she insinuated herself into high-rolling New York social circles. From November 2016 to August 2017, she managed to travel free of charge on private jets and lived for months at luxury Manhattan hotels without paying the bill, according to New York prosecutors. In one incident, the court heard, she skipped out on an $11,000 tab at The Beekman hotel in Manhattan after a 16-night stay. - Likened to Frank Sinatra - According to a first-hand account by a former Vanity Fair photo editor of Sorokin's financial manipulation, the fake heiress put on an emotional outburst to avoid paying for a 2017 stay at the five-star Moroccan resort La Mamounia. She also reportedly fleeced aviation company Blade when she reneged on the bill for a $35,000 private jet flight to visit billionaire investor Warren Buffett in Omaha. As she became more enmeshed in New York's elite, Sorokin focused on an ambitious project to open an upscale nightclub that doubled as an art gallery. She tried to borrow $22 million in order to launch it after convincing a powerful promoter to provide a venue on the prestigious Park Avenue. But it all came crashing down for Sorokin when she was indicted in late October 2017 for stealing "approximately $275,000 through multiple scams." "This defendant's alleged criminal conduct spans from check fraud to six-figure stolen loans and includes schemes that resulted in a free trip to Morocco and travel on private planes," Vance said at the time. At trial, Sorokin's attorney Todd Spodek likened her to Frank Sinatra, saying: "In a city that favors money and the appearance of money... they both created their own opportunities." "She was creating a business that she believed would work and she was buying time," her attorney argued. But his appeal ultimately failed to sway jurors, who convicted her in April. Campus News Call of the wild at UB Law Ruth Bader Gooseburg sits on her eggs in a concrete planter in the atrium outside the Cellino and Barnes Conference Center on the fifth floor of O'Brian Hall. Photo: Kim Diana Connolly By CHARLES ANZALONE Ruth Bader Gooseburg is not the only star on campus. Watch Dixie, UB's peregrine falcon, and her recently hatched chicks on UB's Falcon Cam . But that all changed when R.B. Gooseburgs eggs hatched Tuesday, according to Kim Diana Connolly, professor and director of clinical legal education and vice dean for advocacy and experiential education. Connollys responsibilities include serving as director of UBs Animal Law Clinic, whose offices are appropriately located adjacent to the atrium. The mothers daily activities which after the nest was spruced up, has primarily been to sit on her eggs waiting for them to hatch were streamed live for the first time this year on a Goose Cam set up by the schools Information Technology Department. Her every move was noted by the abiding and faithful father goose watching from above. Resident goose scholars from the law school point out that geese mate for life and typically return to places they have hatched eggs before. Goslings usually hatch between Day 25 and 28, they say. Ruth Bader Gooseburg, as she is now known in honor of the Aug. 26 visit to campus of U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, spent more than three weeks protecting her eggs in a concrete planter in the atrium outside the Cellino and Barnes Conference Center on the fifth floor of OBrian Hall, home of the law school. Theres a new episode in the ongoing balance between wildlife and life at UB: The Canada goose who returns to take up residence each spring at the School of Law now because of an upcoming internationally known guest has a catchy name. The atrium on the fifth floor of O'Brian Hall, which has served as the nesting spot for Ruth Bader Gooseburg for the past three years. Staff from the Wildlife Department of SPCA Serving Erie County use boxes to relocate Ruth and her goslings to Lake LaSalle. Ruth Bader Gooseburg and her goslings in the nest a concrete planter in the atrium outside the Cellino and Barnes Conference Center on the fifth floor of OBrian Hall. A team of experts from the Wildlife Department of SPCA Serving Erie County arrived at OBrian on Wednesday to quietly relocate mother and her goslings to Lake LaSalle, Connolly says. Ruth went through a similar move last year when she gave birth to babies in the same concrete planter outside the same faculty lounge. Its amazing, says Connolly, who because of interests and expertise in animal law and policy and administrative aegis has found herself one of the goose familys champions and a spokesperson. We have a terrific law school team that has brought food and water to the momma goose for weeks. Upon release, her goslings just go into the water. Depending on the weather, 1-to-2-day-old geese can walk, swim, feed and even dive. These animals typically go on to live between 10-24 years in the wild. The abrupt move from outside UBs Clinical Legal Education office to Lake LaSalle comes by necessity, according to Connolly, who points out that while UBs animal law clinic is one of a dozen experiential animal law courses across the country, students usually dont work on issues related to Canada geese. The babies need to be somewhere they can start eating and swimming and other things baby goslings need to do to grow and become healthy geese, Connolly says. They cant live in the concrete planter she is using. Thats not conducive to growing strong and healthy. Ruth Bader Gooseburg has some powerful friends. First, theres Aviva Abramovsky, dean and professor of law. Having the opportunity to see wildlife take refuge in the law school warms us all, says Abramovsky, who with the help of the schools great Information Technology Department, authorized the Goose Cam. The Deans Office also made the connection to what will be one of the years major events for the school and named the goose for its esteemed August guest. Life finds a way, she says. Its a teachable moment on human responsibilities to wildlife with which we share space and a planet. We are happy to have expanded our UB family to include these beautiful wild creatures, says Abramovsky, who told School of Law confidantes that her own mother watched the Goose Cam. Mama Goose, thank you for choosing O'Brian Hall year after year! Abramovskys stewardship joins with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which protects Canada geese and other water fowl. Anyone foolish or insensitive enough to harm these birds may be held liable under that law, Connolly says. This is the third year a goose that law school staff believe is the same one has chosen the OBrian concrete planter as her nest. The school heralded her arrival in a tweet on the UB Law Clinics Twitter page. Welcome to the @UBSchoolofLaws Goose Cam," where momma goose, Ruth Bader Gooseburg, is sitting on her eggs in the School of Laws 5th floor atrium and is due to hatch any time, the tweet announced. Ruth Bader Gooseburg is a Canada Goose. #goosecam2019 @UBuffalo http://goosecam.law.buffalo.edu. The geese certainly have been the subject of conversation at all levels of the law schools staff and hierarchy. Connolly and Abramovsky hope the word and lessons will spread. Its interesting when these birds, who many people view as pests, have a chance to demonstrate the start to their life cycle before our eyes, says Connolly. This committed couple found a safe place to build their nest, which happens to be in the law school atrium, and this week the goslings will quickly begin youthful activities in the lake on campus. To watch the gestation process in the midst of life in the law school puts some things in perspective, she says. People think its cute and fun; students, alums and wildlife enthusiasts have enjoyed watching our Goose Cam. It is graduation time here at UB, and just like our students, the goslings are about to leave and begin the next phase of their life. And then, the law school will almost certainly see a new group of goslings next year. Anna Sorokin is led away after being sentenced in Manhattan Supreme Court A New York judge handed a German-Russian woman who passed herself off as an heiress four to 12 years in prison on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Manhattan prosecutor's office said. Anna Sorokin, 28, was sentenced after her conviction for stealing more than $200,000 and attempting to make off with millions more. Sorokin invented a new identity upon her arrival in the United States in 2016, presenting herself as an heiress when she was in fact the daughter of a Russian truck driver who moved to Germany at the age of 16. Through clever lies and incredible self-confidence, Sorokin -- who went by the name Anna Delvey during the time she spent posing as an heiress -- received tens of thousands of dollars in loans from several banks. Members of the Yemeni pro-government forces (pictured November 2018) walk through destruction in an industrial district in the eastern outskirts of the port city of Hodeida, where Huthi rebels will begin a pullback Yemen's Huthi rebels will begin a pullback from ports in the flashpoint city of Hodeida on Saturday, the first practical step on the ground since a ceasefire deal was reached in December, the head of a UN redeployment committee said. The long-delayed withdrawal of rebel forces will be completed by Tuesday, General Michael Lollesgaard said in a statement. The redeployment of forces was agreed under the ceasefire deal reached in Sweden that offered the best hope in years of moving toward an end to the war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. Lollesgaard said he "welcomes the offer and intention" of the Huthis "to undertake an initial unilateral redeployment from the ports of Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa." A UN observer mission, also led by the Danish general, will monitor and report on the redeployment. The United Nations announced a deal on the two-stage pullback from Hodeida city and its ports in February, but the redeployment failed to materialize on the ground as the peace effort stalled. Map showing territorial control in Yemen as of May 8, 2019 UN diplomats said the Huthis had refused to pull back from the ports as part of the first stage, citing fears that forces linked to the Saudi-led coalition would move in to take over those facilities. Hodeida is the main entry point for the bulk of Yemen's imports and humanitarian aid, providing a lifeline to millions on the brink of famine. The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to push back an advance by the rebels, who continue to hold the capital Sanaa, and to restore to power President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The conflict has killed tens of thousands people, many of them civilians, relief agencies say. The fighting has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 24.1 million -- more than two-thirds of the population -- in need of aid. Since the Stockholm agreement, the United Nations has struggled to turn details of that deal into reality on the ground, and several deadlines have been missed. The US-Mexican border in Texas is to be bolstered with 57 miles of barriers The Pentagon said Friday it was diverting another $1.5 billion for new barriers to stop illegal immigrants on the US-Mexico border, following the authorization of $1 billion in March. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has agreed to take charge of the replacement of 78 miles (125 kilometers) of fencing on the southern frontier in Arizona and Texas, the defense department said in a statement. "The funds were drawn from a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements," spokesman Tom Crosson said. "This transfer of funds will not affect military preparedness, nor impact service member benefits." Frustrated by Congress's refusal to provide the budget he wanted to build a wall, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on the border in February, asking to repurpose $6 billion from military funds. In March Shanahan authorized $1 billion to construct 57 miles (92 kilometers) of 18-foot (5.5-meter) high barrier, improve roads and install lighting. The Pentagon has been under pressure to show it is not diverting the funds from combat missions or other vital work. Shanahan said some of the diverted money came from unspent funds in Afghanistan. "We found ways to do this without having any impact on readiness," he said, adding that "I won't be reprogramming any more money for the border wall." The USS Arlington (pictured May 2018), which transports marines, amphibious vehicles, conventional landing craft and rotary aircraft, will head toward the Gulf after intelligence reports suggested Iran was planning some sort of attack in the region The Pentagon announced Friday that it is deploying an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to bolster an aircraft carrier force sent to counter alleged threats from Iran. The USS Arlington, which transports marines, amphibious vehicles, conventional landing craft and rotary aircraft, and the Patriot air defense system will join the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a B-52 bomber task force headed toward the Gulf after intelligence reports suggested Iran was planning some sort of attack in the region. The deployment is "in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against US forces and our interests," the Pentagon said in a statement. "The Department of Defense continues to closely monitor the activities of the Iranian regime, their military and proxies," it said. A Patriot missile battery (pictured October 2012) will also be deployed "The United States does not seek conflict with Iran, but we are postured and ready to defend US forces and interests in the region." On Sunday US President Donald Trump's national security advisor John Bolton announced the deployment of the Lincoln group and bombers saying he wanted to send a "clear and unmistakable" message to Iran about any attack against the US or its partners in the region. Washington though has not elaborated on the alleged threat, drawing criticism that it is overreacting and unnecessarily driving up tensions in the region. Iran dismissed the deployment of the Lincoln as old news, but followed it with an announcement that it would suspend some of its commitments under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with major powers abandoned by Washington last year. Amid the rising tensions, Trump said Thursday he is open to talks with Tehran's leadership. National Security Advisor John Bolton (pictured May 1, 2019) said he wanted to send a "clear and unmistakable" message to Iran "What I would like to see with Iran, I would like to see them call me," Trump told reporters at the White House. "We don't want them to have nuclear weapons -- not much to ask," he said. Since 2017, fighting between government troops and anglophone separatists has killed hundreds and forced nearly 500,000 people from their homes Cameroon's main opposition party on Friday called for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all political prisoners, during talks with Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute on resolving the country's regional conflict with anglophone separatists. At the meeting in Bamenda, capital of the restive anglophone Northwest Region, Social Democratic Front (SDF) leader Ni John Fru Ndi also called for the appointment of a mediator for resolving the conflict "Everyone must be listened to. The SDF is for inclusive political debate on the crisis...," said SDF official Jean Robert Wafo. "We can listen to the secessionists without, however, agreeing to the principle," he said explaining that a "clear and unambiguous" against secession had to be taken. During Friday's discussion the federalist SDF recommended four measures to resolve the crisis, according to a party statement received by AFP. The federalist party called for "an immediate ceasefire" and the demobilisation of all separatist forces as well as "the immediate release of all political prisoners held as part of this crisis" as well as the naming of a mediator to prepare negotiations. Cameroon's President Paul Biya (C, pictured November 2018) is "ready to organise a formal dialogue to resolve the socio-political crisis," according to his prime minister On Thursday, Dion Ngute arrived in Bamenda with the message that the government was ready for dialogue to resolve the regional conflict with separatists, while stressing that independence was not on the table. He said President Paul Biya was "ready to organise a formal dialogue to resolve the socio-political crisis" while stressing that independence was not on the table. Since 2017, fighting between government troops and anglophone separatists demanding independence in the Southwest and Northwest regions has killed hundreds and forced nearly 500,000 people from their homes. English-speaking communities chafe at what they see as discrimination from the French-speaking majority. But the government rejects demands for autonomy and has dispatched thousands of troops in a crackdown. At the moment there are no channels for dialogue between the government and the rebels. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday that Cameroon authorities have regularly tortured and held incommunicado detainees arrested in the government's crackdown on the armed separatist movement. In October 2017, radicals declared the creation of the "Republic of Ambazonia," covering the two English-speaking regions incorporated into francophone Cameroon in 1961. The declaration went largely unnoticed outside Cameroon, and "Ambazonia" -- named after a bay at the mouth of the Douala River -- has been recognised by no-one. English-speaking communities in Cameroon chafe at what they see as discrimination from the French-speaking majority Dion Ngute was also due to visit the other anglophone region -- the Southwest Region. The separatist conflict has forced more than 530,000 people to flee their homes while 32,000 others have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria. The UN Security Council will hold its first meeting this month to discuss the country's separatist conflict. The French Pacific territory of New Caledonia is voting in local Congress polls, six month after a closer-than-expected referendum Voters in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia were casting ballots for their local Congress Sunday, with separatists hoping to win a majority. The ballot comes six months after a closer-than-expected referendum raised questions over France's grip on the strategic islands, which sit on a quarter of the world's known supplies of nickel, a vital electronics component. The November 6 referendum result showed 56.7 percent voted to stay French, a much tighter outcome than predicted. Turnout at midday (0100 GMT) on Sunday was 31.42 percent -- ten points lower than the referendum at the same time -- the High Commission said. However, it is higher than the 2014 provincial elections, which stood at 27.27 percent at the same point. Under a 1998 agreement, there can be two further votes on independence before 2022 in the archipelago located more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) northeast of Brisbane, Australia. In the outgoing local Congress, pro-independence factions held 25 of the 54 seats. Supporters of independence for the islands, fringed by stunning beaches, are mostly ethnic Kanaks who make up less than half the population of 269,000 people. White residents -- descendants of early European settlers as well as more recent arrivals -- overwhelmingly want to stay French. They are joined by other Pacific minorities. Last November's referendum was the culmination of the 1998 peace deal which followed a quasi-civil war between Kanaks and whites that left more than 70 dead in the 1980s. The "Noumea deal" has also paved the way for the islands to become increasingly autonomous, with wide areas of policy under the control of local authorities. Almost 170,000 people are eligible to cast ballots on Sunday, with more than 900 candidates running. There are 76 elected provincial representatives, 54 of whom will sit in the Congress. Voting is restricted to the "population concerned" with the archipelago's political future and requires electors to have been resident at least since 1998. US Secertary of State Mike Pompeo (R) will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to Russia with an unusual and thankless task -- standing firm against the rival power even as his boss, President Donald Trump, reaches out to reconcile. Pompeo will meet Tuesday with Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, in the highest-level US engagement with the Russian leader since a July summit in Helsinki after which Trump faced wide scorn at home for his trustful embrace of the Russian leader. The top US diplomat's trip comes less than two months after Special Counsel Robert Mueller wound up an investigation that found that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election -- but that the Trump campaign did not collude with Moscow. After spending the first two years of his presidency under the cloud of Mueller's probe, Trump chatted for more than an hour by telephone with Putin on May 3, in what he hailed as a "very positive" conversation. Trump said that Putin had assured him that Russia was not involved in Venezuela -- directly contradicting Pompeo and other top officials who for weeks have demanded that Moscow stop backing leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington is trying to topple. Venezuela is only one of a slew of issues where the United States and Russia have clashed. Others include the Syrian war, arms control commitments and the conflict in Ukraine, where Western powers have been attempting for five years to little avail to end Moscow's support for armed separatists. Jonathan Katz, a former US official focused on Central and Eastern Europe, believed that Russia was looking to see if the end of Mueller's probe would allow a new beginning with Trump, whom Putin supported over Hillary Clinton in 2016. US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a July 2018 summit in Helsinki -- a meeting that sparked deep criticism of the American leader "I think this is Moscow testing whether there is a new modus operandi in Washington, (after) the release of the Mueller report," said Katz, now a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Despite heading the US government, Trump is a major outlier in Washington, with virtually all senior administration officials including Pompeo and lawmakers across party lines advocating a harder stance on Russia, including sanctions over election interference and its 2014 takeover of Crimea from Ukraine. For Pompeo, "it's incredibly difficult because the interlocutors on the other side don't know who speaks for the United States," Katz said. - Progress sought on arms control - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) will meet with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just a week after their last tete-a-tete in Finland A State Department official said Pompeo, who will also meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the second time in as many weeks, would push for progress in particular in one area -- arms control. The New START treaty, which caps the number of nuclear warheads well below Cold War limits, is set to expire in 2021 and Trump has called for a broader successor that will include a rising China. Even Pompeo has acknowledged that those goals may be too optimistic. Another key accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, just collapsed, with the United States pulling out over charges that a new Russian missile system violated it. Despite deep rifts on many hotspots, the State Department official said that Russia and the United States, if not seeing eye-to-eye, had developed "constructive" relationships on Afghanistan and North Korea. "It is in our interest to have a better relationship with Russia," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "Where we have concerns, we're going to raise them directly, narrow those differences and find areas where we can cooperate to protect and advance our interests." One of the sticking points between the US and Russia is Ukraine -- here, Ukrainian army reservists take part in exercises near the village of Desna in December 2018 amid Russian support for armed separatists But Victoria Nuland, who championed a tough line on Russia as an assistant secretary of state during Barack Obama's administration, voiced doubt on whether hopes for a better relationship could be realized under Putin's increasingly autocratic rule. She said that a "lack of leadership, unity and consistency" in the United States was the greatest challenge to countering a resurgent Russia. "What we don't know, and what we have to continue to test, is whether Russian President Putin truly wants to improve relations," she recently testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It may well be that his psychology and leadership model are too dependent on an enemy abroad to change course -- and we have to steel ourselves for what may be a very long game that outlasts Putin." The toughening stances from China and the US showed they are both ready to play hardball to protect their national interests With or without a trade deal, US-China relations are destined to deteriorate as they enter an era of increasingly nationalistic rivalry in the diplomatic and economic arena, according to analysts. The United States faces a growing challenge to its lone superpower status from a Communist-ruled China whose global influence, military might and high-tech capabilities are rapidly rising. The toughening stances on both sides in their trade war showed that the two powers are ready to play hardball to protect their national interests. President Donald Trump followed through Friday on a threat to target all remaining Chinese exports with tariffs, then warned Saturday any trade deal would be "far worse for (China) if it has to be negotiated in my second term". Beijing said it would make no concessions on core principles, even as the two sides eye more talks. There are many other sources of tension ripe for flare-ups: US military aid to self-ruled Taiwan, Chinese territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, US criticism of Beijing's Belt and Road global infrastructure programme, and US security warnings against Chinese telecom champion Huawei. "US-China relations are continuing their steady deterioration, which I think is an inevitable consequence of national interests that are starting to overlap and bump into each other and cause friction," said Jonathan Sullivan, a China specialist at the University of Nottingham. "Despite the Trump wild card factor, I would suggest that the current trade war is a symbol of things to come." - Clash of civilisations - The downward spiral coincides with increasing top-level nationalism in both countries. Xi touts his "Chinese dream of national rejuvenation" -- a return to the nation's former glory -- which sounds like Trump's "Make America Great Again". The director of policy planning at the US State Department, Kiron Skinner, raised eyebrows last month when she described the rivalry as a "a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology." Skinner put it in racial terms, telling a security forum the China was first US "great power competitor that is not Caucasian". Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang hit back, calling it "absurd and utterly unacceptable" to look at bilateral ties "from a clash-of-civilisations or even racist perspective." Relations between the US and China will deteriorate further as their national interests collide, some experts say The trade war is stirring nationalist sentiment in China. "Objectively, trade war has unprecedentedly mobilized hostility between Chinese and American societies toward each other," the editor-in-chief of China's nationalist Global Times tabloid, Hu Xijin, wrote on Twitter on Saturday. "I am very worried the mutual hostility could spiral out of control, causing a big retrogression of the entire international relations." The trade war has made "many more people in China, not just the paranoid cadres, but a much broader swath of the elite and population realise or believe that America's goal is to keep China down," said Bill Bishop, publisher of the Sinocism China Newsletter. Beijing could attempt to harness nationalism in the trade war, he added, though it is a "double-edged sword" that could spiral out of control. "There's a pretty deep wellspring of anti-foreign, anti-American sentiment," Bishop told AFP, which could trigger consumer boycotts of US goods or even protests, like those that followed the 1999 US and NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. "We've yet to see any real significant news for boycotts of American goods," he said, "but that's something that's in the toolkit." - 'Key is high-tech' - The two countries are also locked in a battle for global influence, with Washington calling Xi's cherished Belt and Road Initiative -- a project to connect Asia, Europe and Africa via a network of ports, railways and roads -- a "vanity project". On the military front, China is rapidly modernising its army with big spending on aircraft carriers, stealth warplanes and other state-of-the-art weaponry. Even if China and the US sign a trade agreement, competition will remain "fierce and frequent", said Hua Po, a Beijing-based independent political commentator. "The US's concerns about China are well-founded," Hua told AFP. "Even though China is still a developing country, it is working hard to catch up to the US." China is rapidly modernising its army, spending big on state-of-the-art weaponry Technology has taken centre stage in the battle for economic supremacy. One company, Huawei, is in the middle of the skirmish as it seeks to become the global leader in ultra-fast 5G wireless technology. The United States has pressed Western allies to shun Huawei over fears that its equipment can serve Chinese intelligence services, and a top executive was detained in Canada on a US warrant over Iran sanctions violations. "The trade war has little to do with surplus and deficit," said Shi Yinhong, a professor at Renmin University's School of International Relations. "The key is high-tech," he said, adding that the trade dispute is also a way to "force China to change many parts of its economic system and industrial policies." Businessman Haji Yakup Burhan first tried Saudi Arabia, then the UAE but finally plumped for Turkey, where he runs a thriving kebab restaurant When Afghan businessman Haji Yakup Burhan fled the violence of his home country 30 years ago, he brought with him his family -- and all his money. He headed to Saudi Arabia, where he opened a restaurant but, as refugees, his children had difficulty getting into a school. Then he moved to the United Arab Emirates, but Dubai's costs seemed impossible. So, two years ago, he moved to Turkey and opened a restaurant in Istanbul's Esenyurt neighbourhood, taking advantage of the countrys relatively open business environment for refugees. "I have 15 people working for me in this restaurant. They are Afghans, Iranians and Turks. "I have invested about $120,000 (107,000 euros) in this restaurant so far," Burhan, 52, told AFP at his Afghan Kebab establishment. "Over 60 percent of our customers are Afghans living here. The rest are Arabs, Iranians and Turks," he said. Afghan refugee entrepreneurs appear to be increasingly finding success in Turkey, where they bring to the local economy, not only their savings, but sought-after know-how, whether in restaurants, commerce or skilled crafts and specialities. Mehmet Yasin Hamidi, an Afghan who heads a real-estate agency just outside Istanbul, says sales are soaring In turn, Turkey offers refugees simplified administrative procedures for setting up a new business. Turkey hosts nearly four million refugees, with Syrians making up the largest group, but Afghans number more than 145,000, according to Amnesty International figures released last year. Some people in Turkey view refugees as a burden, but a different picture emerges in Burhan's bustling Istanbul suburb, where refugees like him have made significant investment in the Turkish economy. - Citizenship investment - Inside Burhan's restaurant, a TV blares Afghan channels showing Turkish soap operas over the hum of customers eating the popular Afghan dish Qabeli Palaw -- rice with lamb meat and mixed with caramelised carrots, raisins and almond slivers. "We are the only Afghan restaurant in this neighbourhood for now," he told AFP, sitting cross-legged on a mattress, sipping green tea. To attract more investment at a time when the Turkish economy was struggling last year, the government in September slashed from $1 million to $250,000 the threshold at which Turkish citizenship is offered to foreigners buying property. Hadi Ekhlas, an engraver with a workshop in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar has plans to expand and teach his skills to Turks It sparked an 82-percent increase in foreigners buying real estate in the first quarter of this year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) said. Afghans likely account for a small percentage of this hike -- precise figures are unavailable -- but not all those fleeing the war-ravaged country are destitute. Mehmet Yasin Hamidi, an Afghan who runs the Royalist real-estate agency in Beylikduzu, on Istanbul's outskirts, told AFP that their sales of homes had doubled this year compared to the same period last year. "People cannot protect their lives and money in Afghanistan," Hamidi, who has lots of Afghans among his clients, said. "If you have money, you or your children could get kidnapped. The businessmen are threatened there. That is why they bring their money here." - Rare skills - Construction of new housing has exploded in Beylikduzu in recent years to meet a growing demand for real estate investment by foreigners. The Association of Housing Developers and Investors says that foreigners bought $4.6 billion of Turkish property in 2018 and the figure is expected to jump to $10 billion this year. Ekhlas' grandfather taught him to engrave Islamic and Ottoman scripts on gemstone rings and semi-precious stones Many refugees arriving in Turkey bring with them diverse skills and experience that allow them to make a contribution to the country's workforce. Hadi Ekhlas, an engraver from Afghanistan's Hazara ethnic group, left the war-torn nation eight years ago. He first went to neighbouring Pakistan to sell his skills. He then moved to Turkey, where he now engraves Islamic and Ottoman scripts on gemstone rings and semi-precious stones -- a skill he learned from his grandfather -- in Istanbuls Grand Bazaar, one of the world's oldest covered markets. "In the past, some Turkish traders would import stones with engravings from other countries, but now I am making them here and taking orders," Ekhlas told AFP. Ekhlas has a Turkish partner, who helps him with marketing, and runs one of the 42 Afghan shops in the Grand Bazaar. Jeweller and handicrafts expert Khalil Nuri has been based in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar for 12 years "I plan to expand my business in the near future. I'd also like to teach my skills to other Turks here," he said. In another corner of the Grand Bazaar, Khalil Nuri, an expert Afghan jeweller, sells rings, necklaces, pendants -- just about anything that can be found in Kabul's many curiosity shops. "I am a jeweller and an expert in handicrafts and I wanted to continue my profession here," said Nuri, who fled Afghanistan and has been doing business for the past 12 years in Istanbul. Meanwhile, Burhan said that he hoped his business continued to do well "because there are a lot of Afghans living here". "There are also people who want to give the taste of Afghan cuisine a try." Rana Nawas hosts the English-language podcast 'When Women Win', seeking to tell the stories of successful women from around the world Rana Nawas left the corporate world nearly two years ago to produce and host a podcast -- one that is now considered the most popular in the Arab world. The English-language series, "When Women Win", tells the stories of successful women from all over the world and, according to Apple, has become the most listened to podcast in the Middle East. It first gained traction in 2017 in Dubai, where it is produced, before it started to spread across the region. Nawas said she created the series "to give women all over the world access to role models" by highlighting the "extraordinary things" ordinary women are doing. "I've been surprised at how the region has embraced 'When Women Win'," the 40-year-old told AFP, adding aviation giant Emirates Airline would start airing her show this month. "There's clearly a thirst for this content, there's clearly a thirst for female role models," said the Briton of Lebanese and Palestinian origins. "When Women Win", which is available to download in 144 countries, is the most popular podcast even in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia, according to Nawas. "I've been... surprised that actually my biggest market is Saudi Arabia," said the former sales executive at an aviation company. "Everybody tells you (Saudis) only consume Arabic video content, so I was really delighted... to know that they also consume English-language audio content." Nawas, whose show is entirely self-funded, said she hopes to be able to draw financing from other sources. "It's not sustainable," she told AFP. "I am hoping in a couple of years, once I have the impact that I want... to start bringing investors on or bringing advertisers or sponsors on board." Nawas gets messages about the podcast from around the world via social media, including Instagram and LinkedIn, and believes the podcast will gain even more popularity. "I think the global future of podcasts is very positive, and the reason is people are not going to get less busy. We are only getting busier," she said. "We need ways to consume content where it is a secondary activity." She said most people listen to podcasts on mobile devices during their commute, or while cleaning or cooking. - 'Third-culture kids' - Like Nawas, Sudanese-born Omar Tom and friends created a podcast in 2016 that touches on topics they feel are neglected in traditional media. One such issue his English-language podcast -- the Dukkan Show -- focuses on is life in the Gulf for members of its huge expatriate population. In the show, the hosts chat to guests as if sitting in a dukkan -- or "corner store" -- where it is common culture in the Arab world to socialise with friends and neighbours. "I wanted to fight a couple of stereotypes," said Tom, 30, who is sporting a Made in Sudan T-shirt. "One was the Sudanese stereotype when I first started, which is the lack of representation in media, and if there is a representation it doesn't always speak for the diaspora or for the third-culture kids. "As Arabs we don't look so good in international and western media. So how do we tackle that? The only way to do that is to speak in a language that everybody would understand, which at the moment just happens to be English." - 'Here to stay' - Many young Arab people now prefer podcasts over traditional radio programmes. For Rami Baassiri, 26, podcasts allow him to be more productive and do two things at once. "There's a lot of downtime in my day, whether I'm commuting to work, driving, in the gym, in queues in the mall, at the airport, so I like to make use of that time," he told AFP. "I think of podcasts as radio on demand. "Radio ... is very random. Podcasts allow me to control the radio by choosing whoever I want to listen to, whatever I want to listen to." Reem Hameed, a Canadian who takes part in the Dukkan Show, said podcasts are "here to stay and in the Arab world". "We have, in the Arab world, an amazing tradition of radio. If you think about how deep radio and its history falls into the Arab world, podcasting is a natural, digital extension of that," said Hameed, 36, who is of Iraqi and Filipino origins. Podcasts have been spreading across the Arab region, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon. In Jordan, the platform Sowt -- or "voice" -- has aired an array of podcasts that touch on subjects ranging from politics to music since its launch in 2017. Hebah Fisher, chief executive and co-founder of Dubai-based network Kerning Cultures, the first venture-funded podcast company in the Middle East, said podcasts are the future. "Our seed round is a strong signal for the podcast industry in the Middle East: the medium is taken seriously, and its value for listeners and users is clear," she told AFP in an emailed statement. "Podcasting is the future of media." Police swept in quickly to break up an unauthorized LGBT rights march in Havana Cuban police on Saturday broke up an unauthorized pro-LGBT rights march in Havana, held as an alternative to the government-sanctioned Gay Rights parade that authorities canceled earlier in the week. To the cries of "Yes we can!" the demonstrators, several waving rainbow flags and carrying signs with slogans like "Diverse Cuba," managed to march a mere 400 meters along Havana's downtown Paseo del Prado before being dispersed by police. "Yes we can!" changed the LGBT rights activists on their brief unauthorized march in Havana The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists, numbering around 100, were protesting the cancellation of the parade against homophobia organized by the government's National Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex), an office under the Ministry of Health, and held for the past ten years. The colorful parade, or "conga," used to kick off activities educating people about homophobia and transphobia that are nevertheless taking place. Onlookers were stunned to see an unauthorized march in Cuba, where government control is near absolute At least three protesters who refused to obey orders to leave were arrested, according to AFP journalists. Laydel Alfonso, a 31 year-old restaurant waiter who marched with his face concealed by a silver mask and waving a rainbow flag, was upset that police had broken up the march. "I don't believe this is right because we're doing nothing wrong," he told AFP. In a first for Cuba, where there is tight government control, the march was organized on social media. Plainclothes Cuban police arrest at least three demonstrators at the LGBT march in Havana Cenesex is led by lawmaker Mariela Castro, the daughter of former president Raul Castro, who at the age of 87 is still first secretary of the island's ruling Communist Party. Earlier in the week Cenesex announced that the official march was cancelled due to unspecified "new tensions in the international and regional context." The office urged people to respect the official calls for unity. Lebanon's once influential former Christian Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir died on May 12, 2019 three days before his 99th birthday Lebanon's former Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, who wielded considerable political influence during the country's civil war and was an ardent advocate of a Syrian troop withdrawal, died Sunday, the church said. Sfeir, who was set to turn 99 on Wednesday, died at 3:00 am (0000 GMT) "after days of intensive medical care", said a statement by the Maronite church. He became the leader of the church in 1986 until he resigned in 2011 due to his declining health, and held the title "76th Patriarch of Antioch and the Whole Levant". He was a respected power broker during the 1975-1990 civil war, which saw bitter infighting between rival militias including opposing Christian factions. Sfeir, who spoke fluent Arabic and French, was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1994. Born in 1920 in Rayfoun, a village in Lebanon's Kesrwan mountains, Sfeir studied theology and philosophy but was never shy to delve into Lebanon's tumultuous politics. His backing of the 1989 Taif agreement that brought the 15-year civil war to an end bolstered Christian support for the accord, but reduced the powers of the presidency -- a seat reserved for Lebanon's Maronite Christians under the country's confessional power-sharing. Maronite Christians made up the most powerful single community prior to Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, but their influence has since waned as they have been outnumbered by Shiite Muslims in the multi-sectarian country. Sfeir also spearheaded the opposition to Syria's three decades of military and political domination over Lebanon. "His biggest struggle was to end the Syrian presence in Lebanon, which we all thought was impossible because of the divisions in Lebanon," his biographer Antoine Saad told AFP. "But he worked on it steadily, objectively, meticulously and quietly," he said. Sfeir refused to visit Syria during his time as patriarch, even when John Paul II made a trip to the country in 2001. His outspokenness helped swell the anti-Syria movement in 2000. It eventually lead to the withdrawal of thousands of Syrian troops from the country five years later, following the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose murder the opposition blamed on Damascus. Premier Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik, on Sunday called Sfeir a "national symbol" who had worked "to bring Lebanon back to its natural status as a free and independent sovereign country". The cabinet announced two days of national mourning set for Wednesday and Thursday. President Michel Aoun said Lebanon had lost one of its "most prominent patriarchs". After he stepped down, Sfeir's opinion and advice continued to be sought by politicians of all stripes, not only Christians. "He was completely against war," Saad said of the cleric who enjoyed hiking in nature until his late years. "His loss can't be compensated for." Israel reopened both the Erez crossing for people and Kerem Shalom crossing for goods which had been closed since May 4 Israel reopened Sunday its crossings with the blockaded Gaza Strip after closing them during a deadly escalation earlier this month, an official said, as a fragile truce held. Both the Erez crossing for people and Kerem Shalom crossing for goods were open and operating, a spokeswoman for COGAT, the defence ministry unit that oversees the crossings, said in a statement. Both had been closed on May 4, when Gaza rulers Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, with the army striking dozens of targets in Gaza in response. Four Israeli civilians and 25 Palestinians, including at least nine militants, were killed in the two-day flare-up, which ended on Monday in a tentative truce. Palestinian officials said Israel had agreed to ease its crippling decade-long blockade of the impoverished enclave in exchange for calm. Israel did not publicly confirm the deal, but on Friday lifted the ban it had imposed on Palestinian fishing boats operating off Gaza. Israel says its blockade is necessary to isolate Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas, with whom it has fought three wars since 2008. But critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza's two million residents. Sri Lankan Catholic attend mass at St. Theresa's in Colombo as Catholic churches held services again Thousands of Catholics attended mass in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo Sunday amid tight security to prevent a repeat of Easter bomb attacks that killed 258 people. Soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles guarded St. Theresa's church at Colombo's Thimbirigasyaya residential quarter, while members of the congregation were searched for explosives. The sprawling church car park was empty as the authorities did not allow any vehicles into the compound as part of high-level security. The government has blamed local jihadists for the deadly April 21 bombings, which targeted three Christian churches and three luxury hotels. Regular services were cancelled across all churches soon after the deadly suicide attacks, but the archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith announced Thursday that mass would be held in his diocese from Sunday. The Cardinal conducted private Sunday services in the past two weeks, which were broadcast live on national television. The archbishop of Colombo held a special Mass for the victims and survivors of the Easter Sunday attacks He also said a special mass for the victims of the April 21 attack at the St. Lucia's cathedral on Saturday. The congregation was made up of relatives of victims and survivors of the Easter Sunday attacks. At least 258 were killed and nearly 500 people were wounded. Most churches outside Colombo had resumed regular services from last week, but under tight security provided by the local police. Catholic private schools which remained closed after the Easter holidays will now reopen on Tuesday, church officials said. All state-run schools -- more than 10,000 in total -- resumed classes last week after police and security forces deployed armed guards. But attendance has been low despite a raft of new security measures, including parking restrictions near schools. Soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles guarded St. Theresa's church in Colombo, while members of the congregation were searched for explosives The government has blamed a local group, the National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), for the bombings. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility and the bombers filmed themselves making a pledge of allegiance to the militants' elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before the attacks. The authorities have banned the NTJ under new emergency laws that were invoked to deal with Islamists responsible for the attacks. President Maithripala Sirisena has vowed to eliminate the militants and restore normality in the country which is still emerging from a 37-year Tamil separatist war that ended almost a decade ago. Sri Lanka's police say they have either killed or arrested all those responsible for the bombings but that the threat of global terrorism persists. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (L) will also take visit Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu which are under threat from rising sea levels UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres launched a brief South Pacific tour in New Zealand Sunday, warning the world was "not on track" to limiting global temperature rises. In a strong message for action on climate change, Guterres said international political resolve was fading and it was the small island nations that were "really in the front line" and would suffer most. His visit, ahead of the Climate Action Summit in September in New York will also take him to Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu which are under threat from rising sea levels. "We are seeing everywhere a clear demonstration that we are not on track to achieve the objectives defined in the Paris agreement," Guterres said on the failure to limit rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial revolution levels. "And the paradox is, that as things are getting worse on the ground, political moves seem to be fading," he added in the joint press conference in Auckland with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. However, he did excuse New Zealand from his accusation, describing Wellington's leadership as "extremely important" after it introduced legislation to become carbon neutral by 2050, although greenhouse gas emissions from its economically vital agricultural sector will not have to meet the commitment. Ardern called climate change "the biggest challenge" facing the international community and said it would be "gross negligence" to avoid the issue. During his three days in New Zealand, Guterres will also meet with Muslim leaders in Christchurch to show solidarity following the March 15 massacre in which 51 people were killed by a lone gunman who attacked two mosques during Friday prayers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party won 35 seats in the April 9 general election and was tasked by the president to form a new government Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he would ask President Reuven Rivlin for more time to form a new coalition government, citing recent holidays and the Gaza flare-up. Netanyahu's Likud won 35 seats in the April 9 general election, with most party chiefs represented in the 120-seat parliament recommending that he forms the next governing coalition. On April 17 Rivlin formally tasked him with the mission, which by law needs to be completed within 28 days -- although a 14-day extension is automatically granted upon request. "As in past instances of forming a government, I intend on asking an extension from the president," Netanyahu said in the opening remarks of the weekly cabinet meeting. "Such an extension is not only acceptable but also required due to scheduling problems," he said citing a busy holiday season, including Passover and Israeli Independence Day, as well as the Gaza flare-up. On May 4, militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, prompting the army to striked dozens of targets inside the blockaded coastal enclave in response. Four Israeli civilians and 25 Palestinians, including at least nine militants, were killed in the two-day flare-up, which ended on Monday in a tentative truce. Netanyahu has been conducting low-intensity meetings with heads of the parties expected to join his coalition. It is expected to include the 16 members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, the far-right national religious union, Avigdor Lieberman's nationalistic Israel Beitenu and the centre-right Kulanu. Netanyahu's lawyers were meanwhile negotiating with the justice ministry when the premier's pre-trial hearings would take place. The attorney general announced in February his intention to indict Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust -- pending a hearing. Netanyahu is not required to resign if indicted, only if convicted with all appeals exhausted. Desperate for a better life and an economic future, refugees in Bangladesh including in particular teenage girls easily fall prey to human traffickers roaming in the overcrowded camps Twenty-three teenage Rohingya girls were rescued after being brought from refugee camps to the capital Dhaka to be sent to Malaysia by air, Bangladesh police said Sunday. Dhaka police also arrested four human traffickers including a Rohingya couple and recovered over 50 Bangladeshi passports from them on Saturday. Police spokesman Mokhlesur Rahman said they raided a residence in the northern part of the city and found the teenagers hiding in a room behind a tailoring shop. "They were promised jobs in Malaysia and brought from refugee camps in Cox's Bazar," he told AFP, referring to the Rohingya settlements in Bangladesh's southeastern coastal district. The girls -- aged between 15 and 19 -- could have been potential victims of forced prostitution, the official said. "We have filed cases against the four arrested persons and sent the girls back to their camps in Cox's Bazar," Rahman said. Abul Khair, local police chief of Ukhiya, where Kutupalong, the largest refugee camp in the world, is situated, said he received the girls and would send them to their homes in the camps. Some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims fled a brutal military clampdown in Myanmar in August 2017 and arrived in Bangladesh to join another 300,000 already living in the refugee camps. Desperate for a better life and an economic future, the refugees including in particular teenage girls easily fall prey to human traffickers roaming in the overcrowded camps. Thousands of the refugees have risked their lives travelling to Malaysia and Thailand -- mainly by boat -- when the Bay of Bengal is calm before monsoon season sets in at the end of May. Bangladeshi authorities have stopped over 300 Rohingya this year alone from attempting such perilous boat journeys on rickety fishing boats. Many have also attempted to fly to Malaysia and Middle Eastern countries by procuring Bangladeshi passports and travel documents. Jishu Barua, an aid worker specialised in human trafficking prevention, said he dealt with 100 cases of human trafficking in the camps in the last six weeks. "But this figure represents only a small portion of what is actually going on," he told AFP. Yemen's Red Sea ports serve as an aid lifeline for millions in the impoverished country The United Nations said Sunday that a Yemeni rebel withdrawal from key Red Sea ports was proceeding as planned, after the government accused insurgents of faking the pullout. The port of Hodeida serves as a lifeline for millions in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, which has been pushed to the brink of famine by more than four years of devastating war. Yemen's government had accused rebels Sunday of a "policy of deception" after they announced the withdrawal in a long-delayed move agreed under a ceasefire deal last year. But the UN, which said it had teams monitoring the Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa ports, later reported that the pullout had gone "in accordance with established plans". It said the coastguard had taken over responsibility for security at the three sites after a Huthi rebel withdrawal that had begun Saturday. Government officials had earlier cast doubts over the handover process, saying it was unclear who was taking control of the ports. The pullback is part of a truce agreement for Hodeida brokered by the UN between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels in December in Sweden. The city's port is the conduit for the vast majority of aid and imports into Yemen. But experts said it was too soon to say if the withdrawal represented genuine progress. "The (Sweden) agreement is very difficult to execute because the lines are blurry and each side interprets it the way it wants to," said Yemen expert Farea al-Muslimi, a visiting fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank. "Overall, the next two weeks will show if this is a handover or a yet another hangover," he told AFP. - 'Theatrical play' - Yemen's information minister accused the rebels of faking the pullout. "What the Huthi militia did is a repeated theatrical play of handing over control of the port to its own forces (in different uniforms)," Moammer al-Eryani tweeted on Sunday. Conflict in Yemen "This shows its continued manipulation and evasion to implement the Sweden agreement... by adopting a policy of deception." Sources close to the Huthis said the ports were handed over to coastguard personnel who were in charge before the rebels took over Hodeida almost five years ago. Hodeida saw fierce clashes from June last year as pro-government forces surged up the coast into Huthi-held territory and briefly seized the city's airport. Faltering UN peace efforts interspersed by outbreaks of fighting left hundreds dead before UN chief Antonio Guterres in December announced a series of breakthroughs in Yemen peace talks, including a ceasefire for Hodeida. - 'Potential breakthrough' - According to Adam Baron, a Yemen expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, the Huthi withdrawal represents a "potential breakthrough". Hodeida port is the main entry point for Yemen's imports and humanitarian aid "That being said, it remains to be seen how significant it can truly be," he told AFP. "Trust between both parties borders on non-existent, something that continues to hamper any efforts toward deconfliction. "Even an implementation of the deal only signals progress on one part of the deal and one aspect of the conflict. It's key to remember that Yemen is not Hodeida and even amidst the relative calming there, the conflict continues to burn." The UN Security Council is due to hear a briefing on Hodeida on Wednesday -- a day after the rebel withdrawal is expected to be completed. Last year's deal was hailed as a breakthrough that offered the best chance so far of ending the war in Yemen, where a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is fighting on the government's side. But although the violence has largely stopped in Hodeida, there have been intermittent clashes and the promised redeployment of the warring parties away from the front lines has failed to materialise. A peace deal for the rest of the country also remains elusive. Members of the coastguard took part in the handover ceremony at Saleef port "The agreement in Sweden only stopped the fighting in Hodeida, the challenge is to turn it into an all-inclusive national agreement," said Muslimi. The military coalition led by Riyadh intervened in March 2015 when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into exile in Saudi Arabia after the rebels captured swathes of the country. Yemen's conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, many of them civilians, relief agencies say. The fighting has triggered what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 24.1 million -- more than two-thirds of the population -- in need of aid. Sudanese women prepare food to be served during the Iftar (breaking of the fast) at sunset during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as they protest outside the army headquarters in the capital Khartoum Sudan's army rulers and protesters are to hold fresh talks over handing power to a civilian administration on Monday, spokesmen for the generals and the protest movement said. On Saturday, the Alliance for Freedom and Change -- an umbrella for the protest movement -- said the generals had invited it for a new round of talks after several days of deadlock. "The meeting was planned for today but it has now been postponed to Monday," alliance spokesman Rashid al-Sayed said. Sayed did not explain why the talks were postponed, but sources in the alliance said that more time was needed for consultations within the leadership. Late on Sunday the spokesman for the ruling military council, Lieutenant General Shamseddine Kabbashi, confirmed the new round of talks will be held on Monday. The talks are being held in an "optimistic atmoshphere," Kabbashi said in a statement, adding that the negotiations aimed "to reach an agreement over the arrangements of the transitional period". The latest planned round of talks come as thousands of protesters remain camped outside army headquarters in central Khartoum. They say they are determined to force the ruling military council to cede power -- just as they pushed the military into deposing veteran president Omar al-Bashir on April 11. The army generals and protesters are at loggerheads over who will sit on a new ruling body that would replace the existing military council. - 'Totally unacceptable' - The generals have proposed that the new council be military led, while the protest leaders want a majority civilian body. Late last month, the alliance -- which brings together protest organisers, opposition parties and rebel groups -- handed the generals its proposals for a civilian-led transitional government. But the generals have pointed to what they call "many reservations" over the alliance's roadmap. They have singled out its silence on the constitutional position of Islamic sharia law, which was the guiding principle of all legislation under Bashir's rule but is anathema to secular groups like the Sudanese Communist Party and some rebel factions in the alliance. "We want to hold the talks quickly and sort out all these points in 72 hours," the alliance said on Saturday. Protesters meanwhile blocked the Nile street, a major avenue that runs along the river Nile in the capital, witnesses and the military council said. Witnesses said angry protesters blocked the avenue after police initially stopped them from going to the sit-in outside the army complex from that road. Groups of men and women then blocked the avenue using rocks, tree trunks and branches, witnesses said. The military council slammed the blocking of the avenue. "It is totally unacceptable what is happening on the Nile street as it creates chaos and makes life difficult for citizens," the council said in a statement. It also dismissed unconfirmed reports that security forces were trying to disperse the sit-in outside the army complex. "There are reports circulating on social media about the military council's intention to disperse the sit-in by force," it said. "We assure that this is totally false." A handout picture released by the United Nations Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA) on May 11, 2019, shows UNMHA Liaison and Coordination Teams at the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeida. The United Nations said Sunday that a Yemeni rebel withdrawal from key Red Sea ports was proceeding as planned, after the government accused the insurgents of faking the pullout. The first day of the redeployment by Huthi insurgents from the ports of Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa on Saturday "went in accordance with established plans," a UN statement said. "All three ports were monitored simultaneously by United Nations teams as the military forces left the ports and the Coast Guard took over responsibility for security," it added. Military equipment is expected to be removed in the coming days, while demining is also planned, the statement said. Formal verification of the first redeployment will take place at the three ports on Tuesday, according to the UN. Hodeida port serves as a lifeline for millions in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, which has been pushed to the brink of famine by more than four years of devastating war. The pullback is considered a first step in implementing a hard-won truce agreement for Hodeida struck in Sweden in December between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels. Yemen's information minister dismissed the rebels' announcement, accusing them of "a policy of deception." "What the Huthi militia did is a repeated theatrical play of handing over control of the port to its own forces (in different uniforms)," Moammer al-Eryani tweeted. The Pearl Continental, part of Pakistan's largest five-star hotel chain, is the only luxury hotel in Gwadar, frequented by foreign and Pakistani business delegations as well as diplomats Five people including a soldier were killed after gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the southwestern Pakistani city of Gwadar, the centrepiece of a multi-billion dollar Chinese infrastructure project, the military said Sunday. The soldier was among security forces who rushed to the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel after the attack on Saturday. During the attack "5 individuals got Shaheed (martyred) including 4 hotel employees and a Pakistan Navy soldier," the military said in a statement. One of the hotel staff killed was a security guard shot at the entrance. Six others were injured including four security service officers and two hotel staff members. The military said all three terrorists had been killed. Local police had earlier claimed there had been four attackers. A Baloch separatist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter. Prime minister Imran Khan said the attack was a bid to "sabotage prosperity". "Such attempts especially in Balochistan are an effort to sabotage our economic projects and prosperity. We shall not allow these agendas to succeed," Khan said in a statement issued by his office. The Chinese embassy in Islamabad also strongly condemned the incident. - 'The next Dubai'- The Pearl Continental, part of Pakistan's largest five-star hotel chain, is the only luxury hotel in Gwadar, frequented by foreign and Pakistani business delegations as well as diplomats. It sits isolated on a ridge overlooking the Arabian Sea port city that was formerly a small fishing village, but now touted by officials as "the next Dubai" thanks to the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Part of China's Belt and Road initiative, CPEC seeks to connect the western Chinese province of Xinjiang with Gwadar, with the development of the port as the plan's flagship project. Pakistani residents watch from a road the five-star Pearl Continental hotel Gwadar will provide China with safer and more direct access to the oil-rich Middle East than the waterway trade route it currently uses through the narrow Malacca Straits. But it has also drawn its share of attacks -- particularly from separatists who have long complained that residents of Pakistan's poorest and largest province do not receive a fair share of profits from its resources. The BLA has targeted Chinese workers in Pakistan multiple times, including during a brazen daylight attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi which killed four people in November last year. At the time, the BLA branded Beijing "an oppressor". Balochistan is tightly guarded by the Pakistani military, who have been targeting insurgents there since 2004. The army has been repeatedly accused by international rights groups of abuses there, but denies all allegations. The attack was the second deadly attack in a prominent Pakistan city this week, after a suicide blast claimed by the Pakistani Taliban at one of the country's oldest and most popular Sufi shrines killed at least 12 people in the eastern city of Lahore. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said international political resolve was fading and it was the small island nations that were "really in the front line" and would suffer most Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has kicked off a major United Nations push for progress on what he calls the defining issue of our time: climate change. Guterres travelled to New Zealand on Sunday, from where he is set to visit several Pacific islands where rising sea levels are threatening the very existence of those small countries. The stepped-up diplomacy will culminate with a climate action summit at the UN in September, an event billed as a last chance to prevent irreversible climate change, three years after the Paris agreement went into force. "We are seeing everywhere a clear demonstration that we are not on track to achieve the objectives defined in the Paris agreement," Guterres said on the failure to limit rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial revolution levels. In a strong message for action on climate change, Guterres said international political resolve was fading and it was the small island nations that were "really in the front line" and would suffer most. In Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, Guterres will meet with families whose lives have been upended by cyclones, flooding and other extreme weather events. Pacific island countries face an especially dire risk from climate change because of sea level rise. In some cases, low-lying countries could disappear completely. Fiji is working to build a coalition of more than 90 countries from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia facing climate crisis. "We hope that the secretary-general will draw far more inspiration from his first visit to go further, faster and deeper with the climate summit," Fiji's UN Ambassador Satyendra Prasad told AFP. "We are very hopeful that the climate summit will mark a turning point." - China: climate power - Kelly Knight Craft, who has been nominated to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations, raised eyebrows when she declared that she believed "both sides" on climate science Guterres on Sunday praised New Zealand's "extremely important" leadership on climate change -- Wellington has introduced legislation to become carbon neutral by 2050 -- but warned that international political resolve was fading. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, speaking at the joint press conference in Auckland, called climate change "the biggest challenge" facing the global community and said it would be "gross negligence" to avoid the issue. But the UN push on climate change is shaping up amid geopolitical shifts: the United States under Donald Trump has decided to pull out of the Paris agreement to combat global warming, giving China more space to assert its views. "The Trump administration's disdain for climate diplomacy has left China looking like the main guarantor of the Paris agreement," said Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group. "While China is increasingly active across the UN, other states are suspicious of its stances on human rights and development. But it is the indispensable power in climate talks now." Trump announced in 2017 that the United States would exit the Paris agreement, but under the terms of the deal the withdrawal will only become effective in 2020. The US administration is not taking part in summit preparations but has not said it will skip the event, according to UN officials. Guterres' mission may also be further complicated by Trump's nomination of Kelly Knight Craft as UN ambassador. Craft, who is married to a major coal magnate, raised eyebrows for declaring that she believed "both sides" of climate science, indicating she may well be out of sync with the UN on the issue. - Plans, not speeches - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the world is losing the battle against climate change Guterres has told leaders to bring plans, not speeches, to the summit to be held in New York on September 23 during the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. The summit is seen as critical because of US resistance to discuss climate change at other forums including the G7 and G20, and again last week at a meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland. "What people are looking for is countries to commit to major ambition increases in 2025 and 2030 at the summit or in 2020," said Nick Mabey, head of the E3G climate think tank. This should include legally binding targets for countries to phase out coal, become climate neutral and invest in climate resilience, especially for the poorest countries, he added. A string of apocalyptic reports on the state of the planet is bringing home the need for concrete steps. One million species are on the brink of extinction. Carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, pushing targets from the Paris accord further out of reach. The Pacific island of Fiji is already feeling the impact of climate change through wild storms such as Cyclone Winston, which killed 44 people in 2016 and wiped out a third of the economy UN climate envoy Luis Alfonso de Alba told AFP on Friday that he was optimistic about prospects for a breakthrough on climate, saying the dire predictions were having a galvanizing effect. "The situation worldwide is quite different from what it was five to 10 years ago. Five to 10 years ago, countries were looking at their neighbours before acting," he said. "Today, everybody has full conscience of the urgency to act, and they are not going to wait for their neighbours to act." Ten people were killed in the attack targeting the Saint Mina church in the southern outskirts of Cairo in 2017 An Egyptian man was sentenced Sunday to death by hanging for a deadly attack on a Cairo church in 2017 claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, a judicial source said. Ten people including a police officer were killed as the assailant targeted the Saint Mina Coptic church in Helwan, on the southern outskirts of Cairo. According to the authorities, the attacker was armed with an assault rifle, ammunition and a bomb he intended to detonate at the church. A Cairo criminal court sentenced the man for "murdering nine Copts and a policeman, possessing weapons and forming a terrorist group linked to IS," the source said. A second man, who is on the run, was sentenced to death in absentia, the source added. Two others were sentenced in absentia to life in prison, four received 10-year terms and two were given three years each in prison. Another defendant was acquitted. All of those convicted have the possibility to appeal. Coptic Christians, who account for around 10 percent of Egypt's population, have been targeted in a string of attacks by IS in recent years that have left more than 100 dead. Extremists have also killed hundreds of police officers and soldiers since the military toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 amid vast protests against his rule. The courts have sentenced hundreds of people to death or lengthy jail terms after speedy mass trials. Rights groups often accuse the regime of torture and of failing to ensure due process. Egypt executed at least 43 people in 2018, according to Amnesty International. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says the ruling ANC has 'learnt our lesson' from its poorest election showing yet South Africa's ruling ANC, which won May 8 general elections with an historic low score amid anger over corruption and joblessness, has "learnt our lesson", President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is also party leader, said Sunday. "We have learnt our lesson, we have heard the people of South Africa, we have heard the very clear message of what they expect from us," he told several hundred people gathered at ANC headquarters in the economic hub Johannesburg. "They were saying 'president: we want jobs'... that is what we are going to do, we are going to work hard to create jobs for our people. "They were saying they want an ANC that is going to run government properly... they were saying we must end corruption, comrades, we are going to end corruption." With "humility", Ramaphosa thanked the 57 percent of the electorate that opted to give the ANC another chance -- enough for an outright majority with 230 seats out of 400 in parliament. The result was nevertheless the ANC's poorest showing since Nelson Mandela led it to its first electoral victory in South Africa's first multi-racial polls in 1994. Under Jacob Zuma, the party battled numerous corruption scandals, sluggish economic growth, record unemployment and poverty -- issues Ramaphosa, a former businessman and veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, has promised to tackle. Ramaphosa, 66, took over last year when the ANC forced Zuma to resign after nine years in office. Some observers have said the ANC would have had a lower outcome without Ramaphosa at the helm. He is set to be sworn in on May 25. Former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says she will not testify before a federal grand jury about her dealings with WikiLeaks, even if it means more jail time Former military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning said Sunday she again plans to refuse to testify before a grand jury about her leak of classified documents to WikiLeaks -- even if it means returning to jail. Manning, who served seven years in prison over her transfer of secret diplomatic and military documents, recently spent another two months in lock-up for contempt of court after refusing to answer the grand jury's questions. Federal prosecutors have for years been investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and they apparently want Manning to testify about her dealings with him. Her release last week came on a technicality -- that grand jury's term was expiring. But a new grand jury has been convened and called on her to appear this week. "They've already stipulated they want to ask the same questions," Manning told CNN. "I am going to refuse," she added. "I have nothing new to provide." Manning admitted that while she and her legal team do not know if she will be jailed again, she believes she has a "much stronger case in terms of the legal objections." "We're certainly going to raise every single legal challenge that we have," said Manning, a transgender woman who was known as Bradley at the time of her interaction with WikiLeaks. Her leak of classified documents, including some related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, made her a hero to anti-war and anti-secrecy activists, and her actions helped make WikiLeaks a force in the global anti-secrecy movement. Manning said she believes that the efforts to prosecute Assange are part of a wider campaign to "go after journalists." Assange was arrested in April at the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he spent seven years after seeking asylum. He sought refuge there to escape extradition to Sweden, where he had been accused of rape and sexual assault. Assange is now serving a 50-week sentence in Britain for jumping bail and is contesting an extradition request from the United States, where he is wanted for hacking. Jewish extremists firebombed the Dawabsha family home in the occupied West Bank in 2015, killing 18-month Ali Saad Dawabsha and fatally injuring his parents Israeli prosecutors on Sunday agreed not to press murder charges against a Jewish suspect in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents, the justice ministry said. The fire bomb attack in the occupied West Bank village of Duma killed 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha and fatally injured his mother and father. His brother Ahmed, four at the time, was the sole survivor from the immediate family and escaped with severe burns. The justice ministry said that in a plea deal, the accused -- 17 at the time of the killings and on trial as a minor -- had admitted to staking out the village ahead of the killings. In a statement, it said the unidentified youth, together with adult defendant Amiram Ben-Uliel, had observed the village through binoculars and discussed possible arson targets. The youth was charged in 2016 with being an accessory to committing a racially motivated murder. Ben-Uliel, from the northern West Bank settlement of Shilo, remains on trial on three counts of murder and one of attempted murder, along with arson and conspiracy to commit a hate crime. Sunday's statement said that the two had decided to raid Duma but the minor did not show up at the planned rendezvous and therefore did not take part in the murders. "It was determined that the defendant committed a conspiracy to commit a crime motivated by a racist motive," it said. It added that under the plea bargain, the prosecution would seek a sentence of five and a half years in prison, subject to a mandatory review by the probation service. The suspect has already spent two years in jail and a year under house arrest, Haaretz daily said Sunday. An Israeli district court had ordered him transferred from prison after throwing out parts of his confession, which it ruled that investigators had obtained through physical coercion, described by defence lawyers as torture. The attack drew renewed attention to Jewish extremism and sparked accusations Israel has not done enough to prevent such violence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labelled it "terrorism" -- a word more usually used by Israelis to refer to violence committed by Palestinians. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte remains hugely popular among Filipinos fed up with elite politicians Filipinos vote Monday in midterm polls that are expected to strengthen President Rodrigo Duterte's grip on power, opening the way for him to deliver on pledges to restore the death penalty and rewrite the constitution. Duterte has found international infamy for his foul-mouthed tirades, but remains hugely popular among Filipinos fed up with the country's dysfunction and elite politicians. He wants to bring back capital punishment for drug-related crimes as part of a deadly crackdown on narcotics in which thousands of suspects and drug dependents have already been killed. His tough-on-crime platform -- which also includes lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 -- was key to his landslide election victory in 2016. More than 18,000 posts are at stake when polls open for the more than 61 million registered voters at 6:00 am (2200 GMT Sunday), including half of the seats in the upper house Senate. But for Duterte the key is wresting control of an independent-minded Senate while keeping the House of Representatives in the hands of his allies. Historically, the nation's 24 senators -- who serve six-year terms -- have had a reputation for being more independent-minded than the lower house. More than 18,000 posts are at stake in Monday's poll, including half the seats in the upper house Winning a Senate majority, something which independent national surveys indicate is well within reach, would give him legislative backing for his anti-crime proposals and his plan to rewrite the constitution. The opposition warns that could lead to the single-term limit for the presidency being lifted, allowing him to seek re-election despite his repeated statements that he would stand down at the end of his mandate. It would also allow him to expand his contentious anti-drug crackdown by bringing back the death penalty, a pledge which the UN Human Rights Council said gave it "deep alarm". The Philippines outlawed capital punishment in 1987, reinstated it six years later and then abolished again in 2006. - Family politics - The 73-year-old hit the campaign trail to get his supporters in the Senate, giving two-hour speeches at late-night rallies and routinely insulting their opponents -- calling one a "faggot" and accusing another of lawyering for communist guerrillas. The results for municipal and city mayors and councils are expected within hours after the polls close at 6:00 pm Monday, with winners for the Senate and congressional seats scheduled to be declared from Friday. Duterte's use of violence has been controversial in the Philippines Even if the presidential term limit is not lifted, the Duterte family looks well-placed to continue after him. The president's daughter Sara -- tipped by many as the president's potential successor in the 2022 presidential vote -- is running to keep her post as mayor in its southern bailiwick of Davao city. Her younger brother Sebastian is seeking, unopposed, the city's vice-mayoral seat, while the eldest presidential son Paolo is standing for a seat in the House of Representatives. Electoral contests in the Philippines have always been bloody, with dozens, including candidates and their supporters, getting killed in the fierce competition for posts that are a source of wealth in a nation with deep poverty. Police are on full alert to safeguard Monday's balloting as the bloody trend continued this year, with 14 dead and 14 wounded in "election-related violent incidents" since January, according to a grim official count. Pakistani security officials in Quetta examine the site of the blast from a bomb which police said was hidden under a motorbike parked outside a mosque where police were posted Four police were killed and nine other people wounded when militants detonated a bomb hidden under a motorbike in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, police said on Monday. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Two police were among the wounded, senior police official Abdul Razaq Cheema told AFP. "Two of the injured are critical," he added. The motorbike was parked outside a mosque where police personnel were posted in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. Forensic investigators worked at the scene, placing evidence markers around a car, one door of which was open and partially shredded. What appeared to be a pool of blood stained the ground in front of the car. The attack came two days after Baloch separatists attacked a luxury hotel in the province's second city, Gwadar, where development of a port is the flagship project of a multi-billion dollar Chinese infrastructure initiative in Pakistan. Five people including a soldier died in the hotel attack, which also left all three militants dead. The violence came during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. A Pakistani man leads an injured relative to hospital after the blast in Balochistan, a province rife with Islamist, separatist and sectarian insurgencies Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and poorest province which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is rife with Islamist, separatist and sectarian insurgencies. The Pakistani military has been waging war on militants there since 2004, and security forces are frequently targeted. Rights activists accuse the military of abuses, which it denies. Balochistan is key to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of Beijing's Belt and Road initiative. CPEC seeks to connect China's western province of Xinjiang with Gwadar, giving Beijing access to the Arabian Sea. Separatists have launched an armed campaign in Cameroon's two anglophone regions -- the government has responded with a crackdown The crisis in Cameroon is worsening and threatens to spiral out of control, the UN aid chief warned Monday during a first informal meeting of the Security Council on the conflict. At least 4.3 million people are in need of aid -- a 30 percent increase from last year in what Mark Lowcock described as an "under-reported" crisis in the central African country. Cameroon is wracked by a conflict between separatists and government forces in its English-speaking west, combined with an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic and Nigeria. "Both the humanitarian and the security situation continue to deteriorate and run the risk of spiraling out of control," Lowcock, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the council. "The level of the crisis today is more alarming than ever." More than 560,000 people have been driven from their homes since 2017 including 32,000 who have fled to Nigeria. The violence from the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has spilled over to Cameroon. The United States, joined by Germany, Britain and the Dominican Republic, organized the meeting on Cameroon, but African countries made clear they were skeptical of the new focus. Equatorial Guinea's Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba, speaking on behalf of the three African countries on the council, warned that the humanitarian crisis should not be "politicized". The crisis is not a threat to international peace and "the situation should therefore be tackled by the government of Cameroon with genuine support from the international community," said Mba. China and Russia also warned against UN meddling in Cameroon's affairs. - Neglected crisis - Rights groups have accused the United Nations of ignoring the conflict in Cameroon, where separatists in English-speaking regions are pushing for independence from the majority French-speaking country. The government has responded with a crackdown, deploying thousands of soldiers. More than 200 members of the security forces and at least 500 civilians have been killed, according to figures from the International Crisis Group, a think-tank. Cameroon's Ambassador Michel Tommo Monthe defended his government's handling of the conflict, saying Yaounde was "facing secessionism, facing terrorism" but was "on its feet, standing tall." Cameroon's Prime Minster Joseph Dion Ngute traveled to the anglophone region last week, offering dialogue but making clear that independence was not an option. Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former UN aid chief, said the crisis in the English-speaking part of Cameroon was "one of the world's most neglected". "The lack of information and international political attention has allowed the situation to deteriorate from peaceful demonstrations to the atrocities committed by both sides," he told the council. Egeland called for scaling up diplomatic efforts to prevent the violence from worsening and a "massive injection" of funds to support relief work. The relationship of Rwanda's Paul Kagame,left, and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, once close allies who backed each other into power, has turned deeply hostile The people living on either side of the Ugandan-Rwandan border at Katuna never much considered the boundary: children crossed for school, workers moved freely and trade thrived. That harmony evaporated in February when Rwanda abruptly closed the crossing, with queues of cargo trucks and thronging merchants turned back as soldiers from both armies marshalled along the forest-clad border. The blockade is a result of the worsening animosity between Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, once close allies who backed each other into power, but whose relationship has turned deeply hostile. The distrust between the presidents has burst into the open in recent months, with the pair trading accusations of espionage, political assassinations and meddling in each other's backyards. The spat risks dragging in their neighbours, threatening economic integration and regional stability in an already conflict-prone swathe of the continent. The standoff escalated dramatically in March when Rwanda publicly accused Uganda of abducting its citizens and supporting rebels bent on overthrowing the government. Museveni -- who has admitted meeting, but not endorsing, anti-Kagame rebels -- harbours his own suspicions about his erstwhile ally. His officials have accused Rwandans in Uganda of spying, and some have been detained by military courts or deported. "What is wrong is for Rwandan agents to try and operate behind the government of Uganda," Museveni wrote to Kagame in March. The following month, Kagame threatened perceived enemies as he digressed during a speech marking the 25th anniversary of Rwanda's genocide. "Those who think we have not seen enough of a mess, and want to mess with us, whether from here or from outside, I want to say: We will mess up with them big time," Kagame declared to applause, before an audience peppered with foreign dignitaries. - Biting blockade - The sabre-rattling has not turned violent to date. Ugandan troops are busy at Katuna, the border town, where earth-movers can be seen clearing a road to a hilltop military base. Rwandan forces, meanwhile, are patrolling their side. But the interruption to trade is taking its toll. Food prices have jumped in Rwanda, which relies heavily on imports from its larger northern neighbour. The blockade has also severed Uganda's land access to export markets in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi. For decades, armies commanded by Kagame and Museveni fought shoulder to shoulder in East Africa, thrusting their generals into presidential offices, and overthrowing DR Congo's rapacious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 And for communities straddling the border, the leaders' row has proved disastrous. "I have lived and worked here most of my life... business has never been this bad," said Philemon Mugasha, a Ugandan clearing agent at Katuna, surveying the deserted streets usually buzzing day and night with money changers, food vendors, truck drivers and prostitutes. Rwandans are taking great risks to cross the border under the cover of darkness. In May, a bean trader was shot in the arm by Rwandan troops as he attempted to enter Uganda. "If they see us, they will arrest us and beat us for defying their order... it is dangerous," said one Rwandan worker who crossed illegally at Katuna to find work, and could not return. - Friends to foes - For decades, armies commanded by Kagame and Museveni fought shoulder to shoulder in East Africa, thrusting their generals into high office, and overthrowing the DRC's rapacious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. Kagame was appointed Uganda's military intelligence chief after his army of Rwandan exiles helped Museveni take power in 1986. Museveni later returned the favour, backing Kagame's invasion of Rwanda that ended the 1994 genocide and secured his grip on the country. But by the turn of the century, the romance was over. A festering unease between their armies during the DRC campaign erupted into open warfare in the city of Kisangani, leaving hundreds dead between 1999 and 2000. The relationship never recovered. But despite the bad blood, Rwanda and Uganda maintained full diplomatic ties, and troops stayed in their barracks. The neighbours both enjoyed robust economic growth and strong relations with the West. Rwanda is a major contributor of peacekeepers, and Ugandan soldiers are fighting terrorism in Somalia. - Kagame's enemies - While Kagame did not name his enemies in his recent speech, shadowy rebel groups seeking to oust him have proliferated in the region. Rwanda has boosted security in its southwest region bordering Burundi -- with whom it has long had sour relations -- and the DRC. There have been several bloody incursions into Rwanda by one anti-Kagame rebel group known as the National Liberation Front (FLN), based in the DRC. Western allies have advised their citizens to steer clear as the attacks target a region popular among foreign tourists. The UN has also reported that Kayumba Nyamwasa, a Kagame foe and former military chief who runs the Rwandan National Congress, could be raising a rebel army in the DRC. Kagame sees Museveni's invisible hand in the move against him. "This is a contest to determine who between them is the kingmaker in the region," said Christopher Kayumba, a political analyst in Kigali. War seems unlikely, experts say. But the brinkmanship is inflicting casualties each day it drags on. "They say when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. We are suffering," said Mugasha, the customs agents at Katuna. burs-np/fb/mlr NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on the sentencing of the fake German heiress (all times local): 3 p.m. A judge has sentenced the fake German heiress Anna Sorokin to four to 12 years behind bars for defrauding New York banks and hotels. Judge Diane Kiesel says she was "stunned by the depth of the defendant's deception" at the sentencing Thursday afternoon in Manhattan state court. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it will seek to deport Sorokin to Germany following her release from state custody. ICE said she Sorokin overstayed her 2017 visa. The 28-year-old was found guilty last month of swindling some $200,000 through a series of scams. She was convicted of grand larceny and theft of services. FILE - In this April 25, 2019, file photo, Anna Sorokin, right, and her lawyer Todd Spodek react as the jury foreman reads the verdict in New York. Spodek, a fake German heiress who swindled tens of thousands of dollars from New York banks and hotels, is set to learn her punishment. She faces sentencing Thursday, May 9, in Manhattan state court following her conviction for theft of services and grand larceny. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Prosecutors said she overdrew a bank account and forged financial records to further the ruse. Sorokin's attorney insisted she intended to pay the money back. But prosecutors said she has "not a cent" to her name. ___ 1:10 a.m. A fake German heiress who swindled tens of thousands of dollars from New York banks and hotels is set to learn her punishment. Anna Sorokin will be sentenced Thursday in state court following her conviction for theft of services and grand larceny. Sorokin's defense attorney has said she faces up to 15 years in prison on the most serious charge. She also faces could be deported to Germany for overstaying her visa. A Manhattan jury last month found Sorokin guilty of defrauding banks, hotels and friends of more than $200,000. Prosecutors said she attempted to steal millions more through multiple scams. Sorokin falsely claimed her father was a diplomat or an oil baron. Her attorney argued she never intended to commit a crime and planned to pay the money back. NEW YORK (AP) - After much hype leading up to the largest initial public offering in five years, Uber hit a few potholes on its first day of trading, closing down 8% and reflecting lingering doubts about its future prospects for profitability. The ride-hailing company injected investors with a dose of reality right out of the gate, trading at $42 a share Friday - or nearly 7% below its IPO price of $45 on an already volatile day for the markets. Its shares closed at $41.57. Despite the rocky debut, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he was thrilled to complete the IPO, adding that the $8.1 billion that Uber raised in the process would be crucial to its future growth plans. "It's a great moment for the company and all the employees who have been working so hard to get here," Khosrowshahi said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It was a tough week to go public, but we got it done." Uber's IPO price was lower than initially expected, and the caution may have been driven by escalating doubts about the ability of ride-hailing services to make money since Uber's main rival, Lyft, went public six weeks ago. Jitters about an intensifying U.S. trade war with China also contributed. Stocks were down sharply Friday morning after the two countries failed to reach a deal before a tariff deadline, but finished with gains. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, third from left, takes a photograph as he attends the opening bell ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange, as his company makes its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Despite the volatile market, Khosrowshahi said he did not consider postponing Uber's IPO date. "Our company is not a fair-weather company," Khosrowshahi said. "We keep moving forward in tough and easy environments, and I think that we as a company will be a great investment over the long term." It's not the first time a company's stock has started off trading below its IPO price, not even this week. On Thursday, Axcella Health began trading well below its $20 IPO price and ended its first day at $13.80. But it's relatively uncommon for U.S. technology companies backed by venture capital, like Uber. Over the past five years, just 10% of such companies finished their first day of trading below their IPO price, said Matt Kennedy, senior IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital, a manager of IPO focused funds. "We were not expecting much of a pop, given the size of the deal" for Uber, Kennedy said. "The last U.S. company of this size to IPO was Facebook, for example, and you may remember how that traded initially." Facebook debuted in 2012 and, after technical difficulties delayed its start to trading, it ended its first day just 23 cents above its IPO price of $38. "Unlike Facebook, however, Uber does not make money," Kennedy said. Facebook's stock now trades just below $200. Investors say they're hesitant to buy Uber's stock out of the box because of what happened with Lyft, and want to see it settle before buying significant amounts of shares, said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. Lyft's shares were down 7% to $51.09 Friday, or 29% below its IPO price of $72. But even with Uber's lower share price, its valuation of $76 billion is four times more than Lyft's. Uber's cash infusion will help cover the cost of giving rides to passengers at unprofitable prices as it tries to fend off competition from Lyft. The San Francisco company already has lost about $9 billion since its inception in 2009 and acknowledges it could still be years before it turns a profit. That sobering reality is one reason that Uber fell short of reaching the $120 billion market value that many observers believed its IPO might attain. Despite all that, Uber's IPO is the biggest since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group debuted in 2014. Uber's revenue last year surged 42% to $11.3 billion while its cars completed 5.2 billion trips around the world either giving rides to 91 million passengers or delivering food. Uber might be even more popular if not for a series of revelations about unsavory behavior that sullied its image and resulted in the ouster of Travis Kalanick as CEO nearly two years ago. The self-inflicted wounds included complaints about rampant internal sexual harassment , accusations that it stole self-driving car technology, and a cover-up of a computer break-in that stole personal information about its passengers. Some Uber drivers have been accused of assaulting passengers, and one of its self-driving test vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona last year while a backup driver was behind the wheel. Uber hired Khosrowshahi as CEO to replace Kalanick and clean up the mess, something that analysts say has been able to do to some extent, although Lyft seized upon the scandals to gain market share. Both Kalanick and Uber's other co-founder Garrett Camp were present at the stock exchange Friday but absent from the podium during the bell ringing. Kalanick remains on Uber's board and while he kept a relatively low profile during the stock debut, he can still savor his newfound wealth. As of Friday's closing price, his stake in Uber will be worth $4.9 billion. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other Uber employees are expected to become millionaires in the IPO. Meanwhile, scores of Uber drivers say they have been mistreated by the company as they work long hours and wear out their cars picking up passengers as they struggle to make ends meet. SharesPost principal analyst Alejandro Ortiz said the timing for Uber to start trading was bad given the uncertainty over the trade spat with China. But Uber's story can't be just one day of trading because of its potential to make billions in a growing ride market, he said. "It's going to keep bouncing around for months to come," Ortiz said. "It's an important thing to consider if you're an investor and you saw value in the company and its disruptive potential, nothing has really changed in the past 48 hours." __ Liedtke reported from San Francisco and Krisher reported from Detroit. AP Business Writer Stan Choe in New York contributed to this report. The statue of Fearless Girl stands in front of the New York Stock Exchange before Uber, the world's largest ride-hailing service, holds its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) A banner for Uber is draped on the front of the New York Stock Exchange before the world's largest ride-hailing service holds its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) FILE - This March 20, 2018, file photo shows the Uber app on an iPad in Baltimore. Uber is about to embark on a wild ride on Wall Street with the biggest and most hotly debated IPO in years. Uber's shares begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) Uber board member Ryan Graves, right, rings a ceremonial bell as the company's stock opens for trading during its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, May 10, 2019. Stacey Cunningham, second from left, president of the NYSE, Tony West, center, Uber's Chief Legal Officer, and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, second from right, applaud. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, left, and Ryan Graves, a board member, pose for a photo before the company lists during its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, left, walks with Stacy Cunningham, president of the New York Stock Exchange, prior to his company holding its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Stock traders gather around the post where Uber shares will begin trading during the company's initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi arrives at the New York Stock Exchange as his company makes its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, third from left, attends the opening bell ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange, as his company makes its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, left, talks with specialist Peter Giacchi before his stock begins trading at the New York Stock Exchange, as his company makes its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, right, talks with specialist Peter Giacchi before his stock begins trading at the New York Stock Exchange, as his company makes its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, back to camera, hugs company employee Austin Geidt at the opening bell ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange, as his company makes its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) KERMIT, W.Va. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's plan to battle the nation's drug addiction problem drew an enthusiastic response Friday in a small West Virginia community waging its own fight against opioid abuse. Warren outlined her idea to tax the wealthiest Americans and deliver sorely needed funding directly to hard-hit communities. The Massachusetts senator is proposing to spend $100 billion over 10 years on battling addiction. Her plan is for a 2% tax on those making $50 million or more "so everybody else has a chance to make it." "I'm tired of freeloading billionaires," Warren said to loud applause from a crowd of about 150 people at the volunteer fire station in Kermit along the Kentucky border. President Donald Trump carried West Virginia by 42 points in 2016. But the state has by far the nation's highest death rate from prescriptions drugs, and Warren is hoping that reality will help her message resonate with people who may otherwise be skeptical of her brand of politics. At a time when many in the party are debating how to court rural voters, Warren's trip could give her an opportunity to demonstrate an ability to connect with voters beyond the party's traditional liberal base. Among those listening intently were Kermit physician Dr. J.W. Endicott and town Fire Chief Tommy Preece, who lost a brother to a drug overdose. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a "community conversation" event at the Kermit Fire & Rescue Headquarters Station, Friday, May 10, 2019, in Kermit, W.Va. (Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) Preece said he was surprised Warren chose to visit Kermit because "she's coming right into the middle of Trump country." Endicott, whose biggest frustration as a physician in a rural area is not having enough drug treatment facilities, said Warren's message "is a big deal for us, a big deal nationally." Warren said her proposal would bypass state governments and send federal funding directly to communities whose leaders would determine how it is used. "The money needs to be here in Kermit and in towns and on reservations across this nation that are on the front lines in the battle," Warren said. "We don't need it tangled up in more politics. We need this money to go straight to the people who are dealing with the crisis every hour of every day." Marybeth Beller, an associate professor of political science at Marshall University, said Warren's policies resonate with West Virginians, who "really have a history of liking hands-on politicians that will come out and meet them and talk to them and listen to them." Beller said it may be too early to count West Virginia as a solid red state. "In '16, a lot of people put hope into Donald Trump because of his rhetoric," she said. "I think measuring that two-and-a-half years later, particularly with coal jobs, it just hasn't come to fruition. So, do I think that West Virginia could change back to blue? I think so." Kermit is located along the Tug Fork in Mingo County, which dubs itself "The Heart of the Billion-Dollar Coalfield." But West Virginia continues to be one of the poorest states in the nation, ranking 49th in per capita income, and is among those to lose thousands of jobs in the coal industry's downturn this century. Mingo County's coal employment dropped from 1,750 jobs in 1997 to 764 last year, while production fell from 22.4 million tons to 5.1 million over the same period. As the jobs have left, so too have the people. West Virginia's population has dipped every year since reaching 1.86 million in 2012. Warren, who also had scheduled stops later Friday in Chillicothe and Columbus, Ohio, spoke a few blocks from a now-closed pharmacy in Kermit where wholesale drug distributor McKesson Corp. shipped an average of 9,650 hydrocodone pills per day in 2007. A decade later, the town of 360 people fought back, suing McKesson and four other drug wholesalers, saying they illegally flooded Kermit with millions of prescription pills. The lawsuit, one of many filed by municipalities throughout the state against drug distributors, seeks to recoup the costs of dealing with opioid abuse. Last week the state announced a $37 million settlement in its lawsuit against San Francisco-based McKesson. Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, say the settlement was minuscule compared to the harm inflicted on West Virginians. In 2017, Preece's brother, assistant Kermit fire chief Timmy Dale Preece, died of an overdose. Timmy Preece had been taking medication to help deal with the pain from a broken neck. Tommy Preece, a Democrat, is open to Warren's proposal because he believes the opioid crisis needs America's fullest attention, especially in the two counties his department serves. "It's bad, it really is," Preece said. "We have a lot of young kids in our community and we don't want to see them go down this route." The scope of the epidemic predates their generation. Preece's father, the late fire chief Wig Preece, was convicted in the 1980s of selling marijuana, pills and other drugs from a trailer parked near the Kermit town hall and police station. A sign posted on the trailer at one point by the elder Preece read, "Out of drugs, back in 15 minutes." Wig Preece's wife, six of their 14 children and their son-in-law, Police Chief David Ramey, also were sentenced to lengthy prison terms. ___ Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre in Charleston contributed to this report. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a "community conversation" event at the Kermit Fire & Rescue Headquarters Station, Friday, May 10, 2019, in Kermit, W.Va. (Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a "community conversation" event at the Kermit Fire & Rescue Headquarters Station, Friday, May 10, 2019, in Kermit, W.Va. (Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., arrives for a "community conversation" event at the Kermit Fire & Rescue Headquarters Station, Friday, May 10, 2019, in Kermit, W.Va. (Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., listens as Kermit resident Dr. JW Endicott asks a question regarding inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation during a "community conversation" event at the Kermit Fire & Rescue Headquarters Station, Friday, May 10, 2019, in Kermit, W.Va. (Craig Hudson/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) BALTIMORE (AP) - The actions of students who died tackling gunmen at two U.S. campuses a week apart have been hailed as heroic. At a growing number of schools around the country, they also reflect guidance to students, at least in some situations, to do what they can to disrupt shootings. A majority of school districts have now embraced such an approach, with experts saying educators need to give staff and students as many options as possible in the worst-case scenario. "In all honesty, I don't know of another strategy," said teacher Kelly Chavis, whose Rock Hill, South Carolina, school endorses a strategy known as Avoid, Deny, Defend. "What else would you do if you did not try to get away in a situation?" Many schools have stuck with the traditional approach of locking down classrooms and letting law enforcement confront the shooter, especially in grade-school settings. Encouraging students or faculty to do otherwise, critics say, could make them more of a target. At the STEM School Highlands Ranch in suburban Denver, where student Kendrick Castillo was killed while confronting a gunman on Tuesday, the school uses a "Locks, Lights, Out of Sight" protocol, according to spokesman Gil Rudawsky. He declined to say whether any of the school's training for students addresses whether they should fight an intruder. But Brendan Bialy had thought about it on his own. He lunged with Castillo toward the gunman and wrestled the gun from his hand. FILE - In this March 15, 2013, file photo, participants rush out of the cafeteria after hearing gun shots during a lockdown exercise at Milford High School in Milford, Mass. The actions of students who died tackling gunmen at two separate U.S. campuses a week apart have been hailed as heroic. At a growing number of schools around the country, they also reflect guidance to students who are told, at least in some situations, to do what they can to disrupt shootings. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) "I don't like the idea of running and hiding," he told reporters Wednesday. "There's certain situations if you got to get out of it, you got to get out of it, but like, I'm not going to say, like, cower or move out of the way for somebody who's right in front of me. ... Somebody like that, I'm going to fight them there." Riley Howell, 21, died thwarting a shooter last week at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Alert messages at that campus advised students to "Run, Hide, Fight." There always have been students willing to take action, said Greg Crane, who founded the for-profit ALICE Institute, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. He said he created it in 2001 based on what had already been done by students including Jake Ryker, who tackled a shooter at Thurston High School in Oregon in 1998 despite being shot in the chest. Many people have a "warrior mindset, a hero mindset," Crane said. "It's just, have we cultivated them with some information and with some training so that when they are the first one to stand up and start moving to do something, maybe they're not alone?" Educators from over 5,000 school districts have received the program's training, often from certified law enforcement officers, Crane said. He said the program does not teach fighting strategies. Rather, it encourages people to make noise, create distractions and confuse the attacker. Baltimore County Public Schools adopted ALICE this school year. If an assailant gets too close, students are told to grab anything and throw it and scream, with the idea being to create enough chaos to escape. No young students are told to tackle or otherwise try to make physical contact, but staff members and older students have that option, Superintendent George Roberts said. "The adults are trained how to grab the arms, grab the legs and subdue" until police arrive, said Roberts, who was principal at Maryland's Perry Hall High School in 2012 when a student brought a shotgun into the cafeteria and critically wounded another student. "This more active response provides a level of choice." Karen Shepard has several children and grandchildren in the Athens, Pennsylvania, school district, which also adopted ALICE training this year. She said she would prefer the children know not to stand clustered in a corner if a gunman burst into their classroom. "They should barricade, (and) they should have something in their hands," she said. "At least they'd have a fighting chance." It's a frightening conversation at any level, said Joseph Erardi, who was superintendent in Newtown, Connecticut, for four years after a gunman killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School. "What we've learned over time is to provide staff and students with as many options as possible in the moment," said Erardi, who manages the School Superintendents Association's School Safety Crisis Toolkit. "You never want to take that common sense element out." ___ Associated Press writer Dan Elliott in Denver contributed to this report. Melia reported from Hartford. ___ This story corrects that the town where Chavis teaches is Rock Hill, not Rock Hills. This undated photo provided by Rachel Short shows Kendrick Castillo, who was killed during a shooting at the STEM School Highlands Ranch on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, in Highlands Ranch, Colo. (Rachel Short via AP) FILE - In this Jan. 22, 2013, file photo, a student helps block the classroom door with furniture during a mock lockdown drill at Moody High School in Corpus Christi, Texas. The actions of students who died tackling gunmen at two separate U.S. campuses a week apart have been hailed as heroic. A majority of school districts have now embraced such an approach, with experts saying educators need to give staff and students as many options as possible in the worst-case scenario. (Rachel Denny Clow/Corpus Christi Caller-Times via AP, File) FILE - In this March 15, 2013, file photo, teacher Astrid Barrios, center, listens as Milford police detective Carlos Sousa, left, debriefs participants after a lockdown exercise at Milford High School in Milford, Mass. The actions of students who died tackling gunmen at two separate U.S. campuses a week apart have been hailed as heroic. At a growing number of schools around the country, they also reflect guidance to students who are told, at least in some situations, to do what they can to disrupt shootings. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) FILE - In this March 15, 2013, file photo, police detective Eric Copeland reloads a pistol with blanks while playing the part of a shooter during a lockdown exercise at Milford High School in Milford, Mass. The actions of students who died tackling gunmen at two separate U.S. campuses a week apart have been hailed as heroic. At a growing number of schools around the country, they also reflect guidance to students who are told, at least in some situations, to do what they can to disrupt shootings. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) Brendan Bialy speaks about his part in stopping the attack at the STEM School Highlands Ranch during a news conference Wednesday, May 8, 2019, in Englewood, Colo. Eighteen-year-old Bialy said he, Kendrick Castillo and a third student tried to stop the gunman by charging at him at the STEM School Highlands Ranch. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Missouri River is causing new problems in a flood-battered part of northwest Missouri where the river broke through levees in March. The rain-swollen waterway has again inundated the tiny village of Big Lake in Holt County, where some of its approximately 160 residents were beginning to clean up after the last deluge. Water levels haven't dropped enough to fix the failed earthen levees intended to protect the area, Holt County emergency management director Tom Bullock said Friday. That means even moderate rises in river levels can cause problems. He calls it "a continuous mess." Several roads in the region are closed again, including portions of U.S. 159 and U.S. 59 in Missouri near the Missouri River. In eastern Missouri, water levels are falling along the Mississippi River after some levees were busted. Northwestern Missouri's new troubles come just as some areas were showing signs of improvement. A stretch of the Kansas Turnpike near the Oklahoma border has reopened, as has the Iowa Highway 2 approach to a Missouri River bridge that links southwest Iowa to southeast Nebraska. Vehicles await their turn to cross the single-lane bridge over the Missouri River on Highway 2 near Percival, Iowa, Friday, May 10, 2019. Iowa has reopened a flooded stretch of the Iowa Highway 2 approach to a Missouri River bridge that links southwest Iowa to southeast Nebraska. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) The Kansas Turnpike section near Wellington, which is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Wichita, flooded Wednesday when up to 10 inches (254 millimeters) of rain fell across parts of the state in just 24 hours. Flooding also forced evacuations and school closures. In Mississippi, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials said Friday that they were days away from closing a floodgate because of the renewed rise of the Mississippi River. Officials issued predictions that a flood inside a region walled off by levees will set a new record once the floodgate is closed. That lingering flood, which has been going on since February, makes it unlikely that farmers will plant any summer crops on hundreds of thousands of acres in the south end of Mississippi's Delta region. It has renewed calls for a once-promised system of pumps to drain the region that were vetoed because of predicted environmental harms to wetlands inside the basin, known as the Yazoo backwater. Officials opened a floodgate at Steele Bayou north of Vicksburg on April 1 after six weeks of closure. Water fell for a time but began to rise again because of heavy rainfall. Now a rising Mississippi River means the gate will have to be closed again to prevent even worse flooding inside the backwater, even as heavy rains move down inland rivers toward their only outlet at Steele Bayou. The Corps now predicts a crest higher than the peak earlier this year. That was the worst flooding since 1973. "It's been a weird, weird, weird year," said Peter Nimrod, chief engineer of the Mississippi Levee Board. More rain could make flooding worse in Mississippi and other parts of the Deep South. The National Weather Service says millions of people are in the path of potentially dangerous weather this weekend. The Storm Prediction Center says there's a marginal risk of severe storms from eastern Texas - where parts of Houston have already seen flooding this week - to South Carolina and western North Carolina. Forecasters say wind damage and hail could be seen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina on Saturday. On Sunday, there's a chance of storms across central Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. In Louisiana, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a major spillway Friday, four days earlier than expected due to torrential rains that saw the Mississippi River rise 6 inches (15.24 centimeters) in the past 24 hours. Officials said opening the Bonnet Carre (BAH-nee KEHR-ee) Spillway relieves stress on New Orleans levees. A Wendy's store in Percival, Iowa, is reflected in floodwaters from the Missouri River, Friday, May 10, 2019. The House on Friday passed a $19 billion disaster aid bill that would deliver long-sought relief to farmers, victims of hurricanes and floods, and rebuild southern military bases, as Democrats try to dislodge the legislation from a Senate logjam over aid to hurricane-slammed Puerto Rico. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Vehicles await their turn to cross the single-lane bridge over the Missouri River on Highway 2 near Percival, Iowa, Friday, May 10, 2019. Iowa has reopened a flooded stretch of the Iowa Highway 2 approach to a Missouri River bridge that links southwest Iowa to southeast Nebraska. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Workers open bays of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, to divert rising water from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, upriver from New Orleans, in Norco, La., Friday, May 10, 2019. Torrential rains in Louisiana brought such a rapid rise on the river that the Army Corps of Engineers is opening the major spillway four days earlier than planned. Spokesman Ricky Boyett says the river rose six inches in 24 hours, with more rain expected through the weekend. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Workers open bays of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, to divert rising water from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, upriver from New Orleans, in Norco, La., Friday, May 10, 2019. Torrential rains in Louisiana brought such a rapid rise on the river that the Army Corps of Engineers is opening the major spillway four days earlier than planned. Spokesman Ricky Boyett says the river rose six inches in 24 hours, with more rain expected through the weekend. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Workers open bays of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, to divert rising water from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, upriver from New Orleans, in Norco, La., Friday, May 10, 2019. Torrential rains in Louisiana brought such a rapid rise on the river that the Army Corps of Engineers is opening the major spillway four days earlier than planned. Spokesman Ricky Boyett says the river rose six inches in 24 hours, with more rain expected through the weekend. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Workers open bays of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, to divert rising water from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, upriver from New Orleans, in Norco, La., Friday, May 10, 2019. Torrential rains in Louisiana brought such a rapid rise on the river that the Army Corps of Engineers is opening the major spillway four days earlier than planned. Spokesman Ricky Boyett says the river rose six inches in 24 hours, with more rain expected through the weekend. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) A Sapp Bros. gas station in Percival, Iowa, stands in floodwaters from the Missouri River, Friday, May 10, 2019. The House on Friday passed a $19 billion disaster aid bill that would deliver long-sought relief to farmers, victims of hurricanes and floods, and rebuild southern military bases, as Democrats try to dislodge the legislation from a Senate logjam over aid to hurricane-slammed Puerto Rico. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) A truck stuck in the flooded intersection of Hardy and Crosstimbers streets after heavy rainfall overnight Friday, May 10, 2019, in Houston. (Godofredo A. Vasquez/Houston Chronicle via AP) NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on ride-hailing giant Uber's initial public stock offering (all times local): 4:30 p.m. Uber capped off a rocky first day of trading on Wall Street with its shares closing at $41.57, down almost 8% from their starting price of $45. It's uncommon for shares in a company with such a high profile to stumble out of the gate. The disappointing performance reflects financial market turmoil due to trade tensions and lingering doubts about whether fast-growing ride-hailing companies will ever turn a profit. Despite the volatile stock market, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he did not consider postponing Uber's IPO date. The statue of Fearless Girl stands in front of the New York Stock Exchange before Uber, the world's largest ride-hailing service, holds its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Shares in Lyft, Uber's chief rival, slumped to $51.09 Friday, 29% below their IPO price. ___ 3:00 p.m. Despite his company's rocky stock market debut, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says he's thrilled to complete his company's IPO. Khosrowshahi told The Associated Press Friday it was a tough week to go public, but the company got it done. Despite the volatile stock market, Khosrowshahi said he did not consider postponing Uber's IPO date. He stressed that Uber is not a fair-weather company and keeps moving forward in tough and easy environments. He added that the $8 billion Uber raised is crucial for the ride-hailing company's future growth plans, and called it a great moment for Uber and the employees who worked so hard. Uber's stock was trading at about 3% lower than its IPO price Friday afternoon. _____ 1:36 p.m. Uber's transition to becoming a publicly traded company is landing with a thud, but it's not the first to experience that, not even this week. However, it is uncommon for a company with such a high profile to stumble out of the gate. Uber raised almost $25 billion in 23 rounds of financing before going public. Matt Kennedy, a senior IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital, says that over the past five years, just 10% of U.S. technology companies backed by venture capital finished their first day of trading below their IPO price. Facebook debuted in 2012, and after technical difficulties delayed its start to trading, it ended its first day just 23 cents above its IPO price of $38. Kennedy points out that unlike Facebook, however, Uber hasn't been turning profits. After falling close to 9% Friday, shares of Uber Technologies Inc. are down less than 1%. _____ 12:39 p.m. Uber is suffering a terrible first day as a public company as its shares slid into negative territory in the initial moments of trading. That's highly unusual, especially for a high-profile tech company like Uber. Shares of rid-sharing rival Lyft soared 21% at one point during its initial public offering in late March. But that company has had a rough ride since, falling almost 30% since it debuted. Some analysts pointed to volatile market conditions over the past few weeks, and Friday as well. All major U.S. markets are in decline, having fallen 3% or more this week. SharesPost principal analyst Alejandro Ortiz said the timing for Uber trading to start was bad with the uncertainty over the trade spat with China. He said that if you saw value in Uber at its IPO price of $45, nothing has changed in the last 48 hours. Shares of Uber Technologies Inc. are down more than 1%, but had fallen more severely in early trading. _____ 11:59 a.m. Uber's shares began trading about $2 below its initial public offering price of $45. Traders scratched their heads Friday, trying to remember a high-profile IPO like Uber going south on the first day. Shares of Lyft, a rival in the ride-sharing business, are tumbling 6%. That company has had a very rough time since it went public at the end of March. It hit a new all-time low Friday. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tried to control expectations, telling CNBC that Uber investors are in it for the long ride. He says the company will be judged on what it does in three to five years. _____ 10:50 a.m. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (DAH-rah CAWS-row-SHAH-hee) is trying to tamp down the hype on the first day that the general public will be allowed to buy stock in the company. Khosrowshahi says as much as he wants things to go well during Uber's first day as a public company, what's more important is what is created in the next three to five years. Both Uber co-founders, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, were also present at the exchange for the opening but absent from the podium during the bell ringing. Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer who has been working to repair Uber's image while settling lawsuits around the globe, shot smartphone videos from the floor while waiting for the first trade. Uber becomes a publicly traded company Friday. Shares are expected to begin trading before noon. _____ 10:10 a.m. The opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange was rung by Austin Geidt, one of Uber's earliest employees. She joined the company in 2010 and is now head of strategy for Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, which works on autonomous vehicles. She and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi were joined by Uber drivers from around the world and other Uber executives at the NYSE. Uber becomes a publicly traded company Friday. Shares are expected to begin trading before noon. ___ 9:30 a.m. With a ring of the opening bell Uber is looking to pick up passengers as a newly public company. Investors waited to bet on a service with huge potential, but a long way from turning a profit. Shares in the ride-hailing giant were sold in an initial public offering for $45 each, raising $8.1 billion, but it will take several hours for new investors to show whether they're interested. Officials expect trading to start around 11:30 a.m. Friday. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and other company officials stood on a balcony above the New York Stock Exchange as the bell rang to signal the start of the day's trading. Khosrowshahi posed for selfies and after the bell while controversial co-founder Travis Kalanick and other Uber officials and employees stood on the trading floor. The IPO came in at the lower end of Uber's targeted price range of $44 to $50 per share. The caution may have been driven by escalating doubts about the ability of ride-hailing services to make money since Uber's main rival, Lyft, went public six weeks ago. Even at the tamped-down price, Uber now has a market value of $82 billion - five times more than Lyft's. A banner for Uber is draped on the front of the New York Stock Exchange before the world's largest ride-hailing service holds its initial public offering, Friday, May 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) - A search will be renewed this weekend for a Canadian man who vanished after saying he was going on a hike in Joshua Tree National Park last summer. The Desert Sun reports Paul Miller's sister, Dawne Robinson, and friends plan to hike Saturday and Sunday on the trail he is believed to have taken on July 13, 2018. The 51-year-old Miller from Guelph, Ontario, was on a trip with his wife, Stephanie, who said he wanted to take one more hike in the desert park before they returned to Canada. She contacted the park when he didn't return by noon that day. Miller's rental car was located in a parking lot but he was not found despite thousands of hours put in by some 600 searchers. ___ FILE - This undated image posted in July, 2018 on the Joshua Tree National Park Twitter page shows information about Paul Miller, 51, a Canadian man missing since heading out for a hike on July 13, 2018, in the Southern California desert park. A search for Miller will be renewed beginning Saturday, May 11, 2019. The Desert Sun reports Paul Miller's sister, Dawne Robinson, and friends plan to hike Saturday and Sunday on the trail he is believed to have taken. (National Park Service via AP, File) Information from: The Desert Sun, http://www.desertsun.com ST. LOUIS (AP) - The former chief executive of the St. Louis region's economic development agency admitted to a federal felony Friday for helping to cover up a pay-for-play scheme orchestrated by the man who appointed her, former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger. Sheila Sweeney's guilty plea to the crime of misprision of a felony came a week after Stenger admitted to three federal corruption charges. They both face sentencing in August. Federal sentencing guidelines suggest Stenger, 47, could get three to four years in prison, while Sweeney, 61, could get up to one year behind bars. Meanwhile, a third person accused in the scheme, businessman John Rallo, pleaded not guilty in a separate hearing Friday, following his indictment on three bribery counts. Federal prosecutors say Stenger ensured that county contracts went to companies operated by Rallo, a contributor to his campaign. Messages seeking comment from Rallo's attorney were not immediately returned. The downfall of Stenger and Sweeney was swift. The indictment against Stenger was announced on April 29 and he resigned that same day. Stenger's activities had been under investigation for well over a year by the FBI, IRS and U.S. Postal Service. The county council was conducting its own ethics investigation, and reports by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch raised concerns. Sheila Sweeney, left, the former CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, arrives at the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in downtown St. Louis on Friday, May 10, 2019. Sweeney, who was appointed by Stenger to head the county's economic development partnership, was due in court Friday to plead guilty to unspecified corruption charges. (Cristina M. Fletes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) It wasn't immediately clear if anyone else associated with Stenger would face criminal charges. The county executive is the top elected official in St. Louis County, Missouri's largest county with about 1 million residents. In his plea, Stenger admitting taking actions to ensure that county contracts went to two Rallo-owned companies - Cardinal Insurance and Cardinal Creative Consulting; and ensuring that Rallo's Wellston Holdings LLC obtained options to buy two properties in the town of Wellston that were held by the county's Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority. Stenger also was accused of ensuring that an unnamed company obtained a state lobbying contract from the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, and taking actions to conceal the illegal conduct. Sweeney was forced out by the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership's board of directors in January. Her removal followed St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigations that, among other things, raised questions about procurement practices and the awarding of contracts to Stenger's campaign donors. The indictment accuses Rallo, 53, of scheming with Stenger starting in October 2014, a month before Stenger was first elected county executive after serving on the county council for six years. Prosecutors allege that the crimes continued through 2017. In one December 2017 conversation between Rallo and Sweeney cited in the indictment, Sweeney directed Rallo to remove his name as registered agent for Cardinal Consulting from the Missouri Secretary of State records to help conceal the scheme. Rallo promised to take care of it, the indictment said. "Got to cover him," Sweeney said, referring to Stenger. "And me too!!" "I know, I've got you covered," Rallo replied, according to the indictment. Stenger won re-election in November despite the cloud of investigations hanging over him. Following his resignation, Democratic Councilman Sam Page was named interim executive. Page will serve out the remainder of the four-year term. FILE - This May 10, 2019 file photo shows Sheila Sweeney, the former CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, who is scheduled to plead guilty, Friday, May 10, 2019, in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. (Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, file) FILE - In this May 3, 2019 file photo, Former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, right, listens as his attorney, Scott Rosenblum, speaks to reporter in St. Louis after Stenger pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and faces sentencing in August. Two people associated with Stenger are scheduled to be in federal court Friday, May 10, 2019. Sheila Sweeney, former head of the St. Louis County Economic Development Partnership, is scheduled to plead guilty Friday to an unspecified charge. In a separate hearing Friday, businessman John Rallo faces arraignment. Stenger pleaded guilty on May 3 to federal corruption charges for campaign favors to donors. (AP Photo/Jim Salter File) Businessman John Rallo, left, and his lawyer John Rogers leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) Sheila Sweeney, second from right, the former CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, arrives at the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in downtown St. Louis on Friday, May 10, 2019. Sweeney, who was appointed by Stenger to head the county's economic development partnership, was due in court Friday to plead guilty to unspecified corruption charges. (Cristina M. Fletes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) Businessman John Rallo, right, and his lawyer John Rogers leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) Businessman John Rallo, left, and his lawyer John Rogers leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) Businessman John Rallo leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The Latest on flooding in the Midwest and South (all times local): 5:30 p.m. Officials are days away from re-closing a floodgate in Mississippi, with predictions issued Friday that a flood inside a region walled off by levees will set a new record. The lingering flood makes it unlikely that farmers will plant any summer crops on hundreds of thousands of acres in the south end of Mississippi's Delta region. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened a floodgate north of Vicksburg on April 1 after six weeks of closure. Floodwaters fell for a time, but began to rise again because of heavy rainfall. Now a rising Mississippi River means the gate will have to be closed again to prevent even worse flooding inside the walled-off basin. The Corps now predicts a crest higher than the peak earlier this year. That was the worst flooding since 1973. In this Wednesday, May 8, 2019 photo, a home surrounded by water on Lakeshore Dr. in the south end of Estral Beach in Berlin Township Mich., sits near the Fermi 2 in the background. (Tom Hawley/The Monroe News via AP) ___ 12:45 p.m. Iowa has reopened a flooded stretch of the Iowa Highway 2 approach to a Missouri River bridge that links southwest Iowa to southeast Nebraska. The Iowa Transportation Department says concrete barriers have been placed along the edges and permeable aggregate has been atop the roadway, followed by a fabric barrier and then covered with road rock. The department's Scott Suhr says the idea is that water will percolate through the aggregate and allow traffic to pass over. Suhr said Friday that pilot cars will be used on the single lane available to light, local traffic. Motorists should expect delays and slow speeds. ___ 12:20 p.m. The National Weather Service says millions of people across the Deep South could be affected by severe weather over the weekend. The Storm Prediction Center says there's a marginal risk of severe storms from eastern Texas to South Carolina and western North Carolina. About 38 million people live in the region. Forecasters say wind damage and hail are most likely on Saturday. The at-risk area includes nearly all of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. The possibility of severe weather continues on Sunday, when there's a better chance of storms across central Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Strong storms on Thursday drenched Mississippi and left scattered damage including downed trees in north Alabama. Forecasters confirmed a weak tornado along the Alabama-Tennessee state line. ___ 11:25 a.m. The Army Corps of Engineers says torrential rains are bringing a rapid rise on the Mississippi River, so they're opening a major Louisiana spillway four days earlier than expected. A news release says the Mississippi River rose 6 inches in the past 24 hours, and more rain is expected through the weekend. The Bonnet Carre (BAH-nee KEHR-ee) Spillway gets opened to relieve stress on New Orleans levees. Corps spokesman Matt Roe says the spillway could be opened as early as 1 p.m. Friday. He says the work will require a break in the storms, expected in the afternoon. The spillway is opened by using a crane to pull up huge timbers called needles. Friday's opening will mark the first time it has been used twice in one year. ___ 9:50 a.m. A stretch of the Kansas Turnpike has reopened near the Oklahoma border after a flooding creek inundated the roadway. The Kansas Turnpike Authorities said in a tweet Thursday night that, "The first 24 hours belonged to Mother Nature; the second 24 hours belonged to us." The tweet included a video of the flooding and crews working to repair the toll road, which had been closed south of the exit in Wellington. The area flooded Wednesday when up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain fell across parts of the state in just 24 hours. Flooding also forced evacuations and school closures. Wellington is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Wichita. ___ 8:15 a.m. The Missouri River is causing new problems in a flood-battered part of northwest Missouri where levees were busted in March. The rain-swollen waterway has again inundated the tiny village of Big Lake in Holt County, where some residents were beginning to clean up after the last deluge. Holt County emergency management director Tom Bullock said Friday that water levels haven't dropped enough to fix the earthen levees that protect the area after the last round of flooding. That means even moderately high river levels can cause problems. He calls it "a continuous mess." Several roads are closed again, including U.S. 59, a key transportation artery between northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri. In eastern Missouri, water levels are falling along the Mississippi River after some levees were busted. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Six people have been detained for a "mafia-style" attack in Argentina that seriously wounded a lawmaker and left a provincial official dead, authorities said Friday. Hector Olivares and Miguel Marcelo Yadon were shot a day earlier near the country's congressional building by gunmen in a parked car in a brazen attack that has shocked Argentines. Olivares, who is a representative of La Rioja province in Argentina's lower house of congress, was being treated for gunshot wounds that pierced his abdomen and affected vital organs. Pablo Rossini, subdirector of Ramos Mejia Hospital, said his condition was critical. "We're waiting for the right moment to put him through another surgery," Rossini said. "He's depending on life support that he's receiving in intensive care." Yadon, a coordinator who worked in the fiduciary of La Rioja's federal electric transportation system, died shortly after being shot. Authorities said Friday that they arrested several people, including Juan Jose Navarro in Uruguay with help from Interpol. He is allegedly one of the two gunmen who launched the attack on Olivares and Yadon from the car. In this handout released by the Policia Federal Argentina, police escort an unidentified man, one of at least four people who have detained in the shooting attack that seriously wounded a lawmaker and killed the lawmaker's friend, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, May 9, 2019. Congressman Hector Olivares and Miguel Marcelo Yadon were shot Thursday near the country's congressional building by gunmen in a parked car. The shooting was one of the most brazen to take place in the South American country since it returned to democracy in 1983. (Policia Federal Argentina Photo via AP) "We were able to establish that this was part of a mafia clan that had planned the attack since 5 a.m.," said Security Minister Patricia Bullrich. The attack took place around 7 a.m. local time. "A case has been resolved," Bullrich said. "If it hadn't been resolved, it would mean a profound political crisis because there is a member of the lower house of Congress fighting for his life after suffering an attack from a mafia clan that didn't hesitate to kill a person for personal issues." Bullrich said Friday that investigators are still trying to determine a possible motive behind the crime. Authorities also detained Juan Jesus Fernandez as he was en route to the Argentine town of Concepcion de Uruguay, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northwest of the capital of Buenos Aires. Fernandez is the owner of the car used in the attack. Bullrich said that both Navarro and Fernandez will likely be charged with the shooting. Others were arrested for collaborating with the plan or helping cover-up the crime. Bullrich also said that the attack presumably targeted Yadon for "personal reasons" rather than political ones, and that officials in Argentina and Uruguay are working to expel Navarro from Uruguay so he can face justice in his native country. "What matters is that the two killers who were in the car have been detained," Bullrich said. Fernandez's daughter, Estefania Fernandez, and three others whose identities have not been released, were also taken into custody. Politicians across the political spectrum have condemned the attack. Argentine President Mauricio Macri said in a televised address that authorities would go "until the very last instances to understand what happened and to find the culprits." Former President Cristina Fernandez, who is widely viewed as a potential challenger to Macri in October elections, also took to Twitter to demand answers. Olivares belongs to the Radical Civic Union party of the ruling government coalition and is part of the transportation committee in the lower house. __ Associated Press journalist Paul Byrne contributed to this report. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Hundreds of anti-abortion protesters packed the street outside a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday to object to a state legislator's recent treatment of demonstrators at the site and call for his resignation. Two videos in which Democratic state Rep. Brian Sims badgers anti-abortion protesters have outraged activists in recent days and inspired fundraisers for their cause. A woman who appeared with her daughters in one of the videos addressed the rally, which included protesters who said they'd never been to one before. One of those, Anita McGlynn, said she was concerned that Sims was threatening peaceful demonstrators. "What I saw was a white man harassing teenage girls and an old woman and threatening a cornerstone of our democracy, which is peaceful protest," said McGlynn, 51, a self-employed writer and researcher who says she is a pro-life Democrat. "That actually galvanized me. Our Democratic ideals are at stake." In one video shot last week outside the Planned Parenthood facility in his district, Sims berated an unidentified woman , asking her a stream of questions and calling her actions disgusting, racist and shameful. The woman largely ignores him, at one point taking a rosary out of her bag. A second video that Sims posted in April has since come to light. In it, Sims peppers a woman with three teenage girls with questions. At one point, he described them as "pseudo Christians." Sims promised to donate $100 to Planned Parenthood if someone was able to identify the protesters. Ashley Garecht told Friday's rally that she was the woman in the video and two of the girls are her daughters and the third is their friend. Anti-abortion protesters rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) As a riposte to Sims' promise to donate to Planned Parenthood, Garecht and her husband Joe launched a GoFundMe page, which has raised over $118,000 in three days for the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia. "Our hope was that something really, really positive would come out of this really, really bad situation," said Joe Garecht. "We're happy that something good came out of it." A group called Live Action organized the "Pro-Life Rally Against Bullying" organized Friday's rally to draw attention to Sims' actions. The street in front of the clinic was packed curb to curb with protesters, some carrying signs reading "Pro Life, Pro Love" and "I Regret My Abortion" others waving flags, holding large crucifixes. Some chanted "resign now." Despite the crowds, Planned Parenthood was open for business and escorts in light orange vests hustled patients through the throngs into the clinic as the rally continued. Planned Parenthood said in a statement it doesn't condone confronting protesters but didn't mention Sims by name. "Patients do not come to our health centers to make a political statement. They come to access high-quality, affordable reproductive health care," said Dayle Steinberg, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania. "We trust patients to make their own, fully informed sexual and reproductive health care decisions." On Tuesday, Sims posted a video on Twitter in response to the outrage his actions has provoked. In it, he said "two wrongs don't make a right." He also acknowledged that his behavior was "aggressive." "I can do better and I will do better for the women of Pennsylvania," he said. Sims couldn't be reached Friday for comment. Ashley Garecht said she hopes Sims apologizes to her daughters and their friend. "He made grave errors in his actions and it's his responsibility as an adult and as an elected official to own those mistakes," she said after the rally. "I have forgiven him, and tomorrow is another day. He says he wants to do better, and I hope that apologizing and owning up to his mistakes is part of that." Ashley Garecht speaks as anti-abortion protesters rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Anti-abortion protesters rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Anti-abortion protesters pray during a rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Anti-abortion protesters rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Anti-abortion protesters pray during a rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Anti-abortion protesters rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Ashley Garecht speaks as anti-abortion protesters rally near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, Friday, May 10, 2019. The demonstration was spurred by the actions of a Democratic state lawmaker who recorded himself berating an anti-abortion demonstrator at length outside the clinic. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is shifting $1.5 billion in funds originally targeted for support of the Afghan security forces and other projects to help pay for construction of nearly 80 miles (130 kilometers) of wall at the U.S.-Mexican border, officials said Friday. Congress was notified of the move Friday. It follows the Pentagon's decision in March to transfer $1 billion from Army personnel budget accounts to support wall construction. Some lawmakers have been highly critical of the Pentagon shifting money not originally authorized for border security. The combined total of $2.5 billion is in response to President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border, where Customs and Border Protection personnel are struggling to cope with increasing numbers of Central American families attempting to gain entry. Trump vetoed Congress' attempt to reverse his emergency declaration. In all, the Pentagon is expected to shift about $6.1 billion to help build a border wall, including about $3.6 billion from military construction projects, some of which will be delayed. The Pentagon has not yet announced which projects will be delayed in order to free up those funds. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who plans to visit the border on Saturday, said in an exchange with reporters Friday: "I won't be reprogramming any more money for the border wall." He appeared to be referring to having reached the goal of channeling $2.5 billion - Friday's announcement coupled with the March transfer of money - into a counterdrug program that will be used for the wall. "We have very smart people here in the department, and we found ways to do this without having any impact on readiness," he said, speaking before a meeting with Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks. FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2019, file photo, acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan speaks with the media as he waits for the arrival of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Pentagon in Washington. President Donald Trump on May 9, said he will nominate Shanahan to be his second secretary of defense. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) Later, a Pentagon spokesman, Tom Crosson, said the $1.5 billion would be used to "undertake fence replacement" in and around Tucson, Arizona, and El Centro, Texas. In a written statement announcing the shift of the $1.5 billion, Shanahan that the Pentagon is "fully engaged" in fixing the border crisis. He said the $1.5 billion he authorized to be transferred toward wall construction was drawn from a variety of sources, "including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements, and therefore will have minimal impact on force readiness." Some in Congress, however, are opposed to the use of Pentagon funds to build the wall. "Once again, the president has shamefully ignored his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and stolen $1.5 billion in Pentagon funds to pay for his ineffective border wall," said Rep. John Garamendi, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee. "The Pentagon has now reprogrammed 12 times more money to the wall than for repairs for Tyndall AFB, destroyed by Hurricane Michael. We should put troops first!" Sen. Richard Durbin wrote on Twitter. He was referring to storm damage at the Air Force base in Florida where almost every building was damaged. In its written notification to Congress, the Pentagon said it was moving the $1.5 billion to support "higher priority items based on unforeseen military requirements than those for which" the funds were originally provided by Congress. The move is "necessary in the national interest," it added, according to a copy of the notice obtained by The Associated Press. To piece together the $1.5 billion for additional wall construction, the Pentagon is shifting funds from several programs where it says it found savings. The biggest chunk, $604 million, is from the Afghan Security Forces Fund, which keeps the Afghan army and other security forces afloat. A standard review of the fund's contract management found the $604 million in savings, according to two defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that were not included in the Pentagon's public announcement. Removing the $604 million means the Afghan Security Forces Fund in the current Defense Department budget is reduced from the $4.9 billion approved by Congress to about $4.3 billion. The Pentagon said the contract management review that found the $604 million in savings was conducted between September 2018 and March 2019 by the U.S. military command in Kabul. An additional $251 million was shifted from a yearslong project to destroy lethal chemical agents and chemical munitions in order to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention. $344 million is being taken from a group of Air Force programs, where the Pentagon identified contract savings, and $224 million is being used from savings related to a military retirement system, the officials said. The Pentagon also is taking $78 million from the Coalition Support Fund, which is money used to reimburse coalition partners - mainly Pakistan - for logistical and military support for American military operations. CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - The Venezuelan government is seeking to ease the country's isolation, reopening borders with Aruba and Brazil after shutting off sea and land access in February to block the opposition from delivering humanitarian aid. However, neighboring Colombia accused Venezuela of supporting terrorism by allegedly hosting Colombian rebels, and the United States warned of additional sanctions on figures in Venezuela's military and intelligence services as international efforts to oust President Nicolas Maduro increase. In Venezuela, meanwhile, a court ordered Edgar Zambrano, vice president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, to be jailed at a military facility following his detention for supporting an April 30 call by the opposition for a military uprising to overthrow Maduro. Opposition leader Juan Guaido announced that more protests will be held on Saturday despite concerns that the government is widening a crackdown on members of the congress that he heads. Venezuela's land and sea links with Colombia and two other Dutch Caribbean islands remain shuttered despite the border reopenings with Aruba and Brazil, Industry Minister Tareck El Aissami said Friday. El Aissami, who has denied U.S. allegations of his involvement in drug trafficking, said on state television that he hopes the two islands "avoid becoming instruments of aggression against the territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela." The South American nation's socialist government ordered the borders with Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Brazil and Colombia closed three months ago as the opposition tried to deliver food and medical supplies. Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself the interim-president of Venezuela, squares his suit jacket before the start of an interview, at the Popular Will party's headquarters, in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, May 10, 2019. Guaido wants to jumpstart his movement to oust Nicolas Maduro following last week's failed military uprising. In an interview with The Associated Press, he promised to persevere in the face of a deepening crackdown by Maduro's government.(AP Photo/Martin Mejia) The aid was provided largely by the United States, a key ally of Guaido, who is recognized by over 50 nations as Venezuela's rightful president. Maduro dismissed the aid push as an infringement on Venezuela's sovereignty and a U.S.-backed attempt to remove him from power. The bulk of the assistance was stored in Colombia, while smaller amounts were held in Brazil and the Caribbean. Opposition leaders tried driving the aid across the land borders in trucks but were blocked by state security forces. El Aissami said Maduro's government held talks with Aruba and Brazil and said they'd reached the "necessary agreement" to ensure that another attempt to force aid into Venezuela would not occur. He said that until the other two Dutch Caribbean islands and Colombia assure Venezuelan authorities that they will cease any attempts to destabilize Maduro's government, those borders will remain closed. Relations between Venezuela and its neighbors have grown increasingly prickly as many leaders in the region have support Guaido's claim to the presidency and efforts to remove Maduro from power. The border closure has had an especially strong impact on tens of thousands of Venezuelans who typically cross into Colombia daily, searching for food, medicine or a new life outside the struggling nation. Many are now crossing illegally through dozens of illegal dirt pathways where criminal groups charge for passage and frequently rob or assault those trying to enter. In Colombia, President Ivan Duque on Friday accused the Venezuelan government of supporting terrorism by allegedly providing refuge to senior members of the National Liberation Army, a Colombian rebel group also known by its Spanish initials ELN. Maduro has provided weapons, money and other aid to the ELN for years in violation of international law, according to Duque. Venezuela has denied the allegations, saying Colombia is trying to divert attention from its domestic problems. Also Friday, the U.S. Treasury Department said people in the defense and security sector of the Venezuelan economy could be subject to sanctions, in what it said was a response to the arrest of members of the opposition-controlled National Assembly in Venezuela. It also imposed sanctions on two companies - Monsoon Navigation Corporation and Serenity Maritime Limited - said to be operating in the Venezuelan oil industry. ___ Associated Press journalist Christine Armario contributed from Bogota, Colombia. Children play outside a building occupied by squatters in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 9, 2019. In the fourth month of their standoff, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido are unable to deliver a knock-out blow as Venezuela spirals deeper into neglect, isolation and desperation. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Families gather outside their homes in the "Aguerridos Liberator" shanty town in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 9, 2019. In the fourth month of their standoff, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido are unable to deliver a knock-out blow as Venezuela spirals deeper into neglect, isolation and desperation. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) A mother's claim that her 7-week-old baby was kidnapped quickly unraveled after her infant was found at the bottom of a 75-foot ravine in the North Carolina mountains, law enforcement officials said Friday. Henderson County Sheriff Lowell Griffin announced that the child's mother, Krista Noelle Madden, 35, has been jailed on a count of attempted first-degree murder. The child was found in "very good condition" despite being thrown down the ravine, Griffin said. The baby was in her car seat when it hit the ground, and somehow rolled out of it by the time local residents found her, he said. The sheriff described a fast-moving turn of events in which an urgent kidnapping investigation turned into a case against a mother who'd given birth less than two months before. It was almost by chance that the baby was found: A woman living near the ravine happened to hear her as she went outside to check her mail. "It was simply in my opinion by the grace of a merciful God that we had a female that goes to check her mailbox, (and) she really believes that she hears the faint cries of an infant," Griffin said. CORRECTS NAME TO KRISTA NOELLE MADDEN, NOT KRISTA LOWELL GRIFFIN - This photo made available by the Henderson County Sheriff's Office, N.C., shows Krista Noelle Madden who was arrested on Friday, May 10, 2019. Her claim that her 7-week-old baby was kidnapped quickly unraveled after the infant was found at the bottom of a 75-foot ravine in the North Carolina mountains, law enforcement officials said Friday. (Henderson County Sheriff's Office via AP) Authorities were first alerted by a 911 call late Thursday afternoon from someone who genuinely believed that Madden's baby had been kidnapped. Asheville police put out a description of a couple wearing ski masks who left in a car from the city's Biltmore Park. Asheville Police traced Madden's cellphone to a mountainous road in Henderson County and notified the sheriff, who rushed deputies to the area. They found Madden's car, and then Madden herself. She told them she had just escaped a kidnapping, the sheriff said. Dogs were brought in to search the area around the car, but found nothing that indicated anyone else had been there. A couple hours later, they got another 911 call - the baby had been found. Griffin said the woman who heard the baby's cries summoned her husband, who climbed down into the 75-foot ravine and found the little girl. "She looks so scared. So scared," an unidentified woman told a 911 operator, according to a recording of the call released to media outlets. The woman, who sounded out of breath, said the baby they found "was bruised up" and possibly had a broken leg as well as a scrape on her head. The woman said the infant was found in "the weeds and the trees" and that the car seat was sitting "far from her." "There's no people down here," the woman said during the seven-minute call. "We live in a remote area. And somebody pulled up beside it and tossed her like a piece of trash." Once Madden was questioned at the police station, she "provided enough information about her involvement that gave us probable cause" to file charges against her, the sheriff said. Authorities have no reason to believe the mother or daughter was ever kidnapped, he added. Authorities fielded questions at the press conference about the possibility of post-partum depression; Greg Newman, the local district attorney, said he would expect Madden's attorneys will ask that she be evaluated. "We just follow the facts wherever they lead ... and then we'll discuss with her lawyers what we believe would be a proper and just resolution, and we're not even close to that yet," Newman said. Newman identified Madden's attorneys as Jason Blackwell and Sean Devereux. They did not immediately respond to phone calls requesting comment. Scott Fowler, the man who retrieved the baby from the ravine, told WLOS on Thursday he's glad the incident happened near his house and not a more remote part of the area. "We heard a baby crying. And my wife said 'Scott, there's a baby crying down there," he said. "I went to looking and I seen it down over the bank. So I went down and got it. And it's in good shape. I think it's going to be all right." He added: "What kind of human being could do this?" VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) - Parents in Washington state will no longer be able to claim a personal or philosophical exemption for their children from receiving the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before attending a day care center or school under a measure signed Friday by Gov. Jay Inslee. The state saw more than 70 cases of measles this year, and Inslee signed the bill at Vancouver City Hall, in the county where most of those cases were centered. The new law takes effect at the end of July. Inslee said that while the bill was an important step in public health, he warned it doesn't do "everything necessary to protect the health of our most vulnerable citizens." "We should be listening to science and medicine, not social media," he said. "It is science and truth that will keep us healthy rather than fear." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that as of the end of last week, 764 cases of measles have been confirmed in 23 states. Washington is among 17 states that allow some type of non-medical vaccine exemption for personal or philosophical beliefs. In addition, medical and religious exemptions exist for attendance at the state's public or private schools or licensed day-care centers. Medical and religious exemptions remain in place under the measure passed by the Legislature last month. Anti-vaccination protestors Christie Nadzieja, front, Bob Runnells, back left, and Katie Bauer, back right, all of Vancouver, Washington, stand up and turn their backs on Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday, May 10, 2019, in Vancouver, Wash., as he signs a bill into law that eliminates personal belief and philosophical exemptions for the measles mumps and rubella vaccine for children who wish to attend school or day care. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Unless an exemption is claimed, children are required to be vaccinated against or show proof of acquired immunity for nearly a dozen diseases - including polio, whooping cough and measles - before they can attend school or go to child care centers. The state Department of Health said that 4% of Washington K-12 students have non-medical vaccine exemptions. Of those, 3.7% of the exemptions are personal, and the rest are religious. While the Senate had first sought a bill that would have removed the philosophical exemption for all required childhood vaccines, both chambers ultimately agreed to move forward with the House bill that focused only on the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine - also known as MMR. Parents opposed to the measures packed public hearings and the Washington state Capitol regularly with their children throughout the legislative session, which ended April 28. More than 30 parents, carrying signs that included slogans such as "Science is Never Settled," arrived outside City Hall ahead of Friday's bill signing. Christie Nadzieja, of Vancouver, Washington, was one of three protesters inside during the ceremony who stood up and turned their backs to Inslee as he signed the bill. "I'm for medical freedom and vaccine choice," said Nadzieja, who also livestreamed the signing on her cellphone. Other parents were accompanied by their young children. "We're just asking for the parental right to choose whether or not our children are vaccinated. We're not here to take away anybody else's right, whether they choose to vaccinate or not," said Kari Palomo, a parent from Vancouver, Washington. Before mass vaccination, 400 to 500 people in the U.S. died of the measles every year. Serious complications include brain swelling that can cause blindness or deafness and pneumonia. Early symptoms include a fever, runny nose and malaise, followed by a rash that starts around the head and moves down the body. Patients are contagious four days before and four days after getting the rash. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people who are exposed will get the disease. Someone who has no immunity can get sick up to three weeks after they have been exposed to the virus. There was a surge in the anti-vaccine movement after a study in the late 1990s alleged a link between the measles vaccine and the rise of autism. The study has since been discredited and the researcher lost his medical license, but misinformation and fear persists. California removed non-medical exemptions for all vaccines required for both public and private schools in 2015 after a measles outbreak at Disneyland sickened 147 people and spread across the U.S. and into Canada. Vermont abandoned its personal exemption in 2015. Several other states are considering similar legislation, including Maine, Connecticut and neighboring Oregon, which saw a handful of cases tied to the Washington state outbreak. In Clark County, Washington, the site of the recent measles outbreak, 15 of the 54 locations where people were exposed to the viral illness were at schools, said Alan Melnick, the county's public health director. Eleven people got measles due to exposure school, he added, and 800 children were banned from school because they hadn't been vaccinated or their vaccination status wasn't clear. "Getting the vaccination rates up at schools is really essential in terms of protecting kids," Melnick said. ___ La Corte contributed from Olympia, Washington. WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says special counsel Robert Mueller won't appear before his panel next week, despite the committee's hope that Mueller would testify May 15. New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Friday that negotiations continue with Mueller and the Justice Department about the testimony. He wouldn't characterize those talks. Nadler said he expects Mueller to appear, and if he won't agree the committee will attempt to compel him. "If necessary we'll subpoena him and he'll come," Nadler said. The negotiations over Mueller's appearance come as Democrats are clashing with the Justice Department over access to Mueller's full report on the Trump-Russia investigation. The Judiciary panel on Wednesday voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress after he defied the committee's subpoena for an unredacted version of the report. The next step for holding Barr in contempt is a vote on the House floor. With Democrats sending several subpoenas to the Trump administration, including two on Friday for President Donald Trump's tax returns, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested they could wait and combine several contempt resolutions into one package. Trump has said he will fight "all the subpoenas." FILE - In this April 21, 2019, file photo, special counsel Robert Mueller and his wife Ann Cabell Standish, left, arrive for Easter services at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says sMueller won't appear before his panel next week, despite the committee's hope that Mueller would testify May 15. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) On Friday, Nadler sent a new letter to Barr signaling that he was still willing to negotiate. "Notwithstanding the president's admitted intent to block all congressional subpoenas, this committee remains prepared to meet with the department to ascertain if accommodation can be reached," Nadler wrote. The Justice Department had no immediate response. RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - A Brazilian supreme court judge said Friday that President Jair Bolsonaro and his Justice Ministry had five days to respond to opposition assertions that a recently passed gun decree was unconstitutional. The decree presented on May 7 widely loosens the country's strict gun laws by expanding the ability of Brazilians to sell, access and carry firearms, in a move that some critics have qualified as "the most devastating gun reform" in decades. Igarape, a Brazilian think tank, said this "death decree" considerably increases the number of people that could carry firearms without prior authorization from the federal police, further increasing violence in the world's leader in total annual homicides. A day after Bolsonaro signed his decree, surrounded by supporting lawmakers who made finger-gun gestures with their hands, the Sustainability Network party filed a petition with the Supreme Federal Tribunal. In the document, the political party argues the decree constitutes an "abuse of regulatory power by the executive" and that it should have been passed by Congress. They say Brazil's Constitution stipulates that it is for Congress to legislate on the possession, carrying and registering of firearms. The decree's measures "clearly go against the spirit of the Disarmament Statute," the Sustainability Network party wrote, referring to the existing 2003 law on firearms. Lawmakers make finger-gun hand gestures as Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro signs a second decree that eases gun restrictions, at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2019. The decree opens Brazil's market to guns and ammunition made outside of Brazil according to a summary of the decree. Gun owners can now buy between 1,000 -5,000 rounds of ammunition per year depending on their license, up from 50 rounds. Lower-ranking military members can now carry guns after 10 years of service. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) Both the Senate and lower house agreed. The decree is "invading the prerogatives of parliamentary members," House Speaker Rodrigo Maia sai d Wednesday, asking for the reversal of specific points. Bolsonaro said Friday that if the decree was unconstitutional, it should cease to exist. But hours later, he told an enthusiastic crowd in the state of Parana: "We are not retreating in front of those that since forever have said they are security experts." Bolsonaro insisted he had acted within the limits of the law. "The life of a good citizen has no price." Bolsonaro, a former army captain and congressman for 27 years, has long opposed the 2003 Disarmament Statute, which imposed a minimum age for possession of 25 and included mandatory background checks and requirements to renew licenses every five years. During his time in Congress, Bolsonaro was part of the pro-gun lobby known as the "bullet caucus". Among the decree's major changes, is the increase in the quantity of ammunitions available to gun owners. Under the new rules, they can buy between 1,000 and 5,000 rounds of ammunition a year, depending on their licenses, up from just 50 rounds. Brazilians can now own up to four guns without requiring formal clearance from authorities and also have access to higher calibers, so far restricted to trained members of the armed forces, Igarape said. New categories of people that can access guns thanks to the new decree and without authorization from the federal police include shooting instructors, collectors, hunters, tax collectors, bus and truck drivers, elected officials, lawyers, rural residents, journalists working with police and private security guards. The impact of the decree in rural Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, could be major, analysts say. Under the new rules, Igarape estimates that some 18.6 million "rural residents" and hundreds of thousands of hunters and collectors could access and carry firearms more easily and under less supervision. Robert Muggah, Igarape's research director, says he expects "a dramatic increase in the circulation of firearms in northern, northeastern and midwest Brazil," where are concentrated many of the disputes between landowners and indigenous communities. Loosening Brazil's strict gun laws and offering more protection to rural landowners were campaign promises of Bolsonaro, who promised to get tough on criminals and protect Brazilians from rising crime. In 2017, 63,880 people were killed in Brazil, according the think-tank Brazilian Public Security Forum, making it the deadliest year in the country's history. GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) - The nation's third-largest coal company by production volume filed for bankruptcy Friday as utility companies increasingly turn to gas-fired generation and renewable energy for electricity. Gillette-based Cloud Peak Energy filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The move was widely expected since at least March, when the company received the first of several extensions to make a $1.8 million loan payment. The latest extension expired Friday. Cloud Peak owns and operates three mines in the Powder River Basin: the Antelope and Cordero Rojo mines in Wyoming and the Spring Creek Mine in Montana. The mines shipped 50 million tons of coal in 2018. They will remain in operation during the bankruptcy process with help from $35 million in debtor-in-possession financing, according to the company. "While we undertake this process, Cloud Peak Energy remains a reliable source of high-quality coal for customers," President and CEO Colin Marshall said in a release. Cloud Peak is the fourth major coal producer in Wyoming, the top coal-mining state, to file for bankruptcy in recent years. Bristol, Tennessee-based Alpha Natural Resources filed for bankruptcy in 2015, followed by top-producing Peabody Energy and Arch Coal in 2016. Westmoreland Coal filed for bankruptcy in October. Inexpensive and cleaner-burning natural gas, and increasingly inexpensive wind and solar power, have become attractive alternatives to coal power in the U.S. None of the Powder River Basin's huge, open-pit coal mines has had to close. But the outlook for thermal coal, the type used to fire power plants, has been bleak. A federal government report released Thursday predicts coal in the months ahead will account for 25 percent of U.S. power generation, down by about half over the past decade. The trend continues despite President Donald Trump's efforts to back away from a wide range of environmental regulations affecting coal. Even so, coal remains an integral part of the world's energy portfolio and will be for years to come, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement. "This news about Cloud Peak reinforces why I have advocated so strongly to innovate and advance the conversation about coal energy beyond polarized political rhetoric," Gordon said. Wyoming officials have sought to encourage carbon-capture technology by funding research at a Gillette-area power plant. Any marketable results from that work remain years away from wide-scale use. ___ Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver NORWALK, Conn. (AP) - Jim Fowler, a naturalist who rose to fame on the long-running television program "Wild Kingdom" and who famously bantered with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," has died. He was 89. Fowler died peacefully Wednesday at his home in Norwalk, Connecticut, surrounded by family, said Jennifer Whitney, a spokeswoman for Mutual of Omaha, which sponsored the show. "Jim was one in a million, and with his passing we've lost a true wildlife icon," she said in an email. "His memory will remain through the work he did on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, as well as through the many parks, wildlife centers and nature preserves to which he lent his expertise. But perhaps his most important legacy will be the role he played in inspiring the next generation of naturalists and wildlife experts." "Wild Kingdom" debuted in 1963. Fowler began as an assistant and later became a co-host with Marlin Perkins before taking over as host. Fowler had his arm swallowed by an anaconda and was charged by a gorilla and other creatures. He was an athlete in college and turned down offers from the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees to pursue his career in wildlife, according to a biography on the "Wild Kingdom" website. FILE - In this July 27, 1998, file photo, television personality Jim Fowler ducks to avoid being battered by a peregrine falcon on a tether at the National Bison Range near Missoula, Mont. Fowler, a naturalist who rose to fame on the long-running television show "Wild Kingdom," died peacefully surrounded by family on Wednesday, May 8, 2019, at his home in Norwalk, Conn. He was 89. (Michael Gallacher/The Missoulian via AP) He had a special interest in training eagles and became an internationally recognized authority on predatory birds. He also made appearances with exotic animals on talk shows, including "The Tonight Show," where his educational talks often also served as a foil for the humor of Johnny Carson. He shook his head when asked by The Associated Press in 1993 about his reputation for wrangling some of the world's most fearsome beasts while Perkins watched and narrated. Perkins died in 1986 at age 81. "Johnny Carson started that and I can't seem to shake the image," Fowler said. "It isn't true, you know. Marlin was right there with me on almost all of the stuff." He met Perkins on the "Today" show in 1961 and became his sidekick. Fowler also was there as host when the last episode of the original "Wild Kingdom" - "Tigers of Ranthambhorn" - was filmed in 1991. The show was revived on Animal Planet in 2002. Fowler's survivors include his wife, the wildlife artist Betsey Fowler; two children; and two grandchildren. WASHINGTON (AP) - One of the founding members of the 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees has been charged in a campaign finance conspiracy that took place during the 2012 presidential election, the Justice Department said Friday. A four-count indictment accuses Prakazrel "Pras" Michel of conspiring with fugitive Malaysian financer Low Taek Jho, usually known as Jho Low, to make and conceal foreign campaign contributions. He is alleged to have used straw donors to give campaign contributions to a U.S. presidential candidate, who is identified in the indictment only as Candidate A. Low has gained attention in the last several years after U.S. officials accused him of masterminding a money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered billions from the Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB. He's been charged separately by both U.S. and Malaysian officials in connection with that alleged fraud but remains at large. Prosecutors allege that from June to November 2012, Low directed more than $21.6 million to be moved from foreign entities to Michel's accounts in order to funnel money into the 2012 presidential election. They say Michel then paid about 20 straw donors and conduits so they could make the donations in their names and conceal where the money actually came from, according to the indictment. More than $1 million was also sent to an independent expenditure committee, prosecutors said. "Mr. Michel is extremely disappointed that so many years after the fact the government would bring charges related to 2012 campaign contributions," said defense lawyer Barry Pollack. "Mr. Michel is innocent of these charges and looks forward to having the case heard by a jury." FILE - In this April 12, 1997, file photo, Prakazrel "Pras" Michel, part of the group the Fugees, sings on stage during a concert in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A lawyer for one of the founding members of the 1990s hip hop group the Fugees says his client is facing charges related to 2012 campaign contributions. Defense lawyer Barry Pollack said Friday, May 10, 2019, that Michel is innocent and looks forward to having the case heard by a jury.(AP Photo/Daniel Morel, File) Representatives for Low said in a statement that he is innocent and the allegations against him "have no basis in fact." "Mr. Low has never made any campaign contributions directly or indirectly in the U.S. and he unequivocally denies any involvement in or knowledge of the alleged activities," the statement said. Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, a nonprofit campaign finance watchdog group, said that his organization and another one filed a complaint against Michel to both the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department. "It's pretty unusual to get the government to bring criminal campaign finance cases," he said. "On the other hand, we thought this was a clear case where enforcement was called for." Michel faces a separate civil forfeiture complaint accusing him in a scheme to try to get the department to drop an investigation into embezzlement from a Malaysian investment fund. Michel has denied wrongdoing in that case. The embezzlement from the fund, known as 1MDB , became a political scandal in Malaysia. Looted money paid for jewelry and luxury art and helped finance "The Wolf of Wall Street" and other Hollywood productions films. The Justice Department last year announced charges against Jho Low and two former Goldman Sachs bankers in a money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered money from the fund, created to spur economic development projects in that country. One of those bankers, Roger Ng, was extradited from Malaysia earlier this month to face charges in New York. ___ Associated Press writer Desmond Butler contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to show Ng was extradited earlier this month, not several years ago. Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor aka Agbor Balla Atia Azohnwi Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor alias Agbor Balla, President of the outlawed Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) has told Cameroon-info.net that whenever President Paul Biya convenes an all-inclusive dialogue to end the Anglophone crisis, he will take along with him the two state federation dossier he has always defended. I am a chief apostle of a two state federation. I still believe in a federation, I will always believe in a federation, the human rights lawyer said Wednesday, May 15, 2019 as Prime Minister Dion Ngute entered day two of his five-day peace mission to the South West. The former President of the Fako Lawyers Association (FAKLA), who was among those who held talks with government in 2016 and January 2017 to rescue Common Law practice in a bi-jural Cameroon, said as an unrepentant federalist, he has never been a fan of separation, though he respects the choices of those who see separation as the ultimate. Hear him: I am not a fan of separation. I respect those who are clamouring for separation, but I am not a separatist. I will always maintain my two state federation stand. The Founder/President of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) says though two-state federalism has always been his goal, he will not hesitate shifting position in the interest of peace and the suffering masses. His words: But in a negotiation or dialogue, you have to go there with an open mind and try to see what you can concede and what the other parties can concede also. If all of us stand in our various extremes, then we will never have peace. And there is need for peace. The interest in this country now, the interests of the people of Southern Cameroons is the suffering masses. They are the people who are suffering. It is not those who are clamouring for federation or separation. No! The average mother whos lost all her source of livelihood, those who are in jail, those who have lost family members are those hardest hit. We need peace. So, it is not about this showmanship which is being done on social media. It is the people who are affected and like somebody who is on the ground, who visits some of these people, who gets complaints from these people always, you understand their pain and their cry. And I think that each and every one who is complaining wants to have an end to this crisis. Agbor Balla, the diehard federalist, was arrested on January 17, 2017 along with Consortium scribe Dr. Fontem Neba moments after the CACSC they led was banned by Cameroons Territorial Administration Minister at the time, Rene Emmanuel Sadi. He was held in detention until September 1, 2017 when he was freed along with some detainees arrested in connection to what has become known as the Anglophone crisis. During his stay in jail, he was charged under the 2014 law on the suppression of acts of terrorism and appeared before the military tribunal facing the maximum sentence. Today, Prime Minister Dion Ngute says his master, President Paul Biya, is now ready to organise an all-inclusive dialogue as the three-year-old crisis digs in. What started as unionist demands and popular outcry over marginalisation of Anglophones in a French-dominant country has since 2016 morphed into an armed conflict. While many seek a return to the 1961 federal constitution, others now stand for varied forms of federalism. Conservatives have stayed glued to a decentralised unitary state even as a third group now wants independence for present day Cameroons North West and South West regions. This new state they have taken up arms to liberate has been christened Ambazonia. Cameroons Prime Minister Dion Ngute on behalf of his master, Paul Biya says all other things will be discussed except separation. To those who want separation or nothing else, Agbor Balla calls on them to make concessions and give peace a chance. I urge those who have taken up arms to reconsider their position because if we need to dialogue, it will be give and take. We cannot be fixed on our particular positions and want things to change. All of us should be ready to ensure that at least we give in something so that peace can reign in the country. 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: Photo shows presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders shaking hands with a young man and pointing to his T-shirt, which says: "Listen here, Bud, America deserved 9/11." THE FACTS: The photo has been manipulated. The T-shirt worn by a Sanders supporter at a campaign event has no writing on it. It has a picture of labor activist Eugene V. Debs, who ran as a Socialist Party candidate for president five times between 1900 and 1920. Iowa State University student Ashton Ayers was shaking hands with the Vermont senator at a May 4 event in Ames, Iowa, when he was photographed by Georgia Parke, a strategist for Sanders' campaign. Beyond the photo, Ayers can be seen wearing the T-shirt with Debs' photo in a video on Sanders' YouTube site. The photo has been a popular target for manipulation, with this recent image being shared widely across social media platforms, including Discord, Reddit and Facebook. Ayers told The Associated Press that Sanders recognized Debs on his shirt immediately and pointed at it. "He was surprised a young man knew who Debs was," Ayers said. ___ CLAIM: Packaging inserts for the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines list autism as a possible side effect on the Food and Drug Administration's website. In this May 4, 2019 photo provided by the Bernie Sanders campaign, presidential candidate Sen. Sanders, I-Vt., shakes hands with supporter Ashton Ayers in Ames, Iowa. Ayers' shirt features a picture of labor activist Eugene V. Debs, who ran as a Socialist Party candidate for president five times between 1900 and 1920. On Friday, May 10, 2019, The Associated Press has found that a manipulated version of this photo has been circulating on the internet. (Georgia Parke/Bernie 2020 via AP) THE FACTS: Autism is not listed as a reaction on packaging for any of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines - often referred to as DTaP- currently used in the U.S., according to documents on the FDA's website. "There's no credible evidence linking vaccination to autism or other developmental disorders," the FDA said in a statement emailed to the AP. "This question of a purported link between vaccines and autism has been exhaustively studied over many years, in dozens of investigations and through some of the largest scientific studies ever undertaken." Posts circulating on Facebook that make the claim show a label that came with Sanofi Pasteur's Tripedia DTaP in 2005. It included autism on a long list of "adverse events" because some consumers had sent in that claim without scientific evidence. Since then, the FDA has changed its labeling rules and now only includes adverse events "for which there is some basis to believe there is a causal relationship," the agency told the AP in a statement last year, when similar reports resurfaced. Tripedia has not been used as a vaccine in the U.S. since 2011, according to information on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. ___ CLAIM: Puerto Rico has received $91 billion from Congress for hurricane disaster relief, more than any state in the U.S. THE FACTS: Congress has only approved $41 billion in aid for recovery efforts in the U.S. territory after Hurricane Maria struck in 2017. About $11 billion of that aid has been dispersed. Social media posts picked up the inaccurate claim that President Donald Trump has made repeatedly. Trump's estimate of $91 billion includes $50 billion in expected future disaster disbursements that could span decades, according to the White House. That expenditure has not been approved by Congress and is based on Puerto Rico's eligibility for emergency disaster aid in future years, according to an AP Fact Check published May 6. Even if the U.S. had spent $91 billion on hurricane recovery aid to Puerto Rico, as Trump claimed, it would not be the most aid given out in U.S. history. The U.S. government spent $120 billion after Hurricane Katrina, with most of the money going to Louisiana, the AP has reported. ___ CLAIM: Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes' proposed election reform bill will make it illegal to transport groups of people in need to the polls. THE FACTS: A proposed Texas Senate bill does not prohibit drivers from transporting groups of "elderly, disabled or poor" to the polls to vote. False claims, which have been shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook, distort a provision about Election Day transportation in state Senate Bill 9. The posts single out a section of the bill that would require anyone driving three or more non-relatives to vote to fill out a form, but the rule would apply only in a special circumstance: "It's only if you are driving three or more people who are physically disabled who want to vote curbside from the polls, allowing them to vote from their car," Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state's office, told the AP. In those cases, drivers would need to fill out a form providing their name and address, as well as their relationship to the voters and the reason for the transportation to polling places. The GOP-backed bill, which passed the state Senate in April, also would stiffen penalties for election-related crimes, including making it a felony to put false information on a voter registration form. Civil right groups have rebuked it, saying it would make voting in the state difficult and bureaucratic. __ 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. ___ Find all AP Fact Checks here: https://www.apnews.com/APFactCheck ___ Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck FILE - This Monday, Sept. 19, 2011 file photo shows an empty bottle of tetanus, diphthera and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine on display at a high school in Sacramento, Calif. On Friday, May 10, 2019, The Associated Press has found that stories circulating on the internet that packaging inserts for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines list autism as a possible side effect on the Food and Drug Administration's website, are untrue. The FDA says, "This question of a purported link between vaccines and autism has been exhaustively studied over many years, in dozens of investigations and through some of the largest scientific studies ever undertaken." (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) FILE - In this Sept. 8, 2018 file photo, Alma Morales Rosario poses for a portrait between the beams of her home being rebuilt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Maria a year earlier in the San Lorenzo neighborhood of Morovis, Puerto Rico. On Friday, May 10, 2019, The Associated Press has found that stories circulating on the internet that Puerto Rico has received $91 billion from Congress for hurricane disaster relief, more than any state in the U.S, are untrue. Congress has approved $41 billion in aid for recovery efforts in the U.S. territory, but only about $11 billion of that aid has been dispersed. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Police officers involved in the shooting of a Tennessee man last year will not face criminal charges, but a grand jury has indicted the man, a prosecutor said Friday. Shelby County district attorney Amy Weirich said 26-year-old Martavious Banks has been charged with evading arrest in a motor vehicle with risk of harm to others, unlawful weapons possession, and other alleged offenses. Police said Banks was shot when he ran from a traffic stop in Memphis in September 2018. Officers said they saw a gun in the vehicle, and they chased him as he ran away. Banks was shot and hospitalized in critical condition. After the shooting, Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings said three officers involved in the shooting did not have their body or in-car cameras activated as dictated by department policy. As with other shootings of black men by police in other cities, the incident drew angry protests from activists and relatives of Banks. Protesters claimed the shooting was unlawful and police wanted to cover up details. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the state's police agency, investigated the shooting and gave a report to Weirich. Weirich said she asked the TBI to seek an indictment against Banks. She also said there was no evidence of criminal conduct by officers. "The report has been reviewed by our office to determine if any state criminal laws were violated," Weirich said in a news release. "My job is not to determine if policies or procedures of the Memphis Police Department were violated that day." Banks is black. The officer who shot him, Jamarcus Jeames, also is black. Jeames has resigned, and three other officers involved in the shooting were suspended. Banks' attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Banks' brother, Jamarious Banks, questioned why the officers were not charged, The Commercial Appeal reported. "My brother still has rods and bullets in his arm that (have) not been removed, yet he is still jailed by the same people who shot him. I want some answers to what is going on," Jamarious Banks said at a news conference Friday. The TBI's report, and any body camera footage that was recovered from the shooting scene, are not being released because of the pending prosecution, the district attorney said. NEW YORK (AP) - Democratic members of Congress from New York called Friday for federal housing officials to withdraw a new rule that could kick tens of thousands of immigrants out of subsidized housing. The Congress members said in a letter to federal Housing Secretary Ben Carson that the rule proposed Friday would "needlessly inflict hardship" on thousands of families. Under current rules, families that include some members who are in the United States legally and some who are not can qualify for federally subsidized housing. The subsidy is prorated to cover only the legal residents. Under the proposed rule, which was published Friday in the Federal Register, only families in which every member is a citizen or legal resident would qualify for subsidized housing. The letter signed by 13 members of Congress said the proposed rule could make 22,000 to 25,000 families homeless or tear families apart. The Congress members including Nydia Velazquez, Jerry Nadler and Hakeem Jeffries said that budget limitations of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development "should not be used as an excuse to cruelly punish hardworking families and some of our most vulnerable neighbors." HUD representatives did not immediately return an email seeking comment. TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A lawsuit from the descendants of black slaves who were once owned by members of the Muscogee Creek Nation and who are seeking citizenship in the tribe has been dismissed, with a federal judge ruling that they should go through the tribe's own legal process first. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., dismissed the Muscogee Creek freedmen descendants' lawsuit this week seeking citizenship in the Creek Nation, the Tulsa World reported. The Okmulgee-based tribe is the fourth largest in the country, with over 86,000 enrolled citizens. The descendants filed a lawsuit last July against the Creek Nation and the U.S. Department of the Interior seeking full tribal citizenship and to have the tribe's constitution declared in violation of the Treaty of 1866, which guaranteed tribal citizenship to the tribe's freed slaves and their descendants, as well as black Creeks. In 1979, the department approved a law in the tribe's constitution that restricts citizenship eligibility to those with proof of Creek lineage. Kollar-Kotelly stated in her decision that the descendants' court filings did not include specific accusations or records that showed they had applied for tribal citizenship and were denied within the last decade. "Failed attempts to obtain a grant of citizenship from the MCN Citizenship Board as well as refusals by the tribal courts to reconsider adverse determinations may show that tribal exhaustion may be futile," Kollar-Kotelly wrote. "But, plaintiffs have failed to produce sufficient evidence that a remedy through the tribal process would be illusory in this case." Kollar-Kotelly also granted Creek Nation Principal Chief James Floyd's motion to dismiss the case without prejudice. As a result, the descendants could re-file their suit in federal court if the tribe rejects their citizenship requests and after they go through the appeals process in the Creek Nation judicial system. Damario Solomon-Simmons, a Tulsa attorney representing the descendants, said the group hasn't made a decision on whether to appeal, submit extra documentation and ask for reconsideration or adhere to Kollar-Kotelly's ruling and pursue citizenship through the Creek Nation's citizenship board and court system. The Cherokee Nation faced a similar lawsuit that was resolved in 2017 after a federal court ruled that the Cherokee Freedmen have a right to tribal citizenship. ___ Information from: The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. will move a Patriot missile battery into the Middle East to counter threats from Iran, the Pentagon said Friday, reflecting ongoing concerns that Tehran may be planning to attack America forces or interests in the region. The Defense Department released a statement about the move but provided no details. An official said the decision comes after intelligence showed that the Iranians have loaded military equipment and missiles onto small boats controlled by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The official was not authorized to discuss the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Officials had said earlier this week that sending a Patriot battery to the area was under discussion and was part of the initial request made by the Pentagon's U.S. Central Command. They said it took a few days to get final approval for the Patriot, a long-range, all-weather air defense system to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft. The U.S. removed Patriot missile batteries from Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan late last year. It was not clear if the battery would go back to one of those countries. U.S. officials announced Sunday that they would rush an aircraft carrier strike group and bombers to the region. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying ships have passed through the Suez Canal and are now in the Red Sea. Officials had initially indicated that the military moves were based in part on indications that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles onto small boats called dhows along its shore. Worshippers chant slogans against the United States and Israel during a rally after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, May 10, 2019. A top commander in Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Friday that Tehran will not talk with the United States, an Iranian news agency reported - a day after President Donald Trump said he'd like Iranian leaders to "call me." (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) Officials would not say if the intelligence showed that the boats have mobile launchers on them. But a notice to mariners in the region has warned of potential threats to commercial maritime traffic. John Bolton, the national security adviser, announced the initial moves on Sunday, citing "troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" but did not explain what they were. On Friday, a defense official said the Iranian threats also include potential attacks by Iranian proxies, such as Shia militias in Iraq. Several officials said they have not yet seen any tangible move by Iran in reaction to the U.S. military shifts in the area. But they also noted there have been no attacks. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a quick visit Tuesday to Baghdad to meet with top leaders and underscore Iraq's need to protect Americans in their country. The Pentagon also said Friday that the USS Arlington, an amphibious transport ship, will move to the Middle East region earlier than planned. The ship is in Europe and will be replacing the USS McHenry, which is scheduled to leave. NEW YORK (AP) - His trade war already raging worldwide, President Donald Trump on Friday brandished his aggressive actions as a political weapon at home, too, casting himself as a fighter for American workers and scorning his chief Democratic rivals as weak. Trump's actions have already caused economic harm to some of the regions that backed him in 2016 . Yet the Republican president is showing little regard for the political risks - or his party's traditional embrace of free trade - as he stakes out his position on an issue that could define the 2020 presidential contest as much as any other. Trump slapped at former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender, in a social media post while defending his latest levying of higher tariffs on Chinese goods, which had taken effect at midnight. Hours later, U.S. and Chinese negotiators broke off talks they were holding under the increasing pressure of the new tariffs, mostly ultimately paid by U.S. consumers and companies, on $200 billion in Chinese goods and Beijing's promise to retaliate. The administration already had applied billions of dollars in trade taxes to goods from China, the world's second largest economy. And the administration has also imposed steel tariffs against allies including Canada, Mexico and the European Union and threatened additional tariffs. "This is not the Obama Administration, or the Administration of Sleepy Joe, who let China get away with 'murder!'" Trump tweeted, using his dismissive nickname for Biden. President Donald Trump speaks during a event on medical billing, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, May 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) A spokesman for Biden, who is in the midst of his inaugural nationwide tour as a formal 2020 presidential candidate, condemned Trump's approach. "We're not going to get a good deal with China if we let Trump keep negotiating by impulse, tweet, and campaign rally one-liner," said the spokesman, Andrew Bates. Trump's continued embrace of protectionist trade policies could energize his supporters from both parties across the Midwest, where many blame trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, for the decline of America's manufacturing sector. At the same time, And Trump's prominent poking will almost certainly exacerbate divisions among Democrats, who are in the early days of their own intra-party fight to pick someone to take him on next year. In an interview, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Democratic weakness on trade was part of the reason Trump won in 2016 - because his Democratic opponent wasn't strong enough in condemning deals perceived by some as helping other countries more than the U.S. He warned Democrats not to make the same mistake again. "If they cede that territory, they are doing so at their own peril," Trumka said. "They need to talk more effectively about trade and convince people that they're going to stand up for workers, that we're not going to continue down the road we've been on." Biden could be particularly vulnerable. The former senator, known for his working-class roots, is the only 2020 Democratic candidate who voted to support NAFTA. And he supported the trade deal authored by the Obama administration known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump ultimately killed once he took office. Still, in the Senate, Biden voted against a number of trade deals, including those with Singapore, Chile and Oman. Privately, Biden's leading Democratic rivals suggest that any advantages he may have in the Midwest will ultimately fade because of his record on trade. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, among other high-profile 2020 Democrats, aggressively opposed the trade deals and expects to ratchet up his contrast with Biden in upcoming debates. Republicans are doing their part already. Not long after Trump's tweet, the Republican National Committee issued a statement highlighting Biden's "dovish" approach on China both as a presidential candidate and as Barack Obama's vice president. Biden faced intense criticism from both parties last week after downplaying the threat from China during a campaign stop in Iowa. While conventional wisdom suggests Trump's populist approach may resonate with voters in both parties, AP Vote Cast, a survey of the 2018 national electorate, showed that 81 percent of the people who voted for Democrats last year thought Trump's trade policies would hurt the national economy. Overall, 53% of 2018 voters opposed Trump on trade. A team of economists from the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University and Yale University in March found that the trade war was an overall burden on the U.S. economy, but that Trump's initial tariffs appeared designed to favor politically competitive counties around the Great Lakes. But once retaliatory Chinese tariffs were factored in, the people hit the hardest were the ones who live in reliably Republican counties that voted heavily for Trump in 2016. Still, Democrats are torn between the party's new base and older alliances. Opponents of foreign trade have historically been more motivated than supporters because trade deals can lead to factory closings and more direct disruptions in lives. But that dynamic may be shifting slightly as Trump's tariffs hammer segments of the agricultural market, especially in the key early voting state of Iowa. Indeed, some opponents of trade agreements have fretted that the presidential primary map can put them at a disadvantage. Candidates who flock to Iowa often lambaste Trump's tariffs there. The one heavily union state in the early four is Nevada, whose unions are heavy on service workers and don't prioritize trade issues. Then the mega-states of California and Texas, both of which are dependent on foreign trade, will vote directly after the early four. The Rust Belt, where the general election could well be decided, will largely vote later in the primary season and not as a bloc, possibly diluting the impact of the anti-trade wing of the party. That group's clout has shrunk as the Democratic base is increasingly young, minority and urban -- a demographic group that broadly favors trade. "Democratic politicians are in a really interesting position. They actually have the opportunity to be really free-tradish, and I don't think they'd suffer much in the polls," said Scott Lincicome, a trade expert at the Cato Institute in Washington. Still, few Democratic 2020 aspirants have become full-throated backers of free trade. Most have offered vague calls for "fair trade." Campaigning in West Virginia on Friday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren condemned the way Trump is communicating on trade, but not necessarily his policy. "I don't believe in tariff negotiation by tweet," she said, calling the Chinese "bad actors on trade." "Our best way to fight back is with strength and with a coherent plan, not with hands." Meanwhile, Trump's position is at odds with the conservative Koch network and much of the nation's business community, but there are few Republicans willing to challenge him publicly. One of them is John Weaver, the chief strategist for John Kasich, Ohio's former Republican governor, who has contemplated a primary challenge against Trump. "Trump is anti-free trade. And the Republican Party is for whatever its master is for. If he switched on a dime tomorrow they'd switch tomorrow," Weaver said. "You don't have to be even on the Trump-level of a student history to know this is not good politics or good policy." ___ Riccardi reported from Denver. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Authorities say a conductor on a commuter train has been shot at a Philadelphia station. A spokesman for the area's mass transit agency says the train was stopped at a station in the Mount Airy neighborhood when a gunman opened fire around 3:30 p.m. Friday, hitting the 57-year-old conductor at least once in the back of the thigh. The longtime SEPTA employee was rushed to the hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch says his injuries are not considered to be life-threatening. Police are looking for two men who fled the scene. Busch says the conductor did not know his assailants. He says the train platform wasn't crowded at the time. ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Latest on the corruption case involving former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger (all times local): 4:40 p.m. The former chief executive of the St. Louis County Economic Development Partnership has pleaded guilty to a federal charge alleging that she helped cover up the pay-to-play scheme of the man who hired her. Sheila Sweeney entered the plea to one count of misprision of a felony on Friday during a hearing in St. Louis federal court. She could spend up to three years in prison but will likely spend a year or less behind bars. Prosecutors say Sweeney helped cover up the crimes of former County Executive Steve Stenger, who pleaded guilty last week to three federal corruption counts and is due to be sentenced Aug. 9. Earlier Friday, businessman John Rallo pleaded not guilty to three federal bribery charges. Prosecutors say Stenger ensured that county contracts went to companies operated by Rallo, a contributor to his campaign. Sheila Sweeney, left, the former CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, arrives at the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in downtown St. Louis on Friday, May 10, 2019. Sweeney, who was appointed by Stenger to head the county's economic development partnership, was due in court Friday to plead guilty to unspecified corruption charges. (Cristina M. Fletes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) ___ 11 a.m. A businessman accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official has been indicted on three bribery charges. Federal prosecutors announced the charges Friday against businessman John Rallo, who pleaded not guilty during a brief court hearing. Meanwhile Sheila Sweeney, who was appointed by former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger to head the county's economic development partnership, is due in court Friday to plead guilty to unspecified corruption charges. Stenger, a Democrat, pleaded guilty May 3 to charges related to trading favors for campaign donations. Prosecutors say Rallo's businesses benefited from the scheme. Stenger resigned on April 29, which was the day his indictment was announced. He's due to be sentenced Aug. 9. Businessman John Rallo, left, and his lawyer John Rogers leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) Businessman John Rallo, left, and his lawyer John Rogers leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) Businessman John Rallo leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) FILE - In this May 3, 2019 file photo, Former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, right, listens as his attorney, Scott Rosenblum, speaks to reporter in St. Louis after Stenger pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and faces sentencing in August. Two people associated with Stenger are scheduled to be in federal court Friday, May 10, 2019. Sheila Sweeney, former head of the St. Louis County Economic Development Partnership, is scheduled to plead guilty Friday to an unspecified charge. In a separate hearing Friday, businessman John Rallo faces arraignment. Stenger pleaded guilty on May 3 to federal corruption charges for campaign favors to donors. (AP Photo/Jim Salter File) FILE - This May 10, 2019 file photo shows Sheila Sweeney, the former CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, who is scheduled to plead guilty, Friday, May 10, 2019, in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. (Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, file) Businessman John Rallo, left, and his lawyer John Rogers leave federal court in St. Louis, Friday, May 10, 2019. Rallo, accused in a pay-to-play scheme with St. Louis County's former top elected official, pleaded not guilty Friday to three federal bribery charges. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP) PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) - A Southern California school district has placed four teachers on administrative leave after a photo surfaced showing the group smiling as one held a small noose in a classroom. Palmdale School District Superintendent Raul Maldonado said in a statement this week that he is appalled and has also placed the principal of Summerwind Elementary School on leave pending an investigation. "Late afternoon (May 8) it has been brought to the Palmdale School District's attention that an incident involving the discovery of a noose and possibly inappropriate responses to that discovery occurred at Summerwind Elementary School," he said in the statement posted on the district's Facebook page . KABC-TV , which reported there is also a photo of the noose pinned to a wall, said the district is investigating the intentions of the teachers. The district did not identify the teachers. The school's website lists the principal as Linda Brandts. A telephone listing for her could not be found. Two African American women told KABC they were pulling their children out of the school. Tierra Harris emotionally explained to her daughter why she was being removed from the school. "Do you know what they use that for? The use that to hang African American people," she said. Breyon Clemons said she was pulling her child out for good. "My child will not walk onto this plantation, absolutely not," said. Maldonado, the superintendent, said the situation is not a reflection of the community. "We don't tolerate that type of behavior in our community, in our school district. We hold our employees to the highest standards with high expectations," he said. Palmdale is a city of more than 150,000 in the high desert region of northern Los Angeles County. KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace acknowledged going through some tough times, on and off the track, before breaking down in tears ahead of Saturday night's race at Kansas Speedway. The 25-year-old Wallace has struggled through his second full season at NASCAR's top level, his best finish coming in 17th at Martinsville. The iconic No. 43 of Richard Petty Motorsports sits 28th in the standings, a long way from being in week-to-week contention. Wallace was talking about the challenges facing the team Friday when he said, "You try to be the best you can and sometimes it ain't damn good enough." He later admitted to going through "depression and everything with it," and that he has dealt with the turmoil in part by getting into his car. "I'll be damned," Wallace said quietly, his blue hat pulled low over his eyes, "It all goes away when you get behind the wheel. It's 16 years of driving. It helps. But it's tough." It was at that point, between practice and qualifying sessions, that Wallace said, "I'm on the verge of breaking down. And I am what I am." He then quietly buried his face in his hands. "It's been a rough moment for a while," said the usually upbeat Wallace, an Alabama native and the only black driver in NASCAR's top level. "Just trying to do everything I can." NASCAR auto racing driver Bubba Wallace is shown before a Cup series auto race Sunday, May 5, 2019, at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Jason Minto) Wallace is known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, one of the reasons he has become a favorite among many fans. Tears also flowed after he finished second in last year's Daytona 500, which remains his only top-five finish in 51 career Cup Series starts. There have been signs for a while that Wallace had been struggling beyond the track, though the results surely haven't helped. Normally a beacon of joy on social media, Wallace posted in a pair of tweets earlier this week that he hasn't "been in a good place for some time now." Accompanying a montage showing Wallace joking, he tweeted: "Ha. With a laugh and smile like this every week you'd think there is no way one could mask so much negative and dark (poop). Lonely dark roads ain't fun, keep on keeping on I guess." Wallace did acknowledge Friday walking through the stands after Monday's race at Dover and hearing people shouting support. He said that was an uplifting moment following a difficult weekend. "They were just shouting my name," Wallace said. "A frustrating weekend, but going through the stands, it was nice. It was nice to see all the support and love." __ More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/apf-AutoRacing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Nick Ngwanyam St. Louis Political analyst, Dr. Nick Ngwanyam. has reproached the government of Cameroon for taking slow steps in responding to an Anglophone crisis that started like joke in 2016. Dr. Nick Ngwanyam, member of the ruling CPDM party as well as CEO of St. louis University Institute, said the Arria Formula meeting was a great opportunity for the troubles in Cameroon to get a wider audience with world actors for subsequent concrete action. The Cameroon government has been headstrong and arrogant, not wanting to bring real solutions to the Anglophone problems, bad governance and other issues. It has refused to slow open dialogue for three years and the crises are getting worse. The international community and some individual governments and bodies put to the second floor and the government played a dead ear. He suggests government should wake up now before its too late. He was responding to questions on the impact of the just-ended Arria Formula meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Cameroon, discussed by the international community in New York, US. Although Cameroonian authorities are trying to minimise the impact of Arria-Meetings, most often they serve as preparation for an open debate at the UN security council. In fact Arria is a jumpstart procedure for trucks with bad engines needing a push. When it will get to the 4th Floor which is the Security council we should not say we were not given warning shots. After the Security council there are sanctions and resolutions. At that time the government has no control over the out comes. A stubborn fly followed a corpse to the grave, warned Dr. Nick. According to another critic, Prince Ekosso, president of the USDP party in Cameroon, the humanitarian aspects of the crisis, could have long been looked at, but Cameroon ignored it. He further said the interference of the international community is timely, because government has failed to provide shelters for Internally displaced persons, assist and visit refugees in Nigeria, take care of their medical bills, secure childrens rights to education amongst other issues. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - More than a week after his office got a murder conviction in the high-profile case of a Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced he's taking a medical leave. Freeman says in a statement Friday that after a physical exam, his doctor and others suggested he needs time away from the high stress of running the office in order to restore his physical well-being. His leave will last several weeks. Freeman says he expects to return "stronger and sharper." Last week, Hennepin County jurors convicted Mohamed Noor of murder in the 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia who had called 911 to report a possible crime. The case garnered international attention. SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Billionaire Richard Branson is moving Virgin Galactic's winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space-tourism dream a step closer to reality. Branson said Friday at a news conference that Virgin Galactic's development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move to the custom-tailored hangar and runway at the taxpayer-financed Spaceport America facility near the town of Truth or Consequences. Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said a small number of flight tests are pending. He declined to set a specific deadline for the first commercial flight. An interior cabin for the company's space rocket is being tested, and pilots and engineers are among the employees relocating from California to New Mexico. The move to New Mexico puts the company in the "home stretch," Whitesides said. The manufacturing of the space vehicles by a sister enterprise, The Spaceship Company, will remain based in the community of Mojave, California. Taxpayers invested over $200 million in Spaceport America after Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, pitched the plan for the facility, with Virgin Galactic as the anchor tenant. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, gives a fist bump to Sonia Thorp, 9, of Carlos Gilbert Elementary at the beginning of an event at the state capital on Friday, May 10, 2019, in Santa Fe, N.M. Branson announced Friday that his company will begin shifting operations from California to a spaceport and specialized runway in the New Mexico desert in final preparations for commercial flights. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz) Virgin Galactic's spaceship development has taken far longer than expected and had a major setback when the company's first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot. Branson thanked New Mexico politicians and residents for their patience over the past decade. He said he believes space tourism - once aloft - is likely to bring about profound change. "Our future success as a species rests on the planetary perspective," Branson said. "The perspective that we know comes sharply into focus when that planet is viewed from the black sky of space." Branson described a vision of hotels in space and a network of spaceports allowing supersonic, transcontinental travel anywhere on earth within a few hours. He indicated, however, that building financial viability comes first. "We need the financial impetus to be able to do all that," he said. "If the space program is successful as I think ... then the sky is the limit." In February, a new version of Virgin Galactic's winged craft SpaceShipTwo soared at three times the speed of sound to an altitude of nearly 56 miles (99 kilometers) in a test flight over Southern California, as a crew member soaked in the experience. On Friday, that crew member, Beth Moses, recounted her voyage into weightlessness and the visual spectacle of pitch-black space and the earth below. "Everything is silent and still and you can unstrap and float about the cabin," she said. "Pictures do not do the view from space justice. ... I will be able to see it forever." The company's current spaceship doesn't launch from the ground. It is carried under a special plane to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before detaching and igniting its rocket engine. "Release is like freefall at an amusement park, except it keeps going," Moses said. "And then the rocket motor lights. Before you know it, you're supersonic." The craft coasts to the top of its climb before gradually descending to earth, stabilized by "feathering" technology in which twin tails rotate upward to increase drag on the way to a runway landing. Branson previously has said he would like to make his first suborbital flight this year as one of the venture's first passengers on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20. But he made no mention of timelines on Friday. Pressed on the timeframe, Whitesides said he anticipates the first commercial flight within a year. Three people with future space-flight reservations were in the audience. "They've been patient too," Branson said. "Space is hard." Hundreds of potential customers have committed as much as $250,000 up front for rides in Virgin's six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. Space tourism has not been a complete novelty since millionaire U.S. engineer Dennis Tito in 2001 paid $20 million to join a Russian space mission to the International Space Station. Branson's goal has been to "democratize" space by opening travel up to more and more people. The endeavor began in 2004 when Branson announced the founding of Virgin Galactic in the heady days after the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft that made three flights into space. Space sector analyst Adam Jonas, a managing director of equity research at Morgan Stanley, said Branson's venture could have an outsized impact in the age of social media on how the public visualizes space as a domain for scientific and commercial exploration. "You bring them back to earth and they explain what they saw - that's a story, put through the velocity of social media, people want to hear," he said. "Sometimes you need some distance to gain a perspective, seeing the earth from space, seeing how thin that layer of atmosphere is that protects us." Branson's plans have gradually advanced amid a broader surge in private investment in space technology with cost-saving innovations in reusable rockets and microsatellite technology. Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos announced Thursday that his space company Blue Origin will send a robotic spaceship to the moon with aspirations for another ship that could bring people there along the same timeframe as NASA's proposed 2024 return. Bezos has provided no details about launch dates. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, left, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and U.S. Sen. Tom Udall wait to speak during an event at the state capital on Friday, May 10, 2019, in Santa Fe, N.M. Branson announced Friday that his company will begin shifting operations from California to a spaceport and specialized runway in the New Mexico desert in final preparations for commercial flights. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz) Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson picks up New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham while the company's Kevin Prieto takes a selfie during an event announcing Virgin Galactic's move to New Mexico Friday, May 10, 2019, at the state capital in Santa Fe, N.M. The company says is it nearing the first commercial flights from the Spaceport America. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz) FILE - This Dec. 9, 2014, file photo shows the taxiway leading to the hangar at Spaceport America in Upham, N.M. British billionaire Richard Branson is taking another concrete step toward offering rides into the close reaches of space for paying passengers. Branson announced Friday, May 10, 2019, that Virgin Galactic will immediately begin shifting operations from California to the spaceport and specialized runway in the New Mexico desert in final preparations for commercial flights. He says Virgin Galactic's development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move, which will continue through the summer. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, file) FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2011 file photo, guests stand outside the new Spaceport America hangar in Upham, N.M. British billionaire Richard Branson is taking another concrete step toward offering rides into the close reaches of space for paying passengers. Branson announced Friday, May 10, 2019, that Virgin Galactic will immediately begin shifting operations from California to the spaceport and specialized runway in the New Mexico desert in final preparations for commercial flights. He says Virgin Galactic's development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move, which will continue through the summer. AP Photo/Matt York, File) Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor, describes her flight into space while on stage with Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, right, during an event announcing the company's move to New Mexico Friday, May 10, 2019, at the state capital in Santa Fe, N.M. The company says is it nearing the first commercial flights from the Spaceport America. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz) Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson announces the company's move to New Mexico as they near the first commercial flights from the Spaceport America Friday, May 10, 2019, at the state capital in Santa Fe, N.M. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz) New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham speaks during an event announcing Virgin Galactic's move to New Mexico Friday, May 10, 2019, at the state capital in Santa Fe, N.M. The company says it is nearing the first commercial flights from the Spaceport America. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz) CHINLE, Ariz. (AP) - The Navajo Nation has announced that World War II-era Navajo Code Talker Fleming Begaye Sr. has died. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez says Begaye died Friday in Chinle, Arizona. He was 97. The cause of death was not disclosed. Begaye was among hundreds of Navajos who served in the Marine Corps, using a code based on their native language to outsmart the Japanese. According to the Navajo Nation, Begaye served as a Code Talker from 1943 to 1945 and fought in the Battle of Tarawa and the Batter of Tinian. He spent a year in a naval hospital after being wounded. Begaye later ran a general store in Chinle. FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump meets with Navajo Code Talkers, Fleming Begaye Sr., seated and Thomas Begay, center, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. World War II-era Navajo Code Talker Fleming Begaye, Sr., passed away on Friday, May 10, 2019, at the age of 97, in Chinle, Ariz. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) President Donald Trump honored Begaye and two other Navajo Code Talkers at the White House in November 2017. WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Thousands of Polish nationalists marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw Saturday, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust. The protest took place amid a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic hate speech in public life in Poland and it appeared to be one of the largest anti-Jewish street demonstrations in recent times. It also comes as far-right groups are gaining in popularity, pressuring the conservative government to move further to the right. Protesters, including far-right groups and their supporters, say the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting "Jewish interests" over the interests of Poland. Poland was a major victim of Nazi Germany during World War II and those protesting say it is not fair to ask Poland to compensate Jewish victims when Poland has never received adequate compensation from Germany. "Why should we have to pay money today when nobody gives us anything?" said 22-year-old Kamil Wencwel. "Americans only think about Jewish and not Polish interests." The protesters shouted "No to claims!" and "This is Poland, not Polin," using the Hebrew word for Poland. Thousands of Polish nationalists march to the U.S. Embassy, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust. The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting "Jewish interests" over the interests of Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Rafal Pankowski, a sociologist who heads the anti-extremist group Never Again, called the march "probably the biggest openly anti-Jewish street demonstration in Europe in recent years." One couple wore matching T-shirts reading "Death to the enemies of the fatherland," while another man wore a shirt saying: "I will not apologize for Jedwabne" - a massacre of Jews by their Polish neighbors in 1941 under the German occupation. Among those far-right politicians who led the march were Janusz Korwin-Mikke and Grzegorz Braun, who have joined forces in a far-right coalition standing in the elections to the European Parliament later this month. Stopping Jewish restitution claims has been one of their key priorities, along with fighting what they call pro-LGBT "propaganda." The movement is polling well with young Polish men. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki echoed the feelings of the protesters at a campaign rally Saturday, saying that it is Poles who deserve compensation. Poland was the heartland of European Jewish life before the Holocaust, with most of the 3.3 million Polish Jews murdered by occupying Nazi German forces. Christian Poles were also targeted by the Germans, killed in massacres and in concentration camps. Many Poles to this day have a feeling that their suffering has not been adequately acknowledged by the world, while that of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust has, creating what has often been called a "competition of victimhood." Many of the properties of both Jews and non-Jews were destroyed during the war or were looted and later nationalized by the communist regime that followed. The protests in Warsaw target U.S. law S. 447, also known as the Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (or JUST) Act. It was signed into law by President Donald Trump last year and requires the State Department to report to Congress on the state of restitution of property stolen in the Holocaust in dozens of countries. Protesters said paying compensation would ruin Poland's economy. But Jewish organizations, particularly the World Jewish Restitution Organization, have been seeking compensation for Holocaust survivors and their families, considering compensation a matter of justice for a population that was subjected to genocide. Poland is the only European Union country that hasn't passed laws regulating the compensation of looted or national property, and the head of the WJRO, Gideon Taylor, noted Saturday that such property "continues to benefit the Polish economy." At least two U.S. Confederate flags were visible at Saturday's protest, which began with a rally in front of the prime minister's office before the protesters walked to the U.S. Embassy. Men in Native American headdress held a banner with a message pointing to what they see as U.S. double standards: "USA, Practice 447 at home. Return stolen lands to the descendants of native tribes." With pressure building on this issue, the U.S. State Department's new envoy on anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, was in Warsaw this past week, telling leaders and media that the U.S. is only urging Poland to fulfil a non-binding commitment it made in 2009 to act on the issue. He also said the U.S. recognizes that Poland was a victim of the war and is not dictating how Warsaw regulates compensation. Thousands of Polish nationalists march to the U.S. Embassy, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust. The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting "Jewish interests" over the interests of Poland. The T-shirts read in Polish "This is Poland not Polin" (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Thousands of Polish nationalists march to the U.S. Embassy, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust. The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting "Jewish interests" over the interests of Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Thousands of Polish nationalists march to the U.S. Embassy, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust. The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting "Jewish interests" over the interests of Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Thousands of Polish nationalists march to the U.S. Embassy, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust. The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting "Jewish interests" over the interests of Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to get an abortion there. Or, potentially, in neighboring Louisiana. Or Alabama. Or Georgia. The Louisiana legislature is halfway toward passing a law - like the ones enacted in Mississippi and Georgia - that will ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they're pregnant. Alabama is on the cusp of approving an even more restrictive bill. State governments are on a course to virtually eliminate abortion access in large chunks of the Deep South and Midwest. Ohio and Kentucky also have passed heartbeat laws; Missouri's Republican-controlled legislature is considering one. Their hope is that a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court will approve, spelling the end of the constitutional right to abortion. "For pro-life folks, these are huge victories," said Sue Liebel, state director for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group. "And I think they're indicative of the momentum and excitement and the hope that's happening with changes in the Supreme Court and having such a pro-life president." FILE - In this May 7, 2019, file photo, Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, center, signs legislation in Atlanta, banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks before many women know they're pregnant. Georgia became the fourth state to enact the ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) For abortion rights supporters, meanwhile, the trend is ominous. Said Diane Derzis, owner of Mississippi's sole abortion clinic, the Jackson Women's Health Organization: "I think it's certainly more dire than it ever has been. They smell blood and that's why they're doing this." Already, Mississippi mandates a 24-hour wait between an in-person consultation. That means women must make at least two trips to her clinic, often traveling long distances. Other states have passed similar, incremental laws restricting abortion in recent years, and aside from Mississippi, five states have just one clinic - Kentucky, Missouri, North and South Dakota, and West Virginia. But the latest efforts to bar the procedure represent the largest assault on abortion rights in decades. Lawmakers sponsoring the bans have made it clear their goal is to spark court challenges in hopes of ultimately overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Those challenges have begun. Derzis' attorneys are scheduled to go before a judge on May 21, seeking to prevent Mississippi's heartbeat law from taking effect July 1. A judge in Kentucky blocked enforcement of that state's heartbeat ban after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the clinic in Louisville. Similar legal action is expected before bans can take effect in Ohio and Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the latest heartbeat bill into law Tuesday. Kemp said he welcomed the fight, vowing: "We will not back down." Georgia's ban doesn't take effect until Jan. 1. But the impact was immediate. An abortion clinic operated by The Women's Centers in Atlanta began receiving anxious calls from patients soon after Kemp signed the law. Many callers had plans to travel from outside the state for abortions. Georgia's heartbeat ban would have a wider impact because the state has 17 abortion clinics - more than the combined total in the other four Southern states that have passed or are considering bans. "On a typical day we will see people from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina - all over the region," said Dr. Lisa Haddad, the Atlanta clinic's medical director. "And my thought is we're not going to see those people coming here because they assume it's already illegal in Georgia." Dr. Ernest Marshall, co-founder of Kentucky's last remaining abortion clinic in Louisville, said in an email that banning abortions before most women know they're pregnant would "have a disproportionate impact on poor women and communities of color throughout the South." Advocates for abortion rights expect judges to halt enforcement of any new bans while lawsuits work their way through the courts. That could take years. "These laws are blatantly unconstitutional," said Elisabeth Smith, chief counsel for state policy and advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which also has filed suit over Mississippi's ban. "But if they were allowed to go into force, they would have devastating consequences for the residents of all of these states." If heartbeat bans are upheld, many women who are poor and have limited means to travel would have few options other than to try to terminate their own pregnancies, Haddad said, possibly using abortion drugs purchased online. Others would have to drive or fly across multiple states, said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. "People would go to Florida, people would continue to go to Memphis," Nash said. "How many states do you have to cross before you can access abortion services? It exacerbates all the issues we've already seen around taking time off from work and having the money to travel." Proposed heartbeat bans failed to pass this year in several Republican-led states, including Texas. There, GOP lawmakers lost ground to Democrats in the 2018 elections, and some abortion foes were wary after courts struck down prior abortion restrictions in the state. Such efforts also fell short in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. Alabama lawmakers postponed until next week a vote on a proposal that would make performing nearly all abortions a felony. The measure has passed the state House, and the Senate suspended debate Thursday amid a heated dispute over whether exemptions for rape and incest should be stripped from the bill. "You can't put a price on unborn life," Eric Johnston, president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, said Wednesday, as a legislative committee heard testimony on the state's proposed ban. "What you have to do is protect the people that live in this state and that includes unborn children." But Jenna King-Shepherd told Alabama lawmakers she believed the abortion she had at age 17 allowed her to finish college. She said her father, a part-time Baptist preacher furious about her pregnancy, drove her to the abortion clinic because he trusted her to make the right choice. "I'm not asking you to support access to abortion," King-Shepherd said. "I'm only asking you to let women, their families, their physicians and their God make this decision on how they want to start their families in private and trust them to do that." ____ Associated Press writers Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; and Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky; contributed to this report. CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - The latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local): 2:25 p.m. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido says he's instructed his political envoy in Washington to immediately open relations with the U.S. military. Guaido said Saturday that he's asked his ambassador Carlos Vecchio to open "direct communications" toward possible coordination. U.S.-backed Guaido is leading a campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro. In recent days Venezuelan security forces arrested National Assembly Vice President Edgar Zambrano, the body's No. 2 leader. Other lawmakers also scrambled for refuge in foreign embassies amid renewed fears of a crackdown following an unsuccessful military rebellion. A supporter of Venezuela's opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido, waves a Venezuelan flag marked with the letters "SOS", during a rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Guaido has called for nationwide marches protesting the Maduro government, demanding new elections and the release of jailed opposition lawmakers. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Guaido says he's keeping "all options on the table" to remove Maduro, repeating language used by U.S. President Donald Trump and his chief advisers. Earlier this week, U.S. Navy Adm. Craig Faller said he would meet with Guaido when invited to discuss the future role of Venezuela's armed forces. ___ 2:15 p.m. A modest crowd of Venezuelans took to the streets Saturday to show support for the opposition-led congress which is coming under increasing pressure from the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Opposition leader Juan Guaido addressed several hundred people who had gathered in the capital in support of his bid to oust the socialist president. But the noticeably diminished crowds reflected a growing fear and demoralization that has permeated Guaido's ranks of supporters after he led a failed military uprising on April 30. In previous months, thousands of demonstrators heeded his calls to protest. "We live in dictatorship," Guaido said. "We don't have the option to stay at home waiting, but to keep demanding our rights in the streets." Opponents of Nicolas Maduro's government attend a rally led by opposition leader Juan Guaido, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Guaido has called for nationwide marches protesting the Maduro government, demanding new elections and the release of jailed opposition lawmakers. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Actress Alyssa Milano ignited social media with a tweet Friday night calling for women to join her in a sex strike to protest strict abortion bans passed by Republican-controlled legislatures. The former star of "Charmed" and current cast member of "Insatiable," which is filmed in Georgia, urged women in her tweet to stop having sex "until we get bodily autonomy back." Her tweet came days after Georgia became the fourth state in the U.S. this year to ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. "We need to understand how dire the situation is across the country," Milano told The Associated Press on Saturday. "It's reminding people that we have control over our own bodies and how we use them." She noted that women have historically withheld sex to protest or advocate for political reform. She cited how Iroquois women refused to have sex in the 1600s as a way to stop unregulated warfare. Most recently, she noted that Liberian women used a sex strike in 2003 to demand an end to a long-running civil war. Milano received support from fans and fellow actress Bette Midler joined her in also calling for a sex strike with her own tweet. But both liberals and conservatives also lampooned her idea, with conservatives praising her for promoting abstinence and liberals saying she was pushing a false narrative that women only have sex as a favor to men. Milano said the criticism didn't bother her and that her tweet was having her desired effect, "which is getting people to talk about the war on women." FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2019 file photo, Alyssa Milano arrives at the InStyle and Warner Bros. Golden Globes afterparty at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Actress Alyssa Milano got people riled up on social media with a tweet Friday night, May 10, 2019 calling for women to join her in a sex strike to protest strict abortion bans passed by Republican-controlled legislatures. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File) She said she fears one of the laws could eventually be decided by the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court, which Republicans hope will overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. "That is absolutely horrifying to me," Milano said. "Anyone who is not completely and totally outraged by this and doesn't see where this is leading, I think is not taking this threat seriously." Milano said people have to determine for themselves how long the sex strike should last. For her part, she hasn't decided yet how long she will forgo sex. "I mean I don't know," she said. "I sent a tweet last night I haven't really thought much past that this morning." ___ Moreno reported from Milwaukee. KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - Brad Keselowski had planned to head to St. Louis after the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway to visit Mike Mittler, a longtime Truck Series owner who helped him early in his career and had been battling cancer the past couple years. But after Mittler died Friday night at the age of 67, Keselowski headed to victory lane instead, capturing the checkered flag Saturday night and dedicating the win to his friend and mentor. "He helped a lot of guys in their career. Just a huge loss for the NASCAR community," said Keselowski, who held off Alex Bowman and a charging field in overtime for his third win this season. "One of those unsung heroes," Keselowski added. "Gave his whole life to this sport." Mittler would have liked the hardscrabble way Keselowski won at Kansas. He dealt with balance problems early in the race, never really contended with the faster cars of Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch through the first couple of stages, yet managed to get everything sorted out in time to give Team Penske a satisfying Saturday sweep. Brad Keselowski celebrates in Victory Lane following the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Saturday, May 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) Simon Pagenaud won a wet and wild IndyCar Grand Prix in Indianapolis earlier in the day. Bowman finished second for the third straight week, while Erik Jones triggered some bad blood with Kansas native Clint Bowyer by making an aggressive move that allowed him to hold onto third. "I think it was just racing," Jones said with a shrug. "We were racing hard. This pack really leads to a lot of protecting your position. I'm not going to give up three or four spots." Elliott dominated long stretches of the race before losing the lead to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. with 22 laps to go. But after his car failed inspection twice and Elliott had to start at the back, he still managed to work his way to the front for his third consecutive top-five finish. Bowyer rounded out the top five, though his run-in with Jones left him in no mood to celebrate. The big question coming into the race was how NASCAR's new rules package would fare, especially after it was panned by drivers and owners alike this week. But with an overcast sky and cool temps, the package wound up producing arguably the best race of the entire Cup Series season. Harvick dominated early before a flat right tire with 90 laps to go got him out of pit sequence. Busch then pulled into contention and was challenging for the lead when a caution came out for Austin Dillon's lost tire with 50 laps to go, sending the leaders to the pits. Busch wound up going through too many boxes and was sent to the back of the field. "Sure takes the win away, doesn't it?" Busch said ruefully on his radio. Stenhouse took the lead when he swung past Bowman and Elliott, and Keselowski suddenly appeared in his rearview mirror. The former Cup Series champion had been hanging around the top 10 all day but had been struggling with balance, and he seemed to find it at the perfect time. Keselowski pulled even with seven laps to go, then held his lead on the green-white-checkered restart to win the first overtime spring race at Kansas Speedway. "We just kept working it all night. Brad never gave up," said his crew chief, Paul Wolfe. "Brad never gave up. We fought through it and I knew once we got the balance right we could contend, and we were able to do that tonight." UNHAPPY HARVICK: Still in search of his first win this season, Harvick led a race-high 104 laps and became the career leader in laps led at Kansas before a cut tire ruined his day. Harvick wound up 13th, even though he may have had the fastest car of the day. EQUALLY UNHAPPY BUSCH: Nobody was more critical of the rules package than Busch, especially after last week's race at Dover. Busch was griping about the aero package within the first 10 laps Saturday night, but he was still near the front before his pit-road miscue dropped him from contention. BOWMAN'S BUMMER: It took Bowman all of 5 minutes to tweet after the race how sorely he wanted his first career win. He has guided the No. 88 to the front each of the past three races, only to settle for runner-up finishes. "Just made some bad decision and never should have given the 2 car a chance at it," Bowman said. "Just made some bad calls through lap traffic and got tied off." A FOURTH FAIL: The car chiefs for Joey Logano, Elliott and Kyle Larson were ejected after their cars failed inspection for a second time, though all three made it through on the third try. In fact, more than a fourth of the field failed their first inspection. That included five of the top eight qualifiers, including Aric Almirola, Daniel Suarez and Martin Truex Jr. UP NEXT: The series heads to Charlotte for the All-Star race next Saturday night. ___ More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/apf-AutoRacing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sport Brad Keselowski does a burnout after winning the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Saturday, May 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Colin E. Braley) WILLEMSTAD, Curacao (AP) - Authorities in Curacao announced Saturday that 17 crew members and 11 passengers must stay aboard a ship owned by the Church of Scientology that is under quarantine following a confirmed case of measles. Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth said the group is required to stay on the 440-feet Freewinds ship until May 13 because they are still at risk of contracting measles after a female crew member contracted the disease. He said the remaining crew members and passengers, which totaled 318, are free to leave the ship. "They are not a threat to anyone anymore, and they cannot become sick anymore," he said. The church said in a statement that the health authorities in Curacao had acknowledged the Freewinds for its strict isolation protocol, which effectively contained the illness to a single case and prevented it from spreading to others. According to the church's website, the ship is the home of "a religious retreat ministering the most advanced level of spiritual counseling." The ship was previously quarantined in St. Lucia and arrived in its home port of Curacao a week ago. Authorities then took 277 blood samples from those who did not have proof of vaccination and sent them to the Netherlands. Public Health of Curacao epidemiologist Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth talks to reporters regarding the quarantined Church of Scientology ship docked in the port of Willemstad, Curacao, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Gerstenbluth said Saturday that some crew members and several passengers are required to stay on the 440-feet Freewinds ship until May 13 because they are still at risk of contracting measles after a female crew member was diagnosed with the disease. The rest of the passengers, about 300, are free to go. (AP Photo/Dick Drayer) Gerstenbluth said the female crew member who was infected had been in Europe and arrived April 17 in Curacao with cold symptoms. Authorities said she got tested for measles, but had already left for St. Lucia by the time the results came back. Officials in Curacao then alerted the government of St. Lucia. Symptoms include runny nose, fever and a red-spotted rash. Most people recover, but measles can lead to pneumonia, brain swelling and even death in some cases. More than 700 people in 22 U.S. states have gotten measles this year, with federal officials saying the resurgence is driven by misinformation about vaccines. The Freewinds cruise ship is docked in the port of Willemstad, Curacao Saturday, May 4, 2019. Authorities in Curacao on Saturday boarded the ship that arrived in the Dutch Caribbean island under quarantine, to start vaccinating people to prevent a measles outbreak. Health officials said only those who already have been vaccinated or have previously had measles will be free to leave the 440-foot (134-meter) ship Freewinds. (AP Photo/Dick Drayer) The Freewinds cruise ship is docked in the port of Willemstad, Curacao Saturday, May 4, 2019. Authorities in Curacao on Saturday boarded the ship that arrived in the Dutch Caribbean island under quarantine, to start vaccinating people to prevent a measles outbreak. Health officials said only those who already have been vaccinated or have previously had measles will be free to leave the 440-foot (134-meter) ship. (AP Photo/Dick Drayer) HOUSTON (AP) - The man who reported 4-year-old Maleah Davis had been abducted last weekend was arrested near Houston Saturday in connection with her disappearance and police said they found blood in his apartment linked to her. Derion Vence, who had lived with Maleah and her mother, was arrested without incident at his brother's home in Sugar Land, Texas, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southwest of Houston, a statement from Houston police said. He was charged with tampering with evidence. A court document said the charge related to tampering with a human corpse. Asked if police believe Vence killed Maleah, Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said: "At this point in time those are the charges we have filed and I can't say any more than that." After his arrest, bond was set at $999,999 for Vence, according to Harris County Jail records. Vence, 26, told police last Saturday that men in a pickup truck abducted him, Maleah and his 2-year-old son before freeing him and the boy. But Sugar Land police, who initially interviewed him, said his story kept changing and didn't add up. Houston police said Saturday that some of those claims were false. Vence reported that his silver Nissan Altima was taken in the abduction but surveillance video showed that vehicle was used to drop Vence off later at a hospital, where he first reported the abduction, police said. "His story turned out not to be the case, including the fact that there was that blood evidence in the apartment linked to Maleah," Smith said. He said authorities have not found the girl and the investigation is continuing. The police statement said Vence was observed carrying a full laundry basket from the apartment. That basket was later found in the trunk of the Nissan along with a gas can. Maleah's mother Brittany Bowens, said through a spokesman that Vence is her former fiance. Bowens appeared outside her apartment Friday as Quanell X, a local civil rights activist, addressed reporters on her behalf. Quanell X said that Vence had abused Maleah and that Bowens believes Vence harmed the girl. Police have described Vence as Maleah's stepfather. But Quanell X said that Vence and Bowens were recently in a fight and she broke off their engagement. Child Protective Services removed Maleah and her brothers from the home Vence and Bowens shared in August after the girl suffered a head wound, but the children were returned in February, according to an agency spokeswoman. ___ This version of the story corrects the spelling of the suspect's first name to Derion. Houston police initially spelled it Darion but now say it is Derion. Paul Biya et Tibor Nagy, Palais de l'Unite le 18-03-2019 PRC The United States Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Tibor Nagy Peter Jr, says he is happy with discussions that took place during the Arria Formula meeting in New York, on May 13. He took to his twitter page to express satisfaction over the said meeting on Cameroon. He made a call for both sides to put an end to violence and hold an inclusive dialogue without preconditions. Meantime expectations are high hay Tibor Nagy will be presenting his report on Cameroon, on Thursday May 16, at US House of Representatives in Washington. The hearing of the committee of foreign affairs will focus on democracy, development, defense, and rebalancing US Africa policy. Tibor Peter Nagy Jr will be accompanied by the senior deputy assistant administrator Bureau for Africa, Ramsey Day and the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs US department of defense, Ms. Michelle Lenihan Cameroonians this year heard about Tibor Nagy, when the US diplomat was interviewed early March by some French news tabloids, criticised the government of Cameroon for its slow response to humanitarian situation caused by the ongoing war in the North West and South West. He condemned the illegal detention of Maurice Kamto and over 200 members of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement(CRM) as well as the release of Anglophone detainees. He expressed concerns over military excesses in the Anglophone regions, accusations which were all rejected by the government. He made a trip to Cameroon on March 17, whereby some state authorities and national state broadcasting house claimed he discussed nothing on the Anglophone crisis but bilateral relations between the US and Cameroon. He regained national attention, when in a video which went viral over social media, after the fall of Sudans Omar al-Bashir, Tibor Nagy said his next concern was Cameroon. He made this declaration while addressing an audience in Houston, a city in Texas, USA on Thursday April 11, 2019. HOUSTON (AP) - The Latest on the disappearance of 4-year-old Maleah Davis (all times local): 6 p.m. Houston police say they found "blood evidence" in the apartment of Derion Vence that matches that of the missing 4-year-old girl, Maleah Davis. In a statement on the arrest of Vence, Houston police say that he has been charged with tampering with evidence. They also say that Vence was observed carrying a full laundry basket from the apartment. The laundry basket was found in the trunk of Vence's silver Nisson Altima, which was recovered in Missouri City, Texas, Thursday. CORRECTS FIRST NAME TO DERION This undated photo provided by the Houston Police Dept. shows Derion Vence. Vence, the man who reported 4-year-old Maleah Davis had been abducted from him last weekend was arrested near Houston Saturday, May 11, 2019 in connection with her disappearance and police say they have found blood in his apartment linked to her. (Houston Police Dept. via AP) Vence reported last Saturday that Maleah had been abducted from him. ___ 5:30 p.m. The man who reported a 4-year-old Texas girl had been abducted from him last weekend has been arrested near Houston. U.S. Marshals' southern district spokesman Alfredo Perez says that Derion Vence was taken into custody Saturday at his brother's house in Sugar Land, Texas, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southwest of Houston. Perez says the Houston Police Department requested U.S. Marshals assist in serving the arrest warrant. It was not immediately known if the arrest was related to the disappearance of Maleah Davis. Houston police could not be reached for comment. Vence told police last Saturday that men in a pickup truck abducted him, Maleah and his 2-year-old son before freeing him and the boy. But Sugar Land police, who initially interviewed him, said his story kept changing and didn't add up. ___ This version of the story corrects the spelling of the suspect's first name to Derion. Houston police initially spelled it Darion but now say it is Derion. PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (AP) - A North Korean cargo ship seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions arrived at the capital of this American territory, where it will undergo inspections. The Wise Honest was slowly towed to the port of Pago Pago during a cloudy Saturday morning and docked at the main docking section of the port that afternoon. The trip from Indonesia took about three weeks and American Samoa, in the South Pacific, was chosen because of "its central strategic location," U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Amanda Wyrick said. "We also have a good strong relationship and partnership with the American Samoan government," Wyrick said. "With that being said, we also already have the resources that are able to ensure the security of the vessel but most importantly the Port of Pago Pago." Indonesian authorities detained the ship in April 2018. Justice Department officials announced Thursday the U.S. had seized the ship. Asked as to how long the ship will be in the territory, Wyrick said the U.S. Department of Justice is "leading the investigation so they will be conducting that. Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the ship will be moved." But she said the next destination is unknown. A view from the top of a two story building in Fagatogo village overlooking the Port of Pago Pago, as the North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, docks at the main docking section of Pago Pago Harbor, Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. The North Korean cargo ship was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. It arrived Saturday at the capital of this American territory. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) "I do know that Justice Department is going to do the investigation as fast as they can," Wyrick added. She said she didn't have the exact number of U.S. Coast Guard personnel or people from other federal agencies who have traveled to American Samoa for the investigation. "We have a marine and safety security team here from Honolulu," Wyrick said. "We're conducting random patrols, also conducting inspection of the vessel and the Port of Pago Pago, keep an eye on things such as security breaches or vandalization of the ship itself." Officials are also making sure the port is protected, she said. "We especially in the Coast Guard, we understand the importance of the port. It's a lifeline in getting goods to the islands," Wyrick said. "So we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can, to make sure that there's absolutely no disruption to the flow of commerce coming in and out." The U.S. government dispatched an inspection team to the ship before it docked in Pago Pago, she said. Wyrick noted there was an inspection conducted before leaving Indonesia and, because the ship has been at sea for three weeks, "it's subject to the elements." "The inspection of the ship before entering the harbor is to make sure the structure integrity of the boat is still intact. In that way, once we get the thumb's up, and the green light, and the inspectors deem it safe, then it will enter the port," Wyrick said. U.S. officials made the announcement of the ship's seizure hours after North Korea fired two suspected short-range missiles toward the sea, the second weapons launch in five days and a possible signal that stalled talks over its nuclear weapons program are in trouble. The North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, middle, was towed into the Pago Pago Harbor on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. On the right are vessels docked along the harbor. The Wise Honest was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. It arrived Saturday at the capital of this American territory. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) Honolulu based US Coast Guard public affairs officer, Amanda Wyrick poses for a photo at the shoreline village of Utulei, following an interview with The Associated Press. In the background, in the ocean, is the North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, towed into Pago Pago Harbor, in American Samoa, on Saturday, May 11, 2019. The North Korean cargo ship was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot, but Monday's midterm elections are seen as a crucial referendum on his rise to power with a brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, unorthodox style and contentious embrace of China. Nearly 62 million Filipinos have registered to choose among 43,500 candidates vying for about 18,000 congressional and local posts in one of Asia's most rambunctious democracies. The most crucial race is for 12 seats in the 24-member Senate, which Duterte wants to fill with allies to bolster his legislative agenda. That includes the return of the death penalty, lowering the age for criminal liability of child offenders and revising the country's 1987 constitution primarily to allow a shift to a federal form of government, a proposal some critics fear may be a cover to remove term limits. Opposition aspirants consider the Senate the last bastion of checks and balances given the solid dominance of Duterte's loyalists in the lower House of Representatives. Last year, opposition senators moved to block proposed bills they feared would undermine civil liberties. Duterte's politics and key programs, including his drive against illegal drugs that has left more than 5,200 mostly urban poor suspects dead, have been scrutinized on the campaign trail and defended by close allies running for the Senate, led by his former national Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa, who first enforced the crackdown when the president took office in mid-2016. Aside from the drug killings, Duterte's gutter language and what nationalists say is a policy of appeasement toward China that may undermine Philippine territorial claims in the South China Sea, have also been hounded by protests and criticism. In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo, pedicabs with election posters go around Manila's slum district of Tondo, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) "This is very much a referendum on his three years of very disruptive yet very popular presidency," Manila-based analyst Richard Heydarian said. "Are we going to affirm or are we going to reject the 2016 elections? Was that an aberration and historical accident that we have to fix, or is this actually the beginning of the kind of new era or new normal?" A May 3-6 survey by independent pollster Pulse Asia showed 11 of Duterte-backed senatorial candidates and four other aspirants in the winning circle, including only one from the opposition. The survey of 1,800 respondents had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Duterte himself remains hugely popular, topping ratings surveys with about 70 percent approval. While the election survey strongly indicated a favorable outcome for Duterte, there was a probability that the result could still change given the considerable number of undecided voters and narrow leads of some candidates. Divided, cash-strapped and without a unified leader, opposition aspirants are fighting an uphill battle to capture the few number of Senate seats they need to stymie any hostile legislation. Many Filipinos seem more open to authoritarianism due to past failures of liberal leaders, Heydarian said. Such a mindset has helped the family of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to make a political comeback. Among many dirt-poor Filipinos, however, the concern is day-to-day survival. "Martial law is scary but we're more afraid of dying in hunger," Arturo Veles, a jobless father of six, told The Associated Press. Wiping away tears, Veles spoke outside his family's shanty in the humid squalor atop Smokey Mountain, a long-closed dumpsite in Manila's Tondo slum that remains a symbol of the country's appalling poverty. His asthma-stricken wife, Agnes, said that not one congressional candidate had treaded the fly-strewn and trash-littered path to their cluster of crumbling huts, probably because of the smell and filth. Arturo Veles said the poor always suffer the most, indicating he and his wife would not vote for administration candidates. "They only see the poor, those using and selling drugs. That's the only thing they see, not the depth of our poverty." Village guard Jose Mondejar, who lives in a Tondo community heavily festooned with elections streamers and posters, said Duterte's anti-crime campaign has reduced daytime robberies by drug addicts of passing cargo trucks by about 70 percent in his neighborhood. "Criminals once even opened fire on our village hall because we were cracking down on them," he said. "Now you can walk around here without being pestered. Duterte's campaign has worked." ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that the first name of former national police chief is Ronald, not Roland. In this Thursday, May 9, 2019, photo, a man walks past election banners in the slum district of Tondo, Manila, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019, photo, workers place election campaign posters along a street at the slum district of Tondo, Manila, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019, photo, children play outside their shanty at Manila's former dumpsite Smokey Mountain, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019, photo, Jose Modiar walks beside campaign banners at Manila's slum district of Tondo, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo, Arturo Veles wipes a tear as he talks to The Associated Press outside his family's shanty at Manila's former dumpsite Smokey Mountain, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. Veles said the poor always suffer the most, indicating he and his wife would not vote for administration candidates. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo, Agnes Veles, right, watches as children count their day's earning from selling ice candy outside their shanty at Manila's former dumpsite Smokey Mountain, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this May 9, 2019, photo, Randy Delos Santos walks with his daughter near an area where his 17-year-old nephew Kian Lloyd delos Santos was killed by police, during a drug crackdown in Quezon city, metropolitan Manila, Philippines. Three police officers were found guilty of killing delos Santos, a student they alleged was a drug dealer, in the first known such conviction under the president's deadly crackdown on drugs. President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this Friday, May 10, 2019, photo, activists are flashed on a screen as opposition senatorial candidate Florin Hilbay addresses them during their rally at the People Power Monument, three days before the May 13 mid-term elections in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) In this photo Oct. 16, 2018, photo, Imee Marcos, left front, the eldest daughter of ousted Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, poses with her family, including her mother and former First Lady Imelda Marcos, second from right, and brother Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., right, as she files her certificate of candidacy for senator at the Commission on Elections in Manila, Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019, photo, workers place election campaign posters along a street at the slum district of Tondo, Manila, Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) In this April 9, 2019, photo, protesters shout slogans during a rally at the Chinese Consulate to coincide with the country's commemoration of "Araw Ng Kagitingan" (Day of Valor) in suburban Makati city, east of Manila, Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte's name is not on the ballot but Monday's mid-term elections are seen as a referendum on his phenomenal rise to power, marked by his gory anti-drug crackdown and his embrace of China. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) LAS VEGAS (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg described Saturday his public coming out as a gay man in 2015 and how the exclusion he experienced made him conscious of what it means to belong and the need to overcome divisions. The 37-year-old described "a crisis of belonging in this country" experienced by LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities, workers and more and the need for "hopeful and audacious voices" to unite people in a changing time. "What every gay person has in common with every excluded person of any kind is knowing what it's like to see a wall between you and the rest of the world and wonder what it's like on the other side," Buttigieg said as he gave the keynote address Saturday night in Las Vegas at a gala for the Human Rights Campaign. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, made the appearance at the LGBTQ civil rights group event while making his second campaign swing this year through Nevada, which is third in line to cast votes for the Democratic presidential nomination next year. Despite having held only one public office leading a community of about 100,000 people, the mayor's name recognition and popularity have surged as he has jumped into the race for the White House. "I'd be lying if I didn't admit that we're a little surprised too at the speed of this trajectory," he said. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) As a sign of the mayor's rising visibility, President Donald Trump this week mocked Buttigieg at a rally and likened him to Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman in an interview with Politico. Buttigieg said Saturday that 20 years ago, if someone told his teenaged self that that in 2019, he'd wake up to reports "that the president of the United States was apparently trying to get his attention, he would have wondered what you were talking about. Let alone if you told him that the president somehow pronounced his name right." Buttigieg could become the first openly gay presidential nominee from a major political party. He is competing in a crowded field of Democratic candidates that includes former Vice President Joe Biden leading the pack and drawing heavily on his connections to President Barack Obama. Buttigieg appeared to hint at Biden's allusions to the Obama administration Saturday night when he said the country can't and won't move backward. "Democrats can't take us back to 2008 or 1998 any more than conservatives can take us back to the '50s," he said. The former Naval intelligence officer also described his decision while serving as mayor and preparing to deploy to Afghanistan to publicly come out as gay. "I was seized with the awareness that I could be killed in action at the age of 33, a grown man and an elected official, with no idea what it was like to be in love," he said. "I knew that I had to be who I am." He noted that the op-ed article he published where he announced he was gay came when Vice President Mike Pence was serving as Indiana's governor - a fact that drew boos from the crowd. The audience of about 750 members and supporters gave Buttigieg two standing ovations, including when his husband, Chasten, joined him on stage and they embraced at the end of his speech. Before Buttigieg appeared on the stage at Caesars Palace, he met earlier Saturday with members of Nevada's Asian American Pacific Islander Democratic Caucus in Las Vegas. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, left, is joined onstage by his husband Chasten Glezman Buttigieg after speaking during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, right, and husband Chasten Glezman Buttigieg wave to the crowd during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala dinner at Caesars Palace, Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Las Vegas. (Benjamin Hager/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg thanks the crowd at the conclusion of his speech during the Human Rights Campaign's 14th Annual Las Vegas Gala dinner at Caesars Palace, on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Las Vegas. (Benjamin Hager/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP) Top WH adviser Kudlow admits US consumers pay tariffs WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House's top economic adviser acknowledged Sunday that U.S. consumers and businesses pay the tariffs that the Trump administration has imposed on billions of dollars of Chinese goods, even as President Trump himself insisted in a tweet, incorrectly, that China pays. "Yes, I don't disagree with that," said Larry Kudlow, the head of the president's National Economic Council, when Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday," asked him, "It's U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay, correct?" Kudlow added, "Both sides will pay," but he stipulated that China "will suffer (economic) losses" from reduced exports to the U.S., not from paying the tariffs. Kudlow's admission contradicts many of Trump's comments and tweets to the effect that Chinese companies pay the tariffs in what amounts, in the president's view, to a massive transfer of wealth to the United States from China. Yet almost no economist has agreed with Trump's view and fact-checkers routinely brand Trump's assertion false and point out that American importers of goods from China pay the tariffs. Trump has also asserted that trade wars are "easy to win," but Kudlow accepted that they come with costs for the U.S. economy, though he downplayed the impact. ___ White House hopefuls swarm rival's home turf of California BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - The Democrats who want to be president are swarming California, competing for campaign cash and media attention while courting longtime allies of home-state Sen. Kamala Harris on their rival's own turf. Former Vice President Joe Biden swooped in to Los Angeles on Wednesday to raise money and snack on tacos with Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has yet to offer an endorsement despite backing Harris in the past. Biden went to three events over two days, including one that netted $750,000 and was attended by Hollywood powerbrokers, as well as "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot Sully Sullenberger. Pete Buttigieg met with labor activists and LGBT donors, and promised to "vigorously contest California." The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also attended at least six fundraisers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, including one hosted by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. "We are consolidating our position as one of the top candidates in the presidential race," he told a sold-out crowd Thursday at a West Hollywood gay bar. Others who have visited the state include Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. ___ N. Korean cargo ship seized by US arrives in American Samoa PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (AP) - A North Korean cargo ship seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions arrived at the capital of this American territory, where it will undergo inspections. The Wise Honest was slowly towed to the port of Pago Pago during a cloudy Saturday morning and docked at the main docking section of the port that afternoon. The trip from Indonesia took about three weeks and American Samoa, in the South Pacific, was chosen because of "its central strategic location," U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Amanda Wyrick said. "We also have a good strong relationship and partnership with the American Samoan government," Wyrick said. "With that being said, we also already have the resources that are able to ensure the security of the vessel but most importantly the Port of Pago Pago." Indonesian authorities detained the ship in April 2018. Justice Department officials announced Thursday the U.S. had seized the ship. ___ Millions vote in Philippine elections crucial to Duterte MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Filipinos have begun voting in midterm elections highlighted by a showdown between President Rodrigo Duterte's allies who aim to dominate the Senate and an opposition fighting for check and balance under a leader they regard as a looming dictator. Nearly 62 million Filipinos have registered to choose among 43,500 candidates vying for about 18,000 congressional and local posts in Monday's elections in one of Asia's most rambunctious democracies. The most crucial race is for 12 seats in the 24-member Senate, which Duterte wants to fill with allies to bolster his legislative agenda that includes the return of the death penalty. Military and police forces are on full alert to respond to any violence, especially in security hotspots, and help prevent cheating amid intense local political rivalries. ___ 2 hurt as magnitude 6.1 earthquake shakes northern Panama PANAMA CITY (AP) - A strong earthquake struck a lightly populated area of Panama near its border with Costa Rica on Sunday, causing some wooden porches to collapse and products to shake from store shelves. Panamanian authorities said at least two people had been injured in a village but gave no details. Sigifredo Perez, head of operations for Costa Rica's National Commission of Emergencies, said no major damage or injuries had been reported in his country. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a 6.1 preliminary magnitude and was centered seven kilometers (four miles) southeast of the town of Plaza de Caisan. The quake occurred at a depth of about 37 kilometers (22 miles). Images posted on social media showed simple wooden homes that partially collapsed in rural areas, deep fissures in tightly packed beach sand and entire grocery store shelves that spilled containers of processed food and bottled beverages on the floor. "I was in the supermarket and everything swayed," Carla Chavez said by phone from David, the capital of Panama's Chiriqui province near the quake's epicenter. "Merchandise fell on the floor. Everything happened so fast." ___ Channeling maybe-yes, maybe-no Mueller: Speak, Bob, speak! WASHINGTON (AP) - See Bob investigate. Read Bob's report. Wait, Bob, what? For nearly two years, the nation watched and waited as special counsel Robert Mueller investigated President Donald Trump and his campaign for potential collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. The release of a redacted version of Mueller's 448-page report last month offered a long-awaited moment of closure for many - and an utterly unsatisfying cliffhanger for plenty of others. Three weeks of public parsing and analysis have left them wondering just what Mueller was trying to say and what he really thinks, particularly on the question of obstruction, where the document drew no conclusion. That uncertainty has given partisans on both sides an opening to frame Mueller's findings to their liking and left many Americans, unlikely to read the full report, scratching their heads about what to believe and whom to trust. Enough with the printed page, they say, enough with the punditry: Speak, Bob, speak! ___ UAE says 4 ships targeted by 'sabotage' off its east coast DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that four commercial ships off its eastern coast "were subjected to sabotage operations," just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at a nearby Emirati port. Emirati officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the sabotage or say who might have been responsible. However, the reported incident comes as the U.S. has warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and as America is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged threats from Tehran. Tensions have risen in the year since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, restoring American sanctions that have pushed Iran's economy into crisis. Last week, Iran warned it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels in 60 days if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal. The statement from the UAE's Foreign Ministry put the ships near the country's territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, east of the port of Fujairah. It said it was investigating the incident "in cooperation with local and international bodies." It said there were "no injuries or fatalities on board the vessels" and "no spillage of harmful chemicals or fuel." The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which oversees the region, did not immediately offer comment on the incident. Emirati officials declined to elaborate while their investigation is ongoing. ___ AP EXPLAINS: Why send a US aircraft carrier to the Gulf? DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group is being deployed to the Persian Gulf to counter an alleged but still-unspecified threat from Iran, the latest in a long line of such deployments to the strategic region. It comes as Iran has started backing away from its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision last year to withdraw from the accord and restore crippling sanctions. A look at the aircraft carrier strike group and how it may fit into Washington's strategy. ___ A CITY AT SEA ___ 5 years later, officer faces reckoning for chokehold death NEW YORK (AP) - The deadly confrontation five summers ago flickers in Gwen Carr's mind, competing for attention with warm, happy memories of her late son Eric Garner's life. For all the smiles and laugher they shared, there are flashes of Garner being grabbed by a New York City police officer and crying out: "I can't breathe." Carr said she has been reliving what she pointedly calls "my son's murder" every day since his July 2014 death : Her first born succumbing to cardiac arrest after a white officer wearing plainclothes, Daniel Pantaleo, restrained her 34-year-old son with what she contends is an illegal chokehold and what Pantaleo's lawyer argues is an approved technique. A long-delayed internal disciplinary trial that could lead to Pantaleo's firing is slated to begin on Monday. A ruling late last week requires the police watchdog agency bringing the case prove not only that Pantaleo violated department rules, but that his actions fit the criteria for criminal charges. Pantaleo does not actually face criminal charges. "It has been five long years," Carr told The Associated Press last week. "Pantaleo and all those other officers who actually murdered my son that day, they are still collecting their salaries. They still go home every day and it's business as usual with them. But with me, we relive this every day." Video of the struggle on a Staten Island street corner quickly went viral, amplifying Garner's plaintive pleas of "I can't breathe" into a rallying cry in the face of police brutality against unarmed black men and women. ___ Meghan, Harry release baby feet photo for US Mother's Day LONDON (AP) - Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, have released a photo of their newborn baby's feet to mark Meghan's first Mother's Day as a mom. The image posted Sunday on Instagram showed Meghan's hand cradling the feet of her son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, with a bed of spring flowers below serving as the background. The text reads: "Paying tribute to all mothers today - past, present, mothers-to-be, and those lost but forever remembered. We honor and celebrate each and every one of you." The post also included lines from a poem called "Lands" by Nayyirah Waheed: "my/mother/was/my first country;/ the first place I ever lived." Mother's Day was celebrated Sunday in the United States, Canada and many other countries. Britain's Mother's Day was on March 31 this year. CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia's prime minister on Sunday officially launched his conservative coalition's campaign less than a week before an election in an extraordinarily personal presentation. Scott Morrison is his government's third prime minister in the administration's six years in office and still remains relatively unknown to many Australians, who he is asking for a third three-year term when they vote on Saturday next week. The coalition's launch in the city of Melbourne at a convention center included recorded interviews with Morrison family members that covered his wife Jenny's diagnosis with endometriosis, their 14-year failed battle to conceive through IVF before having their two daughters naturally, and Jenny Morrison's brother's struggle with multiple sclerosis. Morrison, a policeman's son, also spoke of his modest upbringing in Sydney and sharing a bedroom until he was in high school with an older brother who was studying at university. "Life's about what you contribute, not what you accumulate. That's what mum and dad have taught me," Morrison told a gathering of government ministers and supporters of his Liberal Party. Morrison was joined on the stage by his mother Marion Morrison, his wife and daughters Abbey, 11, and Lily, 9. He said his father John Morrison was "too frail" to attend. Morrison gave his mother and wife bouquets of flowers to acknowledge Mother's Day in Australia. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks during the launch of his Liberal Party campaign at the Melbourne Convention Centre in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Morrison officially launched his conservative coalition's campaign less than a week before an election in an extraordinarily personal presentation. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP) Morrison also outlined government policies including support for first-home buyers to help them enter the housing market. The government argues that the center-left opposition Labor Party's policy of reducing tax breaks for landlords would steepen a current downturn in house prices in major cities. Morrison described the election as a choice between him and opposition leader Bill Shorten as prime minister. "The choice between a government that knows how to manage money, has returned the budget to surplus and will now pay down debt," Morrison said. "Or Bill Shorten and Labor, whose reckless spending and higher taxes will put all of that risk at the worst possible time." The government in April outlined an economic plan that would balance the books in the next fiscal year for the first time in 12 years. Labor has promised to deliver bigger budget surpluses by reducing tax breaks for landlords and some shareholders. The bitter divisions within the Liberal Party that thrust Morrison into power in August last year were still evident at the launch on Sunday. None of the three surviving former Liberal prime ministers attended. John Howard is Australia's second-longest serving prime minister who spent 11 years in office until his government was defeated at elections in 2007. Tony Abbott spent three years in office before he was dumped by party colleagues in 2015 in the face of dismal opinion polling. He was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull, who was similarly dumped by colleagues last year. By contrast, three of the four surviving Labor prime ministers attended Shorten's Labor campaign launch a week earlier. The oldest, Bob Hawke, 89, sent his apologies. Morrison is hoping his personal charisma will persuade people to vote for his Liberal Party candidates, but opinion polls suggest they prefer Labor despite misgivings about Shorten as leader. Shorten is a former labor union leader who turned 52 on Sunday. Morrison is a former tourism marketer who turns 51 on Monday. Both were first elected to Parliament at the 2007 election that ended Howard's government and decades of relative political stability. Shorten addressed a campaign rally in Melbourne on Sunday in which he focused on Labor's pledge to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 45% below 2005 levels by 2030. The government has committed to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% in the same time frame. Climate change did not feature in Morrison's launch. Opinion polls suggest that climate change is a growing concern for voters, but is a divisive policy issue among the conservatives who are split between those who give priority to reducing emissions and those who want the lowest possible power prices. "There are now six days to win this election, end the chaos and change the country for the better," Shorten said in his own Melbourne seat."The only way the Liberals will learn to take climate change seriously is to lose this election." BEIRUT (AP) - The former patriarch of Lebanon's Maronite Christian church, Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, who served as spiritual leader of Lebanon's largest Christian community through some of the worst days of the country's 1975-1990 civil war, died Sunday. He was 98. Sfeir, an outspoken and feisty personality who also played a key role in shaping the country's post-war politics, died in a Beirut hospital two weeks after he was admitted suffering from a chest infection. His health deteriorated sharply as of Wednesday. "The Maronite church is orphaned and Lebanon is in sadness," the church said in a statement. Cardinal Bechara Rai, who succeeded Sfeir in 2011, called on churches to ring their bells and hold prayers for the late leader, who would have turned 99 on Wednesday. Lebanon has the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East, a third of its 4 million people, with Maronite Catholics being the largest sect. Lebanon is the only Arab country with a Christian head of state. Later Sunday, Lebanese politicians and Muslim and Christian religious figures visited the headquarters of the Maronite church in the village of Bkerke, north of Beirut, to pay condolences. FILE - In this June 16, 2010 file photo, Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, head of Lebanon's Maronite Church, arrives for a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace. Lebanon's Maronite Christian church says its former patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir has died after days in hospital. He was 98.(AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File) The Lebanese government declared two days of mourning starting Wednesday during which flags will be flown at half-staff. Sfeir was one of the most prominent and high-ranking Christian leaders in the mostly Muslim Middle East. He is remembered mostly for spearheading an opposition movement calling for the withdrawal of thousands of Syrian forces from Lebanon in the 1990s, as well as for brokering a historic reconciliation in the Chouf mountains between Lebanon's Maronites and members of the Druze sect in August 2001. He then famously visited the Chouf mountains, scene of some of the worst sectarian massacres of the civil war, after brokering the reconciliation. "Farewell to the patriarch of independence, reconciliation, love and peace," Druze leader Walid Joumblatt, who worked out the reconciliation with Sfeir, tweeted Sunday. Sfeir was born in the village of Rayfoun, north of Beirut, on May 15, 1920, and studied philosophy and theology at St. Joseph University in Beirut. After being ordained a priest in May 1950, he served in several positions within the church before being ordained as a bishop in 1961. Over the next 25 years, he served as patriarchal vicar and secretary to the Maronite patriarchate. In April 1986, he became the 76th patriarch of the Maronite Church, taking over a country in ashes at the height of its brutal 15-year civil war, which killed around 150,000 people. There was a mass protest by Maronites against Sfeir in November 1989, denouncing his support for the Taif Accord, which brought Lebanon's civil war to an end the next year under Syrian supervision. Outraged supporters of then-Prime Minister Michel Aoun, a general who at the time was against Syrian involvement, and who opposed the accord, burned tires outside several churches and stormed the patriarchal residence, assaulting Sfeir and forcing him to kiss Aoun's picture. Aoun, now the president, said in a statement Sunday: "The national arena will miss him as a solid man in defending Lebanon's sovereignty, independence and the dignity of its people." In the early 1990s, Sfeir stepped in to fill a leadership vacuum when the country's defeated Christian political leaders were either in exile or imprisoned. He emerged as an outspoken critic of Syria's military presence in Lebanon, which he called an occupation, and sponsored the so-called Kornet Chehwan gathering, a coalition of Christian politicians and intellectuals that lobbied against Syria's heavy-handed presence in Lebanon. In 2001 he embarked on a tour of the United States and Canada, campaigning for assistance against Syria. Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2005, two months after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which had led to widespread anti-Syrian protests. After the Syrian withdrawal, many in Lebanon started referring to Sfeir as the "patriarch of the second independence." Lebanon gained its independence from being a French Mandate in 1943. In early 2011, Sfeir resigned from his post, saying he wanted to spend his time in prayer and meditation. Sfeir's funeral will be held Thursday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed. QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - An insurgent attack at a luxury hotel on Pakistan's southwestern coast killed five people, including a special forces soldier, a hotel security guard and three staff members, the country's military said Sunday after concluding a painstaking operation to clear the hotel and defuse explosive devices left behind by the attackers. The statement clarified that three gunmen - not four as initially reported - had been killed during the eight-hour gunfight with security forces on Saturday inside the Pearl Continental hotel in the city of Gwadar. The attackers failed to take any guests hostage, but the hotel staff and guard were killed as the insurgents stormed the building. The military said six people, including two soldiers, were also wounded. Prime Minister Imran Khan called the attack an act of terrorism and praised the "initial response by security guards and security forces" for preventing greater loss of life. A Baluch separatist group, the Baluch Liberation Army, claimed responsibility Saturday for the attack, releasing photos of the four insurgents who it said took part. Initially, senior security officials had said four assailants had been killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Baluch Liberation Army carried out a dozen attacks last year against Chinese-linked projects. In November, the group attacked a Chinese consulate in the major southern city of Karachi, triggering a shootout that killed two police officers, two civilians and all three insurgents. Beijing is financing tens of billions of dollars' worth of megaprojects in Pakistan and is currently helping build a modern port in Gwadar, 600 kilometers (373 miles) west of Karachi. The Pearl Continental hotel is located near the port. Gwadar lies in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists who demand a greater share of the province's natural gas and mineral resources. Pakistan says it has quelled the insurgency, but violence has continued. Residents of Baluchistan and other areas accuse the central government of favoring the country's Punjab province, home to some 60 percent of the country's 200 million people and most of the political elite. The attack on the Pearl Continental came weeks after Islamabad claimed that a group of militants crossed the border from neighboring Iran and killed 14 security officials when they were on their way to Gwadar in buses. Pakistan at the time blamed a Baluch separatist group, Raji Aajoi Sangar, for the killings. ___ Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A Myanmar National Airlines plane made an emergency landing at Mandalay International Airport on Sunday, using only its rear wheels after the front landing gear failed to deploy. All 82 passengers and seven crew members aboard Flight UB103 from Yangon were declared safe after the Brazilian-made Embraer 190-LR touched down on its rear sets of wheels before the plane's nose tilted down to scrape the runway, sending off a shower of sparks as it slowed to a stop. Kyaw San, a spokesman for the airport, said the pilot informed the control tower before landing that he was unable to pull down the nose wheels. A statement on the airline's Facebook page explained that the plane's EICAS - Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System - indicated a failure of the front landing gear to deploy. The pilot tried a backup emergency procedure to pull down the wheels but that was unsuccessful. The aircraft did two fly-bys past the tower for air controllers to check visually whether the wheels had deployed. The captain followed emergency procedures to dump fuel to reduce the landing weight, and made a safe landing at 9:09 a.m., said the statement. Video apparently shot by one of the passengers and posted online showed an urgent but orderly evacuation of the passengers and crew. Passengers were seen walking away from the plane across the airfield, several of them smiling. Firefighters work with hose on a plane of Myanmar National Airline (MNA) after an accident at Mandalay International airport Sunday, May 12, 2019, in Mandalay, Myanmar. All passengers and crew are reported safe and uninjured after a Myanmar National Airlines plane made a scheduled but emergency landing at Mandalay International Airport on only its rear landing wheels after the front landing gear failed to deploy. (Aung Thura via AP) Flight operations at the airport were temporarily suspended, and allowed to resume after about 2 hours for smaller aircraft. The runways were expected to be reopened for use by larger Boeing and Airbus aircraft by late afternoon. On Wednesday, a Biman Bangladesh Airlines aircraft skidded off the runway after landing in bad weather at Yangon's airport, injuring at least 15 passengers and crew but none critically. The fuselage of the plane, a Bombardier Dash 8, was broken in at least two spots, along with the wings. VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - A prominent economist and a former finance minister held the top two spots in returns from Lithuania's presidential election Sunday and appeared headed to a runoff ballot later this month to choose a successor to incumbent Dalia Grybauskaite. With 1,631 of the country's 1,972 voting districts counted early Monday, results provided by Lithuania's Central Electoral Commission showed Gitanas Nauseda, a banker-turned-politician, leading the nine-candidate field with 31.2% of the votes. Ingrida Simonyte, Lawmaker and former finance minister, was in second with 27.2%. In third was Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis at 22.2%, who told reporters during the vote count that he would resign in July if he failed to advance to a runoff. Support for the remaining six candidates was in single-digit numbers. A candidate needed to get more than 50% to avoid runoff on May 26, the same day that Lithuanians will vote for their European Parliament representatives. Former Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte, a presidential candidate, speaks to the media at a polling station in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Voters are going to the polls to elect a president to succeed Dalia Grybauskaite, who has completed her maximum two terms in office. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Preliminary voter turnout was 56% Grybauskaite has served the maximum two 5-year terms as Lithuania's head of state since 2009, a Baltic country bordering Russia that is a member of the European Union and NATO. Grybauskaite has been a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and campaigned on stopping corruption and improving Lithuania's economy. Along with picking a president, Lithuanians voted on a constitutional amendment to allow dual citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians living abroad. Preliminary results indicated 70% of the voters supported allowing dual citizenship, the Baltic News Service, the region's main news service, reported. A woman and child cast her ballot during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) A woman cast her ballot during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) A Lithuanian woman reads a ballot paper at a polling station during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Local residents fills their ballots at a polling station during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Romeo DIKA Archives Popular Cameroonian musician and former supporter of the ruling CPDM party, Romeo Dika, has expressed anger over President Paul Biya and some of his close collaborators, after the Presidency tweeted on the importance of forgiveness, few days ago. Romeo Dika who took to radio stations, his twitter page and a trending voice note expressed regrets over he fact that he was campaigning by the CPDM party during the October 2018 presidential campaigns but his efforts were not regarded and aprreciated. "I sacrificed my artistic career to support President Paul Biya...which artist sacrificed himself...as I did?". Today the president speaks of forgiveness. Forgiving who, for what mistakes? The government and the Republic should present to us the contours and the elements of these faults which must mobilise forgiveness of Cameroonians, he said. The artist who invested his energy to praise Paul Biya before October, went sour. Until contrary is proven, the speech I hear is that of a father at the twilight of an early destiny, which does not want things to fall in his hands. When he came to power in 1982, Cameroon had 250 tribes. Today there exist two tribes; the tribe of the extremely poor and the tribe of the extremely rich, he continued. On several occasions he said he was disappointed by the manner in which Biya and others governed the country. To him, President Paul Biya appoints thieves, who steal and misappropriate state funds. He expressed direct hatred to the Minister of labour and social security, Gregoire Owona, whom he said even if Paul Biya sked him to forgive the former, he wouldn't do it because he made him loose over FCF 90 million. Always the same speeches, and asks us to sacrifice our families for a policy that will never bring us anything, and I say it, it will not bring us anything !!! I'm no longer here .., he said quitting the ruling CPDM party. Last month, another Artist Longue Longue condemned the government of Cameroon, where he claimed last 2018 presidential elections were fraudulent. He was later arrested in Douala and his passport seized. Longue Longue has been moving from one media house to the other, crying and begging government to return his passport. Many have expressed fear that a similar situation could happen to Romeo Dika, author of popular hit, le mari de ma femme. WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the political will to fight climate change seems to be fading at the same time as things are getting worse for those feeling the effects. Guterres made the comments after arriving in New Zealand, where he spoke to media alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Auckland. Guterres plans to spend three days in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the problems of climate change. In Christchurch, he will also meet with Muslim leaders following the March 15 slaughter of 51 worshippers by a gunman who attacked two mosques during Friday prayers. Guterres said he usually visits a Muslim country during the holy month of Ramadan but this year decided to visit Muslims in New Zealand as a tribute to their courage and resilience after the attack. He said he admired the solidarity New Zealand showed after the attack, and praised Ardern for helping implement new gun control laws and for urging other world leaders and tech companies to find a way to prevent acts of extremism from being shown online, after the gunman livestreamed his attack on Facebook. Ardern this week plans to travel to Paris, where she and French President Emmanuel Macron will host a meeting seeking to eliminate such acts from being shown online. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, gestures as he talks with New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Government House in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Guterres has arrived in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the issue of climate change. (Hannah Peters/Pool Photo via AP) Guterres said countries were not living up to their commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. "We are not on track to achieve the objectives defined in the Paris Agreement," Guterres said. "And the paradox is that as things are getting worse on the ground, political will seems to be fading." He commended Ardern on last week introducing an ambitious bill that aims to make New Zealand mostly carbon neutral by 2050 while giving some leeway to farmers. The bill is expected to come to a final vote in Parliament later this year. Guterres said Pacific Island nations are on the front line of climate change. "We cannot allow for runaway climate change," he said. "We need to protect the lives of our people and we need to protect our planet." Guterres also plans to visit the island nations of Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. In Fiji, he will meet with leaders and senior government officials from the Pacific Islands Forum. His trip comes ahead of the Climate Action Summit that he plans to convene in September in New York. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, is greeted by New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford, right, at Government House in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Guterres has arrived in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the issue of climate change. (Peter Meecham/NZ Herald via AP) United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, and New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern talk following a joint press conference at Government House in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Guterres has arrived in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the issue of climate change. (Peter Meecham/NZ Herald via AP) United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, and New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hold a joint press conference at Government House in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Guterres has arrived in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the issue of climate change.(Peter Meecham/NZ Herald via AP) United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford, right, pose for a photo at Government House in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Guterres has arrived in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the issue of climate change. (Hannah Peters/Pool Photo via AP) KORAKOU, Cyprus (AP) - Before Cyprus gained fame as the mythical birthplace of the goddess of love Aphrodite nearly three millennia ago, Cyprus was known around the Mediterranean for its perfumes, scents that the mighty queens of Egypt coveted. What appears to have distinguished the Cypriot fragrances was the quality of the rich olive oil in which the ancient perfumers captured the musky scent of indigenous oak moss, citrusy bergamot and labdanum or rockrose. This was done through a distillation process using clay vases of exacting dimensions. "Perfume is the symbol of life," said Maria Rosaria Belgiorno, a retired professor with Italy's National Council for Research whose own archaeological digs on the east Mediterranean island 15 years ago unearthed the oldest perfumery of the Bronze Age. Perfumes hide the smell of the dead and of decay. They, according to Belgiorno, have a "spiritual connection" to life. And that connection is one of the motivations behind a new perfume theme park nestled in Cyprus' verdant Solea valley, which allows visitors to recreate those ancient perfumes in the traditional way, with replicas of the ancient clay distillers extracting the scents from the locally grown herbs over an open fire. Belgiorno says evidence to the popularity of Cyprus' fragrances is found in a reference to a Cypriot perfume merchant inscribed on 4,000 year-old tablets found in the ancient Greek city of Thebes. That reference pre-dates the emergence of the deity Aphrodite, meaning Cyprus was famous for its perfumes before it gave birth to the ancients' love goddess. In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou lights a fire underneath a replica of a 5th millennium B.C. perfume distiller that was discovered in the ancient Mesopotamian settlement of Tepe Gawra near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) The origins of perfume-making are believed to date back to 5,000 B.C. in ancient Mesopotamia, where archaeological digs in the early 20th century near the city of Mosul in modern-day Iraq turned up the first evidence of such activity. From there, perfume-making migrated to Anatolia and then to the Mediterranean and beyond, with perfumeries discovered in such diverse places as Sardinia and Slovakia. It was a long journey to perfume's modern spiritual home in France. For thousands of years, Cypriots - from the highest echelons of nobility to the average commoner - produced and used perfumes. The popularity of those fragrances carried through the ancient Egyptians to the Templars, medieval Venetian merchants and up to the present. Early on in the last century, famed French perfumer Francois Coty created the perfume Chypre - French for Cyprus - which is one of the seven main perfume groups and the only one that bears the name of a place. The Italian Research National Council, along with Belgiorno, has teamed up with the Lazarou family that runs a successful herbal business to build the park which rests on a parcel of the family's farmland near the village of Korakou. The park puts on display a range of working replicas including those from the earliest known perfumery in the Mesopotamian Tepe Gawra settlement, from the Minoan era on Crete - of Minotaur fame - and of course from Cyprus. Distillers hailing from different areas vary, but are identical in their simplicity and ingenuity. The herbs boil at the bottom with the steam rising to the domed top where it condenses into a liquid that flows through a bamboo reed into vases. The design has proven so successful that distillers identical to those found in Tepe Gawra are now producing rose water in Iran, said Belgiorno. Although the perfume park was inaugurated late last year and is still a work in progress, word is spreading. A group of University of Cyprus archaeology students led by the university's archaeological research unit head Vasiliki Kassianidou visited the park for a hands-on demonstration on ancient distillation techniques. Even a new luxury hotel in Cyprus' southern coastal resort town of Limassol will encourage guests to visit the park for a unique experience. "We wanted to show future generations how their ancestors produced fragrances and used herbs for food as well as for medicine," said Yiannoula Lazarou, on whose property the park is built. That is a spiritual connection to life, too. In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou puts herbs into a clay pots before tending to a fire boiling perfume inside a 2nd millennium B.C. distiller discovered in Cyprus at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou checks a replica of a 5th millennium B.C. perfume distiller that was discovered in the ancient Mesopotamian settlement of Tepe Gawra near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, as drops of perfume made from Cypriot herbs trickle from a bamboo, at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou lights a fire underneath a replica of a 5th millennium B.C. perfume distiller that was discovered in the ancient Mesopotamian settlement of Tepe Gawra near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, drops of perfume made from Cypriot herbs trickle from a clay pot reed, after being distilled through a boiling method used thousands of years ago at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou inspects a millennia-old distiller used to make perfume at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, drops of perfume made from Cypriot herbs trickle from a bamboo reed after being distilled through a boiling method used thousands of years ago, at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou tends to a fire boiling perfume inside a 2nd millennium B.C. distiller discovered in Cyprus at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, Yiannoula Lazarou tends to a fire boiling perfume inside a 2nd millennium B.C. distiller discovered in Cyprus at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) In this photo taken on Saturday, April 4, 2019, assistants prepare to light a fire underneath a replica of a 5th millennium B.C. perfume distiller that was discovered in the ancient Mesopotamian settlement of Tepe Gawra near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, at an ancient perfume theme park and museum in Korakou, Cyprus. Even before gaining fame in antiquity as the birthplace of the love goddess Aphrodite 2,700 years ago, sun-drenched Cyprus had made a name for itself for the superior quality of its perfumes that it's said were even prized by the mighty queens of Egypt. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Albania's center-right opposition parties kept demonstrations calling for the resignation of the left-wing government going Sunday after some protesters and police clashed in the capital of Tirana the night before. Leaders of the country's Democratic Party-led opposition decided to reconvene to object to the arrest of a senior party official during Saturday's anti-government protest. They are trying to organize nationwide rallies for Monday. "Barbarous violence against hundreds of protesters ... will get tomorrow the proportional response from the united and determined people," Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha told hundreds of supporters in front of the Tirana city police department. The opposition accuses the Cabinet of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama of being corrupt and linked to organized crime, which the government denies. Rama denounced the behavior of protesters who showered police officers and the national government building with Molotov cocktails, firecrackers and hard objects on Saturday and said "Albania is damaged." Police responded with tear gas and water cannons. Both protesters and officers were injured. A protester holds stones as police block a road during clashes in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Tirana police said Sunday 50 people were arrested for acts against police officers and public buildings, while 31 others were detained and later released,. Rama backed the actions of police during Saturday clashes except for "two-three seconds of an incident when two police officers used the baton." At a news conference Sunday, the prime minister brought up a 2011 rally where National Guard officers deployed by the Democratic Party-led government shot and killed four supporters of Ramas' Socialist Party, which was in opposition at the time. "We are not them," he said. The U.S. Embassy in Albania and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe denounced the violence seen Saturday. Albania expects to hear in June whether the European Union will grant its request to launch full membership negotiations. The European Union office in Tirana appealed for calm following the unrest. It called "on protesters and their political leaders to show responsibility and restraint. Differing political points of view need to be handled through debate and dialogue." The opposition has held national protests since mid-February and smaller ones every week across the country, accusing government officials of corruption and of stealing votes in the parliamentary election two years ago. Opposition lawmakers relinquished their seats in parliament in protest, though many vacancies ultimately were killed by other opposition candidates. The governing Socialists have 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament. ___ Follow Llazar Semini on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lsemini Flames are seen behind a police formation during an anti-government rally in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Protesters demand the Socialist government to resign and call an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Riot police spray tear gas against protesters during clashes in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) A protester walks in front of burning trash bins during clashes in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Protesters try to remove a metal fence during clashes with police outside the Government building in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Protesters throw petrol bombs at police during clashes outside the Parliament in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) A hooted protester gestures at riot police as they guard the Tirana police department during clashes building in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Police use a water canon against protesters during clashes in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Protesters carry an injured man during clashes outside the Government building in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Two men hold an injured protester during clashes outside the Government building in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) A protester covers his face as police use tear gas during clashes in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Thousands of supporters of the Albania's center-right opposition protested in Tirana Saturday, calling for the left-wing government to resign and for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Flames are seen behind a police formation during an anti-government rally in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Protesters demand the Socialist government to resign and call an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) Flames from a petrol bomb thrown toward a police line blocking protesters taking part in an anti-government rally in Tirana, Saturday, May 11, 2019. Protesters demand the Socialist government to resign and call an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Hektor Pustina) TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian authorities shut down a reformist magazine that had urged negotiations with the United States, local media reported Sunday. The weekly magazine Seda was handed a suspension order Saturday by a court in Tehran, the reformist newspaper Arman reported. Seda's most recent front page had shown a U.S. aircraft carrier fleet and the caption "At the crossroads between war and peace." The magazine called for "high-level engagement" between the U.S. and Iran, warning that closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, an occasional Iranian threat, would lead to "widespread war." A third of all oil traded by sea passes through the strait, which lies at the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. Recent U.S. military deployments to the Persian Gulf, including an aircraft carrier strike group, have raised tensions with Iran. Tehran has also begun setting its own deadlines over its unraveling nuclear deal that President Donald Trump pulled America out of a year ago. The front cover of the May 11, 2019 edition of the weekly reformist magazine, Seda, center, is photographed along with other periodicals in Tehran, Iran, May 12, 2019. Iranian authorities shut down Seda that had urged negotiations with the United States, local media reported Sunday. The main headline reads, "At the crossroads between war and peace." (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) The hard-line Iranian newspaper Kayhan criticized Seda's reporting as parroting the "voice of Trump through the mouths of reformists." Also Sunday, Iran's parliament held a closed session to discuss recent developments in the Persian Gulf, state TV reported. The head of the elite Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, spoke about the increased U.S. military presence, but the broadcast did not give specific details. After the session, a prominent lawmaker said Salami had assured parliament that Iran's military is strong enough to deter any U.S. threats, which Salami called "psychological warfare." Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, who heads the influential parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, told the official IRNA news agency that Iran isn't looking to deepen the crisis. He said the U.S. position will weaken with time, and that there are currently no grounds for negotiations with Washington. On Friday, Iran rejected a request by Trump for talks, after the president said he'd like Iranian leaders to "call me." John Bolton, Trump's hawkish national security adviser, announced the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group on May 5 over "troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" that still have not been specified. Iran's Shiite theocracy views the presence of U.S. forces ringing its country with suspicion. The U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iran in November after pulling out of the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis has given the church 19 new priests, ordaining the men in an elaborate ceremony Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica, as the credibility of the Vatican and many of its clergy is threatened by widespread scandals of pedophile priests and systematic efforts at cover-ups. Fifteen of the seminarians ordained by Francis are Italian; the others are from Croatia, Peru, Haiti and Japan. The seminarians' ages range from mid-20s to 46. Wearing white robes, the seminarians stood in three rows before the central altar after replying, "Here I am," as their names were called one by one. Francis, reciting a ritual formula, asked if they were worthy to become priests. Later in the ceremony, the seminarians prostrated themselves in a sign of obedience to church authority and to God, on a carpet in front of the altar. During his homily, Francis instructed them to never "tire of being merciful" toward the faithful who confess sins. "Aware of having been chosen among men and appointed in their favor to attend to the things of God, carry out in joy and charity, with sincerity, the priestly work of Christ, solely intent on pleasing God and not yourselves," Francis said. Each seminarian knelt before the pope and held out his hands, which Francis rubbed with holy oil. Newly ordained priests pray during a ceremony led by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Francis urged the men to work toward "uniting the faithful in one unique family." But that family of the world's more than 1.2 billion Catholics has been badly wounded and disoriented by decades of revelations that men who were ordained as priests, including some who later became bishops and cardinals, sexually abused children or were involved in cover-ups to avoid staining the church's reputation. Francis made no mention of the scandals or of his recent efforts aimed at preventing any more such harm, encouraging accountability by bishops and others in church authority and repairing the reputation of the Vatican and the papacy. Last week, the pope issued a church law that requires all priests and nuns to report sexual abuse by clergy as well as cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities. While appreciated by those who suffered abuse and those advocating for them as a significant step in handling the problem, the law stopped short of requiring such crimes to be reported to police and instead left that policing in the hands of bishops, whose ranks include those who botched the handling of abuse cases for decades. ___ Frances D'Emilio is on twitter at www.twitter.com/fdemilio Pope Francis asperges incense during a ceremony in which he ordained nineteen new priests in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis arrives in St. Peter's Basilica to lead a ceremony in which he ordained nineteen new priests at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis arrives in St. Peter's Basilica to lead a ceremony in which he ordained nineteen new priests at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis asperges incense during a ceremony in which he ordained nineteen new priests in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis, flanked by master of ceremonies Monsignor Guido Marini, holds the pastoral staff during a ceremony in which he ordained nineteen new priests in St.Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis pauses during a ceremony where he ordained nineteen new priests in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Priests lie face down on the floor during an ordination ceremony presided over by Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Giuseppe Lami/Pool Photo Via AP) Priests stand up in front of the altar during an ordination ceremony presided over by Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Giuseppe Lami/Pool Photo Via AP) New priests are blessed during a ceremony in which Pope Francis ordained nineteen of them in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis blesses a new priest during an ordination ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Giuseppe Lami/Pool Photo Via AP) Priests lie face down on the floor during an ordination ceremony presided over by Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Giuseppe Lami/Pool Photo Via AP) Priests lie face down on the floor during an ordination ceremony presided over by Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Giuseppe Lami/Pool Photo Via AP) Priests lie face down on the floor during an ordination ceremony presided over by Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Giuseppe Lami/Pool Photo Via AP) Priests lie face down on the floor during an ordination ceremony presided over by Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis blesses a new priest during an ordination ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) BERLIN (AP) - The Israeli ambassador to Germany says he is avoiding any contact with the far-right Alternative for Germany party because their leaders have said things that are "highly insulting for Jews, for Israel and for the entire issue of the Holocaust." Jeremey Issacharoff told German news agency dpa Sunday it is very difficult for him to imagine any interaction with those who feel nostalgia for Germany's past. During the Nazis' reign from 1933-45, the Germans organized and participated in the genocide of 6 million Jews in Europe. Party leader Alexander Gauland has referred to the time of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship as a "speck of bird poop" in Germany's history, while Bjoern Hoecke, a powerful party leader in the east, suggested it's time for the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An Afghan official says unidentified gunmen killed a deputy intelligence director for northern Baghlan province. The provincial official says Abdul Ghafour Mahmoud was shot Sunday while traveling to the capital, Kabul, and another intelligence agent was wounded. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He says the attack took place on the outskirts of Baghlan's provincial capital, Puli Khumri, and an investigation is underway. He says it's still unclear if one or more gunmen carried out the attack before fleeing the scene. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting, but provincial officials blamed Taliban insurgents who are active in the province and have repeatedly targeted government officials and Afghan security forces. CAIRO (AP) - Libya's coast guard says it has rescued nearly 150 Europe-bound migrants, including women and children, off the country's Mediterranean coast. Spokesman Ayoub Gassim said Sunday that a rubber boat carrying 96 migrants, including 16 women and four children, was intercepted a day earlier off the city of Zawiya, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Tripoli. Gassim said another boat carrying 51 migrants was intercepted Saturday off the town of Khoms, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Tripoli. He said the migrants were given humanitarian and medical aid, then taken to refugee camps. Libya became a major conduit for African migrants and refugees fleeing to Europe after the 2011 uprising that ousted Moammar Gadhafi. Libyan authorities have stepped up efforts to stem the flow of migrants, with European assistance. VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis has given Roman Catholic faithful his OK to make pilgrimages to a Bosnian shrine where children said the Virgin Mary appeared to them, but the Catholic Church hasn't yet authenticated their vision, the Vatican said Sunday. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said in a written statement that "the Holy Father has ruled that it's possible to organize pilgrimages to Medjugorje," the site in Bosnia that has drawn millions of Catholic believers and visitors. In 1981, six children and teenagers said they saw apparitions of Mary on a hill in the village of Medjugorje. Last year, a million people flocked there to kneel in prayer before a statue of Mary. The pope's decision to permit official pilgrimages also was relayed by the Vatican's envoy to the local parish and by the papal nuncio in Bosnia's capital of Sarajevo, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the shrine. Unlike two other immensely popular pilgrimage destinations - Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France - the Vatican hasn't yet ruled on whether the apparitions reported in Medjugorje, Bosnia were authentic Marian appearances. Gisotti stressed that "care be taken to avoid interpreting these pilgrimages as authentication of the noted events, which still require examination by the Church." Pope Francis recites the Regina Coeli noon prayer as he is flanked by two of the nineteen priests he ordained in a ceremony at the Vatican, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) To prevent confusion over the Catholic Church's position on whether a miracle occurred in Medjugorje, Gisotti offered context for the pope's ruling. "Considering the notable flow of persons who go to Medjugorje and the abundant fruits of grace that have sprung from that, such a ruling fits into the special pastoral attention that the Holy Father has intended to give to that reality, aimed at encouraging and promoting the fruits of good," he said. The Vatican statement emphasized that priests who organize pilgrimages must be prepared to ensure the visits don't "create confusion or ambiguity regarding the doctrinal aspect" of the shrine's significance. The shrine already has been important for the local economy. A tourist official called the pope's approval of pilgrimages "wonderful news." "For us, this represents a new beginning in Medjugorje, and it will also mean significantly bigger numbers of pilgrims coming here from all over the world," said Zeljko Vasilj, of the Medjugorje tourist board. An Italian pilgrim, Patrizia Bellino, who was at the shrine on Sunday, said people who visit will experience a "holy place, a place where a person becomes happier, calmer, more satisfied with life." ___ Eldar Emric contributed from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Insurgents fired rockets into a government-held Christian town in northwestern Syria on Sunday, killing six people, including five children who were playing near a monastery and wounding several others, state media and a local priest said. State TV said the shelling just before noon caused widespread material damage to the town of Suqailabiyah. It said the dead also included a 35-year-old woman. State news agency SANA said Syrian troops had retaliated by firing shells toward insurgents' positions on the southern edge of Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. Al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is the main insurgent group in the area. Priest Maher Haddad told The Associated Press by telephone from Suqailabiyah that a rocket struck near a group of children, instantly killing five and wounding others. He said the woman was killed in a nearby street by a separate rocket. "The kids went out to play after some days of calm," Haddad said, since the town had not targeted for days by insurgents who were pushed further north by the Syrian army. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also reported that six people were killed, adding that eight others, including six children were wounded. CORRECTS DAY OF WEEK IN SECOND SENTENCE TO SUNDAY - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a victim who was injured by shelling in the town of Suqailabiyah, receives treatment at a hospital in central city of Hama, Syria, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Syrian state media reported Sunday that insurgents shelled the government-held town of Suqailabiyah, in the country's northwest, killing five children and a woman and causing wide material damage. (SANA via AP) The Observatory said government shelling of a rebel-held village to the north killed one person and wounded others. The insurgent enclave has been rocked by a wave of violence since April 30, killing and wounding dozens while forcing some 150,000 people to flee their homes in rebel-held areas. Idlib is home to some 3 million people, many of them displaced from other parts of the country. Syrian troops have been on the offensive under the cover of airstrikes for days, capturing several strategic locations and villages. Sunday's deaths are another blow to a cease-fire reached in September between Russia and Turkey. The truce avoided a government offensive on Idlib. Turkey's official Anadolu news agency on Sunday reported Turkish military deployments in southeastern Kilis province and southern Hatay province, both bordering Syria. The fresh commando and armored vehicle deployments were to reinforce border units, according to the agency. The Observatory said that since the latest wave of violence began late last month 297 people have been killed. ____ Mroue reported from Beirut. The world bank has granted an additional sum of FCFA 35 Billion to the Safety Net Project to facilitate the realisation of its objectives which focuses on alleviating poverty and vulnerability in communities that are hosting refugees in Cameroon. The information was revealed this Wednesday, May 15 in Yaounde, during the technical follow-up committee meetings for the economic program of the Safety Net project. The objective of the Social Safety Net Project for Cameroon is to support the establishment of a basic national safety net system including piloting targeted cash transfers and public works programs for the poorest and most vulnerable people in participating areas within the Recipient's territory. Following the influx of refugees in a community, this project helps to alleviate poverty and vulnerability, integrate refugees into national social protection systems, and build peace and improve living conditions in fragile regions. Last year in May, the World Bank approved an International Development Association (IDA) package of $274 million for four projects focusing on helping refugees and host communities in Cameroon with access to health care, education, social safety nets, and social and economic infrastructure. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees(UNHCR), Cameroon currently has 1,214,714 people of concern, including 275,711 Central African and 138,315 Nigerian refugees. Since 27 January, some 35,000 Nigerian nationals have crossed the border into Cameroon seeking refuge after fleeing the town of Rann. Recently, Nigerian media reported that over 90,000 Nigerian refugees displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency are stranded in Cameroon. Efforts are done both by Cameroon and international community to assist refugees and host communities in the country. SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) - Stevo Pendarovski has been sworn in as the new president of North Macedonia, promising he will serve all citizens in a deeply divided society and will lobby European Union leaders to approve the start of his country's accession talks in June. The 56-year-old was sworn in before lawmakers Sunday. He won the election May 5 in a tightly contested runoff with a conservative rival. The presidents of Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Kosovo attended the inauguration ceremony. Pendarovski is a strong supporter of the deal with Greece, finalized in February, that ended a decades-long dispute over the name Macedonia, in exchange for the prospect of NATO and European Union membership. Former president Gjorge Ivanov, who ended his second and last five-year term Sunday, was a fierce opponent of the name deal. HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania's primary election will decide nominees or officeholders for several high-profile offices, including mayor of the nation's sixth largest city and one of the state's 18 members of the U.S. House. Pennsylvania's primary election is May 21. It features primary elections for Philadelphia mayor and two statewide appellate court seats. It also features special elections to fill three open seats in the Legislature and one in Congress. ___ PHILADELPHIA MAYOR Democrat Jim Kenney is running for reelection as mayor of the nation's sixth largest city. FILE - In this Jan. 17, 2019, file photo, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney listens during a news conference at City Hall in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's primary election will decide nominees or officeholders for several high-profile offices, including mayor of the nation's sixth largest city and a U.S. House seat. The election is May 21. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) He has had an eventful first term, from antagonizing President Donald Trump over Philadelphia's sanctuary city status - and winning an appeals court decision against the Trump administration's effort to punish the city - to carrying through on his top first-term priority. That priority, a 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on soda and other sweetened beverages, drew national attention. It also has drawn criticism but withstood court challenges and a public relations onslaught by grocers and the beverage industry. The money is funding new pre-kindergarten slots and services for schoolchildren and their families, with plans to fund parks, recreation centers and libraries. He is opposed in the Democratic primary by two longtime city political figures: Alan Butkovitz, the former city controller defeated in 2017, and state Sen. Anthony Williams, who has served three decades in the state House and Senate combined. Both men are critical of the soda tax and say Kenney has not attacked other problems plaguing the city, including crime. Republican Billy Ciancaglini is running unopposed in the GOP primary. ___ SUPERIOR COURT There are two open spots on the state Superior Court, Pennsylvania's mid-level appellate court, which handles civil and criminal appeals from county courts. Running for those spots are three candidates from each party. The Democrats are Philadelphia Judge Daniel McCaffery and lawyers Amanda Green-Hawkins, of Pittsburgh, and Beth Tarasi, of Allegheny County. A fourth Democrat who filed paperwork withdrew from the ballot. The Republicans are Cumberland County Judge Christylee Peck, Chester County prosecutor Megan King and Rebecca Warren, the former Montour County district attorney. McCaffery and Green-Hawkins are endorsed by the Democratic Party. Peck and King are endorsed by the state Republican Party. Warren ran unsuccessfully for state Supreme Court in 2015. McCaffery is the brother of former state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery. ___ 12TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT Republican Fred Keller and Democrat Marc Friedenberg are vying to fill the remaining term of Republican Tom Marino, who resigned in January, just three weeks into his fifth congressional term. Keller, a fifth-term state representative, beat 13 other candidates seeking the GOP nomination in the heavily Republican district. Friedenberg, a lawyer and Penn State information technology instructor, was the only Democrat to seek his party's nomination. The current term ends in January 2021. The 12th District covers all or parts of 15 counties, including Keller's home in Snyder County and Friedenberg's home in Centre County. The district is also a strong source of support for Trump. Voters there backed the Republican in 2016's presidential election by better than 2 to 1 over Democrat Hillary Clinton. In the state House, the fifth-term Keller is largely a back-bencher and one of the most conservative members, with a 90 percent lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union through 2018. Friedenberg also ran last year and lost November's election to Marino by 32 percentage points. Before he ran for the Legislature, Keller was a plant manager for a wood cabinet supplier and ran a real estate management business. ___ SPECIAL ELECTIONS There are three special elections to fill open seats in the state Legislature, one in the House and two in the Senate. All three seats were last held by Republicans, and the special elections will not affect Republican control in either chamber. For the 11th House district in Butler County, Democrat Sam Doctor and Republican Marci Mustello are running. For the 33rd Senate district in southern Pennsylvania, Democrat Sarah Hammond and Republican Doug Mastriano are running. For the 41st Senate district in western Pennsylvania, Democrat Susan Boser and Republican Joe Pittman are running. ___ VOTING Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pennsylvania's primary elections are closed, which means only registered Republicans may vote in Republican primaries and likewise for Democrats. The last day to register to vote or change party affiliation before the May 21 primary election was April 22. Applications submitted after that date will be processed the day after the primary election. ___ Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/timelywriter. Savanah Harshbarger estimates she performed as many as 10 pelvic exams last year on patients before gynecologic surgeries, feeling for fibroid tumors or other abnormalities. The Duke University medical student said the experience was a revelation. "It's pretty empowering to know this is something you can detect with a gloved hand instead of needing an MRI or some more expensive procedure," Harshbarger said. What was not always clear to her was whether the patients had agreed ahead of time to have a student do the exam while they were under anesthesia. The consent form, Harshbarger said, "definitely does not mention any specific things a student might be doing. It's fairly vague language." Lawmakers in a number of states now want to eliminate any question about patient consent. Bills introduced in roughly a dozen states this year would require that women undergoing gynecological surgeries give explicit approval to a pelvic exam beforehand. It's a step that some medical experts say is an unnecessary intrusion into patient care. In this May 2, 2019, photo, Savanah Harshbarger, a medical student at Duke University, poses for a photo on campus in Durham, N.C. Harshbarger estimates she did as many as 10 pelvic exams last year on patients who were under anesthesia for gynecologic surgeries. Bills introduced in roughly a dozen states this year would require that women undergoing gynecological surgeries give explicit approval to a pelvic exam beforehand. It's a step that some medical experts say is an unnecessary intrusion into care. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) Utah's governor signed a pelvic exam consent bill into law earlier this year. A bill in New York passed the state Senate this week and is headed to the governor, and the Maryland Legislature unanimously sent legislation to Gov. Larry Hogan, who is expected to sign it. Maryland state Delegate Heather Bagnall said the state's teaching hospitals have informed consent as a best practice, but she felt it needed to be made explicit in state law to protect women undergoing surgery and as an assurance for medical students. "So we have basically just spelled out in no uncertain terms, if a patient is going under anesthesia, if a patient is unconscious, that they have to have given consent for these exams," Bagnall said. "They need this added level of protection, and they need this added level of peace of mind." During a committee hearing on the bill, Melanie Bell, a board member for the Maryland Nurses Association, said there have been times when patients have awakened during the procedures and felt violated. "Clinical experiences are necessary and are important, and we must learn in a hands-on environment when we're students," she said. "However, we must treat patients with dignity and respect." A pelvic exam is standard practice before gynecologic surgeries to determine the position and mobility of the organs. It involves inserting fingers of a gloved hand in the patient's vagina to feel her uterus and ovaries. Medical students sometimes do the exams as part of their training. What's not clear is how often patients are clearly told of student involvement ahead of time. In general, the bills introduced this year would require explicit informed consent before a medical student is allowed to perform a pelvic exam on an anesthetized patient. Some would require the exam to be related to the planned procedure. Not everyone believes the legislation is necessary. Yale Medical School asked Connecticut lawmakers to rely on medical societies to set clear standards designating when it's medically appropriate or necessary to conduct a pelvic exam on an anesthetized patient. The school cautioned lawmakers against legislating clinical decision-making and helped persuade them to shelve the bill. In New Hampshire, the House killed legislation after its health committee said it heard extensive testimony and found that the practice of informed consent is already in place. Even in Utah, which this year became the seventh state with a pelvic exam consent requirement, some in the medical community said the legislation wasn't needed. The Utah law requires a separate consent form that includes the words "CONSENT FOR EXAMINATION OF PELVIC REGION" in no smaller than 18-point type. It defines a patient examination as a "medical examination that requires contact with the patient's sexual organs." At the state's largest teaching hospital, the new paperwork won't change the practice, said Dr. Robert Silver, department chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah Hospital. The law addresses a problem that doesn't exist, he said, because patients already are asked and give their permission before a medical student does a pelvic exam. He noted one concern with the new law: It requires the consent form to include a checkbox giving a patient the option to refuse a pelvic exam from anyone before surgery, including the surgeon. If a patient chooses that option, Silver said, the surgery wouldn't be possible. The Association of American Medical Colleges has denounced pelvic exams without specific consent as "unethical and unacceptable," and many medical schools and teaching hospitals say they have revised their policies to require it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has had a strongly worded statement on the topic since 2011, urging specific informed consent before surgery. Even so, several medical students from different schools told The Associated Press that they had recently performed pelvic exams on anesthetized women but were uncertain how much the patients knew beforehand. They wondered whether or not they were acting ethically. To allay such concerns, Tufts Medical Center in Boston recently revised its consent form. Doctors discuss the forms with gynecology patients, inform them that students may participate in pelvic exams and ask for consent, said Dr. Laura Baecher-Lind, an obstetrician and gynecologist and the hospital's director of women's care. But medical students may not be present for that conversation. In response to concerns circulating on social media and an inquiry from a prospective medical student, her department is changing its form to add "exam under anesthesia." She hopes that will clarify to medical students that it's been discussed with patients. "Our processes are sound except for the documentation of that conversation" with patients, Baecher-Lind said. A 2018 essay on the topic in the journal Bioethics appears to have sparked the current wave of social media buzz, columns and, in turn, legislative proposals. The author, Phoebe Friesen, decided to pursue the topic after discussing ethical issues with medical students at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Some felt the consent obtained from patients before gynecological surgery wasn't specific enough about student involvement. Others said they were unclear about it because they weren't in the room when the patient signed consent forms, but feared speaking up. Friesen's essay and a related opinion piece she wrote for the online magazine Slate came amid the #MeToo movement and provided momentum for Robin Fretwell Wilson, a University of Illinois law professor who has pushed for pelvic exam consent laws for nearly 20 years. "I have been trying to basically light a fire over this," Wilson said. She said medical students are afraid to talk about the issue and that patients have no way of knowing what happens while they're unconscious. "We can't be sure that norm is being respected," Wilson said, explaining her continued push for state legislation. Among the bills is the one in New York, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Jessica Ramos. Her bill would amend the public health law to establish informed consent for medical procedures during education or training. It passed the Senate earlier this week and was sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Ramos said it's "of utmost importance" to instill the value of informed consent on medical students in New York. Democratic state Sen. Roxanne Persaud worked on similar legislation and supported the bill that ultimately passed. She said her office has received calls from women wondering how they could find out if they had a pelvic exam while under anesthesia that was performed by medical students. She wonders if she also had one during surgery a decade ago. If an informed consent requirement becomes law, Persaud said, "It'll be a victory for women." ___ McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Johnson reported from Seattle. ___ Associated Press writers Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, David Klepper in Albany, New York, Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this report. In this May 2, 2019, photo, Savanah Harshbarger, a medical student at Duke University, poses for a photo on campus in Durham, N.C. Harshbarger estimates she did as many as 10 pelvic exams last year on patients who were under anesthesia for gynecologic surgeries. Bills introduced in roughly a dozen states this year would require that women undergoing gynecological surgeries give explicit approval to a pelvic exam beforehand. It's a step that some medical experts say is an unnecessary intrusion into care. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) In this April 29, 2019, photo, Dr. Laura Baecher-Lind, director of women's care at Tufts Medical Center, poses for a photo in an exam room at the medical center in Boston. Lawmakers in several states say they were alarmed to learn it's still possible for medical students to do pelvic exams on anesthetized women without explicit consent, especially given evolving cultural attitudes in the #MeToo era. Doctors discuss consent forms with gynecology patients, inform them that students may participate in pelvic exams and ask for consent, said Baecher-Lind. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) In this April 29, 2019, photo, Dr. Laura Baecher-Lind, director of women's care at Tufts Medical Center, poses for a photo in an exam room at the medical center in Boston. Lawmakers in several states say they were alarmed to learn it's still possible for medical students to do pelvic exams on anesthetized women without explicit consent, especially given evolving cultural attitudes in the #MeToo era. Doctors discuss consent forms with gynecology patients, inform them that students may participate in pelvic exams and ask for consent, said Baecher-Lind. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) In this May 2, 2019, photo, Savanah Harshbarger, a medical student at Duke University, poses for a photo on campus in Durham, N.C. Harshbarger estimates she did as many as 10 pelvic exams last year on patients who were under anesthesia for gynecologic surgeries. Bills introduced in roughly a dozen states this year would require that women undergoing gynecological surgeries give explicit approval to a pelvic exam beforehand. It's a step that some medical experts say is an unnecessary intrusion into care. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) CAIRO (AP) - The U.N. said Sunday it is monitoring the redeployment of rebel forces from three key ports in Yemen after the government dismissed the withdrawal as a "farce." The rebels, known as Houthis, said Saturday they began the long-delayed redeployment of their forces from the key port of Hodeida, as well as the two smaller ports of Salif and Ras Issa, as part of a cease-fire reached in December. The long-delayed redeployment is seen as a key first step toward ending the civil war, which erupted in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition joined the war the following year on the side of the government. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and the war has generated the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Lt. Gen. Michael Lollesgaard, the head of a U.N. mission overseeing the cease-fire, said U.N. teams watched as "the military forces left the ports and the Coast Guard took over responsibility for security." He said the first day of the redeployment of Houthi forces went "in accordance with established plans." Activities in the following days are expected to focus on "removal of military manifestations and demining." The monitors will verify the rebels' withdrawal on Tuesday, he said in a statement. FILE - This Sept. 29, 2018 file photo shows idle cargo and oil tanker ships at the port of Hodeida, Yemen. On Saturday, May 11, 2019, Houthi rebels began a long-delayed withdrawal of their forces from the key port city, the group said, following the terms of a cease-fire. The U.N.-brokered agreement is aimed at alleviating the world's worst humanitarian crisis. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed) The government has dismissed the Houthi withdrawal, with Information Minister Moammer al-Iryani accusing the rebels of handing the ports off to "militia leaders in civilian clothes." Both sides agreed in December to withdraw from Hodeida, which handles 70 percent of Yemen's food imports and humanitarian aid. But the U.N.-brokered deal was vague on who would control Hodeida's strategic ports after the withdrawal, saying only that a "local force" would take over. NEW YORK (AP) - The deadly confrontation five summers ago flickers in Gwen Carr's mind, competing for attention with warm, happy memories of her late son Eric Garner's life. For all the smiles and laugher they shared, there are flashes of Garner being grabbed by a New York City police officer and crying out: "I can't breathe." Carr said she has been reliving what she pointedly calls "my son's murder" every day since his July 2014 death : Her first born succumbing to cardiac arrest after a white officer wearing plainclothes, Daniel Pantaleo, restrained her 34-year-old son with what she contends is an illegal chokehold and what Pantaleo's lawyer argues is an approved technique. A long-delayed internal disciplinary trial that could lead to Pantaleo's firing is slated to begin on Monday. A ruling late last week requires the police watchdog agency bringing the case prove not only that Pantaleo violated department rules, but that his actions fit the criteria for criminal charges. Pantaleo does not actually face criminal charges. "It has been five long years," Carr told The Associated Press last week. "Pantaleo and all those other officers who actually murdered my son that day, they are still collecting their salaries. They still go home every day and it's business as usual with them. But with me, we relive this every day." Video of the struggle on a Staten Island street corner quickly went viral, amplifying Garner's plaintive pleas of "I can't breathe" into a rallying cry in the face of police brutality against unarmed black men and women. "Very troubling," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the time. In this Wednesday May 8, 2019, photo, Loyda Colon, left, co-Director of the Justice Committee, listens while Gwen Carr, right, mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speaks during an interview, Wednesday May 8, 2019, in New York. A New York City judge has cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of her son, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) Pantaleo was placed on desk duty. Investigations were launched. The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide caused by a police chokehold. And then nothing happened. A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo on criminal charges. Facing a July deadline, federal prosecutors don't appear inclined to file civil rights charges, either. Pantaleo has remained on the city payroll, stripped of his gun and badge but pulling in a hefty salary - peaking at more than $120,000 in 2017, according to city payroll records. The NYPD argued the federal investigation was holding up Pantaleo's disciplinary case. Last summer, however, the department decided to move forward anyway. It will begin 1,761 days after Garner's death. Pantaleo's administrative trial is open to the public, but space in the court-like room at police headquarters in lower Manhattan is limited. The police department won't allow video, photos or even a sketch artist. The trial is expected to take about two weeks. The Civilian Complaint Review Board said it expects to call fewer than 20 witnesses. Stuart London, Pantaleo's attorney, said he'll bring up to 10 people to the stand. They include a retired NYPD training sergeant who London said taught Pantaleo an approved technique known as a "seat-belt hold" that is being confused for a chokehold. The NYPD's chief surgeon ruled in 2014 that Pantaleo hadn't used a chokehold on Garner, contradicting the medical examiner's findings, London said. London said part of his defense case would focus on attacking the medical examiner's report, which he called a "political document" and "the worst possible autopsy ever done." Pantaleo's union, the Police Benevolent Association, has blamed the 350-pound Garner's poor health and resisting arrest for his death. Garner shouted at officers as they approached him, saying: "Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I'm tired of it. It stops today. I'm minding my business. Please just leave me alone." Garner, a father of six, had been arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes numerous times and was suspected of doing the same when officers approached him, police said. The man who recorded the video of the confrontation said that wasn't true and that Garner had just broken up a fight between two other men. Garner, who had asthma, suffered a heart attack in an ambulance and was pronounced dead at a hospital. The city paid Garner's family $5.9 million in 2015 to settle a wrongful death claim. Carr said that money went to Garner's wife, not her. Use of force complaints against the NYPD have fallen sharply in the years since Garner's death, according to data compiled by the review board. In 2014, there were 2,412. In 2018, there were 1,764, marking a 27% drop. But alleged chokeholds have still been a problem. Last year, the review board reported receiving 133 chokehold complaints. So far in 2019, there have been 39. The NYPD hasn't fired an officer for a fatal chokehold since Francis Livoti , who was dismissed from the department and convicted by a federal jury for violating the civil rights of a Bronx man prosecutors say died after Livoti used a choke hold on him in 1994. A few weeks after Garner's death, 18-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. A few months after that, officers in Cleveland fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Other confrontations followed between police officers and people of color, sparking tensions, calls for reform and nationwide protests. Carr, turning to activism as a means of healing from her grief, lobbied for an executive order directing New York's attorney general's office to review cases in which unarmed civilians are killed by police. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed it a year after her son's death. She also wrote about her life and Garner's death in a book, "This Stops Today," published last October. "All of this needs to stop," Carr said. "This is very important to me for Eric, but not only for Eric - for the other families, and for the families that we know will be." ___ Follow Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak ___ Send news tips, documents and recordings to AP securely and confidentially: https://www.ap.org/tips In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Gwen Carr, left, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speak during a press conference after leaving court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Wednesday May 8, 2019, photo, Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speaks during an interview in New York. A New York City judge has cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of her son, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Gwen Carr, left, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speak during a press conference after leaving court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Wednesday May 8, 2019, photo, Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speaks during an interview in New York. A New York City judge has cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of her son, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Ellisha Garner, left, and Gwen Carr, right, her mother and mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, hold a press conference after leaving court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Gwen Carr, second from left, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, and his sister Ellisha Garner, second from right, and his cousin Michael Garner, far right, leave court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Gwen Carr, left, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speak during a press conference after leaving court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Gwen Carr, left, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, and her daughter Ellisha Garner, right, leave court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Wednesday May 8, 2019, photo, Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speaks during an interview in New York. A New York City judge has cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of her son, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Wednesday May 8, 2019, photo, Loyda Colon, left, co-Director of the Justice Committee, listens while Gwen Carr, right, mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speaks during an interview, Wednesday May 8, 2019, in New York. A New York City judge has cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of her son, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Wednesday May 8, 2019, photo, Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speaks during an interview in New York. A New York City judge has cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of her son, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Gwen Carr, left, mother of Eric Garner- an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, speak during a press conference after leaving court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) In this Thursday May 9, 2019 photo, Ellisha Garner, left, and Gwen Carr, right, her mother and mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died as he was being subdued in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo nearly five years ago, hold a press conference after leaving court in New York. A judge cleared the way for a police disciplinary trial to begin next week for Pantaleo in the death of Garner, after rejecting his claim that a police watchdog agency didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute the case. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) LONDON (AP) - A senior British minister is warning that the upcoming European Parliament elections will be seen by some as "the ultimate protest vote opportunity," as polls suggest that populists could unseat Britain's mainstream parties amid the country's ongoing Brexit chaos. Education Secretary Damian Hinds told the BBC Sunday there's no doubt that the May 23 EU elections in Britain will be difficult for Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives. Two recent polls suggest that the newly formed Brexit Party, headed by pro-Brexit politician Nigel Farage, could win big at both the EU vote and any British general election, at the expense of the Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party. May had wanted to lead Britain out of the EU before the bloc's elections, but Brexit remains on hold amid political deadlock. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage gestures on an open topped bus while on the European Election campaign trail in Sunderland, England, Saturday, May 11, 2019. (Danny Lawson/PA via AP) ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - An armed group in New Mexico whose leader faces federal firearms possession charges drew national attention last month for detaining asylum-seeking Central American families near the U.S.-Mexico border. It's not the first time an armed militia patrolled the border amid immigration and racial tensions. Throughout U.S. history, private, armed groups have been hired or appointed themselves to police the U.S-Mexico border for a variety of reasons - from preventing black slaves from fleeing to stopping Chinese immigrants from crossing over illegally. A look at the history of armed groups patrolling the border: ___ SLAVE PATROLS After the Mexican-American War, slave-hunting groups began monitoring the border between Texas and Mexico and watching for black slaves who had run away. FILE - In this April 23, 2019, file photo, a self-styled Patriot stands a quarter mile from a barrier that marks the U.S.-Mexico border after his group, United Constitutional Patriots, gained national attention for filming themselves detaining immigrants near Sunland Park, N.M. Throughout U.S. history, private, armed groups have been hired or appointed themselves to police the U.S-Mexico border for a variety of reason, ranging from preventing Chinese immigrants from crossing over illegally to preventing runaway slaves from fleeing. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio, File) Slavery had been abolished in Mexico, and slaves from as far as Alabama sought to escape to Mexico through the southern Underground Railroad before the U.S. Civil War. Historians say the armed horsemen sometimes went into Mexico illegally to try to capture runaway slaves but were met with resistance from the Mexican government and people. Mexico refused to return the slaves who fled there. University of Texas doctoral candidate Maria Esther Hammack has documented how Mexican Americans helped runaway slaves avoid the patrols and escape to Mexico in the mid-1800s. ___ THE TEXAS RANGERS The Texas Rangers were recommissioned after the U.S. Civil War. Although the group was known for fighting Native American tribes and alleged bandits, historians say it also functioned as a private militia on behalf of wealthy landowners and ranchers concerned about cattle and horse thefts. During the early 1900s, the Texas Rangers operated with impunity along the Texas-Mexico border on the grounds that they were protecting U.S. residents from Mexican outlaws who would cross over and raid ranches. But, according to historians, the Texas Rangers often attacked Mexican Americans in Texas border towns, raiding homes without warrants, torturing suspects and sometimes killing innocent people. Tensions were especially high during the Mexican Revolution as refugees attempted to cross over and escape the violence. In 1919, the Texas Rangers executed 15 Mexican American men and boys from Porvenir, Texas, in what would later be called the Porvenir Massacre. None of the Rangers would serve any jail time and the massacre would later lead to reforms. ___ CESAR CHAVEZ AND "THE WET LINE" After World War II, many Mexican American civil rights leaders openly expressed alarm at the growing number of Mexican immigrants coming into the U.S. illegally. They also felt white businessmen and ranchers used the immigrants to keep the wages of Mexican Americans low because they couldn't unionize. Cesar Chavez, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers, believed white growers used Mexican immigrants as strikebreakers. In 1973, members of the United Farm Workers under the guidance of Chavez's cousin, Manuel, set up a "wet line" along the U.S.-Mexico border near San Luis, Arizona, to halt Mexican migration. (The term "wet" refers to a racial epithet aimed at Mexican immigrants.) Manuel erected 17 tents along a 25-mile (40-kilometer) stretch of the border and had members physically attack migrants. The Yuma Daily Sun newspaper reported that cars were torched, men were beaten with a plastic hose and one man claimed attackers burned the soles of his feet. Miriam Pawel, in her 2014 book "The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography," wrote that the Mexican labor federation - the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Mexico - broke with the United Farm Workers and denounced the "wet lines" as a campaign of terror. The labor group's leader, Francisco Modesto, said hundreds of beatings occurred and two men were castrated. ___ WHITE SUPREMACISTS In 1977, then-Ku Klux Klan national director David Duke announced that members of the white supremacist group would patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. He said armed members would assist the U.S. Border Patrol in stopping immigrants from getting into the U.S. illegally. The U.S. Border Patrol in the 1990s under then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, increased enforcement in urban areas like El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, and migrants started shifting their path through the Arizona desert, prompting militias to form. The groups were accused of unlawfully detaining Latinos, and in some cases, physically attacking them. Among those forming was the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps founded by Chris Simcox and J. T. Ready, a former neo-Nazi. The group urged citizens to take it upon themselves to guard the region. Glenn Spencer also created the American Border Patrol in southern Arizona and touted it as a "shadow Border Patrol." The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the American Border Patrol as an extremist group. ___ Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press' race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras . FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2005, file photo, Michael King, a member of American Border Patrol, a citizen watchdog group that posts images from the U.S.-Mexico border to draw attention to illegal immigration, rides along the U.S.-Mexico border ear Cochise County, Ariz. Throughout U.S. history, private, armed groups have been hired or appointed themselves to police the U.S-Mexico border for a variety of reason, ranging from preventing Chinese immigrants from crossing over illegally to preventing runaway slaves from fleeing. (AP Photo/Paul Connors, File) FILE - In this May 10, 2016, file photo, Tim Foley looks on near where a section of the border wall separating Mexico and the United States ends in Sasabe, Ariz. Foley, a former construction foreman, founded Arizona Border Recon, a group of armed volunteers who dedicate themselves to border surveillance. Throughout U.S. history, private, armed groups have been hired or appointed themselves to police the U.S-Mexico border for a variety of reason, ranging from preventing Chinese immigrants from crossing over illegally to preventing runaway slaves from fleeing. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File) DERBY LINE, Vt. (AP) - Hundreds of border agents from across the U.S. are being temporarily transferred south ahead of the busy summer tourism season, worrying those along the northern border who rely on cross-border commerce - including U.S. innkeepers, shop owners and restaurateurs who fear their Canadian customers could be caught in backups at border crossings. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says 731 northern border agents from land, sea and airports are in the process of being sent to the U.S.-Mexico border, where they will help their southern counterparts handle the influx of families and unaccompanied children from Central America. The move comes as businesses gear up for the summer season, when tens of thousands of Canadian tourists help buoy the economies of communities in border states and elsewhere deeper inside the United States. Since U.S.-Canada border security was ramped up shortly after the 9/11 attacks, local and state officials have worried heightened security could hurt trade and the free flow of people back and forth across the 5,525-mile (8,891-kilometer) border. Garry Douglas of the North Country Chamber of Commerce in Plattsburgh, New York, said commerce with Canada is the "single greatest driving force" in the regional economy and it took years to get adequate staffing levels at the northern border, which around 400,000 people and $1.6 billion in goods cross daily. In an email, he said he hadn't seen any problems yet, but cautioned that peak travel season doesn't begin until Canada's Victoria Day holiday weekend, from May 18-20. Last week, 13 bipartisan members of Congress from six northern border states wrote acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, voicing concerns the plans could hurt cross-border travel and commerce. In this May 8, 2019 photo, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials stand at the new border crossing facility on the U.S.-Canadian border in Derby Line, Vt. Some along the northern U.S. border are worried the temporary transfer of hundreds of border agents south could cause backups of people seeking to enter the United States from Canada during the busy summer tourist season. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring) "The decision to deploy northern border CBP officers to the southern border makes it increasingly more difficult for the agency to meet their core mission requirements at the border which include effectively securing U.S. points of entry and safeguarding and streamlining lawful trade and travel," said the May 3 letter , which was released Wednesday. The letter was signed by four members of Congress from New York, four from Michigan, two from New Hampshire, and one each from Minnesota, Washington and North Dakota. On Thursday, Vermont's Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch sent an identical letter to McAleenan. "Tourism is central to our economy in the Granite State and I have serious concerns about any disruption in the efficiency of operations at the Canadian border," New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster said in an email interview. "Moving Customs and Border Protection personnel away from our northern border has the potential to impact U.S.-Canadian commerce and tourism just as we enter the busy summer months. I will work with my colleagues whose states and districts share a border with Canada to address this serious issue." Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine said they understand the need for additional resources at the southern border, but in a joint statement they said they're monitoring to "ensure that the northern border remains safe and secure, and that crossings that facilitate jobs and vital economic activity are not negatively affected in Maine." Collins is a Republican and King is an independent who caucuses with Democrats. While CBP wouldn't specify where the agents are coming from, they are being drawn from 328 ports of entry. Vermont CBP Port Director Gregory Starr, speaking Wednesday after the ribbon-cutting for a new port of entry at Derby Line, said a number of his agents were heading south. He said those staying in Vermont would do their best to avoid backups. "It's an issue that we have to deal with," Starr said. "We're going to help out as much as we can and try to maintain our presence here as well." In Maine, the town of Old Orchard Beach relies heavily on Canadian tourists. Some hotels and motels fly both the U.S. and Canadian flags out front. One of the owners of the waterfront Kebek 3 motel, Marc Bourassa, says 90% of his customers are Canadian, so he's concerned about delays at the border. For the past couple of years, Canadian guests have reported to him that things have been running smoothly at the crossings. He doesn't want to see the apple cart being upset. "It doesn't make sense to me that they they'd do something like that," Bourassa said. "But there are lots of things that don't make sense to me. I guess that's life." ___ Associated Press reporter David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report. In this May 8, 2019 photo, U.S. Customs and Border Protection area Port Director Gregory Starr answers questions outside the new border crossing facility on the U.S.-Canadian border in Derby Line, Vt. Some along the northern U.S. border are worried the temporary transfer of hundreds of border agents south could cause backups of people seeking to enter the United States from Canada during the busy summer tourist season. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring) WARWICK, R.I. (AP) - Two Rhode Island police officers are being praised for their quick actions that saved the life of a choking baby. Warwick Police Officers Brian Holleran and Anthony D'Abrosca were responding to another call in the Kohl's parking lot on Friday when they heard a woman calling for help. Police say the two officers rushed into the store and saw that the 16-month-old baby was choking. Holleran tells WJAR that he gave her a couple blows to the back and performed CPR. After the officer's actions, the baby was able to breathe again. Police say the baby was taken to the hospital and has made a full recovery. The baby's foster mother, Elaine Martinez, tells the TV station she thanks God the officers were there at that moment. SOUTHPORT, England (AP) - Marcus Kinhult birdied the final two holes to claim his first European Tour title after a tense finish to the British Masters on Sunday. Kinhult shot a 2-under 70 and finished on 16-under 272 overall. His chance looked to have gone when he surrendered a one-shot lead with bogeys on the 15th and 16th, but the 22-year-old Swede recovered to finish a shot ahead of defending champion Eddie Pepperell (66), Matt Wallace (71) and Robert MacIntyre (68). Pepperell had set the clubhouse target on 15 under before MacIntyre produced a stunning eagle-birdie finish to join him at the top of the leaderboard. "I'm speechless, I don't know what happened the last two holes," Kinhult said. "There's a lot going through my mind, a lot of emotions and I am just so happy that I managed to handle those pretty well." A four-man playoff looked on the cards when Kinhult birdied the 17th and playing partner Wallace missed from four feet, but after Wallace also missed for birdie on the last, Kinhult holed from 12 feet to seal a remarkable win. "It's small margins," Kinhult said. "I got off to a good start and just kept the momentum through the week." Tommy Fleetwood, who hosted the tournament at Hillside in his home town of Southport in northern England, was tied for eighth after a 1-over 73. ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Traditional Rulers reserved a surprise for the PM Atia Azohnwi On day one of his five-day peace mission to the restive South West region Tuesday, Cameroons Prime Minister, Head of Government Dion Ngute Joseph invited the people to the dialogue and reconciliation table on behalf of his master, President Paul Biya. He called on armed men to heed to the presidents virtual amnesty, drop their arms and be reintegrated into society. Let us unite for peace. Cameroon is greater than our differences. Stop violence. Let's sit down and have a constructive dialogue. Ohh my people, rise up! It's time for peace. No more violence. Enough is enough. I come on behalf of President Paul Biya to invite you to the dialogue and reconciliation table, the PM said. Addressing youths in the region represented by the Cameroon National Youth Council, the Prime Minister said they should talk to their peers in the bushes to drop their arms and seize the olive branch being extended to them by the President of the Republic. This crisis is your crisis. I am counting on you, youth, to talk to these people who are in the bushes. The Head of State President Paul Biya has already granted them a virtual amnesty. So why do they still stay there? PM Dion Ngute asked the representatives of the South West Chapter of the Cameroon National Youth Council. The audience with the youth followed a working session with Administrative and Security Officers in the South West. He would later receive municipal officials before exchanging views with the elites, including Parliamentarians and Traditional Rulers. He urged each of them to act with determination to put an end to this crisis that has lasted too long. The PMs convoy was stopped upon arrival in Buea by a group of whaling women of the North West/South West Women's Task Force, SNWOT. The women demanded an end to the prolonged crisis especially given that they are the hardest hit, having to bury their husbands and children. We need peace! they cried out. Responding to the women in the local lingua franca pidgin, Prime Minister Dion Ngute said everything that begins has an end. His words: I am here on a peace mission on the instructions of President Paul Biya. He sent me to talk to all of you and all our children that everything must have an end. President Biya says all the meetings that you have been clamouring for will be organised. The children should not stay in the bushes anymore. They should come out of the bushes so we can be as we were before. Let schools resume. This September, all the children must go to school. That is the message from President Paul Biya. He says all the children in the bushes belong to women. We do not want any child in the bushes to die again. We want them to leave the bushes and hand their guns. President Biya says they will be well taken care of. HOUSTON (AP) - The Latest on the disappearance of 4-year-old Maleah Davis (all times local): 9:50 a.m. A prosecutor says trained dogs detected the scent of human decomposition in the vehicle of a man arrested in connection with the disappearance of a 4-year-old Texas girl. Derion Vence remains jailed Sunday on a $1 million bond after being arrested a day earlier on a charge of tampering with evidence, specifically a human corpse. Vence told police on May 4 that men in a truck abducted him, Maleah Davis and his 2-year-old son before freeing him and the boy. Maleah is still missing. During a court hearing Saturday night, a prosecutor said dogs trained to find cadavers reacted to the trunk of the car Vence had claimed was taken by the kidnappers. This undated photo released by the Houston Police Department shows Maleah Davis. Houston police are trying to determine what happened to the 4-year-old girl after the ex-fiance of her mother said she was taken by men who released him and his 2-year-old son after abducting them as well. An Amber Alert was issued Sunday morning, May 7, 2019, for Maleah Davis. (Houston Police Department via AP) Police say the vehicle was used to drop Vence off at a hospital, where he first reported the abduction. ___ 6 a.m. The man who reported last weekend that 4-year-old Maleah Davis had been abducted was arrested near Houston in connection with her disappearance and police said they found her blood in his apartment. Derion Vence, who had lived with Maleah and her mother, was arrested Saturday without incident at his brother's home in Sugar Land, Texas, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southwest of Houston, a statement from Houston police said. A court document said he was charged with tampering with a human corpse. Asked if police believe Vence killed Maleah, Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said: "At this point in time those are the charges we have filed and I can't say any more than that." MEXICO CITY (AP) - Officials say an 83-year-old union leader and former federal senator has been assassinated in central Mexico. The Guanajuato state prosecutor's office has issued a statement promising to deploy all the resources necessary to investigate Saturday's killing of Gilberto Munoz Mosqueda. Local news media say gunmen ambushed his car as he travelled through the city of Salamanca. Munoz had headed a chemical and petrochemical workers union for about four decades. He also had been a federal senator for the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and had served several terms in the federal congress. He also was a senior official in the main country's main labor federation, the Mexican Confederation of Workers. The motive for the slaying wasn't immediately clear. LAS VEGAS (AP) - As Democratic presidential hopefuls hit the ground to woo voters in the early voting state of Nevada, many are touting how closely their home states align with the fast-growing tourist mecca. Few, though, can say it's where they stop for mom's home cooking. Cory Booker rose to national fame as a New Jersey mayor and senator, but his mom and other relatives have lived in Las Vegas for years. Now, he's working those local connections to set himself apart from the crowded pack in a state that could be decisive. Nevada's presidential caucus is the third of the early nominating contests for Democrats and is considered the first test of a candidate's appeal before a diverse population and the first contest in the West. For those in the packed 2020 field who struggle to break through in Iowa and New Hampshire, it could be their last opportunity to rise. On his recent swing through Las Vegas, Booker told voters over breakfast at a local Baptist church that he feels like "this is kind of a home for me because my mom lives here." He later told a 73-year-old voter that she could reach out to his mom across town to hold him accountable as president - a joke he repeated to another group of voters. "I'll give you my mom's address," Booker said. "If I misbehave, you can go talk to her." FILE - In this April 20, 2019 photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker speaks at an event at the True Love Missionary Baptist Church in Las Vegas. Booker rose to national fame as a New Jersey mayor and senator, but his mom and other relatives have lived in Las Vegas for years. Now, he's working those local connections to set himself apart from the crowded pack in a state that could be decisive. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) He made note of his mom's home in Las Vegas as he campaigned 400 miles (644 kilometers) away in Reno and the town of Minden, and opened his first rally in the state this year with the same fact and a shout out to his Uncle Butch, who also lives in Las Vegas. After attendees at the Las Vegas rally cheered for his mom, Booker told them it was wise move because "that might entitle you to come by her home here and get some of the best cornbread stuffing you have ever tasted." It remains to be seen whether the New Jersey senator's local connections could give him an edge in Nevada, a state where most of the population was born somewhere else and out-of-town visitors to the glitzy casino attractions of Las Vegas are a welcome driver of the economy. Republican Marco Rubio also tried to play up his local connections while running for president in 2016. Rubio in Nevada spoke about his childhood in Las Vegas, when his father worked at one of the city's casinos and was active in the local casino-workers' union. Despite highlighting his history in the city, the Florida senator's connection failed to stop Donald Trump from a runaway win of the Nevada GOP caucuses. "While it makes for a nice talking point and Rubio certainly played it up last cycle, I do not think it moves the needle for most voters," David Damore, the chair of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in an email. "Having a team that knows the state and can get a candidate in front of groups and interests with clout is much more important." While Booker's Vegas connections isn't the overriding message of his campaign here, it is a frequent part of his pitch as he weaves through points about home and community. The senator has tried to draw similar links in Iowa, pointing out to those who vote first on the presidential nominee that his grandmother was born in Des Moines and he still has family in the state. The New Jersey senator told The Associated Press in an interview that he doesn't consider himself a local in Las Vegas, but he's been coming to the city since he was a child and got to know it better as an adult when his grandparents moved to the city and then his parents, shortly before his father's death in 2013. "In the same way that I feel connected to where family is, that's why I feel so connected here," Booker said. "It's because I associate it with my grandparents, both of whom passed away here; my father, who passed away here; and then the decades of coming here for the best cooking I know, which is home cooking." Donna West, the chair of the Las Vegas-based Clark County Democratic Party, said she doesn't know if Las Vegas Democrats would consider Booker a local, but the senator knows the community well and it could translate into some extra support. "I frequently hear of a Cory sighting at a barber shop or a restaurant or a church," West noted. Alexis Merz, a Las Vegas native and the president of Las Vegas Urban League Young Professionals, said it's possible that people who run into Booker out in the community might take a closer look at his candidacy, but his Vegas ties didn't strike a chord with her. Merz, whose organization helped arrange a campaign visit with Booker in April at a barbershop in west Las Vegas, said the senator's personality and values speak much louder than his local connection. "If he had been raised here, like born and raised here, it might be different," Merz said. "It's still a cool connection but not enough to win Vegas or even the state of Nevada." FILE - In this April 20, 2019 photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker Democratic takes a selfie with people at a barber shop during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. Booker rose to national fame as a New Jersey mayor and senator, but his mom and other relatives have lived in Las Vegas for years. Now, he's working those local connections to set himself apart from the crowded pack in a state that could be decisive. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) FILE - In this April 20, 2019 photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker eats a tamale while visiting a home in Las Vegas. Booker rose to fame as a New Jersey mayor and senator but his mom and other relatives have lived in Las Vegas for years. Now, he's working those local connections to set himself apart from the crowded pack in a state that could be decisive. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) LONDON (AP) - Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, have released a photo of their newborn baby's feet to mark Meghan's first Mother's Day as a mom. The image posted Sunday on Instagram showed Meghan's hand cradling the feet of her son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, with a bed of spring flowers below serving as the background. The text reads: "Paying tribute to all mothers today - past, present, mothers-to-be, and those lost but forever remembered. We honor and celebrate each and every one of you." The post also included lines from a poem called "Lands" by Nayyirah Waheed: "my/mother/was/my first country;/ the first place I ever lived." Mother's Day was celebrated Sunday in the United States, Canada and many other countries. Britain's Mother's Day was on March 31 this year. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group is being deployed to the Persian Gulf to counter an alleged but still-unspecified threat from Iran, the latest in a long line of such deployments to the strategic region. It comes as Iran has started backing away from its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision last year to withdraw from the accord and restore crippling sanctions. A look at the aircraft carrier strike group and how it may fit into Washington's strategy. ___ A CITY AT SEA The USS Abraham Lincoln is a Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Commissioned in 1989, the carrier has berthing to carry over 6,000 officers and enlisted sailors. At 332 meters (1,092 feet), it is nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall. It has a 4.5-acre flight deck that carries F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and other aircraft. Inside, its narrow passageways and tight metal stairs lead through a labyrinth of work and living spaces. In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo released by the U.S. Navy, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln transits the Suez Canal in Egypt. The aircraft carrier and its strike group are deploying to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House to respond to an unspecified threat from Iran. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Dan Snow, U.S. Navy via AP) ___ NEVER ALONE The Lincoln, like other aircraft carriers, moves in a strike group for protection. Accompanying the Lincoln to the Mideast are three destroyers - the USS Bainbridge, the USS Mason and the USS Nitze - as well as the guided-missile cruiser the USS Leyte Gulf and a Spanish frigate, the ESPS Mendez Nunez. The Lincoln also can defend itself with machine guns and missiles. ___ MOBILE THREAT A carrier allows the military to move an air field into areas where it may not have access to ground facilities. It can cut flight times for warplanes, allowing them to be over battlefields longer. It also serves as a way for a country to project power into a region that may be far from home, which the Lincoln will do once it transits the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil traded at sea passes. ___ IRANIAN RESPONSES The Strait of Hormuz, though considered an international waterway, cuts through Iranian territorial waters. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, often follows and cuts in front of carriers with a swarm of fast boats. Iran also flies surveillance drones over aircraft carriers, with the footage often appearing on state television months later as propaganda. They also test-fire missiles and their own weapons as carriers pass. While there hasn't been an armed naval confrontation between Iran and the U.S. since 1988, the encounters can be tense. Iran several times over the years has conducted drills in which they destroy mock-up aircraft carriers similar to the Lincoln. Given the tension between the Iran and the U.S., especially recently, any incident involving the carrier could have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences. ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP . In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo released by the U.S. Navy, Operations Specialist Seaman Angelica Ruelas of Albuquerque, New Mexico, stands lookout while the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln transits the Suez Canal in Egypt. The aircraft carrier and its strike group are deploying to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House to respond to an unspecified threat from Iran. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Dan Snow, U.S. Navy via AP) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo released by the U.S. Navy, Aviation Maintenance Administrationman 2nd Class Jason Caldwell, assigned to the "Jolly Rogers" of Strike Fighter Squadron 103, observes sunrise on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln while transiting the Suez Canal in Egypt. The aircraft carrier and its strike group are deploying to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House to respond to an unspecified threat from Iran. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Amber Smalley, U.S. Navy via AP) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo released by the U.S. Navy, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group transits the Suez Canal in Egypt. The aircraft carrier and its strike group are deploying to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House to respond to an unspecified threat from Iran. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Darion Chanelle Triplett/U.S. Navy via AP) In this Thursday, May 9, 2019 photo released by the U.S. Navy, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group transits the Suez Canal in Egypt. The aircraft carrier and its strike group are deploying to the Persian Gulf on orders from the White House to respond to an unspecified threat from Iran. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Amber Smalley, U.S. Navy via AP) JOHANNESBURG (AP) - South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. The 57% share of the vote was the worst-ever election showing for the African National Congress, which has ruled since the harsh apartheid system of racial discrimination ended 25 years ago. The party won 62% of the vote in 2014. Low voter turnout of 65% in the May 8 election also reflected the frustration of many South Africans after corruption scandals around the ANC that led former president Jacob Zuma to resign last year under party pressure. Turnout was 74% in 2014. Current President Cyril Ramaphosa in his first speech to supporters since the election win said he will not appoint leaders who work "to fill their own pockets." He told thousands of supporters in downtown Johannesburg that "we are going to end corruption whether they like it or not." The revelations by a government commission investigating graft, often aired live on television for fascinated South Africans, "must be things of the past," the president said. Ramaphosa, however, is believed to be facing a revolt within the party by Zuma allies, one that could surface in the coming weeks as he decides on the makeup of his new government. President Cyril Ramaphosa dances to music on stage during a victory rally for his African National Congress (ANC) party in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. The ANC on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while President Cyril Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Observers have said South Africa's economy, the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa, would be further weakened if Ramaphosa is removed by his own party. He narrowly won the party leadership in late 2017, weeks before Zuma was pushed out. Ramaphosa on Sunday urged ANC leaders to not hang the party's "dirty linen in public" and said the party must be renewed "so that we cleanse it of all the bad and deviant tendencies." In South Africa, the president and parliament are not elected directly. The number of votes won by each party determines how many representatives are sent to the national 400-seat legislature. The president of the country is the leader of the party that gets the most votes. The ANC slipped to holding 230 parliament seats, while the main opposition Democratic Alliance now holds 84 and the populist Economic Freedom Fighters have 44. The EFF gained ground in just its second presidential and parliamentary election, winning 10.7% of the vote, up from 6.3% five years ago. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa A supporter of the African National Congress (ANC) party wears beads in the party colors, and another wears a t-shirt of President Cyril Ramaphosa, right, during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) An African National Congress party (ANC) supporter gestures at a gathering at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to address the rally. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) Supporters of African National Congress (ANC), during their celebration for election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) African National Congress party (ANC) President Cyril Ramaphosa arrives to address a rally at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019. The ANC won Wednesday's South Africa's general election. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) African National Congress party (ANC) supporters gather at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election and cheer President Cyril Ramaphosa during his speech. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) African National Congress party (ANC) supporters gather at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election and cheer President Cyril Ramaphosa during his speech. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) African National Congress party (ANC) supporters gather at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election and cheer President Cyril Ramaphosa during his speech. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) African National Congress party (ANC) supporters gather at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election and cheer President Cyril Ramaphosa during his speech. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) A supporter of the African National Congress (ANC) party dances to techno music during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. The ANC on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while President Cyril Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) President Cyril Ramaphosa dances to music on stage during a victory rally for his African National Congress (ANC) party in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. The ANC on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while President Cyril Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) party, seen on a video screen, cheer as President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks, left, during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) A supporter of the African National Congress (ANC) party wears a t-shirt of President Cyril Ramaphosa and beads in the party colors, during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) party cheer during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) party cheer as they arrive for a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) party cheer during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks at a victory rally for his African National Congress (ANC) party in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) A supporter of the African National Congress (ANC) party wears a t-shirt of President Cyril Ramaphosa during a victory rally in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) President Cyril Ramaphosa gestures to the crowd at a victory rally for his African National Congress (ANC) party in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) President Cyril Ramaphosa gestures to the crowd at a victory rally for his African National Congress (ANC) party in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's president on Sunday vowed to purge his party of "bad and deviant tendencies" as he prepares to appoint a new Cabinet following a victory in national elections. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) African National Congress party (ANC) supporters gather at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to address the rally. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) African National Congress (ANC), president Cyril Ramaphosa, center, with his national executive greets supporters during their celebration for election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) Supporters of African National Congress (ANC), during their celebration of the election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) African National Congress party (ANC) supporters gather at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg , South Africa, Sunday May 12, 2019 to celebrate their party's victory in South Africa's general election. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to address the rally. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) African National Congress (ANC) supporters gather outside the party's headquarters in downtown Johannesburg, Sunday, May 12, 2019 to celebrate the party's win in elections. South Africans voted Wednesday with results showing that the ruling ANC has won the national elections but has seen its share of the vote drop significantly. (AP Photo/Mujahid Safodien) Supporters of African National Congress (ANC), during their celebration for election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) Supporters of African National Congress (ANC), during their celebration of the election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) African National Congress (ANC), president Cyril Ramaphosa, left, dances with party member during their celebration for election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) African National Congress (ANC) supporters gather outside the party's headquarters in downtown Johannesburg, Sunday, May 12, 2019 to celebrate the party's win in elections. South Africans voted Wednesday with results showing that the ruling ANC has won the national elections but has seen its share of the vote drop significantly. (AP Photo/Mujahid Safodien) African National Congress (ANC), president Cyril Ramaphosa, addresses supporters during their celebration of the election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) African National Congress (ANC) supporters gather outside the party's headquarters in downtown Johannesburg, Sunday, May 12, 2019 to celebrate the party's win in elections. South Africans voted Wednesday with results showing that the ruling ANC has won the national elections but has seen its share of the vote drop significantly. (AP Photo/Mujahid Safodien) African National Congress (ANC), president Cyril Ramaphosa, left, dances with secretary-general Ace Magashule during their celebration of the election victory in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, May 12, 2019. South Africa's ruling African National Congress on Saturday marked its weakest victory in national elections in a quarter-century, while Ramaphosa declared that the vote had given him and others "a firm mandate to build a better South Africa for all." (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mississippi authorities rescued a man clinging to a tree and another man and his 4-year-old child from the roof of a submerged pickup truck as heavy rains caused flooding in the state and in neighboring Louisiana. New Orleans residents awoke to flooded streets Sunday and the Mississippi Highway Patrol closed part of a highway due to heavy rains that also may have contributed to a freight train derailment. A flash flood warning was extended for New Orleans and surrounding parishes until 1 p.m. Sunday as strong storms with heavy rain moved through the area. Photos published in Nola.com|The Times-Picayune showed partially submerged vehicles and people wading through ankle-deep water. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant tweeted on Sunday that he had signed a state of emergency declaration for all areas affected by the storms. The Sun-Herald reported that first responders worked overnight from Saturday into Sunday, sometimes using boats, to rescue people in northern Harrison County in Mississippi. County Fire Chief Pat Sullivan told the newspaper that one man was clinging to a tree after floodwaters swept his car off a road and another man and his 4-year-old child were rescued from the roof of their submerged pickup truck. Sullivan, like authorities in other affected states, urged people to use caution and not to drive through floodwaters. Flooding caused the Mississippi Highway Patrol to close part of Highway 49 in Stone County Sunday morning, and dozens of residents in Stone and Pearl River counties were forced from their homes by high water, news outlets reported. The flooding may also have contributed to the derailment of a freight train near Lumberton a little after 7 a.m. Saturday. The derailment, in Pearl River County, happened as the train traveled from Birmingham, Alabama, to New Orleans, said Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Rachel McDonnell Bradshaw. Three of the cars were carrying steel and 25 were empty, Bradshaw said. She said no hazardous materials were involved and no injuries were reported. The cause of the derailment is under investigation, but WLOX-TV quoted authorities as saying the roads near the derailment were flooded over. The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board tweeted that more than 2 inches (51 millimeters) of rain fell between 5:15 a.m. and 6:15 a.m., outpacing the city's drainage system. New Orleans suspended restrictions on parking shortly before 6 a.m. and encouraged residents to park on high ground. The storms also caused power outages. As of about 9:40 a.m., several thousand Entergy customers were without power across Orleans, Jefferson, St. Charles and East Baton Rouge parishes. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A freelance journalist is vowing to protect his source after San Francisco police raided his home and office while keeping him handcuffed for several hours as part of a criminal investigation, according to a newspaper report. Bryan Carmody told the Los Angeles Times that officers banged on his door Friday and confiscated dozens of personal items including notebooks, his cellphone, computer, hard drives and cameras. A judge signed off on search warrants, which stated officers were investigating "stolen or embezzled" property, the newspaper reported Saturday Authorities said the raid came during an ongoing probe into who leaked a confidential police report about the Feb. 22 death of San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Carmody said investigators had asked him a few weeks earlier to identify the source that provided him with the report. The reporter said he politely declined. While he was shackled, officers got a second warrant to search his newsroom, where police seized a thumb drive, CDs and, inside a safe, the leaked police report about Adachi's death, the Times said. Carmody, 49, said he has not shared the name of his source with anyone, and no markings on the document could be traced to the person who provided it. FILE - In this July 7, 2015, file photo, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, left, talks to members of the media after Francisco Sanchez' arraignment in San Francisco. A freelance journalist is vowing to protect his source after San Francisco police raided his home and office as part of a criminal investigation. Bryan Carmody tells the Los Angeles Times that officers handcuffed him Friday, May 10, 2019, as they confiscated items including his cell phone, computer and cameras. Authorities say the raid came during an ongoing probe into who leaked a confidential police report about the Feb. 22 death Adachi. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File) To Carmody and his attorney, the raid smacks of impropriety and an invasion into the work of a professional reporter. "It's designed to intimidate," said his lawyer, Thomas Burke. "It's essentially the confiscation of a newsroom." Meanwhile the incident provided a new twist in the story of the unexpected death of Adachi, who left behind a legacy of championing civil rights. Initial reports said the 59-year-old elected public defender had been traveling when he suddenly had a heart attack. Carmody said while trying to figure out exactly where Adachi died, salacious details began emerging that were difficult to confirm. "There were leaks happening all over the place," he recalled. He ultimately obtained an incident report that detailed Adachi's final moments. The San Francisco Chronicle also obtained a copy of the report, but not from Carmody. The document, as reported by KGO-TV in San Francisco, detailed that shortly before his death, Adachi had dinner with a woman named "Caterina" who was not his wife, then returned to an apartment he arranged to use for the weekend. The woman called 911 for emergency medical help, and Adachi was taken to the hospital, where he died. Later that night, officers went to the apartment and found "alcohol, cannabis-infused gummies and syringes believed to have been used by the paramedics," the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Photos of the apartment circulated online by KTVU-TV and other news outlets. Carmody told the Chronicle that he sold his news package on Adachi package to three TV stations. City officials criticized police for allowing the details of a confidential report to end up in the headlines. The police launched an internal investigation into the report's leaking, which led to Friday's raid at Carmody's home. "The citizens and leaders of the City of San Francisco have demanded a complete and thorough investigation into this leak, and this action represents a step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of confidential police material," police spokesman David Stevenson said in a statement Saturday to the Times. The affidavits that police used to search Carmody's home were filed under seal, so it's unclear what investigators told the judge to secure the warrants. Carmody is insisting on protecting his source's identity. And he swears he never paid the person for the police report. "No," he told the Times, "not even a cup of coffee." FILE - In this March 28, 2012 file photo, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi enters a courtroom at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco. A freelance journalist is vowing to protect his source after San Francisco police raided his home and office as part of a criminal investigation. Bryan Carmody tells the Los Angeles Times that officers handcuffed him Friday, May 10, 2019, as they confiscated items including his cell phone, computer and cameras. Authorities say the raid came during an ongoing probe into who leaked a confidential police report about the Feb. 22 death of Adachi. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) - In a May 12 story about special trombones honoring a teenager who died in the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, The Associated Press reported erroneously that money for the instruments was raised in part by students playing music on street corners and intersections in recent months. The $50,000 for the trombones was fully funded by South Florida-based instrument store All County Music and instrument manufacturer Conn-Selmer. A corrected version of the story is below: 50 trombones given out to honor slain Parkland student PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) - Fifty special trombones have been given out to band students throughout Florida in honor of a teenager who died in the Parkland high school shooting. The Sun Sentinel reports that $50,000 worth of the instruments were awarded Saturday in honor of 14-year-old Alex Schachter, who was a trombone player in the marching band at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The instruments were funded by South Florida-based instrument store All County Music and instrument manufacturer Conn-Selmer. Alex was one of 17 people killed by a gunman at the school in February 2018. The instruments are engraved with a motif combining Alex's name and a trombone. Alex's father, Max Schachter, says because of the gift, his son's love of music is "expanding all across the state." One of the recipients raised several hundred dollars for the Alex Schachter Scholarship Fund by busking with his trombone on a Delray Beach street corner. WASHINGTON (AP) - A writer on the verge of releasing her debut novel is facing a backlash after she posted a picture on Twitter of a public transit worker eating on a train and reported details about the woman to her bosses. Natasha Tynes apologized a day later on Twitter and deleted her post before making her account private, but the publishing house distributing her novel dropped her and her publisher delayed the planned release of the book. The response to Friday's post was almost immediate, with people upset that Tynes, who is Jordanian American and has called herself a "minority writer," would shame a black woman and possibly cause her to lose her job. Tynes' post showed the woman in her work uniform eating on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority train. The authority doesn't allow drinking or eating on its trains and buses, although officials on Wednesday had advised police officers to stop issuing tickets for those violations. "When you're on your morning commute & see @wmata employee in UNIFORM eating on the train I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable. Hope @wmata responds," Tynes wrote. When the authority's Twitter account reached out for more information, Tynes replied with the time, the train and the direction it was traveling, The Washington Post reported. Tynes "did something truly horrible today in tweeting a picture of a metro worker eating her breakfast on the train this morning and drawing attention to her employer. Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies," Tynes' publishing house, Rare Birds Books, said in a statement. Tynes' publisher, California Coldblood, also issued a statement, saying "we do not condone her actions and hope Natasha learns from this experience that black women feel the effects of systematic racism the most and that we have to be allies, not oppressors." The publisher said it was postponing the release of Tynes' novel "while we further discuss appropriate next steps to officially cancel." The novel, "They Called Me Wyatt," is about a murdered Jordanian student whose consciousness ends up in the body of a baby boy who as an adult tries to figure out what happened with her death. When The Associated Press called Tynes on Sunday, she said "no thank you, I'm not going to comment." Metro officials didn't respond to questions about whether the employee faced any discipline. An official with the union for Metro workers said the woman was taking a meal break while going from one job to another. Metro operators have "an average of 20 minutes to consume a meal and get to their next access point to ensure all buses and trains are on time, safe, and ready to serve the riding public," said Barry Hobson, the chief of staff for the Metro workers union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689. Hobson's statement referenced a Wednesday email from the Metro Transit police chief telling officers to stop writing tickets for fare evasion, eating, drinking, spitting and playing music without headphones until further notice. "Understanding this email, our operator clearly was doing no wrong," Hobson's statement said. National President of the USDP party Whatsapp Prince Michael Ngwese Ekosso, National President of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party (USDP) has called on Cameroons President Paul Biya to make room for a transitional government which is not influenced by the corrupt and distrusted members of his current cabinet if ever he wants to be forgiven by the Cameroonian people. His declaration comes a week after President Biya, who has been in power since November 6, 1982, took to twitter and Facebook on May 7, 2019 preaching a gospel of forgiveness to his fellow countrymen. The essential thing today is to forgive & to forget, to work together towards a common goal. We cannot, at one & the same time, look towards the future & live in the past. Mutual forgiveness is the path to lasting peace, the 86-year-old leader said in a tweet. Quizzed Saturday, May 14, 2019 if he had heeded to President Biyas call for mutual forgiveness as path to lasting peace, Ekosso rolled out conditions under which the Head of States call for mutual forgiveness can make sense. It is true that to forgive is divine, but as I have always mentioned, leadership is a spiritual notion. Leadership must have certain characteristics in order for it to be effective. If President Paul Biya is asking Cameroonians to forgive him, he must first of all forgive himself. In order to forgive himself, he should take the following into consideration: Show forgiveness, don't only ask or talk about forgiveness. If wants he Cameroonians to forgive him or for him to forgive Cameroonians, the first step is the unconditional release of ALL those students and politicians he has ordered their arrest unjustly. Be truthful. Without truth and honesty, forgiveness becomes an empty word. Therefore, instead of setting up a Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Committee, set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It is within the framework of this Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the call for ceasefire and inclusive dialogue could be launched. The opposition leader said there are four foundational elements to achieve peace within a conflict like the one which the failed regime of the CPDM (Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement) has engaged into with its own citizens Truth, Honest and Inclusive Dialogue, Forgiveness, and Justice. Ekosso claims that from the way the regime is going about things, it is difficult to see any of the above elements in place. Moreover, it is not possible to have the one who is the author of a problem to bring solutions to the problem he created. So no matter how much some of us claim the legitimacy of Mr Paul Biya and the call for forgiveness from his failed regime, the solution to the nation's problems will never come out from them. Therefore, as believer and advocate of a new type of governance system under a Federal System what's the way forward? I am suggesting to all Cameroonians who believe in the vision of federalism for Cameroon, which is what the USDP Blue Print carries, to rally behind USDP. Strengthen the federalist concept at home and abroad through lobbying with Cameroonians at home and abroad. The Revision of both the electoral code and the Constitution to reflect a general consensus for the return to federalism; the President should make room for a transitional government which is not influenced by the corrupt and distrusted members of his current cabinet. With this strategy, President Paul Biya will be able to galvanize support from within and without to obtain the sincere forgiveness which he is seeking from Cameroonians. Until such serious and intentional sincere moves are made, everything else will be a window dressing and we are running out of time! DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that four commercial ships off its eastern coast "were subjected to sabotage operations," just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at a nearby Emirati port. Emirati officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the sabotage or say who might have been responsible. However, the reported incident comes as the U.S. has warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and as America is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged threats from Tehran. Tensions have risen in the year since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, restoring American sanctions that have pushed Iran's economy into crisis. Last week, Iran warned it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels in 60 days if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal. The statement from the UAE's Foreign Ministry put the ships near the country's territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, east of the port of Fujairah. It said it was investigating the incident "in cooperation with local and international bodies." It said there were "no injuries or fatalities on board the vessels" and "no spillage of harmful chemicals or fuel." The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which oversees the region, did not immediately offer comment on the incident. Emirati officials declined to elaborate while their investigation is ongoing. Earlier Sunday, Lebanon's pro-Iran satellite channel Al-Mayadeen, quoting "Gulf sources," falsely reported that a series of explosions had struck Fujairah's port. State and semi-official media in Iran picked up the report from Al-Mayadeen, which later published the names of vessels it claimed were involved in the incident. FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2016 file photo, an oil tanker approaches to the new Jetty during the launch of the new $650 million oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates said Sunday, May 12, 2019 that four commercial ships near Fujairah "were subjected to sabotage operations" after false reports circulated in Lebanese and Iranian media outlets saying there had been explosions at the Fujairah port. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) The Associated Press, after speaking to Emirati officials and local witnesses, found the report about explosions at the port to be unsubstantiated. Fujairah's port is located about 140 kilometers (85 miles) from the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of all oil at sea is traded. The facility handles oil for bunkering and shipping, as well as general and bulk cargo. It is seen as strategically located, serving shipping routes in the Persian Gulf, the Indian subcontinent and Africa. The reported sabotage incident comes after the U.S. Maritime Administration warned Thursday that Iran could target commercial sea traffic. "Since early May, there is an increased possibility that Iran and/or its regional proxies could take action against U.S. and partner interests, including oil production infrastructure, after recently threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz," the warning read. "Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or the Persian Gulf." It's unclear if that is the same perceived threat that prompted the White House to order the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the region on May 4. ___ Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report. WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says she'll refuse to testify on Thursday before a second grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. But if a judge finds her in contempt of court again, she could wind up back in jail. Manning spent seven years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. She walked free in May 2017 after President Barack Obama commuted her 35-year sentence. Recently, she spent two months in jail for refusing to answer one grand jury's questions about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Now, a second grand jury has subpoenaed her. She told CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday that she has nothing more to offer than what she's already provided in her own case. OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) - Authorities say gunmen have attacked a Catholic church in Burkina Faso, killing a priest and five worshippers. The attack on Sunday took place in Dablo, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the capital, Ouagadougou. Urbain Kabore, a government spokesman for the West African country's Sahel region, said the gunmen also set fire to a health center and destroyed all places serving alcohol. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the attacks bore the hallmarks of Islamic extremists who are known to be active in the area. An attack on a Protestant church about two weeks ago left six people dead. Burkina Faso has been increasingly destabilized by jihadists from across the border in Mali. Attacks have included the kidnapping of foreigners. NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - A Connecticut man has been indicted on charges that he threatened to kill President Donald Trump and sent letters he claimed contained anthrax. Gary Joseph Gravelle of New Haven faces charges including conveying false information about an explosive and threats against the president. Authorities say 51-year-old Gravelle last year sent letters addressed to Trump, the Islamic Center of New London and other places that contained a white powdery substance with messages such as "you die." Some of the letters appeared to contain baby powder. Officials say Gravelle also made bomb threats at a variety of locations. He has been in custody since he was arrested in September for violating the terms of his supervised release. He was previously convicted in 2013 of sending threatening letters. It was not immediately clear on Sunday whether he has an attorney. MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican authorities say a fire ripped through a migrant detention station in the southern state of Oaxaca, but none of the 117 migrants inside were injured. The National Migration Institute said the blaze that began early Sunday "was caused by people inside the installations." The institute said the damage to the facility in Tapanatepec appears "significant." Mexico has been issuing a dwindling number of transit visas in recent months amid pressure from the U.S. government to stem migrant flows. Frustrated by long waits for visas, migrants have broken out of Mexican detention centers, where immigration personnel are not armed. Others are bypassing the process entirely, traipsing along less transited routes to avoid detection by Mexican authorities or hopping trains to get closer to the U.S. border. ROME (AP) - Pope Francis' almsgiver has gone down a Rome manhole to restore electricity for hundreds of homeless people living in an unused state-owned building. Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told Italian news agency ANSA he went underground and flipped a power switch Saturday in a "desperate gesture" to help the building's more than 400 occupants. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far right League party, said Sunday he hopes the papal aide will pay 300,000 euros ($325,000) in overdue electricity bills. Sister Adriana Domenici, who works with the homeless, told Italian broadcaster RaiNews24 that after the building's electricity was cut off May 6, she called Krajewski for help. She said that when utility workers returned to disconnect power again, they found a note from Krajewski and left the electricity running. MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico City's government warned people Sunday to remain indoors as forest and brush fires carpeted the metropolis in a smoky haze that has alarmed even many of those accustomed to living with nagging air pollution. Outdoor activities on the capital's main avenue continued, although fewer capital dwellers than usual came out to bike, rollerblade or do aerobics on Paseo de la Reforma, parts of which are closed on Sundays for exercise. The capital and surrounding metropolitan area are home to about 22 million people. The Environmental Commission of the Megalopolis said the air was polluted with high levels of solid particles, such as ash, that can cause respiratory problems and other illnesses upon prolonged inhalation. In recent days, 258 firefighters have been dispatched to extinguish 13 brush fires, four fires on barren plots of land, two house fires, a forest fire and a blaze at an industrial warehouse in the capital. In the nearby state of Mexico, 992 firefighters have been sent to fight 30 fires. At the same time, fires in the southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero - combined with a high-pressure weather system - have carried contaminants into the Valley of Mexico and trapped them there, the commission noted. And in Tepoztlan, a popular weekend retreat just south of the capital, authorities closed access to archaeological ruins over the weekend while they stamped out fires that consumed more than 200 acres of grass, bushes and other flammable plants. The hashtag #SmokeinCDMX was trending on Twitter, while an image of the iconic Angel of Independence statue on Reforma circulated with the angel donning a gas mask. Olivia Meza, 28, strode on roller blades alongside her white Lhasa Apso dog Sunday despite the pollution warnings. Smoke covers Mexico City, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Mexico City has warned residents to remain indoors as forest and brush fires carpet the metropolis in smoke. (AP Photo/Christian Palma) "I'm used to the air, somehow," she said with a shrug. "We're like cockroaches -- It's hard to kill us." Meza blames the city's increasingly high levels of air pollution on global warming. Mexico's dry season has extended in recent years, leading to less rain during the summer months and higher temperatures. The capital has the added challenge of being in a valley, which traps dirty air and particles. Then there are the millions of cars belching exhaust. And now the fires. Curtains of smoke have blanketed the capital in recent days, blurring visibility at street level- especially at night- and invading nostrils with the smell of smoke. Parents of young children have reported that their little ones are awakening with nosebleeds. "Last night it smelled burnt," said Michelle Serralde, 40, who joined Meza on roller skates Sunday in spite of the poor air quality, she said, "because we have so few free days." Nearby, a city-sponsored aerobics session wrapped up for the day. Irene Cruz, a 60-year-old whose gives instructional courses on how to use fire extinguishers on weekdays, sweated it out for four hours in the sun Sunday despite the warnings. Saturdays are for church, she said, and Sundays are for outdoor exercise. Pollution "is something we live with every day," Cruz said dismissively, joking that she would rust out if she ever left the city of her birth. ISLAMABAD (AP) - The International Monetary Fund said Sunday it reached a preliminary agreement with Pakistan for a $6 billion bailout over the next three years to finance sweeping economic reforms. Pakistan and the international lender reached a "staff level agreement" subject to approval by the IMF management and the executive board, IMF envoy Ernesto Ramirez Rigo said in a statement. He said the IMF program aims to support Pakistan's strategy for "stronger and more balanced growth by reducing domestic and external imbalances, improving the business environment, strengthening institutions, increasing transparency, and protecting social spending." Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, an economic adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan, confirmed that his country had reached a preliminary deal with the IMF. Pakistan had initially sought an $8 billion bailout to address a long-running fiscal crisis and has held months of talks with the IMF. The U.S., which exerts major influence over the IMF, has said it should not finance the tens of billions of dollars in loans that Pakistan has taken from China as part of Beijing's worldwide Belt and Road Initiative. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. would support the agreement announced Sunday. Pakistani authorities have said they are in touch with Washington and are seeking its support. LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - An Islamic leader and two others in Kentucky have been arrested and charged in a murder-for-hire plot. Islamic Center of Lexington leader Mahmoud Shalash, John Sadiqullah and Abdul Hadi are charged in federal court with use of interstate facilities in commission for murder for hire and conspiracy. Attorneys for the three men did not respond to emails requesting comment on Sunday. Police affidavits filed last week in federal court give the following account of events: An informant posing as a hit man first met with Shalash in March at a Lexington motel. Shalash told the informant that a person - referred to as "Victim #1" in court filings - owed him $80,000, and Shalash wanted his money back. When the informant asked if Shalash wanted Victim #1's legs broken, Shalash at first said 'no' but later agreed. In a subsequent meeting Shalash told the informant, "Do whatever you have to do to get my money back," the affidavits state. Shalash also introduced the informant to John Sadiqullah, who believed a person - referred to as "Victim #2" in court documents - had cheated him in a business deal. Sadiqullah told the informant, "I want him dead." At one point the informant suggested that Shalash provide a fatwa, or Islamic legal pronouncement, authorizing the killing, and Shalash and Sadiqullah agreed. A third man, Abdul Hadi had a separate business dealing with Victim #2. Hadi gave the man $20,000 for a partnership in a trucking venture. The venture failed and Hadi believed Victim #2 owed him the money back. At one point, Hadi, Sadiqullah and another man found Victim #2 at his business in Lexington, and Sadiqullah called the informant to ask him to come force Victim #2 to give them money. The Islamic Center of Lexington posted a statement to its website that reads, "Muslims in Lexington are shocked to learn the news about the arrest of Imam Mahmoud Shalash. The situation is unfolding and we do not have enough details at this time. Also, we believe that every American citizen is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law." The statement added: "We would like to emphasize that Islam is a religion built on peace and tolerance. Murder or hiring for murder is regarded in the Quran as a grave sin." ___ Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com LISBON, Portugal (AP) - The Latest on mass migration to Europe (all times local): 7:30 p.m. Cyprus authorities say a police vessel has rescued 14 people believed to be migrants in waters approximately 53 kilometers (33 miles) off the island nation's southeastern tip. The Cyprus Joint Rescue Coordination Center said it received an emergency call Sunday afternoon from a merchant ship that had spotted a small boat off Cape Greco. The police vessel brought aboard all the passengers, who included a pregnant woman and three children, and took them to the port of Larnaca. Authorities didn't reveal the nationalities of the rescued passengers or where their boat set sail from. Cyprus lies around 170 kilometers (100 miles) west of Syria's coast and 230 kilometers (140 miles) west of Lebanon. ___ 11:50 a.m. Spanish authorities say 52 migrants have climbed a guarded fence to gain entry into Spain's North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco. An official with the Spanish Interior Ministry in Melilla says four police officer and one migrant sustained light injuries as the group scaled the high fence around dawn Sunday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules. Spain's proximity to North Africa has made it a target for migrants trying to reach the European Union. The migrants try to get in either by land via Spain's two North African enclaves or by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats. Spain became the leading entry point to Europe last year, with some 60,000 migrants arriving irregularly, almost all of them by sea. VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - The latest on the presidential election in Lithuania (all times local): 1:10 a.m. Voting results from Lithuania's presidential election indicate a prominent economist and a former finance minister will advance to a runoff ballot later this month to pick a successor to incumbent Dalia Grybauskaite With 1,631 of the country's 1,972 voting districts counted by early Monday, results provided by Lithuania's Central Electoral Commission show banker-turned-politician Gitanas Nauseda leading the nine-candidate field with 31.2% of the votes cast Sunday. Lawmaker and former finance minister Ingrida Simonyte is second with 27.2%. A candidate needed to win more than 50% of the votes to avoid a runoff. Lithuanian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Saulius Skvernelis, his son Tadas, daughter Egle and wife Silvija Skvernele arrive at a polling station during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Grybauskaite has served two maximum five-year terms as Lithuania's head of state since 2009. ___ 9:30 a.m. Voters are going to the polls in Lithuania to elect a president to succeed Dalia Grybauskaite, who has completed her maximum two terms in office. Nine candidates are taking part in Sunday's vote, which could require a runoff in two weeks' time. The leading candidates include Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, former banking economist Gitanas Nauseda and former Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte. The campaign has focused on domestic issues such as the economy, corruption and social welfare, even though foreign policy and defense are two of the presidency's main purviews. Grybauskaite's anti-Russia views, no-nonsense style and karate black belt earned her the "Iron Lady" label previously applied to Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister. Voters are also having their say in a referendum on a constitutional amendment to allow dual citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians living abroad. Lithuanian presidential candidates, Member of the Parliament Ingrida Simonyte, center, Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, left, and business-minded economist Gitanas Nauseda, right, pose for the media prior to the start of the televised live debate in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, May 8, 2019. Lithuanians will head to the polls on Sunday, May 12, in a first round of presidential elections. (AP Photo / Mindaugas Kulbis) Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite speaks to the members of press at a polling station during the advance presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Tuesday, May 7, 2019. Lithuanians will head to the polls on Sunday, May 12, in a first round of presidential elections. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Lithuanian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Saulius Skvernelis speaks to the media at a polling station during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Former Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte, a presidential candidate, speaks to the media at a polling station in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Voters are going to the polls to elect a president to succeed Dalia Grybauskaite, who has completed her maximum two terms in office. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Former Finance Minister Ingrida Simonyte, a presidential candidate, prepares to cast her ballot at a polling station in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. Voters are going to the polls to elect a president to succeed Dalia Grybauskaite, who has completed her maximum two terms in office. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) A Lithuanian woman reads a ballot paper at a polling station during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) Lithuanian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Saulius Skvernelis speaks to the media at a polling station during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) A woman cast her ballot during the first round of voting in presidential elections in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday May 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The U.N. envoy to the Mideast said Monday that the recent ceasefire between Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israel was the "last chance" to prevent an all-out conflict. A Qatari envoy arrived the same day in the Palestinian enclave with cash to help cement the truce, which halted the worst round of fighting between the two sides in years. After a spate of violence killed 25 Palestinians, including 15 civilians, as well as four Israeli civilians earlier this month, Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. diplomat, said he hopes all parties see that "the risk of war remains imminent." Mladenov, inaugurating a solar power plant for a Gaza hospital, said the parties must "consolidate the understandings" of the cease-fire. He said "the next escalation is going to be probably the last one" before the sides descend into a full-fledged war. The latest bout of fighting was the worst since a deadly and destructive war between Israel and Hamas in 2014. It ended with a cease-fire brokered by Egypt and helped by the U.N. and Qatar. The most recent ceasefire deal promises to let fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as ease the movement of people from the blockaded territory. Among its terms is a program to create jobs for thousands of graduates. Unemployment in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the militant Hamas group seized power 12 years ago, is over 50%. Qatari envoy Mohammed al-Emadi arrived in Gaza with a $30 million cash infusion meant for tens of thousands of needy families as part of the cease-fire understandings. Hours later, beneficiaries lined up outside post offices to cash the $100 checks. File - In this Jan. 15, 2017 file photo, a Palestinian family warm up outside their makeshift house during a power cut in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Qatar's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, May 7, 2019, that it will send $480 million to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after a cease-fire deal ended the deadliest fighting between Israel and Palestinian factions since a 2014 war. A statement from Qatar said $300 million would support health and education programs of the Palestinian Authority, while $180 million would go toward "urgent humanitarian relief" in United Nations programs and toward electricity. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra, File) Mohammed Abu Eida, 30, stood in the queue, a pair of crutches propping him up as he recovers from an injury. "We want them to lift the siege so we can work. I have rent for my home and I'm married and have a daughter; what is $100? It's insufficient." The oil-rich Persian Gulf country stepped up its financial support to Gaza last year in order to defuse tensions that have mounted and, in several cases, erupted into cross-border fighting, after Hamas launched weekly protests along the Gaza-Israel perimeter fence. Qatar had previously provided millions of dollars for Hamas government salaries, but, after Israeli protestations over funds going to the militant group, the money now goes to relief operations. Since 2012, Qatar has financed over $750 million in housing, infrastructure projects and relief operations in the Gaza Strip. Though Doha doesn't pay directly to Hamas, which the United States and the European Union classify as a terrorist organization, the cash infusions relieve Hamas from having to fund such vital projects. Last week, Qatar pledged another payment of $480 million to the Palestinians, but this time shifted most of it - $300 million - to Hamas' rival in the West Bank: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party-run Palestinian Authority. This support for Abbas's government, which is also engulfed in a severe financial crisis, situates Qatar as a welcome broker in both Gaza and Ramallah for reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas. Meanwhile, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, has warned that food supplies for more than half of Gaza's population "will be severely challenged" if the agency doesn't get at least $60m in additional funding by June. UNRWA said that it provides food - among other services like education and health care - to more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza, including some 620,000 of "those who cannot cover their basic food needs and who have to survive on US $1.6 per day." CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - Burgeoning numbers of Cubans are trying to get into the U.S. by way of the Mexican border, creating a big backlog of people waiting on the Mexican side for months for their chance to apply for asylum. The surge over the past several months has been propelled in part by loosened travel restrictions in Central America and deteriorating living conditions in Cuba. As a result, about 4,500 asylum seekers, the vast majority of them Cuban, have descended on Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas - an influx that has raised tensions with some locals. "It's a bottleneck with an opening that is getting smaller," said Enrique Valenzuela, an official of Mexico's Chihuahua state, which manages Juarez's waiting list. "People keep coming." For decades during the Cold War and beyond, Cubans tried to reach the U.S. by air, land and sea, many of them crossing the 90 miles to Florida in dangerously rickety boats and rafts. In January 2017, though, the U.S. ended its "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy of almost automatically admitting any Cuban who managed to reach American soil. For many Cubans, their best option is going to the U.S.-Mexican border and claiming asylum. In this April 29, 2019, photo, Cuban migrants are escorted by Mexican immigration officials in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, as they cross the Paso del Norte International bridge to be processed as asylum seekers on the U.S. side of the border. Burgeoning numbers of Cubans are trying to get into the U.S. by way of the Mexican border, creating a big backlog of people waiting on the Mexican side for months for their chance to apply for asylum. (AP Photo/Christian Torres) For many years, Cubans entering through the southern border generally flew to South America and tried to come into the U.S. at Laredo, Texas. But now many are using a relatively new and shorter route: They fly to Panama or Nicaragua, pay smugglers to help them reach the U.S. border, and seek to come across at El Paso. In the seven-month period from October through April, 4,737 Cubans without legal status entered the U.S. at crossings in Customs and Border Protection's El Paso field office, compared with 394 in the previous 12 months. Along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, 10,910 Cubans came through official crossings between October and April, versus 7,079 in the previous 12 months. Migrants applying for asylum are often released into the U.S. while their cases make their way through immigration courts, which can take years. But for Cubans, it's easier to settle in the United States than for others. Communist Cuba refuses to fully cooperate with the U.S. on deportations, meaning that if the migrants lose their asylum cases, Cuba generally doesn't take them back. The U.S. then has little choice but to let them stay. For Cubans and others, one of the biggest obstacles is simply getting an opportunity to apply for asylum. Over the last year, the Trump administration has sharply limited the number of asylum claims it processes at land crossings, forcing people to wait their turn in Mexico. At the current processing rate, the wait in Juarez is now up to five months, compared with only a few days as recently as February. Panama became known in recent years as a relatively easy source of visas for Cubans who could make a convincing case that they only wanted to shop and return to sell goods in Cuba. Panama has a free trade zone where Cubans splurge on everything from shampoo to air conditioners and electric motorbikes. Also, in October, Panama began issuing $20 tourist cards to Cuban business people and certain others, replacing a longer, more difficult process that often ended in rejection. In January, Nicaragua made it faster and easier for Cubans to obtain a visa in Havana by eliminating the requirement that applications be approved in Nicaragua's capital. Meanwhile, a drop in Venezuelan aid and the U.S. hardening of the trade embargo against Cuba have created food shortages and a sense of crisis on the island. Young people in particular are lining up outside any embassy that will grant them a visa. Friends told Yaneisi Hernandez of Havana that Juarez was safer than other Texas crossings, that it had a strong network of charitable groups and, most important, that the wait to claim asylum in the U.S. was comparatively short. After flying to Nicaragua and paying a smuggler to reach the U.S. border by bus, taxi, on foot and on horseback, she was disappointed to find 3,500 names ahead of hers. "I can't even think about working here because I might get deported," said Hernandez, 39, after spending her first night in Juarez sleeping with other Cubans on a patch of grass outside the government office where asylum seekers are assigned numbers while they wait. Cubans arriving in Juarez last month said they paid smugglers about $2,000 to reach the U.S. border, plus $150 to $400 in the southern Mexico border city of Tapachula for a lawyer to obtain a court order allowing them to travel legally through Mexico. They waited about three weeks in Tapachula for legal permission to stay in Mexico. Many Cubans get detained by Mexican authorities as they make their journey north. More than 700 Cubans broke out of a migrant jail in two separate escapes over the past month at an overcrowded facility in Tapachula. The surge of Cubans has been so big that Juarez restaurants have added Cuban favorites like roast suckling pig and black beans with rice to their menus. Unlike Central Americans, many of whom are fleeing are extreme poverty and arrive with little more than the shirts on their backs, many Cubans can afford a cheap hotel or rented room if migrant shelters don't have space, aided by relatives in the U.S. They buy cellphones for their short time in Mexico, which they use to check a Facebook group that gives twice-daily updates on the waiting list. Cuban men can be distinguished by their spotless sneakers, track suits and aviator sunglasses. Some Juarez residents are wary. Casa del Migrante, which houses up to 1,000 people in its shelter, banned Cubans earlier this year because they didn't mix well with Central Americans and didn't follow the rules, said manager Blanca Rivera. "They didn't like our food," she said. "You have to make exceptions for them. They want rice, meat sandwiches, they want pizza. ... That attitude is not welcome in migrant shelters." Some Cubans are also souring on Juarez. About 10 Cubans pursuing asylum gathered near a phone charging bank one Friday night at the El Paso airport to wait for a 6 a.m. flight to Miami. After flying to Panama and reaching Juarez in early February, Arnoldo Garcia, a Havana electrician, said he waited only two days to claim asylum in El Paso. After about two months in U.S. detention, Garcia, 47, was released with an appointment slip for immigration officials in Miami. He said he wouldn't recommend Juarez to anyone contemplating the journey. "There are too many people," he said. "It's become a lot more complicated." ___ Weissenstein reported from Havana, Cuba. In this April 26, 2019, photo, a man holds his baby while he waits his turn to enter Nicaragua's embassy to apply for travel visas for him and his son to Nicaragua, in Havana, Cuba. The surge over the past several months has been propelled in part by loosened traveled restrictions in Central America and deteriorating living conditions in Cuba. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) In this April 26, 2019, photo, Cubans wait their turn to enter Panama's embassy to apply for travel visas to Panama, in Havana, Cuba. The surge over the past several months has been propelled in part by loosened traveled restrictions in Central America and deteriorating living conditions in Cuba. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) In this April 29, 2019 photo, Cuban migrants line up to be called by Mexican immigration officials in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to be taken across the Paso del Norte International bridge to be processed as asylum seekers on the U.S. side of the border. The sign on the wall reads in Spanish "April 28 The last number to called in the afternoon is 8219". (AP Photo/Christian Torres) In this April 29, 2019, photo, Cuban migrants are registered by Mexican immigration officials in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to be taken across the Paso del Norte International bridge to be processed as asylum seekers on the U.S. side of the border. For Cubans and others, one of the biggest obstacles is getting an opportunity to apply for asylum. (AP Photo/Christian Torres) In this April 29, 2019, photo, Cuban migrants are registered by Mexican immigration officials in Ciudad Juarez, to be taken across the Paso del Norte International bridge to be processed as asylum seekers on the U.S. side of the border. For Cubans and others, one of the biggest obstacles is getting an opportunity to apply for asylum. (AP Photo/Christian Torres) In this April 25, 2019 photo, Cuban migrants Jorge Luis Hernandez, left, Johan Diaz, center and Mike Garcia pose for photos inside a shelter set up in Mapastepec, Chiapas state. This group of migrants are waiting for humanitarian visas. They traveled from Cuba to Uruguay and from there by road to the state of Chiapas on the border between Mexico and Guatemala. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) In this April 28, 2019 photo, Cuban migrants gather at a diner "comida Cubana" at the center neighborhood in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico. Tapachula is a city near the border with Guatemala where Cubans and others wait to obtain legal status to remain in the country, often for weeks. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) In this April 25, 2019 photo, Cuban migrant Danil Hernandez, right, prepares to serve up traditional Cuban food to customers at Little Habana restaurant in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Hernandez arrived earlier in April at Mexico's northern border and is waiting his turn to request asylum in the U.S. (AP Photo/Christian Torres) In this April 25, 2019, photo, customers eat lunch in Little Habana restaurant in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. About 4,500 people, the vast majority of them Cubans, are on a waiting list for asylum interviews in the U.S. and are biding their time time in Ciudad Juarez. The influx has transformed the city across from El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/Christian Torres) SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced its opposition Monday to a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill that faces long odds in Congress, saying the legislation doesn't "meet the standard of fairness for all," contending it would strip key religious freedom protections. The faith said in a statement that the Equality Act would "threaten religious employment standards, devastate religious education, defund numerous religious charities." The church pointed out the importance of religions and religious schools having the right to create faith-based employment and admissions standards. The Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church are among others that oppose the measure. "While providing extremely broad protections for LGBT rights, the Equality Act provides no protections for religious freedom," the statement said. The legislation would add gender identity and sexual orientation to existing federal nondiscrimination laws covering such things as employment, housing, education, and public spaces and services. The bill has widespread Democratic backing and seems certain to pass the House, but the chances appear slim in the Republican-controlled Senate. FILE - In this April 18, 2019, file photo, shows the Salt Lake Temple, in Salt Lake City. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out Monday, May 13, 2019, against a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill that faces long odds in Congress, saying the legislation doesn't "meet the standard of fairness for all" because it would strip key religious freedom protections. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) The Utah-based faith, widely known as the Mormon church, said it favors "reasonable" measures to protect LGBT people's access to housing, employment and public accommodations, but that such efforts shouldn't erode the right for people to live and speak freely about their religious beliefs. The religion has tried to stake out a more compassionate stance on LGBTQ people, while sticking firmly to its doctrinal opposition to gay marriage and same-sex intimacy. The church points to a 2015 Utah anti-discrimination law it backed. That measure made it illegal to base employment and housing decisions on sexual orientation or gender identity, while also creating exemptions for religious organizations and protecting religious speech in the workplace. The faith said the federal Equality Act doesn't strike the right balance. It expressed concern "that the ongoing conflicts between religious liberty and LGBT rights is poisoning our civil discourse, eroding the free exercise of religion and preventing diverse Americans of good will from living together in respect and peace." U.S. Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, Republicans from Utah, also oppose the legislation. Lee said in a statement the proposal is "seriously flawed" and would "dangerously undermine the First Amendment and the freedoms it was designed to protect." Romney doesn't support the measure because it doesn't contain strong religious liberty protections that are "essential" to any legislation on the issue, said spokeswoman Arielle Mueller in an email. ATLANTA (AP) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter broke his hip Monday at his south Georgia home when he fell while leaving to go turkey hunting, a spokeswoman for the Carter Center said. The 94-year-old former president was treated in Americus, Georgia, near his home in Plains, and was recovering comfortably after successful surgery, spokeswoman, Deanna Congileo, said in a statement. His wife of 73 years, Rosalynn, was with him, Congileo said. In an indication Carter was in good spirits, Congileo said Carter's main concern was that he had not reached his limit on turkeys with the shooting season ending this week. "He hopes the State of Georgia will allow him to roll over the unused limit to next year," the statement said. In a Tweet, President Donald Trump wished Carter a speedy recovery, saying the former president was in great spirits when they spoke recently. FILE- In this Sept. 18, 2018 file photo, former President Jimmy Carter speaks during a news conference, in Plains, Ga. A spokeswoman says former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says he has broken his hip. She said that Carter underwent surgery at a medical center in Americus, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) "He will be fine," Trump said. In March, Carter became the longest-living chief executive in U.S. history, exceeding the lifespan of former President George H.W. Bush, who died Nov. 30 at the age of 94 years, 171 days. The milestone came despite a cancer diagnosis more than three years earlier. Carter disclosed in 2015 that he had melanoma that had spread to his liver and brain. He received treatment for seven months until scans showed no sign of the disease. "I've had a wonderful life," he said at the time he revealed the cancer. "I've had thousands of friends, I've had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence." Carter's legacy since leaving office has long overshadowed his rocky White House tenure, where he lost after one term amid a U.S. hostage crisis with Iran. He and Rosalynn founded the Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982 to focus on global human rights issues. The center has monitored elections around the world and worked to resolve conflicts and eradicate disease, including guinea worm. The former president and first lady still live in Plains, a town of about 750 where they were born, raised and married. A devout Christian, Carter regularly teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, drawing hundreds of visitors to Plains for each session. ___ This story has been corrected to say "spokeswoman" in the first paragraph. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Five men who say they were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests when they were minors are planning to sue the Vatican and are demanding the names of thousands of predator priests they claim have been kept secret by the Holy See. In a Monday news release announcing the lawsuit, Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson said he wants to show that the Vatican tried to cover up actions by top church officials including former St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt. The lawsuit being filed Tuesday seeks the release of 3,400 names of priests who were referred to the Vatican for "credible cases of abuse." That number was released by the Vatican in 2014. The lawsuit comes less than a week after Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking new church law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns worldwide to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities. The law is part of a new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable. But the new law stops short of requiring the crimes to be reported to police, and abuse victims and their advocates say it's not enough since it essentially tasks discredited bishops who have mishandled abuse for decades with policing their own. The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit include three brothers who were abused by former priest Curtis Wehmeyer as recently as 2012 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wehmeyer pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct and child pornography in connection with his contact with two of the boys, who were 12 and 14. The brothers are not named in the press release. Internal church documents show that church leaders knew Wehmeyer had engaged in sexual misconduct when they promoted him in 2009. The behavior included at least two occasions when Wehmeyer solicited men for sex. Yet, church leaders did not warn Wehmeyer's parishioners about his past, and a July 2014 church memo raised concerns that Nienstedt's "social relationship" with Wehmeyer had clouded his judgment. FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Minnesota Department of Corrections shows Curtis Wehmeyer, who pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct and child pornography. Some of his victims are among several people who are planning to sue the Vatican on Tuesday, May 14, 2019, and are demanding to know the names of thousands of predator priests they say have been kept secret. (Minnesota Department of Corrections via AP, File) Wehmeyer's arrest led prosecutors to file criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for failing to protect children. It also led to the resignation of Nienstedt, who came under fire for his handling of Wehmeyer's case at a time when his own sexual behavior was under scrutiny. Nienstedt was investigated following credible allegations that he engaged in misconduct and harassment, then retaliated when his advances were rejected. Nienstedt has denied the allegations, calling them "entirely false." His successor, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, said last December that the Vatican suspended the investigation when Nienstedt resigned in 2015. And while Nienstedt remains in good standing with the Vatican, Hebda has forbidden him from exercising public ministry in his archdiocese. Messages left with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C. were not returned Monday. An email sent to Nienstedt went unanswered. The other plaintiffs are, Manuel Vega, a California man who says he was abused by a priest in Los Angeles, and James Keenan, who says he was sexually abused by a priest in Minnesota. ___ Rezendes reported from Winthrop, Massachusetts. HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) - Joe Biden said Monday that he would be open to breaking up Facebook, a sign of the deep skepticism among many Democratic presidential contenders about the power of massive technology firms. In an interview with The Associated Press, the former vice president, who is now running for the White House, said that dismantling large technology companies including Facebook is "something we should take a really hard look at." His 2020 rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has been the most outspoken Democratic presidential candidate to press for greater regulation of Silicon Valley's most prominent companies. While Biden didn't fully embrace her proposal - saying it's "premature" to make a final judgment - he praised Warren and said she "has a very strong case to be made" for cracking down on tech giants. The comments demonstrate how Facebook is increasingly a flashpoint in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, with some candidates arguing the influence of such companies is unchecked, allowing misinformation to poison the public debate. Sen. Kamala Harris of California said this weekend that she was open to revamping Facebook, telling CNN the company is essentially a public utility. But Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey told ABC that such calls aren't very different from the tough tactics President Donald Trump takes against his enemies. Regardless of whether Facebook is ultimately broken up, Biden told the AP, the Trump administration hasn't done enough to enforce antitrust laws in a variety of industries. The former vice president is making his first trip to New Hampshire this week as a declared candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination. He's dominating the early polls but faces questions about whether he can keep the momentum going after two previous presidential campaigns faltered. Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden takes a selfie with a supporter during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) The New Hampshire swing comes amid a rapidly escalating trade war between the U.S. and China that has left financial markets spinning and many observers uncertain about what will happen next. Biden's past support for free trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement could prove to be a vulnerability among the blue-collar union workers he's targeting, especially in the upper Midwest, where such pacts have become unpopular. Biden said he didn't regret voting for NAFTA during his time in the Senate. "Fair trade is important," Biden said. "Not free trade. Fair trade. And I think that back in the time during the Clinton administration, it made sense at the moment." Biden is competing in a field that's been celebrated for its historic gender and racial diversity. He said there are women currently running for president who would be qualified to lead the presidential ticket next year, but he wouldn't fully commit to selecting a woman as his running mate if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. "I wouldn't hesitate to pick a woman if that person is the most qualified person available," Biden said. "I would place no restriction, were I the nominee, on anyone I'd pick, assuming they had the same basic philosophic view of the world as I do." It's important, Biden said, for the nominee to pick a running mate "in line with what they believe ... so you can work as a team." And if he doesn't get the nomination, Biden didn't dismiss the idea of working in a future Democratic administration. "I learned a long time ago, don't rule out anything," Biden said. "If I can be helpful if I weren't the nominee, I would do whatever I could." Biden also addressed questions about a potential conflict of interest stemming from his son's work for a Ukrainian gas company while Biden was vice president. The New York Times has reported Biden pressured Ukraine's government to dismiss a top prosecutor believed to be tolerating corruption. The prosecutor was looking into the firm, Burisma Holdings. Biden denied Hunter Biden's work for the company had anything to do with the effort. "We never once discussed it when he was there," the former vice president said of his son. "There's not a single bit of evidence that's been shown in any reporting that's been done that he ever talked about it with me or asked any government official for a favor. ... I have great confidence in my son. He's a man of great integrity." Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, scrapped plans this week to visit Ukraine in part to find information that could damage political rivals, including Biden. The former vice president dismissed such efforts. "When folks like the president and Rudy Giuliani roll through one time selling snake oil, maybe people buy it," he said. "Second time around, they kind of catch on." Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden interacts with a supporter during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden greets supporters during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Firefighters listen as former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden takes a selfie with a reporter during a campaign stop at the Community Oven in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden takes a selfie with a reporter during a campaign stop at the Community Oven in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H., Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Five states have joined forces to try and block a new rule from the Trump administration they say weakens labor unions and their ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, announced the lawsuit on Monday with attorneys general in Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon. The lawsuit seeks to block a rule finalized last week by the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services. Becerra and union leaders say it would ban home health care workers paid for by Medicaid from automatically deducting their union dues and health insurance premiums from their paychecks. CMS spokesman Jack Cheevers declined to comment on Monday, saying the agency has not seen the lawsuit yet. But in announcing the final rule last week, CMS said "nothing in this rule would interfere with an employer's ability to make payroll deductions that are required by law or voluntary deductions for things like health and life insurance ... and union dues." In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled union dues for home health care workers had to be voluntary, meaning unions could not deduct dues from employees who were not members yet were still covered under the collective bargaining agreement. That same year, former President Barack Obama's administration issued a ruling clarifying states could deduct dues from paychecks of home health care workers who volunteered to join the union. The Trump administration reversed that rule, arguing it violated federal law that bans states from diverting Medicaid money to third parties, with some exceptions. But Becerra and union leaders said it is designed to weaken the finances of unions by making it harder for people to pay their dues. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announces a lawsuit against the Trump Administration's new rule affecting home health care workers on Monday, May 13, 2019, in Sacramento, California. California and four other states, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington want to block a new rule that bans states from using Medicaid dollars to pay third parties on behalf of employees. Becerra said the rule would not let states deduct voluntary union dues from employee paychecks, which would weaken their collective bargaining power. (AP Photo/Adam Beam) "It is a shameful political attack on home care providers who are largely women and people of color," said April Verette, president of SEIU Local 2015, which represents more than 385,000 long term care workers in California. Home health care workers are part of Medicaid's In-Home Supportive Services program. California has the largest IHSS program in the country, with more than 500,000 patients and more than 470,000 workers. Becerra noted California and other states could get around this new rule by declining to accept Medicaid dollars for the In-Home Supportive Services program. But Becerra noted for California that would mean forfeiting $6.5 billion in federal tax dollars. California has the largest IHSS program in the country, with more than 500,000 patients and more than 470,000 workers. "That is not an option in California," Becerra said. "We have a responsibility to these workers and to the people they care for to fight back when their rights and their health care are at stake." MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - An attorney for an Ecuadorian man who was arrested in Minneapolis and ordered deported from the U.S. 25 years ago will go to court Tuesday to ask that his case be reopened. Nelson Pinos, now 45, has been living in sanctuary in a church in New Haven, Connecticut, for a year and a half. His attorney, Tina Colon Williams of the Esperanza Center for Law & Advocacy, says Pinos was 19 years old when he was arrested. She said Monday that he was not aware when an immigration court ordered his deportation in 1994, and that he did not become aware of the order until 2012. Since Pinos did not have an opportunity to show up for immigration court the first time, Williams contends that the order was not properly issued and therefore is not legally valid. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Tuesday in St. Paul, Minnesota. John Mohan, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency does not comment on specifics of immigration cases being heard before an immigration judge. But in a statement, ICE said a federal immigration judge issued Pinos a final order of removal in 2015. Pinos was not placed in ICE custody but was allowed to periodically report to an ICE office after previously providing proof that he intends to comply with the order, the agency said. FILE - In this Nov. 30, 2018 file photo, supporters of Nelson Pinos, an immigrant from Ecuador who has been living in a church for a year to avoid deportation, block the front doors outside the federal building, in Hartford, Conn. An attorney for Pinos, who was arrested in Minneapolis and ordered deported from the U.S. 25 years ago, goes to court Tuesday, May 13, 2019, to ask that his case be reopened. (AP Photo/Dave Collins, File) Pinos failed to depart as scheduled and then sought shelter in the Connecticut church, according to ICE. He was then declared an immigration fugitive. Seeking sanctuary at a site categorized by ICE as a sensitive location may delay "but does not void" ICE's authority to enforce a removal order, the agency said. ICE said the agency is aware of Pinos' pending court appeal, but the removal order against him remains in effect. Pinos sought sanctuary in the church after he was ordered to leave the U.S. in late 2017. The New Haven resident has been living in the U.S. illegally since 1992. His supporters rallied at a federal courthouse in Hartford, Connecticut, last November to mark the anniversary of Pinos moving into the First and Summerfield United Methodist Church. Williams, his attorney, said the protracted church stay is taking its toll on Pinos and his three children, who visit him regularly. "His prolonged time in a church building has been a severe strain on his emotional health, his morale, but also on his kids," Williams said. But if Pinos leaves the church, he risks being picked up and deported, Williams said. And he would not be able to return to the U.S. legally unless the deportation order is rescinded and the case reopened, she said. ___ Follow Jeff Baenen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jeffbaenen . DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - China's announcement Monday of higher tariffs on $60 billion of American exports - retaliation for President Donald Trump's latest penalties on Chinese goods - hit a particular nerve here in the farm belt. China's vast consumer market has been a vital source of revenue for Americans whose livelihoods depend on farm exports. Beijing's action wasn't unexpected. But it still felt like a heavy blow to many. Since December, when U.S. and China negotiators called a truce to tariffs and began signaling that an agreement might be reached, soybean farmers had been holding out hope that sales to China would resume, said Todd Hultman, an Omaha-based grain market analyst with agriculture market data provider DTN. In the meantime, the farmers had been storing a record stockpile of nearly 1 billion bushels. The latest news of a new round of tariffs, with no agreement in sight, spooked the financial markets and some farmers who had been tentatively optimistic. "This is hitting the market at a very emotionally distressful time," Hultman said. "The rug of hope was pulled out from under us and especially with the announcement this morning that China is going to retaliate with higher tariffs of their own." In a statement Monday, the American Soybean Association reacted with frustration edged with anxiety. FILE - In this March 5, 2019, file photo, cargo containers are staged near cranes at the Port of Tacoma, in Tacoma, Wash. China has announced tariff hikes on $60 billion of U.S. goods in retaliation for President Donald Trump's escalation of a fight over technology and other trade disputes. The Finance Ministry said Monday, May 13, the penalty duties of 5% to 25% on hundreds of U.S. products including batteries, spinach and coffee take effect June 1. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) "The sentiment out in farm country is getting grimmer by the day," said John Heisdorffer, a soybean farmer in Keota, Iowa, who is chairman of the ASA. "Our patience is waning, our finances are suffering and the stress from months of living with the consequences of these tariffs is mounting." A slowdown in soybean sales, and the huge stockpiles that result, has a ripple effect. Farmers in many parts of the corn belt have suffered from a wet and cooler spring, which has prevented them from planting corn. Typically when it becomes too late to plant corn, farmers will instead plant soybeans, which can grow later into the fall before harvest is required. Yet now, planting soybeans with the overabundance already in bins and scant hope for sales to one of the biggest buyers in China, could raise the risk of a financial disaster. "This is the fifth year of low prices, basically, for crops," Hultman said. "I think time is just wearing us out." To Brent Gloy of Grant, Nebraska, many farmers like him appear to be facing only bleak alternatives for planting. "There's just not a lot people can do," Gloy said. "You're looking at late corn planting through part of the corn belt. They would normally go to soybeans. Man it's just a mess." Gloy, an agriculture economist and a partner in the online research website Agriculture Economic Insights, said he fears there may be no end in sight to the Trump administration's trade dispute with China. And he noted that most crops that farmers could plant aren't profitable right now. He also said that some fellow farmers he speaks with are beginning to sound notes of discontent with the Trump administration. "Farmers I talk to, I've been surprised they're supportive as they are, but I think it's starting to wane," he said. "I've personally been very frustrated with it. I think it's just a lack of a coherent plan." He said worries that the entire agriculture sector could face severe trouble if the dispute lasts indefinitely. "It's going to get louder and louder because there's going to be severe financial distress in agriculture," he said. "We've been getting teaser deals for six months, and everybody kind of thought it's going to happen and now I just think the reality of the situation is that's not in the cards." LOS ANGELES (AP) - A California company founded by game-developer parents who wanted to help their special-needs son is sharing a $10 million XPRIZE award with a London-based educational nonprofit for programs created to teach illiterate children how to teach themselves to read. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. Nearly 200 teams from 40 countries entered the competition, jumping at the chance to become the latest winner of an XPRIZE, a coveted international award funded by future-looking entrepreneurs, billionaires and philanthropists who have banded together with the goal of making the world a better place through technology. Elon Musk announced the winners at Wednesday's event honoring all five of the finalists. The total XPRIZE For Global Learning, funded by Musk, was worth $15 million, with each finalist getting $1 million just for making the final round. The winners additionally receive $5 million each. The goal was to develop open-sourced software, put it on tablets donated by Google and have thousands of children in 170 remote villages in Tanzania test it. The five finalists, which also included teams from New York, Pittsburgh and Bangalore, India, spent 15 months refining the software. They had to develop programs filled with games that could grab children's attention and then, like teachers do, use drawings, letters, numbers and sounds to teach them to teach themselves to read, write and do arithmetic. In this undated photo provided by XPRIZE, children in a village in the Tanga region of Tanzania gather to learn from tablets using open-sourced software that would easily be downloaded by illiterate children to teach themselves to read. That's what nearly 200 teams from around the world have spent more than a year in impoverished villages in Tanzania trying to do. The winner of this latest competition for a $10 million XPRIZE for global innovation is being announced Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. (Courtesy XPRIZE via AP) The games would show children letters and pictures, allow them to trace letters themselves as they learned to write, and even read books to them. When testing began, XPRIZE officials said only 2% of the children could read as much as a sentence in their native Swahili. Three-quarters had never attended school and many had to be shown how to swipe their finger across a tablet's screen just to power it up. But 15 months later, 30% of the children had acquired basic reading skills. Representatives of both winning teams said the hardest part was developing software at their home bases, putting it on tablets and hoping the children would take to it and figure out how to use it. "We had to learn fast and work closely with partners who were in East Africa," said Sooinn Lee, who co-founded Enuma Inc., the operator of Team Kitkit School, with her husband in 2012 and whose company produces the popular children's app Todo Math. "It often felt like driving in the dark," she said. Despite that, all five finalists developed functional, open-sourced software that will be put on the web so everybody can use it. Judges determined that the two winners simply did the best when it came to producing results. That any of them succeeded likely came as a surprise to critics who didn't think it could be done when the XPRIZE Foundation announced plans for the Global Learning prize five years ago. "All our experts said, 'Are you sure about this?'" recalled Emily Musil Church, XPRIZE's executive director of prize operations. "Our specialty is making sure we frame the problem in a way that is audacious but at the same time achievable and really advances the field," said XPRIZE Foundation CEO Anousheh Ansari, who funded the first prize, for $10 million, in 1996 for private space flight. The winning team of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aviation pioneer Burt Rutan needed nearly a decade to accomplish that goal, but they created a new industry by sending their privately piloted SpaceShipOne into space in 2004. Since then the XPRIZE Foundation has funded more than a dozen other prizes for those pursuing such innovations as making water for drought-stricken areas by heating air in shipping containers, creating sensors that allow people to track their health in real time and developing advanced ways to study ocean contamination. The winners of the latest prize will now get to work putting their software into the hands of as many people as possible. Lee said Kitkit's efforts will include adapting its software for smartphones, adding they are widely used in developing countries. Onebillion wants to quickly begin distributing in multiple languages to reach as large a global audience as possible. More than 250 million children worldwide cannot read or write, according to the XPRIZE Foundation. "This will be transformational for them, their communities and their countries," said onebillion's Judith Hermetter. FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2006 file photo, U.S. space tourist Anousheh Ansari waves shortly after landing near the town of Arkalyk, northern Kazakhstan. CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, Ansari, funded the first prize for $10 million for private space flight. The 2019 XPRIZE, also for $10 million, funded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, presented a challenge: Come up with open-sourced software that could easily be downloaded onto tablets used by illiterate children to teach themselves to read. The winner of this latest competition for global innovation is being announced Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File) Members of Kitkit School embrace after winning the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Representatives from onebillion, Jamie Stuart, third from left, and Andrew Ashe, fourth from left, and representatives from KitKit School, Sooinn Lee, third from right, and Gunho Lee, second from right, receive the XPRIZE Children's Literacy award from XPRIZE Executive Director Emily Church, far left, founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, second from left, Telsa CEO Elon Musk, fourth from right, and XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari, far right, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning and will share a $10 million award. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) onebillion CEO Andrew Ashe, third from right, and CTO Jamie Stuart, third from left, receive the XPRIZE Children's Literacy award from XPRIZE Founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, far left, Telsa CEO Elon Musk, second from left, XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari, second from right, and Executive Director Emily Church, far right, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night and will share a $10 million award. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Tesla CEO Elon Musk, left, shakes hands with XPRIZE founder and Executive Chairman, Peter Diamandis, during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. A California company founded by game-developer parents who wanted to help their special-needs son is sharing a $10 million XPRIZE award with a London-based educational nonprofit for programs created to teach illiterate children how to teach themselves to read. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Tesla CEO Elon Musk, center, joins XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis, left, and CEO Anousheh Ansari during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Actor LeVar Burton speaks during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) XPRIZE Executive Director Emily Church speaks during the presentation of the XPRIZE for Children's Literacy Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. The Berkeley-based Kitkit School and London's onebillion educational nonprofit were declared co-winners of the XPRIZE For Global Learning at a presentation Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) LONDON (AP) - Gone, at least for now, are the halcyon days when strong military and political ties between Britain and the United States meant that Washington could assume it had a staunch partner for standing up to a foreign foe. Dating back to World War II and including joint actions against Kosovo, Afghanistan and the two wars against Iraq, U.S. leaders have been able to count on Britain to take part in invasions and airstrikes, and to help persuade sometimes cautious European allies to offer political and logistical support. The Trump administration was expecting similar support over what it calls an increased threat from Iran, but this hope has been swatted down - not with anonymous whispers but by public comments from top British officials. In an unusually blunt challenge from Britain, Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika denied the U.S. assertion of an increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt also warned that the heated rhetoric could lead to an "accidental" war between the U.S. and Iran. Those remarks brought Britain closely into line with other European nations that want a focus on diplomacy, not escalation. Europe wants to salvage a nuclear containment deal with Iran, not ratchet up tensions. The very public display of disunity comes as President Donald Trump prepares to travel to Britain and France next month to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, often cited as a shining example of the value of trans-Atlantic cooperation. In this Nov. 22, 2018, photo, British army Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, deputy commander for Strategy and Information, Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), shakes hands with a Spanish soldier during a transfer of authority ceremony at the Besmaya Range Complex, Iraq. Ghika denied the U.S. assertion of an increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. (Spc. Eric Cerami/U.S. Army via AP) Peter Beyer, the German government's coordinator for trans-Atlantic relations, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Germany is working closely with its European allies to "calm the situation in the Persian Gulf" before it gets out of hand. "Our goal remains to keep the Iran nuclear deal in place," he said, referring to the deal that world powers reached with Iran in 2015 to constrain its nuclear development. Trump has abandoned the deal, frustrating Britain, France and Germany, whose leaders believe it offers the best way to prevent nuclear proliferation in the unstable Middle East. Beyer said Germany's foreign minister met privately in Brussels with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday and "outlined very clearly that we do not want any type of military escalation." In a newspaper interview to be published Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany, France and Britain are taking "a different approach" from the U.S. on Iran, adding that in this instance the three countries "have common interests" with Russia and China. Britain's ability to influence Trump on its own seems particularly weak at the moment because the government is in disarray over its stalled Brexit divorce plan from the EU, and Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will step down once the withdrawal becomes a reality. Some European diplomats say privately that Pompeo was unconvincing when he met separately with several European foreign ministers and that there is little comprehension of what U.S. officials hope to achieve by putting maximum pressure on Iran at a time when its economy is already suffering under sanctions. The meetings with Pompeo seemed to be thrown together at the last minute rather than a carefully choreographed diplomatic encounter. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told lawmakers that putting intense pressure on Iran adds to the risk of an unintended escalation. "What has happened in recent days - acts of sabotage against ships or pipelines - are indications that these dangers (of escalation) are concrete and real," he said. For now, the EU refuses to be drawn into the war of words. Under the nuclear agreement, which is backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports every few months on whether Iran is in compliance with the terms of the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. A new report is due at the end of May, and the Europeans are waiting to see what its conclusions will be, rather than endorsing the U.S. position. In the meantime, Europeans have been trying to keep supply lines open to Iran. They have set up a complicated barter-type system to skirt direct financial transactions with Tehran to try to evade possible U.S. sanctions. The plan, run jointly by Britain, France and Germany, is not yet operational, but the fact that the three influential nations banded together to come up with a way to frustrate U.S. sanctions is one more sign that the alliances that helped rebuild western Europe after World War II are being tested as never before. ___ Rising reported from Berlin. Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed. In this Nov. 11, 2018, photo, British army Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, deputy commander for Strategy and Information Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), speaks before a gathering of coalition forces at the Armistice Ceremony at Union III, Baghdad. Ghika denied the U.S. assertion of an increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. (Sgt. Phillip McTaggart/U.S. Army via AP) Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt speaks during a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Foreign Office in central London, Wednesday May 8, 2019. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in London for talks with British officials on the status of the special relationship between the two nations amid heightened tensions with Iran and uncertainty over Britain's exit from the European Union. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP) Uber hit a few potholes on its first day of trading on the US stock market, closing down 8% and reflecting lingering doubts about its prospects for profitability. The ride-hailing company injected investors with a dose of reality right from the start, trading at 42 dollars (32.30) a share or nearly 7% below its IPO price of 45 dollars (34.60) on an already volatile day for the markets. Its shares closed at 41.57 dollars. Despite the rocky debut, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he was thrilled to complete the IPO, adding that the 8.1 billion dollars (6.2 billion) that Uber raised in the process would be crucial to its future growth plans. Its a great moment for the company and all the employees who have been working so hard to get here, Mr Khosrowshahi said. It was a tough week to go public, but we got it done. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, left, talks to Stacy Cunningham, president of the New York Stock Exchange (Richard Drew/AP) Ubers IPO price was lower than initially expected, and the caution may have been driven by escalating doubts about the ability of ride-hailing services to make money since Ubers main rival, Lyft, went public six weeks ago. Jitters about an intensifying US trade war with China also contributed. Stocks were down sharply on Friday morning after the two countries failed to reach a deal before a tariff deadline, but finished with gains. Despite the volatile market, Mr Khosrowshahi said he did not consider postponing Ubers IPO date. Our company is not a fair-weather company, Mr Khosrowshahi said. We keep moving forward in tough and easy environments, and I think that we as a company will be a great investment over the long term. It is not the first time a companys stock has started off trading below its IPO price. But it is relatively uncommon for US technology companies backed by venture capital, like Uber. Over the past five years, just 10% of such companies finished their first day of trading below their IPO price, said Matt Kennedy, senior IPO market strategist at Renaissance Capital, a manager of IPO focused funds. We were not expecting much of a pop, given the size of the deal for Uber, Mr Kennedy said. The last US company of this size to IPO was Facebook, for example, and you may remember how that traded initially. Facebook debuted in 2012 and, after technical difficulties delayed its start to trading, it ended its first day just 23 cents above its IPO price of 38 dollars. Unlike Facebook, however, Uber does not make money, Mr Kennedy said. Facebooks stock now trades just below 200 dollars. Ubers cash infusion will help cover the cost of giving rides to passengers at unprofitable prices as it tries to fend off competition from Lyft. The San Francisco company already has lost about 9 billion dollars since its inception in 2009 and acknowledges it could still be years before it turns a profit. Roger Federer left Madrid in good spirits despite seeing two match points slip away against Dominic Thiem as his return to clay ended in a quarter-final defeat. The 20-time grand slam champion, who is playing his first tournament on the surface for three years, saved two match points in beating Gael Monfils on Thursday but the boot was on the other foot this time. Federer won the first set and held two match points in the second set tie break but Thiem, last years French Open finalist, fought back to win 3-6 7-6 (11) 6-4. Federer said on atptour.com: Its frustrating, clearly. Losing with match points is the worst. But, nevertheless, if I take a step back, its all good. I feel very good about my game. In the last four, Thiem will meet Novak Djokovic, who was given a walkover when Marin Cilic withdrew with food poisoning. Rafael Nadal produced his best performance on clay this season to defeat Stan Wawrinka 6-1 6-2. Roger Federer was knocked out of the Madrid Open by Dominic Thiem (Bernat Armangue/AP) The 11-time French Open champion unusually arrived in the Spanish capital still looking for his first title of the year but it is unlikely to remain that way for long if he continues to play like this. Wawrinka simply could not cope with the consistent excellent of Nadal, who will face Stefanos Tsitsipas for a place in the final. Tsitsipas, who was brushed aside by Nadal at the Australian Open, claimed another notable victory by beating defender champion Alexander Zverev 7-5 3-6 6-2. The education of young people with additional support needs (ASN) is the focus of a teachers conference taking place in the capital. Teachers attending the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) event in Edinburgh on Saturday are expected to hear that having sufficient resources is key to good ASN provision in schools. The event will be chaired by EIS president Alison Thornton and will feature a keynote presentation by Professor Lani Florian, the Bell Chair of Education at Moray House School of Education at Edinburgh University. It coincides with the publication of an EIS guidance document on ASN. In it, the unions general secretary Larry Flanagan writes: The topic of Additional Support for Learning (ASL) has been the subject of intense scrutiny in Scotland in recent years. This scrutiny is likely to be sustained, and perhaps to intensify, as the complexity of needs among the learning population grows, against a backdrop of under-invested public services struggling to meet the array of needs in every classroom. The number of pupils with ASN is said to have soared in the past six years (PA) There is a well evidenced gap between theories of inclusion, the law on childrens rights, and daily practice in our schools; a gap which stems from massive under provision of the sources of support children require. The event comes after analysis last month indicated the number of pupils with ASN has soared in the past six years, while funding and the number of specialist teachers has fallen. The Scottish Children Services Coalition analysed the annual Scottish Government Pupil Census and found large increases in most categories of pupils requiring additional support. Speaking ahead of the conference, Ms Thornton said: Ensuring adequate provision of education for young people with additional support needs is one of the most frequently cited concerns by teachers across the country. The EIS remains absolutely committed to the principle of inclusive education, and to the policy of educating young people with additional support needs in mainstream classes where this is the most appropriate environment for their learning. It is clear that where issues with ASN provision arise, these are most often associated with a lack of resources and specialist staff to support young people with additional support needs. It is the operation and resourcing of ASN policy that causes the most concern, not the principles that lie behind it. A Scottish Government spokesman said: All young people deserve the same opportunity to succeed and reach their full potential. We have recently published revised guidance on the presumption to mainstream education, alongside online resources for staff. This provides improved methods to assess needs and help young people, and signposts actions to further support inclusion, informed by the latest research. Gavin Williamson has described Theresa Mays Brexit talks with Labour as a grave mistake. The former defence secretary, who was sacked over the Huawei leak, said pressing ahead with the talks will have fatal consequences. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he labelled Mrs May as politically naive for going into fruitless negotiations which he claimed were bound to fail. Prime Minister Theresa May has come under fire from Gavin Williamson (Steve Parsons/PA) The Tory MP for South Staffordshire said doing a deal with Labour on Brexit sounds so simple and so reasonable, but it is destined to fail. Even if Labour do a deal, break bread with the Prime Minister and announce that both parties have reached an agreement, it can only ever end in tears, he said. The Labour Party does not exist to help the Conservative Party. Jeremy Corbyn will do all he can to divide, disrupt and frustrate the Conservatives in the hope of bringing down the Government. His goal, and he has made no secret of it, is to bring about a general election. Mr Williamson said the Prime Minister seemed oblivious to the fact many Tories believe she is negotiating with the enemy. There is a clue in their title: Her Majestys Official Opposition, he said. Their priority is to derail the Government. Even if we get to a point where Jeremy Corbyn agrees a deal with the Prime Minister, when it comes to detailed scrutiny of the votes, Labour will revert to form. Even if it passes the first few votes, it will fail later. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is facing pressure from his own MPs on Brexit. (Gareth Fuller/PA) The former Cabinet minister said there was a simple calculation that a deal could pass with the combined votes of Labour and Conservative MPs, but tough realities must be faced if the deal was far removed from expectations. Mr Williamson said this could mean Mrs May has support from less than half the Conservative MPs including those on the payroll. That would lead to knife-edge votes and a number of defeats due to up to 80 Labour rebels who want another referendum, he said, alongside SNP, Lib Dem and Change UK MPs who have pledged to vote against. He said: This is when Labour will finally kill it, if they have not done so already. Labour will be able to credibly say it is not what was originally agreed between them and the Prime Minister. It is politically naive to go down this route. Warning Mrs May she was turning her own supporters against her, Mr Williamson said that scenario should be avoided at all costs. He said: The Prime Minister needs to recognise that futile efforts to pull off this Labour deal are damaging us all. It is a grave mistake for any Prime Minister to fail to recognise when a plan will not work and it is fatal to press on regardless. We need to accept that these talks with Labour are fruitless and that not only will they not deliver the Brexit that people voted for, they are a betrayal of the direct instructions the people gave us in 2016 and 2017. Urging Mrs May to make the right choice, the MP suggested new leadership was needed. We are now at a crossroads and it is imperative the Prime Minister makes the right choice, he said. In order to deliver Brexit, there has to be a clear-sighted determination of what you are wanting to deliver, as opposed to delivering the lowest common denominator. The only way to deliver anything is by ensuring you have your own tribe and your own people with you 100% of the way. This is what has to be delivered not doing a deal with Labour. The prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn-led government is leading Britains richest to move assets and businesses overseas, according to reports. Theresa Mays Conservative Party would be on course for its lowest vote share in history at 19% according to a poll in a Sunday newspaper, while Labour would become the largest party by 137 seats. One in 10 of those prepared to speak on the Sunday Times Rich List said they were planning for what they deemed Corbygeddon by protecting their wealth from tax increases on income and inheritance, including moving assets offshore. Leading the Rich List are the Hinduja brothers Sri and Gopi, the magnates who were said to have amassed a 22 billion fortune, more than 3 billion ahead of David and Simon Reuben. In third is Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the boss of petrochemicals firm Ineos, who fell from first place after a reported 2.9 billion drop to 18.15 billion. Mr Corbyn said the Rich List was a stark reminder of the grotesque inequality that scars our society. He added: Labour will reprogramme our economy, so it stops just supporting a tiny few at the top, and starts to reward the many, who do the work, create the wealth, and pay their taxes. The ComRes survey suggested 27% of people would vote for Labour at a general election which would garner the party 316 seats in Westminster, compared with 179 for the Conservatives. The same poll, of 2,034 people, said Nigel Farages Brexit Party would get 20% of the vote and 49 seats, while the Liberal Democrats figures stand at 14% vote share and 28 seats, up from 12 at the 2017 general election. The Sunday Times said one tax expert had helped 10 people worth more than 500 million or more leave the country, while millionaire Alfie Best told the paper he would move his 285 million fortune out of the UK were Mr Corbyn to become prime minister. How could I run the risk of leaving money here? he added. Philip Green who is no longer a billionaire and his company Arcadia is worthless, says the Rich List (Ian West/PA) Meanwhile, Sir Philip Green is estimated to have lost his billionaire status with the retail tycoons fortune believed to have halved in a year because of a pension black hole in his empire. The Sunday Times Rich List has his fortune free-falling 1.05 billion in a year to 950 million. But the plummet still places Sir Philip and wife Tina at 156th on the list, down from joint 66th some 12 months earlier. The Arcadia Group which includes Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins was valued as worthless in this years list, as the company copes with a pension debt which hit 565 million. The couples stake in the company was last year valued at 750 million, while the compilers also removed 300 million from their worth to allow the shoring up of the deficit. With his wealth peaking at almost 5 billion in 2007, it is the first time in 17 years that Sir Philip has not been listed as a billionaire. Topshop was among the Arcadia group which has been deemed `worthless (Yui Mok/PA) Robert Watts, who compiled the list, said he struggles to envisage the tycoon returning to the upper echelons. Sir Philip Green may have clung on to his knighthood, but we can no longer justify his status as one of the UKs billionaires, Mr Watts said. This is the first time since 2002 he has not been in that top tier of the UKs super-rich individuals. The devaluation comes after sustained criticism against Sir Philip and calls for him to lose his knighthood. He was lambasted over the collapse of BHS, affecting 11,000 jobs, 19,000 pension holders and leaving a 571 million in the pension scheme. Sir James Dyson is to relocate the Dyson head office from the UK to Singapore (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The businessman, who sold the department store chain to Dominic Chappell for 1 before it plunged into administration, agreed to pay 363 million towards the deficit. Sir Philip has also faced a slew of allegations, including of groping a female executive and making a racial slur at an employee. The Croydon-born entrepreneur denied his behaviour was criminal or amounted to gross misconduct. Elsewhere in the rich list, Sir James Dyson reached his highest ever position as he prepares to move Dysons head office from Wiltshire to Singapore. The Brexit-backing businessman climbed seven places to become the fifth richest person in the UK, with his wealth estimated at 12.6 billion. The Equality Trust pledged to write to the 1,000 individuals and families included in the list, calling for them to support higher taxes in a nation of Ferraris and food banks. Executive director Dr Wanda Wyporska said: In our grossly unequal UK, we are seeing the fabric of society ripped to shreds as the gap between us grows ever wider. The newspapers list features a record 151 billionaires with a combined wealth of nearly 525 billion, a 9.2% rise on last year. The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has held the first regular Sunday Mass since the Easter suicide bombings of churches and hotels killed more than 250 people. Military forces and police armed with assault rifles patrolled the streets leading to churches and stood guard outside the compounds. Everyone entering was required to produce identity cards and be body searched. Volunteers were stationed at the gates of churches to identify parishioners and look out for any suspicious individuals. Parking was banned near the churches and officials urged worshippers to bring only minimum baggage. Police guard the entrance to St Lucias Cathedral in Colombo (Eranga Jayawardena/AP) Seven suicide bombers struck two Catholic and one Protestant church and three luxury hotels in the attacks last month. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombings, which were carried out by a local radicalised Muslim group. Sunday services were cancelled in the two subsequent weekends amid fears of more attacks, leaving the faithful to hear Mass via live TV transmission from the Colombo residence of Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith. Church authorities are also considering the reopening of church-run schools on Tuesday if they can be satisfied with security. An armed soldier stands guard outside St Lucias Cathedral (Eranga Jayawardena/AP) President Maithripala Sirisena said last week that 99% of the remaining suspects in the Easter attacks have been arrested and their explosive materials seized, and it is safe for tourists to return to the Indian Ocean island nation. Police say two previously little-known radical Islamist groups National Towheed Jamaat and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim conspired in the attacks. Officials say Zahran Hashim, a vitriolic preacher from the countrys east, may have led the attackers and was one of the bombers to die. Australias Prime Minister has launched his conservative coalitions election campaign with an extraordinarily personal presentation. Scott Morrison is his governments third prime minister in its six years in office and still remains relatively unknown to many Australians, who he is asking for a third three-year term when they vote next Saturday. The coalitions campaign launch in Melbourne included recorded interviews with Morrison family members that covered his wife Jennys diagnosis with endometriosis, their 14-year failed battle to conceive through IVF before having two daughters naturally, and his brother-in-laws struggle with MS. Mr Morrison, a policemans son, also spoke of his modest upbringing in Sydney and how he shared a bedroom until he was in high school with an older brother who was studying at university. My family are so grateful for the opportunities we have been given here in Australia. Life often throws things at you that challenge your aspirations. But everyday Im inspired by Australians who are seizing opportunities & overcoming their challenges. https://t.co/Ttb3kS53fz Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) May 12, 2019 He told the gathering of government ministers and supporters of his Liberal Party: Lifes about what you contribute, not what you accumulate. Thats what mum and dad have taught me. He was joined on stage by his mother Marion, his wife and daughters Abbey, 11, and Lily, nine, but said his father John was too frail to attend. Australian PM Scott Morrison speaks during the launch of his Liberal Partys election campaign (Mick Tsikas/AP) He presented his mother and wife with bouquets of flowers to acknowledge Mothers Day in Australia. Mr Morrison also used the launch to outline government policies including support for first-time buyers to help them enter the housing market. The government argues that the centre-left opposition Labour Partys policy of reducing tax breaks for landlords would steepen a current downturn in house prices in major cities. Mr Morrison described the election as a choice between him and opposition leader Bill Shorten as prime minister. He said: The choice between a government that knows how to manage money, has returned the budget to surplus and will now pay down debt. Or Bill Shorten and Labour, whose reckless spending and higher taxes will put all of that at risk at the worst possible time. My mum Marion taught me everything I know about leadership. Happy #MothersDay mum! x pic.twitter.com/LFpSyb2PSZ Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) May 12, 2019 The government in April outlined an economic plan that would balance the books in the next fiscal year for the first time in 12 years. Labour has promised to deliver bigger budget surpluses by reducing tax breaks for landlords and some shareholders. But the bitter divisions within the Liberal Party that thrust Mr Morrison into power last August were still evident at the launch on Sunday. None of the three surviving former Liberal prime ministers attended. John Howard is Australias second-longest serving prime minister who spent 11 years in office until his government was defeated at elections in 2007. Tony Abbott spent three years in office before he was dumped by party colleagues in 2015 in the face of dismal opinion polling. He was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull, who was similarly dumped by colleagues last year. By contrast, three of the four surviving Labour prime ministers attended Mr Shortens Labour campaign launch a week earlier. The oldest, Bob Hawke, 89, sent his apologies. Mr Morrison is hoping his personal charisma will persuade people to vote for his Liberal Party candidates, but opinion polls suggest they prefer Labour despite misgivings about Mr Shorten as leader. Mr Shorten is a former union leader who turned 52 on Sunday. Mr Morrison is a former tourism marketer who turns 51 on Monday. Both were first elected to parliament at the 2007 election that ended Mr Howards government and decades of relative political stability. Scott Morrison wants to give $80 billion of tax cuts to the top end of town. But that'll come at a cost to you. #auspol pic.twitter.com/XPcNzPgVJf Australian Labor (@AustralianLabor) May 12, 2019 Meanwhile, Mr Shorten addressed a campaign rally in Melbourne on Sunday in which he focused on Labours pledge to reduce Australias greenhouse gas emissions by 45% below 2005 levels by 2030. The government has committed to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% in the same time-frame. Opinion polls suggest climate change is a growing concern for voters, but is a divisive policy issue among the conservatives who are split between those who give priority to reducing emissions and those who want the lowest possible power prices. Pakistans prime minister has condemned a deadly insurgent attack at a luxury hotel on the south-western coast, describing it as an act of terrorism. In a statement on Sunday, Imran Khan praised the initial response by security guards and security forces for preventing greater loss of life at the Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar. Pakistan PM Imran Khan described the incident as a terror attack (PA) His statement came as Pakistan police chiefs raised the death toll from the attack to five. The military said on Saturday that one security guard was killed in the attack, and all guests were safely evacuated. But police said on Sunday that five people not including the four attackers died, and it is not known if they were civilians, hotel guards or security forces. The four attackers were also killed. A Baluch separatist group has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying four of its fighters were involved. The same group attacked a Chinese consulate in Karachi last year, triggering a shoot-out in which all three insurgents, two police officers and two civilians were killed. China is helping Pakistan build a modern port in Gwadar. The Pearl Continental is located near the port. Institutional shareholders at energy giant Centrica are being urged to block a big pay rise for its chief executive. The GMB union said the ghost of Cedric the Pig will haunt the companys annual meeting on Monday over chief executive Iain Conns 44% pay rise. GMB activists brought a live pig, called Cedric, to a British Gas shareholders meeting in 1996 in protest at the pay of then-chief executive Cedric Brown. GMB has written to institutional shareholders at Centrica, which owns British Gas, asking them to block the pay rise for Iain Conn. The GMB union brought Cedric to a meeting in the 1990s (PA) The union said thousands of British Gas workers had recently voted to accept cuts to their pensions to support the company return to competitiveness. It added that the pay increase was confirmed earlier this year, just days after British Gas workers in Leeds and Glasgow were told their sites were under threat of closure as the latest part of a reduction of 4,000 jobs in the companys customer business by 2020, on top of 5,000 job losses since 2015. National officer Justin Bowden said: The ghost of Cedric the Pig will haunt the Centrica AGM on Monday. Cedric was signifying snouts in the trough and it appears 23 years on the lessons of timing and foolish greed have not been learned. GMB is calling on all Centrica shareholders to reject the frankly staggering proposal to increase Iain Conns pay. We have 15,000 members in Centrica, who are not being offered 4% pay rises, never mind 44%. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the political will to fight climate change seems to be fading at the same time as things are getting worse for those on the front-line. Mr Guterres made the comments after arriving in New Zealand, where he spoke alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Auckland. Mr Guterres plans to spend three days in New Zealand as part of a trip to the South Pacific to highlight the problems of climate change. In New Zealand, I thanked @JacindaArdern for her efforts to curb violent extremism on social media and her visionary leadership on the global climate emergency a model of urgent #ClimateAction for all countries to follow. pic.twitter.com/Sli9mfsRIY Antonio Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 12, 2019 In Christchurch, he will also meet with Muslim leaders following the March 15 killing of 51 worshippers by a gunman who attacked two mosques during Friday prayers. Mr Guterres said he usually visits a Muslim country during the holy month of Ramadan but this year decided to visit Muslims in New Zealand as a tribute to their courage and resilience after the attack. On climate change, he said countries are not living up to their commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise to below 2C above pre-industrial levels. He said: We are not on track to achieve the objectives defined in the Paris Agreement. And the paradox is that as things are getting worse on the ground, political will seems to be fading. He commended Ms Ardern for last week introducing an ambitious Bill that aims to make New Zealand mostly carbon neutral by 2050. Mr Guterres said nations must meet commitments made in the Paris Agreement (Mary Altaffer/AP) Mr Guterres said Pacific Island nations are on the front-line of climate change. We cannot allow for runaway climate change, he said. We need to protect the lives of our people and we need to protect our planet. He will also visit Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu during his visit, and meet leaders and senior government officials from the Pacific Islands Forum. His trip comes ahead of the Climate Action Summit that he plans to convene in September in New York. Pope Francis has ordained 19 men to the priesthood during a ceremony in St Peters Basilica. Most of the new priests are Italian, but other seminarians are from Croatia, Peru, Haiti and Japan. Pope Francis blesses one of the new priests (Giuseppe Lami/AP) Wearing white robes, the seminarians stood in three rows before the central altar after replying Here I am, as their names were called one by one. In a ritual, Francis asked if they were worthy to become priests. As part of the ordination ceremony, the new priests lay face down on the floor (Giuseppe Lami/AP During his homily, he told them to carry out their mission in joy and charity and to never tire of being merciful towards the faithful. The seminarians ages range from mid-20s to 46. Two men have been injured in a disturbance in Glasgow. Emergency services were called to the scene in Edmiston Drive, at its junction with Broomloan Road near Ibrox Stadium, at around 11.25pm on Saturday. Police attended and two men who had been assaulted were taken by ambulance to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. The casualties aged 23 and 51 were both released after treatment for facial injuries. Detective Constable Mark Hendry said: Our inquiries into this incident are at an early stage and we are carrying out inquiries and gathering CCTV footage to establish more information on the circumstances surrounding this incident and identify those involved. At this time, I would ask anyone who was in the area who saw this incident take place, or anyone who was driving by who has dash-cam footage, to contact us. Nigel Farage is to demand his Brexit Party becomes part of the Government negotiating team if it is successful in the forthcoming European elections. He said Prime Minister Theresa Mays proposed Brexit deal, which has already suffered three defeats in Parliament, is a new European treaty. But asked if he wants to be prime minister, he added: No, not particularly. Speaking on BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show, Mr Farage said: Weve got a two-party system that now serves nothing but itself. There is a complete breakdown of trust between the people in this country and our politicians, and frankly they revealed themselves to be grossly incompetent. What I do want to see from this European election, if we can win these elections, absolutely Im going to demand that Brexit Party MEPs become part of the Government negotiating team and we can perhaps talk some sense into them. Asked why he did not advocate a no-deal Brexit at the time of the EU referendum in 2016, he said it was because it was obvious that we could do a free trade deal. He said: The problem is the Prime Minister never asked for it, so we finished up in the mess that were in. Nigel Farage has predicted success for his Brexit Party at the upcoming European elections (PA) She chose to go for this close and special partnership. Basically right from the start she was happy for us to be kept very close to the customs union. So where we are now, the only way the democratic will of the people can be delivered is to leave on a WTO (World Trade Organisation) deal. The Prime Minister, he argued, has wilfully deceived us, adding: What shes put to Parliament three times isnt a deal, its a new European treaty. I didnt spend 25 years campaigning to leave the EU to sign up to a new treaty. The only way we can deliver the democratic will of the people is to leave on WTO terms, and Ill tell you something, once we do that the EU will be banging our door down to have a sensible tariff-free deal. This is our chance to break free of a failing political project to open ourselves up to the rest of the world, to get some self-confidence back in who we are as a country. The problem is this. The country very clearly wants us to stand up and be who we are. Our political class do not believe in Britain, they simply dont think were good enough to run our own affairs. Another big day on the campaign trail yesterday. Both Labour and the Tories are worried about us, and so they should be. pic.twitter.com/vxUr30JOuZ Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 12, 2019 Mr Farage acknowledged leaving the EU on WTO terms could lead to some short-term economic disruption, adding moving house leads to short-term disruption, this is our future. He insisted: If we had a second referendum, I think Leave would win by a bigger margin. Mr Farage said he is mentally preparing myself for one, adding: Im thinking we may well have it forced upon us. He was also asked about his past comments on NHS privatisation, climate change, gun control, immigration and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reacting angrily, he said: All you want to do is go back to stuff from years ago, why dont we talk about now in British politics? I think youre all in for a bigger surprise on Thursday than you can even imagine. But Lib Dem deputy leader Jo Swinson said Mr Farage represented the very worst of British politics. Ms Swinson criticised his refusal to own up to well-documented and abhorrent views on NHS privatisation, his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his denial of the facts about climate change during the interview. She said: Despite his claims to the contrary, everyone remembers that he promised in 2016 that there would be an amazing cost-free Brexit deal available to Britain if we voted to leave the EU. To say today that he always advocated no deal is a mark of just how shameless he is, and how little he cares for the jobs and livelihoods of the people of this country. There is one thing Nigel Farage cares passionately about and that is Nigel Farage. The divisions in the UK caused by Brexit are so deep and pervasive that they could take a generation to reconcile, former prime minister Gordon Brown has warned. He told an audience in central London the vote to leave the EU had created a fundamental disagreement about the Britain people want between being inward or outward looking. At the launch of Christian Aid Week at Church House in Westminster on Sunday, Mr Brown said countries have to co-operate to solve the worlds problems such as climate change. Gordon Brown addressed the issues of Brexit, climate change and aid funding during his speech (Jonathan Brady/PA) He added: It raises the question of what it is to be British and this, I think, is at the heart of the debate thats Brexit. It does now raise a fundamental issue and I will be honest, my worry is that the divisions in our country are now so deep and so pervasive that it could take a generation for us to reconcile these differences, bring people together and find a unified vision of our country and a sense of purpose and direction that takes us forward into the modern world. It is not just that parliamentary deadlock. Theres a fundamental disagreement about what kind of Britain we are trying to be. He said the inward vision misunderstands the Dunkirk spirit as meaning the UK is better when it stands alone, aloof and apart. But he said: That of course is not what Dunkirk was about Dunkirk was about us being alone out of necessity. Mr Brown said Britain must decide what sort of country it wants to be (Jonathan Brady/PA) But there is a second vision of Britain, a Britain thats open, outward looking, engaged and not disengaged with the rest of the world. A Britain thats internationalist in its outlook, a Britain that says that it has responsibility not just for itself. I believe this is a choice we have to make as a country, and I cannot see how the issue of our future can be solved unless we understand that in a more and more interdependent, more integrated world that to be outward looking and not inward looking, to be engaged and not disengaged, to be internationalist and not narrowly nationalist is the only way forward. Mr Brown said this means showing how co-operating can solve the problems of the world and giving people the hope it can be done. He said people must argue against claims there is a choice between helping people globally and helping them at home. Mr Brown added: We must use this Christian Aid Week to send that message out to the communities that no matter what the criticisms of aid have been, it is not them against us. It is not us putting the needs of people in this country against the needs of people in other countries, that there is indeed a circle of empathy that links us here to what is happening right across the world and the people who are here and the people who we can help in other parts of the world. 'We've got to argue back against those people who say that aid is ineffective, that aid is wasteful... when all the evidence is to the contrary.' #CrisisPoint Christian Aid (@christian_aid) May 12, 2019 Christian Aid and all other organisations doing so much in the world need our support and should have our support. He said international co-operation is vital to combating climate change. But he stressed the problem is with the depth of international co-operation and he suggested a new central authority is needed to deliver international targets. He added: We are one planet, we need to act together, pollution has no respect for borders. Mr Brown refused to answer questions about politics and Brexit following his speech. Christian Aid Week began in 1957 as a way of fundraising vital cash to combat poverty worldwide. 10 mothers from die childbirth per day 1 in 9 children die before 5th birthday Sierra Leone is the #1 most dangerous place to give birth. All mums should live! This #CAWeek we're asking for change: https://t.co/QSkJX54MLq #StandUp4Mums pic.twitter.com/s0TJxeXfhN Christian Aid (@christian_aid) May 12, 2019 This year the charity is focusing on maternity care in Sierra Leone, where women are 150 times more likely to die in childbirth than those in the UK due to a lack of access to healthcare facilities or health professionals. The West African country is the most dangerous place to give birth in the world, with an estimated 15,000 mothers having died during childbirth since the Ebola crisis in 2014, the charity said. Police are investigating a second wilful fireraising incident in Paisley within 24 hours. One took place at 10.15pm on Saturday in Barrie Road, Hillington Industrial Estate. It saw the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service tackle a large rubbish blaze outside the front of Mr Dengs home improvement store. The flames were extinguished and no-one was injured, although there was heavy smoke damage to the premises. Police Scotland said there were five males seen in the area and one of the males deliberately started the fire. The first is described as of a thin build, wearing a black hooded top, black shorts and dark trainers. The two incidents are not being treated as linked (Niall Carson/PA) Police in Paisley are appealing for information following a wilful fire-raising incident in Hillington Industrial Estate on Saturday 11 May 2019. https://t.co/HdPGFztX9b Renfrewshire & Inverclyde Police (@RenfrewInverPol) May 12, 2019 The second was of a thin build, wearing a blue tracksuit top with a white stripe on the back and dark trousers. The third had a thin build, wearing a dark top and red trousers, while the fourth and fifth were both of a thin build, wearing dark-coloured tracksuits. Detective Constable Jamie Howarth said: This was a very senseless and reckless act to carry out and thankfully no-one was hurt. I urge anyone who saw the group of males hanging around the area or anyone who knows their identity to contact police at Paisley via telephone number 101. Meanwhile, a car and bins were ablaze outside a house after another fire was started deliberately. Emergency services were called to the incident in Burnfoot Crescent at around 12.50am on Saturday. Several wheelie bins and a blue coloured Skoda Roomster parked in the driveway of a house were found to be alight. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service extinguished the flames and a joint investigation between police and fire crews was carried out. The fires are being treated as wilful. Police Scotland said the two incidents are not being treated as linked. Albanias centre-right opposition has continued protests calling for the resignation of the government and for an early parliamentary election. Leaders of the countrys Democratic Party-led opposition decided to reconvene to object to the arrest of a senior party official during Saturdays anti-government protest. They are trying to organise nationwide rallies for Monday. Democrats leader Lulzim Basha called on all Albanians to join them in Mondays evening protest. sd Barbarous violence against hundreds of protesters will get tomorrow the proportional response from the united and determined people, Basha said, speaking in front of hundreds of supporters at the Tirana police department. Police arrested 50 people, while 31 others were detained and later released, for acts against police and public buildings. Saturdays protest turned violent, with opposition supporters using Molotov cocktails and police using tear gas and water cannons. Protesters and police officers were injured. df The opposition accuses the Cabinet of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama of being corrupt and linked to organised crime, which the government denies. Rama denounced the violence, adding that Albania is damaged. He backed the actions of police during Saturday clashes except for two-three seconds of an incident when two police officers used the baton. At a news conference Sunday, the prime minister brought up a 2011 rally where National Guard officers deployed by the Democratic Party-led government shot and killed four supporters of Ramas Socialist Party, which was in opposition at the time. The opposition has been holding national protests since mid-February and smaller ones every week across the country, complaining of the corrupt government officials and of vote stealing in parliamentary elections two years ago. Opposition lawmakers relinquished their seats in parliament in protest, though many have now been filled by other opposition candidates. The governing Socialists have 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament. The European Union office in Tirana appealed for calm following the unrest. It called on protesters and their political leaders to show responsibility and restraint. Differing political points of view need to be handled through debate and dialogue. Swedens Marcus Kinhult was lost for words after producing a brilliant finish to claim his first European Tour title in a thrilling climax to the British Masters at Hillside. Kinhults chances looked to have gone when he surrendered a one-shot lead with bogeys on the 15th and 16th. But the 22-year-old birdied the final two holes to finish a shot ahead of defending champion Eddie Pepperell, Matt Wallace and Scotlands Robert MacIntyre. Pepperell had set the clubhouse target on 15 under after a closing 66 before MacIntyre produced a stunning eagle-birdie finish to join him at the top of the leaderboard. A four-man play-off looked on the cards when Kinhult birdied the 17th and playing partner Wallace missed from four feet. But after Wallace also missed for birdie on the last, Kinhult holed from 12 feet to seal a remarkable win and secure the 500,000 first prize. Marcus Kinhult celebrates his winning putt on the 18th hole of his final round of the British Masters. (Richard Sellers/PA) Im speechless, I dont know what happened the last two holes, Kinhult said. I was behind Matt and he looked really solid but I birdied 17 and all of a sudden I had a putt to win its incredible. I have never felt that pressure before. Richie (Ramsay) gave me a good read so I just tried to do the same thing and holed it. Theres a lot going through my mind, a lot of emotions and I am just so happy that I managed to handle those pretty well. Its really special. I have been waiting for this moment for 20 years. Kinhult, who won the prestigious Lytham Trophy as an amateur but had missed his last four cuts on the European Tour, added: This game is so weird. Its small margins. My game felt okay but I just couldnt make a cut. I got off to a good start and just kept the momentum through the week. Manchester Uniteds disappointing season came to a fitting conclusion as relegated Cardiff went out with a bang, giving their former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plenty to think about. A campaign that started with the divisive Jose Mourinho ended with a shambolic 2-0 loss to a side relegated with a match to spare, leaving United an eye-watering 32 points behind Premier League champions Manchester City. Nathaniel Mendez-Laings brace was the difference as Cardiff beat United for the first time since 1960 quite the way for Neil Warnock to bow out in what he expects to be his last top-flight match as a manager. Cardiff fans had a day to remember at Old Trafford (Martin Rickett/PA) But as the visitors celebrated, ex-Bluebirds boss Solskjaer was left reeling on an afternoon that highlighted just why there will be personnel changes at Old Trafford this summer. United have regressed since the Norwegian started his reign in December with a 5-1 win in the Welsh capital, but there did appear to be a dollop of fortune about the decision that saw Mendez-Laing score from the penalty spot. Mason Greenwood, the 17-year-old who became Uniteds youngest Premier League starter, was the only positive in a poor first half that was compounded nine minutes after the restart by Mendez-Laing capitalising on dreadful defending to tap home. Mason Greenwood went close on his full Premier League debut (Martin Rickett/PA) There were boos from those left in the stands at full-time as Uniteds season ended without a win in six matches in all competitions, and just two victories from 12 games Those results highlight the need for change at Old Trafford this summer, on the field and behind the scenes, and saw United stumble home sixth, meaning their 2019-20 campaign could start in the Europa League on July 25. United had started well enough. Greenwoods movement and hunger in a fluid attacking role brought two early chances, while Andreas Pereira and Marcus Rashford also had attempts to score as the hosts dominated possession. As laps of appreciation go, this is pretty underwhelming. Cardiff fans making more noise than the remaining Man Utd supporters pic.twitter.com/v3PNCZF5D5 Simon Peach (@SimonPeach) May 12, 2019 But a lack of cutting edge and increasingly ragged play gave the visitors hope, with referee Jonathan Moss contentious decision to award a penalty against Diogo Dalot handing them a chance from the spot. Mendez-Laing dusted himself down to slot past David De Gea to send the travelling support wild. Youre getting sacked in the morning chanted the away fans as Solskjaers side went behind. Nathaniel Mendez-Laing scores from the spot (Martin Rickett/PA) The lead that was close to being cancelled out as Greenwood superbly made space before unleashing a deflected shot that Neil Etheridge touched on to the post. Greenwood hit the side-netting after Jesse Lingard tried his luck, but Cardiff were still proving an unsettling presence and De Gea did well to tip over a curling Josh Murphy effort. United looked disjointed out of possession and little better in it, leading to a smattering of boos at the half-time whistle. After all, this was just the fourth time that Cardiff had gone into a league game ahead at the break. Home fans left Old Trafford early (Martin Rickett/PA) Anthony Martial replaced Phil Jones at half-time and looked to have been brought down by Sean Morrison when through on goal, only for the officials to wave play on. The change saw Scott McTominay deployed as centre-back and it backfired nine minutes later as the midfielder failed to deal with a throw-in and Murphy nipped behind to square for Mendez-Laing to tap into an empty net. One angry United fan shouted for executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward to resign as the Bluebirds celebrated. Rashford, Martial, Paul Pogba, Greenwood and Lingard all tried to reduce the deficit, while Bobby Reid went close to a third for the visitors. Outgoing Cardiff midfielder Aron Gunnarsson got a touching send off when replaced, just as United skipper Antonio Valencia did when brought on for his final appearance in red. That improved the mood a touch, but this was to be an embarrassing loss that saw the hosts finish with the same gap to relegated Cardiff as they did to neighbours City. A mental health consultant has called on political leaders to restore the Assembly to tackle the rising suicide rate. Vivian McKinnon, the regional co-ordinator of Smart Recovery an organisation which provides assistance to individuals seeking help for addictions, has called on politicians to ensure funding reaches those in crisis. Ms McKinnon says since the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly two years ago, there has been a slow decay in public services across the country, with those most vulnerable being hit hardest. In the first 18 months without our devolved government, 463 people in Northern Ireland died by suicide, she said. Talks are under way to try and restore powersharing at Stormont (Niall Carson/PA) Over the past 20 years, suicide rates in Northern Ireland have substantially increased, particularly among men, and mental illness is the largest cause of ill health and disability across the province, higher than any other region in the UK. A study by Ulster University, commissioned by the Public Health Agency, noted there was a strong association between substance abuse and suicide, with half of those who died having made previous attempts or recorded as having suicidal thoughts, and 40% had been prescribed antidepressants. Campaigners say that Northern Irelands health service is already under pressure from lack of funding and further cuts, and that those who in need of support for addictions and mental health problems are being left without adequate treatment and support. Mental health researchers studying the rate of suicide in Northern Ireland say one theory is related to the trauma suffered by people during the Troubles. Medicating the symptoms does not provide a long-term solution, Ms McKinnon added. We need to identify the trauma and source of the pain. I have found that success comes from educating people on the power of choice and supporting them, giving them the skills to understand the way they have been programmed to behave and to show they have the power to transform their lives. The legacy of trauma results in those affected at that time experiencing difficulty in relationships with their own children and family, resulting in further trauma and mental health problems. We need a powerful government in place who prioritises mental health and suicide prevention and works to actively remedy factors which impact those issues, such as social deprivation. With 40% of people in Northern Ireland living with the symptoms of trauma, things will only get worse. Northern Ireland spends less than half per capita supporting people suffering with mental health issues than in England. Suicide rates in Northern Ireland are rising at a faster rate than the rest of the UK. According to a report by the Samaritans, overall suicide rates in the UK have increased by 3.8% since 2014. Suicide in Northern Ireland has increased by 18.5% during the same period. Northern Irelands powersharing institutions imploded in January 2017 amid a row over a botched green energy scheme. Hundreds of mothers, fathers and families with babies and children took to the streets to demand urgent action on climate change. Crowds of protesters carrying banners, flags and placards marched from Hyde Park Corner to Parliament Square as part of the Mothers Rise Up march in central London on Sunday. The march was led by 11 11-year-olds to represent the 11-year window to act on the climate emergency and accompanied by three giant prams with large globes sitting inside them, two painted like the earth and another painted brown as if scorched. Im too heartbroken to be angry, I need you to be angry on my behalf @RosamundFndn who lost her 9 year old #MothersRiseUp #mothersclimatemarch Shaparak Khorsandi (@ShappiKhorsandi) May 12, 2019 Elliott Powell was one of the youngsters leading the march and told the crowds sitting in Parliament Square he did not believe he had a future right now. He added: We need action now and its really distressing because the Government isnt helping. We need to act now before its too late. Picture of the Earth (Nasa/PA) TV presenter Konnie Huq, comedian Shappi Khorsandi and lawyer and activist Farhana Yamin also addressed the crowds at the rally. Ms Huq told the crowds that the march had been organised by mothers in between changing nappies and dropping children off. She added: The reason we are here is because of the youth strikes the young people have been putting us to shame and its time for us adults to take responsibility. Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter Ella suffered a fatal asthma attack believed to be linked to air pollution, told the crowds that her daughter had died a horrible death. Ms Kissi-Debrah added: If you deal with air pollution it means you will also deal with climate change. Everyone here needs to be bothered about the impact of air pollution. My daughter died a very, very horrible death. If you live near a man road you should be angry. Im too heartbroken to be angry. Mothers Rise Up co-founder Catherine Webb told the crowds that after seeing the youth strikes she felt like parents were failing their children. WE ARE RISING! Gathering outside the intercontinental hotel if you're arriving now. pic.twitter.com/mOKLtLPg1R Mothers Rise Up (@mothersriseup) May 12, 2019 The mother-of-two warned that people were sleepwalking towards a cliff with our babies in our arms. She added: We want what every mother, what every parent, wants: we want whats best for our kids. Similar marches were due to take place across the country and internationally, including Cyprus, the Netherlands, Spain, the Czech Republic and Australia. British teenager Lando Norris laid the blame for his crash with Lance Stroll firmly at the Canadians door. The 19-year-old McLaren driver collided with the Racing Point on lap 45 of Sundays 66-lap Spanish Grand Prix, sending Stroll into a gravel trap at Barcelonas Circuit de Catalunya. Norris was forced to stop on track with damage to his car, and although the rookie apologised to his team over the radio, he later clarified he did not feel responsible for the accident. I was saying sorry to my guys, definitely not to him, said Norris. It was his fault. He left me space for turn one, so he knew I was there. I dont know if he thought I had disappeared but he just cut across the front of my car at the next turn and took us both out of the race. I let the team down because I didnt finish. Sometimes I am too apologetic but I feel bad because everyone puts so much into the car and by not putting myself in a better position because of earlier mistakes, I ended up not being in the points and out of the race, so that is why I said sorry. Lando Norris has blamed Lance Stroll for their clash in the Spanish Grand Prix. (David Davies/PA) Norris and Stroll, whose career has been bankrolled by his fashion billionaire father Lawrence, now the owner of his sons team, were both hauled in front of the stewards. But no further action was taken after the stewards determined neither driver was wholly or predominantly to blame in their battle for 14th. On Saturday, Max Verstappen launched a foul-mouthed tirade against Stroll, labelling him a d*** for what he deemed as poor driving from the 20-year-old in practice. Asked if there was a growing feeling among the drivers that Stroll is becoming a liability, Norris replied: I havent raced him for long enough. This was my first time on track against him, so I dont want to comment on that. He didnt leave me enough room. I will wait to hear what he says. Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer felt Norris move on Stroll was over-optimistic and that his driver was taken out of the race. Defending himself, Stroll said: I braked on the inside while he was on the outside and then I had to turn in to make the left-hand corner. Unfortunately, there is not enough space for two cars and there was not much I could do. I felt contact on my rear and I was sent into the gravel. It was a tough weekend for the team so we just need to put it behind us and focus on bouncing back in Monaco. A man who was reported missing in Inverness has been found. Ranald Clark, 33, was reported missing after he left the citys Raigmore Hospital at about 4pm on Friday. Following an appeal for information, Police Scotland confirmed on Sunday that he has now been traced safe and well. The force said on Twitter: Police Scotland would like to thank everyone for their assistance in this enquiry. Killing Eve has triumphed at the TV Baftas, with its star Jodie Comer sheding tears as she was named best actress. Comer, 26, who plays assassin Villanelle in the hit thriller, shook off her cold, screen alter-ego to turn on the waterworks on stage. She beat co-star Sandra Oh who plays the operative on a mission to catch her to the gong. Thank you so much, Comer said. Sorry Im the only one whos turned on the waterworks. A HUGE congratulations to the wonderful @jodiecomer who picked up the BAFTA for Leading Actress for her role in Killing Eve, dedicating the award to her Nana #BAFTATV pic.twitter.com/ydd15JWJWJ BAFTA (@BAFTA) May 12, 2019 She dedicated the award to her grandmother, saying: Nana Frances sadly passed away on the first week of filming. She never got to see Villanelle, the life and soul of everything. Shed say you get it off me you know. I want to say Nana Frances, you were absolutely right all along. Comer, who revealed she spent years as a child watching the Baftas in her bedroom, also paid tribute to the shows creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge as well as Line Of Dutys Stephen Graham, a fellow Liverpudlian. If I didnt owe you a pint before I definitely do now, she said. Thank you for the generosity you showed me all those years ago. Killing Eve won best drama series, beating another BBC hit, Bodyguard. Waller-Bridge said: I cant speak its so unbelievably exciting. She added: Thanks for everyone for taking risks. Jodie Comer almost swallowed a wasp in Tuscany. Killing Eves Fiona Shaw won best supporting actress, beating Billie Piper, Keeley Hawes and Monica Dolan. The role was probably the greatest pleasure in my life, she said. Comedy thriller Killing Eve went into the awards leading the nominations, but not without controversy. Baftas rules say a programme must have premiered in the UK to be eligible, but the show first aired in the US on BBC America before coming to the UK. Bafta said there was significant creative contribution from key UK talent throughout the production and the television committee is the arbiter of all eligibility. Bodyguard had been its main opposition, but it had to make do with one gong the only award voted for by viewers Virgin Medias must-see moment. It claimed the prize for the death of Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes) in an explosion in the BBC One drama. The moment when Eve (Oh) stabs Villanelle (Comer) in Killing Eve, the Doctor Who episode on Rosa Parks, Peter Kays Car Share, The finale, and Queer Eye were all up for the award. #BAFTATV backstage winners' interview... Leading Actor, Benedict Cumberbatch for his role in 'Patrick Melrose' pic.twitter.com/8pEnl2kohz BAFTA (@BAFTA) May 12, 2019 Benedict Cumberbatch won the leading actor award for his role as Patrick Melrose in the Sky Atlantic drama of the same name. The actor, who received his first Bafta nomination in 2005, told the audience: Oh gosh, I think Im going to fall over, Im very used to being a bridesmaid not the bride. Ill keep it short because everyone probably does need to go to the bathroom. Backstage, he said: I really thought Hugh Grant was going to win. On stage, Cumberbatch paid tribute to his wife, saying: Youre my rock, I had to go pretty weird for this one and it was nice to come home and feel stable again. Its all right, Ive got one (an award) and Im going to bring it home. Funnyman Steve Coogan presented the award for leading actress. He quipped: When I was asked to present the leading actress award I was delighted because of course women are quite fashionable at the moment I realise this is the last award of the night so will keep this shorter than originally planned scroll down autocue. Female empowerment, blah blah blah humbled and privileged nah, nah nah. The Bafta goes to Jodie Comer. Piers Morgans hopes of a win were dashed by Cambridge Analytica Uncovered (Channel 4), which triumphed in the news coverage category. A camera panned to the Good Morning Britain presenter looking unimpressed. Good Morning Britain had two nominations, for On A Knife Edge and its Thomas Markle exclusive. Programme-makers thanked the undercover reporter who exposed what Cambridge Analytica were up to. We couldnt have done it without him or her, they said. Facebook are saying they are doing what they can to protect peoples data we still await to see if thats the case. Success! Congratulations Ben Whishaw on winning the Supporting Actor 2019 @BAFTA for A Very English Scandal.#BAFTATV pic.twitter.com/UN9mdvY3Yq BBC One (@BBCOne) May 12, 2019 Ben Whishaw won best supporting actor for A Very English Scandal. The actor was unable to attend the ceremony, with the award collected on his behalf by director Stephen Frears. The Royal Wedding: Prince Harry And Meghan Markle lost out in the live event category. The Royal British Legion Festival Of Remembrance, also on BBC One, won the gong. Huw Edwards, who presented the programme, paid tribute to the true heroes who won the award, that generation of men and women. BBC Threes Killed By My Debt won best single drama, beating Netflix show Bandersnatch Black Mirror. The drama was based on the true story of Jerome Rogers from south London, who took his own life at the age of 20 after accruing mounting debts sparked initially by traffic fines while working a zero-hours job. Programme-makers criticised bailiffs, calling them organised gangs extorting money from people who havent got it. Mr Rogerss brother, speaking on stage, criticised the gig economy in our nation and the unregulated bailiff industry leading a young man to take his own life before he reaches his own 21st birthday. He added: If one more person sees it (the show) because of tonight, its amazing. The Bros documentary lost out to Suffragettes With Lucy Worsley for specialist factual programme. Steve Pemberton won best male performance in a comedy programme for Inside No 9. The actor thanked his family and his mother, who he said would be screaming and dancing in the street. A new government department should be created in Northern Ireland to specifically deal with tackling sectarianism, an academic report has urged. Ending the scourge of religious bigotry should top any future executives priority list and must be given the same political focus as other key policy areas, such as economic development, the Ulster University study recommended. Progress can be better monitored if an accountable department takes ownership of the issue, the report said. As well as the executive department, the academic review also proposes establishing a new civic body to help shape community efforts toward reconciliation. The report also recommends setting up a fund to enable businesses to sponsor cross-community projects. A department focused on ending sectarianism would be held to account by the Stormont Assembly (Steve Parsons/PA) The study, which was commissioned by the Sir George Quigley Fund, also proposes the creation of a Youth Assembly to give young people a voice and says consideration should be given to lowering the voting age to 16. Penned by UU professor Duncan Morrow, the report does not suggest how the new executive department would be structured and whether the ministry would be allocated under the conventional dhondt process or, like the Stormont justice department, be filled by a politician that does not belong to either of the two main parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein. The proposals will be considered at a special conference in Belfast on Tuesday which will be addressed by a range of high-profile guests, including the US diplomat that brokered the Good Friday Agreement, Senator George Mitchell. Comedian Patrick Kielty, whose father was murdered during the Troubles, will also speak at the event. Politicians have been invited to attend, as have church, business and community leaders. Young people from across Northern Ireland will also join the audience at the UUs Belfast campus. Ronnie Kells, chair of the Sir George Quigley fund committee; Lady Moyra Quigley; and Professor Duncan Morrow, Ulster University. (Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye/PA). The report launch comes amid renewed efforts at Stormont to restore the powersharing institutions after more than two years without a functioning government. Professor Morrow said the recent murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Londonderry should focus minds on the need to act. The deeply tragic events of recent weeks sharpen the focus on just how dangerously close we remain to this residual threat, he said. The young people taking part reflect the hope and optimism that we all hold for Northern Ireland, but we have a duty of care and leadership to ensure that the expectation, aspiration and potential of the next and future generations is met and not stifled by sectarian polarisation. We hope that the reviews recommendations will make possible the step change needed. The Sir George Quigley Fund was set up by the Ulster Bank in honour of its former chairman. The leading civil servant and businessman was a strong advocate of initiatives to tackle sectarianism. Ronnie Kells, chair of the Quigley Fund committee, said: We acknowledge the extremely positive contribution made over the years by many individuals and organisations to address sectarianism, often working silently and unrecognised. Regrettably, sectarianism still lingers at the heart of our society and acts as a barrier to prosperity and as an insult to a civilised community. This scourge of several generations will persist unless resolute and sustained action is taken to address it. Everyone has a role to play in addressing this problem it is not the sole responsibility of government or the political parties in Northern Ireland. Civic society needs to work with them to ensure it is placed at the top of the public agenda alongside the economy as a key priority. We trust that our conference will help to establish the foundations for a credible solution driven by collegiate and concerted civic leadership and action. By Ben Blanchard BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) - China has glorious history of being open to the world and the country will only be more open, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, in his first public address since trade tensions with the United States spiked last week. Beijing and Washington are locked in an escalating trade war, with both countries levying tariffs on each other's imports. Just before Xi spoke the government reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April. China on Monday announced higher tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods, effective June 1, in retaliation for Washington's decision on Friday to raise its own levies on $200 billion in Chinese imports. Addressing a forum in Beijing organised by China's propaganda ministry, called the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations, Xi made no direct reference to the trade tensions, focusing instead on presenting China as a non-threatening country open to all. Chinese civilisation is an "open system" that has continuously had exchanges and learned from other cultures, including Buddhism, Marxism and Islam, Xi told the forum. "Today's China is not only China's China. It is Asia's China and the world's China. China in the future will take on an even more open stance to embrace the world," he added. No country can stand alone, Xi said, perhaps taking an indirect swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy. "Civilizations will lose vitality if countries go back to isolation and cut themselves off from the rest of the world," Xi added. "The people of Asian countries hope to distance themselves from being closed, and hope that all countries will adhere to the spirit of openness and promote policy communication, connectivity and smooth trade." Xi offered no new concrete measures to further open China up, aside from proposing an Asia tourism promotion plan, and even on that he gave no details. Officials have billed the forum as part of a soft power push to put a gentler face on China's growing might, though it only attracted a handful of foreign leaders to attend the opening session where Xi spoke, including the presidents of Greece, Sri Lanka and Singapore. China has faced pushback for some of its global ambitions, mainly in the West but especially in the United States, where there has been suspicion of Chinese technology, Xi's Belt and Road Initiative to re-create the Old Silk Road, and government-run Confucius Institutes to teach the Chinese language. China has also faced criticism for its tight cyber controls - though forum organisers unblocked the internet for foreign media - and for a controversial re-education campaign for Muslims in its restive far Western region of Xinjiang. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie) SOFIA, May 15 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Wednesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. -- Dessislava Taneva, member of ruling centre-right GERB party and head of the parliamentary commission of agriculture is nominated as agriculture minister after incumbent Rumen Porozhanov resigned. (24 Chasa, Trud, Monitor, Sega, Duma, Capital) -- Bulgaria has so far failed to agree with the United States on a price for the eight F-16 fighter jets, Defence Minister Krasimir Karakachanov said.(Sega, Duma) -- Volkswagen is expected to choose in October the location of a new multi-brand car plant in eastern Europe. The world's largest carmaker will be choosing between sites in Bulgaria and Turkey. (Sega, 24 Chasa, Duma) -- Bulgaria's leading telecoms operator Vivacom will be slated for sale by the end of the year, sources familiar with the process said. Vivacom's owners have already hired financial advisory Lazard for the deal. (Capital, 24 Chasa) -- About 70 percent of Bulgarian men aged between 18 and 34 years of age live with their parents, a new survey by Eurostat showed. (Sega, Trud) By Barbara Lewis LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Platinum group metals miner Tharisa is expanding into Zimbabwe with a drilling programme that could deliver results early next year and develop the company's exposure to battery minerals, its chief executive said on Wednesday. Tharisa is established in the Bushveld region of South Africa, where it is also investing in increasing platinum and chrome output, as it bets on continued consumption, despite expectations of reduced auto-sector demand. A major use for platinum and palladium is in reducing emissions from gasoline and diesel vehicles. The platinum industry also has its sights on the need for platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, especially for industrial trucks in remote places. "The world's parking lots are still dominated by internal combustion engines and will be for some time," CEO Phoevos Pouroulis said in an interview. Tharisa is nevertheless looking to diversify its chrome and platinum group metals portfolio with minerals likely to be in deficit in future. Expansion into the Great Dyke area of Zimbabwe, which is considered to have comparable resources to South Africa's Bushveld region, can help. "Tharisa already has some copper and nickel," Pouroulis said. "In Zimbabwe the component is materially larger in terms of copper and nickel and even a small amount of cobalt." Tharisa has exposure to Zimbabwe through its stake in the Pouroulis family's Cyprus-based Karo Resources. Pouroulis said the company had approval for drilling and could probably deliver initial results early next year. "On the ground, things are efficient and effective and we are pleasantly surprised," he said, when asked about political instability in Zimbabwe. In South Africa, redesign of the open pit and investment in equipment have eaten into first-half earnings, but the company said full-year output is on track, as is an expansion plan. Tharisa's platinum group metals output in the first half fell 12.2% compared with the same time a year earlier and chrome concentrate was down 16.2%, it said on Wednesday. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 44.4%. However, Tharisa generated free cash flow of $17.1 million and its interim dividend represented a 16% payout ratio. That demonstrated "the robustness of the business", Pouroulis said. "We were running at suboptimal levels and we still generated cash." Analysts agreed and the share price rose around 1 percent by 0835 GMT. BMO Capital Markets in a note reiterated its "outperform" rating and said it expected a stronger second half. (Reporting by Barbara Lewis; Editing by Dale Hudson) By Andrew Osborn and Polina Nikolskaya MOSCOW, May 15 (Reuters) - The Kremlin protested on Wednesday over the extradition from ex-Soviet Georgia to the United States of a Russian man accused of smuggling F-16 fighter jet manuals into Russia in breach of U.S. arms export law. Oleg Tishchenko, a software developer, was earlier this year extradited to the United States from Georgia, where he was reported to have been arrested on a U.S. warrant while attending a dance festival. Russian diplomats say he is now being held in a Utah jail ahead of his trial later this year. Tishchenko, 42, says he bought the F-16 fighter jet manuals on eBay in order to help develop an ultra-realistic flight simulator. He has been charged with five offences, including smuggling, conspiring against the United States, and violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, Russian diplomats say. He was also interested in obtaining manuals for other more advanced U.S. military aircraft such as the F-35 multi-role stealth fighter, according to an affidavit in support of the U.S. extradition request. The case is likely to worsen already poor U.S.-Russia relations which both Washington and Moscow have spoken of wanting to improve despite sharp differences over everything from Venezuela to Ukraine. The Russian Embassy in Washington said on Wednesday it was possible that Tishchenko had been set up by U.S. authorities. "There are signs in this case of a provocation by the U.S. intelligence services," it said in a statement. Asked about the case on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow was worried about the U.S. practice of having Russian nationals extradited from third countries like Georgia. Russia itself does not extradite its own citizens, a practice that is banned under the Russian constitution. "He's a Russian citizen," Peskov said of Tishchenko. "We are really worried and unhappy about the Americans carrying out such cross-border provocative actions towards Russian citizens. We are conveying our concerns and dissatisfaction to American colleagues at different levels." Russia will watch closely to ensure the United States properly observes Tishchenko's rights, Peskov said. Washington itself is unhappy about a number of U.S. citizens being detained in Russia. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue on Tuesday during talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The case of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine accused of espionage, and that of Michael Calvey, a U.S. investor accused of embezzlement, are of particular interest to U.S. authorities. Both men deny wrongdoing. Whelan is in pre-trial detention while Calvey has been freed on bail and placed under house arrest. (Writing by Andrew Osborn Editing by Mark Heinrich) By Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA, May 15 (Reuters) - Uganda said on Wednesday it had agreed to pay a higher tariff to use a pipeline planned to run through neighbouring Tanzania, boosting the prospects of a project vital for Uganda's nascent petroleum industry. Landlocked Uganda in 2016 picked a route for a pipeline through neighbouring Tanzania to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga to help export its crude. At a length of 1,445 kilometres, the project will cost $3.5 billion and has been described as the world's longest electrically-heated pipeline. Initially, Uganda said it had agreed with investors and Tanzania that it would pay a tariff of $12.2 for each barrel of crude shipped through the pipeline. But the investors, which include France's Total, later demanded a higher tariff, according to Ugandan officials, stalling negotiations over the project. The government has agreed to increase the tariff to $12.77 per barrel after further talks with the investors, Energy Minister Irene Muloni said in a statement on Wednesday. Total, China's CNOOC, and Britain's Tullow Oil jointly own the Ugandan fields and are also eyeing varying stakes in the pipeline. About two thirds of the project's cost will be financed by debt and a Ugandan unit of South Africa's Standard Bank Group and Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp are jointly helping raise the credit. Uganda discovered crude reserves, estimated at 6 billion barrels, more than ten years ago in fields near the border with Democratic Republic of Congo. The start of commercial production, which has been repeatedly delayed due to the lack of essential infrastructure such as an export pipeline, is now expected in 2022. Muloni also said some preliminary surveys in a new basin in Uganda's Karamoja region, a semi-arid area on the border with Kenya, had shown traces of oil. "The ministry is conducting geological, geochemical and geophysical mapping in Moroto-Kadam basin," she said. "Work done so far shows evidence of possible presence of a working petroleum system as demonstrated by the encountered oil seep." The emergence of a second oil region could transform Uganda into a significant player in Africa's oil industry, currently dominated by Nigeria and Angola. Investors in Uganda's planned refinery, including a subsidiary of General Electric, have embarked on the so called front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the project and hope to conclude it by the end of this year, Muloni said. (Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Mark Potter) By Pascale Denis and Dominique Vidalon PARIS, May 15 (Reuters) - French luxury department store chain Le Printemps plans to expand abroad and in e-commerce as it seeks to double sales to 3.5 billion euros ($3.9 billion) by 2030, it said on Wednesday. Chief Executive Paolo de Cesare told a news conference that Le Printemps would open a 30,000 square metre flagship store in Qatar's Doha and a 2,500 square metre one in Milan in the city's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele area in 2021. Five to 10 more store openings could later follow abroad "in unique and iconic locations, depending on opportunities," he said Le Printemps, owned by Qatari investors since 2013, also announced the acquisition of online designer furniture and lighting company Made in Design. It said it aimed to do about 25-30% of its business online by 2030, compared with 7% now. This is not the first time Le Printemps has ventured overseas. In the 1980s it opened stores in the Middle East and Asia, which it has since closed. The last store closed abroad was in Tokyo in 2017. This time, Le Printemps will manage the stores directly instead of using franchises. The group did not disclose the size of planned investments, but said they would significantly outpace the 700 million euros spent in the last ten years to upgrade stores in France and increase its luxury focus. French arch-rival Galeries Lafayette has been expanding abroad in recent years to target high spending shoppers in the Middle East and Asia. The Doha store will be Le Printemps's second largest after its flagship on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris at 45,000 square meters. Despite six months of anti-government "yellow vest" protests in France, Le Printemps saw a 3% rise in group sales for the year ended March 31. The Haussmann store is aiming for sales of 1.5-1.7 billion euros by 2030, compared with 1 billion euros currently. Le Printemps, which traces its roots back to 1865, has 19 stores and eight Citadium lifestyle stores in France, employing 3,000 people. ($1 = 0.8944 euros) (Reporting by Pascale Denis; Editing by Mark Potter) DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates sentenced three Lebanese men to jail on Wednesday but acquitted five others in a group accused of setting up a "terrorist cell" with links to Lebanon's Hezbollah, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Rights groups have said the men did not receive a fair trial and were held in solitary confinement for over a year. The eight defendants, all of whom are Shi'ite Muslims and have lived and worked in the UAE for more than 15 years, were arrested in late 2017 and early 2018. They were charged in February with establishing a cell linked to the heavily-armed Hezbollah group, backed by Shi'ite Iran. The UAE Federal Court sentenced one man to life imprisonment and two others to ten years each, Amnesty said. "The eight men were held in solitary confinement for over a year - this in itself can amount to torture. They were also denied access to their lawyers from the beginning of the trial; a number of the men claimed they had been tortured to sign so-called confessions but there have been no investigations into these claims," said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International's Middle East Research Director. "These details leave us with no confidence in the process that led to the conviction of the three men." The Emirati government did not respond immediately to a Reuters request for comment. UAE media, tightly controlled by the state, previously said the group were accused of plotting to bomb a "vital facility" in the oil-exporting Gulf state under Hezbollah orders. In 2016, the UAE along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait - all U.S.-allied Sunni Muslim states - declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization and warned any citizen or expatriate against any links to it. Later that year, a UAE court sentenced seven people to up to life in prison for setting up a Hezbollah-linked cell. The UAE is a tourism and trade hub for the Middle East, but tolerates little public criticism of its monarchy or policies and has been waging a war against political Islam. (Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday jailed six Lebanese men, four of them for life, for setting up a terrorist cell with links to Lebanon's Hezbollah, the state news agency WAM reported. The UAE Federal Court sentenced two of the six men to 10 years each in jail and acquitted five others, WAM said. The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait - all U.S.-allied Sunni Muslim states - classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 2016 and warned its citizens and resident expatriates against any links to it. The 11 defendants, all of them Shi'ite Muslims who have lived and worked in the UAE for more than 15 years, were arrested in late 2017 and early 2018. They were charged in February with establishing a cell linked to the Hezbollah group, backed by Shi'ite Iran. Rights groups have said the men did not receive a fair trial. Amnesty International said eight of them had been held in solitary confinement for more than a year, which can amount to torture. "They were also denied access to their lawyers from the beginning of the trial; a number of the men claimed they had been tortured to sign so-called confessions but there have been no investigations into these claims," said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International's Middle East Research Director. The Emirati government did not respond immediately to a Reuters request for comment. UAE media, tightly controlled by the state, previously said the group had been accused of plotting under Hezbollah orders to bomb a "vital facility" in the oil-exporting Gulf state. A UAE court sentenced seven people to up to life in prison in 2016 for setting up a Hezbollah-linked cell. The UAE is a tourism and trade hub for the Middle East, but tolerates little public criticism of its monarchy or policies and has been waging a war against political Islam. (Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Gareth Jones) By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Wednesday she is introducing a bill to toughen the U.S. military against future climate change damage and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions at certain bases in a little over 10 years. Three U.S. bases have suffered billions of dollars in damage from hurricanes and floods since last year. Repairs have been delayed at Air Force Base Tyndall in Florida and the branch's Offutt base in Nebraska as a disaster relief bill stalls in the U.S. Congress. "Climate change is real, it is worsening by the day, and it is undermining our military readiness," Warren said in a post on Medium about the bill. Warren's proposed legislation, called the Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act, pushes the Pentagon, the world's largest institutional consumer of energy, to achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and infrastructure by 2030. The goal could be met by cutting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide 100% or by offsetting them with investments in projects such as clean energy. Warren, who is seeking the nomination for the 2020 presidential election, has joined more than half of the crowded Democratic field in embracing the Green New Deal, which calls for an end to the use of U.S. fossil fuels within 10 years. While the U.S. military has warned that climate change is a threat multiplier that can damage bases and increase global competition for natural resources, the Trump administration has considered forming a panel to question the science used in those assessments. "Washington is ignoring it - and making it worse," Warren said about climate change. The bill would require the Pentagon to produce an annual report evaluating the climate vulnerability of U.S. military bases at home and abroad. It would funnel billions of dollars into a Defense Department 10-year research and development program on microgrids and advanced energy storage. Defense contractors would also be pressured to take action. The bill would ask contractors that have not achieved net zero carbon emissions to pay 1% of the value of contracts to fund investments in military infrastructure to make it more resilient against climate change, Warren said. "Let's save money by budgeting for climate change on the front end, so that the Pentagon doesn't have to ask for more only after a base is flooded or equipment damaged when natural disasters strike," Warren said. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner Editing by Bill Berkrot) Lets squarely state and face up to a couple of facts. First of all, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi, was an assassin, not a terrorist. Secondly, as of now, there is no such thing as Hindu terror. Nathuram Vinayak Godse was an assassin, not a terrorist. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) I am not saying that no Hindu was, is, or can ever be a terrorist. Hindus are human beings, after all. As are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, Sikhs, Communists, Jains, and people of other faiths, ideologies, and denominations. Each of these communities will have some amongst them who will susceptible to both brainwashing and programming, turning them into dangerous human bombs or missiles, capable of blowing themselves up and killing many of their fellow-human beings. A putrid myth There is hardly any convincing evidence of large-scale, concerted, or organised activity that we may call Hindu terror. Furthermore, it would be quite accurate to say that terrorism is not part of the Hindu religious, cultural, philosophical, social, or spiritual ethos. True, several Hindus became revolutionaries during the freedom struggle and a few were even called terrorists by the colonial administration. Terrorism is not part of Hinduism's ethos. (Source: Reuters) But in such cases, their violence was directed at specific targets, not at unarmed civilians or non-combatants. While British women and children were killed during the Great Revolt of 1857 most of these acts of brutality were aberrations. Similarly, the macabre dance of death during the Partition, as also the communal clashes thereafter, must be seen as instances of mob violence and mayhem, not as acts of terrorism. If I have stated these facts at such great length it is only to underscore the obvious. The tag of Hindu terror is a flimsy contrivance, if not an outright tissue of lies. Hindu terror is a bogeyman, a fake monster, created by those who wanted, at all costs, to prevent a Hindu consolidation of votes. Hindu terror is a fiend invented by those who want to delegitimise Hindus from seeking and holding on to power in India. It is meant to send the message that Hindus are not fit to rule or assume authority even though they constitute the majority in India. Above all, Hindu terror is designed to keep educated and secular Hindus from joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) by constantly demonising them. If so, why would a well-educated, highly talented and successful public figure such as Kamal Haasan persist in calling Godse a terrorist or using the fake tag of Hindu terror? Kamal Haasan is wrong in calling Godse a terrorist. (Source: Reuters) There can be only one reason: politics. Haasan, founder-president of the as yet unrecognised Makkal Needhi Maiam party, is only the latest of South Indian film stars to succumb to the lure of politics. He fired a loose volley of populist twaddle by proclaiming at a Sunday evening election meeting in Aravakurichi, Tamil Nadu, that free Indias first terrorist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. Politicising faith Apparently, Haasan, self-assumed great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi was seeking answers to Gandhi's assassination in 1948. Whether Haasan is an agnostic, atheist, or crypto-Christian, his remarks on Hindu terror in a Muslim dominated area were in poor taste. Isnt it obvious that Haasans motives were as clearly political as they were mischievous? We know that most religious terrorism in the last 20 years or so is associated with one faith community, Islam, albeit a small, radicalised, violent, armed Jihadi section of it. Yet, Haasan did not dare to name that group. Quite conveniently and ironically so, not only because they constituted a majority of his audience on Sunday, but because they had stopped the release of his films, demanded and enforced cuts, almost compelled him to leave the film industry not all that long ago. Haasan was not only pandering to their sentiments but deflecting from any responsibility on that community to own up to ideologies that might lead to or support terror, a recent and horrific instance of which were the Easter suicide bombings in Sri Lankan churches and hotels by Islamist jihadists. Why Haasans strictures and insinuations are obnoxious as they are unfounded is that he was not only being hypocritical, but playing the same dangerous game of minority appeasement that has cost not only the community in question but India so dear. By joining the dirty tricks department of the Congress Party and those who orchestrated this pernicious narrative of Hindu terror, Haasan has entered the ranks of the thoroughly exposed and discredited. Domino effect By adding his own name to the blacklist, Haasan has brought no honour to himself, nor goodwill to his fledgling political outfit. Instead, his using the tag of Hindu terror will cast aspersions and raise doubts both on his motives and his credentials. By calling Hindus terrorists, Kamal Haasan has led to speculations over his credentials. (Source: Reuters) There is bound to be another, even more costly fallout of his mendacity. Haasans flag-waving of Hindu terror just before the last phase of the 2019 Indian general elections will serve as a provocation to a section of Hindu voters who feel hurt and humiliated. The BJP is sure to take advantage of Haasans slip, stoking the sense of outrage and resentment of this section of the Hindus. Being falsely and maliciously targeted by their own co-religionists is never pleasant. The response of these Hindu voters to Haasans jibe is likely to be pressing a particular button in the election booth the sweet revenge of Hindus who feel wronged but dont wish to turn terrorist? (Courtesy of Mail Today) Also read: The manufactured myth of 'Hindu terror' Part 1 These are the opening lines of a piece about an Indian Prime Minister and no, it is not Narendra Modi. He drank heavily in his prime and still enjoys a nightly whiskey or two at 74. India's leader takes painkillers for his knees (which were replaced due to arthritis) and has trouble with his bladder, liver and his one remaining kidney. A taste for fried food and fatty sweets plays havoc with his cholesterol. He takes a three-hour snooze every afternoon on doctor's orders and is given to interminable silences, indecipherable ramblings and, not infrequently, falling asleep in meetings. In earlier Times: Quite a few issues of Time Magazine were based on Atal Bihari Vajpayee and were highly critical. (Source: Time Magazine) Yes, its a Time magazine story about Atal Bihari Vajpayee that created an even mightier furore in 2002 than the recent cover story for Times Asia edition on Narendra Modi titled Divider in Chief. In that piece, Time magazine questioned Vajpayees ability to control the nuclear button at a time of escalating hostility with Pakistan. The article, while describing the BJP as a "pro-Hindu" party "stuffed with extremists", also said: "The frail bachelor seems shaky and lost, less an aging sage than an ordinary old man. He forgets names, even of longtime colleague and current Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, and during several recent meetings, he appeared confused and inattentive. After a meeting with a Western Foreign Minister, his appearance was described by one attending diplomat as 'half dead'." Backlash and outrage: The recent Time, calling Modi Divider In Chief, didnt go down well with the BJP. (Source: India Today) The report also spoke about the erratic transformation of the man of peace into a hatemonger. The article mentioned Vajpayees conscientious outburst on the Gujarat riots and verbal reprimand of Modi in contrast to what he did just a week later. Vajpayee spoke at a public rally in Goa and TIME quoted the speech: "These days, militancy in the name of Islam leaves no room for tolerance. Wherever such Muslims live, they tend not to live in coexistence ... they want to spread their faith by resorting to terror and threats." Seventeen years ago too, hell broke loose in the BJP over this piece. There was no social media but there was government authority. Immigration authorities summoned the Delhi-based ''Time'' magazine reporter Alex Perry and questioned him over his British passport and documents allowing him to stay in India. He faced two rounds of questioning from officials of the Foreign Regional Registeration Office (FRRO) the first time for nearly 90-minutes. He was not deported but definitely harassed till the furor died down. The long hands of the state: Alex Perry, a Time Magazine reporter in Delhi, was questioned by the FRRO. (Source: Reuters) Aatish Taseer, the author of the Modi piece, lives outside India. Although I would categorise the Modi piece an example of lazy journalism, full of generalities but lacking in specifics, it hit the BJPs nerve in India. Taseer had every right to write it and come up with things that have already been stated about the current Prime Minister. The BJP could have ignored the article instead, but forced all of us to read it, by going ballistic over it. The party called a press conference to denounce the author, son of journalist Tavleen Singh, (a self-confessed Modi fan) and called him a Pakistani. This was a reference to his biological father, Salmaan Taseer, the assassinated Pakistani politician. You got it wrong: All we needed was a fact check on Aatish Taseer, Mr. Sambit Patra (Source: India Today) Aatish was apparently estranged from his father according to his own writings, and raised in India, although born in Britain. Sambit Patra could have done a fact check and found an article published by Wall Street Journal on July 1, 2016. The author is Aatish Taseer It is titled The Day I Got my Green card and the introduction says A London-born writer never felt he truly belonged in the places he and his family were from: India, Pakistan, Britain. In America, finally, he feels free and at home. The opening line of the article goes: Welcome home, sir, the immigration officer said when I presented him with my green card at John F. Kennedy Airport in May. Three very sweet words, and they made me smile: As a South Asian male, with a Muslim name, I had hardly ever before entered the U.S. without being carted off to secondary screening. Now, married to an American, I was entering for the first time as a permanent resident. No Stranger to History: Aatish Taseers mother is a supporter of Narendra Modi. He, for various reasons, is not. (Source: YouTube) I must conclude by asking why Indian politicians, especially those from the BJP, get so worked up over the Time Magazine? Far more critical pieces have recently been written by the Economist, Financial Times and the Guardian has never pulled its punches. Maybe these other publications are seen as too high-brow, esoteric or left wing (the Guardian, in particular), while Time is seen as an emblem of mainstream middle of the road opinion in the West. Incidentally, just to console the agitated fans of Modi, still smarting from the apparent insult, there was also a scathing piece in Time magazine about Manmohan Singh, when he was Prime Minister. That was titled Under Achiever, and the BJP brought up copies of it and circulated it very energetically. Given the context, the BJP meanwhile must learn to develop a thick skin to criticism in the foreign press and not compel Indians to start reading articles they would otherwise ignore. Also Read: Silence is Golden! Navjot Singh Sidhus vocal chords are reportedly damaged. Is it Karma doing its job? The 2019 elections in India are nearing an end with the last phase of polling just days away and results barely over a week away. Many pollsters are predicting a hung house with no party looking to be in a position to get an absolute majority. If that happens, either a BJP-led National Democratic Alliance would be able to form a government by forging post-poll alliances. In this case, Narendra Modi is likely to return as the Prime Minister. After May 23: Mayawati and Modi could emerge as top contenders for the PM's chair. (Source: Reuters) However, if the BJP fails to cobble up the numbers, chances are that Mayawati, whose Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded candidates on 38 seats as part of an alliance with Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, could emerge as a top contender for the PMs chair. The fact that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has already said he would support Mayawati as PM makes her task a bit easier. While the Congress could still come second after the BJP, most leaders have made it clear they would not accept Rahul Gandhi as PM. This makes Mayawati the most likely candidate to become PM of course, after Modi, post-May 23. This is how Modi and Mayawati compare as potential Prime Ministers: 1.). Economic development and jobs Mayawati has been a four-time chief minister of UP, one of which was a full term (May 2007-March 2012) with absolute majority. The BSP supremo spent much of her time famously enough building statues and parks with statues, including her own idols. Mayawati's tenure as UP CM was famous also for her statue-building initiatives. (Source: Reuters) On the other hand, it was Modis development initiatives undertaken as Gujarat chief minister, apart from his Hindutva appeal, which saw him become a popular PM choice for the BJP. While the Modi government has drawn tremendous criticism on the jobs front of late, India is also now pegged at among the top five among the most start-up-friendly nations. Modi definitely compares better than Mayawati on this front. 2.). Pakistan policy Mayawati has been a chief minister but never a Union minister. We do not know her take on Pakistan or her stance on terror sponsored by the neighbouring country. On the other hand, Modi has shown that when it comes to national security, he has a firm and unwavering stance. Parties such as the Congress, whose support Mayawati is likely to draw on to become PM, have been known to have a shaky policy in dealing with Pakistan. 3.). Law and order Mayawati is known to be a tough administrator. Under her, the law and order situation in UP, infamous till then for its badlands scenario, is known to have seen a significant improvement. It is likely that mob violence and incidents of communal lunchings, which have seen a significant rise in India of late, would be curtailed under Mayawati. However, since Modi would still be obliged to keep the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres happy if he wins, this in turn means that his response towards incidents of cow vigilantism would remain as muted as during the last five years. 4.). Crackdown on corruption Mayawati faces serious charges of amassing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income. The former UP CM, who hails from a modest background, reportedly owns several properties in Lucknow and Noida. She allegedly also holds properties worth several crores in Lutyens' Delhi. Eye of a storm: Mayawati has faced many charges of amassing disproportionate assets. (Source: PTI) According to the declaration made by her at the time of filing her nomination papers for the 2012 Rajya Sabha elections, her immovable properties, both residential and commercial in Lucknow and Delhi, cash in banks and jewellery stood reportedly at over Rs 111 crore. In contrast, no major case of corruption against Narendra Modi has been unearthed in the last five years. The allegations in the Rafale scam remain ambiguous and have failed to stick. Under Mayawati, corruption could be a major concern. Under Modi, it is likelier to remain under check. 5.). Hindutva politics If Modi returns to power, the Hindutva chorus is likely to grow louder, with the BJP claiming it as its vote bank and other parties clamouring to claim their share of it, just like we are seeing it play out currently. Hindutva could find much greater resonance if Modi returns as Prime Minister. (Source: Twitter/@BJP4India/Twitter) Mayawati is known to make it a point to hit out at Manuvaad in almost all her press briefings and rallies because Dalits continue to remain her core voters. Mayawati is thus likely to tone down the Hindutva narrative currently finding a lot of resonance across the country. Also read: Beyond 2019: If the BJP loses, how Narendra Modi could spend time (till 2024) 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. 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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 There is not enough analysis data for Pacific Coast Oil Trust. 3.6 Community Rank Outperform Votes Pacific Coast Oil Trust has received 206 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Pacific Coast Oil Trust has received 181 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Pacific Coast Oil Trust has received 53.23% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Pacific Coast Oil Trust and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe ROYT will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe ROYT will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next The following companies are subsidiares of Danaher: AB SCIEX, AB Sciex Germany GmbH, AB Sciex LLC, AB Sciex LP, AB Sciex Pte Ltd., Accu-Sort Systems, Acme Cleveland Corporation, Advanced Vision Technology, American Precision Industries, Applied Biosystems, Applitek NV, Aquatic Infomatics ULC, Aquatic Informatics, Armstrong Tools, BC Distribution BV, Beckman Coulter, Beckman Coulter Australia Pty Ltd, Beckman Coulter Biotechnology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Biyomedikal Urunler Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited [irketi], Beckman Coulter Canada LP, Beckman Coulter Commercial Enterprise (China) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter France S.A.S., Beckman Coulter G.m.b.H., Beckman Coulter Genomics Inc., Beckman Coulter Hong Kong Limited, Beckman Coulter Inc., Beckman Coulter India Private Limited, Beckman Coulter International SA, Beckman Coulter International Shanghai Trading Co., Beckman Coulter Ireland Inc., Beckman Coulter K.K., Beckman Coulter Korea Ltd., Beckman Coulter Laboratory Systems (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Limited Liability Company, Beckman Coulter Mishima KK, Beckman Coulter Nederland B.V., Beckman Coulter Nippon GK, Beckman Coulter S.L.U., Beckman Coulter Saudi Arabia Co.Ltd., Beckman Coulter Srl, Beckman Coulter Taiwan Inc., Beckman Coulter United Kingdom Limited, Beckman Coulter de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Beckman Coulter do Brasil Ltda., Beckman Finance ApS, Beckman Holdings Ltd., BioTector Analytical Systems Ltd, Biosafe S.A., Blue Software LLC, Cepheid, Cepheid AB, Cepheid Europe SAS, Cepheid GmbH, Cepheid HBDC SAS, Cepheid UK Ltd., ChemTreat, ChemTreat Inc., ChemTreat International Inc., Cispus Hong Kong Holding Limited, Cytiva, Cytiva BioProcess R&D AB, Cytiva Biotechnology (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Biotechnology (Hang Zhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Europe GmbH, Cytiva Sweden AB, Cytiva Sweden Holding AB, DH Europe Finance II Sarl, DH Europe Finance Sarl, DH Holding Italia SRL, DH Japan Finance Sarl, DH Life Sciences LLC, DH Netherlands BV, DH Technologies Development Pte Ltd., DHKAB Company AB, DTIL Ireland Holdings Ltd., Danaher (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Danaher Hong Kong Limited, Danaher Medical ApS, Delta Consolidated Industries, Devicore Medical Products Inc., Easco Hand Tools, Esko, Esko BV, Esko Finance BV, Esko Graphics BV, Esko Software BV, FHAB Company AB, Fluke, G. Lufft Mess- und Regeltechnik GmbH, GE Biopharma, Gelman Sciences Inc., Gendex, Genetix Group, Gilbarco Veeder Root, Gilzoni Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Austria GmbH & Co. KG, Global Life Sciences Solutions Germany GmbH, Global Life Sciences Solutions Korea Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Manufacturing UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions New Zealand, Global Life Sciences Solutions Operations UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions Singapore Pte Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions USA LLC, Global Life Sciences Technologies (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Global Life Sciences Technologies Japan KK, Hach Company, Hach Lange Finance GmbH, Hach Lange GmbH, Hach Lange Sarl, Hach Sales & Services Canada LP, Hach Ultra Japan KK, Hach Water Quality Analytical Instru. (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., HemoCue AB, HyClone Laboratories LLC, Hybritech Incorporated, Hyclone Life Sciences Solutions India Private Limited, IDBS Group, IRIS International, Imaging Sciences International, Immunotech SAS, Immunotech Sro, Intabio LLC, Integrated DNA Technologies, Integrated DNA Technologies BVBA, Integrated DNA Technologies Inc., Integrated DNA Technologies Pte. Ltd., Iris International Inc., Joslyn Holding Company LLC, KVHG GmbH, KaVo, KaVo Kerr, Kaltenbach & Voigt, Keithley Instruments, Kipp & Zonen BV, Kollmorgen, Labcyte Inc., Laetus, Leica Biosystems Imaging Inc., Leica Biosystems Melbourne Pty Ltd, Leica Biosystems Newcastle Limited, Leica Biosystems Nussloch GmbH, Leica Biosystems Richmond Inc., Leica Instruments (Singapore) Pte Limited, Leica Microsystems, Leica Microsystems (UK) Limited, Leica Microsystems CMS GmbH, Leica Microsystems Cambridge Limited, Leica Microsystems IR GmbH, Leica Microsystems Inc., Leica Microsystems Limited, Leica Microsystems Ltd. Shanghai, Leica Mikrosysteme Vertrieb GmbH, Life Sciences Holdings France SAS*, Lifschultz Industries, Linx Printing Technologies, Linx Printing Technologies Limited, MDS Analytical Technologies, Marconi Data Systems, McCrometer Inc., Microtest, Molecular Devices, Molecular Devices (Austria) GmbH, Molecular Devices LLC, Navman Wireless, Navman Wireless OEM Solutions, Nihon Pall Ltd., Nihon Pall Manufacturing Limited, Nobel Biocare, OTT Hydromet Corp, Pall, Pall (Canada) ULC, Pall (China) Co. Ltd., Pall (Schweiz) GmbH, Pall Aeropower Corporation, Pall Artelis BVBA, Pall Asia Holdings Inc., Pall Australia Pty. Ltd., Pall Austria Filter Ges.m.b.h, Pall Corporation, Pall Europe Limited, Pall Filtersystems GmbH, Pall Filtration Pte. Ltd., Pall Filtration and Separations Group Inc., Pall France SAS, Pall GmbH, Pall India Pvt. Ltd., Pall International Sarl, Pall Italia Srl, Pall Korea Ltd., Pall Life Sciences Belgium BV, Pall Life Sciences Puerto Rico LLC, Pall Manufacturing UK Limited, Pall Medistad BV, Pall Netherlands BV Irish Branch, Pall Technology UK Limited, PaloDEX, Pantone LLC, Pelton & Crane, Phenomenex, Phenomenex Inc., Precision NanoSystems, QHC Ireland Finance Limited, Radiometer, Radiometer Basel AG, Radiometer K.K., Radiometer Medical ApS, Radiometer Medical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Radiometer Turku Oy, Raytek, Reytek Corporation, SH Switzerland Finance Sarl, Sea-Bird Electronics Inc., SenDx Medical Inc., Shanghai AB Sciex Analytical Instrument Trading Co. Ltd., Sutron, Sybron Dental Specialties, TCIL Ireland Finance Ltd., Tektronix, Thomson Industries, Tianjin Bonna-Agela Technologies Co. Ltd., Trojan Technologies, Trojan Technologies Group ULC, VSS Monitoring, Videojet Do Brasil Comercio de Equipamentos Para Codificacao Industrial Ltda., Videojet Technologies (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Videojet Technologies Europe B.V., Videojet Technologies Inc., Viridor Waste Management Limited, Vision Systems Limited, Willett International, X-Ray Optical Systems Inc., X-Rite, X-Rite Europe GmbH, X-Rite Incorporated, X-Rite Switzerland GmbH, XOS, Yukon Hong Kong Holding Limited, and Zhuhai S.E.Z. Videojet Electronics Ltd.. The following companies are subsidiares of TransDigm Group: 1711 Waterview Pkwy LLC, ARA Deutschland GmbH, ARA Holding GmbH, Acme Aerospace, Adams Rite Aerospace GmbH, Adams Rite Aerospace Inc., Advanced Inflatable Products Limited, Aero-Instruments, AeroControlex Group Inc., Aerosonic, Aerosonic LLC, Air-Sea Survival Equipment Trustee Limited, Airborne Acquisition Inc., Airborne Global Inc., Airborne Holdings Inc., Airborne Systems, Airborne Systems Canada Ltd., Airborne Systems Group Limited, Airborne Systems Holdings Limited, Airborne Systems Limited, Airborne Systems NA Inc., Airborne Systems North America Inc., Airborne Systems North America of CA Inc., Airborne Systems North America of NJ Inc., Airborne Systems Pension Trust Limited, Airborne UK Acquisition Limited, Airborne UK Parent Limited, Aircraft Materials Limited, AmSafe, AmSafe Aviation (Chongqing) Ltd., AmSafe Bridport (Kunshan) Co. 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L. de C. V., Leach International UK Ltd, Leach Technology Group Inc., MarathonNorco Aerospace Inc., McKechnie Aerospace, McKechnie Aerospace (Europe) Ltd., McKechnie Aerospace DE Inc., McKechnie Aerospace DE LP, McKechnie Aerospace Holdings Inc., McKechnie Aerospace US LLC, Mecanismos de Matamoros S.A. de C.V., Militair Aviation Ltd., Norco, Nordisk Asia Pacific Limited, Nordisk Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Nordisk Aviation Products (Kunshan) Ltd., Nordisk Aviation Products AS, North Hills Signal Processing Corp., North Hills Signal Processing Overseas Corp., Norwich Aero Products Inc., Pascall Electronics Limited, Pexco Aerospace, Pexco Aerospace Inc., PneuDraulics, PneuDraulics Inc., Pressure Systems International Ltd, Racal Acoustics Inc., Racal Acoustics Limited, Rancho TransTechnology Corporation, Retainers Inc., SSP Industries, Schneller, Schneller Asia Pte. Ltd., Schneller LLC, Schneller S.A.R.L., Schroth Safety Products, ScioTeq LLC, ScioTeq Ltd., ScioTeq Pte. 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The following companies are subsidiares of BP: 200 PS Overseas Holdings Inc., 563916 Alberta Ltd., ACP (Malaysia) Inc., AE Cedar Creek Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Wind Farm LLC, AE Power Services LLC, AE Wind PartsCo LLC, AM/PM International Inc., ARCO, ARCO British International, ARCO British Limited, ARCO Coal Australia Inc., ARCO El-Djazair Holdings Inc., ARCO Environmental Remediation L.L.C., ARCO Exploration Inc., ARCO Gaviota Company, ARCO International Investments Inc., ARCO International Services Inc., ARCO Midcon LLC, ARCO Oil Company Nigeria Unlimited, ARCO Oman Inc, ARCO Resources Limited, ARCO Trinidad Exploration and Production Company Limited, ARCO Unimar Holdings LLC, Actomat B.V., Advance Petroleum Holdings Pty Ltd, Advance Petroleum Pty Ltd, Air BP Albania SHA, Air BP Brasil Ltda., Air BP Canada LLC, Air BP Croatia d.o.o., Air BP Finland Oy, Air BP Iceland, Air BP Limited, Air BP Norway AS, Air BP Sales Romania S.R.L., Air BP Sweden AB, Air Refuel Pty Ltd, Allgreen Pty Ltd, AmProp Finance Company, American Oil Company, Amoco (Fiddich) Limited, Amoco (U.K.) Exploration Company LLC., Amoco Bolivia Petroleum Company, Amoco Bolivia Services Company Inc., Amoco Canada International Holdings B.V., Amoco Capline Pipeline Company, Amoco Chemical (Europe) S.A., Amoco Chemicals (FSC) B.V., Amoco Cypress Pipeline Company, Amoco Destin Pipeline Company, Amoco Environmental Services Company, Amoco Exploration Holdings B.V., Amoco Guatemala Petroleum Company, Amoco International Finance Corporation, Amoco International Petroleum Company, Amoco Leasing Corporation, Amoco Louisiana Fractionator Company, Amoco MB Fractionation Company, Amoco MBF Company, Amoco Main Pass Gathering Company, Amoco Marketing Environmental Services Company, Amoco Netherlands Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Exploration Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Oil Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company Limited, Amoco Norway Oil Company, Amoco Oil Holding Company, Amoco Olefins Corporation, Amoco Overseas Exploration Company, Amoco Pipeline Asset Company, Amoco Pipeline Holding Company, Amoco Properties Incorporated, Amoco Remediation Management Services Corporation, Amoco Research Operating Company, Amoco Rio Grande Pipeline Company, Amoco Somalia Petroleum Company, Amoco Sulfur Recovery Company, Amoco Tri-States NGL Pipeline Company, Amoco Trinidad Gas B.V., Amoco U.K. Petroleum Limited, Amprop Illinois I Limited, Amprop Inc., Anaconda Arizona Inc., Arabian Production And Marketing Lubricants, Aral Aktiengesellschaft, Aral Luxembourg S.A., Aral Services Luxembourg Sarl, Aral Tankstellen Services Sarl, Arco Mediterraneo Inversiones S.L., Areas Noriega S.L., Areas Singulares Reyes S.L., Aspac Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Atlantic 2/3 UK Holdings Limited, Atlantic Richfield Company, Atlantic Richfield Companyd, Autino Holdings Limited, Autino Limited, Auwahi Wind Energy Holdings LLC, B2Mobility GmbH, BASS Management Pty Ltd, BP (Abu Dhabi) Limited, BP (Barbados) Holding SRL, BP (Barbican) Limited, BP (China) Holdings Limited, BP (China) Industrial Lubricants Limited, BP (GTA Mauritania) Finance Limited, BP (GTA Senegal) Finance Limited, BP (Gibraltar) Limited, BP (Guangzhou) Advanced Mobility Limited, BP (Hunan) Petroleum Company Limited, BP (Indian Agencies) Limited, BP (Shandong) Petroleum Co. Ltd, BP (Shanghai) Trading Limited, BP - Castrol (Thailand) Limited, BP AMI Leasing Inc., BP Absheron Limited, BP Advanced Mobility Limited, BP Africa Limited, BP Africa Oil Limited, BP Akaryakit Ortakligi, BP Alaska LNG LLC, BP Alternative Energy Holdings Limited, BP Alternative Energy Investments Limited, BP Alternative Energy North America Inc., BP Alternative Energy Trinidad and Tobago Limited, BP America Chembel Holding LLC, BP America Chemicals Company, BP America Foreign Investments Inc., BP America Inc, BP America Inc., BP America Limited, BP America Production Company, BP Amoco Chemical Company, BP Amoco Chemical Holding Company, BP Amoco Chemical Indonesia Limited, BP Amoco Chemical Malaysia Holding Company, BP Amoco Exploration (Faroes) Limited, BP Amoco Exploration (In Amenas) Limited, BP Andaman II Ltd, BP Angola (Block 18) B.V., BP Argentina Exploration Company, BP Argentina Holdings LLC, BP Aromatics Holdings Limited, BP Aromatics Limited, BP Asia Limited, BP Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BP Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, BP Australia Capital Markets Limited, BP Australia Employee Share Plan Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Group Pty Ltde, BP Australia Investments Pty Ltd, BP Australia Nominees Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Pty Ltd, BP Australia Shipping Pty Ltd, BP Australia Swaps Management Limited, BP Aviation A/S, BP Benevolent Fund Trustees Limited, BP Berau Ltd., BP Biocombustiveis S.A., BP Bioenergia Campina Verde Ltda., BP Bioenergia Ituiutaba Ltda., BP Bioenergia Itumbiara S.A., BP Bioenergia Tropical S.A., BP Biofuels Advanced Technology Inc., BP Biofuels Brazil Investments Limited, BP Biofuels Louisiana LLC, BP Biofuels North America LLC, BP Biofuels Trading Comercio Exportacao Ltda., BP Bomberai Ltd., BP Brasil Ltda., BP Brazil Tracking L.L.C., BP Bulwer Island Pty Ltd, BP Business Service Centre Asia Sdn Bhd, BP Business Service Centre KFT, BP CIV Pty Ltd, BP Canada Energy Development Company, BP Canada Energy Group ULC, BP Canada Energy Marketing Corp., BP Canada International Holdings B.V., BP Canada Investments Inc., BP Capellen Sarl, BP Capital Markets, BP Capital Markets America, BP Capital Markets America Inc., BP Capital Markets p.l.c., BP Car Fleet Limited, BP Caribbean Company, BP Castrol KK, BP Castrol Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Central Pipelines LLC, BP Chembel, BP Chemicals (Korea) Limited, BP Chemicals East China Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Limited, BP China Exploration and Production Company, BP Comercializadora de Energia Ltda., BP Commodities Trading Limited, BP Commodity Supply B.V., BP Company North America, BP Company North America Inc., BP Containment Response Limited, BP Containment Response System Holdings LLC, BP Continental Holdings Limited, BP Corporate Holdings, BP Corporate Holdings Limited, BP Corporation North America, BP Corporation North America Inc., BP D-B Pipeline Company LLC, BP D230 Limited, BP Danmark A/S, BP Developments Australia Pty. Ltd., BP Dogal Gaz Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, BP East Kalimantan CBM Limited, BP Eastern Mediterranean Limited, BP Egypt Company, BP Egypt East Delta Marine Corporation, BP Egypt East Tanka B.V., BP Egypt Production B.V., BP Egypt Ras El Barr B.V., BP Egypt West Mediterranean (Block B) B.V., BP Energy Asia Pte. Limited, BP Energy Colombia Limited, BP Energy Company, BP Energy Europe Limited, BP Energy Solutions B.V., BP Energy do Brasil Ltda., BP Energia Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., BP Espana S.A. Unipersonal, BP Estaciones y Servicios Energeticos Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, BP Europa SE, BP Exploracion de Venezuela S.A., BP Exploration & Production Inc., BP Exploration (Absheron) Limited, BP Exploration (Alaska), BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., BP Exploration (Algeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Alpha), BP Exploration (Alpha) Limited, BP Exploration (Angola), BP Exploration (Angola) Limited, BP Exploration (Azerbaijan), BP Exploration (Azerbaijan) Limited, BP Exploration (Canada) Limited, BP Exploration (Caspian Sea), BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited, BP Exploration (D230) Limited, BP Exploration (Delta), BP Exploration (Delta) Limited, BP Exploration (El Djazair) Limited, BP Exploration (Epsilon) Limited, BP Exploration (Gambia) Limited, BP Exploration (Greenland) Limited, BP Exploration (Madagascar) Limited, BP Exploration (Morocco) Limited, BP Exploration (Namibia) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria Finance) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Psi) Limited, BP Exploration (STP) Limited, BP Exploration (Shafag-Asiman) Limited, BP Exploration (Shah Deniz) Limited, BP Exploration (South Atlantic) Limited, BP Exploration (Xazar) Pte. Ltd., BP Exploration Angola (Kwanza Benguela) Limited, BP Exploration Argentina Limited, BP Exploration Australia Pty Ltd Level 15, BP Exploration Beta Limited, BP Exploration China Limited, BP Exploration Company (Middle East) Limited, BP Exploration Company Limited, BP Exploration Indonesia Limited, BP Exploration Libya Limited, BP Exploration Mexico Limited, BP Exploration Mexico S.A. De C.V., BP Exploration North Africa Limited, BP Exploration Operating Company, BP Exploration Operating Company Limited, BP Exploration Orinoco Limited, BP Exploration Personnel Company Limited, BP Exploration Peru Limited, BP Express Shopping Limited, BP Finance Australia Pty Ltd, BP Finance p.l.c., BP Foundation Incorporated, BP France, BP Fuels & Lubricants AS, BP Fuels Deutschland GmbH, BP GOM Logistics LLC, BP Gas & Power Investments Limited, BP Gas Europe S.A.U., BP Gas Marketing Limited, BP Gas Supply (Angola) LLC, BP Ghana Limited, BP Global Investments, BP Global Investments Limited, BP Global Investments Salalah & Co LLC, BP Global West Africa Limited, BP Greece Limited, BP Guangdong Limited, BP High Density Polyethylene - France, BP Holdings (Thailand) Limited, BP Holdings B.V., BP Holdings Canada, BP Holdings Canada Limited, BP Holdings International B.V., BP Holdings North America, BP Holdings North America Limited, BP Hong Kong Limited, BP India Private Limited, BP Indonesia Investment Limited, BP International, BP International Limited, BP International Services Company, BP Investment Management Limited, BP Investments Asia Limited, BP Iran Limited, BP Iraq N.V., BP Italia SpA, BP Japan K.K., BP Korea Limited, BP Kuwait Limited, BP LNG Shipping Limited, BP Latin America LLC, BP Latin America Upstream Services Inc., BP Lubricants KK, BP Lubricants USA Inc., BP Luxembourg S.A., BP Malaysia Holdings Sdn. Bhd., BP Management International B.V., BP Management Netherlands B.V., BP Marine Limited, BP Mariner Holding Company LLC, BP Maritime Services (Singapore) Pte. Limited, BP Marketing Egypt LLC, BP Mauritania Investments Limited, BP Mauritius Limited (in liquidation), BP Middle East Enterprises Corporation, BP Middle East LLC, BP Middle East Limited, BP Midstream Partners GP LLC, BP Midstream Partners Holdings LLC, BP Midstream Partners LP, BP Midwest Product Pipelines Holdings LLC, BP Mocambique Limitada, BP Mocambique Limited, BP Muturi Holdings B.V., BP Nederland Holdings BV, BP Netherlands Upstream B.V., BP New Ventures Middle East Limited, BP New Zealand Holdings Limited, BP New Zealand Share Scheme Limited, BP Nutrition Inc., BP Offshore Gathering Systems Inc., BP Offshore Pipelines Company LLC, BP Offshore Response Company LLC, BP Oil (Thailand) Limited, BP Oil Australia Pty Ltd, BP Oil Espana S.A., BP Oil Hellenic S.A., BP Oil International, BP Oil International Limited, BP Oil Kent Refinery Limited (in liquidation), BP Oil Llandarcy Refinery Limited, BP Oil Logistics UK Limited, BP Oil New Zealand Limited, BP Oil Pipeline Company, BP Oil Senegal S.A., BP Oil Shipping Company, BP Oil UK Limited, BP Oil Venezuela Limited, BP Oil Vietnam Limited, BP Oil Yemen Limited, BP Olex Fanal Mineralol GmbH, BP One Pipeline Company LLC, BP Pacific Investments Ltd, BP Pakistan (Badin) Inc., BP Pakistan Exploration and Production Inc., BP Pension Escrow Limited, BP Pension Trustees Limited, BP Pensions (Overseas) Limited, BP Pensions Limited, BP Petrochemicals India Investments Limited, BP Petroleo y Gas S.A., BP Petrolleri Anonim Sirketi, BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc., BP Pipelines (BTC) Limited, BP Pipelines (North America) Inc., BP Pipelines (SCP) Limited, BP Pipelines (TANAP) Limited, BP Pipelines TAP Limited, BP Polska Services Sp. z o.o. Ul., BP Portugal -Comercio de Combustiveis e Lubrificantes SA, BP Poseidon Limited, BP Products North America, BP Products North America Inc., BP Properties Limited, BP Raffinaderij Rotterdam B.V., BP Refinery (Kwinana) Proprietary Limited, BP Regional Australasia Holdings Pty Ltd, BP River Rouge Pipeline Company LLC, BP Russian Investments Limited, BP Russian Ventures Limited, BP SC Holdings LLC, BP Scale Up Factory Limited, BP Senegal Investments Limited, BP Services International Limited, BP Servicios de Combustibles S.A. de C.V., BP Servicios territoriales S.A., BP Shafag-Asiman Limited, BP Shipping Limited, BP Singapore Pte. Limited, BP Solar Energy North America LLC, BP Solar Espana S.A., BP Solar International Inc., BP Solar Pty Ltd, BP South America Holdings Ltd, BP Southern Africa Proprietary Limited, BP Southern Cone Company, BP Subsea Well Response (Brazil) Limited, BP Subsea Well Response Limited, BP Taiwan Marketing Limited, BP Technology Ventures Inc., BP Technology Ventures Limited, BP Train 2/3 Holding SRL, BP Transportation (Alaska) Inc., BP Trinidad Processing Limited, BP Trinidad and Tobago, BP Trinidad and Tobago LLC, BP Turkey Refining Limited, BP Two Pipeline Company LLC, BP UK Retained Holdings Limited, BP Venezuela Investments B.V., BP West Aru I Limited, BP West Aru II Limited, BP West Papua I Limited, BP West Papua III Limited, BP Wind Energy North America Inc., BP Wiriagar Ltd., BP World-Wide Technical Services Limited, BP Zhuhai Chemical Company Limited, BP+Amoco International Limited, BP-AIOC Exploration (TISA) LLC, BPA Investment Holding Company, BPNE International B.V., BPRY Caribbean Ventures LLC, BPX (Eagle Ford) Gathering LLC, BPX (KCS Resources) LLC, BPX (Karnes) Gathering LLC, BPX (Permian) Gathering LLC, BPX (WSF Operating) Inc., BPX Energy Inc., BPX Midstream LLC, BPX Operating Company, BPX Production Company, BPX Properties (GP) LLC, BPX Properties (LP) LLC, BPX Properties (NA) LP, BTC Pipeline Holding Company Limited, BXL Plastics Limitedv, Bahia de Bizkaia Electridad S.L., Baltimore Ennis Land Company Inc., Black Lake Pipe Line Company, Blueprint Power, Brian Jasper Nominees Pty Ltd, Britannic Energy Trading Limited, Britannic Investments Iraq Limited, Britannic Marketing Limited, Britannic Strategies Limited, Britannic Trading Limited, Britoil Limited, Burmah Castrol, Burmah Castrol Australia Pty Ltd, Burmah Castrol Holdings Inc., Burmah Castrol PLC, Burmah Castrol South Africa (Pty) Limited, Burmah Chile SpA, Butamax Advanced Biofuels, CASTROL Austria GmbHb, CH-Twenty Inc., CNAA, Cadman DBP Limited, Casitas Pipeline Company, Castrol (China) Limited, Castrol (Ireland) Limited, Castrol (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Castrol (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Castrol (Tianjin) Lubricants Co. Ltd., Castrol (U.K.) Limited, Castrol Australia Pty. Limited, Castrol B.V., Castrol BP Petco Limited Liability Company, Castrol Brasil Ltda., Castrol Caribbean & Central America Inc., Castrol Colombia Ltda., Castrol Del Peru S.A., Castrol Egypt Lubricants S.A.E., Castrol India Limited, Castrol Industrie und Service GmbH, Castrol KK, Castrol Limited, Castrol Lubricants RO S.R.L, Castrol Mexico S.A., Castrol Namibia (Pty) Limited, Castrol Offshore Limited, Castrol Pakistan (Private) Limited, Castrol Philippines Inc., Castrol Servicos Ltda., Castrol Ukraine LLC, Castrol Zimbabwe (Private) Limited, Centrel Pty Ltd, Charge Your Car Limitedc, Chargemaster, Chargemaster (Europe) GmbH, Chargemaster Limited, Charging Solutions Limited, Clarisse Holdings Pty Ltd, Coastwise Trading Company Inc., Consolidada de Energia y Lubricantes (CENERLUB) C.A., Conti Cross Keys Inn Inc., Coro Trading NZ Limited, Cuyama Pipeline Company, DHC Solvent Chemie GmbH, Dermody Developments Pty Ltd, Dermody Holdings Pty Ltd, Dermody Investments Pty Ltd, Dermody Petroleum Pty. Ltd., Dome Beaufort Petroleum Limited, Dome Wallis (1980) Limited Partnership, ECM Markets SA (Pty) Ltd, Elektromotive Limited, Elite Customer Solutions Pty Ltd, Elm Holdings Inc., Energy Global Investments (USA) Inc., Enstar LLC, Estacion de Servicio Alto Campoo S.L., Estacion de Servicio Ganzo 10 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Reocin 9 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Santillana II S.L., Estacion de Servicio Sardinero S.L., Estonian Aviation Fuelling Services, Europa Oil NZ Limited, Exomet Inc., Expandite Contract Services Limited, Exploration (Luderitz Basin) Limited, Exploration Service Company Limited, FWK (2017) Limited, FWK Holdings (2017) LTD, Finite Carbon, Flat Ridge 2 Holdings LLC, Flat Ridge Wind Energy LLC, Foseco Holding Inc., Foseco Holding International B.V., Foseco Inc., Fosroc Expandite Limited, Fotech Solutions Ltd, Fowler Ridge Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge I Land Investments LLC, Fowler Ridge II Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge III Wind Farm LLC, FreeBees B.V., Fuel & Retail Aviat ion Sweden AB, Fuelplane- Sociedade Abastecedora De Aeronaves Unipessoal Lda, GOAM 1 C.I S. A .S, Gardena Holdings Inc., Gelsenkirchen Raffinerie Netz GmbH, Grampian Aviation Fuelling Services Limited, Guangdong Investments Limited, Highlands Ethanol LLC, Hosteleria Noriega S.L., IGI Resources Inc., Insight Analytics Solutions Holdings Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions USA Inc., International Bunker Supplies Pty Ltd, Iraq Petroleum Company Limited, Jupiter Insurance Limited, Ken-Chas Reserve Company, Kenilworth Oil Company Limited, Kingbook Inversiones Socimi S.A., Latin Energy Argentina S.A., Lebanese Aviation Technical Services S.A.L., Limited Liability Company BP Toplivnaya Kompania, Limited liability company Setra Lubricants, Lubricants UK Limited, Lytt Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 1) Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 2) Limited, Manormaker GP Limited (99.90%) 11 Black Horse Lane, Mardi Gras Transportation System Company LLC, Markoil S.A., Masana Petroleum Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Mayaro Initiative for Private Enterprise Development, Mehoopany Holdings LLC, Mes Tecnologia En Servicios Y Energia S.A., Minza Pty. Ltd., Mountain City Remediation LLC, No. 1 Riverside Quay Proprietary Limited, Nordic Lubricants A/S, Nordic Lubricants AB, North America Funding Company, OMD87 Inc., OOO BP STL, Omega Oil Company, OnSight Analytics Solutions India Private Ltd., Open Energi, Orion Delaware Mountain Wind Farm LP, Orion Energy Holdings LLC, Orion Energy L.L.C.b, Orion Post Land Investments LLC, Oyambre 1 S.L., PRODUITS METALLURGIE DOITTAU, PT BP Petrochemicals, PT Castrol Indonesia, PT Castrol Manufacturing Indonesia, PT Jasatama Petroindo, Pacroy (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Peaks America Inc., Pearl River Delta Investments Limited, Petrocorner Retail S.L.U., Phoenix Petroleum Services Limited, Pozuelo 4 S.L., Prospect International C.A. (In liquidation), Puente Arce 4 S.L., Remediation Management Services Company, Richfield Oil Corporation, Rio Corvo 2 S.L., Rolling Thunder I Power Partners LLC, Romax Insight Korea Ltd., Ropemaker Deansgate Limited, Ropemaker Properties Limited, Ruhr Oel GmbH, Rusdene GSS Limited, SOFAST Limited, SRHP, Saturn Insurance Inc., Sherbino I Holdings LLC, Sherbino Mesa I Land Investments LLC, Sociedade de Promocao Imobiliaria Quinta do Loureiro SA, Societe de Gestion de Depots d'Hydrocarbures - GDH, South Texas Shale LLC, Southeast Texas Biofuels LLC, Southern Ridge Pipeline Holding Company, Southern Ridge Pipeline LP LLC, Sp/f Decision3 (GreenSteam) Company, Standard Oil Company, Standard Oil Company Inc., Standard Oil of Ohio, Stryde Limited, Sunrise Oil Sands Partnership, TISA Education Complex LLC, TJKK, Taradadis Pty. Ltd., Telcom General Corporation, Terre de Grace Partnership, The Anaconda Company, The BP Share Plans Trustees Limited, The Burmah Oil Company (Pakistan Trading) Limited, The Standard Oil Company, Thorntons, Toledo Refinery Holding Company LLC, Torrelavega 7 S.L., Union Texas International Corporation, Vastar Pipeline LLC, Veba Oel AG Veba Oel, Verenium, Viceroy Investments Limited, Villacarriedo 8 S.L., Warrenville Development Limited, Water Way Trading and Petroleum Services LLC, Welchem Inc., West Kimberley Fuels Pty Ltd, Westlake Houston Development LLC, Whiting Clean Energy Inc., Windpark Energy Nederland B.V., and Winwell Resources L.L.C. Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Read More Embraer SA engages in the design, manufacture, and sale of aircraft and its parts for commercial, defense, and executive aviation sectors. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Aviation, Defense and Security, Executive Jet Business, Service & Support and Others. The Commercial Aviation segment is involved in the development, production, and sale of commercial jets; and the provision of support services to regional aviation and aircraft leasing. The Defense and Security segment engages in research, development, production, modification, and support for defense and security aircrafts, as well as other integrated products and solutions including satellites and information and communication systems. The Executive Jet Business segment deals with the development, manufacture, and sale of executive jets. The Service & Support segment provides after-service solutions and support to its customers through a comprehensive portfolio of innovative and competitive solutions to ensure operational efficiency of products manufactured by Embraer and by other aircraft manufacturers, extending the useful life of commercial, executive and defense aircraft. The Others segment refers to Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Marsh & McLennan Companies: 8WORKS INC., 8WORKS LTD, A. Constantinidi & CIA. S.C., A.C.N. 000 951 146 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 001 572 961 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 076 935 683 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 102 322 574 Pty Limited, ACE Insurance Agents Limited, ACE Insurance Consultants Limited, ACE Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Limited, AD Corretora de Seguros, AFCO Premium Acceptance Inc., AFCO Premium Credit LLC, Access Equity Enhanced Fund GP LLC, Admiral Holdings Limited, Agnew Higgins Pickering & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd, Aldgate Investments Limited, Aldgate Trustees Ltd, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, Alpha Consultants Limited, Alta SA, Altius Real Assets (GP) LLC, Amal Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Anda Insurance Agencies Pte Ltd, AssetVal Pty Ltd, Assur Conseils Marsh S.A., Assurance Capital Corporation, Assurance Services Corporation, Australian Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Australian World Underwriters Pty Ltd., BBPS Limited, Barney & Barney Orange County LLC, Beaumonts (Leeds) Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Services Limited, Beneficios Integrales Oportunos SA, Benefitfocus Inc., Blue Marble Micro Limited, Blue Marble Microinsurance Inc., Bluefin, Bluefin Insurance Group Limited, Bluefin Insurance Services Limited, Boulder Claims LLC, Bowring (Bermuda) Investments Ltd., Bowring Marine Limited, Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd., Bowring Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Bowring Marsh Asia Pte. Ltd., Bowring Marsh Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Bowring Marsh Limited, Broderick Piller Pty Ltd, Broker 2 Broker Limited, BuildPay LLC, Burke Ford Trustees (Leicester) Limited, C.T. Bowring Limited, CMC-Belgibo NV, CPRM Limited, CPSG Partners LLC, Carpenter Marsh Fac Chile Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Carpenter Marsh Fac Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Carpenter Marsh Fac Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.C., Carpenter Marsh Fac Re LLC, Carpenter Turner Cyprus Ltd, Carpenter Turner S.A., Cascade International Holdings C.V., Cascade Regional Holdings Limited, Central Insurance Services Limited, Charter Risk Management Services LLC, Chartwell Healthcare Limited, Chronos Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Claims and Recovery Management (Australia) Pty Limited, Clark Thomson Insurance Brokers Limited, Client Provide Limited, Colombian Insurance Broking Wholesale Limited, Consultores 2020 C.A., Cronin & Co Insurance Services Limited, DVA - Deutsche Verkehrs-Assekuranz-Vermittlungs GmbH, Dawson Insurance, DeLima Marsh S.A. - Los Corredores de Seguros S.A., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Managing General Agency Corporation, Dovetail Technology Service India Private Limited, Draw Connect Limited, Draw Create Limited, Draw Group London Limited, Eagle & Crown Limited, Echelon Australia Pty Limited, Echelon Claims Consultants Sdn Bhd, Echelon New Zealand Limited, EnBW Versicherungs Vermittlung GmbH, Encompass Insurance Agency Pty Ltd., English Pension Trustees Limited, Epsilon (US) Insurance Company, Epsilon Insurance Company Ltd., Eustis Insurance & Benefits, Evolution Management Ltd, Exchange Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Exmoor Management Company Limited, Faulkner & Flynn LLC, Freedom Trust Services Limited, GC Genesis LLC, GCube Insurance Services Inc, GCube Underwriting Limited, Gama Consultores Associados Ltda., Gem Insurance Company Limited, Global Premium Finance Company, GrECo International Holding AG, Gracechurch Trustees Limited, Gresham Pension Trustees Limited, Group Promoters Pty Limited, Guy Carpenter & Cia (Mexico) S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter & Cia. S.A., Guy Carpenter & Co. Labuan Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company AB, Guy Carpenter & Company Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Guy Carpenter & Company Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH, Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd./Guy Carpenter & Compagnie Ltee, Guy Carpenter & Company Participacoes Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company Private Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Proprietary Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Pty. Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A. (Uruguay), Guy Carpenter & Company S.A.S., Guy Carpenter & Company S.r.l., Guy Carpenter (Middle East) Limited, Guy Carpenter Bermuda Ltd., Guy Carpenter Broking Inc., Guy Carpenter Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter Insurance Brokers (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Guy Carpenter Japan Inc., Guy Carpenter Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, HAPIP GP 2009 LLC, HAPIP GP LLC, HSBC Insurance Brokers International (Abu Dhabi) LLC (in liquidation), Hamilton Bond Limited, Hansen International Limited, Hayward Aviation Limited, INSIA Europe SE, INSIA SK s.r.o., INSIA a.s., INSURANCE BROKERS OF NIGERIA LIMITED, IRC Asia Insurance Brokers Limited, InSolutions Limited, Industrial Risks Protection Consultants, Ingeseg S. A., Ingeseg S.A., Insbrokers Ltda., InsurTech Alliance LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC [BAHRAIN BRANCH], Insure Direct - Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, International Catastrophe Insurance Managers LLC, International Loss Control Services Limited, International Risk Consultants (Asia) Limited, Invercol Limited, Irish Pensions Trust Limited, Isosceles Insurance (Barbados) Limited, Isosceles Insurance Company Limited, Isosceles Insurance Ltd, Isosceles PCC Limited, J&H Marsh & McLennan Limited, J.W. Terrill Benefit Administrators Inc., JI Holdings Limited, JIB Group Holdings Limited, JIB Group Limited, JIB Holdings (Pacific) Limited, JIB Overseas Holdings Limited, JIB UK Holdings Limited, JL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co. KG, JLM Verwaltungs GmbH, JLT (Insurance Brokers) Limited, JLT Actuaries and Consultants Limited, JLT Advisory Limited, JLT Affinity Colombia Solutions SAS, JLT Agencies Limited, JLT Asesorias Ltda, JLT Asia Holdings BV, JLT Asia Shared Services Sdn Bhd, JLT Belgibo, JLT Benefit Consultants Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Bermuda Ltd, JLT Brasil Holdings Participacoes Ltd, JLT Chile Holdings SpA, JLT Colombia Retail Limited, JLT Colombia Wholesale Limited, JLT Consultants & Actuaries Limited, JLT EB Holdings Limited, JLT EB Services Limited, JLT Employee Benefits Holding Company (PTY) LTD, JLT Employee Benefits SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Financial Planning Limited, JLT France Holdings, JLT Group Services Pty Limited, JLT Holdings (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Holdings (NZ) Limited, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers Private Limited, JLT Insurance Agencies Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited ( Shanghai Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Beijing Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Guangzhou Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers SA, JLT Insurance Group Holdings Ltd, JLT Insurance Management Malta Limited, JLT Intellectual Property Limited, JLT Intellectual Property [UK Branch], JLT Interactive Pte. Ltd., JLT Investment Management Limited, JLT LATAM (Southern Cone) Wholesale Limited, JLT Latin American Holdings Limited, JLT Life Assurance Brokers Limited, JLT Management Services Limited, JLT Marine (Pty) Ltd, JLT Mexico Holdings Limited, JLT Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., JLT Netherlands BV, JLT Norway AS, JLT PLA, JLT Pension Trustees Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Holdings Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Limited, JLT Peru Reinsurance Solutions Limited, JLT Peru Retail Limited, JLT Peru Wholesale Limited, JLT QFM Services Limited, JLT RE Brasil Administracao e Corretagem de Resseguros Ltda, JLT Re (French Branch), JLT Re (Northern Europe) AB, JLT Re Argentina Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.U., JLT Re Labuan Limited, JLT Re Limited, JLT Re Pty Ltd, JLT Reinsurance Brokers GmbH, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited [French Branch], JLT Risk Management Limited, JLT Risk Solutions AB, JLT Risk Solutions AB Branch - Germany, JLT SA IB Holdings Company (Pty) Limited, JLT SCK Affinity Administracao e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., JLT SCK Corretora e Administradora de Seguros, JLT Secretaries Limited, JLT Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerlii A.., JLT Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., JLT Specialty France, JLT Specialty Insurance Broker A/S, JLT Specialty Limited, JLT Specialty Limited [DUBAI BRANCH], JLT Specialty Pte. Ltd., JLT Towner Insurance Management (Anguilla) Limited, JLT Trust Services (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Trustees (Southern) Limited, JLT Trustees Limited, JLT UK Investment Holdings Limited, JLT Vantage Risk and Benefit Consulting Private Limited, JLT Wealth Management Limited, JLT do Brasil Corretagem de Seguros Ltda, JLTPCS Holdings Pte. Ltd., JMIB Holdings BV, JSL Securities Inc., Japan Affinity Marketing Inc., Jardine IBR Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (Proprietary) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Asia Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Canada Inc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited (UK Branch Office), Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Consultants Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc., Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Holdings Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Unlimited Company, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Korea Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited [Macao Branch], Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS (Dubai) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS SA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Sdn Bhd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Valencia y Iragorri Corredores de Seguros SA, Jardine Pension Trustees Ireland Limited, Jardine Risk Consulting Co. Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited [Macao Branch], Jardines PF- Consultoria Em Gestao De Risco Limitada, Jelf, Jelf Commercial Finance Limited, Jelf Financial Planning Limited, Jelf Insurance Brokers Limited, Jelf Limited, Jelf Risk Management Limited, Jelf Wellbeing Limited, John Lampier & Son Ltd, Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Limited, Johnson & Higgins Limited, KESSLER & CO AG, Kepler Associates Limited, Kessler & Co Inc., Kessler Consulting Inc., Kessler Prevoyance Inc., Key Underwriting Pty Limited, Kroll, Lambert Brothers Holdings Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Employee Benefits) Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Hong Kong) Ltd, Laterlife.com Limited (in liquidation), Lavaretus Underwriting AB, Lavaretus Underwriting AB (BRANCH - Denmark), Libra Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Lloyd & Partners Limited, Local Government Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Lomond Macdonald Limited, Lynch Insurance Brokers Limited, M&M Vehicle L.P., M.P. Bolshaw and Company Limited, MAG JLT SpA, MERCER ALTERNATIVES LIMITED, MM Risk Services Pty Ltd (for dissolution), MMA Mid-Atlantic Employee LLC, MMA Securities LLC, MMB Consultores S.A., MMC (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd., MMC 28 State Street Holdings Inc., MMC Borrower LLC, MMC Brazilian Holdings B.V., MMC Capital Inc., MMC Cascade Regional Holdings LLC, MMC FINANCE (EUROPE) LIMITED, MMC FINANCE HOLDINGS LTD, MMC Finance (Australia) Limited, MMC Finance (Singapore) Limited, MMC France Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., MMC GP III Inc., MMC Group Services sp. z o.o., MMC Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, MMC Holdings (New Zealand) ULC, MMC Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC International Finance (Barbados) SRL, MMC International Holdings LLC, MMC International Limited, MMC International Treasury Centre Limited, MMC Middle East Holdings Limited, MMC Poland Holdings B.V., MMC Realty Inc., MMC Regional Asia Holdings B.V., MMC Regional Caribbean Holdings Ltd., MMC Regional Europe Holdings B.V., MMC Regional LATAM Holdings B.V., MMC Securities (Europe) Limited, MMC Securities LLC, MMC Treasury Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC UK Group Limited, MMC UK Pension Fund Trustee Limited, MMOW Limited, MMRC LLC, MOW Holding LLC, MPIP III GP LLC, MPIP IV GP LLC, MPIP V GP LLC, MPIP VI GP LLC, Mangrove Insurance Europe PCC Limited, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC Limited, Manoel Management Services Ltd, Marchant McKechnie Insurance Brokers Limited, Marine Aviation & General (London) Limited, Marsh & McLennan (PNG) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agencies AS, Marsh & McLennan Agencies Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency A/S, Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, Marsh & McLennan Agency Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency Pty Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Argentina SA Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh & McLennan Colombia S.A., Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Funding Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Asia Pacific Treasury Center Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies BVBA/SPRL, Marsh & McLennan Companies Finance Center (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies France S.A.S., Marsh & McLennan Companies Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., Marsh & McLennan Companies Regional Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Services B.V., Marsh & McLennan Companies UK Limited, Marsh & McLennan Europe S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan GP I Inc., Marsh & McLennan Global Broking (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Holding GmbH, Marsh & McLennan Holdings (Canada) ULC, Marsh & McLennan Holdings Inc., Marsh & McLennan Incorporated (for dissolution), Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings II, Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Limited, Marsh & McLennan Insurance Services Limited, Marsh & McLennan Ireland Limited, Marsh & McLennan Management Services (Bermuda) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Risk Capital Holdings Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Servicios S.A. De C.V., Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Canada Limited, Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Corporation, Marsh (Bahrain) Company SPC, Marsh (Beijing) Risk Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Marsh (China) Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh (Insurance Brokers) LLP, Marsh (Insurance Services) Limited, Marsh (Malawi) Limited, Marsh (Middle East) Limited, Marsh (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh (Pty) Ltd, Marsh (Risk Consulting) LLP, Marsh (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Marsh A/S, Marsh AB, Marsh AG, Marsh AS, Marsh Advantage Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd, Marsh Advantage Insurance Pty Ltd., Marsh Africa (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Argentina S.R.L., Marsh Associates (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Austria G.m.b.H., Marsh Aviation Insurance Broking Pty Ltd (for dissolution), Marsh B.V., Marsh Botswana (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh Brockman y Schuh Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Marsh Broker Japan Inc., Marsh Broker de Asigurare-Reasigurare S.R.L., Marsh Brokers (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh Brokers Limited, Marsh Canada Limited/Marsh Canada Limitee, Marsh Company Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Compensation Technologies Administration (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Isle of Man Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Malta Limited, Marsh Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Marsh EOOD, Marsh Egypt LLC, Marsh Emirates Consultancy LLC, Marsh Emirates Insurance Brokerage LLC, Marsh Employee Benefits Limited, Marsh Employee Benefits Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd, Marsh Eurofinance B.V., Marsh Europe S.A., Marsh FJC International Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh For Insurance Services S.A.E., Marsh Franco Acra S.A., Marsh GSC Servicos e Administracao de Seguros Ltda., Marsh GmbH, Marsh Holding AB, Marsh Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Marsh India Insurance Brokers Private Limited, Marsh Insurance & Investments LLC, Marsh Insurance Brokers, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Macao) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Private) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers AO, Marsh Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh Insurance Consulting Saudi Arabia (in liquidation), Marsh Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers LLC, Marsh Intermediaries Inc., Marsh International Broking Holdings Limited, Marsh International Holdings II Inc., Marsh International Holdings Inc., Marsh Investment B.V., Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited, Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited (UK Branch), Marsh Ireland Holdings Limited, Marsh Israel (1999) Ltd., Marsh Israel (Holdings) Ltd., Marsh Israel Consultants Ltd., Marsh Israel Insurance Agency Ltd., Marsh Israel International Brokers Ltd. (in liquidation), Marsh JCS Inc., Marsh Japan Inc., Marsh Kft., Marsh Kindlustusmaakler AS, Marsh Korea Inc., Marsh LLC, Marsh LLC Insurance Brokers, Marsh LLC [Ukraine], Marsh Lda., Marsh Limited, Marsh Limited [Fiji], Marsh Limited [New Zealand], Marsh Limited [PNG], Marsh Ltd. [Wisconsin], Marsh Management Services (Bahamas) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Dublin) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Labuan) Limited, Marsh Management Services (MENA) Limited, Marsh Management Services (USVI) Ltd., Marsh Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Management Services Guernsey Limited, Marsh Management Services Inc., Marsh Management Services Isle of Man Limited, Marsh Management Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Marsh Management Services Malta Limited, Marsh Management Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., Marsh Management Services Sweden AB, Marsh Marine & Energy AB, Marsh Marine Nederland B.V., Marsh Medical Consulting GmbH, Marsh Mercer Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Marsh Nest Inc., Marsh Oman LLC, Marsh Oy, Marsh PB Co. Ltd., Marsh Philippines Inc., Marsh Privat A.I.E., Marsh Private Client Life Insurance Services, Marsh Pty. Ltd., Marsh Qatar LLC, Marsh RE S.A.C. Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh Rehder Consultoria S.A. (MRC), Marsh Rehder S.A. Corredores de Seguros, Marsh Resolutions Pty Limited, Marsh Risk Consulting B.V., Marsh Risk Consulting Limitada, Marsh Risk Consulting Ltda., Marsh Risk Consulting S.L., Marsh Risk Consulting Services S.r.L., Marsh Risk and Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd, Marsh S.A. Corredores De Seguros, Marsh S.A. Mediadores de Seguros, Marsh S.A.S., Marsh S.p.A., Marsh SA [Argentina], Marsh SA [Belgium], Marsh SA [Luxembourg], Marsh SA [Uruguay], Marsh SIA, Marsh Saldana Inc., Marsh Saudi Arabia Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Marsh Secretarial Services Limited, Marsh Semusa S.A., Marsh Services Limited, Marsh Services Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Marsh Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Szolgaltato Kft., Marsh Takaful Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Treasury Services (Dublin) Limited (in liquidation), Marsh Treasury Services Limited, Marsh Tunisia S.a.r.l., Marsh UK Limited, Marsh USA (India) Inc., Marsh USA Borrower LLC, Marsh USA Inc., Marsh Uganda Limited, Marsh Venezuela C.A. Sociedad de Corretaje de Seguros, Marsh Vietnam Insurance Broking Company Ltd, Marsh Zambia Limited, Marsh Zimbabwe Holdings (Private) Limited, Marsh d.o.o. Beograd, Marsh d.o.o. za posredovanje u osiguranju, Marsh for Insurance Services - Jordan, Marsh i-Connect (Pty) Ltd, Marsh s.r.o., Matthiessen Assurans AB, Mercer (Argentina) S.A., Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer (Austria) GmbH, Mercer (Belgium) SA-NV, Mercer (Canada) Limited/Mercer (Canada) Limitee, Mercer (China) Limited, Mercer (Colombia) Ltda., Mercer (Danmark) A/S, Mercer (Finland) OY, Mercer (France) SAS, Mercer (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer (Ireland) Limited, Mercer (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Mercer (N.Z.) Limited, Mercer (Nederland) B.V., Mercer (Norge) AS, Mercer (Polska) Sp.z o.o., Mercer (Portugal) Lda, Mercer (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer (Sweden) AB, Mercer (Taiwan) Ltd., Mercer (Thailand) Ltd., Mercer (US) Inc., Mercer Administration Services (Australia) Pty Limited, Mercer Africa Limited, Mercer Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Mercer Asesores de Seguros S.A., Mercer Asesores es Inversion Independientes S.A. de C.V., Mercer Broking Ltd., Mercer Career Unipessoal Lda, Mercer Consultation (Quebec) Ltee., Mercer Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Consulting (Chile) Limitada, Mercer Consulting (France) SAS, Mercer Consulting (India) Private Limited, Mercer Consulting B.V., Mercer Consulting Group Inc., Mercer Consulting Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Mercer Consulting Limited, Mercer Consulting Middle East Limited, Mercer Consulting S.L.U., Mercer Consulting Venezuela C.A., Mercer Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Mercer Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercer Danismanlik Anonim Sirketi, Mercer Deutschland GmbH, Mercer Employee Benefits - Medicacao de Seguros Unipessoal Lda., Mercer Employee Benefits Limited, Mercer Financial Advice (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Financial Services Limited, Mercer Financial Services Limited liability company, Mercer Financial Services Middle East Limited, Mercer Global Investments Europe Limited, Mercer Global Investments Management Limited, Mercer HR Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer HR Services LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Health & Benefits Administration LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, Mercer Holdings Inc., Mercer Holdings Inc. [Philippines], Mercer Human Resource Consulting Ltda, Mercer Human Resource Consulting S.A. de C.V., Mercer ICC Limited, Mercer Investment Consulting Limited, Mercer Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mercer Investment Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Investments (Australia) Limited, Mercer Investments (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer Investments (Japan) Ltd, Mercer Investments (New Zealand) Limited, Mercer Investments LLC, Mercer Ireland Holdings Limited, Mercer Italia Srl Socio Unico, Mercer Japan Ltd., Mercer Korea Co. Ltd., Mercer LLC, Mercer Limited, Mercer MC Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer Master Trustees Limited, Mercer Mauritius Ltd., Mercer Oliver Wyman Holding B.V., Mercer Outsourcing (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Outsourcing S.L.U., Mercer Pensionsfonds AG, Mercer Pensionsraadgivning A/S, Mercer Philippines Inc., Mercer Private Investment Partners IV General Partner S.a.r.l., Mercer Private Markets AG, Mercer Private Markets Advisers (US) AG, Mercer Services Poland Sp. z.o.o., Mercer Sigorta Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Mercer South Africa (Pty) Limited, Mercer Superannuation (Australia) Limited, Mercer Switzerland Inc., Mercer System Services LLC, Mercer Technology Acquisitions Limited, Mercer Treuhand GmbH, Mercer Trust Company LLC, Mercer Trustees Limited, Mercer WorkforcePro LLC, Mercury Insurance Services Pty Ltd, Moola Systems Limited, Mountlodge Limited, Muir Beddal (Zimbabwe) Limited, NERA Australia Pty. Ltd., NERA Economic Consulting GmbH, NERA Economic Consulting Limited, NERA S.R.L., NERA SAS, NERA UK Limited, NERA do Brasil Ltda. (for dissolution), National Economic Research Associates Inc., NetComp Insurance Corp., Neuburger Noble Lowndes GmbH, Normandy Reinsurance Company Limited, Northern Alliance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), OWL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co.KG, OWL Marine Verwaltungs GmbH, Oliver Wyman (Bermuda) Limited, Oliver Wyman (Hong Kong) Limited, Oliver Wyman AB, Oliver Wyman AG, Oliver Wyman Actuarial Consulting Inc., Oliver Wyman B.V., Oliver Wyman Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Oliver Wyman Consultoria em Estrategia de Negocios Ltda., Oliver Wyman Energy Consulting Limited, Oliver Wyman FZ-LLC, Oliver Wyman Group KK, Oliver Wyman Inc., Oliver Wyman LLC, Oliver Wyman Limited, Oliver Wyman Limited Liability Company, Oliver Wyman Limited/Oliver Wyman limitee, Oliver Wyman Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pte. Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pty. Ltd., Oliver Wyman S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman S.A.S., Oliver Wyman S.L., Oliver Wyman S.r.l., Oliver Wyman SNC, Oliver Wyman SPRL/BVBA, Oliver Wyman Sdn. Bhd., Oliver Wyman Services Limited, Oliver Wyman Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman sp. z o.o., Omega Indemnity (Bermuda) Limited, Organizacion Brockman y Schuh S.A. de C.V., Osbornes Insurances Oxford Limited (in liquidation), PFT Limited, PI Indemnity Company Designated Activity Company, PT JLT Reinsurance Brokers, PT Jardine Lloyd Thompson, PT Marsh Indonesia, PT Marsh Reinsurance Brokers Indonesia, PT Mercer Indonesia, PT Nexus Asia Pacific, PT Oliver Wyman Indonesia, PT Quantum Computing Services, PT Quantum Investments, PT Quantum Support Services, Pallas Marsh Servicos Ltda., Pavilion Alternatives Group (Singapore) PTE. Ltd, Pavilion Financial Corporation Holdings UK Limited, Pavilion U.S. Investments Holdco LLC, Pension Trustees Limited, Pensionsservice Benefit Network Sverige AB, Perils AG, Personal Pension Trustees Limited, Pet Animal Welfare Scheme Limited, Portsoken Trustees (No. 2) Limited, Portsoken Trustees Limited, Potomac Insurance Managers Inc., Premier Pension Trustees Limited, Premium Services Australia Pty Limited, Professional Claims Handling Limited (in liquidation), Profund Solutions Limited, Promerit AG, Promerit Hungary Kft, Promerit Schweiz AG, Pymetrics Inc., R G Ford Brokers Limited, R R B Beratungsgesellschaft fuer Altersversorgung mbh, R. Mees & Zoonen Holdings B.V., Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters LLC, Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters Limited, Resource Benefit Associates, Rightpath Reinsurance SPC Ltd., Risk Management Australia Pty Limited, Rivers Group Limited, Rockefeller Risk Advisors Inc., Rutherfoord International Inc., SAFCAR-Marsh, SBJ Holdings Limited, SCIB (Bermuda) Limited, SCM Global Real Estate Select GP LLC, SCM Infrastructure General Partner S.a r.l., SCM International Private Equity Select III GP LLC, SCM LT General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE II GP Ltd., SCM PE II Scotland GP Ltd, SCM Strategic Capital Management (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., SICAR Marsh S.a.r.l., SME Insurance Services Limited, Sail Insurance Company Limited, Scalene Re Ltd, Seabury & Smith Borrower LLC, Seabury & Smith LLC, Secure Limited, Sedgwick (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Consulting Group Limited, Sedgwick Dineen Group Limited, Sedgwick Financial Services Limited, Sedgwick Forbes Middle East Limited, Sedgwick Group, Sedgwick Group (Australia) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Group (Bermuda) Limited, Sedgwick Group (Zimbabwe) Limited, Sedgwick Group Limited, Sedgwick Internationaal B.V., Sedgwick Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Singapore) Pte Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes (UK) Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Group Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Limited, Sedgwick Overseas Investments Limited, Sedgwick Private Limited, Sedgwick Re Asia Pacific (Consultants) Pte Ltd (for dissolution), Sedgwick Trustees Limited, Sedgwick UK Risk Services Limited, Sedgwick Ulster Pension Trustees Limited, Settlement Trustees Limited, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Company Ltd., Shorewest Insurance Associates LLC, Sirota Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Sirota Consulting UK Limited, Smith Long Term Disability Management Group Inc., Societe d'Assurances et de Participation Guian SA, Software Underwriting Systems Limited (in liquidation), Southern Marine & Aviation Inc., Southern Marine & Aviation Underwriters Inc., Sudzucker Versicherungs-Vermittlungs GmbH, Sumitomo Life Insurance Agency America Inc., Sylvite Financial Services, TBX Solutions Limited, Talent Tech Labs LLC, The Benefit Express Holdings Limited, The Benefit Express Limited, The Carpenter Management Corporation, The Insurance Partnership Holdings Limited, The Insurance Partnership Services Limited, The Positive Ageing Company Limited, The Purple Partnership Limited, The Recovre Group Pty Ltd, Thomsons Online Benefits (HK) Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits Inc., Thomsons Online Benefits Limited, Thomsons Online Benefits Pte Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits S.R.L, Torrent Government Contracting Services LLC, Torrent Insurance Services LLC, Torrent Technologies, Torrent Technologies Inc., Tower Hill Limited, Tower Place Developments (West) Limited, Tower Place Developments Limited, U.T.E. AMG, U.T.E. Marsh - Caja Castilla La Mancha Junta de Comunidades, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus (in liquidation), U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus 2012, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Vila-Seca 2010, UAD BB Marsh Lietuva, Vezina & Associes Inc., Vezina Assurances Inc., Victor Insurance Europe B.V., Victor Insurance Holdings Inc., Victor Insurance Italia S.r.l., Victor Insurance Managers Inc., Victor Insurance Managers Inc./Gestionnaires d'assurance Victor inc., Victor O. Schinnerer & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd., Victor O. Schinnerer & Company Limited, Victoria Hall Company Limited, Wellnz Limited, William M. Mercer (Canada) Limited/William M. Mercer (Canada) Limitee, William M. Mercer AB, William M. Mercer Comercio Consultoria e Servicos Ltda., Wortham Insurance & Risk Management, everBe SAS, and realright GmbH. The following companies are subsidiares of Travelers Companies: 10762962 Canada Inc., 350 Market Street LLC, 8527512 Canada Inc., Aetna Life and Casualty Co, American Equity Insurance Company, American Equity Specialty Insurance Company, Aprilgrange Limited, Arch Street North LLC, Auto Hartford Investments LLC, Bayhill Restaurant II Associates, Camperdown Corporation, Constitution State Services LLC, Discover Property & Casualty Insurance Company, Discover Specialty Insurance Company, F&G UK Underwriters Limited, Farmington Casualty Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Underwriters Inc., First Floridian Auto and Home Insurance Company, Gulf Underwriters Insurance Company, IHP Capital Partners Fund VIII L.P., Northbrook Holdings Inc., Northfield Insurance Company, Northland Casualty Company, Northland Insurance Company, Phoenix UK Investments LLC, SPC Insurance Agency Inc., Select Insurance Company, Simply Business Holdings Inc., Simply Business Inc., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company, St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company, St. Paul Protective Insurance Company, St. Paul Surplus Lines Insurance Company, Standard Fire Properties LLC, Standard Fire UK Investments LLC, TCI Global Services Inc., TPC Investments Inc., TPC U.K. Investments LLC, The Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford Connecticut, The Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, The Family Business Institute LLC, The Phoenix Insurance Company, The St. Paul Companies Inc., The Standard Fire Insurance Company, The Travelers Casualty Company, The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company of America, The Travelers Indemnity Company of Connecticut, The Travelers Lloyds Insurance Company, TravCo Insurance Company, Travelers (Bermuda) Limited, Travelers Brazil Acquisition LLC, Travelers Brazil Holding LLC, Travelers Casualty Company of Connecticut, Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, Travelers Casualty UK Investments LLC, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of Europe Limited, Travelers Commercial Casualty Company, Travelers Commercial Insurance Company, Travelers Constitution State Insurance Company, Travelers Distribution Alliance Inc., Travelers Excess and Surplus Lines Company, Travelers Global Inc., Travelers Indemnity U.K. Investments LLC, Travelers Insurance Company Limited, Travelers Insurance Company of Canada, Travelers Insurance Designated Activity Company, Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc., Travelers Lloyds of Texas Insurance Company, Travelers London Limited, Travelers MGA Inc., Travelers Management Limited, Travelers Marine LLC, Travelers Participacoes em Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Personal Insurance Company, Travelers Personal Security Insurance Company, Travelers Property Casualty Company of America, Travelers Property Casualty Corp., Travelers Property Casualty Insurance Company, Travelers Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Syndicate Management Limited, Travelers Texas MGA Inc., Travelers Underwriting Agency Limited, Ultramar Travel Management, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, Xbridge Limited, Zensurance Brokers Inc., and Zensurance Inc.. Deep in the troop ship USNS Gen. Nelson M. Walker, young soldiers and Marines heading to Vietnam were armed only with felt-tip markers, and the only enemies theyd encountered so far were seasickness, homesickness and boredom. A three-week voyage between home and war provides a long time to think, and many of the service members who traveled on the Walker in 1966 and 1967 whiled away the time doodling and writing on their canvas bunks. Three decades later, visitors Art and Lee Beltrone recognized the historical value of these scribbles and sketches and launched a preservation project to save them. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, the Keswick husband-and-wife team will be donating the films of their Vietnam Graffiti Project efforts to the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper. The free screening event also will include discussion time with some of the veterans who left graffiti behind on their way to Vietnam. ROANOKE The names of two Roanoke attorneys have been sent to the White House for consideration as the next U.S. Attorney for Western Virginia. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Jake Jacobsen and attorney Thomas Cullen were both recommended Friday by Virginias two U.S. Senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. Under normal protocol, President Donald Trump would nominate a candidate who would then go to the Senate for confirmation. But its unclear if the Republican president will confine his choices to those submitted by the two Democratic senators. A separate list of four candidates reported to be Jacobsen and Cullen along with Grundy attorney Tom Scott and Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Tracci has also been submitted to the White House by the regions Republican congressional delegation. Jacobsen, a career federal and state prosecutor, is currently the deputy criminal chief for the Roanoke-based U.S. Attorneys Office, which prosecutes federal offenses in a large swath of Virginia that extends from Winchester south to Danville and all the way west to Lee County. ARLINGTON Almost 100 years after Confederate sympathizers named a major Virginia road after the president of their lost cause, Arlington County won approval from a state transportation board to rename Jefferson Davis Highway. The Commonwealth Transportation Board voted unanimously Wednesday morning to allow Arlington to change the name of the road commonly known as Route 1 to Richmond Highway by Oct. 1, after lobbying by the county, legislators, business and residential groups and Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat. "What we just heard, through the unanimous vote and the words of the governor, is it's past time," said Christian Dorsey, a Democrat and chair of the County Board. He added later that the street signs would be changed no later than Oct. 1. The county has tried for years to change the road's name, but has been stymied by the General Assembly, which held the power to block requests made by counties, officials believed. But Del. Mark Levine, D-Alexandria, found an exception that allowed the statewide transportation board to act, if requested by the county. Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, agreed in an informal opinion in March, and one month later Arlington made the formal request. Business owners told the board Wednesday that having addresses on Jefferson Davis Highway cost them customers, including the loss of a convention at the hotel where the meeting was held. Other potential tenants have refused to rent space in buildings with a Jefferson Davis address, a Chamber of Commerce executive said. In addition, Google Maps and other online navigational sites, have already started calling the road "Richmond Highway." JBG Smith, the major landlord and developer of Crystal City, and the Crystal City Civic Association also strongly supported the name change. The road runs right through the neighborhood where Amazon plans to settle over the next 10 years, although there was no public statement about the name change from the Seattle-based company. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Stacey Stewart, president of the March of Dimes, which relocated to Arlington late last year, said the highway's name is "divisive and a daily reminder of our nation's dark and shameful history ... a painful and oppressive past." She, like others, said the Confederate president's name does not reflect the region's values. The road was named in 1922, part of an effort by the Daughters of the Confederacy as a "direct and antagonistic response" to the establishment of Lincoln Highway across the northern states, Dorsey said. Davis, a Mississippi congressman before the Southern states seceded in 1861, had no known connection to Northern Virginia. He was accused of treason after the Civil War and was imprisoned but was released without trial. The name was established to "terrorize" African Americans, Levine said. "Let's not forget that Virginia was the birthplace of slavery," he added. The city of Alexandria renamed its portion of the road in 2018, choosing the moniker Richmond Highway because that's what it is called to the south, in Fairfax County. The Arlington portion of U.S. 1 and Virginia 110 will bear the new name, the transportation board decided. The motion sailed through with only a hint of opposition, when board member Bert Dodson of Lynchburg asked whether the board would be "overrun" with name change requests. Secretary of Transportation Shannon Valentine, who chairs the board, said that will be dealt with later. RICHMOND A federal judge on Tuesday vacated his own order to allow non-doctors to perform most abortions in Virginia, saying the issue should be decided in an upcoming trial. A week ago, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson agreed with abortion rights groups that first-trimester abortions are simple and safe enough to be performed without a physician. Granting a motion for summary judgment, he found that a Virginia law that requires doctors to perform the procedure "unduly burdensome" and therefore unconstitutional. It was the first time a federal judge anywhere in the country had come to that conclusion. And he had second thoughts. "On further review, the Court is of the opinion that summary judgment was improvidently awarded," he wrote Tuesday. "Rather, on further consideration, whether the 'Physicians-Only Law' presents an undue burden to Virginia women who seek an abortion is a material fact that is genuinely in dispute." Both sides will have the opportunity make the case for or against the requirement when it goes to trial in Richmond next week. He said Americans are angry because they keep sending people who are supposed to change things and nothing gets changed. He sketched out his plans for illegal immigrants, saying he would not allow a path to citizenship. Carson said he would scrap a number of President Barack Obamas executive orders and that he would go after the Islamic State. On the Iran nuclear deal, Carson said: Not only was it a horrible deal, but the U.S. turned its back on its friends in the Middle East. On health care, Carson said he would scrap the Affordable Care Act and set up health empowerment accounts that give people the ability to control their spending on coverage. He said they would be just like a health savings account without the bureaucrats. Carson also told about his childhood in Detroit and how his mother, who had a third-grade education, made her children turn off the TV set, read books from the public library and submit to her book reports. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, trying to move past his admission that he wore blackface at a party when he was 19, told a gathering of African American leaders that Virginia needs to reckon with its painful history around race. At Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Leesburg, Virginia, on Thursday night, Herring shared strategies to attract more judges of color, to eliminate Confederate symbols from public spaces and to reduce hate crimes. "Virginia has to deal more honestly with its past," the Democrat told a crowd of about 50, which was billed as an interfaith gathering and also included Jewish and Muslim leaders. He recited the state's role in slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. "We also have to seek out and take advantage of opportunities to tell the history of African Americans in our Commonwealth; the many things that African Americans have voluntarily and involuntarily accomplished, built and contributed," Herring said. The discussion was part of an effort by Herring to restore credibility with African Americans in the wake of his blackface admission, which came in February, days after a racist photo on the medical school yearbook page of Gov. Ralph Northam , D, was made public. When its May in Charlottesville, its time to matriculate. University of Virginia students will celebrate academic accomplishments this weekend with a variety of events leading up to and following ceremonial walks down the Lawn as part of the annual rites of graduation. The events will help fill area hotel rooms and restaurants with friends and family of the 7,090 students who are receiving diplomas. UVa graduation is a real boon to Charlottesvilles local economy, said Adam Healey, interim director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau. Its perhaps the busiest weekend of the year, as hotel occupancy maxes out and guests dine in our fantastic restaurants, take in our local attractions and visit our 35 award-winning wineries located within 20 minutes of downtown, he said. Thank you, UVa! Healeys words are borne out by the reserved rooms in local lodging establishments. Paytm with interests in e-wallets and e-commerce has 300 million users. (Photo: Representational Image) New Delhi: Seeking to increase its penetration, American lender Citi has tied up with Paytm to launch a co-branded credit card with a slew of incentives. Citi is already one of the largest credit card issuers in India with over 2.7 million cards in March 2019, while Paytm with interests in e-wallets and e-commerce has 300 million users. "Within that population (of 300 million), even if we take one per cent of that population (for the card), that is 3 million customers. We think there is tremendous potential for growth of this partnership," Citi's Chief Executive (Global Consumer Banking) Stephen Bird told reporters here. Paytm Chairman and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma declined to spell out a formal target which the partners are aiming for with the new offering. Both the partners have jointly developed a tool through which Paytm will be able to identify a potential base of customers who will be interested for a card and also meet credit requirements for the unsecured product. Last week, the State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders to Jet Airways said it has received bids from Etihad Airways and from a few unsolicited parties. (Photo: PTI/File) Mumbai: Officials of Darwin Platform Group of Companies and SBI Caps on Wednesday held discussions on the Group's unsolicited bid for crisis-hit Jet Airways. Darwin Platform Group, which has investments across various sectors including oil and gas, hospitality and realty, among others has offered Rs 14,000 crore to acquire the grounded airline, its CEO Rahul Ganpule said. The Group had participated in expression of interest (EoI) and also submitted its financial bid on May 8, he said. "They (SBI Caps) had called us. We wanted to understand the liability and assets of Jet Airways," Ganpule told reporters after the meeting. He said the Group had done due diligence before submitting the financial bids but wanted some more details which were not publicly available. Ganpule said there is limited information available about the airline in Registrar of Companies and other public sources, and has requested SBI Caps to provide more details about the actual liability of the airline. "The solicited bidders have been given access to the actual information but unsolicited bidders do not have," Ganpule said adding that access to data will only be given after a decision from consortium of lenders. He said the Rs 14,000-crore offer made by the Group is to take over the entire liabilities of the grounded airline. Last week, the State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders to Jet Airways said it has received bids from Etihad Airways and from a few unsolicited parties to acquire stake in the troubled airline. The bids were examined by the lenders on Monday and they reportedly found Etihad's bid conditional. The consortium of seven lenders, which owns 51 per cent in the airline, had invited EoI between April 8 and 12 and had received four preliminary bids. The last date to submit financial bids was May 10. The lenders who are offering 31.2-75 per cent stake in the airline, have mandated SBI Caps for the stake sale process. The airline ceased its operation on April 17 due to acute financial crisis. Private equity firms IndiGo Partners and TPG, Etihad Airways and the sovereign fund NIIF were shortlisted on April 12 after the first round of bidding. The airline owes more than Rs 8,000 crore to the consortium of lenders. Shares of RITES were trading at Rs 233.95, down 3.61 per cent on the BSE. New Delhi: The government is planning to divest up to 15 per cent stake in railway PSU RITES through an offer for sale (OFS), which could fetch around Rs 700 crore to the exchequer. Railways consultancy firm RITES got listed on the bourse in July 2018 after it raised about Rs 466 crore through an initial public offering (IPO), which got subscribed 67 times. The stock got listed at Rs 190 on the bourses, against the issue price of Rs 185. "The Government of India is considering to divest 15 per cent paid up equity share capital of RITES out of its shareholding of 87.40 per cent in the domestic market through OFS of shares by promoters through stock exchanges," the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said. DIPAM also invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from merchant bankers by June 6, to assist and advise the government in the sale process. Shares of RITES were trading at Rs 233.95, down 3.61 per cent on the BSE. At the current market price, sale of 15 per cent stake in RITES would fetch around Rs 700 crore to the government. The government has budgeted to raise Rs 90,000 crore from CPSE disinvestment in current fiscal. It has so far raised Rs 2,350 crore from IPO of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) and sale of 'enemy property' Enemy property refers to the assets left behind by people who migrated to Pakistan or China and are no longer citizens of India. Mumbai: A fight between Kangana Ranaut and Aditya Pancholi has again taken an ugly turn. According to the Hindustan Times report, Aditya Pancholi has filed a complaint against the 'Manikarnika' actor earlier this month in Versova police station. Kangana Ranaut's sister Rangoli Chandel had filed a complaint against Pancholi last month by stating that he exploited and abused the actress, a decade ago. In a counter application, the 'Race 2' actor claimed that Kangana's lawyer threatened to file a rape case against him. A senior police officer told HT, "We have asked both of them to record statements. We will conduct an inquiry before registering an FIR." Also Read | Rangoli blasts Richa Chadha for her statement on Kangana, calls her 'jobless actor' Aditya Pancholi on Tuesday quoted, "Reacting to the defamation case, Kangana, Rangoli and their lawyer, Rizwan Siddique, decided to file the complaint. Siddique even threatened me with a rape case on January 6, 2019. Speaking about the proof of videos and phone recordings, he further stated, "I submitted my application with the police against Siddique, Kangana and Rangoli earlier this month. I have submitted the video in the police station and court. Rape is the worst kind of crime that can happen [to any woman]." In 2017, Kangana revealed in several interviews that Aditya Pancholi kept her confined to the house and she had to escape by jumping off her first-floor window. She also accused Pancholi of sexually and physically abusing her at the early stage of her career. Mumbai: 'Student Of The Year 2' actor Aditya Seal has recently given clarification over his over-enthusiastic statement on comparing his latest release with Avengers. In a statement, the SOTY 2 actor stated, "I was misquoted. I had said that people are giving us flak that 'aise colleges hote nahi hain.' There was no comparison between Avengers and SOTY 2. I said, that in Avengers, they take you into a world that doesn't exist, but you believe it because it looks beautiful. Here, nowhere have we said that this is a true story. This a different world and you would want to be part of a school like this because it is fabulous. That the inference that I derived. I don't know why people started comparing Avengers and SOTY2, it's so bizarre. I am having a hearty laugh." Also Read | Student Of The Year 2 movie review: A fluffy, forgettable campus romance Notably, in an interview with Times Now, Aditya had said, "This is a fantasy. Who wouldnt want to be a part of a school like this, where you have such amazing-looking people and the school is this good? We are just trying to create a world for people where they can just watch it and be like, Oh, I wish I was a part of this! When I watch Avengers, I want to be a part of it. I want to be Tony Stark/Iron Man. The same way, we are trying to create a world for them." After his statement, Aditya got trolled on social media. Meanwhile, Student Of The Year 2 also stars Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria and Ananya Panday in pivotal roles. Directed by Punit Malhotra, the film is doing well at the box office. Rajinikanths fans have a reason to rejoice as the actor is going at his next film Darbar in a blitzkrieg fashion. Collaborating with actress Nayanthara for the second time, Rajinikanth is currently shooting the Tamil language movie in Mumbai. And a source close to the development of the film hints at his role, saying, The film comprises of action, thrill and drama. And Rajiinikanth, probably, plays a role of an encounter specialist. A long stint of shoot has been completed in various locations, including Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Royal Palms, and Film City among others. The set of main Zero room (Investigation Room) has also been erected in St. Xaviers College, informs our source. Moreover, the film directed by A.R.Murugadoss will also be dubbed and released in the Hindi language. As the South actor is known for his trademark action sequences, he makes sure to give his all. Giving a sneak peak inside his action scenes in the movie, our source delves, There is a body double that performs tough action scenes. Although for lighter action scenes like breaking a table and kicking hard and all that, he does on his own. Leaving no stone unturned, indeed adding his typical mannerisms. Moreover, Rajinikanth is also known for his humble personality on the sets. Rajinikanth makes it a point to sit down on the same table and relish his breakfast, lunch and tea with all the technicians, reveals our source. Since the Ramzaan is going on, the actor makes sure to look after the needs of the Muslim staff. Rajinikanth makes it a point to see that all the rozadaars working on the sets of Darbar are given all the essential eatables to break their fast on time, concludes our source. The film is scheduled to release on January 9 2020. To be a film actor was the biggest dream of Ijaaz Ebrahim. An International Local Story, the directorial debut of actor Harisree Ashokan, realised his dream. The youngster plays an important role in the movie, which also features actors like Rahul Madhav, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Bijukuttan, Deepak Parambol, Manoj K. Jayan and Tini Tom. A business management graduate from Bangalore University, Ijaaz Ebrahim had earlier acted in four short films. Arjun Ashokan actually gave me the opportunity to be part of An International Local Story. I didn't even know about the project until Arjun called to inform me about the casting call, says Ijaaz, who is playing the younger version of the character essayed by Tini Tom Krishnan. Ijaaz says Krishnan is a rough and tough character. I had a stunt scene with Mafia Sasi sir, adds Ijaaz, who even though had only 10 days of shoot considers being part of the film as a great experience. Ijaaz was one of the three people selected from a thousand aspiring actors who attended the auditions. My character has similarities with that of Krishna, says Ijaaz, referring to his short temper. Ijaaz adds that he knew some of the co-stars like Arjun Ashokan, Mafia Sasi and Johns, but majority of them were strangers. After a while, he made friends with everyone on the sets. Talking about his role, Ijaaz says that it was challenging primarily because it was his first film, but Harisree Ashokan was always there to help and teach him. In 2004, Ijaaz first acted on stage and even then his family was all supportive of him. They have always been there for him and give him all support as he chases his dreams. "My favourite actor is Fahadh Faasil; I follow all his films," says Ijaaz, who takes immense inspiration from Fahadh's acting. Ijaaz Ebrahim, who is currently working as a media promoter in Ernakulam, has signed two more film projects. Actress Tanya Hope is wasting no time before making rapid strides in Tollywood. The Patel S. I. R. actress has landed the leading lady role in a forthcoming Telugu film that stars Sundeep Kishan. Directed by debutant Mohan and bankrolled by C. V. Kumar, the film is said to be a remake of Tamil film, Indru Netru Naalai. Talking about the science fiction comedy, Tanya shares, I was in awe of the whole concept of sci-fi comedy. The fact that the film would be my first project in such a genre makes it even more special. Apparently, the actress loved the original version and states that it is a challenging role to pull off. The various shades and emotions in my role of a rich girlfriend and the twits in the screenplay make for an exciting watch, adds Tanya, who will soon commence shooting. Meanwhile, the actress is also elated with her successful foray into the Tamil and Kannada industries as both her films, Thadam and Yajamana turned out to be hits at the box-office. Its a coincidence that both the films released on the same day (March 1) and I couldnt have asked for a better result, she says jubilantly. Last week the US state of Georgia passed abortion laws that wind back some of the hard-fought reproductive rights won through Americas landmark abortion case Roe v Wade. The new legislation restricts abortion once cardiac activity can be detected. Since this usually occurs at around six weeks of pregnancy, at which point many are unaware they are pregnant, the legislation effectively outlaws abortion. The introduction of these laws and similar legislation across Republican-held states in the US, has been met with fierce criticism from feminists, reproductive choice activists and medical professionals alike. In a move reminiscent of her role in the #MeToo movement, Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano took to Twitter encouraging women to go on a sex strike in protest. While the call to arms over reproductive rights is laudable, here is why Milanos approach is a deeply problematic one: It doesnt address structural issues Milanos response illustrates some of the worst tendencies of white feminism, with a focus on individual choice and failure to take an intersectional perspective. The idea that women should deny men sexual choices frames the issue of reproductive rights in an individualised way. In this case, the solution to repressive legislation is individual women denying men (who may or may not be anti-abortion) partnered sexual activity. Of course, individual action is both a necessary and powerful component of generating broader political change. But its largely unclear, in this case, how the proposed individual action translates into the collective mobilisation required to challenge political and legal institutions. Access to abortion is a complex social, structural and institutional problem. Limited reproductive choice is rooted in legislation, other regulation and access to affordable health care. Likewise, access to abortion and womens experiences of accessing it, are shaped by a multitude of factors: race and social class. These underlying causes are unlikely to be shifted through a sex strike. It frames sex in heteronormative ways By suggesting that women avoid sex because they cannot risk pregnancy, Milano frames sex in limited and heteronormative ways. Sex is constructed as involving penis-in-vagina penetration, reproducing the idea that only heterosexual, penetrative sex is real sex. This leaves little space for other forms of sexual expression particularly those that are unlikely to result in pregnancy (such as oral sex or masturbation). While clearly relevant to the issue of abortion, linking sex to a need to avoid pregnancy also implies that all women are in heterosexual partnerships with cisgender men, that all women are able to fall pregnant, and that only women can become pregnant, excluding trans and non-binary people. Given the diverse repertoire of sexual acts available to us, its not clear why women (and others) should have to forgo ethical, pleasurable and wanted encounters. While the sex strike aims to regain bodily autonomy, this method of protest in fact further limits it, simultaneously perpetuating the sex-negative ideology that often underpins the logic of anti-abortion proponents. It reinforces harmful stereotypes Suggesting that women shouldnt have sex until their sexual autonomy is regained reproduces the trope that women use sex as a bargaining chip or tool to manipulate men. This reduces a complex structural and political issue to a tiresome battle of the sexes. Women are stereotyped as the gatekeepers of sexual activity, who either say yes or no to mens sexual advances, but never actively desire sex or initiate it themselves. Sex is positioned as something that women do to please men, rather than something they actively enjoy or find pleasurable. This is concerning given that these stereotypes can be used to excuse sexual violence or to place blame on victim-survivors. For example, survivors are often blamed for sexual violence because they have not fulfilled their role as sexual gatekeeper, that is, they didnt say no clearly enough. At the same time, reports of sexual violence are often dismissed as accusations from a woman scorned. In other words, the sex strike reproduces many of the stereotypes that enable and excuse sexual violence, running the risk of further compromising bodily autonomy. There is also an assumption that women are able to freely negotiate or refuse sex without consequence. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Most obviously, this occurs in cases of sexual violence through the use of force or coercion, or where submitting to a perpetrator may be the safest option in the moment. It assumes that women are situated in a world where the utterance of a no is heard in a meaningful way and that saying no is safe in the first place. Just generating debate? Ultimately, Milanos approach offers women a reductive level of control: sex or no sex. Encouraging women to forego sex in the face of restrictive abortion laws does little to transform how we approach sex and reproductive rights at the social, structural and institutional level. Milano has defended her sex strike on the basis that it has generated widespread public debate about the issue. At best, this debate distracts from the collective political action and structural change needed to truly challenge threats to our reproductive autonomy. At worst, it actively reproduces some of the conditions it seeks to disrupt, with the potential to exacerbate harms to already vulnerable and marginalised groups along the way. *The article was originally published by The Conversation Global Perspectives. Thanks to its not-so-favoured legacy, the Chambal river today has not faced pollution from factories and has been a suitable place for wheat farming. (Photo: Representational/Pixabay) The Chambal, Indias supposed cursed river, winds over 800 km through central and northern India. In spite of being a river as big as the Ganga and Yamuna, it boasts of no pollution, unlike the catastrophically polluted holy rivers. Cold-blooded gharials, a jackal, a few jungle cats can be spotted on the banks of the river. Orange-beaked Indian skimmer birds glide over during sunset. People are often seen taking walks by the river. A local priest, Kailash Narayan Sharma, too regularly visits the Chambal, but never to pray. The locals, including Sharma, prefer to travel several hours to the bank of revered Ganga, Yamuna or any of its tributaries. The Ganga and Yamuna are holy. But theres a lot of pollution. The Chambal is unholy, but the water is healthy, he said. The reason for the stark between these two seemingly similar rivers is due to thousands of years of stigma, reported The Guardian. Unlike the sacred Ganga, the Chambal and its bank were regarded as dangerous badlands. The epic Mahabharata speaks of a river that flowed with the blood of slaughtered cows. The inhospitable terrain around the Chambal made it an ideal gathering place for bandits and criminals. But thanks to its not-so-favoured legacy, the Chambal river today has not faced pollution from factories and has been a suitable place for wheat farming. In 1979, the government declared the 400 km river bank as a national sanctuary, which helped revive the critically endangered gharial population from a couple of hundred to an estimated thousand-plus. Sharmas 20-year-old niece, Namrita Sharma, said that they used to live in fear of the river but now beams with pride. Weve heard the stories from our parents and grandparents, she said. When we were young, there were very few animals. Now we see more and more. The Ganga on the other hand, is more polluted than ever. Majority of the sewage that floats into the river even today is untreated. Its pollution count remains several levels above safe limits. The only saving grace to the filthy Ganga and Yamuna is the part where it meets the Chambal. The Chambal reduces the contamination in the Yamuna and it then goes on to join the Ganga. Chhoti Lal, a farmer comes to the Chambals bank to soak wild grass. He then weaves it ropes for carrying crops and firewood from his field into town. When I was young, I was afraid to come, he said. Now were not afraid. There are no bandits. We can graze our cattle, we can collect firewood. It wasnt safe before. Rajkumari Rathore, a local is one among the growing number of people who go to the Chambal for Ganpati visarjan during Ganesh Chaturthi. These steps being taken by the local people prove that the fear of the curse is waning. The health of the river has also been a boost to local communities. Udayveer Singh, Nadgawans Village Head said that access to roads, electricity and toilets has bettered. From here on, the government needs to be pro-active and provide loans and other support to make sure that communities living along the banks of the Chambal thrive along with it, he added. An American undersea explorer has completed what is claimed to be the deepest manned sea dive ever recorded, and he found plastic trash down there, reports CNN. (Representational image) Washington: An American undersea explorer has completed what is claimed to be the deepest manned sea dive ever recorded, and he found plastic trash down there, reports CNN. Victor Vescovo journeyed 10,927 metres to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the southern end of the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, as part of a mission to chart the worlds deepest underwater places. Making multiple trips nearly 11 kilometres, or seven miles, to the ocean floor one of them four hours in duration Vescovo also broke the record of Titanic director James Cameron in 2012 for the deepest solo dive in history. As well as four new species that could offer clues about the origins of life on Earth, Vescovo observed a plastic bag and candy wrappers at the deepest point on the planet. Vescovo, a 53-year-old financier with a naval background, told CNN Travel his journey to the depths was about testing the limits of human endeavour as much as scientific discovery. Going to the extremes I believe is a natural inclination of man," he told CNN. I think it is a wonderful part of human nature that makes us want to push ourselves to the limits, which has helped propel us as a species to where we are now. His voyage, in a submersible named The Limiting Factor, is part of a landmark odyssey into the world's watery depths that's being filmed for Discovery Channel -- dubbed the Five Deeps Expedition. The expeditions mission is to conduct detailed, sonar mapping missions at the five deepest spots in our oceans. As well as the Mariana Trench, it's now completed surveys of the Atlantic Ocean's Puerto Rico Trench, the South Atlantic's South Sandwich Trench and the Java Trench in the Indian Ocean. Next up is a trip to the bottom of the as-yet unexplored Molloy Deep in the Arctic Ocean, due to be completed in August 2019. The ocean depths represent some of the least explored and remote places on the planet. The Mariana Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is tall. A key mission objective was to capture video evidence of what was at the bottom of Challenger Deep, which was first explored in 1960. During rituals on Monday, Munia was tempted to join the festivities and dance with other relatives. Majhi did not like her dancing publicly. (Photo: Representational) Patna: A man in Bihar has taken his wifes life because she was dancing in front of relatives at a wedding reception, DNA reported. He beat her up first and then strangled her to death much to the shock of his relatives. Nobody intervened. The deceased Munia Devi, wife of Ranjit Manjhi alias Ramjeet Manjhi, had arrived at her parents home in Hassadih Mushari in Patna district ten days ago. The husband followed after a week. During rituals on Monday, Munia was tempted to join the festivities and dance with other relatives. Majhi did not like her dancing publicly. He started to beat her, then dragged her to the courtyard and strangled her. Munia died on the spot. Manjhi is absconding. The cyclone Fani caused large-scale damage to electrical poles, transformers, and power transmission lines, thereby affecting power supply in 16 districts in Odisha. (Representational image) Hyderabad: The electricity restoration works undertaken by the employees of Telangana states power utilities in the Fani-affected areas in Odisha have proven fruitful so far. Electrical lines of 34 km were laid in an effort to restore power supply in the vicinity of Bhubaneshwar on Tuesday. The cyclone Fani caused large-scale damage to electrical poles, transformers, and power transmission lines, thereby affecting power supply in 16 districts in Odisha. Subsequently, the Odisha government asked the Telangana state government for its help in restoring power in the state. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao responded positively and directed Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi and Transco CMD D. Prabhakar Rao to participate in the restoration activities. As many as 1,000 employees from various power utilities of the state travelled to Odisha in special vehicles on May 7 to initiate the works. The Chief Ministers Office said in a press note, A 34-km stretch of damaged lines, 74 transformers, and 537 electrical polls have been restored so far. Power supply has been restored in Bhubaneshwar and in Puri districts. Hyderabad: Although neither the GHMC nor the traffic police has officially announced any relaxation in hawking policies near the Charminar, they do seem to be going easy on vendors on account of Ramzan. As a result, hawkers seem to have gathered in large numbers in the open spaces around the historic monument. Furthermore, they have grabbed even its buffer zone and have not been one bit hesitant in using the railings of the monument to display their items. Irked visitors lamented that they had never seen the streets so dirty. Apparently, fruit sellers and hawkers have been disposing of rotten fruits and waste material at the site at the end of every day, thereby causing a stench which is further compounded by the rain. The GHMC has arranged special sanitation vehicles and teams to collect garbage from all locations on a daily basis during the month, and special teams have been deployed for the same in the Macca Masjid and the Charminar. According to our sources, the GHMC staff has been attempting to clear the garbage around Charminar twice every day. However, the overcrowding in the area seems to have intensified the challenge a fair amount. Garbage bins have been installed, albeit insufficient, but vendors do not use them anyway. As a result, it has been observed that around 40 metric tonnes of waste (above the existing quantum) is generated in the Charminar zone during the month of Ramzan every year. Deputy Commissioner of Police Traffic (II) Babu Rao said that hawkers would be allowed to operate along the stretch from Madina to Shalibanda road during the holy month. We have been deploying more police to control the traffic in the area. And although we havent imposed any restrictions on the movement of vehicles in the Old city at this point, we shall close the road around the Madina circle for vehicles during the last month of Ramzan so as to enable shoppers to walk about without any problems. Another concern for morning walkers has been the biker youths speeding past the streets near Charminar, especially on Sunday mornings when they are seen riding triple-seat, hooting, and sometimes even harassing women and ragging pedestrians. People from far-flung areas of the twin cities have been observed to visit the Old City to celebrate Ramadan and leave only after pre-dawn and morning prayers. Owing to this, an increasing number of youths is seen hanging outdoors throughout the night, sometimes in large groups, many of whom have been noted to create a nuisance for passersby. Mr Azeemuddin of Shalibanda said that although large groups of people were noted to gather around the Charminar during Ramzan, locals comprised only a small proportion of this crowd. And while many youngsters are found loafing about at eateries near the Charminar even at midnight, the police arrives to disperse them around 1 am. Hyderabad: She has been questioned more than a dozen times by different agencies across many states but the outcome has never satisfied the investigators. This has resulted in her alleged nefarious activities under wraps, sp far. Now, for the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which was granted seven-day custody of Nowhera Shaik of the Heera Group, accused of running a Ponzi-like scam by attracting deposits to the tune of Rs 5,700 crore from nearly two lakh people, it will be a last ditch attempt to obtain some data from her before they go for attachment of her properties in Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh. Nowhera, who was lodged in Chanchalguda central prison, was taken into custody by the ED officials on Tuesday after a local court granted her custody to the agency. The ED is looking into the money laundering angle and FEMA violations. Sources told Deccan Chronicle that though the ED has prepared a detailed questionnaire for Nowhera, it is likely that she will not reveal anything more than what is already known. Therefore, the Enforcement Directorate is making its own efforts to at least lay their hands on some data of her bank transactions, details about the properties acquired by her and her overseas links. Though all of these questions and many more have been fired at her by investigators of different states including Karnataka and Maharashtra, it has not yielded results. She was questioned by the Bengaluru police last month. Nothing significant is expected to emerge from the questioning but we will try to obtain some leads pertaining to bank transactions, acquisition of properties and her links abroad. Thereafter, proceedings will begin to attach her properties under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Agencies in other states too will be going in for attachment of her property shortly, sources said. Her Heera group of companies has operations in the UAE as well and though all agencies are interested in leaning more about her foreign connections, nothing concrete has come out so far. Economic offenders are known not to reveal much and same is the case with Nowhera Shaik. All that we can do is try and gather some more evidence, one investigator said. Nowhera has properties in Banjara Hills, Tolichowki in Hyderabad and in Chittoor of Andhra Pradesh besides in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bengaluru. It is suspected that she has properties abroad as well. In order to get some information, the ED officials will be confronting Nowhera Shaik with her two trusted aides, Molly Thomas and Biju Thomas, in the hope that some contradictions may surface in their testimonies, which could lead the Enforcement Directorate to gather some more evidence. Investigators alleged that Nowhera has about 200 bank accounts and the turnover of her company in 2017-18 stood at about Rs 900 crore. There were foreign currency deposits to the tune of Rs 250 crore in her bank accounts. There are more than 40 cases that are registered against her nationwide. Hyderabad: What should one call the person who killed the Father of the Nation, asked Asaduddin Owaisi, chief of the Majlis-e-Ittihadul Muslimeen (MIM) reacting to the statement of actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan who is being targeted by the BJP for saying that the first terrorist of independent India was a Hindu, meaning Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Mr Owaisi said on Tuesday that such a person will be called a terrorist or an assassin. All those who were tried and proved to be guilty in the Kapur commission report were conspirators and they will be called terrorist only, he said. He questioned whether the assassination of the Father of the Nation must be remembered or must it be forgotten. Intolerance to views some people hold is becoming a major concern. The same intolerance is also being witnessed in other states like West Bengal, he said. People who have talked against Modi and Bal Thackeray have been sent to jail. The Supreme Court has said that they can apologise and must be let off, Mr Owaisi said. He also questioned the right of a Canadian citizen to go onto INS Virat and asked how that was tolerated by the government. Mapping of river bank structures is one of the parameters that must be incorporated into computer models to prepare simulation models. One of the five buildings the Supreme Court has ordered to demolish for violating coastal zone regulations in Kochi. (Photo: DC) Nine months have passed since the floods struck Kerala. Though the state was in the shadow zone of several natural disasters such as the tsunami of December 26, 2004 and Ockhi of 2017, the floods of 2018 exposed its vulnerabilities and the pitfalls of its disaster management system. The floods which created havoc and tension in Kerala were an eye-opener for the state to move ahead with greater consideration for environment with specific focus to develop a system for issuing proper advisories in future. The scientific community working on management of floods and the ones responsible for predicting upcoming events raise serious concerns about a repeated question: are they moving in the right trajectory? Flood modelling unit The delay in starting a flood modelling and mapping unit in Kerala cannot be condoned. Numerical modelling is an efficient tool for estimating the past events and predicting the future ones. So our research, development and preparedness should move in that trajectory. For setting up such units, a lot of preliminary work has to be done so as to facilitate modelling outputs. The preliminary work includes: * Identification of vulnerable flood affected areas and their causative *waterbodies/rivers * Preparation of high resolution digital elevation on the banks of these rivers * Fine resolution bathymetry of rivers *Mapping of land use/land cover terrains *Mapping of river bank structures * Demarcation of administrative terrain * Collection of ground water table *Acquiring rainfall data in hourly resolution *Inflows and outflows pertaining to river *Locating hydraulic structures *Trajectory and dimensions of rivers *Flow conditions *Collection of historical flood data * Features of dams and their connectivity * Knowledge about canal networks, tributaries and their draining pattern * Channels of easy mitigation The above mentioned data should be incorporated into computer models and simulations should be carried out trying several different permutations and combinations of all possible flood generating conditions. The results of modelling should be stored in digital vulnerability maps and in the event of a possible flood arising condition, a nearest matching scenario should be picked from the above, based on which advisories and warnings can be issued for accelerating the mitigation efforts. Lesson from Tamil Nadu The Tamil Nadu government, with the help of various national and state institutes, has generated a Chennai Flood warning System so as to provide anything and everything about floods in the state and for facilitating easy mitigation. Similarly the work of Kerala Flood Warning System (K-FLOWS) should be started immediately with various stakeholders. Funding agencies So many young aspirants in the field of scientific research and development are willing to do these kind of high -end research but lack of funding stops them. The total expenditure of a project of this kind will be around Rs 1 crore. A prominent funding agency under Kerala government provides up to Rs 30 lakh only. The purchase of instruments such as GPS, echosounder and tools like matlab, GIS and numerical models cannot be done with this money. At this juncture, collaborative research with various national and state institutes should take the lead. 24/ 7 warning centre Cyclone Ockhi convinced everyone on the urgent need to establish a 24/7 state of warning centre for disasters, with special focus on ocean-related ones. The efforts of ministry of earth sciences, Government of India, in the setting up of a cyclone warning centre in Thiruvananthapuram should be appreciated. But we dont have a research and development institute exclusively doing this job in Kerala for several natural disasters. The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) based in Hyderabad is functioning effectively since its inception with good advisories and ocean state forecast. Many scientists from Kerala are working in this institution in key posisitons. In Kerala we looks up to institutes outside Kerla in the event of a disaster for warning and we indulge in copy paste communication. The government /media/ stakeholders/bureaucrats should try to install a branch or a core group of national institutes in India exclusively to meet the need of the hour and to perform as a warning centre with specific reference to the state of Kerala. Besides, the natural disaster should be grouped and a peer team comprising scientists, subject experts, new researchers and management people should be constituted under our state government with immediate effect. The basic requirement is the creation of special task rescue forces in each district with all possible basic amenities and resources to address any heterogeneous potentially worst- case disaster scenario. Hope our stakeholders will act swiftly for a safer Kerala. (Dr. Praveen Sakalya is a former project scientist with the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), Government of India, and currently assistant professor in physics at St Thomas College, Kozhencherry). According to the doctors, the plastic piece had damaged the uterus, small intestine and urinary tract of the woman. (Representational Image) Indore: On Tuesday, doctors in Indore removed a six-inch piece of plastic of a bike handle from a womans uterus, reported Hindustan Times. According to police, the piece was allegedly inserted by her husband two years ago. According to 36-year-old tribal womans complaint, her husbands actions had left her in unbearable pain for the past two years. The husband was arrested after woman filed her complaint on Sunday. Rahul Sharma, Chandan Nagar police station in-charge said, The woman, a resident of Dhar district, who is a mother of six kids, was married to the accused about 15 years ago in Dhar district, 251 km west of Bhopal. Two years ago the couple fought over the kids. The man beat her up and inserted the bike handle piece in her private part in a fit of rage. The woman didnt share her ordeal out of shame and worried over the future of the kids. "The victim's husband, Prakash Bhil alias Rama (35) put the grip into her private parts two years ago after a quarrel over his relationships with other women. She did not disclose it to anyone till the pain became unbearable," Sharma said. The police said a few months ago the woman felt unbearable pain and when she went to private hospital, she was asked to undergo an operation immediately after depositing Rs 1 lakh. Police has registered a case and admitted her to MY government hospital. According to the doctors, the plastic piece had damaged the uterus, small intestine and urinary tract of the woman. New Delhi: Launching an attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and violence during roadshow on Tuesday, BJP president Amit Shah said Trinamool Congress was behind violence in West Bengal and not BJP. He said that violence was only in West Bengal in all six phases of polls and no incidents were reported anywhere else. Speaking on violence during roadshow, Shah added that had CRPF not been there, it would have been difficult for him to escape. Read: Clash breaks out at Shah's Kolkata rally, stones hurled, vehicle burnt Shah said, The Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar statue in Kolkata was damaged by Trinamool Congress supporters but they are trying to blame the BJP now. This is their conspiracy. They are trying to get sympathy from the people. But people can see through it. TMCs days in Bengal are over." Photo: ANI | Twitter Photo: ANI | Twitter Photo: ANI | Twitter Mamata Banerjee claims that BJP is doing it, I want to tell her, we are fighting in every state in the nation, unlike you on 42 seats in West Bengal, Shah added. Shah said that he got the news that Mamata has filed FIR against him. He said, Does she not know? BJP is not afraid of FIRs. Taking a dig at Election Commission, Amit Shah said that the poll body is like a mute spectator in Bengal. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. The DMK chief, however, condemned the remark and said the BJP has stooped to a new low. (Photo: File) Chennai: DMK chief M K Stalin has rubbished news that his party was in talks with the BJP to be a possible ally in the Centre. Stalin has challenged Tamil Nadu BJP president Tamilisai Soundararajans claims of talks and has dared her and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prove it. I will quit politics if Modi and Soundararajan can prove that I am in touch with the BJP. If they fail to prove, will they resign? Stalin asked. On Tuesday, Soundararajan claimed the DMK was in talks with the BJP. She said that the DMK was talking through someone. Read: We will win, we are talking to DMK: Tamil Nadu BJP president The DMK chief, however, condemned the remark and said the BJP has stooped to a new low. The development came after Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao met M K Stalin and Stalin ruled out the possibility of a non-BJP, non-Congress front. Replying to Stalins statement, Soundararajan said she would prove her claim 'whenever there is necessity'. "It is true that the DMK has spoken to the BJP regarding elections. I need not prove just because Stalin said so," she said adding that no one has the right to tell her to quit politics. She claimed that the DMK has sent a 'messenger' to the BJP. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Kolkata: Furious over the Election Commissions order to cut short the campaign period for the last phase of the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal and action against two key bureaucrats, Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee described the move as politically biased. Wondering why the campaign ban was not made effective from Wednesday night itself, she alleged the EC had deliberately set the Thursday 10 pm deadline so that Prime Minister Narendra Modi could complete his two rallies in the state during the day. In a threatening mood, the West Bengal CM argued: Does it mean that no one can else campaign after Mr Modis rallies? If any malpractice is found in EVMs during the last phase of polling on May 19, we will move the Supreme Court against the EC. Deputy election commissioner Sudeep Jain is intimidating the district magistrates. She asked: Why was no action taken against BJP president Amit Shah, who triggered the violence with goons at Vidyasagar College and vandalism of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagars bust there on Tuesday? I did not see such massive violence even in the riots after the Babri Masjid demolition. Taki/Diamond Harbour (WB): A day after the violence during Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a broadside against Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday saying that democracy has turned to goondacracy in West Bengal. Ms Banerjee, he alleged, had created a state of Emergency in the state and said her government is out to destroy everything in the state. Only peoples conviction and courage will evict her torturous rule, he told election rallies at Taki on the Indo-Bangla border in North 24 Parganas district and at Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district on Wednesday. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with party candidate Ajay Rai and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Singh Baghel during a roadshow in Varanasi. (PTI) Varanasi: In a big show of strength in Prime Minister Narendra Modis constituency, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held a roadshow here on Wednesday. Accompanied by Congress candidate for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat against Mr Modi, Priyanka Gandhi began by garlanding the statue of Madan Mohan Malviya at the gates of the Banaras Hindu University. Priyanka Gandhi and other leaders, including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, waved at the large crowd as the procession wound its way through Varanasis roads. Earlier in Gorakhpur, she hit out at the Modi dispensation, saying it is not a mazboot (strong) government but a magroor (arrogant) one that harbours an oppressive mindset. She alleged that people fighting for their rights were put behind bars on charges of being anti-national. Thoothukudi/ Chennai: The BJPs Tamil Nadu president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan on Tuesday triggered a war of words with the DMK chief M K Stalin in claiming that he was negotiating a post-poll deal with her party leadership. Reacting sharply, Stalin not only denied her allegation but also challenged her to prove it or else quit politics. On his part, he would leave politics altogether if she is able to deliver the proof. Speaking to reporters at Thoothukudi, with AIADMK leader and state food minister R. Kamaraj seated next to her, Dr Tamilisai responded with a broad smile to a question whether Stalin was in talks with the BJP. Thats true and everyone knows it. They change colours on one side Rahul, Chandrasekhar Rao on the other and Modi on another side, she said, obviously taking into account the visit of the Telangana CM to Stalins place for talks on Monday. The DMK had already explained that KCR had paid a courtesy call but that did not cut ice with many. Senior AIADMK Minister D Jayakumar raised a question: Courtesy call for over an hour? In his opinion too, Stalin and the DMK have been in touch with the BJP in the hope they could get four or five Cabinet berths in return for the support of the DMK MPs. DMK alone has the capability to sail in three boats at the same time, the minister said. Hitting back, Stalin said despite coming from a political family known for uprightness, Dr Tamilisai has now stooped low in uttering a blatant lie. It was he who had proposed Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Opposition combine and it was he who had spearheaded the campaign to unseat Modi from being the PM. The BJP was sowing confusion as it was now terrified being on the verge of defeat, Stalin said in a statement. The DMK chief also recalled that he had consistently attacked Modi, described him as fascist, sadist and authoritarian, whose government must be unseated in this election for heaping untold miseries upon the people in the last five years. And he has been talking against Modi not just in Tamil Nadu but also at the Mamata-sponsored rally of opposition parties in Kolkata. And as for Telangana CM KCR, he had met him last year too while the Monday rendezvous was just a courtesy call, insisted Stalin. The DMK would not be involved in any back door dealings in making alliances. DMK has been transparent. We have made clear who should be the Prime Minister and who should be not. DMK is determined Modi should not become PM again, Stalin said, adding, We are even more clear that Rahul Gandhi should head the next government. DMK ally Congress also hit out at Dr Tamilisai, with PCC president K S Alagiri accusing her of uttering falsehood only out of desperation" and scared of the defeat in the elections. When even West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had refused to speak to Modi when he called her to discuss Cyclone Fani, "what is Stalin going to discuss with the PM? asked Alagiri. This comes a day after clashes broke at the mega roadshow of BJP president Amit Shah in Kolkata. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Election Commission will hold a meeting with West Bengal observers on poll violence in the state at 11.30 am today via video conferencing. This comes a day after clashes broke at the mega roadshow of BJP president Amit Shah in Kolkata resulting in utter chaos after sticks were hurled at his convoy and police resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the crowd. Clashes reportedly broke out on Tuesday after some miscreants started throwing sticks at the convoy in which Shah was travelling in. The incident took place on College Street when allegedly some TMC supporters began sloganeering and the furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. Since the Lok Sabha polls began on April 10, BJP and TMC have been at loggerhead in West Bengal. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general election on May 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. Bengaluru: Amid the 'Siddaramaiah for CM' clamour in Karnataka, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has said Congress veteran M Mallikarjun Kharge should have been given the position a long time ago and "injustice" was done to the leader. His remarks come amid a bitter spat between the leaders of the ruling coalition partners Congress and JD(S) to make Siddaramaiah the state chief minister once again. But the comments gave fresh ammunition to the BJP to target the alliance government. BJP state unit chief B S Yeddyurappa asked Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) to immediately vacate the post for Kharge, the leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha. Kharge, a nine-time MLA and two-term Lok Sabha member who has never tasted electoral defeat, termed Kumaraswamy's remarks as "election-time statement." Addressing a meeting in Chincholi assembly segment for a by-election attended by Kharge on Tuesday, Kumaraswamy said the Congress leader should have become chief minister long ago. "Mallikarjun Kharge should have become the chief minister long ago. I feel injustice has been done to him. I would like to clearly say Kharge has not been given recognition for the work he has done (for his party)," Kumaraswamy said, adding there has been a "fault somewhere". Kharge could have become the CM in the current coalition government but he said he will abide by the Congress leadership's decision, Kumaraswamy revealed. Latching onto the remarks, Yeddyurappa asked Kumaraswamy to resign and make Kharge CM. "He (Kumaraswamy) has said he (Kharge) should have become CM long ago. To make his dream come true, let him resign tomorrow itself and make Kharge the chief minister," the BJP leader told reporters in Kalaburagi Wednesday. Senior BJP legislator Basanagouda Patil Yatnal termed Kumaraswamy's remarks a conspiracy aimed at creating a rift between Siddaramaiah and Kharge to continue in power. "If he wants to make Kharge (CM), he can give up the seat for him. It is kind of a drama (by Kumaraswamy)," he said, adding no one, even in Congress, was interested in making Kharge CM. Yeddyurappa, however, claimed the Congress-JD(S) government would fall due to a rift between both parties. "I have never said we will topple the government. We are not making attempts. JD(S) and Congress are fighting each other and because of their differences, the government will collapse," he said. Siddaramaiah, the coalition coordination committee chairman, has termed the growing clamour within Congress to make him the chief minister as an expression of supporters' affection, but said he still stands by his word to not contest the next assembly election. Chincholi assembly seat will go to bypolls on May 19. Subhash Rathod is the Congress candidate there. Kharge has been elected twice from Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency and has been a central cabinet minister during Congress rule in the past. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. During the clashes, Vidyasagar's bust was allegedly vandalised by BJP workers at Vidyasagar College. (Photo: ANI twitter) Kolkata: A day after BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow took a violent turn, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a march here on Wednesday to protest against the clashes that took place, including vandalisation of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's bust. With the political temperature soaring in the state, Banerjee and her TMC supporters held a 7 kilometre-long march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar in north Kolkata. Banerjee, clad in her trademark white saree, greeted hundreds of people who thronged the streets during the march which took place amidst heightened security. #WATCH Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee holds a march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar. #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/3p2GYk5VAl ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 On Tuesday, clashes broke out after miscreants threw sticks at Shah's convoy. The incident took place on College Street when TMC supporters allegedly began sloganeering. Furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the Calcutta University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. During the clashes, Vidyasagar's bust was allegedly vandalised by BJP workers at Vidyasagar College. While BJP accused the Banerjee government of "murdering democracy", the TMC claimed that the saffron party instigated the violence. Since the Lok Sabha elections began on April 10, both BJP and TMC have been at loggerheads in West Bengal. Workers of two parties have repeatedly clashed with each other on polling days. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. BJP will also ensure that Bengal's border gets modern fencing and infiltration is dealt with. (Photo: ANI twitter) Diamond Harbour: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her 'anarchist behaviour' in the state and said her nephew Abhishek Banerjee's office will be 'locked' up soon after the results of Lok Sabha polls. "After election results, Didi's nephew office will be locked. I was told that his office, as per Trinamool Congress (TMC) tradition, was built after occupying the public road. Didi, your party has earned a lot by tolabaaji (extortion), at least do not occupy public roads for the construction of nephew's office," said Modi at an election rally here. Abhishek Banerjee is the sitting MP of the Diamond Harbour parliamentary constituency in south 24 Parganas District. Prime Minister Modi also cornered TMC supremo for violence, during BJP chief Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. "The whole country has seen what happened in Kolkata yesterday. Didi's administration and goons tried its best to harm BJP's roadshows in the city. But people of Kolkata have foiled their attempts," he said. "Everyone knows how TMC has turned the republic into 'goonda tantra', BJP has been preventing from putting its viewpoint before the public. Our candidates are being prevented from contesting the elections. Now, Didi's 'goonda tantra will not work." Modi said. He further accused Mamta of putting pressure on the state machinery. "There is a lot of pressure on bureaucracy and police here, an example of this is the suicide of a former IPS officer. I am making a serious allegation, the person who spent his whole life protecting the common man of West Bengal was forced to end his life." "Gurudev himself had never imagined such state of West Bengal. It has become a state where people are living in fear, IPS officer does not get justice. It is not difficult to guess that 'bua-bhatija' (nephew-aunt) jodi has a big role to play in it," he said. Taking a jibe at TMC supremo, Prime Minister said: "It is Didi's generosity that people are completely free from fear in West Bengal? But who are these people? They are smugglers and intruders. Didi's tolabaaz and her syndicate, leaders involved in chit fund scam and coal mafias are roaming free without any fear." "Here, teachers and government employees might not get their salaries and increment on time but rented goons of TMC are paid on time. Those who are corrupt have a problem with Modi and Vande Mataram. These are people who have problems with surgical strikes and air strikes. But Didi, this is not a time to take revenge, this is a time to bring change in Bengal," the Prime Minister said. Prime Minister Modi further gave assurance of citizenship to refugees who migrated from Bangladesh, be it Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, or Christians as promised in BJP's 'Sankalp Patra'. BJP will also ensure that Bengal's border gets modern fencing and infiltration is dealt with. "Intruders will be identified and their biodata will be inspected. Borders will be protected via modern fencing. Not only this, the refugees who had faced sufferings due to faith, not need to worry. We are going to amend the Citizenship Act so that every child of Maa Bharti who has no place other than India gets citizenship," he said. Since the Lok Sabha elections began on April 10, both BJP and TMC have been at loggerheads in West Bengal. Workers of two parties have repeatedly clashed with each other on polling days. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Ascertaining the victory of BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Modi said citizens of West Bengal were more confident of their votes now. (Photo: ANI) Basirhat: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee power drunk and accused her of throttling democracy after a fierce war of words broke out over the violence at an Amit Shah roadshow in Kolkata the day before. He said didi was afraid at the rise of BJP in Bengal. Both parties spent Wednesday trying to pin the blame on each other. BJP party chief Amit Shah first addressed a press conference after Mamata filed an FIR against him, saying he was not afraid and that her party hooligans had attacked the BJP roadshow fist. The Trinamool leader held a press conference next, slamming the BJPs strong-arm tactics in videos they released where BJP cadres were allegedly vandalising Bengal Renaissance reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagars bust. Modi was campaigning for the last phase of Lok Sabha elections in West Bengals Basirhat. Didi's goons are carrying guns and bombs and are bent upon destruction,'' Modi said. Ascertaining the victory of BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Modi said citizens of West Bengal were more confident of their votes now. "People of Bengal have made up their minds to end the despotic rule of Mamata Banerjee,'' PM Modi told the rally. Sharpening his attack on the TMC chief, Modi also touched upon Didi's meme controversy. The Prime Minister threw a challenge at Banerjee, asking her to make my meme and gift it to me. He vowed that he would not file a complaint against her and would always cherish her gift. Lucknow: Claiming that BJP is "afraid" of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav Wednesday said the combine would "wipe out" the saffron party completely in the Lok Sabha election's last phase of polling to be held on May 19. Thirteen of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in the last phase. "The BJP is afraid of our alliance. Till the sixth phase, people have discarded the saffron party, and in the seventh phase they will be completely wiped out as people are supporting our alliance which is for social justice, farmers and the poor," Yadav said. Addressing a joint election rally in Mau with BSP supremo Mayawati, he alleged that the BJP governments both at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh have been a "failure" and a new India would be formed when the alliance "gives a new prime minister" to the country. BSP chief Mayawati said, "People are fed up with the BJP government's anti-people policies and they will throw them out of the power. The BJP is using all tricks to win elections and people should remain alert." Alleging that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh was harassing BSP candidate Atul Rai, she said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should "be prepared to return to his math" after the elections. Both the leaders addressed joint rallies in Deoria also. Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading. Hyderabad: A day after UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi wrote to all UPA allies and non-NDA parties for a meeting on May 23 a move aimed at strengthening opposition unity and to checkmate the Narendra Modi-led NDA both YSR Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samiti sources on Wednesday said they have not received any invitation so far. Moreover, even if they do receive such an invitation personally from Mrs Gandhi, YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao will not be attending the Delhi meet, their respective party sources said. While YSR Congress general secretary and close associate of its president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Sajjala Rama Krishna Reddy, said no such invitation had been received, a close associate of Mr Rao, B. Vinod Kumar, MP, also said the same. Congress sources said that apart from sending the invitations, Mrs Gandhi will speak personally on the phone to the important leaders and invite them. She spoke to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday. Sources in the YSRC and the TRS said that their respective presidents will not be attending the Delhi meeting even if Mrs Gandhi calls them personally as both have some reservations about meeting her and supporting the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. A senior YSRC leader said that the Congress has damaged the image of Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy by implicating him in false cases. At a moment in history, when the description of a particular agenda in politics as the Left is staging a revival in polities that have jeered at Leftists or have jailed them as Commies in the past, dismissing them as radical and marginal troublemakers, the survival of the parliamentary Marxist Left personified in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is in question in India, more specifically, in the once impregnable red bastion of West Bengal. Will the party dwindle to a signboard, as it struggles to handle the onslaught of the BJP and the confrontations with the Trinamul Congress? The best remembered part of the 2019 elections could be the uninterrupted bombardment by the Trinamul Congress against the BJP, of Narendra Modi spewing fire and venom at Mamata Banerjee, which she returns with interest. These exchanges of fire have served to hoist the BJP to the position of the undisputed challenger to the Trinamul Congress in West Bengal. The other memory that may remain is a sub-plot the rise of the BJP and the decline of the Left in West Bengal. The enlarged image of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections is just that; an enlargement of its actual or estimated strength in the states politics, because its real size and strength are still unknown. The results on May 23 may sort out the confusion about what is the BJPs real strength in West Bengal has it pushed out the CPI(M)-led Left Front from its number two slot, or is the BJP now number three? In the 2016 elections that Mamata Banerjee won with a huge majority, the BJPs voteshare was just under 11 per cent. The CPI(M) and its partners in the Left Front bagged 26 per cent votes, outstripping the BJP by several lengths. But, by 2018, when the panchayat elections were held, and this was one of the more violent and contentious elections in West Bengals history of turbulent hustings, the BJP had emerged as the party with the second highest number of representatives at the grassroots, surpassing the Left. The question is: Where does the Left, more specifically the CPI(M), stand in West Bengals changing politics? And where is it headed? The question itself provides a clue about the difficult times that the CPI(M)-led Left is going through, as it struggles to stabilise its strength and overcome its weakness. That is not to say that the CPI(M) is not opposing or confronting the BJP as the principal enemy in West Bengal and of course across the country. It is. But it is a weak fight. The marginalisation of the Left and its voice in the anti-BJP Opposition is in part its inability to heal the party in West Bengal and begin staging a comeback. The CPI(M) would be probably better off examining why its voters made what was a rational choice for them, voting BJP. It is weaker in 2019 than it was in 2016. It is fully aware that chunks of its voter base swung to the BJP in the 2018 panchayat elections, in which the incoming saffron tide pushed the party into second place at the grassroots. As a consequence, the CPI(M) had to axe over a hundred party members. And the confession of at least one of its candidates in this election points to the internal problems of the party that he is working to bring back voters who had switched to the BJP in 2018. These voters are not politically naive. The missing self-critical appraisal required to investigate the reasons for its declining strength will indicate a crippling loss of confidence and a paralysis of thought. Unless the CPI(M) puts up a strong fight, including facing up to violence, to prevent the strategic destruction of the political consensus to maintain communal harmony and uphold secular values in West Bengal, it will probably further marginalise itself, because it would lose credibility as an alternative in politics. For sophisticated voters, the CPI(M) may still be, with all its faults and weakness, a symbol of difference and a choice signifying opposition to Hindutva and neo-liberal, neo-imperialist policies, but at the grassroots, it needs to articulate a simpler message and practice that has meaning for the poor, the backward and the marginalised. The official version of the steady decline of the Left, by the CPI(M), has an unreal feel. On the one hand, its retired but best-known leader, with an impeccable reputation and greater popularity than the current leadership, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has been outspoken on the perils that face the party in the state. He has warned the CPI(M)s support base and cadres that voting for the BJP is like jumping out of the Trinamul frying pan into the saffron fire. On the other, the present leadership seems to be groping for ways in which it can reconnect to the masses. The reiterations by Mamata Banerjee that the CPI(M) and the Congress have encouraged the BJP and assisted its growth in the state reflects the concern that other parties must pull their weight to retain and restrain voters from choosing the BJP. The CPI(M) and the Left have countered this by accusing the Trinamul Congress of working as the Trojan horse of the BJP. Good as this rhetorical flourish may sound, politically it makes very little sense in the very real crisis that has been precipitated by the rise of the BJP. The fact is that the Left has lost both voters and leaders. The 21st century challenges are different from that of the last millennium. What Sabarimala was to the CPI(M) in Kerala was what Singur-Nandigram was to the party in West Bengal in 2007. It was a confrontation of opposing ideologies that challenged the social and political base of the party. The party in Kerala is energetic, popular and successful, even after it was involved in a fight that was dangerous enough to have derailed its politics, because it plunged the CPI(M) into a confrontation over religious practice and change on over Sabarimala issue. The same party in West Bengal is like a wounded and endangered creature; neither able to fight nor fly away. The formation of the so-called Federal Front the constitution of the government at the Centre by a clutch of regional parties, as was the case in 1996 when such a disparate coalition informally went under the name of Third Front has been pushed with unseemly haste by Telangana chief minister and TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao right in the middle of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Reportedly, when Mr Rao called on DMK chief M.K. Stalin in Chennai last Monday, with the idea of taking discussions forward on regional parties being the nucleus of the government at the Centre, the DMK supremo thought it expedient to tell him that taking up the idea at the present juncture risked weakening the anti-BJP effort overall. Taking up the idea strenuously while voting is going on evidently plays into the BJP's hands. It permits the BJP to canvass the notion that not voting Prime Minister Narendra Modi back to power can only yield a weak, shaky coalition of minor regional players. From what has transpired so far, the DMKs priority seems to be to see the back of the Narendra Modi government. The TRS leader, on the other hand, appears not to be swayed by the same objective. To him, the BJP and the Congress are the same if viewed through an ideology-neutral lens. Mr Rao seems to be looking at power for its own sake. His object is to secure a non-BJP, non-Congress government at the Centre in which regional leaders like himself get to play an outsized role. The idea of the so-called Federal Front has been in the air from before the voting process kicked off in early April. But it can hardly be given practical shape until the final tally is known for the two national parties and for regional players. It is doubtless true that the regional aspirants can get a chance to form the government at the Centre only if the BJP and the Congress both fall below a certain threshold in terms of their parliamentary numbers. The practical feasibility of the proposition can only be established on May 23, the day of the results. There is another conceivable way if the BJP dips below its own expectations while the Congress performs better but not so well that it may be able to suck in so-called secular allies towards itself. All this is too hypothetical and in that sense quite meaningless, except as a nebulous idea. The trouble with the Federal Front is that certain parties have committed themselves to the BJP (Shiv Sena, Akali Dal, JD-U) and the Congress (DMK, RJD). Mr Stalin, in fact, made his association on the Congress side plain to Mr Rao and urged him to join the team. Perhaps the DMK will see the picture differently only if its ally, the Congress, does extremely poorly and is completely out of the reckoning. Many American influential right wing foreign policy experts and strategic policymakers have not forgotten or forgiven Iran over the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran by the Iranian college student followers of Ayatollah Khomeini in November 1979 and the subsequent 444-day incarceration of 52 US diplomats and citizens. The repeated shrill cries of destroying this Great Satan emanating from the radical Iranian establishment have only added fuel to the burning embers of US-Iran hostility. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emerged victorious in the recent Israeli elections and is assured of another four-year term. His hostility to Irans nuclear programme and vocal opposition to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) ring-fencing Irans nuclear programme in 2015 is well-known. Prime Minister Netanyahu had openly challenged former President Barack Obama by criticising the deal in an address to the US Congress. Mr Netanyahus address to the US Congress on March 3, 2015, was a direct affront to President Obama. The invitation to Mr Netanyahu was sent by Speaker of the then Republican-controlled House of Representatives John Boehner without consulting President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry. The central theme of Mr Netanyahus address was to convince the US Congressmen to take concrete and urgent action to stop Irans quest for nuclear weapons. His statement had two broad arguments. One was that Irans regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also to the peace of the entire world. The second was that the deal (JCPOA) has two major concessions one, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear programme, and two, lifting the restrictions on that programme in about a decade (the deal) doesnt block Irans path to the bomb; it paves Irans path to the bomb. Barely concealing his preferred course of action to destroy the Iranian nuclear infrastructure Mr Netanyahu declared to the mesmerised US Congressmen, Nuclear know-how without nuclear infrastructure does not get you very much A pilot without a plane cant fly. Without thousands of centrifuges, tonnes of enriched uranium or heavy water facilities, Iran cant make nuclear weapons. Mr Netanyahus consistent refrain is to plead for a perpetual freeze on Irans uranium enrichment and number of centrifuges as a decade, the time horizon of JCPOA, is too brief a period seen in the historical perspective. Since 2018, Mr Netanyahu has found a soulmate in US President Donald Trump, who is willing to see West Asia and the Gulf through Israeli lenses. There is a certain consistency in President Trumps unilateral moves defying the reservations of its European allies and ignoring any sober advice. Mr Trump had vociferously denounced the US-Iran nuclear deal in the election campaign. He unilaterally walked out of JCPOA in May 2018 leaving the five other signatories in the lurch. His subsequent decisions to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights occupied in the 1967 war hugely strengthened Mr Netanyahus hand in the recent Israeli elections. Strategic analysts are alarmed at the announcement by the hawkish National Security Advisor, John Bolton, last week that B-52 bombers would be stationed at the US airbase in Qatar and the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is being deployed in the Persian Gulf in response to some unspecified threats from Iran. Such carrier groups have the technical capacity to jam Irans radars and anti-aircraft missile systems in case of any external attack. Mr Bolton added that any attack on the US or its allies will be met with unrelenting force. The same John Bolton had authored an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times in 2015 with the title, To stop Irans Bombs, Bomb Iran. In another provocative move, the US has declared Irans elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation. Mr Netanyahu represents a hardline section of the Israeli polity which has for long pleaded with the US for an airstrike against Irans nuclear establishments. In this context, the autobiography of Ehud Barak, Israels former Prime Minister (1999-2001) and defence minister (2007-2013), My Country, My Life, is quite revealing. Mr Barak was defence minister in the Netanyahu government in 2009-13 as well. Mr Barak mentions that Mr Netanyahu fervently believes that the Iranian nuclear programme posed an existential threat to Israel. Israel seriously prepared for a surgical strike on Iran during 2011-12, as it believed that Mr Obamas efforts to have a Libya-style denuclearisation deal with Iran would not succeed. The conservative Israeli strategic establishment believed that Iran must not be allowed to cross the zone of immunity a stage when it acquires even limited nuclear weapons capacity. In 2012, the eight-member inner cabinet of Israel could not take the military option as the move was opposed by the then Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, who took the position that in spite of preparatory planning, training and military intelligence, Israel had not yet crossed the threshold of operational capability. Maybe the assessment of the Israeli Armed Forces today is different under the aggressive leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Israel would also need US cover for electronic countermeasures and midair refueling if it opts for an adventurous course. President Hassan Rouhani seems to have embarked on a dangerous course by announcing partial withdrawal from the detailed technical provisions of the JCPOA. Iran needs to be very cautious in its response. The US under Trump is quite capable of taking reckless unilateral action. Any show of bravado by Iran can be catastrophic as former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein learnt at the cost of his life and regime. A hardliner close to Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has reportedly said that their (US) billion dollar fleet can be destroyed by a single missile. Any turmoil in the Persian Gulf will adversely affect the oil prices and would have major negative consequences for Indias fragile economy. India needs to work closely with all major powers including Russia and China to advise Israel to exercise restraint and urge the European powers to narrow the differences between the US and Iran on the latters nuclear programme. Trump has reportedly challenged NASA to land at the south pole of Moon by 2024. It probably took NASA additional funds by President Donald Trump to plan on sending a woman to the Moon. Until now, only 12 humans -- all American male astronauts, have walked on the Moon, but never a woman. According to CNN, NASA is planning to send the first woman ever and the first man in nearly five decades to the lunar surface by 2024. The announcement follows after Trump added USD 1.6 billion to NASA's budget to return to space exploration. Trump has reportedly challenged NASA to land at the south pole of Moon by 2024. NASA has revealed that its new mission will be called Artemis - named after the Greek goddess of the moon. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. The updated plan does not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require far more troops. (Photo:AP) Washington: President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied a New York Times report that US officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran. "I think it's fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," Trump told reporters at the White House. The Times reported that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated plan last week in a meeting of top national security aides that envisions sending as many as 120,000 American troops to the region if Iran attacks US forces or accelerates work on its nuclear weapons. In this Sunday, May 12, 2019 photo released by the U.S. Air Force, an F-15C Eagle receives fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 28th Expeditionary Aerial Refueling Squadron, at an undisclosed location. The White House ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf region on May 4. (Senior Airman Keifer Bowes, U.S. Air Force via AP) The updated plan does not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require far more troops, the Times reported, citing unidentified administration officials. The plan reflects revisions ordered by Iran hawks including national security adviser John Bolton, the newspaper said. Little Pepe is lucky to be alive, attacked in his own backyard off Campbell Road by coyotes. It was his best friend that saved his life. The Chihuahua Min Pin needed 37 stitches and three hours of surgery following the incident which left him with 24 puncture wounds, his left ear dangling by a flap of skin and one eye bulging from his head. If Pepes good buddy Turbo, a German Shepherd, hadnt come to his rescue, the dogs' owners Daria and Ray Gagnon say Pepe would have been dead. All of the sudden we heard Turbo barking, and we came out and two or three coyotes had attacked Pepe. They were going round and round, and if the Shepherd hadn't moved in on them to defend him...he saved his life, says Daria Gagnon of the attack. Three-year-old Turbo was bred to be trained as an RCMP K-9 unit dog and while well-behaved is very protective of his owners and little buddy Pepe. He is a very good dog, says Ray. He is trained for attacking, if something comes in the yard like an animal or a bad person. Unfortunately for the Gagnon's this isnt the first time theyve had a run in with coyotes at their home, where Turbo has had to jump into action. Just three weeks ago, Ray had to scare off a coyote who was fighting Turbo in a field in front of the Gagnon's home. He was neck to neck with a coyote in the hay field and Ray scared him off, and that coyote cleared a six foot fence, says Daria. Pepe was attacked on Saturday and then Wednesday evening around 7 p.m. another large coyote launched off of the hill above the Gagnons home at Turbo. The Gagnon's believe, based on their encounters with the coyotes, that there may be up to 20 of the animals living above their home on Casa Grande Drive in West Kelowna. The den (maybe) on the rocks right there, says Ray pointing to a cliff adjacent to his house. Conservation was contacted and will attend the Campbell Road area Friday morning to investigate. However according to Conservation Officer Jeff Hanratty, coyotes are not normally pack animals and it would be unusual behaviour for a large number to live in close proximity to one another. On occasion they will pack up, typically where you are going to see a quote pack of coyotes is a mother with her kits, explains Hanratty. Coyotes do commonly live in urban areas but it does raise concern when they lose their fear of people and pose a threat to human life. What happens to them is very similar to bears, they start getting on unnatural food sources, pet food, pets, peoples garbage, fruit and berry in the fall and much like bears they overcome their fear of people, and can become quite brazen, says Hanratty. Ray says he did not feel like the coyotes feared him, I was four or five feet away and they just stayed right there like I was a nobody. Conservation would like to remind people not to feed their pets outside or leave food, garbage or any other food attractants around their home that may draw coyotes in. As for Pepe he is still recovering, but hasnt lost his spunk thanks to the protection of his good friend Turbo. The new government that is expected to be in place within the next three weeks in New Delhi is expected to take a final decision on the matter. (Photo:AP) New Delhi: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday told visiting Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif that India would take a decision on continuing oil imports from Iran after the elections are over, keeping in mind our commercial considerations, energy security and economic interests, government sources said on Tuesday. On the oil imports issue, it may be recalled that India has been in the process of totally stopping its oil imports from Iran to escape sanctions by the United States. However, the new government that is expected to be in place within the next three weeks in New Delhi is expected to take a final decision on the matter. The Iranian foreign minister paid a brief visit to New Delhi on Tuesday to hold talks with Ms Swaraj. Also Read: Amid US pressure, Tehran sends Foreign Minister to India for talks The external affairs ministry issued a brief statement, saying Ms Swaraj and Mr Zarif held constructive discussions on all bilateral issues of mutual interest and that there was a good exchange of views on the evolving regional situation, including Afghanistan. The Indo-Iranian strategic cooperation on Chabahar port was also discussed, with government sources saying both sides expressed satisfaction at the operationalisation of the interim contract on Chabahar Port. New Delhi has been worried over the impact that American policy against Iran will have on the Indo-Iranian strategic partnership for the development of Chabahar port in Iran that gives New Delhi crucial sea-land connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. It may be recalled that the United States had earlier given six-month waivers to eight countries including India, China, Japan and South Korea for exemption from the November 4 deadline last year of stopping Iranian oil imports completely. India relies heavily on foreign oil imports to meet its energy demands. The US had then set that deadline for countries across the globe to either fall in line or face US sanctions. But the US recently decided not to extend the waivers beyond the six-month period, which ended on May 2, which means any nation now importing Iranian oil will face US sanctions. On the Iranian nuclear deal issue, Ms Swaraj told her Iranian counterpart that India would like all parties to the agreement to continue to fulfil their commitments and all parties should engage constructively and resolve all issues peacefully and through dialogue, government sources added. The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was inked in 2015 that had then paved the way for lifting of US sanctions on Iran. The United States under then President Barack Obama had pushed for the deal strongly four years ago. But with President Donald Trump announcing the US pullout last year, the US has again turned on the heat on Iran. On Tuesday, a government source said: The visit of the Iranian foreign minister took place at his own initiative to brief the Indian side on the Iranian approach to the recent developments in the region, including on JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal), and to review bilateral cooperation. This was part of their consultation with other countries in the region including Russia, China, Turkmenistan, and Iraq over the last few days... On the purchase of oil from Iran, EAM reiterated the position that a decision will be taken after the elections, keeping in mind our commercial considerations, energy security and economic interests. Putin also praised the Mueller report, despite its findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. (Photo:AP) Sochi: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said he wanted to "fully restore" strained ties between Washington and Moscow, during a visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "I would very much like your visit to Russia to benefit Russia-US relations and promote their development," Putin said as he received Pompeo at his residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Putin also praised the Mueller report, despite its findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. Also Read: Donald Trumps says, 'sensible' for US to get along with Russia "Despite the exotic nature of Mr Mueller's commission, on the whole he conducted quite an objective investigation and confirmed the absence of any collusion between the US administration and Russia," he said. Moscow has rejected these claims "from the very beginning as complete nonsense". Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during their talks in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, southern Russia, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Pompeo arrived in Russia for talks that are expected to focus on an array of issues including arms control and Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is on the left. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP) Pompeo earlier told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that US President Donald Trump was committed to improving relations with Moscow. Pompeo underlined to Putin that Trump wanted to make "our two peoples more successful and, frankly, the world more successful, too." "President Trump wants to do everything we can and he asked me to travel here to communicate that. "Some of our cooperation has been excellent -- on North Korea, on Afghanistan, we've done good work -- (and) counter-terrorism work -- together. These are things we can build upon." Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers Riyadh: Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said on Wednesday that attacks on two of its tankers and a major pipeline targeted the security of global oil supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on Tuesday, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, on Sunday. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage... Do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday evening. Tuesday's drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in as yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman off the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or oil spill. An Emirati official said three Western countries the US, France and Norway would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The shipswhich also included a he Norwegian tanker and an Emirati vesselwere docked in the sea off the coast of the emirate of Fujairah. Islamabad: Pakistan on Wednesday arrested Maulana Abdul Rehman Makki the brother-in-law of outlawed Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. Abdul Rehman Makki has been detained over inflammatory speeches and disturbing public order under the countrywide operation against the banned outfits. The suspect had strongly criticised the steps of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and had appealed for funds for Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation. Interior Ministry officials said the arrest of Abdul Rehman Makki took place during the crackdown against outlawed organisations. He was accused of hate speech against the crackdown and criticising steps taken by the government under FATF guidelines. Makki has been booked under the Maintenance of Public Order Act in Lahore. Makki is head of JuDs political and international affairs wing and is in-charge of its charity Falah-e-Insaniat for which he had appealed for donations. A crackdown was initiated by Pakistan against outlawed organisations under the National Action Plan. Pakistan has also announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council Makki was designated by the US in 2010 and consequently targeted by the US Treasury Department. In 2012, the US state departments Rewards for Justice programme also announced a $2 million reward for Makki. His arrest is a continuation of Pakistans actions against outlawed groups this year. In February, the National Security Comm-ittee reimposed a ban on JuD and FiF. A few weeks later in March, the Pakistan government announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council (UNSC). U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Russia on Tuesday that Washington would brook no interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and wanted Moscow to take unspecified action to show there would be no repeat of its alleged 2016 meddling. President Vladimir Putin, who met Pompeo in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, pushed back, telling him that Russia had never interfered in U.S. elections and that a report by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which he praised as being "objective overall", had found no evidence of collusion. Now that the Mueller report was out of the way, something which had long cast a pall over U.S.-Russia relations, Putin said he hoped ties would start improving. "I've formed the impression that your president wants to repair Russia-U.S. ties and contacts and wants to solve issues which are of common interest for us," Putin told Pompeo. "We've said many times that we also want to fully restore our relations. I hope that the necessary conditions for that to happen will now be created." Visiting Russia for the first time as secretary of state, Pompeo had earlier clashed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on issues from Ukraine to Venezuela. After their meeting, both men said they had been far apart on many issues. "I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov... that interference in American elections is unacceptable. If the Russians were engaged in that in 2020 it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been," said Pompeo. "I'd encourage them not to do that. We would not tolerate that." However, both Lavrov and Pompeo said they shared a desire to improve battered ties despite not being able to confirm a suggestion by President Donald Trump that he would meet Putin on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 in Japan next month. "The United States stands ready to find common ground with Russia as long as the two of us can engage seriously," Pompeo said. "President Trump has made clear that his expectation is that we will have an improved relationship between our two countries. This will benefit each of our peoples. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction." INTERFERENCE Relations have long been strained by allegations - denied by Moscow - that Russia tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Pompeo's visit followed the publication of the long-awaited report by Mueller into the nature of Russia's role in that election, which U.S. intelligence agencies say they are sure Moscow tried to interfere in. Although Pompeo and Lavrov made some positive remarks about the potential for cooperation on nuclear arms control, Pompeo listed a large number of U.S. complaints about Russia. As well as the issue of interference in U.S. elections, the two men also clashed over Venezuela, with Lavrov sharply criticising Washington for trying to undermine President Nicolas Maduro, who Pompeo said must now step down in the face of economic crisis and large-scale protests against his rule. On Ukraine, Pompeo told Lavrov the United States would not recognise Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and would keep in place economic sanctions imposed on Russia over that move. Russia should now work with Ukraine's new president-elect to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, said Pompeo, adding that he wanted Moscow to free a group of captured Ukrainian sailors. Pompeo said he had also complained to Lavrov about U.S. citizens being detained in Russia, a reference to the case of Paul Whelan, a former marine accused of espionage, and Michael Calvey, an investor accused of fraud. Both men deny wrongdoing. Lavrov told reporters the two countries continued to disagree about Iran's nuclear programme and the international community's approach to Tehran, while Pompeo said he had raised U.S. concerns about escalating fighting in Syria's Idlib. The All India Democratic Students' Organisation on Wednesday gave a call for a nation-wide protest against desecration of 19th century Bengal renaissance icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in Kolkata, accusing the RSS-BJP-ABVP goons" of perpetrating the "heinous act." Condemning the incident, the students outfit, affiliated with the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), noted that the Vidyasagar's statue was vandalised at a time when the nation was preparing to observe his 200th birth anniversary. Underlining that the Bengali polymath was one of "the greatest personality" and pioneer of secular humanist thought in India, the student's body said Tuesday's incident in Kolkata was not only an attack on the statue of Vidyasagar but also an attack on the culture and noble thought of the country. So, the AIDSO calls for all India protest day on May 16 to protest against this heinous act of Sangh Parivar and urges upon the democratic-minded people of the country in general and the students, in particular, to make success the programme to uphold the anti-fascist tradition of our country, the outfit said in a statement. The students outfit also recalled the demolition of the statue of communist icon Lenin in Tripura last year after the Left front suffered a massive drubbing in the Assembly polls and lost power to the BJP and its allies, saying desecration of Vidyasagar's statue in Kolkata was not an isolated incident. The Sangh Parivar indulged in the violence to get electoral benefit on one hand and to destroy the progressive thoughts of the country to create regimented and conditioned minds on the other, the AIDSO general secretary Ashok Mishra charged. There is an "ideal" brain circuit size suited to carrying out particular tasks, a study has found. Researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK found increasing the size of neural circuits in the brain can boost learning performance. However, this increased connectivity also has the potential to impede learning, they said. The study, published in the journal - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), looked at how neural circuits can use additional connectivity to achieve faster and more precise learning. It showed that adding apparently "redundant" neuron cells that make the brain work and synaptic connections, that enable information to flow from one neuron to another, to a network is a double-edged sword. On the one hand an increase in connectivity can make a task easier to learn. On the other hand, due to inherent noisiness in signal-carrying connections, increased connectivity will eventually hinder both learning and task performance once a circuit exceeds a certain size. The findings suggest a new potential reason why excessive numbers of noisy connections can lead to learning disorders that are associated with brain hyperconnectivity, including some developmental forms of autism. "Our research shows that adding 'spare' or redundant connections to brain circuits can, in fact, boost learning performance," said Timothy O'Leary, Lecturer at Cambridge, who led the study. "These additional connections which don't appear strictly necessary for brain function can make a new task easier to learn," O'Leary said. "However, we found that if each new pathway adds 'noise' to the signal it transmits, the overall gain in learning performance will eventually be lost as a circuit increases in size. "We can predict, therefore, that there is a so-called 'sweet spot,' an ideal brain circuit size that suits a particular task," O'Leary said. While evidence points to the fact that larger brains tend to be found in species with higher cognitive function and learning ability, brain circuit size may ultimately be constrained by the need to learn efficiently with unreliable synapses, researchers said. Adding neurons and connections to a brain can help to learn up to a point. After that, an increase in size could actually impair learning, they said. Photo: Contributed Mac Mackay plays Orrin, the evil dentist in The Little Shop Of Horrors Help! There is a man-eating plant in Studio 100 at Rotary Centre For The Arts and her name is Audrey II. But dont dismay, the strange and interesting plant at Mushnik and Sons Florist is all part of New Vintage Theatres upcoming mega-musical, Little Shop of Horrors. Little Shop of Horrors was first a low-budget horror movie starring Jack Nicholson, released in 1960, directed by Roger Corman known as the King of B-Movies. Legend has it that Corman learned about some sets left over from a recent movie shoot and he wrangled a deal with the filmmakers to leave them on site so he could shoot his own film with them. What he didnt say to the producers was that he didnt have a script, so he spent the next 10 days writing Little Shop in coffee shops around Hollywood and then shot the film in two days and one night. The result was the cult classic that inspired the musical and the magnificent botanical beast of a prop sitting in our studio today. The musical version of the film premiered in 1968 and it quickly won acclaim. In 1983 Little Shop of Horrors beat Cats for the New York Critics Best Musical award and ran constantly for a record breaking 2209 performances more than five years making it the third longest running Off-Broadway musical of all time. Audrey II is the plant named by Seymour (Corey Hendricks), the shows nerdy hero, for the woman he adores. Audrey (Joanne Booth) is a shop clerk with a heart of gold but trapped in a relationship with Orrin (Mac Mackay) her terrifying dentist boyfriend who loves Elvis but treats her like garbage on skid row. Seymour starts to capture Audreys eye when the strange and unusual plant arrives at Mushniks Skid Row Florist, but what he doesnt say is that he has to feed it blood in order to get it to keep growing. Enter the horror part of the musical. As the shows producer, I have been working wrangling Audrey II puppets, sourcing 1950s dentist chairs and coordinating the behind the scenes surprises for the show, both gory and great. Last week, I was blown away by the full run through I saw with the stars of the show, live band and glorious Audrey II. Director Danny Tagles choreography and Lyndsey Wongs music is simply magnificent and must be seen. So run, dont walk to this hilarious cult comedy hit. Its not for kids but you wont be sorry you visited Little Shop Of Horrors. You will adore this strange and interesting musical and will even leave whistling about how much fun you had down on Skid Row. Little Shop of Horrors runs May 16-26 at The Mary Irwin Theatre. Tickets are available at www.rotarycentreforthearts.com To the Times: I admired Jean Vanier, who died on May 7 at age 90, for his all-encompassing care for people who are mentally disabled. I worked in various capacities with disabled people (including as a special education teacher) for about 25 years. Vanier founded LArche (The Ark) communities, in which nondisabled people work with mentally disabled people. The first was founded in France in 1964, after Vanier visited a mental hospital and witnessed mentally disabled people being neglected or abused. Its incredible that this man who had earned a doctorate in philosophy devoted his life to building 147 such communities in 35 nations. Approximately 10,000 disabled and nondisabled people live in the homes. Although Vanier was a devout Catholic, and encouraged a spiritual atmosphere in each community, LArche has people of all faiths or none. Years ago, I worked in a group home with three disabled men. Unlike the LArche workers, I didnt live with the men. My favorite client was John (not his real name). John loved music. He loved humming in church, listening to music tapes in his bedroom, and played a piano in a simple but beautiful manner. John was blind, incontinent and needed to be dressed and bathed. But he recognized his name, did his best to say it, could speak a few words, and understood much of what others said to him. As he grew older, our Saturday outings to Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a simple snack ended when he needed a feeding tube. I enjoyed taking John home often for holidays. He was able to hold my hands and walk up the stairs to our living room, and crossed his legs in a recliner. He enjoyed assembling large Lego blocks, smiling as he played a small electric organ, and listening to the conservation of my family. My experience with disabled people was minor; Jean Vanier was (and the LArche workers still are) an incomparable group of people. Vanier once said, Each human being, however small or weak, has something to bring to humanity. Photo: Shannon Valerio/University of Denver The Kelowna Rockets have inked college defenceman Sean Comrie to a WHL contract. The Rockets acquired Cormie with the first of several moves at the bantam draft, sending the fifth overall selection to Brandon for the 10th pick and Comrie. The 19-year-old was originally drafted by the Wheat Kings in the second round of the 2015 bantam draft, but elected instead to play Junior A, then move on to the University of Denver. However, he wasn't happy with his minutes or his role in Denver, picking up just one assist in 18 games. The Rockets swung the deal when they learned Comrie was available. "He will fit in well with the defencemen that we have returning," said Rockets GM Bruce Hamilton. "Sean was a high second round bantam pick, so obviously he has a real sound skill set. We look forward to having Sean join us this fall." Comrie flashed his offensive upside during two seasons with Spruce Grove in the Alberta Junior League, scoring 12 times and adding 40 assists in 102 games. Im excited for the long journey ahead next year, said Comrie. The opportunity with Kelowna hosting the Memorial Cup and the history of the club was something really intriguing to me. It will be a grind at some points, but I think management and the club will prepare us well for what lies ahead. Comrie was one of four veteran players acquired by the Rockets at the draft. They also picked up forward Dillon Hamaliuk, defenceman Jake Lee and goaltender Cole Schwebius from the Seattle Thunderbirds. SALT LAKE CITY When Chad Cannon began creating music for American Factory, the culture clash at the documentarys core felt familiar. The film, which premiered at this years Sundance Film Festival and won the festivals directing award for U.S. documentaries, is coming to Netflix through Barack and Michelle Obama's new production company, Higher Ground Productions, where it will be the company's first release. American Factory shows a manufacturing plants rebirth near Dayton, Ohio. The plant once belonged to General Motors which laid off thousands of nearby townspeople when it closed in 2008 and gets purchased by Fuyao Glass America, a Chinese company. The new owners rehire many of the locals whom GM laid off a decade earlier. A nice redemption story, right? Not so fast. Fuyao tries to integrate its Chinese and American workforces, even bringing over hundreds of Chinese workers to the American plant. At one point, the film also follows a group of new American employees as they visit one of the companys plants in China. And theyre seeing how these Chinese factory workers are very militant, Cannon told the Deseret News. And in the companys morning warmups, it feels like theyre in bootcamp they line up, and they shout off their numbers. This kind of thing doesnt happen in American plants, at least not at their company. Cannon, who grew up in Salt Lake City, served a mission in Japan for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Later on, he also interned at a Japanese industrial plant. The militancy shown in American Factory really brought him back. Cannon also runs the Asia / America New Music Institute, a chamber music group that does cultural diplomacy tours throughout Asia. His newest project, for example the studio album The Dreams of a Sleeping World is an hour-long suite of orchestral music paired with 10 paintings by artist Oscar Oiwa. (That project comes to the Salt Lake Public Library on May 20.) In many ways, the composer was the ideal person to create the score for American Factory. In a review for IndieWire, Eric Kohn wrote, American Factory shifts from an optimistic portrait of a Chinese rescue mission to a dispiriting comedy of errors, like an episode of The Office for fans of The World Is Flat. The documentary, Kohn added, unfolds as a fascinating tragicomedy. I was given a chance to write music that sort of commented on that, Cannon said. We tried not to make it too comedic, or else it becomes ridiculous, but the first chapter of the movie is pretty funny, as the American workers are confronted directly with how the Chinese management thinks, and vice versa. Not that its all funny. The Hollywood Reporter wrote, The underlying message through the entire documentary is that the American Dream failed in Dayton when GM left and the false hope offered by Fuyao might be in some ways worse. Once it moves past the comedy, American Factory chronicles the American workers efforts to unionize. Fuyaos founder/chairman, Cao Dewang, wants to stop the unionizing, and even threatens to leave town if he doesnt get his way. Cannon, who got his start in Hollywood working on orchestral scores for The Hobbit trilogy, Godzilla (2014) and The Secret Life of Pets, said the score in American Factory happened remarkably quickly. After getting the films final cut, Cannon said he had three weeks to deliver the final score. And were talking an hour of orchestral music, he explained. So thats a lot of pages of notes. Luckily, Cannon had a lot of help. He said outsiders often dont realize how collaborative film scoring really is. From the initial writing to the orchestral transcribing to the recording to the editing and mixing, the process is kind of like, well, a factory. We say as film composers, the best film scores are the ones that you dont even notice, Cannon said. We hope that our music is just contributing to tell a story. And we recognize that music is just one part of the story. If you go What: Chad Cannon's The Dreams of a Sleeping World screening When: May 20, 7 p.m. Where: Salt Lake City Public Library Auditorium, 210 E. 400 South How much: Free Web: chadcannonmusic.com PROVO A Provo man who police say was engaged in sexual contact with multiple teen girls now faces several felony charges. Kalunahaily White, 21, was charged Tuesday in 4th District Court with rape of a child and two counts of sodomy on a child, all first-degree felonies. He was also charged with child sex abuse, a second-degree felony. During the spring of 2018, White "was having sexual encounters with minors aged 13 to 16," charging documents state. His actions were discovered in May 2018 when White, who was 20 at the time, was caught having sex with a 16-year-old girl. "Although not a crime, the report led to the discovery of the other illegal contact," according to charging documents. At least two of the girls were 13, the charges state. SALT LAKE CITY The number of babies born in 2018 fell 2 percent compared to 2017, marking four straight years of decreases. The 3.8 million babies born last year mark the smallest number in 32 years, according to new provisional numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Tuesday night. The U.S. birth rate is now below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, and experts say that could kick off events that will negatively impact all U.S. generations, from stalling economic growth to shortchanging funding for Social Security and other safety net programs that benefit the elderly. America is becoming an "aging society," said Matthew Mowell, a senior economist for Oxford Economics, a global economic forecaster that also released a report this week on declining births in the United States. "It does put a ceiling on the overall productive capacity of the economy how much the United States is capable of producing. If we don't see productivity pick up, it definitely dampens potential economic growth." According to the report, American cities and regions will "grow slower and older." "We are starting to see a lot of migration flows based around people's stage in life," said Mowell, who analyzes U.S. economic trends. "It highlights that the country as a whole is aging." Many of America's "fastest-growing cities in terms of total population are now retirement destinations," Oxford Economics reports. Half of the 20 fastest-growing cities overall have a median age above the national average, while a quarter have a median age over 50. "The U.S. population is both growing more slowly and aging. While America's population growth in 2018 was half the pace of the early 1990s, the nation's median age today, 38, is eight years older than in the 1980s," the report said. It notes that "even rapidly growing cities that skew younger," including St. George, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada, "have sizable retiree populations." The report adds that "interestingly, metros in Utah, which have a cultural preference for larger families, tend to have high birth rates and the median ages of Salt Lake City and Provo are a youthful 32.9 years and 24.7 years, respectively." Many of America's 'fastest-growing cities in terms of total population are now retirement destinations.' Oxford Economics Mowell cites Utah as an example of how a population's age affects its economy. "I tell people that the quality of growth in Utah is interesting," Mowell said, citing high numbers of people moving into the state with above-average skill levels, paired with a high value placed on education within Utah. "There's a lot of positive momentum. Utah's in a very good place right now, on the right side of a very bad trend." Key findings The CDC report reveals opposite trend lines when it comes to age groups and birth rates. Birth rates for women between the ages of 15 and 34 declined from 2017 to 2018, but increased for women 35 to 44. The number of births to women 20-24 has fallen an average of 4 percent a year since 2007, and the birth rate for teens dropped between 8 and 9 percent from 2017 to 2018. Since 2007, births to females 15-19 has plummeted 60 percent. Birth rates by race tell a more consistent story. Births to non-Hispanic white and black women fell 2 percent, while births to Hispanic women dropped 1 percent. An aging population can pose economic challenges for an entire nation if the numbers of young people and old people skew too far out of balance. Demographers document the present and predict the future by looking at fertility. CDC found the general fertility rate in 2019 hit a new low of 59 births per 1,000 women ages 15-44, considered the childbearing years. The United States has experienced a 2 percent decline in that rate every year since 2014. The total fertility rate was also a record low 1,728 births per 1,000 women. That rate is estimated based on how many births would occur across a hypothetical pool of women using age-specific birth rates. The report says "the rate has generally been below replacement since 1981 and consistently below replacement for the last decade." The CDC numbers are provisional and based on nearly 100 percent of birth records for 2018 received by the National Center for Health Statistics by mid-February 2019. Future forces An aging population can pose economic challenges for an entire nation if the numbers of young people and old people skew too far out of balance, experts say. Trustees for Medicare recently issued a report showing that without Congressional intervention, funding for its Part B program will reduce payments to providers in 2026. Social Security trustees issued a similar warning that it would need to reduce benefits in 2035 because of shortfall. Both programs depend on contributions from a healthy-sized workforce for funding. If the ratio of the older generation relying on the programs and the younger generation that funds them becomes too imbalanced, the programs falter or fail. An aging population "becomes a very difficult challenge for community leaders, decision-makers and government entities because everyone wants to be kind and serve as many people as possible, but the tradeoff is as you move from a younger population to an older population, you shift the dependency ratio from young to old," said Samuel Sturgeon, president of Demographic Intelligence. While it's not a popular notion, he said, putting money into the young is considered an investment. Providing an education and safeguarding their well-being builds on the future and provides economic benefit. There's less financial return on money spent on the elderly, so it's a tricky balance. Politicians may be leery, however, of antagonizing the elderly, who have always been a strong voting demographic, he added. Bloomberg Businessweek last fall considered declining birth rates and the aging of America, then pointed to countries like Japan that have been in the aging curve longer to predict how the challenges might play out. "In Japan, employers often struggle to fill job vacancies. Spending on health care and pensions has swollen Japans public debt to more than twice the size of its economy. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that the countrys annual economic growth could be 1 percentage point lower for the next three decades because of Japans aging population. That means the countrys economy, forecast to expand 1 percent this year and next, may stagnate further." Creating policy to address issues is easier with the elderly than with new births, even with trends. Trends can change. The size of the elderly population is predictable and allows more opportunity for advanced planning, said Sturgeon. But there are gaps in how communities have planned for an aging demographic. Suburbs work for families, he said, but not for the elderly. And communities are not always great at figuring out how to care for or even engage older people in their communities. Nor do communities consistently utilize the strengths that come with age, Sturgeon said. "Are we structured in a way to take advantage of their skills?" SALT LAKE CITY Carol Ormond knew she needed to write the book as soon as she saw the photographs. I have a background in photojournalism, and photographically, I could see that they were significant," Ormond told the Deseret News. "But my initial impression was that historically, they were priceless. These were not any old photographs. The collection, now housed at the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts, consists of 116 images taken by John Hillers during the John Wesley Powell expedition. There are only two complete collections of the photos one at the Thunderbird and one at the Smithsonian Institution. The images represent a thorough documentation of the Southern Paiute Indians at the time Powell was exploring the Grand Canyon area, specifically during Powell's second expedition from 18711872. The Southern Paiutes were one of the last tribes to come in contact with European settlers and had subsisted for centuries in the arid landscape of southern Utah and northern Arizona. A Wisconsin native, Ormond had heard of the John Wesley Powell expedition but had never learned about the Paiute groups that helped him along the way. I realized that John Wesley Powell had been made famous by his expedition down the Colorado River but very little has been acknowledged about the part that the Paiutes played in (his) success, Ormond said. Ormonds book, The People: The Missing Piece of John Wesley Powells Expeditions, (Git 'er Done Books, 226 pages) is well-timed for the 150th anniversary of Powell's first expedition in 1869. In the Numic languages generally spoken by the Southern Paiutes, they called themselves "Nungwu," "Numa" or Numu, which means people or human beings, according to Britannica.com. When asked why she used that as the title, Ormonds answer was simple. One of my biggest hopes was that this group of people would be seen as individuals. The photographs present a very intimate look at individuals, she said. Paul Bingham, art addict Thunderbird Foundation president and founder Paul Bingham has been instrumental in preserving these photographs. While on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denmark, he bought a painting and sent it home. It's a habit he's continued throughout his life. Its almost like an addiction you get for art, said Bingham, who first got a job in San Francisco after graduating from college. While a lot of people were putting the money they made in the stock market and places like that, I bought art. Twenty years ago, a colleague offered Bingham the 116 prints Hillers took along the Powell expedition. They didnt seem like much, and Bingham planned to turn a profit by selling them one by one. However, Bingham said that when he began asking around about the value of the photographs, he got an unexpected answer. I started checking with a few people, including Nelson Wadsworth, who was a professor of early Utah photography at Utah State University, and he informed me that he thought this was the only known collection that exists outside the Smithsonian that has survived, Bingham said. Wadsworth was right, and that information convinced Bingham that he needed to guard the historical and artistic value of the images. I immediately said to myself, Youre not going to sell (the collection), youre going to keep it and put it in a public place for the world to see, Bingham said. Bingham and his wife, Susan, have always been what he calls historically inclined. As fans of American West artist Maynard Dixon (and friends of Dixon's third wife, Edith Hamlin), the Binghams were thrilled when Dixons house came on the market in 1998. They bought it, restored it and put it on the National Registry of Historic Places. When they got the Powell expedition photographs, the Binghams decided to use the historic Maynard Dixon house as the venue for their exhibition. They started the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts in 1999 and have displayed Hillers' photographs at various times since then, including a new show that opens May 18. Bringing the photographs to the world Both Ormond and Bingham mentioned that while some of Hillers photos have been used to illustrate other history books, around 90% of them have never been seen outside the two museums that currently hold complete collections. And while museums are great places for art exhibits, Ormond acknowledges in her forward to The People that Mount Carmel might be as remote to people now as the Grand Canyon was in 1872. The author hopes her book gives many more people the opportunity to see these striking photographs. One goal was to expand the audience and to preserve the story of the (Southern Paiute) people and their way of life at this time period," Ormond said. "Within 10 years after Hillers had taken these photographs, pretty much all of that no longer existed. The (old) culture was gone. The term "Paiute" does not refer to a single, unified group, but rather to separate groups of indigenous peoples who lived in California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona and Utah. The Southern Paiutes still occupy areas in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. With the arrival of European settlers and American pioneers, the 19th and 20th centuries brought hard times for the Paiute people and, according to UtahPaiute.com, "their numbers, once in the thousands, dwindled to less than 800." Ormond wanted to ensure The People has wide appeal that it would tell the story of its subjects not as a dense history book reserved only for academics but for a broader audience. Ormond kept the images front and center, letting them speak for themselves with brief informational captions and the occasional quote from Powells or his associates journals. Each photograph has a certificate from the U.S. Department of the Interior with information about the location, tribe and person pictured. There are stories and theres information thats attached to specific individuals, Ormond said, adding that she hopes the intimate look at each person will help readers realize the similarities between themselves and the people in the photographs. In addition to Hillers' photographs from the John Wesley Powell expedition, the Thunderbird is also celebrating the expedition's 150th anniversary with an exhibition of paintings from landscape artist Robert Goldman. Goldman recently retraced Powell's journey, following the artistic path of 19th century artist Thomas Moran, who joined Powell on his 1873 expedition. "Wherever Powell traveled, during those years that he was (in the West), Robert has now made paintings, starting in Green River, working his way down to Lake Powell and all the way down into the (Grand) Canyon," Bingham said. Forty of Goldman's pieces will be on display and for sale at the Thunderbird Gallery as part of the exhibition "A New Perspective." The two shows "The People: An Exhibition" and "A New Perspective" both celebrate an expedition that, even 150 years later, is still a remarkable feat that brought attention to worlds the rest of the country knew nothing about, according to Bingham. "(It was) a treacherous, very important historical event in the annals of American history, because this was the first time that that has ever been done." If you go What: The People author Carol Ormond signing, lecture with artist Robert Goldman and opening night reception for 150th anniversary of the John Wesley Powell expedition. When: Saturday, May 18, Robert Goldman lecture, 11 a.m., signing, 1 p.m., reception, 6 p.m. Where: Lecture and signing at Old Rock Church, Mt. Carmel and reception at Maynard Dixon Living History Museum, 2200 State Street, Mt. Carmel How much: free Phone: 435-648-2653 Web: www.thunderbirdfoundation.com ERDA, Tooele County Tooele County "mishandled" the sale of the Utah Motorsports Campus by not following best practices for selling public property leading to the loss of millions of dollars, legislative auditors concluded in a scathing audit report released Tuesday. Because the county did not follow commonly used best practices including not documenting the decision-making process made behind closed doors auditors determined the county would have been able to better defend itself against a court challenge, which eventually cost the county more than $1.5 million to settle. As a result, the county received millions less than it could have from the sale of the raceway, auditors concluded. "We cannot say with certainty the extent to which the county losses can be attributed directly to the mishandled sale of the raceway," auditors wrote in the report. But what "is clear," auditors wrote, "is a well-executed sale" could have allowed Tooele County's original, $20 million sale to their first chosen buyer, Mitime, to successfully stand against a legal challenge. "Due to several missteps by the county, and other events that were out of its control, the final sale was delayed," auditors wrote. "The county then suffered several years of operating losses and litigation expenses which greatly reduced the proceeds from the final raceway sale in 2018." Auditors deducted $9.36 million in operating losses and $1.8 million in litigation costs to determine the raceway only produced a $7.36 million gain for Tooele County. State leaders on the Legislative Audit Subcommittee reviewed the audit on Tuesday. House Speaker Brad Wilson in a prepared statement credited Rep. Doug Sagers, R-Tooele, for "being a watchdog for the taxpayers" of Tooele County and for expressing concerns and calling for the audit. "I think that everyone agrees that what was discovered, related to how Tooele County handled the sale of the Utah Motorsports Campus, should never happen again," Wilson said. "However, our auditors have also provided some good recommendations on how Tooele County can improve in the future, and I trust they will take the proper steps to implement them." Tooele County first gained ownership of the raceway in 2015, after the Larry H. Miller Group the racetrack's builder and original owner decided against renewing the facility's lease after years of operating losses. As the owner of the land, Tooele County then took ownership of the buildings, racetrack and other facilities. County leaders, lacking the expertise to operate a raceway, decided to sell the property. However, concerns arose when county officials passed over an offer from the company Center Point for $22.5 million and instead accepted a $20 million bid from Mitime a company that created a subsidiary to run the raceway. Some questioned whether county officials had conflicts of interest or were biased in favor of the company that submitted the lower bid. A consultant who reviewed the bids advised Tooele County to chose Mitime, noting it was "unclear whether Center Point had sufficient financial backing to follow through" and "there was no evidence that Center Point knew how to operate a racetrack business." One month after the sale, Center Point brought a court challenge against the county. In December 2015, a judge ruled in favor of Center Points claim and invalidated the sale to Mitime. In the meantime, the Tooele County Commission decided to keep the raceway operating in order to retain its value and address tenants' needs. After the original sale was overturned, county leaders were told they could overcome some of the legal barriers to its sale by classifying the raceway as a redevelopment project and by selling it through the county redevelopment agency. But Center Point also challenged that sale in court. Months later, Center Point agreed to drop its claims after the county agreed to pay a $1.55 million settlement. In April of last year, Tooele County leaders then announced a third attempt to sell the property. It got one offer a bid from Mitime for $18.55 million, which the county accepted. To address concerns of conflict of interests or bias, Tooele County leaders asked the Utah legislative auditor general to review the county's sale of the raceway and the county commissioners' oversight of the park during the three years of the dispute. Tuesday's report details auditor's findings. Auditors didn't find any conflicts of interest but recommended the Tooele County Commission improve its transparency by clarifying its ordinances regarding land sales, records retention and open meetings as well as adopt a policy regarding the closure of administrative meetings. Many of the commission's decisions regarding the sale of the property appear to have been addressed during its closed executive sessions, auditors wrote. "It is debatable whether decisions regarding the sale of the raceway are legislative or administrative matters," auditors wrote, noting that it could be argued that the county code does not fully address decisions involved in selling a property "with such large economic impact on the county." For that reason, the sale could be considered subject to Utah's open meetings law. Auditors also concluded the county's oversight of the raceway was "inadequate" and the county "did not fulfill its responsibility" to oversee the raceway's finances. Auditors reported Tooele County had "misleading" financial reporting, noting financial statements did not disclose raceway liabilities and overstated raceway sale proceeds. The commission also did not provide adequate budgetary oversight and "the county's budget practices in general need to improve," auditors wrote. In a written response to the audit, Tooele County Commission Chairman Tom Tripp said county officials agreed with the recommendations and "will use (our) best efforts to implement those recommendations in the coming months." Tripp, in a news release issued after the audit was released, said the county is developing more "robust" policies related to Utah's open meetings laws, record retention and competitive bidding and has hired an "independent auditing firm" to assess management practices. That independent auditing firm, Ulrich & Associates, PC, is costing Tooele County about $30,000 a year, Tripp told the Deseret News after Tuesday's meeting. Tooele County strives to be a trusted steward of public resources and welcomes the audit recommendations as a means of improving our operations, Tripp said. Even before the audit process began, the county had recently taken steps to conduct our work with more openness and transparency, but we acknowledge that we can always do better. Trip added it was a strange situation for Tooele County. "Folks should keep in mind the unprecedented nature of the situation," Tripp said. Never in state history had a city or county let alone a small rural county like ours been asked to take over the operations of a complex, globally recognized racetrack virtually overnight. During the three years the county owned the property, county officials said they "significantly reduced the annual losses the racetrack had been experiencing, protected taxpayers from incurring any potential future losses," and contracted with Mitime, which "agreed to invest millions of the companys own resources into necessary upgrades so that important tenants like Ford would not leave." SALT LAKE CITY Republicans and Democrats both fail religious freedom, but they do so in different ways, according to Tim Schultz, who delivered the keynote address at a Tuesday symposium on religion and inclusion. The political right is often guilty of ignoring the needs of religious minorities, while the political left can act as if Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and Hindus are the only people of faith who need to be protected, he said. "Let's vow to intentionally do better," he urged the crowd assembled at the Utah State Office Building, which included policymakers, legal experts and faith leaders. Schultz's stark assessment of the religious freedom landscape capped off a morning of tough conversations at the event, which was co-sponsored by the Sutherland Institute and Parity, an LGBTQ rights advocacy group. Panelists from a variety of political and religious backgrounds described how difficult it is to find common ground these days, including in high-profile clashes between religious liberty and LGBTQ rights. "We're really good at getting our argument fine-tuned and figuring out who are our friends and enemies," said Sharon Groves, vice president for partner engagement at Auburn Theological Seminary. "We're not good at actually listening to people." That's bad news for more than just religious freedom, panelists said. Human rights aren't safe when we stop recognizing each other's humanity. "We have to learn more about each other and look past scary headlines and Facebook posts," said Asma Uddin, a senior scholar with the Freedom Forum Institute in Washington, D.C. Loss of unity Schultz began his remarks by looking to the recent past, when religious freedom was much less controversial. In 1993, LGBTQ rights and religious freedom advocates, Republicans and Democrats, joined together to pass new federal protections for faith groups. As recently as 2013, similar measures passed state legislatures with strong bipartisan support. In the last five years, that "kumbaya" spirit turned into "kumba-nah," he said, noting "there's a great deal of suspicion and animosity around religious freedom." "Now it's scare-quoted in headlines and referred to as 'so-called religious freedom,'" Schultz said. Under the current administration, religious freedom has become partisan instead of universal, a way to divide instead of unite. Asma Uddin, a senior scholar with the Freedom Forum Institute in Washington, D.C. Americans share the blame for that shift, according to the symposium panelists. Republicans overlooked the concerns of minority groups, including gays and lesbians. Democrats acted as if sincerely held religious beliefs could change. Christians fixated on their own fears instead of ensuring all faith groups were safe. "Under the current administration, religious freedom has become partisan instead of universal, a way to divide instead of unite," said Uddin, whose book, "When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside Americas Fight for Religious Freedom," will be published in July. As a result, people suffered and continue to suffer. Muslim death row inmates are refused access to a spiritual adviser during their execution. Catholic nuns must file lawsuits to avoid violating their conscience. Members of the LGBTQ community lose jobs or apartments because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We need a better path forward, said Howard Slugh, co-founder of and general counsel for the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty. "We need to introduce nuance back into the discussion," he said. Path forward Symposium panelists have different visions of what that better path should look like. Some faith leaders want churches to take the lead in defusing tension. Uddin hopes legal experts will do a better job explaining what religious freedom laws do and do not guarantee. Schultz remains focused on the political sphere, and thinks both Republicans and Democrats should reform their ways. The political left needs to recognize the value faith groups bring to society, while the political right needs to show that religious freedom is about more than side-stepping LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws. "If you're politically conservative and you don't like that smear, then put your money where your mouth is," Schultz said. Each speaker, however, seemed to return to a common theme: Individual relationships and conversations matter. If you're sick of widespread misunderstanding, then work to address your own misconceptions. "Make friends with somebody who doesn't share your faith," Schultz said. If you're politically conservative and you don't like that smear, then put your money where your mouth is. Tim Schultz, who delivered the keynote address at the Sutherland Institute Elder Allen D. Haynie, General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said he's experienced the power of conversation across lines of difference multiple times in recent years, especially in his work addressing clashes between religious freedom and LGBTQ rights. He described meeting with a friend about 10 years ago who was outraged by his support for Proposition 8 in California, which prevented same-sex marriage. Elder Haynie and the woman sat together for an hour sharing their beliefs and concerns. "By the end of the hour, she understood my feelings and I understood hers. We remain good, good friends," Elder Haynie said, noting that conversations like that lead us to discover common ground. Policymakers and people of faith don't have to agree on everything in order to ensure that religious freedom is protected, Uddin said. They just have to agree that even claims they reject deserve protection. "We may think that another person's belief is wrong, but the premise behind religious freedom is that people have a right to be wrong," she said. In the 1830s, Edward Hunter was a Quaker gentleman residing in Chester County, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. His large house is still extant. He donated land and constructed a building known as the Wallace or West Nantmeal Seminary, insisting that it be open to all faiths who might wish to use it. In 1839, two Latter-day Saint missionaries asked to use the building for preaching. The locals refused until Edward threatened to repossess the building. People began joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Brandywine Branch was organized. The Prophet Joseph came through the area in 1840. He preached in the seminary and had a positive affect on Edward Hunter. By the end of 1840, some 200 people in the Brandywine Valley had been converted to the church, including Edward and his wife, Ann. They were baptized by Elder Orson Hyde who was on his way to the Holy Land. The Hunter family moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1842. They donated thousands of dollars in cash and goods to the church. Edward served as a bishop in Nauvoo, Winter Quarters and Salt Lake City. In 1851, he was called to be the third presiding bishop of the church, serving in that capacity for more than three decades. He was ever faithful to the prophets and regarded as fatherly and kindhearted. He laid/dedicated one of the cornerstones of the Salt Lake Temple. During his tenure, the number of Saints in the Rocky Mountains grew from 11,000 to 120,000. Many, many of those were afflicted by poverty. (See "Supporting Saints: Life Stories of Nineteenth-Century Mormons," by William G. Hartley, edited by Donald Q. Cannon, pages 276-277, 299.) Note: Appreciation is expressed to historian Charles A. Muldowney for much of the information above. SALT LAKE CITY The 60-year-old State Office Building at the north end of the Capitol complex is headed for demolition after legislative leaders voted Tuesday to buy the American Express campus in Taylorsville. The $30 million purchase authorized by the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee is intended to free up parking at the Capitol, a significant problem for the public when the Legislature meets, by relocating some 700 state workers. Money to pay for the credit card company's buildings will come from $110 million set aside during the 2019 Legislature to deal with the aging structure on Capitol Hill long seen as an eyesore that needed to be replaced. "Its always been the final piece of completing the Capitol complex," Jim Russell, director of the state Division of Facilities Construction and Management, told the committee. "It's not a candidate for refurbishing." That's because the building fails to meet current seismic standards, has no fire suppression system and cannot be reconfigured effectively because of how it was constructed, Russell said. He said the last renovation of the building was completed more than 15 years ago. But although past master plans called for replacing it with a smaller office building similar to the House and Senate buildings added to the grounds years ago, it's no longer clear that will happen. Russell outlined a backup plan if there's no money for a new north building that calls for simply landscaping the site once the building is torn down at a yet-to-be-determined date. Another presentation showcased what a new, four-story building could add to the complex, such as additional offices, meeting spaces and parking for the agencies that remain, as well as a new Utah Museum of Arts and Heritage for visitors. The committee agreed to spend a total of $56 million to buy and renovate the American Express buildings near the Utah Department of Transportation and other state offices, and on additional planning. The schedule for the project calls for 400 state employees to move into the new building before the start of the 2020 Legislature next January followed by the rest of the workers in December 2020. State agencies currently housed in the State Office Building include the Division of Facilities Construction and Management, Department of Administrative Services and Department of Human Resource Management. The state Department of Agriculture and Food is scheduled to move into the building in August 2020. There's room for up to 1,500 state employees in the new building, meaning some agencies now leasing office space could move there, too. Still to be funded are plans to use an adjacent data center to store the state's art and historical artifacts collection, now housed in a leaky basement in the Rio Grande Depot. The nearly 400,000 square feet of office space on 31 acres requires an overall investment of $107 million to ready it for 1,500 employees, Russell said, compared to $330.5 million for new construction. He said he did not expect to move so quickly on the project, but had struck a deal with American Express, which is constructing a new building and will pay $200,000 a month in rent until it's finished. "This is one sweet deal," said Senate Minority Leader Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City. She said the new building that's located in her Senate district is "around fast food and gas stations, it's just so convenient for employees." Mayne said there are health concerns for workers at the Capitol office building. "We've got to get employees out of these sick buildings," she said, while their new workplace, located at 4315 S. 2700 West, is "just made for us. I think the gods were looking out for us on this building." There was no debate before the purchase was approved unanimously. SALT LAKE CITY Mexican police have confirmed that a Utah man allegedly ran over three people and hit seven vehicles as he tried to evade officers in Tijuana near the border on Monday. The incident began after Frank Eddie Stricker, 29, of Magna, got into a "verbal fight" with someone on a road, according to a Baja California State Police report translated into English. When police intervened, they said Stricker didn't comply with their instructions and then escaped into a Costco parking lot, the report states. He then headed onto an avenue near the border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego, driving between vehicles, hitting seven of them and running over three people, police said. Additional information about the victims' injuries were not immediately available. Stricker and his passenger were also injured, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, and Stricker was arrested and taken to a hospital for treatment. The justice officials in Baja California, Mexico, said Stricker might be charged with attempted murder, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Court records show Stricker has an extensive criminal history in Utah. In July 2018, he pleaded guilty to failing to stop or respond at the command of police after fleeing from an officer who pulled him over for using his cellphone while driving. A short time later that day, the officer found that Stricker's vehicle had gotten into a rollover crash, according to the charges. Stricker then ran away from the crash, police said, and when later arrested told officers he had jumped over a fence, fell 15 feet and hurt his back during the attempted escape. In 2016, Stricker pleaded guilty to theft by receiving stolen property after police found him in possession of a vehicle stolen from Murdock Hyundai, according to court documents. He has also pleaded guilty in previous years to multiple instances of shoplifting, as well as obstructing justice, aggravated robbery and possession of a forgery device, court records show. A friend of Stricker, Andrew Walker, told the Deseret News the incident in Mexico has been misunderstood. A woman who was in Mexico with Stricker said he was protecting her from a crime before the police chase occurred, according to Walker. "Everyone's making him out to look like a bad guy. He's not a bad guy," Walker said. "To just run through a crowd like that, there had to be someone chasing him." Contributing: Andrew Adams Photo: Contributed Veterinarian and integrative pain management expert Dr. Conny Mosley will advise on the development of cannabis products for pets at True Leaf. Dr. Mosley is a Director and Vice-President of the Canadian Association of Veterinary Cannabinoid Medicine (CAVCM) and brings more than 20 years of experience in veterinary medicine to True Leaf. She currently leads the integrative pain management service at the VCA Canada 404 Veterinary Emergency and Referral Hospital in Newmarket, Ontario, which improves the quality of life for pets through perioperative, postoperative, acute and chronic pain management. We are proud to welcome another top veterinarian dedicated to advancing cannabis-based therapies for pets to the True Leaf Veterinary Advisory Board, said Darcy Bomford, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of True Leaf. Our commitment to be the leading global cannabis-for-pets brand starts with product excellence. We are working side-by-side with our veterinary advisors to research and develop the safest, most effective cannabis products for pets. Dr. Mosley will be a key member of our team as we work towards launching a best-to-market CBD product for pets and begin development on a veterinary exclusive line. Dr. Mosley is a strong advocate for cannabis-based therapies for animals, and through her work at CAVCM, and with the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), is encouraging Health Canada to amend the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) to permit the future classification of CBD as a Veterinary Health Product. This would open the door for True Leaf to bring legal and quality-controlled CBD products for pets to market in Canada. Dr. Mosley joins pioneer cannabis-for-pets veterinarian Dr. Katherine Kramer, DVM, DABVP (Canine & Feline Practice), CVA, CVTP, on the True Leaf Veterinary Advisory Board. Dr. Kramer is the Founding Chair of the Board and one of the foremost knowledge leaders on cannabinoid medicine for pets globally. SALT LAKE CITY Her family knew Rose Marie Harris had a difficult relationship, but they did not expect it to end in her death. "She was intelligent and funny and she was also tender and vulnerable," her sister Suzanne Palmer told a judge Tuesday, but others sometimes took advantage of her weaknesses. Third District Judge Randall Skanchy on Tuesday ordered Harris' partner Sue Mary Hickman to at least one and up to 15 years in prison, about 2 1/2 years after police found Harris, 54, dead of a gunshot wound on their couch. "The ability to walk away from a volatile situation existed, and it didn't happen here," Skanchy told Hickman, 55. He recommended she "serve every day of that sentence," without credit for more than two years she has spent in jail. Harris was found dead in the home the couple shared at 573 N. Wall St. in the Capitol Hill neighborhood on Dec. 18, 2016. In a recording of her call to police previously played in court, she is heard saying, "I did it. She made me snap. I couldn't take it anymore, her drinking." Hickman originally faced a charge of murder, a first-degree felony. But a jury in March found her guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, concluding she was under extreme emotional distress at the time, her attorney Ed Brass said. Palmer, one of Harris' sisters, said she believes Hickman managed to secure the less severe conviction by misleading jurors earlier this year. She recalled that Hickman knew Harris was fighting addiction but had told her to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana to cope with her anxiety. Still, she turned to a teary Hickman at one point Tuesday and told her, "I forgive you." Hickman's attorneys argued she doesn't recall shooting Harris and had resolved to pack up her guns and leave with the couple's two pit pulls after they began fighting over dishes on Dec. 17, 2016. Prosecutors contended Hickman waited a half hour to call police after shooting her partner and had a cigarette with her family members in the interim. "That's just very hard to accept, that this was an accident," said Deputy Salt Lake District Attorney Joshua Graves. Graves said the case would likely have reached a different outcome under a new Utah law that took effect Tuesday, partly because it stipulates that if a victim provoked their killer with only words, that's not a basis for juries to find someone guilty of a lesser offense than murder. A shackled Hickman did not speak in court, except to say a tearful "no, sir" when the judge asked if she would make a statement. She wore gray hair and a dark blue jail uniform, whispering "I love you" to her family as she was led to a holding cell. Teri Bailey, Hickman's friend and former partner of 23 years, said outside the courtroom that she believes Hickman and Harris both were struggling over one of Hickman's guns when it fired, but her friend likely accepted fault because it's her nature to blame herself. She recalled Harris, not Hickman, as an abuser, at one point striking Hickman in the ear where she'd just had surgery. Still, after Harris' death, Hickman was concerned for her late partner's family and demanded half the money from the sale of her home to go to them, Bailey said. Now, Hickman calls her most every night from jail and asks the same question. "She wants to know who pulled the trigger, because she doesn't know who pulled the trigger," Bailey said. Hickman has struggled to access to mental health services in jail and plans to seek out treatment in prison, her friend added. "Everything she lived for is dead, by what she believes is her own hands," Bailey said. "How do you go on?" 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. SALT LAKE CITY A Utah woman survived a close call Monday when a long metal beam flew off the back of a truck, impaling her windshield. "It was really just split seconds. I don't even know how I was able to keep control of the car, to tell you the truth. I don't know, I mean it was just a miracle really. I mean, that's the only way I can explain it," said Nicci Sanders, who was driving her usual route on I-15 near Clearfield on her way to work. The object arrived with "an explosion of glass," she recalled. There was nothing she could've done to prevent it. "I was both hands on the wheel and was completely aware of my surroundings," Sanders explained Tuesday in an interview with the Deseret News. When she saw the beam flying her way, she swerved as far to the left as she could without falling into the median before the beam crashed into her windshield, missing her by mere inches. "If I had been doing anything differently, I would have been dead," according to Sanders. Utah Highway Patrol Cpl. Chris Jones, who responded to the incident, agreed. "Her actions are probably what helped save her," he said. The piece of metal flew off a roofing company's boom truck, which is a type of craning and transport unit. UHP Sgt. Nick Street said the roofing company was cooperating with troopers, who gave the company a citation for the flying debris. The driver likely didn't notice it, Jones said. "We don't get a lot of calls for items this heavy or this large that can cause this much damage," he explained. But debris-related crashes are common, with at least 700 of them in Utah last year, according to Jones. CENTERVILLE Two men were in custody and police were looking for two others in an assault and robbery on Tuesday. Centerville police were called to a report of an assault about 3:45 p.m. Officers found a man "covered in blood (with) swelling to his face and above his left eye, as well as a large cut to the top of his head that medics reported would need staples," according to a Davis County Jail report. The man told police that he was driving "with what he thought were his friends" when they pulled a gun on him and demanded his wallet, then beat him when he refused to give it to them, the report states. "(The victim's) wallet was forcefully removed from his pocket, tearing his pants, and (the victim) was thrown from the vehicle." according to a second report. The victim told police that the driver was Ricardo Jesus Quintero, 18, of Farmington. Detectives kept surveillance on Quintero's residence and watched as two vehicles left his residence. Officers attempted to stop a gray Honda with one driver and two males in a Dodge Charger. The Honda stopped near Shepard Lane and Frontage Road and the driver angled the vehicle "across both lanes, blocking other officers from the Charger. The Charger took off southbound through the light at Park Lane and onto I-15, losing control and crashing just prior to 200 West," the report states. Police later announced that Abraham Valdez Alonso, 19, had turned himself in at the Davis County Jail. He was subsequently booked for investigation of aggravated robbery and aggravated assault. Abraham Valdez Alonso, 19, had turned himself in at the Davis County Jail. He was subsequently booked for investigation of aggravated robbery and aggravated assault. Police also questioned a girlfriend of one the suspects and believe "that this is not the first aggravated robbery" that the Charger may have been involved with, and it may have also been the vehicle used in a recent drive-by shooting in North Salt Lake, the report states. The search for two more men continued Wednesday. Anyone with information was asked to call police at 801-292-8441. PROVO A case of the mumps has been confirmed in Utah County, and the local health department is asking people to help avoid spreading the highly contagious viral disease. The Utah County Health Department is not releasing information about the identity of the person with mumps, but did say the person was not vaccinated. "Mumps can be prevented through vaccination," Dr. David Flinders, health department medical director, said Wednesday. He said people should make sure they have had two doses of the MMR vaccine, "which protects against mumps." At least seven cases of mumps have been confirmed in Sanpete County, with six more suspected, and another case is being investigated in Wasatch County. Health department officials have also investigated at least one case of suspected mumps in Salt Lake County. Mumps begins with a fever and/or headache and swelling of the salivary glands. Other symptoms include fatigue and muscle aches and a loss of appetite. Mumps can have other complications, including inflammation throughout the body and the brain. Symptoms typically appear 16 to 18 days after exposure to the virus, which is spread through saliva or mucus and objects or surfaces touched by an infected person. Aside from vaccination, the health department encourages people not to share food, utensils and other items that may contain saliva, as well as to wash hands properly and often. People who get mumps should stay home for five days after the onset of symptoms and limit contact with others, the health department reports. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 736 people have been infected with mumps so far this year. Mumps cases have been on the rise throughout the country since late 2015, the CDC reports. Mumps cases in the U.S. decreased by more than 99 percent after the two-dose MMR vaccination program was introduced in 1989. But since 2006, the CDC reports, "there have been several increases in cases and outbreaks about every five years." According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, vaccination rates have continued to drop since a controversial 1998 study suggesting a connection between the vaccine and autism in young children was published. Several studies have since disproved that connection. BLUFFDALE Formal charges were filed Wednesday against the owner of a landscaping company accused of shooting a customer who filed a lawsuit against him. Ryan Nolan Holladay, 36, of Riverton, was charged in 3rd District Court with two counts of discharge of a firearm and possession of a firearm by a restricted person, second-degree felonies; and three counts of discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony. Sunday night, Holladay went to a Bluffdale man's house. The 34-year-old homeowner knew Holladay because he had hired him to do some landscape work, "but that arrangement had broken down resulting in (the homeowner) suing Holladay," according to charging documents. "Holladay stated that he was there to 'mediate,' then drew a gun from his pocket and fired multiple shots," the charges state. The homeowner was shot twice, including a "grazing wound to his rib cage" and a through-and-through bullet wound to his right bicep, according to charging documents. Holladay fired a total of six shots, police say. Saratoga Springs police "pinged" Holladay's phone and found it on the driver's seat of his pickup truck that was abandoned near the Salt Lake City International Airport. As of Wednesday, Holladay had not been found. A $100,000 warrant was issued for his arrest. According to his Facebook page, Holladay is the owner of Landscaping and Sprinkler Specialists in Riverton. Court records show Holladay has a history of domestic violence. He was also convicted in 2003 of robbery, possession of a weapon by a restricted person and impersonating an officer and was sentenced to one to 15 years at the Utah State Prison. That sentence was ordered to run concurrent with a 2002 conviction of aggravated robbery for which Holladay was sentenced to five years to life at the Utah State Prison. Anyone with information about the incident or Holladay's whereabouts is asked to call police at 801-766-6503. WASHINGTON The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday awarded nearly $19 million in infrastructure grants for three airport projects in Utah. The grants, announced by U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao, are part of $779 million in supplemental funding for infrastructure projects at 127 airports in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Bryce Canyon Airport will receive $5 million to rehabilitate its runway, while Canyonlands Field in Moab will receive $4.75 million to construct a taxiway. The Roosevelt Municipal Airport was awarded $9 million for a runway, taxiway, lighting and drainage improvements. This second and final increment of supplemental funding was funded through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which provided an additional $1 billion in funding above the $3.31 billion awarded in the regular Airport Improvement Program funding during fiscal year 2018. SALT LAKE CITY New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants governments and internet companies to do more to prevent live streams of terrorist attacks, and shes in Paris today to convince leaders to do just that. Ardern will push a new initiative called the Christchurch Call, which is an agreement that will ask digital leaders to do more to prevent the live broadcast of terrorist attacks, and make sure such content is removed quickly when it does appear, according to NPR. "This call to action is not just about regulation, but instead about bringing companies to the table and saying, 'You have a role too, and we have expectations of you,'" Ardern told CNN. Specifically, the agreement will ask government to enforce existing rules that limit the spread of terrorist material, as well as consider potential new regulation or standards to reduce the dissemination of such content as long as it does not interfere with a so-called open internet, according to Politico. U.S. officials will be in attendance, as will some from Canada and Britain. She has been working heavily with French President Emmanuel Macron, the United Kingdoms Theresa May and others to get this done, according to Politico. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will be in attendance. Representatives from Facebook, Amazon and Google will also be at the summit, according to The Washington Post. Arderns call comes after the March 15 terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, which saw 51 people killed an attack that streamed online for minutes before it was taken down. In the immediate aftermath, Ardern and New Zealandpassed new gun control measures and introduced some legislation that would ban most semi-automatic weaponry. Ardern has been trying to get digital leaders on board with changing how events are live-streamed. She wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times in which she said social media needs to find a balance between freedom and broadcasting terrorism. "Social media connects people. And so we must ensure that in our attempts to prevent harm that we do not compromise the integral pillar of society that is freedom of expression, she wrote. But that right does not include the freedom to broadcast mass murder. But will those in attendance at the Paris summit agree with Ardern? Well, according to The New York Times, a number of countries will sign the Christchurch call. Politico reports that Norway and Canada, as well as the European Union's Jean-Claude Juncker will all agree to support the proposal. But the U.S. wont be one of them, The New York Times reports. "The pledge does not contain enforcement or regulatory measures. It will be up to each country and company to decide how to carry out the commitments, according to two senior New Zealand officials involved in the drafting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the exact wording of the pledge was still being finalized," according to the Times. "Social media companies will be left with the thorny task of deciding what constitutes violent extremist content, since it is not defined in the accord." Though Politico reports that the U.S. wont sign the agreement, the country will be there to observe the summit. Facebook announced Tuesday that it will restrict live streaming from its platform to prevent future abuse and terrorist online videos, The Verge reports. SALT LAKE CITY Lawmakers took the first step Wednesday toward coming up with an alternative to a bill vetoed by Gov. Gary Herbert that would have emphasized speed over participation in filling unexpected congressional vacancies. Members of the Legislature's Government Operations Interim Committee voted unanimously to open a bill file at their first meeting during the break between annual legislative sessions. But that's as far as the committee got on an issue that has caused friction between legislators and the governor since 2017, when then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz resigned his 3rd Congressional District seat and Herbert set up the special election to replace him. That election included allowing candidates to gather voter signatures for a place on the primary ballot as an alternative to the traditional caucus and convention system used by political parties. SB123, sponsored by Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, abbreviated the governor's process by eliminating the signature-gathering alternative that had been at the center of the Utah GOP's unsuccessful yearslong legal battle with the state. Herbert said in his veto letter that the bill "signficantly" limited voter participation. Legislative leaders were unable to muster the two-thirds supportneeded in both the House and Senate to override the veto by the May 13 deadline. Now lawmakers and the governor's office, along with county clerks, political parties and others are working on a new bill for the 2020 session that begins in late January. "At the end of the day, this is something that's going to be complicated," the committee's Senate chairman, Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, said in calling for what he described as a working group. Thatcher said lawmakers have the option of not taking up the issue during interim and waiting to see what's proposed in the upcoming general session, but he believes doing it now is the better choice. The committee was told that Utah is one of only three states the others are Idaho and North Dakota that have no statutory provisions about how to handle the constitutionally required elections to fill congressional vacancies. Other states fill vacancies within 90 days of a vacancy occurring early in a two-year U.S. House term, while others take up to 150 days or more. Fifteen states leave the process up to the governor or don't specify details. Nominees in other states are selected by political parties or through primary elections, including some where the top two candidates are advanced regardless of party. Until Chaffetz, now a Fox News contributor, announced he was stepping down from office months after his re-election, Utah had not had to deal with a midterm congressional vacancy since Republican Elmer Leatherwood died in office in 1929. Later in the same committee meeting, Thatcher made unusual and unsubstantiated allegations about unspecified city council members receiving unreported campaign contributions from a lobbyist being paid "disproportionately higher" by the same city. Thatcher did not name the officials, the lobbyist or even the city involved and said the allegations came from "a citizen." After the meeting, he declined to provide any details, saying he couldn't "talk about it without burning somebody." The allegations were brought up during discussion of an agenda item about "accountability and transparency in local governments use of public funds for the purpose of lobbying the Legislature." Several members of the committee questioned the need for the Legislature to get involved, especially since campaign finance disclosures are made to local government officials. Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Sandy, said the allegations feel "very conspiracy theory-esque" and said Thatcher's attempt to open a bill file to address the issue was "trying to create a bill for a problem that doesn't exist." In the end, Thatcher asked the committee staff to work with the Utah League of Cities and Towns and others to sample city council campaign disclosure forms to see how prevalent not reporting contributions and expenses actually is. Thatcher told reporters he can find out which cities have lobbyists and how much they are paid, but "I don't know whether or not those lobbyists are then turning around and making donations to city council" members. Photo: District of Summerland Disregarding the opposition of the school board and a group of downtown business owners, Summerland council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a cannabis storefront on Victoria Road North. Its the equivalent to alcohol in our world today, said Coun. Richard Barkwill, adding he expects the store will have zero impact on the high school 200 metres away. I dont think that the students in Summerland are going to be hanging around outside the cannabis store looking for someone to bootleg them some hash, he said, pointing to taxes that have elevated the price of legal cannabis above the existing black market youth already use. Okanagan Skaha school trustee Dave Stathers had addressed council to reiterate SD 67s opposition to the shop, which was due to its proximity and 11 p.m. close. It was, however, pointed out that the Peacocks Perch cold beer and wine store already operates the same distance from the high school under the same hours. Roch Fortin presented a petition containing 40 signatures that asked cannabis shops be kept out of the downtown, I became involved by defacto because many people were afraid to speak out and business owners fear of retaliation. Two business owners that were previously opposed, including Dionne Bakalos of Summerland Gold Exchange and the Green Gaia cannabis stores already approved in Summerland and Penticton, wrote to council to formally retract their opposition to the Victoria Road Store. The storefronts co-owner Sergio Pawar told council they have purchased their entire building at a cost of $750,000 and plan $250,000 more in renovations. I want you to know that we are here and trying to come here with open arms we want to work with everybody, he said. I think we should welcome people from out of our community into this town to invest and help our community grow, said Coun. Erin Carlson. Mayor Toni Boot was on the same page. To turn away a retail establishment, regardless of what it is, that fits into our downtown and follows our policies seems like a hypocritical thing to do. The vote to provide municipal approval to the proposed store passed unanimously. The provincial government still needs to provide the final green-light for opening, which should take months. **a previous version of this story stated Roch Fortin was involved in a brewery opening downtown Summerland. He is in fact not linked to the brewery. Castanet regrets the error. SALT LAKE CITY Utah has jabbed around the edges of the nation's long-standing abortion law, but hasn't gone as far as Alabama to ban the procedure in almost all circumstances. The Beehive State's Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill in 2016 that requires doctors to administer anesthesia or painkillers for a fetus before any abortion at 20 weeks gestation or later the first law of its kind in the country. Earlier this year, lawmakers outlawed abortions performed solely based on a Down syndrome diagnosis. While both measures are controversial, the Legislature also waded into the national debate on abortion rights this year with a law banning the procedure after 18 weeks gestation. Planned Parenthood of Utah immediately sued and a federal judge stopped the law from taking effect while the case is litigated. "Utah has taken a little more reserved approach. Weve been pushing the envelope on abortions to limit them pushing the envelope in what we believe are the current judicial constraints," Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, said, listing some of those laws. "If the question is would Utah join Alabama, in principle I suspect theres a lot of support for that," he said. "Are we willing to pass a law? I would be." The Alabama Legislature passed a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state, setting the stage for a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that recognized a womans constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. The bill, which the governor signed Wednesday, makes an exception for cases when the mother's life is at risk, but not for rape or incest. While women who have abortions would not be prosecuted, doctors who perform the procedure could be charged with a crime and face up to 99 years in prison. Utah legislators have not been willing to go that far, in part, because the Alabama law is not consistent with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' stance on abortion, said Chris Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. The church allows for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and serious harm to the life or health of the mother. Considerable evidence also shows that church members opinions tend to line up solidly behind the churchs position, and that affects public opinion in the state more broadly, he said. "While many Utahns would generally be classified as pro-life and would likely support regulation beyond what is allowed by Roe v. Wade, I dont see any substantial push either in the Legislature or the electorate to follow Alabamas lead," Karpowitz said. Rep. Cheryl Acton, R-West Jordan, carried the Utah measure that outlaws abortion after 18 weeks. It includes exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother and fatal fetal defects. Alabama, she said, has taken a different approach "ours is more incremental" but she hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually take a case and return abortion law to the states. "I think that its never been settled law. Ever. Weve been intimidated into silence by threat of lawsuit and so forth. We just dont do anything about it. But I do think somethings happening now nationally and it could just be the new court, but I think its more than that," Acton said. "People have finally decided this is wrong. Were not going to put up with it anymore. Were part of an atrocity here just like slavery, just like segregation. Even though it may be constitutional, it can still be wrong." Bramble, who has carried bills to limit abortion, said many Utahns, himself included, would support legislation that could undo the abortion law. "If we could pass a bill that would pass judicial muster to overturn Roe v. Wade, I would sign up to be the sponsor of it," he said. "The questions is, will it pass judicial muster? And at what point do we have a national debate on whether abortion should be the law of the land." Alabama is the first state to ban abortion outright. Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have passed "heartbeat" bills that effectively prohibit abortions after six weeks gestation. Utah joined Arkansas in limiting the procedure to the middle of the second trimester. As those laws face legal challenges over the next few years, most federal district and appeals courts are likely to strike them down as unconstitutional, said Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor and former federal judge. Proponents of those laws could then petition the Supreme Court, which might or might not take the case. "It's going to all come down to the Supreme Court and whether they want to take one of these cases and reopen the issues surrounding Roe v. Wade," Cassell said. That calculation would change if a lower court were to uphold the Alabama law, for example. Conflict among lower courts becomes much stronger ground for a Supreme Court review, he said. "You can't have constitutional law applying one way in Alabama and another way in other states," Cassell said. At this point, he said, it's only speculation as to whether the high court, given its current makeup, would be inclined to take an abortion case, or more precisely if five justices are interested. "The general rule is that the court will not revisit a prior decision, but as in many instances in the law there's a footnote or a catch, which is unless there's a good reason for reconsidering the decision," Cassell said. And even if the court accepted a case, the law would probably remain the same, said Cassell, making it clear he's not taking a position on abortion one way or the other. "If you were predicting what was going to happen," he said, "you would generally predict that the court would not overrule a prior decision." The list of Indian celebrities visiting the Cannes International Film Festival this year is becoming longer with every passing day. While regulars like Aishwarya Rai and Sonam Kapoor will make their presence felt, Deepika Padukone, Kangana Ranaut, and Huma Qureshi have already arrived at the French Riviera for the event. Well, if there was one name missing from the list it was that of our desi girl Priyanka Chopra. But that will be rectified this year as Priyanka would finally be making her debut at the prestigious red carpet of Cannes. In fact, the diva was recently spotted leaving her LA apartment for the French Riviera. Her stylist Mimi Cutrell revealed in a post that the actress was leaving for Cannes. Dressed in a black long coat and a pinstripe pants, Priyanka sported a new make-up look, Priyanka looked radiant and comfortable for her travel to the French Riviera. Interestingly, Priyanka was supposed to attend the festival last year as the Pahuna, which was produced by her had it trailer showcased at the prestigious film festival. However, she could not make it as she was occupied with the promotions of her debut Hollywood film Baywatch. This year she will finally walk the prestigious red carpet and we cannot wait to see what she will wear for the occasion as she will definitely bring her A-game for Cannes. Tutela has signed an agreement with Altan Redes that will give the wholesale operator access to Tutela data on the Mexican market, collected from millions of mobile devices. The data will be used to compare the performance of the Red Compartida - the Mexican shared network - and improve its overall mobile network quality, benefiting its customers and end users who access the most modern 4G-LTE network in the Mexican market. Altan will have access to Tutela Explorer, a tool that can visualise and analyse 500 million lines of data on Mexican networks simultaneously at any time of the day. The Tutela platform keeps these insights up to date, renewing the data on a daily basis. Altan described the tool as a reliable and widely-consulted platform among operators to visualize quality and performance measurements of mobile networks in the country". The current Tutela measurements already include results for the end users of the Altan network, with Red Compartida offering download speeds of more than double those observed in other 4G networks on the market in those areas. The Tutela user network collects more than 30 billion mobile quality measurements every day worldwide, with more than 10 billion measurements per day in Latin America. These data include the intensity and quality of the signal, the use of the devices and the patterns of download speed, which provide Altan with a better understanding of how users are experiencing the network, as well as allowing it to optimise the performance of the network. The data provided by Tutela does not contain any personal data. Leandro Demarchi, Director for Latin America at Tutela, said: "We are particularly interested in working with Altan to analyse data in areas of the low population density or in places that were previously not covered by other mobile operators." Ooredoo Myanmar and ZTE Corporation have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on 5G network development. The partnership will leverage the technical expertise of ZTE Corporation and support Ooredoo Myanmars efforts to provide a world-class telecom infrastructure for the people of Myanmar. Alok Verma, Acting CEO of Ooredoo Myanmar, said: Ooredoo is the first telecom operator in Myanmar to launch initiatives towards 5G development, which will unlock the next generation of wireless technology with high speeds, ultra-low latency and greater capacities, unleashing new possibilities in mobility, manufacturing, healthcare, transportation and several other industries. Ooredoo Myanmar and ZTE Corporation are considering potential test environments to deploy the operators 5G network. The test environments will be used to evaluate the performance of the 5G network and technology to ensure that best-in-class service is achieved once the network is operational. Mei Zhonghua, SVP of ZTE Corporation said: 5G is the future of wireless technology which designed to meet ever advancing and increasingly complex sets of performance requirements. It is about 100 times faster than 4G. It offers ultra-low latency, will catalyse mobility, industrial networking, remote healthcare, virtual reality, and ultra-high-definition video, and enhance our customers digital experience and help them enjoy the Internet in new and exciting ways. 5G will impact the entire mobile network and associated eco-system, from devices to radio access, IP core and into the cloud. Ooredoo has been gearing up to test this new generation of 5G wireless technology since 2014. Over the next few months, it plans to reach more world-first milestones by testing 5G mobile and networks through user trials and commercial launches across Ooredoo Opcos around the world. Its been just over a week since Cyclone fani devastated Odisha and now the state is asking for help It has been over a week since Cyclone Fani devastated the eastern Indian state of Odisha. While the state did a commendable job of protecting most of its citizens from harm, the people living there have a long road ahead of them when it comes to rebuilding their lives. According to ANI, the cyclone did Rs 525 Crore worth of Infrastructure Damage to the state. As such, the state needs all the help it can get. The Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik has initiated The Odisha Chief Ministers Relief Fund wherein people can donate money to. Options include payments via ICIC Bank or Amazon Pay. You can donate via the official page here. The website also lists down other ways one can donate to the fund. This includes bank account details for direct transfer to SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank. UCO Bank and Paytm as well. You can check out that page here. Due to the scale of the disaster, many non-government organisations have also extended the help. Heres a look at how you can donate to some of the NGOs:- Milaap is giving people the option to donate online via netbanking, Paytm or UPI. You can donate to Milaap here. ActionAid is giving people the option of choosing set amounts, as well as a description of how this amount would help someone. Users also have the option of choosing to donate as much as they want. You can donate to ActionAid here. Like ActionAid, Oxfam is also letting people donate a set amount of money and describing how that amount will help the people of the state. It is also giving users the option to pay as much as they want. You can donate to Oxfam here. Those living outside of India can choose to donate via UNICEF. The organisation is accepting money in US Dollars or via PayPal. You can donate to UNICEF here. Main image source: Sudarsan Pattnaik Xiaomi maintained leadership in the Indian smartphone market with 8.1 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2019. Xiaomi maintained its top position as the Indian smartphone market grew 7.1 percent year-on-year (YoY), International Data Corporations (IDC) Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker has found. The market research firm says that a total of 32.1 million units were shipped in the first quarter of 2019. Despite the governments new e-commerce rules, online channels managed to sustain their pace, registering 19.6 percent YoY growth in 1Q19. Fueled by attractive offers and new launches by vendors like Xiaomi, Samsung, Realme, and Huawei, online sales reached 40.2 percent of the market in 1Q19, Upasana Joshi , Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India, said. IDC says that large shipments in the festival quarters (3Q and 4Q of 2018) led to high channel inventory, leading to flat YoY growth in offline channels in 1Q19. Average selling prices grew by 3.3 percent YoY, and this growth can be attributed to the growth in the $300-$500 segment, accounting for 6 percent of the overall smartphone market. This segment also outgrew all other price bands on the back of the Vivo V15 Pro. Samsung surpassed Apple for the leadership position in the premium ($500+) segment with an overall share of 36 percent in the quarter due to the Galaxy S10 flagship series. OnePlus followed, as its OnePlus 6T was the top-selling model in Indias $500+ smartphone segment, Joshi added. Meanwhile, the feature phone market, which still accounts for half of the total mobile phone shipments, registered 32.3 million-unit shipments in the quarter, with a sharp decline of 42.4 percent YoY. There was a sharp drop in 4G-enabled feature phones, declining by more than 50 percent YoY due to channel inventory from previous quarters. There was also a sequential dip in 2G/2.5G feature phones, IDC said. Vendor-wise Highlights: Xiaomi maintained its leadership, growing by 8.1 percent YoY in the first quarter. Xiaomi continued to dominate the online channel with 48.6 percent share. Samsung continued in the second position with a YoY decline of 4.8 percent. However, its revamped product strategy of launching its online-exclusive M-series raised its online share to 13.5 percent on the back of the Galaxy M20. Vivo continued in third position as its shipments doubled, driven primarily by its new flagship V15 Pro and affordable Y91. Oppo recaptured fourth position with a YoY growth of 9.7 percent backed by new models such as the K1 and the F11/Pro series, as well as its ongoing affordable A-series. Realme continued to feature in the top 5 vendors list, despite dropping to the fifth position. Its newly launched realme 3 series produced the highest shipments for the vendor. According to Navkendar Singh, Research Director, Client Devices and IPDS, IDC India, In 2019, we should expect further aggressive offline expansion by the online-heavy vendors in an attempt to get a wider footprint in smaller cities and towns. Having said that, the influence of the online channels and their focus on the smartphone business will continue. This will gain momentum in the all-important second half of the year since the affordability driving factors like EMIs/cashback offers continue to be top-of-mind attributes for consumers. Photo: Google Street View B.C.'s Independent Investigations Office has been called in to investigate an incident at the Prince George jail cells over the weekend. Prince George RCMP say they arrested a man Saturday evening after he was found weaving in and out of traffic on his bicycle in an area near 5th Avenue and Ewart Street. The man allegedly resisted attempts to place him in handcuffs, prompting assistance from other officers. He was held in custody at the detachment overnight. The following morning, paramedics were called after the man complained of an unspecified pain. He was taken to hospital for treatment. The IIO is investigating whether police action, or inaction, are linked to the man's injuries. With the matter under investigation, police will have no further comment. Subscriber content preview TUKWILA King County Executive Dow Constantine today is leading a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 1.3-mile segment of the Lake to Sound Trail, a 16-mile paved multi-use trail that will eventually extend from Lake Washington to Puget Sound. This new segment will cross the Black River Forest in Renton and connect to Fort Dent Park in Tukwila. King County awarded a $2.72 million contract earlier this year to Olson Brothers Excavating of Puyallup for the job. . . . Photo: Pixabay Fine dining, elegant items up for bid and a chance to help those in need are all happening in a single night. Marlene Stark, with the Miracle Bucket Society, said the fifth annual Power of the Purse fundraiser takes place May 24 at the Vernon Lodge. Funds raised from the event will help the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Vernon Women's Transition House and the Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation. Referrals are made monthly to the Miracle Bucket Society by those organizations. Miracle gifts are given anonymously to eligible families in the form of gift cards from Loblaw's (Real Canadian Superstore) and its affiliates to purchase food, clothing and household items. They get this little hand up that let's them know someone is believing in them and giving them a sense of hope, said Stark. The society purchases brand-name purses that are filled with goodies for people to bid on. These purses go up for auction and it is just a lot of fun. People get into a bidding war and these purses go for hundreds of dollars, some in the thousands, said Stark. Last year, we raised $61,000. The live auction features purses and getaways as well as a silent auction and raffle draw. All of the money goes to families in our community, she said. We have such a need in the North Okanagan. Billed as a gala evening, participants are eligible for door prizes as well as other treats. Tickets are available at Vernon Vintners, 250-558-0638. For more information on the fundraiser, click here. Concor to invest Rs4,500-cr in 4 years, start costal shipping to Bangladesh State-run Container Corporation of India (Concor) plans to invest Rs4,500 crore in the next four years to acquire 270 rakes, in addition to its existing fleet of 343 rakes, to cater to the increasing demands for cargo movement. Besides boosting rail container services, Concor plans to boost its infrastructure, including dry ports and IT backbone. This year, Concor plans to invest Rs1,000 crore on infrastructure, dry ports and IT systems, V Kalyana Rama, chairman and managing director of Concor, said. Concor plans to add 4,000 containers to its existing stock of 24,000. These will be used exclusively for the domestic market. Concor plans to use containers to transport break-bulk cargoes like cement and foodgrains. The use of containers for cargo movement within the domestic market is still minuscule, he told newspersons. Concor had, last year, phased out 2,000 old containers and added 8,000. There is a plan to add 10,000 containers with an investment of around Rs300 crore, and a global tender will be floated shortly. Containers are imported mainly from China, he added. Rama said after testing coastal shipping from Kandla to Thoothukudi via New Mangalore and Kochi, Concor wants to extend this up to Bangladesh port, which can be also be serviced under coastal shipping. There is a huge demand in Bangladesh with India supplying materials like clinker and cement. State-run Concor flagged off its coastal shipping service in January linking Deendayal Port Trust in Kandla with V O Chidambaranar Port Trust in Tuticorin with stops at New Mangalore Port Trust and Cochin Port Trust by a weekly call deploying two 700-TEU capacity ships. The Navratna PSU opened its first distribution logistics centre in Chennai on 31 March. Container Corporation of India (Concor) will open 20 distribution logistics centres with a combined warehousing space of about 50 million square feet in five years You will shortly hear about the Bangladesh service, he said. He added that coastal shipping from Kandla to Bangladesh could happen only by going round Sri Lanka. This can be done in cost-effective mode. Concor has introduced the one year-one tariff scheme under which customers are offered a single tariff for the whole year, irrespective of any cost escalation. This will ensure price stability throughout the year. There are no conditions are attached to the scheme, he said. For the year ended March 31, 2019, Concor reported net profit of Rs1,200 crore on revenue of Rs7,200 crore. It handled 3.83 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year across its 83 terminals. We hope to have 10-12 per cent growth in both volume and top line this year, he said. NCLAT refuses to stay voting by Jaypee Infratech creditors' panel The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) n Tuesday refused to stay voting by Jaypee Infratechs creditors on the revised offer of state-owned National Buildings Construction Company Ltd (NBCC Ltd) to acquire the debt-laden realty firm through insolvency proceedings. Soon after a Committee of Creditors (CoC) decided to put for vote NBCC's bid, banks led by ICICI Bank sought a stay on the voting process. The NCLAT, however, rejected the demand. ICICI Bank and others approached NCLAT with the plea that as they were not a part of the CoC and thus had no voting rights and that they should be heard before the lenders decided on the NBCC offer. Refusing to entertain the plea by banks, a two-member NCLAT bench headed by chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya also warned banks that they would get "zero rupees" if the process is stalled. Justice Mukhopadhaya said the interest of thousands of home-buyers was of prime importance and the matter needed to be resolved even if there is just one bidder. The final decision of JILs lenders will, however, be subject to the outcome of an appeal filed by ICICI Bank and other lenders. Last May, the Allahabad bench of NCLT ordered Jaiprakash Associates Limited (JAL) to return 858 acres of land to JIL. The parent firm JAL had mortgaged this land pool with lenders such as State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank to obtain loans. The land was transferred by JAL to itself after the lenders started classifying the accounts of its subsidiary JIL as non-performing asset. The banks had approached the NCLAT against the NCLT order and the case is still sub judice. The banks made the plea before the bench which was to take up the matter of an appeal against an NCLT order that directed Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) to return nearly 760-acre land to its subsidiary Jaypee Infratech. Jaypee Infratech's interim resolution professional (IRP) Anuj Jain had filed a petition in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking direction over transactions entered by the company's promoters, creating the mortgage on its 858 acres to secure debt for JAL. After Saudi and UAE allege sabotage, US sees threat in Iraq from Iran In signs that fresh tremors are developing in West Asia, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations, two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates. The US military, which stands ready to plunge on Iran at the slightest provocation, also said it was braced for possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq from Iran-backed forces. The reports of alleged attacks come against a backdrop of US-Iranian tension following Washingtons decision to cut Irans oil exports to zero and beef up its military presence in the Gulf after Iran decided to revoke the nuclear pact with the West. Tuesdays attacks on the pumping stations more than 320 km west of Riyadh and Sundays on four tankers off Fujairah emirate have raised concerns that the United States and Iran might be heading for a military conflict. US President Donald Trump, however, denied New York Times report of a US plan to send up to 120,000 troops to West Asia Gulf to counter any attack or nuclear weapons programme by Iran. Its fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that, Trump told reporters. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said there would not be any war with the United States despite mounting pressure over Iranian nuclear capabilities, its missile programme and alleged support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. There wont be any war. The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance, he said in comments carried by Irans state TV. But he said Tehran would not negotiate with Washington over Irans 2015 nuclear deal with major powers. A British deputy commander of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State remnants in Iraq and Syria also said there had been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia. The British officers comments run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region, said Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman at the US militarys Central Command. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal a year ago and slapped economic sanctions on the country, in a bid to choke off its oil exports and force it to accept more stringent limits on its nuclear and missile programs. Under the accord negotiated by Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, Iran had agreed to curb its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, in return for sanctions relief. US national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have sabotaged the tankers near the UAE rather than Iranian forces themselves, a US official familiar with the latest US assessments said. The official said possible perpetrators might include Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran-backed Shiite militias based in Iraq. Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said extremist individuals in the US government were pursuing dangerous policies. A senior European diplomat voiced skepticism that Trumps maximum pressure strategy would force Iran to capitulate. Iran is not falling to its knees, said the diplomat on condition of anonymity, saying Iran could resume its nuclear work and leave Washington with no option but military action. Billionaire Schwartz's Onex Corp to buy Canada's WestJet for $2.6 bn Billionaire Gerry Schwartzs Onex Corporation has agreed to acquire struggling Canadian carrier WestJet Airlines for C$3.5 billion ($2.6 billion), betting on its turnaround skills to reverse the airlines recent decline. If completed, it would be the biggest private equity deal ever for an airline, according to Refinitiv data. If Onex obtains shareholder and regulatory approvals, the deal would help Schwartz get his hands on an airline two decades after he missed out on buying Air Canada, WestJets bigger rival. Air Canada shares rose more than 5%. WestJet Airlines also on Monday announced the signing of a definitive agreement that provides for its acquisition in an all-cash transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, Onex Corporation and its affiliated funds will acquire all outstanding shares of WestJet for $31 per share, after which WestJet will operate as a privately-held company. The purchase price represents a 67 per cent premium to Fridays closing share price of WestJet and a 63 per cent premium to WestJets 20-day volume-weighted average trading price. The transaction value is approximately C$5 billion, including assumed debt. Since our first flight in 1996, WestJet has been singularly focused on providing better options for the Canadian travelling public and this transaction retains that commitment, said Clive Beddoe, WestJets Founder and chairman. I am particularly pleased that WestJet will remain headquartered in Calgary and will continue to build on the success that our 14,000 WestJetters have created. WestJet is one of Canadas strongest brands and we have tremendous respect for the business that Clive Beddoe and all WestJetters have built over the years. WestJet is renowned internationally for its unparalleled guest experience and employee culture. Were thrilled to be partnering with WestJetters and continuing this remarkable Canadian success story, said Tawfiq Popatia, managing director at Onex. We are delighted to continue the journey of building an airline based on a growing network, providing competitive airfares and more choice to, from and within Canada, for communities large and small. Integral to this relationship is a commitment to our employees, and our unique ownership-driven culture, Ed Sims, WestJets president and chief executive officer, said. The investment will be led by Onex Partners, Onex private equity platform focused on larger investment opportunities. WestJet shares, which touched a record high of C$34.95 in December 2014, have recently been trading at almost half that level. The airline has reported declining net profit for each of the last three years, hurt by rising fuel costs, pressure on ticket prices and other issues. Even before the global grounding of Boeings 737 MAX jets in March, WestJets earnings had slipped as it worked to contain costs as its workforce unionized and was spending money on bold growth plans to expand international travel, introduce first class cabins and launch a budget carrier called Swoop. Up to Fridays close, WestJet shares had fallen 5.5 per cent in the last 12 months while Air Canada shares gained 58 percent. American rival United Continental Holdings, the company that owns United Airlines, rose 28 per cent in the same period. Onex, founded in 1984 by Schwartz who started out at Bear Stearns & Co in the 1970s, approached WestJets board in March. WestJet chief executive Ed Sims said on BNN that the deal will allow the company to execute on its long-term growth strategy without the constraints of quarterly scrutiny. It is a reaffirmation that the path were on is actually a path towards long-term profitability irrespective of the sort of headwinds that you refer to that we saw regularly in 2018. With about $31 billion of assets under management, Onex bought Spirit AeroSystems from Boeing Co in 2005 and exited its investment in 2014 after making $3.2 billion. Disney takes control of Hulu, to enter video streaming market Walt Disney Co on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Hulu service in a deal with Comcast Corporation, as part of its move to enter global video streaming market that is currently dominated by companies such as Netflix Inc and Amazon. The Walt Disney Company on Tuesday announced that it will assume full operational control of Hulu, effective immediately, in return for Disney and Comcast entering into a put/call agreement regarding NBC Universals 33 per cent ownership interest in Hulu. The agreement, which ascribes a minimum equity value to Hulu of $27.5 billion, allows either company to trigger a sale or purchase of Comcasts 33 per cent stake to Disney as early as January 2024. Comcast has also agreed to fund Hulus recent buyout of AT&Ts 9.5 per cent interest in the company. Hulus fair market value will be assessed by independent experts but Disney has guaranteed a sale price for Comcast that represents a minimum total equity value of Hulu at that time as $27.5 billion. Hulu represents the best of television, with its incredible array of award-winning original content, rich library of popular series and movies, and live TV offerings. We are now able to completely integrate Hulu into our direct-to-consumer business and leverage the full power of The Walt Disney Companys brands and creative engines to make the service even more compelling and a greater value for consumers, said Robert A Iger, chairman and chief executive officer, The Walt Disney Company, in a statement. Disney and Comcast have agreed to fund Hulus recent purchase of AT&T Inc.s 9.5% interest in Hulu, pro rata to their current two thirds/one third ownership interests and, going forward, Comcast will have the option but not the obligation to fund its proportionate share of Hulus future capital calls and will be diluted if it elects not to fund. Disney has agreed that only $1.5 billion of any years capital calls can be funded through further equity investments with any capital in excess of that annual amount being funded by non-diluting debt. Whether Comcast funds its share of those equity capital calls or not, Disney has agreed that Comcasts ownership interest in Hulu will never be less than 21 per cent such that Comcast is guaranteed to receive at least $5.8 billion under the put/call agreement. In addition to the put/call agreement, Comcast has agreed with Hulu to extend the Hulu licence of NBC Universal content and the Hulu Live carriage agreement for NBC Universal channels until late 2024 and to distribute Hulu on its Xfinity X1 platform. NBC Universal can terminate most of its content licence agreements with Hulu in three years time, and in one years time NBC Universal will have the right to exhibit on its own OTT service certain content that it currently licenses exclusively to Hulu in return for reducing the licence fee payable by Hulu. WTO mini ministerial concludes with call to strengthen multilateralism Member countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) concluded a mini ministerial reaffirming their commitment to work together for a rule-based multilateral trading system and to strengthen the WTO, make it more effective and relevant to the diverse needs of its members. We re-affirm that the dispute settlement system of the WTO is a central element in providing security and predictability to the multilateral trading system. This has proved to be more effective and reliable as compared to its predecessor, GATT, they stated in a joint release. The meeting noted with concern that members have failed to arrive at a consensus in the selection process to fill vacancies in the Appellate Body, which has weakened the dispute settlement system and would by completely paralyse by December 2019. It also urged all WTO members to engage constructively to address the issue of filling the vacancies in the Appellate Body, while continuing discussions on other issues relating to the functioning of the dispute settlement mechanism. An inclusive multilateral trading system based on equality and mutual respect should ensure that all WTO members abide by WTO rules and abjure any form of protectionism. The core value and basic principles of the multilateral trading system must be preserved and strengthened, particularly with a view to building trust among members. To this end, we urge WTO members to adopt measures that are compatible with WTO rules to avoid putting the multilateral trading system at risk, the release stated. They noted that multilateral avenues, based on consensus, remain the most effective means to achieve inclusive development-oriented outcomes and urged members to explore different options to address the challenges of contemporary trade realities in a balanced manner. International trade is not an end in itself but a means of contributing to certain objectives, including raising standards of living. Special and Differential Treatment is one of the main defining features of the multilateral trading system and is essential to integrating developing members into global trade. Special and Differential Treatment provisions are rights of developing members that must be preserved and strengthened in both current and future WTO agreements, with priority attention to outstanding LDC issues, it noted. The meeting stressed the importance of technical assistance and capacity building provided to developing members, in particular LDCs, including through the Enhanced Integrated Framework, Aid for Trade and other tools and urged members to continue doing so. The process of WTO reform must keep development at its core, promote inclusive growth, and fully take into account the interests and concerns of developing members, including the specific challenges of graduating LDCs. The way forward must be decided through a process that is open, transparent and inclusive. Members agreed to work collectively with the aim to develop proposals to ensure that common interests are reflected in the WTO reform process. WTO rules seek to foster an open and non-discriminatory trade regime. In order to instil confidence among the members, it is imperative that the ministerial conferences of the WTO are organized in a more open, transparent and inclusive manner. WTO notification obligations must consider the capacity constraints and implementation related challenges faced by many developing members, particularly LDCs. In the WTO, a more cooperative and gradual approach is the best way in dealing with the issue of transparency, where many developing members struggle to comply with their notification obligations. The meeting also noted with concern some imbalances in WTO agreements such as on agriculture, which is inequitable and prejudiced against development interests of developing members. There is a need to provide adequate policy space to the developing members to support their farmers through correcting the asymmetries and imbalances in this agreement on priority. This should be undertaken on the basis of work done and progress already made in the past, and provide further flexibilities to the LDCs and Net Food Importing Developing Countries. It is really time that cotton receives concrete and appropriate responses it deserves. Members at the mini ministerial also agreed to consult on various issues of common interest to developing members, including comprehensive and effective disciplines on fisheries subsidies with appropriate and effective Special and Differential Treatment provisions for developing Members. The meeting, hosted by India, was attended by ministers and high-level officials from Egypt, Barbados, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, China, Benin, Chad, Indonesia, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Oman. My teachers helped and the school really helped balance out my classes, she said. If classes overlapped, they tried to make it manageable. I stayed busy. During my last semester, Mondays were really busy because thats the day all of my classes had a lot of stuff due, and I had night classes at the college, and I also had to attend meetings because Im still in clubs at the high school. The daughter of Serina and Kelvin Edwards, Bush served as Future Business Leaders of America president and was a member of the EHS Prom Committee and the Student Government Association. She is a member of the National Honor Society. She was also a Wildcat Representative and, in her junior year, she served as drill team commander of the EHS JROTC Belles of the Blue Knights drill team. July will also mark two years that Bush has been an employee of Rue 21 in Enterprise. According to a proclamation issued by Governor Kay Ivey, the week of May 12-18 is National Skilled Nursing Care Week in Alabama, and Enterprise Health and Rehab staff joined with residents to mark the 52 nd anniversary of the occasion. The citizens of Alabama now residing in nursing homes, also known as skilled nursing care centers, have contributed immeasurably to the heritage, success and growth of our state, Cooper read from the proclamation. Our nursing home residents of any age or ability are living history and a precious resource that should be treasured by all Alabamians. The staff and volunteers in nursing homes help residents live life to their fullest potential by providing a holistic approach to long-term care and short-term rehabilitation. Photo: Contributed A major movie industry conference will be held in Kelowna early next month. ShowCanada 2019, an annual conference that brings together all sectors of the film industry from Canada and the U.S., will take place June 4-6. The conference is co-ordinated by the Movie Theatre Association of Canada. Our delegates look forward to experiencing new parts of Canada and our American delegates get particularly excited as we often bring them to locations they would not normally see, MTAC executive director Nuria Bronfman said in a press release. Kelowna has definitely garnered a huge level of interest, partly because weve never hosted here but also because Kelowna and the Okanagan have such a thriving film community." For more on this story, visit Okanagan Edge. Multiple agencies are investigating the discovery of 'what appears to be' a body inside a burned vehicle on Alabama Highway 167 north of Hartford, Geneva County Sheriff Tony Helms said late Monday. Shortly after 4 p.m. someone informed emergency officials they had spotted a vehicle burning under the Choctawhatchee River bridge. After the Hartford Fire Department and Hartford Police Department responded, officials discovered what they believe is a body inside the vehicle. Helms said it is too early to determine any of the circumstances surrounding the incident. "It's gonna be a long night," he said. The Geneva County Coroner's Office, Hartford Police Department and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (Alabama State Troopers) are partnering with the Geneva County Sheriff's Office in the investigation. Get Breaking News Alerts Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The future of a May 20 trial date for a Wicksburg man charged with 13 counts of sex abuse is uncertain. Joe Alfredo Contreras, 51, was arrested on March 6, 2018, and charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of first-degree sodomy charges. Recently, his defense attorney, Billy Joe Sheffield, filed a motion requesting the trial be continued because lead counsel Adam Parker is deployed with the military until November. The motion also informed the court that the defense has not received the DNA forensic discovery from the prosecution. Circuit Judge Larry Anderson denied the continuance motion. Following Andersons denial, Sheffield filed a motion to withdraw from the case. In his motion to withdraw, Sheffield said he was hired to assist lead counsel Parker. He stated he was not retained to be lead counsel or try cases against Contreras by himself. Sheffield stated trying Contreras cases by himself was outside of his contract and with the court failing to continue the case, the defendants counsel is ineffective. Anderson has not ruled on Sheffields motion to withdraw. This project that Mr. Wilson is proposing is not a good fit, he said. There has to be compromise somewhere. Both Reading and Stanley Davis expressed concern that the size of the lots would encourage developers to buy the lots and then rent the homes they built. That would lead to a neighborhood that is always in transition, they said. Those will be people who are not investing in the area, Davis said. We want to keep it quiet. I hope it turns out to be a nice neighborhood. We want to be certain. We want to be neighbors, not divided. One day well wake up and see cars on blocks and four-foot grass, Reading added. Wilson said he would institute a homeowners association for the 89-lot development, which will curtail concerns about appearances. He added homes will range from 1,800 square feet to 2,200 square feet, even though the minimum requirement is 1,000 square feet. In other action, the commission: Please DOUX follow us Doux Reviews has been on the web since 2004 and features thousands of episode reviews of the best classic and current television shows as well as many book and movie reviews Irish Water would like to advise customers that essential upgrade works are scheduled to take place at Staleen Water Treatment Plant on Wednesday 15 May between 9am and 5pm. During these essential works the water supply to homes and businesses in South Louth and East Meath will be dependent on storage in the reservoirs. The storage available in the reservoirs should be adequate to maintain water supply for the duration of the necessary works. Irish Water is working closely with Louth and Meath County Councils to minimize any potential impact on customers, however some customers may experience disruption to their supply such as low water pressure. Following the completion of the works at the plant it may take a number of hours for normal water supply to resume for all customers. Irish Water is encouraging customers to conserve water while these essential works are underway. They are urging customers to conserve water by; not running taps needlessly, taking showers instead of baths and to postpone using dishwashers and washing machines where possible. Works to upgrade the Staleen Water Treatment Plant have been ongoing since September 2017 and are scheduled to be completed in Q4 2019. The upgraded water treatment plant will ensure that the water supply is removed from the Environmental Protection Agencys (EPAs) Remedial Action List (RAL) and will safeguard the water supply to homes and businesses served by the plant. Irish Water would like to advise customers that as the upgrade works are nearing completion there will be further instances, when the production capacity at the plant may be reduced to accommodate these essential works. Irish Water will provide notice in advance of any potential supply interruption associated with these upgrade works. Notice will be provided to all Louth and Meath media outlets and issued to elected representatives. Information will also be provided via www.water.ie, Irish Waters facebook page and Irish Waters twitter account. The upgrade to the water treatment plant forms part of a wider Irish Water investment of 19 million in the Drogheda, South Louth and East Meath Water Supply Scheme. This significant investment also included the construction of a new 2km pipeline to replace the watermain which burst twice in a year. Irish Water commenced works on the pipeline in April 2018 and it was completed in December 2018, minimising the risk of future bursts. The upgraded water treatment plant coupled with the new pipeline and other smaller projects that are being delivered by Irish Water will ensure the delivery of a safe, secure and reliable water supply to homes and businesses in Drogheda, South Louth and East Meath. Irish Water would like to thank customers for their patience while they carry out these essential works. For further information please visit their supply and service section on their website www.water.ie. The Irish Water customer care helpline is open 24/7 and customers can call them on 1850 278 278 and contact them on Twitter @IWCare. Skillnet Ireland, the national agency responsible for the promotion and facilitation of workforce learning in Ireland has launched six new networks, including one in Dundalk, to address the growing skills needs in the film, television, retail, health and fitness sectors. The six new networks are Dundalk Chamber Skillnet, Fingal Dublin Chamber Skillnet, Screen Skillnet, SFA Skillnet, CSNA Skillnet and Leisure, Health & Fitness Skillnet. All six were unveiled yesterday at the Virgin Media Television studios in Ballymount, Dublin. Dundalk Chamber Skillnet is a multi-sector learning network for companies of all sizes in Dundalk and the North East. Member companies work collaboratively to respond locally to skills needs within their businesses. The network supports regional development by helping local businesses to arrive at shared local solutions that are more accessible, more affordable and ultimately, more effective at meeting their needs. Membership of the network is open to private enterprises in the Greater Dundalk Area and North East Region. Weve only been in operation for six weeks and yet already weve supported many businesses in the North East", said Dundalk Chamber Skillnet Network Manager, Aidan Callan. "For example, we supported a rapidly expanding SME to streamline product codes, following a recent competitor acquisition. We supported a local accountancy firm with a graduate programme to develop young talent. "We brought two large manufacturing companies together to collaborate on developing a Leadership Development Programme and weve supported 13 smaller SMEs in developing administrative and general business skills. Skillnet Ireland works closely with these networks to address emerging skills needs, by designing bespoke programmes and qualifications across multiple sectors such as; manufacturing, agri-business, ICT, engineering, pharma, medtech, hospitality and construction related disciplines. Speaking at the launch Paul Healy, Chief Executive, Skillnet Ireland said: In order to remain competitive, businesses need to invest in their greatest asset, their employees. Promoting continuous learning and upskilling will not only improve productivity; all the evidence shows it actually increases employee engagement and staff retention. These new networks will drive greater levels of training and management development within a wide variety of sectors. By facilitating industry led collaboration with training and education providers Skillnet Ireland will address the specific skills gaps and shortages that employers face. "This will ensure Ireland has the breadth of skills needed for businesses to grow, which is a key element of the Governments economic and employment strategy. Skillnet Ireland networks operates under a joint investment model whereby learning networks can apply to receive up to 50 percent of the cost of training from Skillnet Ireland, and the remainder of costs are funded in matching contributions from participating businesses in the learning network. The approach has received international recognition as a model of best practice from the OECD, amongst others. Skillnet Ireland is also seeking applications from new groups of ambitious businesses aiming to address challenges through upskilling and reskilling. Applications for funding are open until September 30th 2019. To apply, visit www.skillnetireland.ie/funding Skillnet Ireland is also holding information sessions next week for businesses, industry bodies or enterprise groups on how they can establish a Skillnet Network. The information sessions will take place in Athlone on May 22 and in Dublin on May 23. The sessions are free, but you must register to attend. To register, click here. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. A man from Plymouth in England is looking for help to try and identify the people in photographs that were taken in Dundalk back when he visited the town as a young boy in the late 1950s. John Tozer has historical family connections with the area and has researched his family history in Dundalk. Mr Tozer explained to the Democrat the background to his search. "On my mother's side her family originate from Dundalk. The Larkin family moved across to Liverpool around 1892." He continued: "The Dundalk side of the family has been researched and threw up quite a few interesting facts such as, Dr Laurence Martin who stayed during the great typhus outbreak in Dundalk to minister to those poor unfortunates and caught the disease himself and died in November 1847." He added: "The town's folk erected a monument to his honour which stands in Haggardstown cemetery, near Blackrock." However, John is looking to try and identify the people in the pictures included in this article. "When I was about 11 or 12 years old, 1958/9, my parents took us back to Ireland. We visited Dublin and Dundalk - that I do know. "We took a train to Dundalk. Photographs were taken but, at that age, I had no idea who they were of!," he explained. "I am attaching some photographs hoping that you may be able to publish it in a paper and ask if anyone knows who these people are??" Can anyone help John out and put a name to these faces? Email editor@dundalkdemocrat.ie if you can assist. Photo: Police photo Two missing women and a missing teenage girl were shot to death by a carnival worker who met them through the travelling show, authorities in Virginia say. James Michael Wright, 23, is accused of killing the women in February and March near his home in a far western corner of rural Virginia. "Basically, this individual killed three women within about an 18-day period," Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman said at a news conference Monday. Newman said the killings stopped shortly after Wright's truck was damaged in an accident. He said Wright could be classified as a serial killer. Wright became acquainted with two of the victims through working as a subcontractor for the James H. Drew Carnival, the sheriff said. The 17-year-old was the daughter of one of Wright's co-workers. Newman identified the victims as 25-year-old Athina Hopson of Johnson City, Tennessee; 22-year-old Elizabeth Marie Vanmeter of Carter County, Tennessee; and 17-year-old Joslyn M. Alsup of Cobb County, Georgia. All three had been reported missing in March. "We have plans of contacting jurisdictions where that carnival very well may have been to see if they have missing persons," Newman said. The carnival company released a statement late Tuesday afternoon saying it never employed Wright. Instead, Wright worked "from time to time" with a travelling livestock show called "Pony Express," the statement said. The show involved horses and other animals and travelled to fairs, festivals and racetracks in the southeastern U.S. The investigation into Wright began about two weeks ago, authorities said. Police in Johnson City, Tennessee, who were searching for Hopson, zeroed in on Wright because he was the last person seen with her. A police interview with Wright led to a search of his truck. Hopson's cellphone was found inside, police said. Wright eventually confessed to killing Hopson and the two other women, Vanmeter and Alsup, police said. Two bodies were recovered near Wright's home, one from a shallow grave and another near some logs, police said. According to police, Wright has claimed the deaths were accidental. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will deliver the opening speech (Photo: RVD - Jeroen van der Meyde). Image Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will deliver the opening speech (Photo: RVD - Jeroen van der Meyde). Packed programme Shortlisted scale-ups will have a full program with multiple training days and a pitch competition. Throughout the whole programme, they will have several occasions to meet investors, other businesses and potential customers. Eleven scale-ups will compete for a selection as a finalist. Renowned Dutch business leaders, politicians, academics and researchers will be taking part in GES 2019. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will deliver the opening speech. Other prominent guests like Philips CEO Frans van Houten, Shell Netherlands CEO Marjan van Loon, DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma, ABP Pension Fund chair Corien Wortmann-Kool, TomTom co-founder Corinne Vigreux, and Prince Constantijn, the ambassador of StartupDelta, have already confirmed their attendance at the event (invitation only). Photo: Twitter A big rebound in the sea lion population along the West Coast in recent years has created a constant battle to wrangle the protected animals. They're smart and fun to watch from a safe distance, but also noisy, smelly and proving to be a headache for some coastal marinas. "It's a free zoo kind of, just don't pet 'em!" observed Dennis Craig of Olympia while he watched a pier at Washington's Westport marina nearly sink under the weight of dozens of burly bulls jostling and snoozing in the sun. "You notice when the charters come in, they'll swing wide just so people can get a closer look because, like I say, it's entertaining," Craig said. The flip side of these flippered fish fiends can be seen in the mounting bill to the marina, including the cost of busted docks, broken electric stanchions and lost business. "Nearly all of our net revenue was used to repair damage caused by sea lions this year, taking those funds away from infrastructure improvements and replacements that are critical to the marina facility and our users," said Westport Marina business manager Molly Bold in an email. Sea lions have blocked people from mooring their boats. In other cases, commercial fishermen have had to run through a sea lion gauntlet just to get onto their vessels. The sea lions even snatched a few pet dogs right off the piers, said Westport Aquarium co-owner Marc Myrsell, who volunteers to monitor the marine mammals. Myrsell has counted up to 200 or 300 sea lions on the docks at a time. "If a person is walking down the dock and they have a bag in their hand, that sea lion in its mind might think that person has food and can get aggressive because some people have been feeding them intentionally or unintentionally," Myrsell said in an interview. The most recent population estimate for California sea lions along the West Coast is around 257,000. Robert Anderson, the marine mammal program manager at the NOAA Fisheries regional office in Portland, Oregon, pegged the population growth rate at roughly 5% per year, although the sea lions may soon reach the carrying capacity of their marine environment. The current abundance of sea lions is at least seven times greater than the population recorded in the late 1960s. Before Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, fishermen and the public could take matters into their own hands and shoot pesky sea lions. In earlier decades, the beasts were also killed for hides or to make pet food. Now, the proliferation of sea lions has created issues from Neah Bay, Washington, to Brookings, Oregon occasionally in Puget Sound too. And Westport, Washington, is not even the worst off. Astoria, Oregon, attracts the most sea lions by far, according to interviews with port staff and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Photo: The Canadian Press Tilray Inc. expects Canada's cannabis supply could become balanced within the next two years, while the cannabis producer ramps up its production and manufacturing footprint in the country. CEO Brendan Kennedy said Tuesday that the company now believes Canada will reach a supply balance in the next 18 to 24 months. In mid-March, Kennedy had estimated the country would be in oversupply over the next 18 months. The change comes as the industry continues to struggle at ramping up production in the current regulatory environment, he said during a conference call with investors after the company released its first-quarter results. Tilray said it's seeing increasingly high demand in the domestic market and reiterated the company's announcement last week to invest US$32.6 million to increase its Canadian and manufacturing footprint by roughly 18,860 square metres across its three facilities in Leamington and London, Ont., and Nanaimo. The company is proud of its most recent quarterly results despite these continued domestic supply constraints, he said. "We are pleased with our first quarter results which include the first full quarter of adult use market sales," said Kennedy. Canada legalized recreational cannabis for adult use on Oct. 17. The Nanaimo-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, saw its revenue grow 195.1 per cent to US$23 million for the first quarter ended March 31, compared with $7.8 million in the same quarter the previous year. Tilray says that growth came from cannabis legalization last year in Canada, as well as additional sales from its acquisition of Manitoba Harvest that closed during the quarter and strong growth in medical markets abroad. The average net selling price per gram decreased to $5.60 from $5.94 in the same quarter the previous year. The company's net loss was $30.3 million or 32 cents per share, compared with $5.2 million or seven cents per share for the first quarter of the previous year. Korean restaurant opens in Clovis CLOVIS A new Clovis restaurant is looking to provide airmen and others who have visited Korea with a local taste of Korean comfort food. Owner Paul Park said Bokka which means stir fry, good luck or blessings in Korean opened May 3 with six employees. Park told The News that he wanted to open the Korean barbecue restaurant, located at 1708 N. Prince in Clovis, because he thought there was considerable interest, especially among members of the military, for a restaurant that serves food like they experienced in Korea. They went to Korea a long time ago, they stayed on the base there and they missed Korean food so much, Park said. Portales hotel set to open PORTALES After close to a year of renovations, eastern New Mexicos newest hotel is set to celebrate its grand opening on Saturday in Portales. General Manager Latasha Padilla told The News the Best Western Plus Portales Inn, which has 50 rooms and 10 employees, kept the historic buildings original foundation but underwent about a year of renovations. That includes plumbing, electrical and expanding the room sizes before opening two weeks ago. Padilla said the grand opening, scheduled for 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the hotel, 223 W. Second St., will include hors doeuvres and tours of the building. Were just really excited to get the community involved and give everyone an opportunity to see it, she said. Karl Terry, executive director of the Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce, said the influx of visitors the hotel is expected to bring to Portales will be a boon for other local businesses. Its going to make a huge difference in the downtown. Its going to help our businesses and our restaurants downtown, I think thats the main thing that it does for us, Terry said. Overall its going to help with our lodgers tax revenue and gross receipts tax revenue and we certainly need that in our city. Business Digest is compiled by the staff of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact Kevin Wilson at 575-763-6991, or by e-mail: [email protected] CLOVIS A man charged in 2017 with battery and child abuse was sentenced Monday to 19 years in prison through a plea agreement. Jackie Cubit Jr., 32, pleaded guilty to first-degree felony child abuse and admitted to prior felony convictions in Texas during a plea hearing in the court of Judge Matthew Chandler. He was charged in November 2017 with two counts of felony child abuse and one count of misdemeanor battery, for which he previously was scheduled to face a two-day trial this week in Curry County. The lesser child abuse and battery charges were dismissed, according to the agreement. In a news release from 9th Judicial District Attorney Andrea Reeb, prosecutors said Cubit threw a glass jar candle at his wife and missed, hitting their infant daughter in the head. The infant suffered a subdural hematoma and had to be airlifted to Lubbock ... for medical treatment. Reeb told The News that the girls mother said the baby is OK, but wont know for sure until (she) enters school. Cubits attorney, William Greig, told The News that his client wanted everyone in the community to know that he never intended to harm the child. What happened to the minor child in this case was a horrible accident, Greig said. The state concedes that point, as they charged him through the legal theory of reckless behavior, but with that said my client still accepts full responsibility for his actions. Cubits sentence includes a one-year prior felony enhancement. With pre-sentence confinement credit of 476 days and good time eligibility at 50%, he could be released from prison in just under nine years. I just finished doing a final read of high school seniors summaries. Thats something my newspaper compiles from surveys we pass out to the soon-to-be graduates and then publish on the eve of their commencement. Its uplifting to read about these teenagers hope and dreams for the future and worrisome because of what theyre going to face as adults. They may not realize what theyre facing in the world ahead. These are small-town youths, filled with the optimism that comes from supportive parents, grandparents and others who love them. They want to contribute in positive ways toward a better world, often by returning home someday to make life better for those they love. Many of their dreams are noble helping others, the greatest of ambitions while others simply want to get on with life and see where it takes them. Still others seek only their piece of the good life, figuring that once theyre financially successful theyll be able to help their families and communities as a way to give back the love and nurturing theyve felt through their formative years. We all wish them the best. If they can accomplish their goals this world will be better. Unfortunately, certain realities are going to slap them in the face once theyre out in the world. Humanity is in trouble, and it will be up to the younger generations to save us. Front and center is climate change. If humanity does not act fast to counter the effects of the carbons were emitting, catastrophic consequences will occur. It is now firmly and scientifically established that the earth is warming up, and anyone who believes otherwise is either uninformed, misinformed and has their head in the sand. Piling on to this dismal news is a United Nations report issued this month that more than a million species are now threatened with extinction, thanks to the dominant species on our earth. Human activity is killing off eco-systems we depend on. Such grave threats are hard to teach to our young people. We prefer to shield them from such dire circumstances because (1) theyre depressing and (2) we dont want to stomp down their optimism for the future. But maybe were underestimating the power of fresh perspectives to take on causes and fight for real change. We could be on the cusp of a revolution led by the very youth were now sending out into the world. School strikes demanding that the older generations the ones with the political and economic power have been breaking out, primarily in Europe and America, demanding that we substantively address climate change before its too late. There was one such strike in Albuquerque this month, with students walking out of school to protest the lack of action being taken to counter the impending crisis. UNMs Daily Lobo reported that more than 200 teenagers participated in the demonstration. One of the strikes organizers, 14-year-old Izzy Griego, told reporter Andrew Gunn that since the adults arent taking charge of the situation, its up to the students. So theres hope for our future after all. These and other issues need new leaders who will push for new and bold approaches to the problems that threaten our future. Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at: [email protected] Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more Contemporary online retail enables faster, smoother and more profitable interactions between consumers and merchants. Individuals can shop and make purchases at any time, from any location, with the help of the devices resting in their pockets. Plus, with innovations like same-day shipping, IoT-connected devices, and much more, its never been easier to be a consumer. As a merchant, you have a vested interest in streamlining the customer experience and minimizing friction wherever possible in the purchasing process. There are downsides to this premise, though. For example, the speed and ease of access to online shopping created a culture of instant gratification. This culture was not accompanied by a broader discussion of the expectations, protections and responsibility that every party carries, though. That disconnect has significant ramifications for businesses and consumers alike, with a financial impact totaling billions of dollars every year. The Problem With Convenience We obviously tend to think of increased convenience in a positive light. After all, removing friction from the process and making sales faster and easier is a benefit for consumers, as well as for the merchants who sell to them. How could convenience be a bad thing? The problem is that, simply put, online fraud is a serious concern. Despite the risk, though, the expectation of ever-increasing convenience has led to a situation in which businesses and consumers alike prioritize convenience over due diligence. Fraudsters employ increasingly sophisticated tactics to abuse consumers, constantly adapting to stay ahead of fraud detection tools. Lets look at identity fraud as an example. The number of victims in the U.S. increased by 8 percent in 201, rising to 16.7 million individuals, according to Javelins 2018 Identity Fraud Report. Fraudsters can deploy phishing tactics to steal consumers information, and the consumers, not trained to perform due diligence for personal protection, fall for the trap. In total, fraudsters managed to steal US$16.8 billion through identity theft during that period and thats just one of many potential points of attack. Of course, customers do have some recourse when fraud occurs. Buyers can file chargebacks, which are forced payment reversals. Chargebacks empower the cardholders issuing bank to claw back the funds from a transaction if that transaction is found to be fraudulent. As well see, though, this state of affairs creates more problems than it actually solves. Enables a Sense of Entitlement When consumers fail to secure their personal data and online accounts, theyre not acting according to security best practices. However, they feel entitled to do this by the culture of convenience surrounding e-commerce. This behavior is reinforced by the proliferation of zero-liability accounts and other standards that shift liability away from buyers. In the customers mind, they expect others to reimburse their losses when fraud occurs. If customers dont feel vulnerable to fraud, then they dont feel the pressure to try to avoid it. Banks and card networks encourage this consumer entitlement by absolving customers of financial responsibility. This combination of circumstances has led to the rise of what we call friendly fraud over the last decade. Unlike the more conventional forms of online fraud that most readers are familiar with, friendly fraud is a form of chargeback abuse practiced by cardholders. The buyer makes a purchase, then later files a chargeback without proper justification. It could be due to confusion about the merchants return policy, buyers remorse, or even a very simple misunderstanding. In any event, the end is the same: The customer gets something without paying for it, and the merchant loses both merchandise and sales revenue. We have a clear double standard in the chargeback system as it is now. The burden of preventing fraud falls on merchants, regardless of whether the incident is their fault. Its gotten to the point that a mechanism intended to protect consumers from fraud now enables it instead. A D V E R T I S E M E N T Chargeback abuse distorts the e-commerce marketplace, determining winners and losers, while making it more difficult to produce reliable data about fraud. Short-Term Losses, Long-Term Threats Friendly fraud seems like an annoyance for merchants at first glance. After all, when consumers file chargebacks without reason, it costs sellers their hard-earned revenue and any merchandise shipped. Still, are chargebacks really that big a deal? Absolutely. The effects of each dispute go beyond the lost revenue. For example, the average merchant acquirer assesses a fee for every chargeback, no matter the card brand involved, to cover the cost of chargeback administration. These fees add up quickly as chargebacks mount. Then theres the risk of breaching chargeback thresholds. The chargeback threshold is a limit imposed on merchants at the card scheme level. Visa and Mastercard dictate the acceptable threshold. For several years, both thresholds stood at 1 percent of transactions and at least 100 transactions per month. In October 2019, though, Visa actually will lower its threshold, making it harder to remain in compliance. This is serious business; if you cant remain within the acceptable range, your acquirer will restrict or even terminate your account. Even worse, you may end up on the MATCH list, blacklisting you from getting another standard merchant account. Its not just bad for merchants, though. Chargeback abuse has negative ramifications for everyone: Card Networks: More reports of fraud occur on their networks, distorting fraud data and making it hard to develop viable, useful policy. More reports of fraud occur on their networks, distorting fraud data and making it hard to develop viable, useful policy. Issuers: Banks find themselves bogged down with an ever-increasing number of chargebacks, making it difficult to apply due diligence and resolve cases. Banks find themselves bogged down with an ever-increasing number of chargebacks, making it difficult to apply due diligence and resolve cases. Acquirers: As merchants breach thresholds, acquirers and processors run the risk of losing their customers. As merchants breach thresholds, acquirers and processors run the risk of losing their customers. Consumers: Honest consumers ultimately pay more for goods and services due to increased operating costs and stifled competition in the e-commerce market. Customer expectations have a dramatic, real-world impact, and we cant afford to let this problem go unaddressed any longer. What we need is a two-part solution: We need to overhaul the chargeback system to ensure the future sustainability of e-commerce, while redefining consumer expectations. Standardizing the Chargeback Process A major obstacle standing in the way of improved chargeback processes is the lack of standardization. How we manage chargebacks at present is very inconsistent; each scheme has its own rules and processes. This makes it impossible to develop the kind of consistent, long-term solutions we need in the e-commerce space. Lack of standardization creates even more problems down the road, as it leaves banks to interpret the chargeback regulations handed-down by the card schemes. In turn, merchants have to interpret the information they get from banks, adding even more layers of confusion. Theres no consistency, so theres no expectation or guideline for how to design and implement new tools or processes, or to adjudicate disputes. The solution is coordination between merchants, banks and card schemes. This will make it possible to develop the widely applicable standardized processes we need. Recent chargeback overhauls like Visa Claims Resolution and Mastercard Dispute Resolution are moves in the right direction. A D V E R T I S E M E N T However, were going to keep having problems until we achieve a more consistent set of guidelines for how to handle chargebacks. In the meantime, its up to you to protect your business. Take Action Against Chargebacks You can be proactive about fraud and chargebacks by adopting a more comprehensive, multilayer strategy. The key is a two-fold approach: Prevent incidents wherever possible, and then respond to those you cant prevent with a tactical approach. Chargebacks rooted in criminal fraud or simple merchant errors are preventable, assuming merchants deploy the right tools and business best practices. For example, you should do the following: Answer all phone calls within three rings. Provide 24-hour customer service, seven days a week. Ensure all return policies are easily accessible from every page of your site. Offer fast shipping, along with tracking and delivery confirmation. If you offer subscriptions using negative billing, make them opt-in, rather than opt-out. Consider offering bonus credit for customers willing to exchange goods for store credit. This will incentivize customers to exchange goods, rather than potentially file a chargeback. Yes, these practices accommodate consumers expectations of increased convenience. However, I want to distinguish between unreasonable expectations on your customers part and reasonable measures to provide a better customer experience. As a seller, you should aim to offer a more convenient, enjoyable customer experience so long as its still possible to provide security and encourage responsible customer behavior. Of course, even if you take steps to address chargebacks, the fact remains that friendly fraud isnt likely to go away any time soon. Thats why you need to respond agilely through chargeback representment. Representment works differently depending on the card scheme; as mentioned above, Visa and Mastercard use different frameworks for handling chargebacks on their networks. However, the basic, litigation-based process involves using evidence to counter a customers claim and overturn a chargeback. Some merchants choose to go it alone and assemble evidence, submit documentation, and communicate directly with an acquirer to manage disputes. This is a complicated and time-consuming process. Most merchants, even those who have their own internal chargeback management teams, find it hard to make self-management cost-effective. Others turn to professional chargeback management instead. A chargeback management service can distinguish between friendly fraud and legitimate chargebacks, ensuring you dont end up fighting customers who are actual fraud victims. Then your service provider can deploy the right tools and strategies to win disputes and minimize the risk of chargebacks going forward. Obtaining specialized expertise can result in more efficient allocation of staff and resources, as well as better long-term revenue retention. Take Steps to Stop Chargebacks and Fraud Now Unfortunately, things will get worse before they get better. Tackling consumer entitlement by fighting back against friendly fraud and establishing clearer standards for customer responsibilities isnt going to win any fans in the short term. Its in everyones best interests, though, including the customers, to take those steps. We need to have clear, defined standards for how consumers and merchants interact. Otherwise, the issues present in the e-commerce market now will get worse, and that will have a profound impact on e-commerce in the future. (Photo: L'Arche) The headline for a newspaper letter extolling a man who lived what he espoused, engaging with shunned people often unable to effectively communicate verbally, said, "Jean Vanier was a living saint." Atop the letter to the Toronto Star, it was probably the neatest summary of the life of a former naval officer who was a fervent champion of the developmentally disabled, a proponent of peace and a humane society. Vanier, who died of cancer in Paris age 90 on 7 May, was the founder of L'Arche, a federation of 154 communities for adults with learning disabilities in 38 countries, on five continents, who inspired those he worked for and those who worked with him. His funeral will take place on May 16 in his community at Trosly-Breuil in northern France. This will be a private ceremony for his community, close friends and family and representatives of the Federation of L'Arche as well as of Faith and Light, L'Arche International, said. "Our mission is to make known the gifts of people with intellectual disabilities, working together toward a more humane society," L'Arche says on its website. Vanier said, "The most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts." With Marie Helene Mathieu, Vanier also co-founded Faith and Light, a network of communities of friendship, mutual sharing and support for people with intellectual disabilities and their entourage. Today there are 1,500 such communities in 82 countries. He also said once: "I had no plan, I just met people and people with disabilities awoke my heart." NPR ran a story on him titled, "Remembering Jean Vanier, The 'Living Saint'" Jesuit priest Rev. James Martin said on the NPR program, "There is absolutely zero question in my mind that he is a saint. And I'm sure the church will, in decades or maybe centuries, recognize him as Saint Jean Vanier." Vanier addressed the World Council of Churches assembly, its highest governing body, in Vancouver in 1983. And in 1997, he addressed a plenary session of the WCC Central Committee, its main governing body, in Geneva on worship and spirituality. "Jean Vanier gave a moving presentation which emphasized the importance of commitment to Jesus Christ, spiritual disciplines and love for the needy, placing special emphasis on those with disabilities," the WCC recorded. 'PRECIOUS TO GOD' Susan Peek wrote in the 15 April 1997 United Methodist News Service report, "The Central Committee participated in a foot-washing ceremony that...impacted the group 'in a very profound way'. It was led by Jean Vanier, founder of l'Arche." Vanier said at that meeting, "Through touch, we are called to say, 'We love you; we appreciate you ... you are beautiful and precious to God.' " Tributes for Vanier from around the world flowed after the death of the war-time British and Canadian naval officer who turned his back on his privileged background to dedicate his life to intellectually challenged people, often not able to speak up for themselves. L'Arche wrote on its website, "Jean could potentially have risen high in the navy. But horrified by the Holocaust and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, he felt increasingly drawn to prayer, and finally heeded an inner call to leave the navy and devote himself to peacemaking. "He could also have had a successful academic career after attaining a doctorate on Aristotle. He was an inspiring philosophy teacher, but instead of going up the normal ladder of success, he realized that his call was elsewhere. He redefined what success is. For him, it was about relationship and not the 'tyranny of normality' as he later expressed it." Vanier wrote 30 books on spirituality and community, including Community and Growth (1979), Becoming Human (1998), From Brokenness to Community (1992), Befriending the Stranger (2005) and Life's Great Questions (2015). In Becoming Human, on reconciliation, he wrote, "In healthy belonging, we have respect for one another," he wrote. "We work together, cooperate in a healthy way, listen to each other. We learn how to resolve the conflicts that arise when one person seeks to dominate another. "In a true state of belonging, those who have less conventional knowledge, who are seemingly powerless, who have different capacities, are respected and listened to. In such a place of belonging, if it is a good place, power is not imposed from on high, but all members seek to work together as a body. The implication is that we see each other as persons and not just as cogs in a machine. We open up and interact with each other so that all can participate in the making of decisions." TEMPLETON PRIZE In 2015 he was awarded the Templeton Prize, for making "an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension". The prize is one of the world's biggest annual awards for an individual. Vanier was born in Geneva, the fourth of five children of Georges Vanier, a Canadian soldier and diplomat, and his wife, Pauline (who was born Archer), who were both committed Roman Catholics. His father served in World War I, became Canada's ambassador to France and later governor general of Canada. Jean was not the only member of his family engaged in the care of others. The Washington Post wrote, "Although driven by his Catholic faith, Vanier gradually led the L'Arche network into more ecumenical work. Observers described his theology as one of simple, concrete, tender acts: bathing a fellow human being, dining together, offering a reassuring touch." The BBC's Martin Bashir wrote, "Vanier devoted his life to what has been described as the upside-down economics of Christianity: that the first shall be last. He embodied a principle first outlined in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul, who said, 'When I am weak, then am I strong.'" Photo: The Canadian Press Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro The company that makes OxyContin did not stop pitching the powerful opioid painkiller to doctors even when its sales representatives raised concerns that they were prescribing the drug inappropriately, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office said in a lawsuit announced Tuesday. The lawsuit against Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma was filed on May 2 under seal and announced on Tuesday. It made Pennsylvania at least the 39th state to sue the company seeking to hold it responsible for the toll of opioids, which have been killing more people in the U.S. and Pennsylvania each year than car crashes. The suit says Purdue drug representatives have made 531,000 detailing calls on doctors in the state since 2007, when the company settled with Pennsylvania and 25 other states agreeing to stop identifying illegal diversion of its OxyContin and to promote it only for federally approved uses. Only California doctors heard from the company more, the state says. The suit names several doctors whom the state says the company continued to call on to promote opioids despite signs that they were prescribing to addicts or worrying pharmacies with their prescribing levels. The complaint singled out one Philadelphia doctor Jeffrey Bado as one of the nation's biggest prescribers of opioids. The doctor lost his license in 2013 and was convicted in 2016 crimes including causing the death of a patient. The state says the company stopped calling on Bado at points because of concerns over his prescribing practices but kept returning again to promote the drugs. Purdue said the company denies the allegations. "The complaint is part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system," Purdue spokesman Robert Josephson said in a written statement. Attorney General Josh Shapiro did not rule out future legal actions against Purdue sales representatives and executives. He said he decided to sue because the company after two years of serving as a leader of a multistate investigation into the opioid industry and negotiations with companies on a settlement. "It has become clear that just one company, Purdue Pharma, has not been willing to negotiate in good faith," he said at a news conference. Sixty-five years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. That decision for the first time afforded black children access to the same educational opportunities as white children. Although many schools remain de facto racially segregated today, the decision is still heralded as one of the countrys most significant milestones for civil rights. But Brown also had an unintended consequence, the effects of which are still felt today: It caused the dismissal, demotion, or forced resignation of many experienced, highly credentialed black educators who staffed black-only schools. After the decision, tens of thousands of black teachers and principals lost their jobs as white superintendents began to integrate schools but balked at putting black educators in positions of authority over white teachers or students. For instance, in 1953, one year before the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, teacher Darla Buchanan received a letter from the Topeka, Kan., superintendent, Wendell Godwin. [T]he majority of people in Topeka will not want to employ Negro teachers next year for white children, Godwin wrote . It is necessary for me to notify you now that your services will not be needed for next year. Shortly after the Brown decision, the Moberly, Mo., school district closed a segregated black school, which led to the dismissal of 11 certified black teachers, including at least one who had a Ph.D. Some of the white teachers in the district who kept their jobs had fewer classroom experience or college credits than the black teachers who were dismissed, according to court documents. Seven of the dismissed black teachers sued the school district , claiming they lost their jobs because of their race. The courts sided with the district, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. In the book The Lost Education of Horace Tate , author Vanessa Siddle Walker tells the story of a black man in north Georgia who had been a principal for 14 years. Once the school district began to integrate, administrators transferred half of the principals students and half his teachers and docked $3,000 from his salary. Eventually, the principal lost all his students and was transferred to the superintendents building. He was given a windowless room in the attic as an officewhere he turned in his resignation, humiliated. These types of stories were common. Today, many scholars say the persistent lack of black teachers in the profession can be traced to the aftermath of the Brown decision. We decimated the black principal and teacher pipeline, and weve never rectified that, said Leslie Fenwick, the dean emeritus and a professor at the Howard University School of Education. It is the unfinished promise of Brown that we have not integrated our faculty and school leadership. Prior to Brown, in the 17 states that had segregated school systems, 35 to 50 percent of the teaching force was black, said Fenwick, who has researched the displacement of black educators for her upcoming book, Jim Crows Pink Slip: Public Policy and the Near Decimation of Black Educational Leadership After Brown. Now, no state has anywhere close to those percentages of black teachers or principals, she said. According to the most recent federal data, about 7 percent of public school teachers, and 11 percent of public school principals, are black. Not having these models of intellectual authority and leadership in schools is detrimental to children, Fenwick said. All children deserve to have diverse models of intellectual authority in the classroom via their teacher, or diverse models of leadership in schools. What We Lost Before Brown, the segregated black schools were underresourced and underfunded compared to the white schools. In some places, black students were forced to travel long distances to school without provided transportation. Black teachers were often paid less than their counterparts in white schools, and taught with outdated textbooks that were handed down from the white schools in the district. Some of the black school buildings were crumbling, with inadequate heating and cooling systems. Despite these challenges, most of the black teachers and principals in segregated schools pre-Brown had better credentials than white educators, Fenwick said. Though they were barred from attending many Southern, segregated institutions of higher education, many black educators received tuition scholarships to earn masters and doctorate degrees at integrated universities like Columbia, Michigan, and New York, she said. Thats what we lost, Fenwick said. We lost these credentialed, qualified people who had experienced integration in educational environments, who had played by the rules and come back [to teach in the South]. Black educators were also advocates for their students, said Walker, a professor of African-American educational studies at Emory University, who extensively researched the records of black educators during this time period for The Lost Education of Horace Tate. There was an entire network of black educators who organized efforts to desegregate schools and provide equal access to transportation and school resources, even though they knew their efforts could result in job loss and even threats of violence, said Walker, who is also the president of the American Educational Research Association. And inside the classrooms of segregated schools, there was a focus on civics and the democratic ideals. Black children were taught to aspire to greater things than the status quo of segregation, Walker said. They taught these children not to believe the wider societal messages, but to really believe they could be full participants in American democracy, she said. Rather than being victimized by what America is not giving them, they are literally teaching these children to live in a world that does not exist. That purposeful educationincluding strong interpersonal relationships between teachers and black studentswent away when black schools were closed, and you got rid of the people who knew how to do it, Walker said. The losses were so much greater than just the individual teachers, she said. It matters that they lost their jobs, but the loss we need to contend with in this era is so much broader. ... Yes, we need more diversity with teachers, but we need that and more. We need to reclaim that additive model of what it means to educate all children. A growing body of research has found that black students benefit from having a black teacher, both academically and socially. Black students are more likely to both graduate from high school and enroll in college when they have just one black teacher in elementary school. And black students are more likely to be placed in gifted education programs if they have a black teacher, and less likely to receive suspensions, expulsions, or detentions from black teachers. Research has found that black teachers have higher expectations for black students. I think in general, black students benefit from working with teachers who deeply understand and are invested in their educational progress and success, said Rich Milner, a professor of education at Vanderbilt University. With the decline of teachers post Brown, we see that these students are often underserved and are not supported in ways that would be advantageous to their academic and social success. A Continued Diversity Gap Increasing teacher diversity has been at the forefront of advocates and some policymakers agenda for some time now, especially now that about half of public school students are nonwhite. Indeed, over the last 30 years, the number of nonwhite teachers has gone up faster than the number of white teachers, said Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. However, that growth has been driven by a significant increase of Hispanic and Asian-American teachers. The number of black teachers has increased by about 34 percent over the past three decadesa smaller increase than any other group of teachers, except for Native American teachers (whose numbers have decreased over this time). And black teachers are not evenly distributed across jobs. According to 2012 federal data, half of black teachers work in urban public schools, while 27 percent work in suburban schools. Nearly 70 percent of black teachers teach in high-poverty schools, Ingersoll said, and only 1 percent of black teachers work in predominately white schools. One barrier to recruiting more diverse candidates into the profession is the licensing test that states require teachers to take. Like with other standardized tests, black and Hispanic candidates have lower scores on average on certification tests than their white and Asian-American counterparts. Some experts attribute that discrepancy to a lack of strong preparation and test anxiety. (Licensure exams are often expensive to take and retake, an additional burden.) Linda Tillman, a professor emerita of educational leadership in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said after the Brown decision, standardized tests were used to deny black educators the opportunity to teach. States implemented certification measures that led to black teachers being fired or to school districts not renewing their contracts, she said. Between 1984 and 1989, about 21,500 black teachers were displaced because of new requirements for teacher education programs and certification, she said. Another challenge for the teacher diversity gap today is retention: Black teachers are more likely than their white peers to quit teaching. Milner attributed that in part to the additional responsibilities that are often placed on black educators shouldersfor instance, many black teachers report being pigeonholed as disciplinarians. And one possible reason for the continued diversity gap is that children of teachers are more likely to go into teaching themselves, according to a recent study . This actually can explain a lot about the persistence of the white overrepresentation in teaching, said study co-author Seth Gershenson, who is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. Overall, children whose mothers were teachers were 9 percentage points more likely to become teachers than other children. That holds true for both the sons and daughters of white female teachers, and the daughters of black female teachers. A Lasting Impact Today, public schools are still deeply segregated, with large numbers of black and brown students being taught in schools that are predominately nonwhite and often have fewer resources. As the countrys attention turns to the 65th anniversary of the Brown decisionand how far schools still have to go to be truly racially integratedscholars hope theres also a reckoning on what happened to the black educators of the time period and their legacy. We really need to not just sit around and think about Brown and clap for Brown and then go on as business as usual, Walker said. This anniversary needs to be a summons to action. And that action should be twofold, she said: Policymakers need to focus efforts on diversifying the teaching ranks, but also schools should embrace the rich pedagogy and practices that were common among black teachers in segregated schools. But the legacy of those black educators still exists in schools today. For instance, Pamela Benford, a regional superintendent for the DeKalb County school district near Atlanta, was mentored by her former principal, who grew up in the pre-Brown era of segregated schools. That educator carried the pedagogical practices of the black teachers in black schools into her own instructional philosophy, and imparted those lessons to her staff, including Benford. I think the biggest thing I learned from her was the way she encouraged and modeled ... what it means to be student-centered, Benford said. She understood that its really all about the child. Benfords principal had high standards and expectations for her students and employees, but it all came down to making sure children had everything they needed to succeed, she said. I saw her exemplify that, and I did strive to be like her, Benford said. To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020. From making it to managing it, plastic is a major contributor to climate change New report finds plastic production and use could have the equivalent impact of nearly 300 new coal power plants on Earth's climate over the next decade. Photo: File photo A former Vernon man found guilty of murdering a Japanese exchange is appealing his conviction. William Schneider was convicted of the second-degree murder of Natsumi Kogawa, a 30-year-old Japanese student and sentenced to 14 years in jail. However, CTV News Vancouver is reporting Schneider's legal team has filed an appeal of the murder conviction. Kogawa's naked body was found in a suitcase on Vancouver's Gabriola Mansion in September 2016. Schneider entered a surprise guilty plea on a second count of interfering with human remains, but jury also found him guilty of murder. Schneider fled to Vernon as police in the Lower Mainland searched for Kogawa. She'd been reported missing about three weeks before her body was found. Schneider was arrested in Vernon the same day Kogawa's body was found. - with files from CTV Vancouver Photo: The Canadian Press Supreme Court of Canada Justice Clement Gascon speaks during a welcoming ceremony at the Supreme Court of Canada Monday October 6, 2014 in Ottawa. Gascon says he suffered a panic attack the afternoon he went missing last week. Supreme Court Justice Clement Gascon says he suffered a panic attack last week before he briefly went missing Wednesday night. Gascon, who has already announced plans to retire in September, said in a statement Tuesday that he has long dealt with depression and anxiety, an "insidious illness" he has generally been able to manage, but led him to a crisis last week. "On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 8, affected both by the recent announcement of a difficult and heart-rending career decision and by a change in medication, I conducted myself in an unprecedented and unaccustomed manner by going out without warning and remaining out of touch for several hours," Gascon said. "I can neither explain nor justify what I understand to have been a panic attack, and I wish to apologize most profusely to all those who suffered as a result." Ottawa police sent a missing-person alert last Wednesday evening, saying the judge had been seen in early afternoon heading away from the courthouse near Parliament and his family was concerned for his safety. A short time later, the police said Gascon had been found safe and sound. Until Tuesday, neither the police nor the Supreme Court would explain the incident, though the court's executive legal officer a top aide to Chief Justice Richard Wagner said it wouldn't affect his ability to continue on the bench. "This health issue has been taken care of and treated with the necessary medical support," Gascon said in his statement. "I confirm that I am in good health, and am fully capable of performing my duties as a judge." He can't "erase what happened," he said, but intends to put it behind him. Wagner praised Gascon for speaking out. "The statement made by Justice Gascon earlier today takes courage," Wagner said in a release. "My colleagues and I are very proud of Justice Gascon, and he has my full support and confidence. I look forward to seeing him back on the bench this week." Gascon, 58, is a specialist in business law and has been on the Supreme Court for five years, having been appointed by former prime minister Stephen Harper after 12 years as a judge in Quebec. He announced his impending retirement in mid-April, citing personal and family reasons for quitting the top court at an age younger than many justices are when they join it. Last year, the family of late justice Gerald Le Dain went public with the story of his departure from the Supreme Court in 1988, saying then-chief justice Brian Dickson forced Le Dain out after he was hospitalized with depression. A former top aide to Dickson had previously written that the decision was made because the Supreme Court had a heavy load at the time and could not handle being short a judge; Le Dain's family told the CBC he would have returned after a short time off to recuperate and called the court's actions "unconscionable." Just after Gascon's statement was released Tuesday, Independent MP and former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould thanked Gascon for sharing his struggle with depression and anxiety. "Pleased to hear you are in good health and continuing to perform your duties as a judge," she wrote on Twitter. 163 kg of heroin seized in Turkey Anti-narcotic police seize 602 containers of heroin hidden in mineral oil cans during warehouse search. Turkish police have seized more than 163 kilograms (around 360 pounds) of heroin in the eastern Van province, local police announced on Wednesday. The heroin was discovered in mineral oil cans by anti-narcotic police teams in a search of a cargo warehouse in the Tusba district, said a police statement. The heroin was found packed in 602 containers pending transfer to the country's western provinces, it added. Two suspects were arrested for suspected drug trafficking. Assad regime attacks killed 3 civilians in Syria Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests. The attacks by the Bashar al-Assad regime and its allies left three civilians dead, 20 others wounded in Syrias largest city of Aleppo Wednesday, local sources said. THE DEATH TOLL INCREASES DAY BY DAY According to the White Helmets civil defense agency, rocket and mortar attacks by regime forces and allied Iran-backed foreign terrorist groups targeted Kfar Dael district in western Aleppo during the pre-dawn-meal of sahur. The attacked region falls into the de-escalation zone set up in northwestern Idlib. Some 1.5 million people reside in Idlib, half of whom are refugees from other parts of the country. Within the framework of the Astana agreements, Turkey currently holds 12 ceasefire observatory points in Idlibs de-escalation zone while Russia has 10 points. Bashar al-Assad regime, ignoring the agreements, constantly strikes Idlibs de-escalation zone. Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression would be expressly prohibited. Boris Johnson could face court over Brexit claim The ex-foreign minister could be prosecuted over allegations he misled public by supporting the claim that the UK sends EU 350m a week. A judge will decide next week whether to summon former foreign secretary Boris Johnson to court over a claim made during the 2016 EU referendum. JOHNSON COULD BE CHALLENGED IN COURT ON BREXIT VOTE CLAIM The private case was initiated by businessman Marcus Ball, who has accused Johnson of misconduct in public office after he endorsed a claim emblazoned on the side of a bus used by the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 European Union referendum that the UK sends 350 million each week to the EU. Johnson had campaigned to leave the EU and was regularly pictured standing near the bus. An initial hearing over the claim was held after Ball was able to raise 200,000 from supporters through crowdfunding and took place at the Westminster Magistrates Court. It comes before the submission of an application that will request a summons for Johnson. Ball is being represented by three barristers. The court has determined that a public hearing will take place on Thursday 23 May at this court at which the judge will consider the application to issue a summons against the proposed defendant, Mr. Boris Johnson MP, for the alleged offense of misconduct in public office, Balls legal team said in a statement to The Guardian newspaper. We wish to stress again that Mr. Johnson has not been charged with any criminal offense and is at all times presumed innocent until proven otherwise. We would respectfully ask all those reporting and supporting the case to respect the formality of the court, it added. Ball spent three years raising funds and preparing the case and has amassed 216,577 from more than 5,900 supporters. Although Johnson was not present at the hearing, he was represented by his legal team. During the 2016 EU referendum campaign, Johnson along with other prominent Brexit supporting MPs claimed the UK sends 350 million a week to the EU and that if the UK were to leave the EU, that money would be used to fund the National Health Service (NHS). It was unverified, and soon after the UK voted to leave the EU on June 23, 2016, Brexiters denied ever making the claim. Germany cancels military training mission in Iraq Amid growing tensions between the US and Iran, armed forces temporarily stop military training in Baghdad and Erbil. Germany has suspended its military training mission in Iraq due to growing tensions between the US and Iran, an official said on Wednesday. MILITARY TRAINING STOPPED Speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Defense Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) has temporarily stopped its military training activities in Erbil and Camp Taji in Baghdad's north due to a tense security situation throughout Iraq. Flosdorff said the decision was taken following consultations with other allies and partners in the anti-Daesh coalition. The US on Wednesday ordered the departure of non-emergency employees from Iraq amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran. Germany has been an active partner of the international coalition against Daesh terror group since 2015, and has deployed nearly 150 troops in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, to train local forces there. Currently around 100 German troops are stationed in Erbil, while 60 others are deployed in Baghdad to train the Iraqi army personnel. Louisianas governor wears hairy Trump socks Louisiana governor has worn hairy Trump socks at US President Donald Trumps welcoming ceremony at the citys airport. President Donald Trump on Tuesday traveled to Louisiana to speak at a liquefied natural gas export facility to discuss the country's energy infrastructure. TRUMP SOCKS Trump was greeted by Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser wearing that featured the president's face and hair. He shook Nungesser's hand and pointed to the socks in an approving way upon his arrival. The socks, made by Gumball Poodle, are available for purchase on Amazon and are described as "Donald Trump socks with soft, luxurious hair you can style, comb over, clip and tease. Macron wants to meet Haftar to push ceasefire President Emmanuel Macron wants to meet Libyan eastern commander Khalifa Haftar to push a ceasefire and resume peace talks, Frances foreign minister said on Tuesday. President Emmanuel Macron last week called for a ceasefire in the month-long battle for Libyas capital Tripoli after meeting UN-backed Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj. A CEASEFIRE CALL Tripoli is home to the recognized administration but some European countries such as France have also supported eastern military commander Haftar as a way to fight militants in a country in chaos since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. A day after meeting Macron, the internationally recognized government asked 40 foreign firms including French oil major Total to renew their licenses or have their operations suspended. The situation in Libya is extremely worrying because the proposed U.N. roadmap to both parties - and which almost reached a positive conclusion has today failed on the one hand because of Field Marshal Haftars initiative and Serrajs non-initiative, Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers. Its for this reason that the president wanted to meet one and the other to support the UN initiative. The French presidency said there was no meeting planned at this stage. Merkel calls for equal opportunites for immigrants About one-quarter of Germanys 82 million population has an immigrant background, according to the latest figures. Among the countrys nearly 4.7 million Muslims, 3 million are of Turkish origin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged equal opportunity for all, regardless of ones ethnicity or religion. IMMIGRANTS ON EQUAL CONDITIONS Whether one's name is Anna or Aljona, Max or Mohammed, he or she must be able to rely on equal opportunity, from the early childhood education to the high school, at the workplace and in social life, Merkel told a ceremony in Berlin, marking the 70th anniversary of the German constitution, or the Basic Law. Merkel underlined that Germanys Basic Law has successfully ensured social cohesion by promoting integration and protecting social diversity.It provides an answer to the question of how more than 80 million people with all their differences can live together perfectly well, she said. One female killed in Texas A woman was shot and killed during an altercation with a police officer Monday night in Baytown, Texas after she resisted arrest and grabbed the officer's Taser, police said. A police officer in the state of Texas shot and killed a woman in the parking lot of her apartment complex during an arrest, according to multiple reports. ONE FEMALE KILLED Video of the fatal encounter was posted to social media and raised questions as to what caused the officer to shoot and kill the woman. In a Snapchat recording of the shooting, the woman yelled she was pregnant before being shot, however, according to local reports that claim was not able to be supported by the womans family. The officer was on patrol in Baytown, a city east of Houston, late Monday when he came across a woman who had multiple prior warrants. Police told NBC News that when the officer tried to arrest the woman, she resisted, to which the officer was forced to deploy his Taser. Youre actually harassing me, the woman said in video of the incident. The woman grabbed the Taser and tried to use it on the officer, prompting the officer drew his weapon firing multiple rounds at the woman. She was declared dead on the scene, according to multiple reports. Baytown police are not giving the name of the officer in question. Fatal police shootings have been a common occurrence in the US, with every year since 2015 seeing nearly 1,000 incidents. According to a database of fatal police shootings created by the Washington Post, at least 323 people in the US have been shot and killed by police so far in 2019. Photo: The Canadian Press UFO scientist Stanton Friedman is shown in a handout photo. Friedman, nuclear physicist, lecturer and world-renowned devotee of extraterrestrial existence, has died at the age of 84. Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, lecturer and world-renowned devotee of extraterrestrial existence, has died at the age of 84. The famed UFO researcher died Monday at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, his daughter Melissa Friedman confirmed Tuesday. She said he was on his way home to Fredericton from a speaking engagement in Ohio. She did not disclose the cause of death and asked that the family's privacy be respected. Friedman built a reputation as a leading authority on unidentified flying objects, alien abductions and the so-called Roswell incident, considered by many to be the definitive UFO event. He said his belief in extraterrestrials was based on data about UFO events he found buried in U.S. government documents over the years. Friedman grew up in Linden, N.J., and was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by companies including General Electric, Westinghouse and McDonnell-Douglas. According to his book, Flying Saucers and Science, he first became interested in UFOs in 1958. He began lecturing on the topic in 1967, but he never actually saw one himself. ''I have never seen a flying saucer, and I have never seen an alien. But remember, I chased neutrons and gamma rays for a lot of years as a physicist and never saw one of them either,'' he told The Canadian Press in 2007. ''In fact, I've never seen Tokyo, but I'm convinced it's there.'' It was in 2007 that the City of Fredericton declared Stanton Friedman Day to honour him. At the time, he said he owed his personal success to the fact that people have an endless fascination with space and the unknown. "Can you think of anything that touches more deeply on who we are, where we stand and the mystery and the coverup?" he asked. "People are excited because it opens up the universe to wonderful possibilities." Kathleen Marden was a friend of Friedman for more than 30 years and co-authored three books on UFOs with him. "When he knew the truth, he told the truth," she said Tuesday from her home near Orlando, Fla. "He was the original civilian investigator of the Roswell crash. Stanton was a man who did his homework. He always criticized the debunkers because they hadn't done theirs." Marden said Friedman spoke at conferences and colleges across Canada and the United States and in 20 foreign countries. He was also a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows. Funeral arrangements have not yet been made. Pakistani court grants bail to PMs aide in graft case Khan, who is known to be the main donor of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, was taken into custody by the National Accountability Bureau a state-run corruption watchdog in February this year A Pakistani court Wednesday ordered release of a close aide of Prime Minister Imran Khan on a bail in a corruption case, which stemmed from whistle-blower Panama Papers, local media reported. THE BAIL DECISION A two-member bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) granted bail to Aleem Khan a former minister of the northeastern Punjab province in a case pertaining to assets beyond his known income sources against two surety bonds with one million rupees worth ($7500) each, the local broadcaster Dawn News reported. His name surfaced in the Panama Papers, along with 450 other Pakistanis, for owning offshore companies. Khan had immediately stepped down from his office following the arrest. Russian and US diplomats discussed bilateral relations Russian foreign minister, US secretary of state meet in Russia; talks were 'open, useful', says Sergey Lavrov. Heads of Russian and US diplomacy on Tuesday met in the Russian coastal city of Sochi for the second time in two weeks amid hopes for improved ties between the two countries. US EYES IMPROVED RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA Addressing a news conference following the meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he discussed bilateral relations, the latest developments in the Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan and the Korean Peninsula with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "The talks were open and useful. It is clear that our relations with the US are going through hard times, and the potential remains largely unfulfilled," Lavrov said. The top diplomats of Russia and the US agreed on the need to ease the tension between the two countries, he added. Lavrov also voiced hope for a better Russian-US dialogue after US Special Counsel Robert Muellers report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. While the special counsel determined there was a lack of evidence linking the Trump campaign to Russia's attempts to sway the 2016 election in Trump's favor, it was not as clear-cut on obstruction as the president suggested. During the meeting, Lavrov and Pompeo agreed to continue anti-terror efforts. "We also spoke about the Middle East. We discussed the necessity of the complete eradication of the terrorism in Syria, repatriation of refugees, humanitarian issues and launch of the political process," Lavrov said. On May, Lavrov and Pompeo held talks in Finland on the sidelines of the 11th ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council and discussed topics concerning "strategic stability", Lavrov said later at a news conference. Pompeo, for his part, said the Donald Trump expects that we will have an improved relationship between our countries." And I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction," he said. Russian presidential spokesperson expresses concern over Iran tensions US responsible for stoking tensions by withdrawing from JCPoA, says Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Russia on Wednesday expressed concern at the escalating tensions over Iran, despite the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating that his country did not want war. 'IRAN IS UNDER PRESSURE' Talking to reporters, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov squarely held the US responsible for stoking tensions by withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPoA), We clearly understand that Iran is not taking these decisions proactively, but responding to the pressure, contrary to the letter and spirit of the JCPoA," he said. Peskov added that Pompeo did not give any assurance regarding Iran at the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. Pompeo, speaking at a news conference following the meeting in Sochi, said that the US will continue to apply pressure on Iran. He said the US does not want war with Iran but will respond "in an appropriate manner" if its interests are attacked. United Arab Emirates releases seized Qatari military vessel The United Arab Emirates has released a Qatari military vessel seized after it entered Emirati waters on April. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday announced it had released a Qatari military vessel that was seized late last month after entering Emirati territorial waters. THE MILITARY VESSEL HAS BEEN RELEASED According to the UAE's Foreign Ministry, the boat was carrying two Qatari military personnel, along with a Palestinian and an Indian national, when it was seized on April 30. In its own statement Monday, Qatars Foreign Ministry expressed its satisfaction with the vessels release. The ship was conducting a routine drill when it encountered a technical problem and was swept into Emirati waters, where it and its crew were seized by the Emirati authorities, the statement read. It added: Qatar has worked in recent days, through all available diplomatic channels and with mediation by friendly states, to secure the safe return of the vessel and crew. Since mid-2017, the UAE along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain has imposed a diplomatic and commercial embargo on Qatar, accusing the latter of supporting terrorist groups. Doha, for its part, strenuously denies the claim, describing the ongoing embargo as a violation of international law. US pulls government employees from Iraq Washington ordered the departure of non-emergency government employees from Iraq on Wednesday, after repeated US expressions of concern about threats from Iranian-backed forces. The US State Department has ordered the pullout of the employees from both the US Embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, the embassy said in a statement. VISA SERVICES SUSPENDED Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended, it said, recommending those affected depart as soon as possible. It was unclear how many staff would leave. On Tuesday, the US military reaffirmed concerns about possible imminent threats from Iran to its troops in Iraq, although a senior British commander cast doubt on that and Tehran has called it psychological warfare. Washington has sent additional military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles in a show of force against what US officials have said is a threat to its troops and interests in the region. A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has said Tehran would retaliate against any aggressive US moves. A US State Department spokesman said the decision to withdraw non-emergency staff was based on a security assessment, but would not give details on how many personnel were leaving. "Ensuring the safety of US government personnel and citizens is our highest priority and we are confident in the Iraqi security services (ability) to protect us," he said. "But this threat is serious and we want to reduce the risk of harm." 15 May 2019 Breakout session, from left to right: Olli Ilmarinen, Finnish Patent and Registration Office, chair, Jean-Philippe Muller, INPI, Ile de France, France Alban Fischer, Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, Santa Lozda, National Patent Office, Latvia, Igor Bosnjakovic, State Intellectual Property Office, Croatia At the PATLIB Summit held last week in Porto, representatives of patent information centres from across Europe provisionally adopted a set of recommendations aimed at boosting the EPO's support for the PATLIB Network, and further improving services for companies, researchers and inventors. In his opening address, EPO President Antonio Campinos highlighted the contribution of Europe's PATLIB centres to innovation in Europe, by providing much needed advice on patents and other IP rights, particularly SMEs and universities, over the past 30 years: "We can now offer patent information services that were simply not possible in the early days of PATLIB," he said. The EPO President also welcomed the strategic summit as a means to assess how the network could become even stronger in future: "This event is our opportunity to explore how PATLIB centres can play a greater role in commercialisation and technology transfer, to help European companies and researchers to exploit the full commercial power of their intellectual property rights." The recommendations, developed after two days of intensive conference sessions, are contained in a document called the Porto Paper, currently still considered a draft to give delegates time to submit further comments. The recommendations put an emphasis on providing a structural framework for the PATLIB Network, and giving more freedom for the individual PATLIB centres to expand the quality and range of the services they offer. They include measures such as: defining different levels of PATLIB centres and the requirements for reaching each level putting in place a comprehensive set of training measures providing means for PATLIB centres to develop into IP commercialisation advice centres, and for them to interact with other networks, such as technology transfer centres encouraging experts within PATLIB centres to share their knowledge with other members of the network There are over 300 patent information centres, also known as PATLIB centres, across the EPO's member states. Together, they form a Pan-European network of IP expertise giving advice and providing services to innovators in SMEs, universities and research institutions, and to individual inventors. The network was formed more than 30 years ago, and the summit was the first event since then to go to the core of its concept, looking at a major revision of the way it works - an initiative dubbed "PATLIB 2.0". The event brought together some 100 PATLIB centres, national patent offices of the EPO's member states, and a wide range of innovation support experts, including European and international organisations involved in IP, technology transfer and innovation. Together, they analysed the status quo and the needs of PATLIB centres' users. External experts provided a different perspective, challenging delegates to go beyond their traditional activities and look more closely at areas such as technology transfer and IP in a business context. "This was an energetic summit with a lot of hope to evolve," said Sander De Vrieze of Belgian research centre Centexbel, one of the participants. Closing the summit, EPO Vice-President Christoph Ernst said: "We will analyse what the recommendations mean and what options we have for implementing them in a meaningful way that brings true benefits to all PATLIB centres and their users." Further information More Than a Half-Million Parents With Opioid Use Disorder Live With Children An estimated 623,000 parents with opioid use disorder in the United States are living with children under the age of 18, and fewer than one-third of the parents have received substance use treatment. An additional four million parents have other substance use disorders, with even lower treatment rates. Researchers from the Urban Institute analyzed data from the 2015 to 2017 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey. They found that the rate of opioid use disorder among parents living with a child under 18 years of age was 0.9%, or an estimated 623,000 parents. Of these, 42% had one or more other substance use disorders in addition to opioid use disorder. Among parents living in households with children, 6%, or an estimated 4.2 million parents, had substance use disorders that did not include opioids. More than one in five parents with opioid use disorder had suicidal thoughts and behavior and nearly 25% had serious mental illness, a higher rate of mental health problems than parents with other substance use disorders. Twenty-eight percent of parents with opioid use disorder received drug or alcohol treatment at a specialty facility or other doctor's office, compared to 6% of those with other substance use disorders. Primary care practices can play a critical role in addressing substance use disorder issues among parents, the authors state, including screening and diagnosing substance use disorders, motivating behavior change, and facilitating initiation of treatment. Opioid and Substance Use Disorder and Receipt of Treatment Among Parents Living With Children in the United States, 2015-2017 Lisa Clemans-Cope, PhD, et al Urban Institute, Washington, DC http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/200 Does Health Care Help Us Live Longer? A widely cited statistic suggests that health care services account for only a small percentage of the variation in American life expectancy. However, the methodology supporting the finding has been challenged. To explore the robustness of the finding, a new report examined four methods that rely on different outcome measures, analytic techniques, and data sets, to consider the percentage of premature deaths or poor health outcomes attributable to various factors including health care. Estimates from the four methods suggest that health care accounts for between 5% and 15% of the variation in premature death. In contrast, behavioral and social factors account for a much higher percentage of variation in premature mortality, ranging from 16% to 65%. According to the authors, this analysis affirms previous findings that health care is only one component of a larger set of influences on health outcomes. They suggest that a more diversified portfolio of national investments would generate a higher health yield. For example, spending on non-medical social services for each dollar spent on medical care averages about two dollars in wealthy countries that report data to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development compared to 55 cents in the United States. According to the authors, the recently enacted Chronic Care Act allowing Medicare Advantage plans to cover interventions beyond traditionally defined health care is a step in the right direction. Extending similar coverage to pregnant women and children enrolled in Medicaid may generate even higher yields, they state. Contributions of Health Care to Longevity: A Review of 4 Estimation Methods Robert M. Kaplan, PhD and Arnold Milstein, MD, MPH. Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford, California http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/267 Health is About More Than Health Care In an accompanying editorial, Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, states that, "The reason why nations that spend less on health care can experience better health is obvious: health is about more than health care." Woolf identifies five interrelated domains that shape our health: health care, health behaviors, the physical and social environment, socioeconomic status, and public policy. Socioeconomic status may be the greatest influence on health, Woolf states. "In a knowledge economy like the United States, education--and the income and wealth it provides--opens the doors to opportunity and health, enabling people to afford medical care, nutritious foods, and homes in healthy neighborhoods. Public policy influences all of these domains: national, state, and local leaders in public and private sectors influence access to good schools, jobs, and economic opportunity. Policy choices also shape social divides; they either correct or perpetuate inequities among marginalized populations...and neglected neighborhoods." Woolf calls on clinicians to pay attention to the socioeconomic status of patients and tailor care plans accordingly, advocate for policies that address social needs in their communities, and join organizations that work to address social determinants of health. He notes the vital role of universal health insurance coverage, access to primary care, and innovations to improve quality. "Spending lavishly on health care will not solve the US health disadvantage," he states. Necessary But Not Sufficient: Why Health Care Alone Cannot Improve Population Health and Reduce Health Inequities Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/196 Inappropriate Prescribing Can Lead to Adverse Outcomes In older adults, inappropriate prescribing in primary care is associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, but not mortality. An analysis of existing studies looked at potentially inappropriate prescribing--the prescribing or underprescribing of medications in older persons that could cause significant harm. The analysis found that, although potentially inappropriate prescribing did not affect mortality, it was significantly associated with emergency room visits, adverse drug events, functional decline, health-related quality of life, and hospitalizations. According to the authors, the findings highlight the need to address potentially inappropriate prescribing in primary care. They call for further research into effective interventions, and they call on researchers to consider the potential implications of how potentially inappropriate prescribing is operationalized in their work. Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing Among Older Persons: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies Tau Ming Liew, MBBS, MRCPsych, MCI, et al Institute of Mental Health, Singapore http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/257 Learning More About Opioid Prescribing in Primary Care Chronic opioid prescribing in primary care varies significantly by patient and clinician characteristics, according to a new study. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University analyzed 2016 electronic health record data from 21 primary care practices with 271 clinicians. Of 84,929 patients seen, 11% received an opioid prescription, while 1% received chronic opioid prescriptions. Oxycodone-acetaminophen was the most commonly prescribed opioid, followed by oxycodone. In urban underserved clinics, 10% of prescriptions written were for opioids, compared to 3% of prescriptions in suburban clinics. Being female, being of black race, and having risks for opioid-related harms, such as mental health diagnoses, substance use disorder and concurrent benzodiazepine use, were associated with being prescribed chronic opioids. Patients with higher comorbidities were more likely to receive chronic opioid prescriptions and at higher doses. In interviews, clinicians described the use of opioids to manage chronic pain as appropriate for patients with extensive medical comorbidities or those for whom non-opioid pain medications were contraindicated. However, most were reluctant to begin patients on opioids for chronic pain. Many felt frustrated by lack of time to appropriately manage patients' chronic pain and lack of control over patients' access to other sources of opioids. The authors call for research to explore trends in opioids prescribing, compare the differences in opioid prescribing in various settings, and test interventions to help primary care clinicians overcome barriers in weaning patients with high risks of opioid-related harms. Chronic Opioid Prescribing in Primary Care: Factors and Perspectives Sebastian T. Tong, MD, MPH, et al Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/200 Serious Adverse Outcomes From Respiratory Tract Infection are Rare but Predictable In routine primary care practice, serious adverse outcomes occur in only 1% of adult patients with lower respiratory tract infection, but such outcomes may be predicted with moderate accuracy. In a prospective cohort study of 28,846 adult patients with lower respiratory tract infections, researchers recorded patient characteristics and clinical findings, and identified adverse events (i.e., late onset pneumonia, hospital admission, or death) during a 30-day period following the patient visit. Serious adverse outcomes occurred in only 325 out of 28,846 patient visits. Three categories of factors independently predicted adverse outcomes from lower respiratory tract infection: severity of patient symptoms, patient vulnerability to serious illness, and the physiological impact of symptoms. These factors can be used to predict adverse outcomes by conversion to an eight-point score. Since patients with respiratory tract infection get little if any benefit from antibiotics, the authors state, the score may help clinicians target prescribing based on predicted risk and identify a small group of high risk patients who may benefit from closer monitoring. Predictors of Adverse Outcomes in Uncomplicated Lower Respiratory Tract Infections Michael Moore, BM, BS, MRCP, et al. University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/231 Online Intervention Reduces Mothers' Intentions to Visit Doctor for Respiratory Tract Infection Visits to the doctor for a respiratory tract infection can lead to unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, but an online intervention with real-time information on locally circulating viruses may reduce mothers' intentions to visit their primary care doctor. A representative sample of mothers in the United Kingdom (N=806) was randomized to receive the online intervention, including locally enhanced influenza statistics, symptom information, and home-care advice, either before (intervention group) or after (control group) responding to a hypothetical respiratory tract infection illness scenario. Participants in the intervention group had lower intentions to visit the doctor than those in the control group when adjusted for demographic and clinical characteristics. Intervention material was generally well received, with information on symptoms and when to visit the primary care doctor rated as more important than information on locally circulating viruses. If the intervention were rolled out widely, the authors surmise that it would have impact, given the high rates at which parents of children with respiratory tract infections visit primary care clinicians. The authors call for research to evaluate intervention effects on observed behavioral outcomes in real-world settings and examine long-term effects and cost-effectiveness. Reducing Primary Care Attendance Intentions for Pediatric Respiratory Tract Infections Annegret Schneider, PhD, et al University College London, London, United Kingdom In Rural Areas, Buprenorphine is Provided by Primary Care Clinicians As the United States undertakes intense efforts to increase the number of prescribers of buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, it is critical to understand who currently provides such treatment and how. A new study finds that in nonmetropolitan areas, buprenorphine is almost twice as likely to be provided by a primary care physician, compared to large metropolitan areas where specialists in addiction or psychiatry provide a majority of treatment. In a survey of a national random sample of buprenorphine physician prescribers (N=1,174), 11% (N=132) practiced in nonmetropolitan/rural areas, 33% (N=382) practiced in small metropolitan areas, and 56% (N=660) were located in large metropolitan areas. Buprenorphine prescribers in nonmetropolitan areas were much more likely to be primary care physicians, accept Medicaid, and less likely to work in an individual practice. Overall, buprenorphine prescribers across the rural/urban continuum were similar in many of their treatment practices, including frequency of visits and dosing. The authors recommend further research to understand variation in treatment practices and quality and how treatment relates to patient perceptions and outcomes. Comparing Buprenorphine-Prescribing Physicians across Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan Areas in the United States Lewei (Allison) Lin, MD, MS, et al University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/212 New Theory of Dissemination and Implementation Shifts Source and Direction of Practice Change Primary care dissemination and implementation science has focused on evaluating strategies to help practices implement evidence-based care to achieve quality metrics and meet policy requirements. For many practices, this "outside in" approach has had unintended consequences including disempowerment, limited success, and burnout from burden, disruption and moral distress. Three cases reveal that it is possible for some primary care practices to shift the direction of change by seizing ownership of their care and prioritizing the craft of family medicine. In all three cases, practice founders were unable to match their practice to their values because of conventional financing systems and commercial electronic health records. Each developed a business model that circumvented the limitations of fee-for-documentation and pay-for-performance. Clinical care and business models differed between the practices, but all three succeeded in shifting the source and directional emphasis of change from outside-in to inside-out. The authors explain that, based on these examples, they are re-imagining the science of dissemination and implementation, from helping practices comply with externally-sourced evidence and recommendations to empowering practices to discover and enact their own wisdom in a challenging environment. Based on an inside-out approach, they posit a number of questions for future research: What would it look like to start interventions from the inside-out, helping practices reflect on their vision and craft? What if researchers helped practices learn to develop congruent sensing tools and measures, innovative business models, and innovative interactions with the external environment including managing up if owned by a health system How can researchers better engage practices and patients in developing new evidence? Such questions, spurred by the examples of three pioneer practices, could open a new frontier in the science of dissemination and implementation and inform better health policy, the authors state. Shifting Implementation Science Theory to Empower Primary Care Practices William L. Miller, MD, MA, et al Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, Pennsylvania http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/250 New Tool Measures Primary Care as a Whole There are a number of measures to assess aspects of primary care, but a new measure breaks new ground by combining experiences of patients, clinicians, and payers and allowing the most informed reporter--the patient--to assess vital primary care functions that are often missed. Researchers asked crowd-sourced samples of 412 patients, 525 primary care clinicians and 85 health care payers to describe what provides value in primary care, then asked 70 primary care and health services experts for additional insights. A multidisciplinary team analyzed these qualitative data to develop a set of patient-reported items. The resulting Person-Centered Primary Care Measure concisely represents the broad scope of primary care, with 11 domains each represented by a single item: accessibility, comprehensiveness, continuity, integration, coordination, relationship, advocacy, family context, community context, health promotion, and goal-oriented care. While existing measures evaluate the experience of care delivery based only on clinical processes and outcomes, the new measure focuses on care aspects that contribute to patient perceptions of the integrating, prioritizing, and personalizing functions of primary care. This ability to assess primary care as a whole and through the lens of the patient makes the Person-Centered Primary Care Measure both unique and meaningful, the authors state. They anticipate that the new measure, which reduces measurement burden, will complement existing measures and can be used in research and quality improvement to understand the mechanisms by which primary care affects outcomes for patients, health care systems and populations. A New Comprehensive Measure of High-Value Aspects of Primary Care Rebecca S. Etz, PhD, et al Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/221 Innovations in Primary Care Innovations in Primary Care are brief one-page articles that describe novel innovations from health care's front lines. In this issue: A 60-Second Survey to Identify Patients' Unmet Social Needs - A brief, easy-to-use survey of social needs can help practices prioritize and target community partnerships of value to their patients. http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/274.full Screening for Depression in Pregnancy--There's an App for That! - Integrating an innovative smartphone app into OB practice can improve screening for depression during pregnancy or postpartum. http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/275.full Humanwide: A Comprehensive Data Base for Precision Health in Primary Care - A primary care demonstration project offers patients genetic screening, wearable sensors, health assessment, and wellness coaching. http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/273.full ### Annals of Family Medicine is a peer-reviewed, indexed research journal that provides a cross-disciplinary forum for new, evidence-based information affecting the primary care disciplines. Launched in May 2003, Annals is sponsored by seven family medical organizations, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Board of Family Medicine, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, the Association of Departments of Family Medicine, the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, the North American Primary Care Research Group, and The College of Family Physicians of Canada. Annals is published six times each year and contains original research from the clinical, biomedical, social and health services areas, as well as contributions on methodology and theory, selected reviews, essays and editorials. Complete editorial content and interactive discussion groups for each published article can be accessed free of charge on the journal's website, http://www.AnnFamMed.org. Media Contact: Janelle Davis Annals of Family Medicine (800) 274-2237, Ext. 6253 JDavis@aafp.org Follow Us: Twitter: @annfammed Facebook: Annals of Family Medicine Primary care dissemination and implementation science has focused on evaluating strategies to help practices implement evidence-based care to achieve quality metrics and meet policy requirements. For many practices, this "outside in" approach has had unintended consequences including disempowerment, limited success, and burnout from burden, disruption and moral distress. Three cases reveal that it is possible for some primary care practices to shift the direction of change by seizing ownership of their care and prioritizing the craft of family medicine. In all three cases, practice founders were unable to match their practice to their values because of conventional financing systems and commercial electronic health records. Each developed a business model that circumvented the limitations of fee-for-documentation and pay-for-performance. Clinical care and business models differed between the practices, but all three succeeded in shifting the source and directional emphasis of change from outside-in to inside-out. The authors explain that, based on these examples, they are re-imagining the science of dissemination and implementation, from helping practices comply with externally-sourced evidence and recommendations to empowering practices to discover and enact their own wisdom in a challenging environment. Based on an inside-out approach, they posit a number of questions for future research: What would it look like to start interventions from the inside-out, helping practices reflect on their vision and craft? What if researchers helped practices learn to develop congruent sensing tools and measures, innovative business models, and innovative interactions with the external environment including managing up if owned by a health system How can researchers better engage practices and patients in developing new evidence? Such questions, spurred by the examples of three pioneer practices, could open a new frontier in the science of dissemination and implementation and inform better health policy, the authors state. ### Shifting Implementation Science Theory to Empower Primary Care Practices William L. Miller, MD, MA, et al Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, Pennsylvania http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/3/250 As spring arrives in the northern hemisphere, many people are cursing ragweed, a primary culprit in seasonal allergies. But scientists might have discovered a promising new use for some substances produced by the pesky weed. In ACS' Journal of Natural Products, researchers have identified and characterized ragweed compounds that could help nerve cells survive in the presence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) peptides. Those with AD, a neurodegenerative disorder, often have impaired judgment, cognition, memory and behavior. Scientists have linked AD to the accumulation of amyloid- (A) peptides in the brain, which form plaques that kill nerve cells. Unfortunately, the five drugs currently approved for AD treatment only delay disease progression for a short time. When Won Keun Oh and colleagues screened 300 natural plant extracts for activity against AD in a preliminary study, they found a surprising candidate: Ambrosia artemisiifolia (common ragweed). This invasive weed, native to North America, has now spread to South America, Asia and much of Europe. Oh and colleagues decided to isolate and characterize the structures of ragweed compounds responsible for this neuroprotective activity. The researchers isolated 14 compounds from whole ragweed plants that appeared to protect neurons from A-induced toxicity. They determined the structures of the compounds with nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry and other analytical techniques. Seven of the chemicals, including terpenoids and spermidine conjugates, had been described previously, but the remainder were newly identified terpenoids. When the researchers added the two most active new compounds to a lab dish that contained neurons producing A, about 20 percent more cells survived than without treatment. ### The authors acknowledge funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea. The abstract that accompanies this study is available here. The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is a not-for-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org. Follow us on Twitter | Facebook Photo: The Canadian Press Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante attends the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Big City Mayors' Caucus, in Ottawa on Monday, Jan. 28. Quebec's secularism bill is causing tension in society and Montrealers feel powerless to do anything about it, Mayor Valerie Plante told committee members studying the controversial legislation Tuesday. Montreal's mayor was firm in her criticism of the bill, but she was also careful not to come off as confrontational. Plante acknowledged during her presentation that some Montrealers agree with the provincial government's plans to restrict people's religious freedoms. The Coalition Avenir Quebec government's Bill 21 would prohibit public sector workers in positions of authority, including teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols on the job. Premier Francois Legault's government has also invoked a clause in the Constitution that would block people from challenging the law the over rights violations. Plante told the legislature committee that the city supports the government's desire to enshrine into law the secular nature of the state. But she says Montreal has many problems with the government's approach. The bill targets minorities, she said, and affects women more than it does men. Moreover, she added, Bill 21 doesn't include details about how it would be enforced. "When it comes to fundamental rights or their place in society, citizens shouldn't have to live in fear regarding their faith," Plante told the committee. She said the government should allow the bill to stand the test of the courts. "You need to let people feel that the legal processes are available to them," she said. "There is a certain feeling of powerlessness in the face of this bill." Montreal city council voted unanimously in April to oppose the bill, and the mayor has received violent messages online over her public opposition. But the mayor cannot afford to alienate the provincial government. Quebec City funds major infrastructure projects across the city, and Plante made sure to keep a collegial tone throughout her presentation. She stressed that Montreal's diversity is its strength, and immigrants and minorities should be seen as a source of wealth rather than a cause for concern. "In Montreal, our cultures, these minorities, they mix together daily," she said. "I don't want social cohesion to be at risk. And there is tension now. And we feel it." Earlier on Tuesday, representatives from Quebec's English-language education sector told reporters Bill 21 is divisive, unnecessary and a violation of the Constitution. Representatives of anglophone school boards and parent associations noted the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1990 that minority language communities have the "exclusive authority" to make decisions over aspects of language education, including the recruitment and assignment of teachers. ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today announced that Chelsea Finn receives the 2018 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for her dissertation, "Learning to Learn with Gradients." In her thesis, Finn introduced algorithms for meta-learning that enable deep networks to solve new tasks from small datasets, and demonstrated how her algorithms can be applied in areas including computer vision, reinforcement learning and robotics. Deep learning has transformed the artificial intelligence field and has led to significant advances in areas including speech recognition, computer vision and robotics. However, deep learning methods require large datasets, which aren't readily available in areas such as medical imaging and robotics. Meta-learning is a recent innovation that holds promise to allow machines to learn with smaller datasets. Meta-learning algorithms "learn to learn" by using past data to learn how to adapt quickly to new tasks. However, much of the initial work in meta-learning focused on designing increasingly complex neural network architectures. In her dissertation, Finn introduced a class of methods called model-agnostic meta-learning (MAML) methods, which don't require computer scientists to manually design complex architectures. Finn's MAML methods have had tremendous impact on the field and have been widely adopted in reinforcement learning, computer vision and other fields of machine learning. At a young age, Finn has become one of the most recognized experts in the field of robotic learning. She has developed some of the most effective methods to teach robots skills to control and manipulate objects. In one instance highlighted in her dissertation, she used her MAML methods to teach a robot reaching and placing skills, using raw camera pixels from just a single human demonstration. Finn is a Research Scientist at Google Brain and a postdoctoral researcher at the Berkeley AI Research Lab (BAIR). In the fall of 2019, she will start a full-time appointment as an Assistant Professor at Stanford University. Finn received her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Honorable Mentions Honorable Mentions for the 2018 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award go to Ryan Beckett and Tengyu Ma, who both received PhD degrees in Computer Science from Princeton University. Ryan Beckett developed new, general and efficient algorithms for creating and validating network control plane configurations in his dissertation, "Network Control Plane Synthesis and Verification." Computer networks connect key components of the world's critical infrastructure. When such networks are misconfigured, several systems people rely on are interrupted--airplanes are grounded, banks go offline, etc. Beckett's dissertation describes new principles, algorithms and tools for substantially improving the reliability of modern networks. In the first half of his thesis, Beckett shows that it is unnecessary to simulate the distributed algorithms that traditional routers implement--a process that is simply too costly--and that instead, one can directly verify the stable states to which such algorithms will eventually converge. In the second half of his thesis, he shows how to generate correct configurations from surprisingly compact high-level specifications. Beckett is a researcher in the mobility and networking group at Microsoft Research. He received his PhD and MA in Computer Science from Princeton University, and both a BS in Computer Science and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Virginia. Tengyu Ma's dissertation, "Non-convex Optimization for Machine Learning: Design, Analysis, and Understanding," develops novel theory to support new trends in machine learning. He introduces significant advances in proving convergence of nonconvex optimization algorithms in machine learning, and outlines properties of machine learning models trained via such methods. In the first part of his thesis, Ma studies a range of problems, such as matrix completion, sparse coding, simplified neural networks, and learning linear dynamical systems, and formalizes clear and natural conditions under which one can design provable correct and efficient optimization algorithms. In the second part of his thesis, Ma shows how to understand and interpret the properties of embedding models for natural languages, which were learned using nonconvex optimization. Ma is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at Stanford University. He received a PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University and a BS in Computer Science from Tsinghua University. The 2018 Doctoral Dissertation Award recipients will be formally recognized at the annual ACM Awards Banquet on June 15 in San Francisco. ### About the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award Presented annually to the author(s) of the best doctoral dissertation(s) in computer science and engineering. The Doctoral Dissertation Award is accompanied by a prize of $20,000, and the Honorable Mention Award is accompanied by a prize totaling $10,000. Winning dissertations will be published in the ACM Digital Library as part of the ACM Books Series. About ACM ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking. WASHINGTON-- Rainfall from the Asian summer monsoon has been decreasing over the past 80 years, a decline unprecedented in the last 448 years, according to a new study. The new research used tree ring records to reconstruct the Asian summer monsoon back to 1566. The study, published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, found the monsoon has been weakening since the 1940s, resulting in regional droughts and hardships. The new research finds man-made atmospheric pollutants are likely the reason for the decline. The 80-year decline in the monsoon coincides with the ongoing boom in industrial development and aerosol emissions in China and the northern hemisphere that began around the end of World War II, according to the study's authors. Previous studies have looked at tree ring chronologies from this region but the new study, "surpasses [previous dendrochronology studies] in terms of the timespan covered and the number of trees involved," said Steve Leavitt, a dendrochronologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a co-author of the new study. "We were able to gather nearly 450 years worth of tree ring data with clear annual resolution from an area where tree ring growth correlates very strongly with rainfall." Nearly half of the world's population is affected by the Asian summer monsoon, which dumps the majority of the continent's rainfall in a few short, torrential months. Summer rainfall has been declining in recent decades, influencing water availability, ecosystems and agriculture from India to Siberia. Instrumental and observational records of monsoon strength and annual precipitation only go back about a hundred years. Long-term paleoclimate records are needed to help determine whether this decline is due to anthropogenic factors such as aerosol pollution or natural variation in the monsoon cycle. Trees record hard times The new study uses an ensemble of 10 tree ring chronologies collected from the western Loess Plateau in north central China to track precipitation trends over the last 448 years. In wetter years, trees tend to grow thicker rings and precipitation records can be gleaned by measuring the thickness and density of the individual layers. "One of the primary advantages of using tree rings to study precipitation is the annual resolution and the exact dating," Leavitt said. The tree rings captured drought periods such as the one that struck in 1928 and 1929 that led to widespread famine where more than 500,000 people died in China alone. The findings were also cross-checked with Chinese historical records of locust plagues, which tend to occur in drought years, as well as previously published tree ring chronologies. The new study found that the 80-year declining rainfall trend is unprecedented in the last 450 years, with more thin growth rings in the last 80 years than any other period. Prior to the 1940s, drought periods tended to be intermittent and shorter in duration with no other decades-long declines since 1566. Several factors are thought to affect the strength of the Asian Summer Monsoon, including solar variability, volcanic eruptions and anthropogenic aerosols. The study's authors used climate models to show sulfate aerosols - atmospheric pollutants that cause haze - are likely the dominant forcing agent controlling the decline of the Asian Summer Monsoon over the past 80 years. The study is an important data point in the ongoing quest to better understand the past and future of the global monsoon systems that deliver much of the world's precipitation, says Liviu Giosan, a paleoclimatologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who was not involved in the new study. "Monsoons are notoriously difficult to model and predict due to the high degree of regional variability," he said. "To learn more about the future, we need to better understand the past," Giosan said. "More of these kinds of studies that show [monsoon activity] over entire regions will help us better understand how the Asian Summer Monsoon functions as a whole, synoptically, over the entire continent." ### Founded in 1919, AGU is a not-for-profit scientific society dedicated to advancing Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. We support 60,000 members, who reside in 135 countries, as well as our broader community, through high-quality scholarly publications, dynamic meetings, our dedication to science policy and science communications, and our commitment to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, as well as many other innovative programs. AGU is home to the award-winning news publication Eos , the Thriving Earth Exchange , where scientists and community leaders work together to tackle local issues, and a headquarters building that represents Washington, D.C.'s first net zero energy commercial renovation. We are celebrating our Centennial in 2019. #AGU100 Notes for Journalists This paper is freely available through June 15. Journalists and public information officers (PIOs) can download a PDF copy of the article by clicking on this link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2019GL082497 Journalists and PIOs may also request a copy of the final paper by emailing Liza Lester at llester@agu.orgllester@agu.org. Please provide your name, the name of your publication, and your phone number. Neither the paper nor this press release is under embargo. Paper Title "Anthropogenic aerosols cause recent pronounced weakening of Asian Summer Monsoon relative to last four centuries" Authors: Yu Liu, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Quaternary Science and Global Change, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; Interdisciplinary Research Center of Earth Science Frontier (IRCESF) and Joint Center for Global Change Studies (JCGCS), Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Wenju Cai, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia; The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Huiming Song, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Kim M. Cobb, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Jianping Li, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Steven Leavitt, The Laboratory of Tree?Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA Qiufang Cai, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Ruoshi Liu, School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China Benjamin Ng, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia Paolo Cherubini, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland Ulf Buentgen, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, UK; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland; Global Change Research Centre and Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Yi Song, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Guojian Wang, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia Ying Lei, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Libin Yan, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Qiang Li, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Yongyong Ma, Shaanxi Meteorological Observatory, Xi'an, China Congxi Fang, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Junyan Sun, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Xuxiang Li, School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China Deliang Chen, Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Hans Wilhelm Linderholm, Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden AGU press contact: Liza Lester +1 (202) 777-7494 llester@agu.orgllester@agu.org Researcher contacts: Yu Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences +86 13359291673 liuyu@loess.llqg.ac.cn Steven Leavitt, University of Arizona, Tucson sleavitt@ltrr.arizona.edu University of Minnesota researchers present study at Acoustical Society of America's 177th meeting in Louisville that aims to find the best sound to keep eagles far away from deadly wind turbines WASHINGTON, D.C. May 15, 2019 -- Every year, bald and golden eagles are killed when they inadvertently fly into wind turbine blades. One possible way to prevent these deaths is to chase the birds away with acoustic signals -- sound. To determine what types of sounds are most effective in deterring the birds, researchers at the University of Minnesota and their colleagues tested the behavioral responses of bald eagles to a battery of both natural and synthetic acoustic stimuli. Auditory neuroscientist JoAnn McGee will present the results of those tests at the 177th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which takes place from May 13-17, at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. Three adult bald eagles were used for the study: two birds that are unable to survive in the wild and live permanently at the university's Raptor Center, where the testing was done, and one bird undergoing rehabilitation at the center prior to release back into the wild. Each bird was tested within a 9- by 7-foot space lined with sound-damping materials. The bird was perched on a bar in the center of the room, with loudspeakers mounted on the wall to its right and left; a high-resolution video camera mounted directly in front of the bird captured its reaction to the sounds. Ten different stimuli, varying in spectral complexity, were tested. The sounds included natural stimuli, such as calls produced and transmitted by eagles themselves, and synthetic sounds including pure tonal stimuli, frequency- and amplitude-modulated stimuli, and white noise. The researchers also tested a novel "crow mobbing" signal -- "literally the calls produced and transmitted by crows when mobbing, or ganging up on other birds entering their territories," McGee explained. Observers viewing the videos of the birds judged their responses, noting whether the birds moved or tilted their heads when a stimulus was played, for example, or appeared startled. Perhaps not surprisingly, the eagles were more interested in, and paid closer attention to, natural calls rather than synthetic signals. "That is not to say, however, that they weren't responsive to other relatively wide-ranging acoustic signals," McGee said -- including the crow mobbing sound. "Paying attention to their immediate environment has grave survival implications, so we weren't surprised," she said. The study also showed that bald and golden eagles' "working auditory space" falls within a fairly well-defined frequency band, with an upper cutoff frequency of approximately 6 kilohertz and a lower cut-off frequency below 0.35 kHz. The researchers recommend that signal designers use the data as a developmental guideline in efforts to design effective and efficient acoustic deterrent systems. The results from the project take one critical step forward in the effort to develop acoustic alerting or deterrence technologies that might discourage eagles from flying into wind farm airspaces and reduce instances of injury and death associated with turbine collision, McGee explained. ### Presentation #3pAB1, "Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) monitor their immediate acoustic environment vigilantly," will be at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 15, in the Clements room of the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. MORE MEETING INFORMATION USEFUL LINKS Main meeting website: http://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/ Technical program: https://ep70.eventpilotadmin.com/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING19 Press Room: http://acoustics.org/world-wide-press-room/ WORLD WIDE PRESS ROOM In the coming weeks, ASA's World Wide Press Room will be updated with additional tips on dozens of newsworthy stories and with lay language papers, which are 300-500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience and accompanied by photos, audio and video. You can visit the site during the meeting at http://acoustics.org/world-wide-press-room/. PRESS REGISTRATION We will grant free registration to credentialed staff journalists and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend, contact the AIP Media Line at 301-209-3090 or media@aip.org. Our media staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips or background information. LIVE MEDIA WEBCAST A press briefing will be webcast live from the conference Tuesday, May 14, in the Laffoon Room of the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Register at https://aipwebcasting.com to watch the live webcast. The schedule will be posted at the same site as soon as it is available. ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world's leading journal on acoustics), Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. For more information about ASA, visit our website at http://www.acousticalsociety.org. (New York, NY) - May 15, 2019 - Spyridon Fortis, MD, of the University of Iowa has been awarded The ATS Foundation/Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Research Award in Respiratory Support with Nasal High Flow (NHF) in Patients with COPD. The $100,000 award will help fund Dr. Fortis' study, "The Effect of Heated, Humidified High-Flow Air in COPD Patients with Chronic Bronchitis." "As a member of the ATS Foundation executive committee and someone who has long had a research interest in noninvasive approaches to treating respiratory failure, I am thrilled that Fisher & Paykel has made this award available in partnership with the ATS Foundation," said Nicholas Hill, MD, chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Tufts Medical Center. "I congratulate Dr Fortis on his receipt of the Award. His proposal targets a very promising application of Nasal High Flow that has not yet received much attention. Results from his study are likely to greatly expand our knowledge in this area and lead to improved patient outcomes". Lewis Gradon, managing director and chief executive officer of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare said, "We are delighted to support the ATS Foundation and their members to help COPD patients breathe. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is dedicated to delivering inspired and world-leading health care solutions. We have helped physicians change the way the world delivers respiratory humidification to critically ill patients in hospital, and we were the first organization in the world to make a humidifier specifically for use in the treatment of patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Our hospital nasal high flow therapy is used to treat millions of respiratory patients each year. Now, in partnership with the ATS Foundation, we are excited to be supporting clinical research into the use of nasal high flow in COPD patients in the home targeted to improve quality of life, reduce hospitalizations, and at the same time reduce costs." Learn more about the ATS Foundation/Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Research Fellowship and additional fellowship opportunities on our website. The 2019 cycle is now open. Visit the ATS Foundation website to apply for a research grant. ### About Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of products and systems for use in respiratory care, acute care, surgery and the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea. The company's products are sold in over 120 countries worldwide. For more information about the company, visit our website http://www.fphcare.com. About the ATS Foundation Since its inception, the ATS Foundation Research Program has awarded $19.3 million to 263 investigators, both in the U.S. and internationally. These researchers have gone on to receive $330 million in federal funding. That's a return on investment of $17 per dollar awarded. You can learn more about our awardees here. PROVIDENCE, RI [Brown University] -- An algorithm developed by Brown University computer scientists enables robots to put pen to paper, writing words using stroke patterns similar to human handwriting. It's a step, the researchers say, toward robots that are able to communicate more fluently with human co-workers and collaborators. "Just by looking at a target image of a word or sketch, the robot can reproduce each stroke as one continuous action," said Atsunobu Kotani, an undergraduate student at Brown who led the algorithm's development. "That makes it hard for people to distinguish if it was written by the robot or actually written by a human." The algorithm makes use of deep learning networks that analyze images of handwritten words or sketches and can deduce the likely series of pen strokes that created them. The robot can then reproduce the words or sketches using the pen strokes it learned. In a paper to be presented at this month's International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the researchers demonstrate a robot that was able to write "hello" in 10 languages that employ different character sets. The robot was also able to reproduce rough sketches, including one of the Mona Lisa. Stefanie Tellex, an assistant professor of computer science at Brown and Kotani's advisor, says that what makes this work unique is the ability of the robot to learn stroke order from scratch. "A lot of the existing work in this area requires the robot to have information about the stroke order in advance," Tellex said. "If you wanted the robot to write something, somebody would have to program the stroke orders each time. With what Atsu has done, you can draw whatever you want and the robot can reproduce it. It doesn't always do the perfect stroke order, but it gets pretty close." Another remarkable aspect of the work, Tellex says, is how the algorithm was able to generalize its ability to reproduce strokes. Kotani trained his deep learning algorithm using a set of Japanese characters, and showed that it could reproduce the characters and the strokes that created them with around 93 percent accuracy. But much to the researchers' surprise, the algorithm wound up being able to reproduce very different character types it had never seen before -- English print and cursive, for example. "We would have been happy if it had only learned the Japanese characters," Tellex said. "But once it started working on English, we were amazed. Then we decided to see how far we could take it." Tellex and Kotani asked everyone who works in Tellex's Humans to Robots lab to write "hello" in their native languages, which included Greek, Hindi, Urdu, Chinese and Yiddish among others. The robot was able to reproduce them all with reasonable stroke accuracy. "I feel like there's something really beautiful about the robot writing in so many different languages," Tellex said. "I thought that was really cool." But the system's masterwork may be its copy of Kotani's Mona Lisa sketch. He drew his sketch on a dry erase board in Tellex's lab, and then allowed the robot to copy it -- fairly faithfully -- on the same board just below Kotani's original. "It was early morning that our robot finally drew the Mona Lisa on the whiteboard," Kotani said. "When I came back to the lab, everybody was standing around the whiteboard looking at the Mona Lisa and asking me if [the robot] drew this. They couldn't believe it." It was a big moment for Kotani because "it was the moment that our robot defined what's beyond mere printing." An ink jet printer can recreate an image, but it does so with a print head that goes back in forth building the image line by line. But this was the robot creating an image with human-like strokes, which to Kotani is "something much more humane and expressive." Key to making the system work, Kotani says, is that the algorithm uses two distinct models of the image it's trying to reproduce. Using a global model that considers the image as a whole, the algorithm identifies a likely starting point for making the first stroke. Once that stroke has begun, the algorithm zooms in, looking at the image pixel by pixel to determine where that stroke should go and how long it should be. When it reaches the end of the stroke, the algorithm again calls the global model to determine where the next stroke should start, then it's back to the zoomed-in model. This process is repeated until the image is complete. Both Kotani and Tellex say the work is a step toward better communication between people and robots. Ultimately, they envision robots that can leave Post-it Notes, take dictation or sketch diagrams for their human coworkers and collaborators. "I want a robot to be able to do everything a person can do," Tellex said. "I'm particularly interested in a robot that can use language. Writing is a way that people use language, so we thought we should try this." ### Video: https://youtu.be/xX_LX6qeiYY A lunar lander named for the Chinese goddess of the moon may have lessened the mystery of the far side of the moon. The fourth probe of Chang'E (CE-4) was the first mission to land on the far side of the moon, and it has collected new evidence from the largest crater in the solar system, clarifying how the moon may have evolved. The results were published on May 16, 2019, in Nature. A theory emerged in the 1970s that in the moon's infancy, an ocean made of magma covered its surface. As the molten ocean began to calm and cool, lighter minerals floated to the top, while heavier components sank. The top crusted over in a sheet of mare basalt, encasing a mantle of dense minerals, such as olivine and pyroxene. As asteroids and space junk crashed into the surface of the moon, they cracked through the crust and kicked up pieces of the lunar mantel. "Understanding the composition of the lunar mantel is critical for testing whether a magma ocean ever existed, as postulated," said corresponding author LI Chunlai, a professor of the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). "It also helps advance our understanding of the thermal and magmatic evolution of the moon." The evolution of the moon may provide a window into the evolution of Earth and other terrestrial planets, according to LI, because its surface is relatively untouched compared to, say, the early planetary surface of Earth. LI and his team landed CE-4 in the moon's South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, which stretches about 2,500 kilometers-about half the width of China. CE-4 collected spectral data samples from the flat stretches of the basin, as well as from other, smaller but deeper impact craters within the basin. The researchers expected to find a wealth of excavated mantle material on the flat floor of the SPA basin, since the originating impact would have penetrated well into and past the lunar crust. Instead, they found mere traces of olivine, the primary component of the Earth's upper mantle. "The absence of abundant olivine in the SPA interior remains a conundrum," LI said. "Could the predictions of an olivine-rich lunar mantle be incorrect?" Not quite. As it turns out, more olivine appeared in the samples from deeper impacts. One theory, according to LI, is that the mantle consists of equal parts olivine and pyroxene, rather than being dominated by one over the other. CE-4 will need to explore more to better understand the geology of its landing site, as well as collect much more spectral data to validate its initial findings and to fully understand the composition of the lunar mantle. ### This work was supported by the Chang'E-4 mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. Other contributors from the Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration in the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences include LIU Dawei, LIU Bin, REN Xin, LIU Jianjun, ZUO Wei, ZENG Xingguo, TAN Xu, ZHANG Xiaoxia, CHEN Wangli, WEN Weibin, SU Yan, ZHANG Hongbo, and OUYANG Ziyuan, who is also affiliated with the Institute of Geochemistry. HE Zhiping, XU Rui, and SHU Rong of the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics also contributed. About the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC): The National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) was officially founded in April 2001 through the merger of observatories, stations and research center under Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is headquartered in Beijing and has four subordinate units across the country: the Yunnan Observatory (YNAO), the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology (NIAOT), the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) and the Changchun Observatory. NAOC conducts cutting-edge astronomical studies, and operates major national facilities including The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope (LAMOST), the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) etc. NAOC's main research involves cosmological large-scale structures, the formation and evolution of galaxies and stars, high-energy astrophysics, solar magnetism and activity, lunar and deep space exploration, and astronomical instrumentation. NAOC has seven major research divisions in the areas of optical astronomy, radio astronomy, galaxies and cosmology, space science, solar physics, lunar and deep space exploration, and applications in astronomy. Less chemotherapy is as effective at controlling disease for elderly or frail patients with advanced cancer of the stomach or oesophagus (food pipe). These are the results of a Cancer Research UK funded study being presented at ASCO. Less chemotherapy is as effective at controlling disease for elderly or frail patients with advanced cancer of the stomach or oesophagus (food pipe), and leads to fewer side effects such as diarrhoea and lethargy. These are the results of a Cancer Research UK funded study, presented prior to the ASCO conference today (Wednesday). Results from the GO2 trial could change the standard of care for patients who can't have full dose chemotherapy due to their age, frailty or medical fitness. The study, which ran at hospitals all over the UK, coordinated from the University of Leeds, involved 514 people with stomach or oesophageal cancer. Their average age was 76 and the oldest was 96 years old. All were either frail, elderly or medically unfit, and for those reasons would be unlikely to tolerate full-strength treatment, which involves three chemotherapy drugs. Patients went through a careful medical assessment, then went onto chemotherapy with just two drugs* and were allocated at random to receive them at either full-strength, medium-dose or low-dose. They were then carefully monitored to see how well the cancer was controlled, whether they had symptoms and side-effects, whether they felt their treatment was worthwhile, and what overall effect it had on their quality of life. The researchers reported that the medium and lower doses of chemotherapy were as effective as the full-strength dose for controlling the cancer. But when the researchers looked at the overall effect of treatment, including quality of life, they reported that it was the lowest dose treatment that came out best.** Around 15,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with stomach and oesophageal cancers every year***. Almost half (45%) of these people are 75 and over****. By 2035, this proportion is projected to rise to 55%*****, because of the UK's ageing population. This study, is one of few phase III trials in the country that seek to address how to best care for and treat this increasing population of elderly or frail cancer patients. These findings also open up the possibility of more older and frail patients being able to take part in clinical trials. Professor Charles Swanton, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, said: "These valuable results reduce fears that giving a lower dose chemotherapy regimen is inferior and could make a huge difference for patients with stomach or oesophageal cancer who can't tolerate intensive courses of treatment. "Older or frail patients are often not considered for new drug trials or standard of care therapy as they're less able to tolerate combination chemotherapy. These trials are critical to provide much needed evidence on the effectiveness of new therapies and combination approaches, helping us develop new treatments for this growing group of patients." The researchers also assessed whether there were differences for the patients in the study who were under 75, or less frail, who might be expected to benefit from stronger treatment; but will be reporting that the lowest dose treatment gave the best results for them as well. Professor Matt Seymour, co-chief investigator at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: "When we're treating people who are elderly or frail, we are especially conscious that treatment can have harmful as well as beneficial effects. Doctors often prescribe reduced doses of drugs, or sometimes no chemotherapy at all, based on their clinical experience, but until now there has been little hard evidence to help them in those decisions. Our results provide that evidence, so doctors can confidently give people a lower dose of chemotherapy, sparing them side effects without worrying that it's compromising their chance of survival. "We hope this approach can be applied in other disease types so that more work can be done to improve both survival and quality of life for elderly and frail patients." Liz Chipchase, from Cambridge, was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2017 at 69 years old. She had two non-invasive surgeries under sedation to remove the cancerous cells and didn't require any additional treatment. She said: "When I was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, I was lucky that it was caught early enough that I didn't need chemotherapy. I was offered the choice between two different surgeries, giving me the opportunity to select the treatment I thought was best for me. "Trials like this are important to empower people with choices that give them control over how they're treated - something I was fortunate to have. Any research that can help improve the quality of life for other patients is essential, so it's great to see results like these doing exactly that." Dr Peter Hall, co-chief investigator from the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre, said: "Increasingly we're realising it's not just age that affects how well someone can tolerate their treatment and we need to do more work to understand how other conditions or aspects of frailty might play a role. "We should now look beyond chemotherapies, at some of the newer targeted therapies or immunotherapies to understand how we can tailor different treatments to patients based on their individual circumstance." ### For media enquiries contact Carl Alexander in the Cancer Research UK press office on 020 3469 8882 or, out of hours, on 07050 264 059. Notes to editor: * The chemotherapy drugs used in this study were oxaliplatin (an intravenous infusion given at the hospital once every three weeks) and capecitabine (tablets, taken at home twice daily) **The study assessed the effects of treatment on quality of life, as well as survival using a measure called Overall Treatment Utility (OTU). This measure was developed by the researchers as part of a previous Cancer Research UK-funded trial, and takes into account: clinical response, toxicity, adverse events, quality of life and the patients' own reported acceptability of the treatment. ***Based on the average number of new cases of oesophageal (C15) and stomach (C16) cancer diagnosed in the UK in 2014-2016. ****Smittenaar CR, Petersen KA, Stewart K, Moitt N. Cancer Incidence and Mortality Projections in the UK Until 2035. Brit J Cancer 2016. *****One-year age standardised net cancer survival by stage at diagnosis for oesophageal (IC10 C15) and stomach (ICD10 C16) cancer in adults (15-99 years), diagnosed in England between 2012-2016 and followed up to 2017. Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/cancersurvivalratescancersurvivalinenglandadultsdiagnosed For more information on Cancer Research UK's policies on treating and caring for an ageing population, see here: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/we-develop-policy/our-policy-on-access-to-cancer-treatments/treating-and-caring-for-an-ageing-population About Cancer Research UK - Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research. - Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives. - Cancer Research UK receives no funding from the UK government for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on vital donations from the public. - Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 40 years. - Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK's ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years. - Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses. - Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit http://www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. ITHACA, N.Y. - Far below Bermuda's pink sand beaches and turquoise tides, geoscientists have discovered the first direct evidence that material from deep within Earth's mantle transition zone - a layer rich in water, crystals and melted rock - can percolate to the surface to form volcanoes. Scientists have long known that volcanoes form when tectonic plates (traveling on top of the Earth's mantle) converge, or as the result of mantle plumes that rise from the core-mantle boundary to make hotspots at Earth's crust. But obtaining evidence that material emanating from the mantle's transition zone - between 250 to 400 miles (440-660 km) beneath our planet's crust - can cause volcanoes to form is new to geologists. "We found a new way to make volcanoes. This is the first time we found a clear indication from the transition zone deep in the Earth's mantle that volcanoes can form this way," said senior author Esteban Gazel, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. The research published in Nature. "We were expecting our data to show the volcano was a mantle plume formation - an upwelling from the deeper mantle - just like it is in Hawaii," Gazel said. But 30 million years ago, a disturbance in the transition zone caused an upwelling of magma material to rise to the surface, forming a now-dormant volcano under the Atlantic Ocean and then forming Bermuda. Using a 2,600-foot (over 700-meter) core sample - drilled in 1972, housed at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia - co-author Sarah Mazza of the University of Munster, in Germany, assessed the cross-section for isotopes, trace elements, evidence of water content and other volatile material. The assessment provided a geologic, volcanic history of Bermuda. "I first suspected that Bermuda's volcanic past was special as I sampled the core and noticed the diverse textures and mineralogy preserved in the different lava flows," Mazza said. "We quickly confirmed extreme enrichments in trace element compositions. It was exciting going over our first results ... the mysteries of Bermuda started to unfold." From the core samples, the group detected geochemical signatures from the transition zone, which included larger amounts of water encased in the crystals than were found in subduction zones. Water in subduction zones recycles back to Earth's surface. There is enough water in the transition zone to form at least three oceans, according to Gazel, but it is the water that helps rock to melt in the transition zone. The geoscientists developed numerical models with Robert Moucha, associate professor of Earth sciences at Syracuse University, to discover a disturbance in the transition zone that likely forced material from this deep mantle layer to melt and percolate to the surface, Gazel said. Despite more than 50 years of isotopic measurements in oceanic lavas, the peculiar and extreme isotopes measured in the Bermuda lava core had not been observed before. Yet, these extreme isotopic compositions allowed the scientists to identify the unique source of the lava. "If we start to look more carefully, I believe we're going to find these geochemical signatures in more places," said co-author Michael Bizimis, associate professor at the University of South Carolina. Gazel explained that this research provides a new connection between the transition zone layer and volcanoes on the surface of Earth. "With this work we can demonstrate that the Earth's transition zone is an extreme chemical reservoir," said Gazel. "We are now just now beginning to recognize its importance in terms of global geodynamics and even volcanism." Said Gazel: "Our next step is to examine more locations to determine the difference between geological processes that can result in intraplate volcanoes and determine the role of the mantle's transition zone in the evolution of our planet." ### In addition to Gazel, Mazza, Bizimis and Moucha, co-authors of "Sampling the Volatile-Rich Transition Zone Beneath Bermuda," are Paul Beguelin, University of South Carolina; Elizabeth A. Johnson, James Madison University; Ryan J. McAleer, United States Geological Survey; and Alexander V. Sobolev, the Russian Academy of Sciences. The National Science Foundation provided funding for this research. NEW YORK, NY (May 15, 2019)--A genomic collision could explain why many kidney transplants fail, even when donors and recipients are thought to be well-matched, according to a new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. This genomic collision is a genetic incompatibility between kidney donor and recipient, causing the recipient to mount an immune attack against the donor protein. The findings, published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine, could lead to more precise matching between donors and patients, and reduce kidney transplant failures. The same genomic collision may also potentially occur in heart, liver, and lung transplants. A Different Possible Mechanism for Kidney Rejection A successful organ transplant depends in large part on assuring genetic compatibility between donor and recipient. This is done by matching the donor and recipient's human leukocyte antigens (HLAs)--cell surface proteins that help the immune system determine which cells are foreign--as closely as possible. But HLA mismatches can only explain only about two-thirds of transplants that fail for immunological reasons. "The rest of those failures are probably due to less common antigens, or so-called minor histocompatibility antigens. However, the identity of most of these antigens and how they lead to rejection is largely not known," says co-senior author Krzysztof Kiryluk, MD, the Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians of Surgeons. The researchers hypothesized that a person whose genome carries a kidney gene with a deleted section might be especially sensitive to organs from a donor whose genome carries the full-sized gene. "The recipient would then be exposed to a protein their immune system would sense as foreign," says Kiryluk. To test their hypothesis, they screened 705 kidney recipients transplanted at Columbia University Irving Medical Center for deletions in 50 kidney genes that were present as full-sized versions in the donor. The deletions associated with rejection were then confirmed in an additional 2,004 donor-recipient pairs from three international transplant cohorts. What the Study Found The study found that kidney recipients with two copies of a deletion near a gene called LIMS1 had a significantly higher risk of rejection when the donor kidney had at least one full-sized version of the same gene. The risk of rejection was 63 percent higher among the donor-recipient pairs with this genomic collision, compared to those without this mismatch. "To put this into perspective, the risk of rejection from LIMS1 mismatch is roughly three times as high as the risk due to a single allele mismatch in the HLA," Dr. Kiryluk says. Kidney transplant recipients with two copies of the deletion who developed rejection had detectable levels of anti-LIMS1 antibodies in their blood--further evidence that this genomic collision contributes to rejection. "The exact mechanism by which this deletion exerts its effects is unknown," says Kiryluk. "It's likely that it reduces the amount of LIMS1 protein produced, since we find that individuals with two copies of the deletion have lower levels of LIMS1 gene transcript in their kidneys. When these individuals are exposed to a high level of LIMS1 protein in a newly transplanted organ, their immune system is more likely to recognize the LIMS1 antigen as foreign, resulting in rejection." Transplanted organs commonly experience a significant period of low oxygenation, which appears to compound the genomic collision. In cells that produce LIMS1, the researchers found that low oxygen levels increase LIMS1 production on the cell surface, which may increase the risk of an immune attack. 1 in 7 Transplants in Some Populations May Be Affected LIMS1 mismatches would be expected to occur in approximately 12 to 15 percent of transplants from unrelated donors among persons of European and African ancestry, but it would be very rare among persons of East Asian ancestry because the deletion is very rare in these populations. "LIMS1 mismatches could be avoided by pre-transplant genetic screening," Kiryluk says. "But first we need to validate our findings in larger studies." The findings may apply to other types of organ transplants since LIMS1 is also expressed in the lung, heart, and liver. Similarly, other genetic incompatibilities may also be contributing to rejection of these organs. "This project illustrates how genetic analysis is empowering clinical care by enabling better matching and the antibody test potentially presents a noninvasive method for screening for organ rejection in individuals with an existing transplant," says co-senior author Ali G. Gharavi, MD, professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. The LIMS1 gene has gone previously undetected in earlier searches, partly due to the limited sample size of previous studies, Kiryluk says. "We estimate that a traditional genome-wide association study would need to analyze a minimum of 13,000 kidney recipients to find this gene," he adds. "The genomic collision approach provides a new method to find additional mismatches in a smaller number of donor-recipient pairs. And coupled with new methods of antibody detection, is likely to propel future discoveries in this area." ### The study is titled, "Genomic Mismatch at LIMS1 Locus and Kidney-Allograft Rejection." The full list of contributing authors can be found here. The research was supported by the Columbia University Transplant Center, a New York Presbyterian Hospital Translational Pilot Grant funded by the New York State Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program, a Columbia University Precision Medicine Pilot Award funded by the Dean of the College of Physicians & Surgeons, and the Columbia Clinical and Translational Science Award Precision Medicine Pilot Program funded by a grant from the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1TR001873) and by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (T35-DK093430 and T32-DK108741). Replication studies in the Torino cohort were supported by a Department of Excellence Grant 2018-2022 funded by the Italian Ministry of Education to the Department of Medical Sciences of the University of Turin. The Columbia Center for Translational Immunology Flow Cytometry Core is supported in part by a grant (S10RR027050) from the NIH Office of the Director, and the Confocal and Specialized Microscopy Shared Resource of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University is supported by a grant (P30CA013696) from the NIH National Cancer Institute. Financial disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org. While extreme cold and snow often make headlines in the Northeast, by 2060, there will be far more record heat. Imagine the most sweltering day of the year. By 2060, you will experience that type of hot day for approximately three weeks of the year, assuming we don't substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to a Dartmouth study, of the rural Northeast counties represented, those in the bottom two lowest income quartiles will be hit hardest, as their communities will be disproportionately affected by increases in extremely hot days relative to wealthier counties. The findings are published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Previous studies on climate change in the Northeast have often focused on urban impacts along the Eastern seaboard, but this is the first to examine future climate impacts in rural areas, including how changes in temperature and precipitation extremes may affect counties that are more vulnerable with respect to median income and population. Rural areas feature unique challenges due to their physical isolation, natural resource dependent economics and high poverty rates. "Our projections suggest that climate change adaptation strategies in the rural Northeast should emphasize developing resilience to heat waves, such as increasing access to public spaces with air conditioning and improving health care responses to emergencies initiated or exacerbated by heat. This is especially important for counties in the lowest income quartile, who will be especially vulnerable to extreme heat events due in part to their growing populations," explains lead author Jonathan Winter, an assistant professor of geography and principal investigator of the Applied Hydroclimatology Group at Dartmouth. The study looks at rural counties in the Northeast from Maine to West Virginia with populations of 250,000 or less. Counties with larger populations, many of which have been studied in other climate change work, were excluded and masked out as urban areas. The research team compared historical data (1976-2005) to future climate scenarios (2046-2075) and examined the hottest and coldest days of the year (daily highest annual maximum and lowest annual minimum temperatures, statistically), the day with the most precipitation, and the two-week period with the least precipitation in low and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios using four global climate model simulations. Data was obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Census Bureau, NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, and World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling. For the analysis, the researchers used greenhouse gas emissions scenarios known as representative concentration pathways (RCPs), which provide trajectories on future emissions and are used extensively in the study of climate change. While there are four RCPs (from low to high, RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, RCP 6 and RCP 8.5), the study focused on lower and high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios of RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. The U.S. is currently on the path of RCP 8.5. Known as the business as usual scenario, RCP 8.5 is the worst-case scenario of the four, as it assumes emissions will continue to be high with minimal efforts to mitigate emissions. The research team was especially interested in daily extreme heat and daily extreme cold events-- the hottest temperature and coldest temperature of the year, statistically. According to the study, vulnerable counties (in the bottom two income quartiles) in the Northeast will experience the coldest temperature of the year for 1976-2005 23 times per year by 2046-2075 for the high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, and 11 times per year for the lower emissions scenario. "In other words, by the middle of this century, every year counties with the lowest income in the Northeast will experience more than two decades worth of our current hottest day. Our findings agree with other climate change studies that have found increasing heat extremes and higher maximum daily temperatures across this region in the future," says Winter. Consistent with the increase in daily extreme heat events in both scenarios, the incidence of daily extreme cold events-- days with the coldest temperature of the year for 1976-2005, decreases to one in five years for the high greenhouse gas emissions scenario and to one in four years for the lower emissions scenario. In addition to the Northeast's increase in daily heat events, daily extreme precipitation-- the rainiest days of the year for 1976-2005, is expected to increase by 15 percent and 20 percent for the high and lower greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, respectively. According to the study's projections, by 2060, the overall population in the rural Northeast will decline by 9 percent while the most vulnerable (bottom quartile median income) county populations grow by 30 percent. This is striking given that most counties are expected to experience population declines. To prepare for extreme heat events, local and state governments in the rural Northeast may want to consider redirecting public resources from heating to cooling measures in the future. The study builds on earlier research led by Winter, who has examined the causes of more extreme precipitation in the Northeast. Winter is available to comment at: jonathan.m.winter@dartmouth.edu. Fiona L. Bowen, a former research intern with the Applied Hydroclimatology Group; Trevor F. Partridge, a graduate student in the Department of Earth Sciences; and Jonathan W. Chipman, director of the Citrin Family GIS/Applied Spatial Analysis Laboratory at Dartmouth; served as co-authors of the study. ### Hi-res images: Hi-res images are available upon request. Broadcast studios: Dartmouth has TV and radio studios available for interviews. For more information, visit: http://communications.dartmouth.edu/media/broadcast-studios. Photo: Aija Brown Police in Virginia say a 17-month-old girl has died after being assaulted at a Richmond hotel. The girl's mother, Aija Brown, tells news outlets that Nariah Ivy Brown died Friday after being sexually assaulted two days earlier. She says she left her daughter in a motel room with a man she trusted and returned to find her daughter wounded. She says Nariah was then hospitalized. City police have only said the girl was assaulted. Authorities haven't released Nariah's official cause of death or expanded on the type of assault she suffered. No charges were filed in the girl's death as of Tuesday. A vigil was held for the toddler Tuesday night. HANOVER, N.H. - May 15, 2019 - Drawing inspiration from biology and the toy shelf, researchers at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and City University of Hong Kong have developed a swimming robot with a light-controlled cellular engine that can perform highly-targeted drug delivery. Researchers combined cardiac tissue engineering, a 3D-printed wing structure and a light-sensitive gel to produce the soft robot with start-stop capability. The switchable device transforms its shape when exposed to skin-penetrating near-infrared light, causing it to drive and brake through fluid environments like the human blood stream. The transformable device dramatically improves the usefulness of robots designed to work inside the human body and other unconventional work environments. The research team at City University of Hong Kong produced the original robot design and performed the experimental tests. The Dartmouth team performed mechanical and numerical analysis on the device and suggested changes to design elements like size and shape. "With this technology we can create soft transformable robots with unprecedented maneuverability," said Zi Chen, an assistant professor of engineering at Thayer. "Our inspiration came from transformable toys that have different configurations and functionality. The result is no toy, it may literally change people's lives." Living organisms are capable of changing shapes to perform specific actions. A hedgehog curls into a ball for defense. Birds spread their wings to fly. Carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap open and close. The new study is part of a long-term effort to develop robots that mimic this shape-changing behavior found in nature. To be effective, the new generation of robots need to be energy efficient and they must be able to respond to different types of stimulus, like light or heat. While examples of these types of robots already exist, researchers have struggled to create a device that fluently transforms its shape to allow it to start and stop moving on demand. Most existing systems also depend on temperature variations that are difficult to stimulate in the human body because of its nearly-constant temperature. "The ability to control the robot's motion using light creates a much more functional device that can be operated with high precision," said Xiaomin Han, a recent PhD graduate from the Chen Research Lab at Thayer. The remote-controlled robot is driven by a tail fin that mimics the swimming action of whales. The structure was 3D printed in the shape of an airplane wing and then coated with heart muscle cells. In the same way that cardiomyocytes cause the heart to beat continuously, they also propel this biohybrid device through a constant undulating action. To control the movement of the robot, researchers applied photosensitive hydrogels to the wings. In the absence of light, the wings deploy, allowing the heart cells to propel it forward. When exposed to light, the floating plane retracts its wings, causing it to stop. "The heart muscles keep churning, but they are unable to overcome the stopping power of the wings," said Chen. "It's like pushing the accelerator pedal with the emergency brake on." The robot's high sensitivity to near-infrared light creates a response rate that allows an almost immediate transformation of wing shape, allowing it to be highly maneuverable. In the study, researchers used the "unprecedented controllability and responsiveness" of the floating-plane robot as a cargo carrier to conduct targeted drug delivery against cancer cells. "We literally dropped drug bombs on cancer cells," said Chen. "The realization of the transformable concept paves a pathway for potential development of next-generation intelligent biohybrid robotic systems." The biohybrid robot can be produced in a variety of sizes ranging from several millimeters to dozens of centimeters. Such scalability gives it good flexibility to take on tasks related to navigation and surveillance in difficult environments. A study describing the research first appeared in the academic journal Small in late March. In the current study, researchers control start-stop motion of the entire robot though the use of light. Future research will use light to target separate wings on the robot so that it can be steered with even more precision. This research was produced with Peng Shi and Bingzhe Xu from City University of Hong Kong. Yuwei Hu and Chia-Hung Chen from National University of Singapore and Yiming Luo from Hubei University of Technology also contributed to the study. ### About Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth prepares leaders for a technology-driven world while solving pressing, real-world problems through research and entrepreneurship. One of the first professional engineering schools in the country, Thayer offers undergraduate and graduate programs under a unified department of engineering sciences. Graduate programs at Thayer include the Master of Engineering Management (MEM), MS, PhD, and the nation's first PhD Innovation Program. Consistently ranked among the top colleges and universities for its commitment to teaching, Dartmouth is the first national research university to graduate a majority-female class of undergraduate engineers. For more information, visit engineering.dartmouth.edu. TAMPA, Fla. and BOSTON - With more targeted therapies being approved each year for cancer, the development of drug resistance to these agents is a growing concern. It has often been assumed that drug resistance is due to the presence or development of additional genetic alterations; however, it is now clear that resistance mechanisms are more complicated. Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered a mechanism of drug resistance to Venetoclax, also known as ABT-199, a BCL-2 targeting drug commonly used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia. Their findings, published in the journal Cancer Cell, also suggest a possible co-treatment strategy to overcome this resistance. BCL-2 is a protein that promotes cell survival and is highly deregulated in numerous malignancies. This deregulation can be overcome by treatment with Venetoclax. However, many patients who initially respond to the drug eventually develop resistance and tumor recurrence. The team of researchers led by Jianguo Tao, M.D., Ph.D and Jun Qi, Ph.D., wanted to determine how the BCL2 inhibitor resistance develops in B-cell lymphomas, such as mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and double-hit lymphoma (DHL), in order to find strategies to overcome and prevent its occurrence. They created model cell lines that were resistant to Venetoclax and compared these cells to the parental cell lines that maintained drug sensitivity. The scientists found that ABT-199 resistance was dependent on both genetic mutations and non-mutational changes. Many patients with hematologic malignancies have an amplification of part of chromosome 18. The researchers discovered that during ABT-199 treatment, rare subpopulations of cells lose this genetic amplification and can survive from drug treatment. Interestingly, this region of chromosome 18 contains the BCL-2 gene, which is the target of ABT-199. This loss of the ABT-199 target and other cell death regulators on chromosome 18 contribute to the survival of these cell populations, which eventually can develop into drug resistance cells. The researchers also demonstrated that the resistant cells developed non-mutational changes involving transcriptional reprogramming. "Certain regions of the DNA called super-enhancers became activated or deactivated in the resistant cells, leading to either a downstream loss or gain in protein expression, which ultimately contributed to cell survival. The study, for the first time, unified genetic alteration and non-genetic adaptive response as a driving force for drug resistance evolution to therapy," said Tao, senior member of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Hematopathology at Moffitt Cancer Center. The transcriptional reprogramming was dependent on a protein called CDK7. These observations suggested that targeting CDK7 may be an effective strategy to prevent Venetoclax resistance. The researchers conducted a chemical screening of a set of small molecule inhibitors further confirmed this hypothesis by showing that combination treatment with ABT-199 and the CDK7-targeting inhibitor THZ1 prevented the emergence and maintenance of ABT-199 resistance in models of MCL and DHL. The patient samples assessment further proved the clinical relevance of this study, which can unveil the drug resistance mechanism in patient care in the future. "Disabling CDK7 in combination with ABT-199 is an attractive means to provoke tumor regression of otherwise refractory lymphoma, and such a combination strategy could be applied across a broad spectrum of hematological malignancies," said Qi, assistant professor in medicine at the Department of Cancer Biology Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. ### The study was supported in part by grants from the National Cancer Institute (CA179062, CA134807, CA137123, POQ-CA066996-19, P50-CA100707-15, CA211336, P30-CA076292), the Lymphoma Research Foundation, Incyte Corporation, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and by the Cortner-Couch Chair for Cancer Research from the University of South Florida School of Medicine. About Moffitt Cancer Center Moffitt is dedicated to one lifesaving mission: to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer. The Tampa-based facility is one of only 50 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, a distinction that recognizes Moffitt's excellence in research, clinical trials, prevention and cancer control. Moffitt is the No. 6 cancer hospital in the nation and has been listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of the "Best Hospitals" for cancer care since 1999. Moffitt devotes more than 2.5 million square feet to research and patient care. Moffitt's expert nursing staff is recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center with Magnet status, its highest distinction. With more than 6,500 team members, Moffitt has an economic impact in the state of $2.1 billion. For more information, call 1-888-MOFFITT (1-888-663-3488), visit MOFFITT.org, and follow the momentum on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. About Dana-Farber Cancer Institute From achieving the first remissions in childhood cancer with chemotherapy in 1948, to developing the very latest new therapies, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is one of the world's leading centers of cancer research and treatment. It is the only center ranked in the top 4 of U.S. News and World Report's Best Hospitals for both adult and pediatric cancer care. Dana-Farber sits at the center of a wide range of collaborative efforts to reduce the burden of cancer through scientific inquiry, clinical care, education, community engagement, and advocacy. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center provides the latest in cancer care for adults; Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center for children. The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center unites the cancer research efforts of five Harvard academic medical centers and two graduate schools, while Dana-Farber Community Cancer Care provides high quality cancer treatment in communities outside Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Dana-Farber is dedicated to a unique 50/50 balance between cancer research and care, and much of the Institute's work is dedicated to translating the results of its discovery into new treatments for patients in Boston, and around the world. Scientists have discovered a new material that could hold the key to unlocking the potential of hydrogen powered vehicles. Scientists have discovered a new material that could hold the key to unlocking the potential of hydrogen powered vehicles. As the world looks towards a gradual move away from fossil fuel powered cars and trucks, greener alternative technologies are being explored, such as electric battery powered vehicles. Another 'green' technology with great potential is hydrogen power. However, a major obstacle has been the size, complexity, and expense of the fuel systems - until now. An international team of researchers, led by Professor David Antonelli of Lancaster University, has discovered a new material made from manganese hydride that offers a solution. The new material would be used to make molecular sieves within fuel tanks - which store the hydrogen and work alongside fuel cells in a hydrogen powered 'system'. The material, called KMH-1 (Kubas Manganese Hydride-1), would enable the design of tanks that are far smaller, cheaper, more convenient and energy dense than existing hydrogen fuel technologies, and significantly out-perform battery-powered vehicles. Professor Antonelli, Chair in Physical Chemistry at Lancaster University and who has been researching this area for more than 15 years, said: "The cost of manufacturing our material is so low, and the energy density it can store is so much higher than a lithium ion battery, that we could see hydrogen fuel cell systems that cost five times less than lithium ion batteries as well as providing a much longer range - potentially enabling journeys up to around four or five times longer between fill-ups." The material takes advantage of a chemical process called Kubas binding. This process enables the storage of hydrogen by distancing the hydrogen atoms within a H2 molecule and works at room temperature. This eliminates the need to split, and bind, the bonds between atoms, processes that require high energies and extremes of temperature and need complex equipment to deliver. The KMH-1 material also absorbs and stores any excess energy so external heat and cooling is not needed. This is crucial because it means cooling and heating equipment does not need to be used in vehicles, resulting in systems with the potential to be far more efficient than existing designs. The sieve works by absorbing hydrogen under around 120 atmospheres of pressure, which is less than a typical scuba tank. It then releases hydrogen from the tank into the fuel cell when the pressure is released. The researchers' experiments show that the material could enable the storage of four times as much hydrogen in the same volume as existing hydrogen fuel technologies. This is great for vehicle manufactures as it provides them with flexibility to design vehicles with increased range of up to four times, or allowing them to reducing the size of the tanks by up to a factor of four. Although vehicles, including cars and heavy goods vehicles, are the most obvious application, the researchers believe there are many other applications for KMH-1. "This material can also be used in portable devices such as drones or within mobile chargers so people could go on week-long camping trips without having to recharge their devices," said Professor Antonelli. "The real advantage this brings is in situations where you anticipate being off grid for long periods of time, such as long haul truck journeys, drones, and robotics. It could also be used to run a house or a remote neighbourhood off a fuel cell." The technology has been licenced by the University of South Wales to a spin-out company part owned by Professor Antonelli, called Kubagen. ### The research, which is detailed in the paper A Manganese Hydride Molecular Sieve for Practical Hydrogen is being published on the cover and within the printed version of the academic journal Energy and Environmental Science, has been funded by Chrysler (FCA), Hydro-Quebec Research Institute, the University of South Wales, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Welsh Government and the University of Manchester. Tarek Abel-Baset, Senior Technical Engineer-Advanced Development Engineering at FCA US, said: "Hydrogen storage poses a formidable challenge. For nearly 15 years, we have collaborated with Professor Antonelli and numerous academia and government funding agencies, and we are proud of the result. The development of the KMH-1 material shows genuine promise." Researchers on the project include: Leah Morris, University of South Wales; James Hales and Nikolas Kaltsoyannis, University of Manchester; Michel Trudeau, Hydro-Quebec Research Institute; Peter Georgiev, University of Sofia; Jan Embs, Paul Scherrer Institut; Juergen Eckert, Texas Tech University; and David Antonelli, Lancaster University. South American fur seal pups with high levels of hookworm infection spend more time in the water, but that's not necessarily a good thing, report Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at the University of Georgia. The team hypothesized the higher infection rates are due to a climate change chain reaction that forces pups' mothers to devote more time to searching for food, rather than providing the pups maternal care that can thwart parasites. The team recently published their study in the journal Ecology and Evolution. "This was a surprising finding, but it helps us understand the full relationship these parasites have with their hosts, directly and indirectly," said Dr. Mauricio Seguel, a veterinary researcher at the University of Georgia. "More importantly, though, studies like this answer smaller parts of a bigger question: How much do our activities as humans impact animals?" Hookworm infection is a significant health risk in South American fur seal populations. A separate Morris Animal Foundation-funded study, led by Dr. Seguel, determined more than 20 percent of fur seal pups die from parasitic infections every year. "It is important to understand these complex associations between animal behavior and disease that can reveal effects of climate change on ocean health" said Dr. Janet Patterson-Kane, Morris Animal Foundation Chief Scientific Officer. "This study shows pups with higher parasite loads and more time in the water as two outcomes of decreased maternal care, but there is more to the story and we are dedicated to discovering what that is." Dr. Sequel's team studied pups at a fur seal colony on Guafo Island in southwestern Chile, where all pups show some degree of hookworm infection. For four months, researchers captured pups that were 1 to 2 days old and marked them for tracking. The team observed each pup's behavior for at least eight weeks, recording the number of times and in what ways the pups engaged in water activities. The researchers also took regular blood and fecal samples to measure the level of hookworm infection in each animal. They discovered that pups with higher parasite burdens were far more active in the water than pups with lower levels; playing and swimming, rather than resting by or avoiding it. Further analysis revealed the animals with higher infection rates spent less time with their mothers. The team believes this could be because warmer ocean temperatures make fish scarcer. Younger, less experienced females then must spend more time searching for food and less time with their offspring. Those pups, in turn, aren't able to feed from their mothers and spend more time in the water; and have weaker immune systems that are less able to clear the parasites. It is unknown what the implications are for the long-term survival and reproductive success of fur seal populations, given increasing ocean temperatures, higher parasite load, and the extended periods of time mothers spend away from their pups as finding food becomes more challenging. Dr. Seguel's work, with funding from Morris Animal Foundation, is critical to a better understanding of these populations and their ongoing health. In future studies, Dr. Seguel and his team hope to learn more about fur seal pup swimming behavior and how less or more time in the water positively or negatively impacts pup health. ### About Morris Animal Foundation Morris Animal Foundation's mission is to bridge science and resources to advance the health of animals. Founded by a veterinarian in 1948, we fund and conduct critical health studies for the benefit of all animals. Learn more at morrisanimalfoundation.org. Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and their colleagues from Germany and the Netherlands have achieved material magnetization switching on the shortest timescales, at a minimal energy cost. They have thus developed a prototype of energy-efficient data storage devices. The paper was published in the journal Nature. The rapid development of information technology calls for data storage devices controlled by quantum mechanisms without energy losses. Maintaining data centers consumes over 3% of the power generated worldwide, and this figure is growing. While writing and reading information is a bottleneck for IT development, the fundamental laws of nature actually do not prohibit the existence of fast and energy-efficient data storage. The most reliable way of storing data is to encode it as binary zeros and ones, which correspond to the orientations of the microscopic magnets, known as spins, in magnetic materials. This is how a computer hard drive stores information. To switch a bit between its two basic states, it is remagnetized via a magnetic field pulse. However, this operation requires much time and energy. Back in 2016, Sebastian Baierl from the University of Regensburg in Germany, Anatoly Zvezdin from MIPT in Russia, Alexey Kimel from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and Russian Technological University MIREA, along with other colleagues, proposed a way for rapid spin switching in thulium orthoferrite via T-rays. Their technique for remagnetizing memory bits proved faster and more efficient than using magnetic field pulses. This effect stems from a special connection between spin states and the electrical component of a T-ray pulse. "The idea was to use the previously discovered spin switching mechanism as an instrument for efficiently driving spins out of equilibrium and studying the fundamental limitations on the speed and energy cost of writing information. Our research focused on the so-called fingerprints of the mechanism with the maximum possible speed and minimum energy dissipation," commented study co-author Professor Alexey Kimel of Radboud University Nijmegen and MIREA. In this study, we exposed spin states to specially tuned T-pulses. Their characteristic photon energies are on the order of the energy barrier between the spin states. The pulses last picoseconds, which corresponds to one light oscillation cycle. The team used a specially developed structure comprised by micrometer-sized gold antennas deposited on a thulium orthoferrite sample. As a result, the researchers spotted the characteristic spectral signatures indicating successful spin switching with only the minimal energy losses imposed by the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. For the first time, a spin switch was complete in a mere 3 picoseconds and with almost no energy dissipation. This shows the enormous potential of magnetism for addressing the crucial problems in information technology. According to the researchers, their experimental findings agree with theoretical model predictions. "The rare earth materials, which provided the basis for this discovery, are currently experiencing a sort of a renaissance," said Professor Anatoly Zvezdin, who heads the Magnetic Heterostructures and Spintronics Lab at MIPT. "Their fundamental properties were studied half a century ago, with major contributions by Russian physicists, MSU and MIPT alumni. This is an excellent example of how fundamental research finds its way into practice decades after it was completed." The joint work of several research teams has led to the creation of a structure that is a promising prototype of future data storage devices. Such devices would be compact and capable of transferring data within picoseconds. Fitting this storage with antennas will make it compatible with on-chip T-ray sources." ### People who report that they have a slower walking pace have a lower life expectancy than fast walkers, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre - a partnership between Leicester's Hospitals, the University of Leicester and Loughborough University. The research, using data from the UK Biobank of 474,919 people recruited within the UK, found those with a habitually fast walking pace have a long life expectancy across all levels of weight status - from underweight to morbidly obese. Underweight individuals with a slow walking pace had the lowest life expectancy (an average of 64.8 years for men, 72.4 years for women). The same pattern of results was found for waist circumference measurements. This is the first time research has associated fast walking pace with a longer life expectancy regardless of a person's body weight or obesity status. Professor Tom Yates, professor of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and health at the University of Leicester and a lead author of the study, said: "Our findings could help clarify the relative importance of physical fitness compared to body weight on life expectancy of individuals. In other words, the findings suggest that perhaps physical fitness is a better indicator of life expectancy than body mass index (BMI), and that encouraging the population to engage in brisk walking may add years to their lives." Dr Francesco Zaccardi, clinical epidemiologist at the Leicester Diabetes Centre - based at Leicester General Hospital - and co-author of the study, said: "Studies published so far have mainly shown the impact of body weight and physical fitness on mortality in terms of relative risk, for example a 20 per cent relative increase of risk of death for every 5 kilograms per metres squared increase, compared to a reference value of a BMI of 25 kilograms per metres squared (the threshold BMI between normal weight and overweight). "However, it is not always easy to interpret a "relative risk". Reporting in terms of life expectancy, conversely, is easier to interpret and gives a better idea of the separate and joint importance of body mass index and physical fitness." Last year, Professor Yates and his team showed that middle-aged people who reported that they are slow walkers were at higher risk of heart-related disease compared to the general population. The study, which also used data from the UK Biobank, showed that slow walkers were twice as likely to have a heart-related death as fast walkers, even when other risk factors such as smoking and body mass index were taken into account. ### The study, "Comparative relevance of physical fitness and adiposity on life expectancy: A UK Biobank observational study", is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and is published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings on 15 May 2019. Notes for editors: Link to the full article: https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(19)30063-1/fulltext For more information contact Rachael Dowling, communications lead, NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, on 0116 2584971 / 07950891193 or email Rachael.dowling@uhl-tr.nhs.uk The NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) is a partnership between University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, the University of Leicester and Loughborough University. It is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR Leicester BRC undertakes translational clinical research in priority areas of high disease burden and clinical need. These include cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and lifestyle, obesity and physical activity. There is also a cross-cutting theme for precision medicine. The BRC harnesses the power of experimental science to explore and develop ways to help prevent and treat chronic disease. It brings together 70 highly skilled researchers, 30 of which are at the forefront of clinical services delivery. By having scientists working closely with clinicians, the BRC can deliver research that is relevant to patients and the professionals who treat them. http://www.leicesterbrc.nihr.ac.uk The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation's largest funder of health and care research. The NIHR: Funds, supports and delivers high quality research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care Engages and involves patients, carers and the public in order to improve the reach, quality and impact of research Attracts, trains and supports the best researchers to tackle the complex health and care challenges of the future Invests in world-class infrastructure and a skilled delivery workforce to translate discoveries into improved treatments and services Partners with other public funders, charities and industry to maximise the value of research to patients and the economy The NIHR was established in 2006 to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research, and is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. In addition to its national role, the NIHR commissions applied health research to benefit the poorest people in low- and middle-income countries, using Official Development Assistance funding. This work uses data provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support and would not have been possible without access to this data. The NIHR recognises and values the role of patient data, securely accessed and stored, both in underpinning and leading to improvements in research and care. http://www.nihr.ac.uk/patientdata About the University of Leicester The University of Leicester is led by discovery and innovation - an international centre for excellence renowned for research, teaching and broadening access to higher education. It is among the top 25 universities in the Times Higher Education REF Research Power rankings with 75% of research adjudged to be internationally excellent with wide-ranging impacts on society, health, culture, and the environment. The University is home to just over 20,000 students and approximately 3,000 staff. Find out more: https://le.ac.uk/about Our Centenary On 11 November 2018 (Armistice Day), the University of Leicester marked 100 years since the end of the First World War. This date also marks the beginning of the story to create a university in Leicester as a living memorial to honour those who made sacrifices during the Great War. This is reflected in the University's motto Ut vitam habeant - 'so that they may have life'. The University was founded as Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland University College in 1921. This short film tells the story of our founding. Out of this World Research Research scientists at the University of Leicester have a long and distinguished record of discovery in space science. Every single year since 1967 has seen a Leicester-built instrument operating in space. We hold, and have held, vital roles in many space missions for space agencies including the recent BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The University is a partner in Space Park Leicester - a new hub for the analysis and commercialisation of space-enabled data and space mission development. Blood tests that track the amount of tumor DNA can - after only one month of drug therapy - detect how well treatment is working in patients with skin cancer, a new study finds. Led by researchers from NYU School of Medicine and Perlmutter Cancer Center, the study takes advantage of the nature of cancer cells, which die and are replaced by new cells continuously as part of aggressive cancer growth. Tumor cells burst as they die, spilling their DNA into the bloodstream, where it can be measured by tests, enabling improved diagnosis and better targeting of treatment based on each individual tumor's DNA. For the new study, researchers traced circulating tumor DNA or ctDNA for the cancer gene BRAF, a gene that plays a key role in many melanomas, the most deadly form of skin cancer. In the United States, more than 7,200 individuals are expected to die from metastatic melanoma in 2019, with BRAF mutations playing a role in nearly half of such diagnoses, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. "Our study offers firm evidence that tracking this genetic information may be helpful in identifying patients whose cancers shrink and who survive longer as a result of a particular drug regimen," says senior study investigator David Polsky, MD, PhD, the Alfred W. Kopf, MD, Professor of Dermatologic Oncology at NYU Langone Health. For the study, being presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting on June 1 in Chicago, researchers analyzed blood samples from 345 male and female patients with stage III or IV melanoma, which had already spread from the skin to other organs, and who had BRAF mutations. These patients could not be treated surgically and were part of a larger group of patients participating in a clinical trial of the drugs dabrafenib and trametinib, designed to target BRAF-mutated cancers. Among the studys key findings was that the tumors BRAF mutation could be detected by the new blood test in 93 percent of the patients before treatment started. In addition, the research team found that BRAF ctDNA levels were no longer detectable after one month of therapy in the 40 percent of patients who had a positive clinical outcome after targeted therapy (as measured by an average survival time of 28 months). By contrast, the 60 percent of patients who did not respond as well still had detectable ctDNA levels, and survived for an average of just 14 months. Polsky and his colleagues say this test appears to be more revealing than the current standard test, which measures lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), an enzyme often elevated by melanoma, because fluctuations in LDH often do not accurately predict treatment success or failure. The typical method of identifying disease progression for these melanoma patients is through CT scans every three months, but Polsky says the blood test in the current study, noted as the largest BRAF detection rate in patients' blood to date, suggests it may be helpful to doctors because these tests can be done more frequently and efficiently, and results could be available within a few days. "If further testing proves successful, monitoring blood samples for BRAF could give us an early indication of whether or not we need to adjust a patient's treatment plan," says Polsky, dermatologist and director of the pigmented lesion service at NYU Langone. Researchers next plan to test the efficacy of monitoring patient blood samples over longer periods of time, such as several months. They also hope to open a clinical trial to determine whether treatment decisions based on these test results improves patient survival. ### Novartis Pharmaceuticals of East Hanover, New Jersey, funded the clinical trial of their drugs, and provided the blood samples and clinical data used in the study, which they also funded. The ctDNA test was developed by Bio-Rad Laboratories in Hercules, California. Besides Polsky, other NYU Langone researchers include Mahrukh M. Syeda, MS; Jennifer M. Wiggins, PhD; and Broderick Corless, BS. Additional investigators include Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, at Melanoma Institute Australia, The University of Sydney, and Royal North Shore and Mater Hospitals in Australia; Keith Flaherty, MD, at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Massachusetts; Dirk Schadendorf, MD, at University Hospital Essen and the German Cancer Consortium in Germany; Paul D. Nathan, MD, at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in the United Kingdom; Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, at Institut Gustave Roussy and Paris-Sud University in France; Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, at University of California, Los Angeles; Michael A. Davies, MD, PhD, at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas; Jean-Jacques Grob, MD, PhD, at AIX-Marseille University in France; and Eduard Gasal, Matthew Squires, Mahtab Marker, and Jan C. Brase at Novartis based in Switzerland. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Southern Pacific Ocean and captured a visible image of the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Ann moving over Queensland's Cape York Peninsula. Despite the storm weakening below tropical cyclone status, warnings remain active for strong winds and flooding potential. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology or ABM issued a Strong Wind Warning for the North East Gulf of Carpentaria for today, May 15, and tomorrow, May 16. There is also a Flood Watch in effect for coastal catchments between Cooktown and Port Douglas. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Ann has the potential to generate areas of heavy rainfall. ABM noted "Catchments remain wet following coastal showers and rain areas during the last few days, which will make stream rises and flooding more likely with the onset of heavy rainfall. Enhanced rainfall is expected to occur on the coastal catchments north of Port Douglas and through to Cooktown during Wednesday." Heavy rainfall may also lead to flash flooding and the catchments likely to be affected include the Endeavour River and the Daintree River. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the remnant clouds on May 15 and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument provided a visible image of the storm. The VIIRS image showed the center of the low pressure area in the middle of the northern Cape York Peninsula, framed by the Heartlands Resources Reserve to the north, the Iron Range National Park to the east, and the Mungkan Kandju National Park south of the circulation center. The remnants of Ann are expected to move west into the Gulf of Carpentaria in the next day. For updated forecasts, visit the ABM website: http://www.bom.gov.au ### Rumi Chunara, assistant professor of computer science and engineering and global public health at New York University, has won a Grand Challenges Explorations grant--an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Chunara will pursue an innovative global health and development research project focused on smart immunization targeting in Pakistan using artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile tools. Grand Challenges Explorations grants support innovative thinkers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. Chunara's project is one of approximately 50 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 22 grants announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, out of more than 1,500 submissions. To receive funding, Chunara and other Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated a bold idea in one of seven critical global heath and development topic areas. Focusing on innovations to drive performance in immunization, Chunara's project will use AI and mobile technology for the first province-wide smart targeting of childhood immunization efforts. Vaccination coverage in many low and middle-income countries is poor due to a variety of factors, including limited resources, residents living in rural areas, and a lack of public awareness and knowledge about vaccination. Recognizing the promise that mobile tools hold for improving vaccination coverage, Chunara's collaborators in Pakistan--led by Umar Saif, UNESCO Chair for Information and Communication Technology for Development--equipped roughly 3,800 outreach and clinic-based vaccinators with a smartphone application called e-vaccs to help health authorities track vaccination progress across Pakistan's Punjab province. The Grand Challenges Explorations grant takes the project to the next level: incorporating machine learning and prediction algorithms in conjunction with an understanding of the existing vaccination process. Chunara and her colleagues will develop algorithms to prioritize resources and better target efforts of the smartphone-equipped vaccinators. Using data on disease incidence, the researchers will predict and provide feedback on where the best places and times are to deliver vaccinations to minimize disease incidence while accounting for environmental and social variables such as climate and population density. Based on data and feedback from the vaccinators to date, the efforts will also aim to identify locations where further attention is necessary, and how best to reach them--for instance, locations where vaccinators are being deployed but vaccination coverage is not improving at an expected rate, or marginalized populations that currently aren't getting vaccinations. "Our hypothesis is that using AI for smart targeting of our smartphone-equipped vaccinators will result in lower vaccine preventable disease incidence. As community health workers are present in most low and middle income countries, there may be a pathway to scale this both in Pakistan and other countries that use community health workers," said Chunara, who is also a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. ### About Grand Challenges Explorations Grand Challenges Explorations is a US$100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, over 1420 projects in more than 65 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants. The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required. Initial grants of US$100,000 are awarded two times per year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million. About NYU's Tandon School of Engineering The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, the country's largest private research university, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. About NYU College of Global Public Health At the NYU College of Global Public Health (NYU GPH), we are preparing the next generation of public health pioneers with the critical thinking skills, acumen, and entrepreneurial approaches necessary to reinvent the public health paradigm. Devoted to employing a nontraditional, inter-disciplinary model, NYU GPH aims to improve health worldwide through a unique blend of global public health studies, research and practice. The College is located in the heart of New York City and extends to NYU's global network on six continents. Innovation is at the core of our ambitious approach, thinking and teaching. For more, visit: http://publichealth.nyu.edu/ COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new father's views on his changing relationship with his wife or partner may depend in part on how much support he feels from her when he is caring for their baby, a new study suggests. Researchers found that a first-time father tended to feel closer to the mother both as a co-parent and as a romantic partner when he believed he had her confidence when he was involved in child care. "Fathers are more involved than they have ever been in parenting, but moms are still seen in our society as the expert caregivers," said Anna Olsavsky, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in human sciences at The Ohio State University. "So how mothers react to their partners' parenting matters a lot. It affects how new dads feel about their whole family situation, including his relationship with his wife or partner." The study - done with relatively affluent, highly educated dual-earner couples - was published recently online in the journal Family Process and will appear in a future print edition. This study is one of few to focus on the transition to parenthood from the perspective of fathers, said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, study co-author and professor of psychology at Ohio State. "It's still rare to examine the father's view on family processes," Schoppe-Sullivan said. The researchers used data from the New Parents Project, a long-term study co-led by Schoppe-Sullivan that is investigating how dual-earner couples adjust to becoming parents for the first time. In all, 182 couples, most of whom were married, participated in this study. The parents were assessed four times: when the mother was in her third trimester of pregnancy and when the baby was 3, 6 and 9 months old. When the baby was 3 months old, fathers answered questions about what researchers call "maternal gatekeeping," or how much the mother inhibits or welcomes the father's involvement in child care. Fathers reported how much they felt their partner "opened" or "closed" the gate on them when it came to interacting with the baby. For example, each dad reported on gate-closing behaviors, such as how often his partner took over baby-related tasks because the mom thought he wasn't doing them properly or how often she gave him irritated looks about his parenting. Examples of gate opening include encouraging the father to help bathe the baby or mom letting him know she appreciates his contributions to parenting. When the baby was 6 months old, the fathers were asked about their co-parenting closeness with their partner. For example, they rated how much they felt they were "growing and maturing together through experiences as parents." Finally, when the baby was 9 months old, the fathers rated how good they felt about their romantic relationship with their partner. Results showed that whether the mother "opened" or "closed" the gate on the father had a significant impact on how he felt about their relationship as a couple. "If mothers are critical and less supportive of their partners' parenting, it could have ramifications for the whole family dynamic," Schoppe-Sullivan said. "Fathers may not only do less child care, they may have more negative views on their relationship with their wife or partner." But the flip side was also true: Gate opening had a positive effect on how the new dad viewed the couple's relationship. "There has been some work suggesting that gate opening may be viewed by fathers negatively as demands for them to be more involved in child rearing, but that's not what we found," Olsavsky said. "Gate opening was perceived positively by fathers. They felt it improved their relationship as a couple." The researchers emphasized that it is important for both new parents to support each other. But, because of societal norms, fathers may need extra support. "There is this underlying assumption that mothers are the experts when it comes to parenting. And they have more sources of support in society when it comes to how to be a good parent," Olsavsky said. "But fathers don't generally get that support from society. The only support they often get as parents is from their partner. That's why it is so important." The researchers noted that this study was done with couples who were primarily married, white, and middle-class or affluent. All were dual-earner couples. Results may be different in couples with other situations. ### Other co-authors of the study were Jia Yan, doctoral student, and Claire Kamp Dush, associate professor, both in human sciences at Ohio State. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Contact: Anna Olsavsky, Olsavsky.8@osu.edu Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, Schoppe-sullivan.1@osu.edu Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu Photo: CTV News UPDATE: 11:50 a.m. A second B.C. victim of a mid-air floatplane collision in Alaska has been revealed. Elsa Wilk, 37, of Richmond had earlier been named among the six victims. Now, CTV News reports, her husband Ryan Wilk, 39, is also among the dead. The couple had been on an Alaskan cruise that left Vancouver on Saturday, and were passengers on a sightseeing flight over George Inlet when the crash happened. with files from CTV Vancouver ORIGINAL: 5:30 a.m. A 37-year-old woman from Richmond has been identified as the Canadian killed when two sightseeing floatplanes crashed midair in Alaska earlier this week. Elsa Wilk is one of the six deceased victims named by Alaska State Troopers late Tuesday. The floatplanes were carrying cruise ship tourists when they collided Monday near the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan. The death toll was initially reported as four, with two people missing. U.S. Coast Guard said the bodies of the two missing people were recovered near the crash site Tuesday night. Global Affairs Canada says Canadian consular officials in Seattle were in contact with local authorities to gather additional information and provide assistance as needed. "Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and loved ones of the Canadian citizen who died in Alaska," the department said. The American victims identified were 46-year-old pilot Randy Sullivan from Ketchikan, 62-year-old Cassandra Webb, 39-year-old Ryan Wilk and 46-year-old Louis Botha. State troopers said the Australian was 56-year-old Simon Bodie. The Royal Princess cruise ship left Vancouver for Anchorage on Saturday and is to return on May 25. Coast Guard Commander Michael Kahle said earlier Tuesday that crews were searching both the water and the shore of a remote area called George Inlet for the two missing the Canadian and Australian. He said the area is en route to the Misty Fjords National Monument, a popular and active spot for sightseeing flights. One of the planes was a single-engine de Havilland Otter operated by Taquan Air and was returning from a wilderness tour sold through Princess Cruises of the Misty Fjords, the company said. It was carrying 10 guests from the Royal Princess and a pilot, who were all Americans, the statement said. The other plane, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, was operating an independent flight tour carrying a pilot and four guests, of which two were American, one was Canadian and the other was Australian, the company added. The pilot and nine passengers on the Otter were able to make their way to shore, where they were rescued and taken to hospital, Kahle said. The survivors were in fair or good condition, said Marty West, a spokeswoman for PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center. Strict policies traditionally embraced by Asian nations to discourage illicit drug use are beginning to change, with a few nations adopting alternative approaches while other nations are taking an even harder line against drugs, according to a new RAND Corporation report. Thailand is on the forefront of Southeast Asian nations that are reconsidering longstanding policies, moving to adopt greater harm reduction, approving the use of medical cannabis and easing restrictions on the traditional use of the substance kratom. Meanwhile, some other nations -- most visibly represented by the Philippines -- are adopting even harsher policies on illicit drugs, including violent repression of drug distribution and use. "Asian nations have long espoused the goal of a drug-free society, imposing harsh criminal penalties and even the death penalty on those involved with illicit drugs," said Bryce Pardo, lead author of the report and a policy analyst at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "So it is surprising to see some Asian nations begin to go in a different direction and consider more-progressive policies." The RAND report also dissects China's role as a focal point in the global supply of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is responsible for a growing number of fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. The report outlines the rapid rise of the drug industry in China, where there are now more than 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of chemical companies. While the industry is a leading source of many legitimate chemicals and pharmaceutical ingredients, its growth has made it easier for some companies to avoid regulations. China's central government has promised to crack down on fentanyl manufacturers, but enforcement of such policies is typically done at the provincial level, where there is little infrastructure in place to regulate the drug and chemical industries. "China's leaders recognize that they have a problem and appear committed to seeking solutions," Pardo said. "But it is unlikely that they can contain the illicit production and distribution of fentanyl in the short term because enforcement mechanisms are lacking. Producers are quick to adapt, impeding Chinese law enforcement's ability to stem the flow to global markets." Thailand's shift from harsh drug policies toward evidence-based treatment and reduced punishment appears to be motivated by the heavy burden previous policies have had on its prison system and an alarming increase in disease transmission related to needle-sharing. In 2016, about 70 percent of Thailand's 320,000 prisoners were incarcerated for drug offences, including many for consumption-related violations. The nation has begun to move toward voluntary outpatient treatment and has experimented with needle-exchange programs to address disease transmission. The report notes that the illicit production and use of opioids and amphetamine-type substances are the greatest concern across Asia. There also are reports of rising trafficking and use of new psychoactive substances and ketamine. But one challenge facing Asian nations is a shortage of reliable information about drug use, which is key to assessing the size of the problem and judging the influence of policies. "As in many countries, there is tremendous imprecision in the data available on the prevalence of drug use in Asia and the amount of money spent on these substances," said Beau Kilmer, a co-author of the report and co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. "Policy shifts are occurring and these data gaps will make it difficult to evaluate the consequences of these changes in the near and longer term." ### Funding for the study was provided by the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy, which is supported by donations from its advisory board. The report, "Contemporary Asian Drug Policy: Insights and Opportunities for Change," is available at http://www.rand.org. Another author of the study is Wenjing Huang. The research was conducted within the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy, which improves policy by providing decisionmakers and the public with rigorous, objective, cutting-edge research on critical policy challenges facing Asia and U.S.-Asia relations. An enormous volcanic eruption on Iceland in 1783-84 did not cause an extreme summer heat wave in Europe. But, as Benjamin Franklin speculated, the eruption triggered an unusually cold winter, according to a Rutgers-led study. The study, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, will help improve predictions of how the climate will respond to future high-latitude volcanic eruptions. The eight-month eruption of the Laki volcano, beginning in June 1783, was the largest high-latitude eruption in the last 1,000 years. It injected about six times as much sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere as the 1883 Krakatau or 1991 Pinatubo eruptions, according to co-author Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers UniversityNew Brunswick. The eruption coincided with unusual weather across Europe. The summer was unusually warm with July temperatures more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm, leading to societal disruption and failed harvests. The 178384 European winter was up to 5 degrees colder than average. Franklin, the U.S. ambassador to France, speculated on the causes in a 1784 paper, the first publication in English on the potential impacts of a volcanic eruption on the climate. To determine whether Franklin and other researchers were right, the Rutgers-led team performed 80 simulations with a state-of-the-art climate model from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The computer model included weather during the eruption and compared the ensuing climate with and without the effects of the eruption. It turned out, to our surprise, that the warm summer was not caused by the eruption, Robock said. Instead, it was just natural variability in the climate system. It would have been even warmer without the eruption. The cold winter would be expected after such an eruption. The warm 1783 summer stemmed from unusually high pressure over Northern Europe that caused cold polar air to bypass the region, the study says. After the eruption, precipitation in Africa and Asia dropped substantially, causing widespread drought and famine. The eruption also increased the chances of El Nino, featuring unusually warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, in the next winter. The eruption spawned a sulfuric aerosol cloud called the Laki haze that lingered over most of the Northern Hemisphere in 1783. Reports from across Europe included lower visibility and the smell of sulfur or hydrogen sulfide. The air pollution was linked to reports of headaches, respiratory issues and asthma attacks, along with acid rain damage to trees and crops, the study notes. More than 60 percent of Icelands livestock died within a year, and about 20 percent of the people died in a famine. Reports of increased death rates and/or respiratory disorders crisscrossed Europe. Understanding the causes of these climate anomalies is important not only for historical purposes, but also for understanding and predicting possible climate responses to future high-latitude volcanic eruptions, Robock said. Our work tells us that even with a large eruption like Laki, it will be impossible to predict very local climate impacts because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere. Scientists continue to work on the potential impacts of volcanic eruptions on people through the Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society project. The Laki eruption will be included in their research. Volcanic eruptions can have global climate impacts lasting several years. The studys lead author is Brian Zambri, a former post-doctoral associate who earned his doctorate at Rutgers and is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and University of Cambridge contributed to the study. The first humans who settled in Scandinavia more than 10,000 years ago left their DNA behind in ancient chewing gums, which are masticated lumps made from birch bark pitch. This is shown in a new study conducted at Stockholm University and published in Communications Biology. There are few human bones of this age, close to 10 000 years old, in Scandinavia, and not all of them have preserved enough DNA for archaeogenetic studies. In fact, the DNA from these newly examined chewing gums is the oldest human DNA sequenced from this area so far. The DNA derived from three individuals, two females and one male, creates an exciting link between material culture and human genetics. Ancient chewing gums are as of now an alternative source for human DNA and possibly a good proxy for human bones in archaeogenetic studies. The investigated pieces come from Huseby-Klev, an early Mesolithic hunter-fisher site on the Swedish west coast. The sites excavation was done in the early 1990's, but at this time it was not possible to analyse ancient human DNA at all, let alone from non-human tissue. The masticates were made out of birch bark tar and used as glue in tool production and other types of technology during the Stone Age. "When Per Persson and Mikael Maininen proposed to look for hunter-gatherer DNA in these chewing gums from Huseby Klev we were hesitant but really impressed that archaeologists took care during the excavations and preserved such fragile material", says Natalija Kashuba, who was affiliated to The Museum of Cultural History in Oslo when she performed the experiments in cooperation with Stockholm University. "It took some work before the results overwhelmed us, as we understood that we stumbled into this almost 'forensic research', sequencing DNA from these mastic lumps, which were spat out at the site some 10 000 years ago!" says Natalija Kashuba. Today Natalija is a Ph.D. student at Uppsala University. Exciting link between material culture and human genetics The results show that, genetically, the individuals whose DNA was found share close genetic affinity to other hunter-gatherers in Sweden and to early Mesolithic populations from Ice Age Europe. However, the tools produced at the site were a part of lithic technology brought to Scandinavia from the East European Plain, modern day Russia. This scenario of a culture and genetic influx into Scandinavia from two routes was proposed in earlier studies, and these ancient chewing gums provides an exciting link directly between the tools and materials used and human genetics. Emrah Kirdok at Stockholm University conducted the computational analyses of the DNA. "Demography analysis suggests that the genetic composition of Huseby Klev individuals show more similarity to western hunter-gatherer populations than eastern hunter-gatherers", he says. "DNA from these ancient chewing gums have an enormous potential not only for tracing the origin and movement of peoples long time ago, but also for providing insights in their social relations, diseases and food.", says Per Persson at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. "Much of our history is visible in the DNA we carry with us, so we try to look for DNA where ever we believe we can find it", says Anders Gotherstrom, at the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University, where the work was conducted. The study is published in Communications Biology. ### DOI: 10.1038/s42003-019-0399-1 Contact information: Natalija Kashuba, lead author of the study and Ph. D. student at Uppsala University: phone: +46702112406, mail: natalija.kashuba@arkeologi.uu.se Per Persson, archaeologist at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo: phone +4795170690, mail perap@khm.uio.no Anders Gotherstrom, Professor in Molecular Archaeology and director of the archaeogenetics at the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University: phone +4673 992 78 64, mail First of their kind estimates find that globally 20.5 million babies were born with a low birthweight (<2500g or about 5.5 pounds) in 2015--over 90% were born in low- and middle-income countries. WHO, UNICEF & LSHTM virtual press conference at 3pm Geneva time on Monday 13 May, see end to register. First of their kind estimates find that globally 20.5 million babies were born with a low birthweight (<2500g or about 5.5 pounds) in 2015--over 90% were born in low- and middle-income countries. Warning as annual decline in low birthweight rates will need to more than double to meet global target of a 30% reduction in prevalence between 2012 and 2025, including in high income countries. Progress is also slow in high-income countries including the UK, Finland, France, Germany, USA, Australia, and New Zealand where almost no change in low birthweight prevalence was observed between 2000 and 2015. Authors call for immediate action to tackle underlying causes of low birthweight, to ensure clinical care for small babies, and for all babies to be weighed at birth. More than 20 million babies were born with a low birthweight (less than 2500g; 5.5 pounds) in 2015--around one in seven of all births worldwide. Almost three-quarters of these babies were born in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where data are most limited. However, the problem also remains substantial in high-income countries in Europe, North America, and Australia and New Zealand, where there has been virtually no progress in reducing low birthweight rates since 2000, according to a new analysis undertaken by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization (WHO), involving 148 countries and 281 million births, published in The Lancet Global Health journal. In 2012, all 195 member states of the WHO committed to a 30% reduction in low birthweight prevalence by 2025, compared with 2012 rates. The estimates, which are the first of their kind, found that worldwide low birthweight prevalence fell slightly from 17.5% in 2000 (22.9 million low birthweight livebirths) to 14.6% in 2015 (20.5 million). However, the study indicates that at the current rate of progress--with a 1.2% yearly decline in low birthweight rates between 2000 and 2015--the world will fall well short of the annual reduction rate of 2.7% required to meet the WHO target of a 30% reduction in prevalence between 2012 and 2025. These findings highlight the urgent need for more investment and action to accelerate progress, through understanding and tackling key drivers of low birthweight throughout life--including extremes of maternal age, multiple pregnancy, obstetric complications, chronic maternal conditions (eg, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy), infections (eg, malaria), and nutritional status, as well as exposure to environmental factors such as indoor air pollution, and tobacco and drug use. In low-income countries, poor growth in the womb is a major cause of low birthweight. In more developed regions, low birthweight is often associated with prematurity (a baby born earlier than 37 weeks gestation). "Despite clear commitments, our estimates indicate that national governments are doing too little to reduce low birthweight. We have seen very little change over 15 years, even in high-income settings where low birthweight is often due to prematurity as a result of high maternal age, smoking, caesarean sections not medically indicated and fertility treatments that increase the risk of multiple births. These are the underlying issues that governments in high-income countries should be tackling," says lead author Dr Hannah Blencowe from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. "To meet the global nutrition target of a 30% reduction in low birthweight by 2025 will require more than doubling the pace of progress." [1] The study authors call for international action to ensure that all babies are weighed at birth, to improve clinical care, and to promote public health action on the causes of low birthweight to reduce death and disability. "Every newborn must be weighed, yet worldwide, we don't have a record for the birthweight of nearly one third of all newborns," says co-author Julia Krasevec, Statistics & Monitoring Specialist from UNICEF. "We cannot help babies born with low birthweight without improving the coverage and accuracy of the data we collect. With better weighing devices and stronger data systems, we can capture the true birthweight of every baby, including those born at home, and provide better quality of care to these newborns and their mothers." [1] More than 80% of the world's 2.5 million newborns who die every year are low birthweight because they are either born preterm and/or small for gestational age. Low birthweight babies who survive have a greater risk of stunting, and developmental and physical ill health later in life, including chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In this study, the researchers performed a comprehensive search of the available data from national government databases and national surveys to estimate prevalence and track trends on low birthweight for livebirths in 148 countries from 2000 to 2015. In total, data were collated from over 281 million births. However, the authors note that 47 countries (including 40 low- and middle-income countries that account for almost quarter of all births worldwide) had insufficient data available. One of the lowest rates of low birthweight in 2015 was estimated in Sweden (2.4%). This compares to around 7% in some high-income countries including the USA (8%), the UK (7%), Australia (6.5%), and New Zealand (5.7%). The regions making the fastest progress are those with the highest numbers of low birthweight babies, Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, with a yearly decline in low birthweight prevalence of 1.4% and 1.1%, respectively, between 2000 and 2015. Nevertheless, the overall number of low birthweight livebirths has actually increased in sub-Saharan Africa from 4.4 million to 5 million babies, largely due to demographic trends (such as fertility and migration). Similarly, Southern Asia still has almost half of the world's low birthweight livebirths, with an estimated 9.8 million in 2015 (table 4; figure 3). High-income countries in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand are some of the slowest progressing countries with an average reduction in prevalence of 0.01% per year and a consistent rate of low birthweight of 7% per year between 2000 and 2015 (table 4). Within these regions, Czechia (yearly increase 2%), Ireland (1.3%), Portugal (1.2%), and Spain (1.1%) are making the slowest progress, with an upward trend in low birthweight prevalence since 2000. Overall, the UK has experienced a downward trend in prevalence (yearly decline 0.3%) since 2000, with total numbers fluctuating due to changes in livebirths each year (50,741 low birthweight livebirths in 2000 to 56,001 in 2015). "Low birthweight is a complex clinical entity composed of intrauterine growth restriction and preterm birth," says co-author Dr Mercedes de Onis from WHO, Switzerland. "This is why reducing low birthweight requires understanding of the underlying causes in a given country. For example, in Southern Asia a large proportion of low birthweight babies are born at term but with intrauterine growth restriction, which is associated with maternal undernutrition including maternal stunting. Conversely, preterm birth is the major contributor to low birthweight in settings with many adolescent pregnancies, high prevalence of infection, or where pregnancy is associated with high levels of fertility treatment and caesarean sections (like in USA and Brazil). Understanding and tackling these underlying causes in high-burden countries should be a priority." [1] The researchers note that whilst the study provides the only systematic data on low birthweight in all countries, it relies on modelling estimates that may be affected by a lack of data in low- and middle-income countries. Nearly half (48%) of all data points came from high-income countries compared to just 13% from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the regions with the highest prevalence rates and that accounted for three-quarters of all low birthweight babies born in 2015. The authors note several other limitations, including that the estimated trends are driven by changes in associated factors such as neonatal mortality and childhood undernutrition, which might not accurately reflect true changes in prevalence. Therefore, the gap to achieve the WHO target could be even wider. Whilst the authors adjusted survey data for heaping and missing data, they note that the low birthweight data available from low- and middle-income countries are predominantly from household surveys that are susceptible to bias owing to missing and misreported birthweights--which could underestimate low birthweight prevalence. Commenting on the implications of the findings, Professor Tanya Doherty from the South African Medical Research Council, South Africa, says: "The authors present an urgent and practical call to action to greatly improve the coverage of weighing at birth, including the need to count and weigh all babies (livebirths and stillbirths), strengthen existing data and health systems, and innovate better weighing devices. Yet achieving this practically, especially in emergency settings or weak health systems, remains a challenge." Nevertheless, she adds: "These new low birthweight estimates provide an opportunity to advance the agenda and call upon all stakeholders to take concerted action in the effort to ensure that every newborn is weighed at birth, and that the information is collated and used for local action and accountability at the household, community, district, national and global levels. At the same time, we must improve care for the 20.5 million low birthweight infants and their families each year." ### NOTES TO EDITORS This study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Children's Investment Fund Foundation, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and WHO. It was conducted by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; IRCCS Burlo Garofolo, Scientific Directorate, Trieste, Italy; World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; UNICEF, NY, USA; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. The labels have been added to this press release as part of a project run by the Academy of Medical Sciences seeking to improve the communication of evidence. For more information, please see: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AMS-press-release-labelling-system-GUIDANCE.pdf if you have any questions or feedback, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com [1] Quotes direct from authors and cannot be found in text of Article. IF YOU WISH TO PROVIDE A LINK FOR YOUR READERS, PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING, WHICH WILL GO LIVE AT THE TIME THE EMBARGO LIFTS: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30565-5/fulltext Peer-reviewed / Observational and modelling study / People **Country-level data available** NEW YORK -- Our brains have a remarkable knack for picking out individual voices in a noisy environment, like a crowded coffee shop or a busy city street. This is something that even the most advanced hearing aids struggle to do. But now Columbia engineers are announcing an experimental technology that mimics the brain's natural aptitude for detecting and amplifying any one voice from many. Powered by artificial intelligence, this brain-controlled hearing aid acts as an automatic filter, monitoring wearers' brain waves and boosting the voice they want to focus on. Though still in early stages of development, the technology is a significant step toward better hearing aids that would enable wearers to converse with the people around them seamlessly and efficiently. This achievement is described today in Science Advances. "The brain area that processes sound is extraordinarily sensitive and powerful; it can amplify one voice over others, seemingly effortlessly, while today's hearings aids still pale in comparison," said Nima Mesgarani, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and the paper's senior author. "By creating a device that harnesses the power of the brain itself, we hope our work will lead to technological improvements that enable the hundreds of millions of hearing-impaired people worldwide to communicate just as easily as their friends and family do." Modern hearing aids are excellent at amplifying speech while suppressing certain types of background noise, such as traffic. But they struggle to boost the volume of an individual voice over others. Scientists calls this the cocktail party problem, named after the cacophony of voices that blend together during loud parties. "In crowded places, like parties, hearing aids tend to amplify all speakers at once," said Dr. Mesgarani, who is also an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia Engineering. "This severely hinders a wearer's ability to converse effectively, essentially isolating them from the people around them." The Columbia team's brain-controlled hearing aid is different. Instead of relying solely on external sound-amplifiers, like microphones, it also monitors the listener's own brain waves. "Previously, we had discovered that when two people talk to each other, the brain waves of the speaker begin to resemble the brain waves of the listener," said Dr. Mesgarani. Using this knowledge the team combined powerful speech-separation algorithms with neural networks, complex mathematical models that imitate the brain's natural computational abilities. They created a system that first separates out the voices of individual speakers from a group, and then compares the voices of each speaker to the brain waves of the person listening. The speaker whose voice pattern most closely matches the listener's brain waves is then amplified over the rest. The researchers published an earlier version of this system in 2017 that, while promising, had a key limitation: It had to be pretrained to recognize specific speakers. "If you're in a restaurant with your family, that device would recognize and decode those voices for you," explained Dr. Mesgarani. "But as soon as a new person, such as the waiter, arrived, the system would fail." Today's advance largely solves that issue. With funding from Columbia Technology Ventures to improve their original algorithm, Dr. Mesgarani and first authors Cong Han and James O'Sullivan, PhD, again harnessed the power of deep neural networks to build a more sophisticated model that could be generalized to any potential speaker that the listener encountered. "Our end result was a speech-separation algorithm that performed similarly to previous versions but with an important improvement," said Dr. Mesgarani. "It could recognize and decode a voice -- any voice -- right off the bat." To test the algorithm's effectiveness, the researchers teamed up with Ashesh Dinesh Mehta, MD, PhD, a neurosurgeon at the Northwell Health Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery and coauthor of today's paper. Dr. Mehta treats epilepsy patients, some of whom must undergo regular surgeries. "These patients volunteered to listen to different speakers while we monitored their brain waves directly via electrodes implanted in the patients' brains," said Dr. Mesgarani. "We then applied the newly developed algorithm to that data." The team's algorithm tracked the patients' attention as they listened to different speakers that they had not previously heard. When a patient focused on one speaker, the system automatically amplified that voice. When their attention shifted to a different speaker, the volume levels changed to reflect that shift. Encouraged by their results, the researchers are now investigating how to transform this prototype into a noninvasive device that can be placed externally on the scalp or around the ear. They also hope to further improve and refine the algorithm so that it can function in a broader range of environments. "So far, we've only tested it in an indoor environment," said Dr. Mesgarani. "But we want to ensure that it can work just as well on a busy city street or a noisy restaurant, so that wherever wearers go, they can fully experience the world and people around them." ### This paper is titled "Speaker-independent auditory attention decoding without access to clean speech sources." Additional contributors include Yi Luo and Jose Herrero, PhD. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIDCD-DC014279), the National Institute of Mental Health (R21MH114166), the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences and Columbia Technology Ventures. The authors report no financial or other conflicts of interest. Columbia University's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute brings together a group of world-class scientists and scholars to pursue the most urgent and exciting challenge of our time: understanding the brain and mind. A deeper understanding of the brain promises to transform human health and society. From effective treatments for disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, depression and autism to advances in fields as fundamental as computer science, economics, law, the arts and social policy, the potential for humanity is staggering. To learn more, visit: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu. Tuberculosis is a potentially deadly though curable disease. Each year about 10 million people develop active cases, and 1.6 million people die. In addition, about 1.7 billion people around the world are infected with TB bacteria, which can lie dormant for weeks to years, then become active and cause disease in up to 10 percent of those who are infected. Today, people who contract tuberculosis typically take a course of drugs for six to eight months. However, the length of treatment means some patients don't stick with the therapy or may develop adverse effects from drug toxicity. Some may develop resistance to the drugs, requiring changes in the drug regimen that can lengthen the treatment to as long as two years. Even worse, there is a high fatality rate among those with drug-resistant TB. In new research, UCLA scientists have reported finding a way to significantly reduce the duration of treatment by using an approach called "artificial intelligence-parabolic response surface." This data analysis method identifies which drug combinations work synergistically -- that is, individual drugs working together in a way that is more potent than the sum of their individual potencies. The method, when used in cell culture and subsequently mouse models of TB, allowed researchers to quickly identify three- or four-drug combinations among billions of possible combinations of drugs and doses, that significantly cut the duration of TB therapy. These regimens are suitable for treating both drug-sensitive TB and most cases of drug-resistant TB -- that is, they are "universal" regimens -- and are up to five times faster than the currently available standard treatment. "If our findings are replicated in human studies, patients will be cured much faster, be more likely to adhere to the drug regimen, suffer less drug toxicity, and be less likely to develop drug-resistant TB," said Dr. Marcus Horwitz, distinguished professor of medicine and microbiology, immunology & molecular genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the study's senior author. The study is published in the peer-reviewed PLOS One. The artificial intelligence-parabolic response surface platform was developed by co-author Chih-Ming Ho, distinguished research professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering. The platform has been applied to infectious diseases, cancers and organ transplants. In all, the researchers evaluated 15 drugs to identify the best four-drug combinations. The two most potent regimens comprised clofazimine, bedaquiline, pyrazinamide, and either amoxicillin/clavulanate or delamanid. Two of the drug regimens achieved a 100 percent cure rate, without relapse, in mice in three weeks. Another regimen cured the mice in five weeks. Both of the drug combinations included currently approved medications, Horwitz said. Mice who were treated with a standard drug therapy all still had TB bacteria in their lungs after six weeks, and in companion studies, these mice required 16 to 20 weeks to achieve a 100 percent relapse-free cure. The parabolic response surface regimens do not include isoniazid and rifampin, the two drugs in the standard regimen to which people with multi-drug-resistant TB develop resistance. They also do not include drugs classified as fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides, to which people with strongly drug-resistant TB additionally develop resistance. This means that the parabolic response surface regimens are suitable for treating the majority of even the most drug-resistant cases of TB. The next step will be to test the drug regimens in humans with tuberculosis who are resistant to the standard drugs used to treat TB. The researchers also plan to expand the therapy platform to include experimental TB drugs to develop even more potent combinations. ### The study was supported by a subgrant from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, a grantee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Additional study co-authors are Daniel Clemens, Bai-Yu Lee, Aleidy Silva, Barbara Jane Dillon, Sasa Maslesa-Galic and Susana Nava of UCLA; and Xianting Ding of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Enrique Rivero | May 13, 2019 Many scientists are currently working on investigating how quantum advantage can be exploited on hardware already available today. Three years ago, physicists first simulated the spontaneous formation of a pair of elementary particles with a digital quantum computer at the University of Innsbruck. Due to the error rate, however, more complex simulations would require a large number of quantum bits that are not yet available in today's quantum computers. The analog simulation of quantum systems in a quantum computer also has narrow limits. Using a new method, researchers around Christian Kokail, Christine Maier und Rick van Bijnen at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have now surpassed these limits. They use a programmable ion trap quantum computer with 20 quantum bits as a quantum coprocessor, in which quantum mechanical calculations that reach the limits of classical computers are outsourced. "We use the best features of both technologies," explains experimental physicist Christine Maier. "The quantum simulator takes over the computationally complex quantum problems and the classical computer solves the remaining tasks." Toolbox for Quantum Modelers The scientists use the variational method known from theoretical physics, but apply it on their quantum experiment. The advantage of this method lies in the fact that we can use the quantum simulator as a quantum resource that is independent of the problem under investigation," explains Rick van Bijnen. In this way we can simulate much more complex problems." A simple comparison shows the difference: an analog quantum simulator is like a doll's house, it represents reality. The programmable variational quantum simulator, on the other hand, offers individual building blocks with which many different houses can be built. In quantum simulators, these building blocks are entanglement gates and single spin rotations. With a classical computer, this set of knobs is tuned until the intended quantum state is reached. For this the physicists have developed a sophisticated optimization algorithm that in about 100,000 requests of the quantum coprocessor by the classical computer leads to the result. Coupled with extremely fast measurement cycles of the quantum experiment, the simulator at IQOQI Innsbruck becomes enormously powerful. For the first time, the physicists have simulated the spontaneous creation and destruction of pairs of elementary particles in a vacuum on 20 quantum bits. Since the new method is very efficient, it can also be used on even larger quantum simulators. The Innsbruck researchers plan to build a quantum simulator with up to 50 ions in the near future. This opens up interesting perspectives for further investigations of solid-state models and high-energy physics problems. Built-in Self-Check A previously unsolved problem in complex quantum simulations is the verification of the simulation results. "Such calculations can hardly or not at all be checked using classical computers. So how do we check whether the quantum system delivers the right result," asks the theoretical physicist Christian Kokail. "We have solved this question for the first time by making additional measurements in the quantum system. Based on the results, the quantum machine assesses the quality of the simulation," explains Kokail. Such a verification mechanism is the prerequisite for even more complex quantum simulations, because the necessary number of quantum bits increases sharply. "We can still test the simulation on 20 quantum bits on a classical computer, but with more complex simulations this is simply no longer possible," says Rick van Bijnen. "In our study, the quantum experiment was even faster than the control simulation on the PC. In the end, we had to take it out of the race in order not to slow down the experiment," says the physicist. Innsbruck Quantum Cloud This research achievement is based on the unique collaboration between experiment and theory at the Innsbruck quantum research center. The expertise from years of experimental quantum research meets innovative theoretical ideas in Tyrol, Austria. Together, this leads to results that are recognized worldwide and establishes an internationally leading position of Innsbruck's quantum research. "15 years of very hard work have gone into this experiment," emphasizes experimental physicist Rainer Blatt. "It is very nice to see that this is now bearing such beautiful fruit." The theoretical physicist Peter Zoller adds: "We in Innsbruck are not only leaders in the number of available quantum bits, but have now also advanced into the field of programmable quantum simulation and were able to demonstrate for the first time the self-verification of a quantum processor. With this new approach, we are bringing the simulation of everyday quantum problems within reach." ### The work now published in Nature was financially supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF and the European Union, among others. New analysis by the UK Trade Policy Observatory is warning that what should have been the technical formality of transferring EU powers into national law when the UK leaves the European Union, could instead open the gates for the widespread use of outlawed carcinogenic pesticides that have been shown to alter human reproductive, neurological, and immune systems. The analysis, carried out by researchers at the University of Sussex and a Masters student at the Centre for Alternative Technology alongside Pesticide Action Network, has uncovered a significant weakening of enforcement arrangements covering the approval of pesticides as part of legislative changes carried out under the EU Withdrawal Act. They include the removal of a blanket ban on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), potentially allowing for their use on UK land despite considerable evidence the chemicals, which effect how the body responds to sex hormones such as oestrogen, raise the risk of some cancers, birth defects, and other developmental disorders. Dr Emily Lydgate, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Sussex and Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, said: "While the stated aims of the EU Withdrawal Act was to bring existing EU pesticide regulations into UK law without major changes to policy, our analysis reveals that there are significant departures from EU pesticides legislation. The new legislation consolidates powers to UK ministers to amend, revoke and make pesticide legislation, and weakens both enforcement arrangements and the requirement to obtain scientific advice." The researchers warn that the EU system of significant checks and balances is being cast aside for a new regulatory process which places too much power into the hands of UK ministers and away from independent scientific advisors. EU requirements place independent scientific advice as integral to the approval process. The academics warn that the commitment to scientific evidence will be "significantly watered down" in the future with UK ministers only required to consider scientific evidence at their discretion. Chloe Anthony, a LLM student at the University of Sussex, said: "EU regulations on pesticides start from the overarching objectives and principles to protect human and animal health, and the environment. The legislation also puts the onus on industry to demonstrate, with a high level of certainty, pesticides don't have a harmful effect on humans, animals or the environment before they are placed on the market. These key guiding principles and objectives are not carried forward into the UK legislation, and it is unclear what the framework for future UK decision making will be." EDCs are permitted for use in Canada and the US and both North American governments view the EU ban as an undue trade barrier. The analysis observes this barrier has now effectively been lifted in advance of UK-US and UK-Canada future trade negotiations. The analysis also warns that the changes give ministers powers to open the door to more deregulation in the future. Ffion Thomas, a Masters student from the Centre for Alternative Technology, said: "These changes to pesticide regulation in the UK can hardly be characterised as 'technical'; they will weaken the rigour of the process by which pesticides are approved and monitored in the UK. UK Statutory Instruments introduce the ability for ministers to produce guidance documents which provide an easy path to future reform. In a best-case scenario this could lead to future strengthening of pesticide regulation but in a worse-case scenario, concentrate authority to UK ministers for future weakening of pesticide legislation." ### Researchers provide the first direct evidence for a rare kind of atomic nucleus. The special nickel nucleus (78Ni) is an isotope of typical nickel (58Ni), meaning they share the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. Usually more neutrons make isotopes less stable, but this isotope is special. 78Ni is more tough or rigid than other nickel isotopes with similar numbers of neutrons -- it takes more energy to excite 78Ni into a different state. Large things like planets are held together by gravity. Smaller things, such as cats, are held together by electromagnetism. These forces are very familiar in everyday life. But delve deeper beyond even the atomic level and you find that subatomic particles -- nucleons -- which make up atomic nuclei are held together by the strong nuclear force. This subatomic realm is where UTokyo researcher Ryo Taniuchi and colleagues explore. A typical nickel atom has 28 electrons (negative charges) surrounding a nucleus of 28 protons (positively charged nucleons) and 30 neutrons (neutral nucleons). Seventy percent of all nickel in the world is like this. The greater the disparity between neutrons and protons in nickel, the more susceptible it is to the destabilizing effect known as beta-decay. However even though 78Ni has many more neutrons than typical nickel isotopes, it is tougher than most of them. So why is 78Ni so special and what makes it so rigid? It's because of magic, but not the Harry Potter kind. In nuclear physics, magic numbers refer to a number of protons or neutrons that are said to form complete shells within the nucleus, structures that are more robust than incomplete shells. The idea of these shells is somewhat euphemistic as we're talking about the quantum domain where the logic of everyday experience doesn't apply. But a complete shell in this case relates to the strength of the nucleus. It takes more energy to excite and destabilize nuclei with complete shells. So if an atom has a magic number of protons, it will be tougher than one which does not. Similarly if an atom has a magic number of neutrons, it too is tougher than one which does not. However, if an atom has both magic numbers of protons and neutrons, then it's called doubly magic and is expected to be even tougher still. Taniuchi and colleagues demonstrated that 78Ni is doubly magic, but this was no simple trick. "As far as we're aware 78Ni does not exist on Earth, so to study it we had to make some," said Taniuchi. "To do this we had to break apart some heavy uranium, 238U, which is good for making neutron-rich nuclei. For this we used the powerful Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) at RIKEN in Japan." The researchers used RIBF to smash 238U particles on a target to induce an artificial fission (splitting) reaction. 78Ni was one of the products of the reactions they set up. Instruments at RIBF also allowed them to probe the sample they created. To do this the researchers observed gamma rays (a kind of radiation) from their excited 78Ni sample and recorded their characteristics. In this case, Taniuchi and colleagues looked for a telltale signature in the gamma-ray data to confirm their hypothesis. "This was an extremely difficult task and took a long time, but it was worth it for my Ph.D. You need sufficient data to identify the doubly magic characteristic and we struggled to get that despite access to the world-leading accelerator facility, RIBF," said Taniuchi. "After the experiment, colleagues from around the world helped analyze the data. Results suggest 78Ni is doubly magic, but also that the magic nature suddenly disappears in isotopes beyond 78Ni." You might wonder what is so important about 78Ni in the first place. Its existence may actually be pivotal to understanding the origin of matter. Life may not have been possible without it. "The Earth as we know it would not be the same without certain heavy elements, so it's important to know where these came from. We know that many are made in supernova explosions -- the death throes of giant stars -- or even in collisions between neutron stars," explained Taniuchi. "There is strong reason to believe that 78Ni and unstable nuclei beyond play a significant role in this process -- called nucleosynthesis. As a consequence of our discovery, researchers exploring this fascinating field can create better ideas about the origin of matter." ### Journal article R. Taniuchi, S. Momiyama, M. Niikura, T. Otsuka, H. Sakurai, Y. Tsunoda, K. Matsui, T. Miyazaki, et al. 78Ni revealed as a doubly magic stronghold against nuclear deformation. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1155-x European Research Council grants MINOS-258567, 307986 STRONGINT, SFB 1245 and 05P18RDFN1. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grants JP14J08718, L-13520. Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology grants JP18K03639 and JP16K05352. Spanish Ministry of Economy and Business grants FPA2014-57916, SEV-2016-0597. Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology grant TLCN.25/18. Hungarian Academy of Sciences grant GINOP-2.3.3-15-2016-00034. German Federal Ministry of Education and Research grants 05P15RDNF1 and 05P12RDNF8. Department of Physics - http://www.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ Graduate School of Science - https://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/index.html Research Contact Professor Hiroyoshi Sakurai Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, JAPAN Tel: +81-3-5841-4237 Email: sakurai@phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp Press Contact Ms. Kristina Awatsu Office of Communication, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033 JAPAN Tel: +81-3-5841-8737 E-mail: kouhou.s@gs.mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp Mr. Rohan Mehra Division for Strategic Public Relations, The University of Tokyo 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8654, JAPAN Tel: +81-3-5841-0876 Email: press-releases.adm@gs.mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp About the University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 2,000 international students. Find out more at https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en. Photo: The Canadian Press Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Paris, France on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Canada is offering homegrown softwood lumber and steel to help with the reconstruction of Paris's famed Notre Dame Cathedral, which was partially destroyed by fire in mid-April. In a letter sent to French President Emmanuel Macron this week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was proud to support France in the reconstruction of the iconic monument. The Canadian Steel Producers Association and the Forest Products Association of Canada have already indicated their support for the Canadian government initiative. Trudeau is in Paris today and Thursday to take part in a series of meetings in the fight against extremism and online violence, some two months after an attack at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, left 51 dead. Not long after arriving in Paris today, Trudeau made a visit to Notre Dame alongside the cathedral's rector, Patrick Chauvet, and French Culture Minister Franck Riester. The prime minister will also take part in the Christchurch Call to Action summit co-hosted by Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. He's also scheduled to speak at the VivaTech summit, an annual event celebrating innovation that brings together startups and leaders. Trudeau also has several bilateral meetings scheduled with the leaders of Jordan and Norway today, and France and New Zealand on Thursday. Vanderbilt University paleontologists are looking into the evolutionary origins of the whistles and squeaks that dolphins and porpoises make - part of the rare echolocation ability that allows them to effectively navigate their dark environment. The team, one of the first in the world to examine the ability's origins, used a small CT scanner to look inside a 30-million-year-old ear bone fossil from a specimen resembling Olympicetus avitus. This member of the toothed whale family, in a branch that died out before modern dolphins and porpoises appeared, lived in what is now the state of Washington. The CT scan revealed cochlear coiling with more turns than in animals with echolocation, indicating hearing more similar to the cloven-hoofed, terrestrial mammals dolphins came from than the sleek sea creatures they are today. "The simple theory is that there was one origin for echolocation in dolphins, and we'd find it in their 30-million-year-old ancestor," said Rachel A. Racicot, who completed the research as a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt. "Now, we believe it didn't evolve just once in this lineage, but more than once and in more than one lineage - at least in xenorophids, which are extinct, and somewhere along the line to the Odontoceti crown group that still survives." Because echolocation is useful for navigating dark waters, natural selection likely came into play with its development in the branch that survived, she said. The findings appear May 15 in The Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Racicot will join Vanderbilt's Earth and Environmental Sciences Department after spending a year working in Germany. Her co-author, Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Simon A.F. Darroch, installed the CT scanner, which works the same way as those used in medicine and allows for internal examination of fossils without damaging them. Learning echolocation's origins also can help preserve modern creatures that use it, Darroch said, by understanding how they're perceiving sound from ship engines, oil drills and other machinery. Confusion over those sounds may be causing mass stranding events, and solving the mystery could lead to methods of discouraging species such as the vaquita, a small porpoise on the brink of extinction in the Gulf of California, away from boats and nets. "If we develop correlates for the shapes of the inner ear and how that corresponds to hearing frequencies, we can extrapolate those methods without capturing animals and bombarding them with sounds that don't work," Darroch said. First, according to Racicot and Darroch, paleontologists will have to find and scan a much larger sampling of all the toothed whale group's ancestors and those of rare modern species. ### Other authors were Robert W. Boessenecker of the College of Charleston, who identified, described and prepared the specimen, and Jonathan H. Geisler of the New York Institute of Technology, who coded characters and explored its evolutionary tree. May 14, 2019 - Can science measure what it means to be wise? A growing body of evidence suggests that wisdom is a complex concept that contributes to mental health and happiness, according to a review in the May/June issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. Different aspects of wisdom may be traced to specific areas of the brain, and might possibly be enhanced by behavioral interventions, suggests the article by Dilip V. Jeste, MD, and Ellen E. Lee, MD, of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California San Diego. They write, "Wisdom has important implications at both individual and societal levels, and warrants further research as a major contributor to human thriving." Research Helps Define Wisdom and Its Impact on Our Lives What is wisdom? While it has been discussed in religion and philosophy for centuries, scientific research on wisdom has accelerated in the past few decades. While it may seem impossible to define and measure wisdom, Drs. Jeste and Lee note that research has demonstrated the validity of other psychological constructs such as consciousness, stress, and resilience. Based on an in-depth review from ancient writings to modern times, Drs. Jeste and Lee propose that wisdom can be defined as "a complex human trait with several specific components: social decision making, emotion regulation, prosocial behaviors, self-reflection, acceptance of uncertainty, decisiveness, and spirituality." Over the years, several approaches to measuring wisdom have been proposed, although each has its limitations. The basic concept of wisdom has always been the same, suggesting that it "probably has an underlying neurobiological basis." Drs. Jeste and Lee propose a model of the neurobiology of wisdom, localized mainly to two areas of the brain: the prefrontal cortex and limbic striatum. "Emerging research suggests that wisdom is linked to better overall health, well-being, happiness, life satisfaction, and resilience," the researchers add. Wisdom seems to increase with age despite decreased physical health, and has been linked to better quality of life. Enhancing wisdom in older age may even confer an evolutionary advantage: "Despite the loss of their own fertility and physical health, older adults help increase their children's well-being, health, longevity, and fertility - the 'Grandma Hypothesis' of wisdom." The authors propose a model of the development of wisdom, involving genetics, environment, and epigenetics. Wisdom's positive effects on health and well-being raise an intriguing question: Can wisdom be increased? While research is limited so far, psychosocial and possibly biological interventions to enhance the function of brain areas involved might lead to enhanced wisdom. The researchers call for "a greater emphasis on promoting wisdom through our educational systems from elementary to professional schools." Such efforts might have important benefits, with increases in wisdom leading to improved health and well-being on the societal as well as individual level. Drs. Jeste and Lee conclude, "There is a need to expand empirical research on wisdom, given its immense but largely untapped potential for enhancing mental health of individuals and promoting well-being of the society at large." ### Click here to read "The Emerging Empirical Science of Wisdom" DOI: 10.1097/HRP.0000000000000205 About the Harvard Review of Psychiatry The Harvard Review of Psychiatry is the authoritative source for scholarly reviews and perspectives on a diverse range of important topics in psychiatry. Founded by the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry, the journal is peer reviewed and not industry sponsored. It is the property of Harvard University and is affiliated with all of the Departments of Psychiatry at the Harvard teaching hospitals. Articles encompass major issues in contemporary psychiatry, including neuroscience, epidemiology, psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, history of psychiatry, and ethics. About Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the health, tax & accounting, finance, risk & compliance, and legal sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services. Wolters Kluwer, headquartered in the Netherlands, reported 2017 annual revenues of 4.4 billion. The company serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide. Wolters Kluwer Health is a leading global provider of trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students with advanced clinical decision support, learning and research and clinical intelligence. For more information about our solutions, visit http://healthclarity.wolterskluwer.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @WKHealth. GBP/USD UPDATE: The Pound to US Dollar exchange rates touched a new three-month low on Thursday, with the pairing sliding to $1.2822 as US-China trade tensions look set to escalate. Investors continued to snap up the safe-haven US Dollar on Thursday as Donald Trump effectively banned Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from doing business with US companies, stoking fears that US-China trade talks could break down entirely. Meanwhile, limiting the appeal of the Pound was the speculation over the future of Theresa Mays premiership as she met with senior Conservatives amid growing calls for her to set a date of departure. GBP/USD UPDATE: Rising expectations of 'no outcome' from cross-party Brexit talks coupled with extreme pessimism over PM May's plans to put the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) to a House of Commons vote in early June prompted a continuation of the slide in the Pound to US Dollar exchange rate with Sterling tumbling to a three-month worst and last seen trading at $1.28328. Downbeat US retail sales figures weren't enough to stem the Sterling's losses, with the overarching Brexit issue remaining the key driver of the Sterling's market value while continued risk-aversion lent the Greenback relative support. On the data front it's quiet for the GBP but for the Greenback a raft of releases later in the session could prompt some market volatility. Key releases are expected to be the latest Philly Fed Manufacturing and Confidence Indexes which should give some clues as to the overall state of the US manufacturing sector. We'll also see the latest housing market data with building permits issued and housing starts data due. Outwith hard data, the US-China trade war remains the most important driver in financial markets. "...in the short term, we may not get much new information as no new measures are likely to be announced from either side. The next thing to look out for would be comments about a new round of talks or a potential phone call between Xi and Trump." wrote Danske Bank analysts. On Cable, Hantec Market's Richard Perry summarised the technical chart setup, "As the outlook for sterling deteriorates the candlesticks on Cable are increasingly negative. In the past week and a half, the consistent selling pressure has now dragged Cable below $1.2865 to test the old support from the turn of the year. There is a pivot around $1.2815 whilst the February low at $1.2770 is key," wrote Perry, adding "Corrective momentum has accelerated away from a building downtrend, but the increasingly aggressive candlesticks will be a concern for the longevity of support." UPDATE: The recent downtrend in the Pound to US Dollar (GBP/USD) exchange rate continued on Wednesday, propelling the pairing to a new three-week low of $1.2863. This comes in spite of the latest US retail sales figures reporting that domestic sales growth fell sharply last month, contracting 0.2% in April, after previously surging 1.7%. The continued strength of USD likely comes as markets remain focused on the escalation of trade tensions between the US and China, which has sent investors flocking to the safe-haven US Dollar. Pound (GBP) Exchange Rates Stabilises as Parliament Gears Up for Another Brexit Vote After falling through the first half of the week, the Pound (GBP) appeared to stabilised against the US Dollar (USD) and the rest of its peers on Wednesday, following the announcement that Parliament will hold another Brexit vote in June. Announcing the plan to hold another debate on Brexit, Theresa May said the vote was imperative if the UK is to leave the EU before summer recess and that it would go ahead regardless of whether or not the government and Labour have managed to reach a deal by then. Downing Street warned that should her deal be defeated again then the only options on the table will either be a no-deal Brexit or for Article 50 to be revoked, after the EU refused to delay Brexit past the end of October. While cross-party talks are still ongoing, so far there has been little in the way of progress, with Number 10 describing them as both useful and constructive, but Labour continues to express frustration at May apparent refusal to budge on her so-called red lines. Casting further doubts over the talks are the efforts by Conservative backbenchers to force May to resign, with Mays successor potentially reneging on any deal made with Labour. A Labour party spokesman said: [Jeremy Corbyn has] raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments, following statements by Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers seeking to replace the prime minister. US Dollar (USD) Steady as US-China Trade Dispute in Focus At the same time, the US Dollar (USD) held its ground on Wednesday morning as reignited trade tensions between the US and China continue to prop up demand for the safe-haven US currency. Tensions have escalated between the two powers over the last week as the US hiked tariffs on Chinese goods to 25% last Friday before Beijing retaliated with its own tariffs hikes on US goods at the start of this week. This unsurprisingly has unnerved investors, who just a couple of weeks ago were almost complacent in their belief that a US-China trade deal was close to being finalised. With the two sides now beating the trade war drums once more, investors have been flocking to the US Dollar and other safe-haven assets as they prepare for the worst. However, offering some semblance of hope for a trade deal and helping to limit demand for USD on Wednesday were a series of tweets from Donald Trump, in which he suggested that a deal would be signed when the time is right. GBP/USD Exchange Rate Forecast: Slowdown in Retail Sales to Weaken the US Dollar? Looking ahead, the Pound US Dollar (GBP/USD) exchange rate may rally on Wednesday afternoon as the US publishes its latest retail sales figures. Economists forecast that sales growth in the US will have fallen sharply last month, tumbling from 1.6% to just 0.2% and likely dampening demand for the Greenback. This will be swiftly followed by the release of US industrial production figures, which could place further pressure on the US Dollar if factory growth stagnated last month as expected. Meanwhile, in the absence of any notable domestic data, the Pound may struggle to find momentum through the second half of this week as this leaves the focus on Brexit and the uncertainty that continues to surround the whole process. Sterling sentiment could also take a hit in the build up to next weeks EU elections, with GBP investors likely to wary about a strong performance from the Brexit party and what this could mean for the potential of a second referendum. EURO UPDATE: The Euro found respite from the US Dollar's strength during Wednesday's session with the single currency reversing earlier losses versus the Greenback after US officials said President Trump is likely to postpone a decision on tariffs targeting the European by up to six months. Having dipped to $1.118, Fibre recovered strongly on the news with the single currency last seen trading at $1.12105. While unofficial, President Trump is expected to confirm the reports on Saturday. "The assumption is that thats going to delay any tariffs on European autos, which has been the issue hanging over the broader trade talks, said Shaun Osborne, chief FX strategist at Scotiabank in Toronto. On Fibre, "Long term prospects for the euro are not particularly bright, given the regions soft economic fundamentals. But the news on the auto tariff delay is helping the euro establish support at the $1.1200 threshold, said Shin Kadota, senior strategist at Barclays in Tokyo. On the overarching US-China trade war - in light of recent developments and in lieu of apparent triggers for further escalation in the near-term, trade-related news could fade in the near-term. "...in the short term, we may not get much new information as no new measures are likely to be announced from either side. The next thing to look out for would be comments about a new round of talks or a potential phone call between Xi and Trump." wrote Danske Bank analyst Aila Mihr, adding "we would caution that the two sides seem quite far from each other on some key elements and we could end up in a war of attrition where it takes financial stress for the two sides to find a compromise." The trade war is still dominating headlines as Trump tries to calm markets. Germany data is looking up and GDP showed 0.4% growth in Q1. However, Trump could impose tariffs on European vehicles, a measure which would weigh heavily on Germany. Forex and stock markets are flat at the start of Wednesdays session. That is not a surprise for currencies which have seen volatility and trend practically disappear in 2019, but for stock markets it does finally show a change in the wild swings and a return to a more normal trading pattern. Mondays capitulation did recover well on Tuesday but could not break out of Mondays range and there is a long way to go to reach the 2019 highs again. The news is mixed as President Trump tries to calm the markets in the wake of the recent trade tensions but a deal is clearly a distant hope now and the sentiment shift cant be undone so easily. Tuesdays tweets included, When the time is right we will make a deal with China. My respect and friendship with President Xi is unlimited but, as I have told him many times before, this must be a great deal for the United States or it just doesnt make any sense. Of course this does not take into account what China considers a good deal. It is widely thought China still wants a deal, but changing its laws and caving to every US wish is clearly not an option. Trump said hell meet with President Xi at the G20 summit in Japan at the end of June, but it would be a positive surprise if any steps were taken between now and then to come to a renewed agreement. In another move to boost the markets Trump also pointed to Chinas use of financial stimulus and called on the Fed to do the same. He claimed that GDP would grow at 5% with a little quantitative easing, which would certainly help his re-election bid but seems unlikely. The US dollar didnt make much of the comments and stayed steady around the 97 level, just below the 2019 highs. Germany Recovery Underway? Away from the trade war, data continues to be the main focus for Euro traders. This week we saw further evidence of a eurozone economy rebound as German GDP data impressed. This could be a big deal as Germany has been the main concern as it is not only the largest economy but one of the weakest too and the decline in data shocked many onlookers. Heres ING with further insight, Todays GDP data is balm for the soul of the German economy. It also confirms our long held view that not all is bad in the German economy. Some of last years one-off factors have turned around, the German automotive industry might have seen better times but should not be written off and private consumption remains solid. In fact, the ongoing dichotomy between struggling industry and strong domestic demand continues and at least this time around ended with a positive outcome. The rebound can be seen clearly in the figures. The German economy grew by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of the year, up from 0.0% in 4Q18 and -0.2% in 2Q18. For months now analysts have been looking for signs of eurozone data bottoming out and while there have been strong spots, especially Spain, there were always concerns too, mostly centred on Germany. However, with the latest round of figures we can probably say that the slump has bottomed out. For now at least. Unfortunately, the renewed tariff war could put additional strain on the global economy going forward. The measures wont really show up in data for several months but they will start to weigh on figures later in the year. Additionally, there could be measures imposed by Trump which could affect Germany directly. Adding to the risk factors, note also that by Saturday, 18 May, Trump has to decide on the potential of tariffs on European vehicles. While we do not expect Trump to go ahead with the tariffs, we should keep an eye on a potential new risk factors for the European/global economy. Should he go ahead, the tariffs must either be implemented within 15 days or he can delay implementation by 180 days if negotiations with the EU start (the latter may be more likely), report Danske Bank. Ironic that just as data starts to recover, several factors are already developing that may push the figures down again. I don't see recent posting about simple visit visa due to all the changes with the other visa's.... so if anyone has applied recently for visit visa could you please advise me If and when my wife gets her ILR we want to invite her sister (PP) and daughter (8) over for 3 week trip from Thailand. They will return on exact date as the daughter has private school to attend and have travelled before but not to UK Now, I would sponsor all payments and expenses but does the sister in law still have to have funds over a certain amount (and held for 6months) in their own bank account? Her holidays are September so would not have 6months to work with Looking forward to members advise Another thread (about baby Archie) got me wondering. The poster of that item linked to a news article that included this: "According to the US Department of State, in the case of the royal baby, he or she will acquire US citizenship because s/he was born in wedlock abroad to an American citizen who has lived in the US for a period of five years, at least two of which were after the age of 14." My question is: does my own grandchild have US citizenship? The background: My daughter, born in Canada, had to be registered by us shortly after her birth to have US citizenship, and we did that. For over 30 years, she never lived in the US at all. Marriage, work and travel took her to New Zealand, where she gave birth to our grandchild. When born, the child had no automatic US status, since our daughter had never lived in the US. Five years ago our daughter moved with her husband to California for his job, and they have now lived there continuously for those five years. I am wondering if now - retroactively? - our grandchild would be considered a US citizen. I am guessing the answer is "no" but I thought I'd post this to see if anyone has an opinion. Thanks. Wednesday, May 15, 2019 Press Release from the Institute of Management Consultants, DFW Chapter - Event May 20, 2019 Founder of Holistic Education Institute to get Richard F. Tozer award Dallas, TX - Author, speaker, and entrepreneur Phillip Andrews will receive the Dr. Richard F. Tozer Innovation & Entrepreneurship Leadership Award from the Institute of Management Consultants Monday, May 20, at a dinner at the Wyndham Park Central. A co-author of six books and a co-founder of the Holistic Education Institute, Mr. Andrews advises four startups, mentors at three innovation centers, and serves three non-profit organizations as a board member. He promises to share a few stories from a life of entrepreneurship on horror and regret, excitement and bliss, CEOs from competent to crazy, and the culture of servant leadership. The award honors the memory, spirit, and dedication of thought leader, trusted advisor, executive, educator, and friend Richard F. Tozer, a longtime Dallas management consultant who taught at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Dallas. A panel led by Dr. Jim Webb, CMC, will link Mr. Andrews' work to the legacy of Dr. Tozer, following an introduction by Dr. Gerald Turner, CMC, to articulate Dick Tozer's mantra. Panelists include Debra Fortner, Joseph Leonard, and Richard Morgan, FIMC, CMC. The DFW Chapter of the Institute of Management Consultants supports the management consulting community in North Texas. The Tozer Award forum is open to the business community. Guests can reserve a ticket for dinner and the program at http://bit.ly/2DYIy9V and learn more about IMC at http://bit.ly/2mzvtfR . Contact: Patricia Gaffney Phone: (817) 798-2082 Proxy advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co. on Wednesday recommended that Argo Group International Holdings shareholders remove chairman Gary V. Woods, who also is president of San Antonio-based McCombs Enterprises. Glass Lewis also advised Argo shareholders to vote for two of five board candidates nominated by Voce Capital Management in the San Francisco hedge fund managers proxy fight with the specialty insurer. Argo is based in Bermuda but maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Antonio, where it employs about 200 people. Shareholders will elect directors at the companys annual meeting May 24 in Bermuda. Voce, Argos fourth largest shareholder with 5.6 percent of the stock, has criticized the insurer for its financial performance, expense levels and corporate governance issues. In a report, Glass Lewis said Voce has raised valid questions about high expenses and highlighted several inferior corporate governance practices at Argo. For those reasons, Glass Lewis said it would be reasonable for shareholders to ask (Woods) to step down from the board in the name of further board refreshment. On ExpressNews.com: Voce Capital makes a big bet on specialty insurer Argo Woods, 75, has been an Argo director since 2000 and chairman since 2001. Since 1979, he has served as president of McCombs Enterprises, the automotive, energy, real estate and investment holding company started by B.J. Red McCombs in 1953. A call to Woods was not returned. He received about $276,000 in cash and stock from Argo last year. Argo, in a statement, said Glass Lewis failed to acknowledge important contributions made by Woods. Mr. Woods leadership as independent chairman has been instrumental in guiding our long-term strategy and our expense management, all of which has led to our track-record of outperformance, Argo said. While disagreeing with Glass Lewis conclusion, Argo said the report recognized the insurers strong shareholder returns, robust operational results and a commitment to refresh its board with new directors. Voce issued its own statement in response to Glass Lewis report, saying the call to remove Woods underscores the extent of the leadership and oversight deficiencies at Argo. Hes not up for re-election this year. Glass Lewis is supporting Voce director nominees Charles H. Dangelo and Nicholas C. Walsh. Dangelo has served in various senior management roles at global insurance companies, while Walsh has a more than 40-year career at insurance giant AIG, their bios state. The proxy firm opposed Voces push for the removal of four other Argo directors. Glass Lewis report comes five days after another proxy advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, weighed in on the proxy contest. ISS recommended Argo shareholders vote for the insurers five directors rather than Voces nominees. On ExpressNews.com: Argo Group gets backing in its proxy fight with Voce Still, ISS said there may be room for improvements in certain areas at Argo. Both ISS and Glass Lewis counsel institutional investors on corporate governance issues at publicly traded companies. Glass Lewis found that Argos board has built a distinctive specialty insurance franchise that is delivering sustainable long-term shareholder value through (revenue) growth and continuous improvement in operating performance. Glass Lewis also said Voce has presented a compelling road map for achieving cost savings at Argo. But Glass Lewis said Voces criticisms about corporate spending do not amount to a clear case of management abuse of shareholder funds. Argo shares rose 20 cents to close at $73.77 Wednesday. Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD Photo: CTV News A rapid transit link to the North Shore is being considered to ease traffic congestion in Vancouver the province has announced. A possible SkyTrain link across Burrard Inlet is one of several recommendations in the Integrated North Shore Transportation Planning Project, CTV News reports. Our government recognizes commuters on the North Shore are frustrated with congestion, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Claire Trevena said in a statement. Traffic congestion is intricately connected to issues like housing affordability, says North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA Bowinn Ma, who is leading the study. Over the years, the high cost of housing has forced people to move farther from the places they work, resulting in longer commutes and serious traffic issues. A 2018 report recommends "evaluating the benefits and costs of, and conditions for rapid transit between the North Shore and Burrard Peninsula, connecting to the regional rapid transit network, and focusing on connecting Lonsdale City Centre with Vancouvers metropolitan core." "Municipal partners have stated a preference for 'rail' rapid transit," the planning project states. Widening the Lions Gate and Second Narrows bridges is "not possible due to structural limitations," the report says. Adding a third bridge isn't being considered. with files from CTV Vancouver On Tuesday morning, when Bernada Villegas-Juarez brought her car in for maintenance at Cavender Toyota, she was surprised by the large number of people crowded at the showrooms entrance. She walked toward the commotion with her 3-year-old nephew, Damian Villegas, who peered around employees, customers and news reporters towering above him. After a glimpse, Damian shouted and pointed at what had drawn the groups attention: the reunion of military working dog Kkeaton and his former handler, Aaron Stice. The last time Kkeaton and Stice had seen one another was October 2018 at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego. Stice, now a civilian trainer at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, was a corporal in the Marines. The patrol explosive detector dog and his former handler were a team for close to three years, protecting military troops. I couldnt be more happy to have him back, said Stice, 33, as the Belgian Malinois pawed at his face. Stice and his family adopted the dog, who was medically retired. Their reunion was made possible by American Humane, a nonprofit that has supported active military members, veterans and military animals since 1877. One of the organizations programs seeks to reunite retired military dogs with their former handlers. Related: One of a kind hospital in San Antonio treats military dogs injured in line of duty Cavender Toyota, located near northwest Loop 410 and Bandera Road, hosted the event as one of its military community initiatives. Prior to Kkeatons arrival, the dealerships president, Stephen Cavender, made a $2,000 donation to the nonprofit to support their military affairs program. American Humane veterinarian Lesa Staubus drove Kkeaton more than 1,200 miles, from San Diego to San Antonio. She bonded with the dog, who enjoyed lounging beside her, during the two-day trip. Irony is threaded throughout the pairs story. Stice was deployed to Afghanistan several years ago with his dogs namesake, Marine Cpl. Keaton Coffey. The Marine died in Afghanistan on May 24, 2012, three days before Kkeaton was born at JBSA-Lackland as part of a breeding program. Staubus said the extra K in the Belgian Melnois name is a military working dog designation. She said Kkeatons first handler couldnt get the dog to function safely. His work ethic changed at Camp Pendleton with Stice. He is a magnificent dog, Staubus said. It was Aarons love that tamed Kkeaton and that is what enabled this dog to do what he was born to do be a working dog. Top hits: Get San Antonio Express-News stories sent directly to your inbox Stice has worked with four military dogs, including Kkeaton. Deployments prevented him from adopting any one of the others, but he let his command know he wanted to adopt the K-9 upon being retired. Not losing his old partner was very important, he said. It was my last shot, Stice said, as Kkeaton chewed on a rubber toy. We couldnt be more thrilled. Its going to be a lot of relaxing. Hes going to get to be a dog now. Ill take care of him and get him whatever he needs. Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis Photo: Facebook More than 85 bikers roared into Chase, Friday, in support of a local nine-year-old who has been relentlessly bullied at school for over a year. While only a handful left Edmonton early Thursday, an invitation had been extended to any biker who wished to come out and support Samiya Noor. They were not disappointed. Motorcycles kept pouring into the parking lot of Memorial Park. Some were from Chase, others from Kamloops and even Vancouver. Before attending Haldane Elementary, Noor went to different schools in Alberta and never had an issue with bullies, Noors grandmother and guardian, Vicki Gustavson, says. The issues didnt start until they moved to Chase. Noor arrived in the parking lot with a big smile as the crowd cheered. Some fellow students brought bouquets of flowers, and she was presented with shirts, backpacks and stickers from Bikers are Buddies and other anti-bullying groups. Some of the bikers in attendance let go of their tough-guy personas and shed some tears at the sight of the overwhelming support. Andrew Phillips of the Bullying Enns group said as they made their way into Chase, they were greeted by parents, bikers and community members, who all came out to show their support. (The) whole town was excited, he said, noting the waves and honks they received. Bullying Enns is now looking to create a division of the group in Kamloops. Cavelle Layes / Kamloops Matters The siblings of a baby whose body was found buried in a backpack in January were removed from their grandparents' home Monday, a Child Protective Services spokesperson confirmed. Four boys, between 2- and 8-years-old, were taken from the home of Fernando and Josephine Yee, the maternal grandparents of King Jay Davila. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox A newborn, who is also a sibling of King Jay, was put in CPS custody on May 10 after officials took the baby from the hospital, CPS spokesperson Mary Walker said. The children were removed due to a "genuine and strong belief that children may be at imminent risk," Walker said in a statement. CPS did not elaborate on the circumstances that led to the agency's action. The removal has "no additional ties" to King Jay's death, Walker said. The CPS worker assigned to the case is bilingual, with Spanish being the worker's first language, Walker said, as the grandparents primarily speak Spanish. On ExpressNews.com: 'That's my blood:' San Antonio man serving a 4-year-prison sentence says he is the father of King Jay Davila A hearing is scheduled on May 23 to determine if the children will remain in CPS custody, Walker said. King Jay's death captured the attention of San Antonio earlier this year. The 8-month-old baby was first reported kidnapped by Christopher Davila, who was caring for the child at the time. Police believe Davila lied about the kidnapping in an attempt to cover up the baby's death. Davila later told police that King Jay died after he fell from his car seat, placed on a bed in Davila's home. Davila is now charged with injury to a child by omission, felon in possession of a firearm, drug possession and tampering with evidence. The case took a bizarre twist in April, when Gonzales testified that Davila is not the child's biological father. READ MORE: San Antonio man accused in King Jay's death is not the father, mother testifies Despite the testimony, Davila has maintained he is the baby's father. 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 2 1 of 2 Submitted / Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Carlos Javier Sanchez | Contributor, Photojournalist / Carlos Javier Sanchez | pixelreflexmedia.com Show More Show Less A partial recount of the East Sides District 2 race for San Antonio City Council wrapped up Tuesday without changing the outcome, according to the city. Former Councilman Keith Toney and local business owner Jada Andrews-Sullivan will face off in the June 8 runoff to determine the next East Side council member. When San Antonio Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones announced Tuesday that shell take a second shot at unseating GOP Congressman Will Hurd, the National Republican Congressional Committee was ready with a dismissive quip. If the definition of insanity truly is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, NRCC spokesman Bob Salera said, someone should check on Texas Democrats. As Texas Republicans should know, however, doing the same thing over and over in Hurds U.S. District 23 is not a sign of insanity. Its practically a prerequisite for success. The last two Republican representatives from this sprawling swing district which stretches from South San Antonio to eastern El Paso County, includes 29 counties and covers more than 800 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border lost their first campaigns in District 23. Hurd, a former CIA operative, dropped a hard-fought 2010 GOP primary runoff to local attorney Francisco Quico Canseco, waited four years and came back to claim the seat in 2014. Canseco lost a 2008 primary to Lyle Larson, then came back two years later and rode the tea-party wave to the nations capital. Thats the District 23 way. The district is so geographically intimidating and politically complex that it almost requires you to approach your first campaign there as a dress rehearsal for a future performance. On ExpressNews.com: Jones sounds ready for rematch with Hurd While its way too early to know whether Jones can flip District 23 next year, its not too early to point out the absurdity of her Republican detractors suggesting that she must be mentally unhinged to even ponder another congressional campaign. Keep in mind that Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer, lost the 2018 race to Hurd by only 926 votes out of more than 210,000 votes cast (a margin of .4 percent). Few people outside the Jones campaign team thought election night in District 23 would offer anything that suspenseful. A mid-October New York Times poll showed Hurd ahead by 15 percentage points. Most local Democrats privately described the race as a lost cause. Joness late surge, while not quite enough to pull off the upset, gives her reason for optimism in 2020. The common Republican line about District 23 is that conditions will never be better for a Democratic victory than they were in 2018, when Beto ORourkes insurgent Senate campaign drove Texas turnout to a midterm record of nearly 8.4 million votes. While national turnout was up about 40 percent from the 2014 midterms, in Texas the spike was 77 percent. Republicans argue that if Jones couldnt win under those circumstances, she never will. Its a fair point, but the pattern in District 23 has been that Democrats have their best results in presidential election years, when turnout is at its highest levels. District 23 went Democratic in both 2008 and 2012, and, by all logical reckoning should have done the same in 2016, when Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton carried the district by 3 percentage points over Republican candidate Donald Trump. That election was Hurds greatest political achievement, as he weathered the presidential storm and edged former Democratic Congressman Pete Gallego by a margin of 1.3 percent. I think Ginas got a great shot, said Rick Trevino, a hard-left Bernie Sanders disciple who took Jones to a Democratic runoff last year. Trevino decided not to run again in 2020 because he believes that Joness fundraising base and name recognition will be too much for any other Democratic hopeful. She just spent a year developing real name I.D. Theres a real base for Gina. They know her, they support her and a lot of the people who voted for her supported her three times in the primary, the runoff and the general election. Assuming that Jones emerges as the District 23 Democratic nominee (and no other major Democratic candidate has emerged thus far), the 2020 race should echo all the dominant themes of the 2018 contest. Jones will contend that for all of Hurds amiability and emphasis on political civility, he has been an enabler of Trumps policies. On ExpressNews.com: Beto bump tightened race between Hurd and Jones Hurd, while trying to hold together his Republican base, will point to examples of his independent streak: voting against a 2017 GOP repeal of the Affordable Care Act, criticizing Trumps policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border and calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before Congress. While Trump has rebranded the GOP as a force for nationalism and protectionism, Hurd clings to a Ronald Reagan Republican model that embraces traditional alliances and free trade. There was a Republican Party before (Trump) and theres going to be a Republican Party after, Hurd told late-night TV host Seth Meyers earlier this month. If Jones has anything to say about it, that Republican Party wont have a congressional representative in District 23. @gilgamesh470 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 A proposed $1.6 billion budget boost for NASA meant to jump start the agency's plan to put humans on the moon by 2024 would be funded with what officials said were surplus monies from the federal Pell Grant program for low-income college students. The move proposed by President Donald Trump on Monday brought a sharp and swift response Tuesday -- even from supporters of the space program. "I'm all for space travel and returning to the moon but not at the expense of education," retired NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez posted on Twitter. "If the Pell Grant money is a surplus, how about increasing the size of grants so college grads don't graduate with so much debt?" The new NASA budget request for $22.6 billion was released Monday night, two months after the Trump administration directed the space agency to put humans on the moon four years earlier than planned, in 2024 instead of 2028. News of the proposed increase came as Congressional leaders were growing increasingly impatient that the agency could not provide a plan to meet the new moon objective especially because the Trump administration had previously suggested a half-billion-dollar cut starting Oct. 1. The proposed expansion for NASA and several other agencies would be funded by redistribution of $3.9 billion in Pell Grant money. Federal officials said Tuesday the money came from a budgetary surplus within the Pell Grant program and that no current recipients would be impacted. Pell Grant subsidies are awarded to students who show "exceptional financial need." The American Council on Education said the cuts "would hurt students and make college more expensive." "We strongly oppose this proposal and urge Congress to instead provide the necessary increase to Pell funding in the House appropriations bill," the council wrote. Laura Seward Forczyk, founder and executive director of George Space Alliance, was opposed the move. "Cutting education now cripples the space workforce later," she said on Twitter. "Is this the future we wish to create?" STRANGE SCIENCE: A self-cleaning space suit to protect from dust Nearly 415,000 students in Texas received Pell Grants in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Statewide, the University of Texas System had the largest number of students attending who had received Pell Grants nearly 70,000 students. Houston Community College had the largest among individual colleges and public universities, with 17,486. The University of Houston was second among individual four-year universities with 14,742, behind the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley with 15,306. "More than 40 percent of our students system-wide rely on Pell Grants to make college education more affordable and transform their lives," UH System officials said in a written statement. "As a longtime partner, we recognize the importance of NASA, but encourage Congress and the Administration to examine alternative funding sources for space exploration." In the current year ending June 30, students were eligible to receive up to $6,095. Unlike student loans, the grants do not have to be repaid but the maximum available can change from year to year. Students are eligible for up to six years, according to federal officials. SPACE JUNK: The universe is a pretty cool place. Sign up for the newsletter here. For NASA, the additional $1.6 billion would help the space agency develop a commercial lunar lander for humans three years earlier than planned, funnel more money into the Space Launch System rocket being built to take the Orion spacecraft to the moon, and enable more robotic exploration of the moon's polar regions before a human mission. The goal is to fly two SLS-Orion missions one without humans and another with crew aboard prior to 2024. The mini space station would also be launched during that period. Then in 2024, the third SLS-Orion mission would rocket to the Gateway, where astronauts would board a lunar lander waiting to take them to the moon's surface. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine acknowledged Tuesday morning at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. that the $1.6 billion increase was on the "low end" of what the agency would need to reach its goal. In a statement Tuesday, Republican U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma who is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, announced his support of the new NASA budget though he did not mention the money would be taken from the Pell Grant program. "America has long been the preeminent power in space but we're facing more and more competition as other nations propose bold exploration plans," he said. ""The President and Vice President's challenge to land on the Moon by 2024 reflects the urgent need for American leadership in space it's an ambitious challenge but one I fully support and urge the American people to get behind." Lucas called the new funding request "budget neutral and technically feasible." U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from Texas who is chair of the committee, declined to comment Tuesday, though she has spoken strongly in recent months about her disappointment that NASA did not have a solid plan to get to the moon and then Mars. All budgets must be approved by Congress. Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and science for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey. Behind the recent admission by a former CIA officer that he plotted to spy for China lies an astonishing tale of Beijings espionage against America and the vindication of other CIA officers who were falsely suspected of being the Chinese mole. This saga has a classic thriller plot, in which a suspect must find the real villain to clear his name. Unfortunately, most of the details of the true-life version remain secret, under seal at the U.S. Attorneys office in Alexandria or in the vaults of the CIA. But knowledgeable sources sketched parts of the story that arent classified. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, who was a CIA case officer from 1994 to 2007, pleaded guilty May 1 to conspiring with Chinese intelligence agents to provide secret information. U.S. officials wont discuss the precise damage Lee did, but intelligence experts believe he was part of an aggressive Chinese spy operation that led to the exposure, arrest and execution of at least 20 CIA sources inside China. For an intelligence service like the CIA, thats as bad as it gets. The resolution of the Lee case comes at a time when the Trump administration is threatening to escalate its trade war against Beijing to force China to stop stealing commercial secrets and allow fairer trade. The negotiations hit a deadline Friday, when the administration raised tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. Trumps hard-nosed and sometimes erratic bargaining tactics have roiled financial markets. But as the Lee case shows, the Chinese are hardly innocent victims. They have been burrowing deep into the CIA to steal its most precious secrets, as well as pilfering corporate data wherever they can. Lee pleaded guilty to only one count of conspiracy, and prosecutors said his plea agreement and an accompanying statement of evidence were not intended to be a full enumeration of all of the facts surrounding the defendants case. Asked if Lee had agreed to cooperate with the CIA in sharing additional details, his attorney, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., responded: There is nothing in the plea agreement that deals with his cooperating. The hunt for a Chinese mole began after the CIA started losing its key sources in China in 2010. Lee, who first met with Chinese intelligence officers in April 2010, according to prosecutors, soon came under suspicion. Another suspect was a former senior case officer who had served in China when the blown network of spies was recruited. The senior case officer was eventually cleared, thanks to Chinese tradecraft mistakes that revealed their contact with Lee, a source said. The bungling came in Thailand in 2013, when Chinese spies made a sudden recruitment pitch to a former CIA operative who had worked with the senior case officer. She figured that someone had given the Chinese operative her name and told him it must have been Lee. Her Chinese would-be recruiter then foolishly blurted out: No, Im not handling Jerry. Its another team, according to a knowledgeable source. The former operative and her senior colleague promptly reported the conversation to the FBI, which added the Thailand evidence to its Lee file. In 2012, the FBI had copied two notebooks and a flash drive that Lee brought with him to Hawaii, according to prosecutors. That evidence helped lead to Lees conviction last week. If Lee hadnt made his plea agreement, prosecutors were ready to present evidence about the secret meeting in Thailand, the bungled pitch, and the Chinese admission of their relationship with Lee, a source said. The damage from this case still makes the intelligence community wince. They wiped us out in China. All the networks we had were gone, one former official said. Officials speculate that the Chinese may have used their contact with Lee to unravel other communications and tradecraft secrets. It was a double whammy; human sources and technical sources, the former official said. The Chinese mole case has been a subject of CIA corridor gossip, and occasional press stories, for several years. The CIA wont comment. MacMahon protests: If someone wants to accuse my client of getting people killed, they should attach their names to that charge. Its not even part of this case. Heres a last Chinese riddle. Experts say that in the Thailand meeting, the Chinese operative asked the former CIA officer about cases that Lee shouldnt have known about. Which leads to an eerie question: Was there another Chinese mole, buried even deeper? Spy fact can be much scarier than spy fiction. @IgnatiusPost Photo: BCCDC Interior Health partner locations in the Okanagan Valley and beyond are participating in a research program evaluating the safety of take-home fentanyl drug checking kits as part of a province-wide response to the overdose crisis. Vancouver Coastal Health and the BC Centre for Disease Control are spearheading the program to determine whether take-home kits are reliable for use without a healthcare professional. IH is partnering on the project. "We are expanding our current community-based drug checking sites to allow an opportunity for people to use a take-home kit," said Jessica Bridgeman, regional harm reduction coordinator with IH. "They'll get a little bit of training and information on how to use the test, how to interpret it as well as any limitations, and then they'll get to go home with five test trips and be able to test their substances in the privacy of wherever they might be." Kits will be available for free at the ASK Wellness Centres in Kamloops and Merritt, at ANKORS in Cranbrook and Nelson, at SOWINS in Penticton, in Kelowna at the Living Positive Resource Centre and in Vernon at the Cammy LaFleur Street Outreach Clinic. Clients will receive five free test strips, with instructions, to take home so they can check whether their substances possibly contain fentanyl, the toxin contaminating the illegal drug supply, which was responsible for approximately 87 per cent of illicit drug overdose deaths in 2018 in B.C. The test strips were originally developed to check urine for the presence of fentanyl but in July 2016 in light of the overdose crisis, VCH pioneered the use of the strips to check the drugs themselves for fentanyl. A small amount of a drug is mixed with a few drops of water, the test strip is inserted into the solution, and a positive or negative for fentanyl is revealed within seconds. "Using the test strips has shown that when people get a positive fentanyl result they are more likely to reduce their dose and less likely to overdose," said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer, VCH. "So we know that drug checking can help people make safer, more informed choices, and can prevent overdose deaths." Re: Do your job not everyone elses, Other View, May 8: Columnist Ruben Navarrette advises special counsel Robert Mueller to not tell Attorney General William Barr how to do his job. Isnt that the reverse of what transpired? When Barr publicly summarized what Muellers report was about in four pages, was he not taking it upon himself to do Muellers job? Mueller is justified in his objection to the incorrect and distorted conclusion reached by the attorney general regarding his 400-plus-page report. That is part of his job. When a wrong act is being committed, it should be everybodys responsibility to intervene, report it or correct it. The manner in which Navarrette opined suggested otherwise. J.J. Torres 173 years later Re: Todays border angst rooted in another presidents deceit, Opinion, March 17: The author states, My sincere expectation is that this article serves to counteract todays narrow-minded argument regarding U.S. borders and sovereignty. The narrow-minded argument refers to white nativists opposition to illegal immigration based on Respect U.S. national borders, and U.S. sovereignty is sacred. To counteract that argument, the author argues that the U.S. cannot assert defense of its sovereignty and respect for its borders because of its invasion of Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1846. His thesis appears to be that the U.S. forfeited its sovereignty or its authority to defend its sovereignty because it violated Mexicos sovereignty. The author appears to be nursing grievances over an event that occurred 173 years ago for the purposes of excusing illegal conduct and justifying unregulated immigration. Supporting the rule of law and opposing open borders should not be considered narrow-minded or limited to white nativists. Bob Barton Why are kids hungry? In the United States, many organizations, churches and government programs assist parents in feeding their children. So why are children going hungry? Why are parents not sending their children to school with lunches or signing up for free lunch programs? Why are children not being fed during the summer months? The only answer must be the parents either dont have their priorities straight or they need to be taught they have options. In this country, there is no excuse for not feeding your children before you do anything else. We need to hold these parents accountable or at least teach them that their children are their first priority. Jacque Petterson Fooled all the time As Jacques Abbadie, not Abraham Lincoln, stated in 1684: One can fool some men, or fool all men in some places and times, but one cannot fool all men in all places and ages. A partial exception to this quote has been born. Apparently, you can fool all of Donald Trumps base all the time. Thank God for term limits. They limit con men masquerading as presidents, as well as the fools who vote for them. Valerie Overstreet, Houston When women forced Re: Journey explores abortion barriers, front page, and Born-alive bill would prevent infanticide, Another View, April 29: Kudos to the San Antonio Express-News for presenting a piece from someone on either side of the abortion issue. However, as usual, both authors refused to acknowledge a long-neglected issue: enforced pregnancy and forced birth. Denying access to abortion forces women and girls against their will to remain pregnant and give birth. It would be nice to know how such things are considered moral. I would like to see what either side of this issue has to say, in plain English, about their position in regards to forced pregnancy and forced birth. Julie A. Robichaud Prices of new homes in the San Antonio region continued ascending in April as home sales grew and the areas housing stock remained tight, the San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR) said Wednesday. On ExpressNews.com: Most millennials arent buying homes except for one group: veterans The median price of a new home in Bexar and surrounding counties reached $230,700 last month, a 4% increase from $222,500 last April. House hunters snatched up more than 3,000 homes in the San Antonio area last month, up 6.4 percent from about 2,800 in April 2018. Last year, April home sales grew 17 percent. Most of those homes 58.2% cost between $200,000 and $500,000, SABOR said in a news release. About 36% cost less than $200,000, a price range considered affordable or entry-level, while 6% cost more than $500,000. Eighteen of those homes were valued at more than $1 million. On ExpressNews.com: Why are high-income San Antonio residents increasingly renting their homes? Homes spent more time on the market in April than they did the previous year but the San Antonio housing market remained tight. Available homes spent an average of 62 days on the market last month, four more days than in April 2018. The areas inventory of for-sale homes would take homebuyers 3.6 months to buy about where the stock has hovered for months. Six months worth of inventory is typically considered a healthy balance between buyers and sellers. On ExpressNews.com: Developer buys downtown San Antonio site, could gain from Trump tax incentive Texas home sales climbed about 7% from 28,010 in April 2018 to 29,950 last month. The median price of a new Texas home was $242,950 last month, a 4.3% increase from $233,000 in April 2018. Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering real estate, economic development and philanthropy. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports BRIDGEPORT Two Bridgeport residents have been charged in connection with the February slaying of city teen Dyshon Williams. On Feb. 11, the 19-year-old Cowles Street resident was shot around 10:45 p.m. Police found his body on Boston Avenue about two hours after ShotSpotter reported shots fired near the Luis Munoz Marin School, 479 Helen St. Lt. Christopher LaMaine said in a statement that the Detective Bureau arrested two people Wednesday afternoon in connection with Williams death. Darrick Tunstall, 19, of Horace Street, was charged with felony murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery and first-degree robbery. Vaughn Thomas Jr., 20, of Nelson Terrace, was charged with felony murder, conspiracy to commit first degree robbery, first-degree robbery, carrying a pistol without a permit and illegal discharge of a firearm. Thomas and Tunstall are each being held on a $1 million bond. LaMaine said evidence indicated that Williams went to the school around 10:30 p.m. to sell two ounces of marijuana to his friend, Tunstall. When Williams showed up, Tunstall and Thomas allegedly tried to rob Williams of the marijuana and fatally shot William in the process, LaMaine said. The arrests are the result of the excellent work done by the many detectives that worked on the case, which was led by Detective Heanue, and would not have been possible without the assistance of the States Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorneys Office, the lieutenant said. That February night, officers were first sent to the area of the north parking lot of the school on a report of shots fired. There, police found Williams car unoccupied. Police said there was blood in the car. Officers checked the area for a possible victim, but didnt immediately find Williams. Police Chief Armando Perez said at the time that the driver apparently ran away from the vehicle after being shot. During a more thorough search, officers found the body near the firehouse at 950 Boston Ave. Williams had collapsed on the sidewalk, in the shadows, in dark clothing, Perez said at the time. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later confirmed that Williams died from a gunshot to the torso with penetration to the neck. After the killing, Perez said it appeared to have been some kind of transaction gone bad. The chief said investigators were aided in their work by surveillance cameras in the area. Williams was the citys fifth homicide in 2019. According to an obituary for Williams, he was born in Richmond, Va., on Oct. 3, 1999. Williams graduated from Central High School in 2018. His first job was as a cart pusher at Shop Rite in Fairfield. He later received his security guard certification from the Bridgeport Gun Range and landed a job in loss prevention at Gala Foods as a security guard with aspirations of eventually joining the U.S Navy, the obituary said. Williams was remembered in his obituary as a funny child who always had jokes to crack and pranks to pull. It said Williams was always willing to help people. He loved family time, game night and spending time with his loved ones, the obituary said. He was a big time gamer, and, if you let him tell it, he was the best Fortnite and 2k player on the planet hands down. In the obituary, family said they were trying to cope with such a sudden and heartbreaking loss. As we mourn the loss of such a beautiful soul, we are intent on celebrating his life and will continue to do so to the fullest from this point forward, the obituary said. Dyshon laughed, Dyshon smiled, Dyshon helped, Dyshon loved and we KNOW that Dyshon would want nothing less than the same from all of us in this trying time. The city hasnt seen a homicide since the March 10 killing of 21-year-old Tyron Heard. Police said 20 bullets were fired into a parked car, fatally wounding Heard and injuring his 17- and 22-year-old companions. No arrests have been made. Five days before Heards death, 34-year-old Jerrell Gatewood who had survived a shooting in September 2013 was killed in a daytime shooting. No arrests have been made. On Feb. 5, 36-year-old Sujata Lee Edwards died after being shot through a second-story window in her home on William Street. The day before, 28-year-old Eric Salters died from injuries he sustained during a shooting on Barnum Avenue on Jan. 26. No arrests have been made in either case. Eugene Rogers, 50, was the citys second homicide of 2019; he was fatally shot on Jan. 27. Razzie Hancock, 39, was stabbed to death Jan. 14. Arrests have been made in both of the deaths. Anyone with information about any of the citys homicides can call the Bridgeport police tip line at 203-576-8477. STAMFORD A doctors decision over what killed a Stamford woman last November may not result in more charges being filed against her husband or mother-in-law, who were slapped with misdemeanor cruelty charges for waiting too long to call an ambulance. This week the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that Olga Iris Lopez, 36, who died about 12 hours after she was found unconscious in her mother-in-laws Southwood Square apartment last November, was killed due to blunt force injury to her head, chronic alcoholism and cirrhosis. The manner of death, which could determine if the injury was an accident or not, has not yet been decided. The prosecutor in the case, Supervisory Assistant States Attorney Paul Ferencek, would not say if the determination would lead to more charges being filed. Ferencek said the investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment on the case at this time. Stamford Criminal Defense attorney Lindy Urso, who represents Lopezs mother-in-law, Mercedes Martinez, 60, said there was nothing much of importance to the medical examiners decision on what killed Lopez. The reasons behind Lopezs death were well documented in the police reports on the incident that were released last November, he said. The cause of death appears consistent with my clients limited knowledge of what happened to Mrs. Lopez, Urso said, adding that he did not think the medical examiners description of the cause of Lopezs death will lead to more charges against his client. Attorney Kevin Black, who is representing Lopezs husband Hector Lopez, declined comment on the case. According to police reports, on Nov. 26, 2018 at 5:49 p.m. police officers were dispatched to the Southwood Square apartment on a report of an intoxicated and unresponsive woman lying on the hardwood floor in the living room. Martinez, who called the ambulance for her daughter-in-law, said Lopez had been drinking heavily for the past three days. Martinez said she woke up that morning between 4 and 5 a.m. and saw Lopez vomiting in the bathroom. Before she left for work that morning at about 9 a.m., Martinez said she heard Lopez take a fall in the bathroom, went to her and saw Lopez full of bruises and frothing at the mouth, a police report said. Martinez said she was unable to wake the victim up and asked her son what happened to her. She then told police that she suggested to her son that he call an ambulance, but he refused because Lopez said he was concerned that if medics came they would think he inflicted the bruises on his wife, a police report said. Hector Lopez has an extensive history with Stamford police, having been arrested for assaults, interfering with police, violating probation, stalking and violating protective orders put on him by Stamford judges. He is also known to be someone with an extensive history as a domestic violence perpetrator, the report said. When Martinez returned home from work at about 5:45 p.m., she saw Lopez lying in an unconscious state and called an ambulance for her. Martinez said to the officers that Lopez had a tendency to trip and fall all over the place. Once at Stamford Hospital, things continued to spiral for Lopez. A little after 8 p.m., police were told by hospital staff that Lopezs conditions were severely declining and that she had suffered a massive brain bleed due to blunt force trauma to the right side of her head, according to the police report. As well as the brain bleed, hospital staff also identified 30 to 40 fresh and old bruises on Lopezs body. As a result of the investigation, both Lopez and Martinez were charged with negligent cruelty to persons and the charges are still pending. No hearing dates are scheduled in the matter. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com BEACON FALLS - State Police from Troop I in Bethany are investigating a Liberty Bank branch robbery on Tuesday on South Main Street. A lone suspect wearing a dark colored North Face brand jacket, a dark knit cap and glasses entered the bank at about 1:30 p.m. and demanded cash for a teller, state police said. The teller turned over an undisclosed amount of cash and the robber took off in an unknown direction, police said. State police from Troop I and local police secured the area and conducted a K-9 track but are still looking for the suspect. The Connecticut Bankers Reward Association is offering a cash reward for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of the suspect, state police said. Anyone with information is asked to call Troop I at (203) 393-4200. GREENWICH Greenwichs newest candidate for public office is not only looking to take over a department she once worked in, shes looking to make some history as well. Heather Smeriglio is stepping forward as a Republican candidate for town tax collector. If elected, she would be the first female tax collector in the towns history. It is a department she knows well. After 33 years in the banking industry, she went to work for the town in 2013 and spent four years in the Tax Collectors Office. Im not a politician but I love this town, Smeriglio said Tuesday. I was born and raised here. I grew up in Byram and I have the desire to serve my town and serve the people in it. Smeriglio is a political newcomer; this will be the first race for any office for the mother of five. She will officially launch her campaign Thursday night at the St. Lawrence Club. She so far is the only Republican in the race. While the nominating meeting for the Greenwich Republican Town Committee is not until July, the RTCs candidate search committee is expected to finish its evaluations this week. If she is the Republican candidate, Smeriglio will face off against incumbent Democratic Tax Collector Howard Richman who is seeking his second two-year term in November. Smeriglio began her professional career as a teller at Greenwich Federal Savings and worked in several other town banks, eventually becoming a vice president and a branch manager. She was hired initially by the town to be an account clerk in the Tax Collectors Office, and while there became a certified municipal tax collector, a state certification earned by taking two years of courses and passing a final examination. I really wanted to learn more about taxes and what this position does, Smeriglio said. It fit perfectly into my banking background and I wanted to further investigate it. Her job was eliminated by the Board of Estimate and Taxation during two years of cuts to the department, which boiled into a dispute between the finance board and then Tax Collector Tod Laudonia. Smeriglio was reassigned to the town Parking Services Department, where she currently works as an account clerk. She did not offer specific changes or reforms to the way the office is run, but touted her experience in the department and state certification as qualifications for the position. An elected tax collector does not have to be certified to hold the position. Richman is not certified but is in the process of taking the necessary courses. He said he has taken three of the four courses needed and if reelected will complete them in a new term. I will be certified, Richman said. Smeriglio does not have management experience in town government, but does from her banking career. She said she also would lean on her experience working at the counter in the tax and parking departments, which she said has taught her the importance of good customer service. I have the knowledge and I have the compassion to want to serve, Smeriglio said. My door would always be open to anyone who wants to come and talk. I have a good personality for this. When I worked in banking I was known for customer service. I believe that is so important no matter where you go in life. When Laudonia was first elected he was not certified but took the courses through his first and second terms. Smeriglio called her former boss a mentor who encouraged her to run. On Tuesday, Laudonia said he didnt want to lose her as an employee when she was taken away by the BET. Heather is well qualified, Laudonia said. Shes a wonderful person and shes a people person. Heathers background and experience is perfect for the job. Richman was first elected in 2017, defeating incumbent Laudonia by a narrow vote of 6,746 to 6,574. But that was a major swing from the 2015 election when the two faced off for the first time. In that election Laudonia won with 5,984 votes to Richmans 3,329. Richman launched his reelection campaign in January, touting reforms during his first term including streamlining the deposit process for tax payments, redesigning tax bills to cut down on potential errors by taxpayers and enhancing the departments website to offer more information for taxpayers. Streamlining has earned the town interest, he said, and cut down on lines at Town Hall when taxes are due. Richman has gone after delinquent taxpayers, sending out overdue notices and threatening tax sales for those who still owe on their properties, an effort that has already brought in more than $1 million in back taxes. I hope people will look at my record and like my record, Richman said. I hope theyll see whats happening in this office. A lot of things have been done and a lot of things have worked. Im happy to run on my record. Democratic Town Committee Chair Tony Turner said Tuesday he is optimistic about Richmans reelection chances. Howard has done an excellent job, Turner said. He ... has a work schedule far beyond the call of duty. Hes exactly what the town has needed for a decade. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com FAIRFIELD Operation Hope of Fairfield marked its 18th annual Evening of Hope celebration and fundraiser by honoring three Community Heroes with a Mardi Gras in May-themed gala event held at Brooklawn Country Club. The community was invited to celebrate Operation Hopes many dedicated supporters. Among those, were three presented with Community Hero Awards: Alexander J. Trembicki, Peoples United Bank and the Bridgeport Ladies Charitable Society, who were each honored for their unwavering support of Operation Hopes daily mission. Its the 18th annual Evening of Hope and we are really excited tonight because not only is this a great community event but we have three amazing awardees, said Carla Miklos, executive director. We are just so happy to give them these awards. Fairfield First Selectman Mike Tetreau said, Operation Hope is a tremendous resource for our town, its something we should be really proud of. Our communities come together for nothing else but to give to those less fortunate, those that are truly in need. Often, you dont think of towns like Fairfield having a need like that, having residents down on their luck that need some help up. Operation Hope is dedicated to that and thats why Im so proud to be here. Trembicki was awarded the Reverend Spollett/Rabbi Waldman Award as he was recognized for serving as a longtime Operation Hope volunteer and advisor and for being a committed community servant whose skills are assets to organizations which benefit from his guidance. I never gotten involved to be honored or to receive an award, but its a great recognition, said Trembicki, an Operation Hope board member. The thing I love about Operation Hope is that not only do we help people who need help, but it also gives people opportunities who want to give help, to give help and to give hope. Thats the beauty of this organization, and its not just me, its all the people who participate in so many ways. Im thrilled to be honored and Im glad to be associated with this great organization. Valerie Senew, senior vice president and growth manager at Peoples United Bank, accepted the Stewart B. and Lucie C. McKinney Award on behalf of the bank. The bank has had community giving as its central mission and provides foundational support and mortgage lending allowing low income neighbors to purchase affordable housing, often as they are transitioning from homeless situations to more permanent housing. We are thrilled to be here and to have an opportunity to be recognized for our support over the years, said Karen Galbo, executive director of the Peoples United Bank Foundation. Through our bank and our foundation (Peoples United Community Foundation) we have been supporting Operation Hope for a number of years and are happy with the work they have been doing, the effect it has had and were happy to continue our partnership. The Bridgeport Ladies Charitable Society was awarded The Jacky Durrell Award as one of the few organizations serving Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Monroe, Stratford and Trumbull that is unmatched for length of continuous charitable service to its community. The society does not fund large programs or initiatives but rather offers financial assistance for individuals with critical needs when no other resources are available. This funding helps fill gaps for many of Operation Hopes clients. We are honored to be given the Jacky Durrell Service Award, we have a long standing relationship with Operation Hope and we really appreciate it, said Melissa Norton, president of the Board of Managers of the Bridgeport Ladies Charitable Society. We love what they do and helping them out. Evening of Hope is our most eagerly anticipated fundraiser of the year, offering our guests the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of individuals and families who are truly struggling in our community, said Darrin Fodor, Evening of Hope chair. We share a commitment, with many businesses and individuals who support Evening of Hope, no one in our community should be hungry and everyone in our community should have supportive relationships, hope for the future and a place to call home. Peoples Bank gave us our first loan to buy our first home way back 20 years ago, said Miklos. We are also honoring Alex Trembicki who led us through the difficult downturn of the economy when the stock market crashed, and did so with compassion and skill, and Bridgeport Ladies Charitable who is like an unknown, unrecognized gem. They have been serving the community for over 100 years. Operation Hope was founded by John Hope Bryant on May 5, 1992, immediately following the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Operation Hope, Inc. seeks to teach others about financial literacy and fiscal responsibility. The mission of Operation Hope, according to its website, is to provide the opportunity for individuals and families to experience transformative change. Our programs and services focus on eliminating hunger and homelessness and are designed to help people solve their crises and build stability in an environment in which compassion inspires dignity and hope. The community is blessed to have Operation Hope, State Rep. Cristin McCarthy-Vahey said. Im betting most Fairfielders dont realize just how many of our neighbors and friends are in need of help from Operation Hope. The food pantry, supportive housing and casework services they provide are critical to helping families stay on their feet. I am happy to be a small part of the support they receive in the community. Tonights showing gives the staff the support and hope they need to continue their work. Operation Hope this year launched a Homeless Response Center complete with a new homeless outreach team that is out early mornings and late in the day looking for those who may be in need. In the first 90 days of this initiative, 79 people were diverted from homelessness to secured stable housing. We still serve lunch and dinner to our hungry neighbors, distribute more than 150,000 meals annually to local households struggling to make ends meet, provide nearly 60 units of safe affordable housing with case management to individuals and families affected by homelessness and last year rehoused over 250 individuals and families, said Michael Fucigna, board chair. It is always a pleasure to help support Carla Miklos and Operation Hope for all their incredible, non-stop efforts to help those in need, said Beverly Balaz, president of the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce. Their services are many including food and shelter for those who are hungry or homeless. Carla and her team make significant positive impact every day. A great evening for recognition and thanks. I loved the Mardi Gras theme. Tonight not only do we celebrate the good work that Operation Hope does but we celebrate the people who help us make it happen, said Miklos. Its an important opportunity to honor some very special friends and its also a reminder that there are still neighbors who need food, housing and clinical support services in our community. Operation Hope thanks their generous sponsors. For more information, a list of sponsors and auction items donated visit www.operationhopect.org. Photo: Contributed In a testament to the spirit of recently deceased Penticton philanthropist David Kampe and the magnitude of his generosity, local Member of Parliament Richard Cannings used his members' statements time in the House of Commons Tuesday to tell the room about Kampe. "Mr. Speaker, Penticton lost a pillar of the community last Wednesday when David Kampe passed away," Cannings told his colleagues from around the country. "Mr. Kampe owned one of the largest construction firms in the Okanagan Valley and was a community builder, in that sense, for over 35 years. However, it was his quiet philanthropy that really had an impact." Cannings highlighted Kampe's donations to the Penticton Regional Hospital, the Penticton Secondary Schools Bursary and Scholarship Foundation and the Penticton Peach Festival. "I thank David Kampe. Lim'limpt," he said, a translation into the Sylix language. "His legacy will always be remembered." Kampe's final philanthropic project is again in support of bursaries for local students to go toward post-secondary education, and was launched Monday. Dozens of cows have arrived at the world's first floating farm as part of efforts to find new ways to feed a growing population despite decreasing amounts of space to grow food. The cows arrived at the self-sufficient Floating Farm in Rotterdam on Monday 13 May, and will produce around 800 litres of milk per day. Each cow will have around 160 square feet of space while being contained within a space 3050 times smaller. Using a bridge between the farm and the dock, the animals will also have access to an adjacent pasture when tides permit. Urine produced by the cows will drain through the floor and into an air-tight storage facility. By keeping it contained, ammonia emissions will be limited and it will be able to be distributed for use as fertiliser for city farms. The urban farm will produce various kinds of milk and yogurt from its location docked in the port of Rotterdam. The idea of the concept aims to address the problem of how to feed a growing population when competition for land is growing. The project is a partnership between three companies. Courage is the innovation institute of the Dutch Agriculture and Dairy sector, Uit Je Eigen Stad runs urban farms in cities across the Netherlands and Beladon is an authority on floating structures. The companies are now looking at plans to develop a floating chicken farm and greenhouse. A farmer has been accused of 'industrial-scale environmental destruction' after he removed six miles of drystone wall from his farm. The Scottish government has launched an investigation into Fife-based James Orr, who runs 700-acre Pitlochie Farm, near Strathmiglo. Mr Orr removed the walls from his fields to create a 'prairie'. However, the government has concerns that this will affect local wildlife and create a flooding risk. His neighbour, Andrew Craig, who runs an adjacent farm, said it amounts to an 'industrial-scale environmental destruction' which will affect natural heritage and local biodiversity. Mr Orr may now lose his taxpayer-funded support scheme payment if the investigation proves his actions were intentional. A Scottish government spokeswoman told the BBC that it will not tolerate breaches that cause 'permanent harm' to the landscape. She said removing drystone dykes from fields also 'damages the reputation' of the Scottish agricultural industry. The Scottish government rural payments and inspections division is aware of the issue and the circumstances are being fully investigated and considered, the spokeswoman said. Common agricultural policy cross-compliance regulations are in place to help provide protection under a range of provisions, including environmental protection, public and animal health, animal welfare and protection of water. She added: We place high importance on these provisions and expect farmers and land managers to comply. The NFU has called on Michael Gove to provide farmers with 'urgent' access to general licences which are 'practical' and 'fit for purpose'. The call comes as part of the unions evidence to Defra on the impact of Natural Englands decision to revoke general licences to control woodpigeons and crows. The evidence is compiled from hundreds of farmers' responses. Many said the revocation meant they struggled to protect lambs from being attacked and crops from being devastated. Farmers also criticised the lack of warning which caused significant confusion and legal uncertainty. Continued exposure to legal uncertainty was highlighted due to the rushed and unclear temporary mitigation processes, which included issues in applying for and the issuing of individual licences. Responses also included inconsistencies in replacement licences resulting in a lack of clarity between what is a legal requirement and what is simply guidance. NFU Deputy President Guy Smith said the revocation has left farmers without the necessary legal certainty as to how they can protect their livestock and crops from being attacked. With the growing season and lambing underway, the sudden revocation of these general licences could not have occurred at a worse time in the farming calendar, he said. The NFU has received hundreds of responses in the past few days to its own call for evidence which illustrates the strength of feeling across the breadth of our membership. We have heard directly from our members how the revocation has not only increased worry for the farmer, but is causing unnecessary stress to farm animals and has caused mortality in lambs. Mr Smith added: It is also clear from our members responses that lethal control methods are not used lightly. Yet, they remain absolutely necessary in increasing lamb survival, reducing crop damage and protecting food hygiene when other methods either need reinforcement or have failed completely. The NFU has called for Defra to take 'immediate action' to ensure that the replacement licences give clear legal direction for farmers and meet the needs of farming businesses. A man dressed as a giant disgruntled chicken helped boost pork sales by an impressive 12m thanks to a humorous television campaign. Pork medallion sales increased by 24 per cent and all promoted cuts by 13.9 per cent over 12 months, according to Kantar Worldpanel research. During the past two years, the same campaign generated a total of 25 million in additional sales for the industry. The tongue-in-cheek TV adverts, spearheaded by AHDB as part of its Midweek Meals campaign, featured a man dressed as a giant chicken. The ads were seen by 83 per cent of UK households. Every pound spent on marketing generated an additional 7.31 in sales. Importantly, independent evaluation showed the campaign has successfully improved consumer perception of fresh pork as suitable for midweek meals by 10 percentage points compared to pre-advertising. Attracting younger people to pork More than three years ago, AHDB committed to attracting younger customers to pork. The latest campaign results show almost half of the 3.2 million additional sales generated came from younger customers in the target category, aged 35 to 54 years old. To support the TV adverts the campaign enlisted celebrities and social media influencers, such as health and fitness guru Lucy Mecklenburgh, who encouraged shoppers to break up with boring and discover easy international pork dishes. Joining up with retailers and independent butchers also gave the campaign an extra boost, helping win sales. Investment in marketing guided by strategic consumer research is one of the key areas of focus for AHDB Pork. 'Switch more consumers over to pork' Strategy Director Angela Christison, said the campaign has attracted new consumers to choose pork by showcasing the ease of cooking this 'incredibly versatile' protein. The uplift in sales is hugely encouraging during both phases of the campaign; however the long game is to switch more consumers over to selecting pork more often. This is a particular aim with younger consumers in order to create habits, which will sustain the industry in the future, she said. Feedback from pork producers has been integral in the development of the campaign. Commenting on the latest results, pig farmer and Marketing Sub-Group Member, Fergus Howie, added: This campaign has been very successful and is one of the best Ive seen. Its a fantastic idea to stimulate domestic demand for the quality pork we produce. I know we have a great product to sell, this is a great way of getting direct to consumers and telling them whats good about it from health to convenience, were now getting more people buying pork. Work is currently underway to develop the next phase of the campaign, which will see a new TV advert hitting screens in autumn 2019 and early in 2020. Four farming unions have called for those UK MEPs to be elected in the upcoming European elections on 23 May to 'understand and engage' with farmers. The unions have published a document ahead of the elections calling for a policy environment that allows farmers to 'grow and thrive'. It highlights six 'critical' policy areas where action is needed, these are Brexit, Trade and Standards, Climate Change, Environment, Healthy Plants & Animals, and Science and Innovation. The leaders of NFU, NFU Scotland, NFU Cymru and the Ulster Farmers Union state that they want to engage with both UK politicians and those from the EU to highlight the importance of working with farmers. They state that a no-deal 'cliff edge' Brexit scenario must be avoided and for all policy makers to protect agri-food trade in a future relationship between the UK and the EU. Outside of Brexit, the unions call for policies that allow farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by boosting 'competitiveness and profitability' and for plant protection regulation to be 'led by science'. In a joint statement, they said: However long UK MEPs are in post, it is important they understand and engage with UK farmers. Whatever the outcome of Brexit we need a policy environment that allows farming businesses to continue to deliver benefits for the public such as high quality, affordable food and protection for our wildlife and countryside. These ambitions are not only hugely relevant for the UK but also across the EU and they start with ensuring that developments on Brexit prioritise the needs of farm businesses and the long-term prosperity of the agri-food sector. The presidents add: We must maintain our positive relationship with our European neighbours and work in partnership with them to develop an enabling regulatory regime that allows our sector to thrive. The policy document comes as the EU's 28 member states prepare to vote in what is likely to be a battle between the pro-EU mainstream and the rise of populist, anti-EU parties. Meanwhile, Downing Street has confirmed that MPs will be asked to vote on Brexit again in the week commencing 4 June whether or not the government and Labour have reached a deal. The government said it is imperative to pass legislation ratifying Brexit before parliament ends for the summer break in July. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. Photograph by Mark Bennigton I spiritually and emotionally feel that stories choose us; its an intuitive process for me. I dont ever want to take the time of the viewer for granted. Photograph by Vaibhav Nadgaonkar I have had people tell me Its a fluke, for Lunchbox, but my team and I have been successful over and over. Its taken me 15 years to become a one-night-wonder. Photograph by Mark Bennigton I am not a director, I am not an actor. I am a hustler. I am somebody who can identify how we can make the pie of the story larger. Shes bold, and knows what she wants each time she takes on a story to tell. Fresh from the high of winning the Oscar (Best Documentary Short) for her recent Period. End Of Sentence., producer Guneet Monga is back in Mumbai doing what she does bestpicking which story to turn to next. The brightly-dressed producer brightens up the room with her smile, even as she directs us to the room where the interview is to be conducted. Over to the successful producer of films like Peddlers, Masaan, and Lunchbox.I spiritually and emotionally feel that stories choose us; its an intuitive process for me. Its more about the team and the story being told. I am mindful of whether the plot is global, will it impact a number of people across the world, who is making it, and has the story been treated with empathy, among other things. I dont ever want to take the time of the viewer for granted.It all started with 10 students of Oakwood School in Hollywoodall between 10 and 14 yearswho read an article about how girls in rural India and other parts of the world dont go to school during periods due to the shame attached to menstruation. Their English teacher, Melissa Burton, pushed them to do something about it, and got in touch with Action India, an organisation that had done ground work in the Hapur district in Uttar Pradesh for 40 years around this subject. After about two years of discussions, the girls were asked for help in the form of donating a pad-making machine. They did yogathons and bake sales to raise $3,000, and donated the machine. However, they wanted to make a larger impact rather than donating one machine which faced challenges due to irregular supply of electricity. Melissa came up with the idea of making a movie to document the process of the impact over a year. One of the Oakwood parents, Stacy Sher, who has produced Erin Brokovich, and has been my mentor, roped me in, asking if I could help, and I came on-board.My colleague Mandakini was on the ground. Initially, the girls in Hapur were not open to talking about the subject. But they soon realised that the pad machine would become a means of livelihood, and began warming up to us. In fact, they told their families that they are setting up a diaper-making unit, taking their own time for the people to wrap their heads around the fact that they were making pads. Over a period of time, there has been an amazing transformation.To tell stories around taboos is exciting. I want to disrupt notions, evoke thoughts, and spark conversations. But, in my 15 years of working, this is the first time I saw the needle move when art was used for change, and that is powerful and rewarding. The film has managed to spark a change for our girls.(Smiles) We were jumping, screaming, crying, and shivering, all at the same time. We could not hear what Melissa and Rayka (Zehtabchi, director of the film) were saying on stage. AR Rahman was sitting ahead of us, and I went up to him and apologised for being loud. Its been an epic journey, and still feels surreal. I have to understand that its not overnight; I have been at it for 15 years. I have had people tell me Its a fluke, for Lunchbox, but my team and I have been successful over and over. It has taken me 15 years to become a one-night-wonder.Winning the Oscar is the biggest validation for content. It gives us yet another feather in the cap to continue telling stories, empowering more directors, and moving forward.I studied mass communication in college and tried everythingprint, radio, newspaper, documentaries, and editing. I was an event producer and an RJ at one point, and this is within three years of college. What stuck with me, though, was filmmaking. We started with shorts in college, and I interned with a production house working on an international film, Valley Of Flowers. I just loved the environment, and I love running it even today.I was talking about it this morning! I think there is a world of critics where you get four and five-star ratings. This entire 100-crore conversation is a ploy to counter the critics. It has become common drawing room conversation now: Arre woh picture 100 crore ho gayi, 200 crore ho gayi. If you look at the business of it, our return on investment (ROI) is much better on movies. Lunchbox is one of the highest ROI movies of 2014; and it was the highest foreign language revenue film in the US that year. Big budgets, when they do well, its great, but given the theatricals and taxes around the business, we do very well with our ROI.My challenges were age-related. I was very young when I came in, and without any connections. This industry is largely dynasty-run, and I was a complete outsider trying to draw out the opportunities. I coloured my hair grey and wore saris for people to take me seriously and to believe that I can shoulder responsibilities. In my 20s, I wished my hair was grey and I had spectacles, and now it has all come true! (Laughs.)I dont think people really know what a producer does. The common misnomer is that we are the moneybags. However, I am not moneybags; I come from a middle-class family, I am an entrepreneur. I raise money for every film, it is a project. Every film brings its own rewards and challenges, and you hope to sell, distribute it, and hit a home run every time, but that doesnt happen. (Smiles). I am not a director, I am not an actor. I am a hustler. I am somebody who can identify how we can make the pie of the story larger. I have been able to do it when Peddlers, Lunchbox, Masaan, and Gangs Of Wasseypur went to Cannes, and Tigers went to Toronto.Im happy you said mainstream! For most people, mainstream means the Khans, and I havent worked with any. But this documentary was observational. We were observing them for a year, panning out and seeing the pad machine work, then crash, witnessing power outages. The documentary magic happens on edit. At some point of time, during editing, you feel you have a story unlike when we do fiction, wherein we have a 100-page script, and we know what we are doing.I have a couple, but one thats very close to my heart is from when we were making Peddlers. I was working for Anurag Kashyap, and the director, Vasan Bala, was Anurags assistant director. He wanted to make the film, and we got 10 people to put in 10 lakh each to raise a crore. Anurag was being the quintessential father figure, warning us of the drawbacks of entering a territory we didnt know well. He was worried how wed distribute it, asking tough questions. Of course, he was very kind to allow us to be ourselves and do what we wanted to do.We were working in his office, and whenever we used to see him, Vasan and I would pick up our bunch of thermocol blocks and go and sit outside and discuss our project, just because we wanted to act up and say, This is our office. One of the biggest highs of my life was when the film went to Cannes with Gangs Of Wasseypur. I was in Paris when Anurag joined me. On a metro train in Paris he asked, Kitne producers hai Peddlers pe? I said, 10. He said, Ummm, will they be okay if you add my name to the list as well? (Laughs.) It is a moment I will never forget. I was like, of course. A big low is that Peddlers did not release, and we hope with the digital world, some day it will. Mississippi has launched the nations first state-run teacher residency program to tackle two problems: a growing number of unfilled teaching positions in the state, and a lack of diverse teachers in the profession. In most teacher residency programs, universities partner with local school districts to provide long-term student teaching in exchange for teachers agreeing to work in the district for a period of time. Research has shown that residencies are more likely to produce teachers of color, and graduates from these programs are more likely to stay in the classroom for longer than other new teachers. See also: Can Teacher Residencies Help With Shortages? Typically, the work is done on a local level. Sometimes, states will offer grants to universities and districts to establish a residency program. (For example, Californias state budget granted $75 million for competitive grants for districts to establish teacher residency programs for the preparation of special education, STEM, and bilingual teachers.) But in Mississippi, the state education department will be the first to actually operate a residency program, with support from the National Center for Teacher Residencies. (The work is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which gave a $4.1 million grant to the Mississippi Department of Education and a nearly $650,000 grant to the NCTR.) It shows a really significant commitment to teacher quality from the state on down, said Anissa Listak, the founder and CEO of the NCTR. Youve got the state, to the district, to the university, on down to teachers and students in classrooms. That kind of vertical alignment between practice and policy isnt something weve seen before in this intentional way. Starting off, the state will run the program in four high-needs school districts, and three colleges or universities (the names of which will be released this summer). The first 35 residents will be trained next school year, and another 35 will come on board the following school year. For the first round of residents, Mississippi received about 360 applications, most of whom are nonwhite. The residents do not have to pay tuition, and they will receive stipends while working in schools. (Their mentor teachers will also receive stipends.) After completing the program, the residents will receive a masters degree and a job in one of the partner school districts. The goal is to slowly scale up the program, and train 500 residents over the first five years. One of the challenges that weve seen [is] a decline in the number of folks who are onboarding in traditional pathways to become a teacher, said Phelton Moss, the director of educator talent, acquisition, and effectiveness for the state. For our residency program, we have a lot of folks who already have a [bachelors] degree and want a masters, and well pay for that for them. See also: Universities Revamping Teacher Prep to Provide More Hands-On Training Mississippi had about 2,100 unfilled teaching positions at the start of this school year, Listak said. And between 2011 and 2018, the number of new teaching licenses granted in the state was down 50 percent. The Learning Policy Institute studied 50 residency programs in 2015-16 and found that 82 percent of graduates were still teaching four years later, 10 percentage points higher than other new teachers. Advocates for residencies attribute the high retention rate to a solid preparation, compared to other programs. Residents teach alongside highly qualified mentor teachers for at least a year. Thats compared to traditional teacher-prep programs that generally require only about 15 weeks of student teaching. And alternative programs like Teach for America place teachers in the classroom after about five to seven weeks of fast-track training. Importing teachers and importing prep has not worked really well, Listak said, adding that the residency model of preparation is still relatively new. It is a long game. These institutions of higher ed are going to have to make some shifts, and thats going to take a while. This is a new way of thinking about prep for a lot of institutions there. Also, the states goal is to increase the number of diverse teachers to 32 percent of the workforce by 2025, Moss said. Currently, 27 percent of Mississippi teachers are nonwhite. About 70 percent of the first cohort of residents are teachers of color, and most are women. The Kellogg grant is also funding a full-time recruiter for male educators of color, who are particularly underrepresented in the teaching profession. (Across the country, only 2 percent of teachers are black men .) Moss said ultimately, he hopes the department will put out a strong model for how this can work, and then school districts can work with their own local teacher-prep programs to create local partnerships. Our hope and our ask is that our districts can become innovative and work with their teacher-prep programs [in a way thats] unique to their context, he said. It also remains to be seen whether the state can fund this work without relying on philanthropy once the grant runs out, Listak said.. Three to five years from now, well have a really good sense of whether or not this is a pilot that can be adapted in other states, she said. Image by Getty Photo: CTV News Predator Ridge is attempting to woo Albertans to B.C., despite a growing pipeline feud between the two provinces. The resort south of Vernon is using a simple message: "We love Alberta," CTV News reports. Using the URL WeLoveAlberta.com, the campaign called "Our Love Is Real" offers a third night free for Albertan visitors. "As a bonus, Alberta residents will receive a bottle of our Commange Lanata wine at check-in," the website adds. "'Our Love Is Real' kind of said it all for us in terms of the way we honestly feel," Predator Ridge's Brad Pelletier told CTV News. He said the business relies heavily on Alberta, with close to 40 per cent of its residential buyers coming from the province next door, and about 25,000 Albertan visitors each year. There was a drop in business last year that Pelletier attributes to pipeline politics. with files from CTV Vancouver Vicky Kaushal meets Rishi Kapoor & Neetu Kapoor in New York | FilmiBeat Ever since Rishi Kapoor has been stationed in New York for his medical treatment, we have had many from her Bollywood brigade paying a visit to the veteran actor. After Priyanka Chopra, Aamir Khan, Sonali Bendre and others, Vicky Kaushal recently met Rishi Kapoor. Reportedly, the 'Uri' actor who is currently holidaying in the Big Apple city for his birthday, took out some time from his busy schedule to meet Kapoor Sr. Later, Vicky took to his Instagram story to post a picture where he is seen happily posing with Rishi Kapoor and his wife Neetu Kapoor. The actor captioned it as, "Nothing can beat his josh! More power to you, sir. Thank you, for the wonderful time Rishi sir and Neetu ma'am." Before this, Deepika Padukone had also paid a visit to the Kapoors in New York. Later, Neetu had shared a series of pictures on her Instagram page and written, ""Such a fun evening with adorable Deepika, gave lot of love and warmth. To this, Deepika had replied, "Thank you both for such a fun, memorable evening! To good health, happiness, peace of mind and many, many more laughs." Meanwhile, Rishi had recently told a leading daily that he is now cancer-free. He was quoted as saying, "Neetu has stood by me like a rock. Otherwise I am too difficult a person to handle as far as food and drink are concerned. My kids Ranbir and Ridhima have really shouldered my problems." He had further added, "My eighth month of treatment started on May 1 in the US. But God has been kind! I am in remission, meaning now I am cancer-free. I will have to do a bone marrow transplant, which in all probability should take another two months minimum. Being in remission is a big thing and it's all because of my family and my fans prayers and duas that have worked. I thank them all." "A person like me who has never had patience, this is God's way to teach me patience. Getting well is a slow procedure. But it makes you grateful for the gift of life," Rishi was quoted as saying. Sardar Udham Singh First Look: Vicky Kaushal's Clean-shaven Look Will Pique Your Curiosity! Darshan's Working On His Look According to First News Kannada reports, Darshan has been working out to achieve the body his mythological character requires. He is also growing his hair and beard long to suit the role. Lately, the actor is being spotted carrying this look. Location Is Finalised Apparently, the makers of the film have even decided the location for the shoot. They are planning on constructing sets in a village in Chitradurga. Since the film is based on the novel of the same name by B.L. Venu, the team wants to achieve the most realistic version of the kingdom. Darshan To Start Shooting Soon Darshan is currently busy shooting for Robert. As per the latest reports, he will start shooting for Gandugali Madakari Nayaka once he wraps up Robert. This is will be his second mythological film after Sangolli Rayanna. 'It Should Create History' Talking about the film, producer Rockline Venkatesh told in an interview, "Apart from Chitradurga, portions of the film will be shot in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Rajasthan. I feel lucky to have a project like Gandugali Madakari Nayaka coming into my lap, and I see it as a responsibility. A song about Chitradurga in the film Nagarahavu, directed by Putanna Kanagal and featuring Vishnuvardhan, has remained an evergreen track. I am starting off with a hope that Gandugali...too will create history." Rakul Preet Singh has been on a promotion spree for her upcoming film, which is a Bollywood biggie. The film De De Pyaar De will feature the actress as one among the leading ladies and a picture clicked during one of the promotion events has turned out to be the hot topic of discussion on social media. In one of the promotional events, Rakul Preet Singh opted to wear a pink-coloured mini skirt along with a white shirt and topped it with a jacket. The actress looked stunning in the costume but, one picture which has been doing the rounds on social media reveals that she luckily escaped from a wardrobe malfunction. In the picture, she could be seen seated on a chair in a cross-legged manner. This particular picture of the actress didn't go down well with some of the netizens. The moral policing went to the extent that they even started to troll her and give her various lessons on how to be seated while wearing a mini skirt. Some of the comments even asked her to take care of her dressing sense. Nevertheless, her fans are waiting for her big movie in Bollywood. They are also waiting for her return to the Telugu film industry after a break, which would be through the upcoming movie Manmadhudu 2, featuring Nagarjuna in the lead role. MOST READ: Rakul Preet Singh Stuns Everyone With Her Comments On Love Life; DEETS INSIDE! Financial Technology Company Enhances Solutions with a More Secure, Flexible Platform Rimilia, a financial technology company, today announced the implementation of Microsoft's Azure solution. Azure enhances the Rimilia infrastructure by providing increased security, flexibility, and global scalability. Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform that enables you to access computing services-like servers, storage, networking, software-over the internet ("the cloud"). Rimilia technology has been moved to Azure to provide the best possible infrastructure for their software as a service (SaaS) solutions. This move not only benefits Rimilia's finance technology, but it also improves the customer experience. Some advantages include advanced reporting with Microsoft Power BI and improved performance responsiveness. Improved global security is one of the most important benefits Azure provides, since an information breach can cripple a business. Jamie Cunningham, chief technology officer of Rimilia, stated, "We continue to invest in improving our system's performance, so our clients have better experiences. What's exciting about the Azure platform is it not only improves the Rimilia technology and makes it more secure, but it also makes for seamless upgrades since the latest features and functions are updated in real-time without the need for added IT resources. Our clients will always have the latest version as a standard." Kevin Kimber, chief executive officer of Rimilia, added, "We have been a longtime partner of Microsoft, so we are very familiar with their products. It was an easy choice for us to implement Azure and provide our clients with a more secure infrastructure that enhances our financial technology. Rimilia technology, combined with Azure, will make credit teams even more efficient in a scalable, safe and secure environment." About Rimilia Rimilia creates software finance people love by helping them eliminate archaic practices of tracking cash and managing credit collections. Rimilia provides companies around the globe with faster cash allocation, clearer information, and better control over cash flow. As a global solution, Rimilia works with any currency, any bank, any ERP, in any country and language. Rimilia has offices located in Bromsgrove and London in the UK, and Denver, Colorado in the U.S. Learn more at https://www.rimilia.com/. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190513005893/en/ Contacts: Kinga Kopycinska kinga.kopycinska@rimilia.com 01527 872123 www.rimilia.com AVITA Medical (ASX: AVH, OTCQX: AVMXY), a global regenerative medicine company, announced today that Dale A. Sander is resigning as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to spend more time with his family on the east coast, effective immediately. Tim Rooney, AVITA's Chief Administrative Officer, will assume the role of interim CFO until a comprehensive search can be completed. Tim previously served as CFO for AVITA from 2012 to 2017 before assuming his current role. "We thank Dale for his service and contributions to AVITA over the past eighteen months and wish him all the best," said Dr. Mike Perry, Chief Executive Officer. "This year has proven to be transformational for AVITA as we continue the launch of our first product for the treatment of burns in the United States. Tim is well suited to assume the interim role of CFO. In addition to his deep financial expertise and previous experience as AVITA's CFO, Tim is instrumental in our ongoing operational and strategic growth." Mr. Rooney joined AVITA Medical as CFO and Chief Operating Officer in 2012, leading various key executive roles including interim CEO from 2013 to 2015. Prior to AVITA, Mr. Rooney was an executive at PDI Enterprises, Inc., a pharmaceutical wholesale distributor, where he served as CFO/COO, and managed their revenue growth from $5 million to $430 million. Mr. Rooney holds degrees in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance and Economics and has over 25 years of experience in C-level financial and operational management in the healthcare industry. AVITA has retained an executive recruiting firm to commence a formal search for a permanent Chief Financial Officer. ABOUT AVITA MEDICAL LIMITED AVITA Medical is a regenerative medicine company with a technology platform positioned to address unmet medical needs in burns, chronic wounds, and aesthetics indications. AVITA Medical's patented and proprietary collection and application technology provides innovative treatment solutions derived from the regenerative properties of a patient's own skin. The medical devices work by preparing a REGENERATIVE EPIDERMAL SUSPENSION (RES), an autologous suspension comprised of the patient's skin cells necessary to regenerate natural healthy epidermis. This autologous suspension is then sprayed onto the areas of the patient requiring treatment. AVITA Medical's first U.S. product, the RECELL System, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2018. The RECELL System is indicated for use in the treatment of acute thermal burns in patients 18 years and older. The RECELL System is used to prepare Spray-On Skin Cells using a small amount of a patient's own skin, providing a new way to treat severe burns, while significantly reducing the amount of donor skin required. The RECELL System is designed to be used at the point of care alone or in combination with autografts depending on the depth of the burn injury. Compelling data from randomized, controlled clinical trials conducted at major U.S. burn centers and real-world use in more than 7,000 patients globally, reinforce that the RECELL System is a significant advancement over the current standard of care for burn patients and offers benefits in clinical outcomes and cost savings. Healthcare professionals should read the INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE RECELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device (https://recellsystem.com/) for a full description of indications for use and important safety information including contraindications, warnings and precautions. In international markets outside of Europe, our products are marketed under the RECELL System brand to promote skin healing in a wide range of applications including burns, chronic wounds and aesthetics. The RECELL System is TGA-registered in Australia and CFDA-cleared in China. To learn more, visit www.avitamedical.com. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This letter includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "expect," "intend," "could," "may," "will," "believe," "estimate," "look forward," "forecast," "goal," "target," "project," "continue," "outlook," "guidance," "future," other words of similar meaning and the use of future dates. Forward-looking statements in this letter include, but are not limited to, statements concerning, among other things, our ongoing clinical trials and product development activities, regulatory approval of our products, the potential for future growth in our business, and our ability to achieve our key strategic, operational and financial goal. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. Each forward-looking statement contained in this letter is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statement. Applicable risks and uncertainties include, among others, the timing of regulatory approvals of our products; physician acceptance, endorsement, and use of our products; failure to achieve the anticipated benefits from approval of our products; the effect of regulatory actions; product liability claims; risks associated with international operations and expansion; and other business effects, including the effects of industry, economic or political conditions outside of the company's control. Investors should not place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this letter. Investors are encouraged to read our publicly available filings for a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements in this letter speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514006129/en/ Contacts: U.S. Media Sam Brown, Inc. Christy Curran Phone: +1-615.414.8668 christycurran@sambrown.com O.U.S. Media Monsoon Communications Sarah Kemter Phone: +61 (0)3 9620 3333 Mobile: +61 (0)407 162 530 sarahk@monsoon.com.au Investors Westwicke Partners Caroline Corner Phone: +1-415-202-5678 caroline.corner@westwicke.com Notice of Annual General Meeting of Eastern Property Holdings Limited (the "Company") NOTICE is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the Company will be held on 11 June 2019 at 10:00 AM at Hotel Four Seasons Astir Palace Hotel Athens, 40 Apollonos Street, 16671 Vouliagmeni, Athens for the following purposes: AGENDA 1) Results for the year ended 31 December 2018 The annual report of the Company for the year ended 31 December 2018 will be laid before the meeting. Company's management will present and discuss the year's results. A representative of Deloitte AG will read the 2018 audit report. The annual business report and the auditor's report are available for examination by shareholders. 2) Discussion of the Board of Directors' decision not to pay a dividend from the 2018 results 3) Appointment of Auditor The Board of Directors proposes the election of the auditors of the Company for a period of one year and to authorise the Directors of the Company to fix their remuneration. 4) Re-election of the current board of directors as directors of the board of EPH to hold office until the close of the Annual General Meeting of the Company in 2022 (or any adjournment thereof) 5) Increase the authorised capital of the Company to a maximum of 21,000,000 ordinary shares and amendment of clause 5.1 of the Company's memorandum of association by deleting the current text of clause 5.1 and replacing it by the following: "The Company is authorised to issue a maximum of 21,000,000 Ordinary Shares without par value and 1,000,000 Series A Preferred Shares without par value." 6) Miscellaneous Other business which may properly be brought before the meeting. In order to attend the meeting and exercise their voting rights, shareholders must be entered into the shareholders register as of the close of business on the Record Date of 31 May 2019. The shareholder register is maintained and administered by Computershare Schweiz AG, Baslerstrasse 90, CH-4600 Olten, Switzerland. A shareholder may either represent his shares in person or be represented by a proxy who may speak and vote on behalf of the shareholder. The instrument appointing a proxy shall be produced before the time for holding the meeting and be presented at the entrance of the meeting. Entry to the meeting will be by entry card. Registered shareholders as of the Record Date can request an entry card by contacting: General Meetings Team Computershare Schweiz AG P +41 62 205 77 50 Baslerstrasse 90, Postfach, 4601 Olten, Schweiz generalversammlung@computershare.ch The Board of Directors of Eastern Property Holdings Limited 15 May 2019 Attachment NEW YORK, May 15, 2019released today by Strategy&, PwC's strategy consulting business. The study, which analysed CEO successions at the world's largest 2,500 public companies over the past 19 years reports that while the median tenure of a CEO has been five years, 19 percent of all CEOs remain in position for 10 or more years, consistently, over the time period analysed. Despite disruption, intense competition and eager investors, the median tenure within the group is 14 years with these long serving CEOs who also have better performance, and are less likely to be forced out than not long serving CEOs. By region, North American CEOs hold a significant margin in the probability of becoming a long term CEO at 30 percent, followed by Western Europe at 19 percent, Japan and the BRI countries (Brazil, Russia and India) at nine percent and China at seven percent. 2018 also showed a rise in the share of CEOs who were forced out of their positions for ethical lapses. In fact, more CEOs (39 percent) were forced out for ethical lapses rather than financial performance or board struggles, a first in the study's history. This number rose 50 percent as compared to 26 percent in 2017. Rough road ahead Successors to long serving CEOs are not faring as well as they are likely to have shorter tenures, worse performance and more often forced out of office than the CEOs they replaced. Nearly half of successor CEOs moved down a performance quartile or more as compared to their predecessors. 69 percent of successors who replaced a long serving CEO in the top performance quartile ended up in the bottom two performance quartiles. "Succeeding long-serving CEOs is clearly very challenging," said Per-Ola Karlsson , partner and leader of Strategy&'s Organization, Change and Leadership Practice in the Middle East. "Their successors typically both deliver lower returns to shareholders and are noticeably more likely to be dismissed than the legend they succeeded as well as their peers." CEO turnover in 2018 Turnover among CEOs at the world's 2,500 largest companies soared to a record high of 17.5 percent in 2018 - 3 percentage points higher than the 14.5 percent rate in 2017 and above what has been the norm for the last decade. CEO turnover rose notably in every region in 2018 except China, and included a large increase in Western Europe. Turnover was highest in "other mature" economies (such as Australia, Chile, and Poland), at 21.9 percent, and nearly as high in Brazil, Russia, and India (21.6 percent). The next-highest turnover numbers were in Western Europe (19.8 percent), and the lowest were in North America (14.7 percent). Among industries, turnover was highest in communication services companies (24.5 percent), followed by materials (22.3 percent) and energy (19.7 percent). Healthcare saw the lowest rate of CEO turnover in 2018, at 11.6 percent Women at the Top The share of incoming women CEOs was 4.9 percent down slightly from the record high of 6.0 percent in 2017. However, the trend has been upward since the low point of 1.0 percent in 2008. Unlike in 2017 when the record high was driven by a 9.3 percent spike in incoming CEOs in the US and Canada, the largest percentages in 2018 originated in Brazil, Russia, India and China and other emerging countries. The utilities industry had the largest share of women CEOs at 9.5 percent followed by Communication Services and Financial Services at 7.5 and 7.4 percent respectively. About the 2018 CEO Success Study Over the course of the past 19 years, Strategy& has been tracking continuous data on CEO successions. The 2018 study analysed CEO successions at the world's 2,500 largest (by market capitalization) public companies over the last 10 years. We define dismissals for ethical lapses as the removal of the CEO as the result of a scandal or improper conduct by the CEO or other employees; examples include fraud, bribery, insider trading, environmental disasters, inflated resumes, and sexual indiscretions. For the purposes of this study and to distinguish between mature and emerging economies, Strategy& followed the United Nations Development Programme 2018 ranking. Total shareholder return data over a CEO's tenure was sourced from Bloomberg and includes reinvestment of dividends (if any). Total shareholder return data was then regionally market adjusted (measured as the di?erence between the company's return and the return of the main regional index over the same time period) and annualized. About Strategy& Strategy& is a global strategy consulting business uniquely positioned to help deliver your best future: one that is built on differentiation from the inside out and tailored exactly to you. As part of PwC, every day we're building the winning systems that are at the heart of growth. We combine our powerful foresight with this tangible know-how, technology, and scale to help you create a better, more transformative strategy from day one. As the only at-scale strategy business that's part of a global professional services network, we embed our strategy capabilities with frontline teams across PwC to show you where you need to go, the choices you'll need to make to get there, and how to get it right. The result is an authentic strategy process powerful enough to capture possibility, while pragmatic enough to ensure effective delivery. It's the strategy that gets an organization through the changes of today and drives results that redefine tomorrow. It's the strategy that turns vision into reality. It's strategy, made real. For more information, visit Strategy& . 2019 PwC. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. Contact: Rachel Hambrick Global Communications T: +1 213 479 4129 rachel.k.hambrick@pwc.com Seven presentations will be shared, including new data on the risks of long-term cardiovascular, renal and infection complications, underlining Takeda's commitment to further understanding of this rare disease Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) ("Takeda") today announced that it will feature 7 presentations, including one oral presentation, at the upcoming European Congress of Endocrinology (ECE) Annual Meeting from May 18-21, 2019 in Lyon, France. The data presentations include findings from new research into the long-term risks of cardiovascular, renal and infection complications that patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism may experience as well as the latest findings from on-going real world and clinical studies, including the Global Burden of Illness Survey and the 6-year RACE study. Takeda will also sponsor two satellite symposia. The first will focus on the burden of illness in chronic hypoparathyroidism patients with impaired biochemical control and comorbidities associated with the disease (Forum 1 on May 19, 13.45-14.45). The second symposium will present new perspectives in managing not adequately controlled hypoparathyroidism patients (Forum 3 on May 20, 13.45-14.35). Takeda will also have an exhibition booth throughout the congress (Booth B02). "The new research we are presenting at ECE 2019 continues to further our understanding of chronic hypoparathyroidism, especially about how long-term complications and symptoms may impact patients living with this rare disease," explained John Germak M.D., Global Medical Team Lead at Takeda. "The clinical and real-world studies reflect our commitment to advancing our knowledge of chronic hypoparathyroidism and to improving patient care," he added. Hypoparathyroidism is a rare endocrine disease that occurs when inadequate levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH) are secreted by the parathyroid glands, resulting in a mineral imbalance in the body expressed by a low concentration of calcium (hypocalcemia) and a high concentration of phosphate (hyperphosphatemia) in the blood.1 Studies have shown that a range of approximately 24-37 in 100,000 patients are affected by hypoparathyroidism.2 In patients who are not adequately controlled, this disease can have a significant impact on patient well-being through a range of physical, cognitive and emotional symptoms, and comorbidities.3,4 Takeda's presence at this year's ECE meeting includes the following presentations, which are intended for scientific discussion only: Risk of sepsis, respiratory infections, and kidney or other genitourinary (GU) infections in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) 4 OC1.4, May 19, 2019, Salle Gratte-Ciel 1+2+3, 12.00 13.00 OC1.4, May 19, 2019, Salle Gratte-Ciel 1+2+3, 12.00 13.00 Risk of myocardial infarction, stroke and other cardiovascular conditions in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism: A retrospective cohort 5 GP148, May 20, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 GP148, May 20, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 Risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and CKD progression in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) 6 GP149, May 20, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 GP149, May 20, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 Risk of nephrolithiasis and nephrocalcinosis in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) 7 GP147, May 20, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 GP147, May 20, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 Impact of chronic hypoparathyroidism on Health-Related Quality of Life: Findings from a 13-country patient survey 8 GP25, May 19, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 GP25, May 19, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 Risk of Type 2 diabetes (T2D) in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism. (HypoPT) 9 P1038, May 21, 2019, Exhibition area, 12.30 14.30 P1038, May 21, 2019, Exhibition area, 12.30 14.30 Recombinant human parathyroid hormone 1-84 for the treatment of adults with chronic hypoparathyroidism: Six-year safety and efficacy results of the RACE study10 GP15, May 19, 2019, Exhibition area, 13.00 14.00 All abstracts will be available on the ECE website following the meeting. About Hypoparathyroidism Chronic hypoparathyroidism is diagnosed in patients with a low concentration of calcium in the blood and inappropriately low PTH levels; for postsurgical hypoparathyroidism, the features of hypoparathyroidism must persist for at least 6 months after surgery to be considered chronic.11,12 About NATPAR(parathyroid hormone)for Injection in Europe In Europe, the recombinant human parathyroid hormone 1-84 for treatment of adults with chronic HypoPT is approved under the tradename NATPAR. NATPAR is indicated as adjunctive treatment of adult patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism who cannot be adequately controlled with standard therapy alone.13Takeda is authorised to market NATPAR in the 28 Member States of the European Union, as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. NATPAR is currently commercially available in Germany, Greece, Austria, Denmark and Norway. Click here for the full European Product Information: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/product-information/natpar-epar-product-information_en.pdf For US Full Prescribing Information, including approved indication and important safety information, please visit: http://www.shirecontent.com/PI/PDFs/Natpara_USA_ENG.pdf About Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) is a global, values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical leader headquartered in Japan, committed to bringing Better Health and a Brighter Future to patients by translating science into highly-innovative medicines. Takeda focuses its R&D efforts on four therapeutic areas: Oncology, Gastroenterology (GI), Neuroscience, and Rare Diseases. We also make targeted R&D investments in Plasma-Derived Therapies and Vaccines. We are focusing on developing highly innovative medicines that contribute to making a difference in people's lives by advancing the frontier of new treatment options and leveraging our enhanced collaborative R&D engine and capabilities to create a robust, modality-diverse pipeline. Our employees are committed to improving quality of life for patients and to working with our partners in health care in approximately 80 countries and regions. For more information, visit https://www.takeda.com References 1) Shoback D, Bilezikian JP, Costa AG, et al. Presentation of Hypoparathyroidism: Etiologies and Clinical Features. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2016;101(6):2300-12. 2) Abate EG and Clarke BL. Review of Hypoparathyroidism. Front. Endocrinol. 2016;7:172. 3) Hadker N, Egan J, Sanders J, et al. Understanding the burden of illness associated with hypoparathyroidism reported among patients in the PARADOX study. Endocr Pract. 2014;20(7):671-9. 4) Chen K, Kaul S, Curhan G, et al. Risk of sepsis, respiratory infections, and kidney or other genitourinary (GU) infections in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) Oral presentation [OC1.4]. 5) Chen K, Kaul S, Curhan G, et al. Risk of Myocardial Infarction (MI), Stroke, and Other Cardiovascular (CV) Conditions in Patients with Chronic Hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT): A Retrospective Cohort Study. 6) Chen K, Gosmanova EO, Curhan G, et al. Risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and CKD progression in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT). 7) Chen K, Curhan G, Gosmanova EO, et al. Risk of Nephrolithiasis and Nephrocalcinosis in Patients with Chronic Hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT): A Retrospective Cohort Study 8) Bollerslev J, Ennakhil NB, Chen K, et al. Impact of chronic hypoparathyroidism on Health-Related Quality of Life: Findings from a 13-country patient survey. 9) Chen K, Gosmanova EO, Curhan G, et al. Risk of Type 2 diabetes (T2D) in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism. (HypoPT). 10) Bilezikian JP, Bone H, Clarke BL, et al. Recombinant human parathyroid hormone 1-84 for the treatment of adults with chronic hypoparathyroidism: Six-year safety and efficacy results of the RACE study. 11) Brandi ML, Bilezikian JP, Shoback D, et al. Management of Hypoparathyroidism: Summary Statement and Guidelines. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2016;101(6):2273-83. 12) Bollerslev J, Rejnmark L, Marcocci C, et al. European Society of Endocrinology Clinical Guideline: Treatment of chronic hypoparathyroidism in adults. Eur J Endocrinol. 2015;173:G1-G20. 13) Natpar Summary of Product Characteristics. Copyright 2019 Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. All rights reserved. Takeda and the Takeda Logo are trademarks of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, used under license. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514005625/en/ Contacts: Japanese Media Kazumi Kobayashi kazumi.kobayashi@takeda.com +81 (0) 3-3278-2095 Media outside Japan Annabel Cowper annabel.cowper@takeda.com +41 79 630 8619 The man accused of grabbing an infant out of a mother's arms before stripping naked and jumping into Okanagan Lake was released on bail Wednesday, after spending the last week undergoing an assessment at a psychiatric hospital. Giffen Nyren, a 30-year-old Calgary man, was charged with assault and resisting arrest following the frightening incident in Kelowna's City Park on the afternoon of April 28. The child was unharmed. Nyren was certified under the Mental Health Act, which is done when a person is in a mental state that could put themselves or others at risk of harm. On May 1, the court ordered Nyren undergo a comprehensive assessment at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Port Coquitlam. Not long after arriving at the hospital, doctors determined Nyren should no longer be certified under the Mental Health Act, based on his condition, and on Wednesday, Justice Andrew Tam granted Nyren bail. It was determined that the assessment of his state of mind at the time the incident occurred will continue, but not on an in-custody basis, it'll be done on an out-of-custody basis here in Kelowna through Interior Health, said Nyren's lawyer Grant Gray. Through the video feed from the Port Coquitlam hospital in court Wednesday, Nyren appeared lucid, and he thanked the judge after he was granted bail. All seems good, beyond that I can't say, Gray said about Nyren's current condition. He's expected to appear back in Kelowna court on June 13, after his assessment is completed. Office opens with seasoned channel sales team and plans to aggressively scale presence in Europe LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Dialpad , the only AI-driven, cloud-native business communications platform, today announced an aggressive expansion of its global presence, opening a London office with new channel sales leadership, expanding partnerships with ScanSource and Avant, and a new extended digital based footprint. The company's London team will specifically focus on building channel sales momentum to meet the growing demand for cloud communications solutions in Europe. According to IDC Research, the overall cloud market in Europe will grow at a 22% rate over the next three years. Through its cloud-based suite of team collaboration, sales enablement and customer support tools, Dialpad gives any company the ability to have a global cloud-based communications platform, all powered by its industry-leading Voice Intelligence (Vi) technology. Dialpad opens its new London office with key hires across field facing organization with plans to further expand the team by the end of the year. "London represents a massive opportunity to scale Dialpad across all regions of the country and throughout Europe," said Craig Walker, CEO of Dialpad. "Dialpad is the only true, pure-cloud provider that can deliver the world-class service and scalability the European enterprise market requires." By expanding the channel partner program to Europe, Dialpad is building upon its exponential growth and commitment to over 400 channel partners providing UCaaS services and distributing the company's business communications product lines. In 2018, the company saw 289% channel revenue growth and 358% new channel customer growth. Over the past two years, Dialpad has significantly strengthened its indirect sales channels, with early program participants experiencing over 450% increase in revenue. Dialpad expects EMEA direct sales and self-service sign-ups to be available in August 2019. Channel Team Expansion Joining Dialpad's team as Channel Managers out of the new London office are Jeremy Slater and Russel Bigg. Slater is based in London and will manage Sales and Indirect Partnerships. He joins Dialpad from Zoom, and prior to that BlueJeans, where he built a track record of growing UCaaS revenues. Russel Bigg joins Dialpad from Pexip and prior to that West Corporation, where he led the channel team and partner ecosystem to 70% growth in 1 year. Biggs, also based in London, will build out Dialpad's Europe specific partner program. About Dialpad Dialpad's mission is to make business communications great. Built on the Google Cloud Platform for unmatched security, reliability and scale, Dialpad's product suite covers the full range of modern business communications needs with Talk, Sell and Support, and UberConference all powered by Voice Intelligence. Today more than 58,000 of the world's most innovative businesses use Dialpad and its seamless integrations with Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 to be more productive. Customers include WeWork, Uber, Motorola Solutions, Domo and Xero. Investors include Amasia, Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis Ventures, GV, ICONIQ Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Scale Ventures, Section 32, Softbank, and Work-Bench. Visit dialpad.com for more. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/340863/Dialpad_Logo.jpg Durable improvement in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), as GS010-treated eyes sustain +15.4 ETDRS letters equivalent improvement versus baseline and +28.1 ETDRS letters equivalent versus nadir Bilateral improvement continues in key visual functions BCVA and contrast sensitivity Responder analyses suggest improved clinical outcomes for GS010-treated eyes relative to sham-treated eyes GS010 safety and tolerability established over the course of the trial Briefing packages incorporating findings under preparation for meetings with regulatory authorities Regulatory News: This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514006094/en/ Figure 1: Sustained bilateral improvement in BCVA in REVERSE GenSight Biologics (Paris:SIGHT) (Euronext: SIGHT, ISIN: FR0013183985, PEA-PME eligible), a biopharma company focused on discovering and developing innovative gene therapies for retinal neurodegenerative diseases and central nervous system disorders, today reported a first set of results from Week 96 of the REVERSE Phase III clinical trial. The trial evaluated the safety and efficacy of a single intravitreal injection of GS010 (rAAV2/2-ND4) in 37 subjects whose visual loss due to 11778-ND4 Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) commenced between 6 and 12 months prior to study treatment. Week 96 is the last of the scheduled readouts for the trial and marks the time when the data are unmasked, providing access to individual patient profiles. The results point to continued efficacy of GS010 two years past injection, with best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) sustaining a clinically meaningful improvement over baseline. At Week 96, GS010-treated eyes showed a mean improvement of -0.308 LogMAR compared to baseline, equivalent to +15.4 ETDRS letters or 3 lines on the ETDRS vision chart. This clinically meaningful level of improvement in visual acuity maintains the gain observed at Week 72 (+14.7 ETDRS letters equivalent). As in previous readouts at Week 48 and Week 72, BCVA in sham-treated eyes evolved on a relatively parallel trajectory, achieving a mean improvement of -0.259 LogMAR over baseline, or a gain of +12.9 ETDRS letters equivalent, at Week 96. Although lower in magnitude, the mean BCVA improvement of sham-treated eyes was not statistically significant from that of GS010-treated eyes. Figure 1: Sustained bilateral improvement in BCVA in REVERSE Notes: A mixed model of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used with change from baseline as the response, and subject, eyes of the subject as random factor, treatment and the baseline LogMAR value as covariates in the model. As in RESCUE and consistent with natural history, subjects experienced an initial point of low visual acuity, or nadir. Eyes of REVERSE subjects recovered impressively. By week 96, GS010-treated eyes had gained +28 more letters relative to their nadir. Table 1. Recovery of BCVA from Nadir*: RESCUE and REVERSE (Difference** from Nadir* in ETDRS Letters Equivalent, Mean and Standard Deviation) RESCUE REVERSE n Week 48 n Week 72 n Week 48 Week 72 Week 96 GS010-treated eyes 36 +12.9 (17.9) 34 +20.6 (26.4) 37 +24.1 (21.1) +27.4 (21.8) +28.1 (22.0) Sham-treated eyes 36 +11.8 (16.0) 33 +21.8 (25.1) 37 +20.3 (23.4) +22.6 (25.5) +23.2 (24.5) Note: *Nadir was defined as the lowest post-treatment BCVA as measured by LogMAR up to week of interest. Light Perception/No Light Perception, or LP/NLP, vision was not included in the analysis. **Change from nadir was first calculated using observed LogMAR values; no data were imputed. The LogMAR values were then converted to the corresponding ETDRS letters equivalent. At Week 96, a second key visual function low-contrast visual acuity, as measured on the Pelli-Robson chart showed a similar trend of improvement for both GS010-treated eyes and sham-treated eyes. Figure 2: Evolution of contrast sensitivity in REVERSE Note: An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with repeated measures for eye and covariate adjustment for baseline LogCS, was used to model the effect of treatment on change in LogCS from baseline. A separate analysis was performed at each time point. The trajectories, however, did not track each other as closely as with BCVA: mean contrast sensitivity for GS010-treated eyes show a more robust improvement versus baseline over the course of the trial. Nonetheless, the drop in the mean contrast sensitivity of sham-treated eyes was not enough to yield a statistically significant difference in Week 96 mean contrast sensitivity improvement between the two sets of eyes. "The data show that both the treated and the sham eye improved in both high and low contrast, defying the accepted natural history of this disease and improving upon it, based upon the clinical experiences of generations of neuro-ophthalmologists," commented Dr. Robert C. Sergott, Director, Wills Eye Hospital, Neuro-Ophthalmology and Director, William H. Annesley, Jr, EyeBrain Center, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA. "The behavior of the untreated eye must also make us re-examine what we thought we knew as possibly dogma and be open to the idea that gene therapy delivered into one eye may be able to access the contralateral eye." Responder analyses suggest various ways in which GS010-treated eyes achieved better clinical outcomes than sham-treated eyes. The proportion of GS010-treated eyes that achieved at least a -0.2 LogMAR or +10 ETDRS letters equivalent improvement versus baseline at Week 96 is statistically significantly higher than the corresponding proportion of sham-treated eyes (65% vs. 46%, p-value 0.0348). GS010-treated eyes were also significantly more likely than sham-treated eyes to achieve another measure of treatment success improving by at least 15 ETDRS letters at Week 96 from on-chart acuity at baseline, or avoiding the US legal blindness threshold of 20/200 at Week 96 (32% vs. 16%, p 0.0196). Based on a generalized estimating equations (GEE) model, GS010-treated eyes were 2.8 times more likely to be at or above 20/200 than sham-treated eyes (p 0.0094). When only eyes that were strictly above the threshold were considered, the odds ratio rose to 3.6 (p 0.0032). "It is encouraging that GS010-treated eyes were nearly four times more likely to achieve vision better than 20/200 compared with sham eyes. The next step, which is to analyze individual longitudinal data on the visual parameters for each subject recruited into REVERSE, should further clarify the therapeutic benefit of GS010 in 11778-ND4 LHON," noted Dr. Patrick Yu-Wai Man, Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist at the University of Cambridge, Moorfields Eye Hospital, and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, United Kingdom. Another responder analysis provides a useful perspective on the REVERSE results. In a natural history study conducted by Santhera1, 15% of subjects who had the 11778A mutation achieved the following definition of spontaneous "clinically relevant recovery" (CRR) from baseline in at least one eye: Improved by at least 10 ETDRS letters from on-chart visual acuity, or Improved from off-chart visual acuity to being able to read at least 5 ETDRS letters By comparison, 68% of REVERSE subjects achieved this definition of CRR in at least one eye at Week 96, with GS010-treated eyes significantly more likely to achieve this than sham-treated eyes (62% vs. 43%, p 0.0348). Improvements in visual function were reflected in quality of life scores in the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI VFQ-25) survey, a validated, vision-specific quality-of-life instrument completed by REVERSE subjects. Mean composite score and means of relevant sub-scale scores continued to improve over baseline, particularly for the ability to carry out near and distance activities. The increase over baseline of the mean sub-scale scores exceeded those that have been associated with a 15-letter improvement in BCVA in other ocular diseases. Table 2: Meaningful improvements in Quality of Life Scores Reported by REVERSE Subjects NEI VFQ-25 Results from REVERSE Mean change from baseline (absolute score and percent) Composite Score** Near Activities Distance Activities Dependency Role Difficulties General Vision Mental Health Week 48 +7.2 +23.2% +10.4 +65.1% +9.6 +49.8% +12.4 +100.6% +14.5 +65.0% +10.3 +50.9% +11.2 +81.9% Week 72 +8.1 +25.2% +9.5 +58.1% +8.2 +42.5% +18.9 +130.2% +15.2 +70.9% +11.9 +54.1% +15.2 +105.6% Week 96 +9.5 +28.8% +13.3 +78.1% +10.7 +47.4% +18.5 130.2% +15.9 +78.9% +6.5 +32.4% +16.1 +108.2% Clinically relevant difference* +3.90 to +4.34 +4.67 to +6.06 +5.15 to +5.38 +4.72 to +4.98 +3.31 to +4.70 +4.38 to +4.82 +4.70 to +4.88 Suner et al. (2009): clinically relevant score differences based on a clinically significant 15-letter BCVA improvement at 12 months. **The composite score is an average of the vision-targeted sub-scale scores, excluding the general health rating question. Note: The mean percent improvement for a sub-score was calculated by averaging the individual percent improvements. Structural metrics indicate that GS010-treated eyes maintained the stability achieved in previous readouts in ganglion cell volume. The differential effect of therapy was, however, more prominent in previous readouts. Initial analyses of subject-level data suggest that the bilateral effect is common across patients; other analyses of subject-level data are ongoing. GenSight will hold an investor meeting (in English, to be simulcast in French) on May 23 in New York City, where invited key opinion leaders will discuss results in more detail. Week 96 data further establish the favorable safety profile of GS010. There have been no discontinuations in the trial and no serious adverse effects in GS010-treated eyes. The ocular AEs most frequently reported in the therapy group were mainly related to the injection procedure itself, along with the occurrence of intraocular inflammation (accompanied by elevation of intraocular pressure in some patients), likely related to GS010; these were responsive to conventional treatment and were without sequelae. "We are very gratified by these remarkable findings, which demonstrate the durable and clinically meaningful impact of GS010, while continuing to establish the safety of our gene therapy," commented Bernard Gilly, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of GenSight. "We are moving with speed and determination to build a compelling dossier from the results of REVERSE and, later this year, RESCUE." REVERSE Week 96 results will be included in the briefing materials that are being prepared for a pre-submission meeting with the EMA and a Type B meeting with the FDA, both of which are planned for mid-year. Data from the 96-week readout of the second Phase III trial for GS010, RESCUE, is expected to be available by the end of Q3 2019. The third interventional study for GS010, REFLECT, is a randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled Phase III trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of bilateral injections of GS010 in patients up to one year from onset of vision loss due to LHON. The first patient in REFLECT was treated in March 2018; treatment of the last patient is expected in Q2 of this year. GenSight will host a conference call today, May 15, 2019, at 10am CEST in French, and at 2.30pm CEST (8.30am EST) in English, to discuss these results. Webcast Conference call in French Dial-in numbers: United States: +1 212 999 6659 France: +33 (0) 1 7037 7166 United Kingdom: +44 (0) 20 3003 2666 Password: GenSight Webcast link: https://channel.royalcast.com/webcast/gensightbiologicsfr/20190514_1/ Webcast Conference call in English Dial-in numbers: United States: +1 212 999 6659 France: +33 (0) 1 7037 7166 United Kingdom: +44 (0) 20 3003 2666 Password: GenSight Webcast link: https://channel.royalcast.com/webcast/gensightbiologicsen/20190514_1/ A replay of the calls and webcasts will be available by using the above links. Reference: 1. Magda et al (2019), "Natural History of Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON): Findings from a Large Patient Cohort", Poster presented at NANOS March 16-21, 2019; Poster Session II: Scientific Advancements; Poster: 163 About GenSight Biologics GenSight Biologics S.A. is a clinical-stage biopharma company focused on discovering and developing innovative gene therapies for retinal neurodegenerative diseases and central nervous system disorders. GenSight Biologics' pipeline leverages two core technology platforms, the Mitochondrial Targeting Sequence (MTS) and optogenetics, to help preserve or restore vision in patients suffering from blinding retinal diseases. GenSight Biologics' lead product candidate, GS010, is in Phase III trials in Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a rare mitochondrial disease that leads to irreversible blindness in teens and young adults. Using its gene therapy-based approach, GenSight Biologics' product candidates are designed to be administered in a single treatment to each eye by intravitreal injection to offer patients a sustainable functional visual recovery. About GS010 GS010 targets Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) by leveraging a mitochondrial targeting sequence (MTS) proprietary technology platform, arising from research conducted at the Institut de la Vision in Paris, which, when associated with the gene of interest, allows the platform to specifically address defects inside the mitochondria using an AAV vector (Adeno-Associated Virus). The gene of interest is transferred into the cell to be expressed and produces the functional protein, which will then be shuttled to the mitochondria through specific nucleotidic sequences in order to restore the missing or deficient mitochondrial function. About Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) is a rare maternally inherited mitochondrial genetic disease, characterized by the degeneration of retinal ganglion cells that results in brutal and irreversible vision loss that can lead to legal blindness, and mainly affects adolescents and young adults. LHON is associated with painless, sudden loss of central vision in the 1st eye, with the 2nd eye sequentially impaired. It is a symmetric disease with poor functional visual recovery. 97% of patients have bilateral involvement at less than one year of onset of vision loss, and in 25% of cases, vision loss occurs in both eyes simultaneously. The estimated incidence of LHON is approximately 1,400 to 1,500 new patients who lose their sight every year in the United States and Europe. About RESCUE and REVERSE RESCUE and REVERSE are two separate randomized, double-masked, sham-controlled Phase III trials designed to evaluate the efficacy of a single intravitreal injection of GS010 (rAAV2/2-ND4) in subjects affected by LHON due to the G11778A mutation in the mitochondrial ND4 gene. The primary endpoint will measure the difference in efficacy of GS010 in treated eyes compared to sham-treated eyes based on Best-Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA), as measured with the ETDRS at 48 weeks post-injection. The patients' LogMAR (Logarithm of the Minimal Angle of Resolution) scores, which are derived from the number of letters patients read on the ETDRS chart, will be used for statistical purposes. Both trials have been adequately powered to evaluate a clinically relevant difference of at least 15 ETDRS letters between treated and untreated eyes adjusted to baseline. The secondary endpoints will involve the application of the primary analysis to best-seeing eyes that received GS010 compared to those receiving sham, and to worse-seeing eyes that received GS010 compared to those that received sham. Additionally, a categorical evaluation with a responder analysis will be evaluated, including the proportion of patients who maintain vision (< ETDRS 15L loss), the proportion of patients who gain 15 ETDRS letters from baseline and the proportion of patients with Snellen acuity of >20/200. Complementary vision metrics will include automated visual fields, optical coherence tomography, and color and contrast sensitivity, in addition to quality of life scales, bio-dissemination and the time course of immune response. Readouts for these endpoints are at 48, 72 and 96 weeks after injection. The trials are conducted in parallel, in 37 subjects for REVERSE and 39 subjects for RESCUE, in 7 centers across the United States, the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Week 96 results are expected in 2019 for both trials, after which patients will be transferred to a long-term follow-up study that will last for three years. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifiers: REVERSE: NCT02652780 RESCUE: NCT02652767 About REFLECT REFLECT is a multi-center, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of bilateral injections of GS010 in subjects with LHON due to the NADH dehydrogenase 4 (ND4) mutation. The trial is planned to enroll 90 patients with vision loss up to 1 year in duration and will be conducted in multiple centers in Europe and in the US. In the active arm, GS010 will be administered as a single intravitreal injection to both eyes of each subject. In the placebo arm, GS010 will be administered as a single intravitreal injection to the first affected eye, while the fellow eye will receive a placebo injection. The primary endpoint for the REFLECT trial is the BCVA reported in LogMAR at 1-Year post-treatment in the second-affected/not-yet-affected eye. The change from baseline in second-affected/not-yet-affected eyes receiving GS010 and placebo will be the primary response of interest. The secondary efficacy endpoints include: BCVA reported in LogMAR at 2-Years post-treatment in the second-affected/not-yet-affected eye compared to both placebo and the first-affected eye receiving GS010, OCT and contrast sensitivity and quality of life scales. The first subject was treated in March 2018. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifiers: REFLECT: NCT03293524 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514006094/en/ Contacts: GenSight Biologics Thomas Gidoin Chief Financial Officer tgidoin@gensight-biologics.com +33 (0)1 76 21 72 20 RooneyPartners Media Relations Marion Janic mjanic@rooneyco.com +1-212-223-4017 Solebury Trout US Investor Relations Chad Rubin crubin@troutgroup.com +1-646-378-2947 James Palmer Europe Investor Relations j.palmer@orpheonfinance.com +33 7 60 92 77 74 Ageas CEO Bart De Smet said: We are very pleased with the strong sales momentum recorded this first quarter, especially in Belgium, Portugal and Asia where we continued to strongly increase our inflows. Due to a timing difference on capital gains and the impact of the quota share re-insurance programme, which is for the first time reflected in our figures, the result of our Insurance activities was somewhat down compared to the first quarter of last year. These negative, however temporary, elements have been partly compensated by improved profits in Continental Europe and Asia. Our Asian activities benefited from a recovery in the Chinese equity markets and incorporated a positive, even though still small, contribution from our recent investment in India. All in all we are satisfied with this good start to the year. Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. One of the Best Loved Lifestyle Memberships from the U.S. Offers Its Subscription Box Overseas FabFitFun, the Los Angeles-based lifestyle membership for women, announced today that it has extended its offering to United Kingdom residents. Founded in 2010, FabFitFun's mission is to inspire women to lead happier, healthier lives through product and brand discovery. Its flagship product, the FabFitFun Box, delivers a curated collection of full-size products across beauty, fashion, wellness, fitness, home, technology and beyond to more than 1 million members each season. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005042/en/ The FabFitFun Summer Box is now available in the UK (Photo: Business Wire) For less than 50* each season, FabFitFun members receive 8-10 products, with a total value of over 150, from premium and emerging brands. FabFitFun members are able to customise elements of their box from a curated number of products, ensuring it is truly bespoke to them. "We've spent the last ten years building FabFitFun into one of the most beloved multi-platform lifestyle and wellness brands in the United States and Canada," said Katie Rosen Kitchens. "Our members tell us almost daily about the positive impact FabFitFun has on their lives and we want to bring this experience to as many people in as many places as possible. As we continue to grow our international reach we are thrilled to introduce the FabFitFun membership experience to the UK." In addition to the boxes, FabFitFun members receive access to year-round perks including: FabFitFunTV, a streaming video service that includes on-demand videos covering a variety of lifestyle topics: fitness, cooking, DIY, relationship advice, etc. The FabFitFun online Community, a members-only social network Daily lifestyle content delivered across a variety of platforms (newsletter, in-box magazine; social media, etc.) Exclusive sales and shopping experiences including an add-on sale program where members can 'add' items to their box, and a seasonal edit sale where customers can shop premium products at significantly reduced prices Each season, along with the boxes, FabFitFun engages a new philanthropic partner, leveraging its marketing platform to bring attention to worthy causes like UNICEF, Joyful Heart Foundation, American Heart Association, Girl Rising, Wildlife Conservation Society and more. For Summer 2019, the featured charity is Global Gift Foundation, an organization that is committed to making a positive impact in the lives of women, children and families in need. Donations collected by FabFitFun will benefit the Girls in Action Alliance, the newest partnership between Global Gift Foundation and the Eva Longoria Foundation. The initiative will connect women and girls with the right tools and education to be the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) innovators of tomorrow. FabFitFun is now available to UK residents at www.fabfitfun.com. To keep up to date with the latest news about FabFitFun, follow @fabfitfun on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For all FabFitFun press enquiries including samples and images, please contact: fabfitfun@aisle8.com. *Price does not include shipping; transactions are charged in U.S. dollars and subject to foreign exchange rates and any transaction fees that may be applied by customer's payment provider. ABOUT FABFITFUN Founded in 2010 by Co-CEOs Daniel and Michael Broukhim, and Editor-in-Chief Katie Rosen Kitchens, FabFitFun is a lifestyle membership that inspires women to lead happier, healthier lives through product and brand discovery. Its flagship product, the FabFitFun Box, delivers a curated collection of full-size products across beauty, fashion, wellness, fitness, home, technology and beyond to more than one million members each season. In addition to the box, FabFitFun members receive access to FabFitFunTV, a streaming video service offering on-demand wellness videos, daily lifestyle content, the FabFitFun online Community and exclusive sales and shopping experiences. Join FabFitFun by visiting fabfitfun.com. ABOUT THE FOUNDERS Katie Rosen Kitchens, Co-Founder Editor-in-Chief: Co-founder of FabFitFun, Katie Rosen Kitchens has led its evolution as a female-focused media brand, from writing about great lifestyle products, to getting them into people's hands. Since launching the FabFitFun lifestyle box 2013, Katie has shifted her energy towards curating fresh and exciting brands for FabFitFun members and overseeing all brand partnerships and product development. Daniel Broukhim, Co-Founder Co-CEO: Daniel Broukhim is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Since launching as a media company in 2010, Daniel has led the growth of FabFitFun from the launch of its subscription box in 2013, to its position today as one of the world's leading lifestyle memberships. Michael Broukhim, Co-Founder Co-CEO: Michael Broukhim is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FabFitFun. Prior to FabFitFun, Michael was Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Charlie (formerly, Opera New Media), where he directed digital strategies for celebrities, politicians, Fortune 500 companies, startups, and nonprofits. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005042/en/ Contacts: FabFitFun Michelle Kim Head of Communications 214.277.3244 michellek@fabfitfun.com Investment Represents First Completed Acquisition under OpenGate's Second Institutional Fund OpenGate Capital, a global private equity firm, announced today that it has acquired the silicon carbide division from Saint-Gobain S.A. (EPA: SGO). The business will soon be renamed Fiven A/S ("Fiven"). Financial terms were not disclosed. Fiven is a leader in Silicon Carbide ("SiC") grains and powders, a material that offers unique properties of hardness, thermal resistance, wear resistance, thermal conductivity and chemical inertness. Fiven products are used in a wide array of applications including metallurgy, refractory materials, filtration products and technical ceramics. Fiven has a global manufacturing footprint across Norway, Belgium, Brazil and Venezuela, and will be headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Fiven products are sold to a diverse customer base across Europe, South America, North America and Asia. Partner at OpenGate Capital Sebastien Kiekert Le Moult, who led the transaction commented, "OpenGate's investment in Fiven marks an exciting opportunity at a time that the business continues to benefit from its position in a fragmented market and power-related product applications which are experiencing robust growth." Julien Lagreze, OpenGate Capital's Partner based in Paris, stated, "We are incredibly proud to have completed this transaction with Saint-Gobain, a highly regarded corporate transaction partner. Not only is Fiven another exciting, cross-border investment for our firm, this also represents the hallmark of OpenGate's strategy to partner with corporations in complex, cross-border, carve-out transactions." Fabien Marcantetti, Managing Director at OpenGate responsible for transaction execution in Europe, stated, "The transaction with Saint-Gobain reflects OpenGate's strategy to acquire businesses that will benefit from a new owner who collaborates with management to drive the next era of growth." Also commenting was Marc Veillas, Managing Director at OpenGate overseeing the operations of the firm's European investments. Veillas stated, "We are looking forward to collaborating with the team at Fiven in the years ahead and building the full potential within a well-established business." Fiven is the first investment completed within OpenGate Capital's second institutional fund. The firm also signed agreements to acquire Sargent and Greenleaf from Stanley Black and Decker in the US, and SMAC from Colas Group in Europe. About OpenGate Capital OpenGate Capital is a global private equity firm specializing in the acquisition and operation of businesses to create new value through operational improvements, innovation and growth. Established in 2005, OpenGate Capital is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with a European office in Paris, France. OpenGate's professionals possess the critical skills needed to acquire, transition, operate, build and scale successful businesses. To date, OpenGate Capital, through its legacy and fund investments, has executed more than 30 acquisitions including corporate carve-outs, management buy-outs, special situations and transactions with private sellers across North America and Europe. To learn more about OpenGate, please visit www.opengatecapital.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005250/en/ Contacts: OpenGate Media Contacts Alanna Chaffin Email: achaffin@opengatecapital.com Telephone: +1 (310) 432-7000 Mike Sitrick Sitrick Company Email: Mike_Sitrick@sitrick.com Telephone: +1 (310) 788-2850 OpenGate Business Development Contact Joshua Adams Email: jadams@opengatecapital.com Telephone: +1 (310) 432-7000 A new Board of Directors has been appointed GENOA, Italy, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Shareholder's Meeting of Esaote S.p.A. - a leading Company in the sector of diagnostic imaging - held in Genoa under the Chairmanship of Mr. Wu Guangming, has reconstituted its Board of Directors, expiring upon the approval of the company's financial statements at 31.12.2018. The Shareholders' Meeting of Esaote S.p.A. took notice of the resignation submitted by the CEO of the Group Karl-Heinz Lumpi and has appointed the new Board of Directors composed by Wu Guangming - confirmed Chairman - Franco Fontana, Eugenio Biglieri, Xie Yufeng, e Zheng Hongzhe. The Board of Directors has immediately appointed Franco Fontana to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Franco Fontana - who holds a doctorate in Computer Science and telecommunications at the University of Genoa and subsequently an Executive MBA at SDA Bocconi of Milan - has matured more than twenty years of experience in software applied to medical imaging and healthcare IT along a professional career that started as an entrepreneur and evolved as an executive manager. He took the direction of the Business Unit of EBIT AET, belonging to Esaote Group since 2008. Under his leadership, the Medical IT PACS business is constantly growing year after year, and Ebit has become a market leader in Italy and consolidated its international presence in Europe, Latin America and APAC. To support Franco in his new role, effective immediately, Eugenio Biglieri has been appointed to the new role of Chief Operating Officer, with responsibilities spanning across Research & Development, Manufacturing, Operations, Strategic Marketing, Quality & Regulatory, and servicing of Medical Systems. Eugenio Biglieri joined Esaote in 1985, and over the years he has covered positions of increasing responsibility up to hold the roles of MRI Marketing Director and Chief Global service Officer. The Board of Directors wishes to express its heartfelt gratitude to Karl-Heinz Lumpi for his commitment over the years to the leadership of Esaote. Mr Lumpi will continue to provide support over the coming months to complete the latest applications planned for the MyLab9 family. About Esaote The Esaote Group is a leader in the biomedical equipment sector, in particular in the areas of ultrasound, dedicated MRI, and software for managing the diagnostic process. The company currently employs about 1,150 people. With its headquarters in Genoa and its own production and research units in Italy and the Netherlands, Esaote is active in 80 countries in the world. Information on Esaote and its products is available at www.esaote.com Copyright Esaote 2019 (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/557501/ESAOTE_Logo.jpg) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/886947/Franco_Fontana_CEO_Esaote.jpg) One year of partnership Payvision x ING equals a financial services powerhouse combining payments and banking expertise for innovative commerce solutions; Payvision recorded over 50% growth. Payvision integrates its affiliate company, Acapture, under its new brand, becoming the go-to fintech partner to offer an extensive payments package to merchants across the globe. With its human-centric visual and sonic identity, Payvision shows its true brand essence as the trusted, lighthearted fintech partner that businesses can count on for safe and easy payments. AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Payvision, a global payments fintech player celebrates its one-year partnership with ING, one of the largest European banks, with a brand-new visual and sonic identity, marking the company's shift into a new era. Payvision had an excellent year in 2018, fueled by its strategic partnership with ING, a complete rebranding process, and more than a 50% increase in transaction volume. During the first year, the ING-Payvision partnership brought forward an exclusive blend of payments and banking products to the industry, positioning the two as a financial services powerhouse. Besides serving merchants across the globe with a data-driven, omnichannel payments platform, the combined proposition also integrates Internet of Things capabilities from both companies, such as FINN , into a wider fintech ecosystem. This empowers Payvision to accommodate any payment method a merchant could ask for; from traditional cards, to Apple Pay, soon to be introduced by ING in the Netherlands, as well as invisible payment capabilities in the future. In 2018, the strategic focus was placed on serving mid-sized merchants in Belgium and the Netherlands, and large corporates with a global reach. During 2019, this is planned to be extended to all SME customers of ING. "This first year of partnership involved a deep understanding and adjustment to each other's business styles, and we all benefited from the creative, straightforward entrepreneurial spirit of Payvision coupled with the resourcefulness and the broader financial knowledge of ING," said Mark Buitenhek, Global Head Transaction Services at ING Group. "Payvision's rebranding comes as a natural step towards its growth ambitions and ING is delighted to see the fintech mindset showing off through the company's strong identity." Payvision's speedy growth paired with the addition of its affiliate company, Acapture, and strategic partnership with ING brought forward the need to redefine its brand position in the payments industry. As part of the rebranding process, the Acapture platform was integrated under the new Payvision brand, uniting the payment solutions offered via Acapture with Payvision's acquiring network. The result means Payvision is a data-driven, omnichannel payment processor offering safe and easy payment solutions to merchants across the globe. The new Payvision brand encompasses the creativity and energy of the team driving the company's growth. The human-centric approach and vibrant, simple identity bring a breath of fresh air for customers in an industry defined by complex solutions. It's through the nature of its close, human interactions that Payvision brings a unique tempo, underlining the company's new brand essence, the beat of payments. "Payvision's new brand identity was a strategic project aimed at reinventing the company as it stepped into a new chapter. So, we're excited and proud of this milestone," said Payvision's CEO, Rudolf Booker. "There's no better way to celebrate our first anniversary with ING than by redefining our DNA, reflecting the lively personality and creativity of the people behind the company. Payvision is now ready for the future, living up to its core values, passion and curiosity." For its visual identity, Payvision worked with Saffron, an award-winning brand consultancy that helped discover and show the company's original personality through brand expression. Furthermore, given its new brand essence, Payvision worked with MassiveMusic, one of the world's leading creative music agencies, to define its sonic identity and bring the beat of payments to life. With both visual and sonic identities defined, Payvision becomes the first player in the payments industry to unveil a multifaceted brand strategy. Find out more about the new brand identity, the Payvision beat and the story behind the rebranding project here . Company sales expansion to support European solar renaissance with recently contracted projects totaling over 400 MW MUNICH and FREMONT, California, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NEXTracker, a Flex company, announced today that the Company is bolstering its sales efforts in the region to respond to the renewed growth in PV projects slated to be developed in Europe over the next few years. With greater physical presence in the region, NEXTracker will support the 400 megawatts of solar tracker projects it has won in Spain, the United Kingdom, and Greece. According to the global PV Installations Tracker report published by IHS Markit, demand for solar is surging in Europe as PV technology is becoming competitive with other sources of power and countries across the region seek to meet near-term goals for clean energy and emissions reduction. "There is a tremendous pipeline for utility scale solar projects with solar trackers," said Senior Analyst for Solar & Energy Storage at IHS Markit, Camron Barati. "We're projecting that by 2023, PV tracking systems will account for 43% of Europe's installed ground-mounted capacity annually." "We are excited to be fully engaged with our European customers with a deeper presence in the region," said Dan Shugar, NEXTracker CEO. "We have successfully built our supply chain, operations and sales efforts in what are now thriving solar energy regions across the globe, and we see Europe as a promising market. After solar's many years on hiatus in Europe, we're excited to bring our latest energy yield technologies to this renewed market." "After extensively reviewing multiple competing offers, we chose NEXTracker for our two landmark subsidy-free projects in the Northwest of England," remarked Toddington Harper, CEO of GRIDSERVE. "With the shackles of subsidies finally a thing of the past, European solar projects are now on the rise, and we're building them smarter, with yield improvement advancements such as NEXTracker's bifacial and TrueCapture control system technologies. Our heartfelt congratulations to NEXTracker on this geographic expansion." "Our sincerest congratulations to NEXTracker on their strategic move for geographic expansion," said Grupo Ortiz. "We have successfully executed projects in Latin American large-utility scale projects and we look forward to witnessing their growth on the European front." About NEXTracker NEXTracker, a Flex company, advances the power plant of the future with smart solar trackers, energy storage systems and TrueCapture advanced control software that yields additional energy, optimizes performance and reduces costs for project and plant owners. As the number-one tracker supplier worldwide with over 19 GW delivered or under fulfillment, NEXTracker is globally recognized for delivering smart and connected energy systems for hundreds of projects across five continents. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company has offices in Mexico, Australia, India, Latin America, and Europe. For more information, visit NEXTracker.com and follow the company on Twitter and LinkedIn. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887382/NEXTracker_on_connected_3_MW_site_of_Tsilia.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/506736/NEXTracker_Flex_Company_Logo.jpg To support rapid expansion across mainland Europe, Egress extends its EMEA operation by opening new Amsterdam office. Egress, the leading provider of people-centric data security solutions, today announced its official launch into the Benelux market. The company, which helps organizations receive, manage and share information securely, has selected Amsterdam as the location of its mainland Europe headquarters due to the city's reputation for technical innovation and access to an ecosystem of top data security specialists. "Egress' success over the past five years has been underpinned by our market-leading security tools that have helped customers in the UK and North America mitigate the considerable compliance and data security risks associated with sharing sensitive data," Egress CEO Tony Pepper said. "Inevitably, as we continue to grow and expand, we find ourselves working with enterprises across mainland Europe, something that has been accelerated by the introduction of GDPR 12 months ago. For industries such as government, financial services, healthcare and professional services, there is increasing pressure to comply with data privacy and security regulations, while managing a heightened security threat. The stakes have never been higher!" "As part of this expansion, it was hugely important that we selected the right location to drive our European growth. With its investment in technology and the innovation community it is fostering, Amsterdam represents the ideal center for this," concluded Pepper. With 95% of C-level IT professionals concerned about insider threats, staff causing data breaches both intentionally and unintentionally pose a significant risk to organizations. Recognizing this, Egress has developed an intelligent, people-centric data security platform that uses machine learning to understand the potential risk of a data breach in order to apply the necessary levels of security to shared information. In addition, powerful auditing and reporting capabilities enable business administrators to identify and report on data shared across their email networks to ensure compliance with GDPR. As a result, Egress experienced significant growth in 2018, increasing new SaaS subscriptions by 64%, with a 93% renewal rate-demonstrating the loyalty of the company's customer base, and the strength and trust in its people-centric platform. In December 2018, the company received $40m in Series C funding, led by private equity firm FTV Capital, to support its rapid growth. "Having demonstrated the value of our solution in the UK and North America, it is inevitable that demand for our technology in mainland Europe will increase," stated Axel van Drongelen, Egress General Manager for Benelux. "As in the UK, the introduction of GDPR means European organizations are increasingly balancing greater demands for regulatory compliance with managing the sophisticated risk of insider threats. Egress' track record and reputation for delivering innovative data security solutions across other existing markets demonstrate we are well-positioned to support them in meeting these challenges and achieving their business goals." About Egress Egress takes a people-centric approach to data security helping users receive, manage and share sensitive data securely to meet compliance requirements and drive business productivity. Using machine learning, Egress ensures information is protected relative to the risk of a data breach and reduces user friction to ensure smooth adoption. Trusted by enterprise organizations and governments around the globe, Egress' award-winning platform provides email encryption, secure file transfer and online collaboration services, as well as risk management, accidental send prevention, and compliance auditing and reporting. Egress is headquartered in London, with regional offices in the UK, the US, Canada and the Netherlands. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005215/en/ Contacts: Brian Merrill fama PR for Egress 617-986-5005 egress@famapr.com LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Gale Klappa, outgoing chief executive officer of WEC Energy Group, clinched two prestigious Business Worldwide Magazine (BWM) awards just days before handing over the company helm. Klappa, 68, won the title of Best CEO 'Electricity and Natural Gas Industry' and 'Growth Strategy CEO of the Year - USA' in January this year. In February, upon vacating his CEO position to the then company president, he became the energy company's executive chairman. Despite his busy schedule, Klappa still found time to thank BWM for recognising his achievements since becoming CEO for the second time in October 2017. He had previously retired in 2016, but resumed the position when his replacement suffered a medical setback. Klappa said: "I'm truly honored to receive these awards. And as I transition to a new chapter, our senior team will continue to focus on excelling at the fundamentals of our business. Our future is bright." The BWM CEO Award winners are chosen from a variety of sectors worldwide, such as health, finance, manufacturing, utilities and law. The awards are highly contested and attract a large number of entries, which are then short-listed until an eventual winner is named. A spokesman for BWM, David Jones said Klappa was a worthy winner, adding: "These awards are about giving recognition where it's due, and in Gale Klappa's case, there is simply no doubt. It can't have been easy returning to the company after embarking on his retirement plans, but his loyalty to the company and staff there won out - to the extent he navigated a fine course in what could have been, at one time, potentially treacherous waters. "Gale Klappa is an inspiration for all who step into his shoes at WEC Energy Group, as well as the staff there at all levels." WEC Energy Group is an eco-conscious company - as evidenced in its plan to reduce its carbon emission output by 80 percent by the year 2050. In the meantime, the target for 2030 is a 40 percent reduction - a figure that Klappa claims the company is already well on-target to meet. As part of WEC Energy Group's generation reshaping plan, Klappa recently introduced two innovative renewable energy pilot programmes: Solar Now and Dedicated Renewable Energy Resources. Both are aimed at commercial and industrial customers, with the former involving the construction of solar photovoltaic systems; the latter involves building bespoke renewable resources for companies. See more information on the above two projects and the company itself at www.wecenergygroup.com An article on the company can be found on the BWM website https://www.bwmonline.com/2019/04/30/climate-change-transforms-energy-sector/ About Business Worldwide Magazine Business Worldwide Magazine is the leading source of business and dealmaker intelligence throughout the world. Our quarterly magazine and online news portal enables an established audience of corporate dealmakers to track the latest news, stories and developments affecting the international markets, corporate finance, business strategy and changes in legislation. This readership includes of CEO/CFO - Banks, Corporate Lawyers and Venture Capital/Private Equity Companies to name a few. http://www.bwmonline.com Contact Robert Weinberg Awards Department E: robert.weinberg@bwmonline.com W: http://www.bwmonline.com Photo: The Canadian Press Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer stands during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer says his party's climate plan will aim to hit Canada's promised greenhouse-gas emissions targets but the party will not say whether that means all of the emissions cuts it wants to count will actually happen here. Scheer intends to release his climate plan next month and he said Wednesday it will be "based" on Canada's targets under the Paris climate-change accord. But he says Canada has "an obligation" not just to reduce our own emissions of climate-changing gases but also to help other countries cut theirs. "We don't do the world a favour if we see marginal reductions of emissions here in Canada and massive expansions of emissions in other countries because investments and jobs get displaced to those types of jurisdictions," Scheer said Wednesday. Under the Paris Agreement, each country in the world has to commit to reducing its own greenhouse-gas emissions by a specific amount. However, the accord allows for what are called "co-operative mechanisms," which means as long as two countries agree, emissions reductions in one country can be counted toward meeting the targets of another country. That could happen if, for instance, Canada signed an agreement with another country to finance a new solar farm to replace a coal-fired electricity plant, in exchange for Canada's getting credit for some or all of the emissions reductions that result. A Conservative spokeswoman said Canadians will have to wait for the release of the party's climate plan in June for any details about how emissions reductions in other countries will be incorporated into the Tory vision. Scheer also intends to try to amend a Liberal motion in the House of Commons declaring a climate-change emergency to include a recognition of "Canada's obligations in the global context." The motion is not a binding law but a broad declaration of MPs' collective will. The Liberal motion declares climate change a national emergency that means Canada must first meet the Paris targets for emissions cuts and then exceed them to keep the world from getting catastrophically hot. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna brought the motion in part to force the Conservatives to either commit to the Paris Agreement or vote against it. A competing NDP motion declaring a climate-change emergency, which was debated Wednesday, is a non-starter for both the Conservatives and Liberals because of its additional calls for the government to walk away from the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and fossil-fuel subsidies immediately. McKenna said some subsidies are helping keep life affordable, such as those keeping diesel prices down to reduce electricity costs in Canada's North. Scheer said Conservative support for the Liberal motion depends on whether the Liberals accept his planned amendments, such as an acknowledgment that the Liberals' existing climate policies are failing to meet the Paris targets. He said Conservatives believe climate change is a real and urgent problem. But he called out the government for wasting time in the House of Commons with a motion he says is a clear attempt to distract from Liberal scandals. He called Trudeau a "high-carbon hypocrite" who churns out emissions flying around the world on a private plane while imposing carbon taxes on regular Canadians, which Scheer says will have no impact on Canada's emissions. The Liberals last year produced an analysis suggesting at $50 per tonne of carbon dioxide, a national carbon price would reduce emissions between 80 million and 90 million tonnes a year. That is almost half of what Canada has to cut from annual emissions to reach its Paris targets. The country's total emissions in 2017 were 716 million tonnes, according to the federal government. Catherine Abreu, executive director of the Climate Action Network Canada, said there are no rules yet for how cooperative mechanisms would work. She also said that they were introduced with the idea that countries such as Canada could achieve more ambitious targets down the road by helping other countries, not use the mechanisms to meet existing targets. She said she won't comment on the Conservative plan until she sees it but that any party that tries to meet Paris targets without making a serious dent in Canada's own emissions cannot be taken seriously on climate change. "I am an only child but if I had a brother, I couldn't tell him to clean up his room if I didn't clean up my own," she said. Canada is among the top 10 biggest emitters globally, and because of the oil industry and our relatively small population, Canada has the highest per-capita emissions, she said. Agricultural Social Insurance Fund, Confindustria, Endesa, P4A, and Ergo Activ have all turned to IBM to help write the next chapter of business and social transformation PARIS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced work taking place across Europe with leading companies embracing hybrid cloud and AI as a means to drive meaningful and substantive change within their business. These companies represent different industries and different markets, but each is working with IBM to use data to transform their business processes and ways of working. The announcement precedes IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty's keynote address at Viva Technology in Paris, where she will be joined by leading European CEOs to talk about the next chapter of business and social transformation, driven by hybrid cloud, digital and AI technologies. "IBM is writing the next chapter of business and social transformation together with our clients," said Rometty. "Companies across Europe and the world are working with IBM to put the hybrid cloud infrastructure in place and to start infusing AI into businesses processes as a means to accelerate future innovation." The work IBM is showcasing includes: The Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS), a social insurance provider for farmers in Poland, this week announced it is adopting IBM Cloud to implement a hybrid cloud strategy that is designed to help modernize its new e-learning platform. Moving its educational programs about the rules of safe work in farming to the cloud enables KRUS to improve children safety. Until now, KRUS's educational programs were only available in pamphlet form and had limited reach. In advance of the summer usage spike, KRUS has revamped the program to live online and will host them on the IBM Cloud, while keeping their existing IT system on-premises. Confindustria, the main association representing manufacturing and service companies in Italy, renewed its agreement with IBM and will move its entire IT infrastructure to the IBM Cloud. Previously hosted on-premises, Confindustria will move all of its IT workloads -- from its customer-relationship management system to its external-facing member channels -- to the IBM Cloud. This complete IT migration is expected to help the company scale to meet the fluctuating demands of its members and tap into advanced technologies that are designed to power more personalized, innovative offerings for members. Endesa, the largest Spanish power company taps IBM Watson and IBM Cloud to transform its call center into an AI contact center to help deliver quick and personalized customer service. Using IBM Watson Assistant, Endesa built a virtual assistant helping to enable clients to get answers to their inquiries, and empowering call center agents to focus on more complex requests and selling. Since the launch of their Watson assistant July 2018, Endesa's overall client satisfaction has increased 4,5%. Through their phones, customers can ask the assistant to handle transactional requests like providing bill duplicates, changing bank account information or paying a bill. Hosted on the IBM Cloud and integrated with Endesa's back-office processes, the assistant is designed to easily scale both in functionality and customer reach. Currently managing 40,000 customer calls per month, it will soon be expected to handle 90,000 calls monthly and will be adding additional transactions like changing the contracted power, modifying the contract holder and even the supplier. Performance for Assets (P4A), a Belgian start-up, provides wind-park operators with a virtual assistant hosted on the IBM Cloud to give action alerts for technicians before asset failure. P4A teamed up with IBM Cloud Garage to create a comprehensive solution that uses IBM Watson IoT platform to collect and process data from sensors, detect and diagnose potential issues using IBM Watson Machine Learning, IBM Watson Studio and Cloud Foundry, and share this information with engineers in the field using IBM Watson Assistant. The solution helps turbine owners monitor asset performance and extend the asset life cycle as well as increase their output. The system has been piloted in the North of France in a wind park of 5 turbines. ERGO Aktiv, the Czech Neurorehabilitation Center has developed a virtual assistant "Andelin" to help patients after a stroke with their return to an active life and work. The virtual assistant can help reduce confusion and misinterpretation of information by answering questions and providing general information related to the post-stroke rehabilitation shared widely on the Internet. Built on the IBM Cloud, the Watson-based assistant allows the patients and their families to ask questions about the challenges and situations they typically face after stroke. The new virtual assistant, available on Ergo Aktiv's website , brings a new pillar of help for Ergo AKTIV clients 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Patients after stroke need a personal approach in rehabilitation as well as an interactive partner, is able help and consult them. Andelin is trained to react to emotional questions and helps users find out useful information by asking specific questions proactively or suggesting alternatives. Users can also ask to be contacted by a human adviser, and if they do it during the conversation with the virtual assistant, the important parameters are passed to the adviser allowing him or her to better focus their answers. About IBM For more information about IBM: https://www.ibm.com Media Contact Veronique Barone IBM Europe Communications +33 6 84635476 v_barone@fr.ibm.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/95470/ibm_logo.jpg LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Monster Energy hailed a decision by a Dutch Court that imposed a European Union-wide ban on the sale and promotion of BANG energy drinks on the grounds that BANG's advertising misleads and deceives consumers. This case was brought by Monster Energy's European subsidiary. The Court also emphasized that so-called "Super Creatine," which BANG claims is in its U.S. drinks, is not permitted in the E.U. because Super Creatine is not authorized for use in foods. This follows action by the United Kingdom's Food Standard Agency declaring that "Super Creatine" is an unlawful food ingredient. Among other things, the E.U. Court ruled that BANG's marketing of drinks containing L-Arginine was "misleading" and an "unfair commercial practice." BANG touts "L-Arginine" as a key ingredient for muscle growth, but does not declare that it only contains negligible amounts. The Court found that a consumer would have to drink more than 200 cans per day for a period of 45 days to receive any scientifically significant muscle growing benefit from L-Arginine. The Dutch case follows a case filed by Monster in the United States District Court in California, which alleges that the maker of BANG energy drinks and its CEO, John "Jack" Owoc, have engaged in extensive misconduct. Among other things, the Federal lawsuit alleges false and deceptive advertising and identifies Owoc's numerous unsubstantiated and misleading claims about so-called Super Creatine and points out that there is no creatine in BANG at all. The Federal lawsuit remains pending. PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887413/Vonnis_Monster___Bang__9_5_2019____ENG.pdf LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SodaStream today unveiled its latest video campaign, "Say Goodbye", featuring Game Of Thrones actors Thor Bjornsson AKA "The Mountain", Hannah Waddingham AKA "Septa" and Kristian Nairn AKA "Hodor". Capitalising on the popularity of the programme, which concludes its final season this Sunday, the video shows each actor struggling with single-use plastic bottles in everyday situations. As the ninth video that SodaStream has created with the series' actors in just three years, the collaboration has engaged millions of consumers in recognising the challenge of tackling single-use plastic waste. SodaStream's series of novel marketing campaigns, have captured peoples imagination in conveying the serious message of the damaging impact of single-use plastic. Last year, SodaStream's 'It's time for a change' campaign featured on a league table of the most successful viral videos by AdAge. Viewed by 16 million people, the video was second to only John Lewis's Christmas advert at the time. "We're always looking for fun and exciting ways to convey the message that we can enjoy fresh sparkling beverages in a planet-friendly way," said SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum. "We encourage consumers to say goodbye to single-use plastic and hello to reusable solutions" The video is a special remake of an existing SodaStream Campaign (watch here) from 2017 and whilst it's not the first time the GOT stars have appeared in a Sodastream video, the company united them for a final goodbye. Watch the new "Say Goodbye" video. "As a fan of SodaStream and an advocate for the environment myself, I always welcome an opportunity to help SodaStream spread their environmental message about single-use plastic," commented Kristian Nairn. Notes to editors: Credits Concept: SodaStream Creative Director: Alon Seifert Director: Rani Carmeli Production: Borax Creative Filmmaking About SodaStream SodaStream is the World's No. 1 sparkling water brand enabling consumers to transform ordinary tap water into sparkling water in seconds. One SodaStream carbonating bottle can save up to thousands of single-use plastic bottles and cans. The products are environmentally friendly, promote health and wellness, cost effective, and are customizable and fun to use. Products are available at more than 80,000 retail stores across 46 countries. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887527/Game_of_Thrones_SodaStream.jpg Media Contacts: Local Hannah Pollak or Liam Bettinson JBP PR 0117-9073400 LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- FintechOS, a start-up specialized in accelerating the digital transformation of financial institutions worldwide, has just attracted EUR 1,1M post-seed investment in a new round led by GapMinder VC, with participation of LAUNCHub Ventures, Gecad Ventures and private investors. This makes the total capital invested so far worth EUR 2.7 million and turns FintechOS into one of the best funded start-ups entering the global scaling stage. The company plans to continue its aggressive expansion and raising another EUR 8-10 million in a series A round by the end of 2019. FintechOS has positively revised the 2019 financial targets, expecting over 400% YoY growth in annual recurring revenue from licenses. Implementation services are delivered through a portfolio of partners specializing in accelerating digital transformation, including Deloitte, KPMG and CapGemini. FintechOS has recently strengthened its management team by onboarding Leon Stevens, former VP for Salesforce.com, an executive with 25 years of top management experience in companies like HP or IBM in the financial services area, to accelerate the development of global operations. The company estimates growing to 70 employees by the end of 2019, double compared to last year. FintechOS technology grants financial institutions worldwide quick access to the latest technologies, self service and low code, empowering them to launch new services, products, digital channels or customer experiences up to 10 times faster than in a traditional software development setup, at a fraction of costs. "This new investment round allows us to quickly deploy commercial teams in three strategic territories: UK, Benelux and DACH. Meanwhile, we're going ahead full-throttle to further integrate AI technology within the FintechOS platform, because intelligent processing of massive amounts of data and quick customization of financial instruments are critical components for the whole financial industry. By the 3rd quarter this year, we'll be announcing a technological revolution," stated Teodor Blidarus, FintechOS CEO. "We are happy with the fast pace of development of FintechOS, with the maturity, humbleness and the aggressive execution power of the team, and we continue to sustain their development and participate into the next financing rounds of their "pedal to the metal" rhythm," stated Dan Mihaescu, Founding Partner GapMinder VC. About FintechOS FintechOS (www.fintechos.com) is a high-tech company aiming to digitize financial services institutions. Its technology accelerates innovation initiatives within banks and insurance companies and empowers them to extend their digital distribution channels, as well as launch new financial products that are personalized, modern, and accessible. Until the late seed investment round backed by GapMinder, FintechOS had already raised investments of about EUR 1 million from banking, corporate (Softelligence) and angel investor (Sergiu Negut) sources. With a portfolio of EUR 5 Billion assets managed by FintechOS customers on the platform and operations on three continents, FintechOS is constantly ranked among the most important fintech players at CEE level. FintechOS is the first and only Romanian company enrolled in the global Startup Accelerator Program of Microsoft UK. About GapMinder VC GapMinder Venture Partners (www.gapminder.vc) is a 36MEur investment fund financing early stage companies with scale potential, as well as technology enterprises with regional, European and global ambitions. The investment fund values technology and services, sustainable differentiators, product oriented targets and team coherence. GapMinder invests primarily on Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A stages. The Funding Partners have a direct approach as investors and actively sustain the organic growth of companies by bringing their contribution in operational management, corporate governance, financial discipline and management support. GapMinder is co-financed by the European Fund for Regional Development via the Competitiveness Operational Program 2014-2020. About LAUNCHub Ventures LAUNCHub Ventures (www.launchub.vc) is a leading European early stage VC fund, based in Sofia, Bulgaria and investing in Southeastern Europe region and in founders from that region, based in the major tech hubs like Silicon Valley, London and Berlin. With 30M under management, LAUNCHub Ventures focuses on seed and pre-series A rounds, in verticals like (but not exclusively) SaaS, Enterprise Software, Fintech, Blockchain, AI, Healthtech. About Gecad Ventures Gecad Ventures (www.gecad.com) invests in start-up and expansion-phase hi-tech companies from CEE with meaningful prospects of scaling internationally, including verticals like Cybersecurity, Fintech, AI/ML, AR & VR, Transportation, IoT and Agritech. Previously Gecad Group, Gecad Ventures history spans for over 20 years and includes notable exits to Microsoft, Francisco Partners, Naspers, Fitbit. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887529/FintechOS_Logo.jpg A well-known competitive intelligence solutions provider, Infiniti Research, has announced the completion of their new free downloadable resource on top challenges facing the European manufacturing companies. This free resource also highlights how companies can effectively tackle industry challenges and succeed in the marketplace. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005354/en/ Top challenges facing the European manufacturing companies (Graphic: Business Wire) The European manufacturing industry has shown positive growth over the past decade. With this, companies in the industry have been witnessing higher productivity, capital investment, workforce management, and major improvements in their performance. But, like all other industries, the manufacturing sector also faces several challenges. Companies that do not take appropriate steps to effectively tackle the industry challenges will fail to succeed. Therefore, it becomes imperative for companies to identify all the challenges in the industry and take steps to tackle them. Although the manufacturing industry is facing some daunting challenges, understanding these issues and mitigating them can help businesses succeed. Request a FREE brochure to gain more insights into our services portfolio and to know how our services will help you tackle the industry challenges. Top challenges facing the European manufacturing industry Competition from emerging economies Emerging economies pose major challenges for companies in the European manufacturing industry. China and Brazil are the two main sources of competition. This is because these countries manufacture products at a lower cost. But, unfortunately, European manufacturing companies are unable to compete with these developing economies due to higher labor cost and governmental regulations. In this context, companies in the manufacturing industry can partner with third-party sources to minimize the risk of pursuing growth. Increasing automation Automation has become a necessity for companies in the European manufacturing sector. To avoid being left behind, it becomes imperative for manufacturers to adapt to evolving technologies and industry changes. In fact, automation improves operational efficiency, reduces wastages, and increases consistency. Therefore, companies need to keep abreast with the latest trends in the industry. Due to changes in technology and demographics, manufacturers need to stay competitive and adapt to fast-evolving changing. Even ignoring the small challenges can reduce the chances of success in the European market. Request a free proposal to know how our solutions can help. Smarter customer base Customers in the European market are highly educated and concerned about products they purchase. This poses a major challenge for companies operating in the manufacturing sector. Therefore, companies need to think as much about sales, customer service, and marketing as they do about manufacturing. Keeping pace with the needs and requirements of customers is important for companies. Request for more information to know more about our services and how we can help you succeed in today's competitive market. About Infiniti Research Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies. To know more, visit: https://www.infinitiresearch.com/about-us View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005354/en/ Contacts: Press Contact Infiniti Research Anirban Choudhury Marketing Manager US: +1 844 778 0600 UK: +44 203 893 3400 https://www.infinitiresearch.com/contact-us -- Journal of Neuroscience publication demonstrates that antagonizing miR-135a reduces seizures in chronic TLE model -- InteRNA Technologies announced today the recent publication of data from a collaboration with University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht in Journal of Neuroscience showing that the downregulation of miR-135a levels can reduce seizure activity after the onset of spontaneous recurrent seizures (SRS) in chronic-stage Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (mTLE) in mouse models. miR-135 is a microRNA (miRNA) known to control neuronal morphology and synaptic function that is upregulated in neurons in the epileptic brain. The data support the overall potential of miRNAs as a treatment modality in complex diseases and also underscore InteRNA's expertise in the application of miRNAs as a new therapeutic approach. The paper provides novel insights into the pathological mechanisms of mTLE, which remain poorly understood to-date. In the study, it was shown for the first time that miR-135a is significantly overexpressed in human mTLE hippocampal samples and that the silencing of this specific miRNA in mouse models by an antimir drastically reduces the number, severity and time spent in seizures in the SRS stage, an advanced disease stage where current treatments fail to induce an effect. Furthermore, novel neuronal downstream targets of miR-135a were identified. In particular, the role of Mef2a, an activity-dependent transcription factor regulating synaptic strength, was investigated in closer detail. The data demonstrated that miR-135a and Mef2a show reciprocal expression regulation in TLE and that Mef2a is required for miR135a-induced dendritic spine changes in neurons that might induce synaptic defects involved in the pathomechanisms of TLE. The research paper titled, "Antagonizing increased miR-135a levels at the chronic stage of experimental TLE reduces spontaneous recurrent seizures" was published in Journal of Neuroscience on April 23, 2019. "TLE accounts for a third of all epilepsies and available treatments lack disease-modifying effects and are ineffective in one third of all mTLE patients," commented Prof. Jeroen Pasterkamp, PhD, Department of Translational Neuroscience, UMC Utrecht Brain Center. "The data from this study indicate that targeting epilepsy-associated miRNAs has the potential to unlock a novel therapeutic entity and provides key insights into the disease biology of epilepsy." Roel Schaapveld, CEO of InteRNA added: "The published data provide evidence that targeting a single miRNA could represent a new modality in the epilepsy field where current treatments are solely based on ion channel blockers that only relieve symptoms rather than provide curative effects. We are encouraged by the results of this study that further validate InteRNA's proprietary miRNA platform, which has the potential to target cancer, our primary focus, as well as other complex disease states outside of the realm of oncology." About InteRNA Technologies InteRNA is developing a pipeline of proprietary preclinical microRNA drug candidates targeting key processes in initiation and progression of human diseases, with a focus on cancer. Enabled with a 3rd generation drug delivery formulation, these miRNA compounds can mount a coordinated anti-cancer attack by engaging multiple signal transduction targets simultaneously. With this approach, we address the high need for novel therapeutics with improved efficacy and less drug resistance that benefit cancer patients. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005326/en/ Contacts: InteRNA Technologies Dr. Roel Schaapveld, CEO Phone: +31 (0)30 253 23 86 E-mail: schaapveld@interna-technologies.com Trophic Communications Dr. Stephanie May or Joanne Tudorica Phone: +49 2388 7733 30 or +49 171 185 56 82 E-mail: may@trophic.eu or tudorica@trophic.eu Schiphol, the Netherlands - 15 May 2019. GrandVision N.V. (Euronext: GVNV) announced today that its Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) has approved the appointment of Mr. Willem Eelman as Member of the Management Board, effective as of 15 May 2019. The Supervisory Board of GrandVision N.V. had appointed Willem Eelman as GrandVision's new CFO, in its meeting on 25 April 2019. Willem Eelman succeeds Paulo de Castro, who has resigned from his position as Chief Financial Officer and member of the Management Board. Willem Eelman, a Dutch national, is the former CFO and Chief Operations Transformation Officer of C&A Europe, a leading clothing retailer in Europe. Prior to joining C&A, he held several senior roles at Unilever, including CFO Europe and its Chief Information Officer. In addition, Willem Eelman has been a member of GrandVision's Supervisory Board since 2011 and has been acting as Chairman of the Audit Committee since 2011. Mr. Eelman stepped down from GrandVision's Supervisory Board on 2 April 2019. "I am excited to welcome Willem Eelman to GrandVision's management team. Willem's deep financial and operational experience as well as his strong understanding of GrandVision will enable a very stable and smooth transition and will support the company's further growth strategy and its main initiatives", said Stephan Borchert. "We are pleased with the appointment of Willem Eelman as new CFO, with which we will further strengthen GrandVision's management team," said Kees van der Graaf, Chairman of GrandVision's Supervisory Board. Attachment Secures agreements to manage online sales LAS VEGAS, NV, / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Scepter Holdings, Inc., (OTC PINK:BRZL) a high-performance consumer goods sales and marketing company, today provided an update for the quarter ending June 30, 2019. Over the last few months, Scepter Holdings has made significant improvements to its product strategy, management team, and operating systems. The company has signed an agreement with BLYK, LLC to develop and manage Scepter Holdings business online, including brand owned websites, Amazon.com, and key social media accounts. Under the direction of Adam Nicosia, a consultant to Scepter Holdings and a member of the board, the company has reactivated sales on Amazon.com, and looks forward to increasing sales as additional SKUs are launched this year. "We are excited to have Adam Nicosia, an expert in the retail sales industry, and BLYK, LLC an expert in Amazon selling, working with the Company. Our partnership with them is part of our plan to add expertise to our team to help us secure increased sales growth.", stated Robert Van Boerum Chairman of the Board. About Scepter Holdings, Inc. Scepter Holdings, Inc. (the "Company") manages the sales and brand development of high-performance consumer packaged goods. The company seeks to acquire performing brands to add to the company's portfolio of products and brands sold online and through strategic retail relationships. The company has expertise manufacturing, distributing, marketing, and selling online consumer packaged goods and seeks to leverage its expertise to grow additional acquired brands. Scepter Holdings, Inc. was incorporated under the laws of the State of Nevada on January 11, 2007. For more information, please visit our website: http://scepterbrands.com Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the 'safe harbor' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based upon our current expectations and speak only as of the date hereof. Our actual results may differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements as a result of various factors and uncertainties, including economic slowdown affecting companies, our ability to successfully develop products, rapid change in our markets, changes in demand for our future products, legislative, regulatory and competitive developments and general economic conditions. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties discussed in Scepter Holdings, Inc. filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which factors may be incorporated herein by reference. Forward-looking statements may be identified but not limited by the use of the words 'anticipates,' 'expects,' 'intends,' 'plans,' 'should,' 'could,' 'would,' 'may,' 'will,' 'believes,' 'estimates,' 'potential,' or 'continue' and variations or similar expressions. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. Investors Contact: 775-296-5768 info@scepterbrands.com SOURCE: Scepter Holdings, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/545469/Scepter-Holdings-Inc-Provides-Management-Update Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Zijin's Chairman Chen Jinghe nominated to Ivanhoe's Board of Directors Beijing, China--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Robert Friedland and Yufeng "Miles" Sun, Co-Chairmen of Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) (OTCQX: IVPAF), announced today that further to the company's news release on April 25, 2019, where it announced that CITIC Metal, through a subsidiary, is investing an additional C$612 million (US$454 million) in Ivanhoe at C$3.98 per share, Zijin Mining Group Co., Ltd. has fully exercised its anti-dilution rights, also at C$3.98 per share, generating additional proceeds for Ivanhoe Mines of C$67 million (US$49 million). The combined proceeds of more than C$679 million (US$503 million) from CITIC Metal and Zijin Mining are expected to be received no later than September 7, 2019, positioning Ivanhoe to finance its first two mines - Kakula and Kipushi - to commercial production, and significantly advance, or achieve, production at the Platreef Project. Zijin Mining is Ivanhoe's joint-venture partner at the Kamoa-Kakula copper project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zijin's exercise of its anti-dilution rights will maintain its ownership in Ivanhoe Mines at 9.8%. Zijin's Chairman Chen Jinghe nominated to Ivanhoe's Board of Directors Mr. Friedland and Mr. Sun also announced that Chen Jinghe, Chairman of Zijin Mining, has been nominated for election to Ivanhoe's Board of Directors at its Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders to be held on June 28, 2019. "I am delighted that Chairman Chen has accepted our invitation to join our board, further enhancing our strategic cooperation with Zijin Mining, one of China's largest mineral producers," said Mr. Friedland. "His nomination reflects the strong working partnership between Ivanhoe and Zijin as we jointly develop the tier-one Kamoa-Kakula copper discoveries." Mr. Sun added: "Chairman Chen is widely-respected in the mining industry in China and abroad. His strong geological background has endowed him a great vision in finding, investing and operating many great mining deposits around the world, including the successful investment in Kamoa-Kakula during an early stage of discovery and development. Chairman Chen's track record in growing Zijin Mining from a single asset company to an international diversified mining enterprise will provide hands-on experience to Ivanhoe Mines as the company transitions to a producer." Mr. Chen is the founder of Zijin Mining and has been its Chairman since 2000. He is a professor-grade senior engineer, and was the main exploration organizer and discoverer of the Zijinshan Mine in the 1980s, the largest open-pit gold and copper mine in China. Mr. Chen graduated from Fuzhou University with a Bachelor's degree in Geology and obtained an Executive MBA degree from Xiamen University. About Ivanhoe Mines Ivanhoe Mines is a Canadian mining company focused on advancing its three principal projects in Southern Africa: the development of new mines at the Kamoa-Kakula copper discoveries in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Platreef palladium-platinum-nickel-copper-gold discovery in South Africa; and the extensive redevelopment and upgrading of the historic Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-silver mine, also in the DRC. Ivanhoe also is exploring for new copper discoveries on its wholly-owned Western Foreland exploration licences in the DRC, near the Kamoa-Kakula Project. Information contacts Investors Bill Trenaman +1.604.331.9834 Media Kimberly Lim +1.778.996.8510 Cautionary statement on forward-looking information Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such statements and information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, its projects, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict" and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such statements include without limitation: (i) all statements regarding the timing and completion of receipt of the combined proceeds of more than C$679 million (US$503 million) from CITIC Metal and Zijin are expected to be received no later than September 7, 2019; and (ii) statements regarding positioning the company to finance Ivanhoe's first two mines - Kakula and Kipushi - to commercial production, and significantly advance, or achieve, production at the Platreef Project. Forward-looking statements and information involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements or information, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the company's MD&A, as well as the inability to obtain regulatory approvals in a timely manner; the potential for unknown or unexpected events to cause contractual conditions to not be satisfied; unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts with the company to perform as agreed; social or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development or operations. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward- looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release. The company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors set forth in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in the company's MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2018 and its Annual Information Form. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44810 NEWBURY RACECOURSE PLC - Notice of AGM correction 15 May 2019 Newbury Racecourse plc (the "Company") Notice of Annual General Meeting correction Newbury Racecourse plc announces that the Notice of Annual General Meeting (the "Notice") to be held on 5thJune 2019, contained a typographical error. The meeting is to be held on Wednesday 5thJune 2019, not Monday as stated in the Notice. A copy of the Notice, duly corrected, is available to view in the Investor Relations section of the Company's website www.newburyracecourse.co.uk and is also available for inspection at Newbury Racecourse plc's registered office (The Racecourse, Racecourse Road, Newbury, RG14 7NZ). As this was a clerical error, no new Notice will be sent out. The Annual General Meeting of Newbury Racecourse plc will be held at Newbury Racecourse plc, The Racecourse, Racecourse Road, Newbury RG14 7NZ on Wednesday 5thJune 2019 at 12.30pm. -Ends- For further information please contact: Newbury Racecourse plc Tel: 01635 40015 Claire Spencer (Company Secretary) H.I.G. Capital ("H.I.G."), a leading global alternative asset management firm with over $30 billion of equity capital under management, is pleased to announce that Tareck Safi has joined the firm's real estate team as Managing Director and Head of Real Estate Debt. Tareck brings over 20 years of experience originating, structuring and investing in real estate debt. He is based in H.I.G.'s London office. Prior to H.I.G., Tareck was Head of Commercial Real Estate Debt Investments for EMEA at PIMCO, focusing on private transactions. He previously held senior positions at Societe Generale and RBS. He holds a master's degree in finance from the London School of Economics. He also has a statistics degree from ENSAE and an engineering degree from the Ecole Polytechnique. Riccardo Dallolio, Managing Director and Head of H.I.G. Realty Partners in Europe, commented: "I am delighted to welcome Tareck to the firm. Tareck is a very experienced and successful real estate debt investor who brings a wealth of real estate knowledge and experience. Under his leadership, we will continue expanding our real estate debt platform across Europe." About H.I.G. Capital H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with over $30 billion of equity capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with European offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, and U.S and Latin American offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stamford, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/ value-added approach: 1. H.I.G.'s equity funds invest in growth investments, management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses. 2. H.I.G.'s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance. 3. H.I.G.'s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 300 companies worldwide. The firm's current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.higcapital.com. Based on total capital commitments managed by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005473/en/ Contacts: Riccardo Dallolio Managing Director rdallolio@higrealty.com STOCKHOLM, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MSAB announced today that it has been selected to support the research and development efforts of the FORMOBILE Consortium, which is made up of 19 law enforcement, government, academic, and private sector organizations from across Europe. It is led by the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences. The goal of FORMOBILE is to establish a complete, end to end forensic investigation chain to support law enforcement agencies' access to mobile device data. To achieve the consortium's goal, three primary objectives are being pursued: Develop new tools and technologies to acquire previously unavailable mobile data, unlock mobile devices, and enable the decoding and analysis of mobile data. Develop a new mobile forensics standard based on requirements defined by law enforcement, taking into account both legal and ethical issues. Develop training for the new standard and tools, to ensure consistency and high quality in investigations and mobile forensic analysis. FORMOBILE secured the European Commission backing by putting together a proposal that met the requirements for technology to enhance the fight against crime and terrorism through the use of digital forensics. In doing so, the consortium will help the EU build on the European Agenda for Security, to ensure that people can live in an area of freedom, security and justice, without internal frontiers. Work on the project launched in May 2019 and will run for three years. This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 832800. "We are very excited about this opportunity to work together with other agencies across Europe to help make the world safer by modernizing the digital forensic tools and standards that exist today," said Joel Bollo, MSAB CEO. "This is a strong endorsement of MSAB's leadership and expertise, and we are grateful for the opportunity. Criminals and terrorists are becoming more sophisticated in their use of mobile devices, encryption and apps. There is strength in numbers and by coming together collectively, the FORMOBILE project will benefit the entire digital forensic community - and all EU citizens." MSAB in brief MSAB is a world leader in mobile forensics technology with the aim of extracting and analysing data from mobile devices. The company's proprietary products have become a de facto standard in the field and are used for securing evidence in over 120 countries. The products are complemented by a wide range of training courses that enable customers to become certified in forensically sound methods of extracting and analysing data from mobile devices. Customers include police, military, corrections, border security customs and other organizations. MSAB is listed on NASDAQ Stockholm under the ticker symbol: MSAB B. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/886959/EU_LOGO.jpg Advanced customer lifecycle management platform, CleverTap launches a powerful reporting dashboard to bring longer term measurability to marketing initiatives SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CleverTap, the advanced customer engagement platform, today released a measurement dashboard, called Real Impact, to help marketers measure the consolidated impact of their campaigns over a long-term. With Real Impact, they can attribute the ROI of marketing spend to key business metrics such as revenue per user, conversion, retention, stickiness, recency and frequency. Growth and retention teams measure the impact of individual campaigns with metrics such as conversion, click-through and open rates. However, it is easy to lose sight of what is working over a period of a quarter, six months or even a year. This comes in the way of identifying what is actually working and finding ways to improve the metrics that truly matter to a business. The Real Impact dashboard was created to solve this problem using an attribution model that collects data at a granular level yet gives a big picture view of marketing effectiveness. Using the concept of control groups i.e. a group of users that are not exposed to any campaign, the impact of campaigns is measured on the target group or the rest of the audience over any duration of time. With Real Impact, teams can track the impact of campaigns on the following core business metrics and KPI: Revenue per User (ARPU): Measure the direct ROI generated by every marketing dollar spent in terms of a boost in average revenue per user (ARPU) Measure the direct ROI generated by every marketing dollar spent in terms of a boost in average revenue per user (ARPU) Conversion and Retention: Measure the boost in core conversion metrics and retention cohorts of users who received your campaigns Measure the boost in core conversion metrics and retention cohorts of users who received your campaigns Recency and Frequency of use: Measure the improvements in both recency and frequency of use per user who received your campaigns Measure the improvements in both recency and frequency of use per user who received your campaigns Churn: Over the long term measure the improvement or drop on churn of users who've received campaigns vs. users who have not With Real Impact growth teams will clearly understand the aggregate impact of all campaigns on these core business metrics. They can isolate which campaigns or promotions had a negative impact on your user base with metrics like recency, frequency and churn. "We want to empower the marketing organizations of today with indisputable insights that they can present before their CXOs. Real Impact helps accomplish this with a powerful measurement platform so teams can directly measure the ROI generated by each dollar spent on marketing. They are able to evaluate what campaigns, messaging and creatives have a long-lasting impact on their business metrics," said Sunil Thomas, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at CleverTap. About CleverTap CleverTap is a customer lifecycle management platform that helps brands deliver delightful customer experiences at scale. Over 8,000 companies around the world, including Vodafone, Star, Sony, Domino's Pizza, GO-JEK, Cleartrip and BookMyShow trust CleverTap to deliver personalized experiences and improve the impact of omnichannel marketing across the entire customer lifecycle. CleverTap is backed by leading venture capital firms including Sequoia India, Tiger Global Management, Accel and Recruit Holdings, and operates out of San Francisco, London, Singapore, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. For more information, visit clevertap.com or follow on LinkedIn and Twitter. Press Contact Ketan Pandit PR for CleverTap ketan@clevertap.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/559274/CleverTap_Logo.jpg According to the new research study the global pharmacogenomics market is rising at 8.61% CAGR to 2025 propelled by government initiatives and huge investments by private companies while the research predicts the market size is expected to reach $10,265.5 million by 2025 PORTLAND, Oregon, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global pharmacogenomics market generated $5,312.8 million in 2017 and is projected to reach $10,265.5 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 8.61% from 2018 to 2025. There has been a surge in demand for the use of pharmacogenomics as a tool to customize and optimize drug therapy to suit the patients' genomic profile ensuring maximum efficacy and minimal adverse effects. Pharmacogenomics is a branch which studies the correlation between the genomic profile of the patient and the effects of drug over it. Pharmacogenomics belongs to the field of personalized medicine that promises the development of pharmacogenomics-based diagnostics tests in which drugs and drug combinations are optimized suiting the individual genotype. Get a Sample Copy of this Research: https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/request-sample/2963679 Pharmacogenomics is a field of science dealing with the identification of single nucleotide polymorphism in the interspecies and the effects it has over the drug diagnosis test that is used to identify the best suited drug, which is expected to not have an adverse effect on the patient and help the drug act effectively on the target. There is an increase in the demand for pharmacogenomics-based drug discovery and diagnostics owing to growth in prevalence of cancer, drug recalls, surge in awareness of pharmacogenomics diagnosis for treatment of cancer, higher number of R&D studies, and rise in adoption of pharmacogenomics in the development of drugs for pain management with better efficacy. Government initiatives and huge investments by private companies in R&D drive the pharmacogenomics market. Furthermore, surge in the aging population and rise in the global incidences of cancer are anticipated to boost the market growth. The application of high throughput genomic technologies in biomedical research and therapeutic procedures accelerate the market progression. The global pharmacogenomics market is segmented based on technology, application, end user, and region. Based on technology, the market is segregated as polymerase chain reaction, microarray, sequencing techniques, mass spectrometry and electrophoresis. Based on application, the pharmacogenomics market is further categorized into cancer, cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, neurological diseases and pain management among others. Based on end user, it is segmented as hospitals & clinics, research institutions and academic institutes. Based on region, the market is studied across North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, the UK, and rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Australia, India, and rest of Asia-Pacific), and LAMEA (Brazil, and rest of LAMEA). Request a Discount: https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/request-for-discount/2963679 The list of key players profiled in this research report includes Abbott Laboratories, Admera Health, Dynamic DNA Laboratories, Empire Genomics, LLC, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Illumina, Inc., OneOme, LLC., Myriad Genetics Inc., OPKO Health, Inc (GeneDx.) and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. The other players included in the value chain analysis (and not included in the report) include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Assurex Health Inc., Admera Health and Bayer AG. Related Report: Pharmacogenomics Technology/Theranostics/Companion Diagnostics (Cdx) Market Insights 2019, Global and Chinese Analysis and Forecast To 2024 Pharmacogenomics Technology/Theranostics/Companion Diagnostics (CDx) Market Insights 2019, Global and Chinese Scenario is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Pharmacogenomics Technology/Theranostics/Companion Diagnostics (CDx) industry with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Pharmacogenomics Technology/Theranostics/Companion Diagnostics (CDx) manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry. Read More: https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/pharmacogenomics-technologytheranosticscompanion-diagnostics-cdx-market-insights-2019-global-and-chinese-analysis-and-forecast-to-2024-market About Us: Big Market Research has a range of research reports from various publishers across the world. Our database of reports of various market categories and sub-categories would help to find the exact report you may be looking for. Contact Us: Mr. Abhishek Paliwal Big Market Research 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Direct: +1-971-202-1575 Toll Free: +1-800-910-6452 E-mailhelp@bigmarketresearch.com VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Backflow preventers are primarily used in sewer, wastewater, residential, sprinkler, and irrigation backflow applications. The risk of drinking water quality being affected due to from backflow contamination incidents is the key factor driving the demand for backflow preventers. The global backflow preventers market for is anticipated to witness modest growth in 2019, exceeding the estimated market value of around US$ 350 million, while registering a Y-o-Y growth rate of more than 3%. High Growth Prospects for Plastic Backflow Preventers The global demand for backflow preventers is also expected to be influenced by the growing construction industry across the globe. Resilient consumer demand for backflow preventers from the residential plumbing sector as well as from the sprinkler and irrigation sectors is expected to witness significant growth in the coming years. The growth of efficient and advanced backflow preventers such as reduced pressure zones and their increasing popularity among customers are leading towards lesser number of undesirable reverse flow incidents, consequently, reducing the probability of contamination in potable water. Download the Sample of Report with Table of Contents and Figures: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7412 On the basis of product type, the reduced pressure zones segment is foreseen to experience substantial growth. However, the atmospheric vacuum breaker type backflow preventers segment is anticipated to account for a dominating volume share in the global backflow preventers market. Plastic backflow preventer sales are expected to witness a growth of approximately 5% during the forecast period, mostly driven by low installation and maintenance cost, with the primary intention of preventing the incidences of theft. Based on end use, owing to increasing implementation of plumbing codes in residential construction, the residential plumbing segment is expected to be a prominent segment in the market, accounting for more than 40% of the market share. Growth of Construction Industry Benefiting Sales in Developing Regions The markets in Europe and North America are expected to experience modest growth, since these are mature backflow preventers markets. While developing regional markets such as China, India, ASEAN, and Brazil are at the forefront of the global construction industry, they lag behind North America and Europe in terms of the backflow preventer sales. In the recent past, the construction industry in China and India has been growing at a relatively higher rate compared to other countries such as Brazil, Germany, and the U.S. This, in turn, is expected to support the growth of the backflow preventers market across the Asia Pacific region. Furthermore, consumers across several end uses are making use of the advantages of having backflow preventers, subsequently aiding them in preventing undesirable backflow situations at cross connections. Preview Analysis of Backflow preventers market Segmented by (Product Type - Atmospheric Vacuum Breakers, Pressure Vacuum Breakers, Double Check Valve Assemblies & Reduced Pressure Zones; Material Type - Stainless Steel, Plastic, Ductile Iron, Bronze & Other Materials; End-Use - Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Sprinklers & Irrigation, Water & Wastewater & Chemical Processing;) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2019 - 2029: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/backflow-preventers-market Furthermore, China, along with India and Australia, are ascertained to witness substantial growth against the backdrop of a profitable construction industry and new sales of efficient backflow preventers for residential as well as industrial applications. Latin America on the other hand is more likely to raise considerable demand for backflow prevention devices for sprinkler and irrigation applications. Manufacturers Eyeing Bolstering Construction Activities Some of the key manufacturers involved in the backflow preventers market are Watts Water Technologies Company, Emerson Electric Co., Honeywell International, Zurn Industries LLC, TALIS Management Holding GmbH, EnviroFALK GmbH, Conbraco Industries Inc. Caleffi S.p.a. Hans Sasserath GmbH & Co. KG Gebr Kemper UK & Ireland Ltd, Beulco Gmbh & Co. Kg, W.W. Grainger, Inc., and others. Buy this report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/7412 FMI's research suggests that within the global backflow preventers market, players need to manage a broad variety of challenges in the long run, setting high barriers for new market entrants. Manufacturers look to increase new models, update product families, and shift research and development to drive their sales of backflow preventers. Expanding construction activities with strengthening plumbing codes remain catalysts as the up-cycle for backflow preventers in the global market. For additional insights on how the global market for backflow preventers is moving toward passive growth and what the important influencers are that would forestall the decline of revenues in the near future, write to press@futuremarketinsights.com Our advisory services are aimed at helping you with specific, customized insights that are relevant to your specific challenges. Let us know about your challenges and our trusted advisors will connect with you: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ask-the-analyst/rep-gb-7412 More from Industrial Automation & Equipment Market Insights: Carbon Brush Distribution Analysis Bearing Isolators Market Analysis Woodworking Machines Market Analysis About Us Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights and an aerial view of the competitive framework and future market trends. Browse More Industrial Automation & Equipment Market Insights Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/677274/Future_Market_Insights_Logo.jpg Contact Us Mr. Abhishek Budholiya 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 T (UK): +44 (0) 20-7692-8790 Sales: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Press Office: Press@futuremarketinsights.com FMI Blog: http://www.fmiblog.com/ Website: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Reno, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Scandium International Mining Corp. (TSX: SCY) ("Scandium International" or the "Company") advises that it has filed a new mine lease application ("MLA 568") with governmental regulators, related to the Nyngan Scandium Project, in New South Wales, Australia. The new application covers an estimated 371 hectares of ground where the surface rights are fully owned by the Company's Australian subsidiary, EMC Metals Australia Pty Ltd. The Company will seek the granting of a new mine lease for the Nyngan Scandium Project, based on this new MLA. The new MLA filing is in direct response to ongoing delays in governmental resolution of a neighboring landowner's objection to the Company's 2017 mine lease grant (ML 1763). The new MLA is not expected to encounter delays in processing by the relevant governmental departments, and specifically is not dependent on either timing or ultimate resolution of the ongoing landowner objection to the award of ML 1763. HIGHLIGHTS: The Company believes it can permit and construct a scandium mine, of similar design and scale to our current plans, within the footprint defined by this new MLA 568, Ongoing review by governmental departments of the landowner objection will continue, and depending on the final ruling, could result in the grant of a new mining lease over the original 875 hectare footprint and boundaries defined in the original ML 1763, The Company fully intends to proceed with development of the Nyngan Scandium Project, regardless of the final outcome of the pending landowner objection. DISCUSSION: The Company has filed two 2019 news releases on this matter, in January and April, outlining the issues, the timing of events and discoveries, and the pathways to resolution for ourselves, our neighboring landowner, and the Department of Planning and Environment (the "Department"). While the Department now has a new Minister and a revised portfolio, the Secretary of the Department remains charged with the task of determining the validity of the affected landowner's 'Agricultural Land' objection, and the 'first principles' investigations related to that final determination have been ongoing since initiated in 2018. The Secretary of the Department must make a ruling on the objection, but that ruling can be made at any time. If the Secretary of the Department rejects the landowner's objection, the Department will grant a new Mining Lease over the area of the 2017 granted ML 1763, currently determined to be invalid. The Company's decision to file a parallel MLA 568, and request a new mine lease grant on that new MLA, is fully independent of other potential resolution paths, and is specifically not impacted by related and ongoing matters between the Department and the landowner. No neighboring landowner surface rights are included in MLA 568. The critical observation for both shareholders and future customers is that the Company believes it can permit and construct a scandium mine, of similar design and scale to our current plans, without the requirement by Scandium International's Australian subsidiary to own or control the objecting landowner's portion of land previously included in the 2017 granted ML 1763. The NI 43-101 Nyngan Project resource represents multiples of size relative to the 20 year initial development program put forward in the Company's feasibility study. The Company owns land over a significant portion of that resource, and has established rights and permissions to develop. Whether an ML is granted over EMC Metals Australia Pty Ltd freehold land, or is granted to also include additional land currently owned by a neighboring landowner, the Company intends to pursue plans to construct and operate the world's first primary scandium mine on the Nyngan project site. ABOUT SCANDIUM INTERNATIONAL MINING CORP. The Company is focused on developing its Nyngan Scandium Project, located in NSW, Australia, into the world's first scandium-only producing mine. The project owned by our 100% held Australian subsidiary, EMC Metals Australia Pty Ltd. The Company filed a NI 43-101 technical report in May 2016, titled "Feasibility Study - Nyngan Scandium Project". That feasibility study delivered an expanded scandium resource, a first reserve figure, and an estimated 33.1% IRR on the project, supported by extensive metallurgical test work and an independent, 10-year global marketing outlook for scandium demand. Willem Duyvesteyn, MSc, AIME, CIM, a Director and CTO of the Company, is a qualified person for the purposes of NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this press release on behalf of the Company. For inquiries to Scandium International Mining Corp, please contact: Edward Dickinson (CFO) Tel: (775) 233-7328 George Putnam (CEO) Tel: (925) 208-1775 Email: info@scandiummining.com This press release contains forward-looking statements about the Company and its business. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and include, but are not limited to statements regarding any future development of the project. The forward-looking statements in this press release are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the Company's actual results or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by forward looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, without limitation: risks related to uncertainty in the demand for scandium, the possibility that results of test work will not fulfill expectations, or not realize the perceived market utilization and potential of scandium sources that may be developed for sale by the Company, and risks associated with permitting. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, opinions and expectations of the Company's management at the time they are made, and other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update its forward-looking statements if those beliefs, opinions or expectations, or other circumstances, should change. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44787 Annual awards program recognizes the most innovative and successful environment, sustainability, and energy products and projects Toronto, ON, May 15, 2019has received a Top Product of 2019 Award from Environmental Leader. Now in its 7th year, the annual awards program recognizes the most innovative and successful commercial and industrial products and projects in the environment and energy space. An independent panel of industry experts judge the entries each year and winners are selected based on the capabilities of the product and the positive effect on the industry. "Every year we're amazed at the technology leaps bold vendors are taking in product development and the projects that commercial and industrial companies are undertaking to reduce environmental impacts and energy use," said Paul Nastu, President, Business Sector Media. "This year's products and projects have certainly raised the bar." From audits and inspections to air, water, and waste management, Cority offers the only unified true SaaS platform in the industry that enables organizations to streamline enterprise-wide EHSQ programs and processes and manage compliance requirements from a single, centralized solution. Cority's Environmental Management solution was recognized as a Top Product by the judging panel for its breadth and depth of functionality in the following areas: Comprehensive Air Emissions, Wastewater, and Solid Waste management modules that include sampling capabilities for air, water, and waste, as well as robust calculation tools, and granular asset-level tracking. Enhanced Asset Management with barcoding, mobility integration, and the ability to capture key attributes for equipment to support the air emissions, wastewater, and waste management modules. Enhanced Chemical Management including multi-language support for SDSs, full support for GHS, WHMIS, and NFPA labeling. Comprehensive Applicability Assessment enables EHSQ professionals to accurately identify applicable regulations across their operations, receive notifications of regulatory changes, and foster a culture of compliance. "Cority is an excellent multi-platform tool for tracking all aspects of data for environmental management. The product meets the needs of companies by providing them with a solid, comprehensive and versatile monitoring system," said one of the judges. "The management platform is perceived to be user-friendly and is updated using real-time data. This solution will enable companies to meet all required laws and regulations while being mindful of sustainability reporting such as ISO 14001." "It's an honor to be a Top Product of the Year winner," said John Easton, VP of Product Management, Cority. "With continuous innovation, we provide EHSQ professionals with a unified solution which ensures our clients have a single source of truth for their most critical data - enabling them to reduce non-compliance risks, track their sustainability goals, and eliminate data silos." To learn more about Cority's Environmental Management solution, visit: https://www.cority.com/solutions/environmental-management/ About Cority Cority is the most trusted environmental, health, safety, and quality (EHSQ) software for assuring client success. Cority enables organizations to utilize EHSQ software to advance their journey to sustainability and operational excellence by combining the deepest domain expertise with the most comprehensive and secure unified true SaaS platform. With 30+ years of innovation and experience, Cority's team of over 350 experts serve more than 800 clients in 100 countries, supporting 2.5 million end users. The company enjoys the industry's highest levels of client satisfaction and has received many awards for its strong employee culture and outstanding business performance. Attachment TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Rockcliff Metals Corporation ("Rockcliff" or the "Company") (CSE: RCLF) (FRANKFURT: RO0, WKN: A2H60G) is pleased to announce the completion of its phase one, 6-hole reconnaissance heli-support winter drill program at the Laguna Gold Property ("Laguna") in Snow Lake, Manitoba. Drilling along 2 kilometres of the favorable 6 kilometre long Laguna Gold Mine Trend, discovered new quartz veins, alteration zones and quartz zones with visible gold and gold-bearing sulphides. KG Exploration (Canada) Inc., an affiliate of Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX:K)("Kinross") who optioned Laguna in mid-2018 has elected to continue with the Laguna option. Kinross will carry out a significant exploration program this year that will include a second round of drilling. Rockcliff's wholly owned subsidiary, Goldpath Resources Corp., holds an option to earn a 100% working interest in Laguna and has optioned the property to Kinross. Rockcliff acts as Operator of the exploration program at Laguna. Rockcliff is a major junior landholder in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt which is the largest Paleoproterozoic Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) district in the world hosting mines and deposits containing copper, zinc, gold and silver. Rockcliff's President & CEO, Ken Lapierre, stated: "We are pleased to have completed the first drill program at Laguna since 1944. Kinross accelerated its $1.25M, 2 year work commitment by completing the commitment in the first 6 months of the option. With the success of the exploration and drilling, we are happy to report that Kinross will continue to advance the Laguna and the Lucky Jack properties with an additional minimum $1.0M exploration program beginning in May of 2019." Significant highlights of the phase one reconnaissance drill program are highlighted below: Hole #* From (m) To (m) Length (m) Gold(gpt) LG18-002 187.00 202.00 15.00 0.54 includes 188.72 194.00 5.28 1.02 includes 188.72 190.00 1.28 2.08 includes 193.00 194.00 1.00 1.99 and 502.00 508.00 6.00 1.00 includes 502.00 502.90 0.90 4.18 LG18-003 489.38 491.00 1.62 9.62 includes 489.38 489.88 0.50 18.75 LG18-004 181.59 182.58 0.99 1.52 and 334.63 335.22 0.59 1.27 LG18-006 24.38 25.00 0.62 2.52 and 182.50 183.00 0.50 1.50 and 191.00 191.50 0.50 1.42 *Holes LG18-001 and LG018-005 did not intersect any significant gold values. Drill hole Information from the phase one drill program is outlined below: Hole # UTM-E UTM-N Elevation Length Azimuth Dip LG18-001 450390 6071178 277 228 305 58 LG18-002 450872 6071253 279 662 303 58 LG18-003a 450820 6071178 282 35 299 54 LG18-003b 450820 6071178 282 29 299 54 LG18-003 450820 6071178 282 632 299 54 LG18-004 450472 6070912 278 344 305 45 LG18-005 449505 6069647 269 308 312 45 LG18-006 449582 6069577 275 314 312 45 Figure 1: Laguna Phase One Drill Hole Location Plan Map Laguna Phase One Drill Program The drill program confirmed that known gold bearing quartz zones exposed at surface continue along strike and at depth (please see Figure 1 above). Six widely spaced drill holes totaling 2,552 metres were completed across a strike length of approximately 2,000 metres. Two holes (LG18-002, LG18-003) tested the continuity of the Laguna vein at depth beneath the historic underground Rex-Laguna gold mine. Two holes (LG18-001, LG18-004) tested recently discovered surface quartz veins approximately 550 metres south of the Laguna vein. The last two holes (LG18-005, LG18-006) tested below the Moosehorn quartz vein approximately 2,000 metres south of the Rex-Laguna gold mine. Holes 1 and 4: Located approximately 550 metres south of the historic Rex-Laguna Gold Mine, drilling intersected multiple quartz and quartz-carbonate veining that yielded gold assays ranging from anomalous to 1.5 gpt gold across 1.0 metre. Holes 2 and 3: Located at the north end of the Laguna vein and testing below the historic Rex-Laguna gold mine at 100 metre spacing, both holes intersected the down dip continuation of the Laguna vein yielding 1.0 gpt gold across 6.0 metres including 4.2 gpt gold across 1.0 metre and 9.6 gpt gold across 1.6 metres including 18.8 gpt gold across 0.5 metres. Both holes also discovered additional gold bearing quartz zones above and below the Laguna vein, several showing visible gold and yielding from trace to 0.3 gpt gold across 9.7 metres. A thick anomalous gold bearing diorite (also newly discovered) averaged 0.5 gpt gold across 15.0 metres including 2.1 gpt gold across 1.3 metres and 2.0 gpt gold across 1.0 metre. Holes 5 and 6: Located 2,000 metres south of the of the historic Rex-Laguna gold mine and below the high grade historical Moosehorn vein, both holes intersected multiple quartz and quartz carbonate zones. Assays included 2.5 gpt gold across 0.6 metres, 1.5 gpt gold across 0.5 metres and 1.4 gpt gold across 0.5 metres. Laguna Gold Property Laguna hosts the historic Rex-Laguna gold mine, Manitoba's first and highest-grade former gold mine located within the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt. Intermittent gold mining, between 1916 and 1939 produced over 60,000 ounces of gold grading 18.7 gpt. Laguna includes 28 contiguous mining claims totalling 3,501 hectares covering a minimum 6.0 kilometres of prospective strike length of the Laguna Gold Mine Trend. The gold mineralization on Laguna is controlled by thrust faults attributed to the major regional Crowduck Bay Fault which crosses the entire length of the Laguna Gold Property. The gold-rich quartz veining and stockwork systems along the northwest limb of the Herb Lake Syncline typically occur where the faults intersect quartz-feldspar and biotite porphyry stocks that intrude Missi Group sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Quartz, iron carbonate-albite-sericite alteration commonly overprint peak regional metamorphic assemblages within gold-bearing vein margins. Mineralization in quartz, quartz zones and locally in wallrock consists of pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena, pyrrhotite and native gold. Laboratory QA/QC Core from the drill program was heli-lifted directly to Rockcliff's core logging facility in Snow Lake where it was logged and sampled. Split core samples were shipped directly from Rockcliff's field office to the ALS Global Geochemistry Lab in Thunder Bay, ON. ALS Global is an International assay laboratory and is accredited under ISO/IEC 17025. Each bagged rock sample was dried, crushed to 70% passing 10 mesh and a 250-gram pulp was pulverized to 95% passing 200 mesh for assaying. A 0.5 g cut was taken from each pulp for base metal analysis (if needed) and leached in a multi acid (total) digestion and then analyzed for copper, lead, zinc and silver by inductively coupled plasma, with atomic emission spectroscopy finish. Gold concentrations were determined by fire assay using a 30 g charge followed by fire assay gravimetric and atomic absorption finish. Samples greater than an upper detection limit (3000 ppb) were reanalyzed using a 1 AT charge. Rockcliff inserted certified blanks and standards in the sample stream to ensure lab integrity. QP Ken Lapierre P.Geo., President and CEO of Rockcliff, a Qualified Person in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in NI 43-101, has read and approved the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for the disclosure contained in this press release. Definitive Option Agreement (DOA) for Laguna and Lucky Jack Gold Properties The main terms of the DOA, dated July 25, 2018, provide Kinross with the right to earn a 70% interest in both properties by spending a minimum of C$5.5 million in exploration expenditures over six years. Kinross is committed in the first and second year to aggregate minimum expenditures totalling $1,250,000 which was completed in the first 6 months of the DOA. About Rockcliff Metals Corporation Rockcliff is a well-funded Canadian resource development and exploration company with approximately $30.0M in its treasury, a fully functional +1000 tpd permitted leased processing and tailings facility as well as several advanced stage high-grade copper and zinc dominant VMS deposits in the Snow Lake area of Manitoba, Canada. The Company is continuing the permitting process for its 100% owned Tower copper project which it expects to be completed by Q4 of this year. Rockcliff is a major junior landholder in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt which is home to the largest Paleoproterozoic VMS district in the world hosting mines and deposits containing copper, zinc, gold and silver. The Company's extensive portfolio of properties totals over 4,200 square kilometres and includes eight of the highest-grade undeveloped VMS deposits and 5 lode-gold properties held by Goldpath Resources Corp., Rockcliff's wholly-owned subsidiary, including the historic Rex-Laguna gold mine, Manitoba's first and highest-grade gold mine. For further information, please contact: Rockcliff Metals Corporation Ken Lapierre, P. Geo President & CEO Cell: (647) 678-3879 Off: (416) 644-1752 ken@rockcliffmetals.com CHF Capital Markets Cathy Hume, CEO Off: (416) 868-1079 ext. 231 cathy@chfir.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause the actual results of the Company to be materially different from the historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward-looking. Although Rockcliff believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not a guarantee of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Canadian Securities Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. SOURCE: Rockcliff Metals Corporation View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/545468/Rockcliff-Drilling-Intersects-High-Grade-Gold-Mineralization-at-Laguna-and-Kinross-Continues-with-Option-in-2019-Including-Additional-Drilling LIVINSTON, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Milestone Scientific Inc. (NYSE American: MLSS), a leading developer of computerized drug delivery instruments that provide painless and precise injections, today provided a business update and announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019. Leonard Osser, Interim Chief Executive Officer of Milestone Scientific, commented, "We achieved steady growth in our dental division, with sales increasing 8% to $1.9 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019. We are also beginning to generate traction with the CompuFlo Epidural System. Approximately 2,000 epidural procedures have been performed by key opinion leaders worldwide using our instrument, and three major anesthesia journals have recently published clinical research highlighting the benefits of the technology." "A key element of our strategy includes entering the medical education market with the CompuFlo Epidural Trainer (CompuFlo Trainer). The CompuFlo Trainer reduces uncertainty with objective measurements that help reduce the number of epidural attempts, build confidence and speed trainee competency for all techniques. Most recently, we announced that we signed an agreement to distribute the CompuFlo Trainer with American 3B Scientific, a leading supplier of didactic material for medical education covering North, Central and select countries in South America. We believe that entering the medical education market is an important step to position CompuFlo as a new standard of care for the next generation of anesthesiologists and certified registered nurse anesthetists." "As recently announced, the Board is also evaluating potential strategic options for the Company. We recognize our core competence is developing a portfolio of technologies centered around our platform technology, the patented DPS Dynamic Pressure Sensing technology. Our goal is to either sell or license the respective technologies for specific indications, in order to maximize value for our shareholders. We look forward to providing further updates on this front." For the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, revenues were approximately $1.9 million and $1.8 million, respectively. The increase of 8% is primarily due to a 5% increase in international revenue, principally the rise in handpieces revenue. Gross profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 was approximately $1.3 million, or 68% of revenue, versus approximately $1.2 million, or 69% of revenue for the first quarter ended March 31, 2018. Operating loss for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was approximately $(818,000) versus approximately $(2.0) million for the quarter ended March 31, 2018. The decrease in the operating loss quarter over quarter is due to a decrease in selling, general and administration expenses of approximately $1 million and a reduction of approximately $219,000 in research and development Net loss for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was approximately $(783,000), or $(0.02) per share, versus a net loss of $(1.9) million, or $(0.06) per share, in the prior period. Conference Call Milestone Scientific's executive management team will host a conference call at 8:30 AM Eastern Time on Thursday, May 16, 2019 to discuss the Company's financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019, as well as the Company's corporate progress and other developments. The conference call will be available on the Company's website at www.milestonescientific.com, or via telephone by dialing toll free 800-458-4121 and entering the pass code: 4124860 . For those unable to participate at that time, a replay of the call will be archived on the Company's website or can be accessed by dialing 888-203-1112 and entering the pass code 4124860. The replay will be available for 90 days. About Milestone Scientific Inc. Milestone Scientific Inc. (MLSS) is a biomedical technology research and development company that patents, designs and develops innovative diagnostic and therapeutic injection technologies and instruments for medical, dental, cosmetic and veterinary applications. Milestone's computer-controlled systems are designed to make injections precise, efficient, and virtually painless. Milestone's proprietary DPS Dynamic Pressure Sensing technology is our technology platform that advances the development of next-generation devices, regulating flow rate and monitoring pressure from the tip of the needle, through platform extensions for local anesthesia for subcutaneous drug delivery, with specific applications for cosmetic botulinum toxin injections, epidural space identification in regional anesthesia procedures and intra-articular joint injections. For more information please visit our website: www.milestonescientific.com. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the timing and financial impact of Milestone's ability to implement its business plan, expected revenues, timing of regulatory approvals and future success. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are based on assumptions involving judgments with respect to future economic, competitive and market conditions, future business decisions and regulatory developments, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of which are beyond Milestone's control. Some of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements are general economic conditions, failure to achieve expected revenue growth, changes in our operating expenses, adverse patent rulings, FDA or legal developments, competitive pressures, changes in customer and market requirements and standards, and the risk factors detailed from time to time in Milestone's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including without limitation, Milestone's Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2018. The forward looking statements in this press release are based upon management's reasonable belief as of the date hereof. Milestone undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET ASSETS March 31, 2019 December 31, 2018 (Unaudited) (Audited) Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 2,739,700 $ 743,429 Accounts receivable, net 1,512,746 1,978,456 Accounts receivable, related party, net 50,000 100,000 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 595,951 414,541 Deferred cost, related party 24,602 50,000 Inventories, net 1,861,291 1,921,051 Advances on contracts 530,114 648,783 Total current assets 7,314,404 5,856,260 Furniture, fixtures and equipment, net 77,869 82,557 Patents, net 422,021 435,273 Operating lease-right of use assets 129,982 - Other assets 17,355 26,878 Total assets $ 7,961,631 $ 6,400,968 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 1,198,624 $ 1,205,396 Accounts payable, related party 1,400,806 1,663,849 Accrued expenses and other payables 1,548,353 1,481,715 Accrued expenses, related party 110,215 - Derivative liability 365,785 - Operating lease-current 114,058 - Deferred profit, related party 431,364 421,800 Deferred revenue, related party 50,000 100,000 Total current liabilities 5,219,205 4,872,760 Operating lease-non current 15,924 - Total liabilities $ 5,235,129 $ 4,872,760 Commitments and contingencies Stockholders' equity Series A convertible preferred stock, par value $.001, authorized 5,000,000 shares, and 7,000 shares issued and outstanding (liquidation preference of $7,000,000 as of March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018 ) $ 7 $ 7 Common stock, par value $.001; authorized 50,000,000 shares; 40,855,721 shares issued, 2,807,710 shares to be issued and 40,822,388 shares outstanding as of March 31, 2019; 33,859,034 shares issued, 2,470,565 shares to be issued and 33,825,701 shares outstanding as of December 31, 2018; 43,662 36,330 Additional paid in capital 90,398,875 88,414,718 Accumulated deficit (86,782,681 ) (85,999,929 ) Treasury stock, at cost, 33,333 shares (911,516 ) (911,516 ) Total Milestone Scientific Inc. stockholders' equity 2,748,347 1,539,610 Noncontrolling interest (21,845 ) (11,402 ) Total stockholders' equity 2,726,502 1,528,208 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 7,961,631 $ 6,400,968 CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (UNAUDITED) March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 Product sales, net $ 1,915,909 $ 1,805,605 Cost of products sold 618,694 562,676 Gross profit 1,297,215 1,242,929 Selling, general and administrative expenses 2,109,050 3,018,780 Research and development expenses 6,346 225,817 Total operating expenses 2,115,396 3,244,597 Loss from operations (818,181) (2,001,668 ) Other expenses 1,019 (1,700 ) Interest income (2,264 ) 2,664 Change in fair value of derivative liability (40,260) - Loss before provision for income taxes and equity in net losses of equity investments (779,166 ) (2,000,704 ) Provision for income taxes (4,465 ) (11,464 ) Loss before equity in net earnings (losses) of equity investments (783,631 ) (2,012,168 ) (Loss) earnings from China Joint Venture (9,564 ) 36,783 Net loss (793,195 ) (1,975,385 ) Net loss attributable to noncontrolling interests (10,443 ) (101,407 ) Net loss attributable to Milestone Scientific Inc. $ (782,752 ) $ (1,873,978 ) Net loss per share applicable to common stockholders- Basic $ (0.02 ) $ (0.06 ) Diluted $ (0.02 ) $ (0.06 ) Weighted average shares outstanding and to be issued- Basic 40,531,762 34,766,014 Diluted 40,531,762 34,766,014 Contact: David Waldman or Natalya Rudman Crescendo Communications, LLC Email: mlss@crescendo-ir.com Tel: 212-671-1020 SOURCE: Milestone Scientific, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/545476/Milestone-Scientific-Provides-Business-Update-for-the-First-Quarter-of-2019 SACRAMENTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Falcon Technologies, Inc. (OTC PINK: FLCN) announced today that a representative for Falcon Technologies, Inc. will be attending the May 31st Food and Drug Administration meeting for scientific data and information about products containing cannabis and cannabis-derived compounds. Falcon Technologies is a public company focused on the marketing, sale, and distribution of CBD products and products derived from industrial hemp. According to the Food and Drug Administration, the goal of the hearing is to obtain additional scientific data and other information related to cannabis and cannabis-derived compounds, both from botanical and synthetic sources, to inform our regulatory oversight of these products. Falcon Technologies is proud to be a participant at this historic meeting of the United States Food and Drug Administration. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, Public Law 115-334 (the 2018 Farm Bill), which, among other things removed the plant Cannabis sativa L. or "hemp" from the Controlled Substances Act has dramatically increased the need for CBD science and and to educate the public on CBD products such as the ones Falcon are developing. The 2018 Farm Bill has also dramatically increased the demand for hemp-derived products. Falcon is 100 percent focused on the development, marketing and sale of CBD products and hemp-derived products. Many of the participants at the FDA meeting will be leaders in the CBD industry, leading scientists, leading medical doctors and political heavyweights who have been instrumental in the legalization of the industrial hemp and the products derived from hemp including hemp protein, hemp oil and hemp seeds. William J. Delgado, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Falcon Technologies stated, "We are excited Falcon will be represented at this very important meeting. The FDA understands the importance of CBD but also understands the importance of regulating CBD and other hemp-derived products." CBD (Cannabidiol) is one of at least 80 active cannabinoids identified in both cannabis and industrial hemp. It is a major constituent of both plants, although the percentages of total composition can vary greatly from strain to strain. Unlike THC (the other prevalent cannabinoid), CBD is non-psychoactive while having the potential to possess a variety of therapeutic properties. About Falcon Technologies, Inc. (a/k/a Eco-Growth Strategies, Inc.) Falcon Technologies, Inc. (a/k/a Eco-Growth Strategies, Inc.) is a nutraceutical company developing a range of CBD-based products. The company's mission is to employ best practice science to source, manufacture and package all of its CBD products from within the United States. The company performs farm site visits and manufacturing site visits and sources its products from only the highest quality hemp farms and processors in North America. The company also aims to launch a line of CBD products specially formulated for animals by the end of 2019. CBD Disclaimer The statements made regarding CBD products including our future products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products and the testimonials made have not been confirmed by FDA- approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here is not meant as a substitute for or alternative to information from health care practitioners. Please consult your healthcare professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires this notice. SAFE HARBOR ACT Forward-Looking Statements are included within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategy, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, including words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements and involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Contact: William J. Delgado (775) 443-4740 djwllc@hotmail.com SOURCE: Falcon Technologies View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/545479/Falcon-Technologies-Announces-Its-Participation-and-Attendance-at-the-May-31-2019-Food-and-Drug-Administration-Meeting-for-Products-Containing-Cannabis-and-Cannabis-Derived-Compounds Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - UGE International Ltd. (TSXV: UGE) (OTCQB: UGEIF) (the "Company" or "UGE"), a leader in solar solutions for the commercial and industrial sector, is pleased to announce the following project updates. Canada UGE reached substantial completion on the last four sites of its Peterborough portfolio earlier this month, meaning that the full 15-site, 9MW portfolio is now operational. The portfolio is the Company's largest to date. "Building solar projects in Ontario in the winter is a significant challenge and we are very thankful to both the UGE project team and the Peterborough Utilities team for their dedication and perseverance," stated Robert van Duynhoven, President of UGE Canada. "The team leveraged our years of experience to work through every obstacle faced, performing exceptionally throughout." In addition, UGE's engineering and consulting subsidiary, UGE Consulting Services Co, Ltd., has been awarded a phase one contract to study the feasibility of microgrids in Burkina Faso, as well as a maintenance contract for a previously installed commercial solar project in Ontario. In both cases contract values were below $100,000, but above the Company's 23% gross margin target, with work to be completed in the coming months. USA In Minnesota, UGE achieved final completion on two of the last three projects in its four-site schools portfolio that was acquired as part of the CSPC acquisition. The final site, which is the portfolio's smallest, is expected to achieve its final completion within the next four weeks. In addition, UGE is pleased to announce that its 3.1MW project in the northeast US with a previously unnamed client is with Con Edison, the New York City-based utility, and looks forward to providing further updates as the project progresses. "UGE is excited to start several new chapters in 2019, as past EPC portfolios are wrapped up and new projects in our US and Philippines markets kick off," said UGE's CEO, Nick Blitterswyk. "This year we expect to build a record number of projects in both markets where we focus on self-developed opportunities." About UGE UGE delivers immediate savings to businesses through the low cost of solar energy. We help commercial and industrial clients become more competitive by providing low cost distributed renewable energy solutions at no upfront cost and maximum long-term benefit. With over 375 MW of global experience, we work daily to power a more sustainable world. Visit us at www.ugei.com. For more information, contact: +1 917 720 5685 investors@ugei.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44788 Seattle, Washington--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - CFN Media Group ("CFN Media"), the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the North American cannabis industry, announces publication of an article covering The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) (OTCQB: BOSQF) (FSE: YG3) and its recent distribution announcements. The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) (OTCQB: BOSQF) (FSE: YG3) is a company that knows how to capitalize on incredible business opportunities. Its directors and officers have experience with multi-billion dollar international companies including M.A.C Cosmetics, Aritzia, Skechers, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, and this is demonstrated by their incredible growth and success in a short space of time. Always innovative, Yield Growth continues to find new ways in which to disrupt the health and wellness industry, and recent moves will allow it greater reach than ever before. Click here to receive an investor deck and corporate updates Intelligent Expenditure On May 07, 2019, Yield Growth announced that the new online flagship for its wholly owned subsidiary, Urban Juve, went officially live. The technology for this website was built by Thrive Activations, another subsidiary of Yield Growth. Urban Juve is a luxury brand, and needed an e-commerce platform which would be representative of the products carried. Until now, sophisticated sales websites have been exorbitantly expensive, and therefore inaccessible to startup companies. Rather than settling for a subpar website, Urban Juve went through Thrive Activations, who spent over 9 months sourcing software and developing a custom solution to provide an affordable alternative to overpriced traditional options. Although this required a considerable investment of time and resources, Urban Juve's proprietary new system can be licensed for other brands, both within the Yield Growth Corp. and beyond. The technology was specifically designed for retail companies, and offers the same capabilities of EPR systems. Suitable for both B2B and B2C sales, the platform allows dependable procurement, payment processing options and inventory management. This agile and scalable e-commerce platform should be able to operate as a paradigm for other small to midsize businesses, and is indicative of Yield Growth's clever distribution strategies. Click here to receive an investor deck and corporate updates On-Trend Marketing and Branding Yield Growth Corp. is a company which recognizes profitable business ventures and seizes them without hesitation. The health and wellness industry is led by new and novel products, and according to the Global Wellness Institute, is currently worth an estimated $4.2 trillion. Yield Growth acted quickly to harness the crossover market of cannabis infused beauty products. Rather than simply churning out products, Yield Growth looked towards trends in ethical consumer spending. A recent study by Statista found that 87 percent of respondents would purchase a product because a company advocated for an issue they cared about. Yield Growth's consumer flagship Urban Juve is a brand dedicated to producing ethical products. "The quality of the natural ingredients and our unique formulations stand out among competitors," said Penny Green, CEO and President of Yield Growth, on Urban Juve's product line. "Ethically sourced, never tested on animals and toxin-free, we stand behind our formulations and their creation process. The market is taking notice." Click here to receive an investor deck and corporate updates In addition to their clever understanding of consumer spending trends, Yield Growth knows how to market a product line to a specific demographic. On May 1st, 2019, Yield Growth announced new U.S.A. retail contracts with luxury spa, wellness and luxury shops to carry its Ayurveda-inspired Urban Juve products. As a luxury brand, Urban Juve has partnered with upscale and sophisticated retailers, whose clientele will be attracted to the brand's high-end packaging and pricing. Since December 2018, Urban Juve has secured over 100 retail locations across Canada and the U.S.A., most of which will carry all three Urban Juve lines - Align, Vitalize and Balance - each of which cater towards different skin types and needs. Yield Growth hopes to have 1,000 retail outlets as part of its North American retail distribution. It also wants to launch in e-commerce in Asia and Europe, and is now negotiating with top retail chains in Hong Kong, which are interested in presenting these products to a global consumer base. In addition to this, on 11 April, 2019, Urban Juve entered into an agreement with WeChat, the most popular messaging service in China. This partnership with consultant Pontier Services will allow the sale of Urban Juve products within the app. They will also launch a marketing campaign with PopSquare AI-enabled pop-up kiosks, which will see products promoted in rotation amongst luxury shopping malls. This three month agreement will begin in June 2019. Click here to read the full article: https://www.cannabisfn.com/yield-growths-distribution-strategy-takes-the-company-global/ About CFN Media For Visitors and Viewers CFN Media's Cannabis Financial Network (CannabisFN.com) is the destination for savvy investors and business people profiting from the worldwide cannabis industry. Viewers will see breaking news, exclusive content and original programming involving the people, companies and investments shaping the industry. For Cannabis Businesses & Companies CFN Media is a leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the cannabis industry. We help private, pre-public and public cannabis companies in the US and Canada attract capital, investors and media attention. Our powerful digital media and distribution platform conveys a company's message and value proposition directly to accredited and retail investors and national media active in the North American cannabis markets. Since 2013, CFN Media has enabled the world's preeminent cannabis companies to thrive in the capital and public markets. Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/featuredcompany Disclaimer The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/ Contact CFN Media Frank Lane 206-369-7050 flane@cannabisfn.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44791 The new brand reinforces the company's focus on providing engagement throughout the customer journey BookingBug, a leading customer engagement platform, today announced the company's rebrand to JRNI, Inc. This shift solidifies the company's commitment to combining a customer engagement platform with applications that put omnichannel conversion at the heart of the enterprise. JRNI offers its industry-leading Appointments, Events, and Queuing applications, along with Call Center and Insights, designed to help organizations drive online traffic in-store/in-branch through conversion. JRNI's customer engagement platform enables companies to interact with customers, online to offline, and across lines of business, while providing a 360-degree view of the full customer journey. JRNI's new branding enables the company to stand out within a competitive market space, convey the usability of its services, and serve as a foundation for an expanding suite of applications. Guiding the company through its next phase of growth is JRNI's new CEO, John Federman, a SaaS veteran with deep roots in the retail and financial services industries. Most recently, Federman served as CEO at Webcollage, the leading cloud-based content management platform for the publishing of rich product information, and syndication across retail sites globally, through its acquisition into the Syndigo platform. He also serves as an advisor to Boston-based Salsify and sits on the Board of New York's T-Ink. Federman is joined in leading the company by Co-Founder, Glenn Shoosmith, who has assumed the role of Chief Architect. This role ensures Shoosmith can focus on his passion: building the most complete and effective customer engagement platform. Shoosmith founded the company in 2008 following the overly complex, and ineffective scheduling of a squash game, and built it into the company it is today. "Companies strive to leverage every customer interaction for maximum conversion," says Federman. "With so much research and purchase activity starting online, JRNI's ability to guide prospects and customers from the Web to a physical location or across any channel throughout their full journey is an exciting prospect. I'm thrilled to be joining such a dynamic company at this time." Please visit www.jrni.com to explore the new website and to learn more about the services offered. About JRNI, Inc. JRNI is designed to facilitate powerful human-to-human experiences that increase conversion and revenue, customer loyalty, and lifetime value. Forward-thinking executives from companies like U.S. Bank, ANZ, John Lewis, and LEGO rely on JRNI's AI-driven scheduling engine to deliver predictive actions across touchpoints appointments, events, concierge, queuing and optimize resources to deliver superior quality of experience. To learn more, visit www.jrni.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005032/en/ Contacts: Steve Vittorioso Director of Public Relations JRNI (formerly BookingBug) pr@bookingbug.com 1-857-453-4667(office) 1-978-875-1297 (cell) One-day event offers opportunities to learn, network and broaden technical knowledge of MIPI specifications in mobile, IoT, automotive and other use cases The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, today announced details of its upcoming MIPI Developers Conference (DevCon) to be held 25 June 2019, in Stuttgart, Germany. The one-day event provides an opportunity for attendees to learn how MIPI technology is facilitating new capabilities within mobile and being extended to markets such as IoT, automotive, wearables, industrial and augmented/virtual reality. To register for MIPI DevCon Stuttgart, please visit: http://bit.ly/2H9jGhB. An "early bird" $49 USD registration fee is available until 11 June 2019. WHAT: MIPI DevCon Stuttgart WHEN WHERE: 25 June 2019, at the Maritim Stuttgart Hotel in Stuttgart, Germany AGENDA: Keynote Presentations: Antonio Garzon , senior analyst, Automotive Semiconductor and Electronics, IHS Markit Technology, will discuss the disruption taking place in automotive electronics, how mobile technologies are increasingly leveraged in automotive and provide a look at the market for automotive electronics , senior analyst, Automotive Semiconductor and Electronics, IHS Markit Technology, will discuss the disruption taking place in automotive electronics, how mobile technologies are increasingly leveraged in automotive and provide a look at the market for automotive electronics Achim Henkel, section manager in the "Mobility Solutions, System Engineering Technical Strategy" group at Robert Bosch GmbH, will discuss the current and future landscape of automotive electric/electronic architectures Session Lineup: Eight sessions on next-generation mobile, AR/VR, IoT, automotive, 5G and other use cases on next-generation mobile, AR/VR, IoT, automotive, 5G and other use cases MIPI working group chairs and other subject-matter expert members who will share implementation experiences, use cases and application examples from a technical perspective Demos Networking: Fourteen MIPI member companies showcasing the latest technologies and products integrating MIPI specifications integrating MIPI specifications Peer-to-peer networking opportunities to discuss and debate the challenges and solutions to today's pressing design and development questions For the full agenda visit: http://bit.ly/2HbJ8mY WHO SHOULD ATTEND: Developers and implementers of MIPI specifications in markets such as mobile, IoT, automotive, wearables and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR). The program's technical content and practical use-case sessions will provide system architects, engineers, engineering managers, and business and marketing executives valuable information and resources. Members of the media and industry analysts are invited to attend with complimentary registration. "MIPI specifications' proven advantages in mobile are now being leveraged in other markets such as automotive, IoT and mixed reality," said Soheil Modirzadeh, chair of the MIPI DevCon Steering Committee. "MIPI DevCon in Stuttgart, a European technology hub, offers technical guidelines on implementation of MIPI specifications in markets beyond mobile, and provides a platform for attendees to network with subject-matter experts." EXHIBITING COMPANIES: Arasan Chip Systems, Inc. BitfiEye Digital Test Solutions GmbH Hardent Inc. Introspect Test Technology, Inc. Keysight Technologies, Inc. Lattice Semiconductor Corp. Mentor Graphics Mixel, Inc. ON Semiconductor Prodigy Technovations Pvt. Ltd. Protocol Insight Silvaco , Inc. Synopsys, Inc. Teledyne LeCroy EVENT SPONSORS: Arasan Chip Systems, Inc. Introspect Test Technology, Inc. Mixel, Inc. Robert Bosch GmbH Teledyne LeCroy INDUSTRY SPONSORS: JEDEC Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA) MEDIA SPONSORS: EDACafe Embedded Computing Design Sensors Online To discover more about MIPI Alliance, subscribe to its blog and connect with its social networks by following MIPI on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. About MIPI Alliance MIPI Alliance (MIPI) develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries. There is at least one MIPI specification in every smartphone manufactured today. Founded in 2003, the organization has over 300 member companies worldwide and 14 active working groups delivering specifications within the mobile ecosystem. Members of the organization include handset manufacturers, device OEMs, software providers, semiconductor companies, application processor developers, IP tool providers, test and test equipment companies, as well as camera, tablet and laptop manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.mipi.org. MIPI is a registered trademark owned by MIPI Alliance. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005049/en/ Contacts: Lisa McCausland Interprose for MIPI Alliance +1 303.888.2137 lisa.mccausland@interprosepr.com A new market research study by Technavio on the global transaction monitoring solutions marketprojects the market to grow at a CAGR of close to 15% during the period 2019-2023. This research report provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue, top drivers and emerging market trends. It also includes detailed insights and forecasts for all the market segments across different geographies. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005322/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global transaction monitoring solutions market from 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) Need for protection against online frauds With a rising number of people becoming digitally connected and the growing adoption of online transactions, personal identity and data control have become a primary concern for online retailers. Moreover, the number of cyber thefts by cybercriminals and hackers is growing at an alarming rate. Such cases are frequently reported across the world and cost retail customers several billions of dollars each year. The high risks of identity theft can be eliminated with the use of a decentralized identity such as transaction monitoring solutions for identity management. Thus, the growing need for protection against online frauds will fuel market growth during the forecast period. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. The emergence of advanced technologies in transaction monitoring The transaction monitoring solutions market is witnessing the development of advanced technologies that aim to enhance these solutions. Vendors are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in transaction monitoring solutions to make services smarter and more secure. Smart AI-based transaction monitoring solutions have features such as network threat detection, intrusion detection, object classification, and behavioral analysis. Thus, the integration of technologies such as AI and blockchain with transaction monitoring solutions will drive the market growth during the forecast period. According to a senior analyst at Technavio for IT services, "With the number of fraudulent activities increasing every year, and frauds are becoming more sophisticated, the number of government regulations are increasing, which must be complied by financial enterprises to tackle frauds. Thus, the need for compliance with government regulations will increase the demand for transaction monitoring solutions, which help enterprises control and monitor data movement." Lack of efficient security solutions Cyber threats and malicious attacks have been increasing significantly in terms of both frequency and intensity. Security attacks such as spyware and viruses are evolving into more complex attacks, making them more challenging to be detected and controlled. Thus, identifying and preventing transaction threats is one of the most challenging factors in the market. However, with technological advances and innovations such as AI and blockchain, the efficiency of security solutions such as transaction monitoring solutions will improve significantly over the years to come. Top players in the global transaction monitoring solutions market: ACI Worldwide Inc. BAE Systems Plc NICE Ltd. Oracle Corp. SAS Institute Inc. Some of the key topics covered in the global transaction monitoring solutions market include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. It provides detailed market research reports that provide clients with actionable insights to help them identify market opportunities and design effective strategies to optimize their market position. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio boasts of an extensive report library comprising of over 10,000 reports, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than a hundred Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets. Technavio helps companies to assess their competitive position within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005322/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 www.technavio.com Consolidated sales - April and 4 months Preliminary consolidated results of JSC Olainfarm for April 2019, show that the Group has made sales worth 12.6 million euros, which represents an increase by 45% compared to April 2019. Preliminary results for first four months of 2019 demonstrate 14% sales increase, compared to the four months period of 2018, reaching 47.3 million euros. Products of Olainfarm Group during this period were sold in 50 markets worldwide. According to consolidated sales numbers for April, four major sales markets of the Group remain the same: Russia, with 111% sales increase, Latvia, where the sales jumped by 113%, Ukraine with the sales decrease of 38%, and Belarus with the slight 2% decrease. Amongst the ten largest sales markets, the sales have been shrinking also in Lithuania (by 22%). All other major outlets demonstrated sales growth in April, with substantial deliveries to the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Germany. In the four months of 2019, the main sales markets of Olainfarm Group remained the same: Russia (30% share), Latvia (27% share), Belarus (14% share) and Ukraine (9% share). Other major sales markets included the Netherlands, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Germany, Tajikistan and Lithuania. The most rapid sales growth during this four-month period was achieved in the Netherlands, where sales grew by 702% compared to the last year, and in Uzbekistan where sale grew by 64%. Russia and Belarus have demonstrated 27% and 12% sales increase in the four months, respectably. Amongst the largest sales outlets decline has been marked in Ukraine (-5%), Kazakhstan (-14%), Germany (-19%) and Lithuania (-34%). "JSC Olainfarm four-month sales show good results, confirming the stable growth of the company. The key to the company's success is effective manufacturing processes, knowledgeable and professional employees, as well as stable market outlets and cooperation partners. Currently, one of the most important tasks is the further development of company's activities. We are working on a new medium-term strategy for the Group for 3-5 years, which will help to continue the successful growth of the company. This will allow us to maintain stable positions, both in existing markets and to acquire new ones,"emphasizes Lauris Macijevskis, Chairman of the Board at JSC Olainfarm. April 2019, consolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to April 2018 Russia 4 910 39% 111% Latvia 3 127 25% 131% Ukraine 1 185 9% -38% Belarus 1 114 9% -2% The Netherlands 585 5% 5818% Kazakhstan 323 3% 33% Germany 192 2% 17% Uzbekistan 173 1% - Armenia 140 1% 3672% Lithuania 128 1% -22% Other 728 6% -5% Total 12 605 100% 45% 4 months 2019, consolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to 4 months 2019 Russia 13 985 30% 27% Latvia 12 913 27% 11% Belarus 6 618 14% 12% Ukraine 4 037 9% -5% The Netherlands 1 363 3% 702% Uzbekistan 1 124 2% 64% Kazakhstan 937 2% -14% Germany 729 2% -12% Tajikistan 521 1% 17% Lithuania 512 1% -32% Other 4 556 10% 10% Kopa 47 294 100% 14% Unconsolidated sales - April and 4 months According to preliminary unconsolidated numbers, sales of JSC Olainfarm in April reached 10.0 million euros, which represents an increase by 15% compared to April 2018.Result was positively influenced by the sales increase in Russia (by 102%), the Netherlands (by 6047%), Kirgizstan (by 611%) and India (by 8559%). Sales shrunk in Ukraine (by 40%) and in Belarus (by 24%). Unconsolidated sales results for four months 2019 show that sales of JSC Olainfarm reached 36.6 million euros, which represents and increase by 14% compared to first 4 month 2018. During the reporting period, sales have increased in all major sales markets of Olainfarm, except Ukraine, where sales shrunk by 11%, Uzbekistan (decrease by 23%) and Tajikistan (decrease by 34%). In this 4-months period, sales of Olainfarm to the Netherlands grew by 64%, but sales to Kazakhstan and Lithuania accordingly by 13% and 55%. April 2019, unconsolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to April 2018 Russia 4 699 47% 102% Latvia 1 402 14% 4% Ukraine 1 149 11% -40% Belarus 860 9% -24% The Netherlands 585 6% 6047% Germany 191 2% 16% Uzbekistan 173 2% - Kazakhstan 171 2% -29% India 122 1% 8559% Kyrgyzstan 116 1% -30% Other 527 5% -32% Total 9 996 100% 15% Four months 2019 unconsolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to four months 2018 Russia 12 591 34% 30% Latvia 5 919 16% 6% Belarus 5 466 15% 9% Ukraine 3 743 10% -11% The Netherlands 1 582 3% 64% Uzbekistan 1 124 2% -23% Kazakhstan 598 1% 13% Tajikistan 503 1% -24% Lithuania 450 1% 55% Turkmenistan 354 12% 1263% Other 4 233 12% -5% Total 36 563 100% 14% Results of Daughter companies - April and four months of 2019 Sales of pharmacy chain of SIA Latvijas Aptieka in April 2019 was close to 2.2 million euros, which represents 11% increase compared to April 2018. During this period 68 pharmacies operated. Sales of SIA Silvanols in April reached 0.47 million euros, representing increase by 3% vs. the April 2018. Combined sales of Tonus Elast and Elast Medical in April 2019 were 0.8 million euros, which is increase by 2%. Medical centers of Olainmed and Diamed made sales worth 0.28 million euros, while Belarus daughter company NPK Biotest made sales of 0.25 million euros. During four month of 2019, SIA Latvijas Aptieka sales amounted to 8.7 million euros, demonstrating 12% increase over the same period last year, sales of SIA Silvanols reached 2.1 million euros (an increase by 6%). Combined sales of Tonus Elast and Elast Medical also grew by 6% to 2.9 million euros. Medical centers and NPK Biotest both sold services and products worth over 1.0 million EUR during four months 2019. April 2019 4 months 2019 Sales markets of Olainfarm 25 42 Sales markets of the Group 35 50 Number of pharmacies 68 Sales of Latvijas Aptieka, thsnd. 2 156 8 762 Sales of Medical centers, thsnd. 283 1 022 Sales of NPK Biotest, thsnd. 254 1 045 Sales of Tonus Elast and Elast Medical, thsnd. 765 2 933 Sales of Silvanols, thsnd. 474 2 115 According to the budget of JSC Olainfarm, unconsolidated sales of the company in 2019 are planned to reach 99 million euros, while consolidated sales are expected at 133 million euros. According to these preliminary sales figures, in the first 4 months 2019, 37% of annual target for unconsolidated sales and 35% of annual target for consolidated sales are reached. JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 45 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top -quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 60 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. Information prepared by: Janis Dubrovskis Investor Relations Advisor of JSC Olainfarm Ph.: +371 29178878 janis.dubrovskis@olainfarm.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Argo Gold (CSE: ARQ) (the "Company" or "Argo Gold") is pleased to announce that plans are underway for a summer exploration programme at its Woco Property, primarily following up on results of recent drilling. From results of all the drill holes that have intersected the Woco Vein, it appears that the highest grade gold is contained within the greatest width of vein material. At this time, Argo believes that the thickness of the vein material is controlled by a brittle dacite in the hanging wall. Accordingly, a detailed core re-logging programme will be carried out to confirm this observation, and carefully project the hanging wall dacite for future drill testing. Geochemical sampling will also be carried out over the strike extension of the Woco Vein to test for strike or en-echelon extensions. The balance of the exploration programme will be directed towards geochemical sampling. A number of lines test the north-south oriented Uchi Break to test for any anomalous mineralization. This "Break", which is the gold controlling structure to the Uchi Lake Mines to the north, has never been tested over most of the Argo Gold Property because of the extensive overburden cover. Argo drill hole AGU-19-009 intersected a very shallow, likely sub-cropping, massive sulphide zone at the north boundary of the property, which, based on an interpretation of Argo's geophysical database, appears to be coincident with a strong AEM conductor that is continuous for 400m south of the drill hole location. The sulphide intersection is strongly anomalous in gold and manganese, (482 ppb and 6,066 ppm respectively). Detailed geochemical traverses will bracket the surface over the length of the known AEM conductor to test for what can be common zonation in base metal deposits. Exploration work will also be focused on linking the east end of the Northgate Vein to the through-going Uchi-Break. Previous work by Woco Gold Mines in the 1930's on the Northgate Zone disclosed an average of 15.53 g/t Au over a width of 0.9m for a strike length of 61m. Only a portion of this zone was tested by the recent drilling. Key features of the Woco Gold Project are: High grade gold intercepts in recent and historic drilling, including 132 g/t Au over 1.8 metres, 139 g/t Au over 2.1 metres, 65 g/t Au over 1.83 metres, and 62 g/t Au over 3.6 metres. The Woco Vein is situated 1.5 kms south, and parallel to the strike of the past producing Uchi Mine, where mining the No. 1 Zone started with a grade of 10.62 g/t Au over a width of 9 metres for a length of 103 metres. (Summarized from Bateman (1940), ODM ARV 48, pt.8) Argo Gold's total land package in the prospective Birch Uchi Greenstone Belt is 2,176 hectares and follows geologically favourable rocks and structures hosting gold mineralization. This exploration program is being overseen by Argo Gold's lead exploration geologist Bill Kerr who comments: "Now that the location of the Uchi Break has been better defined near Argo Gold's north claim boundary, further ground surveys are planned to define drill targets along this favourable horizon and extend it over three kilometres to the south, where it intersects the Northgate Zone. Reconnaissance geochemical traverses and prospecting will also attempt to extend the Uchi break further south, approximately five kilometres to Argo's south claim boundary. This follow-up summer exploration program will provide crucial data for Argo Gold to carry out any further drill program." Corporate Update: The Company is pleased to announce that they have engaged the services of Ms. Judith Baker as a consultant. Ms. Baker's history and knowledge of Argo Gold and its properties make her uniquely qualified to assist the Company as it moves forward. About Argo Gold Inc. Argo Gold is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol ARQ. Argo Gold is focused on gold exploration projects in central and northwestern Ontario. Argo Gold's website is www.argogold.ca. Mr. Bill Kerr, P. Geo, is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 who assumes responsibility for the technical disclosures in this press release. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF ARGO GOLD Chris Irwin Interim-CEO For more information, please contact: Ken Storey Chief Financial Officer 905-301-3404 kj.storey@argogold.ca NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDER HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Forward-looking Information Cautionary Statement Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44812 Sudbury, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Transition Metals Corp (TSXV: XTM) ("Transition", "the Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the Cryderman Gold property located near Shining Tree, Ontario. The property consists of 6 contiguous mining leases cover a historical high-grade lode gold showing where grab samples collected by the Company in 2018 returned values from trace up to 34.5 g Au/t. CEO Scott McLean commented, "We are very excited to bring another high-grade gold project into the company. There is no record of any exploration on this property since the late 1940's when it saw small scale production. Recent discoveries in the area such as IAMGOLD's 10 million oz and growing Cote Gold project1 and Pan American Silver's 3.0 million oz Juby project2 have highlighted the prospectivity of this underexplored section of the southwest Abitibi greenstone belt. We feel we can advance the project effectively through a systematic, but hands on approach that we plan to initiate this summer for the purpose of attracting a partner." 1IAMGOLD News Release dated November 1, 2018. 2Tahoe Resources News Release dated February 15, 2018 Note: mineralization hosted at Cote and Juby properties is not necessarily reflective of the mineralization hosted on the Company's Cryderman Au property. Transition retains the right and option to earn a 100% interest in the property by issuing $60,000 in cash and $110,000 in shares to the Vendor and completing $300,000 in work over a 3 year period. If the Company vests its interest, the Vendor would retain a 2% Net Smelter Return royalty (NSR) with Transition retaining the right to buy back 1% NSR for $1.0 million. About the Cryderman Property The Property is located in the western portion of the Shining Tree gold camp, approximately 7 kilometres northeast of the town of Shining Tree, Ontario. Geologically, the Property is underlain by rocks of the southwest part of the Abitibi greenstone belt comprised of older Archean ultramafic, mafic and felsic flows, volcaniclastics, interflow epiclastics and chemical sedimentary rocks in unconformable contact with Timiskaming-type sedimentary rocks and volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks to the north3. These rocks have been offset by late, north-trending, regional faults, such as the Michiwakenda Lake fault. Gold mineralization in the area appears to be hosted by splay structures related to these faults. 3Ayer et al. 2013. Ontario Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Release-Data 294. The occurrence, variously known as the Cryderman, Queen Elizabeth, Cooper-Manwell-Moore, Cryderman-Manwell-Moore, and/or Featherstone is located on the eastern portion of the property. There is little information relating to historical work as the property has been held as leases for an extended period of time. A 100 m long and 0.3 to 0.9 m wide, north-striking, west dipping quartz vein hosted by schistose mafic metavolcanic was described by Ontario Geological Survey2. In 1943, Conwest Exploration sampled the vein with the best assay being 3.19 oz Au/ton (90.43 g Au/t) over 10 inches (25 cm)4. A 1949 report stated that the Conwest sampling consisted of 23 samples collected at approximately 10 foot (3.0 m) spacing along the length of the vein which ranged from trace to 3.19 oz Au/t (90.43 g Au/t), with 14 of the samples returning greater than 0.1 oz Au/t5 (2.83 g Au/t). 4Carter (1977) Ontario Geological Survey Geoscience Report 152 5W.S. Savage (1949) Resident Geologist, Ontario Geological Survey, internal report A site visit by Transition Metals geologists in November 2018 located an approximately 90 m long trench with partial exposures of quartz vein and quartz vein bearing rubble. The vein had the strike and dip as described in the OGS report, and appears to have crack-seal textures with chalcopyrite and pyrite generally constituting less than 1% of the vein. A total of 8 samples were collected from sites along the length of the vein with the results presented in Table 1: Table 1: Assay results for grab samples collected by Transition Metals Corp. in November 2018. Sample Au (ppm) Ag (ppm) As (ppm) Bi (ppm) Mo (ppm) Te (ppm) W (ppm) L782836 <0.001 <0.01 1.60 0.01 1.53 <0.05 1.4 L782837 34.50 17.90 28.90 3.29 2.63 8.54 0.1 L782838 0.03 0.09 1.90 0.02 1.63 <0.05 1.9 L782839 16.20 1.61 13.60 0.12 1.94 0.22 0.3 L782840 7.75 3.64 21.90 0.29 2.41 1.92 0.3 L782841 11.00 22.30 50.80 1.36 2.79 12.85 0.2 L782842 0.03 0.20 11.60 0.04 1.69 <0.05 7.3 L782843 0.25 0.16 10.10 0.02 1.83 <0.05 17.2 These results support the presence of high-grade gold as reported in the historical results. The Company believes the property is prospective for a high grade, lode gold deposit in an area that has seen limited to no exploration. A program of mapping sampling, trenching and data compilation is planned in order to target drilling in the future. Qualified Person The technical elements of this press release have been approved by Mr. Thomas Hart, P.Geo. (APGO), a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. All analytical work performed was conducted at ALS Chemex Laboratories with analyses completed in North Vancouver, B.C The quality system used by ALS-Chemex that meets all requirements of International Standards ISO/IEC 17025:2005 and ISO 9001:2015. Transition Metals Corp Transition Metals Corp (TSXV: XTM) is a Canadian-based, multi-commodity project generator that specializes in converting new exploration ideas into discoveries. The award-winning team of geoscientists has extensive exploration experience which actively develops and tests new ideas for discovering mineralization in places that others have not looked, often allowing the company to acquire properties inexpensively. Joint venture partners earn an interest in the projects by funding a portion of higher-risk drilling and exploration, allowing Transition to conserve capital and minimize shareholder's equity dilution. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Information Except for statements of historical fact contained herein, the information in this news release constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities law. Such forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "plans", "proposes", "estimates", "intends", "expects", "believes", "may", "will" and include without limitation, statements regarding estimated capital and operating costs, expected production timeline, benefits of updated development plans, foreign exchange assumptions and regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, metal prices, competition, risks inherent in the mining industry, and regulatory risks. Most of these factors are outside the control of the Company. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Further information is available at www.transitionmetalscorp.com or by contacting: Scott McLean President and CEO Transition Metals Corp. Tel: (705) 669-1777 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44811 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Sixty North Gold Mining Ltd. (CSE: SXTY) (FSE: 2F4) (OTCQB: SXNTF) (the "Company" or "Sixty North Gold") is pleased to announce that Gavin Kirk has been appointed as President, CEO and a Director of the Company, effective immediately. John Campbell, Chairman of the Board of Directors, reports, "Gavin Kirk's appointment is an exciting development for the Company. His extensive background and connections in the investment community will help us accelerate our fund-raising and operational programs. We plan to arrange funds for drilling of the targets on the volcanogenic massive sulphide ("VMS") zone discovered in 2018 spruce bark and rock sampling, and further confirmed through the 2019 airborne geophysics program. His energy will be a great asset as we move forward on the VMS exploration, underground bulk sampling of the former-producing A-Zone, and early-stage exploration of the potential gold shear zone targets." Mr. Kirk has worked in the investment community since 1985, beginning with Levesque Beaubien Geoffrion (now National Bank Financial), followed by Union Securities Ltd. and Raymond James Ltd. During his 25 years in the capital markets, he gained extensive experience in sales and trading, as well as early-stage company financing, marketing, strategic planning and corporate restructuring. As part of the management changes, former and founding CEO Ronald Handford has agreed to step down as CEO and a Director, and take on the roles of Vice President, Corporate Development and Corporate Secretary. Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, John Campbell, has stepped down from the roles of President and Corporate Secretary. Mr. Campbell stated, "The Board would like to thank Mr. Handford for his diligence in guiding the Company through its first technical report, a successful IPO, other private financing and operational milestones, and raising the profile of the Company through marketing and social media programs. We look forward to his continued contributions in his new roles with the Company." Debt Settlements The Company and Messrs. Campbell and Handford have also agreed that the Company will settle the sum of $15,000 owed to Mr. Campbell for three months' accrued management consulting fees (January 15 to April 15, 2019) and the sum of $40,000 owed to Mr. Handford for four months' accrued management consulting fees (January 15 to May 15, 2019), to be paid by the issuance and delivery of 300,000 common shares and 800,000 common shares, respectively, at a deemed value of $0.05 per share, plus GST. In addition, the parties have agreed that any further accrued consulting fees will be settled upon the closing of the next equity financing in further common shares or cash at the election of either Mr. Campbell or Mr. Handford. About the Company The Company is engaged in acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties. Its principal target is the exploration for gold on the Mon Gold Property, 40 km north of Yellowknife, NWT. The Mon Gold Property consists of 11 contiguous mining leases and 3 mineral claims, comprising an aggregate 1,536.92 acres, located in the South MacKenzie Mining District, NWT. For more information, please refer to the Company's Prospectus dated January 19, 2018 available on SEDAR (www.sedar.com), under the Company's profile. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "John Campbell" ____________________________________ John Campbell, Chairman, CFO and Director For further information, please contact: John Campbell, 604-961-0175 Email: jcampbell.capital@gmail.com Website: www.sixtynorthgold.com Statements about the Company's future expectations and all other statements in this press release other than historical facts are "forward looking statements". Such forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including risks inherent in mineral exploration and development, which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any projected future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Further details about the risks applicable to the Company are contained in the Company's Prospectus dated January 19, 2018 available on SEDAR (www.sedar.com), under the Company's profile. THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT APPROVED NOR DISAPPROVED THE CONTENT OF THIS PRESS RELEASE. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44796 A single used vehicle label for Groupe PSA mainstream brands 1 will be launched in 11 countries across Europe in 2019. A dedicated website and a network of specialised dealerships will support the new offering. The initiative will help to achieve the "Push to Pass" objective of 1 million used vehicle sales and transactions per year by 2021. Regulatory News: "With Spoticar, Groupe PSA (Paris:UG) is establishing itself as a multi-brand used vehicle operator," said Marc Lechantre, Vice-President of the Used-Vehicle Business Unit. "The new offering will create a stress-free experience for customers, whether they want to buy their used car online, at a dealership or have it delivered directly to their door.The label will first be rolled out in France, quickly followed by other countries across Europe." Groupe PSA has created new used car label Spoticar to simplify individual customers' and/or businesses' purchasing experience, supported by a digital offering and/or specialised dealerships. Spoticar offers a selection of multi-brand used vehicle that are selected, appraised and prepared by specialists across Groupe PSA networks, thereby giving customers access to a wider range of vehicles and services. Spoticar will bring together eight existing labels2, with the exception of the DS Certified label, which will remain in use. Starting today in France, the label will be rolled out in 11 countries across Europe3 by the end of 2019. The launch in France includes a dedicated website (https://www.spoticar.fr), a network of dealerships across the country, personalised advice and support, a "satisfied or money back"4 guarantee, and one year or 15,000 km of free maintenance5 The new label comes at a time of rapid change in the fast-growing, extremely competitive and highly digitalised global used vehicle market that represents some 150 million sales and transactions each year. Groupe PSA currently generates more than 800,000 sales each year through its eight existing labels and has set itself the objective of achieving more than 1 million sales and transactions by the end of 2021 as part of the Push to Pass plan. MULTIMEDIA CONTENT About Groupe PSA Groupe PSA designs unique automotive experiences and delivers mobility solutions to meet all customer expectations. The Group has five car brands, Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel and Vauxhall, and provides a wide array of mobility and smart services under the Free2Move brand. Its 'Push to Pass' strategic plan represents a first step towards the achievement of the Group's vision: to be "a global carmaker with cutting-edge efficiency and a leading mobility provider sustaining lifetime customer relationships". An early innovator in the field of autonomous and connected cars, Groupe PSA is also involved in financing activities through Banque PSA Finance and in automotive equipment via Faurecia. Media library: medialibrary.groupe-psa.com / @GroupePSA_EN 1 DS Certified will continue to be used for customers in the Premium segment. 2 Peugeot Occasion du Lion, Citroen Select, Opel Selection, DS Certified, Vauxhall NetworkQ, Cardays, Eurorepar Car Service and Occasion Garantie. 3 List of 11 countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. 4 Valid for up to five days and 1,000 km (refund minus registration fees, administrative fees and fuel). 5 Premium guarantee: Whichever is sooner, excluding tyres and wearable parts. Communications Department www.groupe-psa.com - +33 6 61 93 29 36 @GroupePSA View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005568/en/ Contacts: Media contact: Clarisse Grignard + 33 6 66 39 28 49 clarisse.grignard@mpsa.com Multi-site shipment in Taiwan and China for 200mm and 300mm bumping descum solutions. Trymax Semiconductor Equipment BV (Trymax), a global leader in plasma solutions, today announced it has received multi-system orders for its NEO 2000 and NEO 3000 series from a leading Taiwanese packaging house. This order will expand the existing NEO install base at the customer in Taiwan and allows Trymax to break into the customer's fab in China. Shipping of the systems will start in Q2 and continue during Q3 2019. "We are pleased to receive this order for several shipments in two different fabs", said Jonathan Lee, General Manager of Trymax in Asia. "Many companies claim to deliver the best Cost of Ownership but these repeat and expansion orders are a concrete example that our solutions are truly delivering it". NEO 2000 series is a dual chamber system for wafers up to 200mm. NEO 3000 series is a dual chamber system for wafers up to 300mm. All systems will be configured with Trymax's dual source plasma technology combining RF and microwave to provide the best ashing rate and uniformity trade-off. The dual source technology is the choice recommended by Trymax for many wafer level packaging applications such as bumping or Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging. This month, Trymax will be sponsoring the Plasma Etch and Strip in Microtechnology workshop (PESM) in Grenoble (France) in May 20-21, and the SEMI Fab Owner Alliance meeting in Lowell (USA) in May 22-23. Trymax will be exhibiting at the Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) in Las Vegas (USA) in May 28-31. Staff of the company can be met at these events to learn more about NEO series. About Trymax Semiconductor Equipment BV: Trymax's core business is to support semiconductor manufacturers through the world with innovative plasma-based solutions for photo resist removal, surface cleaning, isotropic etch, as well as UV curing/charge erase, that are used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices. Trymax is a privately held company headquartered in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Trymax operates regional offices in China (Suzhou) and Italy (Milan). Learn more at www.trymax-semiconductor.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005350/en/ Contacts: Yann Guillou Global Marketing Sales Director +31 24 350 08 09 Yann.guillou@trymax-semiconductor.com VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly 185 Th Tons of 1,6-Hexanediol was consumed by the end of 2018, globally. As indicated by a recent research study of Research Report Insights (RRI), the global consumption rate of 1,6-Hexanediol will observe a healthy 5% Y-o-Y growth in 2019 and ahead - primarily driven by sustained demand from building and construction, and automotive industries. While both the aforementioned industries continue to register the collective share of over half of the overall consumed 1,6-Hexanediol, thriving demand for coatings, adhesives, and polymeric materials from consumer goods and medical devices industries will be a major highlight boosting market revenues in the forthcoming years. Get PDF Brochure for Research Insights at: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=94 Application in Manufacturing of Acrylates & Polymer Resins Remains Noteworthy The demand for polyester resin is significantly increased due to its substantial use in building panels, concrete forming pans, household structures, and in the building & construction sector for roofing. Further, polyester resins, which are widely used in the manufacturing of kayaks, powerboats, sailboats, and a number of automobile parts, which remains a significant booster for the demand for 1,6 Hexanediol in the global market. The 1,6 Hexanediol market is primarily driven by the rise in the demand for acrylates, and plasticizers among the manufacturing industries, which is prevailing 1,6 Hexanediol market throughout the forecast period. Increase in demand for 1,6 Hexanediol for variety of application is being noticed worldwide and is expected to grow further during the forecast period, 2019-2027. The 1,6 Hexanediol market is moderately driven by the automotive industry and consumer goods, which in turn helps to increase the sales of 1,6 Hexanediol across the globe. Request a TOC of Report: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/connectus/sample?flag=D&rep_id=94 Moreover, steady consumption by manufacturers of adhesives, softening agents, lacquers, acrylics, and several other consumer products will translate into modest growth in the revenues of 1,6-Hexanediol market. Application of the chemical in manufacturing of acrylates will be particularly notable. China to Remain at the Vanguard of Global Market Growth Several companies engaged in the production and distribution of 1,6-Hexanediol are strategically planning to amplify their 1,6-Hexanediol production footprint across emerging regional markets. APEJ, envisaged to remain in the forefront of the global market, will account for over 2/5th of the global consumption volume in 2019, according to the report. MEA and Latin America regions are slated to present multiple incremental opportunities for 1,6-Hexanediol manufacturers owing to increasing business footprint of key manufacturing companies in these regions. According to RRI's analysis, China, owing to the cost benefit and strong presence of manufacturers implementing innovative manufacturing technologies, will be the leading market for 1,6-Hexanediol. Request For Full Report Access: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/checkout/94/S Bio-based Innovations to Remain in the Focal Point for Manufacturers In an effort to achieve a surge in the overall sales of 1,6-Hexanediol, several manufacturing companies are strategizing on manufacturing plant expansion and R&D of bio-compatible variants of 1,6-Hexanediol. Rennovia Inc., one of the leading bio-chemicals producers, announced the commencement of the new plant (2017) exclusively for processing bio-based 1,6 Hexanediol. The company believes that the recent hike in raw material prices and multiple environmental concerns regarding conventional 1,6 Hexanediol production processes and end products have reinforced the need for bio-based variants. This, according to RRI study, will be among the trendsetters and direct a mass shift to bio-based 1,6 Hexanediol processing practices, across the 1,6 Hexanediol industry. More recently, in 2018, BASF announced that plan for a massive increase in the 1,6 Hexanediol production capacity, i.e. by almost 50% of the current, at its Ludwigshafen site. While the company aspires the new facility to start post 2021, the estimated total 1,6 Hexanediol production capacity of 70 Kilo Tons is expected to serve fast-growing Asian markets as well as European, which has been providing a significantly strong customer base. Leading chemical companies such as BASF and UBE industries are also increasing their production footprint of 1,6-Hexanediol across various countries such as Germany, Thailand, and the US owing to availability of better infrastructure, and manufacturing facilities. Browse Research Release at @ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/94/1-6-hexanediol-market Further, the high demand for various grades of polyurethane indirectly impacts the demand for 1,6-Hexanediol. The manufacturers are also capitalizing on emerging applications of 1,6-Hexanediol such as epoxy resins system, alkalyd resins, and UV curable resins. Currently, some companies are prominently manufacturing 1,6-Hexanediol for synthetic lubricants, laminations, and textile industry. This study examines global 1,6-Hexanediol market between 2019 and 2027. More insights on the same can be availed. Browse More: chemicals-materials Reports Popular Research Reports by RRI: Textile stabilizers Market: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/71/textile-stabilizers-market Foam stabilizer Market: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/72/foam-stabilizer-market LED Skincare Gadgets Market: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/77/led-skincare-gadgets-market Research Report Insights Overview Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends. Our research services cover global as well as regional emerging markets such as BRICS, GCC, and ASEAN. Our offerings cover a broad spectrum of verticals which include Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Materials, Energy, Technology, Automotive, and Retail. The operating model of RRI blends cross-disciplinary research experience to deploy insightful, in-depth, and actionable research. Contact Mr. Abhishek Budholiya Research Report Insights Suite 9884 27 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin 2, Ireland Phone: +353-1-6111-593 Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com Website: https://www.researchreportinsights.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/883148/Research_Report_Insights_Logo.jpg The global packaged natural mineral water market is expected to post a CAGR of over 7% during the period 2019-2023, according to the latest market research report by Technavio This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005436/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global packaged natural mineral water market from 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) Mineral water is a rich and concentrated source of many minerals and has various health benefits. It is a good source of calcium, potassium, and magnesium, which enhances healthy digestion. The regular consumption of packaged natural mineral water increases the sheen of the skin, as it contains skin-friendly silica particles, which trigger the production of collagen. Consumption of packaged natural mineral water also helps in the prevention of pain and inflammation caused due to arthritis. Thus, the growing awareness about the benefits of mineral water consumption among health-conscious consumers is a significant driver for the growth of the global packaged natural mineral water market. As per Technavio, the rising popularity of premium packaged natural mineral water will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This global packaged natural mineral water 2019-2023research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will affect market growth over 2019-2023. Global packaged natural mineral water market: Rising popularity of premium packaged natural mineral water The growth of the global packaged natural mineral water market is being driven by the increasing popularity and demand for premium packaged natural mineral water, which include variants such as packaged flavored natural sparkling mineral water and packaged flavored natural still mineral water. For instance, in July 2017, Nestle's Perrier brand launched a new range of packaged natural sparkling mineral water in two new flavors strawberry and watermelon. Moreover, the increasing focus on health and wellness is also driving the growth of the global packaged natural mineral water market. "The growing demand for packaged mineral water led many major vendors operating in the global market to focus on launching their products with innovative packaging to attract consumers. Furthermore, vendors have also been focusing on adopting eco-friendly and recyclable packaging solutions to attain better sustainability. Thus, packaging innovations with environmental sustainability are expected to be a major factor driving the growth of the global packaged natural mineral water market during the forecast period," says a senior analyst at Technavio. Global packaged natural mineral water market: Segmentation analysis This market research report segments the global packaged natural mineral water market by end-user (enterprise and residential), by product (PCs and smartphones and tablets) and geographical regions (Europe, APAC, North America, South America, and MEA). The European region led the market in 2018, followed by APAC, North America, South America, and MEA respectively. However, during the forecast period, the South American region is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the increasing health consciousness among consumers in the region. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005436/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 www.technavio.com GENEVA, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cotecna announces it has completed the acquisition of Neotron, a global provider of testing services for food products, supplements, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products, based in Italy. Founded in 1975 by Gian Carlo Gatti, Neotron is one of the largest analytical safety laboratories in Europe with over 550 employees, performing 2,000 accredited tests and processing close to 300,000 samples per year. The company provides chemical, biochemical, microbiological, physical and sensory analysis. Neotron operates from a single site which boasts a state-of-the-art laboratory spanning over 10,000 m2 in Modena, and serves clients from 50 different countries. Sebastien Dannaud, CEO, Cotecna Inspection S.A, comments: "We are excited to welcome Neotron and its talented team to Cotecna. The acquisition of Neotron represents a significant milestone in the delivery of Cotecna's growth ambitions. Through Neotron, Cotecna will be able to offer a broader range of testing solutions to its customers along the agriculture and food supply chains. We intend to leverage their laboratory platform, scientific reputation and extensive competencies to rapidly expand our food testing business across our geographical network." Gian Carlo Gatti, Founder of Neotron, says: "We are delighted to join the Cotecna Group. By relying on the Group's global footprint, we will be able to expand our capabilities in food testing into new geographies. Cotecna's values and culture are similar to those of Neotron's, with family roots and a focus on superior customer service. As such, we remain entirely committed to high-quality standards by maintaining our values and customer focus." About Cotecna Cotecna is a global leading provider of testing, inspection and certification services. We offer solutions to facilitate trade and make supply chains safer and more efficient for our clients. Our trusted network of professionals and certified laboratories provide expertise across four key sectors: agriculture & food, government & trade, minerals & metals, and general cargo. Founded in Switzerland in 1974, Cotecna started off as a family business and has now grown to become a world-class international player with over 4000 employees in more than 100 offices across approximately 50 countries. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/886804/Cotecna_Logo.jpg COTECNA Press Corporate Communication +41-22-849-78-21 communication@cotecna.com ST. PETER PORT, Guernsey, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- At the Board of Director's Meeting held on May 15, 2019, the Company adopted a resolution to dissolve and liquidate the Prospect Japan Fund Limited (hereinafter referred to as "TPJF"), currently a consolidated subsidiary of the Company as follows. Note 1. Reasons for Dissolution The Company acquired all the shares of TPJF as of July 27, 2017 at which time TPJF became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company (hereinafter, the transaction shall be referred to as "Making TPJF a Subsidiary"). The acquisition was done with consideration of collaborating with companies held by TPJF (hereinafter referred to as "TPJF investment target companies"). TPJF owned shares in those companies (hereinafter referred to as "TPJF investment target companies shares"). The purpose of the acquisition included collaboration with TPJF Investment target companies, reinvestment of the funds from sales of TPJF investment target companies shares, as well as the strengthening of the Company's financial structure through Making TPJF a Subsidiary, as TPJF was a debt-free business. Although Making TPJF a Subsidiary has accomplished some of these goals, we no longer plan to carry out managing TPJF investment target companies through TPJF. In Making TPJF a Subsidiary, its assets including TPJF-invested company shares (hereinafter referred to as "TPJF-owned assets") were held in a subsidiary of the Company. Through the transferring TPJF investment target companies shares to the Company, the Company will directly hold TPJF-owned assets, and we can then expect efficiency in the decision making process regarding these assets. Based on the above, the Company has determined that it is necessary to dissolve and liquidate TPJF. 2. Future Policy The Company aims to recover our business performance by focusing management resources on the renewable energy business. With regard to the assets held by TPJF, we will consider effective utilization in implementation of strategic measures mainly in reinvestment in such business. Based thereon, we believe this liquidation of TPJF is significant in terms of speed and efficiency. 3. Profile of the Subsidiary to be Dissolved (1) Name The Prospect Japan Fund Limited (2) Address Trafalgar Court, Les Banques,St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, U.K. (3) Grounds for Incorporation The Companies Law of Guernsey, a Crown dependency (4) Purpose of Composition A company-type investment fund the purpose of which is investment in stocks, etc. (5) Date of Composition November 18, 1994 (6) Capital Amount US$92,452 (7) Investing Company Prospect Co., Ltd.: Investment ratio: 100% (8) Relationships Between the Listed Company and the Company Capital relationship It is a wholly-owned consolidated subsidiary of the Company. Personnel relationship Director & CIO of the Company concurrently serves as a Director of the company. Transactional relationship N/A Status of falling under the related parties As it is a consolidated subsidiary of the Company, which falls under a related party. (9) Most Recent Business Results and Financial Conditions Settlement of accounts December 2018 Investment securities US$65,865,850 Net current liabilities (US$7,685,859) Total assets US$58,179,991 Total revenues US$1,816,233 Total expenditures (US$3,818,592) Net loss (US$2,293,224) 4. Schedule of Dissolution May 15, 2019: Resolution of the Board of Directors of the Company May - 2019 (Schedule): TPJF General Meeting of Shareholders? (Dissolution resolution, commencement of liquidation proceedings) As soon as the necessary procedures have been completed in accordance with the local laws and regulations, etc., liquidation will be completed. 5. Future Prospect An evaluation loss of 895 million of new treasury share subscription rights has already been recorded for the subsidiary. However, additional income/loss, etc., may accrue in a future dissolution and liquidation process. Impact on consolidated business results in the year ending March 31, 2020 is currently being calculated and if significant impact is recognized including other factors, we will promptly disclose such matters. Contact: Company Name: Prospect Co., Ltd. Representative: President and CEO Masato Tabata (Security Code: 3528 TSE 2nd Section) Contact: Chief of General Affairs Jiro Taketani (TEL: 03-3470-8411) ST. PETER PORT, Guernsey, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- At the Company's Board of Corporate Auditor's Meeting held on May 15, 2019 it was decided to make a proposal to be referred to the General Meeting of Shareholders regarding a change in the accounting auditor, providing audit certification under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, Article 193-2, paragraph 1 and paragraph 2. A resolution at the Board of Director's Meeting held on the same day referred that proposal as the "Matters concerning Appointment of Accounting Auditor" to the 118th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on June 27, 2019. Note 1. Scheduled Date of Change June 27, 2019 (Scheduled date of holding the 118th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders) 2. Profiles of the Accounting Auditor Appointed and Resigning (1) Profile of the Appointed Accounting Auditor Name Yotsuya Audit Corporation Address Rokubancho Gakuendori Bldg., 7-4, Rokuban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Name of Executive Members Tadahiro Ishii, Kunihiro Taguchi Status of registration under the Listed Company Audit Firm Registration System of the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants Registered (2) Profile of the Resigning Accounting Auditor Name Audit Firm HIBISCUS Address 3rd Floor, Tagoshin Bldg., 2-23-3, Higashi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Name of Executive Members Kohei Morisaki Kaisuke Abe Katsuyuki Takahashi 3. The Reasons for Designating the Person Set Forth in 2 (1) Above as a Candidate for Accounting Auditor The Company has appointed Audit Firm HIBISCUS as the accounting auditor of the Company for ten years and the Board of Auditors decided to conduct a review of the accounting auditor, taking into consideration the number of continuous years of audits by the same audit firm. In conducting a review, we considered several audit firms, including Yotsuya Audit Corporation as a candidate for accounting auditor. As a result, we determined that Yotsuya Audit Corporation conducted themselves with professionalism and independence, etc., required for accounting audits of the Company group and was appropriate, and therefore we designated Yotsuya Audit Corporation as the candidate for accounting auditor. 4. Most Recent Date of Assuming Post by the Resigning Accounting Auditor June 28, 2018 5. Opinions, etc., in the Audit Reports, etc., Prepared by the Resigning Accounting Auditor for the Most Recent Three (3) Years. None issued 6. Determination of Change and Reasons and Background for Change The term of Audit Firm HIBISCUS, our accounting auditor will expire at the close of the 118th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on June 27, 2019. In connection therewith, the Board of Auditors determined the content of a proposal to appoint Yotsuya Audit Corporation as the new accounting auditor by the reasons set forth in 3. Above. 7. Opinions of the Resigning Accounting Auditor on the Matters Entered in the Audit Report, etc., concerning the Reasons and Background Set Forth in 6. Above. There were no specific opinions. Contact: Company Name: Prospect Co., Ltd. Representative: President and CEO Masato Tabata (Security Code: 3528 TSE 2nd Section) Contact: Chief of General Affairs Jiro Taketani (TEL: 03-3470-8411) A new market research study by Technavio on the global ground protection mats marketprojects the market to grow at a CAGR of close to 4% during the period 2019-2023. This research report provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue, top drivers and emerging market trends. It also includes detailed insights and forecasts for all the market segments across different geographies. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005480/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global ground protection mats market from 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) Increase in use of ground protection mats in the construction industry The construction activities are increasing at a rapid pace across the world, especially in emerging economies. The growing construction market is triggering the demand for ground protection mats as they provide safe access for vehicles, equipment, and workers at construction job sites. The lifespan of construction ground protection mats is long, and they are eco-friendly and easy to clean. Ground protection mats can also eliminate the possibility of cross-contamination between worksites. Such applications of ground protection mats and the substantial increase in the construction activities will boost the growth of the ground protection mats market during the forecast period. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Growth in demand for ergonomic ground protection mats The market is currently witnessing a significant increase in the demand for ergonomic ground protection mats as they increase productivity while saving cost. This is mainly due to various features integrated into the mats to make them ergonomic, including chemical resistance, antimicrobial, anti-slippery, oil and grease resistance, and aesthetical appeal. Moreover, several scientific and survey researches are being published, which is contributing to the increasing awareness about ergonomic ground protection mats among end-users. This is helping in educating end-users about the benefits of the use of such these mats, which will have a positive influence on the global ground protection mats market. According to a senior analyst at Technavio for consumer durables and apparels, "With the rising demand for eco-friendly products, various vendors are offering a wide range of ground protection mats that are made of 100% recyclable, eco-friendly materials such as rubber, wood, and polyethylene. The use of recycled materials provides various benefits including reduced cost and landfill with no compromise in the durability and stability of materials. Thus, the increase in demand for eco-friendly ground protection mats will have a significant impact on market growth during the forecast period." Low awareness about ground protection mats in developing countries Ground protection mats are designed for a wide range of end-users such as industrial and commercial. Hence, selecting the appropriate ground protection mat is integral for consumers. As developing countries such as India and China operate at low production cost and have a small budget, they do not majorly prefer ground protection mats. However, a wide range of benefits of ground protection mats will attract a number of end-user industries to adopt and use them during the forecast period. Top players in the global ground protection mats market: Checkers Industrial Products LLC LODAX Newpark Resources Inc. Quality Mat Co Signature Systems Group LLC Some of the key topics covered in the global ground protection mats market include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. It provides detailed market research reports that provide clients with actionable insights to help them identify market opportunities and design effective strategies to optimize their market position. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio boasts of an extensive report library comprising of over 10,000 reports, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than a hundred Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets. Technavio helps companies to assess their competitive position within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005480/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 www.technavio.com ST. PETER PORT, Guernsey, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Company will record extraordinary profit, etc., during the consolidated first quarter financial period for the year ending March 31, 2020 and we hereby notify you as follows. Note 1. Details of Extraordinary Profit, etc. Regarding unpaid amount of bonus for officers. Mr. Curtis Freeze, (then: President and CEO, current: Director & CIO), which was determined in the year ended March 31, 2019, Mr. Freeze offered to return to the Company an amount equal to 10% of the unpaid bonus for officers based on the decline in price of the Company since November 2018. Based on the above offer, extraordinary profit of ?756.4 million will be recorded in the first quarter in the year ending March 31, 2020. Mr. Masato Tabata, (then: Representative Director, Managing Executive Officer, current: President and CEO) offered to return the amount equal to 10% of the bonus for officers received for the same purpose as the above. An extraordinary profit of ?7.7 million will be recorded in the same financial period. 2. Impact on Business Results Impact on consolidated business results by the above accounting is now under scrutiny and if there is any matter to be notified, we will promptly disclose such matters. Contact Company Name: Prospect Co., Ltd. Representative: President and CEO Masato Tabata (Security Code: 3528 TSE 2nd Section) Contact: Chief of General Affairs Jiro Taketani (TEL: 03-3470-8411) BRIDGEWATER, NS / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / (TSXV: SSE) - Silver Spruce Resources Inc. ("Silver Spruce" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has awarded the contract for the imminent Phase I drill program at Pino de Plata to ECODRILL of Mexico ("ECODRILL"). ECODRILL will mobilize equipment and personnel immediately and plans to begin drilling within a week. ECODRILL is an industry leader in environmentally sound drilling practices, and uses a proprietary process to conserve water for drilling. The company's website states, "ECODRILL is a leader in providing high quality Exploration Services and Products for the mining industry. ?We specialize in executing deep diamond drill holes in challenging environments. We also provide directional drilling and optimal core hole location. Since 2013 we have successfully drilled over 200,000 meters." "We are enthusiastic to finally be mobilizing an experienced drill company to conduct the first drilling in history at the Pino de Plata project. Given the rich history of artisanal mining of high grades of mineralization and our detailed field work and preparations for the Phase I program, we anticipate exciting results in the next few weeks," stated Karl Boltz, President & CEO of Silver Spruce. "Our goal is to explore and develop a significant high grade resource of silver and base metals that may support near-term surface mining and direct shipping of ore." Phase I The Phase I drill program will consist of at least twelve holes for a total of 2000-2500 metres of HQ diameter core. All planned Phase I drill holes will be collared on existing roads that pass over or adjacent to the targets, with no new access roads required. Program management and geology, logging of core, QA/QC, sample delivery to laboratory, chain of custody, etc., will be managed by ProDeMin under the direct supervision of Qualified Person, Dr. Craig Gibson, Ph.D. Drill Ready The Company holds a permit to drill 30 holes, which includes locations for Phase I and Phase II drill programs. A surface access agreement is in place, as is required to obtain the permit. Qualified Person Dr. Craig Gibson, Ph.D., CPG, is the Company's external Qualified Person for the Pino de Plata project and is responsible for the technical content of this press release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), under TSX guidelines. About Silver Spruce Resources Inc. Silver Spruce Resources Inc. is a Canadian junior exploration company pursuing development of the Pino De Plata project, located in the prolific Sierra Madre Occidental region of western Chihuahua State in Mexico. The Company also holds an indirect interest in the Kay Mine project according to terms of the sale agreement with Croesus Gold Corp., which was announced in the Company's news release on January 30, 2019. Silver Spruce Resources Inc. continues to investigate opportunities that Management has identified or that have been presented to the Company for consideration. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The company seeks Safe Harbour. Contact: Silver Spruce Resources Inc. Karl Boltz, President/CEO/Director (866) 641-3397 info@silverspruceresources.com www.silverspruceresources.com SOURCE: Silver Spruce Resources Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/545458/Silver-Spruce-Awards-Phase-I-Drilling-Contract-at-Pino-de-Plata-Drilling-to-Commence-Within-Days LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Forbidden Technologies plc (AIM: FBT), the developer and seller of cloud video platform technology using its patented Blackbird technology, is pleased to announce that with effect from 8.00 am today, the Company's name has changed to Blackbird plc. Trading in the Company's shares under the new name have commenced at 8.00 am today and the Company's ticker symbol (TIDM) has changed from 'FBT' to 'BIRD'. The Company's website can be found at www.blackbird.video, where the information required pursuant to AIM Rule 26 can be viewed. Shareholdings will be unaffected by the change of name and existing share certificates should be retained as they will remain valid for all purposes. Any new share certificates issued will bear the new name. Ian McDonough , Chief Executive of Forbidden said: "This is a logical step forwards for the Company as we consolidate our commercial efforts behind the Blackbird platform. The collective noun for a group of blackbirds is a cloud. This is no accident. Our unique Blackbird codec and toolset is completely cloud-native. The Blackbird name is synonymous with speed and agility, and this is exactly what Blackbird provides for our customers. It brings workstation responsiveness together with all the advantages of the cloud for collaborative workflows for video professionals and teams, across the world. We look forward to a bright future under the all-encompassing banner of the Blackbird name, as we continue to pursue our mission to revolutionise the way organisations work with video and maximise the value of video assets in a rapidly evolving broadcast and digital landscape." Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Platform 9 Capital Corp. (TSXV: PN.P) (the "Company") and Uptempo Inc. ("Uptempo") announce that at this time they have mutually agreed not proceed with the proposed qualifying transaction previously announced on October 10, 2018, and the term sheet has been terminated by mutual agreement. About Platform 9 Capital Corp. The Company is incorporated under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) and is a Capital Pool Company listed on the TSXV. The Company has no commercial operations and has no assets other than cash. For further information please see the final prospectus of the Company dated May 17, 2018, filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. For further information please contact: John Travaglini Chief Executive Officer (416) 861-1100 Cautionary Notes 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44815 "The relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem places the United States on the right side of historical truth," - U.S. Ambassador David Friedman "There has never been a better friend of Israel here in Jerusalem than David Friedman, and no better friend of Israel in the White House than Donald J Trump," - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "Anti-Zionism is the latter-day anti-Semitism. This is what the Friends of Zion Museum is for and together with our 60 million supporters worldwide we will fight anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in every corner of the world," - Dr. Mike Evans JERUSALEM, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Friends of Zion Museum and the United States Embassy marked the anniversary of the One-Year Anniversary of the US Embassy in Jerusalem with a gala event at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem. The event was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau, and Dr. Mike Evans, a member of President Trump's Evangelical Advisory Committee and founder of the Friends of Zion Museum. Other participants at the event were: Archil Kekelia, Ambassador of Georgia to Israel, Mario Bucaro, Ambassador of Guatemala to Israel, Minister of Science Ofir Akunis, Amb. Michael Oren, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, MK Nir Barkat, former Mayor of Jerusalem, Avi Dichter, Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Moshe Arbel, on behalf of the Shas Party, former MK Yehuda Glick, Likud MKs Yoav Galant, Sharren Haskel, Miki Zohar, Amir Ohana, MK Idit Sliman on behalf of The Jewish Home Party, and Oded Revivi, Head of Efrat Regional Council. May 14th is the historic date on which President Donald Trump announced the move of the US Embassy to the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. In addition to the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, they also recently declared US recognition of the Golan Heights as an undisputed and inseparable part of Israel. The event was hosted by the Friends of Zion Museum, which works to strengthen Israel's ties with other countries and drawing closer its friends around the world. As part of its activity in the international arena, it has fought antisemitism and the BDS movement. The community of supporters of the Friends of Zion Museum numbers about 60 million people in social media. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said in his speech: "President Trump has on his actions fulfilled what he has known and has made abundantly clear: Jerusalem has always been, and will always be, the capital of the State of Israel. The relocation of the US embassy places the United States on the right side of historical truth. This has been a cornerstone of its policy." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Israel is stronger than ever and is continually building its strength. However the stronger it gets, so do the challenges mount." He added, "there has never been a better friend of Israel here in Jerusalem than David Friedman, and no better friend of Israel in the White House than Donald J Trump." Dr. Mike Evans, member of President Trump's Advisory Committee and founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem: "Anti-Zionism is the latter-day anti-Semitism. This is what the Friends of Zion Museum is for and together with our 60 million supporters worldwide we will fight anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in every corner of the globe." He added that, "thanks to President Trump, whose commitment to Israel is rock-solid, and thanks to Prime Minister Netanyahu, the two countries have achieved a close, binding relationship the likes of which have never before existed." Following the declaration of the move of the Ambassador's residence to Jerusalem, Dr. Evans presented a mezuzah to Ambassador David Friedman, Rabbi Lau and the Prime Minister, Ambassador Friedman and Dr. Evans signed the last letters in the mezuzah. As part of the Friends of Zion Museum, the prestigious Israel Friend of Zion Award is bestowed. The first to be honored was US President George W. Bush, followed by other friends around the world, such as Monaco'sPrince Albert II and Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, and recently President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, thanks to their outstanding support for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The Head of the International Board of Trustees of the Friends of Zion Museum was the ninth President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres of blessed memory. Currently serving on the Board of Trustees are IDF Chief of Staff (res.) Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, Major General (res.) Yossi Peled and others. About the Friends of Zion Museum The Friends of Zion Museum is a unique interactive museum in Israel, which opened three years ago in the heart of Jerusalem. The Museum presents a fascinating journey back in time, to the story of the friends of Israel throughout their generations and to the bond that has grown over the years between different peoples and Jews around the world. The Museum includes exhibitions and exhibits in the most advanced technologies of its kind in the world, developed especially for it (all its construction and work are made in Israel). The Museum features dozens of changing exhibits, each of which has technological characteristics such as: touch screens, audiovisual elements, and light technologies that are guided by visitors' movements. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887706/Friends_of_Zion.jpg Friends of Zion Museum, 20 Yosef Rivlin Street, Jerusalem. A reservation is recommended for museum visits. Website: www.fozmuseum.com, email: reservations@fozhc.com, or phone: +972-2-532-9400. New investment to accelerate global expansion and product innovation Funding solidifies Tealium as the industry's most comprehensive customer data orchestration solution SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Tealium , the trusted leader in real-time customer data orchestration, has closed $55 million in Series F funding led by Silver Lake Waterman, Silver Lake's late-stage growth capital fund, with participation from ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund, Declaration Partners, Parkwood and existing investors. The funding will be used to expand the company's data integration ecosystem, accelerate new product development and further scale global go-to-market activities, while continuing its mission to expand data freedom across the enterprise while safeguarding privacy. Tealium has received more than $160 million in total funding to date. The Tealium AudienceStream customer data platform (CDP), which launched in 2013, has experienced accelerated growth in recent years, notably seeing a 300% year-over-year increase in visitor profiles created. This purpose-built platform is designed to provide enterprises with a single view of their customers, serving as a secure central point of management across the entire data supply chain. Tealium connects customer data across technology stacks and digital assets, including websites, mobile applications, point-of-sale (POS) systems and call centers, enabling data freedom and agility across the organization. Enterprises can integrate this data with any technology, retail channel or marketing platform to build better customer experiences, invest in analytics and machine learning, and act on real-time decisions. Tealium has focused on building a real-time customer data platform that meets the industry's most stringent requirements for protecting the integrity and privacy of customer data. The company's robust data governance and compliance portfolio allows global organizations to manage diverse regulations in countries around the world. This helps enterprises build consumer trust, enhance customer data and continue to bring innovative customer experiences to market. "Our customer data platform is the vendor-agnostic foundation that allows data to flow freely and securely across the organization - rendering it accessible and useful to every team and technology, and solving departmental or technological silos that limit opportunity for data agility," said Jeff Lunsford, CEO of Tealium. "By democratizing the data collection and delivery process, we help organizations meet the changing needs of their business and customers and protect the integrity of their data." "Tealium enables companies to overcome challenges related to customer data fragmentation by integrating and enriching data across sources in real time, while providing data governance and fidelity," said Shawn O'Neill, Managing Director of Silver Lake Waterman. "Jeff and his team have built a robust platform, and we are excited to support the company's continued growth and investment in innovation." "As a long-time Tealium customer, we've seen the benefit of the technology first hand," said Frank Verkerk, Chief Digital Officer of ABN AMRO. "Tealium has helped us streamline and standardize our data flows, and has given us the tools we need to make better marketing and business decisions." To learn more about Tealium and the company's leading universal data solutions, visit www.tealium.com . About Tealium Tealium revolutionizes today's digital businesses with a universal approach to customer data orchestration - spanning web, mobile, offline and Internet of Things devices. With the power to unify customer data into a single source of truth, Tealium offers a turnkey integration ecosystem supporting more than 1,000 client-side and server-side vendors and technologies. The Tealium Universal Data Hub encompasses tag management, API hub, customer data platform, and data management solutions that enable organizations to leverage real-time data to create richer, more personalized digital experiences across every team, technology, and customer touchpoint. About Silver Lake Waterman Silver Lake Waterman is part of Silver Lake, the global leader in technology investing with over $43 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital and a team of approximately 100 investment and value creation professionals located in Silicon Valley, New York, London and Hong Kong. Silver Lake Waterman focuses on providing flexible expansion capital to later-stage growth companies in the technology and technology-enabled industries. For more information about Silver Lake Waterman and Silver Lake, please visit www.silverlake.com . About ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund The ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund is the ABN AMRO corporate venture fund and invests in innovative companies specializing in the digitalization of financial products and services. We are a Dutch bank for retail, corporate and private banking clients. We are a relationship-driven, knowledgeable and digitally savvy bank, active in Northwest Europe and with expertise in selected sectors globally. Our purpose is Banking for better, for generations to come. Headquartered in Amsterdam, ABN AMRO employs around 19,000 people worldwide. Please visit us at www.abnamro.com . Media Contacts For Tealium: Katie Pratt katie.pratt@walkersands.com +1 (312) 964-9108 For Silver Lake Waterman: Harry Mayfield silverlake@brunswickgroup.com +1 (212) 333-3810 The global cervical cancer therapeutics market is expected to post a CAGR of close to 7% during the period 2019-2023, according to the latest market research report by Technavio This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005515/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global cervical cancer therapeutics market from 2019-2023. (Graphic: Business Wire) A key factor driving the growth of the global cervical cancer therapeutics market is the increasing female health initiatives. The growing prevalence of various female health conditions has become one of the delicate concerns across the world. There has been a significant rise in the number of females affected with several oncology indications such as breast cancer and gynecological cancers, which includes cervical cancer. As a result, various female health initiatives are being carried out by several organizations including non-government organizations (NGOs). For instance, the American Cancer Society runs a National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP). Such initiatives and programs allow female patients to discuss their problems with the concerned professionals and avail necessary treatment, thereby driving the market growth. As per Technavio, the development of T-cell immunotherapy will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This global cervical cancer therapeutics market 2019-2023research report also analyzes other important trends and market drivers that will affect market growth over 2019-2023. Global cervical cancer therapeutics market: Development of T-cell immunotherapy The treatment available for cervical cancer currently includes chemotherapy and biologics such as vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. However, there are only a few biologics that are approved for the treatment of cervical cancer, which offers a huge opportunity for other effective treatment options such as adoptive T-cell therapy (ACT) and autologous tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL). T-cell-based immunotherapy is gaining significant traction and is playing a pivotal role in the diagnosis of cervical cancer. T-cell-based immunotherapy is more specific and is entitled with broader therapeutic potential for cervical cancer. "Apart from the increasing female health initiatives and the development of T-cell immunotherapy, factors such as the advancements in diagnostics, growing popularity of targeted therapies, advent of vaccines, and strategic alliances will have a significant impact on the growth of the cervical cancer therapeutics market during the forecast period," says a senior research analyst at Technavio. Global cervical cancer therapeutics market: Segmentation analysis This market research report segments the global cervical cancer therapeutics market by type (drugs and vaccines) and geographic regions (North America, Europe, Asia, and ROW). The North American region led the market in 2018, followed by Europe, Asia, and ROW respectively. The US, the world's largest pharmaceutical market, is contributing significantly to the growth of the cervical cancer therapeutics market in the region, in terms of technology as well as the launch of new drugs and diagnostic tools. The market growth in North America can be attributed to the high prevalence of cervical cancer, advancements in diagnosis, and government initiatives that aim at preventing and controlling gynecological cancer in the region. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem Market characteristics Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered Vendor classification Market positioning of vendors Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005515/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 www.technavio.com Financing to Accelerate Growth for Leading Provider of Healthcare Data Analytics Software BOSTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BHE, an innovative healthcare analytics company, today announced a $78 million minority growth investment led by Silversmith Capital Partners ("Silversmith") and Leerink Transformation Partners ("LTP"). The new funding will accelerate the development and market expansion of BHE's flagship Instant Health Data (IHD) platform, the market-leading real-world evidence (RWE) analytics solution currently being used by over two dozen major life science and research organizations. "We couldn't be more thrilled to partner with the Silversmith and LTP teams," said Joseph Menzin, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of BHE. "This new investment will allow us to double down and expand the use of our IHD platform by life science companies, as well as tap new market segments such as payers, provider organizations, and employer groups, who continue to move toward value-based care." The use of RWE has grown rapidly within life sciences companies over the last several years, supported by the proliferation of large datasets, new computing technologies, and interest by both payers and regulatory agencies in understanding the impact of medical treatments in actual practice rather than solely in randomized clinical trials. "We are only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of the overall importance of RWE," said Jordan Menzin, Chief Technology Officer of BHE. "We are excited for this partnership, which will enable us to invest in significant product innovations necessary to serve the growing market need. Importantly, new advances in data science can be leveraged to improve our ability to predict how patients may benefit from access to new treatment approaches." Jeff Crisan, Managing Partner of Silversmith, will be joining the Board of Directors of BHE. "We have been consistently impressed by Joseph and Jordan's deep domain and product expertise," said Crisan. "They are talented founders who have quickly grown BHE into an industry leader. Both Silversmith and LTP are excited to be their first institutional investors, and we are looking forward to supporting the Company as the business continues to scale." "Joseph and Jordan are industry thought-leaders who have built an impressive team at BHE," said Jared Kesselheim, MD, Managing Partner of LTP, who also will be joining the BHE Board of Directors. "They are deeply attuned to the needs of their customer base, and as a result have been able to deliver solutions that most directly address key pain points and drive the highest ROI." BHE's flagship platform, IHD, has driven the Company's rapid growth since its initial release six years ago. The IHD platform supports rapid analysis of over 20 disparate real-world data sets, including claims, laboratory results, electronic medical records, hospital and integrated data sources. Drawing on a respected team of outcomes researchers, epidemiologists, physicians, statisticians and software engineers, IHD has become the standard analytical tool for life science companies and other research organizations looking to leverage real-world data assets to conduct a wide range of analyses for clinical and commercial use cases. IHD is known for its speed and flexibility, and has enabled its users to complete complex analyses, that previously would have taken weeks or months, in a matter of days or even hours. Ropes & Gray LLP served as legal counsel to Silversmith and LTP, while Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP served as legal counsel to BHE. About BHE BHE is an innovative healthcare analytics company with over two decades of experience providing novel solutions to better understand the clinical outcomes and value of various patient care strategies. BHE is transforming the way analysts from diverse disciplines answer critical questions and make insightful predictions from large, complex databases using the market-leading Instant Health Data (IHD) platform. IHD is a fast, flexible and intuitive SaaS platform that empowers teams within life science companies, health plans and provider groups to implement deep analytics with little-to-no programming required. For more information, visit www.bhei.com. About Silversmith Capital Partners Founded in 2015, Silversmith Capital Partners is a Boston-based growth equity firm with $1.1 billion of capital under management. Silversmith's mission is to partner with and support the best entrepreneurs in growing, profitable technology and healthcare companies. The firm seeks to invest $15 million to $75 million per company. Representative investments include ActiveCampaign, Centauri Health Solutions, Digital Map Products, Impact, LifeStance Health, Nordic Consulting Partners and MediQuant. The founders have over four decades of collective investing experience and have served on the boards of numerous successful growth companies including Ability Network, Dealer.com, Liazon, Liberty Dialysis, MedHOK, Net Health, Passport Health, SurveyMonkey and Yapstone. For more information, visit www.silversmithcapital.com. About Leerink Transformation Partners LTP invests in privately-held innovative companies in the healthcare information technology and services sectors. The firm was founded in 2016 by Todd Cozzens and Jared Kesselheim, MD. LTP applies the decades of operational, clinical and investing experience and extensive industry contacts of its managing partners and team members as well as its affiliation with SVB Leerink, the largest healthcare-focused investment bank, to help founders and CEOs build valuable businesses. Visit the website at www.LTPequity.com to learn more. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887646/BHE_Logo.jpg POYRY PLC Press Release 15 May 2019 17:30pm CET The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has awarded Poyry with the Lender's Engineering services assignment for a complete technical due diligence, follow up of construction and monitoring operational activities on the 30MWp Zhangiz Solar PV plant which will be located in the East Kazakhstan region. The government of Kazakhstan is increasingly encouraging the development of renewable power sources in order to diversify the country's energy resources and lower carbon emissions. To support Kazakhstan's path towards a more sustainable energy mix, the EBRD is financing the Zhangiz Solar LLP for the development, construction and operation of the 30 MWp PV plant. Zhangiz Solar is fully owned by Mistral PTE, which is part of the Chinese company, Universal Energy Co. Ltd. Poyry acts as Lender's Technical Advisor for the EBRD to provide Technical Due Diligence including the technical analysis of the environment and infrastructure of the PV plant site, risk assessment, review of pre-existing documents and advice during the negotiation of financing documents and for the period leading up to signature of the loan agreements and the financial close. In addition, Poyry will follow up the construction activities through specific site visits and the performance of the plant during the operation for the following 2 years after Commercial Operation Date. Poyry has been selected due to the strong competence of its solar team and solid track record in this sector for more than 10 years, delivering more than 250 projects worldwide. Poyry's global office network ensured close cooperation with all involved stakeholders thanks to the connected efforts of Poyry experts in various offices in Europe, Kazakhstan and China. "We are proud to be the EBRD's selected advisors in this Solar PV project. By executing this project using our combined international resources, we're able to provide the EBRD with the best engineering solutions and technological knowledge" says Alessio Giuffra, Managing Director of Poyry Italy, Energy Business Group. "We look forward to continuing our important role in sustaining the EBRD investment plan, and in general the world transition to renewable energy". Additional information: Alessio Giuffra Managing Director, Thermal & Renewable Poyry Italy S.r.l. Tel. +39 010 2910 562 Did you know? Poyry has performed as Technical Advisor in more than 1,900 MW of Solar PV plants globally Poyry has delivered more than 140 Technical Due Diligence in Solar PV Technology Poyry has 1100 engineers specialised in Renewable projects www.poyry.com/sectors/energy/renewable-energy/solar-power AF Poyry is an international leader within engineering, design and advisory services. We create solutions to support our customers worldwide to act on sustainability as well as the global trends of urbanisation and digitalisation. We are more than 16,000 devoted experts within the fields of infrastructure, industry and energy operating across the world to create sustainable solutions for the next generation. Making Future. TIANJIN, China, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The third World Intelligence Congress (WIC) will be held in the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in north China's Tianjin Municipality between May 16 and 19. The four-day event themed "Intelligence New Era: Progress, Planning and Opportunity" includes a series of activities such as forums, exhibitions, competitions, and intelligent experiences, and will showcase the city's smart solutions and application scenarios. The congress will be open to professional visitors for the first two days and open to the general public for the last two, according to the municipal government. Positioned as a high-level, mainstream, international and unique event, the congress has invited over 300 international guests from 40 countries and regions including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan, who will attend the congress' two main forums and 16 sideline ones. Five competitions will be held during the WIC, including the World Intelligence Underwater Robot Challenge, the World Intelligence Driving Challenge, the China (Tianjin) Industrial App Innovation & Application Competition 2019 and the China Hualu Cup Open Data Innovation and Application Competition. Participants can also enjoy intelligent activities such as robot interaction, smart city experience scenes and self-driving car test rides during conferences, exhibitions, and contests. Image Attachments Links: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=335922 Scintomics and 1717 LSV to collaborate in the development of novel cancer diagnostics and treatment Scintomics GmbH and 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH announced today to have signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of the theranostic pair PentixaFor PentixaTher. PentixaPharm GmbH, based in Wurzburg, is committed to develop PentixaFor and PentixaTher as a theranostic radiopharmaceutical pair, specifically targeting the CXCR4-receptor expressed in most fast progressing diseases, particularly malignant cancers. Interviews: "We are delighted that in 1717 LSV we have found a strong partner with an outstanding expertise in the clinical development of precision oncologics. Taking the various recent and successful proof-of-concept studies with PentixaFor and PentixaTher in men into account, this joint venture creates optimal conditions for the effective and swift clinical development of this unrivalled and unique pair of theranostic drugs", said Prof. Hans-Jurgen Wester, PhD, Founder of Scintomics and Chair for Pharmaceutical Radiochemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany. "The introduction of 68Ga-PentixaFor may be regarded as a milestone for clinical PET imaging of CXCR4 expressing malignancies", added Dr. Hakim Bouterfa Co-founder of 1717 LSV GmbH and CEO of PentixaPharm. "Now we will focus on the next major step to provide CXCR4-directed endoradiotherapy in prospective clinical trials." About PentixaFor PentixaTher This theranostic pair specifically targets the CXCR4-CXCR12 axis, which is significantly involved in the interaction and proliferation of hematologic and solid tumors and their protective environment. The Gallium-68 based PET agent PentixaFor has demonstrated advanced imaging not only for several different hematologic indications including leukaemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma but also for other solid tumors like adrenocortical carcinoma, and small cell lung cancer. In addition, other disease conditions, such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, splenosis and stroke and can be targeted with this tracer. The therapeutic counterpart PentixaTher, labeled with a- or -emitters, offers new treatment options for individualised medicine in terms of endoradiotherapy. About Scintomics GmbH Scintomics, based in Fuerstenfeldbruck/Munich, is a privately held company for innovative-targeted theranostics and corresponding radiopharmaceutical technologies with a strong commitment towards personalized cancer care with an exceptional pipeline of functional diagnostics and radiotherapeutics. Scintomics considers the joint venture partnership with 1717 LSV as another important milestone towards a strong positioning as radiopharmaceutical development specialist. About 1717 LSV GmbH 1717 LSV, based in Berlin, is a privately held company with expertise in the development of targeted precision radiopharmaceuticals for the targeted diagnosis and treatment of malignant oncological diseases. By enabling novel radiopharmaceutical therapies to traverse early stages of manufacturing and clinical development, 1717 LSV brings innovative drug candidates to patients with unmet medical needs. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005776/en/ Contacts: For Scintomics Saskia Kropf General Manager tel. +49 8141 150 550 s.kropf@scintomics.com www.scintomics.com For 1717 LSV Dr. Jens Kaufmann General Manager tel. +49 30 941084-422 jens.kaufmann@1717LSV.com www.1717LSV.com For PentixaPharm Dr. Hakim Bouterfa CEO tel. +49 172 6290822 or +49 931 304998310 hakim.bouterfa@1717LSV.com PRESS RELEASE FY 2018-19 Paris, May 15, 2019 - 8am SMART SOLUTIONS FOR A SMART WORLD 2018-19 full-year revenue growth of nearly 10% Realignment around Technology Consulting and Digital Transformation International investments in Cybersecurity The GECI International Group is reporting full-year revenues of 30.4m for 2018-19, with year-on-year growth of nearly 10%. Highlights of the year During FY 2018-19, GECI International further strengthened its development strategy by repositioning its business model around two core business lines: Technology Consulting and Digital Transformation, which includes the new cybersecurity activities. Technology Consulting: strong growth dynamics (+17.7%) The Group has consolidated its expert position on the market for new mobility solutions, at the heart of smart cities. Its teams have been the driving force behind the launch of the first rapid autonomous shuttle prototype and stand out with a range of turnkey concept cars, in small series, for civil, institutional and defense markets. It has notably contributed, with its subsidiary Etud Integral, to conceiving disruptive solutions for the Nova Car, a smart car from the manufacturer Novares. Digital Transformation: 7.1% growth and focus on high-potential offers This division's sales have capitalized on the IT infrastructure transformation and management expertise, as well as the development of High Performance Computing (HPC) solutions at the heart of Big Data's challenges. GECI International has had expertise in this area for many years, and signed a joint business development agreement in January with IBM, which has already paved the way for an initial success in the energy sector. With growth in the market linked to Big Data requiring high-performance computing capabilities, GECI International is now very well positioned to meet the needs for collecting, analyzing, storing and leveraging large volumes of data. Change in revenues for each quarter and half-year m (unaudited consolidated data) FY 2018-19 FY 2017-18 Change 1st quarter (April-June) 8.0 6.5 +23.1% 2nd quarter (July-September) 7.3 6.0 +21.7% 1st half (April-September) 15.3 12.5 +22.4% 3rd quarter (October-December) 7.8 7.1 +9.9% 4th quarter (January-March) 7.3 8.1 -9.9% 2nd half (October-March) 15.1 15.2 -0.7% Full-year revenues 30.4 27.7 +9.7% Change in revenues for each business and region FY 2018-19 FY 2017-18 Change m % of rev m % of rev (%) Business line Digital Transformation 21.0 69.2% 19.6 70.8% +7.1% Technology Consulting 9.3 30.6% 7.9 28.5% +17.7% Holding 0.05 0.2% 0.2 0.7% -75.0% Revenues 30.4 100% 27.7 100% +9.7% Region France 23.8 78.3% 21.8 78.7% +9.2% Brazil 4.7 15.4% 4.0 14.4% +17.5% South Africa 1.6 5.3% 1.9 6.9% -15.8% Israel 0.3 1.0% - 0% NA Revenues 30.4 100% 27.7 100% +9.7% Outlook for 2019-20: international launch of the cybersecurity solutions platform GECI International is consolidating its development strategy with a specific positioning around high-growth markets, capitalizing on innovation and the premiumization of its solutions, including cybersecurity in France and internationally. For Technology Consulting, the Group is confirming its expertise on rapidly developing markets focused on issues linked in particular to new forms of mobility. In the burgeoning smart city sector, its subsidiary Etud Integral, with its original offering, is developing multiple concepts and opening up new possibilities for FY 2019-20. For the Digital Transformation, the Group is supporting its "key account' clients with their development and capitalizing on its HPC expertise to leverage the full potential of Big Data. Combining these two technologies, the challenge is to continue pushing the boundaries for research and development. Alongside this, faced with new threats, the cybersecurity markets are looking for effective solutions to ensure their protection and the sustainability of their assets. These markets are progressing and evolving very quickly, and require a highly responsive approach; the Group has therefore decided to extend its operational scope and notably offer its cybersecurity solutions in Portugal, Portuguese-speaking countries, including Brazil, and South Africa. After rolling out in-depth reforms, GECI International is looking ahead to FY 2019-20 with confidence, buoyed by a stronger organization and commercial actions that are driving growth. GECI International is confident that it will be able to continue improving its performance levels. Next date 2018-19 full-year earnings on July 31, 2019 before start of trading. ABOUT GECI INTERNATIONAL __________ "Smart Solutions for a Smart World" The GECI International Group is the Digital Transformation and Technology Consulting specialist. With its platform of Cybersecurity products and solutions and its Mobility expertise, it integrates the market's best innovations to benefit its clients, from key accounts to SMEs and startups. Backed by a network of partner companies and expert capabilities worldwide, GECI International is positioned, with agility, across the entire value chain for projects (consulting, integration, IT outsourcing and training) and is committed to designing smart solutions and services. The GECI International Group is listed on the regulated market Euronext Paris - Compartment C - and is part of the CAC Small and CAC Technology indices. GECI International is eligible for the SRD long-only deferred settlement service. ISIN (shares): FR0000079634 - GECP / ISIN (BSAR A warrants): FR0013266764 - GECBT CONTACTS __________ GECI International - Investor Relations: Tel: +33 (0)1 46 12 00 00 / relation.investisseurs@geci.net CALYPTUS - Cyril Combe: Tel: +33 (0)1 53 65 68 68 / geci@calyptus.net ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Recevez gratuitement par email les prochains communiques de la societe en vous inscrivant sur www.actusnews.com Communique integral et original au format PDF:Telecharger le PDF Anniversary marks record 3.2 billion printed products LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Onlineprinters Group celebrates its 15th anniversary with record breaking production figures: Originally a family-run print shop, the company has become one of Europe's leading online printers and produced more than 3.2 billion custom printed products in the past fiscal year, generating over EUR 200 million annual revenues. The online print specialist has served more than one million business customers since it was established. In future, the company will increasingly focus on data-driven marketing and "one-stop shopping". "We started out as a printer that did e-commerce; today we are an e-commerce business that provides print services," Michael Fries, the CEO of Onlineprinters, describes the company's transformation. "Onlineprinters was one of the first web shops for printed matter in Europe and we are the only big online printing company that has evolved from a traditional print shop. To achieve this, we have radically changed how we do business, going online from zero to 100 percent." Consistent internationalisation During the same period, the online printer has continued to grow and stepped up its internationalisation efforts. Since 2008, the company has sold printed products to 30 European countries under the brand name of Onlineprinters - the sales volume contributed by other European markets has increased steadily as a result. In 2017, the online print specialist acquired UK market leader Solopress followed by the acquisition of Danish online printer LaserTryk, the Scandinavian market leader, in 2018. "Thanks to our consistent internationalisation strategy, the Onlineprinters Group is very well positioned today and is one of the top three online print shops in Europe," says Christian Wurst, the CCO of the Onlineprinters Group. "We have also become very popular as an employer with more than 1,500 highly qualified employees in Germany, the UK, Denmark and Poland and we are continuously looking to recruit new talent. For some years now, we have been offering online marketing traineeships which are in great demand." Digital platform "We were able to successfully harness the disruptive force of the digital transformation," Fries and Wurst point out. "By actively promoting the structural and cultural change in our company, we have safeguarded our competitiveness. We continuously innovate our business, analyse markets, our data and test new technologies. This enables us to target the right audience by using optimised marketing campaigns, for example." Transforming the product-centred business model to a consumer-centred one is an essential part of this continuous improvement process. "Running a web shop used as a digital distribution channel for our own products only is a thing of the past," Michael Fries explains. "Especially in the field of B2B, customers must get added value beyond the product purchase," Fries adds. For this reason, Onlineprinters is currently restructuring its web shop to become a digital platform which combines marketing, sales and services that go well beyond buying a printed product with a mouse click. Thanks to intelligent data linking, customers get tailored suggestions for additional products and services to complement their portfolio. "We are integrating more and more products into our portfolio to become a one-stop provider for printed advertising material," says Christian Wurst, the CCO. About the company The Onlineprinters Group is one of the leading online print shops in Europe. Employing a staff of more than 1,500, Onlineprinters produced 3.2 billion+ printed advertising products last year. More than 1,500 print products including business cards, letterheads, flyers, catalogues, brochures, large-format advertising systems and more are sold to 1,000,000 customers in 30 European countries through 18 web shops. Internationally, the provider of online print services is known under the brand name of Onlineprinters. British market leader Solopress and LaserTryk, the Scandinavian number one, are members of the Onlineprinters Group. The video "A look behind the scenes of Onlineprinters": http://bit.ly/onlineprinters-en-video Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/887779/15_years_onlineprinters.jpg Press contact: Patrick Piecha Head of Press & Public Relations press@onlineprinters.com Tel.: +49-9161-6209807 Mobile: +49-174-30-77-250 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - North American Nickel Inc. (TSXV: NAN) (OTCBB: WSCRF) (CUSIP: 65704T 108) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has acquired 100% ownership of property near the southern extent of the Lingman Lake Greenstone Belt in northwest Ontario, and in the Quetico region near Thunder Bay Ontario. The acquisition of these properties are part of the company's strategy to develop a pipeline of new nickel projects. (Figure 1). The Company recently staked 188 claim cells in northwest Ontario. The property, known as the Lingman Nickel Project, covers a portion of the Archean age Lingman Lake Greenstone Belt that includes tholeiitic-komatiitic rocks and sulphide facies iron formation. Historic field work has identified ultramafic rocks with elevated nickel and copper in grab samples. A 2011 VTEM survey shows a strong magnetic response over 13km in strike length with numerous coincident magnetic/EM anomalies that are untested. The compilation of historic data has been completed and the Company is preparing plans for an initial program of field work to evaluate the Ni-Cu-Co and precious metal potential. In addition, the Company staked a total of 809 claim cells in the Atikokan-Thunder Bay area following project generation compilation work completed in 2018. 400 of these cells lie within the Quetico Subprovince corridor, which is known to host intrusions with Ni-Cu-Co-PGM mineralization related to a late 2690 Ma Archean magmatic event. 409 claim cells in two distinct blocks were acquired to follow-up on the Neoproterozoic (1100 Ma MCR) magmatic event and related intrusions. Three clusters of claims cells, labeled Quetico South, East and West cover magnetic features interpreted to represent small differentiated intrusions. The review of government geological and geophysical data, and historic assessment file data is ongoing. Engagement and ongoing dialogue with the local First Nation groups will occur as the 2019 scope of work is formalized. Technical Information; Qualified Person The Company is not aware of any legal, political, environmental or other risks that could materially affect the potential development of the project other than those set out in its annual information form filed on www.sedar.com. Please see below under the heading "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements" for further details regarding risks facing the Company. All technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Peter C. Lightfoot, Ph.D., P.Geo. (Consulting Chief Geologist), who is the Qualified Person for the Company. About North American Nickel North American Nickel is a mineral exploration company with 100% owned properties in Maniitsoq, Greenland and Sudbury, Ontario. The Maniitsoq property in Greenland is a Camp scale permitted exploration project comprising 3,048 square km covering numerous high-grade nickel-copper + cobalt sulphide occurrences associated with norite and other mafic-ultramafic intrusions of the Greenland Norite Belt (GNB). The >75km-long belt is situated along, and near, the southwest coast of Greenland accessible from the existing Seqi deep water port with an all year-round shipping season and hydroelectric power potential from a quantified watershed. The Post Creek/Halcyon property in Sudbury is strategically located adjacent to the past producing Podolsky copper-nickel-platinum group metal deposit of KGHM International Ltd. The property lies along the extension of the Whistle Offset dyke structure. Such geological structures host major Ni-Cu-PGM deposits and producing mines within the Sudbury Camp. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" under applicable securities laws concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of the Company. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the success of exploration activities; impact of mineralogy, estimation of mineral resources at mineral projects of the Company; the future economics of minerals including nickel and copper; synergies and financial impact facilities; the benefits of the development potential of the properties of the Company and currency exchange rate fluctuations. Except for statements of historical fact relating to the Company, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan," "expect," "project," "intend," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of the Company and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from results anticipated by such forward-looking statements include variations in metal grades, changes in market conditions, variations in recovery rates, risks relating to international operations, fluctuating metal prices and currency exchange rates, and other risks of the mining industry, including but not limited to the failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive. Investors and others who base themselves on forward-looking statements should carefully consider the above factors as well as the uncertainties they represent and the risk they entail. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this press release should not be unduly relied upon. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. Statements concerning mineral reserve and resource estimates may also be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements to the extent they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered if the property is developed. Statements about the Company's future expectations and all other statements in this press release other than historical facts are "forward looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and as that term defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbours created thereby. Since these statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from the expected results. For further information on the project, please see National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) technical report prepared by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. (SRK) dated effective March 17th, 2017, titled "Updated Independent Technical Report for the Maniitsoq Nickel-Copper-Cobalt-PGM Project, Greenland", available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com or at www.northamericannickel.com. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mark Fedikow President North American Nickel Inc. For more information contact: North American Nickel Inc. Jaclyn Ruptash Corporate Communications (604) 770-4334 Toll free: 1-866-816-0118 Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Figure 1 To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2081/44819_77ed485f1405991f_002full.jpg To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44819 - Fixed 12-month treatment with Venclexta plus Gazyva significantly reduced risk of disease progression or death by 67 percent compared to a current standard of care - - Approval for expanded use of Venclexta offers more adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia a new treatment option - Genentech, a member of the Roche Group (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY), today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Venclexta (venetoclax) in combination with Gazyva(obinutuzumab) for the treatment of people with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). "Venclexta plus Gazyva is the only chemotherapy-free option of fixed duration that provides durable responses to help people live longer without progression of their disease, compared to a standard of care," said Sandra Horning, M.D., chief medical officer and head of Global Product Development. "Today's approval represents our long-standing commitment to helping people with blood cancers throughout the course of their disease, and we are excited to provide this new option for untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia." The approval is based on the results of the randomized Phase III CLL14 study, which evaluated 12-month, fixed-duration treatment with Venclexta plus Gazyva compared to Gazyva plus chlorambucil. Results showed the combination of Venclexta plus Gazyva produced a durable and significant reduction in the risk of disease worsening or death (progression-free survival (PFS), as assessed by Independent Review Committee) by 67 percent compared to Gazyva plus chlorambucil, a current standard of care (HR=0.33; 95 percent CI 0.22-0.51; p<0.0001). Venclexta plus Gazyva showed deep and clinically meaningful responses characterized by a higher rate of minimal residual disease (MRD)-negativity in the bone marrow compared to Gazyva plus chlorambucil (MRD-negativity of 57 percent vs. 17 percent) and peripheral blood (MRD-negativity of 76 percent vs. 35 percent). MRD-negativity means no cancer can be detected using a specific and highly sensitive test, defined as less than one CLL cell in 10,000 white blood cells. Results of the study will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in June 2019. The CLL14 study is being conducted in cooperation with the German CLL Study Group (GCLLSG), headed by Michael Hallek, M.D., University of Cologne. The most common adverse reactions with Venclexta plus Gazyva were low white blood cell count, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea, low red blood cell count, and upper respiratory tract infection. The FDA rapidly reviewed and approved the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) under the FDA's Real-Time Oncology Review (RTOR) and Assessment Aid pilot programs. This is the second regimen of Genentech medicines approved under the RTOR pilot program, which is exploring a more efficient review process to ensure safe and effective treatments are available to patients as early as possible. The sNDA was also granted Priority Review, a designation given to medicines that the FDA has determined to have the potential to provide significant improvements in the treatment, prevention or diagnosis of a disease. The FDA previously granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for Venclexta in combination with Gazyva for the treatment of previously untreated CLL with co-existing medical conditions. Additional submissions of the CLL14 data to health authorities around the world are ongoing. Venclexta is being developed by AbbVie and Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. It is jointly commercialized by the companies in the United States and commercialized by AbbVie outside of the United States. The combination of Venclexta and Gazyva is taken for a fixed duration unlike some other cancer medicines that are taken until disease progression. For those who qualify, Genentech offers patient assistance programs for people prescribed Venclexta and Gazyva by their doctor through Genentech Access Solutions. Please contact Genentech Access Solutions at (866) 422-2377 or visit http://www.Genentech-Access.com for more information. About the CLL14 Study CLL14 (NCT02242942) is a randomized Phase III study evaluating the combination of fixed-duration Venclexta plus Gazyva compared to Gazyva plus chlorambucil in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and co-existing medical conditions. 432 patients with previously untreated CLL were randomly assigned to receive either a 12-month duration of Venclexta alongside six-month duration of Gazyva (Arm A) or six-month duration of Gazyva plus chlorambucil followed by an additional six-month duration of chlorambucil (Arm B). Arm A started with an initial cycle of Gazyva followed by a five-week Venclexta dose ramp-up to help reduce tumor burden. The primary endpoint of the study is investigator-assessed progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary endpoints include PFS assessed by Independent Review Committee (IRC), minimal residual disease (MRD) status, overall response (OR), complete response (with or without complete blood count recovery, CR/CRi), overall survival (OS), duration of response (DOR), event-free survival (EFS), time to next CLL treatment (TTNT), and safety. The CLL14 study is being conducted in cooperation with the German CLL Study Group (GCLLSG), headed by Michael Hallek, M.D., University of Cologne. CLL14 Study Results Treatment arm Venclexta Gazyva (n=216) Gazyva + chlorambucil (n=216) Progression Free Survival (PFS)a Median PFS Independent Review Committee (IRC): Not reached IRC: Not reached Number of Events, n (%) 29 (13) 79 (37) Hazard Ratio IRC: HR 0.33 (95% CI 0.22-0.51), p<0.0001 Response Rates ORR (95% CI) 85 (79-89) 71 (65-77) p value 0.0007 CR/CRi % 50 23 p value <0.0001 Minimal Residual Disease (MRD)b MRD-negative %, bone marrow (95% CI) 57 (50-64) 17 (12-23) p value <0.0001 MRD-negative %, peripheral blood (95% CI) 76 (69-81) 35 (29-42) p value <0.0001 Overall Survival (OS) OS Not reached Not reached a Approval based on secondary endpoint of PFS evaluated by IRC; data at median follow-up of 28 months b Data at 3-months following end of combination treatment The most common adverse reactions with Venclexta plus Gazyva were low white blood cell count, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea, low red blood cell count, and upper respiratory tract infection. About CLL/SLL Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common type of adult leukemia. In the United States, it is estimated that more than 20,000 new cases of CLL will be diagnosed in 2019. Although signs of CLL may disappear for a period of time after initial treatment, the disease is considered incurable and many people will require additional treatment due to the return of cancerous cells. In CLL, the cancer primarily occurs in the blood and bone marrow. Small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) is similar to CLL, but primarily occurs in the lymph nodes. About Venclexta Venclexta is a first-in-class targeted medicine designed to selectively bind and inhibit the B-cell lymphoma-2 (BCL-2) protein. In some blood cancers and other tumors, BCL-2 builds up and prevents cancer cells from dying or self-destructing, a process called apoptosis. Venclexta blocks the BCL-2 protein and works to restore the process of apoptosis. Venclexta is being developed by AbbVie and Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. It is jointly commercialized by the companies in the United States and commercialized by AbbVie outside of the United States. Together, the companies are committed to research with Venclexta, which is currently being studied in clinical trials across several types of blood and other cancers. In the United States, Venclexta has been granted five Breakthrough Therapy Designations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): one for previously untreated CLL, two for relapsed or refractory CLL and two for previously untreated acute myeloid leukemia. About Gazyva Gazyva is an engineered monoclonal antibody designed to attach to CD20, a protein found only on certain types of B-cells. Gazyva is designed to attack and destroy targeted B-cells both directly and together with the body's immune system. Gazyva was discovered by Roche Innovation Center Zurich, formerly Roche Glycart AG, a wholly owned, independent research unit of Roche. In the United States, Gazyva is part of a collaboration between Genentech and Biogen. Additional combination studies investigating Gazyva with other approved or investigational medicines, including cancer immunotherapies and small molecule inhibitors, are underway across a range of blood cancers. Venclexta Indications Venclexta is a prescription medicine used: To treat adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). In combination with azacitidine, or decitabine, or low-dose cytarabine to treat adults with newly-diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who: ? Are 75 years of age or older, or ? Have other medical conditions that prevent the use of standard chemotherapy. It is not known if Venclexta is safe and effective in children. Important Safety Information Venclexta can cause serious side effects, including: Tumor lysis syndrome (TLS). TLS is caused by the fast breakdown of cancer cells. TLS can cause kidney failure, the need for dialysis treatment, and may lead to death. The patient's doctor will do tests to check their risk of getting TLS before they start taking Venclexta. The patient will receive other medicines before starting and during treatment with Venclexta to help reduce the risk of TLS. The patient may also need to receive intravenous (IV) fluids through their vein. The patient's doctor will do blood tests to check for TLS when the patient first starts treatment and during treatment with Venclexta. It is important for patients to keep appointments for blood tests. Patients should tell their doctor right away if they have any symptoms of TLS during treatment with Venclexta, including fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, confusion, shortness of breath, seizures, irregular heartbeat, dark or cloudy urine, unusual tiredness, or muscle or joint pain. Patients should drink plenty of water during treatment with Venclexta to help reduce the risk of getting TLS. Patients should drink 6 to 8 glasses (about 56 ounces total) of water each day, starting 2 days before the first dose, on the day of the first dose of Venclexta, and each time a dose is increased. The patient's doctor may delay, decrease the dose, or stop treatment with Venclexta if the patient has side effects. Certain medicines must not be taken when the patient first starts taking Venclexta and while the dose is being slowly increased because of the risk of increased tumor lysis syndrome. Patients must tell their doctor about all the medicines they take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Venclexta and other medicines may affect each other, causing serious side effects. including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Venclexta and other medicines may affect each other, causing serious side effects. Patients must not start new medicines during treatment with Venclexta without first talking with their doctor. Before taking Venclexta, patients must tell their doctor about all of their medical conditions, including if they: Have kidney problems. Have problems with body salts or electrolytes, such as potassium, phosphorus, or calcium. Have a history of high uric acid levels in the blood or gout. Are scheduled to receive a vaccine. The patient should not receive a "live vaccine" before, during, or after treatment with Venclexta, until the patient's doctor tells them it is okay. If the patient is not sure about the type of immunization or vaccine, the patient should ask their doctor. These vaccines may not be safe or may not work as well during treatment with Venclexta. Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. Venclexta may harm an unborn baby. If the patient is able to become pregnant, the patient's doctor should do a pregnancy test before the patient starts treatment with Venclexta, and the patient should use effective birth control during treatment and for at least 30 days after the last dose of Venclexta. If the patient becomes pregnant or thinks they are pregnant, the patient should tell their doctor right away. Are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. It is not known if Venclexta passes into the patient's breast milk. Patients should not breastfeed during treatment with Venclexta. What to avoid while taking Venclexta: Patients should not drink grapefruit juice, eat grapefruit, Seville oranges (often used in marmalades), or starfruit while they are taking Venclexta. These products may increase the amount of Venclexta in the patient's blood. Venclexta can cause serious side effects, including: Low white blood cell counts (neutropenia). Low white blood cell counts are common with Venclexta, but can also be severe. The patient's doctor will do blood tests to check their blood counts during treatment with Venclexta. Low white blood cell counts are common with Venclexta, but can also be severe. The patient's doctor will do blood tests to check their blood counts during treatment with Venclexta. Infections. Death and serious infections such as pneumonia and blood infection (sepsis) have happened during treatment with Venclexta. The patient's doctor will closely monitor and treat the patient right away if they have a fever or any signs of infection during treatment with Venclexta. Patients should tell their doctor right away if they have a fever or any signs of an infection during treatment with Venclexta. The most common side effects of Venclexta when used in combination with obinutuzumab or rituximab or alone in people with CLL or SLL include low white blood cell counts; low platelet counts; low red blood cell counts; diarrhea; nausea; upper respiratory tract infection; cough; muscle and joint pain; tiredness; and swelling of your arms, legs, hands, and feet. The most common side effects of Venclexta in combination with azacitidine, or decitabine, or low-dose cytarabine in people with AML include low white blood cell counts; nausea; diarrhea; low platelet counts; constipation; fever with low white blood cell counts; low red blood cell counts; infection in blood; rash; dizziness; low blood pressure; fever; swelling of arms, legs, hands, and feet; vomiting; tiredness; shortness of breath; bleeding; infection in lung; stomach (abdominal) pain; pain in muscles or back; cough; and sore throat. Venclexta may cause fertility problems in males. This may affect the ability to father a child. Patients should talk to their doctor if they have concerns about fertility. These are not all the possible side effects of Venclexta. Patients should tell their doctor about any side effect that bothers them or that does not go away. Report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or http://www.fda.gov/medwatch. Report side effects to Genentech at 1-888-835-2555. Please visit http://www.Venclexta.com for the Venclexta full Prescribing Information, including Patient Information, for additional Important Safety Information. Gazyva Indications Gazyva (obinutuzumab) is a prescription medicine used: With the chemotherapy drug, chlorambucil, to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in adults who have not had previous CLL treatment. With the chemotherapy drug, bendamustine, followed by Gazyva alone for follicular lymphoma (FL) in adults who did not respond to a rituximab-containing regimen, or whose FL returned after such treatment. With chemotherapy, followed by Gazyva alone in those who responded, to treat stage II bulky, III, or IV FL in adults who have not had previous FL treatment. Important Safety Information The most important safety information patients should know about Gazyva Patients must tell their doctor right away about any side effect they experience. Gazyva can cause side effects that can become serious or life threatening, including: Hepatitis B Virus (HBV): Hepatitis B can cause liver failure and death. If the patient has a history of hepatitis B infection, Gazyva could cause it to return. Patients should not receive Gazyva if they have active hepatitis B liver disease. The patient's doctor or healthcare team will need to screen them for hepatitis B before, and monitor the patient for hepatitis during and after, their treatment with Gazyva. Sometimes this will require treatment for hepatitis B. Symptoms of hepatitis include: worsening of fatigue and yellow discoloration of skin or eyes. Hepatitis B can cause liver failure and death. If the patient has a history of hepatitis B infection, Gazyva could cause it to return. Patients should not receive Gazyva if they have active hepatitis B liver disease. The patient's doctor or healthcare team will need to screen them for hepatitis B before, and monitor the patient for hepatitis during and after, their treatment with Gazyva. Sometimes this will require treatment for hepatitis B. Symptoms of hepatitis include: worsening of fatigue and yellow discoloration of skin or eyes. Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML): PML is a rare and serious brain infection caused by a virus. PML can be fatal. The patient's weakened immune system could put them at risk. The patient's doctor will watch for symptoms. Symptoms of PML include: confusion, difficulty talking or walking, dizziness or loss of balance, and vision problems. Who should not receive Gazyva: Patientsshould NOT receive Gazyva if they have had an allergic reaction (e.g., anaphylaxis or serum sickness) to Gazyva.Patients must tell their healthcare provider if they have had an allergic reaction to obinutuzumab or any other ingredients in Gazyva in the past. Additional possible serious side effects of Gazyva: Patients must tell their doctor right away about any side effect they experience. Gazyva can cause side effects that may become severe or life threatening, including: Infusion Reactions: These side effects may occur during or within 24 hours of any Gazyva infusion. Some infusion reactions can be serious, including, but not limited to, severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis), acute life-threatening breathing problems, or other life-threatening infusion reactions. If the patient has a reaction, the infusion is either slowed or stopped until their symptoms are resolved. Most patients are able to complete infusions and receive medication again. However, if the infusion reaction is life threatening, the infusion of Gazyva will be permanently stopped. The patient's healthcare team will take steps to help lessen any side effects the patient may have to the infusion process. The patient may be given medicines to take before each Gazyva treatment. Symptoms of infusion reactions may include: fast heartbeat, tiredness, dizziness, headache, redness of the face, nausea, chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, difficulty breathing, and chest discomfort. These side effects may occur during or within 24 hours of any Gazyva infusion. Some infusion reactions can be serious, including, but not limited to, severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis), acute life-threatening breathing problems, or other life-threatening infusion reactions. If the patient has a reaction, the infusion is either slowed or stopped until their symptoms are resolved. Most patients are able to complete infusions and receive medication again. However, if the infusion reaction is life threatening, the infusion of Gazyva will be permanently stopped. The patient's healthcare team will take steps to help lessen any side effects the patient may have to the infusion process. The patient may be given medicines to take before each Gazyva treatment. Symptoms of infusion reactions may include: fast heartbeat, tiredness, dizziness, headache, redness of the face, nausea, chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, difficulty breathing, and chest discomfort. Hypersensitivity Reactions Including Serum Sickness: Some patients receiving Gazyva may have severe or life-threatening allergic reactions. This reaction may be severe, may happen during or after an infusion, and may affect many areas of the body. If an allergic reaction occurs, the patient's doctor will stop the infusion and permanently discontinue Gazyva. Some patients receiving Gazyva may have severe or life-threatening allergic reactions. This reaction may be severe, may happen during or after an infusion, and may affect many areas of the body. If an allergic reaction occurs, the patient's doctor will stop the infusion and permanently discontinue Gazyva. Tumor Lysis Syndrome (TLS): Tumor lysis syndrome, including fatal cases, has been reported in patients receiving Gazyva. Gazyva works to break down cancer cells quickly. As cancer cells break apart, their contents are released into the blood. These contents may cause damage to organs and the heart, and may lead to kidney failure requiring the need for dialysis treatment. The patient's doctor may prescribe medication to help prevent TLS. The patient's doctor will also conduct regular blood tests to check for TLS. Symptoms of TLS may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and tiredness. Tumor lysis syndrome, including fatal cases, has been reported in patients receiving Gazyva. Gazyva works to break down cancer cells quickly. As cancer cells break apart, their contents are released into the blood. These contents may cause damage to organs and the heart, and may lead to kidney failure requiring the need for dialysis treatment. The patient's doctor may prescribe medication to help prevent TLS. The patient's doctor will also conduct regular blood tests to check for TLS. Symptoms of TLS may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and tiredness. Infections: While the patient is taking Gazyva, they may develop infections. Some of these infections may be fatal and severe, so the patient should be sure to talk to their doctor if they think they have an infection. Patients administered Gazyva in combination with chemotherapy, followed by Gazyva alone are at a high risk of infections during and after treatment. Patients with a history of recurring or chronic infections may be at an increased risk of infection. Patients with an active infection should not be treated with Gazyva. Patients taking Gazyva plus bendamustine may be at higher risk for fatal or severe infections compared to patients taking Gazyva plus CHOP or CVP. While the patient is taking Gazyva, they may develop infections. Some of these infections may be fatal and severe, so the patient should be sure to talk to their doctor if they think they have an infection. Patients administered Gazyva in combination with chemotherapy, followed by Gazyva alone are at a high risk of infections during and after treatment. Patients with a history of recurring or chronic infections may be at an increased risk of infection. Patients with an active infection should not be treated with Gazyva. Patients taking Gazyva plus bendamustine may be at higher risk for fatal or severe infections compared to patients taking Gazyva plus CHOP or CVP. Low White Blood Cell Count: When the patient has an abnormally low count of infection-fighting white blood cells, it is called neutropenia. While the patient is taking Gazyva, their doctor will do blood work to check their white blood cell count. Severe and life-threatening neutropenia can develop during or after treatment with Gazyva. Some cases of neutropenia can last for more than one month. If the patient's white blood cell count is low, their doctor may prescribe medication to help prevent infections. When the patient has an abnormally low count of infection-fighting white blood cells, it is called neutropenia. While the patient is taking Gazyva, their doctor will do blood work to check their white blood cell count. Severe and life-threatening neutropenia can develop during or after treatment with Gazyva. Some cases of neutropenia can last for more than one month. If the patient's white blood cell count is low, their doctor may prescribe medication to help prevent infections. Low Platelet Count: Platelets help stop bleeding or blood loss. Gazyva may reduce the number of platelets the patient has in their blood; having low platelet count is called thrombocytopenia. This may affect the clotting process. While the patient is taking Gazyva, their doctor will do blood work to check their platelet count. Severe and life-threatening thrombocytopenia can develop during treatment with Gazyva. Fatal bleeding events have occurred in patients treated with Gazyva. If the patient's platelet count gets too low, their treatment may be delayed or reduced. The most common side effects of Gazyva in CLL were infusion reactions, low white blood cell counts, low platelet counts, low red blood cell counts, fever, cough, nausea, and diarrhea. The safety of Gazyva was evaluated based on 392 patients with relapsed or refractory NHL, including FL (81 percent), small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) and marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) (a disease for which Gazyva is not indicated), who did not respond to or progressed within 6 months of treatment with rituximab product or a rituximab product-containing regimen. In patients with follicular lymphoma, the profile of side effects that were seen were consistent with the overall population who had NHL. The most common side effects of Gazyva were infusion reactions, low white blood cell counts, nausea, fatigue, cough, diarrhea, constipation, fever, low platelet counts, vomiting, upper respiratory tract infection, decreased appetite, joint or muscle pain, sinusitis, low red blood cell counts, general weakness and urinary tract infection. A randomized, open-label multicenter trial (GALLIUM) evaluated the safety of Gazyva as compared to rituximab product in 1,385 patients with previously untreated follicular lymphoma (86%) or marginal zone lymphoma (14%).The most common side effects of Gazyva were infusion reactions, low white blood cell count, upper respiratory tract infection, cough, constipation and diarrhea. Before receiving Gazyva, patients should talk to their doctor about: Immunizations: Before receiving Gazyva therapy, the patient should tell their healthcare provider if they have recently received or are scheduled to receive a vaccine. Patients who are treated with Gazyva should not receive live vaccines. Before receiving Gazyva therapy, the patient should tell their healthcare provider if they have recently received or are scheduled to receive a vaccine. Patients who are treated with Gazyva should not receive live vaccines. Pregnancy: The patient should tell their doctor if they are pregnant, think that they might be pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding. Gazyva may harm their unborn baby. The patient should speak to their doctor about using Gazyva while they are pregnant. The patient should talk to their doctor or their child's doctor about the safety and timing of live virus vaccinations to their infant if they received Gazyva during pregnancy. It is not known if Gazyva may pass into the patient's breast milk. The patient should speak to their doctor about using Gazyva if they are breastfeeding. Patients should tell their doctor about any side effects. These are not all of the possible side effects of Gazyva. For more information, patients should ask their doctor or pharmacist. Gazyva is available by prescription only. Report side effects to the FDA at (800) FDA-1088, or http://www.fda.gov/medwatch. Report side effects to Genentech at (888) 835-2555. Please visit http://www.Gazyva.com for the Gazyva full Prescribing Information, including BOXED WARNINGS, for additional Important Safety Information. About the German CLL Study Group (GCLLSG) Founded in 1996 and headed by Michael Hallek, M.D., the GCLLSG has been running various Phase III, Phase II and Phase I trials in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with the goal to provide optimal treatment to patients suffering from this disease. Among those were landmark trials like the CLL8 and the CLL11 trials which led to the current standard of care in CLL. For many years, GCLLSG has been aiming to improve not just the treatment of younger and physically fit patients, but also that of elderly and less fit patients. These patients are generally underrepresented in clinical trials although they constitute the majority of CLL patients treated by doctors in daily practice. The GCLLSG is an independent non-profit research organization supported by the German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe). http://www.dcllsg.de. About Genentech in Hematology For more than 20 years, Genentech has been developing medicines with the goal to redefine treatment in hematology. Today, we're investing more than ever in our effort to bring innovative treatment options to people with diseases of the blood. For more information visit http://www.gene.com/hematology. About Genentech Founded more than 40 years ago, Genentech is a leading biotechnology company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes medicines to treat patients with serious and life-threatening medical conditions. The company, a member of the Roche Group, has headquarters in South San Francisco, California. For additional information about the company, please visit http://www.gene.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005847/en/ Contacts: Media Contact: Priscilla White, (650) 467-6800 Advocacy Contact: Eydith Comenencia Ortiz, (650) 745-5210 Investor Contacts: Loren Kalm, (650) 225-3217 Karl Mahler, +41 61 687 85 03 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Commerce Resources Corp. (TSXv: CCE, FSE: D7H) (the "Company" or "Commerce") is pleased to announce that the Nayumivik Landholding Corporation of Kuujjuaq and the Makivik Corporation have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Commerce Resources Corp. for the ongoing development of the Ashram Rare Earth Elements Deposit in Nunavik, Northern Quebec. Sammy Koneak, the President of the Nayumivik Landholding Corporation of Kuujjuaq states, "We look forward to working closely with Commerce and Makivik Corporation to implement the LOI during the pre-development phase of the proposed Ashram Deposit. We are confident that continued communication between the parties under the terms and spirit of the LOI will result in ongoing respect for our rights and our environment." Maggie Emudluk, the Vice-President of Economic Development at the Makivik Corporation states, "This Letter of Intent (LOI) is a first for Nunavik mining development, specifically for a pre-development project such as the Ashram REE Deposit. By implementing the LOI, Inuit will be directly involved upstream in any discussions and proposed planning of this project. They will also be enabled to provide insights and share concerns during the progression of the project. Makivik is pleased that the LOI is in accordance with the Nunavik Inuit Mining Policy objectives that look forward to establishing clear lines of communication with the industry." Chris Grove, the President of Commerce Resources states, "We are very pleased that the Nayumivik and the Makivik have signed this Letter of Intent with us. This is a milestone that speaks to the cooperation between all parties; a document that recognizes the primacy of the James Bay agreement, the practicalities of advancing our Ashram Deposit through the next few years of development, the practicalities of getting our material to world markets, and the best way to achieve our collective goals of a new producing mine in Nunavik through the cooperation of the Inuit and Commerce towards our mutual benefit. We look forward to this future with the Inuit in Nunavik." About Commerce Resources Corp. Commerce Resources Corp. is an exploration and development company with a particular focus on deposits of rare metals and rare earth elements. The Company is focused on the development of its Ashram Rare Earth Element Deposit in Quebec and the Upper Fir Tantalum-Niobium Deposit in British Columbia. For more information, please visit the corporate website at http://www.commerceresources.com or email info@commerceresources.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors COMMERCE RESOURCES CORP. "Chris Grove" Chris Grove President and Director Tel: 604.484.2700 Email: cgrove@commerceresources.com Web: http://www.commerceresources.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information which is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, Commerce being able to reach agreement with local communities for advancing our Ashram Deposit through the next few years of development, the practicalities of getting our material to world markets, that there will be a producing mine and the implication that our Ashram Deposit will be commercially viable. Factors which could prevent these forward looking statements from coming to fruition include that we may not be able to agree with local communities on matters that are being negotiated; potential process methods and mineral recoveries assumption based on limited test work and by comparison to what are considered analogous deposits that with further test work may not be comparable; the availability of labour, equipment and markets for the products produced; and despite the current expected potential of the project, conditions changing such that the minerals on our property cannot be economically mined, or that the required permits to build and operate the envisaged mine can be obtained. The forward-looking information contained herein is given as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise such information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. SOURCE: Commerce Resources Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/545546/Commerce-Resources-Corp-Announces-Inuit-Corporations-Sign-Letter-of-Intent-for-the-Ashram-REE-Deposit-Quebec Regulatory News: Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) today released its regular weekly Net Asset Value ("NAV") and performance returns on its website, https://www.pershingsquareholdings.com/company-reports/weekly-navs/. The NAV and returns were computed as of the close of business on Tuesday, 14 May 2019. PSH NAV per share as of close of business on 14 May 2019 was 23.83 USD 18.46 GBP and year-to-date performance was 38.4%. Weekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft). Performance is presented on a net-of-fees basis and reflects the deduction of, among other expenses: management fees, brokerage commissions, administrative fees and accrued performance fees, if any. The performance figure includes the reinvestment of all dividends, interest and capital gains. Depending on the timing of a specific investment, net performance for an individual investor may vary from the net performance as stated herein. Net performance is a geometrically linked time weighted calculation. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. All investments involve risk including the loss of principal. About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515005957/en/ Contacts: Media Contact Camarco Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Transcanna Holdings Inc. (CSE: TCAN) (FSE: TH8) ("TransCanna" or the "Company") is pleased to announce today the execution of a non-binding Letter of Intent dated May 15, 2019 ("LOI") with Tres Ojos Naturals, LLC d/b/a SolDaze ("SolDaze"), a limited liability company from Santa Cruz, California, to acquire the branding asset package, Soldaze (the "Assets"). SolDaze produces cannabis-infused fruit snacks in California. For more information on SolDaze product lines, please see their website: www.soldazesnacks.com. "Having reviewed over 100 branded products in California, we've been extremely selective in our acquisition vetting process. Our three mandatory acquisition criteria include SKU velocity, upward trending revenues, and products that differentiate themselves in the marketplace. The snack line from SolDaze, and specifically the cannabis-infused mango products, meets all three requirements," stated Jim Pakulis, CEO of TransCanna. "Over the past year, we've created a unique line of fruit-based, organic edibles that truly differentiate us in the market. We then began supplying select dispensaries and almost immediately began receiving repeat orders. We're now at the stage where we need to expand throughout California," stated Shawn Shevlin, founder and president of SolDaze. "TransCanna's platform, including the 196,000-square-foot facility; their commitment to supplying the necessary capital for our immediate growth; and their adherence to compliance will provide SolDaze the tools and guidance that are mandatory in order to be successful and scale in California." Pursuant to the LOI, the Company would acquire the Assets for a cash payment of USD$350,000 and the issuance of 660,000 common shares in the capital of the Company. A nonrefundable deposit of US$50,000 was paid on the execution of the LOI, to be credited against the purchase price. The purchase price is payable in installments over a two-year period, provided that the timing of such installments may be accelerated should the sales of SolDaze products meet specific revenue targets, and the number of shares issuable may be reduced by up to 37,125 in the event that the revenue targets specified are not met by the dates specified. The completion of the Asset acquisition remains subject to completion of due diligence and execution of final binding definitive asset purchase documentation, which is to be completed within 45 days of the date of the LOI. There can be no assurances that the completion of the acquisition will occur on the terms set forth above or at all. For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.transcanna.com. About TransCanna Holdings Inc. TransCanna Holdings Inc. is a Canadian-based company focused on providing integrated branding, transportation and distribution services, through its wholly owned California subsidiaries, to a range of industries including the cannabis marketplace. For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.transcanna.com or email the Company at info@transcanna.com. Media Contact TransCanna@talkshopmedia.com 604-738-2220 On behalf of the Board of Directors James Pakulis Chief Executive Officer Telephone: (604) 609-6199 The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward looking statements. Any number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as well as future results. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Corporate Communications: NetworkWire (NW) New York, New York www.NetworkNewsWire.com 212.418.1217 Office Editor@NetworkWire.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44824 First quarter sales of $1.8 billion, flat to last year; an increase of 4% constant currency (cc) Healthy momentum in Surgical business, with 2% growth and 7% constant currency growth Full year 2019 outlook of 3% to 5% constant currency net sales growth and 17% to 18% core operating margin Alcon (SIX:ALC) (NYSE:ALC), the global leader in eye care, today reported selected financial results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2019, and provided financial guidance for the current fiscal year. For the first quarter of 2019, worldwide net sales were $1.8 billion, flat on a reported basis and an increase of 4 percent on a constant currency basis1, as compared to the same quarter of the previous year. "The spin-off of Alcon marks a new chapter in our mission to enable more patients to see brilliantly. Solid first quarter results give us confidence in our ability to perform as an independent company and to continue to execute on our key growth drivers," said David Endicott, Alcon's Chief Executive Officer. "Our Surgical business performed well in the quarter, with growth across all three categories. As we usher in a new era for Alcon, our dedicated focus on delivering innovative products and quality eye care to patients around the world will allow us to create long-term shareholder value." Mr. Endicott continued, "We continue to see steady progress from product flow within our surgical business, as evidenced by the international success of PanOptix. The expansion of our manufacturing capacity is underway and will support the ramp up of new product lines, led by Precision 1, which was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration." 1Constant currencies (cc) are a non-IFRS measure. Growth in constant currency (cc) is calculated by translating the current year's foreign currency items into US dollars using average exchange rates from the prior year and comparing them to prior year values in US dollars. An explanation of non-IFRS measures can be found later in this press release. First Quarter 2019 Net Sales Results Worldwide net sales for the first quarter of $1.8 billion were flat to last year (up 4% cc) compared to the first quarter of 2018. The following table highlights net sales by segment for the first quarter of 2019: Three months ended (unaudited) Change in $ Change in constant currencies ($ millions unless indicated otherwise) March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 Implantables 285 279 2 8 Consumables 551 541 2 6 Equipment/other 164 157 4 9 Total Surgical 1,000 977 2 7 Contact lenses 498 509 (2 1 Ocular health 279 293 (5 Total Vision care 777 802 (3 1 Net sales to third parties 1,777 1,779 4 Surgical Surgical net sales, which include implantables, consumables and equipment/other, of $1.0 billion increased 2% (up 7% cc) versus the first quarter of 2018, driven by the strong momentum across all business categories. Strong demand for Advanced Technology Intraocular Lenses (AT-IOLs), pull-through of dedicated consumables for next generation equipment, new procedural instruments and strong services revenue were the primary drivers of growth in the first quarter. Vision Care Vision Care net sales, which include contact lenses and ocular health, of $777 million decreased 3% (up 1% cc) versus the first quarter of 2018. Double-digit growth for Dailies Total1 and strong demand for Systane Complete, were offset by declines in legacy non-silicon hydrogel contact lenses and contact lens care. Financial Performance First quarter 2019 reported operating loss of $48 million, compared to last year's operating income of $73 million, was due to costs related to spin readiness, legal, SAP implementation and research and development. The decrease in first quarter 2019 core operating income2 of $314 million compared to $342 million last year, was driven by costs related to SAP implementation and higher research and development. 2019 Financial Outlook Alcon expects the following outlook for full-year 2019: Net sales growth of 3% to 5% on a constant currency basis Core operating margin 2 between 17% to 18% between 17% to 18% Core effective tax rate3 between 17% to 19% 2 Core results are a non-IFRS measure. For additional information, including a reconciliation for such core results to the most directly comparable measures presented in accordance with IFRS, see the explanation of non-IFRS measures and reconciliation tables later in this press release. 3 Core effective tax rate, a non-IFRS measure, is the applicable annual tax rate on core taxable income. Webcast and Conference Call Instructions The Company will host a conference call on Thursday, May 16, at 3:00 p.m. Central European Time 8 a.m. Central Time to discuss its first quarter 2019 trading update. The webcast can be accessed online through Alcon's Investor Relations website, investor.alcon.com. Listeners should log on approximately 10 minutes in advance. A replay will be available online within 24 hours after the event. Supplemental presentation materials to be used during the conference call are available online through Alcon's Investor Relations website, https://investor.alcon.com/financials/quarterly-results, at the beginning of the conference. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: "anticipate," "intend," "commitment," "look forward," "maintain," "plan," "goal," "seek," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "should," "will" and similar references to future periods. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on Alcon's current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of its business, future plans and strategies, and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties and risks that are difficult to predict. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties facing Alcon, including: the commercial success of its products and its ability to maintain and strengthen its position in its markets; the success of its research and development efforts; uncertainties regarding the success of Alcon's separation and spin-off from Novartis; pricing pressure from changes in third party payor coverage and reimbursement methodologies; global economic, financial, legal, tax, political, and social change; ongoing industry consolidation; its ability to maintain relationships in the healthcare industry; changes in inventory levels or buying patterns of its customers; its reliance on sole or limited sources of supply; its reliance on outsourcing key business functions; its ability to protect its intellectual property; the impact on unauthorized importation of its products from countries with lower prices to countries with higher prices; its success in completing and integrating strategic acquisitions; the effects of litigation, including product liability lawsuits; its ability to comply with all laws to which it may be subject; effect of product recalls or voluntary market withdrawals, including CyPass; data breaches; the implementation of its enterprise resource planning system; its ability to attract and retain qualified personnel; the sufficiency of its insurance coverage; the accuracy of its accounting estimates and assumptions, including pension plan obligations and the carrying value of intangible assets; the ability to obtain regulatory clearance and approval of its products as well as compliance with any post-approval obligations; legislative and regulatory reform; the ability of Alcon Pharmaceuticals Ltd. to comply with its investment tax incentive agreement with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Switzerland and the Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland; ability to service its debt obligations; the need for additional financing; its ability to operate as a stand-alone company; whether the transitional services Novartis has agreed to provide Alcon are sufficient; the impact of the spin-off from Novartis on Alcon's shareholder base; the ability to declare and pay dividends; and the effect of maintaining or losing its foreign private issuer status under U.S. securities laws. Additional factors are discussed in Alcon's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Form 20-F. Should one or more of these uncertainties or risks materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this press release speak only as of the date of its filing, and Alcon assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Non-IFRS measures as defined by the Company Alcon uses certain non-IFRS metrics when measuring performance, especially when measuring current period results against prior periods, including core results and constant currencies. Because of their non-standardized definitions, the non-IFRS measures (unlike IFRS measures) may not be comparable to the calculation of similar measures of other companies. These non-IFRS measures are presented solely to permit investors to more fully understand how Alcon management assesses underlying performance. These non-IFRS measures are not, and should not be viewed as, a substitute for IFRS measures. Core results Alcon core results, including core operating income and core net income, exclude all amortization and impairment charges of intangible assets, excluding software, net gains and losses on fund investments and equity securities valued at fair value through profit and loss, and certain acquisition related items. The following items that exceed a threshold of $10 million and are deemed exceptional are also excluded from core results: integration and divestment related income and expenses, divestment gains and losses, restructuring charges/releases and related items, legal related items, impairments of property, plant and equipment and financial assets, as well as income and expense items that management deems exceptional and that are or are expected to accumulate within the year to be over a $10 million threshold. Alcon believes that investor understanding of its performance is enhanced by disclosing core measures of performance because, since they exclude items that can vary significantly from period to period, the core measures enable a helpful comparison of business performance across periods. For this same reason, Alcon uses these core measures in addition to IFRS and other measures as important factors in assessing its performance. A limitation of the core measures is that they provide a view of Alcon operations without including all events during a period, such as the effects of an acquisition, divestment, or amortization/impairments of purchased intangible assets and restructurings. Constant currencies Changes in the relative values of non-U.S. currencies to the U.S. dollar can affect Alcon financial results and financial position. To provide additional information that may be useful to investors, including changes in sales volume, we present information about our net sales and various values relating to operating and net income that are adjusted for such foreign currency effects. Constant currency calculations have the goal of eliminating two exchange rate effects so that an estimate can be made of underlying changes in the combined income statement excluding: the impact of translating the income statements of combined entities from their non-U.S. dollar functional currencies to the U.S. dollar; and the impact of exchange rate movements on the major transactions of combined entities performed in currencies other than their functional currency. Alcon calculates constant currency measures by translating the current year's foreign currency values for sales and other income statement items into U.S. dollars, using the average exchange rates from the prior year and comparing them to the prior year values in U.S. dollars. Reconciliation of guidance for forward-looking non-IFRS measures The forward-looking guidance included in this press release cannot be reconciled to the comparable IFRS measures without unreasonable efforts, because we are not able to predict with reasonable certainty the ultimate amount or nature of extraordinary items in the fiscal year. These items are uncertain, depend on many factors and could have a material impact on our IFRS results for the guidance period. Supplemental information: First quarter net sales by region (unaudited) Three months ended ($ millions unless indicated otherwise) March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 United States 737 41 712 40 International 1,040 59 1,067 60 Net sales to third parties 1,777 100 1,779 100 First quarter key figures (unaudited) Three months ended Change in $ Change in constant currencies(1) ($ millions unless indicated otherwise) March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 Net Sales to third parties 1,777 1,779 4% Operating (loss)/income (48 73 nm nm Operating margin (%) (2.7 4.1 Core operating income (1) 314 342 (8)% 2% Core operating margin (%) (1) 17.7 19.2 nm not meaningful (1) For additional information regarding the core results and constant currencies presented in the above table, which are non-IFRS measures, including a reconciliation for such core results to the most directly comparable measures presented in accordance with IFRS, see the explanation of non-IFRS measures and reconciliation tables. Reconciliation of IFRS to Core results (unaudited) Three months ended ($ millions) March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 IFRS Results Operating (loss)/income (48 73 Amortization of certain intangible assets(1) 255 253 Legal items(2) 32 9 Other items(3) 75 7 Core Results Operating income 314 342 (1) Amortization of certain intangible assets: Includes recurring amortization for all intangible assets other than software. (2) Legal items: Q1 2019 includes legal settlement costs and certain external legal fees. Q1 2018 includes legal costs related to an investigation. (3) Other items: Q1 2019 includes $88 million related to spin-off readiness costs, amortization of option rights, and integration related expenses for recent acquisitions and other items, partially offset by $13 million related to the fair value adjustment of a contingent consideration liability and fair value adjustment on a financial asset. Q1 2018 includes $17 million related to option rights and other items, partially offset by $10 million in fair value adjustments on a financial asset. 2018 Condensed combined income statement information Three months ended (unaudited) ($ millions) 2018(1) December 31, 2018 September 30, 2018 June 30, 2018 March 31, 2018 Net sales to third parties 7,149 1,789 1,762 1,819 1,779 Sales to Novartis Group 4 2 1 1 Net sales 7,153 1,791 1,762 1,820 1,780 Cost of goods sold (3,961 (912 (1,194 (942 (913 Gross profit 3,192 879 568 878 867 Selling, general administration (2,801 (734 (692 (722 (653 Research development (587 (166 (132 (152 (137 Other income 47 (26 (8 62 19 Other expense (99 (28 (20 (28 (23 Operating (loss)/income (248 (75 (284 38 73 Interest expense (24 (5 (7 (6 (6 Other financial income expense (28 (7 (7 (8 (6 (Loss)/income before taxes (300 (87 (298 24 61 Taxes 73 14 91 (9 (23 Net (loss)/income (227 (73 (207 15 38 (1) Information in this column is derived from the audited financial statements of Alcon Inc. as reported in Amendment No. 6 to the 2018 Alcon Inc. Form 20-F. 2018 quarterly core results (unaudited)(1) For the three months ended ($ millions unless indicated otherwise) 2018(2) December 31, 2018 September 30, 2018 June 30, 2018 March 31, 2018 Core gross profit 4,541 1,126 1,129 1,168 1,118 Core gross profit margin (%) 63.5 62.9 64.1 64.2 62.8 Core selling, general administration (2,786 (719 (692 (722 (653 Core research development (529 (144 (132 (131 (122 Core other income 24 (3 7 11 9 Core other expense (38 (1 (13 (14 (10 Core operating income 1,212 259 299 312 342 Core operating income margin (%) 17.0 14.5 17.0 17.2 19.2 (1) For additional information regarding the core results presented in this table, which is a non-IFRS measure, including a reconciliation of such core results to the most directly comparable measures presented in accordance with IFRS, see the explanation of non-IFRS measures and reconciliation tables. (2) Information in this column is derived from the Alcon Inc. core results reported in Amendment No. 6 to the 2018 Alcon Inc. Form 20-F. 2018 Core non-operating income and expense (unaudited)(1) For the three months ended ($ millions) 2018(2) December 31, 2018 September 30, 2018 June 30, 2018 March 31, 2018 Core operating income 1,212 259 299 312 342 Core income before taxes 1,160 247 285 298 330 Core taxes (186 (56 (41 (42 (47 Core net income 974 191 244 256 283 (1) For additional information regarding the core results presented in this table, which is a non-IFRS measure, including a reconciliation of such core results to the most directly comparable measures presented in accordance with IFRS, see the explanation of non-IFRS measures and reconciliation tables. (2) Information in this column is derived from the Alcon Inc. core results reported in Amendment No. 6 to the 2018 Alcon Inc. Form 20-F. 2018 Net sales by segment (unaudited) For the three months ended ($ millions) 2018(1) December 31, 2018 September 30, 2018 June 30, 2018 March 31, 2018 Surgical Implantables 1,136 290 269 298 279 Consumables 2,227 579 529 578 541 Equipment/other 636 158 167 154 157 Total Surgical 3,999 1,027 965 1,030 977 Vision Care Contact lenses 1,928 450 491 478 509 Ocular health 1,222 312 306 311 293 Total Vision Care 3,150 762 797 789 802 Net sales to third parties 7,149 1,789 1,762 1,819 1,779 (1) Information in this column is derived from Alcon Inc. net sales by segment reported in Amendment No. 6 to the 2018 Alcon Inc. Form 20-F. 2018 Net sales by region (unaudited)(1) For the three months ended ($ millions) 2018(2) December 31, 2018 September 30, 2018 June 30, 2018 March 31, 2018 United States 2,942 730 750 750 712 International 4,207 1,059 1,012 1,069 1,067 Net sales to third parties 7,149 1,789 1,762 1,819 1,779 (1) Net sales by location of third-party customer. (2) Information in this column is derived from Alcon Inc. net sales by region reported in Amendment No. 6 to the 2018 Alcon Inc. Form 20-F. Reconciliation of IFRS results to Core results Three months ended December 31, 2018 (unaudited) Amortization of certain intangible assets(1) Legal items(4) Other items(5) ($ millions) IFRS Results Impairments(2) Restructuring items(3) Core Results Gross profit 879 245 2 1,126 Selling, general administration (734 2 13 (719 Research development (166 3 19 (144 Other income (26 (2 1 24 (3 Other expense (28 10 6 11 (1 Operating (loss)/income (75 248 2 8 7 69 259 (Loss)/income before taxes (87 248 2 8 7 69 247 Taxes(6) 14 (56 Net (loss)/income (73 191 (1) Amortization of certain intangible assets: Includes recurring amortization for all intangible assets other than software. (2) Impairments: Includes an impairment charge related to an intangible asset. (3) Restructuring items: Other income and Other expense include other restructuring income and charges and related items. Certain amounts previously reported under 'restructuring items' in Amendment 6 to the Alcon Inc. Form 20-F have been reclassified to 'other items' to conform with presentation in the current year. (4) Legal items: Includes legal costs related to an investigation. (5) Other items: Gross Profit and Selling, general administration include charges and reversal of charges related to a product's voluntary market withdrawal and spin readiness costs; Research development includes amortization of option rights; Other income includes fair value adjustments on a financial asset; Other expense includes spin-readiness costs. Certain amounts previously reported under 'restructuring items' in Amendment 6 to the Alcon Inc. Form 20-F have been reclassified to 'other items' to conform with presentation in the current year. (6) Taxes on the adjustments between IFRS and core results take into account, for each individual item included in the adjustment, the tax rate that will finally be applicable to the item based on the jurisdiction where the adjustment will finally have a tax impact. Generally, this results in amortization and impairment of intangible assets and acquisition-related restructuring and integration items having a full tax impact. There is usually a tax impact on other items, although this is not always the case for items arising from legal settlements in certain jurisdictions. Total tax adjustments of $70 million included tax associated with operating income adjustments and discrete tax items. Tax associated with operating income adjustments of $334 million totaled $48 million with average tax rate of 14.4%. Core tax adjustments for discrete items totaled $22 million, including a net out of period income tax benefit of $55 million partially offset by net changes in uncertain tax positions of $33 million. Reconciliation of IFRS results to Core results Three months ended September 30, 2018 (unaudited) Amortization of certain intangible assets(1) Legal items(4) Other items(5) ($ millions) IFRS Results Impairments(2) Restructuring items(3) Core Results Gross profit 568 249 337 (25 1,129 Selling, general administration (692 (692 Research development (132 3 (3 (132 Other income (8 (1 16 7 Other expense (20 3 4 (13 Operating (loss)/income (284 252 337 (1 3 (8 299 (Loss)/income before taxes (298 252 337 (1 3 (8 285 Taxes(6) 91 (41 Net (loss)/income (207 244 (1) Amortization of certain intangible assets: Includes recurring amortization for all intangible assets other than software. (2) Impairments: Includes impairment charges related to intangible assets. (3) Restructuring items: Other income includes other restructuring income and related items. (4) Legal items: Includes legal costs related to an investigation. (5) Other items: Gross Profit and Research development include charges and reversal of charges related to a product's voluntary market withdrawal; Research development also includes amortization of option rights; Other income includes fair value adjustments on a financial asset; Other expense includes other items. (6) Taxes on the adjustments between IFRS and core results take into account, the tax rate that will finally be applicable to the item based on the jurisdiction where the adjustment will finally have a tax impact. Due to the differing effective tax rates in the various jurisdictions, the tax on the total adjustments of $583 million to arrive at the core results before tax amounts to $132 million. The average tax rate on the adjustments is 22.6% since the nine months ended, September 30, 2018 core tax charge of 14.2% has been applied to the pre-tax income of the period. Reconciliation of IFRS results to Core results Three months ended June 30, 2018 (unaudited) Amortization of certain intangible assets(1) Legal items(4) Other items(5) ($ millions) IFRS Results Impairments(2) Restructuring items(3) Core Results Gross profit 878 251 39 1,168 Selling, general administration (722 (722 Research development (152 3 18 (131 Other income 62 (1 (1 (49 11 Other expense (28 3 10 1 (14 Operating income 38 254 39 2 9 (30 312 Income before taxes 24 254 39 2 9 (30 298 Taxes(6) (9 (42 Net income 15 256 (1) Amortization of certain intangible assets: Includes recurring amortization for all intangible assets other than software. (2) Impairments: Includes impairment charges related to intangible assets. (3) Restructuring items: Other income and Other expense include other restructuring income and charges and related items. (4) Legal items: Includes legal costs related to an investigation. (5) Other items: Research and development includes amortization of option rights and a fair value adjustment of a contingent consideration liability; Other income includes fair value adjustments on a financial asset; Other expense includes other items. (6) Taxes on the adjustments between IFRS and core results take into account, the tax rate that will finally be applicable to the item based on the jurisdiction where the adjustment will finally have a tax impact. Due to the differing effective tax rates in the various jurisdictions, the tax on the total adjustments of $274 million to arrive at the core results before tax amounts to $33 million. The average tax rate on the adjustments is 12.0%, since the six months ended, June 30, 2018 core tax charge of 14.2% has been applied to the pre-tax income of the period. Reconciliation of IFRS results to Core results Three months ended March 31, 2018 (unaudited) Amortization of certain intangible assets(1) Legal items (2) Other items (3) ($ millions) IFRS Results Impairments Restructuring items Core Results Gross profit 867 251 1,118 Selling, general administration (653 (653 Research development (137 2 13 (122 Other income 19 (10 9 Other expense (23 9 4 (10 Operating income 73 253 9 7 342 Income before taxes 61 253 9 7 330 Taxes(4) (23 (47 Net income 38 283 (1) Amortization of certain intangible assets: Includes recurring amortization for all intangible assets other than software. (2) Legal items: Includes legal costs related to an investigation. (3) Other items: Research development includes amortization of option rights; Other income includes fair value adjustments on a financial asset; Other expense includes other items. (4) Taxes on the adjustments between IFRS and core results take into account, the tax rate that will finally be applicable to the item based on the jurisdiction where the adjustment will finally have a tax impact. Due to the differing effective tax rates in the various jurisdictions, the tax on the total adjustments of $269 million to arrive at the core results before tax amounts to $24 million. The average tax rate on the adjustments is 8.9%, since the three months ended, March 31, 2018 core tax charge of 14.2% has been applied to the pre-tax income of the period. About Alcon Alcon helps people see brilliantly. As the global leader in eye care with a heritage spanning more than seven decades, we offer the broadest portfolio of products to enhance sight and improve people's lives. Our Surgical and Vision Care products touch the lives of more than 260 million people in over 140 countries each year living with conditions like cataracts, glaucoma, retinal diseases and refractive errors. Our more than 20,000 associates are enhancing the quality of life through innovative products, partnerships with eye care professionals and programs that advance access to quality eye care. Learn more at www.alcon.com Connect with us on Facebook LinkedIn View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515006009/en/ Contacts: Investor Relations Christina Cheng + 41 589 112 110 (Geneva) + 1 817 615 2789 (Fort Worth) investor.relations@alcon.com Media Relations Wes Warnock + 41 589 112 111 (Geneva) + 1 817 615 2501 (Fort Worth) globalmedia.relations@alcon.com Passenger traffic up 6.8% YoY in Argentina and 2.1% in Italy, partially offset by declines in Brazil and Uruguay Corporacion America Airports S.A. (NYSE: CAAP), ("CAAP" or the "Company") the largest private sector airport operator in the world by number of airports, reported today preliminary year-over-year passenger traffic growth of 1.8% in April 2019. Passenger Traffic, Cargo Volume and Aircraft Movements Highlights Statistics Apr'19 Apr'18 % Var. YTD'19 YTD'18 % Var Domestic Passengers (thousands) 3,725 3,462 7.6% 15,255 14,034 8.7% International Passengers (thousands) 2,233 2,341 -4.6% 8,809 9,073 -2.9% Transit Passengers (thousands) 633 668 -5.2% 2,954 3,010 -1.9% Total Passengers (thousands) 6,590 6,471 1.8% 27,019 26,118 3.4% Cargo Volume (thousand tons) 36.7 35.5 3.5% 141.5 134.0 5.6% Total Aircraft Movements (thousands) 68.5 70.9 -3.4% 281.2 284.3 -1.1% Passenger Traffic Overview Total passenger traffic in April 2019 slowed to 1.8% YoY from 2.6% YoY last month. Growth of 6.8% in Argentina and 2.1% in Italy, further supported by growth across most other countries of operations, was partially offset by declines in Brazil and Uruguay. The Company faced easier comps in April as the Easter holidays this year fell in April, while in 2018 they fell in March. In Argentina, total passenger traffic growth of 6.8% YoY, was mainly driven by an 18.1% growth in domestic passengers benefiting from the launch of several new routes and the addition of new airlines during 2018 and 2019, together with a mix-shift to domestic from international travel by local passengers. International passenger traffic fell 12.1% reflecting continued challenging macro conditions. During April, Flybondi continued to add new domestic routes connecting Neuquen Airport with Mendoza and Cordoba airports, Salta Airport with Cordoba and Rosario airports, and Tucuman Airport with Rosario Airport, further increasing connectivity in the country. In addition, low cost airline JetSmart begun domestic operations with routes from El Palomar Airport to Mendoza and Cordoba airports and from Salta Airport to Neuquen, Cordoba and Mendoza airports. Also in April, the remaining regional flights were migrated from Aeroparque to Ezeiza Airport, with the exception of flights to/from Montevideo and Punta del Este, in Uruguay. In Italy, passenger traffic increased 2.1%, driven by growth of 6.0% at Florence Airport reflecting easier comps as last year traffic was impacted by Air France pilots' strike. This month, traffic benefited from the Easter Holiday effect together with the good performance of TAP's connecting flight to Lisbon and the additional flights to Madrid by Iberia. In addition, SAS airlines started operations at Florence airport, with a new connection to Copenhagen with three weekly flights. Also, Air Arabia Maroc started operations at Pisa airport, with a new route to Casablanca, Morocco. In Brazil, passenger traffic declined 7.8%, impacted by cancellation of certain routes at several Brazilian airports by Avianca Brasil, and, to a lesser extent, a reduction in less profitable routes and frequencies by LATAM Airlines as it seeks to optimize operations at Brasilia Airport. By contrast, Gol airlines announced the addition of several frequencies over the coming months, in line with its strategy of expanding operations at Brasilia airport. In Ecuador, passenger traffic increased 10.2%, with international passenger traffic at Guayaquil Airport up 5.8%, mainly attributed to the additional frequencies by COPA and Jet Blue, started earlier this year. Cargo Volume and Aircraft Movements Cargo volume increased 3.5% in April 2019, mainly as a result a 63.1% increase in Brazil, offset by a decline of 12.7% in Argentina, related to the continued challenging macroeconomic conditions. Aircraft movements decreased 3.4% in April 2019, mainly as a result of a 15.9% decline in Brazil. Summary Passenger Traffic, Cargo Volume and Aircraft Movements Apr'19 Apr'18 % Var. YTD'19 YTD'18 % Var Passenger Traffic (thousands) Argentina 3,320 3,109 6.8% 14,280 13,356 6.9% Italy 736 721 2.1% 2,156 2,119 1.8% Brazil 1,474 1,599 -7.8% 6,443 6,565 -1.9% Uruguay 176 181 -3.1% 818 866 -5.5% Ecuador 392 382 2.7% 1,497 1,410 6.2% Armenia 217 213 2.1% 796 737 8.0% Peru 275 267 3.1% 1,028 1,066 -3.5% TOTAL 6,590 6,471 1.8% 27,019 26,118 3.4% Cargo Volume (tons) Argentina 18,825 21,563 -12.7% 74,881 81,955 -8.6% Italy 1,285 838 53.3% 4,365 3,495 24.9% Brazil 8,639 5,297 63.1% 32,163 19,379 66.0% Uruguay 2,547 2,397 6.3% 8,642 9,153 -5.6% Ecuador 3,316 3,423 -3.1% 14,629 13,468 8.6% Armenia 1,704 1,553 9.7% 5,262 5,028 4.7% Peru 389 384 1.2% 1,579 1,549 2.0% TOTAL 36,704 35,456 3.5% 141,522 134,027 5.6% Aircraft Movements Argentina 35,553 35,474 0.2% 151,443 148,899 1.7% Italy 6,864 6,590 4.2% 21,016 20,475 2.6% Brazil 12,714 15,118 -15.9% 53,465 59,868 -10.7% Uruguay 2,375 2,615 -9.2% 11,712 13,563 -13.6% Ecuador 6,834 6,640 2.9% 27,470 24,629 11.5% Armenia 1,744 1,976 -11.7% 7,070 6,891 2.6% Peru 2,383 2,474 -3.7% 9,029 9,941 -9.2% TOTAL 68,467 70,887 -3.4% 281,205 284,266 -1.1% To obtain the full text of this press release, please click on the following link: http://investors.corporacionamericaairports.com About Corporacion America Airports Corporacion America Airports acquires, develops and operates airport concessions. The Company is the largest private airport operator in the world by the number of airports and the tenth largest based on passenger traffic. Currently, the Company operates 52 airports in 7 countries across Latin America and Europe (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Armenia and Italy). In 2018, Corporacion America Airports served 81.3 million passengers. The Company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange where it trades under the ticker "CAAP". For more information, visit http://investors.corporacionamericaairports.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190515006023/en/ Contacts: Investor Relations Contact Gimena Albanesi Email: gimena.albanesi@caairports.com Phone: +5411 4852-6411 Road Town, British Virgin Islands--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - Talon Metals Corp. (TSX: TLO) ("Talon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of a non-brokered private placement of 20,235,000 common shares at a price of $0.0868 per common share for aggregate gross proceeds of $1.75 million. A finder's fee of 6% cash and 6% warrants ("Warrants") are payable in connection with certain orders under the private placement. Each Warrant is exercisable to acquire one common share for a period of 36 months following the closing date at an exercise price of $0.116 per common share. The net proceeds from the private placement will be used by Talon in respect of ongoing test work in advance of an exploration program at the high-grade Tamarack Nickel-Copper-Cobalt Project (the "Tamarack Project"). "Taking steps to progress the Tamarack Project now, will increase the likelihood of Talon being ideally positioned for the predicted unprecedented shortage of Class 1 nickel, and will assist with ongoing discussions with battery and vehicle manufacturers," said Sean Werger, President of Talon. Following recent meetings held in Washington, D.C. between Talon and the U.S. government, electric vehicle battery and automobile manufacturers at the Benchmark Minerals Summit 2019 (as reported in the Company's press release dated May 7, 2019), the Company has continued to progress discussions with battery and vehicle manufacturers. It should further be noted that there is an opportunity to optimize the value chain for nickel, from the mine to the battery. Presently, nickel in nickel sulphates command a premium to the LME nickel price. The securities offered have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to United States persons absent of registration, or the availability of any applicable exemption from the registration requirement, of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. This release shall not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, securities in the United States, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The private placement is subject to the final approval of the TSX. About Talon Talon is a TSX-listed company focused on producing nickel responsibly for the electric vehicle industry. The high-grade Tamarack Ni-Cu-Co Project is located in Minnesota, USA (which comprises the Tamarack North Project and the Tamarack South Project). The Company has a well-qualified exploration and mine management team with extensive experience in project management. For additional information on Talon, please visit the Company's website at www.talonmetals.com or contact: Sean Werger President Talon Metals Corp. Tel: (416) 361-9636 x102 Email: werger@talonmetals.com Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements". All statements, other than statements of historical fact that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. Such forward-looking statements include statements relating to the use of proceeds and final approval of the TSX. Forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/44828 By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week barring U.S. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China's Huawei, three U.S. officials familiar with the plan told Reuters. The order, which will not name specific countries or companies, has been under consideration for more than a year but has repeatedly been delayed, the sources said, asking not to be named because the preparations remain confidential. It could be delayed again, they said. The executive order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The order will direct the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement, the sources said. If signed, the executive order would come at a delicate time in relations between China and the United States as the world's two largest economies ratchet up tariffs in a battle over what U.S. officials call China's unfair trade practices. Washington believes equipment made by Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's third largest smartphone maker, could be used by the Chinese state to spy. Huawei, which has repeatedly denied the allegations, did not immediately comment. The White House and Commerce Department declined to comment. The United States has been actively pushing other countries not to use Huawei's equipment in next-generation 5G networks that it calls "untrustworthy." In August, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government itself from using equipment from Huawei and another Chinese provider, ZTE Corp. In January, U.S. prosecutors charged two Huawei units in Washington state saying they conspired to steal T-Mobile US Inc trade secrets, and also charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with bank and wire fraud on allegations that the company violated sanctions against Iran. The Federal Communications Commission in April 2018 voted to advance a proposal to bar the use of funds from a $9 billion government fund to purchase equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks. Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said last week he is waiting for the Commerce Department to express views on how to "define the list of companies" that would be prohibited under the FCC proposal. The FCC voted unanimously to deny China Mobile Ltds bid to provide U.S. telecommunications services last week and said it was reviewing similar prior approvals held by China Unicom and China Telecom Corp. The issue has taken on new urgency as U.S. wireless carriers look for partners as they rollout 5G networks. While the big wireless companies have already cut ties with Huawei, small rural carriers continue to rely on both Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be cheaper. The Rural Wireless Association, which represents carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers, estimated that 25 percent of its members had Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks, it said in an FCC filing in December. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. senators raised the alarm about allies using Chinese equipment in 5G networks. The Wall Street Journal first reported in May 2018 that the executive order was under review. Reuters reported in December that Trump was still considering issuing the order and other media reported in February that the order was imminent. (Reporting by David Shepardson, additional reporting by Chris Bing and Diane Bartz; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. India's export growth slid to a four-month low of 0.64 percent in April as shipments of engineering goods, gems and jewellery, leather and other products declined, widening the trade deficit to a five-month high, official data released on Wednesday showed New Delhi: India's export growth slid to a four-month low of 0.64 percent in April as shipments of engineering goods, gems and jewellery, leather and other products declined, widening the trade deficit to a five-month high, official data released on Wednesday showed. Imports increased by 4.5 percent, the highest growth in the last six months as crude oil and gold shipments shot up in the month. Merchandise exports stood at $26 billion in April while imports at $41.4 billion, leading to a trade gap of $15.33 billion, the widest deficit since November 2018, the trade data showed. The country's merchandise exports were down because of the negative growth in key sectors such as engineering, gems and jewellery, leather, carpet, plastic, marine products, rice and coffee during the month under review. Previously, exports had recorded a low growth rate of 0.34 percent in December 2018. Oil imports grew by 9.26 percent to $11.38 billion and non-oil imports expanded by 2.78 percent. Gold imports rose by 54 percent to $3.97 billion in April. Certain exports sectors which recorded positive growth include petroleum, handicrafts, ready-made garments, and pharmaceuticals. Commenting on the data, Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) said that the growth figure April is "not very impressive". "However we sustained the positive momentum. Additionally, a pleasant pattern has been observed in tea, spices, fruits and vegetables which a great sign of exports supporting agri- produce," TPCI Chairman Mohit Singla said in a statement. Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said export numbers are not at all encouraging as almost all the labour-intensive sectors are into negative territory. "These sectors are still facing the problem of liquidity besides various other challenges including the global trade war, protectionism, fragile global conditions and constraints on the domestic front," he said. Gupta also expressed concerns on the rising trade deficit primarily on account of swelling crude import bill with the further northward movement of prices and ban on Iranian imports along with rising gold import. He added that with rising trade tensions between the US and China, the global trade scenario may further worsen, putting more pressure on Indian exports in months to come. By Alwyn Scott NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co expects its core power-plant business to lose significant cash this year and does not expect large improvement in that unit's cash flow margins for at least three years, the company's chief financial officer said on Wednesday. By Alwyn Scott NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co expects its core power-plant business to lose significant cash this year and does not expect large improvement in that unit's cash flow margins for at least three years, the company's chief financial officer said on Wednesday. "Power was a very significant negative cash flow generator last year. We expect it to be also significantly negative this year," CFO Jamie Miller said at an investor conference hosted by Goldman Sachs. Miller said GE had expected some power-plant orders that it booked in the first quarter to be spread more throughout the year, suggesting the relatively strong quarter did not signal a turnaround in the ailing unit. GE stock rallied on Tuesday after Reuters reported that the company booked six orders for large "advanced class" turbines in the quarter, putting it ahead of rivals Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems and Siemens AG, according to sources familiar with a closely watched total by McCoy Power Report. Three of the six GE units in McCoy's first-quarter total were from a deal signed last year but only reported this year because customer Tokyo Electric Power Co declined to be named, GE told Reuters. GE shares were flat at $10.32 in midday trading, after falling as low as $10.19 after Miller spoke. Some investors see signs that GE's ailing power business is improving. Others see caveats: A McCoy tally of orders by gigawatts showed erosion in GE's market share, JPMorgan analyst Steve Tusa said in a note on Wednesday. "GE's 4.5 gigawatt order number has generated a buzz across a Street consensus hungry for positive data points," Tusa wrote, noting GE has historically commanded 50% market share. "A closer look shows externally sold utility-grade heavy duty gas turbine orders of about 1 gigawatt, well below both Siemens and Mitsubishi (about 2.5+ gigawatts each) and far from a signal of a change in trend or upside." Miller also tempered expectations. GE's power business will take two to three years to "work through" lingering pension costs, unprofitable contracts and liabilities from its 2015 acquisition of Alstom, she said. GE's forecasts do not include an economic downturn, in part because of long purchase cycles and large order backlogs on GE products, she added. GE is trying to shift the power business from "being really managed on a quarterly basis down into this monthly, weekly, daily management," she added. (Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Phil Berlowitz) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The generic drug makers are named in an anti-trust lawsuit in the US on allegations of engaging in a conspiracy to fix prices New Delhi: Indian pharma majors Dr Reddy's, Wockhardt, Aurobindo, and Glenmark, which are among the generic drug makers named in an anti-trust lawsuit in the US on 14 May denied allegations of engaging in a conspiracy to fix prices. The homegrown drugmakers are among the 21 generic pharmaceutical firms and 15 other individual defendants against whom the Attorneys General of 49 US states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia had filed a complaint with respect to 116 generic drugs in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut. The companies have been accused of violating antitrust laws by fixing prices and allocating customers. In separate clarifications to stock exchanges, the companies denied the accusations and stated they would defend themselves in the matter. Dr Reddy's said, "We intend to vigorously defend against these allegations and are in the process of filing our response with the District Court of Connecticut." The company said its US subsidiary is specifically named as a defendant with respect to five generic drugs (Ciprofloxacin HCL tablets, Glimepiride tablets, Oxaprozin tablets, Paricalcitol and Tizanidine), for an alleged "overarching conspiracy". It further said, "Currently, we do not foresee any material impact to our operations and consolidated results with respect to this matter." Sun Pharma in a regulatory filing said that its subsidiary Taro Pharmaceuticals USA Inc has been named in the second lawsuit filed by the states. "The allegations made in these lawsuits are without merit and our concerned subsidiaries will continue to vigorously defend against them," the company said in its clarification to stock exchanges over a news article. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has not been named in these litigations, the drug major clarified. Wockhardt also said anti-trust action relates to a price hike of various generic drugs. The company has denied such accusation at appropriate Forum and is vigorously defending against the matter. Similarly, Glenmark said in December 2016 a similar lawsuit was filed and the latest one includes some of the parties from the first one as well as additional parties with allegations of fixing prices of additional products which were not referenced in the first lawsuit. "While the company is currently reviewing the second suit, we expect to file papers with the Federal Court in due course denying the accusations. Given the early nature of the matter, the company does not anticipate the material impact of the same," Glenmark added. Aurobindo Pharma also said it is currently reviewing the second anti-trust lawsuit. "We expect that we will be filing papers with the Federal Court in due course denying each of the relevant accusations. Aurobindo does not, at this time, anticipate that these matters will have a material impact on the Company's operations or business results," it added. Japan has dragged India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over the import duties imposed on certain electronic goods, according to the global trade body New Delhi: Japan has dragged India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over the import duties imposed on certain electronic goods, according to the global trade body. Japan has accused India of "continuously and systematically" raise import duties on these goods after the announcement of 'Make in India' campaign in September 2014, according to a communication released by the WTO on Tuesday. It has also alleged that these import duties are in excess of bound rates, which is a ceiling of import duty beyond which a WTO member country cannot go. Japan has sought consultations with India under the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism. In a communication to the WTO, Japan said that has continued to adjust the rates of various indirect taxes, including customs duties, in support of policies seeking to foster domestic production and value addition. Since announcement of 'Make in India' campaign in September 2014, India has "continuously and systematically raised" import duties on a wide range of products in various sectors, such as electronics systems, mining, automobiles, renewable energy, defence manufacturing, food, processing, automobile components, and textiles and garments, it has alleged. These tariff treatments seem to have been implemented by the Government of India under certain policies, aiming at further incentivising domestic value addition, it added. Through those policies, among its wide range of tariff increases, India appears to subject a number of goods to import duties which are "inconsistent" with its concessions and commitments under WTO norms, it said. "This request for consultation addresses some of the tariff treatments which are, simultaneously, clearly in excess of bound rates and of substantial interest to Japan," the country added. Citing examples, it said that India applies 20 percent duty on products like telephones for cellular networks, which clearly "exceeds" the applicable bound rate of zero percent set forth in India's schedule. India also imposes 10 percent or 20 percent duties on products like machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data, "which clearly exceeds" the applicable bound rate of zero percent. The other goods over which Japan has raised duty issues include telephones for cellular networks, base stations, populated, and loaded or stuffed printed circuit boards. Each of these "measures appears to be inconsistent" with India's obligations under a WTO norm, it added. "Japan looks forward to receiving the Government of India's reply to this request for consultation and to agreeing upon a mutually acceptable date for the consultations," it said. As per the WTO's dispute settlement process, the request for consultations is the first step in a dispute. Consultations give the parties an opportunity to discuss the matter and find a satisfactory solution without proceeding further with litigation. After 60 days, if consultations fail to resolve the dispute, the complainant may request adjudication by a panel. The bilateral trade between India and Japan the countries stood at $15.7 billion in 2017-18. Trade is highly in favour of Japan. Leading policy-makers/administrators have let a prized brand like Jet Airways to drift in mid-air to the point of it running out of fuel, and are responsible for a mess in which ideology and bureaucracy have got the better of creative responses. It seems we are running out of aviation metaphors to describe the troubles facing Jet Airways. From trouble in the cockpit when founder-chairman Naresh Goyal could not muster capital to save the bleeding airline to its intended co-pilot Etihad Airways playing hide-and-seek and its air traffic controller a.k.a. leading lender State Bank of India (SBI) placing it in strategic limbo where it could neither land nor stay on course, there is a soup of confusion surrounding the ailing airline. Now, with its CEO and three top-level colleagues quitting this week to parachute their careers out of the airline, what we see ahead is a Bermuda Triangle situation. in which the premier airline that was a cult symbol of economic reform in the 1990s likely disappearing in a tragic trajectory, unless there are white knights waiting in the wings. The redoubtable UK-based Hindujas are now speculated upon as potential suitors to UAE's Etihad Airways that wants to be a significant minority player in the airline, but we will believe things when they happen. In the immediate instant, we can say one thing: Leading policy-makers/administrators have let a prized brand drift in mid-air to the point of it running out of fuel, and are responsible for a mess in which ideology and bureaucracy have got the better of creative responses. The sufferers in this game include employees, partners, bankers, taxpayers and passengers. It can barely get worse from here. The three gentlemen forming a Bermuda Triangle (that strange Caribbean spot where aircraft were known to disappear mysteriously) would include Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian and SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar. The third angle, M S Sahoo, head, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBC) deserves an honourable mention for suggesting that companies are best treated as "going concerns" in the resolution of companies in or around bankruptcy. He said recently that it would be "dangerous" to let viable firms close down. First up, the principle of synergy is defined as one in which the "interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances, or other agents" produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. Applied to Jet Airways this would mean that the talent and work of its crew, the route slots it has, the aircraft it controls and its brand value (among other things) should combine to produce a solid effect to at least minimise the financial damage caused by its inability to service or pay back loans. But what we have witnessed instead is the cannibalisation of the airline in which pilots are fleeing or planning to, CXOs have quit and flying slots are up for basement sales. The brand bleeds like hell and loses further value. This is happening amid a jobs crisis in the country that sends wrong messages to young Indians, and a spurt in holiday season fares as competition ebbs. One would have expected CEA Subramanian, with his professorial background in the Indian School of Business, to bring some MBA love to this mess with a penchant for synergy. But what we saw instead was a clinical let-them-eat-cakes attitude as he wrote in favour of the dubious virtue of letting the market function because "the essence of a market economy is that those that have failed to utilise their assets productively must yield the space to others that utilise their assets well." Right, but why the drift? His superficial justification is that taxpayer money is better off staying away from the Jet Airways mess. I would like to ask: What if Jet Airways was treated as a going concern with the government playing the role of a smart private equity player to avoid loss of synergy? The airline has lost 75 percent of its market value this yearor about Rs 4,200 crore. Could the government have mounted an inspired Satyam-style rescue of the kind I had suggested to save itself a few thousand crore rupees? Or, better still, if SBI did take the haircut it has to, could it or any other taxpayer-funded agency have held on to a share stake and made significant capital gains in the future as India is a solid aviation market? True, all that would certainly require a way to handle Jet Airways' current liabilities, but a structured write-off with state backing may work better in the long run. No one seems to have thought on those lines. Entrepreneurial playbooks may work far better than textbook capitalism in a service industry company where people matter so much. SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar has said his bank has taken steps disproportionate to its own loan book to keep Jet Airways flying. Extending the same logic we could have asked: Why not throw some smart money and advice in an entrepreneurial manner in concert with the government (SBI's chief owner) to get some extra long-term gain? Here is some basic arithmetic: SBI's exposure to Jet Airways is Rs 1,600 crore, while its market cap loss this year is Rs 4,200 crore. Get the picture? IBBI's Sahoo has said time and again that the focus should be on resolution and not liquidation. The cannibalisation of Jet Airways suggests the opposite. Lenders are finally moving towards finding a way out of the mess by looking at approaching unsolicited bidders. But why so little and so late? The attempt by a consortium of Jet Airways employees' to take over the airline could have been pro-actively encouraged. Most large companies in India are run by professional managersnot ownersanyway. There is no mathematical formula to say that a company is unviable and another is viable. It depends on so many considerations and who is looking at it," IBBI's Sahoo said recently. Those words should have come from someone in the finance ministry or the SBI. Hopefully, the new government taking charge after the current round of elections would have people who think less like bureaucrats and more like entrepreneurs. (The writer is a senior journalist and commentator. He tweets as @madversity) This move is a major step towards reviving Jet Airways, which suspended its entire operations on 17 April due to acute liquidity crunch, the report said. The lenders of Jet Airways are yet to give up hopes of reviving the temporarily grounded airline. In the latest development, the SBI-led consortium of lenders is looking at a slew of options to revive the cash-strapped airline--from engaging with National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), launching a fresh search for a majority investor in Jet Airways and, along with Etihad Airways approach Hinduja Group to come on board as an investor. The lenders' consortium led by State Bank of India (SBI) and government-backed wealth fund NIIF are expected to meet this week to initiate fresh talks in a bid to strike a deal, said a report in Business Standard citing people who are aware of the development. The move is seen as a major step towards reviving the embattled airline, which suspended its entire operations on 17 April due to acute liquidity crunch, the report said. In another development, lenders to Jet Airways and its previous strategic partner Etihad Airways reportedly reached out to Hinduja Group offering a stake in the grounded airline, according to The Economic Times quoting people in the know of the matter. Though the Hinduja Group is yet to give a clear commitment about investing in Jet Airways, it reportedly showed interest after Etihad Airways representatives approached GP Hinduja, the elder brother, who heads the group, the report said. The senior Hinduja, in turn, put Etihad Airways in touch with his younger brother, Ashok Hinduja, who leads the India business. Meanwhile, the consortium of lenders are reportedly planning to launch a fresh search for a majority investor in Jet Airways, according to BloombergQuint. In the absence of any major bidders coming up for the stake in Jet Airways, the lenders at a meeting on Monday decided to start another round of search for investors, the report said quoting people aware of the development. This development comes after a non-binding offer was made by the Etihad Airways which might not guarantee a deal for the struggling Jet Airways. Etihad Airways, which owns an about 24 percent stake in Jet Airways, submitted a bid for the airline, the unit of SBI overseeing the sale of the stricken carrier said on Friday. Earlier, two unsolicited bidders of Jet Airways approached Etihad Airways apparently showing interest to partner with the UAE-based airline. Lakshay Uttam, which is part of the consortium that also includes British entrepreneur Jason Unsworth, and AdiGro Aviation, part of the AdiGroup, had approached Etihad Airways to join in the revival bid of Jet Airways. The efforts to revive Jet Airways suffered a major setback after four senior executives, including Chief Executive Vinay Dube and his deputy Amit Agarwal, quit the ailing airline in a span of 24 hours. Amid lenders scrambling to find a suitor, the cash-starved carrier on Tuesday announced the exit of three executives Dube, Agarwal and Company Secretary Kuldeep Sharma while a source said the carrier's Chief People Officer Rahul Taneja also put in his papers. Except for Agarwal, who quit on Monday, Dube, Agarwal and Sharma resigned on Tuesday. Shares of Jet Airways plunged over 7 percent on the bourses on Tuesday following the exit of Agarwal. On Wednesday, shares were down 5 percent in afternoon trade. On 10 May, SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar said the lenders have received two "unsolicited" bids for the company and "one" more is expected by the end of the day, keeping hopes alive for the revival of the grounded carrier. Early this month, two senior finance ministry officials said that the government saw little hope of a bidder emerging for debt-laden Jet Airways. as parties that had initially expressed interest in Jet, had not made firm bids to bail it out, increasing the odds that it could soon face bankruptcy proceedings. There is little scope in the revival of Jet, said one official, adding that if a bidder emerged, the government was still willing to return slots to the private airline which have temporarily been given to rivals. A second senior finance ministry official said it was only a matter of time before someone dragged Jet Airways to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) the country's bankruptcy court for recovery of dues from Jet Airways. Last month, Jet Airways employees' consortium proposed to take over the airline with at least Rs 3,000 crore expected from outside investors for the bid, according to two staff unions. This is the first time that employees came together with a proposal to run the more than 25-year-old Jet Airways. Two associations representing pilots and engineersSWIP and JAMEVAhave written to the SBI chairman proposing that they would take over the airline and bring in funds to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore. The Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP) and the Jet Aircraft Maintenance Engineers Welfare Association (JAMEVA) have written a letter to the SBI chief asking the lead lender to consider "employee consortium" as an intending bidder for the carrier. With PTI inputs Online grocery retailer Grofers on Wednesday said it has raised over $200 million (over Rs 1,400 crore) in funding, led by SoftBank Vision Fund New Delhi: Online grocery retailer Grofers on Wednesday said it has raised over $200 million (over Rs 1,400 crore) in funding, led by SoftBank Vision Fund. The series F funding saw participation from a new investor, KTB, and existing investors, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital. This represents the largest primary financing round in the online grocery sector in India, Grofers said in a statement. "With the additional funding, Grofers will seek to expand into new markets, bringing its services closer to hundreds of millions of Indian consumers," it added. The company did not give details about its valuation post this fundraising. However, it has been previously reported that Grofers valuation stood at $600 million. Grofers - which competes with the likes of BigBasket as well as grocery verticals of e-commerce majors such as Flipkart and Amazon.in - will also continue to build out its supply chain, warehousing infrastructure and private label product offerings. "We are building Grofers for the millions of Indians who cannot buy groceries at low prices due to multiple middlemen and the absence of large aggregators. This latest investment will help scale the company to ensure many more customers can access the best quality products at the best prices," Grofers co-founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa said. Grofers is pursuing profitability by consolidating its presence in the cities of operations and is focusing on doubling its sales to Rs 5,000 crore by FY20. It is also gearing up to hit the capital market with an initial public offer (IPO) within the next three years. The company narrowed its standalone losses to Rs 258.3 crore in the financial year 2017-18, while its income grew by over 57 percent from the previous fiscal, according to regulatory documents filed by the company. The private lender said its board 'heartily' welcome the appointment of Gandhi given his impeccable background and track record as a highly respected Regulator in India. New Delhi: Yes Bank said on Wednesday the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has appointed former central bank's deputy governor R Gandhi as additional director on its board for two years. "The Reserve Bank of India vide its letter dated 14 May, 2019, informed that in exercise of powers conferred under ... the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, appointed R Gandhi, ex-deputy governor, Reserve Bank of India as additional director on the board of the bank for a period of two years with effect from 14 May, 2019 to 13 May, 2021 or till further orders, whichever is earlier," Yes Bank said in a regulatory filing. The private lender said its board "heartily" welcome the appointment of Gandhi given his impeccable background and track record as a highly respected regulator in India. "This appointment will significantly strengthen Yes Bank's board composition and the bank will immensely benefit from R Gandhi's experience and wisdom at the Yes Bank," the filing said. Shares of Yes Bank tanked 8.01 percent to close at Rs 143.65 on BSE. India's sugar production is likely to decline 8.4 percent to 30.3 million tonnes for the second straight year in the 2019-20 marketing year that would begin from October because of likely fall in sugarcane output, a latest USDA report said New Delhi: India's sugar production is likely to decline 8.4 percent to 30.3 million tonnes for the second straight year in the 2019-20 marketing year that would begin from October because of likely fall in sugarcane output, a latest USDA report said. The sugar output in the ongoing 2018-19 marketing year (October-September) is pegged at 33 million tonnes, lower than 34.3 million tonnes achieved in the previous year. "The 2019-20 sugar production is forecast to decline 8.4 percent to 30.3 million tonnes, its second consecutive year of decline," the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in its latest report. This includes 6,00,000 tonnes of khandsari and 29.7 of mill sugar, it said. According to the USDA, "lower than expected cane production in the out-year coupled with a net reduction in the national-average sugar recovery rate will reduce cane availability for direct crush-to-sugar and proportionately moderate sugar output as well." In addition, successive benefits from the dedicated supply of cane juice/B-heavy molasses for fuel ethanol production will further incentivise mills to divert excess sugar to produce fuel ethanol and thus improve cash flows, it said. Despite the trend, for the third time in the last four years, Uttar Pradesh will be the largest producer of sugar in India. This will partially compensate for lower output from Maharashtra and Karnataka. Overall, sugarcane output will be down 8 percent to 355 million tonnes from 4.7 million hectares, the report said. Assuming normal market conditions, the USDA report said that India should be able to export upwards of 3.5 million tonnes of sugar but with some incentives after adjusting for a modest rise in sugar consumption to 28.5 million tonnes. That will still leave stocks of a record 17 million tonnes, which is roughly seven months of consumption, it said. Total exports will include one million tonnes of sugar re-exported under the Advance Authorization scheme (AAS) and the remaining 2.5 million tonnes will be commercial sales, it added. Tata Steel has not given up on its plans of merging its business in Europe, a top company official said while terming the European Commission's feedback on the proposed joint venture with Thyssenkrupp as a 'speed breaker' New Delhi: Tata Steel has not given up on its plans of merging its business in Europe, a top company official said while terming the European Commission's feedback on the proposed joint venture with Thyssenkrupp as a "speed breaker". The company's aim is to make European business stronger for which it will continue to explore various business options including merger, Tata Steel Managing Director T V Narendran told PTI over the phone. "This was something we were working on for last few years but European Commission based on the market feedback decided that it can not recommend JV...So (its) fine. I look (at) it like a speed breaker. These things happen," Narendran said on the collapse of Tata Steel's proposed joint venture (JV) with German conglomerate Thyssenkrupp. On 10 May, Tata Steel and the German conglomerate decided to call off their proposed steel JV, expecting the deal to be rejected by the European Commission (EC) over "continuing concerns". Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp had signed definitive agreements in June 2018 to combine their steel businesses in Europe to create a 50-50 pan European joint venture company which could have formed the continent's second-largest steel company after Lakshmi Mittal's ArcelorMittal. Narendran said that Tata Steel Group has been performing well despite challenges in Europe. Tata Steel termed the proposed JV as an important strategic initiative for the company to create a sustainable portfolio in Europe, and now it being thrown off-track, it said, it would explore all options to achieve similar outcomes in the future. "The journey of de-leveraging continues and creating structurally strong enterprise continues, (however) the JV could have made it a bit faster in terms of reducing our debt," he said. He further noted that in Europe, the main players for the auto industry are ArcelorMittal and Thyssenkrupp and because of this the EC got adverse feedback from the automobile majors about the merger, as instead of three strong suppliers the automobile majors would have had two strong suppliers. "We have already made significant investments in the Netherlands to supply to the auto industry. So we continue to be a strong player in the auto industry," he noted. While answering to a question on whether Tata Steel's options also include any acquisition plan like JSW Steel, which had acquired a plant in Italy, Narendran said, when the company looks at options, it will not be to grow its footprint in Europe, it would be to find a partner like Thyssenkrupp because Europe is not about growth, it is about making the business stronger. Currently, around two-thirds of Tata Steel's business is in India. With the commissioning of the 5 million tone phase 2 of the Kalinganagar plant in the next 30 months with value-added product mix, its share of business along with its profitability is expected to increase further. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will plan for another trade meeting in China at some point soon, a Treasury spokesman said on Tuesday, adding to President Donald Trump's earlier statements that U.S. dialogue with Beijing was continuing. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will plan for another trade meeting in China at some point soon, a Treasury spokesman said on Tuesday, adding to President Donald Trump's earlier statements that U.S. dialogue with Beijing was continuing. Asked at a briefing whether Mnuchin was headed back to Beijing for more talks, the spokesman said: "As the secretary has indicated, the negotiations will continue. We do anticipate, as the secretary indicated yesterday, that we will plan for a meeting in China at some point soon." The spokesman provided no further details on the timing of a potential visit, but said that Trump was planning to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in late June at a Group of 20 leaders summit in Japan. (Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) - A U.S. labor agency has concluded that ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc's drivers are independent contractors and not its employees, which could prevent them from joining unions By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) - A U.S. labor agency has concluded that ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc's drivers are independent contractors and not its employees, which could prevent them from joining unions. The National Labor Relations Board's general counsel, in a memo released on Tuesday, said Uber drivers set their hours, own their cars and are free to work for the company's competitors, so they cannot be considered employees under federal labor law. San Francisco-based Uber in a statement said it is "focused on improving the quality and security of independent work, while preserving the flexibility drivers and couriers tell us they value." Uber shares were up 6.4 percent at $39.46 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The memo dated April 16 came in an NLRB case against Uber that has yet to reach the five-member board, which is independent of the general counsel. Under the National Labor Relations Act, independent contractors cannot join unions and do not have legal protection when they complain about working conditions. In January, President Donald Trump's appointees to the NLRB adopted a new test making it more difficult for workers to prove they are a company's employees. Uber, its top rival Lyft Inc, and many other "gig economy" companies have faced scores of lawsuits accusing them of misclassifying workers as independent contractors under federal and state wage laws. Employees are significantly more costly because they are entitled to the minimum wage, overtime pay and reimbursements for work-related expenses under those laws. Uber, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week, said it would pay up to $170 million to settle tens of thousands of arbitration cases with drivers who claim they were misclassified. Uber denied any wrongdoing, but said settling the cases was preferable to drawn-out litigation. The company has agreed to pay an additional $20 million to end long-running lawsuits by thousands of drivers in California and Massachusetts. The U.S. Department of Labor in a memo released last month said an unidentified "gig economy" company's workers were not its employees under federal wage law because it did not control their work. The company, which appeared from the memo to provide house-cleaning services, had a similar relationship with its workers as Uber does with drivers. The memo signalled a shift from the Obama administration, which maintained that most workers should be considered companies' employees. (Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in New York and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Dan Grebler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The house where the girl's parents lived lied only a few metres away from that of the accused. Sumbal, Bandipora: The single-storey brick and mud house was watched by a posse of security personnel wielding batons and guns. The house has been abandoned by the Sunni family of Tahir Ahmad Mir, who has been arrested for the rape of a toddler from minority Shia community in the sleepy town of Mallikpora in the north Kashmir district of Bandipora. Desolate women were sitting on the veranda of a concrete white-washed house of the victim that lied adjacent to that of the accused as the shops outside were shuttered. Last Wednesday as the local people had broken the Ramadhan fast, Tahir allegedly lured the girl to the compound of a school promising to give her candies and later raped her in the bathroom. After the girl had not returned home towards the evening her mother later found her crying in the school bathroom. When she narrated the incident, the local residents caught hold of the boy and led him to the police station. Now six days later the Shia-Sunni divisions have never been so apparent in many areas of Sumbal as they became after the incident of rape. While most of the parts of Kashmir observed shutdown on Monday on the call of Ittehadul Muslimeen, a constituent of the Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, in the outlying areas of Mallikpora the Shia-Sunni divisions have deepened after the incident. The incident drew condemnation from across the political spectrum with both former chief ministers, Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti, condemning the incident. "The rape of a child in Tirgaam is a travesty. Police must ensure a speedy investigation with only one consideration and that is to identify the guilty, prepare a watertight case and ensure exemplary punishment to those responsible," tweeted Omar. On Tuesday, Shia areas remained shut in Bandipora while the Sunni areas of Parrayporra and Zainpoora were open. Along the metalled road that connected Mallikpora with the main highway of Srinagar-Bandipora, the security personnel were deployed at many stretches while the police vehicles travelled frequently on it. Combing her hair, the victim giggled while playing in the courtyard of her grandfather's house. She had been "frightened" by the steady stream of visitors coming to the house and prefers to stay with her mother only, said her uncle. He said that her blood-stained clothes were taken away by the police and "the girl" has become "quieter" after the incident. "There is a lot of stress that she has experienced," he said. "On the day she was raped, she had not returned home for a while in the evening and as her mother became anxious she later found her at the bathroom," he said. The house where the girl's parents lived lied only a few metres away from that of the accused. After the protests by Shias, Tahir's family abandoned the house alleging that they did so in the wake of the demonstrations. His family now lives with one of their brothers in a Sunni dominated area of Zaripora, where the local residents said that "the charges against Tahir may have been cooked up". Tahir's brother, Rameez Ahmad Mir, said that the rape charges were false and the girl's family had "annexed their house" which they had agreed to sell to them. "We have taken Rs 3 lakh from the girl's grandfather for the house which we agreed to sell to them. They had promised to provide us with an alternate land in a nearby neighbourhood, but a local Shia resident objected to the sale and said that it belonged to him. As soon as we started telling them that we won't sell the house, they levelled charges of rape on my brother," said Rameez, who works as a mechanic. He said that after the protests they abandoned the house. Rameez said that his brother was a minor and the "political" pressure was exerted on the police to scuttle the probe. As per the date of birth (DOB) certificate issued by the Islamic Education Trust, a local school in Mallikpora, the principal noted that Tahir was studying in Class 4 in the year 2016-17 and his DOB as per the school records was 23 July 2009. Deputy Inspector General of Police, North Kashmir, Mohammad Suleman Chaudhary, said that the case was being probed. "We are awaiting the medical report of the girl and have arrested the boy, while we have also detained the principal of the educational institution which issued the DOB certificate," he said. On the second day, today protests were witnessed in many parts of Kashmir. A youth was critically injured on Monday while scores of others were wounded in the clashes with the government forces. The mobile internet services remained snapped in parts of Kashmir including in Central Kashmir district of Budgam, where Shias live in sizeable numbers. Angry youth took to streets in many Shia areas of Bandipora as the vehicles pasted with leaflets seeking justice for the girl were seen travelling across Kashmir. "We would continue with the protests until the girl gets justice. The boy should be hanged to set an example that such a beastly acted was not repeated with anyone else," said Rouheela Hassan, 22, a resident of Kawpoora area of Bandipora, where the shops remained shut against the rape. At many places, the youth forced the people to close down shops. "The issue shouldn't be politicised and stringent punishment should be given to the culprit. In this case, the issue is being politicised as the victim is a Shia and the culprit is a Sunni," said Arif Hussain Rather, a youth, of Mallikpora, who said that there were no previous incidents of any Shia-Sunni clashes in the area. "We didn't take out the protest rally as there are some doubts being raised over the authenticity of the rape allegations. The probe in the case should be swift and if the boy has committed the crime he should be given a stringent punishment," said Imtiyaz Ahmad Parray, of Sunni area of Parraypora. "The issue shouldn't be seen as a Shia-Sunni conflict, but Tahir's family was forced to abandon the house. They felt threatened, "said Abdul Ahad Khanday, 50, of Zaripora, Sumbal. Police in southern Bangladesh arrested a prominent poet Tuesday after he was accused of hurting the religious feelings of the country's minority Christian community, police said. Dhaka: Police in southern Bangladesh arrested a prominent poet Tuesday after he was accused of hurting the religious feelings of the country's minority Christian community, police said. Henry Sawpon, a Christian himself, was detained in Barisal, south of the capital Dhaka, after a priest filed a case against him for a series of defamatory writings about the clergy. "He was arrested under the country's digital security law for hurting religious sentiments of the Christian community," Barisal Metropolitan Police commissioner Shahabuddin Khan told AFP. Sawpon, whose poems and rhymes are regularly published in leading Bangladesh newspapers and magazines, was sent to jail after a court rejected his bail application. Police said Sawpon had posted slanderous remarks against Barisal's Catholic fathers on his Facebook profile since 2016. He also accused the city's Bishop of embezzling funds. Days before his arrest, Sawpon told local media that two unidentified men entered his home after midnight and threatened to kill him if he did not stop writing against his community. The poet faces a maximum 14 years in jail if found guilty under the controversial digital security law which was passed last year and has been slammed as "draconian" by media rights groups in Bangladesh and abroad. Rights groups expressed concern that the law would be used to curb freedom of expression and a crackdown on dissent. Last August top journalist and activist Shahidul Alam was arrested during massive student protests in the capital Dhaka for making "false" and "provocative" statements on Al Jazeera and Facebook Live. He is being investigated for allegedly violating Bangladesh's already stringent internet laws enacted in 2006. Christians make up less than one percent of Bangladesh's 165 million people, but have lived for centuries mostly in harmony with the local Muslim majority. They have played a prominent role in the country's history and even today, schools and hospitals run by Catholic missionaries provide a lifeline for poor communities. Barisal's Christian community is one of the oldest in the Muslim majority nation. The overall pass percentage for the Class 12 exam this year is 74.4 percent. Girls outscored boys with an overall pass percentage of 82.5 percent against 68 percent. HBSE Class 12 Result 2019 Declared | The Board of School Education Haryana declared the Class 12 board 2019 results today (Wednesday, 15 May). Students registered a pass percentage of 74.4 percent, with girls outscoring boys with with 82.5 percent against 68 percent. Candidates can can check their Class 12 scores on the official website of the board, bseh.org.in. Around 2 lakh students appeared for the exam this year from 7 March to 3 April. Follow LIVE updates here Shiv Kumar from Palwal and Shivani from Faridabad both topped the Haryana board Class 12 exams this year with 494 marks. Mansi from Palwal bagged the second position. In 2018, 222,388 students had appeared for the HBSE Class 12 exams and 141,973 cleared it. Naveen and Heena were the toppers of the Haryana Class 12 exams 2018 with 98.2 percent (491/500). The pass percentage recorded by girls was 72.38 percent and by boys was 57.10 percent. In 2018, the results were declared on 18 May. Here is how to check HBSE Class 12 Exam Result 2019 result: Step 1: Go to the official website of the board bseh.org Step 2: Select the link on the homepage that says Class 12 Result 2019 Step 3: Enter your roll number and other required details Step 4: Click on 'submit' button to proceed Step 5: The result will be displayed on the screen Step 6: Download the results for future reference Nearly 4, 442 cases of malpractices were reported during the Haryana board exams, because of which HBSE had to re-conduct some exams for both Class 10 and Class 12. These exams were held on 4 April and 5 April. The worst-hit districts are Golaghat, Sivasagar, Dhubri, Sontipur, and Cachar, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority said. Guwahati: At least 23 people have died in storms and lightning strikes in the past few weeks in Assam, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) has said. The two natural disasters have also affected around 22,801 families in 18 districts of the state in the current year, the ASDMA said in a statement on Tuesday. The worst-hit districts are Golaghat, Sivasagar, Dhubri, Sontipur, and Cachar. While ten persons died in the storms, 13 persons have died after being struck by lightning, the ASDMA said. The state government has directed all the deputy commissioners (DCs) to release ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh to the next of kin of each of the deceased persons within 48 hours. The DCs of the storm-affected districts have also been directed to take immediate steps for assessing the loss of property. This has to be done for the expeditious release of the rehabilitation grant for the fully or severely damaged houses as per the Government of India norms. The norms stipulate that rehabilitation grant should be released for pucca or kutcha houses at the rate of Rs 95,100 in the plains and Rs 1,01,900 in the hilly areas. For each of the partially damaged pucca houses, the rehabilitation grant should be released at the rate of Rs 5,200, while for each of the partially damaged kutcha houses it should be at the rate of Rs 3,200. The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) declared the Class 12 results today on official websites mpbse.nic.in and mpresults.nic.in. MP Board 12th result 2019 Declared | The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) announced the results of the Class 12 examinations on the official websites mpbse.nic.in and mpresults.nic.in. Candidates who appeared for the Class 12 MP Board exam 2019 can check their scores on the official websites once the result is declared. It is always a good idea to keep your roll number, registration number and other details handy in the days leading up to the declaration of the results. Students can also check their scores right here on Firstpost by entering their details below: If you were a candidate in the exams, here is the simplest way you can check the MP Board Result 2019 on the official website of the MPBSE: Step 1: Visit the official sites of MPBSE, which are mpbse.nic.in and mpresults.nic.in. Step 2: There is going to be an announcement link on the homepage which says "MP Board Result 2019." Step 3: Enter your roll number and other details which you will easily find on your admit card to log in. Step 4: Your score will be displayed on the screen. Step 5: Save it in a PDF file for further reference and print it out when possible. Students will be able to collect their marksheets from their schools a few days after the results are announced online. The MP High Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) Examination or the MP 12th examination 2019 was conducted between 2 March, 2019 and 2 April, 2019. As many as 7.5 lakh students appeared for the Class 12 exam this time. MP Board 12th result 2019 Declared: The Madhya Pradesh board MPBSE) announced the Class 12 results today on official websites mpbse.nic.in and mpresults.nic.in. MP Board 12th result 2019 Declared | The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) announced the results of the Class 12 examinations today (Wednesday, 15 May) at 11 am. Candidates who have appeared for the Class 12 MP Board exam 2019 can check their scores on the official websites of the MPBSE, mpbse.nic.in and mpresults.nic.in. The MP High Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) Examination or the MP Class 12 examination 2019 was conducted between 2 March and 2 April. Students can also check their scores right here on Firstpost by entering their details below: As many as 7.5 lakh students appeared for the Class 12 exam this time. It is always a good idea to keep your roll number, registration number and other details handy in the days leading up to the declaration of the results. If you were a candidate in the exams, here is the simplest way you can check the MP Board Result 2019: Step 1: Visit the official sites of MPBSE, which are mpbse.nic.in and mpresults.nic.in. Step 2: There is going to be an announcement link on the homepage which says "MP Board Result 2019." Step 3: Enter your roll number and other details which you will easily find on your admit card to log in. Step 4: Your score will be displayed on the screen. Step 5: Save it in a PDF file for further reference and print it out when possible. Students will be able to collect their marksheets from their schools a few days after the results are announced online. 'We have submitted a tentative loss figure of Cyclone Fani to the central team. This amount may increase as the officials will undertake a door-to-door survey to access the actual loss,' Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) BP Sethi said Bhubaneswar: Seeking relaxation in disaster assistance norms, the Odisha government on Wednesday estimated a tentative loss of Rs 12,000 crore due to cyclone Fani that killed at least 64 people and damaged more than 5 lakh dwelling units in the state's coastal districts. The state government, which has launched a massive restoration work in the cyclone-ravaged areas, in a preliminary report to a visiting inter-ministerial team, said an initial assessment has put the overall loss at approximately Rs 12,000 crore. While the loss to public properties was to the tune of Rs 5,175 crore, expenditure towards relief and response stands at Rs 6,767.56 crore, the report said. "We have submitted a tentative loss figure to the central team. This amount may increase as the officials will undertake a door-to-door survey to access the actual loss caused by the cyclone. The government will prepare a full report on the loss after the completion of the detailed survey," Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) BP Sethi said. In its preliminary report, the state government has estimated the highest loss in the power sector at Rs 1,160 crore, while the loss in the Panchayati Raj and the drinking water department stands at Rs 587 crore. "The loss shown in the preliminary report is purely tentative. It will go up as we get a detailed report," Chief Secretary AP Padhi said after a meeting with the central team, which wrapped up its three-day visit to the cyclone-hit areas. Stating that there have been huge losses to public and private infrastructure in the calamity, Padhi said, "We have urged the central team to consider revising the norms of the Natural Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) so that the loss in the power sector can be covered." Padhi said while the NDRF and SDRF norms include assistance for loss due to the damage of 220 KV, 132 KV, 33 KV, 11 KV, and low tension power supply, there was no provision for losses in the high tension (HT) power supply. As many as 75 towers have been uprooted by the high-velocity winds in Puri district alone and a huge investment is required to make them operational. Vivek Bharadwaj, additional secretary in the home ministry, who is heading the team, said, "There has been massive destruction to houses, hotels and livelihood means of the affected people. Puri has been severely hit in the cyclone." Noting that the central government has been assisting the cyclone-ravaged state and will continue to do so in restoration and rehabilitation works, Bharadwaj said there is a need to further strengthen the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) scheme in order to provide livelihood means to the affected people. He said there has been a substantial loss to betel vines and coconut plantations. "Keeping in view the gravity of the devastation, the Odisha government's action in providing relief and other assistance to the affected people is praiseworthy," Bharadwaj said, adding that people have been provided with relief immediately after the cyclone. "The people have been given rice, cash and tarpaulin sheets," he said. The 11-member central team visited some of the worst-affected areas in Puri, Khurda, and Cuttack districts, besides the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) region, during its visit. RTHK: Iran 'will want to talk soon': Trump President Donald Trump on Wednesday predicted that Iran will "soon" want to negotiate and denied any discord in the White House over moves that critics say could lead to war in the Middle East. "Different opinions are expressed and I make a decisive and final decision - it is a very simple process," Trump tweeted. "I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon." Trump blasted media reports about turmoil in the White House over a series of steps taken by the administration to up the pressure on Iran, saying "there is no infighting whatsoever." The United States on Wednesday ordered non-essential staff to leave its embassy in neighbouring Iraq, claiming there is an "imminent" threat from Iranian-linked Iraqi militias. Ten days ago, Trump also ordered an aircraft carrier and nuclear-capable bomber planes to deploy to the Gulf. Democrats in Congress demanded that the Trump administration brief them on what it considers to be the Iran threat, warning that the US legislature has not approved military action against Tehran. Opponents of Trump say that hardliners led by national security adviser John Bolton, who has long advocated toppling the Iranian government, are pushing the country into war. The White House says that Iran, a longtime enemy and rival of US allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, is sowing instability across the region. Washington also says that Tehran is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, despite having agreed to strict controls under an international accord that Trump abandoned after winning the election in 2016. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. - Adobe Stock @ Luis Louro Editors note (6/11/19): The National Network of State Teachers of the Year, the organization whose members write for the Teacher-Leader Voices blog, has a financial relationship with Empatico that was not disclosed prior to this posts publishing. For more information, see this note to readers . But theres just no time in the schedule! Sigh. Testing season is ramping up, and time is increasingly precious as state exams draw closerespecially in the charter school world. Frantic, overworked teachers trying to squeeze as many instructional hours into a school day as possible. Were tired, the kids are exhausted, and the daylight is sparse, but on this particular Monday morning, my 5th graders are buzzing with excitement. Are we seeing our Quebec buddies today? I reassure them we are. I also remind them that they need to make sure they complete all of their work in their classes today so we can use the precious 40 minutes at the end of the dayusually reserved for small-group pull-outs and remediationto video chat with our Empatico buddies. My students assure me they will be extra focused and well behaved for their classes today, and I can tell theyre motivated. The week is off to a solid start. Making time in our busy schedule to use Empatico was the best teaching decision I made this year. The website is incredibly user/teacher-friendly and stocked full of free resources and activities. The activities are grounded in academics and can easily be intertwined into an English, social studies, or writing class. As a math teacher, I use it with my homeroom classat the end of the day every couple of weeks or soto practice empathy in action. The students love to connect with our buddy class in Quebec, Canada, and ask to connect way more often that we are able. Its easy to connect your students with Empaticoeven when time is short. Here are a few simple steps to get you started: Step 1: Log-In to Empatico and Create a Profile Shortly after creating a profile, youll be matched and can begin chatting with your buddy teacher to plan your first session all on the Empatico platform. Step 2: Prepare Your Kids and Your Classroom The big reveal was the best! We did a mini-lesson on where in the world was Quebec, looked at pictures, predicted similarities and differences, and talked openly and respectfully about our assumptions. From this brainstorm session, my students prepared a few questions they wanted to ask. I picked some of the better ones, wrote them on notecards, and we were ready! Empatico has great tips for different ways to organize your students and the furniture in a classroom to be able to video chat effectively. Empatico understands that the technology struggle is real, so they provide a tech test you can (and should) run before connecting to flush out any video or audio bugs prior to your first live connection. Step 3: Connect and Debrief The Empatico website has all the tools you could need, including lessons on teaching respectful communication and other empathy-building skills. Some of my favorite activities are Ways We Play , Community Cartographers , and Helping Hands "though you will most likely find, after connecting with your buddy class, that the students take over and decide the content on their own. Take some time to connect today. Youll be glad you did! Then come back and share your experiences. Danielle Roa teaches fifth grade math at Brooklyn Ascend Middle School in New York. She has been teaching for six years and has a passion for not only helping students become better mathematicians, but also helping them to love math as a subject. The National Network of State Teachers of the Year believes expert teachers will lead the way to a more equitable and exceptional future for all kids. Do you agree? Then help ensure that great teacher voices keep coming your way by donating to NNSTOY now. Donate Now The Supreme Court has warned the West Bengal government of contempt charges unless it orders the release of BJP worker Priyanka Sharma, arrested for sharing a meme of Mamata Banerjee. The Supreme Court on Wednesday warned the West Bengal government that it will face contempt charges unless it releases BJP worker Priyanka Sharma from jail immediately. Sharma was arrested last week for sharing a morphed image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media. At the hearing on Wednesday, the court pulled up the state government, observing that Sharma's arrest, prima facie, was arbitrary to begin with. It made the observation after the BJP Youth Wing worker's counsel, senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, mentioned before court that Sharma had not been released yet. #JustIn - Supreme Court pulls up West Bengal Govt for delay in release of #PriyankaSharma. If she wasn't immediately released, we will issue a notice of contempt: SC. | @utkarsh_aanand with more details#MemeKiAzaadi Join @shreyadhoundial on #SettingTheAgenda pic.twitter.com/Bunuw7zI8b News18 (@CNNnews18) May 15, 2019 This comes a day after the Supreme Court granted bail to the BJP functionary for sharing a meme of the West Bengal chief minister on Facebook. The court granted Sharma bail after waiving its earlier condition that she tender a written apology first. The bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Sanjiv Khanna waived the caveat for bail after Sharma's advocate argued that an apology would amount to infringement of the Right to Freedom of Speech. On Wednesday, Kaul brought to the court's notice that the police had already filed a closure report in the case, which had negated the need for an apology from the BJP worker. He added that the jail superintendent had not been intimated about the Supreme Court's order on Tuesday but was informed at 9.40 am on Wednesday, despite which his client had not been released. After hearing the advocate's arguments, Justice Banerjee warned the West Bengal government that the Supreme Court would issue a contempt of court notice unless it released Sharma from jail immediately. Sharma's lawyer has also moved an application seeking action against the West Bengal Police. The Supreme Court will hear this case in the first week of July. Sharma was charged with defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 66A (offensive messages) and the non-bailable Section 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc, in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act. She was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days after being produced at a court in Howrah on Friday, 10 May. 'Did anyone stop Mamata from campaigning in Gujarat?' Raut asked, in reference to the attack on BJP president Amit Shah during the Lok Sabha elections Mumbai: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut Wednesday slammed the West Bengal government over the attack on BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, describing the incident as "unfortunate" for the country's democracy. Talking to reporters in Mumbai, Raut, who is the Rajya Sabha MP, said there can be no restrictions on anyone to campaign anywhere the country. "West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not want Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in Bengal. Did anyone stop Mamata from campaigning in Gujarat?" Raut asked. It is unfortunate that the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was desecrated, he said. BJP and TMC supporters Tuesday fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during Shah's roadshow. The BJP chief escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. Reacting to NCP chief Sharad Pawar's remarks that a Modi-led minority government would not last long, like the Vajpayee government in 1996, Raut said there will be a lot of speculations till 23 May (when the Lok Sabha results will be declared). "I think the NDA will retain power. In the past, several minority coalition governments had completed their terms. This time, too, it would sail through," the Sena leader said. Over the drought in the state, Raut said Shiv Sena has started the relief work across 18 districts. "We are helping in fodder camps, providing water tankers to the needy people. Even though Uddhav Thackeray is out of the country, he is taking daily briefings about the drought condition," he said. The people of Saradah are unaware of Congress' Nyuntam Aay Yojana, or NYAY and don't blame Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the lack of development Editor's note: This is part of a multi-article series on the jobs crisis in the three states crucial to Lok Sabha election 2019: Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. *** Shashikala Maurya, 35, has to walk about an hour and a half before she can hope to land a days job. Residing in the hilly village of Saradah in Uttar Pradeshs Mirzapur district, her options are limited to chopping wood and cutting stone. The nearest junction where I can find work is 15 kilometers from here, she said, draped in green sari. There is no guarantee I will get work either. In a month, I hardly get 10 days of work at Rs 100 per day. To say Saradah is only 65 kilometers from Varanasi is accurate and misleading at the same time. The first 60 kilometers take an hour and a half. It is a smooth drive, until you have to follow an offshoot of the highway for the last five kilometers, which would even embarrass the kachcha rastas of Uttar Pradesh. Dried up trees and its branches screeched against the car as we drove through the rocky mountainous road for the next 45 minutes. This is the same bumpy route Sasikala and the residents of Saradah have to traverse on foot if they intend to get work. There is no water, no electricity in the village, she added. The land is barren. We cannot even cultivate food crops to arrange for our basic meals. The people of Saradah indicated that their income is way below Rs 12,000 a month. However, they are unaware of Nyuntam Aay Yojana, or NYAY. Towards the end of March, Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced the NYAY scheme, which aims to meet a benchmark earning of Rs 12,000 per family. If a family earns Rs 7,000 per month, the government will chip in with Rs 5,000. It is targeted at the poorest 20 percent of Indians, or about five crore families. With the announcement coming during the heat of the election campaign, many thought it would mark a tectonic change in peoples voting behaviour. However, I have been on the ground for a month and a half in Uttar Pradesh after Rahuls promise, and there has not been much buzz around the scheme: positive or negative. There is, by and large, a lack of awareness, and the ones who know about it are indifferent. It has failed to set the agenda. Saradah is an apt representation in that sense. Population around 1200, its residents are mostly non-Yadav OBCs and Dalits. We do not have TV, said Sasikala. How would we know what Congress has promised? Can you please tell us the details? I give the brief outline. How would they arrange for so much money? she immediately asked. The Congress has not divulged details, I told her. She shrugged her shoulders. Most villagers are not educated. Some are, and they have smartphones. We mostly get our information from YouTube, and WhatsApp, said Sasikala. Those who have smartphones pass on the knowledge to others. We did not get any forward informing us about NYAY. In contrast, they have not just heard about Prime Minister Narendra Modis schemes, but know exactly what they are supposed to deliver. Vidawa, 55, a woman from the Musahar community, said the forwards they get keep referring to Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ujjwala Yojana, and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, among others. We also listen to Modis speeches on YouTube, where he speaks about his achievements, she added. Ironically, the schemes she cited have not reached her village. Even charging a mobile phone is a task in Saradah, for they have to use a solar panel. Do they blame Modi for it? No. The pradhan of the village is corrupt, said Vidawa. He takes money from us for the schemes and then does not deliver. Modi cannot come to every village and ensure his schemes are being implemented. His job is to come up with programmes for the poor. It is because of the village-level corruption and local officers that we remain deprived. Because of them, we are cut off from the rest of the world. Being cut off makes it difficult to find work. Sasikala said it is even harder to survive if you are a woman. When so many people are out searching for labour work, those who hire prefer men over women because cutting stone requires a lot of physical strength, she said. The Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) substantiated her argument. According to its report, womens participation in the labour force in Uttar Pradesh is under five percent, as opposed to the national average of just over 11 percent. In contrast, mens participation rate in the labour force stands at just under 70 percent. Even if the State initiates employment opportunities in towns near Saradah, it would remain disadvantaged because of the restricted mobility. The nearest high school, or hospital is 15 kilometers from Saradah, which is also affected by Naxalism. Last week, when Vidawas health alarmingly deteriorated in the wee hours, the ambulance did not arrive at night. We sat by her side through the night and waited for the ambulance with bated breath, said Sasikala. The ambulance finally arrived in the morning at 7. Sometimes weeks go by, say villagers, where they cannot step out of Saradah in monsoons. A river running across the village overflows, making it impossible to commute. We have been asking the local MLA for a bridge for years, said Lilavati, 60, who has spent almost her entire life here. In the past four years, two pregnant women have died while giving birth. The river, an impediment in monsoons, also acts as the villages only water source. There is absolutely no development here, said Lilavati. We drink the same water we bathe our cattle in. On a sweltering afternoon with warm breeze, Sasikala took me towards the hand pump commonly used in the village. It is parched. When it pumps water, it is yellowish in colour with an oily layer, she said. We need more work opportunities, proper attention from local officers or at least some financial assistance. Ironically, that is what NYAY claims to offer. I know some farmers who have received Rs 2,000 in their bank account, said Vidawa. She is referring to the promise Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made during his budget speech, where the government said it would give Rs 6,000 a year to farmers in three installments. I tell her that is a different scheme, and the Congress promises to meet the benchmark household income of Rs 12,000 per month. But then why havent their leaders campaigned with that slogan in our area? she wondered. While fantasy and fiction form the finest adamantium skeleton of the queer body, it is clothes and accessories that are its flesh and skin. Fashion isnt frivolous to us. We dont see it as a static, commercial noun, but rather a dynamic, communal verb The Queer Take is a fortnightly column by poet-writer Joshua Muyiwa. Read more from the series here. *** One of the most magical things about being a queer body in this world: We get to change our bodies and the world. We get to make it our own. We get to sneak backstage. We get to destroy. We get to do these things in a way that other bodies who havent been beaten, broken and bullied into figuring it out for themselves dont do. And one of the many tools in our belt is imagination, ingenuity and industry. In my own life, at the times Ive needed to escape, turning to my favourite femme fatales has helped bring a new perspective to dealing with even the worst situations. (Id ask myself: What would Rekha from Khoon Bhari Maang or Meena Kumari from Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam do?) While as a child, it meant waiting for rooms to empty before I could embody these enchantresses, it has changed over these years. Now I wait for a fuller audience. It has stepped outside of the realm of the mind mostly into the material. It doesnt just linger in the magical, it manifests in the mundane most. While fantasy and fiction form the finest adamantium skeleton of the queer body, it is clothes and accessories that are its flesh and skin. While I believed that my eyes alone could lead, leash and love men, it wasnt until a delicately draped dupatta covered my hair that I was sure. It wasnt so much the putting on that mattered, it was the little constructed actions that went into wearing it in that manner that I loved. I was moved by the nimble actions of my own body the way my hands sliced and spread out the voluminous chiffon. If I was rough with it, it didnt obey. I needed to be tender but firm with it. I learned quite quickly, even grace takes grit. Soon, any and all yardage from saris to sarongs to shawls from my grandmothers Godrej was tried, tested and traipsed around in. But even before these teenage years of secret experimenting with clothes, I had experienced this same tingle of desire and delight before. My Nepali grandmother, in an effort to commemorate her late daughter my mother decided to photograph a six-year-old me in one of her dresses. It was an off-white short, cotton dress with the most dainty lace trimming along the hem, sleeves and neckline. It was paired with chunky, clip-on pearl earrings they had both belonged to my mother at the same age I was then. My hair was combed out into an Afro to look like a Byzantine halo. (While the exercise of taking this type of photograph isnt unique in the Indian subcontinent, I have seen thousands of my straight male friends frozen in time as their parents darling daughters.) In my photograph, much like the similar ones of my other queer friends, theres something else that radiates from out of these studio shots. While that something else in my photo could be seen in that ever-so-gently bent knee, the slight tilt and twist in the neck, the glint in the eye and the coy smile, in similar photographs of my queer friends, there are other signifiers of that something else, that ease. In the words of N, my gay guide, friend and sounding-board, You look most like a girl. In saying that, even then I understood, N wasnt subscribing to the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative but rather he was attesting my ability to cut-copy-and-paste the littlest gestures of girliness onto myself. I imagine that growing comfort with my own body has meant that switching between these binary codes has become less important, and therefore, Ive become terrible at it. So, while the swish in my wrist, the sway in my hip and the sting in my laugh is assumed as femme, Id like to imagine myself as a male disrupting the idea of the male itself. In a way, hoping straight men will be more than the things they were told they can be. Just like I was. This task of being more than you were told you can be is an extremely difficult one. Its made even harder because one has no cheerleaders to help you along. It needs a blind belief in the unnatural, in the artificial, in the fake. Im always amazed at the ability of other femme gay boys, the dykes and the transfolk to continue to pursue this project of transformation in the face of such adversity, and I draw strength from them to carry on. It is no wonder that fashion isnt frivolous to us. We dont see it as a static, commercial noun, but rather a dynamic, communal verb. Since we can see the codes clearly, we can exaggerate, embroider and excise with ease, and in doing so we create corpora, clothes and codes that are all our own. We dont make it up, we borrow and remix it. And everyday, we get mocked for it. (Yet, we dust ourselves off and try again, try again.) At this edition of the MET Gala, there was an attempt to celebrate this evolved aesthetic with the theme Camp: Notes on Fashion. It was a beautiful disaster, it was spectacularly enjoyable to watch the tables turned on the straights, I scrolled through the slideshow gleefully giggling at the fashion world stumble and fall at trying to figure out this concept that doesnt come naturally to them. Its like finally, the truth is out there: Nothing comes naturally to any of us. Joshua Muyiwa is a Bengaluru-based poet and writer Congress chief Rahul Gandhi who was supposed to visit the family of the 19-year-old gangrape survivor in Rajasthan's Alwar on Wednesday had to postpone his visit as his chopper couldn't land in the area due to bad weather. The visit is now likely to take place on Thursday Congress chief Rahul Gandhi who was supposed to visit the family of the 19-year-old gangrape survivor in Rajasthan's Alwar on Wednesday had to postpone his visit as his chopper couldn't land in the area due to bad weather. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot, AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande and deputy chief minister and PCC president Sachin Pilot were to accompany Rahul. The visit is now likely to take place on Thursday, News18 reported. #NewsAlert -- @RahulGandhi's meeting with the Alwar gangrape victim postponed due to bad weather. To visit tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/ZdGg6LZZke News18 (@CNNnews18) May 15, 2019 The 26 April incident had provoked anger and protests across the state drawn attacks on the Congress government by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as BSP chief Mayawati. The survivor, a Dalit, was riding with her husband on a motorcycle on the Thanagazi-Alwar bypass when a group of six men on bikes stopped them and dragged the couple to a field. The attackers then tied the man and thrashed him before raping the woman. The survivor's family had accused the police of delaying action because of the election, which had led to allegations that the Congress was trying to cover up the case to avoid a backlash in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The survivor's husband said that the police were informed of the incident on 30 April, but the FIR was filed only on 2 May citing election duty. On 12 May, launching an attack on Mayawati, Modi had asked the BSP supremo why she hasn't withdrawn her support to the Congress government in light of a heinous crime against a woman from the Schedule Caste community. Modi also accused the Rajasthan government of suppressing the case until the fifth phase of voting in the general election was over on 6 May. "Today the daughters of Uttar Pradesh are asking Behen-ji (Mayawati) that the government in Rajasthan is running with your support and there, a Dalit girl got raped. So Behen-ji, why have you not withdrawn your support?" the prime minister questioned the Dalit leader. Modi also reminded Mayawati of the 1995 incident when Samajwadi Party goons had allegedly attacked her. "When the guest house incident happened, the entire country was pained. But why is she not feeling pained? If you (Mayawati) are honest about the dignity of daughters, then you should immediately write a letter to the Rajasthan governor withdrawing support from the (Ashok) Gehlot government," the prime minister said. Addressing an election rally earlier this week, Modi had said: Because there were elections in Rajasthan, the Congress government did not want news of the incident to come out. They wanted to save the criminals, wanted to collect votes the Congress feared that if the incident of rape of a Dalit daughter comes out then it will have an impact on its votes Mayawati, whose two lawmakers in Rajasthan are supporting the Gehlot-led government too had leveled the same charge at Congress and threatened to withdraw support, but the move was met with allegations of "crocodile tears" from Modi. Mayawati even issued a statement saying she didnt expect justice to be done to the Alwar victim by the Congress government and that the Supreme Court should take suo motu cognisance of the matter. However, BJPs Rajya Sabha member Kirodi Lal Meena held protests demanding a CBI probe into the case. On Tuesday, his supporters scuffled with the police while trying to a block railway track in Dausa. Meena was later detained for allegedly leading the rioters, Hindustan Times reported. Protests were also organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members and a BJP delegation, led by Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Meanwhile, the Rajasthan government has removed Alwar police chief Rajiv Pachar and suspended another officer, Sardar Singh, who was in charge of the police station where the survivor had approached. Four more policemen were also taken off duty. The police said that they have arrested all the six accused, including the man who filmed the crime and threatened the survivor he would share the clip on social media if she went to the police. Gehlot said he was personally monitoring the investigation and the Jaipur divisional commissioner and the DIG of vigilance had been asked to probe the alleged police lapses separately. On Monday, the chief minister, however, hit out at Modi for politicising the case and insisted that his government has done all that it could and will not spare the culprits. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has personally targeted me on various occasions. Be it in an election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan," Gehlot said, adding "When I was in charge of Gujarat, he misled and provoked farmers there against me. He had no moral right to come to Rajasthan and campaign." The chief minister said that several cases of rape happened during the previous BJP governments in the state. "A BJP MLA was involved in a rape case in Uttar Pradesh, but Modi never talked about them." The BJP on Tuesday urged the Election Commission of India to bar West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee from campaigning in the last and final phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections alleging a breakdown of constitutional machinery on the state. New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday urged the Election Commission of India to bar West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee from campaigning in the last and final phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections alleging a breakdown of constitutional machinery on the state. A BJP delegation met the ECI in connection with the clashes that took place during the massive roadshow conducted by party president Amit Shah in Kolkata on Tuesday. The BJP delegation comprised Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Anil Baluni, GVL Narasimha Rao, among others. Naqvi after meeting the poll-body told reporters that the party has urged the ECI to pass an order for the immediate arrest of history-sheeters in the state. "We demanded from the EC that disturbing elements and history-sheeters be arrested immediately, central forces' flag march be conducted and CM Mamata Banerjee be barred from campaigning for instigating her supporters," Naqvi said. This came after clashes broke out today (Tuesday) evening at the mega roadshow of Shah in Kolkata resulting in utter chaos after sticks were hurled at his convoy and police resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the crowd. Clashes broke out reportedly after some miscreants started throwing sticks at the convoy in which Shah was travelling in. The incident took place on College Street in Kolkata when allegedly some TMC supporters began sloganeering and the furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the university gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. Visuals from the scene showed a fire outside the university gates. Security forces later got down to control the situation as everything happened in a fraction of second near the Calcutta University. A statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also vandalised at Vidyasagar College in the clashes. BJP supporters chanted "Jai Shri Ram" as activists dressed up as Lord Ram, Sita and Hanuman walked along with 'gada' (mace), not often seen on the streets of the metropolis where a distinct Bengali culture exists. There were Sikh men dancing to Bhangra beats. Many in the crowd carried BJP flags. Amit Shah's rally comes days before the seventh and the final phase of the Lok Sabha elections. Nine seats are all set to go for polls in West Bengal on 19 May. The result will be announced on 23 May. Lok Sabha Election 2019 LIVE Updates: At a press conference, Mamata attacked the BJP and the Election Commission over the poll panel's crackdown following Kolkata violence. 'This is an emergency situation arisen because of the EC decision... It's not a EC decision, it's a BJP decision. Modi is afraid of me and afraid of the people of Bengal,' she said. Auto refresh feeds The TMC, likewise, will also knock on EC's door, blaming the BJP for the violence. It has also released a video 'substantiating' its claims that BJP was behind the violence. Expect today's campaign to be an explosive affair. The fire that erupted outside the Vidyasagar college in Kolkata yesterday is likely to singe political parties through today. The BJP has planned a three-pronged attack against TMC. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to campaign in Kolkata's Diamond Harbour and Basirhat. Meanwhile, Amit Shah will address a press conference, while the BJP's Kolkata candidate will meet the Election Commission claiming that state chief minister Mamata Banerjee was complicit with the ploy to launch violence at Shah's roadshow. The BJP will demand that TMC chief be barred from campaigning for the remaining days of the campaign. Day's Preview: Today's poll campaign to thrive under shadow of last night's violence; PM in West Bengal, Amit Shah to charge on from New Delhi In the political violence witnessed in Kolkata's educational campuses yesterday, a bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was shattered at the college named after the Bengali writer and educationist. Both TMC and BJP are blaming each other's workers for the vandalism, and both parties have fiercely contested each other's claim. But TMC leaders have sharpened their attack by changing their Twitter display pictures to that of Vidyasagar. Opposition parties, including the BJP, have accused the Congress government in the state of trying to hush up the crime. But the Congress, in turn, accused BJP of doublespeak by claiming that one of its leaders, Hemsingh Bhadana, tried to negotiate with the victim and her family, while the government took immediate action by suspending the SHO and removing the SP of the area. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has cancelled his election rally in Alwar after reports that the weather in the city is expected to deteriorate. Rahul was scheduled to hold a public meeting in the city. He was also scheduled to visit the Alwar gangrape survivor who was sexually assaulted in front of her husband at 26 April. The Bharatiya Janata Party has said it will hold a "national protest against the cowardly attack on BJP national president's roadshow in Kolkata." The sit-in protest will begin at 10:30 am today. BJP national president Amit Shah will address a press conference at 11.00 am today against the alleged attack on his convoy by the TMC cadre and the violence that followed. He is expected to detail his party's account of the sequence of events, while TMC has already put out its version. Shah is also expected to mount attack against Mamata Banerjee after a series of acerbic tweets he put out since yesterday. The Election Commission of India officials will hold an urgent meeting via video conferencing with the state election commission on Wednesday. The meeting has been scheduled for 11.30 am. Media reports said that important announcements regarding the seventh phase of polling is expected. The government's lawyer argued that the district magistrate might not have been able to get a copy of the Supreme Court order which may have delayed her release. However, Justice Indira Banerjee dismissed this argument saying that the court had clearly said that the woman should be released immediately. The Bench further warned that unless the BJP worker is released immediately, the state government will be liable to face contempt proceedings, News18 reported. The Supreme Court, Wednesday took strong exception to the fact that BJP worker Priyanka Sharma was still in prison, despite SC order yesterday specifying clearly that she shoul be released. "Whatever happened yesterday we condemn it. Vidyasagar's contribution was not only for Bengal but for the whole country. Instead of the blame game, there should be an inquiry. People should be alert and not fall prey to such activities," he said. Speaking to News18 during a protest called by Left wing parties in Kolkata, Sitaram Yechury said that the BJP and TMC were indulging in competitive polarisation to mgain political mileage out of yesterdau's violence. BJP president Amit Shah said that the Trinamool Congress has alleged that the BJP was responsible for poll violence. "But why does poll violence occur only in Bengal. TMC contests polls on 42 seats, but BJP contests polls all across the nation. We are pitted against Congress and many other parties but why does reports of violence only pours in from West Bengal," Shah said. "Vidyasagar bust was locked inside two rooms, and it was past 7.30 pm. The college was locked. Now you should ask who governs Bengal and who has influence over the college management. Who opened the doors," Amit Shah asked. He claimed that the whole event was under severe media glare and they should make the footage live to show who vandalised the bust and attacked a peaceful political rally. Amit Shah defends his party workers, says BJP cadres were out on road but who had access to Vidyasagar college after nightfall BJP national president Amit Shah said, "Our popularity in Kolkata and Bengal has given Mamata didi the jitters that is why she has resorted to extreme measures." Shah said that when his party has lost 60 cadres in the political violence in state, an attack on him was not unexpected. He said, "If it weren't for the team of CRPF deployed in my securoty, I might no have come back alive from the violence." BJP president Amit Shah alleged that the Election Commission has been a "mute spectator". "EC has banned UP CM Yogi Adityanath and many others for making speeches that they felt are inappropriate...but what did EC do when Mamata threatened PM and BJP?" Amit Shah questioned. Priyanka Sharma, the Bharatiya Janata Party worker who was arrested from Howrah for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee has been released from the jail after a court order. Sharma said that she was treated rudely by the jail authorities and they did not let her talk to her lawyer or family members. Priyanka Sharma said that she did not want to apologise for sharing the meme on Mamata Banerjee while claiming that the local police forced her to sign an apology letter before release. She said that the matter was sub-judice and she will battle it out in court. BJP sources have said that one of the three Kolkata rallies scheduled to be addressed by Yogi Adityanath had to be cancelled today because MC cadres have allegedly vandalised the stage. The BJP also told News18 that the organisers of the rally were also beaten up by TMC cadre for agreeing to help in arranging a BJP event. Trinamool Congress is set to respond to Amit Shah's allegations with a press conference of its own at around 2 pm. The party is expected to blame the BJP for the violence in Kolkata. Senior TMC leader Derek O'Brien claimed that there was video evidence of BJP cadres burning vehicles and creating chaos during Amit Shah's rally. After reports that one of Yogi Adityanath's rally had to be cancelled owing to alleged vandalism by TMC cadres, now fresh reports have claimed that Amit Shah has instructed UP chief minister to go ahead and hold all rallies. "The entire country knows that most of those having benami properties and the corrupt are connected with the BJP," she said, claiming that Modi is honest only on paper, just like he is an OBC only on paper. BSP president Mayawati on Wednesday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's legacy as the Gujarat chief minister is a black spot for himself and the BJP, as well as a burden on the communal history of the country. Mayawati alleged that the prime minister had crossed all limits of decency in terming the Bahujan Samaj Party her personal property. In his first reaction after the Kolkata violence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told CNN-News18 that the Mamata Banerjee government for the incident. He says that there have been reports of violence from West Bengal through these elections. Taking on the TMC rule, the prime minister says even polls in Jammu and Kashmir are more peaceful than this. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing an election rally in Jharkhand's Deoghar time which is an important Hindu pilgrimage site, Modi started his address with a prayer and a crisp attack on Congress party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the BJP's win is now certain because even Congress has started its preparations for defeat. The Congress is holding marathon meets to search for appropriate scapegoats because it is against the basic principles of dynasticism to blame the naamdaar for defeat. Now those who have been making anti-Sikh comments and abusing me have volunteered to take the blame. While refering to the video, O'Brien said, "the videos shared by us not only clearly establishes what the BJP did, but proves party chief Amit Shah is a liar." "Today is the saddest press conference we have held... saddest for all of us to see the streets of Kolkata... there is anger and there is shock. The president of the BJP does what he does with his goons, who he hired from outside Bengal. What happened yesterday hurt the very ethos of Bengal, says Derek O Brien." TMC said it had 44 more such videos to prove that the BJP brought outside goons to campaign in Bengal and broke the very ethos of Bengal by breaking the Vidyasagar statue. Speaking at Faridkot in Punjba, Rahul Gandhi brought up the issue of sacrilege of religious texts. He promised strict action against those involved in incidents that occured in 2015 in Punjab. Rahul Gandhi called unemployment the biggest challenge faced by the country today. "The biggest challenge today is unemployment, the second challenge is issues related to farmers. Who will create job opportunities. Without empowering MSMEs, job opportunities can't be created. I guarantee you, whatever power we can put to encourage MSMEs, we'll do. Without you, India cannot challenge China," he told a rally in Ludhiana. At a press conference, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said, "On Tuesday, TMC goons attacked Amit Shah's roadshow. This is a dangerous warning for the democracy and is indicates the TMC government's days are numbered. Like West Bengal, six phases of election have also been held in Uttar Pradesh. All the phases were conducted peacefully. But on the other hand, there was widespread violence reported in West Bengal." He also asked why Mamata took offense to the meme shared by Priyanka. "Didi I'm told you are an artist and a painter. Why are you offended by a photograph," he asked. "Since you're a painter, please paint as uncomplimentary picture of mine as possible and keep it with you. After 23 May when I takeover as prime minister, come to Delhi and present it to me. I assure you I will not file an FIR against you." Amid a row over BJP activist Priyanka Sharma's arrest for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi lashed out at TMC chief in Basirhat. "Didi, the girls you are putting in jail will now teach you a lesson," he said. Why is Mamata offended by a meme when she is an artist herself, asks PM At Basirhat rally, Narendra Modi claimed that all the surveys were giving BJP a full majority without an alliance. "But didi, after seeing your frustration and the support from the people of Bengal, I'm saying that Bengal will help us win more than 300 seats." Addressing the media after meeting the Election Commission, TMC leader Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said that the party has submitted a 'video proof' to the poll panel on BJP's involvement in the violence in Kolkata on Tuesday during Amit Shah's roadshow. "BJP created the ruckus on purpose. They had told the BJP workers to bring their weapons and attack TMC workers during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata," he said, while claiming the BJP leader Tajinder Singh Bagga was also involved in the chaos. "There is a mix of sadness and anger but there's also hope that the people of Bengal, once and for all, will show Modi and Shah the same chit they showed in 2002. The only difference is, in Bengal, there is Mamata Banerjee. Modi comes to Bengal and calls her a speed-breaker. I agree with him; she was a speed breaker for him in 2014. Again this time, (she's a) speed-breaker because you'll not be a prime minister." Calling Narendra Modi "Expiry babu PM", TMC leader Derek O'Brien told reporters, "Trinamool Congres has been in existence for 21 years and I've been a spokesperson for the past 16 years. This is the saddest day ever. Today we're not only a tinge angry, we're disappointed and there is a lot of sadness. What happened yesterday was bad. Outsiders were brought (by the BJP to Amit Shah's roadshow). Students were protesting peacefully with placards. What eventually happened, they (BJP workers) didn't need a key to enter the college. They jumped walls and entered. Amit Shah's press conference (on Wednesday) proved that he is a puke-worthy liar. Everybody that jumped in belonged to the BJP because they were wearing saffron. Addressing a public meeting in Palampur, BJP leader Smriti Irani took a dig at the TMC government in West Bengal and said, "You are lucky that when you chant 'Jai Sri Ram', at least you are not arrested. Today in India, there is a state where if a common citizen merely says 'Jai Sri Ram', the allies of Congress put him in jail." At his rally in Diamond Harbour, Narendra Modi accused TMC of facilitating violence in the state. "We're facing stones, our workers are being hung. We are only tolerating all of this to save Bengal," he said. Congress general-secretary Priyanka Gandhi is holding a roadshow in Varanasi in support of its candidate for constituency Ajay Rai and Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel also present. "Keeping in view the recent development in West Bengal specifically during last 24 hours, commission directs that no person shall convene, hold, attend, join any public meeting in connection with election," the poll panel said. At a press conference, the Election Commission ordered the end of campaigning in West Bengal following the violence at a roadshow in Kolkata. No election campaigning can be held in 9 parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal: Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata from 10 pm on Thursday till the conclusion of polls. The poll panel said that this was probably the first time that ECI has invoked Article 324 "in this manner, but it may not be last in cases of repetition of lawlessness and violence which vitiate the conduct of polls in a peaceful manner." Condemning the Kolkata violence, the Election Commission said at a press conference that it was "deeply anguished at the vandalism done to the statue of Vidyasagar". "It is hoped that the vandals are traced by the state administration," it said. It is this inherent power vested with Election Commission of India that it has invoked Article 324 to regulate election in West Bengal. While Article 324 talks about "superintendence, direction and control of elections to be vested in an Election Commission" its wider interpretation is that the Constitution empowers the poll panel to lay down the policy to decide administrative matters of importance and also adjudicate electoral disputes. Therefore, besides administrative functions it may be called upon to perform quasi-judicial duties also, as interpreted and explained by RD Jain in his book Electoral Process on the Horns of a Dilemma. The Election Commission on Wednesday removed West Bengal's principal secretary of home affairs Atri Bhattacharya for having interfered in the process of conducting elections by directing the state CEO. He is 1989-batch IAS officer. In 2013, He was in central deputation as Jute commissioner and joined as MD of WBIDC for short period. He rose to ranks and became the principal secretary for home and hill affairs. She further lashed out at the BJP and said, "BJP is using external forces to create panic. Their goons resorted to violence on Tuesday night. BJP's agenda was to trigger riots in Bengal. How can BJP interfere in state's law and order?" Addressing a press conference, Mamata Banerjee said, "The Election Commission is working as BJP's puppet. The state forces being kept in the dark by the poll panel. The EC is trying to vitiate poll process." She further went on a tirade against the prime minister and said, "Throw Modi out of country. Stage protest against EC all over the state. BJP thinks they are very smart, and we are fools. I have only readjusted my schedule tomorrow... I will have problems, but I will fulfill my target" Mamata Banerjee took a dig at Narendra Modi over his marriage and said, "How can he care for the country? He can't even care for his wife." 'Modi cannot care for his wife, how can he care for the country?' "Election Commission's decision is unfair, unethical and politically biased. Narendra Modi has given time to finish his two rallies tomorrow," Mamata Banerjee said at a press conference. In a statement, West Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi said, "As chancellor of Calcutta University, I am greatly pained at the vandalising of Vidyasagar statue. The real culprit for breaking the statue must be traced out and suitably punished. Efforts should also be made by Calcutta University at the earliest to install a new statue of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar at the same place." "Why is the Centre so against Rajeev Kumar? Because he has evidences against Mukul Roy and Himanta Biswa Sarma who are direct beneficiaries of Saradha? Why did the EC not act against Amit Shah? Why was he not showcaused when he was responsible for all the trouble? Why was the campaign not stopped today? Because Modi has two meetings in Bengal tomorrow? This is a biased decision. RSS men are being recruited in EC," she said. Mamata Banerjee attacked the BJP and the Election Commission over the poll panel's crackdown following Kolkata violence. "This is an emergency situation arisen because of the EC decision... It's not a EC decision, it's a BJP decision. Modi is afraid of me and afraid of the people of Bengal. Amit Shah held a presser on Tuesday morning and threatened the commission... Is this order a result of that threat? She further went on a tirade against the prime minister and said, "Throw Modi out of country. Stage protest against EC all over the state. BJP thinks they are very smart, and we are fools. I have only readjusted my schedule tomorrow... I will have problems, but I will fulfill my target" Mamata Banerjee took a dig at Narendra Modi over his marriage and said, "How can he care for the country? He can't even care for his wife." 'Modi cannot care for his wife, how can he care for the country?' "Election Commission's decision is unfair, unethical and politically biased. Narendra Modi has given time to finish his two rallies tomorrow," Mamata Banerjee said at a press conference. In a statement, West Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi said, "As chancellor of Calcutta University, I am greatly pained at the vandalising of Vidyasagar statue. The real culprit for breaking the statue must be traced out and suitably punished. Efforts should also be made by Calcutta University at the earliest to install a new statue of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar at the same place." A free campaign is not possible and therefore the campaign has to be cut short. This is a classical case of breakdown of the Constitutional Machinery. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claimed on Twitter that the Election Commission effectively held Bengal to be a state in anarchy. "A free campaign is not possible and therefore the campaign has to be cut short. This is a classical case of breakdown of the constitutional machinery," he said. Time to wake up, India. This very cult n ideology killed Mahatma and is now behind desecration of the bust of one of the greatest reformers Shri Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar ji. People of Bengal will give befitting reply to Modi-Shah led perpetrators of violence and hooliganism We have made several complaints and written so many letters about violations and breakdown of law and order with impunity in Bengal, on which there has been no response. https://t.co/e6IrfQxpBL He also said that the poll panel should've first acted against the perpetrators of violence before actng on the campaigning. He tweeted: "The decision by EC to stop campaigning a day in advance is not understood. The first thing being expected by EC was action against the lumpen elements of BJP and TMC for violence yesterday. Why has no action been initiated?" "If a ban is intended for 72 hours, why is it starting at 10 pm tomorrow? Is it to allow the two rallies of the PM before that," CPM leader Sitaram Yechury asked on Twitter. Lok Sabha Election 2019 Latest Updates: India Today reported that Mamata Banerjee has asked 23 Opposition parties to protest in view of the EC's action over Kolkata violence. At a press conference, Mamata attacked the BJP and the Election Commission over the poll panel's crackdown following Kolkata violence. "This is an emergency situation arisen because of the EC decision... It's not a EC decision, it's a BJP decision. Modi is afraid of me and afraid of the people of Bengal," she said. The Election Commission on Wednesday evening ordered the end of campaigning in West Bengal by 10 pm on Thursday in view of the violence at a roadshow in Kolkata. Condemning the Kolkata violence, the Election Commission said that it was "deeply anguished at the vandalism done to the statue of Vidyasagar". "It is hoped that the vandals are traced by the state administration," it said. A BJP delegation met Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu over the violence at Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. After the meeting, Prakash Javadekar said, "Protection of Rajya Sabha members is responsibility of house and Chairman. We've submitted a memorandum to the vice-president on it and demanded that a report be sought and appropriate action be taken." At his rally in Diamond Harbour, Narendra Modi accused TMC of facilitating violence in the state. "We're facing stones, our workers are being hung. We are only tolerating all of this to save Bengal," he said. In Trinamool Congress' show of strength, Mamata Banerjee is holding a roadshow a day after violence struck BJP chief Amit Shah's roadshow. Earlier, the TMC submitted to the Election Commission a 'video proof' on BJP's involvement in Kolkata violence. Speaking to reporters, Derek O'Brien said, "Modi comes to Bengal and calls her (Mamata Banerjee) a speed-breaker. I agree with him; she was a speed breaker for him in 2014. Again this time, (she's a) speed-breaker because you'll not be a prime minister." Amid a row over BJP activist Priyanka Sharma's arrest for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi lashed out at TMC chief in Basirhat and asked why Mamata took offense to the meme. "Didi, I'm told you are an artist and a painter. Why are you offended by a photograph," he asked. Amid a row over BJP activist Priyanka Sharma's arrest for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi lashed out at TMC chief in Basirhat. "Didi, the girls you are putting in jail will now teach you a lesson," he said. He also asked why Mamata took offense to the meme shared by Priyanka. "Didi I'm told you are an artist and a painter. Why are you offended by a photograph." In Basirhat, Narendra Modi said, "The entire country has seen the visuals from Kolkata on Tuesday. Didi is scared of the obvious BJP wave in West Bengal. And the level of the is visible in the situation. Two day ago she had said that she will take revenge. And within 24 hours of her remarks, Amit Shah was targetted during the roadshow. There was an attempt to scare the BJP during his roadshow. " A day after violent clashes rocked Kolkata during Amit Shah's roadshow, Congress tweeted, "Nothing is sacred and nothing is safe under the BJP's anti-democratic leadership. By desecrating a statue of Vidyasagar and then instigating violent protests in Bengal, BJP proves once again that violence is always their preferred choice. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath addressed a rally in Barasat, West Bengal. Picking up a communally sensitive subject, Adityanath said, "In the whole country, Durga Puja and Muharram fell on the same day. In UP, officers asked me, should we change timing of puja? I said, timing of the puja won't be changed, if you want to change timing, change the timing of Muharram procession." Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a rally in Faridkot, Punjab, said that Narendra Modi used to mock Manmohan Singh while he was prime minister, but now when he is in power, our former prime minister never mocks him. Instead, the entire nation is mocking him. TMC leader Derek O'Brien released two videos claiming that they show "BJP goons" damaged statue of polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. TMC said it had 44 more such videos to prove that the BJP brought outside goons to campaign in Bengal and broke the very ethos of Bengal by breaking the Vidyasagar statue. "Today is the saddest press conference we have held... saddest for all of us to see the streets of Kolkata... there is anger and there is shock. The president of the BJP does what he does with his goons, who he hired from outside Bengal. What happened yesterday hurt the very ethos of Bengal, says Derek O Brien." Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, " Congress can't say they lost elections because of 'naamdar', it would be against the rules of dynasty. That is why after the 5th phase, 2 of the closest 'darbaari' of the 'naamdar' family started batting on their own." Mosi said that the BJP's win is now certain because even Congress has started its preparations for defeat. The Congress is holding marathon meets to search for appropriate scapegoats because it is against the basic principles of dynasticism to blame the naamdaar for defeat. Now those who have been making anti-Sikh comments and abusing me have volunteered to take the blame. In his first reaction after the Kolkata violence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told CNN-News18 that the Mamata Banerjee government for the incident. He says that there have been reports of violence from West Bengal through these elections. Taking on the TMC rule, the prime minister says even polls in Jammu and Kashmir are more peaceful than this. BSP president Mayawati on Wednesday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's legacy as the Gujarat chief minister is a black spot for himself and the BJP, as well as a burden on the communal history of the country. Mayawati alleged that the prime minister had crossed all limits of decency in terming the Bahujan Samaj Party her personal property. After reports that one of Yogi Adityanath's rally had to be cancelled owing to alleged vandalism by TMC cadres, now fresh reports have claimed that Amit Shah has instructed UP chief minister to go ahead and hold all rallies. BJP sources have said that one of the three Kolkata rallies scheduled to be addressed by Yogi Adityanath had to be cancelled today because MC cadres have allegedly vandalised the stage. The BJP also told News18 that the organisers of the rally were also beaten up by TMC cadre for agreeing to help in arranging a BJP event. BJP Youth Wing Convenor Priyanka Sharma at BJP office after being released from Alipore Correctional Home. BJP national president Amit Shah said, "Our popularity in Kolkata and Bengal has given Mamata didi the jitters that is why she has resorted to extreme measures." Shah said that when his party has lost 60 cadres in the political violence in state, an attack on him was not unexpected. He said, "If it weren't for the team of CRPF deployed in my securoty, I might no have come back alive from the violence." 'BJP crossed majority by 5th phase, will grab over 300 seats till end of polls,' predicts Bharatiya janata Party national president Amit Shah BJP national president Amit Shah addresses a press conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi. Addressing the issue of Tuesday's clashes between ABVP and TMCP, he says, "There have been no instances of violence in any other place except in West Bengal." The Supreme Court, Wednesday took strong exception to the fact that BJP worker Priyanka Sharma was still in prison, despite SC order yesterday specifying clearly that she should be released. Tuesday's poll violence in Kolkata has triggered political protests on a massive scale, with both TMC and BJP blaming each other for the clashes. While the Bharatiya Janata Party will hold protests at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, TMC cadre took to streets in Howrah; Left wing workers are, meanwhile, protesting against the vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's bust at a college in Kolkata. The Bharatiya Janata Party has said it will hold a "national protest against the cowardly attack on BJP national president's roadshow in Kolkata." The sit-in protest will begin at 10:30 am today. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has cancelled his election rally in Alwar after reports that the weather in the city is expected to deteriorate. Rahul was scheduled to hold a public meeting in the city. He was also scheduled to visit the Alwar gangrape survivor who was sexually assaulted in front of her husband at 26 April. With only three days left for campaigning ahead of the last leg of Lok Sabha election to be held on 19 May, the countdown for the finale has quite literally begun. After yesterday's violence in Kolkata, Amit Shah is scheduled to address the media at 10 am. On the third-last day of campaigning for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address rallies in Paliganj in Bihar, Deoghar in Jharkhand and Basirhat and Diamond Harbour in West Bengal. On Tuesday, while referring himself as a 'Kashi vaasi' (resident of Varanasi), Modi issued an emotional message for people Varanasi, highlighting his association and attachment with the ancient city and urged people to vote in large numbers. While Modi issued a special message to the people of Varanasi, Congress party also announced the arrival of its general secretary Priyanka Gandhi in Varanasi. There was a lot of speculation around Priyanka's candidature this year. There were several reports which claimed that the in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh will contest against the prime minister, but Priyanka later clarified that there was no decision on her contesting. "If my party asks me to contest the polls, I will definitely do so. But my personal wish is to work for the party's organisation as a lot of work needs to be done," the Congress leader had told reporters. Congress chose to field Ajay Rai. Modi will also address rallies in West Bengal's Basirhat and Diamond Harbour, a day after violent clashes took place in West Bengal after BJP and TMC supporters fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive roadshow by BJP chief Amit Shah. The BJP president escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by police. Modi's rallies will be closely watched as the prime minister is expected to launch a fierce attack on chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her party for unchecked violence during Amit Shah's roadshow. On Tuesday, parts of Kolkata plunged into a welter of violence as Shah's convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. Furious BJP supporters retaliated and were seen exchanging blows with their TMC rivals outside the college entrance. Several motorcycles parked outside were vandalised and set ablaze. Shards of broken glass littered the lobby of the college where a bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was smashed to smithereens. Police personnel were seen trying to douse the fire with buckets filled with water. Congress President Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Rajasthan and Punjab, will address rallies in Alwar, Faridkot and Ludhiana. In an unprecedented first, the Election Commission (EC) invoked Article 324 of the Indian Constitution and announced that campaigning will end at 10 pm on Thursday in West Bengal In an unprecedented first, the Election Commission (EC) invoked Article 324 of the Constitution and announced that campaigning will end at 10 pm on Thursday in West Bengal, a day before its scheduled deadline ahead of the seventh and last phase of the Lok Sabha polls on 19 May. The EC's decision came a day after the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) clashed during BJP chief Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, during which the city witnessed wide-spread violence. A bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also vandalised during the incident. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee held a press conference after the EC's announcement, calling the clamping of Article 324 a gift by the poll panel to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "There is no such law and order problem in West Bengal that Article 324 can be clamped... This is not EC's direction; it is the BJP's direction. This is the direction of Narendra Modi and (BJP chief) Amit Shah. The EC's decision is unfair, unethical and politically biased," she told reporters in Kolkata. Meanwhile, Congress leader Ahmed Patel and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury asked why the poll panel chose to let campaigning continue till 10 pm on Thursday despite having taken note of the violence. Yechury also said that the poll panel should've first acted against the perpetrators of violence before deciding to bar campaigning. If situation in Bengal is so severe that campaigning must be stopped, why is EC waiting until tomorrow? Is it because PM has scheduled rallies tomorrow? Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) May 15, 2019 Isnt it unprecedented that EC claims its an unprecedented situation in West Bengal but yet is waiting for PM to complete his public meetings ? Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) May 15, 2019 If a ban is intended for 72 hours, why is it starting at 10pm tomorrow? Is it to allow the two rallies of the PM before that? https://t.co/wn6MqmmrhD Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) May 15, 2019 The decision by EC to stop campaigning a day in advance is not understood. The first thing being expected by EC was action against the lumpen elements of BJP and TMC for violence yesterday. Why has no action been initiated? #Bengal Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) May 15, 2019 We have made several complaints and written so many letters about violations and breakdown of law and order with impunity in Bengal, on which there has been no response. https://t.co/e6IrfQxpBL Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) May 15, 2019 Delhi chief minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal wrote on Twitter that the people of Bengal will give a "befitting reply to Modi-Shah-led perpetrators of violence and hooliganism". Time to wake up, India. This very cult n ideology killed Mahatma and is now behind desecration of the bust of one of the greatest reformers Shri Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar ji. People of Bengal will give befitting reply to Modi-Shah led perpetrators of violence and hooliganism Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 15, 2019 Meanwhile, Union Minister Arun Jaitley tweeted that the ECs direction points at the breakdown of constitutional machinery in West Bengal. A free campaign is not possible and therefore the campaign has to be cut short. This is a classical case of breakdown of the Constitutional Machinery. Chowkidar Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 15, 2019 The EC has barred election campaigning in Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata Dakshin and Kolkata Uttar. It also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajiv Kumar from their postings in West Bengal. "This is for the first time such a measure has been taken using the EC's constitutional powers. But this is not going to be the last," Kumar said. With inputs from agencies In a veiled dig at the Congress party, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said that senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge was not given enough recognition for his work by his party. Kumaraswamy opined that Kharge should have been made a chief minister a long time ago. Chincholi (Karnataka): In a veiled dig at the Congress party, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said that senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge was not given enough recognition for his work by his party. Kumaraswamy opined that Kharge should have been made a chief minister a long time ago. "Mallikarjun Kharge should have become the chief minister long ago. I feel that injustice has happened with him. I would like to clearly state that, even I feel that, Kharge has not been given recognition for all the work he has done," the chief minister said while addressing a public rally. Kharge is a two-time Lok Sabha MP from Gulbarga constituency in Karnataka and is a leader of Congress in Lok Sabha. He had also served as a cabinet minister in the Karnataka Government. Kumaraswamy was addressing the rally in support of Congress byelection candidate Subhash Rathod from Chincholi assembly seat which will go to polls on 19 May. After over five decades of ballot papers, India completely shifted to Electronic Voting machines in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. However, in an attempt to bring more transparency in the counting process, the Election Commission will not only be counting the votes in EVMs but also tally a limited number of VVPAT slips on 23 May. The seven-phase Lok Sabha election in India will come to a close on 19 May. With over 900 million voters spread across the diverse topography, India always grabs the envious record of holding "the worlds biggest electoral exercise" every five years. But it is not just the size of the electorate that makes Indian elections unique. The process of counting votes, too, has witnessed a dynamic shift in the last two decades. After over five decades of ballot papers, India completely shifted to Electronic Voting machines in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. However, in an attempt to bring more transparency in the counting process, the Election Commission will not only be counting the votes in EVMs but also tally a limited number of VVPAT slips on 23 May. As India once again experiments with electoral process, it is pertinent to look at how the 2019 elections stands in comparison to the 2014 polls. How will votes be counted on 23 May According to a report in The Economic Times, the counting of EVMs with VVPAT paper slips will take place in special and secured booths under the close supervision of the Returning Officer and the oversight of the observer. The report added that the VVPAT counting rooms will be set up in every polling booth. These rooms will be enclosed by a wire mesh, which will keep away unauthorised people from accessing the paper slips. The selection of the five EVMs in every Assembly Constituency will be done by a draw of lots in the presence of political party candidates. There are total of 4215 Assembly segments in India. When the five EVMs are chosen from each of these segments, it would increase the VVPAT verification percentage from 0.44 to less than two percent. On 8 April 2019, the Supreme Court of India had directed the Election Commission to tally the VVPAT slips of at least five EVMs in each Assembly segment in a Lok Sabha constituency. Earlier, the Election Commission used to count the VVPAT slips of just one EVM in every Assembly Constituency. It is to be noted that over 1.7 million VVPATs are being used in this election. While issuing the order, the Supreme Court said that such a practice will ensure greatest degree of accuracy, satisfaction in the election process. Nevertheless, the apex court also added that it does not doubt the credibility of EVMs or the efficacy of the present system. According to Election Commission guidelines, if there is any discrepancy in the vote count between EVMs and VVPATs, then the latter will prevail. The final result sheet will also be amended as per the VVPAT paper slips count. Notably, the whole counting process will be filmed by the authorities. As per Rule 56D (4) (b) of the Conduct of Elections Rules 1961, if there is any discrepancy between EVM count and paper slip count, the paper slip count shall prevail. Hence, if there is discrepancy between the count of votes displayed on the Control Unit and the count of printed-paper slips in respect of that Polling Station, the result sheet will be amended as per the printed-paper slips count, the Election Commission manual noted. 2014 elections smaller in scale; introduced NOTA, VVPATs In the 2014 elections, India had 815 million voters, while at least 1.7 million EVMs were used in the nine-phase election. The Election Commission had also set up 9 lakh polling booths across the country. In the ongoing elections, there are nearly 84 million more voters. Meanwhile, there has been a 10 percent jump in the total number of polling booths. While the 2014 election was spread across nine phases, it lasted only 35 days. On the other hand, the ongoing election, though spread across seven phases, will last for 38 days. The 2014 elections witnessed the debut of the VVPATs. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission had procured at least 20,000 VVPATs. However, the VVPAT experiment was limited to just eight Lok Sabha constituencies in 2014. Lucknow, Jadavpur, Raipur, Gandhinagar, Bangalore South, Chennai Central, Patna Sahib, Mizoram were the Parliamentary Constituencies where the VVPATs were used during the 2014 elections. The 2014 election saw the first-ever instance of the None of the Above (NOTA) option being offered to the voters. The decision was taken after the Supreme Court in 2013 directed the Election Commission to offer voters with the right to reject all candidates. Thus, a voter who did not want to vote for any of the candidates could choose to vote NOTA. In fact, 1.08 percent of the voters chose to go with NOTA in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, the highest number of votes i.e. 46,559 was in Nilgris Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu. The Election Commission this time is expecting a delay of four hours to a day since it also has to count VVPAT paper slips of 5 EVMs in every Assembly Constituency. It is likely that the final results will be clear only on 24 May. However, this wasnt the case in 2014, when the Election Commission had to primarily count postal ballots and EVMs. Back then, the poll body had said that the counting of votes would be completed by 4 PM on 16 May the date of counting. Tuesdays incident has given BJP an opportunity to amplify the narrative that Bengal is burning and needs to be saved across India. The BJP, which has been looking for a stronger footprint in West Bengal in this Lok Sabha election, has maneuvered the salvos aimed at it by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her party Trinamool Congress (TMC) to its advantage and thereby create a nationwide narrative to corner the latter. The violence following BJP president Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday indicates the intolerance and divisive politics of Mamata and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). Shah, speaking at a press conference in New Delhi today said, BJP has been contesting in all states, but there have been no incidents of violence elsewhere. It shows that the TMC is behind violence and not the BJP. During the violence, the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the 19th Century philosopher, reformer and a national icon of the Bengal Renaissance was desecrated. The TMC squarely blamed it on the BJP. The statue was inside a hall at Vidyasagar College and TV footage purportedly shows that the premises was occupied by TMC workers. The BJP workers, on the other hand, were on the street. Who broke the statue? Shah questioned, Who had the key? Who opened that room inside the college building to vandalise the statue? It wasnt possible for the BJP workers to do it as they were outside the college gate and police force was in between them. Had the BJP workers gone inside, they would have been thrashed to a pulp by the TMC workers. Most important is that any party that has been trying to establish its foothold in Bengal, wouldnt risk damaging the statue of a Bengali icon like Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda or Rabindranath Tagore, as they hold sentimental value in the hearts of all Bengalis, whether living in Bengal or outside. Bengal has always been a hotbed of political violence. But over the last decade, political violence in the state has reached entirely new heights. After sending BJP worker Priyanka Sharma to judicial custody (who later got bail) for posting a meme of the chief minister on Facebook, the Kolkata Police picked up and detained Delhi BJP spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga at 3 am today. On 4 May, Mamata jumped out of her car at Chandrakona in Midnapore district and shouted at a group of people who waved BJP flags at her convoy and chanted jai shri Ram. Contrast this to a similar incident that occurred in Indore on 14 May, when a handful of BJP supporters shouted Modi, Modi as Congress general secretary Priyanaka Gandhi Vadras convoy was passing through the street. Priyanaka got down and shook hands with BJP supporters, smiling all the while. She said, You are right in your place, Im right in mine. All the best to you. This politics of intolerance and violence has given Bengal a bad name, and the BJP has been desperately trying to leverage this to its advantage. BJPs strategy After yesterdays violent incident, BJP which has taken the TMC head on this election has astutely chalked out its strategy with eyes on the last phase of polling in nine constituencies. The objective is to use the anti-BJP activities of TMC to its advantage and corner Mamata and her government. Till yesterday, Shah who was planning on visiting Varanasi today, and holding a press conference thereafter, changed his decision early morning. He instead held a press conference at BJP headquarters in New Delhi and spoke on the violence in Bengal. Simultaneously, to create a nationwide narrative, senior BJP leaders, including Union ministers, staged a silent dharna at Jantar Mantar today. The posters and banners with the words Save Bengal at the venue highlighted the incident. Modi, who had a rally at Diamond Harbour in Kolkata this afternoon, from where Mamatas nephew Abhishek Banerjee, the sitting MP is contesting as TMC candidate, spoke with News18 India before leaving for Bengal. Prior to Diamond Harbour, Modi addressed a public meeting at Hasnabad in West Bengal. The prime minister raised three important points. First, the TMCs fear is not the BJP or the Congress or the Left; its the people of Bengal. Its fight against West Bengal government, TMC and the hooligans under TMCs patronage versus the people of Bengal. Mamataji is worried that the voters of Bengal will uproot her for adopting anti-democratic means in the state, said Modi. Second, he said TMC has consistently been attacking the BJP, as its only the latter that has taken Mamata and her party head on. Third, taking an indirect jibe at intellectuals of Luteyens Delhi and elsewhere, he said theres a section of neutral people who didnt instigate the violence in Bengal, but didnt utter a word against it. In a way, the prime minister attacked the indirect supporters of Mamata and those who have been opposing Modi and the BJP. Before having his rallies in Bengal, Modi created a base on which he could launch a fierce attack on Mamata and TMC in his bid to win over the Bengal voters. Tuesdays incident has given BJP an opportunity to amplify the narrative that Bengal is burning and needs to be saved across India. Click here for latest updates on Lok Sabha polls The day after BJP and TMC supporters clashed on the streets of Kolkata during a massive roadshow of saffron party chief Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat down for an exclusive interview with News18 India. The day after BJP and TMC supporters clashed on the streets of Kolkata following a massive roadshow by saffron party chief Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat down for an exclusive interview with News18 India. The prime minister touched upon the violence in West Bengal, the Opposition attacks on the Election Commission and electronic voting machines (EVMs), and the BJP's chances at forming the next government. Edited excerpts follow: On Oppositions attack: They should be asked what their helplessness is. What kind of a bankruptcy is stopping them from presenting their vision in front of the country? What do they plan to do for the farmers? What do they plan to do for the youth? What do they plan to do for women? What do they plan to do for the villages? What should India of the 21st Century be like? What should its prime minister be like? They dont have any slogan They only have one way to garner publicity: abuse Modi. The only tool they have is my name. If you abuse Modi, you will get media attention. This is the first election, where Modi is also the theme of the Opposition. It is understandable,if Modi is the theme of NDA, but Modi is also the Oppositions theme. There probably hasnt been any election in the country, where Modi is in peoples minds and all those who want to defeat him at all costs. On being attacked for his caste: I have lived in Gujarat for many years and no one knows my caste. I have never been concerned with caste myself and I believe that if someone says that my caste is of the poor, I belong to the poor caste and every poor belongs to my caste, I totally agree with that view. The condition of our poor people, even after so many years of independence pains me deeply. Its not like we couldnt have done anything about it. In their (UPA) 10 years of governance, 25 lakh houses were built whereas in Modis five years in power, 1.5 crore houses were built. If this work was done earlier then Modi wouldnt have needed to build toilets, houses and he wouldnt have needed to build roads in villages. This work should have happened within 25 years of independence, but unfortunately it wasnt done On the violence in West Bengal: The silence of the people who believe in democracy and the ones who are neutral is the most worrisome aspect because the pattern of forgiving everything else due to a blind hatred for Modi can cause a lot of damage to the nation. Just consider two things: When the topic of violence and terrorism is discussed, Kashmirs name comes up but no violence of any sort took place when more than 30,000 voted in one polling booth for the panchayat elections in the Valley. At the same time, hundreds were killed in the rural areas during West Bengal Assembly elections. Houses were burned of the people who emerged victorious, forcing them to hide in states like Jharkhand and several others for three months. Their only crime was that they won. During all this, the people who talk about democracy remained silent. The BJP constantly raised its voice, even the Congress and other Left parties also raised their voices. The BJP, Congress, Left protested against this in Parliament, but the people who call themselves neutral remained silent which gave them strength. The helicopter of a BJP chief minister was not allowed to land before the elections, public assembly was forcefully cancelled at the last moment and on Monday, my rally was cancelled. Permission was granted at 9 pm and 2 days before it Amit Shahs rally was cancelled. This is totally anti-democratic. The reason for this is not that they fear the BJP, Congress or Left but that Mamata and Trinamool fear the power of the people of Bengal. They know that if the people of Bengal recognise the truth and turn their backs to them, their future will be in jeopardy. Thus, the Bengal government, Trinamool and the goons of Mamatas party have all teamed up in their fight against the people of Bengal. What do you think is the forecast now that the last phase of elections is here? Do you think the BJP will be able to form a government on its own or will you need support? The BJP will emerge victorious with more seats than the last time. The vote share will also increase, as will the margin. Besides, the area that the BJP covers in the country will also increase. This will be a very glorious entry of the BJP in some ways. What is the reason for that? It is not because the BJP has any strategy, but because the public is fighting these elections. You will be surprised to know that all the slogans used in this election have come from the public. The party or a PR agency didnt come up with any slogan. I heard the Ayega to Modi hi slogan from the public. It is unprecedented that the public wants to fight the election. The credibility of NDA partners will also increase along with their seats, their margin and their power. This will create a good atmosphere for regional aspirations. Attempts are being made to create your image as a polariser and a divider. Why do you think attempts are being made to create such a narrative? I believe that the people are trying to mould my image they have been working day and night for 20 years in order to destroy my image. Their own images have been destroyed in the process. I pity them, but is this divide horizontal or vertical? and if it is I dont believe it is. Today, the poor has become polarised, he is directly identifying with Modi. If the poor wants to benefit as well as the nation, whats wrong with that? Why do such people get sad? If the poor thinks beyond race, religion, sect and caste, and comes forward for his childrens future and sees the country future in his childrens future, we should feel proud. The Congress has a family. On the one hand, we saw Priyanka Gandhi Vadras children who have grown up and were around for the filing of nominations of her brother and mother, and on the other hand there is your family that no one knows about. Is keeping family away from politics a difficult thing that you have been able to do but the Gandhis havent? You should ask this question to them. The family is not my issue. I am a student of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and as a student I have understood something that he always used to say. He always said that the biggest enemy of democracy is dynasty politics. Dynasty politics is very dangerous. Unfortunately, the Congress followed the path of dynasty politics and everyone who came out of the Congress dynasty further followed the same path and this is the biggest danger. This is a threat to democracy. The process of political democracy should get enhanced and anyone deserving should be allowed to lead the party such a situation should be created. Why this narrative? Look at the modus operandi of the people who are indulging in this in the name of vote bank politics. They found various characters, organisations and people to scare the Muslims for 70 years and they abused them and created terror using their name to scare the Muslims. Their idea should have been to create great Muslim leaders similar to how we brought Abdul Kalam forward and made him president. If we had moved ahead in the same direction, the countrys unity would have been strengthened. Modis name is just being used for vote bank politics and as far as I am concerned, I have come here with just one mantra: Sabka saath, sabka vikas When I provide electricity, I give information to the government to start from house 1 in the village and proceed to house 2, house 3 etc. If the budget allows only 25 houses, then provide it those 25 houses and the rest of the houses will be provided next year. Dont ask who belongs to which caste or which religion, just work for the nations progress. On making Varanasi a VVIP seat... The VVIP word is not correct. If you want to work for the country, you need to create models. The strategy should be the same. For example, I created Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat, which became a model and attracted a diverse range of people to the country. If you want to change the country, how will you do it? We should think in that direction. My efforts are towards working to create a nation according to 21st Century norms. The old-fashioned thinking will not work anymore. You are set to form the government again, but the Opposition is attacking the use of EVMs. Accusations are being made that the EC takes action against everyone except the BJP... Our Election Commission is praised all over the world. Anyone in the world who believes in politics looks at our election process, Election Commission and EVM machines with pride and respect. It is the bad luck of our country that if you win, Election Commission and EVMs are great, but if you lose then they are bad. In the first three phases of the election, EVMs wasnt an issue, only Modi was abused. In Phase 4 it became 50-50, 50 percent abuse was directed at Modi and 50 percent at EVMs. After Phase 6, this figure has become 30 percent. So, it is 30 percent abuse for Modi, 30 percent for EVM and 30 percent for the Election Commission. They are preparing a ground for their defeat and are planning who to blame for the loss. Click here for latest updates on Lok Sabha polls In a veiled reference to the Time magazine article, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that many people have been trying to 'destroy' his image for over 20 years now, but in the process they have destroyed their own Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that many people have been trying to "destroy" his image for over 20 years now, but in the process they have destroyed their own. The prime minister made the remark in an exclusive interview with News18 India's Brajesh Kumar Singh and Amitabh Sinha on Wednesday, where he touched upon several issues including making a veiled reference to the recent Time magazine article where he was named "India's Divider in Chief". Responding to a question on the attempts being made to create his image as a polariser and divider, the prime minister said, "I believe that people are trying to mould my image... They have been working day and night for 20 years in order to destroy my image. Their own images have been destroyed in the process." The prime minister also said that he doesn't believe in the "divider" narrative while questioning the nature of this so called "divide". "I pity them, but is this divide horizontal or vertical? And if it is, I don't believe it is," Modi said. Adding further, the prime minister said, "Today, the poor has become polarised, he is directly identifying with Modi. If the poor wants to benefit as well as the nation, whats wrong with that? Why do such people get sad? If the poor thinks beyond race, religion, sect and caste, and comes forward for his childrens future and sees the country future in his childrens future, we should feel proud." The BJP had slammed the Time magazine article soon after it was published, terming it an attempt to malign Modi's image while accusing its author, Aatish Taseer, son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer, of pursuing Pakistan's agenda. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had then told a press conference that article's author was a Pakistani and that nothing better can be expected from Pakistan. Click here for latest updates on Lok Sabha polls Following the unrest in Kolkata on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Trinamool Congress and the state government have teamed up against the people of West Bengal Following the unrest in Kolkata on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Trinamool Congress and the state government have teamed up against the people of West Bengal. The violence began on Tuesday after TMC and Bharatiya Janata Party workers clashed during Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata. A bust of 19th-Century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also damaged during these clashes. In an interview with News18 India's Brajesh Kumar Singh and Amitabh Sinha, Modi said, The silence of the people who believe in democracy and the ones who are neutral is the most worrisome aspect because the pattern of forgiving everything else due to a blind hatred for Modi can cause a lot of damage to the nation. Explaining how deplorable the situation in the state has become, he cited the example of peaceful elections in Jammu and Kashmir, despite the violence and terrorism in the state. No violence of any sort took place when more than 30,000 voted in one polling booth for the Panchayat elections in the Valley, he said. Hundreds were killed in rural areas during the West Bengal Assembly polls, he said. Houses were burnt of the people who emerged victorious, forcing them to hide in states like Jharkhand and several others for three months. Their only crime was that they won, Modi said. During the times of unrest, the BJP, Congress and Left parties spoke up, the Prime Minister said, indirectly targeting the TMC. Modi said, People who call themselves neutral remained silent which gave them strength. The helicopter of a BJP CM was not allowed to land before the elections, public assembly was forcefully cancelled at the last moment and on Monday, my rally was cancelled. Permission was granted at 9 pm and two days before it, Amit Shahs rally was cancelled. This is totally anti-democratic. He said that the state government and TMC goons have teamed against the people of Bengal. The reason for this is not that they fear the BJP, Congress or Left but that Mamata and Trinamool fear the power of the people of Bengal. They know that if the people of Bengal recognise the truth and turn their backs to them, their future will be in jeopardy, he said. It is possible his reading and practising of Buddhism has transformed him, but Rahul Gandhi is still a long way away from turning loving-kindness into a political weapon against the BJP-RSS. In January 2018, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor told the audience at the Mushaira Literature Festival of Delhis Hindu College that Rahul Gandhi has "thought very deeply about religion and matters of faith. He is a Shiv Bhakt and seriously practices Buddhist Vipassana and can talk about differences between various schools of it and Hindu philosophy. Gandhi himself has never spoken about the influence of Buddhist thought on him. He did make a passing reference to Vipassana in an interview to India Today but he has not spoken publicly about how it has changed him. But over the last year or so, and in his latest round of interviews to the Hindustan Times and NDTV India , the Congress president, it appears, has tried to tap into the Buddhas ideas of Maitri, or loving-kindness, the ever-changing nature of the self, and the possibility of ushering in social change through the inner transformation of the individual. We don't know how much these precepts have changed Gandhi because neither of the two interviewers Hindustan Times Sunetra Choudhury and NDTVs Ravish Kumar asked him to spell out the source of his inspiration to change himself. As of now, we have only Tharoor's word for it. But since it is clear that Gandhi wants to fashion them into a political weapon to counter the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Narendra Modi, it is pertinent to look closely at what he is trying to do, without seeming to subscribe to Gandhi's description of Modi as someone filled with hatred. Indeed, Gandhis comments to the Hindustan Times and NDTV India echo Buddha, who said: Just as the earth does not feel hurt and does not resent, just as the air does not lend to any action against it, just as the Ganges water goes on flowing without being disturbed by the fire, so also you Bhikkus [monks] must bear all insults and injustices inflicted on you and continue to bear Maitri toward your offender. Buddha advocated that loving-kindness turns a persons thought so vast as to have no trace of hatred in it. To the Hindustan Times, Gandhi said that Modi is full of nastiness towards him and his family. The truth also is, you cant hate another person without hating yourself, Gandhi told the Hindustan Times. He went on to add, I dont associate myself with his anger. The anger is his and is harming only him. It only does damage to me when I grab it and embrace it. I refuse to do that. Obviously, only through his own experience, Gandhi could have realised the harm he was doing to himself by emotionally responding to (what he describes as) Modis anger against him and his family. Gandhis categorical assertion regarding Modis self, ironically, violates the Buddhist principle of perceiving the humanity behind the most hurtful or inhuman action of another human. This is what constitutes the idea of loving-kindness. Gandhi famously hugged Modi during a debate in the Lok Sabha last year. Yet he also coined the slogan Chowkidar chor hai, undoubtedly an abrasive comment. Gandhi will justify the chowkidar coinage, as he did to both the Hindustan Times and NDTV India. As an individual, I love him, like I love every living being. However, I disagree strongly with his ideology and I will do whatever it takes to defeat that ideology, he told the Hindustan Times. From the Buddhist perspective, Gandhis formulation is flawed. The Buddhist will prefer to transform Modi and the RSS rather than defeat them. Gandhi speaks of his endeavour to annihilate the ego. To NDTV India, for instance, he said he wishes to efface his self, or ego, because it is a barrier for him to fathom the pain of, say, farmers. Yet as leader of the grand old party, he did not think it was in consonance with its national status to accept the number of seats the Mahagathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi were willing to offer to it. In both Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, the Congress has chosen to fight on its own, presumably to the Bharatiya Janata Partys advantage. It is tough to imbue politics with spiritualism. Decades before Gandhi was born, BR Ambedkar sought to usher in social change through Buddhism. He studied Buddhism deeply and wrote The Buddha and His Dhamma, a masterly account of Buddhism, and converted to it months before his death. He harnessed Buddhism for social transformation, not on the airy-fairy idea of love. Buddhism signified to him a receptacle of principles to transform a society that could provide the foundation for fostering loving-kindness. In his Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar explained why he thought religion was important in politics. While I condemn a religion of rules, I must not be understood to hold the opinion that there is no necessity of religion. He quoted the British thinker Edmund Burke, True religion is the foundation of society, the basis on which all true Civil government rests, and both their sanction. Ambedkar wanted the ancient rules of life to be replaced with a religion of principles, a true religion, so to speak. It was, therefore, imperative for him to identify the principles which could constitute the true religion. You must give a new doctrinal basis to your religion a basis that will be in consonance with liberty, equality and fraternity; in short, with democracy. After decades of studying Buddhism, he came to the conclusion that all the three principles could be found in it. Most social scientists claim Ambedkar converted to Buddhism to mobilise Dalits and root out the dreadful caste system. Quite another perspective was provided by Mihir Shah, secretary, Samaj Pragati Sahyog, Madhya Pradesh, in his convocation address at Delhis Ambedkar University, which was subsequently released as an article. His [Ambedkar] emphasis is on the fostering of values that would endanger a humane society, based on loving kindness, an impeccable Buddhist virtue. The question he asked himself was: what would foster such a society, imbued with these values? And his clear answer was that this requires a process of inner transformation, without which all activism and all social engineering would come to nothing, Shah writes. After analysing Ambedkars writings on Buddhism, and demonstrating how he was a precursor to thinker-leaders, from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela, Shah writes, Love must necessarily take on the larger structures of injustice that stand in its way. At the same time, because love is our weapon, we do not seek to defeat anyone and must try not to end up humiliating those positioned against us. For the struggle is not against persons, it is for transformation of the opponents view and the system of oppression. It does not seem Gandhi wishes to transform the RSS as much as to defeat it. But even his quest to vanquish the RSS-BJP is found wanting. He and the Congress have not ventured beyond the pious platitudes of describing the ideology of the Congress as one of love and that of the RSS-BJP as of hate. It has not taken a measure to counter the RSS that could be said to be equivalent to Ambedkar and his followers converting to Buddhism. Congress has not attempted to identify the structures of injustice, let alone demolish them. Gandhi has rarely, ever visited the victims of lynching for instance. If Modi targets the Nehru family to distract voters from examining his performance, Gandhi has used the idea of loving-kindness to camouflage his partys inaction against Hindutvas bruising politics. In his interview with NDTV India, Gandhi parried Ravish Kumars questions pertaining to religious minorities feeling isolated and the failure of the Congress to defend Nehruvian ideas. Gandhi has undoubtedly become calmer, focused and confident than he was five years ago. It is possible his reading and practising of Buddhism has transformed him, but he is still a long way away from turning loving-kindness into a political weapon against the BJP-RSS. The SP spokesperson said in his open letter to the prime minister, 'You and your party (BJP) claim that a lot of youths have jobs in the country, but you do not have data. And, anyone who questions the government on employment issue is branded an 'anti-national' by the party's spokespersons and ministers.' Patna: Samajwadi Party's Lok Sabha candidate from Karakat and party's national spokesperson Ghanshyam Tiwari on Tuesday wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking time to submit bio-data of a large number of unemployed youths in this constituency in Bihar. Tiwari said, he and his team have been collecting bio-data of youths from all communities in Karakat and the target is to collect "one lakh" curriculum vitae. "Modi today addressed a rally in Sasaram constituency, which neighbours the Karakat constituency. It was disheartening that he did not outline any vision for the youth of not just Karakat, but entire Bihar," he said. The SP spokesperson also mentioned it in his open letter to the prime minister. "You and your party (BJP) claim that a lot of youths have jobs in the country, but you do not have data. And, anyone who questions the government on employment issue is branded an 'anti-national' by the party's spokespersons and ministers," he alleged in the letter. Modi Tuesday addressed poll rallies in Buxar and Sasaram and lambasted the Congress over Sam Pitroda's 'hua to hua' remark on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Speaking about his vision for the future, the prime minister said he is committed to ensuring the uplift of entire eastern India, including in Bihar, and that no citizen will live without a home by 2022. He said he was also committed to combating water crisis and will set up a separate ministry for the purpose, if the BJP is voted back to power. Tiwari in the letter said, "I am seeking time from you (PM) that I may be allowed to submit the bio-data of these youths either before or after the elections." Karakat, Buxar, Sasaram along with a few other seats in Bihar will go to polls on 19 May as part of the last phase of the Lok Sabha election. That the Kolkata Police had information beforehand about a possible TMC-BJP conflict in College Street where Vidyasagar's statue was smashed and yet took no action to prevent it has raised eyebrows over the police's role in the 14 May violence in Kolkata Kolkata: A day after Kolkata was turned upside down, following the clashes that broke out during BJP president Amit Shahs roadshow, chaos reigned in the West Bengal capital as well as across the state with more than 50 small and big rallies taken out in protest of Tuesdays violence and vandalism. On Wednesday, Bengal simmered with allegations, counter-allegations, press conferences and protest rallies. And one of these rallies was of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself, who hit the capitals streets in the evening. Condemning the violence, after BJP and TMC activists turned Calcutta University (CU) campus and Vidyasagar College on College Street into a political battleground, Mamata led a massive rally of 75,000 all the way from Kolkatas Phool Bagan to Shyambazar's Five Point Crossing, bringing back memories of her Writers Building march. Several intellectuals, including poet Srijato, director Arindam Sil and actress June Malia also joined the rally. "Bengal doesnt want those who vandalised Vidyasagar, said Sil, referring to the BJP activists, who the TM alleged, smashed a statue of Bengal icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in Vidyasagar College. Malia said, "Now, BJP will learn what the slap of democracy is." Even as the city came to a standstill and traffic movement went for a toss, the chief minister marched on and said, These attacks and the humiliation of my state will not go unpunished. I am keeping a track of everything. I will take revenge for everything inch by inch. However, whats raised many eyebrows and irked the citizens further is reports claiming that the Kolkata Police had information about the violence beforehand and yet did not take action to mitigate its effect. A delegation comprising BJP national executive member Mukul Roy, BJP's West Bengal vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar, BJP Mahila Morcha president Locket Chatterjee and BJP state committee member Sishir Bajoria met West Bengal governor Kesari Nath Tripathi on Wednesday to discuss the issue. So what really happened on 14 May? On Tuesday, clashes broke out during Shah's roadshow in the northern part of the city, after TMC Chatra Parishad members joined hands with SFI members and showed black flags to the BJP president. The first clash broke out at Calcutta University. Things calmed down for a while after the college security locked the door. But later, as the rally went ahead, approaching Vidyasagar College, all hell broke loose. There are allegations that at least 25 TMC members and Chatra Parishad students were present inside the college and began pelting stones at Shahs rally. Amid the chaos that ensued, wherein one group was spotted shouting "Amit Shah Go Back", bricks and stones were hurled and verbal fights broke out between party leaders, with the situation soon spiraling out of control. In various videos shot by many passers-by and media persons, saffron-attired men were seen ransacking the Vidyasagar College campus and vandalising the statue of Vidyasagar, leaving the citizens fuming. "Even before we could understand the situation, we saw some BJP men throwing stones at students. Some even went inside the college with sticks and bricks. Within the next five minutes, the college gate was set on fire, as was a bike. I could not sleep all night," said Bijan Samaddar, a shopkeeper in the area. Why are the cops under scanner? The very first information about the security situation during the roadshow thats got the media buzzing raises many questions about the Kolkata Polices role and credibility in the incident. Sources in Lalbazar confirmed that the Kolkata Police special branch had advance information about a possible clash on College Street; they also knew that Chatra Parishad and SFI had come together to show black flags to Shah. The information shared with the police had warned of a counter-attack by the BJP if a clash was allowed to erupt as a large group of BJP cadre from neighbouring states were reportedly arriving in West Bengal. A source in Kolkata Polices special branch said, The police knew that a clash of this sort was a possibility. When just one SUCI rally comes towards Lalbazar, the police make sure 200 personnel are deployed. So, it's bewildering how for an event like this not even 50 personnel were present at the spot." Finally, in a 3 am crackdown on Wednesday, the Kolkata Police filed two FIRs and arrested 58 people (including Tejinder Bagga, a top BJP leader from Delhi), most of whom are reportedly from outside Bengal. "It could be said that most are from Bihar and Jharkhand. They didnt even know whose statue they were vandalising," said a senior police officer. After violence, political potshots follow Meanwhile, Shah, during a press conference in Delhi on Wednesday, said, I wouldnt have got away unhurt without CRPFs protection." On the allegation of BJP activists vandalising Vidyasagars statue, he added, The gates were shut. Our roadshow and workers were outside; the bust was inside a room, which would presumably have been locked and its keys with the college management. How then could we have broken the statue? BJP leaders have accused TMC activists of attacking Shah and his roadshow. The BJP national president, during the press conference, also claimed that Mamata and the state police were scared to make the CCTV footage of the violence public. TMC, however, refused to be put on the back foot and hit back after Shahs press conference by releasing the said video footage. MP Derek OBrien released videos to prove his partys claim that BJP workers were responsible for the damage. Mamata, too, held a public meeting in Agarpara and played a video with her phone near the mic. "Any two people (from the audience) can come up on the stage and check these videos out, she said. In the video she played, a voice could be heard instructing some people to deal with the TMC and the police strictly and even "violently, if needed". Senior Left leader Sitaram Yechury, on the other hand, said, "This TMC-BJP-created chaos has hit the heart and core of Bengal. They cannot be allowed to get away with this. The two parties continue to attempt communal polarisation and insult the people of Bengal who have always stood for social harmony and pluralism. The Left Front is working with the people to defeat these forces. Vidyasagar was an important part of Bengals renaissance. His social contributions changed the course of the national movement and ensured that India became free, he added. Alls still not well With the situation going from bad to worse, there was much protest and anger reverberating across social media as well. Citizens, intellectuals, and celebrities all banded together to upload posts condemning the vandalism. Besides this, the TMC and its youth wing took out at least 50 rallies across the states districts. On Wednesday, a students rally kept the north Kolkata roads jammed. The major meeting points remained Vivekanandas ancestral house on Vivekananda Road, Hedua Park, and areas near Vidyasagar College. A few students showed up with copies of Barnaparichoy, written by Vidyasagar, at BJP Bengals office in the morning. Jatin Das (19), a resident of Uttarpara who came with his friends, said, We four dont belong to any political party. We are students, and we came here to fight back against those who vandalised the statue and are still playing politics around the mayhem. A Chatra Parishad member, identified as Kalam, said, "BJP says save democracy. How? By calling out names? At its rally we hear slogans like Trinamooler chamra gutiye debo amra (Well skin the TMC supporters). We will shame them. EC invokes Article 324, poll campaigning to end on Thrusday at 10 pm According to PTI, in first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday ordered campaigning in nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 PM on Thursday, a day before its scheduled deadline. The EC also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajeev Kumar from their postings in West Bengal. Mamata condemned the EC decision to implement Article 324, terming it an "unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical gift" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the poll panel. She also said she had never seen this type of EC which is "full of RSS people". "There is no such law and order problem in West Bengal that Article 324 can be clamped. It is unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical. It is actually a gift to Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah," she claimed in a press conference. The author is Kolkata-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters. With inputs from PTI The violence at Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday during which a statue of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bengal's 19th Century educationist and social reformer, was vandalised reinforces further the notion that a change of political guard in West Bengal may be underway The violence at Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday during which a statue of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bengal's 19th Century educationist and social reformer, was vandalised reinforces further the notion that a change of political guard in West Bengal may be underway. Violence during elections in West Bengal has always been associated with shifting of the power equation. The ferocity this time suggests that the state might be rolling towards an astonishing conclusion. There has been the usual blame game on who instigated the violence and who indulged in it. This fog of confusion shall be cleared if we ask one basic question. Who may benefit from this violence? The answer is clear: The ruling Trinamool Congress party. Mamata has sought to counter BJP's growing clout in the state in two ways. One, 'otherisation' of BJP as a party of "outsiders" who are alien to the state's "Bengali" culture and ethos. Two, using the state administration to scuttle BJP's campaign strategy by denying permission. It suits TMC's purpose, therefore, if the blame for vandalisation Vidyasagar's statue a key figure of Bengali renaissance is laid at BJP's door. It becomes easier for Mamata to then claim that BJP is a party of "rioters" and "goons" that "brings people from outside the state" to populate rallies, possesses no idea about the spirit, psyche and traits of Bengalis. Desecration of the statue, in Mamata's narrative, serves to only prove her right. Accordingly, the Trinamool Congress has gone all out to paint BJP as the villain in Tuesday's incident. Mamata and her party members have changed their Twitter display pictures to reflect the bust of Vidyasagar to reinforce their "ownership" over Bengali ethos and claim that BJP is attacking the symbols of Bengali culture. The smashing of the statues seems to be a well-coordinated move to trigger outrage among Bengalis against the BJP. And that's exactly why this TMC narrative doesn't pass the smell test. The BJP is a behemoth of a party that is not only in power at the Centre but also in 16 states. It has held countless roadshows across the nation in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. Nowhere has its roadshows witnessed the violence that happened in Bengal. BJP is aware of the parochial campaign run by the Trinamool that almost borders on soft-separatism and is likely to be extra cautious to avoid incidents that may become politically inconvenient. Conversely, it suits the Trinamool if a tag of "violence" can be attached to BJP campaign programs such as roadshows and rath-yatras. Notably, this year in January, the TMC refused to give permission to Amit Shah to hold rath yatra in West Bengal ostensibly due to "fear of violence". The BJP went to Supreme Court where a bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had said that "apprehension of violence by the state government" was not unfounded. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to uncork the truth that Tuesday's violence and vandalism at BJP president's roadshow will be advantage TMC. It now allows Mamata fresh leverage to call for banning all BJP programs in the state. It is worth noting that Mamata has already started creating such noises. The BJP has opposed TMC's accusation that it was responsible for Tuesday's violence. A report in The Times of India, quoting officials, noted that "(Amit) Shah's convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties." "Photos of Vidyasagar College just when the brick batting began from inside. It clearly shows gates closed & BJP workers protesting from the outside. With gates closed they couldn't enter. TMC activists were inside where the bust of Vidyasagar was smashed. TMC is Bengal's Taliban," wrote Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta on Twitter. Photos of Vidyasagar College just when the brick batting began from inside. It clearly shows gates closed & BJP workers protesting from the outside. With gates closed they couldnt enter. TMC activists were inside where the bust of Vidyasagar was smashed. TMC is Bengals Taliban pic.twitter.com/K2xsuYFC1g Swapan Dasgupta (@swapan55) May 15, 2019 Not surprisingly, the BJP is trying to fight fire with fire. Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and senior BJP minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi approached the Election Commission in New Delhi against the goings-on in Bengal, refuting what they called were "false allegations" levelled by the TMC. Sitharaman urged the Election Commission to ban Mamata Banerjee from campaigning "because she is making provocative speeches. Rocks and stones were thrown at our party workers during the roadshow, police lathis used by Trinamool Congress workers were also used against them. False allegations have been made against the BJP of destroying the statue of noted reformed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. All this proves that the law and order situation is bad in the State." Amid the contesting version coming out from Tuesday's incident of violence and arson, one thing is clear. Mamata and her party have been rattled by the traction that the BJP is getting on the ground. Two factors have contributed to it. Mamata's own reaction to BJP's rise and the complete collapse of the CPM in a state that was its fortress for 34 years. Mamata has failed to counter the ideological challenge thrown at her by the BJP, and her muscular response has opened up polarising fissures even more in the state for the BJP to exploit. Alongside, a major shift has already taken place in the erstwhile Left Front vote bank. In the violent paradigm of Bengal politics, gravitating towards either the ruling party or the strongest Opposition is inevitable for survival. The CPM's wipeout has been so total that many of its erstwhile cadres and supporters have shifted to the BJP as the only anti-TMC option available that may "provide protection". These ground realities have further panicked Mamata, whose descent into dictatorship has been steep even by her mercurial standards. She recently called for taking "inch by inch" revenge against the BJP and RSS. "Law and order is a state subject, but they have tried to take control of it. Remember, the elections are here for a few more days, after which they will go. Then, there will be inch by inch badla," he was quoted as saying during a public meeting at Basanti in South 24-Parganas. This is a clear indication that TMC is set to intimidate, threaten and use violence against its political rivals. Are we to believe that a chief minister who uses such incendiary language to incite party workers against its rivals in a democracy is the upholder of Bengal's "culture and ethos"? On the contrary, it seems likely that the huge response to Shah's roadshow in Kolkata considered TMC's fortress has unnerved the chief minister to such an extent that we may see more such attempts at crude subterfuge. Well, may the TMC try to claim Vidyasagar's legacy by changing Twitter display pictures. It will not work. BJP worker Priyanka Sharma on Wednesday asserted that she will not apolosise she sharing a meme of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook. BJP worker Priyanka Sharma on Wednesday asserted that she will not apolosise she sharing a meme of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook. "I'm not going to apologise. I have not done anything wrong. I'm going to fight this case," she said at a press conference held after she was released from Kolkata's Alipore jail. Sharma arrested last week for sharing a morphed image of Mamata was released from jail about an hour after the Supreme Court warned the West Bengal government that it will face contempt charges if the police did not release the BJP youth wing leader despite its order granting her bail on Tuesday. The court pulled up the state government, observing that Sharma's arrest, prima facie, was arbitrary to begin with. At the press conference, Sharma told reporters that she was kept in jail for 18 hours despite getting bail from the Supreme Court. "I was not allowed to speak to my family or parents since my arrest (on 10 May)," she said. The BJP worker claimed that the police had forced her to sign a "mafinama", saying that she would not be allowed to leave without singing the letter first. She also claimed that the jail staff had manhandled her. "The meme was posted countrywide, but they took action against me only because I'm from the BJP," Sharma said. "Where's the justice if the TMC beats up anyone who speaks against them?" She further claimed that the complainant in the case, councillor of Ward No 9 in Howrah Bivas Chandra Hazra, was a "bully" who went around threatening people to not support the BJP. Sharma had shared an image of the West Bengal chief minister's face edited onto a photograph of actor Priyanka Chopra from the Met Gala earlier this month. Her lawyers have moved an application in the Supreme Court seeking action against the West Bengal Police. The court will hear this case in the first week of July. Sharma was charged with defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 66A (offensive messages) and the non-bailable Section 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc, in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act. She was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days after being produced at a court in Howrah on Friday, 10 May. tech2 News Staff Foldable smartphones took a while to arrive but Samsung and Huawei have unveiled their foldable smartphones and will soon be available for purchase. Interestingly, Lenovo has now unveiled a foldable screen device and its not a smartphone. The company has showcased a laptop that features a foldable screen. Scheduled to launch in 2020, Lenovos foldable device will join the companys premium ThinkPad X1 lineup. The device features a 13.3-inch 4:3 OLED 2K display made by LG Display and can be folded in half like a book. In fact, if images are anything to go by, it looks like a huge tablet when folded out. Its also a touchscreen and will support pen input. As far as specifications go, not a lot has been revealed yet but thanks to a report by Venture Beat, we do know that Lenovo is working with Microsoft to optimise Windows 10 for a seamless foldable experience. " target="_blank">(Watch: Huawei Mate X First impressions) Is it coming to India? Well, Lenovo, clearly hasn't specified global availability yet, given this is a prototype but Lenovos ThinkPad marketing director, Tom Butler did tell Venture Beat that Lenovo will be following the same "launch capabilities" that the company currently has on its existing X1 line which does mean that we should see the foldable laptop come to India. Made for highly mobile, tech-savvy professionals who demand the best tools, the new foldable PC joins the premium ThinkPad X1 family, promising that the unprecedented portability will in no way compromise productivity and reliability. This is not a phone, tablet, or a familiar hybrid; this is a full-fledged laptop with a foldable screen, said the company in a blog post. Kshitij Pujari The Realme brand, which had originally started off as an India-centric smartphone company, is slowly spreading its roots in the global markets. The Realme X smartphone, which was announced today, is the first by the company that has been unveiled in China. The India launch date and prices have not been revealed yet, but Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth tells me that the device is coming to India "very soon". I got to spend some time with the device and here are my first impressions. I must also tell you that these impressions are of the Chinese variant of the device. Build, Design and Display The Realme X smartphone has taken a lot of inspiration from its parent companys smartphone, ie., the Oppo F11 Pro (review). It has the same dual-tone finish with a mixture of Purple and Blue along with the same polycarbonate back. It also has the same dual-camera setup aligned centrally with the Realme branding. There is the same pop-up selfie camera which is again centred at the top. The bottom of the phone is also the same with a single firing speaker unit and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. However, Realme has decided to go with a type-C port rather than a standard micro-USB that is present both in the Oppo F11 Pro and Realme 3 Pro (review). The device feels quite light and also premium in the hand. Considering the device will be costing about Rs 15,000 (China price starts at CNY 1,499 which is approx. Rs 15,000) this appears to be a great phone in terms of build quality. There is no fingerprint scanner at the back since Realme has adopted an in-display optical fingerprint sensor. The phone has 6.5-inch AMOLED FHD+ display which appears quite massive thanks to the lack of bezels. Oppo says that the device has a screen-to-body ratio of about 91.2 percent which is quite impressive again for a phone at this price. More about the display in the full review. Chipset, Storage and Software The Realme X and Realme 3 Pro are virtually identical in the processing department. Both are powered by the same Snapdragon 710 chipset and have UFS 2.1 storage with variants starting from 64 GB. RAM options also include 4 GB and 6 GB. However, the Realme X also has an 8 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant which I have received. In terms of software, the Realme X runs on ColorOS 6.0 based on Android 9.0 Pie. Realme has been one of the first to launch Android Pie updates for its devices and we can expect the company to deliver like this in the future as well. It was also one of the companies Google has partnered with to release the Android Q beta on. Camera and Battery The Realme X employs a 48 MP Sony IMX 586 sensor as its primary camera which is something that was seen on the Redmi Note 7 Pro as well. There is also a secondary depth sensor. Clicking photos with Realme X showed quite an impressive depth and colour reproduction. The camera app was swift and easy to use, as was the pop-out camera which is said to open in 0.76 seconds. I shall explain the camera in further detail in my review. The battery of the Realme X is a 4,050 mAh capacity one with VOOC 3.0 charging support. This is the same as the Realme 3 Pro which I have explained in my review as a battery-efficient device. Considering the similarity on this front, I have no doubt that the Realme X will also give similar battery life performance as the Realme 3 Pro. The company says that the device can go from 0-50 percent in 30 minutes but we shall reserve that claim till we are done reviewing the Realme X. Conclusion The Realme X happens to be a smartphone which appears exactly like the Realme 3 Pro but has a few key differences such as big bezel-less display, pop-out camera, in-display fingerprint sensor, 48 MP primary camera and an 8 GB RAM variant. Will the device be a more attractive option than the Redmi Note 7 Pro or perhaps the Oppo F11 Pro? That is something I will only be able to say confidently after my full review. Disclaimer: The correspondent was invited to China for the launch by Realme India. All boarding and travel arrangements were taken care of by Realme India tech2 News Staff WhatsApp, the popular messaging platform with a global base of 1.5 bn users, has been affected with a vulnerability which lets hackers gain access to your phone. WhatsApp has encouraged all its users to update to the latest version of the app and has claimed that this breach has been fixed. What is the latest WhatsApp security breach? The latest security loophole on WhatsApp, discovered earlier this month, lets hackers use a vulnerability in the app to install surveillance software on your phones. The WhatsApp voice calling feature is being used to call the targets device and even if the target doesnt pick up the call, the deed is done. WhatsApp has noted that a buffer overflow vulnerability in the "WhatsApp VOIP stack" allowed for remote code execution via a specially crafted series of SRTCP packets sent to a target phone number. Put simply, the attacker would make a WhatsApp call on your number and the vulnerability in the WhatsApp VOIP stack would let malware be installed on your device, whether or not you received the call. The call won't even show under missed calls as the hacker has the ability to remove it from call logs. The affected versions include WhatsApp for Android prior to v2.19.134, WhatsApp Business for Android prior to v2.19.44, WhatsApp for iOS prior to v2.19.51, WhatsApp Business for iOS prior to v2.19.51, WhatsApp for Windows Phone prior to v2.18.348 and WhatsApp for Tizen prior to v2.18.15. Who has been affected by the WhatsApp security breach? There is no clarity on who exactly has been affected by this breach. According to WhatsApp, it is too early to say, but it has shared this information with human rights groups such as Citizen Lab and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and select security vendors, in addition to the US Department of Justice. According to a report in The New York Times, one of the persons targeted was a London-based lawyer who is helping a Saudi dissident in Canada, a Qatari citizen and a group of Mexican journalists and activists fight a case against the Israel-based NSO Group, which is being accused of being behind this attack. WhatsApp engineers have claimed that the digital footprint of this attack was similar to other tools used by the NSO Group. The lawyer said that his suspicions started growing after he started missing WhatsApp video calls from Swedish telephone numbers at odd hours. Amnesty International has said that there is mounting evidence that these tools by NSO Group are being used by regimes to keep anti-establishment activist voices under control. How to protect yourself from this vulnerability WhatsApp has released an update to fix the vulnerability. You will need to ensure that the Android variant of WhatsApp is version 2.19.134 or higher and for iOS devices, ensure that the app version is 2.19.51 or higher. WhatsApps response WhatsApp has sent out an update which apparently fixed the flaw. "WhatsApp encourages people to upgrade to the latest version of our app, as well as keep their mobile operating system up to date, to protect against potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices," a spokesperson said in a statement to AFP. WhatsApp hasnt revealed how many users have been affected with this exploit as well as who had targetted them. The matter has been reported to US authorities as well as the Data Protection Commission (DPC) in Ireland. Who is the NSO Group? NSO Group is an Israeli tech firm which specialises in making cyber-surveillance tools and is notoriously called a 'cyber-arms dealer'. It has been accused of developing spyware for governments intent on snooping on activists and journalists. In 2016, researchers had found that the NSO Group were helping the UAE government to spy on an activist. Journalists are often the victims of targeted attacks, with as many as 11 identified in our research into NSO Group's Pegasus spyware pic.twitter.com/EooPoRLBtt Citizen Lab (@citizenlab) May 3, 2019 NSO Group is the brains behind the product Pegasus, which can reportedly switch on a targets camera and microphone as well as access data on the device. The software is able to infect a users phone after a single click on a link in a fake text message grants it complete user access of the victims phone to NSOs clients. NSO Group claims that it makes software only for governments to help them fight crime and terror. According to a report in CNN, around 45 countries use NSOs Pegasus technology. NSO Group also claims that it has the power to disconnect its products from use if they are used beyond the purposes of crime and terror detection something thats been dismissed by cyber-security experts. According to cybersecurity experts, regular WhatsApp users are most likely unaffected by this attack, but its always a good idea to update your WhatsApp app to the latest version, just to be on the safe side. Agence France-Presse WhatsApp on Tuesday encouraged its users to upgrade the app to plug a security breach that allowed sophisticated attackers to sneak spyware into phones, in the latest trouble for its parent Facebook. The vulnerability first reported by the Financial Times, and fixed in the latest WhatsApp update allowed hackers to insert malicious software on phones by calling the target using the app, which is used by 1.5 billion people around the world. "WhatsApp encourages people to upgrade to the latest version of our app, as well as keep their mobile operating system up to date, to protect against potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices," a spokesperson said in a statement to AFP. The FT cited a spyware dealer as saying the tool was developed by a shadowy Israel-based firm called the NSO Group, which has been accused of helping governments from the Middle East to Mexico snoop on activists and journalists. And security researchers said the malicious code bore similarities to other tech developed by the firm, according to The New York Times. The latest exploit -- which impacts Android devices and Apple's iPhones, among others -- was discovered earlier this month and WhatsApp scrambled to fix it, rolling out an update in less than 10 days. The firm did not comment on the number of users affected or who targeted them, and said it had reported the matter to US authorities. It also informed authorities in Ireland about the "serious security vulnerability", according to a statement by the country's Data Protection Commission (DPC). "The DPC is actively engaging with WhatsApp Ireland to determine if and to what extent any WhatsApp EU user data has been affected," it said. It echoed WhatsApp in encouraging users to update the app, as "the possibility remains that EU users were affected". The breach is the latest in a series of issues troubling WhatsApp's parent Facebook, which has faced intense criticism for allowing its users' data to be harvested by research companies and over its slow response to Russia using the platform as a means to spread disinformation during the 2016 US election campaign. Highly invasive software The WhatsApp spyware is sophisticated and "would be available to only advanced and highly motivated actors", the company said, adding that a "select number of users were targeted". "This attack has all the hallmarks of a private company that works with a number of governments around the world" according to initial investigations, it added, but did not name the firm. WhatsApp has briefed human rights organizations on the matter, but did not identify them. The Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, said in a tweet it believed an attacker tried to target a human rights lawyer as recently as Sunday using this flaw, but was blocked by WhatsApp. WhatsApp has just pushed out updates to close a vulnerability. We believe an attacker tried (and was blocked by WhatsApp) to exploit it as recently as yesterday to target a human rights lawyer. Now is a great time to update your WhatsApp software https://t.co/pJvjFMy2aw https://t.co/e8VQUraZWQ Citizen Lab (@citizenlab) May 13, 2019 The NSO Group came to prominence in 2016 when researchers accused it of helping spy on an activist in the United Arab Emirates. Its best-known product is Pegasus, a highly invasive tool that can reportedly switch on a target's phone camera and microphone, and access data on it. The firm said Tuesday that it only licenses its software to governments for "fighting crime and terror". The NSO Group "does not operate the system, and after a rigorous licensing and vetting process, intelligence and law enforcement determine how to use the technology to support their public safety missions", it said in a statement to AFP. "We investigate any credible allegations of misuse and if necessary, we take action, including shutting down the system." Agence France-Presse Researchers in Germany have unearthed a new species of flying dinosaur that flapped its wings like a raven and could hold vital clues as to how modern-day birds evolved from their reptilian ancestors. For more than a century and a half since its discovery in 1861, Archaeopteryx a small feathered dinosaur around the size of a crow that lived in marshland around 150 million years ago was widely considered to be the oldest flying bird. Palaeontologists from Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich and the University of Fribourg examined rock formations in the German region of Bavaria, home to nearly all known Archaeopteryx specimens. They came across a petrified wing, which the team initially assumed to be the same species. They soon found several differences, however. "There are similarities, but after detailed comparisons with Archaeopteryx and other, geologically younger birds, its fossil remains suggested that we were dealing with a somewhat more derived bird," said lead study author Oliver Rauhut from LMU's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. They called the new bird-like dinosaur Alcmonavis poeschli from the old Celtic word for a nearby river and the scientist who discovered the fossil, excavation leader Roland Poeschl. The study, published in the journal eLife Sciences, said Alcmonavis poeschli was "the most bird-like bird discovered from the Jurassic". As well as being significantly larger than Archaeopteryx, the new specimen had more notches in its wing bones that pointed to muscles which would have allowed it to actively flap its wings. Significantly, this "flapping" trait found in Alcmonavis poeschli is present in more recent birds, but not in Archaeopteryx. "This suggests that the diversity of birds in the late Jurassic era was greater than previously thought," Rauhut said. The discovery is likely to fuel debate among dinosaur experts over whether birds and dinosaurs developed the ability to flap their wings from earlier gliding species. "Its adaptation shows that the evolution of flight must have progressed relatively quickly," said Christian Foth, from the University of Fribourg, and a co-author of the research. tech2 News Staff There's finally a name for the mission that will likely carry the first woman astronaut to the Moon. The American space agency has named it Artemis, after the Greek Moon goddess who was also the twin sister of the Apollo. The first men to walk on the Moon did so under the Apollo missions between 1960 and 1972. Now, 50 years later, NASA has planned to send the first woman to the Moon in a manned lunar mission in 2024. "I think it is very beautiful that 50 years after Apollo, the Artemis program will carry the next man and the first woman to the Moon," Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator said in a statement. "I have a daughter who is 11 years old, and I want her to be able to see herself in the same role as the next women that go to the Moon." ARTEMIS: Twin sister of Apollo and goddess of the Moon. Now, the name for our #Moon2024 mission to return @NASA_Astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2024, including the first woman and next man. pic.twitter.com/1K9qIloZwp NASA (@NASA) May 13, 2019 The announcement came after NASA got its updated budget request approved. The changes made factored-in the $1.6 billion Trump recommended as a "downpayment" to accelerate the timeline for the agency's next Moon mission from the originally-planned 2028 to the revised target: 2024. That's a tight squeeze considering the amount of things NASA still has to get done. But NASA is pursuing its revised target with a renewed vigour. It's not just the finances that are only now falling in place, NASA also has an untested new rocket the Space Launch System and a crew capsule in construction to carry astronauts back to the Moon, to Mars and beyond. But the NASA Chief sounded quite motivated and confident that they'll match up to meet the deadline. "The first woman will be an American on the surface of the moon in five years," Bridenstine said in April during the Space Symposium conference in Colorado Springs. "That is an extreme declaration and a charge that we are going to live up to at NASA." tech2 News Staff Four years after it was initiated, NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge has now come to a close. The competition ended with the $500,000 design award going to AI Space factory's concept for a habitat on Mars called MARSHA. The architecture and technology company based in New York went up against Pennsylvania State University to win the award. Penn State University didn't go home a loser far from it, they were awarded $200,000 for the second-best off-world habitat. The 3D-printed Habitat Challenge was divided in three parts. The first stage was the design, where teams had to render the architecture of the habitats they wished to build, completed in 2015. Next, a structural member competition was completed in 2017, where teams focussed on material aspects of the habitat design. Finally, 3-D printed scaled versions of the on-site habitat designs were built. We are kicking off the final competition of the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Two teams are competing head to head for guts, glory and gold. @penn_state and @AISpaceFactory have 3 days to print their habs before we test them to failure. More: https://t.co/GUvssn05Ia pic.twitter.com/hoinw7I8h4 Centennial Challenge (@NASAPrize) May 1, 2019 3D printing habitats on Mars In the last leg, the competitors worked for 30 hours, over a period of four days, to print their designs. Constructed in 10-hour increments in front of a panel of judges, they were printed with minimal human intervention and carried out with robotic help. The structures were then subjected to a series of tests to test their durability, strength and if they are leak proof. They also evaluated the materials used and the technique. "Its light, and its strong, like an airplane. Thats going to be very important for these types of habitats," Lex Akers, Dean of the Caterpillar College of Engineering and Technology at Bradley University, said in a statement. MARSHA's Features MARSHA has some unique features. It is made from basalt fibre found on Mars that makes the construction economic. This is possible by a technology called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). The cost of the project, if the material has to imported from Earth, will be astronomical. It is also biodegradable and recyclable. The vertical structure, as compared to the other dome-like shapes, will be better suited to the atmospheric pressure of Mars. It will also limit the movement of the robot when printing is in process. MARSHA has a double-shell and it will make the structure more liveable. The basalt fibre is a good insulator and will maintain the interior temperature against the constantly changing temperatures. Such technologies will enable more sustainable and autonomous exploration missions. NASA will send robots to dig up the landscape so that the printers will have sufficient material to work with. This will be in preparation of the arrivals of the human missions. Terra-firma AI Spacefactory now wants to use their designs for Earth as well. Named TERA, their project has the potential to transform the way we build on Earth, David Malott, CEO and Founder of AI SpaceFactory, said in a statement. TERA is rendered in the same image and likeness as MARSHA. It will reportedly be made using material recycled from MARSHA. It is eco-friendly and will also be 3D printed. They plan to build these houses near New York City. tech2 News Staff Imagine you're a soldier fighting the good fight. You've got weapons in hand and an enemy to watch for. Out of nowhere comes an odd-looking dog that starts firing at your clan moments later. Extreme, yes. But worldwide, much like in any other industry, robots are finding their feet in military defense, too. South Korea has announced its plans to include robot soldiers in their military that look and move as animals do. Making robotic soldiers also brings a whole new meaning to "precision", which is something all military operations and war demands. The United States and China have already made heavy investments in this sector and are raring to go. South Korea, on the other hand, is one of the smaller players in the field. The country's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced big plans for robotics, specifically, 'biomimetics', in their military operations by 2024. Birds, snakes, insects and marine species are all likely inspiration for the military robots. The field of biomimetics uses physics in the natural world as inspiration to engineer technology that serves a useful purpose. South Korea Plans to Build Animal Robots https://t.co/uSvZQL9uAb pic.twitter.com/2RoFUostXp GIKorea (@GIKorea) May 12, 2019 South Korea's biobot soldiers will not just be made in the likeness of animals, but also of human beings. What remains to be seen is just how exact the replication will be. In the initial stages, birds and marine robots will be used to carry out reconnaissance operations, according to a report in the Telegraph. Snake-like robots will be used to access constricted spaces and in areas hit by natural disasters. Using designs in nature also cuts the work of designers in half many of these muses have evolved to the best versions of themselves, adapted to suitable environments. "Biometric robots will be a game changer in future warfare, and related technologies are expected to bring about great ripple effects throughout the defence industry," Park Jeong-eun, spokesperson for the agency said in an interview with Yonhap News. The Future is Robots Let's admit it. Better have robots fighting and dying on the battlefield than humans. But if there's one thing science-fiction has taught us, it would be that robot armies come with downsides and evil overlords. The 2004 Will Smith starrer I, Robot is one good example of how robots doing our bidding can go so-very sideways. If we envisioned this outrageous outcome 15 years ago, the possibilities with today's technology are higher by a laughable degree. That said, humane robots programmed to do tasks cannot replace people, not yet. The emotional quotient is an important element that sets us apart, and we're still a while away from nailing that in a robot. Now that we've found ways to make robots look, talk and speak like human beings, can we also build more robots to do our anti-climate change bidding? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. has reached an agreement with the U.S WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. has reached an agreement with the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee for the panel's senators to interview him in mid-June, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Citing a person briefed on the deal, the Times said the closed-door appearance would be limited to about a half-dozen topics and would last no longer than four hours. The Republican-led committee had subpoenaed Trump Jr. to answer questions about his contacts with Russia, two congressional sources said last week. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Tim Ahmann) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. has reached an agreement with the U.S. By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump Jr. has reached an agreement with the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee for the panel's senators to interview him in mid-June, a congressional source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. The closed-door appearance could cover a broad array of topics, the source said. These could include what Trump Jr. knows about a Trump Tower project in Moscow and about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr., Trump campaign adviser Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer, the source said. The agreement for Trump Jr.'s appearance was first reported by the New York Times. The source disputed news reports suggesting the questioning would be limited to five or six topics pertaining to Trump Jr.'s communications with Russian officials. A committee spokesperson declined to comment. A lawyer for Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The panel had subpoenaed Trump Jr. to appear before the committee, two congressional sources said last week. Senators want to question him about testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017 which was subsequently contradicted by Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who started his prison sentence this month in part for lying to Congress. Led by Republican chairman Richard Burr, the intelligence panel is the only committee in the Republican-controlled Senate that has been conducting a bipartisan investigation into allegations of Russian interference in U.S. politics. The reported subpoena prompted sharp rebukes from some of Trump's staunchest defenders within the party as Republicans sought to move on from a two-year investigation, into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose findings were released in part last month. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Tuesday released an early version of a spending bill that seeks to prevent the shipment of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, as U.S. officials press Turkey not to buy a Russian S-400 air defense system. By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Tuesday released an early version of a spending bill that seeks to prevent the shipment of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, as U.S. officials press Turkey not to buy a Russian S-400 air defense system. The appropriations committee's bill forbids use of federal funds to deliver F-35s to Turkey. Congress often uses its control of federal government spending to influence policy by barring the use of funds. In this case, the measure would not allow any spending, for example, for fuel or pilots to fly the aircraft to Turkey Like other NATO allies of Washington, Turkey is both a prospective buyer and a partner in production of the F-35. But U.S. officials have said Turkey's plan to buy the Russian system would compromise the security of the Lockheed Martin F-35 jets. The dispute has strained relations between Washington and Ankara. The House defense appropriations subcommittee will consider the massive bill funding the Department of Defense on Wednesday. The F-35 provision is a small piece of the $690 billion bill. It is to early to tell when, if ever, the F-35 measure might become law. To pass, the appropriations bill must pass the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, and the Senate, controlled by President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans. The bill also must be signed into law by Trump, who wants more money - $750 billion - for defense than House Democrats want to provide. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Mike Stone; editing by Cynthia Osterman) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The foreign ministry of Mexico said that the country 'reiterates its commitment to respect, protect and promote the human rights of all people, regardless of their political affinity.' Mexico City: The Mexican government said on Tuesday that its embassy in Venezuela has taken in opposition lawmaker Franco Manuel Casella to provide him "protection and safety," even as Mexico City insists it is not meddling in the Venezuelan crisis. "In line with its diplomatic tradition, the government of Mexico received National Assembly deputy Franco Manuel Casella today at its diplomatic residence in Caracas to provide him protection and safety," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The foreign ministry added that Mexico "reiterates its commitment to respect, protect and promote the human rights of all people, regardless of their political affinity." The Mexican government reiterated the position of non-intervention in the Venezuelan conflict that the government of leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has maintained since he took office on 1 December. "The government reaffirms its position of non-intervention, its openness to dialogue and its firm commitment to collaborate in finding a democratic, peaceful solution through dialogue," the statement read. Unlike other large Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, Mexico still recognises the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and not that of opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido. Guaido has challenged Maduro's authority since January, considering his re-election as illegitimate. Earlier in May, the Mexican government said it was concerned about the arrest of Venezuelan National Assembly deputy Edgar Zambrano for his involvement in a failed military uprising against Maduro in April. The pro-government Constituent Assembly, a separate body that enjoys plenipotentiary powers, stripped five opposition lawmakers of their immunity earlier on Tuesday for their participation in the uprising, bringing the total number to 14 so far. Three other lawmakers involved in the uprising have taken shelter at diplomatic offices and another has fled to Colombia. 'The definite decision of Iran is to resist against America,' Khamenei said, adding that 'in this showdown, US will be forced to retreat... because our resolve is stronger.' Tehran: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that "there is not going to be any war" with the United States, his official website reported. In a speech to state officials, Khamenei said the showdown between the Islamic republic and the United States was a test of resolve rather than a military encounter. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war. They know it will not be in their interest," he said, quoted on the Khamenei.ir website. "The definite decision of the Iranian nation is to resist against America," Khamenei said, adding that "in this showdown, America will be forced to retreat... because our resolve is stronger." The supreme leader said negotiating with the US was "poison" because the Americans wanted to take away Iran's strong points such as its missiles or its "strategic depth" in the region. "Negotiating with the present American government is doubly poisonous... they are not decent humans, they don't stand by anything," he said referring to the US decision to withdraw from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers. Khamenei accused US president Donald Trump of being uninformed about the situation in Iran. "Their president says every Friday there are demonstrations in Tehran against the state... Firstly, it's on Saturdays. Second, it's in Paris, not Tehran." The Associated Press San Francisco supervisors voted on Tuesday to ban the use of facial recognition software by police and other city departments, becoming the first US city to outlaw a rapidly developing technology that has alarmed privacy and civil liberties' advocates. The ban is part of broader legislation that requires city departments to establish use policies and obtain board approval for surveillance technology they want to purchase or are using at present. Several other local governments require departments to disclose and seek approval for surveillance technology. "This is really about saying: 'We can have security without being a security state. We can have good policing without being a police state.' And part of that is building trust with the community based on good community information, not on Big Brother technology," said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who championed the legislation. The ban applies to the San Francisco police and other municipal departments. It does not affect the use of the technology by the federal government at airports and ports, nor does it limit personal or business use. The San Francisco board did not spend time on Tuesday debating the outright ban on facial recognition technology, focusing instead on the possible burdens placed on the police, the transit system and other city agencies that need to maintain public safety. "I worry about politicizing these decisions," said Supervisor Catherine Stefani, a former prosecutor who was the sole no vote. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington DC, issued a statement chiding San Francisco for considering the facial recognition ban. It said advanced technology makes it cheaper and faster for police to find suspects and identify missing people. Critics were silly to compare surveillance usage in the United States with China, given that one country has strong constitutional protections and the other does not, said Daniel Castro, the foundation's vice president. "In reality, San Francisco is more at risk of becoming Cuba than China a ban on facial recognition will make it frozen in time with outdated technology," he said. It's unclear how many San Francisco departments are using surveillance and for what purposes, said Peskin. There are valid reasons for license-plate readers, body cameras, and security cameras, he said, but the public should know how the tools are being used or if they are being abused. San Francisco's police department stopped testing face ID technology in 2017. A representative at Tuesday's board meeting said the department would need two to four additional employees to comply with the legislation. Privacy advocates have squared off with public safety proponents at several heated hearings in San Francisco, a city teeming with tech innovation and the home of Twitter, Airbnb, and Uber. Those who support the ban say the technology is flawed and a serious threat to civil liberties, especially in a city that cherishes public protest and privacy. They worry people will one day not be able to go to a mall, the park or a school without being identified and tracked. But critics say police need all the help they can get, especially in a city with high-profile events and high rates of property crime. That people expect privacy in public space is unreasonable given the proliferation of cellphones and surveillance cameras, said Meredith Serra, a member of a resident public safety group Stop Crime SF. "To me, the ordinance seems to be a costly additional layer of bureaucracy that really does nothing to improve the safety of our citizens," she said at a hearing. The city of Oakland is considering similar legislation. By Jeffrey Dastin SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco officials on Tuesday voted 8 to 1 to ban the purchase and use of facial recognition technology by city personnel, in a move to regulate tools that local Silicon Valley companies helped develop. The ordinance, which also would require city departments to submit surveillance technology policies for public vetting, can become final after a second vote next week by the same officials, the city's Board of Supervisors. The action puts San Francisco at the forefront of increasing discontent in the United States over facial recognition, which government agencies have used for years and now has become more powerful with the rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies By Jeffrey Dastin SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco officials on Tuesday voted 8 to 1 to ban the purchase and use of facial recognition technology by city personnel, in a move to regulate tools that local Silicon Valley companies helped develop. The ordinance, which also would require city departments to submit surveillance technology policies for public vetting, can become final after a second vote next week by the same officials, the city's Board of Supervisors. The action puts San Francisco at the forefront of increasing discontent in the United States over facial recognition, which government agencies have used for years and now has become more powerful with the rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies. Since last year, Amazon.com Inc has come under scrutiny for selling an image analysis and ID service to law enforcement, which researchers say struggles to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin, prompting fears of unjust arrests. Amazon has defended its work and said all users must follow the law. Civil rights groups, as well as some companies including Microsoft Corp, which markets a facial recognition service, have called for regulation of the technology in recent months. This has added momentum to the effort in San Francisco. (Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; editing by Bill Berkrot) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military on Tuesday reaffirmed its concerns about possible imminent threats from Iranian-backed forces to its troops in Iraq, who were now at a high level of alert. Earlier in the day, a senior British commander in the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State remnants in Iraq and Syria said there had been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military on Tuesday reaffirmed its concerns about possible imminent threats from Iranian-backed forces to its troops in Iraq, who were now at a high level of alert. Earlier in the day, a senior British commander in the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State remnants in Iraq and Syria said there had been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia. British Major General Chris Ghika appeared to contradict increasingly heated warnings from Washington, where officials say they see a growing threat from Iran. Iran says the U.S. is waging "psychological warfare" and a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has said Iran would retaliate against any aggressive U.S. moves. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Tehran does not seek war with the United States despite mounting tensions over U.S. sanctions, Iranian nuclear capabilities and its missile program. The U.S. military's Central Command offered a clarifying statement after the remarks by Ghika, the coalition's deputy commander for strategy and information. "Recent comments from (the coalition's) Deputy Commander run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region," said Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman at the U.S. military's Central Command. Urban said the coalition, which also operates in Syria, had increased its "force posture level" - terminology that can often refer to the alert levels meant to safeguard troops. "(Operation Inherent Resolve) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq," Urban said, referring to the coalition's mission against Islamic State fighters. Ghika was initially unequivocal when he asserted that there was no new threat from Iran. "No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because that is the environment we are in," Ghika said initially. He later declined to reaffirm that statement, when pressed by reporters. The United States has sent an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles to the Middle East in a show of force against what U.S. officials have said is a threat to U.S. troops and interests in the region. (Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; editing by Grant McCool) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May will bring her thrice defeated Brexit deal back to parliament for lawmakers to consider again in the week beginning June 3, a Downing Street spokesman said on Tuesday. Details of the legislative timetable were released after May met opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to discuss the impasse in seven week-long cross-party talks on leaving the European Union By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May will bring her thrice defeated Brexit deal back to parliament for lawmakers to consider again in the week beginning June 3, a Downing Street spokesman said on Tuesday. Details of the legislative timetable were released after May met opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to discuss the impasse in seven week-long cross-party talks on leaving the European Union. At the meeting May made clear the government's "determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU," said the Downing Street spokesman. The week of June 3 corresponds with a state visit to Britain by U.S. President Donald Trump. But at the talks with May, Corbyn expressed concern over her ability to deliver on any compromise agreement, said a Labour Party spokesman. "In particular he raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments, following statements by Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers seeking to replace the prime minister," the spokesman said, adding that there was a need "for further movement from the government." May, who secured the Conservative Party leadership and the premiership in the chaos that followed Britain's 2016 vote to leave the EU, has promised to step down if lawmakers back the Brexit deal she struck with Brussels. But the prime minister has lost heavily in three attempts to get it through parliament. And some of her own lawmakers want her to name a date for her departure. Earlier on Tuesday the British government agreed it was "imperative" to ratify Britain's exit from the European Union before the summer break, setting out the clearest deadline so far for the embattled plan and the prime minister's possible departure. NO AGREEMENT Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, there is still no agreement among politicians about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Britain had been due to leave the EU on March 29, but May was unable to get her divorce deal ratified by parliament. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said EU leaders did not want an extension beyond the new deadline of Oct. 31, when the legal default is to leave with or without a deal. To try to break the deadlock in parliament, May turned to Labour, led by Corbyn, a veteran socialist, but the talks have so far failed to find an agreement. May has been urged by senior members of her own party to abandon the talks. Senior ministers agreed at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, however, to press ahead with the talks, May's spokesman said. "Ministers involved in the negotiations set out details of the compromises which the government was prepared to consider in order to consider an agreement which would allow the UK to leave the EU with a deal as soon as possible," the spokesman said. "However, it was agreed that it is imperative to bring forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in time for it to receive royal assent by the summer parliamentary recess." Parliament usually breaks for the summer in the second half of July, although the exact date has not yet been set. It must approve the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in order to ratify Britain's exit from the bloc. May has said she will step down once the first phase of Brexit is complete. It would be followed by negotiations on a new trade deal with the EU. SPLIT THE PARTY Thirteen of Mays former cabinet colleagues as well as Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative lawmakers, wrote to May on Tuesday to ask her not to agree to Labour's demand for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU. "You would have lost the loyal middle of the Conservative Party, split our party and with likely nothing to show for it," the letter said. "We urge you to think again." "No leader can bind his or her successor so the deal would likely be at best temporary, at worst illusory," said the letter, whose signatories included Gavin Williamson, who was sacked as defence minister this month, and former foreign minister Boris Johnson. After a series of missteps in trying to deliver Brexit, the Conservative Party has slumped to fifth place ahead of the May 23 European Parliament election, while Nigel Farage's Brexit Party is in the lead, a YouGov opinion poll for The Times newspaper showed on Monday. The Conservatives and the Labour Party were also given a drubbing in local council elections this month. The collapse in support is raising pressure on May to set a date to step down. May, who has repeatedly ruled out signing up to a permanent customs union, has said that if the talks with Labour fail parliament could be asked to vote on a range of Brexit options. Corbyn, too, came under pressure to clarify his stance at a meeting with Labour lawmakers on Monday, with both backers of a second Brexit referendum and others who want a deal to leave arguing their case, sources told Reuters. U.S. investment bank JP Morgan said on Tuesday it was difficult to see May surviving beyond the end of June. Britain's chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins was due in Brussels for what May's spokesman said was a routine visit. (Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan and James Davey; Editing by Michael Holden, Mark Heinrich and Lisa Shumaker) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The sanctions on the officials have been put in place after a row between Pakistan and America over the deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other allegations, it said Islamabad: The US has imposed visa sanctions on three senior Pakistani interior ministry officials following a row between the two countries over the deportation of dozens of Pakistanis in America for their visa overstay and other allegations. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday informed the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs about the visa curbs by the US. The officials who are facing the visa restrictions are an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry as well as the director general passports, the Dawn newspaper reported. The sanctions on the officials have been put in place after a row between Pakistan and America over the deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other allegations, it said. Qureshi said the US authorities intended to deport more than 70 Pakistanis, but the government had asked them to fulfil the legal requirements. The US put the restrictions on three officials that are said to be overseeing the country's policy on accepting back nationals deported from other countries. The US has over the past 18 months deported over 100 Pakistanis, all of whom were accepted back. It is the first time that Pakistani authorities have insisted on verification of the credentials of the deportees. The foreign minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. He said consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad were continuing and are granting visas to the eligible applicants. worth paying multiplex prices for worth a look, but wait for DVD, unless your favorite actor is in it give it a miss my reaction under consideration my reaction under gag order for now not yet seen by me Yesterday Xiaomi confirmed that its upcoming killer flagship will be called the Redmi K20. Today, congratulating the OnePlus for the new flagship, Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi has posted that Flagship Killer 2.0 is coming soon. This highlights the K20, confirming the name and also reveals that it will be powered by Snapdragon 855. In a separate post, Xiaomi takes a dig on the OnePlus, saying: Flagships are not everyones cup of tea, solely because of the pricing. In a country like ours, where a sizeable population is tech-savvy, not everyone can afford a Flagship. Flagship Killers breathed a new life into the industry and made smartphones with great specs accessible to the masses. But it looks like many who promised to be Flagship Killers then have lost their path. They are choosing to Never Settle when it comes to pricing. At Xiaomi, weve believed in making innovation accessible to everyone by developing such Flagship Killers. As you will see again soon. Earlier this week the company celebrated 2 million unit sales of Redmi Note 7 series, and also said that all-new 48MP camera phone from Redmi is coming soon. This should be the same phone. An all-new #Redmi with a new 48MP Super camera is coming. RT if you wanna know what the #48MPForEveryone is all about! pic.twitter.com/8MOfCVtaLs Redmi India (@RedmiIndia) May 14, 2019 The company already posted a teaser with a pop-up front camera and a no-notch display. Redmi President Lu Weibing already confirmed that it will retain the 3.5mm audio jack, today he has shared that the internal code name for the phone is The Demon King. We should know more details about the phone, including the launch date in the coming weeks. Source 1, 2, 3 Last month Samsung announced that it sold 2 million Galaxy A series smartphone in 40 days, today the company has announced that it has sold 5 million units in 70 days. This includes Galaxy A10, A20, A30, A50, A70 and the Galaxy A2 Core since March 1st. The company added that it generated over US$ 1 billion in revenue for the company, and aims to sell US$ 4 billion worth of Galaxy A smartphones this year. Samsung said that the Galaxy S10+ flagship is also doing very well in India, helping the company consolidate its number 1 ranking in the premium segment. Samsung is gearing up to launch the Galaxy A80 smartphone with a rotating camera in India in the coming weeks, and is also rumored to launch the Galaxy M40 smartphone in June. Commenting on the new achievement and S10 sales, Ranjivjit Singh, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung India, said: I would like to thank our consumers for making Galaxy A an unprecedented success story. Designed for young millennials and Gen Z, Galaxy A offers capabilities to shoot videos in UltraWide, Slow-Mo and Hyperlapse modes. These features are transforming the way consumers are using smartphones by allowing real-time content creation and sharing. Our premium lineup (S10, S10+ and S10e) has also done extremely well and we had a 77 per cent value market share in the premium smartphone category (Rs 30,000 and above) in India Taiwanese tech brand HTC announced Exodus 1, the native blockchain smartphone in October 2018. Now, the company has announced Exodus 1S smartphone that comes with bitcoin(BTC) full node capacity and the company aims to bring to blockchain technology and crypto technology to a larger audience in Q3 2019. The Exodus 1S from HTC is the first smartphone ever to have full node capabilities containing the full Bitcoin blockchain. HTC said that it has been working on the project for some time and the biggest obstacle and hurdle for them was developing a device that could act as a true full node and hold the full Bitcoin blockchain on the device. The company also listed a set of technical challenges with the Exodus 1S. According to the company, the full Bitcoin blockchain is around 200 GB and is increasing at about 60 GB per year. Although the smartphone has the ability to support the pruned version at all times, an additional SD card will be required when full blockchain is used. The Exodus 1S will not be able to mine for bitcoin itself, but the company is said to be in touch with upcoming partners that will offer hashrates. The ecosystem depends on the operation of nodes and the mining activity and the mining is more strongly incentivized. The company also added that users should run a node off a stable Wi-Fi connection due to the large data requirements. More details on the smartphone and the technical details is expected to be available closer to the products commercial release. It will reatail somewhere between $250 and $300 when it goes on sale by the end of Q3. Commenting on this, Phil Chen, decentralized chief officer at HTC, said: Running a node is maybe the most important part of the blockchain as it helps secure the network; every one of them acts as an authoritative verifier of every single transaction of the block. We first empowered the user by owning their own keys and now were focused on empowering the user to run their own node to help secure and grow the network. Full nodes are the most important ingredient in the resilience of the Bitcoin network and we have lowered the barrier to entry for any person to run a node, participating in a global bitcoin network that propagates transactions and blocks everywhere. Source A big rally in the stock market enabled Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) to report a big surge in net income in Q1. The quarter was still pretty good even after adjusting for that boost from its stock portfolio. In this Industry Focus: Energy clip, host Nick Sciple and Fool.com contributor Matt DiLallo discuss: The strong showing of Berkshire's railroad. The solid results in the utilities and energy segment. The benefits of Berkshire Hathaway's diversification. To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. A full transcript follows the video. This video was recorded on May 9, 2019. Nick Sciple: All right, Matt, now I want to talk a little bit about Berkshire's earnings. First off, the numbers. When you see this net income number off the top, it's really eye-popping. $21.7 billion. But you need to take a little bit of that with a grain of salt. $15.1 billion of that is just mark-to-market on the equity portfolio. The S&P was up 13% during the first quarter. Obviously, that provided a whole lot of ballast for Berkshire's equity portfolio. When you back out to the core business, you're looking at about $6.6 billion in net income. A lot of cash, but not quite what you're going to see from that headline number. As you dig into Berkshire's actual operating businesses, Matt, what stood out to you from this report? What's going on in that part of Berkshire's universe? Matt DiLallo: I really liked the railroad earnings. Pre-tax earnings were up 10% to $1.7 billion. They benefited from higher rates per car and fuel surcharges. That big boost came even though there was really bad weather during the winter and flooding in the Midwest. That hurt volumes, but they made all that up on pricing. Lots of other railroads do the same thing. Tennessee and Wyoming, they reported really strong earnings, even though there was all this flooding and stuff. The big things were industrial and consumers -- your oil, your construction materials. That painted a really strong economy. The weaknesses were in coal and agriculture. It was really good. It shows that that investment in Burlington Northern is really paying off. Sciple: Yeah. Those railroads fit what Warren Buffett has done in the past. Used to always invest in newspapers, those are little monopolies. You look at a railroad, we've talked about with pipelines before, those are little monopolies, too. You control those routes. They're not building a lot of new railroads these days. When folks need to move things around, they have to go to Berkshire or these other folks. When the economy is doing well, it really works out for these railroads. We've talked in the past too about pipeline constraints as well taking away oil from some of these plays. Railroads are a good substitute for that. That explains some of where you might see that strong performance in that part of the business. Their utilities and energy also had a pretty good quarter as well. What did you see from that part of Berkshire's operating businesses? DiLallo: Utilities earnings pre-tax is up 11% to like $500 million. That was pretty good. But it was interesting. There's a lot of mixed results. They own several utilities. MidAmerican's probably their most famous one. Earnings there doubled. But a lot of the other ones are up or down. That just shows the diversification of Buffett's energy portfolio. He had some other energy businesses. He has pipelines, and he has investments in renewables and regulated electricity transmission. Those were down there, they reported a loss. The diversification really helped him. He had some really good assets out there. Those are performing well and they're offsetting some weak areas. Sciple: Yeah. Again, that's what you get from Berkshire, this super-diversified industrial conglomerate in areas where regardless how the economy is performing, some part of that business is going to be doing well. It can create a patient care issue, in that in some cases, a particular drug is the very best drug for a patient in a clinical situation, so if that drug is not available that can require a situation where we go to the next best alternative, Woller said. Neighboring Favorite, PJs Coffee of New Orleans, Furthers Expansion in the Lone Star State Growing Coffeehouse Franchise Embarks on Southwest Expansion; Plans to Open 180 Locations in Texas in Next 10 Years May 15, 2019 // Franchising.com // Houston, Texas - PJs Coffee of New Orleans, a New Orleans-based coffeehouse that demonstrates a southern hospitality experience, the freshest products, and better beans with superior roasting technique, has announced rapid expansion plans for Texas with hopes to bring 180 new locations within the next 10 years. The regions plethora of added storefronts will center in the states four largest cities with 60 locations slated for Houston, 25 for Austin, 40 for San Antonio and 55 in Dallas-Fort Worth. The planned coffeehouses will join the three PJs Coffee locations already seeing success in Cypress, Downtown Houston and Pearland. Pearland franchisee, Kyra Sam, opened the 100th PJs Coffee location in August 2018 at 12640 Broadway St., Ste. 102 as has since found incredible success in her first year of operation. As a New Orleans native and former general manager of a PJs coffee in Louisiana, I wanted to bring the coffee houses superior product that I loved so much to the people of Pearland, said Sam. Since opening, I have seen success I could not have imagined. This journey has allowed me to become the entrepreneur I always hoped to be. With the unmatched support that PJs Coffee offers its franchisees, I look forward to continuing to grow with the brand. I cant wait for their further expansion throughout Texas! PJs Coffee serves a wide variety of iced, frozen, hot, cold brew, and nitro-infused coffees using only the top one percent of Arabica beans, as well as organic tea and fresh breakfast pastries. PJ's famous iced coffees are brewed daily using a special cold-drip process that protects the flavor and strength of the beans, while producing a coffee that is two thirds less acidic - a process pioneered by PJs Coffee founder, Phyllis Jordan, decades ago. At PJs coffee we are committed to serving up a top-tier product rooted in southern hospitality. As we sought further expansion, Texas became an obvious choice as an area with similar values and upbeat vibe, said David Mesa, Chief Development Officer of PJs Coffee. We look forward to rapidly expanding and consistently adding to the PJs coffee family in our neighboring state because you know what they say- everythings bigger and better in Texas. To become a part of the ever-growing $100 Billion a year global industry, prospective franchisees can expect a total investment range between $185,000 - $360,000 for non-traditional franchise units, and $350,000 - $566,000 for traditional units. The operating model and menu is adaptable to any environment with different options from kiosks to free-standing locations with a drive-thru, ranging from a few hundred square feet up to 2,200 square feet. About PJs Coffee PJs Coffee of New Orleans was founded in 1978 by Phyllis Jordan, a pioneer in the coffee industry. The coffeehouse was acquired by Ballard Brands in 2008 which was spearheaded by brothers Paul, Scott and Steve Ballard. The New Orleans-based coffeehouse demonstrates that better beans, superior roasting techniques, and pure passion for the art of coffee-making matter. The brand serves a wide variety of hot, iced and frozen coffee beverages using only the top one percent of Arabica beans, as well as organic tea and fresh breakfast pastries. As the company approaches its 40th year as an established brand, it continues to remain an authentic coffeehouse with a New Orleans spirit. PJs Coffee has more than 90 locations open and operating nationally and internationally. SOURCE PJs Coffee ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Screenmobile Pulls into Shawnee Mission Nations Leading Mobile Screen Service Brings Convenient Home Improvement to Shawnee Mission May 15, 2019 // Franchising.com // SHAWNEE, Kan. Americas Neighborhood Screen Store will now steer Shawnee Mission in the right direction through affordable and convenient home improvement. Screenmobile announced today that it has launched a new location based in Shawnee. The brand has disrupted the screening industry by providing a cost-effective and convenient solution for an otherwise inconvenient home and business improvement experience. Local residents will soon find out how easy home improvement can be. Screenmobile of Shawnee Mission is slated to open in April 2019 and is the first location for the brand in Kansas. It will serve homes and businesses across Johnson County as well as the Missouri side of Kansas City. Im thrilled to start a new career as a Screenmobile owner and bring this unique and needed business to my community, said Scott Werner, owner of Screenmobile of Shawnee Mission. I am able to provide the community with a more affordable and efficient screening experience and proudly wear the Screenmobile name. Folks in Johnson County and Jackson County are in for a whole new kind of home improvement experience! Screenmobiles success is rooted in its commitment to customer satisfaction. In a single visit, a Screenmobile representative arrives in uniform, then measures, manufactures, installs and tests the screens on-site. Afterwards, Screenmobile follows up with proactive communication to ensure the needs of the customer are met. This commitment to the customer resonated with Scott after working many years in customer service. Screenmobile also provides retractable screens, motorized screens, patio enclosures, pet screens/doors, swinging and sliding screen doors. Prior to launching his new license to Shawnee, Werner worked in sales and management, developing extraordinary skills in customer service and relationship building. A wine expert, he also worked in the wine distribution space for more than a decade. Werner, passionate about the outdoors, has lived in Shawnee for more than 20 years and is excited to work outside and with his neighbors through Screenmobile of Shawnee Mission. His wife and college aged son will help out with business. We are excited to be expanding into the Shawnee Mission area and look forward to driving business within the community, said Scott Walker, President and CEO of Screenmobile. Scott was the perfect choice to help grow the brand in Kansas because of his vast experience in customer service and management. We are thrilled to welcome Scott to the Screenmobile family. From its inception in 1980, Screenmobile has experienced steady growth year after year. Today, there are over 119 licenses across more than 26 states, with 10-15 additional ones in development throughout the country. The Walker family, Monty M., Scott and Monty L., had a vision of starting a brand that capitalized on the opportunity to become the first mobile screening company. Over the years, Screenmobile has gained a loyal customer base. The brand stands apart from other screening companies due to its low overhead, quick ramp-up time and familial spirit. For more information on Screenmobile of Shawnee-Mission and elsewhere, visit https://www.screenmobile.com/Locations/US/Kansas/Shawnee/228. About Screenmobile Founded in Glendora, California in 1980, Screenmobile has successfully become the nations leading mobile screen service franchise, with 119 licenses across more than 26 states. Screenmobile has proudly been ranked on the Entrepreneur Franchise 500 list for the past 14 consecutive years. Screenmobile specializes in window, door and patio porch screens, as well as solar shading products. The company is dedicated to establishing responsible, lasting partnerships with franchise owners and pledges organizational support through progressive leadership, continual training and company growth. SOURCE Screenmobile ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus The American Hospital Association has said the system penalizes hospitals in poor areas, where more patients might need to be readmitted because they dont have adequate resources to aid in their recovery at home. It also tends to give academic medical centers lower marks because they treat more complex patients than other hospitals, the association has argued. A woman accused of stealing items ranging from Chinese food to a game system during a recent string of break-ins in Stafford County has been charged with nine offenses, authorities said. Summer A.K. Davis, 26, of Stafford, is charged with breaking into four homes last week off U.S. 1 in the Aquia area of the county. Sheriffs spokeswoman Amanda Vicinanzo said two burglaries were reported at homes on Pilot Knob Loop on May 7. One victim reported that the only thing taken from her home was Chinese food from the refrigerator. Security cameras showed the woman walking around the living room and rummaging through a purse, but nothing was taken from the purse, Vicinanzo said. The second victim reported that someone broke into her home and stole her sons PlayStation and some video games. Authorities said several witnesses were able to identify Davis from the surveillance footage and a search warrant was obtained for her home. Investigators went to her home Thursday and recovered several items, including a game system, Vicinanzo said. Kids love to point out things that are different, he said. I thought [the tics were] my fault. Now, Mosiniak said, thanks to good friends who accepted him as he was, he doesnt think of himself as any different from other kids. [Tourettes] is just a part of who I am, he said. Though his mom joked that seeing me struggling must have inspired her son to pursue college, Mosiniak said its something hes always wanted to do. Instead of dreading school, I would always kind of look forward to it, he said. College looked appealing to him because of the freedom to take classes he was really interested in. At William & Mary, Mosiniak plans to major in math with the idea of becoming either an intelligence analyst or a pharmacist. Lucas is a true testament of what [the Gladys Todd Academy] stands for and the impact it has on the student. He has persevered in the face of adversity and will continue to do well in his journey to William & Mary, said DeMareo Williams, Todd Academy program assistant. But Catherine and I arrived in our 40s, so weve had to come up with different things to do on the property to bring in income, he said. Emery said a book about the property and his ancestors demonstrated that theyre not unique in their approach to trying to find different ways to bring income to the property. Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginias Gentry, 17001860 by Laura Croghan Kamoie, noted that his early forebears well understood that it makes sense to have as many ways of earning income as possible on a large property like Mount Airy. When John Tayloe II came here from England, instead of deciding to focus on just one way to make money and support the property, he and John III also came up with 12 different ways, said Emery. They had an iron furnace, and 10 different farms growing different crops on each farm. They didnt know what would succeed and what would fail so they were constantly looking for things that did work. He added, Catherine and I have taken up that spirit and approach, knowing that we cant just do one thing and make enough money to keep this property going. If one thing fails, we have to have nine other things that are working. At the Office on Youth, we have been working with Spotsylvania County Public Schools the last two school years to integrate restorative practices into their schools, and we will begin work with another local school district next year. With the traditional criminal system, the focus is on the laws that are broken, who broke them, and what their punishment will be. With restorative justice, the focus is on who has been hurt, what are their needs, and whose obligation it is to meet those needs. It is centered around the belief that all people are worthy and relational, with its key values being respect, dignity, and mutual concern. It differs from criminal justice in that all those affected by a crime or school violation are engaged in the discussion. The victim, the person harmed, has a voice. There are multiple restorative approaches that can be applied to a school, work, or home environment. Listed from requiring the least energy/time to the most energy/time, they are: having a positive and respectful frame of mind; using affective language; being culturally responsive; listening to understand; using proactive circles that are responsive to an event or problem; mediation; and utilizing a restorative conference. Only blind loyalty prevents Trump impeachment Loyalty: faithful; true to allegiance. (Websters New Dictionary, 1994.) Loyalty is to be commendable, sought after and valued. But what about blind loyalty? I was shocked when a supervisor said that loyalty can be dangerous. He said that loyalty must be combined with critical thinking skills. His example was the Germans support of Hitler in the 1930s1940s. People would support his mad ideas, such as mass murder of Jews and undesirables, and that an ideal German was blonde and blue-eyed. Clearly murder is morally wrong, and Hitler was a brunette, brown-eyed Austrian. I am trying to apply the critical thinking concept to todays federal government dysfunction. Here are some of my topics of contemplation of why people are remaining loyal to mad ideas: Regulations that were put into place after the 2008 financial fiasco to prevent bad lending practices have been rescinded. Regulations protecting waterways from oil spills have been rescinded. Nine dead whales just washed up in the Bay area. Keeper has about 150 full-time employees worldwide, about 60 of whom are in its Chicago headquarters. It also has offices in California and Ireland. Guccione said he expects headcount in Chicago to increase to about 190 in the next six months. Galveston, TX (77553) Today Overcast. Near record high temperatures. High 77F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low near 70F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. To that point, patients at hospitals that get D and F grades may face greater danger than patients at A hospitals, according to a white paper also released Wednesday by Leapfrog. At A-rated hospitals, an estimated 3.2 people died of avoidable deaths per 1,000 patients admitted, whereas in D and F hospitals, 6.2 patients per 1,000 admitted died avoidable deaths, according to the paper, produced for Leapfrog by the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine. As the award winner of Users Choice Game of 2021 and Best Pick Up & Play of Google Play, Ensemble Stars!!Music launched the first English release, which takes this highly acclaimed game to the next level. Launched in 2015, the all-day breakfast offering has been a big hit for McDonalds, bolstering sales and luring more customers to the hamburger giant for Egg McMuffins and sausage burritos throughout the day. But whipping up the full morning menu with some items more popular than others may be slowing down and complicating operations for franchisees. Janet Turner clocks in at 5:55 a.m. and starts her pre-ride check. The bus depot at the Greater Albany Public Schools Transportation Office is loud, with no clear path from one destination to the next. Buses sit shoulder-to-shoulder; noses on some poke out and the flat faces of others provide a bit more room to pass. And the blacktop that spans the yard bounces back the heat that often accompanies the school year's waning days. But Turner, 66, knows her route, zigzagging from the transportation office past the buses, nosed and flat, her cane hitting the blacktop on the off beat of her hurried, practiced steps. All the while she talks at a volume just loud enough to float over the noise. She starts the bus and closes the doors so the air conditioner cools the cabin. Then she rounds the bus, checking the undercarriage for loose wires and strange noises. She doesnt thump the tires, though. Shes spoken to people at the Oregon Department of Education who have told her theres just no use in doing it. By the time she could feel a difference, shed be able to see it was flat. Its a process shes been through nearly every school day for 28 years, and while shes humble, theres no escaping how good she is at it. Just look at the trophies in the office most have her name on them. Its a process shes learned, taught and depended on through two hip replacements, two knee replacements and hundreds of students. On Friday, May 10, she did it for the last time. I have good kids, she said, standing at the head of the bus aisle like the captain of a ship checking the masts before setting sail. Turner handles the special education route. She has seen children climbing the four steps up into her bus for kindergarten to walking across the stage at their high school graduation. You get to know them and their families, she said. If you treat them with respect and you treat them like people they treat you the same way. Turner started driving a school bus, as well as working in the districts kitchens, in 1991. In the late 1990s, she swapped her kitchen job to teach drivers education at Linn-Benton Community College. She started driving the special ed students in 2000. Even in the job shuffle, she always held onto her bus route, putting off retirement for a year. On the eve of having to say goodbye, shes worried. When you see them every day you get to know when theyre sick, when theyre in a bad mood, a good mood, you get to know them, she said of her riders. You worry will the (next) driver yell at them, be rough with them? Some people treat them like robots, which theyre not. Will they get to know them? Jed has a loud voice but doesnt like when people yell. Davis like his certain seat. Its hard to understand what Erica says. Jordan doesnt wear glasses so when he climbed the bus stairs with a pair on his nose Thursday, Turner noticedan observation that sent the boy scrambling back down the stairs and into the school. Ive never seen him with glasses; hes probably supposed to leave them in class, Turner chuckled, buckling a kindergartners seatbelta kindergartner she says comes from an immigrant family, was diagnosed with Down syndrome and sometimes falls asleep so deeply in the bus seat that she lets his brother or mother onto the bus to carry him off. I just hate to shake him awake, Turner said. Janet can tell you the history of every student shes had, said Russ Buttram, GAPS Transportation supervisor. She knows her kids very well and can anticipate their changing transportation needs. Cindy Moran, who has worked with Turner at the transportation office for 26 years as the operations supervisor, said Turner is a mentor for all drivers. If anyone is a bus driver, you want to be like Janet, she said. Shes loving, safe, and her kids are her kids, she will tell you that. On Thursday, Turner made sure let her kids families know she had reached the end of her line, leaving the bus doors open a bit longer to make sure parents, guardians, siblings and caretakers knew the following day would be her last on the job. She made sure students knew too. She tells Erica shell have to give her a hug tomorrow, and when Erica asks why, she reminds her of her impending retirement. But rather than mourn the coming goodbye, Erica smiles and reminds Turner its her birthday. Shell be 17. Ive been telling her for weeks and she always says, Oh, thats my birthday! Itd be nice if you left me something for my birthday. I might, if I remember, get her a card, Turner says. Whether or not to bring a little something for all the kids was a question Turner had gone back and forth on all week. She said she brings candy on Easter and Halloween, a little something on Christmas, Valentines Day and St. Patricks Day, too. How her retirement is going to shape up, Turner isnt quite sure yet. First on the list was getting through Friday. I said we might have to get someone else to drive the bus because I know its going to be emotional, she said. Then, it was surgery on her right foot this week, followed by a few weeks of recovery. After that, she said she might come back to substitute for drivers now and then or mentor other drivers as a bus aide. Shes already met her replacement. The kids will like him, she said. Theyll be fine. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The halls of the state Capitol in Salem likely still are reeling from the events of the last few days, in which Democrats and Republicans agreed to a deal that led, swiftly, to the passage of a tax on certain Oregon businesses that could toss an extra billion dollars or so each year into the state's K-12 public schools. There will be time later to examine the details of the deal, in which Democrats agreed to drop a proposal to tighten the state's vaccine mandates and also killed an omnibus bill containing a variety of gun control measures. In return, Republican senators agreed to return to the Capitol, ending a four-day walkout in which the Senate couldn't do any business because it didn't have the necessary 20 members for a quorum. On their return Monday, Democrats wasted no time in passing House Bill 3427 on an 18-11 party-line vote. (Republican Sen. Jackie Winters of Salem was excused.) The measure is on its way to Gov. Kate Brown, who is certain to sign it. The bill calls for a gross receipts tax of 0.57% on a business' gross receipts over $1 million; it's estimated to affect 40,000 or so businesses in the state. The first $1 million in sales is exempt from the tax. Businesses will be able to subtract 35 percent of either their labor or capital costs from their total sales. All the money generated is intended to go to K-12 schools, which raises an interesting question about how much money will be available for the state's higher education system, which also has been underfunded by Oregon for generations now; the answer to that question now rests in the hands of the Legislature's budget writers, who will doubtless be paying close attention to the state's next revenue forecast, which is due today. You'll recall that there was talk from Brown earlier about possibly earmarking some of that wealth from the business tax to higher education, but that was widely perceived as an attempt by the governor to line up political support for the tax from higher education officials. And it became clear early on that legislative leaders intended from the start of this effort to ensure that all the money went to K-12 schools. But there also was talk from Brown, back in her inaugural speech in January, that the state would hold school districts accountable by ensuring that "new dollars are used to improve graduation rates, reduce class sizes and provide a full school year." To its credit, the bill does include measures designed to ensure that school districts are accountable for the infusion of revenue they're expected to get beginning in the 2020-21 school year. That's important for plenty of reasons, and here's a big one: Even though this is a tax on businesses, you'll be paying some of the freight as those businesses pass along the increased tax. (To compensate for that, the plan includes an 0.25 percentage point personal income tax cut for all but the highest income earners.) Half of the money raised will be distributed as grants to local districts, and 20 percent to programs for toddlers and preschoolers. The remainder will be divided between funding for career and technical education and initiatives meant to prevent dropouts. Districts will have to submit plans about how they will use those funds to improve graduation rates, decrease chronic absenteeism and improve outcomes for historically underserved students. Smart districts will figure out ways to involve their stakeholders in the creation of those plans, and will work hard to reach out beyond the usual crowd that attends school board meetings. Those districts will also include benchmarks that clearly show what progress they're making (or aren't making) and will make a point of calling attention to them, regardless of whether the news is bad or good. After all, those districts will remember where the money is coming from. And they will understand that taxpayers are expecting results. (mm) Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A South African guy has been arrested and will appear in court after allegedly scamming his way to free KFC feeds from KFC for over a year. The unnamed 27-year-old is reported to have told KFC workers that he was "sent from head office" and carrying out "quality checks to make sure the chicken was up to standard." But that doesn't do justice to the lengths this guy went to get free chicken. It's alleged this guy carried an ID card from 'head office' and would dress 'very smart' for his visit. Perhaps more impressive though, according to Xpouzar, this bloke's mate was a part-time limo driver and would drop him off in style to every KFC he'd visit. Ookla announces new tool to track 5G deployments across the globe News oi-Vishal Kawadkar Switzerland leads the way with 217 cities with 5G connectivity. Ookla, the developer of Speedtest for testing the internet speeds has announced the Ookla 5G Map, a tool that will track the 5G rollout in cities across the world. As we are moving towards the age of 5G networks, the technology will witness rollouts in several cities. To be aware of the development, the new resource will become important for the industries and consumers to track network deployment and operator status for 5G across the globe. The company will be updating the 5G map on a weekly basis providing information about the availability of the 5G networks and when they occur. In order to get the more detailed information including city name, a list of operators who have rolled out 5G, and the status of the 5G network in the area, the users will need to click on an individual pin that appears on the Ookla 5G Map. The tool will then display the status on the map, which will be divided into two types of availability: limited and commercial. Limited availability is when a 5G network is present but devices are limited to select users. Commercial availability refers to a 5G network where any consumer can purchase a device for use on this network. Currently, the company has identified 303 5G deployments across the globe, provided by 20 operators in 294 cities. As for the Indian telecom market, there have been no limited or commercial 5G developments have been identified. Switzerland has the most current 5G deployments in 217 cities, all of which are available for commercial use. Previously the company announced the 10 Gigabit (Gbps) capable speed measuring feature to its Speedtest applications. The new resource was showcased at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019. As 5G continues to roll out to commercial availability for consumers across the globe, Speedtest is ready to measure the 5G experience. According to Huawei executive Yang Chaobin, we might get an affordable 5G smartphone as soon as 2020. The device could be launched by the end of next year, a much faster development in contrast to what we've seen with previous mobile networks. 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 OnePlus 7 Pro proves its mettle during durability tests News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The Oneplus 7 Pro durability test has been carried out by Zack Nelson on his popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything. OnePlus finally unveiled its highly anticipated OnePlus 7 series yesterday. The company had hosted the launch event at three different locations including Bengaluru, New York and, London at the same time. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer showcased both the OnePlus 7 and the OnePlus 7 Pro at the launch event and as expected they both offer some impressive set of hardware. The OnePlus 7 Pro has been the main attraction of the launch. With some top-of-the-line features such as a Snapdragon 855 processor, a triple lens camera setup and others, the device is surely going to give a tough time to the other flagships in the market. It has been only a day since the smartphones have been officially announced and it has already been put through a durability test. The Oneplus 7 Pro durability test has been carried out by Zack Nelson on his popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything. Nelson had put the OnePlus 7 Pro through a series of durability test where it survived without getting completely damaged. OnePlus 7 Pro was first put through a display durability test. The device comes with a 6.67-inch QHD+ display panel which has a Corning Gorilla 6 protection. As usual, the display was tested for scratches which were noticeable at level 6 of the Mohs hardness scale. At level 7, the scratches were slightly deeper. This suggests that the display can resist scratches to a certain level. The in-display fingerprint scanner was also responsive and functioning properly at the Mohs hardness scale's level 7. Following the display scratch test, Nelson also carried out a bend and burn test on the OnePlus 7 Pro. Surprisingly, the display survived the burn test even after a minute of it being exposed to the flames. The display didn't show any black pixels which are usually visible on other AMOLED panels when they are put through the burn test. As for the bend test, the device survived this one as well. The display didn't crack and also the frame didn't bend when it was put through this test. The latest durability test on the OnePlus 7 Pro suggests a premium build quality which can easily survive accidental scratches and drops. With the high-end specifications and rugged build quality, we expect the device to be a hit amongst the masses. 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 At the time, the company confirmed it was exploring options for a larger Chicago office, and said it planned to add hundreds of Uber Freight employees in Chicago in the coming years. Uber did not reveal specific buildings it was considering then, but said the company already had more than 1,000 employees in Chicago, making it the companys second-largest office outside of its San Francisco headquarters. Xiaomi Mi Band 4 render leaked; color display, heart rate sensor tipped News oi-Vishal Kawadkar We might soon have a new fitness tracker. Xiaomi Mi band 4 recently cleared the NCC certification in Taiwan, giving us a sneak peek of what to expect from the smart wearable. Now Slashleaks has posted an image of the upcoming fitness tracker. The renders seemingly confirm that the upcoming device will be the first from the company to pack a color display. Moreover, the Mi Band 4 seems to feature Xiao Ai - Xiaomi's virtual assistant that was launched back in 2018. The AI assistant will notify users of the weather, and control smart products across the home. Lastly, the physical button on the Mi Band 3 seems to have been replaced by a capacitive button on the fourth variant. Previous reports suggest that Mi Band 4 will have Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity and a heart rate sensor that is likely a photoplethysmography (PPG) monitor. We might get a second variant that will have NFC functionality, though this version might only be available in China. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of information out there surrounding the device. The device will borrow the design elements from its precursor. Let's hope the company announces the device soon. Xiaomi has also overhauled its MiFit app, which is a dedicated companion app for the Xiaomi Mi Band. The Xiaomi Mi Fit 4.0 is now available for both Android and iOS devices. Besides, Xiaomi will be launching another 48MP camera smartphone for the Indian market. In a tweet, Xiaomi India head, Manu Jain, revealed some details about the upcoming Redmi smartphone that will feature a 48 MP primary camera. The tweet used #48MPForEveryone, which hints that the forthcoming Redmi smartphone might come with a competitive price tag. The smartphone could feature a dual camera setup with a 48 MP primary camera and a 5 MP depth sensor. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Pictured left to right, Hayley Nybakken, Luree Green-Chappell, Ben Miller, Bergen Miller, Aurora Chappell, Cerenity Olsen, Ellie Page, Isabelle Griffin and Aubre Hartsock perform at the 12th annual Swing Choir fundraiser on May 9. Glasgow High School's Swing Choir hosted their 12th annual fundraiser at the Ridgerunners on May 9 and the crowd was certainly not disappointed. Community members of all ages came together to dance, sing along and enjoy the music produced and exec... Law Enforcement Carry Special Olympics Torch Through V.C. The Special Olympics Torch made its way through Valley County May 8 and 9. Each year the torch traverses the state carried by local law enforcement officials on its way to the State Games in Great Falls. This year the flame left Wolf Point on May... Glasgow Voters Reject Levy for Fourth Year Frazer, Opheim, Lustre and Glasgow schools asked voters to cast their ballot on May 7 to elect trustees to fill positions with some also asking voters to pass a school levy. For the fourth consecutive year, Glasgow voters rejected a general fund l... Dear Editor, A wise sage once said something like, "failure to learn from history will generally result in repeating the failures." This is what is happening in northeastern Montana. You have probably heard about the American Prairie Reserve's (A... Dear Editor, Actions speak louder than words. But words create the environment and world in which we live. Our actions and words matter greatly - and the actions and words of the Montana State Legislature in the 2019 session were clear: Montana... May 14, 2019 News By Terri Moon Cronk Defense.gov ISIS Continues To Pose Significant Threat, OIR Official Says WASHINGTON -- ISIS still poses a significant threat to Iraq and Syria and to the wider world, the deputy commander for stability for Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command Operation Inherent Resolve said today. Providing a coalition operations update from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference, British Army Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika said ISIS has "morphed into an underground network that we must root out and destroy." The enduring defeat of ISIS is OIR's objective, the general said. Strong governance and effective stabilization are the long-term keys to security and prosperity, and the international community must do all it can to help, he added. March 23 was the most recent significant ISIS defeat when the terrorists lost control of any physical territory in Baghuz, Syria, he noted. "We must reflect on this great achievement by our partner forces and the coalition," Ghika emphasized. "For five years, [ISIS'] reign of terror instilled unbounded fear into innocent Iraqis and Syrians. Today, it has been reduced to an underground organization, forced out of population centers and into hiding in caves and the mountains. Its aspirations for a global caliphate have been destroyed." No Time for Complacency Yet, the general warned against complacency, stating that this is not the end of ISIS or operations against ISIS. "Although it is now on the back foot," he said, "[ISIS] foresaw the fall of its physical caliphate and has been reorganizing itself into a network of cells, intent on striking key leaders, village elders and military personnel to undermine the security and stability in Iraq and Syria." ISIS fighters are still ambushing security patrols, detonating improvised explosive devices and kidnapping people, the general noted. And despite its loss of territorial control in Iraq and Syria, ISIS' ideology still inspires people around the world, he warned. The ISIS-claimed Sri Lanka bombings on Easter prove the organization's ongoing acts of terrorism, while the online appearance of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi for the first time in more than five years conceded defeat in Baghuz, but roused ISIS supporters to fight, he noted. "The Iraqi army, supported by the coalition and by Iraqi F-16 fighter jets and C-130 transport aircraft, are disrupting the network of [ISIS] cells across Iraq's Ninevah, Salah ad Din, Anbar, Diyalah and Kirkuk provinces," the general said. "Recent operations in Wadi Ashai and the Hamrin Mountains have cleared successfully hundreds of miles of territory in which [ISIS] groups were hiding. [ISIS] commanders and fighters have been killed or captured, and weapons, ammunition and IED-making equipment have been seized." Political Discussions In northeastern Syria, political discussions are ongoing to ensure regional stability. Militarily, the United States will continue working with its partners to create conditions where ISIS cannot thrive again, Ghika said. Coalition partners are progressing steadily back up the Euphrates River valley to clear remnants of ISIS, following the take back of Baghuz, he added. On a humanitarian level, the general said, tens of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees are in northeastern Syria. Local and international humanitarian organisations are managing the situation, he said, "but we must be mindful that there is a large concentration of radicalized individuals in these camps who will want to return to their homes in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. We need to assist with deradicalization and education to prevent a new generation of [ISIS] emerging when these people go home." Any instability will allow ISIS to thrive, he said. "The terrorist organization will exploit divisions in society and fragile governance. We cannot allow this to happen," Ghika said. "[ISIS'] widespread killings, the brutal executions, the destruction of towns, cities and ancient monuments must remain a thing of the past." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Secretary General in London to prepare Leaders' Meeting NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 14 May. 2019 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg discussed preparations for the next meeting of NATO leaders with Prime Minister Theresa May in a visit to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday (14 May 2019). The meeting in London in December will be an opportunity for Allied Heads of State and Government to address NATO's continued adaptation to deal with the security challenges the Alliance faces. The Secretary General and the Prime Minister also had talks about the current security situation, including Russia's continued breach of the INF treaty, and burden-sharing within the Alliance. "The United Kingdom makes essential contributions to our shared security," said Mr. Stoltenberg. He thanked the UK for its major contributions to NATO missions and deployments, including in the Baltic region, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Stoltenberg also praised the UK for leading by example by spending 2 % of GDP on defence and investing in new military capabilities. The Secretary General and the Prime Minister further discussed prospects for peace in Afghanistan, and highlighted the importance of training local forces in partner countries in the fight against terrorism. During his visit to London, Mr. Stoltenberg also met with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Earlier, the Secretary General participated in a panel at the annual meeting of the Wall Street Journal CEO Council. Addressing an audience of international business leaders in London, Mr. Stoltenberg highlighted the importance of the transatlantic bond and why NATO remains a pillar of stability in a more unpredictable world. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UCT-2 Concludes Maritime Infrastructure Assessment in FSM Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190514-05 Release Date: 5/14/2019 8:28:00 AM By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jasen Moreno-Garcia, CTF 75 Public Affairs KOLONIA, Pohnpei (NNS) -- Sailors assigned to Underwater Construction Team (UCT) 2, Construction Dive Det. Alpha, completed a recompression chamber inspection and maritime infrastructure assessment of the Pohnpei Harbor and Kapingamarangi Atoll, May 7, as part of Pacific Partnership 2019. The assessment, which began April 16, will help maintain and expand the harbor port in Pohnpei and improve navigation safety in both Pohnpei and Kapingamarangi Atoll. "We came to Pohnpei for Pacific Partnership 2019 to inspect the faces of the wharf in the Pohnpei Harbor and do multiple hydrographic surveys, including surveying both the harbor in Pohnpei and Kapingamarangi Atoll," said Construction Electrician 1st Class Daniel Lehne, the project supervisor. Capt. Randy Van Rossum, mission commander for Pacific Partnership 2019, spoke to the PP19 common goal of creating a safer environment for future disaster preparedness. "I am confident that the planning and hard work we've invested thus far will show in our successful collaborative efforts for a long-lasting impact here in Micronesia," he said. The UCT 2 Sailors used a single-beam hydrographic survey to create a map of the different water depths along the Pohnpei Harbor and the channel in Kapingamarangi Atoll. Lehne mentioned that the channel in Kapingamarangi Atoll is currently not only very narrow, but also has a very difficult 90-degree turn. The hard turn and the narrowness prevent larger vessels from transiting during increased sea states. "The surveys we completed will allow us to formulate a calculated plan using [precision placement of] explosives and other dredging techniques to widen the channel, making it a much safer passage for local ferries and the boats bringing supplies to the atoll," said Lehne. The UCT 2 team also performed a wharf inspection at Pohnpei Harbor using specialized equipment to test the current thickness of the metal wall in the wharf face. The measurements taken will be used as a baseline measurement for future inspections to help track the deterioration of the metal on the face over time. "We first began by training the Pohnpei port security divers on how to inspect their wharf because it has not been inspected since the 70s," said Construction Electrician 2nd Class Philip Wall. "We were able to show them underwater testing techniques using an ultrasonic thickness tester and a bathycorrometer to test metal thickness and cathodic protection." Wall further explained that learning how to perform the wharf inspections would allow the port security members to maintain a safe wharf and eliminate the need of outside assistance to perform such crucial inspections, This subject matter expert exchange is a cornerstone of Pacific Partnership, which aims to empower nations to improve their infrastructure and ability to respond to disaster emergencies. The UCT 2 team also inspected a local recompression chamber at the Pohnpei State Hospital that has been nonoperational since 2015. "We went to the hospital and did a walkthrough of the chamber," said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Ryan Kitchens. "We had a checklist and discovered all the deficiencies. We developed a plan alongside the hospital manager to get the chamber operational and help save lives." "We put a lot of effort into everything we did working with the locals," affirmed Lehne. "Instead of just completing another job, we became friends with a lot of the people here we showed them how we do things so that they can continue doing those operations to make this a safer, more resilient place." Pacific Partnership, now in its 14th iteration, is the largest annual multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific. Each year, the mission team works collectively with host and partner nations to enhance regional interoperability and disaster response capabilities, increase stability and security in the region, and foster new and enduring friendships across the Indo-Pacific. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address CNO Visits India, Expands Partnership Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190514-19 Release Date: 5/14/2019 3:41:00 PM From Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs NEW DELHI (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson concluded his three-day visit to India, May 14. During the visit, Richardson met with Chief of the Naval Staff of the Indian Navy Adm. Sunil Lanba and other senior military, diplomatic and national security officials of India. The two heads of navy discussed the strategic importance of growing the two navies' partnership and the need to focus on information sharing and exchange. They also discussed their shared view on a multilateral approach in maintaining maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific region. "This visit provided a critical opportunity to strengthen the partnership between the Indian Navy and the U.S. Navy," said Richardson. "Nothing beats the chance to meet in person. I'm grateful for the friendship and vision of Admiral Sunil Lanba, who is nearing the end of a very impactful term as Chief of the Indian Navy. He has been a strong advocate for a closer partnership between our two navies, and we've made significant progress. Our mutual commitment and shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific enables even more opportunities for the future. We took the opportunity during the visit to discuss specific steps that will set the stage for further cooperation between our two navies." Richardson also met with the U.S. Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster and discussed how to further strengthen relations between the two countries and navies. The visit included a wreath laying at the National War Memorial and a guard of honor arrival ceremony. Richardson is scheduled to visit Singapore for the International Maritime Defense Exposition, May 14-15. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Southern Partnership Station 2019 Begins Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190514-15 Release Date: 5/14/2019 1:26:00 PM From U.S. 4th Fleet Public Affairs MAYPORT, Fla. (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy has deployed adaptive force packages (AFPs) in support of Southern Partnership Station (SPS) 2019 to the Caribbean, Central and South America to conduct subject matter expert exchanges from May to October 2019. SPS is an annual series of U.S. Navy deployments focused on exchanges with regional partner nation militaries and security forces. This year's deployment will visit Barbados, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru to work alongside those nations' military forces, police forces, civilian health professionals, and other governmental agencies. SPS 19 will build upon innovation and the AFP employment model by conducting training and subject matter expert exchanges to improve capacity in medical, dive operations, engineering and explosive ordnance disposal. The AFPs are separate units comprised of military personnel from Naval Construction Group 2, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 2, Mobile Diving and Salvaging Unit 2, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and Navy Public Affairs Support Element. The deployment will focus on enhancing cooperative partnerships with regional maritime services and improving operational readiness for all participants. Regional partnerships reflect our enduring promise to one another for a cooperative, prosperous, and secure hemisphere. Assigned units will focus on locally-identified needs to include port and harbor security, health service systems, and humanitarian response infrastructure. Southern Partnership Station is part of U.S. Southern Command's Enduring Promise initiative and reflects the United States' enduring promise of friendship, partnership, and solidarity with the Caribbean, Central and South America. U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet is committed to supporting the efforts of partner nations to increase institutional capacity and regional collaboration for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief one of the greatest challenges facing the region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Theodore Roosevelt Participates in Exercise Northern Edge 2019 Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190514-11 Release Date: 5/14/2019 1:17:00 PM By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Terence Deleon Guerrero , USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Public Affairs GULF OF ALASKA (NNS) -- The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) and select ships from Carrier Strike Group Nine (CSG-9) joined U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and Marine Corps service members for Exercise Northern Edge 2019 (NE19) in the Gulf of Alaska, May 13. NE19 is the largest joint military training exercise on and above central Alaska ranges and the Gulf of Alaska, which prepares joint forces to respond to crises in the Indo-Pacific. "We are excited to be in the Gulf of Alaska, especially since this marks the first time in 10 years that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is participating in Northern Edge," said Rear Adm. Daniel Dwyer, Commander, Carrier Strike Group 9. "Alaska is a strategic location, and joint operations and exercises here are essential to the nation's commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region." The exercise, hosted by U.S. Pacific Air Forces, will be conducted in the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, which encompasses more than 60,000 miles of airspace throughout Alaska, and includes support infrastructure from two Air Force bases. "We're going outside of our working area. It's a little colder than we're used to, but it's a good thing," said Cmdr. Silas Bouyer, operations officer of Theodore Roosevelt. "We've got to be fully operational, not just when it's sunny in San Diego." The exercise will consist of approximately 10,000 active, reserve, and National Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and will include scenarios for defensive air combat, close air support, and aerial deterrence of maritime forces. "Our role in this exercise is to bring multi-capable national assets to an exercise that will improve joint warfighting capabilities," said Lt. Roger Kim, tactical action officer of Theodore Roosevelt. NE19 provides Theodore Roosevelt personnel and Carrier Air Wing 11 an opportunity to sharpen their skills and to practice operations and techniques. Also, it allows the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group a chance to strengthen relationships with non-Navy commands and to develop cooperative plans and programs with these organizations. Participants of NE19 will serve as part of a joint task force, which provide support to multi-service integration and exercise a wide range of joint capabilities. "It's important because when we deploy, no matter where we deploy, it's not just a Navy event," said Bouyer. "We'll operate with the Air Force airmen, soldiers from the Army, and Marines. If you never spend any time working with those services and then we deploy, it makes having that conversation a whole lot harder if you haven't trained with them at some point in time." Bouyer also acknowledged the importance of Roosevelt Sailors being mission-ready on a moment's notice. "If something were to happen, we'll be ready for it," said Bouyer. "There's no second guessing or second thoughts. We'll be fully prepared and ready and I think it's because we're doing something operational." The additional time at sea also gives Roosevelt's crew more opportunities to obtain qualifications and time to get more comfortable in their roles. "Sometimes you can only perform operational checks while we're underway," said Cmdr. Robert B. Beeman, combat direction center officer of Theodore Roosevelt. "Being underway helps with grooming our systems and making sure they're up to speed." Along with Theodore Roosevelt, participating ships include USS Russell (DDG 59), USS John Finn (DDG 113), USS Kidd (DDG 100), and USNS Henry J Kaiser (T-AO 187). NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen's Houthis hand over key ports to coastguard, UN has confirmed Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 05:31PM The United Nations (UN) says Yemen's Houthis have handed over security of three key ports in the western province of Hudaydah to the local "coastguard" by unilaterally pulling out from the ports in line with a UN-brokered accord, while hinting that the other side to the conflict has not carried out its end of the bargain. The Houthi movement has been in control of the key ports of Salif, Ras Isa, and Hudaydah, the last of which has been under a tight siege and offensive by forces fighting on behalf of a former Yemeni regime as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the two main countries in a coalition waging war on Yemen. More than 70 percent of Yemen's imports used to pass through the docks of Hudaydah, a lifeline for the war-ravaged country's crippled economy. Salif was used for unloading all main types of grain, and Ras Isa, a vital oil terminal, was used for exporting Ma'rib's light crude oil. The lengthy siege has pushed tens of thousands of people in Yemen to the verge of starvation and crippled the country's economy. In an effort to prevent the humanitarian situation from further deteriorating and to avert a larger assault by the Saudi-led coalition on the ports, the Houthis signed a UN-brokered agreement with the ex-government in Sweden last December. The warring sides agreed to withdraw their forces from the ports in a two-stage process, the first phase of which for the Houthi side unilaterally began on Saturday and was scheduled to be completed on Tuesday. Lt. Gen. Michael Lollesgaard, the head of the UN Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC), in a statement on Tuesday confirmed the handover "of the security of the ports to the coastguard" by Houthis, an important step in the first phase of the so-called redeployment. "UN teams have been monitoring this redeployment, which has been executed, partly as agreed by the Yemeni parties in the concept of phase one," he said after visiting the ports. In the first stage, Houthis had to draw back five kilometers from the three ports until Tuesday, while the forces of the former government, currently concentrated four kilometers from Hudaydah, were to withdraw one kilometer from the flash-point ports. The latter forces, however, has so far firmly refused to retreat, and the Houthis have denounced them for the refusal. On Saturday, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam strongly called on the UN and the UN Security Council to press the former regime and the Saudi-led coalition to act in accordance with the Stockholm agreement. Lollesgaard said, "There is still a lot of work to be done on the removal of the (military) manifestations, but cooperation has been very good," without giving further details. The UN Security Council is due to hear a briefing on Hudaydah on Wednesday. In the second phase of the redeployment, both sides would pull troops 18 kilometers outside Hudaydah and heavy weapons 30 kilometers away. According to the Stockholm agreement, the UN will help in the management of the three key ports, which will be operating under the control of Yemen's Red Sea Port Corporation and local coast guards. The world body also will assist in inspection of ships. Leading a coalition of its allies, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall the former regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had resigned amid popular discontent and fled to Riyadh. The war initially consisted of an aerial campaign but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces and mercenaries to Yemen. Armed militia loyal to Hadi are also involved in the war. The aggression is estimated to have left 56,000 Yemenis dead. The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years. A number of Western countries, the US, France, and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi halts pumping on major oil pipeline after Yemeni drone strike Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 11:20AM The Saudi energy minister says the kingdom has stopped pumping crude oil on a major pipeline across the country after retaliatory drone strikes carried out by Yemeni army forces and their allies. Khalid A. Al-Falih said the national petroleum and natural gas company, Saudi Aramco, on Tuesday halted oil pumping on the pipeline from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea, while the damage was being evaluated and its two targeted pumping stations were being repaired. "Saudi Aramco took precautionary measures and temporarily stopped operation of the pipeline, as it is evaluating the situation and working on restoring the operations of the affected pump station and the pipeline," he said in a statement published by state news agency SPA. He described the attack "an act of terrorism," asserting that Saudi oil output and exports for crude and refined products were continuing without disruption. The 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) pipeline, which reportedly has a capacity of at least five million barrels per day, carries crude oil from Saudi Arabia's main eastern fields to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the west. The targeted pumping stations are located in the towns of Dawadmi and Afif, which lie in the Najd region west of the capital, Riyadh. Earlier in the day, an unnamed Yemeni military source told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni soldiers, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, launched a major operation against the strategic economic target in Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the Riyadh regime's devastating military aggression and siege of the impoverished country. The source added that seven unmanned aerial vehicles were involved in the attacks. Meanwhile, global oil prices rose in the aftermath of Yemeni drone strikes on the two pumping stations belonging to state oil company Saudi Aramco. Brent crude futures were at $70.79 a barrel at 1035 GMT, up 56 cents or 0.80%. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $61.35 per barrel, up 31 cents or 0.51%. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia's main stock index, the Tadawul, was down 1.5% at midday London time. The development came only two days after Saudi Arabia said two of its oil tankers were among those attacked in an unspecified "sabotage operation" off the coast of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. An Emirati official told Reuters that the UAE was working with local and international partners from the United States, France, Norway, and Saudi Arabia to "fully investigate the incident and to identify the people or entities responsible." The ships -- including two Saudi oil tankers, an Emirati ship and the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory -- were docked in the sea off the coast of Fujairah. Fujairah port is the only terminal in the UAE located on the Arabian Sea coast. The small emirate has an oil terminal and a pipeline that delivers crude oil from Abu Dhabi which sits on the majority of UAE oil reserves. 'Yemeni drone strikes in line with right to self defense' Separately, a member of the Political Council of the Houthi Ansarullah movement described Yemeni drone strikes against strategic targets inside Saudi Arabia and the UAE as in line with the right of self defense, stating that Yemeni forces will cease such aerial assaults once the Riyadh and Abu Dhabi regime change course and put an end to their military aggression. "Following Saudi Arabia and the UAE's flagrant disregard for our demand to stop the onslaught and persistence on the blockade of Yemen, Yemeni forces launch attacks against targets in the heart of these countries high on their agenda," said Mohammad al-Bukhaiti. Moreover, Deputy Yemeni Minister of Information, Fahmi al-Yusufi, said the drone strikes carry a clear message to Saudis. "They are within the range of our attacks, and US battle ships cannot rescue them. The Yemeni army, which previously did not even have Kalashnikov rifles in inventory, can now produce drones that infiltrate into Saudi Arabia and the UAE. We are fully prepared to defend our soil. These attacks attest to our military progress despite the ongoing sea, land and air blockade on Yemen," he said. Meanwhile, spokesman for the Ansarullah movement, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, also commented on the issue, saying, "The attacks on Saudi oil installations were in response to the massacre of Yemeni people. The Yemeni nation has no option but to defend itself in the face of the Saudi-led coalition's impudence and its systematic terrorist acts, which are being supported by the United States and other Western states." Additionally, the spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said Yemeni forces are ready to carry out further and more delicate operations deep inside Saudi Arabia. Colonel Aziz Rashid, a Yemeni military expert, also said the air raids were in response to Saudi attacks during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and proved the failure of US-built Patriot missile system to protect Saudi Arabia against Yemeni assaults. Rashid added the drone strikes will seriously down Saudi and UAE stocks and will eventually result in capital flight from the two Persian Gulf countries. "This operation will fairly undermine the morale of Saudi and Emirati troops, who are heavily depending on arsenals filled with munitions bought from the United States, Britain, France and other Western countries," he pointed out. Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement. According to a December 2018 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016. The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN said in a report in December 2018 that over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Spain pulls frigate out of ME-bound combat group led by US aircraft carrier Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 08:58AM Spain has withdrawn its frigate with 215 sailors on board from the Middle East-bound strike group, led by an American aircraft carrier, as tensions heighten between the United States and Iran. Spanish Defense Ministry sources told El Pais that Acting Minister Margarita Robles had ordered the "temporary measure of withdrawal of the frigate Mendez Nunez (F-104) from the combat group of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln while it is in the Middle East." They also noted that the Spanish warship "is on a mission of circumnavigation and will not enter into any other type of mission." Robles issued the order during a meeting of European Union defense ministers in Brussels on Monday. "The move may trigger a diplomatic crisis between the US and Spain," ABC journalists warned. Mendez Nunez is now expected to return to Spain after visiting California and passing through the Panama Canal. On May 5, US National Security Adviser John Bolton announced the deployment of USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, carrying up to 40 strike aircraft, and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region. He said that the move is aimed at sending a "clear and unmistakable message" to Iran that "any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force." He further claimed that the US administration was acting "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings." In response, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), warned that Americans will be "hit on the head" in case of any mistaken move. According to media reports, USS Abraham Lincoln and the accompanying ships have passed through the Suez Canal and are now in the Red Sea. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni drones launch retaliatory raids against vital Saudi facilities: Al-Masirah Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 05:19AM Seven drones run by Yemeni armed forces have reportedly carried out attacks against vital Saudi facilities in response to the Riyadh regime's ongoing acts of aggression against Yemeni people. A Yemeni military source told al-Masirah TV on Tuesday that the extensive military operation was conducted in retaliation for Saudi Arabia's deadly military aggression and the siege of the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state. The source did not, however, specify the targets or the time of the strikes. The official also warned that Yemeni fighters stand ready "to execute more of these significant and tough strikes as long as the siege continues." Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall the Riyadh-allied former regime. The invaders have, however, failed to achieve their objectives in the face of stiff resistance by Yemeni armed forces, led by the Houthi Ansarullah movement. The Western-backed aggression, coupled with a naval blockade, has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, destroyed the country's infrastructure and led to a humanitarian crisis. Yemeni fighters regularly target positions inside Saudi Arabia in retaliatory attacks against the protracted offensive on their homeland. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Defends Gulf Military Buildup, Says It's 'Not Spoiling For Fight' By Rikard Jozwiak May 14, 2019 BRUSSELS -- Amid growing concerns of a conflict between the United States and Iran, U.S. officials have told their European allies that its military buildup in the Persian Gulf region is a "defensive" move in response to multiple threats coming out of Iran. Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, told RFE/RL that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered that message to European leaders in Brussels on May 13 -- adding that Washington was "just trying to restore deterrence." "We're not spoiling for a fight," Hook told RFE/RL on May 14. Hook said the military assets that the United States has deployed in the Persian Gulf region are part of "a defensive move in light of all the multiple plot vectors that our intelligence community was seeing coming out of Iran." "If we didn't put in place assets to defend ourselves that would be negligent," Hook said. Hook made the remarks after The New York Times newspaper reported that the White House is reviewing military plans that could see the deployment of up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack U.S. forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons. Some analysts have said that with the growing presence of U.S. military hardware and troops in the Persian Gulf, even the slightest misstep could set off a serious conflict in the region. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on May 13 before meeting with Pompeo in Brussels that Britain, France, and Germany were "very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended really on either side." Hook would not comment officially on The New York Times report, but he said any buildup was being made "in order to make sure that we're prepared if attacked." "We're always prepared if attacked. But in light of the very credible threat-reporting that we were seeing, it was important that we do this," Hook said. The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately comment on The New York Times report. 'Malign Activities' Last week, Washington announced the deployment of an aircraft carrier battle group and a bomber task force to the Persian Gulf to counter what U.S. officials called "clear indications" of Iranian threats to the interests of the United States or its allies in the region. Washington has imposed a series of sanctions on Iranian oil and metal exports to increase pressure on Tehran to give up what it calls "malign" activities, such as attempting to develop nuclear weapons and financing militant activity in the region. The United States withdrew a year ago from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and has since imposed increasingly strict sanctions on Tehran. In pulling out of the accord, Trump said the terms were not tough enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and did not address Iran's missile program or Tehran's alleged support for militants in the region. Hook said Washington and European leaders were on the same page in their assessment of the threat posed by Iran, even if they disagree about staying in the accord. "So if you look at the record, it's very clear that Europe is also concerned about Iranian aggression," Hook said. "They would like Iran to knock it off. They would also like Iran to stay in the Iran nuclear deal so that they never acquire a nuclear weapon. We just think being outside the deal gives us better odds than that," Hook said. 'Psychological Warfare' Hook also downplayed one point of contention with Europe: a new trade mechanism recently launched by Germany, France, and Britain to allow financial flows to be sent to Iran that would not violate U.S. sanctions. Known as INSTEX, the special-purpose mechanism focuses on areas not targeted by U.S. sanctions, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and agricultural products. "The Iranians have not put in place the transparent financial system that allows this to be operational, so, I'm not sure it will ever get off the ground," he said. "We don't see any corporate demand for it," Hook said. Tehran has accused Washington of engaging in "psychological warfare" with its recent moves. Iran denies it supports insurgent activity and has said its nuclear program is strictly for civilian energy purposes. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-defends-gulf- military-buildup-says-inot-spoiling -for-fight-/29940124.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 Pinder, who turns 41 next week, ran the New Orleans Film Society and its film festival from 2011 to 2017, more than doubling its regional audience and overseeing a 400 percent rise in the film societys budget. After that she served as executive director of Create Louisiana, a grant organization supporting Louisiana filmmakers. Trump Denies U.S. Preparing Plans To Send 120,000 Troops To Counter Iran Threat By RFE/RL May 14, 2019 WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed as "fake news" a report in The New York Times that said the White House is reviewing plans to possibly deploy up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack U.S. forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons. "I think it's fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Trump told reporters on May 14 on the White House lawn. "Hopefully, we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," he added. Citing anonymous administration officials,The New York Times said on May 13 that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented the plans at a meeting of Trump's top security aides last week. Several plans were detailed and "the uppermost option called for deploying 120,000 troops, which would take weeks or months to complete," according to The New York Times. The report said the plans do not call for a land invasion of Iran. Commenting on the report, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a joint news conference on May 14 with visiting U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that he hoped it was "just baseless rumors." Amid growing concerns of a conflict between the United States and Iran, U.S. officials have told their European allies that its recent military buildup in the Persian Gulf region is a "defensive" move being made in response to multiple threats coming out of Iran. Last week, Washington announced the deployment of an aircraft carrier battle group and a bomber task force to the Persian Gulf to counter what U.S. officials called "clear indications" of threats from Iran to U.S. interests or its allies in the region. On May 14, Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, told RFE/RL that Pompeo delivered that message to European leaders in Brussels on May 13 -- adding that Washington is "just trying to restore deterrence. "We're not spoiling for a fight," Hook told RFE/RL. Pompeo, speaking alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi on May 14, said that "'we fundamentally do not see a war with Iran." British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on May 13 said before meeting with Pompeo in Brussels that Britain, France, and Germany are "very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended really on either side." Tehran, meanwhile, said Washington was engaging in "psychological warfare." It also announced it was suspending some of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The United States a year ago withdrew from the deal and has since imposed increasingly strict sanctions on Tehran. In pulling out of the accord, Trump said the terms were not tough enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and did not address Iran's missile program or Tehran's alleged support for militants in the region. Iran denies it supports insurgent activity and has said its nuclear program is strictly for civilian energy purposes. With reporting by Reuters and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/report-white- house-reviewing-military-plans-against -iran/29939090.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 In Sochi, Putin Tells Pompeo He Hopes To 'Fully Restore' U.S. Ties By RFE/RL May 14, 2019 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Russia against interference in next year's U.S. presidential election, as Russia's foreign minister likened Washington's push for a new government in Venezuela to the U.S. war in Iraq. he comments by Pompeo and Sergei Lavrov came at a joint news conference on May 14 in the Black Sea city of Sochi as the two sought to rebuild bilateral relations that have been badly eroded by U.S. assertions of Russian election meddling, the conflict in Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, and other matters. U.S. President Donald Trump has renewed his effort to build a rapport with Moscow, now that the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller has concluded. Trump discussed the investigation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call earlier this month. On May 13, he told reporters at the White House that he intended to meet Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Japan next month. At the news conference, which was held after some three hours of talks, Lavrov said Moscow was open to a Trump-Putin meeting, but did not confirm one was planned, echoing earlier remarks from a Kremlin spokesman. Both countries needed to dispel "suspicions and prejudices" and to "start building a new constructive framework," Lavrov said. Pompeo said he warned Russia not to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election -- something that U.S. authorities have said was possible - and he said Moscow needed to demonstrate it had halted such efforts. If Russia interfered, "it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been," Pompeo said. Lavrov, meanwhile, accused the United States of funding Russian nongovernmental organizations, with the intent of interfering in Russia's elections. On Venezuela, the two diplomats' comments showed Moscow and Washington's divergent interests in the country. The Trump administration has called on President Nicholas Maduro to leave, while Moscow, which has substantial oil and weapons investments there, has dismissed Washington's calls, and even reportedly sent private mercenaries to Caracas. Maduro has "brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people. We hope that Russia's support for Maduro will end," Pompeo said. Lavrov, meanwhile, likened the U.S. push in Venezuela to the U.S. war in Iraq, and what happened in Libya when Washington and European allies helped topple Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. "Threats by the U.S. administration have nothing to do with democracy," Lavrov said. Ahead of his meeting with Pompeo, Russian state TV broadcast a visit by Putin to a military flight test center in southern Russia, where he inspected a new nuclear-capable "hypersonic" missile. Asked by reporters whether the timing of Putin's tour, ahead of his meeting was Pompeo, was intentional, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dimissed that. "There's no need to come up with any conspiracy theories here," he was quoted as saying. Prior to Pompeo's departure, the U.S. State Department said the main agenda included not just Venezuela, and the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, but also arms control treaties. "The starting point we have to have when we discuss our policy toward Russia...is to acknowledge frankly that Russia has taken a series of aggressive and destabilizing actions on the global stage," a senior State Department official told reporters on May 10. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Pompeo's trip was "an opportunity to make those points clear to the Russian government and what our expectations are and [to] see how to forge a path forward." In February, the United States suspended participation in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty because of what it says is Russia's development and deployment of a missile system that violates the pact. Moscow, which denies the accusation, later followed suit. Moscow and Washington have also been gearing up for talks on how and whether to extend the New START treaty, the only U.S.-Russia arms control pact limiting deployed strategic nuclear weapons. It is set to expire in February 2021 but can be extended for five years if both sides agree. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pompeo-russia-putin- lavrov-meeting/29938843.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 Report: U.S. Prosecutor Assigned To Look Into Russia Probe Origins By RFE/RL May 14, 2019 U.S. Attorney General William Barr has appointed a federal prosecutor to examine the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press reports. The news agency quoted an unidentified person familiar with the matter as saying on May 13 that John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, has been assigned to determine whether the collection of intelligence on the Trump campaign was "lawful and appropriate." President Donald Trump has called for such an investigation, branding the Russia inquiry a "witch-hunt" by his opponents. Trump and his supporters have also accused the Justice Department and the FBI of illegally spying on his campaign. Meanwhile, critics of Barr have accused the attorney general of acting on behalf of the president rather than in the interests of justice. Durham, who was nominated for his U.S. attorney's post by Trump, has a background in investigating law enforcement wrongdoing and corruption. His inquiry is said to be separate from a probe by the Justice Department's inspector general into the genesis of the Russia investigation. Durham's appointment comes after Barr told congressmen last month he believed "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign. "The question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting that it wasn't adequately predicated. But I need to explore that," he added, without providing details. The AP news agency said that Barr appeared to be alluding to a surveillance warrant the FBI obtained to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the agency's use of an informant while it was investigating an ex-foreign policy aide to the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos. Barr later said he was gathering a team to look into the origins of the Russia investigation, which was led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller's final report has concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election "in sweeping and systematic fashion," using an extensive social media campaign and hacking into Democratic Party servers. However, there was not sufficient evidence to prove Trump and his team committed a crime by colluding with Russian officials to tip the outcome of the vote, according to the report. The Kremlin has denied interfering in the election. Meanwhile, leading Democrats have demanded that the Mueller report be published in full, and a House committee earlier this month voted to hold Barr in contempt for not handing over the full, unredacted Mueller report. Several Democratic-led committees in the House have ongoing investigations related to the findings released in Mueller's report. Based on reporting by AP and the BBC Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/barr-u-s- prosecutor-assigned-russia-probe-origins -mueller/29939046.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 Trump Denies Reports on US Plans to Deploy 120,000 Troops to Mideast Sputnik News 19:01 14.05.2019(updated 19:46 14.05.2019) The US has already increased its military presence in the region amid growing tensions with Iran, sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. However, a recent New York Times report suggested that the military presence could expand to the level at the time of the Iraq invasion. US President Donald Trump slammed the report about a possible deployment of 120,000 troops to the Middle East in order to counter Iran as "fake news" and expressed hope that such a plan won't be needed. At the same time, he said that he would "absolutely" send 120,000 troops more to the Middle East, or even more, if necessary. "Would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that", Trump said. Earlier the same day, Iranian envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi accused the US of waging "psychological warfare" against Tehran, while commenting to CNN on a recent report that the Pentagon had allegedly presented a plan to deploy 120,000 additional troops to the Middle East if Iran decides to develop nuclear weapons. Ravanchi pointed out that Iran was not interested in creating tensions in the region, unlike certain other countries. "We are not in the business of trying to create conflict in our neighbourhood, because nobody is going to have benefit from such a conflict in our region except for a few []some people in Washington and some countries in our neighbourhood", he said. The Iranian ambassador said he failed to comprehend the threats issued earlier by US President Trump, who claimed that it would be "a very bad mistake" if Iran "do[es] anything" to US forces stationed in the region. Ravanchi stressed that it was the Americans who were deployed in "the Persian Gulf area", far away from their homeland, while Iran has never approached US borders with weapons. The UN envoy further argued that Washington's current approach to communicating with Iran would bear no fruit and would not result in any change to its policies. "The policy of maximum pressure and the offer of a dialogue are mutually exclusive. They cannot expect Iran to accept an offer under pressure. [] We cannot accept a dialogue based on coercion, based on intimidation and threats", Ravanchi said. The Iranian envoy's statements come in light of a New York Times report, citing anonymous sources, that acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan had presented an updated plan suggesting the deployment of 120,000 soldiers to the Middle East in case Iran would accelerate its nuclear weapons development or attack US forces in the region. The plan, however, didn't propose a land invasion of the Islamic Republic. The US president earlier threatened Iran that it would be "big mistake" if it were to attack American troops in the Middle East. His threat was preceded by an announcement of the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf and a reported dispatch of a taskforce of B-52 strategic bombers to the Middle East region. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Stands Ready to Find Common Ground With Russia - Pompeo Sputnik News 18:47 14.05.2019(updated 19:34 14.05.2019) At the press conference following the bilateral meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists that he and his US counterpart Mike Pompeo have agreed the need to resume communication channels between the two countries. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has expressed hope that despite the disagreement, the US and Russia can continue a dialogue on Venezuela. "Despite our disagreements, we will keep talking. I hope we can find a way forward that ends the humanitarian and political crisis that is happening. On this we both agree", Pompeo told reporters in Sochi. The US top diplomat continued by saying that during the talks, he had urged Russia to end its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, but his call was flatly rejected by Moscow. "The time has come for Nicolas Maduro to go, he has brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people, and we hope that Russian support for Maduro will end", Pompeo told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The statements come after Pompeo arrived in the Russian resort city of Sochi earlier in the day. He is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin after talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Ahead of the talks, the top diplomat noted that he went to Sochi because US President Donald Trump was committed to improving relations with Russia. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Military Begins Series of Joint Exercises in Europe - EUCOM Sputnik News 18:02 14.05.2019 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US military has started a series of joint military drills in Europe that are scheduled to last through September, the European Command (EUCOM) said in a statement on Tuesday. This "series brings together NATO allies and partners to enhance interoperability across borders and to deter adversaries," the statement said. Maj. Gen. John Healy, who heads EUCOM's Exercises and Assessments Directorate, said the exercises are conducted in concert with allies and partners "to secure US national interests, deter Russian aggression and support a Europe that is stable and secure." The first phase of the six planned exercises dubbed Immediate Response began on May 10 in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia. "It is designed to demonstrate freedom of movement and operational command and control, interoperability, and leverage strategic mobility to respond to an emerging contingency," the statement said. In June, the Astral Knight exercise will focus on defending key terrain in Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. Another exercise named Saber Guardian will take place in Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria and will focus on defensive operations and interoperability. EUCOM explained that on July 1-12 the Sea Breeze exercise is planned to take place in Ukraine and the western Black Sea region focusing on maritime security in support of the NATO's Partnership for Peace program. Georgia will host the Agile Spirit exercise July 29-August 19, focusing on peacekeeping and NATO response force operations, while the Northern Challenge is planned to start in Iceland on September 16, according to EUCOM. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen's Houthi Forces Redeploy from Key Ports 'Partly as Agreed' - UN Sputnik News 17:01 14.05.2019(updated 17:02 14.05.2019) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Yemen's Houthi forces have partly executed an agreement to redeploy away from key ports in the country as agreed under a peace accord reached last year, the United Nations Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA) said in a statement on Tuesday. "The Chairman of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC), Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, visited today the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa to verify the redeployment of Ansar Allah (Houthi) forces", the statement said. "UN teams have been monitoring this redeployment which has been executed, partly as agreed by the Yemeni parties in the concept of phase one". Lollesgaard welcomed the Houthi forces' move to transfer control over the security of the ports to the coast guard and remove military equipment from the facilities, the statement said. He conceded that much work remains to be done in terms of removing military manifestations from port facilities, but welcomed the fact that "cooperation has been very good", the statement said. "These steps are significant as the first part of the broader redeployments in Hodeidah, to which both Yemeni parties continue to express their commitment," the UN mission said. "Lollesgaard urges the parties to finalise the outstanding negotiations to allow for full implementation of phases one and two of the Hodeidah Agreement". The UN mission will continue monitoring initial steps in implementing the Ceasefire Agreement, the statement added. Yemen's warring parties reached the ceasefire agreement during talks in Stockholm last December. Under the deal, the Yemeni government led by President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi and the rebel Houthi movement agreed to a ceasefire in the key port city of Al Hodeidah, which had witnessed months of heavy fighting between the rival forces. Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy for Yemen, said in mid-April that the government and the Houthis had reached a consensus on a plan for the initial redeployment of forces from the key port of Al Hodeidah. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon Plans to Send 120,000 Troops to Middle East to Counteract Iran Report Sputnik News 06:04 14.05.2019(updated 07:07 14.05.2019) Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan last Thursday reportedly presented an updated military plan at a meeting of President Trump's top national security aides. Pentagon has drawn a plan to send 120,000 soldiers to the Middle East in case of Iran's decision to accelerate nuclear weapons development or attack US forces, the New York Times said. The revisions were ordered by a group led by the White House security adviser John Bolton, the outlet reported citing the administration officials. It is unclear however, whether US president Donald Trump would send so many American troops back to the Middle East, the NYT noted. The size of the force is said to have shocked many participants of Shanahan's briefing as the same number of troops was involved in the 2003 invasion in Iraq. However, the updated military plan does not envisage the military operation against Iran that would require more troops. Tensions have been high in the region lately, with Washington recently alleging Iran had targeted US forces in Syria and Iraq and is responsible for hundreds of deaths of US servicemen. Meanwhile last month, the US designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization. Tehran has pointed out that Washington is trying to pressure Iran into negotiating an unfavourable agreement after Trump pulled out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last May, which envisaged lifting anti-Tehran sanctions in exchange for Iran maintaining the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. Washington has reimposed sanctions on the Iranian economy since then. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Spain Withdraws Its Frigate from US Combat Group in Persian Gulf Reports Sputnik News 04:35 14.05.2019(updated 04:37 14.05.2019) The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, has ordered the temporary withdrawal of the Spanish frigate Mendez Nunez (F-104), with 215 sailors on board, from the combat group led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The acting Spanish government has ordered the "temporary measure of withdrawal of the frigate Mendez Nunez (F-104) from the combat group of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln while it is in the Middle East," sources from the Defence Ministry told the digital edition of El Pais. "The frigate is on a mission of circumnavigation and will not enter into any other type of mission," the Ministry sources revealed, cited by the El Mundo news website, after noting the recent escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. The decision to remove the frigate with 215 sailors on board was taken by Robles in Brussels, during the meeting of European Union defence ministers that took place on May 13. "The move may trigger a diplomatic crisis between the US and Spain", ABC journalists have warned, citing a Spanish military source who noted that it could lead to "a loss of US confidence in Spain." Earlier during her visit to the air base of Moron de la Frontera (Seville), Robles stressed that in relation to the Iranian crisis "Spain is committed to the European Union and the international organizations, and that is where we are going to always adopt common positions." She insisted that Spain is a "serious and reliable partner," but that its Armed Forces are only bound by agreements made with the EU and NATO. The integration of Mendez Nunez into the US combat group where there are no other non-US vessels was planned at least a year ago. The fleet has already crossed the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, which links the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and is heading for the Strait of Hormuz. On May 9, the group had sailed through the Suez Canal. The Spanish frigate is expected to return to its homeland after visiting California and passing through the Panama Canal. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Officials Claim Iran or Iranian Proxies Damaged Ships in UAE Waters - Report Sputnik News 01:01 14.05.2019(updated 07:11 14.05.2019) US officials said Monday that initial assessments of an incident over the weekend in which four oil tankers were damaged by explosions in Emirati waters point to Iranian involvement. Four oil tankers two Saudi, one Emirati and one Norwegian off the coast of the Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates, suffered on Sunday what the UAE Foreign Ministry called "sabotage operations." The explosion blew a five-to-10 foot hole in each ship near or just below the water line, a US military team told AP Monday. "Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies" are believed to be behind the attack, according to US officials. Fujairah is Abu Dhabi's only major port on the Arabian Sea. In the event of war, Tehran has already threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, immediately strangling 20% of world seaborne oil trade, making Fujairah of great strategic importance. While the explosions weakened the structures of the four vessels, none suffered any injuries or deaths and no oil was leaked from the ships, Sputnik noted. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi earlier on Monday called the incident "worrisome and dreadful," adamantly denying Tehran's involvement. "Such incidents have a negative impact on maritime transportation security," Mousavi said, decrying the incident whether it was "orchestrated by ill-wishers" or "adventurism by foreigners." The US has deployed extensive military forces to the region in recent days, with nuclear-capable B-52 bombers arriving in Qatar and the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sailing into the region as well. Last month, US President Donald Trump declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist entity, claiming the group was responsible for US servicemember deaths in Syria and Iraq. In early August 1964, a similar incident occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. Amid another massive US military buildup off the coast of a country Washington was threatening with military action, reports of attacks on US ships by North Vietnamese gunboats led to the US Congress authorizing the use of military force against Hanoi in response to the provocations. However, it was later revealed that no such attack ever happened. A US National Security Agency internal memo declassified in 2005 revealed that no North Vietnamese ships were present at that time. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The district later placed her on its do not hire list, declaring in a letter to Wiley that she would not be allowed even to volunteer at any CPS school or event. Wiley told the Tribune that she didnt know about the do not hire designation and said: I would never put any of my students in danger; they were my priority. US Air Force Reactivates Aggressor Squadron to Improve F-35 Training Sputnik News 00:19 14.05.2019 The US Air Force recently announced that it is reactivating its 65th Aggressor Squadron and shipping 11 F-35A Lightning II fighter jets to Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base to further strengthen the service's training on the multirole stealth fighter. According to a May 9 press release, the move resulted from recommendations put forth by Gen. Mike Holmes, commander of the service's Air Combat Command. Holmes had called on officials to boost tactical and close-air support training for air personnel on the fifth generation aircraft. "Aggressor squadrons have been honing the skills of Air Force pilots since the early 1970s," Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a statement. "They provide a dose of realism in air exercises, and their training value is crucial." "These F-35 aggressor aircraft will keep us ahead of adversaries for years to come," he added. The Aggressor Squadron had been deactivated in September 2014 and spent the last five years shuttered as an Air Force cost-saving measure, according to the National Interest. Prior to ceasing operations, the squadron flew the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, a fourth-generation fighter first introduced into the service in January 1976. Per the service's release, nine non-combat capable F-35A fighter jets will be pulled from Florida's Eglin Air Force Base, and two others will be removed from California's Edwards AFB. The two jets being relocated from the Golden State will join Nellis AFB's 24th Tactical Air Support Squadron to meet the second of Holmes' recommendations. The 24th squadron flies the multirole F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft and primarily functions in a close-air support training capacity at the Nevada base. The transfer of aircraft is expected to begin sometime in early 2022; however, it will only take place once the service is able to replace the pulled F-35A jets from Eglin AFB with "newly produced aircraft." The move will also mean the relocation of approximately 194 military personnel and 37 contractors to Nellis AFB, according to a release. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson has also noted in a statement that the move will allow the Air Force "to repurpose early production F-35s to help train Airmen for the high end fight." Air Force Times reported that officials chose Nellis AFB to host the newly reactivated squadron because it hosts a variety of Combat Air Forces exercises, the US Air Force Weapons School and the Weapons Instructor Courses, among other reasons. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Before Their Meeting Remarks Michael R. Pompeo Secretary of State Rus Hotel Sochi, Russia May 14, 2019 FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) Mr. Secretary of State, (inaudible) welcome to Sochi. We had a chance to hold the discussion on the 6th of May, when we had our negotiations in Finland on the margins of the Arctic Council. We covered and we had an exchange of opinions on the international agenda and several bilateral issues. And I hope that today we'll have a chance to discover them and to discuss them in more detail. I hope that we'll be able to come up with specifics of ways how to get U.S.-Russian relations out of that regrettable state that they happen to be, due to several objective and subjective reasons involved, considering that this is the task, the instructions coming from our presidents that was confirmed during the Helsinki summit, as well as in their conversation on the 3rd of May. We have multiple issues that require both urgent methods as well as long-term, sustainable solutions. That has to do with the situation in strategic stability sphere, as well as more efficient ways to tackle terrorism, as well as finding solutions to different clashes in different regions of the world. We see that there are certain suspicions and prejudice on both sides, but this is not a way for have a win-win situation because that mistrust that we have hinders both your security and our security, and causes concern around the world. I believe that it is time to build new, more constructive and responsible metrics of our relationship, of our mutual perception, and we are prepared to do that if our U.S. colleagues and counterparts readily support that. I believe that a requisite an important requisite for success of our dialogue is to rebuild trust at all levels of our dialogue in the highest level, at the working level, (inaudible). And considering that we have met over the past two weeks for two times, that's a reason for some optimism. Let's try it and see what happens. SECRETARY POMPEO: Sergey, thank you for hosting me. I appreciate it. It's great to see you again, twice in a couple weeks. I'm excited about that. And I know we'll see you too (inaudible), we'll have many more opportunities for conversation. I'm here today because President Trump is committed to furthering this relationship. As I think you said, we have differences. We each country will protect its own interests, look out for its own interests of its people. But it's not (inaudible) that we're adversaries on every issue, and I hope that we can find places where we have a set of overlapping interests and can truly begin to build out strong relationships, at least in those particular on those particular issues. I've seen it myself. We worked closely with you on counterterrorism during my time and service in the Executive Branch very successfully. We've saved American lives, we've saved Russian lives, as we've (inaudible) good, honest, sincere work together. And I think on issues such as arms control and nuclear proliferation, we've talked about some of the regional conflicts and terrorism, I think there are spaces where we can get our teams and begin to build out a common set of understandings. I hope too that we can begin to build out our strategic security dialogue, as you and I spoke about when we were in Finland a couple weeks back. And I hope this effort, I hope this good-faith effort on the part of each of our two nations, as directed by President Trump and President Putin, will stabilize the relationship and put it back on a trajectory that I think will be good for not only each of our two countries and each of our peoples, but for the world as well. I know we'll have frank discussions, and I'm sure there will be places where we just can't find common ground, but I look forward to our time together. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press Availability With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Press Availability Michael R. Pompeo Secretary of State Rus Hotel Sochi, Russia May 14, 2019 MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning a joint press conference. Secretary of State, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, please. FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to once again welcome Mike Pompeo on Russian soil. This is his first visit to Russia in his capacity of Secretary of State of the U.S., though he used to come here in his other capacities before. Today we have had negotiations as a follow-up to a meaningful one-hour-and-a-half telephone conversation between our presidents which took play on the 3rd of May. And following up on that conversation, heads of state instructed us to intensify our dialogue. We have started to tackle this task several days ago in Rovaniemi in Finland on the margins of the ministerial council of the Arctic Council. That was a very useful meeting. And today in the wake of that dialogue we have verily discussed the situation in our bilateral affairs, as well as exchanged opinions on the most relevant issues of international and regional issues first and foremost Venezuela, Korean Peninsula, Syria, Middle East on the whole, and North Africa as well, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the situation around Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on settling the Iranian nuclear deal. And as a result of our negotiations, we'll report to President Putin in a few hours. But overall, I would like to say that this was a frank and a useful conversation. It is clear that our relations have seen better times and there is a potential for mutually beneficial cooperation, and it largely remains untapped. And a certain role is played in that by the legacy from the predecessors that was inherited by this administration, and I mean anti-Russian sanction policy. Since we are talking about major nuclear powers, the tension between Russia and the United States unavoidably has a negative impact on global affairs. Therefore we, together with the Secretary, have agreed that we need to take practical steps to amend the current situation. Russia is interested in normalizing our dialogue, and we are convinced that it is quite possible and real if we hold this dialogue based on mutual respect and consideration of each other's interests. We have agreed that it's important to rebuild the channels of communications. Lately, these channels were frozen, largely due to a wake of baseless accusations against us in attempts to influence American elections and certain collusion of high-ranking officials of the incumbent administration, and it is clear that such insinuations are absolutely fake. The report was published recently by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and we hope that this tumultuous situation will die down and we can finally move on to building more professional, constructive dialogue between Russia and the U.S. I believe that we have all the basic understandings that were discussed by our presidents at their meeting last year in Helsinki at the summit and several times over the phone. Right now, all these understandings are not fully being implemented. As for tangible results, we can say that December last year saw rebuilding of the working group on counterterrorism at the level of deputy secretary of state and deputy foreign minister. That's a good step, but it's not enough. We expect that it'll be possible to implement other ideas that were reviewed in Helsinki and recently by us in Finland as well as today here in Sochi. First and foremost, I'd like to highlight that it is it would be useful to create a nongovernmental expert council of famous political analysts, ex-military and diplomats, specialists for bilateral relations, and they could have a fresh take, and they would could help us decide how to overcome the accumulated mistrust in order to have the right interpretation of each other's actions in military sphere and to prevent arms race, and in the future to create sustainable and normal cooperation in other spheres as well. We believe it is also useful to create a business advisory council that could unite representatives of larger of major businesses from both countries, and they could draft recommendations how the governments could create conditions for a conducive environment for economic cooperation. We have also discussed what could give a positive impetus to Russian-American relations. We have given a memo to the Secretary of State, and we hope that Washington will carefully review that. As for international agenda, we had a frank conversation on many issues, including the situation around Venezuela. Russia is for the nation of Venezuela to define its own future. And in this regard, it is extremely important that all patriotic and responsible political stakeholders in this country to start a dialogue between themselves. And a number of countries in the region call for the same thing within the mechanism of Montevideo. The government, as Nicolas Maduro has said, is prepared for such a dialogue. We spoke about Syria and the need to fully implement the Resolution 2254. The key clause there is the respect of sovereignty, territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic. We have agreed to continue consultations based on the context that we have, and we have compared notes on a number of specific aspects, including those that have to do with the final eradication of terrorism on the Syrian soil, ensuring the return of refugees, solving humanitarian issues, as well as launching of political process in establishing a constitutional committee. And we hope that this committee in the nearest future will be able to start its work in Geneva under the aegis of the UN. We spoke about Middle East, about the situation that is taking place around JCPOA on ensuring the peaceful nature of Iranian nuclear program. We have many differences here, but the fact that we talk on this topic and will continue to discuss this situation, that gives us hope that certain agreements could be reached with the support of the U.S. and Russia. As for the situation in the Ukraine, there is also a UN Security Council resolution that endorsed Minsk agreements, and we expect that the new administration in Ukraine will be able to define their position on Minsk agreements basing their actions on the fact there is no alternative to political settlement of this inner Ukrainian crisis. As for other issues, I would like to highlight the situation around Korean Peninsula. Our presidents discussed that thoroughly in their conversation on the 3rd of May. President Putin told President Trump about the summit which took place in Vladivostok on the 25th of April. We are promoting dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang. We are prepared to support such a dialogue, and we are positive that in the end we should strive to create a strong mechanism of peace and stability in Northeast Asia. Naturally, we highlighted that the leadership of DPRK expects certain guarantees of security of their country reciprocated by denuclearization, and that denuclearization should be expanded over the whole of the Korean Peninsula. We highlighted very useful cooperation that's happening on Afghanistan, including the trio format Russia, United States, and China. We paid special attention to the issues of strategic stability. We have reviewed the situation that's taking place around intermediate-range force nuclear forces treaty. We spoke about the promise of the New START Treaty, considering that it is going to expire in February 2021. We are interested in renewing a professional and specific dialogue on all aspects of arms control. I hope that such an agreement will be positively received by our two nations and the global community on the whole. Overall, I'd like to say once again that this conversation was a frank one, meaningful, detailed. And I hope that the visit of Mike Pompeo would not only help improve the atmosphere of Russian-American relations, but it would also allow to move on maybe through small steps, but with specific, concrete steps, in solving practical issues that require to be settled both in bilateral sphere and in regional and international agenda. I would like to thank my counterpart for good negotiations, and please, you have the floor. SECRETARY POMPEO: Sergey, thank you. Good afternoon. I want to first of all say that I appreciate President Putin and Prime[i] Minister Lavrov for hosting me today. Thank you, sir. We had a frank discussion about many issues, including many places where we disagree. The United States stands ready to find common ground with Russia, as long as the two of us can engage seriously on those issues. We discussed, as Foreign Minister Lavrov said, many important topics. We talked about terrorism. We talked about Afghanistan. President Trump has made clear that his expectation is that we will have an improved relationship between our two countries. This will benefit each of our peoples, and I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction. A few subjects that we talked about. Foreign Minister Lavrov mentioned that we spoke about Syria. We both want to move forward on the political track to bring the suffering of the Syrian people to an end, and we want to do so in a way that ensures that Syria will never again be a haven for Islamist terrorist groups. I also raised our concern about the escalation of the situation around Idlib in the northwest of Syria. We also discussed North Korea and its nuclear program. The United States and Russia agree on the goal of the denuclearization, and we'll continue to discuss it. I underscored that we must maintain full implementation of the UN sanctions until the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea is achieved. And our two teams have been working very closely together on this in a very productive fashion. On Venezuela, we have disagreement. I urged my Russian colleagues to support the Venezuelan people as they return democracy to their country. The United States and more than 50 other nations agree that the time has come for Nicolas Maduro to go. He has brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people, and we hope that the Russians' support for Maduro will end. But despite our disagreements, we'll keep talking. I hope we can find a way forward that ends with the humanitarian and political crisis that is happening. On this we both agree. We also discussed the situation in Ukraine. The Trump administration has been clear that we do not recognize Russia's attempted annexation in Crimea, and we hope that we can continue to move forward. Our sanctions have remained in place. I urged Russia to reach out to Ukraine's new president to demonstrate leadership by taking a step towards breaking the stalemate. We would, in particular, welcome the release of the Ukrainian crewmen detained near the Kerch Strait last year, and we talked about implementation and how we might move forward in obtaining a ceasefire in the Donbas region. We spoke a bit about the activities that are taking place in the Middle East today, with particular focus on the actions that Iran is taking. I made clear that the United States will continue to apply pressure to the regime in Tehran until its leadership is prepared to return to the ranks of responsible nations that do not threaten their neighbors or spread instability or terror. As Foreign Minister Lavrov alluded to, very much on President Trump's mind is arms control. Our actions on the INF Treaty have demonstrated that we're committed to effective arms control that advances U.S. allied and partner security that is verifiable and enforceable. The President has charged his national security team to think more broadly about arms control, to include countries beyond our traditional U.S.-Russia framework and a broader range of weapon systems. The President wants serious arms control that delivers real security to the American people. And we know and I think we agree on this to achieve these goals, we'll have to work together, and that it would be important that, if it's possible, we get China involved as well. We'll have a more extensive set of conversations, both about arms control and a opportunity to discuss all broad strategic security issues between our two countries in the weeks ahead. I also raised the issue of U.S. citizens who have been detained in Russia, making sure that our citizens are not unjustly held abroad. It is one of President Trump's highest priorities. And we spoke, too, about the question of interference in our domestic affairs. I conveyed that there are things that Russia can do to demonstrate that these types of activities are a thing of the past and I hope that Russia will take advantage of those opportunities. Finally, I wanted to emphasize the American friendship with the Russian people. Our two nations share proud histories and respect for one another's cultures. We seek a better relationship with Russia and we urge that it work alongside us to change the trajectory of the relationship, which will benefit each of our peoples. Thank you, Sergey. MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Dear colleagues, we are moving on to Q&A. Kommersant newspaper, please. You have the floor. QUESTION: (Via interepreter) Vladimir Solovyov, Kommersant newspaper. You mentioned the New START Treaty, which is expiring in 2021, but it is still unclear whether it will be surely prolonged. Therefore, the question to Secretary Pompeo: Is Washington prepared to extend New START Treaty for five years, as Moscow is proposing? Whether U.S. is prepared to discuss concerns of Russia of that conversion of launchers and heavy bombers as well? And a question to Mr. Lavrov: If the U.S. did not alleviate concerns of Russia, will Moscow continue to want to prolong the treaty? Thank you. SECRETARY POMPEO: So Foreign Minister Lavrov raised the issue of concerns about compliance with New START today. We'll continue to work to allow that treaty to be verified exactly as the verification regime exists. As for its extension, what we've agreed that we will do is we will gather together teams that will begin to work not only on New START and its potential extension, but on a broader range of arms control issues that each of our two nations have, I think, in our shared best interest achieving an agreement on. FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) Now, as for our position, indeed we have concerns that have to do with the claimed refitting of the U.S. launchers of Trident SLBMs as well as heavy bombers of converting them to non-nuclear forces. The START the treaty foresees certain procedures that allow for the second party should allow for the second party to verify that this conversion, refitting of equipment, is done in such a way that it is impossible to return the nuclear warheads to the launchers on the bombers. We are discussing that at Bilateral Consultative Commission, which oversees the implementation of the treaty, and we expect that this discussion will yield positive result in the end. As for the question of what Russia will do if these concerns remain in place, I'd prefer not to respond to that, because right now we proceed from the assumption that we can agree within the Bilateral Consultative Commission, and guessing doing the guesswork what will happen, what will not, that's possibly not the diplomatic task. Our task is to achieve a result, and that's what we will do. MS ORTAGUS: Okay. Thanks. We're going to go to Guy Benson from Fox News. QUESTION: Thank you very much. I want to follow up on Venezuela. Mr. Secretary, what was the message from the Trump administration specifically in regards to the Russian Government and their continued support of Nicolas Maduro and their active involvement in the Western Hemisphere? And Mr. Foreign Minister, why is it that the Russian Government persists in supporting Mr. Maduro when virtually every democracy in Latin America has recognized Mr. Guaido as the legitimate interim leader of that country? Thank you. SECRETARY POMPEO: Guy, we talked about this for some time. We made clear the U.S. position. We want every country that's interfering in Venezuela to cease doing that. We want the Venezuelan people to get their democracy back. We want them to have a fair, free election, elect their own leadership, not in the way that the sham election took place with Mr. Maduro. So whether it's Iranian forces or Chinese or Cubans, the Trump administration's position is that they all need to cease having an impact in supporting Maduro and allow the Venezuelan people not only to get their democracy back but give them an opportunity to rebuild this country that has tremendous wealth. There are Russian companies operating there that are successful businesses as well. We want those countries we want that country to get a chance to rebuild its economy, too, so that it isn't dependent on humanitarian assistance from anywhere in the world, but rather they can begin to deliver economic outcomes for themselves. And to do that, the central point is that we need free and fair elections there, not interfered by any other nation. FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) As for our position, and in response to your question why Russia is taking such a stance in support of dialogue, of viewing all the issues by Venezuelans themselves with no ultimatums and no preconditions well, this position stems from the fact that democracy cannot be done by force. The threats that we hear against Maduro government, threats that come from the mouths of official representatives of the U.S. administration and from Mr. Guaido, who always mentions his right to invite military intervention from outside this has nothing in common with democracy. We remember back in 2003 I think that was May the President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the board of aircraft carrier declared the democracy in Iraq. We remember 2011. It was declared that the leader of Libya Muammar Qadhafi was ousted and now Libya is a democracy. I don't think I should go into more detail on how the democracy fuels itself in Iraq and Libya and other places where such attempts of coup d'etat took place and it brought nothing good about. MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Russia 24 Channel, please. QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Thank you. Natalia Litovko, Russia 24 Channel. Question to both ministers about possible personal meeting between President Putin and President Trump. We see contradictory information there. Could you please clarify whether such a meeting will take place? We hear about Osaka, but is it planned and when and where? A second question to Secretary Pompeo. You just came back from Brussels, where you discussed with your European colleagues the nuclear deal with Iran. Well, the latest news about possible relocation of troops to the Middle East that sounds concerning. Does it mean that Washington chose a strategy of force against Iran? Are European leaders on board with you on that? FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) Well, naturally, we heard statements by President Trump that he expects to hold a meeting with President Putin, including during the G20 summit in Osaka. We heard a proposal. Well, if we receive such an official invitation, we'll respond positively, and we talked about that today with Michael Pompeo. SECRETARY POMPEO: Let me talk about my conversations in Brussels and then more broadly about the United States policy with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran. So I went to Brussels to share with our European friends the threats and concerns we have about actions that the Iranians are taking or are potentially taking, and we wanted to make sure they understood the risks as we saw them, and I shared that with them in some detail. As for our policy, it's been consistent now for the entire Trump administration. And the decision to withdraw from the JCPOA, now just over a year ago, made clear what our objectives are. We laid them out in May of last year. We're looking for Iran to behave like a normal country, and that's our ask. And we have applied pressure to the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran to achieve that. We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran. We're looking for the regime to simply stop conducting assassination campaigns throughout Europe, to cease their support of Hizballah that threatens interests all across the Middle East, their support for the Houthis that are launching missiles into areas where there are Russians and Americans traveling. These missiles could easily kill a Russian or an American. We laid them out in some detail. Our position hasn't changed. And the movement of troops that you described I'll leave to the Department of Defense, but we've also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion. MS ORTAGUS: Shaun Tandon, AFP. QUESTION: Great. Thank you. Thanks for you time. I wanted to follow up on a couple of statements that you've said. First, for Foreign Minister Lavrov, you mentioned that despite the disagreements with Iran that there's a possibility of certain agreements on Iran going forward. Could you explain what you see in common with the U.S. on Iran, where you can go? Secretary Pompeo, if I could ask you about the mysterious incidents in the UAE, regarding the oil tankers, have you pinpointed responsibility for that? And if I could follow up on your statement about the election, you said that there are things that Russia could do to show that election interference is a thing of the past. What are those things? What do what would you like Russia to do? Thank you very much. FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: (Via interpreter) As for situation in Iran, Iran and JCPOA, on the settlement of Iranian nuclear issue, I hope that reason will gain the upper hand and that rumors about the ostensibly planned of 120,000 strong army of the U.S., what we spoke about today, is just a rumor. And Mike said that it's a ministry of defense thing, and these are just rumors which are baseless, because this region is so tense with different conflicts and difficult situations. And on the margin, I say that we spoke about the future of Palestinian-Israeli settlement as well. I said that we hope to find a political solution to the situation around Iran. Indeed, we'll try to facilitate for the situation not to tip over to the military scenario. And how we do it, that's the task for diplomats. And I felt that the U.S. side has a commitment to finding a political solution. The situation is a complex one. As you know, we did not support and we believe that it is a mistake that the U.S. decided to withdraw from JCPOA. And those measures that the U.S. Government is undertaking right now by introducing sanctions which prohibit to have any deals with Iran you cannot buy oil; you cannot trade with Iran at all I hope that we together, with our European colleagues, with our Chinese colleagues, who are also a party to the agreement on Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, will keep in touch with our American colleagues and try to find ways out of this crisis. Because right now we have only entered this spiral and we're getting sucked into it. I'd like to use this opportunity that I have the floor I wanted to talk about the topic that you the question that you addressed to Secretary Pompeo about the interference of the Russian Federation in the election process in the U.S. I gave Mike today a copy of an article that was published in the United States in 1987 with a warning that the Soviet Union is going to influence the elections, the presidential elections which were planned for 1988. The article actually mentioned for the first time about the political ambition of then successful businessman Donald Trump. So we can discuss this topic forever, but until we have cold, hard facts on the table, we cannot have a grown-up discussion about it. The facts tell us that there is no proof of those who are trying to hype up this topic. We have mentioned several times that we could have renewed professional contact in cybersecurity, and within this context we could discuss any concerns that one party has to another. Attacks against our internet resources, they the lion's share of those attacks come from the United States soil. And when we talk about the latest presidential campaign in the U.S., since 2013, we used to have, and we still have, a channel of exchange on information about possible indeliberate risks in cyberspace. And since October 2016, when the Democratic administration of the United States raised this issue for the first time, till January 2017, till Donald Trump inauguration, we used to have a traffic of response and requests of information, and we have offered recently when the verbal attacks against Russian Federations that had to do with alleged interference in elections reached their ceiling, we suggested that we could use this traffic between these two special centers that deal with cyberspace threats. We suggested to publish that, and I mentioned that to Mike. Administration refused to do so. I don't know who made this decision. However, the publication of this data was blocked by the American side, but we believe that making them public would alleviate a lot of those deliberations that have been spread right now. Naturally, we will not act unilaterally, we will not publish them, we will not make them public. But I'd like to just to flag this fact: Once again, I'm saying we are prepared. We are ready. We want to deal with our American colleagues with the issues that appear in the cyberspace through professional dialogue with no emotions, no political jaundice, with no ideology, with no attempts to make this topic the main one in the domestic policy in the U.S. And I'm sorry, by the way, I gave Mike an unofficial a non-paper, a non-official memo, and it lays out the relevant the actual information of U.S. interference in the domestic policy of the Russian Federation, including the notorious law on support of freedom in the Ukraine it was adopted by the Congress where the Secretary of State is instructed, he's obligated to promote democracy in Russia directly through working with Russian NGOs, and $20 million have been earmarked for that annually. That's not contemplations or a deliberation. This is a real law. We are prepared to talk on this topic. And His Excellency much respected by me, Mr. Huntsman, knows how hard it is to work in Russia sometimes, and our ambassador in the U.S. also knows that about the issues that arise, and we want to alleviate those issues for all that accumulation of mutual negative actions, which was initiated by the United States that we had to reciprocate, to alleviate that all, for the diplomats to work transparently, openly, according to the Viennese Conventions on Diplomatic Relations, without equating perception from the other side that someone is trying to influence a domestic political process. By the way, once again, we gave an example of 1933, when the United States spearheaded through President Roosevelt and People's Commissioner Mr. Litvinov exchanged notes where they committed to non-interference in each other's processes. I'd like to highlight once again, this action was initiated by the U.S. for several years now, starting with the Obama administration. We suggested to our partners to reconfirm that commitment. Right now, they are not prepared for that, so draw your own conclusions. SECRETARY POMPEO: You can see we have some disagreements on this issue. I promise not to go back to history from the early '30s, but I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov, as we've made clear for the past months, that interference in American elections is unacceptable. If the Russians were to engage in that in 2020, it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been, and encourage them not to do that, that we would not tolerate that. We've said this not only about the Russians but about other countries as well. Our elections are important and sacred, and they must be kept free and fair and with no outside country interfering in those elections. Your first question was about what we know about the attacks that took place off of the United Arab Emirates. I don't have any information that I can share with you yet about the nature of what took place there. We're working diligently to get answers to what caused those ships to have the problems that they have today. MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our press conference. Thank you for taking part in it. [i] Foreign Minister Lavrov NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN monitoring team in Yemen verifies pullout of armed forces from crucial port zones 14 May 2019 - The UN team set up to monitor the ceasefire agreement between warring parties in Yemen has formally verified the pullout of armed Ansar Allah, or Houthi forces, from port zones in the country that are crucial to the flow of humanitarian aid, describing cooperation they have received so far as "very good." The Chair of the UN support mission (UNMHA), Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, released a statement on Tuesday, confirming that the redeployment of forces from Hudaydah, Salif and Ras Issa ports, part of the deal struck between Houthi leaders and the Yemeni Government, went ahead as agreed, albeit with some exceptions: security of the ports was handed over to the coast guard, but, he said, "a lot of work needs to be done" to remove military hardware. The Lt. Gen. reiterated that the actions of the Houthis forces are the first moves in the broader redeployments in Hudaydah, part of the UN-backed Agreement that both parties signed up to in December 2018. The next steps in the UN's implementation of the Hudaydah Agreement are expected to include a strengthened UN presence to support the management of Hudaydah, Salif and Ras Issa, and to strengthen UNVIM, the UN body responsible for monitoring ships attempting to dock in the ports. Full implementation of the agreement is critical for returning peace and stability to Yemen, said Lt. Gen. Lollesgaard, and "ensuring effective humanitarian access into the country where millions continue to be in need of life-saving assistance." On Tuesday, Martin Griffiths, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, met the warring parties in the Jordanian capital of Amman, to begin discussing the implementation of the economic provisions of the Hudaydah Agreement. Issues to be discussed included the management of revenues from the ports of Hudaydah, Ras Issa and Salif, and their use for the payment of public sector salaries throughout the country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Air Force completes test of combat support innovation By Michael Briggs, Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center Public Affairs / Published May 14, 2019 KINSTON REGIONAL JETPORT, N.C. (AFNS) -- The Air Force completed the final test of an innovative warfighting concept May 12 that could be a game-changer for future adaptive-basing constructs. The Combat Support Wing proof-of-concept capstone exercise developed by the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center and hosted by Air Combat Command's 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, tested the ability of three teams of about 30 Airmen each to establish and operate an airfield in an austere environment. They had to defend the base and refuel and rearm F-15E Strike Eagles using multifunctional skills they learned during training events over the past month. "We've seen monumental improvements in the ability of our Airmen to do things outside of their normal career fields and the speed at which they're able to refuel and rearm jets," said Brig. Gen. Brian Bruckbauer, AFIMSC director of expeditionary support and innovation. Bruckbauer's directorate led the planning and execution of the exercise. The concept supports National Defense Strategy priorities to evolve innovative operational concepts and enhance lethality in contested environments. If fielded, the CSW concept could give the Air Force the ability to rapidly deploy in smaller, more efficient and agile teams to austere and potentially contested areas. Under the multifunctional construct, weapons loaders could drive a refueling truck, security forces defenders could refuel a jet and avionics specialists could provide airfield security while also performing their primary duties. CSW is an outcome of the 2017 AFIMSC Installation and Mission Support Weapons and Tactics Conference. The capstone was the final event in a phased rollout of the concept over the past year. It tested the hub-and-spoke operations of a single forward operating base at Seymour Johnson AFB and three forward operating locations at Kinston Regional Jetport, Moody AFB, Georgia, and MacDill AFB, Florida. "We had at least 15 different Air Force specialty codes come in to attack the problem of how to conduct integrated combat turns with as few people and the smallest logistics footprint as possible," said Col. Erik Rundquist, AFIMSC Detachment 8 commander, at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, who was one of the primary architects responsible for turning the concept into practicable exercise scenarios. Master Sgt. Jason Knepper, an Air Force Security Forces Center flight chief, joined the CSW cadre in January as a security forces functional lead. He's said he's seen "tons" of progress since capstone participants began training in mid-April. "We went from individual troops who had their skillset and a vague understanding about what everyone else was doing to now where you've got maintainers manning defensive fighting positions and cops helping refuel jets," Knepper said. "The construct for the multifunction approach is working really well. The people who built those pieces did a phenomenal job and now we're seeing it work." He said Airmen can execute the concept very well when given the opportunity, training and motivation to see why it's important. One of those Airmen was Senior Airman Darian Betancourt, an aircraft armament systems specialist at the 4th FW. He learned how to drive R-11 fuel trucks, palletize cargo, conduct tactical combat casualty care and defend the base. "It's been different. It's been fun too," Betancourt said. "You gain appreciation for your job and other people's jobs and you learn what they do." He said the experience was eye-opening. "There's so much to the Air Force that people don't get to see and doing something like this really shows that," Betancourt said. "If everybody could do this (multifunctional learning), that would be something special." The AFIMSC Expeditionary Support Directorate is now expected to produce a report for Air Force leaders that includes data on more than 100 measures of effectiveness. "We'll be able to provide our senior leaders with a very thorough analysis and some very good recommendations going forward on force structure, force presentation and multi-functional training with the goal of using this concept in our operational plans," Bruckbauer said. The CSW concept will be included in the Rapid Forge exercise scheduled for July 10-26 in Europe. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Denies Report He's Considering 120,000 Troops to Counter Iran By Carla Babb May 14, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected a report that he is considering sending 120,000 troops to counter Iran, but didn't rule out deploying "a lot more" soldiers in the future. "I think it's fake news," Trump said of a New York Times report that the White House is considering a plan to send 120,000 troops to the region. "Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Trump said Tuesday. The Pentagon has dispatched an aircraft carrier and nuclear-capable bomber planes to the region in the last few days, with a Patriot missile battery and a landing platform dock ship on the way. The Patriot system offers protection from aircraft and missiles, while the LPD carries Marines and the aircraft, hovercraft, or boats needed to put them ashore to fight in distant places. According to the Times report, the 120,0000 troops under consideration would not be used to invade Iran, something that planners say would require much bigger numbers. Meanwhile, a senior officer in the U.S.-led military coalition combating Islamic State said Tuesday he had seen no greater recent threat to its troops in Iraq or Syria from forces backed by Iran. "There's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika told reporters at the Pentagon in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad. "We're aware of their presence, clearly, and we monitor them, along with a whole range of others because that's the environment we're in." The statement was in contrast to comments from the Trump administration and the Pentagon, both have asserted for more than a week that they have detected potential threats against American forces in the Middle East from Iran or Iranian-backed proxies. Capt. Bill Urban, lead spokesman U.S. Central Command, said the recent comment from Ghika runs counter to the U.S.'s perceived threat from Iranian-backed forces. "U.S. Central Command, in coordinationwith Operation Inherent Resolve, has increased the force posture level forall service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria. As a result, OIR is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq," Urban said in a statement. U.S. Senate Democrat Chris Coons said it is hard to determine whether a significant, new U.S. troop deployment to the Middle East is justified. Answering a VOA Persian question at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington on Tuesday, Coons said there has been no articulated strategy or briefing by the Trump administration to lawmakers on committees other than intelligence, regarding threats from Iran. Coons called for continued U.S. dialogue with Washington's European allies on Iran. "I would urge the Trump administration to work as hard diplomatically as they seem to be from the defense perspective, in terms of planning and developing a strategy and communicating it to Congress and the world." A senior military official told reporters Friday at the Pentagon that the Iranian threat was both "on land and sea" and included commercial dhows (small ships) that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a branch of Iran's armed forces, loaded with "potential military hardware to include missiles." "It's important that Iran understand that an attack on Americans or its interests will be met with an appropriate response," Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan said Friday. "We're in the Middle East to defeat terrorism, fight and build security ... but we will protect ourselves." But when asked to square his statements with U.S. assertions that the threat to U.S. troops in Iraq from the militias is increasing, Ghika insisted he was "on exactly the same page." "I don't think we're out of step with the White House at all," Ghika said. VOA Persian's Shahla Arasteh contributed from Washington. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Could Blacklisting Muslim Brotherhood Complicate US Diplomacy in Middle East? By Sirwan Kajjo May 14, 2019 Designating Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization could pit the United States against new potential enemies in the Muslim world, experts say. Analysts argue the designation could hamper U.S. Middle East diplomacy and efforts to promote democratic change in the region. "For America to write off this important part of politics in the Middle East is really to hobble any kind of intellectual debate and the freedom of American diplomats to operate in this region," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "America is going to throw a major spanner [wrench] into the works of any kind of democratic and political evolution in the Middle East if it does this," he told VOA. The reaction came after the White House recently said President Donald Trump is mulling over designating Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. "The president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern, and this designation is working its way through the internal process," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in an email to reporters. Egypt's efforts The U.S. announcement came nearly three weeks after a visit by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to the White House. El-Sissi, who toppled former President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, has outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood and thrown Morsi and many of the group's leaders in jail. Morsi was the first Muslim Brotherhood president who came to power after winning the 2012 presidential elections in Egypt. Morsi had led the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. But since assuming power, el-Sissi has been urging U.S. officials to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two Sunni powers in the Middle East, also have been lobbying Washington to designate the Islamist group. 'Neo-conservative team' During the first weeks of his administration in 2017, Trump had considered the designation but then dropped the idea. The current U.S. national security team, however, has been in favor of targeting Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, some analysts charge. "President Trump has got this new national security team with [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and [National Security Adviser John] Bolton. This is a much more neo-conservative crowd than the first year of Trump's [presidency]," Mideast expert Landis said. "So it's possible that they could actually entertain the idea of supporting Egypt, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in sanctioning the Muslim Brotherhood and designating them," he added. Fawzi Soufiane, a Tunisia-based expert on Islamist movements, says there are more radical groups in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East that the U.S. should consider targeting. "For example, there are Salafis in Egypt who are much more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood. So clearly any potential designation of the Muslim Brotherhood won't be effective in terms of combating terrorism in the Middle East," he told VOA. "The Muslim Brotherhood is perhaps the least violent group when it comes to the political spectrum of Islamist parties," Soufiane said. Extremist ideology The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 in Egypt, is a social, religious and political organization that promotes a governance system run by Islamic law. The Sunni Muslim group has dozens of affiliates across the Muslim world. Although it has used violence to achieve its political objectives in the past, the group currently eschews such actions. But some experts believe that the Islamist group continues to promote its agendas through violence by aligning itself with more extremist organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood "has been funding and supporting extremist groups through an extensive network of humanitarian and political organizations in Syria, Libya and elsewhere," said Majdi al-Daqaq, editor-in-chief of October magazine, a pro-government publication in Cairo. "Even if we assumed that Muslim Brotherhood is not involved in armed violence, it is still active in promoting extremist political ideology throughout the region," he told VOA in a phone interview. Al-Daqaq added that the Muslim Brotherhood "also has direct ties with the Palestinian militant group Hamas," which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Financial networks Designating Egypt's oldest Islamist movement a foreign terrorist organization would allow Washington to impose sanctions on any individual or group with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Experts say targeting the group's financial networks overseas could undermine its activities in the Middle East. "If the U.S. could target the Muslim Brotherhood leadership by sanctioning powerful individuals who have been working with the organization in Middle East, Europe and North America, then the group would be harmed significantly," said Shafeeq Mamdouh, a political commentator based in Alexandria, Egypt. "This is a group that heavily relies on funding and donations from Muslim groups in and outside the Middle East. So their financial transactions abroad need to be disrupted," he added. What next If the White House decides to label the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, it must prove that the group engages in terrorist activity against the U.S. or its interests. The secretary of state then would have to consult with the attorney general and the treasury secretary before making the designation official. U.S. Congress would have seven days to review the designation, choosing either to block or allow it. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 4 Killed in Mogadishu District HQ Blast By Harun Maruf May 14, 2019 Police in Somalia say four people were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber hit offices in the Warta Nabadda district of Mogadishu. Witnesses told VOA's Somali service that a Toyota Noah vehicle filled with explosives was driven into the district headquarters during food distribution for Ramadan. Police say at least nine people were injured in the blast, but witnesses put the number of injured at 30. The targeted building is near the Somali presidential palace, Villa Somalia, also located in Warta Nabadda district. Al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility for the attack. On Monday, the deputy leader of al-Shabab, Mahad Karate, cautioned his militants to avoid shedding Muslim blood. The speech contradicts the group's usual tactics of targeting civilian areas in Mogadishu, including hotels and restaurants. In a separate incident, two soldiers were killed Tuesday after a roadside explosion hit a military vehicle near Siinka Dheer area just outside Mogadishu. Witnesses told VOA Somali that the soldiers were returning from the funeral of a government soldier who as killed in Mogadishu last night. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks by President Trump Before Marine One Departure May 14, 2019 South Lawn 11:21 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: So, the economy is doing very well by every measure. We're having probably the greatest economy that we've had anywhere, anytime, in the history of our country. We're having a little squabble with China because we've been treated very unfairly for many, many decades for, actually, a long time. And it should have been handled a long time ago, and it wasn't. And we'll handle it now. I think it's going to be I think it's going to turn out extremely well. We're at a very strong position. We are the piggy bank that everybody likes to take advantage of, or take from. And we can't let that happen anymore. We've been losing, for many years, anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year with China and trade with China. We can't let that happen. The relationship I have with President Xi is extraordinary. It's, really, very good. But he's for China and I'm for the USA, and it's very simple. We are, again, in a very, very strong position. They want to make a deal. It could absolutely happen. But, in the meantime, a lot of money is being made by the United States, and a lot of strength is being shown. This has never happened to China before. Our economy is fantastic; theirs is not so good. We've gone up trillions and trillions of dollars since the election; they've gone way down since my election. So, that's the way it is. That's the way it stands. We're going to do very well. Yeah. Q Mr. President, are you confident that there will be no recession while you're in office? THE PRESIDENT: Well, you never can say that, but we're doing very well. We're doing I think we probably have the greatest economy that we've ever had. The employment numbers came out. As you know, they're record levels in almost every category: African American the best in history, if you take a look; Hispanic American, the best in history. Yesterday, Asian American numbers came in; they are the lowest in history the history of our country. Women I think in 61 years, and soon that will be historic, too. So that we are doing and as far as employment numbers, we have the most people working today in the United States than we've ever had before. Almost 160 million people. So it's really good. Q Mr. President, trade talks collapsed with China. Would you describe it THE PRESIDENT: You got a machine over there. Q Have trade talks collapsed with China? Would you describe it like that? THE PRESIDENT: No, I wouldn't. We have a very good dialogue. We have a dialogue going. It'll always continue. But we made a deal with China. It was a deal that was a very good deal. It had to be a good deal; otherwise, we're not making it. Because we've been down so low in trade and other Presidents should've done this a long time ago we can't just make a new deal. And I told that to President Xi. But we had a deal that was very close, and then they broke it. They really did. I mean, more than just more than renegotiate, they really broke it. So we can't have that happen. Q Mr. President, did you ask the Attorney General to launch a probe into the Russia investigation? THE PRESIDENT: No, I didn't ask him to do that. Q Did you know he was going to do it? THE PRESIDENT: I didn't know it. I didn't know it. But I think it's a great thing that he did it. I saw it last night. And they want to look at how that whole hoax got started. It was a hoax. And even Mueller not a friend of mine even Bob Mueller came out: "No collusion." And he had 18 people that didn't like Donald Trump. They were Hillary Clinton fans. They contributed, many of them, to Hillary Clinton. They came out. It was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of this country. And you know what? I am so proud of our Attorney General, that he is looking into it. I think it's great. I did not know about it. No. Q Mr. President, were you surprised by the Chinese retaliation, sir? You tweeted they "should not retaliate," and then they did. THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no. I wasn't surprised. But you have to understand they do $600 billion, meaning we buy $600 billion and they buy $100 billion. We have all the advantage. It's a very small factor for us. And we have a much bigger economy now. You know, since my election, we've gone up so much. We have a much bigger economy than China. But if you take a look, $600 million [billion] versus $100 million [billion]. It's a different world. Q Mr. President, (inaudible) $100 billion in additional tariffs, then? THE PRESIDENT: We're looking at that very strongly. About the $325 billion we're looking at it very strongly. David. Q Mr. President, did you tell DHS to round up immigrant families? THE PRESIDENT: I don't know anything about that. I read that. It's probably fake news. But I read that this morning. I don't know anything about it. Q Mr. President, why is it unfair? Why is it unfair, sir, for Don Jr. to be subpoenaed if he's pulled out of testifying twice? THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, it's really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100 percent okay. And now they want him to testify again. I don't know why. I have no idea why, but it seems very unfair to me. Q Mr. President, are you planning to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East in response to Iran? THE PRESIDENT: I think it's fake news, okay? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that. But I think it's just where was that story? In the New York Times? Well, the New York Times is fake news. Go ahead. Q You say this is a small squabble, but don't you understand that American consumers may very well suffer because of this? THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. So you have no tariff to pay whatsoever if you're a business. All you have to do is build or make your product in the United States. There's no tariff whatsoever. So that really works out very well. Q Do you think you're winning the trade war, Mr. President? THE PRESIDENT: I think we're winning it. We're going to be collecting over $100 billion in tariffs. Our people, if they want, they can buy from someplace else, other than China. Or they can really, the ideal is make their product in the USA. That's what I really want. Yeah, we're winning it. You know what? You want to know something? You want to know something? We always win. We always win. How are you, Emerald? Q I'm good. How are you? THE PRESIDENT: Good. What's up? Q Do you have confidence in Christopher Wray after he said he wouldn't exactly call it "spying"? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I didn't understand his answer because I thought the Attorney General answered it perfectly. So I certainly didn't understand that answer. I thought it was a ridiculous answer. Thank you. END 11:29 A.M. EDT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address May 14, 2019 News By Jim Garamone Defense.gov Cybercom, NSA Senior Enlisted Leader Discusses Troops, Training, Mental Health WASHINGTON -- U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are key organizations needed in a world challenged by great power competition, the organizations' senior enlisted leader said recently. Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Scott Stalker is the advisor to Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the commander of Cybercom DOD's newest combatant command and director of NSA. He has been in the job for a year. The command is based at Fort Meade, Maryland, but Stalker has worldwide responsibilities. Cybercom and NSA are on the front line of great power competition. Russia and China will not challenge the United States openly on air, land or sea, but they can and do in cyberspace. Adjusting the priorities of the organizations to concentrate on this aspect of the National Defense Strategy has not been hard, but it does change the emphasis," Stalker said. China is the greater long-term adversary, but Russia "has the will, but maybe not the means" to challenge the U.S. military in cyberspace, he added. Brand-New Domain Stalker said Cybercom is evolving and is no longer just reacting to developments, but operating through persistent engagement. "This has been the highlight of my career," he said. "If you look at history, cyberspace is the first new domain of warfare since the invention of the aircraft. We are really at the beginning right now. I can't wait to see what Cyber Command and NSA will be in 10 years." Cybercom's cybersecurity teams are getting filled out, he said, but there is still the task of building the infrastructure to support the combatant command. "We have the teams, but we need administrators, too," he said. "We need logisticians, security and so on." The cyber teams are working through the certification process as well, Stalker said. Certification is a complicated process in any military occupational specialty, he said. When recruits finish boot camp, they are Marines. Those Marines then go to military occupational specialty-producing schools. Their training continues after they arrive at their first duty assignment. In the cyber world, certification is like on-the-job training, Stalker said. "While you can do cyber training and cyber ranges and exercises, it is different when you are going up against an adversary that is very intelligent, that is not doing things that allow you to easily find them," he said. The certification piece becomes critical because it shows the service member can defend the network, Stalker explained. "While the services provide us, basically, a trained cyber operator or signals intelligence operator or crypto analyst, ... we continue that training curriculum until they are ready to do it on their own,' he said. Industry welcomes service members with the skills and experience possessed by Cybercom or NSA troops, Stalker said. "Those that get out can do very well for themselves because they possess the skills and a [top secret] clearance," he said. "That poses a challenge, because we cannot compete on salary. There are people who left the services as [an] E-4, E-5, making six-figure salaries to start. I have to compete on service, on culture, on camaraderie or teamwork. We are not going to have E-4s making a quarter million [dollars]. That's just not going to happen." Election Interference One formative operation conducted by Cybercom was combating interference in the 2018 midterm elections primarily from Russia, he said. The command supported the work of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the National Guard during the run-up to the elections. The effort was very successful. "One thing you didn't hear about was a lot of noise like you did in 2016," he said. "In 2018, we used a whole-of-society approach. Both NSA and Cyber Command supporting Homeland Security see information and bring it to DHS and the FBI. They took the information to social media companies to get the accounts taken down. It's a story that I wish more Americans knew about." The command is already working on defending the 2020 presidential election, Stalker said. Mental Health As senior enlisted leader, Stalker concentrates on troops, training and readiness. "That's where I am laser-focused," he said. The saddest part of the last year was that "I was not mentally prepared for the amount of folks we would lose to people taking their own lives," he said. Stalker said the mental health challenge is far greater than he thought it would be. "What we've done at Cyber Command and NSA is we recognized it quickly," he said. He worked with Nakasone to learn the commander's intent and then moved out with the staff. The command consulted with U.S. Special Operations Command to understand what they were doing and reached out to the civilian intelligence agencies to learn from them. They established a resiliency program at both Cybercom and NSA, "so an individual can go to a doctor or chaplain and say 'I don't know what the problem is, but I don't feel right,'" he said. Leaders will refer the individual to the appropriate resources for help. Stalker said when he speaks to newcomers, noncommissioned officers and others, five minutes of the conversation will be about mental health and the fact that "I need deckplate leadership those at the team level to recognize these challenges," he said. "General Nakasone and I don't see everyone in this global enterprise every day. We are not going to know what is bothering them. But the teams do see their people, and they are the ones who need to be prepared to help." Stalker said he has seen teams "beat themselves up," wondering what more they could have done. "I went to see some [mental health] professionals to get help understanding the process," he said. "I wanted to be a leader that understands the mental health aspect of this. We have great programs. We need ... NCO, civilian and officer leaders to intervene proactively when they see something." He said there is a pervasive, and mistaken, belief that those who ask for help will lose their security clearances and access for doing so. "You don't lose your clearance because you are wounded," Stalker said. "If I go to see a mental health professional and tell him that the stress is killing me and I am thinking about taking my life, what we will do is take you out of the work world briefly without losing your clearance. You have a wound. It's not visible, but you have a wound, and we've got to fix that." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India to Move Its Air Defence Systems Closer to Pakistan Border Report Sputnik News 17:52 14.05.2019(updated 18:26 14.05.2019) Last month, Pakistan reportedly deployed medium-range LY-80/HQ-16 air defence systems near border bases to prevent any fresh intrusions by the Indian Air Force. New Delhi (Sputnik): Amid simmering tensions between India and Pakistan, the Indian Army is planning to move its air defence units closer to the border with Pakistan in a bid to thwart any aerial threat from the other side in the near future. The decision was taken to move air defence units to forward areas after intense assessment of the threat posed by Pakistan. "Some of the fighting formations, including air defence and other defensive formations, are now planned to be moved closer to the borders. With these air defence units deployed closer to the border, we would be able to tackle any possible aerial strike from enemy side and thwart it close to the border itself", Indian news agency ANI quoted a top army official as saying on Tuesday. Air defence assets of the Indian Army include the indigenous Akash air defence missile systems, along with the Russian Kvadrat and other older legacy systems. Both the nuclear-armed nations have been on high alert since mid-February after 40 Indian security personnel were killed in a suicide bombing carried out by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Air Force launched an aerial strike on 26 February and reportedly destroyed terror camps in the Balakot area in Pakistan. The following day, Pakistan retaliated with a number of fighter jets and reportedly shot down an Indian aircraft and captured the pilot. Besides surface to air missile systems, Islamabad has reportedly also deployed additional Chinese-made Rainbow CH-4 and CH-5 drones, for surveillance. According to reports, Pakistan is in talks with Russia for the procurement of missiles and air-defence systems. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's borders fully secure: Commander IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Ahvaz, May 14, IRNA -- The commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Border Guards says that Iran has no concern over common maritime and land borders with neighboring countries despite the threats close to the borders. Brigadier General Qasim Reza'i said in Ahwaz on Tuesday that the morale of the border guards in protecting and safeguarding the borders has caused not to have concern about border security, but we are still ready to deal with possible contingencies of insecurity on the borders. Referring to the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran has 8,755 kilometers of land border and 2,700 kilometers of maritime border with 15 neighboring countries, Reza'i added, 'The Islamic Republic of Iran is the third largest country in terms of the number of neighbors after Russia and China, but compared with the size of the country and number of neighbors rank first in the world." Referring to recent US moves in the region, the commander said that the arrival of the American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf has not a negative impact on our morale, but reinforced the morale of the vigilant border guards. Reza'i said that the American military's move was of no concern to us, adding that some humiliated these American carriers' arrival to the waters of the region. 9455**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran decision not contrary to nuclear deal: Official IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, May 14, IRNA -- Head of Strategic Council on Foreign Relations of Iran Kamal Kharazi did not consider Tehran's decision in reducing its commitments in JCPOA contrary to the nuclear accord, and called on the European Union as the main party of the international agreement to defend its interests against the United States. Kamal Kharazi during a recent visit to Paris in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde and in response to the daily's question about the exact demands of Iran from the Europeans, said that Europe has created a mechanism called 'INSTEX' to maintain its trade relations with Iran, despite the existence of the US bank sanctions. This mechanism has been registered in France, but no further action has been taken. 'The corresponding structure of this strategy is also ready in Iran, and all its officials have been appointed in Tehran. It seems that two months must be enough to begin the first financial transfers.' In response to the question of 'Europeans have stopped buying oil from Iran and the INSTEX also allows you to receive only humanitarian products, is this enough for you?', the former foreign minister said that the European companies can still buy oil from Iran. Some of these countries do not have any interest in the United States, so they are not afraid of sanctions. Italy and Greece stopped their oil purchases while the United States gave them exemptions from the sanctions. He went on to say, 'This shows that this decision (not to buy oil) is political. INSTEX-based payments should be the starting point for Iran's purchases from Europe.' Kharrazi went on to say that it is said that the INSTEX is primarily for this purpose that Iran will be able to purchase medicines and food items. This is not a satisfactory word for us. That is, we think that this solution should allow all types of transfers. 'So, why Europe, too, does not put any pressure on America?' Europe must defend its interests. The head of SCFRI met in his recent trip to France with the former Foreign Minister of France Herve de Charette. The meeting emphasized the necessity for deepening the relations between the two countries in different dimensions, taking into account the historical and cultural background that could be used as the main basis for the development and deepening of cooperation in all fields. Iranian official also responded to the questions at a meeting with the representatives of some important think tanks in France, explaining the reasons for Tehran's recent decision to suspend some commitments. 9455**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Necessity of EU's compliance with its JCPOA commitments IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, May 14, IRNA -- The meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Brussels and the visit of the US Secretary of State to Europe to negotiate with European officials on Iran indicates that the developments related to JCPOA take a more serious stride and Europe is bound to be more committed. Recent developments related to the JCPOA in these days are sensitive. After the US withdrawal from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018, and the resumption of Iran's sanctions last week gave the remaining signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, 60 days to meet their obligations, especially in banking and oil fields, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani emphasized that "whenever our demands are met, we will resume the same amount of suspended commitments, but otherwise, Iran will suspend its other commitments stage by stage. After the announcement of the suspension of part of the commitments by Iran, the European officials showed various reactions that signaled the importance of the JCPOA. But in the end, the foreign ministers of the member states of the nuclear deal, including Britain, France and Germany, along with the EU foreign policy chief, decided at the first meeting of the EU foreign ministers to review the latest developments related to Iran's agreement and Iran's decision. In this context, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shortened his trip to Russia to meet with senior European officials in Belgium. According to the schedule today he is to meet with Russian officials in Sochi. Pompeo recently canceled his trip to Germany and unexpectedly traveled to Iraq and met with senior officials in the country. ** Brussels meeting; reviewing Iran's decision on JCPOA The meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, was their first meeting after Iran's ultimatum. In the meeting that was attended by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, German Foreign Minister Haiku Moss and EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini expressed hope that the first transaction of INSTEX would take place within the next few weeks. They emphasized Europe's commitment to full implementation of the JCPOA. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's diplomatic chief, stressed the need for dialogue Mogherini. The EU continues to fully support the accord, which imposed limits on Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. 'It's always better to talk than rather not to, especially when tensions arise,' she said. 'Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly from us today, not only from myself, but also from other EU member states, that we are living in a crucial delicate moment where the most responsible attitude to take is that of maximum restraint.' In response to another question, she said, 'On behalf of Europe, I declare that we are determined to fulfill our obligations in this agreement until Iran complies with its obligations.' Recalling that the IAEA has so far endorsed Iran's commitment to the JCPOA, Mogherini stated that Foreign ministers from 28 European countries also insist that the IAEA is the only reference point for Iran's compliance assessment. Although Europe has had full political support, it has not been able to achieve tangible results. The Islamic Republic of Iran repeatedly proclaimed its protest against the procrastination of the European countries and insisted that only political declarations could not keep things going. After Mogherini's remarks, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Abdel Nasser Hemmati, in an instagram note while criticizing the repeated European sentences to launch a financial mechanism, wrote, 'About a year ago, Europe was seeking a financial mechanism to trade with Iran until it finally introduced it three months ago.' Europe's cool look at presence of Pompeo US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to Brussels in the middle of his trip to Sochi to meet senior Russian officials who faced cold welcome by Europe. The Washington Post wrote in a report on the European Union Foreign Ministers meeting today that the meeting has been disrupted by a sudden trip of the US Secretary of State. Mogherini was reluctant to accept Pompeo due to intense work plan. In a report by Michael Bernabe , the American newspaper wrote, 'Many European leaders are angry with President Donald Trump's actions against Iran, and Mogherini, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, welcomed Pompeo with reluctance.' Mogherini told reporters before the EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels last night that 'we were told that Pompeo plans to change the plan. We are here all day with a busy agenda. So, during the day, we should see if we can arrange a meeting with him. He is always welcome, but we do not have any exact plans right now.' A Wall Street Journal correspondent, Lawrence Norman, wrote on Monday that 'the European Union foreign ministers did not take photos with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brussels.' 'A senior European diplomat told me that Pompeo came to Brussels to take the opportunity to take a memorial photo to represent the position of Europe and America against Iran,' Norman added on his Twitter page. 'He wanted to take a photo, but we rejected the request and pursued the agenda.' The JCPOA and the JCPOA-related development are in sensitive days; issues such as increased unilateral sanctions by the Trump government, increased tension between Iran and the United States, and the developments associated with the implementation of the INSTEX and trade exchanges are becoming more complex every day. Now the ball is in the court of Europe, and European countries must demonstrate their compliance with their commitment toward Iran. 9455**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address CBI chief calls for immediate implementation of INSTEX IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, May 14, IRNA -- Central Bank of Iran (CBI) chief on Tuesday urged the European countries to implement the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) during the deadline. While the special mechanism for trade exchanges between Iran and Europe has been established in both Iran and Europe, no justification is accepted now for not implementing the INSTEX, Governor of the CBI Abdolnaser Hemmati said. He made the remarks in a meeting with the Austrian Ambassador to Iran Stefan Scholz. The official lauded good relations between the Iranian and Austrian banks and called for improvement of cooperation among these banks. In the meantime, the Austrian envoy, for his part, expressed the Austrian government's support for implementation of the INSTEX mechanism. The envoy called for facilitation of financial transactions for the big airlines, including Lufthansa Group airlines and Austria airlines. Earlier, governor of the Central Bank of Iran in a message criticized Europeans for their repetitive remarks for implementing the INSTEX. If Europeans are concerned about the US reaction to the EU states' exports of goods to Iran, they can test their ability by exporting emergency supplies and medicine, Abdolnasser Hemmati, said in an Instagram post. He added that Europe has focused on setting up a financial mechanism for trade with Iran over the past year and finally they declared three months ago that it is operational. It is for about two months that Special Trade and Finance Instrument between Iran and Europe (STFI), called SATMA in Persian has been established in Iran and its managers were also introduced to Europe, he noted. He described repetition of sentences like 'we are seeking INSTEX' by the European officials as thread-bare, saying the simplest way for making INSTEX operational and the Iranian parallel system of SATMA is to grant a letter of credit to European exporters to Iran. INSTEX was adopted by foreign ministers of the European trio on the sidelines of a European Union summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest on January 1. INSTEX has been registered at the address of France's Economy and Finance Ministry in Paris. German banker Per Fischer has been chosen for a period of six months to run it. 9191**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran rejects Reuters' linking JCPOA to oil exports IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, May 14, IRNA -- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Tuesday refuted the media campaign by Reuters linking Iranian compliance with JCPOA to export of 1.5 million bpd oil. Iran's demands have been explicitly declared in Iranian President's letter to the states parties to the JCPOA, he said. He said that getting engaged with the media hype on assumptions by the media are not constructive and may lead to destruction in process of serious diplomacy. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran will give a 60-day moratorium to the states parties to Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to remedy their breaches and restore Iran's interests enshrined by the international deal. Iranian Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) in a statement announced that Iran has stopped some of its commitments under the JCPOA as of May 8, 2019. Over the past year and after the US illegal withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal and its breach of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, the Islamic Republic of Iran has shown most of its self-restraint and has given considerable opportunity on requests made by other parties to JCPOA, the statement reads. May 8 marks the first anniversary of the US unilateral withdrawal from the Iran Deal formally known as the JCPOA endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231. 9376**1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address CBI chief criticizes EU for procrastination over INSTEX IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, May 14, IRNA -- Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in a message criticized Europeans for their repetitive remarks for implementing the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). If Europeans are concerned about the US reaction to EU states exports of goods to Iran, they can test their ability by exporting emergency supplies and medicine, Abdolnasser Hemmati, said in an Instagram post. He added that Europe has focused on setting up a financial mechanism for trade with Iran over the past year and finally they declared three months ago that it is operational. It is for about two months that Special Trade and Finance Instrument between Iran and Europe (STFI), called SATMA in Persian has been established in Iran and its managers were also introduced to Europe, he noted. He described repetition of sentences like 'we are seeking INSTEX' by European officials as thread-bare, saying the simplest way for making operational INSTEX and the Iranian parallel system of SATMA is to grant a letter of credit to European exporters to Iran. The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) was adopted by foreign ministers of the European trio on the sidelines of a European Union summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest on January 1. INSTEX has been registered at the address of France's Economy and Finance Ministry in Paris. German banker Per Fischer has been chosen for a period of six months to run it. Earlier, Ali Asghar Nouri, CEO of SATMA, Iran's special financial channel for trade responded to the remarks made by German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr holding Iran is responsible for delay in starting INSTEX, saying based on the text of Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), other signatories, especially Europeans are responsible for guaranteeing Iran's economic interests. He added that any measures taken by Iran based on the INSTEX is regarded as an aid for Europe to accomplish its commitments to the JCPOA. He referred to establishing INSTEX parallel mechanism in Iran, saying Iran is ready to start the process if Europe is ready. He stressed the fact that INSTEX will minimize the economic interactions of the two sides meaning that these issues will be of less importance until both sides' banks have direct interactions. 9376**1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mogherini: First transaction of INSTEX to be conducted within weeks IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency London, May 14, IRNA -- European Union's diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini reiterated Europe's adherence to the full implementation of the JCPOA, saying that INSTEX will get up and running and have the first transactions hopefully in the next few weeks. Mogherini made the remarks after a meeting with EU's foreign ministers when she stressed the need for dialogue as 'the only and the best way to address differences and avoid escalation' in the region. She also called on Iran to remain committed to the nuclear deal, saying, 'We continue to fully support the nuclear deal with Iran, its full implementation.' 'It has been and continues to be for us a key element of the non-proliferation architecture both globally and in the region.' Mogherini chaired a meeting of the so-called E3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- to discuss efforts to keep the deal going, including the special trade mechanism called INSTEX the trio set up to try to enable legitimate trade with Iran to continue without falling foul of US sanctions. INSTEX was launched in January but is still not operational and its lack of implementation has been criticized by the Iran's senior leadership. Asked about Iran insistence on exporting one and half a million barrels of oil a day, she said that this is not an issue for her to comment on it. The EU is determined to comply with the deal until Iran remains committed to it, she said. Recalling that International Atomic Energy Agency has verified Iran's compliance with the deal, Mogherini said that foreign ministers of 28 European states also stress that IAEA is the only source for evaluating Iran's adherence to the deal. EU foreign ministers convened on Monday for the first time after Iran issued an ultimatum to the Europeans last week. 8072**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran has right to partially suspend nuclear deal commitments: Lavrov ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Tue / 14 May 2019 / 12:56 Tehran (ISNA) - Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov said that Iran had the right to partially suspend its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Lavrov emphasized that the JCPOA contains clear provisions that imply that Iran made the commitments voluntarily and could halt them if other signatories to the deal fail to comply with the agreement. Following a press conference with his Chinese counterpart, Russia's top diplomat noted that Beijing and Moscow are convinced that it is essential to maintain the agreement, and have agreed that Washington's unilateral sanctions against Iran are illegitimate and are aimed, in particular, at halting oil exports from the country. "We also noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran remains committed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but expects the same from our European colleagues, who also have to implement their part of the agreements", Lavrov stressed. The foreign minister then expressed hope to have a "candid" conversation with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the matter, and the Europeans would reaffirm their commitment to the nuclear deal despite Washington's pressure, according to Sputnik. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced last week that Tehran would scale back on some of its commitments and start increasing uranium enrichment levels after a 60-day period if the five remaining signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal don't help the country "reach its benefits in the field of oil and banking" amid US sanctions. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran denies report on Iran's condition for staying in JCPOA ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Tue / 14 May 2019 / 15:47 Tehran (ISNA) Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman has rejected a report by Reuters regarding the country's condition for staying in the Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Seyyed Abbas Mousavi on Tuesday dismissed the "fabricated" news that Tehran has conditioned its remaining in the JCPOA on the sale of at least one and a half million barrels of oil per day. "Iran's rightful views and demands have been explicitly and clearly expressed in a letter sent by Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani on May 8, 2019 to heads of the states which have remained in the JCPOA," said the spokesman. "Turning to such fabricated news and partial and inaccurate speculations in the public and media atmosphere is not only unconstructive, but can ruin the climate needed for serious diplomacy at this juncture," he said. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Today we have so many different versions of femininity to draw on, she said, But at that time there was really only one or two that was an option for a woman no matter her background. One was [the one Day represented] and the other was Marilyn Monroe as her on-screen antithesis. Those were your only two options at least thats what the filmmakers and the publicity machine would have you believe. Neither a war will happen; nor will we negotiate: Imam Khamenei May 14, 2019 On the eighth day of the auspicious month of Ramadan, the heads of power branches, officials and government authorities as well as a group of senior managers of various sectors, members of parliament, political, social and cultural activists met with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei this afternoon May 14, 2019. In this meeting, the Supreme Leader stressed that negotiating certain national assets is absolutely harmful and held: Some people in the country claim there is no harm in negotiating. Negotiating is poisonous as long as the U.S. continues with the same course of action; besides, negotiating with the current government of the United States is all the more poisonous. His Eminence further explained: Negotiation is a mutual give and take. But the United States has targeted our strengths. Ayatollah Khamenei slammed U.S. efforts to take Iran's defensive capabilities away and asserted: They talk about negotiating our defense capabilities, and question the range of our missiles. They say: 'you must reduce this range so that if we ever strike on your bases you won't be able to strike back at our bases!' Or, for instance, they seek to negotiate about our strategic influence in the region, meaning they want us to back away. The Leader of the Revolution described U.S. authorities as not committed and held: Negotiating is wrong, even with an upright person. Those in the U.S. government are not even upright and they do not abide by anything. Ayatollah Khamenei reminded his audience that: Of course no one among our officials seeks to negotiate. Obviously no dignified and wise Iranian would negotiate their national strengths. The Leader of the Islamic Revolution referred to faulty estimations and perceptions of the U.S. President regarding the Islamic Republic and said: Their president claims there is a protest against the establishment in Tehran every Friday. First off, it is not on Fridays, but on Saturdays. Second, it is not in Tehran, but in Paris. His Eminence mentioned that the U.S. regime's hostility towards the Iranian nation started right after the Islamic Revolution of the Iranians gain victory, adding that: There is no doubt that the U.S.'s animositywhich started with the Revolutionhas taken a more overt form today. This animosity existed previously, but not as explicit as it has now become. Now they explicitly announce it and threaten us. It is important to know the one who makes an uproar threatening others is actually weaker than they claim. Ayatollah Khamenei referred to U.S.'s unconditional support for the barbaric Zionist regime and asserted: They [the U.S. officials] prefer the interests of the Zionist Regime over any other government's. Many of their actions come upon orders by the Zionists. Pointing to the uproar the U.S. regime makes posing as a superpower, Ayatollah Khamenei maintained: The U.S. government is in need of making uproars. They claim their behavior has changed Iran. They are right; the change brought to Iran was that the Iranian people's abhorrence towards the U.S. regime increased tenfold; their chance of infringing upon the interests of the Islamic Republic grew slimmer; the zeal of our youth for maintaining the country prepared has increased; and our police and security forces have become more vigilant. Ayatollah Khamenei informed his audience across the globe that, "The United States will definitely fail in its policy of countering the Islamic Republic and their plots will end up to our benefit. His Eminence went on to say: The United States is dealing with many social and economic problems at home. Their government lacks coherence. Someone makes a claim. The next day another comes out to refute those claims. This is a sign of disarray. The Ministry of Agriculture in the U.S. has reported 41 million Americans in need of food. Advising his audience, Ayatollah Khamenei further elaborated on the problems the U.S. regime is facing within its borders and said: Regarding social issues, the U.S. national statistics center has reported that over 40 percent of babies are born out of wedlock. There are 2 million and 200 thousand prisoners, and they have the highest rate of drug abuse, while 31 percent of mass shootings in the world happen in the U.S. This is their social situation. The Supreme Leader then advised everyone not be awe-stricken by U.S.'s outward glory and asserted: So beware not to glorify the enemy. Of course, we cannot underestimate them either; but they are not that strong and they suffer from a lot of problems. His Eminence went on to assert: No one should fear the apparent grandeur of the U.S.; neither their grandeur nor the wealth of the Qaruns of the Persian Gulf: their real power is much less than their uproar. No one should fear the apparent grandeur of the U.S.; this is a big mistake. Finally, Ayatollah Khamenei reminded his audience of the many fiascos of the U.S. in their policies against the Islamic Republic and added: Their plots have usually bounced back at them and ended up being harmful to themselves both politics and security wise. Through their media, the economic experts in the U.S. are warning their politicians that this pressure will lead to an economic boom in Iran. The domineering powers seek to reach their goals by making uproars, however, their power is much less than their claims. Billions of dollars have been spent against us, yet they failed to do anything. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address European powers tell U.S. to avoid military escalation with Iran People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 08:23, May 14, 2019 BRUSSELS, May 13 (Xinhua) -- The Europeans Union (EU) and member states' foreign ministers told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday to exercise maximum restraint and avoid any escalation on the military side with Iran, the EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini said. "Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly from us, not only from myself, but also from the other ministers of EU member states, that we are living in crucial, delicate moments, where the most responsible attitude to take is -- and we believe should be -- maximum restraint, and avoiding any escalation on the military side," she told an evening press briefing. During a meeting between France, Germany and the United Kingdom, "we discussed the ways in which we can further advance on for instance the operationalisation of INSTEX to have first transactions in the hopefully next few weeks," Mogherini added. INSTEX, short for the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges, is established by three shareholders -- France, Germany and the United Kingdom -- and backed by the EU to overcome U.S. sanctions and conduct trade with Iran. "There is full determination on the EU side, and also all the member states expressed that today very clearly, on continuing to implement in full the nuclear deal with Iran," she said. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said in the White House that "What they (Iran) should be doing is calling me up, sitting down; we can make a deal, a fair deal." Pomepo didn't request the Europeans to tell Iran to make phone calls to the U.S., Mogherini said at the press briefing when asked by a reporter. Earlier on Monday morning, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned in Brussels that the standoff between Iran and the United States could trigger an unintended conflict. "We are very worried about a conflict, about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended on either side," Hunt told reporters, adding "I think there is a real concern that escalation is unintended could end up with a much more serious situation." Tensions have been rising lately in the Gulf, with the U.S. sending an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the region. The U.S., under President Trump, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. The deal, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, was reached in 2015 between Iran, China, France, Russia, Britain, United States, and Germany. The European signatories still support the deal and have vowed to sidestep U.S. sanctions re-imposed after its withdrawal. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ayatollah Khamenei rules out possibility of war with US despite tensions Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 05:03PM Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei rules out the possibility of war between the United States and Iran despite heightened tensions between the two sides, saying Washington knows engaging in such a conflict would not be in its interest. Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks on Tuesday in Tehran, meeting with the heads of the country's executive, judiciary, and legislative branches as well as other senior officials, parliamentarians, and important figures in the country's political, social, and cultural spheres. The Leader further said any confrontation between the US and Iran would not be "a military one," and that "there was not going to be any war." "The Iranian nation's definite option will be resistance in the face of the US, and in this confrontation, the US would be forced into a retreat," Ayatollah Khamenei said. "Neither we nor they, who know war will not be in their interest, are after war." Ayatollah Khamenei further explained that the confrontation between the two sides is "a clash of wills," asserting that Iran would be the ultimate victor of this battle. The Leader ruled out any negotiation with the US as long as Washington sticks with its hostile approach against the Islamic Republic, saying Washington would be attempting to undermine Iran's "points of strength," such as its defensive power or its strategic regional influence, in any such interaction. As an example, Ayatollah Khamenei said, "They (Americans) say we should negotiate over your (Iran's) defensive weapons, [questioning] why do you build [for instance] a missile with a given range. Reduce the range [of your missiles, they say,] so you would not be able to hit our bases!" The Leader further played down Washington's highly belligerent rhetoric against Iran, saying its real capability did not match its loud bluster, and that it "needs to engage in [such bluster]." Ayatollah Khamenei said Washington gives priority to Israel's interests over the benefits of all others, adding, "The control of many affairs rests in the hands of the Zionist society." The Leader pointed to the absence of integrity in the US administration, noting how various American officials contradict each other on a daily basis. The American society, he added, is also afflicted with rampant socioeconomic problems and violence. Ayatollah Khamenei, meanwhile, also highlighted how Washington's policies regarding Europe and Asia had backfired. "In [its] policy of confrontation with the Islamic Republic too, the US will definitely suffer defeat, and [the situation] will end up to our benefit," the Leader said, citing warnings by American analysts that Washington's pressure on Tehran would, contrary to its intended purpose, trigger an "economic mutation." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US hawks present Trump with Bolton-backed military plan on Iran: NY Times Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 07:41AM Hawkish American officials, led by National Security Advisor John Bolton, have reportedly presented President Donald Trump with a new military plan aimed at Iran, which would see Washington deploy tens of thousands of troops to the Middle East. Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan put forward the plan which he had updated on Bolton's orders at a meeting of Trump's top national security aides on broader Iran policy last Thursday, The New York Times reported Monday, citing unnamed administration officials. The officials said that during the meeting, Shanahan gave an overview of the Pentagon's planning and then turned to US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dunford to detail various force options. "The uppermost option called for deploying 120,000 troops, which would take weeks or months to complete," the report said. The number of the US troops planned for the deployment "would approach the size of the American force that invaded Iraq in 2003," the report added. Among those attending the meeting were Bolton, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats in addition to Dunford and Shanahan, the report noted. However, spokespersons for Shanahan and Dunford declined to comment on the meeting. Garrett Marquis, a National Security Council spokesman, said the US "does not seek war with Iran," but it is "ready to defend US personnel and interests in the region." The report, however, said it is highly uncertain if Trump who is currently seeking to pull US forces out of Afghanistan and Syria would agree to send back so many forces to the region. It is also unclear whether Trump has been briefed on the number of troops or other details in the plans, according to The Times. On Monday, the US president warned that Iran would "suffer greatly" were it to "do anything." "I'm hearing little stories about Iran," Trump told reporters as he hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the White House. "If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake." During a special briefing in Brussels, US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook echoed Trump's threat, saying, "Iran's era of deniable attacks is over. Tehran will be held accountable for the attacks of its proxies." He also said that the US administration "has put in place an entirely new foreign policy" with respect to the Iranian government. Tensions between Tehran and Washington have seen a sharp rise since April 2018, when Bolton one of the administration's most virulent Iran hawks was appointed national security advisor. A month later, Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal in defiance of global objections and unleashed a campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic Republic by re-imposing the "toughest ever" sanctions. Last month, Trump also designated the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) a "foreign terrorist organization," marking the first time the US blacklisted another country's military forces. Ahead of the first anniversary of Washington's exit from the Iran deal on May 8, the US moved to force Iran's oil exports to "zero" and, at the same time, sent an aircraft carrier strike group, a bomber squad, an amphibious assault ship, and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to try to step up pressure on Tehran. According to The New York Times report, there are "sharp divisions" within the US administration on how to deal with Iran. While many analysts believe Trump's Iran policy has fallen into Bolton's hands, a general understanding that "John wants to bomb everyone" has given Trump who has repeatedly said he is not after war with Iran some "big reservations," one former senior official told The New Yorker. Iran has downplayed Washington's belligerent rhetoric and said the US is engaging in "psychological warfare." The Islamic Republic has, however, warned the US of a crushing response if it poses any security risk to the country. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last month that he does not believe Trump wants war with Iran, but that he could be lured into a conflict by the hawkish "B-team," which includes Bolton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Khamenei, Amid Tensions With US, Says There Will Be No War - Reports Sputnik News 19:50 14.05.2019(updated 21:37 14.05.2019) The announcement by the Iranian leader comes amid increasing tensions between the Islamic Republic and the US, which has recently increased its military presence in the Middle East in order to counter Tehran. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stated that the country will continue resisting the US, but stressed that there would be no war between the two states, Iranian PressTV reported. Khamenei further stated that in line with the policy of "resistance", Tehran has decided to reject Washington's offer to negotiate a new nuclear deal. "The Iranian nation's definite option will be resistance in the face of the US, and in this confrontation, the US would be forced into a retreat", he said. A year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran announced that it would backtrack on some of its "voluntary" commitments under the accord. The agreement lifted international sanctions from the Islamic Republic in exchange for imposing limits on the country's nuclear programme. Tehran justified its steps by the failure of the EU and other signatories to resist pressure from the US on Iran. Russia and China slammed the US' actions as potentially leading to the collapse of the agreement. All signatories to the deal called on Iran to adhere to the JCPOA and promised to work towards preserving the accord. In addition to the pressure of US sanctions on Iran, which has recently intensified, Washington has increased its military presence in the region, sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf and reportedly deploying B-52 strategic bombers to the Middle East. Recent media reports suggest that the US could deploy up to 120,000 troops in the Middle East if Iran starts developing nuclear weapons. The report was rejected by US President Donald Trump as "fake news", although he didn't exclude that such a plan could be adopted in the future. He also stated that if the US decides to deploy troops to counter Iran, the numbers would be a "hell of a lot" bigger. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Europe Urges Restraint as Fears of US-Iran Conflict Escalate By Henry Ridgwell May 14, 2019 As tensions escalate between the United States and Iran, Europe has urged all sides to avoid further escalation. The United States has deployed a naval strike group to the Middle East region, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. B-52 bombers have also arrived at the U.S. air base in Qatar, designed to counter what the Trump administration says are "clear indications" of threats from Iran to U.S. forces. Military analyst Jack Watling of the London-based Royal United Services Institute says the deployments are not unusual. "There hasn't been a massive change in U.S. force posture in the region. What there has been is a very significant change in messaging. And combined with that the U.S. is putting more and more pressure on Iran economically. So the question comes, how is Iran going to push back? How are they going to show the United States that if you keep pressing us, we can respond? And at that point, if they get that wrong, there is a risk of runaway escalation," Watling told VOA. Europe believes that risk is dangerously high, a point made clear to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he arrived in Brussels for talks Monday with European Union Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take - the most responsible attitude to take - is we believe should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation of the military side," Mogherini told reporters after the meeting. Washington pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran a year ago. Up to now, Europe has urged Tehran to stick with the deal and effectively wait out the Trump administration, says analyst Jack Watling. "What we've seen over the last week is the U.S. administration putting an awful lot of pressure on the viability of that policy. And in pushing the Iranians to the point where they have walked away from a key component of the deal, it essentially underscores the fact it might not be possible to continue in that direction. So, Europe will have to decide." Much depends on whether Tehran decides to block nuclear inspectors from entering the country to verify the enrichment freeze. "That would be very escalatory because Israel would suddenly feel quite threatened, and at that point the deal would be completely dead," adds Watling. Meanwhile, the United States continues to tighten the economic noose. India was a major importer of Iranian oil, but stopped purchases this month in the wake of renewed U.S. sanctions. Visiting Delhi Tuesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was questioned on the U.S. military deployments in the Gulf region. "Unfortunately [the] United States has been escalating the situation unnecessarily. We do not seek escalation, but we have always defended ourselves," Zarif said. Analyst Watling says any conflict with Iran would quickly engulf the region. "It has to fight essentially a regional deep battle. Which means activating a lot of the assets they've developed potentially in Lebanon, in Iraq, and conducting ballistic missile strikes." Fear of such a conflict has rattled Europe, caught between the demands of its U.S. ally to abandon the nuclear deal and warnings from Tehran that such a move would lead to a resumption of its nuclear program. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Tensions on Agenda as Pompeo Meets With Putin, Lavrov in Sochi By Nike Ching, Ken Bredemeier May 14, 2019 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Russian leaders Tuesday that President Donald Trump "is committed to improving" relations between the two superpowers "I hope this good faith effort on the part of each of our two nations as directed by President Trump and President Putin will stabilize the relationship, and put it back on a trajectory that I think would be good for not only each of our two countries and each of our peoples, but for the world as well," Pompeo said before meeting with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sochi, Russia. Lavrov said he expected a "sincere conversation" with Pompeo, including trying to find out how the Trump administration planned to resolve tensions with Iran, which Lavrov said the U.S. side created on its own. Ahead of the meeting, State Department Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told reporters Iran "plays a destabilizing role in Syria" and that Iran using Syria "as a missile platform to advance its foreign policy objectives" goes against Russian goals of bringing stability to the Syria. Russian forces have been aiding the Syrian military since 2015, while Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad, giving support and training to Shi'ite militias. Tuesday's Sochi meeting comes after Pompeo shared intelligence and details with European allies about what the United States calls Iran's recent "escalating threat," blaming Tehran for failing to choose talks over threats. "The secretary wanted to share some detail behind what we have been saying publicly. We believe that Iran should try talks instead of threats. They have chosen poorly by focusing on threats," Hook said. Top officials from the European Union are calling on the United States to use "maximum restraint" and avoid military escalation with Iran. "[U.S. Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo heard very clearly from us -- not only from myself but also from the other ministers of EU member states -- that we are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take -- the most responsible attitude to take -- is and we believe should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation of the military side," Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said Monday in Brussels. Mogherini, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany spoke with Pompeo after he canceled a stop in Moscow. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday the United States has been unnecessarily escalating the situation. "We do not seek escalation, but we have always defended ourselves," he said. UAE claim Pompeo also discussed while in Brussels reported attacks on several oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, said Hook, who declined to comment when asked if the United States believes Iran is behind those attacks. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said Sunday that four commercial vessels were sabotaged near Fujairah emirate. Monday, Saudi Arabia said two of its oil tankers were among those attacked and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid tensions between the United States and Iran. "We discussed what seemed to be attacks on commercial vessels that were anchored off of Fujairah," Hook said. "We have been requested by the UAE to provide assistance in the investigation, which we are very glad to do." Iran nuclear deal Britain, France and Germany also voiced new support on Monday for the international pact to curb Iran's nuclear weapons program. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for "a period of calm." "We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended on either side but ends with some kind of conflict," Hunt said. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Berlin "still regards this nuclear agreement as the basis for Iran not having any nuclear weapons in the future and we regard this as existential for our security." He said Germany is "concerned about the development and the tensions in the region, that we do not want there to be a military escalation." French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the U.S. move to increase sanctions against Iran to curb its international oil trade "does not suit us." Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned last week that Tehran could resume uranium enrichment at a higher grade if the European powers, China and Russia did not develop a plan to thwart punitive U.S. sanctions on Iran's banking and energy sectors. The United States, which withdrew from the 2015 international deal to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions, has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers to the Middle East region, in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets. The Pentagon announced on Friday its intent to move additional firepower into the Middle East, including the USS Arlington and a Patriot missile battery. Pompeo's trip comes a few weeks ahead of a Group of 20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, with both Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump expected to attend. Trump said on Monday that he will meet with Putin on the sidelines of G-20 summit. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN urges world to end support for Myanmar's military Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 09:53AM The United Nations (UN)'s fact-finding mission on Myanmar has called on all countries to cut financial and other ties with the country's military over genocide targeting minority Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have faced horrific violence since 2012. In 2017-18, Rakhine State in particular was the scene of an organized crackdown on the Muslims by the country's military and Buddhist mobs. Thousands of Muslims were killed in that crackdown and some 800,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where they currently live in camps in dire conditions. The UN has called that campaign "genocide." On Tuesday, the UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar reported an absence of progress to resolve the Rohingya crisis. "The situation is at a total standstill," Marzuki Darusman, the chairman of the mission, said Tuesday. The panel said it was still receiving reports of human rights abuses in Rakhine State as well as in Chin. Australian human rights lawyer and panel member Christopher Sidoti said, "Due to the gravity of the past and continuing violations, attention must be given to the political, economic and financial ties of the Myanmar military, to identify who and what should be targeted." The call aims to cut off the money supply in a bid to mount the pressure on the military and potentially reduce the violence against the Muslims, Sidoti added. The European Union (EU) on April 29 extended sanctions, including a weapons embargo, against Myanmar for one year over the same matter. Last year, the UN fact-finding mission said the campaign against the Rohingya was orchestrated with "genocidal intent." It urged charging the Myanmarese army chief and five other generals with the "gravest crimes under international law." The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already opened a preliminary examination of the violence. Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi rejected the fact-finding mission when it was established by the UN's rights council in March 2017. Military spokesman Major General Tun Tun Nyi dismissed the mission's report as "interference." "Our country is an independent country, so we don't accept our matters being interfered with," he told Reuters by telephone. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Myanmar: Conflict resolution at 'total standstill', military commanders must answer for crimes against humanity 14 May 2019 - Myanmar's military commanders must answer charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in a credible court, a United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM) said on Tuesday, urging the international community to cut off all financial and other support to them. Myanmar has not done enough to resolve the nation's internal-conflicts or protect human rights, including those of over a million ethnic Rohingya civilians who have been forced into exile, according to FFM Chairperson Marzuki Darusman. "There has been no movement toward a resolution of the crisis", Mr. Darusman said after a 10-day visit to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. "The situation is at a total standstill." The FFM documented in its 444-page report to the Human Rights Council in September how Myanmar's military brutally and systemically violated the human rights of ethnic minorities throughout the country. It spotlighted the military's so-called "clearance operations" in 2017, when security forces killed thousands of Rohingya civilians, raped and sexually abused women and girls and burned villages in Rakhine State in an explosion of violence that caused more than 700,000 people to flee across the border into Bangladesh, in just two months. Moreover, Myanmar authorities have levelled abandoned Rohingya villages with bulldozers, effectively destroying criminal evidence, while making no substantive progress in resolving the ethnic animosities that have helped fuel the crisis. For their part, the Government denies the facts and disclaim any responsibility for crimes under international law. Rights abuses flourish The report also condemns ethnic armed organizations within Myanmar, for committing human rights abuses and violating international humanitarian law. The FFM visited Kutupalong Camp in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, where Mr. Darusman told the refugees that when its mandate expires in September, it would hand over its evidence to the new Independent Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar to expedite fair criminal proceedings against the perpetrators. "In short, this is not the end of the story," he told them. "Please have hope that this will lead to eventual accountability of those who are responsible for what took place against the Rohingya community." Against the backdrop that the conduct of national security forces in Rakhine State "were the result of structural problems fuelled by the absence of a political and legal system that is willing to accommodate diversity", Mr. Darusman said: "Any solutions should directly address the structural problems." He also advised the Government to "focus on the real betterment of the remaining Rohingya community in Myanmar" where many live in fear of security forces. Since 3 May, the FFM Experts have met with different ethnic communities, where they have found that the Tatmadaw, or Myanmar military, has "committed similar atrocities" against other ethnic groups within the country's borders. Acknowledging human rights violations, holding people accountable and reforming the Tatmadaw is "the only way forward," according to FFM member Radhika Coomaraswamy who said that "the repatriation of refugees remains remote unless and until the Myanmar Government takes concrete measures to provide conditions that are conducive for voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return, including full and equal inclusion in Myanmar society". However team member Christopher Sidoti emphasized that the FFM "has seen no evidence" that the Government is acting in good faith, saying: "The situation demands an increase in international pressure". The Independent Investigative Mechanism is not the only body laying the ground for future prosecution. The International Criminal Court is conducting its own examination and discussions are also taking place about the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention. The FFM has also called on national courts to exercise jurisdiction and prosecute alleged perpetrators. Link camp closures to 'improvements in freedom' Meanwhile, after a six-day mission to Myanmar, UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Ursula Mueller underscored the need for sustained humanitarian assistance and protection for the country's vulnerable, crisis-affected people. Noting the Government's work in developing a national plan to find solutions for the more than 270,000 internally displaced people across Myanmar, she emphasized: "It is critical that the strategy be implemented in a way that addresses the root causes of displacement". "The closure of camps must be linked to improvements in freedom of movement and access to services and job opportunities", she spelled out, calling on the authorities to work with all partners and the affected people themselves to find durable solutions that protect the rights of displaced people to voluntarily return home in safety and in dignity or to resettle some other place of their choosing. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi Energy Minister says two pump stations on the East-West pipeline were attacked, confirming sabotage targets global oil supply. Saudi Press Agency Tuesday 1440/9/9 - 2019/05/14 Riyadh, May 14, 2019, SPA -- Khalid A. Al-Falih, Minister of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources, stated that on Tuesday, May 14, 2019, between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., two pump stations on the East-West pipeline were attacked by armed drones which caused a fire and minor damage to Pump Station No. 8. The fire has since been contained. The pipeline transports Saudi oil from the Eastern Province to Yanbu port. Saudi Aramco has taken all necessary measures and temporarily shut down the pipeline to evaluate its condition. The company is working on restoring the pump station prior to resuming operations. Mr. Al-Falih confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia condemns this cowardly attack, emphasizing that this act of terrorism and sabotage in addition to recent acts in the Arabian Gulf do not only target the Kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy. These attacks prove again that it is important for us to face terrorist entities, including the Houthi militias in Yemen that are backed by Iran. The Saudi minister concluded the statement by asserting that Saudi oil production has not been interrupted. --SPA 13:45 LOCAL TIME 10:45 GMT 0007 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address His arrest Tuesday evening at his home made him the latest in a long line of Chicago aldermen to be accused of wrongdoing. But unlike the dramatic public-corruption scandals that have often ended other aldermanic careers, the charges against Moreno, 47, are on a decidedly smaller scale, dealing not with misuse of clout or public funds but allegations of a botched insurance scheme and lies to police. UK FM calls for military spending boost to meet US demands; deter Russia, China Iran Press TV Tue May 14, 2019 07:44AM British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt says London needs to "decisively" increase its military budget after leaving the European Union (EU) to satisfy US President Donald Trump's demands of more spending while also developing a viable deterrent force against Russia and China. Trump has long threatened NATO allies to either step up spending or don't count on US military assistance at the time of war. Hunt said the UK should commit more of its GDP to defense if it wanted to remain close friends with Washington. He said it was not sustainable to expect America to keep spending 4 percent of its GDP on defense while other members of the Western military pact spent only one or two percent. "I believe it is time for the next strategic defense and security review to ask whether, over the coming decade, we should decisively increase the proportion of GDP we devote to defense," he added. "The outcome of such investment should demonstrate beyond doubt that when we say Britain stands for the defense of democratic values, when we promise never to leave our great ally, the United States, to perform this task alone, then we are as good as our word and in doing so we encourage other democracies who share our values to follow suit." "For these and other reasons I believe it is time for the next strategic defense and security review to ask whether, over the coming decade, we should decisively increase the proportion of GDP we devote to defense," he said at the Lord Mayor of London's banquet at the Mansion House on Monday. Hunt noted that, rather than "plugging gaps" in existing plans, the additional funding should be spent on developing new potentials in the British armed force with a special focus on cyber warfare and artificial intelligence. "The new domains of space and cyber and the immense capabilities of artificial intelligence will transform the conduct of warfare," he said. Last year Trump said he had threatened his NATO counterparts that he would withdraw from the alliance if they fail to meet his demands. The call for more spending came as Hunt himself admitted that the UK was already paying almost 20 percent of the EU's total defense spending and that British forces shouldered a "hugely disproportionate share" of key capabilities such as heavy lift transport aircraft. Countering China, Russia Elsewhere, Hunt said the spending increase would also help London better prepare to counter the ever-growing influence of Russia and China. "We are in a multipolar world without the assurance provided by unquestioned American dominance," he said. "We face a more aggressive Russia and a more assertive China." "We simply do not know what the balance of power in the world will be in 25 years time," he continued. Hunt named hypersonic missiles as one of the main dangers in the event of a war. Russia tested its hypersonic missile warhead last year while China is known to have been working on its own hypersonic weapon for quite some time. "The conflicts of tomorrow could well start with a cyber attack, then escalate into precision strikes by hypersonic missiles followed by swarms of unmanned aircraft," he said. Labour slams Hunt Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party's shadow defense secretary, Nia Griffith, said Hunt's remarks were purely political. "Jeremy Hunt has been a Cabinet Minister since 2010. Since then the Tories have cut defense spending by 9 billion in real terms. If he was so bothered, you'd have thought he might have said something a bit sooner?" she asked on Twitter. Hunt is viewed as the favorite to replace Prime Minister Theresa May once she resigns after Brexit. May, whose divorce agreement with the EU has been rejected by lawmakers three times, has pledged to step down once a deal is finally reached. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address SAN FRANCISCO, May 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW), a leading innovator in enterprise software, today announced the Carbon Avoidance Meter (CAM), to provide data center operators with near-real time carbon scores determined from the level of ones carbon footprint1 and energy usage and recommendations for reducing this footprint. The CAM bases carbon scores on telemetry data sent to VMware through VMware Skyline, a proactive support technology, in order to encourage energy reduction and inspire sustainable best practices for the industry. CAM was announced at RADIO (Research and Development Innovation Offsite), VMwares annual three-day technical conference bringing together more than 1,800 of the companys worldwide employees to share innovative ideas and learn about technical strategies and projects happening across VMwares research and development. VMware's R&D organization developed CAM as a proof of concept through its internal product incubator, xLabs, which aims to take innovative projects through VMwares product lifecycle and gives VMware employees a platform to bring ideas to life. Most data centers today consume power from grids sourced with a mix of power generation sources such as coal, nuclear or wind. VMware customers who subscribe to VMware Skyline can use CAM to quantify the level of VM density and, if viable, recommend higher levels of virtualization density to further reduce energy use and carbon emissions. The meter will also enable customers to analyze their power consumption in near-real time and to understand what amount of carbon offset credits should be purchased, or what times of day workloads can be shifted to utilize more sustainable energy sources. With this information, customers can elect to consume power from a more sustainable source, or shift workloads to more sustainable power sources during off-hours. The product represents another key step toward VMwares ambitious 2020 sustainability goals and commitment to creating transformative technology to power a better future for the planet. In 2015, the company launched the VMware 2020 goals to reduce carbon emissions through energy efficiency efforts and procurement of renewable energy and carbon offsets, and to bridge the digital divide for businesses and non-profits.2 Beyond these ambitious goals for its own business practices, VMware also aims to incorporate sustainability features into future product releases, including CAM, to offer solutions that help customers positively impact the environment and society, as well as provide customers and partners with data that enable informed choices around cleaner technology. An increasing reliance on technologies such as mobile and cloud computing has led to significant energy generation from data centers. To mitigate their impact on the environment, companies need to assess their contributions to climate change and implement products and services that automate and optimize this process, thereby reducing energy outputs, said Ray OFarrell, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, VMware. At VMware, we are committed to empowering our customers with the resources and tools they need to ultimately reduce environmental impact across our vast customer and partner ecosystem. Additional capabilities and features of CAM will include near-real time dynamic computation of load based on CPU types, load calculation3 of monitored systems and carbon footprint calculation based on consumption for the given geographies of the data centers. The product also aims to help customers create best practices and set standards for data center energy reduction and green computing. CAM will be available to VMware Skyline customers later this year via the VMware Skyline Advisor, an innovative, proactive support service, developed in-house at VMware. The Skyline services bring high-performing technology and tools to VMware customers, providing proactive, predictive, and prescriptive recommendations that will ultimately help our customers improve overall stability and reliability of data center operations across the VMware portfolio of products and solutions. Adding CAM now allows customers to monitor their carbon scores as they proactively optimize their environment. About VMware VMware software powers the worlds complex digital infrastructure. The companys cloud, networking and security, and digital workspace offerings provide a dynamic and efficient digital foundation to over 500,000 customers globally, aided by an ecosystem of 75,000 partners. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to being a force for good, from its breakthrough innovations to its global impact. For more information, please visit https://www.vmware.com/company.html . VMware, Skyline, and Skyline Advisor are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions. Media Contact: Michael Thacker VMware Global Communications 650-427-4454 mthacker@vmware.com 1 Carbon footprint is defined as the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particular person, group, etc.(Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.) 2 VMware has already committed to powering 100 percent of its global operations with renewable power by 2020. The company achieved carbon neutrality in 2018, two years ahead of its scheduled goal. 3 Load calculation in kWh GOLDEN, Colo., May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Golden Minerals Company (NYSE American and TSX: AUMN) (Golden Minerals, Golden or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an earn-in agreement with Golden Gryphon Explorations for the Sand Canyon project in northwestern Nevada, where surface work has identified a large unexplored system of epithermal veins. The project consists of 527 claims totaling approximately 16 square miles. It is located 50 miles northwest of Winnemucca and 18 miles northwest of the historic Sleeper Gold Mine that was operated by Amax Gold Inc. and produced approximately 1.7 million ounces of gold and 2 million ounces of silver between 1986 and 1996.* Initial sampling and mapping conducted by Golden Gryphon and confirmed by Golden Minerals have identified multiple sets of epithermal veins on the property exposed at a high level and generally trending north to slightly northeast. Mr. Warren Rehn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Minerals, said, Sand Canyon is an exciting prospect that hasnt been drilled despite being located in an area of several major modern gold mines. We are optimistic about the strength of the epithermal system that is expressed at surface by clear geochemical anomalies associated with high-level quartz veining and breccias. This is an excellent exploration-stage project with multiple targets that appear to be similar in surface expression to the discovery outcrops related to the Sleeper Mine. We anticipate moving rapidly through the targeting stage and expect to begin drill testing late this year. I am quite pleased to be exploring in Nevada again, particularly at this highly prospective property. About Sand Canyon Golden holds an option to earn 60% interest in the Sand Canyon project by spending US$2.5 million in exploration expenses over four years, with guaranteed minimum expenditures of $0.5 million in year one. To continue to earn interest in the project, Golden must spend at least $0.75 million in years two and three and $0.5 million in year four, and drill at least 5,000 feet of core or 10,000 feet of reverse circulation or a combination of the two, by the end of the second year. Golden paid $25,000 cash and $50,000 in reimbursed exploration expenditures to acquire the option and will make staged payments of an additional $135,000 ($35,000 in 2020, $50,000 in 2021 and $50,000 in 2022) on the next three anniversaries of the agreement. Review by Qualified Person and Quality Control The technical contents of this press release have been reviewed by Warren M. Rehn, M.Sc., a Qualified Person for the purposes of Canadian National Instrument 43101. Mr. Rehn has over 33 years of mineral exploration experience and is a QP member of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America. *SRK Consulting, 2011, Mineral Resource Estimation, Sleeper Gold Project, Nevada, USA, for Paramount Gold and Silver Corp, 43-101 Technical Report, 142pp. About Golden Minerals Golden Minerals is a Delaware corporation based in Golden, Colorado. The Company is primarily focused on advancing its El Quevar silver property in Argentina and on acquiring and advancing mining properties in Mexico with emphasis on areas near its Velardena processing plants. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and applicable Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding expectations surrounding the timing, scope and anticipated productivity of the drilling at the Sand Canyon project in Nevada. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including: changes in interpretations of geological, geostatistical, metallurgical, mining or processing information and interpretations of the information resulting from future exploration, analysis or mining and processing experience; increases in costs and declines in general economic conditions; changes in political conditions, in tax, royalty, environmental and other laws in the United States and other market conditions; new information from drilling programs or other exploration or analysis; unexpected variations in mineral grades, types and metallurgy; fluctuations in silver and gold prices; and failure of mined material or veins mined to meet expectations. Golden Minerals assumes no obligation to update this information. Additional risks relating to Golden Minerals may be found in the periodic and current reports filed with the SEC by Golden Minerals, including the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. For additional information please visit http://www.goldenminerals.com/ . SOURCE: Golden Minerals Company A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4a7083c1-ed90-4695-b180-4c18e06c3127 VICTORIA, British Columbia, May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After seventeen years, Canadas purposeful goods-that-make-the-outside-better company, Sitka is renaming to demonstrate their commitment to durable clothing, sustainably produced in Canada. Driven by the team and customers, the name ecologyst was selected. Since 2002, the company had grown and expanded to 125 wholesalers with production abroad, using petroleum-based products. With 37% of plastic waste in seas and rivers coming from clothing, this conflicted with the values of the company. In 2014, the company drew a line in the sand and brought production back to Canada and sought new fabrics and new partners to develop ethical, sustainable outdoor clothing and gear. The focus was on new fabrics that were long-lasting, high-quality garments and in designs that people want to keep wearing. The team has pushed the limits of natural fibres; working with the Materials Engineering Department at UBC, to find better ways to recycle cotton more efficiently and turn it into new fibres. The change in business model, ethical, local production, with sustainable fabrics, selling direct to the consumer didnt just make sense for the planet, it made sense financially. Between 2017 and 2018, revenues grew 235%. The US outdoor recreation products industry is $185B (2017, Outdoor Industry Association - Outdoor Recreation Economy Report 2017) and sustainable clothing industry is $64B (2016, McKinsey & Company - State of Fashion 2017), suggesting there is a lot more market share that the company can go after, and seek to influence the overall $3.4T clothing industry (2017, McKinsey & Company - State of Fashion 2018). Having changed so much in the business, it made sense to explore a name change to align with the values and purpose of the company. Driven by the team and the customers, ecologyst was chosen. Rene Gauthier, Founder and CEO said, The core of our brand has always been about fostering a deep connection to nature. In our early days, we did that by making surfboards. As we grew, we faced the reality of fashions disastrous impact on the environmentso we worked to eliminate plastics and petroleum from our product line. Today, were defining a different modelwith natural materials, local factories and a new endeavour to make our community co-owners of our brand. We wanted to reflect our new way of doing business, plus our growth identified challenges as we moved into new geographies. ecologyst really reflects who we are, where we are going and how we want to get there. Gauthier added, Were keeping the Sitka tree as our icon, its our heritage, but ecologyst is our future, it shows that growth and sustainability can co-exist. The company reached out to members of their loyal following to help with the name selection to communicate the new way of working. The company will be raising funds through crowd equity fundraising on FrontFundr to grow the business with a new e-commerce site, a new larger store in Whistler and to implement the name change. Yet another example that people and planet can be profitable, and that profit can be used for good. ecologyst - the brand known & loved as Sitka - Canadas west coast outdoor clothing and gear. Creating ethical apparel in Canada using sustainable or recycled fabrics and fibres with the latest technology and designs that are made to last. Part of 1% for the Planet. To keep up with ecologyst visit our Website www.sitka.ca or find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Vimeo - here to leave it better than we found it. Were seeking co-owners, invest in ecologyst, all Canadians can head to FrontFundr for full details. www.frontfundr.com/company/ecologyst Attachments Video https://vimeo.com/335458756/49500f3894 For more information or media interviews: Victoria Bennett victoria@bmwconsults.com 403 589 7992 NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- David Harding, SVP & Chief Technical Officer, ImageWare Systems, Inc. ( OTCQB: IWSY ), a leader in mobile and cloud-based two-factor, multi-factor, and biometric multimodal authentication and identity management solutions, sat down with Mobile ID World to talk about cybersecurity threats and the global growth of biometric authentication. For the complete discussion, click here: https://blog.iwsinc.com/cto-david-harding-interview . Important Highlights from that Discussion: Mobile ID World: ImageWare recently introduced the ImageWare Digital Identity Platform, what makes this new solution standout in the biometrics market and how does it fit in with the rest of ImageWares product line? David Harding: The ImageWare Digital Identity Platform combines the most robust identity proofing capabilities with the broadest and most complete set of multi-factor and biometric authentication methods. We have always had a robust platform and a robust set of products for two-factor and multi-factor identity authentication as well as full identification capabilities. But now, with complete integration of all these products, all factors of identity proofing and authentication are combined into a cohesive product set. This allows our customers to create and manage digital and biometric identities using fully vetted government issued documents, reliable biometric authentication, and a fully managed digital identity life cycle. Mobile ID World: High profile data breaches and the way we work has changed with the rise of the sharing economy, remote contract workers making identity proofing and authentication an important aspect of the enterprise discussion. How does ImageWares Digital Identity Platform fit into this new modern workplace? David Harding: To answer that allow me to highlight a few of our key strengths in that area: One we can use any type of authentication device: mobile devices, desktops, laptops, physical access control devices, anything. Two we integrate not just at the endpoint but at the enterprise authentication source. We are directly integrated into Windows Active Directory for both two-factor and multi-factor biometric authentication. We do the same thing with Linux, IBM ISAM, ForgeRock, CA SSO, SAP HANA, and more. Three - we are verifying the identity prior to enrollment. That ensures that the identity enrolled is the identity in question. Mobile ID World: You mentioned some of ImageWares partners and you have a really impressive partner network including big names like Fujitsu, IBM, Verizon, ForgeRock, among others. What makes a robust partner network so important in todays biometrics landscape? David Harding: The companies that you have mentioned are leaders in scalable identity management. However, they are not leaders in scalable multimodal biometric platforms that can support hundreds of millions of identities across multiple biometric modalities. So, the partnerships we have cultivated are very symbiotic and complementary. Our competitors often make similar promises. However, they dont provide the scalability nor the depth of capability and features based on the depth of our multimodal intellectual property and multi-patented technology. Thats why our partnerships are such a great fit. Mobile ID World: ImageWare is already established in healthcare and is seen as something of a pioneer for bringing biometrics to that space. How has the healthcare biometrics market changed in recent years and what do you see as driving this new interest? David Harding: Personal healthcare information is extremely personal, sensitive, and it doesnt change. Its shocking that the vast majority of health records are secured by PINs and passwords, which have an 81 percent failure rate. To that point, ImageWare Systems recently announced that a global leading payments and financial technology provider has selected our GoVerifyID biometric authentication solution. Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016 that mandates states implement Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) for all Medicaid personal care and all health services beginning in 2020. So, we see healthcare just as you do - a rapidly expanding market for multimodal biometrics. Mobile ID World: Taking on a wider picture of everything, and we have touched on some of this already, but what are some highlights of ImageWares 2019 so far? David Harding: Well 2019 is gearing up to be an exciting year and what can you expect to see from us? More and better - - more partners, more integrations, more biometric options, better platform enhancements including increased scalability and efficiency and most importantly, more success. A final note: stronger passwords dont work. Weve seen how they fail. Even two-factor authentication on its own has significant vulnerabilities that can be exploited. So, we have to ask ourselves, dont we all have a social responsibility to provide a safe and secure world? At ImageWare, we believe we do. Our continuous innovations, supported by over 20 biometric technology patents worldwide help make that a reality. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please also join Jim Miller, Chairman and CEO, ImageWare Systems, In The Boardroom on SecuritySolutionsWatch.com for additional color about biometrics market drivers and the growing worldwide traction for IWSY solutions: http://www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_ImageWare2019.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About ImageWare Systems, Inc. ImageWare Systems, Inc. is a leading developer of mobile and cloud-based identity management solutions, providing two-factor, biometric and multi-factor cloud-based authentication solutions for the enterprise. The company delivers next-generation biometrics as an interactive and scalable cloud-based solution. ImageWare brings together cloud and mobile technology to offer two-factor, biometric, and multi-factor authentication for smartphone users, for the enterprise, and across industries. ImageWares products support multimodal biometric authentication including, but not limited to, face, voice, fingerprint, iris, palm, and more. All the biometrics can be combined with or used as replacements for authentication and access control tools, including tokens, digital certificates, passwords, and PINS, to provide the ultimate level of assurance, accountability, and ease of use for corporate networks, web applications, mobile devices, and PC desktop environments. ImageWare Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Diego, California, with offices in Oregon, Canada, Mexico, and Japan. To learn more about ImageWare, visit https://www.iwsinc.com/ and follow us on Twitter , LinkedIn , YouTube and Facebook . Media Contact Michael Senger, VP Corporate Communications, ImageWare Systems, Inc. (858) 257-0358 media@iwsinc.com About SecuritySolutionsWatch.com www.SecuritySolutionsWatch.com features thought leadership interviews about IT, IoT and security solutions. Our flagship In The Boardroom program, now in its 15th year, has delivered outstanding content about solutions from leading global brands such as: 3M, AMAG Technology - A G4S Company, ASSA ABLOY, AT&T Cybersecurity, Cisco Security, Dell EMC, HP Cybersecurity, Fujitsu, Gemalto, HID Global, IBM, ImageWare, Intel, SAP, Siemens, Stanley Security, SONY, Unisys, and Yahoo, just to name a few. What's YOUR authentication, cybersecurity, physical security, mobility, or "smart" solution? What's YOUR Blockchain or FinTech solution? We invite you to please join us "In The Boardroom" at www.SecuritySolutionsWatch.com . For a quick tour to see exactly how your brand will be featured, please contact Ali Eng on our publishing team via email: ALE@SecuritySolutionsWatch.com, or phone: 1+914.690.9351, or, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-eng-a8a41015b/ For more details, please click here: www.SecuritySolutionsWatch.com/Main/Jan2018.pdf And for our Media Kit, please click here: www.SecuritySolutionsWatch.com/MediaKit.html **************************************************************************************************************** It's FREE...our monthly newsletter with thought leadership content from leading security experts. Please click here: - http://www.securitysolutionswatch.com/newsletters/newsletter_2019_04.html And please visit us on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/SecStockWatch **************************************************************************************************************** M A R K - Y O U R - C A L E N D A R !!! SecuritySolutionsWatch.com Is Proud To Be A Sponsor Of CYBER INVESTING SUMMIT Thursday, May 16, 2019 Convene Financial District 32 Old Slip, New York, NY 10005 Videos of previous CYBER INVESTING SUMMIT here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCi2WTHuC8h2nIba2jyA2Jg https://cyberinvestingsummit.com/ **************************************************************************************************************** All content which appears on SecuritySolutionsWatch.com and in this Press Release is subject to our disclaimer: www.SecuritySolutionsWatch.com/Main/Terms_of_Use.html Forward-Looking Statements Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, forecast, intend, may, plan, project, predict, if, should and will and similar expressions as they relate to ImageWare Systems, Inc. are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. ImageWare may from time to time update publicly announced projections, but it is not obligated to do so. Any projections of future results of operations should not be construed in any manner as a guarantee that such results will in fact occur. These projections are subject to change and could differ materially from final reported results. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, see Risk Factors in ImageWares Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018 and its other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the dates on which they are made. ------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: Martin Eli Editor@SecuritySolutionsWatch.com USA 1+914.690.9351 NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Restaurant workers at the Rainforest Cafe are on strike. They are fighting against greed. They are fighting for their right to organize. They are fighting for fairness, for respect and for a safe workplace where sexual assault will not be tolerated. Workers bravely came forward to share their experiences of sexual assault at work. Workers believe that recent incidents of sexual assault were grossly mishandled by their employer Canadian Niagara Hotels. The company needs to take responsibility for their mistakes and make sure there is no further sexual harassment or assaults! Managers cannot be allowed to sweep issues like sexual violence under the rug. We are disturbed that the worker who committed these acts was only let go after the issue became public. The company has doubled-down on a damage control narrative. Rainforest workers want a union contract so they can return to a workplace where they feel safe and have real protections. To that end we are having a Womens March up and down Clifton Hill to let the employer and all employers know that sexual harassment and assault has no place in Niagara Falls. Rally: Saturday, May 18 - 3:00pm, 4915 Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls Solidarity Pickets: Every day from 12:00pm-7:00pm Email Mike Ward mward@workersunitedunion.ca to RSVP Every day from 12:00pm-7:00pm Send a Message: Tell the owners they wont get your business until they treat their workers with respect and stop their anti-union activities www.workersunitedunion.ca/rainforest_strike Tell the owners they wont get your business until they treat their workers with respect and stop their anti-union activities FB: @WorkersUnitedCanada /// Twitter: @WorkersUnitedCA /// #RainforestUnion /// #HospitalityWorkersUnit ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX-V: PNG, OTCQB: KRKNF) ("PNG" or the "Company") announces that the British Columbia Securities Commission (the "Commission") has revoked the cease trade order issued against the Company on May 6, 2019 (the "Cease Trade Order"). The Cease Trade Order was issued as a result of the Company's failure to file its audited annual financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2018, its management's discussion and analysis relating to the audited annual financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2018, together with the related certifications (collectively, the "Disclosure Documents"), on or before the prescribed filing deadline of April 30, 2019 as required by National Instrument 51-102, Continuous Disclosure Obligations, and NI 52-109, Certification of Disclosure in Issuers' Annual and Interim Filings, respectively. The Company filed the Disclosure Documents on May 9, 2019 and the common shares will resume trading on Thursday May 16th, 2019. The Company thanks its shareholders and supporters for their patience during the period that the Cease Trade Order was in effect. ABOUT KRAKEN ROBOTICS INC. Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX.V:PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) is a marine technology company that is dedicated to the production and sale of software-centric sensors and underwater robotic systems. The company is headquartered in St. Johns, Newfoundland with offices in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Toronto, Ontario; Bremen & Rostock, Germany; and Boston, Massachusetts. Kraken is ranked as a Top 100 marine technology company by Marine Technology Reporter. For more information, please visit www.krakenrobotics.com, www.krakenrobotik.de, www.krakenpower.de. Find us on social media on Twitter (@krakenrobotics), Facebook (@krakenroboticsinc) and LinkedIn. This news release contains forward-looking information. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Kraken or its subsidiaries and customers to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained in this news release. Examples of such statements include statements with respect to the Companys anticipated revenue growth; completion of industry contracts between the Company and its clients, and between its clients and other industry partners; anticipated impact of industry upgrade cycles in naval mine warfare and the anticipated and timely adoption of underwater robotics; the Companys ability to capitalize on existing and future bids for services, including the Ocean Supercluster; among others. Risks, uncertainties and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information including such risks contained in the Company's managements discussion and analysis for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018 and filed with Canadian securities regulators available on the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Certain forward-looking information in this press release constitutes future-oriented financial information or financial outlooks, within the meaning of securities laws. Such information is being provided to demonstrate the potential of the Company and readers are cautioned that this information may not be appropriate for any other purpose. Future-oriented financial information and financial outlooks, as with forward-looking information generally, are based on assumptions and subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors. Actual results may differ materially from what the Company currently expects. Readers are cautioned that any such future oriented financial information contained herein should not be used for purposes other than those for which it is disclosed herein. The Company and its management believe that that the prospective financial information as to the Companys anticipated 2019 financial results has been prepared on a reasonable basis, reflecting managements best estimates and judgments. However, because this information is highly subjective, it should not be relied on as necessarily indicative of future results. The forward-looking information included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking information to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation. The reader should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. All forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provide (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release, and the TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. For further information, please contact: Greg Reid, Chief Financial Officer (416) 818-9822 greid@krakenrobotics.com Sean Peasgood, Investor Relations (647) 955-1274 sean@sophiccapital.com Glenda Leyte, Marketing Manager (709) 757-5757 extension 288 gleyte@krakenrobotics.com CALGARY, Alberta, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Questor Technology Inc. (Questor or the Company) (TSX-V: QST) is pleased to announce its financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2019. FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS SUMMARY (Stated in Canadian dollars except per share and unit data) Increase Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 (decrease ) Revenue 7,720,488 5,996,936 1,723,552 Gross profit 4,418,783 3,840,344 578,439 Profit for the period 2,336,069 2,096,747 239,322 Gross profit as a percent of revenue 58.00 % 64.00 % (6 )% Net cash generated from operating activities 1,631,394 1,904,278 (272,884 ) Earnings per share Basic 0.09 0.07 0.02 Diluted 0.09 0.07 0.02 Increase As at March 31, 2019 December 31, 2018 (decrease ) Total assets 33,213,782 30,942,245 2,271,537 Total equity 29,088,436 26,379,455 2,708,981 Shares outstanding(1) Basic 26,745,745 26,465,110 280,635 Diluted 27,535,906 27,358,637 177,269 (1) Weighted average shares outstanding during the year. Questors audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto and Managements Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended March 31, 2019 is available on the Companys website at www.questortech.com and through SEDAR at www.sedar.com . PRESIDENTS MESSAGE The Questor team delivered strong results for Q1 2019 with the highest quarterly revenue, profit and earnings per share in the Companys history. Our first quarter 2019 revenue grew by 29% to $7.7 MM compared to the same period from 2018. This is a direct result of our top performing emissions control technology that is being recognized for its 99.99% efficiency, superior technical and field support, sales initiatives to secure longer-term rental contracts and the recognition of revenue from the incineration and heat to power project recently awarded in Mexico. The strong performance in the first quarter of 2019 is a result of great effort by the Company to secure contracts and to continually succeed in accessing new markets. The combination of an increased sales contribution and the Company securing longer-term rental contracts with rate-based incentives has resulted in an 11% increase in gross profit over the same 3-month period in 2018. The Company continues to pursue areas for our rental incineration which has been critical to the penetration and success in North Dakota and to our initial entry into Texas, Wyoming and New Mexico. We are targeting spending between $7-10 million this year on the rental fleet to support our continued growth. The Company has managed to secure 40% of the rental fleet on rate-incentive based longer-term contracts that has allowed for efficient planning within our Operations while solidifying a predictable outlook of growing activity. The US emissions regulations that limit Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Nitrous Oxides (NOx) have created a significant opportunity for us. Colorado and North Dakota enforce emissions regulations that limit Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Nitrous Oxides (NOx). The currently emission limit on VOCs is 100 tonnes per year and will drop to 50 tonnes per year in 2020. Clients who utilize Questor incinerators are being credited with an extremely high destruction efficiency reducing the site emissions below the limit and hence, allowing higher oil production. In North Dakota, our clients have permission from the regulator to use Questors high combustion efficiency if they configure the sites with our equipment in the same way as it was set up when the efficiency testing occurred and with confirmation of our units stack top temperature. In response to a widespread demand in a currently unserved area, Questor undertook to initiate a pilot project that offers data collection and management for our clients. The project will ultimately target key information that allows performance to be determined and, therefore, confirmation that our clients are operating in a compliant manner. The data management center will be located in Calgary and this project is expected to engage the Companys current customers as well as those who wish to offset environmental liability with live information that demonstrates both continual monitoring and compliance. Questor is ambitious with its expectations for Mexico, given Mexicos aggressive objectives to address climate change within its mature oil and gas industry. The entrance into the Mexico market where aggressive environmental objectives requiring emissions control and renewable energy solutions are in place, provided a significant increase in revenue. This has increased Questors Sales revenue in the first quarter of 2019 to $2.49MM, or 32% of gross revenue, as compared to $1.1MM, or 18.6% of gross revenue, in the same period in 2018. We have demonstrated significant growth with our existing resources and expertise, strengthening the bottom line. We are confident in our ability to innovate, execute and continue to grow with our core team. We will continue to invest capital to assist in solving our clients challenges. Questor is fully engaged in providing solutions for the complete life cycle. We have established a strong supply chain and vendor network to scale up in a timely manner that will respond and grow with us. Questor views the data management project as a key component to its technical offerings into the future. Our strong balance sheet will allow us to take advantage of the opportunities we see in the pipeline for Questor through the remainder of 2019 and beyond. FIRST QUARTER 2018 HIGHLIGHTS Revenue increased 29% during the three months ended March 31, 2019 versus the same period of 2018: Equipment sales increased 127% from $1.1 million to $ 2.5 million. The Company achieved certain contract milestones and recognized $1.8 million of sales revenue related to the Mexico contract previously announced on January 7, 2019; Revenue from incinerators rentals increased 3% from $4.3 million to $ 4.5 million. The Company reduced both customer and market concentration by expanding into North Dakota; Service revenue increased 36% from $0.6 million to $ 0.8 million as result of activity in the North Dakota market. Gross profit increased by 15 percent as result of higher sales revenue during the three months ended March 31, 2019 versus the same period of 2018. During the three months ended March 31, 2019, gross profit as a percentage of revenue decreased from 64% to 57% in the same period of 2018: Equipment sales accounted for majority of the revenue increase versus the prior year. Equipment sales as a percentage of revenue increase by 77% from 18% to 32%. Equipment sales carry a lower margin. The higher mix of equipment sales versus rentals resulted in a lower gross profit margin as a percentage of revenue. The Company also offered clients in North Dakota pricing incentives to enter larger volume and longer-term rental contracts. The contracts gave us the critical mass to invest in operational infrastructure in North Dakota. While the incentives and increased infrastructure has resulted in reduced margins, the strategy is expected to result in improved market diversification, customer diversification, improved customer retention and provide the platform for future growth in the State. Earnings increased 11% during the three months ended March 31, 2019 versus the same period of 2018. The Company continues to expand its incinerator rental fleet, incurring capital expenditures of $3.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. Questor will continue to commit capital to grow a presence in regions where producers are looking for high performing, cost-effective technologies to manage their waste gas and fugitive emissions. The Company is forecasting 2019 Capital Expenditures of $7-10 million focused on the continued expansion of the rental fleet. ABOUT QUESTOR TECHNOLOGY INC. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Questor has a trained workforce who provide specialized waste gas incineration products and services that may be required for the exploration, development and production of oil and gas reserves. There are a number of methods for handling waste gases at upstream oil and gas facilities, the most common being combustion. Flaring and incineration are two methods of combustion accepted by the majority of provincial and state regulators. Historically, the most common type of combustion has been flaring. Flaring is the igniting of natural gas at the end of a flare stack, a long metal pipe up which the gas is sent. This causes the characteristic flame associated with flaring. Incineration is the mixing and combusting of waste gas streams, air, and fuel in an enclosed chamber. Air and gas are mixed at a controlled rate and ignited. No flame is visible from an incinerator that is operating properly. Properly designed incinerators can result in higher combustion efficiency than flares. A correctly operated incinerator can yield higher efficiencies through proper mixing, gas composition, retention time, and combustion temperature. Combustion efficiency, generally expressed as a percentage, is essentially the amount of methane converted to CO2, or H2S converted to SO2. The more converted, the better the efficiency. Questor designs, manufactures and services proprietary high efficiency waste gas incineration systems. The Company incineration product line is based on clean combustion technology that was developed by the Company and patented in both Canada and the United States in 1999. Questor has continued to evolve the technology over the years making a number of improvements from the original patent. The Company currently has five new patent filings that are currently pending. The original clean combustions patent expires in November 2019. Questors highly specialized technical team works with the client to understand the waste gas volume and composition. The Companys technical team determines the specific incineration product specification to achieve 99.99 percent combustion efficiency. The incinerators vary in size to accommodate small to large amounts of gas handling, the range is 50 mcf/d to 5,000 mcf/d. The incinerators also range in automation and instrumentation depending on the clients requirements. Questors incinerators are used in multiple segments of the Oil and Gas industry including: drilling, completions, production and downstream. The Company has three primary revenue streams; incinerator sales, incinerator rentals and incinerator services. Incinerator services include incinerator hauling, commissioning, repairs, maintenance and decommissioning. The Company offers incinerator products for purchase or for rent. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued regulations to reduce harmful air pollution arising out of crude oil and natural gas industry activities with a particular focus on the efficient destruction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and have recently introduced methane emission reduction legislation. In conjunction with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, Colorados Regulation 7 mandates the use of enclosed combustion (incinerators) and now targets methane, resulting in a statewide focus on the responsible management of potentially fugitive hydrocarbons. North Dakota also has additional requirements that reflect some of the unique and specific needs that extend beyond the EPAs requirements. The Company announced on November 26, 2018 that it was awarded contracts in the State North Dakota. At March 31, 2019, over 90% of the Companys incinerator rental fleet is located in Colorado and North Dakota where regulation supports demand for its proprietary high efficiency waste gas incineration systems. The Company also provides its solutions to the Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and Western Canadian markets. Questor expects that demand in these markets will increase as regulation continues to develop. Questor continues to discuss economically advantageous solutions to its considerable client base in Alberta and it appears that a number of companies are taking leadership roles to lower their carbon footprint sooner than rules may require. The Company services its key markets with field offices in Brighton, Colorado; Watford City, North Dakota and Grande Prairie, Alberta. The infrastructure at the field offices consist of field technicians, maintenance technicians and administration. The facilities generally include, office space, maintenance shop and a yard to store incinerators. Questor personnel based out of the Companys head office in Calgary, Alberta include Officers of the Corporation, management, engineering, technical sales, accounting and administration. Questor trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol QST. Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, the words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "seek", "propose", "estimate", "expect", and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking statements with respect to, among other things, business objectives, expected growth, results of operations, performance, business projects and opportunities and financial results. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the Companys current views with respect to future events based on certain material factors and assumptions and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, changes in market, competition, governmental or regulatory developments, general economic conditions and other factors set out in the Companys public disclosure documents. Many factors could cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements to vary from those described in this news release, including without limitation those listed above. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in this news release and such forward-looking statements included in, or incorporated by reference in this news release, should not be unduly relied upon. Such statements speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This document is not intended for dissemination or distribution in the United States. PHOENIX, Ariz., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Uptick Newswire Stock Day Podcast welcomed Global Cannabis Applications Corp. (FUAPF) (the Company), a global leader in designing, developing, marketing and acquiring innovative data technologies for the medical cannabis industry. CEO and Director, Brad Moore, joined Stock Day host Everett Jolly. Jolly began the interview by asking Moore about the Companys vertical integration strategy that has recently been launched in Europe. Moore explained that the Company has been working on the strategy throughout the first quarter, which has been specially designed to embrace the advanced cannabis regulations in Europe and Israel. This strategy is leading to revenues for the Company by leveraging investment into lower Israeli grow costs, as well as increased EU wholesale medical cannabis and CBD revenues. However, Moore explains that data is the key factor of cannabis industry in these sectors, giving the Company a unique and beneficial opportunity. He further shared that the Companys Citizen Green platform has been received exceptionally well in these areas due to its abundance of data technologies. In fact, the Citizen Green platform integrates four advanced technologies for use on the product producers to patient and regulator side of the medical cannabis industry. Jolly then asked what the Companys next steps will be. Moore explained that the Company will be focusing on the implementation of their technology in Poland, which has over 350,000 medical cannabis patients. The next extension is to repeat that process in Germany., stated Moore. He also added that the Company will be working to identify key Israeli product producers and help start the flow of medical cannabis to the EU and surrounding areas. Moore shared that the Company will also have revenue coming in from multiple streams including new upcoming opportunities, licensing, and investment revenues. We have some very significant opportunities that our investors will see coming out., shared Moore. To close the interview Moore shared that the Company is dedicated to providing value and executing its goals and growing the Citizen Green brand to become the dominant medical cannabis brand globally. He then shared his excitement for the growth of the Company throughout United States and other parts of the world. To hear Brad Moore entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7260964-ceo-brad-moore-of-global-cannabis-applications-corp-otcqb-fuapf-may-19-update Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of Stock Day, and Uptick Newswire encourages listeners to visit the companys message board at https://investorshangout.com/ About Global Cannabis Applications Corp. Global Cannabis Applications Corp. is a global leader in designing, developing, marketing and acquiring innovative data technologies for the medical cannabis industry. The Citizen Green platform is the world's first end-to-end - from patient to regulator - medical cannabis data solution. It uses six core technologies: mobile applications, artificial intelligence, regtech, smart databases, blockchain and digital reward tokens, to qualify candidates for clinical studies. These technologies facilitate the proliferation of digital conversations by like-minded people in the medical cannabis community. Managed by digital and cannabis industry experts, GCAC is focused on viral global expansion by providing the best digital experience in the cannabis market. For more information about the Company, please visit online at www.cannappscorp.com , or review its profiles www.sedar.com and on the Canadian Securities Exchange's website ( www.thecse.com ) . To schedule an interview, please contact: Bradley Moore Chief Executive Officer Telephone: 514.561.9091 Email: bmoore@cannappscorp.com For more information, please contact: Corporate Communications Telephone: 1.855.269.9554 Email: info@cannappscorp.com www.cannappscorp.com Corporate Communications United States Hayden IR Telephone: 1.917.658.7878 Email: hart@haydenir.com Forward-Looking Information This news release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business of GCAC. Forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the management of GCAC. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because GCAC can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. GCAC disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy and accuracy of this information. About Uptick Newswire and the Stock Day Podcast Founded in 2013, Uptick Newswire is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Uptick provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. Uptick is the sole producer of its Stock Day Podcast, which is the number one radio show of its kind in America. The Uptick Network Stock Day Podcast is an extension of Uptick Newswire, which recently launched its Video Interview Studio located in Phoenix, Arizona. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NeutriSci International Inc. (the Company or NeutriSci) (TSX-V: NU, OTCQB: NRXCF, FRANKFURT: 1N9) the innovator and pioneer behind neuenergy, and Thai Freeze Dry Co. Ltd. (TFD) are pleased to announce they have entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) to develop and sell a line of products that incorporate both companies IP and technology for enhancing palatability and bioavailability of beneficial molecules including, but not limited to, cannabinoids, into NeutriScis existing and pipeline product formats. The pilot formulation development and testing program to be conducted under this LOI shall focus on creation of test formulations of NeutriScis patented technology tablets to be modified through incorporation of TFDs proprietary technology together with cannabinoids and other ingredients under TFDs umbrella of products. Testing will be conducted at TFDs facilities in Chiang Mai, Thailand. For the past 15 years, TFD has been developing a disruptive technology that could have a strong impact on traditional herbal medicine, food, beverage, supplement and cosmetic industries including but not limited to the cannabis industry. Along the way, they have achieved FDA approval for their factory and all of their products, GMP Certification, Halal approval and USA FDA approval as a food factory. TFDs Cellular Fraction-Line (CFL) technology delivers products with sustained cellular integrity, high bioactivity as well as high bio-availability. Potentiated cannabis powder combines the fresh whole leaf powder derived from TFDs CFL technology with the highly concentrated extract to bring together the high levels of targeted active compounds with the natural synergy of whole-leaf powder. In this way, TFD approaches the holy grail - cannabis in its natural state - its fresh form - displaying the medicinal bioactivity of the cannabis plant as it grows in nature. Thanks to CFL, customers are getting everything from the whole plant except for water, including compounds that we may not yet have discovered. NeutriScis Cryolisation process is used to prepare oral dosage forms comprising cannabinoid and stilbenoid compounds which improve the dissolution rate and bioavailability of cannabinoid compounds. Preliminary research data indicate that cannabinoid and stilbenoid formulations prepared using the Cryolisation process increase absorption rates of cannabinoid compounds 4-5 times over consumption of cannabinoid compounds alone. The tested formulations appear to increase the amount of active ingredient the body can absorb while simultaneously increasing the rate of absorption with THC and CBD detected in the bloodstream. NeutriScis Cryolisation technology may provide an opportunity for manufacturers of cannabinoid-infused products to use less active ingredient while still achieving the desired results, thus lowering cost of manufacturing, thereby increasing margins. Dan Foxman, CEO of Thai Freeze Dry, stated, The list of formulations using cannabis as the catalyst ingredient in combination with other Thai medicinal herbs has huge potential. Our concept of "potentiated" herbs that combine the unnaturally high levels of active compounds achieved by extraction, with our whole-food herbal powders that contain all the co-factors that allow the active compounds to function optimally with our body's adaptive systems, has the potential to have a strong impact on the entire nutraceutical industry. Mr. Foxman continued, NeutriScis technology could be a perfect fit for us to create several new products, not only for the cannabis industry. We are looking forward to advance this collaboration as quickly as possible. Glen Rehman, CEO of NeutriSci International said, Apart from the booming cannabis side of things, Thai Freeze Dry is producing some very interesting herb products, such as black rice powder, which demonstrates appetite satisfying properties. Thai Freeze Drys sprouted black rice powder tells your body that you are full and no longer hungry. Combined with our technology, we will explore the opportunity to develop a sublingual black rice powder tablet for the weight loss market which is now worth $72.7 billion(1) in the US alone. (1) source: www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=236237 About Thai Freeze Dry Thai Freeze Dry (TFD), headquartered in Chiang Mai, produces 35 FDA approved herbal powders and 10 herbal formulations using its proprietary Cellular Fraction-Line Technology with additional products pending approval. This advanced and progressive process allows Thai Freeze Dry to maintain the medicinal bioactivity of a live plant while providing the safety of a stable commodity. It provides highly bioactive, stable, bio-available and concentrated products. For the past 15 years, TFD has been processing Thai herbs and botanicals of the highest quality under GMP conditions. The most popular product to date is sprouted black rice powder which is rich in antioxidants and a natural detoxifier. TFD is also in a unique position to create synergistic formulations combining Thailands traditional medicinal herbs with cannabis in a variety of formulations, each of which addresses specific conditions. It can produce high-value products from the leaves, roots, seeds, and the water removed from the cannabis plant, all of which are presently under-used or not used at all. TFD owns a minority stake in Thai Cannabis Corp. ( www.thaicannabiscorporation.com ) and has the first call to all their processing. For more information, please visit: www.thaifreezedry.com About NeutriSci International NeutriSci specializes in the innovation, production and formulation of nutraceutical products. Established in 2009, NeutriScis is building sustainable sales models with Convenience, Chain Drug, and Mass Market and Supermarket retailers for neuenergy, the Companys natural energy and focus supplement that has at its core, the beneficial effects of blueberries. Neuenergy contains a unique patented combination of blueberry extract (pterostilbene) and naturally derived caffeine, and is a revolutionary energy tab designed to deliver enhanced focus and mental clarity with no sugar, no calories and no crash associated with typical energy products. To find out more about neuenergy, please visit www.getneuenergy.com . NeutriSci has also developed chewable and sublingual cannabis edibles. nu.thc as well as nu.cbd are healthy and sugar-free cannabinoid tablets that offer a metered dose of THC/CBD, combined with the increased bioavailability and powerful antioxidant properties of pterostilbene, the best out of blueberries. nu.thc & nu.cbd tablets will be initially sold in California, USA, in collaboration with Nutritional High International Inc. For more information, please visit: www.neutrisci.com . Contacts: Glen Rehman CEO of NeutriSci International Inc. Tel: (403) 264-6320 Email: info@neutrisci.com Dan Foxman CEO of Thai Freeze Dry Co. Ltd. Phone: (66) 081 764 4324 Email: daniel.f@thaifreezedry.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws. Statements in this press release have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products or ingredients are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Jaylin was hit in the head, abdomen and lower body, and brought to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died. The woman was also taken to the same hospital in serious condition after suffering a gunshot wound to the chest, police said. ATLANTA, GA, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB: GOVXD), a biotechnology company developing human vaccines, announced that it will deliver a presentation showcasing the Companys unique technology during the Innovative Vaccines Against Resistant Infectious Diseases and Emerging Threats Conference, presented by the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Discussion Group of The New York Academy of Sciences. The conference is being held May 20, 2019 in New York, New York. GeoVaxs presentation is entitled Development of Single-Dose Vaccines for Emerging Infectious Diseases Using a Novel Plug and Play Live Viral Vector Platform, Preclinical Data for Zika, Ebola and Lassa Fever Vaccines as Examples. The poster presentation will be delivered by Michael Hellerstein, GeoVaxs Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Systems, and will feature GeoVaxs Plug and Play vaccine platform which utilizes its recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vector to express foreign antigens on virus-like particles (VLPs) in the person being vaccinated. The MVA-VLP platform has several advantages including the ability to use single inoculations to achieve full protection. Single-dose protection is a favorable characteristic of a vaccine for emerging infectious disease outbreak response, given the speed of spread of pathogens and the impracticality of multi-dose regimens in the under-resourced settings where outbreaks often occurs. In studies for Ebola, Lassa and Zika, representing important human pathogens from 3 different virus families, a single dose of GeoVaxs vaccine fully protected animals against a lethal challenge. These serve as examples of the broad utility of the MVA-VLP platform for many more indications. GeoVaxs MVA platform has previously been shown to elicit both durable antibody and T cell responses against HIV in several clinical trials. Commenting on the upcoming presentation, Farshad Guirakhoo, Ph.D., GeoVax Chief Scientific Officer stated, GeoVaxs MVA-VLP platform technology is built upon a 5th generation MVA vector system that is improved for balanced and stable expression of vaccine transgenes, and VLP formation, during manufacture. It has the advantages of being a live replication-competent vector in avian cells for manufacturing, yet replication-deficient in mammalian cells for vaccination, thus inherently safe. Importantly, MVA vaccines elicit protective T cell as well as antibody responses in animals and humans. The MVA platform can be combined with the potent immunogenicity of VLPs or be used to express proteins in their native multimeric conformations enabling vaccines that induce full protection after a single dose. The safety and immunogenicity of the platform was first validated in animal and human studies using DNA and MVA-VLP-HIV vaccines and further expanded for developing vaccines against emerging pathogens, endemic diseases, chronic infections and cancer. Moving forward we look forward to clinical validation of our technology in multiple indications, including infectious diseases, immuno-oncology and immunotherapy. About GeoVax GeoVax Labs, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing human vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer using a novel patented Modified Vaccinia Ankara-Virus Like Particle (MVA-VLP) based vaccine platform. On this platform, MVA, a large virus capable of carrying several vaccine antigens, expresses proteins that assemble into VLP immunogens within (in vivo) the person receiving the vaccine. The production of VLPs in the person being vaccinated mimics virus production in a natural infection, stimulating both the humoral and cellular arms of the immune system to recognize, prevent, and control the target infection. The MVA-VLP derived vaccines elicit durable immune responses in the host similar to a live-attenuated virus, while providing the safety characteristics of a replication-defective vector. GeoVaxs current development programs are focused on preventive vaccines against HIV, Zika Virus, hemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, and Lassa), and malaria, as well as therapeutic vaccines against chronic Hepatitis B infections and multiple cancers. The Company has designed the leading preventative HIV vaccine candidate to fight against the subtype of HIV prevalent in the larger commercial markets of the Americas, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia; this program is currently undergoing human clinical trials managed by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) with the support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). GeoVaxs HIV vaccine is also part of collaborative efforts to develop an immunotherapy as a functional cure for HIV. For more information, visit www.geovax.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this document are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors, including whether: GeoVax can develop and manufacture its vaccines with the desired characteristics in a timely manner, GeoVax's vaccines will be safe for human use, GeoVax's vaccines will effectively prevent targeted infections in humans, GeoVaxs vaccines will receive regulatory approvals necessary to be licensed and marketed, GeoVax raises required capital to complete vaccine development, there is development of competitive products that may be more effective or easier to use than GeoVax's products, GeoVax will be able to enter into favorable manufacturing and distribution agreements, and other factors, over which GeoVax has no control. GeoVax assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements and does not intend to do so. More information about these factors is contained in GeoVax's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including those set forth at "Risk Factors" in GeoVax's Form 10-K. Acquiring 7 Operating Solar Plants Bringing Total Installed Capacity to 29.1 MWs of Owned Solar Projects New York, NY, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Alternus Energy Inc. (OTC: ALTN) (the Company or Alternus), a global renewable energy company, today announced a total acquisition that will consist of 7 operating photovoltaic plants located in Italy. In aggregate, the plants have a total installed capacity of 5.1 MWs, bringing the Companys total European installed capacity to 29.1 MWs of owned solar projects. The total compensation for the acquisition is approximately $8.1 million cash, less $1.5 million held back for the closing of the final plant, and less $0.4 million held in escrow against certain tax open items and as a hold back for any unexpected items. The Company will utilize its existing credit facility to fund the transaction. The closing of the final plant is expected to occur by June 30, 2019. The 5.1MW of parks currently generate annual revenues in excess of $1.5 million at over 85% gross margins. ALTN expects to increase the annual production of the parks by about 20% after some identified remedial work which would then increase both annual revenues and gross margins by the same percentage. Vincent Browne, Alternus Energys Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman, commented, This acquisition is a perfect fit with our business operations and long-term goals of securing long term government counter-party contracts that provide predicable positive cash flows. These particular projects have over 12 years left to run on these contracts meaning that ALTN will have over $20 million of backlog revenues contracted for the next 12 years. Thereafter the plants continue to operate and sell energy to the grid at the then prevailing market prices. This transaction also once again shows our ability to acquire assets below the prevailing market value and so we will book an immediate gain to shareholder equity reflecting this difference and increase total assets by the same amount. Our pipeline remains strong across Europe in Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. We are well on our way on our target to exit 2019 with over 100MWs of installed power that combined, should deliver over $15 million in recurring annual revenues and approximately $300 million contracted revenue backlog over the following 15 20 years. Full details of the transaction can be found in the Supplemental Report filed with the OTC markets at https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/ALTN/disclosure About Alternus Energy Inc. Alternus Energy, Inc. is a global renewable energy company that owns and operates Utility Scale Solar parks internationally. Each solar park generates clean energy every day that is sold to national power grids under long term, government counterparty, fixed price contracts. The Company currently has operational solar parks in Germany, Italy and Romania with contracts in place to add additional solar parks in the Netherlands. For further information please go to: www.AlternusEnergy.com Forward-looking Statements This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as may, "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," potential and similar statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact in this press release are forward-looking statements and involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about the Company and the industry in which the Company operates, but involve a number of unknown risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the Company's filings with the OTC Markets. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. You are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements contained herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Contact: p212-220-7434 investors@alternusenergy.com English Latvian Consolidated sales April and 4 months Preliminary consolidated results of JSC Olainfarm for April 2019, show that the Group has made sales worth 12.6 million euros, which represents an increase by 45% compared to April 2019. Preliminary results for first four months of 2019 demonstrate 14% sales increase, compared to the four months period of 2018, reaching 47.3 million euros. Products of Olainfarm Group during this period were sold in 50 markets worldwide. According to consolidated sales numbers for April, four major sales markets of the Group remain the same : Russia, with 111% sales increase, Latvia, where the sales jumped by 113%, Ukraine with the sales decrease of 38%, and Belarus with the slight 2% decrease. Amongst the ten largest sales markets, the sales have been shrinking also in Lithuania (by 22%). All other major outlets demonstrated sales growth in April, with substantial deliveries to the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Germany. In the four months of 2019, the main sales markets of Olainfarm Group remained the same: Russia (30% share), Latvia (27% share), Belarus (14% share) and Ukraine (9% share). Other major sales markets included the Netherlands, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Germany, Tajikistan and Lithuania. The most rapid sales growth during this four-month period was achieved in the Netherlands, where sales grew by 702% compared to the last year, and in Uzbekistan where sale grew by 64%. Russia and Belarus have demonstrated 27% and 12% sales increase in the four months, respectably. Amongst the largest sales outlets decline has been marked in Ukraine (-5%), Kazakhstan (-14%), Germany (-19%) and Lithuania (-34%). JSC Olainfarm four-month sales show good results, confirming the stable growth of the company. The key to the companys success is effective manufacturing processes, knowledgeable and professional employees, as well as stable market outlets and cooperation partners. Currently, one of the most important tasks is the further development of companys activities. We are working on a new medium-term strategy for the Group for 3-5 years, which will help to continue the successful growth of the company. This will allow us to maintain stable positions, both in existing markets and to acquire new ones, emphasizes Lauris Macijevskis, Chairman of the Board at JSC Olainfarm. April 2019, consolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to April 2018 Russia 4 910 39% 111% Latvia 3 127 25% 131% Ukraine 1 185 9% -38% Belarus 1 114 9% -2% The Netherlands 585 5% 5818% Kazakhstan 323 3% 33% Germany 192 2% 17% Uzbekistan 173 1% - Armenia 140 1% 3672% Lithuania 128 1% -22% Other 728 6% -5% Total 12 605 100% 45% 4 months 2019, consolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to 4 months 2019 Russia 13 985 30% 27% Latvia 12 913 27% 11% Belarus 6 618 14% 12% Ukraine 4 037 9% -5% The Netherlands 1 363 3% 702% Uzbekistan 1 124 2% 64% Kazakhstan 937 2% -14% Germany 729 2% -12% Tajikistan 521 1% 17% Lithuania 512 1% -32% Other 4 556 10% 10% Kopa 47 294 100% 14% Unconsolidated sales April and 4 months According to preliminary unconsolidated numbers, sales of JSC Olainfarm in April reached 10.0 million euros, which represents an increase by 15% compared to April 2018. Result was positively influenced by the sales increase in Russia (by 102%), the Netherlands (by 6047%), Kirgizstan (by 611%) and India (by 8559%). Sales shrunk in Ukraine (by 40%) and in Belarus (by 24%). Unconsolidated sales results for four months 2019 show that sales of JSC Olainfarm reached 36.6 million euros, which represents and increase by 14% compared to first 4 month 2018. During the reporting period, sales have increased in all major sales markets of Olainfarm, except Ukraine, where sales shrunk by 11%, Uzbekistan (decrease by 23%) and Tajikistan (decrease by 34%). In this 4-months period, sales of Olainfarm to the Netherlands grew by 64%, but sales to Kazakhstan and Lithuania accordingly by 13% and 55%. April 2019, unconsolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to April 2018 Russia 4 699 47% 102% Latvia 1 402 14% 4% Ukraine 1 149 11% -40% Belarus 860 9% -24% The Netherlands 585 6% 6047% Germany 191 2% 16% Uzbekistan 173 2% - Kazakhstan 171 2% -29% India 122 1% 8559% Kyrgyzstan 116 1% -30% Other 527 5% -32% Total 9 996 100% 15% Four months 2019 unconsolidated sales Sales, thsnd. EUR Share in total sales Changes to four months 2018 Russia 12 591 34% 30% Latvia 5 919 16% 6% Belarus 5 466 15% 9% Ukraine 3 743 10% -11% The Netherlands 1 582 3% 64% Uzbekistan 1 124 2% -23% Kazakhstan 598 1% 13% Tajikistan 503 1% -24% Lithuania 450 1% 55% Turkmenistan 354 12% 1263% Other 4 233 12% -5% Total 36 563 100% 14% Results of Daughter companies April and four months of 2019 Sales of pharmacy chain of SIA Latvijas Aptieka in April 2019 was close to 2.2 million euros, which represents 11% increase compared to April 2018. During this period 68 pharmacies operated. Sales of SIA Silvanols in April reached 0.47 million euros, representing increase by 3% vs. the April 2018. Combined sales of Tonus Elast and Elast Medical in April 2019 were 0.8 million euros, which is increase by 2%. Medical centers of Olainmed and Diamed made sales worth 0.28 million euros, while Belarus daughter company NPK Biotest made sales of 0.25 million euros. During four month of 2019, SIA Latvijas Aptieka sales amounted to 8.7 million euros, demonstrating 12% increase over the same period last year, sales of SIA Silvanols reached 2.1 million euros (an increase by 6%). Combined sales of Tonus Elast and Elast Medical also grew by 6% to 2.9 million euros. Medical centers and NPK Biotest both sold services and products worth over 1.0 million EUR during four months 2019. April 2019 4 months 2019 Sales markets of Olainfarm 25 42 Sales markets of the Group 35 50 Number of pharmacies 68 Sales of Latvijas Aptieka, thsnd. 2 156 8 762 Sales of Medical centers, thsnd. 283 1 022 Sales of NPK Biotest, thsnd. 254 1 045 Sales of Tonus Elast and Elast Medical, thsnd. 765 2 933 Sales of Silvanols, thsnd. 474 2 115 According to the budget of JSC Olainfarm, unconsolidated sales of the company in 2019 are planned to reach 99 million euros, while consolidated sales are expected at 133 million euros. According to these preliminary sales figures, in the first 4 months 2019, 37% of annual target for unconsolidated sales and 35% of annual target for consolidated sales are reached. JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 45 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top -quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 60 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. Information prepared by: Janis Dubrovskis Investor Relations Advisor of JSC Olainfarm Ph.: +371 29178878 janis.dubrovskis@olainfarm.com French English PRESS RELEASE Quarterly Financial Information as of March 31, 2019 IFRS - Regulated Information - Not Audited Cegedim: Growth picked up speed in the first quarter of 2019 Like-for-like revenue grew 4.6% Growth accelerated at the Health insurance, HR and e-services division Healthcare professionals division revenues grew in Q1 Disclaimer: This press release is available in French and in English. In the event of any difference between the two versions, the original French version takes precedence. This press release may contain inside information. It was sent to Cegedims authorized distributor on May 15, 2019, no earlier than 5:45 pm Paris time. The terms business model transformation and BPO are defined in the glossary. The Group applies the IFRS 15 accounting standard, "Revenue from contracts with customers". CONFERENCE CALL ON MAY 15, 2019, AT 6:15PM CET FR: +33 1 72 72 74 03 USA: +1 844 286 0643 UK: +44 (0) 207 1943 759 PIN Code: 85432790# The webcast is available at: www.cegedim.fr/webcast Boulogne-Billancourt, France, May 15, 2019 after the market close Cegedim, an innovative technology and services company, generated consolidated Q1-19 revenues of 119.2 million, an increase of 6.5% as reported and 4.6% like for like compared with the same period in 2018. All the operating divisions made positive year-on-year contributions to the Groups like-for-like growth. BPO revenues rose 25% in the first quarter of 2019 to 10.6 million. Revenue trends by division First quarter In million 2019 2018 Chg. L-f-l Chg. Reported Health insurance, HR and e-services 79.2 72.9 +6.4% +8.7% Healthcare professionals 39.1 38.0 +1.7% +2.8% Corporate and others 0.9 1.0 (10.8)% (10.8)% Cegedim 119.2 111.9 +4.6% +6.5% In the first quarter of 2019, Cegedim posted consolidated Group revenues of 119.2 million, up 6.5% as reported. Excluding a positive impact of 0.3% from currency translation and 1.6% from acquisitions, revenues rose 4.6%. The positive impact of 0.4 million, or 0.3%, was mainly attributable to US dollar appreciation, which represents 2.4% of Group revenue, and the virtual stability of the Sterling, which represents 9.4% of Group revenue. The 1.8 million boost from acquisitions, or 1.6%, was chiefly the result of acquiring Rue de la paye in France on March 30, 2018, and of Ximantix in Germany on January 21, 2019. In like-for-like terms, all the divisions made positive contributions to like-for like growth. The Health insurance, HR and e-services divisions revenues rose 6.4% and the Healthcare professionals divisions revenues, 1.7%. Analysis of business trends by division Health insurance, HR and e-services The divisions reported revenues rose 8.7% in the first quarter of 2019 to 79.2 million. Acquisitions accounted for 2.3 percentage points. The biggest contributors were Rue de la Paye in France, consolidated from March 30, 2018, and Ximantix in Germany, consolidated from January 21, 2019. Currencies had virtually no impact. Like-for-like revenues rose 6.4% over the period. The businesses that made the biggest contributions to this growth were Cegedim Health Data (sales data and statistics for pharmaceuticals), andin the health insurance sectorBPO, third-party payment flow processing activities, Cegedim e-business (document and process digitization) and Cegedim SRH (HR management solutions). The Health insurance, HR and e-services division represented 66.5% of revenues compared with 65.1% a year earlier. Healthcare professionals The divisions reported revenues rose 2.8% in the first quarter of 2019 to 39.1 million. Currency translation and acquisitions had positive impacts of respectively 0.9 and 0.2 percentage points. Like-for-like revenues rose 1.7% over the period. The businesses that made the biggest positive contributions were software for doctors and allied health professionals in France and Belgium and the BCB medication database. Doctor computerization business was steady in the UK and US. The Healthcare professionals division represented 32.8% of revenues compared with 34.0% a year earlier. Corporate and others The divisions reported revenues fell 10.8% as reported and like for like in the first quarter of 2019, to 0.9 million. Currencies and acquisitions had no impact. The Corporate and others division represented 0.7% of consolidated revenues compared with 0.9% a year earlier. Highlights Apart from the items cited below, to the best of the companys knowledge, there were no events or changes during the period that would materially alter the Groups financial situation. Acquisition of XimantiX in Germany On January 21, 2019, Cegedim acquired German company XimantiX. Building on its presence in the digitalization market in Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and Morocco, Cegedim now has a solid base for this activity in Germany, Europes leading economy. By acquiring a German leader positioned on the midmarket segment, Cegedim e-business will be able to develop its offer for SMEs. XimantiX customers will gain access to a wider range of services, thanks to Cegedims international scope. XimantiXs 2018 revenues came to 2.2 million, and it earned a profit. It began contributing to the Groups consolidation scope in January 2019. Acquisition of RDV medicaux in France On February 2019, Cegedim acquired French company RDV Medicaux, an online appointment scheduling site whose close collaboration with hotlines gives it a unique positioning. This deal clearly reaffirms Docavenues ambition to help healthcare professionals focus on patient care by offering innovative services that are 100% designed to improve the French healthcare system. RDV Medicauxs 2018 revenues came to 0.6 million. It began contributing to the Groups consolidation scope in March 2019. Acquisition of BSV in France On January 31, 2019, Cegedim acquired BSV Electronic Publishing, the leading provider of invoice digitization solutions to French municipalities and widely respected for its successful Electronic Document Management System (EDMS). BSVs ZeDOC software suite includes electronic document management--a dynamic data capture tool that sets it apart from a conventional EDMS based on document indexing--Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Automatic Document Recognition (ADR). BSV Electronic Publishing generated revenue of 1.2 million in 2018. It began contributing to the Groups consolidation scope in February 2019. Significant post March 31 th , 2019 transactions and events To the best of the companys knowledge, there were no events or changes after the accounts were closed that would materially alter the Groups financial situation. Outlook Cegedim operates in constantly changing markets, and its strategic refocus is complete. The Group boasts solid fundamentals, a balanced portfolio of complementary offerings, a diverse client base, a broad geographic footprint, and the strength of an integrated group. These factors should enable it to sustain its current momentum and reach a new stage in its development where it can deliver lasting, profitable growth. Building on 2018, Cegedim continues to follow a strategy primarily focused on organic growth and driven by robust innovation. The Group has set a target of around 5% growth in both like-for-like revenues and EBITDA. In 2019, the Group does not expect any significant acquisitions and is not issuing any earnings estimates or forecasts. Potential impact of Brexit In 2018, the UK accounted for 10.0% of consolidated Group revenues from continuing activities and 9.9% of consolidated Group EBIT. Cegedim deals in local currency in the UK, as it does in every country where it is present. Thus Brexit is unlikely to have a material impact on Group EBIT. With regard to healthcare policy, the Group has not identified any major European programs at work in the UK and expects UK policy to be only marginally affected by Brexit. The figures cited above include guidance on Cegedim's future financial performances. This forward-looking information is based on the opinions and assumptions of the Groups senior management at the time this press release is issued and naturally entails risks and uncertainty. For more information on the risks facing Cegedim, please refer to Chapter 2, points 2.5, Risk factors and insurance, and 2.7, Outlook, of the 2018 Registration Document filled with the AMF on March 29, 2019. Additional information First-quarter 2019 revenue figures have not been audited by the Statutory Auditors. Financial calendar June 19, 2019, at 9:30 am CET July 25, 2019, after the market close September 19, 2019, after the market close September 20, 2019, at 11:30 am CET October 24, 2019, after the market close Cegedim shareholders meeting Second quarter 2019 revenues Half year earnings 2019 Analyst meeting (SFAF) in SFAFs offices Third quarter 2019 revenues The first quarter 2019 revenue presentation is available at: The website: https://www.cegedim.fr/finance/documentation/Pages/presentations.aspx The Groups financial communications app, Cegedim IR. To download the app, visit: http://www.cegedim.fr/finance/profil/Pages/CegedimIR.aspx Annexes Breakdown of revenue by quarter and division Year 2019 In thousands Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Total Health insurance, HR and e-services 79,239 79,239 Healthcare professionals 39,100 39,100 Corporate and others 882 882 Revenue from continuing activities 119,222 119,222 Revenue from activities held for sale 0 0 IFRS 5 restatement 0 0 Group revenue 119,222 119,222 Year 2018 In thousands Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Total Health insurance, HR and e-services 72,923 76,613 71,620 86,526 307,684 Healthcare professionals 38,029 38,133 36,291 43,731 156,184 Corporate and others 989 947 900 985 3,820 Revenue from continuing activities 111,941 115,693 108,811 131,242 467,688 Revenue from activities held for sale 2,066 0 0 0 2,066 IFRS 5 restatement (36) 0 0 0 (36) Group revenue 113,970 115,693 108,811 131,242 469,717 Breakdown of revenue by geographic zone and division As of March 31, 2019 As a % of consolidated revenues France EMEA excl. France Americas APAC Health insurance, HR and e-services 96.1% 3.9% - - Healthcare professionals 61.4% 31.2% 7.4% - Corporate and others 100.0% - - - Cegedim 84.7% 12.9% 2.4% - Breakdown of revenue by currency and division As of March 31, 2019 As a % of consolidated revenues Euro GBP USD Others Health insurance, HR and e-services 96.7% 2.3% 0.0% 0.9% Healthcare professionals 65.8% 24.1% 7.2% 2.9% Corporate and others 100.0% - - - Cegedim 86.6% 9.4% 2.4% 1.6% BPO (Business Process Outsourcing): BPO is the contracting of non-core business activities and functions to a third-party provider. Cegedim provides BPO services for human resources, Revenue Cycle Management in the US and management services for insurance companies, provident institutions and mutual insurers. Business model transformation: Cegedim decided in fall 2015 to switch all of its offerings over to SaaS format, to develop a complete BPO offering, and to materially increase its R&D efforts. This is reflected in the Groups revamped business model. The change has altered the Group's revenue recognition and negatively affected short-term profitability Corporate and others: This division encompasses the activities the Group performs as the parent company of a listed entity, as well as the support it provides to the three operating divisions. EPS: Earnings Per Share is a specific financial indicator defined by the Group as the net profit (loss) for the period divided by the weighted average of the number of shares in circulation. Operating expenses: Operating expenses is defined as purchases used, external expenses and payroll costs. Revenue at constant exchange rate: When changes in revenue at constant exchange rate are referred to, it means that the impact of exchange rate fluctuations has been excluded. The term at constant exchange rate covers the fluctuation resulting from applying the exchange rates for the preceding period to the current fiscal year, all other factors remaining equal. Revenue on a like-for-like basis: The effect of changes in scope is corrected by restating the sales for the previous period as follows: by removing the portion of sales originating in the entity or the rights acquired for a period identical to the period during which they were held to the current period; similarly, when an entity is transferred, the sales for the portion in question in the previous period are eliminated. Life-for-like data (L-f-l): At constant scope and exchange rates. Internal growth: Internal growth covers growth resulting from the development of an existing contract, particularly due to an increase in rates and/or the volumes distributed or processed, new contracts, acquisitions of assets allocated to a contract or a specific project. External growth: External growth covers acquisitions during the current fiscal year, as well as those which have had a partial impact on the previous fiscal year, net of sales of entities and/or assets. EBIT: Earnings Before Interest and Taxes. EBIT corresponds to net revenue minus operating expenses (such as salaries, social charges, materials, energy, research, services, external services, advertising, etc.). It is the operating income for the Cegedim Group. EBIT before special items: This is EBIT restated to take account of non-current items, such as losses on tangible and intangible assets, restructuring, etc. It corresponds to the operating income from recurring operations for the Cegedim Group. EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. EBITDA is the term used when amortization or depreciation and revaluations are not taken into account. D stands for depreciation of tangible assets (such as buildings, machines or vehicles), while A stands for amortization of intangible assets (such as patents, licenses and goodwill). EBITDA is restated to take account of non-current items, such as losses on tangible and intangible assets, restructuring, etc. It corresponds to the gross operating earnings from recurring operations for the Cegedim Group. Adjusted EBITDA : Consolidated EBITDA adjusted, for 2016, for the 4.0m of negative impact from impairment of receivables in the Healthcare Professional division Net Financial Debt: This represents the Companys net debt (non-current and current financial debt, bank loans, debt restated at amortized cost and interest on loans) net of cash and cash equivalents and excluding revaluation of debt derivatives. Free cash flow: Free cash flow is cash generated, net of the cash part of the following items: (i) changes in working capital requirements, (ii) transactions on equity (changes in capital, dividends paid and received), (iii) capital expenditure net of transfers, (iv) net financial interest paid and (v) taxes paid. EBIT margin: EBIT margin is defined as the ratio of EBIT/revenue. EBIT margin before special items: EBIT margin before special items is defined as the ratio of EBIT before special items/revenue. Net cash: Net cash is defined as cash and cash equivalent minus overdraft. Glossary About Cegedim: Founded in 1969, Cegedim is an innovative technology and services company in the field of digital data flow management for healthcare ecosystems and B2B, and a business software publisher for healthcare and insurance professionals. Cegedim employs more than 4,500 people in more than 10 countries and generated revenue of 468 million in 2018. Cegedim SA is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: CGM). To learn more, please visit: www.cegedim.com And follow Cegedim on Twitter: @CegedimGroup, LinkedIn and Facebook. Aude Balleydier Cegedim Media Relations and Communications Manager Tel.: +33 (0)1 49 09 68 81 aude.balleydier@cegedim.com Jan Eryk Umiastowski Cegedim Chief Investment Officer and head of Investor Relations Tel.: +33 (0)1 49 09 33 36 janeryk.umiastowski@cegedim.com Marina Rosoff For Madis Phileo Media Relations Tel: +33 (0)6 71 58 00 34 marina@madisphileo.com Follow Cegedim: Attachment First Quarter Highlights 2019 vs. 2018 Revenue increased 29% to $26.2 million from $20.3 million Well enhancement service revenue up 29% to $24.8 million from $19.3 million Water transfer service revenue up 44% to $1.4 million from $1.0 million Net income up 111% to $4.3 million from $2.0 million EPS of $0.08 versus $0.04 Adjusted EBITDA up 49% to $7.2 million from $4.8 million Adjusted EBITDA margins improve by 360 basis points year over year DENVER, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Enservco Corporation (NYSE American: ENSV), a diversified national provider of specialized well-site services to the domestic onshore conventional and unconventional oil and gas industries, today reported financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2019. Enservco delivered solid results in virtually all key financial metrics in the first quarter. Revenue grew by 29% to $26.2 million, inclusive of the Adler acquisition, said Ian Dickinson, President and CEO. Net income increased 111% to $4.3 million, with adjusted EBITDA up 49% to $7.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA margins were 27.3%, up 360 basis points year over year. Our revenue growth was particularly impressive since the first half of January was slower than normal because customers were re-ramping frac activity as crude oil prices recovered. Net income was lower than expected due to approximately $1.0 million in cost overruns in our water transfer segment due to frozen water lines that required us to use third-party labor and equipment. From an overall financial performance perspective, we are clearly on a positive trajectory. Eight of our last nine quarters have shown year-over-year increases in revenue and our annual profit metrics have trended higher over the past two years. Assuming stable commodity prices, we are optimistic about continuing our positive momentum. Our strong first quarter performance was due to a number of factors. Steady demand from our E&P customers played a key role. We have a loyal customer base that includes hundreds of E&Ps, ranging from small operators to the largest major oil and gas producers in the U.S. We have also executed on a number of process improvement initiatives and are generating results. In 2019, consistent with our culture of continuous improvement, we are focused on further streamlining field operations with real-time, data driven systems and processes. We are implementing a digital fleet management system that integrates dispatching and geo-location, maintenance and inventory, truck data and safety, reporting and compliance, electronic invoicing, and finance and accounting. We expect these initiatives to result in additional operating efficiencies and advance our ultimate objectives of de-levering our balance sheet and better positioning the Company for organic growth and accretive M&A. First Quarter Results Total revenue in the first quarter ended March 31, 2019, increased 29% to $26.2 million from $20.3 million in the same quarter last year. Well enhancement services revenue increased 29% year over year to $24.8 million from $19.3 million. The well enhancement segment included frac water heating, up 42% to $20.7 million from $14.6 million; hot oiling, essentially flat at $3.6 million; and acidizing, down 54% to $0.5 million from $1.0 million. The well enhancement segment generated income of $9.6 million in the first quarter, a 55% increase over $6.2 million in segment income in the prior year. Lower acidizing revenue in the first quarter was due to a decline in services performed for two customers in Texas and Wyoming that were more active in the same quarter last year. In addition, the acidizing fleet had more downtime than usual due to redeployment activities following the closure of the Companys underperforming Kansas location. Managements goal is to drive profitable growth in its acidizing business as the year progresses. Water transfer segment revenue increased 44% in the first quarter to $1.4 million from $1.0 million in the same quarter last year. The segment generated a loss of $757,000 in the first quarter compared to income of $38,000 in the same quarter last year due to the aforementioned cost overruns related to two line-freeze incidents. The Company has taken corrective measures to reduce the potential for future such incidents. Total operating expenses in the first quarter increased 23% year over year to $21.0 million from $17.1 million due primarily to higher direct variable costs associated with increased activity across the Companys service lines and locations, the additional water transfer costs, and an increase in overhead primarily depreciation expense associated with the acquisition of Adler Hot Oil Service. In addition, sales, general and administrative expense increased 20% year over year to $1.6 million from $1.4 million due to higher administrative costs required to support the growth of the business. Despite higher costs in the first quarter, the Company achieved a 65% increase in income from operations to $5.3 million from $3.2 million year over year. Net income in the first quarter grew 111% to $4.3 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, from $2.0 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 49% in the first quarter to $7.2 million from $4.8 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margins (adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of revenue) improved by 360 basis points in the first quarter to 27.3% from 23.7% in the same quarter last year due to improved operating efficiencies. Conference Call Information Management will hold a conference call today to discuss these results. The call will begin at 2:30 p.m. Mountain Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern) and will be accessible by dialing 877-407-8031 (201-689-8031 for international callers). No passcode is necessary. A telephonic replay will be available through June 4, 2019, by calling 877-481-4010 (919-882-2331 for international callers) and entering the Conference ID #48806. To listen to the webcast, participants should go to the ENSERVCO website at www.enservco.com and link to the Investors page at least 10 minutes early to register and download any necessary audio software. A replay of the webcast will be available for 90 days. The webcast also is available at the following link: https://www.investornetwork.com/event/presentation/48806 About ENSERVCO Through its various operating subsidiaries, ENSERVCO provides a wide range of oilfield services, including hot oiling, acidizing, frac water heating, water transfer and related services. The Company has a broad geographic footprint covering seven major domestic oil and gas basins and serves customers in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Wyoming and West Virginia. Additional information is available at www.enservco.com *Note on non-GAAP Financial Measures This press release and the accompanying tables include a discussion of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP financial measures provided as a complement to the results provided in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"). The term "EBITDA" refers to a financial measure that we define as earnings (net income or loss) plus or minus net interest plus taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA excludes from EBITDA stock-based compensation and, when appropriate, other items that management does not utilize in assessing ENSERVCOs operating performance (as further described in the attached financial schedules). None of these non-GAAP financial measures are recognized terms under GAAP and do not purport to be an alternative to net income as an indicator of operating performance or any other GAAP measure. We have reconciled Adjusted EBITDA to GAAP net income in the Consolidated Statements of Operations table at the end of this release. We intend to continue to provide these non-GAAP financial measures as part of our future earnings discussions and, therefore, the inclusion of these non-GAAP financial measures will provide consistency in our financial reporting. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains information that is "forward-looking" in that it describes events and conditions ENSERVCO reasonably expects to occur in the future. Expectations for the future performance of ENSERVCO are dependent upon a number of factors, and there can be no assurance that ENSERVCO will achieve the results as contemplated herein. Certain statements contained in this release using the terms "may," "expects to," and other terms denoting future possibilities, are forward-looking statements. The accuracy of these statements cannot be guaranteed as they are subject to a variety of risks, which are beyond ENSERVCO's ability to predict, or control and which may cause actual results to differ materially from the projections or estimates contained herein. Among these risks are those set forth in ENSERVCOs annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, and subsequently filed documents with the SEC. Forward looking statements in this news release that are subject to risk include the ability to continue positive revenue and profit trends and momentum; ability to prevent future line freezes; ability to streamline field operations and successfully implement process improvement initiatives and a digital fleet management system; ability to de-lever the balance sheet and pursue M&A initiatives. It is important that each person reviewing this release understand the significant risks attendant to the operations of ENSERVCO. ENSERVCO disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement made herein. Contact: Jay Pfeiffer Pfeiffer High Investor Relations, Inc. Phone: 303-880-9000 Email: jay@pfeifferhigh.com ENSERVCO CORPORATION CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF OPERATIONS (in thousands) For the Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Revenues Well enhancement services $ 24,812 $ 19,285 Water transfer services 1,428 995 Total Revenues 26,240 20,280 Expenses Well enhancement services 15,212 13,091 Water transfer services 2,185 957 Functional support and other 155 145 Selling, general, and administrative expenses 1,618 1,353 Patent litigation and defense costs 9 20 Severance and transition costs - 40 Impairment loss 127 - Depreciation and amortization 1,683 1,499 Total operating expenses 20,989 17,105 Income from Operations 5,251 3,175 Other Expense Interest expense (884 ) (500 ) Other expense (64 ) (421 ) Total other expense (948 ) (921 ) Income from continuing operations before tax benefit 4,303 2,254 Income tax (expense) benefit - - Income from continuing operations $ 4,303 $ 2,254 Discontinued operations Loss from operations of discontinued operations - (213 ) Income tax benefit - - Loss from discontinued operations - (213 ) Net income $ 4,303 $ 2,041 Earnings from continuing operations per common share - basic $ 0.08 $ 0.04 Loss from discontinued operations per common share - basic - - Net income per share - basic $ 0.08 $ 0.04 Earnings from continuing operations per common share - diluted $ 0.08 $ 0.04 Loss from discontinued operations per common share - diluted - - Net income per share - diluted $ 0.08 $ 0.04 Basic weighted average number of common shares outstanding 54,266 51,155 Add: Dilutive shares assuming exercise of options and warrants 951 1,793 Diluted weighted average number of common shares outstanding 55,217 52,948 ENSERVCO CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES Calculation of Adjusted EBITDA * Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Adjusted EBITDA* Net income $ 4,303 $ 2,041 Add Back (Deduct) Interest Expense 884 500 Provision for income tax (benefit) expense - - Depreciation and amortization (including discontinued operations) 1,683 1,589 EBITDA* 6,870 4,130 Add Back Stock-based compensation 92 73 Severance and Transition Costs - 40 Patent Litigation and defense costs 9 20 Impairment loss 127 - Other expense 64 420 EBITDA related to discontinued operations - 124 Adjusted EBITDA* $ 7,162 $ 4,807 Adjusted EBITDA* Margin (Adjusted EBITDA* as a percentage of Revenue) 27.3 % 23.7 % *Note: See below for discussion of the use of non-GAAP financial measurements. Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures: Non-GAAP results are presented only as a supplement to the financial statements and for use within managements discussion and analysis based on U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). The non-GAAP financial information is provided to enhance the reader's understanding of the Companys financial performance, but no non-GAAP measure should be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of the most directly comparable GAAP measures to non-GAAP measures are provided herein. EBITDA is defined as net income (earnings), before interest expense, income taxes, and depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA excludes stock-based compensation from EBITDA and, when appropriate, other items that management does not utilize in assessing the Companys ongoing operating performance as set forth in the next paragraph. None of these non-GAAP financial measures are recognized terms under GAAP and do not purport to be an alternative to net income as an indicator of operating performance or any other GAAP measure. All of the items included in the reconciliation from net income to EBITDA and from EBITDA to Adjusted EBITDA are either (i) non-cash items (e.g., depreciation, amortization of purchased intangibles, stock-based compensation, impairment losses, etc.) or (ii) items that management does not consider to be useful in assessing the Companys ongoing operating performance (e.g., income taxes, gain or losses on sale of equipment, acquisition-related expenses, patent litigation and defense costs, severance and transition costs, impairment losses, other expense (income), EBITDA related to discontinued operations, etc.). In the case of the non-cash items, management believes that investors can better assess the companys operating performance if the measures are presented without such items because, unlike cash expenses, these adjustments do not affect the Companys ability to generate free cash flow or invest in its business. We use, and we believe investors benefit from the presentation of, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA in evaluating our operating performance because it provides us and our investors with an additional tool to compare our operating performance on a consistent basis by removing the impact of certain items that management believes do not directly reflect our core operations. We believe that EBITDA is useful to investors and other external users of our financial statements in evaluating our operating performance because EBITDA is widely used by investors to measure a companys operating performance without regard to items such as interest expense, taxes, and depreciation and amortization, which can vary substantially from company to company depending upon accounting methods and book value of assets, capital structure and the method by which assets were acquired. Additionally, our fixed charge coverage ratio covenant associated with our Loan and Security Agreement with East West Bank require the use of Adjusted EBITDA in specific calculations. Because not all companies use identical calculations, the Companys presentation of non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies. However, these measures can still be useful in evaluating the Companys performance against its peer companies because management believes the measures provide users with valuable insight into key components of GAAP financial disclosures. ENSERVCO CORPORATION Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (In thousands) March 31, December 31, ASSETS 2019 2018 Current Assets Cash and cash equivalents $ - $ 257 Accounts receivable, net 21,390 10,729 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 894 1,081 Inventories 396 514 Income tax receivable, current 85 85 Current assets of discontinued operations 74 864 Total current assets 22,839 13,530 Property and equipment, net 31,709 33,057 Goodwill 546 546 Intangible assets, net 982 1,033 Income taxes receivable, noncurrent 28 28 Right-of-use asset 1,888 - Other assets 563 650 Non-current assets of discontinued operations 22 177 TOTAL ASSETS $ 58,577 $ 49,021 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current Liabilities Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 4,624 $ 3,391 Note Payable 3,800 3,868 Lease liability, current 789 - Current portion of long-term debt 182 149 Current liabilities of discontinued operations - 44 Total current liabilities 9,395 7,452 Long-Term Liabilities Senior revolving credit facility 35,949 33,882 Subordinated debt 1,845 1,832 Long-term debt, less current portion 267 312 Lease liability 1,099 - Other liability 1,025 941 Total long-term liabilities 40,185 36,967 Total liabilities 49,580 44,419 Commitments and Contingencies Stockholders' Equity Preferred stock, $.005 par value, 10,000,000 shares authorized, no shares issued or outstanding - - Common stock. $.005 par value, 100,000,000 shares authorized, 54,334,829 and 54,389,829 shares issued, respectively; 103,600 shares of treasury stock; and 54,231,229 and 54,286,229 shares outstanding, respectively 271 271 Additional paid-in capital 21,889 21,797 Accumulated deficit (13,163 ) (17,466 ) Total stockholders' equity 8,997 4,602 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY $ 58,577 $ 49,021 ENSERVCO CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS For the Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 OPERATING ACTIVITIES Net income $ 4,303 $ 2,041 Net loss from discontinued operations - (213 ) Net income from continuing operations 4,303 2,254 Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities: Depreciation and amortization 1,683 1,499 Impairment loss 127 - Change in fair value of warrants - 434 Stock-based compensation 92 73 Amortization of debt issuance costs and discount 179 38 Provision for bad debt expense - 33 Changes in operating assets and liabilities Accounts receivable (10,661 ) (844 ) Inventories 118 68 Prepaid expense and other current assets 122 (27 ) Other assets 69 (9 ) Accounts payable and accrued liabilities 1,233 333 Other liabilities 84 - Net cash (used in) provided by operating activities - continuing operations (2,651 ) 3,852 Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities - discontinued operations 5 (359 ) Net cash (used in) provided by operating activities (2,646 ) 3,493 INVESTING ACTIVITIES Purchases of property and equipment (311 ) (1,089 ) Proceeds from disposals of property and equipment 155 - Proceeds from insurance claims - 52 Net cash used in investing activities - continuing operations (156 ) (1,037 ) Net cash provided by investing activities - discontinued operations 741 (15 ) Net cash provided by investing activities 585 (1,052 ) FINANCING ACTIVITIES Net line of credit borrowings 2,016 (1,787 ) Repayment of long-term debt (11 ) (17 ) Repayment of note (200 ) - Other financing (1 ) (15 ) Net Cash provided by (used in) financing activities 1,804 (1,819 ) Net (Decrease) Increase in Cash and Cash Equivalents (257 ) 622 Cash and Cash Equivalents, beginning of period 257 391 Cash and Cash Equivalents, end of period $ - $ 1,013 Supplemental Cash Flow Information: Cash paid for interest $ 595 $ 437 Supplemental Disclosure of Non-cash Investing and Financing Activities: Non-cash proceeds from revolving credit facility $ 39 $ 40 TORONTO, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (TSX: GCM; OTCQX: TPRFF) announced today the release of its unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying managements discussion and analysis (MD&A) for the three months ended March 31, 2019. All financial figures contained herein are expressed in U.S. dollars (USD) unless otherwise noted. Serafino Iacono, Executive Chairman of Gran Colombia, commenting on the Companys latest results, said, Our previously reported record quarterly production has translated into some solid first quarter financial results which have started us off well in 2019. New quarterly highs were achieved in revenue and adjusted EBITDA while Segovias quarterly cash costs reached a historical low of $570 per ounce sold. Our cash position at the end of March 2019 was $40.2 million, up $4.6 million since the end of 2018, and we continued to pay down our Gold Notes which currently have $78.5 million aggregate principal amount outstanding. Our 2019 drilling campaign at Segovia is moving along well and will be given the intended boost in the second half of this year with the net proceeds of the private placement of convertible debentures completed in April. Our technical studies at the Marmato Project are gaining momentum and we remain on track to complete a preliminary economic assessment later this year. With another 20,472 ounces of gold produced in April, our second quarter is picking up right where we left off in March. First Quarter 2019 Highlights The Company set a new record in the first quarter of 2019 with total gold production of 60,601 ounces, up 15% over the first quarter of 2018. Buoyed by head grades improving to an average of 18.8 g/t and a 19% year-over-year improvement in tonnes processed, gold production from the Segovia Operations increased to 54,386 ounces in the first quarter of 2019, up 17% over the first quarter last year. With another 20,472 ounces produced in April, the Companys trailing 12-months gold production at the end of April 2019 now stands at 230,283 ounces, above the top end of the Companys total gold production guidance range for 2019 of 210,000 to 225,000 ounces. Buoyed by head grades improving to an average of 18.8 g/t and a 19% year-over-year improvement in tonnes processed, gold production from the Segovia Operations increased to 54,386 ounces in the first quarter of 2019, up 17% over the first quarter last year. With another 20,472 ounces produced in April, the Companys trailing 12-months gold production at the end of April 2019 now stands at 230,283 ounces, above the top end of the Companys total gold production guidance range for 2019 of 210,000 to 225,000 ounces. Revenue reached $77.5 million in the first quarter of 2019, up 20% over the first quarter last year, largely driven by the production growth and a modest improvement in realized gold prices to an average of $1,298 per ounce in the first quarter this year despite a 2% year-over-year decline in spot gold prices. Revenue benefitted in the first quarter of 2019 from lower charges in a new refining contract that the Company entered into in January 2019 with an international refinery, saving $20 per ounce sold compared with its previous arrangement. The Company is also being paid faster under the new refining contract, a benefit to operating cash flow and reducing its credit exposure on trade receivables. reached $77.5 million in the first quarter of 2019, up 20% over the first quarter last year, largely driven by the production growth and a modest improvement in realized gold prices to an average of $1,298 per ounce in the first quarter this year despite a 2% year-over-year decline in spot gold prices. Revenue benefitted in the first quarter of 2019 from lower charges in a new refining contract that the Company entered into in January 2019 with an international refinery, saving $20 per ounce sold compared with its previous arrangement. The Company is also being paid faster under the new refining contract, a benefit to operating cash flow and reducing its credit exposure on trade receivables. Production growth and the increase in head grades were key factors reducing Segovias total cash costs (1) to a historical low of $570 per ounce, bringing the Companys total cash costs per ounce down to $621 per ounce in the first quarter of 2019 from $670 per ounce in the first quarter last year. All-in sustaining costs (AISC) (1) and All-in costs (1) in the first quarter of 2019 were $832 per ounce and $843 per ounce, respectively, both down from $920 per ounce in the first quarter last year. For 2019, the Company continues to expect that its total cash costs and AISC averages for the full year will remain below $720 per ounce and $950 per ounce, respectively. to a historical low of $570 per ounce, bringing the Companys total cash costs per ounce down to $621 per ounce in the first quarter of 2019 from $670 per ounce in the first quarter last year. and in the first quarter of 2019 were $832 per ounce and $843 per ounce, respectively, both down from $920 per ounce in the first quarter last year. For 2019, the Company continues to expect that its total cash costs and AISC averages for the full year will remain below $720 per ounce and $950 per ounce, respectively. The Company reported adjusted EBITDA (1) of $35.3 million for the first quarter of 2019, up 29% over the first quarter last year, bringing the trailing 12-months adjusted EBITDA at the end of March 2019 to a total of $110.2 million, up 8% over 2018, driven by production growth and the reduction in total cash costs per ounce sold. of $35.3 million for the first quarter of 2019, up 29% over the first quarter last year, bringing the trailing 12-months adjusted EBITDA at the end of March 2019 to a total of $110.2 million, up 8% over 2018, driven by production growth and the reduction in total cash costs per ounce sold. Net cash provided by operating activities in the first quarter of 2019 of $19.8 million, up 56% over the first quarter last year, improved the Companys Free Cash Flow (1) in the first quarter of 2019 to $11.3 million compared with $4.5 million in the first quarter last year. in the first quarter of 2019 of $19.8 million, up 56% over the first quarter last year, improved the Companys in the first quarter of 2019 to $11.3 million compared with $4.5 million in the first quarter last year. The Companys balance sheet benefitted from the first quarter of 2019s operating and financial performance, increasing its cash and cash equivalents to $40.2 million at March 31, 2019 from $35.6 million at the end of 2018. As of May 15, 2019, the aggregate principal amount of Gold Notes issued and outstanding has been reduced through two quarterly repayments in 2019 to $78.5 million, down from $88.3 million at the end of 2018. benefitted from the first quarter of 2019s operating and financial performance, increasing its cash and cash equivalents to $40.2 million at March 31, 2019 from $35.6 million at the end of 2018. As of May 15, 2019, the aggregate principal amount of Gold Notes issued and outstanding has been reduced through two quarterly repayments in 2019 to $78.5 million, down from $88.3 million at the end of 2018. On April 4, 2019, the Company closed its bought deal private placement of CA$20.0 million of Convertible Debentures due 2024, adding approximately $13.6 million (after costs and expenses) to its cash position and $14.9 million to its long-term debt. The net proceeds will be used to fund an acceleration of the drilling program at the Segovia Operations over the next two years focused on mineral reserve and resource additions for further production growth and mine life extension. of CA$20.0 million of Convertible Debentures due 2024, adding approximately $13.6 million (after costs and expenses) to its cash position and $14.9 million to its long-term debt. The net proceeds will be used to fund an acceleration of the drilling program at the Segovia Operations over the next two years focused on mineral reserve and resource additions for further production growth and mine life extension. As of May 15, 2019, the total issued and outstanding common shares of the Company is 48.3 million and after inclusion of the 2024 Warrants, the Convertible Debentures and stock options, the Companys fully diluted common shares would total approximately 68.0 million. of the Company is 48.3 million and after inclusion of the 2024 Warrants, the Convertible Debentures and stock options, the Companys fully diluted common shares would total approximately 68.0 million. The Company reported net income for the first quarter of 2019 of $7.9 million, or $0.16 per share, compared with $5.4 million, or $0.25 per share, in the first quarter last year. Adjusted net income (1) for the first quarter of 2019 was $12.9 million, or $0.27 per share, up from $9.8 million, or $0.46 per share, in the first quarter last year. Improved earnings in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the first quarter last year reflected the significant contribution of Segovias operating performance in 2019 on revenues, total cash costs per ounce, adjusted EBITDA and income from operations. for the first quarter of 2019 of $7.9 million, or $0.16 per share, compared with $5.4 million, or $0.25 per share, in the first quarter last year. for the first quarter of 2019 was $12.9 million, or $0.27 per share, up from $9.8 million, or $0.46 per share, in the first quarter last year. Improved earnings in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the first quarter last year reflected the significant contribution of Segovias operating performance in 2019 on revenues, total cash costs per ounce, adjusted EBITDA and income from operations. In April 2019, the Company filed an updated NI 43-101 Technical Report for its Segovia Operations which includes an updated Mineral Resource estimate as of December 31, 2018 with 3.5 million tonnes at a grade of 11.8 g/t totalling 1.3 million ounces of gold in Measured and Indicated Resources, up 7% from the previous year. Inferred Resources increased to 3.6 million tonnes at a grade of 10.1 g/t totalling 1.2 million ounces of gold, up 4% compared to the previous year. The Technical Report also includes an updated Mineral Reserve for Segovia with a total of 1.9 million tonnes at an average grade of 11.0 g/t representing 688,000 proven and probable ounces of gold as of December 31, 2018, up 4% compared to the previous year and replacing what the Company mined in 2018. The Company announced in April 2019 that it had completed its 2018 drilling program at its Marmato Project in mid-March 2019, comprising 24 drill holes totaling approximately 9,460 meters. The 2018 drilling campaign has increased the Companys confidence in the geological model, extending the Deeps Zone to over 700 meters along strike, with an average width of approximately 165 meters and remaining open at depth and to the east. The 2019 infill drilling campaign, totaling 8,000 meters, started in March 2019 and has been designed to further delineate and extend down plunge the higher-grade zone outlined by the 2018 drilling campaign. It also aims to convert the remaining Inferred Resources within the higher-grade block drilled in the 2018 drilling campaign to Indicated Resources. The results from both the 2018 and 2019 drilling campaigns will be used to refine the current deposit model in conjunction with an updated Mineral Resource estimate to be included in preliminary economic assessment (PEA) technical study to be completed later this year. in mid-March 2019, comprising 24 drill holes totaling approximately 9,460 meters. The 2018 drilling campaign has increased the Companys confidence in the geological model, extending the Deeps Zone to over 700 meters along strike, with an average width of approximately 165 meters and remaining open at depth and to the east. The 2019 infill drilling campaign, totaling 8,000 meters, started in March 2019 and has been designed to further delineate and extend down plunge the higher-grade zone outlined by the 2018 drilling campaign. It also aims to convert the remaining Inferred Resources within the higher-grade block drilled in the 2018 drilling campaign to Indicated Resources. The results from both the 2018 and 2019 drilling campaigns will be used to refine the current deposit model in conjunction with an updated Mineral Resource estimate to be included in preliminary economic assessment (PEA) technical study to be completed later this year. In February 2019, the Company increased its equity investment in Sandspring Resources Ltd. to approximately 18% and continues to assist Sandspring as it moves toward a feasibility study for its Toroparu Project in the western Guyana gold district and prepares for the eventual commencement of mining operations at the Chicharron Project located within the Companys mining title at Segovia which it acquired in 2018. to approximately 18% and continues to assist Sandspring as it moves toward a feasibility study for its Toroparu Project in the western Guyana gold district and prepares for the eventual commencement of mining operations at the Chicharron Project located within the Companys mining title at Segovia which it acquired in 2018. In February 2019, the Company also announced it is ready to re-start its mining project in Venezuela as soon as circumstances allow and is currently readying a separate listed special purpose vehicle it intends to use for the purposes of holding, developing and financing its Venezuelan assets and carrying out its Venezuelan investment strategy when the time comes. Selected Financial Information First Quarter 2019 2018 Operating data Gold produced (ounces) 60,601 52,672 Gold sold (ounces) 59,045 49,610 Average realized gold price ($/oz sold) $ 1,298 $ 1,293 Total cash costs ($/oz sold) (1) 621 670 All-in sustaining costs ($/oz sold) (1) 832 920 All-in costs ($/oz sold) (1) 843 920 Financial data ($000s, except per share amounts) Revenue $ 77,455 $ 64,786 Adjusted EBITDA (1) 35,275 27,443 Net income (loss) 7,903 5,352 Per share - basic 0.16 0.25 Per share - diluted 0.16 0.12 Adjusted net income (1) 12,933 9,846 Per share - basic 0.27 0.46 Per share - diluted 0.24 0.12 Net cash provided by operating activities 19,818 12,727 Free cash flow (1) 11,277 4,530 March 31, 2019 December 31, 2018 Balance sheet ($000s): Cash and cash equivalents $ 40,170 $ 35,645 Gold Trust Account (2) 3,372 3,210 Gold Notes, including current portion principal amount outstanding (3) 83,375 88,250 Notes: (1) Refer to Non-IFRS Measures in the Companys MD&A. (2) Represents physical gold deposited by the Company into a trust account to be used to fund the next quarterly amortizing payment of the Gold Notes. At March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, there were 2,600 ounces accumulated in the Gold Trust Account. (3) The Gold Notes are recorded in the Financial Statements at fair value. At March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, the carrying amount of the Gold Notes outstanding was $72.4 million and $74.1 million, respectively. Segovia Operations At the Segovia Operations, gold production in the first quarter of 2019 reached a new quarterly record of 54,386 ounces, up 17% over the first quarter of 2018. The Company processed an average of 1,112 tonnes per day at its Segovia Operations in the first quarter of 2019, up 19% from the first quarter last year, with an average head grade of 18.8 g/t, up from 16.1 g/t in the first quarter of 2018. The key driver was a 36% increase in high-grade material from the company-operated areas at the Providencia mine which contributed 21% of the total tonnes processed in the first quarter of 2019 at an average head grade of 34.8 g/t, up from 25.4 g/t in the first quarter last year. The Companys mine development and mechanization in the Company-operated areas of the El Silencio mine have also helped to increase both the tonnes mined and the average head grades from this mine in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the first quarter last year. With another 18,371 ounces of gold produced in April, this brings Segovias trailing 12-months total gold production at the end of April 2019 to 205,004 ounces, up 6% over 2018s annual production. Segovias total cash costs decreased to a historical low of $570 per ounce in the first quarter of 2019, down from $616 per ounce in the first quarter last year, benefitting from the increased volume of gold production this year that helped to further reduce its fixed production costs on a per ounce basis. Segovias total cash costs per ounce in the first quarter of 2019 also benefitted from the favourable impact of mining higher-grade material in the Company-operated area of the Providencia mine where the incremental production costs associated with the additional gold production attributable to the better grades were much lower. The Companys AISC of $832 per ounce for the first quarter of 2019 included $7.2 million of sustaining capital expenditures attributable to the Segovia Operations, the major components of which included (i) $2.1 million for drilling under the Companys ongoing exploration campaign, (ii) $2.4 million for ongoing mine development, (iii) $1.3 million for the mines including continuation of the ventilation improvements at the El Silencio mine, further infrastructure upgrades at the Providencia mine, and underground equipment and infrastructure improvements at the Sandra K mine, (iv) $0.7 million associated with the expansion of the Maria Dama plant to 1,500 tpd which should be completed in the second quarter this year, together with costs associated with the new filter press, (v) $0.6 million for costs related to the ongoing construction activities at the new El Chocho tailings storage facility, and (vi) $0.1 million associated with the Segovia site facilities. Marmato Operations At the Marmato Operations, gold production in the first quarter of 2019 reflected the impact of some recent development work which increased tonnes processed in March 2019 to 1,090 tpd at an average head grade of 2.5 g/t and raised the quarterly processing rate to an average of 1,015 tpd. This brings Marmatos total production for the first quarter of 2019 to 6,215 ounces, on par with the first quarter of 2018. Aprils gold production amounted to 2,101 ounces, bringing Marmatos trailing 12-months total gold production at the end of April 2019 to 25,279 ounces, on par with 2018s annual production. Total cash costs per ounce averaged $1,128 per ounce in the first quarter of 2019 compared with $1,141 per ounce in the first quarter last year. The Company is continuing its efforts to reduce the mines total cash cost to below an average for the full year below $1,100 per ounce. The Companys AISC of $832 per ounce for the first quarter of 2019 included $0.3 million primarily related to mine infrastructure improvements. The Companys All-in costs of $843 per ounce in the first quarter of 2019 included $0.6 million, equivalent to $11 per ounce sold, of non-sustaining capital expenditures at the Marmato Project in connection with the completion of the 2018 drilling campaign in mid-March and subsequent commencement of the 2019 drilling campaign. The Company remains on track to complete a preliminary economic assessment technical study later this year Outlook Through the first four months of 2019, the Company has produced a total of 81,073 ounces of gold and its trailing 12-months total gold production at the end of April 2019 stands at 230,283 ounces, above the top end of its guidance range for 2019 of 210,000 to 225,000 ounces of gold for the full year. The Company will continue to monitor its operating performance over the next several months to assess whether a change in 2019s production guidance is warranted. The Company has already commenced a 20,000 meters drilling campaign in 2019 at its Segovia Operations focused on step-out drilling at Providencia and Sandra K, deep zone drilling to extend El Silencio another 200 meters below its currently delineated mineral resource, and brownfield drilling on the Cogote vein system. Using the net proceeds from the private placement, the Company will accelerate its ongoing exploration programs at Segovia, including technical and other studies to be carried out over the next approximately six months to identify and prioritize drilling targets followed by a drilling campaign, over and above what is already planned by the Company in 2019 and 2020. The objective of the drilling program is to increase mineral reserves for future production growth and to extend the mine life of the Segovia Operations. The Companys total cash cost in the first quarter of 2019 of $621 per ounce sold was better than expected, benefitting from the record gold production at the Segovia Operations. For the full year, the Company is maintaining its initial guidance that total cash costs will average less than $720 per ounce sold for the full year. The Company also expects that with its planned capital investment program in 2019, including the ongoing exploration activities at Segovia, its AISC for the full year will remain below $950 per ounce. Similar to production, the Company will monitor cost performance over the next several months to assess whether a change in 2019s guidance is warranted. First Quarter 2019 Results Webcast As a reminder, Gran Colombia will host a conference call and webcast on Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss the results. Webcast and call-in details are as follows: Live Event link: https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/uxvva6ge International: 1 (514) 841-2157 North America Toll Free: 1 (866) 215-5508 Colombia Toll Free: 01 800 9 156 924 Conference ID: 48466603 A replay of the webcast will be available at www.grancolombiagold.com from Thursday, May 16, 2019 until Friday, June 14, 2019. About Gran Colombia Gold Corp. Gran Colombia is a Canadian-based mid-tier gold producer with its primary focus in Colombia where it is currently the largest underground gold and silver producer with several mines in operation at its Segovia and Marmato Operations. Gran Colombia is continuing to focus on exploration, expansion and modernization activities at its high-grade Segovia Operations. Additional information on Gran Colombia can be found on its website at www.grancolombiagold.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information", which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to production guidance and anticipated business plans or strategies. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Gran Colombia to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form dated as of March 27, 2019 which is available for view on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and Gran Colombia disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Belleville, Illinois, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allsup, the nations premier disability representation company, will provide disability screenings and information about empower by Allsup at the Lupus Foundation of America-Heartland Chapters Walk to End Lupus Now event on Saturday, May 18, at 8:30 a.m. at Chesterfield Central Park & Amphitheatre in Chesterfield, Missouri. In honor of Lupus Awareness Month, the annual walk brings together individuals living with lupus and their loved ones to rally public support for millions of Americans who are impacted by lupus. Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes inflammation, tissue and organ damage, and can lead to organ failure, disability and death, according to the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA). Many individuals diagnosed with lupus are unable to continue working. Those who cant work for 12 months or longer may be eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits they paid for while employed. This federal disability insurance coverage provides important benefits, including monthly income, access to Medicare, and free assistance and protection when attempting to return to work. Having expert SSDI representation can help individuals with lupus receive Social Security disability benefits sooner, especially if they are approved with their initial application and avoid the appeals process. empower by Allsup is an online tool that helps people with severe disabilities determine their likelihood of being approved for SSDI, and also includes return-to-work assistance for those individuals who may experience medical recovery. Learn about how to apply for disability benefits at Expert.TrueHelp.com. Register or donate online to the May 18 Walk to End Lupus Now hosted by the Lupus Foundation of America-Heartland Chapter. ABOUT LUPUS FOUNDATION OF AMERICA Founded in 1977, the Lupus Foundation of America is the largest force in the fight to cure lupus. LFA focuses on improving the quality of life for individuals impacted by lupus through research, education, support and advocacy. For more information, visit www.lupus.org. The Lupus Foundation of America, Heartland Chapter provides support services to people living with lupus in Missouri, eastern Kansas and southern Illinois. Go to www.lupus.org/heartland to learn more. ABOUT ALLSUP Allsup and its subsidiaries provide nationwide Social Security disability, veterans disability appeal, return to work, exchange plan and Medicare services for individuals, their employers and insurance carriers. Allsup professionals deliver specialized services supporting people with disabilities and seniors so they may lead lives that are as financially secure and as healthy as possible. Founded in 1984, the company is based in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis. Learn more at TrueHelp.com and @Allsup or download a free PDF of Applying for Social Security Disability Insurance: Getting It Right The First Time. . Sydney, Australia and Mountain View, CA, USA, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novigi and WSO2 today announced that they have entered into an agreement in which Novigi is now a WSO2 Value-Added Reseller (VAR). The alliance between WSO2, the leading open source integration vendor, and Novigi, a data and integration specialist and WSO2 Premier Certified Integration Partner, will provide strong integration design, implementation and support solutions to companies across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Novigi has extensive experience in implementing and supporting WSO2 for a range of organizations across Australia with award-winning consulting, data and interoperability techniques that unlock tangible business outcomes. By leveraging the WSO2 Integration Agile Platform, Novigi is able to streamline data flows, optimize processes and enable digital transformationall without replacing legacy systems. The VAR agreement follows the recognition of WSO2 by Forrester Research, Inc. as a Leader in The Forrester WaveTM: API Management Solutions, Q4 2018 report [1] published on October 29, 2018. In its evaluation of WSO2 API Manager, the report1 states, As the only fully open source solution in our Forrester Wave analysis, WSO2 provides good breadth across all evaluation criteria. Particular strengths include formal life-cycle management and non-REST APIs, both of which facilitate mature and disciplined enterprise API strategies. After undertaking extensive research on the available integration platforms, we determined that WSO2s innovative, open source approach to connecting applications and services was the best technology solution for our clients. With a large team of WSO2 specialists, we are able to deliver best-of-class integration solutions to our clients that see them realize true business benefits, said Novigi Co-founder and Managing Partner Ash Priest. Serving as both a WSO2 Premier Certified Integration Partner and VAR is very important as it will allow us to work closely with WSO2 to help other clients realize the benefits of implementing WSO2s platform. Novigi is a valued partner that has been instrumental in growing the community around our WSO2 Integration Agile Platform across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, said WSO2 COO Shevan Goonetilleke. We are thrilled to extend our collaboration with Novigi as a WSO2 Value-Added Reseller. Through this agreement, we will strengthen our collaboration in providing organizations the technologies, services, and processes to realize their digital transformation goals by becoming integration agile. About WSO2 WSO2 is the worlds #1 open source integration vendor, helping digital-driven organizations become integration agile. Customers choose us for our broad integrated platform, approach to open source, and agile transformation methodology. The companys hybrid platform for developing, reusing, running and managing integrations prevents lock-in through open source software that runs on-premises or in the cloud. Today, hundreds of leading brands and thousands of global projects execute 6 trillion transactions annually using WSO2 integration technologies. Visit https://wso2.com to learn more. About Novigi Novigi uses award-winning consulting, data and interoperability techniques to unlock tangible business outcomes for our clients. Their consulting model is based on enterprise architectural principles where strategy is enabled by careful consideration of the interplay between human capability, process engineering, and technology solutions. They work with clients to implement WSO2 to achieve system interoperability across disparate application ecosystems. Novigi's clients benefit through the removal of manual activities, delivery of considerable process efficiency resulting in cost reductions as well as the enablement of digital transformation programs. Novigi is an Australian company with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Colombo, Sri Lanka with a new office opening in Singapore in Q1 2019. Visit www.novigi.com.au for further information. [1] Forrester Research, Inc. The Forrester WaveTM: API Management Solutions, Q4 2018, by Randy Heffner with Christopher Mines, Allison Vizgaitis, and Diane Lynch, October 29, 2018. Trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. As part of his deal with prosecutors, Webb admitted he took a combined $300,000 from Jarigese and other contractors doing business with the city beginning in 2008. Federal guidelines call for Webb to be sentenced to between seven and nine years in prison, but if he testifies truthfully, prosecutors have said theyll recommend that Gettleman give him about 4 years behind bars. HYUNDAI Motor Group will invest 80 million ($A130m) in Croatia-based Rimac Automobili to tap into the advanced electric powertrain technologies developed for its gob-smacking 415km/h hypercar, the C-Two. The South Korean company says it will work with Rimac on an all-electric version of its N-brand mid-engine sportscar concept and a high-performance fuel-cell electric vehicle, both of which it hopes to bring to market at some point. Sister brand Kia is also in on the deal, contributing 16 million ($A26m) towards the group investment, presumably to advance plans for its own high-end EV program. The deal is a big tick for Rimac which was founded just 10 years ago by 21-year-old Mate Rimac in a garage in suburban Zagreb. The company supplies components and expertise for high-end electric powertrains while at the same time developing its own hypercar that is due to go into production in 2020. Shown at last years Geneva motor show, the C-Two is said to be the fastest production electric car in the world, not only topping 400km/h but also slamming from zero to 100km/h in a neck-wrenching 1.85 seconds. The powertrain develops a colossal 2300Nm of torque on top of peak power of 647kW. Driving range is said to 647km, and the battery pack can be charged to 80 per cent on the high-current charger in less than 30 minutes. The project has clearly caught Hyundais attention, which has its own EV development program that has turned out models such as the Ioniq and Kona EVs on the Hyundai side and e-Niro and Soul EVs over at Kia. Hyundai confirmed last year that is working on a halo sportscar for its N brand, possibly based on the RM16 hatchback concept shown in 2016. That car had a 220kW four-cylinder turbo engine and six-speed manual gearbox slotted behind the two seats. It will sit above Hyundai Ns current two offerings, the i30 N and Veloster N. The latest move with Rimac suggests Hyundai is planning both petrol and electric variants of that car, which has been spotted by spy photographers under test camouflage. Announcing the Rimac investment, head of Hyundai Motor Groups product division, Thomas Schemera, said the company wanted to build high-performance vehicles that were not only fast and powerful but also met the highest expectations of customers as the car of their dreams. Our goal is to popularise electric vehicles and to create social value through world-class technology and innovation in performance, he said. Mr Rimac said he had been impressed by Hyundai Motor Groups vision as well as prompt and decisive initiative. We believe this technology partnership will create maximum value for our companies and their customers, he said. Rimac is still young and relatively small but a fast-growing company. We see a strong investor and technology partner in Hyundai Motor Group and believe this collaboration will charge our position as a Tier-1 electrification components supplier to the industry. Hyundai says it is planning to bring 44 eco-friendly vehicles to market by 2025. The Road to Recovery podcast series Shopping can be a form of relaxation, an entertaining way to spend time or even a hobby. But it can turn into an expensive habit. Whether you sometimes give in to a weakness for designer handbags or brand-name shoes, here are three ways to help you manage the urge to spend. Pick the tactic that works best for you: postponing the purchase, making a plan or doing something else instead. 1. PRETEND (OR POSTPONE) If you want to feel like you went shopping without spending any money, do everything you would when you really shop, but stop short of actually buying anything. Browse online, pick out a shirt in your favorite color and even add it to your cart. If you're in-store, go window shopping without your wallet. Then wait. "Have some type of cooling off time period before you commit to purchasing the item," says Ross Steinman, a professor of psychology at Widener University in Pennsylvania. "You should attempt to eliminate consumer decisions in an emotional state. This often leads to impulse buys." That delay period will vary from person to person, but Steinman suggests waiting at least one day. Depending on the purchase, you could wait a week or even a month before deciding whether to buy the item in question. This might be enough to work the urge to buy out of your system. But just in case, eliminate any remaining temptation. "Delete those items so that they are not waiting for you in your shopping cart only one click away to purchase the next time you visit the online retailer," Steinman says. 2. PREPARE But pretending isn't always a reasonable solution. At some point, you will surely need to buy something. And that's OK. It's actually best to still go to stores, rather than avoiding shopping altogether, advises Dr. Kevin Chapman , a licensed clinical psychologist in Kentucky. That is, as long as you're proactive and prepare yourself mentally before you shop. If you "ride the wave" and confront the emotion driving why you want to shop, you can teach yourself self-control, he says. "Ultimately, you're teaching your brain a new association. Meaning I can think of a store like Target or Costco or Ikea and think that it doesn't compel me to shop per se. It's just another store." He compares the strategy to overcoming a fear of elevators. "Say I have an elevator phobia. Well ultimately, at some point, I have to confront an elevator," Chapman says. "But the way you do it is you don't throw someone into an elevator and say, 'sink or swim.'" Instead, you prepare so you know what to expect. As it pertains to shopping, Chapman says to formulate a "game plan." Recognize that you have a tendency to overspend. Create both a budget and a list before you go shopping (in-store or online). Then, hold yourself accountable to that list and feel a sense of confidence that results when you succeed. 3. PONDER As you shop, keep track of your buying behavior so you can identify patterns. Steinman recommends noting things like the cost, time of day and what the item was for, among other details. "It will raise awareness about how much somebody is spending and also identify trigger points," he says. Ask yourself questions about any trends that you notice. Steinman gives examples: Do you mostly make purchases in the late evening? During the day? After you've had coffee and increased your energy level? What about after you receive your paycheck? As you do so, think about your emotions. If you're looking for the high that comes along with shopping, Steinman recommends doing something else in its place that gives you a similar feeling for example, donating your time or resources. And keep in mind that the temporary emotional high that comes with impulsive shopping is just that temporary, according to Chapman. It may be a little easier to give up overshopping if you know the feeling is fleeting. Developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline have agreed to pay a fine of nearly $266,000 for violating environmental regulations in West Virginia. The agreement, outlined in a consent order from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, marks the first financial penalty for problems with storm water runoff caused by building a 303-mile pipeline that will also cross the New River and Roanoke valleys. Photographs included in the 179-page document show a drastic change in streams since work on the buried pipeline began last winter, said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. These are clear-running streams and they have been forever, Rosser said. And you look at the photos now and they are just brown. Mountain Valley faces similar issues in Virginia. A lawsuit filed in December by the Department of Environmental Quality alleges more than 300 violations of erosion and sediment control measures. Online court records indicate the case is still pending. In West Virginia, 26 notices of violation filed from April to November of last year were resolved by the consent order. The agreement, signed May 6 by Robert Cooper, Mountain Valleys senior vice president for engineering and construction, states the company will pay a fine of $265,972 and submit a plan of corrective action to state regulators. A public comment period on the agreement runs through June 20. Most of the violations were the result of unprecedented rainfall throughout the spring and summer of 2018, Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox wrote in an email. MVP appreciates the oversight of the WVDEP and the MVP team will continue to work closely with project inspectors to maintain its high standards of safety and environmental stewardship, the email said. The $4.6 billion project is still scheduled for completion by late this year, Cox wrote. However, at least two members of the five-partner venture have said in recent financial reports that a delay is likely, considering legal challenges that led to suspended permits. Rosser said the fine, which represents well less than 1% of the projects cost, is unlikely to lead to significant change. The concern is that paying the fine is cheaper than doing it right in the first place, she said. Mountain Valley and other pipelines being built in West Virginia have all encountered the same problems, Rosser said, and its becoming apparent that state-approved plans to control erosion are not working. Its a lot of erosion and a lot of sediment that doesnt belong in our streams, she said. Looking at the photos, you just cant deny that these pipelines affect water quality. Critics say the worst pollution will come when crews begin to run the 42-inch diameter pipe through streams and wetlands. Water body crossings have been on hold since October, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers. Mountain Valley hopes to obtain new permits from the Corps later this year. But the project must also get renewed approval to cross through the Jefferson National Forest a process that was complicated by a separate opinion from the 4th Circuit that invalidated a U.S. Forest Service approval for the crossing of the Appalachian Trail by a similar project, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. About two-thirds of the pipeline, which will transport natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica deposits to a pipeline in Pittsylvania County, is in West Virginia, where problems with construction were first documented by state regulators. The consent order from West Virginia documents a variety of improper steps taken by Mountain Valley to control erosion. Sediment-laden water often left the construction sites and made its way into nearby streams and rivers, the order states. Other violations included a failure to clean debris from adjacent public and private roads, a lack of temporary stabilization of areas where construction was dormant for more than 21 days, and no reseeding of denuded areas where vegetation had failed to take root after 30 days. In a written defense to the lawsuit claiming regulation violations in Virginia, lawyers for the company blamed the problems on extraordinary, high-intensity storm events and flooding beyond MVPs control. They also wrote that the company would be willing to settle the Virginia case. A teenager has been charged after a school bus driver was assaulted Tuesday morning, the Danville Police Department reports. Close to the start of school time, Lt. Richard Chivvis said, police officers were advised of a female teenager hitting a bus driver. No weapons were used, and the bus driver was not seriously injured. The student was brought down to juvenile intake and charged with assault, Chivvis said. Chivvis said he did not know the events precipitating the encounter, nor did he know where on the bus route the incident took place. No other students were involved. The teenagers name and age could not be provided. James Whitlow reports for the Danville Register & Bee. Contact him at jwhitlow@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7983. LEXINGTON Excavators plowed through layers of dirt in 2008 to build the new Rockbridge County Courthouse, but that all came to a halt when they found a human skeleton. Construction crews turned off the machines, called the police and brought in a forensics unit. Ideas swirled about who could be buried there. Soon enough, scientists determined she was a Jane Doe between 19 and 23 years old, an African American and had died sometime in the 1800s, earning her the nickname Ancient Jane. Jane was sent to the Radford Universitys physical anthropology lab, where she has remained since her discovery in 2008. Now, a city councilwoman, two university professors and a group of residents have banded together to bring Jane back to Lexington. She will be buried at 3 p.m. Sunday at Evergreen Cemetery, a historically black cemetery almost a mile from where her body rested for more than 100 years. Cliff and Donna Boyd run the forensics and anthropology lab at Radford University. After they excavated the remains and did a search of the surrounding area, they brought Jane back with them to search for more clues about her identity and life. Cliff Boyd said 75% of her skeleton was recovered from the site. Some hand, foot and rib bones were missing. Her skull, part of her face and hip bones had been broken, but he said this damage occurred long after her death and was most likely from soil compacting over time and traffic over her grave. They didnt find any obvious injuries that would have shown how she died, but she did lose some of her adult teeth before her death and had several cavities. Boyd said this isnt unusual for dental health at the time. She had no arthritis in her joints and her collar bones and sacrum had not finished growing, which would put her between 19 and 23 years old. They determined her race and sex from her facial features and bone structure, Boyd said. After the forensics investigation, the Boyds put her in an acid-free box and stored her in their lab. Boyd said they have several donated skeletons, some of them hundreds of years old, that are used for research and teaching students anatomy. He said they had no problem keeping her, and were only recently contacted by the city of Lexington to return the remains. Alison Bell, who teaches anthropology at Washington and Lee University, said it felt wrong knowing the young womans remains were being kept on a shelf. She decided Jane deserved to come home. She asked her colleague Ted DeLaney for help and the two have rallied support in the community for their effort. The city council agreed to donate space in the cemetery and provide the related burial services. A private company donated a grave marker. And dozens of citizens donated money to cover any other costs. Bell and DeLaney also recruited Pat Harris, who runs the universitys information technology department and pursues woodworking as a hobby, to build a coffin. Harris has a large workshop at the bottom of a hill behind his house just outside of Lexington. On Friday, he spent all day creating a period-specific coffin for Jane to be buried in this weekend. He used salvaged white oak from an old mill in Natural Bridge. He started the day stripping and prepping the wood before he cut it to the proper 6-sided, diamond shape. By the end of the day, he nailed the sides together and built a lid that can be sealed once Jane is placed inside. I think of every single thing I make as a calling card, so it has to look nice, Harris said. I was honored they asked me to do this. The whole project the coffin, the grave and the funeral service straddles a line between historical accuracy and a greater respect for history and the dead. No one knows who Jane was and they cant pinpoint exactly when she died. A black woman in Lexington, even before the Civil War, could have been enslaved or free. But no matter what year she lived in that century, she would have faced a great deal of hardship and racism, DeLaney said. The group has chosen to be historically accurate where they can, but have erred on the side of respect in every other area. Its possible, and maybe even likely, that Sundays funeral service will be giving Jane a great deal more honor than she had in life or at her original burial. When the Boyds, who are also anthropology professors, excavated the site, they did not find any wood or nail fragments from a coffin. Boyd said he believes she was most likely buried in a shroud. But on Sunday, Jane will be brought to Evergreen Cemetery in a horse-drawn carriage and placed in an underground vault marked with a gravestone. There has to be some respect for people and for the deceased, DeLaney said. You have someone whos been resting in their grave for 150 years and then shes dug up. Theres some injustice in that. Bell said there are also plans for DNA testing on one of Janes molars to see if she is related to any of the African American families who have a long history in Lexington. She said she doesnt think they will ever be able to identify her, but hopes they can at least find her family. Bell said she was proud the university has taken a role in this project and in the communitys history over the past year. She said much of the city and the universitys wealth was dependent on the labor of African Americans both free and enslaved. She said anyone who lives in the town, or who works at or attends the university, benefits from that system. The least we can do is treat her in a respectful way, Bell said. We should help her get back to her town and her community. Kennedys desperate email to Lundberg that was shown to jurors Wednesday was sent as he became increasingly concerned about their fraud being exposed. At the time he was in Greece, where she was supposed to meet him for a romantic getaway to the island of Santorini. Instead she brought her family and never even came to visit him at his hotel. The world's largest chocolate market is finally getting a taste of the ruby range, the first new type in more than 80 years. Switzerland's Barry Callebaut, the top maker of bulk chocolates, is rolling out its ruby breakthrough in the U.S. almost two years after announcing the discovery. The new type of chocolate, with its pinkish hue, expanded the industry's color palette beyond just dark, milk and white, and was the first new natural shade added since Nestle started making white bars in the 1930s. Ruby has already made a splash in Asia, where Nestle was the first to adopt the invention, adding it to its KitKat bars starting in Japan. Barry Callebaut has also launched the chocolate in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and trials in the U.S. proved successful, said Bas Smit, global vice president of marketing for the Zurich-based firm, the No. 1 cocoa processor. "We know there's a lot of appeal already for quite some time," Smit said in a telephone interview. "The test market we had with some pioneer artists worked out very well, which made us decide now the next move is into the U.S., the biggest chocolate market in the world." Barry Callebaut announced the invention of ruby chocolate in September 2017 after a decade of development. The innovation, based on a special type of cocoa bean that can be found in Ivory Coast, Ecuador and Brazil, has a natural berry flavor that's sour yet sweet. Ruby first hit the consumer market in January 2018, when Nestle debuted its pink KitKat bars in Japan. Tapping the U.S. market could boost Barry Callebaut's sales and help establish ruby as the fourth type of chocolate. The invention is also being officially rolled out in Canada, where Nestle already sells its ruby KitKats. But there are still some hurdles. The Swiss firm will have to wait for approval from the Food and Drug Administration to be able to call it "chocolate." For now, the product will be launched as ruby couverture, with early adopters using names like ruby cacao bar and ruby cacao truffle, Smit said. A similar approval process is needed in Canada, he added. "We filed the application in March 2018," Smit said of the FDA process. "Because there's such a high demand and requests coming from our businesses and brands in the U.S., it feels the right moment to give them the opportunity to unlock ruby chocolate." Another main hurdle the company may face is that Nestle has been the biggest adopter of ruby chocolate for its KitKat bars. But in the U.S., the KitKat brand is made by The Hershey Co. instead. While Barry Callebaut says it won't trademark ruby, the recipe to the world's first naturally-pink chocolate remains a secret. "Trademark is of course different than trade secrets," Smit said. "Even if you know what the ruby bean is about, what the ruby production process is about, you still need to be comfortable enough to commit to volumes of big brands, meaning you need to be able to source enough ruby beans" and that's not an easy task, he said. For years, Reuben Brewer had been reading tragic news reports about police officers and motorists being killed and injured during traffic stops gone awry. The root of the problem, he eventually realized, was fear, the powerful, anticipatory anxiety that can overwhelm a hyper-vigilant officer or cause a motorist to behave in ways that arouse suspicion, leading to a violent encounter. Brewer knew he couldn't take guns from people who shouldn't wield them or single-handedly remove poorly trained police officers from American streets, but he wondered if there was a way to lower the temperature of everyday encounters between jittery police officers and the large numbers of drivers who fear for their lives each time police lights flash in their rearview mirror. After 16 months of research and development, Brewer - a senior robotics researcher at the nonprofit SRI International in Menlo Park, California - has unveiled his solution: a robot that allows police officers to conduct traffic stops without leaving the safety of their vehicle. "The main advantage of a robot over a human is that physical danger no longer matters," Brewer wrote after being reached by email. "The robot is purely defensive, so it can't hurt the motorist. If the motorist damages the robot, it's only money to replace it." "People are more dangerous when they're scared, so the goal is to remove the possibility of being physically hurt so that they're less scared and less dangerous," he added. Police officers make more than 50,000 traffic stops each day, according to The Stanford Open Policing Project, an effort that has tracked more than 200 million stops in recent years and found significant disparities in policing. A survey released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2014 found that black motorists were more likely to be pulled over than white drivers over the previous year. Once stops occur, evidence suggests black drivers are significantly more likely to have their vehicle searched than white drivers. Traffic stops pose real dangers to officers as well. In 2017, the most recent year of available statistics, 5,108 officers were assaulted during traffic stops and pursuits, an average of about 14 officers each day, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting. Philando Castile's death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer in 2016 is perhaps the most high-profile recent example of a police officer killing a motorist who posed no threat. Shot multiple times by Officer Jeronimo Yanez, the 32-year-old's death was streamed on Facebook by his girlfriend. Yanez claimed he thought Castile, who was licensed to carry a firearm, was reaching for his weapon. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, fiercely disputed that claim, but Yanez was acquitted of second-degree manslaughter. So far, in 2019, 323 people have been shot and killed by police, according to a Washington Post database that has tracked deadly police shootings since 2015. Amy Shoemaker, a data scientist involved with the Stanford Open Policing Project, told NBC News that a robot is unlikely to completely solve the complex issues that accompany traffic stops. "If there is a role for this tool, it's to help prevent tragedies like Philando Castile's death," she said, adding that the machine, "doesn't seem like a panacea." When a vehicle is pulled over, the officer dispatches the GoBetween robot, which is attached to a platform on the driver's side of the police car, by extending a rolling aluminum track to the motorist's window. The robot is perched atop the end of the track, which moves forward on a small wheel. At the same time, a spike strip attached to the robot is lowered to the ground and unfolded between the vehicle's front and rear tires, preventing a potential highway chase. When the encounter is over, the entire contraption retracts and the robot returns to the police car. With a highway patrol-like helmet perched atop its "head," the weaponless robot includes two video cameras, a microphone and a speaker that allow the motorist and the officer to speak while looking at one another on a screen. A bar-code scanner allows the machine to input driver license information, a signature pad allows the motorist to sign a ticket, and a printer provides the motorist with a hard copy of the citation. Brewer said future prototypes will include a Passive Alcohol Sensor to "sniff for drunk driving." The robot's senses aren't as sharp as a human officer's, Brewer admits, but he believes the technology can get "pretty close" to approximating a person. Though the robot may reduce the tension that can spiral out of control during a traffic stop, Brewer pointed out his technology cannot remove human bias from interactions between police officers and motorists. "Whatever inequalities there currently are with police cars pulling over minorities more often will still be there once there's a robot on their car," he wrote. " he difference is that those interactions (however unequal they may be) shouldn't result in anyone getting hurt or killed." Brewer said the robot has been shown to four police departments and received mixed reactions. Though some officers embraced the idea, others worried the waterproof robot would be easily broken or give drivers the chance to speed off as the machine is being deployed. Some officers wanted the robot to be able to peer into other parts of the vehicle to check for weapons or alcohol, a technical change that Brewer said he plans to add. Brewer intends to make future prototypes more rugged, but noted that the current robot withstood eight months of driving attached to a platform on the side of his own car without issue. He plans to move the robot to the front of a police vehicle, where it can be stowed inside the "bull bar," a standard steel barrier on many police vehicles. Brewer said the next step is testing the machine during real life traffic stops to see how officers -- and the people they pull over -- respond. "I'd love to have a police department test my prototype during actual traffic stops so that we can learn what its real-life limitations are," he added. "It's ready to go, just need a willing partner to test it out!" With its budget crises, underfunded pensions and sometimes-earned reputation for public corruption, it's not surprising that New Jersey doesn't usually come to mind as a modern exemplar for excellence in public administration. Sometimes I'm nostalgic for the early 1980s when, In a tourism promotion ad, then-Gov. Tom Kean declared, "New Jersey and you, perfect together" in his patrician cadence as he walked along a pristine beach.People began to believe it, and there were things to feel good about then (I served as state treasurer from 1986 to 1990, and we had a AAA bond rating and well-funded public pension funds). And as beleaguered as the state's government may seem to some now, a recent report from the state's Administrative Office of the Courts is cause for the acknowledgement of New Jersey's capacity for innovation and its commitment to independent evaluation of untested, controversial policy change.In 2014, then-Gov. Chris Christie signed criminal justice reform legislation that eliminated mandatory cash bail and established a pre-trial monitoring program. Two and a half years of planning and then two years of careful implementation have dramatically reduced pre-trial jail detention with no adverse effects on public safety or subsequent appearances in court, according to the study, which was conducted by a research collaborative that included researchers from the University of Chicago and Luminosity Inc.Now, on any given day an estimated 6,000 individuals who have been accused of a crime are not in jail but are permitted to continue the conduct of their lives as they prepare for trial: working, being with their families, and receiving physical and behavioral health treatment.The change in policy was fueled by a 2013 jail population analysis that showed that many nonviolent defendants - more than 1,500 on a given day -- were in custody for no other reason than they were unable to make $2,500, or in some cases as little as $500, in cash bail. The racial disparities were stark. Black defendants had longer stays awaiting trial or bail, and were disproportionately represented in jail populations. And the inability to make bail prompted many defendants to plead guilty in order to return to their community as fast as possible, thus affecting their employability and reputation. This analysis provided the evidence on which to build bipartisan agreement for passage of the reform law.From a public-management perspective, the care with which the New Jersey court system has built the new system is noteworthy. Retaining ultimate judicial discretion, a risk-assessment tool was developed and tested using "objective, race- and gender-neutral risk factors" to assign each individual a score predicting the likelihood of re-offense and failure to appear. Subsequent evaluations found high correlation of the risk score with post-release behavior.Also recognized was that increased staffing and post-release services were required to maintain rigor on the community side of the program. The pre-trial services program was established to move defendants through expedited risk assessment and a decision on whether they could be released, as well as oversight through periodic check-ins, electronic monitoring and drug testing.The challenges facing New Jersey's reform program are ones that will not surprise students of public administration. The comprehensive system put in place in 2017 committed to significant staffing support for pre-trial services, and an increase to court filing fees was dedicated to that purpose. But the Administrative Office of the Courts' report starkly admits that despite tight management, the program has a structural deficit and will face a negative funding balance in 2020.This problem illustrates the classic challenge of public budgeting: Downstream savings from early expenditures (in this case for drug testing, electronic monitoring and increased staffing) are not easily "harvested" to pay for those front-end investments. How New Jersey resolves this will be a test of its commitment to what will be no doubt be watched carefully as a national model.The second challenge is a more fundamental one. While racial disparities in incarceration have been reduced, criminal-justice officials acknowledge they remain. Now that a strong research foundation has answered questions of public safety and effects on recidivism, testing of root causes should now be possible. This will require willingness to examine not only judicial risk-assessment patterns but also the role of race in previous criminal-offense history. For those not granted pre-trial release due to a higher risk score, how many were disadvantaged by prior experience in the criminal justice system that carried implicit bias?So plenty of difficult questions remain to be answered. But if New Jersey's record thus far in this pioneering reform is any indication, it will continue to provide evidence-based tools for the criminal justice system nationwide. Governments around the nation are working to design the best vaccine policies that keep both their employees and their residents safe. Although the latest data shows a variety of polarizing perspectives, there are clear emerging best practices that leading governments are following to put trust first: creating policies that are flexible and provide a range of options, and being in tune with the needs and sentiments of their employees so that they are able to be dynamic and accommodate the rapidly changing situation. The report, conducted over a six-week period, identified key areas that hindered intact family services. Officials with organizations that provide the services told researchers that they felt pressure to keep kids with their parents, found it difficult to decline a case that was too severe and had limited options when families did not cooperate. The report also offered nine recommendations, some of which can be implemented immediately while others will take time to develop. Among the suggestions, the report said DCFS should improve supervision of the program, work with courts and prosecutors to better establish criteria for taking custody of a child and clarifying the roles and expectations for caseworkers. Georgia Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck was accused Tuesday by a federal grand jury of stealing more than $2 million from his former employer.The 38-count indictment charges Beck, an ex-insurance lobbyist and long-time leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition, with fraud and money laundering in an elaborate scheme to defraud the Georgia Underwriting Association. With the stolen cash, the Republican allegedly paid his credit card bills and taxes -- and even funded the 2018 campaign that landed him in office.Beck's, whose lawyers said he denies the charges, is expected to surrender to U.S. Marshals on Wednesday in downtown Atlanta, said U.S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak.Pak said the crimes took place between February 2013 and August 2018, when he left the Georgia Underwriting Association in the middle of the campaign for insurance commissioner. The prosecutor said the allegations don't relate to Beck's current job."However," Pak went on, "holding a powerful position does not shield you from the (consequences) of your past criminal activity."Beck, 57, is being represented by William "Bill" Thomas, a former federal prosecutor, and Douglas Chalmers, who has defended several GOP politicians in ethics cases. "We intend to mount a vigorous defense," Thomas said. "Jim looks forward to continuing his work as Insurance Commissioner protecting Georgia consumers."At the time of the alleged crimes, Beck was the general manager of operations for Georgia Underwriting Association, a state-created marketplace based in Suwanee that provides high-risk property insurance to Georgia homeowners having trouble obtaining coverage.He allegedly encouraged friends and associates to start four separate companies and send invoices to the Georgia Underwriting Association for various services. Some of the invoices were for work that was never done, prosecutors believe.Beck funneled money to himself through two Carrolton-based companies he controlled, the Georgia Christian Coalition and Creative Consultants, the indictment alleges.It isn't clear if the friends, who are identified in the indictment only by initials, knew the invoices could've been improper. Pak declined to say whether more indictments could come.Atlanta FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hacker said Beck "abused the trust of friends and his employer in an elaborate scheme to enrich himself."Thomas insisted Beck "acted legally and in good faith" in his position at the Georgia Underwriting Association. "Under his leadership, for the first time in its history, GUA made millions of dollars of profits," Thomas added.As the state's insurance and fire safety commissioner, Beck regulates insurance companies, oversees the small loan industry and also acts as the state's top fire marshal.Under state law, if Beck doesn't resign or ask to be suspended, the governor can act after a 14-day waiting period if he determines the charges relate to the performance of his duties as commissioner. The governor would appoint a three-person commission to look into the charges. If they believe the charges relate to his duties, the governor must suspend the official and name a temporary replacement.Gov. Brian Kemp didn't immediately comment Tuesday on what he'll do.The Democratic Party of Georgia called on Beck to resign immediately."As Insurance Commissioner, he should be protecting the people of Georgia from corruption and fraud, but instead he has shown that he is exactly who they should fear," said Chairwoman Nikema Williams.Jerome Guiney, chairman of the Georgia Underwriting Association, said the group is a victim and is cooperating fully with the investigation.Beck, a Carrollton native, began his career in state politics in the mid-1990s as press secretary to then-Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard, a Democrat. He served as longtime head of the Georgia Christian Coalition, lobbying the General Assembly on issues including Sunday alcohol sales at grocery and liquor stores, which the coalition opposed.He also worked on and off for previous insurance commissioners John Oxendine and Ralph Hudgens, serving for a time as the latter's chief of staff.Beck largely self-bankrolled his GOP primary campaign for insurance commissioner last year, outspending all opposition and winning an overwhelming victory in the May primary. Pak said Beck used "thousands and thousands of dollars" stolen from the Georgia Underwriters Association for the campaign.Media reports at the time noted that Beck had held full-time state and private-sector jobs at once. He was also dogged by rumors of an imminent indictment.But after Beck won the primary, Oxendine held a fundraiser for him and people in the insurance industry -- who had backed a GOP opponent -- started writing checks to Beck's campaign. He won a relatively close victory over a Democratic insurance agent in November.Beck has spent much of his four months in office working to improve consumer transparency, adding features to the agency's web site, including data on complaints filed against insurance companies.Georgia's last three insurance commissioners:John Oxendine: From 1995 to 2011. Has been battling ethics complaints since he unsuccessfully sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2010. The complaints stemmed from campaign donations he received from two insurance companies. More recently, in 2017, another ethics complaint was filed alleging that he illegally benefited personally from $237,000 in leftover campaign money his campaign loaned his law firm. Cases are still pending before the state ethics commission.Ralph Hudgens: 2011-2019. A frequent and vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act, he announced he would not seek a third term after the AJC reported he had overspent his agency's budget and had to lay off staffers. The AJC reported in 2015 and again in 2017 that car insurance premiums were rising faster in Georgia than almost anywhere else in the U.S. under Hudgens.Jim Beck: 2019 -- present. Longtime head of the Georgia Christian Coalition and an insurance executive who worked for former commissioners Oxendine and Hudgens. Charged in a 38-count-indictment alleging he committed fraud through a series of insurance-related schemes. Alabama lawmakers aiming to challenge abortion rights nationally are one step from their goal of putting an almost total ban on the procedure into state law.The Senate tonight voted 25-6 to pass a bill to make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. The bill is a priority for the Legislature's Republican majority. Tonight's vote sends it to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who could sign it into law.Lori Jhons, Ivey's deputy press secretary, said in an email tonight that Ivey would not comment on the bill until she's had a chance to thoroughly review it.The bill passed exactly as it was introduced by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, about six weeks ago. It includes only one exception -- to allow abortions in cases of a serious health risk to the woman. The goal is to trigger a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade."I would say that we're all very pleased to have this done," Collins said at a press conference after the vote. "We're excited about the possibilities that it could mean. It's been difficult at times, and then at times it's been really good. I felt really good about it all the way through."Under the bill, a woman receiving an abortion would not be criminally liable. The doctor would be charged with a Class A felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison.The bill passed the Senate on party lines after four and a half hours of debate, with all the Republicans who were present voting for it. No Democrats voted for the bill.With Republicans holding 27 of 35 Senate seats, passage of the bill was not in doubt. A key question was whether the Senate would add an amendment to allow abortions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, who handled the bill in the Senate, urged his colleagues to reject the amendment, saying that all unborn children deserve protection.Four Republicans sided with the Democrats in voting for the rape and incest exception, but it failed 21-11.Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, who proposed the rape and incest amendment, said it was disgraceful to leave out the exception."You just raped every woman who's been raped by a man," Singleton said, his voice rising with emotion. "You just raped her all over again."Singleton said three rape victims were in the Senate gallery as his guests and talked about the hardships they went through."This is just a shame, this is a disgrace, this is a travesty," he said.Collins said her goal was to pass the bill in a form she thought would serve as the strongest challenge to Roe v. Wade. She said states could later decide what exceptions to allow if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. She said she would support a rape and incest exception if that happens."I've answered many emails from people who have poured out their hearts with real stories that were true," Collins said. "My goal with this bill is not to hurt them in any way. My goal with this bill, and I think all of our goal, is to have Roe vs. Wade turned over, and that decision be sent back to the states so that we can come up with our laws that address and include amendments and things that address those issues."About an hour after Republican senators voted down the rape and incest amendment, they voted to cut off the debate and force a vote on the bill.Chambliss, asked about the legal costs the state would incur if the bill becomes law and is challenged in court, as the sponsors intend, said it would be money well spent."Life is a gift of our creator and we must do everything that we can to protect life," Chambliss said. "And if it is a couple of million dollars, that is a small, small price for those lives."Voting for the bill were Republican Sens. Greg Albritton of Atmore; Gerald Allen of Tuscaloosa; Will Barfoot of Montgomery; Tom Butler of Madison; Chambliss; Donnie Chesteen of Geneva; Chris Elliott of Fairhope; Sam Givhan of Huntsville; Garlan Gudger of Cullman; Andrew Jones of Centre; Steve Livingston of Trussville; Del Marsh of Anniston; Jim McClendon of Springville; Tim Melson of Florence; Arthur Orr of Decatur; Randy Price of Opelika; Greg Reed of Jasper; Dan Roberts of Birmingham; Clay Scofield of Guntersville; David Sessions of Mobile; Shay Shelnutt of Trussville; Larry Stutts of Sheffield; Jabo Waggoner of Vestavia Hills; Cam Ward of Alabaster; and Jack Williams of Wilmer.Voting against the bill were Democratic Sens. Billy Beasley of Clayton; David Burkette of Montgomery; Linda Coleman-Madison of Birmingham; Vivian Figures of Mobile; Singleton; and Rodger Smitherman of Birmingham. Malika Sanders-Fortier, D-Selma, abstained. SPEED READ: Of the 33 states where medical marijuana is legal, 14 protect patients from employment discrimination. Recent court rulings signal a potential shift in favor of employees. Even where employment protections exist, they have limitations. In most states, you can use medical marijuana without getting arrested -- but it could still get you fired.While 33 states have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes, fewer than half of them protect patients from being fired or rejected for a job because of a positive cannabis test or simply because they're registered on a medical marijuana database. This legal haziness has sparked lawsuits across the country.Courts have generally sided with employers, says Peter Meyers, a law professor at George Washington University. This was the case in 2006 in Oregon and in 2009 in Montana. More recently, however, judges have shifted their verdicts in favor of employees.In New Jersey last month, an appeals court ruled that medical marijuana use is covered under the state's ban on disability-based employment discrimination. This case follows similar rulings in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. As more states legalize the drug treatment, the battle will continue in the workplace.The big problem is [marijuana] remains illegal federally except for narrow exceptions, says Meyers, who has written about the constitutionality of drug testing. Theres this conflict, and a lot of the court rulings have deferred to federal law. Its a very confusing situation.The legal contradiction has left a lot of employers, and employees, uncertain about what rules to follow.Bipartisan legislation to protect medical marijuana patients from employment discrimination has been introduced in Congress, but it only applies to federal workers and has yet to gain traction. With the federal government unlikely to change its marijuana policy any time soon, states are left to make their own rules. In 14 of them, medical marijuana patients have explicit employment protections either through legislation or court rulings, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.That leaves 19 states where people may have to choose between this treatment option and a job. One of them is California, which was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, in 1996, but doesn't have explicit workplace protections. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that an employer could reject a job candidate with a positive cannabis test -- even if they had a prescription. Bills seeking to override that decision have been tossed around without success.Even where employment protections exist, they have limitations.Arkansas law, for example, says an employer can't discriminate based on a persons past or present status as a marijuana patient. But companies can still ban employees from taking it at work.In Oklahoma, employers can't penalize employees or applicants for a positive drug test -- unless failing to penalize someone would cause the employer to imminently lose a monetary- or licensing-related benefit under federal law or regulation.While many states have retroactively added employment, housing and college enrollment protectionsfor medical marijuana patients, states with newer legalization laws often include these provisions in the initial bill.Without state laws to dictate otherwise, many landlords defer to the federal classification of marijuana as an illegal substance, creating conflict for some tenants.Despite the wave of rulings in favor of patients, lawmakers continue to haggle over the details in some areas. South Carolina lawmakers considered a bill this year to legalize medical marijuana and protect patients from discrimination. The vote was pushed to next year.Medical marijuana can be used to treat a host of health issues. Qualifying conditions, which range by state, include cancer, anxiety, opioid addiction and autism. Ohio is currently considering whether to become the first state to add depression and insomnia to the list. Despite the widespread legalization of medical cannabis, there are a number of reasons employers pause when it comes to having people who use it on their staff. Some aren't fully aware of their state's protections, and others might fear losing out on federal funding. A lot of people are concerned about whether marijuana users will be less productive [at] work or if there will be more workplace accidents, says Karen OKeefe, state policies director for the Marijuana Policy Project.But unlike many other drugs, THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, can be detected for 30 days or longer after use, so workplace drug tests don't necessarily portray a persons current level of impairment. As medical marijuana becomes less taboo, more employers will likely change their drug policies. Already, fewer employers -- particularly those facing staff shortages -- are requesting preemployment tests for marijuana.I think employers are starting to realize that the fact a person uses marijuana at night shouldn't be any more disqualifying than if a person drinks beer at night, says O'Keefe. Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno was taken into Chicago police custody Tuesday night on an arrest warrant, police confirmed.The warrant was issued for a possible false police report made by Moreno earlier this year, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Tuesday. Police had been investigating for months whether Moreno lied to authorities in January when he reported his car stolen.Moreno, 1st, reported to police Jan. 4 that he returned home from a trip to find that the vehicle, a leased black 2016 Audi A6 sedan, was missing from his Wicker Park property and that no one else had access to the vehicle, police said.Police located the car in February when they saw a woman driving it and initially charged her with misdemeanor trespass to a motor vehicle, authorities confirmed.But the woman, Liliya Hrabar, told the Tribune that Moreno -- whom she said she dates on and off -- let her use the car.Cook County prosecutors dropped the charge against Hrabar, the state's attorney's office confirmed, and police opened an investigation into the possibility of a false report.Moreno lost his bid for re-election to newcomer Daniel La Spata. His term is slated to end May 20. 'A Little Unprecedented' Recalls in California and Nevada A Tool for Either Party Recall campaigns against state legislators used to be rare . Theyve not only become more common, they're now more often driven by partisan politics than accusations of high crimes or misdemeanors.On Sunday, Colorado Democratic state Rep. Rochelle Galindo stepped down in the face of a recall effort. On Monday, Colorados secretary of state approved a petition to collect signatures for a recall election against Tom Sullivan, another Democratic state representative. As many as 10 other Democratic legislators in the state are being targeted for recalls. Gov. Jared Polis may face a recall as well.Its all clearly a strategy to undo elections, says KC Becker, the Democratic speaker of the Colorado House. I think it is a partisan power play.The fights in Colorado follow recent recall efforts in California and Nevada that aimed to change the partisan balance of power.Its very clearly an attempt to flip a chamber, says Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at Wagner College who runs a blog that tracks recalls . People are trying to use the recalls to reverse the partys slide in any one government.Top Republican Party officials in Colorado are backing the efforts, aiming to undo or weaken Democrats' total control of the state. Last November, Democrats took over the state Senate and expanded their majority in the state House, while Polis was elected to replace the more moderate Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.We need to teach them how to spell R-E-C-A-L-L, said Colorado Republican Party Chair Ken Buck during his acceptance speech in March.Turnout for recalls, as with other special elections, is generally much lower than for regularly scheduled races.Its an attempt to short-circuit the process, to try to skirt a process where people were duly elected and are doing exactly what they said they were going to do," Becker says. "Its a recipe for dysfunction at the capitol.Colorado Republicans complain that Democrats have dragged the state too far to the left. This year, Polis has signed bills to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry tighten gun control and circumvent the Electoral College by joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Before resigning, Galindo faced two separate recall efforts. One claimed to have more than $300,000 in pledges and donations from a wealthy landowner and from oil and gas interests. She also faces a criminal investigation into unspecified sexual misconduct allegations , which emerged after the recall campaigns were launched.The allegations against me are false, Galindo wrote in a statement. That said, they will make my fight against the pending recall effort untenable.Because Galindo stepped down, Democratic Party officials will be able to select a replacement. Thats an option for any Colorado official who faces a recall effort.In Sullivans case, he was the lead sponsor of the states new red flag law, which will allow courts to remove firearms from the possession of people deemed a threat to themselves or others. Sullivans son Alex was murdered in the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting. He has since become a prominent gun control advocate and made the issue the centerpiece of his campaign last year.Rep. Tom Sullivan needs to be recalled because, like the rest of the Democrats in the legislature this session, he did not represent the families of Colorado, Kristi Burton Brown, the vice chair of the state GOP, told Colorado Public Radio If Sullivan is successfully recalled, it wouldn't be the first time that gun policy ended a Colorado lawmaker's career. In 2013, three of the state's senators faced recall elections over a gun control law enacted that year. One decided to resign, while the other two -- including John Morse, then the Senate president -- lost their recall races.Back then, the recalls were more home-grown affairs, driven by unhappy constituents. The state Republican Party and the National Rifle Association didnt get behind the recalls until they made the ballot. But in Sullivans case, it was Brown -- the second-ranking official in the state's GOP -- who filed the recall petition with the secretary of state.There does seem to be more of a coordinated effort, Spivak says. Were seeing much more coordination between state parties and the recall backers.Last month, Brett Engen, a consultant who works with the Colorado GOP, conducted a training session on how to pursue recalls.The fact that Republicans held an actual training on how to recall people is a little unprecedented, says Ianthe Metzger, deputy director of campaign communication for EMILYs List, a political action committee that backs Democratic women who support abortion rights. It shows that this is just another means for them to get what they want when theyre losing power.In 2017, Nevada Republicans launched recall attempts against three sitting senators -- two Democrats and an independent who caucused with Democrats. Had the recalls against all three been successful, it would have tipped control of the state Senate into GOP hands.After witnessing the most pro-felon, anti-jobs agenda in state history pushed by Senate Democrats, I believe all 11 current members of the Senate Democratic Caucus should be forced to stand for recall elections, Michael Roberson , then the Republican leader in the Nevada Senate, wrote in an op-ed.But the recall efforts failed. Backers didn't collect enough valid signatures to force elections.Last month, the Democratic-controlled state Senate passed a bill that would make future recalls more difficult. The bill would require county clerks to verify every signature on recall petitions, rather than using statistical samples. (An initial sample of two of the 2017 petitions indicated enough signatures had been collected.) It would also make it easier for people to remove their signatures from petitions and make it a felony for collectors to knowingly or negligently obtain false signatures.In California, state Sen. Josh Newman was recalled last year, temporarily costing Democrats their supermajority in the chamber. Newman had voted for a gas-tax increase but was selected as a recall target because his narrow election in 2016 made him the weak gazelle who could most easily be picked off, said Carl DeMaio, a former member of the San Diego City Council and the lead engineer of the recall.In February, DeMaio released a list of a dozen Democratic legislators he intended to target, again in hopes of depriving Democrats of the two-thirds supermajorities needed to raise taxes.Democrats have also sought to recall Republican legislators en masse.In Wisconsin, in the wake of fights over union restrictions, Democrats in 2011 and 2012 launched recalls against a total of 10 Republican state senators. (Four Democratic senators also faced recalls.)All told, four Republican senators resigned or were removed, giving Democrats control of the chamber. Their victory, however, was symbolic and short-lived since the Senate had already adjourned by the time of the 2012 recall elections.In 2012, Democrats failed in their high-profile attempt to recall Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker. (He lost his bid for a third term last November.) The recall actually boosted Walkers national profile, expanding his fundraising base and helping him lay the groundwork for his ultimately unsuccessful presidential run.Walkers victory, coupled with the successful recall of California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, may help explain why Republicans seem to be more inclined to attempt recalls, suggests Spivak, the Wagner College senior fellow.Theyve had some success, and they also didnt have the defeats that Democrats have had, he says.At least out West, Republicans are now using the recall as a tool to seek better results than theyve achieved during the regular campaign season. Thats the reason Republican Brian Sandoval, the governor of Nevada who was term-limited out of office this January, opposed the recall attempts in his state, telling the Nevada Independent in 2017 that the effort could set a "dangerous precedent.""It's never happened before, but it probably will likely become another typical arrow in the quiver for both parties," Sandoval said. "I hope it doesn't, but again, if it's successful, and the voters do recall these individuals, I can't see why all of them wouldn't use it going forward." Gov. Chris Sununu confirmed he'll pass on a U.S. Senate campaign in 2020 and run for reelection to a third term as governor.Sununu, a 44-year-old Newfields Republican, made the announcement Tuesday night on social media after he and his wife had discussed his future."Over the past few weeks, Valerie and I have taken a deep look at how my path of public service can best help New Hampshire families. Nothing is more critical to our state's future than ensuring strong leadership in the corner office and saving our New Hampshire Advantage," Sununu said."We are getting the job done ... more people are working today in New Hampshire than at any time in history. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation and wages are at an all time high."Sununu thanked those who encouraged him to challenge Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, who is seeking her own third term next year."We all know that I would defeat Jeanne Shaheen, but others can too," Sununu said. "Never before has a sitting twelve-year senator from New Hampshire accomplished so little."Shaheen first won the Senate seat in 2008 defeating Sununu's older brother, incumbent Sen. John E. Sununu, who had defeated then Gov. Shaheen for the Senate seat in 2002.Former Democratic Party Chairman Kathy Sullivan of Manchester said Gov. Sununu knew he would have been outmatched against Shaheen."Translation: Chris Sununu knew he would lose. Why else would he be so churlish?" Sullivan tweeted.Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley said in any event New Hampshire voters will retire Sununu next year."While we regret missing the opportunity to retire Chris Sununu in a campaign for U.S. Senate, we look forward to replacing him as governor in 2020, along with his mentor, Donald Trump," Buckley said in a statement."After four years of enriching himself and leaving New Hampshire families in the dust, Chris Sununu will face a successful and strong challenger."Republican Governors Association Deputy Communications Director John Burke noted Sununu is among the most popular governors in the country according to recent independent surveys."@ChrisSununu is one of the best governors in America, New Hampshire is a better place because of his leadership!" Burke posted on Twitter.Several less well-known Republicans are considering a Senate bid next year including former N.H. House Speaker Bill O'Brien of Nashua, Portsmouth businessman Jay Lucas, retired, Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc of Stratham and Seacoast lawyer Corey Bryant Messner.National GOP leaders had urged Sununu to make up his mind as soon as possible so that others who wanted to challenge Shaheen would have enough time to raise enough money and political support to compete against the state's senior senator, who also served as governor for three terms.Sununu said it's essential the GOP holds onto the governor's seat, especially since the Democrats took over both houses of the Legislature last November.He again lashed out at Democratic legislative leaders for sending him the mandatory family and medical leave bill he vetoed last week that would be financed by a payroll tax hike."What is also clear is that the (Democrats') agenda in New Hampshire has become more radical than any of us ever believed possible," Sununu said."This is highlighted by the fact that the Democrats in Concord, for the first time in history, put an income tax bill on the Governor's desk. We stood up for New Hampshire citizens and vetoed that bill, but more Washington, DC extremism is on its way and I hope you will continue to stand with me."For the past several months, Sununu has been working behind the scenes to recruit GOP candidates to run for legislative seats in hopes of taking back control of the Legislature in 2020.Polls had showed a Shaheen-Sununu race would have been competitive, though Shaheen raised a record $1.4 million in the first three months of 2019.Several Democrats have not ruled out running for governor themselves next year, including 2018 nominee Molly Kelly of Harrisville, Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes, D-Concord, and Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, D-Concord."Chris Sununu was true to form tonight showing his pettiness and lack of vision. Unfortunately, this means that Granite Staters who worry about health care, or the quality of their schools or the burden of their property taxes will get nothing from him," Volinsky said in a statement."He doesn't understand that leadership is based on innovation, competence and hard work. We can do better." 'No purpose' Georgia's Republican-controlled legislature created the Immigration Enforcement Review Board eight years ago to hold local and state officials accountable, complaining the federal government had failed to secure the nation's borders.Now the state is disbanding the panel, even as President Donald Trump is declaring a national emergency on the southwest border, amid complaints from both civil rights groups and anti-illegal immigration advocates who united to call for it to be dissolved.So unpopular was the program that Georgia lawmakers unanimously voted on a measure earlier this year to dissolve it and Gov. Brian Kemp, who campaigned on a promise to round up illegal immigrants in his pickup truck, signed it into law without a public statement.The panel's failures highlight the challenge for state Republicans who call for stricter enforcement of federal immigration rules. Kemp, in particular, has said he will keep his promise to target illegal immigration, but has not outlined precisely how he will do so.The Immigration Enforcement Review Board was empowered to probe complaints from the public about violations of immigration-related state laws. Its members, appointed by Georgia's top politicians, could issue subpoenas, place witnesses under oath and administer fines.In practice, though, the panel became a political tool for office-seekers and a hotbed of infighting that was little used by citizens. Of the 20 complaints the board received in its first six years, all but one came from D.A. King, the well-known anti-illegal immigration activist.Even King wasn't sorry to see the board shut down. In an interview, he said the panel "refused to obey its own rules" by dismissing his complaints without allowing him a chance to present his arguments."It was a parody of a kangaroo court that had corrupt leadership," he said, "and I'm thrilled to see it go."In a rare display of agreement, immigrant rights advocates agreed with his assessment. Azadeh Shahshahani of Project South, which provides legal support for unauthorized immigrants, called the demise of the board a "significant victory.""Their mere existence scared localities with scarce resources from taking steps to be welcoming toward immigrant communities," she said. "This development is the result of years of work by communities to expose the problems with this body as well as brave localities, specifically the city of Decatur, standing up and fighting back."The board's most recent chairman, James Balli, could not immediately be reached Monday. Former Republican state Rep. Matt Ramsey, who sponsored the legislation that created the board, declined to comment.The board was included in a wide-ranging illegal immigration crackdown passed in 2011 that imposed new requirements on many businesses to ensure new hires are eligible to work in the U.S. and gave police officers authority to investigate the immigration status of some suspects.The seven-member panel was designed to investigate complaints about local and state government officials not enforcing state immigration-related laws. But it received few complaints over the years, and rarely imposed fines.Its demise was hastened last year by then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a candidate for governor who filed a complaint shortly before the GOP primary alleging that the city of Decatur was creating sanctuaries for criminals.The city's officials accused Cagle of trying to use the board to pander to conservatives with a baseless claim, noting that the Republican quickly invoked his fight against the liberal bastion of Decatur in digital ads and stump speeches.Cagle failed to show up at a hearing on the complaint, and at another meeting weeks later, a board member challenged a Decatur attorney to "talk to me out in the hall" in a bizarre and testy confrontation.The city got the last word by filing a lawsuit alleging the board was violating the state's transparency laws. The board ultimately settled with the city, agreeing to make its proceedings more public and pay Decatur $12,000 in attorney fees and other costs.The fallout left the board without its chairman and a longtime board member, who both resigned after Decatur's attorney questioned whether they had overstayed their term in office."The board ran its course. Having a single person file 95% of the complaints the board received shows it just wasn't set up right from the start," said Shawn Hanley, a former chair of the panel. "It was probably the right time to disband the board and find better ways to help Georgia cities and counties with compliance."Lawmakers, meanwhile, had grown tired of the fighting. The language to eliminate the panel was slipped into House Bill 553, a 13-page proposal originally filed to make changes to a little-known state commission.State Rep. Katie Dempsey, the Rome Republican who introduced the measure, said the board was not "functioning as originally intended." Her co-sponsor, Democratic state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver of Decatur, put a finer point on it."I'm very happy to see it kaput. It was costing the state money. It was accomplishing no purpose," said Oliver. "I'm delighted it's gone. It wasn't doing anything but costing taxpayers' money." A lawsuit filed on behalf of North Dakota that aimed to hold big pharma accountable for the impact of the opioid epidemic has been dismissed by a Burleigh County District Court Judge.The lawsuit, filed a year ago by North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, claimed Purdue Pharma L.P. spurred the opioid epidemic through "an aggressive and successful marketing campaign designed to persuade prescribers and patients that opioids can and should be used for chronic pain." The company exclusively produces opioids and created OxyContin.The state sought to recover fees associated with opioid abuse, which has skyrocketed in the last few decades. The opioid crisis will have lasting effects on medical services, law enforcement, corrections, workers' compensation, diversion programs, prosecution, probation, treatment and child welfare, the lawsuit said.According to the lawsuit, doctors began more frequently prescribing opioids during the '90s after pharmaceutical companies falsely claimed the pain relievers were not addictive. The Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency in 2017 to address widespread misuse and overdose deaths associated with the drugs.About 130 people die daily across the nation from opioid-related drug overdoses, DHHS reports. In North Dakota, opioid overdose deaths increased from 11 in 2013 to 54 in 2016, the lawsuit said.Burleigh County District Judge James Hill explained the reasons for dismissing the case in a 27-page order that said "Purdue has no control over its product after it is sold to distributors, then to pharmacies, and then prescribed to customers.""The state's effort to hold one company to account for this entire, complex public health issue oversimplifies the problem," Hill wrote.The lawsuit alleged Purdue violated the state's consumer fraud law through deceptive practices and unconscionable practices. In his decision, Hill said Purdue's marketing and promotion were allowed because the drugs were FDA approved and followed marketing procedures."The court's ruling in the area of consumer protection law has much broader implications than just this one significant case, potentially negatively affecting long-standing consumer protection law in North Dakota," Stenehjem said. "I am confident that the State has strong claims against these defendants, whose unconscionable actions demand they be held accountable, and there are well-reasoned arguments that support our position."Stenehjem said in a statement he plans to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court because the ruling differs from decisions made about similar allegations across the country."We disagree with the Court's interpretation of the state's claims and applicable law in numerous key areas," he said.Numerous states, cities, counties and Native American tribes also sued Purdue Pharma and other companies. Purdue reached a $270 million settlement in March with the state of Oklahoma and avoided a televised trial.Lawsuits brought by the city of Grand Forks, Cass County and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe were transferred last month to a district court in northern Ohio, which is handling more 1,400 civil cases against pharmaceutical companies that produce and sell opioids. Those lawsuits appear to still be active. The cloud is a powerful tool for driving digital transformation, but risks abound at every step of the journey. Public-sector IT leaders must assess where they stand in the cloud adoption curve and plan how to optimize their infrastructure costs. On the other side of the street, a woman sat on the stoop of a residence, rocking back and forth while clutching a cellphone to her ear with one hand and gesturing animatedly with the other. A man also taking a phone call strode up and down the sidewalk in front of her. The faint outline of an officer guarding the southern tip of the crime scene hovered behind them. After winning an accolade for its efforts to improve data-driven governance, Memphis, Tenn., is pushing its data practice even farther.Memphis was one of four new jurisdictions granted silver certification by What Works Cities , a Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative that supports the use of data and evidence-based management within local government. Cities obtain these certifications by hitting a series of benchmarks determined by the group, which develops a set of 45 criteria related to the work, including things such as whether they use data to set goals and track progress. It was a prestigious award, given that nearly 100 cities applied and so few were chosen.Now, Memphis is preparing to roll out the next evolution of its data-driven governance and related tech work, said Memphis CIO Mike Rodriguez during a recent phone call with. The most tangible result of this work is that the city is preparing to launch a new version of its online open data portal in June, one that will have a much heavier focus on storytelling.What this means is that instead of just presenting open data sets, the new version of the portal will go to greater lengths to find ways to show the citizens how to work with data, what it means and why it matters to their everyday lives, Rodriguez said.Indeed, creating a citywide awareness of the open data work remains a major concern in Memphis. So too does soliciting public input on the work, which is an area of accomplishment specifically praised by What Works Cities in a post it wrote praising Memphis . In developing the open data policy that serves as a bedrock of the portal, Memphis worked to collect public feedback and integrate it into its decisions.That work continued recently during an information tech fair attended by school children between the ages of 11 and 14. Technologists from the city were in attendance and on hand to speak with kids, both telling them about Memphis open data work and asking what they thought about it as well as about the local government in general.Paige Jackson, communications and training lead with the city, said she collected so many ideas and thoughts from the students that she eventually had to organize them in a spreadsheet with more than 100 responses.The prevailing sentiment among the kids, Jackson said, is that they want more afterschool programs that allow them to learn about the work being done by the city. They even suggested pop-up learning events at parks and other places. Rodriguez and Jackson are optimistic that these ideas will inform Memphis continuing data work in the years to come. Also, the hope is that the experience will empower the youngsters, showing them that they do have a voice and when they use it, the city listens.In addition to all of this, technologists in Memphis are engaged in ongoing public-private collaborations, which range from a project with the University of Memphis that is helping them use lidar to map the insides of public buildings in the case of emergency events, to applying for grants related to developing autonomous vehicle use in the city. Executive buy-in from Mayor Jim Strickland has given this side of the work a boost.Overall, Rodriguez said winning accolades like the one from What Works Cities is nice, for obvious reasons, but on a more practical level it gives the city validation that its on the right path for improving the quality of life of its residents. Lead in drinking water is one of the biggest threats to public health. Employing digital solutions can help maximize the water industrys resources and get the lead out of our communities faster. Leaders in Colorado have whittled down the rural Internet access gap to 6 percentage points, according to the governor's office, with a goal of providing broadband Internet access to 92 percent of rural residents by June 2020.Colorado Gov. Jared Polis office announced Tuesday that rural coverage for high-speed broadband rose by 3 percent, a jump from 83 percent to 86 percent from October 2018 to April 2019.Gov. Polis said high-speed Internet is now a necessity for people to thrive.Affordable and reliable broadband is critical to educating our youth, providing quality health care and keeping our residents safe, he said in a statement. report released in March by the Federal Communications Commission stated 92 percent of Americans have access to high-speed Internet. However, companies like Microsoft and Pew Research found the number of people with access did not correlate to the number of Americans using broadband. Microsoft found that about 49 percent of people in the U.S. used high-speed Internet at home, while the Pew Research study estimated 65 percent.The 3 percent increase in Colorado is due to completed expansion projects, which were primarily funded by the Department of Regulatory Agencies Broadband Fund grants and five years worth of investments by the Department of Local Affairs Broadband Grant program, according to the release.Going forward, Colorado Broadband Office Executive Director Anthony Neal-Graves said the state will be investing $115 million during the next five years to grow the short-term goal of 92 percent rural access to 100 percent. Neal-Graves office coordinates and supports endeavors that will help the state provide universal broadband access.We are moving in the right direction to reach the June 2020 goal of providing 92 percent rural broadband access, Neal-Graves said in a statement. (TNS) Californias Department of Motor Vehicles will need to make lots of changes if it wants to turn things around, according to a 110-page report sent to lawmakers and obtained byAmong the suggestions are launching an aggressive $10 million marketing campaign, redesigning the agencys website and creating a chatbot to filter and respond to customer complaints. Some of the changes are already under way.The report, produced by the DMV in response to recommendations by a strike team created by Gov. Gavin Newsom, also highlights problems with upper-level management. It calls the departments organizational structure outdated and says DMV employees need better training.The team led by Marybel Batjer, secretary of the Government Operations Agency, conducted an intensive series of interviews with DMV executives and managers and discovered the department had issues with weak communication and lack of goal alignment among divisions, key vacancies in top management roles, and poor coordination in efforts to improve customer service.To make matters worse, the report noted, Employees have been hampered by outdated and inadequate training and obsolete tools.The team recommended a number of customer service improvements to keep Californians out of DMV offices and help the department tackle larger problems with outdated technology and a new ID program.The report, dated April 23, says the DMV will add 200 more self-service kiosks by the end of the year and allow the machines to process additional types of transactions. It will also revamp its website to help customers find the services theyre looking for.Customers who choose to visit the offices in person could soon have access to Wi-Fi, according to the report. It also notes DMV offices will accept credit cards by the end of the year, following Newsoms demand for them to do so.Perhaps the most daunting challenge for the DMV is the roughly 20 million customers who have yet to come in for a federally mandated Real ID card, which is required by Oct. 1, 2020, for people who want to board airplanes without having to bring a passport.The DMV is asking for nearly $10 million so it can raise awareness about documents needed for a Real ID card and alternatives to visiting a field office when renewing a driver license.The numerous improvements that DMV is making to customer service could fall flat without a sufficiently funded marketing strategy, the strike team warned in the report.Newsoms office declined to comment on the findings, saying it is still waiting for the strike team to wrap up its work in June.In the meantime, Newsom wants to give the DMV more money.His revised budget proposal calls for an extra $163 million for the DMV to address a barrage of ongoing issues, including issuing millions of additional Real ID cards ahead of a looming deadline. Thats just shy of the departments hefty $168 million request to lawmakers in March.Lawmakers, however, have expressed little appetite for giving the DMV more money.Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, said hes been disappointed in the past after approving money for new tablets that were later purchased but not deployed. Ting said hes spoken with Newsoms office about the $163 million budget proposal but wants to make sure there is greater accountability to prevent the DMV from misspending the money.They havent proven they have the ability to spend wisely, Ting said of the DMV. We want to see a plan from the administration. We need to have a number of checks and balances so we can be assured theyre spending it properly.Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno agrees with Ting but also wants the DMV to hand off more of its work to such groups as the American Automobile Association. He said hell wait for the strike team to conclude its six-month review before he considers giving the DMV another dime.The previous governor saw the Legislature as a nuisance, Patterson said. Im willing to give the governor a little more time. But Im not ready to say, Im going to give you a lot more money. (TNS) Baltimore Finance Director Henry Raymond said people who made payments last week to avoid having their property included in Baltimores annual tax debt auction will be held harmless, even though a ransomware attack meant city staff couldnt properly process payments.The tax sale, which takes the form of online auction, proceeded as scheduled Monday.Raymond and Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young briefed members of the City Council on the fallout from the hack at a regular working lunch.Our top priority is getting our system back up to full operation, Young said. We had techs on site working through the weekend.Officials have given few details about the severity of the attack or how the hackers gained access to city systems, saying the matter is the subject of a federal investigation.Raymond stressed that people with overdue tax bills and other debts to the city were told they faced an April 30 deadline to pay. The ransomware attack, which has severely disrupted city computer networks , was detected May 7.Nonetheless, Raymond said, for any homeowners who paid after April 30 but before the actual tax sale, we will hold those individuals harmless once were back up in operation.Staff in the tax sale office said last week that they could take payments only from people who had correspondence from the city showing how much they owed, because the citys system for checking debt amounts was offline. The city was also unable to take payments by credit or debit card.Raymond did not say what would happen to people who tried to make a payment but were unable to do so.Councilman Isaac Yitzy Schleifer asked Raymond why officials couldnt delay the sale.What would be the harm in postponing? he asked.Raymond said it was a cash-flow issue for the city. The sale, in which investors pay the debt amounts to the city for the authority to collect the debts with interest, typically brings in about $20 million on a single day.The fact that we gave everybody sufficient notice, there really was no reason to delay the tax sale, Raymond said.The tax sale itself is controversial. If the investors who buy the debts cant collect, they can go to court to foreclose on the property, potentially acquiring it for a fraction of its value.Baltimore officials have said the city fell victim to a kind of ransomware known as RobbinHood. Hackers use ransomware to lock files on victims computers before demanding payment to provide keys to the lock.The Baltimore attackers have asked for the equivalent of about $76,000 in the digital currency bitcoin. Officials have refused to pay.Thats just like us rewarding bank robbers for robbing banks, Young told reporters Monday. What is now for sure is that Zandvoort will stage its 2020 Dutch GP at around this time of the year. "Before Monaco," Carey confirmed. "But there is no fixed date yet," the F1 chief executive said at Zandvoort for the official race announcement. Officials in Barcelona insist they remain in talks with Carey about the 2020 calendar, even though some publications say Spain has definitely been axed. "The 2020 calendar is not yet complete," Carey said. "It will probably take another month or two. "Last year we only finished the calendar in August, but our goal now is another month or two." There is great excitement about F1's return to Zandvoort, with Max Verstappen calling it a circuit that is similar to the great Suzuka layout. "It's fast, it's old school and you need big balls around there," Daniel Ricciardo agrees. "But given how fast and narrow it is, I think it will be very hard to overtake." Sebastian Vettel agrees that there is "definitely more overtaking" in Barcelona than there will be in Zandvoort. However, Zandvoort is tweaking some corners ahead of the 2020 race, even though there is uncertainty about whether the famous gravel traps will be left in place. "If we go there, the gravel will be gone," predicted Vettel. But Jan Lammers, the Dutch GP spokesman, would not confirm that. "To fulfil the wishes of F1 and the standards of the FIA, the circuit and infrastructure will be modernised in some areas," he said. FIA president Jean Todt agrees: "There are many preparations that are needed to bring the circuit to the level of safety necessary for Formula 1." Haas may need to tweak the livery of its 2019 car following a court ruling. In February, we reported that the American team's new title sponsor, Rich Energy, was being sued in the UK High Court by a British company called Whyte Bikes. The bicycle company claimed its antler-like logo was copied by Rich Energy. Judge Melissa Clarke this week not only ruled in Whyte's favour, she said Rich Energy boss William Storey gave "incorrect or misleading" testimony, and "manufactured" evidence. "I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Mr Storey lied about not being familiar with Whyte's logo," she said. "I find it more likely than not that they (Rich Energy) were familiar with it, and that they directly and knowingly copied it." In a statement, Rich Energy said it is "disappointed" with the judgement. "We are considering all of our legal options including appeal," it added. Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri says there is "no panic" at Maranello after a fifth consecutive defeat to Mercedes last weekend. Sections of the Italian media say the team is in "real crisis" after Ferrari's engine and car upgrades actually saw the gap to Mercedes blow out in Barcelona. "There is no panic. My job is to prevent rumours from spreading, so now is the time to close ranks," Camilleri told La Gazzetta dello Sport. Camilleri said team boss Mattia Binotto, who admits even the basic "concept" of the 2019 car is under review, has his "full support". "I am sure he will find a solution. Now we are having two important test days and I am sure that we can recover quickly," he said. "I do not have a crystal ball so I cannot say when we will find a solution, but I am sure that this testing will help." However, he admitted that Monaco next weekend could be another tough race for Ferrari. "There are a lot of narrow and slow turns similar to the third sector in Barcelona where we had problems all weekend," said Camilleri. Imagine you take your car to the body shop for some repairs, expecting to have it back in a week or so. But as the weeks pile up, you start to worry and become less comforted by assurances that theyre just waiting on parts. Finally they come clean: A shop employee was driving it a few weeks ago and got pulled over. When police discovered he was driving without a valid license, they impounded your car. A routine trip to the shop is now a nightmare. But it becomes substantially worse, as you discover that the city will not give your car back unless you pay thousands of dollars in fines and fees. From my perspective as a village manager, during the last seven years if not for our public safety fund increase our levy would be flat. We wouldnt have had to increase the village portion of the tax bill at all, says Jim Norris, village manager for Hoffman Estates. According to 2017 figures, the police pension fund in Hoffman Estates is about 64% funded and the fire pension fund is about 72% funded. Had the village been using a system similar to IMRF, the police fund would be 89% funded and the fire fund would be 102% funded. Thats relief for taxpayers thats not being realized. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq said on Wednesday that the U.S. State Department has ordered the non-emergency U.S. employees working in both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil to leave Iraq. U.S. crew members conduct overflight observations during a Chinook helicopter flight from the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center to the Green Zone, in support of a visit by U.S. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan, Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 12, 2019. [File Photo: IC] "Normal visa services at both posts (Baghdad and Erbil) will be temporarily suspended," an embassy statement said. "The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq," the statement added. Earlier, the U.S. military said the U.S. forces were on high alert in Iraq and Syria over fears of "imminent threats" from Iran-backed forces in the region. The U.S. measures came amid the tense situation in the region after U.S. President Donald Trump decided not to re-issue the sanctions waivers for major importers to continue buying Iran's oil when they expired in early May. The United States has also increased its military buildup in the region recently by deploying an aircraft carrier, bombers and anti-missile systems there, citing a threat of Iranian attack. In Aprils election, the ranks of the Progressive Caucus increased to an estimated 16 members. Thats not enough to control the agenda on the 50-member council, but the group could prove a formidable voting bloc if it sticks together. The nine aldermen signing on to the memo to Lightfoot are far short of the 26 votes needed to pass the agenda. Contreras asked school board members to prioritize which of the career and tech academies to keep and which to not to do. School board members chose instead to approve the Gateway change without specifying which of the career tech academies they would postpone or abandon, and asked the superintendent to come back at this meeting with her own recommendations on what to do. The new plan Contreras came up with and brought to the board at Tuesday nights school board meeting, used about $5.9 million in leftover money from other construction projects to fund CTE renovation and building projects at five schools. This includes the $5.2 million in leftover project money Contreras originally noted, plus an additional $560,532 leftover from a project at Hunter Elementary and $22,942 from a project at the Academy at Smith. That covers design and construction. They will also need some yet-to-be-available leftover money from projects at Western Guilford Middle and High Point Central to finish up the final stages of the projects. The plan no longer includes at diesel technology program as part of the new at Western High School, due to cutting the money from the request to pay for a new diesel technology lab at the school. Students will have one less day of school this year. On Tuesday night, the Guilford County Board of Education voted to accept a proposal from Superintendent Sharon Contreras to drop June 11 as a school day. Now, the last day of school for students on the traditional calendar will be June 10 a Monday. June 11 will become a teacher workday. School board members voted in early April to cancel school on May 1 because of a rally in Raleigh that many Guilford educators planned to attend along with their peers from around the state. In her memo for Tuesday nights meeting agenda, Contreras said she initially recommended adding an extra day to the school year out of concerns that more school might be missed for bad weather that never materialized. Contact Jessie Pounds at 336-373-7002 and follow @JessiePounds on Twitter. 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. Affinity said it and CVS pharmacists plan to educate staff and the communities it serves on the importance of receiving the flu vaccine, debunking myths surrounding the perceived dangers of the vaccine, along with how the flu clinic program works. The 2018-19 flu season in North Carolina officially ran from Oct. 1 through March 31, although state health officials plan to issue their final flu-season report on May 23. North Carolina has had at least 201 flu-related deaths in the 2018-2019 flu season. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has cautioned that this does not represent all flu-associated deaths in the state, since many flu cases go undiagnosed or unreported. As of May 4, 129 of the victims were ages 65 or older; 49 were in the 50-to-64 age group; 18 were in the 25-to-49 age group; two each were in the birth-to-4 age group and the 5-to-17 age group; and one was in the 18-to-24 age group. More than 30,000 people a year die from influenza, and its more significant in the older age group, said Kevin ONeil, Affinitys chief medical officer. Its important for us as people who work in this field to understand the moral responsibility that we have to be vaccinated. Ouanvilays children were around the same age, and she didnt work as much when they were children. Trust was a factor in the women becoming business partners. You can have a lot of friends, but there is something that you can trust in this person, Saykeo says of Ouanvilay. I trust her. They also respect each other. Ouanvilay, the more reserved of the two, regards Saykeo as her older sister. Shes my family now, Ouanvilay says. I teach her to be a stronger woman, Saykeo says. Shes quiet. Shes shy. My personality is Im clear. Im strong. But we can help each other. We can combine together and become something nice. We are both patient with each other. Through their time at Pho Hien Vuong, the women talked about their future. One day, I said to her, Hey, do we want to carry a tray (for someone else) for the rest of our lives? We should have something. Were happy to be a part of it, said Chris Johnson, who operates the Sno-ball stand as a concessionaire through the City of Greensboro. In case youre unfamiliar with a Sno-ball, it is like a snow cone but the ice is more finely shaved. Its like snow out of the sky, Johnson said. Sno-balls are saturated with a choice of 30 flavored syrups, including blue raspberry, cherry, pina colada, banana and one called Bahama Mama. Sno-balls can be topped with gummy bears, rainbow or chocolate sprinkles, whipped cream and even a scoop of ice cream. Johnson operates stands in Wilkesboro and Taylorsville. He is opening a stand at the old Java Joes kiosk in the parking lot of Rockin Jump Trampoline Park at 4215 W. Gate City Blvd. It will open in about a month. Hours for the Country Park stand are 11 a.m.-7 p.m. daily. When the 2019-20 school year begins in August, Johnson said he will cut back the hours. Cafe closes Cafe Express at 114 N. Elm St., Suite 102 in Greensboro has closed. ASHEBORO A woman who was wanted for allegedly embezzling money from a Han-Dee Hugo's convenience store she managed in Asheboro has been arrested. Stephanie Ann Lawrence Vossen, 39, was found in a residence in Reidsville after authorities received information about her whereabouts, according to a Randolph County Sheriff's Office news release. The Reidsville Police Department was contacted to attempt to locate Vossen. Officers arrived at the residence and were told she was not there. However, officers were invited to come inside and look. Officers walked through the residence and found Vossen hiding in another room. She was arrested and taken to the Rockingham County Jail. she is charged with felony embezzlement by an employee. Bail was set at $5,000 and her first court appearance is scheduled for May 21 in Randolph County District Court. Vossen is accused of stealing money from the store on Feb. 24. Police were notified after the regional manager for the store was notified Feb. 28 by the company's home office of a missing store deposit. ELON Adjunct professors have won the latest round in the debate over a union at Elon University. A National Labor Relations Board hearing officer in Winston-Salem on Monday recommended that the labor board's regional office reject the objections filed by Elon University after adjuncts voted in March to form a union. In a statement, Elon adjunct Catherine Bush said Tuesday she was "thrilled" with the decision. Our entire community looks now to our leadership to honor Elons stated mission to 'encourage freedom of thought and liberty of conscience,'" said Bush, an assistant professor of biology and a leader of the unionizing effort. "We are ready to begin productive negotiations that will lead to improvements in our working conditions and our students learning environments." The university on its website said it has until May 28 to appeal the hearing officer's recommendation but did not say if it planned to file any objections. CHAPEL HILL The board governing North Carolina's public universities has again pushed back its deadline for deciding what to do with a Confederate monument at its flagship campus. The UNC System said Tuesday afternoon that it would not be discussing the statue known as Silent Sam at its May meeting as planned. The Board of Governors had picked May after pushing back a March deadline. In a statement put out by the university system, Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith of Greenville said that the previously announced May deadline had been "a tentative reporting date to consider possible solutions" for the monument that once stood in a main quad at UNC-Chapel Hill. "However," Smith said, "our board and the universities have also been focused on a number of other issues, including the legislative session, and there is nothing to report at this time." No new deadline was given Tuesday. The next scheduled Board of Governors meeting is September. The occasionally baffling dialect spoken by Outer Banks natives along the North Carolina coast has made a list of "The Top 50 Sexiest Accents" in the country. Travel site Big 7 Travel says it compiled the list by asking its 1.5 million social audience about the sexiest and least sexy accents travelers have encountered. "Hoi Toider," the accent spoken by Outer Banks natives, came in at No. 35. "Hoi Toider is the accent spoken by a small amount of people on the Outer Banks of North Carolina," explained Big 7 Travel. "It's an unusual brogue that sounds a bit Australian, a bit Irish and also a bit British." The sexiest accent in the United States is a Texas drawl ("Southern accent with a twist"), said the site, while the least sexy is a Long Island accent. Two other Carolinas accents also made the list: The "charming" Appalachian accent spoken in parts of far western North Carolina was No. 40, and the Charleston accent was No. 27. "Typical of older Southern U.S. English, the Charleston accent is lyrical and low, but is likely dying out in younger generations," said Big 7. "Old Charleston charmers will say "hoose" instead of house and "stey-it" for state." When a North Carolina woman found out she won a $1.3 million lottery prize, her sister was the first person she called. Vielka Roman of Sampson County received the lucky ticket as a Mothers Day present from her sister, Neris, the N.C. Education Lottery said Tuesday in a news release. Roman on Sunday won the third-largest jackpot ever in the Carolina Cash 5 game and will take home $958,078 after taxes, according to the lottery. She has always been there for me, Neris said in the news release. And when she won she said to me, If I win, then you also win. Neris bought the winning ticket at a Carlie Cs IGA store in Fayetteville after her family celebrated Mothers Day, according to the news release. It turned out to be the gift of a lifetime, the lottery said. I just cant believe it, Roman said, according to the lottery. Im still in shock. Roman wants to put her winnings toward her home and car, and she thinks her family will have more time to spend together, the lottery says. In 2016, Bishop sponsored House Bill 2, the law that voided a Charlotte ordinance expanding LGBT rights and prevented similar anti-discrimination rules anywhere else in the state. HB2 was nicknamed the "bathroom bill" because it also directed transgender people to use public bathrooms and showers that matched their birth sex. The measure made waves nationally and prompted boycotts by entertainers, governments and some businesses thinking about moving jobs to North Carolina. Bishop said while voters knew HB2 had his whole-hearted backing, the law was partially repealed in 2017 and is no longer as important as other issues. "People are astonished and amazed and dismayed at what they see coming out of Washington these days from liberal crazy clowns. Socialism. Open borders. Infanticide. 90% tax rates. Having prison inmates vote. It goes on and on," Bishop told supporters Tuesday night. "And of course, most of all, an incessant drive to impeach the president." With conflict between President Donald Trump and Washington Democrats heating up after the investigation into Russian support for the president's 2016 campaign, the four-month contest between Bishop and McCready is expected to serve as a measure of political tides and an open vault for donors. WASHINGTON Conventional wisdom in my inner circle of sorcerers and sources has been that the first female president will be a Republican. This is because America is still mostly a center-right country, and voters would feel more comfortable with a conservative-leaning woman. So goes the thinking. Republican Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, no doubt concurs. While she waits out President Trumps possible second term (because life is strange), Democrats have filled their bench with enough declared women six at last count that one wonders why were always talking about men. Given the bulk of media coverage, one would think the only candidates were Joe, Bernie, Beto and Pete. The fact that those four are known by their first names is helpful if youre a politician or a simpleton, not that theyre mutually exclusive. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders need no introduction because theyve been around since the Gold Rush. One looks like he just stepped off a yacht, the other like he just lost a fight with a bulldog. Beto ORourke is famous for being newly famous and also for mastering the distant gaze in profile that reminds people how much they dislike him. And, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, Ind.) is just so darned likable, we cant get enough of him and his multilingual-ness, despite his reportedly lugging around a copy of James Joyces gloriously indecipherable Ulysses. I beg to differ with Nancy Beck Young (Ideas, May 12) that Franklin Graham betrayed his fathers moral legacy. Things were different in the instances she quoted with Billy Graham. At that time, the LGBT community was not seeking to push its agenda on Christians and force us to have a part in their lifestyle via lawsuits. They certainly have the right to live as they choose, but not to force it on others. Would they like to be forced to serve at an anti-gay reception, and upon refusing, being sued for it? I think not. It is time for the church and Christian leaders to stand up for God and his Word, and against this discrimination toward us. Franklin Graham is doing just that, as any Christian should do. To stand against what God declares as sin has nothing to do with not loving another person. Love does not condone sin. Love confronts. Love does this in hope of repentance and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Franklin Grahams stand is in perfect accord with the Bible. You cant get any more moral than that. Barbara Hege Greensboro What is Plasma Plasma is the protein-rich clear, straw-colored liquid portion of blood that remains after red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets are removed. The main role of plasma is to take nutrients, hormones and proteins to the parts of the body that need it. Cells also put their waste products into the plasma, which then helps remove this waste from the body. Blood plasma also carries all parts of the blood through your circulatory system. Human blood contains 55% plasma, 44% red blood cells and 1% white blood cells and platelets. Source: University of Rochester Medical Center; Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association SHERMAN The name of a fallen local veteran was added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this week. Staff Sgt. Todd James TJ Lobraico Jr. was one of 371 fallen law enforcement officers whose names were added to the memorial in Washington, D.C., this year and honored during the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Funds 31st Annual Candlelight Vigil on Monday. GREENWICH The Board of Estimate and Taxation has authorized spending $23,000 to strengthen town cyber defenses in what is expected to be the first step in an ongoing effort. The allocation, to come from funds already budgeted to the Finance Department, will focus on identifying potential weaknesses in the networks used by the libraries and Board of Education. An allocation of $150,000 will be available July 1 for additional security work, part of the 2019-20 budget approved Monday night by the Representative Town Meeting. The work will be done by Cyber Defenses, which works with the towns Information Technology Department on cyber security. Part of the examination will involve penetration testing in which an authorized, simulated cyber attack is performed to evaluate the strength of existing security systems. The money for a beefed-up cyber defense comes after a reported breach of the Greenwich Public Schools system. No details have been released but officials have said it was a potentially extensive violation. The Greenwich Police Department is investigating the incident. This is a permanent initiative, said Tom Klein, head of the towns IT Department. I dont see this as a situation where we say, Oh we did this and now were done. This is the beginning and it will continue. Klein is part of a task force looking at the towns cyber security, led by town Director of Risk Management Megan Damato. It is expected to issue recommendations for improvement as part of the work with Cyber Defenses. The initial testing is expected to be wrapped up by June 30 with more starting July 1 at the start of the new fiscal year. Given the small window of six weeks, Klein said they wanted to keep focused on specific priority areas before going broader in July for a more thorough review in which networks including the Police Departments will be looked at. Damato said the process will start with questionnaires going out to the Board of Education and libraries so Cyber Defenses can gather background information. This will allow them to better target what they need to do penetration testing for, Damato said. There will also be some work performed at Nathaniel Witherell during the six weeks. While Witherells computer system is on the town network, its Wi-Fi is contracted through a separate provider. Im not concerned with their network, I am concerned with their Wi-Fi, Klein said. We just put the Wi-Fi in there. BET member Jeff Ramer questioned why the library is being looked at as opposed to an entity such as the town Finance Department. I dont think of the library having a lot of sensitive data, Ramer said. Whereas something like finance or the police or parks and recreation would have a lot of chance for mischief. Klein said that systems like finance and parks and recreations are under the umbrella of Town Hall, which is what his department covers. He said they have already been working with Cyber Defenses and department heads on those areas, particularly the Parks and Recreation Department. We have locked that down significantly, Klein said. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com Sen. Marco Rubio argues that the escalation in the trade war with China stems more from corporate chieftains selfishly seeking big paydays for themselves by agreeing to bad deals with Beijing over the past several years than from President Donald Trump's latest brinkmanship over tariffs. "If you go to China, they promise you 'X percent' of their overall market share," the Republican senator from Florida said in an interview Tuesday. "You make money, and you look good in front of your shareholders, but you're also turning over your intellectual property, and eventually they're going to replace you. But who cares? You won't be CEO in 10 years when that happens." Rubio said Trump's biggest problem right now is that Chinese leaders are unaccustomed to a president going to the mat this way and have therefore miscalculated his resolve. "They have traditionally been able to unleash the American corporate class to march up to D.C. and pressure their policymakers to back down because so many of these companies have established a market presence in China that in the short term is very beneficial but in the long term is probably suicide for those companies," Rubio said. "That's what's happened in the past. This is the first administration that has not backed down." The senator's comments on China came as he uncorked a broader critique of American corporate culture. Rubio, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said CEOs focus too much on the next quarter and not enough on the next generation. He blamed warped incentives from Wall Street and Washington for driving this shift. And he complained that the "shareholder primacy theory" - which is taught at business schools and accepted as gospel in the C-suites of most Fortune 500 corporations - has prompted too many business leaders to care more about returns for shareholders than the people who work for them. His 37-page report is on the decline of business investment over the past several decades. It details how nonfinancial corporations, for the first time, now consistently spend more on acquiring financial assets than on capital development. "At its core, the problem is that, beginning in the 1970s, the primary objective for companies became maximizing return to shareholders, and that came at the expense of investing in new capacities and in innovation," Rubio said. "In essence, it's coming at the expense of the things that lead to growth. In key industries that are critical to our national security and our national interests, that's even more problematic." He declined to offer specific instances. "What it's resulted in is that you can become a very profitable company that returns a lot of money to shareholders by taking your productive capacity and sending it to China or by turning over your intellectual property because they're allowing you market access, which is generating new revenue," he added. "That's great for the short- to mid term. Your stock performance can be very good. Your shareholders are going to be very happy. But it's devastating for American workers, and in the long term it's devastating for America." The senator was scheduled to lead a hearing Wednesday afternoon on considering the reauthorization of the Small Business Administration's innovation programs. He'll question two administration officials, and he's invited four outside witnesses to offer ideas for how government policy can spur additional business investment. Amid calls for the dismantling of capitalism in the United States, the 47-year-old son of Cuban immigrants said he wants to save the economic system that made America exceptional by paying more attention to its excesses. "Our economy today is really not working the way free enterprise works at its best," he said. "I'm an enormous supporter of free-market capitalism because I've seen and know that it's generated more prosperity than any other economic system in human history, but when it stops working the way it's supposed to work, it creates the structural imbalances that lead to many of the problems that we're seeing across not just the U.S. but across multiple developed Western economies. We are certainly doing well in the short- to mid term in our growth, but we also have an obligation to think about the structural challenges that will make it difficult to sustain that in the long term if we don't make additional changes." To do that, he wants more rewards for long-term investments in workers and facilities. "We can't force companies to be innovative, but we shouldn't have tax provisions or policy provisions that incentivize against it," Rubio said. "And we do." The senator said he tried to push for things that would advance this aim during the debate over the GOP's 2017 tax bill, but he couldn't get them all. The legislation made full expensing available to capital investment, except facilities, plus research and development expenses. Those provisions are scheduled to expire. Rubio wants to make them permanent and to expand the full expensing to cover facilities. He said he wanted to see the full refundability of the child tax credit because it would help workers. "If we're going to have preferences in our tax code, and the tax code always has preferences, they should be in favor of things that create strong and stable jobs," he said. "Returns to shareholders should be treated equally, no matter which route you choose, whether it's a buyback or a dividend." As a political matter, Rubio has concluded that the GOP focused too much in the past on catering to corporate executives at the expense of their consumers and their employees. This year, he's rolling out a series of proposals aimed at restoring the balance between businesses and their workers. "We have a free market, but that free market operates under the conditions created for it by policymakers," he said. "Those conditions should reflect our national priorities. And one of our top national priorities should be creating strong and stable jobs upon which strong families and strong communities can take root." Rubio's emerging "pro-work agenda," as he calls it, reflects the GOP's broader embrace of populism during the Trump era. He recounted how his unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination against Trump in 2016 opened his eyes to the number of people being left behind by the changing economy, especially in places like the industrial Midwest. "Heading into 2014, I started to become very interested in not the daily ups and downs or twists and turns of markets but the broader structural challenges," he said. "And then I ran for president and it gave me the chance to travel the country and meet people and interact with people of various backgrounds, which I had not been directly exposed to representing only Florida. . . . Someone working in an industrial city that's been hollowed out isn't necessarily going to move to Silicon Valley and work for a high-tech firm. And even if that transition eventually happens, in the interim period, these are real people and real communities that are left behind. So that stark reality, coming back to the Senate, led me to further explore this." Rubio added that he also came to understand why government must play a more muscular role in doing something. "We need to get back to a point where we don't solely analyze the American economy on traditional economic measures," he said. "GDP growth is important, but that alone doesn't tell us the full story. It has to be not just growth that we care about, but the kind of growth that creates stable jobs that allow strong families and strong communities to develop, which are the backbone of a strong economy. Our public policy should reflect that." In the bigger picture, Rubio lamented that Americans in the modern era have become overly susceptible to the temptations connected to the pursuit of instant gratification. "We have a challenge that's developed in our culture writ large in that we seek immediate returns, whether it's in our own lives or in corporate life, and we oftentimes do so at the expense of long-term development," he said. "That is best encapsulated by what's happened in the private sector in this country." Defending Trump's hard-line approach toward China, Rubio said it's imperative to fight for a better balance in Sino-American relations. "I believe that the imbalance that has developed between our countries on economics and geopolitics is dangerous," he said. "It will leave us with a world in which China grows emboldened and aggressive, and the U.S. will be forced to respond. And it could lead to conflict. It's already leading to trade conflict, and it could lead to worse. For the sake of global stability, there has to be equilibrium in that relationship, and we don't have it right now. At its core, this is very simple: China is allowed to do anything they want in our economy and in Western economies, but our firms are allowed to do very little of anything and pay a tremendous price over there." Rubio acknowledges that the trade war with China is harmful to the American economy in the short term and that the tariffs increase costs for U.S. consumers. But he says he believes it's worth it. "Surrendering to China will be devastating," Rubio reasoned. "It will fundamentally alter our place in the world and the very nature of our economy for two generations or more." - - - The Washington Post's Joanie Greve and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report. Samsung should announce a new launch date for the Galaxy Fold soon, but it seems that people who pre-ordered the foldable flagship are getting antsy. To keep them from canceling their pre-orders, Samsung is offering them reward points. The Galaxy Fold is $1,980 and Samsung offers 2 points for every $1 spent on smartphones. So, thats a total of 3,960 points. 200 points can be redeemed for $1, which works out to just under $20. If you pre-ordered, check your Samsung account to see if you received the reward points. You can redeem them at Samsung.com or the Samsung App store. Check out the catalog to see what you can buy. Spoiler, its not much. For example, a Galaxy S10 silicone cover is 6,000 points, so youre probably better off spending your points on apps. Source Just 40 days after the new Galaxy A series became in India, Samsung reported that it has sold 2 million units. Now, 30 days later, that number has more than doubled to a total of 5 million units. The Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung India spoke with Reuters, saying that this generated a revenue north of $1 billion. Samsung reportedly expects the revenue for the fiscal year 2019 to reach $4 billion. Considering that Samsungs revenue in India for the fiscal 2018 (which ended in March) was $5.3 billion, it seems that Samsung expects most of its sales to be generated by the new Galaxy A lines. The new A-phones range in price from INR 5,300 ($75) to INR 29,000 ($410). Going by the numbers above, the average selling price over the first 70 days was INR 14,000 ($200). Samsung claims it had 77% market share in Indias premium segment, which it defines as INR 30,000+. However, it is facing strong competition from Xiaomi and Oppo in the lower segments of the market. Based on data from Counterpoint, during the quarter ending in March Samsung shipped 23% of all smartphones in the country. Source PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Police have a man in custody for allegedly stealing a boat from the Lighthouse Boat Launch, according to Capt. Doug Adams. Pascagoula Police have arrested and charged 21-year-old Joshua Wayne Broadus, of Pascagoula with one count of possession of stolen property. According to investigators, police received a call at 7 a.m. to investigate a report of a stolen boat from Gautier. When officers arrived and attempted to question Broadus and another man, now identified as 31-year-old Gary Raymond McLain Jr., of Gautier the suspects took off in a small boat headed north up river. At some point, the two males split up -- one staying with the smaller boat and the second suspect getting into a 18-foot Boston Whaler. As officers continued to search the area from the mouth of the Pascagoula River west all the way to Mary Walker Bayou, citizen tips continued to trickle in, according to Adams. After several hours of searching, officers and the helicopter focused their attention on Rabbit Island. The suspect was spotted by helicopter at 12:30 p.m. and was taken into custody by officers on the island. The suspect was transported to the Pascagoula Lighthouse Boat Launch and then transported to the Pascagoula Police Department. At this time police have recovered boats that were stolen from Pascagoula, Moss Point, and Gautier. McLain is still at-large. Anyone with information on McLains whereabouts is asked to call the Pascagoula Police Department 228-762-2211 or Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers at 877-787-5898. Haiti - Politic : The Sectoral General Estates of the Nation recommends the suppression of the Senate Following the data collected during the Sectoral General Estates of the Nation (EGSN) from representatives and leaders of more than 600 organized groups in the country, during the sectoral meetings, five departmental forums (North, North-West, North East, South-East, Nippes), a national preparatory forum for Arcahaie and a diaspora forum (Europe / Africa), affecting more than 3,000 people, three fundamental obstacles were identified regarding political governance in Haiti. The first obstacle is the institution by the 1987 Constitution of a two-headed Executive (Article 133): on the one hand, a President elected by universal suffrage (Article 134) who does not rule and the other a Prime Minister, Head of Government chosen by the President in the majority party in Parliament (Article 137, without any clarification in case two parties are majority respectively in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies), or in default of majority, in consultation with the Presidents of both Houses. To the Prime Minister, who is not elected, the charge of defining and conducting the policy of the Nation (Article 156). And it is accountable only to the Parliament that takes advantage of this position to influence the formation of the Government and the recruitment of public officials in all sectors and at all levels; it is not responsible to the President of the Republic to which the people expect the realization of his campaign promises. This constitutional provision is a source of conflict between the two heads of the Executive. The second obstacle highlights the lack of transparent mechanisms for financing political activities as well as the weakness and the excessive number of political parties. This has the effect both of fostering political corruption and of preventing the creation of a strong and unified majority in Parliament capable of supporting government action. The third obstacle concerns the non-respect of the rules of political alternation creating a situation where the Executive and the opposition engage in a game of permanent confrontation, putting the country in a crisis situation chronic politics. Based on the lessons learned from the work carried out in the context of these General Estates, and taking into account the current situation, the following few recommendations have been made, inter alia, at the level of political governance. Recommendations at the Political Governance Level : Find a consensus between the 3 powers of the State (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary) around the amendment of the Constitution, taking into account the issues raised and recommendations of the EGSN including : The establishment of a presidential regime with a president and a vice president; with a president and a vice president; The adoption of an unicameral legislative system (lower house), with the suppression of the Senate of the Republic ; (lower house), with the ; The amendment of article 175 in the sense of the suppression of the intervention of the policy in the recruitment, the appointment and the career of the magistrates . . Continue and improve the implementation of financing mechanisms for political and electoral life; Ensure the effectiveness and reliability of the electoral system; Fight effectively against archaic rules; Look for a link between the structural dialogue on governance issues and the economic dialogue focused on finding solutions to immediate political conflict; Put in place a support mechanism for the process of implementing the recommendations concerning the main reform paths proposed. Download the report (300 pages, PDF in French) : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/EGSN-RAPPORT-15-Avril-19-Gouvernance-politique-economique-socioculturelle.pdf HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2019/05/14 | Source Seungri, a former member of the group Big Bang who is being accused of prostitution and embezzlement, and Yoo In-suk, former CEO of Glass Holdings, have been denied arrest warrants. Advertisement Shin Jong-yeol, a senior judge at the Seoul Central District Court, rejected an arrest warrant for Yoo In-suk and Seungri. Judge Shin said, "There is room for dispute over the major charges of embezzlement depending on the legal natures of Glass Holdings and Burning Sun, the composition of shareholders, how they withdrew funds and where they have been used". "It is difficult to acknowledge the reason for arrest, such as destruction of evidence, given the extent of the charge, the extent of the suspect's involvement, and the interrogation. At this stage, we cannot recognize the necessity and the significance of the arrest of the suspects". Seungri and Yoo In-suk attended the court for questioning before their arrest. Despite being asked by reporters if they acknowledge the charges, Seungri quickly headed to court, remaining silent. The same was true of Yoo In-suk. Seungri and Yoo In-suk returned home from the confinement of the Seoul Jungnang Police Station detention. The police requested a preliminary arrest warrant for the two men on the 8th. Yoo In-suk for the charges of violating the Act on the Punishment of Prostitution, the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and the Food Sanitation Act. The same goes for Seungri. The police only specified the areas where the suspicion was clearly revealed. Seungri is denying most charges and Yoo In-suk only acknowledged the charges of soliciting prostitution. By William Schwartz | Published on 2019/05/14 En route to an early stage greeting event in Daegu, a car carrying "Juror 8" cast members was photographed taking an illegal U-turn. As the pictures started to spread through social media, "Juror 8" had to issue an apology for the car's actions. Advertisement The car was easily identifiable in part because it was surrounded by a guarded escort. In its official statement "Juror 8" said that the failure to observe the posted rules of the intersection was a result of the car moving too quickly. They apologized for any inconvenience to the people of Daegu and promised to be more careful in the future. Another car was also seen doing an illegal U-turn in the pictures, suggesting that this may be a common occurence at this particular intersection and only noteworthy in this case because of who the car was carrying. Daegu police have said they are currently investigating the other car, which had a visible plate number in the photos. "Juror 8" opens in South Korean theaters on May 15th. It stars Moon So-ri and Park Hyung-sik, and was directed by Hong Seung-wan. There has been no confirmation or denial as to whether they were in the car. Written by William Schwartz ___________ "Juror 8" is directed by Hong Seung-wan, and features Moon So-ri, Park Hyung-sik, Baek Soo-jang, Cha Mi-kyung, Yoon Kyung-ho, Seo Jung-yeon. Release date in Korea: 2019/05/15. Published on 2019/05/15 | Source Seungri of boy band Big Bang leaves a police station in Seoul on Tuesday. /Yonhap A court on Tuesday rejected an arrest warrant for Seungri of boy band Big Bang on charges of pimping and embezzlement. Police tried to wrap up their investigation of the scandal, but their failure to obtain an arrest warrant highlights potential weak points in their evidence. Advertisement Seoul police have been investigating charges that Seungri and his shady business partner Yu In-suk habitually provided prostitutes to wealthy foreign investors and clients and embezzled money from a posh nightclub they ran in Gangnam. But Seoul Central District Court judge Shin Jong-yeol said the embezzlement charges are open to "debate" while the other charges do not warrant arrest. The celebrity scandal has dominated the headlines since last December as news of alleged sexual assault and drug abuse by wealthy clients at their Burning Sun nightclub first broke. Police put a whopping 152 investigators on the case and the probe lasted for 105 days. The fallen idol was grilled no fewer than 18 times. Seungri's attorney said, "Police framed Seungri and did not listen to us no matter what", and submitted a 70-page rebuttal to prosecutors. Police were extremely aggressive in their probe due to suspicions that the stars involved in the various parts of the celebrity scandal paid off law enforcement officers, and eight police officers were booked for corruption related to the scandal and one was arrested. But the officer who was arrested was only charged with failing to report another Gangnam club for admitting a minor. In November last year, police were accused of going too easy on Burning Sun staff who were accused of assaulting a patron, which drew strong suspicions that they were on the take. The patron was assaulted when he tried to protect a woman from being sexually assaulted. Investigation of a senior police officer also came to very little, and it looks like he will be charged only with obstruction of duties for allegedly tipping off Seungri of imminent raids. Under intense public scrutiny, police pushed hard to investigate the scandal, but the paltry results have if anything damaged the credibility of the police even more. From CHS FORT BENTON Working together with CHS locations across the country, employees, community organizations and businesses, and farmers and ranchers of CHS locations in central and western Montana joined the fight against rural hunger through the cooperatives annual CHS Harvest for Hunger food, funds and grain drive. The annual campaign gathered more than $500,000 and 94,959 pounds of food to fight hunger in rural America. Locally, these CHS locations raised $16,059.51 and 4,892 pounds of food for local food shelves. Donations and contributions will be arriving at food shelves and other charitable organizations in the local communities served by CHS in the next few weeks. Since 2011, CHS Country Operations, a division of CHS, the nations leading farmer-owned cooperative, has organized the campaign to gather money and food for local and regional food shelves across the country. With this years total, the cooperative has now raised more than $6 million and 4.5 million pounds of food in the nine years since the campaign was first launched. The Montana CHS locations participated in the 2019 Harvest for Hunger drive held March 1-20 through a variety of fundraising activities, including having a booth at the Malta Ag Day event. In total, CHS Big Sky, CHS (Cut Bank Group), and CHS Mountain West raised $7,647.68 and 4,891.7 pounds of food for local food pantries across Montana. Often, local food shelves and food pantries are doing invisible work. They are feeding people in our rural communities who we would never imagine are going hungry, Mark Lalum, general manager of CHS Mountain West, Missoula, said. Thats why its so important that we support these local organizations. We are in the business of feeding the world, but we may never realize who is facing hunger right in our own communities, said Kyle Koschmeder, general manager of CHS out of Cut Bank. These organizations have the system and contacts in place to make sure everyone has food on the table every day, added Keith Schumacher, general manager of CHS Big Sky, Fort Benton. The Montana locations are retail businesses of CHS, a leading global agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the United States. Researchers have gained a better understanding of how osteoarthritis (OA) occurs and have identified a potential new drug that could be used to treat OA, a debilitating disease expected to affect 67 million people in the United States by 2030. The research is detailed in the May 8 issue of Science Translational Medicine. The collaborative research project involved scientists at four U.S. institutions UNMC, Rush University Medical Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University as well as Tongji Medical College in China and Gulhane Military Medical School in Turkey. The lead author on the study is Tieshi Li, Ph.D., assistant professor, pediatrics, at UNMC. The senior author on the study is Anna Spagnoli, M.D., chair of the UNMC Department of Pediatrics and director of the Child Health Research Institute, pediatrician-in-chief and senior vice president for Childrens Hospital & Medical Center. Dr. Spagnoli joined UNMC and Childrens earlier this year after working previously at Rush University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Li worked with Dr. Spagnoli at Rush University Medical Center and joined her team in Omaha. Using several animal models and human samples from people with osteoarthritic joints, the researchers determined that the TGF-beta type II signaling receptor (TGFBR2) regulates joint development during fetal life as well as joint maintenance through the lifespan. It does this by modulating key components of a family of inflammatory cytokines called the IL-36 system. Researchers discovered that if subjects lacked TGFBR2 that it led to OA and impaired movements. In aging mice that naturally develop OA and in mice with post-traumatic OA, researchers found a profound decrease in TGFBR2. In human joints, the study found that the decrease in TGFBR2 correlated with the severity of the OA. They also found that the decrease in TGFBR2 was associated with an increase of IL-36-alpha and a decrease in its antagonist (IL-36 receptor antagonist) in humans and all four animal models studied. These findings indicated that TGFBR2 is a potential target for treating OA. Researchers then focused on the IL-36 system as a novel and critical downstream mediator of TGFBR2 and a potential target to treat OA. With most of the experiments performed by Dr. Li, the IL-36 receptor antagonist was injected in knee joints affected by OA and in the key finding of the study it was found that the injection improved the OA in mice and in human cartilage cells from people with OA and decreased metalloproteinases, enzymes that destroy joint cartilage. This is truly a significant breakthrough, Dr. Spagnoli said. Currently, we are lacking any drugs that are capable of preventing, treating or halting the progression of OA, and the ultimate treatment is surgical joint replacement. Further studies need to be done, but we are excited by the positive response seen with the injection of the IL-36 receptor antagonist. It should provide hope to OA sufferers. University of Nebraska Medical Center County rips city in resolution calling for equal water rates Reviving a battle over who controls public water in Henderson County, county commissioners on Wednesday adopted a strongly worded resolution charging the city of Hendersonville with discriminating against customers outside the city limits and calling on the City Council to immediately equalize all water rates and fees. Later Wednesday morning, the city issued a news release rebutting several of the county's points while declaring that the City Council is open to conversations on water policy. County commissioners for years have argued that the city should charge city and outside users the same rate and has also asked the city to cede control of the water system to a city-county water authority. About 70 percent of city water customers are outside the city, one of the highest percentages among municipal water systems that serve outside users. The City Council in the past has made available reports showing that its upcharge for outside users is less than the average for city water systems. This imbalance of the customer base has created a situation where the governing board of the city of Hendersonville is not accountable to the vast majority of system customers, effectively disenfranchising that customer base, the resolution said. The disenfranchised customers are left with no effective recourse, as theyre represented by county commissioners and legislators. The resolution calls for the city to equalize all rates, fees and policies throughout the county by July 1. The resolution could signal a willingness by the commissioners, if the city fails to meet its demand, to again seek a resolution through the Legislature, as it tried two years ago. In 2017, state Rep. Chuck McGrady filed a bill that would explore changing the governance of city water systems and potentially force the city form a water authority that would include significant representation from county users. A half hour later, Commissioner Bill Lapsley, who presented the water resolution, issued an olive branch to the city. He said he wanted to put in the record his support for the city's request for $200,000 to fund school resource officers in the four county schools in the city limits. Commissioners did not immediately react to Lapsley's request on the SROs. The city responded less than two hours later with a written statement, declaring that council members are open to discussion on water policy issues and pointing out that the city had made concessions on outside city water and sewer rates. We are open to having discussions with the Commissioners and over the years have established multiple channels to facilitate these types of conversations, said City Councilman Jeff Miller. The Henderson County Water and Sewer Advisory Council, a group involving governing board members from all the local municipalities, Henderson County, industry and business representatives as well as utility customers from inside and outside the Hendersonville city limits, meets quarterly throughout the county. The Hendersonville Water and Sewer Department also operates a Water and Sewer Technical Advisory Committee charged with serving as an advisory board to offer input and feedback to the utility. County officials have approached neither group with concerns relating to the Board of Commissioners resolution, the city said. In 2000, Henderson County made an agreement with the City called the Mud Creek Sewer Agreement that outlined the maximum rate differentials between sewer customers living inside and outside the Hendersonville city limits. Part of the contract that Henderson County negotiated was to keep the difference in rates under 160 percent, Miller said in the news release. In recent years, City Council took that one step further and established a policy that the rate differential for both water and sewer should not exceed 150 percent. In October 2018, when the City offered to take another look at the agreement, the countys representative on the Advisory Council declined to discuss the topic, the city's news release said. When the Water and Sewer budget, capital projects and rate summary were presented to the Water and Sewer Advisory Council at a meeting on April 29, no questions or concerns were brought to the City. The proposed budgets and rates were also presented to the Water and Sewer Technical Advisory Committee, Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development, Business Advisory Committee, Partners for Economic Progress and industry neighborhood meetings, the city said. This resolution has been brought forth without warning and very late into the budgeting process, City Manager John Connet said. The City has continued to encourage open discussion on this topic, but instead of conversation, we are being met with demands. The county's deadline, Connet said, is not ideal for taking on the complexities of a countywide water and sewer interlocal agreement. We are, however, always willing to continue this conversation, Connet added. We hope the County will join us in meaningful discussion moving forward. Ana Kriegel was found murdered at this derelict house in Lucan, Co. Dublin. Photo: Caroline Quinn Schoolgirl Ana Kriegel was struck several times with a weapon as she lay on the floor in the room where her body was found, a blood-spatter expert has told a trial. The blood spatter patterns near the doorway in the room also indicated her head was in contact with the wall when she was struck, John Hoade, an expert in blood pattern analysis with Forensic Science Ireland, said in his evidence. He also said blood-spatter patterns indicated that Ana was assaulted when she was upright at the back of the room. Mr Hoade told the Central Criminal Court trial of two 14-year-old boys accused of murdering Ana that he visited Glenwood House in Lucan on May 18 and May 20, 2018. He was aware that Ana's body had been found on May 17. He had been told she had been assaulted and there was a laceration to her head that had bled. The jury heard that Ana "bled from her injuries" and Mr Hoade agreed with prosecution counsel Brendan Grehan SC that there was "quite an amount of blood". Mr Hoade said swabs were taken from the blood samples on the wall and floor and the DNA profile of the blood matched the DNA profile taken from Ana during the post-mortem. Mr Hoade said that when he attended the scene on May 18, he noted a number of types of blood staining, including saturation blood staining, impact pattern staining, cast-off pattern staining and swipe staining. He pointed out seven areas of blood staining in the room on a 3D reconstruction of the crime scene to the jury. Mr Hoade said that impact spatter on the wall and saturation staining on the carpet indicated that Ana was "struck several times with a weapon" in this location. Expand Close Flowers left at the scene / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Flowers left at the scene Assaulted This staining was in the corner on the left side when you entered the room, Mr Hoade told Mr Grehan. Saturation blood staining on the carpet would also indicate that Ana lay in that position for some time after she was assaulted, though Mr Hoade said he could not say how long she had lain in that area. Mr Hoade said that Ana's body had subsequently moved or been moved to the back of the room, where her body was found. Expand Close Patrick and Geraldine Kriegel, parents of murdered schoolgirl Anastasia, at court yesterday / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Patrick and Geraldine Kriegel, parents of murdered schoolgirl Anastasia, at court yesterday He added that the carpet in this area near the door had been "saturated with blood". Blood-spatter patterns on the wall just above the skirting board also indicated that Ana's head was "in contact with the wall when she was struck", Mr Hoade said. He also said there were patterns showing blood staining resulting from an object striking liquid blood as well as cast-off patterns showing blood, which was flung from a weapon. Mr Hoade said that blood patterns on the wall at the back of the room were higher than the skirting board. These indicated Ana had been assaulted when she was upright at the back of the room. A "swipe pattern" on the skirting board indicated that Ana had contact with this area while bleeding or an item wet with her blood had been in contact with it, he said. Mr Hoade said that he examined a white stick and a concrete block found in the corner of the room. These items were in situ when he examined the scene, which was a visual examination. The two youths, aged 13 at the time, have pleaded not guilty before the Central Criminal Court to murdering Ana (14) at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Road in Lucan on May 14 last year. One of the accused, Boy A, has also denied a charge of aggravated sexual assault. It is the prosecution's case that Boy B "lured" Ana to the derelict farmhouse and then watched as the other boy sexually assaulted and murdered her. Earlier, Detective Garda Gabriel Newton gave evidence of collecting the clothing which Boy A and Boy B were wearing on the day Ana went missing. Det Gda Newton, who was investigating an alleged assault on Boy A at the time, called to his home at 7pm on May 16, 2018. She said she told Boy A's parents that any evidence on the boy's clothes could be helpful if the culprits were found. The jury was shown the items given to Det Gda Newton by Boy A and his parents, namely a black hoodie top, white T-shirt, black boots and grey/black bottoms as well as a mobile phone. Det Gda Newton said Boy A's mother told her she had washed the clothes twice. The jury was told that Det Gda Newton called to Boy B's home on May 17, 2018. Boy B was in the kitchen when his mother handed over his clothes, the court heard. These clothes, consisting of a pair of blue runners, a grey hoodie, black bottoms and a white polo T-shirt with a navy collar, were also shown to the jury. Det Gda Newton said she then handed the two boys clothes to the exhibits officer in the case. The trial continues this morning before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of eight men and four women. A former property investor who stole deposits from would-be tenants has dropped an appeal against the severity of his sentence at the last minute. Jonathan Chubb (38), of Keeper Road, Drimnagh, Dublin, pleaded guilty to 34 counts of theft and one count of money laundering between March 2013 and July 2015. He also admitted providing a false reference, deception and possessing a forged driving licence. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Chubb stole dep- osits from 11 people who believed he was the landlord of an apartment for rent in Oblate View, Tyrconnell Road, Dublin. Homeless Gda Nathan McKenna said people had arrived at the address expecting to move into the property, but found "maybe 15 people who had turned up to do the same thing". Gda McKenna said one woman found herself and her eight-year-old daughter homeless as a result of Chubb's fraud. He netted nearly 50,000 and was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended on June 1 last year. In sentencing him, Judge Karen O'Connor said his offending was extremely premeditated in nature, involving multiple victims over a long period of time. She said it was particularly disturbing that he was aware that one woman he stole a rental deposit from was living in a women's refuge. Chubb was due to appeal against the severity of his sentence yesterday. However, before the case came up, Court of Appeal president Mr Justice George Birmingham told Chubb's lawyers that their client should be made aware that the court had the power to increase sentences as well as reduce them. After a few moments, Chubb's barrister, James Dwyer, said his client wished to withdraw the appeal. Dressed in a navy tracksuit, Chubb himself confirmed this to the court, saying: "Yeah, that's right." Mr Justice Birmingham said he had been "very well advised". Chubb has 27 previous convictions for theft and fraud and road traffic offences. Chocolates Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard one of his victims suspected something was wrong after handing over a 900 deposit to Chubb, so she asked for her money back. After he reassured her, she apologised for doubting him, gave him an additional 2,000 and a box of chocolates by way of apology, the court heard. Another victim told gardai the defendant had handed him a key to the apartment but told him it needed a few repairs and said he could move in the following week. He took a photo of Chubb, who was using the alias Darren Hartigan, and later gave it to gardai. A Dublin man who appeared in court charged with possessing a submachine gun and assaulting gardai has been further remanded in custody. Derek Devoy (36) was arrested on March 11 after gardai received reports of shots being fired at about 4.45pm in Poppintree, Ballymun. Armed support units were immediately dispatched to the scene. However, Mr Devoy was arrested by unarmed gardai and a firearm was recovered at a house in Cranogue Road, Ballymun. Explosion He was then taken to Ballymun Garda Station, where he was detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. The area around the house was sealed off and the Defence Forces carried out a controlled explosion to make the scene safe. Mr Devoy, of Balbutcher Lane, Ballymun, was remanded in custody after a court appearance on March 16. He faces one charge under the Firearms Act for possessing a RAK PM63 gun with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury. He is also accused of assaulting a garda and a garda sergeant on the same date. Mr Devoy, who made no reply when charged, faced his fifth hearing yesterday when his case came before Judge Victor Blake at Cloverhill District Court. He was further remanded in custody to appear again at the same court on May 28. The man who was said to have "set the agenda" for the fatal beating of Dale Creighton on a footbridge in Tallaght five years ago has had his jail term cut on appeal. David Burke (29), formerly of Beechpark, Collinstown, Co Westmeath, initially stood trial for the murder of Mr Creighton (20), along with six others, but on the 15th day of their trial those charges were dropped and each accused pleaded guilty to lesser offences. Mr Creighton was assaulted on the footbridge over the Tallaght bypass between St Dominic's Road and Greenhills Road in the early hours of January 1, 2014. Marched He was falsely accused of stealing a mobile phone and marched up to a "kangaroo court" on the bridge, where the beating continued after it was ascertained that he did not have the stolen phone. He died in hospital the following day from blunt-force injuries to his head and face. Burke and four others pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were each sentenced to 10 years with suspended periods, depending on their culpability and circumstances. Sentencing Burke to 10 years with the final two-and-a-half suspended, Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy held him to be the "most culpable of the participants. He was the oldest, he set the agenda. He determined what was to happen". However, the Court of App-eal cut Burke's jail term by nine months yesterday on the grounds that his sentence diverged from the next most culpable killer by too much. Court of Appeal president Mr Justice George Birmingham said that in a case involving multiple defendants, where issues of relativity and parity apply, intervention was "required". He said the court had some concern that conclusions about Burke setting the agenda "may go somewhat further than is supported by the evidence". There was no doubt, however, that the greatest culpability rested with him and another of those involved, Ross Callery, Mr Justice Birmingham said. The Court of Appeal was also satisfied that the sentencing judge was correct to draw a distinction between Burke and Callery because of Burke's involvement in the early stages of the incident, "as what might be described as an instigator", and the fact Callery was five years younger. Callery (25), of Gortlum Cottages, Brittas, Co Dublin, was jailed for six years. Burke was given an extra 18 months, or 25pc more, which was too great a divergence, the judge said. Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, re-sentenced Burke to 10 years with the final three years and three months suspended, leaving him with a net jail term of six years and nine months. The Central Criminal Court heard that the seven defendants, who were from Tallaght and known to each other, had rung in the new year four hours earlier in a local nightclub, where the entrance fee included multiple free drinks. Some also took cocaine. Sister They were Burke and his sister, 25-year-old Aisling Burke, of Beechpark, Collinstown, Co Westmeath; Callery; Graham Palmer (28), of Park Avenue, Portarlington, Co Laois; James Reid (26), of Glen Aoibhinn, Gorey, Co Wexford; Jason Beresford (25), of Coill Diarmada, Ard a' Laoi, Castledermot, Co Kildare; and Gerard Stevens (29), of Grosvenor Square, Rathmines in Dublin. Aisling Burke, who pleaded guilty to violent disorder, was jailed for one year, while Reid, who admitted possession of a knife, was given a two-year sentence that was wholly suspended. The other five defendants who all admitted manslaughter were given 10-year sentences, with Callery having the final four years suspended, Palmer five years suspended, Beresford four years suspended and Stevens seven years suspended. A law student damaged the roof of a garda van by kicking it while he was being transported following an incident in the city centre, a court has heard. Karl Cunningham (30) caused the damage as the van was being driven from Grafton Street to a garda station in the south of the city. Judge Eirinn McKiernan adjourned the case at Dublin District Court and said she needed to know the cost of repairing the damage before she could finalise it. Cunningham, of The Glebe, Johnstown Bridge, Co Kildare, pleaded guilty to criminal damage. A garda told Judge McKiernan that the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed summary disposal of the case. This allowed it to be dealt with at district court level instead of being sent forward to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Receipt The garda said in evidence that the incident happened on Grafton Street last December 17. The accused was being transported to Irishtown Garda Station in a patrol van when he kicked the roof while he was detained, causing damage to it, the court heard. The garda said he did not have a receipt for the cost of repairing the damage that was caused. Defence solicitor Michael French said Cunningham was a mature student who was studying for a law degree at university. He wished to have the case dealt with as soon as possible, he said. Judge McKiernan said she wanted to see the cost of the damage before finalising the case. The accused was not required to address the court during the brief hearing. His case was adjourned to a date next month. A burnt-out car discovered at Kilfenora Drive in Donaghmede not far from the shopping centre Gardai are hunting for a gunman who opened fire in broad daylight just yards from a busy shopping centre. Gardai are investigating reports that up to two shots were fired at a man in the capital's latest gun attack. However, the intended target fled the scene on foot and gardai have not yet been able to identify him. The brazen shooting was carried out at around 5.20pm in Grangemore Park, across from Donaghmede Shopping Centre in north Dublin, yesterday evening. Escape The shooter opened fire on a man near the centre, but his target managed to escape uninjured. Emergency services were alerted to the scene and armed gardai swarmed the area in the aftermath of the gun attack. However, no arrests have yet been made and efforts are underway to establish the gunman's identify. A car was discovered on fire a short distance away in Kilfenora Drive and gardai believe it was the getaway vehicle used to transport the gunman from the scene. It was discovered around 1km from the scene of the shooting, and investigators are now attempting to establish how the gunman fled after dumping the vehicle. Gardai are expected to carry out forensic examinations of the car, although it was almost completely destroyed after being burnt out. Officers also carried out searches at the shooting scene in an effort to uncover any evidence or shell casings at the location. "It goes without saying that this was an indiscriminate shooting close to an area with a large concentration of people shopping," a source told the Herald. "Gardai are anxious to track down those responsible but have not yet been able to identify the target or shooter, and are continuing to investigate the reports." It is understood that the intended victim hasn't yet presented to any hospital with gunshot injuries or made a complaint to gardai following the incident. Investigating A garda spokeswoman said yesterday: "Gardai are at the scene of an incident that occurred outside the Donaghmede Shopping Centre, Dublin 13, at 5.20pm, on May 14. "Shots were fired at a male. No injuries were sustained. Investigations are ongoing." Detectives based at Coolock are investigating the gun attack. ABINGDON, Va. Abingdon Town Manager Jimmy Morani has signed an agreement to endorse the Main Street program in Abingdon through Virginia Main Street. But Town Council still opposes giving any money to the Abingdon entity in its proposed 2019-20 budget. Theyve underperformed our expectations, and were just not getting much return on our investment, Mayor Wayne Craig said during a recess from a council work session Tuesday. We dont have any control over them, he added. All we do is give them money. In other words, if we tell them to do something, they dont have to do it. That puts us in a difficult position with our citizens when theyre not doing what were asking them to do. So far, council wants to withhold its $30,000-a-year support for the program, which helps facilitate improvements in downtown districts. Theres a lot of grants out there that are available, which I think could be applied for, said Vice Mayor Cindy Patterson. I believe we need to look at and make sure theyre doing what they need to be doing and putting all those efforts into getting all of those grants that they need. LEBANON, Va.Authorities have identified a body located in April in the Lewis Creek area of Russell County as a Honaker man missing since Jan. 1. Russell County Sheriff Steve Dye and Buchanan County Sheriff Ray Foster said the body was identified as Jason Matthew Shortt, 35, of Honaker. The investigation began when the Buchanan County Sheriffs Office received a missing persons report in January. Shortts vehicle was found in the Lewis Creek area and extensive search efforts were made, Dye and Foster said in a joint news release on Wednesday. On April 27, Russell County received a call that a body had been located. The mans body was taken to the Chief Medical Examiners Office in Roanoke, where the identity was confirmed. Although the complete autopsy has not been completed, Dye and Foster said there is no evidence of foul play. 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. Hopson had a heart of gold and would help anybody, her grandmother added. She often shared her problems with her grandmother. Her mother said Hopson knew Wright before he says he shot and killed her in March. She called him Bubba and previously talked about him, she said. The two met through the carnival, Drew Exposition, which tours across the country. The carnival company noted Tuesday that Wright was not employed by James H. Drew or Drew Exposition but worked for a man who operates a pony show. The company said it is working with authorities in the investigation, which includes contacting other jurisdictions to determine if anyone else is missing. Bonnie Griffith, who worked with the carnival for seven years, said the carnival was her daughters life. A lot of people think carnies are lowlives and running from the law, she said. The carnival is a place where you can be yourself. Its harder than any job you can ever deal with. Federal authorities continue to investigate after an Oklahoma man was brutally stabbed while hiking on the Appalachian Trail over the weekend in Southwest Virginia. The FBI and U.S. Attorneys Office identified the hiker as Ronald S. Sanchez Jr., 43, of Oklahoma City, who died Saturday of injuries sustained during a violent attack near the Wythe and Smyth county line. Federal authorities, who have charged James L. Jordan, of West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, with murder and assault, said they ensured proper notification had been made to the victims family before releasing the information. The incident, which also resulted in serious injuries against a woman who has not been identified, remains under investigation. She was taken to Bristol Regional Medical Center and was last listed in stable condition. A records check shows Sanchez lived in multiple locations across the country near U.S. Army bases, but its not known whether hes affiliated with the military. MENDOTA, Va. In an interview on Tuesday night, Don Fleenor recalled a day in mid-March when James Michael Wright came to visit him at the Mendota Convenience Center at this once-incorporated town on the North Fork of the Holston River. Fleenor, 83, had known Wright, 23, since he was a child, when Fleenor hauled him on a school bus to Valley Institute Elementary School. He was a good little boy, Fleenor said. Fine. Never had a bit of problem with him. On Tuesday, at the Mendota Community Center, Fleenor remembered Wright coming to see him at that trash collection station, where Fleenor works, just a few days before Wright wrecked into a school bus on Nordyke Road at 7:32 a.m. on March 19 and wound up in the hospital. He come in himself, Fleenor said. His daddy had sent me a brand-new straw hat. And he brought the straw hat, and he said, Daddy sent you this hat. And we talked a little bit. We talked. But he aint he wasnt all there. Fleenor paused in his recollection. Pa. man charged in Christmas night shooting death of Hagerstown woman A Greencastle, Pa., man is charged with murder in the Christmas night shooting death of his girlfriend at her Hagerstown home, police said. Editor's note: The opinions in this piece are the author's. Manila (CNN Philippines Life) Who are you calling a bobotante? In the Philippines, the bobotante (a portmanteau of the words bobo, or stupid, and botante, or voter) is often used to refer to voters who select unqualified candidates for office perhaps a movie star, an absentee congressman, an unapologetic daughter of a dictator. Bobotante is often directed towards the masses, voters who are not us, who are Other: others who did not go to elite schools, who clean your condo elevators every morning, who may not understand basic English, who may not even read this article, who wear Bong Revilla shirts and sell sampaguita in the streets, who watch primetime telenovelas as they iron your clothes. In short, bobotante is another shot at the masses by the middle- and upper-class who rest comfortably in the privilege afforded to them by a system that excludes the poor but benefits the rich. Elections a bust? Blame the masses; theyre uneducated and stupid. Drugs in your community? Blame the tambays in tattered clothes; propose their eradication. Traffic bringing you down? Blame buses, blame desperate commuters, blame jeeps; suggest anything but dignified public transportation. See the pattern there? Blaming the poor is convenient and lazy, just like how we may dismiss rallies and street protest as lazy. Lazy is easy, wrote Marrian Pio Roda Ching in 2017, in a rebuttal against calling people who join mobilizations lazy. Lazy is refusing to take part in the peoples struggle, she continued, and choosing to quietly surrender our rights to the ruling class. Working with NGOs and talking to strangers on the street taught me this: that the poor are anything but lazy, anything but stupid. They are tired, they are hungry, and they want things to change. They feel this in their bones; they live every day in the hope that someone will help them overcome poverty and injustice, even as they struggle to put food in their childrens mouths, even as they struggle to live another day fighting. Last February 2019, I met Ka Raul Ramos, a farmer in Sicogon island, Carles, Iloilo, who was able to travel to Metro Manila by way of the Rural Poor Institute for Land and Human Rights Services, a local NGO advocating for land reform. Ka Raul, like many Filipino farmers, has almost nothing to his name. That day I talked to him, Ka Raul was distraught. Along with other Sicogon farmers, he protested how a tourism joint venture by Ayala Land trampled on farmers rights in Sicogon island. He sought dialogue with the Department of Agrarian Reform, and wept with his companions before an official, recounting ordeals of violence, ejection from their homes, and usurpation of their land and resources. Ka Raul knew the facts of their case by heart. I was pleasantly surprised that he knew the exact reference number of the Supreme Court decision that supported the farmers claim. He knew the dates and the number of months lapsed in the timeline of the land dispute. He articulated the legal and the moral basis of the land reform struggle. In our disappointment, its easy to blame the manifestation of our failures as a people: the "eyesore," the powerless, the landless, the poor rather than confront the uncomfortable fact that we have grown far too complicit in a system that not only concentrated power in a few, but also gave us our privilege, which too few of us use to contest those in power. Another thing that surprised me then: Ka Raul voted for Duterte, who is often tagged as a candidate only uneducated voters will vote for, or in the alternative, a president whose endorsed candidates are supported by those who are not enlightened still. Ka Raul wore an ID as a member of a group called Movers of Rody Duterte, which rallies support for the president in their municipality. He called for the president to show his concern for farmers. He demanded accountability from Duterte, even as he displayed support for him. Nasaan ang malasakit ng presidente? Talaga ba, totoo bang may malasakit siya sa mahihirap na tulad namin? he asked. Kung may malasakit siya, disiplinahin niya yang mga tauhan niya, yung mga alter ego niya dito sa Department of Agrarian Reform na hindi naman marunong magtrabaho. Ka Raul and other poor farmers taught me about agrarian reform in the Philippines more than any book or journal article ever did. He was not the first farmer Ive ever talked to, but I only highlight this example to show how inherently flawed and insensitively cruel it is to call someone like Ka Raul an uneducated voter. Like many Others, Ka Raul has a voice and agency, the context of which might be difficult (but not impossible) for those in a position of privilege to understand. Tonyo Cruz wrote in 2018 that politics is not about intelligence, but power. We may view politicians as too smart or too stupid, but their excess or lack of intelligence is not what matters, he writes. What really matters is that they have power, and they misuse and abuse it often only to benefit themselves and to prolong or expand their power. He adds: We are furious because we as a people have no power. In our disappointment, its easy to blame the manifestation of our failures as a people: the eyesore, the powerless, the landless, the poor rather than confront the uncomfortable fact that we have grown far too complicit in a system that not only concentrated power in a few, but also gave us our privilege, which too few of us use to contest those in power. The poor were never the problem; poverty is merely the worst symptom of a social cancer still all too apparent but rendered invisible by our refusal to acknowledge and act on our multilayered crises: the lack of accountability in governance, eroding democratic institutions, a timid press that falls short of its role to educate and question, a repressive environment that fosters violence and intimidation, a broken justice system, the absence of genuine land reform, the continued abuse against Filipino workers, and an inert civil society yet to build a social mass significant enough to challenge authoritarian rule, among others. We still have a long way to go. But lets start by redirecting our anger towards what actually ails the country, as we reexamine and ask ourselves, again and again: Who are you calling a bobotante? Culturally, the event will highlight the talents of several area male vocalists. They include three mens choirs and two soloists. James Kimball, a baritone, grew up in Hickory and attended Ridgeview School. He was first inspired by listening to his sister, Nancy, sing and later by the instruction and training he received from choir directors in high school, church and college choirs. His experience has consisted of singing many solo leads in his church (Friendship) choir and providing various solo performances for community events. He considers his voice a God-given talent and sings both gospel and traditional sacred music. James says, after all these years, he still gets nervous when performing. MAIDEN The American Legion Auxiliary Unit 240, Maiden, asks for the publics support to remember veterans. Poppy Day is a memorial to American war dead and a tribute to disabled servicemen and women. It originated after the First World War. Soldiers returning from Europe in 1918 were familiar with the wild poppies that bloomed in the battlefields of France and Flanders. More than a half million Americans died and nearly a million were wounded during the World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Through the American Legion Auxiliary Poppy Program, more than $300,000 is paid annually to needy and disabled veterans who make the memorial flowers. All donations from Poppy Days go directly to aid disabled war veterans and members of their families. Poppy Day has become a familiar tradition in almost every American community. This distribution of the bright red memorial flower to the public is one of the oldest and most widely recognized programs of the American Legion Auxiliary. By wearing a poppy on Poppy Day, each American can honor the sacrifices made by servicemen and women, while assisting the living. Soon after Pratt leaves, Knot learns she is pregnant. She does not want to end the pregnancy, but wants nothing to do with the child after its birth. To the rescue comes a dear friend, Otis Lee Loving, and his wife, Penelope or Pep. They find a local couple to adopt Knots daughter. All this is done in secret and only a few people in the community know that Frances, daughter of Phillip and Lady Waters, is really Knots birth child. Shortly after she recovers from the first delivery, Knot becomes pregnant again. Otis Lee comes to the rescue once more. He finds a place for the new baby with local storeowners, Brock and Ayra Manning. They name the baby Eunice. When they grow up, Frances and Eunice, not knowing about their common origin, come to despise each other and fight for the attention of the same man. On this situation, Winslow builds a series of confrontations and complications that challenge the comfortable order of the West Mills community. The purdah is back in the news again. The circumstances that bring back the debate, which has in past spanned continents, make it a difficult subject to talk about, and requires us to go beyond simplistic generalisations. Islam doesnt demand a full-face veil, the niqab, worn by many Muslim women. The full-face veil ban in Sri Lanka should, therefore, be seen from the security perspective. A country which is trying to forget its immediate violent memories witnesses a form of violence that it thought it had moved on from. More than 250 are killed on the sacred day of Easter, many of them in churches. The country needs to respond to the crisis in every possible manner. It shuts the Internet, imposes curfew and arrests suspects. A local Islamist outfit emerges as the suspect. Later, the Islamic State claims responsibility, and more attacks are feared. It was an attack on a fragile fault line, with a potential to last for long and embroil the island nation in a fresh crisis of an unmanageable scale. It made it incumbent upon the country to do everything possible to make its citizens safe. And thus, among the many measures the country took, President Maithripala Sirisena used his emergency powers to ban the full-face veil, inviting sharp reactions. Before we denounce the ban, we must realise that the measure was taken keeping the national security in mind; it helps in the identification of potential terrorists, who might misuse it to achieve their heinous goals. Probably thats why many Lankan Muslims welcomed the move. The All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU), the top body of Islamic scholars in Sri Lanka, said they supported a short-term ban on security grounds, but opposed any attempt to legislate against burqas, said an April 29 Reuters report. Even though very few Sri Lankan Muslim women wear the niqab, some feel that the ban may lead to religious tensions. After the Christchurch attack, New Zealands Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and many others in that country wore the hijab as a symbol of solidarity with the Muslim community. As wearing the hijab was an act of solidarity, a ban on the full-face veil for security reasons should not be seen as an attack on the religion or the community. National security has made other countries, too, ban the niqab. France, Belgium and Bulgaria are some of the examples. Even Egypt, a Muslim country, made it unlawful in public places, only to recall the ban after vociferous protests. Besides, it is just the niqab that has been banned, and not the hijab or the head-covering worn by many Muslim women observing purdah. A lot of confusion takes place because of the misunderstanding over the definitions. The hijab is simply a head covering, with the face uncovered. The niqab is a full-face veil. The religious scriptures are clear on what constitutes the purdah. The Koranic verses from Surah Al-Nur which talk of the hijab has been translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali as: And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms This is generally interpreted as the exclusion of face and hands from purdah, according to the books of hadiths the Prophet Mohammads sayings such as Dawood and Bukhari. In fact, the niqab is not allowed during one of the holiest gatherings of Islam, the hajj and umrah as it is mandated that cloth should not touch the face. Most of those who observe purdah wear the abaya with a hijab. If some women in Sri Lanka or elsewhere do wear the niqab, they can keep the face uncovered in the larger interests of security and society. Those who still wish to wear the niqab can use a scarf, thus allowing for security checks. Irrespective of the religion one belongs to, no duty is more important than the interests of the country one belongs to and lives in. If the niqab is coming in the way of security, and considering that it is not mandated by Islam and only worn by a small section of Muslim women, I see really no reason for it to become a cause of religious tension and division. Rana Safvi is a historian and columnist The views expressed are personal Actor Vicky Kaushal is holidaying in New York and will reportedly celebrate his birthday in Big Apple on May 16. Ahead of it, he met actor Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh in the city. He also clicked a picture with the two veteran actors, which is now online . He is accompanied by a friend. Just two days back, Neetu had posted pictures with Deepika Padukone when she visited them. Rishi has been stationed in New York since September last year and has been undergoing treatment for cancer. While the family had been tight-lipped about his disease earlier, they confirmed recently that Rishi was now cancer-free and would soon return to India. Also read: Deepika Padukone takes a tumble in the gym, Ranveer Singh comes up with a naughty suggestion Speaking to Hindustan Times, Randhir Kapoor has said in April: Yes, he is much better, and he will come back soon. [On whether he is completely cured], hes on his way to full recovery and it takes time, hes got to finish the whole course, but hes fine. Later, Rishi too confirmed the news. Vicky, meanwhile, has reportedly rented a villa in the suburbs of New York city and is chilling with college friends. He is reportedly on a two-week break from work and will ring in his 31st birthday with friends. He has been busy of late, working on Shoojit Sircar film titled Sardar Udham Singh. The first look of the film, shot in St Petersburg, was released on April 30 and showed Vicky in a new hairdo and a heavy overcoat. Later in the year, Vicky also has Karan Johars Takht. A multi-starrer, the film will feature Vicky as Aurangzeb, Ranveer Singh as Dara Shikoh and Kareena Kapoor as Jahannara in a story, set in the later years of the Mughal era. The film also stars Anil Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar and Janhvi Kapoor. Follow @htshowbiz for more Actor Priyanka Chopra is riding high on popularity across the globe and has now added another feather to her cap. The actor has crossed 40 million followers on Instagram, the highest for a Bollywood actor. Priyanka shared a heartfelt message for her fans in a video on her Instagram stories. Thanking her fans for following her on the social networking site, Priyanka said, Oh My God! 40 million. Its amazing. I still remember the day when I joined Instagram. One by one, all of you have been part of such an amazing journey for me.I am really touched and extremely moved. I love you all and thank you for all your support all my life. I hope it always stays. Priyanka also shared a short video to share her excitement with the caption, Biiiiiigggg shoutout to my #InstaFam!!! You guys have my heart! Sending love and hugs to each one of you for being a part of my journey! #ILoveYouAll #40MillionStrong #PCManiacs. While Priyanka tops with a 40 million, her Bajirao Mastani co-star is her closest competitor with 35 million followers. Raazi actor Alia Bhatt stands third at 33 million. Meanwhile, Priyankas husband Nick Jonas has 23.9 million followers and sister-in-law and Games of Thrones star Sophie Turner has 12.4 million followers. Also read: Tiger Shroff calls himself gareebo ka Hrithik Roshan, says he is facing his idol in his next film Priyanka will next be seen in Shonali Boses The Sky Is Pink which also stars her Dil Dhadakne Do co-star Farhan Akhtar and Zaira Wasim of Dangal fame. She has also signed a Hollywood film with Mindy Kaling which will revolved around a big fat Indian wedding. The actor was last seen in Hollywood film Isnt It Romantic in a prominent role and made a striking appearance in Jonas Brothers new single, Sucker. Follow @htshowbiz for more Actor Priyanka Chopras brother Siddharth Chopra and fiancee Ishita Kumar called off their wedding at the last minute. The two were supposed to tie the knot in the last week of April for which the entire family, including Priyanka and cousin Parineeti Chopra, had flown down to Mumbai to be a part of the celebrations. As per the latest development, Ishita has now moved back to London. Ishita had posted a picture of herself with the caption, Back in London, Time to focus on work. She had also thanked her mother for supporting her in her decisions, especially in the last one month, on Mothers Day. Sharing a picture with mother Nidhi Kumar, Ishita wrote, Happy Mothers day Mom. Youve always been so strong and supported me in all my decisions, Specially in the past 1 month. Always grateful for your blessings and support. In reply to the post, Nidhi wrote, I will always be there for you.. To support you n help you in moments of distress n take you out of trouble.. Unconditionally. WATCH: Priyanka Chopra was a bridesmaid at Sophie-Joes wedding Ishita had announced new beginnings post the break up with pictures from her get-together with friends. She had captioned one of the photos, Cheers to new beginnings. With a goodbye kiss to beautiful endings. She had also deleted all photos of the roka ceremony and her bachelor party, as well as pictures with Siddharth. Earlier reports had suggested that the wedding was called off due to Ishita undergoing an emergency surgery just before the wedding. Later, Priyankas mother Madhu Chopra told Spotboye, My son Siddharth said he was not ready for marriage yet. He explained he needed more time. Also read: Priyanka Chopra crosses 40 million followers on Instagram, says I hope it always stays Priyanka and husband Nick Jonas had earlier flown to India to attend their roka ceremony in February. The actor had also shared a few pictures from the event along with the caption, So proud of my baby brother. Ishita welcome to the family...you are so beautiful together...I wish you both the best for the future! Happy Roka!! @ishittaakumar @siddharthchopra89. Follow @htshowbiz for more Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff is not one to follow the pack. At a time when his industry colleagues are happily exploring the web space, the actor clearly states that he is not ready to take that route yet. Web is a big no for me right now, he says as he quickly adds that its not like he has anything against the medium. Hats off to the people on the web who are pulling it off so well. There are so many good shows and films that are being made. I have immense respect for the medium but I dont want to be a part of it right now. Nothing can match the impact of a large screen. When you go and watch a film in the theatre, it has a larger-than-life impact. I love cinema and would like to focus on it for now, says Tiger. He also praises actors who are working in both the media and doing a commendable job. Also read: Shah Rukh Khan, Aanand L Rai have falling out after Zero debacle? Meanwhile, the actor is happy with the way his latest film, Student Of The Year 2 is being received. We are very grateful for the opening our film has got and are especially grateful to everyone who supported and showered love on our film, says Tiger, whose next project will be directed by Sidharth Anand. The film also stars Hrithik Roshan, and Tiger while expressing his admiration for the senior actor calls Hrithik his idol. Tiger sounds excited while talking about Hrithik, especially when asked about the much-talked about dance-off that is a part of the film. I am intimidated by him, he says with a smile, My next film is my biggest challenge. I am facing my hero I call myself gareebo ka Hrithik Roshan, so there is already a comparison there (smiles). Its an honour for me to stand in the same frame as him. We are yet to shoot the dance-off. Its too hot right now so we have postponed it. But I am both excited and jittery about it. Apart from the film, there are also reports about Tiger making his Hollywood debut soon. He has got many offers and he might soon say yes to a big-budget film. Reportedly, Lawrence Kasanoff, producer of the Mortal Kombat series, recently made a hush-hush visit to Mumbai and met Tiger to discuss the project. However, nothing has been finalised yet and Tiger is not ready to reveal much. When asked whats stopping him from taking up an international film, he says, Nothing is stopping me. I may end up doing one soon. But right now, its in the initial stages, discussions are on and I cant talk about it. Its an action film Lets see when can we get things going, he says. Follow @htshowbiz for more SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Jet Airways (India) Ltd lost its senior-most executives on Tuesday, raising fresh uncertainty over whether the airline, grounded for nearly a month, will ever take to the skies. Vinay Dube, chief executive officer (CEO), and Amit Agarwal, deputy CEO and chief financial officer, put in their papers, adding to the growing list of top-level exits at the Mumbai-based carrier. Later in the day, Kuldeep Sharma, company secretary and vice-president of global compliance, joined the list of exits, according to regulatory filings by Jet Airways. The cash-strapped airline was forced to suspend operations on April 17 as it amassed more than $1 billion in debt. A consortium of lenders, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), that has taken control of the airline had initiated a bidding process, but failed to find a suitor willing to buy a majority stake. Dube and Agarwal cited personal reasons for their resignations. Both executives did not respond to Mints queries seeking comments. Sharma could not be reached for comment. The resignations come at a time when the finance ministrys Enforcement Directorate has initiated a probe into Etihad Airways PJSCs investment in Jet Privilege Pvt. Ltd (JPPL), the frequent-flyer programme of Jet Airways. The countrys top economic intelligence agency is seeking to ascertain whether certain foreign direct investment norms were violated when the Abu Dhabi-based carrier took a stake in JPPL in 2014. The series of senior personnel exits in just about a month has coincided with the ongoing general election that has effectively ruled out a government-backed bailout. The latest exits are expected to cause fresh setbacks to Jets stake sale plans and make it tougher for a potential buyer to take over the reins of the airline. The resignations come amid efforts by the SBI-led consortium to scout for potential investors to revive the airline. Either both these top executives saw the writing on the wall and realized that the airline is beyond redemption, or they were asked by SBI to quit, said an aviation industry executive, requesting anonymity. The timing of the resignations is indeed odd. The resignations come within days of Etihad making a non-binding bid for a minority stake in Jet Airways, subject to several conditions. Mint reported on Monday that Etihad had offered to infuse close to 1,400 crore in Jet Airways, aimed at keeping its stake at the current level. This has prompted lenders to look for new investors willing to take a majority stake. Dube took charge of Jet Airways in August 2017, while Agarwal had joined in December 2015. Jet Airways has seen a slew of top executives and board members quit in the past few months. In April, former chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi resigned as non-executive and non-independent director on the airlines board citing personal reasons and time constraints. Independent director Rajshree Pathy left in April, weeks after Jets founder-promoter Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal quit the airlines board. Last week, top executive Gaurang Shetty, considered close to Goyal, also resigned from the board. Prime Minister Narendra Modi routinely complains that journalists are biased against him and his party. He also says they are soft on the opposition, especially the Congress and the Gandhi family. He has now used a media interview, one in the continuing series in the slog over phase of these elections, to articulate his view in some detail. In the very detailed interview to The Indian Express recently, he made the following main points about journalists: They might pretend to be neutral, but they arent. Good and fair journalists must be neutral. In the past, editors/journalists could conceal their predilections. Editors always used to be anonymous, speaking rarely, if at all, at seminars. Now they speak all the time. Today, with most of them chattering away on social media (mainly Twitter) they are exposed. They are complicit in collectively maligning his image, a part of the Khan Market Gang. As someone whos been around in journalism for more than a bit, I am happy to join this argument with him. I break down my response in seven short points. Journalistic neutrality is an impossibility. It is also an uncalled-for demand. Living beings, whether human, or dogs and cats, will always have a view on any situation or issue. What journalists can, and should do, while having their opinions, is to employ professional tools and tests to make their reporting objective and fair. Social media, especially Twitter, is a great new medium for journalists to multiply their reach and impact. It can also be a trap and PM Modi is right to say that when journalists make their preferences, likes and dislikes so public, how do you trust them with their editorial fairness? Its a problem and newsrooms are learning to deal with. In the US, legacy giants such as The New York Times and Washington Post have greatly strengthened their social media policies, placing limitations on their journalists publishing their personal views if they reveal their bias. ThePrint allows its full-time journalists to write on social media anything that would also be publishable on the edited platform. For example, you cannot call somebody a mass murderer or thief on social media or in public speeches if you dont have the facts to say so in a story. It is incorrect to say editors views were not known until the arrival of social media. This varies between individuals and eras. Even in the past, many eminent editors such as Frank Moraes, BG Verghese, Girilal Jain, Arun Shourie, Prabhash Joshi and Rajendra Mathur (I am limiting myself to languages I read) have shared their views generously and without hypocrisy or pretence of anodyne neutrality with the readers. The PM is unfair to the vast majority of Indian media, which dotingly supports him today, by insinuating that journalists are mostly opposed to him. If you watch your TV channels at prime time, all, bar the odd exception, mostly sing his praises and keep tough questions only for the opposition. He has the biggest media fan club for a leader I have seen since 1977. Again, barring a couple of exceptions, the big dailies in most languages do not give him any discomfort. Some media still questions and criticises him. But he is not the only leader in power to face this. Every leader does, as did Manmohan Singh, particularly in his second term. The same Time magazine, which has now caused consternation by calling Modi Indias Divider-in-Chief, had featured Singh on the cover with the headline, The Underachiever. The PM mentioned two specific issues from the UPA period, the formation of the National Advisory Council (NAC) which could overrule the Cabinet and Rahul Gandhi tearing that ordinance. Both had drawn criticism. You might want to Google me with NAC, extra-constitutional and UPAs auto-immune self-destruction. The lesson is, when you are in power, be prepared to face the heat. Or at least some heat. His characterisation of his critics, where we presume he combines journalists and liberal intellectuals, as Khan Market Gang is the most interesting highlight. It is as if that tiny old market is to devious Lutyens Delhi what Balakot is to terrorist Pakistan. My submission is, irritating though he may find this pesky lot, he greatly exaggerates their power and influence. He does indeed flatter them. It also shows he is reading too much Twitter. He talked about reading a collection of 50 tweets by a journalist/intellectual and figuring out his reality. That, prime minister, is too much time spent on Twitter. You must have more important stuff to read. And finally, where does it leave us journalists? I started working in early 1977 with a tiny Delhi-based weekly called Democratic World. We had created a home-ad for the magazine that read: The Left thinks we are Right, the Right thinks we are Left, so we must be doing something right. Id say, follow the same view. Keep your opinions and predilections close, no problem. Just be professional enough that you can convince your audiences of your objectivity. We are mere journalists. We arent political scientists. And definitely not political philosophers. What we wish for, cant be a part of our journalism. Finally, dont worry about your audiences minds getting prejudiced by the abuse you face on social media. Because it wont happen. Your audiences are smart. And if you so wish, you can update that old ad copy for modern times: The Left thinks we are Right, the Right thinks we are Left, so we get trolled by both. A thick skin is as much a professional necessity in journalism now as a clean nose and an erect spine. The views expressed are personal Abdul Majid Baba, an alleged Jaish-e-Mohammad operative, who was convicted by the Delhi High Court in 2013 under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act but had fled instead of surrendering, has been arrested, the Delhi Police said on Tuesday. The Delhi Polices special cell, which arrested Baba from Sopore in Jammu & Kashmir on Saturday, said the agency is yet to find any terror involvement of the man after 2013. The Delhi Police said that in February 2007, it had arrested four alleged JEM operatives: Shahid Gafoor from Pakistan, Bashir Ahmed Ponnu, Fayaz Ahmed Lone and Abdul Majid Baba from Jammu and Kashmir. The men were arrested after a brief encounter at Deen Dayal Upadhayay Marg and three kilos of explosive, four detonators, a timer, six hand grenades, one pistol, 50,000 and fake US dollar currency notes with a face value of 10,000 were recovered from them, said Sanjeev Yadav, DCP (special cell). During interrogation they had revealed that they were active members of JeM and had hatched conspiracy of a terrorist attack in Delhi on the directions of their mentors based in Pakistan, the DCP said. Gafoor, who was from Pakistan, further revealed that he had illegally crossed into India twice, in 1998 and in 2002. He remained in Jammu and Kashmir and carried out a ghastly attack on Rashtriya Rifles camp. On August 7, 2013, a court convicted Gafoor and acquitted Ponnu, Lone and Baba. Later, on an appeal against their acquittal, the high court convicted all the three militants, but Ponnu Lone and Baba did not surrender and fled the city, Yadav said. The day is here. Assam High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) or Class 10 examination results will be declared today, May 15. According to a press release issued by the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA), the results will be declared at 9am. Assam HSLC Result 2019: Follow LIVE Updates here The students who have appeared in the Assam board Class 10 exam can check their results online as well as through text messages. The results will be available on sebaonline.org, resultsassam.nic.in, assamonline.in, results.siksha, knowyourresult.com, assamresult.in, examresults.net, exametc.com, indiaresults.com etc. Android phone users will also have the option of downloading the mobile app SEBA Results 2019 from the Google Play Store and check their results. State-run BSNL phone users have the option of getting the results through text message by sending SEBA19 Roll Number to 57766. In 2018, the Assam board Class 10 exams were conducted from February 12 to March 14. More than 3,50,000 students had appeared. The pass percentage last year was 56.04%. To check instances of cheating, SEBA took various measures, including installing of CCTV cameras in 2019. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The police on Wednesday busted an interstate gang of car thieves who allegedly rented cars in the city and drove them to Nagaland and Nepal to sell them. Two members of the gang were arrested from Wazirabad in the city on the basis of a tipoff. The police said four other members of the gang are on the run and a hunt has been launched to nab them. The police said the gang preferred SUVs and rented them from agencies in Gurugram, Palwal, Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani and Chandigarh. The cars were sold off for 5 lakh-7 lakh. The police said the gang had rented and sold off at least 57 cars in the last five years. The police on Wednesday allegedly recovered a Mahindra Scorpio from the two men. The gang came under the scanner after they duped a city-based car rental in Sector 82 twice within a month. According to the police, they received a complaint from Deepak Kumar, a resident of Sector 82 on Tuesday evening that a man had contacted him on May 11 and expressed interest in renting a Scorpio for three days. We received a call last Saturday (May 11) and the man introduced himself as Sagar, a resident of southwest Delhi. He inquired about the charges of Scorpio and after negotiation, we finalised a daily rent of 3,200. Within a few minutes, he sent his identification documents such as Aadhaar card, driving license and PAN card on WhatsApp. After checking the IDs, we handed over the SUV to him for three days but he did not return until Tuesday. We sent an employee to his address and found that he had given the wrong address and all his IDs were fake, said Kumar in his complaint to the police. The police said when Kumar tried to call up the phone number from which the man had called him, it was switched off. He approached the police on Tuesday. Rajesh Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (Manesar), said the victim also disclosed that this was the second such incident within a month and people with the same modus operandi had taken another SUV on April 16 for 25 days but never returned. We formed teams and we roped in crime investigation unit of Sector 10. Based on technical and human intelligence the teams got the location of the suspects and they were arrested from Wazirabad crossing on Wednesday afternoon, he said. The police said the SUV also had a global positioning system (GPS) which helped them follow the route taken by the car thieves. The suspects were identified as Ajit Yadav, 34, a resident of Mahidnergarh and Sahil Kumar, 22, a resident of Jhojhu Kalan in Charkhi Dadri. A case under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (fraud ), 467 (forging document) and 468 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Kherki Daula police station on Tuesday night. The men reportedly told the police that there were six members in their gang and Pawan Kumar, a resident of Charkhi Dadri in Bhiwani, was their leader. Kumar had formed the gang around five years ago. The suspects told us that Pawan used to assign the task to them and sent the addresses of the car rental companies in the Delhi-NCR. He used to send them the forged identification documents based on which they used to rent cars, said Jitender Yadav, inspector, CIA 10. The police said the gang preferred SUVs since they were in demand by their buyers in the Northeast and Nepal. The gang was divided into three groups of two each. The kingpin and his close aide used to drive the SUVs down from Lucknow to the Northeast. Two others used to prepare the forged documents from Uttar Pradesh and the arrested suspects used to rent SUVs, said Yadav. The two, who rented the cars from Gurugram and neighbouring areas, would take them to the kingpin in Lucknow. They also supplied these vehicles to car dealers in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi after using them for a few months, the police said. The gang was involved in dozens of such fraud cases and has targeted more than 50 such companies in the Delhi-NCR. We will produce the suspects before the court and demand five days police remand to know the exact details of the gang members and their area of operation, Yadav said. The company officials said this was the second time the gang members had targeted them. The first time, they had contacted us on April 15 and took the SUV on rent for 25 days. On the day of booking, they had deposited 1,000 in our account. Then they gave 6,400 and in these 25 days, they had deposited more money in the companys account. We realised we had been duped after they switched off their mobile numbers and did not return the car. We sent one of our employees to the given address but there was no such place as mentioned in the id, said Rishab Aswal, chief management official of the company. Many such companies have stopped renting cars to people providing documents of Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, and Palwal as they have been duped by people using IDs of these areas, the police said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON As the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections draw to a close, BJP chief Amit Shah on Wednesday exuded confidence about the party getting absolute majority in the House of 543 members when the votes are counted on May 23. Putting a number to his assessment of the Lok Sabha election results, the BJP chief said: I have travelled the whole country, gauged the mood after phase 5 and 6, the BJP has got the absolute majority and after phase 7 we will definitely cross the 300 mark. Shah was speaking at a press conference in Delhi called to give details of the violence during his roadshow in West Bengal on Tuesday. The BJP chief said that the state CM Mamata Banerjee was rattled by this public mood and was thus resorting to violence. In the 2014 general elections, the BJP alone won 282 seats, becoming the first party in 30 years to gain a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own. The NDA emerged from those elections with 336 seats. Several BJP leaders have been expressing the view that the party would win 300 seats in the ongoing elections with the PM himself saying he had no doubt that the BJP would cross the 300 mark. The BJP alone is getting 300 seats while NDA is getting 350 plus seats after the sixth phase of elections, senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said recently. But the BJP allies seem to disagree. Naresh Gujral, the Rajya Sabha MP of Shiromani Akali Dal one of the oldest allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party feel the saffron party is likely to fall short of absolute majority. The BJP may fall short of absolute majority but a stable coalition government will be formed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in which all allies will get a true representation in the cabinet as per their seat number, said Gujral in Jalandhar. Another ally Shiv Sena also expressed a similar view. The National Democratic Alliance will form the government with the BJP as the single-largest party, but it will be somewhat difficult for the BJP to win 280-plus votes, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut told a TV channel. Air India has set up an enquiry against one of its senior captains on sexual harassment allegations after receiving a complaint from a woman pilot. Air India spokesperson said that the woman pilot in her complaint to the airlines management stated that the accused asked her several inappropriate questions. In her complaint, she stated, The instructor reportedly suggested the two to have dinner at a city restaurant in Hyderabad on May 5 after the training session was over. I agreed as I had done a few flights with him and he seemed decent. We went to a restaurant at around 8 pm and this is where my ordeal started. He started with telling me how depressed and unhappy he was in his married life. He also asked me how I coped with my husband living away and whether I didnt need to have sex every day... At some point, I told him I did not want to talk about all this and called a cab, read the complaint from the woman pilot. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.) 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 Priyanka Sharma, the BJP leader who was arrested for sharing a meme on West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, on Wednesday said that she was tortured in jail. Priyanka Sharma also said that she wont apologise for sharing the meme. There is anarchy all across Bengal and I am being jailed for sharing a meme, said Sharma. The Supreme Court had ordered her release on Tuesday and told her to apologise to Mamata Banerjee. On Wednesday, the top court said the arrest was prima facie arbitrary. The observation came after the lawyer for Sharmas brother said she has not been released from jail despite the courts order for her immediate release on Tuesday. Sharma was arrested on May 10 after she reportedly superimposed Banerjees face on Priyanka Chopras photograph from the Met Gala event in New York held on May 6. The 26-year-old was charged with penal provisions relating to defamation, uploading offensive content and distributing sexually explicit material. The Supreme Court said it will hear Priyanka Sharmas application seeking action against the West Bengal police authorities in the first week of July. The Enforcement Directorate has arrested three persons, including two women, in a money laundering case in Hyderabad, the agency said in a statement on Wednesday. The arrested persons Nowhera Shaikh, Molly Thomas and Biju Thomas allegedly executed a money circulation scheme and collected over 3000 crore from over a lakh of people on the pretext of investments, according to the ED. The agency initiated investigations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act on the basis of first information reports (FIRs) registered by Telangana Police against the three and Hyderabad-based Heera Group of companies. The scheme was unsustainable and the group has defaulted in the repayment of the principal amount and promised returns to its investors. During the investigation, it is revealed that the accused persons and their group companies collected more than 3,000 crore from 1,72,114 investors across India on the pretext of investments, the agency said in a statement. These deposits, it added, were collected from victims in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and other states in India and also from non-resident Indians living in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. The group of companies does not have any substantial actual business activity by which they can earn the promised profits/returns..., the ED stated. The arrested persons have been sent to 7-day ED custody by a special court in Hyderabad. Ground water found at a depth of about 100 metres in north-west India will be exhausted within the next 10 years, according to a draft report of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) that highlights its over-exploitation in the region. The report, which has been submitted to state governments, draws on data recorded between 1994 and May 2018 and shows that withdrawal of groundwater has been greater than recharge -- against an annual gross groundwater withdrawal of 35.78 billion cubic meters (BCM), the annual recharge has only been 21.58 BCM. According to the report, groundwater level has been falling at the rate of 51cm every year and, at present, it is at a depth of 10-65 metres in the region. Over the past decade, an increase in the frequency of drought-like situations has led to an increase in withdrawal of groundwater. The India Meteorological Department reports (2012-2017) on rainfall patterns show that Himachal and Uttarakhand has received 25%-40% rainfall while Punjab, Haryana and parts of Rajasthan have received 15%-20% rainfall. The impact is clearly visible in the groundwater data released by the CGWB for these states. In Punjab, the districts of Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Nawashahr, Sangrur, Patiala and Barnala are in the red for over-exploitation of groundwater. The report is alarming and clearly states that groundwater at a depth of 100 metres will end in the next 10 years if the present rate of withdrawal continues, said a Punjab water resources department official, who was not willing to be quoted. Likewise in Haryana, the districts of Sirsa, Yamunanagar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Gurugram, Faridabad, Bhiwani, Rewari are in the red for over-exploitation of groundwater. In certain parts of Haryana, such as Sirsa, the groundwater situation is worse than that of Punjab. In the entire agriculture belt of northern and western Rajasthan, groundwater levels have fast depleted and are now in a critical stage. Except the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan and parts of eastern Rajasthan, the entire state has a groundwater emergency, according to latest data on the CGWB website. In Delhi, only the southern parts are in the red. There has been an improvement in groundwater levels in north-western and eastern parts of the national capital. Most of the areas that the Central Ground Water Authority has notified as having critical groundwater levels are in these four states. The falling groundwater levels in these states will have implications on supply of drinking water as well as agriculture as over a million tubewells provide water for both. Though Haryana and Punjab have irrigation facilities, a large part of Rajasthan is totally dependent on groundwater for its needs. P Nandkumaram, member-secretary of the CGWB, said the groundwater assessment report has been submitted to the water resources ministry. He refused to divulge details pending vetting of the report by the ministry. The situation is bad but not alarming, said a senior scientist with the board who was not willing to be quoted as he was not authorised to speak to the media. If we continue to exploit groundwater the way we are doing in an unsustainable manner, we are heading for disaster. We can sustain water at 50-60 metres below the ground but for that some regulation is needed. Himanshu Thakkar, an IIT alumnus, who runs a non-government organization South Asia Network of People, Rivers and Dams, said farmers over-dependence on groundwater was the prime reason for depletion. Even though India receives good rainfall every year, in many regions water is now available more than 100 metres below the ground. In some places, it is even more than 200 metres. The situation clearly shows that there is mismanagement, not proper use of rain water and gross misuse of groundwater, which is Indias water lifeline, he said. The CWGB report said at the current rate of extraction, all available groundwater resources till a depth of 300 metres in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan will be exhausted in the next 20-25 years. The extraction of ground water in the region has increased from 149% in 2013 to 165% in 2018, the report said. Nationally, the situation is slightly better. Against the annual groundwater availability of 411 BCM, the annual withdrawal is estimated to be 253 BCM. The board has observation wells at 30,000 locations in India, providing data on 16 attributes for four seasons in a year. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Officially, Ajit Singh died in a road accident 8km from his village in Haryanas Rohtak district at 7am on April 1, 2018. Its what his wife, Satwanti, who claimed to be present on the spot, reported at the Hisar Sadar police station. His nephew, Sachin Dhull, explained the chain of events in his statement to the police: My uncle, Ajit, and my aunt, Satwanti, had gone to the village Dabra to check out a buffalo for purchase. [While they were out] I was informed that a car hit my uncle causing an accident. Driving carelessly and at high speed, the driver of the [Hyundai] i-20 car (no: HR 31M 7380) hit my uncle from behind. He died due to the injuries from the accident. I have identified the dead body [at Civil Hospital, Hisar]. I request the police to find the name and address of the driver and initiate legal action. On April 2, a report on the front page of the newspaper Hisar Kesari laid out more details. Ajit had climbed down from a bus and had barely taken a few steps when an unidentified vehicle hit him. Ajit dropped down unconscious. The driver fled the scene. Ajit was taken, with the help of people present on the spot, to the hospital where he was declared brought dead. The body has been handed over to his family after a post-mortem examination. At 10.48am, the officer in-charge at Hisar Sadar station registered an FIR by Satwanti, and charged the unidentified driver under Sections 279 (rash driving) and 304-A (death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code. Five people known to the deceased identified his body at the mortuary, including his wife, older brother, and nephew. The body is lying on the stretcher. There is fresh blood on nose and mouth. The chest seems sunk on the right side, read the panchnama or polices record of observations. The post-mortem examination conducted at 12pm noted clotted blood in both nostrils and mouth, blue-colour bruise of approximately 10 x 15 cm over right side of chest, multiple rib fractures, laceration of lung tissue and multiple abrasions over both foot, elbow, face and forehead. Signed by the resident medical officer at Civil Hospital, Hisar, the post-mortem report put down the cause of death as injury to vital organssufficient to cause death in ordinary course of life. That settled the matter. Ajits wife and relatives went home. The police moved on. At least 150,000 people are killed in road accidents in India every year. Ajit happened to be just another one an ordinary end to an ordinary life. Back home, his wife informally married his older brother, Naseeb, in a common turn of event in parts of rural Haryana. They expected no big changes to their life. Except one. Days before he was killed, Ajit had signed up for personal accident insurance policy with at least four companies, at an average premium of 5,000. An accidental death would entitle his nominee to at least 25 lakh from one. In July 2018, Satwanti sent a letter to the claims department of Bajaj Allianz. I am informing you with deep regret that my husband Ajit has died in a road accident. I have attached all documents related to his death. Please initiate the process of compensation. CONCRETE DOUBT Sometime between 2017 and 2018, many insurance agencies operating in Haryana began to suspect a trend. During that period, Bharti AXA General Insurance received a stream of Personal Accidental Claims from Haryana. There was a strange commonality to them. The nominees bank account was opened just one or two months prior to buying Bharti AXA General Insurance policies. The PAN (Permanent Account Number) card of nominees was also issued just a couple of months before. Interestingly, we found all the insured were farmers and they had never taken any personal accidental policies in past, said Aman Bedi, associate vice-president, Fraud & Investigation Unit, Bharti AXA. This wasnt all. As per medical documents, we observed that all insured died due to head injuries and they were brought dead to the hospital. While scrutinising these cases, we also found three common mobile numbers, Bedi said. Similar concerns were coming up at Bajaj Allianz. It was receiving a lot of cases from Rohtak and Sonepat of personal accidents in which the gap between buying of policy and pressing of claim was too close. It had also noticed in the police documents, the absence of eyewitnesses, photos of the accident spots, and injuries suffered by fellow passengers. Executives at Chola MS General Insurance had noticed that in four such claims received by the company in 2017-18 the deceased were insured for 10 lakh each, neither for a higher value, nor for a lower value; the victims were farmers by profession but purchased online policies using credit/ debit cards; and the policies were bought one month prior to the deaths. Mysteriously, in all the four cases, the victim was riding pillion on a motorbike whose driver lost balance because of the sudden emergence of an animal in front of the vehicle: buffalos in two cases, a bull in one, and an antelope in another. The insurance firms were also noticing that the road accidents killing their clients were being reported at the same police stations in Sonepat, Jhajjar, Hisar and Panipat.sometime in 2017, a private investigator (PI) in Haryana received 19 to 20 cases from various insurance companies. He reached out to the families, neighbours, doctors and police officers in each of these cases. No one was willing to talk, but he picked up some information. In 2018, he reported back to the insurance companies saying that he had concrete doubt that these deaths werent caused by road accidents. These farmers had died of cancer. On April 5, 2019, Bharti AXA filed a complaint with the director general of police in Panchkula, after a year of internal investigations, alleging that a gang of conmen had defrauded the company of crores of rupees. Several other insurance companies followed with similar complaints. The case was handed over to the Special Task Force (STF) of Haryana Police. On April 20, after two weeks of investigation, STF arrested the mastermind of the scam and his two close aides from Sonepat. Everything about the scam sounds strangely unreal. The Haryana-based gang allegedly identified terminal cancer patients from rural, low-income backgrounds, got them to insure themselves with multiple companies by hiding their condition, waited for them to die, and then put their dead bodies through accidents. The gang kept a part of the insured sum, between 8 and 20 lakh in each case, and distributed the rest among its partners in crime: family members, police officers, record keepers, doctors, insurance agents, and public prosecutors. At least 100 people have been accused of being complicit in the scam that allegedly carried on for two years, executed nearly a 100 cases, and cheated more than 25 insurance companies of over 100 crore, according to STF. HIT AND RUN In Bhagwatipur village, everyone remembers Ajit Singh, but few are willing to talk about the circumstances of his death. Except for Balwan Dhull, his longtime neighbour who treated him like a younger brother. He was diagnosed with cancer two or three years before his death. His treatment was going on in PGIMS (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science, Rohtak), said Dhull between long drags on his hookah. He said he saw Singh shortly before the latter took his last breath. At four in the morning, I went to see him. He was feeling uneasy. He asked me to place his cot out under the sky. When I went back at 6 am, he was lying dead. His wife was there. Then, Dhull said, the insurancewale showed up. They took away his body.unka accident dikha diya [they showed his death as an accident]. Dhull saw the dead body again after a few hours. We were called to the mortuary to identify it. [This time] his body had injuries from head to chest. Like most people close to Ajit Singh, Balwan Dhull knew what was going on. Paise bana rahe the [they were making money off it]. Very little is known yet about the mastermind of the scam. Pawan Kumar Bhoria, 42, was born in Sevali village in Haryanas Sonepat district. At the time of his arrest, he was living in a rented apartment in a housing society in Kundli on the Delhiharyana border with his wife and two children. After graduating from a Sonepat college and an unfinished course in law from Meerut University, he began to work for insurance agencies. Between 2005 and 2015, he worked in three insurance companies, starting as an agent and moving on to handling cases that went to MACT (motor accident claims tribunal). It was while working at Reliance General Insurance, where he spent eight years, that he got the idea for the scam. It was a unique strategy, and no one had ever thought of turning deaths into accidents, he explained to STF. Currently he and his seven-member gang cousins, nephews, friends are facing charges under section 201 (destruction of evidence), 205 (false personation for purpose of act or proceeding in suit or prosecution), 34 (common intention), 420 (fraud), 464 (making a false document), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471 (using forged document) of the Indian Penal Code at Civil Lines police station in Sonepat. Bhoria began the scam in 2015 by contacting the computer operator of the cancer ward of the states largest public hospital and buying from him the details of patients going through the last stage of throat cancer. The gang paid between 10,000 and 15,000 per file to the operator at PGIMS, Rohtak, said director general of police Satheesh Balan. The computer operator at PGIMS was arrested on April 21. The institute has expressed shock at learning that someone from PGIMS was also involved. Dr Varun Arora, public relations officer at PGIMS, said the institute has launched an internal inquiry. We treat more than a lakh patients per year, and their records are stored across different wards based on the category of ailment. Armed with the names and addresses of the terminal patients, Bhoria and his gang went to their homes and proposed a lucrative deal. In most of the cases, it was middle-aged men who were about to die of cancer. Bhoria and his aides reminded the family of what they were set to lose with the death of the main working member of the family, and what they could gain if they played their part in the scheme. They wouldnt have to do much, the gang told the families. Their bank accounts would be opened, the minimum amount put in, their PAN card applications would be submitted, insurance forms filled, even premiums provided for. STFS investigations into the four cases brought up by Chola MS revealed that all the insurance policies were purchased through the same IP address, even though the deceased belonged to different districts. All the family had to do was to say as they were told and to sign, or mark their thumb impressions at the appropriate places. In many cases, the family members turned down our offers. We used to target at least 50 patients a month out of which only 10 agreed to get insured, Bhoria told STF. As part of this deal, the patient and their family also permitted Bhoria and his gang to seize control of the dead body and kill it in an accident. The most commonly enacted accident was a hit-and-run. When the patient would die, they would take the body to a spot and crush it with a vehicle to pass it off as an accident, said KK Rao, inspector general of police in the STF. On April 24, STF arrested Sumit Kumar, the son of a cancer victim who died in December 2018, for filing a false FIR for accidental death of his father. He had filed claims with various insurance companies aggregating to a sum of 1 crore. He received 2 lakh from the scamsters, according to STF. The police recovered the cash from his house in Ballah village in Karnal district. At times, it was the same car hitting walking or bike-borne persons in different districts and running away from the spot. The death of Dharamvir Singh on 11.4.2019 who was from village Kansala and suffered from cancer was shown as being caused by an accident. The car that is supposed to have hit him (HR 11 LL 4100 I-20) belongs to Mohit [accomplice of Pavan Bhoria]. In an earlier claim [received by Bharti AXA], the accidental death of Sandeep from Uttam Vihar, Rohtak, on 25.11.18. also involved the same car, noted the FIR. The dead bodies were carried to the dead house even before the police was informed. The FIR also makes the crucial point that the investigating officer in both the cases was the head constable Balbir Singh of Civil Lines station, Sonepat. Occasionally, the terminal patients died a second time from electrocution. This morning at 5.30am my husband Lilaram plugged in a heating rod to warm water for his bath. When I came back from the fields after feeding our cattle, he was lying face down on the bathroom floor. My relatives took his body to Civil Hospital in Jhajjar where he was declared brought dead. My husband died from electric current, wrote Babli from Ahri village in Jhajjar district in her statement to the police on September 25, 2017. She repeated this account in her letter of claim to Bharti AXA, emphasising that my husband had no previous illness and his death has left me in charge of our two children. As attachments, she provided a joint statement by her neighbours and relatives confirming that Lilarams death happened from electric current and that he had no previous illness, a report from Civil Hospital, Jhajjar, noting his abrasions and blisters, and police inquest papers showing death due to electrocution. Lilaram had suffered from the last stage of throat cancer, according to a copy of his case file in Radiation Centre of PGIMS, Rohtak. While the computer operator had either sold or destroyed the original records, some copies remained in certain departments where the treatment was going on. They were found by the officers of STF when they went to the PGIMS for a raid. The 40-year-old farmer didnt die of electric current. As KK Rao put it, None of the eight patients whose investigation was conducted by the police had met with an accident or suffered external injuries. THE MISSING MANDIBLE After the dead bodies of the cancer patients were given injuries through accidents, STF officers said the insurance conmen informed the police officers with whom they had already struck a deal. Bhoria had cultivated his contacts in Haryana Police through a head constable, Ashok Kumar, 30, at Kundli police station in Sonepat who happened to be an old friend of his. In 2015, Bhoria contacted Ashok and discussed his plan and asked for help. Ashok used to contact the IOS (investigation offcers) and convince them to join hands with Bhoria, said IGP Satheesh Balan of STF. Ashok Kumar was arrested on April 29. They offered 1 lakh to each investigating police officer, said Balan. Their role was to transfer the version of their death by accident to paper from FIR to witness statements to record of observations submitted for post-mortem examination. The post-mortem examiners were paid too, said Balan, for mapping the polices observations of the accident on to the medical assessment of the bodies. They offered 1.75 lakh to the doctor who conducted the post-mortem examination, he said. None of the doctors who conducted the postmortem examination in the eight cases brought up by Bharti AXA and investigated by STF used the C word. There are external changes in the patients of throat cancer because they go through mandatory radiotherapy, said Dr Niranjan Naik, cancer specialist at the Fortis Memorial Research Institute. There is visible thickening and discolouration of the skin on their face and neck, he said. The suspicion of throat cancer wasnt signalled even in the case where a part of the jaw was missing in the dead body brought for postmortem examination at PGIMS, Rohtak. Ramshreshth Sahni, 38, of Ajmer Basti in Jind district died on July 4, 2017 in a road accident at 10.30 pm according to the FIR lodged at Hisar Sadar station. On June 9, 2017 the farm worker had bought a premium personal guard policy from Bajaj Allianz with an insured sum of 25 lakh. His body was taken to the PGIMS. The [post-mortem] report said that a skin defect of size 8 x 6 cm is present on the left Anterolateral aspect of Neck, a linear old healed scar is also visible, and a portion of the Jaw bone is missing at the left angle of Mandible, said Sanjiv Dwivedi, who heads the Investigation and Loss Mitigation at Bajaj Allianz. Suspicious, he and his team went to the PGIMS asking if the hospital has any previous treatment records for Sahni. The hospital refused to share them with us. Upon filing a Right To Information (RTI) application for procurement of the deceaseds health-related documents, the hospital denied the request mentioning the confidentiality of the document, he said. When we approached the post-mortem department of the hospital with queries related to the missing mandible and the scar, the doctors refused to entertain us. The police was no more forthcoming. Our team visited the Rohtak police station multiple times to get details of the accident but no one provided any details. They told us it was a hit-and-run case by an unknown vehicle. There was no eyewitness in the case. The accident details were missing and a body part was also missing, Dwivedi said. Dwivedi and his colleagues went to Sahnis village to ask around. His landlord had a different story to tell. Ramshreshth Sahni from Bihar was my tenant for 10 years. He died in July 2017 in the course of his treatment for cancer at PGIMS, Rishipal wrote in a statement made to Bajaj Allianz. At the local Anganwadi centre, the team found in death records of village residents the cause for Ramshreshth Sahnis demise: cancer. His wife, Renu Sahni, said she wasnt aware that his death was shown as accidental. She said it was an insurance agent who had dealt with the documents. We have arrested people who had major stakes, and others will be arrested soon. We are focusing on the doctors who are involved in multiple post-mortems and the policemen who were involved in more than one case, said Haryanas director general of police (DGP), Manoj Yadava. STF is currently looking into the suspected participation of 12 police officers and 10 government doctors in the scam. On April 21, STF arrested the computer operator at Civil Hospital, Sonepat, Pramod Kumar, for enabling the collusion between the conmen and the doctors who conducted the post-mortem examinations. On April 30, Ambuj Jain, a doctor at the same hospital who had conducted the postmortem examinations in some of the cases under investigation, moved a petition for anticipatory bail. Ashwani Kumar, principal medical officer, refuted all allegations concerning Civil Hospital, Sonepat. The main culprits are the police and the family members. They should be arrested in this case, not the doctors. If an accident case is brought to the doctor for post-mortem examination, he will have to conduct it. A doctors job is to check the injuries causing death and submit the report based on the injuries found on the body, he said, adding that if the police arrested a single doctor, all of them would go on a strike. However, STF officers said they have enough substance to frame charges against doctors who worked in collusion with the gang. There are call records, witnesses and statements which prove them guilty, said Balan. After receiving the complaint from Aman Bedi of Bharti AXA, STF began to tap phone calls between members of the gang. The complainant had provided the mobile numbers of the suspects and we started intercepting three mobile numbers, said KK Rao. The conversations noted in the FIR demonstrate the coordination between various players in the scam: In code word, Mohit is talking about a case in which someones throat is getting worse and his PAN card needs to be applied for. Pawan is talking to Padam, saying that policy is done with PNB, Reliance, SBI and LIC. He says ICICI, HDFC and Birla are left to do. They are talking about a police officer asking for an additional 20,000. They are saying they have settled the payment with the hospital. Aware of the inquiries being made about them, Bhoria is also heard as telling one of his colleagues that we will put in 2 crore and have the DSP transferred. As investigations proceed, more people appear to be involved in the scam than what was originally suspected. If any case gets stuck, they used to bribe the investigation agent of the private insurance company and ask him to submit a report in their favour. If any claim went to the court, they paid the public prosecutor, said Balan. If anyone has submitted the positive report for any such a fraud case, we will support the police and will demand stringent punishment, said Dwivedi of Bajaj Allianz. This is a big case, but we will make sure no one walks away, said DGP Yadava. MINIMUM GAINS It was an ingenious scam, but also one that relied on the easy corruptibility of people in charge of the lives and deaths of poor and illiterate villagers. In fact, it began with bringing them on board. Not all conspiring families have ended up richer. Some of them claim not to know what they did was illegal. My nephew did as he was told by Pawan, which was to call him up after the death of his father and to bring his body to Sonepat Civil Hospital where he had already managed to show it as an accidental death in collaboration with the doctor and the police, said Mukesh Mann, a 43-year-old farmer in Ballah village. His nephew, a student at the local Industrial Training Institute, was arrested by STF for filing a false FIR about the death of his father. Sachin Dhull,26, nephew of Ajit Singh from Bhagwatipur and prime witness of his death by accident, says his uncle died of cancer. The insurance agent had asked me to inform him after his death so we called him on April 1, 2018. They asked us to come to Civil Hospital, Hisar, as they had to get the post-mortem examination done for the insurance claim, he said. Sachin said he signed the documents because he was told they were needed to complete the legal formalities to initiate the insurance claim. He didnt read any of them before signing. He said it was the insurance agents who presented his uncles death as accident-related. Its wrong if they are saying that I was involved in any kind of fraud as I dont even have any cheque book or ATM card of any account. The account was opened by them, he said. Sachin said he is currently unemployed and struggling to get by. Ajit Singhs wife, Satwanti, died in April. Balwan Dhull said she had been suffering from AIDS. Her account with YES bank in Rohtak has only 11, 357 just a little more than the minimum amount deposited at the time of its opening. Income tax authorities are investigating discrepancies detected in the permanent account number held by Rujira Naroola alias Rujira Banerjee wife of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjees nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee which she apparently procured as an Indian citizen despite having a Thai passport, three government officials with direct knowledge of the matter said. The home ministry has also been asked to investigate the Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card issued to her and her friend, Menka Gambhir, the officials added, asking not to be named. The finance ministry (which oversees the tax department) is the latest to step into what has become a political slugfest between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which are locked in an intense, and sometimes violent electoral battle in West Bengal. It all started on the intervening night of March 15-16, when customs officials on duty at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (NSCBI), Kolkata accosted the two women, who had arrived from Bangkok on the suspicion that they were trying to smuggle in something. A tiff erupted, Rujira Banerjee made a call, and the state police appeared inside the airport to escort the women out -- without customs clearance. The Kolkata airports Air Intelligence Unit filed a FIR on March 22, a copy of which has been seen by HT. The officials said that while OCIs can live and work in India indefinitely, they are expected to get PANs as foreign citizens and not as Indian citizens. After the customs department flagged these issues, the revenue department shot off a letter to the home ministry in this regard. According to the letter, a copy of which has been seen by HT, Rujira Naroola (alias Rujira Banerjee) had been found with the passport and OCI card issued to her as a citizen of Thailand. The documents mention her fathers name as Niphon Naroola. However, it has been found that for the PAN issued to Ms Naroola under the name of Rujira Banerjee, the fathers name has been mentioned as Gursharan Singh Ahuja, the letter said, adding, while Gambhirs has a passport and an OCI card as a citizen of Thailand, it has been found that she has obtained a PAN as a citizen of India. The home ministry is now asked to look into the issue. TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee did not respond to an email seeking comment. A TMC spokesman, however, said the matter is politically motivated and continues the trend of political vendetta by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah against political opponents. The three government officials quoted above said that the matter is of serious nature, a breach of national security and added that claims being made that the issue has been are not correct. The last is a reference to media reports citing an RTI application filed by an activist with Kolkata Customs and the response, which states that no one has been detained or accosted in Kolkata airport thus far this year for illegally carrying gold into India On May 11, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had issued a statement on May 11. It said the RTI application had sought information concerning detention of one Ms. Jasmit Ahuja Banerjee (another name of Rujira Banerjee), and on the night of 16.03.2019 or in early morning of 17.03.2019 (and not in the intervening night of 15-16.03.2019 when the incident described above occurred). Accordingly, the reply of RTI was given with respect to the query on Jasmit Ahuja Banerjee. The Indian Navy will for the first time conduct an entrance exam for engineering graduates seeking to join the service as officers. The first Indian Navy Entrance Test (Officers) will be held in September 2019 at centers across the country for screening candidates who aspire to join the navy as officers in the permanent commission and short-service commission streams, a navy spokesperson said. All graduate entries will be covered under the INET other than those screened by the Union Public Service Commission or the University entry scheme. As of now, officer candidates are shortlisted for interviews by the Services Selection Board (SSB) on the basis of marks scored in graduation or post-graduation. With the new system, however, the shortlisting for SSB will be done on the basis of marks scored in INET. The test will have four sections covering English, reasoning and numerical ability, general science and mathematical aptitude, and general knowledge. Candidates will need to pass in each section. As residents in Gahmar, the village of jawans in eastern Uttar Pradeshs Ghazipur district, gear up to vote in the last phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 19, the political discussions this time around are one-sided. Local residents claim that every house in Gahmar, with a population of more than one lakh, has one person who has either served or is presently serving in the armed forces. And the majority of discussion in Gahmar this year has revolved around national security, the valour of Indian armed forces and what it takes to be a soldier. Issues such as surgical strike, nationalism, new India and national security have blurred the caste lines and it appears that everybody is charged up to vote for India, said Surendra Singh, a social activist. Gahmar is a village of army men. We keep nationalism above all things, he said. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its election campaign has focussed on the air strikes the Indian Air Force conducted in Pakistani territory on February 26 after the killing of 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in Jammu and Kashmir 12 days prior. Senior BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party president Amit Shah, have talked about the September 2016 surgical strikes across the Line of Control and February air strikes. They have pointed out that these actions under the BJP-led government are a marked departure from the policy followed by previous dispensations in dealing with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Singh, however, said that it was not so in the past. Like every other village, we were divided on political lines before Indian forces conducted the surgical strike and then the air force stormed into Balakot destroying terror camps, Singh said. Today the general refrain is that the country is safe in the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and he has successfully strengthened the security of the nation and elevated Indias position across the world, added Singh. The nationalistic mood hasnt stop politicians from all hues from dropping in here for campaigning. For the ruling BJP, Union minister Manoj Sinha is in the fray while Afzal Ansari is the candidate for the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance. Both leaders have visited the village and sought the support of the locals, who comprise 40% Thakurs, 20% Brahmins, 10% Dalits, 5% Muslims and 25% Other Backward Class including Bind, Rajbhar and other castes. Politicians come to the village to seek votes. Locals listen to them and usually dont respond, a local reveals the strategy. The caste lines seem to have blurred and everybody is concerned about nation these days. Locals are listening to all politicians but who they will vote seems clear, local trader Raj Chaurasia said. We will support the political party which gave free hands to the army, Ram Bharat Bind, another trader, said. He, however, insists, some people will go with the alliance. Many locals dont support the BJP but they dont speak their mind because the majority is talking about them, said Durga Chaurasia, husband of village head Meera. Another factor which could decide the voting pattern of the locals is development. Ghazipur has seen unmatched development in the last five years. Roads are being built and all railway stations have been renewed. Several other development projects have also been started in last five years, said Rajesh Singh Babua a farmer. Unemployment is a serious problem in the district. Stray cattle are troubling farmers. The government has not set up a single factory in the last five years. People will keep these issues in mind when they go to vote, said Chaurasia while claiming that many young people are aware of the issues and will give their reply in the form of votes during polling. Noted socialist Vijay Narayan Singh said Gahmar came into limelight in 1964 when the then member of Parliament Vishwanath Singh Gahmari raised the issues of poverty and backwardness in eastern UP. On his demands, the then government constituted Patel Commission which recommended conversion of the railway tracks from meter gauge to broad gauge and laying of a network of roads for development in the area. Much has changed since then but a lot is desired, said Singh. Interestingly, while residents want more development, they dont want to their village to be included in the town area. And, the association with the armed forces is the reason. The state governments plan to convert the village into a town faced opposition two decades back as locals take pride in the village of jawan status, said Singh. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Jet Airways decision to suspend operations in the face of a cash crunch in April is affecting the travel plans back home of Indians based in Qatar. With summer holidays around the corner, Qatar Aiways has requested Indian authorities to increase the number of seats between Doha and India to compensate for the fall in seating capacity. The airline sought additional seats on high volume routes connecting Doha and Indian cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore on a temporary basis and without formal changes to the current weekly seat capacity entitlement established under the 2009 Qatar-India bilateral aviation framework. Due to the recent exceptional circumstances affecting the Qatar-India market, which has resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of seats offered by Indian airlines operating to/from Qatar, Qatar Airways has made a formal submission to the Indian authorities to allow for the implementation of a temporary solution to Indian families during the summer travel peak, the airline said in a statement. A civil aviation ministry official said on condition of anonymity that bilateral agreements between two countries would have to be amended to increase the number of flights and that a call cannot be taken at a short notice. As the peak summer season for air travel is about to begin, Indian expats based in Qatar are expected to visit their families and friends back home. More than 700,000 Indian expats live and work in Qatar, where they make up about 25% of the total population. Qatar Airways believes that the proposed contingency plan is a sound and practical way to address the financial and emotional stress that Indian travellers are set to experience in the coming weeks, said Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker. Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) founder president and actor Kamal Haasan Wednesday filed an anticipatory bail petition in the Madras High Court saying his speech was about Mahatma Gandhis assassin Nathuram Godse only and not about Hindus as a whole. Haasan moved the plea after the court earlier refused to quash an FIR against him, saying such pleas cannot be taken up as emergent petitions during the vacation and that if an anticipatory bail application was filed it could be taken up for hearing. It is expected to come up for hearing on Thursday. The actor-turned-politician justified his Gosdse is the first Hindu terrorist of independent India remark as nothing but plain historical fact and alleged that there were attempts to stop his poll campaign using this as a ploy. Haasan had been under fire from the BJP and the ruling AIADMK with some demanding that the MNM should be de-registered by the Election Commission. While BJP national secretary H Raja described the MNM as a poisonous shrub which should be nipped in the bud, party state president Tamilisai Soundarrajan had condemned Hassans remark as minority appeasement. The MNM founder who resumed his campaign for the bypoll for four crucial assembly segments at Thiruparankundram constituency on the outskirts of Madurai on Wednesday, was combative in front of a huge crowd that had turned up. Also Read: Govt tightens Kamal Haasans security, minister suspects actor has IS link What I have said is a historical fact. Truth alone will triumph. I am not afraid of insults and abuses. Having plunged into serious politics, I will speak with the same seriousness, he said. He asked his opponents to listen to his speech in Aravakurichi in its entirety. Those raking the issue havent heard the full speech. Picking up a part of their choice and convenience, they are targeting me. What I have spoken is the truth. I have not dragged anyone into a fight. If there are attempts to stop me, my cadre will start speaking and it will become unstoppable, he said. Hassan made it clear that he was neither against Hinduism nor it was his intent to hurt Hindu sentiments. Have I hurt Hindu sentiments? Will my family believe it? he asked, taking on his political adversaries, especially the saffron brigade. My principles are honest. Dare not to confront me on that score for you will face defeat, he added with a smile. He did not backtrack from his remark that had set the political climate on fire nor betrayed any fear about the cases filed against him by Hindu outfits. Earlier in the day, Haasans lawyers moved the high court Bench at Madurai seeking to quash the cases registered against him in various police stations. It was submitted that cases have been filed against the actor in 14 police stations. The plea for an urgent hearing was turned down by Justice B Pugalendhi of the vacation court who advised them to file a petition for anticipatory bail. The Aravakurichi police was the first to book Kamal under non-bailable sections (153 and 295 of IPC) on a complaint by the Hindu Munnani (Hindu Front), affiliated to the RSS. In a media release, Karur SP, V Vikraman explained that case was registered on the charge of fomenting enmity between religious communities. Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition filed by BJP functionary Aswani Kumar, seeking a direction to the Election Commission to take action against Hassan. Tamil Nadu Minister Rajenthra Bhalaji, who had called for Haasans tongue to be cut off, remained unrepentant, saying he would not take back his words till the MNM founder apologised. MNM functionaries also filed complaints against Rjenthra Bhalaji in Chennai and Trichy. It wasnt the banks persistent attempts to get the family to repay a housing loan but ill-treatment and harassment by her husband and mother-in-law that drove a 42-year old woman and her daughter to suicide in Neyyattinkara, police said after arresting four relatives on the basis of a suicide note. On Tuesday, relatives said the Canara Banks bid to attach their house for failing to repay a housing loan drove the duo to suicide. On Wednesday, the suicide note was recovered by the police; in it, the woman blamed her husband, mother-in-law and two other relatives for their suicide. According to it, the husband did not do anything to avert the attachment of house and insisted that the woman get money from her parents to pay off the loan. The note also mentions black magic rituals as also an attempt by her mother-in-law to poison the duo. Mother and daughter set themselves on fire on Tuesday. Relatives said both were upset with the banks attempt to attach their house for failing to repay the housing loan and banks inhuman attitude led to their death. After the news spread, at least two branches of Canara Bank in the city were attacked by angry protesters. Police have arrested the husband, K Chandran, his mother, Krishnamma, aunt Shanta and her husband, Kasinathan. It seems relatives were trying to mislead the inquiry blaming the bank. We will get a clear picture only after questioning them in detail, said Thiruvananthapuram rural SP, P Ashok Kumar. K Chandran, who used to work in West Asia , was not at home when the incident took place. Later, he told police that he had taken 7.80 lakh loan from Canara Bank branch in Neyyttinkara 15 years ago and paid back 8 lakh so far but that the bank insisted he pay 6 lakh more as interest and other penalties. He said on Tuesday that his property was worth 50 lakh and that he had promised the bank that he would clear all dues after selling the house. He accused the bank of not being patient. But the bank insisted that it handled the issue as per the law and did not do anything to precipitate matters. With the latest development, the bank is in the clear and police say there is no mention of any harassment by the bank in the suicide note. All arrived at a conclusion without checking facts. The case was going on for many years and an attachment officer was appointed by the court. We never pressurised anyone and gave them enough time, said senior manager of Canara Bank, Jacob P Chtirakulam. Remove all tweets related to LS elections exit polls: EC to Twitter India Election Commission of India has ordered Twitter India to remove all the tweets related to 2019 Lok Sabha elections exit polls. :ANI EC delayed Bengals campaign ban for PM rallies, says Congress If situation in Bengal is so severe that campaigning must be stopped, why is EC waiting until tomorrow? Is it because PM has scheduled rallies tomorrow? Isnt it unprecedented that EC claims its an unprecedented situation in West Bengal but yet is waiting for PM to complete his public meetings? tweeted Ahmed Patel. Why does EC not send show cause notice to PM Modi?: Mamata Banerjee Amit Shah has spent 15 lakh to 20 lakh for his rallies. Why has a show cause notice not been sent to Narendra Modi? We respect you, but you need to respect people too, Mamata Banerjee told the Election Commission. The man who slapped Kejriwal was sent from UP: Mamata Banerjee The man who slapped Arvind Kejriwal was sent from Uttar Pradesh, he was not a common man, said Mamata Banerjee. EC is working under BJP: Mamata Banerjee The Election Commission is biased. Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed how many phases he wanted the elections to be conducted in, and the Election Commission announced the phases accordingly, said Mamata Banerjee. West Bengal CM, Mamata Banerjee: Election Commission's decision is unfair, unethical and politically biased. PM Modi given time to finish his two rallies tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/nsU9l5TJ7u ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Goons created violence wearing saffron: Mamata Banerjee Goons were brought from outside, they created violence wearing saffron, violence similar to when Babri Masjid was demolished, said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata. :ANI Poll panel removes two top Bengal officers The poll panel has also removed two top Bengal officers the principal home secretary Atri Bhattacharya and additional director general Rajiv Kumar. Fear psychosis prevalent in West Bengal: Deputy Election Commissioner During the reviewit clearly came out that while logistics arrangements, including training of polling officials, etc are mostly on trackthere is distinct resistance and non-cooperation from the district administration and district police when it comes to providing level playing field to all candidates for campaigning and in providing a fearless threat free environment to the voters. The Observers pointed out that while on the surface everything looks fine, in their interaction with the public, the fear psychosis that is widely prevalent comes out Deputy Election Commissioner, in charge of West Bengal, submitted to the Election Commission. Bengal campaigning to end tomorrow, a day early, for 7th round of voting after violence at Amit Shah roadshow No election campaigning to be held in 9 parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal - Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata from 10 pm tomorrow till the conclusion of polls, said the Election Commission. :ANI Protection of RS members is responsibility of house, Chairman: Prakash Javadekar Protection of Rajya Sabha members is responsibility of house and Chairman.Weve submitted a memorandum to VP on it & demanded that a report be sought & appropriate action be taken, said Prakash Javadekar after meeting Vice President over violence in Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata yesterday. :ANI Prakash Javadekar met the Vice President over violence in Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata yesterday. ( ANI ) Priyanka Gandhi holds roadshow in Varanasi Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh (East) held a roadshow in Varanasi. Congress Varanasi LS candidate Ajay Rai and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel were also present at the roadshow.:ANI Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh (East) holds a roadshow in Varanasi. Congress Varanasi LS candidate Ajay Rai and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel also present. pic.twitter.com/WL6905yzub ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 15, 2019 A lot of pressure on bureaucracy and police in West Bengal: PM Modi There is a lot of pressure on bureaucracy and police here, an example of this is the suicide of a former IPS. Im making a serious allegation, the person who spent his whole life protecting the common man of West Bengal was forced to end his life, said prime minister Narendra Modi. :ANI Only illegal immigrants, goons fearless in West Bengal: PM Modi Only the illegal immigrants, Mamata Banerjees syndicate, those who loot the poor and the goons are fearless here, said PM Modi at Diamond Harbour. Difficult to say Jai Ma Kaali, Jai Ma Durga: PM Modi Such is the condition that it is difficult to say Jai Ma Kaali and Jai Ma Durga, said prime minister Narendra Modi. PM Modi addresses rally in Diamond Harbour, West Bengal Sitting in New Delhi, nobody can imagine the situation in West Bengal. Yesterday, an attempt was made to foil the BJPs roadshow, but the people of Bengal foiled the efforts of the miscreants and I want to thank the people for it, said prime minister Narendra Modi. Mamata Banerjee scared of her own shadow: PM Modi Mamata Banerjee scared of the election results and afraid of her own shadow, said prime minister Narendra Modi. Mamata Banerjee high on power: PM Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday stepped up his partys attacks on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a rally in Bengals Basirhat, accusing Trinamool Congress of letting its goons loose because the party was scared of its defeat in the national elections. Mamata Banerjee begins her roadshow to protest vandalism in Kolkata Mamata Banerjee begins her roadshow to protest against the vandalism that took place in Kolkata. :ANI #WATCH Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee holds a march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar. #LokSabhaElections2019 pic.twitter.com/3p2GYk5VAl ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Allies of Congress would put one in jail for saying Jai Sri Ram, says Smriti Irani You are lucky that when you chant Jai Sri Ram, at least you are not arrested. Today in India, there is a state where if a common citizen merely says Jai Sri Ram allies of Congress put him in jail, said BJPs Smriti Irani while addressing a public meeting in Himachal Pradeshs Palampur. There should be central intervention in Bengal: Yogi Adityanath There should be central intervention in Bengal, said chief minister of Uttar Pradesh,Yogi Adityanath. :PTI Mamata Banerjee has lost her senses, does not consider me prime minister: PM Modi Mamata Banerjee has lost her senses, she does not consider the prime minister of India as a prime minister. She acknowledges the prime minister of Pakistan, but not India. What mental condition are you in? prime miniter Narednra Modi. Make the worst possible painting of me, I will accept it with grace and not file an FIR against you: PM Modi tells Mamata Banerjee You are an artist too. Make the worst possible painting of me. Present the painting to me after I become the prime minister again. I will accept it with grace and not file an FIR against you, the prime minister said, challenging Mamata Banerjee. You insulted the daughters of the land of Goddess Durga and Saraswati: PM Modi This is the land of Goddess Durga and Saraswati. You insulted daughters of this land. Why did you become so angry on seeing a picture? Are you not an artist yourself?, asked prime minister Narendra Modi at his Bengal rally. Mamata Banerjee cursed girls students for asking questions, recently put Bengals daughter in jail too: PM Modi Three to four years ago, when a few girl students of a Bengal college asked her questions, she threw the microphone, cursed the grls, and ran away from the television interview. Recently also, she became angry and put a daughter of Bengal into the jail, said prime minister Narendra Modi. You are trying to throttle the democracy that brought you to power: PM Modi to Mamata Banerjee You are strangulating the democracy that brought you to power, said prime minister Narendra Modi, targeting Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, Amit Shahs roadshow was attacked: PM Modi Mamata didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will take revenge. She fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, BJP President Amit Shahs roadshow was attacked, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Basirhat, West Bengal :ANI Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Basirhat, West Bengal: Mamata didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will take revenge. She fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow was attacked. pic.twitter.com/JZZzu55Sch ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Narendra Modi addresses public meeting in West Bengals Basirhat Prime minister Narendra Modi addressed a public meeting in West Bengals Basirhat, Hasnabad. PM Modi scared of debating with me because he will lose face: Rahul Gandhi Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the 2016 demonetisation decision of the Modi government had destroyed the economy and asserted that Congresss election promise of NYAY scheme will revive it, reports news agency ANI. Manmohan Singh had said in parliament that Indias GDP will suffer by 2 per cent due to demonetisation and the same thing was proven true after a year. NYAY will not only benefit five crore families and 25 crore people but would also help the economy by boosting the business of small and medium traders, he said addressing an election meeting here. Rahul Gandhi promises strict action against those involved in incidents of sacrilege of religious scriptures in 2015 in Punjab Rahul Gandhi promises strict action against those involved in incidents of sacrilege of religious scriptures in 2015 in Punjab. PM Modi used to make fun of Manmohan Singh but after 5 years country is making fun of PM on unkept promises: Rahul Gandhi PM Modi used to make fun of Manmohan Singh but after 5 years country is making fun of PM on unkept promises: Rahul Gandhi Narendra Modi thinks only one person can run country, but actually it is people who run it: Rahul Gandhi Narendra Modi thinks only one person can run country, but actually it is people who run it: Rahul Gandhi at poll rally in Punjabs Faridkot TMC shows video, WhatsApp message asking people to come to Amit Shahs roadshow with rods and arms to fight TMC and police TMC shows video, WhatsApp message asking people to come to Amit Shahs roadshow with rods and arms to fight the TMC and police, reports PTI. Central forces in Bengal have started a whisper campaign asking people to vote for BJP: TMC Central forces in Bengal have started a whisper campaign asking people to vote for BJP, alleges Derek OBrien. Trying to obtain, authenticate audio of slogans like Vidyasagar finished, where is the Josh raised during the violence: TMC Trying to obtain, authenticate audio of slogans like Vidyasagar finished, where is the Josh raised during the violence: Derek OBrien. We have nothing personally against the Central forces: TMC Derek OBrien, TMC: We have two more pictures to show, this is to do with the elections, we have nothing personally against the Central forces, we have two startling pictures to expose what we have been saying that the Central forces are in cahoots with the BJP in Bengal. Derek O'Brien, TMC: We have two more pictures to show, this is to do with the elections, we have nothing personally against the Central forces, we have two startling pictures to expose what we have been saying that the Central forces are in cahoots with the BJP in Bengal. pic.twitter.com/6DoTspfSJQ ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Streets of Kolkata tinged with shock, anger. What happened yesterday hurt Bengali pride: Derek OBrien Streets of Kolkata tinged with shock, anger. What happened yesterday hurt Bengali pride: Derek OBrien. Anybody can come and do a procession, but what were the outsiders doing: TMC Anybody can come and do a procession, but what were the outsiders.....Who is this fellow Tejinder Bagga? Who is he? He was arrested, is he not the same guy who slapped somebody in Delhi? You have taken in your outsider goons. #WATCH Derek O Brien,TMC: Anybody can come and do a procession, but what were the outsiders.....Who is this fellow Tejinder Bagga? Who is he? He was arrested, is he not the same guy who slapped somebody in Delhi? You have taken in your outsider goons pic.twitter.com/0JDca4y6G1 ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 We will take videos we have to the Election Commission: TMC We will take videos we have to the Election Commission. We are authenticating them on record, says TMCs Derek OBrien. TMC leader Derek OBrien releases video to claim BJP damaged statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar TMC leader Derek OBrien releases video to claim BJP damaged statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. What happened yesterday hurt the very ethos of Bengal: Derek O Brien Today is the saddest press conference we have held... saddest for all of us to see the streets of Kolkata... there is anger and there is shock. The president of the BJP does what he does with his goons, who he hired from outside Bengal. What happened yesterday hurt the very ethos of Bengal, says Derek O Brien. Vandalism in Bengal done by hired goons: TMC Vandalism in Bengal done by hired goons: TMC Amit Shah is a liar, says TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O Brien Video not only clearly establishes what the BJP did, but proves party chief Amit Shah is a liar, says TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O Brien. Doing the saddest press conference ever: Derek O Brien Doing the saddest press conference ever, says Derek O Brien. BJP trying to justify the act: TMC BJP trying to justify the act: TMC. One batsman says hua toh hua on anti-Sikh riots, the other is abusing me again: PM Modi One batsman says hua toh hua on anti-Sikh riots, the other is abusing me again: PM Modi in veiled dig at Sam Pitroda and Mani Shankar Aiyar, reports PTI. Congress preparing to shift the blame from naamdar for its defeat after polls: PM Modi Congress preparing to shift the blame from naamdar for its defeat after polls: PM Modi in Jharkhand. Congress cant say they lost elections because of naamdar, it would be against rules of dynasty: PM Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Deoghar, Jharkhand: Congress cant say they lost elections because of naamdar, it would be against the rules of dynasty. That is why after the 5th phase, 2 of the closest darbaari of the naamdar family started batting on their own. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Deoghar, Jharkhand: Congress can't say they lost elections because of 'naamdar', it would be against the rules of dynasty. That is why after the 5th phase, 2 of the closest 'darbaari' of the 'naamdar' family started batting on their own. pic.twitter.com/Q3GxaLx0dt ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 TMCs student wing protests against the vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagars statue Kolkata: TMCs student wing protests against the vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagars statue during clashes in BJP Chief Amit Shahs roadshow in the city, yesterday. Kolkata: TMC's student wing protests against the vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue during clashes in BJP Chief Amit Shah's roadshow in the city, yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Xhup7Zf19a ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 CPI (M) holds protest against statue of Vidyasagar vandalised in violence during BJP President Amit Shahs roadshow yesterday Kolkata: CPI (Marxist) holds protest against statue of Vidyasagar vandalised in violence during BJP president Amit Shahs roadshow yesterday. CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury says,an investigation should be done to find out how could this happen in Kolkata. BJP holds protest against violence in BJP President Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds protest against violence in BJP President Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata, West Bengal yesterday. Union Ministers Harsh Vardhan, Jitendra Singh and Vijay Goel also present. Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds protest against violence in BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, West Bengal yesterday. Union Ministers Harsh Vardhan, Jitendra Singh and Vijay Goel also present pic.twitter.com/pIK872wgYF ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 This is my last public meeting today: PM Modi PM Modi in Paliganj, Bihar: This is my last public meeting today; last opportunity to seek blessings for 2019 Elections. PM Modi in Paliganj, Bihar: This is my last public meeting today; last opportunity to seek blessings for 2019 Elections. Lekin iske baad Pradhan Mantri pad ko seva ke bhav se svikaar karte hue, main fir ek baar vikas ki ganga lekar ke aapke beech aaunga. pic.twitter.com/74CJk4i7eZ ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Mahamilavatis say national security is not an issue. How can it be so when so many lives are lost in terrorism: PM Modi The Mahamilavatis say national security is not an issue. How can it be so when so many lives are lost in terrorism, asks PM Modi. Cheap internet connection, smart phones have transformed the lives of poor: PM Modi Cheap internet connection and smart phones have transformed the lives of the poor, says PM Modi. If Congress had little care of nation, they would have hesitated from doing corruption: PM Modi PM Narendra Modi in Paliganj, Bihar: Be it Congress naamdaar family or the corrupt family in Bihar, their assets are in thousands of crores now. From where the money came? If they had little care of the nation and the poor, they would have hesitated from doing corruption. PM Narendra Modi in Paliganj, Bihar: Be it Congress' 'naamdaar' family or the corrupt family in Bihar, their assets are in thousands of crores now. From where the money came? If they had little care of the nation & the poor, they would have hesitated from doing corruption pic.twitter.com/aXSQ41LxfP ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Mahamilavatis have only two issues tarnish the image of Modi and dislodge him from power: PM Modi The Mahamilavatis have only two issues tarnish the image of Modi and dislodge him from power: PM Modi at a rally in Bihar. TMC workers damaged Ishwarchandra Vidyasagars bust to gain sympathy: Amit Shah TMC workers damaged Ishwarchandra Vidyasagars bust to gain sympathy. Election Commission mute spectator in West Bengal, history sheeters not arrested before polls, says Amit Shah. I am not God. Dont think you are: Amit Shahs comeback to Mamata Banerjee I am not God. Dont think you are: Amit Shahs comeback to Mamata Banerjee. Violence taking place in Bengal because of TMC: Amit Shah The polls are taking place in every state of India, they why violence always and only takes place in Bengal? Because TMC is there. Mamata didi acts so innocent as she asks why the violence, but its the TMC doing. They are saying the motorcycle that was set on fire was ours, if its BJPs why will we burn our own motorcycle? Had CRPF not been there, it would have been difficult for me to escape: Amit Shah Had CRPF not been there, it would have been difficult for me to escape: Amit Shah. TMCs days in Bengal over: Amit Shah TMC workers damaged Ishwarchandra Vidyasagars bust to gain sympathy. This is their conspiracy. They are trying to get sympathy from the people. But people can see through it. TMCs days in Bengal is over. Election Comission is a mute spectator in West Bengal. BJP is not afraid of FIRs: Amit Shah I just got the news that didi has filed FIR against me, does she not know? BJP is not afraid of FIRs. Violence didnt take place in 6 phases of elections anywhere but in Bengal: Amit Shah Mamata Banerjee claims that BJP is doing it, I want to tell her, we are fighting in every state in the nation,unlike you on 42 seats in West Bengal. Violence didnt take place in 6 phases of elections anywhere but Bengal which proves that TMC is responsible for it. Trinamool is reason for Bengal violence, not BJP, says Amit Shah Trinamool is the reason for Bengal violence not BJP, says Amit Shah at press conference in New Delhi. The Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar statue in Kolkata was damaged by Trinamool Congress supporters but they are trying to blame the BJP now, he added. EC to hold meeting with West Bengal observers on poll violence Election Commission to hold a meeting with West Bengal observers on poll violence in the state at 11.30 am today via video conferencing. Election Commission to hold a meeting with West Bengal observers on poll violence in the state at 11.30 am today via video conferencing pic.twitter.com/9AemO9TkG2 ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 TMC alleged Amit Shah brought outsiders for his roadshow The Trinamool Congress alleged that BJP president Amit Shah brought outsiders for his roadshow in Kolkata who were responsible for the violence in the city on Tuesday. Amit Shahs convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College Parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence as Amit Shahs convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. TMC has sought meeting with Election Commission Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress on Tuesday sought a meeting with the Election Commission a day after its party workers fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata with BJP supporters during a massive road show of party chief Amit Shah. Also Read| Murder of democracy: BJP slams Mamata Banerjee over violence at Amit Shah roadshow PM Modi to address rallies in Basirhat and Kolkatas Diamond Harbour Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address public rallies in Basirhat and Kolkatas Diamond Harbour in West Bengal. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to hold roadshow in Varanasi Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will hold a roadshow today in the constituency represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Amit Shahs address comes a day after violence took place at his roadshow in Kolkata Amit Shahs address to the media comes a day after violence took place at his roadshow in Kolkata. Amit Shah will address media in the national capital today BJP president Amit Shah will address the media in the national capital today. Countering Prime Minister Narendra Modis claim that he had been the chief minister of Gujarat for a longer tenure than she had been at the helm of Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Wednesday said that PM Modis legacy is a black spot not only on the BJP but also the country. When the BSP was in power, Uttar Pradesh was free of riots and anarchy, the BSP supremo said in Lucknow. The prime minister does not hesitate from calling BSP, Behenji ki Sampatti Party. Whatever the national president of BSP has, it has been given by well-wishers and the society and nothing is hidden from the government, Mayawati added. She said the prime minister had crossed all limits of decency in calling the BSP her personal property. A day earlier, the BSP chief had said, Modi governments ship is sinking keeping up her attack on the prime minister. Prime Minister Modi governments ship is sinking; even the RSS has stopped supporting them. In view of unfulfilled election promises and the public agitation, their swayamsevaks are not being seen putting in the work, it has made PM Modi nervous, the BSP supremo had tweeted. On Sunday, the Prime Minister had accused Mayawati of shedding crocodile tears over the gang rape of a19-year-old woman in Rajasthans Alwar and had also dared her party to withdraw support from the Congress government in Rajasthan. The two political leaders have been attacking each other over alleged atrocities on Dalits for some time now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been the target of many swipes from the Congress president Rahul Gandhi who has accused him of misleading the public, shifting the goalpost and outright lying. Gandhi, 48, on Wednesday coined a word to capture the essence of the many barbs that he hurls at the Prime Minister. He called it Modilie. Theres a new word in the English Dictionary. Attached is a snapshot of the entry :), the Congress chief tweeted on Wednesday evening. The dictionary entry that Rahul Gandhi tweeted had defined the word as: to constantly Modify the truth, to lie incessantly and habitually and to lie without respite. Theres a new word in the English Dictionary. Attached is a snapshot of the entry :) pic.twitter.com/xdBdEUL48r Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 15, 2019 The Congress and its senior leaders, who have been PM Modis sharpest and consistent critics, have in recent weeks increased the frequency of their attacks on the prime minister accusing him of lying to the public. On Tuesday, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who had taken out a roadshow in Pathankot had described PM Modi as the biggest abhineta (actor) who she said, had spent the last five years campaigning using lies and falsehoods. Rahul Gandhi too never tires of telling people that PM Modi had lied to them five years ago when he promised to deposit 15 lakh in bank account, generate 2 crore jobs every year and get farmers a fair price. Campaigning in Odisha during the ongoing seven-phase national elections, Rahul Gandhi had claimed that PM Modi had spoken more lies than all prime ministers put together. There have been so many prime ministers in India. But the volume of lies that this prime minister speaks is more than the combined lies spoken by all previous prime ministers, Gandhi said during an interaction with women in Odishas Koraput. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a constituent of the Congress-led United Democratic Front, on Wednesday asked the Muslim Educational Society (MES) to withdraw its circular banning face-covering veils (hijaab) on its campuses. In a statement, IUML chief Panakkad Hyderali Thangal said it was a students individual choice to cover the face or not and it was not proper to ban it. He said covering the face was part of the religion and it was the duty of religious scholars to take a decision on this. He asked the MES to withdraw its circular immediately. Two weeks ago, the MES had issued a circular citing a recent Kerala high court order to ban the hijaab, which covers the face of women, in all its institutions. While hearing a plea questioning the uniform of a particular school last February, the HC held it was the discretion of the school management to decide the uniform and it had nothing to do with religion or belief. The MES is a progressive educational group that runs 150 institutions and educates more than 100,000 students. Last week, Kerala police had registered a case after its president Dr Fasal Gafoor, also a neurology professor, complained that he received death threats from a West Asian country. But Gafoor insisted that he would not withdraw the circular. It is not a religious custom. Some elements are planning to impose certain customs which are not part of the religion. There is a growing Arabisation in the community and it has to be checked. Arabs wear dress according to their climate. Nobody can impose such a dress code here, he said, adding he would go ahead with his decision. He said out of 40,000 Muslim students, only six cover their face. We have to take the community ahead, not backward. There is no homogeneous identity for Muslims in the country. Region to region, their culture and dress code varies, he said. Many reformists feel that the IUML was forced to take the decision following pressure from hardline elements. While many progressive Muslim outfits have welcomed the decision saying face veils had nothing to do with religion, many traditionalists have opposed it vehemently and dubbed it an incursion on religious freedom. Samastha Kerala Jemiayathul Ulema president Muthukoya Thangal criticized the MES move: The MES has no right to dictate terms to believers. Burqa is the identity of Muslim women and nobody can deny it, he said. Samastha, a prominent section of the Sunni sect, has threatened to boycott MES institutions if it goes ahead with its decision. But the ruling Left Democratic Front has welcomed the MES decision. While performing the Haj pilgrimage, women never cover their face. It is nothing to do with religion and we should promote saner voices from the community, said K T Jaleel, state minister for local administration. The defence ministry has not communicated its decision to Vice Admiral Bimal Verma on a statutory complaint filed by him challenging the appointment of his junior, Vice Admiral Karambir Singh, as the next navy chief, Vermas lawyer said on Wednesday. Ankur Chhibber, Vermas lawyer, said the principal bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal had asked the defence ministry to take a decision on the complaint by May 15. We have no update from the ministry. The AFT will hear the matter on May 20, he said. A defence ministry spokesperson refused comment when asked if the government had taken a decision onthe complaint. Verma moved the AFT on April 25 for the second time after the government named Admiral Singh as the next navy chief in March. The defence ministry was asked to take a decision on Vermas complaint by May 15. Verma, who heads the Andaman and Nicobar Command in Port Blair, would have been the senior-most officer in the navy on May 31 when Admiral Sunil Lanba retires. But the government decided against appointing him and opted for Singh, who currently heads the Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Naval Command. Verma has sought to know the criteria followed and also demanded that Singhs appointment be quashed. The closure of Pakistans airspace for nearly three months has hit travellers and airlines from Afghanistan and Central Asia the hardest, with some airlines suspending or reducing flights while passengers grapple with a sharp rise in fares. The fare for the Delhi-Kabul flight on Afghanistans Kam Air, for instance, has gone from $160 to almost $300 as the capacity has reduced substantially. Flight time has also doubled to six hours, and prices have increased as airlines cope with the costs of the longer time spent in the air. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has deployed more air traffic controllers at Mumbai airport, with the number of international flights the airport now handles increasing by 60%. Pakistan shut its airspace to commercial flights originating in India or transiting through Indian airspace soon after Indian jets targeted a Jaish-e-Mohammed facility at Balakot on February 26. The air strike was carried out in retaliation to the suicide bombing by JeM at Pulwama in Kashmir that killed 40 troopers. Flights from Iran, Iraq or the US used to come via Pakistani airspace, but they have now shifted to Muscat airspace and come from the Mumbai side. Some flights took just 60 minutes via Pakistani airspace but the travel time has now doubled, said an AAI official who didnt want to be named. With the help of extra air traffic controllers, we are managing the additional air traffic over Mumbai airspace. As tensions spiked between India and Pakistan in late February, the embassy of Kazakhstan had to arrange accommodation for dozens of stranded travellers at hotels in the capital for three days till alternative flights could be arranged, people familiar with developments said. Among those affected the most are Afghan citizens who travel to India for medical treatment, the people said. SpiceJet had cancelled its flight to Kabul, while Air India has shifted its flight to Najaf in Iraq from New Delhi to Mumbai. Some international airlines, including United Airlines, have cancelled certain flights to India. The people cited above said Kam Air is currently considering the reduction of its daily flights on the Kabul-Delhi route. The air corridor flights between Kabul and key Indian cities, started with the Indian governments support to boost exports of Afghan goods, have also been reduced to once a month. In the case of Central Asian airlines, the time for flights from the region to New Delhi has increased by up to four hours as airliners have to fly via destinations such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Kazakhstans Air Astana, which had four flights a week to New Delhi, has suspended its operations to India till May 31, with a statement on the airlines website attributing the move to the closure of airspace between Pakistan and India. People familiar with developments said Air Astana had stopped the flights as the higher costs made them financially unsustainable. Uzbekistan Airways has maintained its flights to Amritsar, Delhi and Mumbai while Turkmenistan Airways has suspended flights to Amritsar, the people cited above said. The closure of Pakistani airspace has led to a sharp increase in fares by 40% to 50% for same-day bookings and, in some cases, up to 200% for last-minute purchases, according to travel portals. Imports and exports have also become costlier as cargo planes too have to make lengthy detours. Pakistans science and technology minister Fawad Chaudhry recently said the closure could continue till Indias election process is completed and a new government is in place in New Delhi. The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the West Bengal government for delaying the release of the BJPs youth wing leader Priyanka Sharma, who was jailed for sharing a meme of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The top court also said the arrest of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morchas Priyanka Sharma was prima facie arbitrary. The observation came after the lawyer for Sharmas brother said she has not been released from jail despite the courts order for her immediate release on Tuesday. However, the lawyer representing the West Bengal government informed a vacation bench comprising justice Indira Banerjee and justice Sanjiv Khanna that Priyanka Sharma was released from jail at around 9:40am on Wednesday. This is not done. First of all the arrest was prima facie arbitrary, the bench said, according to news agency PTI, and warned it would issue contempt notice against officials if Sharma is not released immediately from jail. Also read: BJP leader jailed for meme gets bail from SC, ordered to apologise to Mamata Banerjee Sharma was arrested on May 10 after she reportedly superimposed Banerjees face on Priyanka Chopras photograph from the Met Gala event in New York held on May 6. The 26-year-old was charged with penal provisions relating to defamation, uploading offensive content and distributing sexually explicit material. She was told to apologise to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, which was contested by her lawyer NK Kaul. Kaul argued that it could have a chilling effect on freedom of speech if people have to apologise for a meme that may not be appreciated by some people. Sharma is being released but before her release, she was asked to sign an apology letter prepared by the police which says she will not post this again, Kaul was quoted as saying in the Supreme Court on Wednesday by ANI. The top court also said it will hear Priyanka Sharmas application seeking action against the West Bengal police authorities in the first week of July. An internal inquiry has been ordered on disclosure of classified information in the Rafale deal, the Defence Ministry has said in an RTI query. City-based Right to Information (RTI) activist Anil Galgali had filed an RTI seeking information from the Defence Ministry about the stolen Rafale files and action taken by the ministry in this regard. Galgali had also sought to know whether the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were aware about the stolen files and if yes, then whether a police complaint had been filed. Replying to his query, Sushil Kumar, the deputy secretary (Air Acquisition) and CPIO Air Acquisition (Capital) Wing, stated that the ministry has ordered an internal inquiry. In his reply dated May 7, Kumar said, The Ministry of Defense (Security Office) has ordered an internal inquiry on disclosure of classified official information into public domain and violation of manual of security instructions. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will fly to Rajasthan on Wednesday to meet the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly gang-raped in Alwar on April 26. He will meet her before flying to Punjab for campaigning ahead of the last phase of the national polls on Sunday, according to Congress functionaries aware of Gandhis programme. Gandhi is visiting the woman as Rajasthans Congress government has drawn flak over its handling of the case. The Rajasthan police allegedly delayed the filing of a First Information Report (FIR) in the case. An FIR was filed only after a purported video of the sexual assault began circulating on social media. Five men had raped the woman after assaulting her husband. They also allegedly filmed the rape. Also Watch | Whys award-wapsi gang silent? asks PM Modi over Alwar gang-rape case Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the rape at an election rally on Sunday and questioned why Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati had not withdrawn support from the Congress government in Rajasthan over it. Modi accused the Rajasthan government of suppressing the case until the fifth phase of national polling was over on May 6. The Rajasthan government removed Alwars police superintendent, Rajeev Pachar, and suspended station house officer, Sardar Singh, over the alleged inaction in the case. The police have arrested the five accused for the gang rape and another person for circulating the video of the sexual assault. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Monday hit out at Modi for politicising the case and insisted that his government has done all that it could and will not spare any guilty. BJPs Rajya Sabha member Kirodi Lal Meena has been holding protests and demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the case. On Tuesday, his supporters scuffled with the police as they were trying to a block railway track in Dausa. Meena was later detained for allegedly leading the rioters. Eleven people, including two security personnel, were injured in a grenade blast outside a busy shopping mall in Guwahatis Zoo Road area on Wednesday evening, police said. The incident took place around 7.30 pm when a grenade lobbed by suspected United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) militants exploded outside the mall. The grenade blast took place close to a security check point. Eleven people including two security personnel from Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) posted at the check point were injured, Guwahati police commissioner Deepak Kumar told reporters. Since the blast took place near the check point, it could be possible that the target could have been security personnel, he added. The injured have been rushed to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital where the condition of two, a father and daughter duo, are stated to be critical. Although local news channels reported that the banned ULFA-I, headed by Paresh Baruah, had owned up the blast, Hindustan Times couldnt independently verify the claim. Another faction of the ULFA, led by Arabinda Rajkhowa, has entered the peace process and is currently engaged in a dialogue with the central government. Meanwhile, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal condemned the incident and directed police to take action to nab the culprits behind the blast. The blast took place on a day when Sonowal held a security review meeting of Guwahati following intelligence reports of possible terror attacks in the city. Several ULFA-I cadres have been arrested or surrendered in recent weeks following operations against them in Myanmar where their camps are located as well as on the Indian side. On Wednesday, three ULFA-I cadres, including one who is said to have taken part in the murder of an Assam police officer in May last year, had surrendered before the army. Due to sustained joint operations many ULFA-I cadres have either surrendered or been nabbed. Whether there is any connection between that and the grenade blast, only investigation would reveal, Assam Police DGP Kuladhar Saikia said SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Away from the high-decibel campaign rallies for the last phase of Lok Sabha election, a group of women is quietly bringing in a change in Maoist-affected areas of Uttar Pradeshs Mirzapur district. Led by Leelavati and Raushan Khatoon, these crusaders clad in green from head to toe have created their own way to encourage parents to welcome the birth of a baby girl in villages under Mirzapur. Jangal Mahal, Bhavanipur, Saradeha Dhansiria, Rampur Chhattis, and Hinauta, where they work are just 50km away from Prime Minister Narendra Modis parliamentary constituency of Varanasi. Polling will be held in the seventh and the final phase of Lok Sabha election in Mirzapur as well as Varanasi. Social activist Ravi Mishra, who helped form the green crusaders group, says nobody has spoken about girls in poll rallies but our campaign goes on. The crusaders are also not interested in talking about the ongoing Lok Sabha election. Do cast your vote, is all they ask of people they meet. Birth of a baby girl is not welcomed in many families of the villages considered as Naxal affected. They consider girls as a liability, Mishra says. We came to know about one and a half year back when we were working with the green crusaders for their campaign against social evils in the region. Immediately, we planned Poshan se Protsahan Tak (From Nutrition to Encouragement) drive to ensure that the birth of every baby girl in these villages is welcomed, he says. With a bucket full of fruits and dholaks and manjeeras, the green crusaders walk to every house where a baby girl is born in these villages to ensure their safety and nutrition. They offer fruits to the new mother and honour them. Later, they speak to the father and ask him to provide his wife and daughter with proper care. They then celebrate the birth of the girl by singing sohar a folk song sung after a babys birth in rural areas and distribute sweets. He says the drive has generated very positive results in these villages under Mirzapur, which has a sex ratio of 906 females for every 1,000 males, and locals now think differently and celebrate the birth of the baby girls in these villages and also enrol their daughters in the schools. The group says the government needs to focus more on rural areas, especially in distant villages, to promote girls education. Munni Devi says many locals used to be unhappy at the birth of a girl. Old mindset and several socio-economic reasons are also responsible for this outlook, Devi says, but their drive is bringing about change. As we are local, people listen to us and our efforts are bearing fruits, says Devi. What is unique about the group is that all the members are homemakers and they look after their respective families. They run the drive, sparing time from their busy household chores. Mishra says the group came into being four years ago with just ten women from the Khushiyari village of Varanasi. The group presently has around 200 green crusaders based in the hamlets of Varanasi and an equal number in Mirzapur. These women get funds from a group of students and alumni of different universities, including Banaras Hindu University (BHU). With their support, the group has expanded and many women have now become a part of the effort. These green crusaders also fight against alcoholism, dowry and gambling. They help victims of the domestic violence caused by alcoholism. After a year of hard campaigning raiding gambling dens and breaking liquor bottle they have made Khushiyari free from alcoholism and gambling. They have also carried out their drive in Deora, Bhadrasi and Ramsipur and Jagardevpur of Varanasi and forced many to quit smoking and gambling. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON An image of a snow leopard has left many baffled. Wondering why? For that, you will have to take a look at this photograph captured by wildlife photographer Saurabh Desai that he shared on his Instagram profile. Confused why we are showing you an image of a rocky mountain filled with patches of snow? Well, look closer. If you look closer at the image, youll notice a magnificent well-camouflaged snow leopard sitting/lying on the cliff. Desai captured the animal during his visit to the Himalayan mountain range in North India. The photographer was visiting Kibber Village, the highest village in the world, to catch a glimpse of a snow leopard. About 8 km away from the village, he spotted this big cat. Native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia, snow leopards use their camouflaging skills to ambush their prey. They have also earned the title of ghosts of the mountains. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In an unprecedented move, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday cut short the poll campaign in West Bengal by 19 hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) accused each other of orchestrating the violence at a Kolkata roadshow by BJP president Amit Shah the previous evening in the endgame of a bitterly fought general election. ECI acted in the aftermath of the violence in which a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, an icon of the Bengali renaissance, was damaged by vandals who stormed the 147-year-old institution established by Vidyasagar, also a social reformer. Campaigning for the nine Lok Sabha seats that will go to polls in West Bengal on May 19, the seventh and final phase of the 17th general elections, will end at 10 pm on Thursday, the poll watchdog said, instead of 5 pm on Friday at which it will end in 50 other seats that will vote on the same day. No election campaigning to be held in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal, namely Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata, from 10pm tomorrow [Thursday] till the conclusion of polls, deputy election commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar told reporters. It is the first time that ECI has curtailed the campaign duration in a state, invoking Article 324 of the Constitution. Also on Wednesday night, ECI ordered the removal of the principal secretary (home), Atri Bhattacharya, and additional director general, Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Rajeev Kumar, from their postings in West Bengal for interfering in the process of conducting elections. The announcement climaxed a day on which Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a harshly bitter attack against TMC chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banergee on her own turf as the TMC?and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused each other of orchestrating the violence in Kolkata on Tuesday. Modi, 68, said Banerjee was destroying the bhadralok, or genteel and ethos that West Bengal had come to be represent, in an election rally at Taki on the Indo-Bangla border in North 24 Parganas district. He said Banerjee, 64, had been frightened by the rise of the BJP in West Bengal and accused her of being despotic. Mamata Banerjee is high on power and wants to strangle democracy. Mamata Didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will avenge every inch of space that she loses to the BJP. She fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, he said. Modi said the entire nation had watched on television the previous evening how TMC thugs had attacked BJP president Amit Shahs Kolkata roadshow and was anxiously awaiting the outcome of the poll results in West Bengal. Modi also specifically targeted Banerjee over the chit fund scandal in which tens of thousands of small investors lost their life savings and the Saradha group collapsed in 2013. Her government is out to destroy everything in the state, he said, adding that the people of Bengal had made up their minds to end the TMCs reign. Addressing a press conference after the ECs announcement, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said: Some emergency situation has arisen due to some directions of the election commission. I dont consider these as ECs decision. These have been taken as per the direction of the BJP, Modi and Amit Shah. Union minister Arun Jaitley, however, defended the poll watchdog:?A constitutional authority, the Election Commission of India, has effectively held Bengal to be a state in Anarchy. Repeatedly escalating violence, state supported Vandals, a partisan police and home department are the illustrations the ECI has given. The BJP and TMC held up what they said was proof substantiating their allegations of each other engineering Tuesdays violence, turning up the political temperatures ahead of the seventh and final phase polling in which a total of 59 Lok Sabha seats spread across seven states and a Union Territory (Chandigarh) will be up for grabs. It be followed by counting of votes and declaration of results on May 23. We will not be intimidated by violence. Anger of Bengalis will translate into defeat for Mamata didi, who is stifling democracy in the state, Shah said at a press conference in New Delhi. He said ECI had been reduced to a mute spectator in West Bengal and was partial to the TMC. A section of the crowd stormed the gates of the 147-year-old Vidyasagar College, broke glass panes and furniture and set fire to bicycles and motorbikes. The college gates were closed, room was locked... who opened the lock? BJP workers did not enter the college, said Shah, who held up photographs he claimed were proof that Trinamool Congress workers broke the statue of Vidyasagar. I was lucky to escape, Shah said, demanding an independent probe into the incident by a neutral agency. Had the CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force] not been there, it would have been difficult for me to escape. Leaders of the TMC struck back at the BJP chief with what they said was videotaped evidence to establish the BJPs complicity in the violence and vandalism of the statue of Vidyasagar. The TMC tried to portray the incident as having hurt Bengali pride. Party leaders, including Banerjee, replaced their social media profile photos with photos of Vidyasagar to protest the alleged desecration of his statue What happened yesterday hurt the very ethos of Bengal, TMC leader Derek OBrien said. Today is the saddest press conference we have held. Saddest for all of us to see the streets of Kolkata. There is anger and there is shock. He released a video which showed people jumping over the fence to enter the college in his rebuttal to Shah. OBrien said the men who broke the statute were BJP thugs who had been brought to Kolkata from as far away as Uttar Pradesh for the roadshow. Mr Amit Shah is a liar. The video is the proof, said OBrien at a media briefing before heading to the election commission with a litany of complaints against the BJP. Banerjee took out a protest rally on Wednesday. Launching a scathing attack on Shah on Tuesday, Banerjee said: What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he god that no one can protest against him. West Bengal elects 42 members of the Lok Sabha, behind only Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48), and Shah has set a target of winning at least 22 seats and emerging as the principal opposition to the Trinamool, which ended the Lefts 34-year rule over the state in 2011. In New Delhi, the BJP staged a silent protest at Janta Mantar in New Delhi. Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, Vijay Goel and Harsh Vardhan wore black bands and put fingers on their lips sitting on the stage. Some BJP workers were also carrying placards which read: Save Bengal, save democracy. Yesterday, our national presidents [Amit Shah] rally was hit by violence, but if it wasnt for the CRPF, our party president would not have come back safe, Sitharaman told reporters. I think the forthcoming defeat has left the CM of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, completely rattled and she has been provoking her cadre to indulge in violence. The Congress on Wednesday condemned the violence in Kolkata which it blamed on the BJP. A new politics where mobocracy is being actively encouraged and abetted by the ruling party the BJP in the country has gained ground in the past five years. Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah-led BJP are squarely responsible for systematically damaging the cultural identity of each state in India, spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters. The Congresss incharge for Bengal Gaurav Gogoi said: This is nothing but a covert attempt by PM Modi to attack the federal structure of India. It is a preview of the threat to Indian democracy if PM Modi returns to power in 2019. (With agency inputs) Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took out a roadshow on Wednesday in Prime Minister Narendra Modis constituency Varanasi Wednesday afternoon in the last leg of the Lok Sabha election campaign. Congress supporters thronged outside the Banaras Hindu University as Priyanka began her two-hour roadshow from the gate of the university. The road show will conclude at Kashi Vishwanath Temple where she will pay obeisance. The Congress show of strength in Varanasi comes nearly three weeks after Modi held his own roadshow a day before filing his nomination papers. Varanasi is one of the 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in eastern Uttar Pradesh which will go to polls in the seventh and last phase of the general elections on Sunday. The Congress had fielded Ajay Rai against Modi after speculation had swirled that Priyanka herself would contest against the Prime Minister. Rai is a five-term MLA and had lost heavily to Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In her campaign trail so far, Priyanka Gnadhi has often accused Modi of visiting a number of countries, but not having time to meet the poor and farmers in his own constituency. The PM has visited America, hugged Obama ji (the then US president Barack Obama), went to Japan and played drums there. Africa, Europe, whichever name you take, China, Pakistan -- where he had biryani, she said at a rally in Bathinda on Tuesday. Later in the day in Pathankot, Priyanka described Modi as the biggest abhineta (actor), who, she said, had spent the last five years campaigning with lies and falsehoods. The Congress general secretary who is in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, had visited Varanasi once earlier in March. During that trip she had addressed a Congress workers convention in Varanasi, took a boat ride from Balua Ghat Ramnagar to Dashashwamedh Ghat and participated in a road show from Dashashwamedh Ghat to the gate of Kashi Vishwanath temple. On Thursday, BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav are scheduled to address a joint rally in Varanasi for their alliance candidate Shalini Yadav. The Election Commission will hold a meeting with West Bengal observers on poll violence in the state. The meeting will take place on Wednesday at 11:30 am via video conferencing, according to news agency ANI. On Tuesday, a clash broke out between TMC and BJP workers at Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata. Mamata Banerjee-led TMC blamed the BJPs supporters for the violence in College Street where a bust of iconic social reformer Iswarchandra Vidyasagar was vandalised in Vidyasagar College set up by him in 1872. The Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that stones were first thrown at them by TMC supporters during its president Amit Shahs roadshow in the city. Trinamool Parliamentary team comprising @derekobrienmp, @Sukhendusekhar, Manish Gupta, Nadimul Haque seeks meeting with EC on May 15 in aftermath of attack on Bengals heritage after Shah roadshow in Kolkata. BJP outsider ruffians resort to arson & break Vidyasagars bust, TMC said in a tweet on Tuesday. A Bharatiya Janata Party delegation has already met the poll watchdogs officials and complained about the violence in Kolkata. The BJP also demanded that the poll body bar chief minister Mamata Banerjee from campaigning for instigating her party workers for the violence. And, Amit Shah will hold a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday. Mamata Banerjee had condemned the attack and mentioned that an inquiry will be done. Also read | Murder of democracy: BJP slams Mamata Banerjee over violence at Amit Shah roadshow It is a very unfortunate incident and an entire college was vandalised. A bust of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar was broken. I have kept broken parts of the bust where the original statue was there. I have never seen such political violence in Kolkata, Banerjee said after visiting the college. Amit Shah countered the incident with a tweet by asking people to vote against the Trinamool. Also read | BJP, Trinamool spar over violence during Amit Shahs Kolkata roadshow Writing on the wall is clear and Mamata didi has read it well. Didi, your violence and hooliganism can no more stop the people of Bengal from reclaiming the true legacy of this great land, he tweeted. Senior BJP leaders and chief minister of Maharashtras Devendra Fadnavis and Uttar Pradeshs Yogi Adityanath also attacked the Trinamool Congress over the violence. Has Bengal acquired a Government of Gangsters? The attack on Amit Shahs peaceful rally by the TMC is deplorable. Is a free & fair Poll possible in Bengal? All eyes are now on the Election Commission, finance minister Arun Jaitley tweeted. The violence on Tuesday comes ahead of the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 19 in which nine parliamentary constituencies in West Bengal will poll. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad has written to the chief election commissioner seeking appropriate action against Haryana minister Manish Grover for allegedly intimidating voters in Rohtak on May 12, a charge which the BJP leader has vehemently denied. Congress Rohtak candidate Deepender Singh Hooda, who is seeking re-election for a fourth term, Sunday accused Grover, who is BJPS Rohtak MLA, of intimidating voters by forcibly entering some polling booths. Rohtak along with nine other parliamentary constituencies in Haryana went to polls in the sixth phase of polling on May 12. In his letter to the Chief Election Commissioner on May 13, Azad, who is Congress general secretary in-charge of Haryana, has sought appropriate action against Grover for illegally sabotaging the polling. Azad wrote that a delegation of Congress leaders from Rohtak district had brought the matter to his notice. I was completely taken aback by the brazen misuse of muscle power by Manish Grover, the Haryana Minister, along with 50 goons and a history-sheeter namely Ramesh Lohar, in 10 cars who were carrying arms, two fake number plates, 15 cartridges of .32 bore entered polling booth no 142, 143, 145, 146, 149 and 150 Rohtak city..., the letter stated. In the run-up to the final phase of polling in the country on May 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the Opposition, having seen the voters response in six phases of Lok Sabha polls, was resorting to hurling personal abuses on him. Adressing rallies at Buxar and Sasaram, Modi said, Opposition leaders know they cannot win, hence they are drawing satisfaction from hurling abuses. Those belonging to mahamilavat (major adulteration) parties are busy abusing Modi. There is no day when they do not abuse Modi. The prime minister was addressing rallies in support of Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Buxar), R K Singh (Ara), Chedi Paswan (Sasaram) and Mahabali Singh (Karakat). Targeting the opposition, the PM said these parties never talked about development as they are more interested in their own welfare. These parties have taken for granted votes of certain caste and community. They took votes in the name of poor (Garib) but when the time came to repay them, they forgot them. They (opposition) believe in amassing wealth for themselves, Modi said. He also warned people against falling for rhetoric of his rivals and elect a weak and unstable government of those who plundered the state exchequer and created lawlessness and anarchy in the state. Mahamilavati people dabble in caste politics and replenish their own coffers, build bungalows and palaces for themselves and relatives, he said. Modi said his government had enough guts to wipe out terrorism and curb its menace ruthlessly. Modi alone can wipe out terror outfits operating from Pakistan and the factories of terrorism in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) are on his hit list, he said. This is a new Hindustan. On one hand, we have launched a cleaning operations against terrorists and Maoists, the opposition is supporting them. They are putting at stake countrys safety and security, said the PM. In Sasaram, the prime minister accused the Congress of leaving Jagjivan Ram (former deputy prime minister) in the lurch. Jagjivan Babu was tortured mentally by Congress leaders. Jagjivan Rams daughter and former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar is the Congress candidate from Sasaram. Praising Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Modi said, Bihar under Nitishji has developed a lot and now it has shunned lantern and shifted to LED age. Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday attempted to establish an emotional link with local voters by describing herself as a Punjabi bahu (daughter-in-law), saying she felt at home in Punjab and among its people. While hailing the valour of Punjabis and their ability to remain happy in all circumstances, she launched a vitriolic attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi by asking the audience whether they wanted a Prime Minister who was using martyrs for political purposes or some one who was son of a martyr. Do you want a Prime Minister who does politics of martyrs or want to make a martyrs son (Rahul Gandhi) the Prime Minister? she asked, addressing a rally in Bathinda in support of Congress candidate Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. The Congress leader urged people to teach a lesson to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for harassment meted out to them. While taking on Modi for brazenly lying and cheating to further his political interests, the Congress leader also criticised the SAD on the issues of sacrilege and mafia rule during their regime. Lambasting the Akalis, she said they had handed over the state to drugs, liquor, sand and transport mafias during their 10-year rule. If Punjabs youth were being destroyed by drugs, it was because of the BJP and the Akalis, she said. Describing Punjab as the land of gurus and criticising the Akalis for instances of sacrilege, Priyanka said those who destroyed Sri Guru Granth Sahib were destroying the soul of Punjab. Priyanka, accompanied by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, appealed to people to strengthen the Congress with their votes in this battle for the future of India and to teach arrogant Harsimrat Kaur Badal, SAD candidate from Bathinda, a lesson for the Akalis misdeeds. Pointing to the poor response to Modis Monday rally at the same ground, Priyanka hailed people for their befitting reply to the Prime Ministers saga of false promises. Later at a rally in Pathankot, she reiterated Modi vs Rahul Gandhi topic by urging people to distinguish between a Prime Minister who does politics over martyrs and a son of martyr. Leading a road show atop a truck in support of Sunil Jakhar, partys candidate for Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat, Priyanka said Modi was the biggest abhineta (actor) who had spent the last five years portraying and spreading lies and falsehoods. Stating that Modi had not even spared martyrs or ex-servicemen, she said, the Prime Minister was for politicising the sacrifices and services of ex-soldiers by claiming one rank, one pension (OROP) scheme was a gift to them. Taking a pot shot at the BJP, Priyanka, in an apparent reference to actor Sunny Deol, asked the people if they wanted a neta (leader) or an abhineta and introduced Jakhar as the real neta of the people. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) Continuing her attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Wednesday said Modis tenure as Gujarat chief minister was a blot on the communal history of the country. I have been the chief minister of UP for four terms. My government worked for peoples welfare and development. People still remember the good works done by my government. PM Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat but his tenure was a blot on the history of communal harmony, Mayawati said in a press statement. She said under the BSP government, UP was free from riots and disorder whereas Modis tenure, not only as Gujarat CM but also as the countrys PM, was chaotic, violent, tense and filled with hatred. Modi is totally unfit for the post. People should not give another term to Modi, she added. On the issue of corruption, she said Modi was in the grip of a disorder due to which he felt that he was clean and the opposition leaders were corrupt. People across the country are aware of the fact that majority of corrupt politicians having benami properties are associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), she said. Condemning rival parties for their jibe against her that she is not Dalit ki beti but daulat ki beti (not a daughter of Dalit but of wealth), she said such allegations were made by people who had anti-Dalit and casteist mentality. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday the arrogance of Pakistan and terrorists had vanished after the Balakot air strikes by the Indian army. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath at a rally in Ballia on Tuesday. Their hekdi (arrogance) has vanished. Terrorists, who used to demonstrate weapons in their Pakistan-based hide-out, now spend sleepless nights praying for removal of Modi. All the time they fear that Sapoot of Bharat (sons of India) will come. Sometimes they look at the jungle, sometimes the sky, sometimes the sea. They remain restless and have lost their sleep...I have given a free hand to the bravehearts of the country. Hence, first the surgical strikes took place and then it was the air strikes. Today we have taken the war against terrorism across the border, he asserted at a rally in Ballia. Also read: Lok Sabha elections 2019: RSS has dumped Modi in ongoing polls, says BSP chief Attacking the opposition, he said the SP, BSP and the Congress did not speak on national security. Instead, they question the bravery of our jawans, he said while hitting back at the opposition parties for seeking his caste certificates. Though I was born in backward caste, I am working with a goal to make India most forward nation of the world. There is no caste discrimination in my mind. Caste of the people is not asked when the government gives benefits. I am not seeking votes in the name of caste. I live for the country and therefore seek vote for the country, Modi said. Modi said the mahamilavatis were asking the caste of Modi. I have been the CM of Gujarat for a longer period than both Bua and Babua combined served as CM. I have contested election and extended help to many. But I never used my caste for the support, he said. Modi said after six rounds of voting it had become clear that the opposition was losing and its leaders were angry. And this is why the competition to abuse Modi has picked up pace. They cant win so they are venting their frustration by abusing (me), the prime minister said. Insisting that the opposition had failed, Modi said, Those who failed to control street goons cannot be expected to rein in the terrorists. He claimed that the development has caught pace in eastern UP under his role. My government has ensured that the 4G connectivity reaches to the poor. He threw opposition an open challenge to prove if he had amassed any asset or kept money in any foreign bank. I am throwing an open challenge to the mahamilawati people that instead of hurling abuses at me, they should accept my challenge and prove if I have acquired any benami property, built any farmhouse, bungalow or shopping complex, or deposited money in any foreign bank, purchased property abroad or bought vehicles worth lakhs and crores, Modi said. Also read: Lok Sabha elections 2019: Politicians dab poll scene with some comic relief The prime minister said neither had he ever dreamt of being rich, nor had he committed the sin of looting money of the poor. We accord top priority to the welfare of the poor, the honour and security of the motherland, he said. He said the opponents looted the country in the name of power. These people built bungalows for their relatives and created Benami properties. Agencies are carrying out probe and they will be booked soon. Citing a recent clash between SP and BSP workers in Ghazipur, Modi said, The workers of SP and BSP were hitting each other, hurling abuses, tearing each others clothes, and the entire country witnessed this. The elections are yet to be over, and they have started settling scores. People will give a befitting reply through votes to the abuses hurled at me by these mahamilavati parties. Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assams finance and PWD minister and convener of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), spoke to Shishir Gupta about the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) election battle in West Bengal against the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC). Sarma, who leads one of the 20 special teams deployed by BJP president Amit Shah with a special focus on West Bengal, said the state will throw up a big surprise in the Lok Sabha elections. Present in Kolkata on the day of the BJP chiefs roadshow, Sarma also spoke about issues ranging from the Citizenship Amendment Bill to the Oppositions onslaught. Edited excerpts: What is the mood like? I think the mood in Bengal is overall for a change. People are fed up with the rule of TMC, particularly criminalisation. Here, you will see it is a total criminalisation of politics. Everywhere, there will be one mastaan (goon) who will control one area... I think people are fed up, people are fed up with the appeasement kind of politics and I am sure that Bengal is heading for a big surprise. There is this theory that CPI(M) votes are getting transferred to BJP because CPI(M) thinks BJP could be tackled in the future better than they could tackle Mamata. What do you say to that? In a political sense, you can say that CPI (M) votes are being transferred to the BJP; this is one part of the story. But I believe that the CPI(M), Congress and TMC the right-thinking people of all these three parties are voting for PM Modi. If there is so much violence, even if someone wants to vote for the BJP and cannot reach the booth, how will the BJP gain? This is a big problem. You have to see the number of votes that are being cast and the amount of rigging. The whole election result will be [determined by] whether the impact of rigging is higher or impact of voting is higher. When we calculate 21-22 seats in this election, from a purely political point of view, we are deducting a portion of votes that are being cast on the strength of rigging. Then, we find out what is the net number. But that net number [for BJP seats] is also very high, because they are not doing rigging inside the centre. They are threatening people from 48 hours before the polling in the local village. They have taken their Aadhaar cards, they have taken their Voter IDs. They say until you vote for the TMC, you will not get these identity cards back. People plead before them they say, We will vote for the TMC, then these cards are returned... The behaviour of Mamata Banerjee in the last 48 hours has convinced me that Bengal is headed for a big surprise. Are you saying that the state bureaucracy is hand-in-glove with Mamata Banerjee? It is. In Bengal, the politics is such that the bureaucracy knows that after May 23, we have to work with Mamata Banerjee. The Election Commission has to think on certain issues very seriously. Also read: Bengal results will be a big surprise: Himanta Biswa Sarma Are you saying they are afraid? They are totally afraid. You have seen an IPS officer commit suicide. In the suicide note, he named the CM. So you can imagine the range of terror in Bengal. You can imagine the range of terror [over the issue] of one lady [BJP activist Priyanka Sharma who was arrested for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee. She was granted bail by the Supreme Court on Tuesday] who has just shared a Facebook post. It was not being done by her. It was posted by somebody else, she just shared it. The local councillor filed the FIR against the lady who has shared the post. But in the FIR, he has not even mentioned that another person has posted it. It is pure vendetta. If there is anger against Mamata Banerjee, what attracts Bengal to the BJP? Bengal has tremendous respect for Prime Minister Modi. This is a vote for Modi. People are saying that they will vote for Modi. The Prime Ministers image is single-handedly responsible for the BJP upsurge that you are seeing in Bengal today. Then, we have established a huge organisational network in the last three years. Amit Shah visited Bengal many times. He has posted his trusted and efficient organisational people in Bengal. Is the vote in favour of Modi or is the vote in favour of development? You cannot distinguish between Modi and development. I think it is a vote for nationalism as well a vote for development. It is not only for development, people are also voting against appeasement, people are voting for a strong leader and people are also voting for the nationalistic ideology. What are your views on the NRC as well as the Citizenship Amendment Bill? In Assam, we updated NRC without the Citizenship Amendment Bill. This has created a problem also because many Hindu refugees who came from Bangladesh over time are facing problem... Although through appeals, claims and objections, the Supreme Court is trying to mitigate the sufferings of the people. But still Hindu people are suffering... It is a major suffering. What our party president is saying [is], First pass the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which will give citizenship to Hindu, Christian, Buddhist minority of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then you do NRC to find out the illegal migrants. Also read: RSS tweaks outreach plan to boost polling on May 19 Coming back to Bengal, where do you see the Congress and the CPI(M)? Sadly, the Congress has disappeared from the scene except in two constituencies. It is missing in action. Youll not see Congress party except in two constituencies of Bengal Jangipur and Berhampore. And the Congress has also surrendered before Mamata Banerjee. That is one part of the story. Rahul Gandhi has surrendered before Mamata Banerjee. The CPI(M) is trying to put resistance somewhere but they are also limited in pockets... Post 23rd [May], Bengal politics will be a straightforward match between TMC and BJP. The Congress and CPI(M) will disappear further. The process of dismantling will be further expedited. So, you think Bengal is going to add to Prime Minister Narendra Modis number of seats? In a big way. Do you have a number? Ill be very conservative and Ill say the number will be 20, give or take 10%. That will be my own assessment but party cadre here have said that it wont be less than 22. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday mocked Narendra Modi for suggesting that cloud cover helped the Indian Air Force evade Pakistani radars during the Balakot air strike, saying the truth about the Prime Minister is now on the peoples radar. Addressing her first rally in Punjab in traditional salwar-kameez, Priyanka accused Modi of indulging only in propaganda and making tall promises, while projecting that no development took place in 70 years. The truth about Modi has now come on peoples radar, she said. Campaigning for party candidate Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, the Congress general secretary said the desecration of scriptures during the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) rule in 2015 happened for political gain. Priyanka charged the Badal government with patronising land mafia and the transport industry. We all know who is behind the illegal trade of chitta or synthetic drugs in Punjab. (Congress president) Rahul Gandhi was the first leader to raise his voice against the drug trade in the state as he has a deep concern for young lives, the Congress leader said. Also read: Rae Bareli Congress MLA Aditi Singh injured in firing on convoy She said more than 12,000 farmers had committed suicide in five years and the Modi government had failed to address the agrarian crisis. The BJPs promise to double farmers income and deposit 15 lakh amounted to cheating the masses, she said. Contrary to the promise of job creation, 50 lakh lost their jobs during the BJP rule. 24 lakh government jobs are vacant and no effort has been made to fill them, she said. Apko neta chahiye ya abhineta? At a rally in Pathankot, Priyanka Gandhi asked the people if they wanted a `neta (leader) or an `abhineta (actor), in an apparent reference to BJP nominee and actor Sunny Deol. Flanked by Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, state minister and star campaigner Navjot Singh Sidhu, incharge of party state unit Asha Kumari and Congress MLA from Pathankot Amit Vij, Priyanka led a roadshow in the town in support of party nominee from Gurdaspur seat Sunil Jakhar, who is also state Congress president. The roadshow started at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Chowk and culminated at Balmiki Chowk, where she and Sidhu addressed a gathering. The 2.5 kilometre roadshow took over two hours. Terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi as biggest `abhineta (actor), Priyanka said, Modi spent the last five years campaigning with lies and falsehood, and did not even spare the martyrs or ex-servicemen. He does not talk about India or its people or farmers and focuses on Pakistan. He spent the last five years only campaigning. Priyanka also took potshots at Modis foreign trips, saying, He has no time for soldiers, farmers or the poor of the country as he goes around travelling the world and hugging word leaders. The residents of Mahadev Dubey village in Maharajganj Lok Sabha constituency have a rather unusual demand from the candidates in the fray. The seat goes to polls along with 12 others in Uttar Pradesh on May 19, the last phase of the ongoing general elections. The residents have taken up cudgels against the land sharks, who have grabbed an orchard and some agricultural land owned by Nobel prize-winning British author Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, who died last August. The villagers have decided to hand over memorandums to candidates, whenever they visit their village, to draw their attention toward the grabbing of orchard and agricultural land owned by Naipaul. We will support the party or the candidate who will take up the issue with the district administration and the state government, said Mahesh Dutt, who is looking after the property. Naipaul was born in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where his father worked as a journalist. His grandparents had migrated from India as indentured labour in the late 19th century to work on the islands sugar-cane fields. According to the members of Naipauls extended family who reside in the village, the author had visit his ancestral village in 1962 and had appointed a landless farmer Ramchander as the caretaker of his property that included a house, an orchard, temples and agriculture land. After Ramchanders death, his son Mahesh took over the responsibility of taking care of the property but is helpless against the muscle power of land-grabbers. They (land-grabbers) are powerful and also have the support of local police. When I objected to their transgression, they threatened me. Despite our plea, the local police have not taken any action against the culprits, Mahesh said. Kapildeo Dubey (the maternal grandfather of Naipaul) settled in Trinidad but remained connected with his roots in Maharajganj district. He and his wife visited the village after Independence. Later, Kapildeo handed over the property to his grandson VS Naipaul, said Baikunth, a member of Naipauls extended family. In his 1964 travelogue An Area of Darkness, Naipaul has also written about his visit to his ancestral village located near India-Nepal border in east UP. He gives a vivid description of the village dominated by the Brahmin community. After winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, Naipaul visited Delhi in February 2002. The residents of Mahadev Dubey received a message from the district administration that Naipaul would visit his ancestral village. Elaborate arrangements were made to welcome him but the programme was cancelled. The visit remained pending and last year we received information about Naipauls demise, said another villager Narayan Dubey. Om Prakash Nishad, a school teacher, said since Naipaul had not named the inheritor of his property, land sharks grabbed the orchard, land around the temple as well as the tube well installed by Naipaul. We are helpless as the encroachers know that there is no legal heir to the property. They are grabbing land at will, he said. According to villagers, association with Naipaul is not only a matter of pride for the village but also for the district. They said the state government should provide funds for the maintenance of his ancestral house as well as the temples. Village head Sudarshan Yadav said the political parties were only interested in votes. They should redress our grievances and an anti-encroachment drive should be launched in the village to check the activities of land sharks, he added. We have decided to meet BJP candidate Pankaj Chaudhary, Congresss Supriya Shrinate and Akhilesh Singh of the Samajwadi Party. The candidate who will take up the issue will get our vote, another villager Shivnath Shukla said. Maharajganj is set to witness a triangular contest between the Samajwadi Party, Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. While the SP and the Congress candidates belong to Thakur community, the BJP candidate comes from a backward community. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJPs Pankaj Chaudhary emerged victorious defeating Kashi Nath Shukla of the BSP by margin of 2.40 lakh votes. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday stepped up his partys attacks on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a rally in Bengals Basirhat, accusing Trinamool Congress of letting its goons loose because the party was scared of its defeat in the national elections. The BJP wave in Bengal has scared Didi and look to what level she has stooped, PM Modi said, blaming her party for the violence at his party president Amit Shahs Kolkata roadshow. A statue of renowned Bengal reformer, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, was destroyed and a college named after him ransacked in last evenings violence, which the BJP and Trinamool leaders have angrily blamed on each other. Mamata Banerjee is high on power and wants to strangle democracy Mamata Didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will avenge every inch of space that she loses to the BJP. She has fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours, he said. Also read: Amit Shah blames Mamata for roadshow violence, holds up 3 photos as proof PM Modi also panned the chief minister for the arrest of a youth BJP leader in Bengal for sharing Mamata Banerjees morphed photo on social media. Her arrest has already been criticised by the BJP which has sought to use the incident to project Mamata Banerjee as a dictator. WATCH: Mamata meme row: BJP worker alleges delayed release, forced apology The prime minister recalled Mamata Banerjees outburst at two students who asked her an inconvenient question at a televised interaction. Then he came up with an offer. You can draw my picture make it as offensive as you want and after 23 May when I win, you can come over to gift it to me, PM Modi said at the rally. Moments earlier, the prime minister had predicted his victory in the national elections and declared that Bengal would contribute a big share. I will accept the drawing and treasure it I will not file an FIR against you, PM Modi said. Basirhat, which is due to vote on May 19 along with eight other Bengal Lok Sabha seats, had been a citadel of the communists for three decades before Mamata Banerjees Trinamool breached it in 2009. Communal violence had erupted in some parts of this constituency in July 2017 after a derogatory social media post on the Prophet Mohammad went viral. The violence was ultimately contained after a week but some of the fault lines have persisted. The votes of the bitterly-fought seven-phase elections are due to be counted on May 23. PM Modi, who had described Mamata Banerjee as someone who was afraid of her own shadow, said the chief minister appeared to have crossed all limits and lost her mental balance when she recently said that she did not consider Modi the Prime Minister. She is not ready to consider the Prime Minister of India as the PM but she accepts the PM of Pakistan as Pak PM, he said. Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee launched a six-km march in Kolkata on Wednesday to protest against the vandalism that took place in the city during BJP president Amit Shahs roadshow on Tuesday ahead of the last phase of polling. Banerjee took out the march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar in the heart of Kolkata. Thousands of supporters, some carrying party flags joined the TMC chief as she walked. Tuesdays vandalism in which a bust of 19th Century educationist Iswarchandra Vidyasagar was desecrated at the Vidyasagar College has become an emotive issue in Bengal. Vidyasagar was a reformer and a key figure of Bengal renaissance and had started widow remarriage and womens education, opened schools and colleges and started the use of the Bengali language as a vehicle for literature. Watch | Mamata Banerjee holds march a day after violent BJP-TMC clashes in Kolkata The TMC had accused the BJP of orchestrating Tuesdays violence as the war of words between the two parties continued. Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepped up his partys attacks on Mamata Banerjee at a rally in Basirhat, accusing TMC of letting its goons loose because the party was scared of its defeat in the national elections. In Delhi, TMCs Derek OBrien said at a media briefing that there was video proof of BJP supporters desecrating the statue. He then headed to the Election Commission to lodge complaints against the BJP. Police had arrested dozens of people for the violence. The Trinamool claims that most of them were not from Bengal and had been brought from outside by the BJP. BJP chief Amit Shah on Wednesday accused the Trinamool Congress of orchestrating violence during his roadshow in Kolkata, presenting photographs to prove his point as the TMC, BJP sparring intensified in the slog overs of the Lok Sabha elections. We will not be intimidated by violence Anger of Bengalis will translate into defeat for Mamata didi who is stifling democracy in the state, the BJP chief said. I just came to know that the Bengal government has filed an FIR against me, Let me tell them I am not scared of FIRs so many of my workers have been killed in violent attack, said Shah of the state where the BJP has two sitting MPs of the total 42 lawmakers that the state sends to the Lok Sabha. Amit Shahs party is trying to make inroads in the state and has had frequent run-ins with the ruling party in the state in the run-up to and during the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls. Read: In Amit Shahs attack on Mamata Banerjee, Election Commission also a target Showing photographs to prove that Trinamool Congress workers broke the statue of Vidyasagar, Shah said, the college gates were closed, room was locked who opened the lock, BJP workers did not enter the college. Recounting the violence during his roadshow on Tuesday, Amit Shah said: I was lucky to escape, had the CRPF not been there, it would have been difficult for me to escape. The BJP chief said signs of TMC unease were visible before the roadshow. Modis posters, my posters were torn in the morning yet BJP workers were calm. Shah said that the roadshow started and support of people was overwhelming. There were so many people and it was a peaceful rally, he added. Read: Anarchy in Bengal but am arrested for a meme, says BJPs Priyanka Sharma The Trinamool Congress and the BJP have blamed each other for the violence in College Street where a bust of iconic social reformer Iswarchandra Vidyasagar was vandalised in Vidyasagar College set up by him in 1872. The BJP alleged that stones were first thrown at them by TMC supporters. Shah said the state government should order an independent probe into the incident but by a neutral agency. The Trinamool has tried to portray the incident as one of Bengali pride, accusing the BJP of hurting local sentiments with the alleged attack. The party leaders, including Mamata Banerjee, replaced their social media profile photos with photo of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar to protest the alleged desecration of the bust of the noted reformer and key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. Blaming Trinamool for poll violence, the BJP chief asked: Mamata Banerjee claims that BJP is doing it, I want to tell her, we are fighting in every state in the nation, unlike you on 42 seats in West Bengal. Violence didnt take place in 6 phases of elections anywhere but Bengal which proves that TMC is responsible for it. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Nursing councils from across the country have written to the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) demanding the immediate removal of T Dileep Kumar, current president of the Indian Nursing Council (INC). Kumar is an accused in a Rs 225-crore corruption case which come to light in 2006. Ramling Mali, former president, Maharashtra Nursing Council, said, We wrote to the PMO demanding Kumars removal from the post. He has allegedly accepted bribes from six nursing institutes across the country who failed inspection. A case against Kumar still continues to be on trial and for a fair and free trial, the Union ministry should remove him. This has not happened and is totally against the councils interest. The national body regulates nurses and education pertaining to nursing in India, of which Kumar has been the president since 2000. Kumar, when contacted, said, The ongoing case has nothing to do with my position.The case has been going on since the last 12 years and nothing has been proven yet. There are vested interest of people who are opposing my position here and especially Ramling Mali, who was suspended from our national council for his anti-INC activities last year. Since his suspension, he has turned vengeful and is demanding my removal. Shiv Kumar, president, Karnataka state nursing association, said, Kumar is known to rig elections in order to retain his position. He has been known to serve as the president of INC since 2000 which explains it all. He should leave the office until proven innocent in the 2006 scam. Actor Sivakarthikeyan, who was heavily panned by critics and audiences alike for endorsing stalking in his film Remo, has ensured there will be no bar song and scenes showing abuse of women in his forthcoming release Mr Local. At the pre-release event in Chennai on Tuesday, films director Rajesh M said that Siva insisted that the film doesnt feature booze song and scenes portraying abuse of women. Usually, my films have had scenes involving alcohol or ridiculing women for breaking up. When the project was planned, Siva requested me to avoid these. I can promise that Mr Local will be a clean, colourful entertainer, Rajesh said. Also read: Priyanka Chopras brother Siddharths ex-fiancee Ishita returns to London, thanks mom for supporting her decisions The film, slated to hit the screens on Friday, also stars Nayanthara, Yogi Babu, Radikaa Sarath Kumar, Sathish and Robo Shankar among other. Mr Local marks the reunion of Siva and Nayanthara, who had previously worked together in Velaikkaran. Siva and Nayanthara have previously worked together in Velaikkaran. Speaking on the occasion, Siva said: Unlike Velaikkaran, Nayanthara has a full-fledged role in Mr Local. I was slightly unhappy that we couldnt give more screen space to a talent like Nayanthara in Velaikkaran. But Im glad she was given her due in this film. She comes in the 15th minute and will be seen till the end. This is a light-hearted entertainer. A perfect film for your entire family this summer. The film, produced by Studio Green, marks the maiden collaboration of Rajesh and Siva. Aadhi of Hip Hop Tamizha fame has composed music. Producer Gnanavel Raja thanked Siva for entrusting him with this project. He said the project materialized at a crucial juncture in his career where things werent going great. Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Nepal has embraced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinas ambitious infrastructure and connectivity project, with great enthusiasm. Other than Pakistan, Nepal was the only country in Indias neighbourhood to send a high-level delegation to the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) organised in Beijing recently. The burgeoning Sino-Nepal relationship has raised many eyebrows in India. Two recent events have added to Indias discomfort. First, Nepal signed a protocol arrangement for trade and transit treaty with China. The agreement would allow Nepal to use at least seven Chinese ports for third country trade. Until now, Nepal could use only Indian ports. Second, BRI officially has a programme for Nepal now, similar to China-pakistan Economic Corridor (CEPC). The joint communique issued during the Forum includes the Nepal-China Trans-himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network, including Nepal-china cross-border railway as one of 35 new Bri-affiliated programmes. While it didnt specify the number or nature of projects, Nepal has proposed nine projects that it wants to develop under the BRI banner. One of them is a rail link connecting the countrys capital to the Chinese border. In the short run, these agreements with China have mere symbolic, rather than economic, value. Given the distance from Chinas coasts, inhospitable terrain and high costs of rail-freight transportation, trading through Chinese ports is physically and economically not viable. Nepal only has a single all-weather road leading to the Chinese border, and that too remains defunct since the 2015 earthquake. A Chinese rail link is coming to Kathmandu but that is at least a decade away. Nevertheless, these recent developments are likely to have far-reaching implications for Nepals relationship with its northern neighbour. However, for India, the strategic benefit of focusing on its ties with Nepal outweighs the cost incurring from the latters relations with China. Hence, India is better off strengthening its own ties with Nepal. There are three things in particular that India should look at. First, India should demonstrate that it can deliver on its promises as well as China does, if not better. Indias large projects in Nepal are often delayed, and this needs to change if it wants to makeover its image as a reliable development partner. Second, India should have its own version of the community of shared destiny a concept used by China in its external relations. Neighbours like Nepal expect the economic rise of India to benefit them as well. For example, a truck carrying a load from Kolkata Port takes anywhere between two and seven days to cross the border, adding significant costs to the Nepali trader. Nepal faces a massive trade deficit with India, giving the country a hard time managing macroeconomic stability. Nepali agriculture exports often face non-tariff entry barriers. Linkages to Indian production value chain is non-existent. Border infrastructure direly needs an upgrade. Indias approach to dealing with Nepal is not helpful either; for example, the 2015 trade blockade. Besides, India has not exchanged the Indian currency held by Nepali citizens following the demonetisation in 2016. India should give neighbours reasons to celebrate its rise as an economic powerhouse. Third, India should amend its current approach of viewing a countrys leadership as pro-India or pro-China. Nepali people are in genuine quest for prosperity, and foreign investment is a path to get there. Welcoming investment under BRI is therefore not a zero-sum game pitting China against India. Moreover, Nepal is a flourishing democracy, and its leaders still hold the peoples mandate. That is why connectivity with China is an issue of bipartisan consensus in Nepal. Even if the opposition comes to power, it cannot entirely sway away from the current policy of pursuing better relations with China. A better option for India is to forgo either you are with us or not approach and work with the Nepal government to expedite its own connectivity projects. Given its geographic proximity, India can get more impact out of its investments at a fraction of the costs incurred by China. Bishal Chalise is senior programme officer at Niti Foundation, a public policy think-tank based in Kathmandu Five U.S. men who say they were sexually abused as minors by Roman Catholic priests filed a federal lawsuit in Minnesota on Tuesday against the Vatican, accusing the church of concealing the identities of thousands of predator clergy members. Three brothers and two other men claimed in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in St. Paul that the Church has kept secret the identities and records of more than 3,400 clergy accused of sexual abuse, including some top church officials. The men are asking the court to require the Vatican to make the information public and report all alleged crimes to law enforcement worldwide. Allegations of rampant sexual abuse of minors by priests and subsequent cover-ups by bishops exploded onto the world stage in 2002. The scandals have cost the church billions of dollars and undercut its moral authority. The three brothers in the lawsuit say they were molested by former Minnesota priest Curtis Wehmeyer between 2006 and 2012. The lawsuit says another plaintiff was sexually abused by former Minnesota priest Thomas Adamson in the early 1980s, and that the fifth man was molested by former priest Fidencio Silva-Flores in California sometime between 1978 to 1984. Wehmeyer pleaded guilty in 2012 to 20 criminal counts against him stemming from the sexual abuse and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Adamson, who faced accusations of years of abuse and was removed from the priesthood, died recently. Silva-Flores was charged with 25 counts of child molestation in 2003 but never tried. As of 2002, Silva-Flores was working in a church in Mexico, according to the lawsuit. In 2014, the Vatican reported that since 2004, more than 3,400 cases of abuse worldwide had been referred directly to Rome. According to the Vatican, 3,420 clergy involved in those cases were removed from ministry, but their names and cases have never been made public, the lawsuit said. The Vatican figures may not capture the full picture. The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops has indicated that more than 6,000 clerics in the United States alone have been accused of sexual abuse of minors between 1950 and 2016. Not all the names have been released. But several U.S. dioceses in recent months have identified former bishops, priests and deacons who were accused of sexually abusing children. A week ago, Pope Francis issued a landmark decree making bishops directly accountable for sexual abuse or covering it up and requiring clerics to report any cases to Church superiors. In the United States, state and federal authorities have been investigating how the church handled decades of allegations of sexual misconduct by priests, and at least nine sexual abuse lawsuits have named the Vatican as a defendant in recent years. Two other cases filed this year in Guam and Washington are in early stages. Many other cases were dismissed due to a lack of jurisdiction as it is difficult in U.S. courts to sue a foreign state like the Vatican. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) The EU withdrawal agreement has been voted down thrice in the House of Commons, but Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Tuesday night that it will be re-introduced in the week beginning June 3, prompting rebels to announce they would vote it down again. There is little evidence of the Conservative government and the opposition Labour reaching a consensus position to pass the bill in cross-party talks. Both parties face another bruising in the May 23 elections, latest polls suggest. A Downing Street spokesperson said on Tuesday: This evening the Prime Minister met the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons (Jeremy Corbyn) to make clear our determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU. We will therefore be bringing forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week beginning the 3rd June. It is imperative we do so then if the UK is to leave the EU before the summer Parliamentary recess. However, there are already doubts about the cross-party talks ever reaching a consensus position, given the opposing views on both sides on the approach to Brexit, particularly on the UK remaining in the EU customs union (Labours demand), which is opposed by the government. Also read: Brexit rocks Labour too as talks stay deadlocked A Labour party spokesman said Corbyn had raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments, following statements by Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers seeking to replace the prime minister. Nigel Dodds, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that is propping up the minority May government said it was highly likely Mays agreement would be defeated again unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop. Owen Paterson, member of the influential European Research Group comprising Brexit rebel MPs within the Conservative party, said nothing new had been put forward to convince hardline Brexiters to vote for the agreement. Sadly we will vote against it, yes, because as the DUP said in their statement, it doesnt change the essential nature of the withdrawal agreement, which is unacceptable, he told BBC on Wednesday. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON When the French Resistance needed help, a squadron of exsub hunters became the air arm of the OSS. In May 1944, not long after their arrival in England, B-24 Liberator pilot Captain George Johnson and crews of the 788th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) were told they could forget their training in high-altitude strategic bombing. Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Fish briefed them: You are going to learn to fly your airplane 400 feet above the ground10 miles per hour above stalling. And in addition youre going to do this at night and youre going to do it as a single ship mission. Im going to give you five minutes to think about it. Now, if you dont want to be a part of this all you have to do is to get up and walk out. Youll go back to your group and nothing will be said and it wont reflect against your record. Low, slow and alone, over enemy territory, at night? I could sense that my crew wasnt too fond of the idea, remembered Johnson, and you could sense that the others felt pretty much the same way but I suppose this was one of those times when the word chicken comes into play. Nobody rose to leave, and Fish drew aside a curtain revealing a map of occupied Europe, marked with red circles. Miss Fitts, a Carpetbagger B-24D with an extended nose greenhouse for night observation, takes off from RAF Harrington. (National Archives) Miss Fitts, a Carpetbagger B-24D with an extended nose greenhouse for night observation, takes off from RAF Harrington. (National Archives) Now, these are the locations of the underground groups, the Maquis, the French Force of the Interior, the partisans, he told them. These are the people you are going to be working with. Youll be going in at nightby yourselfdelivering supplies to the underground and youll be dropping agents. Fish himself had little experience with daylight bombing. Up to a few months earlier hed hunted U-boats in the Bay of Biscay as part of the U.S. Army Air Forces 22nd Anti-Submarine Squadron. But with the U.S. Navy now flying its own Liberator subhunters, the 22nd needed a new line of work. In October 1943, at RAF Bovingdon west of London, Fish and his commanding officer Colonel Clifford Heflin had met with officers of the Royal Air Force, U.S. VIII Air Force Bomber Command and Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency). Under the codename Operation Carpetbagger, their B-24s would effectively become the air arm of the OSS. Heflin, appointed CO of the new 801st Bomb Group (Provisional), knew finding and hitting a point target on instruments alone called for special skills. This work is harder than bombingtrickier, he noted. Youre not following a formationyoure on your own. It takes a lot of training and flying ability to hit a drop zone right on the nose. The best pilots for the job are those who have been on anti-submarine patrol. Since February 1942 the British had been dropping supplies in 19 countries from the Arctic to Africa. They trained American aircrews and agents in low-altitude night navigation and parachute drops no higher than 600 feet. The 22nds Liberators were painted black and converted for clandestine work. Though they also flew Douglas C-47s and A-26 Invaders, Boeing B-17s and British de Havilland Mosquitos, their workhorse remained the Consolidated B-24D. Its efficient, high-aspect-ratio Davis wing gave the bomber long range, heavy payload and high speed, but also made it difficult to handle at low speed. Supply containers, with parachutes, were loaded and dropped just like bombs. Since they used British suspension lugs, the Liberators bomb shackles were replaced with British shackles. Cylindrical, one-piece C containers, 5 feet long and 1 feet in diameter, held about 220 pounds each of small arms, bazookas, mortar tubes, jerrycans of gasoline and even bicycles (with French trademarks). Similar-size H containers, divided into five cells more easily hidden in the field, carried ammunition, grenades and sabotage equipment. Panniers holding 100 pounds each of soft goodsboxes and baskets of clothing, food, medical supplies and field dressings, radio sets and eventually thousands of carrier pigeonswere loaded in the fuselage. An on-base sewing factory labored around the clock to turn out enough silk parachutes and harnesses for everything. In spring 1944, with the invasion of France on the horizon, Carpetbagger operations ramped up. Doubling their strength by absorbing the 788th and 850th bomb squadrons, they settled in at RAF Harrington, in Northamptonshirethe most westerly Eighth Air Force station and the highest above sea level. On average, 40 to 50 Liberators took off each night. An OSS agent stows a package of French currency prior to parachuting into enemy territory. (National Archives) An OSS agent stows a package of French currency prior to parachuting into enemy territory. (National Archives) Secrecy, as might be expected, went well beyond normal bomber-base standards. Base administration and ground crew personnel were told that the black-painted aircraft were for night pathfinding missions. The OSS dictated drop zones, agents and cargos. Packers had no idea where the load was to be dropped, loaders had no idea what had been packed and even the flight crews were left literally in the dark. The only ones that knew where we were going were the pilot and the navigator, remembered top-turret gunner Sergeant Bill Becker. When we got in the air, it was radio silence.We didnt know what the mission was.I never knew the agents that we might be dropping. They got on at the last minute. Known anonymously only as Joes (females as Janes or Josephines), agents arrived at the airfield a few hours prior to their drop. Security officers sanitized their disguises, removing any trace of England, from pocket change and shop receipts to American tobacco, and gave them forged identity papers. They boarded through the Joe hole, where the Liberators belly turret had been removed, and exited the same way. Three-man OSS Jedburgh teams (including Major William E. Colby, later the CIA director) trained and led Resistance groups against the Germans. We crossed the French coast at an altitude of 4,000 feet to get above the possible danger of machine gun fire from coastal defenses, remembered Fish. After crossing into France I immediately dropped down to between four and five hundred feet above the ground. This altitude was good for pilotage navigation by my bombardier. But more important it helped to keep a German night fighter from attacking us from below and from the rear.By our staying low we could force him to attack from above where we could bring the two top turret guns to bear on him as well as the tail turret guns. At first, drop zones were illuminated with secret flashlight signals. Later, ground forces used Eureka transmitters to signal the B-24s Rebecca (recognition of beacons) directional transponding radar. Leafletspropaganda notices and, later, free passes for surrendering Germanswere often taken along, but released well before or after the actual drop to disguise its location. Several Carpetbaggers took their support for the Resistance to the next level. On the night of April 27-28, B-24D serial no. 42-40997 Worry Bird (formerly Screamin Mimi of the 565th Bomb Squadron, 389th Bomb Group) clipped a hill at its drop zone near Saint-Cyr-de-Valorges, Loire, crashed and broke into four parts. Only radio operator Staff Sgt. James Heddleson and gunners Sergeants George Henderson and James C. Mooney survived. His back broken, Mooney was handed over to the Germans for care (and ultimately survived as a POW), but Heddleson and Henderson were taken in by the Maquis, lived with them for three months and even went along one night to help blow up a railway trestle. In early August an RAF Lockheed Hudson picked them up safely. (After the war the citizens of Saint-Cyr-de-Valorges not only erected a monument over the graves of Worry Birds crew, but made Heddleson an official member of the Resistance, an honorary French citizen and named the town square after him.) Another downed Carpetbagger, bombardier Lieutenant John Mead, actually joined the Resistance and fought on the ground through the D-Day campaign before meeting the advancing Allies, earning a promotion and a Silver Star. "Worry Bird" lies wrecked in a field west of Lyon, France, after striking a hill near the town of Saint-Cyr-de-Valorges during a night mission. Note the Joe hole through which agents exited during an airdrop. (HistoryNet Archives) "Worry Bird" lies wrecked in a field west of Lyon, France, after striking a hill near the town of Saint-Cyr-de-Valorges during a night mission. Note the Joe hole through which agents exited during an airdrop. (HistoryNet Archives) As cover, in August 1944 the Carpetbaggers assumed the designation of the disbanded 492nd Bombardment Group, a hard-luck outfit that had lost more than 50 aircraft in 89 days (and would be the only ETO group to be disbanded due to high casualties). The crews coordinated with British night bombing missions, flying ahead in high-altitude formations to divert German night fighters from the main RAF attack. In mid-September the priority became supplying Allied armies charging across France. Carpetbagger B-24s had their auxiliary wing tanks emptied of avgas and refilled with 80-octane. Two 400-gallon tanks were installed in the bomb bay, and nine 100-gallon P-51 belly tanks were carried as cargo. At 2,000 gallons per aircraft, in little more than a week the Carpetbaggers delivered in excess of 800,000 gallons to the front. With France largely liberated, Carpetbagger missions trailed off, but by the end of the war in Europe the 801st/492nd had dropped some 4,500 tons of supplies and hundreds of personnel over enemy territory. Twenty-five Liberators were shot down and eight more so badly damaged they were scrapped. The inscription on the monument to the lost crew of Worry Bird in Saint-Cyr-de-Valorges translates to: In memory of five American airmen found dead under the debris of their aircraft, shot down in flames at this place April 28, 1944, whose mission was the parachuting of arms to our secret army for the liberation of France and the restoration of our ideal. It speaks to the service and sacrifices of all the Carpetbaggers. Carpetbagger B-24 Modifications Early aircraft painted black all over; later, black underneath, with the upper surfaces left olive-drab. Standard black matte applied to upper surfaces of aircraft arriving unpainted Removal of waist and cheek guns Blacked-out glass in the waist windows, cheeks and under the nose Flash suppressors on the top- and tail-turret machine guns, flame dampers on engine exhausts American bomb shackles removed and replaced with British conversion shackles Removal of ball turret in belly to create Joe hole Two strongpoints for parachute static lines installed at Joe hole Extraneous radio gear, armor and high-altitude oxygen system removed Red interior lighting to preserve night vision Blister in pilots side window for improved downward visibility Nose antennae for Rebecca airborne transceiver Toned-down side insignia, although tail codes remained bright Sergeant William T. Alexander, flight engineer, stands with B-24D no. 42-63980, "Playmate," of the 858th Bomb Squadron, 801st/492nd Bomb Group Carpetbaggers" in 1944. (HistoryNet Archives) Sergeant William T. Alexander, flight engineer, stands with B-24D no. 42-63980, "Playmate," of the 858th Bomb Squadron, 801st/492nd Bomb Group Carpetbaggers" in 1944. (HistoryNet Archives) Consolidated B-24D serial no. 42-63980 Playmate, formerly Missouri Mauler, was one of the oldest Carpetbagger aircraft. In November 1944 Playmate flew from RAF Harrington to New Delhi, India, via Naples and Cairo, with 492nd Bomb Group and OSS personnel to investigate potential Carpetbagger operations in the China-Burma-India Theater. Though a Carpetbagger operation in the CBI was deemed necessary, it was decided to recruit units already in the East rather than bring an entire unit from the ETO. In January 1945 Playmate returned to England the way it came, a round trip of some 25,000 miles. In March 1945 two Carpetbagger Liberators and crews transferred to the Fourteenth Air Force at Kunming, China, to help establish Carpetbagger units. For more information, frequent contributor Don Hollway recommends Carpetbaggers, by Ben Parnell, and the website 801492.org. Additional info, images and video at donhollway.com/carpetbaggers. This feature originally appeared in the July 2019 issue of Aviation History. Subscribe here! Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here. Are you a current print subscriber to Columbia Gorge News? If so, you qualify for free access to all content on columbiagorgenews.com. Simply verify with your subscriber id to receive free access. Your subscriber id may be found on your bill or mailing label. Now Open 15 May 2019 On 6 May 2019, the newly built 169-apartment Radisson Residences Vadistanbul welcomed its first guests in Turkey. Close to the newly opened Radisson Blu Hotel, Vadistanbul, the residence is a state-of-the-art project offering guests superb accommodation for short- and long-term stays in the heart of Istanbul. The newly built property consists of 169 modern apartments, split equally between one- and two-bedroom apartments - as well two unique four-bedroom apartments. The hotel property also offers a well-equipped gym and a SPA, including a swimming pool to accommodate both short- and long-term stays. The stunning residence has opened next to the newly opened 193-room Radisson Blu Hotel, Vadistanbul. Both properties are located in Vadistanbul, a new residential district in the north of the European side of Istanbul. With its proximity to Maslak, one of Istanbul's main business districts, the residence is expected to attract both business travelers and leisure guests seeking stylish accommodation in a central location. Vadistanbul is a modern and dynamic residential project that includes a specially developed monorail system with a direct connection to the metro network. The Radisson Residences Vadistanbul property is situated on the boulevard of Vadistanbul that will also be home to a fourth-generation shopping mall, 270 retail outlets and offices for 20,000 people. The residence is approximately 20 minutes' drive from the new Istanbul Airport, and only 400m from the nearest exit of the Trans-European Motorway (E80), linking the hotel to both the existing and the upcoming airport. Appointment 15 May 2019 Sonesta International Hotels Corporation is proud to announce the appointment of Mark Ernst as General Manager for Sonesta Silicon Valley. In this role, Ernst will be charged with reopening the property after a multi-million dollar renovation which includes significant updates to the common area and guest rooms, as well as a brand new food and beverage experience. Ernst takes on this new role after establishing a proven record of accomplishment in delivering outstanding guest experiences. He has a long-standing history with Sonesta, having worked for the global hospitality brand since 2014. Most recently, Ernst served as the Task Force General Manager for The Clift Royal Sonesta in San Francisco, and started his career at the iconic Royal Sonesta New Orleans, first as the Director of Food & Beverage and then as Assistant General Manager. Prior to joining Sonesta, he held positions at several other hotel brands including Waldorf Astoria Hotels, The Roosevelt New Orleans, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, W San Francisco and Marriott New Orleans, Convention Center. Appointment 15 May 2019 Mr. Picken joins this flagship hotel with more than 18 years of hospitality management experience across a variety of luxury hotel brands across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. No stranger to Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts, the South African native was previously the General Manager at Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa Resort & Spa, Singapore, and was instrumental in managing daily operations and developing key business strategies for the resort. He was also the General Manager of Hotel Jen Penang from 2015 to 2016. As the General Manager of Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, Mr. Picken will be responsible for financial performance, colleagues and guest engagement, community relationships, partnerships and talent development. Supplier News 15 May 2019 Boost announces the appointment of Horst Schulze as Director and Board Member, effective immediately. Mr. Schulze is recognised as one or the world's leading hoteliers whose career spans over six decades including co-founding The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and founding The Capella Hotel Group. Mr. Schulze will advise Boost on course content and curriculum and apply his own experience of service excellence to Boost's mobile training programmes. "I believe that mobile training will become the tool of choice for General Managers looking to create a culture of excellence within their hotels" Says Horst Schulze, adding "The scalability of mobile training will allow us to train thousands of employees across multiple geographies to a superior level of service excellence. Better language abilities and service skills result in a more confident employee who is able to care for the guest, this is what mobile training does and why I believe in the Boost product. I am extremely excited to join this company and unlock the potential that mobile will bring for hospitality." Backed by funding from a number of private investors including Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL), over 20,000 hotel employees in 225 hotels in Asia currently learn service skills through Boost's mobile training solutions, including English and Mandarin languages, vocational training and upselling skills. By training employees through mobile technology, Boost brings a level of convenience, measurability and scalability far superior to traditional classroom-based learning and ideal for the young employee of today. In his 65-year career, Mr. Schulze has seen guest expectations shift towards an emphasis on service and personalisation and he quickly realised that hotels who addressed guests' specific needs, desires and idiosyncrasies would rise to the top. This meant building a culture of service within the hotel and empowering employees to create excellence. Mobile training is perfectly suited to equipping the modern generation of hoteliers with the skills needed to provide such service, offering convenience, flexibility and scalability. "The vision, experience and standards that Horst Schulze brings will be invaluable to Boost as we embark on our next stage of growth" says Allan Taylor, CEO of Boost, adding "Hotels are no longer defined purely by their facilities and amenities, they are defined by the quality of service they provide. This means everything from knowing the guest by name and favourite dishes to displaying a genuine desire to care for the guest and create exceptional experiences. Many of these service principles were pioneered by Mr. Schulze who over his career defined what excellent service is. By having him on our team, Boost will be able to make his unique service philosophy available to all hotels through our various mobile solutions, raising service standards and increasing guest satisfaction." Mr. Schulze will advise Boost and work to further enhance its suite of mobile training solutions. These include department-specific English and / or Mandarin language training, vocational training for food and beverage service, housekeeping and upselling training among other skills. Launched in October 2018 and used by hundreds of hotels in Asia, Boost has already provided measurable results for hotels including greater upselling revenues and improved guest satisfaction. Boost's suite of mobile solutions is available on Android and iOS mobile devices and available to hotels and resorts. About Horst Schulze A legend and leader in the hotel world, Horst Schulze's teachings and vision have reshaped the concepts of service and hospitality across industries. Mr. Schulze's professional life began more than 65 years ago as a server's assistant in a German resort town. Throughout the years he worked for both Hilton Hotels and Hyatt Hotels Corporation before becoming one of the founding members of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company in 1983. There Mr. Schulze created the operating and service standards that have become world famous. During his tenure at The Ritz-Carlton, Mr. Schulze served as President and COO responsible for the $2 billion operations worldwide. It was under his leadership that The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company was awarded the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award - twice - making it the first and only hotel company to ever win even one. In 1991, Mr. Schulze was recognized as "corporate hotelier of the world" by HOTELS Magazine. In 1995, he was awarded the Ishikawa Medal for his personal contributions to the quality movement. In 1999, Johnson & Wales University gave him an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree in Hospitality Management. Most recently, Mr. Schulze has been honoured as a "Leader in Luxury" by Travel Agent Magazine and its sister publication Luxury Travel Advisor. After leaving The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Mr. Schulze went onto found The Capella Hotel Group. This luxury hotel company managed some of the most elite properties worldwide and gave Mr. Schulze the opportunity to further define the luxury hotel industry, receiving countless awards and recognitions. Today, Mr. Schulze serves on various boards and acts as a consultant across industries. He has recently completed his book, Excellence Wins, where he shares his vision and principles developed over his 65-year career. Press Release 15 May 2019 Frankfurt - The hospitality industry has been historically male-dominated. But dynamics of corporate leadership in the hotel industry are changing and despite facing challenges in the workplace and balancing personal lives, more women are breaking the glass ceiling by putting themselves forward for leadership roles. WorldHotels takes the opportunity to speak to three innovative female executives: Susan Keels, GM of the Royal Park Hotel, Rebecca Kwan, GM of Lan Kwai Fong @ Kau U Fong and Chairman of the Hong Kong Hotels Association and Anke Ebinger, WorldHotels Regional Director of Sales Central Europe. In the following interview, the woman leaders talk about their career paths, stereotypes,about what makes a great leader and their thoughts about a quota. Advertisements What drove you to work your way up? And what does a woman need in the hospitality industry to be successful? Rebecca Kwan: "It's a people-oriented industry, you need to have the passion for taking care of your internal team and external guests to drive success. You need to have a strong mindset and utilize the strengths in skill, knowledge, experience and emotion to pursue what you want, and not wait for it to come to you." Anke Ebinger: "To be successful you need to build up a profound networking platform with partners, clients and friends." Susan Keels: "My passion for hospitality, determination for always wanting to find a better way and relentless curiosity drove me to work my way up. Also saying yes to opportunities and not allowing fear to get in the way of opportunity." What can the hotel industry do to let more women gain access to management levels? Anke Ebinger: "I think that women are well represented in Marketing and Sales in the hotel industry and I am glad that this trend carries on in other departments as well. In my opinion, our industry is very well suited for a career path for women." Susan Keels: "I feel the hospitality industry is already on the right path to taking women in leadership more seriously. We as female leaders in the industry need to continue to nurture and foster strong leadership roles for women. This is especially important for the next generation of leaders to come. Placing women in high level leadership positions needs to become more than a standard, but a strong intent. As we continue to pave the path for women in leadership, it will become easier for future women leaders to follow." Do you think that women lead differently than men? Rebecca Kwan: "In general, women tend to be more interactive, stimulating high-quality relationships, bonding, and connectivity among team members; while men are task-oriented and directive, providing direction for their employees. Gender diversity is a global trend in many industries, and it is proven that either gender can supplement each other. I have a strong belief that each individual has his/her own character and style regardless of gender and race." Anke Ebinger: "It is true, that women and men have different characteristics. In my experience, mixed management teams are often the most successful. Women are usually focused on the well-being of their team so that it does the job well. Men usually make clearer announcements, are more contentious and are more in the foreground. They are also much more successful in networking." Susan Keels: "Yes, and both genders bring a different skill set to the table. That is why diversity in the workplace is extremely important." The typical female component (empathy etc.) as an advantage - fact or just a fairy tale? Susan Keels: "Empathy is most certainly an advantage in this industry. The business world has evolved throughout the years, and there is more of a connection between leaders and their teams. It's important to lead with understanding, compassion and empathy. A leader with these qualities has the ability to understand that everyone views the world through different perspectives and without judgement. Women who are empathic leaders are often perceived as "too nice" and that is not the case; it takes a strong leadership skill set to be a good listener and understand the deep layers of all sides. An empathetic work environment leads to happier employees who feel a stronger sense of belonging and ultimately take will better care of our guests and business." Rebecca Kwan: "I think empathy plays an important role in our relationships. It helps me better understand and recognize my employees' emotions and needs, and I always believe emotional intelligence is a critical factor that drives their overall performance." Anke Ebinger: "I agree with Rebecca. Empathy is the ability to empathize with other people's feelings, thoughts and emotions. Empathy is an important key to understanding other people - for me an important trait in leading employees, especially in conflict situations. In my opinion this I not only a female component, it depends more on the education of the individual human being." In Germany, people are suggesting that a quota of women on boards of private companies should be established. What do you think about a rule like that? Susan Keels: "I'm not much of a "quota" believer however companies do need to be aware of creating a balanced environment where each leader brings a different perspective to the table. If a group of leaders is all of the same mentality it can slowdown progress and evolution. I would encourage leaders to look around the table and if everyone looks just like them, clearly something needs to change." Anke Ebinger: "I agree. This should generally be anchored in attitudes and corporate culture. I am sceptical that companies stand behind a quota system and actively promote it." Rebecca Kwan: "I think it's more important for the company culture to foster equal chances and gender diversity than the codification of rules. Bridging this gap and creating change are only possible if there is a combined effort from all of us. Working together regardless of gender, I am confident that we will help to build and ensure the prosperity of the industry as well as create more opportunities to provide a better future for the next generation." If you could travel back in time, what suggestion would you give your younger self? Anke Ebinger: "Be confident trust your instincts they have never disappointed you." Rebecca Kwan: " I make every decision thoughtfully and think about the consequence; I won't look back and I have no regrets whatever the result is. For each challenge and failure, there's something to be won. Life is boring without challenges! It's important to identify your interests, get ready and enjoy your challenge." About Susan Keels Susan Keels is the General Manager of the Royal Park Hotel, Rochester, US with over 25 years of experience in the hospitality field. Her foundation and experience started in hotel, restaurant and country club operations. After spending over 15 years in operations working in the luxury market, Susan moved to the Royal Park Hotel. She was the first employee hired at the Royal Park Hotel prior to opening and started in catering, then moved to sales and marketing where she travelled the globe sharing the Royal Park Hotel story. In 2018, she was offered the role as General Manager and is excited to continue making a difference and being a trailblazer for women in the industry. Susan Keels WorldHotels Collection About Rebecca Kwan Recently elected as the first female Chairman of the Hong Kong Hotels Association in 2018, Rebecca Kwan is serving as Senior Vice President of Sales - Hong Kong & United Kingdom and Head of Operations - United Kingdom in Dorsett Hospitality International, Rebecca also holds the portfolio of General Manager of Lan Kwai Fong Hotel @ Kau U Fong, Hong Kong. With over 20 years of experience in the hospitality and tourism industry, Rebecca has held various positions in Sales & Marketing in both international deluxe hotel chain and boutique hotels. Based on her longstanding expertise, Rebecca provides professional advice to vocational education and training as a member of the Hotel, Catering and Tourism Training Board of Vocational Training Council in Hong Kong from 2013-2019. She is also a member of the Tourism Strategy Group - Tourism Commission under The Government of HKSAR since 2017, whose focus is to consider and make recommendations to the Government in respect of Hong Kong tourism development from a strategic perspective. Rebecca Kwan WorldHotels Collection About Anke Ebinger Anke Ebinger joined WorldHotels in 2000 as Key Account Manager Central Europe. In her current role as Regional Director of Sales Central Europe, she is leading the Worldhotels Sales Force for Germany, Austria, Switzerland & Poland. By building long-lasting relationships and networking with corporate clients, Consortia partners and MICE buyers and implementing marketing strategies, organizing custom-tailored activities, analyzing trends and results they ensure driving revenue to 300 Worldhotels members worldwide. During its 2019 Americas Investors and Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, IHG shared the next phase of design prototypes for Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) unveiled its latest brand updates and innovations to its mainstream hotel owners this week. During its 2019 Americas Investors and Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, IHG shared the next phase of design prototypes for Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. Heather Balsley, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing Mainstream Brands, IHG, commented: We are continually evolving and investing in our brands, and at the center of our latest enhancements sits extensive customer research and close collaboration with our owners. This is crucial to delivering brand experiences that fit the ever-evolving needs of mainstream travelers and drive performance for our hotel owners. As these new prototypes start rolling out across the market, we know they will take guest satisfaction and brand strength to the next level. As an industry icon, Holiday Inn continues to innovate the guest experience through H4 Design. Launched in 2017, this flexible solution empowers guests to adapt the space to meet their individual needs and is a brand standard for all new hotel openings, conversions and hotels undergoing renovations. This week, the brand introduced the H4 prototype, an evolution of H4 Design, which provides owners with a more modern and efficient building that flexes to meet the needs of individual markets, including: Flexible, open public spaces that allow guests to be productive while maintaining their connection to the wider social environment. that allow guests to be productive while maintaining their connection to the wider social environment. Multiple restaurant and bar concepts which can be tailored to the available space, allowing for flexibility while offering guests high quality dining in an inviting environment. which can be tailored to the available space, allowing for flexibility while offering guests high quality dining in an inviting environment. Adaptable meeting space which can be quickly and easily adjusted to the needs of both business and leisure groups. which can be quickly and easily adjusted to the needs of both business and leisure groups. Welcoming guest room design including thoughtful touches to ensure a great nights sleep, abundant power and connectivity points, and the signature Welcome Nook that provides multi-functional storage so guests can unpack in a way that works for them. Both of IHGs extended stay brands, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites, also unveiled prototypes and interior design solutions for new build hotels and properties going through renovations. These have been designed to help create an inviting space for guests while maintaining a cost per key for hotel owners that is in line with the previous prototype. The new design solution for Staybridge Suites, Generation 7.0, will roll out in October 2019 and includes: A new exterior design with a front porch to create a more vibrant sense of arrival. with a front porch to create a more vibrant sense of arrival. A reimagined public space designed to create a wide-open sense of arrival with shared workspaces, areas to socialize, more seating, a breakfast space that seamlessly transitions to a comfortable lounge area, and stronger connection to the outdoor space. designed to create a wide-open sense of arrival with shared workspaces, areas to socialize, more seating, a breakfast space that seamlessly transitions to a comfortable lounge area, and stronger connection to the outdoor space. Updated suites with distinct zones for working, relaxing and sleeping, ample storage options, contemporary kitchens and furniture that is easy to move so that guests can easily make the space their own. Candlewood Suites revealed a new brand logo alongside its new design program, Beacon 4.0. Starting this summer, the logo will appear on all new hotel openings, refurbished hotels and across marketing platforms. This is ahead of the full Beacon 4.0 roll out, which will commence in December 2019. While updating the public spaces and hotel exterior, the brand is introducing significant changes to the guest suites to better meet the changing needs of extended stay travelers, including: A distinctive building exterior that delivers storefront windows that let in more natural light and an updated Gazebo Grill with bar-like seating. that delivers storefront windows that let in more natural light and an updated Gazebo Grill with bar-like seating. An open and modern lobby with spacious communal areas offering a variety of seating; and a refreshed Candlewood Cupboard the 24-hour market which is now integrated into the lobby itself. with spacious communal areas offering a variety of seating; and a refreshed Candlewood Cupboard the 24-hour market which is now integrated into the lobby itself. Enhanced comfort in the guest suites featuring the brands signature recliner, larger TVs, twice as much storage, contemporary kitchens and easy-to-move end tables with integrated cupholders. featuring the brands signature recliner, larger TVs, twice as much storage, contemporary kitchens and easy-to-move end tables with integrated cupholders. A signature welcome perch in the one-bedroom suites where guests can immediately begin the process of settling in by dropping their bags or taking off their shoes. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Adding to the ever-growing list of GS and Women's exclusive Air Jordans is the upcoming "Topaz Mist" Air Jordan 7 - officially slated to drop this Saturday, May 18. Air Jordan 7 "Topaz Mist"/Nike Retailing for the GS-friendly price of $140, the kicks come equipped with a white leather upper accompanied by Topaz Mist, Ember Glow, and Gym Red detailing throughout. The kicks are highlighted by a colorful geometric pattern about the glossy, leather ankle collar. Jordan Brand has released a plethora of highly coveted women's exclusive Air Jordans this year and the momentum will continue throughout the Spring and into the Summer with releases like this Air Jordan 7, as well as the "Midnight Black" Air Jordan 12 - which will also debut this week. Check out official images of the Air Jordan 7 GS "Topaz Mist" below. Air Jordan 7 "Topaz Mist"/Nike Air Jordan 7 "Topaz Mist"/Nike Air Jordan 7 "Topaz Mist"/Nike Air Jordan 7 "Topaz Mist"/Nike Air Jordan 7 "Topaz Mist"/Nike Should Rick And Morty's rules apply to our own planetary plane, Kanye West already exists in many alternate worlds. Therefore, it stands to reason that in one of them, Yeezy has already lent his talents to an episode, perhaps even several, of Rick And Morty. Now, it would appear that such a reality will become our own, as series creator Dan Harmon has officially gifted Ye with a blessed privilege. Following news that Rick and Morty's adventures would resume in November 2019, commencing a staggering seventy-episode run (divided across several seasons of course), Dan Harmon revealed intentions to gift longtime fan Kanye West his own episode. Speaking with The Blast, Harmon opened the door for Yeezy to roll through in a major way. "I'm giving him an episode," Harmon said. "I'm making it official. We have 70, he can have one. Kanye, you can have one . . . It's official. That would be fucking amazing." Roiland echoed the praise, citing Yeezy as a creative genius. "Ye is a fucking kindred spirit, genius, visionary," he praises, before extending the same invite to actor Daniel Radcliffe, another longtime fan of the series. "You should be doing voices on our show," says Roiland. "You're a good actor man. You should just come in the writer's room for a couple of days, hang out, come up with a character you can do." You excited for that new season of Rick And Morty? Kodak Black's found himself in more legal trouble just weeks after he was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border. State and federal police pulled up on Kodak Black ahead of his Rolling Loud set with an arrest warrant for falsifying documents to obtain a gun. He's facing 10 years in prison if convicted. Now, the rapper's currently has a case pending against him for sexual assault in North Carolina and he's also has a felony on his record. While the rapper's been in police custody since this weekend, the rapper has reportedly posted bail by using his home as collateral. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images According to The Blast, Kodak Black appeared in court earlier today where he pled not guilty for the federal gun charges against him. The judge gave Kodak Black permission to use his $600K home as collateral in order to secure his bond which was placed at $500K. The rapper was released after posting bond with house arrest. Unfortunately, since the rapper is currently out on bail for his North Carolina case, his legal team feels like his recent arrest could spark a revocation in the sexual assault case. The rapper is accused of faking papers in order to try and purchase multiple firearms including 9mm handgun, a .380-caliber handgun, and a semiautomatic Mini Draco pistol. Although Kodak appeared in court, he didn't speak. His attorney, Bradford Cohen, was asked how he planned on handling the several open cases on his hands including the rapper's border arrest. A great general once said, How is your army of 1000 men going to take on an army 10 times the size? And he replied, One at a time,'" Cohen reportedly told the judge. Widner Flow Degruy once had a promising career ahead of him as Lil Wayne added the young rapper to the Young Money Cash Money Billionaires roster in 2012. However, the street life was difficult for Degruy to leave behind, and before the Louisiana rapper's star was able to shine, he was arrested in 2015 on charges of murder. Police say that 27-year-old Degruy and his associate Jonathan Evans shot two brothers, 22-year-old Kendrick and 18-year-old Kendred Bishop, as they sat inside a van. Authorities state that they found Degruy's phone at the scene and surveillance footage shows him at the location, as well. Kendrick Bishop and Degruy were both aspiring rappers and even recorded music together. Investigators think the motive for the shooting stemmed from Degruy's belief that the brothers stole guns and cash from him. https://www.instagram.com/p/3i0AbCw4qG On April 8, NOLA.com reports that Degruy was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. The rapper previously pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. It only took jurors an hour and a half to return with their verdict. The vote was 11 to 1. On Tuesday, Degruy was sentenced to life in prison. Assistant District Attorney Irena Zajickova read Sherry Strauss' victim impact statement. Strauss is the mother of the two slain brothers. In the beginning, I hated you, the statement read. I considered you a monster. Today, I no longer hate you. I feel sorry for you. ScHoolboy Q was only recently involved in a Twitter war when he took to the platform to talk some smack about Delaware rapper, Jim Cretes, for using a verse of his without -his alleged - permission for his song "Hustle 101". As of this past week, however, the "Floating" rapper appears to have found himself in some hot water with what seems to be the whole state of Delaware after rapper BMagic302 (the area postal code in his name revealing that he hails from the same state) posted the following video of him on his Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxSeaoeApwo After the post, the rapper also released a diss track titled "ScHoolgirl Q," and had his fans bombard Q's Instagram repping the 302. ScHoolboy Q proceeded to take down the first post about his merchandise that had been flooded with comments from Delaware, prompting BMagic302 to fire back with the comment: "Nigga u deleted the whole post and reposted???? Oh u SENSITIVE SENSITIVE #SchoolGirlWho diss on my page now got this nigga in his feelings like a low budget drake." That last comment sparked a whole string of interactions between the two beefing rappers which you can follow through the stream of tweets and screen captures below: (ScHoolboy Q responds) Picture via @BMagic302 Instagram (ScHoolboy Q starts following BMagic302 and comments on his posts) Picture via @BMagic302 Instagram (ScHoolboy Q DMs BMagic302, sends video of himself pulling into his gated community) Picture via @BMagic302 Instagram (ScHoolboy Q makes a bet with BMagic302 about whether the rapper can reach 2500 Instagram followers) Picture via @BMagic302 Instagram (Just some more casual shit talk) Picture via @BMagic302 Instagram President Donald Trumps go-it-alone, berserker strategy for global trade and foreign policy is failing and endangering the economy. Chinas public refusal to compromise and reciprocal tariffs on U.S. goods reveal the Communist regimes readiness for a trade war. Trump is preparing even more tariffs in retaliation. Tariffs are what we call taxes on foreign goods, and taxes depress economic activity. Markets reflected the deterioration in relations, with stock market indexes dropping more than 2 percent on Monday. Bank of America warned Friday that a trade war could cause a global recession, and the banks fund managers have moved $20.5 billion out of stocks. Trump lied again to his followers on Twitter, claiming China was putting tens of billions of dollars into the U.S. Treasury. But even his own National Economic Council director, Larry Kudlow, couldnt countenance the propaganda, explaining that American consumers pay the tariffs. On HoustonChronicle.com: Trumps love of tariffs make him the Tax Man Historians will declare this the moment that the U.S. lost its power to dictate trade rules, and China became a peer-competitor. Chinese leaders long have planned to supplant the U.S. as the worlds most powerful nation. Despite naive Western hopes, Chinese leaders have no intention of opening their economy or allowing democracy. Their stated goal is to dominate the world through foreign trade and innovative technologies. The U.S.-initiated trade war with China is just a hurdle in Chinas development process. It is no big deal, a state-controlled television anchor told tens of millions of Chinese last week. China must strengthen its confidence, overcome difficulties, turn crisis into opportunity and fight to create a new world. The Trump administration correctly wants to thwart these ambitions. But with a vast population and the second-largest economy in the world, China is successfully demanding fealty from smaller nations around the world through its Belt and Road initiative. China is refusing to play by World Trade Organization rules and steal intellectual property with impunity. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He denies his nation breaks any rules, of course. After the talks failed last week in Washington, he drew a line in the sand by saying China will not compromise on major issues of principle, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The Wall Street Journal has a great article on how last weeks talks broke down because both sides misread the other. Failures like this in diplomacy, frighteningly, can trigger depressions and wars. The U.S. is right to demand a change in Chinas strategy, but recent events confirm that U.S. power alone is insufficient. Alienating our traditional allies has hobbled us. Trumps negotiating strategy, as laid out in his books, is to start from a position of strength, act unpredictably and shatter traditional norms. This may have worked in New York real estate, but not on the world stage. The Trump administration has not delivered a single diplomatic victory. Mano y mano nuclear disarmament talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un blew up when Trump marched out of negotiations in Hanoi. Since then, North Korea has resumed weapons testing. Trump authorized the U.S. Coast Guard to seize one of North Koreas largest merchant ships last week for violating U.N. sanctions. The nuclear deal Trump claimed to have reached last year is illusory. Trumps withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal escalated tensions with Europe and within the Middle East. The Europeans have broken with the U.S., Iran is saber-rattling and Irans archenemies are instigating a confrontation. On HoustonChronicle.com: World views clash in China-U.S. talks to avert trade war White House leaks about a nonspecific Iranian threat, the deployment of a U.S. carrier battle group and sketchy reports of oil vessel sabotage hint the Trump administration is itching for a fight. The potential for a showdown near the Straits of Hormuz has sent oil futures higher. Just like tariffs, high energy prices slow economic growth because they raise the price on everything. Trump is experiencing firsthand the limits of unilateral power but failing to realize that recruiting allies is the answer. The U.S. did not defeat Nazi Germany or Soviet Communism alone and neither can it defeat Chinese authoritarianism alone. China only will change course if the U.S. can build an international coalition demanding change. Iran will not bend without pressure from Europe and Russia. And finally, Kim will only agree to denuclearize when China and Russia join the U.S. in a united front. Trumps ultimate foreign policy goals are not misguided; past presidents have shared them. This president simply needs to learn there is strength in numbers and ask for help. Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy. chris.tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinson By now all parents know the exact count and, if they forget, their child will happily remind them: The number of remaining school days . For families prepping for away-from-the-classroom euphoria, the Houston Public Library hopes reading is part of the plan. The habit of daily reading is manageable even on a summer routine, says Sara Pope, the librarys children services coordinator. Through its annual summer reading program, the library encourages 20 minutes of reading a day, and any kind of reading will be rewarded. The programs online tracking tool is fun for kids to use, Pope says, and with it, theyll track the number of days they read, rather than the number of books or the number of minutes. What were trying to do is help prevent the summer slide, Pope says. Kids get out of school and if theyre not reading and learning throughout the summer, theyre kind of losing the progress theyve made during the school year. Reading can take several forms, she says, and the programs goal is to get kids into a daily habit of reading whatever interests them. That might be an audio book, graphic novel, e-book, print magazine/newspaper or a digital publication. For young learners, being read to by an older sibling or guardian counts, too. Explore the Unknown When: June 1- August 1 Where: Houston Public Library, free. Details: Register online and get event information at houstonlibrary.org/summer 'Digizine Project' When: 3:30 - 5:30 p.m., June 4, The African American Library at the Gregory School; 2 p.m. - 4 p.m., June 6, Central Library; 2 - 4 p.m., June 15, Park Place Regional Library; 1:30 - 3:30 p.m., June 15, Robinson-Westchase Neighborhood Library; 3:30 - 5:30 p.m., June 17, and 2 - 4 p.m., June 22, Henington-Alief Regional Library; 2 - 4 p.m., June 22, Park Place Regional Library Details: For ages 9-18; Limited space available; call branch location for details. See More Collapse Were not the book police, Pope laughs. We know that we have different kinds of readers with different interests. With an Explore the Unknown theme, the program is two-fold. It incentivizes reading with prizes and gets youth into library branch locations with free events. When kids sign up for the program online, theyll get a free book for their home library. As they reach 10-, 20- and 30-day reading milestones, theyll choose additional books to take home. Older kids will get lanyards and can add pins of their choice for participation. New to the event lineup this year is the Jelly Belly Schmelly Show, which on different days incorporates hands-on balloon art making, bubble shows and story times with audience participation. Mermaid Storytime teaches kids about protecting the ocean and the animals that live there. An exotic petting zoo will allow kids to interact with animals that might include antelopes, piglets, wallabies and pygmy goats. An ancillary discussion will inform them about endangered species and conservation. To appeal to teens and tweens, another new program this year will give youth the chance to make their own digizine. A zine is a short, independent magazine. In partnership with Writers in the Schools, select branch locations will offer free two-hour sessions led by professional local writers. The theme for the zines, which will feature a students original text and artwork, is nature. When it comes to putting that theme to pen and paper, students will have free range... to explore what that means for them, says Writers in the Schools program manager Loyce Gayo. Kids can collaborate with one another on a zine or work individually. The zines will be scanned digitally so their product can easily be shared with friends and family. At the end of the June sessions, the library will compile pages from the zines into one master digizine that will be available to the public online. Perhaps making their own zines will inspire students to expand the types of materials they want to read. This is not only something they can be proud of, but it also empowers them to push the bounds of traditional storytelling, says Gayo. Allison Bagley is a Houston-based writer. Trial by Fire is a hard movie to talk about because its entire point its reason for being is contained in its final minutes. To really talk about the movie is to talk about that ending. Yet despite the fact that every advance article and interview about the film has given that ending away, it still doesnt feel right to do so in a review. So, this is what were going to do instead. A little compromise: Im not going to give away anything overtly. However, if you read the following with any attention at all, youll be able to figure out how this movie ends. So, if not knowing is important to you, you might want to stop reading after the next paragraph. But before you go, some advice stay and read rest of this. Trial by Fire is the rare case of a movie thats actually better if you know how it ends. I watched it without knowing, and it made the experience worse. To believe youre getting one movie when youre getting another just sets up expectations that the film cannot match, simply because its intentions are in the complete opposite direction. Trial by Fire tells the story of Todd Willingham, the Corsicana man who was convicted of murdering his three daughters by burning them to death in an arson fire. In fact, he didnt do it, but he sure made it easy for people to think the worst of him. Young. Dumb. Unemployed. And a drunk with some history of domestic abuse. Trial By Fire Rated R: For strong language throughout, some violence, disturbing images, sexual material and brief nudity Running time: 127 minutes Where: Regal Greenway Grand Palace 24, Houston; AMC Willowbrook 24, Houston **** (out of 5) See More Collapse So the murder conviction here is a foregone conclusion. His public defender is a joke, whose only idea is that Todd should plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. He wont what innocent person would? and so, in short order, Todd is sentenced to death placed on death row. Based on the above description, you might easily believe that Trial by Fire is Willinghams story, in the way that true stories are usually about their protagonists. Such movies say, This is someone that something interesting happened to. And here are the details. But thats not whats going on here. Director Ed Zwick is not telling Todds story because its unique or unusual, but rather for the opposite reason, that what happens to Todd turns out not to be unusual at all and most definitely isnt unique. So Trial by Fire is the farthest thing from a human-interest story. Rather, its an impassioned polemic that arrives on screen at a charged political moment. It could have been made 10 years ago, except that its message could not possibly have had the same resonance: America isnt working. And even those systems put into place to avert disaster? Well, those are strained or failing. All thats fine, but just saying that much is easy. Trial by Fire goes further. It dares to identify the source of our problems in a political mentality and a cultural attitude. Case in point, the police arson investigators that arrive on the scene and decide on the basis of absolutely nothing that Todd lit a fire in his daughters room by arranging gasoline in the shape of a pentagram. A pentagram. In other words, that Todd was supposedly a devil worshipper. This hypothesis is not just lunacy, but idiocy, and a particularly dangerous kind of idiocy that assumes it knows the precise nature of evil and starts seeing it when it is not there. Are you getting mad yet? Thats the intention. Trial by Fire is not a feel-good movie. Its a feel-bad movie. Yet somehow, if you go in expecting that, you might enjoy it in a weird way. Jack OConnell is good in it. And so is Laura Dern, as a writer who takes an interest in the case. But Derns excellence is a given: If she ever just phones it in, that will be worth a headline. mlasalle@sfchronicle.com May is National Barbecue Month a perfect opportunity to look at some of Houstons most beloved barbecue joints from old school joints that have been smoking for decades to newbies ushering in a new age of smoked meat allegiance. Texas barbecue renaissance shows no sign of slowing, which makes these restaurants among the must-do places for great barbecue in the Greater Houston area. May is National Barbecue Month a perfect opportunity to look at some of Houstons most beloved barbecue joints from old school joints that have been smoking for decades to newbies ushering in a new age of smoked meat allegiance. Texas barbecue renaissance shows no sign of slowing, which makes these restaurants among the must-do places for great barbecue in the Greater Houston area. BLOOD BROS. BBQ This pop-up and festival favorite with a cult following now has its first restaurant serving Texas-style barbecue and Asian-flavored dishes such as smoked turkey banh mi, smoked boudin with Thai green chile and brisket fried rice. 5425 Bellaire, 713-664-7776; bloodbrosbbq.com. BRETTS BARBECUE SHOP Pitmaster Brett Jackson has serious barbecue credentials, and it shows in Jacksons new Katy joint serving up Central Texas-style brisket, beef ribs, pork ribs and sausage. Theres also Frito pie topped with chopped beef or pulled pork; macaroni and cheese loaded with chopped beef; piled-high sandwiches; and specials such as brisket enchiladas. 606 S. Mason, Katy, 281-392-7666; brettsbbqshop.com. BROOKS PLACE BBQ Pitmaster Trent Brooks cranks out outstanding Central Texas-style brisket while mixing in occasional specials such as smoked oxtails and smoked catfish at his little-trailer-that-could in an Ace Hardware parking lot. Sides include garlic potatoes, mac and cheese and kicked-up baked beans. Of note: Customers carrying firearms receive a 10 percent discount. 18020 FM 529, Cypress, 832-893-1682; brooksplacebbq.com. BURNS ORIGINAL BBQ The classic East Texas-style barbecue served at this Acres Homes institution includes big, meaty pork spareribs and a killer chopped beef sandwich. The late Anthony Bourdain stopped by to film the Houston-focused episode of his CNN show No Reservations. 8307 De Priest, 281-999-5559. CORKSCREW BBQ Pitmaster Will Buckmans classic Central Texas-style, all-natural prime brisket is among the best in the city. Pork spareribs are huge and perfectly cooked, and the smoked turkey is always a great choice. Really hungry? Try the Whole Hog, a monster sandwich topped with pulled pork, sliced sausage and spareribs. Just know if you arrive late, they may be out of what youre craving. 26608 Keith, Spring, 832-592-1184; corkscrewbbq.com. FEGES BBQ Husband-and-wife team Patrick and Erin Feges have resumes with fine-dining know-how, and thats evident from their first restaurant together, where traditional barbecue (brisket, ribs, sausage, boudin, pulled pork) marries with modern interpretations (side dishes such as yogurt/cilantro cole slaw, elote corn salad and Moroccan-spiced carrots). 3 Greenway Plaza, 832-409-6118; fegesbbq.com. GATLINS BBQ When Greg Gatlin opened his joint in 2010, he brought back a craftsman approach to Houston barbecue with all-wood-burning smokers. What started as a ramshackle house in the Heights is now a contemporary location in a shopping center near Oak Forest. Dont miss the sausage, old-school dirty rice (pungent with liver bits) and the peach cobbler. Check out the specials, too. 3510 Ella, 713-869-4227; gatlinsbbq.com. GOODE CO. BBQ Founded by late, legendary Houston restaurateur Jim Goode, the Kirby location is known for superb Czech-style sausage as well as a hot jalapeno pork sausage. Son Levi now presides over a menu whose other highlights include pork ribs and stellar sides. Use the jalapeno cheese bread to sop up Goodes tangy barbecue sauce, and dont forget a slice of pecan pie. 5109 Kirby, 713-522-2530; goodecompany.com. Other locations at 8911 Interstate 10 W., 20102 U.S. 290 and 8865 Six Pines in The Woodlands. HARLEM ROAD TEXAS BBQ European-trained in classical dining, chef Ara Malekian mastered the intricacies of Texas barbecue and now has his own smoked-meat temple in Richmond. Superlative beef ribs as well as brisket, pork ribs, pulled pork and house-made sausage. 9823 Harlem, Richmond, 832-278-2101; harlemroadtexasbbq.com. KILLENS BARBECUE Chef Ronnie Killen put Pearland on the culinary map with this must-do barbecue mecca consistently named one of Texas top smoked meat destinations. Line-up for barbecue by day but enjoy wait service for dinner (including accepting reservations) with an expanded menu that includes Killens famous barbecue plus steaks, fried chicken, chicken-fried ribeye and Tex-Mex dishes including tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas and tamales made with smoked meats. 3616 E. Broadway, Pearland, 281-485-2272; killensbarbecue.com. S PINKERTONS BARBECUE Grant Pinkerton is making a splash in the Heights with his emphatically Central Texas style cue colossal beef ribs, almost 2 pounds per bone, have a deliciously charred and crusty bark seasoned with salt and coarse ground pepper. Sides, including smoked duck jambalaya and a crisp coleslaw, are all made in-house. Desserts, too. Also on offer: craft cocktails and a list of wines meant to be paired with barbecue. 1504 Airline, 713-802-2000; pinkertonsbarbecue.com. PIZZITOLAS BAR-B-CUE The rare, decades-old brick pits that still produce the barbecue are in no better hands than those of owner Jerry Pizzitola and pitmasters Davy Reynosa and Josh Scott. Original owners John and Lela Davis were pioneers in the Houston barbecue community, operating Shepherd Drive BBQ (as it was originally called) as a black-owned business during the 1950s Jim Crow era. The thick, meaty pork ribs seasoned simply with salt, wood and smoke are as good as ever. 1703 Shepherd, 713-227-2283; pizzitolas.com. RAYS BBQ SHACK Pitmaster Ray Busch continues a long tradition of soulful barbecue in Houstons Third Ward with outstanding brisket, ribs and Lotts Links sausages based on a recipe from an old-school, now-shuttered nearby joint of the same name. Be sure to order the stupid-good fried corn on the cob or smoked boudin and smoked macaroni and cheese in these nice new digs down the road from the original location. 3929 Old Spanish Trail, 713-748-4227; raysbbqshack.com. ROEGELS BARBECUE Pitmaster Russell Roegels is solid on the basics: beef brisket, pork ribs and sausage. But its his daily specials that make his off-the-tourist-path restaurant worth the effort. Think smoky pork chops, pork belly and lamb chops. 2223 S. Voss, 713-977-8725; roegelsbarbecue.com. SOUTHERN Q BBQ Smoked turkey legs are a specialty on weekends a throwback to a traditional East Texas-style barbecue dish. Pitmaster Steve Garner has both the rich, fragrant boudin and the spicy, garlicky sausage links made to his recipe by a local butcher. Wife Sherice always offers a welcoming smile for guests. A new restaurant on West Richey spreads the Q gospel. 16540 Kuykendahl, 832-250-4851, and 411 W. Richey, 281-919-1238; southernqbbqcatering.com. TEJAS CHOCOLATE + BARBECUE Scott Moore and partner Michelle Holland were bit by the bean-to-bar chocolate bug and began making handmade, craft chocolate in their kitchen in 2011; now theyve got a full-on chocolate-and-barbecue emporium in Old Town Tomball that Texas Monthly named the sixth-best barbecue joint in the state. The brisket and ribs are excellent, as are the signature sandwiches (think brisket and blue cheese). Side dishes including the carrot souffle are not to be missed. 200 N. Elm, Tomball, 832-761-0670; tejaschocolate.com. THE BRISKET HOUSE Wayne Kammerl is distinguished for the quality and consistency of his Central Texas-style cue served during both lunch and dinner a rarity when many of the best joints sell out of meat and close up soon after lunch. The trinity brisket, pork ribs and locally made sausage is terrific. 5775 Woodway, 281-888-0331; 3217 Center, Deer Park, 281-884-8058; 3301 Cypress Creek Parkway, 832-286-1487; thebriskethouse.com. THE PIT ROOM The three types of handmade sausage at this Montrose joint may be the best in Houston: all-beef sausage loaded with mustard seeds and other spices; pork sausage with chunks of fresh jalapeno and melty cheese; and dense, smoky and peppery venison sausage. Thoughtful sides and condiments, as well as tacos with flour tortillas made in-house using fat collected from brisket trimmings. 1201 Richmond, 281-888-1929; thepitroombbq.com. MISSION MOON: Nearly 50 years have passed since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Our special Apollo 50 anniversary coverage explores how the country came together to fulfill President John F. Kennedys goal of reaching the lunar surface by 1970, NASA's bold missions - and crippling tragedies - since that historic day, and the future of space exploration and Houston as America's "Space City. *** When NASA announced in 1961 that Houston was chosen as the command post for the nations space program, the Chamber of Commerce called it the most significant single event in the citys economic history. Over the next eight years, as the United States raced to the moon, Clear Lake would be transformed from farmland dotted by cattle and oil rigs to a bustling, high-tech community anchored by one of the most advanced centers of research in the world. Fifty years after the first men walked on the lunar surface, economists still agree with the chambers assessment. NASA and the Johnson Space Center created more jobs, enticed more talent, spurred more housing, and brought more businesses to the Houston region than any other single initiative, experts said. And with the Johnson Space Centers $4.6 billion budget last year, its hard to argue otherwise. Well over $2 billion of that was spent to pay contractors and employee salaries. People spend that money, said Bob Mitchell, the president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. People pay taxes, people buy nice homes, which benefit the school districts. Its a domino effect. THE NEW FRONTIER: NASA is ever-present in Houston area for more than 50 years NASA and the Johnson space center employ about 10,600 people in Texas, nearly all in Houston, according to the economic partnership. About 2,900 are federal employees and 7,700 are contractors. NASAs economic impact $50 million Within five years of its opening in 1962, NASA employed nearly 5,000 people with a payroll of $50 million. 5,000 Approximate number of rocket scientists who moved to the Houston area to work for NASA 10,600 NASA and the Johnson space center currently employ around 10,600 people in Texas, nearly all in in Houston. 2,900 About 2,900 of those are federal employees. The other 7,700 are contractors. Source: Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership See More Collapse NASA spreads its funding across the Houston economy through contracts primarily in the aerospace, biomedical and petrochemical sectors, but also energy, maritime and agriculture sectors. Businesses from other industries have commercialized technology developed at the Johnson Space Center and used the centers facilities for their own research and training. Some offshore oil workers, for example, use a JSC lab to learn survival and safety skills. NASA and the Johnson Space Center is still the heart and soul of the region, Mitchell said. Put Houston in orbit NASAs decision to move to Houston was met with great anticipation. The Houston Magazine in 1962 predicted the decision would start an economic boom comparable to that of the opening of the ship channel in 1915, according to research by Stephen B. Oats, a historian. The Dallas Morning News wrote at the time that NASA put Houston in orbit. They were right. It transformed the entire Houston region, Mitchell said. It put Houston on the map. Within five years of opening, NASA employed nearly 5,000 people with a payroll of $50 million, according to Houston: A History by David McComb, a Texas historian. New homes followed the space center, and retail stores followed the new homes. Real estate in Nassau Bay, where many NASA personnel still live, became valuable overnight. SPACE CITY: NASA is ever-present in Houston for more than 50 years Patrick Jankowski, an economist at the Greater Houston Partnership, a business-financed economic development group, said the Johnson Space Center altered Houstons economy from blue collar to white collar. Getting the Johnson Space Center back then was like a city getting Amazon today, Jankowski said. It was the founding moment of technology in Houston. We dropped 5,000 rocket scientists into the economy overnight. It was a huge shift. The most brilliant minds in the nation live in Houston When the space center was announced, educators and university scientists predicted it would bring the most brilliant minds in the nation to Houston. But those minds had to be persuaded. NASAs scientists and technicians needed for the manned spacecraft center were living in Hampton, Virginia, near NASAs Langley Research Center. Mostly civilians, they couldnt be ordered to Houston. So, the Houston Chamber of Commerce sent representatives with 200 pounds of Houston propaganda, said Howard Martin of the Houston Chamber of Commerce in a 1963 interview for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. All but 84 employees were won over. It cast Houston in a totally different light, said Jankowski. It brought the attention of the world to the region to focus on something other than a hurricane. Houston and space grow up Over the past half century, the economic influence of NASA has diminished as private companies take a larger role in the space exploration and the Houston economy has grown much larger and diversified in sectors such as trade and logistics, health care and life sciences. NASA, however, remains important to both the aerospace industry and the regions economy. The metro area has gotten so much larger it doesnt have the same impact it had (in the 1960s), Jankowski said. But there would be a big hole in Houstons soul if the Johnson Space Center wasnt here. erin.douglas@chron.com WASHINGTON As the Trump administration draws up war plans against Iran over what it says are threats to U.S. troops and interests, a senior British military official told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he saw no increased risk from Iran or its proxy forces in Iraq or Syria. A few hours later, the U.S. Central Command issued an unusual rebuke. The remarks from the British official Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, who is also the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region, a Central Command spokesman said in a statement. The rare public dispute highlights a central problem for the Trump administration as it seeks to rally allies and global opinion against Iran. Over the past year, Washington has said Iran is threatening U.S. interests in the Middle East, encouraging aggression by Shiite militias in Lebanon and Iraq, shipping missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen and allowing its naval forces to behave belligerently in the Persian Gulf. All are concerns that have been leveled against Iranians for years. We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because of the environment we are in, Ghika said. But he said, No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria. Intelligence and military officials in Europe as well as in the United States said that over the past year, most aggressive moves have originated not in Tehran, but in Washington where John Bolton, the national security adviser, has prodded President Donald Trump into backing Iran into a corner. One U.S. official said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was small stuff and did not merit the military planning being driven by Bolton. The official said the ultimate goal of the pressure campaign was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States. Since May 2018, the Trump administration has withdrawn from the major powers agreement that curbed Irans nuclear program, reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran, demanded that allies choose between Iranian oil and doing business in the U.S. market, and declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization. On Tuesday, the State Department appeared on the verge of ordering a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as a heightened security measure, according to people familiar with the plans. It is all part of the Trump administrations drive to unite the world behind U.S. assertions that Iran is threatening the United States and its allies. The push has proved difficult even among the allies, who remember a similar campaign against Iraq that was led in part by Bolton and was fueled by false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos efforts this week to recruit European countries for the administrations steely posture on Iran are being received coolly. Federica Mogherini, the European Unions foreign affairs chief, called for maximum restraint after meeting on Monday in Brussels with Pompeo, a ringleader of the administrations maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Iraqi officials said they were skeptical of the U.S. intelligence that Pompeo presented last week on a surprise trip to Baghdad. Pompeo said the threat was one to U.S. facilities and military personnel in Iraq. In the fall, Trump administration officials blamed Shiite militias with ties to Iran for firing a few rockets into the area near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. Consulate in Basra. There were no injuries, but Pompeo ordered the consulate closed. Privately, several European officials described Bolton and Pompeo as dragging an unsuspecting Trump up a series of escalatory steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it. While Trump has made no secret of his reluctance to engage in another military conflict in the Middle East, and has ordered U.S. troops home from Syria, his secretary of state and his national security adviser have pushed a maximalist hard-line approach on Iran. Bolton, in particular, has repeatedly called for U.S. military strikes against Tehran. Officials said Trump is aware that Boltons instinctual approach to Iran could lead to war; aides suggested that the presidents own aversion to drawn-out overseas conflicts would be the best hope of putting the brakes on military escalation. The Trump administration is looking at plans to potentially send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack U.S. forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported. On Tuesday, Trump dismissed that as fake news. We have not planned for that, he told reporters. But he immediately added, If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. At least some of the presidents critics accept that Iran continues to engage in what U.S. officials call malign behavior, be it in Yemen, Syria or the Palestinian territories. But they blamed the administration for aggravating the standoff. This is a crisis that has entirely been manufactured by the Trump administration, said Vali R. Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He pointed to Trumps decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, coupled with the administrations failure to get any other signatories to do so. None of the other signatories to the deal were persuaded by the case the U.S. was making, Nasr said. And that is because this administrations policy on Iran, at a fundamental level, does not have credibility. That lack of trust has proved to be a major obstacle in convincing allies that Iranian behavior in the region warrants military action. And while acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has carefully cultivated a more acquiescent stance to Boltons demands than did his predecessor, Jim Mattis, many military officials at the Pentagon and congressional representatives worry about the escalating tensions. Mattis had balked at Boltons request for military options against Iran after the U.S. Embassy grounds were shelled in Baghdad. Bolton did the same with President George W. Bush and Iraq, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., an Iraq War veteran, said in a statement last week. As someone sent four times to that misguided war, I have seen the costs of Boltons disastrous foreign policy in a way he never will firsthand, and at the loss of thousands of American lives. One big worry is that the Trump administration has issued the most expansive type of warning to Iran, without stating specific red lines for Tehrans actions. That has increased the chance of a military conflict starting over misinterpretations and miscalculations. In a statement this month, Bolton outlined vague terms of what appeared to be conditions for military engagement, responding to what he said were troubling and escalatory indications and warnings. He said any attack on United States interests or those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. And he warned that the Trump administration was fully prepared to respond to any attack by the Iranian military or a proxy one of the Middle Easts many Shiite militias that are supported by Iran. Those militias often do not operate under direct command-and-control from Iran, and they have varying levels of allegiance to the Iran military. The hard-line tactics against Iran could backfire in two ways, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. If the sanctions crush the Iranian economy, then Iran could act with less restraint, he added. And if the sanctions do not work well, then some U.S. officials will advocate military action, a move that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likely to support. There will be people in Washington who will push for limited kinetic action against the Iranian regime to cut it down to size, he said. In statements, Iranian leaders have reacted with both belligerence and diplomatic restraint to a series of U.S. actions that they see as provocative. The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, ridiculed Bolton and three anti-Iran foreign leaders in the Middle East in a tweet on Tuesday as a #B_Team. In interviews in April, I predicted accidents not because Im a genius but because #B_Team is so brazenly following @AmbJohnBoltons script, Zarif said. After all, half of B-Team were co-conspirators in disastrous Iraq war. This article originally appeared in The New York Times The people of the United States are rejoicing this week, thanks to President Donald Trumps decision to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports. The celebrations have been particularly clamorous in Texas, which leads the nation in exports. Theres really nothing better for our states economy than a good old-fashioned trade war. Im kidding, of course. Trade wars are really bad for Texas; we all know that, even though our states Republican leaders have been reluctant to tell Trump as much in public. They may, like most Republicans, have assumed that the presidents stated enthusiasm for tariffs would abate after he was sworn into office. And they are busy, at the moment, as the states regular legislative session hurtles to its denouement. Republicans in the Texas Senate, for example, on Monday revived a Save Chick-Fil-A bill that was scuttled last week in the Texas House, via a parliamentary maneuver, by state Rep. Julie Johnson, a Democrat from Carrolton and member of the chambers LGBTQ Caucus. The measure seeks to protect businesses such as Chick-Fil-A from the consequences of actions tied to religious belief that might be meted out by local governments. Senate Republicans also recently passed a measure seeking to protect Confederate monuments in Texas from the risk of being removed at the whim of elected officials who serve in local governments. Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, took a moment to practice his juggling skills, by which I mean that he went to an arcade of some kind and borrowed three balls from the Skee-Ball machine to practice his actual juggling skills which are, as was clear from the brief video clip he posted on Twitter, impressive. Still, it would have been nice for someone in a position of high office in Texas to have taken notice last week, when trade talks in Washington failed to yield an agreement between the United States and China. Trump responded to that development by announcing that he would raise tariffs, and China responded to Trumps decision by explaining, in a statement, that it was prepared to retaliate. A deal is still possible, and both sides have said that they are hoping to strike one. But Trumps decision to raise the stakes is unsettling, as is the aplomb with which he has defended that decision in public statements. China has taken so advantage of the U.S. for so many years, that they are way ahead (Our Presidents did not do the job). Therefore, China should not retaliate-will only get worse! Trump tweeted on May 13th. Even if thats true, its a bit impolitic to say things like that during the course of negotiations premised on the prospect of a mutually advantageous outcome. And even if Trumps decision to escalate this trade war helps him wear down Chinese President Xi Jinping, Americans will be hurt by this new round of tariffs, as well as the $60 billion in retaliatory tariffs Beijing announced Monday in response. Tariffs, after all, are a tax on consumers. And retaliatory tariffs take a toll on producers who rely heavily on consumers in export markets. The White House seems to realize that, and is readying another round of bailouts for farmers an important political constituency for Republicans, in particular. But farmers themselves are getting sick of this roller coaster ride, by all accounts. Thats understandable, especially since Trump himself is simply insisting that things will all work out in the long run. Our great Patriot Farmers will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of what is happening now, the president claimed in a tweet Monday. Hopefully China will do us the honor of continuing to buy our great farm product, the best, but if not your Country will be making up the difference, he continued. In a subsequent tweet, Trump exhorted his supporters to buy a new book by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican of Arkansas, about Arlington National Cemetery. Cotton, in an appearance on a cable morning news show that morning, had suggested that farmers stop feeling sorry for themselves simply because the presidents trade war was hurting them. There will be some sacrifices on the part of Americans, I grant you that, Cotton said. But I also would say that sacrifice is pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas that are fallen heroes that are laid to rest in Arlington make. Thats true enough, but its probably not much comfort to the men and women who are making this sacrifice on behalf of a president who assured them, at one point, that trade wars are good and easy to win. erica.grieder@chron.com Universities around the country offer courses online in hopes of giving students an alternative way of learning that fits in with their learning style, busy schedules and finances and according to Guide to Online Schools, a website that ranks schools based on their online education, Texas has some of the best online programs. Texas A&M University in College Station ranked third in the country for overall best online education, and University of Texas-Arlington made the Top 25, ranking in at No. 20. A .357 Magnum believed to belong to a man killed in a botched Houston police drug raid was among the evidence investigators recovered after the January shoot-out, law enforcement sources confirmed Tuesday. The news comes a day after a private forensics team analyzed the scene and raised questions about whether either of the people killed by police in the narcotics bust had fired shots at the undercover officers who burst through the front door. The revolver - the same weapon officials originally said Dennis Tuttle fired at police - had multiple spent casings, the sources confirmed. The find could help confirm some aspects of the Houston Police Department's version of events called into question by the outside forensics investigators hired by the families of Tuttle and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas. Mike Doyle, the attorney representing the Nicholas family, did not dispute the claim, but pointed out that it may not prove Tuttle fired a shot, and also highlighted some of his team's other findings - namely, a trove of uncollected evidence, including bullets and teeth. "We're not saying they didn't collect any evidence, all we're saying is that there's a substantial amount of really important evidence that was not collected," Doyle said. "It's certainly possible that at some point in the chain of events something other than a police weapon was fired, but when, who did it and where remains to be seen." ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Autopsies show couple killed in botched drug raid had traces of marijuana, cocaine Chief Art Acevedo could not be reached late Tuesday, and a Houston police spokesman declined to comment, citing the active investigation. It's still not clear what other evidence authorities may have that could back up the official narrative in a case that has blossomed into one of the department's biggest scandals in decades. The gunbattle began early on the evening of Jan. 28, when a narcotics case agent burst in the front door of 7815 Harding Street looking for a pair of suspected heroin dealers. A pit bull lunged at the officer, who opened fire and killed the animal, authorities said at the time. Stay Informed Text CHRON to 77453 to get breaking news alerts by text | Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. See More Collapse Hearing the gunshot, Tuttle came running out from the back of the house and started shooting, striking the case agent who'd been the first man through the door, according to police. Though officials initially said the 59-year-old Pecan Park resident had wielded a .357 revolver, the gun wasn't listed on the search warrant return officially released in the months since the raid. After he was shot, the wounded lawman fell on the couch near Nicholas, who allegedly made a move for his weapon. A back-up officer opened fire and killed the 58-year-old woman. The shoot-out continued, and in the end, Tuttle and Nicholas were killed and five officers injured including four who were shot. Police maintain the officers were not shot by friendly fire. Authorities have reported that in a search of the home afterward, they turned up four heirloom guns and user-level amounts of cocaine and marijuana. It's unknown if other drugs were recovered with the .357 revolver. INVESTIGATION: Harris County DA seeks dismissal of narcotics officer Gerald Goines active cases, according to HoustonChronicle.com report Even with the discovery of the fifth weapon, other concerns with the case continue to be at the center of multiple investigations across at least three agencies. In the weeks after the raid, the first man through the door - case agent Gerald Goines - retired under investigation amid accusations that he'd lied on the search warrant used to justify the raid. That revelation sparked probes by Houston police, the FBI and the Harris County District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors are still exploring the possibility of criminal charges against one or more of the officers involved, and have tossed out multiple cases previously handled by Goines and his partner, Officer Steven Bryant, in light of questions about their conduct at Pecan Park. A Baytown police officer shot and killed a woman moments after she yelled she was pregnant, according to a video of the Monday night confrontation. While police later said the woman was not actually with child, the cell phone footage gained traction and quickly sparked a national response over the nature and justification of her shooting. Our Police Department takes incidents like this very seriously, and are therefore investigating the events which occurred last night , Mayor Brandon Capetillo said in a written statement. This investigation is being jointly conducted by Baytown Police Detectives in cooperation with Investigators from the Harris County District Attorneys Office. Residents described the woman, 44-year-old Pamela Turner, as quirky but a harmless neighbor. Police said the 11-year veteran of the police department who fired the shots had prior dealings with Turner and was trying to arrest her on an active warrant. Its a tragic event for everybody involved, department spokesman Lt. Steve Dorris said. Of course, our hearts go out to the families of the deceased, as well as our officer. Now Playing: A Baytown police officer shot and killed a woman Monday night after she reportedly struck him with his own Taser, according to police. Video: Metro Video Authorities said Turner struck the unnamed officer with his own Taser at The Brixton Apartments at 1601 Garth Road. The events shown in the video unfold quickly and are difficult to interpret. More Information INSTANT ANALYSIS: Text HOUSTON to 77453 to get premium breaking news alerts from HoustonChronicle.com by text | Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. See More Collapse You cant tell from the video enough detail at this time to tell whats happening, said Larry Karson, an associate professor of criminal justice at UH-Downtown. Thats the problem with these videos. Many people thought theyd be the silver bullet to solve whats going on with police shootings. The encounter began around 10:30 p.m. Monday, after the officer spotted the woman while on patrol behind the complex, Dorris said. The officer approached the woman and tried to arrest her but she started struggling with him. The officer deployed his Taser, but Turner was able to get the weapon away from him, Dorris said. She struck the officer with the Taser, at which point the officer pulled his firearm and fired five rounds, Dorris said. The woman was struck at least once and died at the scene. Dorris said the investigation was still in its early stages. Investigators didnt know where the officer first approached the woman, he said. The officer did not have to be taken to a hospital, he said. One of the warrants for Turners arrest stemmed from an incident in which she allegedly assaulted the apartment manager after she had posted an eviction notice on Turners door April 24, court records show. That same day, the manager tried to get her to leave the apartment when Turner allegedly grabbed the managers face, scratching her nose and throwing her eyeglasses to the ground, court documents detail. Turner also allegedly slammed a log through the windshield of someone elses car days later, according to court records . Turner was charged with two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief for allegedly breaking the managers glasses and breaking the windshield, and one misdemeanor assault charge for allegedly scratching the manager, court documents show. She was not immediately arrested and was wanted on those charges at the time of Monday nights shooting. John Fullinwider, co-founder of the national advocacy group Mothers Against Police Brutality, said the video is clear: The officer appeared to create an unnecessary confrontation and further escalate the situation. What emergency existed, except the one he created? he said. If this officer had stepped back, its likely Ms. Turner would be alive today. The officer could have reasonably felt fear for his life, however, if the story hes telling is what actually occurred, Karson said. That will make possible body camera footage critical in deciphering the shooting, he said. You have the officer stating that he was being attacked with the Taser, and from his position that could be life-threatening if successful, because he could easily be repeatedly tased, possibly disarmed, Karson said. In that venue, you can understand where an officer would have fear for their life. By Tuesday morning, only orange paint on the grass, left by investigators to mark the scene, indicated what happened the night before. Neighbor Teryn Burns stood on her porch, recalling the last conversation she had with Turner. The woman said shed found a pair of childrens shoes and was hoping to return them to their rightful owner. We talk to her every day, Burns said. Shes always out walking her dog. She brings little gifts here and there to the kiddos. Other residents in the complex said they were familiar with the woman, and that she frequently walked her dog and picked up trash in the area. After watching the video, resident Johnathan Little said he felt the officer was in a position where force wasnt necessary. That could have been one of our grandmas, Little said. I feel like everything went wrong. Jay Jordan contributed to this story. samantha.ketterer@chron.com Twitter.com/sam_kett julian.gill@chron.com The Harris County Flood Control District will explore how to speed up the countys $2.5 billion bond program, at the request of Commissioners Court Tuesday, after residents spoke for more than two hours about last weeks flooding in Kingwood. Court members expressed support for committing even more funds to ensure 230-plus bond projects could be completed more quickly than the planned 10-year period. I think weve got to quit playing around with this conversation and really say to Flood Control that if we do want to fix things sooner rather than later, then what is that dollar amount? Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said. Is it $5 million? Is it $10 million? County Judge Lina Hidalgo asked for a list of options, with accompanying price tags, to improve the pace and efficiency of the bond program. Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle suggested the flood control district adopt a manager of managers model similar to that of NASA, under which the county would contract most of the on-the-ground work to private firms. Russ Poppe, the districts executive director, agreed to return with suggestions at the June 4 meeting, and said completing projects more quickly may be possible. If we want to come up with a more detailed approach of how we can potentially execute these projects more quickly, I would certainly take you up on your offer to get more resources to help us look at how we can do that, Poppe said. He warned, however, of the risks of speeding up the bond program approved by voters last August. The county plans to use about $900 million of the bond funds to secure matching federal dollars. Beginning projects before a federal partner has been secured could leave the county without reimbursement, he said. Even in a region as populous as the Houston area, Poppe expressed concern that building more projects simultaneously could push the cost of labor and raw materials higher, which would make city of Houston flood protection efforts more expensive, too. Other challenges cannot be solved simply with money. The flood control district and engineering department have struggled to find enough qualified employees to work on the bond program, and environmental permitting requirements on some projects have no shortcuts. Court members spent the entire morning session Tuesday listening to Kingwood residents recount the latest round of flooding in the northeastern Harris County community, after stronger-than-expected storms this past week. Preliminary data compiled by County Meteorologist Jeff Lindner shows extremely heavy rainfall, including bursts of 3 inches in 30 minutes, flooded streets and homes before stormwater could reach nearby bayous. We got eight inches in our home. We lost everything, said Gillian Reidy, who said her family moved to the neighborhood in 2017 because it had a reputation for staying dry during storms. Several residents cried as they described flooding in Elm Grove, a neighborhood of single-family homes between U.S. 59 and the east fork of the San Jacinto River. Many of their neighbors, they said, are less well-off than families in other Kingwood enclaves, and many lack the savings needed to rebuild. They asked Hidalgo to issue a disaster declaration for the area, which she has resisted. Hidalgo said the flood-prone area community is in dire need of better protection, but said the reported amount of damage from the storms does not appear to meet the criteria for federal help, which include $17 million in insured damages and $42 million in uninsured damages. Get alerts Text "Houston" to 77453 to receive HoustonChronicle.com alerts on your phone. See More Collapse I wouldnt do that to offer folks false hope, because no aid will come unless the federal government sees weve submitted an application showing weve met certain thresholds, Hidalgo said. Hidalgo urged home and business owners to report flood damage to the county and the city, and said she was open to exploring the countys options if the threshold is met. The county has counted 131 swamped homes in Kingwood to date. The storms, which struck weeks before the June start of the Atlantic hurricane season, illustrate the lag time between county officials decisions on flood control and tangible results. Commissioners Court successfully lobbied voters to pass the flood bond last summer, but little work has been completed so far. The program includes more than $367 million for the Kingwood area, a sizable sum on paper that is of little solace to Elm Grove residents who wait for garbage trucks to remove soggy drywall, furniture and carpets from their front lawns. Poppe said his staff has begun work on 156 projects, most of which are in the design phase. The flood control district continues to work on a schedule for the projects, the order of which has been the focus of intense debate, Deputy Director Matt Zeve said. In the meantime, Poppe urged homeowners to purchase flood insurance regardless of how their neighborhoods have fared in past storms. Every flood is unique, Poppe said. For four weeks now, weve had billboards all over town saying you might not live in a mapped floodplain, but we all live in a floodplain. Zach Despart covers Harris County for the Chronicle. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at zach.despart@chron.com . Russian bots may have an easier time getting through Facebooks firewalls than fair housing ads at least, if the city of Houstons experience is any indication. The city bought ads on the social media site through the Houston Chronicles promotions department for a campaign during Fair Housing Month in April highlighting the seven classes protected under the Fair Housing Act of 1968: race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status and national origin. The ads ran in the Chronicles real estate section and the newspaper then arranged the purchase of the Facebook ads. Facebook allowed five of the seven ads but blocked ads regarding race and religion, flagging them as related to politics on an issue of national importance. Its not political to promote fair housing, said Sarah Labowitz, assistant director of the citys Housing and Community Development Department. There is no other side. Devon Kearns, a spokesperson for Facebook, pointed to Facebooks policy of requiring third-party authorization to run political ads. Any advocacy around civil rights issues either for or against would fall under the requirement, she said, though she didnt give examples how else it could be applied to federal laws. We agree these ads should be allowed to run, Kearns said. We just ask that people go through these additional steps. Arranging for the Chronicle to be an authorized third-party buyer for the city on Facebook, however, would not resolve the issue, Labowitz said. Facebook is applying its own policy inconsistently, she said. It doesnt make sense to let through five of the seven protected classes and then block the last two. Kearns said allowing the other ads to be published was an error by Facebooks ad review team. Missed opportunity Sasha Marshall, a senior planner at the citys housing department, designed the ad campaign, called We Are All Protected, featuring real Houstonians as models. She called Facebooks block a missed opportunity to educate people about their human rights. We cant talk about race, we cant talk about religion in a healthy way that applies to a federal act because youre afraid to have the conversation? Marshall asked. Thats not what were about as a nation. The city learned about the ad denial in late April. Labowitz and Marshall spoke to Facebooks public policy team on April 24. Two days later, Facebook rejected the ads again. After the ads were nixed by Facebook, the Chronicle stepped aside to allow the city to make its case to Facebook, according to Labowitz. She sent a letter to a Facebook vice president on May 8 and sent a copy to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. We understand your intent in developing the political advertising policy was to shine a light on speech that seeks to influence elections, stoke division, or exploit weaknesses in our civic fabric, like racism, she wrote. But there is a risk that in your attempt to redress Facebooks role in the public debate, the company is suppressing speech that promotes civic virtues, such as fighting racism in housing. Previous housing concerns Facebook hasnt had an easy time since the 2016 presidential election, but fair housing specific complaints stretch back at least three years. HUD sued Facebook for housing discrimination in March, alleging that the way it lets users restrict what types of people could view ads counted as housing discrimination. Kearns declined to comment on the suit, calling it an entirely separate issue. A ProPublica investigation in 2016 showed that buyers could exclude people from viewing housing ads by race. The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to limit housing sales and rentals based on race and the other six protected classes that the city of Houston wanted to showcase in its April campaign. sarah.smith@chron.com Hundreds of firefighters did not receive any increase in pay last week, the Houston fire union said, despite Mayor Sylvester Turners announcement that the city is implementing raises retroactive to Jan. 1 under Proposition B, the pay parity charter amendment approved by voters last November. The back pay made up about $15.2 million of the $27.4 million issued to firefighters Friday, with the rest funding the departments biweekly payroll, a spokesperson for the mayor confirmed Tuesday. Turner said the paychecks reflect the implementation of Proposition B, with the departments two-week payroll increasing from $10.2 million to $12.3 million. Prop B requires the city to pay firefighters the same salaries as police of corresponding rank and seniority. Some firefighters did not receive raises because they lack the educational degree required by the corresponding police rank, said Mary Benton, Turners press secretary. Unlike police officers, firefighters are not required to have degrees to receive certain promotions. Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, called the educational component a red herring, contending that it does not explain why so many firefighters pay checks remained the same. Three firefighters, who requested their names not be used out of fear of retaliation, confirmed to the Chronicle that they had not received pay raises and said they were unsure why. One of the firefighters, a senior captain, said he met the educational requirements of the corresponding police lieutenant position. The mayor still refuses to disclose whether, when and how he will equalize pay and incentives between police and fire, Lancton said. Firefighters received letters informing them of a newly created call center, operated by the payroll and human resources departments, set up to answer questions about Prop B pay, including those regarding educational qualifications, Benton said. The union has said Turner is violating Prop B by not granting raises to firefighters who lack the degree required for the corresponding police rank. It was not immediately clear Tuesday how many firefighters failed to receive raises under Prop B. Controller Chris Brown said in an April memo to Finance Director Tantri Emo that the Turner administrations estimated Prop B cost of $79 million included base pay increases for 3,217 employees, 730 fewer than initial estimates. Benton said she could not confirm whether "hundreds" of firefighters had not received raises. She did not provide a number or estimate of how many went without the salary increases or back pay. Lancton said he was certain hundreds of firefighters had received no raises, adding that Fire Chief Sam Pena confirmed it. Pena was not immediately available for comment Tuesday. Turner said in a March 18 news release that firefighters would be issued lump sum checks for Jan. 1 through the first part of May, totaling about $31 million. That is about $16 million more than firefighters received last week. The departments two-week payroll also increased by about $2.1 million, according to numbers from Turners Friday news release, with about seven weeks to go in the fiscal year. Fire union officials, meanwhile, contend that the paychecks delivered to firefighters Friday did not fully equalize base and incentive pay between firefighters and police officers, contrary to Turners statement that the payments reflect the implementation of Prop B. When fiscal 2020 begins July 1, Houston police officers will receive a 4 percent pay raise, a bump that will be granted to firefighters through Prop Bs parity requirement. Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said the lack of raises for some reinforce the image that Turner is looking for every way possible to stick it to the firefighters. The latest news builds on other examples, Jones said, such as Turners refusal to hire fire cadets while hiring police cadets. Turner, who is up for re-election in November, has denied that he feels animosity toward firefighters, insisting it would not be prudent to promote the fire cadets because they would be laid off soon after to account for the cost of Prop B. The mayor also repeatedly has pointed out that the Prop B ballot measure did not include a funding source for the raises, which he said would only add to Houstons annual budget hole. The gap stood at $179 million in Turners initial 2020 budget proposal. Part of the mayors plan to plug the hole includes layoffs of 67 fire cadets, 47 municipal workers and 220 firefighters, all of whom have received 60-day pink slips. Though the November election is months away, Jones said he is surprised Turner has not sought to quash the Prop B issue earlier, adding that the mayor has revitalized it several times. All the turmoil has occurred under his watch, and rightly or wrongly, the buck stops on his desk as mayor of Houston, Jones said. Turner has said he sought to negotiate a way of phasing in the raises over several years to avoid layoffs. The mayor said he agreed to a deal during court-ordered mediation but the union refused. Lancton said the union rejected it because Turner demanded that Prop B be rescinded and declared unconstitutional, a non-starter for union members. Lancton also maintained that Turner did not turn over data that would allow union officials to show members how much they would receive in raises under Prop B. jasper.scherer@chron.com CONROE When San Jacinto River Authority officials began to treat water in Lake Conroe four years ago, sending it out to utilities and into Montgomery County homes, they filled Champagne flutes with the product and celebrated. The region previously relied on water from its underground aquifers, and some had worried they were pumping too much. Now, with a new, $480 million treatment plant, they felt they had a sustainable system using both. But someone had to pay for that plant. Water bills went up, people got angry and, in a political takeover befitting the conservative county, a new group backed by a local utility company and political action committees pushed aside those in charge last fall. They spent more than $100,000 in an election for an obscure regulatory board. A high-stakes water war is playing out in this suburb, where population growth is increasing water demand. A change in state law primed the takeover. Lawsuits threatened the old system. Rules limiting how much could be pumped are being tossed, and concern is rising about whether the bonds that financed the new treatment plant will be repaid. Uncertainty is where we are right now, said Jace Houston, general manager of the river authority, which issued the bonds. We are doing contingency planning because we dont know where this is going. Growing areas across the state are wrestling with how to meet water demands responsibly. Regulators must balance immediate concerns keeping water affordable, limiting government meddling and encouraging economic development against long-term environmental factors. Removing too much water from aquifers can make water more difficult and costly to access. It can also cause land to sink, potentially worsening flooding. This process, known as subsidence, famously caused a 400-home Baytown subdivision to sink in the 1970s and 80s. Montgomery County was moving toward a system to stabilize its supply and, officials thought, avoid such problems. But the group that ousted the leaders making the decisions won out with a well-funded campaign focused on the now, promising reasonable bills and reform. In March, the new officials managing the aquifers approved a plan to adopt different rules aiming not to unnecessarily and adversely limit production. The Texas Water Development Board must decide by Friday whether that plan is acceptable. The group in charge has solicited community feedback and found support. People such as 55-year-old financial adviser Barry Tate are behind them. Tates water bill in March totaled $114.24, including $31.68 in fees for the water plant he didnt think was needed. It seems to me like theres a lot of over-regulation thats occurred, Tate said at a town hall meeting in Magnolia, drawing applause, and as a result, were all, as taxpayers, paying a heck of a lot more for water than what we really should be. A balancing act The group at the center of this battle is the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District. Texas considers underground water private property but gives such districts power to manage it in specific ways. Today, 100 such districts cover around 70 percent of the state. Their task is a balancing act, said Larry French, director of groundwater resources for the state water development board. Each district is supposed to consider local needs while also ensuring conservation, preservation, protection, recharging, and prevention of waste of groundwater, as the water code states. State legislators created Lone Star in 2001, and voters confirmed it. Nine board members were appointed by different groups, such as county commissioners court and the river authority. Their charge was three aquifers part of the Gulf Coast Aquifer system layered diagonally under a swath of the state like a tilted cake. Some districts allow users to take more water from aquifers than is naturally replenished. (Utilities prefer to use groundwater because it is easier, and cheaper, to treat.) But Lone Star board members, concerned for the future, wanted to maintain their supply. Lone Star determined that 64,000 acre-feet could be pumped each year and would be replaced. More than that was being used in 2005, and demand was only expected to increase. So the board members set deadlines. They intended groundwater use to be limited to 64,000 acre-feet per year by 2015. They required large water users to figure out how to substitute 30 percent of what they took from aquifers with another source. We were trying to be ahead of a problem, said Kathy Turner Jones, the former general manager of the district. But soon new problems would arise. Staff graphic Growth and worry The San Jacinto River Authority, a governmental entity, holds the rights to Lake Conroes water, the most obvious alternative to groundwater. It was completed in 1973 to serve that purpose. Jace Houston, the authoritys general manager, was glad to see the district tackling these issues. In a previous job at the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District, he saw the costly consequences of aquifer overuse. Were not playing around, Houston said. This isnt make-believe. Harris and Galveston officials drastically cut groundwater use in two regions, and afterward the ground nearly stopped sinking. They turned to Lake Houston and Lake Livingston to help make up the difference. When the river authority moved toward a similar approach in Montgomery County, the utilities went along. Around 80 signed contracts with the river authority, promising to pay off the cost of building the treatment plant. Some would later argue the utilities had no choice, suggesting a conspiracy between Lone Star, which required the cuts in groundwater use, and the river authority, which offered the solution and had a member on its board. The river authority adopted fees, issued bonds and started building. Political takeover Lone Star issued final rules for reduction in 2015. The river authority finished the treatment plant. The stage for their water war was set. The city of Conroe and seven private utility companies sued Lone Star, claiming the district lacked authority to do what it proposed. Conroe stopped paying the river authoritys increasing fees, accusing the authority and district of promoting a false narrative based on bad science. The city of Magnolia stopped paying higher rates, too. Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer In 2017, two Conroe Republicans pushed a bill to passage requiring that the Lone Star board be filled by seven elected members instead of nine appointed ones State Rep. Will Metcalf, who authored it, and Sen. Brandon Creighton, who sponsored it, said residents and business owners were frustrated with high water bills and what they saw as a lack of accountability by an appointed board. The election for new board members was set for 2018 and one man in particular was determined to see that a new slate of candidates, with a new perspective, prevailed. Simon Sequeira, the president of a Magnolia-based utility company called Quadvest, didnt believe the plant was necessary yet. He wanted Lone Stars rules invalidated, and his company was among those that sued the agency. Sequeira formed a group called Restore Affordable Water, or RAW, which backed a slate of candidates with messaging around property rights and runaway politicians that resonated across local media. Lets not fall for the story that the sky is falling and were going to run out of water, Sequeira urged on the radio. The RAW political action committee reported spending $97,571.50. Other PACs such as Freedom and Liberty Conservatives, Republican Voters of Texas and Texas Patriots State PAC supported the slate. Ten barely-funded opponents faced them, including incumbent Rick Moffatt, a municipal utility district manager in the county. Moffatt couldnt believe what was happening. Lone Star policies had finally steadied the falling water levels that were critical to his work. He reported spending $910.38 of his own funds to try to stay on the board. Now it appeared he and his colleagues were being replaced. Still churning All six candidates on the RAW slate won. A seventh candidate was uncontested. They were sworn in Nov. 16, 2018, hired new attorneys and settled the suit filed by Quadvest the company that helped elect them against the board they now represented. Sequeira said he expected only that they do what was right. The settlement invalidated the 30 percent pumping reduction. The board notified large water users that once the final paperwork is filed, the requirement SHALL BE STRICKEN. A former mayor of Conroe, Webb Melder, the only incumbent board member elected, now heads the board. Lone Stars longtime general manager got a different job. Hydrologists retained by the new group argue that there is plenty of water available in the aquifers. They say subsidence, which measures around two to three feet in parts of the county, is not a concern in other areas there. Get alerts Text "Houston" to 77453 to receive HoustonChronicle.com alerts on your phone. See More Collapse An attorney for the board said board members and consultants were unavailable to comment for this story. Officials in Montgomery County are paying attention to the looming decision by the water development board. Among them is James Stinson, a former Lone Star board member and now the general manager of The Woodlands Joint Powers Agency, which oversees water in the community. Stinson wrote to the board to oppose the plan, arguing it would undoubtedly result in additional pumping above sustainable levels and increase the risk of additional water level declines, land subsidence and flooding. So are those in Harris County, which shares the same aquifers, and where local water authorities are cutting groundwater use in the remainder of the county, spending $380 million to channel water 26 miles from the Trinity River to Lake Houston. Still, Lone Star Interim General Manager Samantha Reiter said at the town hall meeting that they had no intention of turning on the faucet. The district intends to follow the law and takes that duty very seriously. Today, the Lake Conroe treatment plant processes an average 12 million gallons of water a day. It has capacity for 18 million more, and planners left room for three more expansions. In 2017, the American Water Works Association ranked the Lake Conroe water best-tasting in Texas. This year, it came in second. Participating utilities pay the river authority $2.83 per 1,000 gallons of surface water delivered and $2.64 per 1,000 gallons of groundwater pumped. An average home uses 10,000 gallons. Their fees go toward operating the plant and paying back the debt they took on to build it. The authority does not operate for profit. Conroe and Magnolia still are not paying the higher rates. The river authority sued to force them to do so, and Quadvest, the utility company, countersued, claiming the contracts were based on false premises, duress and mistake. A battle over procedure in that case sits with the Texas Supreme Court. Eventually, the river authority hopes the courts will reaffirm that its contracts are valid. Conroe and Quadvest hope to get out of them. emily.foxhall@chron.com Three people reportedly caught in the act of robbing a southwest Houston Walgreens store are believed to be responsible for six other robberies at other Walgreens locations throughout the Houston area, deputies said. Edward James Priestly, 31, Lenishia Williams, 29, and Roy Battle, 29, are now behind bars for the string of alleged robberies, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. They were arrested after a joint operation between the sheriff's office and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Deputies said the three are believed to have robbed the following Walgreens locations: 6000 block of West FM 1960 on May 2 9400 block of Hammerly on May 4 16200 block of S. Post Oak on May 9 10900 block of West FM 1960 on May 12 2200 block of Texas Parkway in Missouri City on May 12 5500 block of West Orem on May 13 "I want to congratulate the Harris County Sheriff's Office and Texas DPS investigators who worked around the clock to identify and arrest the members of this dangerous crew, who terrorized Walgreens employees and patrons during this robbery spree," Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. "Thanks to their efforts, these cases have been solved before anyone was seriously hurt." SEARCH FOR MALEAH: Search for missing 4-year-old Maleah Davis may be suspended soon The suspects were finally put in handcuffs after deputies and special DPS agents spotted them trying to allegedly rob the Walgreens in the 8400 block of Stella Link late Tuesday night. Arresting deputies found guns, masks, gloves, and more than $3,000 in cash, police said. "These arrests highlight the benefits of our partnership with our fellow law enforcement agencies as we collaboratively address violent crime in Southeast Texas," DPS Regional Director Jason Taylor said. "Thanks to the diligent efforts of the skilled investigators from the DPS and Harris County Sheriff's Office, these violent felons have been taken into custody." The three are already each facing an aggravated robbery charge for the Tuesday heist but will likely be charged for the rest of the robberies soon, deputies said. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Joe Biden may have been President Barack Obamas vice president, but that is not stopping other candidates in the field from brandishing their own connections to the former president as they try to win over Democratic primary voters. With polls showing Democratic voters longing for a return to Obamas two terms in the White House, many of the 22 candidates running for president are scrambling to hire his former staffers, talking up their relationships with him and presenting themselves as defenders of his policies. When former Congressman Beto ORourke announced a key new hire last week, his campaign stressed that new senior advisor Jeff Berman had been a big part of Obamas 2008 election. And for good measure, they reminded reporters that his campaign manager Jen OMalley Dillon was a former deputy campaign manager for Obama in 2012. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Other candidates have also put a premium on hiring Obama alums, as they are called in Democratic circles. Democrat Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, hired two top staffers who played key roles in Obamas 2012 re-election campaign. And U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren early on added key former Obama staffers to her campaign. On the stump, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro talks up his tenure as Obamas Secretary of Housing and Urban Development the only former Obama cabinet official running so far. He often recounts how he was at a Panda Express drive-thru in his hometown when Obama called to offer him the position at HUD. It happened on April 16, 2014, Castro said in a campaign stop in New York. I remember the date because it's not every day that you get a call from the president asking you if you want a job. And then there is Biden. He mentioned Barack five times in a 20-minute span in a speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday. In a digital ad, he has an Obama voice-over for 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The audio came from when Obama presented Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2017. For subscribers: Julian Castro pitches $1.5 trillion education plan with free Pre-K, free college Polling shows why candidates want voters to see their ties to Obama: 97 percent of Democratic voters say they have a favorable view of the former president in one CNN Poll. And 72 percent of New Hampshire respondents in a Monmouth University poll said it was very important or somewhat important for the eventual Democratic nominee to build on Obamas legacy. But while Obama has met with many of the primary contenders in private meetings over the last several months, but hasnt picked a favorite so far. President Obama wants to help Democrats win, and that is why he has been happy to speak privately with candidates and potential candidates seeking his guidance on the best way to lead the country, said Katie Hill, the former president's communications director. Even after Biden jumped in the race, Obama praised Biden but stopped well short of endorsing him. I asked President Obama not to endorse, Biden said after announcing his campaign in late April. Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits. For subscribers: Beto ORourke slips as Biden enters 2020 race. But will it last? But even without the endorsement, Biden is clearly getting a boost in the polls due to his tenure as Obamas running mate, Texas Democratic political strategist Colin Strother said. I believe a lot of that support is based on Obama nostalgia, said Strother. The poll of New Hampshire voters seems to support that theory. Among those who said Obamas legacy is very important in picking among the 23 candidates running for president, Biden was the choice of 39 percent. No other candidate had more than 15 percent. Strother agrees with many analysts, however, in predicting that other candidates will be able to win some of those voters back. I love Joe Biden, said Nate Lerner, of New York City who worked on Obamas campaign in 2012 but was part of a Draft Beto campaign to urge ORourke to get into the race. But we were attracted to Obama because he was a candidate who promised hope and inspired change. Biden doesnt have that same calling card, Lerner said, after nearly 50 years in an out of Washington, D.C. Biden has pulled Obama alums to fill out his campaign, too. He made Greg Schultz his campaign manager. Schultz was Obamas state director in Ohio. Hes also made Pete Kavanaugh, who was Obamas New Hampshire state director, his deputy campaign manager. Reaching out to the Obama world also means trying to break into the financial circles that propelled Obama to record fundraising in both of his campaigns for president. According to a Washington Post report, few of Obamas major donors have picked a candidate yet for 2020. The Posts analysis showed just 1 in 10 of Obamas 1,330 major donors had given over $2,700 to any of the 2020 candidates. ORourke is making a play for those donors. On Tuesday he was in New York City meeting one-on-one with Robert Wolf, a major Obama fundraiser and former economic adviser to the president. ORourke held a fundraiser the night before in NYC. And on June 10, ORourke is in Chicago for another major fundraiser loaded with former Obama donors and officials, according to Politico. That fundraiser is being hosted by Louis Susman, former ambassador to the United Kingdom under Obama and Austan Goolsbee, who led the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama. During a stop in Louisiana on Tuesday, President Donald Trump had plenty of verbal jabs for the field of Democrats vying to unseat him next year, but had the most to say about former El Paso Congressman Beto ORourke. Betos falling fast, Trump said at a liquid natural gas terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. What the hell happened? Remember, about four weeks ago, he said, I was made for this. He was made for it. He was made to fall like a rock. Trump was apparently referring to an article in Vanity Fair in March in which ORourke said, Man, Im just born to be in it, a statement ORourke has regretted. The president noted news reports suggesting ORourke is trying to restart his campaign. That generally doesnt work out too well, Trump said. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Trumps comments come after ORourke on Monday said on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC that he is changing at least part of what hes doing on the campaign trail. But I recognize I can do a better job also of talking to a national audience, ORourke said during the interview. That means doing more national television interviews like other candidates in the race. ORourke followed the appearance on MSNBC with a segment on ABCs The View on Tuesday. Next week he is set to do his first CNN town hall-style interview. Trump also took shots at former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and mentioned South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, adding its going to be one of these people who ultimately take him on in 2020. For subscribers: 2020 Democratic candidates appeal to ex-Obama voters, staffers and donors Im looking at the competition, Trump said. You sort of dream about competition like that, but who knows. But Trump spent the most time talking about ORourke, who has been a frequent target. Earlier this year, Trump held a rally in ORourkes hometown of El Paso. In an unusual scene, ORourke held a counter rally literally across the street from Trumps rally. Trump insisted that the lines to get into his rally were much bigger than ORourkes. He said ORourke was a young man whos got very little going for himself, but hes got a great first name. And in October, Trump flew to Houston to hold a rally to help U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in his campaign against ORourke. Ted's opponent in this race is a stone-cold phony named Robert Francis O'Rourke, sometimes referred to as Beto, Trump told the crowd. He pretends to be a moderate, but he's actually a radical, open borders left-winger. His comments on Tuesday came as ORourke was slamming Trumps immigration policies and his foreign policy approach. In the interview with Maddow, ORourke called Trumps international relations work a complete disaster. He specifically said Trumps embracing of strongmen and dictators like Russian leader Vladimir Putin has made the U.S. and the world less safe. AUSTIN More than a hundred people on Wednesday filled two rooms in the Texas Capitol, most of them to speak in opposition to a bill that they call a voter suppression tool. The Texas House election committee heard about six hours of testimony that went past midnight, mostly from people who were against Senate Bill 9, but did not take a vote. The bill is one of Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patricks priorities this session, and has already passed in the GOP-led Senate. The multipronged legislation would raise criminal penalties making false statements on a voter registration form, for example, would be treated as a state jail felony as well as create new offenses, such as a misdemeanor charge for blocking peoples pathway to a polling place. The bill would also create new rules related to the voting process, such as obligating people to fill out a form if they help at least three nonfamily-member voters who physically are unable to enter the polling place and receive a curbside ballot with transportation. For our subscribers: Attack ads target Republican-backed voting security bill in Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, the bills sponsor, has touted the legislation as a way to increase election integrity and to give certainty to every Texan that their vote will be counted fairly. Hughes has brushed off criticism that the bill seeks to intimidate or discourage voters. There are no changes in this bill that are intended or would create a pitfall or a trap for the unwary or a gotcha in elections, Hughes said on the floor in April. The changes in this bill are to catch and punish cheaters. The proposed legislation comes as Attorney General Ken Paxton has ramped up voter fraud investigations in recent years and on the heels of a failed voter purge, in which the Secretary of States office attempted to have up to 95,000 Texans removed from the rolls that it suspected were noncitizens. But a quick review of the list by county officials showed it wrongly included tens of thousands of eligible voters, many of them immigrants who had been naturalized. Civil rights groups sued and the state recently settled the lawsuit by agreeing to put a stop to the program. Alice Yi, president of the Austin chapter of the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs, was among the speakers Wednesday who said the bill would cause the further disenfranchisement of people of color and the disability community. For the 21st century, I feel like our lawmakers need to think about how to make voting easier, how to make all American voices to be heard, not to suppress our Asian Americans' voices, Yi said. In the 2018 midterm elections, Texas ranked No. 41 in voter turnout at 46 percent up from 29 percent in 2014, the lowest in the nation. For our subscribers: San Antonio judge approves settlement ending states voter purge attempt Many speakers Wednesday warned that SB 9 would give Paxtons office a broader palette of more severe charges to choose from in prosecuting minority voters. The bill would also give the attorney general access to voter rolls, which Mimi Marziani, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, called really, really troubling in an interview. She recounted that immediately after the Secretary of States office sent its advisory about the purge, Paxton immediately proclaimed VOTER FRAUD ALERT in a tweet. Weve already seen evidence that from the very top, from the office of the Attorney General, that theyre willing to prejudge these cases before theres ever been any investigation, Marziani said. What were seeing out of the AGs office is an overzealous effort to try to go after people for things that are either not crimes at all or things where theres no showing that anybody intended to commit a crime; they just made a simple mistake. For subscribers: Texas Attorney General again blocks U.S. House request for voter purge documents Alex Birnel, advocacy manager at Move Texas, a voting rights nonprofit, said his group works to help marginalized people vote and to advocate for improvements to the election system, such as same-day and online voter registration. Texas does not accept online registrations, and requires voters to register 30 days before an election, the strictest deadline allowed under federal law. Move (Texas) works with everyday people who are often first-time voters who complain to us in earnest and in good faith that the process is already too complicated, Birnel said at a press conference Wednesday. SB 9 takes that confusion, that labyrinthian system, and heightens it to criminality. On Tuesday, county judges of the five largest counties in Texas, including Bexar and Harris counties, sent a public letter opposing the measure, saying it makes voting harder, scarier, and more confusing to voters. The judges also took issue with a provision of the bill that would require counties with countywide polling places to allocate voting centers based on the percentage of registered voters per state representative district. We are acutely aware of the discrepancies in voter registration rates across different demographic groups, they wrote. This requirement would force our hand in removing polling places from communities of color and placing them in White-majority communities. This article has been updated to reflect the latest version of this bill, which does not require counties to transition to voting machines with paper trails. It also clarifies to whom the provision related to driving voters to the polls applies. Drug prices had been shooting through the roof. So early this legislative session, Republican Rep. Tom Oliverson, a physician from Cypress, filed a bill in the Texas House that would demand transparency from pharmaceutical companies every time the price of their drugs rises more than 50 percent in a single year. It wasnt perfect. The legislation wouldnt have caught huge spikes in insulin prices in recent years, or those for common cholesterol and blood pressure medication that millions of Texans rely on every day. But with the states business-friendly climate and strong drug lobby, Oliverson said he worried that anything stricter would never survive. Then late last Thursday, as the House was winding down on its final day to pass bills, something extraordinary happened. A successful eleventh-hour amendment by Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, turned what many had seen as a weak transparency bill into one of the strongest in the country. Did you know that in the last four years the pharmaceutical companies have raised the price of insulin 90 percent? I'm talking about 9-0, Thompson said on the House floor. All I'm asking for is to do what the people sent us here to do. Protect them from price gouging. Protect them from big pharma, who wants to stick it to them. The amendment passed nearly unanimously, with cheers from members in both parties. Consumer advocates and lobbyists are now fighting frantically over the changes, which seem to have caught everyone off guard and thrown the bills future into question as it moves to the Senate, with a hearing scheduled early Thursday morning. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Under the amended version, the state would require pharmaceutical companies to report and turn over extensive documentation every time a drug price jumps over 10 percent annually, a far lower threshold than Oliverson had proposed. The measures, like those in the original bill, would only apply to drugs with a price of at least $100. I was not aware of any other conservative states that had been that aggressive, and that was my concern how do we sell something like this in Texas, Oliverson said Wednesday. I think the moral of the story here is there is a much stronger appetite for addressing this than we anticipated. Pharmaceutical lobby mobilizes The fight comes amid a nationwide push to increase transparency around drug pricing. The Trump administration is finalizing rules to force pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices during television ads. Texas is one of several states weighing proposals to require drug makers to report annual price spikes and explain the reasons behind them. Among the strictest are Oregon and Vermont, which already require manufacturers to reveal when annual prices jump by 10 and 15 percent respectively, according to the National Academy for State Healthy Policy. For subscribers: States bring price-fixing suit against generic drug makers Spikes in drug costs have affected patients across the country. About 25 percent of Americans who use insulin to treat their diabetes are rationing the medicine because of skyrocketing costs, according to a recent study in the Journal of American Medicine. The effects are especially pronounced in Texas, where an estimated one in seven adults suffer from the disease. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade association that represents drug companies, opposes the bill and has been lobbying senators ahead of Thursdays hearing. It argues that the reporting requirements would add unnecessary paperwork for both their members and the state, and would not reduce prices for patients. Ultimately the price that patients pay out of pocket is determined by a multitude of factors over a complex supply chain, said Nick McGee, a spokesperson for PhRMA. This does nothing to address what their real out-of-pocket costs are. Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, who chairs the Business and Commerce Committee that will hear the bill Thursday, declined to comment. A real wake-up call The amended bill, HB 2536, calls for the Health and Human Services Commission to create a website where Texans could track price spikes and explanations from pharmaceutical companies for those increases. It would also separately require pharmacy benefit managers, which act as middlemen between drug companies and the pharmacies that dispense drugs, to disclose when theyre keeping rebates from patients - a concern from some industry groups. Blake Hutson, a lobbyist for the AARP who said he crafted the amendment for Thompson, called last weeks vote a really exciting moment for consumer advocacy. The general assumption for groups like AARP is it's really hard to beat PhRMA with all their money, but the tide is changing for consumers around health care costs, Hutson said. It's late in the session, but the bill is alive, and we hope it gets across the line. This is on par with as good as it gets with price transparency. This is progressive state strong. Thompson said she felt compelled to strengthen the bill because of concerns from constituents, and even her own experience with rising drug costs. Two years ago, she paid $45 for a 5-milliliter bottle of eye drops. Today, she said a prescription for half as much medicine costs $105. Im concerned about the little guys, Thompson said, those people who need medication and cant afford those increases. Thompson said she had expected the amendment to pass, but not nearly by the margin it did: 134-4. Similar legislation from Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, which would have lowered the annual price spike threshold to 15 percent, died quietly in committee weeks ago. Oliverson, who had feared the amendment would sink the bill, returned the next day in full support. This is a real wake up call for everybody involved in the whole pharmaceutical supply chain, he said Wednesday. That citizens expect change. Change is a-coming. Houston firefighters have a choice to make: accept a judges ruling that their voter-approved pay hikes are illegal, or appeal and keep fighting. Their union president wasted no time Wednesday in vowing to appeal state District Judge Tanya Garrisons ruling in favor of the Houston Police Officers Union, which had sued to block a ballot measure that granted firefighters pay parity with police. Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, once again accused Mayor Sylvester Turner of a vindictive campaign against firefighter families in opposing the parity raises voters approved in Proposition B last fall. Theres a better way forward. And it isnt endless litigation and name calling, which will only continue to divide first responders and the city as a whole. Firefighters should accept the ruling and return to the bargaining table, this time with newfound leverage: Prop B was proof that the voters of Houston want their firefighters to be better paid. This editorial board has clearly objected to the firefighters methods of securing a 29 percent raise, on average, in a cash-strapped, revenue-capped city. The mayor warned before its passage that it could only be implemented by dipping into savings and making steep cuts, including layoffs of firefighters and municipal employees. True to his word, Turner had begun moving forward with those dire consequences. But no one can deny that the people have spoken. And despite firefighters loss in court this week, the popular will of Houston voters provides powerful incentive for Turner, who is up for re-election, to negotiate generously with firefighters this time around. Indeed, Turner reiterated shortly after the ruling his support of a firefighter raise - albeit one the city can afford. Are firefighters deserving of a pay raise? The answer is yes, Turner said at a press conference. Is this administration committing to offer a pay raise to them? Yes. Are there going to be layoffs? No. Are there going to be demotions? No. Firefighters would earn additional political capital if they were to end their appeal and accept the courts ruling that Prop B was unconstitutional and was in any case preempted by long-standing state law. Its never easy to stop fighting when there are additional rounds to play. We understand that given how bruising the fight over Prop B has been, Houston firefighters are likely still itching for a confrontation. The mayor, while right on the merits from the beginning, didnt do nearly as much as he could have to defuse the situation. But hes extending the olive branch now, and the union should seize on it to negotiate fair but prudent raises that would not require widespread layoffs. The city is facing an enormous list of challenges, including budget worries even beyond the question of firefighter pay. This Prop B ruling offers both sides a way out of the conflict theyve steadily ratcheted up over the past six months. The firefighters need a raise, and the city needs its firefighters. Houston also needs its mayor and city council to turn to other items of the pressing to-do list. Its time the city and its firefighters call a truce in this battle. Regarding Founders had it right (Letters, Monday): The writer argues that reasonable gun control, everywhere its been implemented, has inevitably led to tyranny. I must have missed that semester in world history. Conspicuously ignoring gun control practiced in virtually every other nation in the world, he references two, asking, Do you reasonably think that the Cuban or Venezuelan people are better off now without guns? Given that you cant eat bullets, Id have to say maybe. This kind of reasoning makes my head explode. First, its Socialism. Now were blaming the failures of Cuba and Venezuela on gun control? Whats the next false correlation? Fried plantains? Heres a newsflash: Cuba and Venezuela were ruled by corrupt totalitarian despots. As for conservatives with a strict interpretation of the Constitution at least the part between the First and Third Amendments what part of well-regulated do they not get? Robert Campbell, Katy Black powder muskets The writer simply does not get what the highly thought-out stance of reasonable gun control is all about, like saving little children from being cut down. He is wrong in stating that gun control has led to tyranny everywhere it has been implemented. One has to only look at our good partner Australia and their drastic reduction in gun-related slaughter to see that it does work. The phrase shall not be infringed was written applying to black powder muskets, not what we face today. Chuck Auth, Galveston Cuba, Venezuela better off In his argument against gun control, the writer asked, Do you reasonably think that the Cuban or Venezuelan people are better off without guns? Based on the tragic civil war in Yemen, third highest in the ratio of civilian-held firearms per 100 civilians (52.8 per 100) in the world (U.S. is No. 1 at 120.5 per 100 civilians), my reply is yes, emphatically, absolutely and unequivocally. The information comes from the 2017 Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International and Developmental Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. Bob Adams, Galveston Guarding against tyranny American homes have always had guns, but the problems with mass shootings have developed recently. The guns didn't change; the people have changed. So, let's focus on why the people have changed and address those issues before our lawmakers consider passing yet more laws infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens to own guns laws which do nothing to prevent mass shootings anyway. The letter writer states an important truth: Governments that focus on gun control eventually seek gun confiscation, much like proponents of legalizing marijuana use decriminalization and medical marijuana programs as interim steps toward full legalization. The main reason the Founding Fathers included the Second Amendment in our Constitution was to empower citizens to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. So, don't expect American gun owners to cooperate in their own disarmament. Greg Groh, Spring Thursday night I routinely checked my email only to discover that the Houston ISD Board of Trustees had voted to end the Teach For America contract. Wait, what? Yes, HISD had effectively ended a relationship that started in 1991. Over those 28 years, 2,000 Teach For America corps members and alumni have worked in and around Houston ISD. According to the latest alumni data, 70 percent of Teach For America-Houston alums work in education or in jobs directly affecting low-income communities. Nearly 300 of these former corps members are currently building their careers in HISD. Those alumni include 11 principals, 10 assistant principals and, ironically, two trustees. Ive posted my dismay over the vote on Facebook and received long trails of comments voicing everything from confusion to outrage about the HISD boards vote. During the years that I served on HISDs board, the district was viewed as a bold leader in evidence-based education reforms. But this vote is only the latest blow in what appears to be an effort to dismantle every education reform the district has ever put in place. First, the current board eliminated the nationally normed test. While nobody likes testing and we needed less of it, that test allowed us to compare HISD kids progress to other that of kids throughout the U.S. Now, if all of Texas is falling behind, itll be harder for us to tell. Next, the board eliminated the higher-than-required standards HISD had long held for passing and graduation. We used to believe that Houston kids could and should perform as well as or better than the rest of the state. Apparently we dont anymore. Then the board eliminated the analytic tool we used to track student academic growth. It was controversial for sure, but instead of searching for something better, they summarily dumped the contract in a routine board vote. Around the same time, they cut all funds for performance pay or bonuses for teachers. The board didnt put any of that money in teachers pockets; they just used it to balance the budget. The board has also refused to consider options and significant state money available to restart our most persistently failing schools. And finally, last week, they voted to end the long-standing association with Teach for America. Teach for America hires require extra funding for training and support. At the height of the organizations involvement with HISD, the districts central office paid that fee, and corps members made up 10 percent of HISD new hires. These days, with principals required to pay the fees out of their own budgets, corps members had been down to about four percent which seemed a shame, but at least allowed the possibility of growth. People who run hard-to-staff schools choose Teach for America corps members because they want them as a part of their team. It's a myth that corps members take jobs from veterans. They take jobs that other teachers dont want, and which are typically filled by a revolving door of substitutes. I hope HISD will reconsider this move. With votes like Thursdays, no commitment to teacher raises, and a leadership vacuum that has created an uncertain working environment, new teachers regardless of how they came to teaching will quit choosing HISD altogether. And teachers already teaching in HISD will exit along with the 38,000 families who send students to charter schools, and 28,000 who choose private school. Our school system is in bad shape. People have known it for some time, but this decision hit a raw nerve. Were not focused on how to get better and do more for the kids in our city who deserve it. The abandoned reforms I listed above were by no means silver bullets, but they reflected a dedication to continuous improvement on behalf of our students. For the sake of our city and its future, we need to be fully committed to creating, growing and maintaining more high-quality schools for our kids. And, yes, Teach For America should be a part of that movement. Eastman joined the regional board for Teach for America last year after having served eight years as an HISD trustee. House Bill 1365 expanding the use of cannabidiol (CBD) products is a reasonable bill and should do nothing to promote the expansion of the marijuana industry, which is fundamentally about selling Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a dangerous and potentially addictive chemical. Hopefully, the news media will report on this distinction more responsibly rather than conflate these two under the umbrella of medical cannabis. But HB 63 that would lower the penalties for marijuana possession raises the question, what has changed in the past four decades to warrant this liberalization? For one, the THC content of marijuana has gone from less than 4 perecent in 1980 to 15 percent or more today with the CBD component all but bred out. Devotees of the perceived benefits of natural products might be interested to know that if you could find a native plant somewhere in the rain forest, it would contain a balance of about 1 percent THC and 1 percent CBD. We now know much more about the effects of THC on the human brain. The fact that most marijuana users dont become addicted to harder drugs isnt the point. Because most harder drug users did start with marijuana and early marijuana exposure does prime the pump for future addiction to it and other drugs thats what gateway drug means. We also have stronger evidence from European studies that earlier, more frequent and more potent THC exposure is a causative agent in the development of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia the most serious and expensive diagnosis in mental health. We now have evidence that marijuana use is associated with worse pain control and more opioid use in patients with chronic pain conditions and with an increase in suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in young people two of our most serious epidemics. An increase in costly emergency room visits, drugged driving crashes and violent crimes have been observed in the early legalization states. We know marijuana can cause psychotic symptoms, impair the executive functions required to operate a motor vehicle and induce users to have paranoid thoughts. More research is needed to see how much causation there is to this correlation. Physicians sometimes hear that were biased against pot because were compensated by pharmaceutical companies (we arent) or that were afraid well lose patients. The reality is that expansion of marijuana use will stress our health care system where it is already weakest: addiction treatment, psychiatric care and pain management. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is right to be concerned, and unless such liberalizations are paired with a better public health education campaign on the known risks, the net result is likely to be negative for Texas, as it has been in other states. The notion that Texas prisons are inhabited by low-level marijuana users is a myth, but reform of such laws isnt necessarily a bad thing. The real damage comes from the misinformation campaign that precedes these changes and the normalization and commercialization that could follow. These costs will be borne by all of us but will weigh heaviest on the most vulnerable of our citizens. This wave of state experiments is approaching a mania. Its as if there are 50 kids standing on the slope of a lakeside cliff wondering if the water is deep enough to jump in. Without even seeing if the first jumper comes back up for air, 10 more have followed in his wake. Lets pause before we follow like lemmings. The known risks are serious enough. Poling is a family physician in College Station, a foster parent and a member of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, learnaboutsam.org. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) The Canadian government on Wednesday failed to take back tons of garbage it shipped to the Philippines in 2013, but Malacanang said it can accept a "reasonable delay." "Ang importante kukunin na nila (What's important is they will take it)," Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a media briefing. He added that the Palace expects the shipment of Canadian garbage back to the North American country within the next three weeks. President Rodrigo Duterte earlier gave Canada until today to repatriate the trash, and even threatened to war against the North American country if it fails do so. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the President was just expressing his "extreme displeasure." The Palace also warned that Canada's failure to take the trash back immediately may result in severed diplomatic ties. Environmental group EcoWaste Coalition on Wednesday expressed dismay over the further delay. We are really frustrated na hanggang ngayon na ito, nakarating na yung deadline pero nandito parin, EcoWaste Coalition National Coordinator Aileen Lucero said. The group also cast doubts on the Duterte government's seriousness in getting rid of the trash, demanding it to present a "re-exportation" plan. The Department of Finance revealed that "bureaucratic red tape" in the Canadian government is hampering efforts for the shipment of 69 container vans of garbage. Canada offered to shoulder shipping costs. A total of 103 container vans containing trash weighing over 2,000 tons were shipped to the ports of Subic and Manila in several batches from 2013 to 2014. Only 69 remained at Philippine ports since the other 34 have been disposed. iciHaiti - Gonaives : Businesses will close their doors for 2 days The businessmen and businesswomen of the Gonaives commune, who can not stand the growing insecurity and its negative consequences on the business sector, decided at the initiative of the Gonaives business union to close the doors of their businesses, Monday, May 13 and Tuesday, May 14, to denounce a situation that threatens the entire business sector in the upper Artibonite. On Tuesday 14th, a peaceful march will start at 9am from Carrefour Basin to the city center. The women and businessmen, all dressed of white, intend to demand that the State assume its responsibilities and intervene in order to restore a sustainable and favorable climate for business and investment in the commune. They call on the population of Gonaives to join this march so that security becomes a reality in the city of independence. IH/ iciHaiti iciHaiti - Social : School volence and safety in schools This Monday, May 13 at the Montana Hotel, the Ministry of Education announces the opening of a two-day workshop on the issue of violence in schools. This workshop aims, in a general way, to take stock of the problematic of violence in school by restoring in particular to the Haitian educational community the achievements of the project Action against Violence at the Haitian School (ACVEH) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26702-haiti-politic-prevention-and-fight-against-violence-in-schools.html and discuss the direction of the new program to succeed the ACVEH "Action for Security at the Haitian School (APSEH)". Specifically, it will inform the impact of violence against children and adolescents in schools, present the various existing tools and collect sufficient feedback that can validate the tools presented. Note that this workshop is supported by UNICEF and the international NGO Save the Children. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26702-haiti-politic-prevention-and-fight-against-violence-in-schools.html IH/ iciHaiti The DISK Basn-Is (The Press Workers Union) released an almanac detailing violations of freedom of expression and the press in Turkey during 2018. The IFJ shares its concerns and reiterates its support to media professionals working in Turkey. The situation in Turkey is deteriorating dangerously, the report shows. According to the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), more than 150 journalists were in jail in February 2019, while dozens of others are facing trials. The picture is becoming grimmer with each passing year. Trials targeting freedom the press and expression are ending without fanfare, with journalists and academics for peace especially receiving jail time. As a consequence, self-censorship is a growing problem, encouraged by the 2.5-year state of emergency that allows investigations against those exercising freedom of expression. In November 2018 an appeal court upheld a sentence from last year against DISK Basn Is Board of Directors member Ayse Duzkan for participating in a solidarity campaign with the now-closed Ozgur Gundem newspaper. Ayse was sentenced to 18 months in prison, where she entered at the beginning of 2019. Since then, many other journalists have been jailed, including Cumhuriyets Musa Kart, Guray Oz, Hakan Kara, Onder Celik and Mustafa Kemal Gungor. DISK Basn-Is Chairman Faruk Eren said in a statement: In spite of this dark picture, however, we have hope, because they are afraid of journalists and the truth; they are afraid of scientists, intellectuals, opposition politicians, opposition-minded students, women and workers. In the end, their fear is our hope. Whats the context? Chinas new foreign investment law, which targets the incorporation and governance of foreign investment enterprises (FIEs), will come into effect on January 1 2020. The law, which was passed at the 2019 National Peoples Congress, the annual meeting of Chinas legislature, is a move welcomed by foreign businesses. The framework for foreign investment in China has been governed by the Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises law, the Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures law, and the Sino-Foreign Contractual Joint Ventures Law. These three laws do not provide specific protection for trade secrets or forced technology transfer. The new law aims to streamline the existing legislation into a single law that will make China friendlier to foreign investment. See also: SURVEY: Opening the gate of China There are provisions that state specifically that Chinese joint ventures (JV) are prohibited from stealing intellectual property and commercial secrets from their foreign partners (Article 22). In addition, there are strict prohibitions on government officials using administrative measures to pursue forced technology transfers and the disclosure of trade secrets (Articles 22 and 23), and such actions may attract criminal liability (Article 39). What concerns do existing FIEs have? Under the existing regime, there are three types of joint ventures, namely, the WFOE (wholly foreign-owned enterprise), the EJV (equity joint venture), and the CJV (cooperative joint venture). The question of fiduciary duty has been unclear with respect to EJVs and CJVs in particular, because although the directors of EJVs and CJVs are subject to fiduciary duty rules, these may be waived under contracts. One concern is that FIEs will need to reorganise their corporate form to reflect the new law. This wont be a big issue where a foreign company owns 100% of the FIE and the shareholder of a WFOE will at most need to sign restated articles of association. Where a foreign investor has a JV with a partner, the partner could make the process difficult and painful by trying to renegotiate the JV terms, said Paul McKenzie, managing partner, Morrison & Foerster in Beijing. See also: Inside China: how the PRC is opening up to FDI McKenzie said that if the JV was set up as a CJV, then there may be tricky technical issues conforming the entitys capital structure to the more restrictive requirements of the PRC Company Law. The details of how all this will be implemented have not been spelled out yet. The fiduciary duty of directors of the equity joint ventures matters to many foreign investors in China, and more importantly, to the foreign directors sitting on the boards of foreign-invested companies in China, said Yang Wang, partner at Dechert. With the new law taking effect, it is now clear that directors of EJVs and CJVs owe a fiduciary duty to the joint venture and they are subject to duty of loyalty when sharing information and business opportunities with the shareholders appointing them, said Wang. A waiver provision in their EJV and CJV contracts, if any, may not be valid nor enforceable anymore. See also: Belt & Road: commercial banks need financing flexibility In the context of fiduciary duty, the EJV and CJV contracts need to be reviewed and revised. Directors may need to be changed due to concerns over personal liability, and discussions may be held regarding directors and officers insurance. However, this may be difficult where the joint venture parties are already in dispute, because one party can use this proposed change as an opportunity to leverage and ask another party for other changes in irrelevant provisions, said Wang. According to Betty Louie, partner at Orrick, due to some greater flexibility and potential ambiguity in the new law, new terms may be introduced in the contractual re-negotiation process. For instance, under the existing regime, Chinese natural persons are prohibited as shareholders of a foreign equity JV. Under the new law, the language is silent on this aspect. Currently, foreign shareholders should customarily contribute no less than 25% of the equity JV but the new law is also silent on this issue. Louie said the existing law stipulates that certain matters require the unanimous approval of all directors present at a board meeting but would only require an approval of two to three of the shareholders with voting rights under the new regime. What legal uncertainties remain? According to the European Chamber of Commerce in China, Article 40 of the new law is of particular concern as it allows for political issues to influence investor-state relations. It gives China the power to take unilateral action against trading and investment partners based on a principle of perceived negative reciprocity. Rather than having this legal uncertainty, conflicts should be handled through established multilateral institutions such as the WTO. More than anything else, foreign companies want equal treatment and opportunities, said Mats Harborn, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. What will happen next? The new law is very broadly-drafted, and implementing regulations are needed. The Ministry of Finance and Commerce (Mofcom) is developing ancillary regulations and policies. While there is technically a five-year transition period, the challenge in implementation will be in the details. See also: 2019 M&A Report: China 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs. Share this article Imperial County Board of Supervisors Meeting Highlights 5-14-2019 El Centro, California - Monday, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors held its regular meeting. Following are highlights of the meeting: The Sunnyvale, California-based company founded in 2011 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch, and Gregg Marston quickly became one of the fastest-growing startups in America, ranking No. 144 on the 2016 Inc. 5000 list. It also racked up $481 million in venture funding, a $3.4 billion valuation, and clients like Google, Credit Suisse, Amazon Web Services, and Tribune Media. CrowdStrike's software platform was the first of its kind to exist solely on the cloud, a strategy that has since been emulated by numerous firms. Like many well-known companies going public in 2019, CrowdStrike is unprofitable: Its S-1 prospectus reported a net loss of $140 million in 2018, despite $250 million in revenue. Kurtz, CrowdStrike's CEO, got the idea for the company while working as IT security company McAfee's CTO--a role he assumed after selling his previous startup Foundstone (an Inc. 5000 honoree in 2004) to the cybersecurity giant in 2004 for nearly $90 million. While on a plane, Kurtz--who started programming video games in fourth grade on his Commodore and wrote the bestselling book Hacking Exposed in 1999--watched a fellow passenger turn on his laptop and wait 15 minutes for McAfee's software to stop scanning before he could use the computer. Kurtz quickly pitched Alperovitch, then McAfee's vice president of threat research, and former Foundstone CFO Marston on the concept of a native cloud security platform. The trio then secured $25 million in funding from private equity firm Warburg Pincus. CrowdStrike became a household name in 2016 when it was tasked with managing the Democratic National Committee's now-infamous security breach. Alperovitch told Inc. at the time that the attack was a signal to all businesses: Hackers and spies from Russia and other countries were breaching networks all over the U.S. "Assume they are inside your network," Alperovitch said. Today, CrowdStrike competes directly with McAfee, Inc. 2016 Company of the Year contender Cylance (which was also founded by ex-McAfee employees), Symantec, and more. It will be the second cybersecurity company to go public this year--Tel Aviv, Israel-based Tufin started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in April at $14 per share. If you're wondering what the future holds for Apple's App Store, you're not alone: so is Apple. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in a split decision that consumers are allowed to sue Apple over operating its App Store as an alleged monopoly. Apple has argued that consumers are not actually direct Apple consumers. Instead, they're consumers of a particular app and only use Apple's App Store as a venue for accessing those goods. Therefore, Apple said, the company can't be sued. The Supreme Court disagreed. And now, consumers who have downloaded apps from the company's marketplace are allowed to sue the iPhone maker for what Chief Justice John Roberts calls "alleged monopolization." It's a major blow to Apple -- and one that could have a profound impact on the company. Apple's App Store is the only way to download apps to your iPhone or iPad without jailbreaking a device and accessing third-party app marketplaces. Apple has said that its App Store limitation ensures only good-quality apps are running on its devices. That creates better stability, security, and usability across its iOS operating system. That stands in stark contrast to Google, which allows developers to sell their apps to Android users from any number of app marketplaces, including those operated by Amazon or Samsung. If consumers want to break away from Google Play, they can go to the Amazon Appstore and get the same apps without ever needing Google to factor into the equation. Apple, however, is the sole app store provider on iOS. And whether you like it or not, you need to use Apple's App Store. Developers, too, are forced into Apple's App Store. And along the way, they need to share whatever revenue they generate in their apps with Apple. Now, though, consumers have a tool to fight Apple's App Store grip. But exactly what that means remains to be seen. Some industry watchers have suggested that Apple could face lawsuits from disgruntled users that could ultimately cost the money time and cash to settle. Others believe the Supreme Court ruling now paves the way for Apple to defend its stance in only offering its own App Store in iOS. Such a development could be extremely troubling for Apple. And if the company loses, we could see a dramatic shift in the way we access apps in the company's operating system. Needless to say, it could be a costly problem for Apple. Famed entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban knows who to blame for Uber's IPO woes. Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Cuban accused Silicon Valley venture capitalists that invested in Uber of forcing the company to wait too long to go public. That, he said, translated to a disastrous IPO that sent the company's shares plummeting. "I just think we're seeing a reflection of the Silicon Valley ethos in the public market," he said. "The whole attitude was wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." Cuban, who was an investor in Uber competitor Lyft, believes that Uber needed to move more quickly in its IPO. He said that the company is "not a growth company" and has "nothing exciting about it." Uber went public at $45 last week and quickly saw its shares slide. The company's shares are hovering at $40.42 with no signs of getting back to its $45 share price any time soon. Timing an IPO can be difficult. You need to work with investment banks to determine your company's value to investors. You also need to balance your desire to go public and cash out your shares with the desires of your earlier investors. In many cases, those are venture capital firms. Before it went public, Uber had 23 venture capital rounds, according to Crunchbase. It raised nearly $25 billion. In his interview with CNBC, Cuban cautioned that Silicon Valley venture capital firms, none of which specifically mentioned by name, look really bad in the Uber IPO. He charged them with not being able to value companies well and called the venture capital market "not a very efficient." But what can you, as an entrepreneur, do about it? Can you simply ignore venture capital until your company is large enough to go public? Like it or not, venture capital is the lifebloood of the startup community. Without those investments, companies--many of which do not turn a profit--would go under. But in exchange for the cash they need to grow, venture capitalists take a chunk of their business. They also can take board seats and have a big hand in when companies go public. Ultimately, Cuban said, it's important that you rely on your executives to find good investors who won't wait too long or hold back an IPO to the point that it no longer makes financial sense. Doing so means having executives with real knowledge of how to find investors and a rolodex available to quickly choose the right venture capitalist for your business. Knowing that a venture capitalist aligns with your views and timeline is critical. Elaine Kunda was the CEO of two tech companies. But it wasn't until she'd exited those companies, and was considering becoming an angel investor, that she understood how hard it was for women entrepreneurs to raise money. She'd see smart pitch decks from women, but the companies never seemed to get funded. Instead, similar companies, founded by less-promising men, would rake in dough. "It was weird," she says. "The women were way more competent, capable, and further along in their businesses." By 2018, Kunda knew the time was right to do something about it. She launched Toronto-based Disruption Ventures, a fund that will invest $500,000 to $1 million in about a dozen women entrepreneurs. Kunda is targeting $30 million for her fund, and has so far closed on $13 million. "Some of the larger L.P.'s are starting to say we can't walk into a room and have only dudes at the table," says Kunda, referring to the limited partners who provide the money that venture capitalists invest. "Adding token women won't solve that." While there are only a handful of women-focused funds in Canada, Kunda has plenty of company south of the border, in such cities as Austin and Boston, and, yes, in Silicon Valley. Jenny Abramson helms one of the largest: The $112 million Rethink Impact, a fund that works out of New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, and invests in women-led tech companies looking to make a social impact. Then there's Karmijn Kapitaal, the first fund to bring a women-focused model to Europe, and even Mindshift Capital, a relatively new fund in Dubai. And as entrepreneurs, women, in general, perform pretty darn well. First Round Capital found that founding teams with at least one woman outperformed all-male teams, when measured by their companies' gains in valuation, by 63 percent. Boston Consulting Group, looking at companies that had been through the Mass Challenge incubator, found that, at the early stages, for every dollar raised, women generated 78 cents in revenue, versus 31 cents for the men. In these terrible numbers, women such as Kunda see opportunity. If women are getting so little funding, but at the same time are at least as capable in entrepreneurship as the guys are, then women entrepreneurs represent an overlooked and potentially lucrative market. Inc. estimates that approximately 57 funds have been started to invest just in women and women-led companies. Collectively, they represent more than $1.5 billion. They all can be found in Inc.'s Fundery, a new, searchable database that enables women to find funds that are actively looking to invest in them, regardless of their location or funding stage. Most of these are first-time funds, many from women who have track records in investing but haven't helmed their own funds before. Among the top venture funds, only about 8 percent of investing professionals are women, but among funds that invest specifically in women, nearly all have a female founding partner--or a team of them. (The exceptions tend to be black men: Harlem Capital, which was founded by four black men and invests in women and entrepreneurs of color, and New Voices Fund, started by Sundial Brands co-founder and CEO Richelieu Dennis). Because so many of these are first-time funds, they tend to be a lot smaller than funds from the big players in the venture capital old-guard. With long track records and investors who've become fixtures in Silicon Valley, the old guard can often raise a $500 million fund, and even a billion-dollar fund raises only one eyebrow. But for a first-time fund from a relative newcomer, $5 million is more than respectable for an early-stage fund. Some of these newcomers, such as Female Founders Fund started by Anu Duggal, have successfully gone on to raise second funds that are significantly larger. While Silicon Valley is the undisputed epicenter of venture capital, when it comes to funds that invest in women, the landscape is a lot different. Rather than take their cues from an industry that's never been inclusive toward them, women are starting funds wherever they see opportunity. Sometimes that means Silicon Valley, but not often. Out of 56 funds that invest specifically in women, only seven are based in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. Instead, these are funds in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, as well as other cities such as Austin, Minneapolis, and Boulder. The largest fund for women entrepreneurs may very well be the Business Development Bank of Canada's Women in Technology fund, a $200 million fund based in Toronto. The U.S. funds have been led, sizewise, by Intel Capital Diversity Fund. At $125 million, it is fully invested, and Intel now invests out of one pool of money for all entrepreneurs. But Rethink Impact, in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco, is operating out of a $112 million fund. Merian Ventures, which invests in companies placeholderacross all stages from New York and London, is right behind it at $100 million; as is Amityville, New York-based New Voices, which also leverages $100 million and invests in women of color. An oil painting by Claude Monet hailed as an undisputed masterpiece has set a new world record after being sold for $110.7m (85.6m) at auction. The work is part of Monets Meules (Haystacks) series comprising 25 paintings, which depict life near his home in the Normandy region of France. The sale is the first time an Impressionist painting has been sold for more than $100m. Nympheas en Fleur was previously the most expensive Monet painting, selling for $84.7m in May 2018. (Sothebys/PA) (Sotheby's/PA) The winning bid shatters the previous record for the highest sum ever paid for a work by Monet, signalling the enduring value and popularity of the French impressionist master; the bid is also the record for any impressionist work of art, Sothebys said. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Show all 20 1 /20 20 best Van Gogh paintings 20 best Van Gogh paintings Sunflowers 1886, oil on canvas. The mysterious, so-called 'Lausanne' Sunflowers the first Arles Sunflowers painting with turquoise background. It was created in the summer of 1886 at Van Gogh's studio at Arles, north of Marseille in Provence. It has not been show to the public since 1948. Public domain 20 best Van Gogh paintings The Starry Night 1889, oil on canvas. This painting depicts the view from the window of Van Gogh's asylum room of Saint-Remy-de-Provence. It is one of the most recognised paintings in the history of Western culture. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Irises 1889, oil on canvas. The most recognised of several iris paintings made by Van Gogh at the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum, in the last year before his death in 1890. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Self-Portrait 1889, oil on canvas. Van Gogh painted over 43 self-portraits, paintings and drawings over a period of 10 years. He wrote to his sister: 'I am looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer' and to his brother: 'People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to paint yourself either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more like a revelation.' 20 best Van Gogh paintings At Eternitys Gate Oil on canvas, 1890. This painting was completed in early May, when Van Gogh was suffering a severe relapse of poor health two months before his death. It is based on a pencil drawing, 'Worn Out', from a series of studies he made of a war veteran in 1882. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Cafe Terrace at Night Oil on canvas, 1888. This work was the first in a trilogy of paintings that featured starlit skies, completed over two years. Van Gogh was enthusiastic about the painting and wrote to his sister: 'Here you have a night picture without any black in it, done with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square acquires a pale sulphur and greenish citron-yellow colour. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot... I find satisfaction in painting things immediately.' 20 best Van Gogh paintings The Night Cafe 1888, oil on canvas. The five customers in the scene have described as 'three drunks and derelicts in a large public room... huddled down in sleep or stupor.' Van Gogh told his brother that the cafe owner, Ginoux, had taken so much money it was time to take his revenge by painting the place. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Bedroom in Arles Oil on canvas, 1888. Three authentic versions of this painting were made, easily discernible from the different paintings on the right wall. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Van Gogh's Chair Oil on canvas, 1888. This painting is currently at the National Gallery in London. It was completed after Van Gogh moved from the Hotel Carrel to the Cafe de la Gare at Arles, south France. 20 best Van Gogh paintings The Potato Eaters 1885, oil on canvas. Van Gogh chose this deliberately tricky composition to prove himself as a figure painter, wanting to show the way 'they have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish... that they have thus honestly earned their food'. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Road with Cypress and Star 1890, oil on canvas. Also known as Country Road, this was the last painting Van Gogh made in Saint Remy, It is part of the large Van Gogh collection at the Kroller-Muller Museum at Otterlo in the Netherlands. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Starry Night Over the Rhone 1888, oil on canvas. Another of Van Gogh's paintings of Arles at nighttime painted at a spot on the bank of the Rhone a few minutes walk from the Yellow House, which he was renting at the time. 20 best Van Gogh paintings The Pink Peach Tree 1888, oil on canvas. In a short space of time during his first weeks at Arles, Van Gogh painted some fifteen orchards, hoping they would sell well because his subject, the glorious blossoms of the flowering trees, had the power to 'cheer everyone up'. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Self Portrait with a Grey Felt Hat 1887, oil on canvas. This self portrait is slightly unusual because Van Gogh's face is angled to face straight towards the observer. Most of them depicted the face as it appeared in the mirror he used, so the right side seen in the image was actually the left side of his face. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Almond Blossoms 1888 - 1890, oil on canvas. Van Gogh loved flowering trees, which to him symbolised hope and new life. This painting was created to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, the son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Woman Sewing This was part of Van Gogh's preparation for The Potato Eaters, where he attempted to paint a figure against the light. He struggled, telling his brother Theo: 'It's a difficult effect', yet he succeeded in a strong contrast with the almost-black head of the woman and the use of white for the window, which focuses the gaze mainly on the woman's hands. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat Oil on canvas, 1890. This painting, one of several versions by Van Gogh, has exchanged hands several times and was bought by Stephen Wynn in 1997 for $47.5 million. Seven years later, it was sold to American investor Steven A Cohen for more than $100 million. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Two Cypresses Oil on canvas, 1889. In the cypress trees of Saint Remy, Van Gogh found beauty "as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk". He was enraptured but also challenged: 'It's the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it's one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine'. 20 best Van Gogh paintings The Red Vineyard 1888, oil on canvas. Art historians believe this is the only Van Gogh painting he managed to sell during his lifetime, and has been listed among his major works. It was sold in Brussels for 400 francs (about 3,000) to Anna Boch, an impressionist painter and art collector from Belgium, who was the sister of Van Gogh's friend Eugene Boch. 20 best Van Gogh paintings Wheatfield with Crows 1890, oil on canvas.Commonly regarded as Van Gogh's final painting (with some doubt from art historians due to lack of historical records). Around 10 July Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo and wife Jo Bonger to say he had painted another three large canvases since visiting them in Paris the week before. Two of them, he said, expressed sadness and what he called 'extreme loneliness', but he also believed them to show the healthy and fortifying nature of the countryside. The painting was last auctioned in 1986, when it fetched just $2.5m, and had been in the hands of one family for nearly a century. It is one of just four of Monets works to be auctioned this century. Its buyer reportedly beat five other bidders at the sale in New York. Sothebys did not name the new owner. The example is one of eight works from the series that remain in private hands. The other 17 examples are in the collections of leading museums around the world, including the Musee dOrsay in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Warning: the story below contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season eight. Fans of Game of Thrones have created a petition to give the eighth season of Game of Thrones a do-over. The petition, posted on Change.org, has received more than 33,000 signatures so far. The total was increasing by the minute on Wednesday evening, bringing it ever closer to its goal of 35,000 signatures. This series deserves a final season that makes sense, reads the petitions description. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO! Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Show all 9 1 /9 Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Tyrion at Dragonstone on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Euron looking worried on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Greyworm at Dragonstone on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Daenerys at Dragonstone on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Jon Snow and Varys arriving at Dragonstone on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Davos and Jon Snow preparing for battle on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Cersei (and the Mountain) on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Davis, Jon Snow and Tyrion at King's Landing on 'Game of Thrones' Game of Thrones season 8 episode 5 photos Golden Army leader Harry Strickland on 'Game of Thrones' The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, the final episode of which is due to air on Sunday, has left many fans disappointed despite impressive audience numbers. The shows most recent episode, The Bells, has proved particularly divisive, mainly due to Daenerys Targaryens storyline, which saw her burn down Kings Landing. Game of Thrones previously caught flak after a modern-looking coffee cup was left by mistake in The Last of the Starks, the fourth episode in season eight. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The fantasy drama is available on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK, and on HBO in the US. Theresa May announced last night she would be bringing forward the withdrawal agreement bill in the week beginning 3 June. What this means is that she will probably survive as prime minister for another few weeks. She seems certain to last longer in office than Gordon Brown she will overtake him on 29 May. Trying to pass the bill is a way of doing Brexit backwards. The original idea was to hold a vote on a motion to approve the deal the meaningful vote required by law and then to pass the legislation needed to enact the withdrawal agreement. If you regularly reminisce over childhood dinner staples like smiley potato faces, turkey dinosaurs and Findus Crispy Pancakes, then youre in for a treat. On Monday, Dominos announced on Facebook that it is launching a limited-edition pizza thats topped with tinned spaghetti. Dubbed the Hawaiian Spaghetti Pizza, the dish also features chunks of pineapple, glazed ham and lashings of mozzarella cheese. But, before you get too excited, theres a catch the pizza is only available in New Zealand. Sharing a picture of the pizza on its Facebook page, Dominos New Zealand wrote: This is no joke! The 20 best food scenes in film Show all 20 1 /20 The 20 best food scenes in film The 20 best food scenes in film Lady & the Tramp Who would have guessed one of the most romantic scenes in cinema would involve two dogs eating scraps in an alleyway? And, yet, the iconic spaghetti kiss from Disneys 1955 animated film has been oft imitated but never surpassed, as the two pups indulge in an Italian delicacy, all soundtracked to Sonny Burke and Peggy Lees Bella Notte. And, as Tramp proves, theres no greater act of chivalry than offering your date the last meatball Moviestore/Rex The 20 best food scenes in film Babette's Feast Gabriel Axels Oscar-winning 1987 Danish film is a visual treat for any self-confessed gourmand. The story sees two pious Protestant sisters offer refuge to a French woman fleeing the political tumult in Paris after the collapse of the Second Empire in 1871. They agree to hire her as a housekeeper, discovering later that shes the former chef of one of Pariss best restaurants. When she wins the lottery, she uses the funds to whip a meal to remember for her kindly hosts. The 20 best food scenes in film Hook All the very best chefs know that a dash of pure imagination is key to creating a true culinary wonder. Its a lesson well-taught in Steven Spielbergs 1991 classic, Hook, as a grown-up Peter Pan (Robin Williams) looks on in disbelief as the Lost Boys tuck into what appears to be nothing at all. Its only when he truly believes that he can see the brightly colour feast laid out before him. And what childish feast would be complete without an old fashioned food fight? Sony The 20 best food scenes in film Breakfast at Tiffany's Sure, the 1961 films title may be a little misleading. Its protagonist, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), in reality only has breakfast outside of Tiffanys, popping out of a cab in the early morning light to peer into the jewelry shop window, all while enjoying a pastry and some coffee in a paper. The moment has still remained the peak of glamour, decades later, so who cares if its all a little white lie? Keystone Features/Getty Images The 20 best food scenes in film The Godfather Its a classic scene that proves to be surprisingly instructional. Francis Ford Coppolas 1972 film has a full-blown recipe tucked within its elegant drama, as Vito Corleones close associate, Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano), offers his version of the perfect pasta sauce. As he explains: You start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. And a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugarthat's my trick." Rex Features The 20 best food scenes in film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Although the 1971 musical is, as a whole, a sugary delight, its hardest to resist the temptation of Willy Wonkas Fizzy Lifting Drinks, a soda described as so bubbly that it lifts anyone who drinks it right off the ground. Its no wonder that it was the one stop on the tour that ended up tempting the pure-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) and his grandfather (Jack Albertson). Now, the real question is: does it come in different flavours? Getty The 20 best food scenes in film Eat Pray Love For anyone who considers pizza to be the true love of their life, Ryan Murphys 2010 romcom is a perfect cinematic match. Its hard not to relate to the moment Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) bites into a piece of authentic Italian pizza, during the Naples stop on her global adventure of self-discovery, and declares: Im in love. Im in a relationship with my pizza. Rex Features The 20 best food scenes in film Beauty & the Beast Although we might not fully be convinced that the grey stuff is delicious, the dinner and show approach to Lumiere (Jerry Orbach)s hospitality is something we could certainly get used to. In Disneys 1991 animation, Belle (Paige O'Hara) is presented with a whole cavalcade of sumptuous dishes: including beef ragout, cheese souffle, pie and pudding "en flambe". And theres a sage piece of advice to go with it all, too: If you're stressed, it's fine dining we suggest! Indeed. Disney The 20 best food scenes in film Steel Magnolias While theres been a growing fad of ambitious, unusually themed cakes you need only look at the success of the TLC reality series Cake Boss there are few cinematic cakes that quite stick in the memory like Jackson (Dylan McDermott)s armadillo-shaped groom cake from 1989 comedy-drama Steel Magnolias, a spin on the tradition from the American South of having another cake separate to the main wedding cake. And did we mention that its red velvet on the inside? REX FEATURES The 20 best food scenes in film Marie Antoinette When it came to director Sofia Coppola conjuring the ultimate image of decadence for her 2006 biopic on the French queen, there was no more perfect treat than Ladurees famous macarons. Delicate and pastel-toned, the meringue-based confection has long been the speciality of the French bakery, first established in 1862. A new flavour was even created in honour of the film, with the Marie Antoinette offering a combination of rose and anise flavours. Columbia Pictures The 20 best food scenes in film The Hundred Foot Journey Food is often regarded as one of the best ways to understand a culture, and The Hundred-Foot Journey is wonderful for showing the efforts the talented, self-taught novice Hassan (Manish Dayal) goes to in order to comprehend that. During a picnic he reveals he has mastered the five mother sauces of French cuisine, and the delicate tasting process that follows demonstrates just how important food is to France. The 20 best food scenes in film Goodfellas In prison, dinner was always a big thing. So much so that the Wise Guys ate better than most people on the outside. Beyond the Sea plays in the background as the gangsters prepare their meal: Garlic sliced so thin with a razor blade that it would liquefy in the pan with just a little oil, meatballs in a tomato sauce thats a little too oniony, steak cooked medium rare, iced lobsters, prosciutto, salami, cheese, red wine and good Scotch. Maybe crime does pay after all. The 20 best food scenes in film Chocolat There are few pleasures in life more fulfilling than that of cooking for others. In Chocolat based on the book by Joanne Harris a slow-motion scene where dinner party guests tuck into the feast created by expert chocolatier Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) is full of warmth and laughter. AP The 20 best food scenes in film Pulp Fiction In a world where people seem more than happy to fork out 15 for some mushy avocado on toast, $5 for a milkshake doesnt seem too unreasonable. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) takes his boss wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out to Jack Rabbit Slims for a burger, where she decides she wants the $5 dollar shake. You dont put bourbon in it or nothing? a bewildered Vincent asks the waiter. When it arrives, Mia takes a long sip: Yummy. I gotta know what a $5 shake tastes like, Vincent says. He takes a sip. Then another. Goddamn, thats a pretty f***ing good milkshake. Miramax/YouTube The 20 best food scenes in film Julie & Julia Nora Ephrons feature film based on the intertwining stories of chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, the blogger who rose to fame after documenting her pledge to cook all 524 recipes in Childs cookbook, is all about the joy one can find in food. It is some of the earlier scenes that capture this best, like when Julia (Meryl Streep) and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) arrive in Paris and stop at a French restaurant, where Julia is served a sizzling platter of sole. It looked so mouth-watering in the final edit that Ephron wanted to call up Martin Scorcese and say, youve never shot a fish like that before. Rex The 20 best food scenes in film Ratatouille Fearsome critic Anton Ego takes a bite of ratatouille and is transported back to his childhood, where it was a favourite comfort food, in the best scene from Pixars wonderful animated film. The detail is superb, from the process of Remy the rat preparing the dish to the moment Egos pen falls to the ground as he remembers the power of a favourite meal in evoking memories we thought were lost. YouTube screengrab / Jeugos para ninos / Disney Pixar The 20 best food scenes in film Spinal Tap I dont want this, I want large bread but I can rise above it, Im a professional. The miniature bread catastrophe is a beautiful parody on every self-absorbed rock star to have kicked off over something as ludicrous as the food theyre served backstage. Guitarist Nigel Tufnell sits next to a tray of sandwiches looking baffled as his manager walks over. "Look," he says, picking up a sandwich. "This, this miniature bread. It's like... I've been working with this now for about half an hour. I can't figure it out. Let's say I want a bite, right, you've got this..." "Why do you keep folding it?" Ian asks. Nigel looks down at the broken bits of bread, then tries again: "This. I don't want this." He throws the sandwich to the ground, disgusted. "I want large bread!" Embassy Pictures The 20 best food scenes in film The Help After all the trauma she has been through at the hands of her abusive husband and a racist ex-employer Minny (Octavia Spencer) arrives at her employer Celia Foote to find a beautiful dinner cooked for her as a thank you for everything she has done for Celia and her husband. You see the care that has gone into it as Celia lays everything out on the table, from a mile high meringue to the fried chicken Minny taught her how to make. That table of food gave Minny the strength she needed, the narration explains. She took her babies out from under Leroy and never went back. AP Photo/Disney DreamWorks II, Dale Robinette The 20 best food scenes in film Five Easy Pieces Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) just wants some toast to go with his omelette, but the waitress is stubbornly sticking to the diners no substitutions rule. Ill make it as easy for you as I can, goes the famous order. Id like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast. No mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce and hold the chicken. Columbia Pictures The 20 best food scenes in film Big Night It was a scene that helped propel a revolution in American dining. Il Timpano, a dish inspired by the notoriously tricky-to-make Italian meal, is the star of a moment in Big Night where chef brothers Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci) prepares it as the centrepiece for a feast attended by their rival, Pascal. Goddamit, I should kill you, he screams, throwing his fork down after tasting Il Timpano. This is so f***ing good, I should kill you. Weve officially added Hawaiian SPAGHETTI pizza to our menu for a limited time only, with help from our friends at Watties NZ! (no April Fools this time). News of the launch was met with plenty of interest online as the post garnered more than 2,000 likes and 5,000 comments. However, the non-traditional toppings have divided opinion on social media, with many saying they cant wait to try it while others insist the ingredients should never be eaten together. Spaghetti on a pizza is actually really nice, one person commented. Should do one with beef mince and cheese. Spaghetti bolognese pizza. Another person wrote: I have made my own pizzas using spaghetti and pineapple ..love it! A third added: How long is this around for!! So so keen, thanks for listening Dominos!!! In contrast, some Facebook users said the addition of tinned spaghetti was a step too far. Um no thanks, spaghetti doesn't belong on a pizza! one person wrote. Another added: Id rather lick the floor of a bus. While a third person commented: |How about officially un-adding it from the menu. In March, Deliveroo announced the re-launch of one of its most popular pizzas the Heinz Beanz Pizza. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The dish, which was discontinued in 2003, was brought back to celebrate Heinzs 150th birthday and was topped with a combination of tomato and basil sauce, mozzarella, 350g original Heinz Beanz, mature grated cheese, and a sprinkle of Maldon salt and fresh ground pepper. Much to the disappointment of bean fans, there were just 150 limited-edition Heinz Beanz Pizzas available per restaurant, whilst stocks lasted. My skincare regime is slapdash at the best of times (more slap than dash if truth be told): a bit of baby oil to take off my eye make-up and a slick of Nivea for the rest. Im also fond of slathering on some night cream and hoping for an overnight miracle, as promised on the jar. So, Im not good with facials. The last time I had one I had to suppress a case of the giggles. While monks chanted through a Bluetooth speaker, a face mask tightened on my skin and a beautician spoke to me in absurdly soft tones that I strained to hear, I struggled to relax. So when an email popped into my inbox about the latest facial trend of microneedling, I almost deleted it. But then I remembered that a friend of mine had the procedure done some time ago and her skin looked great, so I decided to go along and give it a go. What was the worst that could happen? Microneedling (collagen induction therapy) is a minimally invasive treatment that involves making tiny punctures in the skin with a series of fine needles. Apparently a brilliant collagen stimulator the micro-injuries caused by the needles stimulate the bodys healing processes, producing lots of lovely collagen, not only during the process, but for some time after too. And it isnt limited to the face, apparently able to help with stretch marks, scar tissue and the after-effects of acne. Its billed as safe and effective on a range of skin types, including sensitive skin. Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Show all 18 1 /18 Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin takes a selfie after filming a make-up tutorial vlog in her bedroom Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin poses on her way home from teaching a class Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin walks home after teaching a class in downtown Yangon Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Blogger Win Lae Phyu Sin teaches a student how to apply eye makeup Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin leaves a friend's pre-wedding lunch in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin edits make-up tutorial vlogs with boyfriend Aung San Oo at his office Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin applies make-up at home in Yangon, Myanmar Photos Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin prepares breakfast Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Mingalar Taung Nyunt township, home to a large Muslim community in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin attends a beauty product launch with other bloggers in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin attends a beauty product launch with other bloggers in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin attends a beauty product launch with other bloggers in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin talks with a videographer at a beauty product launch in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin's Facebook page Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin buys make-up in Yangon, Myanmar Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin travels in a taxi with friends from her high school Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin, 19, attends a high school reunion with her former classmates in Yangon Reuters Myanmar blogger battles bias with beauty campaign Wie Lae Phyu Sin, 19, attends a high school reunion with her former classmates in Yangon Reuters With a birthday coming up, I read on. The treatment, they said, would be comfortable the needles in a microneedling device are thinner than a strand of hair. If they were coming anywhere near me I certainly hoped so. A mention of numbing cream was reassuring. The next morning I booked my appointment at Regents Park Aesthetics, being careful to avoid Googling microneedling images. When I arrived at the clinic a week later I was met by Natasha, who was going to do the honours. She immediately put me at my ease, explaining each step of the procedure with calming clarity. And her own youthful, dewy complexion couldnt help but inspire confidence. Recommended How to grow your eyebrows First, Natasha applied a topical local anaesthetic cream to my face, and I had to wait for about five minutes for it to take effect. It was all reassuringly clinical: next, she unwrapped the sterile microneedling pen, or Collagen P.I.N. (Percutaneous Induction Needling), as its apparently called. And so the treatment began. Im pleased to report that it was completely underwhelming: I had imagined blood, tears and probably a bit of wailing, but it was fine. At best it was quite relaxing, at worst a bit like pins and needles on your face, which was a bit weird, but nothing more. The sensation round and over my nose was strange, but none of the procedure was in any way painful. Nicole pictured on the way home from her first appointment (Nicole Wilmshurst) All the while Natasha explained what she was doing, asking if I was OK or if I wanted her to stop, so I felt in control of the whole experience. She worked on my face for about an hour all in all, concentrating on "problem areas" (my whole face, I think) and as she microneedled away she applied the growth factor serum, which promotes collagen production. When it was all done, I looked in the mirror and looking back at me was a red-faced person. Not bloodied and bruised, not 10 rounds with Anthony Joshua, as Id feared, just red-faced. Natasha gave me some collagen cream for the next few days and gave me clear instructions about what I should and shouldnt do over the coming days and weeks (You havent got anything planned tonight, have you?). Nicole straight after the treatment (Nicole Wilmshurst) The regime wasnt too difficult to accommodate: no make-up for at least 48 hours; no face creams or serums containing retinol or highly concentrated acid-based products; use gentle skincare products with no active ingredients; and apply sunscreen with an SPF of 30+ when going out for at least the next two weeks. Natasha also told me what I could expect in terms of the aftermath of the treatment, how long the redness would last. My skin would start to flake, she warned. Going home was slightly comical: deciding to get the tube, I wrapped my scarf around my face and didnt make eye contact with anyone. That evening, my partner said I looked like Sir Alex Ferguson which I could only take as a compliment, knowing how highly he regards him Nicole pictured the evening after her appointment (Nicole Wilmshurst) I had thought that as the anaesthetic cream wore off, it might be painful but it wasnt at all. The following day my skin was very red, but not sore - apart from when I applied the cream - which admittedly did sting. The worst part was when my skin started flaking, as Natasha had warned. It began about day three and really was unpleasant. My skin was patchy, dry and incredibly itchy. But it only really lasted for a day I would say give yourself a weekend to get over it. Now three weeks on from the procedure, I would say my skin is looking better not especially youthful, but somehow healthier. And there may be a slight improvement in my lines, but they were far from fine lines, so any improvement is good. Results vary from person to person, but most people report to seeing a positive change one to two weeks after the first treatment. One single full-face session at Regents Park Aesthetics costs 200 and a course of three costs 550. My experience was that one session wasn't enough, so for the full benefits the complete course of three is probably what you'd need, of course that will set you back a pretty penny, so perhaps starting with an acid peel could be the way to go. Employers are being urged to take additional measures to ensure new and expectant mothers are safe at work. According to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Maternity Action, which have suggested new measures employers should take to increase safety, many employers do not know what they should be doing - or are ignoring their legal responsibilities. The new suggestions include such measures as changing workload and hours, varying hours and increasing breaks for new or expectant mothers. TUC general secretary Frances OGrady said: Pregnancy can be a stressful enough time for any woman without them having to worry about dangers at work as well. Bosses need to do far more to ensure expectant or new mums are safe at work. Too many are ignoring their legal duty to remove risks from the workplace. Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Show all 11 1 /11 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Maternity Dress, 7.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Maternity Leggings, 4.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Nursing Bra, 4.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Maternity Hipster Briefs (3 pack), 4.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Wrapover Bodysuit (2 pack), 3.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Sleep suit, 3.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Baby Towel with Hood, 3.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Cardigan, 4.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Long-sleeved top, 2 for 5 or 2.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Joggers (2 pack), 3.99 Lidl launches first ever maternity collection Baby Tights, 2 for 3 or 1.99 According to Rosalind Bragg, the director of Maternity Action, a UK charity that is committed to ending inequality for pregnant women, the charity receives numerous calls from women who are worried for their safety. We know from the women calling our advice line that too many employers are failing to take the health and safety of pregnant and breastfeeding women in the workplace seriously, she said. As a result, we know that many women end up having to choose between risking their own health or that of their baby, going off sick, or leaving their job altogether. For work benefits for new and expectant mothers and maternity advice regarding rights, you can learn more here. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Reporting agencies contributed to this story. Nicola Sturgeon has opened up about suffering from imposter syndrome, revealing she regularly questions her position as Scotland's first minister. On Tuesday, the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader told community radio station Sunny Govan Radio that despite her prestigious role in politics, she isnt immune to lacking in self-confidence about her abilities to do her job. "Even though I have been in politics for a long time, I have been First Minister for four years, there will be days when I think 'should I even be here? Is somebody about to find me out? she told show host Anne Hughes. Imposter syndrome is a a psychological phenomenon which comprises of intense feelings of self-doubt to the extent where people feel like a fraud, either in their personal or professional lives "I don't think there is a woman alive, particularly working-class women, who don't experience that at some point in their lives, and probably quite regularly, Sturgeon continued. Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Show all 12 1 /12 Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent "I just think it is natural. In some ways I think women should work to overcome that, and be encouraged to overcome it, but there is a bit of humility as well that I don't think we should ever lose completely. Sturgeon, who is also the MSP representative for Glasgow Southside, added that she has often thought over the course of her career that she should be more self-confident in order to overcome her feelings of imposter syndrome. Earlier on in her career in politics, the politician said that she took herself far too seriously and adopted an "adversarial, almost macho approach, because that's what I thought you had to do. Nevertheless, she added: "For women that is just a double whammy because if you behave in that way you are described as being unwomanly and not being a real woman. And sometimes if you behave more like a woman you get described as being weak and not serious enough." The First Minister advised anyone that feels imposter syndrome to find a way of being yourself, whatever that is, and not try to be something else, be yourself. Following Sturgeons appearance on the radio show, the politician posted a message to Twitter about feeling imposter syndrome which has received more than 2,300 retweets and over 300 comments. (PA) One Twitter user commented: This is great to hear. As a younger woman in a senior position early in my career I feel it is more challenging to have my voice heard- I have to at times speak twice as loud to be heard half as much. Great to hear positive encouragement. Another added: Unfortunately most politicians are the opposite, they think theyre more qualified than they are! Good to see you talking about this issue Nicola, one that quite a lot suffer from. The term imposter syndrome was first coined in a study conducted in 1978 by Pauline Rose Clance & Suzanne Imes of Georgia State University, titled The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention. The study describes imposter syndrome as a term used to designate an internal experience of intellectual phonies, noting that it appears to be common in successful women. Sturgeon isnt the only high-profile celebrity to have spoken about feeling imposter syndrome over the years. In December, former first lady Michelle Obama opened up about how she succumbs to the psychological phenomenon on a regular basis. "I still have a little impostor syndrome, it never goes away, that you're actually listening to me, Obama attendees at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events She added: "It doesn't go away, that feeling that you shouldn't take me that seriously. What do I know? I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is. "If I'm giving people hope then that is a responsibility, so I have to make sure that I am accountable. Asda and Walmart executives have doubtless spent the day fielding calls from investment bankers keen to get involved in what could turn in to a very chunky flotation. It follows Walmart International chief executive Judith McKenna telling a meeting of 1,200 managers that an IPO of Britains number three supermarket chain - soon to be number two given the way its performing vis a vis Sainsburys - is being seriously considered. At the same time, McKenna reportedly warned that the path to such a share offering, in the wake of failure of the American retail giants attempt to merged the business with Sainsburys, could take years. Those bankers should take note. Asda has been in the midst of an impressive revival, having posted seven consecutive quarters of growth. Its owner, which has its eyes on sexier, faster growing markets, would probably like to use this to drum up interest from a bidder who might be willing to pay a premium. But theres been a conspicuous lack of interest following the Competition & Markets Authoritys decision to block the merger. The UKs competitive grocery sector, combined with the Brexit related uncertainties stoked by a dismal government and the grim political climate thats emerged from them, make it a less than attractive market to enter right now. But Asda also has another issue to grapple with: An equal pay claim involving thousands of GMB members that is back in court in Manchester this week. At issue is the difference in pay rates offered to the largely female staff working in its stores when compared to those enjoyed by warehouse workers, who are predominantly male. The claim holds that their jobs are of comparable value and so the same should be true of their wages. Law firm Leigh Day, which is litigating the case, has to date been clocking up victories at a rate even Manchester City might envy. The dispute didnt generate a lot of attention when the merger still looked like a runner and perhaps it should have. The costs could be astronomical if Asdas workers take it all the way and find the back of the net. Theyd be more than enough to put any talk about an IPO on indefinite hold. The GMB has sought a meeting with Walmart bosses to discuss the potential flotation and the group's plans for the business. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. Any new investors must realise Asda is a profitable well-run company thanks to our members hard work, national officer Gary Carter said. Indeed so. Asda could yet demonstrate that if you fail to pay due heed to your workers, and their rights, it can come back to bite you in a big way. Walmart bosses would be wise to take Carters call before they speak to any bankers. Payday lenders inevitably grabbed most of the bad headlines when the Financial Ombudsman Service released its latest set of frankly appalling complaints numbers. The FOS used the term unacceptable to describe the behaviour of short term lenders and it could have gone a lot further than that. With the payment protection insurance mis-selling scandal winding down, case officers could have been forgiven for turning their attention to the labour market. The flood of new payday loan complaints finding their way to the Ombudsmans doors - they rose 130 per cent over the 2018/2019 financial year - suggests theyll have secure employment for some time to come. I have likened the industry to legalised loan sharking in the past. Figures like these prove the point. The Financial Conduct Authoritys imposition of a price cap, which played an important role in chasing some bad actors out of the industry, has clearly done little to improve practices at those that remain. But it isnt just payday lenders that look set to keep the Ombudsmans staff in gainful employment for as long as they want it. Complaints were up across a range of business areas despite the fall in PPI related work, which has been the mainstay of the services business for several years now. The overall number increased by 14 per cent to a staggering 380,000 thus demonstrating that the services part of financial services is too often absent from the equation from the consumers perspective. The way the industry is handling issues such as fraud, IT failures, or just the day to day business of filing an insurance claim and getting it dealt with, are too often being found wanting. The financial industrys products range from essential (bank accounts) to as good as (many types of insurance) to highly important (savings, credit). They are also are highly profitable. One only needs to look at the prevalence of financial companies in the upper reaches of the FTSE 100 clearly to see that. The ombudsmans figures indicate that their providers are taking advantage of the fact that we cant do without their wares to prioritise their profits over their responsibilities to the customers who fuel them. They have to come to us so we can treat them as we like, seems to be the operating principle across the entire industry. Wayman says practices must improve, and so they should. Its notable that the figures were released only a couple of days after MPs on the Treasury Committee said banks should have a legal duty to act in consumers best interests. If they and their friends in insurance, and other areas, fail to shape up then the Financial Conduct Authority must be inveigled upon to force the issue. But as Wayman says, its simply not good enough across the board. One of the FCAs beloved dear CEO letters reminding all of its charges of their responsibilities would seem in order as a good first step. Harsher measures should swiftly follow if improvement isnt rapid. Police leaders have raised concerns that a proposed definition of Islamophobia will undermine counterterror operations and threaten freedom of speech. In a letter to the prime minister, the head of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) said the change could undermine many elements of counterterrorism powers and policies, including port stops, bans on terrorist groups and propaganda, and the legal duty requiring schools, councils and the NHS to report suspected extremism. NPCC chair Martin Hewitt said: We take all reports of hate crime very seriously and will investigate them thoroughly; however, we have some concerns about the proposed definition of Islamophobia made by the All-Party Parliamentary Group [APPG] on British Muslims. We are concerned that the definition is too broad as currently drafted, could cause confusion for officers enforcing it and could be used to challenge legitimate free speech on the historical or theological actions of Islamic states. There is also a risk it could also undermine counterterrorism powers, which seek to tackle extremism or prevent terrorism. Brexit racism and the fightback Show all 9 1 /9 Brexit racism and the fightback Brexit racism and the fightback Demonstrators protest against an increase in post-ref racism at London's March for Europe in July 2016 PA Brexit racism and the fightback These cards were found near a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day after the EU referendum Twitter/@howgilb Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback Romford, Essex, June 25 @diamondgeezer Brexit racism and the fightback A worker at this Romanian food shop was asleep upstairs at the time of this arson attack in Norwich on July 8, but escaped unharmed. Hundreds later participated in a love bombing rally outside the shop to express their opposition to racism and their support of the shop owners. JustGiving/Helen Linehan Brexit racism and the fightback This neo-Nazi sticker was spotted in Glasgow on June 26 Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback But after news emerged of neo-Nazi stickers appearing in Glasgow, some in the city struck back with slogans of their own. Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback More signs began to appear in some parts of the UK, created by people who wanted to show their opposition to post-referendum racism Courtesy of Bernadette Russell It is important that any definition of anti-Muslim hostility is widely consulted on and has support across the Muslim community. After a six-month inquiry taking evidence from Muslim organisations, legal experts, academics, MPs and other groups, the APPG called on the government to adopt the definition: Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. The definition was proposed in November and has since been adopted by the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the London mayors office. A government spokesperson said it would consider the change last year, but Theresa May is now expected to reject the definition. A minister is to attend a debate on the issue in the House of Commons on Thursday. Assistant commissioner Neil Basu, the head of UK counterterror policing, said police chiefs were not consulted by the APPG and want to see a definition that satisfies all, while protecting hate crime victims. The definition of Islamophobia proposed by the APPG on British Muslims is simply too broad to be effective and it risks creating confusion, representing what some might see as legitimate criticism of the tenets of Islam a religion as a racist hate crime, which cannot be right for a liberal democracy in which free speech is also a core value, he said. As it stands, this definition risks shutting down debate about any interpretation of the tenets of Islam which are at odds with our laws and customs, which in turn would place our police officers and members of the judicial system in an untenable position. Despite the fact it would be non-legally binding, it would potentially allow those investigated by police and the security services for promoting extremism, hate and terrorism to legally challenge any investigation and potentially undermine many elements of counterterrorism powers and policies on the basis that they are Islamophobic. That cannot be allowed to happen. The Independent understands that police chiefs had hoped to discuss concerns over the definition behind closed doors, and intended the letter to the prime minister to be private before it was leaked to The Times. David Lammy has explosive row with caller who believes Islamophobia is not racism The APPGs report said the lack of an official definition was hampering efforts to counter Islamophobia, harming Muslims and wider British society. The aim of establishing a working definition of Islamophobia has neither been motivated by, nor is intended to curtail, free speech or criticism of Islam as a religion, it added. No open society can place religion above criticism and we do not subscribe to the view that a working definition of Islamophobia can or should be formulated with the purpose of protecting Islam from free and fair criticism or debate. But a report by the former head of the Metropolitan Police counterterror command, Richard Walton, said the definition would seriously undermine the effectiveness of the UKs counterterrorism strategy, putting the country at greater risk from Islamist terrorism. Recommended World leaders blame global rise of Islamophobia for New Zealand attack The Policy Exchange paper, which was released in April, predicted that campaign groups would seek to use it in legal challenges to terror laws and operations. Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said the definition had left a demonstrably open field for damaging and even absurd conclusions. Successful and accepted counter-terrorism measures would run the risk of being declared unlawful, he added. The APPG definition would lead to judicial review litigation that would hold back the evolution of better counterterrorism law and practice hand in hand with strengthened religious tolerance. Baroness Warsi, a Conservative peer and member of the APPG on British Muslims, called the claims extraordinary and disturbing. The report makes clear that the definition does not seek to protect or stop criticism of Islam to suggest it would is disingenuous and divisive, she wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. The inability of senior police officers to understand how Islamophobia the plethora of everyday microaggressions impacting British Muslims is not the same as hate crime shows a worrying lack of understanding of the communities they seek to police. Baroness Warsi called claims that authorities would risk being taken to judicial review using the definition completely untrue and irresponsible scaremongering. Naz Shah, Labours shadow equalities minister, accused the Conservative Party of being in denial about Islamophobia and other forms of racism in its ranks. If Ms May refuses to adopt the definition of Islamophobia, the message she sends to the Muslim community will be heard loud and clear, she added. [The NPCC letter] shows a worrying trend of seeing British Muslims through the lens of terror and security, and the prime minister must distance herself from this immediately. A government spokesperson said: Any hatred directed against British Muslims and others because of their faith or heritage is utterly unacceptable. We are conscious that the APPGs proposed definition has not been broadly accepted unlike the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism before it was adopted by the UK government and other international organisations and governments. This is a matter that needs further careful consideration. Tommy Robinson is being sued for allegedly defaming a Syrian refugee boy who was filmed being attacked at his school in Huddersfield. Papers lodged at the High Court on Wednesday accuse the anti-Islam activist, who is standing as an MEP candidate, of falsely accusing 16-year-old Jamal Hijazi of attacking white girls. The teenagers family are seeking 100,000 in damages in the case, and Robinson would also be forced to pay substantial legal costs if he loses. Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer representing Jamal, told The Independent Robinson has been given a deadline to reply to the allegations ahead of a hearing at the High Court. The action is for defamation, particularly to do with statements Robinson made in November last year through Facebook on video, he added. That was to do with his suggestion Jamal was involved with a gang that attacked some girls. Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Show all 16 1 /16 Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey A Tommy Robinson supporter in London after former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson left the Old Bailey where his contempt of court case was adjourned PA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey A Tommy Robinson supporter outside the Old Bailey in London where the former English Defence League (EDL) leader is accused of contempt of court PA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Tommy Robinson supporters outside the Old Bailey in London before former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson arrives accused of contempt of court PA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson protest at the Old Bailey Courthouse EPA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of former English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, or 'Tommy Robinson', who was jailed for contempt of court in May and later released, wait for him to arrive at the Old Bailey to attend a court hearing Reuters Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Tommy Robinson arrives for his hearing at the Old Bailey Reuters Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right spokeseman Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, AKA Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the right-wing EDL (English Defence League) wave flags as they demonstrate outsise The Old Bailey AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey EPA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey EPA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Robinson gestures to supporters from inside the Old Bailey AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey EPA Jamals legal representatives allege that Robinsons social media posts caused the teenager to become the focus of countless messages of hate and threats from the extreme right wing, and sparked a police safety warning. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is standing as an MEP candidate for northwest England while facing fresh contempt of court proceedings at the Old Bailey that could see him jailed for up to two years. Earlier this year, he was ordered to pay 20,000 in costs after losing another court case accusing police of discrimination and harassment. A legal letter from Jamals lawyers was delivered to Robinsons family home in March, prompting the activist to visit the home of Independent columnist Mike Stuchbery in the middle of the night. Mr Stuchbery was among campaigners who helped raise 10,300 in crowdfunding for the legal action against Robinson. The anti-Islam activist saw the donate button removed from his Facebook page following the incident and has since been deleted from the social network. His posts and videos included claims that Jamal was part of a gang that attacked white girls, and that lots of Muslim gangs are beating up white English kids in Britain. Robinson posted a screenshot of a message from a mother claiming her daughter had been bullied at the same school, but the woman later wrote on Facebook that Jamal was not the attacker. Tommy Robinson could face up to two years in prison in fresh contempt of court proceedings One of the photos used by the English Defence League founder as supposed proof of violence at Almondbury Community School was stolen from a 2017 news article on a teenage cancer patient from Surrey. Robinsons page had more than 1 million followers and the posts on the Huddersfield incident were viewed up to 900,000 times each. A video showed Jamal being forced to the floor by another boy who said Ill drown you while forcing water from a bottle into the victims mouth. The 16-year-old suspect was interviewed by police after footage of the incident went viral in October and was later given a caution for assault. As the incident attracted massive media attention last year, the perpetrator gave The Sun a handwritten statement in which he accepted responsibility for his actions, but denied bullying the younger boy. The teenager said he and his family had gone into hiding and gave an interview to Robinson saying he was scared for my life, scared for my familys life. The suspect had shared numerous posts from Robinsons Facebook account in the months before the incident, as well as from Britain First and other right-wing accounts. Robinsons legal representatives have not responded to The Independents request for comment. In recent years, revelations regarding pay disparities between certain groups within the UK have emerged, painting a picture of a system that favours the status quo, and affords greater opportunity to certain people. The release of pay figures for the BBCs highest earning staff in particular struck a chord in the UK, with the corporation being criticised for the lack of diversity amongst its top talent. But a social group seen to particularly benefit are straight white men. This attention has seen the term enter the vernacular, particularly amongst younger people and on social media. Essentially used as a byword to represent everything that is wrong with a system that only affords opportunities to certain people, a quick search on twitter will reveal countless threads discussing the straight white male. Last year, the Labour Partys youth wing made headlines when, in an attempt to increase inclusivity and diversity, they banned this entire social group from their Equalities Conference. So, is being a straight, white male really the quickest way to get ahead in UK society in the 21st century? Labour has failed to rule out abstaining on Theresa Mays Brexit deal when it comes back to the House of Commons, handing the PM a potential lifeline in next month's make-or-break vote. After face-to-face talks on Tuesday night, Jeremy Corbyn made clear that Labour will not support the bill without significant further concessions. With eurosceptic Conservatives and Northern Irish Unionists denouncing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill as unacceptable, Labour abstentions look set to be Ms Mays only hope of ratifying Brexit before the summer. Following more than six weeks of cross-party talks, a senior Labour source said further moves were needed from Downing Street to entrench proposed compromises and ensure they are not unpicked by potential future Tory leaders And the source insisted there was no question of Labour backing WAB unless agreement has been reached, saying: We are not in the business of getting into a car when we dont know where its going. Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Nigel Farage speaks at the launch of his new Brexit Party's campaign for the European elections Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Brexit Party candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaks at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A supporter waits for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters wait for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage's socks Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage and prospective candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg wait at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters listen as Farage speaks AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Free T-shirts for all attendees AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Posters on the seats for supporters of the Brexit Party AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A safety sign is pictured AFP/Getty But pressed to rule out abstaining, the source said only: We are not talking about the exact whipping arrangments or parliamentary processes at this stage. The essential point is we will not support the bill without agreement. Downing Street indicated that the Prime Minister intends to press ahead with a vote on the second reading of the bill in the week beginning June 3, regardless of whether agreement has been reached with Labour. Discussions will continue not only with Mr Corbyns party but also Tory backbenchers and the DUP with the aim of producing the broadest possible support for the bills passage through the Commons , said one Number 10 source. Asked whether Ms May would go ahead even if no such coalition can be assembled, he replied only: We are going to bring the bill forward in that week. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said that defeat for WAB would be the final death knell for the deal laboriously negotiated over two years and agreed with the EU in November, telling a parliamentary committee that if the bill falls "then the Barnier deal is dead in that form and I think the House will have to then address a much more fundamental question between whether it will pursue... a no-deal option or whether it will revoke". Number 10 declined to say whether WAB would be published ahead of the Whitsun recess, beginning on May 23, to give MPs time to digest the lengthy and complex constitutional legislation. Asked how the Government will fit the vote into a week already crammed with activity around the state visit of US President Donald Trump, Ms May's attendance at D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth and France and the Peterborough by-election, the PM's spokesman replied: "We are fully aware of all the events taking place that week." The spokesman refused to reveal whether Ms May will set out further detail on her plans for her departure when she meets Tory grandees on the executive of the 1922 Committee on Thursday. Although the PM has said she will step down if Brexit is successfully ratified, the Committee are demanding clarity on her plans if WAB is defeated. At Prime Ministers Questions in the Commons, she faced another call for her resignation from one of her own backbenchers. Peter Bone told her that loyal and dedicated activists in his Wellingborough constituency had given him a clear message to deliver to the PM. "They say that her deal is worse than staying in the EU, that they want us to come out now on a no-deal basis, and third, more importantly, they've lost confidence in the Prime Minister and wish her to resign before the European elections, he said. Theresa May faced a call to resign from one of her own backbenchers at Prime Minister's Questions (Parliament Live) In a swipe at her backbench critics, the PM retorted: "If everybody in the House of Commons had voted along with the Government and the majority of Conservative members of parliament we would already have left the European Union." NIgel Dodds, the DUP's Westminster leader, has said it is highly likely that Ms Mays deal will go down to a fourth defeat unless there is change to the Irish backstop element of the agreement to protect the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. And leading Tory Brexiteer Owen Paterson said: Sadly, we will vote against it again. It doesnt change the essential nature of the withdrawal agreement, which is unacceptable. Jeremy Corbyn is coming under pressure to rule out Labour MPs abstaining in a crunch Brexit vote, after the minister in charge of EU withdrawal said defeat could kill off Theresa Mays plan altogether. Supporters of a Final Say referendum have accused the Labour leader of offering a lifeline to the prime minister as she prepares her fourth attempt to force the plan through parliament. Meanwhile, Ms May is expected to resist demands to set out a timetable for her departure as PM as she meets Tory grandees who have called for clarity on her intentions. The PM will meet the executive of the backbench 1922 Committee on Thursday amid speculation that failure to name a date could prompt a rethink of their decision to block an early confidence vote among MPs. Ms May has launched a last-ditch effort to ratify Brexit before the summer by bringing her Withdrawal Agreement Bill before parliament in the week beginning 3 June, whether or not she has secured the agreement with Labour that she needs to guarantee its safe passage. Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Show all 15 1 /15 Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Nigel Farage has spent his political career campaigning for the UK to leave the EU. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Boris Johnson's support for Brexit took many by surprise before the EU referendum. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises The UK and EU are yet to agree on a withdrawal deal. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises This was taken from a 2012 speech delivered by Mr Davis. He does not currently support a second Brexit referendum. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Boris Johnson now supports a hard Brexit and resigned from the cabinet in 2018 over Theresa May's strategy. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises The US recently issued trade negotiation objectives for future talks with the UK. The country made clear that it expects access to the UK's agriculture industry, reviving the debate about chlorinated chicken. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Nigel Farage does not support the current campaign for a second Brexit referendum. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Despite this quote, in February 2019 Boris Johnson said a no deal Brexit "may yet be the best option for the UK". Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises The UK and EU are yet to begin negotiating a deal regarding their future relationship. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Theresa May announced that the UK would be leaving the Single Market in her Lancaster House speech in January 2017. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Theresa May triggered Article 50 on 29 March 2017. Her withdrawal deal is yet to be passed. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises A classic from the 2015 general election campaign. David Cameron resigned on 24 June 2016, following the EU referendum result. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises David Davis resigned from his post as Brexit secretary in July 2018 after disagreeing with Theresa May's negotiation strategy. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Michael Gove was one of the most influential Leave voices during the EU referendum campaign. Twitter/Led By Donkeys Brexit billboards: Campaigners remind MPs of past promises Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent backbencher, does not support a second Brexit referendum. He has called the use of this quote "fundamentally dishonest" as it was taken from a 2011 speech discussing the option of referendum before David Cameron entered negotiations with the EU. Such a vote was never held. Twitter/Led By Donkeys After face-to-face talks between Mr Corbyn and Ms May, Labour said it would not support the bill without a compromise agreement complete with safeguards to avoid it being unpicked by a future Tory leader. We are not in the business of getting into a car when we dont know where its going, said one source. But senior Labour sources refused to rule out the partys MPs being whipped to abstain in the crucial second reading vote, potentially saving the PM from defeat at the hands of Leave-backing Tory rebels and the DUP. The move sparked a hostile response from backers of a second referendum, including one senior shadow cabinet minister who said he would ignore any instruction to abstain. Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray said: Labour must not issue a blank cheque to Theresa May over Brexit. Abstaining would be allowing a Tory Brexit to go ahead without even pressing for a Peoples Vote and that would be totally unacceptable, so I hope the party leadership will make it clear that its just not on. Ian Murray warned abstention could usher in a Tory Brexit (PA) Former Labour MP Chuka Umunna, chief spokesperson for Change UK, said: By refusing to rule out abstaining on the second reading of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the Labour Party is offering Theresa May and her Brexit plan a lifeline. This is the clearest indication yet that the Labour leadership is working with the Tory government to deliver Brexit. Supporters of EU membership had been buoyed by Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclays admission that defeat for the WAB would be the final death knell for the deal laboriously negotiated over two years and agreed with the EU in November. Mr Barclay told a parliamentary committee that if the bill falls then the Barnier deal is dead in that form and I think the House will have to then address a much more fundamental question between whether it will pursue ... a no-deal option or whether it will revoke. Downing Street indicated that discussions will take place in the coming weeks not only with Mr Corbyns party but also with Tory backbenchers and the DUP, aiming to win the broadest possible support for the bills passage through the Commons. Asked whether Ms May would go ahead even if no such coalition can be assembled, a source said: We are going to bring the bill forward in that week. Cross-party talks with Labour are continuing at official level, but no plenary meetings between ministers and their counterparts have been announced. Ms May faces a tough challenge fitting an expected two-day second reading vote into a week when she will be busy with the three-day state visit of the US president, Donald Trump, and D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth and Normandy. Time is even tighter because parliament is not currently scheduled to sit on the Monday or Friday. Aides shrugged off the timing issue, saying Number 10 was fully aware of the busy schedule. They declined to say whether the WAB would be published ahead of the Whitsun recess, beginning on 23 May, to give MPs time to digest the long and complex constitutional legislation. Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Show all 9 1 /9 Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Boris Johnson Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has long been hopeful, he previously stood in the leadership contest that followed the Brexit vote and has at many times since been thought to be maneuvering himself towards the goal. He remains a darling of the party's right wing, particularly those in the ERG, and is the most popular choice among Tory voters but his leadership bid would be fiercely opposed by many MPs PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Michael Gove Environment secretary Michael Gove is another member who has long wanted to be leader. He has lately been known for rousing his party in the commons, his recent speeches on the Brexit deal and Labour's no confidence motion have overshadowed the Prime Minister's. He has been loyal to the Prime Minister, partly to shed his reputation as a backstabber who abandoned Boris Johnson to stand against him in the 2016 leadership election Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Dominic Raab Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has emerged as a favourite to be the Brexiteer candidate in a contest to succeed to Ms May. He displayed a grip on detail in his role as Brexit secretary. When asked recently if he would like to become prime minister he replied "never say never" Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Rory Stewart International development secretary Rory Stewart is pitching himself as the sensible candidate, promising to rule out both a second referendum and a no-deal Brexit. He was only recently promoted to the cabinet, previously serving as prisons minister, where he caught headlines with a pledge to resign if he could not reduce levels of violence within a year PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Esther McVey The former work and pensions secretary announced that she will be standing for the leadership when May leaves. McVey is the first to explicitly state that she intends to stand. She resigned from the cabinet in protest over May's Brexit deal AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Sajid Javid Home secretary Sajid Javid is said to have a plan in place for a leadership race. He made headlines over Christmas when he declared that people smuggling over the English channel was a "major incident" and more recently when he revoked the citizenship of ISIS bride Shamima Begum. Son of a bus driver, he wants the Conservatives to be seen as the party of social mobility PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Jeremy Hunt Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt was recently thought to be the favourite in the event of a leadership race as he could sell himself as the man to unite the party. Critics worry that his long stint as health secretary could return to haunt him at a general election. He has reportedly been holding meetings with Tory MPs over breakfast to promote his leadership PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Andrea Leadsom Following the Prime Minister's second defeat over her Brexit deal, Leader of the house Andrea Leadsom hosted a dinner party at which "leadership was the only topic of conversation", The Times heard. Leadsom ran against Theresa May in the 2016 leadership election before dropping out, allowing May to become Prime Minister AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Priti Patel Former international development secretary Priti Patel is thought to be positioning herself as a contender. One MP told The Independent "she knows she's from the right of the party, the part which is going to choose the next leader, so she's reminding everyone she's there." Patel left the government late in 2017 after it emerged that she had held undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials PA At Prime Ministers Questions in the Commons, Ms May faced another call for her resignation from one of her own backbenchers. Peter Bone told her that loyal and dedicated activists in his Wellingborough constituency had given him a clear message to deliver to her. They say that her deal is worse than staying in the EU, that they want us to come out now on a no-deal basis, and third, more importantly, theyve lost confidence in the prime minister and wish her to resign before the European elections, he said. In a swipe at her backbench critics, the PM retorted: If everybody in the House of Commons had voted along with the government and the majority of Conservative members of parliament we would already have left the European Union. Close Key Brexit legislation to return to Commons in early June Theresa May will bring key legislation to ratify her Brexit deal before the Commons within weeks, in a last-ditch effort to break the deadlock. Downing Street said she would bring forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) in the week beginning 3 June, after late night talks between Ms May and Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday. But Labour expressed doubts about Ms May's efforts to deliver a compromise agreement, with sources insisting that there was no guarantee they would support the bill. Meanwhile, Ms May faced calls to resign from Tory MP Peter Bone during prime minister's questions, saying she had lost the confidence of activists. Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Nigel Farage speaks at the launch of his new Brexit Party's campaign for the European elections Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Brexit Party candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaks at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A supporter waits for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters wait for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage's socks Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage and prospective candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg wait at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters listen as Farage speaks AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Free T-shirts for all attendees AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Posters on the seats for supporters of the Brexit Party AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A safety sign is pictured AFP/Getty He said: "They say that her deal is worse than staying in the EU, that they want us to come out now on a no-deal basis, and third, more importantly, they've lost confidence in the prime minister and wish her to resign before the European elections. "Prime minister, what message do you have to say to these loyal and dedicated Conservatives?" But Ms May said she thanked all party supporters for their work campaigning and fundraising, and said to those "concerned about delivering Brexit" her government "wants to deliver Brexit and has been working to deliver Brexit". This liveblog has now closed, but see our live coverage from Wednesday below Brexit could push British companies into greater contact with corrupt markets and increase bribery, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned. With only a handful of trade deals in place as the clock ticks down to EU exit in October, the agency has sent top-secret files to the government detailing countries of concern. It is a realistic possibility that the UKs exit from the EU will impact the prevalence of bribery and corruption over the next five years, as UK companies potentially come into greater contact with corrupt markets, the NCAs national strategic assessment said. Director-general Lynne Owens told The Independent that further details of corrupt markets could not be made public. We produce an official sensitive and top secret report that would go into the detail of where and what we are concerned about, she added. Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Show all 30 1 /30 Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Pro-Brexit leave the European Union supporters attend a rally in Parliament Square after the final leg of the "March to Leave" in London AP Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit The protest march which started on March 16 in Sunderland, north east England, finished on what was the original date for Brexit to happen before the recent extension Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit AP Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit PA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit EPA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter sips a can of Stella in protests outside of the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Dedicated anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray and likewise pro-Brexit campaigner Joseph Afrane go head to head near the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A pro-Brexit marching band in Parliament Square Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Remain supporters wave EU flags from a bus in Parliament Square PA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter shouts slogans outside parliament EPA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter protests outside parliament Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter protests outside of the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters protest outside of the Houses of Parliament REUTERS Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A pro-Brexit flag is waved in Parliament Square AP Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit The March to Leave nears the Houses of Parliament Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit protester holds a sign outside parliament EPA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters carry the coffin of democracy AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters march outside parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters take part in the March to Leave protest in London PA Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Brexit supporters protest outside parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter holds a sign outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A man holds satirical paintings of politicians Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit An pro-Brexit float on the March to Leave march in London Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit Far-right activist Tommy Robinson addresses protesters outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Tommy Robinson supporter arrives at the Houses of Parliament Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A jogger gestures rudely at a Brexit supporter outside of the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Opposing protesters flock to parliament on would be date of Brexit A Brexit supporter outside the Houses of Parliament PA The reports have been sent to the Department for International Trade, Department for International Development and Foreign Office. The NCAs public assessment predicted that British contractors would continue paying bribes overseas to do business. Mining and extractive industries remain those most vulnerable, particularly oil and gas, the document added. Large scale infrastructure and development projects overseas are also at risk. As well as a crime in its own right, bribery can cause other societal harms. For example, bribes paid to secure construction contracts using sub-standard material could have future health and safety impacts on the public. The NCA said companies use intermediaries in targeted countries to facilitate bribes using local knowledge and connections, including with politicians and officials. Its annual report warned that there were already at least 181,000 offenders linked to serious and organised crime in the UK and called for law enforcement to be given an extra 2.7bn to combat the threat. The majority of serious and organised crime in the UK continues to have clear international links, Ms Owens said. Organised crime groups active in the UK continue to source illegal commodities and exploit the vulnerable from beyond our shores, underlining the importance of international partnerships. Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox speaks about possibility and consequences of remaining in customs union The UK is currently part of about 40 trade agreements which the EU has with more than 70 countries, but will lose them immediately if it leaves without a deal. The government has been attempting to replicate EU trade agreements as far as possible, but so far only nine continuity deals have been struck with authorities including Chile, the Caribbean, Pacific Islands, Chile, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The UK has also signed mutual recognition agreements with the US, Australia and New Zealand, but they do not amount to free trade agreements. A government spokesperson said: While the government is committed to helping businesses break into new markets overseas, it also provides robust support and guidance to ensure businesses adhere to bribery and corruption laws worldwide. Tackling corruption is essential for Britains trade and development as a nation, which is why we brought forward new legislation to be a leading nation in the fight against this serious offence. The UK now has one of the worlds toughest anti-corruption laws, and HM government takes any allegations of bribery or corruption extremely seriously." The UK could accept chlorinated chicken in a post-Brexit trade deal with the US without cutting food standards, Liam Fox has claimed. The international trade secretary vowed to protect food quality after withdrawal from the EU but insisted the controversy about washing poultry in chlorine was purely an animal welfare issue. Mr Fox also suggested it would be impossible, under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, for Britain to ban the practice as part of a trade agreement with Donald Trump. Theres been no argument about food safety on chlorine-washed chicken its been an argument about animal welfare, he told an event. So, its not been about food standards per se, so thats a slightly different debate and much more difficult to quantify because the legal definitions about it at the WTO are much less. The comments came as Mr Fox said MPs voting down the withdrawal agreement bill would be setting the UK on a path to either revocation of Article 50 or leaving without a deal. Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Show all 24 1 /24 Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent Put It To The People march: Best of The Independents pictures Angela Christofilou/The Independent He was accused immediately of a chilling disregard for food standards in the search for a quick-and-dirty trade deal with Donald Trumps America, by anti-Brexit groups. The stance was also condemned by the consumer group Which? on the grounds that Mr Fox was simply incorrect to claim it was purely an animal welfare controversy. Liam Fox is wrong to suggest chlorinated chicken is not a food safety and standards issue, said Caroline Normand, its director of advocacy. One of the reasons why foodborne disease rates are so much higher in the US is that these measures are often used as a desperate attempt to make up for widespread safety problems in food production leaving bacteria like salmonella to run rampant. The comments also directly contradicted Michael Gove, the environment secretary, who asked nearly two years ago if chlorine-washed chicken would be allowed in replied simply: No. Mr Gove told a House of Lords inquiry said: This is something on which all members of the government are agreed. We are not going to dilute our high food-safety standards or our high environmental standards in pursuit of any trade deal. Hes made it very clear that, if he gets his way on Brexit, hell be pushing for the UK to adopt US food standards, said Gareth Thomas MP, a Labour supporter of the Peoples Vote campaign. That means chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-injected beef, milk from infected cow udders and numerous other examples. And Virendra Sharma, a Labour backer of the Best for Britain group, said: Foxs chilling disregard for consumer protections is beyond a disgrace. There is no doubt that a US-UK trade deal would compromise food standards in Britain. This would be a disaster for our country, shredding animal welfare and consumer protections that keep us safe. Mr Fox also became the first cabinet minister to speak publicly about the decision to plough ahead with the legislation despite the absence of a deal with Labour meaning near-certain defeat. I think MPs will need to look and see whether they want to continue down a path that inexorably, I think, takes us to revocation of Article 50 or leaving without a deal, he told the Institute for Government think-tank. MPs should ask whether that is the best course, democratically or economically, for the UK, Mr Fox said, adding: MPs will have to face that decision. The international trade secretarys comments on chlorine-washed chicken follow the publication of Washingtons negotiating objectives suggesting Britain will not enjoy softer treatment than any other US ally. Critics pointed out the blueprint would: * Remove barriers on sanitary and physiosanitary standards in the farm industry a demand to sell chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-pumped beef, they said. * Provide full market access for US products potentially ending NHS controls on medicine costs in favour of US-style direct-marketing of drugs. * Ensure that the UK does not impose measures that restrict cross-border data flows ending current restrictions the UK imposes as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA). In a statement, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) stressed its commitment to food standards but stopped short of repeating Mr Goves no to chlorine-washed chicken. The secretary of state has been clear on numerous occasions that we do not intend to compromise on our high food standards in pursuit of any trade deals, a spokesperson said. And we will use all the tools at our disposal to make sure standards are protected and British farmers are not left at a competitive disadvantage. The statement added: We will only accept imports that meet the standards we currently maintain on behalf of British consumers. Mr Fox tried to calm the fears about US food imports, saying: I have said until I am blue in face that we will not reduce our standards as we move forward. He said 59 per cent of Chinese consumers, and 60 per cent in India, had indicated a willingness to pay more for UK products, which were regarded as a sign of quality. It would be self-defeating to see us reduce our standards, theres no advantage from a trading perspective, Mr Fox said before arguing chlorine-washed chicken was a separate, animal welfare issue. Theresa May is facing near-certain defeat in her final Brexit gamble, as both Tory rebels and the Democratic Unionist Party vowed to vote down crucial legislation. Brexiteer Conservatives and the Northern Ireland Unionists combined to insist the withdrawal agreement bill which the prime minister will finally bring forward in June remained unacceptable. With Labour also saying it will not support the bill without significant further concessions, it is facing a heavy defeat which is likely to accelerate Ms Mays departure from No 10. Nigel Dodds, the DUP's Westminster leader, reacted to the potentially-dramatic shift in strategy by asking simply: What has changed? Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again, he said. Making clear the DUP still opposed the Irish backstop element of the agreement, he added: For the bill to have any prospect of success, then there must be real change to protect the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. Owen Paterson, a leading Brexiteer, said: Sadly, we will vote against it again. It doesnt change the essential nature of the withdrawal agreement, which is unacceptable. Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Nigel Farage speaks at the launch of his new Brexit Party's campaign for the European elections Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Brexit Party candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaks at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A supporter waits for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters wait for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage's socks Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage and prospective candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg wait at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters listen as Farage speaks AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Free T-shirts for all attendees AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Posters on the seats for supporters of the Brexit Party AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A safety sign is pictured AFP/Getty The former cabinet minister pointed to the rise of Nigel Farages Brexit Party as evidence of the need to stick to a willingness to leave with no deal. People arent flocking to this new partys rallies from the Tory party and the Labour party, in their tens of thousands, clamouring for the agreement. They are going because they want to leave, they voted to leave and they thought we would leave on 29 March and they feel thwarted and cheated by the main parties. Many at Westminster are perplexed by the decision to plough ahead with the bill, after No 10 repeatedly signalled it would not do so without an agreement with Labour something now less likely than ever. It appears to be a strategy to at least buy the prime minister a little more time when she meets the executive of the backbench 1922 Committee on Thursday. It has demanded a timetable for her resignation, threatening to change party rules to allow a summer vote of no confidence if she refused, but can now be expected to wait until next month. Downing Street is also braced for a further backlash when the bill is actually published, in the week beginning 3 June, and its controversies are set out in full detail. It will hope to woo Labour MPs by offering a customs arrangement with the EU, but only until the next election falling short of Labours demands for a permanent customs union. A bill on workers rights is also expected to be introduced, but the two moves are unlikely to be enough to win over all but a small number of Labour MPs. One of Change UKs lead European election candidates has quit to back the Liberal Democrats over concerns the new party could split the Remain vote in the upcoming contest. David Macdonald is the second person to resign as lead candidate for the party in Scotland after Joseph Russo withdrew from the race after one day over scrutiny of his old social media posts. Speaking at Holyrood, Mr Macdonald expressed fears about splitting the Remain vote by standing as a candidate for the newly-formed party, as Nigel Farages Brexit Party soars in the polls. A recent survey had the Brexit Party on 34 per cent, prompting panic among pro-EU parties. Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Nigel Farage speaks at the launch of his new Brexit Party's campaign for the European elections Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Brexit Party candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaks at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A supporter waits for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters wait for Farage to speak AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage's socks Reuters Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Farage and prospective candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg wait at the launch AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Supporters listen as Farage speaks AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Free T-shirts for all attendees AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures Posters on the seats for supporters of the Brexit Party AFP/Getty Farage launches his new Brexit Party: in pictures A safety sign is pictured AFP/Getty Mr Macdonald, an independent councillor from East Renfrewshire, said after a great deal of reflection on the political landscape we are facing in Scotland at present, I have come to the point where I have realised I must do what is best for the future of this country before anything else. He said: If things continue as they are the Remain vote will split in Scotland and put at risk the representation that supporters of remaining in the European Union so collectively desire. For that reason I have decided to end my candidacy for Change UK effective immediately and I am now calling for those in favour of remaining in the European Union, including all supporters of Change UK in Scotland, to do what is best for our collective voice in Europe and to support the Scottish Liberal Democrats in the upcoming European election, to better ensure that they gain representation to secure a seat in these European elections. The news will come as a blow to Change UK ahead of next weeks European parliament elections. Chuka Umunna, Change UKs group spokesperson said: It is obviously disappointing that this candidate has chosen to pledge allegiance to another party he has let down his fellow candidates and activists. But we are focusing all our efforts on adding to the Remain vote in the UK and challenging the pro-Brexit Tory, Brexit and Labour parties, which is why our leader challenged Nigel Farage to a live TV debate this week. In the past 24 hours Labours former head of campaigns for the the North of England has come out for Change UK, as have many former Labour voters. Winning voters over from the main parties and growing the Remain vote across the UK will continue to be our focus. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Efforts by Change UK and other pro-EU parties to form a Remain alliance have so far ended in failure. The Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Change UK held discussions over uniting behind an independent candidate for next months Peterborough by-election but the talks collapsed, with Change UK blaming Labour figures for interference. Theresa May is challenging technology giants to join international action to drive violent far-right extremists off the Internet. The Prime Minister will speak out at a conference in Paris called in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand, when footage of a murderous rampage which killed 51 was livestreamed on Facebook. She revealed new Home Office analysis which showed that a single white nationalist and neo-Nazi discussion forum - which is not being named for operational reasons - has received more than 12 million posts in response to almost one million threads and amassed more than 800,000 visits in a month, with 10 per cent believed to have originated from the UK. Ms May will be joined at the Online Extremism Summit by Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and Facebook's head of global affairs, Sir Nick Clegg, as well as world leaders including New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern and host Emmanuel Macron. New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Show all 11 1 /11 New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Zakaria Bhuiyan People gather hoping to find out information about Zakaria Bhuiyan who is still missing after the mosques shootings in Christchurch. David Moir/AFP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Mucad Ibrahim Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, the youngest known victim of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. Abdi Ibrahim via AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Nadeem Rasheed Nadeem Rasheed, brother of Pakistani Naeem Rashid who died alongside his son Talha Naeem, 21, who were killed in shooting at a Mosque in Christchurch, at their home town in Abbottabad, EPA New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Omar Nabi Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud Nabi, 71, in the mosque attack REUTERS New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Ash Mohammed Ash Mohammed, right, talks to a police officer about his father and two brothers who are missing near the Masjid Al Noor mosque AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Akhtar Khokhur Akhtar Khokhur, 58, shows a picture of her missing husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhar, 65. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Wasseim Alsati A note is seen on a window of a door at the family home of Wasseim Alsati in Christchurch on 17 March 2019. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Haroon Mahmood Relatives offer condolences to nephew (centre) of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Farid Ahmed Farid Ahmed (pictured) survived the Al Noor mosque shootings but his wife Husne was killed. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Syed Areeb Ahmed A relative shows a picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Naeem Rashid A relative looks at a picture on a mobile phone of Pakistani nationals Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem (right) who died in the Christchurch shootings. AFP/Getty Images They are expected to sign a joint pledge, called the Christchurch Call To Action, to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. Speaking ahead of the summit, Ms May said: The sickening attacks on Muslim worshippers in Christchurch shocked the world. That 1.5 million copies of the video had to be removed by Facebook - and could still be found on YouTube for as long as eight hours after it was first posted - is a stark reminder that we need to do more both to remove this content, and stop it going online in the first place. While we have seen significant progress on this issue since the terror attacks on the UK in 2017, the livestreaming of these attacks exposed gaps in our response and the need to keep pace with rapidly changing technological developments. My message to governments and internet companies in Paris will be that we must work together and harness our combined technical abilities to stop any sharing of hateful content of this kind. Ms May will call for better collaboration between online platforms to develop technical solutions to halt the dissemination of extremist content.And she will urge countries round the world to follow the lead of the UK's Online Harms White Paper, which would create a legal duty of care on internet companies and an independent regulator with the power to impose sanctions. Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has become the public face of Facebook (Getty/Reuters) I want the internet to be a safe place for all our citizens," she is expected to say. We are the first country to put forward such a comprehensive approach, but it isnt enough for us to act alone. The internet is global and online threats have no borders. Companies should be held to consistent international standards, so their customers enjoy the same level of protection wherever they live. She will tell the summit: All of us here recognise the tremendous potential of technology as a force for good in the world. I profoundly believe in the internet as a place for creativity and new ideas. We have seen what can be achieved when we work together. Collectively, we have the knowledge and expertise to find solutions. Let us be ambitious and steadfast in our determination to ensure that this technology, which can do so much good, isnt weaponised by those who wish to inflict pain and suffering. More than one million Londoners are ready to demonstrate against Donald Trumps visit to the UK next month, a survey suggests. A staggering 13 per cent of the citys 8 million residents say they are likely to join the protest, which would make it among the biggest in the countrys history. An even higher proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds one in five said they expect to march on the streets during the state visit, which will take place on 3-6 June. And Londoners of all ages oppose Mr Trumps trip by a margin of more than two-to-one, with 54 per cent against it and just 24 per cent supporting it, according to the poll by YouGov and Queen Mary University of London. The results set the scene for an extraordinary few days, after the US president shunned London when he visited last year because he did not want to be confronted with protesters. Recommended A petulant Donald Trump requires an adult response from China and Iran This time, he and first lady Melania will enjoy the full pomp and ceremony of a state visit, including a banquet at Buckingham Palace although several leading political figures will boycott it. Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies Show all 7 1 /7 Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies Doctors and mothers killing babies At a rally in Wisconsin in April 2019, Mr Trump made this extraordinary claim. The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, Mr Trump said. They wrap the baby beautifully and then the doctor and the mother decide whether they will execute the baby Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "China rapes our country" At a rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 2016, Mr Trump said this in reference to the US trade deficit with China: "we cant continue to allow China to rape our country and thats what theyre doing. Its the greatest theft in the history of the world" Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "EU formed to take advantage of US" At a rally for the midterm elections in October 2018, Mr Trump called the EU a "brutal" alliance that "formed to take advantage of us" AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "I will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it" Mr Trump first made this claim at the launch of his presidential campaign back in 2015: "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words" AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "Horrible, horrendous people" At a Republican rally in Pennsylvania on August 3 2018, President Trump deemed all journalists in attendance "horrible, horrendous people". He later denounced the "fake, fake, disgusting news" for falsely reporting that he was late to his meeting with the Queen when visiting Britain AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" Mr Trump said this in reference to his popularity during a rally in Iowa in 2016 AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "I wish I could punch him" Mr Trump said this in reference to a protester who was escorted out of his rally in Las Vegas on 22 February, 2016. There was often violence between protesters and supporters at Trump's campaign rallies AFP/Getty It will also coincide with the crucial next and probably final attempt by Theresa May to pass her Brexit deal. Even last Julys visit, when he met the prime minister at her Chequers retreat, saw an estimated 250,000 people join a protest march through the streets of central London. The campaigners also crowdfunded a baby balloon, depicting Mr Trump in a nappy, which was put on display outside parliament. Asked about organised protests, 13 per cent of people said they were very or fairly likely to protest, including 16 per cent of Labour supporters and 20 per cent of Liberal Democrats. Some 54 per cent of all Londoners are opposed to the Trump trip in principle, with 70 per cent of Labour voters and 77 per cent of Lib Dem voters against it. Even 26 per cent of Tory voters were opposed to it. Mr Trump will be denied the historic honour of a speech in Westminster Hall, after John Bercow, the Commons speaker imposed a ban on the presidents racism and sexism. Mr Trump will hold discussions with Ms May in Downing Street and attend military displays in Portsmouth to commemorate the critical moment in the Second World War. The gathering on Southsea Common, on 5 June, will involve live performances, military displays and tributes to the Allied troops who fought in Normandy, including a flypast of 26 RAF aircraft and at least 11 royal navy vessels in the Solent. Representatives from Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries, including Germany, have also been invited to attend the event. The following day, the prime minister will travel to Normandy to attend commemorative events including the inauguration of the British Normandy memorial in Ver-sur-Mer. Three women had a voice in Alabama Senate as 25 men passed abortion ban Amid the debate on the Alabama Senate floor over Americas most restrictive abortion law, state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison appeared to be losing patience. She was one of just three women to vote Tuesday on HB 314, which would outlaw abortions even in cases of rape and incest. And more than two hours into the debate, she had a few questions for state Senator Clyde Chambliss, one of the bills key Republican backers. Earlier, he had explained the law wouldnt affect women until they are known to be pregnant. What, exactly, did that mean? Ms Coleman-Madison asked. Well, he said, if you dont know, then youre not known to be pregnant. Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Show all 7 1 /7 Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Derry Girls cast members Siobhan McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan (right) join MPS and women impacted by Northern Ireland's strict abortion laws PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Heidi Allen (second right) joins the protest PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster A luggage tag on a suitcase, symbolising the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for terminations PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster The campaigners march across Westminster Bridge PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Counter-protesters Rebecca Morgan (left) and her daughter Helen, one, demonstrate in favour of Northern Ireland's current laws Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Protesters supporting Northern Ireland's abortion laws at Parliament Square Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Demonstrators pull suitcases to symbolise the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for a termination AFP/Getty Images Ms Coleman-Madison rested her chin in the palm of her hand, looking bored. I guess thats a typical male answer, she said. You dont know what you dont know because youve never been pregnant. And herein is the problem: You cant get pregnant. ... You dont know what its like to be pregnant. To Ms Coleman-Madison, the moment crystallized a problem that has plagued womens reproductive health debates over the years in Alabamas legislature and beyond: They are typically dominated by male politicians. On Tuesday, that was in sharp focus. All 25 votes cast in favour of the bill were from white Republican men. Ms Coleman-Madison and Democratic state Senator Vivian Davis Figures, the only women who spoke during the four-hour debate, acknowledged in interviews with The Washington Post that the divide on the issue is primarily one of ideology rather than gender; the Republican sponsor of the bill in the Alabama House, for example, is a woman, and Republican governor Kay Ivey is expected to sign it. But both said the dearth of womens voices in the Alabama legislature, particularly on an issue as intimate as pregnancy, has created a serious representation problem. While women comprise 51 percent of Alabamas population, they make up just 15 percent of the legislature among the worst gender ratios in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ms Coleman-Madison compared Tuesdays all-male yea vote to a dentist making a decision about a heart surgery. Alabama proposes law to make abortion punishable by up to 99 years in prison At the end, its the concept of strength in numbers, said Ms Coleman-Madison who, like Ms Figures, personally opposes abortion but doesnt believe in making the procedure illegal. Thats why we need more women to run for office. These decisions are going to be made whether we like it or not, and more likely were not going to like it when decisions like this one, about a woman and her health, are being made by all the men. Tuesday marked the third time in the past month that a state legislature passed a restrictive abortion law, all of which have largely been seen as a vehicle for challenging Roe v. Wade in the newly balanced Supreme Court. The Alabama abortion bill is the most harsh yet. It would allow abortion only if the mothers health was in critical danger, banning it virtually at the moment of conception. It does not penalise women for abortions but could send doctors who perform them to prison for up to 99 years, more than rapists face in most cases. In Ohio, a law signed last month by governor Mike DeWine outlaws abortion as early as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, before many women even know theyre pregnant (also without exception for rape or incest). And in Georgia, a new law signed last week by governor Brian Kemp outlaws abortion after six weeks, again before many women know. In those states as well, men voting on the measures heavily outnumbered women. Male legislators in favour of such bills often argue that the issue of abortion is one of morality and that it is a topic both men and women should equally be allowed to debate. But then, of course, come the questions like Ms Coleman-Madisons: How many times have you actually carried a baby? as Georgia state representative Kim Schofield asked a male Republican lawmaker at one point. Women on both sides of the aisle have long used their personal experiences with pregnancy to support or oppose restrictive abortion laws. For example, Iowa state representative, Amy Sinclair, said hearing her sons heartbeat on an ultrasound when she was pregnant at age 19 profoundly affected her concept of when life begins. By contrast, former Democratic state representative Wendy Davis of Texas and Georgia state representative Park Cannon both used their experiences with abortions to oppose restrictive laws in 2013 and this year, respectively. But in states where personal stories about abortion are not likely to sway the vote, female lawmakers who support abortion rights have sometimes filed protest bills or even made gyneacology presentations to make a point. In Texas in 2011, for example, state representative Sid Miller proposed a bill requiring women to undergo ultrasounds 24 hours before getting an abortion to make sure she knows what she is doing, as Texas Monthly reported. But under questioning by a group of female lawmakers, Mr Miller admitted he didnt know whether at eight to 10 weeks a woman would need a traditional ultrasound or a more invasive transvaginal sonogram. (It was the latter.) State representative Carol Alvarado whipped out a transvaginal probe to help provide Mr Miller a visual. What would a woman undergo in your bill? she asked. Actually, I have never had a sonogram done on me, so Im not familiar with that exact procedure, on the medical procedure, how that proceeds, Mr Miller, now the state agriculture commissioner, sheepishly responded. Recommended Janet Street Porter opens up about having a backstreet abortion at 16 In recent years, female lawmakers have also increasingly filed satirical bills seeking to regulate mens reproductive systems a how-would-you-like-it approach prone to making headlines if not actually changing the law. Ms Figures took the same approach Tuesday afternoon, filing an amendment to the bill that would make it a felony for a man to have a vasectomy. It failed. It was just to prove a point, she told The Washington Post. Put yourself in our shoes. I tell them, theres no law on the books anywhere in this country that mandate what a man can and cant do with his body, yet for us there are a number of them. ... Theyre just so hell-bent on doing what they want to do that they ignore all of that. On Tuesday night, numerous female lawmakers described the passage of the Alabama bill as an assault on womens rights, and an unconstitutional attempt to revert to a time of DIY abortions. Ive lived in that America, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter, and let me tell you: We are not going back not now, not ever. This is a war on women, and it is time to fight like hell, said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Ms Figures said that after more than 20 years of being one of a few women in the state senate at any given time, she no longer feels exasperated by the lack of women only because she got used to it. Its more disappointment, she said. You feel disappointed that youre living in 2019 and youre dealing this. But from the Alabama Senate floor Tuesday, Ms Coleman-Madison offered a prediction. Now, we understand the women in this chamber are a minority, she said, but one of these days thats going to change. And Senator Figures amendment might just get passed. The Washington Post Campaigners say Alabamas new law mandating a near total ban on abortion is part of a nationwide coordinated strategy to make abortion inaccessible for women across America. The legislation, which is the most restrictive abortion bill in the US, would make carrying out an abortion at any stage of the pregnancy punishable by 10 to 99 years in jail. The strict abortion ban, which has been branded a death sentence for women, would even criminalise performing abortions in cases of rape and incest. While doctors would face ten years in prison for attempting to terminate a pregnancy, they would face 99 years for carrying out the procedure. Of the 27 Republicans, all men, that dominate the 35-seat Alabama senate, 25 voted to pass the bill late on Tuesday. None of the senates four female senators backed the ban which has now been sent to Governor Kay Iveys desk for signature into law. While supporters say they expect the law to be blocked in court, they hope that the appeals process will bring it before the Supreme Court. They want the court to overturn Roe v Wade - the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion nationwide in 1973. Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Show all 7 1 /7 Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Derry Girls cast members Siobhan McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan (right) join MPS and women impacted by Northern Ireland's strict abortion laws PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Heidi Allen (second right) joins the protest PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster A luggage tag on a suitcase, symbolising the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for terminations PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster The campaigners march across Westminster Bridge PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Counter-protesters Rebecca Morgan (left) and her daughter Helen, one, demonstrate in favour of Northern Ireland's current laws Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Protesters supporting Northern Ireland's abortion laws at Parliament Square Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Demonstrators pull suitcases to symbolise the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for a termination AFP/Getty Images Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a lawyer who will be challenging the controversial bill, said: We are disappointed but we are ready to fight. What Alabama has done is part of a national coordinated strategy to push abortion out of reach for all women. We are going to go to court and make sure that does not happen. For years, Alabama has been pushing laws that chip away at abortion but what happened last night, and what is happening in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, and Georgia, is an example of politicians showing their true colours. They are launching an unprecedented, and the most extreme attack, on abortion in recent years. If the law took effect, it would be devastating. While the Alabama law does not explicitly criminalise women, we know a criminalised atmosphere around abortion does, and would, inevitably have an impact on the women themselves. If the law took effect, doctors would stop providing abortions. You do not want to run afoul of a law which carries 99 years. We are also afraid it would have a chilling effect on doctors carrying out other work. You could be wrongly accused when treating pregnant women. Ms Kolbi-Molinas, who has been fighting for abortion rights at the American Civil Liberties Union for 12 years, said Alabama and other states already have abysmal maternity and prenatal care for women. She said that the ACLU, the largest human rights defence organisation in the US, has had four or five cases in Alabama in recent years challenging these medically unnecessary and politically motivated restrictions and they had been successful in blocking all of them adding that she remained optimistic this latest bill would be the same. Ms Kolbi-Molinas said there are people on the ground in Alabama fighting every day to make access to abortion a reality for anyone who needs it, adding that they had been fighting this law all the way. The fact the bill did not even allow abortions in instances of rape and incest was, however, a representative of how extreme the politicians behind the legislation are, she said, as it was previously very rare to see a law that does not have exceptions. Alabamas new bill comes as politicians in several other states propose legislation to restrict abortion such as Georgias recent heartbeat bill. Some sixteen other states are trying to impose new restrictions on abortion. Alabama state lawmakers compare abortions in America to the Holocaust and other modern genocides in the legislation - spurring Jewish activists and abortion rights groups to rebuke the bill as deeply offensive. Dr Ben Kasstan, a medical anthropologist based at the University of Sussex in the UK, said: The dystopian tales penned by Margaret Atwood increasingly resemble reality in the US, as a bill against performing abortion - except if a woman's health is at serious risk is set to be passed in the State of Alabama. Physicians, in reality, will have to interpret what serious means, and will likely provide care defensively and in fear of law enforcement. This extreme legislation forms part of a Republican pledge to curtail access to the full continuum of women's sexual and reproductive healthcare. "Such restrictive abortion regimes do not stop women from requiring abortion: it forces women to either travel to access care legally, or to possibly make dangerous decisions about their health. Conversely, men are rarely, if at all, forced to make such decisions about their health. Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has aligned herself as anti-abortion previously, will have six days to sign the legislation but the bill would not take effect until six months after becoming law. She has said she will only decide whether or not to sign it into law once she has considered the final version. Recommended Janet Street Porter opens up about having a backstreet abortion at 16 Alarm bells have been raised that Roe v Wade could be overturned or radically undermined with new conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - who are both Trump appointees. Abortion opponents in other states have been emboldened to attempt to provoke new legal battles that could spark Supreme Court justices to revisit the key case. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved bans on abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. At six weeks, many women do not yet know they are pregnant. Earlier this year the Supreme Court blocked implementation of new abortion restrictions in Louisiana. But the ruling was made by a narrow margin - with the case due to be reviewed later this year. An ultra-Orthodox rabbi falsely described the measles outbreak among Jews as part of an elaborate plan concocted by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York to deflect attention from more serious diseases brought by Central American migrants. We Hasidim have been chosen as the target, said rabbi, Hillel Handler. The campaign against us has been successful. Since the measles outbreak began last fall, the health authorities have embarked on a sweeping and exhaustive campaign, repeatedly urging people to get vaccinated and fighting the spread of misinformation. They have made special efforts in the ultra-Orthodox communities of Brooklyn and Rockland County, New York, where the disease has been spreading most quickly. But the rally on Monday in Monsey, a Rockland County town about 30 miles northwest of New York City, vividly illustrated how the anti-vaccine fervour is not only enduring, but may be growing: Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed a ballroom for a vaccine symposium with leaders of the anti-vaccination movement. There, a paediatrician questioned whether Jews were being intentionally given bad lots of vaccines that ended up giving children a new strain of the virus and Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor whose study linking measles vaccines with autism was widely discredited and condemned, appeared via Skype to offer an almost apocalyptic vision of a world in which vaccines were giving rise to deadlier immunisation-resistant diseases. New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Show all 54 1 /54 New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Olivia Palermo is a fashion month regular. She was spotted outside the Michael Kors show on Wednesday morning wearing a polka dot jumper with black skinny jeans. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Puffer jackets are having a moment, and this candy-coloured style is an apt illustration as to why. Adding both volume and joy to an otherwise fairly conventional outfit with minimal effort? Yes please. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Bella Hadid wrapped up warm for the cold weather in a beige aviator-style jacket paired with super-slim red sunglasses. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Stunning florals, chic boots and a classic trench coat - whats not to love? These two guests attending the NYFW Carolina Herrera show struck a stylish pair outside the New York Historical Society by Central Park West. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest was wearing tassels for days as she made her way across a road crossing to the Carolina Herrera fashion show. Paired with a pair of cool sunglasses, a matching black clutch and high boots, this fashionista looked every inch a style queen in her striking ensemble. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style 'Mission Impossible' actor Michelle Monaghan brought a touch of sparkle to the streets of New York, when she attended the Carolina Herrera show wearing a multicoloured, high-neck dress by the Venezuelan designer. I like to sparkle on Mondays, the star wrote on Instagram. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Just because the February skies are grey, that doesnt mean you have to dress to match, as Marvels Runaways actor Virginia Gardner demonstrated at NYFW. The 23-year-old wore a bright yellow, off-shoulder tiered Carolina Herrera gown to the designers show, which she accessorised with gold strappy heels. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Dressing in all-black simply never goes out of fashion when its done right. This guest proved just how to pull off a look that lacks colour, wearing a long skirt with a similarly coloured jacket, black gloves, stiletto boots, a flat-brimmed hat and carrying a Dior Oblique Saddle Bag. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest made a bold statement on the streets of New York in a stunning black-and-white polka dot dress, completing the look with a thick black belt and her hair tied up in a tousled bun. She was accompanied by a friend wearing a modish tan ensemble, accessorising with a Blair Waldorf-esque headband and black kitten heels. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style 'Big Little Lies' actor Shailene Woodley shone brightly at NYFW wearing a marigold coat by Carolina Herrera, with lime green shorts and a white patterned shirt. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Double denim is continuing to have its moment, as shown by this guest who wore a hybrid faux fur-denim jacket while attending the Carolina Herrera show. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Diablo actor Camilla Belle stood outside at NYFW in a wide-legged Carolina Herrera jumpsuit, complete with blouson sleeves and a colourful feather design. She completed the look with a long, black tailored jacket. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This stylish black-and-white look was made even more eye-catching by the addition of the fashionistas gold accessories as she crossed a New York road on her way to the Carolina Herrera show. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest took a leaf out of Britney and Justins book, donning a denim-on-denim ensemble as she arrived at Spring Studios in New York. The floppy hat and cropped, flared jeans give this look a very 1970s vibe. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style The matching of this guests red-orange lipstick to the lettering on her trousers gives this outfit an extra edge. Not to mention her chic faux fur coat, ideal for a cold winters day out in the Big Apple. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style If youre going to attend one of the most coveted fashion events of the year, you might as well make a strong impression while doing so. Thats exactly what this guest did, turning up in a bright yellow jock-inspired jacket, a colourful jumpsuit, black combat boots and a multiple-ringed gold necklace. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style If someone were to imagine Elsa from 'Frozen' as a modern-day sartorial queen, this is probably what theyd come up with, minus the ice blonde hair. The bright blue 1980s-esque prom dress, white jacket, Gucci belt and animal print high heeled boots make for a very dramatic overall look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest displayed the power of subtlety with his NYFW look, matching the bronze buttons on his pea coat with the cuffs on his sleeves. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style A white beanie, colourful tartan jacket, cropped jeans and dazzlingly white trainers - this guest is definitely a la mode. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Cheetah print is continuing to reign supreme in the fashion world. This guest donned a classic cheetah print coat at the Dion Lee show, completing her look with bubblegum pink high-waisted trousers, a bronze handbag and navy boots. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style It may not be spring yet, but this guest was bringing the warmth at the NYFW Tibi show in a sunset orange coat. She accessorised with a forest green purse and black ankle boots. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Fashion and interior design blogger Aimee Song was the picture of elegance at NYFW, wearing a garish long blue coat with blue snakeskin boots. Song was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 Art and Style list in 2016. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Social media influencer Camila Coelho looked like shed stepped right out of the 1970s when she attended the Tibi show in an orange ensemble by the American designer, finishing off the look with a pair of classic round sunglasses. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Entrepreneur Babba Rivera wore a navy-coloured trench coat and high-neck dress from Kate Spade for her outing in New York City during fashion week. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Soft nude tones are in for spring as perfectly highlighted with this laid-back athleisure look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style One street style expert paired a cream-coloured skirt and a white polo neck jumper with a perspex Fendi jacket with a brown trim and pockets. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Clashing textures such as leather and wool compliment each other superbly in this terracotta and blue-hued winter ensemble. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Sequins, feathers, plastic, leopard print come together in perfect harmony in this mismatch spring look courtesy of blogging sisters Charlotte and Sophie Bickley. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Model and rapper TK Wonder rocked a Noughties-inspired look on the streets of NYC, pairing a pair of feathery pink stiletto boots with a baby pink coat and light denim jeans. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Camel-coloured coats show no sign of going out of fashion and this is a sentiment clearly shared by this fashion expert. The satorial star teamed her look with a pair of black brogues, a wide black belt and grey roll neck jumper. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This all-black outfit was given the perfect hint of playfulness with a pair of turquoise-coloured drop earring, turban, and matching eyeshadow. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Influencer Oriane Adjibi brought the sunshine to a cold, wintery New York weekend in a bright orange-hued cropped jacket, white pointed-toe boots and a sheer lilac skirt with a feather trim. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Red and pink have long been viewed as fashion "frenemies" but their feud has finally been put to bed thanks to fashion blogger Opal Stewart. She finished off her bold look with a cobalt blue fluffy jacket and a pillar box red bag. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style "Be uniquely you. Stand out. Shine," wrote model Alicia Burke on her Instagram to describe her look. The long raindbow-coloured puffer jacket was the perfect pop of colour to her otherwise all-black outfit. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Patrick Amara and Dustin Rogers showed their love of designer labels and the high street in this Gucci, Dior and Asos fashion mash-up during NYFW. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Nothing shouts "sartorial swagger" louder than a tonal look featuring two different types of animal print. The beach hat adds a pleasing bohemian touch. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Man Repeller founder Leandra Medine is renowned for her comfy, cosy-chic style, and this look illustrates why. A cropped polo-neck jumper might look ridiculous on most, but Medine wears hers here with aplomb by adding a grey cardigan and pale blue jeans. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This look is very Britney Spears circa the Oops I Did It Again music video, and we're into it. The full-length floral coat is a practical and elegant addition. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Karlie Kloss knows a thing or two about the colour blue, so it seems. The American supermodel's outfit is the perfect example of how slick tailoring and a fitted coat render the need for tonal variation utterly obsolete. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style In case you missed it, camel is back in and few items of clothing look better in this neutral shade than a classic trench coat. This one has pouffed-up sleeves to give a edgier silhouette, it works a treat. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Why wear one jacket when you can wear two? That's what this street styler thought when she woke up one morning. If you're going to try out this style move, it's best to follow to use something neutral, like the denim jacket seen here, so as to avoid aggressive colour clashes. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style There's nothing more satisfying than throwing a baggy sweatshirt on over an ankle-grazing skirt. The tie-dye clash works a treat here, particularly with the chunky navy blue headband. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This might just be the best Legally Blonde impersonation yet, at least, sartorially speaking. Aside from the clutch and the boots, everything about this look is a bright shade of bubblegum pink, and on a grey, miserably New York day, what a wonderful thing it is to see so much radiance in one hit. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Yellow and orange might sound like a colour combo made in hell, but when the tailoring is razor-sharp and the accessory is a strange square-like shape, it's a sunny and optimistic look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style White boots have had a resurgence in recent months thanks to their versatility, which is aptly demonstrated here. Neither plaid nor wide-leg trousers can detract from their stylishness. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Plaid is clearly here to stay on the ever-changing fashion trend circuit. This suit is very well coordinated, thanks to white cat-eye shades and beige heeled booties. The Gucci bag adds a splash of sophistication. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style All beige everything is the underlying lesson in this look. There's no reason not to embrace the shade of the moment with such vigor, as you can see. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Fendi's logo can be spotted from a mile away, and when combined with these two-tone floral trousers, you could spot this street styler from much further. The pink polo-neck jumper tones things down, but only by a smidgen. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Jumpsuits are having a moment, and this grey, workman-style variation explains why. Cinching it in at the waist with a wide belt adds a feminine silhouette while the rounded sunglasses give the look a retro flair. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style It's a good idea to wear a warm coat to fashion week, as this street styler is clearly aware. It's the perfect burnt autumnal hue too. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style When a jacket just won't do but you can't decide which shirt to wear, why not wear a jacket that doubles up as a shirt? That's what this street styler seems to have done, giving her cream dress a slouchy but stylish feel. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Why not wear a bright tie-dye top underneath a pink suit? Clearly, it looks more elegant than it sounds, especially when accessorized with oversized square sunglasses and a blue box bag. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Tiny sunglasses continue their reign on the street style scene, as spotted here adding drama to a sportswear-inspired look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Those sleeves are quite something. Pairing this lime green dress with kitten heel shoes and a dark, cropped jacket allows the melodrama of those feathery cuffs to stand out in the way that they should. Getty Images Organised by a Monsey-based Jewish group, the event also showed how the movement was gaining ground: Greg Mitchell, a Washington-based lobbyist who represents the Church of Scientology, attended the meeting and addressed the crowd, offering to be their voice in the public-policy game. The gathering was denounced by local elected officials, health authorities and some ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who said the speakers were spreading propaganda that could cause the outbreak to deepen, risking the health of countless people. The event was held in a large ballroom. As is customary at ultra-Orthodox gatherings, the men were separated by an improvised wall from the women, many of whom were visibly pregnant. Speakers were introduced and applauded as if they were celebrities. The remarks and the rapt audience illustrated how the anti-vaccination movement can exploit fear and anxiety within relatively insular communities, especially religious ones, to undercut scientifically sound warnings from health experts. They are doubling down and increasing their messaging capitalising on fear, Dr Jane Zucker, the assistant commissioner of immunisation for the New York City Health Department, said in an interview. Parents are afraid of who and what to believe. Mr Handler, a 77-year-old from Brooklyn who said he was a Holocaust survivor, set the tone for the night, claiming that Jews were being persecuted as disease carriers and were being attacked on the street in New York City for sneezing. (The Anti-Defamation League has strongly objected to the appropriation of Holocaust symbols by vaccine critics.) Mr De Blasio has issued a public health emergency for four ZIP codes in Brooklyn where ultra-Orthodox Jews live. That decision appeared to have earned him the ire of Mr Handler, who described de Mr Blasio as a sneaky fellow and a closet German Wilhelm, his real name, was named after Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. (In fact, none of this is true. De Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm Jr and later decided to take his mothers last name as his own after becoming alienated from his father.) In a subseqent telephone interview, Mr Handler sought to soften his anti-vaccine remarks. I dont mind if someone takes a vaccine. Its not my business, he said. What am I, a fascist? Am I going to bring down the law? The paediatrician who spoke at the rally, Dr Lawrence Palevsky, is regularly cited in pamphlets circulated in New York City that urge women not to get their children vaccinated. His views have no basis in science, experts said. At the rally, he talked at length about mutating viruses and falsely claimed that failed vaccines were producing a new strain of measles. Women scribbled into notepads as he spoke. Others filmed his comments, sending them to their contacts on WhatsApp. Essentially, he said, there were no studies available to show how the vaccine affects the human body. Is it possible that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that is somehow being given in this lot to communities in Williamsburg and Lakewood and Monsey, maybe in Borough Park, is it possible that these lots are bad? he asked, referring to areas in New York and New Jersey with large ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Its fascinating because were told how contagious the disease is, but somehow its centred in the Jewish community. Palevsky could not be reached for comment. New York Post uses 9/11 front page to attack Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar Wakefield, who was stripped of his medical license in his native Britain some two decades ago for fraudulent claims linking vaccines to autism, accused the health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of misleading the public. But before doing that, he insisted on his own innocence. I wanted to reassure you that I have never been involved in scientific fraud, he said via Skype from a darkened room, his face appearing eerily white as it was projected onto two large overhead screens. What happened to me is what happens to doctors who threatened the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies. Rockland County has the highest number of recorded cases after New York City. But there are other pockets of large outbreaks as well, and not all of them in are in religious communities. The CDC said that the number of measles reported across the country rose by 75 last week, bringing the total to 839 in 23 states, the highest number of cases the United States has seen since measles was declared eliminated in 2000. New York City alone has seen 498 confirmed cases of the disease since September. In the rest of New York state, there have been 274 confirmed cases, according to official figures. About 80 percent of those cases were located in Rockland County. Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' Show all 9 1 /9 Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613712.bin Photo credit: Luca Kleve-Rudd Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613713.bin Photo credit: Anna Kari Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613714.bin Photo credit: Caroline Trutmann/Save the Children Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613717.bin Photo credit: Anna Kari Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613715.bin Photo credit: Leah Tepper Byrne Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613716.bin Photo credit: Rachel Palmer/Save the Children Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613718.bin Photo credit: Rachel Palmer/Save the Children Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613720.bin Photo credit: Peter Caton Vaccines funding could 'save 4m children' 613719.bin Photo credit: Rachel Palmer/Save the Children New York authorities have used a number of tactics to force people to get immunised, including excluding unvaccinated children from going to schools with low vaccination rates or threatening thousand-dollar fines on parents for failing to vaccinate their children. The strategies have been largely successful, health officials have insisted, even though there have been setbacks. In Rockland County, for example, a state of emergency declaration in March that banned unvaccinated children from public spaces was challenged by parents and halted after a judge ruled that the outbreak did not legally merit an emergency declaration. The county executive, Ed Day, issued a new declaration last month that sought to prevent people who were exposed to measles from being in public places. Local officials, including Day and Rabbi Chaim Schabes, expressed outrage in a joint statement at the outsiders who organised Mondays rally and are targeting our community. Tonights event and the misinformation being shared at it runs counter to every statement from the medical experts and elected officials of our county, the statement read. This type of propaganda endangers the health and safety of children within our community and around the world, and must be denounced in the strongest language possible. The New York Times Weeks after the first fatal crash of the 737 Max, pilots from American Airlines pressed Boeing executives to work urgently on a fix. In a closed-door meeting, they even argued that Boeing should push the authorities to take an emergency measure that would very likely result in the grounding of the Max. The Boeing executives resisted. They did not want to rush out a fix, and said they expected pilots to be able to handle problems. Mike Sinnett, a vice president at Boeing, acknowledged that the manufacturer was assessing potential design flaws with the plane, including new anti-stall software. But he baulked at taking a more aggressive approach, saying it was not yet clear that the new system was to blame for the Lion Air crash, which killed 189 people. No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane, Mr Sinnett said, according to a recording of the 27 November meeting reviewed by The New York Times. Less than four months later, an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing all 157 people on board. The flawed anti-stall system played a role in both disasters. Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Show all 9 1 /9 Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures This picture taken on March 11, 2019, shows debris of the crashed airplane of Ethiopia Airlines, near Bishoftu, a town some 60 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. - An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 crashed on March 10 morning en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi with 149 passengers and eight crew believed to be on board, Ethiopian Airlines said. (Photo by Michael TEWELDE / AFP)MICHAEL TEWELDE/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Family members mourn the victims at the crash site of the Ethiopian Airlines operated Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, at Hama Quntushele village in the Oromia region, on March 13, 2019. - A Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019, killing all eight crew and 149 passengers on board, including tourists, business travellers, and "at least a dozen" UN staff. Families of the victims were taken to the remote site on March 13, 2019, where the plane smashed into a field with 157 passengers and crew from 35 countries, leaving a deep black crater and tiny scraps of debris. (Photo by TONY KARUMBA / AFP)TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A page of a Boeing flight crew operations manual is seen at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town of Bishoftu, near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner REUTERS Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures epa07434278 Rescue workers search the site for pieces of the wreckage of an Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, 13 March 2019. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed on 10 March 2019 by yet undetermined reason. All passengers and crew aboard died in the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has come under scrutiny after similar deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within a few months. Several countries have banned the plane type from their airspace and many airlines have grounded their 737 Max 8 planes for safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after take-off on 10 March. EPA/STRINGER EPA Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A grounded Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger plane of the Norwegian low-cost airline Norwegian is parked at the tarmac at Vantaa airport in Vantaa near Helsinki, Finland on March 13, 2019. - A number of countries have banned Boeing's 737 MAX 8 medium-haul workhorse jet from their airspace in response to the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board. (Photo by Heikki Saukkomaa / Lehtikuva / AFP) / Finland OUTHEIKKI SAUKKOMAA/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Rescue workers search the site for pieces of the wreckage of an Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, 13 March 2019. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed on 10 March 2019 by yet undetermined reason. All passengers and crew aboard died in the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has come under scrutiny after similar deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within a few months. Several countries have banned the plane type from their airspace and many airlines have grounded their 737 Max 8 planes for safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after take-off on 10 March. EPA/STRINGER EPA Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A heap of debris from the wreckage of an Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are piled at the crash site near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, 13 March 2019. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed on 10 March 2019 by yet undetermined reason. All passengers and crew aboard died in the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has come under scrutiny after similar deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within a few months. Several countries have banned the plane type from their airspace and many airlines have grounded their 737 Max 8 planes for safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after take-off on 10 March. EPA/STR EPA Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A crew working with an investigative team to clear the site after the Sunday crash of the Ethiopian Airlines operated Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, carry debris at Hama Quntushele village in the Oromia region, on March 13, 2019. - A Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, killing all eight crew and 149 passengers on board, including tourists, business travellers, and "at least a dozen" UN staff. Families of the victims were taken to the remote site on March 13, 2019, where the plane smashed into a field with 157 passengers and crew from 35 countries, leaving a deep black crater and tiny scraps of debris. (Photo by TONY KARUMBA / AFP)TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8, on a flight from Miami to New York City, comes in for landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York, U.S., March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo REUTERS Boeing is facing intense scrutiny for the design and certification of the Max, as well as for its response to the two crashes. There are multiple investigations into the development of the Max. In recent days, unions representing pilots from American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have received federal grand jury subpoenas for any documents related to Boeings communications about the jet, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The Federal Aviation Administration is also under fire for its role in approving the Max, and its decision to wait for days after the second crash to ground the plane. At a congressional hearing this week, lawmakers will grill federal regulators about how the Max was certified. Boeing declined to comment on the November meeting. We are focused on working with pilots, airlines and global regulators to certify the updates on the Max and provide additional training and education to safely return the planes to flight, the company said in a statement. How to tell if you're on a Boeing 737 Max American Airlines said in a statement that it was confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the Max, will lead to recertification of the aircraft soon. The hour-long November meeting, inside a windowless conference room at the Fort Worth headquarters of the American Airlines pilots union, was confrontational at times. At the table was Mr Sinnett, along with Craig Bomben, a top Boeing test pilot, and one of the companys senior lobbyists, John Moloney. They faced several union leaders, many of them angry at the company. Michael Michaelis, an American pilot, argued that Boeing should push the FAA to issue what is known as an emergency airworthiness directive. The FAA had already issued one directive after the Lion Air crash, instructing airlines to revise their flight manuals to include information on how to respond to a malfunction of the anti-stall system known as MCAS. But Mr Michaelis pushed Boeing to consider calling for an additional one to update the software. Such a procedure would have required Boeing and airlines in the United States to take immediate action to ensure the safety of the Max, and would have likely taken the jet out of service temporarily. My question to you, as Boeing, is why wouldnt you say this is the smartest thing to do? Mr Michaelis said. Say were going to do everything we can to protect that travelling public in accordance with what our pilots unions are telling us. Mr Sinnett did not budge, saying that it remained unclear that the new software, which automatically pushes the planes nose down, was responsible for the Lion Air crash. He added that he felt confident that pilots had adequate training to deal with a problem, especially now that pilots who were not initially informed about the new system were aware of it. Youve got to understand that our commitment to safety is as great as yours, Mr Sinnett said in the meeting. The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one. The pilots expressed frustration that Boeing did not inform them about the new software on the plane until after the Lion Air crash. Ryanair and Flybe cull domestic flights following Boeing 737 grounding These guys didnt even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else, said Mr Michaelis, the unions head of safety. Another American pilot, Todd Wissing, expressed frustration that no mention of the system had been included in the training manual for the 737 Max. I would think that there would be a priority of putting explanations of things that could kill you, Mr Wissing said. The Boeing executives, Mr Sinnett and Mr Bomben, explained that the company did not believe that pilots needed to know about the software, because they were already trained to deal with scenarios like the one on the doomed Lion Air flight. All pilots are expected to know how to take control of an aircraft when the planes tail begins moving in an uncontrolled way because of a malfunction, nudging the aircraft towards the ground. The assumption is that the flight crews have been trained, Mr Sinnett said in the meeting. He added later: Rightly or wrongly, that was the design criteria and thats how the airplane was certified with the system and pilot working together. Recommended Norwegian reports loss as it struggles with Boeing 737 Max grounding When the pilots pressed Boeing to consider encouraging the FAA to issue an emergency airworthiness directive, Mr Sinnett made the case against moving too quickly. We dont want to rush and do a crappy job of fixing the right things and we also dont want to fix the wrong things, Mr Sinnett said, later adding, For flight-critical software, I dont think you want us to rush, rush it faster. Mr Sinnett acknowledged that the company was looking into potential mistakes in the design of the jet. One of the questions will be, is our design assumption wrong? Mr Sinnett said. Were going through that whole thought process of, were our assumptions really even valid when we did this? But he remained steadfast that pilots should know how to handle a malfunction of the new software on the plane, given their existing training. As the meeting was concluding, Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the union, asked the Boeing executives whether they were still confident in the Max. Do you feel comfortable that the situation is under control today, before any software fix is implemented? he asked. Mr Sinnett replied immediately: Absolutely. The New York Times A man has been arrested after going through a drive-thru with the naked corpse of his wife upside down in his cars passenger seat. Maria Davis, an employee at a Carls Jr. in Arizona, alerted police after spotting the corpse in the car driven by Rodney Puckett, 70, in the early hours of May 13. I kept telling my coworker, I cant believe what Im seeing before my eyes," Ms David told Arizonas WCSC of the incident. She says Mr Puckett was honking his horn and appeared to be naked. What most caught my attention was her. I knew she was face down with her legs up in the air, she continued. It wasnt normal. There was like a blue cover he had in the front, and he was like trying to cover her, like her behind, but her legs were still sticking up in the air. Recommended Man arrested after body found in wheelie bin near Waitrose supermarket Ms Davis attempted to get the license plate number of the car. A detective with the local police department happened to enter the Carls Jr. at the same time, and Mr Puckett was stopped as he attempted to leave the parking lot. The deceased was identified by police as Linda Puckett, Mr Pucketts 74-year-old estranged wife. Sgt Kristie Barnette, public information officer for the Eloy Police Department, who arrested Mr Puckett, told the news station that the police are currently at the beginning of the investigation. They have so far learned that the husband and estranged wife stayed at a hotel in El Paso, Texas the evening before Lindas body was spotted. The security video shows Linda and Rodney walking into the hotel room, Sgt Barnette says. Then, in the early hours of May 13, it shows Rodney exiting the room with a luggage cart and what appears to be Lindas body, hidden by blankets. The cause of her death has yet to be determined. Each day seems to offer new lessons for Washington in how perilous it can be to invoke the Holocaust. The lesson learned on Tuesday by members of the Harvard Lampoon, the vaunted satirical magazine founded in 1876, was a bit different. Best not to photoshop the head of Anne Frank, the German-born Jewish diarist who perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, onto a shapely, bikini-clad body, the student humorists realised. Best, also, not to circulate the image and flippantly call it an addition to your list of reasons the Holocaust sucked. The undergraduate publication, which has launched staff from the Ivy League campus to the writing rooms of comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live, came under fire this week for the crack that appeared in an issue distributed over the weekend. The doctored image ran below the headline, Gone Before Her Time: Virtual Aging Technology Shows Us What Anne Frank Would Have Looked Like if She Hadnt Died. Remembering the Holocaust Show all 16 1 /16 Remembering the Holocaust Remembering the Holocaust 119165.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119169.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119229.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119167.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119162.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119166.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119163.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119224.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119168.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119228.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119152.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119226.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119150.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119151.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119147.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119231.bin Hannah Bills Students on Sunday began circulating a petition demanding that the magazine be held accountable, the Harvard Crimson reported. And Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, executive director of Harvard Hillel, a hub of Jewish life on campus, wrote in an email to Lampoon editors that the image recalled Nazi propaganda. It is an image one can imagine Julius Streicher, publisher of Der Sturmer, producing and celebrating, Steinberg wrote. What the students had depicted was the sexual violation of a child one who, in life, was subjected to the most hideous of crimes. Among the students who took offence was a Harvard sophomore who posted the cartoon on Facebook. When the image ran afoul of the sites community standards and was removed, the student, Jenny Baker, turned instead to a Google Doc. She included an image of the page in question and enumerated her objections. Holocaust jokes? Never okay, she began. Sexualising a young girls body? Never okay, she continued. Sexualising ANNE FRANK and saying it is a shame she was ruthlessly murdered because of her religion because she would have been hot? So unbelievably not okay, she emphasised. Baker delivered a recommendation to the staff of the Lampoon: Try to find other ways to be funny rather than sexualising and trivializing the murder of a young girl and an entire population of people. She concluded, This is trash. The backlash reached beyond campus. Robert Trestan, the director of Anti-Defamation Leagues Boston office, tied the outrageous, insensitive, sexualized image to a rising tide of anti-Semitism, saying the student-run organisation had crossed a line between humour and bigotry. He called for an apology. The Lampoon provided one on Tuesday evening. We realise the extent of offence we have inflicted and understand that we must take responsibility for our actions, the magazines leaders wrote in a statement posted online. Pledging to revise their editorial review process, they underscored that the Lampoon condemns any and all forms of anti-Semitism. The magazine, known for high jinks at its turreted headquarters blocks from Harvard Square, boasts a roster of distinguished alumni, including late-night host Conan OBrien and novelist John Updike. The Lampoon has embraced honorary members as disparate as Winston Churchill and Kesha. It has not shied away from the national spotlight. In 2015, Lampoon members, posing as the staff of the Crimson, convinced then-candidate Donald Trump that he had earned the endorsement of the undergraduate newspaper. They smiled for a photograph with the real estate tycoon, who flashed a thumbs-up sign. Cartoon imagery invoking Jewish history and identity has proven especially fraught in recent weeks. The New York Times apologised last month for a caricature of Trump blindly following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rendered as a guide dog with a Star of David hanging from his collar. Concerns about corrosive imagery come as the Anti-Defamation League documents near-historic levels of anti-Semitism. The organisation recorded a total of 1,879 attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions last year in the United States, making 2018 the third-highest year on record, according to an audit released in April. In Germany, anti-Semitic episodes rose nearly 20 per cent between 2017 and 2018, according to figures released Tuesday by the Interior Ministry. Survey data suggests that anti-Semitic incidents are increasing as understanding of the Holocaust diminishes, testing the rallying cry, never forget. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, are unable to say what Auschwitz was, according to a 2018 survey commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Fifty-two per cent of Americans believe Adolf Hitler came to power by force when, in fact, he was elected in 1933. Franks diary, published posthumously in Dutch in 1947 and translated into English in 1952, has been an enduring source of global Holocaust education. The Diary of a Young Girl delivers stark moral truths, such as, What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The diarist also wrote of the respect owed to her gender, asking, Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldnt women have their share? And before she died at the age of 15, she declared her own worth as a young person. Although Im only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, she affirmed. I know who is right and who is wrong, I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone. The Washington Post The moment a lone fisherman was confronted by a huge humpback whale bursting out of the water dangerously close to his boat has been captured on camera. The whale only just missed hitting the small fishing boat before crashing back into the sea in Monterey Bay, California. Photographer Douglas Croft and whale watcher Kate Cummings took the photo from the porthole of a nearby boat. It was quite exciting! Mr Croft said. Salmon season coincides with the time when humpbacks are returning to Monterey Bay to feed for the summer and there were hundreds of boats on the bay fishing. This whale had breached a couple of times before this and many times theyll just keep doing it. Tragic photos show beached whales Show all 15 1 /15 Tragic photos show beached whales Tragic photos show beached whales A dead sperm whale lies on Hunstanton beach in Norfolk on 5 February 2016 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Volunteers pour buckets of water over the 80 remaining live pilot whales found stranded on remote Ocean Beach on New Zealand's southern-most Stewart island, 8 January 2003 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Contractors clear away the body of one of the dead 48ft sperm whales that were washed-up on a beach near Gibraltar Point in Skegness, Lincolnshire in 2016 PA Tragic photos show beached whales People pass by a beached whale at the Pointe de la Torche, near Brest in France on 29 November 2011 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A woman touches the tail of a large whale carcass on Wattamola Beach at the Royal National Park in Sydney on 25 September 2018 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Beached humpback whale in California, 2015 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Dead long fin pilot whales at Hamelin Bay on Australia's west coast on 23 March 2009 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A 36ft sperm whale lies dead on the beach at Sutton Bridge, in The Wash, off the Lincolnshire coast, where it became stranded in 2004 PA Tragic photos show beached whales A female fin whale opens its mouth as it lies stranded and alive on the beach at Carlyon Bay, Cornwall on 13 August 2012 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales The lower jaw of a dead sperm whale that stranded itself on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales One of the five sperm whales that were found washed ashore on beaches near Skegness, Lincolnshire over the weekend on 25 January 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Employees at work to skin the remains of a beached 60ft whale on 25 January 2013 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Two long-finned pilot whales are stranded on a beach in the northern French city of Calais on 2 November 2015 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A sperm whale lies dead after becoming stranded on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Crowds gather as a sperm whale lies dead after becoming stranded on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Mr Croft said the angle at which he took the photo from a porthole close to the waterline made the whale look even bigger than it was. Thats what gives this amazing perspective of looking up at the whale, he said. He added: Since the boat is closer, it should look bigger, but the whale is huge! If Id been the fisherman, Id probably need some new underwear. Ms Cummings, who took the video, said she had noticed the whale breaching multiple times before it rose next to the fishing boat. Sometimes when whales breach multiple times, theyre also heading a specific direction when theyre underwater building momentum for the next breach, she said. I figured the next breach would be around the fisherman because the whale was heading that way and sure enough... Though I didnt expect the whale and the boat to line up so perfectly. Humpback whales can reach up to 60 feet in length and are found in oceans around the world. Although the species has seen its population increase in recent years after the introduction of commercial whaling bans, it is still considered endangered, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Caters News Agency The development of a multibillion-dollar airport that will fly tourists directly to Machu Picchu has sparked outrage among historians, archaeologists and local people. Bulldozers have already begun clearing land for the airport in Chinchero, a well-preserved Inca city about 3,800 metres above sea level that is the gateway to the Sacred Valley in Peru. The valley provided maize and other crops to Incan rulers, and several emperors built their private estates there. Incan terraces still cover the hillsides around Chinchero and are used by local farmers. Those protesting against the airport fear it will cause structural damage to ancient ruins and environmental degradation across a large swathe of the Sacred Valley, not just the famed citadel of Machu Picchu itself. The airport planned to be built in Chinchero, Cusco, endangers the conservation of one of the most important historical and archaeological sites in the world, wrote Natalia Majluf, a Peruvian art historian at Cambridge University who organised a petition against the development. UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Show all 8 1 /8 UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Venice, Italy Coastal protections are already being developed to shield Venice from flooding. The entire lagoon will ultimately be protected by submerged mobile barriers at the lagoon inlets that will be raised during high waters of at least 1.1 m. Getty UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Medieval City of Rhodes, Greece The fortified city on this Greek island was once home to Knights of St John of Jerusalem after they had lost their last stronghold in Palestine. Now its ancient walls are threatened by gradual erosion from the rising tides. Getty Images/iStockphoto UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy Scientists identified the Piazza del Duomo, home to the famous tower, as being at particular risk from flooding in the coming decades unless urgent action is taken. Getty/iStock UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Archaeological site of Carthage, Tunisia This extensive archaeological site, which dates back to the 9th century and was once home to a great trading empire covering much of the Mediterranean, is also threatened by erosion. Getty Images UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Historic Areas of Istanbul, Turkey Some of the Turkish citys oldest parts are located near the sea, placing them at risk as water levels rise. Getty Images/iStockphoto UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Gorham's Cave Complex, Gibraltar The incredibly preserved caves evidence of Neanderthal and early modern human occupation of Gibraltar, but their location right at sea level means this legacy could be damaged in coming years Clive Finlayson/ Gibraltar Museum UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels Archaeological site of Pompei Sites at risk include parts of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata that were preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. Getty Images UNESCO World Heritage sites threatened by rising sea levels White City of Tel-Aviv, Israel Constructed as a representation of European trends from the so-called Modern Movement, the White City is densely populated, meaning that efforts to protect it from natural disasters are even more pressing. Getty Images She added that the airport will affect the integrity of a complex Inca landscape and will cause irreparable damage due to noise, traffic and uncontrolled urbanisation. Nearly 6,000 people have signed the petition, which calls on Martin Vizcarra, the president of Peru, to reconsider the project. Currently, most visitors to Machu Picchu arrive at Cusco airport, 50 miles southeast of the ruins, and then either catch a train or bus or embark on the four-day Inca Trail to reach the site. The airport has only one runway and is limited to handling stopover flights from Perus capital, Lima, and nearby cities such as La Paz, Bolivia. But the new airport in Chinchero will be open to larger planes on international routes across Latin America and the US. The project was first announced in 2012 by Perus former president Ollanta Humala and the government plans to complete the airport by 2023. At the time, Mr Humala said the government would invest $460m (350m) in the project, not including compensation to the farming communities whose land will be seized. Announcing the project seven years ago, he said: The new airport will not only allow more tourists to come, but will also generate more jobs and will permit modernisation and added value for the surrounding communities. But critics say the airport will bring noise and air pollution to the area and put a strain on limited water sources in the region. They have also expressed concerns that planes landing and taking off from the airport would need to pass low over the nearby Ollantaytambo archaeological park. They say this could cause structural damage to the Inca ruins in the park. More than 1.5 million tourists visited Machu Picchu in 2018, which is almost double the limit recommended by Unesco. In 2017, Unesco threatened to put the citadel on its list of world heritage sites in danger, owing to the huge strain tourism puts on the fragile ruins and local ecology. Already, the Peruvian government has introduced a number of measures to curb overcrowding, including introducing strict time slots for visitors and one-way circuits around the ruins. Justin Francis, chief executive of sustainable travel company Responsible Travel, told The Telegraph that he was worried about the impact the new airport and potential increase in visitor numbers would have on Machu Picchu. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events I thought Id seen it all, he said. When we look back at what went wrong with tourism, this will be the story that sums it all up. Here, our world view that tourism growth is infinite rams up against the fact that every destination has a finite capacity, and more so a 15th-century Inca hilltop citadel. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has severed ties with the Sackler family, the billionaire family behind the addictive drug OxyContin. The Sackler family are well known for their philanthropy, having donated to museums in America and the UK for decades. On Wednesday, The Met followed the Guggenheim in New York and the Tate Museum in London in their announcement to no longer accept donations from the family. Daniel H Weiss, the president of the Met, said the the museum is not a partisan organisation, but that the current situation was exceptional. He called the OxyContin crisis in America a legitimate and full-blown crisis. The Museum of Natural History, another large recipient of Sackler donations, said on Wednesday that they would stop taking donations as well. Members of the Sackler family founded Purdue Pharma is 1952. In 1995, the company introduced OxyContin, marketed a painkiller, and downplayed its addictive properties. By 2003, the drug was bringing in $1.6b per year. Purdue Pharma has since faced numerous lawsuits. In 2007, the company paid $600m to settle charges with federal prosecutors that Purdue had downplayed the addictive properties of OxyContin. In 2015, amidst a national opioid crisis, a similar lawsuit was filed and settled with the state of Kentucky, where rates of opioid-related deaths continue to climb. In March of this year, the similarly embattled state of Pennsylvania sued Purdue for misleading advertisements as well, saying it targeted the elderly and veterans for drug use. The New York Times reported in April that Purdue sought to fight their growing number lawsuits in the public image by marketing drugs to combat addiction from OxyContin, while continuing to sell and profit from OxyContin, beginning in 2014. As the opioid crisis has taken more lives in America, pushback for the widespread acceptance of donations from the family has grown louder. In New York, the Sacklers have given substantial funds to several other organisations, including the Metropolitan Opera. Those in favour of halting donations hope to see them shunned across every organisation. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Met says that it will not change the same of the Sackler Wing, which houses the Temple of Dendur, a gift from Egypt and major attraction in the museum. In response to the donation stop, the Sackler family issued a statement that maintains that the allegations against our family are false and unfair, but accepted the Mets position. The museum takes a position of gratitude and respect to those who support us, but on occasion, we feel its necessary to step away from gifts that are not in the public interest, or in our institutions interest, Mr Weiss told the New York Times. That is what were doing here. An elementary school will no longer teach the Nazi salute during historical role play exercises after an 11-year-old student complained. One of the students parents, Keith Gamble, shared screenshots of an email his partner sent McFadden School of Excellence in Murfreesboro, Tennessee detailing the extent of students school sanctioned Nazi roleplay. Mr Gambles screenshots explain that his daughters fifth grade teacher assigned projects to the class in a segment called Living History that involved teaching students the Nazi salute, and one child portraying Adolf Hitler in a presentation. According to Mr Gamble, these actions upset his daughter, who voiced her concern during the lesson and asked her schoolmates to stop, shouting put your hands down. He writes that his daughter was removed from the classroom and sent to the principals office for being disrespectful with her tone and body language to teachers. Students later began saluting each other as Nazis on the schools playground and during classes for fun. She was reportedly given an opportunity by her teacher to voice her opinion, and then told not to bring it up again. Later, the child who played Hitler was awarded a McTony, an award for the best performance during the Living History presentations. At least four students gave a Nazi salute to the child as he received his award during an assembly. The communications for Rutherford County Schools, where McFadden school is located, told HuffPost the principal held a meeting with all fifth-graders about what had happened and to put a stop to any further instances. He said that the school will no longer teach the required fifth grade curriculum through the Living History model, thereby ending the dressing as Hitler and learning to Sieg Heil. Murfreesboro was home to an attempted neo-Nazi rally in October 2017, shortly after the successful white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a white nationalist killed activist Heather Heyer by running her over with his car. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The white nationalists cancelled the rally after thousands showed up in protest. It followed a more successful rally in a nearby town, Shelbyville, that morning, which was also met with protesters. The McFadden School has not responded to request for comment on the Living History incident. The text of Alabamas controversial new abortion ban bill explicitly compares the procedure to the Holocaust a move that has prompted outrage from Jewish activists and abortion rights groups. The bill was approved in the Alabama Senate on Tuesday night, with 25 state senators voting in favour and just six voting against. It would make performing an abortion at any stage of a pregnancy a felony, punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison for the provider. There is one exception to the ban, and that comes when a womans health would be at serious risk if the abortion were not performed. The text of the legislation which does not have exceptions for rape or incest explicitly compares abortion since the landmark passage of Roe v Wade to the slaughter of Jews during the Second World War. It reads: It is estimated that 6,000,000 Jewish people were murdered in German concentration camps during World War II; 3,000,000 people were executed by Joseph Stalin's regime in Soviet gulags; 2,500,000 people were murdered during the Chinese Great Leap Forward in 1958; 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970s; and approximately 1,000,000 people were murdered during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Show all 7 1 /7 Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Derry Girls cast members Siobhan McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan (right) join MPS and women impacted by Northern Ireland's strict abortion laws PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Heidi Allen (second right) joins the protest PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster A luggage tag on a suitcase, symbolising the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for terminations PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster The campaigners march across Westminster Bridge PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Counter-protesters Rebecca Morgan (left) and her daughter Helen, one, demonstrate in favour of Northern Ireland's current laws Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Protesters supporting Northern Ireland's abortion laws at Parliament Square Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Demonstrators pull suitcases to symbolise the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for a termination AFP/Getty Images All of these are widely acknowledged to have been crimes against humanity. By comparison, more than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973, more than three times the number who were killed in German death camps, Chinese purges, Stalin's gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined. Elisabeth Smith, chief counsel for state policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that estimates there have been more than 50 million abortions performed between 1973 and 2011, decried the text of the bill in a statement. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events It's outrageously offensive to callously use the memory of the men, women, and children who lost their lives in the [H]olocaust and other genocides to argue against women's right to self-determination, Ms Smith told CBS News in an email. She continued: The anti-abortion movement relies on hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, and medically inaccurate language to manipulate the emotions of the public. Jake Hyman, a spokesperson with the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate Jewish group, said that comparing abortion to the Holocaust breaks boundaries on decency. It belittles the memory of six million Jews and millions of others who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and misappropriates a profoundly tragic historical event for political purposes, he said. Alabama is one of several states across the US seek to introduce new legislation to impose restrictions on the abortion. Last week, Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed a heartbeat abortion bill into law, giving the state the power to sentence women to life in prison if they terminate their pregnancies after six weeks. Senators in Missouri are set to consider one of the countrys most restrictive abortion bans this week, which would effectively outlaw almost all abortions past eight weeks. Meanwhile, Michigans Republican-led legislature is set to vote on whether to outlaw a common second-trimester abortion procedure. The governor of Alabama has signed a bill banning almost all abortions - placing residents in the state on a par with people in many countries across the developing world. In a move likely to result in a legal clash with the US Supreme Court - indeed, that is the express wish of those behind the measure - Republican Kay Ivey signed the measure, a day after it was passed by the state senate amid heated and emotional scenes. The measure bans abortions, except in the case of a serious risk to the mother's health, and makes it a crime punishable by up to 99 years in jail for any doctor who performs such a procedure. To the bills many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God, Ms Ivey, 74, said in a statement issued along with an image of her signing the bill. To all Alabamians, I assure you that we will continue to follow the rule of law. The initial bill brought to the floor of the senate last week included additional exemptions for cases of incest and rape. But the bills sponsors moved to remove them, leading to angry scenes and postponing the vote until Tuesday. On Tuesday evening, the state senate voted 25-6 in favor of the bill. The lower chambers support for the measure in a vote last month had been even stronger - 74-3. Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Show all 7 1 /7 Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Derry Girls cast members Siobhan McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan (right) join MPS and women impacted by Northern Ireland's strict abortion laws PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Heidi Allen (second right) joins the protest PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster A luggage tag on a suitcase, symbolising the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for terminations PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster The campaigners march across Westminster Bridge PA Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Counter-protesters Rebecca Morgan (left) and her daughter Helen, one, demonstrate in favour of Northern Ireland's current laws Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Protesters supporting Northern Ireland's abortion laws at Parliament Square Getty Images Northern Ireland abortion protest in Westminster Demonstrators pull suitcases to symbolise the women who travel from Northern Ireland to England for a termination AFP/Getty Images Abortion rights activists condemned Ms Iveys actions as the latest step in a coordinated, nationwide strategy to push abortion out of reach of women. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved abortion bans once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. Alabama just passed a law that is a total ban on abortion, criminalizing the act and punishing women and doctors, said Ilyse Hogue, president of the group NARAL Pro-Choice America. Anti-choice Republicans no longer even pretend to respect the law or the women that it protects. When this dangerous and demeaning law passed, Republicans stood up and applauded, while women wept. Developments in places such as Alabama mean abortion rights, and the status of Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court judgement that has been used to guarantee women access to safe and legal abortion procedures, will be part of the 2020 presidential election fight. Democratic senator Vivian Davis Figures grills Republican counterpart as Alabama Senate passes a near-total abortion ban Speaking to supporters in New Hampshire, Democrat Kamala Harris said she would back a legal challenge to the Alabama bill. She also vowed to make a commitment to upholding the Roe decision a significant factor in any Supreme Court nominees she might choose as president, though she declined to go as far as presidential rival Kirsten Gillibrand, who has promised to only nominate judges ready to preserve the ruling. I respect every womans right to make a decision about what's in the best interest of herself and her family, said Ms Harris, more than 20 Democrats seeking the partys nomination. Those seeking to overturn Roe, something they believe is possible given Donald Trumps appointment to the top court of justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, believe the Alabama ban will force the court to consider the issue. Mr Trump has relied on the support of social conservatives and evangelical Christians, though many believe the true driver on this issue is vice president, Mike Pence, a longtime opponent of abortion rights. As it was, Ms Ivey admitted the measure passed in Alabama would not be enforceable as the law stood. No matter ones personal view on abortion, we can all recognise that, at least for the short term, this bill may be unenforceable. As citizens of this great country, we must always respect the authority of the US Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions, she wrote. She added: Many Americans, myself included, disagreed when Roe v Wade was handed down in 1973. The sponsors of this bill believe that it is time, once again, for the Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur. A federal judge in Washington expressed astonishment Tuesday at arguments raised by President Donald Trump's lawyers seeking to block his accounting firm from turning over years of financial records to the Democratic-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee and seemed to signal a swift ruling in favour of lawmakers. US District Judge Amit Mehta fired pointed questions at the president's lawyers, who argued in a 22 April lawsuit that the committee's sweeping subpoena to Mazars USA for the financial records of Mr Trump and various associated entities since 2011 was not "a valid exercise of legislative power." Lead Mr Trump attorney William Consovoy accused Democrats of "assuming the powers of the Department of Justice" on a partisan crusade, arguing that "this is about the House being dissatisfied with the president, and wanting to prove by any means possible that he has done things wrong." Douglas Letter, general counsel of the House of Representatives, replied that Mr Trump's claim of freedom from congressional oversight marked "a total, basic and fundamental misunderstanding" of the Constitution, saying he would pronounce Congress "a nuisance . . . getting in his way while he's trying to run the country." The hearing Tuesday was the first courtroom confrontation in a wave of legal battles waged by the president to shield his personal finances from investigators, including congressional Democrats, state lawmakers and regulators. Several fights are asking judges to weigh in on the constitutional separation of power between coequal executive and legislative branches. Judge Mehta asked: "Say a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?" (File photo) (DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images) Mr Mehta, a 2014 appointee of President Barack Obama, challenged some of Mr Trump's assertions in questions to his legal team. "Is it your position that whether the president has properly reported his finances (under federal disclosure laws), that's not subject to investigation by Congress?" Mr Mehta asked. "Say a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?" Mr Mehta asked, continuing, what if "we're talking about a presidential violation of a constitutional prohibition that only Congress has authority to approve?" such as the acceptance for emoluments or gifts from a foreign government. Mr Consovoy answered yes, saying determining whether a president properly disclosed his finances was a "pure law enforcement function," not a matter for Congress, whose fundamental duty he said is in writing bills. And if Congress did seek to enact legislation, whether to tighten ethics requirements, fight public corruption or enforce a constitutional prohibition on acceptance of foreign emoluments, Mr Consovoy said, "I don't think there is any permutation of any of these proposals that could pass constitutional muster," because they would interfere with the president's execution of his duties, or add qualifications for his office. Donald Trump on the Green New Deal: 'That's a hoax like the hoax I just went through' "There's not a single Supreme Court or appellate case since 1880 that has found Congress overstepped its legislative authority by issuing a subpoena," Mr Mehta observed at another point. The lawsuit in Washington was brought by Mr Trump and several of his businesses against House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and Mr Trump's accounting firm Mazars USA. Congressional Democrats accuse Mr Trump of trying to stonewall lawmakers' oversight until after the 2020 election, while the president's team counters that it will not tolerate a campaign of "congressional presidential harassment." Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Show all 13 1 /13 Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Looking out of the lobby of Trump Tower Philo Ratio Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property A view of the atrium of Trump Tower Sebastian Bergmann Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Trump tower from across Fifth Avenue S.F. Roberti Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property A view of the atrium inside Trump Tower Julian Stallabrass Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property A counter selling Trump merchandise including his 1987 book The Art of the Deal Takahiro Nagao Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property The Ivanka Trump jewellery shop inside Trump Tower Reuters Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property The waterfall in the atrium of Trump Tower Alistair McMillan Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property The atrium of Trump Tower featuring a Starbucks outlet Fletcher Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property A doorman stands by the lobby elevator in Trump Tower Reuters Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Donald Trump merchandise for sale in a gift shop of Trump Tower Reuters Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Trump merchandise on display by the entrance to a bar named after Trump in Trump Tower Reuters Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property Shoppers and diners in the atrium of Trump Tower AFP/Getty Inside Trump Tower: New York's least desirable luxury property A view up Trump Tower Getty Mr Mehta gave both sides until Saturday to file any additional submissions and promised a ruling "promptly, consistent with the gravity of the issues" involving the balancing of powers between Congress and a president. Mr Mehta did not say when he would rule, but he noted that a different House panel, the Financial Services Committee, is set to appear in federal court in Manhattan on May 22 to defend other subpoenas for Mr Trump's bank records issued to Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial. Mr Trump and his three eldest children and companies have sued to quash the subpoenas. Mr Mehta said at the end of Tuesday's 80-minute hearing that he would also make clear in his opinion whether he would stay a subpoena, if he upholds it, to give the president time to appeal. Mr Mehta also questioned aspects of the House's legal arguments, asking whether Congress was claiming blanket authority to investigate matters by claiming a duty to "inform the public." "It really does open the door to the accusation, perhaps valid or not, that this really is an effort - if not to harass the president - then to get into his private affairs for political purposes, if there is no clear line as to what this investigation is about," Mr Mehta said. "How do I draw lines to test, even if it's a soft test, the validity of what you're doing? " Letter said Congress' function to "inform the public" about the president is a valid basis for the subpoena, citing past investigations into the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the origins of the Iraq War and former President Bill Clinton's Whitewater land dealings. But he said the House also had obvious legislative purposes to oversee the function of laws governing the financial disclosure of public officials and avoidance of conflicts of interests, the handling of presidential records and the prevention of foreign governments holding hidden financial influence over American elected officials. "We need to know that," Letter argued. "We need to know, is the president of the United States beholden to foreign interests, because they can hold things over his head?" Pressed by Mr Mehta to come up with some hypothetical demand by Congress that would go too far, Letter speculated. "I want to see the president's diary when he was 7 years old, or when she was 12 years old. That would probably stretch my argument to the breaking point." Cummings' panel last month subpoenaed Mazars, seeking documents to corroborate testimony by the president's former lawyer Michael Cohen, who said at a congressional hearing that Mr Trump intentionally misreported the value of his assets for personal gain. Other House panels have requested Mr Trump's banking records and tax returns, while his company also faces enquiries from New York state regulators and is defending itself in two lawsuits alleging that the company violates the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments. Mazars attorney Henry Schuelke has said the firm took no position on the case. The Washington Post As the Trump administration draws up war plans against Iran over what it says are threats to US troops and interests, a senior British military official told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he saw no increased risk from Iran or allied militias in Iraq or Syria. A few hours later, the US Central Command issued an unusual rebuke. The remarks from the British official Major General Chris Ghika, who is also the deputy commander of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region. The rare public dispute highlights a central problem for the Trump administration as it seeks to rally allies and global opinion against Iran. Over the past year, Washington has said Iran is threatening US interests in the Middle East, encouraging aggression by Shiite militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, shipping missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen and allowing its naval forces to behave belligerently in the Persian Gulf. All are concerns that have been levelled against Iranian forces for years. Revolution in Iran: In pictures Show all 11 1 /11 Revolution in Iran: In pictures Revolution in Iran: In pictures A demonstration against the Shah in 1979 Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Armed women on guard in one of the main squares in Tehran at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Demonstrators hold a poster of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in January 1979, in Tehran, during a demonstration against the Shah AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Iranian rebels pose with a U.S. flag they bayonetted upside down on trees at Sultanabad Garrison northeast of Tehran on February 12 2019 AP Revolution in Iran: In pictures A gun battle in Khorramshahr during the revolution, 1979 Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters demonstrate in the streets of Tehran against the Shah among tear gas. The "black friday" caused the death of 200 people according to the Iranian government, 2000 according to the opposition, September 8 1978 AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Women wearing the traditional Chador demonstrate in the streets of Tehran against the Shah on September 7 1978 AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Demonstrators in Tehran calling for the replacement of the Shah of Iran during the Iranian Revolution, 1979. They carry placards depicting Ayatollah Mahmoud Talaghani, one of the leading revolutionaries Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters demonstrate in the streets of Tehran against the Shah. The "black friday" caused the death of 200 people according to the Iranian government, 2000 according to the opposition, September 8 1978 AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Thousands of the Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters on the streets of Tehran calling for the religious leader's return in January 1979 Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures The Iranian Islamic Republic Army demonstrates in solidarity with people in the street during the Iranian revolution. They are carrying posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian religious and political leader Getty We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because of the environment we are in, Mr Ghika said. But he said, No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria. Intelligence and military officials in Europe as well as in the United States said that over the past year, most aggressive moves have originated not in Tehran, but in Washington where John Bolton, the national security adviser, has prodded President Donald Trump into backing Iran into a corner. One U.S. official said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was small stuff and did not merit the military planning being driven by Mr Bolton. The official also said the ultimate goal of the yearlong economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States. Since May 2018, the Trump administration has withdrawn from the major powers agreement that curbed Irans nuclear program, reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran, demanded that allies choose between Iranian oil and doing business in the U.S. market, and declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organisation. Donald Trump on the Green New Deal: 'That's a hoax like the hoax I just went through' And on Tuesday, the State Department appeared on the verge of ordering a partial evacuation of the US Embassy in Baghdad as a heightened security measure, according to people familiar with the plans. The anti-Iran push has proved difficult even among the allies, which remember a similar campaign against Iraq that was led in part by Mr Bolton and was fuelled by false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos efforts this week to recruit European countries to back the administrations steely posture on Iran are being received coolly. Federica Mogherini, the European Unions foreign affairs chief, called for maximum restraint after meeting on Monday in Brussels with Mr Pompeo, a proponent of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Iraqi officials said they were sceptical of the US intelligence that Mr Pompeo presented last week on a surprise trip to Baghdad. Mr Pompeo said the threat was to US facilities and military personnel in Iraq. In September, Trump administration officials blamed Shiite militias with ties to Iran for firing a few rockets into the area near the US Embassy in Baghdad and the US Consulate in Basra. There were no injuries, but Mr Pompeo ordered the Basra Consulate closed. Privately, several European officials described Mr Bolton and Mr Pompeo as pushing an unsusnewpecting Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realises it. While Trump has made no secret of his reluctance to engage in another military conflict in the Middle East, and has ordered US troops home from Syria, his secretary of state and his national security adviser have pushed a maximalist hard-line approach on Iran. Mr Bolton, in particular, has repeatedly called for US military strikes against Tehran. Officials said Trump was aware that Mr Boltons instinctual approach to Iran could lead to war; aides suggested that the presidents own aversion to drawn-out overseas conflicts would be the best hope of putting the brakes on military escalation. A spokesman for Mr Bolton declined to comment. The Trump administration is looking at plans to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack US forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported. On Tuesday, Trump dismissed that as fake news. We have not planned for that, he told reporters. But he immediately added, If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Some of the presidents critics accept that Iran continues to engage in what US officials call malign behaviour, be it in Yemen, Syria or the Palestinian territories. But they blamed the administration for aggravating the standoff with Tehran.. This is a crisis that has entirely been manufactured by the Trump administration, said Vali Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He pointed to Trumps decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, coupled with the administrations failure to get any other nations to do so. None of the other signatories to the deal were persuaded by the case the U.S. was making, Nasr said. And that is because this administrations policy on Iran, at a fundamental level, does not have credibility. That lack of trust has proved to be a major obstacle in convincing allies that Iranian behaviour in the region warrants military action. And while acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has carefully cultivated a more acquiescent stance to Mr Boltons demands than did his predecessor, Jim Mattis, many military officials and congressional representatives worry about the escalating tensions. Mr Mattis had balked at Mr Boltons request for military options against Iran after the rockets landed on US. Embassy grounds in Baghdad. Mr Bolton did the same with President George W. Bush and Iraq, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., an Iraq War veteran, said in a statement last week. As someone sent four times to that misguided war, I have seen the costs of Mr Boltons disastrous foreign policy in a way he never will firsthand, and at the loss of thousands of American lives. One big worry is that the Trump administration has issued the most expansive type of warning to Iran, without drawing specific red lines. That has increased the chance of a military conflict over misinterpretations and miscalculations. In a statement this month, Mr Bolton outlined vague terms of what appeared to be conditions for military engagement, responding to what he said were troubling and escalatory indications and warnings. He said any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. And he warned that the Trump administration was fully prepared to respond to any attack by the Iranian military or a proxy one of the Middle Easts many Shiite militias that are supported by Iran. Recommended US claims of Iran threat to coalition forces rejected by UK general Those militias often do not operate under direct command-and-control from Iran, and they have varying levels of allegiance to the Iran military. In Yemens civil war, the Houthis are Shiite rebels who oppose a government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Sunni nations. The Houthis ties to Iran are murky. But the Trump administration labels the rebels as Iranian proxies, and Mr Boltons statement left open the possibility that a Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia or the UAE both US allies could set off a US military assault against Iran. The hard-line tactics against Iran could backfire in two ways, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. If the sanctions crush its economy, then Iran could act with less restraint, he said. And if the sanctions do not work well, then some US officials will advocate military action, a move that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likely to support. There will be people in Washington who will push for limited kinetic action against the Iranian regime to cut it down to size, he said. In statements, Iranian leaders have reacted with both belligerence and diplomatic restraint to a series of US actions that they see as provocative. In a tweet Tuesday, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, ridiculed Mr Bolton and three anti-Iran foreign leaders in the Middle East as a B Team. In interviews in April, I predicted accidents not because Im a genius but because #B_Team is so brazenly following @AmbJohnBoltons script, Zarif said. After all, half of B-Team were co-conspirators in disastrous Iraq war. The New York Times Close Donald Trump on the Green New Deal: 'That's a hoax like the hoax I just went through' Donald Trump has been accused of playing a very dangerous game with Iran and risking dragging the US into a new war in the Middle East that could have devastating consequences. The warning came from Hamid Baeidinejad, Irans ambassador to the UK, with the acting US defence secretary Patrick Shanahan tabling plans to send 120,000 troops to the region if needed as tensions soar between the two nations over economic sanctions and an increased American military presence in the Persian Gulf. A commander of Irans Revolutionary Guards, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, later warned the nation is on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy. Meanwhile, President Trump has signed an executive order declaring a national emergency that will ban American companies from using telecommunications equipment made by foreign firms posing a national security risk to the US. The move thought to be aimed at Chinas Huawei comes as tensions flare between the two countries, with Beijing and Washington failing to find consensus on trade and tariffs after months of negotiations. Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies Show all 7 1 /7 Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies Doctors and mothers killing babies At a rally in Wisconsin in April 2019, Mr Trump made this extraordinary claim. The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, Mr Trump said. They wrap the baby beautifully and then the doctor and the mother decide whether they will execute the baby Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "China rapes our country" At a rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 2016, Mr Trump said this in reference to the US trade deficit with China: "we cant continue to allow China to rape our country and thats what theyre doing. Its the greatest theft in the history of the world" Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "EU formed to take advantage of US" At a rally for the midterm elections in October 2018, Mr Trump called the EU a "brutal" alliance that "formed to take advantage of us" AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "I will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it" Mr Trump first made this claim at the launch of his presidential campaign back in 2015: "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words" AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "Horrible, horrendous people" At a Republican rally in Pennsylvania on August 3 2018, President Trump deemed all journalists in attendance "horrible, horrendous people". He later denounced the "fake, fake, disgusting news" for falsely reporting that he was late to his meeting with the Queen when visiting Britain AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" Mr Trump said this in reference to his popularity during a rally in Iowa in 2016 AFP/Getty Most shocking remarks made by Trump at campaign rallies "I wish I could punch him" Mr Trump said this in reference to a protester who was escorted out of his rally in Las Vegas on 22 February, 2016. There was often violence between protesters and supporters at Trump's campaign rallies AFP/Getty In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the emergency declaration by the president ispart of his commitment to protecting the information and communications technology and services of our Nation. In the latest US immigration news, the Trump administration is planning to redirect Transportation Security Administration staff to the Mexico border, the TSA said Wednesday. TSA, like all DHS components, is supporting the DHS effort to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border. TSA is in the process of soliciting volunteers to support this effort while minimising operational impact, TSA spokesman James Gregory said in a statement. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The announcement came as Donald Trump spoke at the annual Peace Officers Memorial Service in Washington DC, where he denounced illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) Air transport regulator Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) will not fine Cebu Pacific over massive flight cancelations since April as it found that the budget airline addressed the concerns of affected passengers properly. Affected passengers' concerns were found to be handled properly by Cebu Pacific in compliance with the Air Passenger Bill of Rights. Thus, imposition of penalties was not considered at present, the Department of Transportation said Wednesday in a statement. Instead of meting out a penalty, the CAB recommended that Cebu Pacific be given a stern warning to exercise diligence necessary in maintaining stability and reliability of air transport service to the riding public. It also ordered Cebu Pacific to submit a concrete plan stating measures it will undertake to prevent further inconvenience to passengers. We are hoping that Cebu Pacific will immediately comply with the order to resolve this issue. Hindi na natin maibabalik pa yung dinulot na [We wont be able to compensate for the] inconvenience these cancellations have caused. But moving forward, we aim to have more substantial actions so that our passengers will not have to suffer, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said. The CAB said Cebu Pacific had to cancel flights as its aircrafts take around 49 to 66 minutes before taking off. It is not clear what exactly is causing these up to hour-long delays, with CAB only saying that the budget carrier assured it that whatever is causing these is largely within its internal operational sphere. Cebu Pacific told CAB that the decline of its on-time performance prompted it to cancel flights to "create space" in their flight and crew inventory, "make way for operational recovery" and "minimize rolling delays." CAB found that Cebu Pacific had a crewing problem, as the additional time spent by on-duty crew on the tarmac consumes working hours and reserves that were supposed to be used at a much later schedule. Cebu Pacific canceled 172 one-way domestic flights, or around 14 flights a day, from April 28 to May 10 due to an unprecedented level of disruption. This hit over 23,000 passengers. This prompted the Transportation department to probe the massive flight cancelations last May 2 and May 6. The budget carrier has been slapped with a P52-million fine in 2015. CAB imposed a P5,000 fine for each of the 10,400 passengers affected by cancelations. CNN Philippines Correspondent Makoi Popioco contributed to this report. Germanys leading far-right party is looking to make electoral gains by embracing climate change denial, and is increasingly targeting teenage activist Greta Thunberg as it seeks to paint global warming as a lie. Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) this week teamed up with climate change sceptics who claim hysteria is driving environmentalism to hold a conference in parliament attacking climate science. The event on Tuesday followed a surge in social media posts on the subject, including hundreds this year alone that mention Ms Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl. The AfD has been vocal about its rejection of global warming since entering the German Bundestag in 2017, claiming that increasingly religious climate-related hysteria threatens German prosperity. But an investigation by Greenpeaces Unearthed project and counter-extremism think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found there had been a surge in digital communication focusing on the issue over the past year. AfD Facebook posts have mentioned climate change 930 times in the last 12 months, compared to 75 times in the year from April 2016 and 222 in the following year. "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change Show all 38 1 /38 "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 Reuters "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Magdeburg, Germany on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cape Town, South Africa on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in New York on March 15 AFP/Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Madrid on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Quezon City, Philippines on March 15 Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Vienna on March 15 AFP/Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Dublin on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Canterbury, Kent on march 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Erfurt, Germany on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Zagreb, Croatia on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lisbon on March 15 Reuters "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Edinburgh on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Florence, Italy on March 15 Sign reads: there is no future without a planet, let's not sell it for money EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Vienna on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Brighton on March 15 Reuters "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cambridge on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change Students protest in Bangalore, India on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cape Town, South Africa on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change Students protest in Bangalore, India on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change A student protests in Lucerne, Switzerland on 15 March EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 AFP/Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Milan, Italy on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 AFP/Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lund, Sweden on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change A poster with Greta Thunberg, who began the current children's movement at the protest in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cape Town, South Africa on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Canterbury, Kent on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Canterbury, Kent on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh Getty Ms Thunberg, who has become one of the most recognisable faces of climate activism since initiating the school strike movement last year, has been cited in nearly two-thirds of those. She was mentioned in 384 posts by AfD accounts in March and 243 last month, according to ISD data. Other far-right organisations have also taken aim at Ms Thunberg, depicting her as a fraud and mocking her for having Aspergers syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. Tatjana Festerling, a former leader of the anti-Islam group Pegida, called the teenager mentally retarded in a social media post in February. AfD candidates in this months European parliament elections, in which the party is expected to make significant gains, have suggested Ms Thunberg should seek treatment for psychosis and compared her to Nazi youth. Jakob Guhl, extremism researcher at ISD, said: While the AFD has not shifted its position, the party has decided to communicate it more frequently. The emergence of Greta Thunberg as a public figure provided them with a welcome target to communicate their position in a way more appropriate to the dynamics of social media. The fact that many mainstream politicians, in particular from the AfDs key political opponent, the Greens, but also CSU [Christian Social Union] candidates such as Manfred Weber, supported a 16-year-old female activist who was virtually unknown until a few months ago, allowed the party to present belief in climate change as irrational, hysteria, panic, cult-like or even as a replacement religion. Attacking Greta, at times in fairly vicious ways, including mocking her for her autism, became a way to portray the AfDs political opponents as irrational. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg tells Extinction Rebellion supporters 'humanity is at a crossroads' Researchers said there was evidence to suggest AfDs increased focus on climate change was being fuelled by groups with links to US conservatives. Tuesdays event in Berlin was supported by the European Institute for Climate and Energy (Eike), which describes evidence of manmade global warming as fraud and rejects the need for action. Speakers included Gernot Patzelt, an Austrian glaciologist who describes climate science as scaremongering, and Christopher Monckton, a British Lord and former Ukip candidate who denies global warming. German magazine Der Spiegel has reported on Eike working closely with AfD. Eikes deputy president, Michael Limburg, once ran for election for AfD and wrote a paper for the partys federal committee on energy policy. Der Spiegel also noted connections between Eike and the Heartland Institute, a US think thank which has worked to undermine climate science and has previously received funding from American oil company ExxonMobil. Hamas officials said they ordered protesters away from border fences and urged restraint on the annual commemoration of Nakba Day (Day of the Catastrophe), to protect a tense truce with Israel that is hosting thousands of foreigners for the Eurovision Song Contest. At least 10,000 Palestinian people gathered at various points along the flashpoint border regions for the anniversary of when at least 700,000 were expelled or fled their homes during the 1948 war which surrounded the creation of Israel. Last year Israeli forces killed 60 Palestinians at similar rallies, which also coincided with President Donald Trumps controversial decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thereby recognising the contested city as Israels capital. Just two weeks ago, Israel and Gaza teetered on the brink of war after militants in the Strip fired 700 rockets at Israel, which responded by pounding some 350 targets in Gaza. Egypt brokered a fragile ceasefire, just ahead of the start of Eurovision in Tel Aviv amid fears a war would threatened thousands of foreign visitors flying into Tel Aviv for the competition. On Wednesday in Gaza small clashes erupted along the fortified wall, leaving 65 injured, including 16 with gunshot wounds. However most avoided approaching the fence. Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures Show all 5 1 /5 Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures Tamer al-Wakeel lived with his family in the building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on 5 May Bel Trew/The Independent Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures Tamer al-Wakeel stands among the ruins of his family home which was destroyed in an Israeli airstirke on 5 May Bel Trew/The Independent Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures A man clambers among the rubble of a building that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on 5 May Bel Trew/The Independent Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures A man stands among the rubble of a building that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on 5 May Bel Trew/The Independent Family home destroyed in strikes on Gaza: in pictures The rubble of a building that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on 5 May Bel Trew/The Independent Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, the militant group that runs the Strip, told The Independent that they wanted to stop any actions that could threaten the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire as long as the Israelis respected it. Today we asked people to stay in a safe area, away from the fence, and not to do anything provocative security officers were scattered around to ensure this, he said beside the border protests. This has no relation to Eurovision for us, but we are concerned about the safety and security of our civilians right now, he added. Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas figure, told AFP at the same protest site east of Gaza City that the truce understandings played a role in controlling the demonstrations on Wednesday. A fire broke out on the Israeli side after kites with firebombs attached to them were launched over the border but otherwise the quiet held. Palestinians carry a wounded youth during the clashes near the border between Israel and the eastern Gaza Strip, 15 May 2019 (EPA) Nearly 300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since regular protests began in March 2018. Six Israelis have been killed in Gaza-related violence over the same time period. There were fears that this years Nakba protests would see another surge in violence. At Wednesdays protests, most were too young to remember 1948 but one elderly man, who was was a young boy at that time, recounted the sudden flood of people fleeing the fighting. He said his family had agricultural land just south of Ashkelon. I remember all these people, scared and terrified, thinking they were just leaving their homes for a little bit, Hamdy Matar, 80, told The Independent from a protest tent set up back from the border with Israel. After a while many attempted to go back home to pick up their belongings but were killed. My father was killed trying to go back to harvest his vegetables, and so we have never been back to our lands, he added. Despite needing to move in a wheelchair or crutches Mr Matar said he joined every one of the regular protests which have been held every week. I come here every Friday, because I would like to go home before I die. Right now, under blockade living in Gaza is the worst, he said. Sitting behind him Abu Khalil, 71, said he was just four months old when his family fled a similar area between Erez, which is now the border with Gaza, and Ashkelon. An Israeli fireman extinguishes a fire in a burning field next to Kibbutz Beeri, reportedly caused by inflammable material attached to kites and flown across the border to Israel from the Gaza Strip on 15 May 2019 (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images) We lived in these mud-brick houses at first before we finally went to a beach [refugee] camp, where we have lived ever since, he said. My father told me the story about our home, which I pass on to my children, and this is what these protests are doing preserving that memory, he added. To mark Nakba in the West Bank, protesters in the city of Ramallah held up giant paper keys to symbolise the keys to their homes they were expelled from or were forced to abandon, now located inside Israel. Israels military said in a statement that around 10,000 rioters and demonstrators were along the Gaza fence, and that some were setting tyres on fire and hurling rocks. A number of explosive devices have been hurled within the Gaza Strip as well, and a number of attempts have been made to approach the security fence. The statement said its troops were responding with riot-dispersal means. Armed groups defending Libyas capital from an offensive by Egyptian and Emirati-backed warlord Khalifa Haftar have obtained drones for the first time and begun to deploy them along the front lines, a senior official told The Independent. Khaled al-Meshri, president of Libyas High Council, confirmed in an interview that the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord had obtained unmanned drones in the last few days and modified them to counter the devastating effect of Mr Haftars war planes and aerial surveillance capabilities. Yes, we have drones, he said. Our aerial capacity has gotten better. The logic is overwhelming here, that the more time goes, the better we get. We didnt expect this war. Mr Haftar, a self-declared field marshal has rallied an army and established control over eastern and southern Libya. He stunned international observers and surprised even some of his own backers by launching an offensive on 4 April to take control of the capital, Tripoli. The city is the seat of the United Nations-backed authority that governs much of the countrys west and is recognised by the world as the countrys legal government. Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Screengrab from a video published on the LNAs War Information Divisions Facebook page on 16 April shows a fighter running while firing a machine gun reportedly in a southern suburb of Tripoli AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Smoke rising from an airstrike behind a tank belonging to forces loyal to Libyas Government of National Accord during clashes in the Tripoli suburb of Wadi Rabie AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Fighters loyal to the government run for cover during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftarsouth of the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara, on 25 April 2019 AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Forces loyal to the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) take aim during clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar south of the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara on 23 April 2019 AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures A displaced Libyan family, who fled their house because of the fighting in Tripoli, sits at the industrial complex, which is used as a shelter, in the capital on 16 April 2019 Reuters Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures A technical (pickup truck mounted with a turret) firing reportedly during clashes with forces loyal to Libya's UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli on 24 April 2019 AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Government forces look out from a destroyed building in the Khallat Farjan area of Tripoli on 20 April 2019 Reuters Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures A Libyan fighter loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA) fires a machine gun during clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar south of the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara, on 10 April 2019 AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Two men stand at the scene of an overnight rocket attack, which no group claimed responsibility for so far, in the Libyan capital of Tripoli on April 17 Photos AFP/Getty Battle for Tripoli: In Pictures Libyan National Army members, commanded by Khalifa Haftar, head out of Benghazi to reinforce the troops advancing to Tripoli on April 7 2019 Reuters The war, now on Tripolis outskirts, has turned into a battlefield stalemate, with back-and-forth mortars and rocket barrages inflicting casualties and destroying buildings but barely changing the front around 10 miles from the centre of the capital of 3 million. Nearly 500 people have been killed and at least 2,150 wounded. Some 70,000 people have been displaced. Mr Meshri, a former member of the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation considered an ideological enemy by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, said his government was focused on defending the capital and dislodging Mr Haftars forces from his strongholds in the cities of Tarhouna and Garyan, south of the capital. If we push him out of Tarhouna and Garyan, the war is over, hell lose even in the east, he said in an interview, held in a suite in a Tripoli hotel that doubles as a government office. Avoiding the bluster of many Libyan officials and military commanders, he was tempered about the capabilities of the collection of armed groups that make up the GNA force. The most powerful are the brigades from Misrata, the Libyan port city which bore the brunt of the 2011 war against former dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the 2016 war to dislodge Isis from the city of Sirte. Fighters loyal to the government run for cover during clashes with Khalifa Haftar forces (AFP/Getty Images) (AFP/Getty) It is difficult to say that Haftar is retreating, but we can say that he didnt achieve the goals he aspired to, said Mr Meshri, who serves as the equivalent of speaker of parliament for the GNA. We can say that the GNA forces have succeeded in foiling Haftars offensive. The next phase is the GNA advancing in terms of military tactics. Drones obtained by the GNA force will likely be a crucial part of those tactics. Mr Haftars surveillance drones scour the skies over GNA positions at night, followed by airstrikes that have destroyed military vehicles, inflicted casualties, and occasionally struck civilians. The Independent spotted at least one GNA drone in a box. You know the drones you can buy on Amazon? Thats the ones were talking about, said one fighter, downplaying their impact. Theres a guy who gets them. And some people who modify them. Mohamed Eljarh, a noted Libyan analyst, cited reports of unscheduled flights between Turkey and Misrata and speculated that the drones were given by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a staunch supporter of the GNA. Some of the fighters on the ground also hinted that the drones came from a foreign ally. The GNA forces have been struggling to get weapons, despite a UN arms embargo imposed on Libya that the UAE and Egypt do not seem to be honouring. Tripoli and Misrata officials say that though their allies in Turkey and Qatar provide media and diplomatic support, theyve been reluctant to help with weapon shipments. Mr Haftars forces have obtained Russian-made Tigr armoured vehicles that cant be stopped by rocket-propelled grenades. Libyan officials are seeking to procure weapons to counter both the drones and the vehicles. A fighter, thought to be in a southern suburb of Tripoli, runs while firing a machine gun (AFP/Getty) They only need guns for the drones and the Tigr armoured vehicles, said Jamal Abdul Motaeleb, a former adviser to the foreign ministry who is now a political analyst. Qatar has offered to pay for them. But it has said it cant send them directly, and that best thing to do is to buy them via the black market. Mr Meshri said weapons procurement was a priority for the GNA, noting that during the 2011 war against Gaddafi some of the rebel brigades in Misrata retrofitted factories to make their own weapons and military vehicles. We could buy weapons through the Libyan black market, we could exchange for better weapons, he said. There are many other ways. Send us a pick-up truck and we can modify it just like we modified them during the 2011 war. Major General Ghika speaks as a military officer in the US-led Coalition focused on the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. His comments are based on the day-to-day military operations and his sole focus is the enduring defeat of Daesh. He made clear in his Pentagon briefing that 'there are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in this part of the world. There always have been, that is why we have a very robust range of force protection measures'. The UK has long been clear about our concerns over Iran's destabilising behaviour in the region The US State Department have ordered all non-emergency government staff to urgently leave Iraq amid escalating tensions with neighbouring Iran, as Germany and the Netherlands both suspended military training operations in the country. An alert published on the US embassy in Iraqs website said employees nationwide should depart as soon as possible and avoid American facilities in the country. It followed a warning over the weekend that advised Americans to avoid travelling to Iraq because of heightened tensions in the region. Now, non-emergency government employees posted at both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil have been ordered to leave by the State Department, which said that visa services at both posts had been suspended and the US government had a limited ability to provide emergency services to its citizens in Iraq. Without elaborating, a spokesperson said the decision to withdraw staff was based on a security assessment. He would not give details on how many personnel were leaving Iraq. Revolution in Iran: In pictures Show all 11 1 /11 Revolution in Iran: In pictures Revolution in Iran: In pictures A demonstration against the Shah in 1979 Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Armed women on guard in one of the main squares in Tehran at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Demonstrators hold a poster of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in January 1979, in Tehran, during a demonstration against the Shah AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Iranian rebels pose with a U.S. flag they bayonetted upside down on trees at Sultanabad Garrison northeast of Tehran on February 12 2019 AP Revolution in Iran: In pictures A gun battle in Khorramshahr during the revolution, 1979 Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters demonstrate in the streets of Tehran against the Shah among tear gas. The "black friday" caused the death of 200 people according to the Iranian government, 2000 according to the opposition, September 8 1978 AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Women wearing the traditional Chador demonstrate in the streets of Tehran against the Shah on September 7 1978 AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Demonstrators in Tehran calling for the replacement of the Shah of Iran during the Iranian Revolution, 1979. They carry placards depicting Ayatollah Mahmoud Talaghani, one of the leading revolutionaries Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters demonstrate in the streets of Tehran against the Shah. The "black friday" caused the death of 200 people according to the Iranian government, 2000 according to the opposition, September 8 1978 AFP/Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures Thousands of the Ayatollah Khomeini's supporters on the streets of Tehran calling for the religious leader's return in January 1979 Getty Revolution in Iran: In pictures The Iranian Islamic Republic Army demonstrates in solidarity with people in the street during the Iranian revolution. They are carrying posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian religious and political leader Getty Ensuring the safety of US government personnel and citizens is our highest priority and we are confident in the Iraqi security services [ability] to protect us, he added. But this threat is serious and we want to reduce the risk of harm. Other countries did not follow suit. The UK has not moved to reduce its staff numbers, although foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said earlier this week that the British government was very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict. What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking. Maria Adebahr, a spokesperson for Germanys foreign ministry said the country had not reduced its staff in either Iraq or Iran, while in the Netherlands, state broadcaster NOS said its 50-person military mission in Iraq was halted until further orders. It quoted a Defence Ministry spokesperson as saying he couldnt elaborate on the threats. Washington said last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces targeting Americans and US interests in the region, prompting fears in Tehran that the US was edging closer to war. The American military last week deployed an aircraft carrier and warplanes to the Gulf, and announced it would also install an air defence missile system in the region a show of force Iran has called psychological warfare. Tensions escalated further when the US blamed Tehran or its allies for damage to four oil tankers off the United Arab Emirates. Washington has not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat, and a British general has expressed scepticism over the need for the American military buildup in the Middle East. Major General Chris Ghika, a senior British officer in the US-backed coalition fighting Isis, said: No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we dont see any increased threat from any of them at this stage. But US Central Command, in a rare rebuke of an allied military officer, said his remarks ran counter to the identified credible threats from Iran-backed forces. [The coalition] is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq, it added in a statement. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Donald Trump earlier denied a report that his administration was considering sending 120,000 troops to the Middle East. But the US president then stirred the controversy further by saying: Would I do that? Absolutely. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state and Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei have both stressed they do not want war. House speaker Nancy Pelosi has also said that the US must avoid war with Iran and she declared the White House has no business moving towards a confrontation without approval from congress. Ms Pelosis remarks to members of her Democratic Party came amid growing concerns in congress over Mr Trumps approach to Iran. Senior congressional leaders are expected to receive a classified briefing from the administration later this week but Ms Pelosi said the administration had resisted a wider briefing for all politicians and congressional requests for more information. A Trump administration official said a recent small meeting of national security officials was not focussed on a military approach to Iran, but instead concentrated on a range of other policy options, including diplomacy and economic sanctions. Mr Trump has stepped up sanctions pressure on Tehran by ending waivers for some countries to purchase Iranian oil part of efforts to roll back the Islamic Republics expanding regional clout. There were not many Russian celebrities or politicians who escaped Galina Kmits lens. The photojournalist shot just about everything in her beloved motherland, from Kamchatka in the far east to beyond the Arctic Circle. When working, Kmit, with her unswerving ambition, was easily recognisable by her multicoloured, tightly tied bandanas and voguish oversized glasses. If I need something, Ill definitely get it, she said. Many people call me paparazzi. I do not think this is bad. Paparazzi is a person professionally performing their duties. Another thing is ethics and journalism. I can take pictures, but I cant publish everything. Born in Soviet Ukraine in 1931, Kmit (nee Radysh), was the daughter of scriptwriter and journalist Vasyl Radysh. They moved to Moscow in her early years, where she grew up to love theatre and cinema. When she turned 17, she went on to study drama in the Russian capital. While studying, she met and fell in love with Soviet theatre and film actor Leonid Kmit, who was 23 years her senior. Together, they would go on to have a daughter, Irina. The young actress also became the stepmother of Inna, Leonid Kmits daughter from his first marriage, who was just a few months younger than her. In a 2009 interview, she said her stepdaughter an actress herself as well as a novelist and journalist also became a friend, and they attended many parties and dances together. Decades later she would say how hard it was for her to see her career sidelined by having to take care of a family. She spoke candidly about her tumultuous personal life at the beginning of her career; about Leonid Kmits Othellian jealousy; and about her affair with actor Nikolai Gritsenko, with whom she had a son. They decided to raise their son Denis together with Leonid Kmit; he gave the child his last name and raised him as his own. Galina Kmit soon took a job as a correspondent at the Moscow-based daily newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. However, the camera gradually supplanted the pen. One day she asked Alexander Pasteur, an influential journalist on the Russian cultural scene, for some career advice. He answered: Oh Galina, if only you could shoot! And these were the words that would change her life. She would go on to shoot Mikhail Kozakov as Hamlet and was soon offered a job at the now-defunct Spark magazine. The photographer said: In my youth, I was shooting everything. But in adulthood, I switched to the theatre, cinema, actors, directors. For 30 years she worked at the Novosti news agency, which was the leading information and press body of Soviet public organisations. During her career, she shot national and international public figures, from the likes of French stars Gerard Depardieu and Alain Delon, to the eminent Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov and the prolific actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov. As active as she was in her photography career, her dream of becoming an actress would eventually be realised. She landed roles in three films: Russkoye Pole (1972), Rol (1993) and Ka-ka-du (1993). Over the years, Kmit built up a collection of pictures of public figures, which she decided to compile and exhibit in 2000. She devised two world-touring shows called These Magnificent Men and My Rivals; the former depicting only famous men and the latter depicting only famous women. At the time of her death, Kmit lived in an apartment in Moscow. The cause of death is still unknown and, having been widowed in 1982, she is survived only by her daughter Irina and son Denis. Galina Kmit, photographer, born 16 December 1931, died 20 April 2019 Either a country believes in human rights, or it does not. It is a binary, absolute commitment. The new defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, however, has confirmed that the UK will opt in and out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), depending on whether it is at war. In doing so, she has revived a proposal made by Theresa May in 2016, who announced that the government will adopt a presumption that it will take advantage of a right to suspend aspects of the ECHR at times of war. The point is an obvious one. Human rights are not just for peacetime. It is precisely when countries feel themselves in danger, where its citizens or allies lie in jeopardy, and when its armed forces are in action that human rights are also at risk. Imagine, for example, if Russia just declared that whatever limited commitment they have to human rights would be suspended for the duration of an occupation of eastern Ukraine. And that we then discovered, quite precisely, that atrocities against unarmed civilians had taken place, or that prisoners of war had been mistreated. Human rights attacks around the world Show all 10 1 /10 Human rights attacks around the world Human rights attacks around the world China Escalating crackdown against human rights activists including mass arrests of lawyers and a series of sweeping laws in the name of national security. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Egypt The arrest of thousands, including peaceful critics, in a ruthless crackdown in the name of national security, the prolonged detention of hundreds without charge or trial and the sentencing of hundreds of others to death. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Gambia Torture, enforced disappearances and the criminalisation of LGBTI people; and utter refusal to co-operate with the UN and regional human rights mechanisms on issues including freedom of expression, enforced disappearance and the death penalty. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Hungary Sealing off its borders to thousands of refugees in dire need; and obstructing collective regional attempts to help them. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Israel Maintaining its military blockade of Gaza and therefore collective punishment of the 1.8 million inhabitants there, as well as failing, like Palestine, to comply with a UN call to conduct credible investigations into war crimes committed during the 2014 Gaza conflict. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Kenya Extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and discrimination against refugees in its counter-terrorism operations; and attempts to undermine the International Criminal Court and its ability to pursue justice. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Pakistan The severe human rights failings of its response to the horrific Peshawar school massacre including its relentless use of the death penalty; and its policy on international NGOs giving authorities the power to monitor them and close them down if they are considered to be against the interests of the country. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Russia Repressive use of vague national security and anti-extremism legislation and its concerted attempts to silence civil society in the country; its shameful refusal to acknowledge civilian killings in Syria and its callous moves to block Security Council action on Syria. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Saudi Arabia Brutally cracking down on those who dared to advocate reform or criticise the authorities; and committing war crimes in the bombing campaign it has led in Yemen (pictured) while obstructing the establishment of a UN-led inquiry into violations by all sides in the conflict. Getty Images Human rights attacks around the world Syria Killing thousands of civilians in direct and indiscriminate attacks with barrel bombs and other weaponry and through acts of torture in detention; and enforcing lengthy sieges of civilian areas, blocking international aid from reaching starving civilians. Getty Images This would be contrary to the rules of war and the various conventions that are supposed to govern conflict, but they would also be violations of human rights. The families of the victims would have that much less redress against the perpetrator of these crimes. In the age of terror and state terror, the rules of war and rights of civilians (including the media and medical personnel), have not been so little respected in decades, if not centuries. Atrocities have been routinely committed in Myanmar, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Sudan, to name a few. The British armed forces are often praised as the best in the world. Though not the largest, they have displayed a professionalism and bravery as anything found elsewhere. They are, though, capable of shortcomings and conduct unbecoming. There are cases during the pitiless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that were far from the standards the nation expects of its servicemen and women, and there were human rights abuses. It is right that they should be treated as such. Ms Mordaunt has also, presumably for legalistic reasons, decided that the activities of crown forces in Northern Ireland will not be exempted from the obligations of the ECHR. Perhaps it is because the British government finds it difficult, for whatever reason, to designate an integral part of the UK as a battleground, and also because the potential cases are in the past and it is impossible to make legislation apply retrospectively. She has made little secret of her desire to act, but our independent judiciary means that she cannot do so. That, too, is the judiciary acting as part of the constitutional infrastructure defending human rights. In any case, during the long history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, it was not the activities of soldiers under lethal attack that are now being investigated for abuses of human rights, but cases that cannot be explained as a necessary consequence of being in a conflict, with the fog of war making a confused situation still more morally debatable. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events No soldier who fired back at an IRA gunman, or defended themselves under a hail of petrol bombs from a loyalist mob should have to face charges for anything; the facts of cases that may end up in court may well be seen to be very different. If a British soldier, say, shot an unarmed person in their own home when they did not constitute a threat, then that is a crime by any standards, and should be treated as such, and not some inevitable consequence of conflict. It should be as true in Belfast as in Baghdad, because human rights are universal. If it seems unjust that former soldiers are pursued many decades later about their conduct, then the fault lies in how long it has taken for the system to react to any abuses. It is also fair to apportion blame fairly between those commanding troops and those following the orders though the latter is famously no excuse. It is also wrong that some lawyers apparently acted in an unprofessional manner in the conduct of cases that, eventually, were revealed to have little merit. The answer to all of those things is simply to ensure that the armed forces are obliged as they always have been to try to uphold the highest standards, and to be bound by all the moral and legal obligations that rightly apply, including the ECHR. That is only fair. Because of escalating tensions with Iran, Donald Trump may face his first true test of presidential leadership. The problem is that the administration keeps sending mixed signals, and it raises the question of who is calling the shots. This morning, the State department ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees from Iraq and warned US citizens not to travel to the country, citing a high risk for violence and kidnapping. That news followed a New York Times report that said the administration has a plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks any American forces or continues a nuclear buildup. President Trump told reporters he thought the Times story was fake news, but said, Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully, were not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we would send a hell of a lot more troops than that. It appears Trump wants to placate his core supporters, many of whom oppose military involvement in the Middle East. Trump sold himself on criticizing the execution of the Iraq War and promised to take troops out of Syria and Afghanistan. Trumps blase attitude, reflected in his Well see what happens comment, doesnt align with the administrations recent actions. Last week, the United States sent warships and warplanes to the region as a warning to Iran. The one big change to the Trump administration that may be the driving force behind the ramped-up rhetoric over Iran took place in April 2018, when Trump named former Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, as his national security advisor. Bolton is no stranger to advocating for war as a foreign policy solution. He was an architect of the Iraq War and has long advocated using military force against North Korea. Despite what appears to be a divide in views of military involvement, Trump hired Bolton as his national security advisor once hed pushed out H R McMaster after McMaster wore out his welcome. Trumps comments diverge from the views of John Bolton and the orders from the State department. Besides that, US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, issued a statement saying, "OIR [Operation Inherent Resolve] is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq. Earlier that same day, the commander of the US-led military coalition against Isis, UK Major Gen. Chris Ghika, said that there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. I can't imagine anything more dangerous than a disjointed communications strategy from the highest levels of government and the military on a sensitive issue that could eventually involve the men and women of the United States' armed forces. Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty Trump supporters responding early in his administration to criticisms about his lack of experience in foreign policy and military matters assured them Trumps actions would be tempered by the people surrounding him in the background. It sounded like a plausible theory, but also spotlighted the fact Trump could easily be influenced by those around him. Nobody doubts the impact Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller has on Trumps immigration policies. One could say the same when H R McMaster and former Defense Secretary James Mattis had the presidents ear. McMaster and Mattis both had a calming effect on President Trump, saving him, at times, from his worst impulses. Unfortunately, for Mattis, Trumps surprise announcement to withdraw all troops from Syria (something he later rescinded) was a bridge too far, and Mattis tendered his resignation to the president. Trump needs to step up and take control of the situation and fast. This is not the moment for him to rail about fake news and to be unclear about his aspirations when clarity is whats needed the most. If people within the administration, such as John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, believe an armed conflict with Iran is necessary, then he either has to get on the same page or tell them war is not an option. Its time for President Trump to show he is in charge. Jay Caruso is deputy editor of the Washington Examiner IRELAND is set to scoop an award for its support of the LGBTI community at the World Pride festival in New York next month. Children minister and long-time gay-rights activist Katherine Zappone will attend the event to accept the luminary award from the Heritage of Pride (HOP) organisation. It comes as World Pride marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in the city. The riots heralded the start of the modern gay rights movement. The award will recognise Ireland's commitment to protecting LGBTI citizens rights including the 2015 marriage equality referendum. The HOP hope that it will encourage the citizens of other countries to follow Ireland's lead. Ms Zappone will be accompanied by ambassadors from the LGBTI+ Youth Strategy when she accepts the award. She will update TDs and Senators on the strategy this morning and how more than 4,000 young people took part in consultations since it was launched. She will tell the Oireachtas Children Committee that this process has been "deeply informative". Her statement says: "Marriage Equality, the Gender Recognition Act and even the fact that we are leading the world again with the youth strategy itself have all led to strong feelings of inclusivity." "However if our goal is a fully inclusive, equal and fair society we are not there yet." She will say that "During the consultations, young LGBTI+ people acknowledged that discrimination and stigma, cases of bullying and harassment and a sense of isolation and exclusion continue." He she adds that suggestions were made "to deal with these difficult issues including better training for professionals engaging with LGBTI+ young people, enforcing anti-bullying policies and addressing the health and well-being of LGBTI+ young people." Three goals were identified: The creation of a safe, supportive and inclusive environment; Efforts to improve physical, mental and sexual health; and developing research and data to better understand lives of young members of the LGBTI+ community. Ms Zappone will say that a cross-government approach will be needed to respond to the shortfalls identified. She will also refer to the award Ireland is to receive at World Pride saying the country is "now a leading voice, a recognised global leader, for LGBTI+ rights." Ms Zappone will add: "With this honour comes responsibilities. We are protectors of rights." Irelands first socially assistive AI robot Stevie II from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean (Brian Lawless/PA) An Irish University has developed a robot to help battle loneliness amongst the elderly and those living in care homes. Engineers from Trinity College, Dublin, unveiled Stevie II on Wednesday, an upgraded version of Irelands first socially assistive robot with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features. The new and updated version of Stevie I can be deployed in long-term care environments to help seniors and people living with disability. Stevie II, a more mobile and dextrous model of its predecessor, uses advanced sensing technologies including laser rangefinders, depth cameras and vision sensors to interact intelligently with humans and its surrounding environment. The Trinity team consulted with a wide range of experts during the robots development, including nurses and caregivers, as well as older adults living at home or in long-term care facilities. Among those partners is ALONE, a national organisation that supports older people to age at home. ALONE currently provides and uses technology to support older people to remain independent and socially connected. The concept behind Stevie was initially to carry out menial chores in care homes like automatically reminding residents of time to take medication. However, researchs found that the those living in homes enjoyed the social aspect of Stevie, noting that he was fun to talk to and lifted their spirits. Expand Close Stevie II is unveiled at the Science Gallery in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stevie II is unveiled at the Science Gallery in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA) The robot being so expressive helped to humanise the technology and led researchers to believe Stevie could have a wide range of high-impact uses, performing assistive tasks, helping caregivers and provide access to existing technologies like video calling, which can be inaccessible to older adults. Stevie has face and voice recognition, which means he can address those he is speaking to directly, and understand and reply to commands. One elderly resident, Tony McCarthy, who worked as part of Stevies focus group said as an asthma sufferer, having Stevie around gives a sense of security. I have asthma and he reminds me what medications I have to take, he said. More importantly, the capacity the robot has to directly make a phone call to emergency services to bring help if a person is incapacitated, I think that is very positive. Especially for people who have a fall, and couldnt reach their panic button, with Stevie, he would directly be able to call emergency services. Expand Close With researcher Niamh Donnelly (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp With researcher Niamh Donnelly (Brian Lawless/PA) Niamh Donnelly, who specialises in the artificial intelligence behind Stevie, says a more humanised side of robotics is the most requested feature. She said: When we brought Stevie around people rather than them expecting him to pick something up for them, they really just wanted to interact with Stevie, have a conversation with him or get some information from him. That turned our focus towards the more social aspect of it. When we were testing the pilot, even from a technical background what I was doing a lot of the time was talking to people and trying to figure out what they wanted from the technology. In the future, Id love to work on small talk with Stevie. Its extremely difficult as its very context dependent, so Id love to see Stevie develop that ability. Wed like him to be able to have some banter with people. Over the coming months, the team are planning several more pilots of the technology, including a trial in the UK, where Stevie will be tested in long-term care facilities in the Cornwall region as part of the European-funded EPIC project. TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar will today join other world leaders seeking to crackdown on terror content online by signing up to the 'Christchurch Call to Action'. It comes after the horrific terrorist attack on mosques in New Zealand in March which was live-streamed on the internet and saw the deaths of 51 people. The new initiative is being led by Jacinda Arden, the prime minister of New Zealand and French President Emmanuel Macron. The Call to Action in Paris will outline commitments from Governments and major social media companies to prevent the abuse of the internet and halt the dissemination of extremist content online. It also commits them to developing processes to respond rapidly to the spreading of this material following a terrorist event. Writing in the New York Times in recent days Ms Arden said the attack in Christchurch was "part of a horrifying new trend that seems to be spreading around the world: It was designed to be broadcast on the internet." She said her government took immediate action to ban the kind of military-style semi-automatic guns that the terrorist used. "That was the tangible weapon. But the terrorists other weapon was live-streaming the attack on social media to spread his hateful vision and inspire fear. " She said: "We need to address this, too, to ensure that a terrorist attack like this never happens anywhere else." In the immediate aftermath of the attack Mr Varadkar said social media companies must have "zero tolerance" towards any online posts that promote violence and hatred. He stopped short of singling out the tech giants for criticism, saying that "terrorists and extremists have always used the media to propagate their views and promote their activities". He said its the duty of government and the media to "get ahead of that" and the primary responsibility of the social media companies is to take down content that promotes violence and hate as quickly as possible. Other leaders who will be in Paris today include British Prime Minister Theresa May, Candaian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Macky Sall of Senagal, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Following the adoption of the Christchurch Call to Action, leaders will attend the closing dinner of the Tech for Good Summit, at which more than 150 business leaders will be present. The EU has told Britain that it is on a "Brexit break" and will only listen to Theresa May's top Brexit negotiator today. Yesterday, a spokesperson said the bloc would only turn its attention to Brexit again "if there is something happening in London", but would listen to Olly Robbins, the UK's lead negotiator, when he visits Brussels. The slap down came as Mrs May was urged to pull the plug on Brexit talks with Labour or risk losing the support of her party's "loyal middle". Ahead of a key cabinet meeting, 13 former ministers, together with the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, wrote to the prime minister demanding she does not to concede Labour's demands for a customs union. Britain's opposition Labour Party said Mrs May had not yet made a shift in Brexit talks and that the party was concerned a future Conservative leader could renege on any promises made by the current government. Labour's finance chief John McDonnell said a customs union was absolutely key for the party and there was not yet a deal. Expand Close Theresa May: JPMorgan claims PM will not survive beyond end of June. Photo: AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May: JPMorgan claims PM will not survive beyond end of June. Photo: AFP/Getty Images "We haven't seen the significant shift yet that we require to be able to support a deal," he said. When asked by Reuters if the talks were doomed, Mr McDonnell said: "We have gone into them in good faith and we've done everything we possibly can to try to reach a traditional British compromise." He said a letter from former British ministers, including Boris Johnson - who could be the next leader of the Conservative Party, demanding that Mrs May refuse to agree a post-Brexit customs union had not helped. "What we are all concerned about is the letter from Boris Johnson which said one he wouldn't accept a customs union, one of our key elements, and secondly that if he was leader, and he may well be, that he would overturn any deal that we'd agreed. "That doesn't inspire confidence in the ability to secure a deal that lasts longer than a couple of months," Mr McDonnell said. Mr McDonnell compared the Brexit negotiations with Mrs May's government to trying to make a contract with a company which was about to go into administration. Yesterday, a spokesman for Mrs May said the cabinet has agreed to continue Brexit talks with Labour but acknowledged it was "imperative" to get withdrawal legislation through Parliament before the summer break. Meanwhile, US investment bank JPMorgan said yesterday it was difficult to see the British prime minister surviving beyond the end of June. "Although PM May's survival skills have been impressive to date, our sense is that the sand is finally running out of the hourglass for her leadership of the Conservatives," JPMorgan said in a research note to clients. "In our view, it is difficult to see May's leadership extending beyond the end of June," the bank's analyst Malcolm Barr said in the note. With Mrs May's future linked to the passage of a Brexit deal, getting legislation through the Commons and Lords by the summer break could also pave the way for her departure from Number 10. Ministers spent more than two hours discussing the Brexit situation and, despite the apparent lack of progress in talks with Labour, decided the process should continue, but with a clear view that "we need to get a move on". Deadlocked over navigating Britain's exit from the European Union, the country's parliament session is now the longest since the English Civil War of 1642-51, the House of Commons library said on Monday. Parliamentary sessions usually last a year, from spring to spring, but after a June 2017 election the government announced it would hold a rare two-year legislative session in order to tackle the complexities of Brexit. But with Mrs May's Brexit deal having been rejected three times by parliament and lawmakers now at an impasse over the way forward, there is no sign the UK government plans to bring the current session to an end. Trade with the UK surged in both March and in the first quarter of the year as the British economy grew more than expected and the pound rose in value. Exports to the UK in March rose to 1.43bn from 1.28bn a year ago and to 4.18bn in the first quarter from 3.82bn in the same period of last year, according to data from the Central Statistical Office released today. The UK economy expanded by a much larger than expected 0.5pc in the first quarter, according to figures released last week, in part due to stockbuilding due to Brexit uncertainties and also thanks to a boost in government investment. The pound also rallied against the euro and by the end of the quarter, a euro was worth 86.04 pence versus 88.85 pence at the start of the year. Overall, seasonally adjusted goods exports fell by 16pc in March to 11bn from the February figure, highlighting the volatile nature of monthly data. Organic chemicals exports fell by more than 1bn in March this year from a year earlier while exports of medical and pharmaceutical products increased by 607mn to 3.68bn and accounted for 31pc of all exports. There were few signs in the data that the hit to world trade from growing protectionist measures were hurting Ireland, although that could change if a dispute between the U.S. and European Union intensifies. President Donald Trump may decide as early as this weekend to impose tariffs on car imports, a move that would prompt Europe to retaliate with duties of its own in what could lead to an escalating trade war. Consultancy Capital Economics noted that Ireland was the most vulnerable of all EU states to trade restrictions as exports to the U.S. from here accounted for 10pc gross value added in the economy. Gross value added measures the value of goods and services produced. Minister for Agriculture Food and the Marine Michael Creed with Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs Han Changfu. Chinese authorities have agreed an accelerated process for inspection and registration of a further tranche of beef plants, as well as an inspection visit to progress sheepmeat access, Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has said. Following a meeting with the Chinese Vice Minister Zhang Jiwen of the General Administration of Customs (GACC) Minister Creed stated: Today I submitted further detailed documentation on these plants to the Chinese authorities in a new template following previous technical discussions. GACC have now committed to an inspection visit in August 2019 for the further tranche of beef plants. GACC also committed to an inspection visit on sheepmeat in August 2019, which is intended to involve both a systems audit and plants inspections. Minister Creed also said he was very pleased that his Chinese counterpart has responded very positively to his two immediate priorities in terms of market access for China which are an early approval of the outstanding tranche of beef plants, as well as progressing sheepmeat access. The commitment by GACC today to an inspection visit to cover both of these priorities in August this year represents real progress, added Minister Creed. Senior Director at Meat Industry Ireland (MII) Cormac Healy said that while MII welcomed the move he added it would have been preferable if they had granted approval immediately as it will slow down export growth to the Asian country. Meat Industry Ireland (MII) welcomes the fact that the Chinese authorities have committed to a plant approval inspection mission in August. Obviously, it would have been preferable had they granted pre-registration/approval immediately. The delay in getting additional processing plants approved, limits the ability of the sector to grow exports of Irish beef to China and also to take advantage of current meat protein shortages in that market, said Mr Healy. We acknowledge the efforts of the Minister and DAFM officials on China access and stress that meat processing companies have invested significant time and resources to achieve greater access for Irish meat to China. He added that the news that the August inspection mission will also cover inspections of our sheepmeat controls regime and processing plants is very welcome. MII is keen to see progress on Irish sheepmeat access to the Chinese market so that the sector here can benefit just like key competitors in NZ and Australia already do. A second placing under the share redemption scheme will take place in November 2019. A row between shareholders in Kerry Co-op is escalating as share price of Kerry Group plc broke through the 100 barrier for the first time in its history this month with the company now valued at just over 18bn. Shares in the company are up almost 20pc since the start of the year on the back of volume growth across each of the regions it operates in, with particularly strong growth of 9.3pc coming from the Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and Africa region, which was led by China. In its latest trading update the company said it made a "solid" start to 2019, with reported revenue up 10.3pc in the three months to 31 March. However, there were angry scenes at a meeting of Kerry Co-op shareholders in Limerick on Monday night with frustration over a proposed cash for shares scheme boiling over amid calls for the co-op to be wound down. Serious differences have emerged in recent months between the Kerry Co-op board and a significant number of its shareholders, some of whom are represented by the Kerry Co-op Shareholders Alliance. Alliance members want to sell their remaining 13.7pc stake in Kerry Group Plc, and share the dividends, worth on average around 165,000, among co-op shareholders. Meanwhile, the co-op board has approved and recommended an equity redemption scheme for members which would offer shareholders the opportunity to sell some or all of their shares. Members can avail of the offer until June 5 but the scheme will have to be approved at Kerry Co-op's upcoming AGM on June 19. Alliance members are stridently opposed to the board's cash for shares proposal as, they say, it could result in potentially massive tax bills. On Monday night over 400 shareholders attended a meeting at the Southcourt hotel in Limerick to discuss the impasse. At the meeting several shareholders called for the Co-op to be wound down. Calls were made that a vote to liquidate the Co-op be scheduled for the AGM should the shares scheme be rejected at the meeting in Tralee's Brandon Conference Centre. The meeting was jointly organised by Listowel farmer Dave Scannell who told the Kerryman there is palpable anger among shareholders. Mr Scannell claimed that if the cash for shares scheme comes into play the inheritance tax valuation put on shares would double from 300 to approximately 600. According to Mr Scannell and the Alliance anyone who takes part in the scheme would face income tax, PRSI and USC of up to 55pc and no allowances will be made for any inheritance tax already paid. "The scheme being proposed is of absolutely no use to the vast majority of shareholders," Mr Scannell said. "The cash for shares scheme is going to be suitable to only about 50 shareholders, the other 13,450 will be facing penal double taxation. Anyone who bought these shares in the last few years will be facing total wipe out of their investment," said Mr Scannell. "The entire tone of the meeting was one of anger that the shareholders felt over the board ever proposing a scheme which would lead to such outlandishly penal tax rates," he said. "It was abundantly clear to anyone at the meeting that the relationship between shareholders and the board has broken down," he added. Kerry Co-op have argued that "no two people have the same tax situation" and that the scheme will benefit those on the lower tax rate. The board have also said that as the shares are 'locked in' there is no other option for discharging them except via the proposed scheme. A second meeting on the matter was due to take place at the Ballyroe Heights Hotel on Tuesday night. Farm organisations have been calling for a review of the QPS beef grid for some time. Meat Industry Ireland (MII) have said engaging with the Department of Agriculture and Teagasc would be the 'first step' to reviewing possible changes to the QPS grid. Senior Director of MII Cormac Healy told the Farming Independent that the QPS which was introduced in 2009 was designed with the aim of rewarding quality and market suitability. The essential elements of the QPS are rewarding quality and market suitability. From its origins, the QPS was about rewarding better grading animals and animals that best meet the marketplace requirements, he said. The current grid structure is based on science and yield. The science and the market will remain at the core of the QPS. To progress matters, in the first instance we will engage with DAFM and Teagasc. This follows comments made by Mr Healy last week where he stated that possible changes to the grid may need to be explored. ICSA Beef Chair Edmund Graham stated that better quality conformation cattle often get the lowest prices and said that a team needs to be set up a soon as possible to review the grid. Laois suckler farmer Henry Burns added if the grid is to be reviewed then the price gap between U and O grade cattle should be higher to ensure the highest quality animals get the highest prices. There are issues with price and technical specifications but that doesnt change the fact that it is still very difficult to make a living wage out of suckler farming, said Mr Burns. We have to accept that the suckler cow is a premium animal and that if the meat yield coming off it is higher than a higher price should be paid. I accept to some extent that the Minister cant control the price but he can deliver supports and a suckler payment. Laois IFA Chair Francie Gorman said that the meeting highlighted the level of frustration amongst beef and suckler farmers many of whom are in severe debt and experiencing the worst prices in farming memory Meanwhile, Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has said that once more this government is totally out of touch with rural Ireland and failing to deliver for beef farmers amid ongoing protests and public meetings across the country. "Beef farmers are at tipping point on whether their livelihoods will be preserved. Despite raising the issue in the Dail with the Minister about the request submitted to the EU Commission for CAP compensation funding, no information was forthcoming. "Farm families livelihoods are on the wire. Beef farmers cannot be left to wither and wait for compensation. Government must deliver and make this happen now." The European Chemicals Agency and other regulators around the globe have also found glyphosate not likely to be carcinogenic to humans. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Irish farmers have defended controversial weedkiller glyphosate which they say is wrongly being portrayed as a "monster" and "poison" by people who don't understand agriculture and food production. On Monday, a Californian jury awarded more than $2bn (1.8bn) to a couple who claimed Bayer AG's glyphosate-based Roundup weedkiller caused their cancer. This was the third and largest US verdict to date against the company, despite a recent statement from the US Environmental Protection Agency that said that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. France has also signalled that it will phase out the herbicide by the end of 2020. However, Irish tillage farmers have hit out at claims that the weedkiller should be banned and at "mistruths" about the rate and amount of the product they use. Clive Carter, who is a farmer from Ratheniska, Co Laois, told the 'Farming Independent' that US court case verdicts are often based on "emotion rather than science". He stated that as long as the EU says glyphosate is safe to use he will continue to use it at the pre sowing stage. "Farmers are professional users and have all been trained. Farmers are an easy target in this debate, but it's proven by the EU that there's no carcinogenic link," he said. "Smoking is linked to cancer but it is still legal. It's being portrayed as a monster by people who don't understand farming." Fellow Ratheniska farmer Colm Fingleton added that only a small amount of glyphosate is used by Irish farmers at pre-sowing stage and said it would be damaging to the sector if usage of the weedkiller was prohibited in the future. The US Environmental Protection Agency this month reaffirmed that glyphosate was safe to use. The European Chemicals Agency and other regulators around the globe have also found glyphosate not likely to be carcinogenic to humans. The World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer, however, concluded in 2015 the chemical probably causes cancer. The chemical was acquired by Bayer as part of its $63bn (56.2bn) purchase of Monsanto last year. The German chemicals giant faces more than 13,400 US lawsuits over the herbicide's alleged cancer risk. In a statement following the latest court case, Bayer said it was disappointed with the verdict and will appeal, adding that the couple had long histories of illnesses known to be substantial risk factors for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. "The contrast between today's verdict and (US Environmental Protection Agency's) conclusion that there are 'no risks to public health from the current registered uses of glyphosate' could not be more stark," Bayer said. Investment in data centres in Ireland is likely to top 10bn by 2022, according to industry lobby group Host in Ireland. It said that there are now 53 active data centres in Ireland and 29 in development. Last year, 16 new data halls came on line. The average annual investment in such facilities is 1.3bn, according to the group's latest report. The expansion of the power-hungry infrastructure has placed significant strain on the electricity transmission system in and around the capital. The report noted that the operational data centres require 600MW of electricity capacity. Eirgrid, the semi-State body that manages Ireland's electricity transmission network, has said that electricity demand forecasts for Ireland are "heavily influenced" by the expected growth of large energy users, primarily data centres. "These need a lot of power and can require the same amount of energy as a large town," it pointed out. "Our analysis shows that demand from data centres could account for 31pc of all demand by 2027," Eirgrid noted in its latest generation capacity statement. It added that energy demand from data centres will probably quadruple between 2016 and 2020, with most of the extra demand materialising in and around Dublin. Eirgrid said in its 2018 annual report that the transmission network around Dublin will require "significant reinforcements" over the next five years. The semi-State has also established a working group along with agencies including the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities to engage with data centre operators on the challenges of ensuring long-term supply and growth in the Dublin area. Tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have significant data centre footprints in Ireland, as do other data centre operators. Last year, Facebook opened a 300m data centre in Clonee, Co Meath. Amazon, which has a number of data centres around Dublin, is also planning a 1bn data centre campus in the capital. That plan was objected to by Allan Daly, the Co Galway engineer who had also objected to Apple's plan for what would have been its first Irish data centre. Apple has since decided not to proceed with the data centre due to the prolonged planning process. Host Ireland CEO Garry Connolly said: "Our ability to provide the data infrastructure required by some of the largest companies in the world has meant that computer service-related exports now top 69.3bn, making it the largest export sector in the economy - beating pharmaceuticals and the agrifood sector." Essential: Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has ordered an investigation into the motor insurance market. Photo: REUTERS/Francois Lenoir Insurance companies in this country could be facing multi-million euro fines from the European Union over claims motor insurers are operating a cartel. It comes after the European Commission launched a formal probe into claims of a cartel operating here. The commission has opened a formal competition investigation into industry representative body Insurance Ireland over claims of anti-competitive behaviour. EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager recently forced tech giant Apple to pay this State 13bn in back taxes. She is now probing whether the insurance industry here operates a closed shop to deny entry to new entrants and keep premiums high. It is unprecedented for the powerful EU competition directorate to probe an insurance body such as Insurance Ireland. The investigation gives hope to policyholders that the insurance crisis will be tackled. Insurance Ireland insists the probe was against it alone, and the maximum fine that could be imposed would be 10pc of its own turnover. Legal sources who specialise in competition law agreed the EU Competition Directorate has the power to fine organisations - if it finds against them - 10pc of their worldwide turnover. But in the case of a membership organisation such as Insurance Ireland, the fine would be based on the turnover of the insurance company members that make up the body. This could mean the fines, in the event of a finding against Insurance Ireland, could run to millions of euro. And experts said insurers would find it hard to pass on the cost of a fine to consumers, just after coming under such high-level scrutiny. Ms Vestager's office is investigating whether restricted access to its Insurance Link database system may restrict competition, in breach of EU rules. It follows dawn raids on Insurance Ireland and a number of brokers here in July 2017. InsuranceLink provides the claims history of individuals who are seeking to take out a new policy with a new insurer. The database is run by Insurance Ireland, the representative body for the industry here. It contains the claims history of all drivers. Ms Vestager, who is in charge of competition policy, said: "Insurance is essential for all car drivers in Europe. "We are investigating whether companies wishing to offer their services on the Irish motor insurance market may have been unfairly prevented from accessing a data pool managed by Insurance Ireland for its member companies," she said. "This could potentially reduce Irish drivers' choice of motor insurance policies at competitive prices." Zenith Insurance pulled out of the Irish market in 2016 - claiming it could not get access to industry data. In a statement at the time it cited a "lack of engagement with us by Irish industry bodies, which we believe creates a market disadvantage for us and our partners". The Gibraltar-based company was selling insurance through a Galway-based broker called Bump. Insurance Ireland insists InsuranceLink is accessed by Insurance Ireland members and non-members. "Insurance Ireland understands that the investigation is focused on the InsuranceLink database, which is a secure database that holds claims information as a tool to assist in fraud detection. "InsuranceLink is accessed by Insurance Ireland members and non-members and has been in operation since 1988," it said. "Insurance Ireland is co-operating fully with the European Commission in its enquiries and is confident its practices are fully compliant with competition law." It insisted the probe was against it only. "The commission's decision does not name any legal entity other than Insurance Ireland. We understand the commission is investigating the conditions of access to the InsuranceLink database operated by Insurance Ireland," it said. "In the circumstances, were there to be a finding of infringement, the maximum fine that could be imposed would be 10pc of the turnover of Insurance Ireland only." Peter Boland, of the Alliance for Insurance Reform, said if the commission probe finds against Insurance Ireland, it would be a positive for policyholders. "We applaud anything that brings more transparency to a notoriously secretive industry. "It is impossible to diagnose what is causing the crisis because of the lack of data," he said. Mr Boland called on the EU Commission to conclude its probe quickly. The Consumers' Association of Ireland said it welcomed the commission's investigation into insurance providers database access rules. "Consumers must have every competitive opportunity available when it comes to their legally required motor insurance," a spokesperson said. "If there is a barrier to that then we move to remove it." Fianna Fail finance spokesperson Michael McGrath said: "If this investigation finds that Insurance Ireland is acting in an anticompetitive manner and breaking EU rules, the implications could be very serious." Mr McGrath said it is not acceptable that potential entrants are prevented from entering the Irish market on a level playing field. "We need more players offering consumers more options and if this were to happen I believe premiums would reduce," he said. He said the National Claims Information Database is way behind schedule and there is no sign of it being established anytime soon. "By having data published by the State, we will be ensuring that companies do not have to go to Insurance Ireland for a clearer picture of the market." The EU Commission said the purpose of the Insurance Link system is to facilitate the detection of potentially fraudulent behaviour by insurance claimants, and to ensure the accuracy of information provided by potential customers to insurance companies and or their agents. The commission does not question that data pooling arrangements can contribute to effective competition, but is concerned about who has access, it said. An umbrella group for organisations whose members have been hit by spiralling insurance costs says there is serious concern reform is being slowed down due to "a lack of political will and fierce resistance from vested interests". The Alliance for Insurance Reform also said it was "dismayed" by comments made by Law Society president Patrick Dorgan, who has questioned the "assumed link" between high injury awards and high premiums. The alliance's members include Isme, RGDATA, the Vintners Federation of Ireland and the Restaurants Association of Ireland. In a statement, it welcomed a speech made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the Law Society's annual dinner on Friday, in which he said the level of general damages paid for minor injuries needed to be addressed. In a report last September, the Personal Injuries Commission found the level of general damages for soft-tissue injuries such as whiplash was 4.4 times higher than in England and Wales. Mr Varadkar said he believed the best way to deal with the disparity was through a judicial council and if the level of damages for soft tissue injuries fell there would be a reduction in premiums. While welcoming the remarks, the alliance urged the Taoiseach to ensure the reform is carried out "as a matter of urgency". It also took issue with remarks made by Mr Dorgan at the same event. He said expert research found that when like was compared with like, premiums were higher in the UK than in Ireland. He argued this demonstrated the assumed direct link between award levels and insurance costs was "highly questionable". However, the alliance said Mr Dorgan's argument flew in the face of economic logic and "ignored the rollercoaster nature of English premiums". It said UK premiums were currently high due to the volume of small claims "driven by a parasitic claims management industry". WhatsApp is used by three-quarters of Irish adults and has become the bedrock of community organisations, social and family groups. Photo: Jonathan Brady/PA WhatsApp has urged all of its users to update the messaging app on their phones after a serious spyware flaw was found. The service is used by three-quarters of Irish adults and has become the bedrock of community organisations, social and family groups. However, the app's engineers discovered that it could allow spyware into a user's phone simply by another person making a WhatsApp voice call to the user's device. Chillingly, the call does not have to be answered for the spyware 'payload' to work. A WhatsApp spokesman said the attack was sophisticated and had all the hallmarks of a "private company working with governments on surveillance". The company, which is part of Facebook, has informed the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) as the entity's lead regulator in the EU. "The DPC understands that the vulnerability may have enabled a malicious actor to install unauthorised software and gain access to personal data on devices which have WhatsApp installed," said a spokesman for Helen Dixon's office in a statement. "WhatsApp is still investigating as to whether any WhatsApp EU user data has been affected as a result of this incident," the DPC said, adding that WhatsApp informed it of the incident late on Monday. In the meantime, WhatsApp has advised users to update the app to a new version in the iPhone App Store or Google Play Store, which it claims is not vulnerable to the spyware attack. WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging tools in the world, is used by 1.5 billion people monthly. It has touted its high level of security and privacy, with messages on its platform being encrypted end to end so that WhatsApp and third parties cannot read or listen to them. The company said it was still investigating the breach but believed only a "select number of users were targeted through this vulnerability by an advanced cyber actor". The 'Financial Times' initially reported on the WhatsApp vulnerability. It said the spyware was developed by Israeli cyber surveillance company NSO Group - best known for its mobile surveillance tools - and affects both Android and iPhones. WhatsApp said it was "deeply concerned about the abuse" of such technologies and that it believed human rights activists may have been the targets. "We're working with human rights groups on learning as much as we can about who may have been impacted from their community. That's really where our highest concern is," a WhatsApp spokesman said. Asked about the report, NSO said its technology is licensed to government agencies "for the sole purpose of fighting crime and terror", and that it does not operate the system itself while having a rigorous licensing and vetting process. "We investigate any credible allegations of misuse and if necessary, we take action, including shutting down the system," the company said. Bayer has been ordered to pay more than $2bn in damages to a California couple who claimed they got cancer as a result of using its Roundup weedkiller, raising pressure on the company to settle thousands of similar lawsuits. It's the largest jury award in the US so far this year and the eighth-largest ever in a product-defect claim. The verdict prompted analysts to boost their estimates on the value of a settlement. Bayer's third Roundup court loss comes two weeks after shareholders lambasted CEO Werner Baumann over the $63bn Monsanto acquisition. The verdict puts the onus on Bayer to alter its defence course and consider a settlement: litigation concerns have eroded Bayer's value by more than 40pc since the deal was sealed in June. The stock declined 2.3pc yesterday after initially dropping to a seven-year low. "The company has got to come to the table with a viable plan to resolve these cases, or the losses are going to mount," said Micah Dortch, of the Potts Law Firm in Dallas, which has filed dozens of Roundup cases. "This outcome should make Monsanto realise the seriousness of these claims and how a jury perceives the evidence." Bayer vowed to challenge the ruling, calling it "excessive and unjustifiable". Bayer has defended the safety of Roundup's active ingredient glyphosate since inheriting the product from Monsanto. It said the verdict "conflicts directly" with a EPA review and added: "The consensus among leading health regulators worldwide is that glyphosate-based products can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic." A jury in Oakland, California, found Alva and Alberta Pilliod's exposure to Roundup was a "substantial factor" in their non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It issued the verdict after two other California trials yielded damages of $159m. Bayer is scheduled to defend against similar claims this summer. Bloomberg DIY: The B&Q chain is owned by the UK-based Kingfisher group B&Q owner Kingfisher said the DIY chain has enjoyed a sales bounceback thanks to warm spring weather and a sun-soaked Easter weekend. The group reported like-for-like sales growth of 2.8pc for B&Q in Ireland and the UK for the three months to April 30, which marks a turnaround on recent trading and from a year earlier when the Beast from the East extreme weather pushed sales 9pc lower. Kingfisher said this year's warmer weather helped boost sales by around 6pc, although this was offset by a hit of about 2pc as it ended some showroom installation services. Group revenues for the period were 2.83bn (3.2bn), up 0.8pc year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. France remains a struggle for the company however, with like-for-like sales down 3.7pc year-on-year due to declines at both its Castorama arm and Brico Depot. Outside of France and other international sales rose 4.2pc when compared to the same period last year due to strong gains in Poland, Romania and Germany. Kingfisher's outgoing chief executive Veronique Laury said: "The group delivered positive sales growth in the first quarter, with sales of unified and unique ranges continuing to grow ahead of non-unified ranges." She added: "At this early stage of the year our expectations for the full year are unchanged, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver significant financial benefits over time." (Additional reporting PA) Former Google executive Niall O'Sullivan has been appointed chief financial officer of troubled travel software firm Datalex. Mr O'Sullivan takes over from Donal Rooney, the former Nama executive who announced he was leaving the company in February after less than four months in the role. Prior to joining Datalex, Mr O'Sullivan was finance director at Google EMEA, where he had responsibility for accounting, financial compliance and contractual controls for the EMEA region. He has led global finance operations and executed finance transformation projects for technology PLCs such as Pearson and Vodafone, and with corporations such as Oracle and Dell. Sean Corkery, interim CEO of Datalex, said he looked forward to working with Mr O'Sullivan. "Niall brings a wealth of financial and operational experience which I know will add significant value to our future performance and growth," he said. Earlier this month, Datalex CEO Aidan Brogan resigned. His resignation came a week after the group's chairman Paschal Taggart announced he was stepping down, having served as a director at Datalex for 17 years and chairman for nine. At the beginning of this month Datalex suspended trading in its shares because it was not able to publish financial accounts by April 30, as required under Central Bank of Ireland rules. Trading will remain suspended until the accounts have been published, which it is understood may not happen until the end of June. The company itself earlier this year launched a review of its 2018 financial performance after uncovering what the board described as "significant accounting irregularities". A report by PwC for the company found it had failed to apply the international IFRS 15 accounting standard "appropriately" to its results for the first half of 2018. That relates to rules on how future revenue streams from contracts with customers are booked. The misstated results for the first half of 2018 were down to early recognition of revenues associated with a significant customer. Outsourcing giant Capita has become the first major UK PLC to appoint worker directors to its main board in 30 years, including University College Dublin graduate Joseph Murphy. UK Prime Minister Theresa May has heavily backed the idea of worker participation on boards and even promised legislation. That didn't happen but Capita has moved ahead on its own to appoint two employee directors. They are Lyndsay Browne, a chartered accountant who has been at Capita since 2003; and Mr Murphy, a chartered civil engineer who joined the company in 2015 and graduated from UCD in 2009. Each will receive additional pay of 64,500 (74,000) a year on top of their current salary. The last worker to be appointed to a major UK public company board was at First Group, where train driver Mick Barker joined the boardroom in 1989. The new board members saw off competition from 400 other internal candidates who had applied for the posts. "We were determined that the perspective of employees and increased diversity of thought were represented at board level," said Capita chairman Ian Powell. Worker representation on boards is common in parts of the Continent, particularly Germany. Ariana Grande has been sued for allegedly posting a photographers pictures to her Instagram account (Ian West/PA) Ariana Grande is being sued for allegedly posting a photographers pictures to her Instagram account, legal documents show. The pop star is accused of copyright infringement by Robert Barbera, according to a lawsuit filed in New York. Mr Barbera, a professional photographer, says Grande never asked permission to use two of his pictures and never paid for them. Expand Close Ariana Grande is being sued by a photographer over an Instagram post (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ariana Grande is being sued by a photographer over an Instagram post (PA) The pictures in question shows Grande, dressed in an over-sized jumper and thigh-high boots, carrying a see-through bag bearing the name of her fourth studio album, Sweetener. She posted them to her account on August 17 last year, the day the album was released, with the caption: Happy sweetener day. Grande has since deleted the post, but according to the lawsuit it was liked 3,392,035 times. Grande is the most followed woman on Instagram, with 154 million followers. Mr Barbera is seeking damages of up to 25,000 US dollars, about 19,000 for each picture. Grande, 25, is yet to respond to the lawsuit. The Press Association has contacted her representatives for comment. Video of the Day Grande is not the first celebrity to be accused of copyright infringement by professional photographers. Jennifer Lopez, Gigi Hadid, 50 Cent, Jessica Simpson, and Khloe Kardashian have all be sued by photographers after allegedly posting their pictures. Sir Mick Jagger appears to be back to full health while dancing around in a studio just weeks after undergoing heart surgery. The Rolling Stones star, 75, was forced to postpone the bands tour to have a heart valve replaced in New York around a month and a half ago. In a video shared on his Twitter page on Wednesday, the rock star is seen dancing energetically and jumping in front of a mirror in a dance studio. His fans were delighted with the update, with many remarking on his moves like Jagger, referring to the Maroon 5 pop song. Sir Mick was forced to postpone tour dates in the US and Canada, announcing he was devastated to let down fans. A statement from the group on March 30 said: Mick has been advised by doctors that he cannot go on tour at this time as he needs medical treatment. Days after undergoing surgery in early April, he told fans he was on the mend, while also praising medical staff for their efforts. On April 11, he updated fans again with a picture of himself out and about taking a walk in a park. The band were due to kick off the US and Canada leg of their No Filter tour at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida on April 20, finishing at the Burls Creek Even Grounds in Ontario, Canada, on June 29. RTE is making its own version of BBC hit show DIY SOS with Baz Ashmawy at the helm as he continues building up his portfolio of hit programmes. The Emmy-winning presenter has been chosen to front the first Irish run of the series, which is fronted in the UK by Nick Knowles. Called DIY SOS Ireland: The Big Build, it will centre on a deserving family getting their home renovated by a team of experts working around the clock. Made by Motive Television, a casting call for applicants has just gone out. Expand Close Making a drama: Jimmy Byrne and Baz Ashmawy in Wingman / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Making a drama: Jimmy Byrne and Baz Ashmawy in Wingman The producers are especially looking to hear from families who are coping with an illness or life-limiting condition and desperately need their houses significantly refurbished within the show's nine-day time frame. Confirming the news, Baz said: "DIY SOS is coming to Ireland, so I think I'm presenting that. "I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be brilliant, and the show has a real feel-good factor which fits perfectly into where I'm into right now. "I'm really happy doing simple things. So much of it can be nonsense and not really doing any good for people. "Ive always got my eyes on loads of different things and I'm always looking at show ideas." Baz has scored another big hit with his feel-good reality-based show Wingman, which sees him encouraging ordinary people to fulfil their life-long ambitions. Video of the Day Airing on Sunday nights for a three-episode run, he said it was one programme that was very close to his heart. "When it came to the idea for it, it was basically me looking at what did I enjoy doing," he said. "I don't mean this in an insulting way, but I was a little bored of the celebrity stuff and then I'd meet all these amazing people all the time. "They were people who lived through some really, really tough stuff and they would just get on with it and their stories were so interesting. "That's what I want to do. I love hanging out with people, so it wasn't a pain for me. I enjoyed it and I wanted to do something in a Sunday night slot that would make people feel good." He was bowled over by the reaction to it from Irish viewers, and couldn't believe it was trending several times over the course of its three-week run. "I didn't get one nasty Tweet, which is amazing. That's unheard of as we all know what Twitter can be like, but I didn't get one negative Tweet," said Baz. "It was all just positivity and love and lots of nice feedback." Emma Thompson plays dangerous populist politician Vivienne Rook in Russell T Davies' searing new dystopian drama series, Years and Years (BBC One) Theres no shortage of popular prestige dramas heavy on big, ambitious spectacle. Less common are popular prestige dramas heavy on big, ambitious ideas. Years and Years by Russell T Davies he of Queer as Folk, Doctor Who and the crackling miniseries A Very English Scandal, which was beaten at the BAFTAs by (no shame in this) Patrick Melrose falls into the second category. Its never a good idea to tempt fate, especially when youve seen only the first episode of a six-parter. But Im going to do it anyway and predict that Years and Years will, someday, be bracketed alongside the likes of Boys from the Blackstuff, Our Friends in the North and Edge of Darkness as one of the great, politically and historically engaged BBC drama series. Like those, Years and Years blends the intimate and the epic, the personal and the political. All at once its a family saga, a state of the nation (and state of the world) piece and a dystopian drama. Not a far-future one, but a near-future one. And it works as brilliantly as all of them. Were briefly in 2019, circling around the Lyons family. Theres financial advisor Stephen (Rory Kinnear) and his accountant wife Celeste (TNia Miller), who live in London and worry about their two daughters. Theres Stephens brother Daniel (Russell Tovey), a gay housing officer who lives with his fiance Ralph (Dino Fetscher), whos more brawn than brain, in Manchester. Younger sister Rosie (Ruth Madeley), who has spina bifida (as does Madeley), is a single mother of two who works at a school, while eldest sister Edith (Jessica Hynes), a political activist, is off travelling the world. Last and very much not least is their grandmother, the sparky, blissfully PC-free Muriel, played by the wonderful Anne Reid. For the first few minutes of Years and Years, you could be watching a routine domestic drama about a nice, tolerant, liberal family one strand of it, Stephen and Celeste, interracial just trying to get by in an increasingly troubled and troubling world. Then, exploding off the TV screen and into everyones orbit, comes budding politician Vivienne Rook, who spouts the kind of noxious, populist garbage were hearing more of every day. Video of the Day Shes played, with obvious relish, by a top-of-her-game Emma Thompson as the demonic love-child of Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins. Rook shocks the nation by declaring on Question Time: When it comes to Israel and Palestine, I suppose I dont give a f**k. Daniel, already depressed at the state of the world (the character, you suspect, is Davies fictional analogue), is appalled. What sort of a world are we in? he asks. Whats it going to be like in five years time? We soon found out as were pitched forward to 2024. A brilliant montage marks the passing of time in terms of births, marriages, deaths (including Queen Elizabeth and Angela Merkel), New Years Eve parties and the re-election of President Donald Trump. Against this rolling backdrop, Rooks political star rises unstoppably. Davies, whose obvious anger and despair ripples through every scene, gives us a 2024 thats scarily believable, and just plain scary. Technology has inched forward and tightened its hold. Everyone is plugged into some kind of gadget (including a domestic robot that doubles as a sex toy). Refugees from Ukraine, now under Russian control, are herded into makeshift shanty towns. America and China are locking horns. Inequality has widened. In London, affluent areas have been fenced off. Only people who have been means-tested are permitted entry to Kensington. Its like intelligence is going backward, says Daniel. The human race is getting more stupid right in front of our eyes. The first episode closes with the ultimate act of stupidity that raises the stakes for everyone. Superb. A MURDER accused asked a garda interviewer "are you joking me" and "are you actually being serious" when told that Ana Kriegel's blood had been found on his boots, a trial heard. Boy A also told gardai that CCTV footage of a male, who they believe is Boy A, might be "one of the lads who attacked me". And when asked by gardai during interviews if he was in the room where Ana's body was found, Boy A said "no". The two youths, aged 13 at the time, have pleaded not guilty before the Central Criminal Court to murdering Ana Kriegel (14) at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Road in Lucan on May 14 last year. Expand Close Blood matching Ana Kriegels DNA pattern was found on a boot and stick (Family handout/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Blood matching Ana Kriegels DNA pattern was found on a boot and stick (Family handout/PA) One of the accused, Boy A, has also denied a charge of aggravated sexual assault. This afternoon, Detective Garda Marcus Roantree said he arrested Boy A on suspicion of murder at Clondalkin Garda Station at 8.07am on May 24, 2018 and he was retained for questioning. Over the next two days, gardai conducted six interviews with Boy A. Present during the interviews were Boy A, his father, his solicitor Donough Molloy, Det Gda Marcus Roantree and Detective Garda Tomas Doyle. Prosecutor Gerardine Small BL led Det Gda Doyle through the interviews with Boy A. In interview one, Boy A told Gda Doyle he was interested in drawing. During the second interview, Gda Doyle said he showed Boy A some CCTV clips. Ms Small said the jury had already seen the footage. When shown a clip of two males, Boy A told Gda Doyle "they look like the lads that beat me up". In the third interview, Boy A was shown footage of a male walking near the park, and wearing gloves and a backpack. Asked if he had anything to say about that individual, Boy A told Gda Doyle "I think that might be one of the lads who attacked me". Gda Doyle told the accused that gardai believed he was the male in the CCTV footage. Boy A denied it was him. He said a witness statement he previously gave to Sergeant John O'Keeffe was "the truth". Gda Doyle said he then showed a photograph of Boy A's boots to him. Gda Doyle told him they were examined and Ana's blood was found on them. "Are you joking me? Boy A asked. "No", said Gda Doyle. "Are you actually being serious? Boy A responded. Gda Doyle told him he wouldn't joke about something like that. Boy A then asked if he could get some air. His solicitor asked Boy A if he was feeling sick, and he was handed a glass of water. Gda Doyle then told Boy A he wanted to be clear this was "serious and significant". Boy A responded "I am aware". Gda Doyle also put it to Boy A that the blood on his boots put him in the room where Ana's body was found. "Were you in this room", Gda Doyle asked. "No", said Boy A. Earlier, the court heard from John Hoade, a specialist in blood pattern and DNA analysis with Forensic Science Ireland, who said that a pair of boots worn by Boy A on the day Ana disappeared had her blood on them. Mr Hoade also said the blood spatter on the boots indicated that "Boy A either assaulted Ana Kriegel or was in very close proximity when she was assaulted". The court heard that on May 19, 2018, Mr Hoade was handed a pair of boots which were worn by Boy A on May 14, the day Ana disappeared. Mr Hoade said that he examined the soles and upper parts of the boots for blood staining. There were nine separate areas of blood staining which were sampled for DNA and the DNA matched that of Ana Kriegel. Mr Hoade identified blood staining on the right boot close to the laces and on the toe. The blood staining on the left boot was at the inner ankle, the edge of the sole and on the upper part of the boot. Mr Hoade said that some of the staining on the boots could be identified as blood spatter. This occurs when external force is applied to a source of liquid blood, which then falls on a surface. The blood spatter on Boy A's boot indicates that Boy A "either assaulted Ana Kriegel or was in very close proximity when she was assaulted", Mr Hoade told the jury. The court heard that Mr Hoade also examined a length of stick which was discovered in the room where Ana's body was found. The stick measured 92cm long, and 4cm x 3cm wide. Mr Hoade said there was blood spatter and general staining on the piece of wood. He said the blood on the stick was tested for DNA and the DNA matched Ana Kriegel's DNA. Mr Hoade also identified a particular pattern of blood staining known as feathering on the stick which he said was "associated with a weapon that has been swung". He said the blood staining on the wooden stick was what he would expect if the "piece of wood was used as a weapon". Mr Hoade said he sampled the edges of the stick to see if he could ascertain if whoever used it had left any traces behind, but the only DNA he found matched Ana's DNA. The court heard that Mr Hoade examined a concrete block, which was also found at the crime scene. He said it was a section of a 9" concrete block. Mr Hoade agreed with prosecutor Brendan Grehan SC that the block was "quite heavy" and a person would need "two hands" to hold it. The court heard Mr Hoade examined the concrete block and found blood on all six surfaces of it. Mr Hoade said he did not sample the blood from the block. This was because he understood there was "no suggestion the block was used as a weapon in the assault". The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of eight men and four women. The Master of the High Court has said court procedures regarding fast track judgments are breaching peoples right to a fair trial. Edmund Honohan hit out at the "limitations" of the summary judgment process, where a judge makes a decision based on affidavits without hearing oral evidence. He criticised the handling of such cases by High Court judges. Mr Honohan also hit out at the manner in which he believes an ongoing review of civil justice, chaired by High Court President Peter Kelly, is being conducted. "Designing the administration of justice is a project for the whole of society. It cannot be conducted behind closed doors," he said. The remarks are the latest flashpoint between Mr Honohan and Mr Justice Kelly, who removed debt cases from the masters court earlier this year. Although not a judge, Mr Honohan is a senior counsel and has a quasi-judicial role, ensuring cases are in order before sending them on to the High Court. In recent years much of his work has been in the area of debt cases, where he has been able to deal with applications for judgment in uncontested cases. But following a practice direction issued by Mr Justice Kelly in January, all new motions seeking liberty to enter a final judgment in summary summons proceedings are instead being assigned to a High Court judge. In a written decision yesterday in a case involving Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank, Mr Honohan said current summary judgment procedures did not amount to "due process" and he suggested they could be scrapped. He said the Supreme Court had "clearly signalled" summary judgment should only be granted where it is clear the defendant has no defence. However, this test "is often just overlooked" by High Court judges, he said. "Exacting standards do not bind judges, it seems," he said. Mr Honohan comments came in a decision where he forwarded an application by the bank for final judgment of 652,428 against a woman representing herself to a plenary hearing. The bank had sought to have the matter dealt with on a fast track basis. But Mr Honohan said he was not prepared to breach the womans right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights by denying her a full hearing. He said the case illustrated the limitations of summary adjudication based on affidavit evidence. The woman claims she was "kept in the dark" about the extent of her solicitor husbands dealing with the bank. She claimed the bank engaged in "risky" dealings with her husband and alleged her signature was forged and fraudulently witnessed. Mr Honohan said her affidavit included a number of "obvious errors" and bore "all the hallmarks of a lay litigants difficulties". He questioned whether the prospects of such litigants should be bound by their lack of knowledge of the law. "A few pointed questions from the bench might produce the missing pieces of a legally coherent jigsaw," he said. The Supreme Court has struck down a law requiring judges to impose a mandatory minimum five-year jail term on second time firearms offenders. In a decision which could have implications for a number of prisoners and could also signal softer sentences in future for repeat firearms offenders, the court found the Oireachtas had "impermissibly crossed the divide in the constitutional separation of powers". The ruling did not relate to mandatory sentences generally, but specifically to the use of such sentences for a certain cohort of people, in this case repeat offenders. Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan said the Oireachtas had sought to determine the minimum sentence which must be imposed, not on all persons convicted of a firearms offence, but only on a limited group who had also been previously convicted of one or more listed offences. She said this was not constitutionally permissible and it followed that the appellant in the case, convicted criminal Wayne Ellis, was entitled to a declaration section 27A of the Firearms Act 1964, as amended, was repugnant to the constitution. The decision in favour of Ellis by the five-judge court does not necessarily mean he will get out of jail sooner. However, it will assist him in an appeal he had brought to the Court of Appeal. Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan said this appeal should now be promptly re-entered". Ellis (37), of Landen Road, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in April 2013 to possession of a sawn-off shotgun at Knocklyon Shopping Centre in south Dublin in July 2012. He had 26 previous convictions, including two for producing a firearm. Initially he received a suspended five-year sentence as the judge accepted his offending was a result of his drug addiction and he had not reoffended while undergoing rehabilitation. However, his suspended sentence became a custodial one following an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against the leniency of the punishment. In the Supreme Court proceedings, lawyers for Ellis argued the sub-section of the firearms legislation relating to minimum five-year terms for second time offenders was an impermissible encroachment on the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts under Articles 34 and 38.1 of the Constitution. They argued Ellis was entitled to have the appropriate sentence both determined and imposed on him by a judge sitting in court. It was submitted that the mandatory minimum sentence he received was a limitation to that right. Lawyers for the DPP argued the constitutionality of fixed sentences was well settled and that it was for the Oireachtas to make law and the judiciary to apply it. Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan said what was at issue in the appeal was whether it was consistent with the Constitution for the Oireachtas to legislate for a fixed or minimum mandatory sentence which does not apply to all persons convicted of the offence. In this case, the issue was that a limited class of offender, people who were being convicted for the second time or more, was being subjected to a minimum sentence. She said it was not in doubt that any court, in applying current sentencing principles, will always have regard to previous convictions. Hence the question to be determined is whether it is permissible for the Oireachtas to legislate for a mandatory minimum penalty which is not a universal penalty that applies to all persons convicted of the offence, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghehan said. She said it was not necessary to consider whether it was constitutionally permissible for the Oireachtas to specify a mandatory minimum penalty which applies to all persons convicted of an offence. Section 27A of the 1964 Act only applied to a limited class of person, she said. Ms Justice Geoghegan said it had previously been determined in another case that it may be permissible for the Oireachtas to specify a mandatory penalty which is to generally apply to all persons convicted of the offence, irrespective of the circumstances of the committal of the offence or the personal circumstances of the offender. In such circumstances, the selection of the penalty in accordance with the law is fixed by the Oireachtas and the court is obliged to select that penalty. That is not in breach of the separation of powers, she said. However, it is not constitutionally permissible for the Oireachtas to determine or prescribe by statute a penalty to which only a limited class of persons who commit a specified offence are subject, by reason either of the circumstances in which the offence was committed, or the personal circumstances of the convicted person. She said Ellis fell into this category. A DUBLIN man has appeared in court charged with conspiracy to murder a Hutch gang associate. Dean Howe (35) was remanded in custody after no bail application was made on his behalf. Mr Howe, with an address at Oakfield Place in Dublin 8, is charged with conspiring with four other named men to murder Gary Hanley. The other four named in the charge are Luke Wilson, Alan Wilson, Joseph Kelly and Liam Braningan. The offence is alleged to have happened at a location within the State between September 15 and November 6, 2017. The charge is under Section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. Detective Garda Brian McDermott told Dublin District Court he arrested the accused for the purpose of charge at Irishtown Garda Station yesterday evening. He was charged at 10.50pm and made no reply after caution. He was handed a copy of the charge sheet. Det Gda McDermott said his application was for the accused to be remanded in custody. Defence solicitor Edward Bradbury said he was not making any bail application and consenting to a one-week remand. Judge Bryan Smyth remanded Mr Howe in custody to appear in Cloverhill District Court on May 22, by video link. He granted free legal aid after Mr Bradbury said the accused was unemployed and there was no garda objection. Mr Howe, dressed in a light grey-green tracksuit was not required to address the court during the brief hearing and stood silently throughout. He has not yet indicated a plea. A mother-of-one was caught trying to sell 90,000 of stolen gold jewellery to a cash for gold shop, a court has heard. Kathleen Kiely (31) of Lymington Avenue, London, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to handling stolen property on January 21, 2018. She has no previous convictions. Garda Sergeant Aidan Carroll told Fiona McGowan BL, prosecuting, that gardai had placed the Gold Digger jewellery shop in Tallaght under surveillance after receiving information that two men were to call there. A woman exited a car driven by her former partner and approached the cash for gold shop carrying a handbag and a second large bag that appeared to be heavy. She was stopped by gardai who discovered that the second bag contained a large amount of badly damaged gold jewellery. Expand Close Kathleen Kiely pleaded guilty to handling stolen property PIC: Collins Courts / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kathleen Kiely pleaded guilty to handling stolen property PIC: Collins Courts The original value of the gold jewellery was 90,000, but the court heard that due to the damage it suffered, the value was reduced to 37,000. The jewellery was traced to a burglary in Lucan several days earlier. Kiely had come into the shop the previous day and asked the owner how much he would pay for 18 carat gold, saying her husband had some he wished to sell. Sgt Carroll agreed with John Griffin BL, defending, that Kiely was not the primary target of gardai. He accepted that there was no suggestion she was involved with the burglary. The mother of one lives in London and was attending an engagement party in Ireland with her former partner at the time of the offence. Mr Griffin said his client was influenced by her former partner Michael Maughan (25) to commit the offence. He said Kiely instructed him to express her remorse and apologies to the victim and the court. Maughan of Hazel Hill, Tallaght, Dublin, also pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to handling assorted stolen jewellery on January 21, 2018. Judge Melanie Greally sentenced him to four year's imprisonment with the final two suspended. Judge Karen O'Connor ordered a probation report and adjourned the matter to July 30 next. Two truck drivers have been cleared of the murder of a father of two struck with an iron bar at a petrol station. Marcin Skrzypezyk (31) and Tomasz Wasowicz (45), who are Polish nationals, were found not guilty of the murder of Ludovit Pasztor on February 21, 2017, at the Amber Petrol Station in Carrignagroghera, Fermoy, Co Cork. The court heard a dispute broke out at the petrol station between the two accused, Mr Pasztor and his friend Mariusz Osail. Siobhan Lankford SC, prosecuting, said that Mr Pasztor and his friend went to get two bars from a dismantled trampoline and returned and there was an altercation. Mr Pasztor and Mr Osail were disarmed of their iron bars. Mr Pasztor got hit and subsequently died. Tom Creed SC, for Mr Skrzypezyk, said the two truckers were minding their own business when the pair arrived back armed. "You are entitled to protect yourself. In here we call it self-defence," he said. The jury cleared both men of murder and manslaughter. Gardai have launched an investigation into the stabbing of a 15-year-old boy, who was attacked just ten minutes after Azzam Raguragui (18) was killed in South Dublin, and only 2km away. The incident occurred at the bus stop in Nutgrove Avenue in Rathfarnham on Friday, May 10 at 8.20pm, which is less than 2km away from the fatal stabbing in Finsbury Park, Churchtown. Azzam Raguragui (18) was stabbed to death just ten minutes earlier at 8.10pm. The Garda Press Office could not confirm if the two incidents were linked. However, a garda spokesperson confirmed that the teenager attacked in Rathfarnham received non-fatal injuries to the thigh. It is understood he was taken to Crumlin hospital. A male youth aged in is mid-teens sustained an apparent stab wound during an incident on Nutgrove Avenue, Churchtown at approximately 8.20pm on the 10/5/2019, a garda spokesperson said. Its understood he was assaulted during an incident involving a number of youths. The investigation is ongoing, and no arrests have been made to date. A resident from Rathfarnham, who did not want to be named, told Independent.ie that locals rushed to the assistance of the injured teenager. The young man was bleeding very heavily, and the bus stop was covered in blood, he said. Paramedics arrived at the scene a short time later to transport him to Crumlin Hospital, but thankfully his injuries werent too severe. Gardai sealed off the area and were making door-to-door inquiries throughout the weekend around the adjacent neighbourhoods. "Its really shocking to hear that something so violent has happened to someone so young, especially in a quiet locality like ours." Gardai in Rathfarnham are investigating and are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to contact them on 01 6666500 or the Garda Confidentail Line 1800 666 111. Higher level maths is a common requirement for courses at third level. It can present as a requirement for business, computer science, science and engineering courses. The grade required is a good indication of how complex and integral the maths element of that course might be. Higher level maths is a difficult undertaking for many and requires consistent work and dedication. In the past, many students chose not to take, or stick with, the course despite having the ability, as they felt the time commitment was too much. The introduction of bonus points for a minimum 40pc mark at higher level now acts as an incentive for students to sit the exam. Borderline students still struggle to maintain the workload, but many remain at higher level because they need a particular grade to satisfy course entry requirements. Students who are worried about their ability to achieve the required grade should be aware that many universities and colleges offer a 'second chance' maths exam, success in which can act as an alternative to a required Leaving Cert grade. These institutions allow students to sit an exam set by the college in spring or late summer. If a student achieves a passing grade, they will be deemed to have met the maths entry requirement for the course, regardless of their Leaving Cert result in the subject. Here are some examples. National College of Ireland The National College of Ireland will hold a maths exam for entry to their Level 8 BSc Hons in Data Science and level 6 Higher Certificate in Data Science. Both of these courses ordinarily require a H5 grade. The exam will be set at a similar standard to the Leaving Cert higher level exam. The college recommends that any student who may have been concerned about listing these courses on their CAO due to the maths requirement, should use the CAO 'change of mind' facility to enter them now. There is also a preparation course for the maths exam and to register for it, students should email the school's liaison officer Karen Campbell (karen.campbell@ncirl.ie) or call 01-4498565. Preparation classes will be held Monday, August 19 to Wednesday, August 21, while the exam itself will take place on August 22, with results available on August 26. TU Dublin TU Dublin - City Centre will hold a maths competency test for all its Level 8 programmes that require higher level maths for entry. It offers applicants the opportunity to meet the maths entry requirement for a course they have listed on the CAO if they don't achieve the required grade in the Leaving Cert. The exam is set at Leaving Cert higher level standard and students should have studied the higher level course. It will take place in August and a two-day preparation course will be held in advance. Past papers are available on the TU Dublin City website. Other colleges with similar 'second chance' maths exams include: IT Sligo, Letterkenny IT, Waterford IT, Carlow IT, University of Limerick, IT Tralee, NUI Galway, Maynooth University and Cork IT. Aoife Walsh is a guidance counsellor at Malahide Community School, Co Dublin Q I see that SUSI is now accepting applications for new applicants. Is there any support available for those wishing to take up postgraduate study? A For a number of years, there was no possibility of State funding for postgraduate study. Thankfully, this programme has been reintroduced. Those considering postgraduate study can apply for this means-tested support. The minimum income threshold is based on the number of dependents in a household. Applicants with four or fewer dependents must earn less than 31,500 to receive a fee contribution of 2,000. All applications should be made through susi.ie. Applicants must also be increasing their NFQ award and attending a course in an approved institution. Funding is available for a certain number of years depending on the applicant's previous educational history. More information can be found on susi.ie. As parents continue to struggle to find a school place for a child on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), or with other complex needs, all eyes are on the impact of new legislation aimed at creating a fairer admissions process for all. The ink is barely dry on The Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 and it is being put to the test in Dublin 15 where parents have been crying out for years for adequate educational provision for children with special needs. Much of the attention around this legislation centred on reducing the influence of religion and 'old boys' networks' on school entry, but, perhaps, its greatest legacy will be underpinning equity of access to education for the most vulnerable children. It hasn't come a moment too soon for parents, not only in Dublin 15, but in many other areas, as evidenced in a recent Dail protest. Dublin 15 stands out because of the scale of demand in one of the fastest growing communities in the country. That the legislation was needed at all speaks volumes for how, despite great strides made around special education, the system can continue to fail children with the most complex needs, including the estimated one-in-65 with ASD. These parents can, and do, endure exhausting battles in pursuit of their children's right to an education. Turned away from one school after another, they end up resorting to: home tuition - and they have to find the tutor; taking a school place that is not suitable, but at least it is a place; having to accept a shorter school day or week, or both; driving a daily round trip of 60km to avail of a place in another community. Expand Close Members of the Enough is Enough Every Voice Counts Campaign at a recent Dail protest demanding equal access to education for children with autism, intellectual disability and other complex needs. Photo: Gareth Chaney, Collins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Members of the Enough is Enough Every Voice Counts Campaign at a recent Dail protest demanding equal access to education for children with autism, intellectual disability and other complex needs. Photo: Gareth Chaney, Collins In the 2017/18 school year, there were 56 children in Dublin 15 on a home tuition grant, including an 11-year-old on the fifth year of home schooling. When the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) did an official count in Dublin 15, it identified a need for an additional 88 specialist school places this Sepember. In Kildare, another area of rapid population growth, there was a shortfall of two places. The NCSE says 48 of the Dublin 15 children need a special class in a mainstream school, such as an ASD unit, while the other 40 require a special school. The area has 32 primary and 11 post-primary schools, with 18 ASD classes at primary level and six at post-primary, all of which are full. As well as the 88 children, there was separate additional demand for places at post-primary which has been met through opening two special classes. The NCSE relies on a school's willingness to open a special class or to take on additional special school provision, but, with the new act, Minister for Education how has the power to direct a school to do so. The legislation kicks in when schools in an area are not volunteering to open places to meet demand. It has come into play in Dublin 15 and the process started last month when the NCSE wrote to Education Minister Joe McHugh advising him of insufficient places. The council is seeking to open eight more special classes in primary schools and seven classes in special schools to cater for the 88 children. It believes there is enough capacity at post-primary level. An additional factor in Dublin 15 is that the parents do not want a traditional special school, but an autism-specific special school to meet the particular needs of their children. In a recent survey, principals in the area said that 54 of their pupils would be better placed in an autism-specific school. The NCSE is now consulting with the education partners, such as patron bodies, and most particularly in this case, the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin - the main patron in the area - to see if a solution can be worked out voluntarily. There are also discussions involving schools, parents, the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS), health professionals and others involved in the provision of services for children with special educational needs. Schools may have practical difficulties such as space constraints or lack of training among staff. So far, three primary schools have agreed or indicated willingness to open additional specialist provision, catering for 18 children in all. Discussions are ongoing and if, at the end of the day, there is still a lack of places, the NCSE must report to the minister, outlining what schools could meet the additional demand and what schools, if any, should be requested to provide additional provision. There is provision for an arbitration process before the minister makes any final direction. The legislation is a game changer, but everyone involved accepts that, ultimately, compulsion is not the desired end result. Dublin 15 campaign spokesperson Sile Parsons says they while they need additional provision, "the children deserve teachers who want to work with them and have the skillset and resources to teach and support them." Aine Lynch, CEO of the National Parents' Council-Primary, says it is "not just about getting a physical place, but a supportive environment. Is there physical space? Do teachers need upskilling? All of these things need to happen." Lorraine Dempsey of the Special Needs Parents Association says: "We don't want schools to end up failing the children because they don't have effective resources." She also queries why provision for special units has not been included in the design of schools built in recent years. IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Mick McCarthy (left) Tony McCarthy (centre) and Brendan Crean, who all helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean, who helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin is unveiled during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin, as Mick McCarthy (left) Tony McCarthy (centre) and Brendan Crean, who all helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE look on. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin is unveiled during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin, as Mick McCarthy (left) Tony McCarthy (centre) and Brendan Crean, who all helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE look on. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin waits to be unveiled during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin, as Mick McCarthy (left) Tony McCarthy (centre) and Brendan Crean, who all helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE look on Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin waits to be unveiled during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Niamh Donnelly, a researcher with the Robotics and Innovation lab, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire Engineers at Trinity College have developed a robot to help battle loneliness amongst the elderly and those living in care homes. 'Stevie II' was unveiled on Wednesday, and is an upgraded version of Ireland's first socially assistive robot with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features. Expand Expand Previous Next Close IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering Dr. Conor McGinn (left) and researcher Niamh Donnelly, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Mick McCarthy (left) Tony McCarthy (centre) and Brendan Crean, who all helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering Dr. Conor McGinn (left) and researcher Niamh Donnelly, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire The new and updated version of 'Stevie I' can be deployed in long-term care environments to help seniors and people living with disability. Stevie II, a more mobile and dextrous model of its predecessor, uses advanced sensing technologies including laser rangefinders, depth cameras and vision sensors to interact intelligently with humans and its surrounding environment. The Trinity team consulted with a wide range of experts during the robot's development, including nurses and caregivers, as well as older adults living at home or in long-term care facilities. Among those partners is ALONE, a national organisation that supports older people to age at home. ALONE currently provides and uses technology to support older people to remain independent and socially connected. The concept behind Stevie was initially to carry out menial chores in care homes like automatically reminding residents of time to take medication. However, research has found that the those living in homes enjoyed the social aspect of Stevie, noting that he was fun to talk to and lifted their spirits. The robot being so expressive helped to humanise the technology and led researchers to believe Stevie could have a wide range of high-impact uses, performing assistive tasks, helping caregivers and provide access to existing technologies like video calling, which can be inaccessible to older adults. Expand Expand Previous Next Close IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean, who helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean, who helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean, who helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire Stevie has face and voice recognition, which means he can address those he is speaking to directly, and understand and reply to commands. One elderly resident, Tony McCarthy, who worked as part of Stevie's focus group said as an asthma sufferer, having Stevie around gives a sense of security. "I have asthma and he reminds me what medications I have to take," he said. "More importantly, the capacity the robot has to directly make a phone call to emergency services to bring help if a person is incapacitated, I think that is very positive. "Especially for people who have a fall, and couldn't reach their panic button, with Stevie, he would directly be able to call emergency services." Niamh Donnelly, who specialises in the artificial intelligence behind Stevie, says a more humanised side of robotics is the most requested feature. Expand Close IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean, who helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp IrelandOs first socially assistive AI robot 'Stevie II' from robotics engineers at Trinity College Dublin, with Brendan Crean, who helped trial the robot through the charity ALONE, during a special demonstration at the Science Gallery in Dublin. Brian Lawless/PA Wire She said: "When we brought Stevie around people rather than them expecting him to pick something up for them, they really just wanted to interact with Stevie, have a conversation with him or get some information from him. "That turned our focus towards the more social aspect of it. "When we were testing the pilot, even from a technical background what I was doing a lot of the time was talking to people and trying to figure out what they wanted from the technology. "In the future, I'd love to work on small talk with Stevie. It's extremely difficult as it's very context dependent, so I'd love to see Stevie develop that ability. "We'd like him to be able to have some banter with people." Over the coming months, the team are planning several more pilots of the technology, including a trial in the UK, where Stevie will be tested in long-term care facilities in the Cornwall region as part of the European-funded EPIC project. Fire crews battled 20-foot-high flames from a gorse fire as a Status Orange fire-risk warning for the rest of the week was announced. Crews from the Co Clare Fire and Rescue Service battled a gorse fire near Ruan yesterday where flames shot 20 feet in the air in the remote area. The blaze broke out just hours after its fire chief warned of the risk associated with low humidity, lack of rain and current dry conditions. A suspected electrical fault from a machine also sparked a fire in a forested area near Sixmilebridge in the county that could have sparked a massive forest fire. Fortunately fire crews were able to prevent it from spreading. The fire chief's warning came the same day as the Department of Agriculture issued a 'high risk' warning yesterday for gorse fires until noon on Friday for all areas where gorse, heather, dried grass and vegetation exist. The warning comes as Met Eireann said largely dry and warm conditions - with daytime highs hovering around 20C - will prevail nationwide until Friday. Meanwhile, Irish Water is advising all users to conserve water to avoid a repeat of last summer's hose pipe ban due to dwindling supplies reservoirs due to the prolonged drought. While the State water body is not currently concerned about reservoir levels to date, a spokeswoman said consumers were being reminded to conserve as much water as possible. "At the moment, there aren't any areas where we are concerned about levels," she said. Unveiling: Jimmy Guerin and his sisters Marie Therese Branagan (left) and Claire OBrien at the naming of the Veronica Guerin Lecture Theatre, DCU. Photo: Damien Eagers/INM Friends and colleagues paid tribute to murdered journalist Veronica Guerin as a lecture theatre was named in her honour. At a special ceremony in Dublin City University (DCU), the Veronica Guerin Lecture Theatre was formally named after the late 'Sunday Independent' journalist. The initiative, almost 23 years after her murder, is part of DCU's 'Project 50:50' to name 50pc of its major buildings and lecture theatres after inspiring females. Speaking at the event, Veronica's brother Jimmy Guerin described her as "a trailblazer for equality who became the country's leading crime correspondent in a male-dominated field". "We are very proud of her and very grateful to DCU for their efforts in ensuring young people today still have role models, like Veronica, to inspire courage and dedication," Mr Guerin said. Cormac Bourke, editor of the Irish Independent and 'Sunday Independent', said the murders of journalists like Veronica Guerin, Martin O'Hagan and Lyra McKee were a "reminder that men of violence do not respect the vital role" the media play in society. Expand Close Jimmy with fellowship recipient Rachel Farrell. Photo: Damien Eagers/INM / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jimmy with fellowship recipient Rachel Farrell. Photo: Damien Eagers/INM "And they are a reminder that we must always stand up to men of violence, as Veronica's family has done so bravely in the time since her murder," Mr Bourke said. Several members of the Guerin family, Independent News and Media staff, as well as DCU staff and alumni attended the event in which bursary recipients were also announced. Independent.ie journalist Rachel Farrell was awarded the Veronica Guerin Ireland Funds Fellowship, and will travel to work in Arizona over the summer. Seven of the 11 patients whose cancer was missed by a radiologist at University Hospital Kerry have died. It had previously been stated that four people had died, but yesterday it emerged that the figure has increased by three. The South/South West Hospital group has said the 11 patients have had appropriate care. The case first came to light after the work of a locum radiologist at the hospital was examined. Six radiologists have been involved in the review, which involves looking back at 46,000 scans carried out by the locum consultant. The locum consultant radiologist was placed on administrative leave in late July 2017 and resigned in October that year. The review was carried out after a number of patients who were given the all-clear later returned to the hospital with symptoms in the summer of 2017. Shock As a result of this delay in diagnosis, these patients experienced a serious impact on their health. They were told the shock news that they were the victims of delayed diagnosis and had been given incorrect results. A number of the patients involved are taking legal proceedings, A previous report on the review found that the locum radiologist, who was employed at the hospital for 16 months, did a large volume of work. It said it did not wish to imply the harm done was exclusively attributable to the individual radiologist and there were "many factors which influence an individual's performance". The report has a series of recommendations and an external review of the management of the hospital's radiology department. A key finding of the audit noted that while patients were exposed to risk, the majority of patients did not suffer any direct harm due to the diligence of their treating doctors. Seven of the 11 patients whose cancer was missed or misread at University Hospital Kerry have now died. This is three more than previously reported. The cases emerged after the work of a locum radiologist at the hospital was examined. The patients suffered a delayed diagnosis and, as a result, experienced a serious impact on their health. The review was carried out after a number of patients who got the all clear returned to the hospital with symptoms in the summer of 2017. THE decision by US car giant, Ford, to cut jobs at its Irish operation with up to 31 positions at risk is totally unrelated to Brexit. Tanaiste Simon Coveney said he was sure the Ford move has nothing to do with Brexit and, rather, is linked to ongoing restructuring and centralisation within the global automobile industry. Ford employs 31 people at its historic Cork headquarters, the majority in sales and marketing. The car manufacturer's founder, Henry Ford, traced his roots back to west Cork and opened a car assembly plant in Cork harbour in 1917. At its peak, almost 1,000 staff worked at the Cork plant. Ford closed the Cork plant in 1984 with the loss of 800 jobs. "I think it is unlikely to be a Brexit strategy in term of reducing employment numbers in Ireland," Mr Coveney said. "In fact, the opposite has happened in many sectors where companies - because of a lack of certainty in the UK - have decided to increase their workforce in Ireland. "This is particularly so in financial services and other sectors. "I am not briefed on the reasons why Ford have made this decision apart from what the media has said about global restructuring. "I think I need to look at the reasons behind this decision before commenting further. "Obviously our agencies will look to support the workforce there," the Tanaiste said. "Luckily, we have a very strong jobs market in Cork at the moment. I think there is a bright future for people looking for employment in this State." Ford confirmed it is reviewing its operations. "We can confirm we have entered formal consultation regarding a proposal to further align our market representation in the UK and Ireland, to reduce costs, improve profitability and create a more customer-centric business," a statement said. "This follows similar clustering actions made in other select markets in which Ford operates." The US car giant is currently pursuing a cost-cutting programme across its global operations. Ford hopes to cut more than 20bn from its spending by 2022. The car firm recently re-aligned its Austrian operation with major functions transferred to its German headquarters. Ford employs more than 53,000 across Europe. The majority of the jobs are located in its UK, German, Belgian and Spanish operations. The power of social media has helped reunite three Mayo men with a photograph taken of them by a random passer-by in New York. People on Twitter got to work when the photographer, Christina Boniello, posted a photo of Mayo friends Sean Tigue, Bernard Waldron and John Devaney on her profile and asked for help. "When I was in the city last week, these three Irishmen asked me to take a photo of them, but none of them had phones, she wrote. "'Youll take the picture and well find it someday so if by some strange turn of events anyone knows these guys, heres their photo, she added. When I was in the city last week, these three Irishmen asked me to take a photo of them, but none of them had phones. youll take the picture and well find it someday so if by some strange turn of events anyone knows these guys, heres their photo pic.twitter.com/ZrPvKXusJ7 Christina (@CBones705) May 12, 2019 The photograph of the three men in Times Square quickly garnered thousands of likes and shares. In the space of two hours, all three men had been named and the photo is believed to have been forwarded on to them. The three friends are understood to be from Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo. "I cant believe the attention the tweet has gotten! Just glad its made the way back to them," Christina told Independent.ie. "Honestly my first thought was they were just being cheeky," she added when asked what her reaction was when the men asked her to take a photo as neither of them had a phone to hand. "I figured they definitely had cameras but just wanted me to take it," she said. The New Yorker added how amazed she was by the response online and the power of social media. "I most definitely wasnt expecting all this! Just amazes me how quickly it spreads halfway around the world to find these guys," she said. Ballyhaunis GAA described the three men as 'musketeers'. The 3 musketeers take NYC !! Sean Tighe, Bernard Waldron and John Devaney. Plenty of sights seen wed imagine https://t.co/qu1N8jFvo3 Ballyhaunis GAA (@BallyhaunisGAA) May 12, 2019 The quick discovery was praised by social media users, with one user saying: "The Irish can find someone faster than the FBI, trust us". @Brennan07Gary if only mayo could find Sam as easily Nigel Shevlin (@nshev16) May 13, 2019 "If only Mayo could find Sam as easily," said another. Sister Anne Marie of the Sacred Heart, Order of Carmelites making public Profession of Simple Vows as a Carmelite Nun at Holy Family Carmelite Hermitage, Corran South, Leap, Co Cork. with Mother Irene Pic Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision TWO Carmelite nuns are hopeful that they will be able stay in their rural Cork hermitage home despite being taken to court over an alleged breach of planning laws. Cork County Council has objected to their dwelling at Corran South near Leap, West Cork, amid claims that it was entirely unauthorised. At a sitting of Skibbereen District Court, Judge James McNulty was told that the local authority had received complaints from the public about the two-storey cladded building near Leap. The structure comprises of a wooden chapel, a wooden shed and a timber fence as well as cells. Mother Irene Gibson, who has spent almost thirty years living as a consecrated hermit, said that they did "regretfully rock the boat" by erecting a two-storey modular building. "It was not my intention to put that up in that I thought when I was buying it it was not visible from the road. When I saw that it was very high I was very unhappy," she said. The Dublin-born nun said that if she and fellow nun, Sr Annemarie, have to leave they will immediately do so. But it is hoped some kind of compromise can be reached. "I will miss it. Of course I love my own country but if we have to go to ends of the world and that is God's will so be it," she told Virgin News. Meanwhile, Sr Anne Marie, formerly Hannah Loeman, who professed her vows of obedience, chastity and poverty on Monday, said that that joining the Carmelite order was the realisation of a dream. "It is is all I dreamed of to be at last in this order of Carmel. I just think of our Lord when he was brought before the courts. He was brought before Pilate. I take courage from that," she said. Sr Annemarie, who is twenty and from New Zealand, explained that they live in individual cells where they spend much of their time. They pray, eat and read in their cells and live a simple life. Sr Annemarie decided to join the order because of its devotion to our Lady and reading about the life of St Teresa. The nuns pray in common in Latin. However, when they pray in private, they have a choice of Latin or English. Solicitor for the nuns, Letty Baker, told the court that where they live is very basic. She said that the buildings are solely used for religious purposes. The case has been adjourned until December 10. Judge McNulty has urged other orders in West Cork to offer the nuns a new home. The nuns are part of the Carmelite Order of the Holy Face of Jesus. On their website the nuns say that modern society has an "urgent need for contemplative prayer, for unending praise, adoration and supplication on behalf of a weary world." They stressed that when contemplative religious work dedicates their lives to complete union with Christ, "a powerhouse of prayer " results. Over 3,200 new social housing units were provided in 2018, latest reports show. A total of 3,219 new build, leased and purchased housing was provided by housing associations in 2018. According to the latest Housing Association Activity Report released today, 2,734 homes were provided under the Social Housing Current Expenditure Scheme for families. A further 485 homes were provided under the Capital Assistance Scheme, for elderly, homeless and disabled people. Speaking at the launch of the report, Chairperson of the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) and CEO of Peter McVerry, Pat Doyle, said that 2018 proved to be very successful. This year has been our highest ever year of delivery that weve had since records began, he said. They werent just delivered by magic, we worked closely with local authorities, local authorities are our key partners in terms of delivering. ICSH Chief Executive Donal McManus said that there is a need for social housing now more than ever before. Were in the middle of a housing crisis, we need more housing than ever before, theres 10,000 people who are homeless at the moment, families with children and weve more people than ever on the social housing waiting list. Although its an achievement that were up on last year, the last few years will be the first years since 2008 where weve got back up to a decent delivery figure." Were absolutely delighted about that, he said. Theyre not afraid to turn on the heating Tina Donaghy, Head of Development at Fold Ireland, stated that the core focus is to deliver quality purpose built accommodation to those in need. She referenced feedback from tenants who live in purpose-built apartments in Coolock. Tenants [are] saying that their health and wellbeing has improved significantly due to the safety and security and the quality of their homes. And theyre not afraid to turn on the heating due to the high cost and they can have the heating on for a short time and because of the high levels of insulation, it holds the heat, she said. Another tenant said that they no longer have to live in a cold home, and thats what it really boils down to, she added. Co-operation Mr McManus stated that in order to achieve the target of 15,000 social housing units by 2021, co-operation is needed. We need more access to land, we need, some of our players need more access to funding, we need the co-operation of the public and our local representatives, our local leaders, he said. Everybody wants social housing but youll see the level of resistance we get sometimes in relation to having social housing next door to me. We need to manage all those different stakeholders, he added. Out of all of the social housing provided in Ireland, 62% is provided by local authorities and 38% is provided by housing associations, the report shows. 5,000 homes in construction pipeline The delivery pipeline, as outlined in the report, shows that there is nearly 5,000 homes in the construction pipeline and over 1,000 homes under acquisition. Local authorities are our main provider of social housing, explained Mr Doyle. We work in partnership so its not a case of them and us, local authorities have wide rows of housing delivery and our focus is very much as a sector on housing delivery, he said. The Housing Association Activity Report 2019 was published by ICSH, the national federation for non-profit housing associations. The sector manages over 35,000 homes for families on low income. Nigel Farage has shown the "warped and damaging" impact individual politicians in Brussels can have on domestic issues, according to MEP candidate Clare Daly. Ms Daly, running in the Dublin constituency, said the rise of the far-right and Brexit demonstrates there is a direct correlation between what happens in the European Parliament and Dublin. At a debate between Dublin candidates last night, she said Mr Farage is an example of how the EU has left its citizens behind. "In a warped and damaging way that individual shows you can go to Europe and make a difference," she said. "Brexit and a rise in the far right," she added, shows "the EU has left behind its citizens and it needs to address that." Dublin candidate Mark Durkan said Brexit has proven people need to take ownership of issues in Europe. However, he added he will not move south from Northern Ireland to Dublin to vote for himself in the upcoming election because it would not be "the honest thing to do". Mr Durkan was controversially selected to run for Fine Gael alongside former Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald. He lives in Northern Ireland, is a former SDLP leader and previously said he will live in the North if elected. The 58-year-old was unable to name four streets in the capital earlier this year when he launched his campaign. They were speaking at a debate as part of a special recording of Independent.ie's 'Floating Voter Podcast' at the Jameson Distillery, Bow Street, in Dublin city centre last night with Fianna Fail candidate Barry Andrews and the Green's Ciaran Cuffe. Mr Cuffe said climate change was one the biggest election issues: "If there is a need for a war in the years ahead it is a war against climate change." Mr Andrews, a former TD and minister, said the election for him is about more than a way back in to politics. He was elected to the Dail in 2002 and held his seat until the 2011 General Election. In 2008 he was appointed Minister of State for Children and responded to the Ryan Report on Institutional Abuse on behalf of the Government. Most recently he worked as chief executive of the charity Goal and was director general of the International Institute of European Affairs (IIEA). "I want to take what I learned in the [IIEA] and put it into practice," he said. Three candidates are guaranteed to secure seats in the election. A fourth candidate will then secure a spot once Britain leaves the EU as the capital was one of two Irish constituencies to gain a seat in the European Parliament's redistribution of UK seats post-Brexit. Sinn Fein's Lynn Boylan is the only sitting MEP contesting the election in Dublin after Fine Gael's Brian Hayes and Independent Nessa Childers declared they were not intent of seeking re-election. Clare Daly is a sitting Independents4Change TD in Dublin Fingal and has been critical of a "broken" EU. She had previously endorsed the Workers' Party candidate Eilis Ryan before deciding to hand in her own nomination papers. Green Party councillor Ciaran Cuffe is a former junior minister and with climate high on the agenda running up to the election is looking to make himself "transfer friendly". The government has been accused in the Dail of dragging its heels in tackling the insurance crisis after the European Commission launched an investigation into industry practices here. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government has done little to address rising insurance premiums. It beggars belief that it has taken for the European Commission to step in here, she said. It is clear the kid gloves approach of Government towards the insurance industry has not worked and must not last. Ms McDonald said she welcomed the intervention of the European Commission after it confirmed yesterday that it has opened a formal competition investigation into industry representative body Insurance Ireland over claims of anti-competitive behaviour. She said further legislation is needed to protect consumers. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar insisted the Government has been pro-active in tackling crippling insurance costs. He conceded these costs have an impact on families and businesses but they were being challenged with new legislation. Insurance costs in Ireland are very high, he said. Government doesnt set the premiums, that is a private industry. We have seen some progress, motor insurance is down 20pc from peak and it must continue to drop. Health insurance is stabilising. So far this year we have passed three new laws around insurance but it will take time before the effect of those three laws is seen in premiums. TANAISTE Simon Coveney dismissed claims of a European Parliament election split within Fine Gael following a row about attendance at a town hall-type rally in Cork. Two of Fine Gael's Ireland South candidates - Sean Kelly MEP and Minister Andrew Doyle - have been asked not to attend the Thursday evening election debate in Cork. Cork-based Deirdre Clune MEP will address the rally. Some Cork voters claimed they were being denied their right to hear what every candidate has to say about their election priorities. Expand Close Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune Several have demanded that Fine Gael allow all three candidates on their Ireland South ticket to attend the meeting. However, Mr Coveney insisted the handling of the town hall meeting was in full accordance with long standing Fine Gael election strategy plans. In 2014, the party similarly ran three candidates from Cork, Kerry and Wicklow - and captured two of the four seats on offer. On that occasion, Minister Simon Harris outpolled Deirdre Clune on the first count - but she overhauled him by the tenth count and won the party's second European Parliament berth. Ireland South is now comprised of 12 counties with a total of 23 candidates, 12 of whom are independents. There is no secret here," Mr Coveney said. This is an election strategy. We have three really good candidates in Ireland South. They are geographically placed in different areas in that overall constituency and so the candidates have agreed that they would focus their campaigns on those geographical areas." He was adamant that the party applied the same rules to everyone on a geographic basis with absolutely no favouritism shown. Deirdre Clune is the candidate from Cork, the debate is taking place in Cork, and just like if the debate was taking place in Kerry, Deirdre wouldnt be there or if it was up in Wicklow, Deirdre and Sean wouldnt be there either because Andrew Doyle would be there. Sean Kelly, Deirdre Clune and Andrew Doyle are three really good candidates. They are placed geographically in different places in a very large constituency so when big events take place in those localised areas well then the candidate that is campaigning in those areas, linked to the overall party strategy, is the person who is at the debate. There is no big secret about that, he said. The Taoiseach and Tanaiste knew about a meeting between Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone and garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe but insist they were not aware that Tusla held an inaccurate file on Sgt McCabe. In a statement this evening, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald said she knew that her colleague, Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone, planned to meet with Mr McCabe but added: She of course did not inform me about any details in relation to confidential Tusla records. It came after Ms Zappone issued a statement stating she informed relevant Government colleagues of the copy and paste blunder involving Sergeant McCabe. The minister, who is currently in the United States, has refused to say who those government colleagues are. There has been widespread shock after it emerged a false file containing allegations of child sexual abuse remained on the TUSLA database for almost two years - without the knowledge of the McCabe family. Ms Fitzgerald has now said that she was informed me in January that Ms Zappone intended to meet with Sgt McCabe. Expand Close Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone. Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone. Photo: Tom Burke She of course did not inform me about any details in relation to confidential Tusla records, Ms Fitzgerald said. Read More An inquiry is being set up by the Government into an alleged smear campaign against Sgt McCabe. Expand Close Whistleblower Maurice McCabe outside Leinster House in 2014 Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Whistleblower Maurice McCabe outside Leinster House in 2014 Photo: Tom Burke The Terms of Reference of the proposed Commission put before the Oireachtas by me refer specifically to a complaint of criminal misconduct against Sgt McCabe and whether this allegation was used against him, the Tanaiste said. I have always been scrupulous to avoid any comment in the Dail on what was at issue in the criminal complaint against Sgt. McCabe, referred to in the terms of reference. Expand Close Sergeant Maurice McCabe Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sergeant Maurice McCabe Photo: Tom Burke Had I put into the public domain anything which indicated or implied the nature of the complaint against Sgt McCabe I would be rightly open to criticism, the Tanaiste said. Read More She added: At the heart of the issues to be examined by the Commission is whether senior Gardai were involved in a campaign to use information to damage Sgt McCabe. I agreed to take on board amendments designed to put beyond doubt that the examination of any smear campaign would not be confined. Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness spoke on RTE's Six One News this evening and said a criminal investigation is needed into how the Tusla file was created and by whom. Mr McGuinness also said that Tusla's apology to Mr McCabe was today delivered to his next door neighbour and then passed on to the family. We've been trained for several scenarios, including and especially this one. But there's something about this woman's tone on this phonecall that immediately pulls me off guard. "I intend to take my own life tonight," she informs me, a bald statement of fact. Emotional sweat forms on my brow. I feel like I've rounded a corner at night to find someone standing on the lip of a bridge. The reality is, I'm in a Dublin office, listening on a phone line via a listening service for people with anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges. I attempt to get more information out of her, mainly to keep her on the line. Has she felt like this for a while? Is there anyone else in the house with her? How can we keep her safe for tonight? The caller promptly hangs up, leaving the air in our office heavy. We did our best, we reason. We will wonder about her all evening, and long after the volunteering shift is over. To say that there's barely a dull moment on a helpline like this is a threadbare cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. The concerns of the callers run a bewilderingly long gamut. We're all aware, in some way, that there are Irish people living in real isolation, whether psychological, geographical, accidental, self-imposed. Yet to be made aware of their muted desperation, or their resignation, if you want a better understanding of how complex the human condition is, this is the place. There is no 'good' call to receive, but the call from the person who rings up, frustrated and utterly at a loss as to what to do, and then leaves the conversation with something resembling a road-map to recovery, is among the most gratifying. It's a cliche: you get out more of volunteering than you put in. Gemma Guerin (31), from Kells, echoes this sentiment, despite becoming an 'accidental' volunteer for the local chapter of the Order of Malta a decade ago. "My now-husband was asked to come along as they were short of drivers, and one day I asked, 'Can I pop along to see what the craic is?' After that, I got stuck right in." Now, Gemma is the Officer in Charge, meaning that she has to undertake plenty of admin, in addition to her hands-on volunteering with the service. With a son Dylan (5) and a full-time job in eBay, the question has to be asked: where does she even find the time to volunteer? "I really enjoy it, so I don't have another hobby - this is essentially it," she notes. "I got so much training from the Order of Malta, and I got my EMT license, so this is my way of giving back for that training. It's lucky that my husband Michael is also involved, and understands the time element I have to give." As with most volunteers, some of her charges linger in the memory longer than others: "When the pope was visiting, we met one lovely lady who'd had a nasty fall - turns out she was a nun who had travelled to the Phoenix Park on her own. Two weeks later, she sent us a letter and remembered us all by name, despite being in agony at the time. That made me well up, but that happens very often. It's why we do it." Yet for every happy ever after, there are others that Gemma remembers for different reasons: "When we do patient transfers (from people's homes to hospitals), you see the really lonely side of things. At high risk events like motorcycle events, there is death and some members have had to see it, but fortunately there's a very good support system in place for volunteers here." Nina Arwitz, CEO of Volunteer Ireland, notes that people volunteer for several reasons: "The main reason people say they want to volunteer is to make the world or their community a better place. It makes you feel good - it's referred to as a 'helper's high'," she explains. "There are those that volunteer for causes they are passionate about, or they might have had a family member with a specific health problem." Fiona Cunnane, National Volunteer Programme Manager with the Irish Wheelchair Association, recently surveyed her 700-strong bank of full-time volunteers about their reasons for getting involved. Eighty two per cent said that their friendships had increased and they felt a real sense of community. Others are doing courses in social care and might volunteer as part of a work placement, but love it so much that they stay on." "Seventy per cent said their teamwork skills had improved, while 68pc said that their communications skills had improved," she says. "In terms of migrants, the statistics for them volunteering tend to be quite high - they are keen to learn the language and integrate into society, while some of them come from a culture where volunteering is the norm," observes Arwitz. Yet in Irish culture, volunteering is ingrained in society: "We're a nation of volunteers," affirms Arwitz. "Rates stay steady in terms of 28-30pc of the population - we have the highest per capita rate of volunteers in Europe and 9th in the world." And at last count, there are around a million Irish people undertaking voluntary roles, clocking in 232.8 million hours of manpower a year. According to Volunteer Ireland, which this week is marking National Volunteering Week, the demographic is getting younger every year: around 16.8pc of them are aged between 15 and 24, 21pc are aged between 25 and 34, and 35pc are aged between 35 and 44. Four in five of them rated their happiness at 'very high' or 'high'. A growing body of research has established a strong link between volunteering and health and wellbeing. The economic climate can cause a slight flux: "Volunteering rates shoot up when there's more unemployment as people have more time, very simply. We're are in a boom right now, and you might expect volunteering rates to drop, but right now there's a natural ebb and flow that's not too concerning." You might think that other latter-day factors - among them, garda vetting, GDPR and longer working days - might affect the uptake in volunteer positions. Yet Cunnane notes that they don't affect interest in volunteering at IWA. And Arwitz notes that, in a wider sense, the supply of roles hasn't in fact caught up with demand. "A quarter of our volunteers have been with us for over 10 years," says Cunnane. "We want to make things as easy on them as possible so we provide training days on GDPR, for instance, if it's relevant to the role." There are 22,500 not-for-profit organisations in Ireland at the moment, many of which rely on the people power that volunteers provide. According to the National Survey of Volunteer Involving Organisations, 59pc of organisations said that the organisation would not survive without volunteers. For the time-pressed, or those who don't see themselves in traditional volunteering roles, the nature of volunteering has widened out so as to benefit a number of different parties. Micro-volunteering is on the rise, and requires a commitment of just 2-5 minutes. It can be a one-off piece of work, like counting bee flowers online (with Count Flowers for Bees, which helps to create a flower map of Ireland to help conserve insects). Others sign up to the Be My Eyes app: Professing to 'bring sight to blind and low-vision people', the free app connects visually impaired people with sighted volunteers for visual assistance through a live video call. Another micro-volunteering initiative, Post Pals (postpals.co.uk) aims to lift the spirits of ill children by sending them cards, small gifts, letters and emails. For others, volunteering is a way to combine a sport, hobby or creative impulse with the chance to do good. The Blue Teapot theatre company in Galway enables people with intellectual disabilities to get involved in the performing arts, and relies on volunteers (blueteapot.ie), while the Lakers - a recreational club for people with special needs - regularly put on theatre productions at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, and often need help behind the scenes (lakers.ie). For something different, there's scope to become a 'Reminiscence Volunteer' at St Josephs' Hospital in Ardee (irishnursinghomes.ie); people visit the care facility for a couple of hours a week and chat with residents about the good old days, and listen as they recount stories from their own youth. "The first piece of advice I'd give is to find a cause you really care about, not what you think people expect you to do," says Arwit. "If it's enjoyable, you'll be doing something you get so much back from." For more information on Volunteer Ireland, see volunteer.ie The long-awaited new Mazda3 (pictured) has just arrived and will cost from 26,295. Initially just the hatchback version has gone on sale. But there will soon be two body types as the saloon gets here in June. However, from the start there are two engines; a 2-litre petrol Skyactiv-G and a 1.8-litre diesel Skyactiv-D. The much-heralded 2-litre petrol Skyactiv-X, with its claims of diesel-like consumption, is scheduled for later in the year. Mazda says this engine combines the benefits of both petrol and diesel through spark and compression ignition. Mild hybrid technology is standard on all the petrol powerplants. The arrival of the '3' marks a busy few months for Mazda as the company awaits not just the saloon but also the CX-30 crossover later on. ***** A NUMBER of rare and expensive cars will be on display at the Malahide Classic and Vintage Motor Show, which takes place at the Grand Hotel on Sunday, May 26, next. The eighth year of the event will showcase an extremely rare 1926 Minerva AF Towncar (a Belgian make once owned by an Irish-American boxer). It will be among 100 beautiful old cars on display. Others on show range from Rolls Royce to Jensen, Mustang to Cadillac, Jaguar, Mercedes, Porsche and so on. The show is a charity fundraiser, organised by Malahide Lions Club, and will open at 11am. Its new sponsorship partner is Axa Insurance. Entrance costs 5 for adults or 15 for families. Proceeds will go to the Debra Ireland charity which supports those with the severe 'butterfly' skin condition EB. I've changed my mind about where I'm going to live when I win the EuroMillions. Portofino, south-east of Genoa on the Italian Riviera, had long been a front-runner, but Portmeirion, south-east of Porthmadog on the Dwyryd estuary, has just pipped it at the post. It's a gobsmackingly gorgeous tourist village in the north Wales parish of Penrhyndeudraeth, where supporters of the local church league rugby team are famed for their chant: "Give us a P, give us an E, give us an N - ah, here, give us a break." Older readers will remember Portmeirion as the setting for the 1960s cult TV series The Prisoner, starring Irish actor Patrick McGoohan. He was born in New York in 1928, but his parents returned to their native Mullaghmore, Co Leitrim, when he was a baby. The Prisoner, which ran for 17 episodes, tells the story of a disaffected agent, who tries to quit the Secret Service but is knocked out with sleeping gas and wakes up in a picturesque, but sinister, police state called The Village. Known only as Number Six - which delighted John Player & Sons who, at the time, produced the top-selling cigarette of the same name - McGoohan's character is frequently chased around by a huge white weather balloon and subjected to mind-control experiments. Expand Close Portmeirion / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Portmeirion It's very strange, but strangest of all, he spends every waking moment trying to escape. When I stayed in Portmeirion last week, escape was the last thing on my mind - I nearly had to be dragged screaming from the place to catch the Stena Adventurer back to Dublin. If this is someone's idea of a prison, I'll happily return tomorrow to begin a life sentence. Portmeirion, which was built between 1925 and 1976, was designed by visionary architect Clough Williams-Ellis, who was a bit eccentric - he owned nine identical tweed jackets and plus-fours, so he wouldn't have to waste valuable time every morning wondering what to wear. He had much more important things to be doing, like creating a fairy-tale village that just happens to be easily accessible by boat and car from Dublin. Until his dying day in 1978 (he was 94), Williams-Ellis always denied he had copied Portofino, saying instead that his many visits there had inspired him. We can only take him at his word, but the resemblance is remarkable. Perched on a wooded promontory in Tremadog Bay, and with a microclimate that sees subtropical plants and palm trees thrive, it really could be Italy - until you hear that lovely Welsh lilt from the busy tour guides. Portmeirion gets nearly 250,000 visitors every year, but when the last day-trippers leave at 7.30pm, overnight guests have the place to themselves. Expand Close Patrick McGoohan, who starred in The Prisoner / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Patrick McGoohan, who starred in The Prisoner And what a place it is, with its collection of weird and wonderful buildings, many of which have provided accommodation for big names, including Noel Coward, who wrote Blithe Spirit here in 1941, Ingrid Bergman, George Harrison and a man who needs no introduction, King Zog of Albania. Unsurprisingly, the village hosts two or three weddings a week as couples take advantage of the unique surroundings for enviable photos. Williams-Ellis' ashes were stored away for 20 years after his death, but on New Year's Eve 1998, they were decanted into a rocket that was sent skywards during a fireworks display over Portmeirion, as per his wishes. There's no record of what height or speed the rocket reached, but it couldn't have been anywhere near as high or as fast as I went during a side trip to Penrhyn Quarry, near Bangor, for a go on Velocity 2, the world's scariest and Europe's longest zip line. The cable is 1,555 metres long. You start from 150 metres up the side of a mountain and are soon hurtling head-first at 160kph over a lake. Don't be concerned that you aren't provided with a life jacket - if the unthinkable happens, it's a parachute you'll need. The experience sounds expensive at 65 (75) for a minute-and-a-half on weekdays - at weekends, it costs up to 99 (115) - but the adrenaline rush is worth every cent. Apparently, you can see the Isle of Man from up there, but that's not easy when your life is flashing before your eyes (zipworld.co.uk). Only slightly less exciting - and another side trip from Portmeirion - is a high-speed rigid inflatable boat (RIB) safari along the Menai Strait that separates Anglesey from the Welsh mainland. Brothers Charles and Christian Harris are the instantly likeable and knowledgeable skippers on these waterborne adventures (ribride.co.uk) that bounce along at up to 80kph. If you're lucky, hedge witch, wild plant healer, forager and cook Jules Cooper will be on board with a basket full of vegetarian goodies for a picnic on the beach or an island (hedgewitch.wales). Factfile: How to do it Expand Close Stena Adventurer / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stena Adventurer Tom's visit was organised by Stena Line, Visit Wales and north Wales-based Adventure Tours UK, which specialises in outdoor activities for private and corporate groups (adventuretoursuk.com). ITV Wales' six-part series, The Village, goes behind the scenes over the course of a year in Portmeirion. For more information, see itv.com/walesprogrammes Get there Stena Line has four daily sailings from Dublin to Holyhead, at 2.15am, 8.10am, 2.50pm and 8.40pm. Departures from Holyhead are at 2.30am, 8.55pm, 2pm and 8.30pm. Crossings vary from 3hrs 15mins to 3hrs 40mins. Upgrade to travel in the Stena Plus lounge from 18 per person (a bargain), including complimentary drinks, snacks, newspapers and magazines, exclusive menu, waiter service and free Wi-Fi. See the Low Fares Finder at stenaline.ie Where to stay It's only a 70-minute drive from Holyhead to Portmeirion, where guests can stay in the four-star, 14-room hotel with a restaurant and its own low-tide beach; the four-star Castell Deud- raeth, with 11 rooms and suites and a restaurant; a serviced village room (there are 32); or one of 13 self-catering village cottages. Sample summer short break offer (valid June 4 to July 23): three nights' accommodation, bottle of Prosecco in your room on arrival, three-course dinner in the hotel or Castell, full Welsh breakfast each morning, free entry to the village and allocated parking, from 142pps (165) per night. See portmeirion.wales For more info, see visitwales.com. NB: This feature originally appeared in The Herald. Thomas said he is concerned that low numbers of new members may not be able to sustain the VFWs of the future. He recommends that those eligible join their local VFW to learn about all of the benefits available, and any changes that may happen to those benefits. He was happy to speak at a Junior ROTC event recently. The Internet was supposed to make travel simple. But how many hours have you spent sifting through sites, prices, forms and flights trying to book a trip? Not for the first time, Google says it has a fix. "Travel planning is complicated," Richard Holden, the company's VP for Product Management, Travel, said in a blog post this week. "Thats why today, were simplifying the way we help travelers plan trips with Google across devices." How? The search giant has announced a major revamp of its travel deck on desktop, bundling a range of trip-planning tools together at google.com/travel. 'Google Trips', as the page is titled (not to be confused with the offline mobile app), allows browsers to search for flights, hotels and packages, as well as explore possible destinations, all on a single landing page. Expand Close Google Trips, the new landing page / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Google Trips, the new landing page It also sees a tighter integration with Google Search and Google Maps. At this stage, the company is not jumping ahead with sales of flights and holidays - instead continuing with its metasearch model, where users click through to book rooms and airfares provided by advertisers. "We want to help you find the information you need, fast," as Holden says. So, how does Google Trips feel and function? One of the first things users will notice is how personalised the process is. Yesterday, for example, I booked a hotel in Cork. Today, when I open the landing page, it prompts me to review this trip and "continue planning" - drawing information from my use of other tools like Gmail, Search and Maps. Click through further, and I'm presented with options of things to do in the city based on places I have starred in Google Maps, with travel articles gleaned from around the web, and even with a weather forecast. "When you go to google.com/travel, you can now make edits directly to your trips timeline, and in a few weeks youll be able to manually add new reservations as well," Holden says. If you dont want to see private results, here's how you can opt out. The mobile version of the site offers similar options... though not everything is covered. Cruises and car rental are conspicuous by their absence, for example. Google has been on a travel journey for some time, building acquisitions like ITA software for flights and Zagat for restaurants into potentially all-consuming planning tools. Given its billions of users, access to personal data and intuitive user experiences, booking giants like Expedia and Priceline may well be worried - though they still reap the bookings rewards... for now. Read more: In an interview on CBS's 'Face the Nation', former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson was asked about the latest round in the tariff war that President Donald Trump has embarked upon with China (he has raised tariffs on $200bn of Chinese goods from 10pc to 25pc). Mr Paulson replied, "You're darn right I don't like tariffs." He continued: "Why don't I like them? Because they're a tax on the American consumer. But I see an even more perverse effect with tariffs. "Those who do us the great honour of investing in America, of doing business with our companies and suppliers, do so because we've always had predictable, reliable economic policies. Tariffs jeopardise that." Mr Paulson suggested that politicians could always try "the tactic of working with our allies to put pressure" on China. Mr Trump did the opposite: He backed out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which excluded China) and picked trade fights with Europe and Canada. Democratic presidential candidate and senator Michael Bennet of Colorado made the same point as Mr Paulson earlier on the programme, explaining, "What I would do differently is mobilise the world against China's mercantilist trading policies, which the president is right to point out have been unfair." However, Mr Bennet warned that "putting tariffs on our allies, putting tariffs on even the Chinese that are actually taxes on American producers, American farmers, taxes on the American consumer and taxes on the American worker, I think are completely the wrong way of doing this. I can assure you the Chinese have a longer attention span than Donald Trump has." Mr Trump still seems to believe that someone other than US consumers and importers pay the tariffs. (He might consult National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, who was forced to fess up that Trump's claim is false.) If Mr Trump acknowledged reality, he'd have to admit that he's effectively raised taxes on these businesses, farmers and consumers. Mr Trump's trade tax on Americans should be an inviting target for Democrats, but too many of them have fallen in love with protectionism. When Mr Trump says the US is getting wealthier from all those tariffs, he means the government is getting more revenue from Americans. (That would be like a President Elizabeth Warren saying the US is getting richer by raising income taxes.) Mr Trump is either wilfully ignorant or simply unwilling to recognise the extreme hardship he is inflicting on many Americans, especially in deep-red farm states. Even Republican senator Rand Paul, ordinarily one the most emphatic apologists for President Trump, argued on ABC's 'This Week' that for some companies, "the tax cuts specifically helped them but that the tariffs are almost equal in punishing them." He continued: "The farmers in Kentucky are concerned about the tariffs, and I've talked to the administration about this. I've said my concern is that the great benefits of the tax cut, which have low unemployment and incredible economic growth, could be raised by this tariff war as we ratchet it up with China. I'm very concerned. "However, we're in the middle of this and the president is playing...a negotiating battle with the Chinese, and I think he feels that at this point they can't really back out. "I think there are ways the Chinese market could open up and that would be good, but I still have advised the administration, 'get this done', because the longer we're involved in a tariff battle or a trade war, the better chance there is that we could actually enter into a recession because of it," he said. Unfortunately, Mr Trump has no idea how to "get this done", which is why he is now suggesting that the US economy benefits with tariffs in place (something virtually no credible economist would agree with). Mr Trump needs to "win" in China negotiations for the 2020 election; China plays the long game over decades to achieve its economic aims. Mr Trump therefore is far more likely to be pushed into a poor deal that he'll try to dress up as a win than China is to cut him a break and make critical economic concessions. If some voters seem rather unimpressed with Trump's tax cuts, it might be because between rising health-care costs and tariffs (aka Trump's trade tax), they don't feel richer. And if you are a farmer or other resident in the heartland who now sees farm-belt bankruptcies soaring and massive floods (which Trump will not acknowledge is one dangerous consequence of climate change), you might think Trump, the king of debt and tax losses, is just another slick politician who lied to you. You'd be right. ( Washington Post) Norway's Princess Martha Louise has debuted her new relationship through the very modern medium of Instagram. The 47-year-old royal has been single for the last three years since divorcing husband Ari Mikael Behn in 2016, but made a formal announcement of her love with American shaman Durek Verrett. Due to the fact that her brother Crown Prince Haakon is next in line to the Norwegian throne, she, like other European royals, has more options when it comes to where she lives. She and her ex-husband divided their time between Norway and London and now she has set her ambitions further afield to the US, in the same vein as Sweden's Princess Madeleine, who moved to Florida with her family last year and Britain's Princess Beatrice, who lives in New York. Martha Louise organised a photoshoot with Mr Verrett, who describes himself as a "spirit hacker" and counts Gwyneth Paltrow among his celebrity fans, to announce the relationship. It was set up specifically for the Norwegian press and she released the images via her Instagram with a gushing statement about their burgeoning romance. Expand Close Norway's Princess Martha Louise with boyfriend Shaman Durek. Picture: Instagram / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Norway's Princess Martha Louise with boyfriend Shaman Durek. Picture: Instagram When you meet your twin flame, you know. I have been lucky enough to have met mine, she captioned the pictures. @shamandurek has changed my life, like he does with so many. He has made me realize that unconditional love actually exists here on this planet. He embraces all of me without question or fear. "He makes me laugh more than anyone, has the most profound wisdom to share and all the bits in between from the diversity of his being. She continued: "I feel so happy and blessed that he is my boyfriend. Thank you my love, for including me so generously into your family. I love you from this eternity to the next." Martha Louise anticipated criticism and urged naysayers to consider their words, explaining that they are head over heels in love and that's all that matters. It is not up to you to choose for me or to judge me, she wrote. I dont choose my man to satisfy any of you or the norms or boxes you have chosen in your mind for me to be in. I dont thrive there, nor do I exist in your illusion about me. I choose from love. And thats it. Shaman Durek is merely a man I love spending my time with and who fulfills me. So thank you for respecting my actions and my choice of partner. All I know at this moment is that we love each other and I am super happy. Expand Close (L-R) Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Princess Martha Louise of Norway, Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway depart for the banquet after the wedding ceremony of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill hosted by King Carl Gustaf XIV and Queen Silvia at The Royal Palace on June 8, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (L-R) Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Princess Martha Louise of Norway, Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway depart for the banquet after the wedding ceremony of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill hosted by King Carl Gustaf XIV and Queen Silvia at The Royal Palace on June 8, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) Video of the Day Durek went on his to praise his girlfriend on his own Instagram account, writing, "A strong woman who lets me be me without judgement or confinement. Martha Louise has three children from her marriage, the first to end in divorce in modern Norwegian royal history. She has been keeping a determinedly low profile in recent years, focusing on her family and forging a new path for herself balancing her royal obligations and personal passions. At the time of the divorce, she and Ari released a statement their marriage had been over for years but they endured in order to parent their daughters Maud Angelica, Leah Isadora and Emma Tallulah. "We have tried everything for a long time and we still cannot be where we were before, making it impossible for us to continue," the statement read. "We feel guilty because we are no longer able to create the safe harbour that our children deserve. But we hope and believe that we will manage to hold on to friendship through what lies ahead." The chances of war between Iran and the United States have just increased again. A small mistake from either side could lead to dangerous results - and easily escalate into a disaster for both sides, as well as the entire Middle East. US National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the US is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in response to "troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran yesterday. It is no secret that Bolton wants a war with Iran aimed at changing the country's government. In March 2015, at the height of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the Obama administration, Bolton wrote an op-ed titled 'To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran' in the 'New York Times', where he suggested the US or Israel should attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure. He also added that military attacks should be combined with "vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change". Similarly, in 2017, at the gathering of Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), Bolton said the policy of the US should be "the overthrow of the mullahs' regime in Tehran". Bolton was one of the main architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And today he seems to be playing a similar tune about Iran. However, President Donald Trump does not want another war in the Middle East. He constantly criticised his Republican and Democratic predecessors for waging costly conflicts in the region, and ran a campaign on the promise of ending those wars and avoiding new ones. It is important to note that today's political climate in the US is different from the pre-Iraq War era. The Iraq War happened in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when the US public was outraged and ready to take out all enemies. It was not hard to sell a war, even one partially built on misinformation about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Today, Americans are tired of years of wars in the region, with thousands of casualties and billions of their tax dollars spent. Although hawks still hold some positions of power in the US administration and in Congress, their long-time war agendas do not hold much support. Another difference is that Europe would be unlikely to follow the US into a war. An important reason for that is the Iran nuclear deal. Although the US has unilaterally exited the deal, Iran and America's European allies have stuck to the agreement. The deal provides a mechanism for systemic diplomacy and regular contacts between Iran and European powers, and makes it difficult for the US to get Europe on board with a military attack on Iran. The people of Iran are extremely dissatisfied with the leadership of their country. The economy is on a constant downfall, Iran's regional adventures have isolated the country from the West, and now sabre-rattling with Washington has increased the threat of war. But the Iranian people don't want their country to end up like war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, much less to see civil wars like the ones in Syria or Libya. American hawks should bear the interests of everyday Iranians in mind as they attempt to further their agendas. ( Washington Post) After Alabama voted for a near-total ban on abortion, the title of Margaret Atwoods novel The Handmaids Tale began trending on social media, with many opponents drawing comparisons to the dystopian classic. The US states Republican-dominated Senate voted 25-6 for the bill, which, if approved by its governor, would become the countrys most stringent law on terminations of pregnancy. The bill would block abortions in the event of rape and incest, and features an exception only for when the womans health is at serious risk Google searches in the United States for 'Handmaid's Tale' after Alabama banned abortion in almost all circumstances pic.twitter.com/0i8Nd0lapu Stephen Jones (@SteveJonesPA) May 15, 2019 Within hours, US Google searches for The Handmaids Tale were up on previous days and many took to Twitter to make comparisons with the book, which was recently dramatised in a popular TV series. The story focuses on an imagined future when an authoritarian government named Gilead attains control of the former United States. With fertility rates falling, those women able to conceive become Handmaids, forced to submit to ritualised rape to bear children for powerful men and their wives. Writer Caitlin Moran shared an image of the 22 male senators who voted against an exception for rape or incest, adding: Gilead is being brought to you by the following people. Gilead is being brought to you by the following people: https://t.co/LrUT6dkbp7 Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) May 15, 2019 Similarly, lawyer Dr Ann Olivarius posted: They all read The Handmaids Tale and thought it was a set of instructions? They all read The Handmaid's Tale and thought it was a set of instructions? https://t.co/WyaMW78IIw Dr. Ann Olivarius (@AnnOlivarius) May 15, 2019 Emmy Bengston, a communications worker for Democratic presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted a picture showing Alabama trending on Twitter, alongside a host of sport-related topics. Along with it, she wrote: I keep thinking about the flashback scene in Handmaids Tale when the women characters lose their jobs and bank accounts and instinctively know what it means and whats coming, and most people especially the men are kind of oblivious and dont take it seriously. I keep thinking about the flashback scene in Handmaid's Tale when the women characters lose their jobs and bank accounts and instinctively know what it means and what's coming, and most peopleespecially the menare kind of oblivious and don't take it seriously. Anyway, pic.twitter.com/E8sABiMMKk Emmy Bengtson (@EmmyA2) May 15, 2019 Representative Terri Collins, the bills sponsor, said it recognised the baby in the womb is a person. The Republican senators say they are intentionally seeking a conflict with the 1973 landmark US Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade, which legalised abortion nationally, as they hope it will lead to an effort to overturn it across all states. Meanwhile, British journalist Helen Lewis tweeted: For anyone horrified by Alabamas proposed abortion ban, or calling it Gilead. Look closer to home! Northern Ireland does not permit abortions even in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality. The ONLY exception is endangerment to a womans life. Abortion laws in the country are devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been suspended since 2017. Crews work to rescue workers off of a broken lift on top of the Devon Tower in downtown Oklahoma City (Chris Landsberger/The Oklahoman via AP) Two people, believed to be window cleaners, have been rescued from a lift near the top of an approximately 850-foot skyscraper in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City Fire Department said on Twitter that the two were stranded outside the 50-floor Devon Tower. Firefighters managed to secure the lift that was dangling from the top of the building and pull the two to safety about 8.30am after half an hour. Video from the scene showed the lift banging against the building and breaking windows. UPDATE: Firefighters have successfully rescued the two window washers. EMSA and OKCFD are assessing the victims for potential injuries now. BF 8:49 am pic.twitter.com/zgxVkH6Fjz Oklahoma City Fire (@OKCFD) May 15, 2019 Fire officials did not immediately return phone calls for further comment. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured. Frances culture minister Franck Riester says that a month after a fire engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral, the edifice is still being made safe enough for its restoration to begin. Mr Riester and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau wore hard hats for a visit Wednesday inside the Gothic church. Mr Trudeau said he wanted to show Canadians solidarity toward our French cousins. After the devastating April 15 fire, he said, one cant help but marvel at how so much was saved. Expand Close Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau addresses reporters after visiting Notre Dame cathedral (Christophe Ena/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau addresses reporters after visiting Notre Dame cathedral (Christophe Ena/AP) The French culture minister said that operations to secure and conserve the cathedral must be completed before restoration works can start. He said robots, for instance, were removing gravel from inside the cathedral, to be examined both by ministry experts and police seeking clues about the fires origin. After a call, weve heard the horses didnt particularly like backing up, so the firefighters would have to push the wagon back in to the fire station, which is what we will be doing on Saturday with our new fire engine, Wozney said. Alabamas new law restricting abortion in nearly every circumstance has moved one of the most polarising issues in American politics to the centre of the 2020 presidential campaign. The states legislation the toughest of several anti-abortion measures that have passed recently prompted an outcry from Democratic presidential candidates, who warned that conservatives were laying the groundwork to undermine the landmark Roe v Wade decision. The White House did not comment on the Alabama bill, signed into law by Republican Governor Kay Ivey, as President Donald Trump tries to balance his conservative base against the potential of antagonising women who are already sceptical about his presidency. The furore over abortion quickly took over on the Democratic campaign trail. Rallying supporters in New Hampshire, Senator Kamala Harris said she would back a legal challenge to Alabama and Georgias restrictive abortion laws. Expand Close Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris has criticised the abortion law (Paul Sancya/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris has criticised the abortion law (Paul Sancya/AP) She also vowed to make a commitment to upholding the Roe decision a significant factor in any Supreme Court nominees she might choose as president. However, she declined to go as far as presidential rival Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has promised to only nominate judges ready to preserve the 1973 ruling that established a womans constitutional right to an abortion. I respect every womans right to make a decision about whats in the best interest of herself and her family, Ms Harris said. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved abortion bans once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. None of these laws are yet in force, either because of later effective dates or legal challenges that have blocked them. But supporters have openly predicted that the laws could spark court fights that will eventually lead the Supreme Court to revisit its Roe decision. Ms Gillibrand plans to fly to Atlanta on Thursday to meet with women protesting against Georgias state law. Expand Close Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has vowed to fight the anti-abortion moves (Charles Krupa/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has vowed to fight the anti-abortion moves (Charles Krupa/AP) Senator Cory Booker said that backers of the Alabama measure are saying that they designed this bill with certain provisions like not having any exceptions for rape or incest specifically designed so that they can lead a fight to the Supreme Court to undermine other freedoms and liberties of women to control their own bodies. Mr Booker said it is not enough to hope that Roe will be upheld, adding: We cannot wait to see if this gets worse. Several Democratic presidential candidates sought to use their high-profile positions to boost organising against the state-level abortion laws. Ms Harris emailed her campaign supporters offering to split a donation to four advocacy groups working to defend abortion rights. Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, directed his supporters by email to the abortion-rights group NARAL. Among the other Democratic candidates who took to Twitter to blast Alabamas law and other state-level restrictions were Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and former Texas Representative Beto ORourke. Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL, lauded the Democrats for their support. But she urged them to go further than pro-abortion rights rhetoric, calling instead for articulated plans about how were going to address and get out of this crisis. The Democratic pushback comes as Mr Trump makes his selection of conservative judges a centrepiece of his political stump speech, part of a long-running courtship of social conservatives whose support he needs to win reelection next year. Republicans have long believed that the politics of abortion have shifted somewhat in their favour in recent years. But the near-absolutist nature of the most recent bills has sparked some concern among the presidents team that it could energise Trump critics and female voters, with whom the president has long struggled. The Supreme Court upholds the right to abortion but now has a conservative majority (Susan Walsh/AP) Democratic presidential candidates are condemning Alabamas approval of a ban on nearly all abortions, and warning that Republican-controlled legislatures around the country may follow suit. Legal fights are likely ahead over the Alabama measure, if it becomes law, and abortion restrictions in other conservative states. Expand Close Pro-choice protesters (Mickey Welsh/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pro-choice protesters (Mickey Welsh/AP) The Supreme Court, which affirmed womens constitutional right to abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, has added two conservative members under President Donald Trump. Abortion is a constitutional right. Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 15, 2019 On the Alabama measure, Senator Amy Klobuchar tweeted: This is wrong. This is unconstitutional. Republicans in AL, FL, GA, and OH are ushering in laws that clearly violate Roe v Wade and they should be declared unconstitutional. Roe v Wade is settled law and should not be overturned. This choice should remain between a woman and her doctor. Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2019 Former Texas Representative Beto ORourke said via Twitter: We will fight these dangerous efforts with everything weve got in legislatures across the country. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told CNN: Its certainly the intention of President Trump and the Republican Party to overturn Roe v. Wade. Expand Close Anti-abortion protesters (Matt Rourke/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Anti-abortion protesters (Matt Rourke/AP) Bernie Sanders tweeted to say that abortion was a constitutional right. Former vice president Joe Biden, a frontrunner in the early days of the Democratic primary process, also underlined his pro-choice credentials, tweeting: Republicans in AL (Alabama), FL (Florida), GA (Georgia), and OH (Ohio) are ushering in laws that clearly violate Roe v Wade and they should be declared unconstitutional. Roe v Wade is settled law and should not be overturned. This choice should remain between a woman and her doctor. Kamala Harris described the ban as outrageous while Elizabeth Warren also intervened to say it was cruel. Nothing wrong: Verena Bahlsen has come under fire for her comments. Photo: AFP/Getty The heiress of a German biscuits empire has stirred outrage after she appeared to play down the hardship suffered by dozens of people forced to work at the family business under Nazi rule. Verena Bahlsen, whose father owns the Bahlsen company that makes some of Germany's most famous biscuits, told 'Bild' newspaper the firm, which employed some 200 forced labourers during WWII, "did nothing wrong" then. Most of the forced labourers at the Hanover-based factory were women, many from Nazi-occupied Ukraine. "This was before my time and we paid the forced labourers exactly as much as German workers and we treated them well," said the 25-year-old, one of four children of company owner Werner Bahlsen. German politicians criticised her remarks and some social media users called for a boycott of Bahlsen biscuits. "If you inherit such a large estate you also inherit responsibility and should not come across as aloof," Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the centre-left Social Democrats, told the paper. Bahlsen, which also makes the Leibniz butter biscuits brand and has annual sales exceeding 500m, said it was aware of the moral responsibility that comes with being one of dozens of German companies that used forced labour. "The company is aware of the big suffering and injustice experienced by forced labourers and many more people at the time and recognises its historical and moral responsibility," it said. A protester flashes the victory sign while holding her child in a street leading to the sit-in outside the Sudanese military headquarters (AP) Sudans ruling generals and the protesters who drove President Omar al-Bashir from power last month have said they are making progress in negotiations and have agreed on the length of the countrys transition period. The two sides, which have been at odds over the transfer of power to civilian rule, have said the transition will last three years. Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, a member of the military council, and Madani Abbas, a negotiator for the protesters, said on Wednesday they also agreed on the makeup of a 300-member, all-civilian transitional legislative body. Expand Close A group of protesters chant revolutionary slogans (Salih Basheer/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A group of protesters chant revolutionary slogans (Salih Basheer/AP) Lt Gen al-Atta has said the next issue is the makeup of a sovereign council and he hopes they will strike a deal within 24 hours. The military took over after ousting Mr al-Bashir, but the protesters stayed on the streets, demanding handover of power. BandQ owner Kingfisher said the DIY chain has enjoyed a sales bounceback thanks to warm spring weather (PA) B&Q owner Kingfisher said the DIY chain has enjoyed a sales bounceback thanks to warm spring weather after Britain basked in a sun-soaked Easter weekend. The group reported like-for-like sales growth of 2.8% for B&aQ in the UK and Ireland for the three months to April 30, which marks a turnaround on recent trading and from a year earlier when the Beast from the East extreme weather pushed sales 9% lower. The group delivered positive sales growth in the first quarterVeronique Laury, Kingfisher chief executive Kingfisher said this years warmer weather helped boost sales by around 6%, although this was offset by a hit of about 2% as it ended some showroom installation services. Kingfishers outgoing chief executive, Veronique Laury, said: The group delivered positive sales growth in the first quarter, with sales of unified and unique ranges continuing to grow ahead of non-unified ranges. She added: At this early stage of the year our expectations for the full year are unchanged, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver significant financial benefits over time. The groups Screwfix business saw like-for-like sales rise 4.5% over the first quarter, with four new outlets opened over the first quarter. But its French operations remained under pressure, with sales down 2.4% across Castorama and 5.1% lower at Brico Depot. Comparable store sales rose 4.2% across its other international chains, leaving overall group sales up 0.8%. The trading update comes as the group searches for a successor to under-fire boss Ms Laury. It announced in March that she planned to step down, but has not yet set a departure date and Ms Laury will remain in post until a successor is appointed. Ms Laurys departure was announced as the group also revealed in March that profits tumbled 52.8% to 322 million for the year to January 31. On an underlying basis and stripping out costs including 111 million for store closures, pre-tax profits fell 13% to 693 million. The groups results showed B&Q sales dropped 3% on a like-for-like basis over the year, while Screwfix remained the star performer with a 4.1% rise in comparable sales. But, in spite of the profits and sales woes, Kingfishers annual report this month showed Ms Laurys total pay package swelled 11% to 1.8 million thanks to a hefty salary hike and bonus awards. Ms Laury picked up a 4%, or 30,800, salary hike, 522,000 annual cash award and 333,700 in long-term bonus shares. Britain, France and Germany have called on the Assad regime to halt its "ruthless reconquest" of the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib while Turkey has appealed directly to Russia to bring a stop to the offensive. World powers have grown increasingly alarmed as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have begun pounding the south of Idlib, backed by Russian air power, killing more than 120 civilians and bombing 18 hospitals. There are around three million civilians in the province, prompting European and Turkish fears that a major offensive would trigger a fresh flow of Syrian refugees. With little diplomatic or military leverage, the three European governments had few options besides issuing a joint statement condemning the violence. The UK, France, and Germany acknowledged that Idlib was dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist group linked to al-Qa'ida, but said that was no justification for the intense bombardment. "The current brutal offensive by the Syrian regime and its backers on millions of civilians in the area is not about fighting terrorism. It is about pushing forward the ruthless reconquest by the regime," the three governments said. Turkey has troops stationed in Idlib and has more political heft because of Russia's desire to support the Assad regime without alienating the Turks. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, told Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, that he believed the Syrian regime offensive was meant to "sabotage" Turkish-Russian co-operation, a spokesman said. Russia is pushing Turkey to use its influence with the rebels to force HTS fighters to pull back from a buffer zone around the province's borders. The Russian and Turkish defence ministers also spoke yesterday about how to de-escalate the situation. Pro-Assad forces have captured several towns in the south but have not made major territorial gains. It remains unclear whether they hope to overrun Idlib or have more limited goals, such as capturing key motorways. On Monday, rebels said they mounted a counterattack against government forces. A senior rebel commander said yesterday the offensive showed an array of rebel forces - from Turkey-backed rebels to jihadists - were still able to prevent the army from making major advances. "We conducted this lighting offensive to show the Russians we are not easy prey and throw the regime off balance," said Abu Mujahid, from the Turkey-backed National Liberation Front. Since April 28, a total of 18 health facilities have been struck, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. The Syrian army denies its strikes target civilians and says its forces only bomb militants associated with hardline Sunni fundamentalist groups linked to al-Qa'ida. In this file photo taken on January 18, 2019, pro-choice activists hold signs alongside anti-abortion activists participating in the "March for Life," an annual event to mark the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the US, outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. (Photo: AFP) Alabama's Senate has passed a near-total ban on abortion, sending what would be the US's most stringent abortion law to the state's Republican governor. The Republican-dominated Alabama Senate voted 25-6 for the bill that would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by up to 99 years or life in prison. The only exception would be when the woman's health is at serious risk. The measure now goes to Governor Kay Ivey, who has not said whether she supports the measure. Supporters said the bill is intentionally designed to conflict with the US Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision legalising abortion nationally, because they hope to spark a court case that might prompt the justices to revisit abortion rights. "The question for me - for us - is: When is a person a person?" Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss said as debate began on the proposed ban. Senators rejected an attempt to add an exception for rape and incest. The amendment was voted down 21-11, with four Republicans joining Democrats in the seeking the amendment. "You don't care anything about babies having babies in this state, being raped and incest," Democratic Senator Bobby Singleton said angrily after the amendment's defeat. "You just aborted the state of Alabama with your rhetoric with this bill." The bill's sponsor and other supporters had argued exemptions would weaken their hope of creating a vehicle to challenge Roe. Emboldened by conservative justices who have joined the Supreme Court, abortion opponents in several states are seeking to challenge abortion access. Read More Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. The Alabama bill goes further by seeking to outlaw abortion outright. "Our bill says that baby in the womb is a person," Republican Representative Terri Collins, the bill's sponsor, said on Monday. There would be no punishment for the woman receiving the abortion, only for the abortion provider. Democrats, who hold a mere eight seats in the 35-member Senate, criticised the proposed abortion ban as a mixture of political grandstanding, an attempt to control women and a waste of taxpayer dollars. "You don't have to provide for that child. You don't have to do anything for that child, yet you want to make that decision for that woman," Democratic Senator Vivian Davis Figures said. "It should be that woman's choice." The debate became emotional at times as Mr Singleton pointed out and named rape victims watching the debate from the Senate viewing gallery. Mr Singleton said doctors who perform abortions could serve more prison time, under the proposed ban, than the women's rapists. "This is nothing but a political game and women are the pawns," Staci Fox, chief executive and president of Planned Parenthood Southeast. "Let's be honest, banning abortion does not stop abortion. It stops safe and legal abortion." A crowd of about 50 people held a rally outside the Alabama Statehouse, chanting, "Whose choice? Our choice." Several women dressed as characters from The Handmaid's Tale, which depicts a dystopian future where fertile women are forced to breed. If signed into law by Ms Ivey, the bill would take effect in six months. Critics have promised a swift lawsuit. Randall Marshall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said a complaint is being drafted to challenge the ban. Ms Ivey has not publicly said whether she will sign the bill. "The governor intends to withhold comment until it makes its way to her desk for signature," deputy press secretary Lori Jhons wrote in an email prior to Tuesday night's vote. A pensioner has been arrested after he was caught driving along a motorway with his wifes dead body in the passenger seat. Stock photo A pensioner has been arrested after he was caught driving along a motorway with his wife's dead body in the passenger seat. Seventy-year-old Rodney Puckett told officers in the Arizona city of Eloy that his wife Linda (74) had died at a hotel in Texas - at least 1,250km away. He told officers that he dragged her body to their car before continuing the journey towards their destination. Eloy Police Department said it was investigating whether Ms Puckett was murdered. The force said her husband was driving on Interstate 10 when he was stopped by traffic officer Adam Edmonds earlier this week. "While speaking with Rodney, Detective Edmonds observed a deceased female sitting in the passenger seat," it said in a statement. It did not say where Mr Puckett said he had been heading when he was stopped. Ms Puckett's body was turned over to Pinal County coroners for a post-mortem examination to establish a cause of death. Investigators said they were working with Texas law enforcement to determine if she was murdered. Mr Puckett, from Oklahoma, was charged with abandonment or concealment of a body. He could face further charges. Moving into position: The US Navy Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group deploying to the Persian Gulf. Photo: AP Donald Trump suggested yesterday he is ready to send "a hell of a lot" of troops to confront Iran in the Middle East amid warnings that the two countries are stumbling towards a war. The comments come amid mounting diplomatic and military tensions in the Persian Gulf after Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels attacked an oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia and an unidentified attacker attempted to sabotage tankers. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, said yesterday that US officials "fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran" but said there was an increased risk of attack from Iran's allies in the region. "We have made it clear to the Iranians that if US interests are attacked we will respond in an appropriate fashion," he told reporters after a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Sochi. Mr Trump said reports that the Pentagon has drawn up plans to deploy 120,000 soldiers to the region in preparation for conflict were "fake news." But he added: "Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," he said. Tensions between Washington and Tehran have spiralled since last week, when the US accused Iran of preparing to attack American interests in the Middle East and said it was sending an aircraft carrier and a task force of B-52 bombers to the region in response. Iran then said it would resume enriching high-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapon unless the world finds a way to ease the impact of US sanctions, which have devastated Iran's economy. Expand Close Mike Pompeo: US Secretary of State is in Russia for talks on Iran tensions. Photo: Reuters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mike Pompeo: US Secretary of State is in Russia for talks on Iran tensions. Photo: Reuters Iran's president earlier said he would not bow to US pressure and warned that Iran is "too great to be intimidated by anyone". "God willing we will pass this difficult period with glory and our heads held high, and defeat the enemy," Hassan Rouhani said. On Monday four ships were damaged by "sabotage attacks" near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The United States and its allies have refrained from publicly blaming Iran, but officials in Washington have briefed reporters that national security agencies believe Iran or Iranian proxies were responsible. Iran has denied all such claims. Yesterday, Khalid al-Falih, the Saudi energy minister, said state-owned oil firm Aramco had "temporarily shut down" the East-West pipeline after two pumping stations were targeted. Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesman for the Houthi rebels, tweeted that the attacks were "a response to the aggressors continuing to commit genocide" against the Yemeni people. The US has pursued a policy of "maximum pressure" since it unilaterally withdrew from a 2015 deal designed to curtail Iran's nuclear programme in May 2018. Meanwhile, Mr Pompeo warned Russia yesterday not to meddle in the 2020 US presidential election after face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin. Mike Pompeo made the remarks while sitting alongside Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, at a joint press conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Mr Pompeo said: "Interference in American elections is unacceptable. "If Russia engaged in that in 2020, it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been "I conveyed that there are things that Russia can do to demonstrate that these kinds of activities are a thing of the past. I hope that Russia takes advantage of those opportunities." But Mr Lavrov issued a lengthy rebuttal of America's belief that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential race. "The facts show that those who are inflating this topic do not have any proof," he said. Ever since the Mueller Report concluded that there was no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the president, Mr Trump has attempted to shift focus to the origins of the investigation. Yesterday, it emerged that the US justice department has assigned John Durham, the US attorney in Connecticut, to examine whether there was any inappropriate activity in starting the inquiry. The US embassy in Iraq said the state department has ordered all non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away. More to follow... Chinese fashion designer and contemporary artist Xu Rui presented her latest project on Monday in London, one that expressed concern over climate change. Themed "The Dethroning of Divine Beasts -- A Sequel to the Classic of Mountains and Seas," the music and dance performance took the audience by storm. Drawn upon "The Classics of Mountains and Seas," the primary source of Chinese mythology from around the 3rd Century BC to the 2nd Century AD, Xu told the story of seven divine beasts residing in an ancient and legendary realm, such as Chenghuang and Nine-Tailed Fox. In the three-act performance, these once-exalted and powerful creatures, formed as both gods and beasts, are terrified to discover the loss of their magical powers after being transported to the mundane world of modern city life. The project aims to show how human activity impacts the natural world, calling on people to reflect and react. From Olafur Eliasson's centuries-old blocks of ice outside the Tate Modern gallery last year, to the mural at Marble Arch supporting the Extinction Rebellion protests in London, artists in London have been expressing growing concern to climate change. By combining fashion design, painting, choreography, dance and music, Xu told Xinhua that she wants to use her performance to visualize the delicacy of the divinity of nature and convey her attitude towards global climate change and environmental crisis. "I hope that my work will evoke a shared understanding of artistic beauty," said the London-based artist, adding that the project can remind the public to rethink their behaviors in order to "keep our biological nature a little bit longer." Inspired by the Dizang Studio Jade Collection exhibited at auction house Christie's, Xu invited seven prominent international dancers and choreographer Amy Grubb to present the project. Pope Francis has given a joyride in his popemobile to eight migrant children who recently arrived in Italy from Libya. Francis picked up the children, who hail from Syria, Nigeria and Congo, at the start of his weekly general audience on Wednesday and zoomed around St Peters Square with them in the backseat. Some waved, others gave a thumbs up before bidding Francis goodbye with hugs and a selfie. The Vatican said some of the children had arrived in Italy on a migrant boat a few months ago, while others arrived on April 29 with their families via a humanitarian corridor. Expand Close Pope Francis poses for a selfie with a group of migrants (Andrew Medichini/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pope Francis poses for a selfie with a group of migrants (Andrew Medichini/AP) Francis has clashed with Italys hard-line government about the need to welcome and integrate migrants. Francis returned home from a 2016 trip to Greece with a dozen Syrians on his plane. A general view of the new terminal building at London Southend Airport in Essex. The airport is owned by Stobart Group Stobart Group has appointed David Shearer as its next chairman following a bitter boardroom battle to oust his predecessor. The firm, which owns Southend Airport, has appointed Mr Shearer, the chairman of equipment rental group Speedy Hire, as chairman-elect from June 1, after the companys AGM. The appointment follows a campaign last summer by Stobarts former chief executive Andrew Tinkler to attempt to oust current chairman Iain Ferguson. Mr Tinklers campaign drew support from large shareholders and polarised company executives, but failed at last years AGM, leading to his dismissal and an unsuccessful High Court case for his reinstatement. Despite the failure of the campaign, Stobart agreed to replace Mr Ferguson as chairman. Mr Shearer, a former UK board member at Deloitte, previously chaired infrastructure business Mouchel Group and builder Crest Nicholson. Two things are clear to me. Firstly, that Stobart Group is successfully growing two excellent businesses: aviation and energy. Secondly, that there is a need to unify the shareholders behind the strategyDavid Shearer, chairman-elect of Stobart Group He also currently holds roles at Scottish Edge Fund and Aberdeen New Dawn Investment Trust, although he plans to step down from his role at Aberdeen in September. Stobart has endured a difficult period since last years AGM, announcing in March that it was slashing its dividend as it looked to invest in the expansion of Southend Airport. Iain Ferguson, chairman of Stobart Group said: I am pleased to be handing over as chairman to David after the next AGM. He has considerable experience which will help chief executive Warwick Brady and the team to implement the groups strategy and deliver our ambitious growth targets. Mr Shearer said: I am delighted to be joining the board of Stobart Group as it executes its strategy. Two things are clear to me. Firstly, that Stobart Group is successfully growing two excellent businesses: aviation and energy. Secondly, that there is a need to unify the shareholders behind the strategy. Two US Coast Guard search at the site of a collision between two float planes (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) The bodies of two more people have been found after small sightseeing planes crashed in Alaska, the US Coast Guard said. Coast Guard Lieutenant Brian Dykens said six people died in the collision on Monday afternoon near Ketchikan, a popular destination for cruise ships in Alaska. Mr Dykens said his agency and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad found the two bodies near the crash site of the smaller plane involved in the collision, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver. Ten people, all Americans, were injured, with three of them released from a hospital on Tuesday. The missing passengers were from Canada and Australia, Princess Cruises said. The larger plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3 with 10 passengers and the pilot, was returning from Misty Fjords when it collided with a smaller sightseeing plane, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver carrying four passengers from the same cruise ship and a pilot. The cause of the crash in relatively good weather, high overcast skies with light southeast winds, was not known. The crash occurred about eight miles from Ketchikan, near George Inlet. The planes came down about a mile-and-a-half apart. The Otter, operated by Taquan Air, was initially travelling at an altitude of about 3,800ft, according to Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, whose investigators arrived in Ketchikan on Tuesday afternoon. He said the Otter had descended to an altitude of around 3,300ft when it collided with the Beaver as both headed to Ketchikan. The smaller plane was partially submerged in the shore of George Inlet after the single-engine plane overturned and hit some trees before crashing, according to Mr Dykens. The larger Otter landed in water and sank, he said. (1/2)We are deeply saddened by the tragic plane accident in Ketchikan yesterday, and are offering our full support to the investigating authorities as well as the traveling companions of guests involved. Princess Cruises (@PrincessCruises) May 14, 2019 Three of the four who died were among the five people aboard the Beaver, according to Mr Dykens. Princess Cruises in its release said two passengers and the pilot were among those killed in this plane. Canadian officials said on Tuesday that one of its citizens was among the dead. Global Affairs Canada expressed condolences but did not identify the person because of privacy reasons. The smaller plane, which operated independently and not as an official excursion flight booked through the cruise ship, was owned by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan, which did not immediately return a call on Tuesday. Expand Close Emergency response crews transport an injured passenger on Monday (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Emergency response crews transport an injured passenger on Monday (Dustin Safranek/Ketchikan Daily News via AP) The Beaver appears to have broken apart in midair, according to Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said the planes tail and a section of the fuselage were 900ft from the aircrafts floats, which landed near shore. After the crash, the 10 injured people were initially taken to a hospital in Ketchikan. Four patients were later transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, suffering various broken bones, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Three survivors were released from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in Ketchikan on Tuesday. Hospital spokeswoman Marty West says the remaining three are in fair condition. The Royal Princess left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and was scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. We are extending our full support to the investigating authorities as well as the travelling companions of the guests involved, the company said in a statement. Mr Trump and his administration have denied they want war with Iran (AP) The US military has countered doubts expressed by a British general about the potential threat Iran poses to the US and its allies amid fears America is sliding towards war with the Islamic Republic. Maj Gen Chris Ghika, a senior British officer in the US-backed coalition fighting Islamic State (IS), exposed international scepticism over the American military build-up in the Middle East, a legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was predicated on false intelligence. US officials have not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat amid other signs of allied unease. Sailors assigned to the USS Nitze (DDG 94) participate in visit, board, search and seizure training. Nitze, as part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (ABECSG), is deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. https://t.co/AOYUbZIx67 pic.twitter.com/2nhTwc54UD U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) May 14, 2019 As tensions in the region surge, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said British officials are worried about the risk of a conflict between the US and Iran which neither side intends. Mr Hunt told reporters in Brussels: We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict. What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking. US president Donald Trump also denied a report that his administration has updated plans to send more than 100,000 troops to counter Iran if necessary. Mr Trump then stirred the controversy further by saying: Would I do that? Absolutely. "Militarily, we continue our campaign to ensure the lasting defeat of Daesh. But we cannot do it ourselves: campaigns cannot be won by fighting alone." - MG C. Ghika. Watch his comments live now at https://t.co/e6Ps5EIt9K pic.twitter.com/bD3H8WR0h2 Inherent Resolve (@CJTFOIR) May 14, 2019 On Tuesday, Spain temporarily pulled one of its frigates from the US-led combat fleet heading towards the Strait of Hormuz. That was followed by the unusual public challenge to the Trump administration by Maj Gen Ghika. The general, speaking in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad, said: No, theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. He told reporters at the Pentagon that the coalition monitors the presence of Iranian-backed forces along with a whole range of others because thats the environment were in. But he added: There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we dont see any increased threat from any of them at this stage. Later in the day, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, US Central Command said Maj Gen Ghikas remarks run counter to the identified credible threats from Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East. Expand Close Russian President Vladimir Putin and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo meet in Sochi (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Russian President Vladimir Putin and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo meet in Sochi (AP) In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq, the statement said. At the White House, Mr Trump, who has repeatedly argued for avoiding long-term conflicts in the Middle East, discounted a New York Times report that the US has updated plans that could send up to 120,000 troops to counter Iran if it attacked American forces. Would I do that? Absolutely, he told reporters. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Expand Close The Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP) Reinforcing Mr Trumps denial, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference in Sochi with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov: We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: Major General Ghika speaks as a military officer in the US-led Coalition focused on the fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. His comments are based on the day-to-day military operations and his sole focus is the enduring defeat of Daesh. He made clear in his Pentagon briefing that there are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in this part of the world. There always have been, that is why we have a very robust range of force protection measures. The UK has long been clear about our concerns over Irans destabilising behaviour in the region A Trump administration official said a recent small meeting of national security officials was not focused on a military response to Iran, but instead concentrated on a range of other policy options, including diplomacy and economic sanctions. Mr Lavrov said Mr Pompeo told him that a potential deployment of 120,000 US troops to the Middle East was only a rumour. The Russian foreign minister added that the international community needs to focus on diplomacy with Iran, including on the potentially explosive issue of Irans nuclear programme, which is constrained by a US-brokered deal in 2015 that Mr Trump abandoned. US Iranian envoy Brian Hook told reporters travelling with Mr Pompeo in Brussels that the secretary of state shared intelligence on Iran with allies since Europe shares our concerns about stability in the Gulf and the Middle East. Last week, US officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on American forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. The US has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 2,000 in Syria as part of the coalition campaign to defeat the Islamic State group there. It also has long had a variety of air and naval forces stationed in Bahrain, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf, partly to support military operations against IS and partly as a counter to Iranian influence. Maj Gen Ghikas comments came amid dramatically heightened tensions in the Middle East. The US in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. It also is moving a Patriot air-defence missile battery to an undisclosed country in the area. As of Tuesday, the Lincoln and its strike group had passed through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. The USs top aviation regulator has assured Congress that the Boeing 737 Max, grounded after two deadly accidents, will only return to flying when a government analysis shows that it is safe. The Federal Aviation Administration is under scrutiny for how it relied on Boeing to certify the Max and then did not ground the plane until after the second crash, in March. Acting FAA chief Daniel Elwell told the House aviation subcommittee that his agency welcomes scrutiny that helps make us better. Mr Elwell listed several reviews of the FAAs handling of the matter, adding, however, that only the FAA would decide when the Max is safe enough to allow back in the air. In the US, the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAAs analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so, Mr Elwell said. House Aviation subcommittee chairman Rick Larsen said he expects answers about the FAAs certification of the Max, the role of Boeing employees in assessing key features on the plane, and FAAs role in developing pilot training for the plane. The FAA has a credibility problem, he said. Mr Larsen added a note of economic urgency to the grounding of the Max, Boeings best-selling plane and one that is built in his home state of Washington. He said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because if they dont fly, airlines dont need to buy airplanes, and then there will be no jobs in aircraft manufacturing. Representative Peter DeFazio criticised Boeing for pilot manuals that did not mention a new automated flight-control system implicated in both accidents, and for a design that pitched the planes nose down based on readings from a single sensor that could fail. The two plane crashes in Ethiopia in March and in Indonesia last October killed 346 people. Mr DeFazio, who heads the full transportation committee, also said Boeing has not yet provided documents that he and Mr Larsen requested, saying he hoped the company would provide them voluntarily and soon. Boeing has yet to provide a single document, he said. Weve got to get to the bottom of this. Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined to comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. The Transportation Departments inspector general and a Senate committee are looking into the FAAs relationship with Boeing, and the House subcommittee is likely to follow a similar path. The hearing before the House panel is expected to cover the FAAs review of a flight-control system on the Max that was not present on earlier versions of the 737. In both accidents, the automated flight system pushed the nose of the plane down and pilots were unable to regain control. The Dallas Morning News reported that American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in November, shortly after the first Max crash, on potentially grounding the planes and pushed for a quick software fix from the plane maker. We dont want to do a crappy job of fixing things, and we also dont want to fix the wrong things, a Boeing employee responded, according to a recording reviewed by the newspaper. Mr Elwell was scheduled to be joined at the House hearing by Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. No Boeing representative was scheduled to give evidence. Kamala Harris wants to ban the importing of AR-15-style assault weapons by executive action if elected president. On Wednesday, the Democratic senator from California is set to detail her proposal to stop importing the weapons until the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can analyse whether the ban should be permanent. Throughout my career Ive been a fighter for people, challenging powerful special interest groups, taking on big banks, and predatory for-profit colleges. Ill take that same fearlessness to the White House. Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 14, 2019 Ms Harris has previously said she would take executive action on gun violence if Congress failed to pass comprehensive gun safety measures in her first 100 days. She is seeking near-universal background checks by anyone who sells five or more guns annually; revoking the licences of law-breaking gun manufacturers and dealers; reversing President Donald Trumps change to the definition of fugitive from justice; and closing a loophole to prevent dating partners convicted of domestic violence from buying guns. The father of a Concord boy whose skeletal remains were found under a billboard in Orange County 20 years after he disappeared has been charged in the murder, according to media reports. John Russell Whitt, 57, was officially charged with first-degree murder and concealment of the 10-year-olds death by a grand jury on Monday. Robert Bobby Whitts remains were located near Mebane in 2018. Media reports state that retired Maj. Tim Horne of the Orange County Sheriffs Office was one of the first investigators on scene. DNA ultimately was used to identify Robert Whitt. John Russell Whitt had been in federal prison in Kentucky for an unrelated crime, according to WBTV in Charlotte. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, he is in prison for robbing people at ATM machines with weapons, and he is scheduled to be released from prison of those charges in 2037. Autopsy reports revealed that Robert Whitt died from strangulation. We had no idea that we could give as much advice as we did in this book and we came up with so many memories. We really wish we had this as freshman; it would have given us an overview, Kindle said. The groups originally came up with an idea to also film a movie based on the book, but once they realized how time consuming that would be they decided to just concentrate on perfecting every chapter and publishing the book. They are going to wait until next year to publish copies so they can include chapters about their senior year and give it to Principal Carla Black as a senior gift. We did have the availability to interview a senior but we chose not to because we wanted to keep it personal and wanted to do this on our own, Wright said. We didnt want to interview someone to get it done as fast as possible. We wanted to do it. When the book is published, the group says they hope incoming freshman can learn from their experiences and will be better informed on what to do after being accepted into the program. CHARLOTTE Thousands of race fans will be populating the roadways in northeast Mecklenburg County and southwest Cabarrus County in the coming days as NASCAR events kick off Friday, May 17, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, capped by the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday, May 26. The N.C. Department of Transportation is preparing for increased traffic on I-85, U.S. 29, N.C. 49 and Bruton Smith Boulevard. NCDOT will use overhead message signs and portable message signs to alert motorists of potential problem areas and suggested alternate routes around incidents and congestion. The Department advises motorists to check for real-time traffic information by going to www.DriveNC.gov, calling 511 or following NCDOT on Twitter. Bruton Smith Boulevard often sees the most traffic volume, because mobile direction services and GPS devices typically direct users to this route. However, NCDOT advises motorists to use U.S. 29 instead to reduce delays getting to the speedway. The following are suggested routes for motorists heading to Charlotte Motor Speedway: For motorists traveling from South Carolina: Take I-77 North to the I-485 outer loop (Exit 1B) to U.S. 29 North (Exit 32) or N.C. 49 North (Exit 33); The dance "Rite of Spring" directed by well-known Chinese dancer Yang Liping has ended its three-day European premiere here, and was widely acclaimed by audiences and experts for its performance and creativity. "Rite of Spring" is a classic of Russian musician Igor Stravinsky, which depicts the rituals of Russia's indigenous tribes to celebrate spring and shows the essence of original expressionism. Over the past 100 years, artists around the world have performed hundreds of versions of the masterpiece. Performed at the Sadler's Wells Theater on May 9-11, Yang's version, an integration of Chinese and Western cultures, injected her unique dance expressions -- using a large number of oriental images, and strove to interpret the western classic music with oriental philosophy and aesthetics. She blended Chinese folk dances with contemporary choreography, and took inspiration from Chinese symbols of nature. The piece used Stravinsky's original music and a specially created new score, inspired by traditional Chinese music. "Rite of Spring" is Yang's second contemporary dance piece following the success of her previous work "Under Siege," which won widespread critical acclaim at its European premiere in London in 2016. Millicent Hodson, a choreographer and former producer of "Rite of Spring," told Xinhua that she was impressed that Yang was not afraid to keep the dancers actually not moving for periods of time. "I felt she was very courageous to balance the integrity of the two cultures and let them stand side by side ... and let us experience them," Hodson said. Hodson said Yang has "broken a new ground" in terms of the openness of the body in space. "I saw the performance and the reaction of the public, and they seemed very enthusiastic," she added. David Jays, an editor of Dance Gazette magazine, said in his report that Yang is the latest in a long line of dance artists to harness the elemental surge of Stravinsky's masterpiece from 1913. "Yang Liping's new production creates a distinctively Chinese Rite of Spring," he wrote. Donald Hutera, a dance journalist and editor, said in his review published Monday on The Times that Yang's play is closely tied to Buddhist and Tibetan philosophies, symbolism and Asian aesthetics, which is ambitious and avowedly spiritual, while her choreography has rhythm and pulse thanks to the music. The creative producer of the play, Farooq Chaudhry, said "We had fantastic reviews ... from the newspapers and a lot of people were very excited by what they saw, because Yang brings something new to the European audience and Western audience." He added that Yang is "an icon" and her success would inspire more Chinese dancers to come to the stage in the world. Yang's "Rite of Spring" is scheduled to be presented at the Edinburgh International Festival 2019 on August 22-24 and is expected to tour around the world afterwards. "Yang's dance expressions are unique, and good works need more international promotion. The success of 'Rite of Spring' in the U.K. (United Kingdom) is the best proof of it," Chaudhry said. Life is about to get more expensive during the trade war with China Prices will go up on products from televisions to cars Indian Country Today Life is about to get more expensive. The trade war with China means that prices will spike on hundreds of products ranging from televisions to cars. President Donald Trump says not to worry. He said Monday in about three or four weeks the country will know whether trade talks with China are going to be successful. You never really know, right? the president said at a White House dinner. But I have a feeling its going to be very successful. The trade war is one that is fought with a tariff. Its a tax that the United States charges businesses that import goods from China. And China, in retaliation, then charges its tariff on goods sold by American companies to that country. The problem that the Trump administration would like to resolve is that China sells far more product to the United States. A tariff makes the price of the import more expensive, in one theory, gives domestic producers an advantage. Only that is not what is happening because as many farm products lose their international sales there is not enough demand to make up the difference. Soybean futures fell to the lowest level in a decade as an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China dimmed hopes that the Asian nation will resume purchases of American beans and ease a supply glut, reported Bloomberg on Monday. Farm commodities from pork to cotton slumped on Monday, with soybeans dipping below $8 a bushel for the first time since 2008, after China said it will raise tariffs on some U.S. goods starting June 1. Our great Patriot Farmers will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of what is happening now. Hopefully China will do us the honor of continuing to buy our great farm product, the best, but if not your Country will be making up the difference based on a very high China buy...... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2019 One immediate concern is that China will begin cancelling orders already purchased but not yet shipped. Agriculture is a $3.3 billion industry in Indian Country, according to data compiled by the Agriculture Department. That is made up of both crop sales and livestock both of which will see reduced international sales during a trade war. Another area that impact tribes and tribal enterprises is the cost of construction. The cost of raw materials, especially steel, go up. Steel is the most common material used in construction of hotels, casinos, and other commercial buildings, accounting for about 16 percent of a buildings cost. Of course the administration is hoping that China will back down and reach a trade deal with the United States before late June when these new taxes begin. That tariff will hit virtually every product from China. Trade policy is one of those issues that defy party politics. It's a problem that has been building for decades because the United States imports more goods than it buys. A recent essay from the conservative Heritage Foundation says global trade has been a good thing and especially because it's reduced poverty. "This strong correlation between trade freedom and reductions in poverty seems to refute the narrative we often hear. Rather than hurting the poor, the removal of international trade barriers allows millions of people to escape poverty," wrote Bryan Riley, a policy analyst. "For a practical example of how trade barriers hurt the American poor, consider U.S. import restraints on food and clothing, Riley wrote." And many Democrats think the president is right to take on China in a big way. The White House posted support from prominent Democrats including, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-New York, saying: Hang tough on China, President @realDonaldTrump. Dont back down. Strength is the only way to win with China. And Sen. Sherrod Brown , D-Ohio, who said Chinas cheating has hurt American workers for far too long. Tariffs brought China to the negotiating table and now that were there, the President must secure real changes to level the playing field. And some see slowing trade as a good thing for the climate. A report by the United Nations said: The interplay between a climate change agreement and expanding international trade poses an important policy conundrum: behind every trade transaction there is a production process and, in turn, associated greenhouse gas emissions. Policies that modify trade (trade policies) can influence emissions, while policies for reducing emissions (climate change policies) can also influence trade. As the major direct sources of greenhouse gas emissions are related to production processes, climate protection measures addressing such sources can have a major impact on developing countries focused on increasing productive capacities to strengthen their integration into the global economy and trading system. The UN said a better route is cooperation, on trade and climate. The most direct way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an economy involves establishing a mix of policies, regulations and institutions that progressively green a nations productive activities, the United Nations said. Mark Trahant is the editor of Indian Country Today . He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes . Follow him on Twitter @TrahantReports This story originally appeared on Indian Country Today on May 13, 2019. Join the Conversation Everyone in the OBrien office is excited to have the 2018-2019 students and fellows here and working! Follow The OBrien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism for more updates on this years fellowship, events and projects. pic.twitter.com/rMmVStG0Hg SANTA FE, New Mexico -- Award-winning Native journalist Jenni Monet is headed to trial this fall after arriving late to a court appearance here on charges of drunken driving and resisting arrest When Monet's name was called in a crowded courtroom in New Mexico's capital city on Tuesday morning, the Pueblo of Laguna citizen was nowhere to be found. And neither was her attorney. The absence befuddled Judge George Anaya, Jr., who openly wondered whether Monet had been detained on the outstanding arrest warrant issued against her last month after she violated the terms of her release by testing positive for alcohol use. A quick check of the system showed that wasn't the reason. So Anaya, after indicating he would issue an order of some sort regarding Monet, moved on to a slew of other cases on what he said was the "DWI docket" in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court. Three drunken driving defendants later, the door to Courtroom 4 swung open. It was Monet and Paul Linnenburger , her locally-based attorney. OBrien Fellow and independent journalist Jenni Monet gets arrested in New Mexico. Chelsea Johanning has the story. pic.twitter.com/hQXx6gHQaD MUTV (@marquetteutv) April 25, 2019 But the entrance was not a dramatic one. Neither Monet nor her attorney were aware that her case had been called and they alerted court staff of their presence in the room. Five drunken driving defendants later, Anaya circled back and that's when Linnenburger took the blame for the near oversight. "I apologize, your honor," Linnenburger said. "I was talking with my client," he said, in the hallway right outside the room. Anaya didn't seem to mind too much, though. At least one other defendant on the DWI docket wasn't in the room either when her case was called, though in that instance her attorney was there. The judge was less impressed with the reasons behind Monet's outstanding arrest warrant. He read off to the entire room the levels that were registered by Soberlink , a hand-held device that measures a person's blood alcohol content and transmits the results to court authorities via a cellular network. Under the conditions of her release, Monet is not allowed to consume alcohol at all. The levels appeared to be rather high, Anaya said. "Consider this a verbal warning," Anaya told Monet as she stood in front of him. But after hearing from a Santa Fe district attorney that the state no longer wished to pursue the arrest warrant, Anaya agreed to have it removed from the case. "Outside of that issue, there has been complete compliance," attorney Linnenburger noted. Monet later paid a $100 fine -- in cash, which she obtained from a nearby bank after learning the court did not accept any other methods of payment -- following the conclusion of the hearing. An "electronic monitoring program incident form" shows Jenni Monet tested positive for alcohol use on the evening of April 16, 2019. The form also shows she failed to submit to two alcohol tests that were required of her. A week prior, Monet signed an order of release in which she agreed not to "possess or consume alcohol or enter liquor establishments." Otherwise, Monet -- whose given surname is Monette -- declined to comment to Indianz.Com on the record about her case, except to refer to prior statements in which she vowed to mount a vigorous defense to the charges, ones that have threatened to derail her career as one of Indian Country's most prominent journalists. "It is not lost on me the irony of how I am often writing and discussing the crisis for Native Americans overcoming chronic negativity in the news media -- and yet, here, I have contributed to it," Monet said as she decried her "wrongful arrest and detainment" in Santa Fe last month. She was arrested in the parking lot of a liquor store, not far from the courthouse, after calling police twice to complain about being denied service at the business. She believes she was treated differently because of her race in a city where Native Americans represent only about 2.1 percent of population but where many more travel for work, education, artistic, cultural and other opportunities. The owner of Cliff's Liquor Store also called police with a complaint of "disorderly conduct," according to dispatch records. Video from inside the establishment shows Monet visibly upset about her treatment though it does not contain any sound. "Officers did not arrive until nearly 45 minutes later, during which time she was distraught and humiliated by the situation," her attorney said in a statement at the time of the arrest. "Expecting assistance from the officers, Ms. Monette was instead placed under arrest without justification, and officers charged her with offenses for which they do not have evidence or legal support." Monet will have plenty of time to think about the situation as she prepares for the next stage in the case. The trial isn't scheduled to start until October 10, some six months from now, leaving a cloud hanging over her until the charges are resolved. And another new obstacle hinders Monet's ability to report on some of Indian Country's most pressing issues, such as the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women . She learned over the weekend that her drivers license had been revoked in connection with her case, limiting her options until she gets that cleared up. Also complicating matters is a prior DWI incident in neighboring Colorado, one that occurred about two decades ago, when Monet was in her 20s. Though the drunken driving charge in New Mexico is listed as her "1st", the state prosecutors are still looking into the earlier case, the circumstances of which could affect the ongoing matter. Should Monet go to trial and wind up being convicted or pleading guilty, she would face a mandatory minimum of 48 hours in jail for a 1st offense. She spent about that much time in the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility following her arrest last month. Under New Mexico law, a crime of aggravated driving while intoxicated is more serious than one of merely driving while intoxicated and and it can lead to harsher punishments. Monet faces the charge because she refused a breathalyzer test. But with the pre-trial hearing out of the way, Monet was headed back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to complete her journalism fellowship at Marquette University . She was a member of the 2018-2019 class , having been selected for her dispatches on Native issues. Her work there ends with the conclusion of the academic year this week. Milwaukee was where Monet went following her high-profile arrest on April 5, video of which shows her lashing out at police officers with profane language. And that's where she had tested positive for alcohol use on April 16. Before the incident, Monet had made a slew of public appearances across the country in which she spoke about the depiction of Native Americans in the media and the limited number of Native voices in media. Her arrest, which occurred on a Friday evening, and subsequent detainment kept her from two additional engagements in Santa Fe over that weekend. Following her release, she spoke at the Institute of American Indian Arts , during which she discussed the "Crisis in Covering Indian Country." The DWI case isn't her Monet's first high-profile encounter with law enforcement. In 2017, she was arrested in North Dakota and charged with criminal trespass and engaging in a riot while covering the #NoDAPL movement against the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline She won several awards for her work on the issue , including being named Journalist of the Year by the Newswomen's Club of New York in 2017. Then in June 2018, she was found not guilty of trespass after a jury trial in North Dakota, Native News Online reported at the time. The charge of engaging in a riot had previously been dropped by state prosecutors. Inmate details on Jenni Monet (Monette) from the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility. 0219005630/Aggravated DUI, resisting evading obstructing an officer/4.5.19 Deputy Assigned: Blaine Lattin Commander Entering: CPL. Jared Mosher Suspect: Jenni Monette 42 Tucson AZ Location: 903 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe Deputies were dispatched to Cliff's Liquor Store on reference to a disorderly conduct where deputies made contact with the suspect seated inside her vehicle. A DWI investigation was initiated due to an odor of alcohol coming from the suspects breath. Suspect refused SFST's and resisted deputies as they placed her in handcuffs. The suspect refused to submit to a breath test she was booked. The Santa Fe Sheriff's Department blotter incident from Monet's arrest follows: Join the Conversation Related Stories During Military Appreciation Month, we rightly join in saying thank you to our service members & their families. It is because of their selfless sacrifices that Americans wake up each day with the privilege of peace & freedom at home. Read more: https://t.co/1AK4nPESmf #NMAM pic.twitter.com/QHyA0R817a Gratitude for Our Military During Military Appreciation Month, we rightly join in expressing gratitude for our service members, their families and the daily sacrifices they make on our behalf. It is because of their selfless service that Americans wake up every day with the privilege of peace and freedom at home. In answering the call to serve, members of our military choose to make tremendous sacrifices for their neighbors as well as those they have never even met. Our service members display an unwavering fervor for the bedrock principles that underlie the United States of America: freedom, justice and equality. Some will miss weddings, funerals or the births of their own children. Others will even pay the ultimate sacrifice. The enormous sacrifices military families make for our country should never be overlooked. Even when service members are home, families often receive reassignment orders that require a quick move, leaving behind friends and family in the process. Husbands, wives and children go without their deployed spouses and parents for months at a time. Without question, families genuinely need support from their communities while their loved ones are abroad, when they return from war and especially if they do not come home at all. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, addresses the executive council winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C., on February 12, 2019. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) As the son of a career Air Force veteran, I grew up seeing firsthand the sacrifices made by our military men and women. Today, it is an honor to represent the Fourth District of Oklahoma, which is home to two military installations as well as several National Guard facilities. I have always been heartened by the support shown by the communities surrounding Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City and Fort Sill Army Post in Lawton. I also applaud communities and businesses that continue to support the Oklahoma Guard and Reserve personnel who have been an integral part of our ongoing national security missions around the globe. Just as Americans in uniform understand the implications of their service, I recognize the ramifications of the domestic and foreign policy decisions made in Congress that impact them. I remain supportive of legislation that prevents the erosion of compensation and quality-of-life benefits for our service members and veterans. Thats why I support military pay comparable with the private sector. Other components of compensation are equally essential to recruiting and retaining the all-volunteer force. Just last year, I supported historic legislation to address issues with Department of Veterans Affairs. There is always room to do more for those who have courageously served our country. I believe more funding is needed for programs that seek to combat the suicide epidemic among veterans, as well as programs that provide better access to specialized health care for female veterans. The selfless men and women in our armed forces are truly among the best in our country. America would not remain a shining city on a hill without the soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guard personnel who bravely aid in the preservation of liberty and justice for all. During Military Appreciation Month, be sure to tell the service members and veterans in your community, Thank you for your service. Tom Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, is serving his eighth term in Congress as the elected representative of Oklahoma's 4th Congressional District. He is recognized as an advocate for taxpayers and small business, a proponent for a strong national defense and a leader in promoting biomedical research. He is considered the foremost expert in the House on issues dealing with Native Americans and tribal governments. He and his wife, Ellen, have one son, Mason, and reside in Moore, Oklahoma. Join the Conversation Out of the 1,594 candidates in the fray for the third phase of Lok Sabha polls, a total of 392 candidates are crorepatis. Political parties have fielded a total of 392 crorepati candidates of which 81 are from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The richest candidate is Kumar Devendra Singh Yadav from Samajwadi Party. The report is based on National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysis that studied the affidavits of candidates in fray for the third phase of lok sabha elections. Among the major parties, 81 out of 97 candidates from BJP, 74 out of 90 candidates from Congress, 9 out of 10 candidates are from Samajwadi Party, 10 candidates from CPI(M), 12 candidates from BSP, 9 candidates from Shiv Sena and 7 out of 10 candidates from NCP have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. SPs Yadav has declared assets totaling Rs 204 crore. He is contesting from the Etah seat in Uttar Pradesh. BCCL At second place is Bhonsle Shrimant Chhatrapati Udayanraje Pratapasinh Maharaj of NCP with assets worth Rs 199 crore. He is a candidate from Satara in Maharashtra. At third place is Congress Praveen Singh Aron contesting from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh with worth Rs 147 crore assets. The average assets pet candidate contesting in phase 3 elections is Rs 2.95 crore. If nit now, then when? Many concerned citizens of several countries around the world are asking this question, urging their governments to seriously take measures to save environment. Some countries are gradually waking up. Mexico City has declared an environmental emergency as smokes from nearby wildfires broke pollution to levels that were deemed harmful for human health. Eventually, it became the third place to do so. Authorities of one of the most populous metropolises advised residents to avoid outdoor activities and exercise and remain indoors with windows and doors shut. Elderly, sick and infants have been particularly advised to stay indoors. The Mexican capital is home to nearly 9 million people, with more than 21 million in its metropolitan area. Last week, Ireland declared climate emergency and called on the parliament, To examine how [the Irish government] can improve its response to the issue of biodiversity loss. On May 1, Britains parliament passed the largely symbolic motion and became the first in the world to declare a climate emergency. The step came after 11 days of continuous street protests in London by the Extinction Rebellion environmental campaign group. Extinction Rebellions definitive goal is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025 and to end biodiversity loss. Activists around the world have upped pressure on global bodies and policymakers to ensure effective measures are taken to tackle climate change. A wake up call for India? In 2017, more than 1.2 million people in India died an early death due to air pollution and still, it did not budge the Centre towards taking effective measures to tackle the emergency that is toxic air. Of the 1.2 million, who died from air pollution-related causes, 51.4 per cent were younger than 70 years old. In total, over three quarters of Indias population is exposed to air pollution that is higher than the limit set by countrys government. That level, in turn, is four times the maximum recommended by the World Health Organisation. Sadly, no Indian states has pollution levels at or below the WHOs limit. According to a recent report by Washington Post, on average, people in India have their life expectancy cut short by 5.3 years thanks to air pollution. Hapur and Bulandshar districts, have their life expectancy cut short by 12 years, the greatest reduction due to air pollution anywhere in the world. BCCL In India, industrial emissions, vehicular emissions, crop burning, coal and wood burning are part of daily life. In such a scenario, it would be difficult to cut reliance on these, given the fact that a large chunk of the countrys massive population depends on it. Keeping this aside, as India gears up to vote in the last phase of the mother of elections, pollution failed to be among the primary causes of concerns in election issues and discourse. Pollution only found a mention in the manifestos of political parties but a real talk never took place. Perhaps, it is time for India and its policymakers to take cue from other countries and become one of the leaders in the fight to tackle climate change. In a case of shocking cruelty, a man from Madhya Pradesh has been arrested by police for inserting a plastic grip of a motorbike handle inside the private parts of his wife. The incident which happened almost two years ago came to light only recently after the woman sought medical help due to excruciating pain. Doctors at the Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in Indore removed the plastic grip after a complex surgery that took four hours. According to doctors, the plastic grip had been thrust right up to the 30 -year-old woman's uterus, urine bladder and small intestine. A statement from the hospital added that infection had spread in the area since the grip remained stuck in the uterus for a long time and it could have spread further to other parts of the body if the operation was not carried out promptly. In her complaint, the woman stated that her husband had committed the heinous act after they got into a fight over his alleged affair with another woman. What is even more shocking is that the woman never disclosed it to anyone and lived with it till the pain became unbearable. Based on her complaint the Chandan Nagar has arrested the husband, identified as Prakash Bhil. A bust of 18th-century social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalized at Vidyasagar College in Kolkata during the violent clashes that broke out during BJP chief Amit Shahs roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday evening. According to reports, the clashes broke out after activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) the student's wing of BJP entered the Vidyasagar College where students were protesting against the BJP chief chanting "Amit Shah go back" slogans. Read more Restoring Electricity, Finding Missing Deer Remains Odisha's Biggest Challenge It has been 12 days since Cyclone Fani made a deadly landfall in Puri, Odisha and people are still reeling under lack of electricity and water shortage. The post-cyclone heat has made it even worse. Protests have erupted in different parts of the state. Authorities said that power has been restored in all parts of the affected state except Puri. They say the restoration of power in Puri is a big challenge. Read more Stubble Burning Is Still Happening In Punjab, Haryana And Elections Are Partly To Be Blamed Delhi and it's adjoining areas have seen some improvement in the toxic air quality in the past couple of days, thanks to some summer rains. But the improved air quality may not last long and could turn toxic in a matter of days as stubble burning, one of the main contributors of pollution in Delhi NCR, is back. Despite a ban and efforts from the government to discourage farmers from burning the crop residual, the practice is happening unchecked, in parts of Punjab and Haryana. Read more Man Inserts Motorcycle's Handle Grip Inside Wife's Private Parts After She Questioned His Affair In a case of shocking cruelty, a man from Madhya Pradesh has been arrested by police for inserting a plastic grip of a motorbike handle inside the private parts of his wife. The incident which happened almost two years ago came to light only recently after the woman sought medical help due to excruciating pain. Doctors at the Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in Indore removed the plastic grip after a complex surgery that took four hours. Read more Maharashtra Woman Forges UAE-Based Husband's Sign For Divorce To Marry Boyfriend All's fair in love, or so thought Nilofer, who not only romanced her old boyfriend as her husband worked in the UAE, but even fabricated his signature on a divorce document and married her sweetheart. Nilofer, a Mumbra resident who has a nine-year-old son, is now on the run and is seeking anticipatory bail following a complaint of cheating by her husband Yusuf Sherif Mastan. Read more In China, business have begun to tie employee's health insurance to not just their fitness levels, but their daily exercise regimes. The thing is, not everyone wants to actually work for that insurance discount, so some have now found a way to cheat the system. This strange device might look like any smartphone cradle. Maybe it's just supposed to sit there, or perhaps it has some sort of charging mechanism? Nope. In fact, it's actually a simple cradle that rocks the phone like it's trying to put it to sleep. The idea though, is to fool the phone's sensors into thinking the owner is walking around. Chinese phone cradle for boosting your phone's daily step count. Some insurance companies in China allow people who consistently reach a certain daily step count to get discounted health insurance premiums. pic.twitter.com/pJFBSYqdlb Matthew Brennan (@mbrennanchina) May 14, 2019 With this, employees can rack up daily step counts, even as they sit down to a jelly doughnut or grab a smoke. For most companies, the minimum required step count is 10,000 a day. That way they not only avoid getting penalised, they can also get discounts health insurance offered to employees with extensive exercise regimes. Seen at a Harbin restaurant: swinging cradle for your phone, I'm told to cheat the "10k steps/day" test & qualify for health insurance discounts, presumably while you relax, eat & drink more, or have another cigarette. pic.twitter.com/LV0leTduAU Dashan (@akaDashan) April 28, 2018 Of course this is something we assume you can buy in China, but apparently local eateries have caught on. In order to boost business, it seems some restaurants are also offering these swinging cradle services for free, so their customers feel comfortable staying longer and eating more. Apparently some of these have been available as far back as 2016, but it seems the trend has really caught on recently. Google is in hot water once again for its strong arm tactics, this time right here in India. The company is being investigated by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over antitrust allegations that it was blocking rivals in its search services. CCI first began investigating Google last year, in a case resembling the one the company face in Europe that resulted in $5 billion in fines. In April this year, the watchdog decided that there was in did merit to the complaint, and is now conducting a full probe of the issue. That order was not made public, and has just come to light thanks to two individual sources confirming it to Reuters. CCI has refused to comment on the investigation, but sources indicate it will last for around a year. During that time, Google executives will be summoned to appear before the CCI. Given that the case in Europe found Google guilty of indeed subverting rivals, it's very likely the same has been happening here in India. And if that's the case, aside from fines here, this second confirmation might even spur other countries to investigate Google on grounds of antitrust. In the EU case, Google was hauled up for mandating that manufacturers using the Android OS also pre-install Google Search and the Chrome browser if they wanted access to the Play Store. You know, the only way to directly download news apps on your phone without downloading the APKs and installing them on the side. As such, they were found guilty of abusing that power to give their products an unfair advantage over competitors. Google has since appealed that ruling, but has also agreed to allow Android users to choose other browsers and search engines. When CCI comes up with a final report, it has the ability to fine Google up to 10 percent of its revenue from Google Search and Chrome in India over the last three years. If they take preemptive action however and implement changes like they did in the EU, CCI might even cut them some slack on the penalty. Things do not always go in your favour and in this instance first the things were in favour of Babu Muddrappa, an auto driver, but as it is said you can control your destiny but not your fate! The 29-year-old auto driver from Bengaluru restored our faith in humanity. He took an unknown pregnant woman to the hospital for delivery. Babu found a woman in labour on Whitefield road and crying for help. Seeing her going through a lot of pain, Babu took her to a nearby hospital where the doctors sent him to CV Raman Hospital to get her admitted. Babu Muddrappa - Bangalore Mirror According to Storypick, he said, The woman was in a lot of pain so I didnt ask her any questions. I just filled up the admission forms with my details. During the admission process, he came to know that the womans name was Nanditha. Besides that he had no other information of the woman. Later, the woman gave birth to a baby girl but she was 2 months premature, weighing just 850 grams. Babu was asked to run the infant to Bowring Hospital for treatment and so he did. However, when he came back to the hospital, he found out that the woman had fled . Babu felt bad for the newborn and decided to adopt the girl and raise her as his own child. He even took care of the hospital bills. Babu is married and has two children. Babu would work in the afternoon and would visit the baby in the night. Reports said that initially the child suffered from severe breathing problem but she recovered and showed some signs of improvement. Representational Image Babu took care of the food and medicines and he did everything that was required to keep the baby girl healthy. But as events turned, her health deteriorated and the baby died after 18 days in the hospital. However, he did not disclose the money he spent. But people like him make the world a better place to live in! Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill requiring all graduating elementary, high school, and college students to plant at least 10 trees each before they can graduate. House Bill 8728, or the "Graduation Legacy for the Environment Act," is principally authored by MAGDALO Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano and Cavite 2nd District Representative Strike Revilla. "With over 12 million students graduating from elementary and nearly five million students graduating from high school and almost 500,000 graduating from college each year, this initiative, if properly implemented, will ensure that at least 175 million new trees would be planted each year. In the course of one generation, no less than 525 billion can be planted under this initiative," Alejano explained in the bill's explanatory note. "Even with a survival rate of only 10 percent, this would mean an additional 525 million trees would be available for the youth to enjoy, when they assume the mantle of leadership in the future." The trees shall be planted in forest lands, mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations, urban areas under the greening plan of the local government units, inactive and abandoned mine sites, and other suitable lands. These planted trees must be appropriate to the location, climate and topography of the area, and there will be a preference for the planting of indigenous tree species. Under the bill, the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education will be the implementing bodies, in partnership with the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and other government agencies. The agencies shall be responsible for nursery establishment, seedling production and site preparation, monitoring and evaluation, and technical support and extension services. They must also provide security, transportation, fire protection amenities, and medical support. The bill has no counterpart in the Senate. Researchers from Jingzhou Museum clean bamboo and wooden slips in a lab. [Photo provided to China Daily] The number of bamboo and wooden slips found at a tomb complex in China is the most among any ancient tomb in the country so far. As many as 4,546 slips were recently unearthed from a 2,000-year-old tomb in Jingzhou, Hubei province, as announced in a news conference in Beijing last week. This excavation is expected to offer vast knowledge of Chinese society back then. Before papermaking was invented in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), bamboo and wooden slips were the main media for writing in China. The reservoir of slips was found inside one of 18 tombs in a graveyard from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24), which were excavated by archaeologists in 2018. The heritage site is on the northern outskirts of Jingzhou and less than 1 kilometer from the ruins of a contemporaneous city. Li Zhifang, an associate researcher from Jingzhou Museum, says the new finding covers a wide range. The unearthed materials include 200 slips of calendars and ephemeris, 70 slips of chronicles, 1,500 legal documents and 1,000 medical treatments that were not only for humans but also for curing animals and plants. "We have cleaned only a small portion of the slips," Li says. "It is no doubt a big discovery because the well-preserved items have many themes to study." For example, the dates of solstices and key solar terms from the traditional Chinese calendar are recorded every year from 140 to 41 BC. The legal documents provide detailed explanations of imperial laws at the time, including taxation and auditing, livestock herding and protection of private property. They also show regulations on finding escaped prisoners or laborers running away from corvee, in which unpaid services for major construction projects were organized. One medical cure is a formula to make teeth whiter by using cinnamon, and another is on how to make lean cattle fatter. Li says a lot of the content on the slips supplement written history of the time, but some also vary. It is easy to give up but really hard to try and try until you succeed! It is never easy to learn a new thing, and it takes a lot of years to master the art of something. In an adorable video being shared on social media a little kid is seen not giving up despite being in tears. The heartwarming video is now viral on social media and shows a little boy named Phoenix from Orlando, Florida, practicing karate in his class at the Bobby Dixons American Martial Arts Academy. It shows how Phoenix tries to break a tile but fails to do so several times and breaks down. Thanks to his instructor Erik Gianni and his friends who cheer for him and because of them he refuses to give up. Other students in the class are seen encouraging him to try harder and finally he breaks the tile. After that his fellow classmates are seen running towards him to give a hug to him. The beautiful video has moved many people online. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The heartwarming video shows the child not losing hope is spreading positivity! Phoenixs mom Claudia Swonger posted the original video on Facebook and it quickly went viral. The video has garnered over 15 million views on Facebook alone. In the holy month of Ramzan, we witnessed a lot of stories of communal harmony that brought smiles on our faces. In one such instance, a Muslim man has earned praise in Assam for breaking his Ramzan fast to donate blood to a Hindu woman. Munna Ansari, a resident of Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur was observing Roza everyday. However a phone call from his friends who runs a hospital made him break his fast. Ansari donated blood to a Hindu woman who was admitted at the Biswanath Civil Hospital. The 85-year-old woman, Rebati Bora, was admitted at the hospital for over a week after and has been suffering from a gall-bladder ailment. She was in urgent need of B negative blood as the blood available in the district blood bank did not match with Rebatis. Twitter Her family was on the lookout for a donor for over three days. After the third day, Rebatis son left a message on the Team Humanity Voluntary Blood Donors Group on Facebook. Ansari responded to his query and said that his blood group was B negative. Even though we didnt have any relation by blood with him, we are bound into it now by my mothers blood, Anil told East Mojo. While talking to the media, Anil broke down into tears and said that Munnas gestures indicated that all relations are not bound by blood. Ansari has been an active blood donor for the Team Humanity Voluntary Blood Donors Group for many years, as reported by Times Now. By Cameron Perks, IM Correspondent Silica and heavy mineral sand operations have been present on Stradbroke since the 1940s, with a variety of companies mining it since the outset. Consolidated Rutile Limited (CRL) floated onto the Australian Stock Exchange in 1965 in order to raise funds for the acquisition of mineral rights from Stradbroke Rutile, as well to fund construction of a mining and milling plant. Stradbroke Island today (Source: Save Straddie) CRL was the relative newcomer when it pegged what were then considered to be lower grade leases of around 0.6% rutile.In 1984, CRL outlined what it perceived as the challenges of operating on the island. Those challenges were broadly similar to todays concerns over environmental sustainability. The cessation of mining on Fraser Island, implemented by the aptly named Fraser government in 1976, got CRL wondering if this anti-island-mining trend might reach Stradbroke. In that same report outlining the logical concern expressed for the future of sand mining operations across Australian islands, the author gives a resolute 'no to the question whether it could ever happen on Stradbroke saying "North Stradbroke Island has a 30 year history of mining, so a degree of tacit acceptance or equilibrium has been established there between the mining and environmental groups. This is particularly shown in the very positive reactions given to our recent expansion announcement." Later in 1998, Iluka would become a majority owner of CRL acquiring 51% of its shares. 2008 marked the last time any detailed reporting of resources and reserves for the island were released. It was estimated then that 360.6m tonnes of proved and probable reserves existed on the island with 0.9% heavy minerals having an assemblage of 47% ilmenite, 11% zircon and 14% rutile. In terms of resources, a measured, indicated and inferred resource was calculated to be around 616m tonnes of ore with the same heavy mineral and assemblage content as the reserves. In 2007, Iluka announced that CRL had produced 79,000 tonnes of rutile, 174,400 tonnes of ilmenite and 60,600 tonnes of zircon; the highest figures achieved at the site since 1998. At the time of Ilukas involvement, CRL had two dredging operations and supplementary dry mining on the Yarraman and Enterprise ore bodies. It wasnt until 2009 that Iluka divested its interests in CRL, with a Unimin takeover of around $84m. Unimin is and was wholly owned by Sibelco, and in 2011 Unimin Australia and New Zealand adopted the parent company name of 'Sibelco. Iluka estimated in late 2010 that CRL produced an about 9% of the world rutile market share at a time when Iluka produced 32% of the worlds rutile market share. The supply picture has changed a lot since then with Iluka now representing about 9% of the world titanium dioxide (TiO2) production. Shifting sands The supply picture has changed a lot for Stradbroke as well, with the then-operating mineral-sand Yarraman site ceasing operation in August 2015, now subject to rehabilitation. While Sibelco still mines the mineral-sand Enterprise ore body, the third ore body on the island, a silica sand mine called Vance, has been non-operational since 2013. Sibelco blamed Vances closure on a high Australian dollar, a sales slump and increased competition in the silica sand market. Vance is managed on a campaign basis to suit customer needs. It produces high-quality silica for use in glass applications (such as the I-O glass bottle plant at West End in Brisbane, formerly ACI) and windscreens, plasma TV screens and solar panels. The mining lease for Enterprise makes up 3,235 hectares or 13.2% of the island, with active mining being undertaken on only 400 hectares, or 2% of the island. While mining takes up only a small portion of the island, public discussion and debate about the interconnected issues of mining, Aboriginal land rights, and the environment have been ongoing for many years. Successive governments initially proposed to permit mining activities in the North Stradbroke Island Region until 2035 and later proposed a phase out of mining activities by 2019. In 2010, the Labor Government put legislation in place and made a promise to the regions Quandamooka peoplethrough a landmark Indigenous Land Use Agreementto substantially end mining activities in the north Stradbroke region by 2019. However it has taken until now for the government to release a tangible strategy for the transition of Stradbroke Islands economy to one without mining. The government is focusing on the tourism industry, the education and training sector as well as helping existing businesses develop. As part of this strategy, $5m would be invested to assist quarry workers affected by the industrys closure to find alternative employment and training opportunities. The government strategy has made tourism the first focus, expressing what opportunities there are for developing the industry. Alongside this are challenges, namely the need for private investment, fluctuating seasonal visitor numbers, infrastructure capacity during those peak periods, inconsistent quality of tourism products, and the lack of easy access from tourist departure points, including Brisbane City. Draft plan Legislation to enable the strategys implementation the North Stradbroke Island Protection and Sustainability and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2015 was introduced to Queensland Parliament late last year at the same time as the draft plans release and is currently part of an ongoing parliamentary inquiry. In a submission to the inquiry, Sibelco argued that the Queensland Governments draft strategy was "wholly inadequate" to support the islands economic transition to a quarry-free future by 2019. Sibelco claims that the plan will result in a loss of up to $100m in net benefits for the state as well as the loss of more than $15m in mining royalties and taxes for the native Quandamooka people, saying that there is insufficient time between now and 2019 for implementing the governments strategy. Sibelcos submission concluded with a recommendation that the regions sand quarrying activities end "no earlier than 2027". The Queensland Resources Council (QRC) expressed similar concerns about the state governments proposed timing. The councils submission stated that the current plan would result in the loss of up to 160 jobs that could not be adequately offset by the jobs that would supposedly be generated by the transition strategy. QRC noted in its submission that it considered Bob Katters North Stradbroke Island Protection and Sustainability (Renewal of Mining Leases) Amendment Bill 2015, which was introduced to Queensland Parliament in October 2015 as a private members bill, to be a "reasonable attempt at a compromise". The bill wants to end mining by 2024, as opposed to the current 2019 proposal, Sibelcos 2024 proposal, or previous Newman Government 2035 proposal. The bill would allow for rehabilitation of land in the region until the end of 2029, without the removal of the mining leases. The QRC has commented on this, saying that "although acknowledging the private members bill as better than the governments bill, we continue to commend Sibelcos 2015 proposal for a 2027 closure as a superior option to both bills." The Queensland Parliaments Finance and Administration Committee has been tasked with the inquiry, which has now closed for submissions. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland (CCIQ) has also called for a five-year extension of the 2019 end-date for sand mining on North Stradbroke Island citing a small business community concern over how long it might take to actually build up a thriving tourist industry. German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp remains open to consolidation in the European steel sector, chief executive officer Guido Kerkhoff said in a conference call with analysts on Tuesday May 14. The statement came after news of the expected failure of its European flat steel joint venture with... 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... A seminar marking the 100th birth anniversary of the late Richard Scarry was held on May 12 in Beijing, saluting the world-famous American author and illustrator of children's books that have delighted children for generations. The seminar, part of a series of commemorative events including exhibitions, salons and sharing sessions, was co-hosted by Beijing-based Dandelion Children's Book House, the Beijing Reading Festival and China's major online bookstore Dangdang.com. Richard Scarry's books still greatly appeal to readers today though many of his earliest works dated from the 1950s. They have been a great hit in China since they were introduced in 2007 by Dandelion Children's Book House. Yan Xiaoli, founder and chief editor of the book house, described Scarry's classic Little Golden Books as full of information, meticulously designed and filled with details and imagination, helpful for children in learning language and understanding nature and social life. Liu Yu, a senior director of the Children's Books Division at Dangdang's Publications Department, said: "Scarry's Little Golden Books series have sold more than nine million copies via Dangdang.com since they were put on shelves on March 19, 2007." Various speakers described Richard Scarry as a good storyteller in pictures, with rich details organized in a playful and well-balanced way to entertain his readers, opening a new world full of imagination for them. Huck Scarry, his son, said he thought one of the main reasons why his father's works have been popular for so long is that they are very funny. "Laughter and fun, and there is always fun. You can convey the story, or information, through laughter in a very beautiful way", he said. He continued: "The other thing is that my father is a very, very good designer. [In his books], everything is light and easy, with a lot of things happening. And he was tremendously balanced [in use of] colors." Basically, his drawing stimulates children's imagination, and that makes the world more colorful, more interesting, and open their mind, said the Scarry descendant, who is also a renowned artist and illustrator. "My father knew the secret of retaining a childlike quality within himself and being very childlike in a positive way, positive about life," he added. Huck, whose real name is Richard Scarry Jr., is the inspiration for Huckle Cat, a beloved character in the book "Busytown". He got his nickname from Huckleberry Finn, a fictional character created by celebrated U.S. author Mark Twain. Li Su, a researcher at the Institute of Psychology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said that Scarry's books, with an extraordinary balance of pictures and information, as well as sense of humor, had the ability to stimulate children's initiative to read and explore the broad reading space for fun. Li continued: "Characters in his books are always facing various situations. That is also why his books are attractive." Ahead of the Inauguration of the members of the 9th National Assembly, an investigation has revealed that Four hundred and sixty-nine lawmakers who were elected on the platform of various political parties in the February 23 National Assembly elections and the subsequent supplementary election are expected to get N4.68bn as welcome package immediately after their inauguration in June. The fund is expected to be given to them so as to sort out accommodation and furniture issues. In this light, Nigerians have taken to their Twitter handle to their displeasure towards this. Reactions: Sad!!! And this is happening in a Country that 90% cant afford three Square Meals and a Comfortable Life. Why must we Rob Paul to pay Peter!!!? Governance Ought to be form Bottom to Top, Not Opposite!!!!https://t.co/BrPWZXq3pX Ifemosu Michael Adewale (@ifemosumichael) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js To be candid, this is not the first time National Assembly is getting this nationall Cake. N4.68b welcome package no be beans O! where dem go before to deserve a welcome package Biko. #IamOBA. 9th National Assembly pic.twitter.com/60TC3xCwVD OBA (@obabiliamin2023) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js O deep 1. N30k minimum wage: FG sets date for inauguration of implementation committee. 2.9th National Assembly: 469 members to receive N4.68bn welcome package. igbalajobi olumuyiwa (@olumuyiwaayo) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js 9th National Assembly 469 legislators to receive N4.68 billion as welcome package. News Thats in a country where only very few States can pay N30,000 minimum wage! Deremi (@iamremraj) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js The member representing Kaduna West senatorial district in the National Assembly, Shehu Sanni, has called on Ondo state Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, to focus on doing something else instead of his continued pursuit of marijuana cultivation. Speaking via his Twitter handle, Shehu Sanni said Akeredolu should emulate Lagos state who Partnered with Kebbi for Rice by partnering with Niger for Beans, Kaduna for Ginger or partner with Benue for Yam. He concluded by asking him to please forget about the Marijuana for now. His words: My Brother Akeredolu,Lagos Partnered with Kebbi for Rice,please partner with Niger for Beans,Kaduna for Ginger or partner with Benue for Yam;Please leave this Indian Hemp matter for now,Abeg. His tweet: Nigerias minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh has begged the European Union Mission to reduce the spate of youths migration to the unions member countries. Ogbeh made the appeal in an interview with newsmen at the end of the monthly meeting of Heads of Missions of European Union member countries in Abuja on Tuesday, NAN reports. The minister, who said that youths migration was not sustainable, disclosed that a joint committee would be set up to advance the programme. We met today to explore areas of support for agriculture, agro-industrial growth and put forward the European Union proposal for partnership and enhanced support. We also looked at the possibility of their private sector investors coming into Nigeria to play a part. We also raised the issue of migration of our youths across to Europe and the fact that it is not sustainable. It is something that Nigeria will like to see come to an end by creating economic activities here to make sure that young people stay back at home. The response of the European Union was very encouraging. We want to set up a joint committee that can advance this programme because rather than youths going out, we want them to come back and invest in agriculture. We are also lucky that Nigerian youths are interested in agriculture, different from youths in other countries. Even those who studied other courses are interested in agriculture. We did raise the issue of kidnapping of investors here, we do not want any Nigerian or foreigner investing here to be kidnapped and taken away, he said. Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje on Wednesday received two Nigerians who were to be executed in Saudi Arabia over allegations of Drug Trafficking in Kano state. The drug trafficking victims would have been executed in Saudi Arabia, if not for the intervention of the federal government of Nigeria After they were found to have been set up by an airport drug trafficking cartel. According to Abike Dabiri, President Muhammadu Buharis Senior Special Assistant on Foreign affairs and Diaspora, Governor Ganduje on meeting Zainab Aliyu and Ibrahim, gifted them with N3million each. Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha who will be handing over in a few weeks has said hes most likely the most misunderstood and most controversial governor in the history of the state. Speaking on Wednesday, Okorocha said because of his style of governance, passion and vision to reposition the state for greatness makes him bend rules and regulations in governance which he doesnt regret. Okorocha while speaking during the official commission of the new justice Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa High court complex new Owerri argued said h came to power through the masses and not otherwise. I came in through the window of the masses and not through the doors of the elite and I am crazy in my vision and passion for a greater Imo state and nothing has affected my oblongata, he said. He notes how he was nicknamed Okoro Hausa and Aboki for standing against Imo state indigenes who wants governance in the state to be business as usual. let my works speak for me after leaving the office and I am not in the business of wasting, the taxpayers money to commission projects because I believe that such fund should be channelled to other productive ventures, boasting that he had set a standard which any incoming governor would not beat. My crazy system of governance is working and no governor coming after me will ever think of building hospitals in Imo for the next 50 years or to build more varsities. He extolled the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa as one of the nations greatest patriots who distinguished themselves in character and assured that there would be smooth transition and peace in the state even as he promised to clear all arrears owed to judges in the state before leaving the office. In his address, the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Paschal Nnadi stressed that the commissioning of the court complex would go a long way to reduce the current suffocating situation of insufficient court facilities which he said for many years gave rise to the uncomfortable situation where 2 or more judges share one court hall. The embarrassment which lack of adequate court halls would have caused us in Imo state was recently averted by the assignment of six of our judges to election tribunal duty outside Imo state which freed their court hall for use by the 5 (five) election petition Tribunals empanelled for Imo state and now on ground and sitting in Imo state. One can therefore, imagine the sigh of relief and re-invigoration that the completion and commissioning of this Court Complex has given to the Judiciary of Imo state. He gave an assurance that the state judiciary under his watch would continue to discharge its constitutional duties of ensuring that Justice is administered in the state without fear or favour, affection or ill will stressing that the court complex commissioned would not only be the court of law but a court where justice would reign supreme in the state. Okorocha was also commander by Acting Chief Justice of the federation justice Tanko Muhammad who commissioned the project through Hon. Justice Amina Augie. Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has attacked Senator Shehu Sani, representing Kaduna Central, over comment against plans by Ondo state to cultivate cannabis for medical use. Rotimi Akeredolu, governor of Ondo, had described Ondo as a hotbed of cannabis cultivation, while he called on the federal government to plans to cultivate support medicinal cannabis in the state. However, Shehu Sani in his reaction urged Akeredolu to leave the Indian Hemp matter and focus cultivating ginger, beans and yam By partnering with states like Niger and Kaduna like Lagos state did in terms of rice. My Brother Akeredolu, Lagos Partnered with Kebbi for Rice, please partner with Niger for Beans, Kaduna for Ginger or partner with Benue for Yam; Please leave this Indian Hemp matter, for now, Abeg, Shehu tweeted. However replying Shehus tweet, Sowore, who is one of the foremost of cultivating cannabis in Nigeria, asked the senator if he is had no idea that his(Sani) Afro hair could benefit from a locally produced line of cannabis hair products. I hate to stand between two Nigerian politicians engaging asinine argument but I am disappointed in you for this tweet. Have you ever thought of it that when this idea finally gains legal ground your Afro hair could benefit from a locally produced line of cannabis hair products? Sowore wrote. It will be recalled that Sowore before the 2019 presidential election had proposed that the country will export marijuana if he gets elected This according to him is because many people have been making billions from the plant, unlike Nigeria. Senator Shehu Sani has replied Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) after the latter said Cannabis will help the formers afro hair to glow. The back and forth began after the Kaduna Central lawmaker urged Rotimi Akeredolu, governor of Ondo, had described Ondo to give up his plans to cultivate cannabis for medicinal use in the state. Shehu Sani had urged Akeredolu to leave the Indian Hemp matter and focus on cultivating ginger, beans, and yam By partnering with states like Niger and Kaduna like Lagos state did in terms of rice. My Brother Akeredolu, Lagos Partnered with Kebbi for Rice, please partner with Niger for Beans, Kaduna for Ginger or partner with Benue for Yam; Please leave this Indian Hemp matter, for now, Abeg, Shehu tweeted. However replying Shehus tweet, Sowore, who is one of the foremost of cultivating cannabis in Nigeria, asked the senator if he is had no idea that his(Sani) Afro hair could benefit from a locally produced line of cannabis hair products. I hate to stand between two Nigerian politicians engaging asinine argument but I am disappointed in you for this tweet. Have you ever thought of it that when this idea finally gains legal ground your Afro hair could benefit from a locally produced line of cannabis hair products? Sowore wrote. Sani in a quick response said he doesnt need cannabis for his afro to glow Adding that he wishes both he, Akeredolu and Majek Fashek well. Popular love doctor, Joro Olumofin has shared the story of a Nigerian lady who has been complaining about attention since her un-employed boyfriend got a well-paying job. According to the story shared, the boyfriend loved the lady very well when he was unemployed but things suddenly changed as soon as he got a new job. The lady further shared that he hardly picks her call and they have only seen twice in the last two months. The lady concluded by saying that men are better when they are broke and unemployed than when they become buoyant and employed. Post below: Following the now viral video which was released by Okon Lagos that the men of the Nigeria Police who raped commercial sex workers they arrested in Abuja some weeks ago be charged for stealing and not rape, Nigerians have fired heavy shots at him. Nigerians while reacting to the video have accused him of supporting the culture of rape in this 21st century. Reactions: I wish dat okon character loses endorsement and his career in general with his loose insensitive and uncouth mouth. but this is naija so he wont suffer any consequences. Ols network (@olsnetwork) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Idi ere ni a ti n mo ooto oro. Yoruba Proverb You dont hear people like Okon taking jabs at the dignity of men who patronize sex workers. Women are the easy targets of their jokes. This is how you know its not just jokes. Its a culture of victimizing women talking. Amara Nwankpa (@Nwankpa_A) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Okon actually did a video talking about the Abuja women and how raping a prostitute is stealing and Im actually very livid. in Big 2019 you are contributing to Rape Culture. Nurse Ratched (@_LOHI_) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Okon Is Okon high when saying this. Our yeyebrity are all confuse Ekitikan OmoNaija (@perogunner) May 15, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Controversial Nollywood actor, Uche Maduagwu, has fired heavy shots at a colleague, Okon Lagos, for defending the police officers who raped the commercial sex workers arrested in Abuja some weeks ago. According to Uche who spoke via his Instagram page, it is only a spiritual Imbecile that will support the RAPE of women irrespective of their occupation. Okon Lagos made the comment earlier today. His word: @okonlagos Only a spiritual IMBECILE will allegedly support the RAPE of women irrespective of their occupation @okonlagos excuse me, sir, do you think any woman will voluntarily go into prostitution in Nigeria if she is economically vibrant? So my brother, na condition make crayfish bend, thus, its tomfoolery and disgraceful for anyone to allegedly say, because Ashawo no get pride and dignity Being allegedly RAPED by Policemen is ok, thats the most disgusting and loathly statement ever. Must everything be a JOKE in Naija? @okonlagos the DIGNITY of a woman is never tied to her deviant LIFESTYLE choices, or her MODE of economic SURVIVAL preference, no, thats an erroneous conclusion, because the dignity of any human being is based on his/her fundamental human right which he/she enjoys as a CITIZEN of a particular country. Even God is against RAPE, in Deuteronomy 22:25 But if a man finds a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die. @okonlagos Every commercial sex worker in Nigeria is betrothed to their economic quest for survival, so anyone who allegedly RAPE them has committed a CRIME against God, humanity and the LAW Post below: China is willing to work with all parties to advance reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) so that the organization can play a bigger role in global economic governance, the Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday. Sources with the Department of WTO Affairs said China formally submitted a WTO reform proposal to the organization on May 13 (Geneva time). In the document, China identifies four aspects deserving major action: tackling the essential and pressing issues threatening the existence of the organization, increasing WTO relevance on global economic governance, improving the organization's operating efficiency and increasing the inclusiveness of the multilateral trade mechanism. The world economic landscape is undergoing profound adjustments, while economic globalization is encountering setbacks with the rise of unilateralism and protectionism. The authority and effectiveness of multilateral trade mechanism are under severe challenge, noted the sources. In the meantime, the WTO has been slow negotiating its reform and needs to improve its operating efficiency and trade policy transparency. Against such a backdrop, China supports the WTO to make necessary reforms to help it solve the current crisis and respond to the needs of the time. China also upholds the multilateral trade mechanism and the building of an open world economy, the sources said. The ministry noted that China was willing to exchange views with all parties to jointly advance the WTO reform, to reshape the authority and effectiveness of the organization and to enable it to play a bigger role in global economic governance. Rotimi Akeredolu, the Ondo state governor has stirred reactions from Nigerians as the state looks to become the first in the country to legalise the medical cultivation of Marijuana. One of those to drop his two cents on the matter is Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central at the Senate. Governor Akeredolu reportedly looks to tap into a market experts predicted would have an estimated value of $145 billion by 2025. Our focus now, Akeredolu revealed, stating NDLEA was already in the know, is medical marijuana cultivation in controlled plantations under the full supervision of the NDLEA. According to the governor, We all know that Ondo State is the hotbed of cannabis cultivation in Nigeria. We know how to grow it and it thrives well in the Sunshine State. With an estimated value of $145 Billion in 2025, we would be shortchanging ourselves if we failed t tap into the Legal Marijuana Market. According to Senator Sani, the Ondo state governor should focus on partnering with either Niger or Kaduna state for ginger or beans just like what Lagos did And urged him to leave this Indian Hemp matter for now. My Brother Akeredolu, Lagos partnered with Kebbi for Rice, please partner with Niger for Beans, Kaduna for Ginger or partner with Benue for Yam; Please leave this Indian Hemp matter, for now, Abeg. Actor Bishop Umoh popularly referred to as Okon Lagos, has taken to his Instagram page to defend the Abuja policemen who raped ladies arrested over alleged prostitution. This is coming after news broke out that police officers that raided prostitutes camps in Abuja forcefully had sex with the arrested women. Also Read: I Am A Machine, Not A 40-seconds Man Olakunle Churchill Bishop Umoh pointed out that the police officers who erred are thieves and they are the same with the prostitutes. He wrote: Ondo state governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, has said that Nigeria may lose an estimated value of $145 billion by 2025 if it failed to tap into the legal marijuana market. The statement by the legal luminary has drawn more knocks than praise from Nigerians. Some even went as far as saying he must be high on the herbs already. What Nigerians are saying: This man is high on the Herb already MB Liman (@Gashaash) May 14, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js This man is clueless NEYO (@neyo2004) May 14, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Only criminals think this way!! Engr Auwalu Alhassan (@AuwaluAlhassan4) May 14, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Mr. Gov it seems that you having side effects of the weed you want to make money from! My question Is will your children also use the weed you want to sell? Muhammad (@coolMuhman) May 14, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Ronald Kibuule, Ugandas State Water Minister is bereaved. According to reports, Kibuules twin sons drowned in the family swimming pool on Monday. Reports have it that the CCTV camera installed in the home was off as at the time of the incident although the children were being minded by two male minders. Daily monitor reports that the police have since taken the two male domestic servants into custody for questioning and the corpses have been taken to the City Mortuary in Mulago, Kampala. Mr Davis Lukyamuzi, an uncle of the minister said; Yes, they drowned in the swimming pool, but we do not know what exactly happened because at the time of the incident the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras were off. Mr Kibuule and his wife, Fortunate, were reportedly not at home when the sad incident happened as they had left the minders and guards alone at home with their kid before they travelled. One of the guards who spoke on condition of anonymity said they were unaware of the incident until one of the minders yelled that we are dead; the kids have drowned. The children have been laid to rest on Tuesday. Controversial media personality Kemi Olunloyo has taken to social media to drag actress Iyabio Ojo over her latest post. Ojo had shared a video of herself crying and reminiscing on how her marriage crashed and how she raised her kids as a single parent. Reacting to the video Kemi Olunloyo asked the actress to stop crying crocodile tears adding that her daughter is, in fact, a runs girl. Switch the Market flag Open the menu and switch the Market flag for targeted data from your country of choice. for targeted data from your country of choice. China Development Bank (CDB) will offer 60 billion yuan (8.7 billion U.S. dollars) worth of financing support over the next four years to Taiwan-funded companies in the Chinese mainland, according to an agreement signed Tuesday. The fund will target areas including high-quality industrial development and cooperation across the Taiwan Strait, start-up and upgrading of Taiwan enterprises and cooperation of young entrepreneurs on both sides, said the agreement between the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office and the CDB. This is the fourth such agreement between the two since 2005. The other two agreements were signed in 2012 and 2016, respectively. The CDB had loaned a total of 185 billion yuan to Taiwan enterprises as of the end of last year. ArgoGlobal has appointed Zachary Tan as accident and health underwriter, effective immediately. He will report to Michael Scala, chief underwriting officer, Asia-Pacific. Tan brings close to 20 years of insurance experience to ArgoGlobal, having started his career as a business development manager at ACE in 2000. In 2002, he joined Prudential, progressing through a series of business development roles before returning to ACE as head of accident & health brokerage and underwriting in 2007. In 2013, he returned to business development as a senior manager at NGA Benefits Singapore, before joining Tokio Marine Kiln as accident and health underwriter in 2014. This is IAGs first cat bond, issued through Orchard ILS Pte Ltd, a Singapore-registered special purpose vehicle (SPV). Cat bonds are insurance-linked securities (ILS) designed to protect insurers against the risks of potential catastrophe events, with IAGs deal being the first to offer protection against all natural peril risks in Australia and New Zealand. We were well positioned to support IAGs cat bond given BNY Mellons reach, said Kenneth Cheong, managing director of corporate Trust, Asia- Pacific, BNY Mellon. This deal saw our experts working with various parties on the global transaction, with teams involved from New York, Sydney, and Singapore. Read more: MAS grant boosts Singapores bid for insurance superiority IAG has had a reinsurance presence in Singapore for more than a decade, Cheong added. With BNY Mellons technical and servicing support, this cat bond issuance is a significant milestone in the development of Singapores insurance-linked securities (ILS) market. IAGs deal will be one for the books as the first deal to take advantage of Singapores brand new ILS laws. Singapore is positioning itself as an ILS domicile in the Asia-Pacific region, with the Monetary Authority of Singapore assisting investors in accessing various risk transfer mechanisms such as ILS and government pools. In February 2018, it introduced an ILS grant scheme that funds upfront ILS bond issuance costs. Insurance experts warned, however, that failing to declare pre-existing conditions could invalidate travellers overseas medical coverage. Those with anxiety may now find it easier to access travel insurance, as more insurers are offering mental health cover by assessment, including QBE, NRMA, CoverMore, InsureandGo, and Insure4Less. In the past, most insurers wouldnt cover conditions such as anxiety, placing blanket exclusions on all mental illnesses, said Natalie Ball, director at Comparetravelinsurance.com.au. However, the market is finally coming around to the vast number of the population living with mental health diseases. Seventy per cent of travel insurers now offer some sort of mental illness cover by assessment and travellers should take steps to research their options. Ball said travel insurers are increasingly recognising the need to overcome the stigma attached to mental illness and are evolving their policies to reflect a more modern approach to mental health with the help of advanced medical screening processes. Insurance policies are risk-based products and lots of variables are considered when covering pre-existing illnesses, Ball said. For example, each insurer will have a different definition of anxiety. Some will consider it a pre-existing condition if youve ever suffered from it, while others will only take into account whether you have recently received treatment. Cover will also depend on your destination, as medical costs can vary greatly around the world. Ball also noted that improved technology and greater data insights have enabled insurers to better analyse their risks leading to a gradual shift towards a more nuanced approach to mental health cover. Global insurance solutions provider Clements Worldwide has worked with businesses in conflict zones for over 70 years, providing organizations with tailored coverage to guard against the risks of civil unrest, looting, riots, war, and terrorism. The firm dictates that in todays rapidly changing political climate, no matter where an international organization is operating, an all-inclusive insurance policy with political violence included will help mitigate risk. Its important that clients dont take any coverage for granted, said Smita Bhargava, senior vice president at Clements Worldwide. Ive seen lots of policies that say war and terrorism are covered, but no other perils in relation to political risk are covered. If an international organization has a policy that includes terrorism coverage, but it doesnt include cover for riots, strike, civil commotion, or other types of politically-driven violence, then they might struggle to make a successful claim depending on the country theyre operating in. The challenge for clients is that everybody defines these perils differently. This means insurance brokers must make sure they check their clients policies to ensure they have the right language that will translate for actual coverage for the country or countries an organization is operating in. No two countries share the same risks, so brokers need to investigate where their clients are going and what unique risks factors are associated with those areas. For example, while somewhere like Syria remains at high-risk of terrorism, certain African jurisdictions are more at risk to civil unrest (especially around election time), and brokers need to keep on top of that. As Bhargava mentioned, what one country defines as domestic terrorism, another will define as political unrest, and what one country defines as rioting, another will define as civil unrest. Getting to grips with the definitions is a constant headache, especially for those organizations operating in multiple high-risk zones. To counteract any confusion and eliminate potential coverage disputes, Clements Worldwide offers clients the option to buy a full political violence policy, which covers all perils and clearly defines each peril so that policyholders understand how their policies are reacting. If its in our clients best interests, we will advise them to buy the full policy with a full limit, so that all political violence perils are covered, Bhargava told Insurance Business. We dont advise clients to remove any perils, nor do we advise them to change or have higher limits on a certain peril. Thats because we want them to have coverage flexibility so that, if an incident happens, the claim can fall under any of the political violence criteria. We work with some very large non-governmental organizations and charities who have employees and assets in multiple high-risk areas. For them, we suggest they buy one policy that covers all of their locations. This is much more cost-effective because they can share out their risk between the high-risk and low-risk countries. Sometimes the client may feel they only want coverage for one country and in that case the rates tend to be much higher than a blanket policy. Another thing organizations can do to potentially achieve a lower premium rate is develop crisis and contingency plans. This is something that brokers can help with, according to Bhargava. Political violence insurance policies can only do so much following a catastrophic event. After that, its essential that an organization has a contingency plan it can mobilize to eliminate post-event chaos. That includes simple measures like knowing exactly where all employees are stationed so that an emergency evacuation can be carried out successfully if an event should merit such action. Brokers need to ask clients with international operations a lot of questions in order to fully understand their risks and clients can sometimes feel a little bit overwhelmed, Bhargava added. For insureds with operations in high-risk countries, its vitally important for brokers and insurers to ask those difficult questions because a clear understanding of the risks can only benefit policyholders at claim time. Ross has been named a managing director. He and his staff will move to Higginbothams existing office. Higginbotham is headquartered in Texas, and has expanded to more than 20 markets in and out of the state since 2009. It established its Oklahoma City practice in 2017 when local brokers Gray Holden and Chris Lavigne joined the company. We started Higginbothams first out-of-state venture, and the growth that our office has achieved is evidence that Higginbothams single-source service model is a widely needed solution among mid-sized companies, Holden and Lavigne said in a joint statement. The added expertise and resources that this group brings will keep our momentum going. Here, Jeremy Barnett, senior vice president of marketing at NAS Insurance, outlines two specific claims that NAS encountered in 2018. Ransomware claim A six-figure ransom demand The client is a global visual, audio and collaboration solutions company. The issues began when an employee of the company opened an email that introduced the Ryuk ransomware virus into the insureds computer system. Servers in the USA and Canada were confirmed to be affected with the possibility of servers in Australia, China and other countries also being affected. It is believed that up to 660 servers were affected internationally. NAS retained a global IT forensics firm to obtain a ransom demand, negotiate with the hackers and complete a forensic investigation, Barnett says. The original ransom demand was 130 bitcoins, or approximately $540,000, however, the IT forensics team was able to engage the hacker and negotiate a lower ransom of $425,000 which was covered by the Cyber Extortion insuring agreement in their NAS NetGuard Plus policy. Upon payment of the ransom, the forensics team was able to start decrypting the insureds files. Cyber crime claim Financial fraud NASs insured, an investment advisory firm, received a routine email request to transfer $480,000 from someone purporting to be their client. An authorized employee at the advisory firm, presuming the request was legitimate, went ahead and processed the transfer. When the insureds client was notified of the completed transaction, he immediately contacted the firm about the fraudulent transaction. It was determined that funds were sent to a cyber criminal. The insured had cybercrime limits of $1 million, subject to a $5,000 retention, Barnett says. The insureds IT team conducted an investigation and confirmed that the email was a phishing email by a bad actor impersonating the insureds client. Insurance did cover the costs of funds lost, outside of the $5,000 retention. UK customers are at the forefront of digital demand, said Chris Newman, managing director of ACORD in London. Therefore, providing an effective and compelling digital customer experience is crucial. Aggregator websites not a feature of the US market have set the benchmark for customer digital experience in the UK. Year-on-year they lead the way according to the UK findings, although the performance of leading companies is catching up. Newman also pointed out that consumers expectations of their online experience have risen. This means its getting tougher and tougher to compete, so the writing is on the wall: a great online experience is a must-have rather than a nice-to-have and needs continual investment, he stated. When shopping for insurance, consumer and broker demands are no longer shaped by our industry alone. Their familiarity with the current online and app-based retail environment creates expectations for what a satisfying digital shopping experience entails. In the MDs view, their research underscores not only the opportunity but also the necessity for insurers to invest in improving their delivery of digital customer experience. ACORD cited ease of use, alignment, and interaction as the key factors firms must focus on in their bid to effectively engage customers. In todays digital world, customers and brokers are used to service providers knowing them and understanding their needs, added Newman. The insurance industry needs to offer the same predictive capability. Market leaders take in data to predict behaviours, and they know how to ask the right questions to provide the kind of interaction that users are looking for. This is a key differentiator for insurers looking to improve their overall level of success. Aspen Insurance Holdings is placing its UK managing general agency in runoff, closing its Dublin office and making a slew of executive personnel changes including naming a new CEO of Aspen Bermuda, a new group chief operating officer and a new chief strategy officer. The company said that Aspen Insurance UK Ltd. has served notice of termination of its agency agreement with Aspen Risk Management Ltd. (ARML), which is a UK property and casualty managing general agent with a focus on UK mid-market companies. Aspen said it expects that Aspen Risk Management will be placed into runoff and is working with the management of ARML to ensure all policyholder obligations and service requirements are fully supported and consistent with Aspens standards of policyholder and broker service. The company emphasized the decision has no impact on its mainstream UK property and casualty business, Aspen Insurance UK Ltd. Additionally, Aspen announced that it has begun the process of closing its Dublin office as a result of the proposed move of its Dublin Excess Casualty underwriting business to London. (Regarding business in the European Economic Area post-Brexit, Aspen intends to service customer needs through Lloyds of Londons Brussels subsidiary and other bespoke arrangements.) These decisions follow a review of our insurance strategy, said a company representative in an emailed statement. Aspen is focused on the ongoing enhancement of our Insurance business to ensure we are building value while continually providing the best services and products to our customers. Apollo Global Management LLC, the investment firm led by Leon Black, agreed to acquire Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. for $2.6 billion in a deal that was announced in August 2018 and was completed in February 2019. That ongoing strategic review also led the Aspen Insurance Holdings to stop underwriting property insurance on its Bermuda platform, a move it announced in February 2018, with the aim of moving away from major property accounts that contain considerable catastrophe exposure. Aspens restructuring has included changes to its executive leadership team, which are meant to support continued operational improvement in the business and best position Aspen to capture new opportunities for profitable growth and value creation, according to a May 14 announcement from Mark Cloutier, executive chairman and group chief executive officer. The following changes are effective immediately: Mike Cain, previously group general counsel, has been appointed group chief operating officer and will remain chief executive officer of Aspen UK for a transition period, subject to regulatory approval; Tim Aman, in addition to his current role as group chief risk officer, will assume lead responsibility for outward reinsurance/retro analysis, structuring and placement; Bryan Astwood, group chief Investment officer, has been appointed to the group executive committee; Jonny Atkinson, in addition to his current role as global head of Insurance Marketing and Distribution, has been appointed head of Insurance London; Christian Dunleavy, in addition to this current role as managing director of Aspen Re and chief underwriting officer of Aspen Bermuda Ltd., has been appointed chief executive officer of Aspen Bermuda Ltd.; Marcus Foley, previously group head of Capital Management, has been appointed chief strategy officer, focused on developing and executing strategic corporate initiatives and performance analysis metrics and methods, and to the group executive committee; Paul Frydas, group chief actuary, has been appointed to the group executive committee; Silvia Martinez, previously associate group general counsel, has been appointed group general counsel and company secretary and to the group executive committee; Zahir Petiwalla, performance officer and chief operating officer, Aspen Re, has been appointed deputy group chief operating officer; and Sarah Stanford, international head of Financial Institutions, will be appointed to the additional position of Lloyds Active Underwriter of Syndicate 4711, subject to regulatory approval. Kate Vacher, who joined Aspen in 2002 and has provided many contributions to the company in multiple roles, most recently as group director of underwriting and chief executive officer of Aspen Bermuda Ltd., is leaving Aspen to pursue personal interests, said the company in a statement. In addition, David Schick, former group chief operating officer, and Donald Harrell, former head of International Insurance and global head of Marine, are leaving the company, effective immediately, to pursue opportunities outside Aspen. Source: Aspen Related: Topics Insurance Wholesale London You are here: Business An official with the International Trade Center (ITC), a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, said on Tuesday the agency plans to promote Chinese investments into Africa. Hellen Rintari, national coordinator of ITC's Partnership for Investment and Growth in Africa, told Xinhua in Nairobi that Chinese can play a significant role in boosting economic development and employment creation in Africa. "We are working together with other partners to accelerate Chinese foreign direct investment into Kenya, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Zambia," Rintari said during a media briefing on the upcoming China Trade Week Kenya. Rintari said that the four African nations were selected because they have a large Chinese business community already present in the respective countries. "They also have a business environment that is conducive to both domestic and foreign investments," the national coordinator said. She noted that Chinese investments will be directed towards agro-processing and manufacturing sectors. "We want to spur value addition in the agricultural sector in order to help expand Africa's industrial base," she said. Rintari added that most African countries export raw materials and import finished goods and this denies the African region income from value addition. ITC is also promoting African investments and exports into the Chinese market. Rintari said that Africa needs to diversify both its source of investments as well as export destinations for its products. She noted that ITC will also catalyze the creation of joint ventures between African and Chinese companies. "These will in the long run enhance technology transfer into Africa," she added. French nuclear regulator ASN said it had launched an investigation into elements of fraud and falsification regarding nuclear safety, after receiving several warnings from whistleblowers. Last November, the ASN launched a website where the public can highlight irregularities regarding nuclear safety, which followed a 2016 scandal over falsified manufacturing documents at former nuclear reactor maker Areva and a string of problems with weldings and components at EDF nuclear reactors. Areva is now part of state-owned utility EDF and renamed Framatome. The ASN said in a statement on Monday that since then it had received 22 warnings and had launched an investigation into a small number of these as they had the characteristics of potential fraud cases. It also said it had already referred four cases to the criminal court. It declined to give more details about them. The regulator did not identify any companies involved in the investigation. EDF which operates the 58 nuclear reactors that generate some three quarters of French electricity said it could not immediately comment on ASNs statement. The ASN said that initial investigations had revealed several problems, such as the use of inappropriate materials, certain activities, such as welding, carried out by people who did not have the necessary skills, and safety controls that were either missing or executed by internal staff only. The regulator said this could have a number of implications, such as modification of test results, falsification of the identity of staff having and the non-execution of certain operations such as the replacement of components. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Jane Merriman) Topics Fraud France Bodum Holding AG sued Starbucks Corp. on Friday for alleged product disparagement in connection with the coffee companys recent U.S. and Canadian recall of 263,200 co-branded French presses made from recycled materials. In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Bodum said Starbucks had no basis to unilaterally conduct the May 1 recall because the Bodum + Starbucks presses were not defective and met required specifications. Switzerland-based Bodum also accused Seattle-based Starbucks of creating the impression that Bodum French presses in general are defective, causing a media backlash and significant brand damage to the Lucerne, Switzerland-based company. The lawsuit seeks to force Starbucks to pay all costs for the recall and pay damages to Bodum for hurting its reputation. Starbucks believes Bodums claims are without merit. In a statement, it said it recalled the French presses because of customer complaints, and stood by the decision because it took employee and customer safety very seriously. Bodum is among the best-known makers of French presses, and has sold them at Starbucks under a 2002 purchasing agreement. People use the presses by adding ground beans and hot water to a pot and, after steeping, pushing down on a plunger to make coffee. Starbucks said it recalled presses sold from November 2016 to January 2019 for about $20 each after receiving nine reports of broken plunger knobs, resulting in lacerations or punctures. According to the complaint, Starbucks recalled the presses even though laboratory tests found no evidence of product or design defects, because it had become particularly sensitive to recall issues after paying large fines in an earlier recall. Bodum also said Starbucks plans to expand the recall to Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, an unwarranted action that is causing unacceptable damage to the Bodum brand worldwide. The case is Bodum Holding AG et al v Starbucks Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 19-04280. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional Reporting by Rishika Chatterjee; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft) Topics Lawsuits France Five men who say they were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests when they were minors are planning to sue the Vatican and are demanding the names of thousands of predator priests they claim have been kept secret by the Holy See. In a news release announcing the lawsuit, Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson said he wants to show that the Vatican tried to cover up actions by top church officials including former St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt. The lawsuit being seeks the release of 3,400 names of priests who were referred to the Vatican for credible cases of abuse. That number was released by the Vatican in 2014. The lawsuit comes less than a week after Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking new church law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns worldwide to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities. The law is part of a new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable. But the new law stops short of requiring the crimes to be reported to police, and abuse victims and their advocates say its not enough since it essentially tasks discredited bishops who have mishandled abuse for decades with policing their own. The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit include three brothers who were abused by former priest Curtis Wehmeyer as recently as 2012 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wehmeyer pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct and child pornography in connection with his contact with two of the boys, who were 12 and 14. The brothers are not named in the press release. Internal church documents show that church leaders knew Wehmeyer had engaged in sexual misconduct when they promoted him in 2009. The behavior included at least two occasions when Wehmeyer solicited men for sex. Yet, church leaders did not warn Wehmeyers parishioners about his past, and a July 2014 church memo raised concerns that Nienstedts social relationship with Wehmeyer had clouded his judgment. Wehmeyers arrest led prosecutors to file criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for failing to protect children. It also led to the resignation of Nienstedt, who came under fire for his handling of Wehmeyers case at a time when his own sexual behavior was under scrutiny. Nienstedt was investigated following credible allegations that he engaged in misconduct and harassment, then retaliated when his advances were rejected. Nienstedt has denied the allegations, calling them entirely false. His successor, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, said last December that the Vatican suspended the investigation when Nienstedt resigned in 2015. And while Nienstedt remains in good standing with the Vatican, Hebda has forbidden him from exercising public ministry in his archdiocese. Messages left with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C. were not returned. An email sent to Nienstedt went unanswered. The other plaintiffs are, Manuel Vega, a California man who says he was abused by a priest in Los Angeles, and James Keenan, who says he was sexually abused by a priest in Minnesota. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Abuse Molestation Minnesota Chinas announcement of higher tariffs on $60 billion of American exports retaliation for President Donald Trumps latest penalties on Chinese goods hit particularly hard in the farm belt. Chinas vast consumer market has been a vital source of revenue for American farmers. Since December, when U.S. and China negotiators called a truce to tariffs and began signaling that an agreement might be reached, soybean farmers had been holding out hope that sales to China would resume, said Todd Hultman, an Omaha-based grain market analyst with agriculture market data provider DTN. In the meantime, the farmers had been storing a record stockpile of nearly 1 billion bushels. The latest news of a new round of tariffs, with no agreement in sight, spooked the financial markets and some farmers who had been tentatively optimistic. This is hitting the market at a very emotionally distressful time, Hultman said. The rug of hope was pulled out from under us and especially with the announcement this morning that China is going to retaliate with higher tariffs of their own. In a statement, the American Soybean Association reacted with frustration edged with anxiety. The sentiment out in farm country is getting grimmer by the day, said John Heisdorffer, a soybean farmer in Keota, Iowa, who is chairman of the ASA. Our patience is waning, our finances are suffering and the stress from months of living with the consequences of these tariffs is mounting. A slowdown in soybean sales, and the huge stockpiles that result, has a ripple effect. Farmers in many parts of the corn belt have suffered from a wet and cooler spring, which has prevented them from planting corn. Typically when it becomes too late to plant corn, farmers will instead plant soybeans, which can grow later into the fall before harvest is required. Yet now, planting soybeans with the overabundance already in bins and scant hope for sales to one of the biggest buyers in China, could raise the risk of a financial disaster. This is the fifth year of low prices, basically, for crops, Hultman said. I think time is just wearing us out. To Brent Gloy of Grant, Nebraska, many farmers like him appear to be facing only bleak alternatives for planting. Theres just not a lot people can do, Gloy said. Youre looking at late corn planting through part of the corn belt. They would normally go to soybeans. Man, its just a mess. On Monday, Trump told reporters that a new program to relieve U.S. farmers pain is being devised and predicted that they will be very happy. The administration last year handed farmers aid worth $11 billion to offset losses from trade conflicts. Trump seemed to suggest that the aid will make up for, or partially cover, the $15 billion that he said represented the biggest purchase that China has ever made with our farmers. In fact, U.S. farm exports to China approached $26 billion in both 2012 and 2013 and equaled $19.5 billion in 2017 before his trade war began taking a toll on agricultural sales to China. Gloy, an agriculture economist and a partner in the online research website Agriculture Economic Insights, said he fears there may be no end in sight to the Trump administrations trade dispute with China. And he noted that most crops that farmers could plant arent profitable right now. He also said that some fellow farmers he speaks with are beginning to sound notes of discontent with the Trump administration. Farmers I talk to, Ive been surprised theyre supportive as they are, but I think its starting to wane, he said. Ive personally been very frustrated with it. I think its just a lack of a coherent plan. He said worries that the entire agriculture sector could face severe trouble if the dispute lasts indefinitely. Its going to get louder and louder because theres going to be severe financial distress in agriculture, he said. Weve been getting teaser deals for six months, and everybody kind of thought its going to happen and now I just think the reality of the situation is thats not in the cards. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics USA Agribusiness China The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld a 34-year-old rule that prohibits victims injured by drunken drivers from suing the bars that served them. The high courts ruling on May 10 came in the case of Jeff Kudlacik, who was placed in a medically induced coma and faced months of rehabilitation following a car accident involving a drunken driver in 2015, KCUR-FM reported. Kudlacik was driving in Overland Park when a Ford Fusion ran a red light at 70 mph and slammed into his sedan, slicing it in half and leaving Kudlacik with compound fractures in both of his femurs, a punctured lung and nine broken ribs. The driver who hit Kudlacik, Michael Smith, had a blood alcohol content of nearly 0.18, which is more than twice the legal limit in Kansas. Smith eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated battery while driving under the influence and was sentenced to more than two years in prison. Kudlacik sued the two bars that served Smith before the accident. According to court records, Smith had eight to 10 alcoholic drinks at Johnnys Tavern in Shawnee over about four-and-a-half hours, and one beer at Barleys Brewhaus in Overland Park. A Johnson County judge dismissed the case and the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. Justice Dan Biles said the state Supreme Court was bound by a 1985 case that found that Kansas didnt have a law allowing victims of drunken driving accidents to hold alcohol vendors legally accountable for injuries caused by their patrons. Kansas is among seven states without such a law, and the high court said it would be up to the Legislature to change that. Kansas City attorney David Morantz, who represented Kudlacik, said they knew the odds of getting the law changed were slim. Morantz said Kudlacik plans to take the issue to state lawmakers. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Personal Auto Kansas Restaurant Chard Richard has joined Alliant Insurance Services as executive vice president and managing director in the employee benefits group in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A veteran of the employee benefits industry, Richard has an extensive track record of success as a visionary strategist and seasoned producer with experience servicing a range of mid-to-large-sized clients. Richard joins Alliant with more than 30 years of experience within the Baton Rouge employee benefits community. Prior to joining Alliant, he was area president, Gulf States with a national employee benefits and consulting firm where he built the firms regional employee benefits practice from scratch into a $35 million operation. Source: Alliant Insurance Services Topics Louisiana Detectives with the Louisiana State Police Insurance Fraud/Auto Theft Unit Houma Field Office are asking for the publics help in locating three people wanted for felony fraud in a case involving an alleged staged U-Haul vehicle crash. Two others have been arrested in connection with the staged crash attempt. In May 2018, 53-year-old Bonnie Brien of Gray, 32-year-old Ashley Burnett of Houma, and 51-year-old Fredericka Burnett of Houma, conspired and participated in a staged U-Haul vehicle crash in Terrebonne Parish, the LSP said. The conspirators who participated in the staged crash attempted to deprive Republic Western Insurance Co. in the total amount of $10,349.75. Troopers said 34-year-old Heather Thibodaux and 42-year-old Germaine Johnson were also involved in the fraud. On Feb. 7, 2019, troopers located and arrested Thibodaux and Johnson were arrested in February 2019 at their residence in Houma and booked into the Terrebonne Parish Criminal Justice Center for violation of Automobile Insurance Fraud and Injuring Public Records. Ashley and Fredericka Burnett and Bonnie Brien remain at large. They each have active warrants for automobile insurance fraud and injuring public records. Source: Louisiana State Police Topics Auto Fraud Louisiana A federal grand jury has indicted Georgia Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck on 38 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and mail fraud in an alleged $2 million scheme to defraud the Georgia Underwriting Association (GUA), his former employer. Beck, who was elected to his office, has been ordered to report to authorities by noon on Wednesday, May 15, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. Beck is maintaining his innocence, saying in a statement through his lawyer Bill Thomas to the Associated Press that he strongly denies the allegations. In a 14-page indictment released by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division on Tuesday, Beck is accused of defrauding the GUA, for which he formerly served as general manager of operations. He is charged with 12 counts of wire fraud, 12 counts of mail fraud, and 14 counts of money laundering in a scheme that is alleged to have gone on between February 2013 and June 2018. The GUA provides high-risk property insurance to Georgia homeowners and is governed by a board of governors, appointed by the Georgia Commissioner of Insurance and other members elected from a slate of candidates by the Georgia Commissioner of Insurance. It is funded by premiums collected from its customers and by assessments of its members, including every insurer writing property insurance in Georgia. According to the indictment, while in his position at the GUA, Beck formed and had a controlling financial interest in two businesses in Carrollton Creative Consultants and GA Christian Coalition. In a press conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Bjay Pak said Beck convinced four of his associates to create four different businesses with the alleged purpose of supplying the [GUA] with services, such as residential property inspection and water damage mitigation. However, through an elaborate system of invoicing which included producing false documentation, Beck regularly approved substantial Georgia Underwriting Association payments to the four newly formed companies that were formed by his associates, Pay said. Pay said Beck then allegedly sent fraudulent invoices from the businesses he had control over Creative Consultants and the GA Christian Coalition to the four companies. Once that was done, Beck would allegedly direct his four associates to pay the fraudulent invoices from a portion of the money paid to their businesses by the GUA, he said, noting as general manager, Beck had the GUA make the payments. U.S. Attorney Pay detailed four aspects of the alleged scheme at Tuesdays press conference and listed what Beck allegedly used the fraudulent proceeds for, including several personal expenses such as credit cards and retirement accounts, as well as state and federal personal income taxes. Prosecutors said Beck also made payments to his campaign for insurance commissioner and used proceeds for the purchase and improvement of personal rental property. In total, the grand jury has alleged that between February 2013 and August of 2018, Beck defrauded the GUA out of more than $2 million, Pay said. Pay stressed the alleged allegations and activity happened before Beck became Georgia insurance commissioner this past January. The allegations contained in the Grand Jury indictment do not touch upon his current role, however, holding a powerful position does not shield you from the sins of your past criminal activities. Justice and rule of law will catch up to you eventually, U.S. Attorney Bjay Pak said at the press conference. Special Agent in charge of the FBI in Atlanta Chris Acker said the investigation began about 10 months ago because of allegations referred to the FBI by Georgia Inspector General Deb Wallace. The investigation quickly developed [and] evidence established that Beck abused the trust of friends and his employer GUA in an elaborate scheme to enrich himself at GUAs expense, Acker said. Becks attorney told AP that Beck acted legally and in good faith, and that he looks forward to clearing his good name. Beck, a Republican, beat Democrat Janice Laws in the November 2018 election. Beck made fighting insurance fraud a central theme of his campaign and top priority since he took office in January. Beck has shown no sign of stepping aside because of the charges. In a statement to Insurance Journal, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Insurance said: The accusations that have been made against Commissioner Beck today have no bearing on his service as an elected official to the people of Georgia. [Beck] is entitled to the same presumption of innocence that every citizen of Georgia walks into a courtroom with when accused of a crime. The Department is focused on fulfilling the vital mission we have to protect Georgia consumers. The incredible employees of our Department will get up tomorrow morning and go back to work, including Commissioner Beck. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported that Becks state work records had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in June of last year. Becks campaign released a statement to the AJC at the time saying Beck didnt know what the investigation was about and that he was not in a position to comment on it. United States vs. Jim Beck Indictment Topics Carriers Claims USA Fraud Georgia Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has asked embattled Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck to resign from his post, effective immediately, saying his recent indictment severely undermines your ability to fulfill your obligations to the people of Georgia. In a letter sent to Beck on May 15, a day after Beck was served with the 38-count indictment from a federal grand jury, Kemp said he was respectfully requesting his resignation as Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Insurance. Beck is accused of defrauding the Georgia Underwriting Authority (GUA), the states high-risk property insurer to Georgia homeowners while serving as general manager of operations. GUA is funded by premiums collected from its customers and assessments of members, including every insurer writing property insurance in Georgia. It is governed by a board of governors, appointed by the Georgia Commissioner of Insurance and other members elected from a slate of candidates by the Georgia Commissioner of Insurance. Beck is accused of committing 12 counts of wire fraud, 12 counts of mail fraud, and 14 counts of money laundering in a scheme that is alleged to have gone on between February 2013 and June 2018, before he became the Georgia insurance commissioner. Kemp said as insurance commissioner, Beck holds significant legal authority including appointment powers over GUA and its governing board. In light of this connection and the possibility of new revelations, it would be highly inappropriate for you to continue to hold public office, Kemp wrote. I ask that you do what is right for our state and step down immediately. Beck maintains his innocence against the charges in the grand jury indictment, saying in a statement through his lawyer Bill Thomas to the Associated Press that he strongly denies the allegations. According to the indictment, while in his position at the GUA, Beck formed and had a controlling financial interest in two businesses in Carrollton Creative Consultants and GA Christian Coalition. U.S. Attorney Bjay Pak said during a press conference May 14 that Beck convinced four of his associates to create four different businesses with the alleged purpose of supplying the [GUA] with services, such as residential property inspection and water damage mitigation. However, through an elaborate system of invoicing which included producing false documentation, Beck regularly approved substantial Georgia Underwriting Association payments to the four newly formed companies that were formed by his associates, Pay said. Beck then allegedly sent fraudulent invoices from the businesses he had control over Creative Consultants and the GA Christian Coalition to the four companies and then directed his four associates to pay the fraudulent invoices from a portion of the money paid to their businesses by the GUA, the indictment alleges. Beck then allegedly used the proceeds for personal expenses such as credit cards and retirement accounts, as well as state and federal personal income taxes. Prosecutors said Beck also made payments to his campaign for insurance commissioner and used proceeds for the purchase and improvement of personal rental property. Special Agent in charge of the FBI in Atlanta Chris Acker said the investigation began about 10 months ago because of allegations referred to the FBI by Georgia Inspector General Deb Wallace. The investigation quickly developed [and] evidence established that Beck abused the trust of friends and his employer GUA in an elaborate scheme to enrich himself at GUAs expense, Acker said. Becks attorney told AP that Beck acted legally and in good faith, and that he looks forward to clearing his good name. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the governor cannot unilaterally oust Beck. Under state law, if Beck doesnt resign or ask to be suspended after a 14-day period, Kemp can appoint a panel to decide whether the commissioner should be suspended. Beck appeared to show no sign of stepping aside because of the charges when the news of the indictment first broke Tuesday. In a statement to Insurance Journal on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Insurance said: The accusations that have been made against Commissioner Beck today have no bearing on his service as an elected official to the people of Georgia. [Beck] is entitled to the same presumption of innocence that every citizen of Georgia walks into a courtroom with when accused of a crime. The Department is focused on fulfilling the vital mission we have to protect Georgia consumers. The incredible employees of our Department will get up tomorrow morning and go back to work, including Commissioner Beck. Beck was ordered to report to federal authorities Wednesday. He arrived at a Georgia federal court in the morning, according to local media outlets, and granted $25,000 cash bond. The judge said the commissioner cant travel out of state without permission and must recuse himself from any dealings with the GUA, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. Gov Kemp Letter to Jim Beck Topics Fraud Georgia The Las Vegas branch of a national security firm is facing two wrongful death lawsuits in Nevada stemming from encounters with guards employed by the company. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported one lawsuit was filed in 2018 against a guard and Securitas Security Services USA in Clark County District Court, and the second was filed in April against several unnamed guards and companies including Securitas. The local office declined to comment to the newspaper and officials with the national company did not respond to messages from The Associated Press. The case filed in 2018 stems from the death of 36-year-old Jonathan Blackstone in February of that year. It alleges that security guards tackled Blackstone in front of Showcase Mall on the Las Vegas Strip, sat on him and restricted his ability to breathe until he became unconscious and died. Blackstone, who had schizophrenia, was accused of acting erratically before the guards dog-piled him, according to attorney Benjamin Cloward, who represents Blackstones sister. The Clark County coroner determined Blackstone asphyxiated while being restrained by multiple individuals. Medical examiners listed schizophrenia, cocaine and methamphetamine intoxication and obesity as contributing factors in his death. Police investigated, but Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson declined to prosecute. He told the Review-Journal that prosecutors reviewed security camera footage before he determined there was insufficient evidence that the guards committed a crime. The district attorney said Blackstone struggled for more than a minute and a half with four security officers before Las Vegas police arrived and an officer determined Blackstone wasnt breathing. Blackstone was not revived by CPR. No individual guards were named in the lawsuit. Securitas was listed along with other unidentified security companies because the four guards involved worked for different companies, Cloward said. The other lawsuit stems from the January 2017 death of 57-year-old Kimberlee Ann Kincaid-Hill, a Henderson jewelry store employee killed by a stray shot when a security guard opened fire at a would-be robber, who ran away. Henderson police characterized the shooting as an accident and did not seek criminal charges against the guard, whom they refused to name. Court and state records identify him as Michael Deshawn Lyons, a Nevada Private Investigators Board licensee since 2007 hired by Securitas in 2015. Todd Moody, an attorney representing Lyons estate, said there is no allegation her death was intentional. He said the focus is on whether Securitas properly trained Lyons and whether Lyons was familiar with the gun he used. Lyons is still a licensed security guard, the Review-Journal said, and state records still list him as a Securitas employee. He is no longer qualified to carry a firearm. Kevin Ingram, board executive director, said Lyons firearm certification lapsed and there was no disciplinary action in Lyons file. The newspaper says Lyons could not be reached for comment, and an attorney representing Lyons and Securitas did not respond to messages. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Nevada The German pharmaceutical company Bayer will appeal the decision by a jury in the United States ordering the company to pay more than 2 billion U.S. dollars, according to a statement published by Bayer on Monday. "Bayer is disappointed with the jury's decision and will appeal the verdict in this case," Bayer said in the statement. On Monday, a jury in California ordered Bayer to pay 2 billion dollars in punitive damages and 55 million dollars in compensatory damages to a couple who blamed Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup for causing cancer. Bayer said that the jury's verdict conflicted with "the consensus among leading health regulators worldwide that glyphosate-based products can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic". Bayer had already lost two lawsuits relating to the cancer risks of its U.S. subsidiary Monsanto's weed killer, which the German company has appealed. The jury ruling on Monday was the third conviction within a few months and Bayer recently reported that it was confronted with around 13,400 lawsuits in the U.S. involving Roundup. The German company has consistently rejected the health risks posed by the weed killer glyphosate. Following the jury decision on Monday, Bayer said that the "plaintiffs in this case presented the jury with cherry-picked findings from a tiny fraction of the volume of studies available" on glyphosate. Bayer CEO Werner Baumann recently reaffirmed that "the acquisition of Monsanto was and remains the right move for Bayer". The company's shareholders have accused Baumann of underestimating the risks of the Monsanto-related lawsuits. Since the completion of the Monsanto acquisition in June 2018, Bayer stock has lost around 40 percent of its value and the downward trend continued at the start of trading on Tuesday. Bayer's share price on the German stock market DAX fell by up to five percent to 53.65 euros per share, the lowest level since 2012. Ontario, CA, May 15, 2019 The BIG Independent Group, a leading association of independent agent and brokers, was pleased to bestow its BIGGIE Awards for the 10th year in a row. The 2019 awards, distributed at the associations annual convention held recently in Ontario, CA, is given to insurance professionals, companies and industry advocates for extraordinary contributions to insurance producers and the business as a whole. Nominees and winners are selected through a poll of BIG members and associates. This year, an email survey was sent to 4,721 contacts in California, 3,486 of those were independent agency owners. Over 600 surveys were returned, and the top five from each category were selected for the poll. A list of nominees was sent to over 6,000 contacts and, generated over 6,000 votes. BIG is honored to spearhead these efforts to recognize the dedication of these outstanding individuals and companies. They are instrumental in pushing the insurance industry forward and contribute to the success of producers, here in California and across the country, commented BIG Founder Jon Spaugy. The BIGGIE Awards are just our way of saying thanks. Here are the nominees and winners of the 2019 BIGGIE Awards: Standard Marketing Representative of the Year Nancy Orozco Kemper/Alliance United Nominees: Anna Harris Progressive, Johana Alvarez Kemper Specialty California, Itzel Greenheck- Kemper/Alliance United, Nancy Orozco Kemper/Alliance United, Cesar Romero Kemper Specialty California. Standard Agency of the Year City Best Insurance Nominees: Strong Tie Insurance, Academy Insurance, Southern State Insurance, Diamante Insurance, City Best Insurance. Standard Carrier of the Year Kemper/Alliance United Nominees: Kemper/Alliance United, National General, Kemper/Infinity, Workmens Auto, Kemper Speciaty California Preferred Marketing Representative of the Year Missy Alizadeh Mapfre Nominees: Dan Tencate Mercury, Paula Weiss Mercury, Jeff Hahn Safeco, Blane Bardsley Arrowhead General Insurance Agency, Missy Alizadeh Mapfre. Preferred Insurance Broker of the Year AIS Auto Insurance Specialists Nominees: Beach & ONeil Insurance, Key City Insurance, J.B. Wright Insurance,, Pauma Valley Insurance, AIS Auto Insurance Specialists. Preferred Carrier of the Year Mercury Nominees: Progressive, Safeco, Mapfre, Travelers, Safeco. MGA of the Year Builders and Tradesmens Insurance Services Nominees: Arrowhead General Insurance Agency, RIC, Richmont General Insurance Services, Tapco Underwriters, Builders and Tradesmens Insurance Services. Vendor of the Year Record Guardian Nominees: EZ Lynx, AVRS, Staff Boomt, LightSpeed Voioce, Record Guardian Technology Company of The Year Hawksoft Inc Nominees: Record Guardian, EZ Lynx, Hawksoft, Applied Systems, ITC Premium Finance Company of the Year Cypress Premium Finance Nominees: IPFS, Capital Premium Finance, GAAC, Cypress Premium Finance, Top Premium Finance. 2019 BIG Legend Award Barni Strausbaum 2019 BIG10X Sales Person of The Year Andrew Rodriguez 2019 BIG VIP Award Mario Luna Agency Doctor 2019 BIG VIP Award Carlos Basurto 2019 BIG VIP Award Vira Egli I would like to point out that, in many categories, the margin for winning was razor-thin, said Adam Meyerson, a longtime BIG leader and emcee of the awards presentations. Our industry has a great deal of talent associated with it, and our BIGGIE awards are just our small way of recognizing that. Media Contact Jon Spaugy 909.460.8282 biginusa.com@gmail.com Topics California May 15, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Brad Rourke, CEO of Scottie Resources, speaks with Peter Epstein of Epstein Research about his company's major land acquisition in British Columbia's Golden Triangle. Scottie Resources Corp. (SCOT:TSX.V) is a lesser known Golden Triangle (northern BC, Canada) gold junior, who's ship may have just come in. Typically, when the word, "blockbuster" is used, it refers to drill results. In this case I refer to Scottie's recently announced option on a sizable (>1,500 hectares) piece of property (the Summit Lake claims) surrounding its existing 100%-owned Scottie Gold Mine property {see map below). Even before this announcement, Scottie seemed like a natural takeout target for Ascot Resources (TSX-V: AOT), [C$160 million market cap]. (Note: the company announced the intention to raise C$1.0 million in an equity capital raise on May 13th.) Ascot acquired IDM Mining and its Red Mountain project in March, and the Silver Coin property from Jayden Resources and Mountain Boy Minerals late last year. Furthermore, Ascot just upsized a capital raise to $15 million. Subject to TSX approval, Scottie will own or control a contiguous land package [the Bow, Scottie Gold Mine, Summit Lake and Stock claims] totaling nearly 8,800 hectares = ~21,750 acres. Yet, that approximate 8,800-hectare position is less than half the company's total of more than 18,500 hectares. Scottie Resources has another 10,000 contiguous hectare block adjoining, directly west, of IDM's (now Ascot's) property. One need only glance at the map to see that the chances of Ascot wanting to take out Scottie have likely soared. Before picking up these new claims, management was excited about its 472 hectare Bow property, the subject of this April 26th press release. Below are some historical drill hole intercepts from the Bow property, which is contiguous with the Scottie Gold Mine property. Imagine if the company could find more intercepts like those on the newly expanded property that's now roughly 18x the size of Bow. This "blockbuster" land acquisition opens up much more than additional hectares; it enhances the probability of putting the project into production on a standalone basis. It opens up the possibility that other mid-tier or major precious metals companies might want a piece of the action, regional players like Pretium, NovaGold, Seabridge, Imperial Metals and GT Gold Corp. Or companies outside the district that want an entry into the world-class Golden Triangle. Giants Teck Resources and Newmont Goldcorp Corp. already have direct interests in the district. The following interview of Brad Rourke, president, director & CEO of Scottie Resources, was completed by text, email and phone in the week ended May 10th. As always, please see disclosures at the bottom of the page. Peter Epstein: Please give readers the latest snapshot of Scottie Resources. Brad Rourke: Our focus is on the past producing, high-grade Scottie Gold Mine property in Canada's Golden Triangle, in northern British Columbia, which operated for nearly 4.5 years from 19811985. It produced >95,000 ounces of gold at ~16 g/t or 0.5 opt, with a 200 tonne per day mill. On April 30th we announced a blockbuster land transaction. Our VP Exploration, Dr. Thomas Mumford, commented, "The optioning of this land package is truly momentous for Scottie Resources. It fundamentally changes the potential of the Scottie Gold Mine property by substantially expanding our previously restricted footprint. While high-grade gold is known to exist along our borders, we were unable to properly advance it. With this new opportunity to explore the entire mineralizing system, we are eager to get boots on the ground this summer." Significant potential exists due to extensions at depth, additional zones along strike and in parallel mineralized structures. We also have other contiguous properties, (see map above), nearby, between and bordering land controlled by Ascot Resources. In total, we now own or control >18,500 hectares in the Golden Triangle. By comparison, Ascot's flagship Premier Gold-Silver project is roughly 10,500 hectares in size. However, the Premier project is much more advanced. Peter Epstein: Can you expand upon the history of your company? Brad Rourke: Sure. Since Scottie Resources (formerly Rotation Minerals) acquired the Scottie Gold Mine claims in 2016, (we started with just 400 hectares) there has been 713 meters of surface drilling (3 holes), 1,935m of underground drilling (18 holes) and 162 surface rock samples taken. Previous work on the property included 29,000+ meters of underground drilling, airborne geophysical surveys, geological mapping and various soil and ground geophysical grids. There has been $150 million of infrastructure expenditures, and there's an existing 200 tonne/day mill, six portals, a rail system and seven kilometers of drifts. Peter Epstein: Why is last month's announcement so important? Why was it so hard to get this land package? Brad Rourke: We just picked up the Summit Lake claims, I think it might be one of the best deals in the Golden Triangle in decades! Summit Lake is a tremendously attractive opportunity, a land package that we and others tried to acquire many times over the years. However, the price tag was in the tens of millions. These claims are a real game-changer. The proposed terms are very reasonable; over four years, a total of $250,000 in cash + 2.2 million shares + a 1.8% gross smelter return (GSR) royalty. This newly optioned property completely opens up our ability to explore the mineralizing system that formed Scottie. Prior to this, the Scottie Gold Mine property consisted of only ~212 hectares of crown grants that the mine was on and 110 hectares of mineral claims. We were completely surrounded by the Summit Lake claims owner, who was very reluctant to make deals that smaller juniors could reasonably entertain. Peter Epstein: The Golden Triangle is a very complex district; you need a strong technical team. Tell us about your team. Brad Rourke: You're right. The core of our company consists of technical personnel, three members of our Board of Directors are technical professionals, either geologists or mining engineers, Ernie Mast, John Williamson and Ed Kruchkowski. We have several executives with track records of building successful resource companies. In addition, our VP Exploration, Dr. Thomas Mumford, is a seasoned field geologist, with strong mapping experience in the Golden Triangle as well as managing drill programs across Canada. We've also been fortunate to be working with one of the premier mineral exploration consulting firms in Canada Equity Exploration. Peter Epstein: Please talk more about the tailings opportunity. Brad Rourke: The Scottie Mine operated for nearly 4.5 years, at an average grade of 16.2 g/t gold. Recovered grades were about 17.5 g/t for the first two years, but dropped to 14.1 g/t in 1984, even as mill recoveries improved from 75% in 1981 to 9295% in 1984. With lower recoveries in the first two years, a significant amount of gold ended up in tailings, deposited into a lake that has since drained. This past summer Equity Exploration sampled the tailings. Gold grades as high 6.2 g/t were found. This season we plan on doing more infill sampling to better define grade distribution and get a solid estimate of potential tonnage. We think that we should be able to monetize thousands of ounces of gold from tailings starting as soon as next year, but more work is required before an operating decision can be made. Peter Epstein: What's the probability of finding other metals in concentrations high enough for them to be by-products or credits? Brad Rourke: In terms of by-product metals, the one we are most excited about is the cobalt-rich veins on the Bow property. Many mineralized gold intercepts returned cobalt values ranging from 0.10% to 0.44%. (NOTE: at the mid-point of 0.27%, the in-situ cobalt value = ~$130/t.) A focus of future drilling on the Bow property will be to assess the distribution and grade control on the cobalt and its association with the gold. Peter Epstein: How is Scottie Resources different from the dozens of other gold juniors in the GT? Brad Rourke: How are we different? We host a past-producing mine with road access, six portals, shafts, a rail system and 7 km of drifts. There's a $440 million power line going through our property. A new global port is ~48 km from the project. $150 million worth of infrastructure is in place. We now have the scale that could attract mid-tiers and majors. It's very hard to consolidate land, but we're doing it; we started with just 400 hectares, now we control ~18,500 hectares. We're working with a newly defined understanding of the geology, modeled for the first time by Equity Exploration, that was not understood when the Scottie Mine was in production. All historical exploration data has been re-logged and digitized. We share borders with both Pretium and Ascot. The Scottie Gold Mine project is high grade, even by Golden Triangle standards! Peter Epstein: Why should readers consider buying shares of Scottie Resources? Brad Rourke: Any existing shareholder of Scottie Resources (TSX-V: SCOT) who knew the story before last month's news should be thrilled with this latest development. If you liked it at 20c or 25c, with our tight float, you should love it now! We have a $12 million (C$0.20/share on May 13th) market cap, and our closest meaningful neighbors, both of whom we share borders with, have market caps of $160 million (Ascot Resources) & $2.0 billion (Pretium Resources). As you, Peter, mentioned in your opening remarks, I reiterate that other players in the Golden Triangle include NovaGold ($1.75 billion), Seabridge ($990 million), Imperial Metals ($285 million), GT Gold ($95 million), Great Bear Resources ($84 million) and Garibaldi Resources ($78 million). If this season or next we have more success with the drill bit, on a much larger footprint, we think our $12 million Enterprise Value has considerable upside. Peter Epstein is the founder of Epstein Research. His background is in company and financial analysis. He holds an MBA degree in financial analysis from New York University's Stern School of Business. Disclosures: The content of this article is for information only. Readers fully understand and agree that nothing contained herein, written by Peter Epstein of Epstein Research [ER], (together, [ER]) about Scottie Resources, including but not limited to, commentary, opinions, views, assumptions, reported facts, calculations, etc. is not to be considered implicit or explicit investment advice. Nothing contained herein is a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security. [ER] is not responsible under any circumstances for investment actions taken by the reader. [ER] has never been, and is not currently, a registered or licensed financial advisor or broker/dealer, investment advisor, stockbroker, trader, money manager, compliance or legal officer, and does not perform market making activities. [ER] is not directly employed by any company, group, organization, party or person. The shares of Scottie Resources are highly speculative, not suitable for all investors. Readers understand and agree that investments in small cap stocks can result in a 100% loss of invested funds. It is assumed and agreed upon by readers that they will consult with their own licensed or registered financial advisors before making any investment decisions. At the time this interview was posted, Peter Epstein owned no shares of Scottie Resources and the Company was NOT an advertiser on [ER]. However, {ER} is negotiating with the Company for it to become an advertiser on [ER] in the near future. Readers should consider me biased in my view of the Company. Readers understand and agree that they must conduct their own due diligence above and beyond reading this interview. While the author believes he's diligent in screening out companies that, for any reasons whatsoever, are unattractive investment opportunities, he cannot guarantee that his efforts will (or have been) successful. [ER] is not responsible for any perceived, or actual, errors including, but not limited to, commentary, opinions, views, assumptions, reported facts & financial calculations, or for the completeness of this interview or future content. [ER] is not expected or required to subsequently follow or cover events & news, or write about any particular company or topic. [ER] is not an expert in any company, industry sector or investment topic. Streetwise Reports Disclosure: 1) Peter Epstein's disclosures are listed above. 2) The following companies mentioned in the article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: Pretium Resources, Seabridge Gold and Great Bear Resources. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 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. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. 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Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp A nightmarish debut by Uber complicates listing plans at other technology unicorns, particularly the breed of large-cap tech companies that counts WeWork as a member. WeWork, which provides office space and services to tech start-ups, has built a significant presence in Ireland in the last two years. Traders have made clear that IPOs by large, hyper-capitalised technology companies with opaque fundamentals and massive losses will face scrutiny. Thats the big lesson from Lyft and Ubers disappointing debuts, according to a research firm that focuses on technology listings. Two points make a line, Triton Research wrote in a note to clients. WeWork recently announced it had filed to go public later this year and we can now safely wonder if they will have the courage to go through with it, according to the research firm. Triton warns that WeWorks loss profile is even worse than Lyfts and more closely resembles that of another doomed IPO, Snap. WeWork may need a new plan after Uber proved investor appetite for these types of listings is weaker than expected. Airbnb could also fall into this category. But US technology firms with more solid financial footing, such as Slack Technologies, dont need to tap the brakes on their listing plans. It has years of cash runway on its balance sheet, Triton says, which helps explain why the firm is opting for a direct listing rather than a traditional IPO. Recent tech IPOs with healthier financials have been surging, including Zoom Video Communications, DocuSign, Elastic and Zscaler. Separately, established European giants such as Volkswagen, industrial giant Thyssenkrupp, and brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev will likely push ahead with their plans to sell shares despite the Uber setback. Executives are betting that the market turmoil will have calmed down, and investors will have forgotten Ubers disastrous IPO, by the time theyre ready to price those sales. The businesses being sold by VW, Thyssenkrupp and AB InBev are old-school industrial companies. VW said this week its planning an IPO of its Traton heavy-trucks division by August that could value the business at 30bn. Thyssenkrupp outlined plans last week to offer a minority stake in its elevator operation, and AB InBev aims to sell part of its Asian business in an offering in Hong Kong that could value it at 62bn. Bloomberg 24 protected disclosures by staff or members of the gardai were made to GSOC last year and over 400 criminal investigations were opened. The garda watchdog's annual report shows almost 2,000 complaints detailing almost 3,000 allegations were made against officers, a slight drop on the previous year's figures. A transition year student from Cork has scooped the top award in a competition which asked secondary school students to write about their experiences with homelessness. Fifteen-year-old Caitlin Canavan ODriscoll who attends Mount Saint Michael in Rosscarbery, Co Cork, won the Young Writers Award - #WriteForHome competition for her poem Music is the medicine of the mind, in which she spoke about using music to help her get through her familys struggles with homelessness. Run by Cork Simon Community in partnership with the Irish Examiner, submissions for the competition included more than 200 short stories, poems, essays and diary entries from students attending 40 secondary schools across Cork and Kerry. Caitlin received the first prize of a laptop at a ceremony in the Aula Maxima in UCC attended by shortlisted students, teachers, family members and three members of the competitions judging panel, Deputy Lord Mayor Cllr Mary Shields and local writers Kathy DArcy and Tadhg Coakley. In her poem, the teenager speaks about listening to the Ariana Grande song 7 Rings while hearing her parents argue over unpaid bills and adult things and how cold nights in the street arent just in my dreams. Caitlin had her winning poem read aloud by Cork author and Irish Examiner columnist Louise ONeill at last the ceremony, and will also have the poem printed in the paper The first runner-up prize went to Olivia Payne from Cork Learning Support Services for her short story Angies Diary, while the second runner-up prize was given to Christopher Forrest from Douglas Community School for his entry Heavy Red Door. Merits were also awarded to Caragh Cifone and Amy OToole, both from Schull Community College. Commenting on the competition, Paul Sheehan, Cork Simon campaigns and communications manager, said it most surprising that three of the five winners were poems. The judges were really impressed with the quality of the writing on display, and the writers understanding of the effects of homelessness and living in emergency accommodation," he added. Music is the medicine of the mind By Caitlin Canavan ODriscoll, Transition Year, Mount St. Michael, Rosscarbery I like to sing along to 7 Rings, When Mom and Dad are crying downstairs, Over unpaid bills and adult things. I ignore how only one of my earphones blares. The other is frayed and silent. I can feel the bitter chill when the oil runs out And I can hear when the landlord comes by and things get violent, The slam of his scrunched fists on the table and the scariness of his shout. Lashes and diamonds, ATM machines, I wish I could pretend I knew what she meant, Since cold nights on the street arent just in my dreams. We have no home because we couldnt pay rent. Now I dont want to be a millionaire. I just want my home back, so I dont have to be scared. A Sinn Fein private members motion, seeking a referendum to put the right to housing into the Constitution, looks set to be defeated tomorrow. Last night the party's spokesperson on housing, Eoin O Broin, introduced the proposal for the 35th Amendment, which would see the right to adequate, appropriate, secure, safe and affordable housing added. High Court proceedings brought against RTE by an independent candidate in this month's European Parliament Elections have been withdrawn. Eamonn Murphy had previously told the High Court that he was bringing an action arising out of the broadcaster's decision to exclude him from a live debate scheduled to be shown by RTE on May 20 next. Mr Murphy, who is running in the Dublin constituency, had also contested RTE's decision not to broadcast a one-minute video clip submitted by him about his campaign and candidacy. RTE had not shown the video because it was in breach of the both the Broadcasting Act and Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Guidelines, the High Court heard. His action was listed for hearing before the High Court this morning. However, during the call over Mr Murphy, who represented himself, told Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds that the matter, following some correspondence between the sides, was being withdrawn. Mr Murphy told the court he was happy to withdraw the case after he said he had received "undertakings" from RTE. However, Niamh Hyland SC for RTE said that no undertakings had been given by RTE. Ms Justice Reynolds then struck out the case. Mr Murphy's action was one of two cases taken by independent candidates running in the election against RTE over its decision not to include them in the live TV debate due to take place days before the May 24 ballot. In a separate action, heard on Tuesday Mr Justice Senan Allen dismissed a legal challenge brought by Ben Gilroy who is also running in the Dublin Constituency for the European elections. The Judge said Mr Gilroy's proceedings arising out of RTE's decision to exclude him from the live debate, had "no legal basis". The Judge added that the application was brought by Mr Gilroy in an attempt to enhance his electoral prospects in the election. In his action, Mr Gilroy had sought various declarations to the effect that the decision to exclude him from the debate is unfair, undemocratic and that he has a right to be heard. He claimed the decision to exclude him, and other candidates not invited to participate in the programme breach the regulations set out by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland on elections. The decision, he claimed, meant RTE was in breach of its remit as a national broadcaster and gave an unfair advantage to the established politicians and parties who take part in the programmes. RTE denied the claims. It said its selection criteria for participants, which Mr Gilroy did not meet, were fair, objective and impartial. It also claimed the application before the court was an attempt by Mr Gilroy to generate publicity to advance his electoral ambitions. The Judge in dismissing the case said that RTE's formatting of the debate was "sensible." In the circumstances, the court was dismissing the application, and awarded costs against Mr Gilroy in favour of RTE. Boeing's 737 MAX jetliner's return to service may be delayed until mid- to-late August because of a software update and recertification, possibly creating new problems for carriers as the summer travel season approaches. Initially, Boeing hoped to have the plane back in the air by April, but revisions to the automated flight system, the logistics of installing the software update, and approval by foreign regulators pushed the estimated return date into May and now August. "I think it shows Boeing the depth of the problem they created at the executive level by trying to take over the certification process," James E. Hall, managing partner of Hall & Associates in Washington and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told China Daily. "Boeing's CEO said they own it, and now they've got to fix it. If it takes longer than expected to resolve the issue, that's the responsible thing to do. It's a good thing for the passengers and for those interested in a strong aviation safety structure. Given the present circumstances, I don't see any downside." Boeing MAX jets were grounded worldwide following crashes March 10 in Ethiopia and Oct 29, 2018, in Indonesia that killed a total of 346 passengers and crew. Preliminary investigations suggest the aircraft's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), an automated anti-stall device, may have forced the noses of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights down and into a fatal plunge when it erroneously determined the aircraft were about to stall. There are about 400 MAX jets in service worldwide, including about 97 in China. Boeing has met with Southwest, American and United the US airlines that fly the 737 MAX and European carriers to discuss safety and software updates. The FAA has invited about 50 regulators from nations around the world to meet May 23 to review safety procedures. Critics of the Federal Aviation Administration's certification in the US and abroad believe federal regulators delegated too much authority to Boeing when certifying the 737 MAX as safe to fly. Analysts therefore do not expect the European Aviation Safety Agency, the FAA's counterpart, to rubber-stamp the findings of federal regulators. That could delay return of MAX jets to service until fall. "It makes sense to get things right to make sure things are as safe as possible," John Cochran, president of Eaglemark, an aviation consulting firm, told China Daily. "Everyone has to be made aware of the changes and trained. To delay too much longer would be bad, but it's best to do things right and with a great deal of transparency," said Cochran, who is also a professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at Auburn University. Wall Street analysts expect Boeing to spend about $1 billion to update and install new software for the anti-stall system. The controversial Colombian mining company that routes billions of euro worth of business through Ireland has said it is "horrified" by death threats against a human rights activist who was in this country last month speaking out against the mine. Cerrejon, which operates one of the world's biggest open cast mines in northern Colombia, routes 2.3bn worth of business through its Dublin-based distributors and has supplied millions of tonnes of coal to the ESB, said it was calling on the authorities in Colombia to investigate the threats with urgency and take the necessary protective measures to safeguard those targetted. "We are horrified by this situation and completely condemn such reprehensible acts," the company said in a statement today. One of the activists threatened, Jakeline Romero of the Fuerza de Mujeres Mayuu women's group, was in Ireland last month to try to raise awareness of the impact the mine has had on farming communities in northern Colombia. Human rights groups say the mine is responsible for the mass displacement of communities, destruction of the environment, depletion of the region's water supplies and illness in local populations due to dust and emissions. The company denies the claims. Opponents have often faced threats in this remote region where political corruption and paramilitary activity is rife. The current death threats are targetted at Ms Romero, fellow members of her group and a local trade union leader. Ms Romero spoke at numerous events in Ireland last month at the invitation of the Latin America Solidarity Centre. She has also been recognised by the Irish charity, Front Line Defenders, for her work. Cerrejon said in its statement: "Cerrejon wishes to express our support and acknowledgement of the work the Fuerza de Mujeres Wayuu organisation, as well as other organisations and leaders, do in the territory. "Although we may have different views on coal mining, we are in complete agreement on everyone's right to freedom of speech and we fully understand that community leaders have a vital role to play in working to defend and improve the living conditions of their fellow citizens." The ESB has used Cerrejon coal for years for the Moneypoint power station. The station has been offline for long periods in recent months, however, and there is a commitment to weaning it off coal within the next decade. ESB has said previously it was aware of the complaints about the Cerrejon mine but that was a member of the Bettercoal quality assurance group which monitors mines and was satisfied with the standards in place there. Food and farming bodies have defended their role in climate action and warned it is simplistic to talk of slashing herd numbers or swapping pasture for tillage. Karl Richards, senior researcher with Teagasc said the reality was that, despite the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions from the sector, market demand for dairy and beef was growing and Ireland was the cleanest producer in Europe. At the moment, our plan is to do that as efficiently as possible and to have the lowest carbon footprint for our product, he said. Uniquely in Ireland 90% of our utilisable agricultural area is grassland so we are in the perverse situation that if we were to start to generate more crops, we would be ploughing up permanent grassland which is a net carbon sink and turning that into a net carbon source. There are no simple answers to this and the long term effects of changing agricultural production and land use needs to be carefully considered. Mr Richards was speaking at the Environmental Protection Agencys Climate Action Conference against a backdrop where agriculture is responsible for 33% of the countrys greenhouse gas emissions and the Oireachtas Climate Action Committee has called for an immediate review of land-use. Bill Callanan, chief environmental inspector at the Department of Agriculture and Food, also cautioned that change in the sector would be challenging. When youre 33% of the challenge, its unavoidable that you have to be a significant part of the solution, he said. It will not be solely by simple reductions. The story for agriculture is a lot more complicated. When you change to an electric car, youve done the transition and its pretty much plain sailing after that. We havent come up with an electric cow yet." Agricultural economist Tom Arnold said there was much good work going on in agriculture in terms of reducing emissions per unit of output but he added: "There is a core uncomfortable reality that if the emissions from the agri sector are increasing in absolute terms and as a proportion of the national total, the sector is going to come under increasing pressure. Earlier, Climate Action Minister Richard Bruton had warned against blaming agriculture for the countrys poor performance in emissions reduction. One of the greatest threats to us being successful is to see divisions open up in our society and there are real dangers of that. Sometimes agriculture feels it is in particular pointed at as being to blame in some sense and we can not allow this - setting one part of our community against another - or we will fail. Marie Donnelly, former director for renewables at the European Commission, said the glaring omission in Ireland was solar power. "For the technology that is considered the cheapest technology globally, it does not exist in this country." She dismissed ESB arguments that it was more expensive to buy excess power from households solar panels than for the company to produce it by other means. She said the public were not demanding set prices. "You tell them you'll buy it at wholesale prices and if the wholesale price is zero, you get zero and if the price is high, you make money. People will accept that." The Criminal Assets Bureau is examining the beneficial owners of a home in North Cork and another in South Tipperary as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation. In a series of searches this morning, CAB targeted four sites and froze around 40,000 in a bank account. Update: The chief executive of the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) is calling on the Land Development Agency to provide more land to housing associations to build social housing, writes Vivienne Clarke. Dr Donal McManus said that the biggest obstacle to building more social housing is the lack of suitable land. Dr McManus told RTE Radios Morning Ireland that while there are 500 housing associations in the country, only 270 are active with most providing housing for an income-based rent. Housing associations build homes through two methods, he explained. He said: "That is directly or through joint ventures, but the biggest issue remains the lack of land. We can build houses, raise the finance, get some support from the State and charge affordable rents, but we need the Land Development Agency to help. Housing associations charge affordable rents, which are usually around 55 per week for a family home, he added. We house people on lower incomes under 35,000 to 40,000. The ICSH works well with the private sector, said Dr McManus, with many companies working repeatedly on projects. Earlier: Housing associations provided almost 40% of social homes in 2018 The Irish Council for Social Housing has said its members helped deliver four in 10 new social homes last year. The group, which represents roughly 270 social housing providers, is today launching its latest 'Activity Report' for 2018. According to the Irish Council for Social Housing's report, the sector provided 3,219 social homes last year, 38% of the national total. Over half were new builds, one third were acquisitions and roughly a tenth were leased. 4,000 households were also taken off the social housing waiting list. The group said out of all the social houses delivered, two-thirds were in nine local authority areas, reflecting the higher demand in urban areas. It says since Rebuilding Ireland was launched in 2016, it has delivered 6,700 homes and is on track to surpass targets for 2021. However, the group wants any obstacles to this target removed, and is calling on the Government to publish the bill establishing the Land Development Act as a matter of urgency. They are also calling for at least 30% of housing on State land be ring-fenced for social housing and 20% for affordable housing under the act. A High Court jury will begin considering its verdict tomorrow in solicitor Gerald Keans action alleging he was defamed in an article concerning a visit by officers of the Criminal Assets Bureau to his Dublin offices. The jury of seven men and five women heard closing addresses today and will be instructed in the law by Mr Justice Bernard Barton tomorrow before going out to consider their decision. In his action against independent Star Ltd, Mr Kean alleges he was defamed in an article published in the Irish Daily Star on March 11, 2016, headlined Kean Caught Up in CAB probe. The article concerned a visit by two CAB officers to Mr Keans offices at Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin, on March 9, 2016 with a search warrant and stated CAB had obtained warrants concerning 12 premises and six businesses, including Mr Keans, as part of its investigation into the Kinahan gangs assets. A CAB officer told the jury the purpose of the visit to Mr Keans office was to get a conveyancing file relating to the purchase in 2015 of a house at Kildare Road, Crumlin, by a client of the firm, Sean McGovern, who was linked to the Kinahan gang. The file was provided to the officers by an assistant solicitor in Mr Keans office who handled the conveyance and CAB later got court orders declaring the Crumlin property was purchased with the proceeds of crime, the jury heard. Among various claims, Mr Kean claims the article wrongly meant he was suspected by CAB of being linked to gangland crime and says he is entitled to damages. The newspaper denies defamation and has also pleaded the article was published in the course of, or for the purpose of, a discussion of a subject of public interest for the public benefit and the manner and extent of publication was no more than was reasonably sufficient. In closing arguments today, Eoin McCullough SC said a reasonable reader reading the entire article would see the factual content is simply inconsistent with what Mr Kean alleges. An outstanding feature of the case was that the content of the article, written by the newspapers Crime Correspondent Michael OToole, was accurate in all respects. Mr Kean may not like the article but it is an important part of democracy that newspapers can publish the truth, he said. If the jury found the article contained some or all of the meanings alleged by Mr Kean, they should go on to find it was published for discussion on a matter of public interest, the activities of the Kinahan crime gang and the efforts of gardai and CAB to combat those, he said. Mr Kean could have pursued other avenues concerning the article but had not, he said. If the jury concluded Mr Kean was entitled to damages, those should be very small as there was no evidence he had been damaged, counsel submitted. Paul OHiggins SC, for Mr Kean, said the solicitor regarded the article as a dig of a royal kind at him which was not true. It concerned a matter of the utmost triviality that the newspaper was trying to dress up as some kind of public interest crusade when there was no public interest involved. While various bald statements in the article were true, including that CAB called to Mr Keans office, the jury had to look at the entire article, including its layout. The only purpose of the CAB visit was to get the relevant document so CAB could chase the money and there was not the remotest suspicion about Mr Kean, he said. Mr Keans side of the story got miniscule treatment and a statement in the article that he had denied any knowledge of the incident was not accurate because what he had denied was there was a raid on his office. Mr Kean was made to look like a liar who was denying the undeniable, he said. A yawning void in the case was the jury had not heard from the editor of the newspaper, Des Gibson, with whom the buck stops, he added. For all those reasons, Mr Kean is entitled to damages, counsel said. An alleged sexual assault victim has told a jury at the Central Criminal Court that a man held his hands around her throat throughout a late night attack outside her home. The 34-year-old Dublin resident denies attempted rape of the woman at a Dublin city centre location on December 18, 2010. The accused and the complainant cannot be identified during the trial. In her evidence to a jury of three women and nine men, the complainant said that she had arrived at her apartment block after a night out socialising. She was opening the entrance security gate into the courtyard of the block when she saw a man standing behind her. This man followed her into the courtyard. The court heard he grabbed her from behind and pushed her to the ground. She tried to scream but he put a hand around her throat and was choking her. She tried to get away and he punched her repeatedly and shouted at her to shut up. She said she still experiences pain on the side of her face from the punches. The man ripped her tights and pulled her underwear down. She said he was still choking her during this time. He punched me and I don't know if I lost consciousness. He was shouting 'shut up' in English, she said. She told the jury that she was trying to say let me go but she could only whisper it. At one point she began saying it in Polish and she said that something changed with the man and he wasn't as brutal any more. She said he had a piercing in his eyebrow and was super strong. She said he attempted to rape her but couldn't. The woman testified that her attacker then ejaculated on her skirt. His hand was still around her neck, preventing her from screaming for help, she said. She said he got up and picked something up from the ground before leaving. She picked up her bag and keys and went into her apartment and took a shower. The woman said she felt horrible physically and her face was swollen and she had scratches on her limbs. I was completely lost. I didn't know what to do. I felt the whole world ended for me, she said. Orla Crowe SC, defending, put it to the witness that her allegations changed between different statements made to gardai and medical professionals. The woman said she was in shock at the time. I didn't want to talk about it. I was completely destroyed, she said. The man has pleaded not guilty to attempted rape, sexual assault and assault causing harm at a place in Dublin on December 18, 2010. The trial continues before Mr Justice Micheal White and the jury. The Government is to make changes to help families who are left in limbo when a relative goes missing. The Cabinet has approved a missing persons bill designed to assist families in dealing with the management of their estate. Currently, a death certificate cannot be issued for a missing person, life assurance policies cannot be processed, and no decisions can be made in respect of the assets of the persons estate. The changes would allow for a presumption of death order where the circumstances of the disappearance indicate death is virtually certain or where the length of the disappearance indicates it is highly probable the missing person has died and will not return. Senator Colm Burke, who first published the Civil Law (Presumption of Death) Bill 2016 along with senators Marie-Louise ODonnell and Lynn Ruane, welcomed the Cabinets approval of a money message to allow the legislation proceed. He said: As the law presently stands, in cases where a person remains missing, and it is clear from all evidence available that they have died, there is no legal procedure available to allow for their estate to be managed. "Their families and friends are left in limbo, unable to take any action in respect of the persons affairs. Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan also brought the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission annual report to Cabinet. It revealed that 24 protected disclosures were made in 2018. GSOC opened 1,921 complaints and a total of 74 sanctions were applied by the Garda commissioner in 2018 on foot of disciplinary investigations. Those sanctions ranged from advice to pay. cutsGSOC sent 17 files to the DPP following criminal investigations last year. Meanwhile, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will travel to Paris today where he will join international leaders to launch an initiative to tackle terrorist and violent extremist content online. This initiative is led by New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and French president Emmanuel Macron. The Christchurch Call to Action initiative will commit governments and online service providers to counter and remove terrorist and extremist content online. A woman accused of murdering her boyfriend told gardai that the deceased was saved in her mobile phone as sadist because they had so many fights in the past, a trial has heard. The mother-of-two also said that she took a knife from the kitchen worktop in order to protect herself as she was afraid he might kill her after they got into a fight. She further said she was not responsible for his death. The jury was watching garda interviews today in the Central Criminal Court trial of a 48-year-old woman, charged with murdering her 40-year-old boyfriend in her Co Tipperary home. Inga Ozolina, originally from Latvia, but with an address at Old Court Church, Mounthrath, Co Laois has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Pukas at The Malthouse, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, on November 20, 2016. He died from a stab wound to his chest. Detective Garda Stuart Beatty told prosecution counsel Frank Quirke BL that he and a colleague had interviewed the accused later that day in Nenagh garda station. Ms Ozolina told gardai in her interview that Mr Pukas number was saved in her mobile phone as sadist because they had so many fights in the past. He treating me like a sadist. I couldnt show up to work on one occasion. I lied to my manager and said I fell down, she explained. The accused said she was taking food out of the oven at 1am on the night when Mr Pukas grabbed her by the hair. Following this, he began hitting and biting her, she said. Ms Ozolina said that she took a regular kitchen knife with a timber-handle from the kitchen worktop in order to defend herself. He came very close so I think the knife touched him and he flinched back, she said, adding that Mr Pukas continued to hold her by the left arm. The knife could have touched him somewhere in the shoulder area or elsewhere, she said, adding that he was trying to take the knife off her at the time. The accused said Mr Pukas was acting insane at the time and told gardai that she was afraid if he took the knife off her, he might kill her. Thats why I was holding the knife tightly, she added. Ms Ozolina said that her boyfriend could have been in pain at the time but as he was wearing a dressing gown she did not see any blood. The accused said that she only applied force to the handle of the knife when Mr Pukas tried to take the knife off her. Gardai asked Ms Ozolina if she accepted that Mr Pukas' injuries were caused by her pointing the knife at him. I think if he didnt try to twist my arm he would never have got injured and got caught with the knife, she replied. Ms Ozolina also told gardai that she only took the knife to protect herself. I did not go towards him, he came up to me. If there was a spoon lying on the kitchen surface I would have taken the spoon to protect myself. The accused said she thought Mr Pukas had suffered an asthma attack when she found him lying on the ground, adding that she gave him mouth-to-mouth when she realised he was not breathing. It was only when she did a heart compression on Mr Pukas did she realise there was blood on the left side of his chest, she said. Ms Ozolina said she did not know the emergency number so she drove to the garda station in a state of panic. The accused said she did not pay attention to what she said to gardai when she arrived at the garda station as her main goal was to get an ambulance sent to her apartment as soon as possible. Evidence has been given that Ms Ozolina said that she had killed her boyfriend when she arrived at the garda station and told a garda: I stabbed him. I pushed the knife into him, come quick". Concluding the interview, Ms Ozolina told gardai that she was not responsible for her boyfriends death. Dr Maeve Carroll, a GP with a practice in Roscrea, told prosecuting counsel Paul Murray SC that Ms Ozolina came to her surgery on four occasions. The witness testified that the last time the accused was at her surgery was on the afternoon of April 18, 2016 and she carried out a medical examination. Dr Carroll said Ms Ozolina had bruising to both eyelids as well as a 5cm bruise extending from the left ear to the neck area. There was palpable muscle spasm to the left side of her neck as well as bruising and scratch marks to her left forearm, she said. The GP also pointed out that there were multiple bruises consistent with finger marks to her right forearm as well as scratch marks. Furthermore, there was a bruise to the left side of her lower abdomen and right shoulder, she indicated. Other injuries to Ms Ozolina included a lump on the right side of her head and her scalp was tender to touch, concluded Dr Carroll. She was distressed and upset during the examination, said the witness. Dr Carroll told the court that it was her medical opinion that Ms Ozolina had been assaulted by someone else. The accused had multiple soft tissue injuries, outlined Dr Carroll, adding that she advised Ms Ozolina to take anti-inflammatory medication. Dr Carroll denied in her testimony that she had advised Ms Ozolina to defend herself if the man assaulted her again. The witness further denied that she had suggested to the accused that she have a sharp object handy just in case the man assaulted her again. The trial has previously heard that the accused and deceased were in a tempestuous and volatile relationship which was violent at times. The prosecution contends there is no question of self-defence in the case. The trial continues on Friday before Mr Justice Alexander Owens and a jury of seven men and five women. A report from 2017 has revealed that Cork County Council was warned that pollution on Haulbowline had the potential to cause risks to any users of a potential future park on the site. The documents findings have led an environmental group to question why neither the council nor the Government revealed the results of the analysis of what is one of the countrys worst polluted former industrial sites. The former Ispat/Irish Steel site has seen remedial works carried out on the nine-hectare waste site on Haulbowline known as the East Tip, which was a dumping ground between 1996 and 2001. Cork County Council plans to open a park on this section of the island this year. However, an April 2017 report prepared for Cork County Council by consultants Young White Green and released to Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) under Access to Information on the Environment says that analyses of ground samples identified elevated concentrations of arsenic, lead and PCBs in shallow soil with the potential to cause risks to any users of a potential future park and also commercial site users. Remediation is considered necessary to protect the health of the end users of the site for arsenic, lead, PCBs and asbestos through direct contact, ingestion and dust inhalation pathways and ground gas inhalation with respect to human health, the report recommends. While it recommends the provision of a capping layer to any soft landscaping areas as a possible remedial approach, most of the island has yet to see such works. Tony Lowes, of FIE, who first reported the contamination to the European Commission in 2009, said the ongoing source of serious pollution in the centre of Cork Harbour, when funding has been available, is not consistent with a responsible protection of our environment. Given this report, it is premature to allow unrestricted public access to any part of the 21-hectare site while portions of it remain unmediated. "If the council insists on opening the public park, it is the law that signage and other notices that are easily accessible and understandable warning the public of the ongoing dangers must be erected on the island and in the adjacent waters, said Mr Lowes. In May 2015 the Government said that 61m would be given to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to provide for a whole of island approach to the remediation of Haulbowline. Earlier this year FIE lodged a complaint with the European Commission, alleging that work has yet to be carried out on decontaminating the remaining 11 hectares on the island outside of the East Tip. You are here: Business Kenya is set to host the fifth edition of the China Trade Week (CTW) expo in June, organizers said on Tuesday. Zahoor Ahmed, international events director of MIE Group, told a media briefing in Nairobi that this year's edition will run in two phases during June 5-7 and June 10-12. "We expect more than 30,000 visitors as the CTW Kenya has received strong tailwinds from the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in April in Beijing to create a new silk road based on shared growth and collaboration," Ahmed said. MIE has been organizing CTW events since 2012 throughout Middle East and Africa. Ahmed said that the CTW aims to connect Kenyan businesses with the most innovative Chinese firms, manufacturers, information and communications technology (ICT) providers and stakeholders. He noted that the event will host 500 exhibitors, a business to business matchmaking area as well as two parallel conference sessions. According to the organizers, phase one which runs from June 5 to 7 will host industries in the building material, heating ventilation and air condition, lightning, construction materials, water and environmental treatment, furniture and interior, textiles and print, packaging and plastics. Ahmed revealed that the second phase which runs from June 10 to 12 will host consumer goods, automobile and auto parts, electrical, ICT and agricultural sectors. He noted that the parallel conference topics in the expo will cover subjects relevant to traders, import and export firms, consumer and capital goods producers. A man who failed to appear in a Dublin district court for alleged trespass was later reported as possibly being lost at sea, and spent three weeks on the water before being escorted ashore. Jason Vas Diaz, of Ballylynch, Baltimore, in West Cork, had been due to appear before Dublin District Court on April 26 last in relation to alleged trespass at Poolbeg Yacht Club earlier that month. However, he then set sail around the north coast of the country on his engine-free sailboat, then got caught in bad weather which he said blew out his sails. The court heard there had been fears he had been lost at sea and a massive sea search was launched involving Belfast and Valentia Lifeboat and the Air Corps. Garda Theresa Sheridan told Judge James McNulty at Skibbereen District Court yesterday that Mr Vas Diaz was escorted ashore on his vessel into Castletownbere at 5pm on Monday and then arrested on foot of a bench warrant that had been issued regarding his non-appearance at the district court in Dublin. It had been alleged that he committed trespass at the Poolbeg Yacht Club on April 5. Since the incident in Dublin, Mr Vas Diaz left on his boat, Garda Sheridan said. Yesterday was the first time back on land [since]. Mr Vas Diaz, aged 52, told the judge he had hoped to be back in time for the district court appearance in Dublin. He said he had managed to avoid Storm Hannah but still ran into difficulty and had his sails blown out. On being told that the defendant had sailed around the north coast, Judge McNulty said: That is the long way around. Sgt Paul Kelly told the court that regarding the emergency search: When he was spotted, he signalled to the Air Corps that he did not need assistance. Ms Vas Diaz, who said he had lived in Baltimore since 1978, said: I was not offered assistance. I didnt realise they were coming for me. I could see them in the distance but that was all. I waved at them, thats all. Mr Vas Diaz lodged a bail bond of 500 and pledged to attend the district court sitting in Dublin this Friday. Judge McNulty asked: You wont go by sea, will you? Mr Vas Diaz replied: No, no. The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will join world leaders in Paris to discuss how to tackle the organisation and promotion of terrorism via online platforms. The joint summit is being hosted by France and New Zealand. Frankie Ross is director of operations for next weeks Fastnet Film Festival in Schull, Co Cork. Born in Belfast, Ross says: As soon as I found West Cork knew I knew this is where I will be until the day comes to scatter my ashes from the top of Mount Gabriel. Best recent book youve read: At the moment Im reading Dancer by Colum McCann and Im dreading coming to the last page. Best recent film youve seen: Twice a month we run a Movie Night in the Fastnet Film Centre in Schull and a recent choice that made a strong impression was Lemon Tree by the Israeli director Eran Riklis. It presents the differences in perceptions between Palestinians and Israelis who live side by side on the West Bank border. Best recent show youve seen: The screening of The English Patient in the Royal Albert Hall, listening to the score played live by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Best piece of music youve been listening to lately (new or old): Mick Flannerys Boston. Im going to see him in the Everyman in June (present from my daughter who introduced me to his music). First film that really moved you: To Kill a Mockingbird not original I know but it really did stop me in my tracks the first time I watch it. The best gig youve ever seen: Three for the price of one: Leonard Cohen in Kilmainham, Leonard Cohen in the O2, Leonard Cohen in Lissadell, Co Sligo. Tell us about your TV viewing: I watch the news a lot and admit to being addicted to the tragi-comedy of Brexit in the British Parliament. I like some of the reruns on ITV 3 such as Vera and particularly enjoy the Lewis and Endeavor series based on Morse which was directed by one of our Fastnet Film Festival Patrons, the late and much-loved Jack Gold, and beautifully filmed by Chris ODell who is one of the founders of FFF and is a neighbour in Ballydehob. Radio listening and/or podcasts: RTE Radio 1 almost exclusively on weekdays and Lyric FM after Marian Finucane on weekends. We underestimate in Ireland how good our public radio is which is informative and totally accessible. Sometimes I would listen to Cork C103 in the car for local news and events. Your best celebrity encounter: An almost-encounter is more impressive than an actual one. Gregory Peck was due to visit friends of mine in Schull and I was invited to dinner. Sadly, Mr Pecks Irish trip was cancelled at the last minute as he had fallen ill. How lovely it would have been to pass the bread to Atticus and listen to that glorious voice at close quarters. The actual encounter was with Roger Moore at a birthday party in London. He was sitting in an alcove in a throne-like chair flanked by minders. I was introduced and we shook hands. I said Hello. Cant remember if he replied. Of the events youve attended at Fastnet, whats your favourite? Its got to be Lady Windemeres Fan in last years Festival when Carl Davis, who wrote the score for the film, conducted the three gorgeous Trio Apache musicians while we watched Kevin Brownlows restored silent movie. Spine-tingling. You are curating your dream film festival which three film-makers are on the bill (dead or alive)? Werner Herzog for a workshop on managing the challenges of filming in mountainous areas (using Fitzcarraldo as a case study), Lenny Abrahamson for a masterclass on the craft and discipline of presenting a moral question in a film and allowing the audience to answer it for themselves, Billy Wilder for a Q&A session on directing Hollywood egos (with all the gossipy bits). You can portal back to any period of cultural history or music event where, when, and why? The Beatles in the Adelphi in 1963. Unsung hero individual or group who dont get the praise they deserve: The quiet people in the world whose second nature is to perform little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. You are queen for a day whats your first decree? All windows must be self-cleaning. As his band release a new album, Mike Scott reveals a passion for CS Lewis books that helped him bond with Bono, writes Richard Purden. Just a few doors down from where James Joyce rented a room on Shelbourne Road in Dublin, it feels appropriate to meet the man once described by Rolling Stone as a poet laureate of rock n roll, The Waterboys front-man, founder and chief Mike Scott. The band are set to release their 13th long-player, Where The Action Is before embarking on a tour for the rest of the year. At the end of 2017, Scott released a remastered version of his acclaimed Adventures of a Waterboymemoir. Undoubtedly his gift for creating a scene in the listeners head through popular standards such as The Whole Of The Moon and Fishermans Blues translates on the page as much as in song. Formative experiences described in the book of a teenager in Scotland and a young man in London have inspired new cuts such as London Mick about The Clashs Mick Jones. During punk, there was a democracy about music that had been lost in the era of the dinosaur bands explains Scott. It was easy to find out where the band were staying, wed go and hang out at the hotel. You could get into soundcheck as a fanzine writer, there was that spirit of everybody in it together. It was at The Old Waverley Hotel in Edinburgh where Scott first met Jones who bought him a bottle of coca-cola at the bar. The song is about my encounters with Mick over the years, I love Mick Jones, hes such a great f**king guy! Hes always been kind to me, hes elusive and inscrutable and yet hes kind. Where The Action Is delivers a kaleidoscopic, genre-hopping adventure that includes Scotts attempt at rap; Take Me There I Will Follow You which he describes as an educational experience. The title track is reminiscent of David Bowies 1973 foot stomper Watch That Man. It was a song I heard on the Northern Soul circuit by Robert Parker, explains Scott. I thought it was a great song but I didnt like the verses which were about putting on a red dress etc, a bit boring for now so I put new verses on it with my own preoccupations. Elsewhere Ladbroke Grove Symphony summons a seminal summer in London. It was around this time Scott visited Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross where he picked up a clutch of occult and esoteric texts. As the son of a teacher in Edinburgh, Scott grew up in a house full of books reading CS Lewis, firstly The Chronicles of Narnia when he was 8, and progressing to his Cosmic Trilogy, Out Of A Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength by the age of 12. I had CS Lewis in my head keeping me straight, says Scott of the writer said to be one of many inspirations on The Whole of the Moon, which secured him an Ivor Novello Award. CS Lewis was a focal point in conversations with Bono during the mid-1980s, the two front men sizing each other up while creating what become known as The Big Music informed by Scotts arcane reading list and penchant for epic, cinematic soundscapes. I always got the feeling he was wary of me, I think he thought I was some kind of occultist, smiles Scott. I see them (U2) rarely these days, the last time saw Bono was in the Groucho Club [legendary Soho hangout] a few years ago and we were still sizing each other up, Im thinking You didnt write any songs as good as mine on your last album and hes thinking Ive not seen you play any stadiums recently. Its still the same. Its good- natured absolutely, there is a history there and a lot of help between the two bands. BACK TO HIS ROOTS While its probably fair to say that Scott helped set the tone for the likes of U2 and Simple Minds when gravitating towards stadium rock, he would take the road less travelled retreating to the west of Ireland to begin the long process of absorbing Celtic and roots music. The music was taking me somewhere else. Id finished making the big sound of the first three records, I didnt stop liking them but the thought of continuing that music had become very stale. Part of the problem was a struggle to replicate the sonic advancements Scott had pushed towards on This Is The Sea. It was never as good live, he concedes. The frustration began to make it attractive to make simpler music so that there wouldnt be a separation between what we did in the studio and on the record. WICKHAM EFFECT Scotts now long-term sideman and fiddle player from the northside of Dublin, Steve Wickham, joined the band full-time bringing fresh, essential energy to the sound. Saxophone player Anthony Thistlewaite also played a vital part in the direction when trading his sax for mandolin. We would jam in hotel rooms and suddenly there was this new organic acoustic music we could make, it began to have a life of its own long before we recorded any of it. "This was casual music we played for fun but it became real the day of our first recording session for Fishermans Blues in January 1986 at Windmill Lane. The albums title track featuring Wickhams distinctive riff proved to be a catalyst for an album that would take two years to finish, it remains their biggest seller to date. Surprisingly the single was never a hit and Scott wondered if hed made a mistake refusing to make a promotional video. It never got pinned down to a single set of ideas, he adds reflectively on its classic song stature today. There was also a desire to unburden himself of impending pressures. I was in a tough romantic relationship, I also felt trapped by the music business and peoples expectations; I wanted out of both of these situations, I wanted to follow my own destiny. Wickham invited Scott to sleep on his floor in Ireland during the dramatic upheaval. It was like going into the Narnian Wardrobe, he suggests that the Irish mind was demonstrably different from the British mind, it was more like the Scottish mind but still very different; it was this hazy, imaginal world with less strict boundaries. I loved that and I found I could roam in it. Wickham was my guide and he would take me around Dublin. When he greeted this pal of his with the line I hear youre playing chess for money now I thought Ive come to the right place. Where The Action Is by The Waterboys is out next Friday, May 24 FAI staff are pushing to have two employees on the associations new-look board. Sports Minister Shane Ross is adamant directors at the top table following the AGM in July should include representatives of staff, ex-players, supporters groups, and the womens game. A sizeable chunk of the FAIs 204 employees organised their own meeting on Monday at Abbotstown to discuss the situation. Three staff former Ireland U21 manager Harry McCue, assistant womens team manager Tom OConnor, and development officer Paul Keogh led the summit. They requested a mandate from their colleagues to meet with the governance committee chaired by Aidan Horan from the Institute of Public Administration. Employees suffered pay-cuts of 15%, plus allowances, over the past decade. Despite some of the cuts being reversed in recent years, development officers took an average hit of 50,000 during the austerity. Deepening their anger is the latest revelations of John Delaneys financial package. He received a 36,000 accommodation allowance on top of his 360,000 salary and was due to receive a loyalty bonus of 2m when his contract expired next year. Delaney stepped aside after the revelations of a 100,000 loan he gave to the association in 2017 were revealed in the media. He also refused to answer questions on the matter from politicians at the Oireachtas committee for sport, transport and tourism on April 10. His stance was based on legal advice. How can social media prevent harmful content going viral? Serious changes will have to be made which could bring media back in time writes Lionel Laurent. Social networks such as YouTube and Facebook have the power to make content go viral, spreading it at an unprecedented and uncontrollable pace. That seems innocent enough when youre looking at a cat video, but if its murder, for example, the lack of a way of stopping the virus becomes glaring. After the New Zealand mosque shootings were streamed live in March, attempts to remove the video from online platforms were shown to be hopeless. Facebook took it down 1.5m times and it still reappeared. And it was put back up on YouTube every second for 24 hours, according to New Zealands prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who is teaming up with French president Emmanuel Macron to try to tackle the plague of harmful online content. The two leaders initiative, known as the Christchurch Call, is the start of a long process that will need to balance all sorts of issues from freedom of speech to privacy. But for it to have any effect at all, policymakers must get under the hood of the social media companies software and understand how content gets fed to viewers in the first place. While Macron has taken the encouraging first step of embedding government officials in Facebooks offices to monitor how it polices content, its yet to be seen how far these people will grasp the technology or how great their access will be to the companys real secret sauce: Its algorithms. This is certainly an interesting change of direction, though. Much of the debate so far has been about how to get the tech giants to better regulate themselves. That has included deploying more human moderators to police content, beefing up artificial intelligence tools to stop bad stuff spreading, and de-platforming the worst online offenders. But its been like fighting a forest fire with a water pistol. The heart of the problem lies with those dopamine-feeding algorithms. Alphabet Incs Google and Facebook Inc are in the business of advertising, and its their ability to grab the attention of their users that makes them so powerful and sticky. For all the negative headlines about data breaches and toxic content over the past year, Facebook and YouTube still both reach about 2bn users a month. Thats because theyre very good at three things: Knowing what users want, serving it to them automatically, and encouraging a feedback loop of engagement. This is all thanks to the constant fine tuning and updating of the algorithms that dictate content filtering, promotion and recommendations. The aim is to keep people on the website for as long as possible with minimal effort. It works: The human mind is no match for a supercomputer. Where it all gets complicated is the potential business conflict between maximising engagement, which is what advertisers (and shareholders) want, and minimising extreme content, which is what politicians are demanding. For instance, if the networks goal is to increase time spent watching videos, is the problem that its algorithms will always promote content thats most likely to trigger an emotional reaction? If so, thats catnip for advertisers, but also for purveyors of noxious content. And just how much control do these companies even have over what their black-box filters pump out? That is a question being asked by Ardern. The Christchurch killers video was designed to go viral, with all of the emotional force thats so effective with the algorithms, and the social networks proved unable to stop it. Facebooks founder Mark Zuckerberg has made much of his desire to be regulated to try to fix the problem of extreme content and fake news, but its too early to say whether initiatives like Macrons will really be given the keys to the kingdom. Bruno Patino, dean of Sciences Pos journalism school, makes some useful new suggestions in his new book, The Goldfish Civilization: Greater transparency on how the algorithms function, a more ethical approach to how they are designed in the first place, and a much clearer divide between advertising and content. If that leaves new media looking more like old media and with a potential valuation discount to boot it seems like a worthwhile price to pay. Bloomberg Late last month, at a security forum in Washington, Kiron Skinner, director of policy planning for the US Department of State, described todays US-China conflict as a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology, and the United States hasnt had that before. As a trial balloon, this apparent attempt to define the Donald Trump administrations confrontation with China did not fly. By framing the creeping cold war between the US and China as a clash of civilisations, Skinner whose position was once held by luminaries such as George Kennan, Paul Nitze, Richard N. Haass, and Anne-Marie Slaughter was being neither original nor accurate. The political scientist Samuel P. Huntington developed the concept more than a quarter-century ago, and the Communist Party of China itself is an ideologically bankrupt entity. Worse, Skinners full remarks were freighted with racial overtones. Unlike Americas competition with the Soviet Union, which she described as, a fight within the Western family, the rivalry with China supposedly represents the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian. Never mind that the US fought Japan in the Second World War. One hopes Skinners talk of a clash between Caucasian and non-Caucasian civilisations was just a slip of the tongue. Those who would intentionally traffic in such ideas must know that they could lead not just to the economic or military defeat of one side, but to the destruction of an entire society. How policymakers frame the US-China conflict will have far-reaching implications, and the US must demonstrate that its policies are motivated by a higher moral purpose, if they are to gain wider international support. Most commentators see the US-China conflict as a struggle between an incumbent power and its most plausible challenger. The two countries appear to be falling into the proverbial Thucydides Trap, a self-fulfilling prophecy in which a hegemons fear of being supplanted leads it to act in such a way as to precipitate a war for global dominance. And yet, even if todays conflict is being driven by a zero-sum quest for power, that should not be the USs sole consideration. Given the threat of civilisational collapse posed by climate change, the Trump administrations focus only on US interests appears selfish and irresponsible to the rest of the world. The fact is that most of the world including a sizable share of Americans has no interest in being plunged into another cold war just to preserve US hegemony. If the US government wants to garner international support for countering Chinese power and influence, it must make a more compelling case. This shouldnt be all that difficult, given that the rise of China under a one-party dictatorship threatens not just American hegemony, but the rules-based international order. Rather than framing the conflict as a race war, then, the US should focus on the Chinese threat to global institutions, which, by extension, is a threat to many other countries growth and stability. Whatever its flaws, the US-led international order offers far more benefits to other countries than any conceivable alternative system could. Indeed, during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the US enjoyed widespread international support precisely because it was leading a defence of that order. And since the end of that conflict, most of the world has either welcomed or accepted American hegemony, on the tacit understanding that the US would continue to uphold the liberal framework. Sadly, that condition no longer holds. US president Donald Trumps administration has unabashedly championed an America First foreign-policy agenda, alienating traditional allies and alarming the rest of world for the sake of narrow political objectives. It is no exaggeration to say that Trumps misguided policies pose as great a threat to the liberal order as China does. The Trump administration may continue to believe that US power on its own is enough to vanquish China. But going it alone will prove costly, and the chances of success would be much higher if the US were to marshal the support of its friends and allies. The latest failure to reach a trade deal suggests that the US-China cold war is escalating to the next stage. Sooner or later, the Trump administration will realise that it actually needs the support of its allies to prevail against the Chinese. When that day comes, it would do well to abandon talk of civilisational conflict and racial rivalry, and, instead, offer a morally justifiable case for confronting China. The US is the traditional defender of the liberal order; it needs to start acting like it. Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the author of Chinas Crony Capitalism, is the inaugural Library of Congress Chair in US-China Relations. The Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) is inviting more Chinese companies, especially those in high-tech industries, to set up branches in Thailand, as the Southeast Asian country is promoting what they call Thailand 4.0, an endeavor to boost economic growth through innovation, research and development. Duangjai Asawachintachit, secretary general of the Thailand BOI, said that Thailand hopes to see more Chinese companies driving the growth of this initiative, and that the BOI is prepared to provide services and support to make it happen. Speaking in an exclusive interview with China.org.cn, Duangjai said that recent years have seen a growth of Chinese investment in Thailand, with the amount of investment applications increasing by 32% last year. She added that Thailand has positioned itself as a cost-effective investment destination with a skilled and adaptable workforce, rather than concentrating on labor-intensive activities, in an effort to attract more Chinese investment in high-tech industries. An investment review issued by the BOI said that the Thailand 4.0 development plan focuses on 10 targeted sectors, including next-generation automotive, smart electronics, food innovation, aerospace and others. Digitalization, one of the Thai government's priorities, presents great opportunities for Chinese companies, Duangjai said, because there is great demand but still very few Chinese software developers there to lend their technological expertise. She also said that apart from developing digital business, Chinese companies can take part in the Digital Park Thailand program, which is being implemented on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis. The official website of Digital Park Thailand states that the park is a new economic cluster located within the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), a flagship project of Thailand 4.0. It was designed as a destination for global digital players and business innovators, and also serves as the data hub for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community. In line with the national initiative to build an innovation-driven and value-based economy, the BOI has introduced a new investment incentive scheme, comprised of tax-related measures. According to the BOI, Thailand now has a three-tier system of corporate income tax exemption tax holidays of up to 8 years for targeted industries of the Seven-Year Investment Promotion Strategy (2015-2021), of up to 13 years for core technological or R&D projects, and of up to 15 years for new technologies and highly effective investments. Other incentives include the right to own land, 100% foreign investment ownership, and work permit and visa assistance, Duangjai added. Arts Documenting Contemporary Art in an Era of Cultural Evolution A screenshot of the Silence is Golden video about 3AM performance art group featuring Ko Latt. / Supplied YANGONSilence is Golden is a research-based video magazine exploring contemporary Myanmar art through the political changes of 2015 to 2019. Curator and artist Aung Myat Htay has boldly switched the role of the artist for this project, putting them in front of the viewer to become the subject. By videoing conversations with 10 of the most outstanding members of Myanmars contemporary art scene, he aims to use this fresh avenue of engagement to make better connections between artist and viewers, while critically analyzing where the scene is at. Its still debatable whether contemporary art in Myanmar has really emerged or developed because national culture and art only accept and support traditional ideas with no international practices, he said. Although there has been an emergence of some international exchanges giving artists opportunities to experience other countries, it is still hard for them to develop themselves without support from institutions or local communities. This is the second volume of Silence is Golden, the first of which was launched in 2013. For Silence is Golden Vol. 2, Aung Myat Htay sat down with nine contemporary artists and one curator to get their take on the scene in Myanmar. Their work takes diverse forms, including painting, installation, ceramics, photographic, paper and performance art. Some of the biggest names in the local art scenelike Maung Di and Htein Linhave given their voices to the project. There are many positive changes in the new era of contemporary artyoung, internationally graduated artists are seeing what gaps need to be filled with new ideas and how the community needs to be re-shaped, said Aung Myat Htay. Notably, the new era has seen the emergence of varietyphotography, film, graphic art and street art, he said. The views on contemporary art expressed by the artists in the project vary and they talk of hugely different sources of inspiration and influences in their work. Ko Latt, a young performance artist from the group 3AM, said his art is often about the generational divide in Myanmar society. The opening up of the country has resulted in a huge shift in the way the society thinks within just one generation. They [the older generations] are still not open-minded. Their era had limitations but our age has become very open, open-minded. Many [of us] went out to foreign countries, many outside countries came in, said Ko Latt. Artist Min Zaw, who creates collage on canvas, admits that growing up in a closed country under a military regime has had a huge influence on his own art. A crumpled paper or cloth will never retain its original state no matter how you undo itI grew up under the military regimes. Oppression throughout military regimes crumpled our lives. Thats what I feel, said Min Zaw. Ceramics artist Soe Yu Nwe, who studied art in the United States, also features in the project. Having grown up in Yangon, she said studying art in another culture gave her a new sense of individualism. In general, U.S. culture is very individualisticThere is a sense that being different is a good thing. In Myanmar or in Asian cultures, individuals are encouraged more to be part of the group, she said. In an essay written for the project, artist, poet and writer Maung Day points out that artists here have not fully been able to shake off old habits and influences that emerged under an era of oppression. Despite the newly found enthusiasm and opportunities to make and show art, the language of art has not evolved much as the dominating narratives are still governed by nationalism, patriotism, political nostalgia and a lack of nuances, he wrote. He also criticized the marked lack of minority representation in modern art. Curators and artists as a whole, with very few exceptions, have not so far shown interest in working with ethnic art or artists or art that touches on the ethnic issues plaguing the country. Some artists have faced a backlash against their work, especially if it challenges Myanmars many deeply-rooted cultural notions. A recent example of this is Htein Lins ongoing exhibition Skirting the Issue, which has become the center of a massive online debate. The exhibition tests the notion that womens clothing is dirty and can cause a man to lose his power and might. In future eras, Aung Myat Htays Silence is Golden is likely to be seen as a pivotal project which documents a unique and important segment of art and society during a period of unprecedented societal and cultural change in Myanmar. You may also like these stories: Rakhine Border Guard Officer Kills Colleague in Spat over Water Artist Min Zaw Aung Inspires Viewers to Think Outside the Box Driver Drops Assault Charges Against Ne Wins Grandsons Myanmar Artists Works Tackling Identity, Displacement on Show in Chiang Mai Asia Sri Lanka Police Arrest 23 for Targeting Muslims after Easter Bombings Sri Lanka's police officers from crime scene division inspect a burnt shop after a mob attack in Kottampitiya, Sri Lanka on May 14, 2019. / REUTERS KOTTAMPITIYA, Sri LankaSri Lankan police arrested 23 people on Tuesday in connection with a spate of attacks on Muslim-owned homes and shops in apparent reprisal for the Easter bombings by Islamist militants that killed more than 250 people. Soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the towns hit by sectarian violence this week as residents recalled how Muslims had to hide in paddy fields to escape mobs carrying rods and swords, incensed over the militant attacks. The April 21 attacks, claimed by Islamic State, targeted churches and hotels, mostly in Colombo, killing more than 250 people and fueling fears of a backlash against the island nations minority Muslims. Mobs moved through towns in Sri Lankas northwest on motorbikes and in buses, ransacking mosques, burning Korans and attacking shops with petrol bombs in rioting that began on Sunday, Muslim residents said. Police said they arrested 23 people from across the island for inciting violence against Muslims, who make up less than 10 percent of Sri Lankas 22 million people who are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhists. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the situation is under control and no new incidents had been reported on Tuesday. But a nationwide curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. would be in effect for a second night. The lone fatality was a man killed while trying to protect his home from attack. When mobs arrived in the Kottramulla area on Monday evening, Mohamed Salim Fowzul Ameer, 49, went outside while his wife, Fatima Jiffriya, stayed with their four children. Jiffriya, 37, then heard shouts and sounds of fighting. I opened the door to see my husband on the ground in a pool of blood, the police right in front and the mob running, she said. His heart was still beating hard, I took him into my lap and started to scream for help, she added, her voice breaking, as women consoled her children at an uncles house ahead of Ameers burial. Deep divisions Sri Lanka has had a history of ethnic and religious violence and was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government. In recent years, Buddhist hardliners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or Buddhist Power Force, have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying influences from the Middle East had made Sri Lankas Muslims more conservative and isolated. Last year, scores of Muslim mosques, homes and businesses were destroyed as Buddhist mobs ran amok for three days in Kandy, the central highlands district previously known for its diversity and tolerance. Muslims said this weeks violence was more widespread. Residents in the town of Kottampitiya recalled how a group of about a dozen people had arrived in taxis and attacked Muslim-owned stores with stones just after midday on Monday, with the mob soon swelling to 200, and then 1,000. The mob attacked the main mosque, 17 Muslim-owned businesses and 50 homes, witnesses said. The Muslim community huddled in nearby paddy fields, thats how no one died, said one of a group of men gathered outside the white-and-green mosque with smashed windows and doors. Abdul Bari, 48, told Reuters his small brick shop had been burned down with a petrol bomb. The attackers were on motorbikes, armed with rods and swords, he added. Others blamed the police for failing to disperse the crowd. The police were watching. They were in the street. They didnt stop anything. They told us to go inside, said Mohamed Faleel, 47, who runs a car paint business. We asked police, we said stop them. They didnt fire. They had to stop this, but they didnt, he added. Police spokesman Gunasekera rejected allegations that police had stood by while the violence unfolded. He said the perpetrators would be punished. All police officers have been instructed to take stern action against the violators, even to use the maximum force. Perpetrators could face up to a 10-year jail term, he said. A police source said seven of those arrested for the violence in Kottampitiya were young Sinhalese men from nearby Buddhist villages. They were leading the charge yesterday. They were instructing people on which stores to attack, said the police source. The men said they were seeking revenge for the militant attack in the city of Negombo, where over 100 people were killed at the St. Sebastians Church during Easter prayers, the police source said. A court remanded the men to police custody on Tuesday. They could not be reached for comment. You may also like these stories: Bangladesh Demands US Embassy Withdraw Criticism Over Protests Women who Defied Indian Temple Ban Unable to Return Home After Threats Dhaka Jails Myanmar Nationals Linked to 2014 Blast in Burdwan, India Grenade Blast Kills One in Sri Lanka Communal Violence, Social Media Blocked Burma 17 Injured as Police Break up Protest Against Cement Factory Project in Mandalay Riot police block protesters near the construction site in Mandalay Divisions Patheingyi Township on Wednesday. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy MANDALAYAt least 17 people were wounded Wednesday morning when police fired rubber bullets during a crackdown on a camp set up by local residents protesting the construction of a coal-powered cement factory in Mandalay Divisions Patheingyi Township. Two protesters were arrested during the clash, residents of Aung Thabyay village said. During the clashes, some of the protesters set fire to the construction site. Protesters initially blocked the village road leading to the cement factory compound and refused to allow firefighters through. The road was opened by 11.30 a.m., however, after police and local authorities negotiated with the protesters to let the firemen in. According to our reporters on the ground, two cars and three motorcycles were set ablaze and seven more cars were smashed by the protesters, leaving their windshields and doors broken. Some small fires were also set at buildings under construction inside the factory compound. The Mandalay Division police chief was on the scene, directing the emergency response and the negotiations with the protesters. Residents of Aung Thabyay village began their protest on Tuesday. They called on the Union government to intervene in the conflict, demanding that the Alpha Cement Factory, owned by Chinas Myint Investment Co., be scrapped and that detained villagers be released. The factory is under construction in Aung Thabyay village, Patheingyi Township, about 37 km north of Mandalay City. Villagers say the factory will be powered by coal and fear the damage it might do to the local environment and their livelihoods. They say the project has already taken over some communal grazing land and that most locals want it stopped. According to the locals, the company conducted soil testing at the site in 2014 and bought 242 hectares from residents after securing permission to build the factory and mine a nearby hill for raw materials. Local residents sent complaints to the divisional government in 2014, and the project was halted. However, construction resumed in 2015, prompting further objections from locals. In 2016 they staged a series of protests against the factory. The protests escalated last year when the Department of Road Transportation announced plans to expand the village road connecting the cement factory with the main road. Locals said they feared that the road expansion project would result in the seizure of their lands without any compensation, and opened the protest camp in their village in July 2018. A total of 18 local residents are being sued or have been convicted under the Regional Road and Transportation Act and Peaceful Assembly Act, and for disturbing government officials. Three locals have already been convicted and are currently serving prison terms at Oh-Bo Prison in Mandalay. The remaining 15 are still facing trial at Patheingyi Township Court. You may also like these stories: Fire Kills Two Novices at Monastery in Southern Shan State Mon State Parliament to Debate Controversial Cement Factory Activist Receives 15-Day Sentence for Peace Protest Patheingyi Officials Demolish Structures Illegally Built on Farmland Burma Big Bad Wolf Book Fair Heads to Mandalay Big Bad Wolf Books, the traveling book fair, is held in Yangon for the first time in January. / Myo Min Soe Big Bad Wolf Books, a traveling fair billed as the worlds biggest book sale, found success with its first-ever Yangon event earlier this year. Next, organizers are hoping to build on that success by bringing their literary feast to satisfy booklovers in Mandalay. The sale will run non-stop, 24 hours a day for 11 days from May 31 to June 10 at the Mandalay Convention Centre (MCC). About 1 million books will be on offer at discounts of 50 to 90 percent. The books sale event in Yangon was incredibly successful, drawing thousands of people. Now, at the encouragement and request of book enthusiasts from upper Myanmar, we are bringing the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale to Mandalay, U Myo Aung, organizer of Big Bad Wolf Book Sale Myanmar and director of Ready to Read Myanmar, said at a press conference on May 15. He added that, We view this as part of our ongoing effort to ignite a reading movement in Myanmar. Big Bad Wolf Books was launched in Malaysia in 2009 by Andrew Yap and Jacqueline Ng. It was brought to Yangon by U Myo Aung last January. The main purpose of the book sale, according to U Myo Aung, is to allow more people in Myanmar to read English-language books at very affordable prices. In Myanmar, we have few bookshops selling English-language books, and most of them are expensive. Thats why I want to this event to happen; there will be a selection of books for all reading levels. He added, We hope to create a new generation of readers, and also hope it contributes to the improvement of English literacy rates in Myanmar. At the event, booklovers will find a wide offering of genres including novels, science fiction, literature, romance, crime, thriller, business, self-help, cookbooks, architecture and more. For children, there will be storybooks, activity books, audio books, picture books, coloring books among others. During the Big Bad Wolf Books Sale Yangon, I saw a lot of people buying fiction titles and was happy to see it. I hope people in Mandalay will love the books we are offering, U Myo Aung said. Dipak Madhavan, group head of marketing at Big Bad Wolf Books, said, It is a pleasure for all of us at Big Bad Wolf Books to be back in Myanmar again, this time in Mandalay. The overwhelming support we received early this year encouraged us to organize the sale in Mandalay. Big Bad Wolf Books is known for being Asias biggest market for augmented reality (AR) books, and is the exclusive seller of Little Hippo AR books. As in Yangon, there will be a book donation counter. The team is collaborating with the Save the Library campaign and will accept books from donors. Books from donors plus 500 books from The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale team will go to benefit libraries in Myanmar, U Myo Aung said. Before opening day, a special VIP Day will be held on May 30. Those with invitations will be admitted, and tickets will also be given away on Big Bad Wolfs social media page. You may also like these stories: Regional Parliament Deputy Speaker Expelled for Embezzlement Eight Arrested, Drug Houses Torn Down in Raid by Mandalay Police NLD Sues USDPs By-Election Winner in Yangon over Bribery Claim Two Monks Arrested in Drug Raids on Two Buddhist Monasteries in Mandalay Burma Military, KNU Leaders Hold Informal Talks in Yangon Military chief Sen-Gen. Min Aung Hlaing (second left) and Karen National Union chairman General Saw Mutu Sae Poe (third left) meet in Yangon in May 2018. / Office of the Commander-in-chief of Defense Services CHIANG MAI, ThailandKaren National Union leaders met with the Myanmar military chief in Yangon on May 11 for what a senior KNU official described as talks that were informal and personal but which nonetheless made progress toward reviving regular meetings between the two sides. Padoh Saw Kwe Htoo Win, the vice chair of the KNU, said the informal meeting between chairman General Saw Mutu Sae Poe and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was held at the invitation of the Army chief. Until last May, the KNU and the military chief tried to maintain regular formal talks. Under the previous government, the talks were held every one or two months starting in December 2014. They have been suspended for months, however, except for a sideline meeting in October when the military chief met with KNU leaders and Peace Process Steering Team members in the capital. We are now trying to have regular discussions between the parties [the KNU and the military chief], as it has been about five, six, seven months since we have held [such a meeting with the Army chief], Padoh Saw Kwe Htoo Win told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday. He said the relationship between the KNU and the military was generally good, although there were still some areas that needed improvement. The KNU is the only ethnic armed group that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) whose chair maintains direct contact with the senior general. Talks have not been held since KNU and government troops clashed in Papun district of Karen State in March 2018 over the repair of an old road in the area and the KNUs subsequent decision in October to suspend its participation in the formal peace process. During the latest informal meeting, Padoh Saw Kwe Htoo Win said the KNU shared the view of the other NCA signatories, which is that the peace process has stalled. He said, We talked about [the need to] implement a continuous political dialogue and to strengthen ceasefires. He [the Army chief] shares the same view that the political dialogue needs to move forward. The military has vowed to achieve peace in the country by 2020, by which it means ending the armed conflicts, while continuing political negotiations with the EAOs, who would keep their arms. Padoh Kwe Htoo Win added that he believes the military is adhering firmly to its stand that it will continue along the NCA path to achieve a democratic federal state. You may also like these stories: Key Players in Peace Process Steering Team Step Down Military Chiefs Russian Social Media Account Removed, Reappears Latest Peace Talks with EAOs Quite Successful: Govt Spokesman UN Chief Shocked by Top Myanmar Generals Comments on Rohingya Burma Parliament Paves Way for Environmental, Ecological Conservation with IPBES Membership Approval People line up to collect water at a lake in Dala township, near Yangon, in the summer of 2013. / Reuters YANGONMyanmars Parliament has approved the countrys membership in the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to participate in fighting against global climate change while accelerating environmental and ecological conservation at home. Initiated by Myanmar President U Win Myint, the membership proposal was welcomed by more than a dozen lawmakers. For Myanmar, the timing that it joins the Bonn-based independent, intergovernmental bodyfounded in 2012 to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversitycoincides with the countrys unusual experiences with climate change. Currently, the countrys 54.10 million people have been suffering from record-high summer temperaturesup to 46 degrees Centigrade (115 Fahrenheit) in some areas. Environmentalists have blamed deforestation due to excessive logging in previous decades for the severe. At the same time, the countrys diverse ecological system is under threat due to shrinking habitats and irregular weather patterns caused by climate change. During the parliamentary discussion on Tuesday, quoted the 2017 Global Climate Change Index, saying that Myanmar was the third most vulnerable country to the negative effects of climate change. Some said Myanmars failure to cooperate with international environmental organizations to make the countrys central region, the dry zone, greener, will make the region uninhabitable in the future due to rising temperatures. Lawmaker Daw Pyone Kathy Naing said environmental and ecological conservation should be prioritized, and that the failure to prioritize it previously has resulted in the loss of millions of acres of forest and the mushrooming of not-so-environmentally-friendly human settlements. If our world today is experiencing a climate emergency, Myanmar is coping with an environmental emergency, she said. Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation Deputy Minister U Ye Myint Swe told Parliament that Myanmars membership in IPBES will benefit the countrys ecological conservation efforts and bring it scientific and policy-relevant knowledge on climate change. Currently, IPBES has over 130 member states. A large number of NGOs, organizations, conventions and civil society groups also participate in the formal IPBES process as observers, with several thousand individual stakeholders, ranging from scientific experts to representatives of academic and research institutions. You may also like these stories: Infographic: 30 Years of Chinese Investment in Myanmar Millions of Small Asian Farmers Miss Out on Seeds Resilient to Climate Change: Study Climate Change Biggest Global Health Threat of Century, Doctors Warn Death by DietThe Race to Transform the Worlds Bad Food Habits Burma Rakhine CSOs Feel Overlooked in UN Envoy Visit A temporary IDP camp in Mrauk-U Township. / REC / Facebook YANGONLocal civil society groups in Rakhine State have complained of not being given an opportunity to directly present information they have collected about the rights violations allegedly being committed by Myanmar military troops and on the real situation of almost 40,000 displaced villagers to United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Ursula Muller who recently visited the conflict-torn state. During a six-day tour which started on May 9, Muller travelled to Shan, Kachin and Rakhine states. Although her visits to Kachin and Shan went smoothly, she was denied access to internally displaced person (IDP) camps in northern Rakhine on Monday, with authorities saying it was in the interest of her own safety. At the end of her Myanmar trip, she issued a wrap-up statement which said the Kachin IDPs situation is still challenging and that Rohingya IDPs in Sittwe are facing a severe lack of freedom of movement, access to healthcare and education. Sittwe-based Wun Lark Foundations U Khaing Kaung San said that instead of having a meeting with Muller, the country director from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) collected information from six civil society groups on Sunday, promising to pass the information on to Muller. The Rakhine Ethnic Congress (REC), which extensively documents information about the displaced, reported to the UNOCHA that aid shipments are sometimes blocked by members the military and authorities occasionally do not allow local charity groups or international relief agencies into the conflict-affected areas, apart from partially allowing the World Food Program (WFP) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). On Monday, Muller tweeted a photo accompanied by brief information stating that she had a meeting with the Rakhine Coordination Group (RCG) which works on the coordination of humanitarian, development and peace-building actors. Rakhine civil society organizations (CSOs), however, pointed out that none of the participants at the meeting were local CSO representatives, but rather those from international relief agencies. For a better understanding of the recent humanitarian crisis and rights violations in Rakhine, U Khaing Kaung San said, the UN envoy should have listened to representatives from grassroots groups who have been closely monitoring and documenting the rights abuses. Its unclear whether the UN envoy chose to meet with the selected groups herself or if local authorities had made the arrangement. U Khaing Kaung San criticized the governments denying the envoy of access to the whole of Rakhine, saying she should have been allowed to visit the thousands of displaced villagers sheltering in urban centers like Mrauk-U. There is no armed-engagement in downtown Mrauk-U. Why did they block her? The government probably wants to hide the real situation of the IDPs in northern Rakhine. If she was able to learn about the situation with her own eyes then she could figure out the reality, said U Khaing Kaung San. During her visit to Rakhine, the envoy personally inspected the Rohingya camps situated on the outskirts of the state capital of Sittwe. The Rohingya in these camps were driven from their homes by sectarian violence in 2012 and today live without access to many basic services. Since the violence, Sittwe has become a divided city, with its Buddhist Arakanese and Rohingya Muslim communities increasingly segregated. On Tuesday, Muller tweeted a short video clip in which she spoke over footage of Basara Rohingya IDP camp, saying they want to go home, so we have to do really everything to have conditions that enable them to go back and restart their lives. After seven years of displacement, the conditions in camps have deteriorated and are simply unacceptable, she said. She stated in her visit-end speech that she is seriously concerned about the upsurge in violence between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military, which has displaced over 30,000 people in the last six months. She also urged both State and non-State actors to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and allow access for relief. She called for the continued support of the United Nations and for its international partners to scale up the response. Nearly 40,000 IDPs in northern Rakhine have been sheltering in community halls, monasteries, and government schools or with temporary tents in paddy fields belonging to host communities. The RECs Ko Zaw Zaw Tun said if the government or international relief agencies ignore the need to implement proper shelter for IDPs, the people face grave dangers as the monsoon season approaches. Until this month, IDPs have been mainly relying on food supplied by local civil society groups though some of their aid shipments have been blocked by the military. In late April, Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu requested US$21 million for aid project for the IDPs from the Union government which is to be used to house approximately 33,000 IDPs in six townships. A decision on the proposal has not yet been reached by authorities in Naypyitaw as of this week. You may also like these stories: AA Warns Private Bus Companies Not to Transport Govt Troops Right to Information and the Need for Reform Concern Mounts for IDPs in Northern Rakhine as Army Blocks Aid Shipments Army Detains Teachers, Villagers as Dozens Flee Fighting in N. Rakhine Burma UN Investigators Urge Nations to Snap Financial Ties with Myanmar Military Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing (second from right) at OJSC Muromteplovoz armored vehicle factory in Murom, Russia on April 25, 2019. / Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services YANGONThe world must cut off financial and other support for Myanmars armed forces, a U.N. fact-finding mission said on Tuesday, repeating a call for top generals to be prosecuted for abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Myanmar security forces are accused of killings, gang rape and arson during a crackdown that drove more than 730,000 people to flee western Rakhine State for neighboring Bangladesh after attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents in August 2017. Myanmar has rejected most of the accusations and dismissed a report last September by the U.N.-appointed panel, which said military officers carried out the campaign against the Rohingya with genocidal intent and should stand trial. Autralian human rights lawyer and panel member Christopher Sidoti said it had seen no evidence Myanmar was trying to resolve the crisis or ease the safe return of refugees. Myanmar has barred the experts from visiting the country, but they visited the region, including refugee camps in Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar district, beginning early this month. Due to the gravity of the past and continuing violations, attention must be given to the political, economic and financial ties of the Myanmar military, to identify who and what should be targeted, Sidoti said. That would aid efforts to cut off the money supply, as a means of boosting pressure and reducing violence, he added. The statement did not identify specific nations. Myanmars military buys weapons from China and Russia, among others. Many Western countries have suspended training programs over human rights abuses and impose arms embargoes. Myanmar rejected the fact-finding mission when it was formed at the Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2017, with a mandate to investigate military abuses against the Rohingya and in other conflicts with ethnic armed groups in Myanmar. Government spokesman Zaw Htay did not immediately answer a telephone call to seek comment. Military spokesman Major General Tun Tun Nyi said the military would investigate allegations backed by evidence but the fact-finding mission had levelled false accusations at troops. Our country is an independent country, so we dont accept our matters being interfered with, he told Reuters by telephone. The military was cooperating with a government-appointed panel on alleged abuses in Rakhine, Tun Tun Nyi said. Human rights campaigners say it lacks credibility. The U.N. panel said it was still receiving reports of human rights abuses in Rakhine and Chin states, where clashes between the military and insurgents from the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group since late last year have displaced more than 30,000 people. Journalists visit CICEE 2019 in Changsha International Convention and Exhibition Center in Changsha on May 14, 2019. [Photo by Zhang Xiaosi/China Economic Herald] A press briefing was held on the 2019 Changsha International Construction Equipment Exhibition (CICEE 2019) in Changsha on May 14. CICEE 2019 signed 1,150 exhibitors with a total exhibition area of 213,000 square meters. Twenty-four engineering machinery enterprises out of the world's top 50 are participating in the exhibition, including Caterpillar, Casece, Hitachi Construction Machinery, Liebherr, Lovol Heavy Industry, Volvo, Sany Heavy Industry, Zoomlion Heavy Industry, Sunward Intelligent Equipment Group, and China Railway Construction Heavy Corporation. Among the top 50 manufacturing enterprises gathering at Changsha, four of them are from Hunan, signifying the emergence of the region's heavy machinery capabilities. Yin Linbo, inspector of the Hunan Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, introduced the four main characteristics of CICEE 2019. Yin said CICEE 2019 gathered the countries along the Belt and Road and the key construction projects in central and western China, providing sustainable and important business opportunities for the development of construction machinery industry; secondly, Changsha construction machinery is the main battlefield of China's "manufacturing power" strategy; thirdly, CICEE 2019 is under a distinct theme of "creating and sharing the bright future of intelligent new generation construction machinery together"; and finally, CICEE 2019 promotes the opening up of the interconnection of the entire industrial chain of the world's construction machinery. It was only last night that I was wondering WHEN Apple Music would arrive on Alexa in Australia, then lo and behold, it's available this morning! Last night, I was looking online to see if there was any update yet on when Apple Music would arrive in Australia, and I came across a Reddit thread I'd seen before. A couple of the posters had enthusiastically noted that they'd been able to get Apple Music working on their Amazon Alexa devices over the past few days, which gave me hope. Yet, when I searched Alexa's skills for Apple Music, I only saw unofficial lists of top ten songs in various categories for Apple Music, and in the settings where I could add new music services, I could only see Deezer. I imagined last night that Amazon had turned on Apple Music early for a short time to see if anyone noticed, and possibly to test the service down under with a few users, and that this meant Apple Music for Australian and NZ Alexa users was surely to come soon. Well, blow me down, strewth cobber, this morning was the day to officially say G'day to Australian Alexa users at long last! I opened up the app on Mum's phone, but there was still no Apple Music listing in the music services setting. So I had a closer look at the press release, which I'm reprinting below, and I noticed a link that I could click, which is here. This link allowed me to log into Amazon online and add the Apple Music skill that way, which I did, and which worked! I was immediately then able to ask Alexa to play Mum's various playlists, or individual songs, and it worked beautifully. You can see the Besame Mucho playlist above, or at least the Dean Martin version of the song - Mum loves hearing all the many and varied versions of Besame Mucho, it's absolutely one of her favourite songs, and she loves the fact she can see the album art. Now, it has to be made clear that Mum loves using HomePod, as it has been the only way (beyond her iPhone and iPad) to listen to the 50 million songs on Apple Music, and to easily get her favourite playlists to start playing. HomePods also have superlative audio that is just excellent - and hopefully, a HomePod with a screen that can display album art, text answers to questions, text and video suggestions, video playback and more will come. I know an iPad is this device, but a stationary iPad, perhaps with a simpler CarPlay-style interface, merged with the HomePod's amazing speakers would be the best of both worlds - we'll just have to see if or when Apple decides to do that. This is especially so now that Mum has been spoiled by the Google Home Hub's 7-inch screen, and even more so by the 10-inch screen on the Amazon Echo Show - she loves to see the album art that the free Spotify app provides (and the Apple Music skill now provides) - and the ability to use clearer on-screen controls than HomePod offers is also appealing. The Alexa Echo Show also has a great sounding speaker and subwoofer, and while HomePod sounds that extra bit better, Apple Music sounds fantastic on the Echo Show, too! Yes, Mum can get album art on her iPhone or iPad, but as I've been helping Mum to learn how to control a lot of her computing experience by voice, doing some of the things she does with tech is easier when there's a screen to go with it and a voice-first interface. I'm still trying to get Mum to understand that she can type text messages by voice - she still wants to type things out which can take her some - but I'm getting there, and Mum is actually quite adept at talking to Siri on HomePod, Google Assistant on Google Home speakers and Home Hub, and Amazon Alexa speakers and Echo Show, and is still learning more all the time. Now, since Amazon announced that Apple Music was coming to its Alexa devices, I was wondering when the service would be made available in Australia and for our cousins across the ditch, in New Zealand. Well, that day has come, with Amazon noting its excitement over the feature launching in A/NZ, while also noting that "music has always been one of Alexas most popular features". The company tells us that "Apple Music subscribers can now enjoy Apple Musics 50 million songs on Amazons full range of Echo devices, including Echo Dot, Echo Plus and Echo Show. "Customers will be able to ask Alexa to play their favourite songs, artists, and albums or any of the playlists made by Apple Musics editors from around the world, covering many activities and moods. "Customers will also be able to ask Alexa to stream expert-made radio stations centred on popular genres like Hip-Hop, decades like the 80s, and even music from around the world, like K-Pop. "Ask Alexa to play Beats 1 to hear Apple Musics global livestream including in-depth artist interviews all completely ad-free." At Apple's site, it explains some of the ways you can use Apple Music on Alexa, and notes in the "Ask Alexa to play your music" section the following: "You can ask Alexa to play songs, artists, albums, or genres from Apple Music. You can also play Beats 1 radio, playlists from Apple Music's editors, or playlists in your iCloud Music Library. Say something like Alexa, play Pure Pop on Apple Music, or "Alexa, play Bebe Rexha on Apple Music." "If you want to listen to Apple Music in stereo or across multiple rooms, create a Multi-Room Music group in the Alexa app. After you set this up, you can listen to Apple Music on two or more Echo devices at the same time," concludes that section on Appe's site. Really, all you need to do is just say Alexa first, as per normal, and then tell it to play what you want, and then finish it up with "on Apple Music", although it appears "on Apple Music" isn't always needed, but if said, should guarantee it works every time. A site called "The Ambient" has a few more examples: Alexa, "Play Today's Hits." - This worked without needing to say "on Apple Music" which I just tested. It should also be noted though that I made Apple Music the default music and radio service in the Alexa app. Anyway, the following I haven't tested as yet but are further examples The Ambient gives - all of which must be preceded by the "Alexa" wake word first: "Play Hamilton". "Play Beats 1 Radio on Apple Music." "Play Fantasy Journey on Apple Music." "Play Taylor Swift on Apple Music." "Play my Run playlist on Apple Music." Amazon's media release cotinued, noting: "Australia and New Zealand are among the first international launches for Apple Music on Echo devices, following the recent launch in the UK. "Customers can enable the Apple Music skill and link their account to start listeningeither via the Skills Store in the Alexa app, or [via this Apple Music Skill link at] Amazon.com.au." So, there you have it! Apple Music is finally available on Amazon Alexa in Australia and New Zealand, which as Apple itself notes is also switched on in the US, UK and Ireland, too. It also means that Alexa-enabled Sonos speakers will finally get voice controlled Apple Music, too, and if you have an Amazon Fire TV, Apple Music should work there too. Researchers from the CSIRO's Data61 digital arm say they have found that about half of the most popular websites are at risk of malicious activity because they depend on a number of third parties for ad provision, tracking and analytics services and content distribution networks. Further, these third-party sites could, in turn, be dependent on resources from other domains, leading to a dependency chain of more than 30 domains - all underpinned by a form of implicit trust with the original website. And the bigger and more complex the dependency chain, the greater the threat of malicious activity, the researchers concluded. Professor Dali Kaafar, Information Security and Privacy research leader at CSIROs Data61 and scientific director of Optus Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub, said that although these webs of dependency were common and due to web design decisions, the implications on security and privacy were often overlooked. Almost all websites today are heavily embedded with tracking components," Professor Kaafar said. "For every website you visit, you could be unknowingly loading content from potentially malicious parties and leaving a trail of your Internet activity. The researchers had also found that 1.2% of the third parties that were linked to the top 200,000 sites were suspicious. And, they said, JavaScript, which was generally used to improve the user experience, represented the greatest risk of malicious activity as it would execute without being detected. The potential threat should not be under-estimated, as suspicious content loaded on browsers can open the way to further exploits, including distributed denial of service attacks which disrupt traffic to websites, and ransomware campaigns which cost the world more than US$8 billion in 2018, Professor Kaafar said. Worryingly, the original or first party websites have little to no visibility of where these resources originate. This points to a lack of trustability of content on the Web, and the need to better regulate the Web by introducing standardised security measures and the notion of explicit trust. Rectifying this issue would require the involvement of the World Wide Web Consortium and major tech firms, apart from additional research, he said. In the interim, browser extensions like ad-blockers and JavaScript blockers would limit one's exposure to potential malicious activity. The researchers will present their paper The Chain of Implicit Trust: An Analysis of the Web Third-party Resources Loading, at The Web Conference in San Francisco on 15 May (16 May AEDT). Kubernetes has become the project to turn to if you need container orchestration at scale. The open source container orchestration system out of Google is well-regarded, well-supported, and evolving fast. [ Click here to sign up for a free three-hour course on getting started with Kubernetes, presented by Pluralsight and InfoWorld. ] Kubernetes is also sprawling, complex, and difficult to set up and configure. Not only that, but much of the heavy lifting is left to the end user. The best approach, therefore, isnt to grab the bits and try to go it alone, but to seek out a complete container solution that includes Kubernetes as a supported, maintained component. Here Ive listed the 9 most prominent Kubernetes offeringswhat amount to distributions that incorporate Kubernetes plus container tools, in the same sense that various vendors offer distributions of the Linux kernel and its userland. Note that this list does not include dedicated cloud services, such as Amazon EKS or Google Kubernetes Engine, but focuses on software distributions that can be run locally or as a cloud-hosted option. CoreOS Tectonic/Red Hat CoreOS CoreOS is the provider of a container-focused Linux distribution, compatible with Docker but with an opinionated image format and runtime of its own, and an enterprise-grade Kubernetes distribution. Together they form the foundation of the CoreOS Tectonic stack. The CoreOS operating system, Container Linux, stands apart chiefly by being delivered as a set of containerized components. This way, automated updates to the OS can be slipstreamed into production without taking down running applications. CoreOS also touts one-click updates to Kubernetes. CoreOS Tectonic runs on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and bare metal. Red Hat recently acquired CoreOS, with plans to integrate it into Red Hat OpenShift. Container Linux will be rebranded Red Hat CoreOS. The move isnt expected to be completed until 2020, but Container Linux will continue to be supported until then. According to Red Hat, almost all of CoreOS Tectonics features will be available after the transition. See InfoWorlds review of CoreOS Container Linux for more details. Related video: What is Kubernetes? In this 90-second video, learn about Kubernetes, the open-source system for automating containerized applications, from one of the technologys inventors, Joe Beda, founder and CTO at Heptio. Canonical Distribution of Kubernetes Canonical, makers of Ubuntu Linux, provides its own Kubernetes distribution. One of the big selling points for the Canonical Distribution of Kubernetes is the widely respected, well-understood, and commonly deployed Ubuntu Linux distribution underneath. Canonical claims that its stack will work in any cloud or on-prem deployment, with support included for both CPU- and GPU-powered workloads. Paying customers can have their Kubernetes cluster remotely managed by Canonical engineers. Canonicals Kubernetes distribution is also available in a miniature version, Microk8s. Developers and Kubernetes newcomers can install Microk8s on a notebook or desktop, and use it for testing, experimentation, or even production use on low-profile hardware. Canonical and Rancher Labs (see below) co-produce a product, Cloud Native Platform, that pairs Canonicals Kubernetes distro with Ranchers container management platform. The idea is to use Kubernetes to manage the containers running in each cluster, and use Rancher to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters. Cloud Native Platform will become available with Rancher 2.0, which is currently available in a beta preview. Docker Community Edition / Docker Enterprise For many of us, Docker is containers. And since 2014, Docker has had its own clustering and orchestration system, Docker Swarm, which until recently stood as a competitor to Kubernetes. Then in October 2017, Docker announced it would be adding Kubernetesin its unmodified, vanilla stateas a standard pack-in with both Docker Community Edition and Docker Enterprise 2.0 and later editions. Docker Enterprise 3.0 adds the Docker Kubernetes Service, a Kubernetes integration that keeps versions of Kubernetes consistent between developer desktops and production deployments. In short, Docker Inc. has read the writing on the container orchestration wall and acknowledged that Kubernetes is more suitable than Swarm for managing large and complex container environments. However, Docker still includes its original clustering system, swarm mode, for more modest jobsfor instance, a local, behind-the-firewall application that isnt likely to grow much, or to maintain existing swarm-mode clusters that dont need to be revamped. Heptio Kubernetes Subscription Two of Kubernetess creators, Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda, founded Heptio to offer services and products around Kubernetes. Their first major offering is the Heptio Kubernetes Subscription (HKS), a Kubernetes deployment with paid, 24/7 support provided by Heptio. Pricing starts at $2,000 per month. The main pitch with Heptio is enterprise-grade Kubernetes without vendor lock-in. Deployments can run on public clouds or private hardware. All the tools offered by Heptio to manage Kubernetes configurations are open source, and fixes are delivered directly to the supported clusters. VMware acquired Heptio in 2018, but the acquisition has not yet affected plans for Heptios product portfolio. Kontena Pharos Billed as Kubernetes that just works, Kontena Pharos follows roughly the same playbook as Red Hats Linux offerings. At bottom its a CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution available under the Apache 2 license (as per Fedora, or CentOS). Those with the money to spend (as per Red Hat Enterprise Linux) can buy professional-level features, consulting, support services, and certain fixed-price offerings such as moving to a cloud-native infrastructure. The core Pharos distribution comes standard with basic features like automatic security updates and multiple container runtimes. The for-pay product adds enterprise tools, such as the Kontena Lens dashboard, the Kontena Storage distributed storage system, backup, load balancing, and the ability to deploy the cluster in an air-gapped environment. The professional edition has a thirty-day evaluation period, with support subscriptions that begin at 375 per month. The open source edition has no time limit and no licensing costs. Pivotal Container Service (PKS) Pivotal, best known for its work on Cloud Foundry, offers an enterprise-grade Kubernetes called Pivotal Container Service (PKS). PKS draws on many other Pivotal projects for its inspiration. For instance, it uses the Kubo project, which is also used in Pivotals Cloud Foundry, to launch and manage Kubernetes clusters. PKSs standout feature is close integration with the VMware virtualization stack; in fact PKS is a joint VMware-Pivotal project. Containers running on PKS have access to services normally available only to virtual machines running on vSphere, such as persistent storage in VMware VSAN. In addition, PKS can be managed through VMware Cloud Foundation, used for managing VMware infrastructure in public and private cloud environments. In short, any shop with an investment in VMware and a growing interest in Kubernetes, may want to look into PKS to make the most of their existing VMware setup. Rancher 2.0 Rancher Labs has incorporated Kubernetes into its container management platformcalled, simply, Rancherwith version 2.0. Rancher 2.0 works on a higher level than other Kubernetes distributions, sitting atop your Linux hosts, Docker containers, and Kubernetes nodes, managing all of them at arms length regardless of location or infrastructure. It can even manage Kubernetes clusters on Amazon EKS, Google Kubernetes Engine, Azure Kubernetes Service, and other Kubernetes-as-a-service clouds. Rancher also comes with its own Kubernetes distribution. Rancher is meant to remove a lot of the drudgery from the process of setting up a Kubernetes cluster and customizing Kubernetes for a specific environment, without allowing those customizations to get in the way of smooth upgrades to Kubernetesa key consideration for such a fast-moving and constantly updated project. Rancher also offers a minimal Kubernetes distribution called K3s. Optimized for low-profile deployments, K3s requires a mere 512 MB of RAM per server instance and 200 MB of disk space. It squeezes into this footprint by omitting all legacy, alpha-grade, and nonessential features, as well as many less commonly used plug-ins (although those can be added back in if needed). Red Hat OpenShift Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hats PaaS product, originally used Heroku buildpack-like cartridges to package applications, which were then deployed in containers called gears. Then Docker came along, and OpenShift was reworked to make use of the new container image and runtime standard. Inevitably, Red Hat also adopted Kubernetes as the orchestration technology within OpenShift. OpenShift was built to provide abstraction and automation for all the components in a PaaS. This abstraction and automation also extend to Kubernetes, which still imposes a fair amount of administrative burden, so OpenShift can be used to alleviate that as part of the larger mission of deploying a PaaS. As noted above, CoreOS Tectonic is being merged into Red Hat OpenShift, although the merger of technologies isnt expected to be complete until 2020. See InfoWorlds review of Red Hat OpenShift 3 for more details. SUSE Container as a Service Platform Best known for a Linux distribution widely popular in Europe, SUSE also offers the SUSE CaaS Platform. Conceptually, SUSE CaaS Platform is reminiscent of CoreOS Tectonic, combining a bare-metal micro OS that runs containers, Kubernetes for container orchestration, a built-in image registry, and cluster configuration tools. SUSE CaaS Platform 3, released in 2018, added multi-master functionality to make clusters more resilient to a master node crash and a kernel tuning feature for making custom adjustments to the included Linux kernel. SUSE CaaS Platform can run on public clouds as well as local bare metal, but with the caveat that SUSE does not currently support any integration into the underlying cloud infrastructure. Meaning that SUSE CaaS Platform isnt designed to complement Amazon EKS or Google Kubernetes Engine, but to circumvent them, allowing you to run containers across multiple clouds and data centers. Telekube Gravitational, maker of the Teleport SSH server, produces Gravity, a production hardened Kubernetes distribution that runs on local or remote clusters. Gravity is positioned as a solution for a private SaaS platform, or for running Kubernetes as a service throughout multiple regions or hosting providers. Apps on Gravity must be prepared to run in containers on Kubernetes. They must also be packaged into Bundles that are then published to Kubernetes clusters for distribution. Bundling requires some additional work on top of all of the other preparation needed to deploy container-based applications, but the Bundle manifest is the only Gravity -specific addition that you need to maintain. Gravity also allows you to snapshot an entire Kubernetes clusterincluding all of its apps and configurationand deploy the snapshot to any other Kubernetes environment. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) A main expressway might soon get a new name. On Monday, the House of Representatives passed on third and final reading a bill seeking to rename the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) to the Marcelo H. del Pilar Expressway. Bulacan 1st District Representative Joe Antonio Sy-Alvarado, principal author of the bill, said that the rename is meant to honor Marcelo H. Del Pilar, one of the country's heroes. "If favorably passed into law, it will constantly remind us of the noble deeds of Marcelo H. del Pilar and inspire our people to emulate his example of selfless service to the nation, while his exceptional courage and leadership gave hope and helped unite the Filipino people at a critical time in our countrys history," he said in a statement. The bill defines NLEX as the road that stretches from Barangay Balintawak, Quezon City, through Caloocoan, Valenzuela, Bulacan and parts of Pampanga, and merges with the Mac Arthur Highway. Del Pilar was born in San Nicolas, Bulacan on August 30, 1850. He was the publisher of 'Diariong Tagalog,' which was critical of the Spanish colonizers, and eventually became the editor and co-publisher of the propaganda broadsheet 'La Solidaridad.' MBA students of EMI at BNU visit the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University, Zhejiang on May 7, 2019. [Photo courtesy of EMI, BNU] A total of 53 MBA students from 31 developing countries visited Jiaxing, a city in northeastern Zhejiang province, for a field study trip from May 7 to 10. The four-day trip was organized by the Emerging Markets Institute (EMI) at Beijing Normal University (BNU). In keeping with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the field study trip aimed to improve the students' understanding of China's social and economic development in both poverty-stricken areas and developed cities. The students were also encouraged to put forward suggestions about poverty alleviation and wealth utilization for their home countries based on what they saw. During the trip, students visited a local high-tech enterprise, a research institute, labor-intensive industries and an industrial park. The students had the chance to talk with local entrepreneurs about sci-tech innovation, foreign trade, healthcare industry, circular economy and personnel exchange. Jiaxing's economy is growing fast. With intellectual support from research centers such as the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University, an increasing number of high-tech enterprises have gathered in the city's industrial parks such as DEG Sci-Tech. At the same time, local labor-intensive companies such as BioAsia Pharmaceutical Company are seeking to relocate their production lines overseas. "China has lifted over 700 million people out of poverty since its reform and opening up in 1970s, so I want to know exactly how it worked in order to take China's experiences as a reference for the economic development of my own country," Kamposa Phiri from Zambia said. "As South Sudan was only founded in 2011, I would like the Chinese clothing industry to relocate production to my country. The employment opportunities created would be very helpful to South Sudan's economy. Also, I am impressed by China's effort to support its young generation to pursue careers in the IT industry," added Deng Mareng Akuei Ajou, from South Sudan. Shonelle Nadia Clement from Grenada expressed her hope to learn from the agriculture industry in China: "I want young people in my country to see the role that technology plays in adding extra value to agricultural products, as well as improving the resilience of grains and crops to natural disasters." The 2019 Global High-End Manufacturing Summit (GHMS) opened Tuesday in Changsha. The summit was held under the theme of "high-quality economy, better life," hosted by the Asia-Pacific CEO Association, Worldwide (APCEO), the Investment & Innovation Global Council (IIGC), and the Changsha municipal government. Attendees of the summit include business leaders from Fortune 500 companies, investors, government officials from countries around the world, as well as experts, scholars, and inventors of cutting-edge technologies. Discussions at the summit focused on key industries including equipment manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing, engineering machinery, rail transit, and electronic information. Hu Henghua, Party chief of Changsha, delivered the opening speech and listed Changsha's achievements in the past 70 years. Changsha's economic aggregate surpassed 1 trillion yuan in 2017 and reached 1.1 trillion yuan in 2018, ranking sixth among China's provincial capitals. Hu said Changsha has become a crucial manufacturing base. Specifically, in the industry of engineering machinery, a series of well-known brands including Sany, Zoomlion, and Sunward were born in Changsha. Hu said the city is striving to build a construction machinery industrial cluster with world standard, and that as the host city of GHMS, Changsha will seize the opportunity to draw experience from manufacturing industries of other countries, and apply smart technologies throughout the industry. In his speech, Hu extended invitations to global investors and entrepreneurs to start business in Changsha and work together to build its high-end value chain, industry chain, and supply chain. Annette Nijs, global vice chairman of APCEO and former state secretary for Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, delivered a keynote speech with the theme of "creating upsides from technology transfer" in the first session of the summit. Gong Bo, vice president of China Aerospace Science and Industry Cooperation, Zhan Chunxin, CEO of Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Cooperation,Bopdep Mondal, head of consulting for manufacturing business at Tata TCS, and Golan Kwok, China principal expert at SAP, delivered keynote speeches in the summit's second session. Register with JOC.com and receive 5 free pieces of content for the first thirty days. After thirty days, you will receive 3 pieces of content and after sixty days you will receive 1 piece of content. To receive full access, Subscribe Today . You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter. Register Officials at the Port of New York and New Jersey say that although the steady increase in vessel sizes and discharge volumes at the port means that 20 percent of all containers are moved on ships of 13,000 TEU or more, the terminals have been able to handle the cargo smoothly. Consumers select apples at a supermarket in the Yubei District of Chongqing, southwest China, Aug. 9, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua] Experts are hopeful that a new department under the Ministry of Public Security - designed to tackle food-and drug-related crimes - will help stem the tide of fake and dangerous products. The Food-and Drug-Related Crime Investigation Bureau was officially established on Saturday, with Lyu Wuqin, former director of the ministry's auditing bureau, named as its head. Lyu said the department will coordinate with relevant departments, including the food and drug administration and environmental protection authorities, to ensure clean and safe food and drug products. A key part of the new department's work will be compiling evidence for prosecutions involving fake food and drug products. Dai Peng, a law professor from People's Public Security University of China, said the new office will be "a professional team for obtaining solid evidence against suspects" that will lead to severe punishment. He said public security officers at all levels often face difficulty tackling food-and drug-related crimes because of a lack of specialized knowledge, practical experience and relevant skills. Food and drug safety is a growing problem in China. The number of crimes involving counterfeit food and drugs has been rising because of weak supervision and lack of specialists capable of tackling the problem. Figures provided by the ministry show that between January and October last year, police nationwide cracked down on 21,000 crimes involving fake or substandard food and drugs, as well as environmental pollution. The police have arrested 26,000 suspects. According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate, 12,360 people were charged with producing or selling fake or substandard drugs or toxic food products last year, an increase of 5.5 percent over 2017. Addressing a meeting of the Ministry of Public Security last week, President Xi Jinping said China should actively prevent and properly solve various social conflicts to ensure a vigorous and orderly society. He said authorities must perform their duty and crack down on crimes that affect the public's sense of safety, including food-and drug-related crimes. Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi has said that crimes involving food and drug safety are often committed by professionals. Some Chinese offenders even collude with accomplices in foreign countries. The suspects exchange information online, order raw materials for substandard food and drugs, conduct transactions and deliver the products, he said. Li Wei of the Beijing Lawyers Association said the new department was long overdue. "With the new circumstances in such cases, it's more than necessary to build a special investigative team that focuses on analyzing the details of the crime and compiling solid evidence and coordinating with other authorities to smash the criminal gangs," Li said. She said China will also need to update laws on food and drug enterprises, and increase awareness about the legal obligations of business operators. Florence Chia-ying Yeh, also known as Ye Jiaying, has made a new donation of 17.11 million yuan ($2.49 million) to Nankai University where she heads the Institute of Chinese Classical Culture. Yeh donated 15.57 million yuan last year to the university in Tianjin, establishing the Jialing Fund to support the study of classical culture. Born in 1924, Yeh graduated from Fu Jen Catholic University, which later became part of Beijing Normal University, in 1945. A Canadian Chinese, she was awarded the title of Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1990. In March 2016, Professor Yeh received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the You Bring Charm to the World Award Ceremony, an annual awards ceremony co-sponsored by Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV. Yeh applied to return to China to teach in the spring of 1978 and was accepted to teach at the Chinese department of Nankai University for three months in 1979. Over the next 20 years, she taught Chinese classical poetry at dozens of universities including Nanjing University and Fudan University. In 1993, she became founding director of the China Comparative Literature Institute, later renamed the Institute of Chinese Classical Culture. In 2002, she obtained a long-term residence permit in China. Her official residency at Nankai University commenced on Oct. 17, 2015 and she continues to live at the university. The Bermuda Village retirement community is a big step closer to having a new owner after the Bermuda Run Town Council approved Tuesday a resolution request by a South Carolina senior living group. The council voted 5-0 to approve the resolution from ML Bermuda Village LLC. The approval was required as part of the 501(3) nonprofit groups application for a $45 million, 30-year bond offering from the Public Finance Authority, a state of Wisconsin commission. The approval means that the sale of Bermuda Village could take place within 60 days. The bonds would be sold by BB&T Capital Markets to institutional investors who have portfolios of similar securities. Montage Living is the sole member of the group, which owns four senior-living communities in South Carolina and one in Georgia. The Montage affiliate wants to purchase Bermuda Village from Gray Angell, whose management team would continue to operate the community at 142 Bermuda Village Drive with Montage oversight, town manager Lee Rollins said Monday. The removal of the self-distribution cap language drew criticism from small- to mid-sized craft breweries for limiting their ability to expand into new markets and add production jobs. Mitch Kokai, policy analyst with Libertarian think tank John Locke Foundation, said Tuesday that HB363 is likely to pass because it represents a compromise between the craft brewers and the distributors. Craft brewers and beer distributors have been fighting in court over state restrictions forcing brewers to contract with a distributor once their operations reach an arbitrary production threshold, Kokai said. The craft brewers lawsuit appears to have made a substantial impact on the distributors willingness to cut a deal. Some analysts said in 2018 that the small- to mid-size craft breweries might have had more success in the Senate if they had been willing to reduce how much they want to raise the production cap. Senate Bill 313, co-introduced in 2017 by co-primary sponsor Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, would have raised the barrel production cap to 103,091. The bill was never heard in the Senate Rules and Operations committee. He cited as an example that Juul manipulated the chemical content of its e-cigs to make the vapor less harsh on the throats of young and inexperienced smokers. As a result, vaping has become an epidemic among minors, Stein said. Stein said that nearly 17% of N.C. high school students, or 83,000, reported using an e-cig at least once in a 30-day period in 2017, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who stepped down in April as FDA commissioner, and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams have made similar claims about Juul and underage vaping. Brad Rodu, a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville and an anti-smoking advocate, said Stein should broaden his legal actions beyond Juul and vaping if hes going to rely on youth-usage reports. In the same CDC study that Stein cited, 91,000 underage high schoolers reported drinking, which is only legal for adults over 21, and 68,000 reported using marijuana, which isnt legal for anyone in North Carolina. If state officials want to protect teens, they should focus on behaviors that can hurt or kill them, Rodu said. State health regulators in North Carolina have agreed to allow three local medical groups to add a combined total of eight operating rooms in the Triad. Forsyth Medical Center, Triad Center for Surgery and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center applied for the additional operating rooms through the states certificate-of-need format. A certificate of need, or CON, is required before a health-care system or provider can build a facility, buy equipment or offer a surgical procedure. On Oct. 26, 2018, the N.C. Division of Human Service Regulation approved allowing Wake Forest Baptist to add two operating rooms, giving it 49 altogether. The medical center had sought to add four operating rooms. Regulators also agreed to allow Triad Center for Surgery to open an ambulatory surgical facility with two operating and three procedure rooms. Procedure rooms are used for providing minor, nonsurgical care that doesnt require a full-scale operating room. Regulators denied Forsyth Medicals request to add two operating rooms, which would have given the facility a total of 35. The company said 9.11 million shares were voted in favor of Jacobis re-election and 3.58 million shares withheld. Froman received 12.33 million shares in favor and 359,860 withheld. Jacobi stepped down as chairman, being replaced by Ronald Whitaker. The two shareholder groups said Ruger continues to refuse to engage on gun safety issues, which puts long-term shareholder value at risk. They also said Ruger is declining to respond to concerns about potential conflicts of issues with Jacobi and Froman. Froman has been cited previously for her high-ranking ties to the National Rifle Association and her views on societal and race relations as they relate to firearms. On Feb. 12, Rugers board released a gun-safety report that shareholders mandated in May 2018. The board made clear it remains opposed to blaming firearms manufacturers for the criminal misuse of their products. Richard Craver Krispy Kreme sues New England franchisee Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. has sued a New England franchisee for failure to meet its financial royalty payment obligations through breaches of contracts. Flash China will never surrender to external pressure and has the resolve and capability to defend its legitimate rights and interests, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Tuesday. Geng made the remarks at a press briefing in response to questions regarding China-U.S. trade frictions. "China doesn't want a trade war, but we are not afraid of fighting one. If someone brings the war to our doorstep, we will fight to the end," he said. Geng also said China is by no means the party that had pulled back and broken its promise. U.S. President Donald Trump accused China of pulling back on some of the promises when a deal between the two countries was "95 percent" done. The negotiation is the process of discussion, and it is quite normal that the two sides hold different opinions during this process, said Geng, adding that before the negotiation is concluded and an agreement is reached, there is no such saying as "violating promises." He said the two sides reached multiple consensuses on economic and trade issues and released a joint communique in Washington in May last year. However, the U.S. side abandoned those consensuses in just a few days. The two sides also reached consensus on the value of Chinese purchases of U.S. goods last December, but the U.S. side deliberately raised the asking price in subsequent negotiations, said Geng, adding that China is by no means the "backtracking" side. "China has shown the greatest sincerity and kindness during negotiations with the United States," said Geng, expressing the hope that the two countries can meet each other halfway and achieve a mutually beneficial and win-win agreement on the basis of mutual respect, equal treatment and commitment. According to reports on Monday, the United States will hold a public hearing on June 17 on Trump's proposal to put tariffs on another 300 billion U.S. dollars in Chinese goods. Imposing additional tariffs will not solve any problems, whoever starting the trade war will hurt himself as well as others, Geng said. China has become one of the most popular investment destinations for global companies for years in a row since it launched the reform and opening-up drive 40 years ago, he said, adding that companies will choose which countries to invest in or which partners to cooperate with based on their interests and market rules. "China welcomes foreign companies to increase investment in the country, and we will continue our efforts to create a more stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment for foreign investors," he said. China will continue to expand market access, increase imports of goods and service and attach importance to the implementation of opening-up policies, Geng said. For 44 years, Beth Tartan was a steady presence in the Winston-Salem community. As food editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, she mentored not one but two generations of local cooks, leaving a legacy that continues to this day. Elizabeth Hedgecock Sparks, who took up the pen name Beth Tartan, died April 5, 1992, at age 72. If she were alive, shed be turning 100 on May 16. So this week we honor Beth and all she gave to the Winston-Salem community during her long tenure. And she gave a lot. She worked tirelessly. She worked after retirement. She worked even while fighting a losing battle with esophageal cancer. She wrote her last column on Tuesday and died that Sunday, said her daughter, Mary Sparks Sterling, often featured in her mothers columns as Sparkles. She even went to work after her radiation appointments. A foster care employee in Marion was arrested and charged after allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a minor for almost a month, authorities said Monday. Detective Billie Brown of the McDowell County Sheriffs Office charged Tiffany Lynn Forscutt, 32, address listed as North McDowell Avenue in Marion, with statutory rape/statutory sex offense and sex act by a governmental or private institutional employee. According to an incident report, Forscutt was employed by Clear Sky Behavioral, a local therapeutic leadership academy for boys. It is alleged that she had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 14-year-old male that lasted for approximately a month earlier this year. Forscutts bond was set at $250,000. Several members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education said Tuesday night that they want the next school superintendent to have a strong plan to end the racial achievement gap in the school system. Chairwoman Malishai Woodbury said the final candidate for the job should have proof of attempting to eliminate the achievement gap wherever he or she is currently working and should have implemented equity and literacy plans for students in that district. That person should be able to do the right thing for all children in face of opposition, Woodbury said. And that person (should) not consider job security because they are doing the right things. That is what integrity and good character would mean to me. Woodbury and six other board members shared their wish list for characteristics and skills of the next superintendent after two officials with the N.C. School Board Association provided the board with the findings from five recent community forums in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. The officials said 120 students, parents, school system employees and residents discussed what characteristics they want in the next superintendent. The forums attendees also provided interview questions for the board members to ask candidates for the job. In another incident, officers were called Monday morning to Northwest Middle School, at 5501 Murray Road after school officials were alerted that a student had a handgun in a classroom, police said. The student had the weapon in a book bag, according to investigators. Police said there were no direct threats made to students or staff. However, juvenile charges will be sought in the case. Because the individual and the weapon were in police custody in a short period of time, a lock-down procedure was not needed, Simington said. We do not take these incidents lightly and will always work as quickly as possible to validate any information we have. Simington said that many staff members and administrators are parents as well. We understand threatening language and images of young people with weapons talking about harm to a school can be frightening, Simington said. That is why we work to let parents know the facts, not the rumors, as soon as we can. The school system has a strong partnership with local law enforcement officers, he said. With great fanfare, Orban put a length of razor wire along his country's border with Serbia a few years ago, to stop Syrian refugees who were trying to get to ... Germany. Nobody was trying to get into Hungary then; nobody is trying to get in now. But the fantasy of an ethnically pure state, pushing back against immigration and multiculturalism, continues to appeal to certain kinds of Americans who wish their country could do the same. And never mind that the wave of immigration in Europe was finally halted by centrist politicians such as Germany's Angela Merkel, who persuaded Turkey to take more refugees, and by stepped-up European Union border controls. And, never mind that the amount of hateful rhetoric spouted about refugees in Hungary, or indeed in Italy or France, has risen since the refugee crisis subsided. It bears no relation to the number of refugees actually coming into the country, and never did. These laws (if the Alabama bill passes) will likely make their way up the appeals courts to the Supreme Court. Given the gravity of the issue and the conflict with precedent and governing law in other circuits, the court would almost certainly be compelled to take up the issue. And then? We might see Roberts once again side with Roe precedent and avoid putting the courts credibility at risk. If Roberts, along with Trumps two appointees, sided with the states, however, the Supreme Courts decision would set off a political firestorm. The potential to ban abortion in many states (or even more radically, for the entire country if Congress decides to act) would elevate abortion to a top-tier issue. Republicans would be forced to wrestle with the results of their absolutist position and the backlash from women who have never lived in a country where safe and legal abortions were not available. The political damage to the GOP (outside deep-red states) could be severe, ruining chances for the party to hold onto more libertarian, western states, the Upper Midwest and the eastern seaboard. Pence's persecution complex should not surprise us. Evangelicals in America have seen themselves as victims since the 1960s. The Christian Right emerged in the 1970s with an agenda focused on returning prayer and Bible reading to public schools, resisting demographic change in the wake of new immigration, defending segregation in Christian academies, overturning Roe v. Wade and stalling the gains of the feminist movement. The movement gains strength by scaring evangelicals into believing that they are constantly under attack. Without this discourse of victimhood, the donations will stop, and the Christian Right will lose its hold on the levers of power within the Republican Party. At one point in Pence's speech on Saturday, he gave a moving testimony about his conversion experience. It was a powerful story of redemption and faith. But in the context of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Liberty University and the rest of the Pence speech, it seemed that the vice president was suggesting that an evangelical conversion will naturally lead to Christian Right politics and the unrelenting support of an immoral president. It does not. When the Georgia abortion bill was signed into law, I heard some armchair OB/GYNs claim that a woman could easily meet this six-week deadline by simply taking a pregnancy test really, really early -- like, immediately after sexual intercourse! -- to find out whether she had an unwanted pregnancy to terminate. Dispiritingly, these advice-givers did not seem to know that fertilized eggs take several days to implant in the uterus. And that pregnancy tests are not highly accurate until a period has been missed. And that, even assuming one has a textbook 28-day menstruation cycle -- many are longer or far less predictable -- a period won't be missed until at least 15 or 16 days after conception. Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, debuted their newborn son this week, and I saw royal-watchers sharing the family photo, innocently wondering why Meghan still looked "fat." Clearly, they'd never learned that the female body doesn't bounce back like a rubber ball; it can take weeks or months or never for midsections to return to their previous size. A funny quirk Ive noticed a funny President Trump quirk. Often when hes on TV and he tells one of his lies, hell add, with a raised eyebrow, as if hes addressing members of the media, something like, And you know its true. This seems to be a subtle way of trying to smear the press suggesting that there is a thing he knows, even though nobody else knows, and the press knows, too, but isnt saying. Hes trying to make it look like theyre lying by not reporting his lie. Its very clever. Considering that their job isnt to argue with him, but to ask questions and report what he says, its kind of like slapping someone around when their hands are tied behind their back. Its something a bully would do. This is pretty small in the vast scheme of things. Its not like putting children in cages at the border or obstructing justice by firing your attorney general or trying to eliminate health care coverage for millions of Americans. Its only a funny little quirk. But I think its interesting. Mel H. Henderson Winston-Salem A vision of our community Flash U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed a New York Times report about U.S. top security officials reviewing a plan to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter Iran. "I think it's fake news, okay? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Trump told reporters at the White House. "Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," he added. The New York Times reported on Monday that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had presented an updated military plan to the Trump administration's senior security officials which envisions sending up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons. The updated plan, which does not call for a land invasion of Iran, was ordered by hardliners led by National Security Adviser John Bolton, reported the paper, citing anonymous sources. Over the recent weeks, Washington has ratcheted up pressure against Tehran with a series of sanctions, designations and military threats, following Washington's year-long campaign against Iran after U.S. exit from the landmark Iran nuclear deal in May last year. In response, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday Tehran's withdrawal from complying with the restrictions of the Iran nuclear deal on the country's enriched uranium reserves and heavy water supplies. Richard Eckstrom is a CPA and the states Comptroller. Contact him at 803-734-2121. VANCOUVER, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Freegold Ventures Limited (Freegold) (FVL: TSX), is pleased to announce the commencement of the 2019 exploration program at Shorty Creek. The 2019 program is fully funded under the agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of South32 Limited (South32) whereby South32 has the option to earn a 70% interest in the Shorty Creek property. To maintain the option in good standing South32 must contribute minimum exploration funding of US$10 million over a 4 year option period with minimum exploration expenditures of US$2million in Years 1 and 2 and US$3 million in Years 3 and 4 for an aggregate of US$10 million. South32 may exercise its option to subscribe for 70% of the shares of a newly formed project company by committing US$30 million to the newly formed company, less the amount of exploration expenditure contributed by South32 during the option period following the completion of each annual program. Freegold shall act at as the Operator during the option period. The 2019 program will consist of induced polarization surveys, geochemical surveys and a minimum 2,000 metre drill program designed to provide an initial test of the exploration targets outside of the Hill 1835 target area. Drilling is expected to commence in mid July. Located 120 km northwest of Fairbanks, the Shorty Creek project was identified as having significant porphyry potential by Freegold in late 2014. Shorty Creek hosts a cluster of magnetic anomalies commonly seen in porphyry districts. Drilling has been largely concentrated on the Hill 1835 area; however it is only one of the potentially significant targets within the property area. Twelve widely space holes with an average depth of 500 metres have expanded the mineralized zone to over a 750 x 400 metre area with each hole intersecting significant and consistent copper, gold, silver and tungsten mineralization over broad widths from base of oxide material (average ~ 90 metres). The target remains open both laterally and to depth. Two (2) km to the northwest of Hill 1835 is Hill 1710, which hosts a large copper and molybdenum geochemical anomaly coincident with a 6 km long broad magnetic anomaly. Initial drill testing in 2016 consisted of four (4) holes spaced 400 metres apart testing 1.6 km of this magnetic feature. Drilling intersected porphyry style mineralization, with copper grades increasing to the northeast. The magnetic anomaly extends another 2.5 km to the northeast from the limits of the 2016 drilling. Other exploration targets within this promising 100 square kilometre property include the Quarry target, where oxidized porphyritic rock with stockwork veining returned values of 500 ppm copper in rock samples. Quarry lies 3 km north northeast of Hill 1835 at the northern end of an 11 km long magnetic high. Sampling at Quarry has confirmed both the presence of copper mineralization and quartz feldspar porphyry outcrops. The Qualified Person for this release is Alvin Jackson, P.Geo Vice President Exploration and Development for the Company who has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this press release. About Freegold Ventures Limited Freegold is a TSX listed company focused on exploration in Alaska and holds through leases the Golden Summit Gold Project, near Fairbanks as well the Shorty Creek Copper Gold Project near Livengood. About South32 South32 is a globally diversified mining and metals company. It produces bauxite, alumina, aluminium, energy and metallurgical coal, manganese, nickel, silver, lead and zinc at its operations in Australia, Southern Africa and South America. It is also the owner of a high grade zinc, lead and silver development option in North America and has several partnerships with junior explorers with a focus on base metals. Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information, including without limitation statements as to planned expenditures and exploration programs. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include without limitation the completion of planned expenditures, the ability to complete exploration programs on schedule and the success of exploration programs BRIDGEWATER, NS / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / (TSXV: SSE) - Silver Spruce Resources Inc. ("Silver Spruce" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has awarded the contract for the imminent Phase I drill program at Pino de Plata to ECODRILL of Mexico ("ECODRILL"). ECODRILL will mobilize equipment and personnel immediately and plans to begin drilling within a week. ECODRILL is an industry leader in environmentally sound drilling practices, and uses a proprietary process to conserve water for drilling. The company's website states, "ECODRILL is a leader in providing high quality Exploration Services and Products for the mining industry. We specialize in executing deep diamond drill holes in challenging environments. We also provide directional drilling and optimal core hole location. Since 2013 we have successfully drilled over 200,000 meters." "We are enthusiastic to finally be mobilizing an experienced drill company to conduct the first drilling in history at the Pino de Plata project. Given the rich history of artisanal mining of high grades of mineralization and our detailed field work and preparations for the Phase I program, we anticipate exciting results in the next few weeks," stated Karl Boltz, President & CEO of Silver Spruce. "Our goal is to explore and develop a significant high grade resource of silver and base metals that may support near-term surface mining and direct shipping of ore." Phase I The Phase I drill program will consist of at least twelve holes for a total of 2000-2500 metres of HQ diameter core. All planned Phase I drill holes will be collared on existing roads that pass over or adjacent to the targets, with no new access roads required. Program management and geology, logging of core, QA/QC, sample delivery to laboratory, chain of custody, etc., will be managed by ProDeMin under the direct supervision of Qualified Person, Dr. Craig Gibson, Ph.D. Drill Ready The Company holds a permit to drill 30 holes, which includes locations for Phase I and Phase II drill programs. A surface access agreement is in place, as is required to obtain the permit. Qualified Person Dr. Craig Gibson, Ph.D., CPG, is the Company's external Qualified Person for the Pino de Plata project and is responsible for the technical content of this press release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), under TSX guidelines. About Silver Spruce Resources Inc. Silver Spruce Resources Inc. is a Canadian junior exploration company pursuing development of the Pino De Plata project, located in the prolific Sierra Madre Occidental region of western Chihuahua State in Mexico. The Company also holds an indirect interest in the Kay Mine project according to terms of the sale agreement with Croesus Gold Corp., which was announced in the Company's news release on January 30, 2019. Silver Spruce Resources Inc. continues to investigate opportunities that Management has identified or that have been presented to the Company for consideration. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The company seeks Safe Harbour. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Macarthur Minerals Limited (TSX-V: MMS) (OTCQB: MMSDF) (the Company or Macarthur) is pleased to announce that further to the announcement of March 19, 2019, Exception Capital LLP (Exception) has agreed to participate in the US$6 million secured Convertible Note (Note) on a private placement basis for US$1 million. Cameron McCall, Executive Chairman of Macarthur Minerals commented; Macarthur is delighted for Exception Capitals participation in the private placement. Exception Capital has undertaken this investment after extensive due diligence into the Company and its extensive iron ore assets in Australia. Exceptions due diligence included a site visit to the Companys Moonshine Magnetite Iron Project, inspection of the significant export orientated infrastructure, Esperance Port facilities and meetings with government authorities. We believe the terms agreed are attractive to both parties and provide Macarthur with funding certainty with minimum dilution to Macarthurs shareholders. Key terms to the Convertible Notes: Each Note has a face value of US$10,000 following adoption of a loan note instrument. The Notes (including accrued but unpaid interest) can be converted at any time after 12 months into common shares of Macarthur at the Noteholders option at a conversion price that reflects the greater of 80% of the average VWAP over 5 trading days immediately preceding the date of a notice of conversion and C$0.10 (in each case with appropriate equivalence to USD), with attaching warrants offered for one fourth of the commitment amount exercisable at the greater of C$0.10 or the average VWAP over 5 trading days immediately preceding the date of the Advance Date (such term being defined in the definitive documentation) (in each case with appropriate equivalence to USD). The Notes will have a term to maturity of 3 years and bear interest at a rate of 12.5% per annum. The Notes include a restriction on conversion that provides that such conversion may not have the effect of causing Noteholder to own 20% or more of the common shares of Macarthur or becoming a control person. The iron ore mining licences held by Macarthur (or a subsidiary of Macarthur) in respect of the Lake Giles Iron project region of Western Australia will act as security for the Notes issued to the Noteholder. Any shares issued upon conversion of the principal amount of the Note and any accrued interest will be subject to certain resale restrictions, including a restricted (or hold) period of four months and one day following the distribution date of the Note and warrant, under applicable Canadian securities legislation. The consummation of the US$1 million financing commitment from Exception is subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals including that of the TSX Venture Exchange and satisfaction of the other conditions set out in the Investment Agreement entered into by the Exception and Macarthur. ABOUT EXCEPTION CAPITAL LLP Exception is a unique international investment company with the principal focus in the management of The Family Fund, a differentiated, multi-award winning global multi-strategy fund, managed by Adrian Fairbourn who is also a Non-Executive Director of Cadence Minerals Plc. ABOUT MACARTHUR MINERALS LIMITED (TSX-V: MMS) (OTCQB: MMSDF) Macarthur Minerals Limited is an iron ore development company that is focused on bringing to production its Western Australia iron ore projects. The iron ore projects are Ularring hematite (approved for development) and the one plus billion tonne Moonshine magnetite. Macarthur Minerals has prominent (~1,130 square kilometer tenement area) exploration interests in gold, lithium, nickel, cobalt in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. In addition, Macarthur Minerals has lithium brine Claims in the emerging Railroad Valley region in Nevada, USA. On behalf of the Board of Directors, MACARTHUR MINERALS LIMITED Cameron McCall Cameron McCall, Executive Chairman Company Contact Joe Phillips, CEO and Director Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Telephone: +61 448899247 Website: www.macarthurminerals.com For further information please contact: Investor Cubed Inc.: Neil Simon E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Telephone: (647) 258-3310 Fax: (416) 363-7977 THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES Caution Regarding Forward Looking Statements Certain of the statements made and information contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements relating to the consummation of the financing and of the BFS. The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect the current expectations, assumptions or beliefs of the Company based upon information currently available to the Company. With respect to forward-looking statements contained in this press release, assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the timely receipt of required approvals, the reliability of information, including historical mineral resource or mineral reserve estimates, prepared and/or published by third parties that are referenced in this press release or was otherwise relied upon by the Company in preparing this press release. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct as actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include the conditions to the financing not being satisfied, delays in the preparation of the BFS, fluctuations in exchange rates and certain commodity prices, uncertainties related to mineral title in the project, unforeseen technology changes that results in a reduction in iron ore demand or substitution by other metals or materials, the discovery of new large low cost deposits of iron ore, uncertainty in successfully returning the project into full operation, and the general level of global economic activity. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. Such statements relate to future events and expectations and, as such, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and except as may otherwise be required pursuant to applicable laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Helio Resource Corp (Helio or the Company; TSX-V: HRC) is pleased to announce that, subject to TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) approval, it has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) on May 14, 2019, with Palamina Corp (TSX-V : PA) to acquire the Gaban gold project and the Tinka Iron Oxide Copper Gold project, both located in Peru. In conjunction with the acquisition, Helio plans to raise between $600,000 and $800,000 through a non-brokered private placement financing to cover the first phase of exploration on the properties and to cover initial working capital (together, with the other matters referenced herein, the Transaction). This is an arms length transaction and no finders fee is payable. Private Placement Terms The proposed financing will consist of up to 10,000,000 Units priced at 6c per Unit, whereby each Unit is comprised of one (1) common share of the Company and one half (1/2) warrant, whereby one full warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share of the Company for 10c per common share at any time within 12 months of closing the financing. Project Acquisition Terms This acquisition of the Gaban and Tinka projects is subject to, in addition to other items, the Company raising a minimum of $600,000. Subject to successful completion of a 30-day due diligence period, and receipt of TSXV approval, Helio will issue to Palamina a total of 10 million common shares of the Company as follows: 5 Million shares immediately upon receipt of TSXV approval for the Transaction; and shares immediately upon receipt of TSXV approval for the Transaction; and The balance of 5 million shares is to be issued within 24 months of TSXV approval of the Transaction, either through disinterested shareholder approval for such issuance or via the issuance of no greater that 19.9% of any future share issuance made by the Company. Palamina will retain a 2% Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalty on each property. Helio will have the right to purchase 50% of each royalty by making a cash payment of $1,000,000 to Palamina at any time prior to the commencement of commercial production. All shares issued will be subject to a 4 month plus one day hold period from the date of issuance. Helio will make an Advance Royalty Payment (ARP) of $25,000 to Palamina on the first and second anniversaries of closing the Transaction. The ARP will double every two years until such time that Helio has either completed a total of 5,000m of drilling or has abandoned the properties. Upon closing of the Transaction, Palamina has the right to nominate one Director to the Board of Helio and can nominate a second Director to stand for election at Helios next annual general meeting. The Gaban Project The Gaban Gold Project covers an area of 17,400 hectares, and surrounds the town of San Gaban in the Puno orogenic gold belt. San Gaban, sitting at an elevation of 550m above sea level, is served by excellent infrastructure and is a 4 hour drive via the Trans-oceanic highway to the Puerto Maldonado airport. A nearby 206MW hydro-electric dam provides power to the town. Palamina staked Gaban to locate the bedrock source of alluvial gold being exploited along the Yanamayo river, which lies wholly within the Gaban project area. At least 10 sets of alluvial mineworkings are known to be exist within the project area. Palamina conducted a stream sediment sampling programme over the Gaban property, collecting a total of 75 samples. Twenty one samples returned assays above detection (5 ppb). Of the 21 samples showing a gold presence, eleven originate from a 5km-long section of the Yanamayo River catchment basin, with assays ranging from 5ppb to 4,891ppb Au (median value of 117ppb Au). In addition, in 2018 Palamina completed a heli-borne magnetic / radiometric survey over the property to identify the possible structural controls for bedrock hosted gold mineralisation. See Palaminas news release of October 29, 2018 on their website at www.palamina.com/news. Palamina has spent approximately US$500,000 to date on the project. The Tinka IOCG Project The Tinka IOCG Project is an early stage exploration target that covers an area of 1,800 hectares. It is located 45 km southeast of the town of Ica (population 280,000) at an elevation of 2,000m, and is 300km southeast of Lima along the Pan-American highway. Shares for Debt Settlement The Company has reached agreement with certain creditors including insiders to settle a total of $90,000 in debts by way of issuance of 1,500,000 common shares of the Company at a deemed price of 6c per share. The shares will be issued, subject to TSXV approval, upon closing of the Transaction. Tanzania (SMP Gold Project) Update The Company continues to work with the Ministry of Mines in Tanzania to find a sensible solution to the Retention Licence issue. Helios SMP project comprises 8 Prospecting Licenses (PLs), 4 Retention Licences (RLs), and one licence under application (see here). The four Retention Licences are RL 0009 (Saza), RL 0010 (Gap), RL 0011 (Kwaheri), and RL 0012 (Illunga). Under the Tanzanian Mining Act, 2010, Retention Licences were issued to projects where a mineral resource had been identified, but the projects could not be developed to mine status by reason of technical constraints, or other economic factors which are temporary in nature. Changes made in 2017 to the Mining Act (2010) resulted in the Retention Licence classification being abolished and ownership transferred to the Government of Tanzania. The Company has been assured verbally by government officials that the Tanzanian government is not expropriating the ground covered by the Retention Licences and wants to work with the Retention Licence holders to ensure that projects are advanced to the point where a mining licence can be applied for. The Tanzanian government has formed a Mining Commission which will make recommendations for the way forward with regards to the ground covered by Retention Licences. After consultation with ministers from the Ministry of Minerals, Helio has applied for the ground covered by the Retention Licences to be re-issued as Prospecting licences to allow the project to be advanced. However, the Commission has yet to make any recommendations. The SMP Gold Project covers a 200km2 area in the Lupa Goldfields, SW Tanzania and is adjacent to the New Luika Gold Mine, operated by Shanta Gold Limited, an AIM-listed company. On March 26, 2015, Helio released a mineral resource estimate for the SMP Gold Project, comprising an Indicated Resource of 7.5 MT grading 2.4 g/t Au for 590,000 oz Au contained, and an Inferred Resource of 0.56 Mt at 2.5 g/t Au containing 45,000 oz Au. The Indicated Resource is broken down into 5.9 Mt grading 1.8 g/t Au for 332,000 oz inside a pit constrained shell at US$1,400/oz gold price and 1.6 Mt grading 4.9 g/t for 258,000 ounces underground. A NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Mineral Resource Estimate can be viewed here - click here for full details. Mr. Richard Williams, M.Sc. (MinEx), P.Geo, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has supervised the preparation, compilation and review of the geological and technical contents of this press release. Enquiries: Helio Resource Corp Richard Williams (CEO) +1 604 210 8753 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. Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Such forward-looking information is identified by words such as anticipated, "estimates", "intends", "expected", "believes", "may", "will", wants to and include, without limitation, statements regarding the Government of Tanzanias future actions or their undisclosed past actions, the Company's Retention Licences, plan of business operations (including plans for progressing assets), estimates regarding mineral resources, projections regarding mineralization and projected expenditures. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, actions of the Government of Tanzania, or other governments, metal prices, risks inherent in the mining industry, financing risks, labour risks, uncertainty of mineral resource estimates, equipment and supply risks, title disputes, regulatory risks and environmental concerns. Most of these factors are outside the control of the Company. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 15, 2019) - MAX RESOURCE CORP. (TSXV: MXR) (OTC Pink: MXROF) (FSE: M1D1) ("Max" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company is participating in the upcoming 121 Mining Investment Conference in Singapore. Mr. Brett Matich, Chief Executive Officer of Max, will be presenting about the recent activities on the Choco Gold-Platinum and North Choco Gold-Copper projects in Colombia. The 121 Mining Investment Conference hosts 25 mining companies joined by 120 sophisticated investors for pre-arranged, targeted 1-2-1 investment meetings. This year's event is being held on May 15 and 16, 2019 at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. About 121 Investment 121 Mining Investment events gather senior investors from institutional funds, private equity groups, family offices and sector analysts to meet with carefully selected mining company management teams in the world's leading financial hubs. Featuring cash-generating producers, near-production development companies, project generators and exciting exploration projects, 121 Mining Investment events offer investors the perfect forum to seek out their next big mining investment opportunity. 121 Mining Investment events are held annually in Hong Kong, London, Cape Town, New York and Singapore and focus on two-days of 1-on-1 meetings tailored to match the right level of mining projects with the right investment capital. Alongside the 1-2-1 meetings, delegates are able to enjoy a two-day agenda of investor-led panel discussions providing market insights, analysis and each participating mining company presenting their latest updates. About Max Resource Corp. MAX is a mineral exploration company focused on the development and acquisition of prospective projects in the rich mineral belts of Colombia. The Company has established significant exploration infrastructure and local community support for its three prospective projects: Choco Gold and Platinum, located 100 km south of Medellin, which covers or is adjacent to historic production of 1.5Mozs gold and 1.0Mozs platinum, North Choco Gold-Copper located 80 km southeast of Medellin and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti and Continental Gold properties, and the Gachala Copper Project, is located 60 km east of Bogota. The Company is led by a seasoned management team with a track record of significant discovery and exploration success. Source for Choco: R.J. Fletcher and Associates (2011) Review of Gold and Platinum Exploration and Production in Choco Province Colombia Part 3. Private Report for Condoto Platinum Ltd.) For more information visit: https://www.maxresource.com/ For additional information contact: Max Resource Corp. Tim McNulty E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. T: (604) 290-8100 For Max Resource's French inquiries: Remy Scalabrini, Maricom Inc. E: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. T: (888) 585-MARI Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the TSXV. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the commercialization plans for Max Resources Corp. described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com TORONTO, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Compass Gold Corp. (TSX-V: CVB) (Compass or the Company) is pleased to provide an update on the recently completed exploration drilling at the Farabakoura artisanal workings on the Ouassada permit, Sikasso Property in Southern Mali. Highlights Completed 13 reverse circulation (RC) drill holes at Farabakoura artisanal workings, totalling 1,928 m Intercepted gold mineralization in three holes, increasing the known strike length of the mineralized system to 500 m, which remains open along strike Visible gold noted in RC chips (OURC017) Best interval: 32 m @ 3.02 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) from 24 m, including 6 m @ 10.21 g/t Au 3,000 m drilling program is planned at Farabakoura to test additional targets Compass CEO, Larry Phillips, said, This latest drilling has extended our primary target zone, the Farabakoura Pit Zone, to a length of over 500 m, and the structure remains open to the southeast. We now have a clearer understanding of the rock types and structures that are the main controls on mineralization. We will use this information to drill additional targets underlying the extensive Farabakoura artisanal workings. A 3,000 metre drill program with our strategic partner, Capital Drilling, will commence immediately. Farabakoura Reverse Circulation Drilling Results As previously announced (see Compass news release dated May 8, 2019), the Company recently completed a 1,928-m RC drilling program over selected geophysical targets at the Farabakoura artisanal workings on the Ouassada permit (see Figure 1). Drilling focused on two parallel NW-trending structures, termed the Farabakoura Pit Structure, and the Kabangoue Structure, as well as the east-west trending Farabakoura East Structure. The thirteen drill targets were selected based on data from a ground magnetic survey, an induced polarization (IP) survey, and previous drilling results. Drilling was performed by Target Drilling (Bamako, Mali), and samples were collected for fire assaying by SGS (Bamako, Mali). Six holes (OURC012 - OURC016, and OURC018) were drilled along the presumed northwestern extension of the Farabakoura Pit Structure, without encountering any significant mineralized intersections. Minor (< 0.6 g/t Au) gold mineralization was noted in three of the drill holes and the results are presented at the end of this release. All holes were drilled into granodiorite that generally contained less than 1 % pyrite. Three holes (OURC022 OURC024) were drilled along the southeastern extension of the Farabakoura Pit Structure, which encountered heavily pyritized metavolcanics rocks in contact with a later intrusion. Intercepts wider than one metre are presented in Table 1. The widest mineralized intercept was reported in OURC024 where a 32-m interval averaged 3.02 g/t Au (from 24 m), with one 1 m interval containing 25.10 g/t Au. Other zones in this hole included 7 m @ 1.89 g/t Au (from 77 m) and 15 m @ 3.01 g/t Au (from 97 m). The final interval was stopped in mineralization so the true interval is not unknown. This hole undercuts a flooded artisanal pit, and is 40 m along strike from OURC010 that contained 60 m @ 1.42 g/t Au (from 41 m). OURC022 contains four discrete zones with mineralization greater than 1 g/t Au and widths up to 6 m (Table 1). The bottom of this hole was terminated in a 9-m zone of gold mineralization, with the true thickness of the unit unknown. Drill hole OURC023 is located 500 m along strike from the Farabakoura artisanal pit, where previously recorded mineralization included 15 m @ 1.94 g/t Au (OURC002), 46 m @ 0.65 g/t Au and 27 m @ 0.92 (OURC05), and 18 m @ 20.69 g/t Au (OUDD01). The structure remains open to the southeast, and trends towards the Kabangoue area. Table 1. Significant assays during recent drilling at Farabakoura Hole ID From (m) To (m) 1, 2 Interval (m) Au (ppm) OURC17 27 30 3 3.57 OURC17 34 52 18 1.03 inc. 34 45 11 1.24 OURC17 48 52 4 1.16 OURC22 21 22 1 1.25 OURC22 32 38 6 2.27 inc 32 36 4 3.32 OURC22 115 118 3 1.37 OURC22 121 3130 9 1.00 OURC23 27 28 1 11.95 OURC23 35 38 3 0.72 OURC23 58 63 5 3.50 OURC24 24 56 32 3.02 inc 24 38 14 5.80 [inc 25 31 6 10.21] inc 40 43 3 0.31 inc 45 47 2 0.44 inc 52 56 4 3.11 OURC24 77 84 7 1.89 inc 79 82 3 3.55 OURC024 97 3112 15 3.10 inc 106 111 5 4.88 1 True thicknesses are interpreted as 60-90% of stated intervals 2 Intervals use a 0.2-gram-per-tonne gold cut-off value 3 Intervals terminated in mineralization at the end of the hole The Farabakoura East Structure was tested with two drill holes, OURC017 and OURC025. Both holes were drilled to the south to intersect auriferous quartz veins recovered by artisanal minerals at the nearby workings. As noted in Table 1, three discrete zones of gold mineralization greater than 1 g/t Au were noted, including an 18-m interval that contained 1.03 g/t Au. This hole differs from the other holes that were drilled at Farabakoura in that the gold mineralization is associated with quartz veins cutting the host granodiorite, and not associated with the contact between the granodiorite and volcaniclastic rocks. OURC025, drilled 66 m to the west of OURC017, did not contain any significant gold intercepts, suggesting it was not drilled close enough to the margin of the intrusion. Next Steps: Based on the encouraging results from the current drilling, an additional 3,000 m drilling program is planned. This will primarily focus on targets that associated with the contact of the volcaniclastic rocks and the granodiorite. Wide zones of gold mineralization have now been identified over a distance of 500 m and on the southeast extension of the Farabakoura Trend, and it appears that this tend might cross the small river that separates the Farabakoura and Kabangoue prospects. Reinterpretation of the ground geophysical data indicates that high-grade gold mineralization, such as the 1 m interval with 329.92 g/t Au in OURDD01, is likely associated with east-west trending structures. These structures will be tested in the new drilling program, expected to start within the next week using Capital Drilling. Field teams are currently undertaking a high-resolution ground magnetic survey on the Sodala prospect in the Sankarani permit, and pit reject sampling is continuing at the Yanfolila South Block. Table containing all mineralized intercepts greater than 0.2 g/t Au Hole ID From (m) To (m) 1,2Interval (m) Au (ppm) OURC12 62 63 1 0.58 OURC13 No Significant intercepts OURC14 No Significant intercepts OURC15 No Significant intercepts OURC16 74 75 1 0.33 OURC17 27 30 3 3.57 OURC17 34 52 18 1.03 inc 34 45 11 1.24 inc 48 52 4 1.16 OURC17 94 95 1 0.70 OURC18 47 48 1 0.31 OURC19 80 82 2 0.35 OURC20 No Significant intercepts OURC21 26 27 1 0.81 OURC22 21 22 1 1.25 OURC22 32 38 6 2.27 inc 32 36 4 3.32 OURC22 49 50 1 1.06 OURC22 53 54 1 1.03 OURC22 115 118 3 1.37 OURC22 121 130 9 1 OURC23 9 10 1 0.34 OURC23 12 13 1 0.70 OURC23 27 28 1 11.95 OURC23 31 32 1 0.42 OURC23 35 38 3 0.72 OURC23 44 45 1 2.64 OURC23 54 55 1 0.20 OURC23 58 63 5 3.50 OURC23 73 75 2 0.60 OURC23 89 90 1 0.24 OURC24 24 56 32 3.02 inc 24 38 14 5.8 [inc 25 31 6 10.21] inc 40 43 3 0.31 inc 45 47 2 0.44 inc 52 56 4 3.11 OURC024 77 84 7 1.90 OURC024 97 3112 15 3.10 inc 106 111 5 4.88 OURC025 26 28 2 0.68 OURC025 74 75 1 0.32 OURC025 84 85 1 0.56 1 True thicknesses are interpreted as 60-90% of stated intervals 2 Intervals use a 0.2 gram per tonne gold cut-off value 3 Intervals terminated in mineralization at the end of the hole About Compass Gold Corp. Compass, a public company having been incorporated into Ontario, is a Tier 2 issuer on the TSX- V. Through the 2017 acquisition of MGE and Malian subsidiaries, Compass holds gold exploration permits located in Mali that comprise the Sikasso Property. The exploration permits are located in three sites in southern Mali with a combined land holding of 854 km2. The Sikasso Property is located in the same region as several multi-million ounce gold projects, including Morila, Syama, Kalana and Kodieran. The Companys Mali-based technical team, led in the field by Dr. Madani Diallo and under the supervision of Dr. Sandy Archibald, P.Geo, is initiating a new exploration program. They are examining the first of numerous anomalies noted for further investigation in Dr. Archibalds August 2017 National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report on the Sikasso Property, Southern Mali. QAQC All RC samples were collected following industry best practices, and an appropriate number and type of certified reference materials (standards), blanks and duplicates were inserted to ensure an effective QAQC program was carried out. The 1 m interval samples were prepared and analyzed at SGS SARL (Bamako, Mali) by fire assay technique FAE505. All standard and blank results were reviewed to ensure no failures were detected. Qualified Person This news release has been reviewed and approved by EurGeol. Dr. Sandy Archibald, P.Geo, Compasss Technical Director, who is the Qualified Person for the technical information in this news release under National Instrument 43-101 standards. ForwardLooking Information This news release contains "forwardlooking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements regarding the Companys planned exploration work and management appointments. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forwardlooking information. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by such information. The statements in this news release are made as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forwardlooking information except as required by applicable law. For further information please contact: Compass Gold Corporation Compass Gold Corporation Larry Phillips Pres. & CEO Greg Taylor Dir. Investor Relations & Corporate Communications This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. T: +1 416-596-0996 X 302 T: +1 416-596-0996 X 301 Website: www.compassgoldcorp.com NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fancamp Exploration Ltd. (Fancamp or the Company) (TSX VENTURE: FNC) has completed its previously announced Phase 1 diamond drilling program on the Mallard Gold Property, located 15 km west of IAMGOLDs Cote Lake Deposit. The program targeted a series of untested induced polarization (IP), magnetic, and geochemical anomalies that were generated from a prospecting program completed last fall. During the month of March, Fancamp completed 10 diamond drill holes totaling 1,464 m. The program confirmed the presence of a significant southeast to northwest trending deformation zone extending through the Property, herein termed the Mallard Structural Zone (MSZ). The MSZ hosts several shear zones, quartz veins, and related gold occurrences over a strike length of approximately 6 km, indicative of a mineralizing event associated with this structure. The Phase 1 diamond drilling program intersected anomalous gold mineralization within most drill holes. Drill hole MA19-06 intersected 1.39 g/t Au over 0.38 m associated with quartz veining and sulphide mineralization proximal to a felsic dyke. Drill hole MA19-07 intersected strongly altered metasediments that returned anomalous gold values over a sample length of 17.00 m, including 4.61 g/t Au over 0.24 m. Drill hole MA19-08 intersected a low angle 15 cm wide quartz vein that returned 6.32 g/t Au over a sample length of 0.40 m located within an 11.3 m wide zone of strong pervasive silicification and quartz veining. The significant results for the Phase 1 diamond drilling program are summarized below in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1: Summary of Diamond Drill Results DDH From (m) To (m) Core length (m) Au (g/t) Cu (ppm) Pb (ppm) Zn (ppm) MA19-02 43.54 48.30 4.76 0.17 130 4 30 MA19-05 79.00 89.00 10.00 0.16 151 12 331 MA19-06 90.75 91.13 0.38 1.39 138 10 67 MA19-07 96.00 113.00 17.00 0.14 5 7 27 Incl. 112.64 112.88 0.24 4.61 - - - MA19-08 16.90 17.30 0.40 6.32 4 1 31 Note: Intervals reported in Table 1 represent core lengths and not true widths. Table 2: Drill hole Collar Information DDH Easting Northing Azimuth Dip MA19-01 403406 5285940 40 -45 MA19-02 403327 5285979 40 -45 MA19-03 403387 5285916 40 -45 MA19-04 405405 5284490 40 -45 MA19-05 405250 5283952 40 -45 MA19-06 403396 5285809 40 -45 MA19-07 404551 5283612 40 -45 MA19-08 403110 5285266 40 -45 MA19-09 403254 5285114 40 -45 MA19-10 403393 5284978 40 -45 QA/QC Program Fancamp Exploration Ltd. has implemented a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program for the Mallard Gold Phase 1 drill program. Diamond drill core was logged, and where marked for sampling, cut in half, with one half placed in a labelled sample bag, and the remaining half placed back into the core tray and stored in a secured compound. A blank and a standard were inserted in the assay sampling sequence at every 26th and 27th place respectively. All samples were shipped to Activation Laboratories in Ancaster, Ontario. Once the samples are received and dried at the laboratory, the samples are then crushed to 80% passing 10 mesh (2 mm) and then split into 250 g sub-sample size using a Jones Riffle Splitter. These sub-samples are then pulverized (using rings and pucks to 90% passing 200 mesh (0.075 mm) and homogenized prior to analysis. Gold analysis is performed using a 30 g charge by fire assay using lead collection with a silver inquart (1A2 package). The lower detection limit is 5 ppb, and the upper detection limit is 5000 ppb for this analysis. A gravimetric finish (1A3 package) is completed for any samples that return greater than 5000 ppb that includes crushing of the entire sample to -150 mesh and subsequently sieved through a 150 mesh screen. The entire +150 mesh portion is assayed, along with two duplicate cuts of the -150 mesh portion. Results are reported as a calculated weighted average of gold in the entire sample. Results for the 38 element ICP analysis (1E3 package) includes digesting 0.5 g of the sample with aqua regia for 2 hours at 95 C. The sample is cooled and then diluted with deionized water. The samples are then analyzed using an Agilent 700 series ICP for the 38 element suite. QC for the digestion is 15% for each batch, 2 method reagent blanks, 6 in-house controls, 8 sample duplicates and 5 certified reference materials. An additional 20% QC is performed as part of the instrumental analysis to ensure quality in the areas of instrumental drift. If over limits for base metals are encountered, a sodium peroxide fusion, acid dissolution followed by ICPOES is completed. Cunningham and Dorothy Lake Property Updates In addition to the exploration program completed at the Mallard Gold Property, Fancamp has completed winter exploration programs on Cunningham and Dorothy Lake Properties. On the Cunningham Property, a 396.5 line km VTEM survey has been completed. Final results will be made available to Fancamp within the next few weeks by Geotech Ltd. Results, after being interpreted, will assist in developing prospecting and geochemical surveys for the upcoming field season. On the Dorothy Lake Property, 23 km of line cutting, followed by 15 km of IP and magnetic surveys has been completed in March. Several chargeability anomalies have been identified associated with an interpreted regional north-northeast trending deformation zone. Within this interpreted deformation zone, highly anomalous gold, silver, and copper lake bottom geochemical anomalies have been reported by the Ontario Geological Survey (Open File Report 6194) This news release was written by the Companys Qualified Persons; Peter H. Smith, PhD, P.Eng. and Joerg Kleinboeck, P.Geo. Blaine Webster, P.Geo contributed significantly to the design of the exploration process. About Fancamp Fancamp is a public company using a value added strategy predicated on the acquisition of potentially valuable assets, adding value through the selection process itself and subsequent development work, self-financed or otherwise, followed by disposition, proceeds from which, are used to finance the same process multiple times. The Company has an exceptional inventory of resource properties in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick; commodities of interest include gold, base metals, chromium, titanium, iron and silica. In addition, the Company has begun to build on the industrial possibilities inherent in dealing with some of these materials. The Company is a reporting issuer in British Colombia, Ontario and Quebec and its common shares are listed for trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol FNC. Peter H. Smith, President. For further information, please contact Peter H. Smith PhD., P.Eng.(Ont) President 1-514-481-3172 Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. /NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE IN THE UNITED STATES/ Canadian Dollars unless otherwise noted VANCOUVER, May 14, 2019 /CNW/ - Atlantic Gold Corporation (TSX-V: AGB) ("Atlantic" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive arrangement agreement (the "Arrangement Agreement") with St Barbara Ltd. (ASX: SBM) ("St Barbara"), signed on May 14, 2019, pursuant to which St Barbara will acquire 100% of all issued and outstanding shares of Atlantic by way of Plan of Arrangement (the "Transaction"). Under the terms of the Transaction, Atlantic shareholders will receive C$2.90 in cash per Atlantic share held plus shares in a company ("SpinCo") that holds Atlantic's interests in Velocity Minerals Ltd. (TSX-V: VLC) ("Velocity"), which will be distributed to Atlantic shareholders on a pro-rata basis following completion of the Transaction. The C$2.90 per share cash consideration implies a total equity value for Atlantic of approximately C$7221 million and a total enterprise value of C$8022 million. SpinCo implies additional consideration of approximately C$12 million to Atlantic shareholders, or approximately C$0.05 per Atlantic share, for total cash plus SpinCo consideration of approximately C$2.95 per share. The C$2.95 per share offer represents a 41.1% premium to the closing price of Atlantic shares on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") on May 14, 2019 and a 40.8% premium to the volume weighted average price ("VWAP") of Atlantic shares over the last 30 trading days. Following completion of the Transaction, SpinCo intends to raise funds via private placement and apply for a listing on the TSX-V. The cash offer is not subject to a financing condition. St Barbara intends to raise A$490 million through a concurrent underwritten accelerated non-renounceable entitlement to partly fund the Transaction. The balance will be funded via St Barbara's existing cash reserves. St Barbara has also secured a new committed A$200 million three-year corporate facility with Westpac Banking Corporation ("Westpac") to support the combined company. For more information, see St Barbara press release as posted on its website: https://stbarbara.com/au. The Transaction is an arms length transaction. No finder's fees are payable in connection with the Transaction. Benefits of the Transaction Benefits of the Transaction for Atlantic shareholders include: Immediate and significant premium of approximately 41.1% to the closing price of Atlantic shares on May 14, 2019 , and approximately 40.8% based on the 30-day VWAP , and approximately 40.8% based on the 30-day VWAP Cash offer is not subject to a financing condition Strong deal certainty with support agreements entered into with shareholders of Atlantic owning approximately 32% of Atlantic shares Through SpinCo, Atlantic shareholders will maintain exposure to Velocity's Rozino Project in Bulgaria , which Atlantic believes has many similar characteristics to its Moose River Consolidated ("MRC") Mine in Nova Scotia Atlantic Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Steven Dean, said: "St Barbara's C$2.90 cash per share offer delivers an immediate and attractive premium to our shareholders. It not only recognizes the value of our current plan for the MRC Mine, but rewards shareholders for the future growth and exploration potential that defines MRC as a truly world class asset. In addition to the cash consideration, SpinCo provides Atlantic shareholders with ongoing exposure to the Rozino Project which we believe has strong value potential. Our team has done a great job of creating value for shareholders and we are very proud of the high-quality gold mine that we have built in Nova Scotia and St Barbara shares this view." Board Support and Voting Agreements The directors of Atlantic based on the recommendation of a special committee of independent directors of Atlantic (the "Special Committee") have determined that the Transaction is in the best interest of Atlantic securityholders, have unanimously approved the Arrangement Agreement and have recommended that Atlantic securityholders vote in favour of the Transaction. Directors and officers of Atlantic, who control 32% of the outstanding shares, have entered into a lock-up agreement to vote all shares they hold in favour of the Transaction. Terms of the Transaction The Arrangement Agreement includes customary deal protection provisions including a non-solicitation clause, notification rights and a right to match in the event of a superior proposal, as well as a C$25 million reciprocal termination fee payable in certain circumstances, including being payable by Atlantic to St Barbara in order to enter into a superior transaction and by St Barbara to Atlantic if St Barbara does not have sufficient funds to complete. The Transaction will be effected by way of a plan of arrangement pursuant to the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (BCBCA) and is subject to customary closing conditions precedent for a transaction of this nature, including: obtaining interim and final court orders from the Supreme Court of British Columbia ; ; obtaining key regulatory approvals including approval of the TSX-V; Atlantic shareholder approval of the Transaction (at least 66% of the votes cast by all Atlantic Gold shareholders, at least 66% of the votes cast by all Atlantic Gold securityholders, and a simple majority of the votes cast by all shareholders excluding certain interested or related parties, in all cases by shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the meeting as defined by Multilateral Instrument 61-101); there is no legal action or proceeding against Atlantic that is reasonably likely to prohibit or delay consummation of the Transaction; no material adverse change occurring in relation to Atlantic; and all covenants, representations and warranties of both St Barbara and Atlantic have been satisfied. The holders of all Atlantic options will receive cash consideration equal to C$2.90 per share less the exercise price of each option. Completion is anticipated to occur in July 2019. Financial and Legal Advisors Atlantic has retained Canaccord Genuity and National Bank Financial as financial advisors, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP as Canadian legal counsel, Herbert Smith Freehills as Australian legal counsel, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP as U.S. counsel. National Bank Financial Inc. has provided an opinion to the Atlantic board of directors and the Special Committee stating that, and based upon and subject to the assumptions, limitations, and qualifications set forth therein, the consideration offered pursuant to the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to Atlantic shareholders. Conference Call Details Atlantic Gold Corporation will hold a conference call on May 15th at 1:00 pm Eastern time (10:00 am Pacific time). Participants may join the call by dialing: Participant Dial-in Numbers: Local - Toronto (+1) 416 764 8688 Local - Vancouver (+1) 778 383 7413 Toll Free - North America (+1) 888 390 0546 Additional International Dial-in Numbers: UK: 08006522435, Switzerland: 0800312635, Germany: 08007240293, Hong Kong: 800962712 Please provide the company name (Atlantic Gold Corporation) to the operator. A recorded playback of the call will be available one hour after the call's completion until June 15th, 2019 by dialing: Toll Free - North America (+1) 888 390 0541 Enter the playback passcode: 158571#, an MP3 recording will also be available on the Atlantic website. Further updates will be provided in due course. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Steven Dean Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 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. About Atlantic: Atlantic is a well-financed, growth-oriented gold development group with a long-term strategy to build a mid-tier gold production company focused on manageable, executable projects in mining-friendly jurisdictions. Atlantic is focused on growing gold production in Nova Scotia beginning with its MRC phase one open-pit gold mine which declared commercial production in March 2018, and its phase two Life of Mine Expansion at industry lowest decile cash and all-in-sustaining-costs (as stated in the Company's news releases dated January 16, 2019 and January 29, 2018). Atlantic is committed to the highest standards of environmental and social responsibility and continually invests in people and technology to manage risks, maximize outcomes and returns to all stakeholders. Forward-Looking Statements: This release contains certain "forward looking statements" and certain "forward-looking information" as defined under applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology. Forward-looking statements and information are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this press release, and include, but are not limited to, statements and discussion regarding the consummation and timing of the Transaction, the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to the Transaction, the amount and nature of the consideration received by Atlantic shareholders in connection with the Transaction, the value of SpinCo, St Barbara's funding of the cash consideration, discussions of future plans, guidance, projections, objectives, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations with respect to, among other things, the matters and activities contemplated in this news release. These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties and actual results may vary. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary include, without limitation, the timing and receipt of certain approvals, St Barbara's funding of the cash consideration and the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to the Transaction. The actual results or performance by the Company could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, any forward-looking statements relating to those matters. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or financial condition of the Company. Except as required by law, the Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to update, alter or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. Notes: VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX: LAC) (NYSE: LAC) ("Lithium Americas" or the "Company"), has announced today that Tom Hodgson has retired as Chief Executive Officer and Director. The Board of Directors has appointed Jonathan (Jon) Evans, currently President and Chief Operating Officer, to the role of President and Chief Executive Officer and to replace Tom Hodgson on the Board. Tom Hodgson has agreed to stay on as a consultant to assist with the transition and will continue to support the Company as needed. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been a part of Lithium Americas, working with a highly effective team as we developed and advanced our strategy of bringing two world-class assets into production, said Tom Hodgson. I am enthusiastic about Jon Evans taking on the leadership role. Jon is the right person to take Lithium Americas into the next stage of growth. George Ireland, Chairman of Lithium Americas said, On behalf of Lithium Americas Board of Directors, I would like to express our sincerest thanks to Tom Hodgson for his service to the company. Tom has shown tireless dedication and leadership in building Lithium Americas into a leading emerging lithium producer. He has been integral to the growth of the Company since joining the Board in 2011 and becoming an active and key part of the management team since the 2015 Western Lithium merger. We wish Tom all the best as he begins his retirement. The Board of the Company is also very excited to welcome Jon Evans to his expanded role as President and Chief Executive Officer and return to the Board. Jon is a very capable and technically accomplished leader in the lithium industry at a time when Lithium Americas is in a strong position to transition from developer to lithium producer with two low cost projects in the western hemisphere. Jon Evans joined the Company as President and Chief Operating Officer in September 2018. Jon has over twenty years of executive operations experience, including serving as Vice President and General Manager of the Lithium Division at FMC Corp. (now Livent Corp.) from 2008 to 2013, management positions with General Electric in the USA and Europe and executive roles at major industrial companies owned by private equity firms. Jon also served as an officer in the United States Army. About Lithium Americas: Lithium Americas owns a 62.5% interest in the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project along with its partner, Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co.,Ltd. The Cauchari-Olaroz Project is currently constructing a US$425 million lithium mine and processing facility in Jujuy Province, Argentina. In addition, Lithium Americas owns 100% of the Thacker Pass lithium project located in Nevada, the largest known lithium deposit in the United States. The Company trades on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol LAC. For further information contact: Lithium Americas Corp. Investor Relations Suite 300 900 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6C 1E6 Telephone: 778-656-5820 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Website: www.lithiumamericas.com Forward-Looking Statements & Information This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (which we refer to collectively as forward-looking information) under the provisions of applicable securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information. Examples of forward-looking information in this news release include, among other things: the effects, if any, on the Companys performance as a result of the change in CEO, and successful development of the Cauchari-Olaroz and Thacker Pass projects, including timing, anticipated production, and results thereof. Forward-looking information may involve known and unknown risks, assumptions and uncertainties which may cause the Companys actual results or performance to differ materially. This information reflects the Companys current views with respect to future events and is necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company today, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingences. These assumptions include, successful transition of the Companys CEO, and the Companys ability to fund, advance and develop the Cauchari-Olaroz and Thacker Pass projects into production, including results therefrom and timing thereof. Forward-looking information also involve known and unknown risks that may cause actual results to differ materially, these risks include, among others, inherent risks in succession and transition planning for key executive roles, inherent risks in development of capital intensive mineral projects (including as co-owners), operational risks and general market and industry conditions. Additional risks, assumptions and other factors are set out in the Companys management discussion analysis and most recent annual information form, copies of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks and assumptions, given the inherent uncertainties in such forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results to differ materially. Forward-looking information is made as of the date hereof and the Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as required by law. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Flash Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday ruled out any talks with the U.S. government over the disputed issues, Tasnim news agency reported. The U.S. wants Iran to negotiate over its "defensive weapon" and to reduce the range of its missiles, while urging Iran to talk over its regional strategy, the Iranian leader was quoted as saying. "Therefore, the talks (over theses issues) are basically wrong," Khamenei said, stressing that holding "talks with Washington, particularly with the current U.S. government, is poisonous." U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out the landmark Iranian international nuclear deal in May last year and has reimposed U.S. sanctions against the Islamic republic. Withe the sanctions and the recent U.S. military buildup in the Gulf, the Trump administration aims to force Iran to return to the negotiation table by exerting "maximum pressures". Washington seeks to seal a new nuclear deal with Iran, which will further curb Iran's nuclear program, stop Iran's ballistic missile development, and halt Iran's push for influence in the region. "None of our wise people (inside Iran) seeks talks with the United States," said Khamenei. "Iranians' ultimate option is to resist the U.S. pressures, and in this confrontation Americans will have to retreat," he said. The Iranian leader also ruled out the possibility of a war between Tehran and Washington, despite the rising tensions that have fueled worries about an armed conflict between the two rivals. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX: LAC) (NYSE: LAC) ("Lithium Americas" or the "Company") has announced its financial and operating results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019. This news release should be read in conjunction with Lithium Americas unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements and management's discussion and analysis ("MD&A") for the three months ended March 31, 2019, which are available on Lithium Americas website and SEDAR. HIGHLIGHTS Cauchari-Olaroz: On April 1, 2019 the Company entered into a definitive transaction agreement whereby Ganfeng Lithium Co., Ltd. (Ganfeng) has agreed to subscribe, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, for 141 million newly issued shares of Minera Exar, for cash consideration of US$160 million (such transaction, the Project Investment). On closing of the Project Investment, Ganfeng will increase its direct interest in the Cauchari-Olaroz project from 37.5% to 50%, with Lithium Americas holding the remaining 50% interest (each subject to the rights of JEMSE (the Government of Jujuy) to acquire an approximate 8.5% interest in Minera Exar). Lithium Americas and Ganfeng have agreed to implement certain amendments to the Shareholders Agreement governing the Minera Exar joint venture, including the provision of equal representation on the Minera Exar board of directors and the Management Committee governing the joint venture. In addition, on closing of the Project Investment, Minera Exar is expected to repay an $8 million loan, together with accrued but unpaid interest thereon, that was previously advanced by the Company in order to provide interim funding used for the construction and development of Cauchari-Olaroz during the closing of the 2018 transactions between Lithium Americas and Ganfeng. The Project Investment constitutes a related party transaction. Closing of the Project Investment remains subject to Ganfeng shareholder and regulatory approvals, the consent of BCP Innovation Pte. Ltd. in its capacity as lender pursuant to the Companys senior credit facility, the Companys shareholder approval and other customary closing conditions. Lithium Americas and Ganfeng continue to actively work with Minera Exar to advance construction, procurement and engineering at Cauchari-Olaroz with the goal of producing the highest quality battery grade lithium carbonate for the lowest cost. Minera Exar is undertaking a feasibility study in respect of an increase in the stated production capacity of the Cauchari-Olaroz project from 25,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) to an aggregate of 40,000 tpa of lithium carbonate, as well as to advance certain permitting, design and other development planning activities at Cauchari-Olaroz. Development activities are on schedule with the advancement of detailed engineering, ponds construction, production wells drilling, camp construction, plant design and equipment procurement to support the start of production in the second half of 2020. Two evaporation ponds are completed, one pond is filled with brine and subsequent to the quarter end Minera Exar started filling the second pond and the third, partially completed, pond. Nine ponds are at various stages of construction. A total of seven wells are currently pumping brine to the ponds and three more wells are under construction. Requests for quotations for most of the long lead equipment items are under evaluation. The first plant construction package was awarded and the contractor mobilized to perform the work. A total of $73 million was advanced to Minera Exar in 2019 year to date (including $45.6 million by the Company) in the form of loans to fund the construction. As of the current date, 520 people are working at the site, 178 are Minera Exar employees and 342 are contractors. Current camp capacity at the site accommodates 554 people and an additional 128 beds will be added in 2019 in preparation for construction activities in addition to the operations camp capacity that will follow. Initial Stage 1 capital cost estimate of $425 million, on a 100% basis and before value-added taxes (VAT), remains unchanged. The Company increased the Measured and Indicated mineral resource at its Cauchari-Olaroz project by 53% to 17.9 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) at 581 mg/L average grade and the Inferred mineral resource to 5.1 million tonnes of LCE at 602 mg/L. The updated Measured and Indicated mineral resource has not been used to update the assumptions in the Companys detailed feasibility study, see discussion below. Lithium Nevada: The permitting process for Thacker Pass is underway, with environmental baseline data collection complete and a conceptual Mine Plan of Operations (MPO) submitted to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). A final MPO is forecasted to be submitted to the BLM in the second half of 2019. A process testing facility has been constructed and commissioned in Reno, Nevada to optimize the process (predominantly to reduce the consumption of sulfuric acid), prepare tailings samples for stability and geochemical analysis and to provide feed samples to vendors who will design the equipment and provide performance guarantees. The Company is considering the production of lithium hydroxide directly from lithium sulfate to provide added flexibility to market demand. The Company intends to prepare a NI 43-101 compliant definitive feasibility study detailing the status of the permitting process and outcomes of the 2018 exploration program and process testing facility testing in due course, along with other applicable updates. The Company is evaluating potential partnership and financing scenarios for Thacker Pass. RheoMinerals: RheoMinerals sales for the three months ended March 31, 2019 were $1.3 million (2018 $1.1 million). As a result of lower than expected sales, in Q4 2018 the Company recognized an $11.58 million impairment of Organoclay property, plant and equipment. In April, 2019, the Company reviewed RheoMinerals business plan and implemented cost-reducing measures with the aim to make the business profitable. Finance: As at March 31, 2019, the Company had $36.2 million in cash and cash equivalents. The Company has a $205 million credit facility to finance its share of capital expenditures in Minera Exar. Since the inception of the credit facility, the Company has drawn $63.1 million ($17.5 million of which was drawn in 2018, $37.5 million in Q1, 2019 and $8.1 million subsequently to Q1 2019). As part of the Transaction, Ganfeng also provided LAC an additional $100 million unsecured, limited recourse, subordinated loan facility, which is undrawn at the date of this MD&A, increasing LACs overall credit availability to $241.9 million (net of drawdowns to date). The proceeds of the subordinated loan facility are available to the Company to be used for general corporate purposes. Corporate: Tom Hodgson has retired as Chief Executive Officer and as a director of the Company, effective May 15, 2019. The Board of Directors has appointed Jonathan (Jon) Evans, currently President and Chief Operating Officer, to the role of President and Chief Executive Officer and to replace Mr. Hodgson on the Board. Mr. Hodgson has agreed to stay on as a consultant to assist with the transition and will continue to support the Company as needed. Updated Cauchari-Olaroz Mineral Resource On April 1, 2019, the Company published the technical report dated March 31, 2019, with an effective date of March 1, 2019, entitled NI 43-101 Technical Report Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the Cauchari-Olaroz Project, Jujuy Province, Argentina (Cauchari TR). Included in the Cauchari TR is an updated Mineral Resource estimate for the Cauchari-Olaroz Project as summarized in the table below, reported on a 100% project equity basis. LAC no longer reports a potassium Mineral Resource on the project. Mineral Resources The Mineral Resource estimate below is expressed relative to a lithium grade cut-off of greater than or equal to 300 mg/L. Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for Lithium at the Cauchari-Olaroz project Category Average Lithium Grade (mg/L) Brine (m3) Lithium Metal LCE (tonnes) Measured 587 1.11E+09 651,100 3,465,700 Indicated 580 4.70E+09 2,726,300 14,511,500 Measured + Indicated 581 5.81E+09 3,377,400 17,977,200 Inferred 602 1.59E+09 957,400 5,096,000 Notes: (1) The Mineral Resource estimate has an effective date of February 13, 2019. (2) Mineral Resources have a cut-off grade of 300 mg/L of lithium. (3) Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resource will be converted to Mineral Reserves. (4) LCE is calculated based on the following conversion factor: mass of LCE = 5.322785 x mass of lithium metal. The updated resource provided above constitutes a change of -1% for total average lithium concentration of Measured + Indicated (585 mg/L vs. 581mg/L) and a change of +53% for total LCE Measured + Indicated (11,752,000 tonnes LCE vs. 17,977,200 tonnes LCE). The increase in overall mass can be attributed to the expansion and deepening of the Resource Evaluation Area based on exploration results obtained in 2017 and 2018. The decline in total average concentration can be attributed to the updated Resource estimate affected by the 2017 and 2018 range of samples collected in SdO and Archibarca areas of the Cauchari-Olaroz Project. When spatially averaged with the lithium concentration of SdC samples, which essentially dominated the prior estimate, the updated estimate has a relatively small percentage decrease in the overall concentration of lithium. Technical Information Detailed scientific and technical information on the Cauchari-Olaroz Project can be found in the Cauchari TR that was filed with the securities regulatory authorities in each of the provinces of Canada on March 31, 2019. The Cauchari TR has an effective date of March 1, 2019 and was prepared by Ernest Burga, P.Eng., David Burga, P.Geo., Wayne Genck, P.Eng. and Daniel Weber, P.G., RM-SME, each of whom is a qualified person for the purposes of NI 43-101. Financial Results: The following selected financial information is presented in thousands of US dollars, shares and other equity instruments in thousands, unless otherwise stated and except in relation to per share amounts. The following table summarises the items that resulted in the increase in net loss for the three months ended March 31, 2019 (Q1 2019) versus the three months ended March 31, 2018 (Q1 2018), as well as certain offsetting items: Financial results Period ended March 31, Change 2019 2018 $ $ $ Organoclay sales 1,280 1,096 184 Cost of sales (1,469 ) (1,677 ) 208 Exploration expenditures (1,181 ) (1,400 ) 219 Organoclay research and development (112 ) (133 ) 21 General and administrative expenses (1,910 ) (2,017 ) 107 Share of gain/(loss) in Joint Venture 1,384 (164 ) 1,548 Stock-based compensation (624 ) (1,945 ) 1,321 Transaction costs (757 ) - (757 ) Foreign exchange (loss)/gain (896 ) 1,369 (2,265 ) Finance costs (640 ) - (640 ) Other income 457 304 153 Net Loss (4,468 ) (4,567 ) 99 Net loss for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was $4,468 compared to $4,567 for the three months ended March 31, 2018. The slight decrease in the net loss was mainly attributable to a share of gain (versus loss in Q1 2018) in Joint Venture and a decrease in stock-based compensation, partially offset by an increase in the foreign exchange loss, transaction costs and finance costs. Organoclay Sales and Cost of Sales The organoclay sales in Q1 2019 were $1,280 (Q1 2018 - $1,096), with related production costs of $1,315 (Q1 2018 - $1,496) and depreciation expense of $154 (Q1 2018 - $181) resulting in gross loss of $189 (Q1 2018 - $581). Expenses Exploration expenditures in Q1 2019 of $1,181 (Q1 2018 $1,400) include expenditures incurred for the Thacker Pass project. The decrease in the Companys exploration expenditures is mostly due to the timing and scheduling of expenditures on the Thacker Pass project. Gain from the Joint Venture in Q1 2019 of $1,384 (Q1 2018 loss of $164) mainly represents the Companys share of the Exar Capital BV Joint Venture interest income on the loans to Minera Exar for the Cauchari-Olaroz project. Stock-based compensation in Q1 2019 of $624 (Q1 2018 - $1,945) is a non-cash expense and consists of the $209 (Q1 2018 - $1,513) estimated fair value of stock options, the $98 (Q1 2018 - $432) fair market value of RSUs, and the $317 (Q1 2018 nil) fair value of PSUs vested during the period. In Q1 2019 the Company granted 39 DSUs to its directors. Higher stock-based compensation during Q1 2018 was mainly due to the timing of the new stock option grants and RSU awards to the Companys employees and officers. Included in General and Administrative expenses in Q1 2019 of $1,910 (Q1 2018 - $2,017) are: Office and administrative expenses of $303 (Q1 2018 - $327) include insurance, IT, telephone, and other related expenses and RheoMinerals general office expenses. Professional fees of $241 (Q1 2018 - $325) consist mainly of legal fees of $73 (Q1 2018 $144), consulting fees of $92 (Q1 2018 - $114) and accounting fees of $76 (Q1 2018 - $39). The decrease is due to the costs of listing the Company on the NYSE in Q1 2018. Salaries and benefits of $853 (Q1 2018 - $771) include compensation to the Companys employees and directors fees. The increase in salaries and benefits is mainly due to the new hires. Regulatory and filing fees were $112 (Q1 2018 - $175). The decrease is due to the costs of listing the Company on the NYSE in Q1 2018. Other Items The Company recognized in Q1 2019 a foreign exchange loss of $896 (Q1 2018 gain of $1,369). The loss was due to the weakening of the US dollar against the Canadian dollar. The Company holds most of its cash in US currency. Other income in Q1 2019 was $457 (Q1 2018 - $304) and includes interest income earned on the Companys cash and cash equivalents and a $150 progress payment received by RheoMinerals from Delmon. Qualified Person: The scientific and technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Rene LeBlanc, a Qualified Person for purposes of NI 43-101 by virtue of his experience, education and professional association. Mr. LeBlanc is the Chief Technical Officer of the Company. Information on the Companys data verification and QA / QC procedures is contained in Lithium Americas current technical reports for the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project and the Thacker Pass lithium project, available at www.sedar.com. About Lithium Americas: Lithium Americas, together with Ganfeng Lithium, is developing the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium brine project, under construction in Jujuy, Argentina. In addition, Lithium Americas owns 100% of the Thacker Pass lithium project located in Nevada, the largest known lithium deposit in the United States. The Company trades on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol LAC. For further information contact: Lithium Americas Corp. Investor Relations Suite 300 900 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6C 1E6 Telephone: 778-656-5820 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Website: www.lithiumamericas.com Forward-looking statements: This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (which we refer to collectively as forward-looking information) under the provisions of applicable securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information. Examples of forward-looking information in this news release include, among other things: the expected benefits from the Project Investment, including successful closing and timing thereof; successful development of the Cauchari-Olaroz and Thacker Pass projects, including timing, anticipated production, and results thereof, the Companys ability to successfully fund such development, further optimization of Cauchari-Olaroz project, whether the resource update for Cauchari-Olaroz will ever be developed into reserves, including information and underlying assumptions related thereto, accuracy of estimates of mineral resources, whether the Company ever adopts a 40,000 tpa development plan for Cauchari-Olaroz, success of the Thacker Pass process testing facility, the results of any future feasibility study at Thacker Pass, results of partnership and financing options at Thacker Pass, and the results of RheoMinerals business plan and cost-reducing measures. Forward-looking information may involve known and unknown risks, assumptions and uncertainties which may cause the Companys actual results or performance to differ materially. This information reflects the Companys current views with respect to future events and is necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company today, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. These assumptions include, among others, successful closing of the Project Investment, including satisfaction of conditions precedent thereto and timing thereof; forecast demand for lithium products, the Companys ability to fund, advance and develop its projects, including results therefrom, accuracy of mineral resources and mineral reserves, including whether resources will ever be developed into reserves, accuracy of current budget and construction estimates, maintenance of a positive business relationship with Ganfeng, and a stable and supportive legislative and regulatory environment. Forward-looking information also involves known and unknown risks that may cause actual results to differ materially, these risks include, among others, risks inherent in transactions similar to the Project Investment, including successful completion of all conditions precedent thereto; inherent risks in development of capital intensive mineral projects (including as co-owners), variations in mineral resources and mineral reserves, whether mineral resources can ever be converted into mineral reserves, whether the Company ever adopts a 40,000 tpa development plan for Cauchari-Olaroz, recovery rates and lithium pricing, changes in project parameters and funding thereof, changes in legislation or governmental policy, title risk, cost overruns, operational risks and general market and industry conditions. Additional risks, assumptions and other factors are set out in the Companys management discussion and analysis and most recent annual information form, copies of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks and assumptions, given the inherent uncertainties in such forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results to differ materially. Forward-looking information is made as of the date hereof and the Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as required by law. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Mont., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sandfire Resources America, Inc. (Sandfire America or the Company) is pleased to announce that the 60-day comment period for the Companys Black Butte Copper Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has now closed. The Draft EIS was prepared by an independent third-party environmental expert for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MT DEQ). The comment period included three public meetings in Great Falls, Livingston and White Sulphur Springs, Montana as well as two webinars. A link to the Draft EIS can be found on our website, www.sandfireamerica.com, along with a link to our community presentation, which provides a detailed overview of the Project. The next step in the MT DEQs process will be to respond to public comments and issue a final EIS. The MT DEQ can then issue a Record of Decision (ROD) that approves the application as submitted, approves the application with modifications, or denies the application if it does not meet the laws of the State of Montana. This could potentially occur as early as the September Quarter of 2019. Commenting on the completion of the Draft EIS public comment period, Rob Scargill, CEO and VP Project Development, said: Public participation is a key element in making sure that a project of this importance, both economically and environmentally, is implemented to the highest caliber. We would like to thank those who took the time to comment on both sides of the issue, making this a robust process. We now look forward to the DEQs review of comments, followed by completion of the permitting process in the summer. The preparation of a Feasibility Study (FS) for Black Butte Copper Project is progressing with the recent finalization of the process flow sheets, reagents regime and geology wireframes for the Johnny Lee Upper and Lower Copper Zones. The Black Butte Copper Project is a proposed to be a showcase underground mine, designed and engineered to provide economic opportunity to Central Montana while fully protecting Sheep Creek and Smith River Watershed. Contact Information: Sandfire Resources America Inc. Nancy Schlepp, VP of Communications Mobile: 406-224-8180 Office: 406-547-3466 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. CAUTIONARY NOTE Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Certain disclosures in this document constitute forward looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the completion of the Feasibility Study, permitting timelines and the Companys plans for advancing the Black Butte Copper Project and expected outcomes. In making these forward-looking statements, the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that the Company believes are reasonable, including that the Company will receive required regulatory approvals, that the Company will continue to be able to access sufficient funding to execute its plans, and that the results of exploration and development activities will be consistent with managements expectations. However, the forward-looking statements in this document are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors, including factors relating to the Companys operation as a mineral exploration and development company and the Black Butte Copper Project, that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements, including that results of exploration and development activities will not be consistent with managements expectations, delays in obtaining or inability to obtain required government or other regulatory approvals or financing, failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, the risk of accidents, labor disputes, inclement or hazardous weather conditions, unusual or unexpected geological conditions, ground control problems, earthquakes, flooding and all of the other risks generally associated with the development of mining facilities. 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. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and 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 required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Seventh Day Adventist Church has accused the Burundi government of harassment, saying that two of its local leaders and 21 others had been arrested in recent weeks. For more than six months, the Burundi government has increasingly harassed and abused the Seventh-day Adventist Church by imprisoning, beating, and intimidating Seventh-day Adventist church leaders and members, the churchs United States-based president Ted Wilson said in a statement this week. He said that on Friday last week, the president of the Burundi chapter of the church Pastor Lamec Barishinga and local field president Pastor Lambert had been detained after the arrests of 21 other church members since early May. The two leaders were detained after Bujumbura refused the churchs attempts to fire Barishingas predecessor who is close to the government, a local pastor told AFP late Tuesday on condition of anonymity. It is to put pressure on them, the source said. Joseph Ndikubwayo was fired in November 2018, accused of embezzling church funds and also accepting a role with a government organ, which fundamentally contradicts church doctrine, according to another pastor, speaking on condition of anonymity. However, Interior Minister Pascal Barandagiye refused to accept the nomination of a new head, citing problems at the church caused by the choice of a contested leader. Instead, he decided to extend Ndikubwayos term until an election could be held to replace him. In a letter to Wilson sent in April and seen by AFP, Barandagiye said that in the absence of a cooperation agreement between the Adventist church and the government of Burundi, the local church must conform to national law. Burundi plunged into crisis when President Pierre Nkurunziza sought in April 2015 a fiercely-contested third term in office. Violence claimed at least 1,200 lives and displaced more than 400,000 people between April 2015 and May 2017, according to estimates by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has opened an investigation. Since then, the government has clamped down on the media and adopted strict laws to tighten control on associations and local churches. The Adventist church counts around 150,000 members in Burundi and is one of the oldest in the country. A 65-year-old Israeli man has been arrested for allegedly spitting at the Polish ambassador, police said Wednesday, adding to tensions between the two countries. Israels envoy to Poland Anna Azari was summoned to the Polish foreign ministry in Warsaw over the incident, Polish foreign ministry spokeswoman Ewa Suwara said. Polands Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called it a xenophobic act of aggression. Polish ambassador Marek Magierowski was sitting in his car on Tuesday when a man approached and spat at him, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Police arrested a 65-year-old from Herzliya, a city north of Tel Aviv, Rosenfeld said. The suspect was being held in police custody and was due to appear in court in Tel Aviv later Wednesday. The alleged incident came a day after Poland cancelled a visit by Israeli officials over their intention to raise the issue of the restitution of Jewish properties seized during the Holocaust, a matter Warsaw insists is closed. The Polish premier condemned the racist attack. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated, Morawiecki tweeted on Wednesday. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon expressed our fullest sympathy to the ambassador and our shock at the attack. According to Israels Yediot Aharonot daily, Magierowski was also verbally accosted by the suspect in Hebrew, but did not understand anything except for the word Pole directed at him. Anti-Semitic concerns regarding Poland have recently resurfaced. Last year, Warsaw passed a law that made it illegal to accuse the Polish nation or state of complicity in Nazi German war crimes. The move sparked an outcry from Israel, which saw it as an attempt to ban testimonials on Polish crimes against Jews. In response, Warsaw amended the law to remove the possibility of fines or a prison sentence. In February, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz drew Polands ire by quoting late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir saying Poles suckle anti-Semitism with their mothers milk. In April, the World Jewish Congress condemned a Polish town after reports that residents burnt an effigy made to look like a stereotypical Jew in a revival of an old Easter tradition. Irans Defence Minister Brigadier-General Amir Hatami vowed Wednesday to inflict the bitter taste of defeat on the United States in its economic war on the Islamic republic. Hatami was speaking to Revolutionary Guards veterans in Tehran with tensions riding high a year after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, leading to renewed economic sanctions on Tehran. The relations between the two countries have deteriorated even further in recent weeks as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on Iran over alleged threats from Tehran. The proud nation of Islamic Iran will once again pass this sensitive period of time with its head held high, and force the bitter taste of defeat onto the American-Zionist alliance, Hatami said, referring to the US and its ally Israel. Washington said on Saturday that in response to the alleged threats from Iran it was deploying an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to bolster an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers already sent to the region President Hassan Rouhani later condemned the US sanctions on his country. The hard times and problems of Americas economic war against Iran have begun what America is doing is a crime against humanity, he said. Rouhani accused the US of disrupting the flow of livelihood, food and medical drugs to normal Iranians. This war is not against the government of the Islamic republic of Iran, its against the Iranian nation, he said. Student from Lenexa is university's latest Cargill Global Scholar Wednesday, May 15, 2019 MANHATTAN A Kansas State University student is being recognized for exemplary academic achievement and leadership potential. Kayley Brethour, sophomore in entrepreneurship, Lenexa, has been selected as one of 10 U.S. 2019 Cargill Global Scholars. The U.S. scholars will join scholars from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Russia for a total of 66 worldwide scholars. As high-performing first- or second-year university students, Cargill Global Scholars study in fields that relate to Cargill Inc.'s business goal of providing innovative solutions to meet today's economic, environmental and social challenges. The scholar program, administered by the Institute of International Education, provides students with tools to become global leaders and decision-makers. Brethour will receive annual scholarships for up to two years, attend a three-day leadership seminar with other U.S. scholars in Minneapolis in June, and attend Cargill's global leadership seminar with Cargill executives and scholars from around the world. In addition, a Cargill mentor will help her with academic and professional goals. "I look forward to learning about the process of food systems at a global level and connecting with like-minded students around the world to discuss the future of these processes," Brethour said. "I am so grateful for the opportunity Cargill has given me and hope to be able to take what I will learn in this program and apply it to help solve the agricultural sustainability issues our state and country currently faces." A beekeeper since her freshman year in high school, Brethour has researched declining bee populations and sustainable agriculture. She advocates for sustainable agriculture practices that can help bees and improve environmental issues affecting Midwest farmers. At Kansas State University, she serves on the executive council of the university's Entrepreneurship Club, is treasurer of Chimes Junior Honorary and is a member of the Entrepreneurship Ambassadors. In addition to the Cargill Global Scholarship, Brethour has received a Vanier Family Business Administration Best of Kansas Scholarship and Wabash Cannonball Scholarship. She has been named a finalist for the Koch Discovery Scholarship and was nominated for a Udall Scholarship. She is the daughter of Clay and Kristin Brethour, Lenexa. ABBREVIATIONS AIHRC Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission ALP Afghan Local Police ANA Afghanistan National Army ANBP Afghanistan National Border Police ANP Afghanistan National Police ANSF Afghanistan National Security Forces ANDS Afghanistan National Directorate of Security BBC British Broadcasting Corporation DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade EU European Union HRW Human Rights Watch IDE Improvised Explosive Devices IDP Internal Displaced Person ISAF International Security Assistance Force IS-PK Islamic state- Khorasan Province MP Member of Parliament NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organizations NUG National Unity Government PC Provincial Council UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan UNDP United Nations Development Programmes Flash Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday that two of its oil pipeline booster stations were targeted by drone attacks, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. Saudi Minister of Energy Khalid Al-Falih confirmed in a statement cited by the SPA that the two oil-pumping stations of its main pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, which caused a fire at the No. 8 station with limited damage. Al-Falih condemned the attacks as "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies, adding that the drone attacks, along with the Sunday attacks against four ships including two Saudi oil vessels near the port of Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), aimed to destabilize the international energy supply. "Saudi Aramco took precautionary measures and temporarily stopped operation of the pipeline, as it is evaluating the situation and working on restoring the operations of the affected pump station and the pipeline," Al-Falih said. Saudi Aramco confirmed that there were no injuries or casualties in the attacks. The 1,200-kilometre (750-mile) East-West pipeline carries crude from Saudi Arabia's main eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in the west. The minister also vowed that the Saudi oil supply and production won't be affected by the attacks. He urged for global efforts to confront all terrorist groups that carry out such acts, including the Houthi militias in Yemen that are allegedly backed by Iran. Yemen's Houthi rebels on Tuesday claimed responsibility for carrying out drone attacks on a major pipeline and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. There have been no comments yet by the Saudi Arabia on the Yemeni rebels' claim. Bahrain, Jordan, the UAE, Egypt, and Arab League on Tuesday condemned the drone attacks on the Saudi oil pumping stations. The Houthi rebels have launched dozens of drone strikes and ballistic missile attacks on Saudi cities in the past months to retaliate against the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes on their positions in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been leading a Sunni Arab military coalition against the Yemeni Shiite Houthi rebels since March 2015 to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who was forced into exile in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Flash Media exchanges serve as a bridge to promote close ties between China and the nations of ASEAN, and should make greater use of developing new technologies for an even greater contribution. This was one of the conclusions of participants in the 2019 ASEAN-China Media Cooperation Forum held in Beijing on Tuesday. Moderated by Gao Anming, vice president of one of the forum organizers, China International Publishing Group (CIPG), the forum adopted a theme of "New Trends, New Cooperation, New Future." Over 200 people, including government officials, ambassadors, international organization representatives, as well as professionals from nearly 60 media outlets attended the event. Participants exchanged views on how Chinese and ASEAN media outlets should actively adapt to new technologies and promote cooperation, and explore innovative ways to better report stories on achievements of win-win cooperation and strengthening people-to-people ties. In opening remarks, Guo Weimin, vice minister of the State Council Information Office of China, said, "Linked by mountains and rivers, China and ASEAN nations share great similarities in culture. Our friendly interactions go a long way back. We are close friends, good neighbors and great partners." Highlighting the fact that 2019 is the China-ASEAN Year of Media Exchanges, Guo said China would like to deepen pragmatic cooperation in trade, connectivity, technological innovation, and cultural exchanges in particular, under the guidance of the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership Vision 2030, and further promote bilateral media cooperation and people-to-people ties. Du Zhanyuan, president of CIPG, echoed Guo's highlighting of the role of the media in promoting bilateral ties, and he suggested establishment of a mechanism for regular media exchanges and cooperation. He said CIPG would like to share experiences with its counterparts in ASEAN, and would make vigorous innovations through practice and promote the application of new technologies in international communications. Dr. AKP Mochtan, deputy secretary-general of ASEAN for Community and Corporate Affairs, observed that the "media landscape around the world has changed dramatically, and people can gather instantaneous information from the internet rather than merely from the traditional media." This enabled them to provide instantaneous reactions and comments on news through social media. He suggested upgrading the skills of media outlets and media exchange programs, and making improvements by engaging more with the general public for a better popularization of the stories. As editor-in-chief of China.org.cn, one of China's major media outlets, Wang Xiaohui said that, "engaging in this industry, we should seize all opportunities to exchange views, tap our full potential to cooperate, and open more channels of communication." Expressing his confidence in the future of China-ASEAN media cooperation, he said that even mountains and seas cannot distance people with common aspirations; Chinese and ASEAN media outlets would work together to strengthen content innovation and expand communication channels, cooperate closely in media convergence, and actively promote personnel exchanges. The forum was organized by the CIPG, the Mission of the People's Republic of China to ASEAN and the ASEAN-China Center. New research finds unprecedented weakening of Asian summer monsoon WASHINGTON-- Rainfall from the Asian summer monsoon has been decreasing over the past 80 years, a decline unprecedented in the last 448 years, according to a new study. The new research used tree ring records to reconstruct the Asian summer monsoon back to 1566. The study, published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, found the monsoon has been weakening since the 1940s, resulting in regional droughts and hardships. The new research finds man-made atmospheric pollutants are likely the reason for the decline. The 80-year decline in the monsoon coincides with the ongoing boom in industrial development and aerosol emissions in China and the northern hemisphere that began around the end of World War II, according to the study's authors. Previous studies have looked at tree ring chronologies from this region but the new study, "surpasses [previous dendrochronology studies] in terms of the timespan covered and the number of trees involved," said Steve Leavitt, a dendrochronologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a co-author of the new study. "We were able to gather nearly 450 years worth of tree ring data with clear annual resolution from an area where tree ring growth correlates very strongly with rainfall." Nearly half of the world's population is affected by the Asian summer monsoon, which dumps the majority of the continent's rainfall in a few short, torrential months. Summer rainfall has been declining in recent decades, influencing water availability, ecosystems and agriculture from India to Siberia. Instrumental and observational records of monsoon strength and annual precipitation only go back about a hundred years. Long-term paleoclimate records are needed to help determine whether this decline is due to anthropogenic factors such as aerosol pollution or natural variation in the monsoon cycle. Trees record hard times The new study uses an ensemble of 10 tree ring chronologies collected from the western Loess Plateau in north central China to track precipitation trends over the last 448 years. In wetter years, trees tend to grow thicker rings and precipitation records can be gleaned by measuring the thickness and density of the individual layers. "One of the primary advantages of using tree rings to study precipitation is the annual resolution and the exact dating," Leavitt said. The tree rings captured drought periods such as the one that struck in 1928 and 1929 that led to widespread famine where more than 500,000 people died in China alone. The findings were also cross-checked with Chinese historical records of locust plagues, which tend to occur in drought years, as well as previously published tree ring chronologies. The new study found that the 80-year declining rainfall trend is unprecedented in the last 450 years, with more thin growth rings in the last 80 years than any other period. Prior to the 1940s, drought periods tended to be intermittent and shorter in duration with no other decades-long declines since 1566. Several factors are thought to affect the strength of the Asian Summer Monsoon, including solar variability, volcanic eruptions and anthropogenic aerosols. The study's authors used climate models to show sulfate aerosols - atmospheric pollutants that cause haze - are likely the dominant forcing agent controlling the decline of the Asian Summer Monsoon over the past 80 years. The study is an important data point in the ongoing quest to better understand the past and future of the global monsoon systems that deliver much of the world's precipitation, says Liviu Giosan, a paleoclimatologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who was not involved in the new study. "Monsoons are notoriously difficult to model and predict due to the high degree of regional variability," he said. "To learn more about the future, we need to better understand the past," Giosan said. "More of these kinds of studies that show [monsoon activity] over entire regions will help us better understand how the Asian Summer Monsoon functions as a whole, synoptically, over the entire continent." ### Founded in 1919, AGU is a not-for-profit scientific society dedicated to advancing Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. We support 60,000 members, who reside in 135 countries, as well as our broader community, through high-quality scholarly publications, dynamic meetings, our dedication to science policy and science communications, and our commitment to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, as well as many other innovative programs. AGU is home to the award-winning news publication Eos, the Thriving Earth Exchange, where scientists and community leaders work together to tackle local issues, and a headquarters building that represents Washington, D.C.'s first net zero energy commercial renovation. We are celebrating our Centennial in 2019. #AGU100 Notes for Journalists This paper is freely available through June 15. Journalists and public information officers (PIOs) can download a PDF copy of the article by clicking on this link: https:/ / agupubs. onlinelibrary. wiley. com/ doi/ epdf/ 10. 1029/ 2019GL082497 Journalists and PIOs may also request a copy of the final paper by emailing Liza Lester at llester@agu.orgllester@agu.org. Please provide your name, the name of your publication, and your phone number. Neither the paper nor this press release is under embargo. Paper Title "Anthropogenic aerosols cause recent pronounced weakening of Asian Summer Monsoon relative to last four centuries" Authors: Yu Liu, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Quaternary Science and Global Change, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; Interdisciplinary Research Center of Earth Science Frontier (IRCESF) and Joint Center for Global Change Studies (JCGCS), Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Wenju Cai, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia; The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Huiming Song, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Kim M. Cobb, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Jianping Li, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Steven Leavitt, The Laboratory of Tree?Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA Qiufang Cai, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Ruoshi Liu, School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China Benjamin Ng, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia Paolo Cherubini, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland Ulf Buentgen, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, UK; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland; Global Change Research Centre and Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Yi Song, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Guojian Wang, Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China; CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia Ying Lei, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Libin Yan, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Qiang Li, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China; Laboratory for Ocean Dynamics and Climate, Pilot Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China Yongyong Ma, Shaanxi Meteorological Observatory, Xi'an, China Congxi Fang, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Junyan Sun, The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China Xuxiang Li, School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China Deliang Chen, Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Hans Wilhelm Linderholm, Regional Climate Group, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden AGU press contact: Liza Lester +1 (202) 777-7494 llester@agu.orgllester@agu.org Researcher contacts: Yu Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences +86 13359291673 liuyu@loess.llqg.ac.cn Steven Leavitt, University of Arizona, Tucson sleavitt@ltrr.arizona.edu This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) Veteran senators will guide their new colleagues once they assume office, Senate President Vicente Tito Sotto III said Wednesday. In a statement, Sotto said the Senate staff can always offer orientation for new senators. The Senate secretariat is always ready to assist the new Senators anytime upon request/instruction, as they always do every time there is a new member of the Senate, the Senate President said. Pwede rin individual ang (Theres also individual) briefing for new senator, he added. Sotto said the secretariat can offer training and orientation on the legislative process to newly-hired senatorial staff. CNN Philippines interview with former Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Ronald Bato Dela Rosa made rounds online Tuesday evening, after the senatorial candidate admitted he has yet to learn what a senator really does. Dela Rosa, one of the leading bets based on partial, official election tally, added he will also take part in lawmaking seminars should he win a Senate seat. Incumbent senators said they will also offer pieces of advice should the latter win. We will be meeting with the new members and give them some tips or lectures as was done to my batch in 2001. Bato need not worry, Senator Ping Lacson said in a statement. Crash course? The University of the Philippines National Center for Public Administration and Governance (UP NCPAG) offers a short course on legislation for new lawmakers. Some of the programs notable alumni include Senator Nancy Binay, Quezon City Representative Alfred Vargas, and Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez. UP NCPAG Dean Maria Fe Mendoza said the program aims to orient solons about the process of creating and passing bills, as well as how to navigate the legislative mill. She added the program can be customized depending on the senators schedule. The customized course deals on the roles of policy makers, what issues... basically developing his or her legislative agenda, what he... the processes that he or she would undergo in order to sponsor a bill, Mendoza said. Mendoza said Dela Rosa is welcome on campus. However, the former national police chief stressed he is not keen on enrolling in the countrys premier state university. "'Pag UP 'di na ko pupunta dun, alanganin ako sa lugar na 'yan. Anti-military 'yang lugar na 'yan, ayaw ko pumunta d'yan, anti-police 'yan," he said, referring to the University of the Philippines. [Translator: I won't go to UP. It's anti-military and anti-police, so I won't go there.] Gomez, who won his reelection bids, advised Dela Rosa to take short, one-on-one courses in NCPAG. He will be taught how to craft a law. Kasama rin doon (it also includes) on how to work with agencies, said Gomez, who also took courses on legislation under the same department, in an interview with CNN Philippines. Gomez added theres nothing wrong with learning new things. When you take these courses, you have to approach this with an open mind. He has to take these with humility. There's nothing wrong naman with learning and being taught, the actor-turned-public official added. CNN Philippines' Alyssa Rola, Robert Vergara, Xianne Arcangel, and Joyce Ilas contributed to this report. MEDFORD, Ore. Sparrow Clubs around southern Oregon are starting to wrap up as the school year comes to a close. Today was the final Sparrow assembly for Kennedy Elementary School where, just four months ago, students started participating in community service to raise support for their Sparrow, Everly. It all started with two 6th grade students, Maritza Villas and Betzy Ordonez, wanted to have their school sponsor a Sparrow. With the school year already half over, they called up Matt Sampson, Sparrow Clubs National Program Director, and asked if they could get started. Now, four months later, Kennedy Elementary not only reached their service hour goal of 256 hours, they doubled that and did a separate penny drive to donate items to their Sparrow. It makes me think of all the good things that you can do in your life, said Villa, when asked what it was like to see their success. Ordonez explained why she even pushed to bring Sparrow Clubs to their school in the first place: I want them to have a life like I have. I want them to have fun and not be worried about their healthiness. Its been a really life-changing experience, said Kevin Turner, Everlys dad. This last year has been hard for us. Weve been through a lot in a short amount of time and so its nice to see all these kids come together and help this little girl. Everly suffers from a rare disease called Cystinosis. Only 500 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with the metabolic disease. Her body doesnt process or rid her cells of cystine, explained Everlys mom, Haven Combs. It affects literally every organ in her body. She also is in kidney failure, thats a part of the disease. Everly is only 20 months old. She was diagnosed at 9 months. Combs says they spent the majority of the summer at Doernbecher in Portland. She was diagnosed at nine months with failure to thrive she eats and eats and eats but she wasnt gaining any weight. She got really backed up in her digestive system and thats initially what we went in for, said Combs. Then they did x-rays and bloodwork and it was all very mysterious. Kennedy Elementary partnered with Banner Bank and Grants Pass Active Club and today they awarded Everly with $2,650.00. All that money is going to go towards Everly and all of her expenses in life, said Turner. Sparrow Clubs is an education charity with a mission to encourage heroic acts of kindness in schools and youth by partnering a school with a child in medical need. A sponsor funds a Sparrow Club at a local school, each club gets matched up with a Sparrow (a child in medical need). Students then volunteer in their community to earn funds for their Sparrow. Sparrows then receive the funds raised to go towards their medical expenses. MEDFORD, Oregon. You should have already received your voter pamphlet and ballots for the 2019 Special General Election, but perhaps you're still trying to make a decision on who or what deserves your vote this month. Special elections tend to not get the attention that other ones garner consisting, as they do, of a few local candidates and measures. However, those choices could still have a big impact where you live. Most of the decisions on each ballot, no matter the city or county, will either involve ballot measures or candidates for school and service district offices. In Jackson County, the Central Point area will have the option to vote on an $82 million school bond for the Central Point School District, intended to address safety improvements, repairs, construction of new facilities and address overcrowding. According to the filing, the bond is estimated to maintain not increase the current property tax rate, as it will take over when a previous bond, approved in 2000, expires in 2020. "If approved, this measure would replace the tax rate of the expiring bond and is estimate to maintain the levy rate of approximately $1.15 per $1,000 of assessed value of the expiring bond," the District said in the filing. While many candidates are running unopposed, other races are highly competitive. There are five candidates running for a single position on the Eagle Point School Board. In the Medford School District, controversial perennial candidate Curt Ankerberg is running against Lilia Caballero, current Cultural Outreach Coordinator for the City of Medford, and realtor Ruth Moncus. Josephine County voters will be deciding on whether to pursue establishing a Rural Fire Protection District (Measure 17-89). This district would cover all the areas not currently served by rural or municipal fire districts areas like Merlin, Hugo, Fort Vannoy, Galice, Murphy, Wonder and Shan Creek. At present, people in these areas have the option of subscribing with Rural-Metro Fire, a private company. If approved, this measure would only get the ball rolling on the process it would not yet form a district and establish taxes to fund it. Grants Pass voters will be deciding on whether to impose a 3-cent per gallon gas tax to be dedicated to improving roads and other infrastructure in the city. If passed, the tax is expected to raise nearly $1.5 million per year and would replace the city's current Transportation Utility Fee, which residents cover. "The City Council has determined that a motor vehicle fuel tax is a preferable alternative to the current Transportation Utility Fee," the City's summary states. "Visitors and residents alike will contribute to the motor vehicle fuel tax, rather than just residents. It is estimated that the majority of fuel sold in Grants Pass is purchased by non-residents." Curry County is considering a 7 percent tax for guests who stay at hotels "and other lodgings" in unincorporated areas of the county. The proposal comes from the Curry County Board of Commissioners, who have already approved an ordinance that would become the basis for this tax, if approved by voters. "By state law, 70 percent of the net county lodging tax collections are dedicated for tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities; 30 percent may be used to fund other county services," reads the summary. "This measure may raise an estimate $602,000 for tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities; and approximately $258,000 for other county services." Election Day is coming up on Tuesday, May 21, and ballots must be received by the Elections Office (via mail) or deposited in an Official Ballot Drop Box no later than 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Ballots mailed too late to arrived by Tuesday will not be counted. EUGENE, Ore. A Southern Oregon man is headed to federal prison after a laundry list of drug and weapons charges caught up with him, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon. 35-year-old Christopher Michael Soares was sentenced on Wednesday to 13 years in federal prison and five years of supervised relief after pleading guilty for possessing with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. Despite the single charge and conviction, in 2016 Soares faced a number of different charges spanning between Bend and Jackson County. In June of 2016, officers stopped Soares in Deschutes County as he was driving a vehicle with two passengers. When the officers searched him, they found 99 grams of meth, 56 grams of heroin and a 9mm handgun. "Soares was later arrested on three separate occasions in Jackson County for additional drug and firearms offenses," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. According to court records, Soares has faced criminal charges many times and as far back as 2001 including theft, identity theft, foregery, drug possession and dealing, assault, reckless endangering and eluding police. The majority of those cases were in Jackson County. It wasn't until September of 2016 that the June incident in Bend caught up with Soares in the form of federal charges. He later pleaded guilty to the possession with intent to distribute charge for "50 grams or more of methamphetamine." Meanwhile, state prosecutors in Jackson County agreed to "global resolution" with the federal authorities in order to resolve the multiple pending cases against Soares, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Bend Police, Medford Police, Deschutes County Sheriff, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) worked together on the investigation. According to the U.S. Attorney's office, the case came to federal authorities as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a Department of Justice initiative intended to reduce violent crime. "PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them," the Attorney's office said. "As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime." By SARAH ZIMMERMAN Associated Press SALEM, Ore. (AP) As Oregon continues to rake in historic amounts of revenue, state economists warned Wednesday that budgeters should plan wisely as a recession could be over the horizon. While economic forecast closely tracked expectations, same cannot be said for tax collections. Both personal and corporate are up 50%+ over the past year. Such gains are well above anything that could come from underlying economic growth. Effective tax rates jumped considerably pic.twitter.com/onSag4tljn Oregon Econ Analysis (@OR_EconAnalysis) May 15, 2019 The state will take in nearly $870 million more than what was initially forecasted just three months ago, according to May revenue forecast. That gives lawmakers over $22 billion for the next two-year budget cycle. Mark McMullen, a state economist with the Office of Economic Analysis, called the extra revenue a "truly seismic event." Tax changes on the federal level, said McMullen, spurred extra revenue in states across the country, which led to more tax revenue for states and smaller refunds for individual taxpayers. But he stressed lawmakers shouldn't expect to rely on this historic amount of growth in the future. "The tax filing season was really remarkable," said McMullen. "The puzzle becomes how much of this will become permanent. We know it all isn't sustainable." The unexpected revenue, which has been a "global phenomenon" according to McMullen, will only be temporary. Personal income has actually gone down by 1 percent, and experts suggest the economy will continue to slow as Baby Boomers continue to age out of the workforce. Gov. Kate Brown appeared cautiously optimistic with the forecast, suggesting saving some of the funds while spreading the rest across some of the Democrats' biggest priorities this session including housing, higher education, foster care and paying down the state's $25 billion pension debt. "Today's revenue forecast shows a windfall that presents a unique opportunity to protect Oregon's future," said Brown in a statement. Legislative leaders were more hesitant, suggesting most of the money be invested in the state's rainy day fund to prepare for an economic downturn. They've already suggested a tight budget, calling for 5% cuts across nearly all state programs. "We need to approach these unexpected resources prudently," said House Speaker Tina Kotek. "Any use of one-time funds should be focused on areas of significant need, such as housing and pension debts." Some of that revenue will have to be returned to the taxpayers, thanks to the state's unique "two percent kicker" law, which refunds excess revenue when the state's coffers are more than 2 percent higher than forecasted. This year's kicker is expected to be the largest in state history at $1.4 billion, though $108 million of that will be redirected to pay for education thanks to a law recently signed by the governor. State economists suggest the median taxpayer rebate to be around $330, which comes in the form of a tax credit. The top 1% of income earners will receive a $14,000 tax credit. While the kicker dampens some of the state's growth, economists said Oregon's still in good shape and has enough reserve funds to provide a comfortable cushion should a recession hit. By SARAH ZIMMERMAN SALEM, Ore. (AP) Critics blasted a decision by Oregon lawmakers that killed a bill aimed at getting more children vaccinated for measles and other preventable diseases in order pass a tax on large businesses, saying it jeopardized public health. .@Oregon_GOP senators left the Capitol last week. To bring them back, @OregonGovBrown struck a deal that killed two bills, on vaccine exemptions and gun control. Listen here: https://t.co/6vEwJ3iEjB#orpol pic.twitter.com/VmDfgw7Yap ThinkOutLoud on OPB (@OPBTOL) May 14, 2019 Despite passing the House and having the necessary votes in the Senate, the measure to make it harder for families to opt out of required vaccinations was nixed as part of a deal announced Monday to end a week-long Republican walkout over a multibillion school funding tax. Under the vaccination measure children would only have been be able to forgo vaccine requirements with a doctor's note, otherwise they'd be unable to attend public school. Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a Democrat from Beaverton, Oregon, and the bill's sponsor, said the move prevents the state from protecting its citizens from a public health crisis. "This isn't how I want our state to be known," she said. "This is a major public health issue and it's critical we address it." More than 70 people, including four from Oregon, were diagnosed as part of a months-long outbreak in the Pacific Northwest that public health officials just recently declared over. "As the recent measles outbreak demonstrated, vaccine-preventable illnesses pose a growing threat due to the relatively low rate of immunizations in the Northwest," said Robb Cowie, a spokesman with the Oregon Health Authority, the state's health care agency. Oregon has the highest rate of unvaccinated kindergartners in the country, with at least 7.5% of toddlers claiming an exemption. In some schools, more than 40% of children are unvaccinated through the state's lax exemption process. That makes Oregon uniquely susceptible to an outbreak, according to Diane Peterson associate director for Immunization Action Coalition, which receives funding from the CDC. "Oregon in particular is a hotbed for a measles outbreak," Peterson said. "All you need is to introduce one person with the disease into the community and it will spread like wildfire." Oregon was one of a number of states proposing to crack down on non-medical exemptions, in response to a national resurgence of measles that has now sickened over 800 people this year according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The state is one of 17 to allow families to opt out of required school vaccinations for personal, philosophical or religious reasons. Neighboring Washington state this year passed a law to end all non-medical exemptions for the measles vaccine, while Maine is working to remove its religious and personal exemptions for all vaccines. Some states, including Rhode Island, introduced measures to add exemptions. The anti-vaccination movement surged in the 1990s, after a study alleged a link between the measles vaccine and the rise of autism. The study has since been discredited. Mississippi, California and West Virginia are the only states that banned all non-medical exemptions. Mississippi has the highest childhood vaccination rate in the country, while the California law, passed in 2015, caused a significant boost in vaccination numbers. Republican and Democratic leaders are remaining tight-lipped on why the vaccine issue in particular was targeted as part of the walkout deal. Steiner Hayward said she wasn't involved in the negotiations and that she personally received a call from Gov. Kate Brown to tell her the vaccine bill would not move forward this session. Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, from Portland, stressed that the tradeoff was worth it to coax Republicans back to the Capitol and vote on a $1 billion annual boost in school funding. It wasn't, she said, a response to the vitriolic opposition the proposal has received from hundreds of parents opposed to vaccinating their children. "The people opposing that bill just behaved reprehensibly around the building," said Burdick at a news conference Monday. "And one of the things that distresses me is I'm afraid that some of them are going to feel that those tactics worked. Those tactics had nothing to do with what happened." MEDFORD, Ore. The search for a 15-year-old "runaway" from California led officers with the Medford Police Department (MPD) to make two arrests at a Motel 6, according to a statement from the agency. Early on the morning of May 10, just after 5 a.m., MPD officers received a report that the 15-year-old girl from Modesto, California was at a local motel. She had been missing from home since April 29. "The parent of the child reported that she believed her daughter was at the Motel 6 on Biddle Road, and was possibly the victim of sex trafficking," MPD said. When officers arrived at the Motel 6, they located a room where they thought the girl was staying. Initially, MPD said, the occupants of the room were "uncooperative" and did not want to let the officers inside. But eventually they opened the door, allowing officers to rush in. Inside, MPD found the missing 15-year-old, an 18-year-old girl, and two adults the last two identified as 32-year-old Lucious James Roy and 41-year-old Dawniel Santangelo, both from Stockton, California. "Detectives responded to the scene and conducted a thorough, and on-going investigation. Detectives believe that Roy and Santangelo acted together, as they transported the missing girl from California to Oregon, provided her with marijuana, and engaged her in prostitution," MPD said. The erstwhile missing girl has been reunited with her family in California, while the non-profit Community Works helped police reunite the 18-year-old girl with her family in California as well. Roy and Santangelo both have been lodged in jail and charged with Trafficking in Persons, Compelling Prostitution, and Delivery of Marijuana to a Minor. Roy's bail is set at $300,000 and Santangelo's bail is $250,000. ASHLAND, Ore-- Businesses in Ashland are getting ready for fire season. "I think its a frightening thought" said LouAnn David the owner of Manzanita Home and Flowers and Gifts. Today I spoke to her about the possible budget cuts in the Ashland Fire Department. "To not have as many firefighters as we could possibly afford. I'm just wondering why or what other avenues they've looked for the money for that they've rejected" said David. The City of Ashland has a 2 million dollar deficit each year. The budget this year is trying to fix that problem by cutting city staffing. Which could include three firefighters. "When you talk about reducing level of staffing in the fire department that leads to the potential of increased response times and when you talk about increased response times that's never a good thing in an emergency services" said Ashland Fire Chief Michael D'Orazi. Chief D'Orazi says when it comes to the department's budget there is not a whole lot of wiggle room. 75 percent of the budget is made up of salaries and benefits. "It's not just a spot on a list. These are human beings who are excellent firefighters and to loose them would be a big deal" said Chief D'Orazi. The proposed budget cut also means a reduction in their overtime budget. "Depending on the situation for instance during wildfire season we often go and help other agencies in Oregon and California" said Chief D'Orazi. I would think that they would need every firefighter that's possible, possibly willing to do the job" said David. David is concerned that when wildfire season starts the fire department will be short staffed. "Idon't think we have the luxury of reducing the amount of firefighters" said David. These possible budget cuts will be discussed at the Ashland City Council budget meeting tomorrow from 6:00-9:00pm. We will continue to update you on this developing story. KEARNEY The Centennial Department Convention of the Nebraska Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War 1861-65 will open its 100th state convention at 7 p.m. Friday at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery at 609 Second Ave. The group will convene this weekend at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center. Members are descended from a Civil War veteran who was honorably discharged, or a soldier who died in the line of duty. The organization was founded by five teenage girls in Massillon, Ohio, on May 30, 1885, to honor their fathers who were members of the Union Army. It promotes interest in the Civil War and its artifacts, mementos and monuments. It also participates in service projects. Card-reader gates will be built off the main parking lot and near the south side staff parking. Small, human-size gates will be placed strategically along the route of the fence. Lowe acknowledged there are arguments in favor of the fence and against it. Some people argued that building a fence would undermine efforts to rehabilitate youths sent to YRTC. Its not a prison-type fence, Lowe said. Part of the reason for that is economics. When money is tight you do what you can do. We wanted the fence to be a barrier, and theyll be able to put cameras on top of the fence. Lowe said the fence is intended to deter youths from attempting to escape by requiring them to scale a barrier and limiting where they can run. Lowe had introduced a pair of bills in January LB484 to make it a felony to assault a corrections officer, and LB485 to get $2 million to build the fence. The $704,000 had been set aside several months ago, Lowe said, but he hesitated to announce that fact because in a prior effort to fund a fence the money eventually was removed from the budget. SCOTTSBLUFF - A rural Scotts Bluff County man is accused of sexually assaulting a young girl. According to Scotts Bluff County Court records, Jimmy R. Darnell, 70, has been charged with first-degree sexual assault on a child less than 12 years of age, a Class IB felony; and sexual assault of a child, third degree, Class IIIA felony. A complaint alleges that the assaults occurred during a period of time from October 2011 through October 2012. Court documents show that Darnell had been cited and ordered to appear for arraignment on May 24, but that Darnell has waived his right to a preliminary hearing in the case. According to a search warrant obtained in September 2018, authorities received a child abuse intake from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services involving a girl disclosing she had been sexually assaulted. Authorities interviewed the girl at CAPStone in June 2018, in which the girl alleged that Darnell would pull down her pajamas and underwear and sexually assault her. She told investigators she was 5 or 6 years old at the time and that the alleged assaults occurred at Darnells residence in Scotts Bluff County. Here are top stories on Nigerian Newspapers for today May 15, 2019. 1. Actress Tonto Dikeh, whose birthday is coming up June 9, has revealed that the only present she wants on that day is a new pair of boobs. 2. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has remitted N5billion to the Federal Governments coffers after the conduct of its 2019 UTME. 3. A man has took to Twitter where he revealed that Al Noor Mosque in Abuja has become a venue where ladies market themselves. 4. Chioma appears to have thrown a shade at Davido and his Atlanta based baby mama Amanda. This was after photos of both of them spread the internet 5. King Mswati III of Swaziland has declared in Mbabane Swaziland that men will from June 2019 be required to marry more than two wives or risk being imprisoned. 6. Actress Regina Daniels wants you all to know that she is madly inlove with her soon-to-be 59 year old billionaire, Need Nwoko . 7. Popular Nigerian cross dresser and internet personality, Idris Olarenwaju a.k.a Bobrisky has removed his manhood and he has stated the reason why he did so. SOMERS University of WisconsinParkside students working with five Kenosha nonprofit organizations showed how creative collaborations could be used to their benefit in furthering the arts while helping local communities thrive culturally, socially and economically. On Tuesday, students in associate professor Doug Singsens art course presented their community collaborations involving projects with Union Park Art Market, the Kenosha Area Business Alliance, Uptown Brass Village, the Kenosha Community Foundations Arts Fund and Lincoln Park Live. The students were tasked with helping the organizations market the arts, employing artistic measures to assist in promoting an organization or discovering how communities view artistic endeavors and their place in the local economy. The sort of focal point for the class is trying to keep trying to advance the four objectives in the strategic plan, Singsen said. Within the framework of their collaboration, students worked with the groups assessing their needs with a goal of creating a product they can use and continue to expound upon. The objectives under the Kenosha Creative Economy strategic plan are business partnerships and philanthropy, community marketing, neighborhood revitalization through the arts, and downtown revitalization and entrepreneurship. Union Park Art Market Students who worked on the Union Park Art Market plan established a new logo for the organization. They encouraged the group to continue using social media, including Facebook and Instagram, to post events and to maintain and update information. Advertising through word-of-mouth, sending emails and flyers to colleges, K-12 schools and local businesses would also benefit them, they said. The major thing we did accomplish was creating the logo, really strengthening and establishing the identity for Kenosha Art Market itself, developing the promotional plans so they have something to take with them as they continue to advertise the event, said student Daniel Hoffman. Kenosha Area Business Alliance (Kenosha Arts) Students created a website with a centralized resource list of art events and organizations, with locations and hours of operation that could be used in community marketing. Students said the initial meeting had involved a plan to possibly redesign the Kenosha Rising website, focusing on active art and the culture of the organizations. Students said the project, however, was changed because the website acts as a communication tool for the Kenosha Creative Economy strategic plan, which led them to create a separate sandbox website for different art and cultural organizations. Students said theyd like the organization to use the website as a resource for consumer arts and envisioned it as a self-maintaining resource. Francisco Loyola, executive director of Kenosha Creative Space, said he was gladly surprised at the template for the website and being able to adapt to the change in plans. Now, as a community, we have to take that conversation back and to take it to the next level, he said. The biggest challenge is not getting the website, but whos going to maintain it. Its a big effort to update it on a constant basis. Thank you for opening this conversation. Uptown Brass Village Students had the goal to help update the organizations brand, designing a targeted or vectorized logo and redesigned the organizations website. Among the things they created in addition to the website were campaigns such as recognizing and outstanding landlord and Love Your Front Door to promote the neighborhood. Students said they also had an ambitious plan to tell the video stories of people in the neighborhood, but ran out of time. The reality is its time, life and school. These realities get in the way, said James Murray, a project member. Kenosha Community Foundation Arts Fund This group was tasked with surveying local businesses about their interest in the arts and how likely they would support them financially. Their goal was to try to have at least 22 business answer surveys, whether by email, phone or in person, according to Matt Flowers. Flowers said that, with one large corporation, his call bounced around for about 45 minutes before someone hung the phone up on me. We did get 11 responses, but we did get good responses, he said. The group said they received mixed responses when they asked the question of whether the arts were a helpful tool in helping a community. Their advice to the foundation was to educate businesses and establish relationships with them. Lincoln Park Live This project aimed to tell the stories of the people whove made the neighborhood and the summertime event a success, including the late human rights activist Mary Lou Mahone. Students working on the project said the event and the neighborhood has a lot going for it and urged them to continue to use diverse ways to promote the event, including social media in addition to articles about the park. In addition to the strategic plan, students also reviewed and discussed two anthologies by the National Endowment of the Arts on creative place marketing to apply to their projects. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 2 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 fight over detention centers for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers spread to Wisconsin this year after a private corporation tried to gain approval at two sites in St. Croix County. Both were rebuffed over a combination of public outcry from residents, the cost of infrastructure improvements needed, conflicts with city development plans and opposition from immigrants-rights groups, according to a recent report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. At issue was a 500-bed detention center that a private company, Immigration Centers of America, had proposed for New Richmond, and then for nearby Baldwin, 20 miles away. The Virginia-based company said its center would generate more than 200 full-time jobs and bring in millions of dollars in state and local tax revenues, according to reports. After months of negotiations and increasing opposition, the firm withdrew its plans. Wisconsin is not alone in facing this issue, as the federal government is trying to cope with a rise in the number of asylum seekers from Central America and detained immigrants a 32 percent increase in three years. Theyre seeking to do it with private detention centers, and companies like Immigration Centers of America are vying for the federal contracts. There are all sorts of facets to this dispute. There are the not in my backyard folks who simply dont want their community to host a prison or detention center. There are those who flat-out oppose asylum seekers, and there are those who say these types of centers belong near border states. Well add another to that list: Our objection is to privatizing these responsibilities. Whether you call them detention centers or prisons, the fact is these people are being held against their will by the government. The responsibilities for incarcerating someone should not be delegated to a private company that is not subject to the same checks and balances as a government entity. Wisconsin saw how that played out in the 1990s, when it sent hundreds of state prisoners to privately held prisons in Tennessee and Oklahoma to ease overcrowding here. It led to a fracas in one private prison in which a guard was nearly killed, and inmates complaining of being beaten and abused. Seven of the prison companys employees were fired. Wisconsin pulled back on its inmate export initiative. We dont need to replicate that experience with rent-a-detention center here. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 EUGENE, Ore. -- The Student Success Act passed in the Oregon Senate on Monday, and many community members say they're excited about the bill, which would increase funding for schools by $2 billion over two years. However, before it can go into effect, the bill still needs to be signed by Gov. Kate Brown. RELATED: Oregon Senate passes $2 billion education tax Many parents said they hope the increased funding helps reach all students. "It's a great idea, and I'm glad our state legislature pulled it off," said Robert Foltz, who has a student at Sheldon High School. Oregon Rep. Julie Fahey said part of the $1 billion per year included in the bill will be allocated directly to school districts. Fahey said the money would be used for specific purposes to make sure it will impact student learning. Fahey said if the governor signs the bill, schools might not start to see the impact until the 2020-21 school year. The Senate passed the bill just days after thousands of teachers all across the state walked out and voiced their concerns about school funding on May 8. DAY OF ACTION: Teachers rallying for education funding "It is saying we all understand now is the time to fund schools," said Anne Goff, the President of the Springfield Education Association. 1 of 2 Aditya Pancholi files a police complaint against Kangana Ranaut Kangana Ranaut and Aditya Pancholi are at loggerheads once again. The actress who had accused Pancholi of physical and mental abuse in her old interviews might have to face the law now. According to a report, the Race 2 actor has filed a complaint against the Queen actress earlier this month. The FIR that was filed at Versova police station, is a counter application to Ranaut's sister Rangoli Chandel's complaint against the actor stating that he exploited and abused Ranaut. Pancholi chose the legal way by filing the FIR, which also states that Ranaut's lawyer threatened to file a rape case against him if he didn't take back the defamation suit that he filed against the actress. The actor has filed the complaint along with the video footage of his meeting with Kangana's lawyer. Talking about the same, Aditya in a statement said, "I have already filed a defamation case against the actor, which is sub-judice. Following the defamation case, her lawyer, on January 6 this year, threatened to file a rape case against me if I didnt withdraw the defamation case against his client. Thankfully, I have recorded the 18-minute meeting with him. The video in the form of evidence has been submitted to the court and to the police as well." In another statement Aditya said, "I submitted my application with the police against Siddique, Kangana and Rangoli earlier this month. I have submitted the video in the police station and court. Rape is the worst kind of crime that can happen [to any woman]." Read More... 1 of 2 Surprising! Bird that went extinct 136,000 years ago has reappeared A chicken-sized bird species that went extinct 136,000 years ago made a comeback to the earth twice due to a rare evolutionary process, scientists say. Researchers found the last surviving flightless species of bird, a type of rail, in the Indian Ocean came back through a process called "iterative evolution", which saw it emerge twice over, according to The Independent. Researchers from the University of Portsmouth in the UK and Natural History Museum found that on two occasions, separated by tens of thousands of years, the species was able to successfully colonise an isolated atoll called Aldabra and subsequently became flightless on both occasions. Iterative evolution happens when the same or similar structures evolve out of the same common ancestor, but at different times meaning that the animal actually comes about twice over, completely separately, according to the report. This is the first time it has been seen in rails, and one of the most significant ever seen in a bird of any kind. The last surviving colony of flightless rails is still found on the island today, according to the study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. The white-throated rail is a chicken-sized bird, indigenous to Madagascar in the south-western Indian Ocean. They are persistent colonisers of isolated islands, who would have frequent population explosions and migrate in great numbers from Madagascar. Many of those that went north or south drowned in the expanse of ocean and those that went west landed in Africa, where predators ate them. Of those that went east, some landed on the many ocean islands such as Mauritius, Reunion and Aldabra, the last-named is a ring-shaped coral atoll that formed around 400,000 years ago. With the absence of predators on the atoll, and just like the Dodo of Mauritius, the rails evolved so that they lost the ability to fly. However, Aldabra disappeared when it was completely covered by the sea during a major inundation event around 136,000 years ago, wiping out all fauna and flora including the flightless rail. Read More... Family Carers Ireland held a public meeting in Kilkenny this week which was aimed to highlight key challenges facing carers. The event provided an opportunity for political representatives to hear directly from local carers on the issues that affect them daily with John McGuiness TD, Cllr. Joe Malone, Cllr. Breda Gardner, Mary Butler TD, Cllr. Malcom Noonan and Mayor of Clonmel Cllr. Richie Molloy (also Family Carers Irelands Carer Supports Manager in Clonmel) were among the politicians in attendance. John Paul Phelan TD was represented by his adviser Liam Keane. Two local family carers shared their stories and highlighted the issues they experience in their locality as carers. Linda Comerford from Kilkenny cares for her four children who all have extra needs. She spoke about the fight involved with being a carer such as battling to keep home car support hours. David Maher also from Kilkenny, cares for his son and spoke about being affected by a postcode lottery when trying to access services in the area of Kilkenny. Following an open floor questions and answers session, five priority local issues were agreed upon by carers and Family Carers Ireland. These call to action issues will be made a primary focus going forward. The five priority local issues were: emergency respite, carers allowance and means testing, facilities available in the community, legal rights for family carers and housing issues. Head of Communications and Carer Engagement Catherine Cox gave a presentation on Family Carers Irelands. Carers Guarantee campaign to secure core support services for family carers in all parts of the country. By increasing funding for Family Carers Ireland by 3.2m a year, the State can end the postcode lottery and guarantee access to:emergency respite, individual support, training, networking and information and advocacy. Speaking at the event, Catherine Cox said: Family Carers Ireland is urging politicians to pledge their support for the Carers Guarantee to eliminate the postcode lottery of supports and services. Additional funding of just 3.2m would enable equal access to supports for all family carers wherever they might live. We would also urge politicians to act on the five priority local issues and to keep family carers firmly on the agenda in Leinster House, local council chambers, regional health forums and the European Parliament. There are 7,854 family carers in Kilkenny providing 45 hours of care per week in their homes. The work of family carers is saving the state 10 billion every year. Today, one in ten people provide care to a loved one and by 2030, demographic changes predict that one in five people will take on a caring role. Family Carers Ireland are holding six public meetings nationwide covering all areas of Ireland. They encourage all carers to attend and contribute. For more information see www.familycarers.ie (Kitco News) - Although the concept of mining in space is still in the realm of science fiction, some researchers are already taking steps to protect the solar system from being overexploited. In a research paper for the journal Acta Astronautica, a team of scientists make the case that 85% of the solar system should be off-limits to human development. The proposal would be to leave about one-eighth of space available for companies to mine and develop. "If we don't think about this now, we will go ahead as we always have, and in a few hundred years we will face an extreme crisis, much worse than we have on Earth now," said Martin Elvis, a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in the paper. "Once you've exploited the solar system, there's nowhere left to go." The research, conducted with philosopher Tony Milligan from the King's College London looked at how long it would take for the mining companies to deplete the resources in the solar system. The researchers said that an annual growth rate of 3.5% would use up an eighth of the solar system's realistic resources in 400 years. At that point, humanity would have only 60 years to adjust their consumption levels and avoid exhausting the supply completely. In the article, Elvis said that the Valles Marineris on Mars, the most massive canyon in the solar system, might deserve the same kind of protection similar to the Grand Canyon on Earth, and there are other wildernesses too. "Do we want cities on the near side of the Moon that light up at night? Would that be inspiring or horrifying? And what about the rings of Saturn? They are beautiful, almost pure water ice. Is it OK to mine those so that in 100 years they are gone?" the astrophysicist said. According to a 2012 report from the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the Keck Institute for Space Studies, mining asteroids in space could be a reality as early as 2025. "If everything goes right, we could be sending our first mining missions into space within ten years," he added. "Once it starts and somebody makes an enormous profit, there will be the equivalent of a gold rush. We need to take it seriously." OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she will visit Cuba on Thursday to discuss the political crisis in Venezuela and the United States decision to allow lawsuits for property confiscated after the 1959 revolution. It is of critical importance that our two countries meet to discuss the economic, political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and the work we can undertake together to address it, Freeland said in a statement on Wednesday. I also look forward to discussing how we can work together to defend Canadians conducting legitimate trade and investment in Cuba in light of the United States ending the suspension of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, she added. It will be the first visit of a high ranking Canadian government official to Cuba since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled there in November of 2016. Canada vowed earlier this month to defend its businesses operating in Cuba after U.S. President Donald Trump lifted a ban on American citizens filing lawsuits against investors working on the island nation. Canada is also one of the countries in the Lima Group, a bloc of mostly Latin American countries seeking a peaceful solution to the Venezuelan political standoff. During her visit, Freeland also will visit the Havana embassy after diplomats there complained about mysterious bouts of dizziness, headaches and nausea. Xinfa Group, one of China's biggest aluminium smelters, is closing all production lines on its 2.8 million tonnes per year alumina refinery in Jiaokou, Shanxi amid an environmental dispute, a company source said on Thursday, adding that it was unclear how long the plant would be closed. Consultancies AZ China and Baiinfo also told clients of the closure, while a logistics source working with Xinfa told Reuters shipments from the Jiaokou plant had come to a halt. Xinfa did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China's state-run CCTV last week reported that a Shanxi unit of Xinfa had been dumping red mud, a toxic byproduct of the process that refines alumina from bauxite, in Xiaoyi city. As the dump was left uncovered, the local river system was contaminated and residents complained this was having an impact on crops, CCTV said. Shanxi is China's second-biggest region for alumina, a substance used to make aluminium, with 20.24 million tonnes of output last year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Spot alumina prices in northern China rose to as high as 2,990 yuan ($435) a tonne on Wednesday, the highest since Dec. 25. The Shanxi situation is also spurring a rally in aluminium prices in China, the world's top producer and consumer of the metal, which hit its highest level since late October. "We have lots of inventory in Xinjiang," the Xinfa source said when asked about tighter alumina supply, referring to the northwestern Chinese region that houses around half of Xinfa's aluminium capacity. The company also has smelters in Shandong. Xinfa also has a 1.2 million tonnes per year alumina refinery in Xiaoyi but this will not be closing for now, he added. Citing logistics sources, AZ China managing director Paul Adkins said in a note that Xinfa's alumina deliveries to remote customers would stop on Wednesday and nearby deliveries would cease from May 23. "We have not seen any notice of force majeure yet, but that could come after today's meeting" between Xinfa and the local government, Adkins added. The Xinfa source confirmed such a meeting had been due to take place. Another 450,000 tonnes per year alumina plant in Xiaoyi belonging to Huaqing Aluminium has also closed in light of the environmental dispute, according to AZ China and Baiinfo. The company could not be reached for comment. ($1 = 6.8735 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Tom Daly; Editing by Susan Fenton) By Abhinav Ramnarayan and Saikat Chatterjee LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - The euro held at a one-week low on Wednesday, ignoring data from Germany that showed the economy returned to growth in the first quarter, as trade tensions between the world's two biggest economies cast a shadow over risk appetite. The single currency has been caught in the cross-currents of an escalating dispute between Washington and Beijing since last week, unable to conclusively rise above the $1.1250 level. "The announcement of the increased trade tariffs has generated negative sentiment about global growth and that is exerting downward pressure on the euro despite the German data," said Nikolay Markov, senior economist at Pictet Asset Management. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened higher tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese imports last week, and Beijing responded with planned tariff hikes of its own on Monday. The escalation in the trade dispute comes at a time when latest data from Germany showed the economy returned to growth in the March quarter as householders spent more freely and construction activity picked up. The single currency was broadly steady at $1.1213 - just above a one-week low of $1.1197 hit in the Asian session and more than 3% below a 2019 high of nearly $1.16 in early January. Germany's economic figures were a sole bright indicator in an otherwise slate of dismal data. China on Wednesday reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April, adding pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus as the trade war with the United States rumbles on. "We expected the data to be worse than last month, but this is going to increase concerns about the state of the Chinese economy. The market will be very nervous and looking out for the PMI data," said Commerzbank FX strategist Esther Maria Reichelt. The Aussie dollar dropped as low as $0.6922, its lowest level since Jan. 3 when a flash crash in the foreign exchange markets rocked major currencies. Barring that level, the currency was at its weakest in three years and down 0.2% on the day. The weak data gave further impetus to Aussie bears to add to their negative bets with net outstanding short positions still below 2019 highs of above $5.2 billion. The Aussie is often seen as a proxy for Chinese growth because of Australia's export-reliant economy and China being the country's main destination for its commodities. Domestic data added to the woes, with the pace of growth in Australian wages stagnating. Neighbouring New Zealand saw its currency dip 0.1% to $0.6567. The Chinese yuan itself was slightly improved on the day at 6.8993 per U.S. dollar, but still close to a five-month low hit on Tuesday. (Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan and Saikat Chatterjee; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) (Kitco News) - Gold will be an attractive safe-haven asset as rising trade tensions weaken the U.S. economy and drag down the U.S. dollar, according to a recent report from Morgan Stanley. But it's not the current trade dispute with China that investors should be paying attention to; the banks said that a potential trade war with the European Union is the most significant risk to the economy. U.S. President Donald Trump has until May 18 to decide whether he will impose a 25% tariff on car imports from the European Union. The deadline comes 90 days after the U.S. Commerce Department said in a study that auto imports pose a threat to American national security. However, there are some reports that Trump could postpone the decision for another six months -- avoiding a two-front trade war -- while the U.S. continues to negotiate with China. "The eurozone's countermeasures may turn out to be more impactful compared to China's, which may help explain why last week's U.S. equity sell-off has especially affected companies with significant non-U.S. revenue streams," the analysts at Morgan Stanley said in their report released earlier in the week. The analysts added that a trade war with Europe could force the Federal Reserve to cut rates. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, markets are pricing in a more than 70% chance that the U.S. central bank will cut interest rates by the end of the year. Market expectations have risen significantly in compared to the previous week. "This is why the USD does not benefit from trade tensions to the extent experienced in August/September last year," the analysts said. The analysts said that a further inversion of the yield curve and growing investor pessimism will undermine the U.S. dollar, which in turn will push gold prices higher. "We believe it is only a question of time before we see liquidity pushing gold prices higher and the USD lower," the analysts said. June gold futures last traded at $1,297.60 an ounce, up 0.10% on the day. Gold could also benefit if the U.S. government does postpone the European auto tariffs as Morgan Stanley sees this helping the euro against the greenback. Even if the U.S. avoids a trade war with Europe, its ongoing dispute with China still poses a significant risk to the global economy. In a separate report published this week, economists at Morgan Stanley said that a global recession would be "imminent" if the U.S. and China can't resolve their trade differences. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is close to resolving a dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs with Canada and Mexico, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday as high-level American and Canadian officials met to discuss trade issues. I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada, on resolving the tariffs, Mnuchin said at a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. He did not provide any details about the potential agreement. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she discussed the Section 232 tariffs on Canadian metals with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Wednesday but declined to say whether the two countries were close to a deal. We made the case as we have been doing for some time that the best outcome for both Canadians and Americans would be to lift those tariffs and to have free trade between our two countries who have this fantastic trading relationship in place, Freeland told reporters after the meeting in Washington. Lighthizer was expected to propose a process for removing the steel and aluminum tariffs, CNBC reported separately, citing an unnamed senior official. Canada, Mexico and a number of U.S. lawmakers view the lifting of the tariffs imposed last year as a condition for ratification of the deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. None of the three countries have ratified the new U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez on Tuesday said Mexico was close to negotiating the lifting of tariffs. Canada has been trying to impress upon the Trump administration that time is running out to ratify the USMCA pact this year, a Canadian government source told Reuters. A bill to ratify the deal would have to be approved by Canadas House of Commons, which adjourns for the summer on June 21 ahead of an October general election. It will not reconvene until December. Lighthizer was meeting on Wednesday afternoon with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss plans for lawmakers to vote on the agreement. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday he will likely travel to China soon to continue talks as Washington and Beijing seek to resolve a trade war that has cast a pall over the global economy and financial markets. Mnuchin did not elaborate on the timing of future negotiations but characterized two days of high-level talks with Chinese officials in Washington last week as constructive. My expectation is that we will go to Beijing at some point in the near future to continue those discussions, he said in a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. Were continuing discussions. Theres still a lot of work to do. Mnuchins remarks dovetailed with a cooling of the Trump administrations rhetoric toward China after another round of tit-for-tat tariffs between the worlds two largest economies and a selloff on global stock markets. (Graphic: Trickle down tariffs - tmsnrt.rs/2WIu31i) On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump denied the talks with China had collapsed and sounded an optimistic note about the chance of a deal to end the trade war, saying he had an extraordinary relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump, who plans to meet Xi at a G20 summit in Japan next month, also urged China to buy more U.S. farm products. U.S. agricultural goods, including soybeans, have been targeted by Chinas retaliatory tariffs, and American farmers, a key political constituency for Trump, are frustrated with the failure of the two sides to find a solution to the dispute. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has paid out $8.52 billion directly to farmers as part of a 2018 aid program designed to offset losses from trade tariffs by China and other trading partners, a spokesman for the agency said on Wednesday. The Trump administration had pledged up to $12 billion in aid to help offset losses for crops hit by Chinese tariffs. TARIFF PAIN Amid complaints from trading partners in Europe and North America, who see the United States as having embraced a carrot-and-stick strategy that has been thin on carrots, the Trump administration may be signaling a softer approach. In the hearing on Wednesday, Mnuchin said the United States is close to resolving a dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs that were imposed on Canada and Mexico last year as the three countries renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington on Wednesday to discuss those tariffs, which have aggravated Ottawa and Mexico City, and other issues related to the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), the replacement for NAFTA. The three countries have not yet ratified the new deal. Freeland told reporters she had discussed the Section 232 tariffs on Canada with Lighthizer but declined to say whether the two countries were close to a deal. We made the case as we have been doing for some time that the best outcome for both Canadians and Americans would be to lift those tariffs and to have free trade between our two countries who have this fantastic trading relationship in place, Freeland said. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had a productive meeting with Lighthizer that was almost entirely focused on the USMCA deal, one of her aides said. Trump also is expected to delay a decision on slapping tariffs on imported cars and parts by up to six months, three U.S. administration officials told Reuters. A formal announcement is expected by Saturday, the officials added. The tariffs of up to 25 percent on cars and parts could have a devastating impact on Japan and countries in the European Union, particularly Germany. Global stock markets, which have swooned in the past week on the back of rising trade tensions, were trading mostly higher, with major U.S. indexes adding to gains from Tuesday. ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES Trump, who has embraced protectionism as part of an America First agenda and railed against what he describes as Chinas unfair trade practices, has not ruled out imposing punitive levies on all of Chinas imports to the United States. As negotiations toward resolving the U.S.-China trade war stalled last week, the United States raised the pressure by increasing tariffs to 25% from 10% on a previous, $200 billion list of Chinese imports. China retaliated on Monday with higher tariffs on a revised list of $60 billion worth of U.S. products Trump could launch 25% tariffs on another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods when he meets Xi next month. China is vowing not to succumb to such pressure. A further escalation of the trade war could disrupt global supply lines and damage a slowing world economy. China on Wednesday reported surprisingly weaker growth in its retail sales and industrial output in April. Data out of the United States showed U.S. retail sales fell last month as households cut back on purchases of motor vehicles and other goods, pointing to a slowdown in economic growth after a boost from exports and inventories in the first quarter. Other data showed a drop in U.S. industrial production in April. There is unease in the U.S. Congress about the potential fallout of tariffs on the broader American economy. U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said U.S. consumers were in the same boat as farmers and would end up having to bear the burden of the tariffs. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. What we ought to do is have a rational trade policy that doesnt have adverse consequences (rather) than have to fill the hole economically through additional payments, Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, told reporters. (Graphic: U.S.-China tariff war and the S&P 500 - tmsnrt.rs/2WA1LWX) By Kevin Yao and Yawen Chen BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) - China reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April on Wednesday, adding pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus as the trade war with the United States escalates. Clothing sales fell for the first time since 2009, suggesting Chinese consumers were growing more worried about the economy even before a U.S. tariff hike on Friday heightened stress on the country's struggling exporters. Overall retail sales in April rose 7.2% from a year earlier, the slowest pace since May 2003, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. That undershot March's 8.7% and forecasts of 8.6%. The data suggested consumers were now beginning to cut back spending on everyday products such as personal care and cosmetics, while continuing to shun more expensive items such as cars. "Weak retail sales partially stemmed from a deterioration in employment and declining income of the middle-and-low income groups," said Nie Wen, an economist at Hwabao Trust. "In terms of future policies to keep consumption as the stabiliser of the economy, China might roll out targeted tax cuts or subsidies to the middle-and-low income groups." As a whole, Chinese data for April largely pointed to a loss of momentum, after surprisingly upbeat March readings had raised hopes the economy was slowly getting back onto firmer footing and would require less policy support. Growth in industrial output slowed more than expected to 5.4% in April on-year, pulling back from a 4-1/2-year high of 8.5% in March, which some analysts had suspected was boosted by seasonal and temporary factors. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast output would grow 6.5%. Motor vehicle production dropped nearly 16% as demand weakened, with sedan output slumping 18.8%, the steepest decline since September 2015. Industry data this week showed auto sales fell 14.6% in April, the 10th consecutive month of decline. China's exports also unexpectedly shrank in April in the face of U.S. tariffs and weaker global demand, while new factory orders from at home and abroad remained sluggish. "There are still uncertainties haunting the performance of the economy. Tensions between China and the U.S. have returned while concerns about insufficient demand worldwide are on the rise," Nie said. Nie said China may need a more comprehensive cut in banks' reserve requirements in June before a G20 summit where Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are expected to discuss trade. "The funding gap in the market is relatively large," Nie said, adding that smaller, more targeted reductions in bank reserves may no longer be enough to spur stronger growth. There is relatively big room for policies to support growth, Liu Aihua, a spokeswoman at the statistics bureau, told reporters at a briefing, adding that employment is expected to remain steady. The April nationwide survey-based jobless rate improved to 5.0% from 5.2% in March, though analysts are generally sceptical of Chinese employment data and see a rise in layoffs if export conditions deteriorate. INVESTMENT Adding to worries about domestic demand, Wednesday's data also showed an unexpected stumble in investment. Fixed-asset investment growth slowed to 6.1% in the first four months of this year, dashing expectations for a slight rise to 6.4%. Growth in infrastructure spending held steady at 4.4%, with a sharp slowdown in cement production possibly reflecting a slower-than-expected payoff from Beijing's efforts to fast-track road and rail projects. China is trying to engineer a construction boom even as it steps up efforts to ease strains on smaller companies, ranging from tax cuts to financial incentives for firms which do not shed staff. But private sector fixed-asset investment slowed sharply to 5.5% growth from 6.4%, suggesting the sector continues to face difficulties. The private sector accounts for the majority of jobs in China and about 60% of overall investment. One of the few bright spots in the data was property investment, a key growth driver. Real estate investment in April rose 12% from a year earlier, unchanged from March, according to Reuters calculations. But demand for new homes remained weak, weighing on sales of appliances and furniture. TRADE TENSIONS Washington dramatically escalated its 10-month tariff war with Beijing on Friday by raising levies on $200 billion of Chinese goods in the midst of trade talks, and Trump has threatened new levies on all remaining U.S. imports from China, sending global financial markets into a tailspin. China retaliated on Monday, though on a smaller scale. The two sides appear deadlocked in negotiations. But Trump softened his tone on Tuesday, insisting that talks between the world's two largest economies had not collapsed. Economists at Citi estimate the U.S. tariff increase could lop 50 basis points off China's GDP growth, reduce exports by 2.7% and cost the country another 2.1 million jobs, though they are optimistic a trade deal will be reached eventually. Analysts at BofA Merrill Lynch believe a prolonged period of brinkmanship would drag China's growth to 6.1% this year, from a near 30-year low of 6.6% in 2018. They expect more policy easing in the short term, further cuts in banks' reserve requirements and another surge in bank lending, as well as consumer subsidies to boost sales of products such as cars, appliances and smartphones. Some companies such as BMW have already lowered their prices after China cut the value-added tax (VAT) from April 1. "We have full confidence in China's economic prospects," Geng Shuang, spokesman at the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a daily news briefing. "U.S. protectionist and bullying actions will have some influences on the Chinese economy, but they can be completely overcome. If some people are not willing to do business with China, others will naturally fill this gap." (Reporting by Kevin Yao and Yawen Chen; Additional reporting by Lusha Zhang, Judy Hua, Cheng Leng, Se Young Lee and Michael Martina; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill and Jacqueline Wong) Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) A town in Albay gripped by the murder of a lawmaker in broad daylight in December will soon have a new mayor endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte. The municipal board of canvassers of Daraga has proclaimed Vice Mayor Victor Uy Perete as mayor-elect of the town with 24,616 total votes. His rivals - widow of the late AKO-Bicol Party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, Gertie Batocabe and the alleged mastermind behind his assasination, Carlwyn Baldo - only had 19,858 and 16,564 votes respectively. Gertie substituted for her husband. Because of Batocabes murder, the town of Daraga was placed under control of the Commission on Elections. Perete twice took over as acting mayor of Daraga because of murder charges against Baldo. His running mate, Gerry Rafael Jaucian, was also proclaimed vice-mayor with five of his slate proclaimed councilor-elects: Mabel Tan, Jun Nunez, Carlos Baylon, Dante Magayanes, and Archie Bajamundi. Two councilor-elects from the Batocabe slate were proclaimed: Pilo de Lumen and Bobby Magalona. Julius Duran was the only councilor-elect from Baldos slate. Asked if he was surprised being elected mayor in the middle of two opposing forces, Perete said, No, I already expected it." He said his main advantage over his rivals is having exposed to the ground having served as punong barangay and the federation. Perete added Albay 2nd District Congressman Joey Salceda influence contributed to his candidacy. Perete is calling for unity among his political rivals and said he is seriously going to solve the problem of traffic, water, garbage and poverty in Daraga, Albay. The mayor-elect, 49, began his political career as a three-termer barangay chairman of San Roque in 2007. He assumed the ex-officio position in the municipal council representing the Association of Barangay Captains. He won as a topnotcher municipal councilor in 2013, and later took over as acting vice mayor of Daraga when then-mayor Jerry Jaucian died. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Cloudy skies. Temps nearly steady in the mid to upper 30s. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Cloudy with occasional rain late. Low 33F. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Since a lot of people wants to be an Idol and they know how much effort and work they should put up in doing lessons to perfect their singing and dancing skills, aspiring idols are wondering how much it would take them to achieve their dream. Here is a package for a complete KPOP Training for your reference:PPLICATION FEE The amount depends on the contents of the application. ACOPIA OFFICE For those who are afraid to go to auditions alone, an ACOPIA staff can accompany you. Prices: Full Day $216 TRAINING CLASS * K-POP Dance Lesson (One-on-One Lesson) Prices: Dance Lesson - 90 minutes $145 Vocal Lesson - 60 minutes $72 Singing Lesson- 120 minutes $72 Korean Lesson - 120 minutes $36 * K-POP Vocal Lesson (One-on-One Lesson) * Korean Singing Lesson (One-on-One Lesson) *This is not a vocal lesson (learn Korean from the lyrics of a song) * Korean lessons (One-on-One Lesson) *ACOPIA teachers speak Japanese, we can adapt to your Korean level. * 5-Days Intensive Training Before Audition - 5 Days - $1430 (Included: The 5-day intensive training program include, Individual K-POP Dance lessons every day (2 hours), Individual K-POP Vocal lessons every day (2 hours), Korea One to One lessons twice (2 hours), online application support, Pick up at the airport, Accommodation during stay, Administrative expenses, How to take an audition and provide the latest information on the audition (at any time), accompanying to audition, Document translation and preparation to submission support (anytime), Advice in the case of a trainee contract (free to choose), 24/7 hour assistance in case of accidents and diseases.) * If you are staying at the Acopia House, use our Audition Support program and send the fee deposit of 200~500USD, Acopia School Group Dance Class will be available for you as a free service. AIRPORT PICK-UP On the day of arrival, local staff or host family can pick you up at the airport. We will take you to your place of stay or audition! If you wish, we can also bring you to the airport on the day of your return. (Additional fees) Prices: Gimpo Airport to Seoul (one way) $72 Gimpo Airport to Seoul (round trip) $108 Incheon Airport to Seoul (one way) $108 Incheon Airport to Seoul (round trip) $140 TRANSLATION ACOPIA staff can help communicate in Korean with audition offices by translating or creating contents and document (A sheet of paper $90); however, it may not be possible to accompany trainees to the venue. We will also provide accommodation during your stay in Korea, which are available overnight. (CNN) Donald Trump, Jr. and the Senate Intelligence Committee have reached a deal for the President's eldest son to appear before the committee behind closed doors in mid-June, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The agreement for Trump Jr.'s testimony comes after the committee issued a subpoena last month that sparked an intense blowback against Republican Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina from Trump Jr.'s allies and many of Burr's Republican colleagues. The interview will be limited to two-to-four hours and limited in scope to five-to-six topics, according to the sources. But questions about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and the Trump Tower Moscow project will not be off limits, said two sources familiar with the matter. Questions on Trump Tower Moscow and the Trump Tower meeting would be constrained to limited followups, a source close to Trump Jr. said, and if any of the same questions are asked from Trump Jr.'s initial 2017 interview, he will refer the committee to his prior testimony. But a source close the committee said that Trump Jr. would be required to answer questions about discrepancies between his past testimony and what other witnesses have told both the Senate committee and special counsel Robert Mueller's team. The two sides agreed it would be the last time Trump Jr. will be asked to come before the committee in relation to its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the sources said. Before the agreement was reached, the two sides were locked in a stand-off over the subpoena to Trump Jr. that nearly forced the North Carolina Republican to have to decide whether to hold the President's son in contempt. Trump Jr. faced a Monday deadline to respond to the committee's subpoena, but the committee agreed to extend the deadline an additional day as committee aides and Trump Jr.'s lawyers worked to negotiate an agreement, sources said. Trump Jr.'s legal team had crafted a letter they were ready to send to the committee ahead of the subpoena deadline stating that the President's son was prepared to be held in contempt, according to one source. The bottom line, the source said, was that Trump Jr. was not coming and was not going to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. The letter, which was described to CNN, argued that Trump Jr. had given more than 20 hours of testimony, produced hundreds of thousands of documents in various investigations, and answered all the questions fully. News of the subpoena last week prompted a major pressure campaign against Burr to drop the matter. The President weighed in after news of the subpoena became public, calling it "very unfair" and retweeting criticism of Burr over the weekend. Trump Jr.'s Republican allies argued that the Mueller report had been issued and that was the final word, and there was no reason to drag Trump Jr. back. Some went so far as to accuse Burr of being a Democrat or engaging in what amounted to a "persecution" of the President's family. One source said that Trump Jr. feels like the pressure campaign waged by Senate Republicans and other allies helped convince Burr and the committee to find an agreement with Trump Jr. But Burr was unmoved by calls from Senate Republicans including some on his committee to drop the matter. Burr has repeatedly declined to comment as the negotiations continued. "I don't address anything in witness engagements, thanks," Burr said Tuesday, just minutes before news of the agreement was made public. Trump Jr. is now slated to return to the committee for a second time, after initially testifying voluntarily in December 2017. The first interview was conducted only with staff, but senators will be able to sit in on Trump Jr.'s second appearance, according to one source. They've done the same for other witnesses who have returned to the committee this year, including the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The committee began seeking a second interview from Trump Jr. in December, Burr told his Senate colleagues last week. After Trump Jr. twice agreed and postponed his appearance, the committee issued a subpoena for his testimony in April. There have been questions raised about Trump Jr.'s 2017 testimony, when he appeared before the Senate Intelligence, House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary committees. The Senate Judiciary Committee released a transcript of the interview. The release of the Mueller report has prompted questions about what Trump Jr told the Judiciary panel, including whom he spoke to about dirt on Hillary Clinton before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, and the breadth of discussions he had with the President's former personal attorney Michael Cohen about the Trump Tower Moscow project. This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Donald Trump Jr. reaches deal with Senate Intelligence Committee for testimony in June." Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) An official of the government's poll body will hold accountable the suppliers of vote counting machines (VCM) and secure digital (SD) cards in the wake of technical glitches on election day. "I'm going to take them into account over this, especially the SD card supplier," Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Commissioner Rowena Guanzon told CNN Philippines Wednesday. Guanzon referred to a media briefing by Commissioner Marlon Casquejo who said the amount of the winning bid to supply SD or memory cards was 29 million, even if the COMELEC set aside a budget of 80 million. "What do we expect for 29-million SD cards?" Casquejo said. Guanzon called the issue a "management problem," adding she would raise it with the Commission en banc where she would "insist" the suppliers not be paid in full and be penalized. She said the SD cards shown as samples during the bidding could have been switched for low quality ones. "Maybe I suspect, Commissioner Casquejo might expect he (was) delivered quality SD cards during the bidding and then (the bidder) gave us low quality SD cards during delivery," Guanzon said. An information technology expert shares Guanzon's theory. Pierre Tito Galla told CNN Philippines Tuesday night, "It's more likely na 'yung SD card na 'yun [that the quality of thet SD card]...the quality that they sent the COMELEC is not something reliable. It's something that they need to review on the supplier's part." RELATED: COMELEC to replace over 600 corrupted SD cards for 2019 polls As for the glitch encountered Tuesday, Guanzon said the Commission en banc was open to an audit to prove votes were intact. "The public has to be satisfied so that the election is going to be credible," she said. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) The latest midterm polls fortified the foothold of the Duterte administration in the Senate, which bodes well for the future of reform bills and future budget proposals. Candidates endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte have so far dominated the Magic 12 in the partial and official tally of the Commission on Elections following the May 13 polls. Research firm Fitch Solutions said this has "further consolidated" Duterte's power halfway through his six-year reign, which may smoothen the passage of his pet bills through the legislative mill. "The strong show of support for Duterte will both give him the confidence and ability to push ahead with his reform programme. The Senate has proved a sticking point for Duterte, as seen by the delay to the passing of the 2019 budget," Fitch Solutions said in a commentary issued after the polls. "Duterte will hope that with increased support in the Senate, his reforms and fiscal plans will face less obstacles." The Senate locked horns with members of the House of Representatives over alleged last-minute insertions to the 3.7-trillion national budget for 2019, which led to a four-month delay before the bill was referred for Duterte's signing into law. This delay pushed back the release of about 69.5 billion for state-funded projects and pulled down economic growth to a four-year slump of 5.6 percent during the first quarter. Eight of the 12 senatorial bets leading the tally were endorsed by Duterte: his former officials Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, Bong Go, Francis Tolentino; reelectionists Cynthia Villar, Sonny Angara, and Koko Pimentel; Taguig Rep. Pia Cayetano; and Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos. READ: Otso Diretso bets concede, thank supporters Meanwhile, based on the unofficial tally covering 96.26 percent of election returns, four emerging winners come from other parties: reelectionists Grace Poe and Nancy Binay; as well as actors-turned-lawmakers Lito Lapid and Ramon "Bong" Revilla. Fitch Solutions said this supermajority could give a much-needed push towards passing key reforms like the shift to a federal form of government, the reinstating of death penalty, and even the reduction of corporate income taxes. All three cleared the House of Representatives but remain stuck before Senate, with only three weeks of sessions left before sessions adjourn for good. Federalism was among Duterte's campaign promises when he joined the 2016 presidential race. Robert Dan Roces, chief economist at Security Bank Corp., added that having administration allies sitting as lawmakers could mean greater focus on key economic measures. "With the credit rating upgrade recently, both chambers will consider expediting passage of those bills that will boost the country's chance for an 'A' rating upgrade," Roces said. "If deemed not political-capital draining to the legislative sponsor, expect a revival of the tax reform program." The bank economist expects the Senate to prioritize the Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-Quality Opportunities (TRABAHO) bill, the second phase of the tax reform program of the Department of Finance that eyes lower corporate income taxes alongside simpler and shorter tax breaks for businesses. For Fitch Solutions, having a Senate occupied with allies would lessen short-term political risks, but may erode checks and balances between the two branches of government. But incumbent senators said they will not be a rubber stamp of Malacanang's wishes. "The Senate as an institution will always continue to remain independent as proven by our track record in passing legislation. When we see an administration led measure that is good for the people then we support it, but if we see it needs further study and debate then we dont force it or rush into it," Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said in a statement. Meanwhile, opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros said she will continue to push back against "anti-democratic forces" in power. The National Board on Canvassers has started the official tally for the senatorial race late Tuesday, and expects to proclaim winners starting Monday, May 20. Tacloban City (CNN Philippines, May 15) It was a really close fight in San Isidro town, Leyte as mayor-elect Remedio Wingbebot Veloso defeated the incumbent by only one vote. Veloso of the United Nationalist Alliance won the mayoralty race with 8,829 votes against outgoing Mayor Susan Ang's 8,828 votes. Ang is with the ruling PDP-Laban party. Veloso, a two-term municipal councilor, is the nephew of Leyte 3rd District Representative Ching Veloso, who won a reelection. They are part of the Veloso-Cari-Loreto-Petilla political clan which has ruled Leyte for nearly a century with a history that dates back to the American colonial period. The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) placed San Isidro town under the orange category or areas of immediate concern. An area falls under this category if there is serious threat posed by armed rebel groups, or if at least two of the following factors are present: occurrence of suspected election-related incidents during the campaign period and in previous polls, intense partisan political rivalry, possible deployment of private armed groups, and if it was previously placed under COMELEC control. Authorities are investigating the killing of San Isidro municipal administrator Levi Mabini, who was shot by unidentified assailants while visiting Ang's home less than a week before the May 13 midterm elections. The Veloso camp has since accused the police and military of harassment after an operation that was supposedly conducted in their house without a search warrant. Tacloban City-based journalist Wil Mark Amazona contributed to this report. WILLIAMS BAY It may not look like it yet from the outside, but construction on Barrett Memorial Librarys addition is winding down. We have begun to transition furniture and collections, just in time to put all that new space to use with exciting summer programs. Visitors will notice more than just additional space, however. The lakeside-community look and feel is carried throughout in the paint and fabric choices, similar to colors found in the Bays natural outdoor beauty. It may take the rest of the year to fully move in and rearrange the flow of furniture and collections, but we think the final result will make the Bay proud. To that end, the library was recently given $8,000 from the Williams Bay Lions Club to purchase armchairs, a digital device charging table, and mobile bookcases to furnish the new upper level addition. While the Friends of the Library continue to raise funds for furniture and equipment, the Lions donation will allow us to buy higher quality furniture than we may have been able to otherwise. The Lions support and continual acknowledgement of the librarys value to the Bay is much appreciated and will be recognized in a lovely plaque in that new Lions Space. Other opportunities for organizations and members of the community to put their names on rooms, areas, and furniture will soon be available to the public. As always, our focus remains on collections and programming most relevant to our residents and area card-holders. We are currently developing a cake pan collection to augment our large cookbook section, so if there is a shape or mold youd like, let us hear from you. This months take-home Craft in a Bag is a leather vase holder for flowers or succulents the bag includes everything you need but the plant. New books, movies, and music arrive weekly, so be sure to stop in. Have you heard of our monthly Read Between the Wines book group? This is proving to be quite popular with adults, as they drop in to share books and drinks at various Williams Bay establishments. The location and date varies, so be sure to check online or call us for details. In joint programming with the recreation department, on May 23 we host a local eating documentary, Local Thirty, about an Oregon family that commits to a month-long endeavor to eat only food grown or harvested within 200 miles of their farm. Inspirational and interesting, the film starts at 5:30. Families will enjoy an interactive presentation of Walk, Talk & Gawk on May 29 from 6 to 7 p.m. The original map and guide of the Geneva Lake shore path, this session will feature one of the authors describing the path and the history (along with photos) of its famous estates. Book Bingo is going strong; have you started your Book Bingo playing card yet? The card tells you what to watch, read, or do literary-style. Our first winner took home a gift certificate to Green Grocer. Were playing throughout the year, so you can begin anytime. Williams Bay is celebrating its centennial this year, so watch for events happening throughout the village this summer. For more than three weeks in September, the library will be the site of the Williams Bay Historical Societys History Exhibit, replicating a home in the 1920s. Continuing to build relationships with library guests, community resources and area libraries is our focus this summer. We are excited to host the second annual Summer Kick-Off Bash in collaboration with Williams Bays recreation and police departments. Dont miss this community-wide event held in the afternoon and evening of the last day of school on June 6. Participate in games, crafts, summer reading program sign up, and meet friends over a hot dog dinner provided by the police department. Our childrens summer reading program will be giving children opportunities to command their own missions as we explore the universe of reading. Story times, Story Wagon performances, and celebrating books and activities at the Helen Rohner Fishing Park will be happening mid-June to mid-August. All events and activity schedules will be available on our website, Facebook page, and at the library. Lastly, the Friends of Barrett Memorial Library will host its annual highly anticipated Summer Book Sale and Silent Auction during the July 4 holiday weekend at Edgewater Park and the library. See you at the library. Joy Schnupp is director of the Barrett Memorial Library in Williams Bay. According to many former officials in the FBI and our U.S. intelligence agencies, virtually every Democrat in Congress, and a growing number of respected Republicans, the saga of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is a story that is now well understood. The long awaited Mueller Report, a monster of an investigative report that totals a bit over 400 pages, is finally out and its a best-seller. With the exception of a portion of the report that is blacked out, incredibly in a color-coded manner, everyone can now read the details about what happened on the lead-up to our last presidential election and the immediate aftermath of the voters decision, as well as the transition period into Trumps new presidency and his first year in office. In my last column, I talked about the Cliff Notes summary of this report given by U.S. Attorney General Barr a couple of days after Mr. Mueller and his team released the report. At the time, all we knew was what was covered in the press, a growing number of books on the subject, and of course the presidents continuing claims of innocence. In that column, I pointed out that our Constitution clearly defines a way to get rid of a sitting president who misbehaves. The House of Representatives is supposed to impeach a misbehaving president a step that is somewhat equivalent to a grand jurys decision to press charges. The Senate is then supposed to organize and execute a trial of the president a step that requires a two-thirds majority to remove a president from office. So what is going to happen next? The leadership in the House of Representatives and various committees in the Senate now feel its their duty to investigate this thing further and defer any actual impeachment proceedings until after they dig a bit deeper. Do they not believe that the Mueller Report is incriminating enough? After reading major sections of the Mueller Report, Ive got mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, the report clearly contains enough evidence to argue for impeachment. On the other hand, impeachment proceedings and the likely Senate trial that will follow will be televised. We can actually see and hear former government officials give sworn testimony that our president has broken some laws, primarily by attempting to obstruct justice. There seems to be a distinct absence of Republican members of Congress who are willing to voice an opinion on this report. Perhaps, like Trump himself, some of them prefer to get a one-hour vocal summary of this report because they dont read. I doubt that is the case, since a lot of congressmen and women are experienced lawyers or came from backgrounds where they actually had to read some fine print. My sense is that the current Republican Senate majority is scared. Anyone who can read can follow what happened. They know full well that the House will vote to impeach if there were enough Republican Senators willing to help Vice President Mike Pence move into the White House. It makes no sense these days to impeach a president if the Senate is not going to convict. I must give credit to former presidential candidate and now U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, who has stood forward and voiced total disgust at what our current president has done to his office. Prior to reading the first 100 pages of the Mueller Report, I was of the opinion that the Russian election interference impacted, but probably was not enough to swing the 2016 election to Trump. Now I know it did. Facebook found 470 fake accounts operated by the government-controlled Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) that reached an estimated 126 million people. Twitter actually found 3,814 fake IRA accounts disguised as accounts owned by U.S. organizations. The Russians have done this before. They have swung elections in other countries the same way, and they can do it again, if we let them. As for the 10 areas listed in the report as candidates for obstruction of justice, all one needs to read is one or two to be convinced that our president personally attempted to obstruct this investigation. When high-level officials in the White House and Trumps own chief of staff have testified that they had to refuse Trumps request to have Mueller fired, this appears to be a solid case of obstruction. The Mueller investigation was no witch hunt. I simply do not understand how our congressional representatives can stand by and let this president remain in office. The United States has never removed a president from office following impeachment, but Congress should take the necessary steps to make it happen soon. Should our congressional representatives refuse to go down this road, we need to collectively inform them that we disagree. While Vice President Pence, should he be promoted, may indeed follow some of the same policies Trump has taken or even retain most of Trumps cabinet, there is a real question as to whether he can be re-elected. As we move on to the heart of the 2020 election, the American electorate will have to make a historical decision. Will they continue to support Trumps party and vote for Pence (or even a last minute nominee by a political party that is petrified of the future), or the strongest of the very diverse and impressive field of 20 now hoping to be the Democratic nominee for the office of president of the United States. David Yost is a retired Bell Labs engineer with a BSEE and MS in Engineering. He is now living in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and Silverthorne, Colorado. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 15) The oil leak from a Tanzanian-registered vessel last week in Botolan, Zambales has affected the livelihood of residents in a fishing community in the town. Around 300 families or 90% of Barangay Bangan rely on fishing, most of them catching krills to make "alamang." But since the incident on May 8, many residents in the area have not been able to catch fish. Some of them were even required to travel to nearby towns to fish in the past week, as their catch near the Botolan shores reeks of oil. "Ang alamang kasi nahuhuli sa ibabaw e hindi sa ilalim. ... Ang alamang 'pag hinuli tapos amoy langis, amoy diesel hindi na pwede so sayang lang," Barangay Captain Celso Dagsaan told CNN Philippines. [Translation: Krills are caught near the water surface. If they smell like oil or diesel, it's not acceptable anymore so it's such a waste.] While the spill has already been contained, the residents still waiting for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to give a go signal, indicating that fishing in the area is already safe. Dagsaan also worries about the possible effects of the oil leakage on their health. "Masang-sang ang amoy unang araw e kasi malakas hangin ... meron ding perwisyo. Hindi rin namin alam epekto ng kabataan na nakaamoy ng ano. Hindi on the spot magkakaron ng karamdaman ng mga bata, minsan sa huli," he said. [Translation: The smell is horrible. It's the first day and the wind is strong, which is a hassle. We don't know how being exposed to the smell affects children. Exposure-related ailments don't happen on the spot. They may appear at a much later time.] DENR Central Luzon Regional Executive Director Kit Morales said the vessel, which is registered in the Republic of Tanzania, has been in Botolan since March 30. Its last port of call is in Singapore. Eight of its crew, including the captain, are Chinese nationals. Dagsaan said the barangay discovered the oil spill when a crew member asked for their help when the vessel's stern ran aground. "N'ung lumaki ang alon bigla 'yung likuran ng dregder lumubog ang hulihan kaya ang crew nag-report po sa barangay. Kaya ginawa ko nag-report ako sa MDRRMO (Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office) bago sa DENR para sila may knowledge para inspeksyunin ang tumagas langis at krudo," he said. [Translation: The crew reported to the village that a huge wave caused the back of the dredger to sink. That's why I reported to the MDRRMO before the DENR so they can inspect the oil spill.] Residents said some of the Chinese crews also go to the town sometimes to buy supplies. Dagsaan said the vessel has been near their area for a month now. He added there are also Filipino crews on board. One of them told him, they are waiting for the approval of permit to dredge Bucao River under a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) project. CNN Philippines has yet to verify if the vessel is involved in any DPWH project. "I-dredge para raw, kasi project ng DPWH 'yan sa DPWH daw manggagling ang permit ... i- dredge para flow ng tubig mula Bucao tuloy-tuloy na," he said, adding that they want the vessel to leave. [Translation: They will still dredge it because it's a DPWH project and it's the department that will issue the permit to dredge for the continuous flow of water from Bucao.] Morales said the department eyes to remove the vessel on Thursday afternoon. For more than a year, Apple Inc. avoided major damage from the U.S. trade war with China, thanks in part to a White House charm offensive by Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. But the company now faces its first major hit from both sides of the dispute. A new round of tariffs proposed by the U.S. on Monday which would go into effect in late June, at the earliest includes mobile phones. That means the iPhone, Apples most important product that is made almost entirely in China, may be encumbered with a 25% import levy. There are other products on the list that would affect Apple too, such as laptops and tablets. That leaves the company with a difficult choice: Raise prices on already-pricey products and risk missing out on sales, or absorb the extra cost and let profits suffer. Theres a very real risk of higher import costs and/or U.S. consumer demand destruction depending on whether Apple decides to pass along some of the tariff cost, Krish Sankar, an analyst at Cowen Inc., wrote Tuesday in a note to investors. Given that the majority of Apples hardware products that include the iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac systems are assembled and imported from China, the earnings risk could be quite substantial. Advertisement China retaliated Monday with plans to increase tariffs on U.S. imports to 25% from 10%. That would apply to components for the iPad and iPhone. So when U.S.-made parts including glass screen covers and facial-recognition sensors are shipped to China for assembly into iPhones and iPads, they will be more expensive too. The main concern is the iPhone, though. It accounted for 63% of sales in 2018, and serves as a hub for additional revenue from services and related devices like the Apple Watch. The newest iPhones cost $750 to $1,450, so any price increases could take the devices beyond the budgets of more consumers. The heightened trade tensions are a test for Cook and the global supply chain he helped build and run. Last year, the CEO showed political prowess by meeting with President Trump to argue against tariffs. Just over a year ago, Cook met Trump in the Oval Office. The CEO said he opposed the presidents approach and focused on how cooperation between countries can boost the economy more than nations acting alone. After the meeting, the administration told Cook it would not place tariffs on iPhones, the New York Times reported. Apple also wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in September asking him to reconsider tariffs and instead take other measures that would support the U.S. economy and American consumers. Later that month, the White House spared Apples Watch and AirPods. By late 2018, Apples strategy had become less effective. In late November, Trump told the Wall Street Journal he might impose tariffs on mobile phones and laptops, and said consumers could stand a 10% increase in prices very easily. The day after, Cook toured schools in Idaho with Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and senior advisor. As 2019 began, the real cost of the trade war for Apple began to emerge. The company cut revenue projections and Cook said the Trump administrations trade policies had indirectly hurt consumer demand for iPhones in China. More recently, the company has raised prices when it refreshed products that have already been hit with tariffs. The updated Apple Pencil, launched in October, costs $30 more than the previous version. The faster Mac mini costs $300 more than its predecessor. That suggests the company may take a similar approach with the iPhone. In its September letter to Lighthizer, Apple said tariffs would increase product prices. The 25% tariff on iPhones would likely apply to the wholesale price of the devices when they are imported from China. Apple doesnt disclose wholesale prices, but research firms often estimate the bill of materials. A $1,249 iPhone XS Max with 256 gigabytes of storage has $453 worth of parts, according to TechInsights. A 25% levy on that would be $113, raising the purchase price by about 9%. Apples other models, the iPhone XS and the iPhone XR, could face a similar increase, according to estimates. In a recent note to investors, Morgan Stanley estimated that a $999 iPhone XS would cost $160 more. JPMorgan analysts forecast a 14% price increase. This may only apply to U.S. iPhone sales, limiting the damage. About a third of iPhone revenue comes from the U.S., according to Shannon Cross of Cross Research. That wont address the problem of even more expensive iPhones, though. A series of price increases in recent years has already coincided with declining sales. If Apple passes the whole tariff cost to U.S. consumers, demand could drop by 10% to 40%, Cowens Sankar estimated on Tuesday. That, in turn, may slice earnings per share by 1% to 4% in fiscal 2020, the analyst said. Alternatively, Apple could eat the cost and leave iPhone prices untouched. That would dent earnings per share by 6% to 7%, based on a $450-per-device import cost and annual U.S. unit sales of 40 million, according to Sankar. Still, Apple has experience absorbing extra costs. When currencies swing, the company manages to protect its gross profit margins, Cross noted. Apple could work around the tariff issue as well. Theres a possibility of Apple rejiggering its supply chain to build more products outside China. Apple is ramping up production in India to avoid local taxes and has done similar work with Foxconn in Brazil. In the Star Wars land, rock spires tower in the landscape and a visit to the bar means you might run into characters from the films. Were not trying to fake immersion, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger said at a New York conference Tuesday. Were trying to make it as real as possible with as much scale as possible. But dont expect Disney parks to push virtual reality in the parks anytime soon. Virtual reality doesnt impress as much as re-creating a place and making people feel as though they are actually in something, Iger said. Advertisement Theres a wow factor there that is much greater than what you could ever achieve with VR, Iger said, mentioning other expansions such as Cars Land at California Adventure Park and Pandora The World of Avatar at its Animal Kingdom park in Orlando, Fla. Besides, its hard to order a drink at the Star Wars bar wearing virtual reality goggles, Iger joked. Disneyland will open Star Wars: Galaxys Edge on May 31. Another will open in Florida in August. Iger spoke candidly about the theme parks, the companys new streaming service and other topics during a question-and-answer session at the MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit. Some theme parks added virtual reality in recent years, using it as an opportunity to rebrand a roller coaster and offer something new, for instance. But at SeaWorld Orlando and Fun Spot theme parks in Florida and Georgia, the parks have pulled back, acknowledging the VR goggles took time to clean and extended wait times. Some guests simply werent fans, preferring a more traditional experience on a coaster. Iger said some technology makes sense at Disney. One of the most popular rides at Walt Disney World is Flight of Passage, which relies on 3-D googles to make riders feel as though theyre soaring through the air. Iger praised the augmented reality attraction at Animal Kingdom, saying, Theres more opportunities for that. Russon writes for the Orlando Sentinel. SpaceXs plan to provide broadband access will take a big step forward Thursday night as the Elon Musk-led firm prepares to launch five dozen small satellites on a single rocket. They will eventually become part of a network of potentially thousands of internet-beaming spacecraft. The launch was initially scheduled for Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time (7:30 p.m. Pacific time) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, but was scrubbed due to high upper-level winds. SpaceX will instead attempt to launch Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. After the launch, Hawthorne-based SpaceX plans to land the rockets first-stage booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean. The 60 satellites, which weigh about 500 pounds each, are expected to deploy from the rockets second stage about an hour after liftoff, when they reach a point about 273 miles above the Earth. The satellites will then propel themselves with tiny ion thrusters toward their final destination an altitude of about 341 miles. Together, the satellites weigh about 18.5 tons, marking the heaviest load a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket has ever carried, Musk said Wednesday during a pre-launch call with reporters. Advertisement Last year, SpaceX launched two demonstration satellites for its proposed Starlink broadband satellite constellation. The company has said those satellites, known as Tintin A and B, communicated with ground stations on Earth and remain in operation. The satellites set to launch Thursday, however, are a bit different. Musk tweeted last week that these are production design satellites, rather than the demonstration versions that launched last year. But dont expect the company to offer service immediately Musk said service could begin with 400 satellites, but 800 would be needed for significant operational capability. SpaceX has said it plans to provide coverage in the U.S. and around the world. First 60 @SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into Falcon fairing. Tight fit. pic.twitter.com/gZq8gHg9uK Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2019 Musk on Wednesday tried to tamp down expectations, saying Starlink satellite development was one of the hardest engineering projects. There is a lot of new technology here, he said, referring to Wednesday nights batch of spacecraft. Its possible that some of these satellites may not work. In fact ... theres a small possibility that all of the satellites may not work. SpaceXs plan to offer internet service, particularly in unconnected areas, is crucial to the companys future success. When SpaceX announced layoffs earlier this year, it said in a statement that it needed to become a leaner company, in part, to succeed at its global space-based internet initiative. On Wednesday, Musk said the endeavor would be a multi-billion dollar effort; in 2015, he estimated that the project could cost $10 billion to $15 billion. This is a very difficult thing, he said Wednesday. I do believe we will be successful but it is far from a sure thing. But he noted that at this point, it looks like we have sufficient capital to get to an operational level. Musk said Wednesday that the company would need the revenue from Starlink to fund its Mars spaceship development, but the company said in a statement in January that developing a satellite-based internet system and a Mars spaceship would bankrupt other organizations even when attempted separately. Musk described the constellation as a key stepping stone to establishing a city on Mars and a moon base. He said he believed SpaceX could access about 3% or 5% of total global internet connectivity revenue, which he estimated at $1 trillion. The broadband service would be aimed at people in remote areas who dont have connectivity or have only expensive or unreliable broadband, as well as users in more developed regions that want cheaper options. A SpaceX official said last year that services will be aimed at individual households and small businesses. Musk said he didnt think the company would be displacing telecommunications companies with this effort, saying SpaceX was interested in speaking about partnership with global telecommunications firms. But SpaceX has competition. Amazon.com Inc., OneWeb and Canadian satellite operator Telesat, among others, have all announced their intentions to develop similar constellations of hundreds or even thousands of satellites to beam internet to Earth. President Trump is poised to delay a decision by up to six months to impose auto tariffs to avoid blowing up negotiations with the European Union and Japan and further antagonize allies as he ramps up his trade war with China, according to people close to the discussions. Trump faces a May 18 deadline over how to proceed with his threat to slap a tariff of as much as 25% on imported cars and parts in the name of U.S. national security. The news was welcomed by an equities market that has been battered by renewed trade concerns since last week. The S&P 500 erased its earlier losses of as much as 0.7% and was trading 0.6% higher as of 11:49 a.m. in New York. Shares of BMW AG surged as much as 5%, while Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles also gained. GM deferred comment on the tariff decision delay to industry representatives, while Ford declined to comment and Fiat Chrysler couldnt be immediately reached. Advertisement Trump, who is due to make a state visit to Japan later this month, remains the wild card, according to people close to the discussion. Trump and a small group of aides including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and trade advisor Peter Navarro are seen to be in favor of the new import duties against the advice of other advisors. Tariff delay But people close to the discussions say even advocates of tariffs are still debating the scope of any action, complicating the discussions. Other advisors including U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who is leading the negotiations with the EU and Japan, have been urging Trump to postpone a decision, according to administration officials and other people familiar with the deliberations. At a White House meeting on Tuesday, officials firmed up the decision to delay tariffs for up to 180 days, according to two people familiar with the deliberations. A decision is expected to be announced publicly before the end of the week. Spokespeople for Ross and Lighthizer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the White House declined to comment. Trump last year ordered a Commerce Department investigation into whether imported cars and parts posed a threat to U.S. national security and he was presented with a final report laying out a series of recommendations in February. The findings werent publicly released. According to people who have seen the report, the justification for auto tariffs is not that the imports of vehicles and auto parts per se are a threat to national security, but its the portion they contribute to the overall U.S. trade deficit that could cause harm. The reason autos are very important to our trade picture is about half of our trade deficit comes from the single product, automotive, and about the other half of our trade deficit comes from a geographic area and thats called China, Ross said on Friday. In closed-door meetings with foreign countries and auto representatives, officials from the U.S. Trade Representatives office and Commerce have indicated for several weeks that the president will delay his decision and the duties will not derail ongoing trade negotiations. Trump advisors have cautioned the president that action on auto tariffs could risk serious pushback from Congress. Trumps own party is threatening to move forward with legislation to limit the presidents tariff authority with many in Congress saying duties on cars, which are widely opposed by the auto industry, would be a step too far. USMCA agreement Trumps advisors for months have been debating a strategy to delay the deadline and make the case that imposing broad auto tariffs would derail not only trade talks with Japan and the EU but also passage of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement through Congress. Auto industry representatives have been working closely with the U.S. Trade Representative and the White House to publicly tout the benefits of USMCA and supported a White House study last month that laid out the expected job increases if the deal gets approved by Congress and fully implemented. After the Trump administration faced massive resistance from auto companies during the negotiations for the new NAFTA, they are now among the biggest proponents of the deal. The U.S. imported $191.7 billion in passenger vehicles and light trucks in 2018 with more than $90 billion of those imports coming from Canada and Mexico, which are duty-free under NAFTA. Passenger cars are now subject to a 2.5% U.S. tariff but Trump has threatened to raise that to 25%, arguing that the EU and other countries have higher barriers to U.S. auto exports. Any new tariffs would hit imported cars from Japan, South Korea and Europe hardest. But they would also hit the supply chains of many domestic producers who rely on imported parts and foreign automakers with manufacturing operations in the U.S. Tariffs on European cars imported into the U.S. would disproportionately hurt Volkswagen AGs Porsche and Audi brands, as Porsche imports all of its U.S.-sold cars from Europe, while Audi imports more than two-thirds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. Mercedes-parent Daimler AG would also be affected, as 64% of its U.S.-sold cars come from Europe. BMW AG would be slightly better off, with more than half of its U.S. cars being made locally. The National Automobile Dealers Assn. estimates that the tariffs would add as much as $2,270 to the cost of U.S.-built cars and $6,875 to the cost of imported cars and trucks. We are deeply concerned that the administration continues to consider imposing auto tariffs, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing the largest domestic and foreign car makers with operations in the U.S., said in a statement. At the end of the day, you can have tariffs or investment, but you cant have both. President Trump issued an executive order Wednesday giving his administration sweeping powers to block Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. and other foreign communications firms from doing business in the United States a long-anticipated move he had postponed while Washington and Beijing were in intense trade negotiations. The White House said the president was taking the action to protect America from foreign adversaries who are actively and increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology infrastructure and services in the United States. Trumps directive does not name any company from China or any other country, and senior administration officials, in a hastily arranged press call, would not talk about Huawei or any specific firm. But the order was widely understood as one that targets Huawei, the worlds largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, which has been in the crosshairs of Americas security and intelligence agencies. Advertisement Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for example, singled out Huawei in a statement praising Trumps order, calling the firm a state-directed instrument of national power used by the Chinese government and Communist Party to destroy their international competitors, undermine U.S. companies, spy on foreign countries, and steal intellectual property and trade secrets. For months, U.S. officials have waged an aggressive campaign to restrain Huaweis global expansion as a leading supplier of the next-generation 5G wireless networks. They have argued that using Huawei equipment poses risks of Chinese espionage or sabotage. Top Huawei executives have vehemently denied they would allow the Chinese government to use their products for surveillance. With the trade talks at an impasse since Friday, Trump signed an order that was prepared months ago. Although officials would not attribute the timing to any specific factor, its release came amid an intensifying standoff between Washington and Beijing and immediately added a new level of friction. Already, the two have engaged in escalating rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs that could damage the worlds two largest economies. Declaring the problem of foreign adversaries seeking to exploit technological risks to be a national emergency, Trumps order formalizes what was a de facto ban on Huawei in U.S. markets in recent years as the Pentagon and Congress made moves to discourage its growth. Few Americans own Huawei cellphones and only a small number of local U.S. telecom service providers in rural areas have Huawei gear in their systems. Even so, many in the U.S. intelligence community sought an official ban from the White House, saying it would make the dangers clear and help the administrations efforts so far only partly successful to persuade key allies to shun Huawei. Washington has become increasingly worried about Beijings cyber intrusions and hacking of U.S. companies for sensitive information and technology and trade secrets. On Tuesday, during a Senate panel hearing on 5G and national security threats, lawmakers singled out Huawei in discussing the issue. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, Now weve got a developing technology called 5G that if China dominates this market, we may not be able to do normal business or function normally, and we are sitting around looking at each other. The U.S. concerns about cyber theft were on the agenda during the trade talks with China, although U.S. negotiators reportedly dropped the issue recently. The two sides broke off negotiations on Friday after the White House accused China of backing away from previous agreements, and Trump sharply escalated tariffs on Chinese goods. Chinese President Xi Jinping responded with counter-tariffs on Monday. No new talks are scheduled, although Trump and Xi are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit next month in Osaka, Japan. There was no immediate reaction from China to the latest U.S. announcement. Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said the Chinese would complain both for the sake of the trade talks and protecting Huaweis good name. As a tactical ploy, Beijing might single out an American company as a security risk, Scissors wrote in an email. China has recently adopted a more sweeping national security review than ours and they could soon discover that some smaller American IT firm must be tightly restricted, he said. The point of this would be to frighten bigger U.S. firms and have them lobby the administration. The executive order authorizes the Commerce Department, with the consultation of other agencies, to block U.S. businesses from transactions of information and communications technology or services from a foreign adversary that poses an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. Officials said the Commerce Department would have 150 days to develop implementation rules, although interim procedures are expected. The Commerce Department rules would be retroactive to the date of Trumps executive order. Under existing law, the U.S. government can block foreign firms from acquiring American technology firms, and with China in mind, Congress recently expanded this authority. Trumps order significantly adds to the governments toolbox. It is striking in how broad it is, said Doug Brake, a broadband policy expert at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. He noted that the impact of the order would depend on how the Commerce Department implements this new power. So much rides on the processes Commerce sets up, how they do risk analysis of what can be allowed and what cannot, he said. The Trump administration, with bipartisan support in Congress, considers China a top strategic adversary and threat to Americas security and economic interests and technology is a major battleground in this rivalry. Against that backdrop, the White House has stepped up its rhetoric and moves to isolate Huawei and other Chinese telecom firms. Although U.S. officials have offered no public evidence of malicious code or so-called back doors in Huawei equipment, they argue that its products cant be trusted because Beijing could at any time order Chinese companies to do its bidding. The Pentagon already has moved to block sales of smartphones made by Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese firm, at its retail stores in military bases. And last years Defense Department appropriations measure threatened to cut off federal funds to universities using components made by Huawei, prompting UC Berkeley, Stanford University and many other schools to sever new research partnerships with Huawei. In December, Huaweis chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who is the daughter of the companys founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, on a U.S. warrant. She is fighting extradition to the United States on charges that she and Huawei conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. Huawei also faces charges of stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile. Meng and Huawei have denied all charges. The company has fought back in recent months, filing a civil lawsuit in Canada and publicly denouncing Mengs detention as politically motivated and a violation of her rights. The latest from Washington More stories from Don Lee Ricky Gervais reshaped the contours of television comedy as co-creator and star of the hilariously bleak 2001 mockumentary series The Office. Fortifying his comedic voice with a succession of TV series, stand-up tours, movies and notorious Golden Globes hosting gigs, Gervais in March pushed his acerbic brand of insult humor into dark new territory with After Life. In the recently renewed Netflix series, writer-director-star Gervais plays Tony, a bitterly depressed small-town newspaper reporter who starts each day watching video missives from his late wife taped during her last days battling cancer. Remarkably, laughter ensues when Tony tangles with quirky co-workers, a nosy mailman, a heroin addict, the local prostitute, his dying fathers nurse and wise widow Anne (Penelope Wilton of Downton Abbey). Speaking by phone from the London home he shares with his partner of 37 years, author-producer Jane Fallon, Gervais cracked open a bottle of wine and went deep on After Life. When did you decide, My next TV series will be about death and depression? I was on tour with [stand-up concert] Humanity in 2017 and had my days free, so I was like, I should write a new show. The first thing I thought of was: Imagine a man who loses everything. And then, What is the worst thing that could happen? And for me, it would be losing my life partner. Id be suicidal and depressed and angry. So what stops him from committing suicide? The dog! Id never commit suicide if my dog was hungry. And then what? OK, I can do and say what I want because Ive got nothing to lose, and if it doesnt work out right I can always kill myself. That was the whole show in a nutshell, and it all happened quite quickly in my head. I got an adrenaline rush and started writing. Advertisement Tony is clever, skeptical, brutally honest. Is he basically a depressed version of Ricky Gervais? Um, thats sort of true. Everything Ive ever done has been a bit existential, and if youve got a good vehicle, it can be a Trojan horse to deliver all the things that you care about most. So there is a strand in After Life that is getting things off my chest. But sometimes its Anne in the graveyard who speaks my mind. Sometimes its the new girl at the newspaper who speaks my mind. Tony isnt just Ricky Gervais walking around saying everything I agree with. Hes a mishmash. Tony says exactly what he wants and doesnt care what people think. Do you relate easily to those traits? Well, two things there. As an artist, I am quite militant about going toward sacred cows, and I wont back down. But as a person, Im not like Tony because I do care about the consequences. Im not a psychopath. I wont fight a mugger because Im scared of what hed do to me, so I walk away. Why did you make Tony a newspaperman? Because thats the worst job for a grieving misanthrope when you have to go out into the community and talk to people about the banality of life. Tony reports on a guy who plays flutes through his nostrils and interviews parents who draw a mustache on their infant Baby Hitler. Were those fun scenes to dream up? I love those and a lot of them are true. The breast milk thing happened to friends of mine. They moved to the country and the woman next door came around with a rice pudding made from her breast milk. They said, Thank you very much, scraped it in the bin, gave her the dish back the next day and said it was delicious. Im sure I owe a lot to things that have gone before me, but my biggest influence is real life. I steal from real life and make a Frankenstein. In between the funny bits, After Life deals with grief in unflinching terms. How do you make the connection between comedy and death? They go hand in hand because thats what humors for. Humor is for getting us over the bad stuff. Thats all its for. It releases endorphins, just like taking medication does if youre depressed. Were all going to die, and we cant do anything about it, so wed better find it funny. We have a laugh. Then we find a lump. Thats life. FULL COVERAGE: Get the latest on awards season from The Envelope Leave it to Jim Jarmusch to put the dead in deadpan. The writer-director brings his trademark laid-back style and delight in subverting genre to The Dead Dont Die, a whacked-out zombie movie that, much to the filmmakers surprise, opened the Festival de Cannes on Tuesday night. I never thought Id be in Cannes at all; I especially didnt think so with this film, says Jarmusch, an appealingly relaxed silver-haired presence dressed in his usual all-black outfit with sunglasses to match. Referring to an eclectic cast that includes Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny, Selena Gomez and Tom Waits as Hermit Bob, Jarmusch said he told festival topper Thierry Fremaux, Cannes may be a big circus, but we brought our own clowns. Advertisement Opening in the U.S. on June 14, Dead details what happens when a full-on zombie apocalypse hits the mythical town of Centerville (A Real Nice Place, it says right there on the sign). In typical Jarmusch fashion, Dead has a lot of amusing idiosyncratic touches, including self-referential comments that Murray and Driver, as the towns police chief and top deputy, make about the film cracks about having read the script and the chief asking the deputy if hes improvising. RELATED: Inside opening night at the Cannes Film Festival Bill Murray, Chloe Sevigny, Jim Jarmusch, Selena Gomez, Tilda Swinton and Sara Driver during the photocall for The Dead Dont Die at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. (Ian Langsdon / EPA-EFE / REX) Fun is also had with the films Sturgill Simpson country-inflected title song, which features the stirring chorus, After life is over, the afterlife goes on. When you add the playful touches to the films bleak conclusion and metaphorical references to American life today, critics have treated Dead with a seriousness Jarmusch finds a little daunting. Its not intended to be dark and fatalistic; I think of it as a funny film, the director says. It wasnt like I shall make this grand Pirandellian effort. It was Is this amusing me while Im up at night writing? Beyond that I didnt know. My motto was, Well burn that bridge when we get to it. In fact, though as a full-on film buff he can name-check everything including horror genre touchstones Nosferatu (seen on a T-shirt) and the works of Dario Argento and Mario Bava (not to mention Sam Fuller, whose name appears on a tombstone), Jarmusch is not particularly a fan of the undead. Im not an aficionado of zombie stuff. Ive never seen Walking Dead on TV. I prefer vampires, he says. (And indeed one of his more recent films was the vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive with Swinton and Tom Hiddleston). Theyre more mysterious, more I dont know intelligent, sexy. And theyre immortal. Zombies are lifeless vessels. But Jarmusch appreciated the opportunity a zombie plot gave him to make a ridiculous film where I could have actors I love holed up in little places, saying a lot of stupid dialogue in those spaces. In fact, putting together the cast (also including Danny Glover, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, RZA, Carol Kane, horror maestro Larry Fessenden and Stranger Than Paradise star Eszter Ballint) turned out to be the best part of the entire venture. RELATED: Jim Jarmuschs The Dead Dont Die starts Cannes off on an apocalyptic note Tilda Swinton as Zelda Winston in a scene from The Dead Dont Die. (Abbot Genser / Focus Features) The hardest thing was our shooting schedule and that we didnt have a big enough budget and it rained every day, the director remembers of shooting in a small town two hours outside of New York. Everyone was doing it as a favor or for very little money, and we were squeezed to death. Its like that old line: Good, fast, cheap. Pick two. But if we waited to get more money, we would lose parts of our cast. It was get squeezed or we dont make this film. I talked to (cinematographer) Fred Elmes about whether we should wait, and he said, Why would we do that? Lets give it our best shot. Still, Jarmusch strove to keep things light on the set, as is his habit. When he shot his previous film, Paterson a lyrical ode to a sweet bus driver also starring Adam Driver, which premiered at the 2016 Cannes festival and went on to collect a slew of critics prizes he riffed on an alternate film he could shoot next. I called it Peterson. It was about a psycho bus driver with a .357 Magnum who blows people away. Sometimes hes sad, sometimes hes glad; hes always bad, bad, superbad. Though Jarmusch is serious about the ecological concerns the film references (Its the biggest thing facing us; its about survival), he adds I dont like didactic movies. And Im making a ridiculous zombie movie; Im as guilty as anyone. When it comes to other political issues a character played by Steve Buscemi wears a red ball cap with the phrase Keep America White Again Jarmusch says, The metaphor was so inherent in zombies that I couldnt avoid it. But, finally, something else matters more. I dont care about politics, I dont give a about Donald Trump, he says. Who was the most powerful person when Bach was writing his music? Most people dont know, but Bachs gift still reaches us today. I fought to be able to make films. Its my job, and it can be rough, but what a lucky thing to be able to do. Times critic Justin Chang is filing regular dispatches from the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 14-25 in France. The 72nd Festival de Cannes began Tuesday with a vision of the end. In The Dead Dont Die, Jim Jarmuschs bleak, bone-dry shrug of a horror-comedy, Adam Driver, Bill Murray and Chloe Sevigny play small-town police officers fending off a zombie apocalypse. Theres little ambiguity about what caused the epidemic, and even less about what it represents. A culture of moral idiocy and capitalist greed, signaled by a huge uptick in polar fracking, has fatally shifted the Earths rotational pattern. Now the sun takes forever to set, radio signals have gone haywire and the dead are rising up from their graves to feast on the flesh of the living. Theres something to be said for kicking off the worlds most prestigious film festival with a bloody aperitif, especially one served up by one of the festivals favorite sons. With The Dead Dont Die, Jarmusch has pioneered his own sub-subgenre: the undeadpan comedy. His dialogue scenes are as drawn-out and poker-faced as ever. When two diner employees are brutally disemboweled the movie spares us very little the people of Centerville (population 738) respond with more confusion than panic. The movie milks their comic bewilderment for all its worth, which isnt terribly much. Advertisement Drivers cop turns out to be the towns resident genre scholar, at one point invoking George Romero, whose aesthetic signature is apparent in the movies old-school, slow-shuffling zombie hordes. Theyre nothing like the fast-moving denizens of World War Z or the armed-to-the-teeth White Walkers of Game of Thrones, but what else would you expect from Jarmusch, never one to hurry a scene along? (The directors major stylistic innovation: the nifty clouds of ash that emerge whenever his zombies are shot in the head or decapitated.) Tilda Swinton in the movie The Dead Dont Die. (Frederick Elmes/Focus Features) The Romero references are hardly the only blatant wink-wink moments. In addition to Murray and Driver, the ensemble is crawling with Jarmusch collaborators. Tom Waits plays a bearded hermit. Iggy Pop is a zombie with a caffeine addiction. Whenever Tilda Swinton appears as a mortuary cosmetologist with a rigid gait, a samurai sword and a thick Scottish brogue, the movie gleefully shifts gears even genres to become a tone poem on the inscrutable Zen weirdness of Tilda Swinton. Selena Gomez, Luka Sabbat and Austin Butler play out-of-town visitors who are unflatteringly described as urban hipsters, which is nothing if not self-referential on Jarmuschs part. Even if Steve Buscemi didnt turn up as a gun-toting racist wearing an even stupider version of a MAGA hat (Keep America White Again), youd have to be pretty obtuse to miss the political rage simmering just beneath the movies jokey surface. Its clear enough what Jarmusch is saying: Weve become a nation of zombies, lazy and inattentive and addicted to things that dont matter. The Earth is dying, our leaders are morons and a new age of extinction is upon us. Our only shot at redemption salvation has long since ceased to be an option is to go down fighting. Its clear enough what Jarmusch is saying ... The Earth is dying, our leaders are morons and a new age of extinction is upon us. This isnt going to end well, Drivers character says more than once, until it feels less like a joke than a prophecy. Its not the most cheerful thought as we head into a new election season, though whether this movie will resonate beyond 2019 (Focus Features is releasing it June 14 in the U.S.) remains to be seen. You can share Jarmuschs despair I certainly do and still find its expression here too tired, bloodless and self-satisfied by half. I say this as an ardent admirer of the directors previous horror experiment, the sublime vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive, and as someone who can usually groove on his work even at its most laconic and self-reflexive (see Paterson, but really, take your pick). If you walk into The Dead Dont Die marveling at the oddity of Jim Jarmusch making a zombie movie, you are likely to walk out thinking its the only zombie movie Jarmusch could have made. I wish that were more of a compliment. Still, The Dead Dont Die certainly fulfilled its purpose where the festival was concerned, which was to put a lot of star wattage on the red carpet on opening night. It also served to remind all of us in the audience that, after last years relatively slim Hollywood presence, the 2019 festival lineup would boast a bonanza of high-profile American titles, including Terrence Malicks A Hidden Life, Quentin Tarantinos Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Ira Sachs Frankie, plus a splashy studio offering in the form of Rocketman, the Elton John biopic from the British director Dexter Fletcher. Some might well see this is as a form of rejuvenation, a chance to bring Cannes itself back from the dead after a 2018 edition that was widely and incorrectly dismissed as lackluster. (If this festival produces a single picture on par with last years Burning,Shoplifters and Cold War, it will have been a great one.) My hopes and expectations for Tarantino and Malick are as high as anyone elses, though no higher than they are for the latest works in competition by Celine Sciamma, Jessica Hausner, Diao Yinan and Kleber Mendonca Filho, to name a few. It is ridiculous to conflate a programs quality with its star power, or to suggest that its worth is tied exclusively to the strength of its Hollywood presence. This festival wears many hats, blockbuster launchpad and Oscar-buzz generator among them, but its first and last job is to showcase the best in world cinema, whatever that happens to look like. To the extent that Cannes lives up to that mandate, its truly the last film festival that needs to be made great again. Jim Jarmusch, from left, Sara Driver, Tilda Swinton, Luka Sabbat, Adam Driver, Selena Gomez and Chloe Sevigny arrive at the Cannes premiere of The Dead Dont Die. (Christophe Simon / AFP / Getty Images) I attended my first Festival de Cannes in 2006. The Palme dOr was awarded to Ken Loach for The Wind That Shakes the Barley. The jury gave other major prizes to Pedro Almodovars Volver, Bruno Dumonts Flandres and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritus Babel. Elia Suleiman was on the jury. Meanwhile, over in the Directors Fortnight, a program that runs parallel to the official selection, relatively new talents like Bong Joon-ho (The Host), Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest), Christophe Honore (Dans Paris) and Albert Serra (Honor de Cavalleria) made their mark. I mention this because all those filmmakers are back at this years festival. Dumont, Honore and Serra have new films in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. Loach, now a two-time Palme winner, will compete for a third with Sorry We Missed You; Almodovar, a perpetual Palme bridesmaid, is still vying for his first with the semi-autobiographical opus Pain and Glory. Bong, Porumboiu and Suleiman are all in competition too, with Parasite, The Whistlers and It Must Be Heaven, respectively. As for Inarritu, hes the president of this years competition jury, and so will have the task of bestowing the highest honor in international cinema on a lucky filmmaker. Will it be Hausner, Sciamma, Mati Diop or Justine Triet, thus bringing an end to Jane Campions regrettable ongoing streak as the only female director to have won the Palme? Or could it be someone who has already taken the big prize, like Tarantino, Malick, Abdellatif Kechiche, Loach or the Dardenne brothers? The next 11 days will tell. Penelope Cruz in the movie Pain and Glory. (Festival de Cannes) The return of so many directors from that 2006 edition of Cannes is a curious but not exactly wild coincidence. Such reunions are only to be expected from a festival that turns promising talents into revered auteurs, in part, by inviting them back again and again, cementing their legacies and its own in the process. It also allows the festival to establish a sense of consistency, of commitment to a coherent artistic philosophy, in an industry that faces rapid change at the best of times. Even still, its hard to consider some of the differences between Cannes 2006 and 2019 and not feel a twinge of nostalgia. Most of that years pictures were still projected on 35-millimeter film, which would be unheard of in todays DCP-friendly age. Back then, Netflix was still primarily a DVD-mailing service; it had yet to become the movie-streaming, content-producing powerhouse that would one day engage in a high-profile spat with festival organizers. The 2006 program featured at least two films with environment-conscious themes, Bongs The Host and Davis Guggenheims soon-to-be-Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, whose title feels woefully optimistic in retrospect. This years Cannes lineup also features a climate-change documentary, the Leila Conners-directed, Leonardo DiCaprio-narrated Ice on Fire. I dont think its a Game of Thrones reference. justin.chang@latimes.com The stone-cold killer in a bespoke bulletproof suit is back and if you thought John Wick was good with a pencil, you should see what he can do with a book of Russian folklore in the stacks of the New York Public Library. The same goes for axes, guns, katanas, a lot of knives and even a few helpful horses as Keanu Reeves racks up the bad guy body count in John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum. The latest installment of Lionsgates R-rated franchise about an ex-hit man killing his way back to a clean slate picks up right where 2017s John Wick 2 left off and mostly follows a relentless breakneck pace until the credits roll. It stumbles only when the action slows down to send the antihero on a clumsy side quest in search of character motivation instead of another fight. He is the Boogeyman, the underworlds Baba Yaga, a man of few words; expository dialogue isnt his strongest means of communication. Thats what fists are for. Can John Wick ride a horse? Of course John Wick can ride a horse and take on katana-wielding motorcyclists in NYC. (Niko Tavernese / Lionsgate) Advertisement That said, John Wick could use a moment to catch his breath. Technically the reluctantly un-retired assassin is still a grieving widower who only lost his wife, Helen, something like a few weeks ago in movie time, as seen in the New Jersey-to-Brooklyn rampage of 2014s John Wick. That film, by comparison, was a downright contained moral fable about a guy with a cool car avenging his puppy. But theres no rest for the wicked, or for lucrative Hollywood franchises. Each John Wick movie has upped the ante, the destruction, and the texture of the secret society of killers who rule from the shadows with their sacrosanct laws of civility and engagement. So too has the sophistication of its action storytelling matured now that Wick has a deeper awareness of what hes really fighting for. To rewind: Pulled out of retirement by the Russian mobsters who stole his car and killed his dog, legendary hitman Wick unleashed hell on the underworld from whence he came in the first film. His past continued to haunt him in the lore-expanding John Wick 2 as he crossed the High Table the governing guild of killuminati that enforce the rigid bylaws of contract killing and spilled blood on the sacred grounds of the Continental, a five-star hotel for killers. He was deemed ex-communicado and off-limits to those who might help him. As Parabellum opens moments later, hes unleashed onto the streets of New York City, bloody and presumably very tired, with a $14-million bounty on his head and an hours head start. In this heightened world, all of Wicks adversaries get a push notification alerting them of the news. Wick smartly sends his new canine companion off to safety and very suddenly has to fend off wave upon wave of highly trained thugs. The nonstop flurry of beautifully crafted fight scenes that follows tests both the threshold of the human body to withstand stabby, slicing, bone-crunching violence and the threshold of the audiences ability to watch said violence. Then again, watching Reeves outfight everyone on the planet always dressed to kill is precisely why these films exist. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) takes on Indonesian martial arts masters in John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum. (Niko Tavernese / Lionsgate) Parabellum unfurls some of the franchises most memorable and varied action to date, including a speeding motorcycle sword fight that owes a marker to recent Korean import The Villainess, a glass-smashing showdown against The Raid silat masters Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman and an opening face-off against Philadelphia 76ers center Boban Marjanovic. Another early highlight is an extended showdown in a Chinatown antiques store, during which Wick and the squad of elite killers bent on offing him run out of weapons only to realize theyre fighting in a roomful of knives behind display cases. Directed by stunt pro-turned-returning helmer Chad Stahelski with stunt choreography by Jonathan Eusebio and Scott Rogers, Parabellum bursts with the series usual sleek and squishy top-notch action, and the healthy dose of the winking humor that breaks Wick and his cronies out of the bounds of the genre. The script by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins and Marc Abrams expands the Wickverse in intriguing new directions with familiar faces and strong additions to the colorful ensemble of characters. Its fun to spend more time with both Ian McShane, as Winston, the proprietor of the Continental Hotel with a fondness for Wick, and Lance Reddick as Continental concierge Charon, who gets to do more than bemusedly survey the clientele this time around. Reeves Matrix co-star Laurence Fishburne also returns as the pigeon-crazy Bowery King, while Said Taghmaoui is a new mysterious figure Wick meets on his international odyssey visiting different oddballs of the underworld. Anjelica Huston joins in as the Director, the tough and exacting head of a Ruska Roma ballet company staffed with tattooed ballerinas and operatives-in-the-making, and whose retconned connection to Wick provides key passage to his future. Make no mistake, this is John Wicks universe. Even the killers on his tail are comically in awe of his celebrity status most of all Zero, a sushi chef by day/shinobi by night played with scene-stealing zest by Mark Dacascos (Only the Strong, Double Dragon). Less impressed but no less obsessed is Asia Kate Dillons no-nonsense Adjudicator, a High Table auditor in Thierry Mugler doling out penance for those sympathetic to Wick. A few of these characters, with their eccentricities and arch deliveries, could convincingly carry their own spinoffs. None deserve one more than Halle Berrys Sofia, an ex-assassin with two loyal Belgian Malinois whose screen time more than sets up a stand-alone of her own. The Oscar-winning actress stalks into the Wickverse hinting at a loaded backstory, and as the evenly matched pair team up for a thrilling midpoint action sequence, the film flirts with transcendence. In the breathtaking centerpiece, Berry and Reeves move wordlessly in concert with her attack canines across a perilous Moroccan marketplace at night, felling their enemies in mesmeric synchronicity. Stahelskis direction, judicious editing from Evan Schiff and cinematography by Dan Laustsen create an atmosphere ripe with danger and immediacy and let the meticulous fight choreography and balletic ballistics breathe in wide, long shots. Whats physically writ onscreen amid the furious fists, flying bullets and wall-to-wall gun-fu enriches and advances both character and story. Sofias palpable connection to her two beloved dogs underscores the franchises founding principle that even assassins who have closed off their humanity in order to do their job should always have a soft spot for the pups they love. John Wick (Reeves), Sofia (Halle Berry) and her very good pups quest into the Sahara. (Mark Rogers / Lionsgate) Even if its themes of loyalty vs. fealty and art vs. religion may not fully cohere, Parabellum mounts another argument asking us to take action cinema as seriously as the Caravaggio paintings, Tarkovsky references and tattooed ballerinas with bleeding toes that adorn the margins of this operatic symphony of carnage. Reeves and Stahelski have worked closely since the director was his stunt double on The Matrix, and their shorthand makes the star an instrument of kinetic movement and destruction, the paintbrush splattering CG squibs across the canvas. Look past the aggressive rock bro riffs of Tyler Bates score and the John Wick movies speak a subtle dialect of fluent, artful action like few other franchises in Hollywood. Parabellum excels when it tees up the sublimely inventive and wince-inducing close quarters fights with the lethally graceful Reeves baring John Wicks psyche and soul between reloads and headshots. How far the saga can continue to spin arias out of that tune remains to be seen. ------------ John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum Rating: R, for pervasive strong violence, and some language Running time: 2 hours, 11 minutes Playing: Opens May 17 in general release jen.yamato@latimes.com @jenyamato (CNN) -- Sun Dawu's pigs started dying from a mysterious virus last December. Four months later, all 20,000 in one farm were dead. Of those, 15,000 were killed by the virus. The other 5,000 were destroyed as a precaution. "It began with a few pigs a day, then it was hundreds," said Sun, a pig farmer and agricultural entrepreneur from Hebei province, China. "In the end, 800 pigs would die in a single day." African swine fever (ASF) is decimating China's pork industry, by far the biggest in the world. Dutch bank Rabobank, which lends to the global agricultural sector, estimates the country's pig population could shrink by a third in 2019 -- up to 200 million animals -- through a combination of the disease and culling. To put it in context, that's almost as many pigs as in the U.S. and Europe combined. The virus is harmless to humans but deadly to pigs -- and, so far, there is no cure or vaccine. Originating in Africa, outbreaks were recorded in eastern Europe and Russia before it first appeared in China last August. It has since spread to other Asian countries, including Vietnam and Cambodia. In March, the Chinese government said it had a "good control" of the epidemic. At a press conference last month, Beijing said ASF was not spreading as quickly as before. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), China's central authorities have taken the right steps to bring the virus under control. "They've done everything they could possibly do to control the disease. They had a plan, they had a strategy, they have been responding very vigorously," said Vincent Martin, the FAO representative in China. Farms wiped out But the scale of the outbreak may be bigger than officials estimate, as some farmers tell CNN that the disease is not always recognized locally. Sun said initial testing by provincial officials at his Hebei farm was negative for ASF. However after he posted pictures of the dead animals online, the country's Disease Prevention and Control Center tested them and confirmed they carried the virus. Also in Hebei, fellow farmer Zhang Haixia watched all her 600 pigs die. The official cause of death, she was told, was a regular swine influenza. "The local officials were afraid to be accountable," she told CNN. "They threatened us that there would be consequences if we reported to higher-ups in the government. They are afraid of losing their jobs because of this." CNN has contacted authorities in Hebei for comment but has not received a response. Martin, from the FAO, warned that it could take years before the outbreak was completely contained. "I'm not sure we can say it is under control because we know how complex the disease is," he said. "We have experience in other countries where it took years to get a handle on these diseases." Not enough pork in the world One of the main problems China faces in containing ASF is that its pig industry is fragmented. Martin said there are thousands of small farms which may not have the correct bio-security measures needed to control the spread of the disease. Another complication is that the virus can survive in pork products for months, meaning it can be reintroduced into herds by accident. And it's not just producers who are hurting. The epidemic could also have a broader economic impact: China is the world's largest consumer of pork, a staple for the vast majority of its 1.4 billion people. According to government forecasts, the price of pork could rise to record levels in the second half of 2019, as demand overwhelms supply. Analysts say there isn't enough pork in the world to cover China's expected shortfall and consumers are likely to turn to other meats as a substitute. Rabobank's report predicts an "unprecedented" shift in global protein supply to China to cover the shortfall. "This shift will likely create unexpected product shortfalls in markets previously serviced by suppliers ... that will ultimately result in higher global protein prices," report author Christine McCracken wrote. Pork producers in Europe and the U.S. are already starting to increase shipments to China, even though U.S. exports are subject to a 62% tariff because of the trade fight with China. In the lunar calendar, 2019 is the year of the pig. It's supposed to be an auspicious year. For China's pork industry, it's anything but. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Fever could kill a third of China's pigs. That's almost as many as live in the US and Europe combined." Trying to define the aesthetic known as camp is like trying to domesticate a feral squirrel. Part of the problem is that camp often gives mixed signals. To wit: Camp usually seems to be targeting gay men of a certain age or addled 5-year-olds. Camp cant always make up its mind whether it wants to exhort or to adorn. Like a high-end Japanese toilet, camp can come off as very, very serious but also as if its every function and button is screaming celebration! Camp: Notes on Fashion, the current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute, is themed after writer Susan Sontags 1964 Partisan Review article, Notes on Camp, in which she codified camp as a kind of failed seriousness that traffics in a love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. In turn, this years Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute benefit aka the star-studded, $35,000-a-ticket Met Gala is, as is the custom, themed after the Costume Institute exhibition. When word came down earlier this year that the deceased Sontag the priestess of high-minded public intellectualism and, to some, that pursuits attendant sanctimony was essentially the animating force behind a party being hosted by Anna Wintour, Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, Serena Williams and Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci, it was great fun to imagine how various celebrities might try to present their more scholarly and Sontag-like sides at the May 6th ball. One imagined Nicki Minaj anointing her hair with Sontags signature skunk-streak of white or a Jonas brother monologuing about how he spent the mid-90s putting on impromptu productions of Waiting for Godot in war-torn Sarajevo. (Spoiler alert: Neither came to pass.) Susan Sontag, whose 1964 Partisan Review article, Notes on Camp, provided the inspiration for this years show at the Costume Institute. (Peter Hujar / The Metropolitan Museum of Art) Advertisement But the Costume Institute shows more important mandate is to try to contextualize camp by showing how it has intersected with both fashion and the larger culture. Although Camp: Notes on Fashion opens with classical sculptures of men that illustrate the 19th century concept of the beau ideal, the show suggests that the first instance of camp is probably from Molieres 1671 play The Impostures of Scapin, about the posturing and schemes of the wily commedia dellarte character Scapin. Then, via paintings and clothing, the exhibition, continuing through Sept. 8, follows the rough timeline of camp that Sontag outlined in her essay: Goaded on by the 18th century fascination with artifice, camp turned inward in the 19th century with the art-for-arts-sake ethos of aestheticism before bursting into technicolor peacock status with the life and work of Oscar Wilde. Whats particularly interesting here is that Sontags essay, its references ranging among Aubrey Beardsley drawings, Flash Gordon comics and Swan Lake, cites just two examples of clothing that she found to be campy: womens clothing of the 20s, and a woman walking around in a dress of three million feathers. The exhibitions central room contains items from the Met that Sontag mentioned in her essay (she was a frequent visitor), some of which may strike museum-goers as not campy at all: a beige, beaded 1925 Molyneux silk georgette flapper dress; a Tiffany lamp; two mens evening suits in navy wool. The Great Gatsby must have been Sontags Vegas. The Warholian interpretation of camp is also featured in the show. (Zach Hilty / The Metropolitan Museum of Art,) The exhibitions showpiece is its large, exhilarating, final room, full of dresses and candy colors and mayhem, presented in a two-tiered series of cubicles reminiscent of the Hollywood Squares set. We see clothing made of pennies, Christmas tinsel, mirrors, Hello Kitty dolls, teddy bears and plastic bananas; there are clothes meant to look like a TV dinner, a garbage can, a Budweiser, a swan that has died on its wearer, cauliflower, slices of luncheon meat, a shower head. (Its like being trapped in Lady Gagas closet with 300 strangers and their smartphones.) If the recording of Judy Garland singing Over the Rainbow throughout the show seems slightly different in this room, its because the version playing in the earlier rooms was recorded when Judy was 16, while the version at the end of the show was recorded just months before Judy overdosed. Bring the kids. Two designs from the spring/summer 2016 collection of Marc Jacobs. (Johnny Dufort / The Metropolitan Museum of Art) Its this last room that answers ones nagging question about the camp aesthetic. Namely: In a post-Stonewall, post-gay marriage world, does camp, a longtime wink-wink among marginalized gays, whiff slightly of mothballs? Sontag wrote that camp was instrumental to gays integration into society because it was a solvent of morality that sponsors playfulness while it also neutralizes moral indignation. It would be lovely to think that the signs of increased tolerance of homosexuality in the world had done away with the moral indignation that inspired generations of wits to don feather boas and refer to everyone in the room as Mary. But it would also be naive. Look at the legions of young fans of Gaga or RuPauls Drag Race or the Ryan Murphy filmography who have found succor and hope within those three particular bales of cotton candy. Or look again at the Camp exhibitions last room. A section labeled Gender Without Genitals includes Marc Jacobs Freudian Slip dress a mens evening suit in front that, in the back, turns into something like a white wedding dress as well as two gender-blurring black evening suits by Thom Browne. Here camp and its covert campaign of subversion feel wonderfully urgent and necessary: the gap-toothed fife player in the march toward nonbinary. Drag underwent a similar trajectory. At a certain point in the late 1990s, drag could be said to have lost its proverbial juice. Maybe it was when the second drag restaurant opened in your neighborhood, or maybe when photos emerged of New York Citys then-mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, performing drag at a charity dinner. Drag, it appeared, was the new mime. The exhibitions mission is to contextualize camp by showing how it has intersected with both fashion and the larger culture. (Zach Hilty / The Metropolitan Museum of Art,) But whenever the mainstream co-opts a subversive art form, that art forms power doesnt go extinct, it simply shifts to another locus. The late 1990s, after all, was also when people started to take notice of the comedian and actor Eddie Izzard, who, though he sleeps with women, sometimes wears lipstick or womens high heels with his otherwise traditionally male wardrobe. (Izzard refers to himself as a straight transvestite, or male lesbian.) To watch Izzard do stand-up was to be unsettled, fascinated. Drag had got its bite back. So too can camp, as Gender Without Genitals attests. Im keeping my eyes trained on the she/shim/shizzle. The beleaguered American retailer J.Crew got a major PR boost this month when the most famous new dad in the world was photographed wearing one of its suits. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle welcomed their first child a son they have named Archie as the latest member of the British royal family and showed him off to the public in a photo shoot taken two days after his birth, the Duke of Sussex, no stranger to wearing bespoke garments from Savile Row, chose a slim-fitting suit that comes from J.Crews popular Ludlow line. His look was in a light geyser grey, and is available as separates for $650 total. Britains Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, walk away after posing for photographs with their son, Archie. (Dominic Lipinski / AFP/Getty Images) Harry finished off the look with a rather conservative white dress shirt and navy blue tie. Esquire magazine trumpeted that it was a look that every single one of us could stand to emulate, while writer Derek Guy of the menswear site Put This On was a little less effusive in his evaluation: He doesnt look half bad. Which just goes to show that anyone can look good with a Ludlow suit and the unshakable confidence that comes with being sixth in line to the British throne. The Duchess of Sussex also made a bit of a fashion statement with her outfit that day. Her sleeveless wrap trench dress came from British designer Grace Wales Bonner, who, like the duchess, is biracial the offspring of a Jamaican father and English mother. As Vogue pointed out in an online article praising Markles choice, Bonner often uses her work to open up thought-provoking conversations around representation, gender politics, and black male identity. Added the magazine, For the Duchess to champion the work of a young Briton of mixed heritage, one who is leading a new wave of black and brown British creatives, speaks volumes. Advertisement And what about Archie (full name: Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor)? He was wrapped in a merino wool snuggly from from G.H. Hurt & Sons, which costs $172, just over a quarter what his fathers suit cost. Hurt & Sons, a family-run, Nottingham-based firm has been designing shawls for the arrival of royal babies for the past 70 years, since Queen Elizabeth II gave birth to Prince Charles in 1948. image@latimes.com For fashion news, follow us at @latimesimage on Twitter. Ocean Star Restaurant on Atlantic Boulevard in Monterey Park opened its massive dining room in 1982. With a capacity of 900, it was among the largest restaurants in the city, and for years it held court as one of the premier dim sum destinations in the city: massive weekend crowds, wobbly Lazy Susans and wheeled carts packed with cheong fun, BBQ pork buns and chewy chicken feet. The Cantonese restaurant abruptly closed its doors May 1. Sunny Wan, president of Ossa Miramar Inc., the restaurants operating group, said in an email that the management team found it became more and more difficult to manage such a large-scale restaurant. Although weekends at large dim sum dining rooms see healthy crowds, weekday business can drop off noticeably. Traditional Chinese banquet spaces arent as sought after as they used to be, Wan said. Its the latest shutter in Chinese-restaurant-dense San Gabriel Valley, which has seen a wave of major closures in recent months. Older restaurants and large-scale banquet halls, which frequently are Cantonese-style dim sum specialists, have been hit especially hard: Besides Ocean Star, Empress Harbor Seafood Restaurant and Lincoln Seafood in Monterey Park, Embassy Kitchen in San Gabriel, and East Gourmet Seafood in Rosemead all closed within the last year. Advertisement While the exact reasons are not simple to codify, restaurant owners and diners cited a number of factors in explaining the rash of closures: labor issues, financial challenges and changing consumer tastes among them. Empress Harbor, just down the block from Ocean Star, served its final meal in April. It opened in 1988 on the top floor of the Atlantic Place Shopping Center, a mini-mall of brown concrete and reflective glass on the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Garvey Avenue. The 10,000-square-foot restaurant hosted parties of up to 500 people, and saw numerous banquets, weddings and events over the years. Takashi Cheng, a representative of the restaurants parent company, cited increasing costs and maintenance issues in explaining the decision to close. The restaurants website says it is looking for a new location. Outside Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot in Pasadena. While some traditional Chinese restaurants struggle, hot pot restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley are thriving. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) On the message board Food Talk Central, speculation is rife as to the exact reason for the epidemic. One is that the restaurants, many of which were opened by immigrants decades ago, are built on a back-breaking labor model that second- and third-generation residents are unable or simply unwilling to maintain. The kitchens rely on employees agreeing to work on salary, but it usually means they do six days a week and usually double shifts every day except maybe one half day a week, one commenter wrote. Nobody wants to work like that anymore, especially younger cooks. It may also be that tastes are changing. Cantonese cuisine has, until relatively recently, been the most popular style of Chinese cooking in the U.S. In the 19th century, Chinese immigrants to the U.S. arrived primarily from Guangdong province in southern China (where Cantonese is spoken), particularly the rural Taishan region. Decades later, dim sum halls and the smell of butane had become fixtures of urban Chinatowns. Luxurious Cantonese banquet food abalone, sea cucumber, jellyfish was a staple of weddings and special occasions. Today, with a wider representation of immigrants from other parts of China, different regional cuisines are shining in the U.S. at the expense of Cantonese-style cooking. David Chan, an L.A.-based Chinese restaurant obsessive (he estimates hes eaten at more than 7,000 different Chinese restaurants), keeps an unofficial tally of the different types that are opening in the San Gabriel Valley. Cantonese cuisine, he said, has fallen out of favor. Over the last two years, do you know how many [new restaurant openings] are Cantonese? he asked. Ten percent. He estimates that a majority of new restaurants are either Sichuan or hot pot restaurants, or both. There are also generational changes at play many younger Chinese Americans dont want to have traditional Chinese wedding banquets. That used to be the format for all the weddings in the SGV, Wan said. Nowadays its different. Chan said he experienced the shift firsthand with his own children. We basically forced my son to have one because we owed so many people from so many decades, he said. Chans son had a 45-table traditional banquet at the San Gabriel Hilton. His daughter, less eager to go the traditional route, decided to pay for her own wedding in Malibu. Cheng of Empress Harbor bemoans the loss of tradition. If you look at all the closures, its saddening. Youre not going to have a venue that can have upwards of 40 tables for a Chinese-style wedding banquet in the future, he said. We dont do enough to preserve the traditional aspect of Chinese culture. But Chan remains largely optimistic, noting the sometimes shocking speed with which another restaurant moves into a vacated space. It amazes me to see a sudden closure, like Noodle Boy, and the next day you see a sign that announces Noodle Palace. The place is taken. Three years ago, over Memorial Day weekend, Camille Chavez was hanging with a friend in a bar in Avila Beach, the tiny seaside town on the Central Coast. Nearby, Avila Beachs fifth annual Tequila Festival was winding down. Chavez, a high school special education teacher in Santa Maria, is not a fan of tequila, but she wanted to see the headlining band, Ozomatli. After dinner at the Custom House restaurant, she bumped into her friend Isaac McCormack. The pair decided to grab a drink inside a beachfront bar called Mr. Ricks. McCormack ordered at the bar while Chavez stood behind him, her arms affectionately draped around his neck. As the bartender served them a bottle of beer and handed them cups, a San Luis Obispo building inspector named Christopher Olcott began backing into the two friends. On the security video, it looks as if he is protecting some imaginary turf, or being deliberately obnoxious. Finally, Chavez pushed him back with her hip. Advertisement Olcott cocked back his right elbow and smashed it into her face. Chavez fell to the floor unconscious, twitching slightly, and Olcott began pummeling McCormack in the face with his fist. Olcott was charged with felony assault. The case went to trial in January 2018 and lasted 13 days. Until the security video was leaked to a local news outlet last month, almost no one outside the legal system had paid any attention to the story. The video shows a damning sequence of events, but the jury could not come up with a unanimous verdict. It deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of guilt. Why? Maybe defense attorney Ilan Funke-Bilu persuaded the five holdouts that Chavez was the aggressor because she bumped Olcott back. But juror John Backer, who had voted to convict Olcott, told the San Luis Obispo Tribune that he believed race played a role in the verdict. Olcott is white; Chavez is Mexican American and McCormack is Native American and Mexican American. Backer described the jury as older, conservative and nearly all-white. The defense, he told the Tribune, painted the assailant as a good, clean-cut, hardworking professional with a family as opposed to two people who dont come from this area and shouldnt have come to this place in the first place. Chavez, deeply disappointed but not surprised by the outcome, said an investigator for the prosecutor told her something disturbing. A juror, he said, told him a second juror had wondered why Olcott should lose his job for two Mexicans in a bar. On Monday, I called Assistant Dist. Atty. Eric Dobroth, a spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County prosecutors office, to see if that was true. Dobroth checked with the investigator, then called me an hour later to confirm the quote. The investigator, Dobroth said, spoke with a member of the jury, who described another member of the jury making the comment that is consistent with what Camille told you. :: I met Chavez, 30, on Friday afternoon at a coffee shop in Orcutt, about a five-minute drive from Righetti High School in Santa Maria, where she teaches. Her short hair, dyed a stylish gray, peeked out from her hat brim. Her lower lip is pierced with a stud (which she removed when she testified). High school special education teacher Camille Chavez was assaulted in an Avila Beach bar three years ago. Her assailant pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after a jury failed to convict him. (Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times) This is not the first time in my life a man has done something really awful to me, she said. But its the first time there was an opportunity for justice to be served. I relied on the judicial system to do that and it didnt. I think that hurts more than the initial event. What hurt even more: San Luis Obispo County Dist. Atty. Dan Dow declined to retry the case. It was a management decision made by consensus, Dobroth said. Despite the report about the jurors allegedly racist comment, he said, the prosecutor decided not to risk another hung jury. The case was finally resolved on March 21: Prosecutors would drop the felony charge and let Olcott plead guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge. Instead of a two- to four-year prison term, he would face 60 days in jail. He is likely to serve half that time. His sentence is to begin on May 20. He will be on probation for three years and was ordered to attend alcohol counseling. A few weeks after a Superior Court judge approved the deal, the security video of the assault was obtained by Cal Coast News, a local website. Once people saw the video, they were outraged. The release of the video prompted the editorial board of the San Luis Obispo Tribune to condemn the 2018 verdict: We rarely criticize jury verdicts after all, we arent privy to all that goes on in the courtroom, the board wrote, but this is one time when the video evidence speaks for itself. The editorial board also called for Olcott, 39, to be fired. It was not until the video surfaced that the city put Olcott, who had continued to inspect buildings, on administrative leave, and the city manager announced he would investigate. As the criminal proceedings in this matter have finally come to a conclusion and additional information has been made publicly available, the city will thoroughly and quickly investigate the record to determine appropriate employment actions, San Luis Obispo City Manager Derek Johnson told the Tribune. Olcotts attorney was outraged. Monday, he emailed me a copy of a letter of protest that he sent to the city manager. In my almost 40 years of practicing law in San Luis Obispo County, I have never seen the public lynching my client is enduring, wrote Funke-Bilu. The message conveyed by the media was that my client, without provocation, attacked an innocent woman. Naturally, this one-sided presentation fomented public indignation. His client pleaded guilty, according to prosecutors, yet Funke-Bilu wrote that Olcott has always maintained his innocence. :: You dont get violently smashed in the face, and fall head first onto a concrete floor without some lasting damage. Chavez was diagnosed with a concussion, and she had a lump on the back of her head that lasted months. She tried to forget about the assault, to put it behind her. Initially, I didnt process it, she said. Life went on, and I didnt tell very many people about it. It was not on news. It actually took a couple years for it to really hit me. Three years later, she is still being treated for anxiety, depression and PTSD. Her short-term memory is impaired, she said. Shes uncomfortable in large crowds. I constantly worry about whats going to happen, Chavez said. I dont sit with my back exposed. I asked whether she had considered filing a civil personal injury lawsuit, but she told me she had not known there was a two-year statute of limitations on a case like hers. On June 20, shes due in court to present a bill for restitution, the right of any California crime victim. She will ask the court to order Olcott to cover her medical expenses, co-pays and missed work. She also wants him to reimburse her for training her dog as a PTSD service animal. All in all, shes asking for about $15,000. She expects Olcott to fight her on the amount, and shes prepared to be disappointed again. robin.abcarian@latimes.com Twitter: @AbcarianLAT For decades, the Boy Scouts of America has closely guarded a trove of documents that detail sexual abuse allegations against troop leaders and others. The most complete public accounting so far came in 2012, when the Los Angeles Times published internal Scout records about accusations against some 5,000 leaders and volunteers named in the organizations blacklist, known as the perversion files. Now, an even clearer picture of the scope of the alleged sexual abuse is emerging. A researcher hired by the Scouts to analyze a more complete set of records from 1944 to 2016 testified earlier this year that she had identified 7,819 suspected abusers and 12,254 victims, marking the youth groups first known tallies. But even those numbers likely understate how many molesters infiltrated the Scouts ranks over the years, according to lawyers who have sued the organization on behalf of hundreds of alleged victims. Most of the suspected offenders were accused of abusing multiple boys, they noted, and many instances of abuse were never reported. Several lawyers also said they had signed up hundreds of new clients and that many of their claims accuse men who arent on the Scouts blacklist. Advertisement The magnitude of the accusations takes on new significance as New York and New Jersey recently have extended their statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits, opening the 109-year-old youth organization to a potential slew of new claims. Similar legislation is pending in California. The Boy Scouts of America already has grappled with years of costly sexual abuse litigation at the same time it has struggled with declining membership. National Scouts officials will not say how many abuse lawsuits have been filed against the group or how much has been paid out in settlements and judgments; no reliable independent estimates exist. The organization says it is considering bankruptcy protection, which would halt ongoing lawsuits while settlements are negotiated. In a statement to The Times, Scouts officials emphasized enhanced youth protection measures now in place, including criminal background checks for leaders and volunteers, and said that 2018 produced only five known cases of sexual abuse among the ranks of 2.2 million Scouts. We care deeply about all victims of child abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in Scouting, the statement read. We believe victims, we support them, and we pay for unlimited counseling by a provider of their choice, and we encourage them to come forward. As soon as the BSA is notified of any allegation of abuse, it is immediately reported to law enforcement. The tally of more than 7,800 suspected abusers identified by the organizations expert includes some who applied but were never allowed to join the ranks, the Boy Scouts said. The organization would not elaborate. Read the L.A. Times 2012 investigation of sex abuse in the Boy Scouts The Scout researchers numbers were cited at a Manhattan news conference held in late April by attorney Jeff Anderson, who described his shock and dismay at the scale of the alleged abuse but said in a subsequent interview that he believed the figures were on the low side. Its emblematic of how little is actually known about the magnitude of it, he said. Anderson first learned of the figures while handling an unrelated sexual abuse lawsuit in his home state of Minnesota. Among those testifying in the case was Janet Warren, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, who said she and a team of computer coders came up with the tallies after spending five years analyzing files under a contract with the Scouts. The numbers are flawed because many of those accused were connected to multiple victims, many instances of sexual abuse are never reported, and the Scouts have acknowledged destroying an unknown number of files over the years, said Paul Mones, one of the lawyers in a landmark Oregon lawsuit that resulted in a nearly $20 - million jury verdict against the Scouts in 2010. He said fewer than a quarter of his Scouts abuse cases in the last 10 years had involved perpetrators who were in the files. Formally known for years as the Ineligible Volunteer files, the dossiers now called the Volunteer Screening Database name suspected abusers from all regions and contain biographical information, legal records, official correspondence and boys accounts of alleged abuse by Scout leaders who often were respected members of their communities. It was not necessary to be charged with a crime to be placed in the files, nor were all allegations substantiated. DATABASE: Inside the Boy Scouts of Americas perversion files The records have been kept for about a century. The Times publication of a searchable database of the files triggered lawsuits by alleged victims who cited them as evidence the organization knew of pedophiles in their midst but failed to protect children. Scouting officials have fought hard in court to keep the files from public view, contending that confidentiality was necessary to protect victims, witnesses and anyone falsely accused. They also say the blacklist has been effective. While some perpetrators were able to circumvent the system, the fact is that there were countless times when the files successfully prevented perpetrators from joining or rejoining the organization, according to the Scouts statement. The Times yearlong examination of the files seven years ago revealed serious flaws in the groups efforts to stem abuse. In hundreds of cases, the newspaper found, the organization failed to report accusations to authorities and often hid the allegations from parents and the public. In more than 125 cases, men allegedly continued to molest Scouts after the organization was first presented with charges of abusive behavior. Scouts officials sometimes urged admitted offenders to quietly resign and then helped cover their tracks with bogus reasons for their departures. After conducting her review of the same files and others, Warren concluded there was no evidence of a cover-up by the Boy Scouts of America. In its statement, the Scouts said Warren was referring only to any cover-up at the national level. There have been times, most of them decades ago, when local individuals did not follow reporting procedures either to the national organization or to law enforcement, it said, noting that in 2013 it reviewed its files and notified police of any instances of abuse that might have gone unreported. The Times obtained the records for its database from Seattle attorney Timothy Kosnoff, who has sued the Boy Scouts in abuse cases more than 100 times since 2007, and from the court-ordered release of files from the Portland case. That trial, along with the files publication, contributed to a fundamental shift in the national consciousness about sexual abuse in large institutions, Mones said and helped prod state legislatures to move to reform their statutes of limitations. This week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed legislation allowing those who say they were victimized as children to sue until age 55 or within seven years of discovering that the abuse caused them harm. New York also has passed a law with similar provisions, and a look-back window that would allow some old claims to be revived. A California bill working its way through the Legislature would expand the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual assault to sue for damages, raising the maximum age to file an action from 26 to 40, or within five years of discovering harm from the abuse. The Times publication of its database fueled a tsunami of civil litigation against the Scouts, Mones said. He estimated that at least 400 lawsuits had been filed since the files release and noted the Scouts had sought to settle many other legal actions before they were filed. Kosnoff said he and two law firms he had teamed with recently signed more than 350 new clients through a national TV ad campaign. The allegations, he said, span decades and 48 states, and are made by victims ranging in age from 14 to 97. Most of the accused 234 are men who are not named in the blacklist that the organization has used to exclude suspected molesters. Consequently, the number of children who have been abused in Scouting is much larger than the BSA has ever disclosed, Kosnoff said. It is time the BSA is held to account fully for this atrocity. At least two of the Scouts insurers have refused to cover the payouts, contending that the Scouts could have prevented the abuse that led to the claims. Although the national organization still has assets of more than $1 billion, the looming liabilities are large enough that officials are weighing whether to file for bankruptcy protection. A Chapter 11 filing would require new claims of abuse to be handled in that venue rather than in state courts. Those filing claims would join other creditors. Some Catholic dioceses caught up in the churchs sex abuse scandal employed the same tactic. The BSA is considering options to determine how victims can be equitably compensated while the organization continues with its mission to serve youth, the Scouts statement said. No decision has been made. Jackie Goldberg, a veteran politician and educator who served on the Los Angeles school board three decades ago, will once again have a voice in the nations second-largest school district after a resounding win Tuesday for a seat in a special election. Goldbergs victory over candidate Heather Repenning was also a win for the teachers union and will mark a shift in the boards power dynamic that had recently tilted toward pro-charter-school alliances. She vowed to work to bring more funding to the district and its neediest students, and improve conditions that teachers fought for during a January strike. In the last 40 years, Goldberg told supporters Tuesday night in Echo Park, We have raised class sizes, lost nurses, lost the class size that was appropriate, lost teaching assistants, lost assistant principals, lost counselors and psychiatric social workers. Advertisement Goldberg won with 71.6% of the votes counted after polls closed Tuesday, not including provisional and some mail-in ballots. I do believe in the deepest part of my heart that it was the strike of the teachers who woke up the public to what has happened to public education since 1978, Goldberg said. Repenning called Goldberg around 10:30 p.m. to concede. Im very proud of the campaign that I ran that we ran, Repenning told supporters who gathered at a Silver Lake restaurant Tuesday night. Ive never run before. I didnt have any name ID. So I was really at a disadvantage. The seat has been vacant since the July 2018 resignation of former board member Ref Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to campaign finance violations. Goldberg is entering a fraught time in the district, where leaders are struggling with declining enrollment, a fight over the expansion of charter schools and questions about how to meet the districts financial commitments. Her win could weaken the power of pro-charter school forces in L.A. Rodriguez was one of four on the seven-member board elected with financial backing from charter school supporters. Goldberg gained support by speaking out forcefully against the growth of charter schools and said she was running to prevent the school board from being controlled by charter interests. Though most charter reform requires state action, Los Angeles Unified is by far Californias largest district and adding as vocal an opponent as Goldberg could have far-reaching significance. Beyond state lobbying, the board could call for more, tougher oversight of the charter schools, and more aggressively seek payment for use of district property, within the boundaries of existing law, UCLA education professor Pedro Noguera said. Repenning had proclaimed she did not oppose charter schools and would have been an independent voice. She had also highlighted that she would have been the only board member with a child who currently attends a district school. Ive tried not to play into the normal, endless war between the teachers union and the charter association, Repenning said Tuesday night. I ran because I wanted to bring the best ideas to our school board and ... make sure our students have more academic support from pre-K all the way to college. The California Charter Schools Assn., which has offered heavy financial backing in past elections, did not endorse a candidate in this race. But two pro-charter philanthropists, Eli Broad and Bill Bloomfield, donated to support Repenning. See live election results from the race for the L.A. Unified Board District 5 seat The election was a war of unions that have often historically been allies. Political action committees sponsored by the two largest labor groups in the district, United Teachers Los Angeles and Service Employees International Union, Local 99, had each spent upward of $1 million on the race. The teachers union supported Goldberg, while SEIU backed Repenning. During the January teachers strike over pay raises and other working conditions, Goldberg, 74, supported the teachers unions claim that the district could use its reserves to meet teachers demands. L.A. County officials have warned, however, that the district may not be able to fully pay the costs for raises, modest class size reductions and other resources won in the contract agreement for several years. L.A. Unified is trying to raise more revenue through a parcel tax, which Angelenos will vote on next month. Repenning, 44, and Goldberg both support the tax levy. The challenges facing the district are complicated and theyre not going to be easily resolved no matter whos elected, Noguera said. The demographic makeup of Los Angeles Unified has also shifted in recent decades 9 of 10 students are nonwhite and a key question was which of the two white candidates would persuade voters they would best represent a district in which nearly 90% of students are Latino. No matter who prevailed Tuesday, four of the seven board members will now be white. That has caused some consternation among advocates and has highlighted that, while Latinos now make up nearly half the population of Los Angeles, they still lag behind in voting rolls and political clout in parts of the city. District 5 is an oddly-shaped swath including gentrifying neighborhoods north of downtown such as Silver Lake, Highland Park and Eagle Rock and the lower-income, majority-Latino cities of Bell, Huntington Park, South Gate and Cudahy in the southeast. It was redrawn about 15 years ago in part to ensure the Latino vote would not be diluted. Goldberg was the front-runner, having collected 48% of primary votes, just short of the majority needed to win outright. She had high name-recognition thanks to her previous experience on the school board, the L.A. City Council and in the California Assembly. Repenning, who most recently served on L.A.s Board of Public Works, earned 13% of primary votes and Mayor Eric Garcettis backing she was a longtime aide when Garcetti was a councilman and in his early years as mayor. Around 10:50 p.m., as a monitor revealed that 90% of precincts had reported and her lead was holding steady, Goldberg pumped her fists in the air and declared victory to supporters. She reminded them that they had more work to do in the morning, to turn out votes for Measure EE, the parcel tax election just weeks away: Of course you know that what this means is that none of you will ever have a peaceful night again.... I expect that all of you will be organizing. Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli. A 27-year-old man made death threats against a judge at the West Justice Center in Westminster, an Orange County sheriffs spokeswoman said. Duke Kamalani Nakaahiki pleaded not guilty Monday to one count of threatening public officials and one count of threatening to injure an officer in performance of their duties, both felonies. He is scheduled to return to the Westminster court Tuesday. Nakaahiki was before a judge about 4 p.m. on May 2 when he became very agitated and started yelling threatening statements at the judge and other individuals in the room, said Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriffs Department. The judge suspended the legal proceedings and stepped off the bench before the defendant was taken back into detention, Braun said. Advertisement Nakaahikis case comes on the heels of charges filed against two other men accused of threatening judges. Isaac Jones, 53, whose case has been transferred to San Diego County Superior Court, is accused of issuing threats to dozens of Orange County Superior Court judges in January. Bruce Richard Senator, 64, was charged earlier this month with threatening five Orange County Superior Court judges. Senator, who was declared a vexatious litigant by a federal judge in 2013, was previously convicted of threatening judges. A Port of Los Angeles worker was killed and another was injured after a problem with a piece of equipment used to move cargo, police said Wednesday morning. The worker died about 7:25 a.m. at Pier 300 in San Pedro in an accident involving a top-loader container handler, said Rachel Campbell, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Port Police. A second worker was seriously injured and taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Both workers are members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Advertisement Campbell did not say what happened to the top-loader but noted it was faulty. KCAL-TV Channel 9 reported that a tire on the heavy-equipment machinery exploded. Port police said the men were working on a tire when the accident occurred. The Fenix Marine Services container terminal was closed afterward. The union was slated to hold its annual First Blood ceremony, which honors workers who have died on the waterfront while on the job, later in the day. It took on a whole new meaning this morning, thats for sure, said Greg Mitre, president of the ILWU Pensioners Assns. We didnt expect this. Mitre said the worker who died was 58-year-old Jose Santoyo, a mechanic who had worked at the port for 35 years. Santoyo was planning to retire next year, Mitre said. The injured worker, whom Mitre identified only as Pedro, underwent surgery after being put into a medically induced coma. The two men had worked together for 25 years, Mitre said. The union pensioners president said a staff member saw a pinata in Santoyos home when visiting to inform his wife of his death. The family was preparing to celebrate the first birthday of Santoyos grandson Saturday, he said. It was very somber, Mitre said of the First Blood ceremony. Santoyo was a super hard worker dedicated, loyal and hardworking. Port of Los Angeles chief Gene Seroka, City Councilman Joe Buscaino and other politicians released statements expressing their condolences for the workers families. My heart goes out to the families of the victims of this tragic accident and to all the brothers and sisters of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Seroka said. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating. ILWU workers are the heartbeat of @PortofLA, and our hearts are broken by the accident that took one life today and left another seriously injured. Our thoughts are with all who love them and were praying for healing and recovery for everyone touched by this tragedy. Mayor Eric Garcetti (@MayorOfLA) May 15, 2019 My statement on this morning's accident at the Port of LA. #ILWULocal13 pic.twitter.com/A8TJ4V46cg Joe Buscaino (@JoeBuscaino) May 15, 2019 alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Twitter: @r_valejandra The man suspected of killing a woman in a shooting at a San Diego County synagogue pleaded not guilty to federal hate-crime charges Tuesday. John T. Earnest spoke twice during the hearing: to acknowledge his name and to say he agreed with his court-appointed attorneys decision against seeking bail. Earnest, 19, of Rancho Penasquitos, is charged with bursting into the Chabad of Poway synagogue April 27 and opening fire with an assault rifle, killing one and injuring three. Peter Ko, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the judge that the government had not decided whether to seek the death penalty. He reaffirmed plans to try Earnest simultaneously with a state charge of murder that is classified as a hate crime, which also exposes Earnest to a potential death sentence. Advertisement Earnest had a buzz haircut and didnt wear glasses, unlike his first appearance in state court two weeks ago. At Tuesdays hearing, Earnest looked blankly at Magistrate Judge Michael Berg as the judge explained the proceedings and followed along with his attorney, Kathryn Nester, as she flipped pages of the charging document that the judge read aloud. Earnests wrists and ankles were shackled. A federal affidavit detailing the hate crime charges that was filed last week describes a deeply disturbed man filled with hatred toward Jews and Muslims, detailed in a manifesto he published online. Earnest claimed to be inspired by the attacks on the mosques in New Zealand and the shooting at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue last fall, the affidavit said. Court documents said Earnest dialed 911 after fleeing the synagogue in his car and said: I just shot up a synagogue. He went on to tell the dispatcher he did it because Jewish people are destroying the white race, according to the affidavit. He was quickly arrested without a struggle. At his earlier hearing, in state court, Earnest pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in the death of 60-year-old Lori Kaye, who was shot twice as she prayed in the synagogue foyer, and to three attempted-murder charges stemming from the wounding of Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein and an 8-year-old girl and her uncle. He also pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges of trying to burn a mosque in the nearby city of Escondido. Outside the mosque was the scrawled name of the man suspected of carrying out shootings at two mosques in New Zealand that killed 50 people. Investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have concluded that Pacific Gas & Electric equipment caused the devastating Camp fire that destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and killed 85 people, most of them elderly, last year. The conclusion of the Cal Fire probe marks a milestone in the recovery from the worst wildfire in modern California history. Cal Fire has determined that the Camp fire was caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric located in the Pulga area, the agency said in a news release Wednesday. PG&E in February acknowledged that the company believes it is probable that its equipment will be determined to be an ignition point of the 2018 Camp fire. Advertisement The utilitys new chief executive, Bill Johnson, testified in a committee hearing at the state Capitol on Wednesday as the news was announced. Its a disappointment that this happened, Johnson said to state lawmakers. Lets not do it again. Johnson pledged that the company would demonstrate a higher commitment to safety under his watch, which includes visually inspecting all of its equipment in areas of high fire risk, intensifying vegetation management and shutting off power in advance of dangerous conditions. I will tell you we will be laser-focused on safety, but I wont expect you to believe that until you see the results, Johnson said. The outcomes for the people, the citizens, the customers, have to be better here. PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection in part because of losses from the Nov. 8 fire, which scorched more than 153,000 acres and has put new pressure on utilities to improve the safety of their power distribution systems. Scores of lawsuits have been filed against the states biggest utility on behalf of people who lost their homes, loved ones and pets. They accuse the utility of failing to properly maintain its equipment. PG&E admits its equipment likely sparked Californias most destructive wildfire On Wednesday, Cal Fire spokesman Mike Mohler said the investigation was complicated by a number of factors. It was topography, it was the intensity of the fire and the footprint of the fire itself, how large it was, Mohler said. A fire investigation is very, very methodical and it takes a lot of time. Our investigators dont have an opportunity to be 80% right, we have to be 100% right, and its about getting closure for the fire survivors and victims. The Camp fire was the deadliest blaze in state history and the latest in a series of wind-driven fires that have brought scrutiny to how utilities operate during extreme fire conditions. Mohler said he was cautiously optimistic that 2019 will not be a repeat of the last two fire years. Were lucky to get additional precipitation in May in the north and south. Weve prepared for the worst, but were hoping for the best. Leonard Bailey, the Loma Linda surgeon who opened new doors in medicine when he transplanted a baboon heart into an infant girl but then endured withering criticism for harvesting an organ from an animal to help save the life of a human, has died after a years-long fight with cancer. He was 76. Baileys decision to transplant the baboons walnut-size heart into a 12-day-old infant known only as Baby Fae drew international attention and to some in the medical community offered a future where there would always be an unlimited supply of animal organs to help save the lives of human patients. But the moral and ethical questions of using animals as a virtual supermarket for hearts, livers and kidneys were so weighty that cross-species transplants failed to become the norm. For Bailey, the 1984 surgery established him as a leading authority on heart transplants, a small-town doctor suddenly known internationally as a skilled and daring surgeon. But it all came at a price. Advertisement Criticized sharply by animal rights activists who found the surgery to be ghoulish, Bailey was heckled when he spoke publicly. In 1985, Loma Linda officials suggested that he wear a bulletproof vest when he delivered a talk on the ethics of the Baby Fae operation. He canceled his appearance instead. Even Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the South African surgeon who rewrote the medical rule book with the worlds first heart transplant, wondered whether the Baby Fae transplant had gone too far. I used a baboon once, and then a chimpanzee and it was a traumatic emotional experience, he said in a 1987 interview with The Times. I am not in favor of using the higher forms like the chimpanzee. Not the apes, they are pretty human, and the bigger ones are already in danger of becoming extinct. Bailey was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and chose to make his condition public, often seeming more curious than worried as it slowly advanced from his tongue to the rest of his body. He died May 12. Dr. Leonard Bailey- #pioneer #father of the infant heart transplantation passed away this morning. His legacy remains in the thousands of children worldwide who lead quality lives today after successfully receiving new hearts. Picture @LLUMedCenter by Robert Rearick #babyFae pic.twitter.com/IhIU3jsO9j Dr. Purvi Parwani (@purviparwani) May 12, 2019 Baby Fae weighed all of 4.6 pounds when doctors determined she would likely die from hypoplastic left heart syndrome a congenital heart defect that defied reconstructive surgery. Because there were no infant human hearts immediately available, Bailey decided on a radical course take the heart of a primate, in this case a baboon named Goobers. Though the child died 21 days later, the surgery was seen as a pioneering step in medicine and infant-to-infant heart transplants became an accepted procedure. When we operate on these babies, the hope is that they will live longer than us, Bailey said in 2017 during a reunion with former transplant patients. Its nice to know thats playing out. Baby Faes parents were a divorced couple from Beaumont, Calif., who came back together to support their daughters surgery. Never identified beyond their first names Teresa and Howard they backed Baileys decision to use a heart from a primate to save, or at least extend, their daughters life. There are a lot of sentimental ways of talking about the heart, but its really just a pump, the mother told People magazine in their only interview. The soul is not in the heart. The soul is in the brain. Leonard Lee Bailey was born Aug. 28, 1942, in Takoma Park, Md. His father was a professional chef and his parents encouraged Bailey to dream big. He graduated from Columbia Union College now Washington Adventist University and later earned a medical degree from Loma Linda University of Medicine in San Bernardino County. Bailey did his residency at Torontos Hospital for Sick Children, where he was pained while he watched as otherwise healthy babies died from congenital heart defects. He joined the faculty at Loma Linda University in 1976 as an assistant professor at the School of Medicine. In those days, he said in a 2009 interview, the advice to parents was to leave the baby here to die or take it home to die. The Baby Fae transplant was transformative to Loma Linda, located 60 miles from downtown L.A. and then a world away from the elite medical universities. But with Baileys help, and his growing list of successful heart transplants, the university hospital became recognized as a world-class pediatric heart transplant center. During his time there, Bailey performed 375 infant heart transplants, including the first infant-to-infant heart transplant. As his young patients grew older, they often returned to campus to visit him. With his encouragement, one went to medical school. Later in life, he pondered the legacy of the Baby Fae surgery. If he were able to perform it again, he said, he would have preferred to use a human heart. At the time though, he told The Times, none was available and time was running out for the little girl. Bailey also described what he called his catastrophic decision to use the heart of a baboon that had a different blood type than the infant girl. The child was type O, the baboon AB. If Baby Fae had the type AB blood group, he told medical officials at a conference, she would still be alive today. Bailey is survived by his two sons, Brooks and Connor. His wife, Nancy, a Loma Linda graduate, died in April. steve.marble@latimes.com An outspoken civil rights activist who was born to sharecroppers in the segregated South and rose to become the first African American woman to win a mayors race in Mississippi has died. Unita Blackwell was 86. She died Monday at Ocean Springs Hospital, according to Cynthia Goodloe Palmer, executive director of Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, who received the details from Blackwells son, Jeremiah Blackwell Jr. Unita Blackwell was born in the impoverished Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression. She grew up in Mississippi and Arkansas, and left school when she was 12 to work as a farm laborer. Blackwell became active in the civil rights movement in the Delta in 1964 as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She and other black residents of Issaquena County tried to register to vote that year but were rejected because of a test rigged for them to fail. Advertisement In a 1986 interview for the civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize, Blackwell recalled trying to secure voting rights for African Americans who made up a majority of the Deltas population but held none of the political power. I was only told when I started off that if I registered to vote that I would have food to eat and a better house to stay in, cause the one I was staying in was so raggedy you could see anywhere and look outdoors. That I would have, my child would have, a better education, she said. And at that particular point, our children only went to school two to three months out of the year. And for the whites, they understood it even larger than that in terms of political power, and we hadnt even heard that word, political power, because it wasnt even taught in the black schools. Along with fellow activist Fannie Lou Hamer, Blackwell was part of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation that challenged seating of the states all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Blackwell sued the Issaquena County school board in 1965 after 300 students, including her son, were suspended for wearing pins supporting civil rights. In 1967, a group of U.S. senators that included Democrat Robert F. Kennedy of New York traveled to Mississippi to hold hearings about poverty. During a hearing in Jackson, Blackwell told them about dire conditions in Issaquena County. The whole county is poor, she said, according to a report published in the Southern Courier newspaper. We dont have a factory nothing but plantations. We have children who have never had a glass of milk. From 1976 to 2001, Blackwell was mayor of Mayersville, a town of about 500. She developed a utility district to provide water and sewage services. Under her leadership, the town also paved streets and worked to improve housing. With a high school equivalency diploma and financial support from a rural fellowship, she was accepted in 1982 into a regional planning program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She completed her masters degree there in 1983. Blackwell was president of the National Conference of Black Mayors from 1990 to 1992. She was a fellow at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government in 1991 and 1992. She received a $350,000 MacArthur Foundation genius grant in 1992 for her work on housing and water services. Blackwell ran for the U.S. House in a 1993 special election, losing to fellow Democrat Bennie Thompson, who still holds the seat and chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. Thompson praised Blackwell on Twitter, writing: She dedicated her life to fighting for civil rights in Mississippi. We are forever grateful for her work and sacrifice. My thoughts and prayers are with her family and all those who loved her. Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Wednesday, May 15, and Im writing from Los Angeles. There are more than a billion Instagram users worldwide, and for a few weekends this spring it seemed like nearly all of them were in Lake Elsinore, driven by super bloom mania. The actual number of visitors artfully posed in the orange poppy fields was more likely in the hundreds of thousands. But they overwhelmed the area to disastrous effect, with the city declaring it a public safety emergency. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, as the mayor of Lake Elsinore told a reporter. The whole thing was a classic example of overtourism. Advertisement Think Thailands Phi Phi Beach, which will be closed for the next two years to recover from environmental damage, the anti-tourist banners unfurled in Barcelona, or residents of the pastel-colored homes on Paris Rue Cremieux demanding gates to keep out the invasion of Instagrammers. Tourism is a double-edged sword: Communities depend on the revenue and jobs it brings, but the influx of people it attracts can overpower and at times even destroy. Overuse can lead to damage of the resources and compromise the long-term productivity of the very object that people are going to see, John Kleinfelter, a wilderness expert who founded Yosemite Guide Service, said over the phone as he led a group down a trail through the Giant Sequoias in Mariposa Grove. The issue can be especially acute in places like Monterey County, where tourism ranks as the second-largest industry after agriculture. It comes up constantly, said Pam Marino, a reporter at Monterey County Weekly who has written about tourism for several years. You hear it at City Council meetings, because I cover a few different cities in the county, she continued. Take the famously rugged coastline of Big Sur, where tourism drives much of the economy but also exacts a rough toll on the remote area. The number of visitors can overwhelm the limited infrastructure and seriously affect residents quality of life. They kind of got a reprieve from tourists for a while, but for sad reasons, Marino explained, citing the Soberanes Fire and the storm damage and landslides that closed roads in 2017. But as soon as the roads opened up, then the tourists were back. I think the Instagram effect is real for them. The Bixby Bridge gets mentioned the world over, and people see that on social media and then they want to go and get selfies with the Bixby Bridge. Bixby Creek Bridge, Big Sur. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) The gateway bridge to Big Sur has been geotagged more than 100,000 times on Instagram. But Big Sur residents complain about the tourists who stop in the middle of the scenic highway to take photos, dangerously blocking traffic, and those who urinate on the highway and in yards, according to Marino. Way back in 1975 the very same year that Big Surs first luxury resort opened an ahead-of-his-time Canadian economics professor named George Doxley came up with a model called the Irridex. Though youve probably never heard of it, the Irridex (a portmanteau for irritation and index) is as ubiquitous in the tourism studies field as the Kubler-Ross model is in psychiatry. But unlike Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her five stages of grief, Doxley set out to describe the effects of increased tourism on a host community. He divided the deteriorating responses into four stages: euphoria, apathy, irritation and antagonism. Some Big Sur residents, like the individuals behind the Big Sur Hates You Instagram account, have definitely reached the fourth stage. The anonymous account, which changed its name to Big Sur Educates You on Tuesday to be more professional and friendly, posts photos publicly shaming misbehaving tourists with sardonic commentary. You have that dichotomy there of needing the revenue that it brings but not liking the negative effects. I think thats why you see the Big Sur Pledge, Marino said, citing another community effort that sits entirely apart from the end-stage antagonism of the Doxley scale. Started last December by frustrated locals and modeled after Hawaiis Pono Pledge, the Big Sur Pledge takes a more proactive approach. It aims to educate visitors on better behavior, and asks them to pledge to do things like share the coastal roads in a safe manner, camp only where allowed and be fire safe. (Read Pam Marinos story on the Big Sur Pledge in the Monterey County Weekly) I think its their attempt to manage the tourism that they are getting, like, If we can train the visitors to behave in better ways, then maybe its not so bad for us, Marino said. People have always been drawn to staggering natural landscapes like Yosemite or Big Sur, and ephemeral phenomena like the poppy fields because of the rare chance to see something that humans cannot replicate or reproduce, according John Kleinfelter, the Yosemite guide. We cant create that wonder, but we can certainly destroy it, if left to our own devices. And now, heres whats happening across California: TOP STORIES Jackie Goldberg has won a seat on the Los Angeles Unified School Districts Board of Education. Goldberg is a veteran L.A. politician who has served on the school board, City Council and in the state Assembly. She has the backing of the L.A. teachers union. Los Angeles Times Gov. Gavin Newsom will travel the state this week, trying to sell his unpopular plan to levy hefty fines on those who do not have medical coverage. Los Angeles Times Get the Essential California newsletter L.A. STORIES Los Angeles is on track to build more than 9,100 hotel rooms near their downtown convention center. How many more downtown hotels will get tax breaks from the city? Curbed LA Tacos 1986, a Tijuana-style L.A. street-food star, will be opening its first storefront in downtown Los Angeles in June. Eater LA A racist promposal involving Palos Verdes High School students has prompted backlash. Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Sacramento is officially ditching an aggressive panhandling ordinance, per a City Council vote Tuesday. A federal judge had ordered the city to stop enforcing the ordinance in July. Sacramento Bee CRIME AND COURTS The police raid of a San Francisco journalists home and ensuing civic response is testing San Franciscos progressive creed. San Francisco Chronicle THE ENVIRONMENT How California is fixing Angeles Crest Highway after its worst landslide in decades. The road is taking longer than expected to repair. The Drive Another dead whale has washed up in the Bay Area, making it the 10th found this year. Officials do not yet know what caused the death of this gray whale. East Bay Times CALIFORNIA CULTURE Six California Catholic dioceses across California will create a compensation program for victims sexually abused by priests as children. City News Service A famed clothing-optional hot springs 120 miles northeast of San Francisco is currently for sale, for anyone with a cool $10 million and dreams of owning the perfect 1,700-acre off-the-grid health retreat. SFGate John Doe patients sometimes force hospital staff to play detective, and federal privacy laws can also make uncovering a patients identity challenging in these difficult cases. Desert Sun How two San Jose sisters took their garage ice-cream business national. Gwen and Christine Nguyen watched YouTube videos and took to Google to learn how to make macarons and homemade ice cream. Mercury News CALIFORNIA ALMANAC Los Angeles: cloudy, 70. San Diego: partly sunny, 68. San Francisco: rain, 64. San Jose: rain, 65. Sacramento: rain, 67. More weather is here. AND FINALLY Todays California memory comes from Phil Johnson: In the 1940s and early 1950s, Major League Baseball had not yet come to California. But we had the AAA Pacific Coast League one step down from the majors. The PCL sent plenty of players to the big leagues, most notably Joe DiMaggio from the San Francisco Seals to the New York Yankees and Ted Williams from the San Diego Padres to the Boston Red Sox. I remember ramshackle Lane Field where the Padres played, down by the docks at the harbor. I would go to games with my dad or take the bus down to the ballpark and join my boyhood friends there. I recall the smell of hot dogs roasting on the grill. And reaching out to the players near the Padres dugout to get their signatures in my autograph book. I can still see the towering homers Padres sluggers like Jack Graham, Max West, and Luke Easter drove out over the right-field fence to the railroad tracks beyond the ballpark. If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes. A surveillance program that allows the U.S. government to comb through hundreds of millions of Americans telephone records in search of connections to terrorism could soon be a thing of the past. That would be good news for personal privacy and responsible intelligence-gathering. Reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal suggest that the National Security Agency has lost its enthusiasm for a program that is the successor to the massive bulk collection of telephone records revealed six years ago by Edward Snowden. Luke Murry, a national security advisor to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), said in March that the program hadnt been used for the previous six months. The White House may still recommend that Congress extend the phone-records program, which is set to expire in December along with some other provisions of the Patriot Act first enacted after 9/11. But in light of problems with the program, Congress should say no. The original phone record program, justified under a strained interpretation of the Patriot Act, authorized the collection by the NSA of vast quantities of so-called metadata information about the source, recipient and time of telephone calls or text messages. Investigators could then search through this electronic haystack for the needle of information that might expose terrorist plots. Advertisement The government shouldnt have access to private information that it doesnt need to protect the nation. The program didnt capture the content of conversations. Still, it placed in the governments possession massive quantities of information that could reveal myriad details about Americans lives, such as calls made to a suicide hotline or to a psychiatrist, lover or potential employer. After Snowden revealed the existence of the program, President Obama initially defended it, assuring the American people that there was no problem becausenobody is listening to your telephone calls. But later Obama recommended that Congress end bulk collection of metadata. In 2015 Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, which ended the bulk-collection program but permitted investigators, with permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to search call detail records maintained by telecommunications companies. A search term (such as a phone number) can be used to search the records only if there is a reasonable articulable suspicion that it was associated with international terrorism. The USA Freedom Act was only a partial victory for privacy rights, however. It did ensure that the government itself wouldnt gather and possess phone records. But privacy is also at risk when such records are retained by a company but are still subject to searches by the government. In 2017, according to a report by the director of national intelligence, the government obtained 534 million phone records from telephone companies. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Moreover, the NSA had found it hard to implement the new program without inadvertently collecting information that is supposed to be off-limits. Last year the agency disclosed that it had deleted hundreds of millions of records collected since 2015 because telecommunications firms had turned over data that the government wasnt allowed to access or search. Such compliance problems might be tolerable if the phone records program were yielding information that led to the detection of terrorist plots. But that is doubtful given the governments apparent conclusion that the program isnt vital and that it can rely on other forms of intelligence-gathering, including the collection of information from foreigners located abroad. There is a good reason why the USA Freedom Act and some other provisions of the Patriot Act werent made permanent. Congress recognized that provisions designed as emergency responses to a terrorist threat shouldnt be reflexively reauthorized. The government shouldnt have access to private information that it doesnt need to protect the nation. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook You should write about whats going down in Alabama, my mom said Tuesday afternoon over the phone. She was incensed and right, as she tends to be. Hours after we spoke, the state Senate passed a near-total ban on abortion, including criminal penalties and long prison terms for doctors who dare to perform them. Heres one problem: I had written about what was going down in states with similar sociopolitical makeup, Louisiana and Mississippi, a year ago, for a site primarily read by young women. I shared the piece to my Facebook page with a desperate preamble, urging my friends to take seriously the state lawmakers machinations to overturn Roe vs. Wade. The piece was not, in the parlance of digital media, a high performer. In normal people language, no one cared. Ive written about the anti-abortion legislation being hammered through state legislatures many times before and since, but no one cared then either. One book I adore, by poet Filip Marinovich, is Zero Readership. That title always makes me laugh. There are truer purposes for writing, anyway. To say what happened or is happening. To build the record. And how could I truly expect people to care, when we were talking about one or two or several hundred wild bills stuffed among tens of thousands of wild bills, sitting in committees in states where they probably didnt live? There was so much other dystopian creep to flip out about. The government was mirthfully scraping protections off our rapidly heating planet, for instance. Advertisement The best time to get angry is earlier, when the local advocates and organizers who do the hard work of securing freedoms in red states could use the support. Plus, people are broke; they have student loans and a patchwork of gig jobs and awful health insurance. People are busy; they have kids and aging parents and communities to care for. They cant be bothered; they might not have uteruses or imaginations that contain what it was or might have been like to be stranded at a terrible time. One of the features of social control is that the more pervasive it becomes, the more tempting it can feel to check the hell out of the political process, to go home and chill with a Real Housewives episode. Deep same, I very much get it. Or maybe we told ourselves a story about how that didnt happen to us, but if it had we would have had the kid and finished the education and gotten the solid job and made a big piece of happiness for ourselves. Thats just a story; you cannot solve this problem in the abstract. If you werent 17 and scared, or 26 and with the wrong person, or 41 with teenagers at home already, you dont know. If you were and you did not have an abortion, then you made a choice, as you deserved to, as others deserve to make theirs. The right to not get an abortion is included in, not at odds with, a reproductive rights agenda. Other reporters likely wrote all that better and maybe their pieces garnered more than zero readership, but the bills in those states eventually passed, and a lot of folks do seem surprised by that now. Unfortunately, the best time to get angry is earlier, when the local advocates and organizers who do the hard work of securing freedoms in red states day in and day out could use the support. Not when the governor is uncapping his or her pen. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Forcing women to endure unwanted pregnancies is framed as a religious thing. For some religious people, including some Christians, that is deeply felt. But many Republican politicians who affect Christianity while making life ever harder for the poor and downtrodden are focused on man, not God, though they would have you conflate the two. These men dont want women in the rooms of power, and if women have children at the wrong time for them, theyre far less likely to get in those rooms. They dont finish school or take a job where people who work punishing hours advance faster and farther than those who dont. Some do, and those are the exceptions, not the rule. Most fall off the treadmill that leads you there. Those men stay in the room and pay for the legislation to be written or write the legislation that ensures those men will always stay in the room. But heres the last problem, or more precisely, the last I can squeeze into this piece: Republicans arent after the small fries. Alabama, with a population of 4.9 million, isnt the endgame, just as Louisiana (4.6 million), Mississippi (3 million), or even Georgia (10.5 million) werent. Theyre after Roe. They want to get these cases kicked up to the Supreme Court. If we put another two or perhaps three justices on, [Roe being overturned] will happen, President Trump said in his third televised debate with Hillary Clinton. And that will happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court. It cant happen automatically, exactly; the justices arent able to reconsider decisions unless relevant cases reach their desk, hence the absolute spate of anti-abortion state bills. When one gets to the Supreme Court maybe itll be Alabamas that games over. The public cant lobby judges. So if youre going to try to protect Roe, try now, on the state and community level. Its already too late, but if theres anything we should have faith in, its that we have not yet seen the bottom of what this party and its money are after. It will get darker. Melissa Batchelor Warnke is a contributing writer to Opinion. Follow her on Twitter @velvetmelvis. Im sick of male politicians and judges making decisions about my body. Do the women of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and all the other states where male-dominated legislatures are trying to outlaw abortion feel the same? If so, they know what to do: Vote those turkeys out of office. On Tuesday, the overwhelmingly male Alabama state Senate passed the most draconian anti-abortion law yet (only four of the 35 senators are women, none of whom voted for the bill). It would outlaw abortion in any stage of pregnancy and circumstance, other than to save the life of the woman. Doctors who perform abortions could be tried as felons and sentenced up to 99 years in prison. Its obviously unconstitutional. But thats the point. Alabamas action follows a flood of attempts in other states to restrict access to the point of a de facto ban. Just days ago, the Georgia Legislature (also overwhelmingly male) passed a law prohibiting abortion after six weeks. The only good thing I can say about the 25 men who voted for the Alabama abortion ban Tuesday is that at least they are honest about their intention to entice the Supreme Court to take the case and hope for a reversal of Roe vs. Wade. Advertisement If that happens, then guess what? The question will hinge on the decisions of two more men: Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, conservatives who were appointed by you guessed another man. If youre feeling a sharp sense of The Handmaids Tale preja vu, join the club. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Im sick of this uneven playing field and I hope other women are too. Men still have an unfair advantage in lawmaking, and they are using it to our detriment. Collectively, women make up just a quarter of U.S. state legislators. In only one state are women a majority of the legislators. That would be Nevada, which recently ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. And dont get me started on the sad state of representation among governors. There are nine at the moment and just 44 in all of American history, according to a Wikipedia count. This is not to say that all women support abortion access; they dont. But my bet is they have less enthusiasm about making laws that take away their own right, and that of their daughters and granddaughters, to make perhaps the most important decision in their lives. At the very least, they would fully understand the implications if they did. Until and unless more women start running for office, and voting for female candidates when they do run, then we should not be surprised to see more of these appalling laws that treat women as less-than-equal baby vessels. A specter is haunting American college campuses the specter of social justice hysteria. Time after time, at one institution after another, students hound speakers, disrupt discussions, persecute instructors, occupy buildings and face few, if any, consequences. The latest such episode, and surely one of the most dismal, involves Harvards decision not to renew the appointment of an esteemed law professor and defense attorney as faculty dean of an undergraduate house because he has represented Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer who faces sex-crime charges. Harvard caved to student pressure even though the right to legal counsel is a bedrock principle of the American criminal justice system. (The professor will retain his law school position.) These campus eruptions, usually in response to mysterious affronts or taboo ideas that somehow threaten someones safety, have cast a suffocating pall of orthodoxy over institutions of higher learning that ought to be oases of intellectual freedom. Students and faculty alike, no matter what they really think about all this, have learned to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Some brave souls have begun to push back. But only one group has the leverage to begin lifting the siege: donors. Academic institutions like to pretend they are above the sordidness of getting and spending, but the reality is that money talks as loudly in the groves of academe as anywhere else. Advertisement If youre wealthy and went to an institution that is chilled by social justice zealots, take it up with the president. Those of us who give to higher education today have an unusual opportunity: We can donate not just money, but backbone. American colleges and universities raised $47 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30. By making those gifts contingent on an institutions commitment to free speech, freedom of inquiry and the rights of all students and faculty, donors can begin to turn the tide on the current intellectual reign of terror. If you are planning a gift to your alma mater, or to any other institution of higher education, you should first determine if the school has adopted the so-called Chicago statement of free speech principles, or something very close to it. At last count, 63 individual institutions or campus systems had adopted or endorsed its principles or something quite similar. These include Columbia, Georgetown, Princeton, Purdue and the City University of New York, according to the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has put forth a model resolution based on the Chicago statement that is easily adapted. If you hope to give to a school that has not embraced the Chicago statement, write to the institutions president to say that you will not be sending any more money until these principles are endorsed. Adopting a set of principles wont by itself change the climate of a campus, but its a start. Big donors of course have outsized influence, and they should use it. If youre wealthy and went to an institution that is chilled by social justice zealots, take it up with the president. Emphasize the importance of viewpoint diversity, which in all likelihood is sadly lacking on campus. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute While youre at it, ask for something specific: a policy requiring all incoming freshmen, before theyre permitted to matriculate, to acknowledge in writing that they will encounter a wide range of ideas in college, including some they may find disturbing. Newcomers must further acknowledge that they will respect the rights of students, faculty and others on campus, and that they face discipline for the willful disruption of free expression. Such a requirement is a plainspoken trigger warning. But its also a consent form and should be welcome on that basis, for no one is more concerned with consent than todays campuses. Anyone worried about donors exercising undue influence on campus can rest assured that they already use their checkbooks to memorialize themselves on buildings, direct how their funds are used, and get their unqualified kids into highly selective schools. It would be far better to use the power of donations to combat the burgeoning assault on academic freedom. This kind of pressure is essential if pusillanimous campus leaders are to develop a spine. So far, rather than standing up to the self-appointed thought police in their midst, administrators typically scramble to placate campus bullies. For these eager allies in officialdom, no claims of oppression are too absurd, and no student demands too far-fetched, to elicit craven apologies and embarrassing self-abasement from the grown-ups. As a result, no dissident is safe Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan is the latest victim and the pursuit of truth is sacrificed to doctrinal purity. If your alma mater seems beyond redemption, why not consider giving to your local community college? In all likelihood it operates on a shoestring to help young people learn such useful things as fixing cars and cleaning teeth. Your dollars can do far more good at these places than at the big name universities Im looking at you, Harvard that gobble up a disproportionate share of higher ed donations each year. And the students are more likely to focus on making something of themselves than on making mountains out of microaggressions. Daniel Akst, a former columnist and editor at The Times, is a writer in New Yorks Hudson Valley. One of the most under-covered stories of 2019 is the determination of Republican state legislatures to roll back hard-fought historic voting-rights victories and place entirely new roadblocks between citizens and their government. These moves are being made in response to what may be the biggest story of last falls election: How determined U.S. citizens successfully fought back against gerrymandering, racially motivated voter-identification bills, felony disenfranchisement and more to fix a rigged system. In Missouri, more than 60% of voters battled against gerrymandering and pay-to-play politics and won a landmark victory for clean, transparent government. A supermajority of Floridians restored voting rights to more than a million former felons who have served their time and paid their debt to society. In zinfandel red Idaho, where the Legislature refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, young people organized petition drives, pushed ballot initiatives and won. Republicans seek to build barriers that silence the will of the people, entrench themselves in power and make it harder for citizens to exercise their most fundamental right of all the right to vote. In the process, they are gutting the very notion of government by and for the people, and with the consent of the elected. Advertisement The right to vote is the jewel of citizenship. Politicians who tarnish it debase democracy and American ideals. Republicans in Missouri launched a stealth attack on the Clean Missouri amendments that mandated a new nonpartisan legislative map-making process and an end to special-interest donations over $5. Legislators want to amend the citizen initiative and essentially reverse it, returning control over drawing district lines to the legislators. Senate Republicans in Michigan have also sought to undercut that states independent redistricting commission, passed overwhelmingly by voters last fall, by zeroing out its line item in the secretary of states budget. The Florida Legislature, meanwhile, worked quickly to block about 80% of former felons from once again participating in our democracy. The lawmakers moved to require full restitution of fines and fees themselves unjust and unequally applied by race basically enacting an ugly, modern-day poll tax that hits hardest against the poor and minorities. The Idaho Legislature went a step further: Republicans not only circumvented the peoples will by adding onerous work requirements to Medicaid expansion and demanding detailed information about previous drug use. They also tried to kill the very notion of citizen initiatives by nearly doubling the number of signatures needed while slashing by two-thirds the number of available days to collect them. Gerrymandered legislatures, as well as entrenched politicians in one-party states, clearly fear the public demanding a seat back in the process. Arkansas and Utah have enacted similar measures. Its probably no coincidence that activists hope to have redistricting reform on the ballot in Arkansas this year, and that it passed in Utah last year. More than 100 proposals more than in the previous two years combined have been introduced to make it more difficult to put a ballot initiative or constitutional amendment before the people in states across the country, according to a commentary in USA Today. Those states include Michigan, Ohio and Florida, where voters successfully reformed redistricting or expanded voting rights in 2018. But in states such as Arizona and Texas where Democrats made crucial gains in 2018 that could be put in play by changing demographics Republicans have launched an advanced assault on voting rights. Texas would make it a felony for anyone to cast an ineligible ballot, even by accident, and subject anyone who puts the wrong ZIP Code or any other incorrect information on a voting application to criminal charges and jail time. Arizona wants to restrict the ability of citizens to vote early. Tennessee, meanwhile, seeks to make it harder for activist groups to conduct voter-registration drives by requiring expensive new training and fines for submitting incomplete applications. We have never seen a bill like this on the floor, until we dared to register 86,000 black and brown people to vote, Tequila Johnson of the Equity Alliance told NPR. This screams racism. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion It doesnt just scream it practically howls. But though it is easy to see through these naked power grabs and brutally anti-democratic efforts to reinforce minority rule, these never-ending schemes only get harder to stop, especially because the U.S. Supreme Court gutted key enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 in Shelby County vs. Holder. Gerrymandered legislatures protect politicians from the ballot box and entrench them in power, often providing Republican supermajorities even when Democrats win more votes. Those politicians then insulate themselves further from insolent voters who attempt to win back their voice through initiatives, or by making it easier to grow the electorate. The right to vote is the jewel of citizenship. Politicians who tarnish it debase democracy and American ideals. The 2018 elections showed that determined citizens, standing together, can defeat the toughest structural problems. But the fight for the vote has never been easy, and never in our history have politicians stopped constructing new barriers. Democracy has always been a battle, with every precious and precarious victory threatened and undercut by politicians eager to retain power by rigging the rules. This feels less like a battle, however, and more like a new permanent state of war over democracy, with one side willing to bust every norm and American ideal in the service of installing an enduring form of minority rule. David Daley is the author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesnt Count and a senior fellow at FairVote. When I was in elementary school, we learned about prominent people from history by reading about them. This led to serious challenges, such as trying to get kids to think about someone besides themselves. Teachers now have solved this problem by having students don costumes and give speeches pretending they are the famous people. Many schools call such events a living wax museum because that is a slightly less horrifying name than reanimated corpse show and way less scary than cultural appropriation complaint generator. When my sons 4th-grade class had its version of a living wax museum, I figured Id be able to go see his three-minute speech about John F. Kennedy and leave. But as soon as I entered the classroom, it became clear that I wasnt going anywhere. This was one of those clubs where each comedian has to drag in two audience members to fill the house. Except there were no drinks, the chairs were designed for 10-year-olds and no one was cool about heckling. Over the ensuing hours I discovered as I have with all of my son Laszlos elementary school lessons that I know far less than I think I do. I had never learned that three days after his PT boat sank, JFK and his crew of sailors swam to another deserted island where they found a crate of candy. I also discovered that try as you might, you cannot convince a kid who is nervous about public speaking to say, We were in great dangah of stahving when we discahvahed 14 bags of Whoppahs and a Mahs bah. Grit has been perverted through Americas individualistic lens. Its no longer a tool, but a goal in and of itself. Advertisement Laszlo had wanted to go as President Nixon or President Trump, but was told that he had to pick a person who was admirable. I tell you this only so that this column gets promoted tomorrow on Fox News. Every childs speech ended the same way. Whether the kid was supposed to be Renaissance painter Raphael, escaped-slave-turned-Civil War-spy Harriet Tubman, ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau or child activist Malala Yousafzai, each famous person ended their speech by listing their good qualities. These were, universally, determination, pursuing my dreams and never giving up on reaching my goals. I began to suspect that parts of these speeches had been written by the teachers. The longer I sat there which again, was hours the more these conclusions seemed off the mark. By the time a tiny Mahatma Gandhi walked up in his white tunic and dhoti, I was so incensed that I sat there quietly and peacefully resisting. Everything the child in front of me was saying was wrong. Gandhi didnt go on a 21-day hunger strike so he could pursue his dream of being really, really hungry. His strengths were, in fact, about restraining himself from doing all the things he wanted to do, like punch British soldiers and eat dal. Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not toil to be one of the first female Supreme Court justices; she fought to expand the rights of all women. That woman doctor who did something amazing that I somehow forgot five minutes later didnt do that thing to reach her goals, but to save lives or prevent gangrene or maybe it was perfect blood transfusions. If Malala had actually been in that classroom listening to how she pursued her dream like some YouTube influencer, she would have rescinded the right of girls to go to this school. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion I get that if youre a teacher, you want your students to finish their timelines of the Jurassic period, so its useful for Frida Kahlo to come back from the dead to tell them to show some pluck. The pedagogical theory of promoting effort over accomplishment that Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck made so popular through her 2007 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success makes a lot of sense. Its imported from Asia, where people of different abilities are encouraged to work hard to accomplish tasks together. But grit has been perverted through Americas individualistic lens. Its no longer a tool, but a goal in and of itself. Colleges stress that applicants show leadership, placing more emphasis on being in charge than creating or helping. Which makes it all the more confusing that his teachers wouldnt let Laszlo be Nixon or Trump. If we cant stress to our kids the importance of helping other people while they are enacting stories about helping other people, we are in trouble. Well wind up with a nation of adults who only see others as obstacles. They will be asking not what can they do for their country, but rather what the country can do for them. Thats the only part I was actually listening to. Joel Stein is the author of the forthcoming book In Defense of Elitism: Why Im Better Than You and Youre Better Than Someone Who Didnt Buy This Book. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook. To the editor: We live in a city with very high housing costs. If the Los Angeles Unified School Districts Measure EE passes, the cost of housing will go up even more and not just for homeowners, but also renters. (Vote yes on Measure EE, the parcel tax to increase L.A. schools funding, endorsement, May 10) If you live in a 800-square-foot apartment, expect to pay about $128 more per year. The Times is right to point out that Measure EE was hastily drawn up. The only reason it is on the ballot now is because the school district felt that the public was on its side after Januarys teachers strike. But a hastily worded measure that the courts must sort out is not something we should be voting for. Officials should not be dreaming up ways to add to our tax burden; instead, they should look for ways to become more efficient with what they have. First, we voted for a lottery to help our schools, then we added more bond and tax measures to help the schools. Advertisement L.A. Unified just keeps wanting more and more. Murray S. Levine, Encino .. To the editor: Before the district can do all the right things with adequate funding, it first has to have adequate funding. Your editorial nailed it. We are so quick to criticize our struggling schools that carry the burden of correcting all of societys ills in 180 five-hour days each year. I dont know anyone who has worked for a corporation that depended on so many passionate, underpaid employees. I doubt if there is any company that has had more success with consumers than our LAUSD in its long history of offering children the hope of a future that overcomes their serious challenges and makes the most of opportunities. Lets provide the financial support needed for students to rise up. Shelley Rivlin, Encino .. To the editor: Sorry, but I remember the Belmont Learning Complex and iPad fiascoes. I wont vote for any more money absent major reforms at LAUSD. David Smith, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Funding for arts and music are clearly defined in Measure EE. This is not mentioned in your endorsement, and I am afraid that this is the kind of attention it will get if the measure is passed. The benefits of arts in education have been documented over and over, and yet it is barely available in LAUSD elementary schools. If the measure is passed, as I hope, the arts community must hold the district to its promise of more arts and music in schools. Lois Saffian, Los Angeles Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: The last several days have seen President Trump stonewall every congressional inquiry into his past and present conduct. In each case, the House committee concerned has sought to advance its investigation by issuing a subpoena, which in each case has been ignored. History indicates that the courts will order the White House to comply with the subpoenas. What then? I believe it is quite likely that Trump will still refuse to comply. Why wouldnt he? Who would force him to comply? Finding White House personnel in contempt or impeaching the president, two of the remedies available, could drag us into 2020 before providing a resolution. Trump could suddenly reverse course and honor the subpoenas before a Senate verdict on impeachment is reached, relying on the Republican majority to acquit him; or worse, he could precipitate some crisis that would make a leadership change problematic. Advertisement Dont underestimate this dangerous man. Rick Dunn, San Diego .. To the editor: Trumps assertion of executive privilege over Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs report would be funny if it wasnt so troubling. Think about it: Executive privilege is meant to protect the conversations the president has with his advisors. Trump refused to talk to Mueller and avoided testifying to the grand jury, so there really is no way he could be covered by executive privilege. On the other hand, if he had testified or given an interview, he might actually have a glimmer of an argument. But since he didnt he has no privilege. Sarah Turitto, Cardiff .. To the editor: Trump is a man who has used his words to incite racial disharmony and his actions to divide a nation. Under his tutelage, Republican leaders have turned their backs on the Constitution, lost their integrity and too feel that they are above the law and thus immune to accountability. What we are seeing is that power, when left unchecked, corrupts and that the quest for absolute power corrupts absolutely. We deserve better, and as such, we must demand better. Doris K. Reed, Los Angeles Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook A newly tested North Korean short-range ballistic missile appears to be a copy of an advanced Russian design that could greatly improve Pyongyangs ability to evade U.S. missile defense systems, according to U.S. officials. President Trump, who has sought unsuccessfully for the last year to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons, has dismissed the new missile as very standard stuff. But military and national security officials see a potential threat to U.S. forces and allies in northeast Asia. For the record: An earlier version of this article said North Korea test-fired missiles on May 4 and May 11. It test-fired them on May 4 and May 9. Also, it said the Rand Corp. was based in Malibu. It is based in Santa Monica. Three of the missiles were test-fired on May 4 and May 9 from northwest North Korea. They flew on a low trajectory, never exiting the Earths atmosphere, and flew about 180 miles before plunging into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea. Pictures showed the missile closely resembles a short-range Russian missile called the Iskander, right down to the solid fuel engine and four fins on its tail for making in-flight course adjustments. The similarities are so strong that some experts dubbed Pyongyangs version the Kimskander after the tests. Advertisement A low-flying missile with a satellite guidance system, as the North Korean missile appears to have, is potentially far harder for U.S. antimissile systems deployed in South Korea to intercept, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments. The weapon also could be hard to destroy on the ground because it relies on a mobile launcher that carries two missiles and can be moved. It is likely more accurate than North Koreas aging arsenal of short-range Scud missiles. The tests appeared aimed at increasing pressure on the White House to resume negotiations that stalled after a Trump-Kim summit in February failed to make any progress on getting Kim to abandon his nuclear arsenal and weapons production facilities. This is a missile designed to evade countermeasures, said a senior U.S. official familiar with assessments of the North Korean test launch. This is their way of saying, We have an advanced weapons program thats continuing to do new and different things. Now lets get back to negotiating. A new version of the Patriot interceptor missile defense system in South Korea could hit the missile in mid-flight. But if Pyongyang fired several at once, it could overwhelm the Patriot system, a U.S. official said. (Los Angeles Times) The flattened trajectory also could make it better able to avoid the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, U.S. missile defense systems deployed in South Korea against Pyongyangs medium- and long-range missiles. On the recent flight test, the missiles never exceeded an altitude of about 30 miles high, according to a statement by the South Korean Joint Chiefs. That means for most of its flight, the missile flew too high for all but the most advanced Patriot interceptors and too low to be hit by THAAD, according to experts. For his part, Trump downplayed the potential threat and the signal it represented from Kim, insisting the tests did not violate Kims pledge last year to halt intercontinental- and medium-range missile and nuclear weapons tests while negotiations are underway. Theyre short range and I dont consider it a breach of trust at all, Trump told Politico last week. I dont think theyre ready to negotiate, he added. Trump defends his talks with Kim, arguing that the test pause has eased tensions with Pyongyang, at least for now. And some missile experts and diplomats say the White House is right not to overreact to the latest provocations from Pyongyang. But U.S. intelligence officials say Kim has little intention of fully giving up North Koreas nuclear and missile programs and is likely to ramp up testing again if the U.S. doesnt agree to ease punishing economic sanctions in exchange for other concessions. What were getting now is just a light taste of Kims response if no deal is reached by the end of this year, said Joshua Pollack, a North Korean missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, a graduate school. U.S. intelligence officials and outside experts have pored over data since the tests to try to understand the new missiles capabilities. Its unclear how many missiles Pyongyang has produced and how closely their capabilities match the Russian Iskander, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and has a range of 250 to 500 miles. One of the mysteries is how Pyongyang produced a missile so similar to the Iskander, which Moscow is prohibited from selling to North Korea under United Nations sanctions. Some experts believe Pyongyang illicitly acquired one of the Russian weapons from one of Russias allies and copied it. Moscow has sold a version in the last decade to Syria, Armenia and Algeria. Its also possible that North Korea produced the weapon with secret help from Russian weapons scientists, or that it bought or stole blueprints for one. I dont think the Russian government would sell this to North Korea, but its possible they used illicit trade networks, maybe using a third party, said Michael Elleman, a former weapons scientist now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. Its also possible they stole the design for it. North Korean pictures show support bands around the missile flying off during the launch in an almost identical configuration to the Iskander, evidence that is compelling and fully consistent with the Russian missile, Elleman wrote for 38 North, a nonprofit research group and website focused on North Korea. David Shlapak, a senior defense researcher at the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank, said he did not discount North Korea receiving direct help from Moscow, which has assisted Pyongyang for decades with its missile programs. Im not certain why it would be surprising if the Russians did indeed collude in the provision of a small number of Iskanders, he said. Pyongyang might have gotten its hands on a small number of missiles, mainly as sources or templates for technology and reverse-engineering, and decided to burn several in the tests. Two of the missiles were displayed on their mobile launcher in a military parade in Pyongyang in February 2018, but they appeared to be mock-ups. The latest from Washington More stories from David S. Cloud The Supreme Court justices will meet behind closed doors Thursday morning and are expected to debate and discuss for the 14th time Indianas appeal of court rulings that have blocked a law to prohibit certain abortions. The high courts action or so far, nonaction in Indianas case gives one clue as to how the courts conservative majority will decide the fate of abortion bans recently passed by lawmakers in Alabama and Georgia. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama signed her states ban into law on Wednesday. Lawmakers in those states have said they approved the bans in an effort to force the high court to reconsider Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The justices have many ways to avoid such a sweeping ruling, however. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in his 14 years on the high court, has typically resisted moving quickly to decide major controversies or to announce abrupt, far-reaching changes in the law. Advertisement Roberts history, along with the courts handling of abortion cases in recent years, suggests he will not move to overturn the right to abortion soon, or all at once, and is particularly unlikely to do so in the next year or two with a presidential election pending. Notre Dame Law professor Richard Garnett, a critic of the Roe decision and a former court clerk, said the Alabama lawmakers may be moving too fast. It is not clear that the current justices who have expressed doubts about the correctness of decisions like Roe will want to take up a case that squarely presents the question of whether these decisions should be overruled, he said. Instead, they might prefer to first consider less sweeping abortion regulations. Roberts is a staunch conservative who has moved the law to the right on a range of issues. He prefers, however, to do so in a step-by-step approach. Under his leadership, for example, the courts conservative majority struck down laws that limited campaign spending, including by corporations. But they did so only after several small-scale rulings had chipped away at these laws. The boldness of the Citizens United decision surprised many, but not those who were closely following the courts decisions in this area. The chief justice took the same two-step approach in striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act and the state laws that allowed mandatory union fees for public employees. In each instance, long-standing precedents were first eroded, then overturned. In February, the chief justice cast a key vote with the courts four liberals to keep on hold a Louisiana law that strictly regulates abortion clinics. His vote put off the courts consideration of the case, June Medical Services vs. Gee, until the fall. The Louisiana case sets the stage for an election-year ruling on abortion, but only on the question of whether the state may enforce a rule that requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Abortion rights supporters say the law would force the closure of most, if not all, abortion clinics in the state. That case is unlikely to result in overturning Roe, but it could be a stepping stone toward eventually eliminating nationwide abortion rights. At least three of the justices have indicated a readiness to move more directly to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Justice Clarence Thomas voted to do so shortly after he joined the court in 1992, and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch would probably join him. Both are longtime skeptics of the Roe decision. While the chief justice and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh would surely agree to limit abortion rights, based on their past statements, neither of them may be inclined now to directly confront the right to abortion. That could account for the courts hesitancy to move on the Indiana measure, which was signed into law in 2016 by then-Gov. Mike Pence, now the vice president. It would prohibit abortions for certain reasons, including if a fetus is diagnosed with Down syndrome or any other disability. The law has not gone into effect because it was struck down by a federal judge in Indiana and by a divided U.S. appeals court in Chicago. The lower-court judges said the Indiana law clearly conflicted with Roe vs. Wade because it would allow the state, not a woman, to decide which abortions were permitted. In October, a week after Kavanaugh was sworn in, Indianas lawyers asked the high court to hear the case and uphold the law, which it described as designed to put an end to eugenics abortions. A second provision of the law would require abortion facilities to treat fetal remains with respect and to either bury or cremate them. Normally, the justices consider such an appeal for a week or two. If at least four of them vote to hear the appeal, the case is granted a full review. If not, it is denied in a one-line order. Since Jan. 4, however, the court has repeatedly relisted the case of Box vs. Planned Parenthood for reconsideration. Recently passed abortion laws in Ohio, Georgia and Alabama, all of which go considerably further than the Indiana law, will be challenged in court, and federal judges, who are bound to follow existing Supreme Court rulings, are almost certain to block them from taking effect. That will begin a legal process that would send the appeals heading to the high court. But the justices could decide to put those appeals on hold indefinitely while they consider a more limited abortion case, like the one from Louisiana. If an appeals court strikes down one of the state bans, the justices could also simply decline to consider the appeal, which would not prevent them from revisiting the issue in the future. In either case, the justices could fairly easily put off a decision on Roe vs. Wade until after the national election in November of 2020. More stories from David G. Savage Donald Trump once thought foreign policy would be easy. We would win if we would just sit down and negotiate but using our best people, he wrote as a private citizen in 2008. We have all the cards. So as president he named himself negotiator-in-chief and tried to cajole North Koreas Kim Jong Un to abandon nuclear weapons. He reimposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, betting he could force the ayatollahs to change their ways. He vowed to force China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union to give up what he called unfair trade practices. He backed an uprising in Venezuela aimed at toppling its leftist president, Nicolas Maduro. He declared victory against Islamic State and ordered U.S. troops home from Syria. In his spare time, he asked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to arrange peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Advertisement He has achieved none of those outcomes. Were in an escalating trade war with China, and with both Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping slapping tariffs on imports, consumers and businesses in both countries are likely to get hurt. The nuclear negotiations with North Korea are stalled, and Kim not only is still producing nuclear weapons material but also has started firing short-range ballistic missiles to show his pique. The sanctions on Iran havent made its government more pliable; Tehran has threatened to resume aspects of its still-halted nuclear program. U.S. troops are still in Syria. And Kushner has yet to unveil his Mideast peace plan. Theres a long list of familiar critiques of Trumps foreign policy. Its disruptive. Its impulsive. Its unpredictable. Its contradictory. It cozies up to dictators like Russias Vladimir Putin and treats allies like Germanys Angela Merkel with contempt. All true. But lets apply a more practical test: Is the president accomplishing the goals he set out for himself? In most cases, the answer is no. Sure, Trump has kept some of the foreign policy promises he made in his campaign. He moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, abandoned the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and announced U.S. withdrawal from the 2016 Paris agreement on climate change. But those were easy, accomplished by signing proclamations. More substantively, Trump pursued the war against Islamic State to military success. But he still hasnt found a way to extricate U.S. forces. Now the White House has sent an aircraft carrier and bombers to the region as a show of force to Iran, and is said to be reviewing Pentagon contingency plans to send thousands of troops. He has pushed U.S. allies in NATO to increase their defense spending, but not enough for his satisfaction. He succeeded in renegotiating NAFTA, the trade deal with Mexico and Canada. But its ratification in the Senate is far from assured. If his tough line on trade with China wrings serious reforms from Beijing, hell deserve bipartisan applause. But hes not there yet. Talks broke down Friday, and while both sides say negotiations will continue, none are scheduled. On the biggest priorities more equitable trade with China, a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea, an Iran less capable of threatening its neighbors he gets, at best, an incomplete. Last month, Robert Blackwill, a hawkish former aide to President George W. Bush, wrote a report card on Trumps foreign policy for the Council on Foreign Relations. He gave the president the benefit of the doubt: Trumps foreign policies are better than they seem, he wrote. Blackwills overall grade: D-plus. Im a tough grader, he explained. Why is the Great Negotiator falling short? The problem with Trump is that hes a weak president, Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign policy scholar at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth, told me. He doesnt know how to make the government work. He isnt interested in the details of policy. He doesnt have a cohesive team of aides to help him. A second, related answer: Trump has strong opinions, but no coherent strategy. The president provides the hunches and instincts, the State Departments chief of policy planning, Kiron Skinner, said a bit undiplomatically at a conference last month. Its the job of his staff to turn hunches into strategy, she said. In Trump vs. California, the state is winning nearly all its environmental cases Skinner and other Trump acolytes have labored for months to turn the presidents slogan of America first into a more elaborate Trump Doctrine. Its basic tenets, which Trump has outlined in several speeches, boil down to this: Every nation should pursue its own interests. For strong nations like the United States, alliances and multinational organizations just get in the way. Thats the third reason Trumps foreign policy isnt working. It spurns the strong multilateral alliances that were a foundation of the U.S. strategy that grew out of World War II and won the Cold War. The world has changed, but allies are as important as ever, Mandelbaum told me. If you really want to get China to change its economic practices, you need to build a strong coalition to put pressure on them. Its not clear that the United States can do it alone. Trumps foreign policy still has a chance to improve. But his penchant for ignoring allies has badly weakened his diplomacy. If he hopes to succeed on the big things, he needs to abandon that part of the Trump Doctrine. The Senate Intelligence Committee has struck a deal with Donald Trump Jr. to appear for a closed-door interview next month, pulling the two sides back, for now, from a confrontation over a subpoena as part of the panels Russia investigation. Under the terms of the deal, according to two people familiar with the agreement, Trump Jr. will talk to the committee in mid-June for up to four hours. The people spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday to discuss the confidential terms. The deal comes after the panel subpoenaed President Trumps eldest son to discuss answers he gave the panels staff in a 2017 interview. Trump Jr. had backed out of interviews twice, prompting the subpoena, according to people familiar with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burrs remarks to a GOP luncheon last week. Those people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Burrs remarks in the private senators meeting. The deadline for Trump Jr. to respond was Monday, according to one of the people familiar with the terms. His lawyers drafted a letter to the committee declining an appearance, and the presidents son was expected to be held in contempt for declining to be interviewed. Advertisement But before the letter was sent, the committee reached out Monday evening and extended the deadline. The deal was then struck. A spokeswoman for Burr declined to comment. The North Carolina Republican has weathered fierce criticism over the subpoena from the president and his GOP colleagues. Trump said Tuesday he believed that his son was being treated poorly. Its really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100% OK and now they want him to testify again, Trump told reporters at the White House before traveling to Louisiana. I dont know why. I have no idea why. But it seems very unfair to me. The White House hardened its opposition to House Democrats investigations on Wednesday, telling lawmakers that they had no authority to examine how President Trump has wielded his executive power. The stance stiffens Trumps already obdurate approach toward Capitol Hill, and it represents an expansive view of how presidents can stonewall congressional requests for documents or testimony from administration officials. The Committees inquiries transparently amount to little more than an attempt to duplicate and supplant law enforcement inquiries, and apparently to do so simply because the actual law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice did not reach a conclusion favored by some members of the Committee, Pat Cipollone, the top White House lawyer, wrote in a letter to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. The argument paralleled one that Trumps personal lawyers made this week in court in an effort to block subpoenas of Trumps financial records. They also argued that Congress could not pursue investigations that replicated law enforcement inquiries. The federal judge appeared skeptical of the argument, saying that such a rule would have blocked congressional investigations of the Watergate scandal. Advertisement House Democrats have been trying to build on the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III by probing whether Trump obstructed justice or otherwise abused his power. But the White House has refused to cooperate on that inquiry or in others into the presidents tax returns and the granting of security clearances. Based on the sheer number and scope of the Committees requests, it is clear that the Committee is trying to unduly burden the Office of the President so as to impair the Presidents ability to carry out his constitutional duties, Cipollones letter said. The Constitution does not permit Congress to undermine the President in this manner. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) In his 448-page report, Mueller laid out several instances in which Trump tried to impede the Russia investigation. However, he did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump violated the law in part because Justice Department rules prevent sitting presidents from being indicted. Atty. Gen. William Barr and then-Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein said the evidence did not show that Trump committed a crime. With the special counsels investigation over, the White House accused Democrats of trying to repeat Muellers work without a legitimate purpose. Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized do-over of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice, Cipollone wrote. Nadler responded by telling reporters that the White House was trying to make the president invulnerable to any kind of oversight. They say the Justice Department cant hold him accountable since a sitting president cant be indicted, he said. Now theyre saying the Congress cant hold a president accountable. This is ridiculous. It would make the president above the law. Nadler said Democrats may seek very large fines against people held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas. The House Judiciary Committee has already recommended contempt for Barr for refusing to provide lawmakers with an unredacted copy of the Mueller report and its underlying evidence, but the matter has not yet reached the House floor. Democratic congressional leaders have suggested that more administration officials could face contempt. The House may hold one vote on all of them together next month. Nadler said Democrats will not be deterred from pursuing their investigations, which include taking testimony from Mueller and Donald McGahn, Trumps first White House counsel and a key witness. Trump has said neither should testify. We will subpoena whoever we have to subpoena, Nadler said. We will hear from Mueller. We will hear from McGahn. We will hear from a lot of other witnesses. We will hold in contempt whoever doesnt comply with subpoenas. Nadlers political opponents have sharply criticized his leadership. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said that the panel has become a parody. When the results of Robert Muellers investigation did not satisfy Democrats, they quickly started peddling to the American people a manufactured constitutional crisis, he said. Wednesdays letter is only one way in which Trump has resisted congressional inquiries. The president made a preliminary assertion of executive privilege over the unredacted Mueller report and the underlying evidence. The decision allows his team more time to review the materials before making a more definitive assessment. The legal principle of executive privilege allows presidents to keep secret their communications with advisors, and the Russia investigation relied heavily on prosecutors interviews with White House aides. Times staff writers Jennifer Haberkorn, Eli Stokols and Sarah D. Wire in Washington contributed to this report. With a growing economy at his back and little resistance from Republicans, President Trump has been free to impose tariffs on Americas trading partners with few political repercussions. Yet his protectionist approach particularly his heavy-handed tactics with China, as well as with traditional allies Canada and the European Union presents a high-stakes gamble for him and other Republicans in the 2020 elections. So far the president has been able to keep skeptical Republicans from rebelling by stoking his voting base and promising to subsidize soybean farmers and others hit hard by the trade conflict with China. And Trump has bipartisan support in Congress to try to compel Beijing to change or halt policies that many in Washington see as endangering U.S. economic and security interests. Advertisement But with new tariff deadlines looming as early as Saturday, the president is testing the patience of some of his staunchest allies in Congress, many of whom have long billed themselves as opponents of trade barriers and skeptics of government subsidies meant to alter the market. Although Trump portrays tariffs as something paid by foreign countries and seems to believe it Republican elected officials generally accept the evidence that U.S. consumers bear most of the cost of higher taxes on imported goods. We are growing tired and frustrated of hearing the up-and-down, back-and-forth of everything as it relates to China, said Scott Henry, a third-generation Iowa farmer and spokesman for Farmers for Free Trade, a nonprofit advocacy group. We just want to see something get done. Unlike Trump, who recently called tariffs the greatest negotiating tool in the history of our country, many Republican lawmakers see them as a tool to be used briefly if at all. I completely agree with what President Trump is trying to do get China to abide by the rules but this is high-stakes poker and I hope we win, said Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, which depends heavily on farming and manufacturing industries that could see significant impacts from tariffs. A quick resolution appeared unlikely after talks broke down Friday and Trump hiked tariffs on $200 billion of imported goods on China. Beijing retaliated on Monday by vowing to increase tariffs on $60 billion of American-made goods as of June 1. At least in public, neither side showed signs of backing down Tuesday. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump threatened to slap tariffs on all remaining Chinese imported goods, or another $300 billion, in what he called a little squabble. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, China will fight to the finish. Analysts say Chinese President Xi Jinping will never agree to certain enforceable changes that the U.S. side wants, including giving up subsidies to state-owned firms that are fundamental to Chinas government-controlled economic and political system. That leaves Trump with a painful choice, said William Reinsch, a veteran trade analyst in Washington and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan think tank. He can accept a weaker agreement than he wants, in which case the Democrats will attack him for being soft and caving, Reinsch said. Or he can leave tariffs in place indefinitely, causing higher prices for American consumers, and Democrats will accuse him of being an incompetent negotiator, a bad closer and somebody who caused an enormous amount of short-term pain for what turned out to be no gain at all. Both countries say they will continue talks and have left time before the latest volley of tariffs kicks in. Trump said Tuesday he will attend the Group of 20 leaders summit June 28-29 in Osaka, Japan, where he is expected to meet with Xi and could resolve their trade dispute. The threat of Trumps new tariffs will probably hang over those talks as well. They want to make a deal, Trump said. It could absolutely happen. Others are less sure. Things have escalated very quickly and we dont know how the two sides are going to get back to the table, said Myron Brilliant, executive vice president and head of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Economists, congressional Republicans and even some administration officials say U.S. consumers and businesses cannot escape pain from the tit-for-tat tariff fights that Trump has started with China but also Canada, Mexico and the European Union. Trump has imposed duties on steel and aluminum from Canada, Mexico and the European Union, all of which have retaliated with duties on American farm and other goods. And Trump is weighing new taxes on imported autos from the EU, Japan and other countries on national security grounds a decision that could come this weekend and is almost certain to spark a U.S. political backlash if Trump presses ahead with it. Ultimately nobody wins a trade war unless there is an agreement at the end after which tariffs go away, said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, whose own state of Kentucky has suffered retaliatory tariffs on bourbon and tobacco. Hopefully these tactics will lead us to that day, and if it does I think it will be a winner for both sides. Republican and Democratic lawmakers, as well as many policy analysts, have faulted Trump for alienating allies with tariffs when the administration could have forged a broader coalition against Chinese trade practices to increase leverage in negotiating with Beijing. The lone-wolf approach, after poking all the allies with sticks over steel and aluminum ... has really soured a lot of countries on the U.S., said Daniel Ikenson, director of trade at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. So far, he noted, the harmful effects of tariffs have been cushioned by a healthy economy still getting a boost from tax cuts. But if the economy weakens and Trump doesnt make a good deal with China, Ikenson said, hes going to get hammered by Democrats in Rust Belt states that went for Trump in 2016. A former White House aide who spoke on condition of anonymity said even Trumps most skeptical advisors share his view that China reneged on a potential deal. The former aide said Trump was fired up and appeared eager for a fight after China allegedly walked back its commitments. China blamed the Trump administration on Tuesday, claiming U.S. negotiators changed the terms of Chinese purchases previously agreed to by both parties. Trump and his political team believe getting tough on China and trade is something thats pretty unifying in the country and will view a trade war as a winning campaign message, whether or not it yields a deal. But a long fight could hurt farming states that Trump is depending on in his 2020 reelection bid. For now, Republicans are sticking with Trump even though his moves cut against the partys traditional policies. Rod Hunter, a partner at the law firm Baker McKenzie and former senior director for international economics at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, said Trumps political support on trade certainly isnt guaranteed. People are behind it until the day theyre not, he said. Thats politics, that has a lot to do with perceived strength. And that may change quickly. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said, Im not going to question his judgment in the aggressive nature of what he has done because every time I think that in my own mind, it turns out hes made the right decision. Still, Inhofe has reservations. The farmers and agriculture supporters in his state are concerned about this but they also have enough faith in the president I know this isnt true in all states, but it is in Oklahoma. But Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said Senate Republicans have limited patience for the aggressive strategy Trump is pursuing. If its to get to low or no tariffs at the end if its other countries that have high tariffs on us that we put tariffs on to get them to the table to get to low or no tariffs Im fine with that, Lankford said. If the goal is to have high tariffs long term, thats self destructive. Thats not helpful in the long term. Five months after unveiling a sweeping plan to lower health insurance costs for middle-class Californians, Gov. Gavin Newsom now must sell the politically unpopular part of his proposal hefty fines on those who do not have medical coverage. On Tuesday, he launched his pitch by highlighting how the high cost of health insurance is hurting small-business owners, and he warned lawmakers that failing to approve the fees to fund expanded subsidies is a bad decision. Without the mandate, everybodys premiums go up, Newsom said during a discussion with healthcare leaders and small-business owners at a Covered California enrollment office in Sacramento. Newsom will travel over the next five days across the state visiting San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego to promote his healthcare agenda. His plan includes consolidating prescription drug purchases to lower the cost of medications and allowing young immigrant adults who are in the U.S. illegally to be covered by Medi-Cal, the states health program for people with low incomes. Advertisement While those proposals have received the most attention, he said shoring up a health insurance market vandalized by the Trump administration is a top priority. Newsom proposed in January that California reinstate a mandate that everyone enroll in health insurance after the federal government eliminated the requirement. The fees created by the individual mandate helped prop up the Affordable Care Act. Newsom proposed the states new penalties go toward expanding subsidies that lower the cost of buying insurance. If approved, both the individual mandate and the subsidies would begin Jan. 1. Nearly 600,000 Californians paid $446 million in penalties to the federal government for not having health insurance in 2016, the most recent year for which data was available. Newsoms revised budget estimated that tax filers in the state would pay $317 million in fines for not carrying health insurance in 2020-21. The nonpartisan Legislative Analysts Office estimated that roughly 3.5 million people in California do not have health insurance, with those who are uninsured more likely to be low-income. The burden on the poor was highlighted by opponents of the bill, including the California Nurses Assn. That argument may cause lawmakers may balk as well. Two bills to create the mandate, which require majority approval, are working their way through the Legislature SB 175 and AB 414. Both are scheduled to be heard in fiscal committees this week. Newsom said the mandate and subsides will help alleviate uncertainty in the health insurance market and stabilize premiums that increase when younger healthy people do not buy in. Individuals earning up to $72,000 and families of four making up to $150,000 would qualify for lower premiums under Newsoms plan. However, Newsoms budget calls for the subsidies to sunset in three years and be adjusted in 2021 and 2022 based on how much the state takes in from the individual mandate penalty. That too could create uncertainty in the market, although Newsom said much less so than doing nothing. Perfect is not on the menu, he said. The California Nurses Assn. argues the fees target people who cant afford health insurance in the first place, a key reason they are opposed. The powerful lobbying group also said that nothing would prevent insurance companies from raising rates and thus eliminating the benefit of the subsidies funded by the fees. The nurses association has been the driving force behind efforts to create a single-payer system that covers every resident. Newsom earned the nurses associations backing during his run for governor after pledging to lead the effort on single-payer healthcare. On Tuesday, he said those efforts continue, but that subsidies and the individual mandate are the immediate band-aid needed to help Californians. That pursuit continues here in the state, but in the absence of the ideal, there is the pragmatic and there is the reality of today and how we provide relief today, and that is what we are pursuing in the interim, Newsom said. melody.gutierrez@latimes.com Follow @MelodyGutierrez on Twitter and sign up for our Essential Politics newsletter. Burbank City Council members said last week they want more information about potentially banning the use of e-cigarettes in public places and common areas, like with traditional tobacco products, and regulating the sale of the battery-powered nicotine vaporizers. During a City Council meeting, Vice Mayor Jess Talamantes said that he had requested the initial information and discussion about the possibility of regulating the devices. My main focus was health reasons health and trying to prohibit the sale to minors, Talamantes said, calling the devices, which atomize solutions that may contain nicotine and other potentially toxic chemicals into steam, a major public health concern. The devices are not currently regulated the same as tobacco products are under federal or state law, according to a city staff report. However, while there is no federal regulation banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, the state banned their sale to people under 18 years old in 2011. Council members said they wanted more information on what local governments had done to regulate the devices, as more than 120 municipalities in California have chosen to do. City staff had presented other options for council members to consider, including no regulation or a wait-and-see approach that would depend on future federal or state legislation. Local governments that regulate e-cigarettes say they do so to protect smoke-free air, reduce public confusion, discourage smoking and simplify enforcement, Carol-Ann Coates, the citys building administration manager, told council members. Officials discussed the possibility incorporating e-cigarettes under existing ordinances governing tobacco sales and smoking in public, in part to clarify the citys enforcement policies and to eliminate confusion about their use. Under existing city code, retailers selling traditional tobacco products, nicotine products or smoking paraphernalia must get a tobacco retailer license from the city. Enforcement of the licensing program involves Burbank police sending decoys who are underage into licensed retailers to attempt to buy tobacco products. However, a retailer that exclusively sells e-cigarettes cannot be licensed under the citys tobacco sales ordinance as it is, because e-cigarettes do not qualify for state tobacco retailers licenses. That means they are not subject to the same enforcement activities as tobacco retailers. The existing Secondhand Smoke Control Ordinance prohibits smoking in city parks and facilities, outdoor public areas, sidewalks in downtown Burbank and within 20 feet of entrances, exits and open windows of buildings open to the public. It also bans smoking in certain areas of multifamily buildings: indoor common areas, private patios and balconies, swimming areas when children are present and within 5 feet of entrances, exits, walkways and hallways. City Atty. Amy Albano noted some of the differences between the devices and tobacco products e-cigarettes do not produce smoke, and there is a lack of conclusive evidence about the health effects of using them but she said that does not mean the council lacks the ability to regulate them. I just wouldnt call it secondhand smoke, she said. -- Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com Twitter: @chadgarland On Jan. 16, President Donald Trump marked Religious Freedom Day, a custom of U.S. presidents since 1993. Religious diversity strengthens our communities and promotes tolerance, respect, understanding and equality, the presidents proclamation stated, commemorating the date in 1786 that Thomas Jefferson helped establish the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Trump, like other presidents before him, used the opportunity to comment on international and domestic political issues such as terrorism and forcing people to comply with laws that violate their core religious beliefs without sufficient justification. As if to underline the presidents words, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced two days later that it would create a division within its Office of Civil Rights granting healthcare workers the right to refuse services based on religious objections. Never forget that religious freedom is a primary freedom, that it is a civil right that deserves enforcement and respect, the offices director said. Q. Is religious freedom a primary freedom that supersedes others, including those of patients seeking medical treatment? Religious freedom is a primary American freedom. It may not be a freedom in other places, but its still hard to imagine that any human conscience could be genuinely controlled by a government, apart from willful compliance. So, here we have some people of faith, whose moral compass commands boundaries, and I think it not unreasonable to try and accommodate them to some measure. There may always be those who test the system by starting contentious religions and making impossible demands upon their employers just to sue or make a point, but surely it wont be the norm. This weeks question asks whether or not ones religious freedom would supersede the needs of someone elses medical care, but I dont believe this is a legitimate contention. Surely in a medical facility there will be plenty of people who have no qualms with being in charge of the one or two duties a conscientious objector might direct toward them. And in such cases where a job requires some task that would compromise a candidates conscience, then that stipulation should be made up front, before hiring. I dont think it wrong to give a job to someone who is on board with the full program of business, but to unfairly discriminate when some small religious concession could be made for an otherwise perfect employee would be wrong. There are many evils in this world of which the people have no perception. To kill unborn children is a privilege, some say, and to engage in sexual activity others frown upon is their new normal, and free speech has become something to denounce and a thing over which to riot. However, now there is some measure of reprieve on the rise for the keepers of faith. There will be no more rubbing their noses in the pile and being punished for not loving it; at least, thats the hope. Its all a matter of what Jesus said, Do unto others as you would have others do unto you (Luke 6:31 MEV). Rev. Bryan A. Griem Tujunga .. None of our Constitutional rights take precedence over the others nor does our freedom of religion allow us to impose our beliefs on others. Theist and free thinker Jefferson would in no way have intended the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which became the Establishment Clause prohibiting an official U.S. religion, to allow healthcare workers to deny needed services that are in their job description to provide. Taking Trumps vision to its logical conclusion, picture the madness of workers deciding what part of their jobs they can refuse to perform, based on their own religious beliefs. Blood transfusions? Serving hospital meals containing pork? And why limit it to healthcare? This new division within HHSs Office of Civil Rights is really about allowing workers to refuse to assist with legal abortions and to not treat gay, lesbian and transgender people at all. The Trump administration is seeking to define assist to include scheduling appointments or working as a janitor in the facility. We can only imagine where it could lead. Roberta Medford Atheist Montrose .. Just as science fiction movies reflect, by accident, as much of the time in which they are made as they do of the future they intend to portray (a nice example is Minority Report, which is set in 2054 but contains many technologies that came into being within 10 years of its 2002 release, though it begins with a man picking up something called a newspaper off his lawn), our laws and our language, as vital, scalable, and structured as they are, are generated as a result of very specific and topical needs. Our Bill of Rights, preceded by Jeffersons and James Madisons remarkably similar legal founding documents of Virginia, was written by people with personal or familial knowledge of specific intra-Christian religious persecution (as well as of occupying soldiers living in colonists homes, carrying weapons that took more than a minute to load and fire a single shot, and thus the basis for the Second and Fourth amendments). To our founders, religious freedom was tied to freedom of assembly and not to specific practices, reflecting their forebears flight from England. Furthermore, the deist slaveholder Jefferson already knew full well the necessary separation of church and state. Masquerading discrimination against those seeking abortions or those with non-mainstream gender identities as religious freedom is as clever as it is deceitful, disingenuous and ungodly. Marty Barrett President Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills (UUVerdugo) .. Religious freedom is indeed a primary freedom. A truly free society does not force its citizens to violate this God-given right as they participate and serve in society according to the dictates of their faith and conscience. The number of practical issues this concept applies to is very limited in real life, the elective procedure of abortion no doubt being the primary one. Frankly, I would prefer to be treated by a medical professional who is guided by a strong internal sense of morality rather than one who is willing to make compromises of conscience to make a buck or just keep his or her job. But even if our government fails to protect working people of faith, I am confident that God will protect them as they put his laws first. Daniels three friends served king Nebuchadnezzar faithfully, but their faith prohibited them from bowing down before the idol he created. When they failed to do so at his command, the pagan king condemned them to be thrown alive into a burning furnace as punishment that they might be executed. They responded: O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and he will deliver us out of your hand, o king. But even if he does not, let it be known to you, o king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Daniel 3:16-18). The king threw them into the fire but God was with them, and kept them unharmed. After they were taken out they didnt even smell like smoke. God never changes, and his people will not be overthrown as they obey him before all others. Pastor Jon Barta Burbank (CNN) Huawei's finance chief, detained in Canada since December, has written to the company's 188,000 employees to thank them for support she says has filled her "with power." Meng Wanzhou is awaiting a hearing on her possible extradition to the United States, where she faces federal charges in New York for her role in an alleged scheme by Huawei to circumvent US sanctions on Iran. "Every time a court hearing has finished, I have seen Huawei employees staying up all night just to follow my case in distant time zones," Meng wrote in a letter that was published Monday on the company's internal online forum. "This has brought me to tears." A translated version of the letter was provided to CNN Business by the company. The case against Meng was filed amid a broader campaign against the Chinese tech company by the US government, which claims Huawei's networking equipment poses a national security threat. The company also faces charges in Seattle that it tried to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile. Meng and the company have pleaded not guilty across the board. Meng said in her letter that she had been encouraged by messages of support posted in the Huawei forum, and the sight of former employees lining up outside the court in Vancouver. She was released on $7.5 million bail nearly two weeks after her arrest. She agreed to surrender her passports, live in one of two homes she owns in the city, pay for an around-the-clock security detail and wear a GPS ankle bracelet. "Despite being physically restricted to a very limited space during my time in Vancouver, my inner self has never felt so colorful and vast," Meng said in the letter Monday. Meng's high-profile detention has led to a diplomatic standoff between Canada, China and the United States, and complicated trade talks between Washington and Beijing, which has called for her release. Huawei, which is world's biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, has shown a growing willingness to go on the offensive. Last week, the company decried "political factors at play during the extradition process," which it said could infringe on Meng's "legitimate rights." Meng filed a civil lawsuit in March accusing Canadian authorities of violating her rights when they first detained her. She's expected to appear in Canadian court again in September. This story first appeared on CNN, "Huawei's detained finance chief speaks out in letter to employees." A federal judge said this week that he would toss out a lawsuit in which one current and one former city employee accuse Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates of age and disability discrimination and free-speech violation unless the plaintiffs amend their complaint. The pairs attorney, Bernard Alexander, has until May 30 to file an amended complaint before U.S. District Judge David Carter dismisses the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The judge wanted more details as to allegations to allow us in federal court, Alexander said Tuesday. He added that the plaintiffs will consider amending the complaint or refiling it in state court. Alexander filed the lawsuit in federal court Jan. 4 on behalf of Neal Moore, a former senior deputy city attorney who worked for Huntington Beach for about 14 years, and Scott Field, a current senior deputy city attorney who has been employed with the city for about 22 years. The complaint initially alleged that Gates discriminated against Moore and Field who were ages 73 and 62, respectively, when the suit was filed because of their age and that he created a hostile work environment intended to push them out for younger employees. Lawsuit by current and former employees accuses H.B. city attorney of age discrimination and hostile work environment Alexander has amended the complaint multiple times, and the most recent amendment accused Gates of disability discrimination and free-speech violation. According to the lawsuit, Gates has made a concerted effort to push out, displace and replace older employees with younger staff members since he was first elected in 2014. The complaint alleges that Gates purposely assigned excessive duties with unreasonable deadlines and unachievable tasks to point out fault and poor performance by Field and Moore. Moore, who was demoted, raised the issue of age discrimination with the citys director of human resources. As a result, the complaint alleges, Moores demotions were upheld and he was forced to resign. The complaint claims Moore was speaking as a private citizen out of public concern and should have been shielded by free-speech protections. However, Carter said in a decision published late Monday afternoon that Moores speech was not a matter of public concern, and the speech was made solely as a public employee. Moore spoke to human resources about alleged discrimination that was happening to him in the workplace, Carter said. Moore was therefore speaking on a matter of personal concern, not one of public concern. Moreover, Moore states that he spoke to human resources about the alleged discrimination after his demotion, not before the demotion, and thus Moores speech regarding alleged discrimination could not possibly have been a motivating factor in the city and Gates prior action to demote him. Carter also said the plaintiffs have not adequately stated a claim for relief under the disability discrimination argument and dismissed that claim. Field has undergone several procedures for cataracts. On Tuesday, Gates referred questions to his attorney, Wayne Gross. Gross said they are delighted with the developments. Michael Gates is an outstanding city attorney who never shouldve been sued, Gross said. Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. A Huntington Beach man marked a milestone of superhero proportions on Thursday when he visited Disneyland for the 2,000th consecutive day, the resort announced. Jeff Reitz, an Air Force veteran, began his daily visits to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim on Jan. 1, 2012, according to a Disney news release. He has gone every day since. The Disneyland annual pass-holder said the resorts theme parks give him something to look forward to every day. He was unemployed when he started the streak, and now that he has a regular day job with the VA Long Beach Healthcare System, he usually spends evenings at Disney. Reitz, 44, said he enjoys the attractions his favorite ride is the Matterhorn Bobsleds and shows, as well as listening to the music and interacting with park employees, whom Disney refers to as cast members. Even doing like Walt and sitting down and people-watching just enjoying the atmosphere, Reitz said. He said he will continue to treat himself to the daily Disneyland visits as long as he can, according to the release. Im still having fun with it; thats the only reason Im still doing this, Reitz said. It wasnt about going for records or anything like that. Thats been a bonus. To read the article in Spanish, click here Daily Pilot staff contributed to this report. Some pioneers of the Orange County sushi scene are celebrating their fourth anniversary this fall with an expansion. Temakira serves temaki, the Japanese word for hand roll. When Temakira opened in November 2014 in Costa Mesas East 17th Street, it was the first of its kind in O.C. to focus its menu on the sushi-stuffed hand rolls, which are a popular on-the-go item in Brazil. The rolls are wrapped in nori (seaweed) or soy paper. White or brown rice is added, followed by a protein (like tuna, salmon or shrimp tempura), fillings (which include avocado, cucumber, green onions, fish eggs or tempura flakes) and, to top it off, a sauce (spicy mayo, mayo, eel sauce, sriracha or wasabi cream). One of the photogenic, Instagram-ready rolls (which end up with a shape reminiscent of an ice cream cone) is a snack; two or three can be a meal. Temakira a made-up word that combines temaki with kira, which means coming of hope in Japanese has three locations: East 17th Street, the OC Mix, also in Costa Mesa, and Irvine. Natsuko Travioli and Ilka Komatsu, with Hugo Komatsu, center. All three are managing members of Temakira. (Photo by Spencer Grant) In time for the chains fourth anniversary, a fourth restaurant is planned to open later this year near the Long Beach Airport, breaking Temakira into the Los Angeles County market. Some of Temakiras menu temaki (they can also be customized) use American palate favorites, such as avocado and shrimp tempura, while others take their cues from traditional Japanese food, namely the Negi Hama (yellowtail and green onions with olive oil, lemon and daikon sprouts) and the Yuzu Tuna (seared tuna, mixed greens, sprouts, Yuzu chili sauce). The chain has also caught onto the poke craze, offering its hand roll options in a bowl with base options, such as rice, cucumbers, sprouts and ginger. And, for its managing members who founded Temakira Hugo Komatsu, Ilka Komatsu, who are brother and sister, and Natsuko Travioli that newness extended to themselves. They had never run or started a restaurant before. Rather, the trio, who all live in Costa Mesa, where their company is based, came from the finance world. Hugo and Ilka were born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Travioli grew up in Irvine and Japan, where she met Hugo. At the time, both were working in a Japan office of Newport Beach-based PIMCO, the investment management company. But they werent meant to stay in the investment sphere too long. Hugo harbored culinary dreams that eventually translated into becoming a founding member of a sushi hand roll shop in Costa Mesa, an area with which he was already familiar, with Travioli, a person whose friendship with him continued back in the United States. Ilka joined the business after its founding. When planning Temakira, they could imagine the benefits of temaki: affordable price points, healthy options and its ability to be a gateway food that points some eaters toward more Japanese cuisine. I thought it would be really interesting, Hugo said. He had no restaurant experience, however. Hugo jokes now that the only culinary experience he had was running a food trading company in Brazil, a far cry from the restaurant operations required of him now. It was Travioli who brought some restaurant experience to the fold. Chef Julio Lopez crafts a hand roll at Temakira at the location on 17th Street in Costa Mesa. (Photo by Spencer Grant) They chose Costa Mesa as a starting point, partially because they predicted it could be a success there. With the influx of stylish and popular eateries popping up along East 17th Street from the Crack Shack and Sidecar Doughnuts to Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop and Pitfire Artisan Pizza their predictions came true. Like others have been along the street, their restaurant was a hit. We were part of the wave, Travioli said. Initial marketing was limited. People, it turned out, were curious and came in on their own. Getting exposure was pretty easy, Hugo said. It has also come with an unexpected bonus. Temakira never intended to convert fans of traditional sushi fare. Turns out, theyre doing just that. They see its different, Travioli said, and they seem to like it. Temakira is located at 259 E. 17th Street, Costa Mesa; the OC Mix, 3313 Hyland Ave., B5, Costa Mesa; and 4237 Campus Drive, B164, Irvine. Bradley Zint is a contributor to Times Community News. This past weekend saw the Glendale Fire Department host more than 2,000 at its headquarters on Oak Street for Fire Service Day. The annual event gave residents the opportunity to meet face-to-face with first responders and featured a live vehicle extraction demonstration. The event coincided with National Police Week and officers from the Glendale Police Department were also on hand to meet with residents. Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. The last post Michelle Vo made to Instagram was a short video from the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas. It featured musician Sam Hunt singing a country version of an R. Kelly song with many concertgoers, including herself, singing in unison to the lyrics. The 32-year-old Eagle Rock resident, who worked in Glendale, uploaded the video on Sunday and captioned it Throw back. Love it. However, comments on the video were soon populated by frantic messages from friends asking if Vo was all right and hoping shed check in to say she was safe. The messages came sometime after she posted the video when someone opened fire on the 22,000 concertgoers at the festival from a hotel room across the street. When the shooting stopped, 59 people were dead and more than 500 were wounded. Vo was among those killed. When news broke of her death, Vos friends and family took to social media to express their grief and to remember her as someone who led a joyful life and was an inspiration to others. Diane Hawkins, Vos sister, said in a post on Facebook that she had an infectious smile. She made you feel like youve known her for a lifetime when she spoke to you, she wrote. A Bay Area native, Vo attended Independence High School in San Jose and graduated from UC Davis. She spent the last three years working in Glendale for the New York Life Insurance Co., according to her LinkedIn profile. Like all Americans, we are shocked and saddened at the terrible tragedy that has unfolded in Las Vegas, a New York Life spokesperson said. Our grief is deepened by knowing that a member of the New York Life family, Michelle Vo, an agent in our greater Pasadena office, was among those killed. Gary May, chancellor for UC Davis, also expressed his condolences at Vos passing. My prayers go to Michelle and her family as we mourn her, he said. Lets be good to one another in these distressing times and work toward a more peaceful world. My heart is heavy to learn that the horrific rampage in Las Vegas claimed a member of our Aggie family - Michelle Vo https://t.co/QvM0BqALVu Gary S. May (@Chancellor_May) October 3, 2017 According to the Washington Post, Vo was a recent country music convert. The festival was the first concert she attended as a newly minted fan of the genre. It was there that she befriended Kody Robertson, a 32-year-old from Columbus, Ohio. In the Post article, Robertson said he was next to Vo when the shots first rang out at 10:08 p.m. The two thought it was the sound of fireworks and were trying to look for them. She was soon struck by a bullet, and Robertson tried to render first aid to Vo. He then placed Vo onto the bed of a pickup truck that shepherded her to a nearby hospital. But it was all too late. After waiting all night at 2 different hospitals I was just told she didn't survive... R.I.P. Michelle Kody Robertson (@Robeko17) October 2, 2017 andy.nguyen@latimes.com Twitter: @Andy_Truc UPDATES: Oct. 4, 2017; 11:51 a.m.: This article was updated with with additional comments from Michelle Vos workplace. This article was originally published at 5:50 p.m. on Oct. 3, 2017. Reinforcement for first baseman Albert Pujols arrived in the Angels clubhouse Wednesday, hours before the team played the finale of a three-game series with the Minnesota Twins. Prospect Jared Walsh, a 25-year-old first baseman and occasional left-handed reliever and outfielder, was promoted from triple-A Salt Lake. He was thrust into action, playing first base and batting eighth, and went three for five in the Angels 8-7 loss. He admitted to feeling jitters. No question, he said. I wasnt even necessarily trying to do too much. I was just trying to control the breathing and swing at good pitches. When he met with reporters before the game, he admitted he thought he might never get this chance. Advertisement I think it always kind of catches you by surprise, especially not being on the 40-man [roster], Walsh said. Just wanted to play my game. Id hoped Id get the opportunity, and Im very grateful for that. As he stood at his locker, the one in the far corner of the visiting clubhouse at Target Field vacated not even 12 hours earlier by first baseman Justin Bour, Walsh reflected on his long journey to the major leagues. Walsh was not highly regarded coming out of the University of Georgia during the 2015 draft. He pitched to some success there, posting a 2.60 ERA despite walking 44 batters in 55 innings his final season. His bat came along too. He hit a career-best .306 with 14 doubles, two triples, three home runs and 22 RBIs as a senior. But enough questions remained about his major league potential that teams passed him over until the Angels claimed him in the 39th round. Walsh awaited the news anxiously. He went the first two days of the three-day draft without hearing his name called. His mother, Lisa, tried to divert his attention by offering to take him to whatever major league ballpark he wanted to visit. So they wound up in Baltimore on June 10, 2015. Walsh, still stressed, sat in the stands at Camden Yards, constantly refreshing the draft tracker on his phone. The later it got, the more hopeless he felt. Angels scout Todd Hogan called Walsh in the 35th round to barter with him on a signing bonus and tell him he was petitioning the Angels to give him a chance. His phone did not ring again when the Angels pick in the 35th round came up. Almost Mr. Irrelevant, Walsh said. He finally got another call from the Angels in the penultimate stage of a 40-round draft. At that point you kind of lose hope, Walsh said. I got lucky. Sign up for our daily sports newsletter The Angels are banking on Walsh bringing them a bit of luck. Bour did not perform well enough at the plate to fill the role of backup first baseman. Walsh has morphed into a two-way threat, returning to the mound last season as an emergency reliever and pitching more this year. However, manager Brad Ausmus said Walsh would only pitch in a mop-up role for the Angels in the early going. The Angels want to see what Walsh can do with his bat. He hit 29 home runs, 34 doubles and one triple and drove in 99 runs last year playing at three minor league levels and batted .302 with 12 doubles, 10 home runs, 26 RBIs and 19 walks this year at triple-A. Draft day was kind of a tough day, so all these years later to still be playing is something Im very appreciative of, Walsh said. I dont think with a lot of other organizations I would have gotten the opportunity. For this development to be able to push me along this far means a lot to me. maria.torres@latimes.com @maria_torres3 Chris Steele, the four-star cornerback from Bellflower St. John Bosco High, announced his commitment to Oregon on Tuesday after spending less than a semester at the University of Florida. I now know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have everything Ive ever wanted, Steele wrote on Twitter. I have learned the secret of being content. In any and every situation, I can do all things through GOD who gives me strength Ready to get to Eugene and ball! Steele was the first California prospect to sign with Florida since 2010. He graduated from St. John Bosco early, enrolled at Florida in January and practiced with the Gators during their spring camp, but chose to leave before the semester concluded. Steele will have to file an appeal to the NCAA to be eligible to play this year. Advertisement With Steeles commitment, Oregon now has three of the top six players from California in the 2019 recruiting class, per the 247Sports composite rankings. Steele was ranked the No. 42 prospect overall and was the No. 5 cornerback. He joins Lancaster Antelope Valleys Mykael Wright as a dynamic freshman cornerback duo from Southern California. In addition, the Ducks return junior starting cornerbacks Thomas Graham Jr. (Rancho Cucamonga) and Deommodore Lenoir (Los Angeles Salesian). sports@latimes.com As the second leg of horse racings Triple Crown gets ready to go on Saturday, the results of the Kentucky Derby continue to be contested. On Wednesday, Gary and Mary West, owners of Maximum Security, filed suit in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Kentucky to overturn the disqualification of the horse and reinstate the colt as the winner of the race. The suit, filed primarily against the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and the stewards at Churchill Downs, said the owners, trainer and jockey of the horse were denied due process rights under the 14th Amendment. The complaint read in part: The insubstantiality of the evidence relied on by the stewards to disqualify Maximum Security, and the bizarre and unconstitutional process to which the Plaintiffs were subjected before and after the disqualification, are the subjects of this action. It also pointed out that no inquiry sign was ever posted by the stewards to indicate, in their opinion, that a foul possibly was committed. Advertisement Maximum Securitys run along the far turn brought him off the rail and three-horses wide toward the middle of the track. He did not make contact with any of the other horses, but the stewards ruled that he impeded their progress. His was the first on-track disqualification in the 145-year history of the Kentucky Derby. Sign up for our horse racing newsletter The complaint also cited the statement read by the stewards after the race that said that they interviewed affected riders and went on to say that neither Tyler Gaffalione, rider of War of Will, the horse most affected, nor Chris Landeros, jockey of Bodeexpress, was interviewed. After the stewards disqualified Maximum Security, he was placed 17th and County House was moved from second to first. Its too early to determine when a court date might be set, if it reaches that stage. Maximum Security will not be running in Saturdays Preakness and is unlikely for the Belmont Stakes on June 8. His most likely next race would be the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth, N.J., on July 20. Southwest Airlines started service between California and Hawaii in March. Now the budget carrier plans to add another destination: Hilo, on the island of Hawaii. The airline gave few details about the upcoming service. Big news for the Island of Hawaii! Southwest posted on Twitter on May 11. Were excited to announce that Hilo will be the fifth airport served by Southwest in the Hawaiian Islands. Hilo is located on the east side of the island, close to the popular Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Service to the city would connect through Honolulu, media reports said. Hawaiis Kilauea volcano a year later: a low-key ceremony, a much bigger crater Advertisement Flights to Kauais North Shore restart, after more than two decades The airline began service between Oakland and and Honolulus Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) on March 17 and currently operates nonstop flights to Hawaii from Oakland and San Jose. The airline earlier said it would start service between Hawaii and San Diego and Sacramento, but no dates have been announced. (No Los Angeles flights are planned.) Southwest serves Honolulu, Kona, on the west side of Hawaii Island, and Kahului on Maui. It earlier announced plans to fly to Lihue on Kauai (no date given), and started inter-island flights last weekend between Kona and Honolulu. An earlier L.A. Times story said Southwests entry into the Hawaii market caused a 17% drop in April in airfares between California and Hawaii, compared with the same time last year. Whenever you have a new player in a market and a lot more seats, fares will drop, aviation analyst Seth Kaplan said. Its usually good news for consumers when there is more competition in the market. travel@latimes.com @latimestravel The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday ordered all nonessential, non-emergency government staff to leave Iraq immediately amid escalating tensions with Iran. Washington did not publicly provide any evidence to back up claims of an increased threat from Tehran. The action comes as the U.S. is deploying an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the region in response to the still-unspecified Iran threat, further ramping up tensions a year after President Trump withdrew America from Tehrans nuclear deal with world powers. The Trump administrations assertions have been questioned by Iraq and some European allies. On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a British deputy commander in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Iraq, said theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. Advertisement The U.S. Central Command responded that Ghikas comments, made to reporters at the Pentagon via a video link to Baghdad, run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region. In a speech late Tuesday, Irans supreme leader stated that no one is seeking war, but that it wouldnt be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, state media reported. Ayatollah Ali Khameneis comments came after Yemens Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran, launched a coordinated drone attack on a crucial oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition supporting the internationally recognized Yemeni government. A satellite image obtained by the Associated Press shows one of the two pumping stations attacked by the drones apparently intact. The drone assault is just the latest incident in the Mideast to shake global energy markets, as authorities allege oil tankers anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were targeted by sabotage. Benchmark Brent crude prices remained around $71 a barrel in early trading Wednesday. Speaking in Tehran at an iftar, the traditional dinner Muslims have when breaking their daylong fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Khameneis reported comments first focused on him downplaying the chances of a wider conflict in the Mideast with the U.S. He reportedly told senior officials that his country wont negotiate with the United States, calling such talks poison. But he also said, Neither we, nor them is seeking war. They know that it is not to their benefit. In Wednesdays edition, the state-run newspaper carried his comments on the nuclear program, his first since Iran announced it would begin backing away from the accord itself. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment in 60 days if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. For Teresa Malof, the ad seeking nurses to work in Saudi Arabia was a chance to reboot her life. She was 29, her mother had recently passed away and her first marriage had ended in divorce. So she would leave Cincinnati and spend a year working at Riyadhs King Fahad National Guard Hospital and make money. That was in 1996. More than 20 years later, shes still there and Saudi Arabia became home; she remarried and took a loan to buy a house in an upscale suburb of Riyadh she shared with her now ex-husband, Mazen, a USC grad, and their three children, Naif, Shireen and Mishal. But when Malof sought to extricate herself from her almost 18-year marriage, she says she quickly crashed against limits imposed by a sharia-based legal system that has often treated women as second-class citizens, and that has left Saudi wives, including foreigners such as herself, with little recourse in court. Malof and Mazen divorced four years ago, but she is still making payments for the house despite having been forced to move out shortly after the marriage ended. A hall of mirrors of claims and counterclaims has frozen the deed, so even the though the house is in her name, she cannot sell it or transfer the loan to her ex-husbands name. Advertisement Her ex-husband insists that Malof is lying and that he partly owns the house because of payments he made to Malof and others. She has also been unable to force him to pay the divorce settlement; without it, she says, she faces financial ruin. I want to be free, to have some endgame to this situation, she said. I feel like its never going to happen. The kingdom has long treated women as second-class citizens, with laws forcing them, whether they are Saudi natives or foreigners married to Saudis, to rely on a male relative or husband for permission to travel, seek medical treatment or engage in other critical life decisions. Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has sought to change that image. In recent years, the government has overturned its ban on women driving, loosened some restrictions in its guardianship laws and promoted womens role in the workplace. Yet the changes have not been enough, many women say, and some continue to flee. Last week, 28-year-old Maha Zayed Subaie and sister Wafa, 25, the latest examples of Saudi women running away from the kingdom, received asylum in an unnamed third country. The case of Malof and those of other foreign and Saudi women interviewed illustrate inequities in the countrys legal system, which is based on Islamic jurisprudence. Because the law is mostly unwritten and based on the Koran and other Islamic texts, judges have wide latitude in interpreting them. The judges are the issue. They view the woman in these cases as someone who is asking for something, not a person with rights. And the man, they always see him as the injured party, said a Saudi acquaintance of Malof who refused to give her name for reasons of privacy. The woman added that her own case, regarding the breaking of a guardianship, involved a round-robin-like series of court appearances before different judges. They stretch out an issue for years when there is no need, she said. Its as if you want to drink water, and its your right, but you still have to ask permission. The problems are compounded, she said, when the woman is a foreigner. Many, such as Malof, are converts to Islam (both parties must be Muslim in marriage to a Saudi), and often dont speak the language. Malof did not have a court-appointed interpreter, meaning she often had little understanding of documents she was told she must sign or of arguments made in court. She finally brought a friend to translate, she said, but by then she had missed out on legal avenues she could have pursued. Foreigners also are at a disadvantage in that the very legality of their presence in Saudi Arabia is reliant on their sponsor, in Malofs case, the hospital and later her husband. In the past, divorce meant the wife must return to her home country, leave her children behind and see them only if and when her ex-husband allowed it. (Since the courts priority is that a child be raised a good Muslim, custody is almost always granted to the Saudi party.) The Saudi Justice Ministry recently launched what it called an Alimony Fund to provide financial support for divorced or abandoned women. Besides monetary support, it would also slap a seven-year prison sentence on husbands who evade alimony. This year, the ministry ordered 3,683 divorced fathers to pay more than $13 million in child and spousal support, local media reported. Recently, the government also created a so-called Mother of a Saudi Citizen residency, to permit recipients to travel to and from Saudi Arabia and to work without the permission of a male guardian. In some cases, women can be granted Saudi citizenship. But such matters still rely on the cooperation of the ex-husband to provide the necessary paperwork. Malof, for example, had permission to receive a Saudi passport, but her husband, she said, didnt follow up on the procedure. After their divorce, he did help her get the special residency, but without citizenship she doesnt receive benefits afforded to those who have lived and worked in the country for most of their professional lives. Im 51, said Malof. Ive worked my entire life, left my country, my children from my first marriage, and I have no retirement. Nothing. Saudi women would face the same thing, but they have family to support them. Were here alone. Malof and others have turned to the Saudi Human Rights Commission for help. Michelle, another American with a troubled marriage, who gave only her first name for reasons of privacy, approached the commission when her Saudi husband threatened her with a gun. But the commissioners were ineffective, she said. Though they spoke to her husband about the abuse, she said, she had to leave the country with no settlement, despite having contributed to buying their villa in Riyadh and for other household expenses. There are supposedly all these new laws to help expats married to Saudis, but theyre useless, said Michelle in a recent phone conversation. We have no rights here, even if we have Saudi children. The commission did assist Malof in getting her first lawyer but wasnt able to enforce the subsequent divorce settlement. She has since worked with another lawyer. She has also sent letters to the Saudi monarch, King Salman, and the crown prince, pleading that they look into her case. Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy says there is little it can do to intervene beyond offering a list of approved attorneys. The Saudi Human Rights Commission and Malofs attorneys have refused to comment on her case. A State Department official said the department was aware of Malofs case and was providing appropriate consular services, but would not comment on pending legal proceedings. The problem is not new. In the 1990s, an eight-page brochure titled Marriage to Saudis, published by the consular bureau of the State Department, warned that an American considering marriage to a Saudi must always contemplate the worst-case scenario. Sharia law decidedly favors men in the dissolution of marriage, it said, adding that American wives are bitterly disappointed and angry when they discover the limits of the Departments and Embassys ability to intervene or resolve family disputes. (The text was soon removed for revision and never released again.) Meanwhile, a moribund economy, high dowries and marriage expenses have pushed more Saudis to take foreign wives. When Saudi women would call us cheap, I realized they meant it literally. We were cheaper than the Saudi women. We have to take some responsibility for that, said Malof, adding that she didnt take her dowry, nor did most of her American friends married to Saudi men. All of us worked and put in our money like in a Western marriage, and now we have nothing to show for it. When it doesnt work out if the man wants to take advantage of you, the system allows him to do that. The United States on Wednesday suspended all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the U.S. and Venezuela, saying the political unrest and tensions there pose a risk to flights. The announcement by the Department of Homeland Security affected a dwindling number of flights between the two countries, since U.S. airlines no longer fly to Venezuela. The measure reflected the increasingly sour relationship between the Venezuelan government and the U.S., which is leading a campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro. Conditions in Venezuela threaten the safety and security of passengers, aircraft and crew, the department said. It said the flight suspension will continue indefinitely, though the decision will be reviewed if the situation in Venezuela changes. American Airlines stopped its flights in mid-March after union leaders told pilots not to go there because of safety concerns. Some other international airlines quit flying to Venezuela years ago because of the countrys deteriorating economy. Advertisement Some Venezuelan airlines had been operating commercial flights to and from Miami, though those were already affected by the upheaval in the South American country, including after a failed call for a military uprising by the opposition on April 30. Tuesdays flights between Miami and Caracas on Venezuelas Laser Airlines included a stop in the Dominican Republic, according to the airline. Also Wednesday, Venezuelas opposition-controlled congress returned to its chamber a day after security forces prevented legislators from entering the National Assembly building for a debate. Assembly leader Juan Guaido and other legislators gave speeches denouncing Maduros government, which has accused them of conspiring with the United States to stage a coup. The National Assembly has come under increasing pressure from Maduro since the opposition appealed in vain for a military uprising April 30. The assemblys vice president, Edgar Zambrano, was arrested May 8. He is among 14 lawmakers under investigation for allegations of treason and other crimes since the failed rebellion. On Tuesday, police sealed off the National Assembly, purportedly to search for any hidden explosives. In Washington, the Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered food to American activists who have been occupying the Venezuelan Embassy the last five weeks. Police officers who keep watch around the diplomatic building allowed Jackson to go to the front gate. The activists, who have ignored trespassing warnings, consider Maduro to be Venezuelas rightful leader. The U.S. and more than 50 other countries contend his presidency is illegitimate and recognize Guaido as the interim president. Lewis Carroll is an English writer who immortalized his name with fairy tales about a girl who believed in wonders. Curiosity brought her first to an underground country, where surprises and fantastic characters awaited her, and then through the looking-glass, where she had a lot of adventures. It does not matter whether you are a fan of the book or not, you will love these best Alice in Wonderland quotes. Image: pixabay.com (modified by author) Source: UGC These Alice in Wonderland quotes are wiser than anybody can even expect. You will not only return to the magic world again but also will learn wise thoughts for inspiration and maybe even motivation. Best Alice in Wonderland quotes The tales of L. Carroll about Alice have long been the heritage of world culture. Their fate is unique: they had been written for children but have become classic literature for adults. Are you ready to learn the wise and at the same time the most insane Alice in Wonderland quotes which will become your guide through the magical world? "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. "I don't much care where", said Alice. "Then it doesnt matter which way you go," said the Cat." so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation. "Oh, youre sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough." READ ALSO: 70 best emotional quotes and sayings "Have I gone mad? Im afraid so, but let me tell you something, the best people usually are." The Mad Hatter "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC "what you would seem to be" or if you'd like it put more simply"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." "Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it." "Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." "You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "its very easy to take more than nothing." "Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice. "If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does." The Duchess "I don't think" said Alice. "Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter. "I think I should understand that better," Alice said very politely, "`if I had it written down: but I cant quite follow it as you say it." Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC "Thats nothing to what I could say if I chose," the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone. "Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that," said Alice. "How long is forever?" asked Alice. "Sometimes, just one second." responded White Rabbit. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" The Queen of Hearts "Be what you would seem to be" or if you'd like it put more simply "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." The Duchess. "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" Alice Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC "I could tell you my adventures beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: but its no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." "Dear, dear! How quer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" I cant explain myself, Im afraid, sir, said Alice, because Im not myself, you see. Unimportant, of course, I meant, the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, "importantunimportantunimportantimportant" as if he were trying which word sounded best. "I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it." Alice "Why, sometimes Ive believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." The Queen of Hearts Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC "The executioner's argument was that you couldn't cut of something's head unless there was a trunk to sever it from. He'd never done anything like that in his time of life, and wasn't going to start now. The King's argument was that anything that had a head, could be bheaded, and you weren't to talk nonsense. The Queen's argument was that if something wasn't done about it in less than no time, she'd have everyone bheaded all round. It was this last argument that had everyone looking so nervous and uncomfortable." "How puzzling all these changes are! Im never sure what Im going to be, from one minute to another." Alice "I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-holeand yetand yetit's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!" Alice "Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC Alice in Wonderland quotes will take you back to your childhood, help you to believe in a fairy tale and awaken the spirit of adventurism and thirst for adventure. In these lines, there are life wisdom and love for everything that goes beyond what is possible. READ ALSO: Top 50 funny food quotes for food lovers Source: Legit.ng A video is currently making the rounds online in which some students of Rufus Giwa polytechnic in Owo, Ondo state, were spotted as they kept a Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) vehicle grounded within the school promises. Veteran rapper Ruggedman shared the video on his Instagram page accompanied with a screenshot of what had reportedly taken place in the school. In the screenshot shared, an anonymous eye witness claimed that the SARS officials had been involved in a car chase with a vehicle which they believed was driven by an internet fraudster. The chase led them into the vicinity of the school and students reacted by standing in support of the purported yahoo boy by seizing the vehicle of the SARS officers. READ ALSO: Assistant commissioner of police Yomi Sogunle blocks Ruggedman over tweet on SARS who killed innocent man Sharing further, the witness disclosed that the SARS officials have been arrested after the school authority made calls to the commissioner of police in the state. See the video and screenshot below: PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group In other news, Legit.ng gathered the report of actress Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, who used her platform to address the Nigerian president and his vice. According to the star actress, the country is hellish under their government. She charged them to do something about it fast as citizens are getting desperate. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better Whats the best punishment for erring SARS officers? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Niger Delta elders have recommended the executive director finance of the NDDC, Dr Chris Amadi, for a ministerial role - The elders say appointing a personality like Dr Amadi would take the policies and programmes of the Buhari administration to the grassroots - Their demand comes at a time many Nigerians have been calling on the president to consider appointing professionals into his government A group, Niger Delta Elders For Good Governance has recommended the executive director finance of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr Chris Amadi, for a ministerial role in the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. The elders made the recommendation while congratulating Dr Amadi on his recent feat as a fellow of The Institute of Corporate Administration. The elders say appointing a personality like Dr Amadi would take the policies and programmes of the Buhari administration to the grassroots. The elders demand comes at a time many Nigerians have been calling on the president to consider appointing professionals into his government. READ ALSO: President Buhari has laid foundation for a prosperous Nigeria - Transparency group Dr Amadi who is a professional finance and development manager with over 17 years experience, holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship, an MSc. in Finance and Banking and a B.Sc. in Finance and Banking. Speaking on behalf of the influential group on Tuesday, May 14, its leader, Elder Josiah Ekanem urged the NDDC chief to consider the recognition as a burden to do more for the people of Niger Delta and Nigerians in general. His words: We rejoice with Dr Chris Amadi for his recognition as fellow of The Institute of Corporate Administration. We the elders see it as a new beginning in the life of our great son; hard work and dedication has a destination and it is always success, Niger Deltans are happy and we pray for more to come. We also use this medium to appeal to President Buhari to consider more personalities like Dr Chris Amadi in his appointments as he mobilises for his second tenure. Doing that will take his policies and programmes to the grassroots as Dr Amadi represents people at the grassroots and also ever ready to contribute his own quota to the development of Nigeria. To our son Dr Chris Amadi, we appeal to him to consider this fellowship as a burden to do more and a direct way to take the message of good governance of President Buhari to the people of Niger Delta. Our own as elders is to continue to pray for him and work for peaceful coexistence in Nigeria. Meanwhile, the NDDC says it is consolidating its existing partnerships with universities in the United Kingdom to ensure that the commission gets more value for its human capital development programmes. READ ALSO: Ogbeh engages EU, seeks end to migration from Nigeria Speaking after a five-day working visit to some universities in the United Kingdom where NDDC scholars are undergoing post-graduate studies, acting managing director, Professor Nelson Brambaifa, said it was important to find out the challenges scholars are facing in their various institutions in order to resolve them. Professor Brambaifa said the visit afforded the team, including Dr Amadi, the opportunity to explore the prospects of deepening the relationships with foreign institutions, to ensure we take advantage of other mutually beneficial programmes. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Nigerians set 2nd term agenda for President Buhari | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng A Nigerian man, Fedeco Godwin, has forgiven his mechanic in Benin, Edo state after the later had an accident which left the car beyond recognition and repair. According to a post he put up on his page on Facebook, the mechanic had told one of his apprentices to take the car back to the owner (Fedeco Godwin) after repair. But instead of him to do so, he went ahead to show off the car at different locations in the city. It was while at it that he had an accident which completely destroyed the Chrysler Commander beyond recognition and repair. Man forgives mechanic who destroyed his Chrysler Commander beyond repair in Benin Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Man who crashed car 24 hours after buying it purchases another ride of same model Fedeco however said that although his car is gone, he is glad the young man is alive and he has forgiven him. See the post below: READ ALSO: Nigerian man reportedly crashes borrowed Mercedes Benz in Benin (photos) I'm overwhelmed with joy seeing him ALIVE... Don't care about the car! His master instructed him to take the car back to the owner after car checked and it was confirmed in good condition. what did he do? he went to a different location his motive is unknown but some said he went showing off with someone else's car and the result was Fatal Accident that completely destroyed the car beyond recognition and repair. Thanks to God almighty probably his family would have twisted the story if he has died fortunately today he is alive and ok but my car completely destroyed. All thanks to God. Stop posing with what does not belong to you all in the name of fake impression, the end is cataclysm. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously published a similar story a man in Ghana. The Ghanaian man had reportedly borrowed a car to go to a funeral, but unfortunately for him, the vehicle caught fire on his way there. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better BUSTED: Police Parade Uber Driver for Allegedly Stealing Owner's Car - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng A Lehigh County teen who pleaded guilty as an adult to helping her then-boyfriend kill her mother has new attorneys and wants a new trial in juvenile court. Jamie Silvonek, who turned 18 in February, hired attorneys from the Juvenile Law Center last fall, and last week they filed petitions for a new hearing and for Lehigh County Judge Maria Dantos to recuse herself from the case. Silvonek was 14 when prosecutors say she and her then-boyfriend Caleb Barnes plotted to kill Silvoneks mother. Cheryl Silvonek was trying to break up the couple, witnesses testified, including showing the 20-year-old Barnes her daughters passport to convince him of the girls age. The elder Silvonek was in her car with her daughter and Barnes on March 15, 2015, in the driveway of the Silvonek familys home in Upper Macungie Township, when Barnes repeatedly stabbed her in the neck. The pair then buried her body under dirt and snow in South Whitehall Township, dumped the car in a nearby pond and walked back to the Silvonek home, where they were found by police that same morning, prosecutors said. Jamie Silvonek was charged as an adult, but tried to have her case sent to juvenile court. Dantos denied that request, and Silvonek pleaded guilty as an adult to first-degree murder, conspiracy, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence in the killing of her mother. Silvonek was sentenced to 35 years to life in state prison as part of the plea deal, and testified against Barnes when he went to trial. Barnes was convicted of all the charges against him, including first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, and Dantos added 22 to 44 years for the remaining charges. In 2016, Silvonek appealed to have her case sent back to juvenile court. The following year, the state Superior Court upheld Dantos decision. We simply note that Silvonek was the instigator and willing participant in the murder of her mother, who was standing in the way of a continuing sexual relationship between Silvonek and her adult boyfriend, Caleb Barnes, a soldier stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, the opinion states. The judges cited multiple comments from the prosecutions expert, psychiatrist John S. OBrien, and that Dantos accepted his opinion that Silvonek was a manipulator, not manipulated. Records show Silvonek hired new attorneys in November from the Juvenile Law Center, based in Philadelphia. A message left at the center asking about the case and the new petitions was not immediately returned. The Morning Call reports the attorneys are claiming Silvoneks former attorney, John Waldron, failed to present evidence of Silvoneks mental health issues. Frank Dattilio, a psychologist, testified during Silvoneks decertification hearing that she was a teen girl in love who was being manipulated by an older man. With intensive treatment, Silvonek could some day return to the community, Dattilio testified. Dattilio testified that Silvonek did not believe Barnes would kill her mother, and that the girl believed his statements as such were part of the mans morbid humor. But in text messages between Silvonek and Barnes, specifically those exchanged while Silvoneks mother drove the pair to a concert hours before the woman was killed, the girl specifically describes details of Barnes killing Cheryl Silvonek, and plans to cover up the crime. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board will hold a special meeting Wednesday, May 29, to review the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehems request to sell one of the states most successful gaming halls to an affiliate of an Alabama-based Indian tribe. The change of ownership petition was expected to be considered at the boards meeting this Wednesday, but the matter was postponed after some board members requested additional information. At the start of the meeting Wednesday morning, gaming control board Chairman David M. Barasch announced the board held a closed-door session on Tuesday afternoon and a special meeting would be scheduled May 29 to consider the ownership transfer request. He explained the board has been extremely busy lately and is trying to keep things on track while giving everyone a chance to be heard. To do so, the board will continue to schedule special meetings as needed, he indicated. Bethlehem Mayor Bob Donchez said Friday he hoped the board would add a meeting to its calendar to keep the $1.3 billion sale to Wind Creek Hospitality moving. The mayor has said once the change of ownership petition is approved the sale could close within a month. Once the sale is finalized, Wind Creek plans to immediately invest $190 million into a 300-room hotel expansion and development of the No. 2 Machine Shop, possibly into an indoor water park. The affiliate of the Alabama-based Poarch Band of Creek Indians and the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem submitted a change of ownership petition to the board Feb. 21. The petition asks the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to impose a $3.75 million change of ownership fee on the sale, which is what two similar casinos -- Meadows and Presque Isle -- recently paid in sale fees. Ultimately, it is up to the board to decide what fee to charge. The sale of one of Pennsylvanias most lucrative gaming halls is going to mean a massive cash infusion for local government coffers. The real estate transfer tax could net the Bethlehem Area School District and city each up to $6.5 million. The citys five-year capital plan includes $5.9 million from the casino transfer tax. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A group of Carbon County school district employees who call themselves the Lucky Lehighton Ladies earned their nickname -- to the tune of $3.2 million. The 11 Lehighton Area School District employees played Match 6 last Thursday, during Teacher Appreciation Week, and won the jackpot, the Pennsylvania Lottery said. The winning group is four Lehighton teachers, two cafeteria workers and five paraprofessionals, The Times News reports. The group claimed the ticket on Friday, and the lottery and Giant grocery store plan to present them with their winning check on Thursday. The Giant store, which sold the ticket, receives a $10,000 bonus. "We had four people who had originally played with us who dropped out, Karla Costenbader-Kovach, the ticket buyer, told The Times News. "I know one was pretty heartbroken, but all of them were very happy for us. There were absolutely no hard feelings. We all work together and its a great group. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. It's described as the nations only rating system focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The Leapfrog Group, based in Washington, D.C., comes out with its Hospital Safety Grades twice a year. The spring 2019 grades were released Wednesday. In the hospitals serving the Lehigh Valley, the grades show 7 As, 4 Bs and 2 Cs. That's for hospitals graded in Lehigh, Northampton, Warren and Hunterdon counties, plus the St. Luke's University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network hospitals in Monroe and Bucks counties. (Click here to view the above map if it is not displaying.) To be recognized nationally as an A hospital is an accomplishment the whole community should take pride in, Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a news release from Lehigh Valley Health Network, whose only grade less than an A was for its Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville. Hospitals that earn an A grade are making it a priority to protect patients from preventable medical harm and error. "We congratulate hospital leaders, board members, staff, volunteers and clinicians who work so hard to earn this A. In Pennsylvania, out of 128 hospitals graded spring 2019, 44 -- or 34 percent -- received As. In New Jersey, 68 hospitals were graded, with 31 -- or 46 percent -- receiving As. A look back at semiannual grades starting in 2016 shows growth in the percentage of hospitals ranked with an A in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Based on the percentage of hospitals receiving an A, New Jersey slipped from first place in the nation in fall 2018 to sixth place, and Pennsylvania slipped from 14th to 18th, in the latest assessment. In conjunction with the spring 2019 grades, The Leapfrog Group contracted with the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality to update its estimate of deaths due to errors, accidents, injuries and infections at the hospitals graded. According to The Leapfrog Group, researchers assessed more than 2,600 hospitals receiving Hospital Safety Grades and found that when compared to A hospitals: Patients at D and F hospitals face a 92% greater risk of avoidable death. Patients at C hospitals on average face an 88% greater risk of avoidable death. Patients at B hospitals on average face a 35% greater risk of avoidable death. "Even A hospitals are not perfectly safe, but researchers found they are getting safer," The Leapfrog Group said in a news release. "If all hospitals had an avoidable death rate equivalent to A hospitals, 50,000 lives would have been saved, versus 33,000 lives that would have been saved by 'A' level performance in 2016. "Overall, an estimated 160,000 lives are lost annually from the avoidable medical errors that are accounted for in the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a significant improvement from 2016, when researchers estimated 205,000 avoidable deaths." The head of the Bethlehem-based Lehigh Valley Business Coalition on Healthcare called The Leapfrog Group's grades "critical information about which hospitals in Pennsylvania are best at protecting patients from preventable harm." "We are committed to ensuring our local hospitals offer the best and safest care to their patients, Carl Seitz, president of the LVBCH, continued in a statement. We strive to work together with hospitals, local employers, purchasers and patients to make our community the safest in America." Out of Pennsylvania's 128 hospitals graded, 37 earned a B, 41 earned a C, six earned a D and none got an F. Only one Pennsylvania hospital -- St. Clair Hospital in Pittsburgh -- has received straight As since 2013, according to the Lehigh Valley Business Coalition on Healthcare. In New Jersey, out of 68 hospitals graded, 27 earned a B, seven got a C and three earned a D, with no Fs. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek on Wednesday identified the 69-year-old man who died Monday morning in a two-car crash on Linden Street in Bethlehem. David Stone, of the 3800 block of Southland Drive in Hanover Township, Northampton County, died from multiple blunt force injuries, Lysek said. The death was ruled an accident. Stone was driving a coupe that collided with a sedan at Linden Street and Westbury Drive, police said. The other vehicle was driven by a 70-year-old woman, police said. More complete information on the crash has yet to be released. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A 48-year-old Florida woman who advertised herself as a Sexy Gothic Mistress was arrested Tuesday during a prostitution sting in Monroe County, the district attorneys office reports. Tammy Curran, who was staying in a hotel in Smithfield Township, had an advertisement on a website used for prostitution that caught the attention of a county detective, according to a news release and court papers. The ad, which was aimed at people seeking sex with a middle aged woman, listed a phone number and information on sex acts Curran was willing to perform, the district attorneys office said. The detective communicated with Curran via text message and they agreed to meet about 2:30 p.m. and engage in an hour of sex for $220, the district attorneys office said. A search of the phone number revealed it was assigned to Curran, court papers say. A male undercover officer met with Curran in the hotel restaurant, she matched photos on the website ad and was subsequently arrested, the district attorneys office said. She was read her rights and she told authorities that she had drugs in the room and consented to a search, the district attorneys office said. A small amount of marijuana, a smoking device, a laptop, several lingerie items, condoms and dominatrix devices were found, court papers say. She was arraigned before District Judge Michael R. Muth on charges of promoting prostitution, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, records show. Because she had no permanent address and no family in the county, cash bail was requested and set at $1,000, the district attorneys office said. Curran was housed in Monroe County jail, where she remained Wednesday afternoon, records show. Her preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 10 a.m. May 22 in District Judge Brian Germanos court. Court papers did not list an attorney for Curran. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. I contacted Congresswoman Susan Wild twice to urge her to oppose HR 336, Strengthening Americas Security in the Middle East Act of 2019. HR 336, in part, is an attempt to stifle our right to free expression to boycott goods from another country if we disagree with that governments illegal policies. Specifically, if you choose to boycott goods from illegal Israeli settlements you would be denied the right to bid on government contracts. It could become illegal for public entities to refuse to purchase products from these illegal settlements. In her first response to me, Wild simply said her support for Israel is unwavering. On my second attempt to get her position on HR 336, I received an ambiguous, noncommittal reply. As a Vietnam combat veteran, I saw men ripped apart defending our constitutional rights; 58,220 Americans died in that war. There is no reason any United States representative should be undermining our constitution to support Israels ambitions. The Secretary of State said recently that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. This Orwellian word dance is a lie. Contact your representatives and ask them if they support sending more than $3 billion a year to Israel. If youre in the 7th District, please contact Wild to ask her how supporting censorship and a potential war with Iran for Israel is in the best interests of our citizens. Contact Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, who voted for S. 1, the companion legislation in the Senate. Dominick Buscemi Lower Mount Bethel Township Editors note: In addition to authorizing assistance and weapons transfers to Israel, HR 336 would allow a state or local government to adopt measures to divest its assets from entities using boycotts, divestments, or sanctions to influence Israels policies. A Laois professional premises has been raided this Wednesday May 15 as part of a Garda operation to crack a drugs gang. The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) conducted a search operation in Dublin and Laois this morning. Gardai have confirmed that this search operation is "a significant development in an on-going operation targeting an organised crime gang involved in the cultivation, sale and supply of controlled drugs". The searches consisted of two homes in Dublin 15 and Dublin 6, and two professional premises located in Dublin 2 and in Laois. Gardai siezed documentation, phones and electronic devices which will be analysed by specialist CAB Analysts. Approximately 40,000 has been frozen in an account in a financial institution pursuant to Section 17 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act, 2010. All searches were conducted by CAB personnel supported by the Emergency Response Unit, local Gardai and officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau. Gardai have also tweeted that no arrests were made in the operation. CAB conducted a search operation in Dublin & Co. Laois this morning, 15th May, 2019. Documentation, phones and electronic devices were all seized. Approx 40,000 has been frozen in a financial institution pursuant to Section 17 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2010. No arrests. pic.twitter.com/iEVLdxoedK Garda Info (@gardainfo) May 15, 2019 They say that CAB is investigating the beneficial ownership of a home in South Tipperary and another home in North Cork. Emergency Accommodation for asylum seekers in Rathdowney is a providing a safety net for people seeking asylum in Ireland but the system is very stretched according to the Department of Justice. Asylum seekers are living in emergency accommodation at a guesthouse in Rathdowney while waiting for space to open in a direct provision centre like the Montague Hotel. Those living in Rathdowney are entitled to Expenses Allowance of 29.80 for children and 38.80 for adults per week but the temporary nature of the situation makes it hard to provide other services, a department spokesperson told the Leinster Express. Emergency accommodation by virtue of its temporary nature presents more challenges for service provision. The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) is doing an important job under difficult circumstances. The number of people seeking international protection in Ireland continues to increase. Last year alone saw an increase of more than 20%. This rise in numbers - and the fact that hundreds of people who have received a positive decision on their protection application or humanitarian permission to remain in the country - continue to remain in our accommodation means the system is very stretched. Despite these challenges, we are still providing an important safety net for people who have come here seeking our services, the spokesperson said. MORE: 'Nothing' in this Laois town for asylum seekers sent there The nationalities of asylum seekers in Rathdowney cannot be revealed due to a right to privacy. The number of people in the Rathdowney guesthouse, their nationalities, whether there are children or adults or whether children need spaces in school cannot be revealed to protect their identities. Rathdowney was chosen as a location for emergency accommodation because of a response to an advertisement. The advertisement was for 12 to 24 weeks of bed and board. Any premises offered to the Department of Justice and Equality for temporary accommodation was in response to advertisements placed in the national media in January of this year. The advertisement sought bed and board in hotels and guesthouses on a 12-24 week basis. Asylum seekers in Ireland are entitled to full board accommodation, weekly allowance, access to medical cards, education, work permits and other supports. There are two direct provision centres in Laois at the former Montague Hotel in Emo housing around 200 people and the former Hibernian Hotel in Abbeyleix housing 60 people. The centre opened in Abbeyleix last September. Between 55 and 60 asylum seekers, mostly made up of families, moved into the facility at the former Hibernian Hotel at Pembroke Terrace, Abbeyleix. The Montague Hotel in Emo was opened in 2007 and is still in operation. MORE: Laois man with special needs writes plea to HSE to keep RehabCare in Portlaoise Aran Murphy from Laois distinctly remembers the day the life-changing call came to be matched with a guide dog. Aran was born with a condition called Peters Anomaly which caused cataracts. After corneal transplants when just two weeks old, Aran was later diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease. Using a cane in secondary school drew unwanted attention. The life-changing call about a new guide dog came in the final year of college and Buttons assisted in collecting the well-earned degree. In secondary school after a heart operation, I began to use the white cane. I felt that it drew the kind of attention that I didnt want. I felt different, alienated from classmates and denied social activities like going out and even going to my debs. People tended to avoid or ignore me or treat me as if I could not speak for myself when interacting with me. These instances affected my self-esteem and one embarrassing incident in particular when my cane got stuck in a bin made my mind up to apply for a guide dog. In October 2013 I had a guide dog assessment. After a couple of months of hoping and waiting that life-changing call eventually came. A standard poodle had just finished training and we were matched. A poodle? At first, I thought it was a joke, all I could picture was the little French poodles. I had never heard of a poodle guide dog before. I will never forget that call. It was love at first sight! I thought our first walk was amazing little did I know how tuned into my needs Buttons would become. My family, neighbours and friends could not believe the change in me. Instead of people avoiding me as they did when I had a cane, they now chatted to me about Buttons and made me feel more included. Although I only had Buttons in college for the last term of the final year he was invaluable for my confidence and success. I was so proud when he led me to the podium later that year to receive my degree. Being a guide dog owner is such a privilege and positive experience. Buttons has enhanced my life and I will always be grateful for that, Aran said. Orlaith O'Reilly from Portlaoise said their assistance dog, Hunter, for her son with Autism Spectrum Disorder has given her family a new lease of life. Orlaith's eldest son Ruairi is 14 and was diagnosed with ASD when he was three. She said things like shopping was stressful and on high alert. Ruairi was a happy little boy when things went in his favour but with communication issues, this didn't always happen and so this would lead to a lot of frustration which resulted in a meltdown or shut down. He could run from us and he held no concept of danger. Family outings became very stressful as we would always fear Ruairi might run away and something would happen to cause him injury or even death. On an outing, I was always holding Ruairi by the hand on high alert always watching for danger in a fight, flight or fear. Ruairi could sense this from me and returning home from a shopping trip we would be mentally and physically exhausted. We rarely did anything as a family. We applied for the Assistance Dog Programme with Irish Guide Dogs in January 2014 and in April 2014 we brought Hunter home to Laois and life as we knew it changed. I knew Ruairi was safe and I didn't need to hold him. Having Hunter makes the things in life many of us take for grants easier like safety, exercise, communication, independence and a sense of ease. It's like a weight is lifted. We feel lucky, blessed and so grateful to all in Irish Guide Dogs, she said. Support Irish Guide Dogs by donating online or text WOOF to 50300 to donate 4 to Irish Guide Dogs. A man who sent his ex partner obscene and grossly offensive Facebook messages by phone was fined 250 at Athy District Court on Tuesday, May 14. Ali Halimi with an address listed as 6 Preston Gate, Athy came to the attention of gardai on 25 August 2017 when they received a report in relation to the messages the defendant sent to his ex partner's phone via Facebook messenger. The print out of the messages between the two had an insulting rather a threatening tone to them, the court heard. One of the messages which was read aloud in court said "Are you pissing me off? Are you changing what we agreed? You are surprised when I am nervous and pissed off. The message went on to insult the ex partner, her mother and the Irish. It read: You cannot keep the agreement - f**k your mother and the Irish. I did a lot of women and you are the extreme in stupidity - f**k everyone. The defendant, who pleaded guilty to the charge, is from Slovakia and aged 42 years-of-age. The court heard that he was in a relationship with the injured party for four or five months and they have no children together. On the day in question he sent a number of messages following a phone call with the injured party. The injured party however did not respond to any of the messages. He sent a number of messages that are deeply unpleasant, sexualised and of a derogatory nature and he is deeply ashamed, his barrister Richard Wixted said. He did not think they would be read out in open court and he is deeply embarrassed. He is in full time employment. Judge Desmond Zaidan said that there was heightened emotions due to jealously no doubt, but noted that there was also a hint of racism in the messages sent. The court heard that he had brought 300 to court by way of an apology for the injured party, however this was not accepted. Judge Desmond Zaidan ordered that 500 go towards the women's refuge, Teach Tearmainn. He also fined the defendant 250 to be paid by July 9. You are to have no more communication with the injured party, he said. The case was adjourned until July 9 for payment. Mr Hans Peter Chilian was presented with a specially engraved Leitrim Chrystal memento to mark his 50th year fishing in Ireland by Cllr. Sean McGowan, Chairman, Leitrim Co. Council on the 11th May 2019 on the banks of the Shannon in Carrick-on-Shannon in the company of some his fellow Bavarian anglers. Mr Hans Peter Chilian, from Fussen, in Ostallgau, Bavaria has fished annually in Ireland for the last 50 years. In some years, he has visited twice and most times he was accompanied by angling enthusiasts from his home area. On occasions, he even persuaded his wife Andrea to visit for the joys of fishing in Ireland. His enthusiasm for Ireland and matters Irish is well known among his compatriots. Hans Peter fishes mainly in the lakes and rivers of Leitrim, Cavan-Monaghan, Longford and North Roscommon. He has developed an interest in Irish music and culture over the years and celebrates Irish occasions in his home town, particularly on St Patricks Day. There is nothing he likes better than to listen to Shannonside and Radio na Gaeltacha during his stays in Ireland. Irish lakes and rivers are excellent for coarse angling, he believes. He understands and supports the need for investment and conservation of our fishing resources. Fishermen, he said, appreciate this and to enjoy angling does not mean taking all the fish out of the water. Most true anglers, he said, return their catches so that there may be another day as this is the essence of the sport. He pays tribute the great work done by Irish tourism, the Fishery bodies and angling interests in maintaining and encouraging Irish fishing for both Irish and Visiting anglers. In particular, in the Drumshanbo area, he remembers the great work done by the late James McGuire and his wife Mrs Myra McGuire along the late Joseph Mooney in promoting angling. He said in the earlier years he cherishes memories of his visits to the Bridge Bar, Drumshanbo then run by the great conversationalist Gus Earley, who to Han Peters surprise, had undertaken part of his 3rd level education in Europe in the 1930s. Hans Peter commented that oftentimes when fishing, he rarely meets another person. It is wonderful that Ireland still has many unspoilt lakes and rivers where the enthusiast may escape from the hustle and bustle of modern life. He said, most unusually he always gets a suntan no matter what the weather is whilst he fishes. This together with the hospitality and kindness of Irish people always attracted him back to Ireland. Over the years, Hans Peter has made many friendships with the people he encountered. It could be said that Hans Peter is a visitor who, in many ways, has become more Irish than the Irish themselves. Five years after their first drilling license was terminated due to environmental concerns and huge local opposition, Tamboran Resources the hydraulic fracturing drilling company is hoping to return to the Fermanagh-Cavan border with a new drilling license. According to Carrick-on-Shannon Green party candidate Leslie O'Hora Tamboran has put in a renewed drilling application into Northern Ireland's Department for the Economy. "In 2014, several hundred protesters gathered at the proposed drilling site, to stop test-drilling for gas. Strong opposition eventually compelled the then Minister for Trade, and now DUP leader, Arlene Foster to rescind Tamborans gas-probing licence. Now Tamboran are back, sensing that the North Ireland Government is preoccupied with Brexit and hoping to wear down local opposition by stealth and attrition. "Local communities on both sides of the Cavan-Fermanagh border are resigning themselves to another long and exhausting campaign to get rid of them again, for once and for all." He outlined "Tamboran Resources have applied for a license to drill three 1,000 metre deep wells prior to extracting fracked gas over a 605 kilometers square area, which could affect Fermanagh South, Cavan and Leitrim. "Hydraulic fracturing has serious negative effects on natural habitat, livestock and tourism. The incessant noise makes farming next to impossible, water quality suffers and the mass movements of heavy goods vehicles carrying contaminated water can have very serious physical and mental health consequences." Following on from our front page story on May 1 about the lack of home help hours and the claim that the budget has already been spent by the HSE in Sligo Leitrim for 2019, one councillor called it a national scandal. Cllr Mary Bohan called on the Minister for Health Simon Harris and the HSE to provide adequate home help hours and home care packages to those who urgently need them. The Drumkeerin Fianna Fail councillor said the minister should hang his head in shame over the treatment of our elderly who worked hard all their lives. Cllr Bohan said there are 6-7 patients in Our Lady's Hospital, Manorhamilton who could be discharged if home help was available. Cllr Bohan also noted the story of a 92-year-old man in Sligo University Hospital who was kept for 70 days because he had no home help. She said the consultant cardiologist Dr Donal Murray described it as a crazy situation and a miracle he had not caught a bug on the ward. At the same time there were over 50 patients on trolleys in Sligo hospital, she stated. She said these people are effectively holding onto a much sought after hospital bed, through no fault of their own. Cllr Bohan said she has never seen an issue affect so many people; almost every family in Leitrim is dealing with this. Cllr Bohan's motion was fully supported by all her council colleagues at last week's council meeting with many saying it is the most frequent issue being heard on the door step canvas. Cllr Felim Gurn said he understands there are 600 people in this area on a waiting list for home help. Responding to our story where Cllr Caroline Mulvey claimed the HSE budget for home help hours has been spent for 2019 and there will be no allocation of extra hours for new or existing patients this year, the HSE said services must be delivered within available resources. A spokesperson for the HSE stated: "The allocation of funding for home support across the system, though significant, is finite as services must be delivered within available resources. Despite the significant level of service provision the demand for home support continues to grow. All those waiting are assessed and provided with a service based on clinical need and as soon as resources become available. The HSE informed the paper that in Sligo/Leitrim in 2017 the total number of home support hours provided was 407,295.93 which does not include home care package hours. In 2018, the total number of home support hours for Sligo/Leitrim was 488,074.40 inclusive of home care package hours. The council decided to write to the new Chief Executive of the HSE, Paul Reid, who resides in Leitrim, to attend a meeting of the council this year. Also read: Neglect - No more home help hours for Leitrim Minister for Transport Shane Ross does not want to know about rural lanes and has refused to allocate more money to deal with the massive backlog on the Local Improvement Scheme in Leitrim. The LIS for non public roads (such as lanes to a number of houses) application process in Leitrim was suspended earlier this year as there are 126 local lanes to be completed. Independent Cllr Des Guckian called on his colleagues to be brave and support his motion urging the chief executive of Leitrim County Council and council officials to demand an extra 20million over five years from the government for the lanes and by-roads of Leitrim at the last meeting of Leitrim County Council. He said rural regeneration begins at the gate and said every lane should be surfaced every ten years. While the motion was supported by councillors, Cllr Mary Bohan said You dont need to persuade us, we have spent every year on the council seeking more funding. She laid the blame squarely at the feet of Independent Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross. When a delegation recently met with the minister, Cllr Bohan said he told them the LIS was not on his agenda. She said she had never heard of a minister outright refusing to give money for roads and said he doesn't care about rural Leitrim. She told Cllr Des Guckian to go through the Independent Alliance and ask him to recognise rural Ireland exists. Cllr Guckian said he was not part of that alliance. Cllr Brendan Barry agreed with Cllr Bohan and complimented Minister Michael Ring on giving some of his budget for local lanes but said the hold up is with Minister Ross. Cllr Paddy ORourke said he does not understand how Minister Ross is getting support by independents locally when he is failing rural Ireland. He said Ballinamore councillors met with Minister Ross and asked him to consider their plight and to visit the county and inspect the roads, but he said neither invitation was taken up. Director of Services at Leitrim County Council Joseph Gilhooly said funding for LIS ceased in 2011 and recommended in 2017, the list was reduced from 205 to 126 and with more funding work on that list can continue. Also read: Broadband situation is a mess in Leitrim LIMERICK city centre has been dealt a fresh blow this week, after it emerged that another store is to close in Cruises Street. The Limerick Leader has learnt that staff at the Outdoor Adventure Store in the street has now shut down. Its understood staff were called in on Tuesday morning, and told their jobs were gone. Outdoor Adventure Store, which sells walking boots, tents and other gear for climbing mountains, only moved into 17-19 Cruises Street last year. It took a unit previously occupied by Mothercare. Fianna Fail councillor and local businessman Jerry ODea said: It's devastating for the people working there and its unfortunate for the area. We are trying to get the city competing with the outer suburbs, and it's; a shame a chain providing employment and alternative shopping seems to have to close for whatever reason. He said it once again raises question marks about the viability of Cruises Street, which has seen a raft of high-profile closures in recent months. There has been a lot of talk about that. The street is not suitable in the way it's designed. The floor plates are not big enough for the large multi-nationals and retail chains. In the absence of it beingf redeveloped, we need to see Limerick providing more unique shopping for people, and I think that's the way forward, he added. City centre campaigner Nigel Dugdale also bemoaned the loss. He wrote on Twiter: Hearing news that the Outdoor Adventure Store on Cruises Street has now shut its doors for last time. Yet another sign that this street needs radical rethink. Continued closures will do nothing for confidence of potential investors. Time for change. Hearing news that the Outdoor Adventure Store on Cruises St has now shut its doors for last time. Yet another sign that this street needs radical rethink. Continued closures will do nothing for confidence of potential investors. Time for change #limerick pic.twitter.com/MDi0xQQami Nigel Dugdale (@limerickcitybiz) May 14, 2019 Outdoor Adventure Store did not respond to a request for comment from Business Leader. But local sources have confirmed the closure. Earlier this year, retail guru David Fitzsimons was commissioned to tackle the issues facing Cruises Street and the city centre as a whole. Mr Fitzsimons, of Retail Excellence Ireland has been asked to carry out a retail strategy to help the ailing street. Opened in 1992, Cruises Street had the worst possible start to 2019 when two retailers closed in quick succession: Korkys and Art & Hobby. LIMERICK Senator Kieran ODonnell has called for the re-deployment of gardai from non-core court security duties at the new Courthouse in Mulgrave Street to frontline community policing duties in Limerick city and environs. This is in line with a key recommendation from the Commission on the future of policing in Ireland which was published last September, Senator ODonnell claims. I am calling for the re-deployment of gardai from non-core court security duties at the new courthouse in Mulgrave Street to frontline community policing duties here in Limerick city, said ODonnell. This is in line with a key recommendation from the Commission on the future of policing in Ireland which was published last September. Furthermore, under the implementation plan, this type of re-deployment is to be progressed this year, he added. ODonnell claims the communities and businesses of Limerick want to see extra gardai on the beat. It makes no sense to me having these 22 highly trained garda engaged in non-core court security activities when they could be out patrolling the streets and making Limerick safer, ODonnell claims. I believe these gardai skills sets would be better deployed on much needed frontline community policing activities in Limerick city centre and the environs, he added. PEOPLE are "stuck" in hospitals or nursing homes because they cannot return home until required works are carried out at their homes due to a "shortfall" in funding for the disabled persons grant, a Limerick city TD has claimed. The grant scheme, which provides funding to carry out works on local authority properties to meet tenants' needs, is seeing a two-and-a-half year backlog for applications in Limerick city. That is according to Deputy Maurice Quinlivan, who added that new applications are not being accepted "at all until this backlog can be cleared". These grants provide for works such as making a house wheelchair-accessible, extending it to create more space, adding a ground-floor bathroom or toilet, or fitting a stair-lift. It is estimated 2 million is required to clear this backlog of cases," he stated this Wednesday. He said: This is extremely worrying, as the DPG scheme provides essential funding to local authorities to carry out adaptions for tenants with a disability or mobility problems. As a result of this shortfall in funding, some people are actually stuck in hospital as they cannot return home from the hospital or a nursing home until the required works are carried out. He said that this is adding to the pressure of overcrowding hospitals. It is scandalous that this scheme has been allowed run out of money, given the absolutely necessity of the works funded by it. I recently asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government if he is aware of this situation in Limerick, and if he will provide funding to alleviate it. Unfortunately, the Minister gave no commitment to address the shortfall in funding in Limerick City. This is a disgraceful situation and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Seun Kuti, like many other Nigerians has reacted to Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu's move as he considers growing Marijuana for commercial purpose in the state. The state governor who is currently in Thailand to understudy the process, got alot of Nigerians excited when he announed his plans for marijuana on social media yesterday. Seun Kuti in his reaction said, 'ehn Mr excellency sir, if u want me to move to your state, just say so. This beating about the bush is unnecessary. Afrobeat is about to switch home base yall. Just imagine one good joint for my back ache then better Ondo pounded yam to heal my stomach pain'. Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central at the National Assembly has pleaded with Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu to invest the States resources in something more meaningful than the proposed Indian hemp farm. Akeredolu had urged the Federal Government focus on the medicinal cannabis industry as parts of measures to diversify the countrys economy. The Governor, who is currently in Thailand alongside the Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Muhammad Abdallah for Medicinal Canabis Extract Development Program stated that the multi-billion dollar industry if harnessed will help to create thousands of jobs for youths. Reacting to the development, Sani advised the Governor to partner with States in beans, rice, ginger and yam farming instead of Indian hemp. He tweeted; Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje has presented N3 million cash gift to Zainab Aliyu and Ibrahim Abubakar, who were recently released from Saudi Arabia prison. Ganduje announced the donation when Federal Government delegation officially presented Zainab Aliyu and Ibrahim Abubakar to the governor at the Government House, Kano. Ganduje said that Aliyu, who traveled for Lesser Hajj with her mother was arrested by Saudi Security Officials in December 2018, in a hotel in Madinah, he said. The governor said that the girl was accused of possessing a bag containing illicit drugs purportedly bearing a tag with her name. He added that another passenger, Ibrahim Abubakar, unrelated to Aliyu, who also traveled on the same aircraft, was also arrested on the same day. The governor, who announced the donation of N3 million gift to each of them, commended President Muhammadu Buhari, for the timely intervention to save the lives of the two victims. He also urged security agencies in Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, to redouble their efforts in curbing such crimes. Earlier, the Chairman of Nigeria Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said that they were at the Government House, to officially hand over two indigenes of the state to the governor. The Nigerian Army has laid to rest the remains of the patriotic officer and two soldiers who paid the supreme sacrifice while on clearance operations along Mauli-Borgozo axis on Monday, May 13th. The late Lieutenant Colonel Yusuf Ibrahim Aminu was the Commanding Officer (CO), of 154 Task Force Battalion Borgozo. He was on a clearance operation along Mauli- Borgozo when his vehicle climbed on a buried Improvised Explosive Device which detonated resulting in losing his life and that of 2 other soldiers while others were wounded in action. Commiserating with the family of the deceased, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen, Tukur Buratai, commended the efforts of the entire troops of Operation Lafiya Dole in the war on terror and charged them to remain steadfast, more committed and professional for the sake of Nigeria. The sacrifices of all the deceased officers and soldiers of the NA is no doubt painful to all, but that will further ginger the serving gallant troops to do more to ensure that the nation remains secure and peaceful'' Buratai said Present at the solemn occasion were the Chief of Training and Operations 'Army', Major General Lamidi Adeosun, Theatre Commander OPERATION LAFIYA DOLE, Major General Benson Akinroluyo, Corp Commander Engineers, Major General John Malu, Acting General Officer Commanding 7 Division, Brig Gen Abdulmalik Bulama Biu, Corps Commander Supply and Transport, Major General Victor Offiong, Principal Staff Officers from Army Headquarters, Theatre Command and HQ 7 Division amongst others. The Federal Government today accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential flag bearer in the February 23rd election, Atiku Abubakar, of planning to sabotage the Buhari-led administration. The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, made the accusation while addressing State House correspondents in Abuja today Wednesday May 15th. Reading from a prepared text titled, PDPs Brand of Opposition Politics Poses Great Threat to Nigerias Democracy, the minister alleged that the PDP and its candidate were keen to make the country ungovernable. The minister who declined to take questions after reading his text stated: The Federal Government has strongly decried the increasingly unpatriotic and desperate opposition politics being played by the PDP and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, warning that such dead-end opposition could be toxic for the nations democracy if left unchecked. Never in the history of politics in Nigeria has an opposition party and its presidential candidate exhibited the kind of desperate tactics being deployed by the duo of the PDP and its flag-bearer, especially since President Muhammadu Buhari overwhelmingly defeated Atiku to win the 2019 presidential election. Either by themselves or via their proxies, the PDP and its presidential candidate are doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari Administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable, especially through their public utterances and their poorly-thought-out press releases before and after the 2019 general elections. Unless they quickly retrace their steps, they may, sooner than later, overreach themselves. For those who may be quick to accuse the government of crying wolf, the pre-election statement credited to the former Vice President, that unless Nigerians vote out the APC Administration, killings by herdsmen will continue and ultimately spark a series of ethnoreligious crises that will be irreversible, is looking more like a Freudian slip than anything else. Also, in recent times, the PDP has taken its desperation to a new low by attacking the judiciary, an action many see as indicating a reversal of the partys hitherto self-assured stance that it has a solid case against the election of the President. And either by coincidence or orchestration, a faceless group emerges from nowhere calling for an overthrow of a democratically-elected government, a totally egregious act of treason. It beggars belief that a candidate who prides himself as a Democrat can so allow desperation to becloud his sense of propriety to such an extent that he will be associating with anti-democratic forces or making inflammatory statements. For acclaimed democrats, there are acceptable channels of seeking redress after an election defeat. Even President Buhari himself went to court three times to challenge election results. What is not acceptable is to either resort to self-help after an election defeat or to embark on a journey of subterfuge and sabotage while also mounting a legal challenge or pretending to do so. Worst still, painting the judiciary bad for whatever reason is anti-democratic and unconscionable. We want to urge the main opposition party to stop beating the drums of war, concentrate on the legal challenge by its candidate against the election of President Buhari if indeed they have any faith in the countrys judiciary, and desist from unnecessarily overheating the polity. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has admonished Nigerians to desist from giving bribes to police, customs, FRSC, Immigrations and other officers before they get things done. The Vice President spoke against bribery today May 15th when he declared open the anti-corruption conference tagged Collaborative Approach to Eradicating the Evils of Corruption in Nigeria. While speaking at the conference, Osinbajo said that in spite of the high oil revenues in Nigerias history, debt doubled and poverty figures rose as a result of the endemic corruption that has plagued every sector in the country. He said the Buhari administration is aware that it has not won the war against corruption which is one of the cardinal campaign promises of the administration. He however noted that many of the agencies in this administration have shown their support towards the war against corruption. The U.S. birth rate continues to fall, reaching another record low in 2018, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year, there were 59 births per 1,000 U.S. women ages 15 to 44, which is 2% lower than the rate in 2017, and the lowest recorded rate since the government started tracking birth rates in 1909, according to the report. Overall, just under 3.8 million babies were born in 2018, which is a 2% drop from the number born in 2017, and the lowest number of births in the U.S. in 32 years, the report said. [7 Baby Myths Debunked] Birth rates generally declined for women under 35, and in particular, for women in their early 20s, who saw a 4% drop in birth rates from 2017 to 2018. In contrast, birth rates rose slightly for women ages 35 to 39 and 40 to 44. The birth rate among females ages 15 to 19 also fell 7% from 2017 to 2018, to a rate of about 17 births per 1,000 teens. The new report cannot determine the reason for the overall decline in U.S. births. But one possibility is economic uncertainty, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, associate director of the Center for Family & Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, told Live Science in a 2018 interview. Even though the Great Recession technically ended in 2009, people may still feel uneasy about their economic situation; they may be employed but working part time, or going to school and working, or trying to pay off student loans, Guzzo said. "People feel just really uncertain about the future," Guzzo told Live Science. "And that generally does not bode well for having kids." Originally published on Live Science. The inauguration of the new Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Santo Nino Community Center occurred Tuesday. READ MORE: TAMIU student accepted into Harvard doctoral program WIC is a nutrition program that offers pregnant or breastfeeding women and families with children younger than age 5 the opportunity to take classes, meet with other families and get one-on-one nutrition counseling in order to make smart choices and healthy family meals. Also featuring Laredo's first Baby Cafe, the WIC Santo Nino Community Center, 2200 Saltillo St, provides a relaxed, non-clinical area for pregnant and breastfeeding moms to get advice about lactation from professional and certified consultants free of charge, according to their website. Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz was among many officials and city employees who attended the inauguration. "(This is) quite an accomplishment," he said. "This will be the first Baby Cafe in Laredo, which is a location for free breastfeeding resources for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. That's unique." He added that women and children are one of the priority groups that is the most vulnerable in Laredo, and he expects this facility will be truly utilized to its fullest potential. "Opening a new WIC clinic is a big occasion," Texas WIC director Edgar Curtis said. "WIC is the cornerstone of healthy mothers and babies." Curtis also spoke of the importance and vital impact that education and good nutrition plays on the effect of good health on a mother and her developing fetus. "We're different than other programs because we capture families at key periods of development, providing essential education," he said. "Moms want the very best for their kids, we know that. But without that knowledge, some well-intentioned decisions could have significant negative consequences." READ MORE: Man arrested after theft from Laredo funeral home reported According to WIC, a few wide-ranging benefits from WIC supplemental foods include "longer, safer pregnancies, with fewer premature births and infant deaths; improved dietary outcomes for infants and children; improved maternal health; and improved performance at school." Ashley Sanchez be reached at 956-728-2567 or ashley.sanchez@lmtonline.com A man has been arrested for breaking into a local funeral home, according to Laredo police. READ MORE: Laredo man sexually abused teen over 4-year span according to records Luis Adrian Ramos, 29, was served with an arrest warrant on Monday that charged him with burglary of a building. At about 11: 49 a.m. May 4, police officers responded to a burglary report in the 4400 block of East Saunders Street. A man stated that someone had entered the business, Aguero Funeral Home, and stolen several items. The male arrived in a bicycle, broke into a storage shed adjacent to the business and took several items. He then returned minutes later in a pickup and loaded more items onto the pickup before leaving. READ MORE: 3 teens arrested after armed carjacking near south Laredo park Crimes against property detectives would identify the suspect as Ramos via surveillance video. An assistant district attorney approved the issuance of a warrant for his arrest. Boeing Co. has failed to turn over any records to House investigators about the flawed safety feature on the 737 Max implicated in two fatal crashes, a committee chairman said Wednesday as lawmakers grilled U.S. aviation regulators on the jetliner. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, said during a hearing that he hoped the aircraft manufacturer begins complying with requests for data on the plane's design soon. DeFazio said he was disappointed that a single sensor's failure had led to the crashes. "We shouldn't have to be here today," DeFazio said as the panel's aviation subcommittee opened its first hearing into the 737 Max with the chiefs of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board as witnesses. The FAA has come under fire for approving the feature known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, and for giving the planemaker too much authority to regulate the safety of its planes. After a sensor on 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia malfunctioned, MCAS continually attempted to make the aircraft dive. Boeing is redesigning the system to make it less prone to operate in error. Asked for comment on DeFazio's statement regarding records, Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers said, "Boeing continues to support the ongoing accident investigations and is committed to working closely with Members of Congress, their staff and relevant officials. Safety is our top priority when we design, build, deliver and maintain Boeing aircraft." FAA acting chief Daniel Elwell said that the agency was directly involved in approving the flight-control system, participating in a test flight of the system that drove down the nose in the two accidents. "As our work continues, I offer this assurance: In the U.S., the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAA's analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so," Elwell told the House aviation subcommittee. Elwell was critical of Boeing for not disclosing to the FAA or to airlines for more than a year that a 737 Max display supposed to show whether a sensor was malfunctioning wasn't functional. "I think that's an issue, sir,'' Elwell said under questioning by DeFazio. "It shouldn't take a year for us to find out.'' The FAA has concluded that the so-called angle-of-attack sensor disagree light wasn't critical to safety. Elwell faced skeptical questioning from lawmakers. Subcommittee Chairman Rick Larsen, a Washington Democrat, issued a press release Tuesday seeking answers from FAA on the crashes. "The committee's investigation is just getting started, and it will take some time to get answers, but one thing is clear right now: The FAA has a credibility problem," Larsen said. DeFazio said the committee is still in the early stages of its review of how the plane was certified by FAA. But the tragedies are shocking, including for families of victims, he said. "They deserve answers and accountability, as does the general flying public," DeFazio said. The highest ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, urged caution before blaming Boeing for the accidents. In his opening statement, he listed what he called multiple errors by pilots and airline maintenance workers in the accidents that he said should be considered along with Boeing's design. "To focus on one single factor misses the forest for trees,'' Graves said. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt also testified. The NTSB is assisting Ethiopian and Indonesian authorities in their investigations of the two crashes. Sumwalt said he can't comment beyond what investigators in those two countries have said under the United Nations treaty governing accident probes. The 737 Max, Boeing's best-selling aircraft, was grounded on March 13 after it became clear that an Ethiopian Airlines crash three days earlier had similar underlying causes to a Lion Air crash on Oct. 29 near Jakarta. MCAS was added to the 737 Max to make it less likely to enter an aerodynamic stall. It automatically commands a relatively modest dive if it senses a plane's nose has gotten too high. In the accidents, it repeatedly pushed down the nose despite efforts by the pilots to counter it. The crashes killed 346 people. Senators in a separate hearing Wednesday pressed the nominee to become FAA administrator, Stephen Dickson, on whether the agency needs to change procedures that led to certification of the 737 Max. Several lawmakers focused on the use of of aircraft manufacturers' employees to sign off on designs. "Whatever corrective actions need to be taken or process changes need to be put in place, I can guarantee you that those will be accomplished,'' Dickson said. He also said it's "very important not to jump to conclusions." "Working with the private sector with the proper controls and protocols is going to allow the regulator to be much more effective and add a lot more safety value that just throwing extra resources at it," Dickson said. - - - Bloomberg's Todd Shields contributed. CASEVILLE The city of Caseville has pocketed at least a portion of the sale of its former movie and sound studio to a local investor. The building is located at 6675 Main St. in downtown Caseville. At its meeting this week, council approved a resolution to designate $227,406 from the sale to two separate city funds. Officials decided to place $157,406 into recreation and $70,000 into roads. The total proceeds of the sale was $278,524. However, $51,118 remains in escrow, pending a resolution with the county on prior delinquent taxes on the property. "We're trying to resolve how to get that money refunded to the county's delinquent fund," said Clerk Jamie Learman. Learman said the two sides must first come together to arrive at a resolution. The dispute stems back to July 2015, when the city evicted former owner Robert Brown for not paying taxes. "We're trying to set up a meeting with county representatives we have been for the last couple of weeks," he said. "We're trying to get that set up and get that taken care of." What could come of the meeting, is they could come to agreement on the taxes, or could end up in court over the situation. "Hopefully we can come to an agreement with the county and get it straightened out," Learman said. While the building has been for sale since the city took over ownership in July 2015, it officially went up for sale in April of last year, following the departure of renter Back 2 Back Chiropractic. In January, the board agreed to sell the building to investor Patrick Essian's Oakwood Financial for $280,000. Learman said Oakwood already has Planning Commission approval to renovate the building into rental units. In other business, the board: Accepted the preliminary city budget for fiscal year 2020 and the preliminary DDA budget for fiscal year 2020. Set a public hearing to review the DDA budget for 5:15 p.m. and a public hearing to review the city budget for 5:30 p.m. both on June 10. Decided to refund the remaining $22,628 left over from 2003's Oxbow Dredging Project to the property owners who funded the special assessment. Approved the purchase of a zero-turn mower from Lingle Equipment of Saginaw for $13,515. WASHINGTON - Under questioning by lawmakers Wednesday, the outgoing chief of the Federal Aviation Administration said key decisions made by pilots contributed to the crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killing 346 people. An automated anti-stall feature on the 737 Max activated when it wasn't supposed to in the October crash in Indonesia, acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell said at a House hearing. That sent the plane's nose down repeatedly. The pilots should have responded by turning off the motors to the part of the airplane that was forcing it downward, but they did not, Elwell said. When the same automated feature, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, mistakenly kicked in less than five months later on the 737 Max involved in the Ethiopia crash, the pilots "didn't adhere to the emergency" directive issued by the FAA in November, Elwell said. While the pilots did turn off the motors, they didn't control the plane's speed, Elwell said of the Ethiopian Airlines pilots. Then, "about a minute before the end of the flight, they turned them back on. Both of those things are unfortunate, obviously," Elwell said. "There are so many pieces to any accident," Elwell said. "I've never looked at an accident where there weren't three or four of five links in the chain, any one of which, if it hadn't gone wrong, the plane would have survived." Elwell made the comments as he faced sharp questions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill about how his agency certified the safety of the 737 Max. "Mr. Elwell, the FAA has a credibility problem. The FAA needs to fix its credibility problem," said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., chairman of the House aviation subcommittee. Questions focused on an FAA certification system that gives Boeing and other manufacturers far-reaching powers to oversee themselves. Lawmakers also asked Elwell how the FAA and Boeing plan to assure travelers and aviation authorities around the world that the 737 Max is safe to resume flying. "I want to emphasize at the outset that the FAA welcomes scrutiny that helps make us better. That is how our global leadership will endure," Elwell told the committee. Republicans on the committee came to the defense of FAA leadership and also raised questions about the pilots' role in the two crashes. "No matter what other countries say, I have not seen anything that questions my confidence in the FAA's safety judgment to date," said Rep. Garret Graves, R-La. Family members of those killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash attended the Transportation Committee hearing. They, international regulators, and U.S. lawmakers, among others, have pushed for answers on how the FAA certified the safety of the plane, including the MCAS. In both crashes, investigators say, the automated system repeatedly pushed the planes' noses downward, thwarting pilots who were struggling to regain control, contributing to the crashes. Boeing has been working on a software fix for the system, which will make it use information from two external sensors rather than one. It will also essentially reduce the strength of the system so it cannot overpower pilots. But Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the full transportation committee, said information from preliminary investigative reports shows there were pilot-related issues with the Indonesian and Ethiopian crashes. In the case of Indonesia's Lion Air flight, the pilots who flew the plane the day before the crash turned the autopilot off when the plane began to buck into the nose-down position, but "it does not appear that they fully reported the problems," and the plane was "serviced and cleared for flight." Sam Graves also noted that a preliminary report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash said the pilots followed proper procedures. "But there are several facts that absolutely contradict that conclusion," he said. "The aircraft accelerated throughout the entire flight. The pilots never pulled the throttles back after setting them for full thrust at takeoff." Graves added: "That fundamental error appears to have had a domino effect on events that followed after that." "The facts in the preliminary reports reveal pilot error as a factor in these tragically fatal accidents. To focus on a single possible cause fails to see the forest for the trees," Graves said, adding that he thinks U.S.-trained pilots would have avoided disaster and he remains concerned about the quality of pilot training internationally. Transportation Committee Chair Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., pointed to a lack of documentation about the MCAS in Boeing manuals for pilots, problems with an alert system connected to the system, and its reliance on data from a single sensor, which ended up providing bad data. These and other issues have "raised questions about the FAA and its certification process. And we've got to get to the bottom of this," DeFazio said. Boeing acknowledged earlier this month, following a report in the Wall Street Journal, that a cockpit indicator on Max jets, known as an "angle of attack" disagree alert, didn't work on most planes because of a software problem. The alert is supposed to go off if a pair of key sensors have inconsistent readings. But the disagree alert on the Max planes didn't work unless airlines paid for a separate, optional indicator, the company said. The issue is relevant because an angle of attack sensor on each of the crashed planes provided faulty data to the MCAS, and an alert could have provided pilots additional information showing the nature of the crisis they were facing. Pressed by Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., on whether Boeing had an obligation to tell the FAA about the software problem, Elwell said Boeing engineers followed their procedures by writing a "problem report" without sending it to the FAA because the alert was considered "advisory" and not a "critical safety display." Still, Elwell said, "I am not happy with the 13-month gap between finding that anomaly and us finding out about it. . . . We are looking into that, and we will make sure software anomalies are reported more quickly." Elwell was also asked about a November meeting between Boeing executives and pilots at the Allied Pilots Association. The Washington Post reported last month that some pilots in the meeting were furious they were not told about the automated MCAS, and the Dallas Morning News this week published a recording from that meeting. The Post obtained a copy of the recording Wednesday. DeFazio cited a Boeing engineer on the tape saying a pilot might see the MCAS once in a million miles, and "we try not to overload the crews with information that's unnecessary." "Do we really think that was unnecessary? It wasn't in the manual, and they didn't even know about it. There's a lot of stuff in that manual you don't really need to know," DeFazio told Elwell. As a former American Airlines pilot himself, Elwell said, "when I first heard about this, I thought that there should have been more text in the manual about the MCAS." Capt. Daniel Carey, the Allied Pilots Association president, said Boeing "did not treat the 737 Max 8 situation like the emergency it was. . . . American Airlines pilots have been pressing Boeing for answers because we owe it to our passengers and the 346 people who lost their lives to do everything we can to prevent another tragedy." Boeing said in a statement, "We are focused on working with pilots, airlines and global regulators to certify the 737 MAX software update and provide additional training and education to safely return the 737 MAX to service." DeFazio said the FAA had been providing documents in connection with his committee's investigation. "On the other hand, Boeing has yet to provide a single document," DeFazio said. "I'm hoping they will provide the documents we requested voluntarily, and in the not to distant future." Meanwhile, the former pilot and airline executive President Trump has nominated to lead the FAA permanently, Stephen Dickson, appeared before a Senate panel to discuss his views on aviation safety and his vision for the agency. More than a week after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, amid criticism of federal oversight of aviation safety, Trump announced that he planned to nominate Dickson, a former Delta Air Lines pilot and executive, as permanent FAA administrator. Dickson, 61, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, would take over leadership of the agency as it faces multiple investigations into its process for certifying the 737 Max. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who met with Dickson this week, said "we cannot stand by and continue to allow important regulatory agencies to get too cozy with the industries that they oversee." Dickson pledged a thorough examination of the FAA's process for certifying the 737 Max. He said it was important to allow several expert panels looking into the matter to complete their reviews before moving forward on any changes. But he assured committee members that he would not allow the planes back into the air unless he was absolutely certain they were safe to fly. "I would never recertify an airplane that I would not put my family on," he said. He also voiced support for the FAA's Organization Designation Authorization program, which delegates power to a unit inside Boeing, as well as other firms, that is supposed to do much of the detailed work of finding whether the company is complying with minimum safety standards. Even if the FAA had the resources to do the work themselves, Dickson said: "Working with the private sector with proper controls adds safety value." Dickson's answers were careful and deliberate. Over and over again, he urged the senators not to jump to conclusions about the agency's actions, but pledged to take appropriate action as warranted. While some senators seemed satisfied, others emphasized that he must not give in to bureaucratic inertia. "The easiest thing to do would be to do nothing," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. "The natural instincts of any agency is protect itself, protect the status quo and admit no wrongdoing. So what I'm asking you to do, if you are confirmed, is be pissed off that 346 people died. That is not a small matter - 346 lives were snuffed out and at least the early evidence suggests that was preventable." Representatives of the National Transportation Safety Board, who also testified, said reports on the crashes are expected from Indonesian authorities by the first anniversary of the crash in October, and from Ethiopian authorities by fall. NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said that it would be a mistake to dismiss the problems uncovered by the two crashes as revolving primarily around international training standards. "If an aircraft manufacturer is going to sell airplanes all across the globe, then it's important that pilots who are operating those airplanes in those parts of the globe know how to operate them," Sumwalt said. "Just to say that the U.S. standards are very good - this might be a problem with other parts of the globe - I don't think that's part of the answer. And I hate to use this term, but the airplane has to be trained to the lowest common denominator." Theresa May set a date for her final Brexit showdown, promising to bring her deal back to Parliament at the start of June. Talks with the opposition Labour Party haven't yielded an agreement, but she's hoping members of Parliament, stung by voter revolts, will back her in order to end the process that's tearing both main parties apart. "It's time for Parliament to make a decision," Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told the BBC. "The country needs to move forward. Business needs to have certainty." In reality, May has run out of options. She opened talks with Labour seven weeks ago, arguing that nothing else had worked. Her Conservative Party was furious. But the talks didn't deliver a breakthrough, and it was never clear that they could deliver a majority. The next stage of May's plan, as it was announced in April, was moving to a series of indicative votes if the talks failed. That appears to have been shelved. Instead, in the week of June 3, while Donald Trump is in the U.K. on a state visit, she'll put before Parliament the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which would write her deal into law. The government said this was "imperative" if the bill was to pass before Parliament goes on vacation in July. The WAB, as it's known, has been repeatedly postponed since last year, as May has tried to find a majority in Parliament for her deal. She has failed three times to get the House of Commons to support it. Some Conservatives, and her allies in Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, oppose it because of the "Irish backstop" section that deals with Northern Ireland's border. If the bill is defeated, May can't bring it back again without ending this parliamentary session and starting a new one, which would require a review of the confidence-and-supply agreement with the DUP that props up her minority government. It would also raise the prospect of defeat on votes on the government's legislative program. In reality, it would almost certainly mean a new prime minister. Even May, who has survived so many bruising defeats, would struggle to argue she should stay on as Conservative leader if her deal is voted down. May set out her plan to Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn in an hour-long meeting in Parliament on Tuesday evening. He told her that Labour wouldn't back the bill without a formal agreement, according to a person familiar with their discussions. According to a Labour statement, Corbyn "raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments, following statements by Conservative MPs and Cabinet ministers seeking to replace the prime minister." The government promised to bring back more proposals Wednesday, Labour said. It's very hard to see how the bill will pass without Labour support. The last time May asked Parliament to approve her deal, on March 29, it rejected it by 344 votes to 286. On that occasion, even though key Brexit supporters including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg gave in and voted with her, 34 other Conservatives still held out and voted against. It was this intransigence that led her to begin talks with Labour. On Wednesday, Owen Paterson, a Tory opposing May's deal, said he would not back the bill when it is introduced, demonstrating she will once again struggle to secure the numbers to pass the legislation and may have to rely on Labour votes. Meanwhile the leader of the 11-strong Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, told BBC radio his support is contingent on a second referendum. May's only hope is that the results of next week's European elections are so bad that Conservative and Labour MPs decide they need to get Brexit done. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday expressed the hope that the likely victory of Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, which wants to leave the EU without a deal, would shock his colleagues into line. But as many of them want the same thing as Farage, it's more likely to harden their resolve. The DUP made clear that they weren't shifting position. "What has changed?" asked its Westminster leader, Nigel Dodds. "Unless she can demonstrate something new that addresses the problem of the backstop, then it is highly likely her deal will go down to defeat once again." Labour MPs might also see reason to move. Brexit is tearing them apart, too, and they failed to benefit from the Conservatives' woes during the recent local elections, instead losing seats. There were faint signs of hope for May on Tuesday evening. Labour's Lucy Powell sent a tweet that suggested she wanted Labour to back a deal. "The most likely outcome without the cross -party consensus is 'no deal,"' she wrote. "That's the default legal position for October and is a dead cert with a new Tory PM." But for many Labour MPs, the defeat of May's deal, and her removal and a replacement with a leader who has little more chance of getting anything through Parliament, is a necessary step toward the fresh referendum that they want in order to reverse Brexit. And for Corbyn, it's a step toward a general election that could see him running the country. - - - Bloomberg's Kitty Donaldson contributed. WASHINGTON - The White House's top lawyer told the House Judiciary Committee chairman Wednesday that Congress has no right to a "do-over" of the special counsel's investigation of President Donald Trump and refused a broad demand for records and testimony from dozens of current and former White House staff. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone's letter to committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler constitutes a sweeping rejection - not just of Nadler's request for White House records, but of Congress's standing to investigate Trump for possible obstruction of justice. In his letter, Cipollone repeated a claim the White House and Trump's business have begun making: that Congress is not a law enforcement body and does not have a legitimate purpose to investigate the questions it is pursuing. But Cipollone stopped short of asserting executive privilege. Instead, he told Nadler he would consider a narrowed request if the chairman spells out the legislative purpose and legal support for the information he is seeking. "Congressional investigations are intended to obtain information to aid in evaluating potential legislation, not to harass political opponents or to pursue an unauthorized 'do-over' of exhaustive law enforcement investigations conducted by the Department of Justice," Cipollone wrote. In an interview, Nadler called the White House argument "preposterous." "The White House is making the outrageous claim that a president cannot be held accountable in any way to the American people," he said, adding: "This is ridiculous, it would make the president above the law, and of course we totally reject it. We will subpoena whoever we have to subpoena." Cipollone said the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report now makes Congress' questions moot. He stressed that probe was "exhaustive" - the product of 2,800 subpoenas, 500 executed search warrants and 500 witness interviews - and that the president supported the report's full release "in the interest of transparency." "The appropriate course is for the Committee to discontinue the inquiry," he wrote. "Unfortunately, it appears that you have already decided to press ahead with a duplicative investigation, including by issuing subpoenas, to replow the same ground the Special Counsel has already covered." The White House's firm stand represents yet another escalation in the bitter standoff between the White House and House Democrats. Trump and his allies are working to block more than 20 separate investigations into his actions as president, his personal finances and his administration's policies, according to a Washington Post analysis. Nadler in early March requested documents from 81 Trump allies or Trump-related entities as part of a broad investigation into whether Trump abused his power, obstructed justice and engaged in public corruption. The letters went to both current and former official and campaign staffers as well as top Trump Organization officials and Trump's family members. White House-connected people who received requests from the committee include former White House Counsel Donald McGahn, former adviser Stephen K. Bannon, former communications chief Hope Hicks and former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and current adviser Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. Joshua Geltzer, a former Justice Department official who now heads a constitutional advocacy group, said the White House's assertion that Congress does not have a right to the information a "mind-blowing" claim. "These aren't peripheral interests of the U.S. Congress," he said. "They're core oversight responsibilities - at the heart of our legislative branch checking our executive branch and even just understanding it." In the Wednesday letter, Cipollone argued that the request for testimony and records from 81 individuals and agencies is intrusive and seeks to pull back the covers on reams of confidential discussions and sensitive law enforcement material that is normally shielded by executive privilege. But the White House is only directly responding to Nadler's letter to the White House. The White House counsel's office said its objection applies to current and former officials whose information it argues is technically the property of the White House. At least two of the 81 people who received requests for information from the committee said Wednesday they were not going to provide any documents or information while the White House objects to such cooperation. They said they fear getting on the wrong side of Trump - and the professional damage it could cause. "What choice do you have?" said one of these people, a former senior White House official who requested anonymity to describe the strategy toward handling the congressional demand. Cipollone said Nadler's committee has been eager to try to publicly tar the White House as uncooperative, pushing to hold officials in contempt, while ignoring the legal flaws in its demands. "(T)he Committee rushed to vote on contempt for failing to provide 100% and immediate compliance with a subpoena that seeks millions of pages of documents from a prosecutor's files," he wrote. "Moreover, the Committee - for the first time in American history - has voted to recommend that the Attorney General be held in contempt because he refused to violate the law by turning over grand-jury materials that he may not lawfully disclose." - - - The Washington Post's Rachael Bade contributed to this report. It is supposed to yet again be Infrastructure Week. President Donald Trump went down to southwest Louisiana to talk up his administration's effort to open U.S. natural gas to international markets. But yet again, Trump went off script, using an official White House event at a natural gas export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana, to overtly attacks his political rivals all while the the administration's trade policies threaten the growth of the very natural gas export business Trump went to Louisiana to promote. During the 50-minute speech, Trump was flanked by dozens of plant workers onstage as he touted his energy agenda and made the case that he was turbocharging the economy. But the natural gas business Trump was there to support just got even more knotted up in Trump's trade war with China. Officials there announced the country is raising tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on U.S. liquefied natural gas. That has some of those in the natural gas export business concerned. "The U.S. is largest natural gas producer in the world, so the two sides deadlocked in a trade dispute its not a great piece of news," Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, told the Houston Chronicle. Only four cargos of natural gas have been delivered to China from the United States during the eight-month period since tariffs were first put on the fuel last September, according to a new report from the consultancy Wood Mackenzie. That compares 35 cargos during that prior September-April period. But little of that tension was directly on display during Trump's speech in Louisiana, where energy executives heaped praise on Trump. "This administration and its forward-looking energy policies deserve a lot of credit," Jeffrey Martin, chief executive of Sempra Energy, the majority owner of the Cameron LNG export facility, said before Trump's speech. Trump, for his part, was happy to take the credit, claiming "this was not going to happen with someone else in office." Trump mainly used the taxpayer-funded event to attack his political rivals. He drew out the pronunciation of Pete Buttigieg's uncommon last name, saying: "We've got Boot-edge-edge." Using a derisive nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the president mused: "Pocahontas, I think, is probably out." Trump also said former vice president Joe Biden "doesn't look like the guy I knew" while taking aim at "crazy" Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has a "lot more energy than Biden . . . but it's energy to get rid of your jobs." And finally, Trump ridiculed former congressman Beto O'Rourke, D-Texas, for a Vanity Fair interview in which O'Rourke claimed that he was "just born to be in" the presidential race. "He was made to fall like a rock!" Trump said. The president also mocked the Green New Deal, telling the crowd of plant workers that they would lose their jobs under the proposal advanced by some Democrats and saying: "That's a hoax, like the hoax I just went through," an apparent reference to the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Washington The Senate Intelligence Committee has struck a deal with Donald Trump Jr. to appear for a closed-door interview next month, pulling the two sides back, for now, from a confrontation over a subpoena as part of the panel's Russia investigation. Under the terms of the deal, according to two people familiar with the agreement, Trump Jr. will talk to the committee in mid-June for up to four hours. The people spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday to discuss the confidential terms. The deal comes after the panel subpoenaed President Donald Trump's eldest son to discuss answers he gave the panel's staff in a 2017 interview. Trump Jr. had backed out of interviews twice, prompting the subpoena, according to people familiar with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr's remarks to a GOP luncheon last week. Those people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Burr's remarks in the private senators' meeting. The deadline for Trump Jr. to respond was Monday, according to one of the people familiar with the terms, and he expected to be held in contempt for declining to be interviewed. But the committee reached out Monday evening and the deal was struck. A spokeswoman for Burr declined to comment. The North Carolina Republican has weathered fierce criticism for the subpoena from the president and his GOP colleagues. Trump said on Tuesday said he believed that his son was being treated poorly. "It's really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100 percent OK and now they want him to testify again," Trump told reporters at the White House before traveling to Louisiana. "I don't know why. I have no idea why. But it seems very unfair to me." It's the first known subpoena of a member of the president's immediate family, and some Republicans went as far as to say they thought Trump Jr. shouldn't comply. WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is considering a range of options for using military force against Iran, officials said Tuesday, as lawmakers from both parties complained that the White House has not fully briefed them on the escalating tensions. Top advisers to President Donald Trump met at the White House late last week to consider possible steps, including military action, as officials spoke of "credible threats" by Iran or Iranian proxy forces to U.S. personnel. The Pentagon already has moved an aircraft carrier, strategic bombers and other military assets to reinforce U.S. forces across the Middle East. Officials said the options include increasing the number of troops in the region from between 60,000 and 80,000 to more than 100,000, in the most dramatic scenario were Iran to attack U.S. interests or make clear moves to develop a nuclear weapon. The New York Times on Monday reported that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan, in response to a request for updated options from national security adviser John Bolton, put forward several proposals, including one to deploy 120,000 troops. Speaking to reporters in Washington, Trump characterized the article as inaccurate but said he would be prepared to authorize an even more muscular approach if needed. "Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that," he said. "And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that." Trump's views on the proposals were not immediately clear. In general, he has sided with ending U.S. military involvement in wars overseas, although he has identified Iran as a chief adversary and sought to demonstrate a tough stance on nations challenging the United States. He is surrounded by officials with hard-line views on Iran led by Bolton, who has advocated for regime change in Iran. Iranian and American leaders say they do not want a war but warn that they are prepared to use military might if provoked. Speaking during a visit to Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had made clear "that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a series of messages on Twitter, warned that the United States would be forced to withdraw from a confrontation with Iran. "We don't seek a war nor do they," he said. "They know a war wouldn't be beneficial for them." Nevertheless, the increasing tension has fueled concern that the two countries might accidentally slide into conflict. The comments from Khamenei and Pompeo came several days after ships belonging to U.S. allies were attacked near the Persian Gulf, an act for which U.S. officials suggested Iran may be responsible. The incident followed a series of U.S. steps designed to isolate Iran, including the designation of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and a raft of new sanctions after the White House decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Becca Wasser, a policy analyst at Rand Corp., said those steps fueled suspicions between the United States and its allies on one hand and Iran on the other, raising the risk of a small incident snowballing into a larger confrontation. "It's fairly common to have Iranian patrol boats harass U.S. carriers and other ships in the strait," she said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway off Iran that is key to global commerce. "You can imagine with some of the heightened tensions, that there could be a greater risk of that exploding into something larger." "In different times, an accident or a mistake could be resolved because of open lines of communication between Iran and the United States," she added. "Now it could lead to the United States and Iran accidentally stumbling into some form of escalation." Typically a range of options is presented by military officials when requested by civilian leaders. Sometimes, policymakers select one course of action. Other times, they decide to do nothing. U.S. Central Command maintains a host of contingency plans that are updated periodically, especially when policy or threat information changes. Military officials, who have privately voiced a strong desire to avoid conflict with Iran, have nevertheless described the recent intelligence as sobering and say they believe that Iran is actively planning attacks on U.S. forces. Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said the alert level for forces in Iraq and Syria had been increased in response to the recent intelligence, pushing back against a statement by a British general serving in Baghdad as part of the U.S.-led coalition who said there was no amplified threat from Iranian backed forces there. That operation "is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq," Urban said. More than 5,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, and less than half that are in neighboring Syria. The U.S. military has troops at a constellation of small and large bases across the region as well as ships that regularly circulate nearby. Pentagon and congressional officials said the elements that contributed to the worrisome intelligence picture included Iranian military and other threats against diplomatic facilities in Baghdad and Irbil, Iraq. Officials also said they believed that Iran may be preparing to mount rocket or missile launchers on small ships. Military officials say they do not know why Iran appears to be embracing a more hostile stance but say it is probably a result of mounting economic and diplomatic pressures. Since the United States withdrew from the nuclear agreement a year ago, it has penalized almost 1,000 Iranian individuals and entities. U.S. sanctions on financial transactions and oil exports, in particular, have had a devastating effect on the economy. International nuclear monitors have said that Iran has continued to meet its commitments under the 2015 agreement but that it has threatened to resume the stockpiling of enriched uranium unless the European Union finds a way to facilitate sanctions relief. The Europeans, while striving to keep the nuclear accord alive, are stuck between the hard-line positions staked out by Washington and Tehran. The uptick in tensions has also rattled the State Department's top officials in charge of diplomatic security, who on Tuesday postponed a major forum of regional security officers from most embassies and consulates worldwide. The event, which was scheduled to include Pompeo; Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was postponed because of "increasing tensions with Iran" and the need for senior personnel to "remain in the field to assess and respond to potential threats," according to a State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post. The event is scheduled every three to four years and involves 300-plus people, said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal logistics. "It's no small potatoes that Diplomatic Security chose to cancel this," the official said. The situation has set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is attempting to bring in senior administration officials to brief senators next week on Iran and other issues in the region, according to three congressional officials apprised of the discussions. The effort comes as many lawmakers are voicing their frustration with the Trump administration for not keeping Congress more fully aware of its plans concerning Iran. "I think all of us are in the dark over here," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday. Democrats on that committee in particular have accused their Republican counterparts of dragging out efforts to demand more information from the White House. "It is hard to justify the administration's actions thus far since they insist on stonewalling Congress from receiving any specifics about what these increased threats actually are and our strategy to confront them," Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement Tuesday. - - - The Washington Post's Carol Morello, Anne Gearan, Shane Harris and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. May 15, 1959: In the regular May meeting Thursday night the Plainview board of education adopted the same salary schedule for classroom teachers for the 1959-60 school year as was in effect for the 1958-59 school years. --Henry Eason, instructor in speech at Wayland Baptist College, will be the guest speaker for College Heights Baptist Church Sunday morning as the pastor, Howard Lyons, attends the Southwestern Baptist General Convention at Louisville, Kentucky. Two Midland man were arrested Tuesday after allegedly assaulting a man, according to court documents. Jarrod Adron Roberts, 35, and Thomas Dane Finn, 28, were each being held Wednesday on a $50,000 bond for a second-degree felony charge of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. Midland County deputies were dispatched Saturday in reference to an assault. Deputies made contact with the victim, who had swelling and bruises to the left side of his face. Deputies also noticed the mans speech was slightly impaired because of the injuries, according to the arrest affidavit. The man told deputies that he, a woman and the suspects later identified as Roberts and Finn were sitting in the back room of a residence when he made a comment and got up to leave, according to the affidavit. When he got to his vehicle, the man was asked to go back inside, where he was hit in the face, according to the affidavit. The victim said the he was hit and kicked multiple times to the point where he thought Roberts and Finn werent going to stop, according to the affidavit. The victim sustained a fractured lower left jaw because of the assault, according to the affidavit. If convicted of the second-degree felony charge, Roberts and Finn could face up to 20 years imprisonment. (CNN) Zimbabwe made $2.7 million from the sale of more than 90 elephants to China and Dubai, according to a spokesman for the country's wildlife agency. Money from the sales will be used to support conservation efforts, said Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesman Tinashe Farawo. Farawo said the agency was having difficulty controlling the population in its national parks, and that proceeds from the sales, made over a six-year period, will be used for the upkeep of its remaining elephants. "We are struggling with a ballooning number of elephants. We believe in sustainable utilization of our resources, and these elephants must pay for their upkeep," Farawo told CNN. He said water levels were running low in rivers in its parks and officials have been using alternative water sources to feed the animals. "We have a situation where most of our game parks use borehole water, and that needs a lot of resources. These are some of the costs that we are grappling when there is drought," he added. Tourism minister Prisca Mupfumira said the country presently has 85,000 elephants and it could only cater for 55,000, according to a local media reports. The 98 elephants were airlifted to parks in China and Dubai and they were sold for prices ranging from $13,500 to $41, 500 each, the reports said. They were exported between 2012 and 2018, the Zimbabwe Chronicle reported. The minister told the newspaper that the government was pushing for the lifting of ivory trade ban placed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to pave the way for the sale of $300 million worth of ivory, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia, homes to the largest population of African elephants, are among southern African countries seeking a lift in the ban on ivory trade placed by CITES, the global organization responsible for regulating the trade in endangered species. In 2015, Zimbabwe put some of its wildlife on sale, saying it needed to save them from an impending drought that hit its national parks and reserves. Residents and farmers in rural communities often complain about elephants invading their farmlands and destroying crops. "We are selling because we need to manage the numbers ... we need to rescue people from the elephants because apart from being killed in attacks, the people have no money to buy medicines to treat the injury caused by the animals. So it is a sustainable policy," Farawo said. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Zimbabwe sells elephants to China and Dubai for $2.7 million." A man was arrested early Wednesday morning after he barricaded himself in a Stone Oak-area home for six hours, police said. The man, who San Antonio police say fired a shot while officers were responding to a report of family violence, eventually walked out of the home after he spoke with negotiators, police said. He was arrested without incident. The suspect was later identified as Emeterio Hernandez Jr., 40. He was arrested on suspicion of assault family violence. His bail was set at $10,000. SAPD spokeswoman Michelle Ramos said officers were called to the residence in the 800 block of Mandolin Wind at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Hernandez walked outside and fired a shot as officers contacted two family members in front of the house, Ramos said. Were not sure at this point if he fired at the officers or where he fired at, Ramos said. The officers moved the family away from the home and surrounded the house asHernandez ran back inside, police said. Ramos said neither of the family members was injured. Police have been called out to this location the past couple months, so police were familiar with this house, Ramos said. Jacob Beltran is a reporter covering San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA AUSTIN Texas is poised to become the latest state to boost the smoking age from 18 to 21, months after a top federal health official called youth e-cigarette use an epidemic. The House approved Senate Bill 21 on Tuesday to raise the purchasing age for all tobacco products, including cigarettes and e-cigarettes, though people serving in the armed forces would be exempt. The bill is likely headed back to the Senate for approval on the Houses five amendments. The bill would then need approval from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has voiced support for raising the legal age for smoking. Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday Already 13 other states have adopted so-called Tobacco 21 legislation, amid a nationwide surge in teen vaping that U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb labeled an epidemic last September. In Texas, nearly one in three high school students and more than one in 10 middle-schoolers have tried an electronic cigarette, according to state surveys. The biggest users, however, are young adults between the ages of 18 and 29, according to the 2019 report by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Senate Bill 21 is a change of pace for Texas lawmakers, who have taken steps this session to undo city ordinances, including those that require businesses to offer employees paid sick leave. This bill would instead create a law statewide that resembles an ordinance adopted last year in San Antonio. The bill, cheered by public health advocates and lawmakers as a way to help curb teen smoking, has even garnered support from major tobacco companies. About 95 percent of smokers start before age 21. By stopping the sale of tobacco products, e-cigarettes and similar products to those younger than 21, the Texas Legislature has taken a major step to help Texas youth live healthier lives, said Shelby Massey, Texas government relations director for the American Heart Association. Opponents contend that people ages 18 through 20 should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to smoke. If these adults at the age of 18, when we flip a switch, if they can be adult enough to vote for us to come here and represent them, I think we should be able to allow them to smoke, said Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, whose amendment to make the bill read voting age rather than 21 was dismissed. The bill is a response to a 78-percent increase in e-cigarette use in high schools and middle schools from 2017 to 2018 that was reported in February by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It concluded that 3.6 million of the students were using them in 2018. The San Antonio ordinance went into effect Oct. 1, amid a federal crackdown on e-cigarette companies. The city began enforcing the ordinance this year. Other cities including Kirby and Leon Valley have followed suit. An amendment was added to the House bill by Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, that preempts cities from passing ordinances that further raise the age. Interim assistant city manager Colleen Bridger, who spearheaded San Antonios effort to pass the ordinance during her tenure as director of the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, called it an investment in the communitys health. People are really realizing tobacco and its addictive harm on our young people, Bridger said. We paused for a second when it looked like smoking was going down among youth, and now we have to pick our pace back up and realize that as smoking use is declining among youth, vaping is increasing. Theyre still getting that exposure to tobacco, which is rewiring their brains. Still, the city policy was challenged early on by tobacco retailers. In December, three retail associations filed a federal lawsuit against the city of San Antonio, arguing that the ordinance singled out retailers with its enforcement measures. The lawsuit was brought by the South Texas Merchants Association Cooperative, the Association of Convenience Store Retailers and the Texas Food and Fuel Association. Clint Glenny, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the passage of SB 21 would result in a dismissal of the lawsuit as moot. Our clients welcome the passage of such legislation as it would result in all retailers being treated equally, he said. Unlike the San Antonio city ordinance, which has had the opposite effect. The statewide bill by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, cleared the Texas Senate last month after it was amended to exclude active-duty military personnel. It means Texans who are over 18 years old and serving in the armed forces would still be allowed to purchase tobacco products with a valid military ID. At least one major tobacco company is supporting the legislation. Altria, which owns tobacco giant Phillip Morris as well as the makers of Copenhagen and Skoal snuff, said in a March statement that it has advocated for strong minimum age laws in all U.S. jurisdictions. The bill is also supported by leading e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, which is partially owned by Altria. "We cannot fulfill our mission to provide the worlds one billion adult smokers with a true alternative to combustible cigarettes, the No. 1 cause of preventable death in this country, if youth-use continues unabated, said Ted Kwong, a Juul spokesman, in an April statement. Lauren Caruba contributed reporting from San Antonio; Sami Sparber contributed reporting in Austin. Mr. Jesus Sebastian Leija, 85, entered into eternal rest on Friday, May 10, 2019. Mr. Leija was a native of Laredo who attended Martin High School before joining the United States Army during the Korean War. He was amongst the first Special Forces teams in 1952 and trained and served as the units Medic. His service in the Special Forces included airborne operations, counter-insurgency, foreign internal defense, intelligence operations, mobility operations and unconventional warfare. His missions included Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. After his military service, Mr. Leija worked for the Postal Service for 25 years and retired as an administrator. In his retired years Mr. Leija and his wife Isaura travelled extensively and occupied their time in investments and real estate. He loved to read and particularly enjoyed American authors such as Hemmingway and Steinbeck, but was also well versed in Shakespeare, World History and politics. Jesus Leija was preceded in death by his parents, Abram and Maria Leija, his sister Lucila Garza, his wife Isaura Leija, and his son Jesus Alberto Leija. He is survived by his daughter Rebecca Leija-Hughes, and his grandchildren Nora and Carlos Hughes, and Nathan and Abram Leija. He is also survived by his great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, which he loved dearly. Throughout his life, he was a leader, a Christian and an inspiration to many. He was a soldier to the very end and was surrounded by family and love at his passing. He will be deeply missed by his family. May he rest in peace. The family will be receiving condolences on Wednesday, evening, May 15, 2019 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Joe Jackson Heights Funeral Chapels & Cremation Services, 719 Loring at Cortez; where a Vigil for the Deceased and Rosary will commence at 7 p.m. Funeral Services will be held on Thursday morning, May 16, 2019, departing at 8:40 a.m. from Joe Jackson Heights Funeral Chapels to St. Joseph Catholic Church for a Mass of Christian Burial at 9:00 a.m. Rite of Committal and Interment will follow at the Calvary Catholic Cemetery. You may express your condolences, share your favorite memories, and sign the guestbook online at: www.joejacksonfuneralchapels.com. Arrangements have been entrusted to the care and direction of the funeral service professionals at Joe Jackson Heights Funeral Chapels & Cremation Services, 719 Loring at Cortez, Laredo, Texas 78040; (956)722-0001. Marshall led No. 16 Louisiana heading to the final quarter, but the Ragin' Cajuns turned it on late, shutting down Marshall's offense and scoring the final 20 points of the game in a 36-21 win over the Herd in the 2021 New Orleans Bowl at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Gerry Warnock was elected to Longford County Council in 2014 following three years on Longford Town Council. Despite facing many challenges in Longford since then, he says he has seen a renewed confidence in the county in terms of tourism, regeneration, employment opportunities through the expansion of existing enterprises and an ability to attract new businesses. But, says Gerry, new challenges are never far away: The provision of adequate housing to cater for local needs will be chief amongst these challenges and it is so important to the future development of our county that we get this right. My own preference is for the prioritization of Affordable Housing Schemes for households on low to middle incomes. We must remain steadfast in our efforts to deal with antisocial elements within our community. These people must not be allowed to drag down the rest of the community through their illegal activities, be that drug dealing or dumping. These are but some of the issues that will need consideration over the next council term, he said. Gerry is an experienced, passionate councillor with a proven ability to address major issues in the town. Also read: Letter to the editor - Astonishing that 30 days of posters causes outrage He says he will give a firm commitment to continue to represent your needs, and the needs of the wider community with the same zeal as I have done over the last eight years. Name: Turlough 'Pott' McGovern Party: Independent Address: Cartron, Granard, Co Longford Occupation: Farmer Why have you decided to run in the Local Elections? I have decided to run in the Granard Municipal District because I feel it is time for a real change at local level and I am the best man to do it. I would like to represent rural communities within north Longford to ensure that people receive what they are entitled to in all aspects. Why should people vote for you? I would ask people to vote for me as I am a well known community representative who has worn the Longford jersey for the GAA and rugby. I have supported many local community groups down through the years through taking part in numerous fundraisers and of course, through my ever-improving MC skills. This is a true reflection of the type of person I am. By supporting me on May 24, you will ensure that a local county councillor with common sense will be present in the Council Chambers to represent your voice. I support the need for appropriate housing, services, supports and facilities for everyone. In addition to this, I recognise the need for continued support for local farmers, rural publicans and small businesses who are struggling in north Longford. What do you think is lacking in your area and what will you be campaigning for? Longford is a great county and I am very proud to be born and bred in it. However, it is lacking development investment and youth initiatives as well as weak broadband connections and inadequate water supplies in various areas of north Longford, plus a lack of awareness of elderly and vulnerable people living in isolation. I will be making my voice heard to secure any/all investment into north Longford to assist the concerns I have raised above and I urge you all to give me the opportunity to do so, by coming out and voting for me, on May 24. #vote1TurloughPottMcGovern The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association has announced that the election for the position of president will take place on Thursday, June 27, in Portlaoise at a meeting of the associations National Executive. The elections come after long-standing ICSA president, Patrick Kent, announced his decision to vacate the position in recent weeks. Mr Kent held the position of president since 2014 and was re-elected twice during that period. During his time in the hot seat, Kent was one of the first farm leaders to push for an EU level auditor to analyse and publicise those who make profits from beef. He also pushed to expose retailers and processors who take excess margins. Also read: IFA to co-host series of mental health walks Kents work didnt end there, as he also played a significant role in the uncovering of the abuse of the Quality Assurance Scheme. Mr Kent was also very vocal in his opposition to Mercosur, CETA and TTIP trade deals. He was also one of the first to highlight that farmers were losing on average 150 per head by virtue of receiving zero payment for the fifth quarter. The closing date for nominations is set at Friday, May 24. A professional premises in Laois has been raided as part of an early morning operation involving the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and various units of An Garda Siochana. CAB spearheaded the operation and conducted searches in Dublin and Laois on Wednesday, May 15. The searches consisted of two homes in Dublin 15 and Dublin 6, and two professional premises located in Dublin 2 and Laois. All searches were conducted by CAB personnel supported by the Emergency Response Unit, local Gardai and officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau. Documentation, phones and electronic devices which will be analysed by specialist CAB Analysts, were seized during the raids. Approximately 40,000 has been frozen in an account in a financial institution pursuant to Section 17 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act, 2010. "This search operation is a significant development in an on-going operation targeting an organised crime gang involved in the cultivation, sale and supply of controlled drugs," gardai said. CAB are also investigating the beneficial ownership of a home in South Tipperary and another home in North Cork. Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: May 15 2019 Daniel Coppolo, 33, is expected to be sentenced to five to 15 years in prison on June 17. Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a Deer Park man pleaded guilty to the top homicide count of Manslaughter in the Second Degree for the November 2017 death of an 18-year old woman in a Levittown parking lot. Daniel Coppolo, 33, pleaded guilty today before Judge Terence Murphy to Manslaughter in the Second Degree (a C felony), Leaving the Scene without Reporting (a D felony), and Tampering with Physical Evidence (an E felony) relating to the homicide. He pled guilty to Robbery in the Third Degree (a D felony) for a separate incident where he used force against a security guard to escape after shoplifting. The defendant is expected to be sentenced to five to 15 years in prison on June 17. It is incomprehensible that this adult defendant could recklessly take the promising young life of 18-year-old, Taranjit Parmar over a trivial fender bender, DA Singas said. Our continuing condolences go out to the Parmar family for their unbearable loss. DA Singas said that on November 9, 2017, at approximately 5 p.m., 18-year old Taranjit Parmar was driving a grey 2018 Jeep Cherokee eastbound on Hempstead Turnpike. Just before the intersection of Gardiners Avenue in Levittown, Daniel Coppolo, who was driving a red 2013 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, pulled out of the parking lot exit near the Ultra Gas Station at 3300 Hempstead Turnpike, and the two vehicles were involved in a minor collision. After the incident, the drivers pulled both vehicles into the parking lot west of the gas station. Parmar exited her vehicle and called her mother. While on the phone with her mother, Parmar yelled for the driver to stop and grabbed the defendants truck as he started to move. Coppolo drove through the parking lot, dragging the victim and ultimately ran her over before fleeing the scene by driving the wrong way on Hempstead Turnpike. After civilian witnesses called 911, the victim was transported to the hospital by NCPD Paramedics in cardiac arrest and was pronounced deceased that night. After an investigation, members of the Nassau County Police Department located the defendants truck in the parking lot of the Target in Westbury, where Coppolo had been arrested for forcibly stealing items from the Target several days after the November 9 incident. Upon inspection of the truck, rubbing compound was found applied to the area that had been damaged in the initial collision. Coppolo, a former FDNY employee, was arrested on December 23, 2017 for the Levittown incident. Senior District Attorney Katie Zizza and Assistant District Attorney Tara DePalo of DA Singas Vehicular Crimes Bureau are prosecuting the case. Coppolo is represented by Lawrence Carra, Esq. 1 minute read The EU Copyright Directive has now been approved and will need to be implemented by EU member states in 2021. Many of the most controversial aspects of the legislation remain, including the requirement for platform providers to proactively prevent the upload of infringing content. How platform providers are to do this is not prescribed by the legislation, and many fear that the use of automated upload filters will be inevitable resulting in huge amounts of legitimate content being blocked from the internet before it is ever uploaded. But the fight isnt over yet as the European Commission is to publish guidance on the implementation of the directive and has promised to canvas stakeholders views. We can therefore expect the lobbying efforts of big tech to continue as they push for the least onerous interpretation. Ultimately, however, it will be for the national law makers and courts to decide the lengths to which platform providers will need to go in order to comply. On April 15, the well-publicised fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley seemingly came to an end as the European Council ratified the European Parliament's vote to pass the Copyright Directive. The most controversial aspects of the directive the "upload filter" and the "link tax" remain, although in a form that is aimed at appeasing the tech giants that will be most affected. As reported by Managing IP in April, many stakeholders within the digital sector still feel that the directive is nothing short of an attack on internet freedom, and have promised to fight on. However, with the directive due to be implemented into national law by member states by (probably) May 2021, is there really anything left to fight for? What does the final text actually say? The most impactful and controversial articles in the directive are 11 and 13 although, somewhat confusingly, they have now been renumbered Articles 15 and 17 in the final form directive. Commentators and sections of the press have so far been resolute in their commitment to the previous article numbers but, for the purposes of this article, we'll adopt the new numbering. Article 15 affects all "information society service providers" who make "press publications" available to the public, and requires them to make a fair and proportionate payment to the original publishers. The apparent rationale here is that news aggregation services (e.g. Google News, Feedly) should be required to adequately compensate the original publisher and author of the content that they use. The financial impact of this on news aggregation service providers will be huge. Since the directive was first proposed, many of the industry's big players have voiced their concern with at least one threatening to pull its European news aggregation service altogether. The lobbying has had some effect, and the directive now contains express carve-outs for the use of hyperlinks, scientific and academic periodicals, and "very short extracts" from press publications. What is meant by "very short extracts" isn't spelled out, and it will be up to member states to interpret this through national implementing law, and through the national courts. For example, if a national court deemed that anything longer than a sentence was not a "very short extract", then the operation of Article 15 would preclude service providers from referencing or quoting any substantive press content without a licence. Such an interpretation would surely render the exception for "very short extracts" redundant. Article 17, which many see as requiring platform providers to apply an upload filter to all third party content, is arguably the most controversial aspect of the directive. The article applies to "online content sharing service providers" whose main purpose (or one of their main purposes) is to store and give the public access to a "large amount" of copyright-protected works uploaded by its users. Some providers are expressly excluded, including not-for-profit online encyclopaedias (e.g. Wikipedia), not-for-profit educational and scientific repositories, and open-source software developing and sharing platforms. And while the likes of YouTube and Facebook will clearly be affected, other well-known platforms that display a lot of user-generated content (e.g. TripAdvisor, Tinder) will also be firmly in scope. The most impactful and controversial articles in the directive are 11 and 13 although, somewhat confusingly, they have now been renumbered Articles 15 and 17 in the final form directive Currently, service providers can rely on provisions in the e-Commerce Directive, which mean they are not liable for content uploaded onto their platform by third parties, provided certain requirements are met. Following implementation of Article 17 of the directive, this will no longer be the case for service providers communicating copyright-protected works which have been uploaded by users. Service providers will therefore be liable for content stored on their platforms without authorisation unless they can demonstrate that they have: 1) made best efforts to obtain authorisation from the rights holders; 2) made "in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence" best efforts to ensure the unavailability of specific works identified by right holders and prevent the future upload of content which has been the subject of a notice and take down request (i.e. notice and stay down); and 3) executed notice and take down requests expeditiously. This effectively shifts the burden of monitoring and policing copyright-infringing material online from rights holders to service providers. As all for-profit service providers are within scope, irrespective of their profit margin, the directive has introduced a carve-out specifically aimed at start-ups which have (i) annual revenues of under 10 million ($11 million); (ii) fewer than five million monthly users (on average); and (iii) whose services have been available for less than three years. Qualifying start-ups will be subject to lighter take-down requirements. Although the aim of this is clearly to protect start-ups, the thresholds for qualification mean that emerging companies won't benefit from the lighter regime for long. Knowing that they could quickly become liable for infringement in the same way as YouTube and Facebook could become a significant hurdle for start-ups at a critical time in their expansion. The directive does not expressly set out a requirement for pre-emptive content filters, but stakeholders and commentators fear that it will effectively push service providers into implementing them to detect infringing content. The administrative cost of implementing such filters will presumably need to be borne by the service provider, and this gives the big tech companies (who have the resources to develop sophisticated technical solutions) a competitive advantage against smaller companies. And of course content filtering systems are far from perfect. For example, how will content filters identify copyright works that fall outside the infringement regime (e.g. parodies and works constituting a review), and how will content be managed where there is a dispute over ownership of the rights? Stakeholders have expressed concerns that the unintended consequence of the directive is that vast quantities of non-infringing content will be blocked from being uploaded, or indeed that consumers and content owners will be adversely affected because service providers may choose to limit or geo-block their content offerings to the EU. What's next for the tech companies? With the final text of the directive now locked in place, is this the end of the road for the tech industry's lobbying efforts? Probably not. Stakeholders and lobbyists (such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation) have been quick to highlight the lingering ambiguity in the directive. For example, there is still no clarity on what constitutes "best efforts" for the purposes of Article 17, and the practical and technical implications of compliance remain far from clear. The provisions will not come into force until they are enacted into national law by the member states, but there is one last opportunity for stakeholders to affect how the directive will be interpreted. The directive stipulates that the Commission is required to issue guidance on the implementation and application of the measures that are required to be put in place by service providers. The guidance will not be binding on the CJEU, but it will no doubt be highly persuasive and is likely to set the bar for what will constitute the "high industry standard". The timetable for the Commission to publish the guidance is not clear from the directive, although it is mandated that the Commission shall first enter into stakeholder dialogues to discuss best practices for cooperation. This represents what must be the last opportunity for stakeholders to shape the discussion around how the directive will be interpreted in practice. We expect that service providers will apply significant pressure on the Commission to avoid a technically onerous interpretation of Article 17. The impact of Brexit With Brexit now unlikely to take place before Halloween this year (October 31), questions remain over whether the directive will ever be implemented into national law in the UK. Under the terms of the "deal" as currently proposed, all EU legislation will have to be transposed into UK law. However, if the UK leaves the EU with no deal in place, then there is currently no strict obligation on the UK to transpose EU law into national law. Of course, it remains open to the UK government to adopt the law regardless of the UK's status within the EU. Charlie Winckworth Andrew Linch Charlie Winckworth is a partner and Andrew Linch is an associate at the London office of Cooley. The material on this site is for law firms, companies and other IP specialists. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Notice before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws. 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs. Share this article The saga is nearing its end: Barcelona must decide on Griezmann FC Barcelona Not everyone wants him at the Camp Nou Time is a healer and so it has proven at Barcelona, where minds are opening again to the possibility of signing Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid. The Catalans' humiliation at Anfield was a key factor in their opinion changing, and signing the Frenchman is something that is seriously being considered at the Camp Nou, despite his public refusal to move last summer, a decision that left many at the club frustrated. A year ago, the players were excited about him moving to the club, but the decision to turn them down in the manner that Griezmann chose put some noses out of joint and the squad aren't quite as enthused as they once were. The debate is nearing its end now, though, and Barcelona have to make a final decision regarding his signing. There hasn't been any official movement yet, and their objective for the immediate future is still winning their ninth double by securing the Copa del Rey on May 25. There will come a time when they need to define their position and be clear about how to finance any moves they are to make. Their resources aren't unlimited, and this isn't just a minor issue. The obvious solution is selling players, with Philippe Coutinho looking set to be one of those placed in the shop window. Laporta: The price tag for Griezmann is too much and Barcelona's fans don't want him FC Barcelona Disagrees with the Frenchman's possible arrival Former Barcelona president Joan Laporta has expressed his unease with the potential arrival of Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann at the Camp Nou. Laporta has indicated that the Frenchman is overpriced, and that the Catalan club's supporters do not approve of his move to Barcelona. "I think that most of the fans don't want him and also, because of his price tag, which I think is exaggerated," said Laporta. "I think there are other players with a great impact that could perfectly do what Griezmann can do at Barcelona. "If he comes we, all the Catalans will be the first to encourage him, as has happened with all the players who have come." A few days ago, Laporta claimed that he is willing to run to once again become Barcelona president, with elections provisionally scheduled for 2021. Atletico Madrid to enter the market with 183 million euros in hand LaLiga Sales of Griezmann, Lucas and Vietto bolster the budget Atletico Madrid have plenty of rebuilding to do this summer but will enter the market with a big budget thanks to a number of big sales, including the impending departure of Antoine Griezmann. Six weeks before the summer transfer window officially opens, Los Rojiblancos already know that they will receive some 207 million euros in their account. Griezmann will leave the club for no less than his 120-million-euro release clause, 24 million euros of which would go to Real Sociedad who hold a 20 percent stake in his next move. The other big departure is that of Lucas Hernandez who is joining Bayern Munich for a free of 80 million euros, while Sporting Lisbon will pay 7.5 million euros for 50 percent of Luciano Vietto's rights. Diego Godin and Juanfran will leave the club on free transfers, which will free up a fair chunk of wages. Gelson Martins is believed to be set for a permanent switch to AS Monaco which will add to the club's coffers. The challenge for Atletico is to find suitable replacements for Griezmann and Lucas who are two of the best in Europe in their respective positions. On the positive side, there is certainly no shortage of cash to be able to lure players of the highest quality to the Wanda Metropolitano. Having to rebuild his team every season is not something new for Diego Simeone. In his first year as Rojiblancos boss he saw Sergio Aguero leave for Manchester City. Radamel Falcao then did the same, departing for AS Monaco before Diego Costa and Filipe Luis went to Chelsea. Now, with Griezmann set to leave on a club record fee, Simeone will have to once again use all of his expertise to redevelop an Atletico side capable of challenging on all fronts. They were gathered at a half-dozen tables in a small room at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, munching on boxed lunches but really trying to digest a much bigger concept, one on which some of them have been chewing for decades. We need to change the headlines in the newspaper and the statistics in our community, said Ann Gibson of Drug Free MHC, the coalition trying to rid Martinsville and Henry County of its deadliest problem. Her words were delivered to about 20 people whose goal was to brainstorm ideas to improve how available services and programs are communicated to those who need it most: the thousands who daily battle an addiction to narcotics or, worse, who have lost loved ones to an overdose of them. The headlines to which Gibson referred were recent data from the County Health Report and the Virginia Department of Healths Office of Chief Medical Examiner that stated in harsh and stark numbers that opioids are the biggest unnatural killer in the city and county and that nowhere in Virginia is this a bigger problem. About half the nearly 2-hour, midday meeting was to understand more about this problem. The deadly numbers of addictions, overdose and death werent repeated, but, rather, presenters delivered information and resources that could feed the conversation and lead to that silver bullet: the one idea that could save a life, turn a trend, reverse negative momentum in the city, the county and, really, the region. Sharon Buckman of Piedmont Community Services talked about medication-assisted treatment, which she said was controversial in some circles because it involved using one drug to combat the effects of others. Buckman, who said she has fought effects of drug addiction since the 1980s, when it was considered quite differently, talked about the various stages of drug treatment and explained the physiology of the brain, which is where the medication-assisted idea enters the discussion. She described a problem in need of various solutions. Its not uncommon to have several levels of treatment before they [addicts] get to abstinence, she said. She talked about how relapse happens at many stops along the treatment cycle and how medication can be used to counter the artificial impulses from neurotransmitters in the brain that narcotics emulate and fool us into thinking that impulse is something good. If thats a little too much science class, consider that Buckman said a combination of counseling, medication to counteract withdrawal and cravings and even medical devices are employed along that treatment spectrum. Medical-assisted treatment reduces drug-seeking and related criminal behavior and allows [the addict] to become more open to treatment, she said, stressing the word assisted. But, as with all the addictions alcohol and tobacco were mentioned alongside the headliner drugs there are many steps for a group such as this to find purchase in its ongoing fight. The answers arent simple and require many approaches. Drug Free MHC has entered into a 2-year research project with Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth to gather data and develop a community-wide action plan to address addiction and its reach. Committee chair Courtnaye Mills reported that researchers should deliver a list of strategies and policies by the week of June 12, to which the others responded positively. She highlighted information gathered from a series of recently staged focus groups in the county, which delineated input along several broad topics, such as facilities (more needed, including a rehab center) to public relations (media campaigns), to parenting advice and even to ensure activities are staged for families and children. But one very notable point, Mills said, is that the focus groups at times suggested ideas that already were in place. Sometimes they already were started, and they [focus groups] didnt even know it, she said. Which was kind of the overriding goal of this session, to brainstorm ways to communicate services and opportunities into effective formats and approaches that would be available to addicts and users when they most are needed. Bonnie Favero of Piedmont Community Services passed around samples of brochures, business cards (one had about two dozen numbers on it) and other forms of media, but the mandate is for these resources to be in the hands of those who need them and the hands that deal with those who need them. Some of the individuals highlighted in discussions, such as veterans, students or anyone else, can call 276-638-PEER, but not everyone in the room appeared to know about that number until Mills told them and then wrote it on a piece of poster paper taped to the wall. Perhaps that was the ultimate reinforcement to how Gibson summarized the brainstorming: How to make this work for everyone. A 71-year-old North Andover woman was charged in federal court with offering illegal silicone injections to people for cash, including services for buttocks enhancement and facial injections, authorities said. Gladys Araceli Ceron, 71, was charged with one count of delivery for pay of an adulterated or misbranded device received in interstate commerce. She will appear in a Boston federal court Wednesday afternoon. Investigators said Ceron, who operated her business in Lawrence, has been obtaining gluteal material from a source in Florida for over eight years. Authorities executed a search warrant at her home in 2016 and seized plastic bottles of suspected cosmetic silicone fillers. Lab tests subsequently confirmed that those fillers contained silicone oil, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns can travel through blood vessels and cause a stroke, death or permanent disfigurement, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office. One person interviewed by investigators said they had Ceron perform cosmetic injections in the face. The material used hardened in the persons face, authorities said. The arrest in Massachusetts in connection with a search conducted by federal investigators in Florida on May 25, 2016, according to federal records. When authorities seized unlicensed cosmetic products, cosmetic silicone fillers, drugs, needles and syringes at a Delray Beach, Florida home, they discovered copies of shipping labels to Lawrence, Massachusetts, records show. Maximillian Pagano, special agent for the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, said in the federal affidavit that a confidential witness then helped authorities investigate Ceron. The cooperating witness does not have American citizenship nor lawful permanent resident status, but was granted a postponement of deportation by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in exchange for helping authorities with investigations, the special agent wrote. In 2018, a cooperating witness working with federal agents began making recorded phone calls to Ceron in order to arrange for buttock enhancing and facial injections, the U.S. Attorneys Office said. During a recorded meeting on May 24, 2018, Ceron allegedly told the cooperating witness that she charges $500 for buttock injections and $60 for each wrinkle-filling injection. Ceron, according to federal records, worked out of 17 Grafton St. in Lawrence. On May 24, 2018, the confidential witness met Ceron at the address. The meeting was recorded with a hidden video camera. Ceron took the witness to the third-floor attic of the building, records said. The attic consisted of a lounge area furnished with a television, sofa and chairs, Pagano wrote. Ceron led the CW to a back room which contained an examination table and two tables on which sat numerous vials of what appeared to be injectable drugs and devices, boxes of syringes, alcohol, cotton balls, examination gloves and other containers. Ceron allegedly told the witness that she had been performing buttocks enhancements and wrinkle filling facial injections for 15 years. Authorities said Ceron is not licensed by the state as a medical doctor nor as a licensed nurse or pharmacist. When Ceron spoke with investigators in June 2018, she told them the material in the bottles used for the gluteal injections probably is silicone. AAA predicts that more folks will hit the road for Memorial Day weekend this year than any year since 2005. The auto club announced results from its regular traffic survey 42.7 million Americans plan to travel by car, air, rail or boat, during the unofficial kickoff to summer. Thats a 3.6% increase from 2018. There will be 1.93 million New Englanders traveling, a 3.7% increase from 2018. From Massachusetts alone, nearly 1 million people will travel over Memorial Day, a 3.8 percent increase. "Travel is on the rise, especially in Massachusetts," said Sandra Marsian vice president of membership, travel and marketing for AAA Pioneer Valley in West Springfield. ""We are seeing a significant increase in air travel for this long holiday weekend." Airlines will see 3.25 million Americans for Memorial Day, up 84.9%. In New England, 154,000 travelers plan to fly, an increase of 4.49 percent. Air travel from Massachusetts will be up 5 percent to 80,000. Most people plan to go by car 908,125 in Massachusetts, an increase of 3.8 percent. Motorists will pay less at the pump. AAAs weekly gas price survey says Americans are seeing the biggest average decline in gas prices in three months. This is the first time in three months gas prices have shown consistent signs of declining, said Jeanette Casselano, AAA spokesperson in a statement. However, there are many factors that could quickly push up prices in the coming weeks, including the impact of Chinese tariffs, weather, a major draw in gasoline stock levels, a spike in demand or the volume of Memorial Day weekend travel. Pump price movements this week will indicate if motorists will continue to see cheaper gas prices or if this was just a one-week fad. The national average down three cents on the week to $2.86. That's average is four cents cheaper than last month and the same price as one year ago. In fact, 25 states have gas price averages that are just a nickel or less expensive than this time last year, AAA said. Pump Prices Stabilizing as National Average Sees Largest Weekly Decline in Three Months https://t.co/n6zaY6QKN8 AAA (@AAAnews) May 13, 2019 In Greater Springfield, a gallon of regular averages $2.80, up from $259 a month ago but 7 cents less than the $2.87 recorded this time last year. The statewide average is $2.85 a gallon, up from $2.65 a month ago . But gas is cheaper than the $2.88 average from a year ago. Nationally, the cheapest paces to buy gas are: Alabama ($2.48), Louisiana ($2.49), Mississippi ($2.49), South Carolina ($2.49), Arkansas ($2.53) Oklahoma ($2.57), Texas ($2.57), Tennessee ($2.57), Missouri ($2.58) and Virginia ($2.61). A Boston police officer was hit by a car while chasing a suspect in Jamaica Plain Wednesday, police said. The officer, who is not being identified at this time, was hit near 3084 Washington St. He was chasing a suspect with outstanding warrants at 10:36 a.m. when he was hit by the car, Sgt. John Boyle, a spokesman for the Boston police said. The suspect involved in the chase, who police also declined to identify, has been arrested. The officers injuries are not considered to be life-threatening, police said. Years before his death, James Whitey Bulger sent a letter from prison to a friend in Massachusetts discussing his declining health and claims he never killed a woman. The infamous mobster who led the Winter Hill Gang in South Boston for decades was accused of being involved in 19 killings, including the killing of two women. Following a two-months long federal trial in Boston, a jury convicted Bulger, holding him responsible for the murder of 11 people, as well as extortion, money laundering, drug dealing and gun possession. Bulger was sentenced to life in 2013. Bulger played a role in the murder of Deborah Hussey, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office in Massachusetts. The letter, which is being auctioned by Lelands and has a starting bid of $300, was sent to one of Bulgers friends in November 2011. The friend, Chris Duett, was living in Brockton. Want you to know - I never killed any women, Bulger wrote. Bulger was being held in the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts when he sent the letter. In the letter, Bulger claims his health was declining. came in here healthy, but isolation from people, little (being) up on feet, etc. is slowly wearing me down, he wrote. Also affecting my mind - in time I give it a year, it's over. By then the family can accept it easier... But I'll never kill myself. Bulger, who began an FBI informant at one time, detailed his criminal life, his life on the run and problems in prison. Any one who testified against me was given deals 14 years ago and lied, the mobster wrote. He also wrote that he and his companion, Catherine Greig, lived a normal life while on the run. They went out for walks daily and never looked over their shoulders. Live till you die and thats the story, Bulger wrote. In late 1994, upon learning of his impending indictment, Bulger fled Massachusetts. He was caught in June 2011 along with Craig in California after 16 years on the run. Greig was convicted of conspiracy to harbor a fugitive and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Bulger was in federal prison after his sentencing. He eventually was transferred to the U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in West Virginia in October 2018. He was found dead at 8:21 a.m. on Oct. 30, 2018, less than 24 hours after arriving there. He was 89 years old. Bulgers death certificate shows he died of blunt force trauma and was assaulted by others in his prison cell. Other known mobsters being held at the facility were being eyed in the killing, but to date, no one has been charged. One of those men is Freddy Geas, a mob hitman from West Springfield, Massachusetts. A batch of letters written by Bulger and provided to the Boston Globe discussed his eight heart attacks and how he wanted to live long enough to see Greig again. A California man pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Boston federal court to threatening to kill Boston Globe employees, prosecutors said. Robert Chain, 68, of Encino, CAlifornia, pleaded guilty to seven counts of making threatening communications in interstate commerce, according to a news release from the U.S. District Attorneys Office. His sentencing is set for Sept. 23. The threats were in response to the Globes announcement on Aug. 10, 2018, that it wanted other newspaper publications around the country to publish an editorial response to political attacks on the media. More than 300 publications joined the coordinated response six days later, including New York Times, Denver Post, Chicago Sun-Times, the Philadelphia Enquirer and The Republican. Prosecutors said Chain made 14 phone calls to the Globe between Aug. 10 and Aug. 22, referring to the publication as the enemy of the people and threatening to kill newspaper employees. The day the editorials ran, Chain called the newsroom and threatened to shoot Globe employees in the head later today at 4 oclock. The staff called the police and officers stood outside the building to protect the employees. He is anxious to make a full, public apology, expressing his sincere remorse to those he affected, his attorney, William Weinreb, wrote in an email to the Globe earlier this year. The charges carry a sentence of up to five years, one year of supervision and a $250,000 fine. SPRINGFIELD Chinese-owned CRRC MA has been lauded for creating 158 jobs here as it builds Orange Line subway cars for the T and prepares to work on Red Line cars later this year. In Washington, where another CRRC division is among the bidders on a $500 million contract to build cars for the DC area, opponents say the rail giant is using Chinese government money to underbid competitors and stifle competition. Further, they argue, CRRC may even pose a security threat if the DC metro cars are used to monitor who goes where in the nations capital. "Is it the most elegant way to spy on someone, no," said Erik Olson, vice president of the Rail Security Alliance, a group of other rail -car makers and suppliers opposed to the rise of CRRC. The Rail Security Alliance formed three years ago as its members either competitors to CRRC or companies that supply competitors saw CRRC moving aggressively into the U.S. market. What if there is a camera on the car, or cyber hacking gear, Olson asks. You can spy on people in a lot of ways. A transit car is a great tracking tool. People travel on them regularly, Olson said this week in a telephone interview. Its a lot of data they can capture. Om Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Illinois, said in Chicago there that the CRRC cars might pose a security threat and that hes been told by military authorities that they dont want the cars servicing the Pentagon subway stop. The House Transportation Committee will have a full-committee hearing Thursday on The Impacts of State-Owned Enterprises on Public Transit and Freight Rail Sectors. U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-South Boston, is the only Massachusetts House member on the committee. U.S. Rep. Richard E . Neal, D-Springfield, has been supportive of CRRC over the years. His office didn't return an email seeking comment this week. CRRC MA is continuing to work building cars, said spokeswoman Lydia Rivera. "Progress continues," Rivera said. "Things are going as scheduled." Ride along on the new MBTA cars made by CRRC Posted by MassLive on Tuesday, December 18, 2018 But the company is taking the issue seriously. It's hired a new lobbyist and CRRC is planning to host its own rail and cybersecurity event with experts in the field in a roundtable discussion. The security event will be in the summer. "We want to be part of the solution, we want to continue in the United states in a fair, competitive process," she said. In 2014, CRRC received a $566 million contract from the MBTA to build 152 Orange Line cars and 252 Red Line cars in Springfield. In December 2016, the state upped the order with another 120 new Red Line cars, with production on those set to begin in June 2022 at a cost of $277 million. Production on the initial Red Line car order begins later this year. The T went without federal funding on the project so it could require that the cars be assembled in Massachusetts and jumpstart a transit-car industry here. That requirement set off a competition with multiple manufacturers and multiple sites, including others in Springfield. CRRC subsequently signed deals to make double-decker passenger rail cars for Philadelphia and subway cars for Los Angeles, here. The DC cars would be made in Chicago. CRRC built a $95 million Springfield factory at the old Westinghouse site on Page Boulevard. CRRC brings in the car shells from China and assembles everything, undercarriage, motors, wiring, interiors, control equipment, here in Springfield. Each Red or Orange line car costs $2.5 million. According to a presentation MBTA management made to board members earlier this month, CRRC has delivered seven Orange line "married pairs" that is 14 cars, to the T and those cars are being tested now. Prototype Red line cars made in China are undergoing tests now as well. In Springfield, 60 percent of the car components are US-made, River said. In Chicago, its 70 percent. "We do what we are required to do by the transit agencies we serve," Rivera said. "We comply with our client's requirements." There are no US-based companies in the passenger rail and transit car business. But Olson said CRRCs competitors typically have more employees than CRRC. And when SEPTA in Philadelphia gave the contract to CRRC, Hyundai closed its factory in Philadelphia that it had built to satisfy an earlier SEPTA contract. "That's 300 jobs right there," he said. "We know that Springfield is hungry for manufacturing jobs. It wants to be a manufacturing center and it should be. But we have to look at the net effect across the whole country." CRRC is also dealing with the ongoing trade war. Earlier this year, the Trump administration turned down CRRC's request for 16 separate exemptions from the 25-percent import tariffs slapped this summer on rail car components the company uses here in Springfield to build cars for the MBTA. Then last week, Trump raised tariffs on $200 million of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%. The imposition of these new tariffs on the components continues to significantly increase CRRCs cost to supply rail car vehicles, Rivera said. These tariffs will ultimately result in extensive cost transfer to riders, companies providing goods and services to the manufacturing operations, and will negatively impact long term job creation. These tariffs do not promote American jobs. Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the T, said its the MBTAs position that the contract between the Authority and CRRC MA for new rail cars is such that CRRC MA is responsible for any cost implications associated with changes in tariffs. Jim Lichoulas was 11 years old when he started helping his father and some friends restore the water turbines on their property into a hydroelectric power plant. The scrawny boy stared in awe as water rushed through a wooden wheel twice his size. It started with the curiosity of the mills themselves, the massive scale and the rust, he said. That curiosity nagged Lichoulas two decades later when he revisited the vacant fourth and fifth floors of Mill No. 5, the familys remaining claim to the Appleton Mills complex in Lowell. His father, James Lichoulas Jr., had just lost seven acres of the complex in a very public, years-long eminent domain fight against the city. The younger Lichoulas, then 36, planned to convert Mill No. 5 into condominiums, but the recession hit. Instead, he pitched what seemed like a crazy idea. The meatpacking district in New York City saw Chelsea Market spring from the ashes of Nabiscos factory building after developer Irwin Cohen bought it for $10 million. Tourists from all around the world flocked to the food halls restaurants, tea shops, bakeries and clothing boutiques. Why couldnt that be done in Lowell? A streetscape inside a building with a movie theater? No, thats not going to happen, Lichoulas, now 46, recalled hearing. We had to build it in order for people to believe it." Jim Lichoulas is the brainchild behind Mill No. 5 on Jackson Street in Lowell. *** Dave Perry had heard it all before. The former Lowell Sun reporter had heard city officials and entrepreneurs propose a number of redevelopment projects they hoped would transform Lowell, from the Tsongas arena that had $20 million in state funding to the Edward A. LeLacheur Park and its team and the Lowell Spinners to the ongoing Hamilton Canal Innovation District initiative that includes a piece of the Appleton Mills complex. It was successful, but not revolutionary. Lowell did a lot of things over the years and tried a lot of things over the years, Perry said. Perry first heard about the mill renovations nine years ago. He was selling vinyl records at music fairs, hoping to shrink his massive record collection at home. An ex-colleague told him about Lichoulas plans. I heard from a person I used to work with at the Lowell Sun that there was this place -- this new, cool, sort of magical, whimsical place -- that was going to be happening in Lowell, Perry said. First of all, that was so incongruous. Perry and his wife stopped by the mill. They found a skeleton of storefronts built over the thick, wooden walls and piles of lumber nearby. Lichoulas told him his vision for his own Main Street indoors, how he was funding it himself. The idea felt new, and the rent was cheap -- he wouldnt say how much. Perry was sold. In 2013, Perry and his son moved stacks of records from their garage to an empty storefront at Mill No. 5. They called it Vinyl Destination. I had sold records sort of casually at record fairs and things. It was something I liked to do, keep the good stuff and unload the lousier stuff, he said, but this suddenly became something that meant something. It became part of my identification. Dave Perry, owner of Vinyl Destination, a record store selling vinyl LPs, EPs and singles. *** Historians across the country have chronicled how Lowell, the birthplace of the American industrial revolution, has changed with each ebb and flow of the nations economy. Most know about the textile industrys decline in the early 20th century and its brief resurgence during World War II. Wang Laboratories, a leading computer company that brought new jobs to the city in the mid-1970s, met the same fate in the late 1980s, decimating its staff before ceasing operations altogether. While Lowell National Park was established in 1978 to preserve the manufacturing citys history, many of the mills and boarding houses had been demolished a decade earlier in the name of urban renewal. The Appleton Mills were still up when Lichoulas grandfather, James James Lichoulas Sr., bought one million square feet of property on the complex in 1975. Lichoulas father, James Lichoulas Jr., devised a plan to transform the vacant, dilapidated buildings into market-rate apartments and a hydroelectric power plant. He secured a federal license in 1986 and with help from millwrights David, Luke and Seth Wright, he got the Appleton Trust Projects turbines running. Then, in 1996, the turbines broke down. No amount of screws or epoxy coating seemed to fix them. The problems at the complex snowballed. A fire swept the complex in 1997, destroying much of the property. James Lichoulas Jr. demolished several buildings that were deemed fire hazards and exposed asbestos. The turbines sat inactive as he tried to remediate the property, frustrating federal regulators. City officials took an interest in the Appleton Mill complex as they planned the Hamilton Canal Innovation District redevelopment project. In 2006, then-city manager John Cox agreed to gives James Lichoulas Sr. a 30-year entitlement to 300 parking spaces in the public parking garage on Middlesex Street in exchange for seven acres of the complex, the Sun reported at the time. The Lowell City Council rejected the deal. The deal was reportedly one of several disagreements that prompted council members to ask Cox to step down two months later. The council took the seven-acre tract through eminent domain, paying him $2.5 million. James Lichoulas Jr. fought the city every step of the way, but eventually he lost the federal energy license and the land. The city cut a deal with him in 2011, paying another $1.3 million for the land, according to Sun archives. City officials didnt respond to calls seeking comment. The youngest Lichoulas saw his fathers dream gutted as Trinity Financial, the Boston development firm selected for the project, constructed market-rate apartments and artist lofts. Nothing drives me crazy more than things being destroyed, he said, something old and beautiful getting destroyed in the name of something clean and antiseptic and new. *** Scenes from Mill No. 5 in Lowell on a Sunday. Mill No. 5, which dates back to 1873, became the oldest surviving mill -- and the familys last remaining building on the property. Lichoulas could have sold his familys land. He could have waited out the recession and converted the building into condos, making a killing. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. A charter school rented out the bottom floors, but Lichoulas started renovating the fourth and fifth floors. Signs of promise cropped up downtown: Western Avenue Studios lofts were leasing space to dozens of artists and the Life Alive organic cafe, had a line of customers out the door. Mill No. 5 opened in summer 2013 with a couple of storefronts, including Vinyl Destination. Coffee and Cotton and the Luna Theater followed a year later. The coffee shop mostly sold espresso and the movie theater was just a projector with a popcorn machine and a candy counter. Artists, musicians and some developers started to take notice. I love what hes done over there. Its very different," said Carl Frey, who now has more than 300 artists leasing space in Western Avenue Studios. Many of them sell their art at the mills Saturday bazaars. Lichoulas collected all sorts of beams, walls and furniture from crumbling buildings and installed them in the mill. The stained glass windows by the staircase and the red velvet chairs in the Luna Theater were salvaged. Inside the Luna Theater at Mill No. 5. The balcony he installed last year came from the auditorium of the Royal Theatre on Merrimack Street, which was demolished. Lichoulas paid the developer so he and a friend could salvage pieces of the stage and haul it off in a pickup truck. I try to get the Lowell stuff because thats part of the theme, things that are disregarded, he said. If I can save it for Lowell, thats great. If I can save it from someplace else, thats good too, but thats second choice. *** Lichoulas mark is all over the mill, from the restored soda fountain that serves up a mix of milkshakes and sodas (including a Moxie recipe made from scratch), to the Jack White playlist at the coffee shop. But the artists and creatives the mill caters to have brought their own brand of weird to the environment. Some exchange taxidermied animals and dark prints at the bazaar one weekend, and dress up like wizards for a Harry Potter inspired festival at the mill the next. Others flock to the Luna Theater for Weirdo Wednesday to watch a horror movie selected by filmmaker Rob Fitz. He came up with the idea after watching a movie at the theater and talking with Amelia Tucker, the theater director. Down the hall, customers order craft beer and lattes at Coffee and Cotton. Students pull out their laptops and study. An artist often sits at the counter for hours, sketching a graphic novel on her tablet. We have a wonderful, eclectic collection of regulars, said Addie Farrick, general manager of the coffee shop. This is such a spot for camping out and either doing art, doing journaling, doing work. Six years after it opened, Vinyl Destination sits in a larger, corner store by the entrance. Perry takes pride in its diverse clientele, from young adults sifting through the contemporary $1 records to the 50-year-old mom who buys a copy of Fleetwood Macs rumors because she sold off her copy decades ago. Thats the biggest selling record, by the way. Thats a 40-year-old record, he added, and its like, I would have thought it would be something a little more edgy maybe. By edgy, he means Velvet Underground. Perry takes pride in the diverse clientele. He resents the stereotype of the elitist record store owner who judges customers, like Barry (Jack Black) in High Fidelity, who insulted a middle-aged man in a suit for offend[ing] me with his terrible taste. As much as I love that movie and that store holy s---, I love that store this is a very different thing, he said. I love talking to people about music, thats been my conversation for 50 years. *** None of this was supposed to happen. Lichoulas father never meant to lose the power plant or the other buildings. Lichoulas himself never envisioned he would create an eclectic indoor streetscape at a time when his family and the city were at odds. In New York City, Irwin Cohen spent $10 million on the former Nabisco factory in the 1990s and then tens of millions more to buy the other half of the building. He wasnt fighting with the city, but he stuck out as other developers partnered with big box retailers and built skyscrapers across the city. You need somebody with a vision every once in a while to do things differently, to break out of a mold, said Jonathan Bowles, director of the think tank NYC Future. He interviewed Cohen in 2004, asking what Chelsea Markets success could mean for other business across the city. Irwin Cohen, he put his own money in there ,but he did his homework, Bowles said. It wasnt just some crazy idea. He had a lot of thought that went behind this. Lichoulas wont say how much hes spent on Mill No. 5, but hes lost money over the past five years. He hopes to break even in the next year, but it helps that he doesnt have a bank loan. This is the most challenging thing Ive ever done, he said. Every day you question why youre doing it. Id have a much easier life without it, but I love the city. Scenes from Mill No. 5 in Lowell on a Sunday. In the parcels surrounding Mill No. 5, Lowell is starting to see the fruits of its redevelopment initiative. Trinity Financial, a Boston-based development firm, spent an estimated $64 million restoring the Appleton Mills into 130 affordable apartments geared to middle- and low-income creatives. The project at 110 Canal St. is complete and now the UMass Innovation Hub. The seven-floor Lowell Justice Center, led by Trinity Financial before the company pulled out of the project, is under construction at the southern end of the Hamilton Canal District. The success of Chelsea Market and similar ventures doesnt mean cities should entirely write off public-private partnerships either, Bowles said. But Chelsea Market worked because someone like Cohen was willing to buck the trend and experiment with an experience-based, assortment of small businesses. Lichoulas now splits his time between Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., where his child attends school. Hes still tinkering with filling the remaining open spaces on the mills fifth floor. It could fit an escape room or an alternative bookstore. In the meantime, he said, he takes comfort in seeing new people ride the elevator up to his market for the first time. I love that curiosity and confusion people have for a moment when they walk in, he said. Thats a big payoff. Holyoke Holyoke Community College is pleased to welcome Lea Occhialini of East Longmeadow as its first ombudsperson and chief culture officer. Occhialini is the former faculty and staff ombudsperson at Hampshire College and mediator/trainer in the Smith College Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity. Prior to that, she worked as a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court qualified mediator for the Mediation and Training Collaborative in Greenfield and helped oversee the Massachusetts Attorney Generals Face-to-Face mediation program in Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield small claims courts. The ombudsperson/chief culture officer position is new at HCC. Occhialini has worked in the mediation field since 2013. She started at HCC March 4. Occhialini holds a bachelors degree from Smith College, a law degree from American Universitys Washington College School of Law, and a certificate in the foundations of organizational ombudsman practice from the International Ombudsman Association. She grew up in western Massachusetts and now lives in East Longmeadow. SPRINGFIELD Yemisi Oloruntola-Coates, Baystate Healths chief diversity and inclusion officer, will be the keynote speaker for the joint graduation ceremony the Womens Fund of Western Massachusetts is holding for two of its programs. The ceremony for graduates of the Young Womens Initiative as well as for women graduating from the Leadership Institute for Political and Public Impact, both nine-month programs, will be held Tuesday, June 4, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Springfield Colleges Fuller Arts Center, 243 Hickory St. Springfield area women, ages 12 through 24, selected to take part in YWI are taught leadership and other skills and explore systemic barriers to success in a city where it is said a majority of residents are people of color, more than 30 percent of them are under 20 years old and that single mothers head two out of every five families. It is part of the National Philanthropic Collaborative of Young Womens Initiatives, and one of eight such programs in the country. This is the WFWMs program second graduating classes, and during this years ceremony graduates will share their recommendations for more equitable dress codes, better life skills education and more support around mental health issues, three areas that they elected as their programs focus of study this year. More than 280 women have graduated from LIPPI since 2010. Its program is designed to prepare more women to become involved as civic leaders and to impact policy on the local, state and national levels. Previous graduates have included Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper, class of 2013, and Attorney Amatul-Wadud who challenged incumbent Rep. Richard Neal in the 2018 Democratic primary to represent the state's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. Congress. Nigerian-born Oloruntola-Coates, who came to this country at age 7 with her parents, holds an undergraduate degree in speech communication and American literature from New Yorks Hofstra University and a master of arts degree in mass communication with a concentration in global strategic management and international relations from the University of Florida. She was a Fulbright-Hays fellow in West Africa, during which she studied international relations focusing on monetary unions, economic stability and Yoruba culture, and taught English in Japan for three years. Prior to joining Baystate in November 2018, she served as system director of diversity and patient care civil rights at Lee Health in Fort Myers, Fla. Performance vocalist Alanna Alston, a student at Central High School in Springfield, will open the ceremony. Registration for attending the event is requested. SPRINGFIELD-- Its time to stuff a bus with food for people in the area who are food insecure. This years 6th annual Stuff-A-Bus for Open Pantry Community Services is scheduled for May 24 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Stop & Shop, 1600 Boston Road, Springfield. The Springfield Thunderbirds mascot, Boomer, will join the festivities at about 5 p.m. Non-perishable items needed include canned fruits and vegetables, canned meats, pasta, rice, cereal, peanut butter, tuna, spaghetti sauce, baby food and meal helpers. Cummins Inc. is hosting the event. The Mission of Cummins is to make peoples lives better by powering a more prosperous world. As a global company, we encourage our employees to get involved within the communities where they work and live. We want communities to be better because Cummins is there, said Kerry S Wilbois, operations excellence leader for the East region. Cummins believes that our long-term survival is as dependent upon responsible citizenship in our communities and in society as it is on technology, financial and production performance. Cummins, with global headquarters in Columbus, Indiana, chose to support Open Pantry because it provides several programs that assist people who are hungry, homeless or disadvantaged to improve the quality of their lives with dignity and humanity. Society and people in general must be able to meet the most basic of physiological needs before they can strive to achieve more advanced goals, Wilbois said. By helping Open Pantry, Cummins is able to help provide equality of opportunity to members of our community through some of the most challenging times in their lives. Open Pantrys emergency food pantry has benefited from Stuff-A-bus for several years. The food donated helps ensure that we have enough food for families and individuals who are in need of supplemental food support. Food insecurity is a major concern in the City of Springfield and surrounding areas, therefore this food drive is a big help to us, said Annie (Nia) Rennix, Open Pantry director of programs. Having enough food to give out to families during the summer months can be challenging for food pantries. Stuff-A-Bus comes at a great time because it is right before school summer break, which is one of the busiest times for us. During the last fiscal year, Open Pantry distributed 935,994 pounds of food to people in Springfield and surrounding areas. Over the last seven years, Stuff-A-Bus has brought in more than 30,000 pounds of food. This year organizers hope to exceed last years numbers and bring in some 5,000 pounds of food. Open Pantrys emergency food pantry provides food to an average of 70 individuals and 150 families daily. We are so thrilled and grateful that a national company would take the time out of their busy schedule to coordinate a food drive of this magnitude, Rennix said. Rarely, do you see companies step up and bring awareness to a cause such as food insecurity as well as highlight the services and work being done at a local community non-profit agency. The food that is collected and donated is always appreciated by the clients we serve. For the last six years, Cummins has partnered with Peter Pan Bus Lines and Stop & Shop grocery stores to have the annual Stuff-A-Bus Food Drive for Springfields Open Pantry. The event is staffed entirely by Cummins employees and their families, collecting non-perishable food items into an old-fashioned double-decker bus. The food is then transported to Open Pantry for distribution to qualifying clients. Open Pantry regularly receives support from schools, civic organization, churches, local businesses and corporations that coordinate food drives and have fundraisers for monetary donations. The team and I are fortunate enough to see the faces of families, individuals and kids we help every day, and there is no greater feeling than to know that you have changed someones life in a small way for the better, Rennix said. Sometimes as a society we can get lost in our own worlds and forget that there are individuals who do not know where their next meal will come from. For more information, call 413-737-5354. IF YOU GO Event: Stuff-A-Bus When: May 24, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Where: Stop & Shop, 1600 Boston Road, Springfield Benefits: Open Pantry Community Services Inc. For more information: Call 413-737-5354 SPRINGFIELD A man who police say started an April 14 fight outside a State Street nightclub that erupted into a shoot-out, injuring two people including a Springfield police officer, was arrested Wednesday morning in Chicopee, police said. Police spokesman Ryan Walsh said the suspect, Hector Adorno, 33, was arrested just before 8 a.m. at 40 Abbey St. as Springfield and Chicopee police and a combination of state and federal law enforcement executed an arrest warrant. He was booked on a warrant charge, but police intend to charge him with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection with the April 14 disturbance outside Club Aquarius on State Street. In that disturbance, two Springfield police officers who were working a detail at the nightclub stepped outside for reports of some kind of trouble in the lot across the street. They found a man who was bleeding from the head after being hit by a bottle. As they treated that man, gunfire erupted from two directions and the officers were caught in the middle. Officer Edwin Irizarry was struck twice, in the left arm and left elbow. Police arrested at the scene one of the suspected shooters, Kenneth Jose Hernandez, of Dickinson Street. He is charged with two counts of assault with intent to murder with a firearm, assault with a dangerous weapon, and other charges. The other shooter remains at large. Walsh said that Springfield detectives, under the command of acting Deputy Chief Trent Duda, determined that Adorno had been at the scene and instigated a physical disturbance in the lot and that led to shots being fired. Walsh said Adorno struck Hernandez early in the disturbance. Police also arrested two women, Jesmillie Perez, 29, and Kathyana Lugo, 29, both of Springfield. Each was present after the disturbance and spoke with officers at the scene. Each is accused of intentionally misleading investigators about what they saw, Walsh said. Perez was arrested on warrant charges at around 8 a.m. on Massasoit Street, while Lugo surrendered herself at Springfield District Court. Each will be charged with intimidating a witness, juror, police or court official. CHICOPEE -- Police are asking for help to find a 72-year-old man who has been missing from the Fairview area since Tuesday morning. Alan Perry is about 5 feet, 11 inches tall, has gray hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a denim jacket and blue jeans, said Michael Wilk, police public information officer. He is driving a gray Ford F-150 pickup truck with a Massachusetts plate 1ZDZ30, he said. Perry has medical issues, including dementia, and his family is concerned about his disappearance, he said. Anyone who sees Perry or his vehicle is asked to call 911 to report it, Wilk said. Ed Begley Jr.'s upcoming appearance at Springfield Symphony Hall on Wednesday, May 22, wont be the first visit to Western Massachusetts by the actor and activist. His Live Simply So Others May Simply Live presentation as part of this seasons Springfield Public Forum lecture series will focus on what it means to lead a sustainable life, something hes been doing for many years in California. His Symphony Hall appearance on May 22 begins at 6 p.m. The talk is free and open to the public and is sponsored by Columbia Gas. Back in 1998, Begley, the brother of former Springfield School Committee member Allene Begley Curto, drove his natural gas-powered car cross country to attend the wedding of niece Alicia Curto. At the time, he told The Republican the 1997 Ford Contour was his third preference for transportation, followed by a bicycle and an electric-powered car. His coast-to-coast trip took three days and eight hours. During that trip to Massachusetts, Begley also attended the state Democratic convention in Worcester and the opening of the Thoreau Institute at Walden Pond with President Bill and First Lady Hillary Clinton. For those who want to enjoy a post-event VIP dinner at MGM Springfield, the Forums season presenting sponsor, tickets are on sale via the forum website, springfieldpublicforum.org. BOSTON The woman said she was abused for years by her ex-husband, and he was arrested multiple times. He was also arrested for a violent offense against someone else. Yet he was released, threatened her, and was caught with butcher knives in his car planning to kill the woman and her family, she said at a legislative hearing Tuesday. The woman was one of several crime victims who testified before the Judiciary Committee on behalf of a bill filed by Gov. Charlie Baker that would expand the conditions under which a judge could hold a hearing to decide whether to hold someone as dangerous before their case goes to trial. Recent tragedies have demonstrated the tremendous damage that can result when our criminal justice system fails to identify and detain dangerous people charged with serious crimes, Baker said in testimony before the committee. The alarming frequency of these events confirms that the Commonwealth needs to do a better job of holding, until trial, defendants who pose a continuing danger to others. Baker first introduced the bill last September after the killings of three police officers, all allegedly by men with criminal histories. He refiled it this year in the new legislative session. But the bill, which would result in incarcerating more people, comes on the heels of a major criminal justice bill lawmakers passed a year ago, which aims to divert more people out of the criminal justice system. It is already raising concerns from people worried about the rights of offenders. We dont need this bill right now, said Randy Gioia, deputy chief counsel at the public defenders office. Last spring, we just passed a major criminal justice reform that emphasized diversion from the criminal justice system, rehabilitation of people. This bill is a step backwards because what this bill is trying to do is lock more people up for longer periods of time before trial. The bill would expand the offenses for which a judge could hold a hearing to deem someone dangerous, adding additional gun and weapon crimes, various sex offenses, child pornography, extortion, human trafficking, animal cruelty, threats to kill or rape and other crimes. The bill would also expand what a judge can look at when considering dangerousness. Today, a judge can only consider the crime a person is currently charged with. Bakers bill would let a judge consider their past criminal history. A judge would also be allowed for the first time to revoke a persons release solely because they violated a court-ordered condition. The bill would require someone who is considered dangerous to be held until the case is resolved, rather than for a limited time period. The bill would require the police to fingerprint everyone who is arrested, rather than just those arrested for a felony. The bill would let prosecutors, rather than just defense attorneys, appeal a judges ruling on bail. Public Safety Secretary Tom Turco and undersecretary for law enforcement Terrence Reidy testified alongside Baker. Reidy, a former prosecutor, recalled a case he prosecuted in Worcester in 2012 in which the police arrested a member of a violent white supremacist group for possessing 5,000 rounds of ammunition and nine large capacity magazines. But because the man did not have a weapon, prosecutors could not request a dangerousness hearing. Baker said as the state moves toward a system of using bail only to ensure someone returns to court, not to hold dangerous criminals, judges need better tools to determine dangerousness. Baker faced sharp questioning from committee members. Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Acton, questioned whether the bill would cause additional racial disparities in arrest and incarceration rates. Eldridge noted that children of color are twice as likely as white children to be detained for the same offense. Reidy responded, I dont know of any prosecutors in the state who ever made a decision to move for dangerousness based on the race of the defendant. Eldridge also worried that the bill would be a major expansion of police power, because it would allow the police to arrest someone for a non-criminal probation violation. Rep. Michael Day, D-Stoneham, questioned the need to fingerprint people arrested for misdemeanors. He suggested that if someones fingerprint is included in a national database, that could impact their application for a job or military service. Rep. Jay Livingstone, D-Boston, said he finds it incredibly surprising that someone accused of shoplifting could end up with their fingerprints in an FBI database. Baker and Turco said the point of fingerprinting is to make sure a judge is properly identifying an offender, who may give a false name, and to make sure the judge has that persons full criminal record. Speaking to a reporter, Rahsaan Hall, director of the racial justice program for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, called the bill a broad expansion of police and prosecutor power that is not based on any empirical research, data or analysis. Hall said he had concerns about how the bill would be used to detain people pre-trial and whether it would worsen racial disparities. Bakers bill also got significant support. Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and acting police commissioner Cheryl Clapprood testified in favor of it. Sarno has long advocated for allowing prosecutors to appeal bail rulings. Sarno said when he goes to hospital or wake of a crime victim, he is often asked why the perpetrator was on the street. This is across the board, whether its a Latino family, African American family or a white family, Sarno said. Sarno said Springfield has a problem with violent, repeat offenders who are repeatedly released on bail. He said it undermines trust in the police and discourages cooperation, if witnesses think reporting someone to the police will have little impact. This is one of the greatest barriers to building trust between the public and the police, Clapprood said. Clapprood told of one person arrested on multiple firearms charges, with a history of violence, who posted bail and three days later, shot and killed someone. Another person arrested on gun charges posted bail and was arrested weeks later for dealing cocaine. This bill will save lives, keep police officers safe and improve the quality of residents lives in urban areas like Springfield, she said. HOLYOKE The owners of former industrial buildings urged the City Councils Ordinance Committee on Tuesday to revise an ordinance restricting how close to school zones marijuana businesses can operate. Under the current ordinance (Section 7.10.4), marijuana facilities must operate outside a 500-foot buffer around certified K-12 schools. The committee favors reducing the buffer to 200 feet for marijuana growing or cultivation facilities. The 500-foot buffer would remain in effect for retail and similar cannabis establishments. The committee will revisit the order June 11 at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers. Ward 2 Councilor Terence Murphy, who filed the order, said he met with the principals at Morgan and Kelly schools. While they did not object strongly to cultivation facilities, Murphy said, the principals opposed retailers operating nearby. In a brief statement, school Receiver Stephen Zrike wrote, We believe that the decision on the ordinance change should be made by the community and elected officials. Zrike added, We will support their decision as long as it does not impact the safety, security and well-being of our students and staff. Jim Sagalyn said his families business, the Holyoke Machine Co., operated at 514 Main St. since the 1860s. The business closed two years back and the building has remained without a major tenant. Sagalyns building falls inside a 500-foot buffer, which has prevented him from leasing space to marijuana cultivation businesses. Its a good and well-maintained building and theres been considerable interest in creating a manufacturing facility for marijuana cultivation, he said. The ordinance change would bring good-paying jobs to the neighborhood, he added. Dirk and Susannah Auferoth, who own 532 Main St., the Baustein Building, said their building also falls within a 500-foot school buffer by 100 feet. The couple bought the building six years ago and continue to update the former Readywipe Factory. The revised ordinance would let the Auferoths lease space to a large marijuana growing company. Dirk Auferoth said such a company could employ a significant amount of South Holyoke residents. Susannah Auferoth said the 140,000-square-foot building hosts 20 businesses. She said the couple invested their own money and took out a mortgage to transform the building, which includes offices, art studios and a gallery. We have 40,000 square feet of enclosed space with the windows blocked, which is exactly what the people who are trying to cultivate marijuana like, she said. Four people have approached us, including two minority-owned businesses. Marcos Marrero, the citys director of Planning and Economic Development, said the state created the 500-foot buffers for communities that lacked their own ordinances or local regulations on marijuana. Marrero said the state has since relaxed the 500-foot buffer requirement. He suggested that the 200-foot buffer also apply to cannabis testing labs. The citys current ordinance applies the 500-foot buffer to retail and medical marijuana sales, manufacturing and testing. The lab is the least impactful and smallest of them, he said. Its probably a handful of folks with chemical machinery. Councilor Linda Vacon, the committees chair, proposed reducing the buffer to 200 feet for growing facilities in industrial zones, in keeping with Murphys order. Vacon also asked the citys law department to review the modified language. Ward 3 Councilor David Bartley wanted signed letters from affected schools and preapproval from Holyoke Public Schools officials on the proposed ordinance change. He called for the City Council to send direct notices to impacted schools for future public hearings on special permitting or ordinance changes related to the marijuana industry. HOLYOKE The City Councils Development and Government Relations Committee met with stakeholders in Holyokes housing and development community with the focus on improving the quality-of-life in the Churchill neighborhood. Ward 2 Councilor Terence Murphy requested that the committee meet Monday with representatives from the citys Office of Planning and Economic Development, Holyoke Housing Authority, Valley Opportunity Council, Nueva Esperanza and OneHolyoke CDC. All play an integral and critical role in housing and economic development in Holyoke. Murphy emphasized the need to make Churchill a safe and welcoming environment, a place that attracts families and development. The area contains several vacant lots identified in the Holyokes Urban Renewal Plan, which Marcos Marrero, the director of Planning and Economic Development, called one of the most comprehensive plans of its kind in Massachusetts. Vacant lots, some dating back decades, exist at Jackson and Chestnut Streets, Franklin and Chestnut Streets, Elm and Hampshire Streets, and spots along Walnut Street, between Sargeant and Hampshire Streets. Murphy said the assembled agencies continue to seek opportunities in Ward 2 and around the Downtown, with emphasis on developing the empty lots or abandoned buildings. I want to see if we can move the process and come up with a plan as much as we can, he said. it may be broken down my agency or by neighborhood, Murphy said. He no longer wants vacant lots and boarded up buildings remain the norm in Holyokes older neighborhoods. Im appreciative that its not an easy thing to avoid, but I think I got the key players here to start working on it and start cooperating, Murphy said. Murphy realized the agencies approach projects differently. OneHolyoke CDC, for example, builds multifamily homes, which typically includes an income-generating rental unit, while Habitat for Humanity constructs single-family dwellings. Matt Mainville, the Holyoke Housing Authorities (HHA) executive director, briefed the committee on 475 Maple St., near Falcetti Tower Apartments. He said HHA secured parcels at 480 and 484 Chestnut Street. The agency engaged Tighe and Bond to begin environmental surveys on the parcels. A four-story walkup once stood on the parcels. The building burned down many moons ago, according to Mainville. Mainville envisions two housing units and additional parking that will face a park on Jackson Street. The HHA plans to apply for Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding, which allows a 10 percent annual allocation. He added the HHA might enter into a partnership with Habitat For Humanity. We plan on moving expeditiously with the planning and design and, hopefully, be prepared for next year, Mainville told the committee. The City Council approved a recent $120,000 CPA grant for the Valley Opportunity Council (VOC) for an 8-unit rental project at 123 Pine St. The VOC continues to gather funding for the $1.6 million build. Ward 3 Councilor David Bartley, the committee chairman, said CPA funds offer a unique and creative ways to support housing projects. Bartley noted that demolishing 123 Pine St. would equal the $120,000 CPA award. Michael Moriarty, the executive director of OneHolyoke CDC, said while his agency has a presence in Churchill, about 48-units of housing along the Sargeant Street corridor, the most significant impact has been homeownership. In 2011, OneHolyoke constructed a duplex on Hampshire Street and a second one in 2013. One of the challenges in trying to sell new home ownership in this neighborhood is the public safety issues, are not a perception, are extremely real, Moriarty said. Theyre particularly real along that Sargeant Street area. He recalled within days of placing a duplex on a site near Sargeant Street, a double homicide occurred at a park around the corner. Trying to sell the house on the least desirable block proved a challenge for the nonprofit. Under federal housing guidelines, OneHolyoke must sell a house within nine months. Moriarty added that potential buyers could not fulfill the mortgage requirements for the duplex. OneHolyoke now rents the house. You cant look at trying to address this neighborhood with just building new structures in isolation of the very serious public safety issues that exist there, Moriarty said. But that doesnt mean youre frozen in place, and that you cant do anything. Moriarty added that homeownership remains a powerful force in stabilizing neighborhoods. Tenants who rent OneHolyoke managed properties gain no equity, he said, as opposed to families who bought a duplex. By Colin A. Young / STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MAY 14, 2019.....Armed with emails and social media comments from more than 700 western Massachusetts residents, two lawmakers pitched the Transportation Committee on studying an east-west passenger rail connection between Boston, Greenfield and North Adams. The Department of Transportation is already studying what it would take to implement passenger rail service from Boston to Springfield and Pittsfield, but Sen. Jo Comerford and Rep. Mindy Domb on Tuesday touted a track that would roughly follow Route 2 along the northern part of the state. Comerford, who filed the bill (S 2054) to direct MassDOT to report by June 2020 on the feasibility of restoring passenger rail linking North Adams, Greenfield and Boston, told the committee that the option for getting between her district and the capital "is the Mass. Pike and/or Route 2." She said reestablishing a rail line along the Route 2 corridor -- passenger service ran along the corridor from 1875 until 1968, Comerford said -- would not only make it easier to get into Boston but would give commuters a more environmentally-friendly option. "Not only is this a relief for people who need it to get to Boston from Western Mass., but it is part of what I hope to be the climate solution that we as a body will broker in the coming session, knowing what we know now about the urgency of the crisis," Comerford said. She said a passenger rail link would also benefit economic development efforts in Western Mass. and could help ease the housing crunch in the Boston area. "In Western Mass. we have a different version of that, we have ample housing stock that needs good renters or good buyers," the senator said. Comerford said that, based on initial conversations with the company that still runs freight trains on the rails between Boston, Greenfield and North Adams, the addition of passenger rail would not necessitate widespread track replacement. Some sections of track might need to be replaced and some new siding may have to be built to allow trains to pass. "Again, this is a study so it's not a fait accompli," she said. Domb, whose district falls roughly between the two proposed east-west rail lines, said either route of passenger service would benefit her district and workers who live closer to Boston. "Based on what I hear from representatives who try to get into Boston in the morning from the suburbs of Boston, it would also benefit traffic coming into Boston to take the Western Massachusetts folks off of the road and put them into rail," she said. "It's time to study so we can increase rail going into Western Massachusetts." Rep. Paul Tucker, who said it took him two hours and 10 minutes to make the 16-mile commute between his Salem home and the State House on Tuesday, called the idea very intriguing. SPRINGFIELD Whether she was leading walking tours of local stops on the Underground Railroad, curating an exhibit featuring black women artists, or traveling to Senegal with students to show them where their ancestors came from, LuJuana Hood dedicated her life to promoting the rich history of people of African heritage in Springfield. Hood, 65, died on May 7 after a sudden illness. She was the founder and executive director of the Pan African Historical Museum USA. Pan African refers to people of African descent regardless of where they were born. She always wanted to dispel and let the younger generation know we did not come come from slavery. Our history did not begin with slavery, it began with kings and queens of Africa, said Rosemary Tracy Woods, executive director and chief curator of Art for the Soul Gallery, just around the corner from Hoods museum in Tower Square. It was her passion to educate, to make sure the youth and all age groups knew of our heritage, and she made us understand and believe that we were regal. Woods said she and Hood spent hours discussing their dream of purchasing a large building in the city that could house the museum, the art gallery and workshop space for educational and creative projects. One of Hoods last projects was gathering oral histories. She wanted to leave something for future generations, Woods said. It was her goal that every child should visit Africa to see their rich heritage because there is a misconception that Africans are running around in the jungle when its one of the richest continents in the world in terms of resources and knowledge. Hood was often recognized for her work and recently was featured in the book The Power of Women for her more than 20 years working in the field of cultural heritage. She took students from DeBerry Elementary School on educational tours to Sengal in West Africa and directed the African American Heritage Trail walking tour in Springfield. She volunteered at the school for many years and she just loved working with the children, said Maggie Jenkins, a parent facilitator at the Springfield school. She also helped with the Ambassador program and established a pen pal program for students here and students in Africa. No one can ever fill her shoes. She directed the Makeda Project, which focuses on the cultural heritage of African American women and investigates how forced migration to the new world shaped the culture of African Americans and women. Hood worked with longtime friend and colleague Janine Fondon on The Intersection: Women of Color on the Move, which featured women like Hoods grandmother Elouise Franklin, a missionary. The exhibit features the stories of women who made an impact on everything from the civil rights movement to feminism. Fondon, chairwoman of the undergraduate communications department at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, said her professional relationship with Hood turned into a personal one over the years. She said the Intersection project led Hood to find people in Springfield whose impact was much larger than just the city or the state. She was able to find African American women from Hancock Street that became leaders in the U.S. Navy back when the Navy first included women, Fondon said. Thats just one example of the depth of her connecting those dots. I myself have taken Bay Path students to the museum every semester just to hear her lectures about Timbuktu and the empires that we came from. She was able to make history relevant to young people. Fondon said she spent a lot of time speaking with Hood about her goals for the museum and the community. I interviewed her a couple of times about her work so that I could really understand it in her words, and one of the areas she focused on was cultural heritage, Fondon said. She liked to call it intangible cultural heritage because it focused on folklore, tradition and knowledge, and she connected Africa to our story here in the U.S. What made her special is that she connected the dots. Wayne E. Phaneuf and Joseph Carvalho III, local historians and editors of The Power of Women and The Struggle for Freedom: The History of African Americans in Western Massachusetts, worked with Hood over the years and said her energy and passion will be missed. LuJuana was a tireless advocate for spreading the word on the importance of what African Americans have contributed to not only this region but worldwide, said Phaneuf, executive editor of The Republican. She was as comfortable in Chicago and Senegal as she was in Springfield. Her work will live on among the hundreds of people she touched and taught from her re-creations of escapes from slavery to her years as executive director of the Pan African Historical Museum USA at Tower Square. She will be missed. Carvalho said he enjoyed working with Hood since they both shared a love of history. As historians and museum professionals, we often shared our findings with each other and helped each other bring that history to light for new generations, he said. She was a tireless advocate to learning more about our collective past. Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno often saw Hood at community events and cultural celebrations. Ms. Hood was always a proud, steadfast and compassionate advocate for our African American community, but she did it in a very unique way through art, by allowing you to visualize it, he said. Amilcar Shabazz, a professor of history and Africana studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his wife, Demetria Shabazz, a lecturer at the university, worked with Hood on several projects throughout the years. This region of Western Massachusetts anchored by the metropolis of Springfield really contains a true treasure trove of historical material that is both very inspiring and also very hidden from the view and the understanding of the wider public, Amilcar Shabazz said. It was part of our shared enthusiasm to find ways to bring to the wider public that wealth of information. The future of the museum has not been decided. Sam Bradley, director of African music for the museum, said decisions will be made by Carl Yates, vice president of the board of directors. All I know is that we cant let her legacy die, said Bradley, who worked with Hood on many projects including the Underground Railroad tours, where he was a character actor. Before she died, Bradley said, Hood was working on a program where minority entrepreneurs would read to elementary school students. The idea was to have them meet people who have struggled, but came up on the other side and are now reading to these kids, he said. She was always planning her next project. A public memorial will be held for Hood on Friday from noon to 2 p.m. in the Dr. Elouise Franklin Prayer Temple at New Hope Church of God in Christ, 104 Hancock St., Springfield, led by the Rev. Johnny Green Sr. DEERFIELD Hundreds of people lined a half-mile stretch of Sugarloaf Road on Tuesday evening to pay their respects to Meaghan Burns, a South Deerfield native and Navy sailor who was killed by a gunman in Virginia earlier this month. Veterans handed out flags and volunteers brought candles to show their support as they awaited a police procession bearing Burns remains about 8 p.m. We wanted to show support for her family. This is a tragic, tragic thing, said Mary Chabot of Whately. She was in the military. She was in it for all of us. Along with South Deerfield residents, there were at least four veterans groups, and fire departments from Sunderland and Deerfield and Montague Police assisted. The South Deerfield Fire Department lifted a large American flag from a ladder truck. Matthew Jakutowicz, a member of the South Deerfield VFW Post 3295, came with members of the post but part of the reason he wanted to show his respect was personal. His own daughter, Laura Jakutowicz-Britt, a *first lieutenant in the U.S. Army died two years ago of a stroke. She was just 43. We know what tragedy is. I know what it is like to lose a young daughter, he said. Strength is passed on. We are trying to let the family know we share their loss. Before the procession came through, Tim Niejadlik, veterans service director for the upper Pioneer Valley, placed flags along the roadside of a cemetery that it would pass. We just are trying to honor her. She would have been a veteran in June, he said, adding Burns was finishing her enlistment in a few short weeks. The state director of veterans affairs has been contact with the Burns family daily and is assisting them with receiving benefits and other things they may need, he said. The coffin holding Burns body was flown from Virginia to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut earlier Tuesday. Deerfield and Greenfield police and state troopers were to escort Burns body from the airport to the Wrisley Funeral Home in South Deerfield. Burns was 23 and a graduate of Frontier Regional High School. She enlisted in the U.S. Navy after graduation and spent time as a hospital corpsman in Naples, Italy, before being transferred to the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in Virginia. Her enlistment was due to be finished in June, and she was planning a career in healthcare. Meaghan was the innocent victim of senseless gun violence while trying to help a friend, her obituary reads. She and 19-year-old Shianne Soles were killed in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven by Donovan Moora, 22. He was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his car about a mile away, police said. Burns was the daughter of Carolyn and Matthew Burns and the sister of Kyleigh Rose, all of South Deerfield. There are no calling hours and a celebration of her life will be held later this spring, the obituary said. Many of the people who lined the streets were veterans or had some tie to the military. I wanted to pay tribute to the young lady, said Glenn Woods, an Air Force veteran from South Deerfield. She was 23 years old just starting a career. I just wanted to pay my respects. James Schaefer, of Deerfield, said he has two sons and a grandson in the military so it was important for him to show support for the Burns family. We were here when Greg came home and we wanted to be here tonight, he said. Schaefer was referring to Sgt. Gregory Belanger, of Deerfield, who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 27, 2003. SPRINGFIELD A lawyer admitted Tuesday to sexually assaulting a client who went to his office to discuss her upcoming divorce. James J. Martin, 41, of Amherst, pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14. Hampden Superior Court Judge Constance Sweeney sentenced him to four years in jail and four years probation. He will also be required to complete sex offender treatment and undergo a mental health evaluation, according to court records. This is the last case for Martin, who was accused of assaulting three women in separate incidents. In this case, he was accused of forcing a woman to perform oral sex after she went to his Springfield office on June 6, 2016. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors reduced a charge of rape to indecent assault and battery, court records indicate. Martin is already serving six months in jail after being found guilty in a jury-waived trial in January on three counts of indecent assault and battery. Those charges stemmed from an incident in 2015 where a woman said Martin assaulted her outside Westfield District Court. Martin was representing a bank in foreclosure proceedings against the woman. In that case, Hampden Superior Court Judge J. Gavin Reardon Jr. also ordered Martin to serve two years probation, register as a sex offender and undergo sex offender treatment. The two sentences will be served consecutively. Martin is also banned from having any contact with either victim, court records said. The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers temporarily suspended his license to practice law after he was convicted in January. In another jury-waived trial April 3, Sweeney acquitted Martin of four counts of indecent assault and battery on a Chicopee woman who was a court-appointed client. BOSTON Two corporals from the Hampden County Sheriffs Department were awarded the state Medal of Valor on Tuesday for courageous actions which likely saved the life of a distressed person in the departments care. Hampden County Sheriffs Department corporals Ian McCollum and Fernando Freddy Amaral were honored for going above and beyond the call of duty at the 22nd annual Correctional Employee of the Year ceremony at the State House. On Aug. 6, 2018, McCollum and Amaral were working at the Main Institution in Ludlow when they learned a man wanted to seriously harm or kill himself by jumping off the second tier of the pod they were assigned to. A man was saying that his roommate might want to hurt himself. As we were talking, I noticed the individual on the top tier, McCollum said. I ran up the steps to the second tier where he was trying to jump, caught him as he was partially over the railing and dropped him down to my partner, Corporal Freddy Amaral, who was able to break the fall. Amaral was injured in the incident, but he, along with the man who jumped, made a full recovery. Internally, both corporals previously received official departmental letters and Level 1 Award pins for their uniforms. At the ceremony on Tuesday, Executive Office of Public Safety and Security Secretary Thomas A. Turco III and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito gave them their medals in front of a group, which included family, state officials and lawmakers, in the House of Representatives Chamber. I couldnt be prouder of Corporals Ian McCollum and Freddy Amaral for their selfless actions, Sheriff Nick Cocchi said. They acted quickly with no regard for the risk to themselves to save the life of this man. They are beyond deserving of this honor and their actions are but one reason why the Hampden County Sheriffs Department has the national reputation it does. The awards ceremony is held annually at the State House and sponsored by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, the Massachusetts Department of Correction and the Massachusetts Sheriffs Association for DOC employees and County Sheriff Departments. Deaths from opioid overdoses in Springfield nearly doubled last year, even as they declined in the rest of the state, according to data released Wednesday by the Department of Public Health. Public health officials say the new data show the need for local officials to do more to address addiction in the region. Certainly, those numbers arent acceptable, said Sen. Jim Welch, D-West Springfield. From a public health standpoint, we as a region need to continue to address the situation. The data included a breakdown by city and town of all confirmed opioid overdose deaths. In 2018, there were 80 Springfield residents who died of an overdose, up from around 40 each of the prior three years. There were 108 overdose deaths that occurred in Springfield, up from between 56 and 75 each of the last three years. The number of deaths occurring in Springfield includes, for example, residents of surrounding towns who were pronounced dead at Baystate Medical Center or Mercy Medical Center. Holyoke and Chicopee also saw notable increases in overdose deaths. Thirty-one Chicopee residents died of overdoses last year, compared to 19 in 2017. There were 28 overdose deaths that occurred in Holyoke, compared to 16 the previous year. That is in contrast to statewide figures showing that the rate of deaths from opioid overdoses declined by 1% from 2017 to 2018. Peter Friedmann, chief research officer at Baystate Health and co-chair of Baystates addiction task force, said the numbers suggest that the whole region is experiencing the same problem. Friedmann attributed the higher death rates to the increasing prevalence of fentanyl, a powerful opioid that can be abused by itself and is often used to lace heroin or other drugs. The Department of Public Health found that, statewide, fentanyl was present in 89% of opioid overdose deaths in 2018 for which a toxicology screening was available. Its more deadly, its more powerful, the dosing is more erratic, you dont know what youre getting, and its harder to measure exactly what to put in each sample, Friedmann said. Friedmann noted that Springfield is on a major drug route from the New York metro area, which is where a lot of fentanyl is coming from. He also said it is only recently that city officials in Springfield have gotten aggressive about adopting harm reduction measures. In February, the community health organization Tapestry opened a needle exchange program in Springfield. Springfield police started carrying the anti-overdose drug Narcan in March. Springfield Health and Human Services Commissioner Helen Caulton-Harris called the data alarming. She said city officials need to dig more deeply to determine if the problems stem from particular neighborhoods. Caulton-Harris said city officials have been taking steps to address the opioid epidemic, such as approving the needle exchange and convening a coalition to focus on preventing overdoses. City officials are also worried about a lack of treatment resources. We are working, Caulton-Harris said. Obviously, there is more work to do. Caulton-Harris noted that there has been a lot of attention paid to growing addiction rates in suburban and rural communities. What this report appears to be saying is that it is now also increasing in our urban communities like Springfield, she said. Chart by Greg Saulmon / The Republican Source: Mass. DPH The chart above shows the number of city or town residents who died of opioid-related overdose deaths between 2014 and 2019. The default view shows Boston, Worcester and Springfield. Use the drop-down menu to view data from other communities. Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said opioid addiction has touched every community rural, suburban and urban. She hopes communities will look at the new data and use it to inform their work combating addiction. Different approaches are used at a local level to fight this epidemic, Bharel said. We want communities to be able to work together, look at areas where there are best practices, where theres a decrease in opioid-related deaths, and if there are communities where there is an increase to say ... what more do we need to do and what do we need to do better to serve the individuals that need to be served? Bharel said she cannot point to one reason that parts of Hampden County experienced increased deaths, or to one solution. This opioid epidemic doesnt have a silver bullet solution, she said. But Bharel said the state is committed to working with local officials to ensure resources are in place to prevent overdoses, to make Narcan available and to provide treatment and recovery services. The Department of Public Health recently gave the Gandara Center a $400,000 grant to open a recovery center in Springfield. The state also entered into contracts with multiple programs in the region to open residential beds to treat people with both mental illness and substance use disorder. My hope is as communities look at the data and as new resources become available, they engage with their communities and say what more do we need to do to bring down opioid-related deaths, Bharel said. Welch said he will continue to push for the opening of more treatment beds in Western Massachusetts, particularly for women. As a state, weve invested quite a bit of money into programming and resources to help combat the opioid crisis, but obviously that has yet to in any way benefit Western Massachusetts or Hampden County, Welch said. When you see statewide numbers declining ... but theyre doubling in Western Massachusetts or Hampden County, something obviously is amiss that we need to work together to try and address. I recently applied for a grant to study why people in the City of Springfield dont vote. A low engagement of voters in elections is not unique to Springfield. When you look at the statistics nationally and in other states, a large portion of the population doesnt vote. In some states it could be due to the efforts of legislature to suppress votes by not allowing certain populations to vote. In other states it could be, like here in Massachusetts, that the voter could be disillusioned with the political climate and truly believes that their vote doesnt count. I think the real answer is somewhere in between the two poles: voters dont care because they think their vote doesnt count and voter suppression (however subtle it might be). The grant will provide an opportunity to explore the root of that question, why dont people vote? I truly believe that more people would vote if they believed that their vote truly counted. Zaida Govan, Indian Orchard BOSTON -- Red Sox lefty David Price will throw a bullpen Friday at Fenway Park and is likely to return to the rotation next week in Toronto. Price has been on the injured list since last Monday with elbow tendinitis. He has continued his throwing program since his last start in Chicago on May 2 and will likely return having missed just two starts. Hes doing better. Hes doing good, manager Alex Cora said. The weather is what the weather is. I think the controlled environment (with a roof) in Toronto is better. Cora didnt give a specific day for Prices return, but Tuesday seems like the most likely option. Starting Price in the second game of the four-game set against the Blue Jays would keep Bostons rotation in line. Eduardo Rodriguez will pitch the finale against the Rockies on Wednesday before Rick Porcello, Hector Velazquez and Chris Sale face the Astros over the weekend. Rodriguez would then be slated for the opener in Toronto with Porcello and Velazquez following Price, if he goes Tuesday. A 26-year-old Worcester man has been arrested in connection with the death of a man who was found suffering from gunshot wounds in an SUV Monday night, police said. Worcester police arrest logs show Devon Rivera was arrested Tuesday morning on charges of possession of a Class A drug and unarmed robbery. A man, whose name has not been released, was found unresponsive and suffering from gunshot wounds in a green Ford Escape parked outside 38 Russell St. around 10 p.m. Monday, police said. The victim was taken to the hospital, where he died. The police log entry for Riveras arrest lists the address of 38 Russell St., the same location as the shooting. This is the citys second homicide of the year, police told Worcester Magazine, adding that the cause and manner of the victims death will be determined by the medical examiner. The shooting remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the Worcester Police Detective Bureau at 508-799-8651, text an anonymous tip to 274637 TIPWPD or send an anonymous message online at worcesterma.gov/police. Devon Rivera, the suspect accused of fatally shooting a 34-year-old man in Worcester Monday night, still had the victims cell phone on him when he was arrested, authorities said in court records. Rivera, 26 of Worcester, was arraigned in Worcester District Court Wednesday on a murder charge along with several firearms and assault charges. Authorities also say Rivera had a gun and ammunition in a backpack. The ammunition in the backpack matched the shell casings found at the scene of the killing, according to a statement of facts filed in court. Court paperwork lists the victim in the fatal shooting as 34-year-old Roberto Hernandez Gil. Police were called to the area of 38 Russell St. around 10 p.m. Monday for a report of a shooting. Hernandez Gil was found slumped over the steering wheel in the drivers seat of a Ford Escape with several gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen, court records said. He was rushed to UMass Memorial Medical Center and pronounced dead. Video surveillance and evidence recovered at the scene subsequently revealed that the suspect was a front passenger, who exited the car and fled, but then returned minutes later and approached the victims area of the car, records said. Rivera then ran away again, police said in the court statement. Investigators examined a cell phone, one of two owned by the victim, at the scene. They learned the victim had some type of contact with Rivera just prior to the shooting, police said. Detectives learned the victim had a second cell phone. A review of Rivera and the victims cell phones showed they were both in the area of Russell Street at the time of the shooting, according to court records. Police began searching for Rivera and located him on Sunderland Road. Police pinged Riveras cell phone and the victims cell phone. Mr. Rivera was later located leaving 488 Sunderland Road, and found to be in possession of both his own cell phone and the victims cell phone, police said. Rivera allegedly had a bag containing heroin as well. Just prior to Riveras arrest, he was observed to be carrying a backpack. Located inside the backpack was a .32 caliber semiautomatic firearm and a box of .32 caliber ammunition, police said in the court statement. The head stamp on the ammunition from the backpack matched the head stamp on the shell casing located at the scene of the shooting. Rivera, according to police, does not have a license to carry in Massachusetts. Rivera will remain held without bail while his case continues in court. He will appear back in Worcester District Court on July 1. This is Worcesters second killing this year. In Worcester Superior Court on March 15, 2016, Rivera pleaded guilty to charges in connection with a 2014 home invasion on Plum Street. He was sentenced to five years in prison and received 701 days credit for time served, according to court records. Absinthe has a reputation that means it can be a difficult sell. However, Croque Monsieur, a new bar in Camden, wants to help change this. We spoke to its bar manager Jenny Griffiths about how bespoke cocktails, education and silly hats can help. Have you ever considered going to a bar to enjoy absinthe? You might have been put off by tall tales of astronomical ABVs, potential blindness and harrowing hallucinations. Such myths, legends and soft science have certainly misled people in the past. Gradually, however, absinthes reputation is being restored by creative craft producers, educated consumers and bars like Camdens Croque Monsieur. Downstairs from the worlds only vampire-themed pizzeria, Lost Boys Pizza (its a wild start, but stick with me here), Croque Monsieur opened in December 2018 aiming to spearhead the absinthe revival in the capital. Despite the name, there are no ham and cheese toasties, before any of you ask. Its a spirit that has a lot of misconceptions. We wanted to show people why these arent true and give a proper insight into such a misunderstood spirit, bar manager Jenny Griffiths explains, Absinthe is absolutely delicious and we wanted to share that with our corner of London! Croque Monsieur is equipped with absinthe fountains on each table, funky hats, church pews as seating, Art Deco prints on the wall and a newly-launched cocktail menu, transforming a restaurant basement into a bohemian drinking den. For Griffiths, it was too good an opportunity to miss. When Pete and Alex (founders of Lost Boys Pizza) mentioned theyd had plans to open a tiny absinthe/dive bar. My eyes lit up and I knew I had to be in, Griffiths explained. Ive been working as the brand ambassador for Chartreuse for two years in the UK, and I actually got into drinking this by being suggested it by a fellow absinthe fan. Chartreuse and absinthe have similar flavour profiles, and anything herbal and punchy has always been my true love. Even those passionate about absinthe will admit its a risky spirit to back, however. Theres still work to be done separating truth from pseudoscience and propaganda. If you want to see the lengths the people who banned absinthe went to, Google absinthe and guinea pigs, Griffiths remarks, alluding to an 1864 experiment in which guinea pigs were most definitely harmed in the making of (another reason to dislike those who fought absinthe). The lore around thujone, a chemical compound in absinthe, is one of the reasons why it was successfully demonised. But the truth is absinthe contains such a tiny amount of this compound that its about as frightening as Kylie Minogue singing The Sound of Music to you while dressed as The Green Fairy. Griffiths summaries, As with all alcohol, of course, you should drink it in moderation and responsibly, but absinthe will not drive you crazy. The task for Griffiths then is to use her passion and position help educate and change perceptions. However, she has no interest in providing dry history lessons. You go to Croque Monsieur to be educated and have fun, Griffiths exclaims. We at Croque Monsieur are here first and foremost to educate everyone who comes through the door. Ive always been a bit of a booze nerd myself, so being able to share the knowledge I have is great. But we also want people to have fun, which is why the music is always set to party bangers and we encourage everyone to take their pick from our array of silly hats. For me going to a bar should be about learning but fun should always be at the forefront! Its difficult to deliver a dry lecture while your guests are wearing cowboy hats listening to Princes 1999 as a waiter brings them black charcoal pizza from a vampire-themed restaurant that was named after a 1987 American horror comedy film. Seriously. What more can ask for from a bar? Well, how about a tailored guest experience? One method Griffiths employs at Croque Monsieur to demystify absinthe is a masterclass in which unlimited hot snacks and three drinks of either of absinthe or a cocktail are provided while you learn about the spirit (though you had me at unlimited hot snacks). This experience offers our guests a full masterclass on all things absinthe, from its vast history to the different liquids we offer and how to serve them, Griffiths says. We serve all of our absinthes louched with iced water at your table, where your fairy [as she calls her staff members] shows you the precise amount of water to add, explains the chemical reactions you see happening and answers any questions that may pop into your head. Then theres the cocktail menu: designed to make absinthe approachable, it aims to ensure that no matter what your experience is with the spirit, there will be a drink to suit your palette. The menu is divided into three distinct parts; Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. All of the drinks contain absinthe in some shape or form (duh!) but this allows our guests to choose how much absinthe flavour they want in their drink, Griffiths explains. Beginner drinks simply have a spritz or two of absinthe above the glass, intermediate contains around 10ml absinthe per drink and are a little boozier. The advanced drinks use absinthe as the base (around 25ml) and are for our guests who are already into the flavour. The menu includes some unique fruity numbers such as the Sneaky Vimto (my favourite cocktail name of all time) and punchy offerings such as Death in the Afternoon, a potent combination of absinthe and Champagne, as well as some reworked classics like the Chocolate Old Fashioned (a personal highlight) and the Grasshopper, which is Griffiths stand-out on the menu. For me disco drinks have always been a guilty pleasure Ive embraced, so our Grasshopper #245 is my proudest drink creation to date she explains. We use a split base of Combier LEntete Absinthe Superieure and Green Chartreuse, mix it with a chocolate and absinthe liqueur, Giffard menthe pastille and shake it up with vegan dairy. Its creamy and delicious, with the right hits of chocolate and mint you expect from a grasshopper without the heaviness some dairy can have. For those new to absinthe, Griffith recommends the Parisienne Spritz, made with a splash of Combier LEntete Absinthe Superieure, gentian liqueur, citrus, cucumber bitters and tonic. Its light and refreshing and a great aperitif. Griffiths and co. have certainly made a good case for a dedicated absinthe bar. There are hundreds of whisky bars and gin palaces in the UK and we love what they do, but we wanted to show some love to something a bit different, says Griffiths. Theres surely always a market for that in the world of booze. To help you on your absinthe journey, weve rounded up a smashing selection of some of the absinthes we adore, including a recommendation from Griffiths. Or you could always enjoy this wonderful Absinthe Tasting Set! Maison Fontaine Blanche is a great place to start for any absinthe novice. The Blanche doesnt have a secondary maceration of herbs after distillation (this is what gives naturally coloured absinthes their green colour) so it is a bit lighter and milder, with loads of cacao and sweet peppermint, says Griffith. Tried next to the Maison Fontaine Verte it is also wonderful, this is a great way to explain to people the difference a few hours of maceration can make to the final flavour of an absinthe. Sebor Absinth is a Czech take on the historic spirit and one that has proved incredibly popular. Made by blending 13 herbs to a century-old Swiss recipe, this is a rich, mellow and spicy absinthe that was bottled at a reasonable 55% ABV. The Californian distillery St. George Spirits has made all manner of delicious booze, so its not surprising to find out that great absinthe was in its wheelhouse. Created with ingredients such as star anise, fennel, lemon balm, hyssop and stinging nettles, this was actually the first legal American absinthe to be released after the ban was lifted in 2007! Popular among punters and award shows alike, La Fee Blanche Absinthe is a wonderfully sweet, herbal, old-fashioned white absinthe that was based on an old French recipe from the 1800s. Produced in conjunction with the French Absinthe Museum, its white colour is a reference to the days of bootlegging when green spirit could be spotted a mile off. Ok, so Cornwall might not cross your mind initially when you think of absinthe, but this expression from Pocketful of Stones might just change all of that for you. Made from wormwood and additional botanicals from the local area, this bottling was named from a legendary mermaid of yore Thursday is the day for everyone to show how much they appreciate the McDowell Trails Association by supporting local businesses. Recently, Mayor Steve Little proclaimed Thursday, May 16 as McDowell Trails Association Appreciation Day in the city of Marion. Whereas McDowell Trails Association has partnered with the city of Marion and McDowell County in the creation and continued development of Point Lookout Trail, Joseph McDowell Historical Catawba Greenway, Peavine Trail and the Corpening Memorial Greenway, reads part of the mayors proclamation. And whereas McDowell Trails Association has helped preserve our scenic and environmentally sensitive land ensuring this legacy for future generations; and whereas McDowell Trails Association has made Marion and McDowell County a more attractive and pleasant place to live by creating new outdoor adventures and non-motorized transport opportunities... The proclamation states that the members of the MTA work together as an organization for the greater good of Marion and McDowell County. And on Thursday, several businesses in downtown Marion are donating a percentage of the days sales to the MTA in support of greenways and trails. MARION Thurston Guy Haynes, Jr., age 83, of Marion, North Carolina, went to be with his Heavenly Father on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at his residence. A native of McDowell County, born December 15, 1935, he was the son of the late Guy and Evelyn Goforth Haynes. He was preceded in death by, in addition to his parents, one sister, Jean Woosley. An avid banjo picker, Thurston was fond of being outdoors, especially when it came to hunting or fishing. He will be remembered for telling "tall tales". He is survived by three children, Franklin Haynes (Mary), Karen Hudgins (Travis) and James Haynes; three sisters, Eunice Hartshorn, Linda Presnell and Gail Bowman; seven grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren. There will be a gathering of family and friends on Saturday, May 11, 2019 between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the home of Karen and Travis on Fat Wall Road in Marion. In keeping with Thurston's wishes, a private interment will be held at Glenwood Cemetery. Beam Funeral Service & Crematory is assisting the Haynes family. For further information and/or to sign the online guestbook, please visit our website www.beamfuneralservice.com , or call 828-59-8111 . So far this month I sound a bit like a broken record. Because there are five subjects that I keep steering conversations towards. I flew to Glasgow with Monica, last week, and one of the first things I said to her was, I need to tell you about this amazing memoir I just read! She was kind enough to indulge me, and patiently sat through a 20-minute monologue about The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy. Keep reading to see what else Im obsessed with, this May 1. LIVING PROOF OVERNIGHT MASK I have fine, colour-treated hair, so its always a struggle to keep the ends from snapping or going wispy. But recently Ive been using the restorative Perfect Hair Day Night Cap Mask, from Living Proof. And its amazing! You apply it to dry or damp hair before bed, comb it through, wait until the product absorbs (its quick), then sleep with it on overnight. It doesnt stain your pillows, and after you shampoo in the morning youre left with shiny, manageable, healthy-looking hair. I use it weekly, and my hair is so much healthier for it. 2. KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE This brilliant Netflix documentary follows four of the democratic women who ran for congress in the 2018 midterm elections. And all I can say is watch it, watch it, watch it! For one of us to make it through, a hundred of us have to try, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says, at one point. And this film takes you inside the campaigns, and shows how hard these women fought to bring about progressive change. Ive now watched Knock Down the House twice, and I cried on both viewings. Its a powerful, inspiring and, above all, hopeful film. Here is the trailer. 3. ACCESSORIZES S/S COLLECTION Accessorize is definitely having a moment, isnt it? Throughout Autumn/Winter everyone was going crazy for their affordable hair accessories most notably the oversized, pearl hair clip. And their Spring/Summer 2019 is just as covetable! Im going on a press trip to Morocco next week, so am coveting Accessorizes embroidered crescent shaped handbags and macrame totes, along with the colourful drop earrings, beach cover-ups and resin hair clips. They say less is more, but this season I think Im going to be over-accessorising, just so I can rock this entire collection! 4. ARIEL LEVYS WRITING At the end of April I read Ariel Levys 2017 memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply, and I havent stopped recommending it to people since. Before I picked up her book, I knew of Ariel Levy (shes a journalist at The New Yorker), but I wasnt that familiar with her work. However, in the past few weeks Ive been on an Ariel Levy binge Ive been reading her New Yorker pieces online (this profile on Nora Ephron is fantastic), listening to her discuss her memoir on podcasts, and Ive also added her first book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, to my 2019 reading list. 5. ESTELLA BARTLETT JEWELLERY BOXES If youve been following my Instagram Stories lately you may have seen the posts about my new jewellery box. The British accessories brand Estella Bartlett very kindly sent me one of their signature jewellery boxes (I have the square blush pink design), and I love it so much! Previously Id been storing my jewellery in ceramic trays and dishes, but necklaces were constantly getting tangled and my favourite rings and bracelets were becoming tarnished. So this jewellery box couldnt have arrived at a better time! Its small, but comfortably stores all of my favourite pieces. What have you been obsessing over, so far this month? Comment below to share the books, films, TV shows, music, purchases and products you cant stop talking about Photo by Chloe Ely Blood Transfusion Diagnostics Market 2019 Research Report implements an exhaustive study on Market Research Future. This Report Cover Key Market Driver, market size, growth rate, opportunities, market Dynamics and Overall Analysis. And also cover the other information such as Blood Transfusion Diagnostics Market trends, Prominent players, chapter-wise Description followed by various user perceptions and Forecast till 2023. As per Market Research Future (MRFR)s latest report, the global blood transfusion diagnostics market is set to expand at a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period 2017 to 2023. The value of the market is estimated to grow from USD 1.5 Bn in 2016 to USD 2.45 Bn in 2023. The excess demand for blood transfusions over its supply is likely to expedite the growth of the blood transfusion diagnostics market through the projection period. The rising awareness about blood donation coupled with exponentially increasing cases of emergency is likely to intensify the demand for blood transfusion diagnostics for preventing the transfer of infectious diseases. The large-scale prevalence of infectious blood diseases is another major factor responsible for catapulting the blood transfusion diagnostics market on an upward trajectory. Get Free Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1126 The technological advancements and deployment of automation in blood banks are anticipated to have a favorable impact on the proliferation of the blood transfusion diagnostics market in during the assessment period. The market resonates strong opportunities for growth and the initiatives undertaken by the government for promoting blood donation is further prognosticated to catalyze the expansion of the market. Key Players: Leading players in the global blood transfusion diagnostics market include Grifols, Roche Diagnostics, Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Siemens Healthineers, Becton Dickinson and Company, Beckman Coulter Inc., Diagast, BAG Healthcare, Fujirebio, Quidel, Biokit, Hologic/Gen-Probe, DiaSorin, Abbott Diagnostics, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Novartis AG, Immucor, bioMerieux, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Industry News: In February 2019, a two year old in the Tamil Nadu state of India was alleged to have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Further enquiries cleared the hospital staff of any wrongdoing, as the source of the HIV was ascertained to be something other than the transfusion. Such incidents reveal the need for strong blood transfusion diagnostics infrastructure, especially in emerging countries. In October 2018, The FDA (U.S.) approved the first diagnostic test that reports genotypes when evaluating blood compatibility for transfusions, ID Core XT test, developed by Grifols Progenika Biopharma unit. In October 2018, Bio-Rad, a global leader of life science research and clinical diagnostic products, has announced the receipt of FDA clearance for IH-Reader 24, which is a semi-automated blood typing instrument. In November 2018, Immucor, Inc., a leader in transfusion and transplantation diagnostics, has announced that it has received FDA (U.S.) clearance for NEO Iris, which underscores the efforts to automate the blood bank. Segments: By blood product, the global blood transfusion diagnostics market has been segmented into red blood cells, platelets, plasma, albumin, immunoglobulin preparations, and other products. By technology, the blood transfusion diagnostics market is segmented into western blot, ELISA, nucleic acid amplification, fluorescence assay, rapid test, and other technologies. The ELISA segment has been further sub-segmented into chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA), fluorescence immunoassays (FIA), and colorimetric immunoassay (CI). The nucleic acid amplification segment is sub-segmented into Thermomechanical analysis (TMA) and real-time PCR. By end-users, the blood transfusion diagnostics market has been segmented into hospitals, clinics, blood banks, laboratories. Regional Analysis: The global blood transfusion diagnostics market, by region, has been segmented into Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. Americas is the largest market for blood transfusion diagnostics. The regional market is poised to expand during the forecast period owing to increasing blood transfusions, rising awareness about blood donations, prevalence of infectious blood diseases, and initiatives undertaken by the government and other organization. Additionally, the rise in the use of nucleic acid amplification test is also likely to play a significant role in the augmentation of the blood transfusion diagnostics market in the foreseeable future. Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/blood-transfusion-diagnostics-market-1126 Europe is projected to retain its second spot in the global blood transfusion diagnostics market towards the end of the review period. Asia Pacific, also, is expected to exhibit substantial growth over the assessment period. The growth is attributable to the increasing patient pool, rising awareness about diseases screening, increasing count of blood donors, etc. Meanwhile, the Middle East & Africa is set to witness steady growth through the forecast period. About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com The Global 3D Bioprinting Market size is projected to touch USD 1,923.02 million by 2023, asserts Market Research Future (MRFR). The market can showcase an impressive 24.59% CAGR from 2018 to 2023 (forecast period) to reach this value. It was previously valued at USD 517.97 million in 2017. Increasing demand for organ transplantation is projected to drive market demand year-on-year till 2023. This is attributed to the paucity of organs available for transplants. In 2014, nearly 120,000 people were on the waiting list for organs. This opportunity can be capitalized by the 3D bioprinting market by manufacturing customized organs according to body size. Investments in 3D bioprinting via public and private means to widen its scope is likely to boost the market growth. For instance, Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, awarded funds to the University of East Finland to develop a fully functioning 3D brain for research purposes. Moreover, cost-efficiency of 3D bioprinted products is likely to lead to renewed interest by investors. Lack of awareness of the technology and shortage of skilled professionals can act as growth deterrents in the market. Get Free Sample @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/869 3D Bioprinting Market Dominant Players Key market contributors are Stratasys Ltd. (U.S.) ORGANOVO HOLDINGS, INC. (U.S.) Aspect Biosystems Ltd. (Canada) FATHOM (U.S.) CELLINK AB (Sweden) Bio3D Technologies (Singapore) Materialise (U.S.) Allevi (U.S.) ENVISIONTEC, INC. (Germany) Industry/ Innovation /Related News: March 25th, 2019 CD3D, a Poland-based 3D printer company, announced the launch of the largest open 3D bioprinting cluster in Europe. Located in Lodz, Poland, the cluster consists of 21 SKAFFOSYS bioprinter units. The units will be leveraged upon to pursue R&D activities in the biomedical arena. March 22nd, 2019 Allevi, a Philly-based 3D bioprinting company, introduced the innovative Skin Bioink Kit. The kit needs to be used in conjunction with its 3D bioprinters to create skin patches. The launch of the product is aimed at allowing tissue engineers to design multi-layered skin patches that are similar to natural human skin. 3D Bioprinting Market Segmentation The 3D Bioprinting Market is segmented by technology, material, application, and end-user. By technology, microextrusion bioprinting held close to 31.7% share in 2017, followed by inkjet 3D bioprinting (25.1%), laser-assisted bioprinting (20.6%), magnetic 3D bioprinting (13.7%), and others (8.9%). The microextrusion bioprinting segment is projected to register a whopping 25.24% CAGR during the forecast period. This can be attributed to its extensive applications in bioprinting. On the other hand, inkjet 3D bioprinting can exhibit 26.44% CAGR owing to be a viable alternative for scaffold fabrication. Get Discount on Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/869 By material, living cells accounted for 39.7% share in 2017, followed by hydrogels (30.8%), extracellular matrices (21.0%), and others (8.5%). Living cells are predicted to exhibit 25.05% CAGR during the forecast period thanks to the expedited production process of micro building blocks. The blocks play a vital role in repairing damaged tissues. Hydrogels, on the other hand, can generate close to USD 652.54 million by 2023 at a CAGR of 26.63% during the forecast period. Among applications, research applications accounted for 73% share in 2017, followed by clinical applications with 27% share in the same year. Research applications can exhibit 24.74% CAGR till 2023 owing to applications in 3D cell culture and regenerative medicine. Clinical applications, on the other hand, can generate close to USD 507.55 million by 2023, at a 24.19% CAGR during the assessment period. Among end-users, pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies accounted for 52.6% share in 2017, followed by research organizations & academic institutes (33.3%), and others (14.1%). Pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies are projected to display 24.98% CAGR till 2023 owing to the trend in personalized medicines. 3D Bioprinting Market Regional Analysis Geographically, the market has been segmented into the Americas, Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). The Americas hold the maximum share owing to a well-structured healthcare sector and heavy investment both by the government and the private players. A large base of patient population waiting for transplantation is also a market booster. Healthcare expenditure due to a rise in disposable income and the presence of significant market players are proving to be significant contributors. Europe is the second largest market with a cluster of developed countries such as France, Germany and the U.K. who are spending heavily on the technology and is always eager to innovate. APAC is the fastest growing region with continuously growing population and burgeoning healthcare sector in developing countries such as China and India. According to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation in 2017, the Indian market is deemed to grow with an astonishing CAGR of 22.87% by 2020 and touch USD 280 billion. MEA is unlikely to get a huge boost in 3D Bioprinting Market owing to the presence of several poor countries in the region. Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai are the few countries with advanced healthcare infrastructure and interested in research investments. About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com Global Nurse Call System Market is predicted to strike a notable CAGR of 9.5% over the forecast period of 2018-2023, affirms Market Research Future (MRFR) in an in-depth study. Nurse Call System as the name suggests are devices that alert nurses in cases of medical emergencies & need for care. Simultaneously, these systems are also effective for tracking a patient especially in Care home or old age centres and are also used to give instructions and notifications during the events of ambulatory services. Growing population along with the prevailing diseases & disorders worldwide, are demanding advanced medical infrastructures such as assisted living centres. These large hospitals & clinics are confronted with the operations complexities. Resultantly, prompting the demand for effective Nurse Call Systems to run the hospitals operations smoothly. This expanded demand in turn is fuelling market growth. To Get Free Sample Report visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5631 In addition, other factors that contribute the market growth include increasing geriatric population, urbanization, and improving economical situations in the countries across the globe. Due to the growing market penetration of cloud & IoT (internet of things) the market size is exploding. Technological developments such as advanced coverage of network and connectivity, dropping prices of these devices, and negligible cost of scalability of communication are providing impetus to the market growth to an extent. Industry Updates: February 2019 Critical Alert Systems, LLC, a company which designs and delivers nurse call solutions, introduced new enterprise-class software application, CommonPath Enterprise, a Nurse Call System at HIMSS19 in Orlando, Florida, U.S. Key Players: Cornell Communications, STANLEY Healthcare, Honeywell International Inc., Jeron Electronic Systems Inc., West-Com Nurse Call System, Inc., Azure Healthcare, Austco Communication Systems Pty Ltd., Systems Technologies, Vigil Health Solutions Inc., Ascom, Johnson Controls., CSINC, AMETEK, Inc., Hill-Rom Services Inc., and BEC Integrated Solutions, LLC are the key players in the global nurse call system market. Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. announced its Welch Allyn Home Blood Pressure Monitors and Digital Scale will now be available at all Kinney Drugs locations in New York and Vermont. This move is designed to bring the Welch Allyn clinical grade technology into the hands of consumers at home. Easy to operate, this free application allows patients to record and track measurements, measure blood pressure and weight, and share results with both healthcare providers and family members. Segments: The nurse call system market is sgmented by type, technology, application and end user. On the basis of type, the market is segmented into integrated communication systems, audio/visual nurse call systems, basic buttons alert systems, mobile systems, and others. Integrated communication systems help expand and enhance the capabilities of the support systems to be used for hospital acute care, correctional facilities, schools, and a variety of industrial applications. Factors driving this segment are increasing number of hospitals with integrated communication systems and new product launches. Technologically, the market is segmented by wired systems and wireless systems. Wired nurse call systems require wires to connect each integrated device to the master panels whereas wireless systems help communicate via wireless signals from various distances. Major applications include alarms, medical emergency, and workflow management. Emergency nurse call system are reliable means of communication that aide quick response to patients. A swift response helps diffuse a life-threatening situation. Thus, emergency nurse call systems aide in saving lives. Emergency call systems are practical, efficient and affordable systems that are ideal for dangerous circumstances. Major end users include hospitals and clinics, ambulatory, assisted living centers, and others. Regional Analysis: By region, the global nurse call system market has been segmented into the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). The Americas is leading the global nurse call system market due to the fast uptake of latest technologies in the region and high healthcare expenditure. Moreover, increasing geriatric population contributes significantly to the growth of the market. Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/upcoming-reports/nurse-call-system-market-5631 Europe accounts for the second largest share of the global nurse call system market. The growth of the market can be attributed to the presence of robust healthcare infrastructure and growing population of old and sick people in the region. APAC is poised to showcase rapid growth in the global nurse call system and expand at a relatively faster pace. Development of healthcare infrastructure, surging awareness regarding nurse call systems and rising geriatric population are factors boosting the growth of the market. About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com : WiseGuyReports.com adds Global Silicone Foley Catheter Market Size study, by Type (Long term, short term), by Application (Prostate gland surgery, Urinary retention, Urinary incontinence, Spinal cord injury) and Regional Forecasts 2018-2025 reports tits database. Executive Summary Global Silicone Foley Catheter Market valued approximately USD XX billion in 2017 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than XX% over the forecast period 2018-2025. The major driving factors of Silicon Foley Catheter are increasing development in development of medical devices industry, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries, increasing prevalence of urologic diseases and increasing demand from emerging market. The major restraining factor of Silicon Foley Catheter are potential risks associated with the use of Foley catheters and presence of alternative treatments for urinary incontinence over the coming years. Silicone Foley Catheter is a urinary catheter made entirely out of silicone. They contain no latex, which makes them ideal for people with latex allergies or sensitivities. Silicone Foley Catheters come in many different types and styles, including Foley, intermittent, and coude tip catheters. Silicone Foley Catheters cause less injuries and reduce substantially irritation of the urinary mucosa and the use of Silicone Foley Catheter in patients requiring long-term indwelling urinary catheters. Request Sample Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3528478-global-silicone-foley-catheter-market-size-study-by The regional analysis of Global Silicone Foley Catheter Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America is the leading or dominating player Silicon Foley Catheter market in 2016, due to large amount of money invested in R&D and advanced products development. Europe is not far behind and accounts for the second largest market share owing to adoption of new and advanced technologies and products. Asia Pacific is witnessing rapid growth in this market which is mainly due to rapidly increasing prevalence of various urologic diseases and rising healthcare expenditure. Asia Pacific region is anticipated to exhibit higher growth rate / CAGR over the forecast period 2018-2025. The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market. Additionally, the report shall also incorporate available opportunities in micro markets for stakeholders to invest along with the detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product offerings of key players. The detailed segments and sub-segment of the market are explained below: By Type: Long term Short term By Application: Prostate gland surgery Urinary retention Urinary incontinence Spinal cord injury Furthermore, years considered for the study are as follows: Historical year 2015, 2016 Base year 2017 Forecast period 2018 to 2025 The industry is seeming to be fairly competitive. Some of the leading market players include Teleflex, Bard Medical, Conva tech, B. Braun, Coloplast, Angiodynamics, Cook medical Inc., Medtronic and covidien, Hollister, Pacific Hospital Supply, Sewoon Medical, Medsuyun, Songhang, Chensheng Medical, Haiou medica, World Medical, Tongda, Kelong Medical, Apexmed International and so on. Acquisitions and effective mergers are some of the strategies adopted by the key manufacturers. New product launches and continuous technological innovations are the key strategies adopted by the major players. Target Audience of the Global Silicone Foley Catheter Market in Market Study: Key Consulting Companies & Advisors Large, medium-sized, and small enterprises Venture capitalists Value-Added Resellers (VARs) Third-party knowledge providers Investment bankers Investors For further information on this report, visit https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/3528478-global-silicone-foley-catheter-market-size-study-by Table of Contents Chapter 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Market Snapshot 1.2. Key Trends 1.3. Global & Segmental Market Estimates & Forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 1.3.1. Silicone Foley Catheter, by Type, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 1.3.2. Silicone Foley Catheter, by Application, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 1.3.3. Silicone Foley Catheter, by Region, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 1.4. Estimation Methodology 1.5. Research Assumption Chapter 2. Silicone Foley Catheter Definition and Scope 2.1. Objective of the Study 2.2. Market Definition & Scope 2.2.1. Industry Evolution 2.2.2. Scope of the Study 2.3. Years Considered for the Study 2.4. Currency Conversion Rates Chapter 3. Silicone Foley Catheter Dynamics 3.1. See Saw Analysis 3.1.1. Market Drivers 3.1.2. Market Challenges 3.1.3. Market Opportunities Chapter 4. Silicone Foley Catheter Industry Analysis 4.1. Porters 5 Force Model 4.1.1. Bargaining Power of Buyers 4.1.2. Bargaining Power of Suppliers 4.1.3. Threat of New Entrants 4.1.4. Threat of Substitutes 4.1.5. Competitive Rivalry 4.1.6. Futuristic Approach to Porters 5 Force Model 4.2. PEST Analysis 4.2.1. Political Scenario 4.2.2. Economic Scenario 4.2.3. Social Scenario 4.2.4. Technological Scenario 4.3. Value Chain Analysis 4.3.1. Supplier 4.3.2. Manufacturers/Service Provider 4.3.3. Distributors 4.3.4. End-Users 4.4. Key Buying Criteria 4.5. Regulatory Framework 4.6. Cost Structure Analysis 4.6.1. Raw Material Cost Analysis 4.6.2. Manufacturing Cost Analysis 4.6.3. Labour Cost Analysis 4.7. Investment Vs Adoption Scenario 4.8. Analyst Recommendation & Conclusion Chapter 5. Silicone Foley Catheter, by Type 5.1. Market Snapshot 5.2. Market Performance Potential Model 5.3. Key Market Players 5.4. Silicone Foley Catheter, Sub Segment Analysis 5.4.1. Short term 5.4.1.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 5.4.1.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 5.4.2. Long term 5.4.2.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) 5.4.2.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion) Continuous Contact Us: Norah Trent sales@wiseguyreports.com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US); +44 208 133 9349 (UK) by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, May 14, 2019 Discovery ads, which Google announced at Marketing Live, fits the visual theme that Philipp Schindler, Google chief business officer, talked about in his opening remarks at the event on Tuesday in San Francisco. Schindler said the future of search points to voice search with the expectation of a visual reply in the search results, rather than a bunch of descriptive text. Voice in, image out, he said. Technology also should be able to predict the best nearby device to serve up the content. Two Discovery visual ad formats will run across the YouTube home feed, Gmail and Google Discovery feed. The ads are targeted by audiences, not keyword-based search intent. The ad format eliminates the need to do a query. Findings from a recent Google and Ipsos study suggest that 76% of consumers enjoy making unexpected discoveries when shopping. Some 85% of consumers will take a product-related action within 24 hours of discovering a product: reading reviews, comparing prices or purchasing the product. Google at Marketing Live on Tuesday announced that several new ad units, from Discovery ads to Gallery Ads, bring more visual content to the Search results page. The new ads combine search intent with the new interactive visual format, Gallery Ads. "Gallery Ads are the new hybrid ad format, merging text and shopping features and offering four to eight images with three headlines up to 70 characters in length, said Casey Wilson, VP of digital media at Chacka Marketing. "This is Googles latest move toward a search engine results pare that is dominated by visual search." She said Google claims early results of 25% more interactions for campaigns running Gallery Ads versus those without. And while she said these results are not surprising, considering consumers overall move toward and preference for visual search results, these types of images combined with high search intent and compelling marketing communication should work much better than those without. On average, ad groups -- including one or more Gallery ads -- have up to 25% more interactions, meaning paid clicks or swipes, at the top of the mobile Search results page. As people browse the Gallery, the headline remains at the top. Ben Gomes, Google VP of search, talked about the future of search in his presentation, which also focused partly on visual search. We have an enormous visual cortex, which lets us scan a whole bunch of images quickly to decide whats relative, he said. Image search lets you do that but traditional it has been focused on getting you pictures, pictures of beaches, picture of people, and people of sunsets. But people are very interested in scanning information to get at the underlying information -- not just the picture. To do that, Google needed to go beyond the pixels in the picture and into the underlying concept and the context. Machine-learning technology, he said, enables Google to identify pictures of fish, for example. It allows Google to change the ranking of image search. The second thing is to convert the interface of image search to allow people to see the context behind the image, whether its something available for sale or something that can be built. Were just getting started down this path, but the idea is to use images to process information through the underlying information, not just the data, he said. by Melynda Fuller , May 15, 2019 In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last week, Salon Media Group said it had reached a deal to sell itself to a company called Salon.com LLC, reports the New York Post. No additional information about the buyer was available through the filing. The deal, with a final price tag of $5 million, requires $550,000 payment at closing with $100,000 of that going to an escrow account. The filing stated that a $500,000 deposit has already been paid. The buyer would pay the additional $3.85 million over two installments over the next two years via a promissory note. The New York Post noted Salon stated in the filing: There can be no guarantee that the asset sale will be completed and, if not completed, we may have to file for bankruptcy and liquidation. advertisement advertisement The filing also revealed that Salon CEO Jordan Hoffner resigned on May 3, though he remains a company director. Richard MacWilliams was named acting CEO, while Trevor Calhoun was named acting CFO. He replaced Elizabeth Hambrecht. Hambrecht left the company in October. Both Hoffner and Calhoun are Salon Media board members. The digital media company, founded in San Francisco in 1995, announced a paid app and expected digital expansion just over a year ago. The app was expected to allow the company to invest in exclusive long-form journalism as it attracted subscribers, while offering an ad-free experience. A membership service was also reported to be in the works. Curiously, just last week Salon posted a job listing for a remote full-time culture writer with experience writing compelling cultural analysis both the quick take and the long view plus reviews, interviews and reported features. The NYP reports the company has been losing money since it went public in 1999 at $107 million. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, May 15, 2019 Citing free speech concerns, the White House says it won't sign on to the Christchurch Call for Action, an international initiative aimed at eliminating terrorist and violent extremist content online. "While the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement, we continue to support the overall goals reflected in the call. We will continue to engage governments, industry and civil society to counter terrorist content on the internet," the White House stated Wednesday. The government reportedly added: We maintain that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech, and thus we emphasize the importance of promoting credible, alternative narratives as the primary means by which we can defeat terrorist messaging. advertisement advertisement The Christchurch Call initiative comes two months after a terrorist killed 51 Muslims in attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The attacks were live-streamed on Facebook by the alleged shooter. The initiative has drawn the support of more than a dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Senegal and the United Kingdom as well as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and other tech companies. In the U.S., unlike many other countries, the First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech, with certain narrow exceptions. For instance, the government can't outlaw speech simply because it's offensive, but can prohibit people from making true threats. Private companies like Facebook, however, can set their own rules regarding allowable speech. On Wednesday, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Google and Microsoft said in a joint statement that they will implement a plan to fight the hatred and extremism that lead to terrorist violence. Among other measures, the companies say they will update their terms of use to expressly prohibit the distribution of terrorist and violent extremist content. Although researchers know that cancer risk increases as a person ages and gains weight, whales, the worlds largest mammals, do not experience this correlation. In fact, they are some of the animals least likely to get cancer. New research aims to find out why that is. Share on Pinterest The humpback whale (pictured) and other cetaceans have an extremely low risk of cancer. How is this relevant to human cancer research? At its core, cancer starts when cells mutate abnormally and start growing and dividing uncontrollably, in a way that disrupts the normal functioning of their biological environment. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer is the second leading cause of death at a global level, affecting millions of people of all ages worldwide. Some researchers have argued that the diseases that fall under the cancer umbrella have become more widespread in the modern world , largely due to factors such as pollution and other environmental changes caused by human action. Still, many studies show that people have experienced cancer for thousands of years. The earliest case of cancer that researchers have so far been able to document occurred in a hominin (early human ancestor) whose remains date back 1.7 million years. Investigators located these remains in a South African cave, and they yielded evidence of osteosarcoma, an aggressive type of bone cancer, at the dawn of the human race. Yet humans and their ancestors are not the only animals to have been affected by cancer through history. Anecdotally, cancer is the leading cause of death in cats and dogs, and some birds, reptiles, and fish in captivity and in the wild can experience cancer , too. Furthermore, according to recent discoveries, even dinosaurs sometimes developed cancer . Age, weight, and cancer risk Experts explain that a persons age and their weight can heighten their risk of developing cancer. That makes sense because the longer someone lives, the more time there is for cells to mutate, and because, as the body ages, its cells may be more susceptible to mutations. Also, the more a person weighs, and some scientists even suggest, the taller they are, the more cells there are that can undergo mutation. However, these correlations do not apply evenly across species in the animal kingdom. In fact, some animals are extremely unlikely to develop cancer, despite the fact that they are very large and long-lived. Elephants, porpoises, and whales have incredibly low rates of cancer. Researchers have been wondering why and considering whether these animals resistance to cancer could help humans better understand the disease and how best to fight it. A study published last year and covered on Medical News Today may have found the answer in the case of elephants. These large pachyderms, it turns out, have a tumor-suppressing gene that allows their bodies to stop cancer from forming. Humans have this gene, too. However, while humans have only one copy of it, elephants have as many as 20 copies. So what about whales? A team of researchers from Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, the Arizona State University, in Tempe, and other collaborating institutions believes that the answer may, once more, lie in these aquatic mammals genes. Why cancer doesnt affect whales For this study the findings of which appear in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution the researchers obtained permission to analyze a skin sample from Salt, an adult female humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae). Salt frequents the waters off the coast of Massachusetts, and the researchers decided to focus on her because other scientists, as well as humpback whale-watchers, have been following her for a long time, since the mid-1970s, to be precise, so there is no shortage of data about her. The research team led by Marc Tollis, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University performed DNA and RNA sequencing on the skin sample collected from Salt in order to assemble a map of her genome. Once they had accomplished that, the investigators compared these data with information on the genetic makeup of various mammals, including members of 10 other cetacean species, such the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), and the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). The investigators analysis revealed that certain genomic loci (specific parts of the genome) had evolved at a faster rate in whales than they had in other mammals. Specifically, these were loci containing genes that regulate cell cycle, proliferation, and the process of in-cell DNA repair essentially, the maintenance process of healthy cells. Tollis and the team note that the genes responsible for these cell maintenance processes mutate in human cancers. Another characteristic that sets whales apart from other mammals is that they have many duplications of tumor-suppressing genes, the genes that prevent cancer from developing and growing. This suggests that whales are unique among mammals, in that in order to evolve their gigantic sizes, these important housekeeping genes, that are evolutionarily conserved and normally prevent cancer, had to keep up in order to maintain the species fitness, explains Tollis. We also found that despite these cancer-related parts of whale genomes evolving faster than [in] other mammals, on average, whales have accumulated far fewer DNA mutations in their genomes over time, compared to other mammals, which suggests they have slower mutation rates, he continues. We include products we think are useful for our readers. If you buy through links on this page, we may earn a small commission. Heres our process. Melatonin is a natural hormone that the brain releases in response to changes in light. It helps regulate the bodys internal clock, signaling that it is time to go to sleep. Melatonin supplements may help with a wide range of sleep issues, including insomnia, shift work sleep disorder, and sleep problems in children. In this article, learn more about melatonin for sleep, including its side effects, the right dosage, and how it works. What is melatonin? Share on Pinterest Melatonin supplements may improve sleep. Melatonin is a hormone that tells the body that it is time to sleep. In people who do not have problems sleeping, the body follows an internal clock of roughly 24 hours called a circadian rhythm. Changes in light and temperature help tell the body when to feel tired. The brain releases melatonin when it is dark, suggesting that melatonin helps regulate sleepiness in these conditions. Exposure to light may block the production of melatonin, which is why it is important to sleep in a dark room. A 2015 study examined zebrafish with a rare mutation that stopped them from producing melatonin. These fish slept very little, even when researchers ensured that they had adequate exposure to darkness. These findings suggest that the body depends on melatonin, not just changes in light, to help it get to sleep. How does it work? Melatonin supplements may improve sleep by boosting melatonin levels in people whose bodies do not produce enough of this hormone. These supplements may also improve sleep in people who produce enough melatonin but still struggle to sleep for other reasons. Melatonin changes how the body responds to darkness, helping it enter a rhythm of nighttime drowsiness. Exposure to light at night including light from computer and television screens may suppress the bodys natural melatonin production and disrupt sleep. Likewise, people who sleep during the day because they work at night may not produce melatonin when it is time to sleep. Melatonin supplements can help counteract this effect. Research consistently shows that melatonin can help people sleep longer and fall asleep more quickly. A 2013 meta-analysis that included 1,683 study participants found that melatonin decreased the amount of time that it took the participants to fall asleep compared with a placebo. It also increased the duration of their sleep. Other research has suggested that melatonin can improve sleep in people with: jet lag shift work sleep disorder delayed sleep phase disorder sleep disorders relating to blindness sleep issues due to low melatonin in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) sleep difficulties in children with atopic dermatitis Dosage The ideal dosage for melatonin varies from person to person. Various factors, such as body weight, metabolism, and overall health, may also influence the way that the body responds to melatonin. A typical dose of melatonin is between 1 mg and 5 mg . It is best to take this about an hour before bed. People can try starting with a low dose and looking for any adverse side effects. They can then gradually increase the dose until their sleep improves, if necessary. It is important not to take more than 5 mg unless a doctor recommends a higher dose. Side effects One of the most common side effects of melatonin is drowsiness. Some people may notice that they feel sleepy or groggy the morning after taking melatonin. Taking melatonin earlier in the evening or reducing the dose may help a person wake up feeling refreshed. Other possible side effects include: headaches dizziness nausea In some people with dementia, melatonin may trigger a bad mood . Although melatonin is a natural chemical, it is important to treat it the same as any other medication. It is possible for melatonin to interact harmfully with other drugs by reducing their effectiveness, triggering negative side effects, or changing the way that the body metabolizes the drug. People who take other medications should talk to a doctor before trying melatonin. As with any medication, an allergic reaction is possible. People with a history of allergic reactions to supplements should avoid melatonin. Anyone who notices signs of an allergic reaction, such as itching or hives, should contact a doctor. If a person has trouble breathing or feels as though they are choking, they should go to the emergency room or call 911. Risks Very limited data suggest that melatonin might increase the risk of seizures, but other studies have found that it may actually lower this risk. People with seizure disorders or a family history of seizures should consult a doctor before trying melatonin. Some research involving children also suggests that melatonin could alter the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. In turn, this could change how the body produces or metabolizes hormones, potentially affecting the childs growth. However, this research is inconclusive. For children Share on Pinterest A person should speak to a doctor before giving melatonin to children. Short-term studies of melatonin in children show that it is safe, including in children with autism. Before trying melatonin, parents and caregivers should help a child adopt good sleep practices, such as: maintaining a regular, predictable sleep routine scheduling dinner at least 2 hours before bedtime avoiding caffeine and other stimulant drugs keeping the sleep environment quiet, dark, and cool not using screens for at least an hour before bedtime Choosing the right melatonin dosage for children can be challenging as the drug is a supplement with no approved dosing guidelines. When in doubt, it is best to consult a doctor. The authors of a paper on the use of melatonin in Canada noted that typical doses were 0.75 mg to 1 mg in children younger than 6 years, 1.5 mg to 3 mg in older children, and 5 mg to 10 mg in adolescents. It is best for children to take it between 30 and 60 minutes before bedtime. They also stated that there was no evidence to support the use of melatonin in children younger than 2 years. A small 2011 study of children with autism found that a lower dose could be effective. Just 1 mg or 3 mg of melatonin was beneficial for most children in the study. Although there is no reason to suspect that melatonin might cause long-term harm, no research has established that it is safe to use for extended periods. For this reason, parents and caregivers should use melatonin for the shortest possible period and consult a doctor before giving their child melatonin or any other supplement. CHICAGO May 15, 2019 Gary Stubblefield Texas Don Landrum Chicago, Illinois /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- SourceLink, an industry-leading omnichannel marketing agency announces the addition ofas Vice President of Healthcare Insurance Strategy.Stubblefield comes to SourceLink with 10+ years serving in a variety of corporate healthcare leadership roles ranging from community hospital administration to corporate marketing and business development. Most recently, he spent several years overseeing the Medicare programs for a large integrated delivery network in central. His experience managing the corporate marketing department for a large health system, combined with the insights he gained in his role as Medicare business owner (and former client of SourceLink), will make him a valuable addition to our healthcare insurance leadership team."I'm thrilled to be joining the SourceLink family at such an exciting time for this organization, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to the impressive track record of growth and success in Medicare marketing that SourceLink has established in recent years," states Stubblefield."As our Healthcare clients continue to succeed and we grow, it is great to add someone with Gary's experience to the team," says, CEO of SourceLink. "Gary has had great success in his career and has a wealth of knowledge that is important to our clients. He has a deep understanding of how to produce results that lead to more members, and the multi-channel marketing strategies that will work to hit client goals."About SourceLink SourceLink is a highly respected Direct Marketing agency headquartered inthat utilizes data intelligence and an omni-channel approach to maximize return on investment for clients through improved customer response and conversion. The company deploys client programs across the channels in which their customers and prospects are most responsive, including; direct mail, email, search, digital media, social media, and statements. SourceLink's expertise spans a variety of end markets, with an emphasis on financial services, healthcare insurance, retail energy and utilities, and retail. For more information, visit http://www.sourcelink.com.SOURCE SourceLink Imagine Ser Gregor Clegane aka The Mountain in love. Yes, just imagine him being all head over heels, crazy about someone. It's tough to imagine him showing any form of emotion ever, except, of course, the ones that bring out the destructive wrath residing within him. But maybe that's The Mountain for us. However, in real life, the man who pays The Mountain, aka Hafor Julius Bjornsson, is literally a gentle giant, crazy in love with his girlfriend Kelsey Henson and they both make a rather cute yet unusual pair! Instagram Kelsey compared to Hafor is quite tiny and petite and we love the fact that it doesn't bother them at all. While The Mountain is 6 feet 9 inches tall, Kelsey is just 5 feet 2 inches and we all know the one thing you'd be wondering right now. Well, apart from other things, how do they even kiss each other, with that massive height difference? because I have a feeling that high heels won't really cut the chase for Kelsey or for The Mountain! Kelsey, recently while talking to another publication revealed secret details of how the strongest man in the world and her actually manage a kiss or two, and she said "ahha he bends, I tip toe. Or just say screw it, pick me up!" Now isn't that just the sweetest answer in the world? Who knew Ser Gregor, who can crush someone's skull like it's a papier-mache, is actually a gentle and loving giant soul! We came across some rather adorable pictures of the two of them chilling together, when he was away from the sets of 'Game of Thrones' and we can't get enough of these two. Despite their height difference, they absolutely love each other's company! Of course, loving each other's company means being supportive of each other's work as well. Instagram The couple has been dating since September 2018, after they met at Earls Kitchen and Bar, in Alberta. Instagram They love spending time together, especially on their travels Instagram Instagram Instagram Instagram Instagram They are obviously fitness freaks and love working out together and on their own as well. But when they work out together, it's another level of inspiration for us mere mortals! Instagram Instagram Instagram Instagram It all started when Kelsey used to work as a waitress at the bar and Hafor used to swing by quite often while he was in town competing in the Strongman Competition. Well, for those of you who don't know, The Mountain isn't just strong and indestructible on the show. He is, in actuality, Iceland's strongest man, and has been called Europe's strongest man three times! One of the times when Hafor was in Kelsey's bar, she asked him for a cheeky picture, and the pair hit it off instantly, and are going stronger than before, at this very moment. Instagram Instagram Instagram Well, we couldn't witness all this love and affection from Ser Gregor on the show, but outside of it, he's actually the sweetest and we can't get over the fact that these two are actually the perfect 'fit'! "Humanity is the mother of all religions," wrote the official twitter account of CRPF Srinagar, while sharing this heartwarming video of a jawan feeling a hungry child. We absolutely agree with the statement, as nothing can ever come above humanity and stories and people like Head Constable Iqbal Singh restores our faith in it. Twitter On February 14, the nation was painted red with the blood of more than 40 CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) personnel, who were martyred in one of the worst terror attacks in Pulwama, Jammu & Kashmir. Reuters Head Constable Iqbal Singh was one of the drivers of the convoy that was carrying the jawans, when a car laden with explosives rammed into the convoy. Iqbal Singh survived that terror attack and helped in the rescue operation to save the soldiers injured in the attack. But, according to Singh, his 'survival was not as satisfactory as feeding the child' who was hungry and looking for food. Singh saw the child on a street in Nawakadal, Srinagar and when he went close to him, he realised that the child was paralysed. Twitter Singh told IANS, "I was having my lunch in Nawakadal area of Srinagar around 12.30 p.m. on Monday when I saw the boy aged around 10 years sitting in front of a closed shop and signalling me for food. I walked towards the boy and offered my lunch box to him." "I felt bad when I realised that his hands were paralytic and he was unable to eat by himself. I then put a sheet on the boy's lap and fed him rice and 'chana dal' (gram pulse)," Singh further added. In the video he even asks in the "Do you need water?" and then wipes the kid's face and helps him drink water. Armed forces operating in Kashmir are often tarred with the same brush. But that generalisation can sometimes be grossly unfair. Salute this man's sense of compassion & humanity. https://t.co/qou4Mk5NBj Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) May 13, 2019 "Humanity is the mother of all religions" HC Driver Iqbal Singh of 49 Bn Srinagar Sector CRPF deployed on LO duty feeds a paralysed Kashmiri kid in Nawakadal area of Srinagar. In the end, asks him "Do you need water?" "Valour and compassion are two sides of the same coin" pic.twitter.com/zYQ60ZPYjJ Srinagar Sector CRPF (@crpf_srinagar) May 14, 2019 Although, Singh doesn't know who recorded the video and nor do we, we're glad that someone made a video of his selfless act, which is now being praised and lauded by everyone on social media. Paa ji Insaniyat se badh kar koi dharam aur koi karm nahi hota sarkar to aaty jaty rahenge magar jo aapne kiya sir aapko heartily slute hai sir sheikh sadakat ali (@sheikhsadakata1) May 14, 2019 This is such a beautiful gesture. God bless the CRPF person and the kid as well. Archana (@Archana39224063) May 14, 2019 Army has this role to play and with this kind of compassion even the rocks can melt... We mustn't expect army to act with arms always and rather hope that arms if used, will be used to embrace others... Long live empathy, long live peace Nidhi Choudhari (@nidhichoudhari) May 14, 2019 We can't help but agree once again with the CRPF that, "Valour and compassion are two sides of the same coin." It was a regular day at the gym for 17-year-old Northampton resident Mohammed Ali, however, how the day ended for him left Ali angry and disgusted beyond measure. It was almost after midnight by the time Ali completed his daily circuits at the gym and stepped into the toilet for just a few minutes before heading out. He had left his towel on a wall rail and while in there, he heard the changing rooms' door being opened, which was followed by heavy footsteps. SWNS I was only one of four people in the gym at that time, I reckon. I went to the toilet for five minutes and left my towel on a wall rail by the cubicle. I came out and they'd already left, and as I was washing my hands I noticed my towel had been touched, so I opened it up and had a closer look. One glance at his towel and Ali knew what had happened. A fellow sleazy gym-goer who had jerked off on Ali's towel. The discovery left him in a raging fit. SWNS Ali told the media, I could see something white, and at first I thought it was shampoo that had leaked from my bag or something so I went to touch it and give it a smell. It turns out it was what I was hoping it not to be the person who had come in the changing room while I was in the toilet masturbated on my towel. SWNS After going through the CCTV footage, the gym authorities confirmed that the 'white stuff' on the towel was definitely not shampoo and handed over the footage to the police, who said, We have spoken to the victim and are investigating this in partnership with the gym. Thank goodness Ali realised his towel had been messed with, and did necessary checks before using the soiled towel. This incident is beyond disgusting, to say the least. OPPO's sub-brand Realme announced a brand new smartphone in China today, which we got to check out for ourselves. The smartphone is expected to launch in India at a later date. The new smartphone by Realme comes with a new design, a pop-up selfie camera, an in-display fingerprint sensor and an AMOLED display. The smartphone will come in two colours i.e. Steam White and Punk Blue. Specifications MensXP The Realme X is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 710 chipset and is coupled with 4GB/6GB/8GB RAM. In terms of storage, the Realme X comes in two variants i.e. 64GB/128GB ROM. The Snapdragon 710 chipset is clocked at 2.2GHz and has been paired with an Adreno 616 GPU. In terms of display, the Realme X comes with a 6.53-inch notchless AMOLED display and has a screen-to-body ratio of 91.2%. The display has an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and has a resolution of 2340 x 1080 (fullHD+). In terms of battery, the Realme X comes with a 3765mAh battery and can be fast charged using OPPO's proprietary VOOC 3.0 flash charge. The Realme X comes with a 20W (5V4A) wall charger and can charge the smartphone from 0-55% in 30 minutes. Cameras In terms of imaging, the Realme X comes with a dual camera setup i.e. a Sony IMX 586 sensor and a 5MP secondary camera. The primary camera features a 1/2.0 inch sensor and a large f/1.7 aperture. The Realme X comes with Quad Bayer four-in-one pixel technology where it increases a single pixel to 1.6um. The Realme X will also come with various modes such as Nightscape (Realme's version of night mode), a Chrome boost mode where the AI engine allows Realme X to recognise the scene data and images and uses its unique human visual model to restore the real details. For video recording, the Realme X supports the following resolutions and frame rates: - 4K, 30fps - 1080P, 30fps - 720P, 30fps - 1080P slow-mo, 120fps - 720P slow-mo, 960fps - EIS, electronic image stabilization - Photographing delay MensXP In terms of the pop-up selfie camera, the Realme X has a Sony IMX 471 16MP sensor that has an aperture of f/2.0. It uses the same built-in Quad Bayer four-in-one pixel binning technology for better selfies in low-light conditions. Other Features Other features on the Realme X include dedicated gaming modes called Hyperboost 2.0 and Game Boost 2.0. According to Realme, It predicts the status of the phone in real time and prepare for possible stutter, and then allocates resources accordingly to meet the performance requirements and improve the gaming experience by significantly reducing the stutter. Pricing The base variant of the Realm with 4GB RAM + 64GB storage will start at RMB 1499 (Rs 15,330). Other variants with 6GB RAM + 64 GB will retail for RMB 1,599 (Rs 16,350) while the 8GB + 128GB variant will retail for RMB 1,799 (~Rs 18,400). The Realme X will launch in India soon and we could expect similar pricing as its Chinese counterpart. Greece condemns the attacks on oil vessels near the Strait of Hormuz off the UAE coast, as well as on oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia, that took place on the 12th and 14th of May respectively. As a major maritime power, Greece reiterates the importance of ensuring freedom of navigation and maritime safety and security, emphasizing the need to keep shipping lanes in the region open and fully functional. We reaffirm our solidarity with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and we will continue to support efforts towards achieving a political solution to the crisis in Yemen. Crops that are falsely labeled as organic, mostly corn and soybeans, are being shipped into the United States from overseas. Canada is also experiencing falsely-labeled soybean and corn shipments. The ship can be turned around at the port if the crop is not accepted, but there is no accountability passed along to the buyers who know that the bushels do not add up. As long as their paperwork is in order, then they will continue to proceed with the fraudulent crop. This is a worldwide problem because the false products are going all over the world, and the United States cannot guarantee that these products are truly organic. In theory, the reason it is happening is because people are trying to make money, cheap and illegally. There is little recourse back to whoever is printing the organic certificate. If they banned the farmers who put corn on the boat, the people who hired the boat, and the boat from ever doing business organically in the United States again, surely someone would speak up to stop this. First and foremost, this situation greatly negatively affects organic farmers in the United States. Farmers who use organic practices must adhere to strict rules and regulations in order to maintain their organic farming status and obtain the organic certificate. There is a massive amount of scrutiny from the National Organic Standard Board that goes into applying for this certificate. This includes what type of seed is purchased, the type of organic farming practices that are taking place in the field, what products are put on the crop, how the crop was harvested and handled until the money goes into the farmers bank account. Inspectors can obtain a traceback audit where they take a check received for the crop and we have to trace it back to all of the steps provided above. If the bushels sold dont add up to the bushels produced, then the farmers are in trouble. Secondly, it also has a huge negative affect on the American consumer who feels taken advantage of. The organic market is often associated with falsely marketed information (Is it truly organic? Are there really any standards that the farmers go through or is it just a label? Is organic better for myself and my family?) and other negative comments due to lack of education. Everyone wants to know where their food comes from and has been asking the end user to showcase those buyers. This has been done in a variety of ways, including: a product processing description at the grocery stores, signs near the product telling the story of the family farm and via social media outreach platforms. Unfortunately, end users only showcase a couple of their growers, but the end user cannot literally put every grower on the side of your cereal box or on the carton of eggs you pick up at the store. To combat this problem, we can make sure that the certificate and the program be held accountable by making everyone liable for their actions. Farmers must have their organic certificate in order and follow the procedures associated with the process, no exceptions. If a farmer sells under false pretenses, then they face jail time (see article in link: https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2018-10-11/3-farmers-to-plead-guilty-in-organic-grain-fraud-scheme). Unfortunately, the buyers (if brokers were used), saw no recourse on this, which led the end users to see no recourse on this, which allowed the fraudulent cycle to continue. The farmers were penalized for the wrong doing but people were not refunded their money for buying what they thought was organic (again, planting the seeds of distrust toward the organic industry). We need to hold growers, buyers and end users to the same standard. When our farm is certified, we have to pay our inspector for his travel and time. This can range in price depending on where the inspector is traveling from. If the inspector is coming a couple hours by car, then the price is relatively inexpensive. Think about what it would cost to have an inspector come to your farm if they had to fly half way around the world? This is what is supposed to happen. But farmers in other countries claim that inspectors are in such short supply (which they are) that they cannot afford to fly them in for their inspections because it is so cost prohibitive. When we talk to our inspectors, they say there is plenty of work domestically to keep them busy and that traveling international doesnt make economic sense for them. Action items that we strongly suggest include reaching out to the NOSB and the NOP and urging them through their comment section to follow along with the EU. We would also suggest not allowing the Control Union to ship corn into the United States. Along with that, we need to make sure that the people currently certified under the Control Union are not allowed to move to another certifier and continue to ship corn. This needs to be a ban on both the certifier and the farmer. We would then suggest you reach out to elected officials to urge the NOSB and NOP to do the same. Nathan and Amy Engelhard operate a 1,100-acre organic farm in Unionville. MIDDLETOWN Many driving or walking by lower Main Street Tuesday may have seen a large, blue trailer with photographs of men, women and young people of various races, ages and ethnicities emblazoned with All of Us Research Program. Stationed near the Community Health Center at 675 Main St., the National Institutes of Health All of Us Journey traveling hands-on exhibit is trying to raise awareness about the All of Us Research Program across Connecticut this week. The effort aims to gather data from 1 million or more people living in the United States to accelerate research and improve health. The clinic received a federal grant for All of Us because a majority of its patients fall into the underrepresented category, said the health centers AOU Program Manager Casandra Lehr. Lots of studies are done on diseases and illnesses that affect poor minorities, but theyre not included in the research for the cure, so thats really what were trying to do. Most of the time, its white, affluent men who are included in research, she said. We need everyone to be involved in research so we can help them. Women, who comprise 51 percent of the population in America, are sorely underrepresented in medical research, said tour manager Steve Curran, who stood on the sidewalk, ready to guide passersby through the exhibit. The first thing they do is think how its going to affect their children, Curran said. A lot of them realize this is what is going to help future generations. This is your opportunity. To fully benefit from the research, you need to participate in the research. Some have initial misgivings when asked to take part in such surveys, he said. Its really not what they think. A lot of people think, Take these pills for 30 days and let us know if you grow hair on your back,o he said jokingly. When people enroll, which they were able to do Tuesday, they undergo a one-time, 30-minute medical appointment, get their body measurements and blood pressure taken, and give urine and blood samples. Researchers throughout the world looking for certain demographics for their work will be sending participants surveys via email. You get to decide whether you join their research or not, Curran said. We call them participants because they have control of their participation in the program. The national launch was in May 2018. The project is expected to last a decade, but could be extended for longer. The clinic, one of six federally qualified health centers nationwide selected to take part in this study, is one stop on the 37-week national tour. The health center is helping the NIH meet its goal of including historically underrepresented populations in biomedical research. Unlike a single research study focused on a specific disease or community, All of Us will serve as a national research resource to inform thousands of studies, covering a wide range of health conditions, according to the program. Senior Research Scientist Yashoda Sharma said 140,000 people across the United States have enrolled in All of Us in just 18 months. The project is creating a database, primarily for use by research scientists, but also accessible by the public. After people apply for access, they can review the information from participants, who remain anonymous, she said. Researchers will be combing the data for lifestyle; environment; geographical location; demographics such as race, ethnicity, education level; gender identity; age; and more, Sharma said. The idea here is create this really rich resource that taps into all these different categories of underrepresented (people) in biomedical research. So its not only about race and ethnicity. Thats the easiest one to go for. We are trying to work on socioeconomic lifestyles; environment. This is why CHC is perfect for it, because our patient population represents really well the participation we want here, she said. As Curran moved through the trailers various demonstrations, he asked questions about an individuals lifestyle (I have breakfast every morning, I spend time relaxing every day, I get an annual health exam), genetics (I can roll my tongue, I look like my mother, I have naturally curly hair) and environment (I have experienced a natural disaster, I live near public transportation, I live near a public park). Everything thats a yes, were going to add to our collection, Curran said, turning a dial for each one, allowing a small or large flow of colored pebbles to layer in a glass jar. Afterward, these tiny stones are donated to schools and other organizations for fish tanks, so theres no waste. The information is entirely private. Researchers all they know is you become an alphanumeric number to protect your identity, and a ZIP code, he said. The Community Health Center has taken part in the program in an effort to move precision medicine forward, said Lehr. Precision medicine already is used widely in other fields, such as during ophthalmology exams, where vision is corrected using various technologies, Curran said. When patients come for appointments at the health center, they are asked whether they want to take part in the national initiative. Fresh off visits to Stamford and Meriden, the bus will stop in New Haven Wednesday and Thursday at Fair Haven Community Health Care, 374 Grand Ave., from noon to 6 p.m.; in Hartford Friday at the Hispanic Federation, 175 Main St., from 1 to 6 p.m., then move to Boston. For information, visit joinallofus.org/en/journey. To join the research program, visit JoinAllofUs.org/tour, email help@joinallofus.org or call 833-ALL-OF-US. For details on the health centers participation, visit joinallofus.org/chc. PORTLAND - The Board of Selectmen will meet Wednesday to review and possibly revise the proposed 2019-20 budget as it was defeated in referendum Monday. The proposed $35.047 million budget was rejected by a vote of 316-283. The 599 residents who turned on a dreary, cold and wet day represented 9.8 percent of the 6,145 people who were eligible to vote. The rejection came as something of a surprise. The last time a budget was rejected was in 2007, according to Town Clerk Ryan J. Curley. Whats more, there has been growth in both the grand list and in revenues to the town (including investments) as well as a reduction in the towns debt service, the money used to pay down previously approved bonded projects. However, town officials said there had also been indications of dissatisfaction with the budget, which is $1.012 million, or 2.97 percent, higher than the current years budget. After the vote total was read out late Monday, two members of the Board of Selectmen, James K. Tripp and Ralph R. Zampano, and Board of Education Secretary Meg Scata said they believe the continuing budget impasse in Hartford and Gov. Lamonts proposal for tolls have ignited a backlash that played a role in the budgets defeat. I think its the continuing uncertainty about the state budget that was probably what drove the defeat of this budget, Zampano said. This was a close vote, Tripp said. Now, we will go back and try to evaluate the changes the residents want to see and then come back with a budget that the majority of people will support. The Board of Ed will work with the Board of Selectmen to come up with a budget that is both fair and sustainable, and which families whose children attend our schools can live with, Scata said. Other people critical of the budget took to various social media platforms to express their upset, not always with a strict adherence to facts. The one thing many people both those for and against the proposed budget did not do is turn out for any of the budget-making reviews conducted by the selectmen. The proposed budget included $21.4 million for education, a 3.4 percent, or $717,000, increase over this years total. However, the education department accepted budget last year with no increase amid concerns about the level of state aid for the town. General Government, the non-education portion of the budget, was allotted $13.7 million, an increase of 2.2 percent, or $295,000. The education budget was adopted unanimously by the school board, and the overall budget was similarly approved by a unanimous vote of the selectmen, which trimmed proposed education spending by some $60,000. If the budget had been approved it would have raise the taxrate by 0.58 of a mill from 31.81 to 34.39 mills. During a telephone conversation Tuesday, First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield said she will come before the selectmen Wednesday evening with a proposal of what it would take to bring the mill-rate increase to zero. That would mean a reduction of $480,674. I want to give them as many options as possible, she said. She will also propose scheduling a referendum on the revised budget for May 29. That would give officials - led by Curley - time to get the ballots printed and time for residents to digest the revised spending total. Bransfield urged as many residents as can do so to attend the meeting Wednesday. She said she also hopes members of the Board of Education will attend the meeting. On Monday night, Bransfield had thanked the residents who did turn out to vote, and all the poll workers, who put in a grinding 14-hour day in the polling place, which is located in the music room at the middle school at 93 High St. Reach Jeff Mill at jeff.mill@hearstmediact.com. In a swift and unusual rebuke, U.S. Central Command stated Tuesday that U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were on high alert against possible "imminent" attack by Iran and its proxies, countering claims earlier in the day by a deputy commander that Iran posed no immediate threat. Remarks Tuesday morning by British Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, given in a video briefing to the Pentagon, "run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region," Navy Capt. Bill Urban, CENTCOM spokesman, said in a statement. In his briefing, Ghika said in response to questions that "No, there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria" despite warnings from the White House to the contrary. But Urban said CENTCOM has already coordinated with OIR to boost "the force posture level for all service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria." "As a result, OIR is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq, " Urban said. Ghika had said that OIR officials saw no reason currently to raise alert levels, particularly in regard to the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, in Iraq whose ranks include militias closely linked to Iran. "If the threat level seems to go up, then we'll raise our force protection measures accordingly," Ghika said. The swift walkback of Ghika's remarks could be seen as reflecting concerns that warnings from White House and Pentagon officials, supported by President Donald Trump, on the threats to U.S. interests in the region and U.S. resolve on retaliation would not be taken seriously by Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday warned of possible "false flag" operations in the region that the U.S. could use as an excuse to attack Iran, according to Iran's state-run Fars news agency. He referred to reports of damages inflicted on four ships in the United Arab Emirates this week. "We discussed the regional issues and dangers that the policies of extremist individuals in the U.S. administration are trying to impose on the region as well as concerns about the suspicious and sabotage acts that happen in our region," Zarif said in New Delhi after meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Fars reported. "We had earlier predicted that they will adopt such measures to provoke tensions," Zarif said, according to Fars. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. A lawsuit has been filed over a suicide bomb attack that killed five and injured 17 before a Veterans Day fun run at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2016. The families of those killed -- Army soldiers Pfc. Tyler Iubelt, 20; Staff Sgt. John Perry, 30; and Sgt. 1st Class Allan Brown, 46; along with Fluor contractors Peter Provost, 62, and retired Army Col. Jarrold Reeves, 57 -- as well as eight troops injured in the attack are suing U.S. security contractor Fluor Corp. and a subsidiary for employing Afghan national Ahmad Nayeb, the bomber who carried out the attack. The suit alleges that Fluor and defendant Alliance Project Services were negligent in managing Nayeb, allowing him access to bomb-making tools and materials and failing to remove him from base when suspicions arose regarding his activities. The action, filed in District Court in Dallas on Tuesday, is the second suit against Fluor in three months. Former Army Spc. Winston Hencely sued Fluor in February, alleging that the company's complacency allowed Nayeb, who worked in security at the base, to plan and execute the attack. According to a U.S. Forces-Afghanistan investigation, Nayeb spent four months building his suicide vest in his on-base workspace. He then failed to board an escort bus for Afghan nationals to leave the base the morning of Nov. 12, 2016, but no one reported him missing. Instead, he detonated his bomb at 6 a.m. as service members and contractors gathered for morning physical training and a Veterans Day 5K run. The explosion killed five, in addition to Nayeb, and injured 16 U.S. soldiers and a member of the Polish armed forces. During a press conference Tuesday, Houston-based attorney Anthony Buzbee, a former Marine officer representing the plaintiffs, said his clients deserve their day in court against a contractor that failed to notice that its employee checked out tools not required as part of his job, and who slept during the work day, read the Quran or often just disappeared. "Fluor never asked him why the devil he was checking out these tools, never asked him what he was up to for hours at a time," Buzbee said. The lawsuit draws extensively from the military investigation, which determined that the "primary contributing factor in the attack" was "Fluor's complacency and its lack of reasonable supervision of its personnel." The Taliban took responsibility for the bombing, which the group said took four months to plan and carry out. "The [assailant] had entered the base very cleverly and performed a successful attack that left dozens of invaders killed while they were busy in taking exercise," Taliban leadership wrote in a press release following the attack. During the incident, Perry was killed nearly instantly. Rescue workers attempted to resuscitate Iubelt, while Brown initially survived, directing emergency personnel to care for the others and encouraging soldiers even as he was gravely wounded. He died less than a month later at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. They left behind grieving parents, wives and children. Those injured include Army Col. Chris Colavita, who is currently undergoing medical retirement for injuries sustained in the blast; Sgt. Lakeia Stokes, a former WNBA prospect from Clemson University who nearly lost her left arm; and Pfc. Maggie Bilyeu, who required leg amputation surgery earlier this year for injuries related to the attack. Buzbee said he and his clients began talks with Fluor, which approached them to settle out of court, before filing the suit. Abruptly, however, the company canceled discussions "three weeks ago," leaving family members who had traveled to a planned meeting stranded. "Fluor is well aware [of the suit]. We've been talking to them for months now, trying to resolve this issue. None of the folks behind me," he said, pointing to several plaintiffs, "want to relive this." A spokesman from Fluor said Thursday that the company "remains deeply saddened by the tragic events at Bagram Air Force Base ... It was a horrific incident and we have profound sympathy for the families of the deceased and those who were injured in the attack." However, spokesman Brian Mershon said, the complaint "misrepresents the facts surrounding the attack and does not correctly represent [Fluor's] responsibilities under our contract with the U.S. Army." "Specifically, we provide base life support services to U.S. and Coalition forces in Afghanistan under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) IV contract. This is not a security contract. We do not have responsibility for base security, including the vetting of employees and their base access," Mershon said. "Due to the pending litigation, we will reserve further comment for the actual legal proceedings." The company just concluded a $12 billion security contract for the Defense Department. Buzbee declined to say how much the plaintiffs will seek in the suit, adding that it will be up to "a jury to decide." However, they face an uphill battle in trying to hold a contractor accountable for misdeeds performed while under contract with the U.S. government in wartime. Military service members and their families previously have filed suits against government contractors, including KBR, for negligence that included faulty construction, management of burn pits and chemical exposure during cleanup. They have lost or been awarded large compensatory sums, only to see cases overturned by higher courts, which have ruled that they don't have jurisdiction in the cases or that contractors are afforded the same sovereign immunity from lawsuits as the federal government, since they are supporting combat operations. Buzbee and fellow attorneys Peter Taaffe and David George said they believe their clients' case is clear-cut. "There are so many private companies that benefit from war. They make billions and billions of dollars and then, when they screw up, they leave these families holding the bag," Buzbee said. Editor's note: This story was updated May 16 with a response from Fluor Corp. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @patriciakime. The House of Representatives again unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that would extend Department of Veterans Affairs benefits to sailors assigned to U.S. Navy ships during the Vietnam War who have illnesses related to Agent Orange exposure. But while eight major veterans organizations support the legislation, a few smaller groups that have fought for decades for these "Blue Water Navy" veterans to receive health care and disability compensation aren't excited about its scope. The House voted 410-0 to advance the bill, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, or H.R. 299. Last June, the vote was 382-0 to include sailors with diseases considered to be related to exposure to the herbicide among those Vietnam veterans already receiving disability compensation and health coverage. The measure died in the Senate in December, however, over questions about whether these veterans actually were exposed and about the cost of covering them. Related content: Veterans diagnosed with diseases that automatically qualify for Agent Orange-related benefits say they are ill because ship desalination units used contaminated water; the ships were also used to transport the herbicide. In January, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of these veterans, giving them the opportunity to apply for VA benefits. VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in March he would recommend against the Justice Department appealing the ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 approved a request from the department to extend the deadline for filing an appeal to May 29. House lawmakers said the new legislation is needed to ensure that veterans receive their benefits in the event the case, Procopio v. Wilkie, gets dragged out. "As many of you know all too well, it has been a long, hard-fought battle to secure these benefits," House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Takano, D-California, said just before the vote. "In the process, we've let Blue Water Navy veterans and their survivors experience immeasurable pain and grief due to the spraying of 12.1 million gallons of highly toxic Agent Orange in Vietnam during the war." "Five hundred and twenty of us are dying every day and, if we don't do something soon, there aren't going to be many of us left," said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, a Vietnam-era veteran who serves as the ranking member on the committee. Eight veterans service organizations have thrown their support behind the bill, including some of the largest: American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, AMVETS and Disabled American Veterans. "For decades, tens of thousands of veterans, their families and survivors have been denied their earned benefits. While it is long past due, it is time that we correct the injustice done to Blue Water Navy veterans and provide protection of the Procopio decision by passing H.R. 299," leaders of the eight organizations wrote to the committee on May 13. But several small organizations that supported Procopio and fought for the bill aren't happy with certain aspects of it. The bill includes specific grid coordinates that delineate the offshore areas offshore that would be covered. Supporters say these grid coordinates would actually expand coverage beyond 12 nautical miles in some locations, "particularly the Mekong Delta." But John Wells, an attorney in the Procopio case and director of Military-Veterans Advocacy, said the wording will "limit the scope of Procopio and potentially exclude tens of thousands of veterans for whom we might otherwise have been able to get coverage." "The wording of this bill would effectively limit waters offshore to the territorial sea. ... International law says the territorial sea runs the same points that are in the bill but also leaves open waters offshore further out," he said. "I just reviewed a case today that was a mile and a half outside the covered area. If the bill passes, we can't cover them." Wells said his organization, as well as the Blue Water Navy Association, supports the language of a bill introduced in the Senate, S. 1195, by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, that would cover the maximum amount of territory under international law. Takano said the coordinates are in the bill to ensure that the VA doesn't narrow the scope of the coverage. "The VA has a track record of narrowly interpreting decisions to their benefit. We wanted to make sure we were very specific." Takano and Roe said they'd like to see the bill passed before Memorial Day, May 27, 2019. "I would urge the Senate not to wait to see what Justice decides to do," Takano said. "We codify this in law, then [VA] has their marching orders," Roe said. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime. A Marine died over the weekend after collapsing on his 30th birthday days prior while training to deploy to Central America. Sgt. Mark Bryant, a reservist with Missouri-based Combat Logistics Regiment 4, died May 11 at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, Marine Corps Times reported Tuesday. Bryant had collapsed at Camp Lejeune, about 75 miles northeast of the hospital, on May 7 while completing a training run with his unit. Bryant had turned 30 years old on the day of the run. He was a certified emergency medical technician who was planning to pursue a degree to become a physician's assistant, according to his obituary. "We are deeply saddened to confirm the death of Sergeant Mark Bryant," Maj. Matthew Mallalieu, a spokesman for the Southern Command task force, told Marine Corps Times. "... Our thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of Sergeant Bryant, and we remain committed to supporting them throughout this difficult time." Bryant received immediate care on the scene following his collapse, Marine Corps Times reported. He was then transported to the hospital via flight for life, according to the paper. Bryant, who was from Lee's Summit, Missouri, outside Kansas City where his Reserve unit is based, served 11 years in the Marine Corps, his obituary states. He is survived by his fiancee, Rachelle Price; his parents; and his brother, a Marine corporal, it adds. "He had a soft spot for rescuing animals in need of a home," the obituary states. "He enjoyed classical music and played the violin. He also enjoyed movies and was a military and world history buff." -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins. Changes at the Navy's enlisted boot camp, including stiffer physical requirements, are producing strong, fit sailors able to tackle the demands of a Great Power competition, according to Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Russell Smith. In the past three years, the Navy has overhauled the physical requirements of enlisted boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, Illinois, requiring those joining the service to meet stricter standards and making recruits pass a physical fitness test on Day 5 of boot camp or face discharge. The improved standards have resulted in initial increases in dropouts occurring early in the training. But overall attrition rates have dropped significantly, Smith said during a forum for senior sea service enlisted personnel at the Navy Leagues Sea Air Space exposition on May 7 in National Harbor, Maryland. "We had been coddling the sailor, the recruits we'd been getting. As soon as we began to challenge these recruits, they rose to the occasion," Smith said. According to Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, the new standards have slashed the attrition rates at Week 6, when recruits take their final physical fitness assessment, by half. They have significantly decreased since implementation of the baseline physical fitness assessment [the Day 5 test]. The result is shifting attrition of individuals unable to pass the physical standards to much earlier in the training, Lt. Joe Pfaff, Great Lakes public affairs officer, told Military.com. The ultimate goal, Smith said, is to weed out those who may not make it through training at the Military Entrance Processing Station before they arrive. Roughly 70% who leave have a pre-existing medical condition that wasn't found at MEPS. The changes were made amid concerns that the potential recruiting pool is not physically able to handle the tasks needed to run warships, including firefighting, damage control, line handling and medical drills. On their 5th day of training, recruits must complete a baseline physical fitness assessment: males must run complete 1.5 miles in 16 minutes, 10 seconds or less, and women must do it in under 18 minutes, 37 seconds. If they don't pass, they dont start formal training. They must retake the test within 48 hours and risk discharge if they can't do it. Across the nation, of the young men and women who are recruiting age, just 27% are fit enough to join the U.S. military. With unemployment rates at record lows, overall familiarity with the benefits of military service at historic lows and five armed forces competing for recruits, the challenge, Smith said, is to find members of Generation Z who "really want to come to us." "You hear the argument that this generation isn't prepared, that it's soft or they're not as capable. I guess I've spent far too much time managing and being part of the succession pipeline to believe [that], Smith said. By any measure, we have more capable sailors today than we've ever had. From an academic perspective, from a fiscal standpoint, we have the raw material. In the revamped Navy boot camp, recruits are required to pass their individual exams as well as team tests. They must go through a final exercise, "Battle Stations 21," in which they endure a "deployment" aboard the USS Trayer, a mockup of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. If they or their team don't pass their tests, they don't graduate. "If they fail, [even] if their family is on the plane [to come to graduation], they're going to be sent back and won't graduate because we are not going to relax the standard," Smith said. The changes are designed to ensure that every sailor contributes to the Navy's "lethality," he added. In a conventional war with near-peer adversaries, all service members will need to perform seamanship and emergency response tasks, he said. And the skills aren't limited to combat, as demonstrated by the all-hands responses in the deadly collisions involving the guided-missile destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain that killed 17 sailors -- accidents that helped accelerate the Navy boot camp changes. "It's just like any team. Every rating contributes to lethality in one way or another," Smith said. The new standards have not come without a price, however. In the past two months, two female recruits have died at Great Lakes. Whether their deaths are related to the new requirements is under investigation. Seaman Recruit Kelsey Nobles died April 23 after collapsing from cardiac arrest during a fitness test in her sixth week of recruit training. Seaman Recruit Kierra Evans died Feb. 22 on a run, also about a week before she was scheduled to graduate. Smith said he couldn't comment on the ongoing investigations but added that the new requirements were implemented under strict guidance and policies. "We have an incredibly well-documented, well-scripted, well-orchestrated, and monitored physical fitness program," he said. "We try to ensure that we weed out under-trained recruits, and discourage overtraining. There's a deep personal sense of loss our [drill instructors] feel, as do the other members of the company. Our hearts go out, certainly, to the families, but as well [to] those shipmates in those companies." -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @patriciakime. ABOARD A C-37 MILITARY AIRCRAFT -- When Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson was asked by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to step up to the plate and become the 24th secretary for the service, she knew she was in good hands. Wilson said she regards Mattis as "a pretty amazing leader," one who mentored her and shepherded her through the halls of the Pentagon. "He was the one who asked me to come. And he's a pretty special guy to work for," she said during an exclusive interview with Military.com on Tuesday. So when the University of Texas approached Wilson with a job offer around the same time as Mattis' departure-turned-ouster in December, her decision wasn't difficult to make. "It made it easier for the University of Texas to recruit me, yes," she said. Military.com traveled with the outgoing secretary on one of her last trips to Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, before she departs the Pentagon in the next two weeks to take her new position as president of the University of Texas El Paso. During her visit to Maxwell, Wilson continued to tout the latest National Defense Strategy -- another doctrine championed by Mattis -- one she says is "meatier than most." She had seen others while working on the White House National Security Council staff as director for defense policy and arms control for President George H.W. Bush during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. She also served as a Republican in Congress from 1998 to 2009, representing New Mexico's 1st Congressional District. Related content: Who Wants to Be the New Air Force Secretary? Perhaps Not Many But the Pentagon cannot stop with the NDS to go beyond 21st-century warfare. While the NDS is a blueprint on how to approach near-peer threats, Wilson said there's a lot of work to do in how the U.S. approaches current or rising conflicts and unconventional means of warfare. And in how it values its allies. "I think we're not very good about gray-zone conflict," she said when asked what rising threats the Pentagon will need to work on more efficiently. "Gray zone" conflict is often defined as an actor that wishes to gain advantage without provoking a conventional military response from its opponent. "Influence operations, or operations short of warfare itself, and undermining other governments' confidence in our alliances conflict below the level of outright hostilities," Wilson explained. "Information operations is an example to undermine regimes," she said. "Russia and China are better at that than we are because we just don't think that way." The issue has come up during war games with top leadership, Wilson said. In the real world, both Russia and China tailor their messaging or create disinformation campaigns to gain influence, which has allowed Russia to annex Crimea, for example, and China to increase its foothold in Venezuela. "Our adversaries are often better at shaping the perception of what's going on than we are," Wilson said. But there's no magic answer, she added. "It's not an Air Force specialty, but it is something we need to think about because, in some conflicts, if you can create a fait accompli and the perception that you were the aggrieved party in the first place, and you're just writing the situation. The fait accompli can stick. It is the shaping of an information environment prior to conflict where I'm just not as sure we're as good as our adversaries." Wilson spoke at length about a number of other topics, from what her successor must see through to how the Air Force might need to take greater -- or fewer -- risks. Her comments have been edited for clarity and brevity. Q: Since the day Mattis asked you to be Air Force secretary, how has your outlook changed on the Air Force, U.S. national security and overall worldview after sitting in a top Pentagon position? A: I think I've learned a lot about how the Pentagon operates and sometimes doesn't operate very well. But really, how the budgets are constructed. Even the way in which the Air Force and the other services look at warfighting. Strategies and concepts of operation, and how that flows into decision making about the budget. I also have a tremendous confidence in the leadership of the Air Force. When I was a captain, I saw a lot of general officers and thought, 'Bleh. I don't want to be like that guy.' Obviously, I have a different perspective now. I think that 28 years of continuous combat has weeded out riffraff. This is a pretty amazing group of general officers, leaders and senior NCOs that I think we're blessed to have. Q: Reflecting on your time as secretary, what do you feel remains unfinished in the service? A: I always have a long list of to-dos. I think I will die with a list to-dos on the fridge. We need to implement the Science and Technology Strategy. We have a number of things on ... personnel changes such as officer performance reports that will be coming next year. Of course, we have a plan to implement the Space Force, pending legislation. I've spent a lot more time on budgets, a lot more time on space, than I anticipated coming into this job, but it needed the attention. And a significant shift in space to a contested domain. Those are big things. Q: What do you believe your successor will need to tackle? A: One of the lines of effort for the National Defense Strategy [is] deepening partnerships and keeping alliances. Also, getting readiness moving in the right direction. I'm about to sign our sustainment strategy into effect. Cost-effective modernization and getting acquisition reform implemented. The installation strategy. So we've got a lot of things that are either going or are well underway of being implemented. But one area that my successor is going to have to spend more time strategically is, 'Which of the partnerships and alliances do we need to attend to, what are the seeds we need to plant in order to be where [we need to be] 10 years from now?' I think that's going to be an important piece of work. Q: That is fostering alliances, creating new ones, or all of the above? A: All of the above. And what does it look like 10 years from now with a robust set of alliances for interoperability, for our allies' capacity to defend themselves, and for their relationships with each other? So that their regions of the world are more secure, more stable because we are facilitating robust alliances. Q: The Air Force has touted how it's been able to move much faster the last few years in acquisition strategy, technology advancement and certain training it does across the force. Are there areas where the service may be talking about moving more quickly, but programs have yet to catch up? A: Perhaps you were in the room when I said this [earlier], but I'm the one that's decisive and [Chief of Staff Gen. David] Goldfein sometimes tells me I need to slow down a little bit. And it's not necessarily on innovation, but we're trying to fix a lot problems in the personnel system. We've done a lot of things to try to fix professional military education and high-year tenure, the promotion recommendation form. And all of it has been based on really good analysis. But there's also a culturation tie-in. And particularly in things that make a lot of difference to people's professional lives, like going to more categories for promotion. ... It does matter a lot. I was ready to sign off on [some of these] new directives in the next couple weeks, and [Goldfein] convinced me that [we should] get this out to the force and get their feedback. Let them ask the questions. So that when we do roll it out, more people understand it. And we may modify it a bit based on that feedback. That's an example of maybe we should take more time to make sure that this will work. On [innovation and technology], there are times where an experiment doesn't work, and that's why you call them experiments. We had a program where we had a company that thought it could really accelerate a technology, and we put it into an 804 [rapid acquisition] program, but we thought there was higher technical risk than the contractor did. We said, 'OK, if you think you can do this we'll risk share with you.' But it got down to the final negotiations, and the [company] didn't want to risk share, which told us our assessment was probably right. So we backed off. ... And that's good judgment. We should celebrate that with our program managers for saying this is probably not mature. We're better off acknowledging that now. Q: Will the American public see a new technological advancement, weapon or aircraft in the next five years -- something we've never heard of before, something you know about but we do not? A: Yes. Q: Will it be really cool? A: Yes. Because if that weren't true, you should be really disappointed in us. Because we're in a field where things are rapidly innovating. I remember where I was when I saw the first-ever iPhone. I was standing on the floor of the House of Representatives [in 2007]. That was over a decade ago. We take this for granted. If we weren't moving forward in innovating rapidly, then shame on us; you should be disappointed. Q: Are Russia and China making these advancements faster than the U.S. is, and how concerning is that? A: Russia is a declining petropower armed with nuclear weapons and a threat to its neighbors. China is innovating really quickly, and stealing things too. The threat we worry about most long-term is China. Q: What is the long-term threat to U.S. national security, whether it be a nation or a type of adversarial action or advancement? A: I think the rapid innovation of China and its determination to, by the middle of this century, have a military that is reflective of its position [in the world] and whether China is able to develop as an economic national security power while still being a repressive regime internally [makes] China the most interesting country to be watching for the next decade. Q: What will you miss most as you vacate this position? A: I'll miss the airmen, and the opportunity to interact with them. That's probably not an unexpected answer. I enjoy the fellowship. I've done a lot of different executive leadership jobs, and I've worked with a lot of great leaders. I've worked for the first President Bush, I've worked for Gen. [Brent] Scowcroft. I've worked for Bob Gates. Condoleezza Rice was a peer on the National Security Council staff. I've had a lot of great leaders and mentors, and people that I've watched up close as leaders. But I have never had as positive a working relationship as I have with another leader as I have with [Chief of Staff Gen.] Dave Goldfein. He is exceptional. And I will really miss that. -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. The State Department has ordered all non-emergency U.S. government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. consulate in Irbil to leave the country, according to a statement posted on the embassy's website Wednesday. Employees were ordered to "depart Iraq by commercial transportation as soon as possible" and avoid U.S. facilities in Iraq, according to the statement. The statement did not provide a reason for the evacuation. Tensions in the region have risen since U.S. officials last week cited intelligence reports that neighboring Iran or its proxy forces were planning attacks on U.S. forces or interests, which Iran has denied. U.S. military officials have said there is an elevated threat level facing U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Syria, primarily emanating from Iranian-controlled Shiite militias. The U.S. sent a bomber group to the Middle East and expedited the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group's transit toward the Persian Gulf in light of the intelligence reports, U.S. officials have said. American and French ships battled in the West Indies even though there was no formal declaration of war. The Pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States in 1801, and in 1815 President James Madison asked Congress to declare war on Algeria. American merchant ships were in great danger at this time because there was no national navy to protect them abroad. While typically thought of as a rebuilding time in United States history, it was a busy and tough time for American seamen. The Rangers received yet even more terrible news on the prospect front Tuesday, as 2016 first-rounder Cole Ragans will undergo the second Tommy John surgery of his young career, per a team announcement. Ragans underwent Tommy John surgery last March but re-tore the ligament in his right elbow and will now miss a second season of development. The Rangers have already lost 2018 second-round pick Owen White and 2018 fourth-rounder Mason Englert to Tommy John surgery this season, thus wiping out the 2019 campaigns for three intriguing young prospects within the teams minor league ranks. Ragans ranked as the teams No. 10 overall prospect, per MLB.com, while White checked in at No. 12 and Englert sat at No. 23. Some more news and notes out of Arlington The Tigers released Cameron Rupp from Triple-A Toledo earlier this week, as per the International Leagues transactions page. According to MLB.coms Jason Beck (Twitter link), Rupp became expendable after catching prospect Jake Rogers was promoted from Double-A to Toledo, and veteran Bobby Wilson returned from injury. After receiving regular work behind the plate for the Phillies in 2015-17, Rupp has spent the last 14 months on a whirlwind tour of different organizations as he looks for a path back to the big leagues. Since being released by Philadelphia in March 2018, Rupp has been a member of five different teams (the Rangers, Twins, Mariners, Giants, and Tigers) on minor league assignments. Most recently, San Francisco dealt him to Detroit for cash considerations in March as the Tigers looked to add some veteran catching depth in Spring Training. Rupps defense and pitch-framing has never been particularly highly rated, though he does possess some decent power, particularly for a catcher. The 30-year-old has 39 homers and a career .234/.298/.407 over 1127 Major League plate appearances, all with the Phillies. DETROIT - Two new lions have arrived in Detroit via Buffalo, and no, they dont include the likes of either defensive tackle Ed Oliver or offensive lineman Vladimir Ducasse. Instead, the Detroit Zoo is welcoming the addition of African lions Asha and Amirah to its African Grasslands on its grounds. The two sisters, both 3-years-old, join Simba, the 10-year-old 'mane' man," on a breeding recommendation from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums Species Survival Program. Related: Potter Park Zoo welcomes baby kangaroo Asha and Amirah are settling in well in their new home. They are being slowly introduced to Simba, who seems excited about the new additions to his pride, Scott Carter, the Detroit Zoological Societys chief life sciences officer, said in a Wednesday, May 15 news release. This summer, Zoo visitors will be able to watch them hanging out together, and we are hopeful the pride will grow even larger with the addition of cubs in the next year or so. The Detroit Zoos year-round lion habitat comes in at 9,600-square-feet, and features a 17-foot-tall acrylic wall to give guests the best view possible of the charismatic felines. Related: Detroit Zoo announces birth of snow monkey at zoo for first time in 13 years In its release, the zoo says that Simba came to Detroit via the royal family of Qatar back in 2013. Asha and Amirah will also join 18-year-old Erin in the habitat, after she came to Detroit after being rescued in a Kansas junkyard back in 2009. Its important to note that the average lifespan for lions is about 17 years. Related: Detroit Zoo now home to 1 of largest red panda exhibits in US after $500K gift ANN ARBOR, MI -- Anquanetta Bargaineer cautioned her sister to keep away from the man now charged in her murder. Love is going to get you hurt ... Hes going to kill you," shed tell Latisha Mercedes Bargaineer, 29, who was discovered fatally stabbed in Detroit on June 18, 2017. It was Fathers Day. But he loves me. Hes not going to do that," Anquanetta Bargaineer said her sister would counter. I said, Love is not abuse. Demetrius Montgomery, 39, of Ypsilanti, is now on trial, charged with open murder in the slaying of Latisha Bargaineer, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship leading up to her death, according to court testimony from fiends and family. Washtenaw County Assistant Prosecutor John Vella in his opening statements said Montgomery stabbed Bargaineer up to 17 times in the Ypsilanti apartment the couple shared, bathed her and then changed the clothes on her bloodied body before moving it to his cousins Detroit home in the back seat of his red Ford Flex. Several witnesses during the first full day of testimony Tuesday, May 14 described incidents of suspected abuse suffered by Bargaineer at the hands of Montgomery. Mercedes was in love with someone who didnt love her back, and beat on her, said Tiairica Thrower, 23, of Detroit, who testified that she spent nearly a year living with the couple, witnessing their violent relationship up close. Thrower spoke of Bargaineers love of wearing fake eyelashes and the day she said Montgomery burned them off. Thrower said she watched as Montomgery pinned Bargaineer to the ground by sitting on her chest and kneeling on her arms. He drug the lighter across her eyelashes while she was screaming, Thrower testified. By the time Montgomery ended the assault nearly 10 minutes later, Thrower testified that Bargaineers eyelids were blistered and burned down to the white meat. I was terrified," she said when questioned by Montgomerys attorney, Dionne Webster-Cox, as to why Thrower never called police. After the incident, Bargaineer wore exceptionally large sunglasses" that covered most of her face and disguised the injuries, her cousin Nichelle R. Gaston later testified. Thrower also told of a beating she said occurred Aug. 26, 2016. Montgomery drove the trio to an after-hours club in Detroit and went inside, leaving Thrower and Bargaineer in the car for nearly four hours, she testified. When Montgomery returned to the vehicle and asked Bargaineer for directions to a motel -- directions Bargaineer was unable to provide -- Montgomery became enraged and closed-hand hit her in the face repeatedly, according to Thrower. Once at the motel, Thrower said, Montomery continued the beating, stripped Bargaineers clothes from her body, dragged her to a bath tub filled with cold water and bashed her head numerous time against a soap dish while trying to throw her in. She was telling (him), please, stop, please, stop, and he wouldnt, Thrower testified. Throughout the days testimony, Montgomery sometimes shook his head back and forth in disagreement from the defense table. While Bargaineers sister and her father, Eddie Pitts Jr., each testified that Bargaineer endured ongoing abuse, both said they never witnessed it firsthand. Following Bargaineers death, prosecutors say Montgomery fled to Alabama, where police stopped the vehicle he was riding in for an unrelated traffic violation on July 25, 2018. Montgomery then ran from police on foot in a Detroit Lions jersey before being stunned with a Taser and arrested, according to Vella. Webster-Cox suggested during her opening statement that Bargaineers killing was committed by three unidentified suspects seeking retribution, possibly for a theft committed by Bargaineer, or because they were unhappy with a drug purchase from Montgomery. "No one followed up on this to see, could this possibly be true, she said. Washtenaw County Trial Judge David S. Swartz said he expects the trial to conclude by Friday, May 17. Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield has asked state Rep. Larry Inman to resign following the lawmakers indictment on attempted extortion and bribery charges. Chatfield told reporters Wednesday afternoon hed had conversations with Inman shortly after removing him from his committee assignments, and asked him to formally resign. He did not elaborate on whether the House would begin expulsion proceedings should Inman refuse to do so. Ive asked Rep. Inman to resign in his official capacity as state representative, and he told me that it would be under consideration, Chatfield told reporters Wednesday afternoon. Inman, a Grand Traverse County Republican, was indicted on charges of attempted extortion, bribery and lying to an FBI agent. He is accused of soliciting money from a labor union, Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, in exchange for a no vote on the 2018 legislative initiative petition to repeal the states prevailing wage law. In a statement released through his attorneys, Inman said he was innocent of the charges and plans to fight them. I have never compromised the integrity of my vote, he said. I have always represented my constituency honestly and legally. Chatfield said he hasnt had a chance to read through the entire indictment, but said he believes its in the best interest of this institution for Inman to resign. The text that was made public through the press is completely out of line, and its not in the spirit of what the people of this state deserve in representation, he said. I think every single person in this chamber is aware of that. Samantha Hart, Communications Director for the Michigan House Democrats, said in a statement that the accusations in the indictment are deeply concerning. While the Representative is innocent until proven guilty, the House has a responsibility to the people of Michigan to closely monitor the legal process as it unfolds, she said. After session Wednesday, House Democratic Leader Christine Greig, D-Farmington Hills, called for his resignation. Rep. Inmans actions are concerning and deeply troubling. I join with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in calling for his immediate resignation and look to Speaker Chatfield to use all the tools at his disposal to take action if Rep. Inman refuses to resign," Greig said in a statement. The Michigan Democratic Party also called for Inmans immediate resignation. Not only is Inman accused of violating the trust of his constituents, the oath of his office, and the law, but his actions, if true, show a deeply troubling pattern of Republican disdain for the working people of our state, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said in a statement. The citizens of Michigan deserve representatives that put the people of our state first and do not abuse the trust of the public or the power of their position. Attempted extortion carries a potential penalty of 20 years in prison. Solicitation is a 10-year felony while lying to an FBI agent is a five-year felony. Inman was present in a House Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday morning before the indictment came to light, but was absent on the House floor during Wednesdays session. A Michigan lawmaker indicted Wednesday morning on attempted extortion and bribery charges has been stripped of his committee assignments, House Speaker Lee Chatfield said. In a statement, Chatfield, R-Levering, said the House Business Office has taken control of Rep. Larry Inmans office after news that Inman, R-Traverse City, was indicted on charges of attempted extortion, bribery and lying to an FBI agent. Inman has been removed from his committee assignments effective immediately, Chatfield said. Everyone in the House is surprised and disappointed by this news, Chatfield said in the statement. The indictment just came to my attention this morning, and I am still gathering more information. There will be more to say after additional discussions with Inman, Chatfield said. Inman is accused of soliciting money from a labor union, Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, in exchange for a no vote on the 2018 legislative initiative petition to repeal the states prevailing wage law, U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said in a statement. The grand jury alleges that Inman committed the crime of attempted extortion by using his authority as an elected representative, namely, his authority to vote on the petition to repeal the prevailing wage law, to seek to obtain money from the MRCCM with the unions consent, Birges statement said. Attempted extortion carries a potential penalty of 20 years in prison. Solicitation is a 10-year felony while lying to an FBI agent is a five-year felony. MLive has been unable to reach Inman for comment. His state office was closed and locked as of Wednesday afternoon. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wants to make changes so military members and their spouses have better access to voting. The issue is a personal one to Benson. Her husband, Sgt. Ryan Friedrichs, was serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan when the ballot he cast in the 2012 presidential primary was returned to their home as undeliverable mail. Currently, military service members and their families in Michigan face a series of obstacles in participating in our democracy, as my husband and I experienced firsthand, Benson said. I come at issues like voting protections as a military spouse, and as your secretary of state I am committed to better serve those who serve and protect us every day. Benson announced a number of proposals Tuesday in Grand Ledge in a press conference at the Army Aviation Support Facility. Some will take legislative action, like Bensons idea to allow military members and their spouses serving out of the country to return their ballots electronically. The exact technology has not yet been determined, said Shawn Starkey, spokesman for Benson. There are multiple approaches. We would work to ensure that the technological infrastructure is safe, secure and implemented in a timely manner, Starkey said. Benson also wants to make it possible for members of the military serving overseas to be able to register to vote on Election Day through Federal Write-In Absentee Ballots -- a new right granted to Michigan voters as a result of a 2018 constitutional amendment. Some measures Benson will initiate within her own department, including improving ballot tracking tools for members of the military and creating an online resource at Michigan.gov/MilitaryVoting. A Michigan zoo is welcoming a baby kangaroo into the world. Gertie, a Western grey kangaroo at Potter Park Zoo in Lansing, gave birth to the joey, which ventured from his pouch this week. Zoo staff first noticed movement in Gerties pouch in late 2018 and kept a close eye on her over the winter months. In late March, zookeepers got their first look at the little joey with its head out of moms pouch. Remarkably, baby kangaroos are the size of a lima bean at birth. They climb up their mothers belly and into her pouch as soon as theyre born to finish developing. By the time the joey is ready to start venturing from the safety of the pouch, it has grown to be a couple of feet tall. Potter Park Zoos critically endangered black rhino is pregnant According to zoo staff, the baby is still spending a lot of time in the pouch, but is starting to move around using its feet and tail. Visitors need to be patient to see the baby though. It can sometimes be seen reaching for his mom's food or mingling with mother and the other kangaroos. Potter Park Zoo is one of only 10 Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited zoos to house western grey kangaroos, which are found throughout western and central mainland Australia. We are looking forward to a great season at Potter Park Zoo and we know Gertie the western grey kangaroo and new joey will be a part of that, said General Curator Sarah Pechtel in a statement. Nearly 600 animals call Potter Park Zoo home, including critically endangered black rhinos, Amur tigers, endangered red pandas and Massasauga rattlesnakes. Potter Park Zoo mourning death of beloved snow leopard, Little Girl Almost a third of Michigan hospitals -- 26 of 81 -- received an "A" grade for hospital safety in the spring 2018 report card by The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit watchdog organization. Hurley Medical Center in Flint was the only Michigan hospital to earn an F. The evaluation system looks at numbers of hospital errors, injuries, accidents and infections. Patients at D and F hospitals face a 92% greater risk of avoidable death compared to hospitals with an "A" grade, while the risk is 88% greater at a hospitals with a "C" grade and 35% greater at "B" hospitals, according to Leapfrog. Using this online database, you can look up a specific hospital or search by community to see the spring 2019 grades. Click on details to see grades for spring 2018, 2017 and 2016. Spring 2019 hospital safety grade To see the grades of all 81 hospitals, click on all hospitals or all cities. An estimated 160,000 hospital patients die a year from the avoidable medical errors a year. Thats down from an estimated 205,000 avoidable deaths in 2016, Leapfrog said. The organization says its grading system uses a methodology reviewed by national experts and gets guidance from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. Five Michigan hospitals have received straight As in the past four spring report cards: Michigan Medicine (University of Michigan) in Ann Arbor, Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital in Oakland Countys Commerce Township, Spectrum Hospital in Ludington, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Chelsea and Otsego Memorial Hospital in Gaylord. Along with the 26 hospitals in Michigan earning an "A", 29 or 36% earned a "B" and 25 or 32% earned a C. There were no Ds. Of more than 2,600 hospitals graded nationally, 32% earned an A, 26% earned a B, 36% earned a C, 6% a D and just under 1% an F For more information about the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade or to view the list of state rankings, please visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org. LANSING, MI -- The Michigan Senate passed a budget on Wednesday, leaving behind the revenue increase and cost shifts proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on big pieces budget pieces like transportation and education. The Senate plan also accelerates the 2015 plan passed by the legislature to fund Michigans roads by putting an additional $132 million into local roads but does not incorporate Whitmers recommendation for a 45-cent gas tax hike -- a key to her overall budget plan for Fiscal Year 2020, which runs from Oct. 1, 2019 through Sept. 30, 2020. On the MIRS Monday Podcast in March, Whitmer said she would not sign a budget that went separately from a road-funding solution. Im not signing anything unless its all done together, Whitmer said. Asked about that threat on Wednesday, Stamas said he looks at the Senate-passed budget as a real funding of the roads. I do agree with the governor that moving forward, finding and setting a priority getting us closer to the $2.5 million, Stamas said. But until we actually have those revenues I think we have to move forward with a real budget with real revenue. The chamber passed the bill 22-16 along party lines. Education affected The Senate also passed an education budget Wednesday. Without a backfill tied to the increased transportation revenue Whitmers budget counted on, it continues spending School Aid Fund on Higher Education instead of putting it all toward K-12. It also disregards Whitmers recommendations for weighting formulas to give schools more money for expensive-to-educate students and rejects her proposed funding shift that would have stopped K-12 funding from being shifted into the higher education budget. The chamber rejected a series of amendments, including one from Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-Beverly Hills, that would have restored the weighted funding formula Whitmer had proposed. If we were to use the weighted funding level our districts would have more money, our teachers would have more to teach with, Bayer said. For baseline per-pupil funding, the Senate version puts per-pupil funding increases at $135 to $270 per pupil, a higher range than Whitmers proposed $120 to $180 per pupil. Thats because the Senate plan gives the lowest-funded schools twice the boost as the highest-funded schools, whereas Whitmer proposed giving the lowest-funded schools 1.5 times the boost, and also doesnt take into account the additional money Whitmer proposed adding to the per-pupil number by weighting the formula. The chamber ended up passing the education budget 21-17. Democrats voted against it along with Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, who said he voted against it because of the money that continued to be diverted to higher education. Cuts to AG, SOS Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson could find themselves with fewer operating dollars under the Senate-passed budget. The Senates budget contained an overall 8.8 percent cut to the Attorney Generals office. Democratic efforts to restore the funding to its previous levels failed on the floor. Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said on the floor the attorney general is using existing funding to make important cases on behalf of Michigan citizens. After 8 years of this legislature giving the attorney general everything they wanted, now we have a significant cut being made to this office, he said. Stamas said the cuts were necessary to ensure focus on primary issues such as road funding and education. The cuts are smaller than the 15 percent cut currently proposed in the House budget. On Twitter, Nessel criticized the efforts to cut funding to her office, noting the department is currently relying on volunteers to review documents related to clergy abuse cases. Wondering if our charging documents referred to the victims as an unborn fetus instead of as a complainant if maybe Republicans would start caring about sexual assault survivors, or about bringing to justice those who are still a very real threat to people already born, Nessel said on Twitter. Bensons budget also saw a docking -- the Senate plan appropriates $4.6 million for the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission required by the passage of Proposal 2, and cuts funding to the Secretary of States overall operations by that amount. Irwin said taking money away from the Secretary of States budget to fund the commission follows the letter, not the spirit of the law. Sen. Ruth Johnson, R-Holly - the former Secretary of State - voted against the legislation containing the language along with Senate Democrats. Stamas said discussions with the Secretary of State were ongoing, but added the change to the Secretary of States funds was less than 2 percent overall. Next steps The House is working up a budget of its own, and the House and Senate will need to hammer out their differences before sending a final product to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The new budget has to be approved by Oct. 1 to keep government running when the budget year starts over, although under Gov. Rick Snyder the budget was traditionally done months earlier. Sen. Curtis Hertel, D-East Lansing, Minority Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he looked forward to working further with his Senate colleagues on the budget. Hes encouraged by bipartisan discussions and said I dont think any of these problems are too big for us to solve. ANN ARBOR, MI -- A wild turkey accused of frightening joggers and others on the University of Michigans north campus may have waddled into eternity. UM Police Deputy Chief Melissa Overton told the Ann Arbor News/MLive a turkey was struck and killed in in a busy road near the location of recent sightings, but said there are reports of multiple turkeys in the area, so its not clear if the slain turkey is the one that garnered news headlines for being aggressive. Aside from nearby construction and heavy traffic along Huron Parkway, the area surrounding the UM Transportation Research Institute, 2901 Baxter, its a serene setting, with a drainage ditch turned marshy oasis, clumps of woodlands and vibrant, invitingly soft looking grass that draws geese, and now, apparently, wild turkeys. UM Transportation Research Institute spokeswoman Francine Romine said the big, unusual" turkey was spotted standing on the busy Huron Parkway causing a ruckus with traffic early Wednesday, May 15, and she hadnt seen him since. Hopefully hes not dead ... Contrary to media reports, he wasnt an aggressive turkey, but he was a turkey, Romine told the Ann Arbor News/MLive. He generally kept to himself, unless startled by someone, in which case he reacted not with malice but perhaps fear. Romine said at least two decoy dogs were installed to scare away unwanted geese about three weeks ago. On either side of the building are black, cardboard-cutout dog silhouettes attached to a swivel. They move in wind. One at the rear of the building wore a UM colored collar and had its own water bowl. The dogs seem to keep the geese away, Romine said. The turkeys seem to largely ignore them. There have been multiple accounts of the territorial turkey being aggressive with passersby, including a man who told WDIV he was rushed by the feathered creature while carrying an infant son, and a jogger who said the gobbling game pursued him during multiple jogs. But some students and faculty tell the Ann Arbor News/MLive the feathery fowl may be getting a bad rap. Brian Eby, an employee in the machine shop at the UM Transportation Research Institute, said the turkey is big and has been living in the area since before the weather broke this spring, at least a month. Hes just friendly, Eby said. They put those silhouettes of a dog out ... It doesnt faze him a bit. I mean, someone has a picture 10 feet away from them. While Eby called the bird a loner, another woman walking in the area Wednesday pointed towards some nearby trees and said a hen, the turkeys apparent partner, had been spotted there. Two other employees and a student also rejected claims that its been aggressive, although they said it does seem curious. Its been spotted on a grassy berm near parked cars, along well-traveled sidewalks, at building entrances and even peering in basement-level windows, they said. Id be really bummed if indeed reports of his death are true, Romine said. Perhaps the media coverage yesterday put a target on his back? SCIO TOWNSHIP, MI - A service dog helped rescue its handler when a home went up in flames last week. Authorities were called about 4 p.m. May 7 for a fire that burned through the roof of a home in the Scio Farms manufacturing community, 6655 Jackson Road in Scio Township, fire Capt. Eric Holzer said. Firefighters arrived to find flames three-quarters of the way through the home, but the occupant got out safely, Holzer said. "A service dog did wake him up in order to let him know (about the fire)," Holzer said. They were able to exit safely, he said. Though firefighters knocked down the flames within minutes of arriving on scene, the trailer home was destroyed, he said. The fire is believed to have started in the kitchen, Holzer said. Further details on the cause of the fire werent immediately available. FLINT, MI- There have been eight confirmed cases of Legionnaires disease since the start of the year, down one from last year, according to a press release from the Genesee County Health Department. There were seven confirmed cases by this same time last year, the May 14 press release states. The number of Legionnaires cases in Genesee County has been a topic of concern since 12 people died from it in 2014 and 2015, when the city changed its water source to the Flint River. The health department also warned residents that the disease is more common during the summer and early fall because warmer temperatures create an ideal environment for the bacteria to grow. Legionnaires disease can be contracted by breathing in a mist or swallowing water containing Legionella, causing the bacteria to get into their lungs. The bacteria cannot be spread from person to person contact. Symptoms, which typically appear two to 14 days after exposure to the bacteria, resemble pneumonia. They can include a cough, shortness of breath, fever, headache, diarrhea and mental changes. Most healthy people will not contract the disease after being exposed to Legionella. Individuals ages 50 and above, current or former smokers, people with chronic lung disease and weakened immune systems are all at higher risk for contracting the disease. Most cases of Legionnaires disease can be treated successfully with antibiotics. Although warmer temperatures create a more ideal environment for Legionella bacteria growth, it can grow year-round, especially inside buildings or structures with complex water systems such as hospitals, hotels and cruise ships. Legionella bacteria can grow in any water system with low disinfectant levels, stagnant water or ideal water temperatures. Proper water maintenance and disinfection are the most effective ways to prevent the disease. BIG RAPIDS, MI - Ferris State University recently celebrated the $30 million renovation and expansion of its Swan Technical Arts Building Annex, now leaders want to make the Center for Virtual Learning a reality. As part of the capital outlay process, the state made a $22.5 million appropriation to support Swans updated and expanded academic and laboratory space for the Center of Welding Excellence and the Center for Advanced Manufacturing programs. The dedication was April 26. During the Board of Trustees May 10 meeting, members approved authorization for the next phase in the planning for the $29.5 million main campus Center for Virtual Learning. The 100,000-square-foot facility would create a physical location to bring together the universitys online education efforts, while providing program development support and preparation for faculty engaged in virtual education. In December, the Michigan Legislature gave Ferris planning authorization for the center that then-Gov. Rick Snyder signed. The center is Ferris fiscal year 2019 capital outlay project but it still requires state approval before construction would begin. However, the approval paved the way for project planning. With planning authorization being the first step in capital outlay approval, we will work to complete project planning and then seek final funding authorization from the legislature, President David Eisler said, in his weekly email following the planning authorization approval. The Center for Virtual Learning includes the renovation of and an addition to Vandercook Hall to house the School of Digital Media, Information Security and Intelligence, online education, Career and Technical Education, and Teacher Education. The project also includes the razing of Bishop Hall, currently the home to several of the programs that would be moved to the new building. On Friday, the board also approved the naming of The Towsley Foundation Material Science Lab in the newly-renovated and expanded Swan Annex building, on main campus, in recognition of a $150,000 gift. The Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation, since 1960, has provided more than $91 million to primarily charitable organizations throughout Michigan. The foundation was established in 1959 by Margaret Dow Towsley with a gift of The Dow Chemical Companys common stock. According to the Ferris, the foundation continues the Towsley legacy of strengthening communities and improving lives through philanthropic support of those who offer creative and sustainable approaches to challenges in an ever-changing world. We are very appreciative of The Towsley Foundations generosity and are pleased to honor the legacy of the Foundation and its founders by naming a lab in the Swan Annex for them, said Shelly Pearcy, vice president for University Advancement and Marketing, in a statement. In other board business: MORE: Rep. Inman should resign, House speaker says UPDATE: Lawmakers extortion charges tied to texts seeking donations for 12, indictment says GRAND RAPIDS, MI State Rep. Larry Charles Inman, R-Grand Traverse County, has been indicted on charges of attempted extortion, bribery and lying to an FBI agent. He is accused of soliciting money from a labor union, Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, in exchange for a no vote on the 2018 legislative initiative petition to repeal the states prevailing wage law, U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said in a statement. The grand jury alleges that Inman committed the crime of attempted extortion by using his authority as an elected representative, namely, his authority to vote on the petition to repeal the prevailing wage law, to seek to obtain money from the MRCCM with the unions consent, Birges statement said. State Rep. Larry Inman Inman also allegedly solicited a bribe by corruptly soliciting a political campaign contribution of money in exchange for his vote on the petition to repeal the prevailing wage law." The union did not respond to Inmans request, federal prosecutors said. Attempted extortion carries a potential penalty of 20 years in prison. Solicitation is a 10-year felony while lying to an FBI agent is a five-year felony. MLive was unable to reach Inman through his state government office. The House business office took a message seeking comment from him. Inman was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2014 representing the 104th District. Our members deserve elected officials who vote on the merits of a bill, and how it will affect us as taxpayers and hardworking people, Mike Jackson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, said in a prepared statement. Were glad that Larry Inman is being brought to justice. Ultimately the House voted 56 to 53 to repeal the law, with Inman voting yes. Last June, Michigans Republican-led Legislature repealed the states prevailing wage mandate, wrapping up a three-year fight over a controversial law that required contractors to pay union wages and benefits on state-funded construction projects. Michigans prevailing wage law had long stipulated that job sites for public projects, such as schools and public buildings, grant workers union-level wages. Protect Michigan Taxpayers got enough signatures to send an initiative to repeal that law to the legislature. Protect Michigan Jobs supported the prevailing wage law. It said in a lawsuit that the initiative was unconstitutional because it enacted a $75,000 appropriation, and also claimed the House of Representatives gave the law immediate effect without having the required support. The Court of Claims rejected the appeal. UPDATE: Rep. Inman should resign, House speaker says GRAND RAPIDS, MI A state representative demanded that a labor union increase campaign donations to a dozen legislators in return for votes in a prevailing wage controversy, text messages showed. Larry Charles Inman, R-Traverse City, was indicted Tuesday, May 15 on charges of attempted extortion, bribery and lying to an FBI agent. In the text messages provided by federal prosecutors as part of the indictment, Inman suggested to the union that votes were for sale among a handful of legislators. Inman is scheduled for arraignment in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids on May 23. He said in a statement that he is innocent and he will vigorously fight the charges. Inman is accused of soliciting money from the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, or MRCCM, to oppose a repeal last year of the states prevailing wage law. The law required contractors pay union wages and benefits on state-funded construction projects, such as schools and public buildings. The government said Inmans text messages showed efforts to solicit funds on behalf of his campaign and 11 other state lawmakers. The indictment did not implicate any other lawmakers. Inman said he expected that a dozen lawmakers would each receive $30,000 donations to their campaigns to vote against the repeal, the government said in court records. In a June 3 text message to a recipient identified as Person A, Inman wrote: In my opinion, We all need some more help! Carpenters have been good to me, where are the rest of the trades on checks? We only have 12, people to block it. You said all 12 will get $30,000 each to help there campaigns. That did not happen, we will get a ton of pressure on this vote. (Person B and Person C) will go to the longest neck hold on this one. I have heard most got $5,000, not $30,000. Its not worth losing (committee) assignments and staff for $5,000, in the end. They will give you the check back. I am not sure you can hold 12 people for the only help of $5,000. My suggestion is you need to get people maxed out . Inman wrote: You have no idea the pressure on this one for (Person Bs state) race, to pull this off for the tea party. People will not go down for $5,000, not that we dont appreciate it. Inman sent a similar text that day to a Lansing lobbyist hired by the trade union. The next day, he wrote to Person A: I will text you tomorrow to make sure we have a solid 12 no votes to block prevailing wage , Larry, the indictment said. He then wrote, according to the indictment, that we never had this discussion ... . On June 5, the government said, he texted Person A about a breakfast and see if there are checks you can get ,thanks ! Larry Inman. The next day, Inman voted in favor of repealing the law, 56 to 53. The state Senate also voted to repeal the law and it was repealed. MRCCM provided no additional campaign funds after receiving Inmans June 3 text message, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher OConnor wrote in court documents. In a statement, Mike Jackson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, said: Our members deserve elected officials who vote on the merits of a bill, and how it will affect us as taxpayers and hardworking people. Were glad that Larry Inman is being brought to justice. Traverse City attorney Christopher Cooke is representing Inman. He said he was provided the indictment Wednesday and is reviewing it. Cooke did not want to comment at length but said: Larry maintains his innocence and (that) he did not violate the law. In a statement, Inman said: I am innocent of these charges. I have never compromised the integrity of my vote on any issue. I have always represented by constituency honestly and legally. I intend to vigorously defend the charges and my reputation. He told The Detroit News this morning he was surprised" by the allegations. He said he talked to authorities last year. They had some questions on the vote, Inman told the newspaper. I dont have the slightest idea of what direction theyre going and why. Inman was interviewed by the FBI on Aug. 1, the indictment said. He denied having any communications with Person A or the union to solicit funds before voting on the prevailing wage repeal, and specifically denied soliciting $30,000 from Person A, the indictment said. State Rep. Larry Inman U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge would not comment beyond a statement issued his his office. The investigation is ongoing, a spokeswoman said. House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, said Wednesday that Inman had been stripped of his committee assignments. Inman was first elected to the state House in 2014 and ran successful reelection campaigns in 2016 and 2018. He ran for the seat after 22 years on the Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners. In the private sector, Inman retired in 2007 as a vice president of the Huntington National Bank branch in Traverse City, according to his campaign site. He spent most of his career in banking. Inman touts himself as the owner of the "largest known collection of original photographs, autographed books, periodicals and artifacts on (Amelia) Earhart." He was working to create the first traveling museum exhibit on the life and disappearance of Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She went missing in 1937 while attempting to fly around the world. KENTWOOD, MI -- A 4-year-old Kentwood girl who went missing with her mother was found within an hour of an Amber Alert being issued thanks to observant residents. About 15 minutes after the Amber Alert for Faith Cyndora Martinez was issued Tuesday afternoon, a call came in identifying the location of her mothers vehicle at a park nearby her home, said Kentwood police Capt. Bryan Litwin. Kentwood police followed tips from witnesses near the park back to the mothers home in the area of 44th Street SE and Kalamazoo Avenue SE. At the home, they found Martinez and her mother, 30-year-old Pettra Aliesha Yahya, safe and uninjured around 3:40 p.m. Tuesday. Were just fortunate that we solved it quickly -- thanks to the Amber Alert going out and people being aware, Litwin said. Police were concerned about Martinez because Yahya told a family member she was going to kill herself and her children, Litwin said. That family member alerted police around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 14. Yahya has four children ranging in age from 15 to 4. Early on, police were able to confirm the oldest was with Yahyas mother and that the two middle children were safe at school. When officers went to Yahyas home -- where they later found the pair -- they found neither her nor Martinez. Litwin said the four children are now staying with Yahyas mother. Childrens Protective Services are involved. Yahya was taken into police custody and transferred to an area hospital for a mental health evaluation. Litwin said there likely wont be criminal charges in the case. MASON, MI A man accused of killing two women in two counties and planning to kill two others has been arraigned on murder and armed robbery charges. Kiernan Scott Brown was arraigned Tuesday afternoon, May 14, in Ingham County District Court in the May 10 beating deaths of Julie Ann Mooney, 32, and Kaylee Ann Brock, 26. Brown, 27, is charged with two counts each of open murder and armed robbery in connection with the two deaths. He was arrested after a woman who had a personal protection order against him called 911 at 2:41 a.m., May 10, stating he was trying to get into her home, according to Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth. Brown sent the woman a concerning text message prior to his arrest, stating he loved her and spared her, adding that she would soon know what that meant, police said. During his arrest, Brown showed police photos of what appeared to be two dead women, later identified as Mooney and Brock, police said. In a joint investigation by the Ingham County Sheriffs Office, Eaton County Sheriffs Office and Meridian Township Police Department, Mooney and Brock were found beaten to death in their homes in Williamston and Holt, respectively. Brown indicated he intended to kill two other women who later were found unharmed, Wriggelsworth said. Brown is scheduled for a preliminary examination May 30, before Ingham County District Judge Thomas Boyd. He is being held without bond at the Eaton County Jail. Brown was listed as a parole absconder May 2, eight days before the two homicides. He was previously imprisoned on convictions of assault by strangulation and theft from a motor vehicle, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. As a four-time habitual offender, Brown faces a possible life sentence on all charges. OTSEGO, MI The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has been awarded millions of dollars to take out a dam on the Kalamazoo River that has been labeled as the states highest priority for removal because of public safety concerns. In its place, the DNR envisions a boat launch, and ripples in the water where kayaks will have room to paddle in a place that was previously blocked by the aging and defunct structure, DNR Wildlife Biologist Mark Mills said. The Trowbridge Dam, owned by the state located near Otsego on the Kalamazoo River, has impoundments filled with PCB-contaminated waste from former paper mills on the river, Mills said. If that dam were to fail there would be an uncontrolled release of contaminated sediment, he said. The bridge has been labeled the states highest priority because of the potential for contaminants to be released downstream if something were to happen to the dam. The bridge is also in very poor condition, Mills said. Structurally the dam has continued to deteriorate like any structure does, he said, and it would take an expensive overhaul or replacement to bring it back to dam safety standards. The project should improve opportunities for recreation and boating in the area, he said, and is meant to turn the river back closer to its natural state. The DNR announced $2,940,775 in funding ($250,000 from the Dam Management Grant Program and the remainder in supplemental funding) for removal of the Trowbridge Dam. The dam is the highest-priority dam removal project in the state due to public safety concerns related to its poor condition and high hazard rating, the DNR said in a news release. The DNR Wildlife Division will receive the funding and oversee the project. Michigan has more than 2,600 dams on rivers and streams, and the condition of many dams is deteriorating to the point where it threatens public safety and the habitats of fish and other aquatic species, the DNR said. Since 2012, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has provided annual funding to assist with the removal or repair of these dams and supporting infrastructure. This year the DNR will provide $350,000 through the program and administer a one-time supplemental appropriation of $8 million authorized by the Michigan Legislature to fund similar projects. The funding will support the efforts of nonprofit, local government and state government organizations in five dam removal and repair projects throughout the state. These are the four other projects receiving funding: $348,500 ($50,000 from the Dam Management Grant Program and the remainder from supplemental funding) to remove a steel sheeting dam on Portage Creek at Milham Park (Kalamazoo County). This removal will help restore the stream to re-establish a stable channel, provide fish habitat and allow access for fishing. The city of Kalamazoo will receive this funding and oversee the project. $3 million (in supplemental funding) for the removal of the Manistique Paper Inc. Dam (Schoolcraft County). This dam is deteriorated and no longer provides a functional barrier to the invasive sea lamprey. The DNR Fisheries Division will receive the funding and oversee the project. $1,650,000 (in supplemental funding) for the removal of the Union Street Dam on the Boardman River (Grand Traverse County). This removal supports an experimental fish passage system (FishPass), which ultimately could support fish passage strategies for desirable species, block undesirable species and allow for recreational uses such as paddling on the river. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission will receive this funding and oversee the project. $410,725 ($50,000 from the Dam Management Grant Program and the remainder from supplemental funding) for the repair of the Cornwall Impoundment dam structure (Cheboygan County) to protect a world-class bluegill fishery and because the embankment doubles as a trail support the structures frequent use by non-gas-powered water craft, campers, hikers and equestrian groups. Huron Pines will be the recipient of this funding and oversee the project. The states Dam Management Grant Program is funded by General Fund dollars appropriated by the Michigan Legislature. This funding will be available in the next cycle through the new Fisheries Habitat Grant. The DNR will announce the request for proposals for this grant at the end of July. The planned removal of the Trowbridge Dam comes after a project to remove the Otsego Township Dam that was completed in 2018. Learn more about these programs and other grant opportunities at Michigan.gov/DNRGrants. GALESBURG, MI -- A lawsuit filed by the former Galesburg police chief, claiming he was fired due to alleged age and weight discrimination, has been dismissed. The Galesburg City Council voted 4-3 to fire former Police Chief Martin Jeff Heppler on Dec. 4, 2017. At the time, the citys police chief was working as an at-will employee without a contract. Hepplers attorney filed a complaint in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court on June 1, alleging the city violated the former police chiefs civil rights. Heppler sought $25,000 in damages, reinstatement to his former position and reimbursement for legal expenses. Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Alexander Lipsey on Monday, May 6, granted a motion for summary disposition filed by the city of Galesburg, dismissing Hepplers complaint. Heppler said he was disappointing in the judicial system for not allowing the case to go to trial. Its unfortunate we didnt get before a jury because I think the jury would have said no," Heppler said. "We had a lot of evidence that portrayed that they werent doing things the way they should. Hepplers complaint alleged city council members made repeated comments that Heppler, 66, and his officers were old and fat. It also alleged the city violated the Open Meetings Act by coordinating a discussion about Hepplers termination outside of an official meeting. Before the Dec. 4 meeting, a third party warned Heppler would be terminated, the complaint states. At the time of Hepplers firing, former Mayor Carl Newton, who died in April of 2018, said the council decided to part with Heppler because he was not responsive to the citys needs. Heppler was employed by the citys public safety department from 1991 to 2017. He served as its chief from 2015 until his termination in December 2017. I did not ignore (Galesburg), Heppler said. "I never ignored them. After Heppler was fired, he was replaced by Rick Mau, who served as Galesburgs police chief before being demoted in 2014. Mau retired in January 2018. Galesburg later dissolved its police department and negotiated a protection agreement with the Kalamazoo County Sheriffs Office. In the summary disposition granted by the court, the city asked the court to dismiss the complaint of age and weight discrimination and violation of public policy based on a lack of evidence. The city also asked the court to dismiss the complaint of a violation of the Open Meetings Act because it is barred by applicable limitations. Galesburg Mayor Lori West called the Heppers complaint a frivolous lawsuit. Its been challenging but we had excellent representation through the Michigan Municipal League and they did a very good job of bringing justice to the case, West said. The city chose not to settle the lawsuit, West said. Were just happy its over and we can move on to bringing good things to the community, she said. While Heppler could appeal the ruling, he said he would not due to attorney expenses. Galesburg was provided local police enforcement service from officers who were familiar with the community when he was police chief, Heppler said. He said now their is a divide between the small communities surrounding Galesburg. The worst part is -- yeah, Ive lost some money -- but they lost the protection they had, Heppler said. The career public official has served as Augusta police chief since 1982. He also currently serves as Augusta village manager. Heppler has served as Richland Village Council president and on the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners for 14 years, but stepped down when he launched an unsuccessful campaign for Kalamazoo County Sheriff in 2016. NEW BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, MI Police have identified a passenger who died in a head-on crash as Raymundo Sanchez, 18, of Elkhart, Indiana. Sanchez was a passenger in a Toyota Sequoia and riding with family members who were injured in the crash about 4 p.m. Saturday, May 11, on M-239 just south of Wilson Road in Berrien Countys New Buffalo Township, according to a news release from the Berrien County Sheriffs Department. Passengers Maria Ontiveros-Vazquez, 61, of Elkhart, and her daughter, Mayra Salazar-Ontiveros, 37, of Elkhart, were in stable condition, police said in a news release sent Wednesday, May 15. Jose Salazar, 62, of Elkhart (Maria Ontiveros-Vazquez husband) remains in critical condition. Raymundo Sanchez is the grandson of Maria Ontiveros-Vazquez and Jose Salazar, police said. Officers and sheriffs deputies determined that a Honda CRV driven by a 21-year-old LaPorte, Indiana, woman crossed the center line and struck two vehicles. The CRV first struck a Nissan, which received minor damage and no injuries were reported to the occupants of the vehicle, the release reads. The CRV then struck a Toyota Sequoia head-on, causing heavy front-end damage to both vehicles. Sanchez was one of four passengers in the vehicle and was pronounced dead following the crash. The drivers of the Honda and the Toyota were both listed in stable condition and received treatment for their injuries. KALAMAZOO, MI -- A raccoon trapped up high on a downtown building brought traffic on Michigan Avenue down to one lane Tuesday as emergency responders attempted to rescue the critter. Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety officers closed a lane of traffic in the 200 block of E Michigan Avenue on Tuesday, May 14, for about an hour to make room for a ladder truck so officers could climb up and net the raccoon. The raccoon, according to the department, was on the exterior of a building about three floors up from the ground. Officers were unsuccessful in netting the raccoon and bringing it down. Diligent attempts were made to capture the raccoon safely into a net; however the raccoon had different intentions, a department press release stated. The raccoon escaped the net and fell to the ground. The department did not state from how high the raccoon fell, only that it landed alive and was transferred to Kalamazoo County Animal Control, which had officers at the scene. The raccoon was last known to be alive and well and was released into a much safer habitat, according to the department. GRAND HAVEN, MI The inaugural Kite Festival @ Grand Haven will fill the sky with kites large and small this weekend. Its the first festival held under the new name, but its the 31st year that a kite festival has made its home on the sandy Lake Michigan beach at Grand Haven State Park. The festival is set for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, May 18-19. The event is free and outside food is allowed. There is a cost to park a vehicle at the state park for those who dont have a Recreation Passport. However, the Beach Express shuttle bus will run from noon to 6 p.m. both days from parking lots at 822 Taylor Ave. and 900 Cutler St.; cost is $1 per person. In March 2018, organizers of the Great Lakes Kite Festival announced that the 30th event would be the last one. The Chicago Fire kite-flyer team quickly took up the mantle to plan the first Kite Festival @ Grand Haven to ensure kite flyers would still have a place to go. It was really important to us not to have a gap year, Eric Wolff, co-organizer and member of Chicago Fire who attended all 30 of the previous festivals, said earlier. There may have been kites flying whether there was an official event or not, co-organizer Ann Vondriska, who has been the festival master of ceremonies for the past 17 years, said previously. Some flyers had already booked hotel rooms and were still planning on going to fly kites that weekend just because its what they always did, she said. The family-friendly event will include giant inflatable kites, routines choreographed to music using both two-line and four-line sport kites, public flying space and interactive kids activities, according to the event Facebook page. The festival will look much the same as previous years, but there will not be a MacKite retail tent. MacKite owners Steve and Lynn Negen previously organized the festival. Great Lakes Kite Festival was celebrated as the largest kite festival in the Midwest, drawing visitors from throughout the region. During its 30-year run, it kicked off the summer season at the state park and downtown Grand Haven. Kites of all shapes, sizes and colors would fill the shoreline sky during festival weekends. The 48-acre state park situated on Lake Michigan welcomes about 1.5 million visitors annually, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. MUSKEGON, MI Racquets Downtown Grill is about to step up its culinary game with a new cook in the kitchen. The back of the house at Racquets, 446 W. Western Ave., will soon be taken over by Muskegon Heights-based catering business Kuntry Cookin that has been working out of Kitchen 242 at the Muskegon Farmers Market since outgrowing the owners home. The official kick-off of the partnership is expected over Memorial Day weekend, but Kuntry food could be available as early as Monday, May 20, said Racquets owner Ron Madison. The menu will include such bar mainstays as burgers, nachos and wings along with some soul food items. Madison, who bought Racquets in 2003, has no plans of closing his business just of unburdening himself of what he considers the most cumbersome part of running the mainstay downtown bar. We have good food for a bar, but its sort of old news, he said. There are so many new places coming downtown, so people dont think of us as a place to eat. We wanted to reinvent ourselves in the back of the house. Racquets front of the house was upgraded recently with a renovation that included removing a platform level, refinishing the hardwood floors and generally making the space more open, bright and clean, Madison said. Its important to love what you do, Madison said. He does not love the kitchen aspect of the business. Fortunately, he found a business to run it for him. The plan is that Kuntry Cookin will rent the kitchen to provide high-quality, creative food to customers at Racquets, said Madison and Kuntry Cookin owners Destinee and Remmie Sargent. Kuntry Cookin offers a cornucopia of flavors from southern to Creole to Italian, all with the Sargents unique spin. One of Kuntry Cookin's biggest sellers is its shrimp and grits, shown here. (Courtesy of Destinee Sargent) I love cooking - thats how I get my woosah, Destinee Sargent said. Kuntry Cookins daily menu will include Scribs egg rolls, the Soul Roll, and the Skeetown Philly along with salads, sandwiches, burgers, wings, nachos and rotating specials like shrimp and grits, Destinee Sargent told MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. The Sargents, a husband-wife duo, set their food apart with high-quality smoked meat, fresh ingredients and unexpected twists. The Soul Roll is stuffed with greens cooked slow in smoked turkey, black-eyed peas simmered with seasonings and smoked turkey, and smoked chicken. They come in orders of two with special cranberry sauce for $8. Drum roll please....the menu will be rotating of course, and yes we have a gang of specials that will be going on!... Posted by Kuntry Cookin' on Thursday, May 2, 2019 Kuntry Cookin will continue to use Kitchen 242s incubator kitchen for its large catering gigs, which are booked out to October, Destinee Sargent said. The Sargents started Kuntry Cookin in June 2016 in their home as a way to pay the bills after Destinee Sargent lost her job and couldnt find another despite having a masters degree in public administration. Kuntry Cookin will add to the growing culinary prowess of downtown Muskegon that has recently added several offerings, such as Rad Dads Tacos and Tequila Bar, Drip Drop Drink Cafe, Morats Bakery, Hamburger Mikey, Naan Pizza, 557 Cafe and 18th Amendment Spirits Co. New restaurants are expected to open soon, including Timbers 939 and The Mill at the renovated and rebranded Holiday Inn; Redmons Kitchen + Bar, Capones, Rake Beer Project and Aldea Coffee at NorthTown 794; and Nipotes Italian Kitchen. Racquets is in a prime location between the L.C. Walker Arena and Holiday Inn, which will soon be renamed Delta Hotel following an $8 million renovation and infrastructure project. The city recently held ceremonial ground breaking for a $19 million convention center that will connect the hotel and arena. I thought I was investing at a time when downtown was at rock bottom, Madison said of buying Racquets around the time that the Muskegon Mall was demolished in 2003. Im certainly not going anywhere now that its finally starting to turn the corner. The malls demolition left a 23-acre sand pit that has slowly been filled in with buildings over the past 16 years. The pace of downtown development has quickened in the past few years with projects like NorthTown 794, Muskegon Community Colleges downtown campus and the construction of Pigeon Hills Brewing Companys brewing facility. Completed residential projects including Berkshire Muskegon and Terrace Flats at Terrace Plaza. Mixed use and residential projects including Lake View Lofts, The Leonard, Hartshorn Village, The Watermark, Jefferson Apartments, Midtown Square, Terrace Point Landing, Foundry Square and the former Ameribank building are in various stages of development. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey needs to stop defending the indefensible. And House Speaker Lee Chatfield, House Minority Leader Jim Ananich and House Democratic Leader Christine Greig need to step up to the plate on the issue of requiring elected state officials to make financial disclosures. Its time for true leadership. If, as they claim, Michigans legislative leaders really embrace the values of transparency and accountability, we need more than lip service. We need a law. Specifically, a law that would require elected state officials to detail their investments and where they get their income, so that conflicts of interest are apparent. A law that also sets the parameters of conflict of interest and establishes appropriate penalties. Currently, Michigan is one of two states and the only one with a full-time legislature with no requirement for public officials to annually disclose basic financial information, including income sources, business investments, or gifts and travel compensation. For now, state lawmakers get to decide for themselves whether a conflict of interest exists, and if and when to abstain from a vote. Theres no punishment even if they dont reveal a conflict. And since they dont make financial disclosures, the public has no clue when elected officials cross an ethical line. Its a disgrace. In an effort to increase transparency, MLive created a financial disclosure form, based what is used by other states and U.S. Congress, and sent it to all statewide elected officials. So far, only one State Senator, Adam Hollier, a Detroit Democrat, has returned his form. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, says financial disclosure by state officials is one of her top priorities. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another Democrat, endorsed the concept on the campaign trail last year. Chatfield, a Republican, and Ananich, a Democrat, say theyre open to discussion about the issue. Shirkey, on the other hand, says he would absolutely not support mandatory financial disclosure. The Clark Lake Republican claims it could be a deterrent for recruiting candidates to run for office. Its an absolutely indefensible position, one that puts the interests of lawmakers over those of constituents. Shirkey ignores that 48 states require such disclosures. Chatfield and Ananich have voiced support over the years for more transparency in state government, but its high time for them to press the issue in a meaningful way. We need action, not words. In a 2016 commentary, Chatfield spelled out the importance of transparency. I dont believe people can have faith in their government if it fails to set an example for honesty and openness, he wrote, adding, I strongly believe that any elected official who opposes transparency is unfit to hold public office. We couldnt agree more. In less than a year in the eyes of the West, Huawei has turned from tech innovator into Beijings top spy. But it seems its not the same for everyone, as WhatsApp, recently caught in a hacking scandal, has nothing to worry about. "No spying, no back doors, promised Liang Hua, Huaweis chairman during his visit to London on Tuesday where he tried to reassure European partners that Huawei doesnt plan to snoop on them. In evidence Liang said the Chinese high-tech giant was ready to sign a no-spy agreement with the British government. While Brits are weighing all the pros and cons of the possibility of future surveillance by Beijing, neither they nor other foreign politicians seem overly concerned about a snooping act which did actually happen. An unknown number of phones were attacked via a vulnerability in the popular American messaging app WhatsApp with spyware developed by the state-linked, secretive Israeli company, NSO Group. Also on rt.com WhatsApp vulnerability exploited by Israeli spyware targets human rights campaigners The malware which hit WhatsApp could reportedly infect a device via a mere phone call and the victim of the attack would not even have to answer the call. It is not even a new virus international human rights organizations have already warned about the software being used to target activists, lawyers and journalists. Meanwhile, accusations against Huawei are based on reported backdoors discovered by Italian Vodafone in Chinese equipment back in 2011 where the issue was resolved. But Huawei, its been alleged, has more of those backdoors elsewhere. What is more concerning for the White House: Huaweis spying capabilities or the fact that the company has quickly become one of the biggest players on European and international telecommunication markets? In an apparent answer to the question, President Donald Trump said the race to 5G is the race America must win. But not according to an unknown senior National Security Council official, who wrote we are losing in a memo leaked last year. Also on rt.com Race we must win: US spies desperate to beat China on 5G Amid the new hacking scandal does anyone call to ban WhatsApp, impose sanctions on Israel and schedule Congress hearings on national security? Not really, but Washington is still preoccupied with security lawmakers are drafting a new act which would bar US companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk. Basically that would mean a ban on doing business with Huawei. In the end, it was enough for WhatsApp to ask its 1.5 billion users to update the software for the story to disappear from headlines. And Huawei? Well, the company might have to build its chip research and development factory in the UK to regain the Wests trust. to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. Iraq does not want a devastating new war in the Middle East and will not allow the US to use its territory for military action against neighboring Iran, Baghdads ambassador to Moscow has said. Iraq is a sovereign nation. We will not let [the US] to use our territory, Haidar Mansour Hadi, the Iraqi envoy to Russia, told journalists at a press conference in Moscow when asked about Iraqs stance on the rising tensions in the region, fueled by the feud between Washington and Tehran. The ambassador expressed his hope that nothing will happen eventually, adding that his nation does not want a new devastating war in the region." He also said that Baghdad could try to use its close ties with both the US and Iran to ease tensions. Iraq made it clear that we want to be part of a solution and not part of the problem. His words came amid fears that a new war is brewing in the Middle East. On Wednesday, the US ordered the partial evacuation of its embassy in Baghdad and a consulate in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Iranian activities endanger American sites and troops in Iraq. The move prompted Germany and the Netherlands to halt its missions in Iraq aimed at training the local forces. Also on rt.com War with Iran would be like Christmas for John Bolton Tucker Carlson Last week, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Baghdad, telling reporters the US is concerned that Irans supposedly-increased activities might compromise Iraqs sovereignty. Tensions between Washington and Baghdad flared after the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and re-imposed all sanctions against Tehran while also threatening other nations, which continued to trade with Iran, with some restrictive measures. Americas increased pressure angered Tehran. Most recently, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his nation would not enter any talks with Washington about any new nuclear deal. He expressed his belief that the two nations would not engage in a military conflict as neither side seeks a war. If you like this story, share it with a friend! Beijing said on Wednesday France granting asylum to the wife of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei would be an abuse of its own legal procedures. There is no so-called political persecution, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, days after Grace Mengs lawyer in France said she had been granted asylum. If Meng Hongweis wife wanted to apply for political asylum in France, it would be an abuse of French legal procedures. Grace Meng was given police protection in France after she alleged an abduction attempt at the start of the year and was granted asylum on May 2 along with the couples two children, their lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny told AFP. Meng Hongwei disappeared last September after leaving the French city of Lyon, where Interpol is based, for China. Chinese prosecutors said Meng had abused his positions as Marine Police chief and vice minister of public security to illegally obtain extremely large amounts of property. China calls French asylum for ex-Interpol chiefs wife abuse of procedure China calls French asylum for ex-Interpol chiefs wife abuse of procedure Source : RT - Daily news Chinese President Xi Jinping is preaching openness in an effort to make China look like a friendlier trade partner, as tensions over new tariffs with the US escalate. China is an open system that has historically integrated Buddhism, Marxism and Islam, Xi said on Wednesday in his first public address since announcing higher tariffs on US imports. Todays China is not only Chinas China. It is Asias China and the worlds China. China in the future will take on an even more open stance to embrace the world. Xis decision on Monday to raise tariffs on US imports came after President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he would impose increased levies on Chinese imports to encourage US businesses to invest in American production. China levied $60 billion of US goods, starting from June 1, after the US announced it would raise $200 billion on Chinese imports. Xi made no direct reference to trade tensions with the US in his speech at the forum in Beijing, which was organized by Chinas Publicity Department. Instead, he focused on improving trade relations with all. However, the Chinese leader did make an indirect criticism of Trumps isolationist America First policy. Xi claimed no country can stand alone and added that civilizations will lose vitality if countries go back to isolation and cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Also on rt.com China fighting PEOPLES WAR against US state media on tariff hikes The forum was intended to portray Chinas growing global power in a friendlier way, as Xi faces increasing pressure from the United States. The White House has expressed strong disapproval of Chinas Huawei 5G technology in Europe, which it suspects of spying on US intelligence. It has also criticized Chinas new trade route aimed at increasing its commercial presence in Europe, known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Former UK military personnel are to receive stronger legal protections to stop repeated or unfair investigations under new government proposals, raising concerns it could facilitate a culture of impunity. The new measures are set to be unveiled by Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt within days. It would mean current and former personnel only being prosecuted in exceptional circumstances over crimes committed during service more than 10 years ago. Rights Watch UK, an organisation that evaluates the human rights compliance of the British governments actions, branded the proposals deeply problematic as they could see crimes such as torture being covered up. Mordaunt, who delivers her first big speech on British sea power, in her new role at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London on Wednesday insists its time servicemen and women were given the right legal protections. The law would not extend to personnel who have served in Northern Ireland. It is high time that we change the system and provide the right legal protections to make sure the decisions our service personnel take in the battlefield will not lead to repeated or unfair investigations down the line. It comes after Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, a former British Army officer, announced earlier this month that he would no longer support the government in protest at the treatment of UK veterans being pursued over historic killings. Also on rt.com Iraqis ill-treatment by British troops wasnt done accidentally, came from orders from high up Mercer welcomed the new proposals, telling Sky News on Wednesday that the current system is ...unfair to all sides, and the only people who are enjoying this process and making something are legal teams. However, the MP for Plymouth Moor View claims the new law must be extended to include Northern Ireland veterans. In her speech on Wednesday, Mordaunt is also expected to reaffirm the UK governments commitment to derogating, where appropriate, from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), before major military operations are launched. First announced by PM Theresa May in October 2016, derogation will protect British troops serving in future conflicts from repeated legal claims similar to those pursued following operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. The German army suspended its training programs for Iraqi troops due to increasing tensions in the region, a new report said, citing DPA sources. The move comes after the US ordered partial evacuation of its embassy in Baghdad. Germany suspends training Iraqi troops amid US-Iran tensions in the Gulf report Germany suspends training Iraqi troops amid US-Iran tensions in the Gulf report Source : RT - Daily news Orin Julie, an IDF veteran known on social media as self-styled Queen of guns has said she is jealous of US firearm laws. She decried the tight gun legislation in her native Israel. Julie told the Daily Caller that the US has the best gun laws in the world and has shared her frustration that, despite her years of active duty with the Israel Defense Forces, she is unable to legally own a firearm as a civilian back in her native Israel. She reportedly specifically requested a combat role when she began her mandatory military service in 2012. She was given a cushy desk job instead but continuously pushed for active duty and her request was granted in 2013 when she was added to a prestigious search and rescue unit. She began posting photos from her experiences as a combat soldier and was quickly contacted by a variety of gun manufacturers who inquired whether she would model for them. I brought something unusual to social media, she said. No bathing suits, no bikinis, just me, my femininity, and firearms. Women can do whatever they want, as much as they want, and wherever they want, she added, in the army or anywhere else. Several videos on her Instagram profile showcase her proficiency with firearms from hanguns to so some seriously heavy weapons including the M60. Julie has also criticized opponents of US President Donald Trump who tried to label him as an anti-Semite. His daughter is Jewish, Julie said. He [His] son-in-law is Jewish. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. The reality is, Barack Obama didnt love [Israel]. But Donald Trump? He supports us. Also on rt.com 'Blatant pandering' to gun lobby: Dem chair announces hearing over Trump's UN Arms Trade Treaty exit While she faces some condemnation on her social media profiles the majority of responses, particularly from those in the US, are positive. I was blessed with certain skills, and I all want is to be the best version of myself, she said in an interview. I love the adrenaline of holding a gun. It makes me feel powerful and in control. Like this story? Share it with a friend! A UK military commander was rebuked by the US Central Command for questioning Washingtons claims that Iran poses an increased threat. Gen. Ghika, a senior figure in the anti-ISIS coalition, said none was evident in Iraq or Syria. The awkward exchange on Tuesday came as the US is trying to rally its allies to confront Tehran over an unspecified threat to American interests in the Middle East. Despite the beat of the war drum, even the US closest allies remain skeptical about the narrative furthered by Iran hawks in Washington like US National Security Advisor John Bolton and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. One of the doubters is British Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, a deputy head of the US-led coalition created to fight the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, Gen. Ghika said on Tuesday during a video briefing from Iraq. Were aware of that presence, clearly. And we monitor them along with a whole range of others because thats the environment were in. There is a large number of Shia militias operating in Iraq and Syria, some with the backing of the Iranian government. They were involved in fighting against radical Sunni groups, including IS, in the past few years, but the degree of control that Tehran has over the fighters is questionable. Washington cited the existence of those groups as one of the reasons why Iran poses a danger to the US and should be contained. The US has some 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq with the consent of its government as part of the coalition effort, as well as some 2,000 troops stationed in Syria illegally. Also on rt.com NATO ally Spain pulls warship from US strike group to avoid being dragged into conflict with Iran Hours after Ghikas report, the US Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East operations, rebuked the British general, saying his word ran counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region. CENTCOM said it has increased the force posture level for all service members of the anti-IS coalition. Ghika disagreed, saying Operation Inherent Resolve, as the coalition effort is officially called, is not operating against Iran, so he was speaking only about the militias. Im not going to go into the detail of it, but there are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria and we dont see any increased threat from any of them at this stage, he said during the video call. Also on rt.com There wont be any war between Iran & US Khamenei CENTCOMs current position seems to contradict what they told the Pentagons Office of the Inspector General. The latest OIG quarterly report on Operation Inherent Resolve said the command believed Tehran-backed militias to be focused on assisting the Syrian government in the fight against IS and not intent on attacking the coalition forces. The report warned that this may change, should the US ramp up what Tehran could see as anti-Iranian activities. Earlier, the US deployed an aircraft carrier strike group, several B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers, an amphibious transport dock, and a battery of Patriot air defense missiles in response to the unspecified threat from Iran. The Pentagon may also send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East, according to a New York Times report. President Trump has rejected the claim, calling it fake news and saying: If we did that, we would send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Like this story? Share it with a friend! The Polish Foreign Ministry has summoned the Israeli envoy after Warsaws ambassador to Israel was spat on and insulted in Tel Aviv. The attack has aggravated already tense relations between Israel and Poland. Polands Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki condemned the incident yesterday on Twitter, describing the attack against the ambassador as racist and xenophobic. The attack took place in the middle of a public street in Tel Aviv. A 65-year-old man allegedly approached ambassador Marek Magierowski while he was sitting in a car, spat on him, and insulted him. The attacker was arrested the following day, and is currently under house arrest. While Israeli officials were quick to follow up by expressing shock and sympathy, it seems Polish authorities arent satisfied with their words. Polands Foreign Ministry now wants to discuss the incident with Israels ambassador directly. Relations between the two countries have been deeply strained over a number of historical issues, in particular over Warsaws controversial Holocaust law, passed at the beginning of last year, which prohibits faulting the Polish government for Nazi crimes during WWII. Also on rt.com Poland cancels Israeli visit over WWII property restitution row after mass protests in Warsaw Just a few days ago, Warsaw cancelled a scheduled visit by an Israeli delegation after it emerged that Israel planned to discuss the return of Jewish property seized during the war. Like this story? Share it with a friend! As the trade war between Washington and Beijing intensifies, the United States is poised to lose out on a major gas market, and Russia could pick up the slack. With an increase in tariffs on some $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent with another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods in the cross-hairs, Beijing has vowed to retaliate. On Monday, it announced it will increase tariffs imposed on about $60 billion of US goods in retaliation for what it sees as President Donald Trumps latest escalation of the trade war. The increased tariffs will take effect on June 1, according to a statement on Chinas Ministry of Finances website. The charges will be raised on most of the goods listed on a previous retaliation list effective last September. Also on rt.com Russia & China to ink deal for construction of two nuclear reactors Chinas tariff move is in response to the US unilateralism and trade protectionism, the ministry also stated on Monday in a different statement. China hopes that the US will return to the right track of bilateral trade talks, work together with China and meet each other halfway, to reach a win-win and mutually beneficial agreement on the basis of mutual respect." Part of the increased tariffs will include U.S liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, rising from a previous 10 percent levy to a damaging 25 percent starting June 1. The increase in tariffs already come as Chinese imports of the super-cooled fuel from the US has plunged. A Reuters report said that in 2018 some 27 LNG vessels traveled from the US to China, down from 30 in 2017. Meanwhile, most of those that left US ports last year did so before the trade war started, with 18 tankers going to China in the first half of the year and just nine during the second half. Damaging developments Now that China is increasing LNG tariffs from 10 to 25 percent, these export numbers will drop even more, maybe even altogether. However, secondary traders will no doubt procure US-sourced LNG and then resell it to China. Yet, thats little respite for major US LNG producers in the long term if the trade war continues. Read more on Oilprice.com: The oil kingdom enters a new era Not only will the trade war impact US-Chinese LNG deals, but it will impact the overall global LNG market since the US is the fastest growing LNG producer who could view with Australia and even Qatar for the top LNG slot in terms of liquefaction capacity by the mid part of the next decade if only a fraction of the dozens of US LNG project proposals go forward. Also on rt.com US trade deficit soars to decade high of $621 billion despite Trump pledge to bridge the gap However, thats the real quandary. Many of these projects aren't backed by cash-laden oil majors, like an Exxon Mobile or Chevron, but smaller players that need to sign long term off-take agreements with Chinese firms as well as secure funding from Chinese banks and financial institutions to finance their capex intensive projects. Simply put, without both Chinese funds and Chinese gas demand, the so-called second wave of the US LNG development story will stall, losing out to eager competitors, including Russia. Russian ambitions In lock step with the news that China is increasing tariffs on US LNG, Russian natural gas giant Novatek said on Monday that it expects to increase its LNG production capacity target to 70 million mt/year by 2030, up from a previous target of 57 million mt/year. Our objective over the next year is to come up with a revision to 70 million mt/year by 2030, company CFO Mark Gyetvay said. Previously, Novatek had said it aimed to have a production capacity of 57 million mt/year by that time. Novatek brought online its first 5.5 million mt/year LNG train at the three-train Yamal LNG facility in December 2017 and has since commissioned the second and third trains. Also on rt.com Thorny dilemma: Will Trump manage to rein in oil prices & keep on pressuring Iran & Venezuela? If Novatek achieves that production point, it could propel Russia to the third global LNG production slot, possibly passing the US in the mid to later part of the next decade. Qatar and Australia are the current top LNG producers, while Qatar is ramping up production from a current 77 mtpa to 110 mtpa within the next five years. On the other hand, if the US and China can resolve the current trade impasse, US LNG production will distance itself from its Russian counterparts. This article was originally published on Oilprice.com Sudanese army rulers and protest leaders on Wednesday agreed on a three-year transition period for transferring power to a full civilian administration. The first six months will be allocated to signing peace accords with rebels in the countrys war zones like Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan. Negotiations over a new sovereign ruling body remain unfinished, as the protest movement is demanding a civilian-led transition following 30 years of rule by now deposed president Omar al-Bashir. Talks between the two sides resumed earlier in the week but were marred by violence. An army major and five protesters were killed by unidentified gunmen at a long-running sit-in outside military headquarters in Khartoum, AFP reported. Sudan military rulers, protesters agree on 3-year transition period Sudan military rulers, protesters agree on 3-year transition period Source : RT - Daily news A UK military commander was rebuked by the US Central Command for questioning Washingtons claims that Iran poses an increased threat. Gen. Ghika, a senior figure in the anti-ISIS coalition, said none was evident in Iraq or Syria. Swords into plows: Venezuelan deserters vying for insurgent army told to go civilian by Colombia Swords into plows: Venezuelan deserters vying for insurgent army told to go civilian by Colombia Source : RT - Daily news It pretends to shock and challenge, but the talking points of the art at the worlds biggest exhibition come straight from the New York Times op-ed page. And despite the counter-cultural non-conformism everything is for sale. Lets leave for the moment the is-it-art? and my-four-year-old-could-do-it discussions as they pertain to the 87 pavilions throughout Venice in which countries from Albania to Zimbabwe exhibit the best of contemporary art, alongside the 79 specially-invited individual artists. Take instead in good faith its guiding principles that in place of craftsmanship almost all of the art at this exhibition sources its power from the social critique it conveys. So, what is the message? The signature piece of this years Biennale is the wreck of a fishing boat, in which 800 migrants died off the coast of Libya in 2015, erected opposite a cafe on the promenade. Thats it, nothing else done to the rusting carcass. As you sip your Aperol Spritz, you are presumably meant to say something Thats terrible that all these people died or Poor African migrants or Isnt that Matteo Salvini a bastard for not letting these people in, I would never vote for him. So thought-provoking, a real conversation starter. And adds so much to the discussion on migration. Though perhaps not up to par to a 2015 piece by the same artist, Christoph Buechel, which was to turn an old Catholic church into a mosque, which was just so incredibly daring and clever. Or visit the Lithuanian pavilion, which won the top national prize. It features tourists on a fake beach singing joyous arias about their clothes, made in Chinese sweatshops, about airplanes, dispatching CO2 into the atmosphere, about how its getting hotter all the time. The message: our capitalist, consumerist world is so stupid and complacent all obliviously singing happy songs as global warming roasts us. Get it? Here is the individual winner black Los Angeles artist Arthur Jafas White Album, which is 40 minutes of mostly close-ups of white people being purposely or accidentally racist about black people, juxtaposed with scenes of racial violence. See: white people are racist, America is racist, you are probably a racist too. The overwhelmingly white audience sits there in penitent self-loathing, though safe in the knowledge that they are not like THOSE OTHER WHITE PEOPLE whove probably never even been to a decent art exhibition. A separate sub-genre is anti-Trump art. There is a portrait of disfigured smears under the recognizable hair (Trump is ugly chaos), there is a replica of an empty Lincoln Memorial chair with a whip attached (America in a nutshell), and someone actually exhibited printouts of Hillary Clintons emails (He keeps asking for those emails, well here they are!). The 2019 Biennale is subtitled 'May We Live in Interesting Times', an ironic Chinese curse wishing your enemy to suffer through a dark era. Because, obviously, times were never interesting under Obama. Now, you may agree or disagree with the messages expressed by this art, but it is hard to argue against the fact that we hear these exact same sentiments every day almost to the letter. And not in some upstart radical pamphlets, but in the Washington Post, on CNN, in the Guardian. At Harvard and at Google. From Clinton, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Jean-Claude Juncker. So, the social critique on which these artists stake their creative credentials seems to be take the most hackneyed and glib message of the well-to-do centrist establishment and to visually amplify it with a thundering heavy-handedness, add a bit of pseudo-shock value and no original thought. Reap the easy applause from those who already agree with you. And this is where the craftsmanship argument comes back in. The endless Saint Sebastians and Madonnas of the Renaissance, or pastoral Italian landscapes, may not have had something new to say either, but they had inherent artistic value. At best they still connect with the viewer on an emotional level, at worst they are testaments to hard-earned skill or artefacts to the period they were made. What the value of all this Trump-is-bad art will be, not in 500 years but in 50, is an open question. Anyone up for recreating a topical hangar-sized installation about the Suez Crisis? Though frankly for much of the art, the legacy aspect is a moot question, as it is already worthless in 2019. Of course, the kicker for the Venice Biennale and one everyone here must be aware of is that for all the environmental concerns, both making and transporting these voluminous pieces, as well as attracting millions of visitors in their planes and luxury yachts to the sinking city is likely to have offset any habit-changing impact viewing them had on the audience. And for all the anti-capitalist posturing, this is essentially a commercial showcase, and much of the art is either sold directly (though discreetly, no dealer names on the plaques this year) or can lead to lucrative commissions. Yeah, the polar bears and the migrants died for this. A lot of art is commodification of suffering, but the piousness rankles. In fact, as you walk through Venice, and turn your gaze from the trendy artists, to the millionaire collectors, to the Instagraming tourists, the Biennale becomes a meta art installation all of its own: one about the self-congratulatory hypocrisy of modern right-thinking capitalism. By Igor Ogorodnev Igor Ogorodnev is a Russian-British journalist, who has worked at RT since 2007 as a correspondent, editor and writer. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Washington ordered to pull out its non-emergency staff from Iraq, the US Embassy in Baghdad said on Wednesday. The move comes after an alert on tensions in the country. US orders all non-emergency personnel to leave Iraq - embassy US orders all non-emergency personnel to leave Iraq - embassy Source : RT - Daily news Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen says Vienna has no plans to withdraw from the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project as the countrys energy giant, OMV, has made huge investments in the enterprise. Austria is not going to leave the Nord Stream 2 project, and Austrian oil and gas corporation OMV especially, Van der Bellen said during a joint news conference after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of the Sochi Dialogue Forum. Also on rt.com Washington threatens European firms with sanctions over Russian gas pipeline project Putin supported the Austrian head of state, expressing confidence that the project will be implemented on time. The Russian president stressed that Nord Stream 2 serves the interests of the entire European continent. The pipeline is being constructed by Russias Gazprom in partnership with five European energy majors, including German energy corporations Wintershall and Uniper, French multinational Engie, British-Dutch oil & gas giant Royal Dutch Shell, and Austrian energy firm OMV. The gas route, which runs under the Baltic Sea, is set to double the existing pipelines capacity of 55 billion cubic meters annually. Also on rt.com Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to save EU up to 8 billion a year The project faced sharp criticism from Washington which has repeatedly criticised Europe for an over-reliance on Russian energy supplies, and accused Russia of monopolizing the European energy market. The White House has threatened the corporations involved with sanctions. The Russian president highlighted that all the attempts made by the US to destroy the existing agreements between Russia and its European partners are only a reflection of unfair competition. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted National Security Advisor John Bolton for his apparent love of violent global conflict, saying that for him war with Iran would be like Christmas, Thanksgiving and his birthday in one. Mercifully John Bolton doesnt command the military, Carlson said bitingly however, the question of how strong his influence on President Donald Trumps foreign policy remains. Bolton has been consistent in his drive to push the US into a violent conflict with the Islamic Republic, even penning a rather blunt op-ed in the New York Times entitled To Stop Irans Bomb, Bomb Iran in 2015. Although President Trump was elected in part based on his turn-away from the traditional neo-con interventionist outlook, his national security advisor pick has been as hawkish as ever since assuming office last year. How is a war with Iran in Americas interests in any way? Carlson asked, a pertinent question given a NYT report recently claimed Bolton ordered a plan to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East in order to check Irans influence. While Trump has since refuted the report, calling it fake news, he added that if it came to such a plan, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. He did say that, hopefully, this will not be needed. Also on rt.com US war with Iran would be a disaster with ripple effects that could last decades Tucker on Tuesday was joined by retired army colonel Douglas Macgregor, who called the situation a manufactured crisis, noting that Iran actually serves as an ally in the main regional conflict against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Despite both sides having managed to avoid any direct confrontation for years, Boltons obsession with Irans secret maleficence seems to rival even that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus. Contrary to Boltons paranoia, Macgregor asserts that Iran almost certainly wants to avoid conflict with the US under any and all circumstances. If you like this story, share it with a friend! Exactly a year ago the head of a Russian-Ukrainian news agency was snatched in Kiev and put in jail under a charge of high treason. Western champions of media rights have shown spectacular will to ignore the scandalous case. Being a journalist in a nation where the government can put you in jail for unfavorable reporting is understandably risky, but at least one can hope to find international support after getting into trouble. Foreign governments and international organizations would cry foul and try to pressure the persecutors. Well, Kirill Vyshinsky didnt get this response. On March 15, 2018 he was arrested by agents of the SBU, Ukraines powerful national security agency, and charged with treason. His alleged crime was that as head of a Russian-Ukrainian news agency he waged information warfare against Ukraine, or at least thats what the SBU said at the time. The accusation may result in a 15 year jail term. Also on rt.com Traitor, terrorism apologist valuable hostage: Ukraine's blatant crackdown on news agency chief Vyshinsky has been kept in pre-trial detention since, denied bail or hospital treatment and restricted in visitation rights. The prosecution managed to formulate an 80-page indictment by March, listing 72 stories and opinion pieces published by the news agency since 2014, which the prosecution claims to be manipulative or false. The journalist insists the accusations are absurd. How can a factually accurate news report about Crimea changing its time zone to that of Moscow or an opinion piece giving a historic overview of referenda held in Ukraine since gaining independence in 1991 be anti-Ukrainian, he argued. The prosecutors said even factually accurate stories can be anti-Ukrainian in nature. Regardless of ones attitude to what happened between Ukraine and Russia during and after the Maidan mass protests, accurate reporting of facts should not be criminalized. Just imagine what would happen, for example, if in 1999 Russia arrested and put on trial the head of the BBC Russian service, saying the British broadcasters coverage of the freshly reignited hostilities in Chechnya was anti-Russian. All hell would break loose, and rightfully so. Also on rt.com 'Packaged anger, just for you': Lewinski scandal was beginning of the end for American journalism On Wednesday, there was a protest in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow, calling on Kiev to free Vyshinsky. And a deafening silence from the usual Western defenders of media freedom. Amnesty International, for example, doesnt mention Vyshinskys name on its website at all not even on the Russian-language and Ukrainian-language versions. Officials from the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe and International Federation of Journalists voiced concern about Vyshinskys continued incarceration when asked for comments by the Russian media. But the organizations didnt release any official statements on the occasion of the anniversary. Neither did the Committee to Protect Journalists, although it did report the start of Vyshynskys trial in early April. Also on rt.com Accused spy Maria Butina wouldnt be in jail if she wasnt Russian - attorney As for mainstream media in the West, they dont seem to be particularly interested in their Russian-Ukrainian colleague. Unless, of course, there is a chance to brand him a Russian propagandist who may threaten Americas democracy. A story that the Daily Beast ran in March says Vyshinskys wife hired US political consultant Ezra Friedlander to lobby for the journalists release in Ukraine, and implied that this may have compromised Friedlanders other clients, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler. In other words, red-baiting at its best. Apparently, not all reporters are made equal in the eyes of the West. There are those that deserve protection. And there are people like Vyshinsky, or WikiLeaks Julian Assange, who are not really reporters just some guys telling true but unwelcomed facts about the US and its allies. They deserve to rot in jail, right? Alexandre Antonov @alantonov Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! UCG Press Release At the request of the Italian market Autorithies, further to an article published by Reuters today 14 May 2019, and the ensuing media speculations, UniCredit would like to clarify that no banking mandate has been signed related to any potential rumoured market operation. UniCredit would like to reiterate it is fully focused on the successful conclusion of its Transform 2019 plan, based on organic assumptions, which is well on track to achieve all stated objectives, as confirmed at the Groups Q1 2019 results on 9 May 2019. As previously announced, in addition to the four financial measures unveiled on 7 May 2019, the Group will present its new business strategy at an investor day to be held in London on 3 December 2019. Milan, May 14, 2019 Enquiries: Media Relations: Tel. +39 02 88623569;e-mail: MediaRelations@unicredit.eu Investor Relations: Tel: +39 02 88621028; e-mail: InvestorRelations@unicredit.eu live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More High maintenance costs coupled with tighter regulations have made ATMs a costly affair in India, which is leading to the steady decrease in their numbers in the past two years, as per a Business Standard report. The report noted that India has the fewest ATMs per 100,000 people even among BRICS nations, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the report, Ashutosh Khajuria, Chief Financial Office at Federal Bank said, ''Its too early to write an obituary on ATMs but no one will invest in a declining proposition.'' State Bank of India has also shut 1,000 ATMs in the first half of FY18. The trend will continue as banks increasingly look to digital solutions and mobile apps to cut costs and keep up with evolving banking infrastructure. Mobile banking transactions grew 65 times in the past five years alone, the report points out. The security updates towards software and equipment, as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India, do little to help the situation. ATM operators: Banks and third parties, earn their revenue from the collection of an 'interchange fee', which is charged to the lender whose debit or credit card is used for cash withdrawals. The report noted that this remains at Rs 15, which is low as against the rising costs to upgrade existing ATMs. The report also mentions that this fee cannot be raised without the approval of an industry committee, reducing the possibility of satisfactory profit margins. However, not all agree that higher charges are the solution as banks might pass the higher charges on to customers. ''Banks are finding it cheaper to pay interchange fees to other banks rather than operating their own ATMs,'' R Gandhi, a former RBI deputy governor was quoted in the report. The disappearance of ATMs would most likely affect those on the lower end of the socio-economic pyramid, Rustom Irani, Managing Director at Hitachi Payment Services told the paper. Close to 355 million were added to the banking system after Prime Minister Narendra Modis financial inclusion initiative, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was first launched in 2014. Many of them depended on ATMs for their daily transactions when demonetisation was implemented in 2016. Boeing (Representative image: Reuters) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The sale of Boeing's 737 for 2019 dropped by 171 units in April as the plane-maker adjusted its orders after Jet Airways shut its operations over financial distress, Bloomberg reported. As many as 196 orders of the 737 models have been dropped from Boeing's order book in 2019 alone, and there have been 25 sales of single-aisle planes. The company is required to remove any orders from its books that may not materialize in the near future. Boeing has been working to get its Boeing 737 Max back in the good books of governments worldwide after it was involved in two crashes within five months of each other and grounded. The 737 Max was Boeing's best-selling model, and Jet was one of the major customers, with a deal for 200 of Boeing's 737 Max aircraft that was in the works with the airline before it halted operations on April 17. None of the jets had been delivered to the carrier before it shut operations last month, and Boeing executives had hinted recently that these orders would be taken off the backlog.Jet Airways can only resume operations if it is infused with Rs 15,000 crore. Boeing delivered 23 jets in April, which included nine older generation 737 models which were not impacted by the grounding. Also, 12 of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners were also sold in the same month. Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, said May 15 that attacks on two of its tankers and a major pipeline targeted the security of global oil supplies. Drone attacks claimed by Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels shut down one of the kingdom's main oil pipelines on May 14, further ratcheting up Gulf tensions after the mysterious sabotage of four ships, two of them Saudi tankers, on May 12. "The cabinet affirms that these acts of terrorism and sabotage ... do not only target the kingdom but also the security of world oil supplies and the global economy," it said after a meeting chaired by King Salman in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on May 14 evening. Tuesday's drone strikes hit two pumping stations on the kingdom's east-west pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day and provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes and said they were a response to "crimes" committed by Saudi Arabia and its allies during more than four years of war in support of the government. The Saudi tankers Al-Marzoqah and Amjad suffered "significant damage" in as yet unexplained sabotage attacks in the Sea of Oman off the United Arab Emirates on May 12, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, but there were no casualties or any oil spill. An Emirati official said three Western countries -- the US, France and Norway -- would be part of an investigation into the ship attacks along with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The ships -- which also included the Norwegian tanker Andrea Victory and an Emirati vessel -- were docked in the sea off the coast of the emirate of Fujairah, the official added. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE, both close allies of the United States, have yet given details on the exact nature of those attacks, which come amid heightened tensions between Washington and Riyadh's arch-rival Tehran. OPEC giant Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of which around seven million bpd are exported. At present, most Saudi exports are loaded onto tankers at terminals on the kingdom's Gulf coast and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi cabinet called for "confronting terrorist entities which carry out such sabotage acts, including the Iran-backed Huthi militias in Yemen". Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in case of a military confrontation with the United States. On Wednesday, the United States ordered all non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Arbil after accusing the Islamic republic of planning "imminent" attacks in the region. The US has already strengthened its military presence in the region, including deploying a number of strategic B-52 bombers in response to alleged Iranian threats. Russia expressed concern tensions over Iran keep escalating despite assurance from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit that Washington was not seeking war. "So far we notice the continued escalation of tensions around this subject," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Pompeo met with President Vladimir Putin. "We are saddened to see the decisions taken by the Iranian side," Peskov said, while arguing that Washington has been provoking Iran. Iran and the US have engaged in a war of words in recent weeks since Tehran began to roll back commitments set out in a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal last year and has unilaterally reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that Iranian crude oil output fell in April to 2.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level in over five years, and could tumble in May to levels not seen since the 1980s war with Iraq. Shiite-majority Iran rivals Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia for influence in the Middle East, with the two taking opposing sides in multiple regional conflicts including in Yemen. A military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, intervened in the Yemen war in March 2015 to bolster the efforts of the internationally recognised government against the Huthi rebels. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and left up to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation according to UN agencies. State Bank of India has started reaching out to unsolicited bidders of Jet Airways in an effort to bring equity into the airline after it emerged that Etihad Airways is only interested in a minority stake. The bank, which is the lead lender to the airline, has already met top officials at AdiGro Aviation, the arm of London-based AdiGroup. Reports added that the lender will meet the Mumbai-based Darwin Group, on May 15. Etihad Airways, which was the only shortlisted bidder to put in a proposal on May 10, has committed to invest Rs 1,700 crore in return for a minority stake in Jet Airways. At present, it has a 24 percent stake in the Indian carrier. "AdiGro has completed its meeting with SBI Caps. It is quite advanced in the process," said a senior executive from the industry. SBI Caps is overseeing the bidding process. AdiGro Aviation founder Sanjay Viswanathan had earlier told Moneycontrol that he has the backing of investors and is keen to partner Etihad Airways in turning around Jet Airways. A Russian interest Apart from these unsolicited bidders, SBI Caps and SBI have received interest, this time from a Russian aviation professional Oleg Evdokimov. Though not a bidder, Oleg has offered his expertise to turnaround the airline. "I don't want shares," he said. The Moscow-based senior executive of VIP Class, which provides clients with first-class air travel, has claimed to have the backing of aviation professionals. "I also have been promised help by two airlines, one from Asia and another from Africa, in plans to turnaround Jet Airways," said Oleg. He has written to SBI, offering ways to turnaround the airline. "The money that has been promised by Etihad Airways is enough. There are other ways to raise funds, including selling owned aircraft and stake in Jet Privileges, the loyalty program," said Oleg. He said Jet Airways' debt of Rs 8,000 crore can be structured. Employee exodus With its top leadership taking the exit door, Jet Airways has started seeing an exodus of employees, including pilots, from Tuesday onward. Sources told Moneycontrol that on Tuesday alone about 100 first officer pilots put in their papers. "On May 1, there were 1,019 pilots on the roll, now it must be around 700-800," said a senior executive from the industry. The company originally had about 1,800 pilots. The resignations have come from all over the country. "Ninety percent of pilots I know of, have put in their papers now. The rest are also contemplating," said one Jet Airways pilot who put in his papers on Tuesday. Executives from the industry added that similar resignations have come in from crew and ground staff. This will reduce the overall headcount at Jet Airways, which had 12,000 employees at the beginning of the month, down from about 16,000 earlier. It employs another 6,000 on contract. On Tuesday, Jet Airways top leadership, including CEO Vinay Dube, his deputy and CFO Amit Agarwal and HR head Rahul Tanjea, put in their papers. The exits took place a day after banks, led by State Bank of India, opened the bid submitted be Etihad Airways, which has committed Rs 1,700 crore in funding. But that is not enough to meet Jet Airways obligations, which include Rs 8,000 crore of debts, and thousands of crores more in arrears to lessors, vendors and employees. Separately, the company has also started firing its employees in overseas offices. A source close to Jet Airways confirmed a Hindu BusinessLine report that about 50 employees in its international offices have been asked to leave. India's fifth largest auditor Grant Thornton has submitted its final forensic audit report on IL&FS last week to the new board of the company. In the report, the auditor has found 107 instances of loan evergreening, loans given without proper collateral and management links with borrowers companies. Moneycontrol has a copy of the forensic audit report. As per the audit report, former managing director of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN) Ramesh Bawa did not disclose his investments in AAA Infosystem and AAAB Infrastructure, which appears to be potential non-compliance of regulations of the Companies Act. According to the Act, it is mandatory for all company directors to disclose their investments in other firms. Grant Thornton found indirect links of Bawa with Silverglades Group and Ansal Group, which were provided loans to the tune of Rs 487 crore. The auditor found that Silverglades was given loans by the company's former director without seeking any securities. Overall loans worth Rs 3,768 crore were sanctioned without security. Bawa was arrested by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) in April. Grant Thornton claimed that it found 107 instances of evergreening of loans worth Rs 10,264 crore. The names of several prominent companies like Essar, DB Realty, SKIL, Gayatri Group, Siva, SREI, Kohinoor, Parsvanath and HDIL have been mentioned with regards to the evergreening process. Interestingly, most assessments to these companies were negative, yet they were extended loans after approval from the company's director. Some instances mentioned in the audit, state that assessment of ABG International, Gayatri Group, SREI and Unitech were negative. The report states that 73 instances of negative assessment were found, yet loans to these firms were approved by the company's director. On November 1, 2017, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had advised IFIN to reduce its exposure to group companies and not provide fresh lending. However, IFIN was found to have violated RBI norms, post the central bank intimation and provided loans to external parties, which in turn transferred the loans to IL&FS group companies primarily IL&FS Transportation Limited. During the audit, Grant Thornton found that 14 external companies had borrowed money and transferred to IL&FS group companies. SREI borrowed capital thrice and transferred it IL&FS group companies, and Sangam Group borrowed twice and transferred the money to IL&FS. Further, despite RBI restrictions, IFIN is believed to have purchased shares of ITNL worth of Rs 261 crore, IL&FS Energy Development Company worth of Rs 360 crore and IL&FS Airports worth of Rs 112 crore (overall worth Rs 733 crores). Moreover, Grant Thornton found 20 instances where loans were given to companies totally worth Rs 1,827 crore without any security from borrowers. It also found 17 instances of loan disbursements worth Rs 1,941 crore, where securities fell short in comparison to the sanctioned amount. Now, the SFIO is expected to finalise their report and the Enforcement Directorate would take it in cognizance for further action. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Jubilant Foodworks has reported 8.6 percent jump in its Q4FY19 net profit at Rs 73.9 crore. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 68 crore last year same quarter. The company said its books has also suffered a one-time loss of Rs 7.9 crore because of closed stores in Sri Lanka. Operational revenue of the company rose 11 percent at Rs 865 crore against Rs 780 crore year ago. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was up 15 percent at Rs 147.6 crore against Rs 127.7 crore, while margin was at 17.1 percent versus 16.4 percent, YoY. The company said Domino's same-store-sales growth was at 6 percent. Tax expense of the company stood at Rs 40.9 crore against Rs 34.6 crore. The board of directors has recommended dividend of Rs 5 per equity share of Rs 10 each fully paid up for the financial year ended March 31, 2019. The company added 30 new stores added during the quarter. At 1334 hrs Jubilant Foodworks was quoting at Rs 1,245.80, up Rs 42.60, or 3.54 percent on the BSE. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Drug major Lupin is expected to report a fall in its March quarter earnings, according to research and broking firm Prabhudas Lilladher. It expects Lupin to report net profit at Rs 253.2 crore, down 62.8% year-on-year. Net sales are expected to increase by 2.1 percent YoY (down 7.2 percent QoQ) to Rs. 4,061 crore. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are likely to fall by 14.3 percent YoY (down 10.5 percent QoQ) to Rs. 560.1 crore. Narnolia Financial Advisors expects revenue from US generics business to increase by 6 percent YoY to $212 million in Q4FY19 on account of gRanexa and Levothyroxine launch though the impact on sales will be lower this quarter as the drug was launched in the latter half of the quarter. In the US branded business, the firm assumes the revenue to increase by 63 percent QoQ to $13 million based on the Solosec ramp up as the company is focussing on increasing the prescriptions. The research firm expects India and APAC to grow by 14 percent and 5 percent YoY to Rs. 1097 crore and Rs 699 crore respectively. Going forward, it believes Japan will turn out be interesting market as the company has received PMDA approval for Etanercept. Narnolia expects EBITDA margin to decline by 171 bps YoY to 15.9 percent in Q4FY19 on account of increased remediation cost related to inspection in Somerset and Mandideep facilities. Morgan Stanley believes that earnings concentration risk has normalised and new product catalysts are in sight to revive earnings. It expects Rs 37.0 and Rs 49.7 EPS for FY20 and FY21 (a 52 percent two-year CAGR), which is 7 percent and 15 percent ahead of consensus. The brokerage said key earnings drivers include complex products in developed markets, steady growth in emerging markets and tight cost control, which together should drive up margins. According to Kotak Institutional the US business is likely to grow USD50 million QoQ, given Ranexa exclusivity, and supported by a stable base business as well as Tamiflu contribution. It also includes USD 3 million QoQ growth in Solosec. The firm expects the domestic business to grow 14% YoY, South Africa and Europe to grow 10% and 8% yoy respectively, and Japan to grow 7%. Kotak expects EBITDA margins (excluding licensing income in 3QFY19) to expand by 430 bps qoq to ~17%, driven by US scale-up, particularly, Ranexa exclusivity. EPS likely to jump 112% QoQ, though, yearly EPS numbers are not comparable given Gavis write-off in 4QFY18. Narnolia Financial Advisors expects revenue from US generics business to increase by 6% YoY to USD 212 million in Q4FY19 on account of gRanexa and Levothyroxine launch though the impact on sales will be lower this quarter as the drug was launched in the latter half of the quarter. In the US branded business, the firm assumes the revenue to increase by 63% QoQ to USD 13 million based on the Solosec ramp up as the company is focussing on increasing the prescriptions, it added. Narnolia expects India and APAC to grow by 14% and 5% YoY to Rs 1097 crore and Rs 699 crore respectively. Going forward, it believes Japan will turn out to be interesting market as the company has received PMDA approval for Etanercept. The research firm expects EBITDA margin to decline by 171 bps YoY to 15.9% in Q4FY19 on account of increased remediation cost related to inspection in Somerset facility and Mandideep facility which has been classified as OAI. SAMHI Hotels, which specialises in the development, acquisition and ownership of branded hotels like Marriott International, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and Hyatt Hotels Corporation, has initiated preliminary discussions with merchant bankers to raise funds via an initial public offer, sources told Moneycontrol. "SAMHI Hotels is evaluating raising between Rs 1,800 crore to Rs 2,000 crore via an IPO in the second half of 2019. The issue size may vary later, if required. The Gurugram-headquartered company is in talks with investment banks like Morgan Stanley, CLSA and Kotak Mahindra Bank for the same," a source said. The proposed IPO will raise growth capital for SAMHI Hotels and is likely to be a combination of primary and secondary issue of shares, another source said, adding: Existing investors will have the option for a complete or partial exit." Other than the Goldman Sachs Group, the hotel asset company counts US private firm Equity International, India-focused GTI Capital Group and the World Bank's investment arm IFC as its major shareholders. In 2011, the company had raised $100 million from Equity International and GTI Capital. In another fundraising round in 2014, it raised $30 million and $21 million from Marriott International and IFC, respectively. Goldman Sachs invested $67 million in 2015. In July 2018, the firm raised Rs 650 crore debt from Piramal Capital & Housing Finance. SAMHI Hotels, founded by Ashish Jakhanwala and Manav Thadani in 2010, has 4,315 rooms across 29 hotels in 14 cities. It operates under brands such as Courtyard by Marriott, Sheraton, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Place, Fairfield by Marriott, Four Points by Sheraton and Holiday Inn Express. The premier lodging real estate firm is now regarded as one of the fastest growing domestic hotel asset companies, a third individual familiar with the companys IPO plans said. "It is a company with a high quality management, with an established track record and which believes in attention to detail in every aspect of the business," he added. Commenting on the recent fundraising spree in this space, Shobhit Agarwal, MD and CEO, ANAROCK Capital, said, The IPOs by Lemon Tree Hotels, Chalet Hotels and the recent Embassy Office Parks REIT listing clearly show a demand for good products and companies on both the retail and institutional side. The hotel sector has witnessed an improvement in both occupancy and average room rate and therefore this is the right time to go out and raise growth capital. Goldman Sachs, CLSA and IFC declined to comment on a query from Moneycontrol. We are also awaiting responses from SAMHI Hotels, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Morgan Stanley and GTI Capital and will update this article as soon as we hear from them. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More After a three-year hiatus, the insurance regulator is planning to nudge companies in the sector to be listed on the stock exchanges. Sources said that the regulator will engage in discussions with companies over the next few months to bring out necessary guidelines for the process. While the proposal was first mooted in September 2015, it was later withdrawn after stiff opposition from insurance companies. "Listing of insurance companies with 10-12 years of business experience will be beneficial and also help to bring additional capital to the sector," said an official. It is likely that it could start off with life insurers and then move to general insurers. As of now, HDFC Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, New India Assurance and General Insurance Corporation of India are listed. According to Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) norms, a company has to be in the insurance business for 10 years to be eligible to list on the equity market. The regulator considers the financial performance, capital structure after offer and solvency margin, among other factors, to give its approval. Sources also said that insurance companies with assets under management (AUMs) of above Rs 50,000 crore could be nudged to go to the IPO path. Aditya Birla Sun Life, Max Life, SBI General and IDBI Federal Life are some of the companies who will be eligible to go for a listing. The 2015 proposal In the 2015, exposure draft 'Issuance of Capital by Indian Insurance Companies transacting Life Insurance Business', IRDAI had said that it had powers to push insurers to list. Such a company has to, within a period of one year from the date of such direction, comply with the direction issued. "The authority might direct an Indian insurance company transacting in the life insurance business to go for a public issue if the circumstance so warrants," IRDAI had said in the exposure draft. Following this, there were a series of discussions between the insurance companies and the regulator. Insurers expressed concerns about being forced to list. Hence, the proposal was sent to cold storage. The regulator now plans to restart the process, and will have meetings over the next few weeks and then an exposure draft will be drafted by July. Parity with banks Banks are required to list within three years of starting operations. In insurance, however, the gestation period is longer. Insurers companies, on an average, take seven to eight years to break-even and achieve profitability. While the idea here is to ensure that financial institutions have similar rules when it comes to listing on the exchanges, insurers will be given a much longer period to go for an initial public offering. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Brokerage firms remain mixed on Nestle India after the FMCG major reported a 9.25 percent rise in profit to Rs 463.28 crore for the first quarter ended on March 31, 2019, but high commodity prices impacted margins. The company, which follows a January-December financial year, had posted a profit of Rs 424.03 crore in the same period a year ago. Nestle also announced plans to launch organic food products in the category milk products and nutrition in the coming months. The total income in the quarter stood at Rs 3,076.14 crore. It was Rs 2,813.6 crore in the corresponding period last year, Nestle India said in a BSE filing. Export sales during the quarter dropped by 8.9 percent due to lower coffee exports to Turkey, it added. Heres what brokerages recommended on Nestle India post-March quarter results: Morgan Stanley: Underweight| Target: Rs 8,400 Morgan Stanley maintained its underweight rating on Nestle India post-March quarter results with a target price of Rs 8,400. Revenue, Operating Profit and Adjusted PAT were up 9 percent, 5 percent and 9 percent respectively compared to estimates of 12 percent, 9 percent, and 12 percent. Margin contracted by 80 bps which was largely in-line with the estimate. Higher commodity prices affected gross margin, and higher other income drove adjusted the profit growth by 9 percent on a YoY basis. Jefferies: Buy| Target: Rs 12,000 Jefferies maintained its buy rating on Nestle India post-March quarter results with a target price of Rs 12,000. The product launch and entry into new categories will help sustain growth, said the note. The urban-heavy company is better-placed to navigate near-term headwinds. The recent stock price correction makes it risk-reward favourable for investors. CLSA: Outperform| Target Rs 11,750 CLSA maintained its outperform rating on Nestle India with a target price of Rs 11,750. The company reported a decent domestic growth but weak margins. The domestic revenue growth of 10 percent was good amid weak macro. The gross margin stood at a six-quarter low signalling input cost pressure. And, a weaker margin led EBITDA to miss estimates. : The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Shitij Gandhi In Tuesday's session, the Nifty reversed its nine sessions losing streak and, once again, reclaimed 11,200 levels, supported by gains in pharma, banking, and energy stocks. From the derivative front, 11,100 and 11,000 levels are very crucial support levels for Nifty this week as Put writers are holding maximum open interest in these strikes. From the technical front as well, the long-term moving average is placed around 11,000 levels on the daily charts, which will act as a major support for the index. On the upside, 11,300-11,350 levels will act as immediate resistance, and any sharp recovery above these levels can trigger another round of short covering till 11,450 levels. Till then, we expect the market to trade in the range of 11,000-11,300 levels with high volatility on cards and stock,specific action. Here is a list of top three stocks which could give 5-11 percent return in the short term: Bajaj Auto: Sell| Target: Rs 2,805| Stop Loss: Rs 3,040| Downside 5 percent After a sharp rally from 2,830 to 3,100 levels, the stock has been maintaining its downtrend and is trading in a downward sloping channel with a formation of the lower-high and lower-bottom patterns on the daily charts. The stock has moved well below its 61.8 percent of the Fibonacci retracement level from the swing high, which indicates that the short-term trend has entered into a bearish territory. Moreover, the negative divergence in secondary oscillators also points towards a limited upside in prices. Traders can take a short position in the range of 2,950-2,945 for the downside target of 2,805 levels and a stop loss above 3,040. DCB Bank: Buy| Target: Rs 239| Stop Loss: Rs 202| Upside 11 percent On broader charts, the stock has been maintaining its uptrend and is trading in a rising channel with the formation of higher highs and higher bottom patterns. However, for the last two weeks, the stock has been consolidating in a price range of Rs 210-220, which has formed a rectangle pattern on the daily interval. In Tuesdays session, we have observed a fresh breakout above the pattern formation along with a long build-up in prices. The derivative data also points towards the next upswing at prices moving forward. So, traders can accumulate the stock in the range of Rs 215-218 for the upside target of 239 levels and a stop loss below Rs 202. Titan Company: Buy| Target: Rs 1,245| Stop Loss: Rs 1,100| Upside 8 percent The stock has been maintaining its uptrend since the beginning of the year and is trading in a rising channel on the broader charts. In recent sessions, the stock made a Double Bottom pattern around 1,070 levels and bounced sharply once again to reclaim 1,150 levels. At the current juncture, the stock has managed to break its previous resistance levels along with marginally-high volumes which suggest the next move in markets moving forward. We believe that the bullish trend is likely to continue from here on. Traders can accumulate the stock on dips in the range of Rs 1,150-1,155 for the upside target of 1245 levels and a stop loss below Rs 1,100. (The author is a Senior Research Analyst, SMC Global Securities Ltd.) : The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are his own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The market has priced in the formation of a stable government with no party crossing the halfway mark on its own. In such a scenario, Nifty should end the year in the range of 13,000-15,000, Rajiv Singh, CEO at Karvy Stock Broking, said in an interview with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand. Edited excerpts: Q: How do you see D-Street reaction in different political scenarios after May 23? A: The market has priced in the formation of a stable government with no party crossing the halfway mark on its own. We believe that the probability of this event is high. In such a scenario, though some profit booking is likely, equity markets should do well over the course of the year and Nifty should end the year in the range of 13,000-15,000. If any single party crossed the halfway mark, there would be a significant rally, but on the flip side, if an unstable coalition assumes power, Nifty could decline towards 9,000. Q: What are your views on March quarter earnings? A: March quarter earnings have been more or less in-line. The messages from the earnings are: 1) consumer demand slowdown has impacted top line growth, 2) margins continue to get impacted by commodity prices. Banks have been the area of strength as the credit quality of banks has improved. Consumer sectors such as autos disappointed, pointing towards a slowdown in consumption. One company that did well was TVS Motor that bucked the slowdown in the industry, reporting revenue growth of 9.4 percent YoY and 2 percent volume growth. Q: Mutual Funds data suggest that flows plunged by 64% in April to the lowest in 31 months. Is this temporary blip or do you think we could see more weakness? A: The decline in inflows is because of two reasons 1) Investors have been in wait and watch mode due to political uncertainty, and 2) Rising volatility in financial markets has been a dampener. India VIX is currently around 27, whereas in March it hovered around 15-17. If election results do turn out as expected (formation of a stable government), investors' willingness to take on risk should rise, and inflows to risky assets like equity oriented funds could recover. Q: Which sectors are likely to hog limelight post elections? A: We believe that the Indian economy should recover by Q2FY20, largely on the back of an increase in capex spending. Formation of a stable government should rekindle risk-taking, benefiting cyclical sectors. Financial services especially banking, capital goods, autos and IT should do well. Q: If a person in 30s wants to invest Rs 10 lakh ahead of May 23 what should be the portfolio allocation in terms of sectors in equity markets? A: Sectors such as financial services especially banking, capital goods, autos and IT constitute about 60 percent of the equity market, and we would invest 75 percent of our equity allocation in these sectors. We would be underweight on FMCG, communication services, utilities and oil & gas. We are neutral on materials and healthcare. One can buy equities directly or buy sector-specific mutual funds. Q: There are signs of a slowdown in the market. Have we entered the first phase of a bear market? A: India is facing a cyclical slowdown, largely on account of low liquidity in the money markets. India has faced an unexpected slowdown in consumer demand leading to an inventory build-up. An inventory correction, which we believe is under progress can exaggerate the extent of the slowdown in final demand. Lastly, a slowdown in the global economy, as well as trade wars have taken a toll. RBI is working to enhance liquidity and there are signs of a pickup in the global economy. Q: Q4 results have failed to surprise analysts. There are more stocks that have hit 52-week low than highs. Is it time to go for the kill and deploy cash in case you are an investor for five years or more? A: For any investor who has a horizon of five years or longer, this is a good time to invest in equities. Growth in the Indian economy has been held back on account of NPLs, reforms like GST and RERA have also held back growth in the short term, but will aid growth. Indian economy is facing cyclical headwinds, which has soured sentiment. Q: Do you think that there is more pain in store for those who invested in mid and smallcaps? A: Mid and smallcap stocks tend to outperform when two conditions are met, firstly markets should be in a risk on mode, which should be the case after May 23. Secondly, valuations should be favourable. In 2018, mid and smallcaps were trading at a significant premium to largecaps, leading to their underperformance. Currently, they are at a small discount. Thus, the conditions for them to outperform largecaps are falling in place and we would invest in midcaps. : The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Five years ago, one would hardly find the mention of overseas hiring in annual reports of IT companies. Now overseas hiring, especially in the US, is one of the key points of discussion for the IT majors, thanks to the tightening visa regulations. Since 2017, the Trump administration has been tightening the H-1B visa rules, provided to skilled migrant workers. This includes rising scrutinisation of visa applied by Indian IT services firms, ban on H-4 visa that enabled spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the US and more importance to master degree holders from the US. IT companies were one of the biggest beneficiaries of the visa and one of the worst affected as thousands of techies returned home due to rising rejection rates of H-1B visa. This has made the coveted H-1B visa a constant headache in more ways than one for IT majors in the country. On one-hand, these companies have to cut-back on sending Indian techies overseas and on the other-hand there is a huge demand for new-age technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud as new projects trickle in. Enterprises are left with no option but to recruit overseas employees given that the US is the most important market. Why is the US so important? For most Indian IT companies, the US accounts for the about anywhere between 50-80 percent of their businesses. Europe, UK and others account for rest. This translates to equivalent amount of Indian work force present in the country to handle the projects. However since 2017 the Indian overseas workforce began to come down due to visa rejections. According to the data released by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) close to 60 percent of companies that applied for a visa on behalf of foreign workers received requests for additional information in the last quarter of 2018. It was 46 percent in 2017 and 28 percent in 2016. The approval rate fell to 75 percent in the final quarter of 2018 from 83 percent in 2017 and 92 percent in 2016. Companies with large number of rejects were Indian firms such as TCS, Infosys, and Wipro. Apart from new applications, H-1B renewals were a challenge too. "Earlier, the Request for Evidence (RFEs), which required applicants to submit more documentation, for renewals was rare and they were hardly questioned. It is not the case anymore," said Pankai Joshi, Managing Director, NYSA Global, a firm that specialises in EB-5 migration visas. Changing hiring pattern Now most of the companies are rejigging their hiring pattern to factor in the visa challenges. Yugal Joshi, Vice President, Everest Group, a management consultancy firm, said, Most of the Indian heritage service companies are trying to hire onshore talent as much for visa as for the political climate. A lot of them never used to visit campuses or hire fresh graduates, now they are doing it. This is a significant departure in their talent strategy. V Apparao, Chief Human Resources Officer at HCL Technologies, during the announcement of quarter three results said that the company will continue its localisation efforts that now stand at over 65 percent from single digit over a decade ago. He also said that the company is looking to hire more people overseas in the next fiscal. Infosys has made a commitment to hire 10,000 locals by over a two year period in 2017. TCS and Wipro too are investing significantly in this space. Subcontract hiring Second part of the story is increase subcontract hiring. A senior leader in a major IT company said that the company is engaging more contract hiring to fill in the talent gap in the US. Contract hiring is the most feasible option for companies as a resource/talent with a valid visa is mapped to the project based on its requirement. Since it is fixed term, the contract ends when the project ends unlike when employees are on bench overseas, incurring unnecessary cost. Nisha V is on overseas bench now as her project got over. The company office is 40 miles away from where I stay. There is no point in going to office since there is no work. Im waiting for a project to be assigned soon, she said. Contract hiring eliminates these issues though it comes at a cost. Kris Lakshmikanth, founder and CEO, Head Hunters India, an IT staffing firm said for most companies the margins have come down by 200 basis points as IT majors are spending more on overseas talents. Joshi of Everest Group, said, Increased subcontracting costs indicate they aren't hiring or don't plan or are unwilling to hire as much talent as is the demand. This talent management is a key to their business success as they don't want to build bench at onshore location. Umesh Belludi, Co-founder, BrainHR, a HR consultancy firm based in Bengaluru, agrees. Belludis firm specialises in processing H-1B for Indian IT firms and also map them to the right company. "But that business has come down by 30-35 percent since the US started imposing visa regulations," he said. With the demand for contract hiring on the rise, his company has moved on to working with valid H-1B visa holders in the US, green card holders and citizens to match them with the right company. A blessing in disguise Akhilesh Tuteja, Global Co-Leader - Cyber Security at KPMG, agrees that overseas hiring comes at cost and lowers operating margin. "But these visa issues might be a blessing in disguise," he added. Though the distance does not make client retention a huge issue, according to him proximity to clients does increase the trust factor. Salil Parekh in his recent interaction with CNBC TV-18 said that the company is staying more and more relevant to the client as it opens new offices outside India and hiring talents locally. Infosys plans to open four technology and innovation centre in the US. Infosys also said that it will hire 1,200 people in Australia and open three offices there. HCL Technologies has opened 134 delivery centres outside India. However this has not changed the acquisition strategy that are focused on building digital capabilities. According to a market analyst, acquisitions continue to be for capabilities and leveraging offshore factories to support onshore centric model of acquired firms be it in design, digital, or any next gen theme. "The agenda is to leverage global service delivery to scale up the capabilities of acquired firm," the analyst added. (First part of the series talked about how hackathons are gaining popularity to hire talent. Tomorrow, the third part of the series will look at niche skills that are in demand) Divya Baweja and Mitesh Agrawal The Provident Fund (PF) is a highly preferred retirement saving scheme among employees. Under this scheme, both employee and employer contribute a fixed portion of pay (12 percent each). Every year, interest at a notified rate is credited to the cumulative balance of the Fund and at the time of retirement or pre-retirement withdrawal, total contributions made by the employee and employer are paid along with the accumulated interest. The PF scheme enjoys an EEE status i.e. the contribution, accretions and the withdrawal on retirement are exempt from taxation, subject to certain conditions. The contribution made by an employee also qualifies for a deduction u/s 80C of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Act), within the overall ceiling limit of Rs 1.5 lakh. Before retirement, an employee is permitted to withdraw the PF amount for specified purposes such as marriage, education, purchasing a house or medical treatment, etc. Withdrawal of accumulated PF balance is also allowed in case an employee remains unemployed for a continuous period of 2 months, on retirement or on death/ incapacitation of the employee. At the time of withdrawal, the accumulated balance of PF may be taxable or exempt from tax depending upon the total number of years for which the employee was in continuous service. Withdrawal made before five years of continuous service will attract taxation. On withdrawal, the employee will get accumulated balance comprising of employee contribution, employer contribution, interest on employee contribution and interest on employer contribution; taxability of each of these components will occur in the year of withdrawal and varies from each other. For the employee contribution, deduction u/s 80c claimed in earlier years will be disallowed and employees will have to pay tax at the same rate at which tax would have been paid in those years. The employer contribution, interest on the employee contribution and interest on employer contribution will be taxed as income of the year in which the withdrawal is made. As the entire withdrawal amount is taxable, each component of the withdrawn amount - the employer contribution, employee contribution, and respective interest on these contributions - needs to be reported separately. The employer contribution and the interest earned on the employer contribution need to be categorised as Salary Income. The reversal of deduction u/s 80C of the Act of employee contribution and interest earned on the employee contribution will be categorised as Income from Other Sources. Withdrawal made after years of continuous service is exempt from tax. While interest up to cessation of service is exempt, the interest earned on the accumulated balance post cessation of service (i.e. the period between the date of termination/ retirement of service and the date of actual payment/settlement of fund) will be taxed in the hands of the employee. Though the amount so withdrawn will not be taxable, however, it would need to be reported as Exempt income in the Exempt Income Schedule of the income-tax return. The interest earned on the accumulated balance post cessation of service is taxable and has to be reported as Income from Other Sources in the income-tax return. With increased governance and scrutiny by the revenue authority for correct taxability and disclosure in the income-tax return, the taxability and reporting of withdrawal of PF are a crucial part of the income-tax compliance by an individual. It is pertinent to report the income carefully in the income-tax return so as to avoid any unforeseen impact at a later date. Piramal Group's real estate arm Piramal Realty plans to double its portfolio to 30 million sq ft in the next two years and is also in talks with global investors for raising funds, a top company official said. The company currently has over 15 million sq ft of saleable area under development across five projects and plans to take it to nearly 30 million sq ft, which will be a mix of residential and commercial real estate. "In the year 2018, we clocked nearly Rs 3,400 crore of revenues from our various projects and sold an inventory worth Rs 80,000 crore in the last calendar year. "We want to continue expanding our portfolio and we are looking at either outright buyouts or through entering into joint venture or joint development with developers," the company's founder Anand Piramal told reporters here. He further said the company is in talks with global funds for raising money to invest in both commercial and residential projects. However, Piramal did not divulge any details on the same. At present, two global private equity majors Goldman Sachs and Warburg Pincus have invested around $434 million in the company at the entity level, which is one of the largest PE investments in Indian real estate. "There is a lot of interest of global funds in the Indian real estate market. Traditionally it was more focused on the commercial side, mainly because of the characteristics of the asset and guaranteed returns. However, we are now seeing the shift towards residential real estate as well," he said. In the last two years, out of the total PE inflows in the country, Singapore-based funds comprised 41 per cent or $3.5 billion. This was followed by the US and Canada-based PE investors that have a cumulative contribution of $3.8 billion in the last two years. Asked if the company would be expanding to other cities, Piramal said, "There is still a lot of opportunity in and around Mumbai especially for residential real estate and we will continue focusing here. For our commercial portfolio, we may look at opportunities outside as well." PTI had last month reported that Piramal Realty and Omkar Developers are close to extending their existing partnership to a new residential project in Mahim. There were reports that the two firms were also coming together to jointly develop a 2 million-sq ft office complex at Mumbai's Andheri. Online grocery firm Grofers has raised over $200 million in a round led by existing investor SoftBank Vision Fund. The round also saw participation from a new investor - KTB - a South Korean investment firm. Other existing investors such as Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital also participated in the round. The company also plans to expand into new markets, continue to build its supply chain, warehousing infrastructure and private label product offerings. "Primarily the investment will go into warehousing, especially in the southern markets like Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. We are tripling our warehousing capacity there and will also be expanding more around our profit centres like Delhi," Dhindsa told Moneycontrol. Currently, the company has a total warehousing space of 2.5 million square feet. This will be expanded to around 3 million square feet. Grofers also plans to go big on its private label offerings. The segment currently constitutes 45 percent of the total sales of the company. "By the end of calendar year, we plan to cross 50 percent and by the next calendar year, we hope to be close to 60 percent," Dhindsa added. Grofers last announced a $62 million fund raise, which was also led by SoftBank in March last year. The current round takes the overall funds raised by the company to $420 million. The food and grocery market is one of the largest commerce categories in India, and is estimated to reach $869 billion in sales in 2023, a 70 percent increase from its 2018 forecast. Shares of SpiceJet soared more than 7 percent intraday on May 15 after the budget carrier emerged as the biggest gainer in the allocation of domestic slots left vacant by Jet Airways. According to a report in CNBCTV18, the Slot Allocation Committee allotted 130 of the 766 slots available to SpiceJet, with its maximum slots at Mumbai airport at 68 out of the 214 vacated by Jet Airways. IndiGo received the second highest number at 127, followed by Vistara, which received 110 slots. GoAir and AirAsia India were allotted 44 and 42 slots, respectively. Jet Airways suspended operations nearly a month ago on April 17, the departure of Jet left as many as 766 slots vacant in the country, with nearly 55 percent or 420 of these slots at the airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Nagpur. At 1045 hrs, SpiceJet was quoting Rs 130.70, up 7.22 percent on the BSE. Shares of Zee Media Corporation fell nearly 7 percent intraday on May 15 after the media house reported a 73.1 percent decline in profit after tax (PAT) for FY19 at Rs 13.17 crore, compared to Rs 49 crore in the last fiscal. "Consolidated operating revenue in FY19 grew by 19.8 percent to Rs 686.92 crore from Rs 573.48 crore in the financial year 2017-18," Zee Media said in an exchange filing. In the quarter ended March 2019, the Essel Group-backed company posted a net loss of Rs 86.66 crore against a net profit of Rs 11.52 crore in the year-ago period. The revenue of Zee Media also tumbled 3.9 percent in the January-March quarter at Rs 169.35 crore, compared to Rs 176.22 crore in Q4FY18. At 0933 hrs, Zee Media Corporation was quoting Rs 13.55, down 6.81 percent on the BSE. The world will require very little extra oil from OPEC this year as booming US output will offset falling exports from Iran and Venezuela, the International Energy Agency said on May 15. The IEA, which coordinates the energy policies of industrial nations, said Washington's decision to end sanctions waivers that had allowed some importers to continue to buying Iranian crude added to the "confusing supply outlook." "However, there have been clear and, in the IEA's view, very welcome signals from other producers that they will step in to replace Iran's barrels, albeit gradually in response to requests from customers," the IEA said in its monthly report. "There is certainly scope for other producers to step up production," it said, adding that it estimated OPEC states in April had produced about 440,000 barrels per day (bpd) less than the amount agreed in a production pact, with Saudi Arabia producing 500,000 bpd below its allocation. The IEA said there was a "modest offset to supply worries from the demand side", as it expected growth in global oil demand to be 1.3 million bpd in 2019, or 90,000 bpd less than previously forecast. It said 2018 demand growth had been estimated at 1.2 million bpd. It said global oil demand would average 100.4 million bpd in 2019. It also said higher output from producers outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, especially the United States in the second quarter, would keep the market well supplied. US production of oil and condensates was forecast to rise by 1.7 million bpd in 2019. Crude oil would account for about 1.2 million bpd of the rise, the IEA said, although it said this would be lower than US crude oil output growth of 1.6 million bpd in 2018. Global oil supply in April fell 300,000 bpd, the IEA said, with Canada, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran leading the losses. But OPEC crude output rose by 60,000 bpd to 30.21 million bpd, on higher flows from Libya, Nigeria and Iraq, it added. The IEA said the call on OPEC would be 30.9 million bpd in the second quarter of 2019 and would fall to 30.2 million bpd in the second half of the year. Forty CRPF personnel were killed in the Pulwama attack last year A Central Reserved Police Force personnel, who narrowly escaped death during the Pulwama fidayeen attack, is being celebrated across the nation now for a humble deed of kindness. He became the toast of social media after a video clip went viral in which he can be seen going beyond duty calls and feeding a disabled child in Srinagars Old City area. Head constable Iqbal Singh was in the third bus behind the vehicle that was blown off during the Pulwama attack and was instrumental in rescuing the injured on the unfortunate day. On Monday, Iqbal was deployed on law and order duty at Safa Kadal where a strike was going on, when not only did he gave away his food to a child in distress, but also took out time to feed him. The CRPF then shared the video on their official Twitter handle on Tuesday. The 31-second video of the incident shows the head constable helping the specially-abled child wipe his mouth too. A voice behind the camera then asks in Kashmiri if the child wants water, then the CRPF man offers him that as well. According to a Hindustan Times report quoting Sanjay Sharma, the public relations officer of the CRPF, the paralytic child gestured him towards his lunch box while Iqbal was on duty. Thats when he immediately started feeding the child and a Kashmiri onlooker made the video. He added that the CRPF personnel do not know who actually shot the video. Sharma further said, There was stone pelting in some parts of Downtown (Old City) during the strike. There is always pressure on the jawans on strike days and yet Iqbal, who is stationed with the 49th battalion of CRPF in Srinagar, took out time to do this. It has won many hearts. "Humanity is the mother of all religions" HC Driver Iqbal Singh of 49 Bn Srinagar Sector CRPF deployed on LO duty feeds a paralysed Kashmiri kid in Nawakadal area of Srinagar. In the end, asks him "Do you need water?" pic.twitter.com/zYQ60ZPYjJ Srinagar Sector CRPF The video was shared on the Twitter handle of Srinagar Sector CRPF and retweeted by the CRPF Madadgar handle. It was captioned: Humanity is the mother of all religions. A bipartisan group of 117 lawmakers has urged the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to crack down on companies, primarily based in Europe, that ship chemical abortion drugs from India to the US. These European companies, like Aid Access, are circumventing the FDA's safety requirements and placing the lives of women and their children at risk, the lawmakers said in a letter to Norman Sharpless, the Acting FDA Commissioner. In the letter dated May 10, the bipartisan group of Congressmen urged Sharpless to crack down on Aid Access and Rablon, two foreign companies known to distribute Mifeprex, a chemical abortion drug, by mail-order to US customers in violation of the FDA's safety protocols. The letter urges Sharpless to take action to stop the illegal practices of Aid Access and other mail-order abortion providers. Aid Access allows chemical abortion pills to be prescribed by an abortionist in the Netherlands, filled by a pharmacy in India and shipped to stateside customers, they alleged. "As the FDA has recognised, by shipping chemical abortion drugs from India to the United States, Aid Access circumvents the Food and Drug Administration's safety requirements, placing the lives of women and their children at risk," the letter said. "We would like to...voice our support for ongoing oversight of this and any other rogue mail-order abortion operation," wrote the lawmakers. Mifeprex is an oral drug that blocks the progesterone hormone necessary for a pregnancy to continue. It is used with Misprostol to end early pregnancies. Mifeprex is approved by the FDA, but it is only available to patients through healthcare providers. It is not available in retail pharmacies and not legally available on the Internet. However, certain abortion-by-mail providers primarily based in Europe, like Aid Access, have widened their consumer base to include the US. Aid Access provides remote consultations, sends Mifeprex prescriptions to be filled in India and then sends the abortion drug to the customers in the US. The FDA recently ordered Aid Access to cease its illegal sale of misbranded and unapproved drugs that induce abortion, following reporting on the company's activities that violate FDA safety protocols. In the letter, the members of Congress thanked Sharpless for acting to protect American women and their unborn children, and urged the FDA to continue its work to combat the practice of importing dangerous drugs. "As an OB/GYN who practised medicine for nearly three decades, I am concerned about the consequences of unapproved mail-order abortion drugs," said Congressman Michael Burgess. "The dangerous business that Aid Access is conducting is harmful to the health of American women, who deserve quality healthcare throughout the course of a pregnancy," he said. "By violating the FDA's safety protocols, Aid Access and other European mail-order abortion companies endanger the health of American women and their children," said Congresswoman Martha Roby. "The FDA must take decisive action against these illegal activities immediately," she demanded. Susan B Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the abortion industry's reckless push to circumvent the law and turn every post office into an abortion centre shows they put profit before women's health and safety. According to the FDA, "it is illegal for individuals to import drugs into the United States for personal use". Noting that Aid Access claims that their activities are permissible under FDA exceptions, the lawmakers said the exceptions, however, are limited to very narrow circumstances that Aid Access cannot meet. For example, the drug must be for a condition for which treatment is not available domestically and there must not be any known promotion of the product to persons residing in the US, they wrote. "Since chemical and surgical abortions are available in the US and Aid Access is clearly promoting the sale of the drugs online, the Aid Access system does not meet the first two requirements for an exception," the Congressmen said. India and Pakistan could be discussing options of de-escalating tensions along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary, a Pakistani media report claimed. Quoting official sources, 'The Express Tribune' newspaper reported that the channels of communication that were suspended following the Pulwama terrorist attack in February may have been restored. Pakistan and India might be discussing the options of de-escalating tensions along the Line of Control (LoC) and the Working Boundary, the paper said. Relations between India and Pakistan have been on the edge since the February 14 Pulwama attack by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror group which killed 40 CRPF personnel. India launched a counter-terror operation against a JeM training camp in Balakot on February 26. The next day, Pakistan Air Force retaliated and downed a MiG-21 in an aerial combat and captured its pilot, who was handed over to India on March 1 in an effort to de-escalate the crisis. According to the paper, on February 28, a day after Pakistan shot down the Indian fighter jet, intense exchange of fire took place between the two nuclear-armed neighbours along the LoC. Citing sources, it claimed that the Indian Army has requested Pakistan to stop the use of artillery fire. The Indian Army sources in New Delhi, however, rejected the claim, saying it is Pakistan which has been seeking de-escalation as the country is facing mounting international pressure. Last week, Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria held an important meeting with Foreign Secretary Sohail Mehmood at the Foreign Office. Details of that meeting were not shared with the media but the Indian request seeking end to the artillery use was believed to be one of the talking points, the paper said. Neither the Foreign Office nor the Pakistan military's media wing has commented on the Indian request, it said. The Supreme Court Wednesday termed as "prima facie arbitrary" the arrest of BJP's youth wing leader Priyanka Sharma for allegedly posting morphed image of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media. The apex court's observation came after counsel for Sharma's brother mentioned the matter before it and said that despite the court's order on Tuesday the activist has not been released from jail. However, the counsel appearing for the West Bengal government told a vacation bench comprising justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna that Sharma has been released from jail at around 9:40 am on Wednesday. "This is not done. First of all the arrest was prima facie arbitrary," the bench said and warned it would issue contempt against officials concerned if Sharma is not released immediately from jail. The bench then asked the counsel representing Sharma's brother Rajib Sharma to take instruction on whether she has been released from jail or not. After a few minutes the counsel apprised the court that she has been released from jail. The apex court had yesterday granted bail to Sharma and had asked her to tender a "written apology" at the time of her release from jail for sharing the meme on Banerjee. On part 1 of our two-part special 'India and the World,' we focussed largely on the way we were before 2014 and today on part 2, we will try to decode the five years that have passed. This is a look at India's foreign policy in the Modi years. How we began negotiating with the world After gaining independence in 1947, foreign policy was an unknown entity for Indians.But then there was in existence a foreign department created by the Indian National Congress, during 1925 to synergise with international supporters. And overtime, government policy emerged under the aegis of the Ministry of External Affairs headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The Indian Foreign Service also played an important role in representing the country abroad. Nehru was also one of the forces behind Panchsheel or the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. Our foreign policy was based primarily on internal consolidation in the fifties and gaining international respect for our moral authority as a functioning democracy even though we relied to a great extent on outside assistance for developmental activities. We joined the Commonwealth of Nations and threw our weight behind independence movements in other countries. One of the most debated and controversial aspects of the domestic and foreign politics has been the continuous clash between India and Pakistan over Kashmir with even the United Nations failing to intervene satisfactorily. Not to mention the wars with both China and Pakistan. As also a significant military operation when India became the second country to recognise Bangladesh as a separate and independent state on 6 December 1971 and helped "liberate" it from West Pakistan in 1971. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has played a big part in shaping India's relationships with countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and of course Pakistan in areas like anti-terrorism, narcotics control, agriculture, rural development and more. It is another matter though that the frequent tensions between India and Pakistan have made the synergy sluggish. Recently a scheduled SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad was postponed due to the Uri attack. In the 1990s, the Kargil war won a major diplomatic victory for India when the United States and the European Union recognised the Pakistani military's role in the conflict and several anti-India militant groups based in Pakistan were labelled as terrorist groups by the United States and European Union. But that was much later. Even when we were taking a non-aligned stand in the early years as far as global conflicts went, we ended up signing the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in August 1971 to counter the support Pakistan was getting from US and China. From the late 1980s, India began to synergise with countries other than the Soviet Union and these included the United States among other developed countries and yes, even China. Not to mention the continuous preoccupation with South Asian neighbours like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The end of the Cold War, the fragmentation of the Soviet Union led to diplomatic and economic ties not just with the United States, or the European Union trading bloc, but member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the African Union, the Arab League and Iran. The Narsimha Rao government in the early nineties has been widely credited for India's 'look east' foreign policy. Subsequently, news reports have quoted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's take on this change, "It was also a strategic shift in India's vision of the world and India's place in the evolving global economy". For its security needs, now India relies on its strategic and military equations with different countries like Russia, Israel and the United States. Significantly, once an ideological ally of Palestine, in 1992, India established formal diplomatic contact with Israel and this relationship has especially strengthened during the spells of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led governments and also subsequent UPA (United Progressive Alliance) led governments. Russia is at the moment the largest supplier of military equipment to India, followed by Israel and France. By the 1970s, the country also had the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)functioning covertly to gather sensitive information. Over time, it has become indecipherable whether our foreign policy is formulated by the Ministry of External Affairs or the Prime Minister himself. In the little time the Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj has been accorded by her health and a tenure marked with showmanship of the Prime Minister, she has displayed an exemplary and proactive concern for the well-beings of Indian abroad. Looking East in the present At present, the current government has made all the obvious moves to take advantage of the markets waiting to be tapped in ASEAN. On the military front, there have been defence deals and joint military exercises with US and European nations and a fillip to bilateral trade. India's candidature for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council is still not a foregone conclusion even though during a state visit to India in November 2010, US president Barack Obama had announced US support for India's bid for permanent membership to UN Security Council as well as India's entry to Nuclear Suppliers Group, Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and Missile Technology Control Regime. As of January 2018, India has become a member of Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and Missile Technology Control Regime. One significant and rather unexpected turn of events has been that the bilateral trade between the two countries surpassed $65 billion by 2015, making China the single largest trading partner of India almost as if the occasional military skirmishes don't matter. What observers say On May 7, 2019, Asia Society carried an interview with Bharat Karnad who is a Research Professor in National Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. The article tries to understand if, and we quote, the credit for "ushering a bolder and more engaged foreign policy" can be attributed to the current government.. Karnad has written a book, Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and Indias Global Ambition, in which he describes the current foreign policy as inept and short-sighted. We quote, "The book makes the cases that Modi has been anything but bold on the international stage. While Modis efforts may have garnered small successes, Karnad believes he has failed in the grander ambition to propel India toward great power status. Instead, Karnad sees Modis India as great power lite, being stuck for the past five years in neutral gear. The books critique of Modi comes from an unexpected angle. While Modi is maligned by the left in India and abroad for his Hindu nationalist, strong-man approach, Staggering Forward is a takedown from the other side of the political spectrum. Karnad, a research professor at the Center for Policy Research who describes himself as Indias foremost conservative strategist, faults Modi not for being hawkish but for being diffident." The article is authored by New York based Anubhav Gupta, Assistant Director for the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Karnad told him during the course of the interview that the current foreign policy is just a continuation of policies pursued by the previous governments in the new millennium. Said Karnad, "Based on the long history of the factors that command the respect of China's rulers, I have been advocating for some two decades now and also in this book that India adopt a tit-for-tat approach. For instance, the most obvious way to react to Beijing's very successful initiative to arm Pakistan with nuclear missiles and use that country to contain India would have been for Delhi to transfer like armaments to many more small adversarial states on China's borders to equalize the strategic context. It would have signaled India's intent to respond in kind and equal measure and would have quickly sobered up Beijing and telegraphed to all Asian states India's ability to take on an ambitious and oppressive China. It would have crystallized India as a competing power node to China in Asia. A similar attitude to inform India's trade policy would have prevented the skewed trade and severe balance-of-payments problem India now faces." About the government's much publicised victory in the war of perception against Pakistan, Karnad had this to say, "Pakistan, I believe, is Modi's greatest failure. Rather than resorting to covert warfare methods to discreetly drive home the message to Islamabad that two can play at the terrorism game, Modi has sought to make political capital out of forcefully countering actions by Pakistan-sponsored terrorist organizations, such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, that are active in Indian Kashmir. This has a dual purpose of also communally polarizing the Indian society, which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hopes to benefit from. This is base tactical thinking." We wonder what the founders of Panchsheel would have to say about this suggestion of playing "terrorism games," but according to Karnad, "a more strategic-minded leader would have used covert means when and where necessary while also seeking to influence the Pakistan government with a spate of economic incentives, such as open access to the vast Indian market, and unilateral military measures, such as demobilizing and reconstituting the Indian Army's three strike corps which the Pakistan Army most fears into a single composite corps sufficient for any Pakistan contingency, and withdrawing forwardly deployed nuclear missiles from the border with Pakistan. By such means, India could have and still can reassure Pakistan, preclude it from acting the Chinese cat's paw in the region, and regain for South Asia the unitary strategic space lost in 1947 with the Partition of India." About the Prime Minister's extensive personalized diplomacy," Karnad said that if all politics is local, then Modi has been sensitive about actions that fetch him domestic political dividends. Says he about the government's equation with the Gulf countries, "A large section of Indian society gains from the remittances, estimated by the World Bank in 2018 as some $80 billion annually; sent home by skilled and unskilled Indian labor employed primarily in the Gulf countries. These remittances make for India's healthy hard currency reserves and help sustain the economies of several Indian states, chief among them Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. The remittance beneficiaries also constitute a large voter base, which Modi has kept pleased by cultivating, in the main, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Intimacy with these Sunni majority states also balances India's ties with the Shia majority Iran, giving India a role in the ongoing Shia-Sunni tussle in West Asia. More generally, close ties with Islamic nations symbolizes the fact that India has the second largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia), and is a counterpoise to India's deep relations with Israel, on the one hand, and on the other hand, limits Pakistan's influence in the Islamic world." Inner divisions, outer cracks Karnad also states that this tenure has exacerbated tensions in society along caste and religious lines" and these could prove detrimental to India's image abroad. He explains why that is and we quote, "India has long projected itself, successfully, as an inclusive democratic country suffused with liberal values and exemplifying secular ideals. This image cannot but be hurt when domestic politics are communalized. India's recent downgrading by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, for instance, will have repercussions in that many countries may be influenced by its findings, and the Modi government's desire for India to be seen as a bastion of liberal thought and democratic action will take a hit. Further, anti-Muslim rhetoric will begin to impact India's interactions with the Islamic world, alienate Muslim states, and cumulatively affect India's quest for great power." He also believes that the BJP may return to power with a thin majority with the current PM being replaced by someone like the Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari, who has distinguished himself as a conciliator. The Diplomat published a piece by Krzysztof Iwanek on April 27, 2019 that asked categorically, "How did Hindu nationalism affect Indias foreign relations?" And if as the piece said, "The spirit of nationalist ideology remained trapped in the body of the countrys pragmatic needs." The article states that regardless of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS), intimacy with the current government, the foreign policy did not divert much from previous pathways. Despite proving to be bolder in dealings with Pakistan in the second half of its tenure (2016-2019), the government, says the piece, also showed a much more conciliatory stance toward Islamabad at the beginning of the tenure (2014-2015). Neither has the government fulfilled its promise of facilitating the comeback of Kashmiri Pandits though the airstrike on Balakot in 2019 can be considered a firm punitive operation against a radical Pakistani organization and a reply to an earlier terrorist attack in Kashmir. Another important aspect of the new foreign policy was the visit to Israel. PM Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit that country and this marked the firm sidelining of the Palestine issue although the PM stopped by in Palestine for three hours in 2017 and expressed his government support for a two-state solution and an independent Palestine. As we said before, this government has courted crucial partners among the Arab nations as well with the Prime Minister visiting Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. As the piece says, "It would seem that the spirit of ideology was once again locked in the body of Indias everyday needs, as some of the Muslim Arab states house a significant number of Indian workers and export their energy resources to India. Contrary to the most vehement votaries of the free market that declare that money has no nationality, nationalists often declare it does. Both streams of thought are to be found within the coteries of the ruling BJP. Both the party and much more the nationalist organization behind it, the RSS, have been promoting the idea of swadeshi the promotion of Indian companies and their products and services. But this has hardly translated into any policies under Narendra Modi, himself a major supporter of foreign investment. While in opposition Modi and the BJP had criticized allowing FDI in retail and, yes, they have not overturned this decision once in power. The current governments flagship 'Make in India' program was in reality all about rolling out a red carpet for foreign investors and not protecting the Indian industries. Even some sections of the RSS took a different stand from the BJP government and had at times scolded Modis cabinet for its free market-oriented economic policies." Religious diplomacy? An important point the writer makes is that this government has increasingly begun to use religious diplomacy, for instance, as a strategic tool for a variety of ends. We quote, "The Hindu nationalists perceive Hindu religious identity as the bedrock of Indian national identity and hence perceive any conversion from Hinduism as a threat to national unity. They have been always suspicious and sometimes even violent toward Christian missionaries working in India. In this regard Modis policy has followed the nationalist spirit by cancelling the licenses of certain foreign Christian NGOs and restricting their activities, although this cannot be considered as part of a direct relation to any state. Finally, it is perhaps the policy toward refugees where Hindu nationalism surfaced most strongly, as Modis government admitted openly that it is unwilling to accept Muslim refugees or to grant citizenship to Muslims of foreign origins. The BJPs election manifesto of 2014 declared that under its rule India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here. Modis government, according to the piece, was clearly unhappy to accept the (predominantly Muslim) Rohingya refugees from Myanmar once they started to be persecuted again in 2017 and started to flee to nearby countries, including India. We quote again, "The BJPs decision-makers also ignited a controversy by tabling the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in 2016 and eventually voting it through the lower house of Parliament. The piece of legislation stipulated that after seven years of residence Indian citizenship would be given to any person who had come from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan provided that she or he would profess any other religion other than Islam. The bill was criticized for a few reasons as many found it too liberal but any rate its goal of granting citizenship based on religious denominations was clear. All of this was capped by the declarations of BJP party president, Amit Shah, during the 2019 election campaign, when he stated that We will remove every single infiltrator except Buddha (sic), Hindus, and Sikh. As the writer opines in conclusion, "to sum up, the BJPs foreign policy took a predictable and rather realistic trajectory. The shades of ideology within the spectrum of its actions and declarations were less visible whenever it came to dealing with the realm of hard power (in aspects such as security and economy) and in relations with stronger nations. They were, however, more apparent whenever domestic politics called for it, and also within the area of soft power (such as culture promotion), as well as in relation to non-state actors and weaker groups (such as Christian NGOs and Muslim refugees)." With Time now publishing a cover on the Indian Prime Minister with a controversial headline, it will be interesting to see how his own base will regard his domestic and international legacy . Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal cast his vote at a polling station in Dibrugarh. (Image: Twitter/@ANI) Nazimuddin Siddique With just one phase of polling remaining in the seven-phase general election, all eyes are on May 23, the day the results will be announced. Assam too went to the polls over three phases: on April 11, 18 and 23. Three main political parties contested: The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). The BJP has formed a pre-poll gathbandhan with regional parties that include the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Bodo Peoples Front (BPF). Until the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where it won seven of the 14 seats, the BJP has never been successful in Assam. Assam has a complex and deeply heterogeneous society, with different communities having varied priorities. However, across the decades, Assam has been witnessing elections that are fought and hotly contested only over a single issue illegal immigrants. The BJP understood this pulse of a major section of the people of Assam, and used it to its advantage in a convincing manner. To exploit the constructed xenophobic fear of a major section of Asomiyas, the BJP designed a slogan jati, mati, bheti (community, land, base) which gained substantial ground. The party assured to protect jati, mati, bheti from illegal immigrants, and this assurance, compounding with the anti-incumbency factor against Congress, won the BJP seven of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. Soon after winning, the BJP retracted from its stand on the issue and shifted its target from illegal immigrants to Muslim illegal immigrants, thus communalising the entire issue of citizenship in Assam. It is in this backdrop that the Constitution (Amendment) Bill (CAB) was introduced. Through this bill, the governments intention is to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 and to award citizenship to all the Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Parsi and Buddhist illegal immigrants from the neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Notably, Muslims are excluded from this bill. This attempt of the BJP government has attracted sharp criticism and widespread protest from various quarters across Assam. Whether this dissatisfaction translates into vote erosion for the BJP remains to be seen. Many people who voted for the BJP in 2014 with the hope of change are likely to correct that mistake this time. On the other hand, Assams Bengali Hindu community by and large are supporting the bill and are predominantly favouring the BJP. The support for the bill among this community is clear when one sees the stand taken by Sushmita Dev, Congress MP from Silchar. Though the grand old party opposes CAB, Dev has openly supported the billthis could be in fear of losing ground among the Bengali Hindus who constitute a sizeable voters in Silchar. The AGP appears to oppose the bill, and left the BJP-led NDA when it was passed in Lok Sabha. It re-joined the alliance once it lapsed without being introduced in the Raj Sabha. This exposes an indomitable greed among many AGP leaders to remain in power. The Congress is vehemently opposing the CAB and as the BJP claim, they have come to an understanding with the AIUDF. Since Independence, the Congress smoothly sailed through multiple elections in Assam relying on the Muslim votes. However, the party never took care of the basic issues such as health, education, development and employment of the community. Congress monopoly of minority votes was decimated with the rise of the AIUDF which won three Lok Sabha seats in 2014. The Congress lost multiple seats to the BJP due to the vote divisions of Muslims between the party and the AIUDF not only in 2014 but also in assembly elections of 2016, which ultimately led to the defeat of the party. Interestingly, in this election the AIUDF has fielded candidates only in constituencies where they have sitting MPs, and left the rest of the constituencies for the Congress to contest head-to-head with the BJP and its allies. Assam is grappling with numerous issuessome of which are unemployment, educational backwardness, an extremely impoverished health sector, underdevelopment, lack of connectivity, massive poverty, gross human rights violations, citizenship crisis, etc. Post-May 23 there is an urgent need for these to be addressed. One such issue is the revocation of the CAB, and the shut down the detention centres, where hundreds of Indian citizens are forcibly incarcerated. The implementation of National Register of Citizens (NRC), which is being updated with many irregularity, and irrational exclusion of millions, will be a challenging task for the next central government. Many are expecting a humane approach on the NRC from the next government in New Delhi. Rakesh Sharma | Harish Puppala Grofers makes hay Softbank continues to pump money into Indian companies. Online grocer Grofers has raised $220 million in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund as part of its series F, which also saw participation from South Korean investment firm KTB Ventures as well as existing investors Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital. This investment, which the company claims will be used to expand its supply chain operations, is one of the biggest rounds of financing to take place in Indias online grocery sector. News of the fresh infusion of funds into Grofers comes just a few weeks after Alibaba-backed Big Basket received $150 million in funding. Also, back in March Inc42 had reported that SoftBank had increased its stake in Grofers to 42% with a $60 Mn investment, while Sequoia and Tiger Global had also invested $1.8 Mn and $19 Mn respectively. And now, the new funding provides both companies with more firepower to battle it out for market leadership in the online grocery sector. E-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart, which is now controlled by Walmart, have also been expanding their footprint in this sector. A BloombergQuint report stated that even though Grofers operates in a $600 billion market with many competitors, the company itself claimed it is prioritizing profit given the sliver of market share served by online merchants. Walmart and Amazon have been investing heavily in India because they see the country as the last unclaimed major market in the world. Last year, Alibaba led a $300 million investment in BigBasket, pushing its valuation to $950 million. A point to be noted is that, according to TechSci Research, Indias grocery market is projected to grow at 55% per year through 2021, making it the leading growth segment in online retail. Grofers has been one of the standout names in Indias online grocery market. It started off as a hyperlocal player in December 2013 and moved to a warehouse-model over the last few years, with a recent focus on private labels. Nearly half of Grofers sales are from private label offerings, which will only increase further. Another differentiating factor is that Grofers does not offer fresh produce or same-day deliveries unlike its competitor Big Basket. Albinder Dhindsa, chief executive of Grofers, explained, Grofers had a top line of $400 million and grew 8X in the last two years...We are clear about our target audience...It is going to be middle India that goes after planned purchases and low-priced offerings. Grofers has gained traction over the last few years after the pivot in their business model. Dhindsa claims the Gurugram-based company is profitable in Delhi, and the overall business is expected to hit profitability by late 2021. Will the Hinduja brothers rescue Jet? the latest development in the Jet Airways saga, the Economic Times reported that lenders to Jet Airways and its second-largest shareholder Etihad Airways have approached the Hinduja Group, offering a stake in the grounded airline. According to Business Today, just days after India-born industrialist brothers Srichand and GP Hinduja were once again named Britain's wealthiest, with 22 billion pounds to their name, reports claim they were approached to buy a stake in Jet Airways. The fabulously wealthy brothers have pockets deep enough to revive Jet, which needs upwards of Rs 15,000 crore. Even as lenders are scrambling to find a suitor, the cash-starved carrier witnessed something of a mass exodus as its top management quit almost entirely in the past two days. CEO Vinay Dube as well as the airline's CFO, company secretary and chief people officer have all put in their papers. Further, Moneycontrol reported that on Tuesday alone about 100 first officer pilots put in their papers. The company has also started firing its employees in overseas offices. A source close to Jet Airways confirmed a Hindu BusinessLine report that about 50 employees in its international offices have been asked to leave. ET reported that the Hinduja Group has not given a clear commitment about investing in Jet thus far, but began showing interest after Etihad representatives approached GP Hinduja, the older brother who heads the group. He, in turn, put Etihad in touch with Ashok Hinduja, the younger brother who leads the India business. A senior executive with the group told ET that they will meet with Etihad executives and Jets lenders in the coming days, but added that no date has been fixed yet. It is worth noting that the Hinduja Group was the only bidder apart from a consortium of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines for Air India in 2001. A 40% stake in the national carrier was up for sale at a time when it mostly operated international flights. The Hinduja Group had also bid for 26% in Indian Airlines, competing with Videocon International. It had tied up with Lufthansa in a venture called Hinduja Lufthansa Cargo Holding BV. ET also claimed that the group is keeping an eye out for the Air India divestment. As for Jet Airway, the once premier airline which is all but done, grounded operations on April 17 after banks refused an emergency infusion of Rs 400 crore. In March, lenders had taken control of the company's board after founder Naresh Goyal and his wife exited the company. More than 60% of the airline's slots have been distributed among other operators and half of its fleet has been repossessed by lessors. The SBI-led consortium of 26 lenders initiated a bidding process to sell stake in Jet to recover some of its Rs 8,500 crore dues. According to a Moneycontrol report, SBI also met top officials at AdiGro Aviation, the arm of London-based AdiGroup. AdiGro Aviation founder Sanjay Viswanathan had earlier told Moneycontrol that he has the backing of investors and is keen to partner Etihad Airways in turning around Jet Airways. Reports added that the lender will meet the Mumbai-based Darwin Group on May 15. SBI Caps and SBI have received interest from a Russian aviation professional Oleg Evdokimov. Though not a bidder, Oleg offered his expertise to turnaround the airline. "I don't want shares," he said. The Moscow-based senior executive of VIP Class, which provides clients with first-class air travel, claimed to have the backing of aviation professionals. Oleg said, I have been promised help by two airlines, one from Asia and another from Africa, in plans to turnaround Jet Airways. Meanwhile, Etihad, the second largest stakeholder in Jet with 24%, refused to increase its current shareholding but added that it would invest only up to Rs 1,700 crore in the airline. Battle at king's landing is over. Trade war is not. The trade war is back in the news this week. US President Donald Trump rolled out 25% tariffs last week, leaving Chinese producers reeling. Bloomberg reported that theres a chance such levies will be widened to all the Chinese goods America buys. Beijing responded by hiking tariffs on roughly $60 billion of American exports. CNN reported today that China's vast economy showed new signs of weakness last month, raising the likelihood of increased government efforts to stimulate growth as the trade war with the United States escalates. Key indicators of economic activity, like industrial output and retail sales, cooled significantly last month, according to figures posted by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. Industrial output, which measures manufacturing, mining production and other sectors in China, grew 5.4% in April compared to the previous year, significantly lower than analysts expected. It was also a sharp dip from the previous month, when growth came in at 8.5%. Importantly, analysts claim the slump could prompt China to take more action to boost activity as increased US tariffs take effect. Beijing has instituted several measures in recent months, like cutting taxes and increasing infrastructure spending, as economic growth slumped to a near three-decade low. Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, said in a research note, Downbeat data strengthen the case for more easing...Given budget constraints on local governments, monetary policy will probably take the lead. CNN also reported that China's retail sales growth slowed to a 16-year low last month, raising questions about consumer confidence. Sales grew by 7.2%, far weaker than analyst forecasts of 8.6%. A Bloomberg report claimed Faltering credit and consumption at home coupled with a weaker global economy means China is running out of steady growth engines right when it needs them. The soggy data spurred expectations the government will need to boost stimulus to cushion the blow from the escalating trade war, sending Asian stocks mostly higher. The yuan was little changed. Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg, The double dip is confirmed...We expect Beijing to significantly ramp up easing/stimulus measures to stabilize financial markets and bolster growth, despite the more limited policy room than in previous easing cycles. Bloomberg also estimated that Chinas 2019 GDP growth will be lowered by 0.3 percentage points due to the rise in US tariffs on $200 billion of imports from China. If more tariffs are introduced to cover all Chinese goods, that could cost 0.6 percentage points in the 12 months after. The US Trade Representatives office released a list on Monday of approximately $300 billion worth of Chinese goods including childrens clothing, toys, mobile phones and laptops that Trump has threatened to hit with a 25% tariff - drawing practically all Chinas exports to the US into the trade war. Bloomberg Economics estimates about 1% of global economic activity is at stake in goods and services traded between the two countries. Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein tweeted, Tariffs might be an effective negotiating tool...Saying it hurts us misses the point. China relies more on trade and loses more. He tweeted further, As to who ultimately bears the tariffs cost: US buyers may eventually switch their purchases to domestic or non-Chinese companies (and pay a bit more than now). Chinese companies lose the revenues. Not great but part of the process to assert pressure to level the playing field. However, Eric Robertsen, head of global macro strategy and FX research at Standard Chartered said, I do think theres an oversimplification there...Certainly in the short term, if tariffs are increased across the board, the idea that there are winners and losers in this trade war, I think is actually missing the point: Everybody loses. Thats the key factor from a growth point of view. In an exclusive interview to CNN News 18's Group Consulting Editor Brajesh Kumar Singh and Political Editor Amitabh Sinha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the prospects of the Opposition in this election, the violence in West Bengal, and making Varanasi a special seat. On the Opposition's consistent attack against him, PM Modi said "abusing Modi" is the only way for them to garner attention, and that 'Modi' is the central theme of the Opposition's campaign. "It is understandable if Modi is the theme of NDA, but Modi is also the Oppositions theme," he added. On violence in West Bengal, Modi cited the example of panchayat and assembly polls in the state, saying houses of the winning candidates were burnt, and they resorted to hiding in Jharkhand. He also expressed his discontent with people and political parties who chose to remain silent on the issue. "The silence of the people who believe in democracy and the ones who are neutral is the most worrisome aspect because the pattern of forgiving everything else due to blind hatred for Modi can cause a lot of damage to the nation," he said. He even condemned the TMC government for not giving permission to land choppers and conduct rallies across West Bengal. In highlighting the stark contradiction between him and the Gandhi family, PM Modi quoted BR Ambedkar, saying, "He always said the biggest enemy of democracy is dynasty politics. Dynasty politics is very dangerous. Unfortunately, the Congress followed the path of dynasty politics and everyone who came out of the Congress dynasty further followed the same path. This is a threat to democracy." On making Varanasi a special seat, PM Modi told CNN News18, "If you want to work for the country, you need to create models. The strategy should be the same. For example, I created Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat, which became a model and attracted a diverse range of people to the country. My efforts are towards working to create a nation according to the 21st Century norms. The old-fashioned thinking will not work anymore." Besides, Modi slammed the Opposition for blaming EVMs for their losses and alleging that the Election Commission is partisan towards the BJP. "In the first three phases of the election, EVM wasnt an issue, only Modi was abused. In Phase 4, it became 50:50 50 percent abuse was directed at Modi and 50 percent at EVMs. After Phase 6, this figure has become 30 percent. So, it is 30 percent abuse for Modi, 30 percent for EVMs and 30 percent for the Election Commission. They are preparing grounds for their defeat and are planning who to blame for the loss," Modi added. In an exclusive interview to CNN News 18's Brajesh Kumar Singh and Amitabh Sinha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about Congress' dynasty politics, violence in West Bengal and the Opposition's claims of EVM tampering as well as the Election Commission being biased towards the BJP. Here are the excerpts. On oppositions attack: They should be asked what their helplessness is. What kind of bankruptcy is stopping them from presenting their vision in front of the country? What do they plan to do for the farmers? What do they plan to do for the youth? What do they plan to do for women? What do they plan to do for the villages? What should India of the 21st century be like? What should its Prime Minister be like? They dont have any slogan. They only have one way to garner publicity: abuse Modi. The only tool they have is my name. If you abuse Modi, you will get media attention. This is the first election, where Modi is also the theme of the opposition. It is understandable if Modi is the theme of NDA, but Modi is also the oppositions theme. There probably hasnt been any election in the country, where Modi is in peoples minds and all those who want to defeat him at all cost. I have lived in Gujarat for many years and no one knows my caste. I have never been concerned with caste myself and I believe that if someone says that my caste is of the poor, I belong to the poor caste and every poor belongs to my caste, I totally agree with that view. The condition of our poor people, even after so many years of independence pains me deeply. Its not like we couldnt have done anything about it. In their (UPA) 10 years of governance, 25 lakh houses were built whereas in Modis five years in power, 1.5 crore houses were built. If this work was done earlier then Modi wouldnt have needed to build toilets, houses and he wouldnt have needed to build roads in villages. This work should have happened within 25 years of independence, but unfortunately, it wasnt done. Also Read: Abusing me is the only way for Opposition to garner attention: PM Modi in exclusive interview On the violence in West Bengal: The silence of the people who believe in democracy and the ones who are neutral is the most worrisome aspect because the pattern of forgiving everything else due to blind hatred for Modi can cause a lot of damage to the nation. Just consider two things: When the topic of violence and terrorism is discussed, Kashmirs name comes up but no violence of any sort took place when more than 30,000 voted in one polling booth for the panchayat elections in the Valley. At the same time, hundreds of people were killed in the rural areas during West Bengal assembly elections. Houses were burnt of the people who emerged victorious, forcing them to hide in states like Jharkhand and several others for three months. Their only crime was that they won. During all his, the people who talk about democracy remained silent. The BJP constantly raised its voice, even the Congress and other Left parties also raised their voices. The BJP, Congress, Left protested against this in Parliament, but the people who call themselves neutral remained silent which gave them strength. The helicopter of a BJP CM was not allowed to land before the elections, a public assembly was forcefully cancelled at the last moment and on Monday, my rally was cancelled. Permission was granted at 9pm and 2 days before it Amit Shahs rally was cancelled. This is totally anti-democratic. The reason for this is not that they fear the BJP, Congress or Left but that Mamata and Trinamool fear the power of the people of Bengal. They know that if the people of Bengal recognise the truth and turn their backs to them, their future will be in jeopardy. Thus, the Bengal government, Trinamool and the goons of Mamatas party have all teamed up in their fight against the people of Bengal. What do you think is the forecast now that the last phase of elections is here? Do you think the BJP will be able to form a government on its own or will you need support? The BJP will emerge victorious with more seats than the last time. The vote share will also increase, as will the margin. Besides, the area that the BJP covers in the country will also increase. This will be a very glorious entry of the BJP in some ways. What is the reason for that? It is not because the BJP has any strategy, but because the public is fighting these elections. You will be surprised to know that all the slogans used in this election have come from the public. The party or a PR agency didnt come up with any slogan. I heard the Ayega to Modi hi slogan from the public. It is unprecedented that the public wants to fight the election. The credibility of NDA partners will also increase along with their seats, their margin and their power. This will create a good atmosphere for regional aspirations. Attempts are being made to create your image as a polariser and a divider. Why do you think attempts are being made to create such a narrative? I believe that the people are trying to mould my image. They have been working day and night for 20 years in order to destroy my image. Their own images have been destroyed in the process. I pity them, but is this divide horizontal or vertical? And if it is I dont believe it is. Today, the poor has become polarised, he is directly identifying with Modi. If the poor wants to benefit as well as the nation, whats wrong with that? Why do such people get sad? If the poor think beyond race, religion, sect and caste, and comes forward for their childrens future and see the country future in their childrens future, we should feel proud. The Congress has a family. On the one hand, we saw Priyanka Gandhi-Vadras children who have grown up and was around for the filing of nominations of her brother and mother, and on the other hand there is your family that no one knows about. Is keeping family away from politics a difficult thing that you have been able to do but the Gandhis havent? You should ask this question to them. The family is not my issue. I am a student of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and as a student I have understood something that he always used to say. He always said that the biggest enemy of democracy is dynasty politics. Dynasty politics is very dangerous. Unfortunately, the Congress followed the path of dynasty politics and everyone who came out of the Congress dynasty further followed the same path and this is the biggest danger. This is a threat to democracy. The process of political democracy should get enhanced and anyone deserving should be allowed to lead the partysuch a situation should be created. Your international reputation grew, your stature in the Middle-East grew, you won the highest civilian award but when we talk about the country, efforts are still made to present you as an anti-national. Why this narrative? Look at the modus operandi of the people, who are indulging in this in the name of vote-bank politics. They found various characters, organisations and people to scare the Muslims for 70 years and they abused them and created terror using their name to scare the Muslims. Their idea should have been to create great Muslim leaders similar to how we brought Abdul Kalam forward and made him President. If we had moved ahead in the same direction, the countrys unity would have been strengthened. Modis name is just being used for vote-bank politics and as far as I am concerned, I have come here with just one mantra: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. When I provide electricity, I give information to the government to start from house 1 in the village and proceed to house 2, house 3 etc. If the budget allows only 25 houses, then provide it those 25 houses and the rest of the houses will be provided next year. Dont ask who belongs to which caste or which religion, just work for the nations progress. On making Varanasi a VVIP seat The VVIP word is not correct. If you want to work for the country, you need to create models. The strategy should be the same. For example, I created Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat, which became a model and attracted a diverse range of people to the country. If you want to change the country, how will you do it? We should think in that direction. My efforts are towards working to create a nation according to the 21st Century norms. The old-fashioned thinking will not work anymore. You are set to form the government again, but the opposition is attacking the EVM. Accusations are being made that the EC takes action against everyone except the BJP. Our Election Commission is praised all over the world. Anyone in the world who believes in politics looks at our election process, Election commission and EVM machines with pride and respect. It is the bad luck of our country that if you win, Election Commission and EVMs are great, but if you lose then they are bad. In the first three phases of the election, EVM wasnt an issue, only Modi was abused. In phase 4 it became 50-50 50 percent abuse was directed at Modi and 50 percent at EVM. After phase 6, this figure has become 30 percent. So, it is 30 percent abuse for Modi, 30 percent for EVM and 30 percent for the Election Commission. They are preparing ground for their defeat and are planning who to blame for the loss. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and several top TMC leaders have changed their Facebook and Twitter display picture (DP) with photo of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar on Wednesday to protest the desecration of the bust of the noted reformer and key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. Trinamool Congress's official profile on Twitter and Facebook was also changed with a picture of Vidyasagar. Banerjee is scheduled to take out a protest rally on Wednesday to protest the smashing of the bust of the social reformer by alleged BJP activists in north Kolkata on Tuesday. Launching a scathing attack on BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday, Banerjee had said, "What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he God that no one can protest against him?" Banerjee said this after supporters of the BJP and the TMC fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a roadshow by Shah. A college named after Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, a key figure in the Bengal Renaissance, was ransacked and a bust of the 19th century social reformer shattered allegedly by BJP workers during the clashes. The CPI(M) has also called for protest rallies against the incident. The intellectuals of the city will take out a protest march from College street on Wednesday evening. A day after an alleged attack on Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra slammed the state government and local administration, terming the incident an attack on democracy. This is an attack on democracy. Nothing of this sort has ever happened in Rae Bareli. Country-made weapons, bricks and lathis were used in the attack. Zila panchayat members were dragged from their vehicles," Priyanka Gandhi alleged. She also alleged that one of the zila panchayat members was run over by a vehicle. "What kind of democracy is this? It is the BJP government in the state when such incidents are taking place while the entire administration is sitting idle," she said after a meeting with party workers here. Priyanka Gandhi maintained that the party would raise the issue at every level. Our leaders are meeting the Governor in Lucknow. In Delhi, we are meeting the Election Commission. We will take legal recourse and file a complaint against the local administration if required, she said. Priyanka Gandhi, who was scheduled to take part in a roadshow in Varanasi later in the day, said they had told the administration that something of this kind could take place but precautionary measures were not taken. The MLA was on her way to oversee the voting for a no-confidence motion against zila panchayat chairman Avadhesh Pratap Singh, who is the brother of BJP's Lok Sabha candidate Dinesh Singh. She was allegedly attacked by Avadhesh Singh's henchmen, armed with iron rods and bricks in Harchandpur area. According to Congress sources, the MLA's vehicle had overturned as its driver lost control over it due the attack. An FIR was registered against Avadhesh and his brother Dinesh Singh later in the night on the complaint of zila panchyat member Rakesh Awasthi. Awasthi had alleged that he too was attacked along with two other members, in an effort to prevent them from participating in the no-confidence motion against Avadhesh Singh. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi, alleging that whenever there is a crisis in the country he "moves to Italy". The chief minister addressed rallies in Ballia, Bansgaon, Khajani, Hata and Doheriya on Tuesday, ahead of the seventh and final phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections on May 19. "Whenever there is a crisis in the country, Rahul moves to Italy," he said, alluding to the Congress chief's mother Sonia Gandhi's Italian origins. "If Congress' 'Shehjadi' (Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) and (her brother) Rahul have nothing to do with the people of our country, then they should better move to Italy and ask for votes there," Adityanath said. Bringing up Monday's scuffle between Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers in Ghazipur, he said, "Yesterday, SP and BSP workers were fighting with each other.The goons of the SP were brutally beating up the BSP workers." "Mayawati (BSP chief) is sharing the stage with SP leaders only because we have created a safe and secure environment in the state," the chief minister said. On he not being granted permission to hold a poll meeting in Kolkata, Adityanath said he will go to West Bengal on Wednesday. The Uttar Pradesh CM's meeting at Behala in southwest Kolkata on May 15 was cancelled after permission for it was withdrawn by the local administration, a BJP leader had said. Taking a jibe at the Congress, the chief minister said, "Christian Michel, maternal uncle of Rahul Gandhi, is 'Shakuni Mama'. He belongs to Italy and is the broker of the Augustawestland helicopter case." Michel is the alleged middleman arrested in the chopper scam case. "The Congress supports these kinds of brokers and helps them to fly to Italy from the back door. But now we have Modiji, and he brought back the 'mama' from Italy," Adityanath said. The Congress has always been "very loyal" towards its family, but not towards the citizens of India, he said. "The country will never vote in favour of those who do not acknowledge Lord Ram and Lord Krishna. The opposition is more loyal towards terrorists," he said in one of the rallies. The BJP government at the Centre has worked to address the basic needs of people in the past five years and it will strive to fulfil their aspirations if voted to power again, Adityanath asserted. Accusing the SP of practising "nepotism" in politics, the chief minister said, "A family of one political party accumulated a lot of wealth while doing politics in the name of (socialist leader Ram Manohar) Lohia, who was against nepotism". The BJP's priority is to make India safe and strong with inclusive growth and women empowerment, and take the country ahead at the global level, he said. "The party will also put in efforts within the constitutional framework to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya," Adityanath said in a rally Kushinagar district's Hata area. "Our government during the past five years has fulfilled the basic requirements of the people and now, we have to fulfil their aspirations.The BJP will work for women as nothing is possible without them," he said. Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, "Due to Modi ji's leadership, people's participation in building a base for inclusive growth and a strong country became possible." The government deposited Rs 2,000 under the PM-KISAN scheme directly into the accounts of farmers, he said. Referring to the Balakot air strike and speaking on India's stand on terrorism, he said, "The BJP has a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism and is determined to equip the Indian armed forces with modern and hi-tech equipment, and take steps to restrict illegal immigration." "Modi honoured faith at the global level with the successful Kumbh Mela and worked to ensure that Masood Azhar (JeM chief) is declared as an international terrorist," Adityanath said. Union minister Piyush Goyal urged the Election Commission to take strong action against the West Bengal government for the violence during BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata. After violence and arson marred BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata, a party delegation, including Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, rushed to the EC, seeking its immediate intervention to ensure free and fair polls in the state. I request the President of India to take cognisance of the matter and ensure a message is send to the voters that they need not to fear and they be getting full protection and should come out fearfully to vote in large numbers on May 19 elections to make the BJP win," he said. Strong action must be taken against the West Bengal government, the Union minister said. It is a total break down of law and order in West Bengal , a 'goondaraj' is prevailing in the state under the Mamata Banerjee government, he alleged. Goyal claimed that stones were hurled, petrol bombs were thrown and criminals attacked people and BJP workers during the roadshow. "Very sadly, we have to say the Election Commission remains a mute spectator to the violence in West Bengal by the state government, it did not act and could not arrest even a single person," he said. Goyal said the EC should appoint a special observer and central forces must be deputed. BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday accused West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress of indulging in violence in the state and alleged that the Election Commission has been a "mute spectator". Addressing a press conference here, Shah also said he would not have escaped unhurt without CRPF protection when his convoy was allegedly attacked in Kolkata on Tuesday. He said West Bengal has witnessed violence in all the six phases of Lok Sabha polls. "The BJP is contesting polls in all states. There has been no violence. But there has been violence in West Bengal as TMC is contesting elections there ... it is simple," he said. Shah also accused TMC "goons" of vandalising the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar inside a college, saying it was done to gain "sympathy" as the Mamata Banerjee-led party has realised its "reverse count" has begun. Accusing the poll panel of being a "mute spectator" in West Bengal, he alleged that history-sheeters were not arrested before polls. He also alleged that the EC has laid "double standards" and it has been partial towards the Trinamool Congress. BJP youth wing activist Priyanka Sharma, who walked out of jail on Wednesday after being arrested for posting a morphed picture of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Facebook, said she would not apologise. "I don't have any regrets. I have not done anything for which I will have to apologise," Sharma told a press conference at the BJP office here. She was released at 9.40 am from the Alipore jail after five days following a Supreme Court order. The BJP activist alleged that she was harassed and tortured inside jail. "I was tortured in the jail. Even the jailer pushed me yesterday. I told them I am not a criminal that you are pushing me into the jail room like this," she said. "They behaved very rudely. The condition inside was very bad." Local BJP leaders and her mother were present outside the jail in south Kolkata when she was released. "Me and my family has gone through much agony which I think I don't deserve," Sharma told PTI over phone. Her brother, Rajiv Sharma, alleged that the jail authorities violated the Supreme Court order by not releasing her on Tuesday. "When we went to the jail yesterday, officials said they needed a hard copy of the order. I am in Delhi and it took time to get the hard copy of the order and therefore the delay. They did not abide by the Supreme Court order of immediate release," he said. The Supreme Court on May 15 termed the arrest of Sharma "prima facie arbitrary" and pulled up the West Bengal government for the delay in releasing Sharma. The apex court, which initially said Sharma's apology would be a bail condition, later clarified that it wopuld not be a condition for bail, but she should apologise for sharing the post at the time of her release. Sharma had allegedly shared on Facebook the photo in which Banerjee's face has been morphed on to actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from the MET Gala event in New York. Her arrest was followed by protests from the BJP and other social media users. In the battle to redeem lost pride in the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat, popular Bhojpuri actor and BJP candidate Ravi Kishan is playing second fiddle as Yogi Adityanath takes centre stage in the electoral fight. Sharing dais with the chief minister during poll rallies, the BJP candidate is often seen standing alongside the 'maharaj' with folded hands. Regarded as the fiefdom of the Gorakhnath peeth, the seat with 19.54 lakh voters has 10 candidates in the fray. However, a direct contest appears on the cards between BJP candidate Kishan and alliance nominee, Rambhuwal Nishad of the SP. Though Yogi Adityanath won the seat from 1998 to 2017, the shock defeat during the 2018 bypolls was a massive loss of face for the ruling party, coming months after its emphatic win in the 2017 Assembly elections. The election on the seat, this time round, is being treated by the party and loyalists as an opportunity to avenge the humiliation and restore faith in the leadership of Yogi Adityanath. "The fight on the seat is to retain the pride of Maharaj...the Hindu Yuva Vahini and BJP are one in the contest this time round and are in the campaigning as one unit," zonal vice president of BJP Satyendra Singh said. Leading the campaign from the front is the chief minister himself, who is camping here for the May 19 polling in the last phase and has addressed over two dozen rallies. This week, he will be holding a big road show in Gorakhpur city along with BJP president Amit Shah. Lending all out support is the Hindu Yuva Vahini, founded by Adityanath, which has been actively involved in the campaigning with the CM asking for presence of one worker each of the BJP and the HYV at all booths. Since the defeat in the bypoll had also been attributed to the low turn out, the major focus is on increasing polling percentage in Gorakhpur city. Local BJP leader Rahul Srivastav said instructions have been issued to bring voters out to cast votes on polling day. "Election is not being fought by Ravi Kishan. It is being fought by Yogi," said Manish Prasad, a vegetable vendor. Initially it was the 'outsider' tag which Kishan had to face but he fought and overcame it following his visit to his native Maamkhor village from where his ancestors migrated two- three generations ago to neighbouring Jaunpur. Kishan is also banking on his popularity, getting his selfies clicked with youth and women. His approachability is giving the BJP a good head start and now it is "One Mission Ravi Kishan" slogan which has become common. "Yogiji has brought me here. We are hoping for a record win now," Kishan stresses. The saffron party can also draw solace from the fact that the giant killer in the Gorakhpur bypoll Praveen Kumar Nishad has now switched over to the BJP and has been fielded from Sant Kabir Nagar parliamentary constituency in eastern UP. That the alliance candidate Ram Bhuwal Nishad belongs to the dominant fishermen caste -- around 3.5 lakh here -- is a fact that suits the BSP-SP who have worked on their arithmetic well. The joint meeting of BSP and SP at the Champa Devi Park on Monday witnessed a massive turnout even in sweltering heat. "We will go by what behenji asks us to do...," said Shrawan Kumar, a BSP supporter, who attended the rally. "Ram Bhuwal Nishad is an experienced politician...he knows all about electoral battles and how they are won...We have a good support base among all castes," Samajwadi Party leader Zafar Amin Dakku said. Besides other issues, the alliance is raising local issues including death of children in the BRD Medical College Hospital, charging it was due to government apathy, he said. "We are confident that history will repeat itself and the alliance will once again be pulling down the BJP fortress here. I have the support of the poor and the oppressed," says alliance candidate Ram Bhuwal Nishad. Facebook Inc said on May 14 it was tightening rules around its livestreaming feature ahead of a meeting of world leaders aimed at curbing online violence in the aftermath of a massacre in New Zealand. A lone gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch on March 15 while livestreaming the attacks on Facebook. It was New Zealand's worst peacetime shooting and spurred calls for tech companies to do more to combat extremism on their services. Facebook said in a statement it was introducing a "one-strike" policy for use of Facebook Live, temporarily restricting access for people who have faced disciplinary action for breaking the company's most serious rules anywhere on its site. First-time offenders will be suspended from using Live for set periods of time, the company said. It is also broadening the range of offences that will qualify for one-strike suspensions. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the change addressed a key component of an initiative, known as the "Christchurch Call", she is spearheading to halt the spread of violence online. "Facebook's decision to put limits on live streaming is a good first step to restrict the application being used as a tool for terrorists, and shows the Christchurch Call is being acted on," she said in an email from her spokesman. Facebook did not specify which offences were eligible for the one-strike policy or how long suspensions would last, but a spokeswoman said it would not have been possible for the shooter to use Live on his account under the new rules. The company said it plans to extend the restrictions to other areas over coming weeks, beginning with preventing the same people from creating ads on Facebook. It also said it would fund research at three universities on techniques to detect manipulated media, which Facebook's systems struggled to spot in the aftermath of the attack. 'WORK TO DO' Ardern said the research was welcome and that edited and manipulated videos of the March 15 mosque shootings had been slow to be removed, resulting in many, including herself, seeing it played in Facebook feeds. Facebook has said it removed 1.5 million videos globally that contained footage of the attack in the first 24 hours after it occurred. It said in a blog post in late March that it had identified more than 900 different versions of the video. Ardern is due to lead a meeting, with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on May 15, that seeks to have world leaders and chiefs of tech companies sign a pledge to eliminate violent content online. "There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook have taken additional steps today alongside the Call and look forward to a long term collaboration to make social media safer by removing terrorist content from it," she said. In an opinion piece in the New York Times on May 11, Ardern said the "Christchurch Call" would be a voluntary framework that commits signatories to put in place specific measures to prevent the uploading of terrorist content. Ardern has not made specific demands of social media companies in connection with the pledge, but has called for them "to prevent the use of livestreaming as a tool for broadcasting terrorist attacks." Representatives from Facebook, Alphabet Inc's Google, Twitter Inc and other tech companies are expected to take part in the meeting, although Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will not be in attendance. Veer Savarkar (Image: Flickr) The Rajasthan government formed a committee to make changes in the texts of history books that are part of the state curriculum. State Education Minister Govind Dotasra announced on Monday that the biography of freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar aka Veer Savarkar would be changed to portray facts "in the right manner". Dotasra also criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party for glorifying Savarkar for his methods and ideologies. While the Congress government states that it is only rolling back the changes that were introduced by the previous government, the Opposition in the state claims that the state government does not want to promote the countrys history, reported Firstpost. Backing the decision to change the text of history books, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said such revisions were common and were introduced in various states across the country when a new government came to power. He said, when Vasundhara Raje was the CM, she had also introduced changes as per her party's ideologies. So, now, the Congress will also take necessary steps based on the recommendations of the committee. In a response to that, state BJP President Madanlal Saini said BJP bhaagva rang nahi karegi toh kya haraa rang karegi (The BJP will promote saffron; you cannot expect it to promote green), alluding to promoting Hinduism and not Islam. Saini further said that the Congress party was set up by a British national, so it had no attachment towards the countrys culture. It removed the nationalists from within after coming into full force. The changes being brought about in the curriculum shows the basic difference between their thought process and ours, the BJP leader said. Historians and academicians, however, are not mighty pleased with the new governments decision. They are of the opinion that frequent changes to the curriculum may ultimately hamper the education system and confuse the students. Commenting on the issue, Rashmi Jain, associate professor, Department of Sociology, University of Rajasthan, said: The previous government was hell-bent on glorifying Indian history as it felt that much of what was written was not a correct representation. It also received directions from the Centre based on the party's ideology. The new government in the state is doing the same thing... It is not the duty of the government to sermonise. It is supposed to provide a platform for students to learn. OnePlus has finally unveiled the much anticipated OnePlus 7 Series in India which starts at Rs 32,999 in India. While the OnePlus 7 is still priced in the higher mid-range smartphone category, the companys first Pro device would cost buyers a whopping Rs 48,999. With this pricing, OnePlus is certainly not a Flagship Killer brand and now competes with the big league manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, and Google. Parameters OnePlus 7 Pro iPhone XS Max Galaxy S10 Plus Pixel 3 XL Display 6.67-inch Fluid AMOLED, curved edge-to-edge display with no notch and a resolution of 3120*1440 pixels 6.5-inch Super Retina with a resolution of 1242 x 2688 pixels. The display has a wide notch on top for FaceID sensors and the front camera 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1440 * 3040 pixels. To ditch the notch, the Galaxy S10 Plus has a punch-hole display for housing the front cameras 6.3-inch P-OLED display with a big notch on top. The screen has a resolution of 1440x2960 pixels. Processor 7nm octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 clocking at 2.84 GHz 7nm hexa-core Apple A12 Bionic with a peak clock rate of 2.5 GHz 7nm octa-core Exynos 9820 clocking at 2.73GHz 10nm octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC with peak clock rate of 2.5GHz RAM/ Storage 6GB/ 8GB/ 12GB RAM and 128GB/ 256GB UFS 3.0 storage 4GB RAM with 64GB/ 256GB/ 512GB storage 8GB/ 12 GB RAM with up to 1TB storage, expandable via microSD up to 1.5TB 4GB RAM with 64GB/ 128GB storage. Rear Camera Triple camera setup with a primary 48MP f/1.6 sensor with OIS and EIS. 16MP f/2.2 117-degree ultra-wide sensor. 8MP 3x optical zoom lens with an aperture of f/2.4. Dual 12MP + 12MP sensors. Primary 12MP sensor with an aperture of f/1.8. A secondary lens with 2x optical zoom Triple Camera Setup with a 12MP primary sensor that comes with a variable aperture of f/1.5-2.4 with OIS. A secondary 12MP f/2.4 telephoto lens with 2x zoom and OIS. 12.2MP sensor with an aperture of f/1.8 with OIS. Front Camera Motorised Pop-up 16MP sensor with an aperture of f/2.0 7MP f/2.2 sensor 10MP f/1.9 primary sensor and 8MP f/2.2 depth sensor 8MP primary sensor with f/1.8. Close Related stories Income Tax dept raids Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo offices for alleged tax evasion OnePlus Buds Z2 price in India leaked as company gears up for OnePlus 10 Pro launch OnePlus 10 Pro launch officially confirmed by CEO Pete Lau Battery 4,000 mAh non-removable battery with 30W WARP charging through USB Type-C 3,174 mAh battery with 15W fast charging through Lightning port 4,100 mAh battery with 15W fast charging through USB Type-C. 15W reverse wireless charging, Wireless charging supported 3,430 mAh battery with 18W fast charging through USB Type-C. Supports Wireless charging Authentication Optical in-display fingerprint scanner and Face Unlock Face ID generation 2 Ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner, Face unlock. Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner Operating System Android 9.0 based Oxygen OS iOS 12 Android 9 based One UI Android 9.0 Price Rs 48,999 for the base 6 + 128GB variant, Rs 52,999 for 8 + 256GB variant, Rs 57,999 for 12 + 256GB variant Rs 1,09,900 for 64GB variant, Rs 1,24,990 for 256GB variant, Rs 1,44,990 for 512GB variant. Rs 73,900 for 8 + 128GB, Rs 91,900 for 8 + 512GB, Rs 117,900 for 12 + 1TB variant Rs 83,000 for 64GB variant, Rs 92,000 for 128GB variant. OnePlus created a lot of hype for the display on the OnePlus 7 Pro. It comes with a massive screen that is curved and edge-to-edge, a powerful performance unit with the latest top of the line processor, triple rear camera setup and a huge battery. How does the OnePlus 7 Pro fare against the iPhone XS Max, Galaxy S10 Plus, and the Pixel 3 XL? If we look at the specs, in terms of processors and RAM, the OnePlus 7 Pro, Galaxy S10 Plus provide the latest SoC with up to 12GB. Although S10 Plus offers 1TB onboard storage, the OnePlus 7 Pro has a slight edge here due to UFS 3.0 storage which has led to faster read-write speeds. The iPhone XS Max on paper offers only 4GB RAM but has better Geekbench scores courtesy of its customised OS with respect to the hardware onboard. However, it comes with a hefty price tag of Rs 1,09,900, more than double of the OnePlus 7 Pro. The Pixel 3XL comparatively is the most inferior in terms of specs. It comes with just 4GB RAM and offers 128GB storage that is paired with last years Snapdragon 845 SoC. For the price, the Pixel 3 XL may not be the best value for money device. If you are looking for the best camera on a smartphone, try the Pixel 3a XL which shares the same camera as the Pixel 3 XL for half the price. OnePlus 7 Pro has received the best rating of A+ by DisplayMate. It comes with a Fluid AMOLED screen with no notch and has HDR10+ support. The company is also betting big on the triple camera unit calling it the best ever on a OnePlus. It may not be a Flagship Killer due to its cost, but certainly offers killer specs onboard. But how does the OnePlus 7 Pro perform in day-to-day life? Watch this space for our complete review. Chinese President Xi Jinping China has glorious history of being open to the world and the country will only be more open, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, in his first public address since trade tensions with the United States spiked last week. Beijing and Washington are locked in an escalating trade war, with both countries levying tariffs on each other's imports. Just before Xi spoke the government reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for April. China on Monday announced higher tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods, effective June 1, in retaliation for Washington's decision on Friday to raise its own levies on $200 billion in Chinese imports. Addressing a forum in Beijing organised by China's propaganda ministry, called the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations, Xi made no direct reference to the trade tensions, focusing instead on presenting China as a non-threatening country open to all. Chinese civilisation is an "open system" that has continuously had exchanges and learned from other cultures, including Buddhism, Marxism and Islam, Xi told the forum. "Today's China is not only China's China. It is Asia's China and the world's China. China in the future will take on an even more open stance to embrace the world," he added. No country can stand alone, Xi said, perhaps taking an indirect swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy. "Civilizations will lose vitality if countries go back to isolation and cut themselves off from the rest of the world," Xi added. "The people of Asian countries hope to distance themselves from being closed, and hope that all countries will adhere to the spirit of openness and promote policy communication, connectivity and smooth trade." Xi offered no new concrete measures to further open China up, aside from proposing an Asia tourism promotion plan, and even on that he gave no details. Officials have billed the forum as part of a soft power push to put a gentler face on China's growing might, though it only attracted a handful of foreign leaders to attend the opening session where Xi spoke, including the presidents of Greece, Sri Lanka and Singapore. China has faced pushback for some of its global ambitions, mainly in the West but especially in the United States, where there has been suspicion of Chinese technology, Xi's Belt and Road Initiative to re-create the Old Silk Road, and government-run Confucius Institutes to teach the Chinese language. China has also faced criticism for its tight cyber controls - though forum organisers unblocked the internet for foreign media - and for a controversial re-education campaign for Muslims in its restive far Western region of Xinjiang. China's crude oil throughput rose in April to match record daily levels, government data showed on Wednesday, buoyed by growing production at private refiners including a mammoth new facility in the country's northeast. Refinery runs climbed 5% from the year before to 52.1 million tonnes, or 12.68 million barrels per day (bpd), matching record daily levels racked up earlier this year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Privately owned Hengli Petrochemical Co Ltd started trial runs around five months ago at its 400,000 bpd plant in northeast China, with production expected to hit full capacity later this month. "Throughput at Hengli and ... teapot refineries increased significantly," said Wang Zhao, head of crude oil research at Sublime Information Co. Independent refiners in China are often referred to as 'teapots'. The return of refineries after maintenance contributed to the higher runs in April, Wang added. The robust crude runs, which stood in contrast to slower-than-expected growth in China's industrial output last month, also come amid mounting efforts by state majors to export refined products to offset domestic gluts. PetroChina shipped gasoline from domestic refiners to Nigeria for the first time in the first quarter. For the first four months of 2019, crude runs were up 4.7% from a year earlier at 207.47 million tonnes, or 12.62 million bpd, the data showed. Crude oil output stood at 15.71 million tonnes, or 3.82 million bpd, down from 3.89 million bpd in March. Natural gas output came in at 14.1 billion cubic metres (bcm) in April, up 7.9% from the same month a year earlier, but the lowest level since October 2018 due to slower demand towards summer. President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that U.S. officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran. "I think it's fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," Trump told reporters at the White House. The Times reported that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated plan last week in a meeting of top national security aides that envisions sending as many as 120,000 American troops to the region if Iran attacks U.S. forces or accelerates work on its nuclear weapons. The updated plan does not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require far more troops, the Times reported, citing unidentified administration officials. The plan reflects revisions ordered by Iran hawks including national security adviser John Bolton, the newspaper said. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that "there is not going to be any war" with the United States, his official website reported. In a speech to state officials, Khamenei said the showdown between the Islamic republic and the United States was a test of resolve rather than a military encounter. "This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war. They know it will not be in their interest," he said, quoted on the Khamenei.ir website. "The definite decision of the Iranian nation is to resist against America," Khamenei said, adding that "in this showdown America will be forced to retreat... because our resolve is stronger." The supreme leader said negotiating with the US was "poison" because the Americans wanted to take away Iran's strong points such as its missiles or its "strategic depth" in the region. "Negotiating with the present American government is doubly poisonous... they are not decent humans, they don't stand by anything," he said referring to the US decision to withdraw from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers. Khamenei accused US President Donald Trump of being uninformed about the situation in Iran. "Their president says every Friday there are demonstrations in Tehran against the state... Firstly, it's on Saturdays. Second, it's in Paris, not Tehran. Representative Image The UN has sanctioned ISIS' South Asia Branch, a terrorist group formed in 2015 by a Pakistani national and a former commander of the TTP, for its links with al-Qaeda and involvement in several deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed over 150 people. The United Nations Security Council's 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee on May 14 sanctioned Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan (ISIL-K), which is also known as 'ISIS' South Asia Branch, ISIL Khorasan, Islamic State's Khorasan Province' and 'South Asian Chapter of ISIL'. The listing comes two weeks after the Sanctions Committee designated Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as "global terrorist" on May 1, capping a decade-long effort by India and its allies including the US, the UK, France to sanction the mastermind of several attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the February 14 Pulwama terror attack which killed 40 CRPF soldiers. The group is now subject to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. The Sanctions Committee said in a statement that ISIS-K was formed on January 10, 2015 by a former Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander and was established by former Taliban faction commanders "who swore an oath of allegiance" to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISISK has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Sanctions Committee said the group was listed as being associated with ISIS or al-Qaida for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating" acts or activities by supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel. It said the group engaged in "other acts or activities indicating association with al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any cell, affiliate, splinter group of al-Qaeda in Iraq". The group had announced its formation in an online video in January 2015. ISIS spokesman Abou Mohamed al Adnani had announced its expansion into the area historically known as Khorasan, by acknowledging ISISK leader's pledge of allegiance to al-Baghdadi and claiming the leader of the Islamic State had accepted his pledge and appointed him as governor of the Khorasan Province. The Sanctions Committee said ISIS-K had carried out numerous attacks since its formation that have killed more than 150 people. In November 2016, the group carried out a suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 50 people and injured over 100 people, it said. In December 2017, the outfit claimed multiple suicide bombings at a Shia cultural center and news agency in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed more than 41 people, including women and children, and injured over 84 people, it added. In July 2018, the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside a polling station in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 31 people and injured over 24 people. According to leading Washington-based think tank for defense and national security Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in 2014, Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan was chosen to spearhead ISIL-K province as its first "emir". Khan, a senior TTP commander, "brought along other prominent TTP members including the group's spokesman Sheikh Maqbool and many district chiefs - when he initially pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in October 2014," the CSIS, a nonprofit policy research organisation, noted on its website. The website said the group's "early membership included a contingent of Pakistani militants who emerged in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province around 2010, just across the border from the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan". It also said many of these militants were "estranged members" of TTP and Lashkar-e Islam, who had fled Pakistan to escape from the security forces. According to Combatting Terrorism Center, academic institution at US Military Academy in New York, as of 2017, some members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had also "defected" to ISIS-K. The U.S. State Department on Wednesday ordered the departure of "non-emergency government employees" from Iraq, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said in a statement. Referring to the embassy and the U.S. consulate in Erbil, it said "normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended. The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq." The statement recommended those affected "depart by commercial transportation as soon as possible". The United States and Russia share the same goals on North Korea as Washington tries to negotiate a nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after talks with President Vladimir Putin. "I think we share the same objective and I hope that we can find ways that we can work together," Pompeo told reporters after the talks late Tuesday in the Russian resort of Sochi. "He understands that the US is going to be in the lead, but I think there are places we can work together," Pompeo said. During their nearly two-hour talk in Putin's summer home, Pompeo said they spoke at length about North Korea, weeks after Putin held a summit with leader Kim Jong Un in the Far Eastern port city of Vladivostok. Kim used the occasion to accuse the United States of acting in "bad faith" after his second summit with President Donald Trump ended in stalemate in Hanoi. Pompeo, who visited Pyongyang four times last year, has taken a leading role in seeking to negotiate an accord with North Korea under which the authoritarian state will give up its nuclear arsenal. In a key point of contention, Pompeo has rebuffed demands from North Korea, which has the backing of Russia and China, for an early lifting of sanctions before a final deal. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) hearing the Essar Steel bankruptcy proceedings said it would decide on the powers of the Committee of Creditors (CoC). The development came on Tuesday as senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued that "distribution of the financial package" arising from the sale of Orissa Slurry Pipeline Infrastructure (OSPIL) in the Essar Steel bankruptcy proceedings by the CoC "is illegal and discriminatory". Sibal was arguing on behalf of Standard Chartered Bank during the hearing of Essar Steel bankruptcy proceeding in NCLAT. Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) is a financial creditor of Essar Steel (ESIL). Sibal argued the "illegality resulted from secret negotiations between the core committee and AM (ArcelorMittal) India" and this was detrimental to all creditors. He termed the secret settlement with the major lenders of OSPIL as a "scam". Standard Chartered Bank has alleged that the amount of Rs 2,500 crore should have been paid to it rather than getting diverted to lenders of OSPIL. Subsequently, the bench observed that out of the 10 people, who are financial creditors of ESIL, five to six are lenders to OSPIL and wanted to know if Rs 2,500 crore would go only to these lenders. Further, the bench said that it would decide on the power of CoC. Besides, Sibal said that the reduction in the upfront amount from Rs 42,000 crore to Rs 39,500 crore and the agreement to delegate the manner of distribution was evidently designed to prejudice the right of SCB. He cited the letter of September 10, 2018 and a note dated September 25, 2018, wherein AM India had already decided the manner of distribution amongst secured financial creditors. 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. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday imposed fines and issued notices to 250 companies for not adhering to the Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR). Among the companies penalised, were the grounded Jet Airways, subsidiary companies of the crisi-riddenn IL&FS and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, the parent company of the largest airlines by market share, IndiGo, and several state owned entities. "The National Stock Exchange (NSE) after monitoring the compliance of listing regulations for all its listed entities imposed fines and issued notices to non-compliant companies for the quarter ended March 31, 2019," NSE said in a statement. The NSE cited a market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) circular in this regard, which says that gives it the power to "levy per day fines" and "freeze the holdings of the promoter and promoter group" if non-compliant listed entities fail to comply with the requirements of listing regulations and/or pay the fine levied within the stipulated period. 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. A dubious project in Mongolia raises serious questions about the worlds most prestigious consulting firm and its work for corruption-plagued regimes. In 2010, amid a historic commodities boom fueled by the explosion of Chinas economy, international companies began turning their attention to Mongolia as it opened its vast deposits of coal and copper to commercial exploitation. Mongolia, which is located on Chinas northern border, stood to make prodigious sums of money if it could sell that copper and coal to its resource-hungry neighbor. To make that happen, Mongolia concluded that it needed to lay thousands of miles of railroad tracks. Such a project would cost billions of dollars and throw off hefty fees for construction companies, banks, law firms and consultants of various stripes. The consulting contracts alone could be worth tens of millions over a decade. And if the railroad expansion worked out, thered be even more opportunities after that. McKinsey & Co., the global consulting behemoth, was interested. In the fall of 2010, Jimmy Hexter, a senior partner at the firm, began talking with Mongolias government about the railroad project. Hexter had spent decades in the region, at one point running McKinseys office in Beijing. He was a veteran of multiple infrastructure projects in Asia, a global leader of the firms infrastructure practice and enthusiastic about Mongolias potential. Operating there required unusual caution. Earlier in 2010, the U.S. State Department had issued a warning. Corruption was on the rise in Mongolia, the State Department explained, and U.S. enterprises needed measures in place to detect and prevent it. In a section titled current views on Mongolian corruption, the first problem cited was a blurring of the lines between the public and private sector brought about by systemic conflicts of interest at nearly all levels. A year after that warning was published, Hexter and McKinsey did exactly what American diplomats had cautioned could be risky: The firm signed a consulting agreement with a government entity even as the government adviser who brought McKinsey into the project also landed a piece of the same contract for his own private company. McKinsey acknowledges that it did not vet the adviser or his company in any formal way. The adviser, Chuluunkhuu Ganbat, played a central role in shaping the countrys rail expansion. Mongolias state-owned rail company hired a team assembled by Ganbat, with McKinsey playing the leading role, to conduct an analysis of whether the railroad plan was feasible. McKinseys payment was little more than an introductory fee by the firms standards $4 million but the contract spelled out that McKinsey would be eligible for more lucrative multiyear contracts if the project progressed. The railroad expansion quickly went bad. Construction stalled amid financial problems and political uncertainty. By 2015, Mongolian police were investigating claims of widespread embezzlement and fraud. McKinsey was drawn into the investigation, with authorities ordering the firm to hand over records related to the project. The scrutiny rattled McKinsey enough that its then-head of Asia operations, Kevin Sneader, went above the heads of investigators. Shortly after police approached the firm, he wrote to Mongolias prime minister without copying the investigators. He insisted the firm had done nothing wrong and is committed to the highest professional and ethical standards. The letter suggested that Mongolias commercial prospects might be better served if McKinsey were a partner. It cited the prime ministers strong interest in promoting U.S.-Mongolian business ties and growing third-neighbor investment in Mongolia. Later in the letter Sneader offered to discuss with you in more detail our firms desire to further contribute to the Mongolian economy or our work in Mongolia to date. McKinsey says its letter had no inappropriate purpose. Sneader has since become the global managing partner of McKinsey, the firms highest position. Lets talk about the feminist history of empowering pins and badges, and how the pin is sometimes mightier than the sword. Whilst reminding myself of the precise sequence of events in the Pendle Witch Trials, I found, and remembered, two very odd things. The first? When I took a tour of Lancaster Castle, where the trials themselves took place, the tour guide asserted that Alison Device (or Davis, as she assumed her name might be rendered in modern times) was making a dress. That was why Alison begged/wished to buy pins from the peddler whose ill-timed stroke would kill eleven people. When I asked the guide what evidence there was for it, she just said that what else would Alison need pins for? The second thing I remembered is that on the Wikipedia page for the Pendle Witch trials it states that Alison was probably after the pins an expensive luxury item for magical purposes. Really? In truth, we will never know what she wanted. But a closer reading of history, and of common facts of common people, suggests there may have been a more mundane reason that Alison wanted a few pins. In the early medieval period, dresses (and, indeed, all clothes) were comprised of square and rectangle shapes: this being the shape the fabric was woven in. Any shaping or fitting was achieved by pulling a belt around ones waist, which was also handy for carrying things when pockets were as easily available as in the womens formalwear section in any modern department store. Later, for the rich, darts and pleats were introduced. Fabric was cut to create more flattering silhouettes and to make it clear that you were wealthy enough to buy a piece of material only to throw bits of it away. But this created a problem for ladies wanting to flaunt and flatter their curves: Dresses with no shape would drop over their heads and easily hang around their bodies. The new styles required openings to help ease them on. And openings required fastenings. By the Tudor period (a little before Alisons time) there were established rules and expectations for fastenings. Points were the mans fastening, belts still held things together and provided a place to put your sword whilst you did other things, and a little elasticity in knitted woollen stockings meant that a man went through life more concerned with which religion the monarch favoured than if he was well-dressed. Women, in contrast, had another solution to their now incredibly form-fitting bodices. Laces would hold her stays closed, but pins would keep everything else in place. As the centuries rolled on, pins remained the easy choice for womens clothing. They were secure when used properly, generally not painful, and plentiful if lost. They also importantly offered flexibility: hoods and hats could be pinned in the fashionable way, and sleeves and skirts could be tucked to flatter a changing body through puberty, pregnancy and aging. The elaborate ruffles that appear on every Shakespearian parody were not permanently sewn creations: They were starched, pinned and ironed every time they were to be worn. This might sound daunting, but the use of pins actually made fashion affordable and fun for everyone. Even a common maidservant might indulge in the latest ruff styles for church because she could do it with the same ruff she used last Sunday. And every woman was to be provided for, by her husband or guardian, in the manner of a little pin money when new ones were needed. Elizabethan shipping and trade records suggest pins were commonly sold by the thousand, costing two pence in the 1580s, and hardly rising to extortionate amounts by 1612 when pins or the lack of them caused a young woman to utter a curse on the man who wouldnt give/sell them to her. The industrial revolution saw off pins as fasteners, as it saw off many things. Mass production of clothes meant that the days of the personal fit were going out for all but the richest, and most women had the tools and skills to sew darts in their clothes if they so wished, without resorting to pins to keep it all neatly around their corseted waists. Hooks and buttons were becoming more common as fasteners, busier lives meant that they needed everything to stay put and there was more scope for decoration. Pins, for the most part, were put quietly into sewing boxes and forgotten. But not all kinds of pins slipped out of favour. Whilst small pins were used to keep a headdress in place and fashionably positioned, large hat pins were becoming the norm. They were used for keeping hats on the head where bonnets were not in vogue and secured themselves a place in history (and feminism) as notorious weapons of personal protection. Women were generally discouraged from doing most things during the Victorian period, given that their delicate lady bodies and free-roaming uteruses could cause all sorts of maladies and hysteria at any moment. In particular, there was fear that womens wombs might dislodge or explode if carried at the frightening speeds of the new railways. Lets think on that for a moment. Okay. Lets move on. When women ignored the advice of men and got on the trains anyway, they discovered that the risks posed to them were the same risks that were (and still are) in any location: men. Women in train carriages, especially women alone in those carriages, were assumed to be fast girls, and not just because they were travelling at thirty miles per hour. Men, as they have done for time immemorial, decided to prey on these women and alone in train carriages that passed through tunnels and under bridges that left them in near total darkness, a womans handiest method of defending herself was to grab the large metal pin in her hat and insert it into the nearest fleshy bit of the man in question. The large hat pin was a hit. Bigger, flashier, more ostentatious and more damaging hat pins became available. Men called in newspapers for the hatpin to be BANNED or, if it could not be removed entirely, for its size to be limited. These dreadful pieces were encouraging women to feel confident enough to travel alone but think of the poor men who were assaulted in the act of assaulting a woman! Such was the power of the hatpin that, in 1912, one was used in an act of political defiance as well as self defence. A group of women marched to Parliament House, and a group of policemen decided the best course of action was to charge them with their batons. The leader of the women, a spunky trade union organiser and suffragist called Emma Miller, stabbed the Police Commissioners horse. The horse threw the commissioner; he was injured, and hopefully thought twice about charging any more unarmed groups of peaceful protesters again. Pins remain a part of the costume of the individual. Now almost exclusively decorative, they show the passions and interests of the wearer. Charities and political organisations love them. Marginalised activists with backpacks, punks with leather jackets, older ladies with Sunday best coats there are pins for everyone. In the wake of the Brexit votes in Britain and the election of Donald Trump in America both campaigns that played on racism and the call to deport unwanted people from our countries social media called for people to wear safety pins as a symbol of defiance against those policies: that all people were safe with the wearer. The intent was to offer vulnerable people a visible sign of who they could sit by on a busy bus or where to turn when a crowded room proved full of verbal or physical abuse. It created an obligation for the wearer to act on the promises theyd made on social media that they would do something to help. It made it clear to those who wanted to loudly promote their racist ideals in public that they werent being listened to. From dressing essentials, to punky promises worn like hearts on sleeves, through keeping modest to protecting with some serious style, the pin has a far from humble place in our history. It might not be the first thing that you think of when you imagine political revolution, self proclaimed witches in the woods, or anti-police brutality weaponry: but the pins are always there. Pins. Holding the world together. Whilst we tear it apart. . May 15, 2019 The Lunacy Of Waging A War On Iran From Which China And Russia Will Win The scare mongering about an attack on Iran continues. Bolton must be laughing his ass off how easy he can play the issue based on nothing. He simply counters any debunking of the alleged 'thread from Iran' by upping the ante. Yesterday a British general in Iraq denied that any such threat exists in the area of his responsibility: No theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the coalition responsible for counter-terrorist operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, said in a video briefing, according to the Guardian. Today Bolton countered that by again raising the noise level around the imaginary threat: The U.S. Embassy in Iraq says the State Department has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. The alert, published on the embassy's website on Wednesday, comes after Washington last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests. Bolton is for now achieving the results he wants. He systematically fills the public space with talk about the non-existing 'threat from Iran'. If that threat is established in the public mind by its constant repetition, it will be used for the usual false flag incident to justify to launch a war on Iran. Bolton's power might change though. The knifes are out against him and there are rumors that he might get fired: Two sources familiar with the matter tell me President Donald Trumps rumbustious National Security Council chief is headed for the exits, having flown too close to the sun on his regime change efforts for Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Hearing that Trump wants him out, a former senior administration official told me. Bolton (and maybe Trump too) want a war on Iran because Bibi Netanyahoo asked for one, because the anti-Iranian MEK cult and Zionists paid him to wage one, and because he thinks he can do so without damaging the United States. by Ted Rall (used with permission) - bigger It is the last point where he is completely wrong. The war on Iraq destroyed the position of the U.S. as the 'sole superpower'. Russia used the aftermath to come back into the Middle East while China gained time to fortify its position in Asia. The once sole superpower is now only a primus inter pares with China and Russia. A U.S. war on Iran would further diminish its position. China and Russia would both end up with an increased standing in the world while the U.S. would lose out. Here is why. Yesterday the New York Times promoted the options the Pentagon gave to the White House for a war on Iran. It led with the 120,000 troops option which made no sense: The number is too high for an attack by air and on sea and too low for an attack on land, i.e. an invasion of Iran. Newsweek now says that the 120,000 troop option is only the prelude for an invasion of Iran: Pentagon officials told Newsweek that if deployed, the role of the 120,000 U.S. forces would center on logistical support and developing infrastructure to preposition U.S. forces for the option of a ground invasion. The original 120,000 would integrate into an additional surge of U.S. forces sent into the region. These "Pentagon officials" are not "military officials", i.e. not soldiers. They seem to have no idea what they are speaking about. An invasion and occupation of the mountainous Iran would require over half a million soldiers just for the start. Even an invasion of only the oil rich areas on Iran's west coast and on its border with Iraq would require a force of some 300,000 men. Without a draft the U.S. military is unable to sustain such a large operation for more than two or three months. And invade from where please? Iraq would certainly not allow U.S. forces to attack its neighbor from its grounds. An invasion by sea is prohibited by the confined water of the Persian Gulf, the lack of minesweepers, and of other maritime assets. The people who talk up such a war have a serious case of delusion: A Pentagon source told Newsweek if anything is likely to happen involving the preliminary Iran options, it would involve a heavy guided missile strike campaign in an attempt to lead Tehran to the negotiation table with Washington. "It depends on the escalation of force. But no matter the bravado from Irans side, when you get hit it with 500 missiles every day, it degrades you, which is the objective. When your opponent is weak, you get more out of any negotiation," said one official with knowledge of the Iran plans. Once upon a time one Saddam Hussein, egged on by the U.S. and Arab Gulf dictators, had similar ideas. When he attacked Iran in 1980 he thought that he could seize Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province within a month or two. After the 1979 Islamic revolution the Iranian military was in disarray. Many officers had been dismissed or had left. Iran was under a global weapon embargo while Iraq had support from all large powers. The war did not take too month. It took eight years, the use of chemical weapons against Iranian cities, a large U.S. operation against the Iranian navy, and over a million death on both sides before Iran was willing to accept a ceasefire. In the end the border was restored to its prewar state. Iraq nearly went bankrupt due to the war which is the reason why it later seized Kuwait and had to endure the consequences. In light of that history it is hilarious to believe that one would "get more out of negotiations" with Iran by each day launching 500 missiles at it. And what about Iran's retaliation capabilities? Iran has a large missile force and drone fleet of its own. It has well equipped proxy force in Lebanon and elsewhere. Each cruise missile hit on Tehran can and will be countered by one on Tel Aviv. Iran would also have support from China and from Russia which can provide all kind of weapons it needs through the Caspian Sea, while the U.S. would lack capable allies. Iran's missiles can hit any country in the Middle East that hosts U.S. forces. It can target Saudi desalination plants, UAE refineries and various oil shipping ports. Energy prices would go through the roof. The recent incidents near the UAE port Fujairah and the attack on the Saudi east-west pipelines were likely not caused by Iran. But they give a minor taste of what Iran's asymmetric capabilities could achieve. The 'Pentagon officials' should reread their briefings on the Millennium Challenge exercise which simulated a U.S. (blue) attack on Iran (red): At the start of MC 02, to fulfill the forced-entry requirement, blue issued red an eight-point ultimatum, of which the final point was surrender. Red team leader Van Riper knew his countrys political leadership could not accept this, which he believed would lead the blue forces to directly intervene. Since the George W. Bush administration had recently announced the preemption doctrine, Van Riper decided that as soon as a U.S. Navy carrier battle group steamed into the Gulf, he would preempt the preemptors and strike first. Once U.S. forces were within range, Van Ripers forces unleashed a barrage of missiles from ground-based launchers, commercial ships, and planes flying low and without radio communications to reduce their radar signature. Simultaneously, swarms of speedboats loaded with explosives launched kamikaze attacks. The carrier battle groups Aegis radar system which tracks and attempts to intercept incoming missiles was quickly overwhelmed, and 19 U.S. ships were sunk, including the carrier, several cruisers, and five amphibious ships. The whole thing was over in five, maybe ten minutes, Van Riper said. The war hawks' inability to learn from history is quite remarkable: Firing Line with Margaret Hoover - @FiringLineShow- 20:14 utc - 14 May 2019 Senator @TomCottonAR tells Firing Line if it comes to war with Iran, he is confident the United States would win, and would win swiftly. Two strikes, the first strike and the last strike, says the Senator. (video) We have heard such talk before: "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Ken Adelmann, February 13 2002, Washington Post "The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." Donald Rumsfeld, November 15 2002, CBSNews "This is going to be a two-month war, not an eight-year war." Bill Kristol, March 29 2003, CSPAN The war on Iraq would be a short simple affair, said the Tom Cotton like nutters. It was also said to cost next to nothing. Sixteen years later, after a million dead, $2 trillion spent and after enduring a huge economic crisis, the U.S. is still fighting in Iraq. There are no short or cheap wars. War is by its very nature unpredictable, costly, and hardly ever ends as desired. John Bolton has long argued for a war on Iran. Should he get his will and push the U.S. into launching a war, both sides of it will lose out. There will also be a lot of collateral damages in several other countries in the Middle East, and other severe consequences we can not yet foresee. What is assured though is that the biggest winners of such a war, and maybe the sole ones, will be Russia and China. The Democratic opposition in the U.S. seems to have little time to argue against another war in the Middle East. It is still busy subpoenaing the remnants of the Russiagate investigations. But isn't it evident that Putin is -right now- using the infamous pee-tape to push Trump into a war on Iran from which Russia's standing in the world will profit? What are they doing to prevent that? Posted by b on May 15, 2019 at 16:33 UTC | Permalink Comments next page next page A 9-year-old Irish boy has wowed the viewers of The Ellen Show thanks to his gorgeous Irish accent and his impressive magic tricks. Aidan made it to the semi-finals of Ireland's Got Talent earlier in the year and although he didn't win, his impressive skills got him recognition all over the world, scoring him an interview on Ellen. The Carolina Diner in Morganton will open its doors from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday for a free Christmas dinner for anyone who needs a place to go for the holiday: Ernst also stressed trade and said pressure has to be brought on China. We cant point the finger at the president, Ernst said. Its China. Pundits have devoted plenty of speculation to whether the pain that farmers are feeling will hurt Trumps reelection bid, but Grassley suggested that his constituents are sticking with the president. Its going to have some impact on elections, of course, Grassley said. But I think that people all realize that China is just cheating everybody around the world, and they cant get away with it. And this is the first president that has stood his ground. So we got to compliment the president for doing something that four or five presidents before were afraid to do. And I think thats important to remember. And so far I havent seen farmers abandoning Trump. Trump campaign officials, speaking to reporters on the condition they not be identified, recently rejected the idea that trade-depressed crop prices will harm the presidents reelection bid. Their view is that farmers understand the need to confront China for its unfair practices and that Trump can appeal to farmers patriotism. Climate change has already begun to wreak havoc in Florida, with warmer water, wetter air, and elevated sea levels leading to stronger and more frequent hurricanes. In spite of the fact that these storms are causing billions of dollars in damage annually, investors don't seem to be taking these warnings to heart. Glendon said that the Florida economy can be expected to go to hell if investors continue to buy up long-dated debt and finance real estate decades into the future. Things could start to unravel when banks or home buyers begin to worry that annual insurance policies in parts of the state will become prohibitively expensive, or disappear completely, Glendon said. That could put the housing market on shaky ground and cause a big dent in property tax revenue, leaving Florida without an obvious way to pay for repairing and replacing infrastructure. Without that, he said, Florida will be no better off than Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from 2017s Hurricane Maria. I hope this is clear, he said. Civilization is built on climate stability. We are now accelerating into instability. Do your models reflect that? Although the risks of climate change have begun to pop up in prospectuses and credit-analysis, those warnings have had little effect on trends in local municipal-bond and mortgage markets. Miami Beach successfully raised a $162 million bond offering, with a 20-year maturity pricing at the same yield as a similar April offering by Charlotte, N.C., an inland city with much less climate risk. Both issues had the same call provisions, coupons and ratings from Moodys and S&P. Before that offering, Miami Beach told potential investors that officials are keenly aware of the risk from hurricanes and sea-level rise. Similar warnings are starting to reverberate among other financial institutions. BlackRock recently published an explanation of how climate-risk has become a necessary assessment in understanding shifting levels of risk and value. The Midland City Council during its meeting Tuesday approved up to $920,846 in costs related to the opening of the Bush Convention Center. The Council first approved a $620,846 from the Midland Center Project fund to pay for event furniture and equipment, office furniture and lounge furniture. The main expense is $472,680 in event furniture and equipment from Mity Lite of Orem, Utah. Officewise Furniture and Equipment of Lubbock will provide the lounge furniture at a cost of $78,930. Officewise also will provide the office furniture at a cost of $69,236. A city document indicates that the lounge furniture will be for the lobby areas, while the office furniture will be for the offices, reception and green room. Costs include on-site assembly and installation for nearly $14,000. The event furniture and equipment is described as stacking chairs, tables, carts, dollies and a dance floor. RELATED: City to name convention center for George H.W. and Barbara Bush The original budget for furnishings was $800,000. The city expects other purchases, including a 16-foot-by-24-foot stage ($36,035), six bar carts ($28,616), pipe and drape ($31,274) and seven pipe and drape carts ($12,453). The remaining balance of $70,774 will include spending on lobby rugs made with carpeting that matches the carpet throughout the center, according to the city. Additional purchases such as pots, pans, dishes, tablecloths and kitchen accessories will be made with remaining budgeted funds. The councils actions Tuesday also included accepting a donation from the Downtown Midland Management District and appropriating the funds -- $300,000 to the Midland Center Project for the purchase and installation of a media mesh panel. The total cost of media mesh panel is $825,415. The remaining funds to be used were appropriated in January 2018 ($525,415). Including money already appropriated and still to be spent, furnishings and the media mesh panel are budgeted to cost more than $1.625 million, including more than $1.3 million in city funds. Council approves purchase of $154,939 mobile stage The Midland City Council approved the purchase of a Show Mobile Trailer Stage from Century Industries of Sellersburg, Indiana, for $154,939. The stage will replace a unit that is beyond its useful life and plagued with maintenance issues, according to the city. City officials state will assist the Parks and Recreation Department in increasing its ability to set up in a timelier manner for events. The funds are expected to come from the Garage Fund. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has joined with state lawmakers in promoting legislation that would increase penalties for drivers who dont slow down or change lanes to avoid vehicles on the side of the road. The proposed legislation to strengthen Scotts Law is a reaction to the deaths of two Illinois State Police troopers this year as they performed their duties. The proposal, filed Tuesday, would increase the minimum fine for a first violation of the move-over law to $250 from $100. Subsequent violations would carry a minimum fine of $750. Violators also would be charged an additional $250 fee to fund education about and enforcement of the law. Scotts Law says that drivers approaching a vehicle with their hazard lights on must slow down and move over. The legislation were announcing enhances penalties for those who dont obey the law and raises awareness for those who dont even know Scotts Law exists, Pritzker said. No ones time or convenience is worth more than the lives of our states heroes. Trooper Brooke Jones-Story was struck and killed in March by a semitrailer as she was inspecting a truck she pulled to the shoulder of the road in Freeport. Trooper Christopher Lambert was killed in January while responding to a crash on Interstate 294 near Northbrook. In addition to boosting fines, Senate Bill 1862 would increase the penalty for conviction to a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail, if a violation resulted in damage to another vehicle. If a violation resulted in an injury or death of another person, it would be a Class 4 felony, punishable by up to one to three years in prison. It alsowould be expanded to include firefighter and emergency medical service personnel while acting within the scope of their duties, add aggravating factors to reckless homicide charges if Scotts Law was violated, and require the Secretary of State to include written questions on Scotts Law in drivers license tests. Companion legislation, Senate Bill 2038, would create a Move Over Task Force to study the issue of violations of Scotts Law, disabled vehicle law, and stationary authorized emergency vehicle law, with attention to the causes of the violations and ways to protect law enforcement and emergency responders. Members of the task force will present a report and recommendations to the General Assembly no later than Jan. 1. Enough is enough. Three first responders have lost their lives while working on our roadways this year, and were cracking down on reckless drivers to prevent more senseless tragedies, said Rep. Marcus C. Evans, the chief House sponsor of the package of legislation. This legislation will keep our brave public servants safe and save lives. FLORENCE Congressman Darin LaHood visited communities along the Illinois River on Monday impacted by flooding. LaHood surveyed areas along the river separating Pike and Scott counties near Florence and also Meredosia in Morgan County. LaHood was joined by community leaders to assess the damage caused by flooding of the Illinois River. Over the last few weeks, communities in west-central Illinois have faced significant damage due to flooding along the Illinois river. I appreciated the opportunity to see firsthand the impact of the flooding and todays visit underscored the challenges many in our rural communities are facing this spring, LaHood said. In Florence, LaHood was joined by Pike-Scott Farm Bureau Executive Director Blake Roderick, Scott County Emergency Management Director Justin Dawes and several district drainage leaders. The group toured damage along the Scott County side of the Florence Bridge and then surveyed flooding damage on the levee. In Meredosia, LaHood was joined by Morgan County Emergency Management Director Phil McCarthy, Meredosia Mayor David Werries, Morgan County board officials and members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The group toured the levee near Meredosia to survey the damage caused by flooding. -- Story updated May 16, 2019, to correct title of Pike-Scott Farm Bureau and its representative. Photo provided Lincoln Land Community College recognized students with academic, leadership and special awards at its 2019 Student Recognition Ceremony. Tiffany Fenner of Springfield was named 2019 LLCC Outstanding Graduate of the Year. She was also recognized as an Arts and Humanities Department Honor Graduate and for leadership in the Student Government Association. During her time at LLCC, she served as president and secretary of the Student Government Association, assisted with the Food Pantry, was selected as the homecoming queen and was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the Black Student Union and the English Studies Club. WINCHESTER Winchester Grade School was evacuated shortly after 11 a.m. Wednesday after two students reported a threat being made by another student. Superintendent David Roberts said a junior high school boy was overheard making comments about placing a fake bomb inside the principals office. A junior high student brought in a 2 inch by 4 inch cellphone battery charger and told one of the other kids and another overheard that he would make it look like a fake bomb and put it in the principals office, Roberts said. He also made the comment that if he threw it hard enough, it could explode. Kindergarten through second-grade students were taken to Winchester Baptist Church, where they were served lunch, while the third- through eighth-grade students were kept in the Winchester High School auditorium. The battery charger was confiscated and police were called. Because of comments made by the student, police believed there could have been a second device inside the building. The Illinois Secretary of State Bomb Squad cleared the building and did not find a second device. Students returned to classrooms by 1 p.m. Roberts said he is proud of the students who overheard the conversation. Both students did the right thing and immediately reported it to school officials, Roberts said. While the student has not been identified, Roberts said he will not be returning to school for the remainder of the school year. Winchester Police Chief George Lindsey said the student was detained by police before being released to his guardian. Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1233, or on Twitter @JCNews_samantha. I did not authorise payment for ... Rupee is trading at 70.21 against dollar in opening trade, driven by easing crude prices. Mumbai: The rupee appreciated by 23 paise to 70.21 against the US dollar in opening trade on Wednesday, driven by easing crude prices, higher opening in domestic equities and on US-China trade talk hopes. Forex dealers said, investors sentiments were buoyed after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday hoped that the world's top two economies would be able reach an agreement. The rupee opened strong at 70.32 at the interbank forex market then gained further ground and touched 70.21 amid a positive opening in domestic equities, displaying gains of 23 paise over its last close. The rupee on Tuesday recovered 7 paise to close at 70.44 to the US dollar. "I think it's going to turn out extremely well, we're in a very strong position," Trump said. The President also described his relationship with President Xi Jinping of China as "extraordinary". When asked about the talks with China having "collapsed". He rejected that characterisation. "We have a very good dialogue... it'll always continue. We had a deal that was very close and then they broke it," he said. Meanwhile, foreign fund outflows weighed on the domestic currency and restricted the upmove. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital markets, pulling out Rs 2,011.85 crore on a net basis on Tuesday, provisional exchange data showed. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, eased 0.31 per cent to USD 71.02 per barrel. Meanwhile, the benchmark BSE Sensex was trading higher by 87.83 points, or 0.24 per cent to quote at 37,410.15 while the NSE Nifty was trading at 11,245.00, down by 22.95 points, or 0.20 per cent. UPPER CHICHESTER Commissioners observed a moment of silence at their monthly meeting in memory of longtime township Fire Marshal Dave Holland. Holland, 65, died suddenly on April 28 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, surrounded by his family. He served as township fire marshal 30 years and also served as director of emergency management. Ive known Dave for 40 years, said Commissioner Ed Raikowski, who was the best man in Hollands wedding. He did so much for the residents of Upper Chichester. He checked up on people all the time and was such a caring person. It was great to see all the firefighters come out to pay tribute to Dave. A lifelong resident of Upper Chichester, Holland was employed by Congoleum Corp. where worked for 46 years, and for 28 of those years served as plant fire marshal. He was a lifetime member of the Ogden Fire Co. where he dedicated 50 years of service and held the positions of chief and president. Holland served as the First District Fire Marshal for many years and was a life member and past president of the Delaware County Firemans Association, and a life member of the Delaware Valley Fire Chiefs Association. This is a sad loss for our community, said Commissioners President Mike Gaudiuso. Dave was a great guy and was totally committed to Upper Chichester. He will be greatly missed. Lovingly known as fireplug, Holland will be greatly missed by his colleagues and the entire firefighting community. Dave never wavered in his effort to improve fire and emergency services in Upper Chichester, said William Robinson, chief of the Ogden Fire Co. He demonstrated a strong commitment and his personal sacrifice should be an example to all and is unparalleled in todays demanding volunteer environment. Holland was laid to rest last week with full firefighter honors. Parakeet Cafe owner Carol Goldwassers most-used word in describing her cafe is super: superfoods, super healthy, super fulfilling. Its real food and its fantastic, said Goldwasser, who owns the new Carmel Valley cafe with her husband Jonathan. Its not sacrificing flavor because its healthy. You eat and feel good about yourselfits a happy meal. Parakeet Cafe opened in One Paseo last month, hoping to become a place where families, friends and neighbors can meet to share a nourishing whole-food meal or sip coffee, organic teas, cacao chai or tumeric lattes. A matcha waffle at Parakeet Cafe. Danny Desanti Our main drive is to bring high-quality, healthy food to the community, said Goldwasser, who moved to San Diego from Mexico six years ago with her husband and two daughters, Natalie and Michelle. The couple opened the first Parakeet Cafe in La Jolla in July 2017, followed by a second in Little Italy. They got their start in the food industry owning the four San Diego locations of the family-owned Juice Crafters organic juice bar, the best smoothies you can get. Carol Goldwassers cousins started the business in LA which has now grown to 15 locations throughout Southern Californiathe Goldwassers will open a Juice Crafters in One Paseo later this year. The Goldwassers vision for Parakeet began with a personal journey, when their youngest daughter Michelle became very sick with a rare blood disease as an infant. Michelles treatment involved chemotherapy and, as a traumatized mother, Carol was dedicated to learn everything there was to know about healthy, clean food in order to strengthen her daughters immune system. I witnessed firsthand what happens when you feed your body the right way, Goldwasser said of her daughter who is now a healthy 13-year-old. It was to me amazing to witness. I made it my lifes purpose to share everything that Ive learned. Im a true believer of how healthy food can nourish your body. At their successful Juice Crafters stores, Goldwasser said customers were always asking for more optionsthey wanted oatmeal, teas and coffee. Not wanting to compromise the integrity of what Juice Crafters did so well, the thought of expanding their reach with a cafe came to life. The parakeet is a fun, colorful bird that eats from nature, said Goldwasser of the namesake bird who thrives on fruit, veggies, nuts and seeds. We wanted to educate people to eat from nature and not from something that comes out of a box. The bird also inspired the cute, colorful and Instagram-worthy look of their cafes. All of them are a bit different but One Paseos is decked out in blue and pink parakeet print wallpaper, a neon sign that reads tweet tweet, a black and white stripe accent wall, creamsicle orange booths and a succulent centerpiece at every table. Parakeet Cafe's patio at One Paseo. Karen Billing Outside on Parakeets large patio, script reads playfully across one wall: a little bird told me. The cafe menu features all-day breakfast-style dishes such as overnight oats, chilaquiles and matcha waffles and cacao waffles, which are served with coconut yogurt, organic fresh berries, banana and a sprinkle of coconut sugar and cinnamon. People love our waffles because they are gluten free and dont have any refined flour, Goldwasser said. The menu includes a variety of toasts such as avocado, salmon, mango chutney and black bean which comes with fresh goat cheese, nopales, jicama salad, pico de gallo and zaatar, a Middle Eastern spice. Many options are vegan, gluten free and paleo friendly including their salads, soups and bowlsthe roasted greens bowl is one of the most popular served with plenty of veggies, polenta and almond croutons, mushrooms, kabocha squash, Brussels sprouts and spinach brown rice. I personally love the quinoa mezze bowl, Goldwasser said of the dish that pairs organic red and white quinoa tabbouleh with muhammara, baba ganoush,cashew lime cilantro dressing and baked pistachio millet falafel. The spreads are so unique and tasty and the falafels are insanely good. Parakeets coffee and teas can be personalized with homemade vanilla or lavender syrups, almond or oak milk. Specialty coffee drinks include the Maple Sage Latte and the Ice Mint Latte with cold brew, mint, vanilla and milk. Goldwasser is especially excited about the adaptogenic drink offerings that include superfood healing mushrooms that can help manage stress and promote energy. Drinks on the menu include the Magic Mushroom Matcha with ashwagandha, Four Sigmatic 10 mushroom blend, lavender honey and the Immortality Latte with he shou wu herb, reishi mushroom, ginger, cardamom and honey vanilla. Goldwasser said she is a true believer in everything the cafe serves and she feels grateful and lucky that she was able to develop the dream she had in her mind for the cafe. By fueling the body right, you can get a better quality lifeso many people in San Diego are into their health and I do think I have a moral obligation to give people what they need, Goldwasser said. Every day I can help more and more people makes me very happy. Snowing on Highway 88 View Photos The Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for the Sierra Nevada above 5,000 feet through 6 AM Friday. According to the National Weather Serviced, additional snow accumulations of twelve to twenty-five inches is expected above the 6,000 foot elevation. Winds will continue to gust up to forty mph. Thunderstorms are also possible, along with the heavy snowfall and gusty winds. Once this storm exits the region late Friday morning, another system is forecast to impact the mountains over the weekend. A Winter Storm Warning means there will be snow covered roads and limited visibilities. Travel is not recommended while the Warning is in effect. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency. Sonora, CA Increasing difficulties homeowners and would-be buyers are experiencing with fire insurance has Mother Lode realtors, insurers, and government officials abuzz. Tuesday at the Tuolumne County Association of Realtors (TCAR) Office, members who attended the recent California Association of Realtors (CAR) Legislative Day recapped their efforts to elevate what they describe as an epidemic hitting homeowners especially hard in the states highest wildfire hazard areas like Tuolumne County. The meeting included a panel of local insurance companies. As reported here, TCAR officials recently sounded the alarm that they are seeing a trend of local insurance policy cancellations or non-renewals and tripled premium rates for those seeking new policies from insurance companies willing to cover high-risk properties for elevated prices. They also shared that some insurance companies are no longer walking properties before making blanket decisions and raised discrimination concerns. TCAR President Judy Austin and directors Erik Segerstrom, Adam Wilson and Betsy Hurst-Younger attended last weeks CAR event armed with four dozen insurance letters and stories shared by locals about their trials and tribulations. Mother Lode legislators, Sen. Andreas Borges and Assemblymember Frank Bigelow also received copies. In Search Of Consumer Assistance, Resources During a CAR Public Policy forum and moderated panel discussion on rebuilding Californias disaster-stricken communities, Austin shared one of the hardship stories. On the same panel, the co-founder and executive Officer of United Policy Holders for Consumers, Amy Bach, stated that consumers can reach out to her group through their website here. Austin urged CAR to consider organizing a task force to investigate how to avoid the unintended consequences of insurance companies non-renewals and rise in premiums. These can range from folks making hard decisions to forego or not carry sufficient homeowners insurance, to interested buyers not qualifying for mortgage loans due to higher insurance costs affecting their debt-to-income rate. TCAR is continuing to collect fire insurance letters and stories. These can be emailed to TCARStaff@TCRealtors.org. This week, Tuolumne County officials, who are also working at the state level on the issue, released a local resource contact list of insurance companies. They stipulate that the insurers may be able to provide homeowners with assistance in obtaining and/or maintaining affordable insurance, it is not a list of recommended vendors. Nor does it make any guarantee that your home will meet any given companys criteria for coverage. To view it, click here. Governor Newsom hosts roundtable in Sacramento with individuals who would receive financial help to afford health coverage under budget proposal View Photos Sacramento, CA Governor Gavin Newsom has launched his California for All health care statewide tour to promote his proposals, which he kicked off today in Sacramento. The plan includes requiring everyone to purchase health insurance and offers subsidies to families of four with incomes up to $150,000 a year. Under current law, individuals earning more than $48,000 a year or a family of four earning more than $98,000 do not qualify for financial help to pay their premiums. No state has more at stake on the issue of health care. California must lead, said Governor Newsom. While the Trump Administration seeks to destroy the Affordable Care Act, California is leading the nation in expanding access to health care and tackling affordability. From fighting for cheaper prescription drugs to increasing access to reproductive health care, California is fighting for more health care for all Californians. Speaking with small business owners in Sacramento on Tuesday, Newsom outlined his proposal, which would make California the first state in the country to provide subsidies for people who earn up to 600 percent of the federal poverty level. People could get about $100 a month to help pay their health insurance premiums. To pay for his plan, those who do not purchase health insurance would pay a penalty by reinstating the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act at the state level. That money would be used to pay for the new subsidies. The governor provided these detail regarding his health care proposal: California becoming the first state in history to expand Medi-Cal coverage to all eligible undocumented young adults age 19 through 25 Expanding financial help for families and individuals to buy health insurance in private market and becoming the first state in America to give monthly discounts to middle-income families buying insurance Taking on prescription drug prices by creating one of the nations biggest single-purchaser systems for prescription drugs that allows government, individuals and potentially private employers to sit together at the bargaining table to negotiate drug prices Working with Congress to create a robust federal waiver to allow the state to move toward single payer and creating a commission to do the planning necessary for a transition under a Democratic president While the White House attacks reproductive health care, Governor Newsom proposes making a historic $100 million investment in reproductive and sexual health care. After about five decades designing other peoples buildings, Del Mar architect Dean Meredith decided it was time to create his own home for himself and his wife, Monica. They had the good fortune to find a ridgeline property on Seaview Avenue where they are constructing a 4,200-square-foot residence with spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and San Dieguito River Valley. This is the chance of a lifetime, Dean Meredith said. Less than two months remained before the expected completion of the home when the unexpected happened. A section of the bluff underneath Seaview collapsed April 21, blocking the northbound roadway and sidewalk of Jimmy Durante Boulevard to traffic. Technically, the landslide occurred underneath the property next door to the lofty perch on which the Meredith home sits. Yet, the visual connection between the construction site, the scarred cliff face and the tons of fallen dirt below inevitably led to questions. A couple of television news teams interviewed longtime SDSU geology professor and current Professor Emeritus Patrick Abbott at the site. Abbott said recent heavy rains and irrigation runoff led to the slide, while conjecturing that the home-building project might have contributed. That last bit of speculation was wrong, Abbott admitted before the Del Mar City Council on May 6, while delivering a public apology. Expert analyses by professionals showed the construction had nothing to do with the collapse. The face of the bluff that collapsed April 21 in Del Mar is seen looking south from a location near the coastal railroad tracks. Michael J. Williams Nonetheless, the association of the slide with the Meredith project produced an onslaught of malevolent commentary. The negative attention undoubtedly was exacerbated by the architects prominence in what is San Diego Countys smallest city, and one of its most affluent. There was this incredibly horrible firestorm on social media, Monica Meredith said. Dean Meredith said the project and its alleged connection to the slope collapse and road closure became the talk of the town. All of a sudden, we were the bad guys. ... When something like this gets out, its really difficult to dig out of, he said. Abbotts apology as well as supportive statements by city officials that aired on Del Mars cable TV channel from the City Councils May 6 meeting have helped quell the controversy, the Merediths said. The facts are out, said Dean Meredith. Its not fake news anymore. Les Reed, who heads Geotechnical Exploration Inc., did the geological analyses supporting the Meredith project, which received all required approvals and permits from local government agencies. The city of Del Mar blessed everything, Monica Meredith said. I think the most important thing is our house is on solid ground. The main structure is supported by a basement with a foundation installed on solid bedrock and there is no threat of causing slides, Reed said. The only aspect of the structure built on a slope is a deck supported by caissons, he said. The whole intention of the caisson was to minimally impact the soil, Dean Meredith said. Reed said the caissons are round shafts dug vertically to get down to bedrock, buttressed by a steel cage of vertical bars with horizontal straps. Thats become a really routine thing on hillside properties, Reed said. Its real common now to build caissons to support (decks). Its less destructive. Dean Meredith put his experience and know-how into the design of the house. That knowledge stems from a career that began with his fascination with structural design while growing up in Ocean Beach in San Diego and attending Point Loma High School. He described the two-story residences style as a warm mix of Contemporary and Craftsman. Monica Meredith said the couple is not building the house for profit. This is our dream home, she said. We dont plan to sell it. Our plan is for our children to inherit it. She is hoping the house will be completed and ready to occupy in June. As a minster's son pursuing a pre-med degree to work on the medical mission field in third world countries, it was only natural that Marti Runnels would spend 30 years teaching theatre. ... It's a wandering story, but what turned into a drastic career change for Runnels ended in 30 years of theatrical expertise and innovation for Wayland Baptist University. Runnels, a newly minted Ph.D. in 1989, was hired to teach theatre. And while his career kept him planted firmly in Plainview, the time has come for Runnels to load his travel trailer and set out on a new adventure, closing his career at Wayland. It's a story that started far from the stage. "A lot of people say, 'I felt called to ministry,' or 'It is what I always wanted to do,'" Runnels said. "I had none of that and I've never pretended I had any of that." Runnels had every intention of pursuing a medical career and going into medical missions. He attended Baylor University as a pre-med major, pursuing the medical degree for a while before realizing medical missions were not for him. Runnels went on several mission trips into regions of the world that were disadvantaged where he assisted doctors and dentists. "I found out in doing that I didn't really like it," he said. "I had this fantasy that you were going to go and get to talk with people and get to experience their lives and learn about them and have these connections. No!" Runnels said everywhere he went there was only one doctor for thousands of people. He likened it to an auto mechanic who diagnosis the problem, slaps a quick fix on it, then moves onto the next one. "I thought, Oh my gosh! I hate this," Runnels said. "I had no time to meet them; no time to get to know them; no time to interact with them." Runnels dropped out of the pre-med program and started looking at other career options. He spent a summer as a youth minister at a small church in Kansas City. Even though he was scheduled to be there for only a few months, Runnels became attached to the youth, who became fond of him as well. "When I got ready to leave, they all just melted down and cried and begged me not to go," he said. "I just could not leave them. That sort of began my ministry life." Runnels moved from that church to another where he worked with youth and youth choirs. He began adding drama to the church presentations and found that he really enjoyed it. That love eventually drove Runnels to Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth where he could pursue a new degree in communication arts that included radio, television, film and theatre. Runnels thought that degree would lead to a position in a large church. On further thought, however, that didn't make sense. "About the last six months, I started thinking, wait, how many jobs are out there like that? Gigantic churches where the only thing you have to do is everything I wanted to do in theatre," Runnels said. "I thought, this is ridiculous. What if there is not an opening at one of the five churches in the United States that has that?" While his career choice once again took a back seat, Runnels' love of the theatre was alive and well, driving him to the Ph.D. program at Texas Tech University. As he was completing the program, Runnels was offered the job at Wayland. "I thought, you know, I'll come to this little school, be here for a few years then I'll be gone," Runnels said. "I'll do something else, go somewhere else, somewhere bigger." Runnels never left. He fell in love with the people and the students at Wayland and made it his home. He used the theatre as a platform to "preach." Whether tackling historical constructs in shows like Bleeding Kansas or social questions in shows like Seven, or perhaps offering a learning experience with Kindertransport that dealt with the holocaust, or The Amish Project that expressed forgiveness by a community after a tragic school shooting, Runnels always tried to convey a message. Runnels has performed world premieres and state premieres on the Wayland stage, and in 1997, Wayland became the only amateur theatre group to ever perform the show Cowgirls. The show called for cast members who could basically play any instrument. They would just pick up instruments and play on stage. Runnels came up with an unconventional idea, having the actors mimic the playing while professional musicians provided the music. When the publishing company found out, they had to contact the author to make sure Runnels could produce the play in that manner. The author eventually agreed, but it led to closing of amateur rights for the play following the Wayland production. "We are the only amateur production of that show," Runnels said. "Those women who performed that show here at Wayland have that on their resume and no other non-professional will have it." Runnels was also responsible for Wayland's ongoing presence at the Spencer Theatre in Ruidoso, N.M. For years, Runnels had pitched shows to the Spencer Theatre in hopes of being given the opportunity to perform. In 2006, Wayland had a board member who was also on the board at the Spencer. Through that connection, the executive director of the Spencer Theatre agreed to give Wayland a chance. "I know he was just thinking, let's do this one time for the board member. It will make her happy. It won't be that great and we will make our excuses for why they won't come back," Runnels said. Runnels assured the executive director that the show would be good and he would not be disappointed or have to apologize to the patrons. "I said, I will bring you a show that is on par with what you have there," Runnels said. Following the performance of Art, Runnels was met in the hall by an overwhelmed executive director. "He must have said, 'Oh my, God!' twenty times," Runnels said. "I said, I told you. Right after that, he asked if we would come back for the next 10 years no questions asked." In all, Runnels directed more than 90 productions in his time at Wayland, and acted in many more. He served as professor, division chair and dean of the School of Fine Arts. But what he says kept him at Wayland was the people. "I had opportunities to go other places, to do other things, and I never really wanted it bad enough to leave here," Runnels said. "There is so much about Wayland that I was really drawn to, that I wouldn't think I would be when I first got here." Runnels success and longevity throughout the years was evident at his retirement as former students put together an evening to celebrate their mentor. Approximately 90 former students and friends from as far as away as Alaska and Chicago gathered in the Black Box Theater to surprise Runnels with a special evening of reminiscing and storytelling; of tears and gratitude; of honor and recognition of an outstanding and influential career. And while Runnels will no longer run the show in the Black Box, his legacy will live on. The Plainview Area United Way met and exceeded its financial goal this week. The original goal was to raise $275,000, said Executive Director Leigh Ann Bradley. "We surpassed it by $561," she said. New United Way President Brandon Ahrens said he's relieved and excited for the support. Until a few days ago, the campaign was more than $1,000 behind its goal. "We've reached our goal every year," he said. He didn't want to be the first president not to. But the organization always had a key major donor, he added. At the United Way board meeting earlier this year, board members, including Ahrens, voiced concerns about reaching their goal without the traditional large donations from Reagor-Dykes that have made up about 15 percent of campaign donations throughout the last several years. "We have always met our goal," Bradley said. "It's just getting harder and harder to get there." The donations benefit 10 local nonprofits through Plainview Area United Way including: Central Plains Early Childhood Intervention, Crisis Center of the Plains, Epilepsy Foundation of Texas, YMCA, Plainview Boy Scouts South Plains Council, Plainview Education Partnership, Plainview Girl Scouts TOP Council, Salvation Army, Hale County Senior Citizens Center and Wee Care Child Center. "It just helps them help Plainview," Bradley said. "It goes right back to Plainview." The organizations are monitored regularly to make sure the funds provided through United Way are being used wisely, Ahrens said. Each of the health and human service organizations offer services that help fulfill basic human needs, provide character building, physical activity, education and/or assistance with safe havens. They serve Plainview, Hale County and other surrounding areas. That's what drives Ahrens to want to assist those agencies. "I have a giving heart," he said. Giving to your neighbor, he said, will help Plainview flourish. While the fundraising campaign is wrapped up for the year, Ahrens said the organization is already working on setting a budget and preparing for the next campaign. One of its next focuses is finding a new campaign chair. He invites community members who may be interested to reach out. "There's definitely an opportunity to serve the community through United Way," he said. You may soon receive an appraisal notice from the Hale County Appraisal District. The appraisal district mailed about 11,630 appraisal notices this year. Your city, county, school district and other local taxing units will use the appraisal district's value to set your 2019 property taxes. Under Texas law, county appraisal districts are required to notify property owners about changes in their property's value. The notice contains important information about the property's location, ownership and property tax exemptions that apply to the property. It must also include an estimate of the taxes by local taxing units if your property value increased in the last year by more than $1,000. New details of a controversial plan to prioritize rail over widening freeways are starting to emerge from laying hundreds of miles of high-speed commuter rail to charging drivers to use many of the most congested freeways. Officials with the San Diego Association of Governments told the Union-Tribune last week that the agency plans to run trains along highway corridors that travel as fast as 100 miles an hour. The most current plan calls for no further expansion of the trolley system, which only goes about 35 miles an hour on average. At the same time, SANDAG plans to roll out so-called congestion pricing on those stretches of freeway, which would charge drivers a fluctuating toll based on traffic conditions. Experts say this ambitious, multi-billion-dollar proposal could be the first of its kind in the country. We know about toll roads, and we know about commuter rail, but to combine them all at once would potentially be a new model, said Ethan Elkind, a transportation expert who directs the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law. Voters would likely need to approve multiple tax increases to fund the transit expansion. The first test will come in 2020 when the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System expects to put a sales-tax increase on the ballot. SANDAG would then likely follow up with its own tax measure. North and East County officials desperate for traffic relief in the near term have balked at the costly new vision, which would take decades and likely require plowing through property, as well as building underground and elevated sections of rail line. However, what has most rankled politicians from Oceanside to Santee to El Cajon is that SANDAGs leadership has simultaneously called for indefinitely shelving more than a dozen long-planned freeway expansions. Those projects outlined in the 2004 voter-approved half-cent sales tax known as Transnet include many sought-after projects, such as adding express lanes to state routes 78 and 52, and widening state routes 67 and 56. County supervisors Kristin Gaspar and Jim Desmond, who both sit on SANDAGs board of 21 elected officials from around the region, have led the charge to preserve the highway projects. The vision thats been presented to the board is a mass transit vision only, Gaspar said. People are trying to make this a roads-versus-transit debate. Im looking for a balanced transportation plan for our future. Desmond echoed that sentiment and said that the proposed transit projects will not materialize fast enough to accommodate new housing and population growth. This technology is not going to happen within the next 10 years, or 15 or 20, he said. In the meantime we still have housing needs. On Thursday, May 9, Desmond and other elected officials joined local talk radio host Carl DeMaio to announce a campaign to shame road raiding politicians on the SANDAG board. DeMaio, the former San Diego City Councilman who spearheaded the failed attempt last year to overturn the states newly enacted gas tax, also threatened a recall campaign aimed at lawmakers who support nixing the highway projects. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas have been the most high-profile supporters of SANDAGs transportation vision. However, neither politician has said much publicly on the topic since those opposed to shelving the road projects kicked off their campaign two weeks ago. Faulconer and Salas declined multiple interview requests by the Union-Tribune for this story. Faulconers office released this statement: Mayor Faulconer is committed to working with his fellow SANDAG board members on the regional transportation plan as the San Diego region is at its best when we stand together. His top priority is creating a complete transportation system that delivers options for residents and businesses in every part of the county. The chief architect of the new vision, SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata, has said his approach is the only way to get people to and from their jobs in a timely fashion. He has argued that adding new lanes will only end in more gridlock as new drivers pile onto widened thoroughfares. Traffic engineers often refer to this predicament as induced demand. Im a planner and engineer, Ikhrata said. Ive spent 30 years of my life in this business. Adding one lane in each direction does not work. Period. It will just make things worse. Most transportation experts agree that expanding freeways does little to solve traffic congestion, although many point out that adding rail is no panacea either. Rail is not really suited to reduce traffic congestion, said Elkind of UC Berkeley. Its designed as an alternative to traffic congestion and is a way to accommodate new growth in a region without contributing to air pollution. However, implementing congesting pricing to, in part, help pay for transit operations can improve road conditions, according to experts. The only proven way to reduce traffic is congestion pricing, but that has been politically unpopular in the United States, said Martin Wachs, a professor emeritus at UCLAs Department of Urban Planning. Its been done 30 or 40 places around the world, and it actually increases the capacity of the highway. The tolling scheme has encouraged drivers, especially those with more flexible schedules, to stay off target roads during peak times in places such as Singapore, Stockholm and London. New York City is now developing such a plan for lower Manhattan and Los Angeles is considering the approach. While rail will not solve San Diegos traffic woes, it can help the region meet state-mandated reductions in greenhouse gases from cars and trucks, Wachs said. Transit enables higher density development and reduces vehicle miles traveled in relation to the population, whereas highways are associated with more dispersed growth. Ikhrata said he will ask the SANDAG board to amend the Transnet ordinance this fall to include new rail projects so that the agency can start funding the environmental review process. Actual construction could not start until voters approve a tax increase or the agency secures another source of funding. SANDAG officals have said the agency doesnt currently have enough money to complete all the road projects it already has planned. The agency is strapped for cash because of declining sales tax revenues and skyrocketing construction costs. More than $30 billion in upgrades to major highway and transit projects are still slated for completion through 2048, and officials now estimate the region will be roughly $10 billion short. Although Three Brothers Bakery learned they had lost their Kosher license on the eve of their 70th anniversary, community members from across Houston are rallying behind the popular business. On May 7, the baker's co-owners Janice and Bobby Jucker were preparing to celebrate their big day when they received the bad news that they would no longer be considered Kosher. The situation largely started in August 2017 when Hurricane Harvey left 4.5 feet of water in their South Braeswood location. It closed for 17 days and forced the Juckers to take out disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration. But actually, the bakery had faced closures in 2015 and 2016 from flooding as well. Because Three Brothers was a Kosher bakery, it was required by tradition to close during the eight days of Passover. A year ago, the loans were still in a grace period. So the bakery closed except for its commercial business through the back door, which the Houston Kashruth Association had allowed since Hurricane Ike in 2008. However, this year the payments were rolling and due. Jucker and Bobby made the decision in April to take the risk of staying open on the retail side as well so they could pay their loans. "The Houston Kashruth Association (HKA) proudly provided Kosher certification to Three Brothers Bakery for most of its 70 years," according to a written statement from the HKA. "The HKA is grateful for our long-standing relationship with the Jucker family, and while we understand that theirs was a difficult business decision, it does preclude us from continuing the bakery's Kosher certification. Our decision was made with appreciation that the bakery will certainly be missed by the Kosher community, and we wish Three Brothers Bakery continued success." 'KING AND QUEEN OF DISASTER': The owners of Three Brothers Bakery look back at Harvey flooding, only at HoustonChronicle.com. The bakery, now with three locations, was started by three brothers who came to America after surviving the Holocaust. They were a family of bakers, and Bobby is a fifth-generation baker. Jucker said Bobby's family baking has been Kosher for nearly 200 years, since they started back in Poland. She said Harvey impacted their business in ways well beyond the actual physical damage. "There wasn't enough insurance coverage. So flood insurance covers what's in your building, so if there's anything outside your building, (it is not covered). It doesn't cover lost revenues," Jucker said. "These tend to be million-dollar events for us, and we actually calculated our payroll dollars spent on recovery over the course because it's not like you just clean up and reopen. I mean there's a whole lot more that goes into it. And everybody's working overtime. It was three months of payroll that we spent on Harvey recovery." Three Brothers also provides health care coverage and a 401k plan to their employees. Jucker added that the financial burden of health care is greater for food service and retail establishments as employees contribute a smaller amount of the costs (because they make less than other industries) and the employers pay the rest. With being closed for Passover last year, a couple of holidays and weather days, Jucker figures the bakery missed out on about a month's revenues and said she and Bobby had to evaluate the financial facts in front of them. "We just couldn't swing everything. I mean because all those things I'm describing have to come from profits, and if you're closed, it creates a huge financial burden. And we just frankly couldn't afford it anymore." Hearing coverage of the story from local, national and even some international news outlets, people from across Houston have been the visiting the three locations to show their support through buying freshly baked goods and sugary treats of all kinds. One man drove all the way in from Manvel, Texas. Another past customer who hadn't shopped in a while even spent more than $600 on items, Jucker said. "There have been a lot of people like that. I mean just people coming by and just being really supportive and shopping with us. And that's what small businesses need right now. We need, to survive, we all need our local shoppers because we've been hit by the Harvey economic problems. If you were hit physically or not, it didn't matter. Everybody was hit economically." Jucker said she hopes that the uptick in business and support will continue over the long haul, what Three Brothers will really need to be successful into the future. In the meantime, she and Bobby are also considering other ideas to make up the income they will lose from not being Kosher anymore. Some include selling boxed lunches for corporate events, expanding their selections and serving breakfast options. As of publication time, Jucker said she has not heard from the HKA and doubts getting the license back is a possibility because of the restrictions that would financially affect their ability to remain open. She said she regrets that a bakery with a long and rich history of being Kosher lost that status, particularly for a financial decision and not for something like putting bacon in challah or mixing meat and dairy. But for her, it was a question of survival. "You can be a permanently closed Kosher bakery or you can be a bakery that makes Jewish-style baked goods that's open. Those were the two options." Three Brothers Bakery has locations in Southwest Houston at 4036 S. Braeswood Blvd., in Memorial at 12393 Kingsride Lane and in Rice Military at 4606 Washington Ave. tracy.maness@hcnonline.com The Houston Police Department has wrapped up its investigation into a deadly January drug bust and turned a final report over to the Harris County District Attorney's office, authorities said Wednesday. The development moves the case one step closer to possible criminal charges against one or more of the officers involved in the bungled raid, which left a Pecan Park couple dead and blossomed into a broader scandal amid questions about the narcotics team's handling of the bust. RELATED: Harris County DA seeks dismissal of narcotics officer Gerald Goines' active cases after botched Pecan Park drug raid "The Houston Police Department has completed the criminal investigation and the officer-involved shooting investigation regarding the incident at 7815 Harding Street on January 28, 2019," Chief Art Acevedo said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "Today, each of these separate investigations have been turned in to the Harris County District Attorney's Office." An ongoing administrative investigation continues in the police department. The FBI has launched a civil rights investigation and the district attorney's office has been reviewing more than 2,000 cases previously handled by two narcotics officers at the center of the raid. Acevedo said police have "cooperated fully" with prosecutors. "As stated at the onset, we will leave no stone unturned in our effort to determine the facts," he said. "Today is a major step in that direction and we continue to be committed to a relentless pursuit of truth, transparency, and accountability." READ MORE: Grieving family members tour Pecan Park home as questions swirl about botched drug raid In the weeks after police stormed through the front door of the small Harding Street home, case agent Gerald Goines retired under investigation following questions about whether he may have lied on the affidavit used to justify the no-knock raid that killed Rhogena Nicholas and her husband Dennis Tuttle. Goines' partner, Officer Steven Bryant, also retired under investigation. Now, the findings from the police probe could offer clues to some of the as-yet unanswered questions from the bust, including who fired shots and whether there were additional signs of past illegal activity in the house. "It's good," said Nicole DeBorde, the attorney representing Goines. "I'm glad that they took their time to complete a thorough investigation and now it's going to be in the hands of the lawyers at the district attorney's office." Though she expressed concerns about whether police would make charging recommendations in the case, DeBorde also voiced "hope" that prosecutors would "accept the information they're provided and make their own decision after review." More: Houston police narcotics officer under investigation after deadly raid set to retire It's not clear when that review might be finished, but in a statement Wednesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg promised it would be comprehensive. "Our independent investigation continues; all of the evidence will be reviewed by prosecutors and ultimately presented to a grand jury to determine what criminal charges are warranted," she said. "We will be thorough and methodical, because the people of Harris County deserve the truth." Stay Informed Text CHRON to 77453 to get breaking news alerts by text | Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. See More Collapse The completion of the report comes days after a private forensics team hired by the slain couple's families conducted a separate review. Following a four-day visit to the home, the outside experts found troves of evidence that crime scene teams failed to collect, including human teeth, bullets and tagged evidence. News of the find prompted the district attorney's office to inquire about taking custody of the evidence for testing, according to attorney Mike Doyle, who is representing the Nicholas family. The outside experts said they didn't see any evidence anyone inside the home fired shots during the gunbattle, though law enforcement sources later told the Houston Chronicle that police recovered spent casings and a .357 revolver from the scene believed to belong to Tuttle. Attorneys for the slain families confirmed that Tuttle kept a loaded .357 by his bed, but still maintained it wasn't clear when, where or by whom the gun was fired. Now, the conclusion of the police investigation could open the door to some answers. It's not clear what other fallout could follow from the raid, but already police officials have dramatically curtailed the use of no-knock raids, promised to equip raid teams with body cameras, and vowed to stop relying on municipal court judges to sign search warrants. As the search for Maleah Davis continues, dozens more children remain missing from Houston with some cases dating back to the late 1980s or 90s, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The organization reported 57 total children still missing from Houston as of May 15, including eight John or Jane Doe cases. Chron.com only included the children who have been identified in the slideshow above, including Davis. The list did not include people who now would be older than 25. Vintage photos of Houston's oil bust days in the 1980s paint a picture of a changing city. But the clothes, cars and buildings weren't the only things that evolved. The Kinder Houston Area Survey released earlier this week revealed people's changing attitudes in the Houston area when it comes to issues like flooding, crime, traffic and the local economy. The study also tracked the changing attitudes about homosexuality, immigration and climate change. Read on HoustonChronicle.com: Public concern about flooding ebbs in area, Kinder survey shows Rice University researchers used some annual surveys dating back to 1982 to compile the information. Other surveys were more recent, only covering the last decade or three years. The results depict an increasingly accepting and liberal city with a more stable economy, according to earlier reporting in the Houston Chronicle. Fluctuating attitudes about flooding was one of the more glaring results in the study. Longtime Rice sociology professor Stephen Klineberg noted that people's preoccupation with flooding faded from 2018 to 2019, "because it's been a year and a half since Harvey," he told the Chronicle. When asked what Houston's biggest problem was, the percentage of survey respondents who named flooding fell from 15 percent in 2018 to 7 percent in 2019. Harris County Flood Control District Meteorologist Jeff Lindner voiced his surprise at the flooding survey result on Monday. "I always knew that flooding took a backseat to traffic and other issues, but 7 percent is pretty low in less than 2 [years] after the worst flood in modern American history," he said on Twitter. >>> See more survey results showing how Houston changed Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. A San Antonio man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly installing a credit card skimmer in a 7-Eleven gas pump nearly two years ago. Yeinier Saborit-Gomez, 26, is charged with unlawful use or disclosure of an electronic communication, a second-degree felony. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox According to his arrest affidavit, Saborit-Gomez's DNA was found on a skimming device police seized on May 26, 2017 at the 7-Eleven gas station located at 103 S. W.W. White Road. Police sent the skimming device to be tested for DNA. The results, which came back in January 2019, tested positive for Saborit-Gomez's DNA, according to his arrest affidavit. Jail records showed Saborit-Gomez was also in custody on unrelated family violence and fraud charges. He is being held without bond, the records showed. 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 Joan Marcus /Joan Marcus I want to express my appreciation to the Ambassador Theatre Group and John Gore Organization for bringing Hamilton to the Majestic Theatre. I attended opening night. Anyone attending Hamilton is sure to feel the excitement in the audience as the curtains are drawn and the opening number begins. The choreography, actors, voices, music, staging, costumes and the energy are all powerful. The best part the audience applauded throughout the performance. We let everyone involved in the production know their talent was appreciated. Texas lawmakers are not pursuing meaningful criminal justice reform this session, so the public and media should quit using that term to describe the Damon Allen Act. Its misleading. This is not meaningful criminal justice reform. This bill would establish basic standards for magistrates who set bail, and it would create a uniform pretrial risk assessment tool for defendants. But the bill is defined more by what it is lacking in political conviction and statutory language than what it seeks to accomplish. Named after state Trooper Damon Allen, who was murdered in 2017 during a traffic stop, this legislation is a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott. He would like to strengthen the system to ensure defendants who are potentially dangerous to the public are not released pretrial. This is a goal we support, too. But if state officials are serious about assessing risk, then they have to be serious about addressing the plight of low-level nonviolent offenders languishing in Texas jails simply because they cannot afford to make bond. This bill does nothing on this front. It has no language underscoring the presumption of release for defendants or requiring that bail conditions be as least restrictive as possible. And as we have seen from recent drama surrounding the Damon Allen Act, there are vested interests seeking to bend this bill in the other direction, potentially locking more people up pretrial. Consider an amendment from state Rep. Oscar Longoria, D-Mission, that would have wiped out personal recognizance bonds for tens of thousands of Texans. This is when people are released from jail pretrial without having to pay a cash bond. Obviously, if your business is money bail, you dont want people to receive PR bonds. Longorias amendment would have eliminated the possibility of a PR bond for anyone who has in the preceding two years, failed to appear after being released on personal bond or has had a bond found to be insufficient. It also would have eliminated the possibility of PR bonds for anyone who was charged with an offense while out on a bond, community supervision or parole. And it would have eliminated a PR bond for anyone charged with possession of four grams or more of drugs. Longorias amendment was passed, and then later stripped out of the House version of this bill following deserved widespread bipartisan criticism. He has said he was addressing concerns about public safety, but his amendment was clearly criminalizing poverty and almost certainly would have invited lawsuits. For example, experts have noted most people miss court dates because they have work or childcare commitments. Under this amendment, a wealthy person who missed a court date could always pay for a cash bond. But a poor person would be stuck in jail. Longorias amendment would have made the Damon Allen Act terrible. Instead, its merely lackluster. As of this writing, the bill would require magistrates to receive at least four hours of training about setting bail and not have been impeached. And it would create a uniform risk assessment tool through the Office of Courts Administration. Done right, such a tool could be good. It would create consistency for evaluating risk across Texas counties, and help officials weigh public safety and personal liberty. But done wrong, it would be a vehicle for placing more people in jail, and unfairly target minorities and poor people (a problem that has arisen with some of these tools). And, of course, weighing risk wont matter if low-risk defendants end up with bonds they cant afford. The best hope for the Damon Allen Act is that language from Longorias amendment does not return in the Senate, and that state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, an expert on criminal justice issues, is able to incorporate language that addresses the inequities of cash bail. Short of that, dont call this criminal justice reform. Khupe must report for duty at Harvest House if she is now the President of the MDC 1. Harvest House is not under threat 2. Any other assets and buildings are very safe 3. Chamisas Presidency is very safe 4. They can simply resort to MDC Alliance and use this congress as Extra-ordinary congress What a heartless woman whose focus is on hard currency, when majority of Zimbabweans are languishing in poverty !!!! She is more concerned about Harvest House building ????? Really Thoko !!! As a law student, with my little knowledge, why would people entertain a fool to this extent. Thokozani Khupe is more worried about Harvest House building when millions of Zimbabweans are hopeless and jobless, Khupe is more worried about Harvest House, when Zanu-PF is invading farms and mines, Thokozani Khupe is more worried about Harvest House building when millions of youths are on Harare streets and they have resorted to vending activities, Thokozani is more worried about Harvest House building when millions of women are giving birth under life threatening conditions, she is more worried about her make up, she is more worried about well ventilated offices when millions of Gukurahundi victims cannot have access to birth certificates??? Her quest for power and her appetite for money and assets has reached alarming levels. We are wasting time dwelling much on issues that can be resolved quickly. Why dont Thokozani Khupe report for Duty at Harvest House tomorrow? She knows where Harvest House is located and why doesnt she report for work? She got away with a brand new vehicle which belongs to Parliament and nothing happened to her? Really. She got away with the name MDC T and brought confusion to less than 30 000 people who voted for her?? She enjoys comedy and the public will judge her in future ! What a heartless woman, she can do anything so that she can smile all the way to the bank. Prices are skyrocketing, Thoko will never respond? Tobacco farmers are getting bond money whilst Zim Government is selling tobacco in USD, Thokozani is silent? The unemployment rate has reached 98.6%, Thokozani is more worried about Harvest House??. No drugs in Hospitals , Khupe wants to be at Harvest House? Zimbabwe has run out of fuel, and we are experiencing hardships, Khupe wants Harvest House keys She wants to gain entry into the building. Dont forget she hasnt paid for the Parliamentary vehicle, and ask yourself why? As we approach the elective congress it is the duty of the delegates to do a diligent exercise by electing a sound leadership which is both loyal and academically sound. You cant believe that this was a Deputy President to the late Icon Morgan Tsvangirai. To her make ups and outfits are more important than 4/5 million Zimbabweans surviving under the Datum Poverty Line !!! Who cares ? Thats Thokozani Khupe for you who can easily get away with anything, after conniving with courts and the system! Recently she was touring Chimanimani and Chipinge, with other bunch of losers purporting to be having dialogue. Thokozani whats wrong with you? Are you okay upstairs? So sad cant believe this ! Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo is studying Doctor of Philosophy at Womens University of Africa and he can be contacted at tinamuzala@gmail.com Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Gospel songstress Ivy Kombo today opened up on how she feels about other female artists the likes of Janet Manyowa, Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave and Carol Mujokoro. In an interview with Gem Nation News, Ivy spoke highly of other female artists saying she felt blessed when she listens to their music. Oh! Wow . . . I feel blessed and I remember listening to Janet Manyowa as I lay in bed. I love them all Fungisai, Janet, Carol Mujokoro and Elizabeth their music soothes the soul, she said. The Nguva Yakwana hitmaker who is returning to mainstream music scene after a 14-year-sabbatical, has a new upcoming album titled Like Mt Zion. The eight-track studio album produced at MacDonald MacDee Chidavaenzi studios, is as refreshing as it is soothing. The music and the feel has changed but she has maintained her authenticity as a gospel artist. One of the plug tracks off that album Ndiyaniko was inspired by the recent disaster when hundreds of people in Chimanimani and Chipinge were wiped out by Cyclone Idai. The song is jazzy and slow tempo but it is a good listen considering that Ivy has brought out that lyrical prowess that she is known for. Ivy is back home with a view to relaunching the popular Nguva Yakwana Concert scheduled for November 16 in Harare. She is also expected to launch Behind the Lyrics, a project that aims to impart music knowledge to musicians young and old. The project which will be held in the build up to the Nguva Yakwana is aimed at giving female musicians the knowhow on music and family. In Zimbabwe female musicians face a number of challenges and one of them being that they are wives and performing artists. When the marriage is having challenges so does their career. This is where we need to separate issues because it doesnt mean that if marriage is not working so is their talent. And Zimbabwean fans tend to hate the artist and then look elsewhere either in South Africa where even the same challenges face the artists. This is what we need to change, she said. Gospel songstress and style icon Ivy Kombo Gospel songstress and style icon Ivy Kombo GemNation News Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News President Mnangagwa has appointed Transport and Infrastructure Development Deputy Minister Fortune Chasi as the new minister of Energy and Power Development while Minister Joram MacDonald Gumbo has been appointed Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in charge of Implementation and Monitoring. The President also appointed Engineer Mackenzie Ncube as the new chairman of the National Oil Infrastructure Company board. In statement last night, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda said the appointments were with immediate effect. His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and Commander-In-Chief of the Defence Forces, Cde ED Mnangagwa has made the following senior appointments and re-assignments: Hon Minister Joram MacDonald Gumbo has been appointed Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in charge of Implementation and Monitoring. Hon Fortune Chasi, current Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development has been appointed Minister of Energy and Power Development, read the statement. Engineer Ncube replaced Mr Jemias Madzingira who was retired. President Mnangagwa appointed Minister Gumbo as Cabinet Minister and Cde Chasi as deputy minister last year after winning the 2018 harmonised elections. Prior to his appointment last year, Minister Gumbo had served as Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister in the previous Cabinet. Engineer Ncube is a former Member of Parliament. Herald Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News CABINET this week approved a 25 years-long joint venture between the Cold Storage Company (CSC) and a United Kingdom firm, Boulstead Beef (Pvt) Limited, but records from the British companies registry show that Boulstead is a broke shelf company with exactly 2 in its bank accounts as of 30 April, 2018. The State media says will see the investor injecting US$130 million into the meat processing firm, yet Boulstead has not been trading since 2012. But the so-called U.K. meat giant which will supposedly inject US$130 million into CSC has been exposed as a mere briefcase company with a 10,000 share capital and a cellphone for its main contact number, and has been dormant since 2012. Boulstead also has a three-member Board of directors, two of them with the same second name plus the IT Manager who sits on the board. The directors also trade as Rhodesian Meat company. Asked if 25 years was not too long while CSC was being operated by the private investor, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the period was sort of a standard across the world, and can stretch to 35 years, since they are funded by debt. Prof Ncube said 25 years would allow the investor to recoup their US$130 million and then give the CSC back to Government. This particular company has also been dormant since 2012. Records from the UK companies registry show that the nature of Boulstead Beef is Growing of vegetables and melons, roots and tubers, and well as mixed farming. According to Mthuli Ncube, Boustead Beef also plans to export products to countries like China, Botswana and Angola, said Prof Ncube. So the benefits are incredible for the economy. We are happy with the progress so far and as Government are supporting them to make sure that they can really resuscitate CSC to its former glory, said Prof Ncube. He reckons that in the first year, Boustead is expected to invest US$45 million, with US$10 million set to be channelled towards the purchase of cattle to replenish the stock. How on earth can it manage CSC? This is beyond belief. Nothing to look at in terms of accounts. Basically, its a briefcase business. Lets be serious if we need to build our country, said one Zimbabwean close to the deal. The Boulstead Beef (Pvt) Ltd balance sheet as at 2018 had a mere 10,000 share capital, and the company had not been trading since 2012. Mthuli Ncube also said Boustead will invest US$6 million into abattoirs refurbishment, canning factory, distribution infrastructure, working capital and IT systems while US$500 000 plant equipment has been ordered and paid for. The equipment is ready for shipping and would be installed upon arrival, Ncube said, adding that the investor has started paying employee salaries from February this year and is also cleaning its facilities. Boustead will also take over and manage CSC ranches in Maphaneni, Dubane, Umguza, Chivumbuni, Mushandike, Willsgrove and Darwendale for an initial period of 25 years. Minister Mutsvangwa said Boustead will take over and run CSC abattoirs in Bulawayo, Chinhoyi, Masvingo, Marondera and Kadoma for an initial period of 25 years. This is a developing story. More to follow ZOOMZimbabwe Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Shadowy facebook character Stanley Goreraza through an open letter has told President Emmerson Mnangagwa to fix the economy before he is slowly but surely removed from power by opposition leader Nelson Chamisa with the help of a disgruntled youthful Zimbabwe National Army. The open letter reads: Dear President Mnangagwa You have inadvertently made Nelson Chamisa popular. The more the economy worsens, the more popular Nelson Chamisa gets and the more radical his supporters become. Its not like he has any solutions but just the fact that he is seen as an alternative out there, many stream to his side. You now run the scary risk of junior army officers finding rhythm and melody in the idolatrous slogan Chamisa chete chete. People have lost patience and have had enough of economic pain and suffering. You can not fault them for that. You need to act like yesterday. Every day life gets worse and more unbearable for ordinary Zimbabweans. The greatest threat to National Security is the economy and the only way to neutralize this threat is addressing it with the urgency it poses. First thing: You cannot fix the economy without dropping an atomic bomb on corruption. Corruption is the seed to all of Zimbabwes economic problems. You have to wipe it out through deadly blows that will impress and satisfy the public. Second thing: Your partys ideology is obsolete and in need of major upgrading for it to comport with the current world order. Your revolutionary and nationalistic politics and policies are outdated and not compatible with todays world. You have to go modern. We are no longer in the fifties and sixties we are in the age of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Pictures of armed soldiers running after unarmed civilians will win you no friends. China has a pathological aversion for corruption and they will not work with you as long as your country has a reputation for being corrupt. Mr President, its useless to sweep and clean the streets of Zimbabwe when the economy is as filthy as a dump site. You need to take that broom and thoroughly sweep corruption into the dust pan. Clean up the economy and the streets will clean themselves up. Yours sincerely SG Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Yves here. Recall that the UK refused to knuckle under to US pressure not to do business with Huawei, and also appears to have woken up to the fact that the US is prepared to take advantage of UK desperation in the event of a hard or crash-out Brexit. So Helmers reading may not be as much of a stretch as it might appear to US readers, who assume that the UK is ever and always Americas poodle. By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears The Swedish Governments decision that there is still probable cause for Julian Assange to be tried for a sexual offence committed against a sleeping woman nine years ago is a political gift to the British Government. London lawyers specializing in extradition cases say it is now up to Home Secretary Sajid Javid, the British justice minister, to decide whether the Swedish charge against Assange is more serious than the US charge of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, filed against Assange in London on April 11. Thats a political decision Prime Minister Theresa May will make, if she remains in power. Its a move she is believed to have negotiated with the Swedes to avoid a judgement by British judges that American prosecutors are too prejudiced for Assange to get a fair trial in the US. When there are competing requests the Secretary of State [Javid] decides which request takes priority, the source said. There are various mandatory, though not exhaustive statutory considerations including when requests are received and the gravity of the allegations. Given the respective allegations, the potential time limitation issues in Sweden and the history of the matter I would anticipate that would be a strong factor weighing in favour of the Swedish request. Other sources believe extradition to Sweden offers Assange a better than even chance of acquittal on the Swedish charge. The sources also believe that resistance by the Swedish courts to US political pressure for extradition will be greater than Prime Minister May or the British courts want to show. Until the Swedish Prosecution Authority acted on Monday, Assange was facing the likelihood of up to three years of proceedings before a London magistrate and the appeals courts. That process is a non-political one restricted to the courts and judges; they have shown reluctance in several notable cases to extradite British citizens who are US targets. The likelihood of an independent judiciary ruling against the US was spelled out here. In Stockholm on May 13 Swedens Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson said her agency has decided there is probable cause for an allegation of rape from August 2010. They will reopen the old case, she said, and apply for a detention order to Uppsala District Court, as the suspected crime took place in Enkoping municipality. She confirmed there have been negotiations with British officials. Julian Assange has been convicted of a crime in the UK and will serve 25 weeks of his sentence before he can be released, according to information from UK authorities. I am well aware of the fact that an extradition process is ongoing in the UK and that he could be extradited to the US. In the event of a conflict between a European Arrest Warrant and a request for extradition from the US, UK authorities will decide on the order of priority. The outcome of this process is impossible to predict. However, in my view the Swedish case can proceed concurrently with the proceedings in the UK. Assange may be questioned while in British jail, but only if he and his lawyers consent. They are not saying if they will. The Swedish statement reveals that British officials have told the Swedes that although Assange has been sentenced to 50 weeks of imprisonment on the bail violation charge, he may be released after 25 weeks; this six-month period would expire in October. There have been no comments on the Stockholm announcement by Assanges British lawyers, Geoffrey Robertson and Jennifer Robinson; their silence since mid-April is highly unusual. Assanges colleagues at Wikileaks and in Sweden have released contradictory statements, indicating they arent sure whether the Swedish option is a more favourable one for Assange than the British. Swedish law on extradition, according to this government summary, raises two legal questions does the indictment federal US prosecutors presented in London last month amount to a crime in Sweden, or is it a lawful act of publication and freedom of speech? And is the US Government pursuing Assange for political reasons? THE US CHARGE AGAINST ASSANGE Source: https://www.justice.gov/ Extradition is permitted, according to Stockholm, provided that the act for which extradition is requested is equivalent to a crime that is punishable under Swedish law by imprisonment for at least one year. If sentence has been passed in the state applying for extradition, the penalty must be imprisonment for at least four months or other institutional detention for an equivalent period. Thus, extradition requires an offence punishable under the law of both countries (dual criminality) that, in principle, is of a certain degree of seriousness. The wording of the US indictment accuses Assange of a military offence. On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications, as designated according to Executive Order No. 13526 or its predecessor orders. The indictment claims the alleged offence was committed by a serving soldier in a combat zone. Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning was an intelligence analyst in the United States Army, who was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq. Identification of the Pentagon as Assanges target is significant because his alleged offence is explicitly excluded from extradition under Article V Sections 4 and 5 of Swedens extradition law: US-SWEDEN CONVENTION ON EXTRADITION, 1961 Source: US-Sweden Convention on Extradition, October 1961 Extradition may not be granted for military or political offences, reads the current Swedish Government statement. Nor may extradition be granted if there is reason to fear that the person whose extradition is requested runs a risk on account of his or her ethnic origins, membership of a particular social group or religious or political beliefs of being subjected to persecution threatening his or her life or freedom, or is serious in some other respect. Nor, moreover, may extradition be granted if it would be contrary to fundamental humanitarian principles Nor may extradition be granted if the offence would have been statute-barred by limitation under Swedish law. A Swedish Court of Appeal review of the case on Assanges alleged sexual offences, issued in September 2016, judged that he was still liable for extradition to Sweden on the rape charge, but that once in Swedish custody, he would be covered by Swedish law protections against extradition to the US. There may be an impediment if extradition of a person is requested for a political offence, a three-judge panel ruled. The Swedish courts have decided that drug smuggling and murder are not political offences covered by Art. V, but espionage is. Until a month ago, it didnt occur to the Swedes or to Assanges defenders that the US prosecutors would charge him with a purely military offense. The Americans came up with that in order to satisfy British objections to extradition on a journalism or political offence. Earlier reporting of Swedish government assessments indicates that the Swedish courts are likely to look behind the current US indictment to the political context of the American accusations against Assange. If the Virginia prosecutors were to change their indictment for Stockholm, that would trigger even stronger Swedish resistance, based on the case of CIA agent, Edward Lee Howard (right). On the run from the US he was arrested in Sweden in 1992. He was released, however, on the Swedish judicial ruling that his alleged spying was a political offence under Art.V (5). Howard then flew to safe haven in Moscow. A decade later, he reportedly died in July 2002 after an accidental fall at his dacha. The British Labour Party has opposed British extradition on the US charges. A letter to Home Secretary Javid, signed by 71 mostly Labour MPs, the day after Assange was arrested inside the Ecuador Embassy, urged Javid to give priority to the Swedish rape charge over the US claim. Emily Thornberry, Labours shadow foreign secretary, tweeted: our priority should be the 2 alleged victims of sexual violence in Sweden & not a ruse to get him extradited to the US as a whistleblower. Between the British, Swedes and Americans right now, comments a London press source, there is a no-love-lost triangle over Assange. Only the Americans really want him; the British and Swedes dont want to fight the Americans on Assanges behalf, but they dont want to pay the domestic political price of caving in on the press freedom and whistleblower issues. Everyone is looking for a way out. Maybe the Swedes will follow the Howard precedent; they will acquit Assange and then put him on a plane to Moscow. Thats if the Kremlin agrees. Yves here. This is a useful article as far as it goes, but it may not go far enough for the taste of some readers. The first is that it may miss the real source of the outtrade between the US and China, which is that China appears not to accept a fundamental consequence of greater economic integration with other countries, which is a weakening of national sovereignity. This is a fundamental point made by Dani Rodriks trade trileamma. The US supported China joining the WTO in 2003 largely for geopolitical reasons, that trading more with the rest of the world would bring Chinese interests more in alignment with those of the West. It didnt hurt that multinationals were salivating at the prospect of getting access to Chinas ginormous population, even if it might take a while for incomes to rise enough for consumer to be able to afford all that much. However, what we have also seen is a massive shift of investment from advanced economies to China, along with the moderate to high skilled manufacturing jobs that they provided. We noted in a 2005 Conference Board Review article how US businesses, starting in 2003, had become net savers, which was unnatural by historical standards. That change was accompanied by labor share of GDP growth also being unprecedentedly low for a post World War II expansion. But too many people, particularly executives at large (and therefore politically influential) companies were making out from the China boom for beefs about risks and downsides to be given much of a hearing. And even when China was clearly engaging in abusive behavior, the US failed to do anything about it. For instance, the US was ready to file a case against China and Indonesia for its subsidies to coated paper producer violated WTO rules. This case would have had a new wrinkle by focusing on subsidies to plant construction and startup, which are important drivers of total costs in this highly capital-intensive industry. But the US failed to proceed, nor did it win any concessions from either country. China has thus for a very long time been able to have its cake and eat it: run a mercantilist trade policy, yet not hew anywhere near as much as its trade partners to trade rules, laws, and contracts. Weve allowed China to be exceptional. Given Chinas hypersensitivity to being pushed around, its not going to take well to the premise that it has to behave like everyone else. Another issue is that the author gives the usual warnings about trade wars being bad things. As UserFriendly described trade economist Paul Krugmans column earlier this week, Krugman takes a small detour from being wrong about everything to point out that trade wars arent the end of the world before returning to style. By Greg Wright, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, Merced. Originally published at The Conversation The truce in the U.S.-China trade war is in tatters. China said on May 13 that it will impose new tariffs on a range of American goods in retaliation for President Donald Trumps decision to raise duties on US$200 billion in Chinese imports. Although trade talks may continue, for now the trade war that Trump began in January 2018 is back on, which will mean more economic pain for companies and consumers in both the U.S. and China. As an economist who focuses on international trade, I believe there are three reasons the conflict could continue for a long time. 1. Mastering the Fundamentals All evidence suggests that negotiators have made little headway resolving the fundamental disagreements between China and the U.S. The most pressing issues involve deep structural features of the Chinese economy that China has little incentive or in some cases, ability to change. In short, the U.S. believes that the Chinese government has been both too involved and not involved enough in how its economy functions. The most important and long-standing issue is that the Chinese economy owes part of its rapid development in recent decades to heavy subsidization of targeted companies and industries. The U.S. wants China to be much more transparent about this support and to reduce subsidies overall. At the same time, the Chinese government has not been doing enough when it comes to protecting foreign intellectual property in China. Copyright enforcement is still weak, and U.S. companies are forced to transfer technologies to Chinese counterparts as a condition of doing business in the country. This is estimated to cost American businesses hundreds of billions of dollars a year. But China is unlikely to end industrial subsidies or increase enforcement of intellectual property laws in any meaningful way in the short run. In part this is because the Chinese economy is growing more slowly than at any other time in the last two decades, and any significant change in policy would be risky. China might be persuaded to transition away from this economic model in the long run if the proper incentives are put in place. But it remains to be seen whether the Trump administration has the patience to compromise on its short-run objectives in order to create a long-run path toward a more level playing field. 2. Carrots and Sticks The U.S. negotiating position has been heavy on stick and light on carrot. Even before the trade war, Chinese companies faced significant tariffswhen exporting to the U.S. some dating back to before China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Critically, they are unlikely to be removed regardless of the outcome of negotiations. Many of these tariffs are known as antidumping duties and are imposed when a product is sold in the U.S. at a price legally determined to be too low. Overall, these tariffs are nearly twice as high as the tariffs that the Trump administration has so far imposed during the current trade war. Ultimately, China does not want to appear to be folding to U.S. pressure when it already faces significant, and likely non-negotiable, tariffs. So unless the U.S. decides to offer China some kind of carrot, such as reducing these underlying duties, trade talks will undoubtedly continue to stall or will achieve little. 3. More Pain May Mean Less Gain The costs of the trade war up to now have been high, but could get much worse. And that could lower the odds of ending it. So far consumers may not have noticed the tariffs since they are spread across thousands of products and, in some cases, have been absorbed by U.S. companies for competitive reasons. Nevertheless they have cost each American around $11 per month, according to a recent study by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University which is not insignificant. In fact, the Trump administration inadvertently provided an ideal test case for the calculation of these costs when it imposed a tariff on imported washing machines in January. As it turns out, approximately 1,800 jobs were created in the U.S. as a result of this policy, which was exactly its intended effect. However, the rise in the price of washing machines and, incidentally, dryers, cost consumers over $1.5 billion. This means each job cost $815,000, which is an expensive and inefficient way to boost U.S. employment. And while consumers may not have noticed the previous tariffs, they most likely will feel the impact of the ones Trump raised on May 10. Trump has also said he plans to slap a tariff on every other Chinese export in the coming months if a deal isnt reached. This would likely curb U.S. economic growth by half a percentage point in 2020 and cost 300,000 jobs, according to Oxford Economics. With the accumulation of tariffs, and the passing of time, the need for greater concessions from China to justify these costs becomes more pressing and becomes less likely to be met. This is a key reason that economists nearly unanimously agree that trade wars are not easy to win, as Trump claims. More often than not everyone loses. On Thursday, 16 May 2019, the NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tunisia, H.E. Mr. Khemaies Jhinaoui at NATO Headquarters. There will be no media opportunity. Still and video images will be available on the NATO website after the event. Professional-quality videos and b-roll will be available for download from www.natomultimedia.tv. Please register for access. Contact: content@natomultimedia.tv Follow us on Twitter (@NATO, @NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg). (Natural News) Concerned with the manner in which the social media tech giants are censoring, banning, and deplatforming conservative news organizations and political figures, a British filmmaker has produced a new movie exposing the blatant Left-wing bias of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and others. In an interview with Big League Politics, filmmaker George Llewellyn-John noted that he wants to inform as many people as possible that the social media behemoths have become Orwellian speech Nazis, even though their platforms have become an integrated part of modern life and exclusion from them can negatively impact people and businesses. As Big League Politics noted: The movie, set to be released on May 15, will offer a behind-the-scenes perspective on the recent waves of censorship at the hands of big tech companies that has resulted in prominent conservatives being removed from the public sphere. People think its just social media, we still have this outdated view of it, Llewellyn-John wrote in response to an interview request from BLP. In reality, social media is where we live our lives, where we refine our views and hammer out important cultural issues. Its the one person, one vote principle, he noted further. It doesnt matter how educated you are or what your income is or what you do for a living you get a vote. It should be the same for social media. The filmmaker said he hopes his project will help mainstream conservatives get a clue about how impactful social media is on their political objectives, while convincing the Left that they, too, are not going to be immune from an all-powerful social media cabal at some point in the future. I hope people on the Right, particularly the mainstream Right, will realize how big a problem this is for them. Llewellyn-John added that he hopes that people on the Left will realize this issue is going to start affecting them as well. Continuing, he noted, We have to stop viewing free speech as a one-sided issue. The timing for release is perfect The filmmaker said he doesnt align politically with all of the figures depicted in his film. However, he nevertheless believes their stories are important for society because if the First Amendment isnt for everyone then it isnt for anyone (and look it takes a Brit to point that out to the American Left). While his film had been in production for a while, he noted that as things heated up in terms of the coverage of social media shadow banning and deplatforming he ramped up his production schedule so that he could get the picture released by May 15. He began production of You Cant Watch This in January, he said, so the flick includes some highlights and critical moments in the history of social media censorship. This includes British Right-leaning activist Tommy Robinson making his last livestream on Facebook before he was banned, as well as conservative and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes wrestling with the prospect of starting from scratch after being deplatformed by virtually all social media. Llewellyn-John told Big League Politics he believes the timing behind his films release is perfect and that for the people involved its never been more urgent. The film will be released exclusively on Vimeo, Llewellyn-John said. Timing, indeed. Just last week Alex Jones and his Infowars news organization, along with conservatives Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer, were completely banned from Facebook, which is home to more than 1 billion users. President Donald Trump has expressed solidarity with conservatives who have been banned recently and in the past, as well as concern over whether the platforms should be regulated by the government. (Related: POTUS Trump blasts illegal social media BIAS and censorship, vows actions.) Attorney General William Barr said during his confirmation hearings in January he would examine antitrust issues regarding the big tech platforms. Read more about how the tech giants are stifling free speech and the First Amendment at TechGiants.news and FirstAmendment.news. Sources include: TheHill.com BigLeaguePolitics.com NewsTarget.com (Natural News) As if fracking wasnt causing enough environmental problems, Pennsylvania-based researchers claims that oil companies could extract more oil from unconventional reservoirs. Their recently published study shows that the companies need to reconsider the physics found in those deep wells. As of 2017, the United States gets more than 50 percent of its current oil production from unconventional formations like shale reservoirs. The percentage is expected to increase as more companies set up additional wells to get a bigger slice out of a pie estimated to exceed more than 35 billion barrels of oil. Oil companies access these reservoirs by creating hydraulic fractures that allow oil to flow through horizontal wells for primary recovery. They predict the recovery and remaining reserves using Darcys law, which looks at differences in pressure to calculate the flow of oil. But researchers at the Pennsylvania State University (PennState) said that Darcys law did not apply to shale reservoirs. Furthermore, the gas injection technique was not the right approach to move oil out of an unconventional reservoir and into the horizontal well. (Related: Is fracking just a cover for a corporate water grab? Control the water, control the people.) Researchers propose using diffusion-based oil extraction techniques for shale reservoirs The oil industry uses a technique nicknamed huff n puff. They first pump pressurized gas into the well and fractures. Then they close the well for a short while to let the carbon dioxide or methane soak. When the well is opened, the pressurized gas will force the oil out. However, the PennState researchers said that pressure differences were not the primary force behind oil recovery in formation of shale, a type of rock with many tiny pores. Instead, it was diffusion, where gas molecules move at random within a medium in this case, oil. When gas diffuses through oil, the density of the oil decreases. This changes the balance between the oil inside fractures and the oil in the shale formation that is in contact with the fractures. The resulting imbalance forces oil to move into the well for extraction. Oil companies have been keeping the soaking period as short as possible in the belief that closing down a well costs them too much money. However, in order to get the most out of diffusion, the soaking period needs to last at least two months. The PennState researchers said that switching techniques from pressure to diffusion, using a low-pressure gas, and extending soaking periods could double or triple the recovery in a well. They recommended using methane or nitrogen instead of carbon dioxide because those gases diffuse more quickly, which translates to smaller amounts of gas needed for each injection. The drawbacks of making fracking more efficient for oil companies Fracking has a number of serious drawbacks associated with it. First, it causes considerable amounts of air pollution, noise pollution, and oil-related pollution that harm the environment and living organisms, including humans. Second, it uses up a lot of water, especially during the processing of drilling extraction wells. Third, fracking operations could contaminate local bodies of water, including sources of drinking water. Fourth, it is a dangerous industry that endangers the lives of its workers by exposing them to hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals. And last but not least, it has been linked to the increasing number of earthquakes in states that host fracking operations. Increasing the efficiency of fracking would make it more profitable for oil companies. Because diffusion takes more time, companies would want to drill more wells to compensate for the extended well closures. In turn, increasing the number of active wells would greatly intensify the various environmental and health problems caused by the poorly regulated fracking industry, up to and especially including earthquakes. Sources include: ScienceDaily.com EIA.gov (Natural News) The Charlotte Observers Anna Douglas cant stop gushing about a North Carolina woman who now identifies as a man, and whos also pregnant with child. Like many LGBT-allied libtards, Douglas believes that taking artificial hormones and pretending to be the opposite sex is some kind of modern miracle as opposed to a serious mental illness just like how the Left believes that carbon dioxide (CO2) is somehow destroying the planet, as opposed to feeding plants and balancing our ecosystems. As foretold in Romans 1, Douglas and her fellow Leftists have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and changed the truth of God into a lie. Theyve somehow convinced themselves and are now trying to convince everybody else that innate biological sex is just a social construct, and that natural gases that have existed on our planet since it was created are causing global warming and climate change. Its a deranged belief system based on fairy tales and myths that suit the liberal agenda, but that have absolutely no basis whatsoever in reality. But, sadly, its what passes for news and progress these days, as the social engineers behind it all seek to abolish the male-female binary and replace it with a cornucopia of LGBT perversion. These corrupters also want us all to suffer from climate anxiety, a form of mental illness that causes a person to have mental breakdowns over their irrational fears about CO2 causing the planet to warm. Where it all ends, nobody really knows. If people these days are gullible enough to believe that a man can actually get pregnant and give birth, or that CO2, upon which all trees, plants, and other greenery rely in order to grow and flourish, is somehow toxic, then it would appear as though humanity is irretrievably doomed, and that its only a matter of time before this mass delusion leads to total societal breakdown. Reality to liberals is just an ever-evolving fiction that caters to their perverted delusions Some, including Jonathan van Maren from Life Site News, are doing their best to wake people up to the fact that absolute truth does exist on such matters. But it would seem to be an increasingly uphill battle to bring the Leftist masses, at least, back in line with reality, rather than the fictions that exist solely within their own heads. Of course, it is biologically impossible for a male to become pregnant, so the media are simply assuming that you are enlightened enough to have accepted a series of increasingly unhinged premises over the past half-decade or so: that men can become female by identifying as female, and vice versa, van Maren says. you are simply expected to accept certain things without asking any questions that a decade ago would have made you sane but today make you an irredeemable bigot, he adds. Things such as fathers giving birth to their own children. Its not so much about actually convincing people using sound logic and science that men are women, or that CO2 is a pollutant because such a feat is literally impossible. Its more about normalizing such concepts across a large enough segment of the population that people simply accept it due to the sirens song of confirmation bias. After all, who wants to be the lone, thinking student in a college lecture course bringing up the facts about our constantly-changing climate, only to be ridiculed by the majority for being a crazy climate denier? Or who wants to be the bigoted transphobe that speaks up about the fact that humans only come in male or female, and nothing else? youre not supposed to ask questions, van Maren contends. The world they are seeking to usher in is one where personal autonomy has become so radical that biological reality must bend to your will, and those of us who want to shout that the emperor has no clothes must be forced to play along. For more news about gender insanity and climate change, be sure to check out Gender.news and ClimateScienceNews.com. Sources for this article include: LifeSiteNews.com BibleGateway.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Breast implants may give women confidence, but theyre also giving a rising number of them cancer. The Food and Drug Administration announced recently that more women with implants are being diagnosed with anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a rare and deadly type of cancer that affects immune system cells. Compared to women without breast implants, those who have undergone the procedure have a higher risk of developing this type of cancer. At least 457 American women with implants have been diagnosed with it thus far, and nine have died from it. In response to these concerning statistics, the FDA has issued a letter warning medical professionals of the link between the implants and this type of lymphoma. The letter says that doctors should be particularly concerned about patients who experience new swelling, pain or lumps around their implants. The disease is fatal but grows slowly and can be treated if it is detected early enough. Theyve also asked health care providers to report cases of breast implant associated with anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or BIA-ALCL, to the FDA. The FDA letter explains where the cancer is forming. Breast implants are generally placed behind breast tissue or beneath the chest muscle. A fibrous scar known as a capsule eventually develops around the implant and separates it from the breast, and it is within this capsule and adjacent to the implant itself where most of the BIA-ALCL cases have been found. It can also spread throughout the body. Textured breast implants often to blame So far, most of the cancers have been reported by women who got textured breast implants. These implants have a slightly rough surface rather than a smooth covering, although the smooth varietys link cant be ruled out as the type of implant in some lymphoma cases is not known. Despite this link, however, the FDA has stopped short of banning the sale of textured implants, even though other countries have done so. In the U.S., just 10 percent of implants are textured; that figure is as high as 80 percent in some countries. Last month, France became the first country to ban the implants, although it did not recommend that the 70,000 French women who have this type of implant get them surgically removed. So far, 59 cases of BIA-ALCL have been recorded there and three women have died from it. The country was involved in a different breast cancer scandal back in 2010 when it was revealed that a popular implant maker had been filling them using a cheap industrial silicone gel rather than the medical-grade variety, putting their lives in danger. On that occasion, the French government did recommend removal. The Netherlands and Canada are also planning to stop sales of textured breast implants in the coming months. Roughly 11 million women worldwide have breast implants. In addition to lymphoma, some women with implants have been experiencing systemic problems collectively known as breast implant illness. This includes symptoms such as pain, immune problems, chronic fatigue, and cognitive issues. Many women find that these symptoms resolve upon removal of their implants. Women who are considering getting breast implants, whether their reasons are cosmetic or reconstructive, need to be aware of the risks of BIA-ALCL and other issues so they can make an informed decision, and those who decide to go through with the procedure also need to know what symptoms they should be looking out for. Some advocates believe that women arent getting all the facts up front about breast implants and cancer and that many would not have undergone the procedure had they been aware of the risks. Sources for this article include: LiveScience.com Edition.CNN.com (Natural News) Think twice about making the next purchase of supposedly pure and safe bottled water. A new study held by a non-profit organization showed that many bottled water products from big brands contained at least a trace of microplastic contamination. Performed by a research team from Orb Media and held in a laboratory at the State University of New York (SUNY), the experiment surveyed more than 250 individual samples of bottled water from 11 brands. Only a few of the bottles proved to be free of microplastics, while some of the contaminated containers had thousands of tiny bits of plastic. All tested brands had microplastics in some of the bottles. The biggest offender came from Nestle one particular bottle of Nestle Pure Life contained more than 10,000 particles per liter of water. Nestle and another bottled water manufacturer, Germany-based company Gerolsteiner, disputed the results of the Orb Media study. Both companies claimed that they tested their own products and found far smaller amounts of microplastics in the water. (Related: SHOCK: 90% of table salt contains tiny pieces of plastic.) Microplastic contaminants are now found in many bottled water products The Orb Media-SUNY experiment used a particle-spotting technique developed by University of East Anglia (UEA) biochemistry researcher Andrew Mayes. He warned that microplastic contamination of bottled water could affect glass bottles as well as plastic bottles. The study mostly focused on plastic bottles, but one batch of glass ones were checked for comparison, he noted in an interview. It turns out that the glass ones have microplastics too. There is not enough data regarding the effects of tiny plastics on human health. But the World Health Organization announced that it will investigate the possible health risks of accidentally consumed microplastics. While most microplastics are believed to eventually pass out of the body, the smallest pieces could end up trapped in the kidneys, liver, and other organs. Microplastics of this size happen to be the ones found in the recently evaluated bottled water. The other potential health concern about microplastics is the possibility that plastics release toxic chemicals during their stay inside the body. So the plastics could still be causing health problems long after they were gone. What can be done to reduce microplastic pollution of bottled and tap water? Back in 2017, Orb Media held a similar study. Its researchers reported finding signs of microplastic contamination in samples of tap water around the world. Plastic particles have also been discovered in beer, honey, table salt, and especially seafood. Many marine lifeforms have also been contaminated by the increasing plastic waste in the oceans. In recent years, European countries recognized the environmental and public health problems caused by plastic pollution. The European Union (EU) expressed its desire to switch over to recyclable plastics by 2030. Meanwhile, the U.K. set a goal of getting rid of avoidable plastic products within 25 years. EU regulations already forbid the presence of contaminants in bottled water. But there is no specific mention of microplastics. Similarly, the U.S. lacks any laws that address microplastic contamination of food and drinks. Going back to the Orb Media study, Mayes attributed most of the microplastic contaminants in bottled water to the packaging process. Microplastics in the original water source cannot be ruled out, but seem unlikely in most cases because the water is either pumped up from aquifers (where it has been filtered through ground and rock, over many years) or it is exhaustively filtered and purified as part of the production process, he pointed out. It is hard to see how microplastics would sneak through that process, unless filters or beds are damaged in some way. Sources include: Health.com OrbMedia.org (Natural News) Not only is it becoming increasingly obvious that Western liberals are becoming anti-Christian, they are also becoming increasingly authoritarian when it comes to the practice of Christianity by others. Most Americans have this image of Canada as some liberal utopia where health care is free (and good), there is no such thing as violence, and freedom rings. While our northern neighbor is certainly dominated by liberals, the country is a far cry from a utopia. In fact, its getting to be a far cry from being free. As Big League Politics reports, lawmakers in the province of Ontario are considering a piece of legislation that would have the same effect as criminalizing the public practice of Christianity. The bill, Prohibiting Hate-Promoting Demonstrations at Queens Park Act, 2019, would criminalize public displays erected by Christians that some could claim are hateful to Muslims (as though the Muslim religion isnt hateful of Christians), the LGBTQRSXYX community, and any other group deemed victims by the intolerant Left. If passed, the measure would ban any demonstration, rally or other activity that is deemed hateful by the Speaker from being permissible on legislative grounds effectively insulating the government from Christian speech, Big League Politics reported. LifeSite News further explains the nefariousness behind Canadas anti-hate laws which, in reality, go only one way when it comes to Christianity and public displays thereof (which, we presume, would include Christmas displays): The problem with this bill, however, lies in the fact that the definition of hate is uncertain under Canadian law. As a result, unfortunately, the use of the word hate can be a useful tool for some to prevent differing views from being expressed. That is, the word hate can be used to silence opposing views expressed when, in fact, the views are simply a reasonable expression of belief. And thats been the problem with allowing one end of the political spectrum (or the other) to define what hate is: Hate could be anything that a political opponent says it is, even if it labels a well-established religious belief as such. Whats more, its always the Left that gets to decide what hate is and what it means; conservatives have no say in the matter. Further, the actions the Left prescribes when dealing with hate is most often authoritarian, intolerant, and itself hateful like bans of Christian displays or even censoring Christians from speaking. Speech is speech; not everyone has to agree with it In Canada specifically, however, the Leftist hate and intolerance is not only being justified by the countrys lawmakers, its being codified into law by the countrys judiciary. As LifeSite News reported, Canadians have already experienced the contempt shown by the Supreme Court of Canada towards Section 2 of the Charter of Rights which provides for freedom of opinion, expression and religion (which sounds a lot like our First Amendment). For instance, in 2018, the moral covenant of a private Christian institution Trinity Western Christian University was deemed discriminatory and hateful by the court. In the 2013 case of Bill Whatcott, the high court ruled that what is relevant is the effects of an expression that was used, not the intent of the communicator. (Related: David Horowitz: We are marching to a one party state one persons dissent is another persons hate speech (VIDEO).) Also, the court additionally found that truthful statements and sincerely held beliefs do not affect the finding of hate. In a pamphlet, Whatcott merely expressed what are well-established facts about homosexuality; such expressions, however, are now considered hateful in Maple Leaf country. It should be noted that the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal had concluded previously that the pamphlet did not constitute hateful speech. But when you have a higher court full of progressives who consider that a badge of honor, the country will get decisions spiteful and even dare we say it? hateful of Christians and Christianity. In the U.S., our founders understood that not all Americans would agree with all speech, political positions, religious viewpoints, and social norms. But they understood that for a society to flourish, all ideas must be given consideration, even those a majority find disdainful. Canadians dont agree, apparently. Read more about how the Left suppresses dissent and seeks to manipulate the First Amendment at Suppressed.news and FirstAmendment.news. Sources include: BigLeaguePolitics.com LifesiteNews.com TheNationalSentinel.com (Natural News) Is your mobile phone carrier illegally selling your GPS location data to bounty hunters without your knowledge or consent? A new report says its a strong possibility, as it exposes pretty much every major cellphone carrier as a culprit in a massive privacy breach and surveillance scheme thats apparently been taking place for years under the radar. According to Motherboard (VICE), AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are all guilty of violating their customers privacy rights, as theyve been pawning off for profit sensitive location data about their users that was intended to be collected for 911 operators and other emergency services. These three major carriers reportedly pawned off the precise location data of at least some of their customers to roughly 250 bounty hunters, each of whom paid up to $1,100 a pop to location data companies working with these mobile phone carriers to the tune of tens of thousands of individual requests which procured them with this sensitive information. Is anything sacred anymore when it comes to personal privacy? While Motherboard uncovered last month that bounty hunters were illicitly accessing the location data of their targets by looking at the pings sent back and forth between their phones and local service towers, it has now been revealed that the data these bounty hunters have been accessing was even more precise than that. Reports indicate that a shadowy company called CerCareOne was collecting and selling assisted-GPS, also known as A-GPS, data, which is so accurate that it can actually pinpoint the exact location of a mobile phone user inside a building. While the stated purpose of collecting A-GPS data has long been that it helps emergency responders such as those dispatch by 911 more easily find victims, it would appear as though this data was actually a side gig for the mobile phone industry, which has been profiting from its illegal sale to private third parties. Motherboard reports that none of the three carriers in question have denied selling A-GPS data to bounty hunters, though CerCareOne is no longer in existence. AT&T has also stated on record that it no longer aggregates the location data of its customers after reports of misuse by other location services involving aggregators. Verizon also has partnerships with companies that sell private location data Verizon isnt in the clear, either, its important to note, even though its tracking technology is apparently a bit less sophisticated than the others. Like the other three, Verizon did have a partnership with a location data company called Securus, as well as several others. But the company has stated that its winding down these aggregator contracts, all of which are said to facilitate Verizons roadside assistance services. This scandal keeps getting worse, says Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, one of at least 15 senators who are urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action in response to these disturbing revelations. Carriers assured customers location tracking abuses were isolated incidents. Now, it appears that hundreds of people could track our phones, and they were doing it for years before anyone at the wireless companies took action, he added. Sen. Wyden went on to state that this is hardly just an oversight, but that its rather a flagrant, willful disregard for the safety and security of Americans. In response to the claim by all of the mobile phone carriers that they are going to stop engaging in this illegal behavior, Sen. Wyden stated, Ill believe it when I see it. He contends that these carriers are directly responsible for their customers location data, and that its inappropriate for them to lay the blame for misuse on downstream companies, which is what theyre all doing. For more related news, be sure to check out Corruption.news. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk Motherboard.VICE.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) As Democrats in Washington, D.C. and their sycophantic allies on the cable news channels continue to claim that POTUS Donald Trump is corrupt and that the evidence for it must exist somewhere a new scandal involving his predecessor, Barack Obama, has surfaced. And its a doozy. A Malaysian banker who allegedly masterminded the $4.5 billion fraud and theft of the 1MDB, a doomed sovereign wealth fund, has been indicted along with Pras Michel, the Fugees rapper who once included a cameo appearance from a pre-Apprentice Donald Trump on his hit solo album Ghetto Supastar, Zero Hedge reported Friday. Whats the link to Obama? Money stolen from the wealth fund was funneled to former President Obamas reelection campaign. Michel hasnt done much in terms of making music and releasing albums lately. In fact, most people had not heard his name mentioned much at all until stories began to surface about Malaysian financier Jho Lows outlandish parties in Las Vegas and how Michel was a close friend. In addition, Michel allegedly assisted Low in opening bank accounts in the United States that were then utilized to stash and hide the source of Lows funds, then donated to political action committees working to reelected Obama. Both men were busted on Friday in the same indictment which, as Zero Hedge noted further: [F]or those who have been keeping track of the sprawling 1MDB probe ties the 1MDB scandal one of the biggest financial frauds in history and former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to political organizations that supported Obamas reelection campaign. And wouldnt you know that the money was initially raised by Goldman Sachs, one of those evil banks that Obama and Democrats sought to target in 2009 and 2010 with a major new financial reform law that created the Consumer Financial Protection Board, believed to be above the law, virtually, and out of Congress hands to regulate (a federal judge has since found the boards regulatory actions improper because the board itself is unconstitutional). So an international figure who is believed to be hiding somewhere in China under the official protection of the Communist Party illegally used foreign money to tamper with a U.S. election. Sometimes, the truth can be stranger than fiction, Zero Hedge noted. Indeed. Where are the Democrats calls for transparency? According to a Justice Department statement, Low and Michel have been charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States a charge of which tinfoil hat-wearing Russian collusion conspiracy nuts like Rachel Maddow believe POTUS Donald is guilty). In addition, Michel was charged with a single count of attempting to conceal material facts as well as two counts of making a false entry in a record connected to a conspiracy. Michel has already appeared in U.S. court; Low, of course, remains at large. (Related: After fabricating the Russian collusion hoax, how does the FBI have ANY credibility to arrest a militia leader?) Here are the relevant facts behind the indictments, according to the statement: Between June 2012 and November 2012, Low directed the transfer of approximately $21,600,000 from foreign entities and accounts to his partner, Michel, to funnel significant sums of money into the U.S. The money was being transferred ostensibly for legitimate contributions, all while concealing the true source of the money. In order to conceal the transfers, Michel paid around $856,000 he got from Low to 20 or so straw donors (conduits) so those donors could make donations in their own names to a presidential joint fundraising committee. In addition, Michel personally directed more than $1 million of the money received from Low to an independent expenditure committee also involved in the presidential election in 2012. The straw donations and funneling caused false financial disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, according to the indictment. The charges all come from a wide-ranging investigation into the collapse of 1MDB, which was allegedly defrauded by former Prime Minister Najib Razak, Low, and close members of the Razak inner circle. Read more about the corruption and conspiracy of Democrat donors and Obama supporters at Corruption.news and Conspiracy.news. Sources include: ZeroHedge.com NewsTarget.com (Natural News) The radical left is free to believe whatever they want and post about it on social media. The leftists are free to advance their pages, businesses, and ideas. Thats great, but anyone who doesnt go along with them somehow violates hate speech policies on social media platforms and is therefore banned from using these services. The radical left has become totalitarian, pressuring social media companies (who share their agenda) to suppress their opposition, both politically and ideologically. This is tragically un-American. People who do not agree with the left are being shadow banned, de-monetized, and barred from using social media altogether. Conservatives, independent thinkers, journalists, and Trump supporters with great influence are being ripped off of social media platforms and segregated from the online world. This censorship is destroying equal opportunity, damaging democracy, hurting businesses, and putting a stranglehold on influential thought. This coordinated mind control across Big Tech is accusing people of hate and racism and unjustly persecuting them. This is segregation based on the color of ideas and it is forcing innocent, thoughtful people to the back of the bus. The authoritarian left is now targeting financial institutions to shut down their opposition If nothing is done about this censorship, and the rule of law is not restored, then a government that was intended to be of, for, and by the people has become complicit in the suppression of speech across the United States. Nevertheless, when totalitarianism and speech control is permitted, it will continue to put a stranglehold on other aspects of society. Soon, anyone who holds conservative views on topics like border security, second Amendment rights, or protecting human life will be denied payment services by banks. The authoritarian left is currently pressuring financial institutions to ban far right groups who promote hate and intolerance. Basically, anyone who disagrees with the left should not be included in a civil society. The authoritarian left believes that if you dont hold politically correct beliefs, then you shouldnt be able to buy and sell goods and services. An authoritarian group of leftists called the Sum of Us have successfully convinced MasterCard to hold a vote to set up a human rights committee. This committee of morally superior bankers would oversee who can use MasterCard services by analyzing customer transactions, their speech, and their business interests. If the customer holds views that are contrary to leftist thought, then they can be wrongfully accused of hate speech, racism, or human rights violations and denied MasterCard services. The authoritarian left is trying to stop the flow of income to anyone who disagrees with their political agenda. The Southern Poverty Law Center is behind much of the attacks on these pro-America organizations. Mastercard has already been shamed for processing payments for pro-American groups such as American Border Patrol, League of the South, Proud Boys, and Stormfront, as revealed on the leftists Bloodmoney.org site. MasterCards current board recommends that stockholders vote against the establishment of a new human rights committee. The board says they already monitor activities for alleged illegal use and work closely with law enforcement to shut down illegal activities. The board mentioned that they operate on the principle that consumers should be free to make all lawful purchases. On the surface, MasterCard looks like they will continue doing business with individuals and groups that the authoritarian left doesnt agree with, but internal pressures within the company on this issue could impact how conservatives are treated now and in the future. According to Breitbart, online payment platform Patreon reported that MasterCard pressured them to withdraw services from Robert Spencer, a vocal critic of radical Islam and the founder JihadWatch.org. (Related: Dystopian approach: SEC gives blessing to MasterCards idea of cutting off customers with right-wing views.) Even if the left doesnt get their way, they will continue accusing innocent people and groups of being white supremacists, white Nationalists, and Neo-Nazis. There has been an influx in articles that pressure social media companies and financial institutions to stop doing business with hate groups. Payment processing firms such as PayPal have come under fire for doing business with these hate groups which are really just organizations that care about border security, second amendment rights, or accountability for radical Islam. Facebook and online payment processors have been pressured to stop providing a forum for groups that violate human rights; most are harmless conservative think tanks, Christian groups, and pro-American alliances, all of which deserve a right to participate in public discussion and commerce. Sources include: InformationLiberation.com Censorship.News FreeRepublic.com Breitbart.com Censorship.News NEW YORK -- To move through the world, you need a sense of your surroundings, especially of the constraints that restrict your movement: the walls, ceiling and other barriers that define the geometry of the navigable space around you. And now, a team of neuroscientists has identified an area of the human brain dedicated to perceiving this geometry. This brain region encodes the spatial constraints of a scene, at lightning-fast speeds, and likely contributes to our instant sense of our surroundings; orienting us in space, so we can avoid bumping into things, figure out where we are and navigate safely through our environment. This research, published today in Neuron, sets the stage for understanding the complex computations our brains do to help us get around. Led by scientists at Columbia University's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and Aalto University in Finland, the work is also relevant to the development of artificial intelligence technology aimed at mimicking the visual powers of the human brain. "Vision gives us an almost instant sense where we are in space, and in particular of the geometry of the surfaces -- the ground, the walls -- which constrain our movement. It feels effortless, but it requires the coordinated activity of multiple brain regions," said Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute and the paper's senior author. "How neurons work together to give us this sense of our surroundings has remained mysterious. With this study, we are a step closer to solving that puzzle." To figure out how the brain perceives the geometry of its surroundings, the research team asked volunteers to look at images of different three-dimensional scenes. An image might depict a typical room, with three walls, a ceiling and a floor. The researchers then systematically changed the scene: by removing the wall, for instance, or the ceiling. Simultaneously, they monitored participants' brain activity through a combination of two cutting-edge brain-imaging technologies at Aalto's neuroimaging facilities in Finland. "By doing this repeatedly for each participant as we methodically altered the images, we could piece together how their brains encoded each scene," Linda Henriksson, PhD, the paper's first author and a lecturer in neuroscience and biomedical engineering at Aalto University. Our visual system is organized into a hierarchy of stages. The first stage actually lies outside brain, in the retina, which can detect simple visual features. Subsequent stages in the brain have the power to detect more complex shapes. By processing visual signals through multiple stages -- and by repeated communications between the stages -- the brain forms a complete picture of the world, with all its colors, shapes and textures. In the cortex, visual signals are first analyzed in an area called the primary visual cortex. They are then passed to several higher-level cortical areas for further analyses. The occipital place area (OPA), an intermediate-level stage of cortical processing, proved particularly interesting in the brain scans of the participants. "Previous studies had shown that OPA neurons encode scenes, rather than isolated objects," said Dr. Kriegeskorte, who is also a professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of cognitive imaging at Columbia. "But we did not yet understand what aspect of the scenes this region's millions of neurons encoded." After analyzing the participants' brain scans, Drs. Kriegeskorte and Henriksson found that the OPA activity reflected the geometry of the scenes. The OPA activity patterns reflected the presence or absence of each scene component -- the walls, the floor and the ceiling -- conveying a detailed picture of the overall geometry of the scene. However, the OPA activity patterns did not depend on the components' appearance; the textures of the walls, floor and ceiling -- suggesting that the region ignores surface appearance, so as to focus solely on surface geometry. The brain region appeared to perform all the necessary computations needed to get a sense of a room's layout extremely fast: in just 100 milliseconds. "The speed with which our brains sense the basic geometry of our surroundings is an indication of the importance of having this information quickly," said Dr. Henriksson. "It is key to knowing whether you're inside or outside, or what might be your options for navigation." The insights gained in this study were possible through the joint use of two complementary imaging technologies: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). fMRI measures local changes in blood oxygen levels, which reflect local neuronal activity. It can reveal detailed spatial activity patterns at a resolution of a couple of millimeters, but it is not very precise in time, as each fMRI measurement reflects the average activity over a five to eight seconds. By contrast, MEG measures magnetic fields generated by the brain. It can track activity with millisecond temporal precision, but does not give as spatially detailed a picture. "When we combine these two technologies, we can address both where the activity occurs and how quickly it emerges." said Dr. Henriksson, who collected the imaging data at Aalto University. Moving forward, the research team plans to incorporate virtual reality technology to create more realistic 3D environments for participants to experience. They also plan to build neural network models that mimic the brain's ability to perceive the environment. "We would like to put these things together and build computer vision systems that are more like our own brains, systems that have specialized machinery like what we observe here in the human brain for rapidly sensing the geometry of the environment," said Dr. Kriegeskorte. Removing invasive shrubs to restore native forest habitat brings a surprising result, according to Penn State researchers, who say desired native understory plants display an unexpected ability and vigor to recolonize open spots. "The regeneration of native plants that we saw where invasive shrubs had been removed exceeds what we expected from looking at uninvaded parts of the forest," said researcher Erynn Maynard-Bean, who recently earned her doctoral degree in ecology. "We believe that's because invasive shrubs take up residence in the best spots in the forest. They are most successful where there are the most resources -- sunlight, soil nutrients and water. Then, when invasive shrubs are removed, the growth of native plants in those locations beats expectations." She drew that conclusion after participating in a long-term project in the Arboretum at Penn State, which involved repeated removals of a suite of 18 invasive shrub species and closely monitoring the growth of native plants. That removal experiment was initiated by Margot Kaye, associate professor of forest ecology. In the experiment, after invasives were removed over seven years, plant diversity, native understory species abundance and overstory tree species regeneration, increased. The study took place in a woodlot known as the Hartley Wood, a unique old-growth tract of about 42 acres adjacent to what is now a municipal park, where the mostly oak, hickory and maple trees escaped the loggers' blades. A massive white oak that died there in 2000 was determined to have germinated around 1673. But likely because of its proximity to many landscaped homes, the Hartley Wood has been beset by an invasion of exotic plants, and Arboretum managers hope to eliminate them. Significantly, Maynard-Bean noted, the research demonstrates that sampling the abundance of invasive shrubs and native plants in a forest can minimize negative impacts that invasive shrubs have on native plant numbers. "We found that seven years of invasive shrub removal boosted natural regeneration of native plants that exceeded the abundance measured in unmanaged forest understories with low levels of shrub invasion," she said. "In this study, in which invasive shrubs have been prominent in the understory for more than 20 years, an ambient sampling approach underestimates the effect of invasive shrubs and the benefits of their removal." This research has allowed the native forest plant community to respond to invasive removal over nearly a decade, and highlights the capacity for that system to rebound, pointed out Kaye, whose research group in the College of Agricultural Sciences has been studying the impacts of woody shrub invasion on eastern forest dynamics for even longer. The findings of the study, published recently in Invasive Plant Science and Management, are important, Kaye explained, because invasive shrubs are increasing in abundance at the expense of native species across eastern deciduous forests of North America. Interest in invasive shrub removal to restore native habitat is growing but forest managers are not sure about how much natural regeneration of native plants they can expect. "A lot of people think that when you remove invasive shrubs you have to plant natives, and that is obviously helpful but difficult to afford on a large scale," Maynard-Bean said. "But there are native plants in the forest that are mixed with the invasives, and if you maintain the removal, the natives will come back in and take over." The research is relevant because eastern deciduous forests are becoming more fragmented as urban and suburban areas extend into forests, and associated edges and open spaces have allowed invasive shrubs to make inroads. That does not bode well for wildlife, Maynard-Bean said. "Native plants in the understory contribute to the health and stability of the forest ecosystem," she said. "Native shrubs don't reach the same density in the understory as invasive shrubs do, and that has implications for bird, insect and even forest amphibian communities." Saab has received an order to provide the United Kingdoms Royal Navy with the AUV62-AT anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training system. Delivery is expected to take place in 2019. Saab has received an order to provide the United Kingdoms Royal Navy with the AUV62-AT anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training system. Delivery is expected to take place in 2019. Saabs AUV62-AT autonomous underwater vehicle system (Picture source: SAAB) Saab has received this order in collaboration with the UK-based company QinetiQ. The order comprises of Saabs AUV62-AT autonomous underwater vehicle system. This system is a cost-efficient training solution allowing ASW units to train in a wide range of scenarios. This procurement follows a period of testing and evaluation together with QinetiQ and the Royal Navy. We welcome the Royal Navy as our latest customer of the AUV62-AT. Together with QinetiQ we have demonstrated and used the AUV62-AT in multiple training scenarios to show the customer the true capability that comes with our state-of-the-art ASW solution, says Gorgen Johansson, Head of Saab business area Dynamics. Saab has long underwater expertise that stretches back to the early 1900s. With multiple underwater vehicles, such as Saabs Lightweight Torpedo, the Sabertooth ROV/AUV hybrid and the AUV62-AT anti-submarine warfare training system, Saab offers world-leading products within the underwater domain. Saabs AUV62-AT autonomous underwater vehicle system (Picture source: SAAB) The White House is not endorsing a global pledge to step up efforts to keep internet platforms from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast attacks, citing respect for "freedom of expression and freedom of the press." The statement came Wednesday after World leaders led by French President Emmanuel Macron and executives from Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies gathered in Paris to compile a set of guidelines dubbed the "Christchurch Call," named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in a March attack on mosques. Much of the attack was broadcast live on Facebook, drawing public outrage and fueling debate on how to better regulate social media. Facebook said before the meeting that it was tightening rules for livestream users. In a statement, the White House said it will "continue to be proactive in our efforts to counter terrorist content online" while also protecting free speech. The Christchurch Call "is a global response to a tragedy that occurred on the shores of my country but was ultimately felt around the world," said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern, who has played a leading role pushing for globally coordinated efforts to eliminate online extremism. "Fundamentally it ultimately commits us all to build a more humane internet, which cannot be misused by terrorists for their hateful purposes," she said at a joint news conference with Macron. The French and New Zealand governments drafted the agreement a roadmap that aims to prevent similar abuses of the internet while insisting that any actions must preserve "the principles of a free, open and secure internet, without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms." The call was adopted by U.S. tech companies that also included Amazon, Microsoft and YouTube, along with France's Qwant and DailyMotion, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Countries backing France and New Zealand were Britain, Canada, Ireland, Jordan, Norway, Senegal, Indonesia and the European Union's executive body. Several other countries not present at the meeting added their endorsement. The meeting in Paris comes at a pivotal moment for tech companies, which critics accuse of being too powerful and resistant to regulation. Some have called for giants like Facebook to be broken up. Europe is leading a global push for more regulation of how the companies handle user data and copyrighted material. The tech companies, meanwhile, are offering their own ideas in a bid to shape the policy response. Unlike previous official attempts to regulate the internet, "the Christchurch Call is different in that it associates all actors of the internet" including the tech companies themselves, Macron said. He said he hopes to get broader support for the agreement in coming months, with technical questions to be discussed by June. In Wednesday's agreement, which is not legally binding, the tech companies committed to measures to prevent the spread of terrorist or violent extremist content. That may include cooperating on developing technology or expanding the use of shared digital signatures. They also promised to take measures to reduce the risk that such content is livestreamed, including flagging it up for real-time review. And they pledged to study how algorithms sometimes promote extremist content. That would help find ways to intervene more quickly and redirect users to "credible positive alternatives or counter-narratives." Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter issued a joint supporting statement, outlining in further detail actions they would take individually or together to combat abuse of technology to spread extremist content. They include making it easier for users to flag up inappropriate content, using enhanced vetting for livestreaming and publishing transparency reports on material that's removed. Facebook, which dominates social media and has faced the harshest criticism for overlooking the misuse of consumer data and not blocking live broadcasts of violent actions, said separately it is toughening its livestreaming policies. It's tightening the rules for its livestreaming service with a "one strike" policy applied to a broader range of offenses. Activity on the social network that violates its policies, such as sharing an extremist group's statement without providing context, will result in the user immediately being temporarily blocked. The most serious offenses will result in a permanent ban. Previously, the company took down posts that breached its community standards but only blocked users after repeated offenses. The tougher restrictions will be gradually extended to other areas of the platform, starting with preventing users from creating Facebook ads. Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it's investing $7.5 million to improve technology aimed at finding videos and photos that have been manipulated to avoid detection a problem the company encountered with the Christchurch shooting, where the attacker streamed the killing live on Facebook. "Tackling these threats also requires technical innovation to stay ahead of the type of adversarial media manipulation we saw after Christchurch," Facebook's vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, said in a blog post. The Christchurch Call was drafted as 80 CEOs and executives from technology companies gathered in Paris for a "Tech for Good" conference meant to address how they can use their global influence for public good for example by promoting gender equality, diversity in hiring and greater access to technology for lower income users. Ardern and Macron have insisted that the Christchurch guidelines must involve joint efforts between governments and tech giants. France has been hit by repeated Islamic extremist attacks by groups who recruited and shared violent images on social networks. Free speech advocates and some in the tech industry bristle at new restrictions and argue that violent extremism is a societal problem that the tech world can't solve. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while "a higher level of responsibility is demanded from all of the platforms," it is necessary to find a way to not censor legitimate discussion. "It's a hard line to draw sometimes," he said. Kelvin Chan reported from London. Angela Charlton, Masha Macpherson and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report. A packed Vallejo City Council meeting ended abruptly Tuesday after family members of people who were shot and killed by Vallejo police officers demanded justice. People asked city lawmakers to bring in the state attorney general to investigate the police departments use of force policy. "Thats all we ever hear is you fear for your safety fear for your life. These loved ones are being shot in the back as they run away or on the ground when they are no threat at all," said Jamilia Land from California Families United 4 Justice. Many in the meeting used the police shooting of young rapper Willie McCoy as a reason to why the department needs help. McCoy, 21, was shot and killed by Vallejo police in a Taco Bell on Feb. 9, where police has discovered him unresponsive with a gun in his lap. Last week, city leaders hired former Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan as a consultant for the department. Sammy Hagar and other popular musicians will play Wednesday night in San Francisco to raise money to cure pediatric cancer, concert organizers said. Hagar and others such as Joe Satriani, Rick Springfield and Nancy Wilson of Heart will play in the sixth annual Acoustic-4-A-Cure concert at 8 p.m. at The Fillmore. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $157 plus applicable charges. What to Know A 5-year-old boy brought 22 packs of crack cocaine to the St. Cyprian Childrens Center on the 6200 block of Cedar Avenue, police said. The boy said his father told him to leave the bag in his pocket and not take it out, according to investigators. The boy did not pass the drugs to other children, police said. An investigation is underway after a young boy brought nearly two dozen packets of crack cocaine to a Philadelphia day care Tuesday morning, police said. The 5-year-old was discovered around 9:20 a.m. with 22 packs of crack cocaine inside the St. Cyprian Childrens Center on the 6200 block of Cedar Avenue. A teachers aide noticed a bulge in the boy's pocket and found a plastic baggie containing individual baggies of the drug, police and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia said. The aide confiscated the bag and gave it to the director of the center, who called police. The boy said his father, who resides in neighboring Upper Darby, told him to leave the bag in his pocket and not take it out, investigators said. The drugs were not passed out to any children. I feel like its just the parents fault, the father of one of the children at the day care center told NBC10. Weve got to do better with raising our kids. We have to be more responsible about what were doing in our own homes instead of worrying about whats going on outside of them. No arrests have been made. Police continue to investigate. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services told NBC10 the day care is in compliance with the latest inspections and reports and theyve found nothing out of the ordinary at the location over the past few years. Two sightseeing planes carrying cruise ship passengers in Alaska collided at about the 3,300-foot level before they crashed, the National Transportation Safety Board announced after a team arrived from Washington, D.C., to investigate the crash. The two planes collided in midair Monday, and the Coast Guard raised the death toll to six people on Tuesday after finding the bodies of two people who had been missing. Five of the dead were passengers and the sixth was the pilot of one of the planes. Federal investigators said the larger plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3 with 10 passengers and its pilot, had descended from 3,800 feet feet and collided with a smaller de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, carrying four passengers from the same cruise ship, the Royal Princess, and the pilot. The federal investigation into the cause of the crash could take months, but a preliminary report is expected to be released within two weeks, said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the NTSB. Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens said Tuesday evening that his agency and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad found the two bodies of those who were missing near the crash site of the smaller plane involved in the collision, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver. The planes came down about a mile and a half apart, with some of the debris falling on land near George Inlet, about 8 miles from the cruise ship port of Ketchikan. The Beaver, the smaller plane, appears to have broken apart in midair, according to Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said the plane's tail and section of the fuselage were 900 feet from the aircraft's floats, which landed near shore. The smaller plane was partially submerged in the shore of George Inlet after the single-engine plane overturned and hit some trees before crashing, according to Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens. The larger Otter landed in water and sank, he said. One passenger on the larger plane died, as did two passengers and the pilot on the smaller plane, Princess Cruises said in a statement. Alaska State Troopers in a statement late Tuesday identified the passengers who died as 46-year-old Louis Botha of San Diego, 56-year-old Simon Bodie from Temple, New South Wales, Australia, 62-year-old Cassandra Webb from St. Louis, 39-year-old Ryan Wilk from Utah and 37-year-old Elsa Wilk of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Also killed was the pilot of one of the planes, 46-year-old Randy Sullivan of Ketchikan. Botha worked for Nextivity, a cell phone technology company based in San Diego. Following his death, the company's CEO, Werner Sievers, released the following statement: It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing of Louis Botha - son, husband, father, and highly respected and loved colleague. Louis together with his sister and brother-in-law were casualties in the recent midair plane crash over Alaska. Louis is survived by his wife, two sons, his mother and two sisters. We will remember Louis as a man of immense integrity, a trait that he displayed on a daily basis with his family and work colleagues. He was kind not only when kindness was demanded, patient in the most challenging situations, and a fine leader who always led by example. He will be immensely missed by every single one of his colleagues, vendors, and partners with whom he interacted. His fabric is indelibly imprinted on our company. The larger plane was operated by Taquan Air of Ketchikan and passengers booked the flights through the cruise ship as an excursion. The other plane was operated by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan, and the four booked the flight independent of the cruise ship, Princess Cruises said. After the crash, the 10 injured people were initially taken to a hospital in Ketchikan. Four patients with broken bones were later transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Three survivors were released from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in Ketchikan on Tuesday. Hospital spokeswoman Marty West says the remaining three are in fair condition. The Royal Princess left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and was scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. Alabama's vote to restrict abortion in almost all circumstances has moved one of the most polarizing issues in American politics to the center of the 2020 presidential campaign. The state's legislation the toughest of several anti-abortion measures that have passed recently, with the only exception being a serious risk to the woman's health prompted an outcry from Democratic presidential candidates, who warned that conservatives were laying the groundwork to undermine the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The White House, meanwhile, didn't comment on the Alabama bill as President Donald Trump tries to balance his conservative base against the potential of antagonizing women who are already skeptical of his presidency. The furor over abortion quickly took over on the Democratic campaign trail. Rallying supporters in New Hampshire, Sen. Kamala Harris said she would back a legal challenge to the Alabama bill after Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed it into law. She also vowed to make a commitment to upholding the Roe decision a "significant factor" in any Supreme Court nominees she might choose as president, though she declined to go as far as presidential rival Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has promised to only nominate judges ready to preserve the 1973 ruling that established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. "I respect every woman's right to make a decision about what's in the best interest of herself and her family," Harris said. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have approved abortion bans once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy. None of these laws are yet in force, either because of later effective dates or legal challenges that have blocked them. But supporters have openly predicted that the laws could spark court fights that will eventually lead the Supreme Court to revisit its Roe decision. Gillibrand plans to fly to Atlanta on Thursday to meet with women protesting Georgia's state law. Sen. Cory Booker told The Associated Press that backers of the Alabama measure are "saying that they designed this bill with certain provisions like not having any exceptions for rape or incest specifically designed so that they can lead a fight to the Supreme Court" to "undermine other freedoms and liberties of women to control their own bodies." Booker said it's not enough to hope that Roe will be upheld, adding: "We cannot wait to see if this gets worse." Several Democratic presidential candidates sought to use their high-profile positions to boost organizing against the state-level abortion laws. Harris emailed her campaign supporters offering to "split a donation" to four advocacy groups working to defend abortion rights. Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, directed his supporters by email to the abortion-rights group NARAL. Among the other Democratic candidates who took to Twitter to blast Alabama's law and other state-level restrictions were Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke. Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL, lauded the Democrats for their support. But she urged them to go further than pro-abortion-rights rhetoric, calling instead for "articulated plans about how we're going to address and get out of this crisis." The Democratic pushback comes as Trump makes his selection of conservative judges a centerpiece of his political stump speech, part of a long-running courtship of social conservatives whose support he needs to win reelection next year. Republicans have long believed that the politics of abortion have shifted somewhat in their favor in recent years. But the near-absolutist nature of the most recent bills has sparked some concern among the president's team that it could energize Trump critics and female voters, with whom the president has long struggled. Polling suggests that the issue of abortion has the potential to stoke political engagement among both parties. The General Social Survey released last year found 64% of Democrats, but just 35% of Republicans, saying a woman should be able to have an abortion for any reason. Other surveys have found majority support for legalized abortion in "all or most cases." A Pew Research Center survey in September 2018 found 58% of Americans saying abortion should be legal in at least most cases, compared with 37% who said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Trump won the White House in 2016 in part because of strong support from socially conservative Republicans who wanted to ensure that a conservative justice got named to the Supreme Court seat that had been occupied by Antonin Scalia a seat held open by the GOP's refusal to confirm President Barack Obama's pick for the lifetime post. Since his first campaign began, Trump has supported a ban on abortions at the point that a fetus is believed to feel pain and publicly released a list of conservative judges from which he would select a nominee for the nation's highest court. The president's selection of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court has emboldened conservative allies of the White House who believe the time is ripe for a court case to challenge Roe v. Wade. Kavanaugh assured senators before his confirmation last year that he viewed Roe as precedent, but Democratic senators pointed to a 2003 memo he wrote that suggested it wasn't necessary to call the landmark abortion-rights ruling "settled law" because the "Court can always overrule its precedent." The Trump campaign deferred to the White House on whether Trump supported the Alabama measure or other restrictive bills passed by other states. White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere touted Trump's record on abortion, noting that he "is protecting our most innocent and vulnerable, defending the dignity of life, and called on Congress to prohibit late-term abortions." Two Massachusetts men wanted in connection with a fatal shooting in Malden back in March have been taken into custody in California, according to the Middlesex District Attorney's office. Authorities said Yahia Mastouri, 18, and Josue Espada, 20, both of Malden, were located and arrested May 11 in Los Angeles. A rendition hearing was scheduled for Tuesday. The district attorney said the men were positively identified during an unrelated criminal investigation by United States Marshals. Mastouri and Espada were placed under arrest at a motel on warrants out of Massachusetts. Authorities said Mastouri has been charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, assault with intent to rob and unlawful possession of a firearm in connection with the March 2 fatal shooting of 23-year-old Jeury Batista. Espada has been charged with accessory after the fact. The men are expected to face additional charges when they get back to Massachusetts. It's unclear if they have attorneys. The investigation is ongoing. In the wake of Alabama legislators giving final approval to a ban on nearly all abortions, and Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signing legislation banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, several stars have started to speak out publicly decrying those decisions, some revealing their own deeply personal experiences with abortion. Rihanna and Minka Kelly are the latest stars to speak out. take a look. these are the idiots making decisions for WOMEN in America. Governor Kay Ivey...SHAME ON YOU!!!! pic.twitter.com/WuAjSVv6TH Rihanna (@rihanna) May 16, 2019 Kelly posted a lengthy post on Instagram revealing she had an abortion at a younger age, calling it " the smartest decision I couldve made, not only for myself & my boyfriend at the time, but also for this unborn fetus." Kelly added, "For a baby tove been born to two people too young and completely ill equipped with no means or help from family, would have resulted in a child born into an unnecessary world of struggle. Having a baby at that time would have only perpetuated the cycle of poverty, chaos and dysfunction I was born into. Forcing a child to be born to a mother who isnt ready, isnt financially stable, was raped, a victim of incest (!!), isnt doing that theoretical child any favors." On Wednesday Lada Gaga tweeted to her 78 million followers. Actress Milla Jovovich shared her story on Instagram. "The Good Place" star Jameela Jamil took to Twitter to share her own experience. I had an abortion when I was young, and it was the best decision I have ever made. Both for me, and for the baby I didnt want, and wasnt ready for, emotionally, psychologically and financially. So many children will end up in foster homes. So many lives ruined. So very cruel. Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) May 13, 2019 Busy Philipps Gets Real About Abortion When the social media site's users began to shame Jamil, she turned to Instagram to respond. "I DON'T GIVE A FLYING F--- WHAT YOU THINK OF MY DECISION," she captioned the image, which was a screen grab of her first tweet. "MY DECISION. MY BODY. MY CHOICE." Jamil is not the first celeb to open up about the topic. In April, actress and activist Ashley Judd used her voice to defend a woman's right to choose. "As everyone knows, and I'm very open about it, I'm a three-time rape survivor," she said at Tina Brown's 10th annual Women in the World Summit. "And one of the times I was raped, there was conception, and I'm very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion. Because that rapist, who is a Kentucky-ian, as am I, and I reside in Tennessee, has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I would have had to co-parent with a rapist." "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi tweeted Wednesday urging men to not let women carry the burden alone of challenging opposition to abortion rights. I know there are a lot of men out there who have partners who've had abortions. It's time for you to speak up and be allies. Women don't get pregnant alone. Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) May 15, 2019 And talk show host Busy Phillips first opened up about having an abortion in her memoir. Phillips addressed her experience again on her talk show after Kemp signed the new Georgia law. What to Know A study commissioned by Pritzker revealed agencies deluged by red tape, and workers who lack adequate oversight The study also revealed that private providers get paid less money if cases remain open after six months Governor Pritzker has called for a $75 million increase in DCFS funding and 126 new caseworkers Governor J.B. Pritzker is promising swift action after receiving a critical new report which portrays the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as an agency beset by red tape, where workers feel pressure to keep families together, lack adequate oversight, and are blocked by internal procedures from sharing critical information about endangered children. There is nowhere in Illinois government that is more hollowed out than DCFS, Pritzker told reporters at the capitol Wednesday. And there is nowhere in state government where those cuts have done more damage. Pritzker commissioned the study from the University of Chicagos Chapin Hall Center just six weeks ago. DCFS is going to have to address structural, procedural, and cultural systemic issues, says Dr. Dana Weiner, a co-author of the report which targeted the agencys Intact Family Services program, where at-risk children are allowed to stay in their parents homes. That program services almost 5,000 families with nearly 12,000 children each year, or about 14% of all cases in which maltreatment of children is alleged. Another 17,465 children of the 23,745 involved with potential abuse investigations who remain in their homes are not a part of the Intact program. The study says this may be because the families are addressing their problems, have declined help, or because the severity of the problem does not merit an Intact referral. The Chapin Hall report found that Intact program cases constituted about 15% of 41 deaths examined by the agencys inspector general. The study found that maltreatment-related child deaths in Illinois have actually declined every year since 2014, despite increases in rates of abuse and neglect. A critical new report portrays the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as an agency beset by red tape, where workers feel pressure to keep families together, lack adequate oversight, and are blocked by internal structures from sharing critical information about endangered children. Lisa Chavarria reports. Among the reports findings, investigators said workers faced expectations of keeping children in homes, and pressure to close cases within six months. Some providers report that when they cannot engage a high-risk family, they may simply close the case, the report stated. These closures may be accompanied by hotline calls to notify DCFS of the planned case closing, but this is insufficient for ensuring the childrens safety. That term, failure to engage, could mean everything from a failure to return investigators phone calls, to a refusal to answer the door. There probably needs to be a great deal of attention on those cases before they are closed to decide what else could be done to stabilize or address the needs of the children in that family, Weiner told NBC5. I was surprised there was not a protocol directing attention to those high risk cases before they were closed. Critics said the report was on target, but pointed out well-known flaws in the DCFS structure. Its basically a bureaucratic mess, says Charles Golbert, the Illinois Public Guardian. And weve known that for a long time. Golbert said private providers have no incentive to keep cases open until problems are resolved. They actually get paid less money if the case is still open after six months, he said. It makes no senseit puts bureaucracy and artificial timelines ahead of child safety. The agencys new director suggested he would end any policies which produce artificial deadlines. If there is pressure to close cases, I will alleviate that, Mark Smith told NBC5. The pressure and focus should only be on whats best for the individual family that youre working with. Golbert noted low pay and high turnover at DCFS, where ironically, some of the highest turnover has occurred in the directors office. DCFS has had 13 directors in the last ten years, he said. I think its important that the director actually stays there. Smith, one of Pritzkers first appointments after taking office, noted his Illinois roots and suggested he is in it for the long haul. Im dedicated to this position, he said. And Ill be here as long as I can effectively serve. Speaking with reporters Wednesday, the governor noted he has included a $75 million dollar increase for DCFS in his upcoming budget, and is asking for 126 new caseworkers for the beleaguered agency. What I can promise you is, that a day will not go by in my administration where we are not thinking about, and making real advances forward to try and protect these children across the state, Pritzker said. It is a tragedy, and its a tragedy that is unacceptable to me! A riot had broken out at the Illinois Youth Center in St. Charles on April 19, 2018, when juvenile justice specialist Mark Laskowski found himself trying to separate two large groups of youth. Moments later he turned around and saw a mop handle being swung at his head. Hit me in the back of the head and I was just in utter shock, Laskowski. I actually for a moment thought my brains were popping out of my head. Staff members called 911 and an ambulance rushed Laskowski to the hospital. It took five sutures and seventeen stitches to help heal his wound. Laskowski said his doctors told him he should not return to the youth facility and he has since started another state job. But his assault is just one of many experienced by teachers and staff at Illinois five Department of Juvenile Justice youth facilities in recent years. According to state records, youth-on-staff assaults within the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice increased from 34 in 2015 to 92 in 2018. The assaults, which include punching, stabbing and spitting, are going up even as the number of locked-up teens goes down. The state currently houses about 260 youth in its IDJJ facilities and there are 580 youth in communities. The state appropriated approximately $120 million to the IDJJ for fiscal year 2019. Its an unsafe environment every day not just for staff and administration, but also for youth, said former IDJJ teacher Maria Johnston-Becker. Johnston-Becker said she was sexually assaulted by a youth in 2017 and six months later she was knocked unconscious by another youth in the hall outside of her classroom. Juvenile Justice Staff employees told NBC 5 Investigates some youth routinely hurl urine, feces, and other bodily fluids toward them. We were given direction to wear the rain coats that are supplied on to the units and we were also given a body suit, like a hazmat suit, said Ashley Landrus, a juvenile justice supervisor and president of the AFSCME chapter that represents staff members. Employees held a picket outside the St. Charles facility in August of 2017 to protest the assaults. They have also addressed their concerns to lawmakers in Springfield and the workers said they want IDJJ management to consider their input when making policy changes. Teachers and staff said the tools they have historically used at Illinois Youth Centers are changing day-by-day and that departmental policy changes, such as reducing the number of time-outs for youth bad behavior, is making the situation worse. Sometimes staff are encouraged to engage with a youth to try to deescalate like an emotional situation, but then that policy could flip and its no longer that staff responsibility and in fact that staff may be disciplined if they try to engaged verbally with the youth, said AFSCME regional director Eddie Caumiant. The IDJJ declined to be interviewed for this report, but told NBC 5 Investigates that it is committed to maintaining a safe, healthy environment for both staff and youth committed to its care. A spokesperson said the department has taken considerable steps to increase safety at IYC St. Charles, including increased staff training, establishing key security supervisor posts, establishing a staff crisis response team, and resuming work on several deferred maintenance projects. Additionally, the IDJJ said when youth violate rules, they receive immediate consequences like privilege restrictions and may also receive time added to their sentences. The IDJJ said it also has referred serious incidents, when appropriate, to the local states attorneys office for possible prosecution. The John Howard Association is an independent group that monitors the Illinois correctional system. The group argues that the mental health of the youth must be considered when addressing the issue of assaults against staff. Some of this behavior is the result of how the kids are responding to the treatment theyre getting and the conditions theyre living under, said executive director Jenny Vollen-Katz. Vollen-Katz said the IDJJ has made positive steps changed following a 2012 lawsuit. The department has downsized from about 1200 youth to several hundred. Still, she said large prisons dont work for kids and that if society wants to rehabilitate youth, the model should be changed. Theres a lot of states that have successfully moved to models that focus on small, regional residential facilities for the kids who have needs, Vollen-Katz said. Fire officials say a hot spot continues to smolder at the site of a northern Illinois silicone factory explosion that killed four workers earlier this month. Waukegan Fire Marshal Steve Lenzi tells The (Waukegan) News-Sun on Wednesday that the hot spot "presents no immediate hazard." Lenzi says the spot contains chemical products that are still reacting. He says firefighters have put dry extinguisher on the spot but can't work on it yet because U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board investigators are concentrating on the area. Four men died after the May 3 the explosion at AB Speciality Silcones. Lenzi says members of the public have reported puffs of smoke "now and then." The newspaper reports crews will extinguish the area when investigators are done unless it burns out first. What to Know The lawsuit was filed as inmates say their First Amendment rights were violated The class was suspended after a discussion about changes to the parole system, with Illinois legislators in the crowd The lawsuit seeks reinstatement of the class, as well as monetary damages A group of inmates at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill have filed a lawsuit claiming Illinois Department of Corrections officials violated their First Amendment rights by shutting down a debate team at the prison. The suit, which names IDOC Acting Director John Baldwin, Assistant Director Gladyse Taylor and three other employees as defendants, was filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court. The inmates are claiming officials violated their First Amendment rights to free speech by shutting down the debate team and did so in retaliation for exercising those rights in the first place. The fact that they were using their Constitutional right to effectively advocate for parole to legislators angered certain IDOC officials, Brad Thomson, one of the inmates attorneys, said in a statement. When state actors use their power to retaliate and shut down speech because it differs from their personal political agenda, it is an abuse of their authority and a violation of the Constitution. [NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More Inmates Lester Dobbey, Joseph Dole, Raul Dorado, Benard McKinley and Eugene Ross were among the 14 students in a debate class started at the prison in October 2017, according to the suit. On March 21, 2018, the group held a debate on the topic of parole, which was open to the public and attended by multiple Illinois legislators, according to the suit. During the debate, the inmates discussed policy proposals and ideas for ways the state could implement parole for inmates with lengthy prison sentences. Following the public event, the debate class made plans to do a recreation of the debate on April 26, 2018, for an audience of Stateville prisoners, according to the suit. However, on April 3, 2018, Taylor and three other IDOC employees showed up to a regularly-scheduled debate class, the suit states. Taylor told the debate instructor that she did not approve of the class communicating with Illinois legislators regarding the topic of parole. At some point after that, the suit claims IDOC officials canceled the April 26 debate and banned the debate instructor from visiting any IDOC facility. In addition to the First Amendment violations, the suit also accuses the IDOC employees of conspiracy and failure to intervene to prevent the deprivation of the inmates rights. It seeks the reinstatement of the debate program at Stateville as well as monetary damages, attorneys fees and court costs. A representative for IDOC did not respond to a request for comment about the suit Wednesday. Dobbey, 38, is serving 51 years for murder and attempted murder convictions from 2002, according to IDOC records. Dole and Dorado are serving life sentences for murder convictions from 2000. McKinley is serving 100 years for murder convictions from 2004. Ross is serving a life sentence for a 1999 murder conviction. Police were interviewing "individuals in regard to" a missing pregnant teenager from Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood Tuesday, authorities said. Marlen Ochoa-Uriostegui had not been located, police said, but there were talking to people as part of the ongoing investigation into what happened to the 19-year-old last seen in the 2000 block of South California Avenue. Police were canvassing near a house in the Ashburn neighborhood where witnesses told NBC 5 officers took four people away earlier in the afternoon near 77th and Karlov. The scene is just down the street from where the missing teen's car was recently found. Later that same day, another neighbor said her mother-in-law saw the woman who lives there come out with a baby. One neighbor, who did not want to be identified told NBC she saw a pregnant woman walk into the home police were near before her dissapearance. They later recognized her as Ochoa-Uriostegui. Chicago Fire Department confirms paramedics transported a baby from here around that same time in critical condition. The woman came out screaming that her baby was born in the house and that she wasnt breathing," the neighbor said. Relatives of Ochoa-Uriostegui spoke last week at a news conference at a church on Chicago's Northwest Side. "I think that we're convinced now that there's some wrongdoing here, that this is not somebody that just disappeared," Rev. Walter Coleman said at the time. "This is somebody that we believe is being held and we hope that she's alright," he continued, adding, "We believe that Marlen is still alive. We will find out hopefully in the next few days if this newborn baby was actually part of the family." She was last seen leaving the Latino Youth High School in the Little Village neighborhood, where she had been taking classes, on April 23. She was supposed to pick up her 3-year-old son from daycare that afternoon but her family said she never showed up. Ochoa-Uriostegui was nine months pregnant with her second child when she was reported missing. Ochoa-Uriostegui was described as an Hispanic woman, standing at 5'3" and weighing around 125 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes, as well as a distinctive nose ring, according to the alert issued by police. She was last seen wearing a gray sweater and sweatpants with a maroon top bearing the Latino Youth High School logo, officials said. Ochoa-Uriostegui may be driving a black Honda Civic, license plate number AW27865, according to police. Anyone with information on Ochoa-Uriostegui or her whereabouts was asked to call 911 or CPD's Special Victim's Unit at (312) 747-8274. A transgender inmate in southern Illinois is suing to be transferred to a womens prison after allegedly suffering 15 years of abuse from prisoners and staff. In a lawsuit filed by the MacArthur Justice Center and Uptown Peoples Law Center, an anonymous inmate named Tay Tay alleges that the Illinois Department of Corrections has failed to keep her safe at the Danville Correctional Facility, a medium-security mens prison. As a result of the IDOCs systemic failure to keep trans women in custody safe from sexual violence, Tay Tay has survived attacks, threats and constant harassment, one of the plaintiffs lawyer, Sheila Bedi of the MacArthur Justice Center, said in a statement. The lawsuit alleges that Tay Tays previous report of a prison rape was disregarded, and that IDOC Internal Affairs allegedly threatened her with solitary confinement if she filed another complaint. Tay Tay first requested transfer to a womens prison in 2012, but has instead been moved to four different mens facilities, the Uptowns Peoples Law Center said in a statement. She is requesting to be transferred to the Logan Correctional Facility, a womens prison about 30 miles northeast of Springfield. A spokesperson for IDOC did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Last year, a transgender woman, Strawberry Hampton, was transferred to a womens prison after a year-long legal fight over her placement in a mens prison. Burgeoning numbers of Cubans are trying to get into the U.S. by way of the Mexican border, creating a big backlog of people waiting on the Mexican side for months for their chance to apply for asylum. The surge over the past several months has been propelled in part by loosened travel restrictions in Central America and deteriorating living conditions in Cuba. As a result, about 4,500 asylum seekers, the vast majority of them Cuban, have descended on Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas an influx that has raised tensions with some locals. "It's a bottleneck with an opening that is getting smaller," said Enrique Valenzuela, an official of Mexico's Chihuahua state, which manages Juarez's waiting list. "People keep coming." For decades during the Cold War and beyond, Cubans tried to reach the U.S. by air, land and sea, many of them crossing the 90 miles to Florida in dangerously rickety boats and rafts. In January 2017, though, the U.S. ended its "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy of almost automatically admitting any Cuban who managed to reach American soil. For many Cubans, their best option is going to the U.S.-Mexican border and claiming asylum. For many years, Cubans entering through the southern border generally flew to South America and tried to come into the U.S. at Laredo, Texas. But now many are using a relatively new and shorter route: They fly to Panama or Nicaragua, pay smugglers to help them reach the U.S. border, and seek to come across at El Paso. In the seven-month period from October through April, 4,737 Cubans without legal status entered the U.S. at crossings in Customs and Border Protection's El Paso field office, compared with 394 in the previous 12 months. Along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, 10,910 Cubans came through official crossings between October and April, versus 7,079 in the previous 12 months. Migrants applying for asylum are often released into the U.S. while their cases make their way through immigration courts, which can take years. But for Cubans, it's easier to settle in the United States than for others. Communist Cuba refuses to fully cooperate with the U.S. on deportations, meaning that if the migrants lose their asylum cases, Cuba generally doesn't take them back. The U.S. then has little choice but to let them stay. For Cubans and others, one of the biggest obstacles is simply getting an opportunity to apply for asylum. Over the last year, the Trump administration has sharply limited the number of asylum claims it processes at land crossings, forcing people to wait their turn in Mexico. At the current processing rate, the wait in Juarez is now up to five months, compared with only a few days as recently as February. Panama became known in recent years as a relatively easy source of visas for Cubans who could make a convincing case that they only wanted to shop and return to sell goods in Cuba. Panama has a free trade zone where Cubans splurge on everything from shampoo to air conditioners and electric motorbikes. Also, in October, Panama began issuing $20 tourist cards to Cuban business people and certain others, replacing a longer, more difficult process that often ended in rejection. In January, Nicaragua made it faster and easier for Cubans to obtain a visa in Havana by eliminating the requirement that applications be approved in Nicaragua's capital. Meanwhile, a drop in Venezuelan aid and the U.S. hardening of the trade embargo against Cuba have created food shortages and a sense of crisis on the island. Young people in particular are lining up outside any embassy that will grant them a visa. Friends told Yaneisi Hernandez of Havana that Juarez was safer than other Texas crossings, that it had a strong network of charitable groups and, most important, that the wait to claim asylum in the U.S. was comparatively short. After flying to Nicaragua and paying a smuggler to reach the U.S. border by bus, taxi, on foot and on horseback, she was disappointed to find 3,500 names ahead of hers. "I can't even think about working here because I might get deported," said Hernandez, 39, after spending her first night in Juarez sleeping with other Cubans on a patch of grass outside the government office where asylum seekers are assigned numbers while they wait. Cubans arriving in Juarez last month said they paid smugglers about $2,000 to reach the U.S. border, plus $150 to $400 in the southern Mexico border city of Tapachula for a lawyer to obtain a court order allowing them to travel legally through Mexico. They waited about three weeks in Tapachula for legal permission to stay in Mexico. Many Cubans get detained by Mexican authorities as they make their journey north. More than 700 Cubans broke out of a migrant jail in two separate escapes over the past month at an overcrowded facility in Tapachula. The surge of Cubans has been so big that Juarez restaurants have added Cuban favorites like roast suckling pig and black beans with rice to their menus. Unlike Central Americans, many of whom are fleeing are extreme poverty and arrive with little more than the shirts on their backs, many Cubans can afford a cheap hotel or rented room if migrant shelters don't have space, aided by relatives in the U.S. They buy cellphones for their short time in Mexico, which they use to check a Facebook group that gives twice-daily updates on the waiting list. Cuban men can be distinguished by their spotless sneakers, track suits and aviator sunglasses. Some Juarez residents are wary. Casa del Migrante, which houses up to 1,000 people in its shelter, banned Cubans earlier this year because they didn't mix well with Central Americans and didn't follow the rules, said manager Blanca Rivera. "They didn't like our food," she said. "You have to make exceptions for them. They want rice, meat sandwiches, they want pizza. ... That attitude is not welcome in migrant shelters." Some Cubans are also souring on Juarez. About 10 Cubans pursuing asylum gathered near a phone charging bank one Friday night at the El Paso airport to wait for a 6 a.m. flight to Miami. After flying to Panama and reaching Juarez in early February, Arnoldo Garcia, a Havana electrician, said he waited only two days to claim asylum in El Paso. After about two months in U.S. detention, Garcia, 47, was released with an appointment slip for immigration officials in Miami. He said he wouldn't recommend Juarez to anyone contemplating the journey. "There are too many people," he said. "It's become a lot more complicated." What to Know Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation banning abortions, with some exceptions, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. A fetal heartbeat can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant. The move could lead to a lengthy legal battle The new ban would take effect Jan. 1, 2020, unless it's blocked in court. "Heartbeat abortion" bans have been signed into law in four states Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation on Tuesday banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. That can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant. Kemp said he was signing the bill "to ensure that all Georgians have the opportunity to live, grow, learn and prosper in our great state." The signing caps weeks of tension and protests at the state Capitol in Atlanta, and marks the beginning of what could be a lengthy and costly legal battle over the law's constitutionality. The legal showdown is exactly what supporters are looking for. Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers across the country, energized by the new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court that includes President Donald Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are pushing abortion bans in an attack on the high court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide until a fetus is developed enough to live outside a woman's uterus. ACLU of Georgia legal director Sean Young said the group would challenge Georgia's new abortion restriction in court. "Under 50 years of Supreme Court precedent, this abortion ban is clearly unconstitutional," Young said in a recent interview. "Every federal court that has heard a challenge to a similar ban has ruled that it's unconstitutional." Under current law, women in Georgia can seek an abortion during the first 20 weeks of a pregnancy. If it's not blocked in court, the new ban would take effect Jan. 1, 2020. HB 481 makes exceptions in the case of rape and incest if the woman files a police report first and to save the life of the mother. It also would allow for abortions when a fetus is determined not to be viable because of serious medical issues. The bill also deals with alimony, child support and even income tax deductions for fetuses, declaring that "the full value of a child begins at the point when a detectable human heartbeat exists." Republican Rep. Ed Setzler, the bill's author, said in an interview after the bill passed the state House that it's a "common sense" measure that seeks to "balance the difficult circumstances women find themselves in with the basic right to life of a child." But Democratic Sen. Jen Jordan disagreed that the legislation was balanced. "There's nothing balanced about it, it's an all-out abortion ban," Jordan said in a recent interview. Jordan said she is especially worried the new law will push obstetricians away from practicing in Georgia, worsening health care outcomes for women in a state that already has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country. "It's about the unintended consequences," Jordan said. "They're making policy choices that are going to end up causing women to die, and they're preventable deaths." In the first few months of 2019, "heartbeat abortion" bans have been signed into law in four states: Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio, and now Georgia. Lawmakers in a number of other states including Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and West Virginia are considering similar proposals. A bill that recently passed the Alabama House would outlaw abortions at any stage of pregnancy, with a few narrow exceptions. Kentucky's law was immediately challenged by the ACLU after it was signed in March, and a federal judge temporarily blocked it. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, about 33,000 abortions were provided in Georgia in 2014. A Stratford police officer shot and killed a dog that was attacking a girl on Everett Street Tuesday afternoon. Police said the officer saw the dog attacking the child and tried to stop the animal using a Taser. According to police, the dog then turned on the officer. The officer tried the Taser again but the dog would not stop, forcing the officer to shoot it. Malik Wells said he and his 8-year-old cousin had just come in from walking the family's new dog when out of nowhere the animal attacked. "I was trying to get him off of her. I was kicking him and he wasn't listening," Wells said. The girl was taken to a local hospital with minor injuries. Her mother told NBC Connecticut Tuesday that her while her daughter was traumatized by the day's events, she's expected to be OK. She said she is grateful to the police officer for the quick action. The dog, a 2-year-old named Sosa, died on scene. The investigation is ongoing. No other details were immediately available. Governor Ned Lamont hopes his push for electronic tolls in Connecticut takes a step further on Wednesday. The Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee is set to vote on tolls. Earlier this week, Lamont sent a letter to state legislators and said it's time to "move forward without compromising our core principles for an easier vote." He also promised toll rates would be frozen for three years. Still, there is opposition. No Tolls CT Founder Patrick Sasser said its time to band together and say we've had enough." Sasser hand delivered a petition signed by 100,000 people directly to Lamonts staff last week to prove his point. There is still a ways to go before tolls could be approved. Before it becomes a bill, it would still need to pass in the General Assembly. The Connecticut House of Representatives has passed legislation that would require anyone under the age of 21 to wear a helmet while driving a motorcycle or riding on one. The House passed the bill, 113 to 33. The bill needed 74 votes to pass. Existing legislation requires anyone under 18 to wear a helmet and a 19-year-old reached out to State Rep. Michelle Cook (D-Torrington) after several motorcycle accidents in recent years and urged her to support for a bill requiring young operators to wear helmets, according to lawmakers. The bill next moves to the state Senate. You can read it here. Connecticut may be running out of time to become the latest state to legalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Multiple legislative sources told NBC Connecticut the votes are not there to pass cannabis legislation in either the House or the Senate. Publicly, leaders in both chambers acknowledged the possibility of a Special Session to address the issue. I hope that theres a shot that we can get it done during the regular session, said Sen. Martin Looney, (D New Haven), the top member of the Connecticut Senate. I think its one of the major bills. If not, I think it could be a topic for a special session. Democrats had moved the issue of cannabis into three different committees: Judiciary, General Law, and Finance, Revenue and Bonding. The intention was to publicly address all of the various issues related to legalizing marijuana. Each committee passed their own version dealing with the issue ranging from how to tax and regulate the substance, expunging of criminal records related to minor marijuana offenses, and how the revenue from sales would be handled. One legislative source who has supported cannabis told NBC Connecticut, stitching those bills together is a tough task, but I thought we could do it with enough time. The lawmaker told NBC Connecticut that the issue would be more difficult to pass during a standalone Special Session, and predicted the issue was dead until at least 2021. Republican Leader Len Fasano, who leads the minority caucus, predicted that the votes are not there for legalization. I dont think there are the votes for it and I think theyre going to try to get to special session on it and round up the votes, so well see what happens. I hope they dont. House Democrats are expected to discuss the issue of marijuana behind closed doors to determine whether a measure could be brought to the floor for a vote. We wont know that until we have a full blown caucus in the House and the Senate, said House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz. The final day of the legislative session is June 5. A reward is being offered for information that leads to the arrest of a man accused of robbing a bank in New Haven on Tuesday. Officers were called to a bank robbery at the Key Bank on Grand Avenue in the Fair Haven neighborhood around 4 p.m. Police said they were told that a man jumped over the counter, yelled aggressively at a bank teller and then took cash from the teller's drawer. He then reportedly jumped back over the counter, left the bank and fled on foot on Ferry Street. During the robbery, the man said he had a gun, but no weapon was seen, according to authorities. The man is described as being 6' tall with a grey and black beard. He was last seen wearing dark pants, a green jacket with military patches, a winter cap and white sneakers. Investigators said they are aware of similarities between this suspect and the suspect who is accused of robbing the Wells Fargo bank on Foxon Boulevard on Friday, May 10, 2019 and Saturday, April 27, 2019. The Connecticut Bankers Reward Association is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect. Anyone with information about the man seen in surveillance photos is asked to call New Haven Police Department Detective Bureau at (203) 946-6304. Callers may remain anonymous. When science teacher Diana Allen set out to teach climate change, a subject she'd never learned in school, she fell into a rabbit's hole of misinformation: Many resources presented online as educational material were actually junk. "It is a pretty scary topic to take on," said Allen, a teacher at Sanford Junior High School, in southern Maine. "There are some pretty tricky websites out there. You kind of have to be an expert to be able to see through that like, 'Oh, no, these guys aren't telling you the truth.'" There are materials produced by climate change doubters, lesson plans developed by the oil industry, and countless other sites with misleading or outdated information. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, funded by federal grants, reviewed more than 30,000 free online resources and found only 700 acceptable for use in schools. "There's a lot of information that's out there that is broken, old, misleading, not scientifically sound, not sound technically," said Frank Niepold, a climate education coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based group that dismisses climate change, in 2017 sent thousands of science teachers copies of a book titled "Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming" The book, attributed to the group's Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, misrepresents the near-universal consensus of scientists and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that global warming is real and man-made. Another resource, a set of six lesson plans on understanding climate change, is available online from the Canada-based Fraser Institute, which counts the Charles Koch Foundation among its financial supporters. The lessons claim that mainstream climate scientists have made selective use of data and that it's a matter of debate whether human-generated carbon dioxide emissions have contributed to climate change, saying "the issues are far from settled." "Our history is full of examples where 'common knowledge' was discarded in favor of more correct hypotheses," the lesson plans say. Among them, it lists, "Are diseases caused by evil spirits? Are natural disasters caused by angry gods?" And: "Does smoking pose a threat to your health?" Also vying for educators' attention are classroom-ready materials made available by the oil companies. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and other companies have invested heavily in promoting science, technology, engineering and math education in K-12 schools. Such materials are used widely to teach topics related to energy, but critics say they can mislead by not addressing the role of burning fossil fuels in global warming. For teachers in cash-strapped schools, it can be hard to pass up the free handout materials. Melissa Lau, a sixth-grade teacher in Piedmont, Oklahoma, attended one of the training sessions put on regularly for teachers by the Oklahoma Energy Resource Bureau, which is funded by the oil and gas companies. She kept the $50 stipend and the tub full of science equipment she got from the group but she tossed its illustrated lesson plans featuring the character "Petro Pete." In a book available online, Petro Pete has a nightmare about everything that would be missing from his life if there were no petroleum products, from his toothbrush to his school bus. "I get free beakers and cool things like that," Lau said. "But the curriculum itself is borderline propaganda." A spokeswoman for the industry group, Dara McBee, said their materials align with Oklahoma standards, which do not reference climate change, and they are intended to supplement what students learn in school. Kevin Leineweber, a science teacher at Cascade High School in Clayton, Indiana, said he is skeptical about resources sent to him, including oil industry materials, but some colleagues are less so. At a districtwide science meeting a couple months ago one elementary school teacher expressed excitement about receiving unsolicited materials on climate change in the mail, to help introduce the topic to students. After talking it over with Leineweber, the teacher tossed the mailing of unknown origin. "I'm just like, 'Oh, jeez,'" Leineweber said. The oil industry materials have the effect of pushing climate change to the periphery, Charles Anderson, a professor of science education at Michigan State University. "The school systems of the country are so fragmented and under-resourced that they have no choice but to turn to people like the oil industry who offer them free stuff," he said. Climate change education varies across states, and often from one classroom to the next. The Next Generation Science Standards, which emphasize climate change and how humans are altering the planet, have been adopted by or served as a model for most states. But many teachers report that they shy away from the topic not only because of issues with materials but also the political sensitivities, and uncertainty over where to introduce an issue that crosses so many disciplines. Diana Allen, 48, said she began to see it as her duty to teach climate change even though it's not required under Maine's science education standards. For her lesson plans on climate change, she turns primarily to other teachers, pulling resources they have vetted and shared on an email thread overseen by the National Association of Science Teachers. Other teachers have turned to the National Center for Science Education, which posts free climate change lessons and has a "scientist in the classroom " program. Many educators say that climate change as an area of instruction is still so new that textbook publishers have not caught up enough to provide useful materials. "I have a Ph.D. from Stanford in biochemistry, and it's still hard for me to source stuff that works in my classroom right," said Kirstin Milks, an Earth science teacher at Bloomington High School South in Indiana. Milks helps train educators on how to teach climate change. In their applications, many teachers display a sense of urgency in their applications, she said. "I think we all are in that same boat of understanding that this might be one of the most important social justice issues of our time, one of the most important environmental issues of our time, one of the most important political issues of our time," she said. Sometimes educators have to push back against what their students are taught in other classrooms. Leigh Foy, a science teacher at York Suburban High School in Pennsylvania, said a social studies teacher at her school has told students for years that climate change is a hoax and he could prove it with an experiment. He would fill a cup in the classroom with ice and water, mark the water level, and show students it didn't rise as the ice melted. The problem, Foy said, is his lack of accounting for the difference between sea ice and land ice or the expansion of water as it gets warmer. "This is just an example of what we're up against," Foy said. Teachers who have gotten themselves up to speed on climate change often say they make it a primary goal to help their students identify untrustworthy materials. Sarah Ott, who teaches physical science to eighth-graders in Dalton, Georgia, dedicates a section of her class to climate literacy. In one April class, she discussed how to identify misinformation, highlighting materials including a petition signed by more than 30,000 purported scientists that dismisses the dangers of global warming. "These people are fake experts and this is being used to mislead people," she told her students. "So we're going to be learning about misinformation and ways for you to spot misinformation. And this is a great skill because you're not just going to use this for science. You're going to use this for all of your subjects." Associated Press writer Sarah Blake Morgan contributed to this report. Robert Leonard, a central player in what federal prosecutors say may be "the largest domestic public corruption case in history," has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the Dallas County Schools school bus camera scandal. Leonard, whose $4 million in bribes reached beyond DCS and into Dallas City Hall, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn who could have sent him to federal prison for as long as 10 years. "This is a shameful episode in our community," Lynn told Leonard before handing him his sentence. Leonard took to the witness stand to testify as attorneys for the prosecution and defense hashed out a restitution amount. Department of Justice attorneys wanted $137 million while the defense said it should be closer to $79 million. Either amount, Lynn speculated, would unlikely be able to be repaid by Leonard. In the end, Lynn ordered Leonard to repay $125 million jointly with his co-conspirators, former DCS Superintendent Rick Sorrells and ex-Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway. In his defense, Leonard's daughter and a former assistant testified saying "the thought of him being taken away from us [family] is unfathomable" and that Leonard was a "dreamer and inventor" who created a product to make buses safer. Prior to sentencing, federal prosecutor Andrew Wirmani told Lynn that the DCS scandal is likely "the largest domestic public corruption case in history" with almost $4 million in bribes paid. The mention of his name continues to stir anger from the people hurt by the corruption the most -- former DCS employees. In a group interview with NBC 5 Investigates, several former DCS managers said they believe Leonard's punishment should be more harsh after he admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to former DCS superintendent Rick Sorrells, and nearly a half-million dollars to Dwaine Caraway, Dallas' mayor pro tem at the time. "He raped it," said one former employee of the now-shuttered school bus agency. Others who lost their jobs with the demise of DCS had these choice words for Leonard: "He destroyed it" "He took it down" "He was the poison." Caraway is in prison, and Sorrells is destined for prison, after both pleaded guilty to taking those bribes as part of a conspiracy that brought tens of millions of dollars in school bus camera contracts to Leonard's company. It also cost taxpayers more than $100 million, spelled financial disaster for DCS, and ignited a voters revolt that elected to shut it down. "I really think 20 years for all the heartache that he's caused the people of Dallas County Schools," said Mike Williams, a former DCS transportation director who had been with the agency for 17 years. "Life without parole and a reimbursement. He should be broke," added Tim Jones, a 20-year DCS veteran who had been director of special projects. They all agreed Leonard was responsible for the crisis that left them and hundreds of their co-workers without jobs. Where Did the Money Go? Property Seized in Dallas County Schools Scandal Also hurt in their wallets were taxpayers who, on election day, voted to shut down the DCS bus agency after more than a century of mostly scandal-free existence. "We all cried that day and just looked at each other and couldn't believe what was happening," Williams said. The group's interview with NBC 5 Investigates was also punctuated with tears as they recalled watching DCS move from a relatively unknown, but steady, school bus service to an agency willing to take risks in pursuit of making money. They blamed Leonard for convincing their bosses to buy into an onboard surveillance camera program that was supposed to make money from the issuance of traffic tickets. Instead, it tanked DCS' finances. And they questioned his involvement in a DCS land deal where taxpayer-owned bus lots were sold, then leased back at taxpayer expense, in a failed attempt to bail out the agency. One of Leonard's closest associates collected more than $750,000 in that deal an associate who later admitted he helped Leonard pay the bribes. In response to the group's comments, Leonard's attorney said in a statement, "their opinions are inconsistent with the objective tangible evidence in this case." He did not elaborate. In his own statements to NBC 5 Investigates in the past two years, Leonard denied that he is to blame for financial troubles at DCS. Instead, he said it was DCS officials who mismanaged the bus camera program. In the past, Leonard's attorney has added to that opinion, saying his camera company was a success in many school districts throughout the country, and that he has been "profoundly instrumental in supporting and promoting the safety of our children for decades." The lawyer also wrote off Leonard's once lavish lifestyle chauffeur-driven Bentleys, fancy homes throughout the country, a French Quarter retreat in New Orleans as the rewards of simply being good in business. The group that sat down with NBC 5 Investigates had a different take. "He was a crooked and shady businessman," said Prentice Harper, who was area director when he lost his job at DCS, after 34 years. Williams agreed, adding: "He picked on the weak links that we had at Dallas County Schools, to get it established. And the cancer just grew from thereit never stopped." NBC 5's Frank Heinz contributed to this report. What to Know Oxygen tank stolen from 70-year-old Army veteran. Neighbors have come together to purchase a new oxygen tank and traveling bag. Police released a picture of the suspect leaving the gas station. It shows what appears to be a large tattoo on her back. Carrollton police are searching for a woman accused of stealing an oxygen tank out of a man's pickup truck in the middle of the day. "Just when you think you've seen it all, something like this happens," said Jolene DeVito, spokesperson for the Carrollton Police Department. "Who does this? Who steals something that's keeping this man alive?" The victim spoke with NBC 5 but asked not to reveal his name out of fear. He is a 70-year-old Army Veteran who served in Vietnam. "I've always worked for what I got. I don't steal, never have," he said. "So why would you do that? I don't understand." The man said he walked into the Valero gas station on Josey Lane near the police station in late April to buy a lottery ticket. Surveillance video, released by police to NBC 5, shows the man walking in and almost immediately a shadowy figure walking toward his truck, several times. He came outside and noticed that his cell phone and oxygen tank were gone. Police believe the woman was able to gain access to the items through a window the victim left open. "I felt a little stupid and violated that someone would go inside my truck and steal something," he said. He said he will never leave doors unlocked or windows down again. In the days since the theft, neighbors have banded together to purchase a new tank and traveling bag like the one that was stolen. Police released a new picture of the suspect leaving the gas station. NBC 5 News It shows what appears to be a large tattoo on her back. She was seen driving away in a white, 4-door older-model Toyota Camry with damage to the front end. "The only thing that I could say to her is I pity you if you have to make your living this way," said the victim. "Stealing people's items. And I really hope they catch you. I really do." Anyone with information about the suspect is asked to call Carrollton Police at 972-466-9185 or crimetips@cityofcarrollton.com. When Monica Baez saw news of the police raid on the Catholic Diocese of Dallas she had a thought. "Oh, another one," Baez said. "It's overwhelming." Baez said she was a toddler in the 1970s when she first became a victim of clergy abuse. Her alleged abuser was not in Dallas, but part of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. "It was awful. He was a monster," Baez said. "I knew that it was something wrong because it was painful. He forced... it was child rape. I call it child rape. I call it was it is." Baez said she was glad to see police outside three Diocese of Dallas properties Wednesday morning, where they executed search warrants looking for records of sexual abuse related to five priests. "Because who's protecting the children? How can an institution tell on itself? They're not," Baez said. "It is unbelievable how it's still happening." Baez said she thought similar raids should be conducted globally. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) issued a statement Wednesday about the Dallas raid. The Dallas Police Department executed search warrants at three Catholic Diocese of Dallas properties Wednesday morning, looking for records of sexual abuse related to five priests. The warrants were served at three locations, including the diocese's headquarters at 3725 Blackburn Street, a storage location on Ledbetter Drive and the St. Cecilia Parish. Dallas police Maj. Max Geron, with the department's special investigations division, said Wednesday's raid was the furtherance of an investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Rev. Edmundo Paredes, the longtime pastor of St. Cecilia Parish who was credibly accused of sexual abuse by the Diocese of Dallas last year. Since the Paredes investigation became public, Geron said, the department has received additional allegations of child abuse against other priests. The search warrant documents obtained by NBC 5 Wednesday morning identified the others as 77-year-old Richard Thomas Brown, 77-year-old Alejandro Buitrago, 63-year-old William Joseph Hughes Jr, and 62-year-old Jeremy Myers. According to the search warrant (Pg. 4), all five priests are accused of sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony, however Dallas police clarified that statement Wednesday afternoon to say that the only one of the five priests to have been charged in the case is Paredes. NBC 5 News All of the men named in the search warrant were included on the list of priests incardinated by the Diocese of Dallas who were credibly accused of sexual abuse by the diocese earlier this year. None of the men, Geron said, have been arrested. Geron said the search warrants executed Wednesday serve to further the investigations into those five priests and that detectives are looking for records, data, or other evidence of records of abuse held by the diocese. "The Dallas Police Department is working to complete a thorough investigation into each allegation independent of any other entitity to ensure that each victim has a voice within the legal system," Geron said. The Dallas Catholic Diocese had hired it's own investigators to review church records from the past. "What the police wanted to do was talk to those investigators, but they were denied access to them by the diocese," said Dallas Morning News Writer David Tarrant, who has been covering the Parades investigation. "Now what we have is law enforcement getting involved and saying, 'No, were going to control this investigation, not the Catholic Church.' Thats a very significant event," Tarrant said. "The police want to say, 'We want to make that judgement about credibly accused.'" In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the Bishop Edward Burns, of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, said the following: "The diocese has been cooperating with the ongoing investigation of these priests even before the list was made public, has given police the personnel files for all of the priests named in the warrant, and has been involved in ongoing discussions with DPD investigators. To date, the Diocese has not received a subpoena and the Diocese's involvement has been voluntary. The Diocese will continue to cooperate in all investigations of sexual abuse of a minor by clergy." Paredes, meanwhile, who led St. Cecilia Parish for 27 years, hasn't been seen for months and his whereabouts are unknown. According to a 2018 report, the diocese said allegations of sexual abuse by Paredes came from three adult men. The adults said the incidents occurred more than a decade ago when they were in their mid-teens. Paredes, the diocese said at the time, had already been suspended for unrelated accusations of theft. NBC 5 News The searches in Dallas come as the Vatican continues to try to deal more and more allegations of sexual abuse and cover-ups. Earlier this year, all dioceses in Texas released a list of clergy "credibly accused" of sexual abuse. The Dallas list can be found here and the Fort Worth list can be found here. A lawsuit filed Tuesday by three brothers in Minneapolis who say they were sexually abused by a priest attempts to trace a direct line from clergy sex abuse victims to the Vatican. NBC 5 News The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released a statement Wednesday after learning of the Dallas raids. That statement is below. We applaud Texas law enforcement officials for raiding the secret archives of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. We are glad that police and prosecutors are taking the issue of clergy abuse in Texas seriously and are not just relying on the promises of church officials. While the Diocese of Dallas released a list of publicly accused priests back in January, we suspected that the list was incomplete and have police and prosecutors to investigate further. As we have seen in places like Buffalo, Pennsylvania and Illinois, catholic dioceses have not consistently been forthright in disclosing full lists of credibly accused priests, nor providing information about the church officials who covered-up their crimes. We hope that this raid today sheds more light on the clergy abuse scandal as it relates to the Diocese of Dallas and will uncover the full truth of who knew what, when they knew it, and what steps church officials took in response to allegations of sexual abuse. Institutions cannot police themselves and it is only through strong action from law enforcement that the full truth of their scandals can be revealed. We applaud the move and hope that it will inspire others who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Texas to make a report to law enforcement officials immediately. NBC 5's Jack Highberger, Ken Kalthoff and Noelle Walker contributed to this report. What to Know A jury last year convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, after hearing from her and five others. Judge Stephen O'Neill, in a lengthy opinion, says he found "striking similarities" in the women's descriptions of their encounters. Cosby is serving a three- to 10-year prison term at a state prison in Montgomery County. The judge who presided over Bill Cosby's criminal case said he let five other accusers testify at the sex-assault trial because their accounts had "chilling similarities" that pointed to a "signature" crime. A jury last year convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, after hearing from her and the five others. Cosby, 81, is appealing his conviction based on the women's testimony and other key rulings by Montgomery County Judge Stephen O'Neill. Cosby began serving a three- to 10-year prison term in September at a state prison near Philadelphia. O'Neill, in a lengthy opinion filed Tuesday, said he found "striking similarities" in the women's descriptions of their encounters with the comedian long beloved as "America's Dad." "In each instance, (he) met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated," O'Neill wrote. "These chilling similarities rendered (their) testimony admissible." O'Neill had allowed just one other accuser to testify at Cosby's first trial in June 2017, when a jury deadlock led to a mistrial. Cosby was retried in April 2018, months after the #MeToo movement burst into view with sexual assault accusations against producer Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in Hollywood and beyond. In the ruling Tuesday, O'Neill said the new defense team that handled Cosby's retrial never directly challenged him on the difference in his two trial rulings about the other accusers' testimony. At any rate, he said, judges are not bound by their prior decisions. The defense, in outlining their appeal issues, have also argued that Cosby had a binding agreement with a former prosecutor, Bruce Castor, that he would never be charged in the case. O'Neill again rejected the claim Tuesday, finding the signed press release from Castor - used to bolster the claim - falls short of an immunity agreement. Castor had investigated Constand's complaint for about a month in 2005 before deciding not to bring a case, questioning why she waited a year to contact police. Before the year was out, 13 other accusers had come forward to support the lawsuit Constand filed against Cosby. He settled the case for $3.4 million. When Cosby's deposition testimony from the lawsuit became public in 2015, and the criminal case was reopened, Castor for the first time told his successor about the supposed "non-prosecution" agreement. He forwarded their correspondence to Cosby's defense lawyer and testified as a defense witness at a 2016 hearing, O'Neill noted. O'Neill also rejected defense efforts to have him step down from the case because of his alleged bias, and outlined the four-year legal process that led up to Cosby's conviction and sentencing. Cosby's latest team of lawyers has been awaiting the opinion so they can proceed with the appeal in Pennsylvania courts. The lead lawyer, Brian Perry, did not immediately return a phone message on Tuesday. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt, in a statement, said "O'Neill has a habitual habit of always trying to cover his many errors, which continues to show his hatred towards Mr. Cosby." The Associated Press does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted. The Senate Intelligence Committee has struck a deal with Donald Trump Jr. to appear for a closed-door interview next month, pulling the two sides back, for now, from a confrontation over a subpoena as part of the panel's Russia investigation. Under the terms of the deal, according to two people familiar with the agreement, Trump Jr. will talk to the committee in mid-June for up to four hours. The people spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday to discuss the confidential terms. The deal was also reported by NBC News. The deal comes after the panel subpoenaed President Donald Trump's eldest son to discuss answers he gave the panel's staff in a 2017 interview. Trump Jr. had backed out of interviews twice, prompting the subpoena, according to people familiar with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr's remarks to a GOP luncheon last week. Those people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Burr's remarks in the private senators' meeting. The deadline for Trump Jr. to respond was Monday, according to one of the people familiar with the terms. His lawyers drafted a letter to the committee declining an appearance and the president's son expected to be held in contempt for declining to be interviewed. But before the letter was sent, the committee reached out Monday evening and extended the deadline. The deal was then struck. A spokeswoman for Burr declined to comment. The North Carolina Republican has weathered fierce criticism for the subpoena from the president and his GOP colleagues. Trump said Tuesday he believed that his son was being treated poorly. "It's really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100 percent OK and now they want him to testify again," Trump told reporters at the White House before traveling to Louisiana. "I don't know why. I have no idea why. But it seems very unfair to me." It's the first known subpoena of a member of the president's immediate family, and some Republicans went as far as to say they thought Trump Jr. shouldn't comply. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., tweeted, "It's time to move on & start focusing on issues that matter to Americans." Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a GOP member of the panel, said he understood Trump Jr.'s frustration. Cornyn's Texas colleague, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, said there was "no need" for the subpoena. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on "Fox News Sunday" that if he were Trump Jr.'s lawyer, "I would tell him, 'You don't need to go back into this environment anymore.'" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has defended Burr, telling his colleagues during the private GOP luncheon last week that he trusted the intelligence committee chairman. On Tuesday, McConnell told reporters that "none of us tell Chairman Burr how to run his committee." Still, McConnell made it clear that he is eager to be finished with the probe, which has now gone on for more than two years. Burr has "indicated publicly he believes they will find no collusion" with Russia, McConnell said. "We're hoping we will get a report on that subject sometime soon." It's uncertain when the panel will issue a final report. Burr told The Associated Press earlier this month that he hopes to be finished with the investigation by the end of the year. The subpoena has highlighted a delicate bind facing Burr, a third-term senator who has said he is not running for reelection in 2022. He has been adamant that the panel's Russia probe be bipartisan and fair and has worked closely with the panel's top Democrat, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner. Burr's committee had renewed interest in talking to Trump Jr. after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, told a House committee in February that he had briefed Trump Jr. approximately 10 times about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow before the presidential election. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a separate interview in 2017 he was only "peripherally aware" of the proposal. The panel is also interested in talking to the president's eldest son about other topics, including a campaign meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer. The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $3.75 million payout to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit against sheriff's deputies who shot and killed a 16-year-old boy last year in the Westmont neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Deputies shot Anthony Weber about 8:20 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2018, near the 1200 block of 107th Street during a foot chase. Deputies said they spotted a handgun tucked into the teen's pants and that he reached for it before one of the lawmen, fearing for his life, fired 13 shots. Investigators did not recover a weapon at the scene, but authorities said they believed the gun might have been picked up by someone in the crowd that formed in the aftermath of the shooting. A gun believed to belong to the youth and matching a description provided by one of the deputies was later retrieved in the search of the residence of an alleged gang associate, according to a summary provided to the board by the Sheriff's Department. The lawyer representing Anthony's parents and daughter in a lawsuit filed in May 2018 in Los Angeles federal court insisted that the youth was unarmed. "Anthony Weber committed no crime," attorney Gregory Yates said last May. "He was unarmed and posed no threat to anyone. These deputies acted as judge, jury and executioner when they fired multiple shots at an innocent kid." The family's lawsuit also alleged that as the teenager bled profusely, deputies failed to call for medical help in a timely manner or render medical aid, but sheriff's officials countered that deputies immediately did so. "Anthony was a devoted, loving son and young father whose life was tragically cut short," co-lead counsel Dale K. Galipo said last May. "We intend to prove that under the color of authority, the deputies engaged in excessive force and violated the young man's constitutional rights." A sheriff's statement released shortly after the suit was filed said it was "frustrating" that the department could not comment on the evidence while the case was pending. "Justice is not achieved in seconds, minutes or hours but during months of a painstaking, detailed process of getting the facts right beyond a reasonable doubt," the statement said. "Evidence is not opinion. This is what makes justice worth fighting for, and waiting for. We have watched as individuals hurl allegations or immediately assume that deputy-involved shootings and the aftermath are signs of police misconduct." The county board approved the settlement on advice of counsel who cited the risks and uncertainties of going to trial. Deputies were called to the area on reports that a young man was pointing a handgun at a motorist. Arriving deputies said they saw Weber at an apartment complex that they characterized as a known gang hangout and he had a handgun tucked into his waistband, One of the deputies described the weapon as a Smith & Wesson M&P, semi-automatic pistol with black Talon grips and a red dot sight, according to the summary provided to the board. "Both deputy sheriffs immediately drew their duty weapons, pointed at (Weber), and the first deputy sheriff yelled, 'Let me see your hands!'" the summary stated. The teen and a woman he was talking to both raised their hands above their heads. One of the deputies warned the boy that if he moved, he'd shoot him, but the teen ran off as that deputy pushed through an opening in a fence to approach the pair. The boy ran with his hands over his head during part of the chase, but then when one of the deputies was about five to 10 feet behind him, he turned and looked at the deputy "as if he was acquiring a target" and reached for his waistband, according to the summary. In the aftermath of the shooting, the courtyard of the apartment complex where he was shot "was flooded with people who were trying to get to the subject and the deputies," according to a sheriff's statement released following the shooting. About 30 to 40 residents of the area were angry and confronted deputies about the shooting, making it difficult for them to secure the scene. A Smith & Wesson pistol similar to the deputy's description was retrieved during a follow-up search of alleged gang members' residences and witnesses identified the gun as belonging to Weber, according to the summary. A massive sycamore tree has been part of a Santa Monica neighborhood for 97 years is one that neighbors love so much, they went to the city and got it designated as a historic landmark. But new homeowners want the option of removing it if they rebuild on the property, so they're taking their fight to city hall Tuesday night. The 82-foot western sycamore tree, with its broad trunk, deep roots, and expansive canopy, sits in the front yard of a home in the 1100 block of California Avenue. It has been a beloved part of the community since 1922, and has grown so big, experts can't even agree whether it's one tree, or two entangled trees. "It's a beautiful tree look at it. It's stunning," resident Val Streit said. In 2017, neighbors got together to make sure the tree would be protected and started a grassroots group called "Save Our Sycamores." They got the city's landmark's commission to designate it as a historic landmark. But new property owners believe they should have the right to remove the tree if they decide to rebuild the home. Tuesday night, they planned to ask the city council to overturn the landmark status, and that has set off a big neighborhood squabble. "This tree met the law, the standards set up by the city to decide what should be a landmark," said John C. Smith of the Wilshire Montana Neighborhood Coalition. "You start chipping away at the landmarks and you start losing history." The homeowners declined to speak with NBC4, and released a statement from their attorney, which quotes its own history and tree experts arguing the tree isn't special and doesn't deserve the landmark status. Some neighbors agreed, and said they think the homeowners should have the right to do what they want. "For people to interfere with this private property it really is their tree. It's not a parkway tree," neighbor Chrissy Stiegelmeyer said. The community and legal battle could set a precedent for how other historic landmarks are dealt with throughout Southern California. The Santa Monica City Council will vote on this issue at its meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. SpaceX is planning to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida Wednesday night. It will be carrying a constellation of satellites that are part of Elon Musk's global internet plan. It's one of the stories we're featuring today. SpaceX to Launch 60 Satellites on a Falcon 9 Rocket It was a tight fit, but SpaceX has fitted 60 satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket due to launch Wednesday night in Florida. The Starlink satellites are designed to provide space-based internet service around the globe. Here are the details on Elon Musk's ambitious plan, one that even he admits is fraught with challenges. Note: The launch window opens at 7:30 p.m. California time. First 60 @SpaceX Starlink satellites loaded into Falcon fairing. Tight fit. pic.twitter.com/gZq8gHg9uK Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2019 Photo Shows Two Students Holding Promposal Sign With a Racial Slur The principal at Palos Verdes High School was planning to meet with students Wednesday after a photo surfaced on social media that shows two students holding a prom proposal sign with a racial slur. We'll have updates here. A photo of a racial slur on a 'promposal' in Palos Verdes is drawing outrage. Hetty Chang reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Rainfall Records Might Fall, But That's a Low Bar How much rain does it take to set a record this time of year in Southern California? The record for May 16 in downtown Los Angeles was set in 1996 -- a meager .04 inches. In some areas, anything more than a trace of rain from Thursday's storm will be enough. Here's when we're expecting rain. We're expecting rain Wednesday night and into Thursday. Shanna Mendiola has the forecast for Wednesday May 15, 2019. The Museum of Dream Space is Open The Museum of Dream Space is open at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles. Each room houses different dream spaces, like colorful lantern and crystallized elements that take Instagrams to the next level. Take a look. A New Digital Art Museum Called the 'Museum of Dream Space' is Now Open at the Beverly Center One person is dead after a pickup truck crashed into a canal in southwest Miami-Dade Wednesday morning. Miami-Dade Police said the driver was killed after the truck veered off the road and went into the canal. The identity of the driver wasn't released. Police said they were trying to determine how the truck ended up in the canal. No other information was known. Check back with NBC 6 for updates. An elderly woman was hospitalized after a fire broke out at a home in Little Haiti early Wednesday. The fire broke out at a home in the 6600 block of Northwest Miami Court around 4 a.m. Miami Fire Rescue officials said the security bars on the windows and doors made the fire fight a challenge and left the elderly woman trapped inside. "Firefighters concentrated their efforts on preventing that fire from reaching her while another crew went to the rear of the house and extricated her out of the room," Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Ignatius Carroll said. Carroll said the woman's daughter came home just as the fire was breaking out. The daughter let firefighters know her mother was located in a room in the back of the house. "The daughter who lives here with her elderly mother came home around that time and when she opened the door she was encountered by a lot of flames in the living room," Carroll said. "We did have to bust the door open to bring her out." Fire officials said the elderly woman was transported to a local hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, but she is expected to be okay. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. A Florida man was charged with battery after he pulled his girlfriend's hair, kicked her down the stairs and slapped her in the face with a cheeseburger, sheriff's deputies said. Martin County Sheriff's deputies said 30-year-old Kyle Jamison Jones attacked his live-in girlfriend when things between them didn't go his way. Jones allegedly woke her up by slapping her with the burger and attacked her as they went down the stairs. When deputies arrived, the victim was upset and covered with cheeseburger particles, authorities said. Jones would only say the two got into a verbal dispute, but refused to say whether he got physical with the victim. He was charged with battery and taken to Martin County jail, deputies said. What to Know Disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner was released from a halfway house Tuesday; he was released from a federal prison in February The New York Democrat was convicted of having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old North Carolina girl in 2017 He began serving a 21-month prison sentence that November at the Federal Medical Center Devens, located about 40 miles west of Boston Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner marked the end of his 21-month prison sentence on Tuesday as he was released from a New York City halfway house, where he had been spending his time since prison for having illicit online contact with a 15-year-old girl in 2017. "It's good to be out," the 54-year-old New York Democrat told reporters. "I hope to get back to my family and make up for some lost time." Weiner had pleaded guilty to sending a series of sexually explicit messages to a North Carolina high school student. He began serving a 21-month prison sentence at the Federal Medical Center Devens, located about 40 miles west of Boston in Ayer, Massachusetts, in November 2017. Weiner was released from prison in Feburary but had been living in a halfway house in the city. Now he must register as a level-one sex offender, which means he has a low risk of re-offending, for a minimum of 20 years. Asked whether he felt he had learned any lessons, Weiner said, "Look, I feel like I am glad to be getting back to my family. I hope to be able to live a life of integrity and service, and I'm glad this chapter of my life is behind me." A once-rising star in the Democratic Party who served nearly 12 years in Congress, Weiner had a dramatic and sordid fall from grace after he sent a lewd picture of himself to a college student over Twitter in 2011. Weiner initially claimed his account had been hacked, then admitted he'd had inappropriate online interactions with at least six other women while married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Weiner resigned from Congress that year but mounted a campaign for New York City mayor in 2013. But his personal behavior was again his undoing after it was disclosed he sent explicit photos under the alias "Carlos Danger" to at least one woman after resigning from Congress. Weiner ultimately garnered less than 5 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. His final fall came in 2017 after prosecutors say he sent a series of sexually explicit messages to a North Carolina high school student. Weiner pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor. At his sentencing, he said he'd been a "very sick man for a very long time" because of his sex addiction. Weiner's attorney said the ex-lawmaker likely exchanged thousands of messages with hundreds of women over the years and was communicating with up to 19 women when he encountered the teenager. Abedin also filed for divorce from Weiner in 2017. But the two, who have a young son together, later agreed to discontinue the case in order to negotiate their separation privately. What to Know The New York City Medical Examiner took the stand Wednesday at the departmental trial of NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo Dr. Dr. Floriana Persechino testified that she felt his injuries were caused by a chokehold Pantaleo allegedly used a banned chokehold on the 43-year-old New York City father who died in 2014 Graphic autospy photos were submitted into evidence in the NYPD trial of the cop accused of killing Eric Garner Wednesday as the medical examiner took the stand, where she testified that she felt his injuries were caused by a chokehold, while the defense argued that he did not die of the chokehold itself. Describing the chokehold as the first event in a lethal cascade of events, Dr. Floriana Persechino said she found hemorrhages on muscles inside the neck, root of tongue and the back of his neck. She said there was a 2-inch hemorrhage in front of his larynx. The hemorrhages, she said, occurred around the time of Garner's death. She noted that she found no visible injuries under Garner's neck, but said in her medical opinion, the 43-year-old father was put in a chokehold. Persechino clarified that "chokehold" or "neck hold" is also a forensic term. During her testimony, Persechino also said that her autopsy found other underlying medical issues including heart disease, a large heart, hypertension and obesity. Garner's official cause of death was compression of the neck/chokehold, chest compression with contributing factors of asthma, obesity, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, she said. The manner of death was ruled homicide. The infamous video of Pantaleo putting his arm around Eric Garner's neck just before his death was played again Wednesday as Persechino testified. She said she first saw it when conducting the autopsy. During the third day of trial, graphic autopsy photos submitted to evidence. Before the medical examiner's testimony began, Garners mother and several other relatives stepped outside and did not stay for testimony. During cross examination, Pantaleo's attorney, Stuart London, tried to establish that Garner did not die of the chokehold itself. Persechino agreed that it triggered a series of lethal events. Additionally, when asked if a bear hug could have triggered same series of events she said it could have. The defense also tried to argue that there should have been more damage to trachea and other parts of neck if Garner was put in chokehold, but Persechino disagreed saying that she does not determine how much pressure is applied but rather that his neck injuries are consistent with neck compression that caused the asthma attack. Additionally, Persechino said, that since she has seen the video, she can call it a chokehold becuase it is part of her forensic training. She added that this case was the first time in which she had video to review in addition to her autopsy findings in a neck compression case. She said that without the video she would have called it a neck compression, but because of the video she can call it a chokehold. On Tuesday, an NYPD training expert testified that the move seen on the video "meets the definition of a chokehold." That contradicts the defense's claim that Pantaleo used an approved technique called a "seat-belt hold." Pantaleo is not facing criminal charges. However, he could lose vacation days or be fired depending on the outcome of the disciplinary trial. The disciplinary hearing kicked off amid protests on Monday. The first day of trial proved to be emotional as Garners sister left a Manhattan courtroom wailing. Pantaleo and other officers were trying to handcuff Garner, an unarmed black man, after stopping him on a city street corner for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, when Garner started to struggle. He later died. The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide caused in part by the cop's apparent chokehold. He was heavyset and had asthma, which were also contributing factors, the medical examiner's office said. Garner's family received $5.9 million from the city in 2015 to settle a wrongful death claim. Federal prosecutors have until July to file civil rights charges against Pantaleo. What to Know A Florida man allegedly whacked his sleeping girlfriend with a cheeseburger after an argument, authorities say The woman told police Kyle Jamison Jones also pulled her hair and kicked her down the stairs; Jones told cops it was just a verbal argument He faces a single charge of battery in the case; it wasn't clear if he had an attorney He wanted it his way -- and when he didn't get it, he attacked her with a cheeseburger, police say. Kyle Jamison Jones, of Florida, faces a battery charge for allegedly slapping his sleeping girlfriend in the face with a cheeseburger after some sort of argument. Police were called to the 30-year-old man's home and found the girlfriend covered in bits of food. She told cops she was woken up by the beef smack, then claimed Jones pulled her hair and kicked her down the stairs. Jones admitted only to a verbal argument, authorities said in a Facebook post Tuesday. It wasn't clear what they had fought about. Information on an attorney for him wasn't immediately available. What to Know Ph.D. student who was arrested after law enforcement confrontations at churches in two states in a matter of days found unfit to stand trial District Attorney for Manhattan Cy Vance, Jr. made the announcement about Marc Lamparello Tuesday Prosecutors say he was "planning to burn down St. Patrick's Cathedral" when he was arrested last month with gas cans and lighter fluid The Ph.D. student who was arrested after law enforcement confrontations at churches in two states in a matter of days, and who prosecutors say was "planning to burn down St. Patrick's Cathedral" when he was arrested last month, was found unfit to stand trial. District Attorney for Manhattan Cy Vance, Jr. made the announcement about Marc Lamparello Tuesday. Lamparello, 37, underwent psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital since his arrest in April on attempted arson and other charges after allegedly trying to walk into St. Patrick's with two gas cans, lighter fluid and butane lighters. Lamparello's case has been adjourned to June 7 at which point he will be arraigned. Assistant District Attorney David Stuart previously said Lamparello, who police previously said had booked a one-way $2,800 flight to Italy that would have taken him out of the country the day after the St. Patrick's incident, had also booked a hotel just 20 minutes from the Vatican. According to a criminal complaint, an employee spotted him carrying the canisters and a black bag inside cathedral around 8 p.m. on April 17. When an officer arrived on scene, Lamparello allegedly said that his vehicle had run out of gas and that he was taking a shortcut through the church. According to the complaint, the 37-year-old's car had gas in the tank. Two days before the St. Patrick's incident, itself days after fire ravaged Paris' famed Notre Dame Cathedral, Lamparello had a confrontation with police after refusing to leave the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. When an officer told him it was closed, Lamparello said, "If you want me to leave tonight, you're gonna have to handcuff me and arrest me tonight and take me to jail," law enforcement sources told News 4. He still didn't leave. Other officers arrived, at which point Lamparello threw himself onto a pew and yelled, "No!" then scuffled with police who tried to apprehend him, sources say. As he was being taken out of the cathedral, Lamparello told police he wasn't leaving. "God wants me to be here. I know all the sins the priests have committed," he said, according to law enforcement sources. Eventually he was handcuffed and taken to police headquarters to be booked on charges of defiant trespassing, obstruction and resisting arrest. Officials say they called in paramedics to do an evaluation because Lamparello wasn't exhibiting rational behavior at the time; they found nothing wrong with him. Then the man's mother showed up, said he had an apartment in Manhattan and said she was taking him to her home in Hasbrouck Heights. Lamparello has no other prior criminal history of note. No one was hurt in either case, but some gasoline did spill on the floor of St. Patrick's as Lamparello was leaving; he had been stopped by a security guard. What to Know Mayor Bill de Blasio will be running for president, defying deep voter opposition at home to enter the crowded field De Blasio announced his candidacy on Thursday morning De Blasio becomes the first sitting mayor of New York City to run for president since John Lindsay's brief run in 1972 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is officially running for president, defying deep voter opposition at home to enter the crowded field with an unabashed message of progressivism. De Blasio launched his website Thursday morning and made the announcement in a three-minute campaign video titled "Working People First." "There's plenty of money in this world. There's plenty of money in this country. It's just in the wrong hands," De Blasio says in the video, which touts his accomplishments bringing universal pre-K, paid sick leave and a $15 minimum wage to the city. "I'm running for president because it's time we put working people first." De Blasio refers to President Donald Trump as a "bully" and says he must be stopped. The president was quick to respond, tweeting early Thursday, "The Dems are getting another beauty to join their group." "Bill de Blasio of NYC, considered the worst mayor in the U.S., will supposedly be making an announcement for president today," Trump tweeted nearly two hours after the announcement was official on YouTube. "He is a JOKE, but if you like high taxes & crime, he's your man. NYC HATES HIM!" He will later be traveling to Iowa to headline an event in Sioux City, which local Democrats are calling the "first stop on his presidential announcement tour." The mayor will then head to South Carolina for the weekend. De Blasio joins a Democratic field with almost two dozen other candidates. In mounting a bid, the mayor is essentially ignoring the voters who overwhelmingly elected him to City Hall twice. An April 3 Quinnipiac poll found 76 percent of New York City voters opposed the idea of him running for the White House. Even in his most traditionally loyal demographics black voters and voters in the Bronx seven out of every 10 were against the idea of him running for president. De Blasio becomes the first sitting mayor of New York City to run for president since John Lindsay's brief run in 1972. (Rudy Giuliani ran for president after his term as mayor ended, and Michael Bloomberg flirted with a run but never formally launched a campaign.) De Blasio is the city's 109th mayor, coming into office in 2014, and has been a progressive voice on certain issues including early childhood education, immigration reform and voting rights. He was born on May 8, 1961 in Manhattan and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of New York University and Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs and began his career in public service in 1989 as part of David N. Dinkins mayoral campaign. De Blasio went on to serve as regional director at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; as a school board member for Brooklyn School District 15; and as head of Hillary Rodham Clintons 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate. In 2002, he joined the New York City Council, representing Brooklyns 39th district. He was subsequently elected Public Advocate in 2009. De Blasio follows other tri-state Democrats running for president, including New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. What to Know State Police are still searching for a Long Island dad they say shot his son 18 times and stabbed the son's friend, killing both, in 1986 William Fischer is now 72 years old. He's about 5 feet 11 inches tall and 185 to 200 pounds with salt and pepper hair and blue eyes Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call State Police at 631-756-3300 New York State Police are once again asking for the public's help solving a heinous 1986 double homicide -- a case where a man allegedly shot his own son 18 times and stabbed the son's friend twice, killing both of them. William Fischer has been on the run since the Long Island killings of his son, 19-year-old Billy Fischer, and Billy Fischer's friend, Nancy Hyer. Their bodies were found in the trunk of Hyer's car four days before Christmas in 1986. State Police say Fischer apparently invited his son to his Southampton home on Dec. 10, 11 days before the bodies were found. During the visit, authorities believe Billy Fischer, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, asked his father for money to help cover his mounting medical bills. The next day, Billy Fischer contacted Hyer and asked her to come get him from his father's house. When she arrived, William Fischer allegedly shot his son over and over again, then stabbed Hyer to death, putting their bodies in Hyer's trunk and dumping the car at the Southampton Elks Club, State Police say. Cops searching William Fischer's home found blood and fibers matching the victims in the vacuum cleaner; they also found bullets in the walls. Luminol sprayed throughout the house revealed blood had been cleaned off the walls as well, investigators say. William Fischer was indicted on two counts of second-degree murder months later, on Feb. 25, 1987. Two days later, his car was found abandoned at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Authorities have not been able to find him. William Fischer is now 72 years old. He's described as being about 5 feet 11 inches tall and 185 to 200 pounds with salt and pepper hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call State Police at 631-756-3300. The acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that Boeing should have done more to explain an automated flight-control system on its 737 Max aircraft before two deadly crashes, but he defended his agency's safety certification of the plane and its decision not to ground the jet until other regulators around the world had already done so. The FAA official, Daniel Elwell, said he expects Boeing to submit a fix to the plane's flight-control software "in the next week or so." The FAA will analyze the changes, conduct test flights and determine what additional pilot training is needed before letting the planes fly again, he said. "In the U.S., the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAA's analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so," he told members of the House aviation subcommittee. During a two-hour hearing, lawmakers pressed Elwell on the FAA's reliance on designated Boeing employees during the planes' certification process and why the agency didn't ground the planes sooner. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., told Elwell that the public believes "you were in bed with those you were supposed to be regulating, and that's why it took so long" to ground the planes. Other lawmakers defended Boeing and suggested that the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air jet off Indonesia and the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max were due at least partly to pilot error. A total of 346 people were killed in the crashes. "It bothers me that we continue to tear down our system based on what has happened in two other countries," said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo. Across Capitol Hill, a Senate committee held a confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's choice to lead the FAA, former Delta Air Lines pilot and executive Stephen Dickson. He promised senators that he would make sure the FAA does not become captive to the industry it regulates. House Aviation subcommittee Chairman Rick Larsen opened the hearing by declaring that, "The FAA has a credibility problem." Larsen, however, added a note of economic urgency to the FAA's upcoming decision on the plane's safety. The 737 Max is Boeing's best-selling plane and it is built in his home state of Washington. Larsen said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because "if they don't fly, airlines don't need to buy airplanes," and "then there will be no jobs" in aircraft manufacturing. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., struck a sharper tone, criticizing Boeing for pilot manuals that didn't mention a new automated flight-control system implicated in both accidents. DeFazio, who heads the full Transportation Committee, also said he and Larsen have been frustrated after requesting documents from Boeing to aid in the panel's investigation. "Boeing has yet to provide a single document," he said. "We've got to get to the bottom of this." Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined to comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. The Transportation Department's inspector general and two congressional committees are looking into the FAA's relationship with Boeing. Elwell defended the FAA's 2017 approval of the Max including its new automated flight-control system that can push the nose of the plane down if a single sensor detects that the plane could be nearing an aerodynamic stall. That system, called MCAS, was triggered on both fatal flights by faulty sensor readings, and pilots were not able to regain control of the planes as they plunged to Earth. Airlines and pilots were not told about MCAS until after the October crash. "When I first heard of this, (I) thought that the MCAS should have been more adequately explained in the ops manual and the flight manual," Elwell said. He said he expects more explanation to accompany Boeing's fix for the plane, "to make pilots more aware and respond better to an anomaly." Boeing is now reducing the power of MCAS to tilt the plane down, and linking the system to two sensors instead of one. Under questioning, Elwell said Boeing should not have waited more than a year to tell FAA and airlines that another feature a light that indicates when information from flight sensors might be unreliable did not work. Elwell said the light was not critical for safety Boeing has said the same thing although some lawmakers seemed skeptical. The Dallas Morning News reported that American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in November shortly after the first Max crash on potentially grounding the planes and pushed for a quick software fix from the plane maker. "We don't want to do a crappy job of fixing things, and we also don't want to fix the wrong things," a Boeing employee responded, according to a recording reviewed by the newspaper. Elwell was joined at the House hearing by Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. No Boeing representatives were invited to testify. Nadia Milleron, whose daughter, Samya Stumo, was on the Ethiopian Airlines plane, was in the audience. She said FAA seems to be rushing to approve Boeing's fixes to the Max. Regulators, she said, should wait until the accident investigations are finished something that could take many months. "It is possible that these planes should never go back in the air," she added. Milleron, whose family is suing Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines, said travelers hold the final power to ground the plane. "The only thing that is going to stop this is the public," Milleron said in an interview. "If the public is concerned and if the Boeing 737 Max 8 ... becomes toxic ... that's going to make a change." The Senate Commerce Committee heard from Dickson, the former Delta official who, if confirmed by the full Senate, would replace Elwell. The FAA has been led by an acting administrator since January 2018. Dickson said he would not hesitate to take enforcement action against a company regulated by the FAA. U.S. aviation has an enviable safety record over the past decade, Dickson said, but the industry is only as good as the last takeoff or landing. Voters in a Massachusetts town have narrowly rejected a proposal to spend $100,000 on a shark barrier at a beach where children take swimming lessons. The Cape Cod Times reports that Chatham town meeting voters on Tuesday rejected the article 113-112. Selectman Jeffrey Dykens made the proposal. The money would have paid for a feasibility study, and if determined advisable, construction of the barrier at Oyster Pond. Dykens said he wanted to ensure one beach in town was shark free. Seth Taylor called the proposal "silly," noting it would be difficult for a large shark to swim up the inlet to the tidal salt pond. There have been increased great white shark sightings around Cape Cod in recent years. A 26-year-old man was killed by a shark in Wellfleet last September. Russia and the United States voiced hope Tuesday that badly strained relations could begin to improve despite wide differences on multiple fronts and deep mutual suspicion deepened by Russian meddling in American elections. With tensions running high over Iran, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed vindication from the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and said he thought it was time to move on. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conveyed President Donald Trump's interest in restoring better ties. In the highest-level face-to-face contact between the two countries since special counsel Robert Mueller's report was released last month, Putin told Pompeo he hoped relations with the U.S. would now improve. Still, his claim of vindication covered only allegations that Russia and the Trump campaign colluded to hurt Hillary Clinton's candidacy. Putin did not address Mueller's conclusion that Russia actively interfered in the election. "However exotic the work of special counsel Mueller was, I have to say that on the whole he has had a very objective investigation and he confirmed that there were no traces whatsoever of collusion between Russia and the incumbent administration, which we said was absolutely fake," Putin said as he opened the meeting with Pompeo in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. "As we said before there was no collusion from our government officials and it could not be there. Still, that was one of the reasons for the certain break in our inter-state ties," he said. "I'm hoping today that the situation is changing." Though Putin said the Mueller report did not find collusion, the report explicitly notes that collusion is not a legal term and that prosecutors instead searched for evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller's team ultimately concluded that the evidence did not establish such a conspiracy. Pompeo did not specifically mention election meddling in his brief reply to Putin, although he did say the Trump administration would "protect our nation's interest." Earlier, though, Pompeo made clear that any repeat of the 2016 meddling would not be tolerated. "Interference in American elections is unacceptable," Pompeo told reporters at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. "If Russia were to engage in that in 2020, it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it is. We have encouraged them not to. We wouldn't tolerate that. Our elections are important and sacred and they must be free and fair." After meeting with Putin, Pompeo told reporters: "So it's not about moving on. It's about trying to find solutions, compromises, places where there are overlapping interests you can make progress unlocking some of the most difficult problems that are facing us." Putin told Pompeo his recent telephone conversation with Trump raised hopes for an improvement in relations. "As you know, not long ago, a few days ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the president of the United States by telephone," he said. "For me, it created the impression that the president intends to restore Russian-American connections and contacts to resolve joint issues that present mutual interests." Pompeo spoke of "truly overlapping interests" that the two countries "can build on, and most importantly, President Trump very much wants to do that." He cited cooperation in Afghanistan and counterterrorism more broadly, but also a shared goal of getting North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons. But he also told Putin that "just as you will, we'll protect our nation's interest." Venezuela was a key point of discussion and difference, with the U.S. firm in its commitment to support opposition figure Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate leader and Russia equally firm in its backing of embattled President Nicolas Maduro. Pompeo and Trump's national security adviser John Bolton have repeatedly accused Russia, along with Cuba, of propping up Maduro and demanded that Russian and other foreign troops, intelligence officers and security forces leave the country. "On Venezuela, we have disagreement," Pompeo said. "We want every country that's interfering in Venezuela to cease doing that." Lavrov defended Russia's position and said the threats Maduro's government is receiving from U.S. officials, coupled with Guaido's seeming support for a foreign military intervention, "bear no relation to democracy." Iran was another critical agenda item amid spiraling tension between Washington and Tehran that some fear could lead to conflict. The U.S. has accused Iran of threatening to attack American interests in the Middle East and suggested that Iran or Iranian proxies are behind incidents of alleged sabotage on Emirati, Norwegian and Saudi tankers in the Persian Gulf. To deter those threats and counter any possible attack, the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Middle East, heightening already high levels of unease caused by the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran following Trump's withdrawal of the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year. Pompeo sought to alleviate some of the concern but made clear the U.S. would respond to attacks. "We fundamentally don't seek war with Iran," Pompeo said. "But we've also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked, we will most certainly respond in an appropriate fashion." Lavrov said Russia is hoping for a positive response from the United States about extending the New START arms control treaty, which is due to expire in 2021, "but we really have some concerns which are related to the re-equipping of launchers of Trident submarines and heavy bombers announced by the United States." A day after Trump said he would meet with Putin at the Group of 20 summit of leaders in Japan in June, Lavrov said Russia has not received a formal proposal. "If such a proposal is received, we will respond to it in a positive way," he said. Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said later that the Kremlin is prepared to agree to any format for a Putin-Trump meeting. __ Heintz reported from Moscow. Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. A photo that showed two students holding up a sign as part of a prom proposal left parents, students and teachers at a Southern California high school in disbelief after it was shared on social media. The sign held by Palos Verdes High School students reads, "You are a racist, but I would give anything for you to go with me to prom." It includes highlighted letters that spell out a racist slur. The boy and girl appear to be laughing in the photo, which was posted to Twitter and Instagram. The girl pictured in the photo posted an apology online late Wednesday, saying she initially didn't notice the racial slur, and she doesn't find it funny. The post reads, "I am so ashamed my face is behind this. If you know me as a person you know I do not discriminate against anyone. I would never want this kind of reputation for myself and for my school. My school has taken action, and I have been punished, along with three other people who were involved in this situation." The school did not reveal what kind of punishment the students were facing. In an initial statement released to students, principal Allan Tyner called the slur a "slang term," for which he apologized later Wednesday. "We were made aware today by some of our students of an invitation that incorporated a slang term for African American and features two of our high school students," principal Allan Tyner said in a statement. "We have been in touch with the identified students and their families to inform them that we are forming a response and anticipate severe consequences. In accordance with our values and expectations for respectful conduct in our district and at PVHS, this sign is unacceptable." Tyner said the school is trying to determine whether other students were present at the time the photo was taken. Tyner said he was heartened by responses to the sign on social media from students and their families, many of whom denounced the students' behavior. "It makes me feel small, honestly, to know that there are students on my campus who think that that is acceptable, who think that's appropriate, and think that word is just a word that can be thrown around like that," said student Ryan Pascal. She also said she immediately penned a letter to administrators, expressing her disgust. Student Ryan Pascal also wrote to administrators, expressing what it felt like to see the classmates' photo. "I saw the promposal of that, and it didn't sit well with me," said junior Joey Quinn. "I know a lot of my friends are nothing like that and I just don't think it represents our student body at all." "It makes me feel small to know that there are students on my campus who think that that's acceptable," said Ryan Pascal. "Who think that's appropriate. Who think that that word is just a word that can be thrown around like that." School officials went class to class Wednesday to discuss the post. "Racist words and racist acts have no place in our school community," Tyner said. "We will rise above this, learn from this, and be a better school community because of it." Two representatives from the NAACP also came to campus late Wednesday and left angry. They said they were turned away because the principal was too busy to talk with them and would schedule a future meeting. "I believe information and education on other races and whats not a slang word but a painful racist word would educate these students on how painful this whole situation is," said Dr. Cheyenne Bryant of the San Pedro and Wilmington chapter of the NAACP. The high school's prom is scheduled for Saturday. Palos Verdes High School is on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, located about 30 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles. NBC4's Jonathan Lloyd contributed to this report. Baytown, Texas, police say a woman who was shot and killed by a police officer after she used his stun gun on him was not pregnant. In a video captured Monday night in the Houston suburb, Pamela Turner can be heard yelling "I'm pregnant" at the officer during a struggle in which the officer was stunned in the groin with his own weapon before he opened fire. Baytown Lt. Steve Dorris said the department has confirmed the 44-year-old Turner was not pregnant. Dorris didn't elaborate on how police learned she was not pregnant. Autopsy results have not been released. Police have not released the officer's name, but say he is an 11-year veteran of the department who was trying to arrest Turner on outstanding warrants. Investigators are trying to contact whoever took the video. The shooting happened late Monday in Baytown, about 25 miles east of Houston. Dorris said the officer was patrolling an apartment complex and attempted to arrest the woman, whom the officer had previously dealt with, because he knew she had outstanding warrants. In the video, the woman is heard saying "You're actually harassing me" and "I'm actually walking to my house." The woman is on the ground and appears to reach toward the officer when she seems to be heard saying "I'm pregnant." Moments later he fires five shots, killing her. Family told NBC's Houston affiliate KPRC that the woman had two children, both in their 20s. Dorris said the officer did not suffer serious injuries. "It's a tragic event for everybody involved," Dorris said. "Of course, our hearts go out to the family of the deceased as well as our officer." "We never want to have to resort to this. We never want things to get to this point, where an officer has to take somebody's life," he added. Video of the fatal incident was recorded on Snapchat and went viral on social media. Dorris said police were aware of the video circulating on social media and that investigators want to talk to the person who took the video, because he or she was a witness to the shooting. Taylin Innis, a neighbor of the victim, told NBC News she heard the gunshots was surprised to learn that someone was killed at her apartment complex. "They mustve had a couple of words. Things went a whole different way, and he shot her, and I really feel for the family and I hope they get some type of justice," Innis said. "I just pray for them honestly because life is short nowadays." International worries that the Trump administration is sliding toward war with Iran flared into the open amid skepticism about its claims that the Islamic Republic poses a growing threat to the U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf and beyond . The U.S. military on Tuesday rebutted doubts expressed by a British general about such a threat. President Donald Trump denied a report that the administration has updated plans to send more than 100,000 troops to counter Iran if necessary. But Trump then stirred the controversy further by saying: "Would I do that? Absolutely." The general's remarks exposed international skepticism over the American military build-up in the Middle East, a legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was predicated on false intelligence. U.S. officials have not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat amid other signs of allied unease. As tensions in the region started to surge, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said his nation was worried about the risk of accidental conflict "with an escalation that is unintended really on either side." Then on Tuesday, Spain temporarily pulled one of its frigates from the U.S.-led combat fleet heading toward the Strait of Hormuz. That was followed by the unusual public challenge to the Trump administration by the general. "No, there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," said Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Ghika, speaking in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon that the coalition monitors the presence of Iranian-backed forces "along with a whole range of others because that's the environment we're in." But he added, "There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we don't see any increased threat from any of them at this stage." Late in the day, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, U.S. Central Command said Ghika's remarks "run counter to the identified credible threats" from Iranian-backed forces in the Mideast. In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. "As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq," the statement said. At the White House, Trump, who has repeatedly argued for avoiding long-term conflicts in the Mideast, discounted a New York Times report that the U.S. has updated plans that could send up to 120,000 troops to counter Iran if it attacked American forces. "Would I do that? Absolutely," he told reporters. "But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that." Reinforcing Trump's denial, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference in Sochi with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran." A Trump administration official said a recent small meeting of national security officials was not focused on a military response to Iran, but instead concentrated on a range of other policy options, including diplomacy and economic sanctions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Lavrov said Pompeo told him that a potential deployment of 120,000 U.S. troops to the Mideast was only a "rumor." Lavrov said the international community needs to focus on diplomacy with Iran, including on the potentially explosive issue of Iran's nuclear program, which is constrained by a U.S.-brokered deal in 2015 that Trump has abandoned. U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook told reporters traveling with Pompeo in Brussels that the secretary of state shared intelligence on Iran with allies since "Europe shares our concerns about stability in the Gulf and the Middle East." What the Europeans do not share, however, is Washington's more aggressive approach to Iran. "We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters in Brussels. "What we need is a period of calm to make sure that everyone understands what the other side is thinking," Hunt said. Last week, U.S. officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Mideast, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. The U.S. has about 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 2,000 in Syria as part of the coalition campaign to defeat the Islamic State group there. It also has long had a variety of air and naval forces stationed in Bahrain, Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf, partly to support military operations against IS and partly as a counter to Iranian influence. Gen. Ghika's comments came amid dramatically heightened tensions in the Middle East. The U.S. in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. It also is moving a Patriot air-defense missile battery to an undisclosed country in the area. As of Tuesday, the Lincoln and its strike group had passed through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, but officials would not disclose their exact location. Tensions rose another notch with reports Sunday that four commercial vessels anchored off the United Arab Emirates had been damaged by sabotage. A U.S. military team was sent to the UAE to investigate, and one U.S. official said the initial assessment is that each ship has a 5- to 10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation, said the early interpretation is that the holes were caused by explosive charges. The official on Tuesday acknowledged seeing some photographs of the damage to the ships, but those images have not been made public. The official also said that the team is continuing to conduct forensic testing on the ship damage and that U.S. leaders are still awaiting the final report. The team's initial assessment is that the damage was done by Iranian or Iranian-backed proxies, but they are still going through the evidence and have not yet reached a final conclusion, the official said. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee and Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report. What to Know Shawn Robert Felmey, 45, was arrested in Florida and will be charged in the December death of a toddler inside a Bucks County apartment. The investigation began on Dec. 18 of last year when a 22-month-old boy was found dead inside an apartment at the Commons at Fallsington. Felmey will be extradited to Pennsylvania where he'll face counts of criminal homicide and endangering welfare of children. A Bucks County man was arrested in Florida and will be charged in the December death of a toddler inside an apartment where he lived with the childs mother. Shawn Robert Felmey, 45, was taken into custody Wednesday morning in Melbourne, Florida. The investigation began on Dec. 18 of last year when a 22-month-old boy was found dead inside the basement of an apartment at the Commons at Fallsington complex in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. Police said the boy died from head trauma and was most likely either thrown or swung by an adult onto the floor. His death was ruled a homicide. During the investigation, family members said they had spotted unexplained bruises on the boys head months prior to his death. One witness also told police they had seen Felmey handling the boy in a rough manner, including one incident in which he shook the child, officials said. Felmey initially told police that he stayed out of the basement after returning from work during the morning of the boys death. Investigators later determined Felmey lied about this however, according to a criminal complaint. Felmeys story changed over time and he eventually said he may have possibly interacted with the boy in the basement, police said. Felmey told investigators the boy could have fallen from his arms and onto the floor while he was changing his diaper but he didnt remember, according to the complaint. Investigators said Felmey deviated from his normal habits the day of the toddlers death and didnt get the boys sibling ready for school like he usually did. After an investigation that lasted for months, police determined Felmey threw the boy on the basement floor while the child's mother was at work. Police said they were not alerted about the boys injury until nearly nine hours later around 11 a.m. that day. Felmey never looked in the boys direction or asked about the childs wellbeing when police and first responders arrived, according to investigators. During an interview, Felmey told officials he had "anger issues which are exacerbated when he is drinking, which he was doing on December 17." Felmey will be extradited to Bucks County where hell face counts of criminal homicide and endangering the welfare of children. What to Know Former Gov. Ed Rendell is a board member of the non-profit seeking to open a safe injection site in Philly. It would be the nation's first. Toronto, Canada's largest city, has long had injection sites for illegal drugs like heroin. Other Canadian cities also have them. Medical officials at those Canadian facilities told NBC10 during a recent visit that they are safe, and in fact have saved many lives. Philadelphia has yet to open a safe injection site, despite support from Mayor Jim Kenney and other political leaders like former Gov. Ed Rendell. In Toronto, Canada, however, several sites are already up and running. NBC10 took a trip to our northern neighbors' largest city with nearly 5.5 million residents to see the effect on neighborhoods. Safe injection sites there allow residents to use illegal drugs like heroin in a safe environment. Hypodermic needles, alcohol swabs and other paraphernalia needed to inject heroin are provided for free. So are life-saving medicines and equipment like Narcan. The system appears to be working for Toronto and its heroin-reliant population. No one has died at any of the safe injection sites since they first opened well over a decade ago, according to Dr. Rita Shahin, a physician at a site in Toronto called "The Works." The facility is run by the city Public Health Department. In fact, 800 lives have been saved at a single site in Toronto since it opened in August 2017. When heroin users overdose, staffers are on hand to inject Narcan. The reaction among residents in Toronto neighborhoods around the sites is mixed. Some say sidewalks once riddled with dirty needles and empty drug packets told NBC10 that they have noticed a decline in the heroin paraphernalia since the injection sites opened. "Well, Ive noticed less disposed needles like on the streets," Jose Zamora, who lives near one of the Toronto sites, said. Others say the sites create a concentration of users. "The moment you place a safe injection site in a neighborhood, you create a very visible concentration," resident Nick Culverwell said. In Philadelphia, a safe injection site proposed for the Kensington neighborhood has hit political and legal roadblocks. What Candidates in Mayoral Race Think Mayor Jim Kenney, running for a second term, supports a proposed site in Kensington. He also has said he supports more than one site, eventually: "The city would not operate this operation. It would be done by a non-profit. Our role would be to have people there who would have access to social services, addiction services and the like so that we can get people into another space as opposed to under a railroad trestle or down by a railroad line shooting up by themselves and dying." State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams does not support safe injection sites in Philadelphia, instead seeking to expand addiction services: "We're empathetic and supportive of those in the throes of addiction. Let me be clear about that. But we should be about intervention. We should be about prevention, and aftercare. That means early in life, our young people need to understand what these drugs will do. Two, if you're in the throes of addiction, you should be able to walk into the police department, fire station, library, anyplace and get the City of Philadelphia to say, 'We're going to send you to a place of recovery.'" Former City Controller Alan Butkovitz does not support any injection sites in Philadelphia, arguing that the facility's positives are outweighed by the large police presence it would require: "Safe injection sites is an oxymoron. There's no way you can safely inject heroin, particularly fentanyl-contaminated heroin, without killing yourself eventually. And whether or not you physically drop dead in the center or out in the street or back in the bathtub when you're home, doesn't make any difference. What we need to be doing is more beds, more dollars, more outreach, more support for families." Little Political Support in Kensington Both of the neighborhood's top politicians, Seventh District City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez and state Rep. Angel Cruz, told Telemundo62 recently that they do not support an injection site in the troubled area. Kenney and Rendell, the former governor and Philadelphia mayor, are proponents of putting the city's first injection site in Kensington because of its proximity to the neighborhood's rampant heroin sales. Outside of Kensington, the city's federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney William McSwain, is strongly opposed to an injection site anywhere in the city. McSwain in February sued to keep the proposed first site closed. "Normalizing the use of deadly drugs like heroin and fentanyl is not the answer to solving the epidemic," McSwain said at the time. Rendell is a board member of Safehouse, the nonprofit trying to raise $1.8 million to open the Kensington injection site. He has said he's willing to face arrest. He bucked similar regulations when he was Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s, sanctioning the city's first needle exchange program. "If I thought for a minute that safe injection sites would create new addicts, I wouldn't be a part of it. I see the ability to save lives and get people who are addicts exposed to treatment," Rendell said last fall. North Carolina's most infamous political story lines of recent years are merging into a congressional race this summer that pits the architect of the state's "bathroom bill" against a Democrat who was granted an electoral do-over after evidence of ballot fraud tainted his prior opponent's campaign. State Sen. Dan Bishop topped nine other Republican candidates seeking the 9th Congressional District nomination on Tuesday, winning almost half of the ballots cast in an extremely low turnout election that drew less than 10% of the eligible voters. He will face Democrat Dan McCready, as well as Libertarian and Green candidates, on Sept. 10. Bishop's role as sponsor of a headline-grabbing "bathroom bill" that voided anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people is likely to be a focal point in this repeat race, ordered by election officials who deemed last year's contest too tainted to stand. And despite the low turnout on Tuesday, the general election could draw a heavy infusion of political cash on both sides because it's virtually alone on the political calendar this year. The vote count last November showed McCready, a former Marine and Harvard MBA, narrowly losing to Republican Mark Harris. But then, an investigation found Harris ignored warnings and paid a political operative who collected mail-in ballots. Harris opted not to run again. In 2016, Bishop sponsored House Bill 2, the law that voided a Charlotte ordinance expanding LGBT rights and prevented similar anti-discrimination rules anywhere else in the state. HB2 was nicknamed the "bathroom bill" because it also directed transgender people to use public bathrooms and showers that matched their birth sex. The measure made waves nationally and prompted boycotts by entertainers, governments and some businesses thinking about moving jobs to North Carolina. Bishop said while voters knew HB2 had his whole-hearted backing, the law was partially repealed in 2017 and is no longer as important as other issues. "People are astonished and amazed and dismayed at what they see coming out of Washington these days from liberal crazy clowns. Socialism. Open borders. Infanticide. 90% tax rates. Having prison inmates vote. It goes on and on," Bishop told supporters Tuesday night. "And of course, most of all, an incessant drive to impeach the president." With conflict between President Donald Trump and Washington Democrats heating up after the investigation into Russian support for the president's 2016 campaign, the four-month contest between Bishop and McCready is expected to serve as a measure of political tides and an open vault for donors. McCready ran a solar-energy financing fund before starting his run for Congress two years ago. He's built up his name recognition over the extended campaign and had almost $1.6 million in cash on hand as of May 2, according to Federal Election Commission reports. But McCready will be swimming upstream in a congressional district that has been in GOP hands since 1963 and which Trump won by 12 percentage points in 2016. The district stretches from suburban Charlotte to suburban Fayetteville along the South Carolina border. Bishop accused McCready of refusing to clearly state his positions on public issues during last year's primary and general elections. McCready "went through two elections without telling anyone where he stood on anything. That ends tomorrow," Bishop said Tuesday night. McCready last year said he would not support Nancy Pelosi for her top leadership role in the U.S. House. She was elected speaker in January after Democrats took over the House majority. McCready refused during an October debate to rule in or out whether he supported impeaching Trump. But the GOP's brand also has suffered in the wake of the much-publicized investigation into Harris's campaign, followed last month by federal charges accusing the state party's chairman of working with a big-money donor to try bribing North Carolina's top insurance regulator. What to Know The Medical Aid in Dying Act would allow terminally ill adults in New York to obtain life-ending medication from their doctors. In January, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced hed support the legislation taking a public stance on the issue for the first time. Opponents believe the law could be misapplied by people seeking to take advantage or do harm. Two months ago, New York-based artist and filmmaker Barbara Hammer died after a 12-year battle with ovarian cancer and without access to medication that would have allowed her to die on her own terms. "She did not die the way she wanted," said her partner Florrie Burke at the New York State Capitol Tuesday. Burke and dozens of supporters were there urging state lawmakers to pass The Medical Aid in Dying Act during an annual lobby day organized by Compassion & Choices. The measure would allow terminally ill adults in New York to request and obtain prescriptions for life-ending medication from their doctors. The option is legal in only eight other states and the District of Columbia. The bill has been introduced during each legislative session since 2016, and last year failed to move through a Republican-controlled senate. But proponents who brought their message to the Capitol Tuesday are hopeful after New Jersey passed its own version of the bill in March. Nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers support the practice, according to a 2018 Quinnipiac poll. Both chambers of the legislature are now under Democratic control. Adding to the momentum, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced he'd support the legislation taking a public stance on the issue for the first time. "I say pass the bill," Cuomo told WAMC's Alan Chartock in a January interview. "It's a controversial issue, it's a difficult issue, but the older we get and the better medicine gets the more we've seen people suffer for too, too long." Although proponents say the bill includes a dozen safeguards, including requiring a prognosis of six months or less to live and requiring two adults to witness the approval process, opponents believe the law could be misapplied by people seeking to take advantage or do harm. "There are great disparities in access and quality of care at the end of life and we are particularly concerned about the impact of Medical Aid in Dying on vulnerable populations," said Dr. Arthur Fougner, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, in a statement. The New York State Catholic Conference also opposes the measure, calling it "assisted suicide," a term some supporters find offensive. "This is not suicide," Hammer said in a video released before her death. "This is my choice to choose my death at a certain time." Hammer underwent over 100 rounds of chemotherapy during the course of her illness. Proponents argue that medical aid in dying has a good track record in the eight states where it's regulated and has largely improved autonomy for those with incurable illnesses by increasing end-of-life options. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)||document.querySelector("iframe[src*='"+e+"']");t&&(t.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][e]+"px")}})}(); "It comes down to supporting evidence-based health legislation," said Corinne Carey, executive director of Compassion & Choices, New York. Assemblymember Amy Paulin, who co-sponsors the Assembly version of the bill, said the issue has been "emotionally charged" among her constituents, but mostly in a positive way. The issue became personal after her sister died from ovarian cancer. "We have had good momentum this year," Paulin said, adding that she wasn't sure if the bill would have enough support to pass both chambers. Currently, terminally ill people in New York are permitted to end their lives by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, a process that often prolongs suffering. Eighteen other states have introduced similar legislation this year. While violent crime in San Diego County last year had one of the lowest rates in the last four decades, homicides and rapes were up, according to a new study from the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). SANDAG's Criminal Justice Research Division analyzed regional crime data from local law enforcement agencies to compare crime data from 1980 to 2018 and compile it into their annual crime report. The study found violent crime -- homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault -- remained steady from 2017 to 2018 and on-trend with the rest of the country. The rate was one of the lowest in the last four decades. Though, Dalia Tostado, a mother and Escondido resident for 16 years, said she feels the communitys crime is worse due to incidents at schools and hate crimes. For my kids to be out in the streets, to me, its not safe, Tostado said. I dont want them to be on their skateboards or riding their bikes, you know, to the store or whatever. I just dont feel comfortable with that. There were 87 homicides in the San Diego region in 2018, seven more than in 2017 and the majority stemming from an argument. Domestic violence was the motive in the killings 16 percent of the time, according to the data. However, the number of rapes increased by 6 percent from the year before and aggravated assault as a whole was up as well. Violent crime against seniors also jumped by 11 percent between 2017 to 2018, though the study says that may, in part, be attributed to a larger population of seniors. Overall, the violent crime rate has been steadily on the decline since reaching its peak in 1992, amid a surge of methamphetamine use that likely accounted for the spike in crime, SANDAG said. Ive lived here since I was 10 years old. Moved to Los Angeles for five years, and I moved back to Escondido because of the situation and the violence in Los Angeles, said Lisa Barrett, a teacher and mother. I had a situation happen the other night where (my kids car) broke down in the road, and the police were there, helping them right away. They were really happy and felt really safe, and so do I. The same study found property crime in San Diego County reached its lowest rate in the last four decades, though one in every 59 residents fell victim to it last year. The property crime rate of just under 17 percent per 1,000 people was the lowest rate in the last 39 years. That makes me feel a little bit okay when my son forgets to lock the front door. And I come home, and the house is still intact, Barrett told NBC 7. The number could be lower though, the study noted. Of the 8,267 burglaries reported in 2018 -- accounting for $182 million worth of goods -- half of those cases did not have any forced entry in the crime, meaning they may have been prevented if the property was secured. The study also found that shoplifting in San Diego County was also on the decline. There was, however, an increase in the number of stolen bicycles. SANDAG used local crime data from the FBI Index and data from the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) to come up with their analysis. The FBI Index includes four violent offenses (willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and three types of property crime (burglary, larceny theft, and motor vehicle theft). What to Know Leonard Glenn "Fat Leonard" Francis was a foreign defense contractor and CEO of Glenn Defense Marine Asia. Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 to providing Navy officials with prostitutes and cash and to defrauding the U.S. government. As of February 2019, 33 defendants have been charged and 22 have pleaded guilty. A U.S. Navy captain, whose elaborate marriage proposal was bankrolled by a Singapore businessman convicted of bribing senior Navy officials and defrauding the government, received a formal letter of censure for demonstrating exceedingly poor judgment and leadership." Capt. Heedong Choi served as the Commanding Officer of the guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee from 2008 to 2013, according to the letter from the U.S. Secretary of the Navy dated April 26. For the last decade, however, Choi has had an ongoing relationship with Leonard "Fat Leonard" Francis. Among the gifts the commanding officer accepted was an elaborate private dinner on the helipad of a 5-star Singapore hotel complete with a jazz ensemble to propose to his girlfriend on June 6, 2009. Francis paid $18,000 for the event, according to the censure. Choi sent emails to Francis expressing his loyalty to the businessman and accepted gifts over the course of a decade ranging from discounted hotel rooms to flowers, cigars and Dom Perignon champagne. Choi was also guilty of committing the offense of graft by accepting gifts worth more than $25,000 for services to the GDMA owner, according to the letter from the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Your willingness to accept those gifts provided the worst type of example for subordinate officers within your chain of command and other officers who observed your interaction with Mr. Francis, the letter stated. Then, when interviewed about the ongoing bribery investigation, Choi lied to investigators about his relationship with Francis, the government said. In December 2012, he even alerted Francis about the governments investigation. In 2015, Francis pleaded guilty to bribery and fraud charges in a decade-long conspiracy involving a number of U.S. Navy officials. NBC 7 has been following this investigation since September 2013. The Utah man accused of driving his pickup truck into pedestrians and vehicles Tuesday in northbound traffic lanes headed into the U.S. from Tijuana has been identified as 29-year-old Frank Eddie Stricker. Stricker was being held in Tijuana, Mexico, on suspicion of attempted homicide and damage of property after his pickup truck drove into cars and street vendors just south of the San Ysidro Port of Entry. NBC 7 has obtained images of the man taken into custody but due to his injuries, they may be disturbing to some users. This photo contains imagery that some viewers may find disturbing. Click to view. Emergency personnel talk with the man arrested following the collision between a pickup with Utah plates and several pedestrians and cars near the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The suspect drove his black Chevrolet Silverado with Utah license plate V305LU into pedestrians and cars waiting their turn to cross into the United States, Mexican law enforcement officers told NBC 7. Emergency personnel rushed to the northbound lanes just south of the port of entry when the incident occurred around 2 p.m. on Monday. Prior to that, the driver was involved in an altercation with a pedestrian, police said. Mario Martinez, Tijuana's police director, said the suspect allegedly threatened a person with a razor on Avenida Manuel Marquez de Leon in the Zona Rios. When police approached the driver, he allegedly fled in his pick-up truck toward the border crossing. As he fled, the driver hit five pedestrians, including an officer; rammed 17 cars and hit 12 mobile street vendors, police said. Fresno resident Lori Ray and her boyfriend were in the area after a weekend in Rosarito. "I just heard a lot of banging and crashing and then the sirens," Ray told NBC 7. She said their car was hit and pushed off to the side. She said what happened next was terrifying. "Locals, mostly vendors, people that were out on the streets, they had sticks and bats and all kinds of things, just waving them," she said. "They just beat the car, grabbed the people out of the car on to the ground." She said the people with sticks and bats were beating Stricker and another passenger inside the vehicle. Tijuana police have not confirmed the identity of the passenger. Municipal police arrested Stricker about 30 meters south of the border crossing. He was turned over to federal investigators. His prior offenses in Utah include forgery, retail theft, violation of parole, and possession of a controlled substance. U.S. Customs and Border Protection told NBC 7 the incident did not impact wait times at the border. No other information was available. A U.S. citizen was arrested in Mexico after he drove into cars and pedestrians heading to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, injuring three people, including an officer. NBC 7s Catherine Garcia has more. A camera fixed on northbound border traffic lanes in Tijuana shows a suspect in a pickup truck driving recklessly, plowing into cars and pedestrians. The Trump administration is hoping to shift money for Pell Grants for college education to fund new spending, including a $1.6 billion bump for NASA. Under a budget amendment sent Monday evening to Congress, the administration would use an additional $1.9 billion in surplus Pell Grant money to fund other budget priorities, including an infusion of new cash for NASA "so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!" President Donald Trump tweeted. A series of proposed changes reverses some of the most controversial cuts Trump's administration had proposed, including slashing funding for the Special Olympics. The White House can send such requests, called "rescissions," to Congress to clawback unspent money the administration views as wasteful or unnecessary. Congress, however, must approve. Officials insisted the re-allocation of the Pell Grant money would have no impact on those receiving grants, which help low-income students pay for college. "This does not cut any spending for Pell Grant programs as the budget continues to ensure all students will get their full Pell Grant and keeps the program on sound fiscal footing," Office of Management and Budget spokesman Wesley Denton said in a statement. Enrollment in the program has declined since 2011, leading to a surplus of nearly $9 billion, according to the budget office. The administration had originally proposed using $2 billion of that surplus to fund other spending. The new request brings that total to $3.9 billion, which OMB described as similar to its request in the 2018 budget. The administration proposed a similar cancellation of unobligated Pell grant money for 2019, but later backed off the idea. The decision to bolster NASA's budget had been announced earlier Monday in a series of tweets in which Trump promised a new era of space exploration. "Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars," he wrote. Vice President Mike Pence has called for landing astronauts on the moon within five years, and has said NASA needs to achieve that goal "by any means necessary." This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. The request for the NASA funding comes as the White House has been signaling its reluctance to endorse a deal to increase spending "caps" for domestic programs backed by both parties on Capitol Hill. In negotiations on a long-sought hurricane and flood disaster aid bill have gone frustratingly slowly, in large part because Trump has been opposed to giving Puerto Rico more rebuilding funds to help the island recover from back-to-back 2017 hurricanes. Trump had previously announced plans included in Monday's request to reverse several of his administration's own proposed budget cuts, including efforts to gut federal funding for a wide-ranging Great Lakes cleanup program. Trump told a rally crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in March that he was reversing course on the proposed cuts and would support allocating $300 million this year for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative after three Republican lawmakers from the state lobbied him during a ride from the Grand Rapids airport. Trump's initial budget proposal had sought to cut the program's federal financing by 90%. Trump also announced that day that he would be reversing his budget's call to slash $17.6 million in funding for the Special Olympics in the face of withering criticism from Capitol Hill. Trump tweeted Monday that he had "officially updated my budget to include $18 million for our GREAT @SpecialOlympics, whose athletes inspire us and make our Nation so PROUD!" Trump also said he would push for $200 million for Army Corps of Engineers restoration work in the Florida Everglades this year, calling on Congress "to help us complete the world's largest intergovernmental watershed restoration project ASAP!" Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Collin Binkley and Seth Borenstein contributed to this report. Eager to jump-start the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline and other energy projects, President Donald Trump has acted to assert executive power over pipelines and such infrastructure. He issued a new permit for Keystone XL and insisted this exercise of presidential authority was not subject to judicial review. Then he signed an executive order clarifying that the president alone has the power to grant permits for cross-border projects such as pipelines. A separate order makes it harder for states to block pipelines and other energy projects on the basis of environmental concerns. Taken together, the actions amount to a broad assertion of power that reverses more than 50 years of precedent that delegated decision-making on energy projects to individual agencies. Trump has shown a willingness to override his own agencies to accomplish his aims. His actions, if upheld by the courts, could consolidate power over energy projects at the White House, increasing the influence of the president's political advisers and potentially cutting out experts and career officials throughout the government. "Too often badly needed energy infrastructure is being held back by special interest groups, entrenched bureaucracies and radical activists," Trump said Wednesday before signing the executive orders at an event in Texas. Pipeline opponents say Trump acted illegally. They have asked a federal court to block the new Keystone permit, arguing that it is an effort to get around an earlier court ruling. But one legal expert said Trump's approach might succeed. "He has now created a whole new decision-making structure" for cross-border pipelines, said Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University. If the courts follow a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, they may find that action taken by the State Department in approving or rejecting the pipeline "is nonreviewable, because it doesn't qualify as final agency action," Pierce said. Further, Trump's decision would not be subject to review because of a separate law that declares the president is not an agency and therefore is not bound by rules that apply to agency actions. "That's a very clever approach that might well work," Pierce said. Trump's actions are "typical of this presidency," said Holly Doremus, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She said Trump frequently seeks to stretch the limits of his power, and she cited Trump's declaration of an emergency that he says allows him to shift more money to construction of a promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the case of Keystone, Trump appears to be arguing that the new presidential permit, issued March 29, gets around restrictions under the National Environmental Policy Act or other laws, because the statutes apply to executive-branch agencies but not to the president, Doremus said. "If the president is the only discretionary decision maker, NEPA simply does not apply," she said. While Trump's theory is plausible, it is unclear who is the ultimate decision-maker on Keystone XL, Doremus said. The pipeline would ship crude oil from the tar sands of western Canada to U.S. refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Both a 2015 rejection of the project by the Obama administration and a 2017 approval by Trump were issued by the State Department under terms of a 2004 executive order that delegated presidential authority for cross-border projects to that agency. Trump's executive order revokes the 2004 order, issued by President George W. Bush. Bush's action extended an executive order first issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. "It's surprising that the president would come in and single-handedly try to circumvent 50 years of precedent for these types of projects by just issuing a permit himself," said Doug Hayes, a Sierra Club attorney who has sued to block the Keystone project in court. In November, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Montana ruled that the Trump administration did not fully consider potential oil spills and other impacts when it approved the pipeline in 2017. Morris ordered a new environmental review of the pipeline. The White House said the new permit issued by Trump "dispels any uncertainty" about the long-delayed project, which was first proposed a decade ago by Calgary-based TransCanada. Trump's move on Keystone XL reinforces the idea that "the presidential permit is indeed an exercise of presidential authority that is not subject to judicial review," according to the White House. Under the new order, federal officials still would conduct environmental reviews of the project, but they would be carried out by agencies other than the State Department, the White House said. TransCanada spokesman Matthew John said the administration's action "clearly demonstrates to the courts that the permit is (the) product of presidential decision-making and should not be subject to additional environmental review." Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said it was "strange" that Trump issued the executive order after granting the new permit. "The White House is making the argument supposedly that he has untrammeled authority and doesn't have to obey the laws of Congress" in approving a cross-border pipeline, Tobias said. "I'm dubious and I think a number of other people are, too." Kathryn Watts, a law professor at the University of Washington, said it's unclear what happens next. Trump's permit wades into "uncharted, unsettled" legal territory, she said. Associated Press writer Matthew Brown contributed to this report. The stretch of U.S. Route 1 and Virginia Route 110 that goes through Arlington, Virginia, will have its name changed from Jefferson Davis Highway to Richmond Highway as the county requested, the Commonwealth Transportation Board announced. While it is necessary for us to honestly discuss and interpret Virginias history, I feel strongly that commemorating the president of the Confederacy through the name of a major thoroughfare is not appropriate, Gov. Ralph Northam wrote in a letter read at the meeting where the change was announced. In March, Attorney General Mark Herring issued an opinion that the Commonwealth Transportation Board has the authority to rename the highway and doesn't need approval from the General Assembly. State Del. Mark Levine requested Herring's opinion. "It's 2019. It is not 1865, nor 1922, nor even 1953," Levine said. "We live in a post-Charlottesville time. And the vast majority of Northern Virginia no longer wants to honor the Confederacy or the racist legacy of Jefferson Davis." On Jan. 1, the section of Jefferson Davis Highway through the city of Alexandria was renamed Richmond Highway to match the name the road has always carried in Fairfax County. The county estimates it will have to spend $17,000 to pay for new street signs. County officials say the changes will be implemented by Oct. 1. The Board also decided on Wednesday to name a bridge in Amherst County as the Trooper Lucas B. Dowell Bridge after the Virginia State Police trooper who was killed in the line of duty earlier this year. Trooper Dowell worked closely with VDOT crews in the Lynchburg District, and was a respected and committed partner within the Virginia State Police, said Secretary of Transportation Shannon Valentine. With this naming, we are honored to preserve his memory and legacy of bravery and public service for generations to come. A fundraising effort is growing for a Virginia teenager critically injured in a car crash. Christina Maenza of Prince William County was airlifted from a crash scene on Route 29 in Fauquier County earlier this month. When an app told Bill Maenza his 16-year-old daughters car was at a standstill at a dangerous intersection, he drove to the scene to investigate. You walk up and see your own vehicle completely destroyed and your daughter is nowhere to be found, he said. Christina had been flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital, and Bill Maenza and his wife rushed to the hospital. She was in pretty bad shape, he said. She was in a coma at the time. She suffered broken bones and internal injuries. Her familys biggest worry is her head injury. Its amazing that she survived the accident at all, her father said. Christina is one of five siblings, and her oldest brother set up a GoFundMe page to help with medical bills. The contributions and messages help raise the familys spirits. It has really lifted us up, Bill Maenza said. Without everybodys support and our faith, I dont know if we wouldve have been able to endure all this. There are encouraging moments, like when her sister visited recently. Her older sister waved to her, and she was able to raise her hand and wave back, and it meant a lot, her father said. Christinas friends from Brentsville District High School brought her a picture board when they visited. I just want her to get better, friend Kendall McCann said. And I dont want her to worry about anything school or anything else thats been going on. Christina wont have to worry about finishing the school year. Because she is such a strong student, the principal is giving her full credit and straight As. Shes got a lot of fight in her, her father said. Shes very strong willed and determined, and were confident shes going to pull through. America's baby bust isn't over. The nation's birth rates last year reached record lows for women in their teens and 20s, a government report shows, leading to the fewest babies in 32 years. The provisional report, released Wednesday and based on more than 99% of U.S. birth records, found 3.788 million births last year. It was the fourth year the number of births has fallen, the lowest since 1986 and a surprise to some experts given the improving economy. The fertility rate of 1.7 births per U.S. woman also fell 2%, meaning the current generation isn't making enough babies to replace itself. The fertility rate is a hypothetical estimate based on lifetime projections of age-specific birth rates. Whether more U.S. women are postponing motherhood or forgoing it entirely isn't yet clear. If trends continue, experts said, the U.S. can expect labor shortages including in elder care when aging baby boomers need the most support. "I keep expecting to see the birth rates go up and then they don't," said demographer Kenneth M. Johnson of University of New Hampshire's Carsey School of Public Policy. He estimates 5.7 million babies would have been born in the past decade if fertility rates hadn't fallen from pre-recession levels. "That's a lot of empty kindergarten rooms," said Johnson, who wasn't involved in the report. Other experts are not concerned, predicting today's young women will catch up with childbearing later in their lives. The only two groups with slightly higher birth rates in 2018 were women in their late 30s and those in their early 40s. "Our fertility rates are still quite high for a wealthy nation," said Caroline Sten Hartnett, a demographer at the University of South Carolina. American women are starting families sooner than most other developed nations, according to other research . Other countries are seeing similar declines in birth rates. Young Americans still want to have children, but they don't feel stable enough to have them yet, said Karen Benjamin Guzzo, who studies families at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. The U.S. could do more to encourage childbearing with parental leave, preschool expansion and child care subsidies and other policies aimed at helping young adults struggling with student loan debt and housing costs, Guzzo said. Births were down across racial groups, with small declines for Hispanics, whites, blacks and Asians. The number of babies born to native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders was stable. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report also found: Iran's supreme leader issued a veiled threat in the same speech in which he stated that "no one is seeking war," saying it wouldn't be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels amid rising tensions with the U.S., state media reported Wednesday. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, meanwhile, ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff on Wednesday to leave Iraq immediately amid escalating tensions with Iran. Washington did not publicly provide any evidence to back up claims of an increased threat from Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments late Tuesday came after Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a coordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia. A satellite image obtained by The Associated Press shows one of the two pumping stations attacked by the drones apparently intact. The drone assault is just the latest incident in the Mideast to shake global energy markets, as authorities allege oil tankers anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were targeted by sabotage. Benchmark Brent crude prices remained around $71 a barrel in early trading Wednesday. The United States also is deploying an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the region in response to the still-unspecified Iran threat, further ramping up tensions a year after President Donald Trump withdrew America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Speaking Tuesday night in Tehran at an iftar, the traditional dinner Muslims have when breaking their daylong fast during the holy month of Ramadan, Khamenei's reported comments first focused on him downplaying the chances of a wider conflict in the Mideast with America. He reportedly told senior officials that his country won't negotiate with the United States, calling such talks "poison." But he also said, "Neither we, nor them is seeking war. They know that it is not to their benefit." In Wednesday's edition, the state-run IRAN newspaper carried his comments on the nuclear program, his first since Iran announced it would begin backing away from the accord itself. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment in 60 days if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. "Achieving 20% enrichment is the most difficult part," Khamenei said, according to the newspaper. "The next steps are easier than this step." It was a telling remark from the supreme leader Iran is not known to have enriched beyond 20% previously and it's unclear how far Tehran is willing to go in this process. Khamenei has final say on all matters of state in Iran. Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are at war with Saudi Arabia and are believed by the West to receive weapons from Iran, said earlier Tuesday that they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations. That included two pumping stations along its critical East-West Pipeline, which can carry nearly 5 million barrels of crude a day to the Red Sea. Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said that as a precaution, it temporarily shut down the pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramco's oil and gas supplies were not affected. An image from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that the AP examined on Wednesday shows Saudi Aramco's Pumping Station No. 8 outside of the town of al-Duadmi, 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of the kingdom's capital, Riyadh. The photo, taken Tuesday after the attack, shows two black marks near where the East-West Pipeline passes by the facility. Those marks weren't there in images taken Monday. The facility otherwise appeared intact, corroborating in part Saudi Arabia's earlier comments. The website TankerTrackers.com, whose analysts monitor oil sales on the seas, first reported about the black marks. Details around alleged acts of sabotage to four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, off the coast of the UAE's port of Fujairah remain unclear. Satellite images obtained Tuesday by the AP from Colorado-based Maxar Technologies showed no visible damage to the vessels, and Gulf officials have refused to say who they suspected was responsible. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from "an unknown object," its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images of the Norwegian ship, which the company said was "not in any danger of sinking," showed damage similar to what the firm described. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, has said the other three showed damages as well. In Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy published its order telling all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country. It comes after Washington last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests. That contradicts what British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said Tuesday, insisting "there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria." Later, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, U.S. Central Command said Ghika's remarks "run counter to the identified credible threats" from Iranian-backed forces in the Mideast. In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. Associated Press writers Philip Issa, Aya Batrawy, Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report. A 69-year-old great-grandmother is demanding an apology for her arrest at a Walt Disney World security checkpoint last month after a guard found CBD oil while searching her purse. Hester Burkhalter has hired high-profile attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented Trayvon Martin's family. Crump said Tuesday that Disney World and the Orange County Sheriff's Office "need to take responsibility for their actions" or he will file a lawsuit on the North Carolina woman's behalf, alleging violations of her civil rights. Burkhalter was arrested on April 15 and said she was detained for 15 hours over a bottle of CBD oil that her doctor in North Carolina recommended for arthritis. The oil was discovered when she put her purse on a table for inspection and tested positive for THC, according to an arrest report from the Orange County Sheriff's Office. "I was in shock," Burkhalter told NBC News of her experience. "I don't feel like I've done anything wrong at all." CBD oil, which is extracted from cannabis plants but doesn't produce a high, has become a craze across the country since a 2018 federal law legalized industrial hemp. NBC Miami has reported that the industry is expected to grow to $5.9 billion by the end of the year, up from $619 million in 2018, according to researchers with Brightfield Group, a CBD marketing research firm. But state laws vary with Florida in a special case of legal limbo. In the Sunshine State, CBD oil is, for now, only legal for sale with a prescription at certified Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers. According to Burkhalter's legal team, she provided a doctor's note in response to her arrest and her doctor indicated the oil was legal in North Carolina. Lawmakers in North Carolina, however, are in the process of trying to bring state laws in line with the 2018 federal law that removed hemp from a list of Schedule I drugs, said Jon Lanier, assistant general counsel with North Carolina's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He said he thought law enforcement in his state was generally aware of changes with the federal law. "Largely where we are right now is that the regulations are catching up to the production," Lanier said. NBC has requested comment from Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for clarity on what out of state visitors who may have a doctor's note or prescription should know. The Orange County Sheriff's Office has said in an emailed statement that Burkhalter's arrest was lawful. Still, prosecutors dropped a drug charge against Burkhalter, saying it wasn't suitable for prosecution. A new law that passed Florida's legislature this month would legalize CBD oil on July 1 and establish a framework for regulating the products. Florida's new law, however, has not yet been signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. NBC has reached out for comment on whether and when DeSantis planned to sign the measure. For now, Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services warns on its website that "CBD products being sold in Florida are unregulated, untested, and without standards on what consumers are putting into their bodies." The NBC 6 Investigators team earlier this year purchased 35 CBD products from seven different companies and took the samples to an accredited testing facility. Twenty of the samples had less than half of the amount of CBD advertised on the label. Some samples had no CBD at all. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson Franco Ripple said the department is not sending cease and desist letters to businesses that sell CBD products but should the state's regulatory program go into effect "it will allow us to test those products for consumer safety." The FDA, meanwhile, is planning a public hearing on May 31 as it considers regulations for how cannabis-derived products. --Daniel Macht contributed to this story A carnival worker is accused of killing two women in Tennessee whom he met through his job and the teenage daughter of a co-worker in Georgia, NBC News reported. James Michael Wright faces three capital murder charges, according to a statement from the Washington County, Virginia, Sheriff's Office. The women were reported missing earlier this year and are said to have been killed between Feb. 28 and March 17. Wright, a 23-year-old from Mendota, Virginia, allegedly told investigators that the killings were accidental, but Sheriff Fred Newman said he "found that hard to believe." The James H. Drew carnival, where Wright worked, did not immediately return a message on Monday. Massachusetts authorities are investigating a fire that happened outside the home of a rabbi in Arlington. Police and firefighters responded to the rabbi's Lake Street home at 11 p.m. Saturday to investigate an activated fire alarm. When crews arrived, the homeowners and their three children were in a parked vehicle in their driveway. The homeowner told police the family fled the home after they heard the fire alarm and smelled smoke. Firefighters located a small fire burning on the wood shingles of one side of the home and quickly extinguished the blaze. The fire has been deemed suspicious. The male homeowner told police he is a rabbi and conducts religious services at his home and that his address, as a religious site, is publicly available on the internet. Before the fire, he had not received any threats nor did he notice any suspicious activity in the area. "Out of respect for the privacy of the resident, in the early phases of this investigation, we did not draw attention to the fact that the resident is a rabbi, but as this investigation has continued and after consulting with the resident and the Arlington Human Rights Commission, we unfortunately have to leave open all possibilities until the investigation is complete," Acting Chief of Police Julie Flaherty said. "We strongly encourage anyone who may have information about this fire or the suspicious person seen leaving the area to contact the Arlington Police Department." During the investigation, police discovered that a neighbor had captured an image of a person on surveillance walking away from the area at the time of the fire. Anyone with information on the fire or the person in the surveillance image is urged to contact Arlington Police at 781-643-1212. Two local families say recent Grubhub and Amazon deliveries cost them more than money. Both say they had their lawns trashed by delivery drivers representing the two popular services. Heather Przystas of Worcester says a lost Grubhub driver who got stuck on her lawn last October. The whole front of the yard has tire tracks, said Przystas. Had to have been six to eight inches deep in our yard. She sent a police report and pictures of the damage to her insurance agent, who planned on filing a claim against the driver. But it turned out that the woman behind the wheel was not carrying insurance at the time, so the insurance agent contacted the company. Grubhub came back to him and said, 'All of our drivers are contractors, and they carry their own insurance. We are not responsible for this. Were really sorry that it happened with one of our drivers, but this isnt something were going to fix,'" Przystas said. "We were absolutely between a rock and a hard place, and there was nowhere to go, and thats when I reached out to you guys. NBC10 Boston Responds contacted Grubhub and asked the company to look into the situation. After they confirmed the details, Przystas received a $1500 check to repair the damage to her lawn. Grubhub told NBC10 Boston in a statement: We require all delivery partners to maintain insurance, and we thoroughly investigate all allegations of drivers not maintaining insurance." "We terminate our contracts with any delivery partners who are proven to not have insurance, and as such, we terminated the contract of the driver who was involved in this incident. Meanwhile, over in Grafton, a viewer who did not want his name used reached out to NBC10 Boston Responds after an Amazon driver was caught on tape running over his lawn in February after making a delivery at his neighbors house. The incident was recorded on the resident's garage-mounted camera. The viewer says he contacted us after several failed attempts to get the matter resolved. We contacted Amazon, and they cut him a check for $200 to replace the grass. Amazon wrote in a statement: We have addressed this with the delivery service partner and have resolved the issue with the customer. Both viewers are now looking forward to enjoying their green grass this spring. Thank you guys for helping us out, said Przystas Its a yard, but we worked a long time for this house, and were kind of proud of it. Video can be very helpful when filing claims in these types of cases. If your property is damaged and you dont have surveillance cameras, ask a neighbor if their camera might have caught any of the action. If not, document the damage by taking your own photos and videos immediately. A Rhode Island man federal authorities say is a full member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club has pleaded guilty to drug and gun charges. Federal prosecutors say 54-year-old Douglas Leedham pleaded guilty Tuesday to trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He faces up to 40 years in prison at sentencing on July 29. Leedham was arrested in February after a court-authorized search of his North Providence home found about 39 grams of methamphetamine, 19 grams of cocaine, two handguns, a 12-gauge shotgun, body armor, dozens of knives and hatchets, brass knuckles, and material used in the packaging and distribution of drugs. Because he had been convicted of carrying a firearm without a license in 2013, he was not allowed to own guns. A lucky Massachusetts woman won $1 million in the Massachusetts State Lottery, marking the third win for her and her husband. Lakeville resident Janet Pflaumer-Phillips and her husband Kevin have now each won $1 million in the state lottery, with Kevin having won the prize two times. Pflaumer-Phillips purchased a winning "Diamond Millions" $30 instant ticket at the A&A Petro gas station in Middleborough. Because of her prize-winning ticket, the gas station will receive a $10,000 bonus for its sale. The million-dollar prize winner claimed her winnings on Monday. Pflaumer-Phillips' husband won his $1 million prizes in April 2014 and September 2016. The lucky tickets were bought at Trucchi's Supermarket in Middleborough and Shaw's grocery store in Canton. Pflaumer-Phillips said she plans to help her loved ones with her good fortune. A surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital who was recently arrested for drunk driving after striking three pedestrians has been placed on leave. Dr. Michael Watkins, a vascular surgeon, was released on $1,500 bail after pleading not guilty Tuesday to charges including assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and operating under the influence. Prosecutors say the 64-year-old struck three victims just before midnight Friday at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Clarendon Street in Boston's South End. One victim told police the driver stopped, honked his horn and then accelerated, hitting the pedestrians. They are all expected to survive. A detective located the surgeon, still driving his Lexus, a few blocks from the scene and pulled him over. According to police, officers could smell alcohol on his breath. His blood alcohol content was measured at .11. Watkins' attorney said in court that his client was not beeping at the pedestrians, but at another car blocking the crosswalk and his blood-alcohol measurement was barely above the legal limit to drive. His attorney also said Watkins has a clean record and driving history. An MGH spokesperson says the hospital is following the case and will decide the best course of action for the surgeon. Watkins, who is also an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, is the chairman of hospital's Vascular Department. He is due back in court the end of July. A New Hampshire high school student is receiving online threats after speaking out about a controversial issue on campus. The Nashua School Board voted to approve a Junior ROTC marksmanship range at Nashua North High School. One student who felt uneasy with air-soft rifles being used on campus started speaking out against the practice range. Senior Paula Durant organized students and was leading the charge to get the board to overturn its decision. Since then, Durant has been inundated with social media backlash, even threats that are being investigated by the Nashua Police Department. Because of that, her father spoke to NBC10 Boston on her behalf in an effort to protect his daughter and keep her out of the spotlight. "It's been difficult because she likes to be out with her friends, she's getting ready to graduate, and there are lots of things she'd like to be doing. But she doesn't even feel comfortable walking the dog," said Robert Durant. Nashua Superintendent Jahmal Mosley claims the backlash was prompted by School Board Member Doris Hohensee, who supports the gun range. According to Mosley, Hohensee encouraged the attacks by sharing the student's Facebook page with conservative activists. "I didn't recommend anyone to do that, I would never do it on my own," Hohensee told NBC10 Boston during an interview Wednesday. Hohensee admits to sharing the student's posts with some bloggers. She sees nothing wrong with the fact that by doing so, she identified the student. "When you go on social media, there's no expectation of privacy. I was sharing an issue," Hohensee said. "The student's name was inconsequential, it was the issue." The superintendent, the school board president, the teachers' union and the NAACP also sent statements denouncing Hohensee's April 29 social media post that quoted avowed white supremacist T. Lothrop Stoddard. "It was about socialism, against socialism, it was a short post," Hohensee said. And she stands behind it even though the quote was pulled from Lothrop's book, which was considered training material for the Nazi regime. "There's nothing damaging in the quote itself. Whatever he did outside of that, I shouldn't be responsible for, I'm just talking about that quote," Hohensee said. Many school leaders are calling for Hohensee to step down from her elected post, but she tells NBC10 Boston she has no plans to resign from the school board. In a written statement, Hohensee called for other school board members and Mosley to resign. A Massachusetts woman is facing federal charges for allegedly offering illegal silicone injections in exchange for money. Gladys Araceli Ceron, 71, of North Andover, appeared in federal court in Boston Wednesday on one count of delivery for pay of an adulterated or misbranded device received in interstate commerce. According to U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling's Office, Ceron allegedly injected individuals with silicone oil at a business in Lawrence. Authorities said Ceron had been obtaining "gluteal material" from a source in Florida for over eight years. During a federal search warrant executed at the source's residence in 2016, agents seized plastic bottles of suspected cosmetic silicone fillers. Lab tests confirmed that those fillers contained silicone oil, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says can cause a stroke, death or permanent disfigurement. A cooperating witness began working with federal agents in 2018, according to Lelling's office. A search of Ceron's Lawrence business in June 2018 allegedly resulted in the seizure of several bottles and syringes of a substance that tests revealed to be silicone oil. Authorities said numerous uncapped, used, syringes were also recovered. Anyone who was a client of Ceron's is being urged to contact The U.S. Attorneys Victim Assistance Staff. It's unclear when Ceron is due back in court or if she has an attorney. She could face a sentence of no greater than one year in prison and a fine of $100,000. An armed robbery suspect who led officials on an hours-long standoff in Massachusetts after he surrendered to police while holding a baby is being held without bail. Ivan Andujar, 19, was arraigned Wednesday in Hingham District Court on charges of armed robbery and reckless endangerment of a child. Not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf. Andujar is accused of robbing a person in a parked car in Rockland on Tuesday. He allegedly entered the car through the passenger door and stole the victim's wallet, cell phone and backpack at gunpoint. After the alleged robbery, Andujar walked backed to his third-floor apartment on 57 Church St., where police later arrived. After refusing to come out of the building, a SWAT team responded. The hours-long standoff came to an end after the suspect surrendered while carrying an infant. "He probably came out with a child because he probably didnt want anything to happen to him," Michelle Smith, a neighbor, said. "It was probably his defense." A second suspect, a 17-year-old relative who was already inside the apartment during the barricade, was detained and later released to his mother following questioning. The standoff caused the building to be evacuated and officials ordered nearby residents to stay indoors. Andujar is being held without bail until May 20 pending a dangerousness hearing related to a second case out of Boston. Authorities battled a 2-alarm structure fire near a prep school in Danvers, Massachusetts. The blaze was reported at about 5:30 a.m. on Spring Street, near St. John's Preparatory School. Aerial footage from NBC10 Boston's Sky Ranger Helicopter showed plumes of thick smoke coming from the structure. At least a dozen firefighters are responding to the scene. As a result of the fire, Nichols Street was been shut down from Route 62 as a result, according to St. John's. Traffic was diverted to Summer Street to enter the school on Wednesday. Classes will resume as scheduled, with a freshman class meeting at 8 a.m. and students in grades nine through 11 will begin class at 9 a.m. as normal. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Injuries associated with the blaze were not immediately reported. Outreach worker for N Norfolk Filling Station Michelle Arthur from All Nations Church, Leicester will be the guest speaker at North Norfolk Filling Station on Bank Holiday Monday, May 27. Michelle grew up in a dysfunctional family who did not know Jesus but she has been transformed by the love and grace of God over the last 20 years. She has worked for many years with those who are on the margins of society and has a heart and a passion to see the overlooked, the downtrodden and the isolated step into the awareness that they are children of God, loved and cherished and with an amazing destiny ahead of them. After losing her husband suddenly in 2013 she went to Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California. She completed the first 2 years there and then came home to intern at her home church, All Nations, in Leicester. This experience radically changed how she saw God, herself and the Kingdom and she is passionate about releasing what she now carries to anyone who is willing to receive it. She is now working back in the marketplace where she loves to bring kingdom thinking and see people step fully into who they are meant to be by calling out the gold in them. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with those in her community who dont know Jesus yet and also working as a chaplain into local massage parlours. The Filling Station, which was born out of the Church of England in the West Country, has grown exponentially in terms of venues opening all over the United Kingdom and continues to serve and refresh both Church leaders, congregations and more importantly to open the eyes of those who are seeking answers to the meaning of life through the Christian faith. The Filling Station is helping to bring unity amongst believers from across the whole Church spectrum. All are welcome at this meeting of The Filling Station for an evening of fellowship and wonderful worship followed by the main talk. As the meeting is once more on a bank holiday, any visitors are especially welcome. Coffee and cakes will be available from 7pm, with the main talk at 7.30pm. There will also be a prayer ministry time at the end of the evening. Swanton Novers Village Hall, St Giles Road, Swanton Novers, Melton Constable, NR24 2RB. For further information please email Tasha North at : nnfillingstation@gmail.com or telephone 07825702360. Do you have a news story or forthcoming event relating to Christians or a church in North Norfolk? The Dean of Norwich Cathedral, the Very Rev Jane Hedges, say that for every single one of us, at the moment, life is full of uncertainties. The Dean of Norwich Cathedral, the Very Rev Jane Hedges, say that for every single one of us, at the moment, life is full of uncertainties. Pantomime cast take part in Norwich carols The cast of Norwich Theatre's pantomime Dick Whittington and his Cat attended a Christmas Carol concert at St Peter Mancroft Church on Thursday December 23 to spread festive cheer and the Christmas message. Read more Norwich church hosts Watch Night service See in the New Year with worship! A Norwich church is holding a Watch Night service on December 31 starting at 22.45. Read more Bishop's Christmas refugee message In his Christmas message the Bishop of Norwich the Rt Rev Graham Usher, says at Christmas we look back to the story of someone who soon after his birth, became a refugee, we look back to a story to help navigate our future. Read more Ed Sheeran and LadBaby boost Waveney foodbank Pop superstar Ed Sheeran and Christmas sausage roll song group LadBaby paid a surprise visit to Waveney Foodbank near Eye earlier today. Read more Dilham musician recalls Josephs letter home What might Joseph had written if he had sent a letter home from his experiences during that first Christmas time? Read more The true gifts of Christmas Regular columnist Ruth Lilley reflects on the gifts which God gave us at that first Christmas, and continues to make freely available to us. Read more An Advent reflection from Bishop Alan Hopes In his Advent Reflection, the Bishop of East Anglia, the Rt Rev Alan Hopes says: "God is not distant, he is very close to us. In fact, in Jesus, God is one of us. Read more YMCA Norfolk needs a Senior Wellbeing Engagement Worker YMCA Norfolk is looking for a Senior Wellbeing Engagement Worker, to build relationships of trust with vulnerable and marginalised youth people within the community. Read more Norwich Foodbank needs an Administrator Norwich Foodbank is looking for an Administrator to help ensure the Christian charity can continue to serve people in food crisis. Read more Looking beyond the Nativity story Andrew Frere Smith reminds us of the hardships that were faced by the family of baby Jesus at that first Christmas. Read more Norwich churches offered Christmas food hampers Christian youth project ENYP is offering Norwich churches the chance to join its successful food poverty initiative and receive Christmas food hampers to give out. Read more Salvation Army gifts bring joy to Norwich children Salvation Army volunteers in Norwich have packed a record number of Tins and Toys boxes for their Christmas giveaway this year. Read more Covid stops Yarmouth Minster Christmas lunch Fears over the increasing spread of Covid 19 have caused the Open Christmas event at Great Yarmouth Minster on Christmas Day to be cancelled this year, but those who would have attended will be receiving goodie bags instead. Read more Norwich church requires an Administrator Holy Trinity church in Norwich wants to appoint an Administrator to help it introduce the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Norwich. Read more Acle churches unite for carols The churches in Acle held their annual carol concert at the Methodist Church last Sunday, and were evidently visited by the Man in Red! Read more Norwich church giving out 150 food hampers Gateway Vineyard church in Norwich is giving 150 food hampers to individuals and families across the city as part of the Love Christmas initiative. Read more Norwich church invite to sing on Saturday On Saturday December 18, Norwich's oldest chapel close to the city is holding a 'sing on Saturday' at 3pm. There is plenty of space inside to join together to sing some well-known hymns. Read more Still wondering which categories to enter? Over the coming days we will tell you all you need to know Still wondering which category to enter in this years NWN Best in Business Awards? Well wonder no more. Here, we give you the low-down on what the judges will be looking for in each category, to make it easier for you to make that all important decision. Dont worry too much though, because you can always enter every category if you want to. There are nine categories up for grabs, as well as the coveted overall Best in Business Award 2019. The winner of the awards, which recognise commercial excellence throughout West Berkshire, will be announced at a gala dinner at Newbury Racecourse on November 1, 2019. Applications must be returned by June 28, 2019 and you can download an entry form here. To make it easier for you to decide, over the coming days we will be giving you a summary of what the judges will be looking for in each category. So, grab a coffee, sit back and have a read through our guide to the awards categories. Independent Retailer Award - sponsored by Jones Robinson What the judges want to see The judges of this award will be looking for the entrepreneurial retailer who has a viable, well thought out retail proposition. It should provide not only an attractive product but also a high degree of customer service and long term profitability. As an independent retailer, the winning business will not be part of a chain or national brand. In addition judges will consider how this business is contributing to the overall success of retailing in the area. Previous winners have included Inn at Home and the Hare and Hounds at Speen. The sponsor Jones Robinson is a Newbury-based estate agent that has helped thousands of people move home since it began more than two decades ago. With more than 60 members of staff, working across five locations, it offers buying, selling, letting and property management services to customers in Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. It is associated with the Association of Residential Letting Agents, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, and the Deposit Protection Scheme. It is also members of the Property Ombudsman. For more details visit www.jonesrobinson.co.uk Small Business Award sponsored by PBA Accountants What the judges want to see In assessing this category, judges will be looking at the breadth of accomplishments and strategies that make the enterprise a success in terms of its profitability and its profile within the county and its marketplace. The category is open to those with a turnover under 1million and therefore, judges will be keen to investigate the scope of the businesss achievements since its launch, its progress and its planning for the future. Aspects that will be scrutinised include staff development, products and services and their continual review, profitability, environmental undertakings, community awareness and use of marketing. Previous winners have included The Sushi Maki and Pixelnebula. The sponsor PBA are accountants, but in their own words dont be put off by this. They offer all the things you would expect accountants to offer, such as tax, accounts and audits. But they also like to offer that little bit more. They pride themselves on becoming your business partners. Theyre straight talking and have years of experience in their team. You can find all of that out for yourselves by giving them a call or visiting www.pbaaccountants.co.uk Nurses at UTHealth and UT Physicians honored at Houston Chronicle Salute to Nurses luncheon Hailing from a family with three generations of nurses, Cristina Sola, MSN, RN-BC, AGNP-C, was one of five nurses from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) recognized at the Houston Chronicle Salute to Nurses luncheon May 2 at the Omni Houston Hotel. Timed to coincide with National Nurses Week, the annual awards program recognizes the Top 150 nurses in the Greater Houston Area. Nurses were selected by a panel of educators and leaders in the field. Sola, a nurse manager with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, received special recognition as one of the Top 15 nurses. Omar Sandoval, RN, BSN, Ribi Kurian, RN, Thelma Rios, LVN, all with UT Physicians; and Lisa Thomas, DNP, RN, assistant professor with Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth, were also recognized. Cristina Sola, MSN, RN-BC, AGNP-C "Cristina is a leader within our local vascular outpatient offices but is also recognized for her expert clinical care and knowledge both regionally and at national levels," said Kristofer Charlton-Ouw, MD, a professor of cardiovascular medicine with McGovern Medical School and an attending physician with Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute-Texas Medical Center. "She embodies the traits of excellent communication skills, collaboration, teamwork, mentorship, ethical clinical care, enthusiasm, and creating a positive work attitude. We are all proud of her accomplishments and grateful for her ongoing work in making this the top vascular surgery program in the country," said Charlton-Ouw, who sees patients at UT Physicians clinics. Sola earned her associate's degree of nursing at Covenant School of Nursing in Lubbock, Texas, her bachelor of science in nursing at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, and a master of science in nursing (adult geriatric nurse practitioner) at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. "When I was in high school, my mom was a home health nurse and I would go with her. I saw firsthand how she made a difference in people's lives," said Sola, whose brother James Ritz, RN, sister Michelle Ritz, RN, and niece Brittany Ritz, RN, are also nurses, following in the footsteps of their mother, Guillermina Ritz, RN. "Nursing is about patient relationships. I remember their name. They remember mine. We are both glad to see each other," said Sola, a 2019 recipient of the UTHealth President's Award for Leadership. Omar Sandoval, RN, BSN Sandoval works with the nephrologists and endocrinologists at UT Physicians Multispecialty-Bellaire. He earned his associate's degree in nursing at San Jacinto College and his bachelor of science in nursing at The University of Texas at Arlington College of Nursing and Health Innovation. "The one-on-one contact with families is the most gratifying part of the job. I like to give patients a high-five for a good job. I try to explain everything in layman's terms," said Sandoval, who has been a nurse for 15 years. A woman with diabetes was particularly grateful for the care she received. "She told me, 'Omar, I want to personally let you know how much of a difference you have made in my life,' " Sandoval said. "This is exactly what I was meant to do," he said. Ribi Kurian, RN Kurian, a triage nurse with the UT Physicians 24/7 telephone help line, earned her nursing degree at Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University in India and has been a nurse for six years. "I never met Mother Teresa but I was definitely inspired by her. I saw in her someone who loved unconditionally," Kurian said. When counseling patients, Kurian takes a holistic approach and her patients appreciate it. "I once had a patient come to my workplace to thank me in person along with her family. She had called complaining of serious symptoms, so I dialed 911. Emergency medical services picked her up and took to the hospital where she underwent emergency surgery for internal bleeding," Kurian said. "Seeing her smiling face was a gratifying moment for me," said Kurian, noting that such moments inspire her to do even more for her patients. Thelma Rios, LVN Rios, a family nurse with UT Physicians Multispecialty -The Heights, earned her nursing degree at San Jacinto College and has been a nurse for five years. Because she is bilingual, Rios believes Spanish-speaking patients feel more comfortable talking to her. "This puts the patients at ease," she said. Rios has always wanted to be a nurse and said that to be a good one, "You have to be compassionate, caring, and an attentive listener. I'm an advocate for my patients." Lisa Thomas, DNP, RN Lisa Thomas, DNP, RN, served as a rehabilitation nurse at TIRR Memorial Hermann for 12 years before becoming a faculty member at UTHealth. She is now the director of the DNP Program. "I saw the impact rehabilitation nurses had on my grandfather following his stroke. He wasn't into the rehab but the nurses brought him around. He lived an active and engaged life for another 20 years," said Thomas, who earned her doctor of nursing practice at Cizik School of Nursing. Rehabilitation nurses have to be creative. "If you can get a patient to pet a dog, that's a form of exercise. With my grandfather, we would throw balloons at him and he would knock them back, making a game out of a need to maintain range of motion in that arm," Thomas said. ### This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. By USA Today, May 14, 2019 WASHINGTON Attorney General William Barr tapped Connecticut's chief federal prosecutor, John Durham, to assist in an investigation into the origins of the Russia inquiry and the FBI's surveillance activities, a person familiar with the matter said Monday. Durham, a mob-busting federal prosecutor for more than three decades, has assisted the attorney general for several weeks to determine whether federal investigators acted appropriately in the early stages of the now-completed inquiry into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. BROOKFIELD The stories of local residents who sacrificed their lives for the country will be on display at Brookfield Museum for the next two weekends. The annual exhibit features the 44 Brookfield residents who died during many of the nations military campaigns from the American Revolution to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The chair in which former New Milford attorney Harry Cohen often sat on the front porch of his Bridge Street home and office, overlooking his hometowns village center, is now vacant. The community will remember the community advocate, thespian and businessman, who was 98 when he died last month, with a memorial celebration and open house from 1 to 3 p.m. May 25 at 62 Bridge St. Cohen, an attorney for 64 years, died April 27 at his home, with one of his three sons, David, and his daughter-in-law, Jane, at his side. Anywhere weve gone, someone has a connection (to Harry), said Jane, who with her husband had been living part-time with Cohen since his 95th birthday. Theres always a connection and a story about Harry. Cohen was active in town affairs, including civic, political, business and faith pursuits, throughout his lifetime. He was a co-founder of Temple Sholom and the Little Theater and founder of a photo school, all in New Milford. Its very humbling, David said, reflecting on his fathers lifetime commitment to and involvement with the community. Retired local journalist Norm Cummings recalled Cohen as the quintessential civic activist and volunteer who for the second half of the 20th century played a significant role in the community, framing the town into a more interesting place to live. He was instrumental in keeping the communitys history and self-awareness alive. Cohen had served in numerous capacities, including president of the Greater New Milford Chamber of Commerce, commander of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars, and member of the New Milford Public Library and New Milford Commission on the Arts. He also obtained a grant from the Harcourt Foundation with which to establish the Literacy on the Green program and, in the 1960s, worked with the state to get a charter for what would come to be known as the Northville Volunteer Fire Department. Home and business Cohen grew up in New Milford, the second youngest of six children and only son of Russian immigrants Samuel and Sarah (Sacartoff) Cohen. He graduated from New Milford High School in 1938 and started his legal practice in town in 1946, after returning home from World War I. It was a quaint town in those years, Cohen said in an article published in The Spectrum at the time of his retirement in 2010. We had a more lively town center with three grocery stores. When I was 16, I worked at the A & P on Railroad Street, he said in the article. I feel very fondly toward New Milford, fond of the people who have always been friendly and outgoing. He and his wife, Frances Sperling Cohen, raised three sons, Charles, David and Jerome, in town. Cohen was regarded for his legal acumen and commitment to his clients. He was really a committed lawyer, said Katherine Webster OKeefe, an attorney who met Cohen in 1983 when he and his business partner, Murray Kessler, hired her at their law firm. He was a dogged advocate for the people, she said, adding he was often known for being the lawyer one went to if you were in trouble. A year after he opened his practice, Cohen learned of Charlie Robertsons plans to bring an old Army tank to town. As an attorney, Cohen worked with him to acquire the tank and then worked with the VFW that decided the tank should be placed on the Green to serve as a veterans memorial. It was argued not only was it a fitting relic, but also the kids loved it as a plaything, Cohen wrote in a 2007 letter to the editor. Religious and artistic A devout practitioner of the Jewish faith, Cohen was among a small group of a few dozen faithful who in the 1950s met for Friday night services in the Fellowship Room of the First Congregational Church. Seeing a need for the group to have a permanent home, Cohen joined the late Merrill Golden, Kessler and others to raise funds to build Temple Sholom, which opened in 1971. Harry was quite a politician in the best sense of the word, the late Rev. Russ Ayre said in 2010 of Cohens work to build a temple. He worked for people. He was always trying to do what was best for people and that's hard to come by now. Rabbi Ari Rosenberg said he has heard a great deal about Cohen in the four years he has been at the Temple. He is remembered fondly by other founding members of our congregation. Cohens involvement in the community extended to the arts. He was a dynamic person with certain ideas, especially when it came to the arts, said Marilyn Lieff, who moved to town in 1953 and met Cohen through the Jewish community. And I think this community is better for having a Harry Cohen. George Fletcher agreed. He came to town in 1960 to serve as director of the former New Milford Community Center, which Cohen had been involved in organizing. He truly believed in the community center and all aspects of the arts, said Fletcher. He had a real passion for it. The center evolved into the New Milford Parks & Recreation Department. In the 1970s, Cohen co-founded The Little Theater in the former Advent Church on Brookside Avenue, having obtained an interest-free loan from then-New Milford Savings Bank to purchase the property. Over the years, Cohen performed in numerous productions at the theater that eventually became Theatreworks. He even brought theater to Temple Sholom, Lieff recalled. Photography was another artistic avenue through which Cohen expressed himself. At one point, he founded and was president of a photo school in town, which offered workshops and classes for photographers of all skill levels. He prided himself in photography and being able to read and capture the essence of whatever or whoever he photographed, his son David said, noting his father had 20 to 30 cameras. He carried his camera everywhere, Fletcher recalled. Over the years Cohen submitted letters to the editor to local publications and often stopped by media outlet offices in town to talk with staff about town history and published photographs. He enjoyed notoriety but was always giving, David said, noting his father would proudly clip his submissions or articles written about him from newspapers and give them to family. The new owners of Tandoori Flames in New Milford are infusing authentic Indian flavors and recipes into the cuisine they serve. Its one of our favorite restaurants, said Ralph Gorman, of Sherman, who recently discovered the eatery after reading about it in the book 221+ Things to Do in and Around Sherman, New Milford and New Fairfield by John Cilio. We ordered three dishes and each one was better than the other, Gorman said of his first visit there. Co-owners Vinjith Vikaram and Sagar Ahuja worked together at the 471 Danbury Road (Route 7) restaurant when it first opened last May. They embraced the opportunity to purchase the business in December, so they can add to the diversity of the town and introduce patrons to food from their homeland, Ahuja said. We are trying to bring in our culture and express it through our food, said Ahuja. The menu showcases a variety of Indian dishes from both northern and southern India, from which Ahuja and Vikaram, who is also the chef, are from, respectively. Appetizers, entrees and desserts are on the menu, which features a wide variety of vegetarian, vegan, chicken, seafood and lamb dishes. Rices, breads and a variety of sides, including sauces round out the menu. Ahuja said the restaurant sells its sauces tikka masala, vindaloo, korma, madras, chettinad and phall to go, giving patrons an opportunity to use them on their own dishes at home. Many of the dishes are inspired by or made from recipes belonging to Vikarams mother, Amma, who still resides in India. Aloo Gobi, a classic Indian dish with spiced potatoes and cauliflower; Dal Tadka, a yellow lentils dish tempered with cumin seeds; Saag Paneer, a creamy spinach with homemade paneer cheese dish; chicken curry; and several of the side sauces are among Ammas recipes. Spices play an integral role in Indian cuisine. The owners said there is a misconception, though, that all Indian food is spicy. Vikaram noted he prefers dishes made with milder spices while the majority of his family opts for spicier cuisine. Ahuja described the southern spices as mustard seeds, curry leaves, whole red chilis and coconut, while northern spices include chick peas and cumin seeds. Gorman praised the owners for their accommodating service, which includes serving dishes based on their preferred spice level. After a recent first-time visit to the restaurant, Heather Hayden, of New Milford, said she will return. It was really good, she said, noting she appreciates the extensive vegan and vegetarian options. The restaurant features an Indian lunch buffet Tuesdays through Sundays, which allows customers a chance to sample a variety of cuisine. They can also order off the main menu. Specialties are available for brunch on the weekends at the restaurant that draws patrons from Litchfield and Fairfield counties, as well as New York. Several drinks, including a tamarind margarita, Indian spiced mojito and mango martini, are among the featured drinks at the bar. We had a really enjoyable lunch, said Eric Gorman, of Sherman. We sampled a bunch of dishesIt ranks up there as having really good Indian food. Ill definitely go back. Ahuja said many customers have expressed interest in learning how to make Indian dishes. To that end, the restaurant is exploring the possibility of implementing periodic cooking demonstrations. We need to teach people how to make this at home, Vikaram said. We can introduce easy dishes that are really good. Vikaram has been in the U.S. for six years, while Ahuja has been here for five. They worked together for the past several years at restaurants in the region. I fell in love with the town, Ahuja said of his move from New York to New Milford. The people are really warm and welcoming. Hes my first ever friend when I came to America, Ahuja said of Vikaram. Tandoori Flames, located at 471 Danbury Road in New Milford, is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and dinner Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays from 5 to 9 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 5 to 10 p.m. For more information, call 860-210-0020. As the Willoughby-Eastlake School District prepares to say hello to three new school buildings, they are also saying goodbye to buildings past and inviting alumni to do the same. During a recent open house, community members, family and alumni of Willoughby Middle School had the opportunity to walk the halls and classrooms of the school once again. They were treated to accompanying piano music, refreshments and a photo slideshow that displayed some of the memories from the school, as well as the people who made them. Hallways and classrooms around the school were open for a few hours during the evening, with some staff and faculty present among the visitors. Lori Elias, the schools music department chair, provided piano music for those in attendance. The middle school building, located at 36901 Ridge Road, is scheduled to be torn down after the end of the school year. The school will then be moving into the current location of South High School, just next door at 5000 Shankland Road. Although the building will remain standing, a similar open house for South High School was scheduled for May 14, featuring a silent auction for some Rebel memorabilia. As South High staff and students move to their new location at Union Village and the middle school will take their place. Willoughby Middle Schools principal, Larry Keller, said that the current facility was built in 1972, making it the newest of the districts school buildings. Longfellow Elementary School is currently housed in a building originally constructed in 1927; it will be moving into one of the three new buildings under construction. The last day for Willoughby Middle School students is May 22, Keller said. Teachers will have until May 24 to move out of their classrooms. The new Willoughby South High School, Eastlake North High School and Longfellow Elementary School are expected to be completed and open by Aug. 10. By Town Hall, May 14, 2019 Were back for episode 80. And we could be gearing up for war with Iran. I dont want one; Storm feels otherwise. Still, the Trump White House has a plan to potentially deploy some 120,000 troops in the region, as Tehran flexes its muscles in the region. American forces in the region were warned that they could be targets for acts of terrorism. In the United Arab Emirates, terrorists attacked four ships. The increased tension has caused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make unannounced stops in Brussels and Iraq to assess the situation. Its potentially perilous. Vaccines are essential for any person looking to travel to another part of the world. Thanks to advances in medicine, safe and effective vaccines are now available for many infectious diseases. Getting vaccinated not only benefits the person who is traveling, but their family, friends and those in the community too, as it prevents the spread of infection. This article describes the most common infectious diseases and the corresponding vaccinations that Western travelers should receive before leaving their home country. Skip to: Cvijovic Zark | Shutterstock Which vaccinations do I need? The number and type of vaccinations that you will need will depend on the country that you reside in, whether you have been exposed to any infectious agents before and the country that you are traveling to. For example, you may have already received some of the required vaccinations as part of your national health program. Whether or not you need some vaccinations will also depend on the region that you are visiting, as in some cases, vaccinations are only required for rural regions. The number and type of vaccinations that a traveler will need may also depend on whether they have any pre-existing health conditions. If a traveler is pregnant or has certain illnesses or a weakened immune system, they may require additional vaccinations. How far in advance do I need to book my vaccinations? You should aim to receive your vaccinations no later than 4 6 weeks prior to your departure, although some vaccinations may need to be given further in advance. The reason for this is to allow your body to build up an immune response to the infectious agent, meaning that if you do come into contact with the disease, your immune system is able to recognize the pathogen and initiate an immune response immediately. Another reason to plan your vaccinations in advance is that some vaccines require multiple doses spread over a few weeks. What are the main vaccinations that most travelers will need? Routine vaccinations, such as those directed against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR); diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis; varicella (chickenpox); polio; rotavirus; and influenza are important for travelers and non-travelers. These vaccines are particularly important when traveling, as these diseases still occur commonly in many parts of the world. Common infectious diseases and corresponding vaccinations In addition to routine vaccines, specific vaccinations are needed for different destinations. The selection of such vaccines depends on the country you are visiting, duration of stay, and the purpose of the visit. The following list describes the vaccination needed for popular destinations. Hepatitis A A viral infection of the liver that is highly prevalent in developing countries How is hepatits A spread? Contaminated food and water (including ice cubes and fresh produce that has been washed in local water) Raw or undercooked shellfish Bodily fluids (including sexual intercourse or the sharing of contaminated needles) Which destinations require vaccination against hepatitis A? Africa The Carribean Russia and some parts of Europe America, especially South America Central Asia Countries in the Middle East Which destinations do not require the hepatitis A vaccination? Hepatitis occurs less frequently in Canada, Western Europe and Scandinavia, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. How many doses do I need? Two doses of hepatitis A vaccine given 6 months apart have been shown to be 100% effective in preventing the infection. Typhoid Typhoid fever is an infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi that can spread throughout the body and have life-threatening effects. How is typhoid spread? Typhoid is spread through contaminated feces that enters the water system and/or contaminates food items. Which destinations require the typhoid vaccination? South Asia Africa South America The Carribean Countries in the Middle East Europe Which destinations do not require the typhoid vaccination? The prevalence of typhoid is very low in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan. How is the typhoid vaccine administered? Both injectable and oral vaccines are available, and your healthcare practitioner will advise you which one is suitable for your trip. However, the efficacy of this vaccine is only 50 80% so you should try to ensure that you only eat and drink from safe and clean sources even after being vaccinated. How many doses of the typhoid vaccine are needed? The dose of oral vaccine varies from country to country. In Australia and Europe, three doses of the vaccine (days 0, 3, and 5) are repeated every year for those traveling from non-endemic to endemic countries. For typhoid shots, a single dose of vaccine is injected intramuscularly, and revaccination is recommended every 3 years for better efficacy. In high-risk countries, the vaccine efficacies are 72% and 50% after 1.5 years and 3 years of vaccination, respectively. Hepatitis B Hepatitis B is a viral infection of the liver which is transmitted through the sharing of body fluids such as blood or semen. Which destinations require vaccination for Hepatitis B? Asia Africa South America The Caribbean Which destinations do not require the hepatitis vaccination? Hepatitis B is less prevalent in North and Central America, Europe and Antarctica. However, vaccination is recommended for travelers who may engage in high risk activities such as unprotected sex, getting a tattoo, or the use of intraveous drugs where needles may be shared. How is the hepatitis B vaccine administered? The hepatitis B vaccine consists of 3 doses wherein the second and third doses are given 1 month and 6 months after the first dose, respectively. The efficacy of the vaccine is almost 90%, and boosters are generally not required. Rabies Rabies is a life-threatening viral disease which is transmitted through the saliva of infected animals. Where is rabies prevalent? Cases of rabies can be found all over the world, but the risk of infection is significantly higher in: Africa Asia Central America South America Which destinations do not require the rabies vaccination? Rabies vaccination is not generally recommended for The United States, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia. However, travelers who engage in a lot of outdoor activities, especially those who may come into contact with wild or domestic animals or are performing work or research in endemic areas are at higher risk of contracting the infection and may choose to receive the vaccine. How is the rabies vaccine administered? The vaccines for rabies are of two types: pre-exposure vaccine and post-exposure prophylaxis. The pre-exposure vaccine is given before travel to protect travelers who are at higher risk of exposure to rabies. It consists of 3 doses that are injected intramuscularly on days 0, 7, and 21 or 28. The post-exposure prophylactic vaccine is given to prevent the development or rabies if a traveler is bitten or scratched by an infected animal. Such vaccination is given through intramuscular (deltoid muscle) or intradermal injections. The intramuscular vaccine consists of either 4 or 5 doses. The four-dose vaccine is given as two doses on day 0 followed by days 7 and 21 whereas the five-dose vaccine is given on days 0, 3, 7, 14, and 28. The intradermal vaccination is administered on days 0, 3, 7, and 28 using the two-site intradermal method. Japanese encephalitis Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne disease that has a high fatality rate. Who should receive the Japanese encephalitis vaccine? Anyone who is traveling to the following destinations should receive the Japanese encephalitis vaccine: India Korea Sri Lanka Thailand The risk of contracting Japanese encephalitis depends on the destination you are traveling to, as well as the nature of activity, time of year and duration of the trip. In northern Asia, the risk is higher in the summer and fall; whereas in tropical and subtropical countries, the risk remains high throughout the year. How is the Japanese encephalitis vaccination administered? The Japanese encephalitis vaccine consists of two doses that are given 4 weeks apart. The last dose should be administered at least 10 days before traveling. A booster dose is recommended after 1 year of primary vaccination. Meningococcal disease (Meningitis with septicemia) Meningococcal disease is a disease caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitides. It occurs when the bacterium, which causes meningitis, enters the bloodstream. This results in a systemic, life-threatening infection known as sepsis. Who should receive the meningococcal vaccination? The incidences of this disease can be found all over the world, but vaccination is mainly recommended for those traveling to Sub-Saharan Africa and countries in the Middle East. The disease is highly prevalent during the dry season in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Saudi Arabia during Hajj pilgrimage. Meningococcal vaccination is also routinely given to teens in the US, because crowded conditions in college dormitories or on military barracks increase the likelihood of outbreaks. How is the meningococcal vaccine administered? Meningococcal vaccines are of three types: bivalent, trivalent, and tetravalent. A booster dose is recommended 5 years after the primary vaccination. These single-dose vaccines take at least 7 10 days to start working. I n Saudi Arabia, a proof of recent vaccination (tetravalent vaccine) is required to enter the country during Hajj pilgrimage. Cholera Cholera is a bacterial disease spread by contaminated food and water. Who should receive the cholera vaccine? The cholera vaccination is recommended for those traveling to: Haiti The Dominican Republic Africa Asia (some regions) What does the cholera vaccine consist of? The cholera vaccine comprises two oral doses given 7 14 days apart. If the second dose is delayed by more than 6 weeks, vaccination should be repeated. The vaccine takes 1 week to start working, and the efficacy is almost 90%. A booster dose is recommended after 2 years of primary immunization. Tick-borne encephalitis Tick-borne encephalitis is a viral infection spread by small insects known as ticks. Who should receive the tick-borne encephalitis vaccination? The prevalence of tick-borne encephalitis is high in several parts of Europe and Asia, including: Czech Republic Estonia Germany Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Slovenia Sweden Switzerland China Japan Mongolia South Korea Russia. The most likely time to become infected is the early and late summer when ticks are abundant in forest areas. How is the tick-borne encephalitis vaccine administered? The tick-borne encephalitis vaccine is only recommended for high-risk travelers, such as those who will be spending a lot of time in wooded areas. In Western Europe, the vaccine consists of three doses that are given intramuscularly at intervals of 4 12 weeks between 1st and 2nd doses and 9 12 months between 2nd and 3rd doses. In Russia, three doses of the vaccine are given at intervals of 1 7 months between 1st and 2nd doses and 12 months between 2nd and 3rd doses. Yellow fever Yellow fever is a mosquito-borne viral disease that can lead to serious complications, such as shock, organ failure, or even death. Where is yellow fever prevalent? Sub-Saharan Africa Tropical regions of South America There was also a recent outbreak of yellow fever in Brazil. Proof of vaccination at least 10 days prior to travel is required to enter specific countries where the disease is endemic. How is the yellow fever vaccine administered? The yellow fever vaccine is a single-dose vaccine given subcutaneously or intramuscularly. The efficacy of the vaccine is 100%, and it generally provides protection for life. However, for some people, a booster dose may be required after 10 years. Sources CDC. Travel Smart: Get Vaccinated. (2018). cdc.gov/features/vaccines-travel/index.html Vaccines.gov. Vaccines for Travelers. (2017). vaccines.gov/who_and_when/travel CDC. Need travel vaccines? Plan ahead. (2018). nc.cdc.gov/travel/page/travel-vaccines CDC. Disease Directory. nc.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/ World Health Organisation (WHO). International travel and health. (2019). who.int/ith/vaccines/en/ Further Reading Xploro has teamed up with Manchesters world leading cancer hospital, The Christie, to deliver state of the art technology that helps child patients understand how Proton Beam Therapy works. The Venturefest Digital Innovation winner has spent the last four years developing the new app Xploro which includes games based on the human body, 3D hospital environments for children to explore, and experiences so they know whats going to happen while theyre being treated. Everything is delivered through a chirpy, augmented-reality character that the child creates, and names themselves. It becomes their virtual friend, and leads them through every part of the app. The internationally renowned cancer centre commissioned a brand new module for Xploro to be used by children undergoing Proton Beam Therapy. It includes unique environments modeled on the hospital itself and a 3D experience showing exactly what happens when someone has the pioneering treatment. Xploro 's CEO, Dom Raban, was inspired to develop the Xploro app after seeing first hand the importance of giving children and young people information when theyre being treated in hospital. In 2011 Doms thirteen year old daughter Issy was diagnosed with the rare bone cancer Ewings Sarcoma. Issy, who is now cancer free and at university, spent much of the twelve months following her diagnosis undergoing various treatments including fifteen rounds of chemotherapy, umpteen blood transfusions, stem cell treatment and ten weeks of Proton Beam Therapy in Florida. The clinical care Issy received, in the six hospitals she was treated at, was second to none, however it soon became apparent that the information she received about her illness and treatment was severely lacking and it left her feeling scared, anxious and isolated. It was this experience that led to Dom and his team to come up with Xploro. Looking back at Issys experience Dom recalls I was struck by the lack of age-appropriate information that was available for Issy she was far too old for picture books, but too young for adult information. Once Issy was on the mend, I realised that I could do something to plug that gap. At my other company, Corporation Pop, we have a first-class team of app and game designers and developers so it seemed obvious that we put that expertise to good use. After four years of hard work and significant Government funding its fantastic to see the app being used by children at one of the hospitals that my daughter was treated at. Research has shown that when people understand what is happening to them when they are ill and having treatment, they experience better clinical outcomes; the Xploro app is designed to give them that knowledge and information in a fun, and engaging way. The Christie is the first NHS hospital in the UK to introduce high-energy Proton Beam Therapy, an advanced radiotherapy treatment which precisely targets cancer without causing damage to healthy cells around it. Previously the NHS has funded expensive treatment in America and Germany causing huge disruption to families like Dom and Issys and costing many thousands of pounds more than having it in the UK. Proton Beam Therapy is particularly suited to children and young people whose bodies are still developing, which makes Xploro a great match for The Christie. After trials at The Christie and Royal Manchester Childrens Hospital, Xploro will be available for wider use when it will include an artificially intelligent chatbot which can answer any questions the child has about going to hospital. Dom and his team are already in talks with hospitals around the UK, Europe and North America and the future for Xploro lies in its expansion. There are already plans to create versions for other illnesses such as Diabetes and Asthma as well as develop the app for older audiences. By next year Xploro will also be available in other languages. Source: Xploro In 1961, people in the suburb of Niles, Illinois, experienced what they termed a "cancer epidemic." Over a dozen children in the town were diagnosed with leukemia within a short time. Fears quickly spread that the illness could be contagious, carried by some type of "cancer virus." News coverage soon identified several other towns with apparent "cancer clusters," as well. Belief that cancer was a simple contagion, like polio or the flu, kept bubbling up. People wrote [to medical authorities] well into the 1960s asking, 'I lived in a house where somebody had cancer. Am I going to catch cancer?'" Robin Scheffler, the Leo Marx CD Assistant Professor in the History and Culture of Science and Technology at MIT Those fears were taken seriously. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) created the Special Virus Leukemia Program in 1964 and over the next 15 years spent more than $6.5 billion (in 2017 dollars) on cancer virus research intended to develop a vaccine. That's more than the funding for the subsequent Human Genome Project, as Scheffler points out. The results of that funding were complex, unanticipated and significant, as Scheffler details in his new book, "A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine," published this week by the University of Chicago Press. In the process, scientists did not find and never have a single viral cause of cancer. On the other hand, as a direct result of the NCI's funding project, scientists did find oncogenes, the type of gene which, when activated, can cause many forms of cancer. "That investment helped drive the field of modern molecular biology," Scheffler says. "It didn't find the human cancer virus. But instead of closing down, it invented a new idea of how cancer is caused, which is the oncogene theory." As research has continued, scientists today have identified hundreds of types of cancer, and about one out of every six cases has viral origins. While there is not one "cancer virus," some vaccinations reduce susceptibility to certain kinds of cancer. In short, our understanding of cancer has become more sophisticated, specific, and effective but the path of progress has had many twists and turns. Less insurance, more research As Scheffler details in his book, fears that cancer was a simple contagion can be traced back at least to the 18th century. They appear to have gained significant ground in the early 20th-century U.S., however, influencing medical research and even hospital design. The rise of massive funding for cancer research is mostly a post-World War II phenomenon; like much of Scheffler's narrative, its story contains developments that would have been very hard to predict. For instance, as Scheffler chronicles, one of the key figures in the growth of cancer research was the midcentury health care activist Mary Lasker, who with her husband had founded the Lasker Foundation in 1942, and over time helped transform the American Cancer Society. During the presidency of Harry S. Truman, however, Lasker's main goal was the creation of universal health insurance for Americans an idea that seemed realistic for a time but was eventually shot down in Washington. That was a major setback for Lasker. In response, though, she became a powerful advocate for federal funding of medical research especially through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the NCI, one of the NIH's arms. Scheffler calls this tradeoff less government health insurance, but more biomedical research the "biomedical settlement," and notes that it was unique to the U.S. at the time. By contrast, in grappling with cancer through the 1960s, Britain and France, for example, put more relative emphasis on treatment, and Germany looked more extensively at environmental issues. Since the 1970s, there has been more convergence in the approaches of many countries. "The term 'biomedical settlement' is a phrase I created to describe an idea that seems commonplace in the United States but is actually very extraordinary in the context of other industrial nations which is, we will not federalize health care, but we will federalize health research," Scheffler says. "It's remarkable to keep the government out of one but invite it into the other." And while observers of the U.S. scientific establishment today know the NIH as a singular research force, they probably don't think of it as compensation, in a sense, for the failed policy aims of Lasker and her allies. "Someone like Mary Lasker is one of the architects of the settlement out of her conviction there were ways to involve the federal government even if they couldn't provide medical care," Scheffler adds. Fighting through frustration The core of "A Contagious Cause" chronicles critical research developments in the 1960s and 1970s, as biologists made headway in understanding many forms of cancer. But beyond its rich narrative about the search for a single cancer virus, "A Contagious Cause" also contains plenty of material that underscores the highly contingent, unpredictable nature of scientific discovery. From stymied scientists to angry activists, many key figures in the book seemed to have reached dead ends before making the advances we now recognize. Yes, science needs funding, new instrumentation, and rich theories to advance. But it can also be fueled by frustration. The thing I find interesting is that there are a lot of moments of frustration. Things don't go the way people want, and they have to decide what they're going to do next. I think often the history of science focuses on moments of discovery, or highlights great innovations and their successes. But talking about frustration and failure is also a very important topic to highlight in terms of how we understand the history of science." Robin Scheffler For his part, Scheffler says he hopes his book will both illuminate the history of cancer research in the U.S. and underscore the need for policymakers to apply a broad set of tools as they guide our ongoing efforts to combat cancer. In just a few short weeks, tens of thousands of newly minted doctors will start the most intense year of their training: the first year of residency, also called the intern year. A new study suggests that between now and next summer, that experience will make their DNA age six times faster than normal. And the effect will be largest among those whose training programs demand the longest hours. The findings about the effect of residency focus on the stretch of DNA called telomeres - which keep the ends of chromosomes intact like the plastic end of shoelaces. The discovery that telomeres shrink in an accelerated way among interns suggest the importance of ongoing efforts to reduce the strain of medical training. But the researchers say their study also holds implications for other professions and situations that expose people to prolonged stress and months of long hours. Published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry, the new study is the first to measure telomere length before and after individuals faced a common prolonged intense experience. It involved 250 interns from around the country who volunteered for the Intern Health Study, based at the University of Michigan, and a comparison group of college students from U-M. Research has implicated telomeres as an indicator of aging and disease risk, but these longitudinal findings advance the possibility that telomere length can serve as a biomarker that tracks effects of stress, and helps us understand how stress gets 'under the skin' and increases our risk for disease." Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D., the U-M neuroscientist and psychiatrist who is the study's senior author and heads the Intern Health Study He adds, "It will be important to study how telomere changes play out in larger groups of medical trainees, and in other groups of people subjected to specific prolonged stresses such as military training, graduate studies in the sciences and law, working for startup companies, or pregnancy and the first months of parenting." Sen's team worked with Kathryn Ridout, M.D., Ph.D., the new study's first author, during the research portion of her residency at Brown University. She is now a psychiatrist at Kaiser Permanente in California as well as having an appointment at Brown. The current model of intern year training during residency increases trainee stress, which impacts their mental health and wellbeing. These results extend this work and are the first to show that this stress reaches down to the biological level, impacting the well accepted marker of aging and disease risk, telomere length. I was particularly surprised to see the relation of number of hours worked to telomere shortening." Kathryn Ridout, M.D., Ph.D. Sen notes that after the discovery that telomeres protect the DNA in chromosomes from damage - a discovery that earned the 2009 Nobel Prize - research on them in humans has focused on taking snapshots of telomere length, mainly in older adults. This has yielded important discoveries about the links between shrunken telomeres and disease. Ridout analyzed data from dozens of telomere studies for a meta analysis published in 2016 that showed clear links between telomere length and the risk and severity of depression. In the new study, Sen and his colleagues asked recently graduated medical students to contribute a sample of their DNA before they began their intern year, and then followed up to get another sample at the end of that year. The interns also took a lengthy questionnaire before their training began, and again at several points during and at the end of the intense year. The results show that some new doctors went into residency with telomeres that were already shorter than their peers. This included those who said their family environment early in life was especially stressful - which echoes previous findings about the impacts of such an upbringing on telomere length. Those who scored high on personality traits that together are classed as "neuroticism" -- being quick to react and slow to relax, and a tendency to respond with negativity - also had shorter telomeres at the start of intern year. But when the team looked at the results of the DNA tests taken after intern year ended, only one factor that they studied emerged with a clear link to telomere shrinkage: the number of hours the interns worked each week. On average, all the interns in the study said they worked an average of 64.5 hours a week. But the more the interns worked, and therefore the more days they put in that were at or above the national limit of 16 hours in effect at the time, the faster their telomeres shrank. "The responses given by some of the interns in these surveys indicated that some were averaging more than 80 hours of work a week, and we found that those who routinely worked that many hours had most telomere attrition," says Sen. "Those whose hours were at the lower end of the range had less telomere attrition." By contrast, the comparison group of 84 first-year U-M undergraduate students experienced no telomere shrinkage, despite also being in a stressful year-long situation of coping with life at an elite institution of higher education. These students were taking part in a study led by Sen's colleague at the U-M Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, Huda Akil, Ph.D. Sen's Intern Health Study has begun collecting DNA samples from many more interns, and is now monitoring their mood, sleep and activity using smartphone apps and commercial activity trackers. He hopes to study the telomeres of future groups of interns to gather more data about how they change over the intern year and how those changes match up with their experiences during the year. For instance, the frequent changes in shift time - from day to night and back again - during residency has already emerged in Sen's work as an important factor in mood and circadian disruption. Future studies will explore if this sort of shiftwork increases telomere attrition. He also hopes that researchers can evaluate whether any practices can protect telomeres from shrinkage or even spur repair and lengthening of these protective stretches of DNA. For now, he says, "Residency directors should do as much as they can to keep their interns' work hours and work load towards the lower end of the current range." And as new doctors prepare to graduate and head into their intern years, he advises them to focus on their mood, sleep and stress-relieving activities as much as they can. Ridout says she hopes the results will be heeded by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and others. "Having completed residency myself and understanding the stress that can come with this training and extended work hours, I am hopeful these data can help inform the decisions of governing bodies that have been debating the importance of regulating resident work hours," she says. "Our results suggest that reforms in intern training and work hours with a renewed focus on wellbeing is necessary to protect the health and viability of our physician workforce." The Intern Health Study is now enrolling graduating medical students who will begin residency this summer. Source: Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan Journal reference: Sen, S. et al. (2019) Physician Training Stress and Accelerated Cellular Aging. Biological Psychiatry. doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.04.030 In its 27th year, hundreds of volunteers from the Lynchburg area stepped away from the day-to-day office work and demands to lend a hand for neighboring nonprofits. Day of Caring, sponsored by the United Way of Central Virginia, is the largest one-day volunteer initiative in Central Virginia, according to United Way officials. Each year, the Day of Caring is a great reminder of the collective power of individuals to improve our community when we all work together, United Way President and CEO Bill Varner said. This year more than 800 volunteers will be dedicating their day to completing service projects, giving back, having fun and making central Virginia an even better place to live and work. Volunteers from about 25 local companies spent time doing yard work, cleaning, painting, replanting, organizing, repairing and landscaping at about 28 area nonprofits and agencies. Steve Lamanna, vice president at BB&T, said the company is passionate about supporting the community of Lynchburg. It is part of BB&Ts mission to make the communities in which employees work a better place to be, he said, and sponsoring an effort like the United Way Day of Caring is a great way to serve. Personally I enjoy rolling up my sleeves and working outside with my team, he said. The real impact of this event is felt when you see all of our Lynchburg Community Businesses at City Stadium during lunch. I am sure that other communities have similar events, however I cannot think of a better way to show how we all work together to achieve the common good. Jeff Perkins, president of Boxley Materials, said this is the first year the company has volunteered with Day of Caring. The company had three different teams all over the area volunteering, but alongside Perkins were about four others from Boxley volunteering with the kids at Head Start on Old Forest Road. The Head Start Program provides preschool education services to children from low to moderate income families who are 3 to 4 years of age. The volunteers spent Wednesday morning doing arts and craft activities with the kids outside in the playground area at Head Start. They also gave each of the kids a goody bag with some Play Doh, stickers and a recipe for how to make bubbles to take home, Perkins said. Weve been a United Way participant in the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas for many, many, many years and our employees have contributed over $1 million over the years and this year we wanted to spend a special emphasis on the community because its a core value at Boxley and we felt like Day of Caring was a great way for our employees engaged in the community and to give back, he said. HumanKind has been involved with Day of Caring on both sides since its beginnings. Ashleigh Karol, communications director for the nonprofit, said teams which included CEO Bob Dendy, were sent out Wednesday to Mary Bethune Academy to do work on the playground and clean up the classrooms. Understanding where theyre coming from, being a nonprofit, we were excited to just dig in and help out, she said. HumanKind also hosts groups from Genworth Financial who did some landscaping work and mulching as well as Scott Insurance who painted in one of the mental health cottages. Its a really unique piece to our community, Karol said. We see them at networking events and work with them in different initiatives but to have their team members give up their time from top to bottom to come out and paint or shovel gravel or move mulch around, I think its a really beautiful thing. Were all in this together to work together and make the community the best it can be. 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. Police accountability is needed Something terrible happened in the early morning hours of Feb. 17, 2018. A man, sleeping on his couch in his own home, was awakened and shot by the police through his closed front door. A no-contest plea was entered and accepted but, fourteen months later, there has been no real public acknowledgement of responsibility, no real public conversation regarding future actions and behaviors. It is hard to understand how this could happen. There was nothing going on in the house for the police to have done what they did. There was no reason for what happened to have happened because nothing was out of the ordinary on that early Saturday morning. Nothing other than a family asleep in their home and a front door that was ajar. The family whose life was forever changed that morning could have been any of us. Indeed, what this case has done is made us all into potential victims in our homes. Behavior as mundane as falling asleep on the couch or having your front door not fully locked is, apparently, grounds for being shot. The question now is how do we move forward. How, without any real or substantive acknowledgment of what occurred, do we, as a community, work to make certain that this wont happen again? How can we ensure the safety of both the police and those they protect? How and where does this all-important conversation start? MARA AMSTER and DEIRDRA FLAVIN Lynchburg Turn back the darkness The Longest Day is held on the day with the most the light the summer solstice to fight the darkness of Alzheimers disease. It seems almost everyone has been affected or knows some with Alzheimers disease or dementia. According to the Alzheimers Association 2019 Alzheimers Disease Facts and Figures report, there are more than 5 million Americans living with Alzheimers disease, including 140,000 here in Virginia. Across Virginia, sisters of Alpha Delta Kappa, an international organization for women in education, will participate in various activities to raise money for The Longest Day. Some activities include walking, creating fidget blankets, grabbing coffee with a friend and visiting memory care facilities. Sisters have been using the digital app or online resources to spread the word about their efforts for the Alzheimers Association. Our goal for this year is to raise $5,000. For more information or to join the fight visit alz.org/thelongestday. EMILY CASTILLO Appomattox The MCU future of the Kingpin may be a mystery, but Marvel Comics has an answer Marvel Comics has already provided the perfect way for Kingpin to keep going in the MCU (Newser) A Kansas woman was raped on May 26, 2017, and had a rape kit administered at Atchison Hospital. She told hospital staff her alleged attacker's nameand, she claims, former X-ray technician Janet Rawson Enzbrenner turned around and notified the man that she was accusing him of rape. The woman's lawsuit against the hospital and Enzbrenner also accuses Enzbrenner of "gain[ing] access to plaintiff's individually identifiable health information" and leaking it to the alleged rapist, who then "relentlessly harassed plaintiff through text messages, social media and phone calls" and ultimately sexually assaulted her again months later, NBC News reports. The suit also accuses Enzbrenner of harassing the woman, Fox4KC reports. story continues below The lawsuit includes a letter from the hospital's CEO that acknowledges "this employee ... did access some of your health information and apparently did disclose it to another individual without your permission," and the CEO tells NBC News the hospital acted quickly after the breach: "When we were made aware of the situation, we took immediate steps to investigate, and within two days, we terminated this individual's employment." The Kansas City Star, however, reports the woman was hired by another hospital. It's not clear how or whether Enzbrenner knew the alleged rapist, who was never charged. A representative for the Atchison County Attorney says authorities were notified about the alleged rapes, but did not elaborate on why charges were not filed. (Read more lawsuit stories.) (Newser) The judge who presided over Bill Cosby's criminal case said he let five other accusers testify at the sex-assault trial because their accounts had "chilling similarities" that pointed to a "signature" crime. A jury last year convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, after hearing from her and the five others. Cosby, 81, is appealing his conviction based on the women's testimony and other key rulings by Montgomery County Judge Stephen O'Neill. Cosby began serving a three- to 10-year prison term in September at a state prison near Philadelphia. O'Neill, in a lengthy opinion filed Tuesday, said he found "striking similarities" in the women's descriptions of their encounters with the comedian, the AP reports. story continues below "In each instance, (he) met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated," O'Neill wrote. "These chilling similarities rendered (their) testimony admissible." O'Neill had allowed just one other accuser to testify at Cosby's first trial in June 2017, when a jury deadlock led to a mistrial. Cosby's latest team of lawyers has been awaiting the opinion so they can proceed with the appeal in Pennsylvania courts. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said the judge "has a habitual habit of always trying to cover his many errors, which continues to show his hatred towards Mr. Cosby." (Last month, Cosby's request to be released on bail was rejected.) (Newser) Florida's governor says Russian hackers breached voter databases in two counties during the 2016 electionbut he's not allowed to say which two. At a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said FBI and Homeland Security officials asked him to sign a nondisclosure agreement, Politico reports. He said the hackers accessed data, but there is no sign that they altered it. He said the hackers would not have been able to change the vote count. "There was no manipulation, or anything, but there was voter data that was able to be got," he said. DeSantis said the "intrusion" happened after the hackers used the "spear phishing" tactic, which involves getting people to click on malicious links in emails, the Wall Street Journal reports. story continues below The governor said the federal officials believe naming the counties "may reveal information to the perpetrators that we know kind of what they did." DeSantis said he had requested a security briefing after the Mueller report revealed that a Russian military intelligence unit breached files in at least one Florida county, the New York Times reports. "The FBI provided information involving the attempted intrusion into Supervisor of Elections networks throughout the state," an agency spokesman said. "The FBI also provided assurance that investigators did not detect any adversary activity that impacted vote counts or disrupted electoral processes during the 2016 or 2018 elections." (Vladimir Putin claims Russia has never engaged in hacking.) (Newser) The US Embassy in Iraq says the State Department has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. The security alert, published on the embassy's website on Wednesday, comes after Washington last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests. On Sunday, the embassy advised Americans to avoid travel to Iraq, citing "heightened tensions." story continues below Iran's supreme leader issued a veiled threat in a speech Tuesday night, saying it wouldn't be difficult for the Islamic republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels amid rising tensions with the US, Iranian state media reported Wednesday. In the same speech, however, he said "no one is seeking war." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments came after Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a coordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia. A satellite image obtained by the AP shows one of the two pumping stations attacked by the drones apparently intact. (The Pentagon has reportedly updated its plans for possible military action against Iran.) (Newser) At an April 29 sentencing hearing, convicted bank robber Jamie Frierson pleaded for leniency, saying he was dying of colon cancer and wanted to spend the little time he has left with his family. He was released after being sentenced to time servedand he robbed a bank nine days later, police say. The 49-year-old, nicknamed the "Broadway Bandit" after robbing seven banks in the area in a 2017 crime spree, is accused of robbing an Apple Bank in the Bronx on May 8, the New York Daily News reports. Prosecutors say he made off with $200 after handing the teller a note saying he was armed. Police say Frierson is suspected of a similar robbery at another Apple Bank the next day. story continues below "After being released from federal prison for robbing banks, Jamie Frierson allegedly went right back to the very crime that put him in jail in the first place," FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement. "He clearly did not learn a lesson." Frierson is now in police custody at Lincoln Hospital. At last month's sentencing hearing, where he could have faced a 17-year sentence under federal guidelines, Frierson pleaded for mercy, saying he had lost 60 pounds in the space of three months. "When you are at the end of your life, certain things become important to you that werent important to you before, like your family," he said. "If I have to die, Im just hoping that I can die around my family and not prison." (Read more bank robber stories.) (Newser) "You have to be where the voters are," according to Danish politician Joachim Olsenwho explains that's why he's now advertising on Pornhub. "When you're done wanking, vote for Jokke," reads the ad, which refers to a nickname for Joachim and depicts the member of parliament in a suit. "Yes, it's me on Pornhub," Olsen confirmed on Facebook ahead of a June 5 general election. In response to a tweet, he added, per Sky News, "there is no limit to how far I will go for the nation." The 41-year-old, who describes himself as "probably the strongest MP in the world," was an Olympic silver medalist in shot put before joining the center-right Liberal Alliance in 2011. story continues below He argues his latest campaign is "95% serious," but leaves room for a bit of levity. "I think this is fun," Olsen says of the ad. And while "some people are outraged I have received a very positive response to it." Per CNN, Pornhub describes Denmark as having "an impressive showing" on the site, ranked 28th in terms of traffic by country, despite a worldwide population rank of 114th. In addition to offering far too much information on the country's sexual interests, the site also lists the average Danish user as 38or roughly Olsen's age. (Read more Pornhub stories.) (Newser) The Harvard Lampoon is apologizing after pasting Anne Frank's head on the body of a bikini-clad woman. "Add this to your list of reasons the Holocaust sucked," read the caption below the image, reports NBC News. The headline: "Gone Before Her Time: Virtual Aging Technology Shows Us What Anne Frank Would Have Looked Like if She Hadn't Died." The backlash was swift, considering Frank's death came in a concentration camp at age 15. That latest: More than 250 Harvard students signed a petition denouncing the undergraduate humor magazine after the issue was circulated over the weekend, per the Harvard Crimson. "They're using humor as an excuse to trivialize the Holocaust, and it's deeply offensive," a rep for the Anti-Defamation League in New England tells the Boston Globe. "They crossed the line from humor into anti-Semitism." story continues below The executive director of Harvard's center of Jewish student life even accused the magazine of carrying forth "the obscenity of the Nazis," per the Globe. The imagery "goes far beyond the distastefulness and provocativeness you obviously intend. It is the sexual violation of a child," Rabbi Jonah C. Steinberg wrote in an email to the editors. Those editors apologized Tuesday. "We realize the extent of offense we have inflicted" and "would like to apologize for our negligence in allowing this piece to be created," their statement reads. The editors also admitted "our publishing process lacks sufficient editorial oversight, so we are going to restructure our review process for issues to prevent the publication of content like this." The Washington Post reports that outraged Harvard sophomore Jenny Baker posted the image and her objections to it on Facebook, only to see the post removed multiple times because it "violated community standards." So she put it all in a Google Doc instead, where she points out it's never OK to make Holocaust jokes or sexualize young girls. "Sexualizing ANNE FRANK and saying it is a shame she was ruthlessly murdered because of her religion because she would have been hot? So unbelievably not okay." As for the Lampoon, the Post reports it was founded in 1876 and appears on the resume of many comedy writers (it calls out Conan O'Brien specifically). (The New York Times recently apologized for an anti-Semitic cartoon .) (Newser) The declaration of his wife's presumed death at sea has arrived two years after Lewis Bennett requested it, but under very different circumstances than he might've then imagined. A judge has declared May 14, 2017, as the death date for Isabella Hellmannwho was on a sailing honeymoon in the Bahamas when the couple's catamaran sankallowing the couple's 2-year-old daughter to collect $18,000 from her mother's estate, report WPBF and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Hellmann's condominium, valued at $130,000, will be turned over to an attorney representing her parents, as Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Scott Suskauer described "no reasonable inferences or an explanation of her absence other than her presumed death at sea." story continues below Bennett initially requested the declaration days after he was found alone in a lifeboat, claiming Hellmann disappeared as he slept below deck. Though her body was never found, police eventually charged Bennett with murder, citing evidence that he intentionally tried to sink the boat. Bennett pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in November without changing his story, though he later apologized to Hellmann's family. "I have made poor decisions which compounded a tragedy of such magnitude that I pray no one else would ever have to experience it," Bennett said in court in January, per the Sun-Sentinel. He faces up to eight years in prison at a sentencing hearing in Miami later this month. The hearing was previously delayed due to unresolved issues, including child visitation rights. (Read more Isabella Hellmann stories.) (Newser) A scary situation got school shut down for summer break a week early in Piketon, Ohio: reports of radioactive contamination on the campus. Superintendent Todd Burkitt of the Scioto Valley Local School District has urged calm despite positive tests for enriched uranium inside Zahn's Corner Middle School and evidence of neptunium nearby, per WLWT. But calm is not the prevailing feeling in the town of 2,100, where work has for years been underway to dispose of some 2 million cubic yards of waste generated from the decontamination and decommissioning of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Just two miles from the school, the Department of Energy plant produced enriched uranium, of which neptunium is a byproduct, from 1954 to 2001. Both contaminants are carcinogens, and a village councilwoman tells CNN that five district students were diagnosed with cancer in the past five years, three of whom died. story continues below As this point, the level of contamination is unclear. While Northern Arizona University scientists found enriched uranium in the school as well as enriched uranium, neptunium, and plutonium in nearby streams and creeks, an Energy official says enriched uranium and neptunium were only found in routine air samples at "more than 1,000 to 10,000 times below the established threshold of public health concern." "Any detectable level" in the school, which has about 320 students, "is too much," Burkitt tells WLWT. But despite calls to halt work at the plant, US Assistant Secretary of Energy Anne White says that won't happen until more air, water, and soil samples can be collected by a third party. Results could come in two weeks, per WOSU. Meanwhile, the school will remain closed "until the source, extent, level of contamination, and potential impacts to public health and the environment can be determined." (Read more radioactive waste stories.) (Newser) Summer is looming, but a number of Transportation Security Administration workers will soon head not to airports but to the US-Mexico border. CNN first reported the news by way of an internal email it viewed from Gary Renfrow to regional TSA management. In it, Renfrow cited the "immediate need for more help from TSA at the SW border" said TSA would respond with "400 people from Security Ops," deployed for a period of roughly 45 to 60 days. Some air marshals could reportedly also be sent. "We also understand that we are accepting some risk as we enter a very busy summer," he wrote. story continues below A rep for the TSA had this to say: "TSA, like all DHS components, is supporting the DHS effort to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border. TSA is in the process of soliciting volunteers to support this effort while minimizing operational impact." Airport security screeners aren't expected to be pulled from their jobs; those who work for federal security directors or carry out inspections at airports may be considered. USA Today spoke with a senior TSA official who says those who head to the border will engage in support work like meal prep and the processing of asylum claims, giving Customs and Border Protection officers and agents more time to process migrants. (Read more TSA stories.) (Newser) New measures by US regulators could help thwart some of the billions of robocalls received across America. The FCC said Wednesday that it will vote in June on whether to let wireless carriers block spam calls by default, which should mean that more spam calls are blocked. Right now, customers have to take the extra step of requesting tools from their carriers or downloading apps from other companies to help them weed out most unwanted calls, reports the AP. The rising volume of calls in the last few years has put pressure on Congress, regulators, and phone companies to act. The volume of calls has risen to roughly 5 billion per month, according to call-blocker YouMail, from 2.7 billion in November 2017. Phone-industry group USTelecom called the FCC's proposal "big and bold." story continues below Many robocalls are not scam calls, though, but calls from debt collectors and telemarketers selling insurance, cruises, and the like. It's not clear if carriers would automatically block those calls, too, an expert on robocalls tells the AP. There are also bills in Congress addressing the robocall problem. A widely supported, bipartisan Senate bill would require carriers to verify that a number popping up on your caller ID is real. A big problem with robocalls is that many are "spoofed," or faked to look like they're coming from a number that matches your area code and the next three digits of your number, so you think it's a neighbor and are more likely to pick up. The industry is working on deploying this long-in-the-works system, but it's been a slow process. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has threatened regulatory action if it's not done this year. (Read more robocalls stories.) (Newser) President Trump will travel to South Korea in June for talks on the North Korean nuclear program, three months after a failed summit with North Korea's leader in Vietnam, the AP reports. The White House says Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in conjunction with his trip to Japan for the G-20 summit. The White House says they "will continue their close coordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization" of North Korea. Trump and Moon will also discuss issues of importance to their two nations. story continues below Trump's efforts to bring about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula have stalled since he abruptly pulled out of the March summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The North has since restarted some missile testing. (It's also suffering through a severe drought and food shortage.) (Newser) The United States on Wednesday suspended all commercial passenger and cargo flights between the US and Venezuela, saying the political unrest and tensions there pose a risk to flights, the AP reports. The announcement by the Department of Homeland Security affected a dwindling number of flights between the two countries, since US airlines no longer fly to Venezuela. The measure reflected the increasingly sour relationship between the Venezuelan government and the US, which is leading a campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro. Conditions in Venezuela "threaten the safety and security of passengers, aircraft, and crew," the department said. It said the flight suspension will continue indefinitely, though the decision will be reviewed if the situation in Venezuela changes. story continues below American Airlines stopped its flights in mid-March after union leaders told pilots not to go there due to safety concerns. Some other international airlines quit flying to Venezuela years ago because of the country's deteriorating economy. Some Venezuelan airlines had been operating commercial flights to and from Miami, though those were already affected by the upheaval in the South American country, including after a failed call for a military uprising by the opposition on April 30. Also Wednesday, Venezuela's opposition-controlled congress returned to its chamber a day after security forces prevented legislators from entering the National Assembly building for a debate. Assembly leader Juan Guaido and other legislators gave speeches denouncing Maduro's government, which has accused them of conspiring with the United States to stage a coup. (Read more Venezuela stories.) Sorry! This content is not available in your region London: Honda has confirmed its western England car factory, which employs 3,500 people, will close in 2021. The Japanese carmaker announced Monday that the Swindon plant will shut in two years, at the end of the current models production life cycle. Honda makes its popular Civic model at the factory, 115 kms west of London. Reports of the closure first emerged in February, heightening concerns about the impact of Brexit-related uncertainty on the U.K. economy. Honda said the closure is not Brexit-driven but is part of Hondas broader global strategy in response to changes to the automotive industry. It said it had spoken to the British government and union consultants, but no viable alternatives to the proposed closure of the Swindon plant have been identified." New Delhi: She was crying, writhing in pain. After much convincing, the doctors operated upon her. It took four hours and doctors at the Indore hospital finally removed the six-inch-long piece of plastic from her uterus that had damaged her small intestine and urinary tract. Her husband has now been arrested, the report published in the Hindustan Times said on Thursday. The shocking case of unimaginable torture came to light after the victim managed reached the Chandan Nagar police station and narrate her ordeal. The cops filed a case based on her complaint and took her to MY government hospital. This is where the doctors got to know about the real reason of her pain. The victim finally opened up and said that two years ago, after a fight, her husband had inserted a bike handle inside her. Worried over the shame and stigma, the mother of six children kept quiet and suffered the agony for nearly two years. It was only after the pain refused to subside that she went to a local hospital. The doctors there told her that she would need to undergo a surgery that would cost her around 1 lakh. Confused after hearing such a large sum, the woman left the hospital and managed to reach the police station. It is here that the police helped her out and admitted to the Indore hospital. The husband was immediately arrested after the complaint. The HT report said that the damaged internal organs have been operated upon and the woman is recuperating now. The United Nations in its 2018 report had said that the disturbing trend of violence against women has been normalised in India due to cultural conditioning. There are many others who remain invisible, unheard and therefore, not counted due to everyday normalization of sexual and other forms of violence. Such normalization can only be prevented through strong engagement with schools, colleges, communities, state machineries and elected leaders, and a policy of zero tolerance of violence against women and girls. Addressing impunity at every level family, community, institution is crucial, the UN report had said. For all the Latest Crime News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Amid India-Pakistan tensions, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has warned students against taking admission in institutions of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). "Pakistan administered Kashmir is an integral part of India. The educational institutions including universities, medical colleges, technical institutions situated in PaK are neither established by the Indian government nor recognised by statutory authorities including UGC, AICTE and Medical Council of India," UGC advisory read. "The students are therefore cautioned and advised against taking admission in college, university or technical institution in any territory under illegal occupation of Pakistan, including the so called AJK (Azad Jammu and Kashmir) and Gilgit Baltistan which are currently not recognised in India," it added. The act was condemned by the Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir (PSAJK). The Association said that such directions negate the basic principle of SAARC cooperation, where both India and Pakistan are signatories. India is part of SAARC group and all educational institutes in all the countries should be treated at par. One cannot pick and choose educational institutes in a particular region. Today they are barring educational institute in PaK and tomorrow they may bar educational institutes in other countries, said G N Var chairman PSAJK. Besides impacting education of hundreds of students it will also have serious ramification in larger run. The SAARC group and all associated agreements have been honoured through many decades and hostile conditions including war and suddenly barring PaK educational institutes in PaK is beyond comprehension, he said. New Delhi: Amid intense political rift between the BJP and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, the Kolkata Police on Wednesday allegedly detained BJP spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga. There are reports that Bagga was picked up around 3 am on Wednesday and has been detained at New Market Police station in Kolkata. An image is going viral which purportedly shows Bagga sitting inside a police station in Kolkata. However, the police or the administration have not verified the claims. Later, Bagga, who has a terrific Twitter presence shared his side of story on microblogging site. According to him, the police barged into his hotel room around 2am and took him away. Bagga alleged that the police was trying to link him with Kolkata violence during Amit Shahs roadshow. However, after not getting any evidence, they had to free me, Bagga said. BJP's IT in-charge Amit Malviya alleged that several BJP leaders, including Bagga, were detained in a midnight crackdown on West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's instructions. Mamata Banerjee ordered a midnight crack down on several BJP leaders in Kolkata, who were picked up in the middle of night, without due process of law being followed. Tajinder Bagga and several others are now in TMCs illegal detention. #SaveBengalSaveDemocracy #FreeTajinderBagga, he tweeted. Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi, who is portraying PM Modi in a movie, also slammed Bengal government for the alleged action. I cant understand why a respected lady like Didi is behaving like Saddam Hussain! Ironically, democracy is under threat and in danger by Dictator Didi herself. First #PriyankaSharma & now #TajinderBagga. aa aaaaaaaa aaa asaaaa ! #SaveBengalSaveDemocracy #FreeTajinderBagga (sic), Oberoi said on Twitter. New Delhi: Day after massive violent clashes between BJP and Trinamool Congress workers during Amit Shahs Kolkata roadshow, the Election Commission will today hold a meeting with West Bengal observers via video conferencing today. There are also reports that the BJP chief is also likely to hold a press conference at party headquarters later in the day. While the ruling Trinamool has blamed the outsiders for the violence, the BJP has put the onus on Mamata Banerjees party. Students of the Calcutta University have filed a complaint against the BJP president over the vandalism. According to a PTI report, parts of the city plunged into a welter of violence as his convoy was attacked with stones by alleged TMC supporters from inside the hostel of Vidyasagar College, triggering a clash between supporters of the two parties, officials said. Furious BJP supporters retaliated and were seen exchanging blows with their TMC rivals outside the college entrance. Several motorcycles parked outside were vandalised and set ablaze. Shards of broken glass littered the lobby of the college where a bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was smashed to smithreens. Police personnel were seen trying to douse the fire with buckets filled with water. New Delhi: BJP chief Amit Shah hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the massive violence during his Kolkata roadshow. During a press conference on Wednesday, Shah released photographic evidence and blamed the ruling party in Bengal for vandalising Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar statue. The BJP chief claimed that Trinamool workers had vandalised the statue to invoke sympathy from voters. He even said that it would have been difficult for him to escape the violence if the CRPF contingent was not present at the spot. If you think that an FIR will scare the BJP workers, you are wrong. I can assure you that BJP workers and the people of Bengal will aggressively vote against you, Shah said in a message for Banerjee. Mamata Banerjee claims that the BJP is doing the violence in Bengal. I want to tell her, we are fighting in every state in the nation, unlike you on 42 seats in West Bengal. Violence didn't take place in 6 phases of elections anywhere but Bengal which proves that TMC is responsible for it, Shah further said. During the presser, Shah claimed that it was Trinamool conspiracy all along. "Since the morning, there was a discussion across Kolkata that some people will do violence inside the university. Police did not act neither did they try to arrest anybody," Shah said. "The place where the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is placed is inside the rooms. The college was closed, everything is locked, then who opened the room. Even the lock is not broken, then who had the keys. The TMC has captured the college," Shah further said. Tension was palpable since noon, hours before Shah's roadshow began, after posters with images of Modi and him were dismantled by the police, provoking several senior leaders to stage a flash sit-in. BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party's pointsman for the northeast, Himanta Biswa Sarma, and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan remonstrated. Vijayvargiya was seen involved in a heated argument with a police officer. "No democracy exists in Bengal," Pradhan said, adding the people of the state were with Narendra Modi. "You (the TMC and Mamata Banerjee) are scared of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. But why should you be afraid of their posters?" Sarma said. The police stopped Shah's convoy on Vivekananda road, just few meters ahead of Swami Vivekananda's ancestral house and told him to terminate the roadshow there as per the permission granted by the authorities, BJP state vice-president Jaiprakash Majumdar told PTI. (With agency inputs) New Delhi: The Election Commissions order curtailing campaigning for the last phase of polls in West Bengal invited hard-hitting rebuttal from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who termed the decision unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical gift to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There is no such law and order problem in West Bengal that Article 324 can be clamped. It is unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical. It is actually a gift to Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah, she said in a press conference, adding that she had never seen this type of EC which is full of RSS people. Furthering her attack in the poll panel, Mamata said the EC was working at the behest of the BJP and the politically biased and unethical decision was timed to allow PM Modi to hold his scheduled rallies in the state on Thursday. The Trinamool chief went on to compare the incident to the violence after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Goons were brought from outside, they created violence wearing saffron. Violence was similar to when Babri Masjid was demolished, Banerjee said. Banerjee said that the poll panel was creating "Emergency like situation" to conduct polls in the state and was "conspiring" against the Trinamool Congress. In first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission on Wednesday ordered campaigning in nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 pm on Thursday, a day before its scheduled deadline, in the wake of violence between BJP and TMC workers in Kolkata. The Election Commission (EC) also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajeev Kumar from their postings in West Bengal. The EC's action came a day after parts of Kolkata witnessed widespread violence during BJP president Amit Shah's massive road show in the city. A bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was also vandalised during the violence. Continuing her attack on the Election Commission, Mamata said the two officers were removed "not by the EC, but by Modi and Amit Shah". She reiterated her claim that the violence in Kolkata was caused by BJP goons who were brought into the state by Shah from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Stating that the EC should have taken action against Shah for violence in Kolkata, Mamata wondered whether the poll bodys directives were due to the threat issued by the BJP chief during a press briefing in Delhi earlier in the day. Shah, in a press conference earlier today, had accused the Trinamool Congress for violence during his roadshow in Kolkata and accused the Election Commission of "double standards" for remaining a "mute spectator" to rigging and violation of the poll code in the state. On its part, the TMC released videos to claim that "BJP goons" damaged the statue of Vidyasagar and said the videos not only establish what the saffron party did, but proved that Shah is a "liar" and a "dhokebaaz" (betrayer). The West Bengal Chief Minister also made personal attack on the PM, saying that Narendra Modi you cannot take care of your wife, how can you take care of the country? Power-drunk Mamata throttling democracy: PM Modi PM Modi said that the Mamata Banerjee government is out to destroy everything in West Bengal and people's conviction and courage will evict the "torturous rule". The entire nation had seen (on TV) how the roadshow of BJP president Amit Shah was attacked by the TMC goons and is anxiously watching the outcome of the poll results in West Bengal, he said. Shah's roadshow in Kolkata was attacked Tuesday after Banerjee had asserted that TMC will take revenge against BJP, Modi claimed. "Didi's (Mamata) goons carrying guns and bombs are bent upon destruction ... Her government is out to destroy everything in the state. People's conviction and courage will evict the torturous rule", he told a poll rally at Taki on the Indo-Bangla border in North 24 Parganas district. "Didi is frightened by the rise of BJP in West Bengal. The people of the state had given respect to here by making her the chief minister. But power-drunk Mamata Banerjee is throttling democracy", Modi said. Keeping up his attack on Banerjee, Modi said "You have looted peoples' money in the chit fund scam and when they sought explanations you abused them". "Democracy has given you the chief minister's chair and you are killing it. The entire country is watching your misdeeds....Didi should not be kept in power. In the last four to five years she has shown her colours". He held Banerjee responsible for destroying the state's culture of 'Bhadra Lok'. The people of Bengal have made up their mind to end the Banerjee's "despotic rule" he said. Arun Jaitley on EC action Senior BJP leader and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the EC order shows there is a classic case of breakdown of the Constitutional machinery in the state. A constitutional authority, the Election Commission of India, has effectively held West Bengal to be a "state in anarchy", said Jaitley in series of tweets. Repeatedly escalating violence, state supported vandals, a partisan police and home department are the illustrations the ECI has given, he noted. "A free campaign is not possible and therefore the campaign has to be cut short. This is a classical case of breakdown of the Constitutional Machinery," the minister said. Congress Ahmed Patel questions EC order Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel wondering if the poll panel is "waiting for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to complete his public meetings" there. Reacting to the development, Patel tweeted, "If situation in Bengal is so severe that campaigning must be stopped, why is EC waiting until tomorrow? Is it because PM has scheduled rallies tomorrow?" "Isn't it unprecedented that EC claims it's an unprecedented situation in West Bengal but yet is waiting for PM to complete his public meetings?" he said in another tweet. WB Governor condemns vandalisation of Vidyasagar statue West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi condemned the vandalising of a bust of 19th century Bengali icon Iswarchandra Vidyasagar and said the culprits should be traced and punished. "As the chancellor of Calcutta University, I am greatly pained at the vandalising of Vidyasagar statue. The real culprit for breaking the statue must be traced out and suitably punished," he said in a statement. What the EC ordered In a hurriedly-convened press conference, Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar said it was for the first time that such an action has been taken using constitutional powers of the poll panel. The poll panel also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajeev Kumar from their postings in West Bengal. Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain, who is in charge of West Bengal, said Bhattacharya "stands relieved" from his current charge immediately, "for having interfered in the process of conducting elections" by directing the state chief electoral officer, which he was not supposed do. The state chief secretary will look after the charge of the home secretary. He said Rajeev Kumar has been attached to the Ministry of Home Affairs here and should report to his new assignment by 10.00 AM Thursday. "This would be the first time when EC has invoked Article 324 in this manner but it may not be the last in cases of repetition of lawlessness and violence which vitiate the conduct of polls in a peaceful and orderly manner," Deputy Election Commissioner Kumar said. "Now, therefore, the Election Commission of India, in exercise of its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution ...Hereby directs that no person shall convene, hold, attend, join or address any public meeting or procession in connection with the election," the eight-page order read. The order also barred any musical concert, theatrical performance to attract people in connection with the polls. It said liquor or similar intoxicants cannot be served in election going areas in bars, hotels and traven shops during the ban period. The EC invoked Article 324 of the Constitution to curtail the campaigning for the last phase of the election on May 19. The constituencies where campaigning has been curtailed are -- Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata Dakshin and Kolkata Uttar. The order on curtailment of the campaigning was signed by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioners Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra. (With inputs from agencies) New Delhi: Flustered over Election Commission's order of campaigning in nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 PM on Thursday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that the poll panel made the decision under pressure from the BJP. Addressing the media after the EC's strict action in the state, Banerjee said the decision is not by the poll panel but by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. "Election Commission is running under the BJP. This is an unprecedented decision. Yesterday's violence was because of Amit Shah. Why has EC not issued a show-cause notice to him or sacked him?" she said. Terming the decision as "politically biased and unethical", the West Bengal Chief Minister alleged that the Election Commission ordered ban on campaigning from 10 pm so as to give PM Modi time to finish his two rallies scheduled on Thursday. "Narendra Modi you cannot take care of your wife, how can you take care of the country?" she said in a hard-hitting attack. Criticising the poll panel's move and claiming that there was no law and order problem in the state, Mamata called the decision to invoke Article 324 as "unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical". "Article 324 in Bengal is EC's gift to Modi, Amit Shah for vandalising idol of Vidyasagar," sha said, further alleging that the poll panel is "full of RSS people". In first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission on Wednesday ordered campaigning in nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 PM on Thursday, a day before its scheduled deadline, in the wake of violence between BJP and TMC workers in Kolkata. The Election Commission (EC) also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajiv Kumar from their postings in West Bengal. The EC's action came a day after parts of Kolkata witnessed wide-spread violence during BJP president Amit Shah's massive road show in Kolkata. A bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also vandalised during the violence. Hitting out at the poll panel for taking action against Rajeev Kumar and Atri Bhattacharya Mamata Banerjee said, "IPS, IAS officers are under the state government but how can they interfere like this." Holding Shah responsible for the violence and vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar statue, Banerjee questioned the EC made the decision after Shah "threatening" the poll panel in a media briefing earlier in the day. Reiterating her allegation that Shah brought "goons" from Bihar, UP and Rajasthan, Mamata compared the Tuesday incident with Babri Masjid demolition. "Goons were brought from outside, they created violence wearing saffron, violence similar to when Babri Masjid was demolished," she said. "Amit Shah created violence through his meeting, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar statue was vandalized but Modi did not feel sorry for that today. People of Bengal have taken this seriously, action should be taken against Amit Shah," Mamata said. "Amit Shah today did a press conference, threatened EC, is this the result of that? Bengal is not scared. Bengal was targeted because I am speaking against Modi," she added. Banerjee said that the poll panel was creating "Emergency like situation" to conduct polls in the state and was "conspiring" against the Trinamool Congress. Shah, in a press conference earlier today, had accused the Trinamool Congress for violence during his roadshow in Kolkata and accused the Election Commission of "double standards" for remaining a "mute spectator" to rigging and violation of the poll code in the state. "I want to tell the Election Commission that it has become a mute spectator to attempts to rig polls in West Bengal. It should immediately intervene. History-sheeters...Are arrested during elections across the country. In Bengal, they are released after furnishing a bond. What is this double standard from the EC? Why is it silent," he asked. New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Wednesday accused Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress of indulging in violence in West Bengal and alleged that the Election Commission has been a "mute spectator". Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Shah also said he would not have escaped unhurt without CRPF protection when his convoy was allegedly attacked in Kolkata on Tuesday.A Here are the top quotes of Amit Shah's press conference The place where the statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is placed is inside the rooms. The college was closed, everything is locked, then who opened the room. Even the lock is not broken, then who had the keys. The Trinamool has captured the college. If the CRPF was not present, it would have been difficult for me to escape unhurt due to the violence in my Kolkata roadshow yesterday. Trinamool can go to any extent, it's with luck that I made it out. If you think that an FIR will scare the BJP workers, you are wrong. I can assure you that BJP workers and the people of Bengal will aggressively vote against you. Mamata Banerjee claims that BJP is doing it, I want to tell her, we are fighting in every state in the nation, unlike you on 42 seats in West Bengal. Violence didn't take place in 6 phases of elections anywhere but Bengal which proves that Trinamool Congress is responsible for it. New Delhi: Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasans Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) on Wednesday tried to explain the party chief comments on Mahatma Gandhis assassin Nathuram Ghodse and said that Haasan was calling for religious tolerance and co-existence. This has been taken absolutely out of context and the speech has been painted as anti -Hindu with a malafide intent. This has created complete confusion and utmost anxiety amongst many common citizens who are not privy to this larger conspiracy, the MNM said, according to news agency ANI. The Tamil Nadu police Tuesday filed an FIR against actor-politician Kamal Haasan for his controversial "free Indias first extremist was a Hindu" remarks referring to Nathuram Godse. Several saffron organisations had moved the courts in Delhi against the actor-politician. However, the Delhi High Court dismissed petition against Haasan, and said that the petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay may approach the appropriate forum as the incident took place in Tamil Nadu. Haasan had said on Sunday that free Indias first extremist was a Hindu, referring to Nathuram Godse who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead by Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948, in New Delhi. "I am not saying this because this is Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi. Free Indias first extremist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it (extremism, apparently) starts," he said in bypoll-bound Aravakurichi. BJP and AIADMK condemned him for his remarks, though Congress and rationalist outfit Dravidar Kazhagam backed him. Tamil Nadu had gone to polls for 38 Lok Sabha seats and 18 Assembly by-polls on April 18. Voting for four more assembly by-polls will be held on May 19 along with the last phase of the national election. New Delhi: After Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra offered floral tributes at the statue of freedom fighter Shaheed Bhagat Singh in Indore, members of the Sikh community purified the statue with milk and holy water. They were enraged over Congress leader Sam Pitrodas hua to hua remarks over 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Priyanka had embarked on a roadshow in Indore on Monday and campaigned for the Congress candidate Pankaj Singhvi. She started the roadshow by paying floral tributes at Bhagat Singhs statue. The protesters felt that Priyanka insulted the community by paying tribute at the statue. We purified the statue with milk and holy water from Amritsar, one of the protesters said as quoted by News18. The Congress had faced a lot of flak for Sam Pitroda comment on Thursday: Hua to hua' (So what, it happened), about the anti-Sikh riots. Pitroda, a close aide of Rahul Gandhi and Overseas Congress' head, made this remark in response to a question on the riots by a newsman in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi on Friday slammed senior party leader Sam Pitroda for his controversial hua to hua remark about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots saying I dont appreciate this type of nonsense, reported The Print. I think thats completely out of line and I think he should apologise for this I think 1984 was a tragedy. It caused tremendous pain to the people. And I think he absolutely owes everybody an apology...And what Mr Sam Pitroda has said is absolutely and completely out of line. I havent spoken to him but I will, I will personally speak to him and tell him that I dont appreciate this type of nonsense," Gandhi told ThePrint in an exclusive interview. Earlier in the day, Pitroda apologised for his comment on 1984 anti-Sikh riots saying his remark was misrepresented and blown out of proportion. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal for delaying the release of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma. The top court said that it will issue a notice of contempt after it was informed by Sharma's lawyer that she had not been released. However, the state government said the police had released Sharma around 9.40 this morning.A A "I'm told, subject to verification, that she was released at 9:40-10:00 am and that too after made to sign a statement prepared by police. It reflects extremely disturbing trend that SC's order that said 'forthwith release her' wasn't followed for 24 hours," Sharma's lawyer was quoted as saying by ANI. Priyanka Sharma's lawyer: I'm told, subject to verification, that she was released at 9:40-10:00 am & that too after made to sign a statement prepared by police. It reflects extremely disturbing trend that SC's order that said 'forthwith release her' wasn't followed for 24 hrs pic.twitter.com/TLF9OZjuxV a ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 The court earlier on Tuesday granted bail to Sharma, against whom a complaint was filed in Bengal for sharing a photo in which Banerjee's face was photoshopped onto actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from a MET Gala event in New York. It also asked Sharma to apologise in writing on her release from jail. It observed freedom of speech ends when it infringes upon the rights of others. West Bengal police arrested Sharma on May 10 under section 500 (defamation) of the IPC and under other provisions of the Information Technology Act on the complaint of local Trinamool Congress leader Vibhas Hazra. BJP leaders and social media users have protested Sharma's arrest. "We have been battling the TMC in Bengal for two years and many of our activists have been arrested, beaten up and even killed by their goons. This has exposed how anarchy has spread in Bengal and how in Mamata didi's rule, freedom of expression has been strangled to death," BJP leader Poonam Mahajan alleged. New Delhi: After Bengali philosopher and reformist Vidyasagars statue at the Vidyasagar Collage was vandalised in the clashes between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien and other party leaders changed their Twitter and Facebook display photos to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's image. The Trinamool Congress' official profile on Twitter and Facebook was also changed to display the picture Vidyasagar. Clashes erupted in Kolkata with supporters of both the BJP and the TMC clashing ahead of BJP president Amit Shahs roadshow in the run up to the polling on May 19, the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The clashes took place near College Square and Calcutta University's Vidyasagar College. At least two vehicles were set ablaze. The Kolkata Police resorted to lathi-charge to dispel the crowd of protestors and as many as 100 people were taken into custody. "What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he God that no one can protest against him?" Mamata Banerjee told reporters after visiting the Vidyasagar College in north Kolkata. "They are so uncultured that they have broken the bust of Vidyasagar. They are all outsiders. They BJP had brought them to be used on the day of polls," she said. There was also a scuffle when a group of people shouted slogans against Shah outside the Calcutta University campus and showed him black flags during the roadshow. Banerjee also visited the university campus. "Does he (Shah) know the heritage of the Calcutta University? Is he aware of the famous personalities who had studied here? He should be ashamed of this attack," she said adding that there will be a protest rally on Wednesday. "The attack was carried out by TMC workers, they carried out arson," Amit Shah said as reported by Zee News. "Mamata is frustrated as she is fearing defeat. This is a step taken because of their frustration." The BJP has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission and demanded strong action against TMC and its chief Mamata Banerjee. The Trinamool has also sought a meeting with the EC and will hold a protest rally on Wednesday. New Delhi: Referring to his remark about Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse being a Hindu terrorist, actor-politician Kamal Haasan on Wednesday said what he spoke in Aravakurichi was historic truth. Haasan clarified that he did not use term the 'terrorist' when talking about Nathuram Godse. "They got angry for what I spoke at Aravakurichi. What I spoke (there) is historic truth. I did not lure anyone to a brawl," he said during a by-poll campaign at Tirupurankundram. He said truth would triumph like the "historic truth I mentioned." "Understand the meaning for the word extremist. I could have used the word terrorist or murderer (against Godse)... Ours is active politics, there won't be any violence," he said while resorting to wordplay in Tamil to drive home his point. The MNM leader alleged his speech was edited selectively and took a dig at his detractors, saying the charges levelled against him "apply to my media friends also." He asked if his critics could show instances of his remarks that could incite violence and said the accusations against him had hurt him. "They are saying I hurt Hindu sentiments. There are so many Hindus in my family. My daughter is a believer," he said. Stoking a controversy, Haasan had said on Sunday that "free India's first extremist was a Hindu", referring to Nathuram Godse who killed Mahatma Gandhi. "I am not saying this because this is Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi. Free India's first extremist was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse. There it (extremism, apparently) starts," he had said in bypoll-bound Aravakurichi. Earlier in the day, the Delhi High Court declined to entertain a PIL which referred to Haasans remark about Mahatma Gandhi's assassin being a Hindu terrorist and had sought directions to the Election Commission (EC) to "restrict" misuse of religion for poll gains. BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay was the remarks by Haasan which was made outside the jurisdiction of the high court here and therefore, it cannot hear it. The court, however, asked the EC to expeditiously decide Upadhyay's representation against Haasan's remark. The petition, filed by Upadhyay, has also sought debarring of candidates and deregistration of parties that "misuse" religion for electoral gains. Upadhyay, also a lawyer, has alleged that Haasan "deliberately" made the statement in the presence of a Muslim majority crowd for electoral gain. The petition contends that this was clearly a corrupt practice under the Representation of the People Act (RPA) 1951. Haasan, the president of Makkal Needhi Maiam, had in an election rally speech for his party candidate on Sunday termed Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse as independent India's first "Hindu terrorist". He had made the comment while speaking at an election rally for his party candidate in Aravakurichi Assembly constituency, where by-polls will be held on May 19, the petition has said. "As per Model Code of Conduct, no party or candidate can indulge in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic. Similarly, there shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes. In his plea, Upadhyay has also sought a direction to the EC to refer to respective investigation agencies the complaints relating to misuse of religion, race, caste, community and language by contesting candidates and political office bearers for electoral gain. On the other hand, the Madras High Court refused to entertain a petition by Haasan seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him over his "free India's first extremist was a Hindu" remark. Justice B Pugalendhi of the Madurai Bench said such pleas cannot be taken up as emergent petitions during the vacation. However, the judge said if an anticipatory bail application was filed, then it could be taken up for hearing. New Delhi: Priyanka Sharma, the BJP youth wing convenor in Bengal, who was granted bail by the Supreme Court on Tuesday for allegedly sharing a morphed photo of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media, said she will 'fight this case and not apologise.' Upon her release on Wednesday, Priyanka Sharma said, "My bail was granted yesterday, but still I wasn't released for another 18 hours. They didn't allow me to meet my advocate and family. They made me sign an apology." The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal for delaying Priyankas release. The top court said that it will issue a notice of contempt after it was informed by Sharma's lawyer that she had not been released. However, the state government said the police had released Sharma around 9.40 this morning. "I'm told, subject to verification, that she was released at 9:40-10:00 am and that too after made to sign a statement prepared by police. It reflects extremely disturbing trend that SC's order that said 'forthwith release her' wasn't followed for 24 hours," Sharma's lawyer was quoted as saying by ANI. The court earlier on Tuesday granted bail to Sharma, against whom a complaint was filed in Bengal for sharing a photo in which Banerjee's face was photoshopped onto actor Priyanka Chopra's picture from a MET Gala event in New York. It also asked Sharma to apologise in writing on her release from jail. It observed freedom of speech ends when it infringes upon the rights of others. A complaint filed at Dasnagar Police station against Priyanka Sharma accused her of "violating community guidelines", an official of Howrah City police's Cyber Cell is quoted as telling news agency IANS. The complaint was reportedly filed by a Trinamool leader, Bibhas Hazra. "This is a malicious effort to define our beloved CM who is working tirelessly for our state. We have lodged a police complaint and want stern action to be initiated. She has not just insulted our CM, but also the culture of Bengal," Hazra reportedly complained. The charges cited on the complaint include "defamation and offensive messages". Mumbai: A week after a cancer patient urged Ajay Devgn to stop advertising tobacco products, the Bollywood actor on Tuesday said he makes a conscious effort to not promote anything that impacts the society negatively. Nanakram, a 40-year-old cancer patient from Rajasthan, had made a public appeal to Devgn to discontinue his association with tobacco products in the interest of the society. The patient's family said that he was a fan of the actor and used the same product which the actor advertises for, but now realises that tobacco has had an adverse effect on his life. Devgn told PTI he is in touch with the fan and even contractually maintains he will not promote tobacco. "I have always maintained in my contracts that I am not promoting tobacco. Whatever the ads are, they are of ilaaichi (cardamom) and my contract says it will be non-tobacco. So if the same company is selling something else, I don't know what to do," he said. The actor added at the most he can try his best not to smoke on screen if his character does not demand it. "In my latest film, "De De Pyaar De", I'm playing a regular man who does not smoke. But if I'm playing a Malik bhai in a film like 'Company', how will it be without smoking? Without taking any names, we were playing somebody (real) who smoked. So it would have been wrong to not show it as it would not be true to the role," Devgn told PTI. Also featuring Tabu and Rakul Preet Singh, "De De Pyaar De" is slated to be released Friday. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Daniel Craigs upcoming James Bond might now even require an even longer waiting. According to The Sun, the James Bond star, who is known for getting his hands dirty by doing his own stunts injured his ankle while filming an action sequence in Jamaica. The reports add that Craig slipped and fell while running, and the subsequent ankle injury resulted in him being flown to the US for X-rays. Following his injury, the filming scheduled to take place at Pinewood studios in London has been postponed. He was sprinting during filming when he slipped and fell quite awkwardly, the source said. He was in quite a lot of pain and was complaining about his ankle Variety quoted as per a source by a newspaper. This isnt the first time, the Bond star has injured himself while on a Bond shoot. In 2006, Craig had his two teeth knocked out while filming Casino Royale then in 2008 he sliced off a fingertip while on the sets of Quantum of Solace. Gary Powell, chief stunt coordinator for Bond films Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale, told The Guardian in 2008, "Daniel puts the work in, even if it's something he's not keen on." For instance, Craig is not "a lover of heights," but in Quantum of Solace he jumped out of a three-story window onto moving bus according to Powell. Cary Joji Fukunaga, who is directing the bond movie following director Danby Boyles exit over creative differences with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson is yet to reveal its title. Bond 25 stars Oscar-winner Rami Malek as the villain. Other new additions include Ana De Armas, Lashana Lynch, David Dencik, Billy Magnussen, and Dali Benssalah; returning cast members include Lea Seydoux, Jeffrey Wright, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Naomi Harris, and Ralph Fiennes. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Hollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The unit of IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, the pilot who shot down Pakistan's F-16 fighter jet during a dogfight on February 27, is using new patches -- aFalcon Slayersa -- showcasing his bravery.A The unit also calls itself AMRAAM Dodgers as a MiG-21 jet evaded 4-5 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles fired by a Pakistani F-16 jet on the same day. Wg Cdr Abhinandan Varthamanas unit is using new patch showcasing his bravery by calling itself the aFalcon Slayera for striking down a Pak F-16 during Feb 27 aerial battle. Unit also calls itself AMRAAM dodgers as MiG-21 evaded 4-5 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles fired by Pakistani F-16 pic.twitter.com/qbple7edJW a ANI (@ANI) May 15, 2019 Patches are cloth badges that depict the squadronas role and often identify itself with an important engagement in which the squadron took part. It also reflects the type of aircraft the squadron flies and is worn on flying overalls. Varthaman was captured by the Pakistani Army on February 27 after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani jets during aerial combat.A Before his jet was hit, he downed an F-16 fighter of Pakistan. Varthaman was released on the night of March 1 by Pakistan.A After he was captured, Varthaman showed courage and grace in handling the most difficult circumstances for which he was praised by politicians, strategic affairs experts, ex-servicemen, celebrities and people in general.A A Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian fighters bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot, deep inside Pakistan on February 26.A A Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Kashmir, killing 40 soldiers.A For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Tuesday held "constructive" talks with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif and conveyed to him that India will take a decision on import of Iranian oil after the Lok Sabha polls, keeping in mind its commercial, economic and energy security interests. The talks between the two foreign ministers came 12 days after the US ended six-month-long exemptions from sanctions to India and seven other countries to buy oil from Iran. Zarif's Delhi visit came amid escalating face-off between Iran and the United States on Tehran's nuclear programme. In a tweet, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar described the discussions between Swaraj and Zarif as "constructive". "EAM @SushmaSwaraj and Iranian Foreign Minister @JZarif held constructive discussions on all bilateral issues of mutual interest. Good exchange of views on the evolving regional situation, including Afghanistan," he said. Official sources said Swaraj reiterated the position that a decision will be taken after the elections based on commercial considerations, energy security and economic interests. In the meeting, Zarif recalled the steps announced by President Hassan Rouhani on May 8 including decisions linked to the export of enriched uranium and heavy water, the sources said. The Iranian Foreign Minister also mentioned that 60 days timeline has been given to EU-3 and other parties to Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA for restoring Iran's oil and banking channels, the sources said. In a televised address, Rouhani had on May 8 said that Iran would suspend some parts of its "commitments" to the JCPOA, but will not fully withdraw from it. In the meeting with Zarif, the Indian side reiterated its position on JCPOA and said New Delhi would like all parties to continue to fulfill their commitments and that they should engage constructively to the issues peacefully, the sources said. They said the visit took place at Zarif's own initiative to brief India on the Iranian approach to the recent developments in the region, including on JCPOA, and to review bilateral cooperation. "This was part of their consultation with other countries in the region including Russia, China, Turkmenistan, and Iraq over the last few days," said a source. In the meeting, Swaraj and Zarif shared their views on the situation in Afghanistan and agreed to maintain close coordination on the evolving situation, the sources said. They said both sides expressed satisfaction at the operationalisation of the interim contract on the Chabahar port between India Ports Global Limited (IPGL) and Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO). The US sanctions on Iran is unlikely to impact the Chabahar port project. In May last year, the US had brought back sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal which was struck in 2015. The US had told India and other countries to cut oil imports from the Gulf nation to "zero" by November 4 or face sanctions. However, Washington had granted a six-month waiver from sanctions to eight countries, including India. The waiver ended on May 2. India, the world's third biggest oil consumer, meets more than 80 per cent of its oil needs through imports. Iran is its third largest supplier after Iraq and Saudi Arabia and meets about 10 per cent of its total needs. Indo-Iran ties have been on a upswing in the past few years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tehran in May 2016 with an aim to craft a strategic relationship with Iran and expand India's ties with West Asia. During the visit, India and Iran signed nearly a dozen agreements, centrepiece of which was a deal on development of Chabahar port. Later, India, Iran and Afghanistan signed a trilateral agreement providing for transport of goods among the three countries through the port. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. London: Chinese telecom giant Huawei is willing to sign a no-spy agreement with countries including Britain, the firms chairman said on Tuesday, as the head of NATO said Britain must preserve secure mobile networks. Liang Hua visited Britain as the government weighs the risks of allowing the Chinese company to help develop its 5G infrastructure. We are willing to sign no-spy agreements with governments, including the UK government, to commit ourselves, to commit our equipment to meeting the no-spy, no back-door standards, Liang told reporters. The British government is in the middle of a furious debate over whether to let Huawei roll out its next-generation mobile service. The private Chinese firm currently has the most advanced and cheapest 5G capacities in the world. But the United States has warned its close ally that it might have to limit security and intelligence sharing with Britain if it allowed China to play a significant role. Washingtons broader geopolitical concerns have been heightened by a law enacted by Beijing in 2017 obliging Chinese companies to aid the government on national security issues. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was also visiting Britain, said network security remained of utmost importance to the Western military alliance. Huawei and 5G network is extremely important, Stoltenberg told a London business conference. He conceded that Britain and all other NATO members had the right to make their own decisions about China and 5G. Having said that, of course, what matters for NATO is that these decisions are made in a way that makes sure that they have secure networks, Stoltenberg said. There is no way we can escape addressing those issues, he added. We are going to make sure our networks are safe. The Huawei debate has pushed Britain into the heart of Chinas heated battle for global dominance with the United States. It has also splintered Mays cabinet between those who view China as a vital trade partner in Britains post-Brexit future and ministers who side with Washingtons view of Beijing as a threat. May fired defence minister Gavin Williamsonone of the cabinets big critics of Chinaearlier this month over a leak alleging that her government will allow Huawei to play a limited 5G role. New Delhi: Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeeds brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki has been arrested by Punjab police in Pakistans Gujranwala, according to Geo news. Makki was accused of making hate speeches and criticizing the governments action against banned outfits. He is the head of JuDs political and international affairs. The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014. "The arrest of Abdul Rehman Makki took place during the crackdown against outlawed organisations. He is accused of hate speeches and criticizing steps taking by government under FATF GUIDELINES. Makki has been arrested under the maintenance of Public Order Act, Geo news quoted Pakistans interior ministry source as saying. Earlier, Pakistan's Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) banned 11 trusts affiliated to Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeeds Jamaat ud Dawa, Filah e Insaniyat Foundation and Pulwama blasts strategist Masood Azhars Jaish-e-Mohammed. The action was taken in continuation to the National Action Plan. According to WION, the final decision to ban the organisations was taken by Interior Minister Brigadier (retd) Ijaz Shah as under Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, a decision to ban and place organisations under observation is taken by the Ministry of Interior. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Started by United Nations General Assembly in 1993, May 15 annually is celebrated as International Day of Families (IDF). The Day reflects importance the international community attaches to families and their role in development. The 2019 observance focuses on families, family policies and major SDG13 targets, according to the United Nations. IDF raises awareness about the "social, economic and demographic processes affecting families." They also aim at integrating climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning. The main event of the International Day of Families will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Tweeting about the significance of the day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote, Today is International Day of Families. We live in such times when family values have assumed great significance. I always say that Maa, Mati, Manush are my family. We are committed to the welfare of every member of the family - from a newborn baby to an elderly grandparent (sic). According to the United Nation website, the 2019 observance focuses on families, family policies and major SDG 13 targets: SDG 13 target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning SDG 13 target 13.2: integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Lahore: Pakistan on Wednesday decided not to lift its airspace ban for Indian flights till May 30, as Islamabad is awaiting the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls in India. Pakistan fully closed its airspace after an Indian Air Force strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camp in Balakot on February 26. However, Pakistan opened its airspace for all flights except for New Delhi, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur on March 27. "The top officials of defence and aviation ministries held a meeting on Wednesday to reconsider opening its airspace for Indian flights. They decided that Pakistan's airspace will remain banned for the Indian flights till May 30," a senior government official told PTI after the meeting. He said the Civil Aviation Authority has also notified the decision to the airmen. The authority issued a notification (Notam) after the meeting to pilots, advising them of circumstances relating to the state of flying. The official said the government will now consider lifting of the ban on Pakistan's airspace for Indian flights on May 30. Pakistan's Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry early this week said that the status quo will remain till the conclusion of elections in India. "Status quo will remain till the elections are over in India. I don't see any improvement in relations between Pakistan and India till the elections are over and a new government is installed. The ban on airspace by each other I think will also continue till Indian polls," Chaudhry told PTI. Owing to the flight ban on its airspace by India, Pakistan has suspended its operation for Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur which is causing a loss of millions of rupees per day. Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) used to operate four flights to Kuala Lumpur, two to Bangkok and two to New Delhi. A senior PIA official told PTI that the national flag carrier's loss is running into billions of rupees because of suspension of the flights especially to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. "We are not only facing the huge financial loss but also losing our passengers to other airlines," he said, adding that this matter should now be resolved. "If land and rail routes are operational between Pakistan and India, what's wrong with the air route," the official questioned. Pakistan lies in the middle of a vital aviation corridor. Flights to India often pass directly over Pakistan. The airlines and civil aviation authorities of both the countries are enduring massive losses. The flights between Europe to Far-East are not only facing huge financial losses, but the flight duration has also increased, while the airlines have also increased their ticket prices. Pakistan in mid-April had opened one of its 11 air routes for west-bound flights from India and airlines such as Air India and Turkish Airlines have started using it. The operating cost for Air India, which flies to destinations in Europe and the US, reportedly has increased significantly as it had to take longer routes due to closure of Pakistan airspace. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday said that there is not going to be any war with the United States. Tensions between the Islamic republic and the United States was a test of resolve rather than a military encounter, he said. This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war. They know it will not be in their interest, he said, quoted on the Khamenei.ir website. Khamenei accused US President Donald Trump of being uninformed about the situation in Iran. The definite decision of the Iranian nation is to resist against America, Khamenei said, adding that in this showdown America will be forced to retreat... because our resolve is stronger. The supreme leader said negotiating with the US was poison because the Americans wanted to take away Irans strong points such as its missiles or its strategic depth in the region. Negotiating with the present American government is doubly poisonous... they are not decent humans, they dont stand by anything, he said referring to the US decision to withdraw from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers. Earlier, US President Donald Trump had warned Iran against any misadventure. "Well see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake," Trump told reporters at his Oval Office of the White House. He was responding to questions on US military build-up against Iran and if he was at war with Tehran. Im hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. Well see what happens with Iran, Trump said, as his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stopped in Brussels to brief NATO allies on the latest developments with regard to Iran. Tehran announced had that it would stop respecting some of the curbs on its nuclear activities imposed under the landmark 2015 deal with world powers. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Pakistans Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday said that his country was closely observing the situation closely. Pakistan will formulate a strategy keeping in view the national interest, he said. Expressing concern over the situation Qureshi however said that it will not join any camp. This is a very sensitive issue. We are closely monitoring the situation. As situation evolves, we are trying to develop a strategy that does not hurt our interests and this region does not get destabilised, he said. Separately, Qureshi told the National Assembly panel that the US had not imposed any visa restrictions on Pakistan. Earlier, US President Donald Trump warned Iran against any misadventure. "Well see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake," Trump told reporters at his Oval Office of the White House. He was responding to questions on US military build-up against Iran and if he was at war with Tehran. Im hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. Well see what happens with Iran, Trump said, as his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stopped in Brussels to brief NATO allies on the latest developments with regard to Iran. This was however refuted by Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday and said that there is not going to be any war with the United States. Tensions between the Islamic republic and the United States was a test of resolve rather than a military encounter, he said. This face-off is not military because there is not going to be any war. Neither we nor them (the US) seek war. They know it will not be in their interest, he said, quoted on the Khamenei.ir website. Khamenei accused US President Donald Trump of being uninformed about the situation in Iran. The definite decision of the Iranian nation is to resist against America, Khamenei said, adding that in this showdown America will be forced to retreat... because our resolve is stronger. The supreme leader said negotiating with the US was poison because the Americans wanted to take away Irans strong points such as its missiles or its strategic depth in the region. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa yesterday hailed His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifas recent visit to the United Kingdom saying, The visit would contribute in strengthening the friendly Bahrain-UK relations. The Prime Minister, chairing the regular weekly Cabinet session held at the Gudaibiya Palace yesterday, stressed that Kings visit would open up wider horizons of bilateral cooperation. This was announced in a post-session statement by the Cabinet Secretary-General, Dr Yasser bin Isa Al-Nasser. The Premier also lauded the outcomes of HM Kings recent visit to Egypt and Kuwait. The Premier lauded the constructive and fruitful cooperation of the Legislative and the Executive Branch during the discussion of the draft law on approving the General State Budget (2019-2020), saying, This contributed to speeding the approval of the budget and governments efforts to implement the Fiscal Balance Programme. The World Health Organisation (WHO) will honor His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa as a World Leader, in a new international achievement reflecting the global impact and resonance of the contributions of His Royal Highness. The Premier was chosen after a careful follow-up on the progress achieved by Bahrains health sector, which, according to WHO, deserves to be a role model for other countries of the world. The award honors HRH the Premiers contributions in the field of health and for his vision, ideas, policies, initiatives, and achievements. Dr. Tidros Adhanom Gibressus, the Chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said this in an invitation to HRH to attend the 72nd World Health Assembly. The high international honor also reflects the role HRH Prince Khalifa has played in achieving WHOs objectives, missions, and functions. Bahrain yesterday denounced and condemned in strongest terms the terrorist attack, that targeted two oil pumping stations transporting Saudi Arabian oil, using explosive-laden drones. The stations were used for pumping Saudi Arabian oil from the fields in the Eastern Province to the port of Yanbu on the West Coast. Bahrain Ministry said that this cowardly terrorist act is a threat to the energy safety of not only the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but also to the world. The Foreign Ministry statement pledged Bahrains unequivocal position in supporting Saudi Arabia against those threatening its security or harming its interests and the stability of its people. The Ministry also called for the international community to combat all groups and terrorist organizations that seek to provoke tension, violence, and chaos in the region. The attacks were claimed by Iran-backed Huthi rebels hours after the blast. Following the drone attack, Saudi Arabia said it had stopped pumping crude oil along the major pipeline. Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said two pumping stations on the pipeline from the oil-rich Eastern Province to the Red Sea had been targeted early yesterday. The vital pipeline has a capacity of at least five million barrels per day. The Supreme Criminal Court of Appeal yesterday upheld the death sentences and conviction of two men who killed a policeman and wounded several others in a highway ambush. The Supreme Criminal Courts decision upheld a lower courts decision in the case of a five-member terrorist gang, who was convicted in the 2017 murder of policeman Salman Anjam by detonating explosives. The latest decision follows two appeals filed by the suspected against the death sentences issued against them. The Court wrote that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support the murder conviction and death penalty awarded to the two for the incident occurred on October 27, 2017. According to court files, both the men received military training on manufacturing explosives and using firearms in Iran in 2011. The appellants are members of a five-member terrorist gang that was involved in a series of attacks that targeted security forces vehicles. Investigations led to identifying the two appellants and another member of the same gang. Evidence before the court proved that they were involved in planting bombs on main roads and detonating them when public security vehicles pass by. Plans are on way to upskill government employees in the Kingdom through a partnership with Microsoft and ICT training provider Thinksmart, said the Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA). The initiative which would potentially help thousands of Bahraini government employees has been named as FORSATI for Government Employees. Under the terms of the MoU, iGA, Microsoft and Thinksmart will work together on the initiative. Our collaboration with Microsoft and Thinksmart will help us build the foundations of that success and improve government eServices, accelerate innovation, boost employment and economic growth in the Kingdom. We look forward to working with our partners to enhance the overall competitiveness of the country in line with Bahrain Vision 2030, said iGAs Chief Executive Mohamed Ali AlQaed. Microsoft will work to provide courses, certifications, and technical guidance. Training paths will include Microsoft basic tools, professional IT, cloud training, digital transformation and exposure to technologies that have emerged as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Each path will be customized to align with the job role of the participant. Microsoft has enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership with the Government of Bahrain, and our work with the iGA has continued that tradition of committing ourselves to help every Bahraini individual and organization to achieve more, said Sheikh Saif Hilal Al Hosni, Country Manager, Bahrain and Oman, Microsoft. Digital transformation has the power to engage citizens, empower government employees, optimize operations and reinvent service-delivery models. It is a vital component of achieving the goals of Vision 2030 and we are delighted to work with iGA and Thinksmart to help government departments realize that vision. AlMabarrah AlKhalifia Foundation (MKF) has launched its fifth annual Ramadan initiative featuring a number of events and activities to mark this special occasion. This comes in line with its vision to make a social impact in the education field and empower Bahraini youth, as well as celebrate the Holy month of Ramadan. MKF staff and Rayaat Scholarship Student Council are gearing up for a number of activities that aim to spread the value of giving back to the local community. On this occasion, MKF expressed its appreciation to VIVA Bahrain for providing Ramadan hampers for the 5th consecutive year. MKF will also be holding a series of online competitions for its followers, where participants will compete to win valuable prizes. Additionally, MKF plans to hold a digital Ramadan-themed photography competition to encourage its followers to capture the Holy Months best moments. MKF will also host a session by a religious scholar in the presence of students of the Foundation. Activities will conclude with distributing Eid hampers Qadooa (Bahraini sweets traditionally eaten to celebrate Eid) to families in need. Also, MKFs students plan to organize a shopping trip with orphans for new Eid clothes. When Afghan businessman Haji Yakup Burhan fled the violence of his home country 30 years ago, he brought with him his family -- and all his money. He headed to Saudi Arabia, where he opened a restaurant but, as refugees, his children had difficulty getting into a school. Then he moved to the United Arab Emirates, but Dubais costs seemed impossible. So, two years ago, he moved to Turkey and opened a restaurant in Istanbuls Esenyurt neighbourhood, taking advantage of the countrys relatively open business environment for refugees. I have 15 people working for me in this restaurant. They are Afghans, Iranians and Turks. I have invested about $120,000 (107,000 euros) in this restaurant so far, Burhan, 52, told AFP at his Afghan Kebab establishment. Over 60 per cent of our customers are Afghans living here. The rest are Arabs, Iranians and Turks, he said. Afghan refugee entrepreneurs appear to be increasingly finding success in Turkey, where they bring to the local economy, not only their savings, but sought-after know-how, whether in restaurants, commerce or skilled crafts and specialities. In turn, Turkey offers refugees simplified administrative procedures for setting up a new business. Turkey hosts nearly four million refugees, with Syrians making up the largest group, but Afghans number more than 145,000, according to Amnesty International figures released last year. Some people in Turkey view refugees as a burden, but a different picture emerges in Burhans bustling Istanbul suburb, where refugees like him have made significant investment in the Turkish economy. 3 1 of 3 Danbury Police Department / Facebook Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Danbury Police Department / Facebook Show More Show Less 3 of 3 DANBURY Members of the police department participated in a candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C., Monday to honor fallen law enforcement officers, including one of Hat Citys own. Frederick Potter Ellis was a Danbury police constable who suffered a fatal heart attack May 2, 1964. HARTFORD Gov. Ned Lamont has shied away increasing income tax on wealthy Connecticut residents, but 10 of the states top earners have written a letter asking the governor to do just that. This is not altruism on our part, it is advocacy for the ambitious policies needed to make Connecticut prosperous for everyone, stated the 10 members of Fair Share Connecticut, a group of wealthy residents committed to creating a fair tax system directed by Philip Vander Klay of New Haven. The letter was sent to Lamont and the members of the Connecticut General Assembly on May 14, 2019, as a formal request to be part of the solution to Connecticuts financial crisis. Their three-pronged proposal is estimated to generate $1 billion in revenue for Connecticut. The plan includes a new bracket for couples earning $5 million and individuals earning $2.5 million as well as raising the marginal rate 3 percent. The second prong will raise the top tax bracket-couples making over $1 million-by 2 percent. Click through the slideshow above to see the top 10 most and least tax friendly states. Finally, the plan will raise the second-highest bracket - couples making over $500,000 - by 1 percent. The letter sought to dispel the millionaire migration myth and stated that the Connecticuts migration issues are the result of lower and middle-income families. The state Department of Revenue Service confirmed in a May 2017 report about Connecticuts migration trends stated that lower-income residents migrate out of Connecticut at higher rates than high-income earners and this data was confirmed by the IRS. The report also states that there has been an increase in tax filers leaving Connecticut across all income levels since 2007. The most significant departures were those earning between $50,000-$100,000 and those earning $5,000,000 and above. The letter counters the claim that millionaires are the ones fleeing Connecticut for sunny Florida and instead suggests that wealthy people will stay in the place that made them wealthy, regardless of the taxes. This is where their jobs, connections, and friends reside, so losing a small percentage of their substantial income is not an important driving factor, the letter stated. Raise the taxes. We arent going anywhere. Earlier this month, the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee suggested a 2 percent surcharge on capital gains of Connecticuts wealthiest citizens in 2021. Lamont disagreed with this portion of the package. I dont think its good policy, Lamont has said. For 25 years weve said were going to tax capital gains, dividends and interest income at the same rate. This would break sort of a 25-year tradition. After reviewing the letter, Lamont still doesnt believe increased income taxes are the answer. As the authors of the letter point out, Connecticut still hasnt recovered the jobs it lost during the last recession, Maribel La Luz, Lamonts spokesperson, said. We lag behind our neighboring states, and the only way out is to create more good paying jobs and opportunities for our residents and families. We cannot tax our way to growth. The Governor doesnt want to increase income taxes on anyone, particularly as we continue the economic rebuilding phase of our recovery. Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, said that the state should take a more holistic approach to the states economic problems. Whether you are talking about the payroll tax which is very popular, the estate tax, whether you are talking about creating new capital gains, it needs to be done with a consideration of whats best for Connecticut from a strategic standpoint, Steinberg said. These one-offs drive me a little crazy so we should be having a more holistic conversation. According to a report from Fair Share Connecticut, Connecticuts wealthiest residents are enjoying the benefits of economic growth while soaking the middle class. The top 1 percent have garnered 100 percent of income gains generated since the end of the Great Recession, reads the report. That means that income has remained stagnant for the other 99 percent of Connecticut residents. Fair Share Connecticut points to states like California as proof that their plan will succeed. Their letter cites an article from Real Clear Politics stating that Californias governor, Jerry Brown, was able to turn the state around by passing Proposition 30, which raised sales taxes and income on high-income residents. With these increased taxes in place, the state quickly climbed out of its fiscal crisis and grew from the eighth to the fifth largest economy in the world, stated the letter. Lastly, the millionaires hoped to debunk the myth that Connecticut is a high tax state. Their letter mentions a report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis for fiscal year 2015 in which Connecticut is ranked as the ninth lowest when it comes to government-imposed taxes and fees. The letter closes by suggesting that Connecticuts problem isnt high taxes, but rather who carries the burden of the taxes. Our problem is that our taxes fall too heavily on working- and middle-class families, the letter stated. The simple truth is that our proposed income tax increase on Connecticuts wealthiest residents is good for our state. HARTFORD The Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee filed a handful of bills this week, including one that would eliminate the estate tax and also borrow $200 million for STEM scholarships. The 88-page document would implement the recommendations of the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth and is similar to Gov. Ned Lamonts revenue package, which introduces sales taxes on goods and services that were previously exempt. At first glance, the bill seeks to reduce some of the sales tax increases pitched by Lamont, but theres no fiscal note yet so its difficult to tell. Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, who chairs the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee, said the bill was requested by Rep. Chris Davis, R-East Windsor, the ranking Republican on the committee. My ranking member was putting it forward on behalf of the fiscal stability commission, Rojas said. Davis said out of respect for the privately funded work of the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth he put forward legislation calling for some of the recommendations they made in their report. I am not 100 percent supportive of their recommendations, Davis said. But their ideas should get a hearing. Davis said he could only put forward some of the commissions revenue and bonding recommendations and not their budget cuts or pension reforms because those issues fall under the cognizance of other committees. Republican Party Chairman JR Romano was quick to criticize the bill on Twitter when he thought it was a Democratic proposal. The majority of the taxes @CTDems & @GovNedLamont are proposing this session will hurt the working class the most. At the rate their money is being diverted out of their paychecks, they may never even encounter the estate tax because theyll be left with nothing, Romano tweeted. The biggest difference between the committee bill and Lamonts budget is the estate tax. Lamonts budget maintained the estate tax and delayed reporting to nine months after a death, rather than the current delay of six months. But Davis committee bill would phase out the tax entirely. The move will not be popular among members of the Progressive Caucus, who have already said they have no desire to eliminate the estate tax, especially if the state doesnt increase income taxes on Connecticuts wealthiest residents. Over the past two years, the estate tax has brought in about $218 million to $223 million per year. The tax only applies to estates larger than $3.6 million. If Connecticut gets rid of the estate tax, its going to be a huge transfer of wealth directly to the ultra-wealthy in our state, Rep. Joshua Elliott, D-Hamden, has said. He said its the millionaire with the suitcase myth, and Connecticut lawmakers should not listen to anecdotal evidence from wealthy people who leave Connecticut. Theres also another problem created by the elimination of the estate tax for anyone who died after Jan. 1, 2019 how to pay for the probate court system, which is entirely funded by the estate and gift taxes and fees. And since Lamont also proposed eliminating the gift tax, probate officials are raising the alarm. Probate Court Administrator Paul Knierim told the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee earlier this month that unless it finds other money in the operating budget, the changes that Lamont proposed will cause the Probate Court system to be insolvent and unable to pay its bills in FY20. While most Republicans support eliminating the estate tax, it will be difficult to win their support on any sort of budget package that raises taxes. Before the bipartisan budget compromise of 2017, the last time a Republican voted for a budget was 2007. The committee bill also includes other smaller changes. For example, the bill keeps the hotel tax at 15 percent, instead of increasing it to 17 percent. It also keeps the rate for bed and breakfasts at 11 percent, instead of the 13 percent proposed by Lamont. Both bills transfer 10 percent to the state Tourism Fund. The committee bill also adds a 6.35 percent sales tax to campground reservations just like Lamonts budget proposal, and restores the boat tax to 2.99 percent. Lamonts bill would raise it to 6.35 percent. Kathleen Burns, executive director of the Connecticut Marine Trades Association, told the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee last month that boat sales have increased since the tax was reduced. Burns said marinas have reported a 13-percent increase in slip rentals for the upcoming season. The number of boats registered in Connecticut has been dropping for more than a decade. They were down 15.7 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to state records. The Connecticut Marine Trades Association are hoping to keep taxes low to encourage registration. Neither the committee bill nor Lamonts proposal seeks to increase personal income taxes. The committee has until May 2 to forward bills to the House. Rojas said they are working to come up with a finance package that meets the spending plan put forward by the Appropriations Committee. STEM scholarship program According to the committee bill, the state would borrow $200 million to be used by the Office of Higher Education to develop a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Scholarship Program, provided no portion of such proceeds shall be used for administrative expenses. Starting July 1, 2020, the Office of Higher Education would award scholarships of up to $5,000 a year for up to 4,000 Connecticut residents in the first year and up to 4,000 additional state residents in each of the next three years, who are enrolled (1) as full-time or part-time undergraduate students at a public or an independent institution of higher education in the state and are seeking a degree in a field related to science, technology, engineering, mathematics or a health profession, or (2) in a teacher preparation program, as defined in section 10-10a of the general statutes, and whose subject area major is in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Connecticut jumped back into the contentious national debate over immigration enforcement as Senate Democrats voted early Wednesday to pass a bill that would further restrict how police and court personnel can work with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants. The bill would expand the Trust Act, a measure that effectively rebuked President Barack Obamas immigration enforcement policies when passed six years ago by prohibiting the detention of undocumented immigrants in the absence of a threat to public safety, an outstanding arrest warrant or a final order of deportation. The new bill is a reaction to the even more aggressive polices of President Donald J. Trump, and its passage is a consequence of the gains Democrats made in 2018 in what was largely seen as a referendum on the Republican president. After sharing power for two years in an evenly divided Senate, Democrats now have a 22-14 majority. With one Democrat absent due to a family emergency, the Senate voted 20-15 at 1:50 a.m. after nearly an eight-hour debate to pass and send the measure to the House of Representatives. Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, voted with all 14 Republicans against the bill. It is a very scary time for a number of people in this country. Were seeing an unprecedented attack on immigrants in this country, said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk. Our state is better than that. The measure would prohibit the detention of anyone on a civil detainer lodged by ICE unless is is accompanied by a warrant signed by a state or federal judge. It also would limit the circumstances under which law enforcement officers may disclose confidential information to a federal immigration authority, and it no longer would allow local authorities to detain an undocumented immigrant on the basis of being a threat to public safety. Why would we do this? Im dumbfounded, said Sen. Eric Berthel, R-Watertown. More News Senate to vote on misdemeanor sentences to protect immigrants from deportation Were talking about terrorists here, said Sen. Dan Champagne, R-Vernon, referring to the elimination of the provision relating to persons deemed a public threat. Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said elements of the legislation would appropriately strengthen the due process rights of immigrants facing civil detainer orders issued by ICE, and many Republicans would have supported a more tightly focused bill. You cannot hold somebody against their will for a civil matter, Fasano said. But he added, It just goes too far. It is so far reaching. Fasano said the bill also is confusing, providing a hard to follow map for law enforcement. Democrats said the bill was necessary to underscore that immigrants, regardless of their legal status, can safety report crimes and otherwise cooperate with local police and trust that they will not be turned over to ICE. The ability to do local policing is impacted when immigrant communities or perceived immigrant communities would actually look at them as federal ICE agents or as extensions of those, and that restricts their ability to be able to take care of the local issues, whether there are criminal activities in the community, whether domestic abuse or human trafficking, said Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor. Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, a lead sponsor and co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, said preserving immigrants trust in the police was the reason for his support of the new bill and the original Trust Act of 2013. While we might say this particular community feels afraid to interact with the police, Winfield said, the crimes that happen in those communities will not always be limited to those communities. Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said other states have adopted far more stringent Trust Acts since Connecticut passed its original bill in 2013. Republicans countered that the new bill goes further, hampering the ability of local law enforcement to detain potentially dangerous immigrants or to even truthfully answer when ICE inquires about an immigrant who may be in police custody. I believe the title of this bill is a misnomer. I dont believe this is a Trust Act any more, said Sen. George Logan, R-Ansonia, the son of Guatemalan immigrants. This bill should be titled, Connecticut: Sanctuary State. A series of Republican amendments to narrow the bill failed on party-line votes. Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, said his constituents are solidly opposed to making Connecticut a sanctuary state. They dont like sanctuary universities, they dont want sanctuary cities and they certainly dont want Connecticut to be a sanctuary state. Not because theres an inherent dislike of illegal immigrants or undocumented aliens; thats not it at all, Kissel said. They feel that if you want to come here, come here legally. But some people dont want to wait in line. Some people dont want to go through the hoops. Some people dont want to deal with the hassle. Citing research by an immigration clinic at the Yale Law School, the Connecticut Immigration Rights Alliance complained in March that some judicial marshals, who provide security at state courthouses and lock-ups, enforced civil immigration detainers in possible violation of the 2013 law. A single marshal was responsible for enforcing more than half of ICE detainers over a one-year period reviewed from September 2016. But the groups report indicated that 45 of the 50 persons detained for ICE were under a final order of removal, one of the criteria allowed in the 2013 law. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, Connecticut is one of nine states to have laws limiting the cooperation of local courts and law enforcement with ICE, while nine state have passed anti-sanctuary laws. Kathleen Megan contributed to this report. Facing nine budget questions, Ridgefield voters approved spending for the 2019-20 fiscal year Tuesday. The annual budget referendum drew 1,725 residents to the polls exactly 200 less voters than the 2018-19 referendum that took place during last years macroburst. How do we get people to turn out to vote? First Selectman Rudy Marconi wondered Tuesday night after the Board of Finance voted to approve a mill rate of 28.12 mills for 2019-20. Marconi called the turnout which was less than 10 percent of the towns roughly 18,000 registered Ridgefield voters abysmal. The voters who did turn out to cast ballots approved a 1.24 percent tax increase. School budget, town budget, road budget, and capital-spending questions all passed with easy victories. All three boards worked hard to deliver a zero percent tax increase, Marconi said after the brief finance board meeting. We wanted that for our taxpayers but we do have labor contracts that require increases and thats how we got to 1.24 percent. Although its an increase, its well below the cost of living and were going to work hard again to bring a similar low number to our residents next year. The following is a breakdown the official vote count: Question One, the $47,793,923 town budget reflect the zero percent increase achieved by the Board of Selectmen for the town departments budget, passed 1,395 yes to 325 no. Question Two, the $98,193,760 school budget representing a 3.36 percent spending increase over the current years Board of Education budget, passed 1,149 yes to 576 no. Question Three, $1,840,000 for annual road reconstruction and repaving work, passed 1,498 yes to 221 no. Question Four, $602,300 in bonding authorization to finance a Mack dump truck, a road sweeper, and sidewalk improvements, passed 1,297 yes to 415 no. Question Five, $917,000 worth of building improvement projects at the Recreation Center, the Venus building, and East Ridge Middle School, passed 1,345 yes to 371 no. Question Six, $1,210,092 for a ladder truck for the fire department, passed 1,328 yes to 381 no. Question Seven, $1,142,128 for school building repairs, security and surveillance infrastructure, and equipment costs, passed 1,441 yes to 278 no. Question Eight, $184,000 for roof repair work at two elementary schools, Scotland ($94,000) and Branchville ($90,000), passed 1,468 yes to 248 no. Question Nine, $565,000 worth of computer and information technology equipment, repairs and upgrades, passed 1,273 yes to 439 no. / Contributed photo Krysta Scriven, a senior at Western Connecticut State University, won a Fulbright Fellowship to serve as an English language teaching assistant at a top-rated high school in Vidin, Bulgaria. She is the sixth WCSU student in the past decade to earn a Fulbright award. Scriven, a graduate of Waterburys Kennedy High School, initially enrolled at WCSU as a science major, but soon switched her focus to writing and later, linguistics. The issue: Connecticut has the opportunity to make the state safer for all, most notably young people, without infringing on anyones rights. To take such action should be a no-brainer. But when the steps to safety involve guns, common sense often is left at the door of the State Capitol. Fortunately, enough legislators from both parties supported three bills to move them from the House to the Senate last week. Two address safe storage of firearms and the third would ban so-called ghost guns, which are home assembled without permits or registration and therefore cannot be traced. Last year a similar ghost guns bill failed to come up for a vote in the House. What we said: Ghost guns are unregulated and therefore untraceable. Anyone including teenagers could procure one. These guns have no serial numbers because they are bought through the internet partially assembled, then completed without much effort at home. The equivalent of an AR-15, banned in Connecticut, could be obtained this way. Ghost guns are a way to get around the law. The law must catch up with them. Editorial April 13, 2018 Gun enthusiasts have every right to buy a weapon through the channels that society has spent decades fine tuning in an effort to balance the rights of gun owners with considerations for public safety. Freelance gun making throws that balance way off. Editorial May 6, 2018 Gov. Ned Lamont, while a candidate, pledged support to ban ghost and 3D-printed guns, which are made of plastic, have no serial numbers and therefore are untraceable. Editorial Jan. 25, 2019 To hear or read Kristin Songs testimony about a state gun safety bill is to feel the anguish of a mother whose teenage son died needlessly because a gun was unlocked and loaded with a bullet. ... The safe storage bill in Connecticut should be a protection all would want. This bill could save lives. From 2001 through 2018, 126 children through age 17 died from gun-related injuries, Sarah Healy Eagen, the states child advocate, said. ...Pass the safe storage bill, pass Ethans Law. Editorial March 14, 2019 What has happened: The bill to ban ghost guns passed the state House of Representatives May 7 in a 108-36 vote. Ethans Law, named for 15-year-old Ethan Song of Guilford who died from an accidentally discharged .357 Magnum last year, passed with more support, 127-16. But a third bill, which requires firearms to be locked when unattended in vehicles, drew more than five hours of debate before finally passing 98-48. How this could be controversial is difficult to see. It is no ones right to leave a gun in a car. The bill calls for firearms to be locked in a portable safe or the trunk or, by amendment, a metal tool box or locked glove compartment. All three bills moved to the state Senate. What you can do: Now is the time to contact your state senator and urge them to vote yes for public safety. TORONTO, May 15, 2019 /CNW/ - VersaPay Corporation (TSXV: VPY) ("VersaPay" or the "Company"), will release its first quarter 2019 financial results ended March 31, 2019 on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019 after market close. The Company will subsequently hold a conference call on Thursday, May 23rd, 2019 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time hosted by Craig O'Neill, Chief Executive Officer, and Shouvik Roy, Chief Financial Officer. A question and answer session will follow the corporate update. Conference Call Details: Date: Thursday, May 23rd, 2019 Time: 9:00 AM Eastern Time Participant Dial-in Numbers: Local Toronto (+1) 416 764 8609 Toll Free North America (+1) 888 390 0605 Conference ID: 70828784 Recording Playback Numbers: Toronto (+1) 416 764 8677 Toll Free North America (+1) 888 390 0541 Passcode: 828784 # Expiry Date: Thursday, May 30th, 2019 A live audio webcast and archive of the conference call will be available by visiting the Company's website at http://www.versapay.com/company/investor-relations/. Please connect at least 15 minutes prior to the conference call to ensure time for any software download that may be needed to hear the webcast. About VersaPay VersaPay is a Fintech company and leading provider of cloud-based invoice-to-cash solutions, enabling businesses to provide a superior customer experience, get paid faster, streamline financial operations, and dramatically reduce DSO and costs. VersaPay ARC is the new standard in accounts receivable and collections management with a customer self-service environment to view invoices online, collaborate on inquiries and disputes, and facilitate secure online payments (EFT/ACH and credit card). Businesses gain access to a suite of powerful tools that enable efficient collections, cash application and real-time insight into accounts receivable. VersaPay ARC automatically reconciles payments and account information through integrations with a wide range of ERPs and accounting software providers. More information about VersaPay is available at www.versapay.com or under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward Looking and Other Cautionary Statements This news release contains "forward-looking information" which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Such forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words and phrases such as "plans," "expects," "is expected," "budget," "scheduled," "estimates," "forecasts," "intends," "anticipates," or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "would," "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business. Management believes that these assumptions are reasonable. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the speculative nature of the Company's business, the Company's formative stage of development and the Company's financial position. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. 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. SOURCE VersaPay Corporation For further information: John McLeod, Chief Marketing Officer, VersaPay Corporation, 647-258-9406, [email protected]; Babak Pedram, Investor Relations, Virtus Advisory Group Inc., 416-644-5081, [email protected] Related Links www.versapay.com US Crude oil production has been at 12.1 to 12.3 million barrels per day for the last few weeks. This is 2.4 million barrels per day more than Saudi Arabia. US crude oil production has been at abou the level of Saudi Arabia and Iran combined. Iran posted OPECs biggest supply drop in April. Irans production dropped 150,000 bpd. Venezuela, supply fell by 100,000 bpd due to U.S. sanctions and a long-term decline in production. Iran dropped 154,000 bpd to 2.554 million bpd in April. Iraq dropped 113,000 bpd to 4.63 million bpd. Saudi Arabia had 45,000 bpd less oil in April at 9.742 million bpd. Venezuela had a slight increase of 28,000 bpd to 768,000 bpd in April. In 2018, Venezuela averaged was 1.34 million bpd. EIA predicts global oil demand would average 100.4 million bpd in 2019. This will be first full year over 100 million bpd. EIA forecasts that crude oil production in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will average 30.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2019, down by 1.7 million b/d from 2018. In 2020, EIA expects OPEC crude oil production to fall by 0.4 million b/d to an average of 29.8 million b/d. Production in Venezuela and Iran account for most of the OPEC output declines in 2019 and in 2020. OPEC pumped 30.23 million barrels per day (bpd) in April 2019 down 90,000 bpd from March and the lowest OPEC total since 2015. Cuba Rationing Food and Energy Because of US Venezuela Sanctions Cuba received 103,226 bpd of oil from Venezuela in the first half of 2015. Cuba needs at least 70,000 bpd from Venezuela to cover its energy deficit and avoid deeper rationing. A larger or total loss of the Venezuelan supply would have a high political and financial cost for Cuba, said Jorge Pinon, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas in Austin. Cuba was sent an average of 72,350 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and refined products in the first half of 2017. In 2019, Venezuelas shipments of crude for Cubas refineries dropped 21 percent to 42,310 bpd. Cuba would also resell the discounted Venezuela oil to raise the $2 billion in hard currency that Cuba needed to import two thirds of their food supply. SOURCES- Reuters, EIA Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com STAMFORD The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Wednesday that it would not take new donations from members of the Sackler family who own controversial OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, a move that reflects increasing scrutiny of the Sacklers prolific philanthropy. Following similar decision in recent weeks by other museums and a review of its gift-acceptance policy, the Mets suspension of its acceptance of new contributions from the family did not come as a major surprise. Criticism has grown in recent months over nonprofit institutions ties to the Sacklers, with eight of them named as defendants in Connecticuts lawsuit against the company, which accuses them of fueling the opioid crisis with deceptive OxyContin marketing. Every object and much of the building itself came from individuals driven by a love for art and the spirit of philanthropy, Met President Daniel Weiss said in a statement. For this reason, it is our responsibility to ensure that the public is aware of the diligence that we take to generate philanthropic support. Our donors deserve this, and the public should expect it. That is what were doing here. The Mets decision would not lead to a re-naming of the Sackler Wing, which houses the Temple of Dendur from ancient Egypt. In a statement, family members of the late Purdue co-founders Mortimer and Raymond Sackler said they supported the Mets decision. While we know that the allegations being made against our family are false and unfair, the last thing we would want to do is to put the Met in a difficult position, and we understand and respect their decision, the statement said. Our goals has always been to support the valuable work of such outstanding organizations, and we remain committed to doing so. The Sacklers support of the Met began more than 50 years ago some 30 years before OxyContin went on the market. The Met said it had not received any donations from the Sacklers in the past two years. But the Sacklers are still widely viewed as some of the museums most-prominent backers. A 1978 announcement of the official dedication of the Sackler Wing reported that its construction cost $9.5 million to build, worth approximately $36 million today. The same day as the Mets announcement, the American Museum of Natural History said that it would not take more Sackler donations. The Natural History museum is, coincidentally, a neighbor; it faces the Met from the west side of Central Park. The voluminous litigation against Purdue and the Sacklers including ones by Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York that name eight family members as defendants has piled pressure on museums, universities and medical organizations in the U.S., United Kingdom and Israel to disavow their support from the family. The Sacklers have cumulatively given tens of millions of dollars to those institutions. In March, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, an Upper East Side Manhattan neighbor of the Met, and the United Kingdoms National Portrait Gallery and Tate galleries said they would not accept additional Sackler donations. Meanwhile, Harvard University faces calls from the likes of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate, to remove the Sackler name from campus buildings. This crisis has been driven by greed, pure and simple, Warren wrote, in her plan to tackle the opioid crisis. If you dont believe that, just look at the Sackler family. Connecticut-based beneficiaries of the Sacklers include the University of Connecticut, Yale University and Greenwich Hospital. So far, those organizations have not severed their relationships with the family. Returning the money to the Sacklers would not undo the damage of the opioid crisis or punish the family or the company they are associated with, a UConn spokeswoman said earlier this year. Rather, it would hamper the work of UConn students and researchers who have no connection to the issues at hand and have done nothing wrong. In Stamford, Purdue ranks as one of the most-prominent corporate donors. It has given between $500,000 and $1 million to the Mill River Park Collaborative, the nonprofit that oversees the downtown park and sponsors the Stamford Downtown Special Services District. At 61 Atlantic St., The Palace Theatre has an art gallery that is named after Arthur Sackler, who died in 1987. His late brothers bought Purdues predecessor company in 1952. For-profit organizations are always rethinking their relationships. Stamford-based hedge fund Hildene Capital Management told investment entities of Sackler family members late last year that the firm was no longer comfortable managing their money. Amid those organizations distancing from the family, the Sacklers who own Purdue have changed their oversight of the company. In the past two years, all eight of the Sackler defendants in the Connecticut lawsuit have stepped down from the Purdue board, with the last of them leaving the panel at the beginning of the year. pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott Steve Haas is hoping his latest piece of work will stand the test of time just like the symbolic monument its commemorating. He has spent years developing acoustic programs and systems for museums at his Milford-based company, SH Acoustics, which is part of the slew of the team of companies that are telling the story of Lady Liberty to the thousands of visitors who will make their way to the new Statue of Liberty Museum on Ellis Island opening on Thursday. Its so iconic in terms of its meaning and relationship to people around the world, Haas said. Its emotional in a way because we know how much it means to people coming to this country for the first time. Roughly 4.3 million people visit the monument every year, many of them by ferry. But restrictions on the number of people allowed to enter the landmark statue have severely limited access for visitors, sparking interest in building the museum. More Business Branfords Stony Creek granite chosen for new Statue of Liberty Museum Two years after breaking ground, the $100 million project is set to debut. The new 26,000-square-foot museum features a trove of artifacts and interactive exhibits that Haas and his team helped develop. SH Acoustics was brought in by the projects designers, ESI Designs of New York, to work on the sound systems throughout the facility. The museum is divided into three sections and features a walk-through multimedia presentation in the Immersive Theater along with an Engagement Gallery covering the statue's construction and its place in United States culture. Finally, the museums Inspiration Gallery will house the original torch in a glass-enclosed space offering views of Lady Liberty and the New York skyline. The original torch was swapped out in 1984 after years of weather damage and stored in the statues pedestal museum ever since. Admission comes free with the ferry tickets visitors need to get to Ellis Island. Haas said it meant a lot to be able to contribute to the project because of the landmarks global and national importance. This (project) is definitely unique because it seems that everyone in the world knows the Statue of Liberty, Haas said. A lot of the projects weve worked on are maybe history museums that govern a wide range of topics relative to a particular client or institution, whereas this one is solely focused on that one iconic, symbolic statue. The Milford company has worked on several prestigious projects in the museum industry, including the Smithsonians Institutions National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Museum of the American Revolution. Were definitely growing and enjoying what we do, Haas said, adding that his team has recently branched into working on residential and corporate spaces for clients. The company has also added broadcast studios to its line of work, playing a role in updating the facilities for the Minnesota Vikings. While the New York-based museum isnt the largest project Milford company has worked on, Haas said it still rivals other projects in importance. Its not a humongous museum, but its certainly a prominent one in terms of the story it is telling of the history of the statue and all that it means to people both here and around the world, Haas said. Thats really whats important about this one to get those messages across. Whether its five or 5,000 people visiting, it has to impact the people the same way. Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com CM Group, a Nashville, Tenn.-based family of marketing technology companies, completed a $410m financing. In conjunction with the financing, CM Group acquired Vuture, a cross-channel marketing platform for legal and professional service providers. Vuture brings further vertical-specific features, functionality, and expertise to CM Group, as well as nearly 400 new customers, 200 of which are based in the U.S. including the Big Four consulting firms. The financing provides capital for future acquisitions to accelerate growth and provide a technology solution to meet the needs of marketers. Led by David Brady, CEO, Vuture provides a platform offering technology for event management, content management, payments, alumni tracking, and surveys. Marketers in the professional services field can create and send personalized communications and build relationship-enriching experiences with clients, alumni, and prospects. The acquisition bolsters CM Groups presence in existing markets including London, New York, and Sydney. Led by Wellford Dillard, CEO, CM Group is a family of global marketing technology brands including Campaign Monitor, Delivra, Emma, Liveclicker, Sailthru and Vuture. By joining together them, the company offers a variety of solutions that can be used by marketers at any level. CM Group has United States offices in Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and global offices in Australia, London, New Zealand and Uruguay. Following the deal, CM Group will have over 600 employees and 300,000 customers, as all employees of Vuture will remain active in the company. Vuture follows the acquisitions of Liveclicker and Sailthru. FinSMEs 15/05/2019 MILFORD A man identified by court officials as a retired New York City firefighter was accused Wednesday of being muscle in a Christmas Night home invasion on West Main Street. Vito Badalamenti, 49, of Bridgeport, was charged with home invasion and conspiracy to commit home invasion. He is the fourth suspect charged in the case, which police were tipped off to by clandestine social media messages sent by the alleged victim. Police said the victim, a man, told them that, about 10:15 p.m. on Dec. 25, a woman he owed money to, Cassandra Vitali, and three men forced open the door of his home to collect the debt. The suspects allegedly yelled at the victim to cough up the money he owed Vitali and ransacked his apartment. The victim said he was terrified and messaged a friend on Facebook, during which another suspect, Sean Artis, allegedly said Im packing and if you call the police Im going to kill you. The victims friend contacted police, who went to the home and found Vitali and Artis there. Badalamenti and the fourth suspect, who has not been charged in the case, had left to buy drugs before police arrived, the victim told police. Badalamenti was arraigned in Milford Superior Court Wednesday, where a public defender representing him said he retired from the FDNY after serving for 13 years. A bail commissioner said Badalamenti has substance abuse issues and has lived in Brigdeport for the past six years, with convictions on his record, including larcenies, burglaries and skipping court dates. Judge Donna Wilkerson Brillant ordered Badalamenti held in lieu of $350,000 bond and continued the case to June 5. Charges against Vitali and Artis are pending. BRANFORD Branford police officers once again will earn traditional pensions after the Representative Town Meeting unanimously approved both a new four-year police union contract and a new pension agreement Tuesday night. Union President Sgt. Stanley Konesky hailed the change, which union members previously ratified, as just a win-win for both the union and the town. We are extremely pleased with the outcome, Konesky said after the vote. Its beneficial to everyone. Police Chief Jonathan Mulhern and Capt. John Alves agreed. Mulhern said one big problem has been that the current defined contribution plan, akin to a 401(k), provided very limited disability coverage a scary thing to many police officers who know the occupation can be high-risk when it comes to on-the-job injuries. Its huge for us, said Alves, who runs the departments recruitment program, which saw a huge jump in applicants after word filtered out that the town planned to switch back from a defined contribution plan to a traditional defined benefit pension plan. The Police Department recently cut its pool of 186 applicants to 70, he said. Alves said he expected the return to pensions to improve the Police Departments ability to retain current officers, as well. Weve lost a lot of really good people who left jobs in Branford to go to other police departments that had pensions, he said. The move, which had been discussed for several years, was done to stem what has been an increased rate of departure for both experienced officers and relatively new hires and make Branford a more attractive destination for new recruits and transfers from other departments. The town switched to the defined contribution plan in 2011. The RTMs Ways & Means and Public Services committees previously approved both the pension agreement and the labor contract which will give officers 2.5 percent increases each year in a joint special meeting. Tuesday night, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Peter Black, R-3, said the initial cost of the switch to the town is estimated at $25,000, but were also going to save a lot on officer retention. Were actually going to come out saving a bunch of money, Black said. RTM member Tom Brockett, D-7, also called the switch a win-win for both the union and the town. He pointed out that over the past few years, the towns pool of new applicants had dried up, and lateral transfers originally anticipated experienced officers coming in from other towns didnt happen because of a change in state interpretation of the rules. The state comptrollers office ruled that if an officer were to retire from a town that was part of the Connecticut Municipal Employees Retirement System, they would have to put their pension on hold if they went to work for another CMERS municipality. The return of the defined benefit plan will allow the town to hire better officers and retain more officers, Brockett said. Konesky previously said that the worst part about the situation since 2011 is that for officers who came here and only had a 401, they had no disability. The job is inherently dangerous, he said. God forbid, you get hurt, you have the protection now. mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com BRANFORD New Chief of Police Jonathan R. Mulherns swearing-in ceremony May 3 was pretty much a regional, multi-generational law enforcement celebration. And that was just the Mulhern family. I have high standards. Our agency will have high standards, Mulhern, who has been acting as chief since April 18, told the crowd overflowing with police officers, family and friends. Always remember, just do the right thing. These are very simple things ... but they will keep us committed to ethical policing... We need each other to be successful in these demanding and challenging times, Mulhern said. Mulhern a third-generation police officer his wife, Alycia, and their twin sons, Hayden and Carter, 13, were joined by Mulherns parents, retired police chief and longtime Hamden police officer Robert and Ruth Mulhern, as well as Jon Mulherns brothers, Joseph Mulhern, an East Haven police sergeant, and Neal Mulhern, a detective sergeant in the Madison Police Department. Robert Mulhern pinned his sons new chief badge on him. Robert Mulherns father, the late Hugh Mulhern, was a former Hamden police chief and Hugh Mulherns brother, the late Robert Mulhern, was a detective captain in New Haven. In a sign of the esteem Jon Mulhern who was a North Haven cop for 17 years and its deputy chief for eight before taking the deputy chief job of the Branford Police Department 10 months ago is held in, the room at Branford Fire Headquarters in which the ceremony took place was filled with a sea of blue. In addition to a host of Branford cops, the crowd gathered to watch Mulhern take the oath of office from Suprior Court Judge Walter Spader included police officers from North Haven, East Haven, Wallingford, Madison and North Branford, including several members the top brass from other area departments. Among them were Mulherns former bosses, recently retired Branford chief and now North Branford Chief Kevin Halloran, and North Haven Chief Tom McLoughlin. Jon, I have complete faith in you, said Halloran, speaking after Board of Police Commissioners Chairwoman Jill Marcus, commissioner Rick Goodwin and First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove but before Mulhern. I have a vested interest dont forget, Im still a Branford citizen, so keep the town safe, Halloran said. Best of luck and have a long and happy career in Branford. After impressing the commissioners and getting hired last year, Mulhern took right over, Halloran told the crowd. He has command presence and the men and women of the department really supported him. He made my job so easy, Halloran said. Jon Mulhern, after thanking the Board of Police Commissioners for their support, Halloran for his kind words, Mulherns wife a strong woman who holds us all together and his officers, told the crowd, As I look out, I am truly humbled ... to be standing in front of you facing a crowd filled with so many people ... mentors, folks who taught me, who made me a good leader. He told his brothers, You make me so proud. Im so proud that we all wear the same names on our uniforms. He said of his father, He installed decency, perserverence, and most of all, integrity. Mulhern told the assembled Branford officers to remember that policing is a challenge and dangerous profession that weighs on even the strongest of us. As chief, I know that this important position places an important weight on our shoulders, he said. I can confidently stand strong because I know all of you will be with me .... Im honored to serve the men and women of the Branford PD and the people of this great community. Chairwoman Marcus pointed out that she served with three great chiefs in Robert Gill, John DeCarlo and Halloran prior to Mulhern taking the oath and said she looked forward to Mulhern continuing that legacy. May he go on to serve for years to come, Marcus said. Goodwin said that great achievements are a moving target and he was confident Mulhern was up to it. The men and women of the Branford Police Department already represent the best in policing. Our core here is solid... he said. Im not going to go on a limb when I tell people that we have the right man for the job. Cosgrove said what impressed him when Mulhern was sworn-in as deputy chief was how many people from North Haven showed up, which showed he was a well-respected leader. At that point, I knew that we had the right guy, and over the past 10 months in his role, I can not only see that hes earned the respect of his colleagues, but of the community. Robert Mulhern, who served as chief of police department in Orono, Maine and Groton, Mass. after retiring from the Hamden PD after 21 years on the force, said he was proud of his son and all of his sons. Hes going to keep it going, he said of Jon Mulhern. He remarkable. Hes going to be a great chief. He works tirelessly at his job. The swearing-in ceremony was emceed by Branford Police Capt. John Alves. mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com Whenever Audra Tatum, of Walker County, Georgia used to get into the passenger seat of a car, she'd immediately prop her feet up against the dashboard. "My husband would tell me, 'If we have a wreck, it's going to break your leg,'" Tatum told NewsChannel 9. "I dismissed him." But on a quick drive to her parents to pick up their two sons in 2015, another car T-boned Tatum and her husband. "When the airbag exploded, it pushed my foot up into my face," Tatum said. The force broke not only her ankle and femur, but also her nose and shoulder. This wasn't just a freak accident. According to a Facebook post by the Chattanooga Fire Department, airbags deploy between 100 and 220 mph. "If you ride with your feet on the dash and you're involved in an accident, the airbag may send your knees through your eye sockets," the post reads. When she got to the hospital after the crash, the doctors told Tatum that if her feet were on the floor of the car, she "wouldn't have had any issues whatsoever." But she still deals with the pain from the accident years later. "I regret it every single day," Tatum told NewsChannel 9. "Every hour of every day because every time I put pressure on my leg I feel it .... Do not sit like that." Today we celebrate chocolate chips, the star ingredient in an all-time favorite: chocolate chip cookies. May 15 has been designated National Chocolate Chip Day. Chocolate chip is the most popular cookie in the United States, accounting for more than 25 percent of cookies consumed. Of course, there are other uses of the morsels: ice cream, pancakes, brownies, cakes, scones, granola bars, trail mix and muffins; the list could go on and on. Sweets are not the only use of the confection. I have come across savory recipes and have prepared dishes such as chili and stews using chocolate chips. I even eat them as-is, right out of the bag. Dont you? So who invented chocolate chips? The inventor, Ruth Wakefield has New England roots. Born in Easton, Mass., she and her husband purchased The Toll House Inn, where the guests were served the meals she prepared. According to www.women-inventors.com, in 1930, Wakefield was mixing a batch of cookies for her roadside inn guests when she discovered that she was out of bakers chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of Nestles semi-sweet chocolate, expecting it to melt and absorb into the dough to create chocolate cookies. That didnt happen, but the surprising result helped to make Ruth Wakefield one of the 20th centurys most famous women inventors. When she removed the pan from the oven, Wakefield realized that she had accidentally invented chocolate chip cookies. At the time, she called her creations Toll House Crunch Cookies. They became extremely popular locally, and the recipe was soon published in a Boston newspaper. As the popularity of the Toll House Crunch Cookie increased, the sales of Nestles semi-sweet chocolate bars also spiked. Andrew Nestle and Ruth Wakefield decided to come up with an agreement. Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its package, and Wakefield would be given a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate. Due to this unexpected discovery by a famous woman inventor, the chocolate chip cookie became the most popular variety of cookie in America, a distinction it still holds to this day. It was interesting to find out that in the beginning, Nestle included a small chopping tool with the chocolate bars, making it easier for the cookie baker to break up the chocolate bars. It was in 1941when chocolate was sold in chip or morsel form. Semi-sweet was the original flavor of chocolate chips. Today they are available in bittersweet, semi-sweet, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white and dark swirled. There are variations, too; butterscotch, peanut butter and peppermint, appearing just in time for Christmas holiday baking. Fans of the television show Friends know that food is often featured on many episodes. You might remember when Monica tried to persuade Phoebe to share her grandmothers recipe for chocolate chip cookies. You will get a good laugh here. And now its time to celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day by baking chocolate chip cookies, enjoying them, and passing some out to family, friends and co-workers. What a chocolatey way to celebrate a holiday! My friends, the experts from the Tastings and Testings Department at Americas Test Kitchen, were happy to share these recipes with us. Their signature recipe headnote Why This Recipe Works always provides helpful information. And here is the recipe for oatmeal fudge bars. Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies Why This Recipe Works: Theres no question that the chocolate chip cookie is the most iconic American treat. While both crispy cookies and cakey ones have their place, we wanted a version reminiscent of the classic Toll House cookie, one with crisp edges and a chewy interior. But perhaps nostalgia has clouded our memory, because the Toll House recipe actually produces cookies that are a bit cakey and wan. We wanted a reliably moist and chewy cookie with crisp edges and deep butterscotch notes. The key ingredient was browned butter. Melting the butter made its water content readily available to interact with the flour, thus creating more gluten and a chewier texture. Continuing to cook the butter until it browned contributed deep caramel notes, as did dissolving the sugar in the melted butter. Using two egg yolks but only one white added richness without giving the cookies a cakey texture. Studded with gooey chocolate and boasting a complex toffee flavor, these are chocolate chip cookies, perfected. Light brown sugar can be used in place of the dark, but the cookies wont be as full-flavored. 13/4 cups (83/4 ounces) all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 14 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided 3/4 cup packed (51/4 ounces) dark brown sugar 1/2 cup (31/2 ounces) granulated sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 teaspoon salt 1 large egg plus 1 large yolk 11/4 cups (71/2 ounces) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips 3/4 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and chopped (optional) Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour and baking soda together in bowl. Melt 10 tablespoons butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Continue to cook, swirling skillet constantly, until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Transfer browned butter to large bowl and stir in remaining 4 tablespoons butter until melted. Whisk in brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt until incorporated. Whisk in egg and yolk until smooth and no lumps remain, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans, if using. Working with 3 tablespoons dough at a time, roll into balls and space them 2 inches apart on prepared sheets. (Dough balls can be frozen for up to 1 month; bake frozen dough balls in 300 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes.) Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, until golden brown and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft and puffy, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack. Let cookies cool completely before serving. Makes 16 cookies Cherry-Chocolate Chip Granola Why This Recipe Works: Store-bought granola is often chock-full of pale oats and dried-out nuts and is underwhelming when it comes to dried fruit. We wanted to fix this by making our own granola at home, with large clusters and a crisp texture. The secret was to firmly pack the granola mixture into a rimmed baking sheet before baking. Once it was baked, we had a granola bark that we could break into crunchy clumps of any size. Coarsely chopped almonds, chopped dried cherries, and mini chocolate chips added a welcome crunch and sweetness and we didnt skimp on the amounts. Do not use quick oats here. We prefer to chop the almonds by hand for even texture and superior crunch. (A food processor will chop whole nuts unevenly.) You can substitute an equal amount of slivered or sliced almonds, if desired. 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1/3 cup maple syrup 1/3 cup packed (21/3 ounces) light brown sugar 4 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon salt 5 cups (15 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats 2 cups (10 ounces) raw almonds, chopped coarse 2 cups (10 ounces) dried cherries, chopped 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Spray parchment with vegetable oil spray. Whisk oil, maple syrup, sugar, vanilla, and salt together in large bowl. Fold in oats and almonds until thoroughly combined. Transfer oat mixture to prepared sheet and spread across entire surface of sheet in even layer. Using stiff metal spatula, press down firmly on oat mixture until very compact. Bake until lightly browned, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. Transfer sheet to wire rack and let granola cool completely, about 1 hour. Break cooled granola into pieces of desired size. Stir in cherries and chocolate chips and serve. (Granola can be stored in airtight container for up to 2 weeks.) Makes about 9 cups What chef would you like me to interview? Which restaurant recipes or other recipes would you like to have? Which food products do you have difficulty finding? Do you have cooking questions? Send them to me: Stephen Fries, professor and coordinator of the Hospitality Management Programs at Gateway Community College, at gw-stephen.fries@gwcc.commnet.edu or Dept. FC, Gateway Community College, 20 Church St., New Haven 06510. Include your full name, address and phone number. Due to volume, I might not be able to publish every request. For more, go to stephenfries.com. CULINARY CALENDAR Passport to CT Farm Wineries began its season May 3. Collect a minimum of 12 stamps from each of the 40 participating wineries and the Connecticut Wine Festival in Goshen in July, through November 3 to be eligible for one of more than 60 prizes, including a two-week trip for two to Malaga, Spain. Passports are available free of charge at each participating location, and through a new downloadable CT Farm Wine app. More details at passporttoctfarmwine.com. Surf & Turf Cooking Class: May 17, 6:30-9 p.m., Chefs Emporium, 449 Boston Post Road, Orange, $89. Reservations 203-799-2665. In this fun, hands-on class, you will enjoy exploring new twists on a classic pairing. Our instructor will walk you through techniques for creating a surf and turf dinner using the freshest, most flavorful ingredients from land and sea. Youll work alongside other students learning secrets for grilling steak to perfection every time. Each student will also take home a small bottle of our Truffle oil. Menu: Bone in Ribeye with Lobster Butter, Crab Gratin, Cast Iron Carrots, Truffled parmesan polenta fries. Please feel free to bring your favorite bottle of wine or beverage to enjoy during this class. Tickets at https://bit.ly/2ZQ3HMR. New Haven Food Truck Festival will be held June 1, noon to 7 p.m., New Havens Long Wharf waterfront. Features dragon boat races, wheelie competition, live music, kids activities and shopping. Free Admission; food and beverage are an additional cost. More info at streetfoodnhv.com/festival. Consiglios Brunch Demonstration Cooking Class: June 1, 11 a.m., Consiglios Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven, 203-865-4489 (reservations required), $75 (beverages, tax and gratuity not included), https://bit.ly/2Nd0xAg. Menu: Italian Sausage Frittata with Scallions, Potato and Cheese; Homemade Ricotta on Garlic Crostini with Roasted Pepper Bacon Jam; Homemade Waffles with Fresh Fruit; Cannoli Crepes. Sun BBQFest, June 1 (11 a.m.-10 p.m.) and June 2 (11 a.m.-5 p.m.), Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Blvd., Uncasville, $5 per days, $8 for 2-day ticket. Children under 6 free. Food and drink priced separate. Barbecue battles, food vendors, beverages, live music and cooking demonstrations. Saturdays events feature a wing contest and a rib challenge, with an evening fireworks display. Schedule of events and info at https://bit.ly/2nECs8D. Chefs of Our Kitchen (C.O.O.K.) Series: Francesco dAmuri Chef and owner and his wife Allison De Renzi of LOrcio in New Haven. June 5, 6 p.m., Gateway Community College, 20 Church St., New Haven, 203-285-2617, $65 includes pre-event reception and three-course dinner featuring classic Italian dishes from their award-winning restaurant, with wine pairings. Mingle with Chef Francesco and Allison at the reception and then watch the demonstration of the dishes being prepared as you enjoy dinner. Reservations required. Validated parking (bring parking ticket to event) at the Temple Street Garage. Proceeds benefit Gateway students, faculty and staff. Tickets and series information at www.gatewayfdn.org/cook-tickets. NEW HAVEN A Syrian national pleaded guilty in federal court to stalking in violation of a protective order, authorities said. Alaa Hasan Qalb Allouz, 34, a citizen of Syria who last lived in New Haven, pleaded guilty Wednesday in New Haven federal court and now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in prison and up to five years in prison, according to the office of Connecticut U.S. Attorney John H. Durham. Further, according to court documents and statements made in court, Allouz, and his family emigrated from Syria and settled in New Haven in 2016. In April 2017, after incidents of domestic violence, Allouz was arrested on state charges for risk of injury, assault, breach of peace, and violation of a protective order offenses, the federal release said. In July 2017, Allouzs (family member) obtained a standing criminal protective order ordering Allouz not to contact his family member, but in August 2017, Allouz threatened the (family member),the release said. Then, Allouz was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on a federal arrest warrant and order of deportation on Feb. 2, 2018 and he was transferred from a Connecticut state prison to a detention center in Massachusetts, the release said. While he was detained in ICE custody, Allouz made multiple phone calls to his (family member) during which he repeatedly harassed, threatened and intimidated her. He also made calls to other individuals during which he threatened to harm his (family member) and her family members. Allouz also threatened his (family member) and her family members in letters and emails, the release said. Allouz has been in custody, since Jan. 10, 2017 and in February 2019, a federal grand jury in New Haven returned an indictment charging him with the offense, the release said. Allouz is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer on Aug. 20 The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas P. Morabito. NEW HAVEN Local residents have been invited to gather in support of the congregation at the Diyanet Mosque of New Haven Thursday, as a vigil will be held in response to the allegedly intentional burning of the house of worship. The Muslim Coalition of Connecticut announced Tuesday that it was organizing the vigil . The gathering is to be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday outside the mosque at 531 Middletown Ave. Come together Thursday to support the members of the Diyanet Mosque and the wider Muslim community after the devastating fire that seriously damaged the building on Sunday morning. Investigators now believe that the fire was an intentional act of arson, representatives of the coalition said in a release. This attack comes as part of a wave of Islamophobia across the country and this is not the first time the Muslim community has come under attack in Connecticut. We will come together on Thursday as people of all, or no faiths, and stand against hate. Fundraising efforts to help rebuild the mosque are under way. The Muslim Coalition of Connecticut asked those interested in providing funds to donate to the LaunchGood campaign; by Wednesday afternoon, more than $115,000 had been donated. Fire officials reported Sunday that a two-alarm blaze broke out at the mosque, with fire on the first floor extending to the second. Fire Chief John Alston announced Monday there was evidence the fire had been intentionally set, but declined to discuss what led to that conclusion or what evidence was found. Mayor Toni Harp said Tuesday there is evidence an incendiary device or material was used in the fire. City, state and federal officials are now investigating the fire. Police Chief Otoniel Reyes previously asked that anyone in the community with any information, however minimal you think it might be, come forward, as it may prove useful. Local religious leaders and politicians have condemned the burning of the mosque and offered support and solidarity to the congregation. A reward of up to $2,500 has been offered for any information that leads to an arrest or conviction in the case, officials said. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com NEW HAVEN City police are seeking help identifying a man suspected of robbing the Key Bank branch on Grand Avenue Tuesday afternoon. The robbery occurred at approximately 4:06 p.m. Tuesday, Capt. Anthony Duff said in a release. Officers were told a man jumped the counter, yelled aggressively at a bank teller, and took an undisclosed amount of cash from a teller drawer, Duff said. The man jumped back over the counter, exited the bank and fled on foot on Ferry Street toward Clay Street. The man indicated he had a gun during the robbery, but no weapon was seen, Duff said. The robber is described as a black male of a mature age, about six feet tall, with a gray and black beard, said Duff. He was last seen wearing dark pants, green jacket with military patches, winter cap, and white sneakers. Duff noted that the department is aware that the man resembles the individual that robbed the Wells Fargo bank branch at 391 Foxon Blvd. on two recent occasions. According to Duff, the Connecticut Bankers Reward Association is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the robbery suspect. Anyone that knows the whereabouts of the man seen in surveillance photos is asked to call the New Haven Police Department Detective Bureau at 203-946-6304. Those that call can remain anonymous, Duff said. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com As a Connecticut taxpayer and a mother whose son is incarcerated in our state, I am writing about House Bill 6714, which would eliminate the fees that families like mine pay to stay in contact with our incarcerated loved ones (Amid controversy, CT still seeking more profit from inmate calls, May 10). Unfortunately, right now, legislators are holding up H.B. 6714, asserting that the cost of making calls free would be too great a burden on the state budget. And as I recently learned, their biggest concern is the $7.7 million they extract from me and my community to pay for other state services, most notably, probation. Authorities in Bergen County are asking the public to help identify a man accused of wielding a boxcutter as he threatened a bus passenger, called him a terrorist and ordered him off the bus on a busy highway in what police are investigating as a bias crime. The victim told police he boarded a Spanish Transportation Corp. Jitney bus about 3:45 p.m. on May 2 in the 2200 block of Broadway in Fair Lawn. As the victim passed the suspect, (who was) already sitting on the bus, the suspect stomped on the victims foot, Paramus police Chief Kenneth R. Ehrenberg said in a statement. After the victim sat down, the man moved closer and began to harass him, Ehrenberg said. The suspect asked the victim if he was Indian. He then stated that the victims family had killed the suspects father and that the victim was a terrorist and responsible for the 911 attacks, Ehrenberg said. The man also spit at the victim before brandishing a boxcutter knife and making slashing motions at the suspect, which struck the victims back pack, Ehrenberg said. On Route 4 East, near The Outlets at Bergen Town Center, the suspect demanded that the driver stop the bus. He then told the victim to get off the bus or he would kill him, Ehrenberg said. The victim stepped off the bus and called police. Ehrenberg said the suspect remained on board, but then got off at the next stop on Route 4 in River Edge. Police interviewed the bus driver and obtained video and audio from a security camera on the bus. They determined the suspect boarded the bus about 3:28 p.m. on Broadway in Paterson near a White Castle restaurant. The suspect is described as Hispanic, age 40 to 50, wearing sunglasses, an orange shirt, camouflage pants and a black sweatshirt with the words NYC Carpenters Union Political Action Team. Ehrenberg said the suspect is wanted terroristic threats, simple assault and possession of a weapon. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Sal Cosentino of the Paramus Police Department at 201-262-3400 ext. 1415 or use the anonymous TIPS app located at www.paramuspolice.org Police say this man threatened a passenger on a jitney bus on May 2 before using a boxcutter to order the victim off the bus on Route 4 in Paramus.Paramus Police Department 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. A 23-year-old Delaware man was arrested Tuesday on charges he lured and attempted to have sex with a 12-year-old girl in Bergen County after contacting her through social media, authorities said. The charges were filed against Nicholas G. Clark, of New Castle County, after a family member saw online chats and reported him to police, authorities said. Clark turned himself into detectives with the Bergen County Prosecutors Office in Paramus on Tuesday, according to acting Prosecutor Dennis Calo. Calo said investigators learned on April 9 that a 12-year-old from New Milford was communicating online with a stranger. An investigation by the prosecutors office and New Milford police revealed Clark used a social media and chatting application to engage in sexually explicit dialogue with the girl. The chats began in February and Clark at one point planned to meet with the girl on April 5, Calo said. The meeting was interrupted by a member of the juveniles family and the matter was reported to authorities, Calo said. Detectives took over the girls social media accounts and had online conversations with Clark, who again engaged in sexually explicit dialogue believing he was still speaking with the (girl), Calo said. Clark also discussed plans to meet with the (girl) again. On April 17, detectives from the countys Cyber Crimes Unit traveled to Delaware and, with assistance from local police, executed a search warrant at Clarks home. Clark faces two counts of second-degree luring, two counts of second-degree attempted aggravated sexual assault, and two counts of third-degree attempted endangering the welfare of a child. A Delaware judge released Clark on $60,000 bail pending extradition proceedings. Clark on Tuesday traveled to Bergen County, turned himself in and was held in the county jail to await a first appearance and detention hearing, the prosecutor said. 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. A combat veteran who was denied entry to a diversionary program after he was arrested for punching a state trooper and for illegal possession of a gun has pleaded guilty in both incidents. Mark E. Elwell, of Cumberland County, was twice denied admission to the pre-trial intervention program in Cumberland County on the grounds that the program was meant for those with lower-level offenses and that it was not equipped to serve someone with Elwells needs. A Superior Court judge heard an appeal to the denials last month and ruled that the Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae acted within her authority. Elwell served with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and saw combat as a machine gunner during Operation Enduring Freedom. After returning home with an honorable discharge in 2012, he struggled to leave his war experiences behind and received outpatient care from the Veterans Administration. He sought more help, but was denied in-patient treatment. That help and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder wouldnt come until after his second arrest. In 2017, Elwell fired a shotgun outside of his home after drinking and watching a movie about the Afghanistan war. He surrendered the gun when police arrived, but punched a trooper as he was being placed in an ambulance because he feared being hospitalized for mental health issues could cost him his job as a federal corrections officer, according to his attorney, Joe Corbi. In March 2018, Elwell was drinking again and argued with his wife before driving to his parents house, where he retrieved a handgun. When he returned home, his wife noticed he had the gun strapped to his thigh. Family members convinced him to give up the weapon and his wife obtained a temporary restraining order. He was indicted on charges of aggravated assault for the first incident and unlawful possession of a firearm for the second. A judge sent Elwell to in-patient treatment following his second arrest and the VA diagnosed him with PTSD, anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorder. He was given a 100% disability rating for PTSD and physical injuries resulting from his military service. After completing in-patient treatment, Elwell rented an apartment, went back to school and now shares joint custody of his two children while he continues to receive out-patient care. Corbi sought the pre-trial diversionary program for his client, arguing that sending him to prison would harm the progress Elwell has made. The veteran has shown suicidal tendencies, but didnt threaten anyone else in either incident, Corbi said, adding that he never pointed a weapon at anyone. Elwell pleaded guilty May 6 to fourth-degree aggravated assault on a police officer and second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon. The prosecutors office previously offered Elwell a sentence of five years with the requirement that he serve at least one year behind bars. Corbi will argue for probation when his client is sentenced July 8. This guy deserves probation, he said. Not too many people would disagree with me. Almost every county in New Jersey would probably give it to him. A representative from the Veterans Administration is expected to attend the sentencing to speak on Elwells behalf about the progress he has made. As he awaits sentencing, Elwell is focussing on continuing that progress, his attorney said. Hes obviously concerned, Corbi said of the pending court date. Hes going to school. He does his outpatient treatment with the VA. Hes standing on his own two feet. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. If youre a fan of media mogul Wendy Williams (or have ever casually watched her talk show), you know her catchphrase: How you doing? Its a question shes known to ask her audience, but ever since news of Williams highly publicized divorce broke, fans of the controversial talk show host have been asking her the same damn thing. And ... well ... according to Williams, shes thriving. Wendy Wendy talks dating. Posted by The Wendy Williams Show on Tuesday, May 14, 2019 I dont have a boyfriend, but I must admit, Im rediscovering my love for men, Wendy told Wendy Williams Show viewers Tuesday. On the episode, Williams opened up about her dating life, saying she does date and that she dates often. Williams candid moment drew cheers from the studio audience. She was addressing rumors that she had been seen out in public with a man who looks like her type." The man in question actually turned out to be Web, who works security detail for the show. Its hard to say give privacy, because I dont give privacy when Im doing the rest of the stories, so you do what you want, you always do, but just to catch you up to speed, Williams said. Williams added that shes working on her divorce from Kevin Hunter pleasantly and says shes been spending a lot of time with her son, Kevin Hunter Jr., who is home from college. She filed for divorce last month, after Hunters alleged mistress gave birth to a child believed to be his. Hunter Sr. broke his silence about the cheating scandal, telling People.com hes not proud of my recent actions. He has since been booted from his role as an executive producer on Williams show, and apparently he thinks someone has been out to get him, calling police on several occasions to the New Jersey home the couple once shared. Williams has since moved to New York City, a report says. On Tuesdays show, she updated viewers on her new crib. I have the ultimate bachelorette pad, Williams said. I have a really, really good view, and Im really really reclaiming my life. Fans of the host say theyre happy for her. Im happy for Wendy Williams and any person who finally frees themselves from a miserable life with someone who doesnt love them Ashley O. (@__DearAshleyy) May 15, 2019 Watching @WendyWilliams talk about life after divorce!! I'm happy for her!! #yougogirl DeeDee G (@Bigbabee75) May 14, 2019 On Wednesday, Williams announced she is dissolving the Hunter Foundation, which was a nonprofit organization created by Williams and her ex. According to the charitys website, it was dedicated to forming and funding strong alliances with public and private organizations that interrupt the harmful cycle of drug addiction through the medium of prevention, treatment and recovery programs. A Page Six report says Williams made the decision to shut down the organization because she no longer wants to be associated with her estranged husband. Tennyson Donnie Coleman may be reached at tcoleman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @TennysonTV. Find him on Facebook. Have a tip? Let us know at nj.com/tips. With ongoing foreclosure proceedings against their Franklin Lakes mansion, the husband of a former Real Housewives of New Jersey star is trying to sell scores of items from their home on Facebooks marketplace. Since March, Christopher Lauritas Facebook page has been flooded with various items from their home that are now for sale, including: a $4,500 chandelier (you must be able to come remove it), a free 74-inch television (it doesnt work), a home gym (someone scooped that up for $500), a $200 signed Silence of the Lambs framed poster (certified signatures), an $1,800 poker table (he says it has a $15,000 value) and a real nice $750 wooden cabinet (which he says complements the bedroom set he is also selling). There are currently 14 items for sale for a total of $16,810 on Facebooks Marketplace, a Craigslist-like portal that allows users to upload items for sale and for other users to inquire about buying them. Some items have been reduced since Laurita first uploaded them for sale. Christopher Laurita previously advertised other items on his Facebook page that are no longer available in the websites marketplace feature, like a signed Sopranos photo of cast members, a toy storage unit, a signed Godfather I and III poster, a generator that he used during Hurricane Sandy and a snowblower he used only three times. Laurita said the sale of various items from his home has nothing to do with the foreclosure proceedings. He said they have an opportunity that is requiring them to relocate and their new home is a completely different style, prompting them to sell some items. Why cant someone write something positive about a family pulling up their bootstraps and moving on to bigger and better opportunities? Laurita said in a Facebook message. ... What were doing is a good thing and is best for our families future. We are looking forward to it. After putting the home back on the market in April for $1.95 million, the couple reduced the price earlier this month to $1.85 million, which is a $1 million drop from what they originally listed the home for in 2014. Christopher Laurita purchased the home in 2001 for slightly more than $1.7 million, according to property records. The couple previously expressed their financial distress on the show, saying it was due to their sons therapy for autism. In 2015, the couples lenders for the home initiated foreclosure proceedings, but in June 2016, the foreclosure was dismissed. However, in July 2017, M&T Bank and Hudson City Savings Bank filed notice of foreclosure with the Superior Court in Bergen County, according to online court documents. The case is still active. Jacqueline Laurita first appeared on the show in 2009 before briefly leaving in 2014. She then came back to the cast full-time for season seven of the show. In March 2017, Bravo announced Laurita would not be coming back to the show as a full-time housewife. Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com. Follow on Twitter @monavage. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Four men accosted Juan Cuevas Sr.s teenage children on Jan. 20, 2006, and held them in the familys South Jersey home for hours as they ransacked the place in search of money they said Cuevas owed them. When the father returned home from work that evening, the assailants demanded money from him too and ultimately beat him to death. Only one man, John Blocker, was ever charged in the killing, and a Gloucester County jury convicted him on Tuesday morning. Following several days of deliberations, Blocker, 46, of Philadelphia, was convicted of felony murder, aggravated manslaughter, robbery, burglary and three counts of kidnapping. Blocker faced a first-degree murder charge, but the jury opted to convict him of aggravated manslaughter on that count instead. Prosecutors said a fingerprint and DNA tied Blocker to the crime scene, while the defense countered that prosecutors failed to prove Blocker was in the house the day of the killing. Cuevas, 36, owned G.I. Junes Auto Parts in Philadelphia and was at work with his wife when the four assailants arrived at the familys Washington Township home. Two members of Juan Cuevas Sr.s family wore these pins in honor of the victim during John Blocker's murder trial on Thursday.Joe Warner | For NJ Advance Media They grabbed the couples 18-year-old son, who had just arrived home from high school, and beat him. They questioned him about his father, asking, Wheres the money? When they didnt get what they wanted, they bound his hands and feet, and covered his head. When the other Cuevas children, a 19-year-old woman and 14-year-old boy, arrived home, they were also tied up and had their heads covered. Cuevas arrived home around 6 p.m. and was dragged to an upstairs bedroom where he was beaten and tortured with an iron, prosecutors said. When the assailants left, the teens freed themselves and tried unsuccessfully to revive their father. The search for the killers went cold until nine years later, when a fingerprint recovered from the scene and entered into a database came back as a match for Blocker. Following the verdict, Superior Court Judge Kevin T. Smith scheduled sentencing for July 12. Blocker faces a potential life sentence without parole. Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore expressed his hope that the Cuevas family can take some comfort from Tuesdays verdict. They finally have some closure after several years, he said. Fiore also praised the work by prosecutors office staff and Washington Township Police that culminated in Blockers conviction. No one gave up on this case, he said. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. WEST NEW YORK Commissioner Gabriel Rodriguez and his New Beginnings slate swept their way to victory in Tuesday municipal election. Now the real work begins: stabilizing what has become a chaotic political climate in the North Hudson town. Rodriguez and his ticket unseated two-time incumbent Mayor Felix Roque following a hectic and combative election season. Both sides at one point were comparing each other to communist Cuba under the authoritarian regime of Fidel Castro. But by 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night, it was clear Rodriguez along with incumbent commissioners Cosmo A. Cirillo and Margarita A. Guzman, and newcomers Victor M. Barrera and Yoleisy Yanez had won a clean sweep. Rodriguez and his camp garnered 54.6 percent of the vote, compared to the 40 percent that Roques ticket received. We are extremely proud, happy and appreciative of the residents for their vote of confidence, and for their support, because they known West New York needs and deserves a new beginning, Rodriguez said. The craziness of the election seemed appropriate, reflecting upon Roques whirlwind tenure as mayor. The 62-year-old entered City Hall in 2011, but was arrested the following year by federal agents on conspiracy and hacking charges. Roque was acquitted of the charges, but his son, who was also charged, was convicted. He won reelection in 2015, but was indicted 27 days later on kickback allegations related to his medical practice, only to be acquitted again. All the while, the enigmatic mayor fell in and out of favor with the Hudson County Democratic Organization, losing the support of the machine last year when he backed the losing candidate in the Democratic chair fight. On Wednesday, Roque told The Jersey Journal that right now, Im not considering it a loss. Im not conceding the loss until I gather all of the information, he said before issuing a statement saying he is considering challenging the results. As for for Rodriguez, the real work starts now, he said. That is one of the goals of our ticket is to get some of this negativity, if not all of it, out of town as soon as possible, he added. We want to run a positive and efficient government for our residents. Born and raised in West New York, the 40-year-old currently works as as an accounting manager for the West New York Board of Education. Both of his parents worked for the school district, while his sister is a teacher. Rodriguez has a long resume in politics, too, working for former New Jersey governors Jim McGreevey and Jon Corzine, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, and U.S. Rep. Albio Sires who was on hand Tuesday night at Rodriguezs headquarters. First elected commissioner in 2015, his task now involves stabilizing the towns political climate. The first step was yesterday: electing a new body of commissioners who feel comfortable working together, that have common goals, and will work together to achieve those goals reflective of what the residents have expressed to us are important to them, he said. Hes hoping to get rid of the autonomous parking authority, and roll it into the city, while pushing to add more levels to various parking structures to create more availability for residents and guests. Rodriguez said he would also like to expand the police force, and add more officers to the towns community walking program. Its about continuing those projects that we were excited to announce, and those initiatives we havent been able to address in the last four years, he said. But I think with this clean slate, we will be able to. Corey W. McDonald may be reached at cmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @cwmcdonald_. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. EDITORS NOTE: Entrepreneurs everywhere are eyeing the billion-dollar legal weed industry, an economic opportunity unrivaled in modern N.J. history. NJ Cannabis Insider features exclusive and premium weekly content geared toward those interested in the marijuana industry. View a sample issue. Hours after Gov. Phil Murphys campaign vow to enact a bill legalizing recreational marijuana in New Jersey went up in smoke, the Democratic governor said Wednesday he had a mixed reaction" and that he was still trying to digest the pieces. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney announced earlier in the day hes ending efforts for the state Legislature to pass the bill and instead will ask voters to decide in November 2020 whether to make pot legal. Its a blow in the ongoing, often-dramatic battle to make New Jersey the 11th state in the U.S. to legalize recreational marijuana. Legalizing pot was a major plank of Murphys 2017 campaign, and he and his fellow Democrats who lead the Legislature saw a voter referendum as a last resort. Murphy said he did like that Sweeney, D-Gloucester, plans to move forward in the coming weeks on a pair of related bills to expand the states medical marijuana program and to expunge the records of residents with past convictions of possessing small amounts of pot. But the devil will be in the details, Murphy said at an unrelated public event at the East Windsor Senior Center. Its hard to do it legislatively, I admit, he added. Its always been a default to go to a referendum and ask the people. Murphy and top Democratic lawmakers spent months trying to secure enough votes to pass the bill that would make recreational marijuana legal for people 21 and older. But with lawmakers from both parties voicing strong opposition, Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said they simply couldnt find enough support in the state Senate. Murphy stressed the medical bill is needed because were gonna run out of product." And he said the expungement bill corresponds with how he came to support weed because of social justice. But the governor said hes "not clear based on what was discussed this morning about how the expungement bill will work. Are we expunging something in the past that is still illegal today? Murphy asked. Murphy said in March hed have no choice but to expand medical pot himself if the Legislature didnt pass the recreational marijuana bill by the end of May. But on Wednesday, he said hes not sure if he will move forward with that or just wait for lawmakers to pass the medical weed bill. To be determined, Murphy said. Ive made no secret Ive been holding back an enormous demand. Sweeney, who frequently feuds with Murphy, partially blamed the governor for the recreational bill failing. The Senate president said he asked Murphy not to announce hed expand medical marijuana on its own for fear it would give some legislators a reason not to support the recreational measure. But Sweeney said the governor didnt listen. Murphy dismissed that criticism, saying the medical marijuana program in the state badly needed to be opened up. I reject being blamed for trying to help citizens out who have nowhere else to turn, whose lives are at stake or quality of life is a stake, the governor said. I wouldnt call that blame. This is my responsibility as governor. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A 37-year-old New Jersey man found with with numerous alligators and exotic snakes in his home earlier this spring had the animals because he and his wife owned a business selling them, his attorney said. Joseph Faris, of Butler, was issued 55 summonses in late March after an animal control officer called to the Decker Road home to help remove dogs later ended up finding the potentially dangerous alligators and venomous snakes, officials said. Conservation officers found three American alligators, two caiman, a prairie rattlesnake, a monocled cobra, a Gaboon viper and a puff adder in the house, the New Jersey Conservation Officers Association said Tuesday. Faris was issued dozens of summonses for keeping the animals there without a permit and also charged criminally because several of the animals died, according to his Morristown-based attorney Travis J. Tormey said. In a brief telephone interview Wednesday, Faris said the snakes and alligators were babies kept in closed containers. He said the couple obtained the animals from wholesalers and planned to sell them at a reptile expo. Faris and his wife ran a legitimate business but allowed permits needed for some of the animals to expire and failed to obtain other permits in time, according to Tormey. Several animals also died because Faris moved out of the house during a marital dispute and his wife failed to properly care for them, the lawyer said. He did a lot of it legally, Tormey said. Unfortunately, he got sloppy with some of the paperwork. Its just unfortunate that they both ran the business and Mr. Faris is the one being left holding the bag with the charges. The investigation began when an animal control officer noticed a rattlesnake and an alligator after accompanying Butler police to the house on March 22 to seize four or five German Shepherds that Faris wife wanted removed from the house, according to Tormey. Officials then obtained a search warrant and returned to the home the following day. They then found the collection of snakes and alligators, authorities said. Faris, who has no prior criminal record, is next scheduled to appear in court on June 3, according to the Morris County Prosecutors Office. He has applied for admission to the pre-trial intervention (PTI) program, his attorney said. Butler police and animal control officials referred questions from NJ Advance Media to the prosecutors office. A spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said he was checking into the case. The New Jersey Conservation Officers Association falls under the guise of the DEP. Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips A teachers aide was arrested last week after students at a child care somehow got into her purse and found ecstasy and marijuana, according to police. The incident took place May 9 at The Learning Experience on Papermill Road in Whippany, Capt. David White of the Hanover Township Police Department said. Crystal Iacouzzi, 35, of Whippany, was charged with possession of marijuana, possession of ecstasy and three counts of child endangerment, White said. The children did not consume any of the drugs, and no one was hurt, he said. The safety and security of our children and staff is and will always be our number one priority, a spokesman for the company said in a statement. We continue to work with our franchisees to ensure compliance with all required operational procedures and applicable regulations. The spokesman said the company is working with police, but could not comment on the individual incident. White confirmed the teachers aid had been fired. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A Delaware man driving with a suspended license was charged Tuesday after he crashed into a car in Monroe Township and killed its passenger, officials said. Manuel Oscar Dominguez-Valdez, 48, of Wilmington, was charged with causing a death while driving with a suspended license, according to a release from the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office. Dominguez-Valdez was driving a 2005 Dodge Ram truck on Monday when he hit a Ford Fusion attempting to make a left turn across Forsgate Drive, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey said. The crash killed the passenger of the Fusion, Brenda Ness of Monroe Township, and the driver of the car, a 74-year-old man, was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, authorities said. Ness age and the drivers name were not released. Dominguez-Valdez was also issued a motor vehicle summons for driving with a suspended license, Carey said. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A driver who ran a red light and killed a Bridgeton couple on their way home from an early dinner date in South Jersey last year pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of vehicular homicide. Charles Hunter, 49, of Bridgeton, crashed his Dodge Journey minivan into the passenger side of a Buick LeSabre driven by Henry Mazzoni, 81, who was taking his girlfriend, Lois Morgan, 82, home following a date, according to a release from the Cumberland County Prosecutors Office. The crash occurred at the intersection of State Highway 49 and West Park Drive in Hopewell Township at 4:15 p.m. on February 25, 2018. Mazzoni was making a left turn to travel east on the highway when Hunter ran a red light and hit the LeSabre on its passenger side, officials said. Mazzoni and Morgan were taken to Cooper University Hospital and Inspira Medical Center in Vineland, respectively, where they were both pronounced dead a short time later, police said at the time of the accident. Morgan was a Salem County native and a self taught artist who had two daughters, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Hunter admitted in court that he did not get enough sleep the night before the accident and had smoked cannabis earlier in the day, according to the release. Prosecutors said they will recommend that Hunter be sentenced to seven years in prison for each count of vehicular homicide with the sentences running concurrently. He was scheduled to be sentenced on for July 12, 2019. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers will go back to work on Point Pleasant Beach after rough surf from the weekends storm sliced off a swath of borough beach less than two weeks before the unofficial start of summer, officials said Tuesday. But the corps said the borough will have to wait at least until late June before it can return to restore the erosion that occurred. A spokesman for the Army Corps issued a statement Tuesday pledging the agency would return to work in the borough as soon as it could, and explaining how such dramatic erosion could occur so soon after completion of its work in Point Pleasant Beach earlier this spring. Following back-to-back noreasters that brought high tide right up to the toe of the dune, we can see there was not enough buffer in front of the design berm in Point Pleasant, the corps spokesman, Ed Vogt, said in a statement. We are now evaluating how best to fix this problem and what that will require, and will then work with our project non-federal sponsor (NJDEP) and our contractor (Weeks Marine) to develop and implement that solution, Vogt added. As construction has since moved on to Bay Head, the contractor will need to complete that section (currently on track for completion in late June) before returning to do any additional work in PPB. Earlier this spring, the Army Corps completed Point Pleasant Beachs portion of a multi-year $128 million federal replenishment project that included construction of a protective dune up to 22 feet high in several shore communities along a 14-mile stretch of northern Ocean County. The project is intended to blunt the kind of storm surge that devastated the Jersey Shore during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. But pounding surf that accompanied the weekends windy, rainy weather gouged what resembled a sandy cliff face several feet high running parallel to the waterline. It left only a narrow ribbon of sand between the abrupt drop-off and a waterfront walkway at the base of the dune, leaving little room for the swimmers and sun worshippers the borough hopes to attract come Memorial Days unofficial start of the summer tourism season. Mayor Stephen Reid of Point Pleasant Beach told News12 that he had reached out to U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th District) for help persuading the Army Corps to go back to work in the borough. Smith issued a statement Tuesday saying he had received a pledge from the corps to do just that. I have been in touch with the Point Pleasant Beach Mayor and Council, as well as the Army Corps which is now doing a thorough assessment, Smith stated. We have been assured that theyll get right back to construction, and I will be working to ensure that they do not let up and that all appropriate federal support is made available. This map from National Weather Service indicates how much rain fell on the Jersey Shore from Friday to Tuesday.National Weather Service Borough officials declined to comment, other than to confirm that Reid met with Army Corps officials on Tuesday in neighboring Bay Head, where the corps is continuing its scheduled work on that portion of the project. Reid did not respond to requests for comment. Bay Heads borough clerk, Patricia Applegate, said her communitys beach had not yet been sufficiently replenished to suffer the same kind of erosion as Point Pleasant Beach. Bay head has not been affected, Applegate said. Point Pleasant Beach homeowners have filed lawsuits opposing the dune project, asserting it would wipe out or diminish their ocean views, with the same effect on their property values. Some have been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars. The suits have also raised the ire of residents and officials nearby who believe delays caused by the litigation could disrupt the corps work schedule and thus threaten a loss of tourism dollars if work encroached on summer, or leave them vulnerable to the ravages of another super storm. Dune and beach replenishment work in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., Tuesday, May, 14, 2019Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. By Sharne Parrish Sharne, I cannot afford a school out of state. What about a New Jersey school? To this day, I can remember the tears rolling down my face when my mom told me I couldnt go to the University of Southern California (USC). I had my heart set on applying to USC for years and suddenly in a flash, it was clear, I need not even bother applying. Coming from a single parent household and born and raised in Newark, I learned very quickly that nothing in this world is given to you. You must work for it. I can think back to the exact moment that seeded my dream to go to USC. It was fifth grade and my English teacher-- who I was particularly fond of-- wore a USC T-shirt. Wanting so much to be like her, I asked her about it. She couldnt say enough good things about her alma mater and the conversation stayed with me. In seventh grade, when we visited California for our end-of-year trip, I made sure to buy a USC T-shirt as close as possible to the one I remembered that my teacher wore. Fast forward to May 1, 2015, and my high school KIPP Newark Collegiate Academy was hosting its annual College Decision Day. I had longed for the day that I would be able to wear my shirt and display my choice just as I had watched so many seniors do before me. And on that proud day, instead of the USC shirt I imagined, I wore a William Paterson University (WPU) shirt. I was beaming that day just as I will do today, May 15, as I walk the dais, a proud graduate of WPU. Its been almost five years since I made the transition from a near obsessive focus on a college on the other side of the continent to a genuine bid for a spot at WPU, the school that has given me so much. Truly, Id nearly forgotten about USC until I saw the recent headlines. And reading about what our collective obsession with certain types of institutions has done to some families, Im compelled to share some of the wisdom I have picked up in the hopes that young people like me will avoid the traps I once fell into. First, a piece of advice from my brilliant mother who somehow was way ahead of her time: Its not about where you go, its about what you do while youre there. She reminded me of this as I moved my last load of clothes to my dorm. William Paterson, turns out, was exactly the right place for me. With my moms voice in my head, I pursued every opportunity that I could find from Day One. I joined every club possible, made friends with people who didnt necessarily look like me, networked like crazy and still made time to attend a party or two. And I did it all while saving thousands of dollars. During my time at WPU, Ive held a position in the Student Government Association, joined Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated (the first African-American sorority) and served as a resident assistant for three years. I did all of this while maintaining a high GPA. Im not sure how I did it, but if you believe in prayer, my grandmother had a lot of influence behind the scenes. Second, plan for costs other than tuition, board and books. College will teach you just what a creative problem-solver you can be. I took out a few loans to cover my tuition, I also have received aid from my high school for textbook expenses, and I worked two campus jobs in order to have extra cash. Third, stop and enjoy the ride. If I could do anything different over these last four years, I would have taken more pictures. My time at WPU flew by and I just wish I had more snapshots to be able to one day show my kids. I hope that if the recent higher education scandal teaches us anything, its that the accomplishments are measured not by acceptances but by what you do with the gifts you receive, especially those you earn. I will dedicate my college graduation to my mom and grandmother who have given me so much support and to all the young people out there trying to find their own path. Sharne Parrish is a Newark native and a graduate of KIPP Newark Collegiate Academy. She is graduating this month from William Paterson University with a bachelors degree in communication and aspires to work as a journalist or in the field of communications. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. By Peter G. Verniero U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer made news recently by seemingly rejecting proposals to expand the number of court members from nine to some larger number (nine is fine, as he put it). He also endorsed term limits for himself and his colleagues (say eighteen years or something like that). Some historical perspective is in order. As for the number of high court members, the U.S. Constitution is silent on the subject. The Constitution leaves it up to Congress to determine the number of Supreme Court justices, as lawmakers have done over different periods. At one juncture the number was set as low as five and as high as 10, before it settled in at nine under the Judiciary Act of 1869. The number has held ever since. As for a judicial term of office, the Constitution says only that federal judges, including justices of the high court, shall hold their offices during good behavior. That language essentially was intended to confer lifetime tenure on judges as a way of ensuring judicial independence. Which brings us back to Justice Breyer. Some may construe his nine is fine remark as a rebuttal to proposals being floated in some quarters to alter the courts composition as a way of diluting the influence of so-called conservative jurists. The justice himself has disclaimed that he was speaking about any particular proposal. In any event, for the past century and a half, a composition of nine justices has served the high court well. Yes, there have been highs and lows in the courts jurisprudence during that period, but that could have been the case had the number been other than nine. It seems that Americans are comfortable with having nine members seated on the high bench, even when we sometimes disagree with the courts rulings. Judicial stability, especially in todays time of division and discord between the other two governmental branches, argues in favor of leaving the courts composition alone. The same is true about lifetime judicial tenure (although I agree with Justice Breyer that, perhaps, some outer term limit would be worth exploring). Undoubtedly, a guaranteed lengthy tenure fortifies a judges independence, which is vital to protecting the rule of law. And without the rule of law, our American democracy is sunk. Proposals to alter the Supreme Court appear to assume that justices are incapable or unwilling to decide a question inconsistent with some preset judicial philosophy. And yet we know from recent experience that justices over time do, in fact, have the capacity to surprise us with their decisions by voting against type. In New Jersey, there is an unwritten rule of judicial selection that no appointing governor since the adoption of the 1947 state Constitution has ever violated. The rule says there shall be no more than four members of the same political party appointed to the seven-member state Supreme Court. Because governors of both parties have honored the unwritten rule, the public has been assured a bipartisan state Supreme Court. This has helped dispel the notion that the court is a political body, which it decidedly is not. Perhaps New Jerseys rule of bipartisan judicial selection someday will find its way to Washington, D.C., and be applied to the nations highest court. In the current climate, however, I wouldnt expect such reform anytime soon. In the meantime, I wouldnt change the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court or alter the lifetime tenure of the justices who serve on that court. Even when I might disagree with some of their decisions, the courts members appear to strive for principled rulings, based on their best thinking at the time of each case. If such thinking is sometimes guided by a broad jurisprudential approach, whether it be from a purported liberal or conservative perspective, it does not diminish the independence of the judicial function. And such independence remains the best check against the unfair excesses of government by any party, at any level. Just as the founders had intended. Peter G. Verniero formerly served as a justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and state attorney general. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. New Jerseys income tax collections came roaring back in April, surprising state leaders and cracking open a debate over how the state should spend its extra cash. The mid-year recovery led Gov. Phil Murphys administration to announce Tuesday it is boosting its revenue forecast for the state budget year that ends June 30 by $377 million and plans to deposit all but $60 million of that money into a depleted rainy day fund to cushion the blow of a future downturn. But the state Legislature may have other plans. Democratic state Senate Budget Chairman Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, and Sen. Declan OScanlon, R-Monmouth, signaled interest Tuesday in rerouting the $317 million destined for the rainy day fund to next years state budget, where it can replace some of the revenue Murphys administration wants to collect from a tax increase on millionaires. The surprise cash alters but doesnt resolve the clash between the governor, who wants to put it in savings, and legislative leaders, who are looking for alternatives to Murphys push for a millionaires tax. Sarlo said Tuesday the two-year revenue updates from the state Department of Treasury bolster legislative leaders position. The pressure to do a millionaires tax is gone," Sarlo said after a Senate budget committee hearing. "The pressure of balancing the budget, that pressure is off. We dont need that any longer to balance the budget. How does the administration justify proposing a millionaires tax when you have both legislative leaders indicating the timing is not right, especially with this May uptick? he asked the treasurer. In her response, state Treasurer Elizabeth Muoio stressed the need to build up reserve funds which, at about 3 percent of state spending, dramatically lag the national average. Its out there for New Jersey, which isnt saying much. Frankly, we are woefully behind what we should have in that fund," Muoio said. The state has two accounts that serve as surplus: the rainy day fund, which has been empty since 2008, and the reserve fund, which should end this year with $1.1 billion on hand. The $317 million deposit into the rainy day fund would be the first since its $734.7 million was drained in a single year amid the Great Recession. So while the proposed surplus is high for New Jersey, Muoio said, so are the needs of the public-worker pension system, NJ Transit and public schools. We have to continue to make those fiscally prudent steps to get ourselves out of essentially years of fiscal neglect, she said. The state collected $3.6 billion in income taxes in April, confirming the Treasury Departments suspicions the slowdown in the taxs revenue was caused by high earners responding to the new $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions by delaying their estimated tax payments until closer to the April filing deadline. While we correctly anticipated the taxpayer behavior that played out, we not only met our robust April tax collection targets, but we encountered somewhat of a surprise when Gross Income Tax collections set a new April record, Muoio said. The income tax gains largely drove the new revenue forecast, which is $377 million higher than the treasurer previously projected. The Treasury Department also raised its revenue projections by $250 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Murphy wants to put this money toward property tax relief. Hes conditioned this extra funding for Senior Freeze and the Homestead credit on getting lawmakers to support his millionaires tax a 10.75 percent marginal tax rate on income over $1 million. With the current surge in the (Gross Income Tax) outlook, the governor is proposing to take advantage of this good fortune by returning $250 million of this revenue directly back to the taxpayers in the form of property tax relief in FY20," Muoio said. But without the half a billion dollars generated by the true millionaires tax, the (Gross Income Tax) revenue boost will be eliminated, and funding for increased property tax relief and other priorities will be nearly impossible. Democrats who control the Legislature have rejected his offer, and Sarlo said after the hearing lawmakers and the administration remain at loggerheads. The treasurer and administration did not back down today, and I dont think the Senate president and the speaker either are backing away from their positions, he said. Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter@samanthamarcus. 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. Voters in thirteen municipalities across New Jersey headed to the polls Tuesday to vote for members of local governing bodies and mayors. The candidates in these non-partisan towns dont run on party lines. All but a few of the elections held Tuesday were for contested positions. Polls closed at 8 p.m. Continue to refresh the link for live vote tallies as the results are counted. All vote counts are unofficial. Projected winners are indicated by a check mark. Loading... Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A 53-year-old New Jersey man has pleaded guilty to federal and state charges accusing him of multiple incidents sexual conduct with an underage girl in at least two states including while flying a private airplane after he set it on autopilot, according to authorities and court records. Steven Bradley Mell, of Far Hills, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a state charge of endangering the welfare of a child, acting Hunterdon County Prosecutor Michael J. Williams said. Mell was arrested in June 2018 after authorities discovered he was engaging in a sexual relationship with the girl, who was under the age of 16, in Readington and Bedminster townships, Williams said. Mell, who holds a private pilot license, also pleaded guilty in December 2018 to federal charges including child pornography and interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, according to court documents. The criminal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Newark on May 8, 2018, alleges Mell traveled from Somerset County to Massachusetts to have sex with the girl several times and took nude photos of the girl. Mell, who goes by his middle name Bradley, had been president and chief executive of W.H. Mell Associates, a Summit-based investing firm that specialized in municipal bond markets. The companys website is no longer online and a corporate phone number is no longer in service. Mell had been president of the company since 1995, according to an online profile on the firms former website. Mell began sexual conversations with the girl in May 2017 over text and Snapchat, and invited her to his Far Hills home the next month, according to federal court records. The two engaged in sexual conduct on June 20 and July 5, 2017, when Mell was 51 years old and the victim under 16 years of age, court documents stated. On July 20, 2017, while Mell and the victim were flying to Somerset County Airport from Massachusetts on his private plane, he put the aircraft on autopilot and engaged in sexual acts with the girl, the complaint states. He also met with her at a New York City hotel in August and continued to communicate with explicit messages over Snapchat and Facetime apps, authorities said. The court documents do not detail how the sexual contact was discovered. Mell is scheduled to be sentenced on federal charges on May 21 in U.S. District court in Trenton. He faces a mandatory minimum of five years on one of the federal charges. He will be sentenced on state charge in Hunterdon County on July 12 and the plea agreement calls for a three-years prison term. He will have to register as a sex offender under Megans Law. Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A vigil to remember the life of Alexis Lexi Faye, the 17-year-old student killed last weekend in a crash a day after her prom, will be held at 8 p.m. Wednesday night in front of Newton High School, her family said. Please join us to honor Lexi Faye by bringing a candle, family friend Nikki DeLeon said Wednesday. Fayes family members are expected to attend the candlelight ceremony, DeLeon said. The family is also setting up a scholarship in Fayes name, though details were not immediately available Wednesday morning. Funeral services for Faye are being held Thursday and Friday. And at dusk on Saturday, June 8, fireworks will be launched in memory of Faye during the annual Newton Day Festival, sponsored by the township and the Chamber of Commerce, DeLeon said. Faye was a passenger in a car that went off Greendale Road in Fredon Township and flipped over in a wooded area about 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. The driver, Anthony Burke, 17, and two other passengers, Maria Fiore, 16, and Nicholas Chavarria, 17, were taken to Morristown Medical Center with serious injuries. Chavarria has since been released from the hospital, her friends said. The crash occurred one day after Faye and her friends attended the Newton High School junior-senior prom. The Mercedes sedan had been rented for the prom, but the teens had used it Saturday to drive to Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange and where on their way home when the crash occurred in Sussex County. Alexis Faye (second from right) poses with Ryan Sosa, Sydney Hamm and her boyfriend Anthony McCann before Newton High School prom Friday night. Faye was killed Saturday when the car she was a passenger in flipped over.Courtesy Briana Moffatt Services for Faye are being handled by Iliff-Ruggiero Funeral Home, 156 Main St., Newton, with viewing hours from 2 to 5 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday. A burial Mass will be at 10 a.m. Friday at St. Josephs Church, 24 Halsted St., Newton. The crash is under investigation and State Police and the Sussex County Prosecutors Office have not yet released a cause or additional details. Her family asks that memorial donations in Lexis memory be made to www.SCARC.org or the Lexi Faye Heart of Gold Lacrosse Scholarship, Newton High School, c/o Lisa Casamissina, 44 Ryerson Ave., Newton, New Jersey 07860. @ShawnMendes Your biggest fan, Lexi Faye, became a beautiful angel this weekend Your song Lost in Japan was her favorite. Everyone please retweet this to get Shawns attention, it would mean the world to Lexi. pic.twitter.com/UkuoQe8dtV Sammie Deiorio (@sammiedeiorio) May 15, 2019 Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. As travelers plan their summer vacations, they might want to avoid Newark airport like the measles because it was ranked worst in the nation for on-time arrivals. A comparison of the nations 50 largest airports ranked Newark Liberty airport the worst in the nation for summer on-time arrivals over a 10-year period. Dont bother crossing the river or driving south in search of a break. Airports in New York and Philly also were ranked among the worst. In a fourth annual look at summer travel delays by Comparecards, it found big three New Jersey-New York metro area airports all ranked in the bottom four, along with San Francisco, in a ranking of the nations 50 busiest airports for summer on-time arrivals. Comaprecards is a web-based company that lets consumers research, compare and apply for credit cards. The ranking used U.S. Department of Transportation monthly on-time data to rank on-time arrivals between 2008 and 2018. The eye rolling news is no surprise to frequent fliers. Other ratings put Newark dead last for on-time arrivals in 2018 and for customer satisfaction. Newark was dead last because only 67.3 % of flights arrived on time between 2008 and 2018. Fall is the best time to fly when 75.6% of flights arrive on-time in Newark. The study said thats as good as it gets. Between 2017 and 2018 Newark Airport got worse, on-time arrivals dipped by 2.7% between the years. New York fliers shouldnt gloat. LaGuardia was second worst with a dismal 69% on-time rate for arrivals during the summer and JFK was fourth worst at 71%. The best airport in the country was Honolulu with an 87% on time arrival rate. Aloha. Philadelphia Airport was ranked seventh worst in the nation with a 74% summer on-time rate. Fall also is the best time to fly out of Philly when the on-time rate hit a high of 82 %. One of the reasons is Newark and the other airports operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are breaking records for passenger volume. During the first four months of 2019, four Port Authority airports handled more passengers than any other first quarter on record. Another reason for the poor performance is the East Coast has crowded air space. Terminals dont create flight delays. New Yorks congested airspace, afternoon thunderstorms, and lots of regional flights prone to delays, thanks to a big connecting hub operation, do," said Matt Schulz, chief analyst for Comparecards. "Add it all up and things can get messy in a big hurry. Newark Airport was also ranked dead last in a 2018 J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey. The Port Authority is in the midst of several multi-billion dollar airport projects. Construction started last year on a $1.41 billion Terminal One to replace Newark Airports oldest terminal building. Terminal One is scheduled to have a partial opening in 2021 and be in full operation by 2022, officials said. LaGuardia Airport is undergoing a $4 billion modernization of three terminals and a central concourse. Other technology that could improve on-time performance is NextGen air traffic control, which functions like GPS for the sky. NextGen uses satellite technology operating between air traffic control and the planes. That allows air traffic controllers to more accurately pinpoint plane position, map routes, plan landings and takeoff. The Federal Aviation Administration expects initial implementation of NextGen by 2025, according the FAA website. Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters Jyi Rhodes, 25, died Monday (May 13) from injuries sustained in a double shooting on an I-10 West exit ramp in New Orleans East, according to the Orleans Parish Coroners Office. Rhodes and his cousin were struck by gunfire near the Morrison Road exit (map) in the Little Woods area around 1:30 a.m. One of the injured men called police to alert them of their injuries. When officers arrived, they found the two men inside a vehicle pulled to the side of the road. Both had been shot. The two men were taken via EMS to a hospital where Rhodes later died. The condition of his cousin was not immediately known. The shooting was the fifth reported in a 23-hour span from Sunday night (May 12) to Monday night (May 13). It was the second shooting in the New Orleans East area during that period. Of the 10 people injured by gunfire in the five shootings, Rhodes is the only one to have died, according to authorities. A third person has been arrested in connection to Wednesdays (May 8) car burglary attempt that ended in an exchange of gunfire and the death of 63-year-old Zelda Townsend, New Orleans police said. Townsend was shot in the head and her husband shot in the arm when the couple went outside after they heard their car alarm then saw someone in their vehicle, police have said. A juvenile, who police did not identify, was booked Tuesday with murder, burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary, NOPD spokesman Gary Scheets said. Emanuel Pipkins, 17, was arrested the day after the homicide and booked with murder, records show. Police said he was the person inside the couples car who initiated the shootout. Byrielle Hebert, 18, was charged on May 10 with manslaughter, simple burglary and criminal conspiracy to commit simple burglary. Pipkins has also been booked, since his arrest on May 9, on addition charges of burglary and criminal conspiracy to commit simple burglary. An affidavit sworn by an NOPD homicide detective states Townsends husband went outside their home in the 2700 block of Cleveland Avenue after hearing the alarm. Townsend joined her husband outside and handed him a gun. Police allege Pipkins intended getaway car pulled up as the couple approached the car. Someone inside the gray Acura shouted, Just shoot him. Just shoot him, the detective wrote in his application for an arrest warrant. Pipkins shot at the couple, the detective wrote, then Townsends husband returned fire. Pipkins also was struck a graze wound to his back -- and police were led to him after he arrived at a hospital in a private vehicle seeking treatment. NOPD did not say Tuesday night if the juvenile arrested Tuesday is believed to have been in the Acura, or if he was believed to have shouted at Pipkins to shoot. The detective wrote in the affidavit for Pipkins arrest that his girlfriend was at the hospital, and Pipkins relative who was also at the hospital told police she believed the Acura she last saw them in belonged to Heberts relative. The Acura had been reported stolen, the detective wrote. Pipkins told police he had been shot in New Orleans East by an unknown person, Detective Barret Morton wrote in the affidavit. The car his relative said she last saw him and Hebert in matched the description of the one seen at the homicide scene. Police recovered the vehicle after the fatal shooting. 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 The deadly end to the car burglary attempt prompted Mayor LaToya Cantrell and NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson to hold a news conference the following day remarking on the events they called tragic. Its senseless, Cantrell said. Im disgusted, said Ferguson. Both also addressed the general problem of juvenile crime. Cantrell revealed details of a summer curfew, and both spoke about the need for accountability by parents and other facets of the criminal justice system, as well as police. We have to create spaces for these young people to go in the event they dont have someone to go home to or that is at home, the mayor said. In a statement issued after the May 9 press conference, the Louisiana Center for Childrens Rights said that incarcerating youth has not worked in the past and it wont work in the future. The center said that better community-based services, from mental health treatment to mentorship, should be easily accessible in every school and community. No other details about the juvenile arrested Tuesday or his role in the homicide and burglaries were immediately available, Scheets said. Dont pull out the Teflon-coated pan if youre going to make chef Tenney Flynns parmesan-crusted flounder. A well-seasoned cast-iron skillet is the tool required to get the crisp and golden crust hes after. Thats one of the clear directives among the 100 recipes in Flynns new cookbook, The Deep End of Flavor, Recipes and Stories from New Orleans Premier Seafood Chef (August 2019, Gibbs-Smith, $30). The cookbook will be out in August, but can be ordered now. That fish recipe (find it below) gives New Orleanians their first taste of the cookbook that Flynn, chef and co-owner of GW Fins, has been working on for two years. Flynns goal: Give amateurs a step-by-step guide for cooking seafood that will make it as easy for them as frying an egg. We hear people say, I dont like fish, but I like your fish, Flynn said of the food served at GW Fins, a bastion of fine seafood cookery that sits incongruously just off Bourbon Street. Its a compliment he enjoys hearing, but he adds: This is the easiest protein in the world to cook. It requires very short cook times and theres no reason for people to be afraid of it. The cookbook is down-to-earth with clear, specific instructions, lots of visual cues and tips for getting consistent results. Its more of a technique book for a home cook rather than a chef-y cookbook, said Flynn, who wrote it with Susan Puckett. His co-author and other amateur cooks stood by Flynn through the tedious process of testing each recipe. His childhood friend, photographer Danny Lee, then spent weeks staying on Flynns couch as he made the dishes and styled the food for photos. Ask Flynn any question youve got about seafood, its sourcing or preparation. The chairman of The Audubon Nature Institutes GULF Chefs Council likely will have the answer at his fingertips. Now, much of that expertise is between the covers of his first cookbook. He kicks things off with a seafood primer and wraps them up with a glossary of fin fish. Also, he provides alternative species selections so folks outside of South Louisiana can figure out the best choices in their towns. The biggest hurdle home cooks have to overcome is finding top-quality seafood, Flynn said. Theres a lot of not fabulous fish out there on the market, Flynn said. The fillet going in the pan at home should be the same quality as the one at your favorite sushi bar, he said. His best advice: Get to be a regular customer of a fish monger you can trust. Tell him when he did good, he said. Tell him when you werent happy and establish yourself as a savvy customer. And, he adds, cultivate your friends who are fishermen. Then the seafood must be stored, prepped and cooked properly. At GW Fins, the fish goes from stove to plate to guest, he said. The same should be true at home. Have everything cooked and almost on the table before you put the fish in the pan, he said. Ideally people are going to go, This fish is too hot for me to eat. The cookbooks flavors reflect Flynns extensive travels to places such as Thailand and Mexico. An avid diver and spear fisher, he even has a recipe for ceviche Lionfish, an invasive species that he has served at his restaurant. Shrimp for dessert? A recipe from the new cookbook from GW Fins chef Flynn plans to spend the late summer promoting his book. Hes already given much of the creative rein at the restaurant to Michael Nelson, executive chef at GW Fins, and his executive sous chef Tim Lane. Hopefully after I do this cookbook tour, theyll find out they can get along without me completely, Flynn joked. Fans of GW Fins will recognize a few of the recipes in the cookbook, such as the lobster dumplings, gumbo and the parmesan-crusted fish described below. Dredging fish fillets in finely grated cheese instead of flour is an easy way to add extra flavor and crunch without a bunch of extra ingredients, Flynn writers in The Deep End of Flavors. For this recipe, a seasoned cast iron skillet is essential for forming a crispy, golden crust that does not stick. (Teflon doesnt work, trust me.) Finish with a simple meuniere sauce, or dress it up as I suggest here. This is not a hard dish, but you do need to have everything ready as it comes together really fast. Each recipe in the book comes with a suggested wine pairing. With this dish, Flynn recommends serving a Freemark Abbey Chardonnay (Napa Valley, California), which he describes as a very clean, balanced, refreshing wine, with pear and apple aromas. An oak-aged chardonnay is always a safe bet with mild white fish and crabmeat. Parmesan-crusted flounder with brown butter, asparagus, capers and crabmeat Serves 2 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided 1 tablespoon capers, drained 6 large spears asparagus, with bottom third of each spear peeled 2 (5- to 6-ounce) flounder or other thin fish fillets (Alternatives are sheepshead, snapper or trout) Vegetable oil spray 12 cup very finely grated Parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons salted butter 1 lemon, juiced 1 teaspoon minced parsley 4 ounces jumbo lump crabmeat, picked through Line a small plate with paper towels. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in small skillet on medium-high heat. Add capers and fry for a few seconds, until buds open and become crispy. Quickly remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Have a large container of ice water ready. Add asparagus to boiling water and let boil for 3 minutes until tender-crisp but not limp. Remove asparagus with tongs (keep water hot for reheating) and transfer to ice bath to stop cooking. Drain on paper towels. Place cast iron skillet large enough to accommodate both fillets on medium heat. Coat fillets liberally with the vegetable oil spray. Spread grated cheese on plate and dredge skinless (or rounded) side of the fillets in it, coating well. Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to hot pan then place fish, cheese side down, in hot oil. Do not disturb for about 4 minutes. Tip: Put about tablespoon of cheese directly into skillet as a test at same time you add fish. When you can slide a spatula under that fried cheese medallion, you can carefully loosen the fillets and turn them. A golden brown, fried cheese crust that completely coats the fish is what youre looking for here. (Lower heat if its browning too quickly.) Cook about 2 minutes on uncoated side. While fillets cook, return asparagus to the pot of hot water for another minute or so to reheat. Move fillets to a warm plate. Wipe pan out with paper towel; immediately return it to heat and add butter. When butter is medium brown (take care not to burn), add the lemon juice, parsley and crabmeat. Turn off heat. Using tongs, divide hot, drained asparagus between 2 heated plates. Place fish on top of the asparagus spears, spoon brown butter and crabmeat mixture over fish, and sprinkle with the fried capers. Ann Maloney writes about cooking and dining out for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. She can be reached at amaloney@nola.com. Follow her on Twitter at @wherenoleats, on Instagram at @wherenolaeats and join the Where NOLA Eats Facebook group and/or the Where NOLA Eats page. Subscribe to the free Where NOLA Eats weekly newsletter here. Loyola University New Orleans has hired Carol Ahn Markowitz, founding executive director of the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute, to fill the universitys chief operating officer post. Loyola President Tania Tetlow announced Wednesday (May 15) that Markowitz has been named the universitys new senior vice president of finance and chief operating officer, according to a news release. Markowitz replaces Paul Pastorek, who was serving as acting chief operating and chief financial officer. Pastorek previously served as education superintendent overseeing Louisiana schools. In the release, Tetlow praised Markowitzs educational background, which includes degrees from Stanford University and Harvard Business School, and her management experience. Most recently, Markowitz was responsible for launching the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute, or NOCHI, an entrepreneurial educational effort geared at training the citys next generation of hospitality leaders. NOCHI, located at 725 Howard Ave., welcomed its first students in January. Throughout her impressive career, Carol Ahn Markowitz has been part of complex, high-functioning organizations and has also built an organization from scratch, Tetlow said. New cooking institute welcomes first students, begins enthusiast classes Markowitz, who has served for the last six years as NOCHIs executive director, will start work at Loyola on July 1, according to the release. The Los Angeles native has worked for companies such as SBC Communications and Liz Claiborne in positions ranging from controller to vice president of finance. Markowitz moved to New Orleans in 2011 and spent a year as entrepreneur-in-residence at The Idea Village before before joining NOCHI. 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 With NOCHI, Markowitz launched New Orleans only professional culinary school, overseeing a $30 million capital project and the launch of a nonprofit post-secondary school. The projects funding mix included historic and new market tax credits, a capital campaign bridge loan and a working capital line of credit. As Loyolas COO, Markowitz will report directly to Tetlow and be responsible for helming efforts to revitalize the institution and enhance its financial stability, the release said. She will have direct oversight over all of the financial functions of Loyola, including its operating budget, restricted accounts, bond indebtedness and endowments. Markowitz will also partner with the Loyola Board of Trustees endowment subcommittee to manage the schools endowment, the release said. Saints owner Gayle Benson addresses obviously terrible no-call during Loyola commencement Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. More Louisiana students than ever before graduated from public high school in 2018, according to results released Wednesday (May 15) by the state's Department of Education. The statewide four-year graduation rate increased from 78.1% in 2017 to 81.4% last year. The newest data from the state also shows increases in graduation rates across the Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes. The graduation rate in New Orleans has increased by 5%, rising from 72.9% in 2017 to 77.8% in 2018. Jefferson Parish Schools graduation rate increased from 71.8% in 2017 to 73.4% in 2018. In St. Tammany, the rate increased from 82.8% in 2017 to 83.5% last year. This is an increase worth celebrating, as it means more students earned their high school diploma than in previous years, said Jefferson Schools Superintendent Cade Brumley. It also solidifies the need to continue pushing for better outcomes for all students. Search by school name in the database below to see the latest graduation rates. It remains to be seen whether Louisianas graduation rate will continue to lag behind the national average. The U.S. Education Department is still collecting data to determine last years national adjusted cohort graduation rate for public high school students, but most recent data shows 85% of public schoolers graduated on time nationwide in 2017. Louisiana Education Superintendent John White nonetheless lauded the tens of thousands of students, parents, and educators in the state during a news conference at the capitol in Baton Rouge. The new graduation rate means Louisiana has finally hit a long-held goal established by state lawmakers, White said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up White also claimed Louisiana's African American graduation rate is higher than the national average for the first time ever. More than 78% of Louisianas black students graduated in 2018, up from 72.9% in 2017 and nearly 66% in 2013. The average national graduation rate among black students was 77.8% in 2017. Likewise, New Orleans saw graduation rate increases for black students, from 71.6% in 2017 to 78% percent in 2018. In a statement, Orleans Parish School Board Superintendent Henderson Lewis, Jr. stressed these new outcomes indicate the citys elementary schools and high schools continue to stand out among their counterparts statewide. Their results showcase our educators excellent work in helping students graduate on time and preparing them for college and future careers, Lewis said. Both Lewis and White Wednesday said more work needs to done to ensure Louisianas students are successful after high school. White stressed it is not enough in todays world to simply have a high school diploma and to expect to be financially self-sufficient. Gaps still exist in the number of historically disadvantaged students graduating on time and with credentials, such as passing an AP or CLEP test, or earning a level-two credential in a craft trade. The state plans to address those gaps by expanding Jump Start opportunities and utilizing state and federal funds to support schools, according to the department. More details about the release of Wednesdays data can be found on the state Education Departments website. Here are the best public New Orleans area high schools in 2019 from U.S. News Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. A little-known fact, after World War II, 1,000 Italian prisoners of war were relocated to New Orleans and housed in Jackson Barracks. While conducting research for the American Italian Research Library in Metairie, and an upcoming novel she is writing, Elisa Speranza came upon an untold story of love and war and Italian POWs and their Sicilian-American sweethearts that lived in the Crescent City. Speranza and Sal Serio, library curator, organized an informative presentation and interactive discussion on April 20 at the Jefferson Parish East Bank Regional Library, the home of the American Italian Research center, for family members of the POWs. The process has been a real treasure hunt, we have found one story after another about the POWs, their families and how they found and married their wives and made a life in New Orleans Speranza said. We conducted interviews and listened to oral histories from families about this time period. During and after the war, there was a large population of Sicilian Americans that lived in New Orleans, and with the Italian soldiers being at Jackson Barracks, they became suitors for the daughters of these families. While I continued doing research, I found I was inspired by these stories of love and was on a parallel path with fiction and non-fiction. No one ever has acknowledged the Italian POWs that were in Louisiana, not in print, television or the movies. Sal and I decided that was going to change immediately. Before the presentation, I was so happy to see families of the POWs meeting for the first time while identifying their fathers, grandfathers and uncles in the pictures that are around the room. That was exactly what I wanted to have happen. The presentation started with a brief introduction about the research library, followed by the singing of the national anthem, as well as the Italian national anthem. After the presentation, Frank Sinatras song I Did It My Way was sung in Italian to the delight of the more than 50 people that were in attendance at the library. When the war was over there was no information left about the POWs and what became of them. The government took all of the records from the barracks, Serio said. Luckily, many years later, a scrapbook was found that a colonel kept with pictures from that time. When the POWs were released, most joined the army. Attending the event was John DiStephano, 95, who is believed to be the last living Italian POW from the barracks. We were treated well here. It could have been much worse, he said. We were so happy to be in New Orleans; we had a large Sicilian community that welcomed us. I found my wife here. She was one of seven sisters. Serio and Speranza have been trying to do research on as many of the POW families as possible in order to have an accurate record preserved and stored at the library for future generations, and their own personal satisfaction. While doing the research, we found that there was not a single divorce among the POWs and their sweethearts and most of them returned to New Orleans to lead a long productive life, Serio said. Most became U.S. citizens. The library, located at 4747 West Napoleon Ave., includes naturalization records from 1800 to 1860 for Italian immigrants seeking citizenship in New Orleans, indexes of Sicilian church registries and copies of Italian newspapers, such as La Voce Colonale, which was printed here as well as various photographs, letters and artifacts. I am not an expert or historian, just someone who is interested in a good love story like the one between the POWs and their Sicilian wives from New Orleans, Speranza said. During this journey I found out many interesting details. Most importantly, these men never let go of their Italian roots, but they did completely embrace America. Their courtships were amazingly delightful and full of a lot of love. Even though most of the time the couples spoke two different languages, they didnt understand what the other was saying, but they understood the language of love. Kim Roberts writes about people and events in the East Jefferson community. To reach her, email k_rob136@cox.net. Long-dormant portions of the Federal City site in Algiers could soon see life after a local economic board voted to begin negotiations with two separate developers. Although the proposals cover just 10% of the property, they feature long-promised housing and new businesses at the former military base. The Algiers Development District, which owns Federal City, will next talk contract terms with The Finch Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, and B-T+MSG, a joint venture of three Louisiana-based companies. A long-term lease or an outright purchase of the property in question are options, said state Sen. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, who chairs the Algiers Development District board. The proposals submitted to the district include single-family housing, condominiums and commercial development. B-T+MSG wants to build on three separate parcels at Federal City totaling nearly 12.5 acres. The parties involved in the joint venture are: Wayne Brown, of Bossier City-based Brown Builders; Fairfield Property Management of Shreveport; and Metro Services Group, a New Orleans led by waste management magnate Jimmie Woods. On its website, Fairfield lists multiple apartment and subsidized housing developments throughout Louisiana. The Finch Group has proposed projects for two parcels totaling 8.2 acres at Federal City. The companys portfolio includes market rate and affordable apartment developments as well as commercial investment in Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Ohio. New Armstrong Airport terminal road opens Wednesday Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up In a phone interview Tuesday, Carter said lessons learned from previous failed deals with master developers at Federal City helped shape the process for the latest proposals. The current submissions were thoroughly vetted by Algiers Development District committees for their financial soundness, development track record and architectural integrity, he said. The current proposals are expected to avoid problems of the past, Carter said. They involve smaller segments of the Federal City site, rather than the entire 200 acres entrusted to two previous master developers. In 2015, the Algiers Development District walked away from Vista Louisiana LLC for not meeting agreed-upon benchmarks. A year earlier, a contract with joint venture HRI/EEC was dissolved after six years of limited investment at the site and disputes over operational expenses. Carter said the next step in the process involves negotiating the finer terms of a potential contract with the two development teams. One of the objectives to consider involves whether to include in the deal a long-term revenue stream to fund the Algiers Development District, which is tasked with spurring economic growth in the entire 15th Ward. Federal City is the moniker given to the former Naval Support Activity site on the West Bank following a 2005 deal that put the property in the Algiers Development Districts hands. The ADD, with a huge injection of public resources, developed the Marine Corps Support Facility to support some 1,300 military and civilian employees and transferred it to the federal government in 2011. Since then, additional development has been scattershot; a Subway shop, health club, credit union and small hotel have been among the few investments since the base closure. A federal judge has denied convicted former North Shore District Attorney Walter Reeds latest request to delay the start of his stint in prison on corruption charges. U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallons ruling means that Reed must report to federal prison no later than noon Friday (May 17), his attorney, Rick Simmons, said Wednesday. Reed, who has prostate cancer, will report to the federal correction facility in Morgantown, West Virginia, to begin serving a four-year sentence. Reed, who was the district attorney for St. Tammany and Washington parishes for decades, was once among the regions most powerful elected officials. Under his leadership, his office was known for seeking harsh sentences for convicted offenders, so much so that it helped earn St. Tammany the nickname St. Slammany. Reed in 2012 said he thought his office had been unfairly criticized as being overly harsh. Nonetheless, his office later began handing out an award, the St. Slammany Award to particularly prolific prosecutors. A federal jury convicted Reed of corruption charges in May 2016 after an 11-day trial. The jury found him guilty of 18 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements on his federal income tax returns and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to launder money in a case that focused largely on his spending of campaign money. Reed's son, Steven Reed, was convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering. Fallon sentenced him to five years of probation and 50 hours of community service. Walter Reed is appealing his conviction. Simmons had filed a request asking Fallon to allow Reed to postpone the start of his sentence until June 17. That would have given Reeds condition time to stabilize and allowed the Bureau of Prisons to determine if his prison assignment can accommodate his medical care, the filing said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Reed underwent surgery on April 17 and needs post-operative treatment, including radiation, the motion said. Reed initially had been ordered to report to prison April 1 but had received extensions due to his medical condition. The U.S. Attorneys Office had filed a motion opposing his latest request for an extension, saying Reed should begin serving his debt to society now. Fallon agreed, noting he was initially to begin serving his sentence on April 1. In his ruling filed Wednesday, Fallon noted Reed was granted two extensions and wrote it is time for Reed to begin serving the sentence imposed over two years ago. Simmons said the prison in Morgantown has facilities that can treat Reeds medical condition. In April, Reed told a reporter that he was ready to report to prison. Im ready," he said. "Im going to make something positive out of it. As displays of devotion and fealty to political figures go, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungessers socks of homage to President Donald Trump are not in the same league as the smiling image of Richard Nixon that Roger Stone has tattooed on his back. Socks are easily changed. Tattoos, as your parents no doubt warned you, represent a much deeper commitment and a more painful separation. The reason Im a Nixonite is because of his indestructibility and resilience, Stone said in the interview more than four decades after his hero resigned the presidency in disgrace. He never quit. Well, yeah he did, but we get your meaning. So, will Nungesser still be an adoring fanboy, still wearing his Trump hosiery in 2059, or will Louisiana Republicans come to regret their public displays of affection for the president in the same way they would like to delete evidence of their political fling with Bobby Jindal? For the many never-Trumpers who fear that the 45th president has enticed the Republican Party into betraying its conservative beliefs and moral principles, the question is not rhetorical. Are Republican politicians simply buying into a cult of personality in exchange for temporary electoral gain, or is the GOP changed forever? Former Vice President Joe Biden, the current front-runner in a highly overpopulated field of candidates running to challenge Trump, suggested Tuesday (May 14) that the fever will eventually break and that national politics will eventually pull back from the hyperpartisan warfare that currently exists. "I just think there is a way, and the thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House," Biden said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. "Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends. It's already beginning in the House now ... If we can't change, we're in trouble. This nation cannot function without generating consensus. It can't do it." Biden in unsurprisingly counting on a Trump departure in 2020, an outcome that is far from guaranteed given the divided state of the Democrats, strong economic numbers for the nation and the presidents amazing resilience to scandal and political attacks. Few take Nungesser seriously, and probably fewer still after his sartorial greeting of Trump at the airport in Lake Charles, but he wasn't alone in falling at the president's feet during his visit to the state Tuesday. A fundraiser at the Old Metairie home of local businessman Joe Canizaro reportedly attracted a sellout crowd of 225 people, raising $4 million for the president's re-election campaign. People absolutely love him, Canizaro told The Advocate. They see the results of what hes done. Fundraiser co-host Boysie Bollinger, the founder of Bollinger Shipyards and a longtime Republican Party champion, echoed that assessment. Hes really focused on what he said hed do the wall, the economy, the jobs, his focus on trade, Bollinger said. As much as people are aggravated by the things he does, hes a negotiator. His focus is on getting a deal done, not on whats popular. (People) want someone who will stand up for America. Trump won Louisiana in 2016 with 58 percent of the vote over Hillary Clinton. His approval rating has dipped from a high of 65 percent last April to 58 percent last month, according to the Morning Consult tracking poll, but that still makes him an incredibly popular political figure. Even Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who missed Trumps visit to lead a two-day National Governors Association meeting on state cybersecurity in Shreveport, has made a point of highlighting his cordial relations with Trump while withholding any criticism of the president. Louisiana Republicans who questioned Bill Clinton's morals and ethics and blasted Barack Obama's authoritarian use of executive orders are completely silent when it comes to Trump's similar failings. The message Tuesday was that Trump is great for Louisiana and great for America, no matter what his reckless tariffs do to farmers and manufacturers. Louisiana Republicans are all-in with Donald Trump. Right down to their very soles. Tim Morris is a columnist on the Latitude team at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Latitude is a place to share opinions about the challenges facing Louisiana. Follow @LatitudeNOLA on Facebook and Twitter. Write to Tim at tmorris@nola.com. WEDNESDAY Rent Wise 10 to 11:30 a.m., Catholic Charities, 1215 N. Broadway. Free classes for those who identify as a victim/survivor of domestic or sexual violence. New participants will need to schedule an intake. Call 712-256-2059 ext. 103 for more information. Wednesday Night Dance 7 to 9:30 p.m., YMCA Healthy Living Center, 714 S. Main St. All dances are subject to change. In case of inclement weather, Wednesday Night Dances are canceled if Council Bluffs Schools are closed. Cost is $6 per person for members; $12 per person for non-members. Breastfeeding Support Group 9:30 a.m., CHI Health Mercy Hospital Lactation Clinic in Mercy 2 Professional Center, Room 206. Call 712-328-5252. Lewis & Clark Study Group 9 to 11 a.m., 2 Huron Circle, Salem United Methodist Manawa Center. Find out what happened to the explorers. Carter Lake VFW No. 9661 Hamburger Night 5 to 7:30 p.m., 100 Locust St., Carter Lake. 712-347-6969. Greater Communicators Toastmasters Club 6 to 7 p.m., Firehouse No. 5, 3405 11th St., Council Bluffs. Meetings open to the public. Contact Floy 712-326-9332. Water Exercise Program 7 to 8 p.m., Lewis Central Pool. Carter Lake Optimist Club 7 p.m., Carter Lake Senior Center, 626 Locust St. Gamblers 12-Step Program 8 p.m., 12-Step House, 7306 Grant St., Omaha. For 24-hour hotline, call 402-978-7899. Wednesday Night Live Al-Anon CHI Health Building, 622 S. Fourth St. Head Injury Survivors Support Group 6:30 p.m., Goodwill Industries, 1111 S. 41st St. Groups for survivors and caregivers and family members. For information, call 402-231-1933 or 402-231-1927. Noon Enthusiasts Toastmasters Noon to 1 p.m., Iowa Western Community College, Looft Hall Room 010. Guests are welcome. Call Terry at 712-325-3353. Military Family Support Group 7 p.m., First Congregational Church, 36th and Harney streets, Omaha. Group is for any family member, significant other or close friend of military or civilian assigned overseas. Call Kathy at 712-292-1312 or Diana at 712-292-4138. Harlan Alzheimers Association Support Group 7 p.m., Harlan Senior Center, Eighth and Laurel Streets. Call Alice at 712-755-2757. United Support for Amputees 1 p.m. For amputees, family members and friends. Call Maxine at 712-644-2955. THURSDAY Work in Progress 10 to 11:30 a.m., Catholic Charities, 1215 N. Broadway. Free classes for those who identify as a victim/survivor of domestic or sexual violence. New participants will need to schedule an intake. Call 712-256-2059 ext. 103 for more information. Journey Beyond Abuse 6:30 to 8 p.m., Catholic Charities, 1215 N. Broadway. Free classes for those who identify as a victim/survivor of domestic or sexual violence. New participants will need to schedule an intake. Call 712-256-2059 ext. 103 for more information. Optimist Club of Council Bluffs 7 a.m., Madison Avenue Hy-Vee. Al-Anon Family Group 10 a.m., The 500 Club, 410 S. 16th St. Council Bluffs Rotary Noon, YMCA Healthy Living Center, 714 S. Main St. Take Off Pounds Sensibly (Tops) Iowa 1263 4 p.m., Harmony Court. Use lower east door. Call Shirley at 712-642-3530 or Sheila at 712-323-5874. Council Bluffs MAD DADS 7 p.m. Call 712-328-0302. Gamblers 12-Step Program 7 p.m., Pacific Hills Lutheran Church, 90th and Pacific Streets, Omaha. For 24-hour hotline, call 402-978-7899. All Acoustic Music Jam 1 to 4 p.m., Western Historic Trails Center. White Elephant Bingo 12:30 p.m., YMCA Healthy Living Center. Teen Gaming 3:30 to 7:30 p.m., Council Bluffs Public Librarys Teen Central. Mix of board and video games for students in sixth through 12th grade. Call 712-323-7553. Trivia Takeover 7 p.m., Caddy Shack Bar & Grill, 1426 Fourth Ave. Five-person teams can compete for prizes. There is no charge to compete, but teams are encouraged to register early as spots fill up fast. For more, call 712-322-9708 or visit caddyshackinc.com. Mills County H.O.P.E. Helping Oncology Patients Excel Support Group 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Glenwood Public Library Annex, 109 N. Vine, Glenwood. Patients and caregivers welcome. Share and hear information about cancer issues. Call 712-527-9699. Share & Care 7:30 p.m., CHI Health Missouri Valley Community Memorial Hospital, 631 N. Eighth St., Missouri Valley. Support group for cancer survivors. Call 712-642-2784. Vietnam Veterans of America 7:30 p.m., American Legion Hall, 716 S. Fourth St. Poetry Club 6 to 7 p.m., Council Bluffs Public Library, 400 Willow Ave., Meeting Room 2D. Discuss poetry; inquire at the reference desk for books. Call 712-323-7553. Farmers Market & Superhero Night 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Farmers Market Council Bluffs hosts seasonal vendors selling a wide variety of items including fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, jams, jellies, prepared food items, baked goods, arts, crafts and wares. Some activities include local musicians performing, yoga in the park, superheroes and a kids zone at Bayliss Park. FRIDAY Seeking Safety 10 to 11:30 a.m., Catholic Charities, 1215 N. Broadway. Financial Education and Empowerment also offered from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Free classes for those who identify as a victim/survivor of domestic or sexual violence. New participants will need to schedule an intake. Call 712-256-2059 ext. 103 for more information. Seeking Safety 10 a.m. to noon, Catholic Charities Office at Zion Recovery Services, 1500 E. 10th St., Atlantic. Financial Education and Empowerment also offered from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Free classes for those who identify as a victim/survivor of domestic or sexual violence. New participants will need to schedule an intake. Call 712-256-2059 ext. 103 for more information. Elks Lodge TGIF Dinner 6 to 8 p.m., 380 McKenzie Ave. Call 712-323-2589 or find Elks Lodge 531 Council Bluffs on Facebook for weekly menu. Southwest lowa Narcotics Anonymous Noon, Let It Be, New Litehouse, 200 16th Ave.; 6:30 p.m., Just for Today, Faith Community Church, 2701 N. Eighth St., Red Oak; 7 p.m., Clean & Free Group, first floor McDermott building, 800 Mercy Drive; 8 p.m., Straight and Grateful, 309 Elm St., Atlantic; 8:30 p.m., Discovery Group Church of Christ, 714 Benson St., Omaha; 8:30 p.m., Rebellions, New Litehouse, 200 16th Ave. Freedom Seekers Al-Anon 7:30 p.m., Broadway Christian Church, 2658 Ave. A. Pickin and Grinnin Country Music Jam 6:30 to 9 p.m., Corn Crib restaurant, 12 East St., Shelby. Musicians and music lovers invited to a weekly jam session. Call the Corn Crib at 712-207-2676. Ag Committee Spring Cookout 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Ag Committee will serve steak sandwiches and hamburgers with chips and a drink from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bayliss Park. Meal prices vary between $6 and $8. A group of staff members at the Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office helped launch a scholarship fund this spring in memory of a Council Bluffs woman whose story they cant forget. The Cari Farver Memorial Scholarship Fund was established at the Pottawattamie County Community Fund, said Donna Dostal, PCCF president and CEO. Farver, who was from Macedonia, is remembered as a vibrant, talented and caring person, she said. Her friends and family remember her courageous spirit and love of life fondly. She was a lifelong learner, well-versed in a dozen programming languages, according to a press release from PCCF. She first attended Iowa Western Community College in 1995 to improve her typing skills, then returned to earn an associate degree in May 2009. She secured her dream job as a programmer analyst as she refreshed her knowledge with information technology courses at IWCC in spring 2012. Sadly, Farvers life ended too soon. She disappeared on Nov. 13, 2012, and, despite an elaborate and extended effort to cover up the crime, her killer was arrested in December 2016, convicted in August 2017 and sent to prison for the rest of her life. Farvers indomitable spirit lives on in the hearts and minds of those who knew her best, the PCCF release stated. The scholarship fund is a tribute to her passion for helping others. Establishing a scholarship fund in Caris memory is a perfect example of how a tragedy can be turned into an impactful gift for future generations, Dostal said. One of several goals for this fund is to reclaim the narrative surrounding her life and honor her kind and giving nature, the press release stated. Supporting this fund, and its goal of a permanent endowment, means ensuring Cari Farver, an innocent victim, is never forgotten, said Anthony Kava, digital forensics and technology administrator at the Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office, who led efforts to establish the fund. It means preserving Caris legacy of helping others. Its part of the answer to how we, as a community, can strive to ensure that a victim is remembered, rather than the person who harmed them. This fund cant deliver justice, but it can provide a student with an interest in technology, like Cari, with something that goes beyond just financial assistance: an example of compassion and how precious life is, Kava said. Individuals, organizations, and businesses wishing to contribute to this fund may contact PCCF at 712-265-7007 for more information or simply mail contributions to the PCCF office at 536 E. Broadway, Council Bluffs, IA 51503. To donate online, go to ourpccf.org, drag down from Giving to How to Give, choose contribute to an already existing fund and scroll down to Cari Farver Memorial Scholarship Fund. New endowment funds and future contributions will receive an additional 10% contribution from PCCF. In honor of Pottawattamie Gives, which is on May 22, PCCF will match 20% of all donations this month, Dostal 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. Scams seem to follow disasters. Dont let your guard down and suffer another disaster such as identity theft or paying fees for services that are never provided. FEMA never charges for services nor does it endorse any commercial business, product or service. All federal employees have an official badge/ID. Ask to see it. The following are some common post-disaster fraud practices to avoid: Fraudulent building contractors When hiring a contractor, the Iowa Attorney General suggests: Check out the contractor before you sign a contract or pay any money. Ask if the contractor is registered with the Iowa Workforce Developments Division of Labor Services. You can check a contractors registration online through the Division of Labor Services website, or call 515-242-5871. Be sure to check local references and hire local contractors when possible. (If you do not know the contractor, consider taking photographs of license plates, vehicles, drivers licenses, etc.) Also, check Iowa Courts Online for past court cases, and see if there are complaints on file with the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney Generals Consumer Protection Division. Get it in writing. Seek several written estimates for the job you want done. Before any work begins, agree on a written contract detailing work to be done, type and quality of materials to be used, responsibility for permits, costs, and any other promises. Request a copy of the contractors liability insurance certificate. Put start and completion dates in writing and consequences if the contractor fails to follow them (For example: The contract could be nullified if the contractor does not start on time or finish on time.) Avoid paying large sums in advance to a contractor. If you have to make a partial advance payment for materials, make your check out to the supplier and the contractor. Insist on a mechanics lien waiver in case the contractor fails to pay others for materials or labor. Do not make a rushed decision or agree to a contract that you do not want just because the contractor tells you that he is busy. In most cases, Iowas Door-to-Door Sales law gives you three business days to cancel a contract signed at your home if you change your mind or have another reason to cancel the contract. Fake offers of state or federal aid Beware of visits, calls or emails from people claiming to be from FEMA or the State of Iowa asking for your Social Security number, bank account or other sensitive information. Giving out this type of information can help an unscrupulous person make a false claim for assistance or commit identify theft. Dont fall for scam artists who promise a disaster grant and ask for large cash deposits or advance payments in full. Federal and state workers do not solicit or accept money. FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) staff never charge applicants for disaster assistance, inspections or help in filling out applications. FEMA inspectors never require banking or other financial information. The job of FEMA housing inspectors is to verify damage. Inspectors do not hire or endorse specific contractors to fix homes or recommend repairs. They do not determine eligibility for assistance. FEMA inspectors will not condemn a property. Condemnation determinations are made by your local jurisdiction. Recovery officials encourage Iowa residents to watch for and report any suspicious activity. If you suspect fraud, contact the Consumer Protection Division of the State Attorney Generals Office at: Call 515-281-5926 Toll-free number outside of the Des Moines area: 888-777-4590 For more information visit Attorney General consumer tips and information If you are in one of the southwest Iowa counties currently designated for federal disaster assistance Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Monona, Pottawattamie and Shelby Counties you can register with FEMA. Heres how: Go online to disasterassistance.gov Download the FEMA app on your smartphone fema.gov/mobile-app Call toll-free 1-800-621-3362. Lines are open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., 7 days a week until further notice. Hitchcock Nature Center will hold its second installment of the 2019 Speaker Series June 8 at Hitchcock Nature Center. Doug Ladd, Director of Conservation Science for the Missouri Chapter of The Nature Conservancy will discuss the hows and whys of Iowas prairie heritage. Look at all the ways the iconic Midwestern prairies have impacted society and the history of human interactions with this unique ecosystem. The 2019 Speaker Series is a programming series designed for teens and adults to provide them with an opportunity to learn from and interact with various authorities in the fields of conservation and environmental science. Programs are free with paid park admission & will be held at Hitchcock Nature Center in Honey Creek on the second Saturday of the month, May through October. Each program will begin at 4 p.m. and will last an hour with a chance to meet with the speaker following the presentation. This program is being presented as part of our adult educational programming, participants must be age 14 and older. Space is limited and pre-registration is required to attend these events. Go online to pottcoconservation.com for more information or to register. For questions not answered online, call 712-545-3283. Registration will not be taken over the phone. These events are not pet friendly. Service animals are always welcome. The event will be held weather permitting. The following editorial was published in Des Moines Register on May 9: It would be encouraging to see Iowa organizations like The Family Leader and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa both talking about the need for civil discourse in the presidential race but a recent exchange between these groups was a letdown. We werent impressed by Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, trying to shame Democratic presidential candidates into appearing at his organizations forum. But it was even more disappointing to see Interfaiths Connie Ryan twist the definition of civility to the point of ruling out dialogue with someone who believes as Vander Plaats does about LGBTQ issues. There was nothing wrong with Vander Plaats extending an invitation to Democratic presidential candidates to join the evangelical Christian organizations annual summit in July. He offered a platform for civil discourse, despite his organizations staunch opposition to abortion rights, gay marriage and other social positions the Democratic Party embraces. But when the campaigns, spurred by the Interfaith Alliance, turned Vander Plaats down, he wrote in a guest column that hed made the invitation to honor LGBT activist Donna Red Wings legacy and lamented that the Democratic campaigns were unwilling to have a civil conversation. Red Wing and Vander Plaats had enjoyed an unusual friendship after she asked him out for coffee one day. I never envisioned one day we would become dear friends, challenging and inspiring many to have civil conversation over deep disagreements, Vander Plaats wrote. We dont question Vander Plaats sincerity. Even so, there was nothing wrong with Democratic candidates passing on the opportunity. Its understandable if they would prefer to focus their precious time in Iowa on audiences with a higher likelihood to yield caucus supporters. Its also understandable if they would not want to help raise the profile and fundraising ability of an organization that works against their values. As Drake Universitys Carol Spaulding-Kruse writes in a separate guest column, public dialogue requires a neutral framework and facilitation. Thats why I find it disingenuous to invite political leaders to an annual summit hosted by those leaders political opponents and then claim that they are refusing to engage in civil discourse when they decline to attend, she wrote. But Vander Plaats didnt deserve the over-the-top response from Ryan. She wrote in a guest column that Vander Plaats positions and actions against gay marriage and other issues show a lack of respect to other people. Vander Plaats and much of the work of The Family Leader is antithetical to civility. He has shown time and again that, based on his actions and his rhetoric, he is not committed to civility or civil dialogue, Ryan wrote. By defining Vander Plaats values and public-policy efforts to promote those values as inherently uncivil, Ryan seems to suggest there can never be civil discourse between people on opposite sides of issues like abortion, gay marriage and Medicaid funding for gender reassignment. That is a shame. The Interfaith Alliance and The Family Leader, despite being on opposite sides of many issues, have some things in common. They are both faith-based coalitions of religious organizations. Both have an interest in public policy and civil discourse. Maybe Bob and Connie should have coffee and talk. We at the Register would be happy to offer neutral ground. Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfried writes The Norse Mythology Blog. A Norse mythologist and musician in Chicago, he is Theology and Religious History Faculty at Cherry Hill Seminary and Adjunct Professor, Pagan Chaplain, and Pagan Forum Faculty Advisor at Illinois Institute of Technology. He is also a featured columnist for The Wild Hunt and serves as goi (priest) of Thor's Oak Kindred, a diverse organization dedicated to the practice of the Asatru religion in Chicago. Click here for more about Karl. CEO of the State House Peter Bong And Attorney General Arnold Kiel Loughman exiting the court yesterday after the hearing Biostar has announced the 300 and 400-series motherboards that will offer compatibility with AMDs upcoming range of Ryzen 3000 desktop processors. There are models from the A320, B350, B450, and X470 lineups that will be able to welcome the 3rd Gen chips. A promo image has also shown off the AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop Ready logo. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Leaks / Rumors , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Biostar has published a press release to inform enthusiasts about which of its motherboards will be compatible with AMD's Ryzen 3000 series of desktop processors. At the moment, 21 different products are listed that come from numerous AM4 300-series and 400-series motherboard lineups. The full planned list of Biostar models is as follows: B350ET2 B350GT3 B350GT5 B350GTN B450GT3 X370GT3 X370GT5 X370GT7 X370GTN X470GT8 X470GTN A320MD PRO A320MH PRO TA320-BTC TB350-BTC A320MY-Q7 A320MH B45M2 B450MHC B450MH Hi-Fi B350S1 The Biostar press release is accompanied by an image showing off some of its compatible motherboards and also features something that will have those who are expectant for the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processors excited to see. A silver and orange flash logo that features the words "AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop Ready" is pasted in the bottom left corner, which clearly demonstrates that the vaunted processors will soon be unleashed upon the market. Sony is cooking up an Xperia 2 smartphone and it will take the role of a something akin to its Compact line of models in the past. It will offer many of the flagship Xperia 1 features but will come in a less tall 6.1-inch display and smaller overall dimensions accordingly. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Leaks / Rumors , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Sony is said to be prepping an Xperia 2 smartphone to complement the Xperia 1 flagship in its line up. Although not quite a Compact model of old, it is still very much taking the same approach by offering many of the features of the larger 6.5-inch Xperia 1 but in a size that measures 6.1-inch inches. For people interested in the Xperia 1 but think that it might be too tall for every day usability, this could fit the bill nicely. Where the Xperia 1 measures 167mm x 72mm x 8.2mm, the Xperia 2 will reportedly measure in at 158mm x 68.3mm x 8.3mm. However, it will still be powered by Qualcomms top-of-the-line Snapdragon 855 processer and similarly pack 6 GB of RAM. A 3,000mAh battery is on board as is wireless charging. While a 4K OLED display is likely out of the question, it will probably sport a QHD+ OLED display in the same CineWide 21:9 display aspect ratio. Although no details have yet spilled about the camera specifications, it appears that Sony has kept the same triple camera arrangement found on the Xperia 1 although aligned to one side rather than down the middle. If it is the same set up, it will mean three 12MP sensors each with different focal lengths and developed in conjunction with Zeiss and Samsung. If Sony can address the photographic shortcomings of its flagship devices, the Xperia 1 and Xperia 2 could help turn things around for the Japanese giant. The Sony Xperia 1 is set to launch sometime next month with the Xperia 2 set to get a full reveal at IFA in September. Lisa Su will kickoff Computex 2019 in less than two weeks and then tease even more gaming technologies two weeks later at the Next Horizon Gaming conference in E3 2019. Expect a cluster of hopefully exciting AMD announcements in the coming month. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Leaks / Rumors , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker AMD has been slowly but surely carving a bigger niche for itself in the PC and gaming space even in the face of rising competition from Nvidia and the looming threat of Intel. Watching keynotes during large press events is a great way to catch up with the latest products and get a feel for what the company's short-term plans are to stay relevant in the market. AMD has just announced that it will livestream both its Computex and E3 2019 keynotes. CEO Lisa Su will be onstage to "unveil the next generation of AMD gaming products" that will very likely include Zen 2 announcements and possibly even next generation XBox or Playstation tech demos. Sony will be absent at this year's E3 as the company will instead host its own Playstation-centric event later in the year. The Computex 2019 livestream will be on May 26 at 7 PM Pacific Time while the E3 2019 livestream will be on June 10 at 3 PM Pacific Time. Watch both keynotes on the official AMD Youtube and Facebook pages below. Close-up view of the Ichniotherium trackway from Grand Canyon National Park. Photo courtesy of Heitor Francischini May 15, 2019 Contact: Vincent L. Santucci, 202-359-4124 -NPS- - An international team of paleontologists has united to study important fossil footprints recently discovered in a remote location within Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. A large sandstone boulder contains several exceptionally well-preserved trackways of primitive tetrapods (four-footed animals) which inhabited an ancient desert environment. The 280-million-year-old fossil tracks date to almost the beginning of the Permian Period, prior to the appearance of the earliest dinosaurs.The first scientific article reporting fossil tracks from the Grand Canyon was published in 1918, just a year before the park was established as a unit of the National Park Service. One hundred years later, during the Centennial Celebration for Grand Canyon National Park, new research on ancient footprints from the park is being presented in a scientific publication released this week. Brazilian paleontologist Dr. Heitor Francischini, from the Laboratory of Vertebrate Paleontology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, is the lead author of the new publication, working with scientists from Germany and the United States.Francischini and Dr. Spencer Lucas, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first visited the Grand Canyon fossil track locality in 2017. The paleontologists immediately recognized the fossil tracks were produced by a long-extinct relative of very early reptiles and were similar to tracks known from Europe referred to as(ICK-nee-oh-thay-ree-um). This new discovery at Grand Canyon is the first occurrence offrom the Coconino Sandstone and from a desert environment. The Coconino Sandstone is an eolian (wind-deposited) rock formation that exhibits cross-bedding and other sedimentary features indicating a desert / dune environment of deposition. In addition, these tracks represent the geologically youngest record of this fossil track type from anywhere in the world.Thefootprint is believed to have been made by an enigmatic group of extinct tetrapods known as diadectomorphs, a primitive group that possessed characteristics of both amphibians and reptiles. The evolutionary relationships and paleobiology of diadectomorphs have long been important and unresolved questions in the science of vertebrate paleontology.Although the actual track maker for the Grand Canyon footprints may never be known, the Grand Canyon trackways preserve the travel of a very early terrestrial vertebrate. The measurable characteristics of the tracks and trackways indicate a primitive animal with short legs and a massive body. The creature walked on all four legs and each foot possessed five clawless digits.According to Francischini, "These new fossil tracks discovered in Grand Canyon National Park provide important information about the paleobiology of the diadectomorphs. The diadectomorphs were not expected to live in an arid desert environment, because they supposedly did not have the classic adaptations for being completely independent of water. The group of animals that have such adaptations is named Amniota (extant reptiles, birds and mammals) and diadectomorphs are not one of them."Lucas also notes that "paleontologists have long thought that only amniotes could live in the dry and harsh Permian deserts. This discovery shows that tetrapods other than reptiles were living in those deserts, and, surprisingly, were already adapted to life in an environment of limited water."During 2019, in recognition of the Grand Canyon National Park Centennial, the National Park Service is undertaking a comprehensive paleontological resource inventory for the park. A large team of specialists in geology and paleontology will participate in fieldwork and research to help expand our understanding of the rich fossil record for Grand Canyon National Park.For more information about this research please contact Vincent Santucci or Heitor Francischini at heitorfrancischini@hotmail.com.For more information on Grand Canyon National Park's Centennial anniversary and a full list of events please visit, go.nps.gov/2019_events The After-Five and Tuesday Morning Brunch speaker for Christian Womens Connection in May is Margaret Bideau, a retired teacher from Chanute, Kansas, who will share where her peace and joy come from, even while walking through the storms that life brings. Even though she is directionally challenged on earth, she will tell Womens Connection why she is Headed in the Right Direction, according to a press release North Platte After-Five will meet at 7 p.m. Monday at Parkview Community Church, 1802 N. Jeffers St. Cost is $7 and includes a meal. The special feature is Women and Mobility featuring Emma from Legacy Dance Studio. Reservations must be made by Friday to Donna Beardsley at 308-532-5252 or Arlene Cross at 308-534-9630. Cancellations must be relayed to Beardsley by Monday at 9 a.m. Tuesday Morning Brunch is Tuesday at 9:15 a.m. at the First Christian Church, 420 N. Vine St, enter through the back door. Cost is $5. The special feature will be hula hoops and yoga with Beth Nelson. Music will be provided by Lane Swedberg. Reservations must be made by Sunday to Darlene Small at 308-532-2971 or Konnie Wemple at 308-532-4268. Cancellations must be phoned in by 9 a.m. Monday. These meetings are nondenominational and, according to the release, the group would welcome all ladies. Congressional Art Competition winners announced WASHINGTON U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., has announced the winners of the 2019 Congressional Art Competition for the 3rd District of Nebraska. Artwork by the first-place winner will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol. The runners-up will have their art displayed in Smiths Washington, D.C., Grand Island and Scottsbluff offices. Smith worked with the Nebraska Art Teachers Association to coordinate the competition. Congratulations to all of the student artists from across the 3rd District who presented their talents in this competition, as well as the teachers who have encouraged their creativity, Smith said. I am excited to share the winners work with visitors to the U.S. Capitol and my offices in Washington, D.C., and Nebraska. The winners are: First Place: Copper Corn by Dallas Rohde of Litchfield, Litchfield Public Schools. Dallas work will be displayed in the U.S. Capitol for one year. Second Place: Little Girl Drawing by Gracie Hoyt of Mullen, Mullen Public Schools. Gracies work will be displayed in Smiths Washington, D.C., office. It was a beautiful service and although our Huey leaned over at one point in time and said, Today is like your birthday, but not really, I did feel sort of special. Special, up until Lawrence snatched my reading glasses out of the pew and imitated me during the responsorial hymn. Dont pick on me, I whispered as I grabbed my cheaters back. Its Mothers Day. Thats Charlies gift, he replied. Not mine. Immediately following the prayer over the mothers on Mothers Day, they tugged on my blouse and said, Sit down, your time to shine is over. Doesnt that just tear it? Theyre good and appreciative young men, dont get me wrong. They just love to give me a hard time, and I must admit that on the inside, Im laughing just as much about it as they are. Through the years I never really asked for much on Mothers Day, just to be with them. So you can imagine my bliss when I saw a Fed Ex driver carrying a long purple box up the driveway. When I saw the name of a flower company on the side, I thought for sure it was some sort of advertising. OMAHA North Platte High School junior Elliott Purdy has been named one of 16 national finalists with a chance to attend the National High School Musical Theatre Awards on Broadway next month. Purdy, the son of Ryan and Leah Purdy of North Platte, and his fellow cast members of NPHS recent musical Newsies also were named statewide winners in this years Nebraska High School Theater Academy Awards. Purdy was one of 10 best-actor winners for his role as Jack Kelly, while the Newsies cast was named one of 10 outstanding ensembles, program sponsor Omaha Performing Arts announced in a press release Thursday. Nebraska winners will be honored at the Nebraska High School Theater Academy Showcase, set for 7:30 p.m. June 7 at Omahas Orpheum Theater. Tickets cost $10 and may be purchased by calling 402-345-0606. The Orpheum ceremony also will announce one actor and one actress from the 16 national finalists to represent Nebraska in the national competition. The 11th annual Jimmy Awards will be presented June 24 at New Yorks Minskoff Theatre. The NPHS production of Newsies, presented March 14, 16 and 17, also featured Kiera Rhodes playing the female lead of Catherine. One performance was recorded and submitted for the statewide competition. More than 100 people gathered Tuesday morning to participate in a downtown cleanup hosted by Keep North Platte and Lincoln County Beautiful and the Downtown Business Association. Employees from various businesses, high school students and individuals looking to give back to the community were sent out in groups with trash bags. Its part of the Great American Cleanup, which is a national event that usually takes place usually during the month of May, said Mona Anderson, executive director of KNPLCB. Every year we get about 100 volunteers to the downtown area to clean. The downtown area goes from B Street to Front Street and from Willow to Poplar. Its a much larger area than just the Bricks. Anderson said every year the volunteers clean up close to a ton of litter and trash. Of course, our volunteers are pretty meticulous in getting all of the litter picked up, Anderson said. Its a great time. Junius Businelle, Allo senior operations manager, brought out a crew of 12 from his company. Once a year, Frankie Moores job lets her stay home in North Platte. Shes just sorry the Nebraska Court of Appeals doesnt have any local cases this visit, said Moore, the courts chief judge since 2014. She convened her three-judge panels two-day annual visit for oral arguments Tuesday in the Lincoln County Courthouse. In a brief interview before the opening session, she said shes still energized by her work after 19 years on the court even though that Interstate can get scary. I dont have any plans at the current time to retire, said Moore, 60, who first moved to North Platte to practice law in 1983. I enjoy my job, and I want to keep doing it for the foreseeable future. Founded in 1991 after voter approval of a state constitutional amendment, the six-member Court of Appeals was designed from the start to keep both its judges and their formal sessions closer to the Nebraskans they serve. The Treasurers Office situation has had no effect whatsoever on the countys ability to pay its own bills, Hewgley said. The city of North Platte and the Mid-Plains Community College Area likewise are in no danger, officials with both entities said Tuesday. But theyve been tracking their receipts since Simpson alerted them recently to his districts troubles. He wanted to know if we were behind in our property tax receipts, City Administrator Jim Hawks said. I said we were, but not as much as they were. Because North Platte also collects city sales taxes, Id say they (at the schools) have a stronger reliance on property taxes than we do, he added. Mid-Plains receives property taxes from an 18-county area, though Lincoln County accounts for more of its total tax take than any other county. It had received 57 percent of its budgeted tax receipts as of April 30, compared with 60 percent a year ago, said Vice President of Administrative Services Michael Steele. Martinez and Turner are accused of taking part in the fatal wounding of Pohlmeier Sept. 14 while trying to rob him during what police have called a low-level narcotics transaction. Doyle ordered both teens to appear in Lincoln County District Court May 28 for further proceedings, including the possible setting of trial dates. Their next appearance dates are conditional on whether their attorneys seek to appeal Doyles juvenile court rulings, the judge wrote. P. Stephen Potter of Gothenburg and Patrick Heng of North Platte are representing Martinez. Turners attorneys are Lincoln County Public Defender Robert Lindemeier and North Platte lawyer Amanda Speichert. Doyle, who held hearings April 3 on the juvenile court motions, wrote that Martinez and Turner if they were found guilty in juvenile court would be better served at the Nebraska Correctional Youth Facility in Omaha than the Youth Rehabilitation Treatment Center in Kearney. The Omaha facility, designed to handle adolescent male offenders, is better equipped in staffing and treatment programs, Doyle wrote. Its also a secure correctional center, while the Kearney center is unlocked. Even so, the judge added, men committed to the Omaha facility under the juvenile court system cannot be held there beyond the age of 21 years and 10 months. Have your cake and eat it (too) to have or do two good things at the same time that are impossible to have or do at the same time Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary Not that long ago, this idiom was typically invoked to illustrate the fallacy of the infantile, selfish desire to obtain something without paying for it, to reap rewards without earning them, to enjoy benefits without bearing any burdens. It is now the defining philosophy of politicians and citizens who elect them us. Our founders and their countrymen risked all they had to establish a constitutional representative democracy designed to be the best protector of personal liberty. Rivers of this countrys collective blood ran during our Civil War to cleanse the evil of slavery. Shortly after the dawn of the 20th century in what came to be known as World War I but at the time was called the Great War, the War to End All Wars and the War to Save Democracy our ancestors helped defeat consolidated, authoritarian European powers that threatened peace and democratic principles around the globe. The United States imported 2.27 million tons of steel in March, which was down 6.6% as compared to the previous month, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The American Iron and Steel Institute reported that the U.S. imported 1.86 million net tons of steel that would require no further processing at service centers or steel mills in the United States. Net imports were up 6.7% in March as compared to the previous month. Imports to the United States grabbed 19% of the market share in March and 21% so far this year. That's down significantly from the import crisis a few years ago, largely as a result of the Section 232 25% tariffs on nearly all foreign-made steel. So far this year, the United States has imported 8.18 million tons of steel, which is down 5.9% as compared to the same period last year. Finished steel imports have declined by 11.4% year-over-year to 6 million net tons through the end of March. Warfel said one-bedroom units will be about 725 square feet. Studio apartments will offer about 512 square feet of space. Every unit will have its own washer and dryer. There also will be common areas that feature amenities typically offered at an apartment complex of this type, Warfel said. The three-story apartment buildings will have a more modern, urban design, Warfel said, which includes a low profile, flat roof and generous windows, he said. Pathways also will be established in a natural area adjacent to the apartments. Its possible the project will break ground this fall and construction could take about a year to finish, Warfel said. The rental units will be located near the Broadfield area. When plans were created years ago for the Broadfield community, they called for a 465-unit apartment complex to be developed on the Connecticut Street property, but the slated apartment facility didnt materialize. The new plans for the 275-unit facility require additional approval from the Plan Commission for the planned unit development. LYNWOOD Good news for those who commute between the Indiana-Illinois state line. Burnham Avenue is set to reopen Wednesday afternoon, the Illinois Department of Transportation said. The closure began on April 1 and was set to originally reopen on April 28, however recent inclement weather caused delays. The closure blocked direct access to all of Lynwood, south and east of 202nd Street, as well as Alpine, Paradise, and Linway mobile home parks. Here are the most-read stories from the past week 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. David Cranes direct supervisor, Lt. Guy Mikulich, allegedly told David Crane after his demotion that he got exactly what he deserved for campaigning against Buncich. David Crane said he asked Buncich several months later to be returned to his previous assignment and Buncich replied, keep your mouth shut, do your job and to avoid talking to Buncich again. David Crane sustained neck injuries and nerve damage to both hands and his right foot in February 2014 when he fell while responding to a domestic violence call. The sheriff placed David Crane on medical leave and refused to permit him to return to work with light duty that fall and later refused to extend David Crane paid medical leave after December 2014. Buncich and the Lake County Sheriffs Department Merit Board terminated David Crane in February 2015. Karla Crane, his wife, sued the Lake County E-911 Department in federal court in April 2017 over allegations her supervisors refused to honor her family and medical leave request to take time off to care for her disabled husband. VALPARAISO A 32-year-old Crown Point woman is accused of stealing more than $10,000 from a Portage gymnastics business she managed, according to court records. Amanda Carroll was charged in June, 2018 with a felony theft, but she was not arrested until Friday, according to records. She bonded out Saturday. Carroll is accused of taking the money between Oct. 1, 2016 and Oct. 30, 2017 from Lisa's Gymnastics, where she had worked as manager since 2016, according to court records. The business owner reportedly told police her accountant first noticed the irregularities in the financial records. It was discovered Carroll overpaid herself several times, police said. She was supposed to receive $918.10 per pay period, but had paid herself $1,168 or $1,300. Carroll also used company money to pay for her health insurance when she was not entitled to that benefit, police said. She further wrote checks made payable to her grandparents, according to charging documents. Carroll reportedly told police her payroll amounts were accurate at approximately $1,300 per pay period. CROWN POINT A Gary man accused gaining the trust of four women in alleged "sweetheart" scams and then coercing them to give him money and buy him items may have had a change of heart Tuesday about taking a plea agreement. Lenard A. Adams, 33, told Lake Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell he wanted to hire a private attorney to represent him and asked to be placed on a GPS monitor. Police have accused Adams, who used the aliases Christopher West, Sean West and Sean Christopher West, of gaining at least four women's trust before swindling them out of money, kidnapping them and threatening to hurt them, according to court records. Boswell previously agreed in May 2018 to release Adams from the Lake County Jail to live under house arrest with his mother in Gary. On Tuesday, the judge asked Adams if he has a job. Public defender Linda Kollintzas said Adams has worked in the past as a professional poker player but has not been employed while under house arrest. Lake County Deputy Prosecutor Judith Massa strongly objected to Adams being placed on a GPS monitor. HAMMOND A man who held two post office employees at gunpoint has been sentenced for his role in the armed heist, court records say. Leeroy Beck, 29, of Gary, is the third person in the 2017 post office heist to be convicted, with the two other accomplices, a boyfriend and girlfriend, having been convicted in late January. Beck was sentenced to eight years in prison with two years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $5,595 in restitution for the robbery of a U.S. Postal employee, according to U.S. Attorney Thomas Kirsch. Beck pleaded guilty in November 2018 to brandishing a firearm in connection with a violent crime. On Aug. 3, 2017, Beck was involved in an armed robbery of the Tolleston Post Office at 2407 W. 11th Ave. in Gary, court records said. A post office employee was picking up her mail for next day's delivery when she was approached by a man with a gun, Gary police said. "Dick applied both his principles and his Indiana common sense to improve the lives of his constituents, and the security and the economy of our nation." Vice President Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor, said that is one of many reasons why Lugar is among the senators who continue to be respected by supporters of both political parties. "Sen. Lugar emerged as an American statesman, whose contributions to our nation are countless," Pence said. "Few Hoosiers will ever leave as large or indelible a mark on our state, and our nation, as Richard Lugar. "And yet, it was who he was that made him so special: his intellect and backbone were paired with an honesty and kindness not always associated with politics. He was a man utterly without guile and without pretense," Pence said. Former Indiana Gov. and current Purdue University President Mitch Daniels worked for Lugar during his two terms as Indianapolis mayor from 1968 to 1976, and then in the early part of his 36-year tenure in the Senate that ended in 2013. Daniels echoed Pence's appraisal of Lugar's personal qualities. Winfield is among one of the fast growing cities in the state since 2016. With that increase in population, theres no infrastructure that has been kept up with, said Jose Tinoco, who accepted a degree from Ivy Tech Community College Saturday on behalf of his late brother during the schools commencement ceremony. With the population increases, if we dont get something done, theres only going to be more deaths and more accidents and injuries as time goes on. It will only get worse. There is an urgency. Deitchey recommended community members reach out to the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, a council of local governments serving the citizens of Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties. NIRPC can help pursue federal funding from grants to help pay for needed infrastructure projects like the 109th Avenue in Winfield. We cant just continue to talk about it," Jose Tinoco said. "We need to make some instrumental change happen. If we ask for half of the loaf of bread, were only going to get a quarter of it. We need to ask for the full loaf. We need to come strong with what we are trying to do here. Love 3 Funny 1 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. However, the representatives and senators who would serve on the study committee could hear testimony from experts on student food and housing insecurity, gather data and prepare legislation for the 2020 General Assembly to consider enacting. "It is important for our students to have the resources they need to succeed in their studies, if we want them to become a part of the Hoosier workforce," Harris said in his letter requesting the study. According to the Lumina Foundation, about half of first-year college students are living at or below the poverty level, while many students older than 25, particularly minority students, struggle to simultaneously complete their studies and support their families. Joining Harris' study committee request, in addition to Candelaria Reardon, DeVon and McNamara, were Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary; Sen. Jon Ford, R-Terre Haute; Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson; and Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany. In a typical year, more than 100 study requests are submitted to the Legislative Council, which picks about two dozen or so for official assignment to a study committee. The council is expected to announce this year's study committee topics May 21. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 2 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. The page program is a great way for students to learn about our state government and the importance of civic engagement, Soliday said. Its always great to hear from young Hoosiers in our community, and I look forward to having even more visit the Statehouse next session. VALPARAISO The Valparaiso Chain of Lakes Watershed group hosts a complimentary environmental presentation at 7 p.m Monday at the Porter County Administration Building, 155 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso. Ian S. Taxchner, Ph.D., Indiana University Northwest Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, will talk about the toxological and economical impact impact of herbicides and pesticides. He specializes in compound design for early detection of oncological diseases. The Valparaiso Chain of Lakes Watershed Group provides public lectures and events in its ongoing efforts to protect and maintain the lakes and surrounding areas through education, conservation, pollution monitoring, research and invasive species control. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Walt Breitinger at bretin@frontire.com or call 219-462-5821. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Among Mr. Cosbys arguments was the contention that Judge ONeill had erred by allowing into evidence the testimony of five additional women who said they too had been intoxicated and sexually assaulted by Mr. Cosby. In his 143-page opinion, Judge ONeill of Montgomery County, Pa., rejected the reasoning on all 11 grounds, asserting that the testimony of the additional women was particularly relevant because of the chilling similarities in their accounts, which he said depicted a signature method of assaulting women. Among the similarities, he cited, were observations that the women were all younger, physically fit and believed that Mr. Cosby was acting as their friend or mentor. The judge wrote that each of the women said she was maneuvered into a location he controlled, before being giving an intoxicant and then physically assaulted. These chilling similarities rendered [their] testimony admissible, he wrote. In each instance, [he] met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated, Judge ONeill wrote. The defendants actions were so distinctive as to become a signature, he wrote. The prosecution had offered 19 other women as witnesses, and Judge ONeill said he had found all their accounts relevant and admissible. But he said he had allowed only five to testify because of the prejudicial risk of allowing too many other witnesses in a case focusing on what had happened to Ms. Constand. And so in recent years, more often than not, human flesh searches have been associated with rising ultranationalism in China. Vigilantes today dig through peoples comments online for any sign of unpatriotic sins. Today, in addition to renrou sousuo, we have another creepy term for these activities: ba pi, which literally means to skin, that is, to expose. [As technology advances, will it continue to blur the lines between public and private? Sign up for Charlie Warzels limited-run newsletter to explore whats at stake and what you can do about it.] One of the most high-profile cases of this unfolded in the summer of 2017, when Yang Shuping, a University of Maryland student from China, delivered a graduation speech in which she drew a parallel between Chinas air pollution and its restrictions on free speech. She was immediately a target of renrou sousuo: The state-owned media depicted her as an unpatriotic traitor belittling the homeland, while angry netizens spread everything they could find out about her, including the address of her family back in China. Death threats were made on social media, and there were rumors, difficult to confirm, that some social media users even paid a visit to her parents home. Ms. Yang eventually apologized and deleted all her posts on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. More recently, a victim of the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March, a young Chinese woman, unexpectedly became a target. The animosity toward her after her tragic death appears to have been prompted by a combination of nationalism and class resentment: Photos shed posted showed that she was probably from a well-to-do family, and there were rumors that shed had a foreign boyfriend. Social media users dug up her Weibo account, worked out what school shed attended and spread around old pictures. When I see you staying in a hotel that costs thousands of yuan a night, eating fancy food, and that you can afford to fly to Kenya when you want to see giraffes, even though I wont say Im happy for your demise, I definitely do not have sympathy for you, one commenter wrote. Another said, Our country isnt vast enough for you to spend vacation time in? I am not arguing that all those targeted have been innocent. There have been occasions during which the tens of thousands of internet users who have mobilized to right wrongs were fueled by legitimate motives. Yet whether the questionable behavior concerns fortune flaunting, supposedly unpatriotic political views or expensive vacations, society needs to consider how much public harassment or privacy invasion, if any, is justified. One of President Trumps enduring claims about the Russia investigation is that the Obama administration illegally spied on him, his associates and his campaign. How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter early on in his presidency, employing his idiosyncratic spelling and citing no evidence. In a separate tweet, he compared the situation to McCarthyism. In Attorney General William Barr, the president has found an ally willing to legitimize his theories. Mr. Barr has assigned John Durham, a longtime Justice Department lawyer and now United States attorney for Connecticut, to investigate the steps the F.B.I. took during the early stages of the Russia investigation. The good news about Mr. Durhams appointment is that he is a career government lawyer with a history of investigating improprieties in the national security apparatus, across several administrations. He may well complement the work of the Justice Departments inspector general, Michael Horowitz, whose own inquiry into how certain warrants and informants were deployed in the early days of the Russia investigation is nearly complete. NEW YORK An article on Tuesday about an investigation of Michael Steinhardts behavior toward members of the N.Y.U. faculty, staff and student body referred incorrectly to a $10 million gift from Mr. Steinhardt and his wife. It was the largest gift that N.Y.U.s graduate school of education had ever received, not the largest that the university had ever received. BUSINESS An article on Tuesday about a WhatsApp security flaw misidentified the country from which a lawyer received telephone calls at odd hours. It was Sweden, not Norway. An article on Tuesday about a $2 billion jury verdict against Monsanto misstated the reduced amount of a verdict against Monsanto last year. A judge reduced an award of $289 million to $78 million, not to $89 million. ARTS A television review on Monday about Line of Duty misstated the surname of an actor. He is Lennie James, not Lennie Harris. The attack in Christchurch inspired Ms. Ardern to push for international cooperation against online extremism. She has argued that a country-by-country approach will not work in an interconnected digital world. In addition to France, Britain, Canada, Jordan, Senegal, Indonesia, Australia, Norway, Ireland and the European Commission are also expected to sign the agreement. Facebook, Google and Microsoft have also said they will sign. Twitter declined to comment. In announcing the new restrictions on its live video service, Facebook said it was partnering with three universities the University of Maryland, Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley in an effort to develop new technologies for detecting and removing troublesome images and videos from the internet. Facebook and other companies were slow to identify and remove the Christchurch video in part because the original had been edited in small ways as it passed across various services. Through its new university partnerships backed by $7.5 million in funding Facebook said it would work on building technology that can detect images and videos that have been manipulated in subtle ways. Over the past three years, Facebook and other social media giants have come under increasing pressure to identify and remove a wide range of problematic content, including hate speech, false news and violence. The company has said that it is now using artificial intelligence to pinpoint many types of problematic content and that this technology is rapidly improving. But A.I. doesnt always detect some material, most notably hate speech and false news. And the attack in Christchurch showed the technology still has a long way to go when it comes to detecting violent images. Facebook also pays thousands of contract employees to scrutinize and remove problematic content. WASHINGTON As President Trump has struggled to explain the difficulty of negotiating a trade agreement with China, he has embraced a side argument: A Democratic president would only agree to a worse deal. But not just any Democratic president. China is DREAMING that Sleepy Joe Biden, or any of the others, gets elected in 2020, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday. They LOVE ripping off America! By Monday afternoon, Mr. Biden, making his first trip to New Hampshire since entering the 2020 race, was happily returning fire, criticizing the Twitter-borne blur of threats and flattery Mr. Trump had aimed at Beijing. Hes going about it all the wrong way, a lot of bravado, no action, the former vice president told reporters. It is just the sort of fight Mr. Biden has been spoiling for: a head-to-head contest with the incumbent on an issue that elevates Mr. Biden into a statesmanlike role, well above the Democratic primary fray and all the sniping candidates and liberal litmus tests therein. HACKBERRY, La. President Trump traveled to an energy state on Tuesday to boast about his administrations reversal of Obama-era environmental policies, ticking off actions like approving oil pipelines, withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and opening up Arctic drilling that he said have resulted in an American energy revolution. Mr. Trumps visit to Hackberry, a community of about 1,200 residents in a state where natural gas investment is a rapidly expanding sector and where he won 58 percent of the vote in 2016, was billed as a trip to promote energy infrastructure and economic growth at a time when the president is locked in a trade war with China over escalating tariffs. With hard-hatted workers assembled behind him, Mr. Trump spoke to an outdoor audience at the Cameron LNG export terminal, a facility that develops and exports liquefied natural gas. There, he claimed credit for an energy revolution that he said was largely accomplished by demolishing burdensome regulations and unleashing the potential of the energy industry. Mr. Trump also spoke of the oil and pipeline construction jobs that have been created since his election and promised the cheering crowd, If we win this election, were giving you a brand-new I-10 bridge. There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs and that opposition is centered in this room today. Months before he became President Trumps national security adviser, John Bolton spoke at the annual gathering of an Iranian dissident group known as the Mujahedeen Khalq or the M.E.K. The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change. And therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself. Its no secret that Bolton has long been a hardline foe of the Iranian government. And thats why before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran. Thank you very much. Even though Boltons 2019 prophecy hasnt come true yet the administration has escalated tensions between the two countries this year, even hinting at the use of force. Well see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake if they do anything. Im hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. Well see what happens with Iran. Bolton believes the M.E.K. is a viable alternative to Irans government. So what is the M.E.K.? Its a dissident group and its primary mission is to overthrow the regime in Iran. A 2011 State Department estimate said the group had between five to 13,000 members. Most M.E.K. members are Iranian exiles living in Europe and the U.S. Many experts believe it has little support inside Iran itself. They often stage demonstrations against Irans human rights record and its cleric-run state. Its often described as a cult. The U.S. State Department says it calls for forcing spouses to divorce and weekly ideological cleansing sessions. It was led by Massoud Rajavi but hes been missing since 2003. And so his wife, Maryam Rajavi, has become the de facto leader. Until 2012, the United States considered it a terrorist organization. M.E.K.s tactics have shifted over the years. But it has been known to use violence to achieve its goals. M.E.K. started in Iran in the 1960s. In the 1970s, it carried out anti-regime activities against the shah right up until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. And then it targeted Ayatollah Khomeinis government too. But it didnt stop there. During this time it was also suspected to be behind the assassination of six Americans and the bombings of American companies in Iran. The group eventually moved to Iraq and tried to destabilize the Iranian regime from there. But after Saddam Hussein was toppled the country grew too dangerous for them, even with U.S. troops present. M.E.K. was still a pretty undesirable group. But then we did not want to watch it be slaughtered in Iraq. Today, Bolton isnt the only public figure to find common cause with the M.E.K. Rudy Giuliani, former D.N.C. chair Ed Rendell and Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao have spoken at or attended M.E.K.s national conference. The group also has an aggressive lobbying arm and seems to have deep pockets. The amusing thing is that the M.E.K. will try to buy pretty much anyone and they, you know, I was approached to do events in support of the M.E.K. I know a number of other former government officials who found them truly detestable also were approached. You know, its really something to have someone on the phone offering you $15,000 or $20,000 to appear at a panel discussion because that doesnt happen for former diplomats every day. Bolton hasnt said who hed like to see take over in Iran since he became national security adviser. Our policy is not regime change. But hes continued the aggressive messaging. So Ayatollah Khamenei, I dont think youll have many more anniversaries to enjoy. If past statements are any guide, M.E.K.s most powerful advocate is now within earshot of the president. I had said, for over 10 years since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs regime in Tehran. Ballet Nacionals 2020 home performances will unavoidably be Alonso-focused, but before then, Ms. Valdes wants to get the updating started. Ballet performances are scheduled far in advance, so it wont be until November after Ballet Nacional has toured Ms. Alonsos antique Swan Lake to Spain that the first program chosen by Ms. Valdes will have its debut in Havana. It will feature the company premiere of Concerto DSCH, a celebrated work that Alexei Ratmansky made for City Ballet in 2008. If, as Ms. Valdes put it, she wants Ballet Nacional to be like the other companies in the world, importing pieces by the excellent, ubiquitous Mr. Ratmansky will certainly help. She is also in negotiations with City Ballets talented and ultra-busy resident choreographer, Justin Peck. Despite the Cuban troupes reputation for adhering to full-length classics, Ms. Valdess turn to contemporary dance makers isnt entirely unprecedented. Another work on the November program is Celeste, which the in-demand Belgian-Colombian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa created for the company in 2014. Yet another is a 1983 piece by Alberto Mendez Gonzalez , one of Ballet Nacionals homegrown choreographers. We have more than 700 pieces in our repertoire, Ms. Valdes said. Maybe some are old-fashioned but some are good, and Im also trying to recover them, because they are ours. For now, Ms. Valdes plans to continue dancing with the company. It was her experience as a dancer in Ms. Lopez Ochoas Celeste, she said, that underlined for her the importance of new choreography: It was amazing to have something made for you and your personality. I want the dancers to have this experience. Finding the right choreographers to ask is among the many challenges she now faces. Maybe we can give a small compensation, she said, but we need good choreographers who want to give something from their heart to Cuba, like a gift. I always visually gravitated toward comics, but I wasnt somebody who read every story, he said of his Jersey City childhood, which was much more about finding places to skateboard than see art. I wasnt taken to galleries. He attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and then started traveling to Japan, further embedding himself in the cartoon aesthetic. In the 1990s the KAWS name became associated with on-the-fly Manhattan street projects. I havent painted illegally since about 2001, Mr. Donnelly said. With age came a more conventional life: Hes married to an artist and has two young children. Given the toys and characters hes surrounded by at all times, I had to have kids just to make it not seem weird, Mr. Donnelly joked. In a season when he seems to have it all the fun of childlike pursuits plus serious auction clout and designing stores for Dior he made no apologies for his low-to-high success. But he did it in his soft-spoken way. Honestly to me, it would be weird to be an artist these days and not be working in all these spaces simultaneously, he said. There really arent that many people who are giving to art and giving to museums, in fact its a very small club, said Tom Eccles, the executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. So we have to be a little careful what we wish for here. There is also the difficult question of where to draw a line. What sort of behavior is inexcusable? We are not a partisan organization, we are not a political organization, so we dont have a litmus test for whom we take gifts from based on policies or politics, said Mr. Weiss of the Met. If there are people who want to support us, for the most part we are delighted. We would only not accept gifts from people if it in some way challenges or is counter to the core mission of the institution, in exceptional cases, he added. The OxyContin crisis in this country is a legitimate and full-blown crisis. Three brothers, Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, bought a small company called Purdue Frederick in 1952 and transformed it into the pharmaceutical giant it is today. In 1996, Purdue Pharma put the opioid painkiller OxyContin on the market, fundamentally altering the companys fortunes. The familys role in the marketing of OxyContin, and in the opioid crisis, has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. Documents submitted this year as part of litigation by the attorney general of Massachusetts allege that members of the Sackler family directed the companys efforts to mislead the public about the dangers of the highly addictive drug. The company has denied the allegations and said it neither created nor caused the opioid epidemic. Arthur Sackler died before OxyContins creation and his side of the family, which has supported institutions including the Smithsonian and the Brooklyn Museum, sold his stake in the pharmaceutical business after his death. One of his children, Elizabeth A. Sackler, has called the companys role in the opioid epidemic morally abhorrent. Each year about 4.5 million people shuffle off the ferries that service Liberty Island to see up close the famous torch-wielding Roman goddess towering above them. But security concerns stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks led the National Park Service to restrict the number of people who could go inside the statues massive stone pedestal, and up to the crown. The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation wanted to offer something more for visitors who found the outdoor view less than satisfying: a stand-alone museum on the island that would welcome everyone who wanted to hear the story behind Lady Liberty. On Thursday, the Statue of Liberty Museum opens on the island, offering details about how French workers constructed their 150-foot-tall gift to America, as well as how the statue became a symbol of freedom across the world. Recognizing the need to focus on more than just the vague and often dubious ideal of American liberty, the museums designers highlight the doubts of black Americans and women who saw their personal liberties compromised on a daily basis in the 1880s, when the statue opened. They also spotlight a bit of history that is often forgotten: that the French creators intended the statue as a commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the United States. In the stories Arya Ghavamian and Mani Nilchianis parents told them, there was dancing. European and American expats mingled with Iranians in the neon glow of Tehrans clubs, which pulsed with music by the Beatles and Iranian pop stars Hayedeh and Googoosh. Liquor wasnt contraband then, and the city was a vibrant artistic hub. Now, Ghavamian and Nilchiani are reimagining the cultural moment that they never experienced firsthand the Tehran music scene of the 1970s, which came to an abrupt end after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 replaced a Western-allied government with todays Islamic Republic. A year ago, the pair began organizing Disco Tehran, a performance project and party that combines live music and D.J. sets, in New York. Though the parties often spotlight Iranian musicians like the Farsi funk group Mitra Sumara, they also feature a wide array of world music, electronic music and noise art. He had been a polarizing president, cherished as well as deplored for his excitability, his stubbornness, his gift for demagoguery. A hair-trigger sensitivity to slights made him self-pitying and prone to a corrosive paranoia. He railed against establishment elites and gave succor to white supremacists. He rejected congressional oversight and barreled forward, declaring that he could hire and fire whomever he wanted, even as his impetuous dismissals drew complaints that he was obstructing justice. By February 1868, President Andrew Johnson had forced the moment to a crisis. As Brenda Wineapple recounts in her new book, The Impeachers, Johnson had been goading legislators with his accelerating attempts to rule by decree, daring them to go ahead and impeach him which the House voted to do by an overwhelming majority, 126 to 47. The author of award-winning works about Nathaniel Hawthorne and Emily Dickinson, among other books, Wineapple started to research her history of the countrys first impeachment trial six years ago; she briefly mentions Presidents Nixon and Clinton but not the current occupant of the White House. She doesnt have to. The relevance of this riveting and absorbing book is clear enough, even if Wineapples approach is too literary and incisive to offer anything so obvious as a lesson. Lincolns assassination in 1865 made Johnson an accidental president; he had been picked as Lincolns running mate less than a year before, as a politically expedient choice. Johnson was a Southerner and a Democrat who also happened to be an adamant Unionist giving him rare and valuable currency in a country fractured by the Civil War. His first speech after Lincolns death was dignified, sober, statesmanlike so much so that it worried white Southerners and heartened black community leaders. As colored men, the editor of the Black Republican newspaper in New Orleans announced, we have entire confidence in President Johnson. U.S. tensions over Iran grow The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has been partially evacuated in response to what the Trump administration calls a threat linked to Iran. The U.S. has also been accelerating its movement of ships and bombers into the Persian Gulf. Skepticism: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that the Trump administration had received intelligence related to Iranian activity that put American facilities and service personnel at substantial risk. However, U.S. allies and Iraqi officials have voiced skepticism, as has Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, the British deputy commander of the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, or ISIS. In Iraq: Some people in Baghdad told our reporter the tensions were just talk, but she found more concern in government and security circles. Iraqi officials say they are taking steps to avoid war. Goldman paid a $550 million penalty in 2010 for misleading investors in a collateralized debt obligation tied to subprime loans. But in recent years the firm has become the focus of a criminal investigation for its role in helping to sell bonds on behalf of 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB, that turned out to be a multibillion-dollar fraud. A partner at the firm, Tim Leissner, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. His former deputy, Roger Ng, is also accused of helping a Malaysian businessman, Jho Low, loot 1MDB of billions of dollars to finance a lavish lifestyle. Prosecutors are pushing for Goldman to plead guilty to charges related to its involvement with 1MDB. The company has continued to blame rogue employees for its problems. Even if the firm does plead guilty, the impact on its operations should be minimal. How much Goldman may pay in a settlement is anyones guess, but a figure between $2 billion and $3 billion would roughly equate to the loss suffered by the Malaysian government from the 1MDB fraud. In 2018, Goldman earned $10.4 billion, so the payment, while unwelcome, is unlikely to have too much of an impact on the firm. Importantly, the Securities and Exchange Commission, if past cases are any guide, is likely to grant Goldman a waiver from the bad actor rules, which would make it more difficult to access the capital markets. Facebook disclosed in its most recent quarterly report that it created a $3 billion reserve to resolve an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission that the company may have violated a 2011 privacy consent decree with the agency. The company also said that it is reasonably possible that we may incur a substantial loss in some of the other cases, actions or inquiries that it is facing over its privacy practices. The Camp Fire underscored the increasing threat that wildfires pose to California as climate change has intensified droughts and heat waves. In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined a plan to reduce the risk of wildfires and find new ways to shoulder the enormous costs of the fires. Lawyers for victims of the fire said the states report on Wednesday confirmed what many people had long suspected. Now the day of reckoning has come, said Frank Pitre, a lawyer for victims who is based in the Bay Area. If PG&E wants to do the honorable thing, they should stop spending tens of millions of dollars in bankruptcy court and begin putting together the plan to compensate the victims. In bankruptcy, the claims of wildfire victims will compete with the claims of bondholders and other PG&E creditors. People who lost their homes to the Camp Fire will probably not know how much the company will pay them for many months and possibly even years. Some survivors like Randi Hall, who lost her home in Paradise and now lives in a recreational vehicle with her boyfriend, her young daughter and a puppy, have said PG&E appears to be shirking its obligations to victims in bankruptcy court. If I caused the fire, I wouldnt be able to file bankruptcy and I wouldnt be able to make other people pay for it, Ms. Hall said in an interview last week. Why does a company that has so many millions of dollars in insurance get to do it? Separately on Wednesday, Mr. Newsom criticized PG&E for how it has handled its bankruptcy case, saying in a court filing that the utility has not demonstrated that it understands the gravity and urgency of the situation. FRANKFURT The authorities in Germany raided homes and banks around the country on Wednesday in a tax evasion investigation that originated with Deutsche Bank but has widened to involve other lenders. The raids targeted 11 financial offices in Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and other cities, prosecutors said. They did not name the banks, but said that some were local public-sector savings banks known as sparkassen, indicating that Deutsche Bank is not the only institution involved. Deutsche Bank, which the German police raided in November for possible links to tax evasion, said its offices had not been searched on Wednesday. The investigations are not directed against Deutsche Bank, it said in a statement. Deutsche Bank cooperates with the public prosecutors office and voluntarily submits all requested documents. WASHINGTON President Trump moved on Wednesday to ban American telecommunications firms from installing foreign-made equipment that could pose a threat to national security, White House officials said, stepping up a battle against China by effectively barring sales by Huawei, the countrys leading networking company. Mr. Trump issued an executive order instructing the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, to ban transactions posing an unacceptable risk but did not single out any nation or company. The action has long been expected and is the latest salvo in the administrations economic and security battle with China. It is also the most extreme move in the Trump administrations fight against Chinas tech sector. The executive order was agnostic, White House officials said in a call with reporters, declining to single out China as the focus. This administration will do what it takes to keep America safe and prosperous and to protect America from foreign adversaries targeting vulnerabilities in American communications infrastructure, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. But in a clear strike against Huawei, the Commerce Department separately announced on Wednesday that it had placed the company and its dozens of affiliates on a list of firms deemed a risk to national security. The listing will prevent it from buying American parts and technologies without seeking United States government approval. From Vittsjo coffee tables to Raskog utility carts, all of Ikeas roughly 10,000 products are evaluated in the companys highly secure design lab. If you slept on an Ikea futon in your youth, or use its Ribba frames to hang expensive art today, you have lived an aesthetic determined here. The lab is housed at the corporate headquarters in Almhult, in rural Sweden. Founded here in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea now has 422 stores spread across 50 countries and territories, and last year, its revenue was more than $42 billion. Top and left: views of simple meeting rooms, with functional accessories; right: what the company calls work boxes. Fox News All homes are the same; all homes are different. For the first decades of my life, home was a three-bedroom apartment, full of warmth and tucked safely away in a close-knit Igbo community in the eastern part of Nigeria. The neighborhood night-patrol crew kept us all safe at night, and everyone knew all about everyone elses business. Fathers gossiped about their errant sons in the evenings, as they sat around and drank in groups, while their wives tended to their cooking pots. All the kids ran up and down the streets, and the little boys and girls whose mothers had teasingly proclaimed were made for each other exchanged shy peeks, looking away quickly lest anyone caught them. Sisters with little in common Onyinyechi is my sister, younger by three years. Even back then she was different from the rest of us. She was light-skinned to my darker complexion, slim to my chubby. My sister found it amusing that I wailed the first time we watched The Lion King. She would routinely go missing when we kids played our neighborhood game of tag in the evenings, and shed rather wash and rewash plates than play kitchen with me in our backyard with my empty tins of milk. As we grew, she read James Hadley Chase and Nora Roberts while I still struggled with Chinua Achebe, and she won more competitions all through school than anyone else in our family. Onyinyechi had the foresight to save up her pocket money while in boarding school and during the long holidays, she signed up for a class in creative writing, which of course she aced. Unlike me, when her time came, she was firm in her decision to pursue a degree in law, and it was no surprise to anyone when she gained admission into the university the first time she tried, with her scores way above the cutoff marks. Before reading the article: The United States and China have been engaged in a yearlong trade war and, in the last week, it has escalated. On May 13, The Times reported: The United States and China intensified their trade dispute on Monday, as Beijing said it would increase tariffs on nearly $60 billion worth of American goods and the Trump administration detailed plans to tax nearly every sneaker, computer, dress and handbag that China exports to the United States. The escalation thrust the worlds two largest economies back into confrontation. While President Trump said on Monday that he would meet with Chinas president, Xi Jinping, next month in Japan, the stakes are only increasing as the president continues to taunt and threaten China, causing it to retaliate on American businesses. The articles continues: Chinas Finance Ministry announced Monday that it was raising tariffs on a wide range of American goods to 20 percent or 25 percent from 10 percent. The increase will affect the roughly $60 billion in American imports already being taxed as retaliation for Mr. Trumps previous round of tariffs, including beer, wine, swimsuits, shirts and liquefied natural gas exported to China. The move came after Mr. Trump increased tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to as much as 25 percent on Friday, and threatened to move ahead with taxing the remainder of goods that the United States imports from China. The Office of the United States Trade Representative released a list on Monday of the roughly $300 billion worth of products that could face up to a 25 percent tariff and requested public comment, which will begin the formal process for enacting those duties. The list includes almost every consumer product imaginable, from coffee makers to sneakers to telescopic sights for rifles. Watch the four-minute video The Anatomy Of A Trade War from Newsy. As you watch, respond to the following questions: What is a tariff? Why might tariffs be considered a double-edged sword? What is a trade war? How do trade wars affect citizens? Now, read the article, U.S.-China Trade Standoff May Be Initial Skirmish in Broader Economic War, and answer the following questions: 1. Why is the Trump administration trying to limit Chinas economic influence in the United States and abroad? 2. How is the administration trying to restrain Chinas ambitions and methods of influence? Why is this a tricky task, according to the article? 3. David Lampton, a China scholar at Stanford University, says the present trade war is a skirmish in an ongoing battle. What does he mean by that statement? Liu Heung Shing looked outside the car window: an imposing portrait of Mao Zedong had disappeared from the east side of Tiananmen Square. It was 1981. Mao loomed large that year as people gathered to watch the depositions of his political cronies, known as the Gang of Four, on state television. Earlier that autumn, before Maos portrait was removed from a history museum in Tiananmen Square, Mr. Liu photographed a skater gliding past a statue of Mao. The frozen faces of Communist leaders got a breath of fresh air in Mr. Lius photography: A Beijing resident in 2008 lined the facade of her house with the portraits of lionized figures, in plucky defiance of demolitions planned before the Summer Olympics. Its very lucky that I could use the camera to do a kind of political reporting that wouldnt otherwise be possible, Mr. Liu said. That daily nitty-gritty about how Chinese live is primarily what interests me because I knew they would tell a bigger story. Mr. Johnson played a video showing animals living in cages and then being electrocuted or having their necks broken. The evidence of cruelty in the fur industry is overwhelming, he said. Local furriers should diversify and embrace innovations in the fashion and garment industry that can take the place of fur. There is no such thing as ethical fur, or ecological fur, or excellent welfare fur, Mr. Johnson said. But it was unclear how much support the bill has in the City Council or when Mr. Johnson might seek to bring the measure up for a vote. Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that he supported the underlying idea of a ban, but added that he was concerned about the effect on workers in the fur industry. I think if something happens here there has to be some sense of how to phase it in, in a way that really does try and protect some jobs, Mr. de Blasio said in March. Councilman Chaim Deutsch of Brooklyn said that he opposed the ban for several reasons, including that many Hasidic Jewish men wear hats made of fur, known as shtreimels or spodiks. If we ban fur and then you have people that are still out there wearing it, considering the fact that hate crime in New York City is on the rise, people will be targeted on the streets, saying, Why are you wearing this if theres a fur ban? Mr. Deutsch said. In its current form, the bill includes an exemption for fur items worn as a matter of religious custom, but Mr. Deutsch was nonetheless wary. We wanted to explicitly recognize the association with LGBT history, she said. In most cases, the designation of the historic districts in which the buildings already exist did not recognize this history. Since its start, the commission has expanded its mandate toward recognizing buildings for what happened in them, not just their presence on the landscape, with a number of other designations, among them Louis Armstrongs house in Queens, a landmark since 1988. A year ago, the commission created a historic district in Harlem, citing the rich social, cultural and political life that went on there as well as the architecture. It includes the home of the ragtime composer Scott Joplin and the national headquarters for the March on Washington in 1965. The six most recent sites were chosen based on their contribution to gay history. Recognizing more than architecture is really important, said Andrew S. Dolkart, co-director of the LGBT Historic Sites Project, which recommended sites for the LGBT designations. In general, its really important that preservation move beyond just works of architecture, not to denigrate that Im an architectural historian, he said, adding, We really need to recognize places of cultural and historical significance. Giving the six buildings landmark status would put documentation about them in the commissions files that would be taken into account if owners sought to make changes to the outside, Ms. Carroll said. That information, she said, would guide our thinking and could prove especially important for facades that might not have been seen as typical or traditional in that particular historic district. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] The Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates a subway system in New York City that is a study in chronic unreliability and a bus system that often seems to run in slow motion. It also oversees another transportation service that gets far less attention. Its frustrated passengers say it is no more dependable, even though it makes only a fraction of the trips almost 7.1 million in 2018 the subways and buses make. That is about 30,000 a day on weekdays, more than the daily total of all passengers on public transportation in Cincinnati, Tucson or Madison, Wis. The service is called Access-A-Ride. Most users have disabilities that almost require them to use the service in order to get to work or get to doctor appointments, or just to go out with friends. Passengers who use Access-A-Ride and advocates for disabled people, who have long complained of poor service, say that recent changes have made things worse. Some riders say they can no longer count on on-time pickups and must ask to be picked up at least an hour earlier than necessary. So when one goes missing, New Yorkers get upset. The incident happened at 7:19 a.m. Friday, Anik Ahmed said. She went outside at like 7:20, and the guy picked her up at like 7:23. And we noticed the cat was missing by 7:35. Mr. Ahmed, 27, was referring to Lexi, the year-and-a-half-old tabby who has been a fixture at 71 Fresh Deli and Grocery, his store in Kips Bay, Manhattan. Surveillance video appears to show the cat vanishing when a man passes by. This was my first pet, he said. Thats more heartbreaking than anything. She was the neighborhoods cat, one worker told NY1. The Daily News described how bereft workers were searching for the furry darling. Pets disappear with some regularity in the city (though for most, theres no video evidence). Last year, 344 cats, 472 dogs, 14 kittens, 14 puppies, four birds and one reptile were reported missing, according to Animal Care Centers of N.Y.C. Fliers with Lexis picture are being distributed. Mr. Ahmed said he thought the catnapping was intentional, but added, Im not going to press charges. In a statement announcing the denial, the conservation department did not refer to the firestorm that had preceded its decision, aside from noting that it had received comments from more than 45,000 people about the project 90 percent of whom opposed it. The department laid out its decision in technical terms, noting that construction would contaminate New Yorks waters with mercury and copper. Construction of the NESE pipeline project is projected to result in water quality violations and fails to meet New York States rigorous water quality standards, the department said, referring to what is formally called the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline. While the pipeline had not attracted anywhere near the attention of the Keystone XL or Dakota Access pipelines that carry oil in the Great Plains region, within the insular world of New York politics it became a flash point in a larger debate about fighting climate change, spurring economic development and whether it was possible to marry the two. Ahead of the decision, a chorus of Democratic elected officials denounced the pipeline, including the New York City comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, and Mayor Bill de Blasio. Hours before the decision was due on Wednesday, 11 United States representatives, including Jerrold Nadler, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Hakeem Jeffries, wrote a letter to Mr. Cuomo in opposition. Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, who as the vocal patriarch of Lebanons Maronite Christians pressured Syria to end its 15-year occupation after initially supporting Syrian intervention to help end his countrys civil war died on Sunday in Beirut. He was 98. The Maronite Church is orphaned and Lebanon is in sadness, the church, an Eastern Rite Catholic sect, said in a statement announcing his death issued from Bkirki, the seat of the patriarchate, where Cardinal Sfeir presided from 1986 until he retired in 2011. He had been hospitalized two weeks earlier with a chest infection. Pope Francis took note of the cardinals death. A staunch defender of his countrys sovereignty and independence, he will remain a great figure in Lebanons history, the pope said, as reported by Vatican News. Cardinal Sfeir was an outspoken critic of what he saw as political and social injustice in the Middle East. On the religious plane, he was instrumental in revising the Maronite Missal to return to a more traditional liturgy. Overlooked is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. The alarm went off at 2:15 a.m. Grace Banker stirred awake and roused three of the women she was bunking with. Groggily, they shared a quick breakfast by candlelight, then reported to their posts. As Signal Corps operators, they were responsible for decoding and transmitting messages through the telephone switchboards used on the front lines by the United States Army during World War I. It was mid-September in 1918, and the battle for the St. Mihiel salient, the wars first large campaign led by the Americans, had started. Under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing, the American Expeditionary Forces and more than 100,000 French troops had set out to take back the salient , a strategic outpost occupied by the Germans. Over the next few days, cannons boomed in the distance as Banker and the five women under her command at the switchboards connected calls around the clock, their gas masks and helmets slung over their chairs. Though they were within German artillery range, the gravity of the task kept them going. Never spent more time at the office and never enjoyed anything more, Banker wrote in her diary , as quoted in Elizabeth Cobbss 2017 book, The Hello Girls, the title taken from the term by which the switchboard operators came to be known. My girls work like beavers. MOSCOW Sergei L. Dorenko, a maverick broadcast journalist who became known as the TV killer for helping to clear rivals from Vladimir V. Putins path to power but who then fell out of official favor and was thrown off the air, died on Thursday in Moscow. He was 59. Mr. Dorenko was on his motorcycle when he suffered a ruptured aorta and crashed into a traffic barrier, according to Govorit Moskva, a radio station he founded in 2014, citing a coroners report. The crash occurred shortly before a Victory Day fireworks display was to be held in Moscow to commemorate Russias defeat of Germany in World War II. The timing of the crash raised questions in some quarters on social media about whether he had been targeted by the authorities. Recent deaths of Russian media and political figures connected to the politics of the 1990s have prompted similar speculation that they were killed, possibly because of secrets they may have held. The coroner, however, said the death was of natural causes. This article is part of David Leonhardts newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. Before putting the finishing touches on this mornings newsletter, I enjoyed a version of my standard breakfast: eggs (scrambled today); a small piece of toast (slathered with a yogurt spread and a spice mix); fruit (apple, banana and clementine); and vegetables (spinach and sweet potatoes, sprinkled with sumac). When I tell people about my breakfast routine, they often have two skeptical reactions. The first is that it sounds as if the meal takes a lot of time to prepare and cook. The second is: Vegetables for breakfast? If you share one of those reactions, let me reassure you: No, it doesnt take a lot of time, and yes, vegetables can be a delicious and normal part of breakfast. In much of the world, they already are. Corruption scandals surrounding the Congress Party-led government, promises of inclusive growth and job creation, and calibrated anti-Muslim dog whistles helped Narendra Modi rise to power and become the prime minister of India in 2014. And there was another factor: The Dalits, Indias most oppressed community, whom the Hindu caste system relegates to the lowest rung, doubled their votes for his Bharatiya Janata Party to 12 percent in 2014 from 6 percent in 2009. To make up for centuries of violence, discrimination and lack of opportunity, Indias Constitution lays out that political parties can field only Dalit candidates for 84 out of 543 parliamentary seats in general elections. Five years earlier, Mr. Modis B.J.P. won 40 of the 84 seats reserved for the Dalits, sending the single largest contingent of Dalit lawmakers to the Parliament. But neither increased Dalit votes nor the greater number of Dalit lawmakers within the B.J.P.s ranks helped transform the partys aggressive, casteist ideology. Mr. Modis rule has highlighted the antagonism between his partys pandering to the dominant upper castes and the radicalism of Dalits fighting for the elimination of caste. To the Editor: Re For Warren, Appearance on Fox News Is Hard Pass (news article, May 15): Elizabeth Warren is correct in her characterization of Fox News as extreme. But it is not smart political strategy to turn down a TV megaphone into millions of potential voters households. Turning down a Fox News town hall is not on the same moral plane as refusing to attend a big-donor event or accept corporate PAC money. Ms. Warren is not going to change the tone at the right-leaning network by refusing the Fox invitation. Her job like that of all the Democratic candidates is to win the race against President Trump by making inroads among at least some of his supporters. Ms. Warrens authentic messaging, coupled with her ambitious progressive and meticulous policy proposals, would likely appeal to a significant portion of Fox viewers. She should reconsider her decision. Cody Lyon Brooklyn The upshot is that Harvard College appears to have ratified the proposition that it is inappropriate for a faculty dean to defend a person reviled by a substantial number of students a position that would disqualify a long list of stalwart defenders of civil liberties and civil rights, including Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall. Student opposition to Mr. Sullivan has hinged on the idea of safety that they would not feel safe confiding in Mr. Sullivan about matters having to do with sexual harassment or assault given his willingness to serve as a lawyer for Mr. Weinstein. Lets assume the good faith of such declarations (though some are likely mere parroting). Even still, they should not be accepted simply because they represent sincere beliefs or feelings. Suppose atheist students claimed that they did not feel safe confiding in a faculty dean who was an outspoken Christian or if conservative students claimed that they did not feel safe confiding in a faculty dean who was a prominent leftist. One would hope that university officials would say more than that they take seriously the concerns raised and fears expressed. One would hope that they would say that Harvard University defends broadly the right of people to express themselves aesthetically, ideologically, intellectually and professionally. One would hope that they would say that the acceptability of a faculty dean must rest upon the way in which he meets his duties, not on his personal beliefs or professional associations. One would hope, in short, that Harvard would seek to educate its students and not simply defer to vague apprehensions or pander to the imperatives of misguided rage. Now, of course, Harvard authorities are dredging up various supposed delinquencies on Mr. Sullivans part. An expose in The Harvard Crimson refers to allegations that he and his wife were highhanded in their dealings with the staff at Winthrop House. No one is perfect; perhaps there is something to these claims. But these dissatisfactions, if relevant at all, were not what provoked the student protests that led to Mr. Sullivans ouster. The central force animating the drama has been student anger at anyone daring to breach the wall of ostracism surrounding Mr. Weinstein, even for the limited purpose of extending him legal representation. They want to make him, a person still clothed with the presumption of innocence, more of an untouchable before trial than those who have been convicted of a crime. There was no publicized protest at Winthrop House when Mr. Sullivan successfully represented a convicted murderer, Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star, who was acquitted of a separate double murder before killing himself in prison. Harvard officials are certainly capable of withstanding student pressure. This time, though, they dont want to. Some high-ranking administrators have clearly been guided by an affinity for the belief that Mr. Sullivans representation of Mr. Weinstein constituted a betrayal of enlightened judgment. Others have simply been willing to be mau-maued. In March, when it seemed that the administration was getting ready to do what its now done, 52 members of the Harvard Law School faculty, myself included, signed a letter supporting Mr. Sullivans dedication to the professional tradition of providing representation to people accused to crimes and other misconduct, including those who are most reviled. We called upon Harvard to recognize that such legal advocacy in service of constitutional principles is not only fully consistent with Sullivans roles of law professor and dean of an undergraduate house, but also one of the many possible models that resident deans can provide in teaching, mentoring and advising students. The rejection of that advice has now led to an alarming impasse. Friends of academia should insist that Harvard answer the question: Why is serving as defense counsel for Harvey Weinstein inconsistent with serving as a faculty dean? Randall Kennedy is a law professor at Harvard. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Although it is widely believed that Asian-Americans tend to succeed at gaining admission to elite colleges and doing well there, that isnt a full picture. Asian-Americans outperform all other racial categories on college graduation rates, but only Chinese-Americans do so when it comes to employment. All other subgroups confront what researchers are now calling a bamboo ceiling. With regard to criminal justice administrative fees, why dont inmates work off their debt in prison? In fact, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, half of the countrys 2.3 million inmates do work, but they typically make either no money or pennies an hour, at least half of which is usually garnished. Prisoners most often do maintenance-related work cleaning, repairing, cooking where theyre serving their time. Some work in factory-like settings, producing items that are sold to government agencies; this small minority (6 percent) can make slightly more money. Some experts argue that prisons couldnt function without this cheap and, in some cases, unpaid labor. Angelique Evans, who figured in my second article, was paid 13 cents an hour in prison in California for cooking seven hours a day. She would get paid once a month, with 55 percent of her wages garnished. She told me, I had a kitchen staff that didnt mind if we took a little chicken back, so I would use that to sell to the other women inside the unit so I could buy bars of soap to clean myself. Readers were so moved by Ms. Evanss predicament she discovered when she was released that she owed s ubstantial fees to Los Angeles County that they created a Go Fund Me campaign to pay off her remaining debt. Wont people have less incentive to work if they are given a guaranteed income? There is disagreement about how guaranteed income at a large scale would affect large labor trends and local economies, but the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend is a pretty good indication. Oil reserve royalties amounting to $2,000 each year go to Alaskan residents; the program has been running for 25 years. Researchers have found that annual payment has had no real impact upon full-time employment levels, while part-time work increased by about 17 percent. Further, research shows that attaching benefits to conditions, like work, doesnt improve the lives of those it is intended to serve. A recent study in Britain of 339 people over five years found that work conditionality did not increase motivation to work. The author of the study, Prof. Peter Dwyer of the University of York, said, Our review reveals that in the majority of cases welfare conditionality doesnt work as intended and we have evidence it has increased poverty and pushed some people into survival crime. The mothers whom I interviewed in my third article had a range of professional aspirations, but none spoke about the cash payments they were receiving in the pilot program as de-motivating. Quite the opposite: Many spoke of investing the money in educational opportunities that they believed would increase their earning potential. One woman, Tia Cunningham, was able to fix her car with the cash, allowing her to be a more reliable employee. Unreliable transportation is a huge issue for people experiencing poverty. Most of his predecessors did nothing of the kind. They understood that the day belonged to the country, not its leader, and they didnt conflate the two. Trump does, all the time, and its alternately annoying, confounding and galling. If youre not thrilling to his vision and submitting to him, youre possibly guilty of treason remember that rant? If youre asking legitimate questions about unholy alliances that he may have forged or conflicts of interest he may possess, youre orchestrating a coup. Trumpian logic, more narcissistic than syllogistic, holds that if its the presidents job to lift up the country, then its the countrys job to lift up the president spiritually, financially, with appointments for his cronies and sycophants, with jobs for his kin, with applause and of course with parades. A parade: Thats how this whole impulse to convert the Fourth of July into the Fourth of Trump started, according to reporting by The Washington Post. In Paris, beside President Emmanuel Macron, Trump beheld a Bastille Day procession with all its military hardware, and he wanted the same in Washington, the same for him, tanks in the streets, fighter jets in the air. But that was too financially costly and politically risky, so now this: a tentative plan for a starring role amid the starbursts that less needy and more dignified presidents were content to marvel at, not exploit. For Trump, everything a national holiday, America itself is an opportunity for brand enhancement, another tall building on which to slap the letters of his name in gold. And his response to effacement is hyperbole and swagger: Hes like one of those animals that puffs itself up when predators come around, using illusory might to conceal intrinsic weakness. Is it any accident that in the middle of an escalating feud with congressional Democrats, as the more damning aspects of Robert Muellers report sank in and his namesake was served a subpoena by a Republican-led Senate committee, he played host to and praised a loathsome autocrat, Viktor Orban of Hungary; again flaunted his friendship with Vladimir Putin; toughened his talk about Iran; and ratcheted up his trade war with China? For Trump, vulnerability begets a pantomime of super-potency. I raised the question with Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard who wrote the book How Democracies Die with his government department colleague Daniel Ziblatt. Levitsky, responding to my emailed query, wrote: There may well be something to the claim that Trumps is a disjunctive presidency representing the end of the Reagan era. But to jump from there to the conclusion that he does not pose a serious threat to democratic institutions strikes me as facile. Such a claim too easily sets aside important contextual differences between this administration and those of other disjunctive presidents. Levitsky provided a long list of contemporary factors that distinguish the Trump presidency from the Hoover and Carter presidencies, including extreme partisan polarization along overlapping social/cultural/cleavages, the hardening of partisan identities and the rise of intense negative partisanship, the crystallization of white identities and the perception among some white voters of threat in the face of decades of immigration and steps toward racial equality; dramatically higher levels of income inequality and declining social mobility; the weakening of party elites gatekeeping capacity, reinforced by the introduction of party primaries, and, in the context of extreme polarization, the erosion of key democratic norms. Levitskys argument goes beyond the overarching political environment to Trumps character. Trump has shown himself, Levitsky continued, to be a more openly autocratic figure than any of the other disjunctive president I am aware of. So we have a president with authoritarian instincts in a context of extreme partisan polarization (such that Republicans line up behind Trump no matter what) and weakened norms. That strikes me as quite a bit different and more threatening than say, the Carter presidency. In addition, Trump must be viewed as the avatar not only of an American political phenomenon but a global one. Levitsky argues that the disjunctive presidency theory lacks any comparative or global perspective. There are changes occurring globally that have unleashed illiberal or populist right wing reactions across much of the industrialized West. Whether it is globalization, migration and ethnic diversification, technological change, or some combination thereof, at least some of the dynamics that are occurring in the US cannot be understood in a vacuum. It would therefore be silly to assume that the context in which we are operating in 2019 is easily comparable to those of 1924-28 or 1976-80. Ziblatt, Levitskys co-author, argued in an email that it is a highly risky proposition to take any comfort in a theoretical construct placing Trump as the endpoint of the Reagan era: It is very, very dangerous way to feel reassured and to write off the Trump presidency as the final, dying days of the Reagan era. There are certainly analogies to be drawn from earlier eras but it is only an analogy, not a law of history. Trump stands apart from past presidents in his willingness to capitalize on what Ziblatt identifies as an existential fear among voters in the face of broad demographic change: The huge demographic changes underway in the U.S. since the 1970s have prompted Republican existential fear about the future and an increasingly stiff resistance to democracy itself. Like Conservatives in Europe before 1914 or Southern Democrats in the 1890s, fear of the future means a greater willingness to play dirty and to block the emergence of any recuperative presidency. Theda Skocpol, professor of government and sociology at Harvard, sharply criticized the Skowronek-Balkin theory because it masks what she contends is a fundamentally different and dangerous moment in American politics: We are in a very extreme period in U.S. political history because of the radicalization of the GOP and the apparent willingness of virtually all of its officeholders, candidates, and big donors to go along with authoritarian and anti-democratic measures of many kinds, not just presidential power grabs but legislative and judicial steps to curtail voting and organizational rights of opponents, in essence rigging future electoral contests in a very minority rule direction. Skocpol warned of mechanistic over-optimism, writing that things will look very different if Trump is re-elected, as he may very well be. The current state of politics is no ordinary cyclical turn, she notes. I would rank this period as one of the most conflictual since the late 1960s and early 1930s and the one with the greatest potential for actual regime change since the Civil War. There are some political scientists who generally agree with the Skowronek theory of cyclical regime change but who raise concerns about how well Trump fits into that analytic structure. Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University, poses a basic question about attempts to place Trump within a repetitive historical context: We have both a president who is distinct in history and an era in political time that differs from previous ones in important structural ways. This combination points to the limits of history as a clear set of instructions for what might happen next. In an email, Azari wrote that the overall dynamics of party competition have changed in part because, for the first time in US history as far as I can tell, race and immigration are sorted between the two parties. In the case of Trump, Azari points out that Presidents who violate norms, especially those about the boundaries of their power, tend to be reconstructive presidents who reset the terms of debate and the expectations for the presidency FDR and Jackson are perhaps the clearest examples of this. Trump, in this context, is more like a reconstructive president than a disjunctive president: Trump has also changed the language and, I think to some degree altered the identity and agenda of the Republican Party and of the Democrats, who are responding to him. Trump has altered how we use political language we all use adapted Trumpisms all the time, like make X great again or a riff on build the wall." He looms large in politics and in culture. This is not a typical disjunctive trajectory. Azari was a student of Skowroneks at Yale and believes his cyclical theory of regime change remains incredibly useful for looking at politics. Both Azari and Skowronek acknowledge, however, that something that does not fit the theory of regime change may be taking place in American politics. Seeing the prison system for ourselves was nearly impossible; the government gave only occasional visas for tightly controlled visits. But in 2013, we got a partial glimpse. A businessman close to the Assads took me and my team to a security facility to meet prisoners he said were foreign jihadists who would prove to us that the uprising was driven not by a homegrown protest movement but by extremist Islamist terrorists. It was my most ethically compromising moment as a journalist. A line of prisoners, hunched over and handcuffed to one another, some limping beating the soles of the feet is a common torture method were led through a drab courtyard and, one by one, sat across from me in an office. Behind me was a portrait of the former president of Syria, Hafez al-Assad; flanking me were the jailers. My colleague, Hwaida Saad, and I told each prisoner that we were independent journalists, that they could tell us anything they wanted or nothing. But in reality there was no way they could safely speak freely or refuse. The prisoners turned out to be mostly Syrians. Several gave nearly identical, implausible accounts: They had no political views, but had been approached by a religious leader out of the blue, and had been given money and drugs in exchange for engaging in random violence. One of them did not stick to his lines. A walnut seller from a working-class suburb, he had protested, he said, for, like, freedom. What did that mean to him? He said he wanted to vote in a meaningful election. I worry to this day about what happened to him afterward. We left feeling physically shaken. Our minders mocked us for feeling sorry for them. We redoubled efforts to cover the story, as human rights groups steadily compiled data on dozens of torture facilities, tens of thousands of disappeared Syrians and thousands of executions of civilian oppositionists after sham trials. A defector, who went by the pseudonym Caesar, escaped with photographs of thousands of starved, bruised detainee corpses. But in 2014, the foreign jihadists of the Islamic State seized the spotlight. They enslaved and raped minority Yazidis and executed foreign journalists on camera actions designed and packaged for public consumption, calculated to terrify. Kris Moran, a Brooklyn-based film set decorator, lived in Asbury Park for several years in her youth and visits regularly. She and her family stay in a house she bought for a little less than $100,000 in 1997, four doors from her mother. She recalled the days when she had the beach to herself, but had to walk half a mile to find food. Now her 8-year-old son rakes in money at his lemonade stand on the boardwalk, and he has lots of competition from other vendors. In the 80s and 90s, when a restaurant opened, that would be a big deal, she said. What Youll Find Asbury Park is a city of 1.6 square miles, in Monmouth County, on New Jerseys central coast. Built as a resort in the late 1800s, it has frilly, peaked Victorian architecture, three small lakes and a boardwalk nearly a mile long. Image 705 SUNSET AVENUE | A seven-bedroom, two-bathroom house built in 1908 on 0.17 acres, across from Sunset Park in northeast Asbury Park, listed for $1.15 million. 732-890-0598 Credit... James Estrin/The New York Times The city is split into quadrants divided by north-south Memorial Drive (or the railroad tracks alongside it) and east-west Asbury Avenue. The northeast quadrant has the waterfront and much of the desirable housing, including vintage, single-family houses (many made whole after being subdivided into rentals), condo developments and townhouses like Vive, a six-year-old iStar project with 28 units that started at $390,000 and now sell for more than $1 million. In this quadrant, youll find the 1920s Convention Hall and Paramount Theatre with its connecting arcade; the 45-year-old Stone Pony music club that stoked the careers of Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi; the spiffed-up Wonder Bar, emblazoned with the face of Tillie, a grinning fun-house figure that is effectively the citys logo; and the vacant Beaux-Arts Casino Arena and Carousel House, which attract artists, skateboarders and wedding parties seeking photo ops. Southeast is the main business district, concentrated along Cookman Avenue. Among the pioneers of the latest commercial wave are the Showroom Cinema, an art-film house; Words!, an independent bookstore; and Hot Sand, a glassblowing studio. Condos have been developed above many ground-level retail spaces. Image 510 MONROE AVENUE, UNIT 102 | A two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in a 2007 building in southeast Asbury Park, listed for $499,900, with a $537 monthly association fee. 732-682-0064 Credit... James Estrin/The New York Times The west side is dominated by the black and Latino communities that make up 47 percent and 30 percent of Asbury Parks population, according to 2017 American Community Survey data. In 1970, riots erupted there in response to racial discrimination, hastening the citys tailspin. Now multifamily buildings are attracting investors, and new businesses are emerging on Springwood Avenue, in the southwest. In March, Boston Way Village, an affordable-housing complex with 104 units, became the first major residential development to open in the area in half a century. The Quandary of Myanmar: Will Starving the Country of Visitors Make Things Better? The nations natural beauty has for the last two centuries been at odds with a brutal history and violent present. May 15, 2019 THE GOLDEN LIGHT will seduce you. As the sun rises over the plains of the ancient city of Bagan, it bathes the more than 2,000 temples that punctuate the landscape in an otherworldly stillness. The ghosts of the kingdom that once existed here between the ninth and 13th centuries are more visible in these moments; the cares of the present can be shed with greater ease. There is a lot of gold in Myanmar: It shimmers on the skin of the diamond-topped Shwedagon Pagoda, one of the countrys oldest and most sacred Buddhist temples, in Yangon; it shines from the countless statues of the Buddha and the ancient relics housed in glass cases. But the sunrise over the Bagan plains is the most beguiling gold of all. Dawn in Myanmar is a reminder of the humility required to contemplate the present, an evocation of the glory of the past. Offered in those fleeting moments is an answer to why the worlds travelers still heed Myanmars siren song. Recent history has been unkind to Myanmar. Burma, as it was officially known until three decades ago, was colonized by the British in stages, the result of three different wars over a period of 60 years. By the time the British sailed up the Irrawaddy River to annex the remaining territories of the country in November 1885, things were looking bleak for the empire. A political impasse over home rule for Ireland was leading the economy into a recession. Meanwhile, in India, the Indian National Congress was being formed with the goal of sending the British packing. PARIS The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would not sign an international accord intended to pressure the largest internet platforms to eradicate violent and extremist content, highlighting a broader divide between the United States and other countries over governments role in determining what content is acceptable online. Citing free speech protections, the administration said in a statement that the United States is not currently in a position to join the endorsement. It added that the best tool to defeat terrorist speech is productive speech. The statement coincided with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand meeting in Paris to sign what they have labeled the Christchurch Call. The agreement was crafted after a terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March that left 51 Muslim worshipers dead. The massacre was live streamed on Facebook, and spread virally over the internet. [Get the Bits newsletter for the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry.] Ms. Ardern has used the Christchurch killings to rally support for increased vigilance toward keeping violent and extremist content off the worlds largest internet platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have vowed to monitor their services more aggressively for material that encourages and facilitates violence. SAN FRANCISCO As San Franciscos Board of Supervisors prepared to vote Tuesday on an ordinance forbidding city agencies to use facial recognition technology, some proponents of the measure were uncertain if they had the necessary support. Two of the legislators who were for it had called in sick. But Brian Hofer, a paralegal who had drafted the ordinance, seemed unfazed. Sitting in the back of a chamber in City Hall, he wrote and rewrote a draft of a post for Twitter in which he would proclaim victory after the ban passed. Mr. Hofer, 41, had reason to feel confident. Over the past five years, he has drafted 26 privacy laws for cities and counties in California. All were approved, 23 unanimously. And he had seen enough of the machinations of decision-making to be certain that this one would go through. [Facial recognition technology has stoked controversy over the years. Heres a look back.] Hes just omnipresent and very effective, said Lee Hepner, a legislative aide to Aaron Peskin, the city supervisor who sponsored the facial recognition ban. Hes great at bringing down the volume and making it a level-headed conversation. Ben Brantley, in his New York Times review, compared the Murdoch character to Mephistopheles. As drawn with Dickensian relish by Bertie Carvel, this Murdoch is indeed a man of wealth and taste, with a surprising touch of the prig, Mr. Brantley wrote. And by artfully tapping into the most primal instincts of those he would have do his bidding, Mr. Carvels Murdoch is someone to whom it is all but impossible to say no. Through a spokesman, Mr. Murdoch declined to comment. The plays spokeswoman said that, when Mr. Murdoch drew close to the set pieces onstage, he marveled at how similar the newsroom desks looked to the ones they worked at in the 1960s. This was Mr. Murdochs first time at Ink on Broadway, though he had seen it in London, the spokeswoman said. The play may be set in the past, but it foreshadows the present era in which one man controls Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. The Sun remains powerful in Britain, where it is thought to have influenced the countrys vote to leave the European Union. A crescendo of barks greeted a vehicle that recently pulled up to the Montego Bay Animal Haven in Jamaica. Penned dogs 147 of them were tipped off it was time for their morning walk. They leapt at the chain link fence, tails wagging, then surged in joyous waves through a gate. Dog-loving visitors, in expendable clothing, climbed out of the van to welcome the onslaught with laughter, no fear. Hiking with the Hooligans began as a tourist activity in January, a raucous way to enjoy Jamaicas hilly countryside flush with ackee, guava, mango and papaya trees. There are no sea views from this inland sanctuary; the dogs grab all the attention. The hourlong hike is rugged, not a day at the beach, so wearing flip-flops would be a mistake. Tammy Browne, the havens founder, was inspired after visiting Territorio de Zaguates (Land of the Strays) in Costa Rica last year, a no-kill sanctuary with hundreds of dogs roaming the land (it is currently closed to the public). Since Ms. Brownes 17-acre property in Jamaica is enclosed, the dogs are unleashed for the hike. The panting pack sociably trots together, the shelters guides breaking up the occasional disagreement. Charlie Brown had three legs. Albus was missing an eye and part of his tail. Stallones head was furrowed with scars; his street-wise gravitas commanded respect from the other dogs. To the untrained eye, those lacking distinctive features looked pretty much alike, but Ms. Browne knew all their names. She had rescued them from the streets or abusive owners and nursed them back to health. They are spayed and have the relevant vaccines. The last time the Trans World Airlines terminal at Kennedy International Airport saw a weary traveler was 2001, when the beleaguered airline ended operations and the Eero Saarinen-designed, national-landmarked flight center was closed to passenger service. On Wednesday, those weary travelers will finally get some rest, with the terminal reopened and transformed into the lobby of the new TWA Hotel. Although attached to Terminal 5, JetBlues home at the airport, airplanes will no longer pull up to the terminals twin corridors that once led to gates at the back of the soaring building. Those passageways now lead to the hotel rooms (512 of them, starting at $249 a night). [Read more about the renovation project.] There is an airplane on the property though. A decommissioned TWA Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft, once used as a South American drug-transport plane, is now parked as a cocktail lounge behind the former terminal. And for those readers wondering about all that noise from jetliners landing, taxiing and departing from J.F.K., it wasnt that bad. The planes moving around on the active runways and taxiways sounded more muted than they normally do flying overhead. Inside, the jet engines were no more bothersome than a garbage truck you might hear outside the window of a Midtown Manhattan apartment. Many white-collar jobs also prioritize time in the office. At BDO, the accounting firm, its especially true during tax season, when people work long hours with intense deadlines. So the company started busy-season breaks short periods when employees can leave work and not check their phones. Theyve taken children to the zoo or gone for a hike. We felt very strongly that its during the busiest time of year when day-to-day flex is most important, said Marcee Harris Schwartz, the national director for diversity and inclusion. When youre working all the time is when you make mistakes or burn out or decide youre leaving accounting forever. BDO also has go dark weekends, when people dont log in to their work accounts for a weekend and assign a colleague to handle emergencies. Most professional services jobs require individual workers to be responsive to clients around the clock, but Ms. Schwartz said BDO had learned that there were multiple advantages when clients relied on a team instead. A big part of making flexibility work is convincing people they can use it. That didnt happen at Credigy, the finance firm, until it put in a formal set of benefits, with the help of Werk, and senior executives started using them, said Kim Williams, the senior director of employee experience. What weve encouraged is that you dont need to justify the ask, she said. Its not taboo anymore. The biggest use of the benefit has been for caregiving, but people have also used it for volunteering, exercising or taking classes. Working mothers maybe had a louder voice for a long time, out of necessity, but we fully believed its an important issue not just for women and caregivers, but for everybody, Ms. Williams said. Alabamas governor on Wednesday signed into law a measure to ban most abortions in the state. But the Legislatures approval and the governors signature did not immediately outlaw the procedure, and it is far from clear when, or even if, the measure will ultimately take effect. Heres a guide to what happened, and what is likely to happen next. What did Alabama do? The bill that the Republican-controlled Legislature overwhelmingly passed sought to prohibit abortions at every stage of pregnancy. It includes an exception for cases where a womans health is at serious risk, but lawmakers rejected a proposal to add exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Women who have abortions will not be prosecuted under the measure, but, if the courts allow the law to stand, doctors could be charged with a felony and face up to 99 years in prison for performing the procedure. [Several states have moved to curtail abortion but Alabamas measure goes farther.] The bill was signed, and a countdown begins. A Senate vote on Tuesday night moved the proposal to Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, who signed the legislation on Wednesday afternoon. The Harvard Lampoon apologized this week for publishing a sexualized image of Anne Frank that depicted her face on the body of a bikini-clad woman. The offensive image, which appeared in Sundays edition, was accompanied by the headline, Gone Before Her Time: Virtual Aging Technology Shows Us What Anne Frank Would Have Looked Like if She Hadnt Died. Text below it read, Add this to your list of reasons the Holocaust sucked. It immediately set off an uproar on Harvards campus, with students and faculty members demanding accountability at The Lampoon, an independent satirical publication run by students. Established in 1876, the magazine has been the training ground for some of Americas most respected comedians and inspired the national humor magazine National Lampoon. A Change.org petition calling for individual apologies from those responsible, a public report on what happened and other steps to overhaul decision-making at the magazine had gathered more than 350 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon. DAVENPORT, Iowa The Mississippi River, which gushed into downtown Davenport at record levels two weeks ago, has finally retreated toward its banks. Left behind: A truck-size hole in the temporary flood barrier, dead fish on mud-caked Pershing Avenue, and an urgent conversation about how to shield the city from the next flood. As Mayor Frank Klipsch of Davenport starts that conversation a wide-ranging discussion of upstream levee heights, riverfront development and whether the city should install permanent flood protection there is one topic he sees little benefit in raising: human-caused climate change. We know theres something going on, so how do we come together and deal with that? said Mr. Klipsch, a two-term mayor who said taking a stance on climate change could be divisive. Lets not try to label it. Lets not try to politicize it. Its just a matter of something is changing. Across the Midwest this spring, floods have submerged farms and stores, split open levees and, in some places, left people stranded for days or weeks. The disasters have renewed national attention on how climate change can exacerbate flooding and how cities can prepare for a future with more extreme weather. But in some of the hardest-hit areas, where bolstering flood protection and helping the displaced are popular bipartisan causes, there is little appetite for bringing climate change and the political baggage it carries into the discussion. MemorialCare Miller Children's & Women's Hospital, in Long Beach, continued a years-long tradition this week of wrapping infants born on or right before Christmas in red stockings. The abortion fight comes at a time when the women running for president are already grappling with fears among some Democrats that nominating a woman is too risky in 2020, given the imperative of beating President Trump. In interviews with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, several pointed to the widespread recognition that women in politics are held to double standards compared with men on perceived characteristics like likability and toughness. Others are haunted by the Electoral College loss of Hillary Clinton, who has said she believes that sexism and misogyny contributed to the outcome. Often, Democrats argue for a woman on the ticket as vice president. Because of how bad it is right now I dont think the country is ready to put a woman at the top of the ticket, said Dee Jones, 72, a retired teacher from Deerfield, N.H. But a vice president thats a woman would be a nice change. With the constitutional right to end a pregnancy at stake, the female candidates, including Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, saw an opportunity to cast themselves as champions of female voters, who intimately understand their fears of a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Ms. Gillibrand of New York announced that she would travel to Atlanta on Thursday to hold a round table with women at the Georgia State House. Right now, the conversation about what women can do with our own bodies is being driven by too many male politicians, she said. It should be led by the actual experts: women and doctors. So Im going to hear from the people most directly affected by abortion bans like Georgias. Then there was the matter of climate change. Mr. Biden repeatedly cited his initial legislative push on that issue from more than three decades ago. His goal was to highlight his long record of championing the environment, a critical issue to Democratic voters at a moment when Mr. Biden finds himself under fire from the left over how bold he is willing to be on climate. But the frequent references to remarks he made in 1987 Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., a presidential opponent, was 5 years old that year offered reminders of the stark generational divide in the sprawling Democratic field. I like him very much; certainly he has the most experience. I worry about his age, said Susan Larkin, 64, as she waited to get into a pizza restaurant in the coastal town of Hampton on Monday, where Mr. Biden held his first event. Ms. Larkin said she was also interested in Mr. Buttigieg: I saw what the presidency did to a young man like Obama. I would say thats my biggest reservation. Mr. Biden has repeatedly said that it is fair to question his age, and he told the local outlet WMUR that he was planning to release his medical records before the general election. But the main thing I can say is just watch me and determine if I have the energy, and determine whether all the things Ive gone through in my life in terms of being a senator and the vice president gave me some insight and wisdom that maybe comes with age, he said in that interview. Many voters at his events, which tended to draw older crowds, were willing to use those measures. [Check out our tracker of the 2020 Democratic candidate field.] It was a concern maybe in the past, but now Ive seen him, I see how energetic he is, said Chris Norregaard, 64, who had come to the Nashua event from over the border in Massachusetts, a state set to vote on Super Tuesday, three weeks after the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 11, 2020. It was sold as a next generation aircraft. But it has now been involved in two fatal crashes in just five months. The Boeing 737 Max 8 entered the market in 2017, a part of the 737 Max class, and became an instant hit. Within the first six months, more than 4,000 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes had been ordered. It quickly became the companys best-selling plane ever. The new model was advertised as a rare win-win for both airlines and passengers. Its going to give them max efficiency, which leads to profitability; max reliability, and to the flying public: max passenger appeal. The demand for something new. Boeing debuted the new planes in response to market pressures. In late 2010, Boeings archrival, Airbus, had just announced a new fuel-efficient version of its best selling A320. Boeing countered with the introduction of the 737 Max The Max uses 14 percent less fuel than current 737s its own version of fuel- and cost- efficient aircrafts. Their message to customers was: These are new planes that arent that new. Boeing 737 Newest arrival in the Boeing family of airliners, the 737 attracts a crowd. Boeings first 737 model took off in 1967. A new queen of the sky. For the Max class, Boeing upgraded the engine and design. They added more cabin space, bigger windows and multicolored ceiling lights to help modernize the planes. But the company kept the 737 name because it evoked a legacy of reliability and built trust. Ill tell you what, its just a beautiful, beautiful airplane. Not only were they able to modernize the airplane with new engines, and new winglets, but they were able to keep that classic iconic 737 look. But that isnt the whole story. The new model was also designed to help carriers save money. Which means CEOs like the Max. Really like the Max. Major changes to the plane would have required pilots to be retrained. But Boeings position was that the new models handled enough like the old ones. Though the 737 Max 8 planes did actually have a number of changes, including the size and location of the engines. The higher and more forward position of the larger engines can cause the planes nose to pitch up, a potential danger. To compensate for this, Boeing added a computerized system called MCAS to prevent the planes nose from getting too high and causing a stall. But the F.A.A. initially said pilots did not need to be informed of this system update. Experts say that the lack of training for the new system may have helped cause a deadly crash with a Max 8 off the coast of Indonesia in October, killing 189 people. All of the Boeing 737 Max 8s in the world are believed to have been grounded, while a second crash in Ethiopia is investigated. Boeing said it supported the decision to ground the planes and is cooperating with investigators. The decision was due by Friday, but the tariffs have provoked fierce opposition among industry leaders and in Congress. In addition, the White House is now engaged in preliminary trade talks with the European Union and with Japan, and auto tariffs would throw a bomb into those negotiations. Pleased that @POTUS has delayed decision on auto tariffs, Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, tweeted Wednesday in response to media reports that the levies would not be imposed. Auto tariffs would have opened another front to Mr. Trumps trade war, but one with much smaller potential benefits and larger political liabilities. Auto industry executives on both sides of the Atlantic are opposed to tariffs, and the duties would have inflicted collateral damage on some of his most loyal voters in states like Alabama and South Carolina, which are home to big Mercedes-Benz and BMW factories. Our biggest market is Germany, said Jeppe Kofod, a member of the European Parliament from Denmark. The mere fact that Germany is hurt we would be very much affected by that. The 25 percent tariff on steel and the 10 percent tariff on aluminum that the Trump administration imposed last year have had a more muted economic effect, but they have done much to rattle alliances. Mexico and Canada, both of which retaliated with tariffs of their own, have previously appeared to be close to an agreement. But Mr. Trump has been hesitant to relent over his desire to protect Americas steel and aluminum sectors and his belief that the tariffs might be used as further leverage. The United States and Canada sent mixed signals Wednesday about the future of the steel and aluminum tariffs. The Canadian foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, declined to say whether the countries had struck a deal to lift those tariffs after meetings with lawmakers and Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, in Washington on Wednesday. The world watched in December as a 72-year-old funeral director pushed the coffin of President George Bush into a polished Cadillac hearse in Houston. He had done the same before at services for Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Ronald Reagan, the first ladies Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan, and many other well-known figures. He is Robert M. Boetticher Sr., the chief executive of a boutique death services firm that contracts with the federal government for state funerals. For almost two decades, Mr. Boetticher has been privy to perhaps the most intimate, and delicate, conversations around a commander in chiefs death. The planning begins almost as soon as a president is elected. It doesnt matter if its the first family or if its the barber down the street, they all react the same, Mr. Boetticher said in an interview earlier this year. They just lost somebody that they loved. You are the person that they trust, that they look up to, to help them through it. INDIANAPOLIS Richard G. Lugar, a six-term senator from Indiana known for expertise in international affairs and a voice incapable of a shout or a slur, was remembered on Wednesday for qualities that are rarely seen in todays Washington: thoughtful deliberation, willing compromise and relentless civility. In a service that had many of the trappings of a state funeral attended by Vice President Mike Pence, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and more than half a dozen senators and other officials Mr. Lugars life was celebrated for traits often associated with presidents. Mr. Lugar died last month at 87. Mr. Pence called him a true American statesman who will be remembered among a discrete pantheon of senators who commanded the respect of his peers in both parties and exercised enormous influence in foreign affairs. As the tributes flowed, the contrast between the life of Mr. Lugar and the fractious realities of the era of President Trump was yawning. Mr. Pences single mention of the president, whose approach to foreign affairs was the polar opposite of Mr. Lugars, was the only time his name was spoken. WASHINGTON The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was shrouded in secrecy. But details are seeping out now that the investigation is over, and more were revealed on Tuesday in dozens of pages of calendars and a few text messages from one of Mr. Muellers top prosecutors, Andrew Weissmann. The conservative group Judicial Watch, which has sought to undermine the inquiry, obtained the calendars through the Freedom of Information Act and released them, claiming the calendars show how Mr. Weissmann was determined to build a team of Democrats to investigate Mr. Trump. There is no evidence of that. But the calendars do offer a look at the prosecutors daily lives in one of the most high-profile federal investigations in American history. [Read the calendars here.] Assembling the team Mr. Mueller had to hire quickly, and he delegated the responsibility to Mr. Weissmann, one of his earliest and most senior hires. Some candidates were interviewed by phone, according to Mr. Weissmanns schedules, and some traveled to Washington to meet with him and another of Mr. Muellers senior deputies, Jeannie Rhee. On the calendars, only the names of some prosecutors hired are shown: Andrew D. Goldstein, Lawrence Atkinson, Kyle Freeny and Greg D. Andres. As the team took shape, the office held a meet-and-greet. [Meet the special counsels prosecutors] Theres a lot of talk that the new Supreme Court, one with two Trump justices on it, might overturn Roe v. Wade. So the court cant just wake up one morning and say, were overruling Roe v. Wade. I think supporters of abortion rights are right to be nervous, but theyre maybe not exactly right about how to be nervous, what to be nervous about. Its a shorthand, sure, to say Roe v. Wade can be overruled, but thats not the only, or even the most likely, outcome. Let me take you through the possible scenarios. Lets call the first category the nuclear options. These are the most extreme and, therefore, least likely scenarios. The first one would flip Roe on its head. Roe says theres a constitutional right to abortion. The court could say the Constitution prohibits abortion in the interest of protecting fetal life. That would suggest that fetal life is like any other life, so that taking it away would be murder. So if the court were to go in that very unlikely direction, abortion would be outlawed across the nation, and women could not get abortions in the United States legally. A second nuclear option would be for the court to do away with the right to privacy established in a case called Griswold in 1965. The individual is entitled to some private sector. That right to privacy is the foundation for Roe v. Wade. If the right to privacy goes, it would do away with the basis for Roe v. Wade and, therefore, Roe v. Wade itself and flip the issue back to the states and allow states to regulate abortion as they wish. The right to privacy has been, and could be, the foundation of many rights, so I dont think its likely the court will go after the right to privacy. A second possibility, and the one everyones talking about, is the court could overrule Roe v. Wade. Protesters: Ho, ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho. So in a post-Roe world, you still have a right to privacy. But that right to privacy does not include a constitutional right to abortion. States would be free to do what they wanted. And some advocacy groups say perhaps 22 states could make abortion illegal entirely. Thats probably not going to happen anytime soon. Protesters: Hey, hey, Roe v. Wade is here to stay. Chief Justice John Roberts is an incrementalist. He takes things step by step, and I dont think his first impulse is going to be, lets overrule Roe v. Wade when there are other ways to get from here to most of the way there. The last scenario, and the most likely one, is for the court to chip away at Roe v. Wade. The court has already upheld some restrictions on abortion. The 5 to 4 majority upheld a ban on performing abortions in public facilities. The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the nationwide ban on partial-birth abortion. Medication abortion is now effectively blocked in Arkansas. Much more severe restrictions on abortion rights are a perfectly imaginable scenario when we have a new Supreme Court. Heres how that could happen. States cannot impose an undue burden on womens right to abortion. Thats a fairly malleable standard, and it wouldnt be hard for the Supreme Court to keep it in place, but interpret it slightly differently and say states can impose such restrictions. A couple of years ago, the court heard a case from Texas. And had the court sustained the Texas law, the number of clinics in Texas would have dropped from about 40 to about 10. And that could rapidly diminish the ability of women to get abortions because the nearest abortion clinic, at a minimum, could be hundreds of miles away. Its a little hard to answer exactly what life will look like in a given state because well have a patchwork of laws. But whats for sure is that women in red states, and particularly poor women in red states, will have a much harder time getting abortions as each successive abortion restriction is sustained by a court that now has a solidly conservative majority. WASHINGTON The State Department ordered a partial evacuation of the United States Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, responding to what the Trump administration said was a threat linked to Iran, one that has led to an accelerated movement of American ships and bombers into the Persian Gulf. The department ordered nonemergency U.S. government employees, at both the embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil, to leave the country. The order applies primarily to full-time diplomats posted to Iraq by State Department headquarters in Washington, and an embassy statement said that visa services in Iraq would be suspended as a result. Contractors who provide security, food and other such services will remain in place for now. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that the administration had received intelligence related to Iranian activity that put American facilities and service personnel at substantial risk. Other American officials have said the same piece of intelligence points to potential attacks by Shiite Arab militias tied to Iran against American troops in Iraq or Syria. The State Department already had been discussing big cuts to the ranks of employees in the Baghdad and Kabul embassies as part of trying to wind down American involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American officials said. Mayor Candidacy waived : Hillevi Burmester resigns in Bad Godesberg Bad Godesberg Hillevi Burmester will not run for district mayor on Wednesday. The SPD politician will also resign from her current office as deputy district mayor and will leave the district council in June. The SPD now wants to postpone the election. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Who will represent Bad Godesberg as district mayor in the future? An answer to this question could actually be found at the meeting of the district council this Wednesday. Whether this will happen is uncertain. If the SPD is able to do so, the new election will be postponed. The reason: They want to use the time, in order to agree on common content emphasis and initiatives, said Hillevi Burmester, deputy district mayor, on GA inquiry. Burmester herself will not stand for election, even if she has not made the decision easily. "I very much regret that I cannot run," said Burmester. But if you want to fill the office properly, you can't work elsewhere full time, she says. In addition, it could be that she gets intoaconflict of interest through her profession as an architect. But Burmester, who enjoys great support in the district council (the GA reported), even goes one step further. Not only does she not run for the highest office in the district. She will also resign as deputy district mayor and resign from the district council - but not immediately, but only at the next meeting of the committee on June 19. If the motion for adjournment does not find a majority, the Social Democrats will instead send Lutz Beine into the race for the district mayor's post. He will then compete against Christoph Jansen (CDU), who announced his candidacy at the beginning of May - shortly after Simone Stein-Lucke's decision to resign as district mayor. "With Lutz Beine we have a candidate with a lot of experience", says Burmester. He has been living in Bad Godesberg for almost 40 years, is firmly anchored in associations and in his living environment. Since he is retiring in autumn, he brings a lot of time "for this responsible and extensive task. "I have a lot of time to do the job for a year like Hillevi Burmester did as a deputy," said Beine, who also pointed out that he would not be running in the next local elections. In February he turned 65, so it was time to let younger people take the helm. The CDU will in any case oppose the postponement. "It would not help the district if we postponed the election," Jansen said. The Godesbergers also expected a decision to be made on Wednesday evening. And: "The initial situation will not change". Ralf Jochen Ehresmann (Linke) also said that there was no good reason for postponement. "I don't know what new findings should be achieved in the adjournment period." Who he will give his voteto? He does not know yet. "It will be the one with the better arguments." The FDP is also against adjournment. Wolfgang Heedt (FDP) said that his party had expressed confidence in Burmester. Now the parties have reached an agreement with Christoph Jansen. The Greens are uncertain whether they will agree to the postponement, said Monika Heinzel. But one thing is certain: Nicole Unterseh could imagine running for deputy district mayor. If there are good reasons, "we will not close our eyes to an adjournment," said Marcel Schmitt (Burger Bund Bonn). However, the question arises as to who might be eligible for the post. "We did not come across any personalities that would force themselves upon us. Interviews, calls constant since about 10:00 this morning. Its been all day long. Three different BBCs called. I asked em, I said, dont you guys work together? They said, well, we do, but theres bunches of us. So, I did three different Skype interviews with BBC all different people. Its about this bill, so Yeah, its been an unusual day. I hope tomorrow well, no, tomorrow is going to be some more of this, I understand. We do. It sounds like youre having a bit of a day there. Well, I know, we know each other now. Good, good, good. Just to start with, should I address you as Mr. Johnston, or should I address you as Eric? What do you prefer? So, Im going to play you part of this interview I did yesterday with this lawyer from Alabama. Today, Alabama has adopted a law that would criminalize nearly all abortions and make the penalty for providing one up to 99 years in prison. Why the man who wrote the law knew it was unconstitutional and did it anyway. Which reaffirmed Roe. And then we changed our whole approach to how we would deal with the issue. Legislation. And what we did in 1990 and 91 is we were bringing legislation in the Alabama legislature which would have addressed Roe v. Wade. Those bills did not pass, but it was actually in 1992 that Planned Parenthood v. Casey was decided. The way the system works in Alabama and all states are somewhat different, but probably similar in a lot of ways there is a bill writing service for the legislature. In effect, they serve as the legislatures lawyer. Legislative Reference Service, it was called then, was very open to taking And what do you mean when you say work with the legislature? Well, in 1990 was when I began working with the legislature and have worked with the legislature every year after that. So, it sounds like once this does become a hot issue after the 1980s, conservatives like Johnston see a path to potentially overturning Roe v. Wade with some kind of challenge. So, what many constitutional scholars will tell you is that this is a case that rests on slightly legal shaky ground because the way the court ruled in Roe, they based it on this idea that there was a constitutional right to privacy. That it wasnt about equality, it wasnt about equal rights, it was really about privacy. But the problem with that was that there wasnt a direct and explicit right spelled out in the Constitution for privacy. Essentially, they were interpreting based on a reading of the Constitution, and that left an opening for conservatives who argued that, look, this doesnt really hold water legally. What does he mean here when he talks about the constitutional deficiencies of Roe v. Wade? After several years of practice, when I became more accustomed to what I was doing, I focused on the abortion issue, and I realized that was a pretty significant case. I became interested in it at that time, and it was partially because I believe that life God ordained life, and life begins in the womb. Scripture talks about that. But, as a lawyer, I was reading cases and I was seeing the constitutional deficiencies of Roe and realizing that it was a mistake. Right. And that timeline lines up with what Johnston told us. So, it really wasnt in the beginning. You had various Catholic groups that were very much opposed to abortion, but that was not mainstream. You didnt hear any really organized opposition to this big change. The opposition grew slowly over time, and it started, really, with a group of conservative thinkers who realized that abortion was the way that they could bring evangelicals into the electorate. So, they sold this vision to Ronald Reagan, he believed it, he ran with it. And by the 1980s, you had abortion as this big political issue. Johnston says he had just started practicing law when Roe was decided. In fact, he was admitted to the bar the exact same year 1973 that the case was ruled. So, why would that have not been a big deal to a conservative lawyer in Alabama? Abortion was not Roe v. Wade was decided in 73, and I was just begun practicing law. And, initially, there was not a lot of impact by the Roe decision. It was not really any thing that was talked about very much. Right, which is why we wanted to talk to him. But I wanted to get your take on this conversation we had, given how closely youve been covering whats going on at the state level across the United States when it comes to abortion rights. Yes. He is the lawyer at the center of the Alabama abortion bill. Hes right in the middle of it. Its a really big week for him. So, Sabrina, yesterday I talked to this lawyer in Alabama, Eric Johnston. Im sure by this point you know he is. sabrina tavernise So, this was a really big case for someone like Johnston. Because what happened was everybody expected that this would mean the end of Roe. That was the expectation going into Casey, but the court really surprised everyone. The court said, no, Roe is firm abortion is legal in the United States. But it brought in a caveat states can regulate up to viability generally around 24 weeks, so, until a baby is viable outside the womb as long as they do not place an undue burden on the woman in doing so. So, what happened was this opens the door for state legislatures around the country to basically become legally very inventive in how to regulate this thing. They want to regulate it. michael barbaro And tell me what you mean by inventive. What can they suddenly regulate? sabrina tavernise So, for example, one popular method was to say, O.K., youre an abortion clinic, but we think probably youre unsafe as an abortion clinic, so you need to have very special doorways, hallways, you need to be built like a hospital. You need to have a doctor whos on call at all time who has admitting privileges in a local hospital. And if you dont have those things, then you cant keep operating as a clinic in our state. And that started to really change the picture for abortion access in the United States. michael barbaro Because its going to make it harder to run an abortion clinic. sabrina tavernise Thats right. And that started in 1992 after Casey. michael barbaro And what was your change in approach? eric johnston Well, we would go from writing bills that would seek to reverse Roe to writing bills that would regulate the abortion procedure process to reduce the number of abortions. michael barbaro So, during this time, you give up on the idea that you can overturn Roe v. Wade and I just dont understand why. What made you decide that that wasnt something worth trying to do? eric johnston Well, after Casey was decided, knowing the makeup of the Supreme Court and reading the Casey opinion, it was obvious to lawyers who were involved at that time that there was not a foreseeable case or opportunity for Roe to be reversed. It wouldnt do any good just to go and pass laws that would say, abortion is illegal, because the U.S. Supreme Court would strike those laws down. It would be a waste of time. sabrina tavernise This begins the era of, lets chip away just little bits, little bits. We can take little bites out of it. So, you think viability is 24 weeks? What about 20? Were going to regulate it at 20 and see how that goes. eric johnston That did not change until last year. michael barbaro And what happened last year that made that change? eric johnston Well, there were the prospects of new justices on the U.S. Supreme Court Gorsuch and then Kavanaugh. There was a Justice Department who was more favorable to the sanctity of life. Now, it looks like this may be the time to do it. And, of course, I have no crystal ball. I dont know that its the time to do it. But if you look around, Im not the only one thinking this or the Alabama Pro-life Coalition is not the only one. sabrina tavernise When Kavanaugh was confirmed, there was one thing in my mind, which was, this is going to be a huge fight. michael barbaro What do you mean? sabrina tavernise You know, this was the first time a serious challenge to Roe would be possible. michael barbaro Because of the math. sabrina tavernise Mr. Rogatinsky, a 49-year-old lawyer in Fort Lauderdale and a registered Democrat, said he was not motivated by politics, though he voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. He said his intent was to express sincere appreciation for the presidents attention to the broad swath of the Panhandle affected by the hurricane and still awaiting the emergency relief funding that has been tied up in a political fight in Congress for seven months. The rally was so popular, and I saw that so many people were into it, so we said, Lets bring more attention to the area, Mr. Rogatinsky said. Its like the forgotten Panhandle. Two days after the presidents rally, Mr. Rogatinskys three stations WASJ (adult contemporary), WKNK (country) and WRBA (classic rock) began inserting snippets ranging from 90 seconds to two minutes of Mr. Trumps rally speech into their hourly programming, without introduction or explanation and separate from commercial ads. Listeners phoned into the stations, mostly with words of praise, Mr. Rogatinsky said. He said his staff was searching for clips from other presidential speeches relevant to the region to feature in the future. With 538 days until the election, and assuming the stations broadcast the bits of Mr. Trumps speeches every hour, the time on the airwaves could amount to more than 25,000 minutes. That is equivalent to 430 hours, or nearly 18 days. Not everyone shared Mr. Rogatinskys enthusiasm. I dont think that him being on the radio for two minutes every hour is going to make an impact on the fact that weve had seven months of empty promises from him to help us here in the Panhandle, said Winnie Byrd, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Bay County. We still have people in tents, or in cars, living. Weve got no federal aid. Even with this unflinching focus on the harsh realities of todays medical system, pitches in the writers room often begin with this question: Is there a world where? What freedom! Maybe there is a world where I used the hospital care packages to help a patient or solve a diagnostic dilemma. So too could there be a world where my patients daughter raced through the airport and made it onto the last flight to land in Boston before they closed the runways. Maybe she was able to give her father a final hug and say goodbye after all. There is a world where all of this is possible. A few weeks before I flew to Los Angeles to dream of that world, I found myself part of a real-world conversation about which of two patients should be placed on a machine called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO. The machine works as an artificial lung, circulating blood outside the body, and it is increasingly used to help patients whose lungs are so damaged that the ventilator is not enough to support them. We have a handful of such machines in our hospital and all but one was in use. On that night, two patients could potentially benefit. Who would get the machine? Turned out the writers liked this idea. As they built the stories and as I offered my opinion on medical details and dialogue, I continued to follow my actual patients in the online medical record. At first fiction and reality unfolded as if in parallel. But then they diverged. I learned that in nonfiction life, the patient who was placed on ECMO grew sicker and ultimately died, while on TV we are allowed to hope that both patients lived. At first I worried that made the televised version misleading. But the authentic core of uncertainty how we balance risk and benefit and the great complexity in making decisions about allocating a limited resource is still there. And I like believing in an alternate reality where my patient might have lived. This was the world we had hoped for. And in the writers room we were able to make that world come to life. Maybe this is the power of the medical dramas I love. As a nonfiction writer, I am used to relaying the truth as it occurs. But television finds a way to offer enough reality to teach and to provoke, but also offer a balance. Viewers can come close to the fire but they are not scorched. That is not the same truth as nonfiction. But it is a kind of truth-telling nonetheless, one I am still learning to navigate. Toward the end of my time in the writers room, I flew from the on-set hospital back to Boston for a weekend in the intensive care unit. Is there a world, I found myself thinking in a windowless family meeting room, where I told a wife that her husband would not live to leave the hospital. Is there a world, I thought again as I examined a woman whose lung transplant had failed, leaving her dependent on a ventilator for every breath. Is there a world, I murmured as I listened to the moans of a man who had been healthy until a disseminated staph infection cascaded through his bloodstream. When I left the hospital that night, I passed the clerk who sits at the entrance to the I.C.U. Her job is to answer the main phone line, which rings frequently, often from panicked family members. She had just settled in for the evening, and I noticed that she was watching something on her tablet. Curious, I approached. What are you watching? I asked her. She smiled at me before responding: General Hospital. Daniela Lamas is a doctor at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston and the author of You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctors Stories of Life, Death, and in Between. CAIRO Power-sharing talks in Sudan between the ruling military junta and the leaders of a powerful protest movement collapsed on Wednesday after violent clashes erupted in the capital, Khartoum, for the second time this week. The leader of the ruling Military Transitional Council, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said in a televised address that the talks, which only hours earlier appeared to be going well, would be suspended for 72 hours. He laid down several conditions for a resumption of negotiations. The announcement came hours after security officials opened fire on protesters, apparently in an attempt to clear checkpoints from the city center, wounding at least nine people and leading to recriminations on both sides. The events marked another turbulent day in the political crisis that has enveloped Sudan since last months ouster of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. CARACAS The United States banned all air transport with Venezuela on Wednesday over security concerns, further isolating the troubled South American nation by severing one of its last links to the worlds largest economy. The Department of Homeland Security said it decided to immediately suspend all commercial and cargo flights between the United States and Venezuela because the countrys political crisis threatened the safety of passengers, aircraft and crew. The decision will be a heavy blow for millions of Venezuelans who rely on donations or remittances from relatives abroad to survive, as the countrys crumbling economy has destroyed most of its industry and agriculture and slashed government imports. Many have relied on airline courier services from Miami to obtain scarce medication, spare parts and food. This will be a catastrophe for a lot of people, said Feliciano Reyna, head of the health nonprofit Accion Solidaria, which receives medical donations from the United States through air courier services. This will complicate enormously the transportation of humanitarian aid to the country. KABUL, Afghanistan Some Taliban fighters hid inside a sewage tanker truck, hoping the smelly interior would prevent a close inspection as it did. They rode it into one of the most important military bases in Afghanistan and then hid in an empty warehouse. Other insurgents used ladders to climb the fences, scaling two sets of them, to cross a no mans land that had once been protected by motion detectors and infrared cameras but now had only sleepy guards in watchtowers. The infiltrators had friends in high places, as well, according to Afghan and American military officials: an Afghan lieutenant colonel and a sergeant major who made sure they knew where to go, and where to hide on the sprawling base. The ensuing attack on Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, on March 1, was not one of the countrys deadliest, but it may well have been its most embarrassing. It was the third time the Taliban had infiltrated that base, the headquarters for the Afghan Armys 215th Corps. SEOUL, South Korea North Korea said on Wednesday that it was suffering its worst drought in 37 years, adding to a food crisis that the United Nations said would worsen in coming months without urgent outside aid. The country has received just 2.1 inches of rain this year, or 42.3 percent of the average, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency said, adding that it was the lowest level since 1982. The news agency said weather conditions for heavy rain were not expected until the end of this month. The report followed a joint announcement from two United Nations relief agencies this month that about 10 million North Koreans, or 40 percent of the population, were facing severe food shortages after the country had its worst harvest in a decade last fall. The two groups, the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization, warned that North Koreas early season crops like wheat and barley, which will be harvested next month, were likely to suffer from widespread low rainfall and lack of snow cover, which left crops exposed to freezing temperatures during winter. COPENHAGEN With two simultaneous election campaigns underway in Denmark one for a national election and the other for the European Parliament there seem to be few places where Danes can avoid politics. This time, even a pornographic website is carrying a customized campaign ad. Joachim B. Olsen, a former Olympic shot-putter and current member of the Danish Parliament, paid $450 to have his face and a lowbrow slogan plastered across Pornhub, a Canadian website. The goal was to reach voters where they are, he said. Campaigning is about visibility, and in that sense its been a roaring success, Mr. Olsen added. The ad featured a play on words using Jokke, a nickname for Joachim, and a similar-sounding Danish slang word for masturbation, urging Danes to vote for one after they had finished doing the other. The politician said he was unsure how many people saw the ad as it originally appeared, estimating not many. Still, the reactions have been overwhelming, mostly from voters and members of the media who had only heard about the campaign advertisement. ATHENS Greek anarchists vandalized the Athens home of the United States ambassador with black paint on Wednesday, according to the police, in the latest protest against the authorities rejection of a convicted terrorists request for a furlough. The vandals defaced Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatts home about 4 a.m. before fleeing on motorcycles, a police official said. Eight people were briefly detained for questioning before being released without charge because of a lack of evidence linking them to the vandalism. It was the second attack this year on Mr. Pyatts residence: In January, the home was vandalized to protest the United States support for Greeces deal to recognize Macedonia on the condition it changed its name to North Macedonia. Anarchists defaced the embassy in the same month, protesting American imperialism. In a post on Twitter, Mr. Pyatt, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to the post in 2016, described the Wednesday attack as childish vandalism, adding that he would continue to work with Greek authorities to punish the culprits according to the law. He added, Destruction of property is not peaceful protest. LONDON When the world last focused full attention on Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, she had returned from a begging tour in Europe with a Brexit extension she had hoped never to ask for and was fighting for her political life with her Conservative Party in open revolt. She won the extension, to Oct. 31, but she is still fighting for her political life, this time against the embarrassing backdrop of a rising Brexit Party helmed by Nigel Farage that is easily outperforming Conservatives in most opinion polls. All that seems to have led Mrs. May to take a last, desperate gamble, by holding a fourth and, almost certainly, final vote on a plan to leave the European Union that Parliament has rejected three times already. The vote seems set for the week beginning June 3, which is also when President Trump is scheduled to make a state visit to Britain. Mrs. May has promised to stand aside if Parliament approves her plan, but she could face the exit gate anyway if Parliament were to reject it a fourth time. On the streets of Baghdad, many Iraqis say that if there is an armed conflict between Iran or its proxies and the United States, it is more likely to take place in the Gulf rather than on Iraqi soil. Unlike the Iraq of 2003, Iraq today is an American ally. I am not afraid of a war between Iran and the United States, said Ali Selim, 55, a barber who was drying his towels outdoors. Then the American target was Iraq. This time its Iran, he said, adding that the militias would not risk their own survival by provoking American retaliation because at the end of the day they are Iraqis. Others dismissed the increased tensions between the United States and Iran as empty saber-rattling. Its just talk, just threats, said Salim Abu Hassan, 48, a worker who had just delivered a shipment of baby scales to a medical supply store. He said he had fought in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and was in Baghdad when the United States attacked 16 years ago. Iran and America are each one trying to shout louder than the other. Mr. al-Jayashi, the Iraqi security council member, also said he believed that the Iranian government did not want war. But he said he worried about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps acting on its own and possibly encouraging the armed groups it has fostered in the region to act on its behalf. It can be difficult to discern Irans intentions since its elected leadership and government often sound reasonable, but the Revolutionary Guards and the Quds Force, whose leader Qassem Soleimani is in regular touch with Iraqi figures, take a far more antagonistic stance toward the United States. However, Mr. al-Jayashi and other senior Iraqi officials said Irans only request to Iraq has been to prevent the United States from using its soil to launch an attack on Iranian territory. ADEN, Yemen Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed pro-government forces renewed fighting in Yemens port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday. The fighting breached a cease-fire and is likely to complicate a troop withdrawal agreement intended to pave the way for wider peace talks aimed at ending the four-year war, which is seen as part of a wider regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthi. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, many of them civilians, and aid agencies say the humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world. As the main entry point for food imports and aid, Hodeidah, which has been under Houthi control, is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis threatened by starvation because of the war. On Valentines Day, 2018, five months after Hurricane Maria made landfall, Daniel Phillips stood at the edge of a denuded forest on the eastern half of a 38-acre island known as Cayo Santiago, a clipboard in his hand, his eyes on the monkeys. The island sits about a half-mile off the southeast coast of Puerto Rico, near a village called Punta Santiago. Phillips and his co-workers left the mainland shortly after dawn, and the monkeys had already begun to gather by the time they arrived, their screams and oddly birdlike chirps louder than the low rumble of the motorboat that ferried the humans. The monkeys were everywhere. Some were drinking from a large pool of stagnant rainwater; some were grooming each other, nit-picking; some were still gnawing on the plum-size pellets of chow that Phillips hurled into the crowd a half-hour before. Two sat on the naked branch of a tree, sporadically mating. They were all rhesus macaques, a species that grows to a maximum height of about two and a half feet and a weight of about 30 pounds. They have long, flexible tails; dark, expressive eyes; and fur ranging from blond to dark brown. Phillipss notebook was full of empty tables. There were places for the monkeys ID numbers, which were tattooed on their chests and inner thighs, places for a description of their behavior, places for the time of day. There was a place for his own name, too, and he wrote it at the top of each page. Daniel Phillips is not a Puerto Rican name, whatever that means, but he was born here, in a big hospital in Fajardo. He arrived more than a month early and spent his first weeks in an incubator, but grew up to be a high school and college wrestler; as a biology major, he became interested in monkeys, and was invited by a primatologist from Duke University to take a job as a research assistant here on Cayo Santiago. Like humans, rhesus macaques possess advanced problem-solving skills and opposable thumbs and have been known to use tools. They have complex emotional and social lives. Although chimpanzees and a few other ape species are closer cousins to humans we share approximately 93 percent of our DNA with macaques and 98 percent with chimps macaques are easier to manage and less protected by regulations, which is partly why they account for 65 percent of research on nonhuman primate subjects funded by the National Institutes of Health. Healthy ones cost thousands of dollars today and fetched a similarly high price in 1938, when a Columbia University primatologist named Clarence Carpenter devised a plan to help meet the growing scientific demand for the species. The University of Puerto Rico arranged to lease this island at the time it was being used by a sugar-cane magnate as a grazing ground for goats and then Carpenter mounted an expedition to India, where (after concluding that the animal trade was a racketeering proposition with few exceptions) he inked a contract with a monkey dealer in Kolkata and acquired 500 individuals, mostly females. He chaperoned the animals via cargo ships to Puerto Rico and ferried them to Cayo Santiago, where the 409 that survived the long passage were released from their cages. Though they roamed free, they were not independent, and they would rely on their human stewards for food to supplement the islands scant edible plant life, as well as on rainwater-collection systems to keep them hydrated. From the start, Carpenter hoped the island would become more than just a monkey farm. His passion was field research, and he envisioned Cayo Santiago as having enormous possibilities for, among other things, the study of parasites, study of disease, study of reproductive cycles, social organization and anthropological studies. ... I began to dream about these unique resources and how they would be used by different people. He imagined a sort of Goldilocks zone: not too wild, not too tame, just right. What eventually made Cayo Santiago truly unique, however, was the breadth and continuity of its record-keeping. This was in large part thanks to Stuart Altmann, a Harvard biologist who arrived two decades after Carpenter and stressed the importance of two crucial practices that have been followed ever since. First, he had the monkeys tattooed with their ID codes, making it easy to identify them from a distance. Second, he tried to take a daily census of their behavior, charting out their intricate ongoing inter- and intratroop dramas. Altmanns diligent data-collection, which his successors have maintained and improved upon, transformed Cayo Santiago from a useful place to an indispensable one. Each monkey that Phillips observed, like all of the approximately 1,700 macaques that reside on Cayo Santiago, was a descendant of the original 409; each one now just the tip of an iceberg of behavioral and biological data that encompasses many generations of its ancestors, allowing researchers to seek out answers to questions they wouldnt even bother posing anywhere else. There is no other nonhuman primate population about which so much intimate longitudinal data exists, and it is quite possible that no equivalent human data set exists, either. The island, which is owned and managed by a division of the University of Puerto Rico called the Caribbean Primate Research Center, has taught us much of what we know about how macaque societies work, illuminating the patterns and systems beneath the apparent chaos. Outside researchers from more than 100 universities have chronicled everything from tiny intrafamilial soap operas to epic intertroop wars to unsolved murders. Occasionally they witness genius. A macaque named Pinocchio he had a broken, misshapen nose once figured out how to crack open coconuts by tossing them as high as he could and watching them dash on the rocks. His epiphany was not rewarded for long: The stronger macaques learned to watch and wait and steal, exploiting his brilliance and leaving him with nothing. Phillips pointed out some of the individual monkeys, identifying them by their numbers, though he also knew them by their faces. There was the fearless one that sauntered by and squatted right in front of him, ostentatiously ignoring him. There was the one that carried a pebble constantly, licking it like a lollipop. Another crouched under the meager shade of a stripped bush and pushed on his stomach until he regurgitated. He did this all the time, and nobody knew why. It may have been some sort of eating or anxiety disorder. Since Maria, researchers had observed that the behavior had spread to a couple of the monkeys companions. Cayo Santiago is home to around 1,700 monkeys. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times The monkeys are tattooed with ID numbers so researchers can observe and record their behavior. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times At the time the storm hit, in September 2017, Phillips and his younger brother and their parents lived in a ramshackle house a verdant hillside full of fruit trees, many of which his father planted himself. Their mother was away visiting relatives in New York. The house was sturdy: lots of concrete, heavy doors, wooden shutters. It had been through storms before. But it had never been through anything like Maria. The three planned to ride out the hurricane in the living room, but the shutters were ripped away, and the walls started shaking, and Phillips thought the whole house might slide down the hillside. Phillipss father had dementia, and his brother was just a teenager. Phillips, then 27, had to decide what to do. He decided on the garage. This meant going outside, into the howl, and down a steep metal staircase, wet and slick, holding his father to him with one arm, holding the railing with the other, through a rain so thick and hard that it almost felt as if they were swimming. The garage door was hard to open, but when it shut behind them, it held. They lay together on the floor at the bottom of a canyon of stacked boxes and garbage bags and paint cans and old tools. After the storm, Phillips walked four miles to a friends home, borrowed a chain saw and walked back. His phones battery died after a couple of days, but there wasnt any cell service anyway. They slept in the dark, wondering whether or when outside help might come. Phillips had thought of his fathers dementia as a slow slide. The grasped-for words, the stories hed retell too soon, the moments of frozen confusion. Sometimes the progression of the disease would seem to pause, as if his father had found temporary shelter on a ledge above the abyss. Sometimes he even seemed to be getting better, climbing back out. But those fluctuations were just noise, like when you zoom in too tight on a graph. If you watched him over weeks and months, as Phillips did, his trajectory was clear. Now, after Maria, the decline became steeper, faster. Now his father didnt remember the storm at all. He kept asking what had happened to their home. Phillips wanted to go to medical school in the mainland United States. He most likely could get in. He had good grades, worked hard. A shelf in his room held wrestling medals and spelling-bee trophies. But his father was only getting worse, and his brother was young, and Phillips thought he was needed at home, at least for a while longer, especially in the slow-rolling aftermath of Maria. He didnt cry at all for weeks after the storm, and then he met up with a friend he hadnt seen since before it, and as the two of them told their stories, Phillips suddenly felt tears on his cheeks, and once he started he found it hard to stop. Disaster-relief operations tend to follow a standard triage. The thirsty receive water, the injured receive medical attention, the homeless receive shelter. And the neediest among them the most injured, the most bereft are relatively easy to pick out and prioritize. Psychological damage is harder to see. It can gestate for days or weeks or months before symptoms begin to show. By then the aid workers have usually left, and the emergency crews have moved on. In the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, it would be helpful to know which survivors are most likely for social or biological or circumstantial reasons to develop psychological problems, so that they can be provided with the necessary resources. For now, though, that knowledge doesnt really exist. What does something like Hurricane Maria actually do to a community, beyond the initial, obvious physical effects? As it turns out, one of the best places to begin looking for answers may be a small, strange island full of monkeys. Workers at Cayo Santiago get around the island on A.T.V.s. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times At a superficial level, most of us are familiar with what happens when we encounter something that makes us fear for our lives: Our hearts beat faster, our palms sweat, our minds race. These are the easily observable aftereffects of neuroendocrine processes that are harder to see. If a strange dog leaps at you, your brain leaps into action within milliseconds, your hypothalamus and pituitary gland acting in concert to send chemical messages to your adrenal glands, just above your kidneys, which respond by flooding your bloodstream with adrenaline, cortisol and other stress-related hormones. It is these hormones that create the aforementioned superficial changes, which then ideally help your body make one more quick leap out of range of the dogs jaws. But while these hormones help us stay alive, they can also make living more difficult. Cortisol, for example, provides numerous short-term benefits, like increased vigilance for potential threats, but it has long-term corrosive effects, making it difficult to sleep, elevating baseline anxiety levels, increasing the risk of heart disease and impairing memory function. Over the last several decades, as we have deepened our understanding of the physiological consequences of life-threatening and potentially traumatizing experiences, we have also gained insight into the social impact of these experiences. Early childhood psychological trauma has clear effects on the individual, elevating rates of suicide attempts and depression, and those effects ripple out through intimate networks of families and loved ones. Studies find that traumatized animals of various species exhibit long-term increases in hostile and aggressive behavior, and among humans, this correlation translates into a higher likelihood of criminality and incarceration. A traumatized individual, in other words, may become more likely to traumatize other individuals, sparking a vicious cycle that spirals through generations. Scientists have long used rhesus macaques in psychological research. In the 1950s, a University of Wisconsin comparative psychologist named Harry Harlow performed a series of sometimes-shocking studies on the monkeys. In one, he took newborn macaques and placed them in cages occupied by two artificial mothers. The first mother was made of chicken wire and was painful to hug; the other was covered with a soft cloth. Harlow attached a bottle of warm milk to the chicken-wire mother and left the fuzzy one milkless. He observed that some infant macaques preferred cuddling with the furry mother even if it meant denying themselves milk. In another experiment, he placed macaques in a device he called the Pit of Despair, which extinguished virtually all external stimuli, including light. Then, after weeks or months or even years inside, he released them back into the company of their peers. He found that the longer theyd stayed in the pit, the more socially maladjusted they had become. Many of the formerly isolated female monkeys had lost all desire to mate, which was a problem for Harlow, as he wanted to see if their mothering instincts had also been affected. His solution was to build another device, which he chose to call the Rape Rack. He found that the females who had endured the trauma of both the Pit of Despair and the Rape Rack tended to become neglectful or even severely abusive mothers. Harlow was a controversial figure even in his day, and current United States laws and institutional guidelines governing animal research would almost certainly prevent his most brutal experiments from being repeated. Today, much trauma research still takes place in laboratories, but some is conducted in the field. Natural disasters, which traumatize many individuals at the same time, have become an important source of data. Its not uncommon for researchers to descend on communities in the aftermath of tornadoes and floods and hurricanes, interviewing survivors and trying to determine the psychological contours of their damage. In New Orleans and other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, teams of university researchers determined that almost half of the hurricane survivors they interviewed displayed some sort of anxiety or mood disorder, while more than 30 percent were suffering from PTSD. Nonhuman primates in disaster zones have also been scrutinized. In 2013, a graduate student from the University of Calgary examined a Belizean troop of spider monkeys that survived the double punch of a hurricane followed shortly by a forest fire. The limited scope of data in these sorts of studies, however, is usually an issue. The spider monkeys, for example, had been studied before, but the researchers knowledge of their social networks and lineages was limited. And as for the humans in these studies, they almost never become experimental subjects until after the traumatic events in question, which makes it hard to gauge how the events actually changed them. If a researcher interested in how trauma affects individuals and societies were to dream up an ideal natural laboratory, she might imagine a discrete landmass populated by a multigenerational community that has been extensively and meticulously studied for many decades before the traumatizing event. Even better, it would be a population to which researchers would have unfettered access not only to their minds, but also to their bodies, and even to their brains. Lauren Brent, a researcher, outside one of the few structures left standing by Hurricane Maria. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times Five months after Maria struck, Lauren Brent, an assistant professor at the University of Exeter, in England, and two research assistants, Josue Negron and Bonn Aure, followed a troop called KK through the ruins of the forest. The monkeys were quick and agile, parkouring over tangles of deadwood that slowed the humans. Maria had felled most of the trees but not all of them, and when Brent and Negron and Aure ducked underneath the lower branches of an almost-leafless bay-rum tree, they moved quickly and didnt look up, in case a monkey were to urinate on them. Most of the macaques on Cayo Santiago carry the herpes B virus, which does them no harm but can kill human beings, which is why all the researchers wear long pants, hats and safety glasses. This was the second day of Brents first trip back to Cayo Santiago since the hurricane, and she was struggling to find her bearings. For a long stretch of her graduate work, she would come here almost daily, developing an encyclopedic knowledge of the monkeys habits, quirks, alliances, affairs. Friends would ask if she got bored watching the same monkeys over and over, a question that made her scoff. Every visit was a new episode of a private soap opera, its dozens of story lines unfolding all around her. Boredom was impossible. But now, after Maria, it was as if she had missed whole seasons of the show, and was in danger of losing the plot altogether. Earlier that day, she watched a medium-size female macaque charge two other females from the same troop, screaming and swatting at them a few times before beating a retreat. This was odd and puzzling behavior. Whats up with that one? she wondered. Whats that about? When she was little, she used to ask herself those same kinds of questions in her backyard, watching birds, bugs, squirrels. I was always a nature nerd, she says. Her passion became a profession. She pursued a Ph.D. in evolutionary anthropology at Roehampton University in London, and it was during this period that she made her first trip to Cayo Santiago. It was a little odd, at first, doing research in a place integral to the history of her field. To take just one example, Brent had often read in textbooks about a trip Stuart Altmann, the islands former scientist in charge, made here in the 1950s in the company of his mentor, the famous naturalist E.O. Wilson. While strolling the island, the men made observations that sparked conversations that led them to establish a whole new science, sociobiology, based on the idea that every living creature, from ants (Wilsons specialty) to macaques (Altmanns specialty) might obey the same fundamental rules of social organization. Cayo Santiago had been a distant constellation in Brents intellectual firmament for years before it suddenly became tangible, present. Brent would sometimes find herself wondering whether she might be standing in the exact spot where Wilson and Altmann had one of their famous epiphanies. While Brent has been trained not to anthropomorphize nonhuman primates, the similarities between her subjects and her own species are inescapable. Its hard to observe Cayo Santiagos continuing saga of courtship and competition and fear and curiosity and play and goofiness and sneakiness all those familiar expressions of relatable appetites and instincts and not see ourselves. But there are crucial differences beyond the obvious. For example, macaques are less confounded than we are, to use the term that primatologists use, which means they lack the complex layers of culture and politics and economics that make human societies, and human individuals, so infinitely varied. While our diversity is dazzling, it can be, for a scientist, blinding. The relative simplicity and uniformity of monkeys, combined with their close kinship to us, arguably makes them better proxies for interrogating human nature. Maria, after all, hit every monkey on Cayo Santiago with the same force. When Maria arrived, the monkeys were all outdoors, naked, exposed, equally vulnerable. None had basements to hide in or planes to flee in. And when Maria moved on, the monkeys were left equally bereft. None had made stockpiles of food, or had bank accounts that could finance the purchase of tickets for the next flight out of San Juan. They endured the storm in unison, together, and endured its aftermath the same way. Which meant that if Maria affected individual monkeys differently, it was very likely that these monkeys were differently equipped socially or psychologically or genetically to process the blow. Josue Negron, a research assistant on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, with his subjects. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times Negron told Brent about a recent case that he had observed in which a Troop KK female, after mating with a Troop F male, moved back to his troop with him and remained there. This violated a fundamental organizing principle of macaque society: matrilinearity. Its the males that usually migrate into other groups, not the females. It was 53A, Negron told Brent. She went down to F with the alpha, mated with him two weeks, then followed him around and just stayed there. Thats so weird, Brent said. Thats not supposed to happen. Brent wondered whether the unusual behavior could have something to do with how Troop KK was itself formed, a few decades before, by a fissioning of Troop F, meaning that there were still genetic ties between them. Or could it have had something to do with the tumult and social upheaval that followed Maria? In physical, immediate terms, Marias impact on Cayo Santiago seemed straightforward. The hurricane uprooted much of the islands flora, destroyed its feeding corrals and water-delivery systems and ruined the laboratory and other buildings used by humans. The precise number of monkeys Maria killed was unknown, and will remain so. Partly this is because the storm hit just before capture season, the annual tattooing and blood-typing of yearlings, meaning that the monkeys born in the previous year had yet to be officially counted. But its also because the toll of the devastation went far beyond what actually transpired during the hurricane itself. In the earliest rough census after the storm, it seemed that surprisingly few perhaps three or four of the islands approximately 530 adults had died. But when the C.P.R.C. continued to watch during the month following the storm, they saw a clear and statistically significant uptick in fatalities on the island, despite how, thanks to their caretakers, there was no shortage of food or potable water. There werent any known outbreaks of disease. The monkeys were just dying, for unknown reasons, at far higher rates than usual. The researchers noted that a similar spike occurred among Puerto Ricos humans, whose mortality rate, according to one study, may have risen by as much as 62 percent in the months immediately following the storm. And it wasnt just the number of deaths that was significant; it was also the specific monkeys that were dying. Two of the islands seven alpha males, each the head of one of Cayo Santiagos troops, died in the month following Maria. That amount of political turmoil during such a short period of time was highly unusual. Did the physical upheaval that Maria caused during the 16 hours it raked the island create the conditions for an equivalent social upheaval in the months that followed? Brent and the other researchers on Cayo Santiago had begun grappling with these ideas. These early visits were critical, a fleeting opportunity to nab snapshots of a society in flux. Five months in, this was just the second full day of data collection on the island. Brent and the others were racing to collect as much as possible, aware that a great deal had already slipped through their fingers. Aure had wandered off, following a cluster of individuals from Troop KK. He was holding a clipboard with a printout of a few pages of a previous census, listing the ages, parents and ID numbers of all 230 or so members. He was trying to learn to identify them from memory. Sometimes he made notes. Hourglass face Walks with a limp Short ears Brent walked back down the hill toward the dock and met with James Higham, an evolutionary biologist at N.Y.U. whom she had known since they began their careers as graduate students. Higham told her about something strange he had just seen, a young female with two infants. Twins are extremely rare among macaques, and Higham was pretty sure that one of the infants was the victim of kidnapping, which is itself unusual. Their conversation moved on to musing about possible future field experiments, and Brent brought up the idea of blaring a recording of hurricane-decibel wind through hidden loudspeakers and observing how the monkeys reacted. Giselle Caraballo-Cruz, the Cayo Santiago colony manager, walked by holding two red-plastic biohazard bags, each containing the body of a young macaque. James asked her which troop the monkeys had belonged to. She wasnt sure. With tissue we should be able to work out the mom and dad, Brent said. Caretakers on Cayo Santiago taking food pellets and other supplies to the main clearing where the monkeys hang out. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times It took us about 15 minutes to get back to the main island after my first visit to Cayo Santiago. Omar Rivera, a boat captain, handyman and monkey tender, nosed the skiff toward the dock just west of a high ridge known as Punta Lima. Thirteen 1.8-megawatt wind turbines stood atop the ridge, an $82 million installation. The turbines, designed to reap the wind, were destroyed by it instead, their propellers shredded like paper or torn off entirely. One of Riveras co-workers had backed the boat trailer down the ramp and into the water, and Rivera lined the boat up perfectly, gunned the motor and coasted up onto the trailer, ready to be locked into place. The sun was rising, and the morning haze was burning off. He had spent the previous couple of hours on Cayo Santiago, emptying bags of chow into the hungry mob and clearing a little debris. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and hopped down onto the concrete ramp and up into the cab of the pickup. After crossing a silt-choked river on a concrete bridge, Rivera was on the outskirts of Punta Santiago. The damage didnt shock anymore: the way this bright, cheery beachside town had turned into something else; the piles of moldering debris mattresses, clothes, furniture, televisions, toiletries, toilets, Bibles stacked up outside houses, so many possessions taken and broken by the floods. The homes themselves carried wounds ranging from broken windows to missing roofs. He drove past spray-painted signs outside the few businesses that remained open. He heard the drone of the diesel generators and saw the people themselves, their clothes sweat-stained, their movements sapped and sluggish, doing what they could to clean their streets or repair their homes or find water or just wait one more interminable day for inspectors from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He drove by the turnoff to his own street, a few blocks from the coast. Rivera had spent the time since Maria juggling the twin tasks of keeping his family fed and hydrated while doing the same for the monkeys. He was exhausted and hadnt been getting much sleep, in part because his three children had suffered from nightmares since the storm, waking up constantly and reliving the day when their windows exploded and the sea invaded their home. He turned left onto Calle Jurel, in the middle of town. A woman on the northwest corner of the intersection was rooting around in her yard stacking the downed pieces of a flower arbor, carefully avoiding the nails. Dona Carmen spent the storm huddled alone on top of her washing machine in her one-story home, the highest ground she could find. Next to hers was a bigger house, with a large backyard that used to be full of pigpens until the storm surge washed them away. Pigs can swim, and now they were roaming free, rooting around in the muck and ruins of the backyard. The pig smell bothered Carmen and some of the other neighbors, but in general there were so many new bad smells that it just got lost in the noise. The next home was Wandas. She was tall and thin and smiled easily and worked at the Social Security Administration in New York until a few years ago, when she retired and took her savings and bought this little house in her hometown. She had chosen one made of concrete elevated on pylons, which was a good call. Her brother was a bus driver in Brooklyn, and he had promised her that he would come down soon, and that hed bring a generator. Wandas Hyundai Accent still worked, and she thanked God for that. There was a mechanic a little farther down the street, with a bog of a yard filled with vehicles he hadnt had time to get to. They had almost all been flooded over the tops of their roofs. He could fix the older cars, he said, but the newer ones, the ones with computerized everything, he couldnt do a thing with. Rivera slowed down, turned into the open gate of the local offices of the C.P.R.C. and brought the boat into the muddy parking lot in the rear of the sturdy concrete structure. A little later, Rivera and Caraballo-Cruz and Negron and Phillips walked across the street from the offices to what was left of Don Alfonsos house. In their off hours, researchers and the C.P.R.C. staff had been helping neighbors like Alfonso, and now they wanted to install a blue tarp across his decapitated home. He was tidying when they arrived, straightening cups on a shelf. Alfonso was slender, tall, graceful, elegant, with rough brown hands and soft brown eyes. He was wearing bluejeans, a button-down shirt with pink stripes, a white newsboy cap and thick-framed glasses. He looked improbably well put together, an oasis of order in a desert of chaos. Alfonso was 13 when he dropped out of school and began working as a harvester. He learned the physics of the machete, the weaknesses of the stalks, the perfect swing. Puerto Rico almost seemed like one big sugar cane plantation back when Alfonso was a boy, seven decades ago: millions of green acres, a quilt draped over the island. Most of the plantations were owned by white Americans from the mainland, and most of the people cutting the cane were darker-skinned islanders like Alfonso. That was just how the island had worked, literally and metaphorically, ever since the Americans seized it from the Spaniards in 1898. Alfonso grew bigger, and his hands grew rougher. This house had been his home for 48 years, Alfonso said. Then he corrected himself. He lived here with his wife, Isabel, for 48 years. Isabel died two years before. He had lived here alone since then, meaning he had lived here a total of 50 years. He made the same mistake several times during the course of a conversation, as if those first 48 were the only years that mattered. The front room, which was a dining room and a kitchen combined, had only one wall and no roof. The other rooms the two bedrooms, the hallway, the bathroom were more intact, but only by comparison. Some walls were caved in, all the windows were broken, most of the roof was gone. He showed us one of his closets. Nice clothes on hangers, nice shoes lined up below, but everything reeked of mildew, and of something else, the stench that pervaded the whole town. Hard to describe, a mix of rotting cold cuts and wet dog. There had been dead fish in the street, Alfonso said. During the 48-plus-two years Alfonso had been living in this house, it weathered a lot of hurricanes. Beulah. David. Frederic. Allen. Gilbert. Hugo. Luis. Marilyn. Bertha. Hortense. Georges. Lenny. Debby. Frances. Jeanne. Dean. Irene. Another Bertha. It was not the first time the roof had been damaged. But the storms hit more frequently and violently now. Just two weeks before Maria, there was Irma, a Category 5 storm that nobody remembers because of how much bigger and fiercer her sister turned out to be. Alfonso lost power during Irma and still hadnt gotten it back, and it was unclear when he would. The government makes promises, and the government breaks promises. A prominent geomorphologist visited the area recently and recommended that the entire population of Punta Santiago be moved permanently, relocated to higher ground farther from the encroaching sea. Alfonso became a construction worker after he stopped cutting cane. He was good with his hands, but he was 78 and not as strong as he once was. He survived on a small Social Security check, couldnt afford to fix his home or replace his belongings, which never seemed to have time to dry out before it started raining again. A group of Chicago firefighters assisting in post-Maria recovery efforts in Punta Santiago. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times In October 2018, Lauren Brent began analyzing some of the preliminary poststorm observational data and began to notice unexpected patterns. There seemed to be two things going on. One, the monkeys seemed to be expanding their social networks, increasing the number of individuals that they had meaningful relationships with. Two, the monkeys appeared to become more tolerant of one another. They were living under radically diminished circumstances, competing for resources that had never been in such short supply, like edible leaves and the temperature-reducing shade that those leaves produced, but the amount of inter- and intratroop violence had seemed to taper off significantly. It was as if the hurricane had bonded even former foes against a common enemy and made the monkeys much more tolerant of lifes everyday frustrations, at least in the early days. When Angelina Ruiz Lambides, the evolutionary biologist who is Cayo Santiagos scientist in charge and acts as the principal liaison between the C.P.R.C. and the investigators from 11 institutions who have ongoing projects on the island, heard about these preliminary findings, she thought of her own experiences in the days immediately following the storm. She was seven months pregnant, and the islandwide power-and-network outage made it impossible to reach most of the people she knew, including her obstetrician. Those were desperate times, with one emergency always bleeding into the next, but what stood out to Ruiz, thinking back on the tumult of those early days, was how the widespread chaos and devastation were leavened by an equally widespread camaraderie. Around San Juan, a dense city with a population of nearly 450,000, the roads were clogged with debris and downed trees, and even the traffic lights that were still standing didnt work at all. In the best of times, the city could be a nightmare to get around, a brier patch of congestion and honking and rudeness. But in the worst times she could remember, something unexpected happened: People became nicer. Theyd pause at the lightless intersections, theyd wait, theyd wave one another through. Police on patrol, post-Maria, girded for a crime wave that never came. There was some looting, of course, and plenty of frayed nerves, but all in all Puerto Ricos dire straits seemed to pull people together rather than push them apart. Angelina had actually captured one of the most indelible images of Puerto Ricos post-Maria desperation, a photograph she snapped from a helicopter during a reconnaissance flight over Punta Santiago a few days after the storm. The photograph showed people in the intersection next to Carmens house on Calle Jurel. Theyd scrawled a message in the street, in white paint, in letters three feet tall: S.O.S. Necesitamos Agua/Comida!! S.O.S. We Need Water/Food!! Later, back in San Juan, she managed to email the picture to James Higham at N.Y.U., who posted it on Twitter, where it was picked up by news outlets and retweeted by Kim Kardashian. Ruiz wouldnt learn about its virality until days later, by which time she had already thrown herself into doing what she could do on the ground for the people she had photographed from the air, helping to organize the C.P.R.C.s ongoing efforts to bring aid and assistance to Punta Santiago. They provided their longtime neighbors manual labor, new appliances, food, bottled water. Reconstruction was progressing, and that was a good thing, but Ruiz couldnt help but feel a little nostalgic for those brutal, halcyon days when everyone put aside differences and pulled together in the face of a common enemy. Driving had resumed its familiar stress, and the price-gouging contractors bidding, say, to replace a few hurricane-obliterated monkey-feeding corrals were siphoning off a lot more capital than the looters ever did. Incidentally, researchers had observed that the absence of the corrals affected some of the social dynamics on Cayo Santiago in interesting ways. The monkeys used to receive their meals within these enclosed spaces, and the forced proximity caused collisions and frictions that werent as prevalent when pellets were simply thrown into an unpenned throng. But the lack of corrals had also made it much more difficult to trap particular monkeys or groups of monkeys, which slowed the carrying-out of perhaps the saddest post-Maria task that the C.P.R.C. has had to undertake: the trapping and removal of Troop KK. When monkeys on Cayo Santiago die, their skeletons are preserved and added to the Laboratory of Primate Morphologys bone library at the University of Puerto Rico. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times Glenna Gordon for The New York Times Forty miles northwest of Cayo Santiago, on a decommissioned United States naval base near San Juan, there is another C.P.R.C. facility, the Sabana Seca Field Station. Sabana Seca maintains its own colony of monkeys, all of them descended from the Cayo Santiago colony. Unlike their free-roaming cousins, however, the Sabana Seca macaques exist under less idyllic, more standard laboratory conditions. Some are sold to universities, while others are subjected to experiments on-site. Sabana Seca is also where, since the early 1970s, the C.P.R.C. has macerated the bodies of most of the monkeys that die on Cayo Santiago, skinning them, placing them in vats and allowing bacteria to eat away their soft tissues, leaving just their skeletons behind. These skeletons form the nucleus of the C.P.R.C.s Laboratory of Primate Morphology, which contains more than 3,600 individuals, making it one of the worlds most valuable bone libraries. In the last months of 2018, 124 members of Troop KK were transported from Cayo Santiago to Sabana Seca, where they were euthanized before having their brains removed. The C.P.R.C. began planning the cull before Maria, for reasons of population control, and decided that removing a low-ranking troop would be less disruptive to the social dynamic of the island than removing select individuals from across multiple troops. There were simply too many animals on Cayo Santiago, and the swelling numbers endangered the health of the entire colony. Nobody was happy about the culling, but researchers realized that the unfortunate necessity had provided them a unique opportunity. Observations in the field can provide extraordinary insights, but there are things that only a body can tell you. The brains were cut in two the left hemispheres fixed in formalin and the right hemispheres cryopreserved before they were packed and shipped off the island. A University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist named Michael Platt heads the consortium of researchers who will be probing the brains in the years to come. They already have the brains of another troop, HH, which was culled in 2016, meaning they now possess an unprecedented neurological archive of two communities of macaques, one that lived through Maria and one that didnt, offering unique means of comparison. They also, of course, have access to the data collected in the field the behavioral chronicles, the hormonal assays, the family trees providing full-spectrum insight into the individuals behind the brains. For example, the Oxford neuroscientist Jerome Sallet, who in previous laboratory-based research found that changes in social environment can affect areas of the macaque brain, will assess how socially integrated the hurricane survivors were and compare their brains against those from Troop HH for indications of which areas gave them the ability to cope with the hurricane. Four thousand seven hundred miles away, at the University of Washington, the evolutionary biologist Noah Snyder-Mackler might look deeper still, conducting genomic analyses to see how the function of brain cells was altered by the experience of a hurricane and how that differed between resilient and vulnerable individuals. The work ahead, a multidisciplinary, international collaboration, will lean on everything from notes scrawled in pen while dodging spritzes of biohazardous pee to the latest in neuroimaging technologies. Punta Santiago about a month after Hurricane Maria. Glenna Gordon for The New York Times Meanwhile, back on Cayo Santiago, the rebuilding has continued. One new corral is complete; the others will be soon. In some ways, the islands infrastructure is in better shape than it was before the storm. Solar panels are being installed, and theres talk of eventually having permanent high-speed Wi-Fi on Cayo, which will make the collection and transmission of data easier and allow for things like 24-hour video surveillance, a field biologists dream come true. Some changes on Cayo have been designed to make the site better able to weather the next crisis, whenever it hits. There is now a small seawater-desalination plant that should help ensure no monkeys go thirsty the next time water supplies are disrupted. As for the monkeys, they appear, at least on the surface, to have fallen back into their old routines, their raucous battles, their tender grooming, their constant pursuit of status and sustenance and companionship. Familiar and mysterious at once, theyll continue to intrigue and puzzle a new generation of curious humans, just as their ancestors once sparked the imaginations of scientific titans like E.O. Wilson. (I called Wilson after one of my reporting trips to Cayo Santiago, and he told me in vivid detail about the trip made there more than 60 years before, when he and Stuart Altmann mused the field of sociobiology into being. He has long considered islands to be the best of all natural laboratories, and when I informed him of the efforts underway to use Hurricane Maria as a natural experiment, he grew animated. I love that! he said. I love that a lot. Wonderful! And then he started asking questions.) Punta Santiago is almost back to normal, too, though some residents have moved away for good. Theres clean water, electricity, cell service. The nights no longer thrum with the dull rumble of diesel generators, and a lot of the houses have been rebuilt, including the home of Alfonso, who was grateful to the many researchers and C.P.R.C. employees who volunteered their time to help with the rebuilding. He knew they had other things to do, that they spent their days on the little island off the coast, the one full of monkeys, though he didnt know that they hoped what they learned there might someday help people like him, survivors of catastrophic environmental events. Alfonso has been making his way through this confounded, confounding world for eight decades now. His home has walls and a roof again, and it keeps him dry when the rain falls, and that, he hopes, wont change when the next storm comes. Louisiana on Wednesday passed a bill to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, making the state the ninth this year to pass abortion restrictions that could challenge the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade. Earlier this month, Alabama legislators voted to ban abortions in nearly all cases. Other measures, like Louisianas, have limited the procedure to earlier in pregnancy, typically around six weeks. Here is how limits on abortion have changed across the states this year: New abortion ban Abortion ban before 2019 Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio stopped short of outright bans, instead passing so-called heartbeat bills that effectively prohibit abortions after six to eight weeks of pregnancy, when doctors can usually start detecting a fetal heartbeat. Utah and Arkansas voted to limit the procedure to the middle of the second trimester. Most other states follow the standard set by the Supreme Courts Roe decision in 1973, which says abortion is legal until the fetus reaches viability, usually at 24 to 28 weeks. The latest bans are not yet in effect (Kentuckys was blocked by a judge), and all are expected to face lengthy court battles indeed, their proponents are hoping they will reach the Supreme Court. Some sponsors evidently want to set up a test case to challenge Roe v. Wade, said Clarke D. Forsythe, a lawyer for Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group. In recent years, Republican legislators successfully pushed bills to restrict abortion by targeting providers, for example through mandating waiting periods for patients or hospital admitting privileges for doctors. Many states limited the procedure to 22 weeks, but until this year, six-week bans were largely seen as too extreme; two that passed, in Iowa and North Dakota, were later struck down in court. Abortion rights advocates say limiting the procedure to before six weeks in pregnancy is effectively a complete ban, since most people do not learn they are pregnant until later. Two states that previously passed complete abortion bans saw those measures blocked: A 2006 bill in South Dakota was repealed in a referendum, and a 2016 Oklahoma bill was vetoed by the governor. States that have introduced complete abortion bans States that have introduced fetal heartbeat bills Note: Some states introduced more than one abortion ban in a given year. But 2019 is different, advocates on both sides said. Abortion opponents saw the appointment of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh last year as tipping the balance of the court in their favor, and state legislators were energized to pass more aggresive anti-abortion legislation. The appointment of Kavanaugh focused legislators across the country on abortion, said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. It focused conservative legislators to pass abortion restrictions that they hope will be challenged and end up before the court, so the court can undermine or overturn abortion rights. It is also focused progressive legislators like those in New York to pass laws that protect abortion rights in their own states, she added. In January, New York enacted a measure that guarantees a fundamental right to abortion in the state. The Auburn City Schools board of education discussed the search for a superintendent during its regular Tuesday meeting, and will begin interviewing candidates today. Superintendent Karen DeLano plans to retire Nov. 1. (Board of education president) Charles Smith and I met with Dr. DeLano and gave her an official evaluation, and shes been doing an excellent job, board member Melanie Chambless said. I know shes retiring soon, but we want to thank her for all the hard work she has done. Board member Terry Jenkins, reporting on the committees efforts to select a new superintendent, revealed the scheduled dates, times and locations of each interview. In our process for the employment of a new superintendent for Auburn City Schools, we have solicited applications, and our committee recommended to the board that we would schedule three interviews at this point, beginning Wednesday, May 15, Jenkins said. Cristen Herring Auburn City Schools assistant superintendent Cristen Herring will be publicly interviewed Wednesday at 10 a.m. in the Auburn Performing Arts Center at Auburn Junior High School. Kebingungan dan kesulitan mencari dan bingung ketika memilih situs judi slot online gacor di tahun 2021? 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Hal ini dilihat dari : Pertama, metode deposit via bank lokal besar yang hanya memakan waktu 2 menit saja dan juga deposit via pulsa yang online selama 24 jam, adalah nilai plus dari situs judi slot online. Lalu, hal yang kedua adalah banyaknya jenis permainan judi online yang ditawarkan oleh ICONBAZAAR dengan memakai teknologi terupdate dan terbaru seperti seamless wallet dari nexusengine. Kumpulan daftar game judi online ini menjadi nilai tambah bagi para pemain judi didalam menentukan daftar situs judi slot online terpercaya, terbaik nomor 1 di tahun 2021. FleishmanHillard is taking some lumps for compiling a dossier of journalists, politicos and members of the scientific community who raised concerns in Europe about Monsanto's Roundup weed-killer, a long-time favorite punching bag of environmental activists and the anti-GMO crowd. The Omnicom unit was just doing its job. France's Le Monde broke the story of the 2016 dossier put together ahead of a 2017 European Union vote on whether to approve the use of glyphosate (e.g., Roundup) for five years. The tally won. Good job, FH. The sleuths at FH even had the audacity to put then-French environmental minister Segolene Royal on the list. Sacre Bleu! With all due respect to Le Monde, gathering intelligence is part of the responsibilities of a PR firm. A dossier of influencers provides the material required for a firm to cultivate supporters as informational allies in a PR campaign and identify those who need additional persuasion in order to win them over. PR, after all, is much more than creating flashy publicity stunts or pitching stories about the latest and greatest dishwashing liquid. Understandably, a story about a PR firm compiling a secret dossier is certainly a juicy media story. It smacks of the old "enemies list" compiled by Richard Nixon and his gang. The FH/Monsanto episode highlights the demand to educate the press about what PR does. For its part, FH noted in its statement: "Our work is in keeping with the professional standards and established practices of our industry." Germany's Bayer, parent of Monsanto, is playing its part in the production by hiring an outside lawyer to get to the bottom of things and apologizing for something that will probably turn out to be totally legit. Whatever? Its newly minted PA/sustainability chief, Matthias Berninger, is assessing the behavior of FH, which "for the time being" has been suspended. It's a good thing pharmaceuticals and life sciences giant Bayer is still in the aspirin business because it really didn't need the FH headache at a time when things seem to be falling apart, due largely to the $63B Monsanto deal that closed last year. Bayer shares hit a seven-year low today following a California court's decision ordering it to pay $2B in damages to a pair of cancer patients who claimed their non-Hodgkins lymphoma was due to exposure to Roundup. It expressed disappointment with the decision and promised to appeal the verdict. The May 13 verdict is the third Roundup-related legal defeat for Bayer. There are more than 13,400 cases pending in the US. Lots of luck. Bayer shareholders have had it. On April 26, they rebuked CEO Werner Bauman as he lost a "confidence vote" by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin at the annual general meeting. The acquisition of Monsanto and its inherited lawsuits triggered the vote. Bauman promised to do everything to win back the trust of shareholders as quickly and completely as possible." Analysts give Bauman a year to shape up or ship out at the next AGM. The FH situation is just a tempest in the mighty storm that is rocking the German giant. Elin Suleymanov Rasky Partners has signed a six-month contract to provide PR services and support to Azerbaijan, which is under fire for harassment of its LGBT+ community. Freedom House last month called on the Azerbaijani government to end the harassment and intimidation of former political prisoners and to halt a new wave of detentions of LGBT+ people. Azerbaijans history of systematically abusing the LGBT+ community and opposition activists should not be ignored and the perpetrators need to be held accountable for their actions, said Marc Behrendt, Freedom House director of Europe and Eurasia program. The ILGA-Europe advocacy group on May 13 released its survey of 49 countries that rated Azerbaijan as the worst place to be gay based on legal gender recognition, equality, non-discrimination, family life and civil society space. The Azerbaijan government denies any mistreatment on LGBT+ people, saying that roundups of them are a crackdown on prostitution, according to a report in The Independent of London. Rasky receives $15K a'month through Oct. 28 for its work on behalf of Azerbaijans US ambassador Elin Suleymanov. The Standing 4 Women campaign, a group formed a year ago in response to the Cervical Check scandal, is asking the voters of Offaly to canvass their candidates for support. "The people of Ireland protested in solidarity with the 221 over the summer. We called on our elected officials to act and protect us. Groups established to lobby the politicians that wouldn't listen. People harmed by the scandal moved mountains to change the systems to prevent history from repeating itself," a Standing 4 Women statement read. "Yet, 12 months on, those politicians are still not listening and now new politicians knock at our doors asking for our trust. Elections are essential to how our country functions and grows." This is why Standing 4 Women in collaboration with Shay McGrael are launching a new campaign, Canvass your Candidate. Shay's late partner, Dee Feehan is one of the 1,702 smears who may have been misread just as many of the 221 women's smears have been. "Shay has been waiting and campaigning for an answer from the State on this, for over a year now. He has been treated with apathy, left in limbo with the strong possibility that Dee's cancer was detectable much earlier than it was," the group said. "We don't want any more politicians making decisions for the women and people in Ireland that do not prioritise our needs, our safety and our health." Standing 4 Women held nationwide rallies last summer, and lobbied every councillor in the country to support a motion to demand answers, transparency and action from Minister Simon Harris. Members of Standing 4 Women are aksing people to ask every candidate that knocks at their doors the following three questions: 1. What did the Candidate do to support this campaign? 2. Did the Candidate attend these rallies in solidarity? 3. What is their plan to resolve the ongoing scandal? "These next three weeks are where voters have the opportunity to canvass the candidates to see if they deserve our votes. Standing 4 Women feel strongly that any candidates who do not prioritise resolving this never-ending scandal, do not prioritise the lives of over 50% of the population, who can develop cervical cancer and 300 of which a year will die from cervical cancer." "It could be any of us. It could be our dearest loved ones. It could be us. Let's make sure that the people we elect into power for the next five years are committed to making sure they are doing everything in their power to protect us from preventable diseases, cover-ups and the deaths of lives that could have been saved." Earlier Wednesday, a handful of marijuana opponents held banners in the Capitol Rotunda to protest any legalization of cannabis in the state. Margaret Wall of Lincoln said she and the other protesters were not part of any formal group. Rather, they are concerned about Nebraska following the path of other states in legalizing hemp, then medical marijuana and ultimately recreational marijuana. Wall called herself a pot refugee, who moved to Nebraska because it is one of three states that do not allow any use of cannabis, the type of plant that includes both hemp and its intoxicating cousin, marijuana. Opinions varied just as broadly inside the legislative chamber as senators took up a long-awaited debate on LB 110 Wednesday evening. The bill would allow Nebraskans with certain medical conditions to use cannabis for treatment. The conditions would have to be among those listed in the bill and be certified every 90 days by medical professionals. Among those conditions is severe or chronic pain lasting longer than three months that is not adequately managed by non-opioid medications; post-traumatic stress disorder, where at least one other treatment failed; and terminal illnesses in which a patient had less than a year to live. State lawyers, in a motion Tuesday, asked the U.S. District Court to deny the ACLUs recent request to certify its lawsuit as a class action. ACLU Director Danielle Conrad, in a statement, said it was disappointing but unsurprising that the Attorney General continues to distort undisputed facts and utilize delay tactics while Nebraska prisons remain mired in crisis. There is no dispute, she said, that Nebraskas prison system is the second-most overcrowded system in the country and that inmates face inhumane and unconstitutional conditions. But Post told reporters Tuesday that the lawsuit isnt about overcrowding but instead is about whether the department has shown deliberate indifference in providing health and mental health care to inmates. Experts hired by the state, according to the brief, said Nebraska offers excellent access to health care for inmates and was not haphazard or understaffed, as the ACLU claims, in offering mental health services. The brief outlined nearly 50 steps that have been taken to address staff vacancies at prisons and said that when construction of a couple of new prison additions is completed, the prison system should be at only 103% of operational capacity by the year 2022. A former treasurer for the Douglas County corrections officers union has agreed to repay more than $170,000 missing from the unions treasury. Daniel Glazebrook, 43, of Papillion, agreed to make restitution Monday when he pleaded no contest in Sarpy County District Court to unauthorized use of a financial transaction device. Charges of theft and forgery were dismissed in exchange for the plea, a prosecutor said. Judge Nathan Cox will sentence Glazebrook on July 8. Glazebrook, who faces up to 20 years in prison, was accused of stealing from Fraternal Order Police Lodge 8, which is in Sarpy County. Glazebrook no longer works for the Douglas County Department of Corrections, a spokeswoman for the county said Wednesday. John Corrigan, the unions attorney, said he is working with Glazebrooks attorney, Stu Dornan, to arrange repayment. The union filed a lawsuit against Glazebrook seeking return of the money. A former Nebraska State Patrol investigator was sentenced to two years of probation Wednesday in federal court after pleading guilty to possession of a controlled substance. Authorities said Christopher Kober, 46, of Bellevue acquired drugs through drug take back operations, overdose investigations and other means. The officials said he accumulated more than 1,800 dosage units, and kept the prescription drugs and controlled substances concealed in his home rather than enter (them) into evidence or otherwise properly dispose of them. The pills had an estimated street value of $18,000. They were found in a bag with other personal belongings of Kobers, officials said. An indictment lists the drugs as acetaminophen hydrocodone bitartrate (Vicodin), oxycodone hydrochloride (Oxycontin), acetaminophen oxycodone (Percocet), morphine sulfate and fentanyl. Kober also forfeited his law enforcement certification and agreed not to seek future employment in law enforcement. Prosecutors dismissed a charge of intent to distribute a controlled substance in exchange for Kobers plea. LINCOLN A judge has ruled that suspected killer Aubrey Trails statements to police were not coerced and can be used at his trial in June. Trails attorney had challenged the willingness of his statements to authorities. But Saline County District Judge Vicky Johnson ruled Monday that the roughly 20 hours of interrogations of Trail by investigators were in a non-oppressive, professional atmosphere in which the officers were business-like and not unduly aggressive. Trail, according to the judge, appeared relaxed, convivial at times, and alert during the interviews, and expressly denied that he was offered any deals by his interrogators. Any discussion of money during the interviews, Johnson ruled, was concerning Trails own money for use to buy items at a jail canteen. In fact, the evidence is clear that the defendant participated voluntarily in his questioning, Johnson ruled. "I saw a picture of this woman with a quilt around her that looked very nice," said Carolyn, who agreed to an interview on the condition that her last name not be used. "I thought that I was being careful, but I should have done more checking about the site. Now, I would tell people to be very careful, do your research and check with the Better Business Bureau." Carolyn filed complaints with PayPal and her credit card company, but has not received a refund. She also filed complaints with the Nebraska Attorney General's Office and the Better Business Bureau, hoping to prevent others from being cheated. The bureau is warning consumers not to make purchases from the website Carolyn visited or several variations of that name, including Amelia Cotton Quilt. The website claims the quilts are made in Salem, Oregon. However, bureau officials have learned that the address given is a private residence and the items were shipped from overseas. The bureau's fake products survey found that counterfeit goods "have exploded worldwide" in the past few years but the U.S. is the biggest target. Criminal operations in China, Hong Kong and other locations are responsible "for a vast majority" of the fraud, the report said. A fourth woman has filed a civil lawsuit against Oasis Massage & Spa, alleging that the business was negligent in supervising a massage therapist who is charged in connection with alleged sexual assaults of her and 19 other women. The woman, who was listed as Jane Doe #4, filed the suit on Friday. She is represented by the same attorneys as the three other women who filed civil suits starting in March. One of the attorneys, Vince Powers, said Tuesday that he is in contact with other women who have alleged assault. He said more lawsuits are likely. You cant put a corporation in jail, he said. You want to compensate the person whos been harmed and you want to deter future wrongful conduct. Melvin Buffington, 62, was arrested in February and is in jail awaiting trial on two counts of first-degree sexual assault and 19 counts of third-degree sexual assault (one of the women is connected to two charges). If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum of 119 years in prison. But a group of conservative senators, led by Elmwood Sen. Robert Clements, opposed Bolzs amendment to Legislative Bill 298, the bill that provides funding for state government for the next two years. Clements said the study was unnecessary because the State Department of Health and Human Services has already looked at the issue and is better suited to find a solution than the Legislature. In a strange twist, backers of the Bolz amendment prolonged debate so that Clements amendment to strip out the nursing home study didnt come up for a vote. That strategy backfired when the backers of the nursing home study fell two votes short, 31-14, of forcing a vote that would have approved the Bolz amendment and advanced the budget to final-round consideration. Passage of the state budget is one of the few things required of the Legislature, so LB 298 will return for debate in the final days of the 2019 session. The fate of the nursing home study is unclear. 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. Its critical that we send a strong message that Nebraska is a great place to do business, said Seward Sen. Mark Kolterman, the main sponsor of the act, contained in Legislative Bill 720. But critics of the proposal labeled it Advantage Act 2.0 and said it failed to correct the problems of the current incentive programs, which they claimed gave generous tax breaks for jobs that would have been created anyway. Bayard Sen. Steve Erdman, who tried unsuccessfully to kill LB 720 on Wednesday, complained that the Advantage Act was too expensive, granting between $7,400 and $208,000 in tax breaks for every job created, and that such programs wouldnt be necessary if Nebraskas overall tax rates were lower. We continue to treat the symptoms, we never treat the disease ... our taxes are too high, Erdman said. Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz said the ImagiNE Act wouldnt solve the fiscal uncertainty of when companies claim their tax credits under the Advantage Act. The cost of the Advantage Act, she said, has varied between $150 million and $290 million in excused state and local taxes a year in recent years. We need some fiscal guide rails, Bolz said. Nebraska's GOP representatives all voted for the measure, despite President Donald Trump's calls on Twitter overnight for Republicans to reject it. One amendment represents potentially $120 million to help Offutt Air Force Base recover. Other amendments would provide additional funding for watersheds and roads, and coverage to farmers who lost stored and uninsured grain to flooding. In his comments to Nebraskans, Sasse said the administration has been moving to clip the wings of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The general is trying to sow discord across the Middle East and North Africa, Sasse said, in an effort to make Iran more powerful. He has militias he basically controls, and hes trying to ramp a lot of these people up to attack U.S. allies, U.S. interests, U.S. supply chains and ultimately U.S. troops, Sasse said. In an interview, Sasse told The World-Herald that whether tensions escalate further is almost entirely dependent on whether Soleimani continues to push for attacks on Americans and their interests. The administration is taking appropriate steps to let Iran know that our intelligence forces know what theyve been doing, and Iran should be de-escalating and theyre choosing not to de-escalate, Sasse said. What Ive heard the president say on this is two things: He wants to avoid war and if the U.S. is attacked, well respond very, very forcefully. And I think the president is right in how hes framing both of those points. This report includes material from the Associated Press. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A man who farms near Pender, Nebraska, went to extraordinary lengths to save his life after his left leg became trapped in a machine on his farm. In the early afternoon of April 19, Kurt Kaser, a lifelong corn, soybean and hog farmer, was transferring grain from one bin to another when he stepped into a grain auger. The machine ate away at his left leg and sucked the 63-year-old toward the machine. I didnt know what to do, he said Tuesday. I was afraid it was going to suck me in more. I about gave up and let it do what it was going to do. Kaser was alone on the farm that day. His cellphone either fell into the machine or fell out someplace else. On the 1,500-acre farm, yelling would do no good. So he pulled out his 3-inch pocket knife and hacked away at his leg. I have had other incidences. I try to hold my cool or figure out how to make the situation better at the time, he said. Its hard to describe. You want to survive and you do what you need to do to survive, I guess. Is the tax bill fair? Two of our state senators traveled the state last weekend to gain support for Legislative Bill 289, which is supposed to help with our high property taxes. They are eyeing amendments to their bill in hopes of gaining the support of the Omaha, Millard and Lincoln school districts. Hope they check with some of their constituents and other Nebraskans to see what they think of the bill. They want to raise the sales tax by a half-cent and the cigarette tax by 36 cents a pack (those poor smokers). They would also impose new taxes on several home repair services and also tax pop, candy and bottled water. One state senator said people dont need to buy a bottle of water each day. We should let our senators know what we think of this bill, especially smokers or someone who needs a bottle of water each day. D. Mark ONeill, Omaha Raise cigarette tax even more The Nebraska Legislature is considering increasing the states cigarette tax. I say, great idea. By increasing taxes on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack, our state could save lives, reduce health care costs and generate much-needed revenue. Despite the fact that GMOs are proven safe, more and more grocery products are carrying labels indicating that foods are GMO free. These labels have a tendency to scare consumers rather than educate them on the importance and safety of this technology. On my familys farm, we grow corn and soybeans using GMO technology. Because of this, we are able to grow more crops with less resources. Our crops are more tolerant to drought and more resistant to harmful insects, reducing water and pesticide use on our fields. We can also better control weeds (which compete for water and nutrients) by making our crops resistant to herbicides. GMOs also greatly help in disease control. All of these things combined help us preserve the land by growing more with less. Escalation of violence in Bengal: Is Mamata getting desperate with the BJPs rise? Debates oi-Madhuri Adnal While poll violence has become a thing of the past even in the Hindi belt - particularly Bihar, West Bengal has accepted it as a sole tool to fight elections. The party in power in Bengal, which happens to be the Trinamool Congress (TMC) - has always used muscle power and cunning manipulation to protect its turf. Like on May 14, clashes broke out between the supporters of the BJP and TMC during Amit Shah's road show in Kolkata. Both the BJP and Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress accused each other for violence. Large numbers of ABVP members clashed with TMCP supporters at College Street. As the BJP roadshow was passing in front of the college, the TMCP supporters showed black flags, shouted anti-BJP slogans and hurled stones. The BJP supporters retaliated and threw the stones back. This clearly indicates that TMC cannot afford to let the BJP make inroads into Bengal, since the TMC's only seat of power is in Bengal. While on the other hand, the BJP desperately needs to have a toehold in Bengal. Looking at these developments, do you think Mamata is getting desperate with the BJP's rise? Amit Jogi punctures Ajit Jogi's plan of returning to Congress India oi-Hardeep Singh Bedi New Delhi, May 15: If the political buzz in Chhattisgarh is to be believed then former State Chief Minister and Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (Jogi) founder Ajit Jogi is trying his level best to return back to the Congress party. It is notable that Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel is credited for the departure of Amit Jogi and Ajit Jogi from the Congress, who once enjoyed a close relationship with then Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Amit Jogi was expelled from the Congress after an audio tape purportedly revealed that the Antagarh Assembly seat bypoll in 2014 was fixed. Later Ajit Jogi also resigned from the party and floated the JCC (J). Jogis joined hands with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati in last year's assembly elections. The JCC (J) won five seats and became the first political party of Chhattisgarh to be recognised as a state party. According to the sources, Jogis were surprised that instead of denting Congress in the assembly elections, they had helped it to win the elections. When the Lok Sabha elections were announced then initially Jogis hinted at fighting the elections but later announced that the JCC (J) won't contest Lok Sabha elections and would support BSP candidates. According to a source, "The decision to not contest the Lok Sabha elections is primarily aimed at not repeating the mistake of assembly elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed Jogis to keep them away from the Lok Sabha polls." Another problem that the Jogis faced is that as soon as their bete noire Baghel became the chief minister, many JCC(J) leaders and workers shifted loyalty and joined the Congress. Those who left the party complained that Amit Jogi was behaving like an autocratic leader and didn't pay any attention to the party workers. Chhattisgarh: In a first, 30-member all women Anti-Naxal Commando unit deployed The source says Ajit Jogi has lost hope that his son would be able to keep the flock of JCC together; therefore he has up channels with senior Congress leaders in Delhi for homecoming. Ajit Jogi was recently in Delhi for a medical check-up with his son, wife Renu Jogi, and Daughter-in-law Richa Jogi and gave feelers to the Congress high-command. Amit Jogi didn't like his father's move, says the source. According to him, Amit Jogi's latest Facebook post is aimed at puncturing his father's plans of returning back to the Congress. Analysing the six-phases of the Lok Sabha elections, Amit Jogi on Tuesday penned down a Facebook post and launched a scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi. Junior Jogi has deliberately targeted Rahul Gandhi and Gandhi-Vadra family so that there shouldn't be an iota of scope for the return of Jogis in the Congress, says the source. in his Facebook post, Amit Jogi says there are 19 big takeaways from the six phases of 2019 general elections. Comparing Congress President Rahul Gandhi with his sister and Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, he says that Priyanka has emerged as a credible alternative to her brother. "Ms Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra has emerged as a more credible- and relatable- alternative to her brother, even among Congress workers, primarily because Mr. Rahul Gandhi sees himself as a thinker while Ms Priyanka is seen as someone who thinks about them (Congress workers), " says Amit Jogi. The former Congress leader also said that Rahul Gandhi is not fit for the post of Prime Minister. "Mr Rahul Gandhi's acceptance among regional parties including Congress' prospective allies has further declined to a point where there is great reluctance to consider him for the top job," says junior Jogi. He did not stop here and cornered Rahul Gandhi over his Chowkidar Chor Hai (Watchman is a thief) slogan to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Congress's attempt to pin Rafale on PM Modi- as embodied in its slogan 'chowkidar chor hai'- perceived not only as an attack on the PM personally but- thanks to PM Modi's penchant for turning any criticism about him into an attack on Mother India- also on the ultra-nationalism he claims to embody." Amit Jogi also says that the Congress made many self-goals during this Lok Sabha election. "Congress' self-goals like Mr Sam Pitroda's 'hua to hua' comment on 1984 genocide of Sikhs, Mr Navjot Sidhu's 'kala angrez' remark against BJP, Ms Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra's 'BJP ka vote katenge' comment, and most regrettably Mr Rahul Gandhi's unconditional apology for attributing his main slogan (chowkidar chor hai) to Supreme Court," writes Amit Jogi. Launching a final assault to achieve his goal, Amit Jogi says that Nehru-Gandhi-Vadra Family has increasingly perceived as liability for India's Grand Old Party Congress while Prime Minister Modi has become BJP's biggest asset. He further belittled Rahul Gandhi by saying that this election has shown India's obsession with Strong Leader and ironically PM Modi is seen as a more worthy successor to Mrs Indira Gandhi than her own grandson. Not fully vaccinated? No entry to malls, restaurants in Haryana from Jan 1: See Covid-19 guidelines BJP supporter shoots at cousin for voting for Congress India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, May 15: A BJP supporter allegedly shot his cousin for voting for the Congress in Haryana. Locals alleged that on May 12 a clash had erupted between BJP and Congress workers. They alleged that after voting Dharmendra a BJP supporter shot his cousin Raja as he had allegedly voted for the Congress. According to Station House Officer of Jhajjar, Ramesh Kumar, they got information about the firing in the Sailana village on Monday. When we reached there, the accused fled from the spot. The bullet was fired from an illegal weapon and a case has been registered, he also added. 'Prestige' seat Gorakhpur: Major hurdles for the BJP The quarrel began after Dharmendra asked Raja to vote for the BJP. However Raja is said to have not listed and went ahead and voted for the Congress. On Monday, he shot Raja, who was later taken to a hospital. His condition is said to be stable. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 12:53 [IST] BJP's Priyanka Sharma released from jail, claims police forced her to sign apology letter India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, May 15: Priyanka Sharma, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker who was arrested from Howrah for sharing a meme on Mamata Banerjee has been released from the jail after a court order. Sharma said that she was treated rudely by the jail authorities and they did not let her talk to her lawyer or family members. Sharma also said that she did not want to apologise for sharing the meme on Mamata Banerjee while claiming that the local police forced her to sign an apology letter before release. She said that the matter was sub-judice and she will battle it out in court. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court took strong exception to the fact that BJP worker Priyanka Sharma was still in prison, despite SC order yesterday specifying clearly that she should be released. SC frees BJP activist in Mamata meme case, says apology not conditional The government's lawyer argued that the district magistrate might not have been able to get a copy of the Supreme Court order which may have delayed her release. However, Justice Indira Banerjee dismissed this argument saying that the court had clearly said that the woman should be released immediately. The Bench further warned that unless the BJP worker is released immediately, the state government will be liable to face contempt proceedings. Int'l travellers who test COVID positive at the airport will not be allowed to go to their destinations Who is Firhad Hakim? Know Kolkata's New Mayor Age, Education, Family and Other Details Mamata holds march as blamegame over desecration of Vidyasagar's statue spills onto streets, India oi-Vikas SV Kolkata, May 15: A day after social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue was damaged in clashes between the BJP and TMC supporters, Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday took out a march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar in Kolkata. Banerjee marched to protest against the vandalism that took place in Kolkata on Tuesday. Her march comes on a day when both the BJP and the TMC have accused each other of being responsible for the desecration of the statue of Vidyasagar, the 19th century educationist and reformer. Throughout the day, both the parties blamed each other for the bloody violence and the political battle spilled on to the streets. Banerjee and the TMC have been trying brand themselves as true representatives of people of Bengal and BJP as outsiders. Banerjee and her party members did not waste any time to push the nativity line after the clash. At a rally, Mamata alleged that BJP was "hiring people from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. Do you, the goonda leaders of Delhi, know who Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was?" [Day after Kolkata violence, Mamata and TMC leaders change profile photos] Amit Shah has refuted the allegations by the TMC, observing at a press conference, "The gates were shut, our roadshow was outside, our workers were outside, the bust was inside a room, which would have presumably been locked. The keys must have been with the college management. How can we break the statue?" Assembly Elections 2019: EC bans exit polls from 7 am to 6 pm on Oct 21 Election Laws Amendment Bill 2021 Explained: Is it mandatory to link Aadhaar card with voter ID Cong complains to EC over Sardesais weaponising youth remark India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Panaji, May 15: The Goa Congress has complained to the Election Commission (EC) against state's Deputy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai over his comments on "weaponising" the youth and demanded that he be charged with sedition. North Goa district's Youth Congress president Vivek D'Silva in a complaint lodged with the EC on Monday said Sardesai's remark was "an indirect attempt to threaten voters" in the poll-bound Panaji Assembly constituency. He claimed Sardesai's comments were "against the state" and demanded that he be booked for sedition. Modi compromised on national security says Congress The Panaji Assembly bypoll, necessitated due to the demise of its sitting MLA and former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, will be held on May 19. Last week, while responding to a question on dilution of domicile clause by the Goa University, Sardesai, who heads the Goa Forward Party (GFP), said they were willing to go anywhere to protect the interest of Goans. "And if our government has made a mistake, then we will weaponise them (youth) to ensure that Goanness is protected," he said. D'Silva alleged that Sardesai made the comments with an intent to wage a war against a government duly instituted under the Constitution, and also against the people of Goa. Sardesai made the remarks with an intent to "excite dissatisfaction" and to "create hatred" among the people of Goa against the government," he said in the complaint. 'Amit Jogi punctures Ajit Jogi's plan of returning to Congress' Sardesai, who is currently out of the country, could not be contacted for his response. However, GFP vice president Durgadas Kamat said, "We have already made it clear that when we meant weaponisation, our weapon is 'Goenkarponn' (Goanness). The Congress, by filing a false complaint, has proved that it is anti-Goan. Cop flashes private parts to colleague's daughter in Balcony, arrested India oi-Madhuri Adnal Mumbai, May 15: In yet another shocking incident, a Mumbai police arrested Harishchandra Lahane, a constable for flashing his private parts to the daughter of a police officer. The incident happened inside police quarters. The Nehru Nagar police in Kurla have arrested Harishchandra Lahane, aged 41. He is a constable with the Pant Nagar police station in Ghatkopar. [Man flashes private parts to girl inside ATM in Mumbai, held after video goes viral] According to the police, when the woman along with her relative was in the balcony talking to each other. The accused Lahane came to his balcony and said lewd things to the woman. He did not stop there and went ahead and removed his pants and flashed the woman. The woman went inside her room and complained to her family members. The Nehru Nagar police was informed and the police picked up Lahane. Based on the complaint, an FIR was immediately filed against the accused under Sections 354, 509 of IPC and arrested him. However, the accused was granted bail by the court. Mumbai Police has also initiated a departmental inquiry against the accused policeman Lahane and he is likely to be removed from service. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 9:24 [IST] Mamata Banerjee upset after not being allowed to speak during PMs meet Day after Kolkata violence, Mamata and TMC leaders change profile photos India oi-PTI New Delhi, May 15: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and several top TMC leaders have changed their Facebook and Twitter display picture (DP) with a photo of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar on Wednesday to protest the desecration of the bust of the noted reformer and key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. Trinamool Congress's official profile on Twitter and Facebook was also changed with a picture of Vidyasagar. Banerjee is scheduled to take out a protest rally on Wednesday to protest the smashing of the bust of the social reformer by alleged BJP activists in north Kolkata on Tuesday. Launching a scathing attack on BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday, Banerjee had said, "What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he God that no one can protest against him?"Banerjee said this after supporters of the BJP and the TMC fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a roadshow by Shah. In the clash of politicians, how Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar took the hit A college named after Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, a key figure in the Bengal Renaissance, was ransacked and a bust of the 19th century social reformer shattered allegedly by BJP workers during the clashes. The BJP on the other hand has said that the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was kept inside a room and had actually been vandalised by TMC cadres who had then allegedly pinned the blame on the BJP. How would BJP workers get access to a room in the college, they have questioned. The CPI(M) has also called for protest rallies against the incident. The intellectuals of the city will take out a protest march from College Street on Wednesday evening. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 17:15 [IST] EC to review phase 7 preparedness; may discuss West Bengal India pti-PTI New Delhi, May 15: The Election Commission will on Wednesday hold a review meeting with observers and state chief electoral officers for the last phase of Lok Sabha polls on May 19. The review meeting, to be held via video conference, comes a day after BJP and Trinamool Congress workers fought pitched battles on streets of Kolkata during a massive road show by saffron party president Amit Shah. [BJP's Priyanka Sharma released from jail, claims police forced her to sign apology letter] "Since nine out of 59 parliamentary constituencies going for poll on May 19 are from West Bengal, it is natural that observers and poll officials from the state will also participate," an official said. He, however, refused to say whether the focus will be on West Bengal. While Trinamool Congress has sought a meeting with the Commission on the issue, a Bharatiya Janata Party delegation urged the Election Commission Tuesday to bar West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from campaigning in the state and alleged that "constitutional machinery" has collapsed there. PTI Want to manufacture BrahMos so that no country has audacity to cast evil eye on us: Rajnath Singh FIR against Shah mockery of democracy, says HM, accuses Mamata govt of misusing state machinery India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, May 15: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday took to Twitter to launch a blistering attack on Mamata Banerjee-led government in West Bengal and accused the state government of 'misusing the state machinery to stifle democratic rights of the people'. The Kolkata police registered an FIR against BJP president Amit Shah in connection with the violence during his roadshow in the West Bengal capital on Tuesday. The police registered two FIRs - one at Jorasanko police station and another at Amherst Street police station - after the clash between the BJP and the TMC supporters Tuesday evening. "The FIR against BJP National President, Shri @AmitShah for the attacks on his road show in Kolkata is a mockery of democracy and due process...West Bengal Govt is misusing the state machinery to stifle democratic rights of the people. These attempts at intimidating the leaders and workers of a political party will fail miserably," the Home Minister tweeted. "I am deeply concerned over the increasing incidents of political violence in West Bengal. It seems that the Law and Order situation is worsening further in the state with every passing phase in the ongoing General Elections...The Law and order is a primary responsibility of a State govt and its Chief Minister. The West Bengal govt. and Chief Minister, Sushri Mamata Banerjee should own the responsibility of the prevailing situation in the state," he further said in a series of tweets. [Blamegame over desecration of Vidyasagar's statue spill onto streets, Mamata holds march] Amit Shah has been named as an accused in the FIR registered at Amherst Street police station on the complaints filed by students of Vidyasagar College and Calcutta University. Several BJP leaders were picked up by the police and detained in a midnight crackdown, said reports. During the clashes, a bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a noted philosopher and a key figure of Bengal Renaissance, was damaged. A day after social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue was damaged in clashes between the BJP and TMC supporters, Mamata Banerjee today took out a march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar in Kolkata. Banerjee marched to protest against the vandalism that took place in Kolkata on Tuesday. Her march comes on a day when both the BJP and the TMC have accused each other of being responsible for the desecration of the statue of Vidyasagar, the 19th century educationist and reformer. Throughout the day, both the parties blamed each other for the bloody violence and the political battle spilled on to the streets. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 20:01 [IST] Going slow on Hafiz Saeed, looking up to Azhar, Pak is only worsening its case at FATF Get ready, we need the heat on JeM to settle, ISI tells Lashkar India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, May 15: Pakistan says that it has been acting against the Jaish-e-Mohammad in the aftermath of the listing of its chief, Maulana Masood Azhar by the United Nations. With these developments the activities of the Jaish-e-Mohammad are likely to come down in India, especially in Jammu and Kashmir. However Pakistan has plan B and that would be to prop up the Lashkar-e-Tayiba to fill in the vacuum. The Lashkar leadership has been asked to be prepared for a long and bloody haul in Kashmir. The intent of the ISI would be to keep the JeM off the radar until and the heat and dust on it settles. After losing terrorists at a rapid pace, ISI looks to tap Kashmiris outside One had witnessed a similar strategy in the wake of the international heat on the Lashkar-e-Tayiba being upped a few years back. We had witnessed the JeM going from dormant to lethal during that period. In the aftermath of the ban, the JeM has been operating under a new name. It was expected that Pakistan would change the name of the outfit to overcome the ban and we witnessed this in the case of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba as well. Following the ban on the Lashkar-e-Tayiba's financial outfit, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, it was re-christened as Falah-e-Insaniyat to overcome the ban. The JeM would now be called as the Jaish-e-Mutqi, officials tracking the outfit have learnt. While Azhar would continue to be at the helm of affairs, the ISI has advised him to restrict his public appearances. Prior to the ban, the ISI had shifted Azhar's base over four times, Indian intelligence agencies tell OneIndia. We do not expect any major action against Azhar, who will continue to remain a strategic asset for Pakistan, an officer says. However his activities would not remain in the open like it was in the past and Pakistan would be under some kind of pressure to keep him under check. Pakistan has over the years tackled such issues by propping up newer outfits. For instance, when the Jamaat-ud-Dawa came under international pressure, Pakistan closed its offices. However a few months later the JuD emerged with a new name called the Falah-e-Insaniyat. How ISI radicalised Sri Lanka through the Pakistan High Commission The heat on the JeM has been high for sometime. This means Pakistan would now prop up the Lashkar-e-Tayiba for sometime now. The same thing had happened in case of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba a few years back. The heat on the outfit was high following attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, following which the JeM was propped up. Officials say that like Hafiz Saeed, Azhar too remains a major asset for Pakistan's ISI. With the ban, the ISI would keep him safe from public glare and instead prop up his brother Mohammad Rauf. In fact for sometime now, the ISI has tried to lower the heat on Azhar and let Rauf call the shots. Rauf is assisted by his brother Athar Ibrahim. Over 40 per cent of inmates in Guwahati jail test COVID-19 positive Assam Class 12 exam 2021 to be held in July-August Grenade blast in Guwahati leaves 11 injured, ULFA-I said to have claimed responsibility India oi-Vikas SV Guwahati, May 15: At least 11 people were injured on Wednesday evening in a grenade blast. The blast is said to have taken place near a shopping mall. The explosion took place around 8 pm outside a mall on Zoo road in Guwahati. The injured have been rushed to Guwahati Medical College Hospital, said reports. Police immediately rushed to the spot and the area was cordoned off. "A grenade blast took place at 8pm, investigation is underway," ANI quoted Guwahati Poilce Commissioner Deepak Kumar as saying earlier on Wednesday. [Maharashtra: Naxals trigger IED blast in Gadchiroli, 15 jawans killed] A high alert has been sounded and security has been tightened across the city. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal condemned the incident and directed the state police to expedite investigation and punish the guilty. According to reports, chief of the banned United Liberation Front of Assam - Independent (ULFA-I), has claimed responsibility for the blast through telephone calls. Explained: This day that year, when India hit Pakistan at Balakot India's armed forces now do not hesitate to cross border to protect country, says Rakshya Mantri Abhinandan Varthamanan: This year, that year, the dog fight which took down a Pak F-16 On Air Force drill with Pakistan, China tells India to take objective view IAF Abhinandan Varthaman gets Falcon Slayer, AMRAAM Dodgers' patch to mark F-16 kill India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, May 15: Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman's MiG-21 Bison Squadron got 'Falcon Slayers' and 'AMRAAM Dodgers' patch to mark the February 27 dogfight in which an aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was shot down. Patches are worn on the flying overalls. They depict a major achievement of the squadron and instil a sense of pride in all the pilots of the squadron. The patch, which features a motif of a MiG 21 Bison fighter aircraft - the one that Wg Cdr Abhinandan flew on that day, bears the words 'Falcon Slayers'. Fighting Falcon is the name by which the American-made F-16 fighter jets are also known. Wg Cdr Varthaman belongs to the No. 51 Squadron, also called Sword Arms. The squadron has a fleet of MiG-21s. Post Balakot, IAF speaks of better technological asymmetry The 51 Squadron patch depicts a MiG-21 Bison in the foreground and a red-coloured F-16 in the background under crosshairs. IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman's MiG-21 was shot down in a dogfight with PAF jets a day after the February 26 Balakot strike and he was taken captive by Pak Army. Abhinandan spent two days in the Pakistani custody before returning to India on the evening of March 1. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 17:23 [IST] 'If not for CRPF cover, I wouldn't have come back alive,' says Amit Shah India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, May 15: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Wednesday accused the Trinamool Congress (TMC) of creating an atmosphere of violence in West Bengal. He said that it was the TMC and not the BJP that was behind the violence seen in West Bengal during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. "In the last six phases, only Bengal has witnessed violence. Mamata Banerjee claims that BJP is behind the violence [in Bengal]. I want to tell her you are fighting on just 42 seats. We are fighting across the country. We are pitted against everyone but there has been no violence elsewhere," Amit Shah said. Amit Shah also said he would not have escaped unhurt without CRPF protection when his convoy was allegedly attacked in Kolkata on Tuesday. " title=""If anyone insults Bangla's heritage, I will not spare them", Mamata threatens BJP" />"If anyone insults Bangla's heritage, I will not spare them", Mamata threatens BJP Shah said, "Our popularity in Kolkata and Bengal has given Mamata didi the jitters that is why she has resorted to extreme measures." Shah said that when his party has lost 60 cadres in the political violence in state, an attack on him was not unexpected. He said, "If it weren't for the team of CRPF deployed in my security, I might not have come back alive from the violence." Shah also alleged that the Election Commission (EC) has been a "mute spectator". "EC has banned UP CM Yogi Adityanath and many others for making speeches that they felt are inappropriate...but what did EC do when Mamata threatened PM and BJP?" Amit Shah questioned. Supporters of the BJP and the TMC fought pitched battles on the streets of Kolkata during a massive road show by former's president Amit Shah, who escaped unhurt but was forced to cut short the jamboree and had to be escorted to safety by the police. Int'l travellers who test COVID positive at the airport will not be allowed to go to their destinations In the clash of politicians, how Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar took the hit India oi-Mousumi Dash Kolkata, May 15: In the clash of the titans (politicians) the vivid cultures and heritages of our country are sabotaged. The act of ravaging the social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue during the political conflict that broke out in the heart of Kolkata on Tuesday evening has been criticised nationwide. Netizens condemned this incident as an act of ferocity and savagery that has malign Bengal and its politics. Great people are born to make an impact on society. One such personality, Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay (Vidyasagar) was a Bengali polymath and a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. He was the great social reformer, writer, educator, entrepreneur and worked endlessly to transform the society. His contribution towards education and changing the status of women in India was remarkable. "One wonders how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced a man!" said the nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore after Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's death. Here are some facts about Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, whose contribution towards education and empowerment of women in India was remarkable. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was an ardent advocate of women education. He strongly protested against polygamy, child-marriage and favored widow remarriage and women education in India. Because of his contribution towards such issues, the Widow Remarriage Act was passed in 1856 making the marriage of widows legal. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar worked towards providing education to women. He opened and ran many schools for girls at his own expense as he believed that education is the primary way for women to achieve emancipation from all the societal oppression they had to face at that time. Yechury fumes at desecration of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue, says BJP attacking knowledge And, Vidyasagar College where the political clash erupted last evening is one of the affiliated colleges of the Calcutta University, which was founded by Pundit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar in the year of 1872. This is the first private college run by the Indians, taught by the Indians and even financed by the Indians during British reign. The myth of the European monopoly of Higher Education was shattered and replaced by the academic system devised, by an Oriental Pundit, completely Indic in nature, characteristics and purposes. After demise of the illustrious Founder on 29th July, 1891, the College was renamed Vidyasagar College in the year 1917. He contributed significantly to Bengali and Sanskrit literature, with one of his works, Borno Porichoy ("Character Identification"), being considered a classic. Endlessly, he worked to provide equal education to all men and women irrespective of their caste, religion and gender. Today, desecrating the vivid culture of our society and blasphemies should be stopped. Our nation needs such dedicated, humble and determined personalities who can really bring some reforms and resources for the betterment of the society than their own interest. Indian operatives were in touch with accused in Sri Lanka bombings India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, May 15: The chat transcripts of two Indian operatives came under the scanner of the agencies post the suicide blasts at Sri Lanka. Kasim Stimerwala and Ubed Mirza who were arrested by the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad were in touch with Aadhhil, a suspect in the Sri Lanka blasts through WhatsApp, the agencies in India have learnt. The duo are in judicial custody at Surat and have been charged by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has accused them of plotting lone wolf attacks in Ahmedabad. Nation wide curfew imposed as communal violence hits Sri-Lanka The chargesheet filed in 2017 speaks about the conversation with Aadhil, who the agencies believe is an accused in the Sri Lanka blasts. The agencies however say that there is no direct link between the two Indian operatives and Aadhil. While the duo were on the radar and we re-visited the files post the suicide bombings, there is no evidence as of now to link them with the Sri Lanka bombings, an agency official said. India's first canine training centre comes up at Attari; Dogs to be trained on narcotics detection Punjab man travelling from Malaysia declared dead after his flight landed in Amritsar We Dont Only Read Books We Celebrate Them! With just 1 passenger, Air India plane flies to Dubai from Amritsar It is a battle of prestige for two Sikhs at Amritsar India oi-Deepika S Amritsar, May 15: After witnessing the crushing defeat of Arun Jaitley, one of the party stalwarts, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has banked on diplomat-turned-politician and Union Minister of State for Urban Development Hardeep Singh Puri to take on sitting MP Gurjeet Aujla from Amritsar. Amritsar is witnessing witnessing a direct Sikh versus Sikh fight between the Congress and the BJP, though 30 candidates are in the fray, including Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal of the Aam Aadmi Party. The phenomenon of parties fielding only Sikh candidates is a comparatively new one but the seat has always attracted political bigwigs. Interestingly, the constituency has not witnessed an election wherein two Sikh nominees were in a direct contest with each other since 1967. In the 2017 bypolls, Congress' Gurjit Singh Aujla defeated BJP nominee Rajinder Mohan Singh Chinna, also a Sikh face by a margin of 1,99,189 votes. Why Gurdaspur won't be a cake walk for Gadar star, Sunny Deol History favours Congress, as the party has kept its hold on the seat for the longest time. Since 1952, Amritsar Lok Sabha seat has been represented 12 times by the Congress while BJP nominees have represented it four times, including three consecutive wins by then BJP leader Navjot Singh Sidhu. Gurjeet Singh Aujla, sitting Congress MP, is seen facing anti-incumbency as his opponents are targeting the Congress government in the State on account of several promises made during the 2017 Assembly election but not kept. With the Congress at the helm in the state, Puri faces an uphill task. The Modi factor is the only hope as the outsider tag is the main disadvantage for Puri. The former diplomat is a turbaned Sikh and can switch from English to Punjabi with ease. However, he is an urban Sikh and the constituency is dominated by Jat Sikhs. To win, he will have to rely on urban Hindu voters and the SAD's Panthic votes. In 2014, the contest between now Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and now Punjab CM Amarinder Singh had grabbed headlines. Despite the 'Modi wave' across India in 2014 parliamentary elections, Amarinder polled 4,82,876 votes, while Jaitely polled 3,80,106 and lost by a margin of 1,02,770 votes. Mamata Banerjee upset after not being allowed to speak during PMs meet Mamata tears into EC over stopping campaigning in WB early, says poll body acting at BJPs behest India oi-Vikas SV Kolkata, May 15: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday lashed out at the Election Commission (EC) over its decision to ban campaigning in the state a day earlier and accused the poll body of acting under the orders of the BJP. She alleged that the EC drafted poll schedule according to the campaign schedule of Modi. "The Election Commission is biased. Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed how many phases he wanted the elections to be conducted in, and the Election Commission announced the phases accordingly," said Banerjee. In the wake of poll-related violence in the state, the EC today issued an order to ban campaigning in West Bengal for Nine seats which would vote on May 19 on Thursday night 10 pm, a day earlier. "This is Modi's and Amit Shah's election. During this time, the EC has kept state forces in the dark. The BJP is trying to spread panic. Action should be taken against Amit Shah and the goons implicated in the incident. But none of that has been done. Because Amit Shah threatened the EC in a press conference, they have taken this step," she further said. Congress' Ahmed Patel also slammed the EC's decision and asked "Why is EC waiting until tomorrow?" "If situation in Bengal is so severe that campaigning must be stopped, why is EC waiting until tomorrow? Is it because PM has scheduled rallies tomorrow?" Patel tweeted. [EC swings into action, bans poll campaign in Bengal a day earlier] The EC invoked Article 324 of the Constitution and banned all election-related gatherings in the state. The decision comes a day after violence at BJP president Amit Shah's roadshow that has triggered a war of words between the TMC and the BJP. Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal are to vote on 19 May in the last round of general elections. 'When rape is inevitable, enjoy it, says Congress MLA Ramesh Kumar Another Goa Congress MLA resigns; party's strength in House down to 2 Assembly elections 2022: From 17 seats to mere 2, Cong faces desertion blues in Goa Cong will have to adopt BJP's strategy of strengthening regional leaders: Harish Rawat Modi compromised on national security says Congress India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, May 15: The Congress has accused the Modi government of compromising and overruling national security by reducing the purchase of the Rafale fighter aircraft to save money. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala hit out at the BJP after Union minister Nitin Gadkari reportedly admitted that the Rafale deal was curtailed due to do financial constraints. "Finally, truth is out! 'National Security' stumped by a pseudo nationalist Modi Govt," Surjewala tweeted. 'Amit Jogi punctures Ajit Jogi's plan of returning to Congress' "No. of Rafale aircrafts reduced from 126 to 36 for saving money overruling Air Force and Nation's security!" he added. Gadkari had said the government's "financial availability" dictated the decision to bring down the order of the Rafale fighter jets from 126 to 36 in its purchase agreement. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 6:59 [IST] Explained: Why is raining so much in October despite the monsoon being over Monsoon likely to arrive 5 days late on June 6 India pti-PTI New Delhi, May 15: The monsoon is likely to be delayed this year as its arrival expected on June 6, five days after its normal onset date, the India Meteorological Department said on Wednesday. "This year, the statistical model forecast suggests that the monsoon onset over Kerala is likely to be slightly delayed," the IMD said. "The southwest monsoon onset is likely to set over Kerala on 6th June with a model error of plus or minus 4 days." "Conditions are becoming favourable for advance of southwest monsoon over the southern part of Andaman Sea, Nicobar Islands and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal during May 18-19," it added. [Light rains in parts of Delhi brings relief from scorching heat] The normal onset date for monsoon over Kerala is June 1, which also marks the official commencement of the four-month rainfall season. The IMD and private weather agency Skymet were unanimous on the prediction of the late arrival of monsoon this year. The Skymet had said on Tuesday that the monsoon would hit the Kerala coast on June 4, with an error margin of two days. If the monsoon arrives late, it will be third such instance since 2014 when it arrived on June 5, followed by June 6 in 2015 and June 8 in 2016. The delay in the arrival of monsoon may not necessarily have an impact on the overall rainfall. Last year, it had hit Kerala on May 29, three days before the normal onset date. Yet, the country received 'below-normal' rainfall. Similarly, in 2017, the monsoon arrived in Kerala on May 30, but the overall rainfall was 95 per cent of the long period average (LPA), which falls under the below normal category. In its initial forecast released in April, the IMD had predicted a near-normal rainfall with an LPA of 96 per cent, which falls on the border of 'below-normal' and 'normal' rainfall category. On the other hand, the Skymet has predicted a 'below-normal' rainfall with an LPA of 93 per cent. PTI No petrol for two-wheeler riders without helmets in Noida from June 1 India oi-PTI New Delhi, May 15: From June 1, two-wheeler riders without helmets will not get fuel at filling stations in Noida and Greater Noida, the district administration announced on Tuesday, in a major bid to promote road safety. Holding a meeting with owners of the filling stations, District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh said the order must be implemented in the two cities and later it would also be rolled out in rural areas of Gautam Buddh Nagar. "Those who reach your fuel stations without a helmet should be told that they will only get fuel if they wear a helmet. This practice will be implemented from June 1 in Noida and Greater Noida cities initially," he told them at the collectorate in Surajpur. [Video: Why this Delhi traffic cop held a mirror in front of bike rider without helmet] Singh, who was joined by district police chief Vaibhav Krishna, said the initiative, primarily aimed at improving road safety, would later be rolled out in rural areas of Gautam Buddh Nagar too with inputs and feedback from the stakeholders. The district administration also warned legal action, including suspension of driving license for not wearing helmet and arrest if riders without helmet misbehave with staff at filling stations. "When those without helmet reach filling stations, their details and vehicle numbers would be traced through CCTV footage and legal action initiated against them. Their driving license can also be cancelled," it said in a statement. "In case anyone misbehaves with the staff at the filling stations, strict action would be taken against the errant person and they could even be jailed under section 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)," it added. According to the Section 129 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, not wearing a helmet while riding a two-wheeler is a violation of the law and can draw imprisonment up to six months under Indian Penal Code section 188. All filling stations in Gautam Buddh Nagar have been instructed to carry out massive publicity on their premises about the upcoming regulation and consequences of rule violation. "It is, therefore, instructed that all petrol pumps in Noida and Greater Noida will publicise this order on their premises during the next five days that fuel will not be given to vehicles whose rider and pillion are found without helmets," it said. The administration also called on the owners of the filling stations to ensure the installation of good quality CCTV cameras on their premises so that in case of any dispute, footage of the incident could be readily available. "Installing CCTV on your premises is for your own benefit," Krishna, the senior superintendent of police, told the filling station owners. "Two-wheelers are used in a lot of criminal activities and they get their vehicles refuelled. Here you can help the police with video footage. Filling stations are also targeted by criminals often and having footage can help in the probe," he said. Odisha pegs loss from Cyclone Fani at Rs 12,000 crore India oi-PTI New Delhi, May 15: Seeking a relaxation in disaster assistance norms, the Odisha government on May 15 estimated a tentative loss of Rs 12,000 crore due to cyclone Fani that killed at least 64 people and damaged more than 5 lakh dwelling units in the state's coastal districts. The state government, which has launched a massive restoration work in the cyclone-ravaged areas, in a preliminary report to a visiting inter-ministerial team, said an initial assessment has put the overall loss at approximately Rs 12,000 crore. While the loss to public properties was to the tune of Rs 5,175 crore, expenditure towards relief and response stands at Rs 6,767.56 crore, the report said. "We have submitted a tentative loss figure to the central team. This amount may increase as the officials will undertake door-to-door survey to access the actual loss caused by the cyclone. The government will prepare a full report on the loss after the completion of the detailed survey," Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) B P Sethi said. Odisha abides without power, water for 8 days In its preliminary report, the state government has estimated the highest loss in the power sector at Rs 1,160 crore, while the loss in the panchayati raj and the drinking water department stands at Rs 587 crore. "The loss shown in the preliminary report is purely tentative. It will go up as we get a detailed report," Chief Secretary A P Padhi said after a meeting with the central team, which wrapped up its three-day visit to the cyclone-hit areas. Padhi said while the NDRF and SDRF norms include assistance for loss due to the damage of 220 KV, 132 KV, 33 KV, 11 KV and low tension power supply, there was no provision for losses in the high tension (HT) power supply. As many as 75 towers have been uprooted by the high velocity winds in Puri district alone and a huge investment is required to make them operational. Vivek Bharadwaj, Additional Secretary in the Union Home Ministry, who is heading the team, said: "There has been massive destruction to houses, hotels and livelihood means of the affected people. Puri has been severely hit in the cyclone." Noting that the central government has been assisting the cyclone-ravaged state and will continue to do so in restoration and rehabilitation works, Bharadwaj said there is a need to further strengthen the MGNREGA scheme in order to provide livelihood means to the affected people. Unbelievable! NASA shares photos of power outage in Odisha aftermath of Cyclone Fani He said there has been a substantial loss to betel vines and coconut plantations. "Keeping in view the gravity of the devastation, the Odisha government's action in providing relief and other assistance to the affected people is praiseworthy," Bharadwaj said, adding that people have been provided with relief immediately after the cyclone. "The people have been given rice, cash and tarpaulin sheets," he said. The 11-member central team visited some of the worst-affected areas in Puri, Khurda and Cuttack districts, besides the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) region, during its visit. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 17:40 [IST] Will always be with you to fight injustice: Rahul Gandhi to media PM Modi scared of debating with me because he will lose face: Rahul Gandhi India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, May 15: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the 2016 demonetisation decision of the Modi government had destroyed the economy and asserted that Congress' election promise of NYAY scheme will revive it. Lashing out at Narendra Modi, Congress president said the Prime Minister thinks "only person can run the country" while actually it is the people who run the nation. "Manmohan Singh had said in parliament that India's GDP will suffer by 2 per cent due to demonetisation and the same thing was proven true after a year. NYAY will not only benefit five crore families and 25 crore people but would also help the economy by boosting the business of small and medium traders", he said addressing an election meeting here. Gandhi noted that Modi used to make "fun" of former PM Manmohan Singh "but after five years now Modi ji does not make fun of Manmohan ji.Today the country is making fun of him (Modi)". Will Rahul Gandhi be next PM of India: Here is what CBN has to say Addressing a poll rally at Bargari in Faridkot in favour of Congress candidate Mohd Sadique from Faridkot Lok Sabha seat, Gandhi referred to sacrilege incidents in 2015 and promised strict action against those involved in desecration of religious scriptures. "I recall coming here when your 'dharam' (Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib) was disrespected. And those who did wrong, strict action will be taken against them and I give you guarantee on this," said Gandhi. On Tuesday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, while addressing a poll rally in Bathinda, had lashed out at the BJP's ally SAD over the sacrilege issue. Attacking Modi, Gandhi said here, "The PM thinks only one person can run country, but actually it is people who run it." Gandhi also raised the Rafale jet deal issue and dared Modi to hold a debate with him on corruption. Criticising the BJP government for demonetisation and "Gabbar Singh Tax", he claimed these two decisions of Modi government had "destroyed" the economy and left lakhs jobless. The Congress President also hit out at Modi for not crediting Rs 15 lakh in accounts of every citizen, saying the prime minister "lied" to people on this and on giving two crore jobs. (with PTI inputs) TMC delegation to meet Election Commission in Delhi today; To request for early bypolls in Bengal Poll code will be in place in Goa says EC India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, May 15: The Election Commission of India has turned down a request by the Goa government for relaxation in model code of conduct, in force since March 10 for Lok Sabha polls, in the South district for pre-monsoon works. State Chief Electoral Officer Kunal informed Goa Chief Secretary Parimal Rai that the model code of conduct would be relaxed only after the entire election process was over. While polls to the state's two Lok Sabha seats were over on April 23, bypoll to the Panaji Assembly seat, in North Goa district, is slated for May 19. Prestige seat Gorakhpur: Major hurdles for the BJP India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, May 15: Winning Gorakhpur has become a matter of prestige for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Once considered Yogi Adityanath's bastion, the BJP lost to the SP-BSP alliance in the 2018 by-polls. The bye poll blow came after the BJP tasted the back to back successes in the Uttar Pradesh. The party won 73 out of the 80 seats in 2014 Lok Sabha elections and in 2017, the BJP convincingly won the assembly elections. Many read by-poll result as the UP's strong message to the BJP that the party cannot take the voters of politically most crucial state for granted. The constituency that Yogi Adityanath represented for five terms before vacating it in 2017 was wrested away from the BJP in a bypoll. Samajwadi Party's Praveen Kumar Nishad defeated BJP's Upendra Dutt Shukla by a margin of 21,881 votes in the by elections, dealing a blow to the BJP's prestige. The BJP is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that Gorakhpur is back in their kitty. With SP, BSP and RLD forming a magathbandhan, and Congress and BJP in the fray, Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency is set for a three-way contest. This time, BJP has fielded actor-turned-politician Ravi Kishan from the constituency. He is up against Congress' Madhusudan Tiwari and SP's Ram Bhuwal Nishad. One cause of worry for the BJP is that out of the 20 lakh population of Gorakhpur, BJP's traditional vote bank - the Brahmins and the Upper Caste- are just 4 lakh. The BSP and the SP are contesting the Lok Sabha polls together and are claiming to stop the BJP juggernaut with their carefully stitched alliance based on caste equations. Battle Gorakhpur hots up: Can BJP retain its bastion after a shake up? The alliance candidate will attract a majority of OBCs, Dalit and Muslim votes, while Congress' Tiwari will cut into the BJP's Brahmin votes as well as the SP-BSP's Muslim votes. Nishads play a dominant role here, as they constitute 3.5 lakh of the population. One of the factors behind the BJP's by-poll loss was the death of 60 children in Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College in August 2017, allegedly due to a shortage of oxygen. Most of them were Japanese encephalitis (JE) patients receiving treatment at the special ward. The issue may still be fresh in the minds of those who were affected by the tragedy. The major factor behind Yogi's continuous run was the influence of Math. Some believe that the Math's influence is dwindling. It is also being speculated if Ravi Kishan, who is BJP's candidate this time, has Math's backing or not. Yogi Adityanath was expected to accompany Kishan for nomination but he skipped. Yogi hasn't held any campaign or road show with him so far. The BJP just cannot afford to lose Gorakhpur. Losing Gorakhpur once again will be a moral shattering for the BJP. Even though, 2018 bye election winning candidate Praveen Nishad is now in the BJP, the support of the community is not guaranteed. Whatever it is, Gorakhpur is not going to be a cake walk for the BJP. Will always be with you to fight injustice: Rahul Gandhi to media Rahul Gandhi to meet Alwar rape survivor today India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, May 15: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will on Wednesday meet the 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly gangraped in Alwar on April 26. The incident has provoked anger and protests across the state and, in the middle of a fierce election campaign, attacks on the Congress government by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as BSP chief Mayawati. The Prime Minister had accused the Congress government in Rajasthan of suppressing the incident, which took place on April 26, till the elections are over in the state on May 6. Will die but won't insult PM Modi's parents: Rahul Gandhi Addressing an election rally earlier this week, Modi had accused the Congress government in Rajasthan of trying to suppress and hide the incident. "Because there were elections in Rajasthan. The Congress government did not want news of the incident to come out. They wanted to save the criminals, wanted to collect votes...the Congress feared that if the incident of rape of a Dalit daughter comes out... then it will have an impact on its votes..." BSP chief Mayawati too had leveled the same charge at the Ashok Gehlot government. Gandhi's move is believed to be aimed at sending a message to the Dalit community across the country, especially in Punjab where Dalits constitute around 31 per cent of the population. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 10:27 [IST] Nacogdoches, TX (75965) Today Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. Near record high temperatures. High 78F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 66F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. TORONTO and NUCLA, Colo., May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Western Uranium & Vanadium Corp. (CSE: WUC) (OTCQX: WSTRF) (Western or Company) updates the status of the Sunday Mine Complex (the SMC) Vanadium Project (the Project). Funding for the Project was completed in April and Project planning has been ongoing. The SMC is comprised of five individual permitted and developed mines in Western Colorado. Western now has assembled the personnel and resources to open the Sunday Mine Complex. Historic geological and mining data, as well as mine maps from past operations are being studied, while the team completes final ventilation requirements. Western will start the Project at two mines - the Sunday Mine and the St. Jude Mine. The first underground work is expected to commence in June. After mine opening, vanadium ore samples will be delivered to vanadium processors and users around the world. The focus of the current Project is to define the high-grade vanadium deposit. Underground drilling, in addition to bulk sampling, will be used to determine the vanadium resource. Historically, the SMC yielded a 6-to-1 vanadium-to-uranium ratio. To oversee the Project, Dr. Kaiwen Wu has been added to the Western team as Chief Geologist. Dr. Wu is a preeminent expert on conventional sandstone hosted vanadium/uranium deposits with extensive experience in the Colorado/Utah Mineral Belt. Notably, Dr. Wu previously completed an in-house geological evaluation of the Sunday Mine Complex. Formerly, Dr. Wu spent a decade working for Energy Fuels in a Senior Exploration Geologist capacity where he oversaw uranium and vanadium exploration, geologic data compilation and evaluation, and the resource estimate and technical reporting process. Dr. Wu received his Ph.D. in Geological Science from the University of Texas at El Paso under a doctoral program involving extensive geologic mapping and culminating in a dissertation on the Proterozoic tectonic evolution of Colorados Needle Mountains. As Western continues to advance the Project, additional milestones and updates will be provided to shareholders and investors. About Western Uranium & Vanadium Corp. Western Uranium & Vanadium Corp. is a Colorado based uranium and vanadium conventional mining company focused on low cost near-term production of uranium and vanadium in the western United States, and development and application of ablation mining technology. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information: Certain information contained in this news release constitutes forward-looking information or a forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, forward-looking statements). Statements of that nature include statements relating to, or that are dependent upon: the Companys expectations, estimates and projections regarding exploration and production plans and results; the timing of planned activities; whether the Company can raise any additional funds required to implement its plans; whether regulatory or analogous requirements can be satisfied to permit planned activities; and more generally to the Companys business, and the economic and political environment applicable to its operations, assets and plans. All such forward-looking statements are subject to important risk factors and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Companys ability to control or predict. Please refer to the Companys most recent Managements Discussion and Analysis, as well as its other filings at www.sec.gov and/or www.sedar.com , for a more detailed review of those risk factors. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the Companys forward-looking statements, and that these statements are made as of the date hereof. While the Company may do so, it does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements at any particular time, except as and to the extent required under applicable laws and regulations. FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: George Glasier President and CEO 970-864-2125 gglasier@western-uranium.com Robert Klein Chief Financial Officer 908-872-7686 rklein@western-uranium.com Upset with politics over Sikh riots, Dal Khalsa to boycott elections India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Amritsar, May 15: The Dal Khalsa has accused both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress of playing politics over the deaths of people during the 1984 Sikh riots. The Dal Khalsa while appealing to the people not to fall into the trap has decided to boycott the elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was criticised by Dal Khalsa leader, Kanwar Pal Singh, who said that the PM was tiring to gain electoral benefits out of the issue. Modi is not harping on the issue out of sympathy or award justice. He is using it for electoral gains, Singh also said. He also slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for not making a commitment on punishing those guilty for the riots. The Congress has been shielding the masterminds, he added. No permanent judgeship for Justice Ganediwala over her skin-to-skin contact judgment What have you done to tackle drought, HC asks Maha govt India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Mumbai, May 15: The Bombay High Court has sought to know from the Maharashtra government what measures it proposes to tackle "serious" issues like drought in the state. A vacation bench of Justices Ajey Gadkari and N J Jamadar was hearing a petition filed by activist Sanjay Lakhe Patil, seeking setting up of independent disaster management committees in each district of the state. Patil sought for implementation of the 2016 disaster management guidelines which listed several measures to be undertaken by the state government to tackle natural calamities and disasters, including drought. What will you teach your children: HC asks BMC When the petition was heard on Monday, Patil produced records before the court to show that water levels in dams and other resources had gone down in the state's Vidarbha and Marathwada regions. "The issue is serious. We want some lawyer from the state government to inform us what measures the government proposes to take (to tackle the issue)," the court said. The bench then posted the petition for further hearing on May 20. Will always be with you to fight injustice: Rahul Gandhi to media Will Rahul Gandhi be next PM of India: Here is what CBN has to say India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, May 15: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N Chandrababu Naidu has termed Rahul Gandhi a "good leader who has concerns for the nation" and asserted that unlike 1996, non-BJP parties won't commit the mistake of keeping the Congress out if such an alliance forms a government at the Centre. In an interview to PTI on the sidelines of a poll meeting in East Midnapore district's Haldia in support of TMC candidates, he claimed the BJP is on its way out, and batted for a coalition government saying, "It's better to have checks and balances." On the contentious issue of prime ministerial candidate of a non-BJP front, Naidu, who has been rallying regional parties to form such a coalition, said the constituents "will reach a consensus after tallying the number of seats each party gets". Will die but won't insult PM Modi's parents: Rahul Gandhi He claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become desperate on realising that he is losing the Lok Sabha elections. "There is anti-incumbency. PM Modi tried his best, but he has no achievement. Because of that, he started talking about Pulwama (terror attack) and (Balakot) air strikes. In every meeting he is accusing and abusing opposition leaders," the incumbent chief minister of Andhra Pradesh alleged. "If you go through Modi's campaign you will see he is getting weaker and more desperate. Earlier also he was weak but he managed the media. He threatened all politicians so that no one raises their voice," Naidu claimed. On whether a coalition of regional parties will include the Congress in government formation or keep it out if such an opportunity arises, he said, "You cannot have such restrictions. You need the magic figure (272 seats) to form the government. Restrictions will ultimately break the unity." "All of us will sit together and reach a consensus to build the future of this country," Naidu said. He lauded the Congress president by terming him a good leader, but evaded a direct reply to the question whether Rahul Gandhi's name could be proposed as prime ministerial candidate, saying if he names someone, others might get hurt which will break the opposition unity. "He (Rahul Gandhi) is a good leader. He has concerns for the nation, unlike Narendra Modi, who is hollow and never listens to anybody. Modi tries to rule by threatening others," the TDP supremo said. Naidu's comments comes just days after his meeting with Gandhi to discuss the post-poll scenario. The TDP president, who was the convener of the United Front government from 1996-1998, said that time the experiment failed because the Congress was kept out of the government. Do all aircraft disappear from radar when it rains? Rahul jabs PM Modi "In 1996, there was an experiment. It failed. As we kept the Congress outside they withdrew support. So for a more stable government, all of us have to come together," he said. The Congress had provided outside support to the United Front government in 1996, but pulled the plug later. On the possibility of the Congress staking claim for the top post if it gets more seats than regional parties, Naidu said, "A decision on it can be taken only after seeing the number of seats each party gets. I am not saying anything today. We will sit together and take a call after tallying the numbers on May 23." Asked whether he has any suggestion for the PM's post, Naidu declined saying, "It is a numbers game as democracy means numbers and everybody has to work together." The TDP chief said he has ruled himself out of the prime ministerial race and one of the reasons behind it was that Andhra Pradesh had only 25 Lok Sabha seats. "Mine is a new state, I have to develop it further. Secondly, my number is only 25 (Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh). The number is very less. I can contribute to nation building and support others," he said. "I got an opportunity in 1996 (during the United Front government). For so many years I have been working as a facilitator. Wherever there is a problem I work with other leaders as part of a collective leadership," Naidu said. On TRS president and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's effort to cobble up a non-BJP, non-Congress federal front to prioritize the issues of states and demand decentralization of power, Naidu wondered whether such a proposition would really work. "Is it really possible? Someone thinks that somebody (Congress) will support them from outside out of compulsion? If nobody extends support then what will happen?" he posed. Naidu endorsed a stable coalition government, saying, "Checks and balances of coalition are good for this country." "We have seen coalition governments, then we saw a majority government led by Modi. What has he done? He does whatever he thinks is right. There are no checks and balances. It's better to have checks and balances. At least one can have discussions," he said. Asserting that more than numbers it is the vision and ability of a leader to execute policies that matters, the TDP chief said the economic reforms of the 1990s was carried out by the P V Narasimha Rao dispensation which was a minority government. Naidu criticised Modi for his comment that 40 TMC MLAs are in touch with him, saying said the post of prime minister has dignity and such "immoral and cheap politics" should be refrained. Yogi Adityanath takes lead role in Gorakhpur, Ravi Kishan plays supporting cast India pti-PTI Gorakhpur (UP), May 15: In the battle to redeem lost pride in the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat, popular Bhojpuri actor and BJP candidate Ravi Kishan is playing second fiddle as Yogi Adityanath takes centre stage in the electoral fight. Sharing dais with the chief minister during poll rallies, the BJP candidate is often seen standing alongside the 'maharaj' with folded hands. Regarded as the fiefdom of the Gorakhnath peeth, the seat with 19.54 lakh voters has 10 candidates in the fray. However, a direct contest appears on the cards between BJP candidate Kishan and alliance nominee, Rambhuwal Nishad of the SP. Though Yogi Adityanath won the seat from 1998 to 2017, the shock defeat during the 2018 bypolls was a massive loss of face for the ruling party, coming months after its emphatic win in the 2017 Assembly elections. ['Prestige' seat Gorakhpur: Major hurdles for the BJP] The election on the seat, this time round, is being treated by the party and loyalists as an opportunity to avenge the humiliation and restore faith in the leadership of Yogi Adityanath. "The fight on the seat is to retain the pride of Maharaj...the Hindu Yuva Vahini and BJP are one in the contest this time round and are in the campaigning as one unit," zonal vice president of BJP Satyendra Singh said. Leading the campaign from the front is the chief minister himself, who is camping here for the May 19 polling in the last phase and has addressed over two dozen rallies. This week, he will be holding a big road show in Gorakhpur city along with BJP president Amit Shah. Lending all out support is the Hindu Yuva Vahini, founded by Adityanath, which has been actively involved in the campaigning with the CM asking for presence of one worker each of the BJP and the HYV at all booths. Since the defeat in the bypoll had also been attributed to the low turn out, the major focus is on increasing polling percentage in Gorakhpur city. Local BJP leader Rahul Srivastav said instructions have been issued to bring voters out to cast votes on polling day. "Election is not being fought by Ravi Kishan. It is being fought by Yogi," said Manish Prasad, a vegetable vendor. Initially it was the 'outsider' tag which Kishan had to face but he fought and overcame it following his visit to his native Maamkhor village from where his ancestors migrated two- three generations ago to neighbouring Jaunpur. Kishan is also banking on his popularity, getting his selfies clicked with youth and women. His approachability is giving the BJP a good head start and now it is "One Mission Ravi Kishan" slogan which has become common. "Yogiji has brought me here. We are hoping for a record win now," Kishan stresses. The saffron party can also draw solace from the fact that the giant killer in the Gorakhpur bypoll Praveen Kumar Nishad has now switched over to the BJP and has been fielded from Sant Kabir Nagar parliamentary constituency in eastern UP. That the alliance candidate Ram Bhuwal Nishad belongs to the dominant fishermen caste -- around 3.5 lakh here -- is a fact that suits the BSP-SP who have worked on their arithmetic well. The joint meeting of BSP and SP at the Champa Devi Park on Monday witnessed a massive turnout even in sweltering heat. "We will go by what behenji asks us to do...," said Shrawan Kumar, a BSP supporter, who attended the rally. "Ram Bhuwal Nishad is an experienced politician...he knows all about electoral battles and how they are won...We have a good support base among all castes," Samajwadi Party leader Zafar Amin Dakku said. Besides other issues, the alliance is raising local issues including death of children in the BRD Medical College Hospital, charging it was due to government apathy, he said. "We are confident that history will repeat itself and the alliance will once again be pulling down the BJP fortress here. I have the support of the poor and the oppressed," says alliance candidate Ram Bhuwal Nishad. PTI Sri Lanka won't be allowed to be used for 'any activity' against India: President Rajapaksa Sri Lankan human trafficking case: Victims were lured with promise of jobs in Canada Curfew continues in Sri Lanka as incidents of communal violence rise International oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Colombo, May 15: Sri Lanka on Tuesday imposed a nationwide curfew for a second straight night and arrested several people after Sinhalese mob attacks on Muslim-owned shops, vehicles and mosques left one person dead, as communal violence worsened following the deadly Easter terror attacks. Sri Lanka government enforced island-wide curfew on Monday but on Tuesday the curfew was relaxed in all areas except the northwestern province where the Muslim man was killed by the sword-wielding rioters and Sinhalese mobs set fire to Muslim-owned shops and vehicles. Homes and mosques were also vandalised by large groups of people armed with sticks and weapons. On Tuesday evening, police announced another nationwide curfew for a second night to try and stop the violence, beginning at 9pm (local time). "An island-wide police curfew will be imposed from 9 pm today until 4 am tomorrow," police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. The government also reimposed a ban on social media following the violent clashes. The government which blocked Facebook and WhatsApp on Tuesday extended the blockade to Twitter. The social media blockade is meant to prevent the spread of rumours and hate comments, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said. The recent violence is a fresh backlash from the Easter attacks where nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others. Indian operatives were in touch accused in Sri Lanka bombings Police said they have arrested at least two prominent instigators along with nearly 20 others for violence. "The police will take stringent action against the rioters. They will not be given bail and could spend 10 years in prison," police chief Chandana Wickremaratne said. Muslims said that rioters went about destroying their properties and setting fire to them even after curfew hours. They accused the security forces and the police for becoming silent watchers to the rioting. Muslim political parties said at least one person died in the riots. In an address to the nation on Monday night, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the military has been asked to quell the anti-Muslim riot and urged public cooperation to the security forces to bring the situation under control. Wickremesinghe said the violence by a handful of people only hampered the ongoing investigations into suicide bomb attacks by local Islamic extremist group National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ). Main opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa blamed the government for its inability to control the violence. Sri Lanka Army Chief Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake warned anyone instigating violence and destroying property that the armed forces would not hesitate to use maximum force to stem any violence. He said the armed forces will ensure that the country will not be getting back to a situation of violent activities and the violence in terms of radicalisation and the terrorists. 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. Meanwhile, President Maithripala Sirisena has issued a gazette notice banning three Islamic extremist organisations, including the NTJ that was blamed for the Easter bombings. The other two banned organisations are the Jama'athe Milla'athe Ibrahim (JMI) and the Willayath As Seylani. He also prohibited the use of drones in the country till further notice. Pakistan: Hafiz Saeed's brother-in-law arrested International pti-PTI Lahore, May 15: Outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawa's top leader and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's brother-in-law Hafiz Abdur Rehman Makki has been arrested for hate speech and criticising the Pakistan government, police said on Wednesday. Makki, head of JuD's political and international affairs wing and in-charge of its charity Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), was arrested during a government crackdown against the outlawed organisations. Punjab police spokesperson Nabila Ghazanfar confirmed Makkis arrest. She, however, did not explain the charges under which he was arrested. Sources said Makki has been arrested for making a hate speech in Gujranwala city, some 80-km from Lahore. The sources also said his arrest should be seen in connection with the government's steps to comply with the requirement of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings him to justice. Saeed is keeping a low profile and currently living at his Lahore residence under high security. For the first time in two decades, Saeed was not allowed to enter and deliver weekly sermon at JuD headquarters in Lahore since early this March. The JuD and its sister organization Falah-i-Insaniat (FIF) leadership has already gone underground in the wake of the government's action against the proscribed organizations. In February, Paris-based international terror financing watchdog FATF decided to continue the 'Grey' listing of Pakistan for its failure to stop funding of terrorist groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the JuD. The Pakistan government has launched a crackdown against the outlawed organisations under the National Action Plan 2015 to eliminate militancy and extremism from the country's soil. The Pakistan government had arrested over 100 members of banned outfits including the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhars son and brother and taken control of JeM, JuD and FIF properties including seminaries and mosques across the country apparently under immense international pressure. [Get ready, we need the heat on JeM to settle, ISI tells Lashkar] The government termed the action in accordance with the National Action Plan and meeting the obligations of the Financial Action Task Force. The Imran Khan-led government has also announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council. The government banned 11 organisations for having links with the proscribed outifts JuD, FIF and JeM on Saturday. After the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 Indian security personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based JeM, prime minister Khan had said Islamabad would not spare any group involved in militancy or using Pakistani soil for any kind of terror activity against other countries. The FIF, like the JuD, was also banned in March by the Pakistan government. Recently, the government announced to take control of more than 30,000 religious seminaries. The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014. PTI No claimants for dormant Swiss accounts of Indians, some may get liquidated soon Relief for Mallya as bank grants him more time to pay for London home International oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa London, May 15: Embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya has settled a legal dispute with Swiss bank UBS to allow him time until April next year to pay off a mortgage loan for his central London home. The bank had sought possession of the 63-year-old businessman's plush Cornwall Terrace apartment over the non-payment of a 20.4-million pounds loan and a trial in the case was due last week. However, according to a court consent order issued by Judge Simon Barker of the Chancery Division of the UK High Court on Monday, the trial has been vacated and the proceedings adjourned following a settlement. Mallya laments downfall of Jet Airways "The Defendants [Mallya] should nonetheless be permitted to remain in occupation of the Property... in order to allow, if possible, the Loan and Mortgage to be redeemed, but that, if redemption has not taken place by 30 April 2020 the Claimant [UBS] shall be immediately entitled to possession," reads Judge Barker's order. "The Defendants acknowledging and agreeing that the Claimant's agreement to permit the Defendants to remain in occupation of the Property until 30 April 2020... is intended to provide the Defendants with a final opportunity to redeem the Loan," it adds. The prime property, which overlooks Regent's Park in London, has been referred to as the "high class home for Dr Vijay Mallya and his family members and United Breweries Group corporate guests" during the court proceedings. The case relates to a mortgage taken out by Rose Capital Ventures, one of Mallya's companies, with the former Kingfisher Airlines boss, his mother Lalitha and son Sidhartha Mallya listed as co-defendants with right of occupancy of the property. While Mallya's legal team had claimed that the bank had called in the loan ahead of an agreed period, the bank had insisted that it is within its rights to call in the mortgage for non-payment. The court order issued this week goes in favour of the bank's stand as it acknowledges that UBS has an "immediate right to possession" and stipulates that unless the mortgage has been redeemed by April 30 next year, Mallya and the co-defendants must immediately hand over possession of the apartment by 4.00 pm on that date. They are not permitted to make any further applications to "postpone or suspend the date for giving up possession". I have been awarded an economic death penalty says Vijay Mallya Additionally, Mallya must also pay up interest of 820,333.64 pounds accrued until April 2019 and then any further amount accrued until May 1 next year. He is also liable to pay legal costs of 1,047,081.18 pounds and receivers' costs of 223,863.82 pounds. The court order also forbids any further claims arising out of the bankruptcy proceedings currently instituted in the UK against Mallya by a consortium of Indian banks led by State Bank of India (SBI). Meanwhile, Mallya remains on bail as he appeals against his extradition order to India, a hearing for which is scheduled in the UK high court on July 2. The former Kingfisher Airlines boss is wanted in India to face charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to Rs 9,000 crore. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 7:04 [IST] WBJEE 2022 registrations to begin today: Here is how to apply Indian Army jobs 2019: Vacancy and salary details as per 7th Pay Commission New Delhi oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, May 14: Here are the details of the Indian Army jobs 2019, vacancies and salary structure as per the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission. As per the notification, the application forms are released for the post of Territorial Army officers (non-departmental). Eligible candidates can apply for for the post through official website from 26 May to 25 June 2019. Age Limit: 18 to 42 Years on the Date of Application. Educational Qualification: Graduate Salary details as per 7th pay Commission: LIEUTENANT Level 10 56,100 - 1,77,500 15500/- CAPTAIN Level 10A 6,13,00-1,93,900 15500/- MAJOR Level 11 6,94,00 - 2,07,200 15500/- LT COLONEL Level 12A 1,21,200 - 2,12400 15500/- COLONEL Level 13 1,30,600- 2,15,900 15500/- BRIGADIER Level 13A 1,39,600-2,17,600 15500/- Fee details: Candidates' are required to pay a fee of Rs 200/ - (Rupees two hundred only). Candidates should note that payment of examination fee can be made only through the modes prescribed at website . Payment of fee through any other mode is neither valid nor acceptable. Applications submitted without the prescribed fee/mode shall be summarily rejected. Important Dates: Application Started: 26/05/2019 Last Date of Application Submission: 25/06/2019 Exam Date: 28/07/2019 Indian Army jobs 2019: How to apply Candidates are required to apply online by using the website www.joinindianarmy.nic.in Online Registration and applications can be filed from 26/05/2019 to 25/06/2019 till 11.59 PM after which the link will be disabled. It is premeditated that no other mode will be accepted except the online mode For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 6:00 [IST] TORONTO, May 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- STORAGEVAULT CANADA INC. (StorageVault) (SVI-TSX-V) is pleased to announce that it has entered into two separate agreements to acquire two stores in Ontario and one store in British Columbia from two vendor groups (collectively, the Vendors) for an aggregate purchase price of $55 million, subject to customary adjustments (the Acquisitions). The assets and business (the BC Assets and Business), but not the real property, of the British Columbia store will be purchased from Access Self Storage Inc. (Access) for a nominal cash payment to Access from StorageVault and the receipt by Access of the Access Payment Share Consideration as set forth below. Other than the acquisition of the BC Assets and Business from Access, the Acquisitions are from arms length Vendors. It is anticipated that the closing of each of the Acquisitions will occur on or before July 31, 2019. Purchase Price and Payment The aggregate purchase price for the Acquisitions is $55 million, subject to adjustments, and is payable by the issuance of an aggregate of $7 million of StorageVault common shares (the Payment Shares) to certain Vendors at the higher of $2.80 per common share or the 10 day VWAP ending two business days prior to closing, with the remainder of the aggregate purchase price being paid with funds on hand and mortgage financing. In respect of the acquisition of the BC Assets and Business, the Vendor of the real property for the BC Assets and Business will direct that $1,250,000 of Payment Shares shall be issued to Access (the Access Payment Share Consideration). Conditions Precedent to the Acquisitions The obligations of StorageVault to complete the Acquisitions are subject to initial conditions including, but not limited to: satisfactory due diligence; and satisfactory Environmental Site Assessment Reports. Closing of the Acquisitions are also subject to the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions including the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV), if required, for the Acquisitions. Exemption from MI 61-101 and TSXV Policy 5.9 The acquisition of the BC Assets and Business is considered a related party transaction under MI 61-101 and TSXV Policy 5.9. StorageVault is relying on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority approval requirements of MI 61-101 and TSXV Policy 5.9, in respect of the acquisition of the BC Assets and Business, pursuant to Section 5.5(b) (Issuer Not Listed on Specified Markets) and Section 5.7(a) (Fair Market Value Not More Than 25% of Market Capitalization) of MI 61-101, respectively. No new insiders will be created, nor will any change of control occur, as a result of the Acquisitions. Other Information There can be no assurance that the Acquisitions will be completed as proposed or at all. The TSXV has in no way passed upon the merits of the Acquisitions and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. About StorageVault Canada Inc. StorageVault owns and operates 199 storage locations in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. StorageVault owns 148 of these locations plus over 4,600 portable storage units representing over 7.9 million rentable square feet. For further information, contact Mr. Steven Scott or Mr. Iqbal Khan: Tel: 1-877-622-0205 ir@storagevaultcanada.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking information. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information in relation to: the proposed Acquisitions; the timing for completion of the proposed Acquisitions; the satisfaction of the conditions for completion of the proposed Acquisitions; and the issuance of the Payment Shares to satisfy a portion of the purchase price for certain of the proposed Acquisitions. This forward-looking information reflects StorageVaults current beliefs and is based on information currently available to StorageVault and on assumptions StorageVault believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to: the completion of satisfactory due diligence by StorageVault in relation to the proposed Acquisitions; the satisfactory fulfilment of all of the conditions precedent to the proposed Acquisitions; the receipt of all required approvals for the proposed Acquisitions including TSXV acceptance; the issuance of the Payment Shares as disclosed above as part of the purchase price for certain of the proposed Acquisitions; market acceptance of the proposed Acquisitions; the value of the appraisals received for the proposed Acquisitions; and acceptable financing to complete the proposed Acquisitions. Forward looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of StorageVault to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; general capital market conditions and market prices for securities; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; the actual results of future operations; competition; changes in legislation, including environmental legislation, affecting StorageVault; the timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; conclusions of economic evaluations and appraisals; and lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals. A description of additional risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking information can be found in StorageVaults disclosure documents on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. Although StorageVault has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of StorageVault as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. However, StorageVault expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities law. English French Cash, cash equivalents and financial assets of the Company amounted to 237.1 million [*] Initiation of cohort expansion study of monalizumab and cetuximab to evaluate triple combination with an anti-PD(L)1 in patients with IO naive head and neck cancer AstraZeneca selects four preclinical molecules per the Option agreement signed in October 2018 Initiation of IPH4102 TELLOMAK Phase II study; trial design and preclinical data supporting exploration of IPH4102 in PTCL to be presented at upcoming scientific conference IPH5401 dose-escalation study is on track; safety update and cohort expansion expected in 2H2019 New preclinical data highlighting IPH5201 (anti-CD39), IPH5301 (anti-CD73) antibodies and multi-specific NK-cell engager (NKCE) technology presented at 2019 AACR Marseille, France, May 15, 2019, 7:00 AM CEST Innate Pharma SA (the Company - Euronext Paris: FR0010331421 IPH) today announced its revenues and cash position for the first three-months of 2019. During the first quarter, we successfully launched two key clinical studies and presented new data that paves the way for the advancement of new molecular entities towards the clinic, commented Mondher Mahjoubi, Chief Executive Officer of Innate Pharma. In particular, the launch of the IPH4102 TELLOMAK study, which may support a potential BLA submission in Sezary syndrome, will allow us to evaluate IPH4102s potential benefit in larger subsets of T-cell lymphoma. Additionally, together with our partner, AstraZeneca, we will explore triple combination of monalizumab, cetuximab and an anti-PD(L)1 in IO-naive head and neck patients. This is an important achievement to further assess the potential of monalizumab in the management of advanced head and neck cancer patients. We are committed to execute on our clinical plans and will provide data updates on many of our programs throughout the rest of the year and into 2020. First quarter 2019 and recent pipeline highlights: Monalizumab (anti-NKG2A antibody), partnered with AstraZeneca: First patient dosed in a new expansion cohort of the ongoing Phase Ib/II study (IPH2201-203). The expansion cohort will evaluate the safety and efficacy of monalizumab, a first-in-class immune checkpoint inhibitor with a dual effect on both Natural Killer (NK) cells and T lymphocytes, in combination with a PD-(L)1 inhibitor and cetuximab in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (R/M SCCHN) who have not received prior systemic regimens in the R/M setting and who have not received prior treatment with a PD-(L)1 inhibitor (IO-naive). Various Preclinical Programs: AstraZeneca selected four molecules from Innates preclinical portfolio per the October 23, 2018 transaction terms. Selected molecules include the anti-MICA/B antibody drug conjugate[] (IPH43) and the anti-Siglec 9 antibody program. Two other programs are undisclosed and include a multi-specific NKp46 NK cell engager. IPH4102 (anti-KIR3DL2 antibody): Initiation of IPH4102 TELLOMAK, an international, open-label, multi-cohort Phase II study evaluating the efficacy and safety of IPH4102 in larger patient populations expressing KIR3DL2, including peripheral T cell lymphoma (PTCL). TELLOMAK is planned to recruit up to 250 patients, with IPH4102 evaluated as a single agent in patients with Sezary syndrome (SS; 60 patients planned) and mycosis fungoides (MF; 90 patients planned) and in combination with standard chemotherapy (gemcitabine and oxaliplatin) in patients with PTCL (approximately 100 patients). In patients with MF and PTCL, the two-stage study is designed to evaluate the benefit of IPH4102 according to KIR3DL2 expression. Under certain conditions, the SS arm of the study could enable the registration of IPH4102 in this indication. In January 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Innate Fast Track designation for IPH4102 for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory SS who have received at least two prior systemic therapies. The TELLOMAK trial design and preclinical data supporting the potential of IPH4102 in PTCL will be presented at an upcoming scientific conference. Update on the first stage of MF and PTCL Phase II cohorts are expected the second half of 2020 and preliminary efficacy data in 2021. IPH5401 (anti-C5aR antibody): Dose-escalation part of the Phase I study (STELLAR-001) with IPH5401, in combination with durvalumab (Imfinzi) for the treatment of patients with solid tumors, including non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with secondary resistance to prior immuno-oncology (IO) treatment and IO-naive hepatocarcinoma (HCC) is on track; safety update and start of cohort expansion are expected in 2H2019. Various Preclinical: New preclinical data from the Companys immunotherapy pipeline was showcased in a presentation by Eric Vivier, CSO, at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Meeting: Innates new proprietary, potentially first-in-class multi-specific NKp46 NK-cell engager (NKp46 NKCEs) are designed to stimulate NK cells instead of T-cells in order to improve the benefit-risk profile for the treatment of solid tumors. The NKp46 NKCE technology targets two activating receptors, NKp46 and CD16, on NK cells and a tumor antigen on cancer cells. New preclinical data show that these NKp46 NKCEs are more potent in vitro and in vivo than clinical therapeutic monoclonal antibodies targeting the same tumor antigen and have not displayed off-target effects. Additionally, we observed that co-engagement of NKp46 synergized with CD16 to potentiate both tumor cell lysis and NK cell activation. IPH5201 (anti-CD39) - new data show that a combination of Innates anti-CD39 monoclonal antibody, IPH5201, and ATP-inducing oxaliplatin had a synergistic effect that improved the control of tumor growth in a preclinical mouse model. IPH5301 (anti-CD73) - new data from a crystal structure of the CD73/IPH5301 complex support a model for the differentiated mode of action of IPH5301 and enhanced efficacy compared to competitors. Innate expects INDs to be filed for IPH5201 in the second half of 2019 and for IPH5301 in the first half of 2020. Financial results: Cash, cash equivalents and financial assets of the Company amounted to 237.1 million as of March 31, 2019. At the same date, financial liabilities amounted to 5.3 million, of which 0.9 million resulting from the application of IFRS 16[] (4.5 million as of December 31, 2018). During the first quarter, the remainder of the upfront cash payments associated with the October 23, 2018 AstraZeneca transaction were received or paid to the appropriate party. The Company received in January 2019 $100 million (87.6 million) as a result of AstraZeneca exercising its option to obtain the full rights of monalizumab in oncology. The Company received in January 2019 the second tranche of $24 million (21.1 million) of a non-refundable payment of $50 million from AstraZeneca for the upfront payment with respect to IPH5201. The first tranche of $26 million was received in October 2018. The Company paid AstraZeneca $50 million (43.8 million) for the US and EU rights to commercialize Lumoxiti in January 2019. The Company paid in February 2019 $15 million (13.1 million) to Novo Nordisk A/S per the February 2014 agreement in relation to monalizumab, following the exercise of the option by AstraZeneca. Revenues for the first three-months of 2019 amounted to 13.9 million (8.7 million for the same period in 2018). For the three-month period ended March 31, 2019, revenue from collaboration and licensing agreements mainly results from the spreading of the initial payments received under our agreements with AstraZeneca. About Innate Pharma: Innate Pharma S.A. is a commercial stage oncology-focused biotech company dedicated to improving treatment and clinical outcomes for patients through therapeutic antibodies that harness the immune system to fight cancer. Innate Pharmas commercial-stage product, Lumoxiti, in-licensed from AstraZeneca, was approved by the FDA in September 2018. Lumoxiti is a first-in class specialty oncology product for hairy cell leukemia (HCL). Innate Pharmas broad pipeline of antibodies includes several potentially first-in-class clinical and preclinical candidates in cancers with high unmet medical need. Pioneer in the biology of NK cell, Innate Pharma has expanded its expertise in the tumor microenvironment and tumor-antigens, as well as antibody engineering. This innovative approach has resulted in a diversified proprietary portfolio and major alliances with leaders in the biopharmaceutical industry including Bristol-Myers Squibb Novo Nordisk A/S, Sanofi, and a multi-products collaboration with AstraZeneca. Based in Marseille, France, Innate Pharma is listed on Euronext Paris. Learn more about Innate Pharma at www.innate-pharma.com Information about Innate Pharma shares: ISIN code Ticker code LEI FR0010331421 IPH 9695002Y8420ZB8HJE29 Disclaimer: This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Although the company believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties which could cause the company's actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the Risk Factors (Facteurs de Risque") section of the Document de Reference prospectus filed with the AMF, which is available on the AMF website (http://www.amf-france.org) or on Innate Pharmas website. This press release and the information contained herein do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe to shares in Innate Pharma in any country. For additional information, please contact: Investors Innate Pharma Dr. Markus Metzger/ Danielle Spangler Jerome Marino Tel.: +33 (0)4 30 30 30 30 investors@innate-pharma.com International Media Consilium Strategic Communications Mary-Jane Elliott / Jessica Hodgson Tel.: +44 (0)20 3709 5700 InnatePharma@consilium-comms.com French Media ATCG Press Solene Moulin / Marie Puvieux Tel.: +33 (0)9 81 87 46 72 innate-pharma@atcg-partners.com [*]Including short term investments (15.7 million) and non-current financial instruments (34.7million). [] In 4Q 2018, the Company elected to advance the anti-MICA/B program as an ADC-antibody and terminated the naked antibody (ADCC) program IPH4301. [] IFRS 16 Leases supersedes IAS 17 from January 1, 2019. Under IFRS 16, a lease liability is recognized for all the leases (operating and finance leases) whilst it was only applied to finance leases under IAS 17. Attachment Amsterdam, 15 May 2019 - Arcadis (EURONEXT: ARCAD), the leading global Design & Consultancy organization for natural and built assets, and PTV Group, the leading specialist company for software solutions in traffic and transportation, mobility and logistics, have announced a partnership aimed at strengthening our urban strategy and scope of expertise around mobility solutions. The partnership with PTV Group correlates to the investments Arcadis is making in its digital capability and broader strategic vision to leverage data and our asset knowledge in key domains of our business to better meet the future needs of clients around mobility. Additionally, it supports our goal of helping to "create a sustainable future" along with a mission of improving quality of life. Arcadis has experience using PTV market-leading software and employs modelling specialists throughout its global business. Arcadis and PTV are collaborating to untap the potential to reshape the way that mobility data is used to plan and manage future mobility needs of people living in cities. There is a huge opportunity to rethink the way that our cities are planned and managed, drawing on contemporary knowledge of internet of things, connected vehicles, environmental monitoring, traffic control systems, incident management, and building information modelling (BIM) to develop and strengthen synergies. Arcadis' attractive blend of management consultancy combined with practical design and engineering know-how, complements PTV's technology offering and strengthens our ability to drive value to our clients. The Arcadis-PTV partnership will help both organizations to evolve thinking and develop a practical roadmap to deliver future urban mobility strategy. There is strong demand worldwide for state-of-the art technology in the field of mobility. The PTV modelling software is used in over 120 countries. Vehicle manufacturers, service providers, logistics service providers, technology suppliers and urban planners are all interested in new mobility services that re-think mobility as a service (MaaS). PTV has developed an integrated platform for the delivery of MaaS covering a portfolio of technologies, from planning to operation and control. Arcadis is developing MaaS for the central business district of Amsterdam. We look ahead to an exciting future full of enormous potential through our collaboration with PTV to progress market-leading MaaS platforms for our clients. Stephan Ritter, Arcadis Group Executive Innovation and Transformation, said the following: "Arcadis is excited to partner with PTV to discover additional ways that mobility data can be leveraged in planning and managing future urban mobility requirements. Our unique blend of management consultancy and engineering capability complements PTV's cutting edge transport modeling technology. Together we aim to provide enhanced mobility solutions to our clients, as well as strengthen our urban strategy and disrupt the field of global transportation modelling." Vincent Kobesen, CEO of the PTV Group added: "We are committed to promoting mobility in our cities through strategic partnerships at international level - from urban development to specific transport concepts. The partnership with Arcadis is an important milestone as it combines world-class software and consulting services." -End- Improving quality of life ARCADIS CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS Monika Grabek Mobile: +31 6 11 40 36 96 E-mail: monika.grabek@arcadis.com PTV CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS Kristina Stifter Mobile +49 171 8698112 E-mail: kristina.stifter@ptvgroup.com ABOUT ARCADIS Arcadis is the leading global Design & Consultancy organization for natural and built assets. Applying our deep market sector insights and collective design, consultancy, engineering, project and management services we work in partnership with our clients to deliver exceptional and sustainable outcomes throughout the lifecycle of their natural and built assets. We are 27,000 people, active in over 70 countries that generate 3.3 billion in revenues. We support UN-Habitat with knowledge and expertise to improve the quality of life in rapidly growing cities around the world. www.arcadis.com ABOUT PTV. THE MIND OF MOVEMENT. www.ptvgroup.com PTV Group plans and optimises everything that moves people and goods worldwide. The company takes a holistic approach that integrates all aspects of traffic and transportation to create and promote sustainable mobility. Recognised as global market leader, PTV develops intelligent software solutions for transport logistics, traffic planning and traffic management. Thus cities, companies and people save time and money, enhance road safety and minimise the impact on the environment. More than 800 colleagues worldwide are committed to driving the high performance of its mobility products. Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: The global hedge fund industry AUM has grown by $27bn as of April 2019 year-to-date said Eurekahedge in its May 2019 report. Final Q1 2019 net outflows figure stood at $46.4 bn, just under half of the investor redemptions totalling $94.7 bn seen in the final quarter of 2018. As reported earlier, The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index gained 1.06% in April, after recording one of its strongest Q1 returns post-crisis. On a year-to-date basis, the index was up 5.15%, and roughly 21.8% of the hedge fund managers comprising it have recorded double-digit gains over the first four months of the year. Eurekahedge Asia ex Japan Hedge Fund Index up 7.87% YTD The Eurekahedge Asia ex Japan Hedge Fund Index was up 7.87% year-to-date, supported by the recovering Asian equity markets throughout the first four months of 2019. The Asia ex-Japan mandate has witnessed $2.4bn of investor redemptions year-to-date, despite robust performance gains totalling $7.6bn over the same period. The Eurekahedge CTA/Managed Futures Hedge Fund Index gained 0.81% in April, with mixed returns among its constituents. Rising oil prices during the month was a major performance contributor, while slumping metal prices generated losses for some managers. The strategic mandate has seen investor redemptions totalling $10.4bn year-to-date. The Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index slumped 0.50% in April, bringing its year-to-date performance into the red as los...................... To view our full article Click here Testosterone Replacement Therapy Market - Promising Technology for Improving Top Industry: fizer, Inc., Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation, AbbVie, Inc., Bayer AG, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Inc Testosterone Replacement Therapy www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/2024 www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-customizat https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/consult-us/2024 Hypogonadism in men is primarily characterized by reduced concentration of serum testosterone, causing decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, loss of body and facial hair, decreased bone density, weakness, decreased lean body mass, increased body fat, fatigue and anemia. Hypogonadism in adult men is often overlooked; even in the presence of associated symptoms, because the hypogonadism men often ignore the symptoms or they attribute them with alternate cause such as ageing.Request Sample Copy of Research @Increasing prevalence of hypogonadism in adult men worldwide is expected to drive growth of the testosterone replacement therapy market. According to the European Association of Urology: 2016 report, in middle-aged men, the incidence of hypogonadism varies from 2.1% to 12.8%. The incidence of low testosterone and symptoms of hypogonadism in men aged 40-79 varies form 2.1% to 5.7%, in Europe. Hypogonadism is more prevalent in older men, in men with obesity, those with co-morbidities, and in men with a poor health status. Furthermore, according to the Therapeutics Advances of Urology Journal: 2016, testosterone has become one of the most widely prescribed medications in the U.S. in 2011.Many experts says people with type II diabetes mellitus tend to associated with low testosterone level in the blood. Visceral obesity is important cause of insulin resistance, and important feature in type II diabetes. An increased deposition of abdominal adipose tissue in the hypogonadal patients, leads to decrease testosterone concentrations. According to the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2017; a study conducted on 900 men with type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) to evaluate the testosterone deficiency reported that prevalence of hypogonadism in T2DM patients was found to be 20.7%. Moreover, the percentage prevalence of hypogonadism in patients with T2DM was moderate with highest number of patients belonging to age group 5059 year.Request for Customization of Research Report:...For instance, according to International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Diabetes Atlas: 2017, number of people with diabetes aged between 20 to 79 years in South East Asia region and Western Pacific region in 2017, was 82 million and 159 million, respectively.Some of the key players operating in the testosterone replacement therapy market include AbbVie, Inc., Bayer AG, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Kyowa Kirin International plc, Pfizer, Inc., Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation, and Perrigo Company plc.Key players in these market are engaged in product regulatory approval and new product launch strategies to maintain competitive position in the market. For instance, in March 2017, U.S. FDA approved Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) of Perrigo Company plc, for making the generic version of Eli Lilly and Company's Axiron topical solution, 30 mg/1.5 mL (testosterone topical solution, 30 mg/1.5 mL).Request A consult-us @Endo International Inc. is being an innovative player in the testosterone replacement therapy market, which engaged in launching novel and innovative product in these market. For instance, in March 2015, Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., a subsidiary of Endo International plc, launched NATESTO (testosterone nasal gel), the first and only nasal gel for testosterone replacement therapy in adult males diagnosed with hypogonadism.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 Explore Global Asphalt Paving Machines Market forecast 2019 2025 https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/1101846/global-asphalt-paving-machines-market The report is a fine example of comprehensive and accurate research study on the global Asphalt Paving Machines market. It digs deep into critical aspects of the global Asphalt Paving Machines market, including market dynamics, competition, regional advancement, and segmentation. It provides verified market figures such as CAGR, market share, revenue, volume, production, consumption, gross margin, and price. The global Asphalt Paving Machines market is segmented by type, application, and geography. The report is compiled with the use of latest primary and secondary research methodologies and tools. Buyers can ask for customization of the report as per their needs. You can also purchase specific sections of the report if your requirement is not for the complete research study.Readers are provided with important types of analysis, including manufacturing cost analysis, analysis of marketing channels, distributors, and customers, market forecast, and company profiling. 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The analysts consulted and gathered information from subject matter experts, key opinion leaders such as purchase managers, VPs, CSOs, and CEOs, distributors and suppliers, and research and development participants. In order to validate data derived from secondary research, they conducted primary interviews. For further validation of current and future market growth trends and penetration and several other studies, they contacted major distributors and manufacturers and industry experts.Market participants were approached through face-to-face discussions, video conferences, emails, and telephonic conversations. For secondary research, we used paid data sources such as Hoovers, OneSource, Bloomberg, Factiva, and Reuters.Highlights of TOCOverview: The report starts with an overview and scope of the global Asphalt Paving Machines market and products offered therein. This section also includes a glimpse of market segmentation and market size forecast.Competition: It includes production share, revenue share, and average price analysis of key players profiled in the report. Besides these factors, it brings to light competitive situations and trends including expansion, merger and acquisition, market shares of top three and five players, and market concentration rate.Regional Analysis: Each region studied here is assessed on the basis of gross margin, production growth rate, price, production, revenue, and other factors that define its market position.Production, Revenue, and Price Trend by TypeMarket Analysis by ApplicationCompany ProfilesMarket Dynamics: Here, the authors have focused on market trends, opportunities, drivers, challenges, and influence factors.Market ForecastResearch Findings and ConclusionMethodology and Data SourceQYResearch established in 2007, focus on custom research, management consulting, IPO consulting, industry chain research, data base and seminar services. the company owned a large basic data base (such as National Bureau of statistics database, Customs import and export database, Industry Association Database etc), experts resources (included energy automotive chemical medical ICT consumer goods etc industries experts who own more than 10 years experiences on marketing or R&D), professional survey team (the team member with more than 3 years market survey experience and more than 2 years depth expert interview experience). Excellent data analysis team (SPSS statistics and PPT graphics process team).The report is a fine example of comprehensive and accurate research study on the global Asphalt Paving Machines market. It digs deep into critical aspects of the global Asphalt Paving Machines market, including market dynamics, competition, regional advancement, and segmentation. It provides verified market figures such as CAGR, market share, revenue, volume, production, consumption, gross margin, and price. The global Asphalt Paving Machines market is segmented by type, application, and geography. Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market Insights in terms of volume and value 2018 to 2026(Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters, by End User Hospitals Clinics Ambulatory Surgical Centre Others) https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1145 https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1145 https://www.factmr.com/report/1145/tracheobronchial-suction-catheters-market https://www.factmr.com/ https://factmrblog.com/ Tracheobronchial suction catheters is an innovative medical device used for those patient which are suffering from respiration related problem in which the tracheobronchial include trachea and bronchi. The blockage of airway is cleared by using tracheobronchial suction catheters in which the pus, mucus and other blocker agent are remove completely by suction method, which provide a clear way in the airway for better health. The air can easily exchange via lungs without any problem to the patients. The tracheobronchial suction catheters can easily remove all the mucus which block the exchange of air, the suction catheter is connected with suction machine which remove all the blockage agent from tracheobronchial which include bronchi and trachea. The tracheobronchial suction catheters is a smooth and affective device which can extract all the blocking agent such as saliva and other pus in a well manage way, so that there should not be any injury to lungs and other organ which are present inside the patient body. The traditional method of removing mucus was not as effective and cause damage to organs as the current tracheobronchial suction catheters device is much more affective and did not cause any major damage to the organs.Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market: Drivers & RestraintsTracheobronchial suction catheters market have a significant growth over the forecast period, as the respiration related problem is increasing among the population, the blockage via mucus cause various respiration related problem which include chest pain also. The increasing number of patient pool directly boost the market for tracheobronchial suction catheters. The technology development in tracheobronchial suction catheters which can cause no damage to organs while suction process toke place is also one of the driving factor for tracheobronchial suction catheters market. The high cost of the device along with treatment process is the hindrance for the tracheobronchial suction catheters market.Request Free Sample Report@Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market: SegmentationTracheobronchial Suction Catheters market is segmented based oTracheobronchial Suction Catheters, by Product TypeOpen Suction CatheterClosed Suction CatheterTracheobronchial Suction Catheters, by End UserHospitalsClinicsAmbulatory Surgical CentreOthersTracheobronchial Suction Catheters, by GeographyNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificMiddle East & AfricaTracheobronchial suction catheters is high in demand as the removing of mucus and other blocking agent from tracheobronchial which include trachea and bronchi. The market for tracheobronchial suction catheters is potential market for growth as the majority of the populations are suffering from respiration related problems and the number of infected patient are increasing every year. The improve technology which can make tracheobronchial suction catheters much more batter as compared to other suction machine will also drive the growth of tracheobronchial suction catheters market. Almost all the age group are affected with respiration related problem which also indicate huge demand of tracheobronchial suction catheters to treating the patient populations.On the basis of geography, the Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters market is segmented into: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa. North America is the major region for tracheobronchial suction catheters market due to present of reimbursement scenario along with the present of major players which contributes direct growth to the tracheobronchial suction catheters market. Europe shows growth as the rate of adoption for new product for medical use is increasing and the patient pool also boost the growth of the tracheobronchial suction catheters market. Asia-Pacific shows sluggish growth as most of the nation are developing and improving medical care system within the country. In Middle East & Africa, the awareness program is conducted to provide information about Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters to the healthcare professional and medical system are improving in the region.Some players in Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters market as: CareFusion (sub. of Becton Dickinson), Covidien (sub. of Medtronic), C. R. Bard, Inc., Cardinal Health, Medline Industries, Inc., Smiths Medical (sub. of Smiths Group plc.), Amsino International, Inc., Pennine Healthcare and others players.Request/View TOC@The report covers exhaustive analysis on:Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market SegmentsTracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market DynamicsHistorical Actual Market Size, 2013 - 2017Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market Size & Forecast 2018 to 2026Tracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market Current Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedTracheobronchial Suction Catheters Market Drivers and RestraintsRegional analysis includesNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEuropeAsia PacificMiddle East & AfricaReport Highlights:Shifting Industry dynamicsIn-depth market segmentationHistorical, current and projected industry size, recent industry trendsKey Competition landscapeStrategies of key players and product offeringsPotential and niche segments/regions exhibiting promising growthA neutral perspective towards market performanceReport Analysis@About USFact.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; thats why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsRohit BhiseyFact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog: Penile Prostheses Market Expectations & Growth Trends Highlighted until 2026 // Boston Scientific Corporation, Coloplast Corp, SOFMEDICA, ZSI, Zephyr Surgical Implants, Rigicon Inc, Promedon https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1144 https://www.factmr.com/report/1144/penile-prostheses-market https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=B&rep_id=1144 https://www.factmr.com/ https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/ Penile prostheses market show significant growth over the forecast period, as the male patient pool is high in every geographical region, more than 30 million male population in U.S have ED (erectile dysfunction) which directly affect their lifestyle. Penile prostheses is much affect as there is no such side effect as compared to medicine which so high side effects to treat ED (erectile dysfunction). The use of medicine to treat ED (erectile dysfunction) show various side effect which harm the patient body and metabolic rate along with the lifestyle directly, so the market of penile prostheses directly got boosted in the market for treating ED (erectile dysfunction). The high costing of penile prostheses and high costing of surgery to implant the penile prostheses is the current hindrance for the market growth of penile prostheses. Lack of penile prostheses product in various geographical region along with the lack of awareness among healthcare professional also create hindrances for Penile Prostheses Market growth.Request TOC of this Report-Penile Prostheses is an medical technique which can provide better lifestyle to male patient which are suffering from ED (erectile dysfunction), in ED (erectile dysfunction) the penis is not able to hold erectile position for longer time and cause erectile dysfunction disorder which directly affect there healthy lifestyle. The ED (erectile dysfunction) problem affect the person mental and other lifestyle related problem. Various medicine and other surgery method is present to treat ED (erectile dysfunction) problem but the most affective and reliable method to treatment is by using penile prostheses which provide much more effective treatment and cover majority of the patient pools. The penile prostheses is much more affective prostheses which is much more better than any other medicine and surgery, as the penile prostheses is easily implanted and easily used by male patients. The penile prostheses consist of cylinder along with a pump and reservoir which is implanted inside the penis, the pump helping the erection process in which the cylinder which is present inside penis got erected. The penile prostheses is very effective and safe technique for treating ED (erectile dysfunction).Penile prostheses is an innovative product which can change the traditional treatment process for ED (erectile dysfunction), as the penile prostheses show no side effect as compared to medicine which are used to treating ED (erectile dysfunction). The penile prostheses are control by the patient and there is no need for using medicine and other therapy to treat ED (erectile dysfunction). The penile prostheses which come under various product range to treating ED (erectile dysfunction) according to the patient needs.Browse Full Report with TOC:Awareness program should be organized by industries players to promote their penile prostheses products in various geographical region among healthcare process and patients which are having ED (erectile dysfunction) problem. The market of penile prostheses is growing market, as this product is much more effect and easily to use by patients then any other treatment process.On the basis of geography, the Penile Prostheses market is segmented into: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa. North America is the major region for penile prostheses market due to present of major players within the region along with the favorable reimbursement scenario in the region. The well-developed healthcare system which can support surgery to implant penile prostheses is also drive the market of penile prostheses. Europe shows growth as the adoption of new product is increasing for treating ED (erectile dysfunction) and increasing patient pools also boost the market of penile prostheses in the region. Asia-Pacific shows sluggish growth as lack of awareness about the product (penile prostheses) is present in the region and the healthcare system for surgery is developing in some of the nation present in Asia-Pacific. In Middle East & Africa, the awareness program is conducted to provide information about penile prostheses to the healthcare professional along with patients and improving medical system also boost the growth of the penile prostheses market.Some players in Penile Prostheses market as: Boston Scientific Corporation, Coloplast Corp, SOFMEDICA, ZSI, Zephyr Surgical Implants, Rigicon Inc, Promedon and others players.Request Brochure of this Report-About FactMRFactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market insights reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFactMR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Read Industry News at - PHOENIX, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Item 9 Labs Corp. (OTC: INLB) (Item 9 Labs or the Company), a leader in comfortable cannabis health solutions for the modern consumer, today announced CEO Sara Gullickson was selected by Industry Leaders Magazine as one of the top influential businesswomen in the cannabis industry. The magazine provides a global business platform highlighting entrepreneurs and companies driving worldwide economies. The accolade is one of several the well-renowned CEO has received. Gullickson was recognized for her nine years as a progressive cannabis executive and recent leadership at publicly traded Item 9 Labs. In addition, Gullickson was recently selected by the Phoenix Business Journal to judge their Top 40 Under 40 Award applications. Gullickson received the award in 2018, joining an exclusive club of more than 680 other Top 40 Under 40 alumni. I am honored to be recognized on a mainstream level for my work within the cannabis industry, stated Gullickson. I want to inspire other women to become leaders in the cannabis space because diversity breeds success. Headquartered in Phoenix, Item 9 Labs is bringing best industry practices to markets from coast to coast through cultivation, dispensary, and processing operations, as well as licensing services, and medical cannabis product suites. In other news, Gullickson shared the Item 9 Labs mission and her vision in a live interview with Follow the Money Investor Group, a financial portal that provides essential content and information to navigate ever changing capital markets. The feature discussed how the Company is advancing the cannabis industry and future expansion plans. Item 9 Labs currently has distribution and processing operations Strive Wellness of Ohio and Strive Wellness of Nevada, as well as dispensary Strive Life North Dakota. The Company intends to manage facilities in six to ten U.S. cannabis markets by the end of 2019. For information visit Item9LabsCorp.com. About Item 9 Labs Corp.: Item 9 Labs Corp. (OTC: INLB) creates comfortable cannabis health solutions for the modern consumer. The Company is bringing best of industry practices to markets from coast to coast through cultivation and production, distinctive retail environments, licensing services, and diverse product suites catering to different medical cannabis demographics. Item 9 Labs Corp. is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, with medical cannabis operations in multiple U.S. markets. Item 9 Labs Corp.s asset portfolio includes Dispensary Permits, Dispensary Templates, and Strive Life. These assets provide services specific to different stakeholder groups. Dispensary Permits is the Companys consulting firm specializing in strategic license application and compliance. Dispensary Templates, a subdivision of the firm, is a technology platform with an extensive digital library of licensing and business planning resources. Strive Life is a turnkey dispensary model for the retail sector, elevating the patient experience with consistent and superior service, high-end design, and precision-tested products. It is currently being implemented in Arizona and North Dakota. In addition, Item 9 Labs Corp. is advancing the industry with its dynamic product suites. The Company has created complementary brands Item 9 Labs and Strive Wellness to channel consumer diversity. Propriety delivery platforms include the Apollo Vape and Pod system, as well as a pioneering intra-nasal device. The Company has received multiple accolades for its medical-grade flower and concentrates. Item 9 Labs Corp. intends to manage cultivation, processing, distribution, and dispensary operations in up to ten U.S. markets by the end of 2019. Current facilities include distribution and processing operations Strive Wellness of Ohio and Strive Wellness of Nevada, as well as dispensary Strive Life North Dakota. For more information, visit Item 9 Labs Corp. at www.Item9labscorp.com . Forward-Looking Statement: This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, risks and effects of legal and administrative proceedings and governmental regulation, especially in a foreign country, future financial and operational results, competition, general economic conditions, proposed transactions that are not legally binding obligations of the company and the ability to manage and continue growth. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual outcomes may vary materially from those indicated. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make in this news release include the introduction of new technology, market conditions and those set forth in reports or documents we file from time to time with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to revise or update such statements to reflect current events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Media Contact: Neko Catanzaro Proven Media Neko@provenmediaservices.com (401) 484-4980 Investor Contact: Jeffrey Rassas Item 9 Labs Corp. Jeffrey@item9labs.com (602) 463-4246 A video accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b79b1f2c-3fb4-4d4c-97fc-b710389624ef Aircraft Composite Enclosures Market is Likely to reach US$ 199.0 million in the coming Years www.stratviewresearch.com/toc/342/Aircraft-Composite-Encl www.stratviewresearch.com/Request-Sample/342/Aircraft-Com https://www.stratviewresearch.com/market-reports/Aerospace-Defense.html Stratview Research has launched a new research report on Aircraft Composite Enclosures Market. Published on Jun, 2018, this 261-page report segments the market in six ways to provide a 360-degree holistic view.The forecast of the market size has been segmented by by Aircraft Type (Commercial Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, and Others) by Shielding Type (Shielded Enclosures, and Others) by Resin Type (PPS Composites, PEEK Composites, and Others) by Fiber Type (Carbon Fiber Composites, and Glass Fiber Composites) by Process Type (Injection Moulding, and Others) and by Regiono North America (Country Analysis: The USA, Rest of North America)o Europe (Country Analysis: France, Germany, the UK, and Rest of Europe)o Asia-Pacific (Country Analysis: China, Japan, India, and Rest of Asia-Pacific)o Rest of the World (Country Analysis: Latin America, the Middle East, and Others)The objective of this report is to identify the Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity of Aircraft Composite Enclosures market.Years considered for this report base year 2018 trend period 2012 2017 forecast period 2018 2023Go through the detailed scope:...OrGet a free sample of the report:...Organic growth of aircraft productionThe aircraft composite enclosures market is projected to grow at a healthy rate over the next five years to reach US$ 199.0 million in 2023. Organic growth of aircraft production to support the rising passenger and freight traffic, an increased preference for composite parts over traditional metallic ones, and an increasing use of avionics in the next-generation aircraft are some of the key factors that are proliferating the demand for composite enclosures in the aircraft industry.Enclosures in an aircraft are cases or cabinets used to protect critical electronic components. Reduction in thermal loads, protection against aircraft fluids, protection from the environment, and shielding against EMI as well as static electricity are some essential functions performed by enclosures situated in an aircraft.Switching from traditional metallic components to composite ones is oneThe aircraft industry has always been looking for different ways to reduce carbon emissions and to improve fuel economy. Switching from traditional metallic components to composite ones is one such way to achieve the requirements. A similar trend has also been observed in aircraft enclosures. Metallic enclosures are predominantly used in the aircraft industry, owing to their superior mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties; however, these enclosures are prone to corrosion and bring excess weight to an aircraft. The industry is keen to adopt composite enclosures which are not only lighter in weight as compared to metallic enclosures but also offer higher thermal loads and carry electrical properties.Commercial aircraft to remain the growth engineThe aircraft composite enclosures market is segmented based on the aircraft type as Commercial Aircraft, Regional Aircraft, Military Aircraft, and Others. Commercial aircraft is likely to remain the growth engine of the market during the forecast period. Increase in the production rates of key aircraft programs, stringent emission norms for reducing carbon emissions, increase in the use of avionics in the aircraft, and rising penetration of composites are likely to aid growth to the segment in the coming years.PPS is likely to remain the most dominant resin type segmentBased on the resin type, PPS is likely to remain the most dominant resin type in the aircraft composite enclosures market over the next five years. The resin type offers good dimensional stability even at an elevated temperature and in the harsh chemical environment. It also helps in molding complex parts with very tight tolerances and has an outstanding resistance to a wide variety of aggressive chemical environments and stability of dielectric and insulating properties over a wide range of conditions.Carbon fiber composite is likely to remain the fastest-growingBased on the fiber type, carbon fiber composite is likely to remain the fastest-growing segment of the market over the next five years, driven by its long list of advantages including lightweight, higher strength-to-weight ratio, good EMI performance, and better aesthetics. Glass fiber composites also offer a wide array of advantages including low cost, low weight, good product performance, and excellent corrosion resistance, over their rivals including aluminium and other metallic enclosures.Injection molding is the most widely preferred manufacturing processBased on the process type, injection molding is the most widely preferred manufacturing process in the market and is likely to remain the most dominant process during the forecast period as well. It is considered to be an ideal process for mass-volume applications and has the ability to develop complex shapes in a very short cycle time with very fewer scrapes.shielded enclosure to remain the larger segmentBased on the shielding type, the shielded enclosure is likely to remain the larger segment of the aircraft composite enclosures market during the forecast period. EMI shielded composite enclosures provide a combination of reflection and absorption of energy. The radiated energy from internal electronics is absorbed and dissipated in the shielded composite enclosures.North America to remain the largest marketBased on regions, North America is projected to remain the largest market during the forecast period. The USA is the growth engine of the North American aircraft composite enclosures market. Presence of major aircraft manufacturers, tier players, and enclosure manufacturers primarily drive the demand for composite enclosures in the country. The country is not only the largest market in North America, but it is also the largest market in the world. Asia-Pacific is likely to depict the highest growth during the same period, driven by China, India, and Japan. All these three countries would remain the growth engines of the regions market for aircraft composite enclosure over the next five years.Top market playersThe supply chain of this market comprises raw material suppliers, composite enclosure manufacturers, avionics suppliers, aircraft OEMs, and airlines. Major composite enclosure manufacturing companies are TE Connectivity, Kaman Aerospace (Vermont Composites Inc), Carlisle Interconnect Technologies, AIM Aerospace, Automated Dynamics, and Connective Design Inc. The development of lightweight enclosures and collaborations with OEMs for the joint development of enclosures are some of the strategies adopted by the major players in order to gain the competitive edge in the market.Report FeaturesThis report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report: Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porters five forces analysis, SWOT analysis Market trend and forecast analysis Market segment trend and forecast Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc. Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities Emerging trends Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players Key success factors.Research MethodologyThis report studies the global Aircraft Composite Enclosures market, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders across the value chain. The rich quality of insights is outcome of - Extensive secondary research, Rigorous primary interviews with more than 15 industry stakeholders across the value chain. Validation and triangulation of data with Stratview Researchs internal database and statistical tools. More than 700 authenticated secondary sources, such as company annual reports, fact book, press release, journals, investor presentation, white papers, patents, and articles have been leveraged to gather the data.Stratview Research has several high value market reports in the chemicals and materials industry. Please refer to the following link to browse through our reports:Click Here for Other Reports from Stratview Research in the Aerospace & Defence Industry:Stratview Research is a global market intelligence firm offering a wide range of services including syndicated market reports, consulting, sourcing intelligence, and customer research.400 Renaissance Center,Suite 2600,Detroit, Michigan, MI 48243United States of AmericaPhone No. +1-313-307-4176Email-sales@stratviewresearch.com Surgical Hat Market Size Detail Analysis focusing on Key Players like Harmony Surgical Designs, Sparkling Earth Medhedzz, Crazy Scrubs, Tafford and More https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/request-sample/3012796?utm_source=OPR&utm_medium=Shifali https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/request-for-discount/3012796?utm_source=OPR&utm_medium=Shifali Scope of the Report:The worldwide market for Surgical Hat is expected to grow over the next five years according to a new GIR (Global Info Research) study.This report focuses on the Surgical Hat in global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Get Sample:Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:KimKapsEtsyHarmony Surgical DesignsSparkling EarthMedhedzzCrazy ScrubsTaffordUniform AdvantageScrub HatsMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers:CottonNon-woven FabricSilkOthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:HospitalSpecial ClinicEmergency CenterOtherThe content of the study subjects, includes a total of 15 chapters:Chapter 1, to describe Surgical Hat product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market driving force and market risks.Chapter 2, to profile the top manufacturers of Surgical Hat, with price, sales, revenue and global market share of Surgical Hat in 2017 and 2018.Chapter 3, the Surgical Hat competitive situation, sales, revenue and global market share of top manufacturers are analyzed emphatically by landscape contrast.Chapter 4, the Surgical Hat breakdown data are shown at the regional level, to show the sales, revenue and growth by regions, from 2014 to 2019.Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to break the sales data at the country level, with sales, revenue and market share for key countries in the world, from 2014 to 2019.Chapter 10 and 11, to segment the sales by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2014 to 2019.Chapter 12, Surgical Hat market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2019 to 2024.Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Surgical Hat sales channel, distributors, customers, research findings and conclusion, appendix and data source.Get Discount:Big Market Research has a range of research reports from various publishers across the world. Our database of reports of various market categories and sub-categories would help to find the exact report you may be looking for.We are instrumental in providing quantitative and qualitative insights on your area of interest by bringing reports from various publishers at one place to save your time and money. A lot of organizations across the world are gaining profits and great benefits from information gained through reports sourced by us.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205, Portland,OR 97220 United StatesDirect: +1-971-202-1575Toll Free: +1-800-910-6452Email help@bigmarketresearch.com New study: Breast Enhancers Market outlook with trends, types, applications and key players Breast Enhancers Market https://inforgrowth.com/sample-request/156650/global-breast-enhancers-market-insights-forecast-to-2025 https://inforgrowth.com/customization/156650/global-breast-enhancers-market-insights-forecast-to-2025 The report focuses on the global Breast Enhancers market status, future opportunities, growth analysis, key drivers and top players. The study objectives are to present Breast Enhancers development in the United States, Europe, and China.Breast enhancers are mostly used by women to even out the shape of their breast. These enhancers provide full coverage and up to 1 or 2 cup size increment. These come in a variety of materials, styles, and sizes. Breast enhancers are basically for people who do not want to undergo painful surgeries. They offer a quick and inexpensive solution for the same. You can get perfect looking breasts without having to put yourself at a risk. Also, breast enhancers save you from surgical complications, risk of scars, leakage and painful incisions.Request for Sample PDF @Breast Enhancers Market provides a detailed market overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications, challenges, competitive scenario and industry chain structure. The report also analyzes the Breast Enhancers Market verticals and horizontals, Market Size and CAGR comparison by region.The key players are Nearly Me, Still You, Amoena, Bravo Bra Pads, Classique, Inc., Maximum International.The market analysis was done by Product types like Silicone Forms, Foam and Polyfil Forms, Other and by Application like Breast Enhancers for Initial Compensation, Breast Enhancers for Partial Compensation, Breast Enhancers for Full Compensation.THE STUDY OBJECTIVES OF THIS REPORT ARE: To study and analyze the global Breast Enhancers market size (value & volume) by company, key regions, products, and end user, breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025. To understand the structure of Breast Enhancers market by identifying its various sub-segments. To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). Focuses on the key global Breast Enhancers companies, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape and recent development. To project the value and sales volume of Breast Enhancers submarkets, with respect to key regions. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.MAJOR POINTS FROM TABLE OF CONTENTS1 Report Overview2 Global Growth Trends3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers4 Breakdown Data by Type5 Breakdown Data by Application6 North America7 Europe8 Asia Pacific9 Central & South America10 Middle East and Africa11 Company Profiles12 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis13 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis14 Research Findings and Conclusion15 AppendixFOR MORE QUERIES OR FOR CUSTOM REQUIREMENTS, CONTACT US ATABOUT INFORGROWTH:We are a market-intelligence company formed with the objective of providing clients access to the most relevant and accurate research content for their growth needs. At InForGrowth, we understand Research requirements and help a client in taking informed business-critical decisions. Given the complexities and interdependencies of market-intelligence, there is always more than one source to explore and arrive at the right answer. Through our smart search feature and our reliable & trusted publishing partners, we are paving way for more simplified and relevant research.FOR ALL YOUR RESEARCH NEEDS, REACH OUT TO US AT:Address: 6400 Village Pkwy suite # 104, Dublin, CA 94568, USAContact Name: RohanEmail: sales@inforgrowth.comPhone: +1-909-329-2808UK: +44 (203) 743 1890 Latest report on Erotic Lingerie Market 2019 Consist with Competitive landscape and Top 13 Company Profiles Erotic Lingerie Market https://inforgrowth.com/sample-request/2149191/erotic-lingerie-market https://inforgrowth.com/customization/2149191/erotic-lingerie-market The report focuses on the global Erotic Lingerie market status, future opportunities, growth analysis, key drivers and top players. 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The report also analysis the Erotic Lingerie Market verticals and horizontals, Market Size and CAGR comparison by region.Request for Sample PDF @The key players are Lejaby, Lise Charmel, Victorias Secret, Calvin Klein, Agent Provocateur, Aubade, La Perla, Bluebella, Cosabella, Damaris, Fig leaves, La Senza, Fredericks of Hollywood.Market analysis done by Product types like Bra, Knickers and Panties, Lounge Wear, Shape Wear, Others and by Application like Online Stores, Offline Stores.THE STUDY OBJECTIVES OF THIS REPORT ARE: To study and analyze the global Erotic Lingerie market size (value & volume) by company, key regions, products and end user, breakdown data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2025. To understand the structure of Erotic Lingerie market by identifying its various subsegments. To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). Focuses on the key global Erotic Lingerie companies, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape and recent development. To project the value and sales volume of Erotic Lingerie submarkets, with respect to key regions. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.MAJOR POINTS FROM TABLE OF CONTENTS1 Report Overview2 Global Growth Trends3 Breakdown Data by Manufacturers4 Breakdown Data by Type5 Breakdown Data by Application6 North America7 Europe8 Asia Pacific9 Central & South America10 Middle East and Africa11 Company Profiles12 Market Opportunities, Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis13 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis14 Research Findings and Conclusion15 AppendixFOR MORE QUERIES OR FOR CUSTOM REQUIREMENTS, CONTACT US ATABOUT INFORGROWTH:We are a market-intelligence company formed with the objective of providing clients access to the most relevant and accurate research content for their growth needs. At InForGrowth, we understand Research requirements and help a client in taking informed business-critical decisions. Given the complexities and interdependencies of market-intelligence, there is always more than one source to explore and arrive at the right answer. Through our smart search feature and our reliable & trusted publishing partners, we are paving way for more simplified and relevant research.FOR ALL YOUR RESEARCH NEEDS, REACH OUT TO US AT:Address: 6400 Village Pkwy suite # 104, Dublin, CA 94568, USAContact Name: RohanEmail: sales@inforgrowth.comPhone: +1-909-329-2808UK: +44 (203) 743 1890 Dairy Whitener Market Augmented Expansion to be Registered by 2017 to 2022 | Key Players are Britannia Industries Ltd., HATSUN AGRO PRODUCT LTD, Schreiber Foods Inc., etc. https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=144 https://www.factmr.com/report/144/dairy-whitener-market https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=144 https://www.factmr.com/ The purpose of this rich study presented by FactMR is to elaborate the various market projections impacting the global dairy whitener market during the period until 2028. This assessment delivers high-end statistics concerning market size (US$ 12 Billion by the end of 2022), Y-o-Y growth and revenue share linked to different geographies and segmentation types. Readers can acquire precise insights about growth trends along with opportunities that are expected to reshape the overall structure of the dairy whitener market during the forecast period.Request a Free Sample Report from Here As per a recently presented report by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Intergovernmental Group (IGG), the global consumption of tea, particularly in China, India, and other emerging economies is anticipated to rise over the next decade, thereby creating more income opportunities for tea-producing nations. FactMR foresees this global trend to expand the demand for tea whiteners- both dairy and non-dairy in the coming years. Increasing awareness about the anti-inflammatory and weight-loss benefits of tea and the health risks associated with carbonated drinks and sweetened juices, will result in a notable consumption of dairy whiteners with tea.Growing preference for other beverage alternatives, containing lesser dairy content, is projected to impact the dairy whitener marketsignificantly, resulting in a sluggish consumption in United States and Europe. Increasing market share of other beverages like coffee and bottle water, as a result of increased public health consciousness, coupled with the lactose-intolerance factor is resulting in a decline in consumption levels. However, manufacturers of dairy whiteners could reverse the declining curve in Western countries with new product innovations including organic and specialty variants.Improved shelf-life, ease of handling, and ready-to-consume formats of dairy whiteners are key factors driving the consumption. Moreover, increasing demand for enhanced milk protein and fat content, is projected to present innovation opportunities to manufacturers of dairy whiteners and develop technologies for new products. Manufacturers have been exploring the ultrafiltration technique using buffalo milk to produce protein-rich, medium-fat dairy whiteners for enhanced texture and organoleptic quality.Browse Dairy Whitener Market Report with TOC Here -Powdered or dried milk have been gaining prominence among consumers owing to its low sugar and moisture content. Moreover, unhealthy additives including palm oil, hydrogenated oils, and Carrageenan emulsifier present in dairy whiteners will result in sluggish product adoption. Most importantly, powdered milk have found acceptance in infant foods by virtue of its nutritional profile. Nutrients added to infant formulas to enrich it with iron, calcium and vitamins is anticipated to drive the fortified commercial powdered or formula milk.Considering the changing landscape of the global dairy products market, largely owing to the imposition of retaliatory tariffs, has led to a shift in the market strategies adopted by key players in the global dairy whitener market. For Danone, a leading player in the global dairy whitener market, product innovation will remain the key driver to continually adapt to consumers need. Moreover, Danone is strategically moving towards plant-based foods and drinks to cater to the wide choices of consumers looking to broaden their protein sources and overall dietary preferences.Arla Food, a farmer-owned dairy cooperative, is likely to invest nearly 527 Billion Euros for its sustained growth and cater to the growing demand for dairy. The investment plan would also take care of the companys key categories and geographic expansion, majorly targeted in strategic markets including United States, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China and Southeast Asia. Nestle, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co., Ltd, Morinaga Milk Industry Co., Ltd., Britannia Industries Limited, HATSUN AGRO PRODUCT LTD, and Schreiber Foods Inc are some more top companies included in the report on global dairy whitener market.For Any Query or Concern, Access this Link -About FactMRFactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFactMR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400, Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb: Flavored Milk Market Poised to Garner Maximum Revenues During 2017 to 2022 | Key Players Danone, Nestle S.A, Dairy Farmers of America Inc., etc. https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=137 https://www.factmr.com/report/137/flavored-milk-market https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=137 https://www.factmr.com/ FactMR has actively published a new research study titled Flavored Milk Market Poised to Garner Maximum Revenues During 2017 to 2022 | Key Players Danone, Nestle S.A, Dairy Farmers of America Inc., etc. to its broad online database. This assessment works to discourse the major trends, opportunities and drivers motivating the flavored milk market during the period from 2017-2022. The insights structured for presenting the target market are procured from both primary research and secondary research, and are utilized for validation that is valuable to investors, manufacturers and new entrants. As per research findings, the global flavored milk market is expected to showcase impressive growth in CAGR during the period until 2022.Request for a Free Sample Report -Prepared by blending milk, natural or artificial flavorings, colorings, and sugar, flavored milk is usually pasteurized by using the ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment. This process further renders the flavored milk with longer shelf life as compared to plain milk. A variety of flavored sweetened syrups, or powders are available in the market, which can be added to plain milk for providing flavored taste.Positive perceptions of consumers about various health benefits are influencing growth of the flavored milk market around the world. Flavored milk market vendors are expanding their product portfolio by introducing new flavors, to attract consumer interests. For example Prairie Dairy Farms has launched two new flavored milk products in March 2016, and Lewis Road Creamery has introduced the flavors vanilla, and coffee in its flavored milk in 2015. Good packaging increases the shelf-life of flavored milk products, as well as serves as a platform to market the products. Flavored milk market vendors are focusing more on attractive packaging, in order to increase their product visibility, and leveraging the curiosity of consumers for attracting their attention. For instance Fonterra has launched triple layered bottles for its flavored milk products. The interior and exterior layers of these bottles are opaque, with black middle layers blocking out entire radiations of light, prolonging its shelf life.A trend being observed in the global flavored milk market is the rise in vegan population, whose diet is favorable for animal rights. As vegan population opposes consumption of products derived from animals such as eggs, dairy products, and leather among others, the consumption of milk has been witnessing a decline over the past few years. In 2015, consumption of milk in Canada fell by approximately 25%, owing to the rise in vegan population. People are adopting the vegan diet as an ethical concern towards animals. This factor might tremendously impact prospects of flavored milk market in the near future. The global flavored milk market is at a nascent phase, with consumption of flavored milk being comparatively lower than other drinks, for example carbonated soft drinks. Even though the flavored milk market experiences a sluggish expansion at present, demand will gain an uptick in the foreseeable future. The global flavored milk market is estimated to account for over US$ 50,000 Mn revenues by 2022-end.Browse Full Report on Market with TOC -On the basis of sales channel, although traditional grocery retailers are estimated to remain dominant in the global flavored milk market, sales of flavored milk in modern grocery retail segment will continue to register the highest CAGR through 2022. Non-grocery retailers are expected to be the second largest sales channel for flavored milk by 2022-end. Tin and can packaging will remain preferred among consumers in the global flavored milk market, with sales poised to reach nearly US$ 20,000 Mn in revenues by 2022-end. Tin and can packaging is estimated to account for over one-third share of the flavored milk market during 2017 to 2022. PET bottles will remain the second most lucrative packaging in the flavored milk market. Sales of flavored milk packed in cartons are expected to register a comparatively higher CAGR than those packed in PET bottles through 2022.Chocolate flavored milk are anticipated to remain sought-after in the global flavored milk market. Sales of chocolate flavored milk will surpass US$ 10,000 Mn in revenues by 2022-end. Between coffee, and vanilla flavored milk, revenues from vanilla flavored milk will remain higher, while sales of coffee flavored milk will register a faster expansion through 2022. In terms of revenues, Europe is estimated to remain the most lucrative region for growth of the flavored milk market, and is expected to account for over one-fourth share of the flavored milk market during 2017 to 2022. Sales of flavored milk will register the fastest expansion in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), to make APEJ the second largest region for the flavored milk market by 2022-end.Competition TrackingKey players operating in the global flavored milk market are Danone, Nestle S.A., Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited, China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited, Dairy Farmers of America, Inc., Koninklijke Friesland Campina N.V., Dean Foods Company, Morinaga Milk Industry Co., Ltd., Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., National Dairy Development Board, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co., Ltd., and Grupo Lala, S.A.B. de C.V.Have Any Question? Ask Our Industry Experts -About FactMRFactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFactMR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400, Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb: Market Key Player Analysis By ARB, Danby, Dometic Group AB, EdgeStar (Living Direct, Inc.), Engel Australia Pty Ltd., Haier Inc Portable Mini Fridge https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/request-sample/2954207/?utm_source=SBL https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/2954207/?utm_source=SBL https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/portable-mini-fridge-market/?utm_source=SBL https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/global-portable-mini-fridge-2018-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2023-market/?utm_source=RR&utm_medium=SBL Big Market Research adds Portable Mini Fridge Market report that gives meticulous investigation of current scenario of the market size, share, demand, growth, trends, companies active in the industry and forecasts for the coming years.A portable mini fridge also known as travel mini fridge is a compact size fridge that can be easily moved around. The smaller frame and light weight allow it to be set up virtually anywhere. Typically, a portable mini fridge helps to keep food, beverages, cosmetics, and medicines cool while traveling or outing. The portable mini fridge is an ideal option for micro homes and RV (recreational vehicles) as it does not occupy a lot of space compared to the traditional counterpart. They are widely used across different hospitals and clinics to keep organs and drugs at a certain temperature. They also are very energy efficient as a baseline product in this category requires only 12 volts to function.Request for a sample copy of this report @The rise in the trend of outings and picnic in the Western countries is expected to boost the growth of the portable mini fridge market. It plays an important role in keeping food, beverages, and other similar items fresh throughout the outing. The global portable mini fridge market is driven by rising in the preference of consuming fresh and cooked food. Moreover, technological advancements leading to the emergence of more energy efficient models boost the growth of the portable mini fridge market. However, the high cost of the product hinders market growth. Adoption of micro home concepts & mobile homes and an increase in the adoption of recreational vehicles are expected to provide lucrative opportunities for market growth during the forecast period.The portable mini fridge market is segmented based on type, application, and region. On the basis of type, the market is segmented into less than 1 cu. ft., 11.9 cu. ft., 22.9 cu. ft., 33.9 cu. ft., and 45 cu. ft. Based on the application, the market is divided into commercial and residential use. By region, the market is studied across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.Europe is one of the regions where the adoption of the portable mini fridge is high. The key players in the industry relied on acquisition and expansion as strategies to overcome competition and improve their share in the world market. The key players profiled in the report include ARB, Danby, Dometic Group AB, EdgeStar (Living Direct, Inc.), Engel Australia Pty Ltd., Haier Inc, Koolatron, LG Electronics, Godrej Group, and Whynter.Inquiry Before Buying @The major players profiled in this study include: ARB, Danby, Dometic Group AB, EdgeStar (Living Direct, Inc.), Engel Australia Pty Ltd., Haier Inc, Koolatron, LG Electronics, Godrej GroupKEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERSThe report provides an in-depth analysis of the current trends, drivers, and dynamics of the portable mini fridge market to elucidate the prevailing opportunities and potential investment pockets.It offers qualitative trends as well as quantitative analysis from 2018 to 2025 to assist stakeholders to understand the market scenario.An in-depth analysis of the key segments demonstrates the types of diabetic footwear.Competitive intelligence of the industry highlights the business practices followed by key players across geographies and the prevailing market opportunities.The key players are profiled along with their strategies and developments to understand the competitive outlook of the industry.Portable Mini Fridge Market Key Segments:By Type: Less Than 1 cu. ft.,11.9 cu. ft.,22.9 cu. ft.,33.9 cu. ft. and 45 cu. ft.By Application: Commercial Use and Home UseBy Country:North America: U.S., Canada, MexicoEurope: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Rest of EuropeAsia-Pacific: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Rest of Asia-PacificLAMEA: Chile, Israel, South Africa, Rest of LAMEAAccess Full Summery @Table of content:CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER 2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYCHAPTER 3: MARKET OVERVIEWCHAPTER 4: PORTABLE MINI FRIDGE MARKET, BY FILTER TYPECHAPTER 5: PORTABLE MINI FRIDGE MARKET, BY APPLICATIONCHAPTER 6: PORTABLE MINI FRIDGE MARKET, BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNELCHAPTER 7: PORTABLE MINI FRIDGE MARKET, BY REGIONCHAPTER 8: COMPANY PROFILESSimilar Publisher Related report:Global Portable Mini Fridge Market 2018 by Manufacturers, Regions, Type, and Application, Forecast to 2023More summary:About Us:Big Market Research has a range of research reports from various publishers across the world. Our database of reports of various market categories and sub-categories would help to find the exact report you may be looking for.We are instrumental in providing quantitative and qualitative insights on your area of interest by bringing reports from various publishers at one place to save your time and money. A lot of organizations across the world are gaining profits and great benefits from information gained through reports sourced by us.Contact us:Mr. Abhishek Paliwal5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205, Portland,OR 97220 United StatesDirect: +1-971-202-1575Toll Free: +1-800-910-6452E-mail help@bigmarketresearch.com Cyber Insurance Market to grow at 33.7% CAGR and Expected to reach USD 29800 Million by 2023 | Top International Brands are AIG, Chubb, XL Group, Beazley, Allianz, Berkshire Hathaway, AON Cyber Insurance Market https://www.businessindustryreports.com/sample-request/142819 https://www.businessindustryreports.com/buy-now/142819/single https://www.businessindustryreports.com/check-discount/142819 The exclusive research report on the Global Cyber Insurance Market 2019 examines the market in detail along with focusing on significant market dynamics for the key players operating in the market. Global Cyber Insurance Industry research report offers granulated yet in-depth analysis of revenue share, market segments, revenue estimates and various regions across the globe.Global Cyber Insurance Market Overview:The report spread across 90 pages is an overview of the Global Cyber Insurance Market Report 2019. The Global Cyber Insurance Market is projected to grow at a healthy growth rate from 2019 to 2023 according to new research. The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies.The Global Cyber Insurance Market size was 2920 Million US$ in 2018 and it is expected to reach 29800 Million US$ by the end of 2023, with a CAGR of 33.7% during 2019 - 2023.Available Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @According to the market report analysis, the Cyber-insurance is an insurance product used to protect businesses and individual users from Internet-based risks, and more generally from risks relating to information technology infrastructure and activities. Risks of this nature are typically excluded from traditional commercial general liability policies or at least are not specifically defined in traditional insurance products. Most cyber insurance writers have shifted their writings to standalone policies and away from packaged policies; we found that more than 67% of the $2.19 billion total direct premiums written in 2016 were on a standalone basis. Insurers view standalone policies as more efficient and effective than packaged policies.The top 3 cyber insurance writers are American International Group (AIG), Chubb and XL Group; these 3 companies had a combined market share of over 30 percent in 2016. The top 15 writers of cyber in this report held approximately 64 percent of the market in 2016.In terms of the regional analysis, North America dominates the Cyber Insurance Market and accounts for around 89% of the overall Cyber Insurance Market in 2016. Mandatory legislation regarding cyber security in several U.S. states has led to higher penetration of cyber liability insurance policies. Europe has very less penetration of cyber insurance liability policies as compared to that of the U.S. The European council has recently passed regulations regarding data protection and security, which are projected to be brought into effect in 2019. These regulations would oblige companies to purchase cyber insurance policies. Though APAC accounts for negligible percentage share, it is expected to grow at a significant CAGR during the forecast period owing to a significant increase in ransomware attacks.Purchase this report online with 90 Pages, List of Tables & Figures and in-depth Table of Contents on Global Cyber Insurance Market Report 2019 @Major Key Players:1 AIG2 Chubb3 XL Group4 Beazley5 Allianz6 Zurich Insurance7 Munich Re Group8 Berkshire Hathaway9 AON10 AXIS Insurance and More..Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers1 North America Country (United States, Canada)2 South America3 Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)4 Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)5 Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount @Major Points in Table of Contents:Global Cyber Insurance Market Report 20191 Cyber Insurance Product Definition2 Global Cyber Insurance Market Manufacturer Share and Market Overview3 Manufacturer Cyber Insurance Business Introduction4 Global Cyber Insurance Market Segmentation (Region Level)5 Global Cyber Insurance Market Segmentation (Product Type Level)6 Global Cyber Insurance Market Segmentation (Industry Level)7 Global Cyber Insurance Market Segmentation (Channel Level)8 Cyber Insurance Market Forecast 2019-20239 Cyber Insurance Segmentation Product Type10 Cyber Insurance Segmentation Industry11 Cyber Insurance Cost of Production Analysis12 ConclusionAbout usBusinessindustryReports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Media ContactBusiness Industry ReportsPune Indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940 Advanced Medical Stopcock Market Growth Steady at 4.1% CAGR to 2027 to Reach $1,167.6 Million Driven by Nordson, Cook, Elcam Medical, Codan USA, Merit Medical, Nipro, Smiths Medical, JCM MED, Utah Medical, B. Braun Melsungen Advanced Medical Stopcock Market Worth USD 1,167.6 Million by 2027 https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00002772/?O-pK https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00002772/?O-pK www.theinsightpartners.com/ The global advanced medical stopcock market to grow at a CAGR of 4.1% to account $1,167.6 Million by 2027 from $841.3 Million in 2018 driven by the Growing Incidence of Chronic Diseases and Rapidly Growing Number of Surgical Procedures.The global advanced medical stopcock market by end user segments was led by hospitals & clinics segment. In 2018, the hospitals & clinics held a largest market share of 42.0% of the advanced medical stopcock market, by end user. This segment is also expected to be the fastest growing segments of the market in 2027 owing to increasing number of admission in hospitals due to several health conditions which is becoming the major factor for the growth of the advanced medical stopcock market.Asia Pacific is the fastest growing geographic market and it is expected to be the fastest revenue contributor throughout the forecast period. Asia Pacific is recognized as a developing market for the medical devices. The growth is driven by the factors such as rising prevalence of the infectious disease across the region. Also the rising initiatives by the government of India and Australia are likely to foster the growth of the market during forecast period.Get Sample Copy of this report atAdvanced Medical Stopcock Market Key Company Profiles: B. Braun Melsungen AG Smiths Medical Nipro Elcam Medical Merit Medical Systems Codan USA Nordson Corporation Cook JCM MED Utah Medical Products Inc.Advanced Medical Stopcock Market Insights: Growing Incidence of Chronic DiseasesThe chronic diseases such as heart diseases, cancer, chronic lung diseases, stroke, Alzheimers disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease among the others are the leading cause of deaths. The habits such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity among others are the leading factors for the chronic diseases. According to the recent statistics of World Health Organization for the year 2019, chronic diseases contribute approximately 60% of all deaths and 43% of the global burden of disease. It is also expected that by 2020 the incidences of deaths will rise approximately to 73% and the global burden of disease is expected to grow by 60%. Therefore, the significant rise in the incidences of the chronic diseases are likely to increase the demand for the advanced medical stopcock as this is required to treat various conditions.Rapidly Growing Number of Surgical Procedures:Advanced medical stopcocks are used during surgeries or after the surgical procedures. These are used with infusion pumps to send pain medicine through catheter to a specific part of patients body. The Infusion pumps provide targeted and consistent medicine to decrease the pain. They are used when other methods are less effective or when the patient needs long-term medicines or fluids. The stopcocks are used after surgeries to provide medicines in the fluid forms when the patient is under observation. For instance, the surgical procedures such as caesarean sections are growing across the world. According to the statistics revealed by the European Union states that in 2016, approximately 1.32 million caesarean sections were performed. The number of the surgeries are rising across the world which is likely to propel the growth of the market during the forecast period.Place a Purchase Order to Buy a Complete Copy of this Report atAdvanced Medical Stopcock Market Strategic Insights:Organic and inorganic growth strategies were observed among which organic strategy was the most adopted strategy in global advanced medical stopcock industry. For instance, in December, 2018, Merit Medical Systems, Inc. announced acquisition of Vascular Insights, LLC, Merit acquired assets such as ClariVeinIC and ClariVeinOC specialty infusion and occlusion catheter systems. Thus, the acquisitions of the smaller companies are assisting in strengthening their portfolio and business.Advance Medical Stopcock MARKET SEGMENTATIONBy Type Low-Pressure Stopcocks Medium-Pressure Stopcocks High-Pressure StopcocksBy End User Hospitals & Clinics Homecare Ambulatory Surgical CentresBy Geography North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe France Germany UK Spain Italy Asia Pacific (APAC) China India Japan Australia South Korea Middle East & Africa (MEA) Saudi Arabia South Africa UAE South America (SAM) Brazil ArgentinaAbout Us:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Automotive and Defense.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comWebsite: Italy Travel Insurance Market| Top Key Players- Allianz global assistance SAS, AXA Group, Filo Diretto, Generali Group, Gruppo Cattolica Assicurazioni https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/sample/5206 https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/product/italy-travel-insurance-market-amr https://www.kdmarketinsights.com/discount/5206 www.kdmarketinsights.com A Comprehensive research study conducted by KD Market Insights on "Italy Travel Insurance Market by Product Type (Single Trip Travel Insurance, Annual Multi-Trip Travel Insurance, and Long-stay Travel Insurance), by Distribution Channel (Insurance Intermediaries, Insurance Company, Bank, Insurance Broker, Insurance Aggregator, and Others) and End User (Senior Citizen, Education Traveler, Backpackers, Business Traveler, Family Traveler, and Fully Independent Traveler) - Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecasts, 2016-2023" report offers extensive and highly detailed historical, current and future market trends in the Italy and regional/market. The Travel Insurance Market report includes market size, growth drivers, barriers, opportunities, trends and other information which helps to find new opportunities in this market for the growth of the business through new technologies and developments.Travel insurance covers the cost incurred due to any problematic incidents while traveling. It includes trip cancellation losses, loss of baggage, medical treatment of patients, and loss of travel documents, evacuation, or deportation during an emergency, and some other unavoidable conditions. In the coming years, the Italy travel insurance market is projected to grow at a significant rate owing to its low penetration rate and growth in tourism industry. According to World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Italy tourism sector will rise by 2.6% in the year 2017, and is expected to contribute around 5.1% of country's GDP by 2027.Request for Sample @The growth of the travel insurance market is largely attributed to the growth in trend of availing travel insurance as a prerequisite for obtaining Visa to ensure that travelers are adequately covered in case of medical emergencies due to hospitalization in foreign countries and high costs of medical services during travel time.However, lack of awareness regarding various insurance schemes and benefits of travel insurance are expected to hamper the growth of the Italy travel insurance market. Moreover, relaxed norms and low fluctuation in rates due to large number of competitors have resulted in decline of gross written premium.The market is segmented based on type of distribution channel, product types, end user, and geography. Based on product type, it is classified into single trip, annual multi-trip, and long stay. Based on distribution channel, the market is classified into insurance intermediaries, insurance company, bank, insurance broker, insurance aggregators, and others. Based on end user, it is classified into senior citizens, education travelers, backpackers, business travelers, family travelers, and fully independent traveler.Some of the significant players profiled in the report are Allianz global assistance SAS, AXA Group, DARAG Deutsche Versicherungs- und RAckversicherungs-AG, Filo Diretto, Generali Group, Gruppo Cattolica Assicurazioni, MAPFRE S.A., Reale Mutua Assicurazioni, and UnipolSai Assicurazioni S.p.A. All these key players are involved in various strategic developments, such as partnerships, collaborations, mergers & acquisition and others to increase their market penetration in the industry.KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS In-depth analysis of the Italy travel insurance industry along with its dynamics is provided to understand the market scenario. Quantitative analysis of the current trends and future estimations from 2017 to 2023 is provided to assist strategists and stakeholders to capitalize on prevailing opportunities. Porter's Five Forces analysis examines the competitive structure of the Italy travel insurance market and provides a clear understanding of the factors that influence the market entry and expansion. Comprehensive analysis of the trends, sub-segments, and key revenue pockets are provided in the report. Detailed analysis of the key players and their business strategies are anticipated to assist stakeholders to take informed business decisions. Profile analysis of leading players that operate in the Italy travel insurance market are provided in the report, which highlight the major developmental strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, expansions, and new product launches adopted by these companies.KEY MARKET SEGMENTSBy Product Type Single trip travel insurance Annual multi-trip travel insurance Long stay travel insuranceBy Distribution Channel Insurance intermediaries Insurance company Bank Insurance broker Insurance aggregator OtherBy End-User Senior citizen Education traveler Backpackers Business traveler Family traveler Fully independent travelerThe key players profiled in the report are as follows: UnipolSai Assicurazioni S.p. A Reale Mutua Assicurazioni Gruppo Cattolica Assicurazioni DARAG Deutsche Versicherungs- und RAckversicherungs-AG Generali Group Allianz Group AXA Group Filo Diretto MAPFRE SABrowse Full Report with TOC @Table of Contents:CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION1.1. REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2. KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS1.3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY1.3.1. Primary research1.3.2. Secondary research1.3.3. Analyst tools and models1.3.4. Market segmentationCHAPTER 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1. CXO PERSPECTIVECHAPTER 3 MARKET OVERVIEW3.1. MARKET DEFINITION AND SCOPE3.2. KEY FINDINGS3.2.1. Top winning strategies3.2.2. Top investment pockets3.2.3. Top impacting factors3.2.3.1. Growth in tourism sector3.2.3.2. Surge in baby boomers travelers3.2.3.3. Lack of knowledge and low penetration of insurance policies3.2.3.4. Technological advancement in the travel insurance industry3.3. PORTERS FIVE FORCES3.3.1. Bargaining power of suppliers3.3.2. Bargaining power of buyers3.3.3. Threat of substitutes3.3.4. Threat of new entrants3.3.5. Competitive rivalry3.4. MARKET PLAYER POSITIONING3.5. MARKET DYNAMICS3.5.1. Drivers3.5.1.1. Growth in tourism sector3.5.1.2. Stringent travel rules and regulation by government authorities3.5.1.3. Surge in baby boomers travelers3.5.2. Restraints3.5.2.1. Lack of knowledge and low penetration of insurance policies3.5.3. Opportunities3.5.3.1. Technological advancement in the travel insurance industryCHAPTER 4 ITALY TRAVEL INSURANCE MARKET, BY PRODUCT TYPE4.1. OVERVIEW4.2. SINGLE TRIP TRAVEL INSURANCE4.2.1. Key market trends and growth factors4.2.2. Market size and forecast4.3. ANNUAL MULTI-TRIP TRAVEL INSURANCE4.3.1. Key market trends and growth factors4.3.2. Market size and forecast4.4. LONG-STAY TRAVEL INSURANCE4.4.1. Key market trends and growth factors4.4.2. Market size and forecastCHAPTER 5 ITALY TRAVEL INSURANCE MARKET, BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL5.1. OVERVIEW5.2. INSURANCE INTERMEDIARIES5.2.1. Key market trends and growth factors5.2.2. Market size and forecast5.3. INSURANCE COMPANY5.3.1. Key market trends and growth factors5.3.2. Market size and forecast5.4. BANK5.4.1. Key market trends and growth factors5.4.2. Market size and forecast5.5. INSURANCE BROKER5.5.1. Key market trends and growth factors5.5.2. Market size and forecast5.6. INSURANCE AGGREGATOR5.6.1. Key market trends and growth factors5.6.2. Market size and forecast5.7. OTHER5.7.1. Key market trends and growth factors5.7.2. Market size and forecastCHAPTER 6 ITALY TRAVEL INSURANCE MARKET, BY END USER6.1. OVERVIEW6.2. SENIOR CITIZEN6.2.1. Key market trends and growth factors6.2.2. Market size and forecast6.3. EDUCATION TRAVELER6.3.1. Key market trends and growth factors6.3.2. Market size and forecast6.4. BACKPACKERS6.4.1. Key market trends and growth factors6.4.2. Market size and forecast6.5. BUSINESS TRAVELER6.5.1. Key market trends and growth factors6.5.2. Market size and forecast6.6. FAMILY TRAVELER6.6.1. Key market trends and growth factors6.6.2. Market size and forecast6.7. FULLY INDEPENDENT TRAVELER6.7.1. Key market trends and growth factors6.7.2. Market size and forecastCHAPTER 7 COMPANY PROFILES7.1. UNIPOLSAI ASSICURAZIONI S.P.A.7.1.1. Company overview7.1.2. Company snapshot7.1.3. Operating business segments7.1.4. Business performance7.1.5. Key strategic moves and developments7.2. REALE MUTUA ASSICURAZIONI7.2.1. Company overview7.2.2. Company snapshot7.2.3. Operating business segments7.2.4. Business performance7.2.5. Key strategic moves and developments7.3. GRUPPO CATTOLICA ASSICURAZIONI7.3.1. Company overview7.3.2. Company snapshot7.3.3. Operating business segments7.3.4. Business performance7.3.5. Key strategic moves and developments7.4. DARAG DEUTSCHE VERSICHERUNGS- UND RCKVERSICHERUNGS-AGContinueCheck for Discount @About Us:KD Market Insights offers a comprehensive database of syndicated research studies, customized reports, and consulting services. These reports are created to help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions based on extensive and in-depth quantitative information, supported by extensive analysis and industry insights.Our dedicated in-house team ensures the reports satisfy the requirement of the client. We aim at providing value service to our clients. Our reports are backed by extensive industry coverage and is made sure to give importance to the specific needs of our clients. The main idea is to enable our clients to make an informed decision, by keeping them and ourselves up to date with the latest trends in the market.Contact Us:KD Market Insights150 State Street, Albany,New York, USA 12207+1 (518) 300-1215Email: sales@kdmarketinsights.comWebsite: TORONTO, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. (TSX-V: BMK) ("MacDonald Mines" or the "Company") reports that a review of historical surface exploration data suggests that copper and cobalt are anomalous in the Scadding Deposit. The Scadding Deposit produced 914 kg of gold from 127,000 tonnes of ore grading 7.2 g/t between 1984 and 1990 (OFR 5771). The potential to discover new zones of gold-copper-cobalt mineralization on the Companys 10,647-hectares SPJ (Scadding-Powerline-Jovan) Project is significant. Quentin Yarie, President and CEO of MacDonald Mines, stated, We have observed that the historic Scadding Gold Deposit is anomalous in copper and cobalt. This metal association continues to support our IOCG model. The mineralization reported at the Scadding Deposit is similar to what BMK reported last year at the Brady Showing, 6 kilometres away (Figure 1). This suggests that the polymetallic mineralization could have a large footprint. IOCG systems typically host large tonnage low to medium-grade polymetallic gold-copper, and possible cobalt and make for highly profitable mines. Historic grab samples taken on the showings around and within the Scadding Mine contain copper and cobalt ranging from trace to >1% copper (copper overlimits at 1% not determined) and trace to 0.32% cobalt (Table 1). Most of the historic grab samples with cobalt over 0.05% are located east of the main zones of mineralization and suggest that the main zones of cobalt mineralization are adjacent to the zones of the deposit that were mined. The cobalt-gold assemblage observed in historic grab samples with cobalt over 0.05% however suggests that gold mineralization persists in that under-explored zone of cobalt-gold mineralization. The reader is cautioned that grab samples are selective by nature and may not represent the true mineralization of the prospect. The reader is also cautioned that a qualified person has not done sufficient work to independently verify these values. These are historical values that may not be representative of the mineralization present at the Scadding Deposit. The gold-copper-cobalt association at the Scadding Deposit appears to be like the metal association observed by MacDonald Mines at the Brady Showing located 6 kilometres east of the Scadding Deposit (Figure 1). The alteration hosting the gold-copper-cobalt mineralization at the Brady Showing appear to be comparable to those described historically in the Scadding Deposit. Channel samples taken by the Company at the Brady Showing contained: 4.31% copper, 4.42 g/t gold, 0.011% cobalt, 11.15 g/t silver and 0.013% nickel (11.5 g/t AuEq) over 3.6 metres; 3.44% cobalt, 3.81 g/t gold, 0.14% nickel, 0.59 % copper, and 3.79 g/t silver (53.26 g/t AuEq) over 1.5 metres. The 6 kilometres separation between the Brady Showing and the Scadding Deposit suggests a large footprint for that polymetallic mineralization and the potential to discover new zones of gold-copper-cobalt mineralization on the companys 10, 647-hectares property. Table 1 Highlights from historical grab samples taken near and within the Scadding Deposit1 The reader is cautioned that grab samples are selective by nature and may not represent the true mineralization of the prospect. The reader is also cautioned that a qualified person has not done sufficient work to independently verify these values. These are historical values that may not be representative of the mineralization present at the Scadding Deposit. X Y Company Gold (g/t) Cobalt (wt. %) Copper (wt. %) Au Eq (g/t) 529819 5166446 Trueclaim Exploration 8.55 0.32 0.56 12.11 529258 5166277 Trueclaim Exploration 8.2 0.02 > 1 > 9.87 529814 5166450 Trueclaim Exploration 6.76 0.12 0 7.77 529315 5166314 Trueclaim Exploration 2.78 0 > 1 > 4.28 529366 5166473 Trueclaim Exploration 3.39 0 0.36 3.93 529766 5166437 Trueclaim Exploration 1.8 0.2 0 3.49 529102 5166673 Trueclaim Exploration 2.12 0.01 0.66 3.19 529322 5166417 Trueclaim Exploration 1.45 0.01 0.55 2.36 529814 5166445 Trueclaim Exploration 1.16 0.01 0.57 2.10 529760 5166429 Trueclaim Exploration 1.32 0.01 0.33 1.90 529813 5166451 Trueclaim Exploration 0.058 0.07 0.39 1.24 529814 5166455 Trueclaim Exploration 0.22 0.01 0.57 1.16 The AuEq grades are calculated using metal prices from the London Metal Exchange on May 6, 2019 assuming 100% recovery for each metal: cobalt $34,750US/tonne, copper $6,180 US/tonne, gold $1279 US/oz. About the Scadding Deposit and the Southern Province geological systems The Scadding Deposit is one of several polymetallic gold deposits, with variable copper and cobalt showings and occurrences, that are hosted in Ontarios Southern Province. Recent studies suggest that the mineralized systems of the Southern Province share affinities with iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) systems. IOCG systems can host large tonnage and low to medium-grade polymetallic gold-copper, and possible cobalt deposits. Within the Southern Province, the Wanapitei area has been recognized as a prospective Canadian district for IOCG and modified-IOCG mineralization. The district features key indicators of IOCG mineralization: regional corridors of sodic alteration; an important period of granitic magmatism that is contemporaneous with the formation of the sodic alteration zones; the localized formation of iron oxide mineralization; potassic-iron alteration associated with polymetallic mineralization; and the presence of gold and copper in mineralized zones. MacDonald Mines SPJ Project covers a strategic land position in the Southern Province. The position, covering corridors of albitization, increases the probability of discovering new zones of polymetallic gold mineralization, and provides additional opportunities to expand the known gold-copper-cobalt showings on the property. Qualified Person Quentin Yarie, P. Geo. is the qualified person responsible for preparing, supervising and approving the scientific and technical content of this news release. About MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. is a mineral exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario focused on gold exploration in Canada. The Company's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "BMK". To learn more about MacDonald Mines, please visit www.macdonaldmines.com For more information, please contact: Quentin Yarie, President & CEO, (416) 364-4986, qyarie@macdonaldmines.com Or Mia Boiridy, Investor Relations, (416) 364-4986, mboiridy@macdonaldmines.com 1 Corriveau, L., 2007, Iron oxide-copper-gold deposits: a Canadian perspective, in: Goodfellow, W.D., (ed.), Mineral deposits of Canada: a synthesis of major deposit-types, district metallogeny, the evolution of geological provinces, and exploration methods: Geological Association of Canada, Mineral Deposits Division, Special Publication 5, p. 307-308. Cautionary Statement: Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. The foregoing information may contain forward-looking statements relating to the future performance of the Company. Forward-looking statements, specifically those concerning future performance, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the Companys plans and expectations. These plans, expectations, risks and uncertainties are detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with the TSX Venture Exchange and securities regulators. MacDonald Mines does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/71064557-5d46-4c3d-b89d-21a314b8a5fb Travel Retail Market Growth Set to Surge Significantly during 2018 2023 | Autogrill, Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex (BSC), Baltona Duty Free, DFS Group, Dubai Duty Free ReportsWeb https://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00012277686/sample https://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00012277686/discount https://www.reportsweb.com/buy&RW00012277686/buy/4660 2018-2023 Global Travel Retail Market Report Status and OutlookIn this report, Publisher studies the present scenario (with the base year being 2017) and the growth prospects of global Travel Retail market for 2018-2023.Travel retail is a global industry selling goods to international travellers. Sales in duty free shops are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and excise duties, normally with the requirement that the goods are only sold to travellers who will take them out of the country.This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares and growth opportunities of Travel Retail market by product type, application, key companies and key regions.Get Sample Copy Of this report:Companies Profiled in this report includes: Autogrill, Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex (BSC), Baltona Duty Free, DFS Group, Dubai Duty Free, Dufry, Duty Free Americas, Gebr. Heinemann, Lagardere Travel Retail, Le Bridge Duty Free, Regstaer Duty FreeTo calculate the market size, Publisher considers value generated from the sales of the following segments:Segmentation by product type:BeautyWines and SpiritsTobaccoOtherSegmentation by application:MenWomenGet Discount of this report:Research objectivesTo study and analyze the global Travel Retail market size by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2013 to 2017, and forecast to 2023.To understand the structure of Travel Retail market by identifying its various subsegments.Focuses on the key global Travel Retail players, to define, describe and analyze the value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years.To analyze the Travel Retail with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).To project the size of Travel Retail submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Table of Content:2018-2023 Global Travel Retail Market Report (Status and Outlook)1 Scope of the Report2 Executive Summary3 Global Travel Retail by Players4 Travel Retail by Regions5 Americas6 APAC7 Europe8 Middle East & Africa9 Market Drivers, Challenges and Trends10 Global Travel Retail Market Forecast11 Key Players Analysis11.1 Autogrill11.1.1 Company Details11.1.2 Travel Retail Product Offered11.1.3 Autogrill Travel Retail Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2018)11.1.4 Main Business Overview11.1.5 Autogrill News11.2 Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex (BSC)11.2.1 Company Details11.2.2 Travel Retail Product Offered11.2.3 Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex (BSC) Travel Retail Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2018)11.2.4 Main Business Overview11.2.5 Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex (BSC) News11.3 Baltona Duty Free11.3.1 Company Details11.3.2 Travel Retail Product Offered11.3.3 Baltona Duty Free Travel Retail Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2018)11.3.4 Main Business Overview11.3.5 Baltona Duty Free News11.4 DFS GroupComplete Report:Contact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@reportsweb.comCompany Name: ReportsWebWebsite: Reportsweb.comPhone: +1-646-491-9876Request for Customization:Any special requirements about this report, please let us know and we can provide custom report.About ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of Market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028 Laundry Detergent Market Business Growth and Demand by 2023 | Fena Pvt. Ltd., Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. , Hindustan Unilever Ltd. Laundry Detergent https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/sample/262597 https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/quiry/262597 Market insights:The India laundry detergent market is anticipated to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~5% during the 2018-2023 period, owing to rising consumer demand. Based on type, hand wash detergents constitute ~82% of the market share, while machine wash detergents hold the remaining of it. The demand for hand wash detergents is high, since only ~33% of the population use washing machines and require machine-wash detergents, and the rest of the population use hand-wash detergents for washing clothes.Market segment insights:Among the major laundry detergent companies like Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL), Rohit Surfactants Pvt. Ltd. (RSPL), and Proctor and Gamble Home Products Ltd. (P&G) dominate the market, owing to high customer satisfaction both at national and regional levels. Apart from these players, Nirma, Jyothy Laboratories, Fena, and Reckitt Benckiser also operate in the market.Among the major laundry detergent brands, Ghari had the largest market share during the period of 2014-2017, followed by Surf, and Wheel. Owing to its affordable price, Ghari detergent is the most preferred among the masses, and secures a high market share. On the other hand, brands like Surf and Wheel suffice demands of the middle-market and premium consumers.Request for Sample Copy@Market drivers:The growth in market demand for washing machines has recently expanded at an impressive rate in India. The growing penetration of washing machines is directly increasing the demand for machine-wash laundry detergents. Moreover, the purchasing power of Indians has increased, which is encouraging many players in the detergent market to expand their network and upturn product penetration, especially in the rural market.Market challenges:Based on product pricing, laundry detergent manufacturers in India often face stiff competition. In addition, there is not much scope of product differentiation in the sector. Thereby, product differentiation, and high competition act as deterrents to the growth for the market players.Companies covered:1. Fena Pvt. Ltd.2. Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.3. Hindustan Unilever Ltd.4. Jyothy Laboratories Ltd.5. Nirma Ltd.6. Patanjali Ayurved7. Procter & Gamble Home Products Ltd.8. Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd.9. Rohit Surfactants Pvt. Ltd.Else, Place an Enquiry of Laundry Detergent Market in India (2018-2023) Research Report@About Us:Worldwide 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. Worldwide Market Researchs well-researched inputs that encompass domains ranging from IT to healthcare enable our prized clients to capitalize upon key growth opportunities and shield against credible threats prevalent in the market in the current scenario and those expected in the near future.Mr. ShahWorldwide Market ReportsTel: +1 415 871 0703Email: sales@worldwidemarketreports.com mHealth Market to reach $58.8 billion by the end of 2020 at a CAGR of 32.3% Premium Market Insights https://www.premiummarketinsights.com/sample/AMR00012654 https://www.premiummarketinsights.com/discount/AMR00012654 https://www.premiummarketinsights.com/buy/AMR00012654 Mhealth means providing medical and healthcare service with the use of mobile phones. At present, mobile penetration is more than 100% in developed nations market and it is quickly expanding in developing markets, for example Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa. Additionally, rising use of cell phones, alongside 3g and 4g systems, would further increase the use of cell phones in most segments, particularly in healthcare sector. Besides, shift from Hospitals to personal care system is rising, as Mobile Healthcare systems are giving consistent care and seamless support to the patients regardless of their areas. On top of that, introduction of advanced medical gadgets is making it simpler for healthcare service providers to serve patients successfully and at less cost.The report forecasts global mHealth market to reach $58.8 billion by the end of 2020 at a CAGR of 32.3% between 2013 and 2020.Get sample copy of MHealth Market at:Medical gadgets are proficient at providing sufficient and precise recording of biomedical indicators, for example, respiratory parameters, glucose dissection, electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings and blood pressure estimations, regardless of the area. Hence, factors such as transportability, convenience and customization, mechanization, and high efficiency in curing chronic diseases are used by mHelath market players to distinguish their products. Growing mobile networks, and increasing cell phone subscribers are contributing towards the increasing adoption of Smartphones. This would further boost the mHealth market. However, higher healthcare costs would restrain the growth of this market. Also, due to lack of quality in mHealth services, developed nations faces a stiff challenge. Further, many developing countries are still struggling to provide even the required healthcare services due to.Report segments the global Mhealth market on the basis of devices, services, stakeholders, and therapeutic areas. Mhealth device market would be dominated by Blood Glucose Meters, device market and cardiac monitoring devices in a descending order during the analysis period. Further, the report states that 95% of the sale would be by channel distribution.The geographical analysis provided by the report states that North America is leading the global Mhealth market. However, the report predicts that Europe and Asia Pacific would surpass North America to lead the market with a share of 28% during the forecast period.Have any query? Enquire about report at:Fundamentals of Table of Content:1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.5 Market by Application1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Global Growth Trends2.1 MHealth Market Size2.2 MHealth Growth Trends by Regions2.3 Industry Trends3 Market Share by Key Players3.1 MHealth Market Size by Manufacturers3.2 MHealth Key Players Head office and Area Served3.3 Key Players MHealth Product/Solution/Service3.4 Date of Enter into MHealth Market3.5 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans4 Breakdown Data by Product4.1 Global MHealth Sales by Product4.2 Global MHealth Revenue by Product4.3 MHealth Price by Product5 Breakdown Data by End User5.1 Overview5.2 Global MHealth Breakdown Data by End UserGet Complete Report at:About Premiummarketinsights:Premiummarketinsights.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:Call: +912067274191Email: sales@premiummarketinsights.com Dipentaerythritol Market: Increased Demand Expected to Soar Revenue during Forecast Period|| Top Key Manufacturer are Kanoria Chemicals & Industries Ltd., Merck KgaA, Henan Tianfu Chemical Co. Ltd https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=3179 https://www.factmr.com/report/3179/dipentaerythritol-market https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=3179 https://www.factmr.com/ Worldwide volume sales of dipentaerythritol recorded a sluggish growth at 5% CAGR between 2013 and 2018. However, this chemical by-product is expected to witness a sustained demand across industry verticals in light of its hydrophobic nature. Industry grade dipentaerythritol is expected to hold bulk shares of the market, despite relative faster growth estimated for sales of technical grade variant. Industry grade dipentaerythritol sales are expected to register a Y-o-Y growth at 2.7% in 2019 over 2018.Get a Free Sample Copy of Current Report @Asia-Pacific excluding Japan continues to gain significance as the most lucrative landscape for growth of the dipentaerythritol market, with industry players across domains such as paints & coatings and cosmetics leveraging the latent opportunities in the region. APEJ will also retain its position as the fastest-growing market for dipentaerythritol, with volume sales in the region estimated at over 4.0% through 2028.What are Key Growth Drivers of the Dipentaerythritol Market?Dipentaerythritol continues to witness a significant demand from alkyd paint producers, as the trend toward adoption of these paints in commercial as well as residential construction takes a paradigm shift from being ephemeral to pervasiveConstant new product development activities being carried out in line with notably rising significance of new applications such as explosives and flame retardant products, will continue to create new growth opportunities for the dipentaerythritol marketDipentaerythritol market growth will also remain sustained by adoption of this chemical derivative as a sustainable alternative to electrically transformed fluids, in light of their water resistance and biodegradable propertiesDemand for dipentaerythritol will remain high in formulation of mixtures and key packaging processes, along with their lucrativeness in the production of plastic productsThe advent of innovative uses of dipentaerythritol, such as a key agent in the management and treatment of heart diseases, as it deprives side-effects associated with conventional drugs, further undergirds growth of the dipentaerythritol marketResurgent growth in the construction industry worldwide, coupled with focus of governments on infrastructure development, which entails demand for paints & coatings, will uphold growth of the dipentaerythritol marketBrowse Complete Market Report with TOC Here @Growing Palpability of Thin Film Intumescent CoatingsThin film intumescent coatings continue to gain significance as a key solution for protecting structural steel. Dipentaerythritol is an essential agent for accomplishing intumescence in thin film coatings. This, coupled with the ability of thin film intumescent coatings to offer a passive yet cost-effective fire protection, and maintain aesthetic qualities of steel, continues to favor growth of the dipentaerythritol market. Additionally, use of this chemical derivative in new resin binder formulations, which play an integral role in intumescent coatings, will significantly underpin growth of the dipentaerythritol market in the foreseeable future. Intumescent coatings are a perfect solution to contradictions arising from considerations given to safety aspects of construction vis-a-vis modern & ornate architectural designs.Thermoplastic Polyacetals Potential Opportunity Area for Dipentaerythritol ManufacturersEasy accessibility and abundant availability of several building blocks from the renewable resources, coupled with their good degradation properties, have sparked a marked interest in the development of polyacetals (polycycloacetals). While polymers having non-cyclic acetal units represent good degradation and soluble properties, polyacetals have been witnessed to be exactly the opposite. Chemical scientists across the globe have continuously studied the benefits of direct polyacetalization, trailed by polymerization of monomers that contain acetal units. The resulting thermoplastic polyacetals have been associated with a combination of excellent properties, degradation capability, and potential for renewable sourcing. This has further adhered the interest of dipentaerythritol manufacturers as a key opportunity area of growth, which in turn is likely to pave lucrative avenues for expansion of the dipentaerythritol market in the near future.For any query get easily connect with an Analyst @About Fact.MRFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market insights reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb: Nurse Call Systems Market Set to Grow According to Forecasts 2019-2027 With: Ascom Holding, Honeywell International Inc. Siemens, Azure Healthcare, Intercall Systems, Hill-Rom Services, Nurse Call Systems Market https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPHC00002562/?opsp https://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPHC00002562/?opsp https://www.theinsightpartners.com/discount/TIPHC00002562/?opsp Nurse call systems market accounted to US$ 1,252.65 Mn in 2018 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.3% during the forecast period 2019 - 2027, to account to US$ 2,936.83 Mn by 2027.The Asia Pacific nurse call systems market is expected to grow at highest rate during the forecast period owing to driving factors such as significant rise in the incidences of the Alzheimers disease and other dementia, presence of the market and developments done by them. The market is also experiencing the growth of the assisted living centers that are likely to drive the growth of the Asia Pacific region.Some Of Major Key Players In Nurse Call Systems Market: Ascom Holding, Honeywell International Inc. Siemens, Azure Healthcare, Intercall Systems,. SCHRACK SECONET, STANLEY Healthcare, Critical Alert Systems, Hill-Rom Services, Rauland,Get Sample Copy Of Report@Strategic acquisition and product launches were observed as the most adopted strategy in global nurse call systems industry. Few of the recent product launch, product approval and acquisitions are listed below;2019: Critical Alert Systems has announced a partnership with Bernoulli Health, developer of Bernoulli One. The platform fuses Bernoulli Ones real-time, patient-generated data, including live-streaming waveforms and alert notifications intelligently aggregated and filtered from multiple physiologic devices and EHRs, with Critical Alert Systems staff assignment, advanced, rules-based routing and distribution capabilities.2018: Ascom Holding AG with Drager AG & Co. KGaA has launched integrated clinical alarm management solution in North America. The solution was introduced for Ascoms Unite Connect and it has received FDA clearance for sales and distribution in the US. The product is also available in the Canadian market.2017: Beacon Communications, LLC entered into partnership with STANLEY Healthcare Connected, and will offer STANLEY Healthcares senior living solutions - including the Arial emergency call solution and WanderGuard BLUE wander management solution to new and existing customers in western United States.Market Insights :Increasing Incidences of Alzheimers Diseases is expected to boost the market growth over the years:Alzheimers diseases is form of dementia and is a progressive disorder which eventually results in the loss of memory and deterioration in cognitive skills. The disease among the six leading causes of death in United States. According to the recent data published in 2019 by Alzheimer's Association states that approximately 5.8 million Americans are suffering with Alzheimers and the number is expected to rise approximately up to 14 million by 2050.In addition, it is also stated that from 2000 to 2017 the deaths due to Alzheimers disease has grown by 145%, one in every three senior person dies with the disease or the other form of the dementia. The cost incurred in the disease are rising in the region. It was estimated that by 2019 Alzheimers and other form of dementias will cost nearly US$ 290 billion and it is also estimated that by 2050 the cost can rise roughly up to US$ 1.1 trillion. For the seniors citizens living with the dementia are provided care of nearly 18.5 billion hours which is fairly valued approximately US$ 234 billion.Thus, the increasing incidences of Alzheimers diseases poses several opportunities for the nurse call systems market to grow during the forecast period.Growing Numbers of Assisted Living Centers:Assisted living centers or the assisted living communities generally serve the people who requires help for their daily activities and some of the healthcare services. The centers or the communities are combination of the independence, companionship, privacy and have security and premises that resembles like homes. The rise in the Alzheimers diseases are leading to the growth of the assisted living care, there are approximately 28,9000 assisted living centers owing approximately 1 million licensed beds in the United States. The average number of the licensed beds in an assisted living center is 33.Moreover, TERRAGON (Germany), conceives and realizes barrier-free living arrangements that make it easy to look forward to this period of life. They benefits the long-standing perception of the residential wishes of the residents of Assisted Living. These experiences also flow into the provision of the service offerings as well as the design of the social areas.Product Insights:The global nurse call systems market, based on equipment is segmented into intercom systems, mobile systems, buttons, and integrated communication systems. In 2018, integrated communication systems segment held the largest share of the market, by equipment. This segment is also expected to dominate the market in 2027 owing to advantages offered by integrated communication systems over the traditional nurse call systems as they enable fast, flexible approach for patient-to-staff and staff-to-staff communication. Moreover, the integrated communication systems segment is anticipated to witness the significant growth rate of 10.7% during the forecast period.Speak With Industrial Experts@NURSE CALL SYSTEMS MARKET SEGMENTATIONGlobal Nurse Call Systems Market By Equipment Integrated Communication Systems Button Systems Mobile Systems Intercom SystemsGlobal Nurse Call Systems Market By Technology Wired Systems Wireless SystemsGlobal Nurse Call Systems Market By Application Emergency Medical Alarms Wanderer Control Workflow Support OthersGlobal Nurse Call Systems Market By End User Hospitals Nursing Homes & Assisted Living Centers Clinics OthersGlobal Nurse Call Systems Market - By Geography North America Europe Asia Pacific (APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA) South America (SAM)In US, there are approximately, 42% of assisted living centers that are run independently and rest are organization with two or more communities that work together. The paying for the care is comparatively less than the average cost of a homemaker services. The average cost per year is approximately US$ 48,000 on the other hand the homemaker service cost is US$ 48,048 or for the home health aide is approximately US$ 50,336. Majority of the assisted living centers utilized some form of private funds to pay for the care services. Thus, the growing number of assisted living centers is expected to create a demand for the nurse call systems across the world.Get Customization On Discount@About Us:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services.We are committed to providing highest quality research and consulting services to our customers. We help our clients understand key market trends, identify opportunities, and make informed decisions by providing market research solutions at an affordable cost.Contact us:The Insight partners,Phone: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.com Computer Aided Detection: The Evolution of Future Healthcare Industry - Leading Players GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Fujifilm Medical System, Hitachi Medical Corporation, Siemens Healthineers, Hologic,Inc., Inc. iCAD Computer Aided Detection https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/761 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-customization/761 Computer Aided Detection (CAD) software is a set of algorithms that uses pattern recognition method assisting physicians with interpretation of medical images. Increasing number of patients opting for diagnostic imaging techniques is expected to propel the volume of image data to be analyzed. It is a diagnostic analysis technology, which assists physicians in reducing detection errors. CAD software is helpful in diagnosis of several diseases, such as cancer, coronary artery disease, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological diseases through imaging modalities, such as X-Rays imaging, Magnetic Resonance Imaging ultrasound imaging, and computed tomography. It helps in accurate detection of chronic diseases in early stages, reducing mortality rates due to cancer, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases.Get In-Depth Sample Copy:Increase in prevalence of the chronic diseases is anticipated to fuel the demand of Computer Aided Detection MarketIncreasing cancer treatment awareness and routine medical check-up is driving the demand for CAD market. Advanced digital imaging techniques have enhanced the effectiveness and efficiencies of CAD solutions. Easy integration with various imaging equipment is helping with early detection of chronic diseases. It has applications in clinical and research and development activities. Medical tourism is also boosting the adoption of CAD. Gradual increase in demand for Health Insurance, which requires pre-screening of chronic diseases is driving the growth of CAD market. Major investments in R&D of Computer Aided Detection with 3D imaging are providing opportunities for growth of the market. High cost is the challenge for growth of CAD market.Intense merger and acquisition among the emerging players to boost the computer aided detection marketKey players involved in global computer aided detection market are GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Hologic,Inc., Inc. iCAD, Agfa-Gevaert N.V., EDDA Technology, Fujifilm Medical System, Invivo Corporation, Hitachi Medical Corporation, and Siemens Healthineers. GE Healthcare got FDA clearance for its Senographe Pristina Dueta, which is claimed to be the 1st patient-assisted mammography device that allows women to control their own compression during the examination. GE healthcare has transform the mammography for reducing the pain during examination. Philips Healthcare has entered an agreement with Belgium-headquartered IBA (ION Beam Applications SA) for providing proton therapy solutions, it is an advanced therapy for treatment of cancer in India.Computer Aided Detection Market - TaxonomyComputer Aided Detection Market is segmented on the basis of application, end users, imaging modalitiesOn the basis of application, the global computer aided detection in healthcare market can be segmented as.Lung cancerBreast cancerLiver cancerBone cancerProstate cancerColorectal cancerOthers (Cardiovascular and Neurological Indications etc.)On the basis of imaging modalities, the global Computer Aided Detection market in healthcare market can be segmented asUltrasound imagingMammographyTomosynthesisComputed tomographyMagnetic resonance imagingRequest 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 Newborn Screening Market Opportunities in Upcoming years with Top Players Agilent Technologies, AB SCIEX, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Covidien PLC, GE Life Sciences, Masimo Corporation, Natus Medical newborn screening https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/2192 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/2192 Newborn screening describes various tests that are performed during first few hours or days of an infants life. These tests have the potential for preventing severe health problems, including death. Newborn screening has evolved from a simple urine or blood screening test to a more comprehensive and complex screening system capable of detecting over 50 different conditions. Newborn screening tests measure a number of markers in infants blood that can be either decreased or increased if an infant has certain diseases. Currently, conditions such as cystic fibrosis (CF), congenital hypothyroidism, phenylketonuria (PKU), and around 22 other metabolic conditions that affect protein or fat metabolism can be diagnosed through newborn screening tests.The global newborn screening market size was valued at US$ 561.5 million in 2018, and is expected to witness a CAGR of 12.4% over the forecast period (2018 2026).Several governments are taking initiative in increasing awareness about newborn screening tests and are offering free screening services in some regions. For instance, in September 2018, the Florida Department of Health launched the Newborn Screening (NBS) Web Order Application. This statewide initiative has been developed to ensure efficiency and accuracy of newborn screening information submitted to the Bureau of Public Health Laboratories.Moreover, novel biomarkers and analytical technologies are driving the evolution of Newborn Screening (NBS) programs. For instance, a rapid and highly sensitive point-of-care testing device has been developed and commercialized for the diagnosis of Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). According to a BMC Medicine Journal study 2015, SCD test demonstrated 99% specificity and 99% sensitivity for the diagnosis of several hemoglobin (Hb) variants: sickle cell trait (Hb AS), sickle cell anemia (Hb SS), Hb AA, Hb AC, and Hb SC, and requires only 5 L of blood. Similarly, Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies are expected to impact newborn screening in the near future.Request A Sample Copy:Newborn Screening Market RestraintsHowever, lack of consensus for screening is a major restraining factor for newborn screening market growth. There is little agreement among countries on which specific disorders should be included in NBS programs. Although some countries screen for only one Inherited Metabolic Disorders (IMD), others screen for over 30 conditions. For instance, according to the Nature Medicine Journal 2012 study, screening strategies in Europe vary between countries. Moreover, in some countries such as Belgium, Italy, and Spain, policy-making is decentralized to regions or provinces that have separate NBS programs.Similar conditions are observed in the U.S. where one state may result in screening a different set of disorders compared to a neighboring state. This absence of agreement on screening tests is due to the lack of high-quality observational evidence for most disorders.Furthermore, multiple challenges need to be confronted including false negative and false positive results of screening tests, inadequate information about the natural history of disease, limited access in some geographic areas to advanced technologies, and treatment of conditions with various phenotypes.New Born Screening Test Market - Regional InsightsOn the basis of region, the global newborn screening market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. By 2026, North America and Europe are expected to generate major revenue share in the global newborn screening market, owing to the presence of a better reimbursement structure, development of well-equipped healthcare infrastructure, and availability of trained medical professionals. According to the U.S. government, for the 2018 fiscal year, the Newborn Screening Quality Assurance Program at the CDC is funded at US$ 8.4 million and the Heritable Disorders program at Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is funded at $13.88 million. The most common newborn screening tests in the U.S. include, hypothyrodism, galactosemia, PKU (phenylketonuria), and sickle cell disease. Increasing government funding in Europe for NBS within a national health service or a statutory health insurance, is expected to drive newborn screening market growth in Europe.Asia Pacific newborn screening market is expected to foresee highest growth rate during the forecast period, owing to increasing incidences of premature births, high birth rates in countries such as China and India, and increasing healthcare awareness among regional population. According to WHO, 2012 report, most neonatal deaths occur in Asia, which accounted for 40% of the global neonatal deaths. Moreover, in India, less than 1% of infants are screened and over 1.6 million infants are born with birth defects, annually. These factors are expected to propel growth of the global newborn screening market in the region.Key players operating in the global newborn screening market include, Agilent Technologies, AB SCIEX, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Covidien PLC, GE Life Sciences, Masimo Corporation, Natus Medical Inc., PerkinElmer Inc., and ZenTech S.A.Download the PDF brochure:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr.ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.com Body Armor Market 2019 to Register an Impressive CAGR of 4% by 2024 (BAE Systems PLC, The Safariland LLC, DuPont, Honeywell International Inc., and ArmorSource LLC) https://marketprognosis.com/sample-request/20074 https://marketprognosis.com/discount-request/20074 https://marketprognosis.com/enquiry/20074 The global body armor market is expected to record a CAGR of about 4% during the forecast period, 2019-2024. With the increase in terrorism and hostile activity around the world, various armed forces and law enforcement agencies are procuring body armors and accessories, which is currently driving the market studied.Detailed Sample Copy of Updated Analysis @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.Countries, like Germany, India, and Japan, among others, are expected to increase their military recruitment in order to recover from the shortages in military personnel. This is anticipated to drive the body armor market in the future.The development of new and advanced body armors, like soldier exoskeletons, by companies, like Rostec, is expected to generate a huge demand in the coming future.Scope of the ReportBody armor is a layer of protection worn by military personnel, with the main purpose to absorb or deflect slashing hit and penetrate attacks. Earlier, only soldiers were given the license to use it, but nowadays, it is also used by security guards, police, and individuals, in order to feel safe and protect themselves from incoming attacks. The report also includes accessories like helmets, shoes, shield, and hand and leg protection gears, among others.Competitive LandscapeThe global body armor market is highly fragmented, with many players taking a small share of the market, owing to their presence in various geographical locations. BAE Systems PLC, The Safariland LLC, DuPont, Honeywell International Inc., and ArmorSource LLC, among others, are the few prominent firms benefitting from the geographical advantage. Majority of the players are located in the North American region. However, due to increasing requirements in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East & African regions, emerging new players or expansion of major players into this region may enable them to increase their presence in the market during the forecast period.Request Discount on this report @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.Segment TrendsThe military segment of the global body armor market currently has the largest market share, and it is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period. This is due to the on-going military procurements and soldier modernization programs that are taking place around the world. For instance, Combatiente Futuro of Spain, Soldier Modernization Program - SMP of the Netherlands, NORMANS of Norway, Soldado do Futuro of Portugal, IMESS of Switzerland, MARKUS of Sweden, FIST of Belgium, Projekt TYTAN of Poland, and 21st Century soldier of Czech Republic, among others, are the current future soldier programs taking shape in Europe.Geographical TrendsThe Asia-Pacific body armor market is expected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This growth may be propelled by countries, like China and India, which currently have the highest active military personnel. This may generate the demand for body armor and related accessories. Also, currently, there is a deficit in military personnel of Japan and India. The armed forces are facing a shortage of over 52,000 soldiers, with the Army reeling under a shortage of 21,383 personnel, while the shortage in Navy is 16,348 and 15,010 in the Air Force. The increase in recruitment of military personnel to overcome the deficit is likely to generate the demand for body armors in this region during the forecast period.Enquiry Before Buying @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.About Market PrognosisWe at Market Prognosis believe in giving a crystal clear view of market dynamics for achieving success in todays complex and competitive marketplace through our quantitative & qualitative research methods.We help our clients identify the best market insights and analysis required for their business thus enabling them to take strategic and intelligent decision.We believe in delivering actionable insights for your business growth and success.Contact us:ProgMark Pvt Ltd,Thane - 421501India.Contact No: +1 973 241 5193Email: sales@marketprognosis.com HVAC Filters Market Study by Segments and Regional Outlook to 2024, Key players: Spectrum Filtration, Parker Hannifin Corp, Tex-Air, Camfil HVAC Filters Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/236 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/236 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/hvac-filters-market https://www.gminsights.com/ Improving standard of living and increasing demand for energy-efficient air purification will contribute to HVAC filters market growth. This can be credited to substantial efforts taken by manufacturers and regulatory authorities. Growing innovation measures have also led to the development of cost-effective systems, which may open avenues for players and escalate product demand.Availability of improved product offering which also facilitates cooling, heating and humidity control in infrastructural facility will promote its application in residential and commercial building, thus propelling HVAC filters market growth. Rising customer awareness and inclination towards high indoor air quality due to their low toxicity, and environment pollution should drive product demand.Request for a sample copy of this report @Stringent environmental guidelines by agencies including FDA, EPA and EU on restricting use of refrigerant, nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, and ammonia would drive HVAC filters demand in the predicted timeframe. The product is combined with air conditioners to eliminate impurities from air including fine particulate matter, dirt dust particles, and pollens.Electrostatic HVAC filters market is anticipated to surpass USD 1.5 billion by 2024. Static electricity entices dirt & dust to vertical and overhead surfaces. Electrostatic filter puts a static electrical charge on all particles present in air that pass-through filter media. This system uses a configuration of woven fabric and anti-microbial foam core which prevents bacteria and mold growth, hence stimulating market growth.Carbon HVAC filters market will exceed USD 1.5 billion up to 2024. They are designed to purify gases through activated charcoal bed and are deployed to tackle volatile organic compounds released from residential products. They are also utilized to eradicate odors from air, including smell of tobacco smoke, hence propelling the market growth.Make an Inquiry for Purchasing this Report @HVAC filters market from construction may observe significant gains up to 4% by 2024. There has been an escalating demand for purification solutions in construction industry. These systems collect dust and avoid dust emissions at multiple stages including primary & secondary crushing and material transfer. The construction industry is expected to grow substantially owing to the multiple infrastructural development projects globally, which would positively impact market share.HVAC Filters Market in Japan may observe significant gains over 5.5% by 2024. Rising awareness of negative environmental impacts is driving product demand in residential and non-residential sectors including commercial, institutions, office and healthcare sectors. Consumers are changing their preferences for energy efficient products, thus propelling market growth.Germany HVAC filters market is anticipated to exceed USD 715 million by 2024 owing to presence of various pharmaceutical and food & beverage manufacturers. Extension in product portfolio and R&D initiatives by several manufacturers will develop industry growth. Growing per capita income with government support for clean air should further strengthen regional industry growth.Browse Report Summery @HVAC filters market is moderately fragmented and highly competitive with major industry players including: Koch Tex-Air Spectrum Filtration Parker Hannifin Corp Troy AAF Camfil Emirates IndustrialCompanies are investing heavily in R&D, capacity expansion, and product innovation for growing product demand.High cost required in installation and maintenance of these systems are expected to hamper HVAC filters industry profitability. Maintenance and cleaning of product is laborious due to numerous layers of filter medium that are detached and cleaned separately, hindering the HVAC filters market price trends.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Report Predicts Growth in Medical Tourism Market| Prominent Players: Asklepios, Bumrungrad International Hospital, Fortis Healthcare Medical Tourism Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/3022 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/3022 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/medical-tourism-market The Medical Tourism Market is set to reach USD 29 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights. Growing compliance to international standards for medical treatments in developing countries will spur growth of medical tourism market in upcoming years. According to a study published by Fraser Institute, around 63 thousand Canadian citizens traveled abroad for availing medical treatments. Major reason for seeking medical treatment abroad was increasing compliance of medical treatments with international standards. Currently, there are more than 450 Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited hospitals around the world. This will lead to increasing inclination of patients towards medical treatments in foreign countries.Request for a sample of this research report @Availability of high-quality medical treatment procedures in developing countries is the one of the major factors driving medical tourism market. For instance, success rate of open heart surgery in India in around 98%, that is the highest in whole of Asia Pacific region. Also, rising focus of major public and private hospitals towards offering medical treatments of quality similar to those in developed nations such as U.S. and UK will spur medical tourism market growth.Various government policies to ease medical travel will spur the market during the projected timeframe. For instance, government of India announced in May 2016 that it will issue electronic-visas to patients of about 150 countries including U.S., UK, UAE and other Asian countries for medical treatments in India. This initiative will further accentuate growth of medical tourism business in India. Also, Indian government is undertaking various measures to assure high-quality medical treatment for foreign patients. Favourable policies for ease of medical travel will boost medical tourism industry in the future.Company profiled in this report based on Business overview, Financial data, Product landscape, Strategic outlook & SWOT analysis: Asklepios Bumrungrad International Hospital Fortis Healthcare KPJ Healthcare Bhd Manipal Hospitals Max Healthcare Mount Elizabeth Hospitals Singapore Narayana Health Raffles Medical GroupHowever, the absence of any organized medical tourism structure in developing countries will hamper growth of global market. Furthermore, long waiting time for availing several medical treatments and issue with patient follow-up and post-surgery complications will hinder medical tourism market growth.Cosmetic surgery market accounted for USD 2,863.1 million in 2017 due to increasing number of patients traveling to foreign countries to obtain cosmetic procedures. Increasing influence of aesthetic appeal is one of the major factors leading to growth of cosmetic surgery market. Also, international medical coverage is another major factor that will boost cosmetic surgery market. With availability of highly trained and qualified plastic surgeons in developing countries, the cosmetic surgery market will spur in the future.Orthopedic surgery market will expand at 8.1% CAGR during the forecast timeframe. As number of people suffering from osteoarthritis and osteoporosis is increasing, the demand for orthopedic surgery will increase in the future. Furthermore, patients save about 25-75% on orthopedic surgeries outside U.S. without compromising quality of the surgery. With increasing prevalence rate of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis in developed countries, the demand for orthopedic surgeries in foreign countries will increase in the future.Canada medical tourism market will grow at 7.2% CAGR, owing to availability of cutting-edge and advanced medical treatments to patients. According to Medical Tourism Index, in 2016, Canada stood first among the top 5 destinations for seeking medical care. Canada healthcare system provides one of the highest quality of medical treatments across the globe. The overall Canadian environment, high quality of facilities and services offered are the major reasons for attracting medical tourists from the world. Well-established healthcare infrastructure and availability of rare medical treatments will drive medical tourism market growth in the future.Singapore medical tourism market occupied a significant share of 35.0% in 2017 owing to presence of highly skilled healthcare personnel and more than 20 internationally-accredited hospitals and specialty centers in the country. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), in 2014, Singapore ranked 2nd worldwide for healthcare outcomes and efficient healthcare system. Well-established medical infrastructure and stable political environment are major factors propelling medical tourism market growth.Some of the prominent players involved in medical tourism market are Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, Asklepios Kliniken GmbH & Co. KGaA, Fortis Healthcare Limited and Bumrungrad International Hospital. These firms adopt strategic initiatives including opening of new establishments, mergers and acquisitions, and geographical expansion. For instance, in October 2018, Apollo Cradle, Hyderabad announced launch of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). This unit will be able to offer intensive care to critically ill children and round-the-clock care for special cases. This strategy will deliver new value for customers eventually increasing companys brand image.Medical Tourism Market, by Application1 Cardiovascular Surgery2 Cosmetic Surgery3 Hair Transplant4 Breast Augmentation5 Dental Surgery6 Orthopedic Surgery7 Bariatric surgery8 Fertility Treatment9 Oncology TreatmentMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Chapter 1. Methodology1.1. Methodology1.2. Market definitions1.3. Forecast parameters1.4. Data sources1.4.1. Secondary1.4.1.1. Paid sources1.4.1.2. Unpaid sources1.4.2. PrimaryChapter 2. Executive Summary2.1. Medical tourism market industry 3600 synopsis, 2013 - 20242.1.1. Business trends2.1.2. Application trends2.1.3. Regional trendsChapter 3. Medical Tourism Industry Insights3.1. Industry segmentation3.2. Industry landscape, 2013 - 20243.3. Industry impact forces3.3.1. Growth drivers3.3.1.1. Low cost of medical treatment in developing countries3.3.1.2. Rising awareness about medical tourism among patients3.3.1.3. Availability of high-quality medical treatment in developing countries3.3.1.4. Growing compliance towards international standard for surgical procedures3.3.1.5. Ease and affordability of international travel3.3.1.6. Various government policies to ease medical travel3.3.2. Industry pitfalls & challenges3.3.2.1. Long wait times for certain medical procedure3.3.2.2. Issue with patient follow-up and post-surgery complicationsChapter 4. Medical Tourism Market, By Application4.1. Key segment trends4.2. Cardiovascular surgery4.2.1. Market size, by region, 2013 2024 (USD Million)4.3. Cosmetic surgery4.3.1. Market size, by region, 2013 2024 (USD Million)4.3.2. Hair transplant4.3.2.1. Market size, by region, 2013-2024 (USD Million)4.3.3. Breast augmentation4.3.3.1. Market size, by region, 2013-2024 (USD Million)Browse Full Report Details @Data TablesTABLE 1. Medical tourism industry 360 0 synopsis, 2013 2024TABLE 2. Global medical tourism market, 2013 2017 (USD Million)TABLE 3. Global medical tourism market, 2018 2024 (USD Million)TABLE 4. Global medical tourism market, by application, 2013 - 2017 (USD Million)TABLE 5. Global medical tourism market, by application, 2018 - 2024 (USD Million)TABLE 6. Global medical tourism market, by region, 2013 2016 (USD Million)TABLE 7. Global medical tourism market, by region, 2017 2024 (USD Million)TABLE 8. Industry impact forcesTABLE 9. Cardiovascular surgery market size, by region, 2013 2017 (USD Million)TABLE 10. Cardiovascular surgery market size, by region, 2018 2024 (USD Million)Global Market Insights Inc. is a global market research and management consulting company catering to leading corporations, non-profit organizations, universities and government institutions. Our main goal is to assist and partner organizations to make lasting strategic improvements and realize growth targets. Our industry research reports are designed to provide granular quantitative information, combined with key industry insights, aimed at assisting sustainable organizational development.Global Market Insights, Inc.4 North Main StreetSelbyville, Delaware 19975 USAPhone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email:sales@gminsights.com French English GATINEAU, Quebec, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HEXO Corp (HEXO or the Company) (TSX: HEXO; NYSE-A: HEXO) is committed to food security for Outaouais residents. It is for this reason that HEXO has donated $20,000 to Moisson Outaouais to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables to be distributed to people in need. "Moisson Outaouais does a remarkable job for the people of the Outaouais region, both for the daily needs of the most disadvantaged and for those affected by unforeseen events, such as the recent spring floods," explains Terry Lake, Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility at HEXO. "The mission of this non-profit organization is in perfect harmony with our own commitment to caring for people, one of the 4 priorities of our corporate social responsibility charter. Food aid has a direct impact on people's quality of life and we are happy to be able to contribute." Moisson Outaouais helps an average of 10,500 people per month. Of all these requests, 37% are for children. Last year, the organization redistributed more than 820,505 kilograms of food. "Moisson Outaouais is delighted to see a company like HEXO join such an important cause, the fight against hunger. As the needs are great, especially within the current context of the floods, HEXO's donation will make a big difference to the people in the community and we invite other companies to follow HEXOs example," said Armand Kayolo, General Manager of Moisson Outaouais. HEXO has been supporting Moisson Outaouais since last year, when the company made its first donation of $5,000 in October 2018. About HEXO Corp HEXO Corp is an award-winning consumer packaged goods cannabis company that creates and distributes prize-winning products to serve the global cannabis market. Through its hub and spoke business strategy, HEXO Corp is partnering with Fortune 500 companies, bringing its brand value, cannabinoid isolation technology, licensed infrastructure and regulatory expertise to established companies, leveraging their distribution networks and capacity. As one of the largest licensed cannabis companies in Canada, HEXO Corp operates with 1.8 million sq. ft of facilities in Ontario and Quebec and a foothold in Greece to establish a Eurozone processing, production and distribution centre. The Company serves the Canadian adult-use and medical markets. For more information please visit hexocorp.com. Investor Relations: Jennifer Smith 1-866-438-8429 invest@HEXO.com www.hexocorp.com Media Relations: Caroline Milliard (819) 317-0526 media@hexo.com Director: Adam Miron 819-639-5498 Oregon is among the nations most trade-dependent states, and China is the states largest trading partner by far. And yet the tariffs piling up amid President Donald Trumps trade war with China have done little to slow Oregons historic economy expansion. The state added 3,300 jobs last month and unemployment was just 4.3%, near an all-time low. As the trade dispute escalates, though, the economic impact may grow sharply. Certain Northwest industries, including hazelnuts and lasers, are already feeling a profound effect. And if the tariffs trigger a broader economic slowdown, whether in China or the U.S., they could do serious damage to some of Oregons largest employers. That was evident Monday, when new American tariffs kicked in and China announced retaliatory measures after a sudden breakdown in negotiations. Stocks fell sharply, in Oregon and across the country. Economists warn the trade war could chill the global economy by raising prices on products and slowing commerce as the tariffs rise from 10% to 25% on many goods imported from China. I think the step up in escalation is important, said Josh Lehner with the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. At 10%, Lehner said, companies could mute the tariffs effect by modestly reducing profit margins throughout the supply chain and passing on a relatively small price increase to customers. At 25%, firms cannot easily work around the tariffs, Lehner said. By inflicting economic damage on China, Trump hopes to persuade it to buy more U.S. products, respect American companies intellectual property and reduce barriers for American businesses in China. Theres no evidence manufacturers are shifting jobs from China to Oregon, though. And Chinese economic pain may be felt more acutely here, because the state is unusually reliant on exports. Take Intel, Oregons largest corporate employer. It has 20,000 workers in Washington County and is preparing to start construction on a multibillion-dollar research factory at its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro. Intel is Oregons largest exporter, responsible for the vast majority of the $2.5 billion in computer chips the state shipped to China last year. Companywide, Intels sales in China totaled $18.8 billion in 2018 more than a quarter of its entire revenue. So if the tariffs succeed in slowing Chinas economy they will inevitably also slow business at Intel. Thats a big reason why the companys shares slid 3.1% Monday. (Shares rebounded a bit Tuesday, rising 0.9%.) The tariffs can have a more direct effect, too. Shares in Clark County laser manufacturer nLight Corp. plunged 10.2% Monday, reflecting that companys extreme dependence on China. (Shares were up 1.1% Tuesday.) More than a third of nLights revenue comes from China and the company has 500 employees at a factory in Shanghai, nearly as many as it has in the U.S. After the U.S. and China hit each other with tariffs in September, nLight warned investors we expect that the new tariffs will have a direct impact on our operations and financial results. In the first three months of the year, nLight said revenues fell by $600,000 compared to the first quarter of 2018. The company said declining sales to China were primarily responsible for the shortfall. Other Oregon companies that have warned investors about the trade wars impacts include The Greenbrier Cos., Columbia Sportswear and Schnitzer Steel Industries, which said a fall in nonferrous steel prices last quarter primarily resulted from the continued effects of Chinese import restrictions and tariffs. Nike, the largest company based in Oregon, told investors last summer that tariffs could have a significant impact on our activities in foreign jurisdictions, and could adversely affect our results of operations. The tariffs apply only to goods shipped after May 10 giving China and the U.S. a few weeks to work out their dispute before the products cross the Pacific. China is readying its own retaliatory tariffs in response to the Trump administrations latest measures. Its ability to inflict direct harm on the U.S. economy is limited because it doesnt import nearly as much from the U.S. as the U.S does from China. By targeting certain markets, though, China is having an effect. Oregon accounts for nearly all the hazelnuts grown in the U.S. and slightly more than half of those go to China. Recently planted trees mean production could double over the next few years. China already levies tariffs from 50% to 65% on Oregon hazelnuts and China plans to add another 25% starting June 1 in retaliation for the latest U.S. tariffs. Its going to be very detrimental, said Polly Owen, director of the Oregon Hazelnut Industry Office. With the global geopolitics out of their hands, Owen said Oregon hazelnut growers and processors are trying to develop personal connections with buyers in hopes those relationship may pay off if the rival governments resolve their broader dispute. She said two hazelnut producers are in Shanghai this week meeting with buyers. Chinas hazelnut tariffs have always been high, Owen said. She said Oregons industry is hopeful the current trade crisis may ultimately lead to a broader understanding between China and the U.S. that could reduce tariffs across the board. We continue to really strive for a long-term reduction on the tariffs into China, Owen said. In the meantime, we are definitely pursuing markets in other countries. -- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 The first thing Eileen Korey noticed when she got into the car that Wednesday afternoon in early May was a small diamond ring in the tray between the front seats. It hadnt been there before. Weeks earlier, she had taken the car in to have the airbag replaced as part of a nationwide recall. The Subaru Outback belonged to her daughter and son-in-law and she was helping them out. Now she was picking it up. Thats when she saw the sparkler. Korey, 64, of Lake Oswego quickly sent a text to her daughter and son-in-law to ask if they were missing a diamond ring or if any of their friends had reported losing a ring. They both wrote back, saying they had no idea what she was talking about. Korey took the ring to the service desk at Wilsonville Subaru to ask if any women technicians might have left a ring in the car while they were working on it. The woman behind the counter said only men worked on the cars. Korey asked if the desk clerk could get information from the guy who had replaced the airbag. Over a two-way radio, Daniel Helbt said hed placed the ring in the tray when it dropped to the cars floor after he opened up the dash trim and steering column to replace the airbag. He was not sure how it got there, saying he typically finds only change. Not sure what to do, Korey left the dealer, the ring back in the tray. She knew a friend who was a jeweler and stopped to have her look at the ring to see if it was real. Her friend said the diamond, set in a white gold band, was worth $1,200 and Korey could easily sell it for $500. Standing there, Korey knew she could use the money to pay off some bills. But she wouldnt sell it. All because of the diamond ring on her own finger. *** Koreys in-laws were Holocaust survivors who had escaped to the United States after World War II. They settled in New York in 1951 and worked in the textile industry. What theyd experienced overseas had forever shaped their lives. The couple never forgot the horror, the fear of losing everything. When they saved some money, not easy to do raising two boys, they went to a jeweler friend and bought two unset diamonds. They believed it wise to have something of value they could carry with them in case they ever had to flee again. They didnt reveal the story or the diamonds until their oldest son came home to say he had fallen in love. He planned to propose and marry a wonderful woman. His mother left the room. She returned with a package. She showed her son the two diamonds and told him to pick one. Use it for the engagement ring, she said. Her son should slip the ring over his intendeds finger as a way to show the world his commitment with a treasure that had such meaning and family history. In her Lake Oswego home, Korey looked at the diamond ring she has worn since 1977. In her other hand, she held the ring shed found in the car. Koreys ring was three times larger. One, though, wasnt more precious than the other. Love, after all, is love. Korey vowed to find this rings true owner. *** Three days after finding the ring, Korey rummaged through the cars glove box to look for clues. There, she found paperwork showing the name of the dealership, Carr Subaru in Beaverton, that sold the car new to its first owner in 2014. Then she found the name of the original salesman. Korey called. The salesman who answered the phone said that salesman no longer worked for the company. Korey explained why she was calling and recited the cars long vehicle identification number to see if he could help. The message was passed on to the sales manager. He used the VIN number to track down the cars original owner. Then, searching through old company records, he found a telephone number for Daniel Hannah. The manager identified himself on the phone and asked Hannah how his car was working out. Hannah was confused. He was on his third Subaru. But did Hannah buy one of those Subarus from Carr? Yes, he had. Though he sold it years ago. One more question: Had he ever lost an engagement ring? *** Hannah, now 37, met Ashleigh, now 33, while they both played in a coed softball league in Portland. They planned to get married, but first saved to buy a house. Once that purchase was completed, they went to a jewelry store and picked out an engagement ring they could afford, one Hannah described as small but sentimental. About three years after the wedding, Ashleigh gave birth to Easton. During the pregnancy, her fingers were so swollen that she had to stop wearing her wedding band and engagement ring. She missed them. Three months after the delivery, she tried slipping them over her finger, but they wouldnt go past the knuckle. No matter, they belonged on her finger. One Sunday afternoon, they were driving to an event in their Subaru but had to stop at the bank and use the ATM machine. Ashleigh, showing her husband where to turn, gestured wildly with her left hand and felt both rings slip off. They found the wedding band on the floor of the car. The engagement ring was gone. They figured it fell out the open drivers side window. They searched the bank parking lot for an hour. Nothing. Later, back at home, Hannah searched through the Subaru for hours. Nothing. Years later, Hannah bought his wife a much larger engagement ring. They had a second son. Truth was, the couple had forgotten about the missing ring. And then, two weeks ago, a sales manager called. He told Hannah that a woman had found the ring in his old Subaru, but was not sure how it had ended up behind the dash. He gave Hannah her cell number. Hannah called Korey. They made a date to meet. *** On the big day, Korey searched through her closet and selected an elegant silk ring pouch. She slipped the found ring inside and waited for Hannah to arrive at her Lake Oswego home. She answered the door and thought Hannah seemed shy. She figured he assumed she was going to ask for a reward. To put him at ease, she invited him in and they sat at the dining room table where she shared her detective work. Her daughter and son-in-law had bought the car used from Carr Subaru in 2015. She handed him the pouch. Hannah opened it and held the ring in his hand. Thats it. Korey wanted to know what Hannahs wife thought about getting the ring back. He said he hadnt told her, planning to surprise her with it on Mothers Day Korey had one request: She wanted Hannah to send her a photo the moment Ashleigh opened her gift. Deal. *** On Sunday, Ashleigh Hannah sat on some steps inside the couples home and 5-year-old Easton brought over a small pouch. She opened it. A woman never forgets a special ring. She slipped it on her finger. It didnt fit. Her new engagement ring was larger. It didnt matter. She plans to make that first ring into a pendant to wear around her neck. Love, after all, is love. And you can never have too much of it. --Tom Hallman Jr. thallman@oregonian.com 503 221-8224 @thallmanjr As the Interstate 405 Ramp Project continues, crews will need to close both the ramp from I-405 north to I-5 south and the ramp from North Greeley Avenue to I-5 south. Both of the closures will start 8 p.m. Friday, May 17 and continue all hours through 10 a.m. Monday, May 20. Last weekends closure didnt last until 10 a.m. on the following Monday, but travelers should be prepared for both of those ramps to be unavailable for the Monday morning commute. Signs will direct travelers to detour routes. Those who use Greeley to connect with I-5 southbound should will want to use North Going Street to access I-5 during the closure. Detour route for I-405 ramp closure For more information on the ramp project, check the project page: I-405 Ramps Project. *** NORTHEAST PORTLAND 8:07 a.m.: Injury crash with several units responding to Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Lombard Street. *** DOWNTOWN 7:44 a.m.: Injury crash on Southwest Fourth Avenue at Main Street. *** SOUTHEAST PORTLAND 7:08 a.m.: Crash reported on the ramp from Southeast Powell Boulevard to I-205 northbound. *** In Vancouver, ramp meter installation work will be occurring on the right and left shoulders of on the on ramps from SR 500 westbound and Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard to I-205 northbound. Workers will be in the area from about 7 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Friday, May 17. Use caution traveling in the area. Private utility work in Wood Village at the intersection of Northeast 238th Drive and Glisan Street will slow traffic from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays for about two weeks. Portland General Electric and its contractors will install cables in electrical conduits under the road and in public right of way, and improve curb ramps on the northeast and northwest corners of the intersection. Traffic lanes will be closed at times during the work and the traffic signal will need to be turned off at times. Drivers should use caution when passing through the intersection, and watch for flaggers directing traffic. The work is expected to take several weeks to complete. Check back throughout the morning for the latest commuting updates and follow us on Twitter: @trafficportland Government trial exhibit: Witness Eli Fowler took cellphone video above of the Oct. 11, 2017 blast A jury Wednesday found 27-year-old Jason P. Schaefer guilty of assaulting two federal officers when he used a lighter to ignite a cigarette pack filled with explosive material in the front seat of his car as he was cornered by members of the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2017. The jury deliberated for about 10 hours over two days after hearing closing arguments Tuesday following five days of testimony. The blast blew off two fingers on Schaefers left hand and left Washington County Sheriffs Detective Jeremy Chedester, a member of the task force, with vertigo, ringing in his ear and a concussion. Chedester testified how he dug out pieces of flesh from his eye and mouth immediately after the Oct. 11, 2017, explosion. The jury also found Schaefer guilty of using and carrying a destructive device in relation to the assault of a federal officer, using an explosive to commit a federal felony, carrying an explosion during the commission of a felony, unlawful transportation of an explosive, possession of an unregistered destructive device and felon in possession of an explosive. Schaefer could face between 30 years to life in prison when sentenced on Aug. 13. Early booking photo after the Oct. 11, 2017 explosion that tore off two fingers on Jason Paul Schaefer's left hand.MCSO Jurors watched a civilians cellphone video that captured the blast on Northwest 185th Avenue and heard testimony from Chedester and his partner, Oregon State Police Trooper Dan Diamond, both deputized as federal officers on the terrorism task force. The two had approached Schaefers white 2001 Honda CRV to arrest him for a probation violation. Chedester pulled his unmarked Ford Taurus behind Schaefers car, which was stopped in traffic, and Diamond pulled to the left side of Schaefers car. When Chedester walked up to Schaefers car, Schaefer yelled, Im going to (expletive) blow us up right now, while Diamond said he recalled Schaefer saying, Were all (expletive) dying today! They saw Schaefer bring a green lighter he held in his right hand to a Camel pack of cigarettes in his left hand. The pack contained white tissue paper and the explosive triacetone triperoxide or TATP.'' Chedester was about three feet away when the explosion occurred and said he thought he was going to die. The jurys verdict rejected Schaefers argument that he intended to harm and kill only himself. The amount was designed to hurt me and me alone, he told jurors in his closing argument. It was a tiny charge, even smaller than I thought." Schaefer represented himself at trial, with help from two standby defense lawyers, Lisa Ludwig and Tiffany Harris. Earlier on the day of the explosion, the task force had raided Schaefers Rock Creek apartment with a search warrant and found 98 electric matches, considered explosives, and precursor chemicals for explosives. The raid came after eBay had tipped off the FBI to a suspicious amount of chemicals bought by Schaefer online. The officers later that day got an arrest warrant for Schaefer, who was on state probation following a conviction in May 2017 for being a felon in possession of body armor. The warrant was issued because Schaefer was now accused of violating probation due to the discovery of explosives in his home. Shortly after his arrest, Schaefer spoke by phone to his father, Brian Schaefer. His parents, residents of Syracuse, N.Y., both testified in court that they struggled to get help for their son, who dropped out of high school and became addicted to heroin -- even sending him at age 22 to a clinic in Mexico where he was treated with the drug ibogaine. He had attempted suicide in the past, they said. On the jail call after his arrest, Jason Schaefer told his dad that he succeeded in what he was trying to do. What were you trying to do?, his anguished father asked. Die, replied his son, who added that he succeeded in making the news. The younger Schaefer told his father that he wanted to draw attention to his efforts to manufacture the drug ibogaine, which is used in other countries to help treat opioid addictions but remains illegal in the United States. You have to find a different way, his father told him on the call. In his closing argument, Jason Schaefer told jurors he had ordered the electric matches off eBay and was never asked if he had a federal license before they were shipped to him. He said he stored them safely and didnt intend to harm the officers. He said he shared his interest in the drug ibogaine with his Washington County probation officer and blamed her for failing to get him the help he needed. Nobody in law enforcement ever just talked to me, he said. He argued that Chedester and Diamond were the only witnesses who heard him threaten to blow them up. That was not what I was trying to do, he said, reading from a prepared statement, as he stood at the defense table. The amount of TACP in the cigarette pack he lit, wasnt even enough to blow a hole in my shirt, he said, adding that the officers werent physically injured. Schaefer further argued that the powder in the pack couldnt be considered a bomb but was simply a flammable or combustible material. I did not mean to hurt anyone. I panicked and I tried to kill myself, he said. You heard and saw how that turned out. Assistant U.S. Attorney William Narus told jurors that Schaefers suicide defense and testimony about ibogaine are irrelevant. Assistant U.S. Attorney Natalie Wight said Schaefer has tried to shift the blame for his actions since the explosion, complaining right away that officers had shot him. Theres not a shred of remorse in his voice,'' she said in her rebuttal. During deliberations and after the verdict, U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez rejected a motion for a mistrial by Schaefer after prosecutors acknowledged that a transcript from an officers body camera footage involving a prior April 2017 encounter with Schaefer was inadvertently presented to the jury and reviewed by jurors during their deliberations. The body camera footage and transcript were supposed to be excluded as evidence in the case. The judge instructed jurors Wednesday to disregard it. -- 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. Fire crews had to close the Walmart superstore in Lebanon after responding to a fire inside the store Tuesday afternoon. The fire, which started in an aisle where pool-cleaning chemicals were stored, created toxic smoke. Several nearby businesses had to be evacuated as well. There were no reported injuries. Lebanon Fire District Battalion Chief Nick Tyler said they still have not identified a cause, and as of about 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, fire personnel were still at the site investigating. According to a news release from Lebanon Fire District, around 12:45 p.m., crews responded to reports of a fire and saw smoke coming from the building and people evacuating the store. The smoke was thick enough that crews had to use a thermal imaging camera to find the fire. Crews said the stores sprinkler system prevented the fire from spreading too far, and they were able to put it out. Several businesses to the north of the store were evacuated because of the smoke, and a few city streets were closed to protect residents from the smoke. The chemical smoke filled the store, and it took crews an hour to clear the smoke and begin investigating the fire. A hazardous materials team also assisted at the scene. Walmart Lebanon posted on Facebook that the store would remain closed and would announce when it would reopen later. Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. A 3-year-old boy from Cornelius was found safe in Oklahoma on Tuesday, after he and his father were reported missing a week ago. Colt Burnes was found in good health and is in custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, officials said. His father, Gaige Burnes, has still not been found. Gaige Burnes has a warrant out for his arrest, on a misdemeanor charge of child neglect. Deputy Brian van Kleef of the Washington County Sheriffs Office said they arent sure when the father and son arrived in Oklahoma, and said the sheriffs office just got the call about them Tuesday afternoon. I believe the father dropped him off with someone who knows the family, and I believe hes with extended family now, van Kleef said. He said Oregon Department of Human Services employees will be traveling to Oklahoma to bring Colt back to Oregon. The Washington County Sheriffs Office said last week that Gaige Burnes was thought to be living in the Hillsboro area, and might be homeless. When the two were reported missing last week, the sheriffs office said officials believed Colt might be in danger or not getting the care he needs. They also advised people not to confront Burnes if they saw him, but to instead call the non-emergency line at 503-629-0111. Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. An Oregon City man was sentenced last week to 30 days in jail after he was captured on video surveillance breaking into a neighbors home and stealing underwear from her bedroom last June. Ronald Reed Caldcleugh, 68, was convicted in Clackamas County Circuit Court on one count of first-degree burglary and one of third-degree theft. One other count of burglary and one count of third-degree criminal mischief were dismissed. On June 2, 2018, Caldcleugh found out that his neighbor was out of town. Video surveillance caught him going in and out of the neighbors house without permission. When the neighbor returned, she was told that Caldcleugh had entered her home, and she called the police. Police initially arrested him on one count of criminal trespass, but as they investigated further, the neighbor found that there was underwear missing from her bedroom. Caldcleugh was then charged with burglary and theft. Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Portlands mayor has selected the National Police Foundation to investigate whether Portland police have acted with bias before and during demonstrations involving right-wing and anti-fascist protesters. Mayor Ted Wheeler, after consulting with former FBI agent Michael German, picked the foundation for a $200,000 contract to do the independent inquiry. The money comes from the Police Bureaus budget. Work is expected to start this week, according to the mayors office. The foundation, according to its website, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the policing profession. The mayor, who serves as the citys police commissioner, earlier this year called for the investigation after the release of hundreds of text messages and emails between the bureaus crowd control liaison, Lt. Jeff Niiya, and Joey Gibson, leader of the right-wing Patriot Prayer group. The communications sparked outrage among some community members, who said the lieutenants friendly banter with Gibson was evidence that officers have protected right-wing protesters over counter-demonstrators, such as antifa. The mayor called the texts disturbing and said they crossed the boundaries of acceptable police work. The city didnt seek requests for proposals to do the investigation. That "would have been much more involved and lengthier, said Eileen Park, the mayors spokeswoman. "Given the public interest, the mayor wanted to move forward with the process as expeditiously as possible. Instead, the mayor reached out to the city attorneys office to help identify the best experts to do the investigation. Tracy Reeve, the city attorney, spoke with several other city attorneys in Seattle, Minneapolis, and Charlottesville about their experiences with similar evaluations. " Based on the information gathered, we concluded that overall the Police Foundations proposed team and work plan best met the citys needs,'' Reeve said. The city attorney is finalizing the contract with the foundation. The mayor shared the choice with other city councilors and they raised no concerns, she said. The foundation has done similar work in the past and had the strongest team, Park said. The organization, for example, did assessments of the police response to August 2014 demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown and the 2017 white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia. The California-based Police Assessment Resource Center was the only other agency considered, according to the mayors office. In a prior interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, German suggested an investigation should examine all police intelligence that Portland officers get on protesters from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the state Department of Justices Oregon Terrorism Information Threat Assessment Network Fusion Center. The center monitors public safety threats, collects data and shares information with federal, state and local law enforcement. It should examine videos of demonstrations, police reports, arrests, police communications with demonstrators and whether those are shared with supervisors, he said. German also recommended that it look into allegations that police worked with Patriot Prayers so-called security to help make arrests, as alleged during one protest. While Niiyas texts and email exchanges created an outcry, some outside policing experts and Niiyas union president said they showed the lieutenant was simply following police policy on crowd control communications. He was helping the bureau get information about Patriot Prayer, they said, and sharing it with his command staff and the mayors senior adviser, as text messages showed. Other texts showed Niiya reaching out to counter-protesters, but many of them were reluctant to communicate with him and expressed distrust of police. Rallies and marches by Gibson and his group have repeatedly devolved into bloody brawls between Patriot Prayer followers and counter-protesters. A separate internal Police Bureau investigation is underway into Niiyas communications with Gibson. Niiya has been restricted from communicating with Gibson or serving as a crowd control liaison for the bureau while the internal inquiry is underway. On April 18, Niiya was reassigned to serve as an inspector in the bureaus Professional Standards Division. -- 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. The Oregon Department of Justice will appeal a federal judges ruling that ordered the release or a new trial for Frank Gable, convicted of murder for the 1989 stabbing death of Oregons prison chief Michael Francke. The state filed its notice of appeal Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Portland, signaling that one of the most notorious and debated murder cases in modern Oregon history is likely to grind on. The state also filed a 44-page motion to put the order by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta on hold while the appeal is pending. The state said it believes Gable remains a danger to the public, fears that hell flee if released and doesnt want to waste time or money preparing for a new trial if an appellate court overturns Acostas decision. "Nothing suggests that, in the many years since his convictions, petitioner has developed ties to any community in Oregon that would act as an incentive for him to remain to await a possible retrial,'' Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman wrote. Oregons Federal Public Defenders Office, which represented Gable, is expected to seek Gables release while the state appeals. "Were disappointed the state chose to appeal and prolong the case,'' said Lisa Hay, Oregons federal public defender. "Were confident Judge Acostas reasoned decision will withstand appellate scrutiny.'' Gable, 59, is serving a life sentence without parole, now in a Kansas prison. The states effort to overturn the judges ruling will go before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Last month, Acosta gave the state 90 days to retry or release Gable. Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson this week said her office is still weighing whether it will retry Gable. Legal observers have said a new trial is unlikely because of the passage of time and Acostas decision. Francke was 42 and the director of the Oregon Department of Corrections when he was attacked near his state-issued Pontiac outside the Dome Building, the agencys headquarters in Salem, on Jan. 17, 1989. He was found dead by a security guard on a covered porch of the building. Marion County prosecutors argued at trial that Francke had come upon Gable as Gable was breaking into the prison directors car. They said Gable, a small-time methamphetamine dealer and ex-con, stabbed Francke three times and then fled. Francke staggered to the porch and died. In his stunning ruling last month, Acosta found that the state judge in the Gable case was wrong to exclude another mans confession to the crime from the trial and that Gables defense lawyers at the time should have asserted Gables federal due process rights in light of that error. The judge ruled after he found Gables lawyers made a showing of "actual innocence'' based on new and old information. He cited eight material witnesses in the case who have now recanted their testimony and pointed to what he said was a record of improper interrogation and flawed polygraphs used to question the witnesses and shape many of their statements to police. 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. In their motion to put Acostas ruling on hold, attorneys from the Oregon Department of Justice argued that the confession by the other man, Johnny Crouse, was unreliable because he made multiple inconsistent statements and later withdrew the confession. "Given the numerous, shifting accounts of his alleged involvement in the murder, Crouses statements do not have sufficient assurances of trustworthiness to require admission,'' the states lawyers wrote. "Crouse appears to have had a penchant for telling stories, regardless of whether they were inculpatory or exculpatory, and he gave several differing accounts of his own involvement in Franckes death, some of which bordered on the absurd.'' Lawyers for the state also contend the magistrate judge shouldnt have relied on recantations made decades after the killing in place of trial testimony and suggest that the judge failed to consider "the timing, context, or other nuances associated with the recantations or partial recantations.'' They argued that Gable, who has been in custody for three decades, remains a danger to the community, based on his prior criminal record, which included robbery convictions in Coos County in 1979 and 1984, a burglary conviction in 1989 and a 1991 federal gun conviction. But the states lawyers did note they have no evidence that Gable "has displayed violent or criminal conduct while in a structured prison setting.'' If Acosta were to release Gable while the appeal works its way through court, state lawyers said he should be placed on federal supervision with special conditions. Gable should be ordered to remain in Oregon, not travel out of the state without permission, not travel out of the country, notify his supervising officer of any address change and agree to abide by all laws and appear in court when required. Gable has a nearly nine-year federal sentence, plus three years of post-prison supervision, for an unrelated September 1991 gun conviction hovering over him. If Acosta allows for Gables release, the state urges he be turned over to the U.S. Marshals and placed on federal supervision stemming from the gun conviction. Rulings like Acostas are rare in habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates. The petitions typically ask a court to consider whether an inmates imprisonment is lawful. Gable had unsuccessfully appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals and Oregon Supreme Court on other grounds. After Acostas ruling, Franckes brothers, Patrick and Kevin Francke, publicly urged the state not to appeal. The two have long believed Gable was innocent of the crime. They have written to Gable in prison, befriended his family members and assisted the Federal Public Defenders Office in its challenge of Gables conviction. They also reasserted their rights as victims in the case to be consulted about ongoing decisions by the state. They were dismayed by the appeal. "That the DOJ has opted to appeal Judge Acostas decision is galling and baffling,'' Kevin Francke wrote in an email to the state Department of Justice. He believes Michael Francke had uncovered corruption in the state prison system and was killed by conspirators to silence him. "Hasnt an innocent mans life been sacrifice enough? And the millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars fabricating this sham investigation,'' he said in the email. He also asked why his family wasnt consulted by the department on the appeal. The two Francke brothers also released a joint statement Wednesday afternoon, saying they were not surprised by the states decision to appeal and urged Gables release as the appeal is pending. Of the states move to appeal, they wrote, "It represents a repetitive pattern that has gone on for thirty years, and seems to be the norm. Ignore the Francke family. This time they have disregarded the state statutes as we understand them that require our involvement in the process. The huge outlay of cash from the Oregon Treasury will continue, perhaps for two more years. We are convinced of Frank Gables innocence. At the end, we believe Frank will prevail and the State will then be facing millions in reparations.'' . Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum wasnt involved in the appeal decision because she sat on the Oregon Court of Appeals at the time Gables case came before it. Deputy Attorney General Frederick M. Boss made the decision after consulting with others, according to Kristina Edmunson, a Justice Department spokeswoman. -- 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. Dozens of students packed the auditorium at Portland school district headquarters Tuesday to demand a science and social studies curriculum that addresses climate change. The school board passed a resolution three years ago promising just that. Nearly 50 students from schools across the district met in the parking lot outside the building ahead of the board meeting to sing songs, recite poems and create signs. Lincoln High School social sciences teacher Timothy Swinehart led the group in a song just before the throng made its way, single-file, into school district headquarters. There, teens and community members alike held signs prominently featuring the number 5272 the title of the boards 2016 resolution and slogans such as The future we are studying for does not exist and Tick-tock: No time left. Lincoln High senior Norah Glynn, 18, said she turned out to hold the districts feet to the fire and remind the school board of the promise it made three years ago, even if shell be gone by the time its implemented. If I had kids, Id want them to learn these things, Glynn said. Its not about me. Its about people learning the curriculum. The protest came nearly two months to the day after hundreds of students rallied in Portland during a worldwide march demanding governments act on climate change. Sriya Chinnam, a Lincoln High junior and member of the Portland Youth Climate Council, helped organize the protest and spoke during the public comment period. We are facing a crisis, she said. Theres no scientific debate when we talk about global warming. PPS understands climate change but does not recognize that this is a climate crisis. Chinnam told the board she wants students across the district to have access to the same elective climate curriculum as her peers at Lincoln. Climate education is more than climate change, she said. This is not just a science issue. This is about our lives. This is a social justice issue. Chinnam demanded a response from the board on whether it would dedicate resources to implement a climate curriculum with a deadline of May 21. The group also wants monthly updates from district officials. After the students delivered their prepared remarks, Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero addressed the students concerns, a rarity during school board public comment periods. He called the student protest exactly the kind of youth leadership on real-world issues that we as educators always hope for. Im at @PPSConnect headquarters where dozens of students have gathered to demand the district adopt a climate curriculum the board of education approved in 2016. pic.twitter.com/ppmgVtotZs eder campuzano (@edercampuzano) May 15, 2019 In a letter to student demonstrators Guerrero dated May 10, he also said he would convene a diverse and student-led climate justice advocacy group to advise him on the districts climate justice efforts. Guerrero named Senior Adviser on Racial Equity and Social Justice Dani Ledezma and Chief Engagement Officer Jonathan Garcia as the districts ambassadors to the student group. The superintendent also provided updates on progress the district has made in the years since the school board passed the climate resolution. One: an audit of district science textbooks found they were out of compliance with the climate curriculum. Guerrero also wrote that the district is developing a year-round climate science and social justice course, work he said will bleed into the 2019-20 academic year. The soonest it would go online is the 2020-21 year. But Madison High sophomore Sophia England, 16, said shed like to see the district implement a curriculum as soon as possible. Its really scary to know the clock is ticking, she said. CALGARY, Alberta, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (PIPE TSX-V) Pipestone Energy Corp. (Pipestone Energy or the Company) is pleased to report its Q1 2019 financial and operational results and provide a progress report on its 2019 development program. The Company has filed its unaudited financial statements and related managements discussion and analysis (MD&A) for the quarter ended March 31, 2019 on SEDAR. A conference call has been scheduled for Wednesday, May 15th at 9:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time (11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time) for interested investors, analysts, brokers and media representatives. Pipestone Energys 2019 fully-funded capital program is on-budget and on-track to achieve our exit guidance of 14,000 16,000 boe/d from production in the condensate-rich Montney corridor. We are commencing completion operations for the seven wells on our 3-1 pad, bringing the total number of completed wells north of the Wapiti River to 23. Pipestone Energy will tie-in 20 wells into our gathering system which will be available for production by the end of Q3 2019. Our north-south Pipestone Energy operated infield gathering system is substantially completed and pad equipment construction is proceeding on schedule. Our two third party midstream providers are completing their gathering, compression and processing facilities for our anticipated Q4 2019 production start-up. I am very proud of our Company for the level of performance on execution that has been achieved to date as we move from pre-production to full start-up later in 2019, stated Paul Wanklyn, Pipestone Energy President and Chief Executive Officer. This is an important the first phase in our long-term growth plan for the asset base. FIRST QUARTER 2019 CORPORATE HIGHLIGHTS On January 4, 2019, Pipestone Oil Corp. completed the previously announced reverse takeover of, and amalgamation with, Blackbird Energy Inc. to form Pipestone Energy (the Corporate Acquisition); Pipestone Energy secured a $198.5 million first lien credit facility (the Credit Facility) with a syndicate of lenders, comprised of a $10.0 million revolving operating line, a $20.0 million letter of credit facility and a $168.5 million delayed draw term loan; Continuing its Q4 2018 drilling program, the Company spent $9.1 million and drilled four gross (four net) wells at the 3-1 pad in the quarter; Pipestone Energy invested $18.8 million in the continued construction of its major 17.5 km infield gathering system, oriented north / south along the primary development corridor through its western acreage; At Pipestone Energys 15-14 padsite, 3-1 padsite, and other production facilities, the Company spent a total of $17.0 million to complete civil work, finish final fabrication, deliver all major equipment, and commence construction of on-site production facilities; and Pipestone Energy initiated its commodity price risk management program, which is primarily designed to reduce cash flow volatility, enhance certainty on funding availability for the Companys capital expenditure program, and to service debt obligations. Pipestone Energy Corp. Financial and Operating Highlights Three months ended March 31, ($ thousands, except per unit and per share amounts) 2019 2018 (6) Financial Sales of liquids and natural gas $ 460 $ 971 Cash from (used in) operating activities (12,785 ) 163 Funds flow from (used in) operations (1) (8,663 ) 480 Per share, basic and diluted (2) (0.05 ) 0.01 Loss (4,302 ) (631 ) Per share, basic and diluted (2) (0.02 ) (0.01 ) Capital expenditures 49,468 30,558 Acquisitions 234,722 - Working capital (end of period) 2,411 10,264 Bank debt (end of period) 80,735 30,181 Shareholders equity (end of period) 378,896 87,549 Available funding (end of period) (3) $ 98,427 $ 38,123 Shares outstanding (end of period) (2) 189,609 52,782 Weighted-average basic shares outstanding (2) 184,540 52,782 Weighted-average diluted shares outstanding (2) 184,540 52,782 Operations Production Crude oil and condensate (bbls/d) 82 186 Natural gas liquids (NGL) (bbls/d) 17 - Natural gas (Mcf/d) 318 - Total (boe/d) (4) 152 186 Condensate-gas ratio (CGR) (bbls/MMcf) 55 - Benchmark prices Crude oil WTI (C$/bbl) $ 73.25 $ 79.52 Condensate Edmonton condensate (C$/bbl) 68.73 80.30 Natural gas AECO 5A (C$/Mcf) 2.60 2.07 Average realized prices (5) Crude oil and condensate (per bbl) 42.71 58.00 NGL (per bbl) 25.04 - Natural gas (per Mcf) 3.69 - Revenue (per boe) 33.53 58.00 Royalties (per boe) (1.65 ) (4.83 ) Operating expenses (per boe) (28.62 ) (6.63 ) Transportation (per boe) (48.35 ) - Operating netback (per boe) (3) (45.09 ) 46.54 Funds flow netback (per boe) (3) $ (631.58 ) $ 28.69 (1) See Additional subtotal Funds flow from operations under Critical Accounting Judgments, Estimates and Policies in Pipestone Energys Q1 2019 MD&A. (2) The number of common shares have been adjusted retrospectively to reflect the 10:1 share consolidation, as well as the 0.5996 exchange ratio, as part of the corporate acquisition. (3) See Non-GAAP measures in Pipestone Energys Q1 2019 MD&A. (4) For a description of the boe conversion ratio, see Basis of Barrel of Oil Equivalent in Pipestone Energys Q1 2019 MD&A. (5) Before hedging. (6) IFRS 16, Leases, was adopted January 1, 2019 using the modified retrospective approach; therefore, comparative information has not been restated. See Critical Accounting Judgments, Estimates and Policies in Pipestone Energys Q1 2019 MD&A. Comparative figures are to the Pipestone Oil Corp. December 31, 2018 financial statements. 2019 CAPITAL PROGRAM AND OPERATIONS UPDATE Revised Pipestone Energy 5 Quarter Capital Program Overview (Q4 2018 Q4 2019) A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/71201705-8a30-45b8-a45b-8077b4d72cdb Pipestone Energy Montney Operated Horizontal Well Status Summary Current (May 2019) Sept 30, 2019 (Estimate) Dec 31, 2019 (Estimate) North of Wapiti River (1) (Keyera Wapiti & Tidewater Pipestone Processing Facilities) Drilled 27 31 36 Drilled + Completed 16 23 23 Tied-In / Available for Production 20 20 South of Wapiti River (1) (CNRL Gold Creek Processing Facility) Drilled + Completed 9 9 9 Tied-In / On-Production 8 8 8 (1) Tied-In / Available for Production is a subset of the Drilled + Completed category which is a subset of the Drilled category. Drilling & Completions Pipestone Energy expects to commence drilling six wells on its 6-24 pad beginning in early Q3 2019, followed by an additional three wells (of six) on a new pad in the northwest portion of its acreage prior to year end. With respect to completions, the Company expects to begin completing seven wells on its 3-1 pad in late May 2019. Infrastructure & 3 rd Party Processing Pipestone Energys major infield gathering infrastructure build-out has advanced significantly since Q4 2018. The system is ~95% complete and is expected to be ready for commissioning by early Q3 2019. Construction on padsite facilities at our 15-14 and 3-1 pads is advancing on schedule with a target availability for production start-up of September 2019. Phase 1 of the Keyera Wapiti Gas Plant is complete and processing third party volumes. Pipestone Energy has 60 MMcf/d of raw Priority One firm service at the Keyera plant with an option to expand to 90 MMcf/d with the completion of Phase 2. Construction of Phase 2 at the Keyera facility has begun and is expected to be completed in mid-2020 taking the plants gas processing capacity to 300 MMcf/d with 25,000 barrels per day of condensate handling capacity. The Keyera compressor station (at 08-15-70-08W6 and Pipestone Energy operated) and gathering system connecting to the Wapiti gas plant is on-track for Q4 2019 production ramp-up. The Tidewater Pipestone Sour Gas Plant (at 12-34-70-09W6) and associated gathering system is currently tracking to a Q3 2019 commissioning. Our production guidance continues to be predicated on an expected October and November 2019 start-up for the Tidewater and Keyera gas plants, respectively. Gold Creek Production Legacy Production South of the Wapiti River Effective April 3, 2019, Pipestone Energy resumed production into the 3rd party Gold Creek gas processing facility for the first time since November 2018. During the calendar month of April 2019, the Companys production averaged approximately 3.1 MMcf per day of raw natural gas and approximately 495 bbl per day of field condensate, which equates to approximately 990 boe per day of sales volumes. Volumes in the first half of May 2019 have averaged approximately 5.3 MMcf per day of raw natural gas and approximately 555 bbl per day of field condensate, which equates to approximately 1,400 boe per day of sales volumes. These volumes are in line with Pipestone Energys previous disclosure and planning. Natural Gas Transportation During early Q2 2019, Pipestone Energy acquired an additional 25 MMcf per day of firm natural gas transportation on the TC Energy system from a 3rd party producer. This additional firm transportation is effective starting September 1, 2019, and expires on April 30, 2021, with no premium to the posted transportation toll to AECO. This additional transportation will facilitate production volumes, should either of the Tidewater or Keyera facilities be available earlier than our budgeted start-up timing, as the next tranche of firm transportation does not commence until November 1, 2019. Under this contract, any or all of the contract transportation volumes can be extended further with a noticed period of one year. For the foreseeable future, this transportation will remain at a meter station upstream of both the Tidewater and Keyera meter stations. Pipestone Energy has the flexibility to move this transportation downstream on an out-and-back basis, subject to TC Energy hydraulics review and approval. Commodity Price Hedging Beginning in March 2019, Pipestone Energy initiated a systematic hedging program to mitigate commodity price risk and to reduce cash flow volatility in Q4 2019 and 2020. The Company expects the majority of its future revenue to be generated from liquids, particularly condensate. As a result, the derivative contracts that Pipestone Energy has entered into are primarily CAD denominated WTI swaps / collars, as well as Edmonton Condensate (CC5) differential to WTI hedges and fixed price Edmonton Condensate swaps. Details of these derivative contracts can be found in Pipestone Energys Q1 2019 MD&A. OUTLOOK Since closing the successful merger with Blackbird on January 4th, 2019, the Company has met its critical development and capital expenditure milestones to achieve its 2019 exit production guidance of 14,000 to 16,000 boe per day for December 2019. The Company's 2019 capital investment program continues to be on-track, on-time, and on-budget in the range of $145 to $165 million. The 2019 capital program is focused on drilling, completing, and tying-in condensate-rich Montney wells, and on the build-out of the required infrastructure that will enable Pipestone Energy to grow efficiently in future years. Pipestone Energy is in the initial stage of executing a multi-year development strategy that meets its full-cycle investment return requirements and cashflow generation hurdles based on a flat future price deck of US$55 per bbl WTI crude oil prices and $1.40 per GJ AECO natural gas prices. Given the recent improvements in commodity prices, and the actions taken to capture these prices through its hedging program, Pipestone Energy is confident it can meet its future development objectives. Conference Call Pipestone Energy will host a conference call to discuss the operational update and updated reserves and resources evaluation. The details of the conference call are below. An updated corporate presentation is also available on Pipestone Energys website at www.pipestonecorp.com . Conference Call May 15, 2019 9:00 a.m. MT (11:00 a.m. ET) Pipestone Energy will host a conference call on May 15, 2019, starting at 9:00 a.m. MT (11:00 a.m. ET). To participate please dial toll free in North America (866) 953-0776 or International (630) 652-5852 and enter 2466358 when prompted. An archived recording of the conference call will be available shortly after the event and will be available until May 22, 2019. To access the replay please dial toll free in North America (855) 859-2056 or International (404) 537-3406 and enter 2466358 when prompted. The conference call will also be archived on Pipestone Energys website at www.pipestonecorp.com . Advisory Regarding Forward-Looking Statements In the interest of providing shareholders of Pipestone Energy and potential investors information regarding Pipestone Energy, this news release contains certain information and statements (forward-looking statements) that constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future results or events, are based upon internal plans, intentions, expectations and beliefs, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated or suggested therein. All statements other than statements of current or historical fact constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are typically, but not always, identified by words such as anticipate, estimate, expect, intend, forecast, continue, propose, may, will, should, believe, plan, target, objective, project, potential and similar or other expressions indicating or suggesting future results or events. Forward-looking statements are not promises of future outcomes. There is no assurance that the results or events indicated or suggested by the forward-looking statements, or the plans, intentions, expectations or beliefs contained therein or upon which they are based, are correct or will in fact occur or be realized (or if they do, what benefits Pipestone Energy may derive therefrom). In particular, but without limiting the foregoing, this news release contains forward-looking statements pertaining to: timing for the construction and completion of necessary facilities and their timing to become production-ready; completion of Pipestone Energys 3-1 pad; anticipated 2019 exit production; 2019 production generally; attribution of future revenue to certain products; 2019 capital expenditure and investment plans; 2019 drilling plans, including proposed drilling locations, and anticipated costs per well; 2019 well completion plans; Pipestone Energys ability to accelerate completion of its wells; processing plans and locations involving third parties; transportation availability, timing and volumes involving third parties; and marketing optionality for Pipestone Energy afforded by physical connection to third party facilities. With respect to the forward-looking statements contained in this news release, Pipestone Energy has assessed material factors and made assumptions regarding, among other things: future commodity prices and currency exchange rates, including consistency of future oil, natural gas liquids (NGLs) and natural gas prices with current commodity price forecasts; the ability to integrate Blackbirds and Pipestone Oils historical businesses and operations and realize financial, operational and other synergies from the combination transaction completed on January 4, 2019; Pipestone Energys continued ability to obtain qualified staff and equipment in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the predictability of future results based on past and current experience; the predictability and consistency of the legislative and regulatory regime governing royalties, taxes, environmental matters and oil and gas operations, both provincially and federally; Pipestone Energys ability to successfully market its production of oil, NGLs and natural gas; the timing and success of drilling and completion activities (and the extent to which the results thereof meet expectations); Pipestone Energys future production levels and amount of future capital investment, and their consistency with Pipestone Energys current development plans and budget; future capital expenditure requirements and the sufficiency thereof to achieve Pipestone Energys objectives; the recoverability of Pipestone Energy's reserves and other resources; Pipestone Energys ability to economically produce oil and gas from its properties and the timing and cost to do so; the performance of both new and existing wells; future cash flows from production; future sources of funding for Pipestone Energys capital program, and its ability to obtain external financing when required and on acceptable terms; future debt levels; geological and engineering estimates in respect of Pipestone Energys reserves and other resources; the accuracy of geological and geophysical data and the interpretation thereof; the geography of the areas in which Pipestone Energy conducts exploration and development activities; the timely receipt of required regulatory approvals; the access, economic, regulatory and physical limitations to which Pipestone Energy may be subject from time to time; and the impact of industry competition. Information and statements regarding Pipestone Energys reserves and resources are forward-looking statements, as they involve the implied assessment, based on certain estimates and assumptions, that the reserves and resources exist in the quantities predicted or estimated and can be profitably produced in the future. In addition, with respect to the type curves and test rates, there is no certainty that future wells will generate results to match type curves or test rates presented herein. The forward-looking statements contained herein reflect management's current views, but the assessments and assumptions upon which they are based may prove to be incorrect. Although Pipestone Energy believes that its underlying assessments and assumptions are reasonable based on currently available information, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which are inherently uncertain, depend upon the accuracy of such assessments and assumptions, and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, both general and specific, many of which are beyond Pipestone Energys control, that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated or suggested in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, volatility in market prices and demand for oil, NGLs and natural gas and hedging activities related thereto; the ability to successfully integrate Blackbirds and Pipestone Oils historical businesses and operations; general economic, business and industry conditions; variance of Pipestone Energys actual capital costs, operating costs and economic returns from those anticipated; the ability to find, develop or acquire additional reserves and the availability of the capital or financing necessary to do so on satisfactory terms; and risks related to the exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas reserves and resources. Additional risks, uncertainties and other factors are discussed in Blackbirds management information circular dated November 21, 2018, a copy of which is available electronically on Pipestone Energys SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and Pipestone Energy assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by applicable securities laws. All forward-looking statements herein are expressly qualified by this advisory. Oil and Gas Measures Barrels of Oil Equivalent This news release discloses certain production information on a barrels of oil equivalent (boe) basis with natural gas converted to barrels of oil equivalent using a conversion factor of six thousand cubic feet of gas (Mcf) to one barrel (bbl) of oil (6 Mcf:1 bbl). Condensate and other NGLs are converted to boe at a ratio of 1 bbl:1 bbl. Boe may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A boe conversion ratio of 6 Mcf:1 bbl is based roughly on an energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at Blackbirds and Pipestone Oils sales point. Although the 6:1 conversion ratio is an industry-accepted norm, it is not reflective of price or market value differentials between product types. Based on current commodity prices, the value ratio between crude oil, NGLs and natural gas is significantly different from the 6:1 energy equivalency ratio. Accordingly, using a conversion ratio of 6 Mcf:1 bbl may be misleading as an indication of value. Pipestone Energy Corp. Pipestone Energy Corp. is an oil and gas exploration and production company with its head office located in Calgary, Alberta. The company is focused on developing its pure-play condensate-rich Montney asset in the Pipestone area near Grande Prairie. Pipestone Energy is committed to building long term value for our shareholders and values the partnerships that it is developing within its operating community. Pipestone Energy shares trade under the symbol PIPE on the TSX Venture Exchange. For more information, visit www.pipestonecorp.com . Pipestone Energy Contacts: At a time when leveling even the slightest criticism at the U.S. military runs the risk of seeming unpatriotic, the fact that Hulu is streaming an adaptation of Catch-22 qualifies as a bold creative statement. Its a credit to the Hulu limited series version of Catch-22, from executive producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov, that the material doesnt feel watered down, or distorted for an era when robotic recitations of Thank you for your service are offered up to veterans by people who havent the faintest idea of what military service really involves. Instead, the six-episode adaptation of Catch-22, written by Luke Davies and David Michod, captures much of the spirit of Joseph Hellers antiwar novel, which was published in 1961. Inspired by Hellers own experiences as a bombardier during World War II, the novel is a classic, satirical look at what Dwight D. Eisenhower, the World War II general and president, called the military-industrial complex. George Clooney, who is an executive producer and directed two episodes of Hulu's "Catch-22," also appears in a supporting role as Scheisskopf. Also shown are Christopher Abbott as Yossarian and Pico Alexander as Clevinger. (Photo: Philipe Antonello / Hulu)Philipe Antonello / Hulu The 1970 movie version, directed by Mike Nichols, was an acridly cynical take on the novel, which had gained popularity during the Vietnam War era, a time when the U.S. government and military was under fire for its tactics and lack of transparency. Though there are some appallingly comical notes, the Hulu Catch-22 is more affecting than the movie, because it doesnt stoop to easy cynicism. At times, it recalls the TV version of M*A*S*H, though Catch-22 ultimately feels more sad and mournful than humorous, despite moments of skillful caricature (mainly involving Clooney, in a supporting role as a stiff-necked, protocol-obsessed officer). The story, streamlined for the series, revolves around John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott), an U.S. Air Force bombardier stationed in Italy during World War II. Yossarian, in contrast to tiresome contemporary portrayals of supposedly heroic self-sacrificing supermen, is utterly down to earth. Painfully aware of how dangerous it is to fly in bomber missions, Yossarian wants, more than anything, to live. But the airman runs afoul of the military bureaucratic rule of Catch-22, which states that he cant be taken out of the air for mental health reasons. Yossarian knows how risky it is to do what he does. And the fact that hes aware of the danger is proof of sanity, hence, he cant be removed from duty. Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) and Clevinger (Pico Alexander) have another conversation about their service, and the war, in Hulu's "Catch-22." (Photo: Philippe Antonello/ Hulu)Hulu Making Yossarians situation even more insane is the fact that his military superiors keep increasing the number of missions he must fly to complete his service. No matter how many of his fellow airmen die as their planes crash, or enemy fire takes them out, Yossarian cant get off his nightmare treadmill. In Hulus Catch-22, Clooney, Heslov (who also plays Doctor Daneeka), and producer Ellen Kuras each direct two episodes. They all keep a sustained tone, which is sometimes darkly funny, but often simply dark. What keeps us watching are the strong performances, notably by the charismatic Abbott, who never overplays Yossarians fear, despair or desperation. Yossarian is far from noble, but he shows a kind of heroism when he holds onto his sanity, even as hes surrounded by surreal recklessness and cruelty. The fine cast also includes Kyle Chandler, who delivers another of his unfussy, perfectly calibrated performances as Colonel Cathcart, the blowhard officer whos happy to send airmen off to possible death with gasbag proclamations about sacrifice. Kyle Chandler, who's good -- as always -- playing the bombastic Colonel Cathcart in Hulu's "Catch-22." (Photo: Philipe Antonello / Hulu)Philipe Antonello / Hulu Though Catch-22 has its flaws some roles feel underwritten, and there are probably too many scenes of the airmen enjoying the Italian waters it gets stronger as it goes along. By the time we see opportunistic capitalist Milo Minderbinder (Daniel David Stewart) running his black-market games as hapless airmen die, its easy to sympathize with Yossarians philosophy that the enemy is anybody whos going to get you killed, no matter which side hes on. Catch-22 streams all six episodes on Hulu, beginning May 17. -- Kristi Turnquist kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Nurses at the Portland areas main psychiatric crisis center have signaled their intent to unionize following complaints from staff about safety, poor management and retaliation. The Unity Center for Behavioral Health was under state and federal investigation for most of last year over breaches in safety that in at least two cases resulted in a patients death. The center opened in 2017 as a joint effort among several hospital groups to treat the most serious mental health patients in the area. Investigators found that Unity was chronically understaffed, which contributed to lapses in monitoring patients, violence, escapes and sexual assaults in the facility. Leaders at Legacy Health, which operates Unity, also werent enforcing protocols laid out in the centers handbooks or not completing the handbooks in the first place, investigators said. Nurses and other staff members complained that the working environment was chaotic. A former Unity staff member has sued Unity and Legacy Health for what he claims was relation for becoming a whistleblower to the state. While Unity made changes and has been cleared of state and federal oversight for months, the Unity nurses have decided to unionize against this backdrop. They announced their effort Monday. Nurses need a real voice at Unity to advocate for our patients and make sure everyone gets the care they need to heal, Tracie Henry, a child and adolescent mental health nurse at Unity, in the announcement. Nurses want to give every kid the care and attention they deserve. But when we have too many patients and too few staff, some things get missed. The Oregon Nurses Association is the states largest nursing organization, with nearly 15,000 members across the state. Next, the National Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing with Unity nurses and management to figure out who is eligible for union membership and set up an election. If a majority of the centers nurses vote to join the Oregon Nurses Association, they will begin negotiations with Unity management on contract details. Legacy Health spokesman Brian Terrett did not say whether Legacy plans to accept the union voluntarily, but did say that Legacy chooses to be pro-employee. Legacy is 100% committed to open, respectful and productive relationships with our employees, regardless of whether they are represented by a union or not," Terrett said in a statement. By working together with our employees, we can understand and respond to their concerns, and benefit from their participation, knowledge and ideas to provide outstanding patient care every day. Oregon Health & Science University announced Monday that the chairman of emergency medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine will step down this summer. John Ma, who spent more than 12 years leading the emergency medicine department, will remain on faculty at OHSU but not in a leadership role. He is the second high-profile administrator to step down from a leadership position in the past year. Dr. Sanjiv Kaul, the head of OHSUs cardiology program, transitioned out of his role as the director of the Knight Cardiovascular Institute last fall in the midst of an internal and external review of the cardiology program and the collapse of the states only heart transplant program. Like Kaul, Ma left his role after an internal investigation. Health news site the Lund Report reported that Mas tenure was marked with unrest in the department and claims of harassment and poor treatment by administration. Ma oversaw the departments expansion into Astoria, Hillsboro and east Portland and a patient increase from 37,000 in 2007 to more than 150,000 now. Ma will fully step down from his position July 8. Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen testifies in February at a public hearing at the Washington legislature against limiting legislative branch disclosure. AP/Ted S. Warren By Brent Walth, University of Oregon Walth is an assistant professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon Its spring, and in Americas state capitals legislatures are winding up their business and, too often, bringing out the padlocks. All 50 states give the public the right to see government records and documents, but many state legislatures are weighing changes in their open-records laws. These changes rarely end up making our government more transparent. Instead, lawmakers often try to conceal public records from the people who own them that is, you and me. Public records laws exist to allow us to see into the decision-making of our government. When bureaucrats make efforts to obscure our view into their actions, it serves only to undermine government officials accountability. It also diminishes the publics understanding of, and faith in, democracy. Making whats public a secret In Massachusetts, lawmakers are making it harder for the public to see elected officials financial disclosure statements. In California, the legislature has been considering the shuttering of records that could reveal misconduct or conflicts of interest in publicly funded research. Last year, Washington state lawmakers rushed through a bill that allowed them to hide lawmakers calendars and email exchanges with lobbyists. Only after public outrage erupted over the move did the governor veto the measure. Most efforts to hide public records arent as brazen. Here in Oregon, our once-robust disclosure law, passed in 1973, is now pockmarked with more than 500 exemptions, many chiseled by bureaucrats wishing to avoid scrutiny or lobbyists seeking to protect their clients. Oregon officials can conceal investigative evidence of wrongdoing by medical professionals not just doctors but also dentists, veterinarians and undertakers. Basic information about birth, marriage and deaths is locked away. The pest-extermination industry won a special exemption to keep secret information about bedbug infestations. Oregons once-solid disclosure has become so flimsy that it once allowed state officials to declare it was a confidential trade secret to reveal the location of lightning strikes. The right to know The fight over public access to government documents has often involved the mundane grist of government, such as studies and budgets and memos and emails. This tension over whats called the right to know debates back to the countrys founding. A popular government, as James Madison wrote to a friend, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. I spent 30-plus years as a journalist and editor, focusing on investigative reporting on the state and federal levels. Ive filed hundreds of requests for documents and now teach journalism students to do the same. And I believe the best way to protect these laws of transparency is to put them to use and show the public why they matter. In 1966, Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act, the first law that required all federal agencies to make documents public when asked. But in some ways, state public-access laws that were passed as post-Watergate, good-government reforms have a greater role in our everyday lives. What the Defense Department has in its files may be of national import, but it can be just as powerful for a community to find out what the local zoning board behind closed doors is planning for a citys neighborhoods. Using your rights Journalists do perhaps more than anyone to advertise the power of these laws. A study looking at more than 30 years of news stories found that almost all investigative reporting relies on government documents, and nearly half of investigative reporters make a point of telling readers these disclosure laws played a role in prying records out of governments grip. Researchers, advocacy groups and businesses are among the most common users of these laws, but anyone can write out a request and hand it to a government agency. (In a pinch, I once scrawled a request on the back of a reporters notebook. It worked.) Today, in most states, public officials must work under a deadline to respond to the request. And thats when things can get difficult, because officials have three big ways to block your access to the publics records. One is fees. State laws allow government to make you pay for the records, although many have provisions to reduce or waive these costs. In most cases, government can charge only for the actual cost of retrieving, reviewing and copying documents. But those costs can still be high enough to thwart inquiry. Another method is delay. Most states have deadlines under which agencies should hand over records, but the waits can range from fewer than 21 days in states such as Vermont and Rhode Island to more than 100 days in Arizona, Mississippi and the District of Columbia. The wait for federal records under the Freedom of Information Act can take much longer sometimes years. The third way is through more exemptions. Some debates are not easy. The Florida legislature recently passed a bill that would prevent disclosure of photos, audio or video recordings of mass shootings, such as the 2018 shooting that killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Supporters say that this exemption could prevent further trauma. But others argue hiding these images makes these tragedies sterile and makes them more likely to occur. The availability of these kinds of images later helped news organizations hold police and school officials accountable for failing to do more to stop the Parkland shooter. The South Florida Sun Sentinel won a Pulitzer this year for its reporting that held those officials accountable. Records belong to you In recent years, a rise of public-records watchdogs, such as Muckrock, has made filing public records requests easier while shining a light on government efforts to close off records. The Student Press Law Center offers a public records letter generator. Journalists are writing about government efforts to hide documents a move that properly puts the heat on government officials and increases their own transparency by showing readers how journalists go about doing their jobs. News outlets in Atlanta banded together to expose the mayors secret effort to defy the Georgia public records law. The stories led to a criminal charge against the mayors press secretary for improperly withholding records embarrassing to her boss. Public records are public because they belong to you you and other taxpayers paid to create them and, of course, you paid for all the work they record and represent, Kevin Riley, editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said during the unfolding scandal. So no one should be looking for ways to keep them secret from you. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Toya Fick Fick is executive director of Stand for Children, Oregon chapter In just 18 months time, school districts all over Oregon have proven just how vital Measure 98s investments in career-technical education, dropout prevention and college level opportunities are for our students. Despite receiving only half the funding approved by voters, Measure 98s targeted investments are raising graduation rates, improving outcomes, and creating exciting new opportunities for students in every community across our state. With this weeks passage of the Student Success Act, which included full Measure 98 funding, our state is truly rewriting its narrative around education and investing in a brighter future for every single child. Measure 98 may have been underfunded, but it over-delivered with the resources it had. Salem-Keizer School District hired a community resourcespecialist with Measure 98 funds to engage the most vulnerable and historically underserved students. By connecting with local churches, youth leadership groups, and similar community networks, the specialist identifies reasons students drop off, and works with parents and support networks to keep them on track. Since creating the position, North Salem High Schools graduation rate went up by 10 percentage points in just one year, according to state education agency figures. The schools Pacific Islander students, who are historically one of their most academically vulnerable populations, had a 15-point jump in their graduation rates. Similarly, McKay High School, which was one of the lowest performing schools in the state just seven years ago, raised its rate by four points in just one year, state data show. McKays graduation mentors tasked with preventing students from dropping out achieved a 100 percent success rate, ensuring students on the cusp of graduating actually make it past the finish line. In the 2017-18 academic year the first year Measure 98 was available these funds led to the equivalent of 438 full-time jobs in Oregon. Thats 438 new sources of support, inspiration and academic motivation for students across the state. At the same time, 831 new programs were approved. Each one offers the potential to ignite a students interests and set them on a course for success in life beyond the classroom. These are the kinds of investments and results our students need. And these are the success stories lawmakers from the Joint Committee on Student Success heard as they traveled our state last summer, exploring solutions to raise our graduation rates. They clearly took the message to heart, making full funding of Measure 98 their first policy proposal for the Student Success Act. With the bills passage by the House and Senate, the Student Success Act is now on its way to Gov. Kate Browns desk to be signed into law, marking the single largest education investment in Oregon state history. The political process can be long, drawn-out and tedious. It can reduce real-world issues with profound consequences into talking-point-driven debates that benefit nobody. But for students, parents, teachers and education advocates, passing the Student Success Act wasnt about politics at all. It was about keeping our promise a promise that more than 1.2 million Oregonians approved at the ballot box to invest adequately in what we know works through Measure 98. Im thrilled to see so many lawmakers in the state Senate and House feel the same way, and I commend them for making this investment a reality for our students at long last. Bruce Gilley Gilley is a political science professor at Portland State University and president of the Oregon Association of Scholars. What role did lesbians play in Oregons history? What is a Papua New Guinean perspective on our fair state? What is the best culinary history of the United States written by a refugee? If you dont know the answers to these questions, you may be about to find out. House Bill 2023, passed in April and now before a Senate committee, is the latest in a series of ill-considered legislative acts by our state government to restructure education around identity politics. Under the bill, public schools would be mandated to include sufficient instruction on histories, contributions and perspectives of certain classifications of individuals in the teaching of history, geography, economics and civics. The certain classifications of individuals who will be part of our history are not defined as the brave, the courageous, the public-spirited, the kind and generous, the innovative, the powerful and influential, the lucky, and the fascinating. Those stale old categories would be replaced by a new list of politically approved groups: individuals who are Native American; are of African, Asian, Pacific Islander, Chicano, Latino or Middle Eastern descent; are women; have disabilities; are immigrants or refugees; or are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. This means that an already small and shrinking amount of classroom time that students have to learn basic facts such as how Oregon was brought into the Union and how its industries and cities developed needs now to be reallocated according to an ideological entitlement program. Not satisfied with wanting to distribute income, housing, jobs and street names according to the imperatives of the new identity politics in Oregon, legislators now want to redistribute history as well. Rewriting history according to contemporary political imperatives is, of course, bogus. The historical contributions of different individuals depend largely on things that have nothing to do with their sexual orientation, for instance, but with specific historical circumstances in which they found themselves. Some groups, such as Native Americans, are already widely represented in our history teaching, and for good reason. But when your children come home without the faintest idea of the process by which Oregon became a state, do not be surprised. French-Canadians, for instance, do not make it onto the list of approved identity groups in Salem these days despite their outsized role in our states history. Perhaps the public errs in assuming that our Legislature is concerned with education when it legislates on education. During House work meetings, the movers of HB 2023 made it clear that their aim was for history education to reflect the current population of Oregon, as if history changes every time the census updates. They cite a similar bill in California as their guiding star, which should make anyone concerned with legislative quality nervous. Why would Oregon students of the future ever take seriously the history they are being taught if they know it was driven by a checklist brewed in Salem? A reasonable takeaway for inquiring minds will be that the groups and perspectives they learn about are not actually important to Oregon history. This underscores a common finding by psychologists that refutes the arguments by proponents that a diverse retelling of history will lessen discrimination. Instead, the social priming of identities and the use of affirmative action in history teaching will make stereotyping and discrimination more, not less, likely. As usual these days in Salem, everyone is happy. In the rest of the state, parents and the educated public will, yet again, need to protect their children from political abuse in the classroom, and wonder why they support any funding for public education. Disability Rights Oregon, an advocacy group for people with mental and physical conditions, filed in federal court Tuesday to ask a judge to hold the state in contempt over its treatment of mentally ill defendants. The group joins Portland-based non-profit law firm Metropolitan Public Defender in that request, foreshadowing what could be a costly legal decision for the state, but one that forces mental health care and criminal justice reforms. At issue is defendants timely access to treatment to enable them to assist in their own defense, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. If a judge finds a mental disability may prevent a person from providing that assistance, their case is put on hold until the defendants competency is evaluated and, if necessary, the person receives treatment. That is most often done at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the states public psychiatric hospital. Defendants are often jailed while awaiting hospital entry for evaluations and treatment. Many detainees are held in solitary confinement because their mental condition makes them unable to stay in the general jail units. Such confinement can and does exacerbate defendants illnesses, according to advocates and researchers. Those jail stays have become lengthier in recent years as the number of defendants whose mental acuity is in doubt, and who have therefore been court ordered for evaluation and treatment, has skyrocketed. A longstanding federal court order, however, requires Oregon State Hospital officials to admit defendants within seven days of a court order. In recent months, Oregon has failed to comply with this order, officials have testified in state court, because the hospital is full. Hundreds of people have suffered unconstitutional jail stays as a result. An investigation published in February by The Oregonian/OregonLive found more than 200 such instances. Some defendants sat for many weeks before their entry to the hospital, the newsroom found. Sixty-three had been charged only with misdemeanors charges that generally bring little or no jail time upon conviction. The problem has only gotten worse in the months since, state officials testified recently in Washington County Circuit Court, where other contempt motions are pending. Metropolitan Public Defender and Disability Rights Oregon were two of the plaintiffs that brought suit over much the same issues in 2002, resulting in the federal order setting the one-week admission deadline. In the papers filed Tuesday, Disability Rights attorneys wrote they tried to negotiate with state officials without success. They asked a federal judge to set a hearing where the state should defend its actions. Because of the serious and irreparable harm done to seriously mentally ill detainees by protracted detention in jail, the hearing should be held as soon as possible, their motion said. The state and federal cases mirror a class action lawsuit brought in 2015 in Washington over similar concerns. A federal judge established admission timelines for mentally ill defendants, later found Washington in contempt for ignoring them and assessed $83 million in fines. The state paid those finds before mentally ill defendants and their representatives reached a settlement with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services that requires the state to enact significant mental health care reforms. -- Gordon R. Friedman GFriedman@Oregonian.com SAN FRANCISCO California fire officials said Wednesday that Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. power lines sparked a Northern California blaze that killed 85 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century. Cal Fire said transmission lines owned and operated by the San Francisco-based utility started the Nov. 8 fire in the Pulga area that nearly destroyed the town of Paradise in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The fire wiped out nearly 15,000 homes. Many of those killed were elderly or disabled. The oldest was 99. The investigation also identified a second nearby ignition site involving PG&E's electrical distribution lines that had come into contact with vegetation. The second fire was quickly consumed by the initial fire. The disclosure came on the same day the utility's new chief executive was testifying before a legislative committee in Sacramento. Bill Johnson told the state Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee he had expected the utility would be blamed for the fire. "I have made the assumption when I got here that PG&E equipment caused the fire," he said, noting the utility had said that was probable in recent filings. "It's a disappointment that this happened. Let's not do it again." Cal Fire did not release its full investigative report, saying it had been forwarded to the Butte County district attorney's office, which is considering filing criminal charges against the utility. The utility, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, said in February it was "probable" that one of its transmission lines sparked the blaze. PG&E has estimated its total liability from the Paradise fire and 2017 wildfires could top $30 billion. The fire spread rapidly, burning into the communities of Concow and Magalia and the outskirts of east Chico. Authorities said it was like no fire they had seen before. Strong wind gusts blew hot embers a mile or more, creating multiple fires. The utility previously acknowledged that the Caribou-Palermo transmission line lost power right before the fire and was later found to be damaged. Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said Wednesday she was not surprised to hear Pacific Gas & Electric power lines sparked the blaze that decimated her town and she hopes the findings help the city's legal case against the utility. "It's nice to have a definite answer," Jones said. Paradise sued PG&E in January seeking damages for the loss of infrastructure, land, property, trees, public and natural resources, and lost taxpayer resources. The suit alleges the blaze started when electrical infrastructure owned, operated and maintained by PG&E failed, causing a spark that ignited the blaze. The suit also alleges that PG&E had planned to de-energize power lines as a precaution against starting a fire but canceled those plans despite windy conditions. PG&E's bankruptcy reorganization plan is due by the end of May, but it has requested an extension until November. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Wednesday filing that PG&E shouldn't get an extra six months to reorganize. He said the utility's request continues to show it lacks an urgent focus on improving safety. Newsom and lawmakers are working on proposals related to utility liability for wildfires that could affect the bankruptcy. -- The Associated Press Updated at 2:48 p.m., Thursday, May 16 Salem police have identified an officer was shot multiple times during a traffic stop Tuesday night. Michelle Pratt, who has been with Salem Police Department for seven years, had non-life threatening injuries and is recovering at home. The suspect, Jaime L. Jimenez, was arrested Wednesday morning after a lengthy search. Jimenez, 38, of Woodburn, faces accusations of attempted aggravated murder, second-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm. A second person in the apartment, Amanda Cayetano, 35, of Salem, also was arrested on suspicion of hindering prosecution. Salem Police Lt. Treven Upkes told the Oregonian/OregonLive that the department was not releasing how many times Pratt was shot, or the exact nature of her injuries. He said she was not yet back at work, and likely would not be for a while. In a press release, Salem police said Pratt treated her own injuries by applying a tourniquet until other officers arrived. Police in Salem surrounded an apartment complex in the 2600 block of Broadway Street Northeast on Tuesday night, and SWAT officers later used an explosive device to blow the door off a unit where investigators believed Jaime L. Jimenez had been holed up, according to the police department. Jimenez, 38, of Woodburn was in custody by about 8:45 a.m. Upkes said he didnt know the exact reason Pratt stopped Jimenezs vehicle, but he said it appeared to be for a routine traffic violation. The shooting occurred about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday during a stop in the 500 block of Highland Avenue Northeast. The suspect then drove away, according to police. The car was found unoccupied shortly after, police said. The shooter, now alleged to be Jimenez, remained on the loose until Wednesday morning despite more than four hours of canine searching, according to police. The shooting prompted the Wednesday closure of Highland Elementary School, which is near the shooting scene. In a news release, Salem Police Department said Pratt started with the department in 2005 as a volunteer advocate for the Domestic Violence Response Team, and she was hired as a community service officer in 2011. She became a police officer in 2012. -- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015 Jayati Ramakrishnan contributed to this story. Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Oregon taxpayers could receive a record-shattering $1.4 billion kicker tax rebate next year, state economists told lawmakers during a revenue forecast in Salem on Wednesday morning. But Democratic leaders immediately suggested that at least some of the windfall be used to help hedge against a future economic downturn and expand government programs rather than be directed back to taxpayers. Gov. Kate Brown named paying down the states public employee pension debt as one avenue to build a brighter future for Oregon. Economists said Wednesday they expect state revenues will come in a full $1.4 billion higher than they projected in May 2017 even after lawmakers and Brown decided to shave $108 million off the kicker under a new law passed earlier this year. The governor said in a press release that she expects a "substantial portion of these funds to be directed towards paying down our (Public Employees Retirement System) unfunded liability, and further investments to be made in housing, foster care, our state police force, and towards college affordability so that our states prosperity is spread across every corner of the state. Taxpayers would receive the personal income tax rebate as a credit on their 2019 taxes when they file next year. Economists predicted Wednesday that the median wage earner making approximately $36,000 will receive a $338 credit next year if their revenue predictions hold true and lawmakers allow a full rebate for middle-income taxpayers. The top 1 percent of earners in Oregon making at least $401,000 a year could receive rebates as large as $14,000. Kicker amounts will not be settled until the August forecast. Courtesy of Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Although Oregons kicker rebate is locked into the state Constitution, lawmakers can hold back some or all of the rebate on a one-time basis by passing a law retroactively adjusting the revenue forecast on which the kicker is based. Such a change would need support from two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber to pass, meaning Democrats would need Republican support to do so. Corporate income taxes are also on track to exceed forecasts by $616 million. Under a measure voters approved in 2012, those funds will be spent on K-12 schools. The May revenue and economic forecast is pivotal for state lawmakers, because they will use the information to build budgets for the next two-year cycle that begins in July. Lawmakers have until the end of June to pass state budget bills. Oregons current two-year state budget is $22.5 billion. According to the latest forecast, lawmakers will likely end that cycle with nearly $876 million more in the general fund than economists had predicted just a couple months ago. And they will have an unprecedented $3.5 billion in a rainy day fund and other reserve accounts, McMullen said. Economists predicted Wednesday that the state treasury will receive $108 million less in taxes and other general fund revenue than previously expected in the 2019-2021 budget cycle. Coincidentally however, lawmakers squirreled away the same amount in various accounts under a maneuver that had the effect of holding back $108 million that otherwise would have been counted toward next years kicker. They could tap that money as needed in the next budget. The states unique kicker rebate is triggered when tax revenues for a two-year budget cycle come in more than 2 percent above economists forecast made at the start of the cycle. On Wednesday, state economist Mark McMullen described the change in the forecast which was based in part on the amount of taxes the state received so far this year as "very humbling for us as forecasters and truly ... a seismic event. This is going to be the largest kicker on record, McMullen said. Democrats have expressed interest for at least a year in diverting the kicker to the states rainy day fund or to pay down Oregons public pension shortfall. With economists predicting a possible recession in 2020, they raised the idea again on Wednesday. This is a historic windfall, said Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton. The public funds should be socked away in the rainy day fund or other savings accounts so the state can draw on them when the budget is tight, Hass said. He called on fellow lawmakers not to spend it because ... it is a temporary phenomenon. Its unclear whether Democrats could line up the Republican support necessary to hold onto some or all of the kicker. They would need two Republican votes in the House and two Republican votes in the Senate to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary to modify the kicker. Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr., of Grants Pass, said in a press release that the state government has revenue coming out of our ears and taxpayers deserve to get the kicker back in full. Similarly, House Republican Leader Carl Wilson, also of Grants Pass, said in a press release that every penny of the kicker belongs to the people, not to (Democrats). This constitutionally mandated check on excessive taxation must be honored and not raided for pet projects or to grow the bureaucracy in Salem, Wilson said. Oregons previous record kicker was $1.1 billion on the eve of the Great Recession in 2007, when the state still sent out rebate checks. This story has been updated to reflect the following clarification: House Speaker Tina Kotek said she would like the Legislature to spend additional tax revenue the state is projected to take in during 2019-21 to pay down state public employee pension debt. Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX: LAC) (NYSE: LAC) ("Lithium Americas" or the "Company"), has announced today that Tom Hodgson has retired as Chief Executive Officer and Director. The Board of Directors has appointed Jonathan (Jon) Evans, currently President and Chief Operating Officer, to the role of President and Chief Executive Officer and to replace Tom Hodgson on the Board. Tom Hodgson has agreed to stay on as a consultant to assist with the transition and will continue to support the Company as needed. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been a part of Lithium Americas, working with a highly effective team as we developed and advanced our strategy of bringing two world-class assets into production, said Tom Hodgson. I am enthusiastic about Jon Evans taking on the leadership role. Jon is the right person to take Lithium Americas into the next stage of growth. George Ireland, Chairman of Lithium Americas said, On behalf of Lithium Americas Board of Directors, I would like to express our sincerest thanks to Tom Hodgson for his service to the company. Tom has shown tireless dedication and leadership in building Lithium Americas into a leading emerging lithium producer. He has been integral to the growth of the Company since joining the Board in 2011 and becoming an active and key part of the management team since the 2015 Western Lithium merger. We wish Tom all the best as he begins his retirement. The Board of the Company is also very excited to welcome Jon Evans to his expanded role as President and Chief Executive Officer and return to the Board. Jon is a very capable and technically accomplished leader in the lithium industry at a time when Lithium Americas is in a strong position to transition from developer to lithium producer with two low cost projects in the western hemisphere. Jon Evans joined the Company as President and Chief Operating Officer in September 2018. Jon has over twenty years of executive operations experience, including serving as Vice President and General Manager of the Lithium Division at FMC Corp. (now Livent Corp.) from 2008 to 2013, management positions with General Electric in the USA and Europe and executive roles at major industrial companies owned by private equity firms. Jon also served as an officer in the United States Army. About Lithium Americas: Lithium Americas owns a 62.5% interest in the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project along with its partner, Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co.,Ltd. The Cauchari-Olaroz Project is currently constructing a US$425 million lithium mine and processing facility in Jujuy Province, Argentina. In addition, Lithium Americas owns 100% of the Thacker Pass lithium project located in Nevada, the largest known lithium deposit in the United States. The Company trades on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol LAC. For further information contact: Lithium Americas Corp. Investor Relations Suite 300 900 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6C 1E6 Telephone: 778-656-5820 Email: ir@lithiumamericas.com Website: www.lithiumamericas.com Forward-Looking Statements & Information This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (which we refer to collectively as forward-looking information) under the provisions of applicable securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking information. Examples of forward-looking information in this news release include, among other things: the effects, if any, on the Companys performance as a result of the change in CEO, and successful development of the Cauchari-Olaroz and Thacker Pass projects, including timing, anticipated production, and results thereof. Forward-looking information may involve known and unknown risks, assumptions and uncertainties which may cause the Companys actual results or performance to differ materially. This information reflects the Companys current views with respect to future events and is necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company today, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingences. These assumptions include, successful transition of the Companys CEO, and the Companys ability to fund, advance and develop the Cauchari-Olaroz and Thacker Pass projects into production, including results therefrom and timing thereof. Forward-looking information also involve known and unknown risks that may cause actual results to differ materially, these risks include, among others, inherent risks in succession and transition planning for key executive roles, inherent risks in development of capital intensive mineral projects (including as co-owners), operational risks and general market and industry conditions. Additional risks, assumptions and other factors are set out in the Companys management discussion analysis and most recent annual information form, copies of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks and assumptions, given the inherent uncertainties in such forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results to differ materially. Forward-looking information is made as of the date hereof and the Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as required by law. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. SALEM Critics blasted a decision by Oregon Democrats that killed a bill aimed at getting more children vaccinated for measles and other preventable diseases in order pass a tax on large businesses, saying it jeopardized public health. Despite passing the House and having the necessary votes in the Senate, the measure to make it harder for families to opt out of required vaccinations was nixed as part of a deal announced Monday to end a week-long Senate Republican walkout over a multibillion school funding tax. Under the vaccination measure children would only have been be able to forgo vaccine requirements if a doctor or other medical provider concluded the shots would prove a health risk. Otherwise, theyd be unable to attend public or private school, Head Start and before- and after-school programs. Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a Democrat from Beaverton and the bills sponsor, said the move prevents the state from protecting its citizens from a public health crisis. "This isn't how I want our state to be known," she said. "This is a major public health issue and it's critical we address it." In an interview on the OPB program Think Out Loud Tuesday, Steiner Hayward said Gov. Kate Brown negotiated the deal with Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. of Grants Pass over the weekend. A spokeswoman for Brown did not respond to requests for comment on the governors role on Monday or Tuesday. Senate Democrats had been considering strategies to force Republicans to return to Salem, including killing Republicans policy and budget priorities and asking the governor to send the Oregon State Police out to round up the absent lawmakers. Steiner Hayward said she had been negotiating potential changes to the vaccine bill over the weekend, and Senate Democratic Leader Ginny Burdick of Portland had been negotiating with Republicans to modify a gun control bill that Democrats also agreed to kill on Monday. The governor made a different decision and cut a deal and thats where we are today, Steiner Hayward said. More than 70 people, including four from Oregon, were diagnosed as part of a months-long measles outbreak in the Pacific Northwest that public health officials just recently declared over. As the recent measles outbreak demonstrated, vaccine-preventable illnesses pose a growing threat due to the relatively low rate of immunizations in the Northwest, said Rob Cowie, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority, the states health care agency. Oregon has the highest rate of unvaccinated kindergartners in the country, with at least 7.5% of their families claiming an exemption. Christian and non-traditional private schools top the list for unvaccinated children, but even some public schools see exemption rates reach near 50 percent. The state allows parents to either talk to a doctor or watch a video on the states health department website to obtain an exemption and the vast majority of families qualify for exemptions using the video option. That makes Oregon uniquely susceptible to an outbreak, according to Diane Peterson associate director for Immunization Action Coalition, which receives funding from the CDC. "Oregon in particular is a hotbed for a measles outbreak," Peterson said. "All you need is to introduce one person with the disease into the community and it will spread like wildfire." Oregon was one of a number of states proposing to crack down on non-medical exemptions, in response to a national resurgence of measles that has now sickened over 800 people this year according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The state is one of 17 to allow families to opt out of required school vaccinations for personal, philosophical or religious reasons. Neighboring Washington state this year passed a law to end personal or philosophical exemptions for the measles vaccine, while Maine is working to remove its religious and personal exemptions for all vaccines. Some states, including Rhode Island, introduced measures to add exemptions. The anti-vaccination movement surged in the 1990s, after a study alleged a link between the measles vaccine and the rise of autism. The study was subsequently debunked and retracted. Mississippi, California and West Virginia are the only states that banned all non-medical exemptions. Mississippi has the highest childhood vaccination rate in the country, while the California law, passed in 2015, caused a significant boost in vaccination numbers. In Oregon, Republican and Democratic leaders are remaining tight-lipped on why the vaccine issue in particular was targeted as part of the walkout deal. Steiner Hayward said she wasnt involved in the negotiations and that she personally received a call from Brown to tell her the vaccine bill would not move forward this session. Burdick, the Senate Democratic leader, stressed that the tradeoff was worth it to coax Republicans back to the Capitol and vote on a $1 billion annual boost in school funding. It wasnt, she said, a response to the vitriolic opposition the proposal has received from hundreds of parents opposed to vaccinating their children. The people opposing that bill just behaved reprehensibly around the building, Burdick said at a news conference Monday. And one of the things that distresses me is Im afraid that some of them are going to feel that those tactics worked. Those tactics had nothing to do with what happened. This story has been updated to reflect the following correction to a story by the Associated Press: an earlier version of this story incorrectly described Washingtons new vaccine law, which only eliminated personal or philosophical exemptions to the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine also known as MMR. Medical and religious exemptions to that vaccine remain. AP Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud Molly Harbarger | mharbarger@oregonian.com | 503-294-5923 Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. SALEM Government bodies could be fined $200 if they dont comply with public records requests in a timely manner under a bill moving forward in the Oregon legislature. House Bill 2353 does not require a penalty, but leaves it to the discretion of the Attorney General, a district attorney or a judge. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the measure 5-0 on Tuesday, sending it to a vote of the full Senate. The bill passed the House 56-0 in April. Public records advocates have complained that many government bodies do not follow timelines specified in state law and in some cases fail to even acknowledge requests. With some exceptions, governments in Oregon are expected to fulfill a public records request within 15 days. That deadline is thanks to a law approved in 2017. But its a time frame thats routinely ignored, said Nick Budnick, a board member for the Oregon Territory Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Agencies still feel free to blow off compliance, and theres zero consequence for them doing that, Budnick testified. Meanwhile, its the public that pays significantly in terms of time and effort to follow up and appeal these. Local governments have been cool to the idea of having to shell out a fine for failing to move quickly enough on records request, which can sometimes be complicated or stretch the resources of smaller municipalities. We are supportive of the underlying intent for greater transparency and responsiveness of public agencies to public records requests, said Ethan Nelson, a lobbyist for the city of Eugene. But Nelson said the city has two people on staff just to handle requests, which top 4,000 per year. The city is officially neutral on the legislation. Supporters of the bill said they dont anticipate many $200 fines will be handed out. My hope is that this is never used or seldom used, but that it motivates people to do the right thing, said Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, a former journalist. The Midland County Democrats will host its next monthly meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Commissioners Room at the Midland County Building, 220 Ellsworth St. This month's speaker is Maryli Secrest, the Candidate Services director for the Michigan House Democratic Caucus.The public is welcome free of charge. The Michigan Bean Festival and Michigan Bean Commission is seeking applicants for the 71st Michigan Bean Queen contest. Applicants must be a high school graduate; 17-22 year-old single female. The newly crowned Michigan Bean Queen will receive a $1,250 scholarship for college, plaque, sash and official photograph. She will be required to attend a minimum of 10 events throughout the year representing the Michigan Dry Bean Industry. After four years of monotherapy trials, data is now available to submit the long-anticipated pivotal trial for monotherapy to the FDA Trial will include 10 weeks of induction therapy to identify which patients are likely to respond and which patients can safely return to their original HAART regimen VANCOUVER, Washington, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CytoDyn Inc. (OTC.QB: CYDY), a late stage biotechnology company developing leronlimab (PRO 140), a CCR5 antagonist with the potential for multiple therapeutic indications, announced today that it has filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the pivotal trial protocol for leronlimab as a monotherapy for HIV patients. The latest investigative monotherapy trial for HIV has now produced sufficient data for the Companys Key Opinion Leaders to design a monotherapy pivotal Phase 3 trial. The objective of this trial is to assess the treatment strategy and clinical safety of using leronlimab subcutaneous (SC) 700mg weekly dose as single-agent induction therapy followed by leronlimab SC 525 or 700mg as maintenance therapy for the chronic suppression of CCR5-tropic HIV-1 infection. In this study, patients will receive a combination of existing retroviral regimen and leronlimab 700 mg SC for four weeks (the overlap phase) before shifting to weekly leronlimab 700mg monotherapy for 10 weeks (the monotherapy induction phase). Subsequently, patients will be randomized 1:1 to leronlimab 525mg (Group A) or leronlimab 700mg (Group B) for a 36-week monotherapy maintenance phase. Success with this monotherapy trial may allow the Company to file a BLA for label expansion in the event leronlimab receives FDA approval for HIV patients as a combination therapy with HAART. Robert T. Schooley, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Vice Chair, Department of Medicine, Co-Director, Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics, Senior Director, International Initiatives, University of California, San Diego, commented: The development of simple and well tolerated oral daily treatment regimens have transformed the face of HIV disease for most patients with the virus. Nonetheless, there remain people for whom daily oral therapy is a challenge. This group of patients has driven ongoing interest in the development of longer acting regimens that can obviate the requirement for daily oral dosing. PRO140, or leronlimab, is one of several agents under study with this goal in mind. Jacob P. Lalezari, M.D., Director of Quest Clinical Research, added: As a longstanding investigator for CytoDyn, I have seen that many of our HIV positive patients express a preference for weekly subcutaneous leronlimab monotherapy and uniformly request extension treatment beyond 48 weeks in order to avoid returning to HAART therapy. In the minority of subjects who are non-responders, we are heartened by the fact these folks can return to their original HAART regimen without difficulty. The testimony of patients who have taken leronlimab as a monotherapy in our previous clinical trials is very clear; patients who respond to monotherapy simply love it, and after 48 weeks they ask for extension to continue on monotherapy. We have not seen any extension patients ask to return to their HAART regimen of pills, noted Nader Pourhassan, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of CytoDyn. A monotherapy with leronlimab, if approved, may allow patients with pill fatigue to maintain a disciplined compliance regimen. In addition, it may provide patients concerned about the possibility of developing one or more drug class resistances, to potentially maintain a suppressed viral load without the typical side effects or toxicity associated with HAART, concluded Dr. Pourhassan. About Leronlimab (PRO 140) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a Fast Track designation to leronlimab as a combination therapy with HAART for HIV-infected patients and for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Leronlimab is an investigational humanized IgG4 mAb that blocks CCR5, a cellular receptor that appears to play multiple roles with implications in HIV infection, tumor metastases and immune signaling. Leronlimab has successfully completed nine Phase 1/2/3 clinical trials in over 700 people, including a successful pivotal Phase 3 trial in combination with standard anti-retroviral therapies in HIV-infected treatment-experienced patients. In the setting of HIV/AIDS, leronlimab belongs to a new class of therapeutics called viral-entry inhibitors; it masks CCR5, thus protecting healthy T cells from viral infection by blocking the predominant HIV (R5) subtype from entering those cells. Leronlimab has been the subject of nine clinical trials, each of which demonstrated that leronlimab can significantly reduce or control HIV viral load in humans. The leronlimab antibody appears to be a powerful antiviral agent leading to potentially fewer side effects and less frequent dosing requirements compared with daily drug therapies currently in use. In the setting of cancer, research has shown that CCR5 likely plays a central role in tumor invasion and metastasis and that increased CCR5 expression is an indicator of disease status in several cancers. Moreover, research has shown that drugs that block CCR5 can block tumor metastases in laboratory and animal models of aggressive breast and prostate cancer. CytoDyn is conducting additional research with leronlimab in the cancer setting and plans to initiate additional Phase 2 human clinical trials, in addition to triple-negative breast cancer, when appropriate. The CCR5 receptor also appears to play a central role in modulating immune cell trafficking to sites of inflammation and may be crucial for the development of acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and other inflammatory conditions. Clinical studies by others further support the concept that blocking CCR5 using a chemical inhibitor can reduce the clinical impact of acute GvHD without significantly affecting the engraftment of transplanted bone marrow stem cells. CytoDyn is currently conducting a Phase 2 clinical study with leronlimab to further support the concept that the CCR5 receptor on engrafted cells is critical for the development of acute GvHD and that blocking this receptor from recognizing certain immune signaling molecules is a viable approach to mitigating acute GvHD. The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to leronlimab for the prevention of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). About CytoDyn CytoDyn is a biotechnology company developing innovative treatments for multiple therapeutic indications based on leronlimab, a novel humanized monoclonal antibody targeting the CCR5 receptor. CCR5 appears to play a key role in the ability of HIV to enter and infect healthy T-cells. The CCR5 receptor also appears to be implicated in tumor metastasis and in immune-mediated illnesses, such as graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) and NASH. CytoDyn has successfully completed a Phase 3 pivotal trial with leronlimab in combination with standard anti-retroviral therapies in HIV-infected treatment-experienced patients. CytoDyn plans to seek FDA approval for leronlimab in combination therapy and plans to complete the filing of a Biologics License Application (BLA) in 2019 for that indication. CytoDyn is also conducting a Phase 3 investigative trial with leronlimab as a once-weekly monotherapy for HIV-infected patients and, plans to initiate a registration-directed study of leronlimab monotherapy indication, which if successful, could support a label extension. Clinical results to date from multiple trials have shown that leronlimab can significantly reduce viral burden in people infected with HIV with no reported drug-related serious adverse events (SAEs). Moreover, results from a Phase 2b clinical trial demonstrated that leronlimab monotherapy can prevent viral escape in HIV-infected patients, with some patients on leronlimab monotherapy remaining virally suppressed for more than four years. CytoDyn is also conducting a Phase 2 trial to evaluate leronlimab for the prevention of GvHD and has received clearance to initiate a clinical trial with leronlimab in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. More information is at www.cytodyn.com . Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Words and expressions reflecting optimism, satisfaction or disappointment with current prospects, as well as words such as believes, hopes, intends, estimates, expects, projects, plans, anticipates and variations thereof, or the use of future tense, identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. The Companys forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance, and actual results could vary materially from those contained in or expressed by such statements due to risks and uncertainties including: (i) the sufficiency of the Companys cash position, (ii) the Companys ability to raise additional capital to fund its operations, (iii) the Companys ability to meet its debt obligations, if any, (iv) the Companys ability to enter into partnership or licensing arrangements with third parties, (v) the Companys ability to identify patients to enroll in its clinical trials in a timely fashion, (vi) the Companys ability to achieve approval of a marketable product, (vii) the design, implementation and conduct of the Companys clinical trials, (viii) the results of the Companys clinical trials, including the possibility of unfavorable clinical trial results, (ix) the market for, and marketability of, any product that is approved, (x) the existence or development of vaccines, drugs, or other treatments that are viewed by medical professionals or patients as superior to the Companys products, (xi) regulatory initiatives, compliance with governmental regulations and the regulatory approval process, (xii) general economic and business conditions, (xiii) changes in foreign, political, and social conditions, and (xiv) various other matters, many of which are beyond the Companys control. The Company urges investors to consider specifically the various risk factors identified in its most recent Form 10-K, and any risk factors or cautionary statements included in any subsequent Form 10-Q or Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, the Company does not undertake any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements to take into account events or circumstances that occur after the date of this press release. CONTACTS Investors: Nader Pourhassan, Ph.D. President & CEO NPourhassan@CytoDyn.com Marek Ciszewski, J.D. Edison, Inc. MCiszewski@EdisonGroup.com Cotonou, Benin (PANA) - The court of repression of economic crimes and terrorism (Criet) Tuesday opened a judicial inquiry into the taking of hostages on 1 May at the Park of Pendjari, official sources told PANA here Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) The Congolese capital, Brazzaville, will from 10-12 September this year host Invest in Africa forum, aiming to promote the diversification of African economies and job creation, essential for the future of the continent, sources at the Congolese Ministry of Finance and Budget said on Wednesday Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (PANA) - The Ivorian Minister of National Education, Technical and Vocational Training, Kandia Camara, has summoned union leaders in the education-training sector for a meeting on Wednesday to address teachers' discontent Reis & Irvys will be located at Booth 133 from May 30 to June 1 at the Javits Center San Diego, CA, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Generation NEXT Franchise Brands , Inc. (OTCQB: VEND) announced today that it will be showcasing its Reis & Irvys unattended, robotic soft serve offering at the International Franchise Expo (IFE) , the largest franchise exposition in North America with over 400 top brands and exhibitors. Reis & Irvys is the world's first fully-automated robotic frozen dessert vending kiosk designed to disrupt brick-and-mortar competitors. The kiosks unattended robots eliminate the need for costly rent and labor, significantly reduce food safety concerns and are capable of operating 24-hours a day. These signature robots can dispense servings of frozen yogurt, ice cream, gelato and sorbet topped with a selection of six delicious toppings in under 60 seconds. With self-checkout touch screen ordering and payment options and delicious frozen dessert provided exclusively by Dannon, Reis & Irvys meets the demands of consumers anywhere and everywhere. Last years turnout at IFE was so incredible, we couldnt wait to come back, we sold over 100 robots from the expo, said Nick Yates, CEO of Generation NEXT. Reis & Irvys is gearing up again to provide those able to stop by with samples of our delicious Dannon frozen yogurt, served of course by our unattended Reis & Irvys robots. There is no better way to illustrate our vision than to allow each and every attendee to test out and fully experience our product for themselves. The International Franchise Expo (IFE) is the premier annual event for the franchise industry with hundreds of the hottest franchises on display. IFE offers the industry's most comprehensive conference and educational program to gain the ins and outs, behind the scenes information needed for success right from the start. Generation NEXT is shaping the emerging trends and conversations that come alive at IFE, Yates continued. By merging technology together with previously untapped industries, like that of frozen yogurt, were able to provide a novel, innovative way to serve consumers one that is truly unforgettable and the way of the future. To learn more about Generation NEXTs portfolio, please visit: www.gennextbrands.com . About Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc. Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc., based in San Diego, California, is a publicly traded company on the OTC Markets trading under the symbol OTCBB: VEND. Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc. is parent company to Reis and Irvys Inc., 19 Degrees Corporate Service LLC and Print Mates. To learn more, please visit: www.gennextbrands.com Dakar, Senegal (PANA) Eight people were killed and about thirty others injured on Tuesday evening in a collision between a truck and a mini-cargo van, in the central-west Senegal village of Sikatroum, local media reported on Wednesday Brussels, Belgium (PANA) - European Union Foreign and Defence Ministers who met on Tuesday in Brussels with their counterparts from the G5 Sahel reaffirmed, have said in a press release, that "the Sahel remains a strategic priority" for the EU Blantyre, Malawi (PANA) - As Malawians go to the polls next week, human rights group Amnesty International is calling for action on the longstanding criminal justice failures and widespread impunity for the killing of people with albinism Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe (PANA) - Sao Tome and Principe and Angola have established a permanent consultation plan as part of their strategic partnership, official sources said on Wednesday MONROVIA, May 15 (PANA) An environment of uneasy calm and growing tension has engulfed the Liberian capital after a meeting between President George Weah and a group planning to demonstrate on June 7 literally ran into a stonewall dialogue on their grievances filed to hold Cotonou, Benin (PANA) - Eight West and Central African countries have pledged to preserve the lives of more women, new-born babies, children and teenagers, the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said here Tuesday Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Key lifestyle choices such as getting regular exercise, not smoking or drinking too much, can reduce the risk of dementia and cognitive decline, the UN health agency said on Tuesday NORMAL Police are looking for two men who robbed an auto parts store in northeast Normal Tuesday night. Normal Assistant Police Chief Eric Klingele said police were notified of the armed robbery at OReilly Auto Parts at 401 Greenbriar Drive around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. The suspects appear to be two black males wearing dark clothes, with hoodies covering their heads, Klingele said. They displayed a gun and took cash. There are no available photographs or video of the robbery, he added. Authorities are investigating to see if there is a link to previous, unsolved robberies in the Twin Cities. On May 8, Bloomington police investigated a robbery of Caseys General Store in the 3000 block of Gill Street by two suspects, described as black men wearing masks, hoods and gloves. It is tough to tell since we dont have any footage, but it is quite possible that this could be linked to other cases in Bloomington and we will be touching base with them to compare notes,' said Klingele. The armed robbery Tuesday night was at least the 10th armed robbery reported in the Twin Cities this year, and the fourth in the last month. At 8:30 a.m. on April 18, police were called to the Subway restaurant at 2310 E. Oakland Ave. where two men entered the business, went into a restricted employee-only area, displayed a knife and demanded money. The first suspect is described as a heavy-set black man in his mid-20s or early 30s. He wore a dark hoodie and dark track pants with a red stripe down the legs with black shoes and a reflective construction vest. The second suspect is described as a black man of average build, also in his late 20s or early 30s, with partial facial hair. He wore a dark hoodie, dark pants and dark gloves with a black and gray backpack, a reflective safety vest and possibly safety glasses. At 1:50 p.m. on April 29, police were called to Six Points Food and Liquor at Morris Avenue and Six Points Road. Those two suspects are described as black men between 30 and 35 years of age. Both wore black clothing with their faces partially covered. One suspect was wearing glasses or goggles and had facial hair. One of the suspects was armed with a gun; they demanded money from a store employee. The suspects left on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash. At 7:30 p.m. on May 3, Boost Mobile, 603 S. Center St., just south of downtown Bloomington, was robbed. An employee described the robbers as three men wearing masks and said two of them displayed guns. An undisclosed number of phones were taken from the store and the suspects fled in an unknown vehicle, police said Saturday. Contact Kevin Barlow at (309) 820-3238. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_barlow 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. BLOOMINGTON A Heyworth woman offered harrowing details Tuesday of a March incident in which she allegedly was forced from her car by two armed men after she refused to drive them to Peoria. Lindsey Hawkey, 20, testified at a jury trial in McLean County juvenile court for a teenager charged with aggravated robbery and robbery. He is accused of being involved in the March 13 incident that started after he asked Hawkey, a person he had met through mutual friends on Snapchat, for a ride. The suspect was 17, and a minor, at the time of the incident. The Pantagraph does not name juveniles charged with crimes. Jurors were not told the suspect was a minor. Hawkey said she went to Amanda Brooke Apartments on East College Avenue where the teen and 20-year-old Kemondrae King asked her to drive them to Chicago Heights. She said she did not know King, who faces armed robbery and weapons charges related to the incident. According to Hawkey, the three drove more than two hours to the Chicago area where the men got out of the car for a short period of time before asking her to take them to Peoria. The men offered her $15,000 to take them on the second trip, she said. "I said I didn't want to take them," the woman told jurors. She said she agreed to drive back to Normal. When the trio arrived back at the Normal apartment complex, the juvenile, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, was ordered by King, a back-seat passenger, to shoot the woman, according to her testimony. "He said, 'Shoot her or I'll shoot you,'" the woman told jurors. She said she did not see a gun but took the threat seriously. Hawkey said she was struck in the head by King and forced out of the car. The men drove off, but left the car about a block away, she said. Jurors heard Hawkey's exchange with a 911 dispatcher minutes after the men took off. "I just don't want them to shoot me," she said, as she waited for officers to arrive. The jury also heard testimony from the victim's sister, Kylie Hawkey, who said she received text messages from her sister as she approached Normal on the return trip. Defense lawyer Art Feldman asked the victim about statements in a 911 call she placed to police in which she denied knowing the suspects' names. She acknowledged she had known the 18-year-old suspect for about three months through the social media connection, but the two had never met. She said she did not know King. Feldman told Associate Judge Brian Goldrick the defendant has chosen not to testify when the trial continues Wednesday. Assistant State's Attorney Samantha Vazquez is handling the case for the state. 2019 MUGSHOTS FROM THE PANTAGRAPH Contact Edith Brady-Lunny at (309) 820-3276. Follow her on Twitter: @pg_blunny 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. NORMAL A panel of Bloomington-Normal experts was by turns hesitant and optimistic about the prospect of legalized recreational marijuana coming to Illinois as soon as next year. "It is a good start. I think that there are any number of compromises that will have to be made before it's passed, but I think it's an absolutely necessary thing," said Brendan Bukalski, a defense attorney at Bloomington-based Johnson Law Group, of legislation still in negotiations in the Illinois Legislature. "We could pass a really effective law, and there's no reason to wait for it." Bukalski was the most confident of four speakers at Tuesday's community conversation organized by WGLT to explore adult use of cannabis. He was joined by Bloomington-Normal NAACP President Linda Foster; McLean County Chamber of Commerce Government and Public Affairs Director John Walsh; and Ralph Weisheit, ISU distinguished professor of criminal justice. "It's a little ambivalent, to be honest," said Walsh of local businesses' outlook on legalization. "We have folks that are in favor of it as long as it gets taxed and the revenue goes to pay down some of the state's unpaid bills ... and then we have members that are very, very concerned, in manufacturing and insurance, for example. Those industries can have zero-tolerance policies." Weisheit said he's also not taking a strong stance because he's an academic who studies the issue and not a policymaker. He noted some benefits of legalization, however, as seen in states and nations with different policies. Foster said of the NAACP, "we support some, but we do not support all" aspects of the plan. "There's a lot of uncertainties as to what it's saying in regards to black and brown citizens," she said, including how they might be involved in the industry and how expungement will work. "Those that are incarcerated for a small amount of marijuana that was supposed to be a public health issue ... What has changed? Our budget?" Bukalski added, though, he shares Bloomington state Sen. Jason Barickman's concern about possible expungement guidelines. Under a recent proposal, offenses for possession of up to 500 grams would be cleared, but individuals would be able to possess only up to 30 grams lawfully. "Absolutely that presents a problem," said Bukalski. "This is not a decriminalization. Weed is not just going to be legal (broadly). ... For some amounts there will still be penalties under the law." Bukalski said he's not concerned about whether expungement oversteps the General Assembly's bounds by issuing pardons, however, another issue critics have taken with recent drafts of the legislation. "The Legislature's allowed to change criminal laws. There's nothing unconstitutional about it," he said. "I have no idea what they're talking about." McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage reiterated his opposition to the proposal in a Monday news release, saying concerns remain about "impaired driving," "increased crime," "mass expungement" and "insufficient resources to keep communities safe." Foster said the NAACP hopes to hear clear language about what is and is not allowed under the legislation soon. "There has been discrimination in the laws of cannabis. We did not forget that," she said. "We believe until there is language that clearly defines what is acceptable, what is legal, then there's always gonna be that concern about the ... discretionary rules that does not favor African-Americans." Contact Derek Beigh at (309) 820-3234. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_beigh Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 2 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. BRIGHTON, Mich., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FlexDex, Inc. (FlexDex or Company), a medical device company that is developing a platform of articulating laparoscopic instruments for minimally invasive surgery, announced today that Clark Barousse has joined the Company as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He is replacing James D. Geiger, MD who served as interim CEO since August 2017. Dr. Geiger will continue as a member of FlexDexs Board of Directors and as Chief Medical Officer and provide support to the Company and Mr. Barousse during this transition. Mr. Barousse is a seasoned business executive with more than 25 years of experience in the medical device market. He has a proven track record of leading, developing and executing on commercialization strategies and driving market development initiatives. "I'm excited to have Clark lead the FlexDex team. Clark's outstanding experience and leadership in a broad range of medical device technologies including endoscopic imaging, laparoscopic instruments and minimally invasive procedures is complimentary to FlexDexs disruptive vision of enabling the benefits of minimally invasive surgery to more patients," commented James Geiger, M.D., Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer for FlexDex Surgical. Mr. Barousse most recently served as President and Chief Operating Officer, Americas for Pentax Medical (Pentax). While at Pentax, he restructured and rebuilt a declining capital business, set new strategic direction, resolved numerous FDA issues and grew revenue at an above market growth rate after six consecutive years of decline. Prior to this time, Mr. Barousse served as Senior Vice President, Chief Sales Officer at Biolase, a manufacturer and distributor of dental lasers and President at Hybridge, a network of dental practices that works with clinicians to improve their practices. He also held senior sales, marketing, and research and development positions with Biohorizons, Smith & Nephew Orthopedics, Ethicon, Inc. and Genzyme. Under Mr. Barousses commercial leadership at Biohorizons, the business tripled its revenue in a four year period, prior to its sale to Henry Schein. "I look forward to joining this outstanding team and leading FlexDex to the next level," stated Mr. Barousse. "FlexDex has a novel product platform that is already providing benefits to patients and has the exciting potential to redefine robotic surgery globally. "We are extremely pleased to welcome Clark as our President and Chief Executive Officer," stated Richard Hylant, FlexDexs Chairman of the Board. "Clark has extensive experience in product commercialization, developing strategic relationships, fundraising and acquisitions that we consider critically important for FlexDex to realize its full potential as a medical device company. Mr. Barousse earned his BA in Economics/Spanish at Hampden-Sydney College. He received his MBA from Georgia State University. About FlexDex, Inc. FlexDex is a medical device company that is developing the FlexDex platform to provide surgeons with high performance and cost effective minimally invasive surgical instruments. The Companys focus is to enable advanced minimally invasive procedures with greater precision and less fatigue. FlexDex was developed at the University of Michigan by co-founders Shorya Awtar, Sc.D., James Geiger, MD and Greg Bowles. This platform technology enables highly intuitive, one-to-one mapping of the surgeons arm and hand motions to the articulating instrument inside the patients body. The patented Virtual Center of the FlexDex platform is a simple mechanical design that, we believe, will greatly enhance the capabilities of all Minimally Invasive Surgical (MIS) instruments. The FlexDex Needle Driver, the first instrument of the FlexDex platform, has been granted the CE mark and is available for sale in the United States and internationally. FlexDex Surgicals first product, an articulating needle driver, is being used by surgeons in the United States. FlexDex has an exclusive distribution agreement in the US with Olympus and distribution in over 15 territories internationally for many procedures including inguinal-ventral hernia repair, foregut surgery, bariatric surgery, partial nephrectomy, prostatectomy, and hysterectomy. For more information, please visit the Companys website at www.flexdex.com . Forward Looking Statement This press release includes forward-looking statements on FlexDexs current expectations and projections about future events. In some cases forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes, "estimates, indicates, and similar expressions. These statements are based upon managements current beliefs, expectations and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict. The forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth or implied by any forward-looking statements. The information in this press release is provided only as of the date presented, and FlexDex undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this presentation on account of new information, future events, or otherwise. Contact information Clark Barousse President & CEO info@flexdex.com +18105229009 Office CLINTON A Clinton High School student has a possible case of the mumps, leading school officials to send a letter to parents and guardians on Wednesday informing them about the rare and contagious disease. Clinton School Superintendent Curt Nettles told The Pantagraph the letter went out at the recommendation of the DeWitt-Piatt Bi-County Health Department. "We follow the health department protocol and they recommend notifying parents of a possible case ... so everyone has the factual information," Nettles said. Nettles declined to give the condition of the student. There are no known cases of mumps in McLean County, said Amanda McCambridge of the McLean County Health Department. Mumps is a contagious disease caused by a virus, but it is not common among children who are up to date with their vaccinations. "I don't know our vaccination rate, but it's extremely high," Nettles said. "We're very nearly 100 percent all the time." "We're going to follow the advice of our health department to keep our parents informed and our students as safe as possible," he said. The best way to prevent mumps is to make sure children are current with their vaccinations, the school said in the letter to parents. Children receive at least one dose of a mumps vaccine on or after their first birthday and a second dose at 4 to 6 years old. Parents who aren't sure whether their child has received the vaccine should contact their child's primary care provider. Mumps is rare although their have been outbreaks in recent years. Five McLean County residents had confirmed cases of mumps in June 2017. Nettles said, in his 28 years in education, there has never been a mumps case in a district where he has served. Because mumps is spread by direct contact with respiratory droplets, people can reduce their risk by covering their nose and mouth when they cough or sneeze, washing their hands frequently with water and soap, not sharing eating and drinking utensils and avoiding close contact with people who are sick. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscles aches, swollen salivary glands and malaise. Serious cases also can include swollen testicles in males and swollen ovaries in females and inflammation of the joints for several days. Anyone who experiences symptoms should stay home for at least five days and call their health care provider. Contact Paul Swiech at (309) 820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech 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. BAGHDAD The U.S. on Wednesday ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands both suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region over still-unspecified threats that the Trump administration says are linked to Iran. Recent days have seen allegations of sabotage targeting oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a drone attack by Yemen's Iranian-allied Houthi rebels, and the dispatch of U.S. warships and bombers to the region. At the root of this appears to be President Donald Trump's decision a year ago to pull the U.S. from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, embarking on a maximalist sanctions campaign against Tehran. In response, Iran's supreme leader issued a veiled threat Tuesday, saying it wouldn't be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. The movement of diplomatic personnel is often done in times of conflict, but what is driving the decisions from the White House remains unclear. A high-ranking British general said there was no new threat from Iran or its regional proxies, something immediately rebutted by the U.S. military's Central Command, which said its troops were on high alert, without elaborating. Last week, U.S. officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat, and an alert on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said that all nonessential, nonemergency U.S. government staff were ordered to leave Iraq right away under State Department orders. The U.S. in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. Germany's military said it was suspending training of Iraqi soldiers due to the tensions, although there was no specific threat to its own troops in Iraq. Defense Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said Germany was "orienting itself toward our partner countries" though there are "no concrete warnings of attacks against German targets." German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer expressed concern over the tensions and said it welcomes "any measure that is aimed at a peaceful solution." Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said the German government has not reduced its embassy staff in Iraq or Iran. In the Netherlands, state broadcaster NOS said its 50-person military mission in Iraq was halted "until further orders," quoting a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying he couldn't elaborate on the threats. It said the Dutch forces primarily train Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State militants. The remarks about Iran's nuclear program by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came Tuesday night in Tehran at an iftar, the traditional dinner Muslims have when breaking their daily fast during Ramadan. His comments first focused on playing down the risk of a wider conflict with America. He told senior officials that his country won't negotiate with the U.S., calling such talks "poison," but he also said, "Neither we, nor them is seeking war. They know that it is not to their benefit," according to the state-run IRAN newspaper. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment on July 7 if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. "Achieving 20% enrichment is the most difficult part," Khamenei said, according to the newspaper. "The next steps are easier than this step." It was a telling remark from the supreme leader Iran is not known to have enriched beyond 20% previously and it's unclear how far Tehran is willing to go in this process. Khamenei has final say on all matters of state in Iran. On Tuesday, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels launched a coordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, Tehran's biggest rival in the region. It was the latest incident to shake global energy markets, as authorities allege oil tankers anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were targeted by sabotage. Benchmark Brent crude prices remained around $71 a barrel in early trading Wednesday. Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are at war with Saudi Arabia and are believed by the West to receive weapons from Iran, said they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations. That included two pumping stations along its critical East-West Pipeline, which can carry nearly 5 million barrels of crude a day to the Red Sea. Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said it temporarily shut down the pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramco's oil and gas supplies were unaffected. An image from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that The Associated Press examined Wednesday shows Saudi Aramco's Pumping Station No. 8 outside of the town of al-Duadmi, 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of the kingdom's capital, Riyadh. The photo, taken after the attack, shows two black marks near where the East-West Pipeline passes by the facility marks that weren't in images from Monday. The facility otherwise appeared intact, corroborating in part Saudi Arabia's earlier comments. The website TankerTrackers.com, whose analysts monitor oil sales on the seas, first reported about the black marks. Details remain unclear around alleged acts of sabotage to four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, off the coast of the UAE's port of Fujairah. Satellite images seen by the AP from Colorado-based Maxar Technologies showed no visible damage to the vessels, and Gulf officials have refused to say who might be responsible. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from "an unknown object," its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images of the Norwegian ship, which the company said was "not in any danger of sinking," showed damage similar to what the firm described. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, has said the other three showed damage as well. The unspecified threats reported by U.S. last week from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests contradicted remarks by British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group. He said Tuesday that "there's been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria." Later, in a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, U.S. Central Command said Ghika's remarks "run counter to the identified credible threats" from Iranian-backed forces. In a statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD A group of K-12 education representatives on Tuesday added to the chorus of calls for a statewide capital infrastructure bill that goes beyond road and bridge projects. At a state Capitol media event, the group detailed infrastructure needs at school districts across the state, appearing in front of poster boards with images of outdated and dilapidated Illinois school facilities. They did not, however, give any suggestions as to how the revenue for capital infrastructure projects could be raised. I think our role is to show that the need exists across the state pretty widespread, and then show the most effective and efficient ways that we could use the money to enhance educational opportunities, said Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. I think our big job is to rely on the General Assembly to determine the revenues to fund a capital bill. In a budget proposal packet distributed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in January, K-12 deferred maintenance needs were estimated at $9.3 billion. The state has not passed a capital projects bill since 2009. Superintendents at the news conference detailed 100-year-old buildings, excessive use of mobile classrooms and crumbling facilities that schools dont have the funding to correct. Brian Ganan, superintendent of Komarek School District 94 in North Riverside, said his districts building was constructed in 1936 and has significant infrastructure issues. On my way down here (to Springfield), I got a phone call from our architect telling me that building now has more plumbing issues where the pipes have rusted, Ganan said. And that's going to be at least a $200,000 project. So we're continually having to put big dollars that we don't have into an old infrastructure that's failing. Jennifer Gill, superintendent of Springfield School District 186, said her district has 27 mobile facilities being used for education purposes. She said that even though voters in her district approved a sales tax that would raise about $10 million annually for capital projects, it wouldnt be enough to address maintenance backlog issues. We have just identified more than $300 million in construction needs that will take 30 years to complete, Gill said. We recognize the importance of investments in transportation infrastructure, but the urgency for K-12 vertical construction is great. Superintendents from Scott-Morgan CUSD 2 in Bluffs and Murphyspboro CUSD 186 also detailed aging facilities and classrooms that cannot accommodate the students in their districts. Our newest building is in the best shape, but it still needs at least six new classrooms simply to allow our regular education class sizes to be reduced to the recommended amounts, Murphysboro Superintendent Christopher Grode said. The General Assembly is discussing an infrastructure funding bill that would increase the Motor Fuel Tax and state licensing fees, but the $2.4 billion in estimated revenue generated in that proposal could be used only for roads and bridges due to a lock box amendment passed in 2016. Funding for vertical infrastructure would have to come from other sources. State Rep. Will Davis, a Homewood Democrat, said discussions for revenue are ongoing, although he did not give specifics as to where money would come from. What these folks behind me (superintendents and education representatives) also have to do is advocate, not just for the project itself, because I'm sure that our legislators will support the project, Davis said. They also have to encourage their legislators to be open-minded when it comes to the revenue side of this as well because it is going to take some tough votes to get us to where we need to go. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD Educators added their voices Tuesday to the chorus calling for a new public works construction program in Illinois. As discussions continue on the state's first capital bill in a decade, school officials said they want to ensure schools are part of a plan if it is approved. "Illinois is certainly in the position of needing another capital bill to enhance classrooms across the state," said Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. "We have many schools that are still using mobile classrooms or classrooms that are outdated in terms of 21st century learning." He also said life-safety concerns are still an issue as are requirements to upgrade classes for vocational and STEM education. Springfield School Superintendent Jennifer Gill said that even though taxpayers last fall approved a countywide sales tax to pay for school infrastructure, proceeds from the tax won't be enough to cover all of the district's construction needs. The district has identified over $300 million in infrastructure needs over the next 30 years. The sales tax, which goes into effect this summer, will produce about $10 million a year for Springfield public schools, she said. "We were fortunate enough in November to get public permission from our community to embark on some of these important facilities upgrades," Gill said. "But even that money alone will not cover the needs that we have. The urgency for K-12 vertical construction is here. It is across the state." District 186 has 33 buildings, 80 percent of which are over 50 years old, Gill said. Most of the work being done now is for life-safety improvements. "Many of them are turn-of-the-century buildings that we are renovating and still maintaining," she said. Statewide, schools need about $7.5 billion worth of upgrades and new construction, Clark said. At this point, though, no one has come up with a revenue stream to pay the capital plan. That's unlike proponents of transportation projects who have called for doubling the gasoline tax as a major component of paying for those projects. Clark said a school construction program would likely require a mix of state and local funds as capital plans have required in the past. He said it would be up to the legislature to determine if the districts most in financial need would get priority for their projects. There is widespread agreement between lawmakers of both parties and Gov. J.B. Pritzker that the state needs a new capital bill. However, with less than three weeks left in the spring session, no plan has yet surfaced. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CLINTON Denis Dean Miller, 67, peacefully passed away on Saturday (May 11, 2019) at Liberty Village of Clinton. He had suffered from an unknown form of early-onset dementia and is now healed and home with his Savior, Jesus. Denis was born on Aug. 17, 1951, in Carlock, to Christian E. and Betty L. Miller. They precede him in death. Surviving are Denis' son and daughter, Adam Miller, Danvers, and Angela (Joseph) Witte, rural Waynesville, and six beloved grandchildren, Jordan, Genesis, Jacob, Judah, Jasper and Justus Witte. Also surviving are two brothers, Chris C. (Phyllis) Miller, Carlock, and Roger (Crystal) Miller, Fairbury; and one sister, Joan (Rich) McVey, Lexington, N.C.; along with many nieces and nephews. Denis leaves behind a beautiful legacy of a faith walk with his Heavenly Father and serving God's family. He also leaves behind a powerful example of a life in constant servanthood to his family, friends and any fellow man in need. Until his illness, Denis lived his entire life in the communities of Carlock and Danvers, serving in countless areas as church camp cook, St. Jude cross country run and fundraising at McLean County Fair, Fellowship of Christian Farmers, Illinois Ag in the Classroom Bike Ride, Logan prison ministries, Walk to Emmaus, and as a church elder to name just a few. One of his greatest community services was the decades spent on the volunteer Danvers Fire and EMS, rescuing with a bold and tender heart, praying and comforting those in distress and need, once even helping to deliver a baby in the ambulance. A celebration of life service is planned for 10 a.m. June 3 at East White Oak Bible Church, Carlock, with Senior Pastor Scott Boerckel officiating. A private family memorial tree planting will be held on Aug. 17, on what would have been Denis' 68th birthday. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials toward the Denis Miller Memorial Tree Fund. Most earnestly desired, the family also request that letters of remembrance be sent in honor of the many acts of kindness and service given to others throughout Denis' life. Letters and memorials may be brought to the celebration service or sent to the Witte family, 14088 Halsey Road, Waynesville, IL 61778. One of the hardest lessons for young, idealistic and educated people to learn when they come to Washington and some never learn it is that nobody is running things. Sure, they know how to hold a press conference or write a law or conduct a study. But no person or group of people has the power to impose their will on society. There are just too many chefs making the soup. In other words, people have the power to try stuff in the same way generals have the authority to send troops into battle, but as Gen. James Mattis likes to say, The enemy gets a vote. And in politics and public policy, the enemy isnt merely the opposing party or hostile voters, but life that vast realm of existence governed as much by Murphys Law as Washingtons laws. Facts are stubborn things. The world is complicated. After Barack Obama got his stimulus passed on the promise that there were millions of shovel-ready jobs, the stimulation never quite materialized as planned, and the shovels tended to stay in the shed. Obama later insisted that the theory behind the stimulus was right, but the problem is that spending it out takes a long time, because theres really nothing theres no such thing as shovel-ready projects. This is a hard lesson for people who put immense faith in government to do big, important things. The technocratic New Dealers were sure they were smart enough to allocate resources better than the market. To that end, in 1933, when millions of Americans were going hungry, the government slaughtered some 6 million pigs and threw away the meat in an effort to drive up pork prices. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace was convinced America was on the verge of creating a new society. Only the merest quarter-turn of the heart separates us from a material abundance beyond the fondest dream of anyone present, he told a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa. All we had to do was resist the urge to act like dogs returning to the vomit of capitalism. Capitalism nauseates because we come into this world with programming for a Stone Age conception of clan life as economist Michael Munger puts it. Our brains are wired to expect someone to be in charge. When bad things happen, it must be because someone intended it. We get angry at perceived slights, inconveniences and tragedies, and our anger needs a target. This wiring was perfectly adapted for a zero-sum world where resources were finite and political and economic transactions were essentially face-to-face and communal. But in a world where the price of a bag of rice from India is influenced by political turmoil in Indonesia and heavy rains in Arkansas, never mind the overproduction of potatoes (a substitute for expensive rice) in Russia or the Netherlands, blaming your local grocer for charging an extra 50 cents is silly. But its still natural. When gas prices are too high, many politicians blame oil companies for gouging. When prices are low, these same politicians insist that oil companies shouldnt drill, build pipelines or open new refineries. That one result is correlated to the other is irrelevant to the need to aim anger at someone. The need to blame is a core driver of conspiratorial thinking. When bad things happen, we look for beneficiaries and then reason backwards that they must have been responsible. MSNBCs Chris Hayes recently floated the idea on Twitter that Obamas failure to goose the economy was a conspiracy. The excuses big business offered for low investment or wage growth were proven wrong by todays economic boom, Hayes argued (with varying degrees of plausibility). But then he added, ... an even less charitable interpretation: they didnt get it wrong at all. They didnt want full employment, they didnt want wage growth and empowered workers and they certainly didnt want that happening under a Democratic president. The idea that tens of thousands of businesses chose to needlessly keep wages low or even go out of business lest they lend aid and comfort to Obama is preposterous. Because what is true of politicians is also true of everybody else. No one is really in charge of anything, except for a few things in front of their noses and in their heads, and even then control is often an illusion. Theres nobody behind the curtain pulling the strings. Were all on the stage together, playing our parts. Contact Goldberg at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Poland's Ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski, was attacked outside the Polish Embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. The incident was reported to the Israeli Police and Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry. According to The Jerusalem Post daily, Ambassador Magierowski, who was standing outside the Polish Embassy, was approached by a man who started physically and verbally assaulting him. The attacker spat at the ambassador who was not able to understand the words his attacker said except for "Polish, Polish", the JPost wrote, citing the diplomat's account. The Polish Embassy immediately filed a complaint with the Israeli Police, while Magierowski filed a complaint with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A 65-year-old man detained in connection with the assault was placed under house arrest on Wednesday, the Israeli police said on Wednesday. The suspect is not permitted to be in the vicinity of the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv for 30 days, they added. The lawyer of the man suspected of assault said that his client on Tuesday was asked to leave the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv after he inquired about matters involving the return of Jewish property in Poland. Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki said the racist attack on the Polish ambassador is an unacceptable situation. "I am very worried to hear of a racist attack on @PLinIsrael ambassador @mmagierowski. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated," Morawiecki tweeted in English. "The racist attack on the Polish ambassador in Israel, Marek Magierowski, is an unacceptable situation, and there is no consent on any acts of xenophobia, both towards diplomats and other citizens," the Prime Minister wrote in a following post in the Polish language. Meanwhile, head of the PM's Office Micha Dworczyk said the Polish government expects that the perpetrator of the attack on the Polish ambassador in Israel Marek Magierowski will be punished. Dworczyk said at a briefing in the Sejm (lower house) that "it's hard to resist the impression that, in recent days, an underhanded game has been conducted around issues" regarding property restitution. "Various milieus are trying, in this final heated phase of the political campaign, to cynically take advantage of this matter, both in our country and in the international forum. Yesterday, the Polish ambassador in Tel Aviv was attacked. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs demands an explanation, the Polish government expects the perpetrator of this attack to be punished," stressed Dworczyk. Following the attack, the Polish Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned Israeli Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari, the ministry's spokesperson, Ewa Suwara said. She added that following the attack the Foreign Ministry appealed to the Israeli side to protect the lives and welfare of Polish diplomats in accordance with applicable international law. Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Twitter that the Jewish state was shocked by the attack. "Israel expresses its full sympathy with the Polish ambassador and shock at the attack. Israeli police currently investigating. We will update our Polish friends. This is a top priority to us, as we are fully committed to diplomats safety and security @IsraelMFA @IsraelinPoland," Emmanuel Nahshon tweeted. The Israeli Embassy in Warsaw in a statement published on the Embassy's Twitter account, Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari wrote that she was very sorry to learn about Tuesday's incident, in which the Polish diplomat was attacked. "I strongly oppose and condemn such acts of violence," she stressed. She also praised the efforts of the Israeli police in the quick apprehension of the perpetrator. "I believe that this isolated incident will not overshadow what is positive in Israeli-Polish relations," she added. Azari said she hopes that Magierowski, during his mission, will "continue to build bridges between people of good will in Israel and Poland." On Tuesday, she contacted the Polish ambassador to express her indignation at the attack. The Jerusalem Post noted that the attack on the Polish ambassador came amid a diplomatic spat between Poland and Israel. This week, the Polish Foreign Ministry cancelled a Monday-scheduled visit of an Israeli delegation to Warsaw, to be headed by the Director General of the Israeli Ministry for Social Equality Avi Cohen-Scali. The Polish foreign minister admitted that the visit of Israeli officials was cancelled after the Israeli side made last minute changes to the composition of the delegation, suggesting that the talks would primarily focus on issues related to property restitution. (PAP) mr/jch/aa/mf/ Jarv Is have released their new song Must I Evolve? through Rough Trade Records. Jarv Is is the new project of Jarvis Cocker, the frontman of English rock band Pulp. In an unusual move, the single will only be available for purchase at live shows because Jarv Is is primarily a live experience, per a press release. Life is primarily a live experience, said release explains as the reasoning behind the decision. On the new track, Cocker launches into seven minutes of pulsating, hypnotic rock as he opens with the question, Must I evolve? before an eerie choir answers with a series of yess, traced along a pounding drum beat. Cocker continues with a series of questions: Must I change? Must I develop? Must I grow up? Must I grow old? Each time, the choir interjects with a haunting series of affirmatives. Finally, Cocker asks, Can I stay the same? No, no, no, no, the choir answers. After the experimental introduction, the song slowly erupts as Cocker sings, One dark night, there was a big bang, and launches into a journey through evolutionary history. We started as pond slime, he continues. But now we are growing with none of us knowing where we are going. Also featuring Serafina Steer, Emma Smith, Andrew McKinney, Jason Buckle and Adam Betts, Jarv Is will play at the 10-day festival All Points East in Londons Victoria Park on May 25 before heading to Primavera Sound in Barcelona this June and then playing in a cave in Ibiza on June 4. Jarv Is played their first show at Sigur Ros Norur og Niur festival in Iceland in 2017 before playing a sold-out tour of caverns and small venues through the U.K. in spring 2018. Most of the music for the groups new single was recorded after a concert in Peak Cavern in Derbyshire on April 7. Hear Must I Evolve? for yourself below and hear Cocker speak at Daytrotter circa 2007 further down. To date, this is the most naive, extreme statement made in this Democratic primary. In New Hampshire, Joe Biden predicts that once President Trump is out of office, Republicans will have an epiphany and work with Democrats toward consensus. Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 14, 2019 There is no proposal yet made that is more detached from reality than I alone can fix Republicans. Not any of Bernie Sanders' socialist-ish policies. Not any of Elizabeth Warren's intricate battle plans against monopolies. Not Pete Buttigieg's so-called policy wonkery that leads him to conclude that policy is overrated. This kind of quote is really what I was getting at in my column asserting that Biden is a liberal version of Trump. The former Vice President is basically calling on America to be great again, and he is using as his model an idyllic image of history that simply never existed. The difference between Biden and Trump is that Biden's MAGA universe is based on the religion of bipartisanshipwhere processes and optics matter more than outcomes. The problem with bipartisanship is that the only true bipartisan actions in our nation's capital conveniently aid those with tons of power already. There really is no such thing as bipartisanship for the little guy in America, because one party has always believed that the little guy deserved to be in the hardship that they were in. You simply cannot pass common sense legislation with someone who has a fundamentally different worldview from you, because the nature of their diametrically opposite worldview destroys even the possibility of middle ground existing. To pass seriously beneficial legislation in America means that you must defeat your political opponent in the ideological and grassroots battle that is politicsyou don't just bet on them having an epiphany once one of their favorite presidents ever leaves office. This is the lesson of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That fight was so incredibly not bipartisan that it fractured the Democratic Party in half and sent a generation (at least) of voters over to the GOP. Medicare and the New Deal were shoved down an intransigent minority's throat, and now Medicare and the New Deal's Social Security are the two most popular government programs in America. This is the kind of incrementalism that defines politicslong struggles punctuated by bursts of progress when that struggle finally results in obtaining real power. Not only does Joe Biden demonstrate a dramatic misunderstanding of American politics in this epiphany exchange, he also proved that he's a cagey liar. Responding to criticism from the Sunshine/enviro event, Biden rejects the idea that he's middle-of-the-road on climate change. You've never heard me say 'middle of the road' I've never been middle of the road on the environment, he says. Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 14, 2019 Biden is right. Hes never said middle of the road, but according to a Reuters exclusive with Heather Zichal, who is advising Biden on climate change, and a former energy department official advising Bidens campaign who asked not to be named, Biden is crafting a middle ground climate change policy that he hopes will appeal to both environmentalists and the blue-collar voters who elected Donald Trump. Ill get to the false choice proposed there shortly, but first, its helpful to know what Heather Zichals middle ground climate change policy may look like. Per Sludge: Former Obama adviser Heather Zichal, who recently occupied a lucrative seat on the board of the Texas-based liquified natural gas (LNG) company Cheniere Energy, is now an informal adviser on climate change policy to the Biden campaign. The company has profited in recent years as the U.S. has increased its liquified natural gas production, something the Obama and Trump administrations have encouraged. In 2013, while a climate and energy staffer in Obamas White House, Zichal met with Cheniere officials twice, according to DeSmog. The year before, Cheniere became the first company to receive an LNG export permit from the Obama administrationand the first to receive such a permit in 50 years. She joined the Cheniere board in 2014. According to investigative reporter Nick Surgey, Zichal earned a total of nearly $1.1 million from compensation and stock while a Cheniere board member from 2014-18. The Biden campaign did not immediately return a request for comment. Some additional helpful context as to whether this report actually means anything lies in Bidens first day after officially launching his presidential campaign. He crossed a picket line to meet with health insurance executives, then met with a bunch of GOP donors and Comcast. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, wellyou know. Circling back to the false choice presented by Biden on climate change: Trump voters are not only extremely open to progressive policies like the Green New Deal, but many are going to have their lives completely uprooted by climate changelike the farmers covering the Midwest who broke heavily for Trump in 2016. Because capitalism has sucked the wealth out to major cities and the coasts (and tax havens around the world), the little wealth that does exist in many of these areas is the farmland thats been handed down from generation to generation. Much of this wealth will be destroyed by climate change, and it is the job of the government to help pick these families back up. Just because these are Republican voters doesnt mean that Republican policies will help them, or that these voters will necessarily even want a pro-fracking policy devised by a D.C. energy swamp creature. They largely understand the threat that climate change poses to their livelihood. We dont need to treat them like children who blindly vote with whatever the big orange daddy wants. Joe Biden is a radical. If he honestly believes that simply returning to a period where bipartisanship helped the common man, then he is openly stating that he would fail a U.S. History 101 class. Portraying Trump as some sort of fever which has overtaken a party where 91% support Trump is equal parts naive, cynical and startlingly irrational. The only logical conclusions one can arrive at given Bidens pledge to induce an epiphany among the GOP is that he is either: lying, more naive than a small child, or he simply plans to pass legislation that Republicans would be excited to join him in passing. Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling. Reston, Va., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AMK9, a Constellis company, announced today that it is now a Certified Cargo Security Program Canine (CCSP-K9) under the Transportation Security Administration, providing a secure solution to meet regulatory requirements. AMK9, the largest canine detection services company globally, received certification because of its demonstrated high standards in training and operations. TSA had the foresight to allow third-party canines to assist in meeting regulatory demands and ensuring safety, without impeding the flow of commerce, said Jon Wertjes, President of AMK9. The demand for 100% air cargo screening on passenger aircraft is a contributing factor to congestion across Americas gateway airports. Our TSA-certified canine working teams clear intact pallets of cargo in a fraction of the time compared to current devices on the market. AMK9 has provided explosive detection and security services worldwide for more than 15 years. AMK9 specializes in the global mobilization of 600 explosive detection, narcotics detection, patrol and dual/multipurpose canines, with an infrastructure of more than 45 operating sites and six regional project management and training facilities. As a Constellis company, AMK9 leverages its combined services, assets and people, serving private entities, U.S. and foreign governments, coalition forces, diplomatic missions and international oil companies. About Constellis Constellis protects critical priorities safely and efficiently around the world. Operating in 40 countries and based in the Washington D.C. area, our 22,000 Constellis employees bring unparalleled dedication and passion for creating a safer world and upholding the highest standards of compliance, quality and integrity. As a leading global provider of risk management, security, humanitarian, training and operational support services to government and commercial customers worldwide, Constellis forward thinking solutions include a range of synergistic services, including background investigations, social intelligence tools, advanced training, logistics and life support, UAV and K9 services, and crisis response mitigation. At Constellis, our number one priority is to secure success for our customers. Last month Patently Apple posted a report titled "The Apple-Qualcomm Chipset Deal Forces Intel's 5G Plans to Shift from a Smartphone Focus to PC's and other Devices" In that report we posted commentary by Intel's CEO that they were basically bowing out of the 5G market for smartphones without having an anchor customer like Apple to work with. While that was a politically-neutral statement to make, there was obviously some friction with Apple behind the scenes that neither side wanted to air in public while the Apple-Qualcomm case was still in progress. It was reported back in April 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." That statement from Blevins was very telling of a problem Apple was having with Intel behind the scenes. Why? Because when the Apple-Qualcomm announcement was made on April 16, it included a multi-year 5G chipsets deal. More than likely Qualcomm will be Apple's only 5G chipset supplier as they had been in the past or else Intel would have likely hung on to battle it out for business. So Blevins statement gave us a heads-up about the assessment that Apple's team had of Intel. It was a lack of confidence in Intel being a single-supplier. Today The Information news site helps us to fill in the blanks in that story line by stating that "Johny Srouji, the Apple executive in charge of building chips for the companys devices, was fed up with Intel." The Exclusive from The Information starts their report by going back to early 2017 when "Apple was preparing a new line of iPhones to be released the next year, but the Intel modem for the devices, known as the 7560, wasnt working properly, according to two people with knowledge of the relationship. The new iPhones would mark the first time Apple would rely exclusively on Intel for modemsa chip that handles the cellular connectivity in phonesinstead of those from its longtime provider, Qualcomm. Intel had already overhauled the modem four times to bring it up to par with the latest Qualcomm modem. But missed deadlines and continuing technical issues with the chip were making Apple executives anxious, said one of the people. Mr. Srouji barked at his Intel counterpart, Venkata 'Murthy' Renduchintala, during a meeting on Apples campus by stating that "This would have never happened at Apple under my watch," according to a person who was present at the meeting. That episode offered new insight into Apples fraying relationship with Intel, a high-profile alliance that was splintered publicly when Apple said that it would resume buying modems from Qualcomm as part of a wider high-profile legal settlement between the companies as I pointed out at the top of this report. The Washington Post reported back on April 19th about an internal Apple memo that Qualcomm brought to light during the trial. The report stated that back "In a March 2015 email that was part of the sealed documents, Apples vice president of hardware, Johny Srouji, wrote of Qualcomm technology, "Engineering wise, they have been the best." The Information further noted in their report that "The breaking point in the Apple-Intel relationship came in the development process for a modem designed for 5G, a new generation of wireless technology that promised to greatly accelerate mobile internet speeds. Throughout 2017, Apple was an active participant in the development of Intels first 5G modem, called the 8060, sitting in on technical reviews on Intels campus throughout the design process, said two people with knowledge of the process. The Apple delegation at the meetings was headed by Bernd Adler, who worked at Infineon and Intel before joining Apple in 2015 to head wireless systems engineering. During those reviews, Mr. Adlers team expressed early skepticism about Intels reassurances that it could deliver the 5G modem on time because of past problems, said one of the people. Apple also didnt see Intels 5G modem architecture and software algorithms as ready, the person said. Eventually, Intel produced a working prototype of a 5G modem, but the chips design was big, making it expensive to produce. When Intel announced the 8060 in November 2017, Intel said it would be ready by mid-2019. But a year later, Intel announced it was canceling the chip and shifting its efforts to the development of another 5G modem, the 8160. To learn more about this, read the full report from The Information here. Whether Apple is seriously committed to engineering their own future 5G chips in the future is in question at this point in time. The story is bound to resurface as their new Qualcomm deal nears its end. Rumors at this point in time about future developments of 5G chips would simply be noise in the wind. 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. While it may not be of interest to most iPhone fans, I find it good as a general rule to know what the competition is up to. With OnePlus claiming that they're now the fifth largest smartphone company in the world, their push into the US is going to be a headache for Samsung over time. Their first ads are presented below that will provide you with a quick overview of the look and key features of the new OnePlus 7 Pro. The smartphone has a nice clean 6.67" face display that offers a 90 Hz refresh rate which is reportedly the first in the world to do so. It makes scrolling faster and smoother. The selfie camera is an automated pop-up design (as shown in our cover graphic) that you see only when needed. The backside has a triple camera set-up with a clean horizontal design that is similar to Samsung's Galaxy S10 +. It's a design that's nice and clean, unlike the mindless gaudy square block that the rumor mill is claiming is coming to the new 2019 iPhones. The presentation was very low key but painful to watch at times as they tried to impress their audience with their new 3X camera zoom lens at a time when Huawei just introduced a 10X zoom. They even had a National Geographic photographer come on stage to talk about the camera, and again, he spent too much time on the 3X zoom when it's already passe. The OnePlus 7 Pro camera took some nice photos in low-light but it sounded like it's something camera geeks may understand by playing with the camera settings. It didn't sound like it was an auto-feature of any kind. The presenter made a big thing of their phone using the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, even though it's known to be at least a year or two years behind Apple's custom ARM A12 Bionic chip. The presenter then magically claimed that OxygenOS for Android was the best OS on the planet, even beating Apple's iOS that came in last on their slide as presented below. There was no explanation as to why iOS was last. Below is the full OnePlus 7 Pro Keynote that begins at the 24:20 mark of the video. If you prefer, you could find much richer details from their website here. One more Thing A first for OnePlus was introduced today and it's one they copied from Apple's playbook: A Trade in Program (limited time only) For a detailed review of the OnePlus 7 Pro, check out Engadget's review here. 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. Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, just days before the seventh and last phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar where a host of veteran politicians go against each other, held two rallies in Bihar in Buxar and then in Sasaram on Tuesday where he stuck to the BJP electoral strategy of slamming the opposition hard and then padding his own resume on national security. Speaking in Buxar where he was stumping for Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Modi wasted no time in bringing up the 15 years of Lalu-Rabri-led 'jungle raj' during which the Yadav household went on to amass properties and wealth beyond their known sources of income. "The Lalu family owns billions in properties. Where did they get it? Is the salary of a politician so high that one can become an 'arabpati' in just few years?" the PM asked adding there was something inherently wrong with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress in the way their thought process worked. "These people think that they own all the castes and the caste members are their slaves. They use them to get votes and obtain high positions but when it comes to doing something for the poor, they very conveniently forget them," he said. Calling the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) in Bihar 'Mahamilavati, a sobriquet frequently used by the BJP leaders, workers, and supporters, Modi said that the nation was plagued with frequent terrorist attacks until his government swept into power in 2014. "We gave complete freedom to our armed forces to go after terrorists inside the country and even outside our border. This is the new India that does not cower down to those who want to weaken our country. Instead, we go deep inside the enemy territory and kill those who want to hurt us our way of life," the Prime Minister roared. In Sasaram, Modi, campaigning for NDA candidates Chhedi Paswan (Sasaram), Mahabali Singh (Karakat), and Satya Narayan Yadav (Dehri), said that some people had damaged the reputation of Bihar and hurt the pride of Biharis and such persons should never be allowed to come into power. Modi took shots at the Congress leadership saying its leaders were drunk in arrogance who even tried to wipe off the name of Dr. Ambedkar from the history books. They also mentally tortured Jagjivan Ram forcing him to quit the party, he said. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, a nonprofit organization whose mission is the conservation of the 14-state, 2,190 mile Appalachian Trail, has released a statement in response to the news of a violent and deadly attack on two hikers while on the trail. The statement, forwarded to PennLive via the staff of the Boiling Springs office of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, calls the attack horrific, expresses deepest condolences to the family of the slain hiker, and hopes for the fullest possible recovery of the woman who remains hospitalized following the attack. Authorities have charged James Jordan of Massachussetts on suspicion of carrying out an attack on two hikers on the trail in Virginia, killing Robert Sanchez Jr. of Oklahoma and seriously injuring another hiker, who escaped and required urgent medical treatment. The statement from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy president Suzanne Dixon, stresses that the Appalachian Trail is a relatively safe environment, with more than three million users a year. Unfortunately, the statement continues, like the rest of the world, the trail is not absolutely safe. Read the full transcript from the statement below: The Appalachian Trail community of hikers and volunteers is profoundly saddened by the horrific attack Saturday morning on two hikers as they took their journey of a lifetime along this beloved footpath, says Suzanne Dixon, president of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC). She continued, The Appalachian Trail is a relatively safe environment, a refuge that welcomes more than three million users a year. Unfortunately, like the rest of the world, the trail is not absolutely safe. The ATC extends its deepest condolences to the family of Ronald Sanchez and prays for the fullest possible recovery of the hospitalized woman. Those feelings extend to all hikers and volunteers who are scarred in some way by this attack on a place they cherish and care for every day. And, we deeply appreciate the rapid and effective response of local law enforcement and emergency services, she concluded. The ATCa private nonprofit, the members of which conceived and blazed the A.T. in the 1920s and 1930smanages and conserves the 250,000 acres of public lands that comprise the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. It undertakes this in cooperation with the National Park Service, the USDA Forest Service, 14 states from Maine to Georgia, and 31 affiliated local clubs. The clubs are home to most of the 6,000 volunteers who maintain the footpath and its facilities through about 250,000 hours of work annually. The attacks took place on Forest Service lands in southwest Virginia, the current location of the main bubble of about 3,000 persons attempting to hike all the way from Georgia to Maine this season. The southern end of the trail is about 550 miles from the scene of the assaults. The trail became a unit of the national park system in 1968. For more about the attack, how hikers have responded and what safety precautions can be taken, read the following stories from PennLive: Fridays machete attack on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia that left a man dead and a woman hospitalized caused a range of reactions in the Pennsylvania hiking community. Update: Trail stabbing victim identified as Army vet Many of the hardcore hikers contacted through the Hiking & Backpacking in Pennsylvania group on Facebook seemed to agree with Doug Lehman, of Carlisle. He commented, Doesn't change a thing for me. Be aware of your surroundings and always have a plan. Ben Barbash, of State College, said, You know generally I avoid the AT for a number of reasons. Rocks, traffic, over pressure, but never safety. The odds of anything like what happened in Virginia are so remote its not even worth a thought. As for safety, I have the same protection Ive always had: My eyes and senses, my wit and my Swiss Army knife. Thats it. If I ever felt so scared that I felt I needed to carry a gun for protection against people, Id find another hobby. Some, on the other hand, shared views similar to those of Duncannons Maria Wishart, who noted that such attacks on the trail are very rare, but (my) initial reaction was admittedly fear. I had to really think back on the past six years of hikes on the trail and my experiences. I will still go, but definitely will be carrying a knife and pepper spray, though to date, Ive had only positive experiences. Plans for carrying various means of defense were common, ranging from pepper spray and bear spray to knives to firearms. Compared to the city or town, the trail is a very safe place to be. Wherever you go there will be risks and the unthinkable can and does happen. It's just life. Again compared to everywhere else, the trail is a very safe place when it comes to violent crime or even crime in general, said Paul Carroll, of Quakertown. You do live in the U.S and you do have a right to defend yourself, and even carry (a handgun) if youre not a criminal. Jed Stewart, of West Chester, noted, There are always all kinds of crazies everywhere, whether on the trail or in a town of city. Some people head to the woods to hide from society. Doesnt change anything for me. Unfortunately not the first time, its happened and probably not the last. Its a sad reality of our society. Dale Mervine, of West York, agreed, My uncle hiked the AT in 1981 and knew the victims and the killer from the attacks back then. It might shake people up for a short time, but its not going to change the overall impression of the trail. People are jumping all over this like its a weekly occurrence. We can run into the wrong people anywhere, and probably less likely to on a trail like this. People are killed every day in towns and cities and villages and on back roads and in crowded houses. or schools. If a person is going to let something like this keep them from getting out there, then they shouldnt ever leave their own homes, but then, every so often theres a home invasion too. I dont understand the panic over this. He could have attacked anyone anywhere. It just happens this was the place he was. George Workman, of Pittsburgh, added, There are many possible dangers on that trail and in the woods: people, animals and other unacknowledged beings. My impression is not changed because I know whats there already. More about the Appalachian Trail: When it comes to sexy accents, Philadelphia runs this jawn. Thats at least according to the site Big 7 Travel, which ranked the Top 50 Sexiest Accents in the U.S. Why youd want to rank such a thing is a question perhaps best left for another time. Regardless, the site, using the survey results of our 1.5 million social audience ranked the Texan drawl as the sexiest accent, followed in descending order by Bostonian, New York, Mainer, Chicago, Mississippi and Hawaiian. The city of Brotherly Love didnt do too shabby, however, hitting the number eight spot on the list. One of the worlds most unique dialects is in the Delaware Valley the infamous Philly talk. The words fight and bike sound more like foit and boik, while very becomes 'vurry, the editors wrote. Its a thick accent, but hey, if its good enough for Will Smith ... Meanwhile, all the way down at number 41 is Pennsylvania Dutch, which apparently is not considered as melodic and enticing as Philly-ese. The Pennsylvania Dutch dialect has been dying out, as non-Amish younger Pennsylvania Germans tend to speak modern General American English, the site says. Still, at least central Pa. did better than Pittsburgh, which only ranked a measly 43 out of 50. I know some yinzers that might have thoughts about that. The man who was fatally stabbed while camping on the Appalachian Trail in southwestern Virginia early Saturday was identified by federal authorities Tuesday as Ronald Sanchez Jr., 43, of Oklahoma. His sister told CNN that Sanchez enjoyed hiking as one of the outdoor activities that helped him battle depression and post-traumatic stress that followed his deployments in the Army, including stints in Iraq. To survive those deployments in Iraq and to die like this is just devastating, Sanchezs former wife, Elizabeth Kordek, told CNN. Sanchez, an unidentified woman and two other people were hiking the trail on Friday when they set up camp in Wythe County, the FBI said. Sometime after 1 a.m., their campsite was invaded by a man who spoke to them from outside their tents and threatened to set the tents on fire, according to an FBI affidavit filed Monday. The four campers began to pack up, and when the man wielded a long knife, two of them fled into the woods and escaped, the FBI said. The man then returned, argued with Sanchez and then fatally stabbed him, authorities said. A woman who was with Sanchez fled but the attacker caught her and stabbed her repeatedly, the FBI affidavit states. She played dead, and fled into a neighboring county when the attacker left. The FBI said Sanchez had managed to activate an emergency help signal and local sheriff's deputies began searching for him. Shortly after 6 a.m., the deputies followed a dog who apparently belonged to the attacker, and the dog led them to Sanchez's campsite. Sanchez was found dead, with a 20-inch knife near his body, FBI Special Agent Micah Childers wrote in the affidavit. James Jordan, 30, was also at the campsite, with blood on his clothes, according to Childers affidavit. Jordan was arrested and charged with murder and assault with intent to commit murder. On Monday, he was ordered detained pending a psychiatric evaluation. A helicopter went down in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan Wednesday afternoon, according to officials. The pilot and a heliport worker on land, who was hurt by debris, both suffered non life-threatening injuries, according to the New York City fire department. The helicopter fell short of the landing pad on West 30th Street, the NYPD said. Officials said the pilot was on the only person on the helicopter when it went down around 2:30 p.m. NY Waterway said a crew aboard the Gov. Thomas Kean ferry rescued the stranded helicopter pilot. Deckhand Edwin Montoya used a maritime rescue device called a Jasons Cradle off the bow of the ship to help pull the pilot aboard, according to the ferry company. It was just instinct. Just another day for NY Waterway rescues. Were right here. Edwin Montoya is an outstanding deckhand. He moved instantly to the rescue, NY Waterway Capt. Adam Sciaino said in a statement. Sciaino was carrying passengers between Hoboken and Manhattan when he saw the crash. #FDNY members remain on scene of a helicopter crash in the Hudson River. The helicopter is tied to the pier at this time. The pilot is on land, and was the only person on board. pic.twitter.com/AK5MvjvAP4 FDNY (@FDNY) May 15, 2019 Photos from the scene showed the helicopter belonged to Blade, a company dubbed the Uber for helicopters." A representative for Blade could not be immediately reached. An alert issued by the citys emergency management department warned of a large police and emergency response at the scene near 12th Avenue and West 34th Street in Manhattan. Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration were headed to the scene, a spokesman said. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters A 5-year-old boy brought nearly two dozens packs of crack cocaine to his day care, and now, Philadelphia police are trying to find out how it happened. A teachers aide at the St. Cyprian Childrens Center on the 6200 block of Cedar Avenue found a sandwich bag with 22 packs of crack on the child Tuesday morning and turned it over to the day cares director, who called the police, NBC 10 is reporting. The boy told authorities his father told him to leave the bag in his pocket, reports indicate. None of the drugs were distributed to other children. One father of another child told NBC 10 he believes it is the parents fault. Weve got to do better with raising our kids. We have to be more responsible about what were doing in our own homes instead of worrying about whats going on outside of them, the unidentified father told the station. Police are investigating. NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IPOs for both Uber and Lyft underperformed, with Ubers stock falling nearly 8 percent in Fridays market debut, erasing $6 billion in market value, while Lyfts shares are down almost 30 percent since its March offering. While many factors impact the success or failure of IPOs, brand strength is an important consideration, especially with two highly competitive players in the same space. Both companies have been courting investors, customers and drivers, but which one is winning? According to the latest Landor Pulsean analysis conducted by Landor, the global brand consultancyLyft has a brand strength percentile ranking of just 27 (out of 100), down from 31 in 2017. Ubers brand strength is more than twice that at 67, but it is significantly down from last years 82 ranking. Brand strength is defined as a combination of brand relevance and differentiation and is a proven metric to measure the future growth potential of brands. A percentile rank score of 67 means Uber outperforms 67 percent of all 3,000 brands tracked in the BrandAsset Valuator study. As the original ride-sharing app, Uber has clearly done the better job of differentiation with a percentile ranking of 90, compared to Lyfts 51. However, Lyft bests Uber on being trustworthy with a score for that specific attribute of 45, up from 21 in 2017. Uber rates just 20 on trustworthiness, slightly down from 22 in 2017, most likely the outcome of numerous issues the company has faced, ranging from adverse behavior of its drivers to alleged sexual harassment and gender discrimination by its executives. Both organizations score very high on being visionary, with rankings of 96 for Uber and 90 for Lyft, but extremely low on high quality, a meager 4 and 5, respectively. Landor Pulse is based on data from the full-year 2018 and 2017 scores from the U.S. BrandAsset Valuator (BAV). Data was specifically evaluated based on responses from adults aged 18 years and older. BAV is the worlds largest database of consumer brand perception data, comparing statistics for more than 3,000 brands in the United States. While Uber has a higher brand strength metric, it seems their issues with employees and challenges with customer experiences are obviously having an impact, noted Thomas Ellingson, executive director at Landor. And Lyft will need to continue focusing on their differentiation of their offering, as they have never been able to overcome Ubers first-mover advantage. Considering both companies are unprofitable, they will need to better define their brand vision, which must include how they plan to strengthen affinity with both the drivers and riders. Lyft laid out a strong vision during their first earnings call, but they need to follow through and ensure it resonates with all their audiences. The same is true for Uber. Maarten Lagae, director of insights & analytics at Landor, continued: Marketing and brand have tremendous roles in helping to create a higher valuation. In fact, brands account for more than 30 percent of the stock market value of the companies in the S&P 500 Index. Companies often dont understand the inherent value of their brand and what an important asset it is. When a company offers an IPO, a compelling brand helps increase interest and eliminate uncertainty. According to an EY global study, institutional investors attribute an average of 40 percent of their IPO investment decisions to nonfinancial measures, one of which is brand strength, ranked fourth in importance. To help companies think through the branding implications when considering an IPO, Landor shares four important lessons: 1. Remember that brand equity can increase the value of the IPO. Its generally acknowledged that brand equity, the value premium of a product or service that can be attributed to successful branding, helps drive up the value of an IPO. Its crucial that companies define and establish their brand story, values and differentiation long before embarking on an IPO. 2. A strong brand attracts strong brands. Financial powerhouses such as Citi, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley are more likely to associate their brands with brand leaders in their respective industries. When it comes time to represent IPO strategies and create compelling road shows, the IPOs brand will be a formidable factor. 3. Brands need to resonate with all audiences, especially employees. A strong brand needs to mean something to myriad groups: customers, investors, partners, regulatorsand employees, and in the case of Lyft and Uber, contractors. Be sure to create a culture that reflects your brand to help attract, retain and engage talent. Employees can be your strongest advocates and have high credibility with those outside the organization. 4. Take the high road. Ensure that your company makes every decision with an eye to the long-term impact. There is no substitute for ethics and integrity. Brand reputation can be destroyed with one bad act and take years to repair. A publicly held company will come under greater scrutiny than a privately held one. For more information Candace Boyle the10company candace.boyle@the10company.com 610-256-1068 About the Landor Pulse of Uber/Lyft IPOs Using the BrandAsset Valuator (BAV) data of 17,000 United States consumers from the full-year 2018 and 2017, Landor Pulse analyzed brand strength based on relevance and differentiation among adults aged 18 years and older. With more than 25 years of consumer data, BAV is the worlds largest and most enduring study of brand perceptions and performance. Its brand strength modelbased on the four pillars of differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledgeprovides unparalleled historic and predictive insights into building, managing, and tracking brand performance. To date, BAV tracks brands in more than 50 countries with data from more than 1 million consumers. It covers 55,000+ brands across dozens of brand metrics and attitudinal questions. BAV is part of Young & Rubicam Group, a partnership of companies that includes Landor. About Landor Landor helps its clients use brand to drive business transformation. We believe that brand is the most vital tool to help companies meet the most pressing challenges in todays rapidly changing world: cultural transformation, differentiated customer experience and tech-enabled innovation. We have been using insights and imagination to help our clients grow for 76 years, across 26 offices in 19 countries, working with a broad range of world-famous brands across many industries. Clients include Barclays, Bayer, BP, Diageo, FedEx, Google, Huawei, J.P. Morgan, Kelloggs, Kraft Heinz, P&G, Squarespace and Tata. PHILADELPHIA (AP) The judge who presided over Bill Cosbys criminal case said he let five other accusers testify at the sex-assault trial because their accounts had chilling similarities that pointed to a signature crime. A jury last year convicted Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, after hearing from her and the five others. Cosby, 81, is appealing his conviction based on the women's testimony and other key rulings by Montgomery County Judge Stephen O'Neill. Cosby began serving a three- to 10-year prison term in September at a state prison near Philadelphia. O'Neill, in a lengthy opinion filed Tuesday, said he found "striking similarities" in the women's descriptions of their encounters with the comedian long beloved as "America's Dad." "In each instance, (he) met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated," O'Neill wrote. "These chilling similarities rendered (their) testimony admissible." ONeill had allowed just one other accuser to testify at Cosbys first trial in June 2017, when a jury deadlock led to a mistrial. Cosby was retried in April 2018, months after the #MeToo movement burst into view with sexual assault accusations against producer Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in Hollywood and beyond. In the ruling Tuesday, O'Neill said the new defense team that handled Cosby's retrial never directly challenged him on the difference in his two trial rulings about the other accusers' testimony. At any rate, he said, judges are not bound by their prior decisions. The defense, in outlining their appeal issues, have also argued that Cosby had a binding agreement with a former prosecutor, Bruce Castor, that he would never be charged in the case. ONeill again rejected the claim Tuesday, finding the signed press release from Castor used to bolster the claim falls short of an immunity agreement. Castor had investigated Constand's complaint for about a month in 2005 before deciding not to bring a case, questioning why she waited a year to contact police. Before the year was out, 13 other accusers had come forward to support the lawsuit Constand filed against Cosby. He settled the case for $3.4 million. When Cosby's deposition testimony from the lawsuit became public in 2015, and the criminal case was reopened, Castor for the first time told his successor about the supposed "non-prosecution" agreement. He forwarded their correspondence to Cosby's defense lawyer and testified as a defense witness at a 2016 hearing, O'Neill noted. O'Neill also rejected defense efforts to have him step down from the case because of his alleged bias, and outlined the four-year legal process that led up to Cosby's conviction and sentencing. Cosbys latest team of lawyers has been awaiting the opinion so they can proceed with the appeal in Pennsylvania courts. The lead lawyer, Brian Perry, did not immediately return a phone message on Tuesday. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt, in a statement, said "O'Neill has a habitual habit of always trying to cover his many errors, which continues to show his hatred towards Mr. Cosby." The Associated Press does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted. By MARYCLAIRE DALE, The Associated Press Gov. Tom Wolf is making a full-court press for his Restore Pennsylvania plan to borrow $4.5 billion over the next four years to help pay for a variety of public works projects in communities across the state. To date, the plan has encountered resistance from business-friendly Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled House and Senate. Opponents object to the plans reliance on a natural gas severance tax to pay for it and a lack of detail. Knowing that, Wolf invited an army of more than 70 municipal and county leaders from all over Pennsylvania to a Capitol Rotunda news conference on Wednesday. He brought them to Harrisburg to help make a case to legislative leaders to allow a vote on yet-to-come legislation that implements his Restore Pennsylvania initiative. In leading off the news conference, Wolf identified some of the ways the money could be used. They included flood control measures in Schuylkill County; ridding Philadelphia schools of lead-based painted ceilings and walls; and installing high-speed internet in rural areas. He said his plan is the only idea that has come out of this building to address these community needs. Im calling on the legislators to do what is right for the people of Pennsylvania, Wolf said. Gesturing to the group of local officials standing behind him on the marble staircase, he said, They are here to say its time to remember the people of Pennsylvania we all serve. The Restore Pennsylvania legislation will be offered in both the House and Senate with bipartisan co-sponsors. But getting the Republican leaders in either chamber to run the bill will be a challenge. For one thing, they see the gas industry as already contributing to addressing the states infrastructure needs through the impact fees they pay. According to the Independent Fiscal Office, House GOP spokesman Mike Straub said this year is expected to produce an all-time high collection of impact fees. Since 2012, the gas industry has paid nearly $1.7 billion in impact fees, in addition to the more than $2.5 billion in the variety of other taxes. Pennsylvania produces more gas than we consume, benefitting consumers with lower gas and electric bills. A severance tax would eliminate the cost savings, Straub said. Pennsylvanias impact fee is working. Now is not the time to increase energy costs on consumers. We hope the governor will engage with the Legislature on more responsible funding sources for improving infrastructure in Pennsylvania. For the Senate Republicans, its the absence of details that has them wary. Its nice to talk about broadband deployment but he has yet to outline exactly how it would be done, said caucus spokeswoman Jenn Kocher. Broadband deployment is not only extremely complicated and very expensive, it is tremendously costly to maintain. It will take a private sector solution to deploy broadband and maintain it. We are hearing from industry leaders that the administration hasnt even reached out to them." Wolf said at the news conference that he is open to a different funding source to make these infrastructure improvements but to date, hasnt heard any other one offered. What isnt lacking is the plethora of needs community leaders have identified that the proposed funding could address. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said his county and the rest of the southwestern corner of the state has seen its share of advantages from the natural gas industry, but it also has infrastructure needs that demand attention. Weve had more landslide in the last year because of the rain and climate change, things that are happening, than weve ever had, he said. We need stream remediation. We need infrastructure improvement for the county to continue growing. Amblers Mayor Jeanne Sorg said her Montgomery County community could use the money to remove blight and address stormwater issues. Tim Scott, mayor of Carlisle, said his borough would put the money into accelerating the replacement of its aging water and wastewater pipes. Erie County executive Kathy Dahlkemper said one way communities in her county could use the money would be to expand broadband access into areas below I-90. She said only about a quarter of businesses and citizens living south of that interstate have high-speed internet access, hindering students education and businesses ability to operate. Erie County executive Kathy Dahlkemper said at Wednesday's news conference, "Its never easy for lawmakers to find new sources of revenue but this revenue [from a state borrowing to be paid for by a natural gas severance tax] would be helping us in northwestern Pennsylvania and throughout the commonwealth." Its never easy for lawmakers to find new sources of revenue but this revenue would be helping us in northwestern Pennsylvania and throughout the commonwealth whether were talking about blight, whether were talking about broadband, she said. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman shared that for 90 minutes during his trip to Potter County on Tuesday as part of his marijuana legalization listening tour, he had no cell service. As the former mayor of Braddock, he added it would have been a dream to have dedicated resources for his town to combat blight. Whether its blight, whether its broadband, whether its infrastructure, this is the ultimate reverse unfunded mandate, he said. Were bringing resources to help restore Pennsylvania. Wolf, who has spent four months traveling the state selling citizens and local officials on his proposal, told reporters afterward he remains optimistic that legislative leaders will come around. As lawmakers hear more about the needs in the communities they represent and people they serve, the governor said he is hopeful they will see that heres something we can do about the things that are affecting people where they live and thats really important. Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy. All the news you need to start your day. Sign up for Good Morning, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg City Council President Wanda Williams, who was appointed to Gov. Tom Wolfs Census 2020 Complete Count Commission, said its important that Pennsylvanias answer census questions accurately. Commission representatives were chosen to ensure an accurate population count. Census counts affect the number of representatives Pennsylvanians send to Congress, allocations of federal funds that pay for several services and programs, and impacts data used by both the public and private sectors. The Pennsylvania Municipal League chose Williams as its representative, Wolfs spokesman J.J. Abbott said. "$600 billion of federal funds are allocated every year on a census count, and Pennsylvania can receive $2,000 a year per resident in our state in funding, Williams said at a recent city council legislative session. "Without an accurate count, billions of dollars in funding that is needed in essential and vital programs could be lost, such as housing, the (Childrens Health Insurance) program, the (Women, Infants and Children) program, medicaid, medicare, human service programs and many, many more. Williams asks that citizens work with census representatives by "answering accurately all necessary questions. The next decennial census will be conducted on April 1, 2020. Census data is collected every 10 years. A full list of all organizations that are part of Wolfs commission can be found on his website. Harrisburg School District Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney pushed back at accusations by former teachers that classrooms are out of control and the district doesnt offer enough support to teachers or services for students. Did we have kids throwing chairs and throwing books? Yes, Knight-Burney said in an interview with PennLive, but so did Susquehanna Township and Baltimore. Its not just here. In Florida, they all reported the same thing too. The districts behavioral issues are not unlike other urban areas, Knight-Burney said, but she said Harrisburg has come a long way in addressing student outbursts and behavior through the districts trauma-based classrooms approach. Training has been provided to students and teachers to recognize signs of trauma, help students manage overwhelming stress and avoid re-traumatization. The superintendent said she thought the tales told by several former teachers to PennLive about being hurt in classroom fights were more isolated incidents and not representative of whats going on across the district as a whole. Knight-Burney met with PennLive to respond to comments made by five former teachers to PennLive for an article on teacher turnover. District officials initially did not respond to requests for comments, but after publication a team of district officials met with PennLive the afternoon the that story was published. An analysis by PennLive showed Harrisburg topped the state in teacher turnover last school year after losing 18 percent of its teaching workforce. The district ranked above all other districts, including all urban districts, in teacher turnover, even doubling the exit rate of Philadelphia. While former teachers who spoke to PennLive cited an inability to discipline students and lack of support by building administrators and lack of services available to students as among the reasons they left the district, Knight- Burney said some of the problems had to do with cultural proficiency. Both teachers and students bring their own cultures to the classrooms, she said. What are the agreed upon cultures? she said. Its all about building relationships. When asked how cursing, throwing chairs, and fighting factor into cultural proficiency, the superintendent said it factors into how to deal with that. Is everything perfect? Absolutely not, she said. But there are norms that we need to be able to agree upon. If they dont teach and establish norms, miscommunication can happen. Knight-Burney added: Let me be clear, we have no tolerance for cursing, spitting or hitting. Jaime Foster, the districts chief academic officer, said those would qualify as level 3 or 4 infractions that would be handled by a building administrator. One of the complaints of several former teachers, however, were that principals did not back them up and sometimes did not even respond to emails asking for help with student discipline problems. One teacher said she sent 24 emails to her principal, who only answered two of them. District officials said that principal no longer works for the district. I cant verify whether she sent 22 emails, Knight-Burney said. Do we have kids that have behavior issues? Yes. Its not just Harrisburg. Foster said teachers prepare classroom management plans before school starts each year that are reviewed and approved by principals. Teachers also are offered training sessions in June and August, but not all teachers take advantage of the opportunities, she said. Some of the problem may come down to some teachers desire to immediately remove a problem child from the classroom when administrators say they are trying to balance the need for discipline with a mission of restoration. Instead of quickly resorting to suspensions or expulsions, district officials said they use a check and connect system to try to put kids back in classrooms, where teachers should implement creative new solutions each time until there are no more solutions. Then, and only then, Foster said, the student could qualify for a spot in the districts off-site alternative education program. If a student spits in a teachers face, the goal is to restore that relationship, Foster said. We need to find out the root cause. Did the teacher do or say anything to the student that day? And was the student hungry? What else was going on with that student? "Our goal is not to suspend you, Foster said. Teachers may want to, but we always look at it as a last resort. Foster said there is no cap on the number of students who can be referred to the alternative education program and she pushed back against teacher allegations that district avoids using the program as much as is needed in order to save money. She said the districts cost to education an average student in-district is $11,000 annually and it only cost $1,000 more, or $12,000 per year, to send a middle or high school student to the alternative education program run by Camelot. Elementary students, however, do cost notably more at $20,000 per year. Foster said there were 154 spots overall in the Camelot program, even though the Camelot website says there are a maximum of 200 spots. The 154 spots would represent about two percent of the student population. The program has a fantastic track record, Knight-Burney said. Ninety percent of students enrolled in the program last year were able to return to their home schools and 100 percent of students were promoted to the next grade level. Younger students also saw 1.2 years of growth in reading and 1.7 years of growth in math. District officials said they could improve communication between district administration, building principals and teachers so everyone is operating from the same page with discipline, procedures and developing a culture of suspensions and expulsions as a last resort. Misunderstandings or a lack of understanding about why the district wants to return a student to a classroom could be behind some teacher dissatisfaction. There are state guidelines that dictate when a child can be removed from a classroom, Foster said. Barb Richard, the districts interim human resources director, said teacher exit interviews that she had started conducting recently showed most teachers were leaving the district to move closer to home, not because of discipline issues in the classrooms. The district previously did not conduct exit interviews to find out why teachers were leaving. To deal with the high level of turnover, district officials said they have ramped up their recruiting, but a series of highly publicized scandals at the district in the past year have not helped, the interim human resources director said. Harrisburgs mayor and lawmakers have recently called for the state to take over the district, which creates additional concerns about stability. Its a struggle, Barb Richard said. We do hear that when we go to job fairs. Harrisburgs high teacher turnover also comes amid a new teacher shortage in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth graduated its smallest class of teachers in history last year. Other districts have taken to offering large signing bonuses or help with home down payments, and Harrisburg cant compete with those rewards, Richard said. Thats partly because the union wont agree to signing bonuses, Richard said, since all members wont get the benefit. Union officials, however, disputed that they were ever asked about signing bonuses for new teachers. District officials have started using the Regional Education Applicant Placement service again, since it serves as a national clearinghouse for teachers looking for jobs. The district had stopped using the paid-service, but now district officials said they realized they cant miss any opportunity to find new teachers. The district also is hosting its own teacher recruitment fair 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 23 at the administration building, 1601 State Street. Another concern raised by teachers is that the district used to have more money to devote to services for students and professional development. Knight-Burney agreed that money has been tight. When I came in, we had a $22 million deficit, so no, there wasnt much money, she said. And what we had was getting eaten up by debt, which were still paying off. We had to cut back, we consolidated schools, reduced the number of schools. We asked principals to be careful with the money. We were trying to hold on to our district. While some former teachers praised a former superintendent for bringing in a lot of grant money, Knight-Burney said grants arent always the solution. The district currently doesnt have a grant writer. Grants have their limitations, she said. They are typically temporary, they cant be used to supplant existing programs or services and there are always strings attached, Knight-Burney said. Still, despite tight finances, the superintendent said the district had improved professional development classes in recent years. The training was fairly standardized in 2013, with more of a one-size-fits all approach, but now the professional development classes are differentiated by various teacher groups and even by individual teachers, officials said. The district is in the second year of a new program where teachers and administrators can electronically track all professional development, to ensure every teacher has the needed preparation, Foster said. Leaders of the teachers union have complained that the district is unable to provide services to students to address their social and emotional needs, noting that the district had dropped mental health services this year. But Foster explained that the district did not drop any services. Instead, Pressley Ridge dropped the district because the agency stopped providing school-based therapy altogether. The company confirmed that in an email to PennLive. Unfortunately, Ron Gruver, a Pressley Ridge spokesman said, due to regulatory constraints, the rising costs associated with the traditional outpatient service model, and a significant reduction of charitable gifts, we made the difficult decision to close our outpatient mental health clinic on May 31st and to discontinue school-based services at the end of this present school year. District officials said they recognize the need for mental health services for students, thats why they immediately sought out and found a replacement agency for Pressley Ridge. Pennsylvania Counseling Services, which already was providing some services to the district, will start districtwide services as early as this summer. One hurdle that remains, however, is that younger students must have parental permission and participation to qualify for services and sometimes parents dont follow through with required paperwork or insurance information. But its not for lack of trying by district officials, Foster said. District officials said they are hoping to soon restore the relationship with the teachers union, which has been frayed over the past year during a series of disputes over pay and grievances. The teachers contract expired nearly a year ago. Progress is being made in negotiations, officials said, and they are looking forward to improving communication and transparency districtwide so the focus can start to be on the things going right in the district. A Centre County judge ruled Tuesday that a 2018 gag order applies to Evelyn and Jim Piazza, who in the aftermath of their sons death have been on a nationwide anti-hazing tour. The Centre Daily Times reported that defense attorneys Frank Fina and Steve Trialonas filed a motion April 10 that sought to limit public statements made by the couple and their attorneys about the case. Fina represents former Beta Theta Pi fraternity member Brendan Young; Trialonas represents Daniel Casey, another former frat member. Timothy Piazza died in February 2017 as he sought to join the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Centre County Judge Jonathan Grine first issued a gag order in July 2018 to limit the publicity generated by these cases." After the attorneys filed their motion last month, Judge Brian Marshall issued his ruling Tuesday, the news organization reported. Steve Williams, the couples attorney, argued that stopping the couples work to curb hazing would be a tremendous blow." Their tour schedule over the next six months includes 30 stops, he said. Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts on May 10 recognized Evelyn Piazza for her push to combat hazing at the Tribute to Women awards ceremony in Morristown, New Jersey, according to a separate news report. Robert Bo McCallister was chasing a suspected bank robber in 1981 when he was shot and seriously wounded. Now a medical examiner says the bullet fired in 1981 caused McCallisters January death. And that, Susquehanna Township police Chief Robert Martin said, means police have a new mission: Find and arrest the person who killed their former colleague. Investigators have a suspect, Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo said. He did not elaborate. On Wednesday, Martin assured those in attendance at a news conference that his officers will not rest until proper justice is served. Robert Bo McCallister died January 20 at Holy Spirit Hospital in Camp Hill. He was 69 years old. Susquehanna Township police Lt. Robert "Bo" McCallister, wounded in 1981, died earlier this year. Authorities now say it was the that shot fired 38 years ago that caused McCallister's death, and they have vowed to find the person who fired that shot. On Feb. 19, 1981, McCallister responded to a robbery at the Fulton Bank on Progress Avenue. When he arrived, he found the suspected robber, who at first was hidden behind two women, according to prior reports from The Patriot-News. The robber fled, and McCallister gave chase. According to Martin a run-and-gun situation ensued. McCallister was wounded, and the robber escaped. No arrest had been made, Martin said. Despite his injuries, McCallister remained an active officer until he retired from the Susquehanna Township Police Department in 2003 as a lieutenant after working in the police service for 32 years. That dedication in the face of his injuries, which required multiple surgeries and recoveries, is a credit to McCallisters dedication to law enforcement, Martin said. A normal man would have walked away from this profession, he said. To battle back to continue to his retirement, that is an absolute tribute to who he was. McCallister was the youngest officer ever promoted to the sergeant rank in the township, and was the first recipient of the Medal of Valor and Purple Heart Medal for the actions that resulted in him being shot in 1981. He was a mentor. He was a father figure, Martin said. He was the greatest police officer I ever worked with. LIVE: Police in Susquehanna Township hold a news conference on a homicide. Posted by PennLive.com on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 During the Wednesday news conference, Martin referred to McCallister multiple times as a American police officer and a hero. Now, Martin said his officers are working to aggressively investigate the homicide of an American hero. He said Federal, state and local police agencies will partner in the effort to identify McCallisters killer. The statute of limitation has passed to hold the suspect accountable for the robbery, Chardo said, but in Pennsylvania, there is no statute of limitations for murder. This ruling is justice, Martin said, referring to the ruling that the gunshot wound caused McCaliisters death. Chardo credited modern medicine for keeping McCallister alive for the 38 years after the robbery, but he said a post-death investigation made clear that his passing was the result of the shooting. He suffered tremendously over the years, Chardo said. The person that committed that wrong must be brought to justice. Martin said the ruling that McCallisters death was a homicide marks the first time that a Susquehanna Township officer was lost feloniously in the line of duty. Economic development, funding for emergency services and combating opioid addiction were among the top issues discussed by the eight candidates vying for their parties nominations in this years race for Perry County commissioner. Of the eight candidates, there are five Republicans and three Democrats whose names will appear on the primary ballot next Tuesday. Among them, there is only a single incumbent Commissioner Brenda Benner, A Republican who has served in the role since 2009, when she was first appointed to fill a vacancy. Benner will face off against four competitors Republicans Brian Allen, R. Frank Campbell, Gary Eby and Robert Nulton all of whom touted their business-related backgrounds while discussing their campaigns earlier this month. The same is true for the three Democratic candidates Karen Anderson, William Lyons and Brenda Watson. In the primary, voters of both parties will be able to choose two candidates, sending the top-two vote-getters in each party to Novembers general election. In November, the top-three overall vote-getters will be elected to four-year terms on the board of commissioners. Republicans: Brian Allen Brian Allen Allen, a small business owner and Tuscarora Township supervisor, served as a firefighter for 15 years, and now he worries about the state of emergency services in his home county. Our fire companies came to us and they just didnt have the funds that they need to continue to be effective, Allen said, speaking from his experience as a township supervisor. The funding issue, Allen said, stems in part from the costs of mandated responder trainings and certifications, as well as expenses related to replacing aging equipment. Thats especially true within the countys fire companies, some of which are in danger of shutting their doors, leading to longer response times in cases of emergency, Allen said. Defunct fire companies also could mean higher insurance costs for property owners, with a direct correlation between insurance costs and proximity to fire services, Allen said. Itll price you right out of your house, he said. Though Allen spoke from the viewpoint of a township supervisor, he stressed that the funding issue is a problem across the county one that requires a countywide solution. That could mean aggressive pursuit of grant money, possibly through the hiring of a grant writer, Allen said, adding that he is opposed to a tax increase. If elected, Allen said he also hopes to work to improve comprehensive planning efforts and to remain accessible and accountable to his constituents. I have track record of doing that, he said. Brenda K. Benner Brenda K. Benner Benner, a sitting commissioner who is seeking re-election to her third full term, said she hopes to continue her work to ensure that her rural community has access to needed services like health care. Earlier this month Benner spoke about her achievements working with organizations like the Perry County Health Care Coalition, including her role in a deal that led to the opening of a Hamilton Health Center clinic last June in Howe Township. The clinic, she said, is a rarity in the county, which has a need for medical facilities, especially those that cater to patients who rely on Medicaid. Fiscal responsibility also is a goal for Benner, a former educator, who said shell work to keep costs in line with incoming revenue. I guess my goal is going to be to keep our taxes at the rate they are now, she said. But that can be difficult with unfunded mandates handed down from the state, she said, pointing specifically to a recent directive requiring the replacement of county voting machines by 2020. That was not something that was in the budget, Benner said. Thats why Benner said she plans to maintain relationships with local legislators in an attempt to shield her constituents from the mandates, which require the spending of their tax dollars. Benner is the only incumbent running for re-election, meaning that if she wins she will be serving alongside two new commissioners. She called that scenario refreshing. Hopefully, all of us can put aside our differences, she said. R. Frank Campbell R. Frank Campbell Smart development is chief among the goals of Campbell, a founding member of the Perry County Chamber of Commerce, who listed himself as a members of nearly two dozen community groups, including some geared toward economic development. A first-time candidate for commissioner, Campbell said he decided to take a chance at office when he learned that two of the sitting commissioners would not seek re-election. Campbell, who had a career working for his familys trucking company, said he sees a need to revitalize and grow already built-up areas while maintaining the farmland and wild spaces that largely define the rural county. We need to support our existing businesses and focus on our natural resources in the county, Campbell said. Campbell pointed to growing commercial areas like the Newport Plaza off of Route 322 in Howe Township as a signs of economic growth. He also would like to see the revitalization of the countys downtowns, he said. That growth, he said, could mean jobs, which will sustain families and keep young people from fleeing the county for better economic prospects. It also could lead to a more robust tax base, he said. Thats a long term goal, just maintaining a healthy economy, Campbell said, admitting that there will be some challenges, including a lack of modern infrastructure in some areas. During a conversation earlier this month, Campbell also talked about his hopes to work with local school districts to bolster vocational programs and to combat the ongoing issue of opioid drug abuse. Gary Eby Gary R. Eby Public transportation in Perry County is inconvenient, especially for the elderly, according to Eby, the countys former transportation director of 16 years. The Coast Guard veteran and construction consultant said his main goal if elected is to make improvements to that system, possibly by leveraging the knowledge and connections he built over his 16-year career with the county. Eby called the outsourcing of public transportation in Perry County a travisity and described the current program under Rabbit Transit as only a whisper of what it used to be. Eby said that new program includes long wait times and unreliable scheduling. Thats especially problematic with elderly residents who often rely on public transportation to get to doctors appointments, he said, adding that the issue has only been compounded by changes in the countys aging office. Its not what our county citizens deserve, Eby said. Its just not acceptable. Eby admitted that solving the transportation issues might not be easy, but he stressed that the countys rural setting would have to be considered in developing a fix. That setting, he said, is what gives Perry County its personality. Thats why a lot of people live in a rural county, he said. Robert U. Nulton Robert U. Nulton Nulton, a real estate agent, business consultant and Landisburg borough councilman, said he found it difficult to identify which of the numerous issues in the county he felt were most pressing. But after a few minutes, he was able to hone in on two. FIrst, he spoke about the lack of volunteers and funding available to effectively operate many of the countys emergency services departments. Like Allen, he worried that the issue could lead to longer response times, which he said could in turn lead to a larger number of emergency-related deaths. But mostly, Nulton spoke about opioid drug abuse in his community. They expect another record-breaking year, Nulton said of opioid-related deaths. Nulton admitted he isnt an expert on opioid drugs and he doesnt know exactly how to solve the problem. Instead, he said he plans to align himself with experts like those in the county district attorneys office to seek a solution. Nulton also pointed out concerns with recent discussions about legalizing recreational marijuana in Pennsylvania, a plan he feels would only exacerbate drug abuse issues. We dont want to open the door to something that is not going to be good in the long run, Nulton said, explaining he is not opposed to the medical use of marijuana. Part of his plan is to put a greater focus on educating members of the community, both children and parents, about the dangers of drug abuse. And if elected, Nulton said hell be able to work cooperatively with his fellow commissioners regardless of their party affiliation. Democrats: Karen Ann Anderson Karen Ann Anderson Anderson, a former West Perry School Board member who recently ran as a candidate for state representative, owns a 170 acre grass-fed beef farm outside of Loysville. And earlier this month, she said her biggest goal if elected commissioner will be to work to maintain and strengthen efforts toward farmland preservation. It is our economic base, she said, pointing out that agriculture is the countys leading industry. Anderson said shed oppose any efforts to cut funding to the farmland preservation program. She also said she wants to learn about other pressing issues in the county, so she has conducted door-to-door campaigning, attended numerous municipal meetings and made herself a fixture at public events. Ive done that basic foundational work, she said. I am the best educated candidate for the job. And if elected, she said that accessibility and interest in her constituents will continue. So far, Anderson said she has identified many similar concerns to the other commissioner candidates. She spoke about the opioid crisis, problematic transportation and the need for smart, balanced economic growth. William G. Lyons William G. Lyons Lyons, a fourth-generation dairy farmer touted his 34 years of experience as an auditor for Southwest Madison Township, which he said will help him to remain fiscally responsible if elected. Lyons also spoke about the need for farmland preservation, but that wasnt his main talking point. His chief priority, he said, would be creating a cooperative board that could easily work together to solve problems and to carry out county business. That willingness to cooperate and work across party lines has been lacking on the boars in recent years, Lyons said. According to Lyons, meeting that goal will be easy, especially with the group of candidates seeking election this year. Ive really gotten along good with the other candidates, he said. That cooperation, he said, also means maintaining good, communicative relationships with department heads and county employees to ensure that the everyone is operating efficiently. And lastly, Lyons also talked about the need for economic development in built-up areas like Howe Township, but he acknowledged that infrastructure upgrades may be necessary to keep that growth going. Brenda Watson Brenda Watson Watson, whos owned a Perry County surveying and engineering firm for 31 years, made the decision to run for public office after the death of her son late last year. Her son, she said, always encouraged her to seek out a public leadership role, expressing faith in her ability to put politics aside and to make decisions that will benefit the entire community. Its become more of a political thing than it is being in charge of the entire county, she said of her opinion of the current administration. Im a real person, not political." If elected Watson said she intends to work across party lines, while remaining transparent and accountable to her constituents. That is all while working to increase the countys tax base by encouraging smart economic development. I prefer not to have a tax increase, she said. And like other candidates, Watson pointed out that development is needed to create family sustaining jobs. Now, she said, many young Perry County residents are choosing to leave their home county for higher paying jobs in other parts of the state. Its because there is nothing here for them there are no jobs, she said. We are losing people. Watson said she was reluctant to make any campaign promises, but she intends to do her best to serve the people of Perry County if she is elected to the board. Other races: There are two other contested races for county office that will appear on the primary ballot next Tuesday. Current Perry County Coroner Robert Ressler will face off against challenger Amber Fegley. Both Ressler and Fegley are Republicans. Ahead of the election, Ressler spoke about his time in the coroners office and the changes hes made to modernize operations. He also highlighted his time as a law enforcement officer, explaining that it has given him the investigative and communicative skills needed to successfully carry out the job. I think I have more compassion for the victims, Ressler said. Fegley could not be reached for comment. The race for treasurer also will see two Republican candidates competing for the role, with incumbent Harva Owings Baughman up against challenger Jan C. Gibboney. Earlier this month, Gibbony highlighted his long career in banking, explaining that he has the financial knowhow to effectively carry out the duties of a county treasurer. I want to take my financial skills and expand that position, he said, adding he feels those skills are needed after reviewing a recent audit of county finances that he said showed numerous errors in accounting. For Baughman, maintaining the way the office functions on a day-to-day basis is top priority. She described the office duties as issuing licenses dog, fishing and hunting and handling tax-claims work. Its work she enjoys, and she said that shows through her offices customer service. There is not a lot that you can change about that, she said, adding that she has made slight improvements to report filing and record keeping during her term and a half. I look forward to continuing to serve the Perry County residents, Baughman said. MIDDLEBURG The chairman of the Snyder County commissioners says he does not appreciate the way officials of Wood-Mode Inc. notified the 938 employees they were out of a job immediately. None was given any guidance, Commissioner Joe Kantz said Tuesday. \ Employees were notified Monday afternoon the 1.3 million-square-foot factory, located on a 23-acre campus in Kreamer, was closing immediately. This is devastating news for these workers, their families and the Snyder County community, Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement. The state was unaware the company was shutting down until it received certified letter dated Monday from David Scarr, vice president of human resources. It stated administrative employees were being permanently laid off immediately and production workers would be in phases by May 24. The letter stated this was the official notice pursuant to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Scarr explained Wood-Mode was unable to provide more notice because management reasonably believed a sale would go through and its lender would continue to provide support through the process. As the workers were told, the letter states Wood Mode learned May 7 the party that had agreed to acquire the business abruptly decided not to proceed with the transaction. Then on Friday, Wood-Mode said it learned its lender was unwilling to provide additional funding that would enable the plant to remain open while exploring a sale to other potential buyers including one that submitted a letter of intent Thursday. Workers knew there were problems but they did not anticipate the 77-year-old privately-owned company that made custom wood cabinets would shut its doors, Kantz said. The surprise announcement was disheartening, but on the positive side he said at least 20 employers have contacted him about hiring the laid-off workers. The Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corp. is coordinating a job fair only for Wood-Mode employees from 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesday at the VFW on Route 522 in Selinsgrove. It has invited 160 local manufacturers along with other companies that have expressed interest in meeting with laid-off workers. A team of specialists from the Labor and Industrys Rapid Response Coordination Services will be available to meet with Wood-Mode employees at 10 a.m. May 21 in the Weber Chapel auditorium on the campus of Susquehanna University, also in Selinsgrove. Information about unemployment compensation, job training and search activities, education services, health and pension benefits and financial credit programs will be available. Reportedly, health benefits have been stopped and there was no retirement plan for newer employees, Kantz said. In recent years salaries have been cut, bonuses have been eliminated and there have been layoffs at the plant that at one time employed 2,300, a retiree said. Attempts by PennLive to reach top management were unsuccessful; Kantz said he also has been unable to reach anyone either. One of the unknowns is whether owners still would be willing to sell given the information in the letter to the state. Workers were told Monday they will be paid all earned wages and agreed-to fringe benefits. Wood-Mode said it regrets the impact of the closing on employees, the community and loyal customers and suppliers. The company was founded as Wood-Metal Industries in 1942 during World War II by four salesmen whose job of selling metal cabinets was in danger because steel was being diverted to the war effort. Wartime scarcities prevented them from producing residential cabinetry, so products needed by the military were manufactured at a small lumber mill in Kreamer. Military personnel returning from the war triggered a housing market boom and Wood-Metal began manufacturing cabinets. In 1956 it changed its name to Wood-Mode Kitchens. The mostly non-union company in the 1970s expanded its line of cabinets to other rooms in the house and in 1972 opened a show room adjacent to the factory. The building included an auditorium used as a training school for designers. Additional cabinet styles were introduced in the 1980s, including the Brookhaven line. Numerous improvements were made to the factory during that decade. State police in Lebanon County are searching for two boys who ran away from their home last week. Corey Lee Bliesath, 16, and Dyllan Josiah Bliesath, 14, were last seen at the residence on Darkes Road in Swatara Township at 6 a.m. on May 9. Corey and Dyllan have run away several times before, and are known to camp in the woods and stay in abandoned houses and barns, according to state police. Corey is described as being 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 100 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. Dyllan is described as being 5 feet tall, weighs 85 pounds, and has blonde hair with blue eyes. State police dont know what the boys were last seen wearing other than camouflaged muck boots. Anyone with information is asked to contact state police in Jonestown at 717-865-2194. In recent years, the debate over reform of the states statute of limitations has overwhelmingly been framed against the clergy sex abuse crisis. On Wednesday about a dozen victims of convicted serial predator pediatrician Johnnie Jack Barto lent their voices to that effort. In a press conference held at the Capitol Rotunda, the victims, along with state Sen. Katie Muth (D-Montgomery), reiterated long heard arguments for the reform of the states child sex crime laws. Muth is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 540, which calls for broad reform, including elimination of criminal statutes and a two-year retroactive window to allow time-barred victims to file civil suits. Muth vowed to work across the aisle in the Senate to engender support for the bill, which currently has 18 co-sponsors. The freshman senator said victims of all ages need and deserve the protection of the law, adding that her bill would provide victims a choice between pathways to healing, including lawsuits. We are failing, Muth said. We are failing to give victims a reason to come forward. Attorney General Josh Shapiro who led the grand jury investigation into the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania as well as prosecuted Barto, has endorsed SB 540. Shapiro last year released a scathing grand jury report detailing the horrific and widespread sexual abuse of thousands of minors over seven decades by hundreds of priests in six Catholic dioceses, including Harrisburg. Nearly identical patterns of abuse were previously found several years ago in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by a local grand jury investigation. Over the years, victims of predatory priests have largely led the charge to reform the state child sex crimes. But on Wednesday, about half a dozen women who as children were sexually molested by Barto lent their voices to the effort, sharing personal narratives about their abuse. All stand behind SB540. Sara Neelan, one of the victims, noted the importance of their voices. She said the effort to reform laws did not belong to victims of clergy sex abuse alone. People automatically assume it has to do with the Catholic Church, Neelan said, citing Barto and the Jerry Sandusky scandal out of Penn State. People need to think a little broader. I hope this case will bring that to life. Amanda Dorich, a teacher who testified at Bartos March sentencing, said the chance to speak in court had been a life changing experience. She said that Pennsylvanias failure over the years to reform the statute of limitations shows the state continues to regard predators in a higher esteem than children. Brooke Rush, who is also time barred from filing suits against Barto, noted that at the age of 43 my voice doesnt matter. The laws need to change, she said. In March, Barto, 71, was convicted of 69 counts of aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, and endangering the welfare of children. He was sentenced to up to 158 years in prison. Also on Wednesday, Barto victims filed a lawsuit against Barto and his health networks, Conemaugh Health Systems and Laurel Pediatrics. Its the first lawsuit filed since his conviction. The lawsuit claims that the medical entities were aware of the abuse but kept the pediatrician on their staff. Senate Bill 540 is one of three active proposals seeking to reform the statute of limitations. In April the House overwhelmingly approved two companion bills that respectively call for the elimination of criminal statute of limitations involving child sex crimes; and call for a constitutional amendment that would lead to a revival of expired statute of limitations. The pair of House bills have in some cases polarized some victims, some of whom fear splitting the issues spelled out in the bills weaken the effort to usher through a retroactive window and set up for potential failure of the constitutional amendment. Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, has generally signaled willingness to consider the bills. The Legislature is not in session. I remain optimistic that Senator Scarnati will do the right thing and bring the bill to a vote, Muth said. I believe it has the votes. Im hopeful for a hearing soon. A hearing would be a step in the right direction. She characterized her Senate bill as being a very different bill as it includes all four recommendations handed down the the grand jury. She noted that a growing number of states have installed retroactive windows and have not seen legal challenges. NEWARK, N.Y., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IEC Electronics Corp. (NYSE American: IEC) today announced that it has been awarded a multi-year contract, valued at more than $50 million, from a Tier 2 Department of Defense Contractor. This award expands IECs participation with a program it has supported for several years from a single service line to now supporting the entire outsourcing of a program associated with secured communications equipment for U.S. aircraft, ground vehicles and surface warships. Jeffrey T. Schlarbaum, President and CEO of IEC Electronics commented, This contract win is an exciting development for IEC because we believe it demonstrates this leading defense contractors continued confidence in our capabilities and dependability as a full service electronics manufacturer for life-saving, mission critical programs. We have deliberately focused on enhancing our technical capabilities to position IEC as a distinguished, vertically integrated manufacturing partner who has the ability to serve as a seamless extension of our customers supply chain, including the ability to fulfill their entire life-cycle outsourcing needs. We believe the award of this contract for this innovative military communications product is validation of our ability to meet and exceed our customers expectations. Were energized by the opportunities were seeing in the marketplace both in terms of expanding our work with existing customers and winning new customers and believe we remain on track to drive continued growth and profitability as we move through the balance of 2019 and beyond. About IEC Electronics IEC Electronics is a provider of electronic manufacturing services ("EMS") to advanced technology companies that produce life-saving and mission critical products for the medical, industrial, aerospace and defense sectors. The Company specializes in delivering technical solutions for the custom manufacture of complex full system assemblies by providing on-site analytical testing laboratories, custom design and test engineering services combined with a broad array of manufacturing services encompassing electronics, interconnect solutions, and precision metalworking. As a full service EMS provider, IEC holds all appropriate certifications for the market sectors it supports including ISO 9001:2008, AS9100D, and ISO 13485, and is Nadcap accredited. IEC Electronics is headquartered in Newark, NY and also has operations in Rochester, NY and Albuquerque, NM. Additional information about IEC can be found on its web site at www.iec-electronics.com . Contact: Audra Gavelis Director of Marketing & Investor Relations IEC Electronics Corp. (315) 332-4559 agavelis@iec-electronics.com Winter is waiting for you in Charlevoix Back on the calendar are several options for entertainment, community camaraderie, and experiencing the beauty of Charlevoixs winter amenities. ORLANDO, Fla., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- Immune Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: IMUN) ("Immune" IMUN or the "Company"), a clinical late stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapies for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases, cancer and HIV/AIDS announced today provides update on status of 14A. Dear Shareholders, On behalf of Immune Therapeutics, Inc., wed like to take the opportunity to address and explain the decisions behind the proposals in the definitive proxy statement filed on Schedule 14A on April 30, 2019 (the Proxy Statement), about which some shareholders have inquired. The Proxy Statement sets forth certain proposals unanimously recommended by our board in order to help simplify the companys existing capital structure, reduce debt, and secure future funding so that we can engage new service providers and expand into the companion pet market, while continuing our work with emerging markets. The proposals in the Proxy Statement are as follows: Authorize the Company to issue up to 10,000,000 shares of preferred stock with 1,000,000 of such preferred shares to be designated as Series D Convertible Preferred Stock. The remaining 9,000,000 preferred shares will be designated by the Board of Directors as needed. Effect a reverse stock split of the Companys issued and outstanding, but not authorized, common stock at a ratio between 800-to-1 to 1,000-to-1. The specific ratio will for the Reverse Split be determined by the Board of Directors and will take effect no later than December 31, 2019. Change the Companys name to Forte Biotechnology, Inc. Corporate Overview As of April 15, 2019, the company had approximately 455,577,799 of its 500,000,000 authorized common shares issued and outstanding, with approximately $9,000,000 in debt. As is, we have insufficient shares to retire our debt or to raise the capital needed to further fund our development plan. To avoid tapping into dilutive funding, we need to reset and reduce the existing debt, which we believe we need additional common shares and preferred shares to accommodate. The restructuring is anticipated to allow us to successfully eliminate the majority of the company debt, and secure traditional funding. If successful, this will allow us to move forward with the new business plan and pivot strategy, which includes the restructuring and eventual uplisting our stock to a national exchange. Corporate Strategy The restructuring will hopefully allow us to move forward with emerging markets as well as our new focus in the companion pet market, where we intend to develop both Lodonal and Met (5) Enkephalin (MENK) for indications in pets that have already demonstrated to be safe and effective in humans. We believe our development approach enables us to reduce risks associated with obtaining regulatory approval for unproven product candidates while shortening development times to bring our product candidates to market. To successfully implement this restructure strategy, we need to obtain new management consisting of drug developers, veterinarians, physicians, scientists and other professionals that apply the core principles of drug development to the medical needs of both humans and pets. Over the past year, the company has added members to the board of directors with extensive biotech experience, such as Dr. Roscoe Moore and Kevin Phelps. We expect to continue replacing existing management and adding new management in the coming months. This includes adding more members to the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), and replacing the current CEO, Noreen Griffin, who plans to step down as CEO and director once the restructuring is complete. In order to accomplish the foregoing, we believe we need to restructure the company to free up shares in order to attract the funding and services providers we desire. We believe the name change will also help facilitate the restructuring and branding of the company moving forward, distinguishing us from other publically traded companies with similar names to our current name. Expanding into the Companion Pet Market The company understands the role of the family pet has changed over the past several decades. Pets are becoming more and more like members of the family with pet owners spending more money per pet than ever before and insisting their pets live the same healthy lifestyles as their owners. According to Forbes.com, [t]he pet care industry is thriving. The American Pet Products Association reports that overall household pet ownership hit 68% in 2016, up from 54% in 2009. Pet spending has soared faster than GDP since the Great Recession: U.S. personal consumption expenditures for pets, pet products, and related services hit $99.0 billion in 2015up 35% from 2009. While the rise in pet ownership boosts overall spending, the amount spent per pet is increasing as well. ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilhowe/2017/06/20/how-generational-change-boosts-the-roaring-pet-care-market/#17ab5cd36ab1 ) The company expects to expand into the pet market utilizing its exclusive US and global animal licensing rights to Lodonal and MENK. Both Lodonal and MENK have shown safety and efficacy in the human biopharmaceutical industry, which should allow the company to bring these therapeutics to pets with less investment and in shorter time periods than our initial tests with humans. In addition to our existing licensing strategy is the in-licensing of other proprietary compounds from human biopharmaceutical companies, which the Company plans to develop as regulatory-approved therapeutics specifically for use in animals. Our goal is to allow veterinarians and pet owners to manage animal medical needs safely while simultaneously improving the quality of life for pets. We aim to submit new animal drug applications (NADAs) for U.S. approval for the following indications in 2019 and 2020 and to make similar regulatory filings for European approval in 2021 and 2022: Lodonal for Chemotherapy-induced emesis in dogs; MENK for the treatment of nonresectable state Ill, IV, V mammary carcinoma in dogs; Lodonal for the treatment of lymphoma in dogs; and Lodonal for the control of pain and inflammation associated with osteoarthritis in dogs. We plan to commercialize our products in the United States through a direct sales force, complemented by distributor relationships, and through commercial partnerships within Europe and the rest of world. Emerging Markets To date, we have focused on the emerging nation commercialization of affordable non-toxic immunotherapies Lodonal and MENK. This market includes China, Africa and other nations with fast growing economies. China Part of our emerging markets strategy is our intended joint venture in China with Professor Fengping Shan. The Company, with Professor Shan and partners in China, are finalizing an agreement to open Cancer Consulting International Rehabilitation Center. The application to open the clinic was filed with the government of China and we expect approval in the coming months. The consulting center will be using Professor Shans 4D Cancer Treatment. Africa We started initial sales in Nigeria in 2018. However, a lack of funding has made it impossible to implement our sales and marketing plan. We are also unable to move forward with our existing and pending approvals in other countries. Once additional funding is in place after the restructuring, we expect to move forward in Nigeria and other African countries. Proxy Information The Proxy Statement was filed on April 30, 2019 asking for the written consent of shareholders for the three proposed actions above outlined. Shareholders wishing to vote can find the Proxy Statement and the Companys financial statements for fiscal year 2018 on our website at https://www.immunetherapeutics.com/investors/SECFilings Written consent can be submitted until the earlier of June 3, 2019 or the date the Company receives written consent from shareholders holding sufficient number of shares to approve the proposed Actions. As of May 6, 2019, the Company has received the number of shareholder votes necessary to approve the reverse split and name change and is waiting on sufficient approval for the preferred shares, which requires a larger voting percentage. Whats Next? Upon the approval of all actions proposed in the Proxy Statement, the company will file the necessary forms with the state of Florida and FINRA to implement the restructuring and make announcements as appropriate through its current reports. Investor Relations The company understands the need for release of news events moving forward; however, much of what we are working on right now is contingent upon completion of the restructuring plan, so we appreciate your patience while we put things into place. We are actively considering new management, new board members, and adding key opinion leaders to our team, while we continue with our SEC filings, work on new financing, and continue to keep the company on track to implement the restructuring. As we complete our milestones, shareholders can expect details and updates through press releases and SEC filings. We look forward to sharing even more information with you as it comes to fruition. Therapeutics Board of Directors, member of the companys Scientific Advisory Board, and Former United States Assistant Surgeon General. ABOUT IMMUNE THERAPEUTICS, INC. Immune Therapeutics Inc. is a late stage clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of our highly innovative immunotherapies. IMUN is a biotechnology company developing T-Activation immunotherapies to achieve immunomodulation in patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, cancer and other infectious disease. Forward Looking Statements Statements contained in this letter that are not statements of historical fact are intended to be and are hereby identified as forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Generally, forward-looking statements include expressed expectations of future events and the assumptions on which the expressed expectations are based, including but not limited to the companys intended restructuring and move into the pet market. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain as they are based on various expectations and assumptions concerning future events and they are subject to numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise this communication to reflect future developments except as otherwise required by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This release may contain forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ from those projected due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the possibility that some or all the matters and transactions considered by the Company may not proceed as contemplated, and by all other matters specified in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements are made based upon current expectations that are subject to risk and uncertainty. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements in this news release to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting such forward-looking information. Assumptions and other information that could cause results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking information can be found in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov), including its recent periodic reports. State regulators on Wednesday imposed a fine of $17,500 on SugarHouse Casino in Fishtown for serving a gambler 17 complimentary alcoholic beverages over eight hours in September. The patron was arrested for public drunkenness after creating a disturbance, officials said. According to the casinos consent agreement with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the patron was playing Pai Gow Tiles, a table game with Chinese tiles that the casino describes as similar to blackjack. Surveillance video showed the patron got some of the drinks at a bar, and some were served at the table. He visited the restroom six times in eight hours, and was visibly intoxicated while gambling, officials said. It was not until he could no longer uphold his head while playing on the Pai Gow Tiles game that a table games supervisor stopped him from receiving any more alcoholic drinks and summoned security, according to the consent agreement. As the patron was being evicted, an altercation occurred, and he was arrested for public drunkenness. In addition to the fine the casinos first civil penalty for an intoxicated patron incident SugarHouse also agreed to retrain and discipline the beverage servers. From left: Jim Clayton, Jeff Flynn, Lisa Hilburn, Bill Dawson, Frank Lordi, Rob Bright, Rob Fenton: principals at AC Lordi who are to become BDO partners. Read more BDO USA, the Chicago-based business accounting and advisory firm with $1.5 billion in yearly sales, says it is adding up to 100 professionals from Philadelphia-based management-consulting firm AC Lordi, as of June 1. Frank Lordi, the Philadelphia firms founder, has joined BDO as an advisory partner, he said in a statement. Six other Lordi principals also become partners at BDO, which already has a Philadelphia office, which works with life-sciences, manufacturing and financial companies. We are stronger together than apart, Frank Lordi said in a statement. Lordi is the latest in a series of Philadelphia financial consulting or accounting firms to join larger national companies in recent years. Lordi, a Penn State grad, is a former Arthur Andersen manager. His corporate clients have included Crown Holdings, Trinseo, Unisys, and other large Philadelphia-based employers. By size, BDO ranks with Grant Thornton in the second tier of U.S. corporate accounting and related services companies, below the so-called Big Four" PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG, which service the largest corporations. Each of the Big Four firms has significant advisory and consulting practices, and frequently look for smaller firms with corporate advisory clients they can add, said John McLaughlin, founder of AuditExchange, based in Newtown Square, and a former parter at BDO and at Smart & Co., now part of Grant Thornton. For a lot of big firms, the consulting business has become larger than traditional tax and accounting, he added. That makes a firm like Lordi, with its midmarket corporate clients, especially valuable to an outfit like BDO. (Story has been updated to make clear that Lordi is primarily a consulting firm.) The Reading Eagle filed for bankruptcy protection in March. Bids for the company, which includes a local radio station, are expected on Wednesday. Read more The company that owns the Reading Eagle received multiple bids Wednesday evening and executives are now reviewing the offers to see whether any are qualified, the newspaper company said in a statement on its website. And with that deadline looming, the Reading Eagle Co. alerted more than 200 employees of the threat of massive layoffs. If there are multiple approved bidders, there will be an auction Friday in the law offices of Stevens & Lee. The minimum bid was set at $5 million, and bidders had to submit a deposit of 10 percent. The bankrupt family-owned newspaper, which lost $2 million through March 31, filed this week a notice of potentially deep staff cuts with the states Department of Labor and Industry. The targeted dates for layoffs are June 6 through 10, the notice says. According to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed with the state, 209 Eagle employees could be laid off the companys entire staff. Reading Eagle reported on Wednesday that the notice will be changed to include 12 part-timers, bringing the total to 221 employees. The Reading Eagle, where novelist John Updike got his start as an intern, is not alone when it comes to traditional news media outlets struggling financially as younger readers ditch newspapers for online sources to find their news. Revenues have fallen drastically as they lose ad dollars to the likes of Facebook and Google, which together have an out-sized share of the online advertising market. Federal law requires companies with 100 or more employees to give notice if there is to be a mass layoff that affects at least 33 percent of the workforce. Reading Eagle Company does not concede it is required to comply with WARNs notice requirements at this time, Jennie Priest, executive director-human resources, said in a statement in the Reading Eagle article. Nonetheless, we wanted our employees to be aware of the protections WARN offers in the event of a mass layoff, which, as of the date of the notice, is only possible, not probable. The Eagle filed for bankruptcy protection in March. In late April, Pennsylvania unemployment officials held meetings with employees to explain benefits. An Eagle human resources official told employees on Monday of the pending state notice. The Eagle eliminated six jobs last week. Other employees have retired in the last month. There are fears that the newsroom staff could be cut by 20 percent. The Pittsburgh Pirates owner, Robert Nutting, toured the Eagle presses and facilities last week, leading to speculation that he could bid on the company. Digital First Media, which has a reputation for deep cuts to newsrooms, also could bid for the Reading Eagle Co., which also owns the local radio station WEEU, according to some insiders. FILE photo shows FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who on Wednesday proposed to let phone carriers block robocallers by default. The measure could be adopted as early as June. Read more To fight the rapid rise of robocalls, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed new rules Wednesday that would let phone companies block unwanted calls without consumers needing to sign up for the service. The proposal would establish call blocking services as a default setting for consumers. Major carriers and third-party app developers already offer free or paid call blocking applications, but they require customers to opt into the service. The proposed declaratory ruling, which Pai hopes can be adopted by the commission in June, would make clear that call blocking by default would not violate FCC rules, Pai said during a conference call with reporters. We believe this would likely greatly increase adoption of these services by consumers and help stem the flow of scam robocalls," Pai said. If adopted, call blocking by default should make a significant dent in robocalls received by consumers and help fight back on scams that rely on robocalls and spoofing. Americans received 4.9 billion robocalls in April, slightly down from 5.2 billion in March but a sharp increase from the 3.4 billion robocalls placed a year earlier, according to YouMail, a robocall blocking application company. Nearly half of all mobile calls this year will come from scammers, according to First Orion, an Arkansas-based call management company. The surge in scam calls has been driven in part by caller ID spoofing," in which scammers place calls that appear to come from local numbers or legitimate businesses. Pais proposal would ramp up adoption of existing tools to fight robocalls while the phone industry works on a solution to the caller ID spoofing problem. Carriers are working to implement technology that lets consumers know that incoming calls are actually from the owner of the number listed on a caller ID. Pai announced a draft rule-making notice that proposes a legal safe harbor for carriers that implement the anti-spoofing technology, called STIR/SHAKEN. Specifically, the proposal would establish that phone companies would not face legal liability for blocking calls that fail caller authentication under STIR/SHAKEN. If adopted, Pais proposal would also allow consumers to set up so-called white lists that would block calls from numbers that arent saved on their phones contact lists. Pai said such a service would be useful for seniors, who are often the victims of scams resulting from robocalls. Imagine being able to set up a list of phone numbers that your grandmother or grandfather would receive calls from. This would allow them to know the calls they do get are coming from trusted people, Pai said. Pai said he does not anticipate that carriers would impose fees on consumers to offer call blocking services by default because the cost of blocking the calls is minimal compared with the current cost of the billions of robocalls going over phone networks. This April 17, 2019 photo shows John Chester, left, and his wife Molly, of the documentary film "The Biggest Little Farm," at Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Read more In the engrossing documentary The Biggest Little Farm, the owner/operator of the title tract watches a raging California wildfire advance toward the 200-acre mini-Eden hes spent seven years building with his wife. I never dreamed we could get to this point, to have so much to lose. I was wrong, says farmer John Chester. Its a line that applies to his farm of chickens and sheep and fruit trees, but it has also been carefully cultivated to capture the movies larger lessons about sustainable living, economies, and ecosystems. In fact, you get the distinct feeling throughout Biggest Little Farm that we are not watching the accidental record of some random couple stumbling through the learning process of farming, but rather an enterprise that was designed from the very beginning to prove the point the movie ultimately makes: that farming built on biodiversity is superior to the monocultural commercial enterprises that dominate agribusiness, deplete soils, and have us all eating GMO crops that can survive being doused with pesticide. That by no means makes Biggest Little Farm a bad or dishonest movie in fact, its quite good. Often fascinating, and sometimes even moving. There are lessons here about the cycle of life that can only be driven home by the real, random, and sometimes cruel dictates of fate. But its worth noting that the films striking images are not the lucky product of a guy who just happened to point his camera at a barn owl, and Chester isnt some impulsive millennial overtaken by a romantic notion of living off the land hes an award-winning nature photographer who once shot films for NatGeo. Wife Molly was a private chef who cooked farm-to-table meals for wealthy clients. Did one of those clients finance this venture? The movie says only that the money for the farm came from friends and investors, who obviously had the deep pockets and patience to wait the full seven years for John and Molly to turn 200 barren acres of foreclosed farm property into a thriving biodynamic farm. Beyond organic, its a system that restores and nudges natural systems to create a balance thats good for soil, for plants, for animals wild and domestic. We dont know how much all of this cost, but its money well spent, and its lessons on regenerative techniques are important. Working with a biodynamic farming guru, the couple restores the soil (lots of animals and lots of droppings), diversifies the plantings, and creates conditions for mutually beneficial self-deployment of natures microbes, flora, and fauna. They let nature take a kind of guided course, but that often leads to chaos (which helps the narrative), in the form of snails, gophers, aphids, and coyotes. One natural system is deployed to counter another, and in seven years time, something like balance is achieved requiring constant flexibility, adjustment, and humility. The results are telling. When a foot of water hits, topsoil in neighboring Ventura County plots are washed away, but the earth and ground cover at Apricot Lane Farm soak it all up, and refill its aquifer. Its how farming could be done, perhaps how it should be done. One day we may have to do it this way, and this blueprint will be invaluable. The Biggest Little Farm. Directed by John Chester. Distributed by Neon. Running time: 1 hour, 31 mins. Parents guide: PG Playing at: Ritz Five. Turns out Jordan Peele is not the only director this year offering a movie about a subterranean look-alike plotting against unsuspecting surface dwellers. Now comes Zhang Yimou and Shadow, the directors new, unsurprisingly gorgeous wuxia extravaganza about an unstable king (Zheng Kai) and his Machiavellian military commander (Deng Chao). As the movie opens, the commander is urging an attack on a warlord occupying one of the kingdoms cities. Acting on his own initiative, he has challenged the leader of the occupying army to a single combat duel, winner take all. Sort of. The guy who issues the challenge is actually the commanders double, and this is not spoiler, as its all laid out in the prologue, and also the title. The real commander (also Deng), who lives in a secret chamber below the kings castle, refers to the stand-in as his shadow. It actually helps to know a bit about this setup going in, since one suspects the clunky subtitles do not capture important dramatic nuance theres an early sequence of the king demanding a musical performance that makes more sense when you understand the layers of deception involved. These scenes also include a supernatural forecast of things to come the movie is drawn from Chinese myth but is very Shakespearean. Two women cast stones, and the signs tell them to resign themselves to a masculine world. Zhang has a great deal of fun exposing the irony of that prediction. There is a subplot that has the enraged, fearful king sending an emissary to cancel the proposed duel, then offering his own sister (Guan Xiaotong) as a peace offering. She is displeased, to say the least, and while she does not openly defy her brother, we anticipate pushback. The commanders own wife (Sun Li), meanwhile, finds herself in an interesting situation, caught between her increasingly sickly original husband and the healthy, handsome exact duplicate shadow who lies next to her at night, keeping up appearances. The movie is romantic and sexy, and its exploration of the masculine and feminine (fire and water, yin and yang) is inventive and playful. The commanders resourceful wife suggests a new way to counteract the invulnerable fighting style of their undefeated opponents feminine moves that involve novel use of a parasol. What follows is surely the best use of an umbrella since Singin in the Rain. It should be noted that the umbrella is composed of interwoven blades that fly off and serve as projectiles, but, still, its an umbrella. It all gets very bloody, but the violence is secondary to the movies ravishing beauty, even with drenching rains and a restricted palette of blacks, whites, and shimmering silvers. The costumes, sets, and props are to die for. What a handsome sword that is, sticking between that poor guys ribs. Shadow. Directed by Zhang Yimou. With Deng Chao, Guan Xiaotong, Sun Li and Zheng Kai. Distributed by WellGo USA. Running time: 1 hour, 56 mins. Parents guide: Not rated. Playing at: Ritz Five. Yara Shahidi attends the 25th annual SAG Awards - Silver Carpet Roll Out at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, in Los Angeles. Read more In The Sun is Also a Star, an impulsive young man bets a young woman he can make her fall in love with him in just a day. He has the heart of a poet, and we know this not just because he says so all the time, but because director Ry Russo-Young opens her movie with a shot of Daniel (Charles Melton) in his bedroom, as the camera pans around to show us his influences: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Tupac. The camera also shows us his abs, but The Sun is Also a Star is that kind of movie, based on the Nicola Yoon YA novel, and designed to produce swooning among a target audience of people who want to believe that fate has something in store for them, and its exquisitely sensitive and gorgeous. Like the hunky Daniel, who spots his complete stranger soul mate Natasha (Yara Shahidi) at Grand Central Station, and notices her because shes looking up at the astronomical designs on the ceiling. Natasha is a budding scientist, and wants to study data analysis in college. Daniel discovers all this when he chases her down on the subway, introduces himself, and dares her scientific mind to embrace the possibility of love at first sight. Natasha is skeptical, and there is another issue: Her Jamaican family is about to be deported. In fact, shes on her way to a Hail Mary meeting with an immigration attorney (John Leguizamo), which happens to be in the same building where Daniel is to have his Dartmouth alumni interview. This is fate affirming his ideas of destiny, Daniel declares, and Natasha is willing to consider the possibility that there is enough order in the universe to permit this, especially if the fellow making the pitch is nice-looking. And so begins the movies chronicle of Daniels time-sensitive campaign to woo Natasha, as she works out her familys legal issues and he wrestles with how to tell his striving, Korean immigrant parents that he wants to be a poet (gasp!), not a physician (the movie inexplicably implies that it is not possible to study poetry at Dartmouth). Much rides on the actors ability to connect as they brush aside the obvious credibility obstacles, and the movies pop genericism doesnt help half the movies running time feels like its a pop music montage of the fetching young couple kissing, nuzzling, holding hands, so it often feels less like an ad for Invisaline. Commercial elements interfere with the movies desire to present a New York romance that visits different corners of the city. Yoon drew from her own experience as a Jamaican American married to a Korean American, and Sun feels like a missed opportunity to explore the specificity of that in more detail, and with fewer conventions. Manhattan is ready, in so many ways, for a new chapter. When the couple in Sun greets the dawn in a public park, and the teenage girl rubs the sleep from her eyes, its nice to know that man next to her is not Woody Allen. The Sun Is Also a Star. Directed by Ry Russo-Young. With Charles Melton, Yara Shahidi, and John Leguizamo. Distributed by MGM. Parents guide: PG-13 (some suggestive content and language) Running time: 1 hour, 43 mins. Playing at: Area theaters. Amis, at 13th and Waverly Streets in Center City, opened in early 2010. Read more Rumors are spreading about the future of Amis Trattoria, which Urban Outfitters bought from Marc Vetri and Jeff Benjamin as part of the deal three years ago for most of their restaurant empire. The most vulnerable Amis is the flagship location, which opened in 2010 at 13th and Waverly Streets in Washington Square West. The lease expires in August, and a company rep told me that its brand leaders are evaluating the business and would make a decision on its future. Though insiders say theyve heard otherwise, no decisions have been made about the future of newer Amis locations in Devon and Westport, Conn., she said. These Amises, under the direction of chef Brad Spence, are tucked into large-scale Urban retail locations. The rumors say they will be reconceptualized. Bar Amis, a more casual version located near Urbans headquarters at the Navy Yard, supposedly would not be affected. Some backstory: In late 2015, Vetri and Benjamin sold Amis (then only on 13th Street and at the Navy Yard, where it was known as Lo Spiedo); Pizzeria Vetri; Osteria (by then down to its location on North Broad Street); and Alla Spina to Urban in a deal, consummated in 2016, that was valued in public filings as $18.9 million. The Vetri Cucina on Spruce Street was not included in the deal. It remains under Vetri and Benjamins control. URBN has since rebranded Lo Spiedo, shuttered Alla Spina, and sold Osteria to chef Jeff Michaud and Michael Schulson. Besides Amis, URBN operates three Pizzeria Vetri locations in Philadelphia as well as several Terrain Cafe locations, including Glen Mills and Devon. In its most recent annual report, dated April 1, URBN said it would open approximately two new restaurants in fiscal 2020. Jeffrey Clemons, a pelvic reconstructive surgeon in Tacoma, Wash., holds a sample of transvaginal mesh used to treat incontinence in women. Clemons and more than 60 other state surgeons sent a letter to state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, arguing that his consumer-protection lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson over the mesh products might scare patients away from the best treatment options. Read more As women get older, their pelvic organs tend to sag. Thats a normal part of aging. But for millions of them, the sagging gets so bad causing discomfort, urine leakage, or interfering with sex that they resort to reconstructive surgery. Synthetic plastic netting was supposed to be a big advance in surgery for what doctors call pelvic organ prolapse. Instead, pelvic mesh has become one of the biggest mass torts in U.S. history. Medical device makers are paying nearly $8 billion to settle the claims of more than 100,000 women who suffered complications including pain, organ damage, infection, and incontinence. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took tough action, ordering the two remaining manufacturers of transvaginal mesh for pelvic organ prolapse to stop all sales. Heres the kicker: The FDAs ban does not apply to all pelvic mesh products, and certain types remain an important option in selected cases, particularly for treating urinary incontinence. Experts say the benefits of using the devices depend on the surgical route, the therapeutic goal, the skill of the surgeon, and other factors that are still being studied. Mesh is not just a bad news story, said University of Pennsylvania urogynecologist Lily A. Arya, a specialist in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery. My ultimate message is one of hope, that ongoing research and clinical trials will help to determine the best treatment for a complex condition. How can women (and the men who care about them) sort all this out? Here are some things to consider. Basic biology The pelvic floor, the muscular base of the abdomen, supports the vagina, uterus, bladder, bowel, and rectum. When these muscles are weakened by childbirth, chronic coughing, obesity, genetic factors, and inevitable aging, one or more pelvic organs may sink into or against the vagina. The top of the vagina also can drop down into that structure. The good news is, prolapse is no more troublesome than wrinkles for most women. It is very, very common, Arya said. The mere presence of prolapse on a pelvic exam doesnt mean it needs treatment. The bad news is, when sagging causes symptoms such as pelvic pressure, a vaginal bulge, lower-back pain, sexual dysfunction, or urine leakage, there are no easy, effective fixes. Conservative remedies include pelvic muscle exercises and a pessary, a removable silicone device that is inserted into the vagina much like a diaphragm or tampon. Brandon Olivieri is on trial for murder, charged in the fatal shootings of Salvatore DiNubile and Caleer Miller in South Philadelphia on Oct. 24, 2017. Read more Andrew Zanghi admits that when he first spoke to homicide detectives in October 2017, he didnt tell them that he saw Brandon Olivieri fatally shoot two teens, including Zanghis friend, on a South Philadelphia street corner. It wasnt until two days later, Zanghi testified Tuesday, that he told police in a follow-up interview that he knew Olivieri was the gunman. Does that mean Zanghi, now 18, intentionally lied to the police? Or did he simply omit information the day he watched his friend die because he was afraid to say too much about what he saw? That question hung over the opening day of testimony in Olivieris murder trial, during which Zanghis testimony took center stage. And credibility issues are likely to emerge again this week, with prosecutors poised to call more teen witnesses in an attempt to prove that Olivieri killed 16-year-olds Salvatore DiNubile and Caleer Miller during a shooting at 12th and Ritner Streets. Its not that I lied, Zanghi testified under cross-examination from Olivieris attorney, Robert Mozenter. I just left stuff off. Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott, aware of the hostility among relatives and friends of the victims and Olivieri, warned spectators to be on their best behavior, and Tuesdays proceedings were held in a larger-than-usual room to accommodate a bigger audience. The room was packed to near-capacity with relatives and friends of the three youths, but any signs of conflict appeared to be muted. Some gallery members cried during opening statements by attorneys. During his remarks, Assistant District Attorney David Osborne told jurors that the shooting began because Olivieri had been spoiling for a fight. Hanging with three friends after school, Osborne said, the South Philadelphia teen and his buddies, including Miller, decided to wander their neighborhood streets looking for scores to settle when they made their way to 12th and Ritner Streets. When Olivieri saw DiNubile, Osborne said, he thought he recognized DiNubile as someone who had embarrassed him in a previous fight. Olivieri, according to Osborne, then took out a .45-caliber handgun and pulled the trigger while struggling with DiNubile over the gun. He knew that it wasnt going to be like last time, Osborne said. He knew he wasnt going to be embarrassed. One shot hit DiNubile, while another hit Miller by mistake, the prosecutor said. Mozenter, Olivieris attorney, countered during his opening statement that no physical evidence showed his client as the gunman, and that the witnesses expected to testify included several teens who lied to police or in court or cut deals with prosecutors to avoid being charged. He also said there was no evidence that Olivieri knew DiNubile, and said Olivieri had no motive to commit the killings. The case against Olivieri, Mozenter said, is built on inconsistencies, chaos, and confusion. Zanghi testified that he was with DiNubile and several other teens at 12th and Ritner when Olivieri, Miller, and two other teens approached them. Zanghi said he knew Miller from a previous school, and that he and Miller spoke briefly as Olivieri stared at DiNubile. According to Zanghi, he heard DiNubile say: Arent you that kid? To which Olivieri replied: Yeah, what do you want to get into? Zanghi said he then saw Olivieri pull a handgun from his waistband, and saw DiNubile charge toward the gun. During a struggle over the weapon, Zanghi said, several shots went off and most teens scattered. DiNubile and Miller were declared dead that night. Zanghi said he spoke with detectives that night but was afraid to identify Olivieri to police as the gunman. Mozenter, however, sought to paint Zanghi as a liar whose testimony was unreliable either by misleading the police that night, or by giving them a faulty identification days later. Testimony in Olivieris trial is expected to continue Wednesday. Orlando, Fla., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Community Associations Institute (CAI) is proud to host the largest international gathering of homeowners, community managers, and businesses serving community associations worldwide at the 2019 CAI Annual Conference and Exposition, May 15-18, in Orlando, Fla., at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort. Nearly 2,000 attendees will come together to share ideas and network with community association peers from around the world during the three-day event. Keynote speakers Peter Sheahan and Linda Kaplan Thaler headline this years conference. Sheahan is the founder and chief executive officer of the Karrikins Group, recognized as the leading expert on todays talent recruitment and retention. Thaler is a best-selling author and advertising leader. Attendees will discover how nice companies decrease employee turnover, lower recruitment costs, and increase productivity. CAI projects the community association housing model will become the majority form of housing in the U.S. by 2040. Today, with approximately 70 million Americans living in community associationscommonly referred to as planned communities (e.g. homeowners associations, condominiums, and housing cooperatives)the need to educate homeowners on understanding their rights and responsibilities is essential. And, as the role of a community manager evolves and faces new challenges, CAI's annual conference continues to be the number one source of world-class education and networking that elevates management skills and career opportunities. In addition, CAI's three-day exposition hall will feature nearly 200 companies and professional services that support community association living. We are excited to return to Orlando and host the 2019 annual conference, says Thomas M. Skiba, CAE, CAI's chief executive officer. With nearly 10 million Florida residents living and working in community associations, the state provides an amazing opportunity to showcase some of most successful community associations in the world. This year, homeowners, professional managers, and industry partners will come together under one roof to share todays best practices and discuss the scope of what the future holds for this growing housing model. Media interested in covering the conference should contact Amy Repke at 703-624-2179 or email, arepke@caionline.org. ### OK, were on. The next Fill The Steps Against Gun Violence gathering at the Art Museum is set for Wednesday, May 29, starting at 5 p.m. Remember, I told you to keep your calendars a little loose so when the citys young people, who are leading the way to the steps this year, came calling, youd have no excuses. Theyre calling. No excuses. May 29, 5 p.m. This is the fourth year Ive asked Philadelphians impacted by gun violence thats all of us, in case youre wondering to come together to put a face on the citys epidemic, but also to stand shoulder to shoulder and commit to work against the violence and apathy that are constants in this city. (As always, whether we stand or sit on the steps depends on the abilities of whoever shows up.) Last year, I passed the torch to the citys young people led by Parkway Center City Middle College students who continue to step into their voices and power but more than that, who continue to make connections with other young people, locally and nationally, who fight the same fight. This year, along with the families of Philadelphia homicide victims, who will always be at the center of this event, Ive asked some guests to share some words: Jami Amo, a Columbine shooting survivor, who last year suggested to The Inquirer that there should be a national clearinghouse that gun violence survivors could consult to discover all of the resources theyre entitled to. In response to that story by my colleague David Gambacorta and me earlier this month U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans cosponsored the Resources for Victims of Gun Violence Act, which would establish a federal advisory council to support victims of gun violence, and identify gaps in the support systems. Also speaking will be Luis Berrios, left on the street to die after he was shot during a robbery in November, but who has since been spreading a message of forgiveness. Mykia Capers will be there shes one of countless Philadelphia mothers of homicide victims who use the biggest loss of their lives to fight for themselves and other families shattered by deaths. Representing generations of young, black men lost to gun violence will be cousins Crystal Arthur and Raquel Bland who have lost three family members, including their sons, to gun violence and Sonya Dixon, who lost two grandchildren in two years. Theyll be there to share their stories. But also to call for action. Amo, the Columbine survivor: Im speaking at Fill The Steps this year because I want the policy makers to hear me loud and clear when I say that they have more work to do to prevent gun violence, they have more work to do to support survivors of gun violence, and they have more work to help victims of gun violence. Maureen Boland, a Parkway Center City Middle College teacher, whose tireless work with her students has helped ignite a movement: I will be standing on the steps with my students because 60 percent of my students report having lost a blood relative to gun violence. This level of trauma is intolerable to me. But she will also be there because she wants policies that would bring more mental-care services into the schools. Teachers and counselors cant do this alone. Our kids are hurting. Simone Akridge, 16, one of the student leaders from Parkway who has lost two loved ones to gun violence: I dont want to be next. Where we stand as a city and as a nation, as 116,000 people are shot in America every year, matters. What we intend to do about it, today on National Trauma Survivors Day as every day, should also matter as Philly counts more than 120 homicides so far this year. As Boland says, it should be intolerable to us all. If its intolerable to you, meet us at the Art Museum steps and stand against gun violence. Justin Hoffman speaks about his lawsuit against the Diocese of Camden, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, and St. James Parish, at a news conference Tuesday. Read more Do not for a moment buy the adage that justice is blind. Not in Pennsylvania. Not this week. After a stunning change to New Jersey law that became official on Monday, and an equally stunning change to New York law in February, justice for sexual assault victims in Pennsylvania now is a second-tier matter, denied by politics and the poor luck of geography. The divide is stark. It is absurd. And it is make no mistake entirely a product of Republican leadership of the House and Senate in Pennsylvania. Were you raped as a child by a Pennsylvania priest or schoolteacher? If you want justice, then you had better hope it happened in New Jersey or New York. Only those states, under groundbreaking laws, allow civil action for abuse that happened years ago. It is why a Philadelphia man on Monday announced he is suing the Camden Diocese for alleged clergy abuse in Ventnor, N.J. If, however, you were violated by a Pennsylvania priest or teacher somewhere between Erie and Philly, your only legal option is to shut up and move on. The men who control the House and Senate have chosen to bow to bishops and insurance underwriters rather than stand for the children damaged for life by abusers. This is the moral fault line. An immoral one. Pennsylvania at its most bankrupt. It was not magic that made New Jersey and New York care about victims. It was voters and Democrats running the show. Republican Gov. Chris Christies being replaced by Democrat Phil Murphy in 2017 set the stage, after two decades of legislative struggle, for changing the statute of limitations so that people no longer had only a few years, essentially, to sue before losing that right. Another foe of such a reform, Democratic Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, then got out of the way in January 2018 by stepping down. His replacement as speaker, Democrat Craig Coughlin, was supportive of suspending the statute of limitations so that all victims could sue. Then came revelations late last year in Pennsylvanias sweeping grand jury report into Catholic Church abuse across the state a staggering prosecutorial document that outraged people across the world. It was enough that, across the Delaware River in New Jersey, the Democratic Senate and Assembly finally united behind victims. They passed a bill, signed by Murphy this week, allowing all victims of sexual abuse, regardless of age, to sue their rapist or the institution that oversaw their abuser. Any victim for whom the statute of limitations had run out will now have two years, starting in December, to file suit. This is a similar, if not exact, version of what Pennsylvanias Republicans have fought for years. New York passed a similar bill only after Democrats there took control of the state Senate in November. Its probably in the top one or two pieces of legislation Ive worked on in the past 21 years, Democratic Sen. Joe Vitale, 64, the bills longtime advocate in New Jersey, told me Tuesday. It took 18 years, Vitale said. Bishops called lawmakers. Lobbyists fought to protect the insurance industry from potential payouts. To the end, Vitale had doubters. I won some dinner bets, Vitale quipped. I think good triumphs over evil. Yes. A moral victory. If every member of the Pennsylvania legislature sat through a hearing and listened to the stories of victims and their parents who lost their children to suicide because they couldnt live with the pain of their abuse," he said, "they would likely change their minds. Republican leaders in Pennsylvania have not held a single hearing in 15 years to hear from abuse victims. And their leader now, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, unapologetically defeated a statute of limitations bill late in October that would have done much of what New York and New Jersey are now allowing. >> READ MORE: The Catholic Church Owns the Pa. Capitol Democratic voters made Scarnatis party pay in November. The GOP majority in both chambers is now vulnerable enough that Democrats may have a chance at flipping control in 2020, unless its gerrymandering holds. This is the prescription for justice in Pennsylvania. Get the wrong guys out and get the right guys in. Democratic Sen. Katie Muth of Montgomery County, who ousted a longtime Republican in November, has introduced a statute of limitations bill that would give victims two years to file lawsuits. Odds are long for its passage with Republicans in charge. Youre talking to someone whos not supposed to be in the Senate right now and didnt have the odds to win, Muth told me Tuesday. I think our odds are maybe against us. But again, Im not a quitter. Neither was Vitale. Thank God. Two prison guards were arrested by federal officers Wednesday and charged with beating an inmate at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on State Road in Holmesburg last year, authorities said. Guards Robert Berger, 35, and Nathaniel Morris, 47, both of Philadelphia, also were charged with filing a false statement after allegedly excluding details from their report of the incident. They each could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The two men attacked the unidentified inmate on Sept. 10, 2018, punching and kicking him multiple times even though he was compliant and not posing a physical threat to anyone, according to the federal indictment. Michael T. Harpster, special agent in charge of the FBIs Philadelphia division, said in a statement that incarcerated men and women are supposed to lose their freedom but not their civil rights. Harpster conceded that prison guards have difficult jobs, but that doesnt give them impunity to lash out violently and treat inmates like punching bags." It was the 1980s, and I was a critical-care nurse in the cardiac-care unit (CCU) of a big Philadelphia hospital. I came in one day to work the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift, and one of my patients was a 50-something man with profound cardiac failure. I went into his room, where he was surrounded by his large Irish family of daughters a mix of nuns and nurses and introduced myself. The patient, despite his discomfort, managed a smile and a bit of a joke. His daughters left the room when I did my physical assessment. The findings were sobering. All of the mans cardiac indicators heart sounds, internal heart pressures, frequent irregular heartbeats on his EKG, shortness of breath were bad. His heart had so little contraction there was barely any blood flow. If a patient presented like that today, hed be a candidate for a heart transplant. But this was before the days of transplant ubiquity. Everything that could be done for him was being done, but it was clear to me that his heart was likely going to stop beating on my shift. His chart indicated that he was a full code meaning that if his heart stopped, I was obligated to initiate resuscitative protocol: CPR, defibrillation, intubation (placement of a breathing tube), and more. As the daughters were filing back into the room, I asked one of the them a nurse to speak with me at the nurses station. I reviewed with her all of her fathers cardiac data, and noted that there was no DNR (do not resuscitate) order on his chart. I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew this was the case, and understood its implications should her father code. She said she understood and would talk with her father and the family to make a determination of what, if anything, they wanted to do. About 45 minutes later, two of the sisters told me that they and their dad had all agreed not to resuscitate if his heart stopped. I then notified both the on-call M.D. and the patients attending physician, and got the paperwork in order. Signatures quickly followed. At this point, visiting hours were over, and the nurse in charge of the CCU was insisting that the mans family leave. I resisted, telling her that he was likely to die soon, that he was now a DNR, and that his family wanted to be with him. She called the nursing supervisor, upset that I was refusing her direction. When the supervisor said that she also wanted the family to leave, I stood my ground with her, too. I then called the attending physician for backup. He called the supervisor, and the hue and cry about the family finally halted. I pulled the wires from the central station monitoring the patients heart and shut the curtains in his room, to give him and his family more privacy. Sure enough, about two hours later, the patient died, with his daughters around him, all together, singing Irish songs as he drew his last breath. I have been present for the lives and deaths of many patients. But this man and his beautiful family of smart, thoughtful, spiritual women made me grateful that I had such worthy work to do. It also made me so conscious of the difference that one person can make in the most important moments in the lives of others. I will never forget him, or them. Donna Gentile ODonnell, Ph.D., is senior vice president of innovation partnerships and programs at Thomas Jefferson University & Jefferson Health. Do you have an inspirational, compelling story about an on-the-job moment or incident that changed you and can you tell it in 700 words or less? Send it to upside@philly.com. Protestors led by Gary Frazier from Save Camden Public Schools march outside a meeting of the New Jersey Board of Education last month. Read more In a cost-cutting move, the Camden school district has sent pink slips to 40 employees, including five teachers, to help close a budget gap for the next school year, district Superintendent Katrina McCombs said Wednesday. The notices were sent Monday to affected employees, McCombs said. They include special education and elementary teachers, support and operations staff, as well as administrators, she said. The hope is that the number continues to get smaller, McCombs said. Last month, McCombs announced sweeping changes in the district to bridge a projected $27.6 million deficit for the 2019-20 school year. They included cutting up to 200 jobs, relocating about 900 students, and consolidating and closing several schools. McCombs said the district worked with state and county officials to trim $16 million from its proposed budget and reduce the job losses needed. The district hopes to receive $11 million in emergency state aid to finalize the budget, she said. By law, public school districts annually must notify employees by May 15 of their status. A special school board meeting scheduled for Wednesday night to inform the community about the job cuts was canceled because none of the districts seven school board members were available, McCombs said. Forty is better than 200, certainly, said Camden Education Association president Keith Benson. There are still 40 families that are devastated and life just got harder for them through no fault of their own. Even with additional aid, McCombs said she will proceed with plans to close Veterans Memorial Family School, which needs $14 million in repairs, and the Bonsall Annex. Also, Riletta T. Cream Elementary will be turned into an early-childhood center. The biggest impact will be felt at Veterans Memorial, which has about 500 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Some students will be sent to Davis Elementary, while bilingual sixth through eighth graders will be sent to Cramer Elementary, where the district plans to start a dual-language academy. Most of the districts preschoolers will be enrolled in Cream, which is now operating at about 43 percent capacity. Cream Elementary students would be sent to H.B. Wilson Elementary, which will become a K-8 school, and Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy. McCombs said some affected students have enrolled in new schools for next year. The district has scheduled school tours and open houses for parents and students, she said. Benson and community leaders have widely criticized the closings and reconfigurations. They have called for a freeze on cuts and school closures and want a federal probe into the districts spending. Its not over yet, by any means, Benson said Wednesday. Camden, South Jerseys largest public school system, has been operating under a state takeover since 2013. The district has about 1,600 employees and operates 19 schools, some operating at half capacity. Critics believe Camden school officials have focused too much on Renaissance and charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, and have ignored its traditional public schools, such as Veterans. For the 2018-19 school year, the district said it enrolled 7,520 students in the citys 19 traditional public schools; 4,340 in 11 charter schools; and 4,400 in 11 Renaissance schools. Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan displays a bag of crystal meth seized from a Mexican national accused of selling the drug in the county. Read more A deluge of powerful, pure crystal methamphetamine is storming back into Southeastern Pennsylvania, buoyed by savvy drug dealers looking to expand beyond opioids, investigators in Chester County said Wednesday. District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan said aggressive Mexican cartels have been flooding the market with the drug at least since last year, when his office first noticed the trend. Theyre responding to supply and demand, like any other business. When they see opioid use going down, theyre responding with this," Hogan said. Like Big Pharma, theyre getting people to use the drugs and get hooked, and then theyre taking advantage of supply lines that have already been established. Hogan described the trend hours after a midlevel meth dealer was arrested in the county. Ruben Vargas-Santillan, a Mexican national living in Reading illegally, has been charged with multiple felony drug offenses after a months-long investigation by Hogans office. Vargas-Santillan, 35, allegedly sold cocaine and then crystal meth to an informant, each time steadily increasing the amount of meth being sold. When investigators arrested him and raided his home in Berks County, they found nearly a pound of crystal meth as well as several pounds of cocaine and marijuana, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. This is a medium-sized case, Hogan said. But it demonstrates a pattern were seeing in Chester County and throughout the country. Laura Hendrick, the field intelligence manager for the Philadelphia office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said crystal meth seizures have spiked nationally in the last five years, jumping 50 percent in Pennsylvania since 2015. Locally, the drugs popularity initially waned after the mid-2000s, according to Hogan, who noted that many of the arrests back then were for biker meth, a less potent homemade variety. This more recent wave of sales features a version of the drug that is good, clear, and clean, made in labs in the Mexican desert and smuggled over the countrys southwestern border. The supply is meeting a demand, mostly opioid users who either take the drug to help mitigate withdrawal symptoms between fixes, or in combination with heroin or fentanyl to prevent fatal overdoses. Regardless, Hendrick said, the users are finding a ready supply. The business model for cartels is all profit driven meth is easy to make and produce, she said. If they can put a lab together, they already have markets where they push heroin and fentanyl, and they supply these new drugs on top of those as they look for users. In the last year, law enforcement officials in Chester County have handled high-profile cases in which meth played a role. Nicholas Spadaro, a Valley Township resident, killed another man in the middle of a meth deal in November, Hogan said. A month later, Daniel Proffitt allegedly strangled his girlfriend while high on the stimulant. And last May, Brian Touchton, 42, fled from state police who tried to pull him over while he was drunk and high on meth, sparking a police-involved shooting, according to Hogan. Were sounding the alarm now because law enforcement is dealing with it, and we want the public to be aware that were dealing with it, Hogan said. "Because crystal meth is back, and its back with a vengeance. The homes of Seaview Harbor sit just behind the Seaview Harbor Marina and across the waterway from Longport. Seaview Harbor is petitioning to secede from Egg Harbor Township and join Longport borough. Read more EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP When black ice coated the porch early one March, Joe Stewarts wife slipped while getting the morning newspaper. He called 911 and, within minutes, an ambulance arrived at their home in Seaview Harbor, a tiny community on a Shore causeway. Out popped the mayor of Longport, Nick Russo. I call 911 and the next thing I know, the mayor of Longport comes over in the emergency ambulance truck and renders aid, said Stewart. The mayoral treatment Russo is trained in emergency medical services only crystalized the every-day contradictions felt by residents of Seaview, a marina community just up and over a bridge and causeway leading to Longport, the affluent Shore community at the end of Absecon Island. Seaview Harbor is technically part of Egg Harbor Township, but residents want to be part of desirable Longport. Who wouldnt? Longport already provides emergency services, underscoring the inescapable geographic reality: Seaview Harbor is much closer to Longport than any part of sprawling Egg Harbor Township. Residents like Stewart say they feel much more a part of Longport than they do of Egg Harbor Township. My drivers license, my insurance, my mail ... everything has a Longport address, Stewart said. And those Egg Harbor taxes, perhaps the single driver of a secession movement that has been around for approaching five years. Now, though, residents have successfully petitioned to leave the township and have a trial date July 8 before Atlantic County Judge Julio Mendez. Since March 2014, the Egg Harbor Township Planning Board has held 32 hearings on the proposed de-annexation of Seaview Harbor from Egg Harbor Township, according to Seaview Harbor attorney John Paul Doyle. The lack of services provided by the township, steep tax rates, and the fact that the community isnt even contiguous with Egg Harbor Township are among the reasons the the 99-home neighborhood and harbor of Seaview want to leave and join neighboring Longport. The coastal community of Seaview Harbor consists of a boat club, marina, and affluent residential neighborhood. The estimated median household income for Seaview is $84,671, compared to Egg Harbor Townships $70,875. Longports is $106,719. If Seaview secedes, its residents stand to gain from a lower tax rate in Longport (though their properties could also end up being reassessed to Longport standards). Township Administrator Pete Miller said that if Seaview Harbor secedes, those residents will see a decrease in annual taxes from around $25,000 to $10,000. Egg Harbor Township residents pay nearly $3 for every $100 in value assessed, as opposed to Longports 98 cents per $100 assessment. So the petition to secede has fiscal implications for Egg Harbor Township. By Egg Harbors own account, if Seaview Harbor leaves, the township would lose $505,000 in annual revenue and the school district would lose $1,841,466, which is less than 1% of Egg Harbors $140.9 million school budget for 2018-2019. Seaviews tax dollars would subsequently go to Longport, if absorbed by the borough. In West Wildwood, the mayor lives with the police chief, who won a $1.65 million jury judgment against the borough and who will now supervise the mayor's daughter. Read more West Wildwood Mayor Christopher Fox has downplayed the fact that he lives with the boroughs police chief, Jacqueline Ferentz, but the State of New Jersey took it seriously enough to fine him nearly $25,000 for violations of ethics laws, documents show. The violations, issued April 11, cover actions familiar to citizens who have been complaining about unusual goings-on in the tiny borough, which is paying off a $1.7 million jury verdict to Ferentz stemming from her dismissal by a previous mayor. The total of $24,900 in fines issued by the Local Finance Board is the largest fine ever levied against an elected official, said Lisa Ryan, spokesperson for the Department of Community Affairs. It covers a seven-part complaint, with each part encompassing numerous separate violations. However, the fine for each violation is within the prescribed $100 to $500 statutory range, she noted. The total penalty reflects the number of violations. The boards findings were in response to an anonymous complaint, she said. The borough, which has 600 year-round residents and a $2.8 million budget, recently hired Foxs daughter as a police officer working under Ferentz, though Fox abstained from the vote. The town is located just over the Glenwood Avenue bridge from Wildwood proper. The violations cite numerous actions the board said violated state ethics laws prohibiting public officials from taking action to secure financial gain for themselves or any member of their immediate family. The 21 pages of violation notices were made public Wednesday through an Open Public Records Act request made by the Concerned Taxpayers of West Wildwood and obtained by The Inquirer. For the Local Finance Board, its a big fine," said Jordan Rand, an attorney working with the taxpayers group, which has filed its own related complaints and asked the state to investigate what it calls a pattern of suspected misconduct. But for taxpayers, who will foot the bill for the $1.7 million jury verdict, he added, its a pittance. Although Fox says he abstained from votes directly involving Ferentz, the Local Finance Board documented numerous instances where he was involved in voting or discussing police department matters and salary increases, even the securing of an SUV for Ferentz. Fox has the right to request an administrative hearing on the violations before they become final, according to a letter sent to him from Melanie Walter, chairperson of the Local Finance Board, a division of the Department of Community Affairs, which oversees municipalities. Fox did not immediately return a request for comment. He and Ferentz have said they are not romantically involved, though they have lived together for 17 years, and have maintained that there was nothing improper about the situation, including the hiring of the mayors daughter. Ryan, of the Department of Community Affairs, earlier said the state was closely monitoring West Wildwood. The borough is awaiting the outcome of mediation related to another lawsuit, filed by former Class 2 Officer Jeremy Mawhinney, who alleges he was improperly terminated and complained of a department rife with favoritism and corruption. Although Fox did not vote on Ferentzs 2012 reinstatement as police chief, the state notes that Foxs mayoral duties at the time included serving as director of public safety and was thus directly supervising an employee with whom he resided in a home owned and also occupied by the municipal employee. In that capacity, the Local Finance Board concluded, Fox was required to take actions to implement the restoration of her position, her award of back pay and pension credit. The board concluded those actions constituted a use or attempted use of his official position to secure unwarranted privileges or advantages to himself in violation of state ethics and conflict of interest laws. It further concluded that Foxs actions were taken in a matter in which he had a direct or indirect financial or personal involvement that might reasonably be expected to impair his objectivity. The state found that his serving as director of public safety might reasonably be expected to constitute a use of his public office or employment for the purpose of securing financial gain for himself as the tenant of the municipal employee. As mayor, Fox voted in favor of his appointment as director of public safety, though he no longer serves in that capacity. The state also cited 50 occasions in which, as mayor, Fox gave the police activity report at borough council meetings; was involved in 16 separate occasions in police department personnel actions; and was recorded on multiple occasions discussing agenda items involving the police department and participating on seven occasions authorizing funds for the police department, including a bond ordinance authorizing the purchase of an SUV for use by Ferentz. It also cited an instance in which Fox arranged for his daughter to be appointed a deputy in the Office of Emergency Management and voted on the resolution authorizing the appointment. Fox also participated in votes that increased the maximum salary of the police chief by 12.5 percent and then 33.33 percent, constituting an act in his official capacity in a matter where he had a direct or indirect financial or personal involvement. The changes to the salary ordinances allowed Ferentzs annual salary to increase from $67,000 in 2015 to $101,000 in 2017, the board noted. Other conflicts of interests cited included Foxs voting in favor of resolutions authorizing contracts with the law firm that would represent the borough in a legal action against the insurance fund that has refused to cover the $1.7 million jury verdict awarded to Ferentz because it contended the borough was unable to properly defend itself after rehiring Ferentz. On Aug. 28, 2017, the state noted, Fox voted in favor of an emergency appropriation in the amount of $1.9 million to fund Ferentzs jury award, which it said, constituted a use or attempted use of his official position to secure unwarranted privileges or advantages for himself or others. Ferentz had sued the borough contending that she was improperly dismissed and that the former mayor interfered with her running of the department while she was acting chief. The board also fined Fox for signing a shared services agreement between West Wildwood and the City of Wildwood, where he is employed as business administrator, and for failing to report various pensions in excess of $2,000, as required by ethics laws. Were just happy that the Local Finance Board saw that there was something not right in the borough, said Susan Czwalina, treasurer of the West Wildwood taxpayer group. She said she anticipated a large turnout at the boroughs next meeting on June 5. THE PARENTS: Carrie Tobin, 40, and Ryan Tobin, 35, of Port Richmond THE CHILD: Benjamin Ryder, born January 22, 2019 A PLEASANT SURPRISE: In the ultrasound pictures, they thought the baby looked like a little gremlin, Ryan says. We were even told by a doctor that he wasnt the Brad Pitt of fetuses. The first thing I said [when he was born] was, Hes actually cute. Ryan knew he loved Carrie when she volunteered, with no prompt from him, to convert to Judaism. Actually, he loved her before that, when she suggested he move into her Manayunk townhouse with its single bathroom sink. Maybe it was even earlier: the time she passed out at a funk concert, and he caught her before she hit the ground. Or perhaps love sparked the first time they met, at the music festival in Virginia, when Carrie offered to give Ryan her VIP wristband. To transfer the band without cutting it, he rubbed her wrist with cooking oil and, in the process, sneaked in a hand massage. That festival led to another music festival, which led to an official first date at Pizzeria Stella. We walked over to Manny Browns, and we closed the place down, Ryan remembers. It was constant from there. Carrie was struck by his kindness; he was impressed by her upbeat demeanor and ability to laugh at herself. Their dates didnt require an elaborate itinerary; an evening at home with take-out and movies was enough for both. So when Ryans lease was about to expire and with his Fishtown digs far from ideal, since hed been bunking on a couch in a townhouse he shared with his ex-girlfriend and two male housemates Carrie suggested he move into her place. It was snug the two of them plus Ryans pit bull mix, Louie, and Carries Boston terrier, Lenny but, if anything, it brought us closer together, Ryan says. Around the same time, Carrie broached the idea of conversion, a process that felt to her like fulfilling my destiny. The decision was a relief to Ryan, who had worried about telling his grandmother he was dating a non-Jewish woman. I said, Ive been seeing somebody, her name is Carrie, and shes converting. Once Grandma Esther gave her approval, we were good from there. They joined Reconstructionist synagogue Mishkan Shalom, and Carrie began meeting with the rabbi to learn about Jewish theology and traditions. Meanwhile, they talked about children. Ryan wanted kids, but Carrie had begun to abandon the idea as she passed age 35 without a partner. Meeting Ryan was a game-changer. They werent ready to start conceiving they werent even engaged but Carrie decided to have her eggs extracted and frozen at Society Hill Reproductive Medicine. Its a backup plan, she says of the eggs, now suspended in liquid nitrogen. Ryan proposed later that year, the day after Thanksgiving. Hed been saving ticket stubs and concert memorabilia; while Carrie was out getting a manicure, he filled the house with markers in a musical memory lane, beginning with the VIP bracelet from that first festival and ending in the basement, where Carrie found him kneeling, ring in hand, wearing a T-shirt that read Perfect Husband Material. Baby-making trumped wedding plans. After three months with no luck, they returned to the fertility clinic for one intrauterine insemination. In the meantime, Carries conversion process was nearing its finish a visit to a mikveh, a ritual bath, and an appearance before a beit din, or three-person rabbinical court, who would authorize the conversion. Carrie was morose last Mothers Day: She wasnt pregnant, and the world seemed full of joyful women and their children. But the next day, she went to the clinic for a blood test; an hour later, the nurse called with good news. By the time she visited the mikveh later that week, I was very emotional and excited. I was three weeks pregnant. Everything was coming together: all the things I had wanted and hoped for. They began planning a low-key wedding but soon found themselves awash in guest lists, catering proposals, and arguments over whether they needed enough chairs for everyone to sit. We thought, This is exactly what we didnt want to do, Ryan says. So they downsized: a small synagogue ceremony with 14 guests, followed by lunch at a Manayunk restaurant, then a weekend with friends at Curveball, a three-day Phish festival in New Yorks Finger Lakes district. But a power outage on Main Street left the restaurant shuttered, and a water contamination problem scotched the festival. Undaunted, they found another restaurant that could accommodate them on short notice, and their friends trooped upstate anyway to celebrate in a big rented house. In July, when Carrie learned the babys sex, she told Ryan by spelling out Its a boy in alphabet cookies on a tray in the oven. They took some infant care classes Ryan, a teacher of kids with special needs, found it unnerving to read about possible pregnancy complications but their general approach toward birth and parenting was, Well figure this out. Carries labor began on Jan. 21, just after the super blood wolf moon eclipse. After three hours of pushing at Lankenau Medical Center, the babys heart rate began to dip with each contraction. He was face up, the stargazer position, and the doctor called for a C-section. Ryan grasped her hand and held his breath. We heard him cry, and we both started to cry. I brought him over to her and said, Look at your new baby. Carrie recalls a woozy glimpse, then a wave of nausea from the anesthesia before she vomited. I was sad because I missed the first hour of his life; I was so loopy, and it wasnt the birth Id planned. But it was love at first sight. It still is, even when days are such an endless loop of feeding, burping, changing, pumping, and holding that she can barely manage a shower. Even when Ryan comes home from work, wanting only to plop on the couch and watch Jeopardy, but instead finds himself juggling baby care, laundry, and dinner prep. Its a different kind of selflessness, he says. A responsibility. You find strengths in yourself you didnt know you had. Former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden greets supporters during a campaign stop at the Community Oven restaurant in Hampton, N.H. Monday. Read more WASHINGTON Joe Biden has a substantial early lead over his Democratic rivals in Pennsylvania, and a double-digit edge over President Donald Trump in the critical swing state, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. The poll of the 2020 battleground suggests the former vice president has strength among voters of different age groups, political leanings, and racial demographics, and offers a warning sign for Trump. The president was also trailing or tied in hypothetical matchups with other top Democratic contenders, though the poll comes with the campaign still in its early phases. More than half of Pennsylvania voters say they are better off financially than they were in 2016. But the economy isnt giving President Donald Trump an edge in an early read of the very key Keystone State, said Mary Snow, a Quinnipiac polling analyst. Here are some key findings: Biden leads big among Dems The Scranton-born Biden has stressed his ties to Pennsylvania, and his ability to win there; this poll suggests he is off to a good start. Biden, who also leads national polls, has support from 39 percent of registered Pennsylvania Democrats, the poll found, tripling the 13 percent who back his closest rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). The results among other top Democrats were: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 8 percent California Sen. Kamala Harris, 8 percent South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 6 percent New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, 5 percent Beto ORourke, 2 percent Electability is key One reason Biden leads by so much? Democratic voters have frequently emphasized that winning is the most important thing on their minds, and the vast majority see Biden as strong against Trump. Asked who has the best chance to beat Trump, 61 percent of Democrats picked Biden. Sanders came in second, with 6 percent. An additional 21 percent said they didnt know. Democrats of all stripes in Pennsylvania agree: Whether they back Biden or not, more than 60 percent believe he has the best chance of defeating Trump in 2020, Snow said. Bidens support crosses lines of age, ideology Biden led among virtually every slice of the Democratic coalition, even younger and more liberal voters thought to be a potential weakness for him and a strength for Sanders. Among Democrats who consider themselves very liberal, 24 percent supported Biden, 23 percent backed Sanders, and 17 percent chose Warren, who held a campaign event in Philadelphia on Monday. For those aged 18 to 49, Biden led with 29 percent, compared with 27 percent for Sanders. Among Democrats aged 50 and older, Biden had 47 percent support, with Harris the second choice, at 11 percent. Sanders had 4 percent support in that age group. Trump trails early Trump trails Biden and Sanders by sizable margins in hypothetical matchups, while he is neck-and-neck with Harris, Warren, Buttigieg, and ORourke, Quinnipiac found. Sanders 50, Trump 43 Warren 47, Trump 44 Buttigieg 45, Trump 44 Trump 45, Harris 45 Trump 46, ORourke 44 The survey, though, comes before Trump has taken sustained aim at any of the candidates, and the president defied poll numbers to win the state, and the White House, in 2016. He is coming back to Pennsylvania on Monday for a rally near Williamsport, two days after Biden holds an event at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Trump strength: The economy The biggest bright spot for Trump is Pennsylvanians views of the economy: 71 percent said it was excellent or good, topping the previous high of 45 percent in February 2015. Some 77 percent described their financial situations as excellent or good. Yet many still disapprove of Trump, including 62 percent of women and 74 percent of nonwhite voters. Overall, 42 percent of voters approve of the way Trump is doing his job, against 54 percent who disapprove. The poll surveyed 978 Pennsylvania voters from May 9 to 14, and has a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points. Among the 431 registered Democrats surveyed, the margin of error is 6.2 percentage points. NORFOLK, Va., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Smithfield Foods, Inc. has donated more than 42,000 pounds of protein to the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore . Smithfields contribution was part of the companys 2019 Helping Hungry Homes donation tour. Helping Hungry Homes is Smithfields signature hunger-relief initiative focused on alleviating hunger and helping Americans become more food secure. The donation, equivalent to more than 168,000 servings, will help fight hunger throughout eastern Virginia. Since 1981, we have been leading the effort to eliminate hunger in our community by providing food for individuals in need around the eastern shore of Virginia, said Ruth Jones Nichols, chief executive officer of the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore. We could not provide this support without help from community partners like Smithfield, and we are so appreciative of this generous protein donation. This is the 25th large-scale protein donation made by Smithfield to food banks across the country during its 2019 Helping Hungry Homes tour. Since the programs inception in 2008, Smithfield has provided more than 130 million servings of protein to food banks, disaster relief efforts, and community outreach programs nationwide. At Smithfield, we are dedicated to feeding people, especially in the communities we call home, said Jonathan Toms, associate manager of charitable initiatives at Smithfield Foods. Protein donations are one way we choose to fight food insecurity and we stand together with active community partners, like the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore, to do just that. For more information about Smithfield Foods Helping Hungry Homes initiative and a list of upcoming donation events, visit helpinghungryhomes.com . About Smithfield Foods Smithfield Foods is a $15 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathans Famous, Farmland, Armour, Farmer John, Kretschmar, John Morrell, Cooks, Gwaltney, Carando, Margherita, Curlys, Healthy Ones, Morliny, Krakus, and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental, and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com , and connect with us on Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn , and Instagram . About Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore For over 35 years, the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore has provided over 290 million meals to those in our community who face hunger. Through our programs, facilities, and large network of community partners, we eliminate hunger on a daily basis for many. However, we understand that our current work addresses hunger for individuals in the short term. It does not address the root causes which force individuals to return to a food pantry again and again. This understanding has led to the creation of a new 3-year strategic plan aimed to move Hampton Roads closer to achieving the mission of eliminating hunger for those we serve not only for the day, or for the week, but for a lifetime. For up-to-date information on the Foodbank, visit www.foodbankonline.org , Facebook, or Twitter. Media Contacts: Dalton Agency for Smithfield Lauren Homrich (480) 268-3253 lhomrich@daltonagency.com The KBD Group for Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore Kelli Webb (757) 606-0281 kelliwebb@thekbdgroup.com A developers plan to transform Ardmore with a retail and housing development where two auto dealerships now stand has riled neighbors and pressed Lower Merion officials into action, suggesting tweaks to what would become the towns largest apartment complex. If approved, the complex would replace the Acura and Volkswagen dealerships on Lancaster Avenue with a six-story, mixed-use complex that would have 257 apartments, 122,990 square feet of commercial space, and 840 parking spots. Located on a highly visible and traversed section of Ardmores commercial district, the development could be a linchpin of the towns vision of an attractive, walkable downtown that abuts residential neighborhoods. Its quite attractive, Hugh Gordon, president of the North Ardmore Civic Association, said of the development. Its redbrick and a lot of glass for the retail component. Its well and thoughtfully designed. But there is worry that it would turn the town into a denser suburban metropolis. I feel like its too many units at this point, said Marie Kramer, president of the Ardmore Progressive Civic Association. "A lot of these new developments that are coming in, they are very expensive, and a lot of residents arent able to afford them. A lot of these places are going for $2,000 [a month] or more. Affordable housing is a really big issue as to why people are concerned about so much development. In keeping with their vision of a pedestrian-friendly commercial heart, township officials have suggested that the developer, Piazza Management Co., include a 10-foot sidewalk along nearby Greenfield Avenue, include on-street public parking on Lancaster Avenue that would provide traffic calming, and design the ground floor facade in such a way as to break up the mass of the building and create a street-side meeting or dining space. Their design team was very receptive to most of our design points," said Chris Leswing, director of building and planning for Lower Merion, the first suburban town in Pennsylvania to adopt a formal zoning code. "It was reflecting good urbanism. George W. Broseman, a zoning and land-use lawyer listed as the applicant for the plan, did not respond to requests for comment. Township officials say they have made a concerted effort to revamp downtown Ardmore, which has 30- to 40-year-old buildings that werent built to last. Part of those efforts have been proposed changes to the zoning code, which among dozens of other changes small and sweeping includes the suggestion to cap the height of future buildings at less than 65 feet tall in an effort to keep new architecture more congruous with existing structures. The amendments to the code have grabbed the attention of hundreds of residents who have packed informational meetings for months. Town officials have touted the proposed zoning changes in the last few months as sweeping measures that they hope will help revitalize Ardmores commercial heart and other neighborhoods in Lower Merion by making them pedestrian-friendly communal spaces. What we are doing is modernizing and developing," Leswing said. Blocky structures, particularly along Ardmores central business district on Lancaster Avenue, have fallen into disrepair since they were built in the 1960s and 70s. Poor design contributed to headache-inducing traffic and areas inaccessible by foot. And after a while, Lower Merion officials, displeased with what they saw as an inefficient and less-than-attractive downtown, thought it was time for a change. We like commercial uses," Leswing said. "We like a vibrant downtown. The township has until June 30 to decide on the future of the Piazza development, which would be grandfathered under the current zoning code but is being asked to comply with the townships zoning and design requests. New zoning stipulations for future building projects could be adopted as early as July 31, Leswing said. You cant just freeze things," he said. "Things are always going to grow. How can you manage that growth? Pushing for a swifter federal response to drinking water contamination caused by PFAS chemicals in Pennsylvania and other states, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D., Pa.) spoke with Rep. Paul Tonko (D., N.Y.) and Rep. Dan Kildee (D., Mich.), right, in Upper Dublin Township on May 6. Tonko chaired Wednesday's hearing in Congress on PFAS legislation. Read more Congress needs to get actively involved in addressing a contamination crisis that may affect the drinking water of 19 million Americans, the chair of a House subcommittee said Wednesday at the first legislative hearing on PFAS. More than a dozen bills have been proposed aiming to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate PFAS, the harmful chemicals that have tainted drinking water in Bucks and Montgomery Counties and other communities across the country. Proposals include requiring the EPA to set a safe drinking-water standard in the near future, forcing the Department of Defense to clean up contamination caused by its sites, and providing funds, testing and other aid for communities dealing with the issue. >>> Read more: PFAS water-contamination bills will get a hearing in Congress. Read up on whats proposed. These chemicals are remarkably persistent in the environment and increasingly toxic and dangerous to human health even in very small concentrations, said Rep. Paul Tonko (D., N.Y.), chairman of the environment and climate change subcommittee, which will consider 13 PFAS bills. Congress needs to be actively involved to ensure the protection of Americans health. Members of Congress from Pennsylvania and other states have vowed to compel the federal government to act, increasing calls for a swift response since the EPA released a plan in February that indicated it would take several years to set a safe drinking-water standard for PFAS. The hearing was a first step toward passing any PFAS-related bills, something Democratic lawmakers appearing in Montgomery County last week said they believed was possible and had the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). EPA has given us little reason for confidence that they will act with the urgency that impacted communities now know is needed, Tonko said. Even on the most aggressive timeline, regulatory action will take years." On Wednesday, subcommittee Republicans said they were open to discussing the bills and understood the desire for action. Some, however, questioned the idea of passing laws to circumvent the EPAs regulatory process and theorized that could cause lawsuits, slow down cleanup, and distract the EPA from other issues. I am not a fan of rushing to install broad-based major changes to federal law at a time when high levels of anxiety exceed what we know, said Rep. John Shimkus (R., Ill.). I believe we should not make shortcuts in the law while EPA is taking steps based upon solid scientific data to make regulatory decisions. Studies have linked PFAS to thyroid disease, asthma, decreased antibody response to vaccines, decreased fertility, decreased birth weight, preeclampsia and hypertension during pregnancy, and kidney and testicular cancer, said Jamie DeWitt, a scientist and researcher at East Carolina University who has studied the health effects of PFAS since 2005. Scientists suspect PFAS take even longer to break down in the environment than the banned insecticide DDT, DeWitt said. But when PFAS have been removed from the environment, researchers have seen a decrease in chemical levels in humans living in the area. With nearly 5,000 types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, scientists and advocates have recommended regulating PFAS as a class rather than treating each chemical individually. Some objected to that idea, arguing that not enough is known about PFAS and that it may not be necessary to regulate all of them. That question could become a key topic in debating the bills. With so many chemicals under the PFAS umbrella is there concern the EPA could unintentionally focus its time and effort on low-risk chemicals? asked Rep. Bill Johnson (R., Ohio). Yes, Jane Luxton, a Washington lawyer who specializes in environmental regulation, told the subcommittee. To just sort of impose blanket bans is highly risky. It risks over-correcting and changing, diluting, the priorities that need to be focused on the highest risks, she said. Those who focus on health effects disagreed. How could we possibly regulate these one by one? If youve got 4,700 chemicals and it takes EPA years to regulate a single chemical, how many millennia is it going to take to regulate thousands of chemicals?" said Erik Olson, head of the health team at the Natural Resources Defense Council. We know that they share common properties, and we know that they are causing adverse effects in too many cases. Said Emily Marpe, a mother of three whose private well in New York state was highly contaminated with PFAS: It shouldnt be cost over human health. Nobody should go through what we went through. Philadelphia-based influencer Katerina Seigel partners with brands to promote products on her popular blog and social accounts. On the right, she's modeling a dress from BHLDN, URBN's bridal retailer. Read more Some people have jobs that make you jealous: product testers, travel writers, people who eat ice cream for a living. And then there are the influencers: those who get paid to look glamorous and hock goods to their millions of followers on Instagram. Easy work if you can get it, right? After all, besides receiving free stuff and putting filters on photos, what do these people do all day? The answer, some of Philadelphias most followed Instagram influencers say, is not much different from a lot of 9-to-5 jobs. For one, they send emails. Every time you pitch, said Philadelphia influencer Katerina Seigel, 24, of working with brands, theres 50 emails to determine what theyre looking for, what product they want to push, what fits for your brand. What these jobs are not is lazy and frivolous, said Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor in Cornell Universitys department of communication, who recently wrote (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, a book based on her interviews with dozens of influencers. In fact, she writes, the perception that influencers the majority women dont have real jobs is part of how patriarchal culture has systematically devalued various forms of womens work, whether its fashion blogging or nannying, Instagramming or caretaking. Influencer culture is seen as a 17-year-old girl doing things and posting photos, and that obscures the wide variety of content creators in various niches," Duffy said. Content creation broadly, and especially on Instagram, which is recognized as idealized, suggest a performance of a lifestyle that belies the labor that it entails. Seigel (niche: fashion and plant-based food, followers: 54,300) put it simply: Youre supposed to look effortless." Yet its anything but, said Seigel, who, post-college, spent a few years working for other companies doing social media and stock photography. In reality, influencers employ dozens of professional skills. After the emails (pitching) and figuring out the best partnerships (brand building), influencers work with companies to determine the mission (goal setting). Then its agreeing on a price (salary negotiation) and trading contracts (learning legalese). Then its picking an outfit (styling), finding a location (scouting), and tracking the weather. (Direct sunlight or a tiny bit of rain could render any days photo shoot out of the question.) Then: shooting dozens of photos, editing them, brainstorming the perfect caption, getting approval for the caption, rewriting said caption, determining when to post, and posting. After which its spending hours responding to the hundreds of OMG where can I find this shirt in Illinois? comments on the photo, not to mention playing whack-a-troll and blocking abusive haters. Finally, its interpreting the analytics and sending them to the brand, and hoping the number of likes and comments is sufficient for that brand to want to hire you to post a photo of their shirt again. Iesha Vincent (niche: petite fashion and luxury lifestyle, followers: 105K) said some people in her life dont see what she does as a business. But she said last year she made more money through the 30 hours she works each week on her blog and Instagram Living Lesh than she did in her day job as a teacher at Muhlenberg High School in Reading. Vincent, 27, who lives in Pottstown, said theres a natural limit to how much money she can make. If she blogs three times a week, and more than five posts a month are sponsored (read: paid for by the brand), her authenticity could take a hit. She could probably take on more deals if she went full time, but Vincent, whos pregnant with her first child, said shes not ready to leave the stability of teaching. The influencer space fluctuates so much, she said. You can have a month of four or five brand deals and then have a month where nothing comes in. For influencers at the top of their game, it can be lucrative. Celebrities who are prolific on Instagram (such as the Jenner/Kardashian clan) are rumored to make a million dollars for a single post. Thats not the reality for most. Influencers on Instagram with millions of followers took years to get to that point. The most successful content creators in Philadelphia are generally microinfluencers, or influencers with a half-million or fewer followers. They can make $40,000 to $100,000 a year, the head of an influencer branding agency told Vox. >> READ MORE: How can a fashion influencer turn perks into pay? Influencers interviewed for this story were reluctant to share their rates publicly and certainly in an article with other influencers in the same market. If their rates look higher than competitors', brands may go elsewhere. But if they give rates that seem low, they risk cheapening their brand and making their followers think theyre sell-outs. What a company is willing to pay an influencer varies greatly, said Michelle Conron, who leads the influencer marketing division at Philadelphia branding agency Cashman & Associates. She said its important a person has authentic engagement (not just comments from their friends and bots) and that they mesh well with the brand theyre promoting. We want to foster a genuine connection, Conron said. It doesnt work if theres not alignment on both sides. Thats true for the influencer, as well: A tire company might offer $1,000 for an Instagram post, but does that really make sense for an account meant for skincare tips? When I first started, I would get really excited if anyone reached out, said Philadelphia-based influencer Priyanka Setty (niche: boho chic fashion, followers: 10.8K). But now I want brands that I love or would fit into the things that I share. Setty, who has a full-time job in public relations, said she spends about 20 hours a week on building her brand. Theres also plenty of misinformation about money. Theres an Internet rumor that Bethlehem, Pa.-based influencer Kenny Screven is worth $2 million. The makeup blogger and Instagram influencer says hes doing well for himself. He makes enough to live comfortably. He has expensive taste. And he is not worth $2 million. Screven (niche: makeup and LGBTQ advocacy, followers: 137K) said he consistently hears that what hes doing posting photos on Instagram about makeup and vlogging on YouTube is easy work. He gets it. Some days, he feels lucky to have a full-time job such as this. Other days, he feels as if hes fighting for relevance, always thinking of the next it thing and worrying hes going to miss it. As far as beauty, said Screven, 24, Im not getting any younger, and I need to capitalize now. He knows thats vain. So he has used his platform for good, creating free makeup starter kits for transgender women out of the products sent to him by agencies, and he recently launched Silk After Dark, a support group for young LGBTQ people of color in the Lehigh Valley. He hopes his followers see beyond the contour to his IRL work in the community. Id rather do something like that, he said, than worry about how perfect I look in my selfies. Ligia Ramirez-Maldonado, left, Tala Ayyad, and Nasair Boston-Epps at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia on Wednesday, May 15, 2019, for a trauma survivors event. Read more Tala Ayyad was walking across Arch Street near Third in Old City last October when a motorist driving the wrong way rammed into her. Her body flew up, her head hit the windshield, and after the driver allegedly accelerated, she repeatedly flipped in the air before landing. Seven months later, the 33-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative recalled Wednesday how she nearly lost her life and found a road to recovery. After being treated at Hahnemann University Hospital, she was transferred to Magee Rehabilitation. I remember at Magee, when they made me step out, I smell the air, and it just feels different, she said. I looked at the colors around the room, and they feel different. And water tastes more fresh. The little things I used to ignore in the past, I notice differently. And my perspective in life has changed, and I love life and the world even more. Ayyad was one of three trauma victims who spoke at a Hahnemann event Wednesday in recognition of National Trauma Survivors Day. Ligia Ramirez-Maldonado, 62, who was injured by a hit-and-run driver in December, and Nasair Boston-Epps, 18, struck in the abdomen by a bullet while waiting at a North Philadelphia bus stop in February 2018, also smiled on this day months after they were severely injured. Wearing a blue helmet to protect her head (part of her skull had to be removed because of brain inflammation, then an infection), Ayyad recalled being induced into a coma at Hahnemann for 12 days, her parents coming up from South Carolina, and the hospitals trauma staff giving her and her family hope. The driver accused of hitting her and then fleeing, James Lambadarios, faces a July 15 trial on charges of leaving the scene of an accident, driving under the influence, aggravated assault, and related offenses. Lambadarios, 36, currently in custody, is being represented by the Defender Association of Philadelphia. A spokesperson said Wednesday that the office would not comment. Boston-Epps, a senior at Philadelphia Military Academy in North Philadelphia, said hes looking forward to graduation. Tomorrows my prom, he said. I would not be here without Hahnemann Hospital. He thanked trauma surgeon Alberto Nunez. After speaking to the packed room of dozens of people, mostly hospital staff, he told The Inquirer that hes taking his sister Renae Tillman, 20, to prom. He recalled waiting at a bus stop on Feb. 2, 2018, to head to his job at a McDonalds when he was shot. Boston-Epps was the captain of the Nomads, a rugby team of Philadelphia public high schoolers. A police spokesperson said Wednesday that no one has been arrested in the shooting at 22nd and Dauphin Streets. Ramirez-Maldonados hit-and-run driver has not been arrested, she said. She had been crossing Aramingo Avenue near Cambria Street in Port Richmond on Dec. 4 when an SUV driver struck her, then fled. Marcin Jankowski, Hahnemanns trauma medical director, said Ramirez-Maldonado suffered severe spinal cord and other injuries and several broken bones. Im very, very, very, very, very happy Im here for my daughters, Ramirez-Maldonado said, standing with the two girls, Keisy Morales, 17, and Siraily Rivera, 9. Yes, Im a stronger woman, she said. Yes, a superwoman, Siraily chimed in. Reputed mobster Phil Narducci, co-owner of Chick's gastropub in South Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to federal loan-sharking charges. As part of a deal struck with prosecutors, he will serve 12 months and 1 day in prison if a judge signs off on the agreement in September. Read more Reputed mob enforcer turned restaurateur Philip Narducci pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal loan-sharking charges and in an unusual move, asked a judge to end his bail early and allow him to return to prison right away. As part of a deal with prosecutors, the bald and burly 56-year-old agreed to serve 12 months and one day behind bars. Should the judge accept that agreement at a sentencing hearing scheduled for September, the alleged mobster better known these days as co-owner of the Washington Avenue gastropub Chicks will have dodged a maximum prison term of 20 years on each of the two counts he faced. They made him an offer he couldnt refuse, said Narduccis lawyer, Brian J. McMonagle. Still, Narduccis unusual request to begin serving that sentence before it even was imposed initially left U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Savage perplexed. How would that work with the Bureau of Prisons? the judge asked. Hed show up, and theyre going to throw him out. Eventually, it was determined that Narducci could surrender Monday and begin earning credit for time served. The sooner he goes in, the sooner he gets out, McMonagle said. He wants to get back to work. Narduccis guilty plea comes less than four months after prosecutors accused him and a codefendant of repeatedly threatening violence against a South Philadelphia barber who owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of their efforts to collect were caught on an FBI wire. From the start, the defense vowed that Narduccis chief accuser faced serious credibility issues that could sink his testimony at trial. They revealed in court filings last month that the man was a Lebanese national and frequent federal informant who once was found by a judge to have lied about his association with a group linked to the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah. Prosecutors declined to say Wednesday whether the prospect of exposing their star witness to cross-examination on his past influenced their deal with Narducci. But McMonagle said the offer came within hours of a hearing last month on how much he would be allowed to delve into that history at trial. The deal shaved roughly five years off what Narducci might have faced under federal sentencing guidelines had he lost at trial. Even then, his sentence could have been greater considering his extensive criminal history. A former member of Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfos crew, Narducci has spent more than half of his life in prison for Mafia-related crimes. Prosecutors say they have tied him to at least three notorious gangland slayings, including the 1985 hit on Frank Frankie Flowers DAlfonso. A jury convicted him of that murder in 1989, but the verdict was overturned on appeal, and a second trial ended in acquittal. Narducci vows he has gone straight since his release from prison on racketeering charges in 2012. These days, he says, he spends most of his time managing Chicks, named after his father, purported mob captain Frank Chickie Narducci Sr. It was there that he first met his accuser in his current loan-sharking case. Narducci maintains the man conned him and played on his sympathies by asking for money for an organ transplant for his mother, which he actually frittered away through gambling. When he couldnt repay his debts, the man turned to the FBI to bail him out. But regardless of the circumstances of that loan, Narducci admitted Wednesday to a string of assaults and threats to collect what he was owed. In late 2018, he dragged the borrower into the back room at Chicks and began shouting and shoving him around. When the victim tried to leave, Narducci threw him against a car, shoved his face into the windshield, accused him of being a rat, and told him to go cry to the FBI. The man did, and over the next several months recorded several threats made by a Narducci associate, James Gallo, 44, who also pleaded guilty Wednesday. Hes a killer, you idiot, Gallo said of Narducci on one of the recordings quoted in court filings. Hes killed eight people. As Narducci left the courtroom Wednesday, his lawyer said he was ready to move on from his past. Hes done with this stuff, McMonagle said. His goal is to get back to the restaurant and his business and allow it to continue to thrive. A 45-year-old man accused of killing a 22-month-old boy in Bucks County last year was arrested Wednesday morning in Florida, authorities said. Shawn Robert Felmey was taken into custody in Melbourne, Fla., by Falls Township police and Bucks County detectives assisted by local police. He faces counts of criminal homicide and endangering the welfare of a child in the Dec. 18 death by head trauma of Brandon Warner. The boy, who died of head trauma, was most likely thrown or swung by an adult onto the floor of the basement of the Commons at Fallsington apartment where the boy lived with his family and Felmey, authorities said. Family members told investigators that they saw the boy with unexplained bruises on his head for several months before his death. Authorities said Felmeys story changed over time, at one point saying the boy could have fallen from his arms onto the floor. The boy had a twin brother who died last year, reportedly of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. President Trump speaks at the 38th Annual National Peace Officers Memorial Service on the West Lawn of the Capitol Building on Wednesday. He criticized prosecutors in Philadelphia and Chicago as not going after dangerous criminals. Read more An ongoing, ill-tempered battle between President Donald Trump and the City of Philadelphia flared again on Wednesday when the chief executive used a Capitol Hill ceremony for fallen police officers to assert that local prosecutors dont go after "criminals who pose a severe threat to public safety and community well-being. The president made specific reference to the case of Jovaun Patterson, 29, a would-be robber who shot and critically wounded a West Philadelphia beer-deli owner in May 2018. In November, Patterson was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison as part of a plea deal that was approved by prosecutors and that stunned the victim. Last year, in Philadelphia, a robber shot and gravely injured a deli owner, Trump said, not mentioning the names of those involved. "He was a good man. Hell never be the same. But he may serve this criminal a sentence that is very short. In fact, theyre looking at about three years, if you can believe this. Three years. Under the plea agreement, the District Attorneys Office dropped attempted murder and other charges. Patterson, of the 5400 block of Delancey Street in West Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, robbery, and possession of an instrument of crime. The court hearing took about two minutes, and the victim and his family complained that they had received no prior notification. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner issued a statement Thursday in response to the president: As a prosecutor, he said, "Im used to being criticized by criminals. Donald Trump is invited to debate criminal-justice reform with me in Philadelphia, where Police Department statistics show violent crime remains down 5 percent since we took office. Warning, Mr. Trump: We will be using facts! The Kenney administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The city and the president have battled on multiple fronts. Philadelphias status as a sanctuary city for immigrants seems to have grated on Trump. Philadelphia officials fought and won a lawsuit last June over the Trump administrations attempt to withhold government law-enforcement money unless the city agreed to help enforce federal immigration laws. When the president disinvited the Super-Bowl-winning Eagles from the White House, Mayor Jim Kenney responded by calling Trump a fragile egomanic" who was afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party which no one wants to attend. On Wednesday, at the 38th annual memorial service honoring peace officers who died in the line of duty last year there were 228 Trump pledged to their families that the country will never, ever leave your side, never disappoint you. But he went beyond memorializing. He singled out prosecutors in Philadelphia and Chicago as part of a dangerous trend of deciding not to prosecute criminals. He provided scant context for that claim. Earlier this year, in announcing a federal indictment in a Philadelphia case, U.S. Attorney William McSwain said Krasners policies included giving sweetheart deals to violent defendants, which embolden criminals to think they can literally get away with murder. This article contains information from the Associated Press. Philadelphia has the highest local wage tax in the country and the city relies on it for about 44 percent of its annual revenue. No other jurisdiction comes particularly close in levying a wage or income tax at the local level at such rates, said Jared Walczak, a senior policy analyst for the Tax Foundation. The tax rate, currently 3.8809 percent for Philadelphia residents and 3.4567 percent for nonresidents who work in the city, gets reduced a little bit every year. But dont expect big savings for someone with a $50,000 salary, the reductions planned for fiscal year 2020 would mean about $5 less in wage taxes. The rates are expected to decrease by a quarter of a percent, beginning July 1. A reader asked about the wage tax through Curious Philly, a forum through which Inquirer reporters answer questions. So heres everything you need to know about the tax, planned reductions in its rates, and arguments for and against more dramatic changes. Why is Philadelphia so reliant on the wage tax? In 1939, Philadelphia became the first city nationwide to implement a wage tax, at a rate of 1.5 percent. The tax was made possible by the Sterling Act, a Depression-era state law that allowed the city to earn revenue by passing special taxes. The wage tax grew over time, reaching its highest rate of 4.96 percent for residents in 1985. The city first reduced it in 1995 under Mayor Ed Rendell, who said at the time that cuts were needed to make Philadelphia competitive and encourage job growth. Small reductions, along with cuts to the net income portion of the Business Income and Receipts Tax, have continued. But it remains the highest in the nation; New York Citys top rate, paid by the highest earners, is slightly lower than the current resident rate in Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA), established in 1991 to help the city recover from a financial crisis, operates by collecting a 1.5 percent wage tax that is part of the citys overall rate. PICA functions as an oversight agency and approves the citys five-year plan annually. What is public opinion of the tax? A recent survey conducted for The Inquirer by SurveyUSA found that Philadelphia registered voters are split on whether the tax should change. Asked whether it should stay the same, increase, decrease, or be eliminated, 34 percent of respondents said it should stay the same, while 30 percent said it should decrease, and 20 percent want it eliminated. The wage tax has long been considered a possible factor in driving businesses and residents away from the city. Our rates, they are high, theyre kind of spooky for anyone who wants to come here, Finance Director Rob Dubow said at a City Council hearing this month. So reducing the rate is important, and even if the reduction in a single year isnt really large, its part of a continued commitment, and over the years those incremental reductions have added up to something major. Why not make a larger reduction in the wage tax? Because wage-tax collections are such a large portion of the citys revenue, Dubow said, reducing it more than a fraction of a percentage per year would be a strain to the citys budget. Its always a balancing act between how much money you want to commit to wage-tax reduction and how much you want to commit to various initiatives we have in our five-year plan, he said. The planned reductions in the five-year plan in the wage and business taxes will result in losing an estimated $136 million in revenue through fiscal year 2024, according to city spokesperson Mike Dunn. A more drastic change, as many officials and local leaders have long called for, would require a rethinking of the citys tax structure. A different tax structure wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing for the city budget, Budget Director Anna Adams told Council members. Weve seen during the recession that if were too dependent on a highly volatile tax it also causes some instability," she said. So I think trying to get that balance between more stable taxes like property tax and a more volatile tax like business and wage tax is something that we need to probably strike a better balance than we have. There are also arguments for and against changing the wage tax. Councilman Allan Domb said the high taxes deter businesses from coming into the city and can cause people to move to the suburbs. Councilwoman Helen Gym pushed back on those arguments at last weeks budget hearing, saying it would be unrealistic to replace the wage tax entirely by taxes on Philadelphia residents, such as the property tax. Many people who work here live in other places, but they take the benefits of our city, she said, such as using public transit, driving on roads that are in need of upkeep, and relying on police services. Are there other proposals to rethink the citys taxes? The city is reviewing its tax incentives to determine if they could be changed to better stimulate job growth. Domb said he thinks tax incentives are just attempts to offer relief from the high tax burden. Is there an appetite in the administration to deal with the cure vs. the Band-Aid? Domb asked at last weeks budget hearing. The real cure is the city wage tax. ... Unless were going to attack these issues were going to keep having Band-Aids. Dubow agreed that the study of tax incentives is worthwhile and raises a legitimate question: Would we be better off with lower [tax] rates and fewer incentives? Why have past proposals for reform failed? Over the years, proposed tax reforms have failed to come to fruition. Center City District president Paul Levy and Gerard Sweeney, president and CEO of Brandywine Realty Trust, proposed imposing a higher tax rate for commercial properties than for residential properties, and would use it to offset lower wage and business-income and receipts taxes. Levy and Sweeneys plan would have required an exception to state law requiring tax rates to be uniform. A bill to do that failed to get traction in Harrisburg last year. The states uniformity clause is often cited as a roadblock to tax reform in Philadelphia, especially when comparing its tax structure with other big cities. In a growth plan announced this month, Mayor Jim Kenney said working with state lawmakers to change the uniformity clause is a priority. What about municipalities outside the city? Most other municipalities in Pennsylvania have a 1 percent cap on earned income tax rates. And many officials in counties and towns outside of Philadelphia are not fond of the citys wage tax. Thats because other municipalities cant collect income tax money from residents who work in Philadelphia. If a resident works in one municipality but lives in another, the town where the person works sends the earned income tax payment back to the town of residence. But Philadelphia keeps the taxes paid by nonresidents. Officials in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware Counties have lobbied to change state law so they can recoup that money, but Philadelphia officials have opposed such a change. Fouad Yosrey Shalaby, 67, of Newtown, a pharmaceutical research scientist, died Friday, May 10, of cancer at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne. Dr. Shalaby battled cancer for more than two years with toughness and dignity, his family wrote in a tribute. Through chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, and immunotherapy, he did not let the cancer define him, his family said. Dr. Shalaby was born in Cairo to Youssef Shalaby and Fatma Ramadan. He immigrated to the United States in 1983 at age 32 because he couldnt find the academic training and job opportunities to adequately provide for his family in Egypt, his family said. He began his studies in science at Ain Shams University in Cairo and, once in the United States, completed a doctorate in 1989 in cellular and molecular biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Some of his post-doctoral research was published in the scientific journals Cell and Nature. Starting in 1995, he spent 14 years as a research scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Lawrence Township, N.J., where he focused on drug discovery and development. His research had therapeutic applications to cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, as well as to the fields of oncology and immunology. From 2009 to 2012, he returned to Cairo to take a job as chief scientific officer and medical writer for the Scientific Development & Biomedical Research Corp. He helped design studies and wrote case reports for publication by MerckSerono researchers. One assignment was to prepare for the 2011 conference of the International Diabetes Foundation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Once back in the United States in 2012, he ran a home consulting business as a science writer and communications specialist. He was also a part-time chemistry professor at Bucks County Community College, Newtown. On www.ratemyprofessors.com, students registered positive opinions of Dr. Shalabys chemistry class. I struggled with chemistry a lot in the past, wrote one last December, but after I took his class, he made it very easy and clear. He cares a lot about doing good in this class. He would repeat the material 1,000 times, if needed, just to make sure his students understand. Dr. Shalabys defining trait was being an independent thinker, his family said: It was that spirit that drove both his passion for science and his desire to seek out a life in America. He frequently challenged accepted norms in the way he lived his life. This could be uncomfortable at times, and he was by no means popular with everyone. But mostly people were drawn to his endearing qualities. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Iman Kassem; sons Bassel and Omar; a grandson; and five siblings. A funeral prayer was said Saturday, May 11, at the Islamic Society of Central Jersey in Monmouth Junction. Interment was in Beulah Cemetery, New Britain. Memorial donations may be made to the American Cancer Society via https://www.cancer.org/. Aramark Global Headquarters (front) at 2400 Market St. and the skyline of Center City Philadelphia including the Comcast Technology Center, Comcast Center, PECO building and Liberty Place on April 29. Corporations like Aramark and Comcast should be taxed for the public good, says Penn professor Harvey Rubin. Read more As 2020 approaches, the crowded field of candidates and onlookers are proposing all manner of economic plans designed to increase productivity, encourage competition, decrease wealth disparity, and promote social good. While all may be well-intended, they also have inevitably ignited firestorms of opposing positions accompanied by name calling and denials. For example, when BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, whose firm manages $6 trillion in assets, called for social responsibility in a letter to his compatriots, some critics labeled his plan a form of corporate socialism. Sen. Elizabeth Warrens suggested 7% surcharge on corporations earning more than $100 million was referred to by one conservative publication as the next part of her plan to destroy the economy. Enough squabbling already. Isnt it time to consider a real win-win corporate-tax proposal that for the good of the country can be embraced by consumers, politicians, the wealthiest U.S. businesses, and even those who have been most resistant to change? Here is such a proposal, versions of which have worked elsewhere, and deserves a chance at success. The proposed model calls for participation by every corporation with revenues of greater than $500 million an arbitrary cap meant to include the highest-earning companies. There would be no opting out. These corporations would develop a public-private partnership, designed for social impact, that aligns with corporate goals, such as infrastructure development, job creation, advancing UN sustainable development goals, or new technologies aimed at meeting medical or social needs. The partnerships achieve a goal best identified by the corporate executives and corporate employees. A team of executives, employees, and impartial outside judges will rank the projects evaluating impact, feasibility, and financial metrics according to the social and environmental return on investments. The Impact Reporting Investment Standards developed by the nonprofit Global Impact Investing Network in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Rockefeller Foundation, and JP Morgan Chase is one example of such standards corporations can use. The unique aspect of the contest is that winning projects must be underwritten with corporate funds based on corporate profits, maxing out at say, 7 percent. The contest engages executives and empowers employees, and they all share ownership and agency. Consider this as enforced corporate social responsibility, coupled with positive return on investment. India is trying something like this, without the profit component and with some success. Companies in India with a net worth of Rupees 500 crore (approx. 71 million USD) or a net profit of Rupees 5 crore (approx. 700,000 USD) program are mandated by law to spend 2 percent of average net corporate profits of the preceding three years on topics including: arts and culture, improvements in rural areas, environmental sustainability, health and sanitation, education, and gender equality. True, many large organizations already have corporate foundations which can have substantial impact. But those arguably exist so the organization can enhance their brand, avoid non-strategic giving, and fund the foundation as a justifiable cost of doing business, which is charged against profits. Legal structures exist in certain states for new corporate entities that have social benefit as a major mission, such as the low-profit limited liability companies (L3Cs), benefit corporations (B-Corps), and flexible purpose corporations (FPCs). However, the public-private partnership/impact investment program proposed here creates new businesses and new jobs and generates new wealth, which is quite different in its intent and governance structure from the corporate foundation and the corporate social responsibility funds. The Philadelphia region is home to 12 corporations on the 2018 Fortune 500 list: AmerisourceBergen, Comcast, DowDuPont, Aramark, Lincoln National, Universal Health Services, Crown Holdings, Campbell Soup, UGI, Burlington, Chemours, and Toll Brothers. These corporations alone have hundreds of billions of dollars in total revenues with close to three-quarters of a million employees a powerful combination of human ingenuity and financial capital that together, properly motivated, can solve local, national, and international problems. The enterprise described here actually becomes a profit center for such companies while channeling capital and talent to improve the human condition. It is not charity. Corporate moguls will not fear that an additional 7 percent tax on profits will fall into the black hole of the federal budget. They will proudly announce to their board of directors that they carefully selected the partnerships with iron-clad metrics, nurtured by their combined corporate expertise and passion. The executives and employees will generate positive social and financial returns. Corporate pride, morale, and productivity will go up and communities in great need will enjoy the benefits. It is a corporate tax everyone can love. Harvey Rubin, M.D., Ph.D. is professor of medicine and computer science at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of the international NGO, Energize the Chain. JOHNSON CITY, Tenn., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ballad Health today announced quality, investment and financial results from its first nine months of the fiscal year, and quarterly results for the third quarter. Ballad Healths third quarter operational performance was strong due to the focus by our team members and affiliated physicians on delivering excellent care while being good stewards of these important health care institutions, said Alan Levine, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Ballad Health. I am proud of the focus on quality and collaboration with the community, and we continue to see that improved quality leads to lower cost and positive financial performance for our health system. Ballad Health last week announced a $10 million investment into increasing direct care nursing and nursing support salaries, a direct result of improved financial performance. Since the productivity of our nursing staff has been a major contributor to our success, we believe it is appropriate to reinvest in our nurses and those who support them in direct patient care, said Levine. The board of directors of Ballad Health is pleased with the operating performance of our regions health system, and in particular, with the focus on quality and outcomes, said David Lester, a member of the board of directors and lead independent director. Our board and management team remain focused on implementing the vision of the merger. While this task is not always easy, as board members we want the best for our region. Compliance with the regulatory terms of the merger, and community collaboration Last week, the Tennessee Department of Health released its annual report of the Terms of Certification of the merger that created Ballad Health. The state reported that Ballad Health is in compliance with the Terms of Certification. Among the health systems successes, the state noted: Ballad Healths prompt compliance with the states requests for data and information; Hospitals which were under threat of closure remain open, countering a widely reported national trend of rural hospital closures; Fewer layoffs than expected; Compliance with reporting requirements; Thorough responses to compliance inquiries from the Ballad Health compliance functions; Innovative and successful solutions to consolidation of hospitals in a market that had previously seen more than $70 million in operating losses in the five years prior to the merger; and Submission of plans with bold approaches to improving population health, childrens health, behavioral health access, rural health access, region-wide health information exchange, health graduate research, and graduate medical education in the region. Importantly, the Tennessee Department of Health stated it is particularly impressed by the Accountable Care Community that Ballad Health is playing a lead role in establishing in the region. Ballad Health has facilitated what may be the nations largest Accountable Care Community ACC, spanning two states. The ACC reflects involvement from more than 200 local community organizations, churches, businesses and not-for-profits, and is poised to partner with Ballad Health, the State of Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Virginia to identify key opportunities for improving the health of the community. This collaboration is the direct result of Ballad Healths investment into the creation of a dedicated population health department, led by experts in public health and community outreach. This infrastructure was agreed to in the Terms of Certification, and was one of the first accomplishments of Ballad Health. In addition to the creation of this innovative collaboration, Ballad Health also remains focused on qualitative improvements in care. Led by the Ballad Health Clinical Council a group comprising dozens of physicians from throughout the region Ballad Health has implemented a number of initiatives that have led to the reduction of hospital acquired conditions. Key successes of the Clinical Council include: Pressure ulcer rates have declined by as much as 17% Iatrogenic pneumothorax rate has declined by as much as 58% Central venous catheter-related blood stream infection rate has declined as much as 40% Perioperative hemorrhage or hematoma rate has declined by as much as 65% Postoperative respiratory failure rate has declined as much as 44% Clostridium Difficile rate has declined by as much as 41% Postoperative sepsis rate has declined by as much as 70% Inpatient opioid administration rate has declined by as much as 36% Median time from ED arrival to departure has improved by as much as 13% Median time from ED arrival to transport for admitted patients improved by as much as 30% Patients who reported their nurses always communicated well improved by as much as 8% The efforts to deliver high quality are always ongoing, and while the results may change from month to month, we are clearly seeing trends which are favorable, said Levine. Ballad Healths Clinical Council, a system-wide physician-led effort to help Ballad Health excel in improved quality, reduced cost and increased physician engagement, has taken active participation in prioritizing Ballad Health becoming a top-decile, zero harm health system in the nation. Chaired by Dr. Amit Vashist, the Clinical Council has already led the health system to recognition for its efforts in value-based services. Ballad Health was selected by the High Value-Care Collaborative to participate with leading health systems to adopt strategies that will reduce unnecessary cost and deliver evidence-based care demonstrated to reduce the burden on patients. The High Value-Care Collaborative is a joint project between the American Hospital Association, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundations Choosing Wisely Campaign and the Costs of Care organization. Financial strength We know that in order to fulfill the vision of Ballad Health to truly become a health improvement organization for our region we must be strong stewards of our resources, especially given the headwinds all providers are facing, said Levine. We are pleased by the strong financial performance improvements over the past three quarters and will strive to continue to improve. Quarterly highlights include: Operating cash flow (Operating EBITDA) for the quarter improved to $55.5 million from $46.7 million in the same quarter prior year, an 18.7 percent increase. Total cash flow (EBITDA) improved to $44.1 million versus $40.3 million in the same quarter prior year, a 9.3 percent increase. Revenue for the quarter increased by 1.4 percent, while expenses decreased by 0.2 percent - leading to an improvement in the operating margins for the health system. Operating margin improved significantly to 1.3 percent compared to (0.2) percent for the same quarter last year. EBITDA margin improved 7.9 percent in the prior year quarter to 8.6 percent in the current year quarter. Ballad Healths financial performance improved in the quarter due to exceptional expense management, including a 31.3 percent reduction in the use of contract or temporary labor, improvements in productivity and focused supply cost management. Ballad Health invested $266.3 million into the regions labor force, making a major economic impact. Nine-month highlights include: For the nine months ended December 31, 2018, operating cash flow improved to $158.7 million from $141.4 million in the prior year, a 12.2 percent improvement. Total cash flow (EBITDA) improved to $169.4 million versus $145 million in the same period prior year, a 16.8 percent increase. Revenue for the nine months increased by 1.3 percent, while expenses increased by 0.4 percent leading to an improvement in the operating margins for the health system from 0.0 percent to 0.9 percent. The EBITDA margin improved from 9.6 percent in the prior year to 11.1 percent in the current year. Operating income for the nine month period improved to $13.7 million from $(0.405) million in the same period prior year. Ballad Healths improved financial performance for the year follows dedicated expense management, improvements in productivity and focused supply cost management. Ballad Healths investment into the regions labor force continues to be powerful, with Ballad Health expected to spend more than $1 billion on the regions labor force in the fiscal year. These improvements are in spite of challenges both reflective of what all providers are facing and also some that are unique to Ballad Health and the region. These challenges include: Ballad Health continues to see a trend of declining volumes in certain services, with acute discharges declining in the quarter by 5.5 percent. Adjusted discharges in the quarter increased slightly by 0.7 percent due to improved length of stay of inpatients and increased shift to outpatient services. Total surgeries for the quarter decreased by 3.9 percent to 17,547 cases. Inpatient surgeries decreased by 5.4 percent, while outpatient surgeries decreased by 3.3 percent. Emergency department visits declined by 1.0 percent. Ballad Health continues to experience declining inpatient and hospital utilization rates, a phenomenon being experienced throughout rural America. The decline in admissions in Ballad Healths service area is driven in part by efforts by Ballad Health and area physicians to utilize lower cost alternatives to hospital stays as appropriate. This successful reduction, when combined with low population growth, reduces the overall volumes in the hospital setting. Ballad Health is facing a rapidly changing landscape where our financial success is no longer judged solely by volume, but increasingly, how we care for fewer people more efficiently, effectively and with better outcomes, said Levine. Many of the quality metrics that weve seen improve have led to lower costs. Lower length of stay, reduced rates of hospital acquired conditions, reduced readmissions and better integration with physicians has helped reduce the cost of care and has helped Ballad Health achieve success with the new value-based purchasing environment. Levine pointed to a 10 percent reduction in the hospital readmission rate over the prior year, and a 25 percent reduction among legacy hospitals since 2015 as evidence that physician and administrative partnership is resulting in lower cost and lower risk to patients. Ballad Health achieved the lowest readmission rate in either legacy health systems histories. Reinvestment of capital throughout the region While Ballad Health was focused on improved financial performance, it also has continued to invest in capital for new equipment, diagnostic technology, information technology and building improvements. Ballad Health expects to spend more than $172 million on capital improvements in the fiscal year ending in June, 2019. About Ballad Health: Ballad Health is an integrated healthcare delivery system serving 29 counties of Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, Northwestern North Carolina and Southeastern Kentucky. Ballad Health was created in 2018 to improve the health of people in these regions. Ballad Health operates a family of 21 hospitals in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, including three tertiary medical centers, a dedicated childrens hospital, several community hospitals, three critical access hospitals, a behavioral health hospital, an addiction treatment facility, long-term care facilities, home care and hospice services, retail pharmacies, outpatient services and a comprehensive medical management corporation. Learn more about Ballad Health at www.BalladHealth.org . Contact Info: Meaghan Smith Communications Manager 239-297-7959 meaghan.smith@balladhealth.org The 2019 primary is a tale of two council races: the exciting, vibrant newcomers bringing energy to the at-large race, and the soporific district races, which could end up with reelected incumbents in every seat including the seat of Bobby Henon, who was indicted in a federal corruption case a few months ago and is running unopposed. All ten incumbents are seeking reelection, with only five challenged. We invited candidates in those districts to answer a questionnaire and participate in an endorsement interview. The decision in the 2nd district was difficult. Kenyatta Johnson represents both the good and bad of City Council. He has been a serial abuser of Councilmanic prerogative, facing multiple accusations and one court decision against him of intervening in land use decisions to favor his friends and punish his enemies. At the same time, Johnson has a solid record representing his constituents interests including fighting for a living wage for airport workers and expanding assistance to longtime homeowners to pay their taxes. His opponent, Lauren Vidas, has a resume that is both impressive and problematic. Vidas was a member of Jim Kenneys transition team in 2015, after which she represented the beverage industry lobbying against the signature policy of the mayor she helped shepherd into office. As the challenger, and as a white candidate in a district that is only 33 percent white and where the sores of displacement due to gentrification are still raw, Vidas had an uphill climb to garner enthusiasm around her. We did not see her succeed. Kenyatta Johnson is the better pick for the 2nd District. Read more about the Inquirers endorsement process See the full list of Inquirer endorsements for Phillys 2019 municipal primary Mayor Kenney (right) and Electricians union leader John Dougherty, here at a previous meeting, conferred with soda industry leaders. Dougherty is not directly involved in this issue but served as an intermediary. Read more This week, as I watched the only televised debate between Mayor Jim Kenney and his two Democratic challengers, former City Controller Alan Butkovitz and State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, I felt as if one man was missing from the stage John J. Dougherty. The powerful business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 has been front and center in Philadelphia politics for years. In 2015, the union gave more than $500,000 to a political action committee called the Building a Better Pennsylvania Fund, which spent $1.8 million to propel Kenney to victory in the mayoral primary. And Dougherty has remained close to the Kenney administration throughout the mayors first term. Kenneys opponents say Doughertys influence has created a culture of corruption that helps to exclude black and brown Philadelphians from jobs inside and outside the administration. Kenney says his opponents are hypocrites for pretending they dont have ties to Dougherty. The question for Philadelphians is: Would a Kenney loss move Dougherty aside and create more opportunities for Philadelphians of color in the citys booming construction industry? Im not sure that it would. But in my view, we cant continue with business as usual, because business as usual has not only frozen black and brown people out of the construction jobs that Dougherty directly controls, it has also allowed a culture of corruption to continue in City Hall. Where else but Philadelphia would one of the mayors closest outside allies (Dougherty) be charged with embezzlement in a federal indictment, along with Council Majority Leader Bobby Henon, who is still openly supported by the mayor? Butkovitz tried to raise that point during a particularly testy exchange in the mayoral debate when Kenney blasted Butkovitz for losing to Rebecca Rhynhart in his last election. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Butkovitz was fired by the voters because he didnt do his job, Kenney said. He was supposed to audit every department every year, and he didnt do that. I think its his activity or lack thereof is what caused his loss. Not wanting more women in politics. I lost my job because I did do my job, Butkovitz said. I dont act like Mayor Kenney and ask permission from John Dougherty or the powers that be before I investigate something, before I say Councilman Henon shouldnt run for reelection. I do what the people expect us to do. A check and balance. ... He didnt mind taking $300,000 or so from John Dougherty over the last 10 years, Kenney shot back. And my opponent here [Williams] took $450,000. As Butkovitz and Williams tried to chime in, Kenney continued: Its the hypocrisy. You sit here and listen to all this, but the hypocrisy is unbelievable. I agree. Hypocrisy is an issue. Kenney, who as a councilman decried the presence of dark money in politics, was happy to take such money in his first race for mayor, and told me in an April 2015 WURD radio interview that he would not unilaterally disarm, since Williams, his opponent at the time, was also receiving money from a political action committee. During that 2015 interview, when I asked specifically about the support Kenney received from Local 98, a union that, along with the other building trades, is mostly white, male and suburban, Kenney said: You act like the building trades are the only people supporting me, when the Carpenters and the Teamsters are supporting Anthony Williams. The Carpenters are the ones who have basically shut down the Convention Center to keep people from working. I mean, IBEW, the stagehands, and all the other people who work in the building crossed a Carpenters picket line and crossed the Teamsters picket line to get the Convention Center back up and running. Some of those same unions are referred to in the federal indictment of Dougherty, Henon, and others. In taped conversations and text messages, Henon and Dougherty allegedly said they wanted to implement a soda tax to get back at the Teamsters for funding a pro-Williams commercial that they believed was insulting to Johnny Doc. The indictment says Dougherty met with an official from the Kenney administration to talk about how the soda tax would be used. And in a recent interview on WURD, Williams told me that Dougherty was in at least one more meeting concerning the tax. According to Williams official state Senate schedule, that meeting took place on Feb. 1, 2018. I went to [Kenneys] office, Williams told me. I sat down with Jim Engler, who I guess was his policy director at this time, himself, and John Dougherty, in that room." In a meeting with the Inquirer Editorial Board, Kenney denied that this meeting happened. In this case, again, the person who advises the mayor on a consistent basis and his number-one adviser is John Dougherty, Williams said. And, under indictment or not, the reality is no one should have that level of access to the mayor on a regular basis advising him on a variety of things. I agree. I just wonder whether that will change with this election. Solomon Jones is the author of 10 books. Listen to him weekdays 10 a.m. to noon on Praise 107.9 HD2. Email him at sj@solomonjones.com. On Twitter at @solomonjones1 President Donald Trump stands with Attorney General William Barr during the 38th Annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in Washington. Read more WASHINGTON President Donald Trump used a ceremony for fallen law enforcement officers on Wednesday to criticize prosecutors in Philadelphia and elsewhere who he asserts dont go after criminals who pose a severe threat to public safety. Trump pledged to the families of fallen officers that the country will "never, ever leave your side, never disappoint you" but went beyond memorializing for much of the annual event. He singled out prosecutors in Philadelphia and Chicago as being part of a "dangerous trend" by deciding not to prosecute "many criminals who pose a severe threat to public safety and community well-being." He provided scant context for the claim, and prosecutors in those cities did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Earlier this year, in announcing a federal indictment in a Philadelphia case, U.S. Attorney William McSwain said that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasners policies, including giving sweetheart deals to violent defendants, emboldens criminals on the street to "think they can literally get away with murder. At the ceremony, the president also renewed his calls for changes to the nations immigration laws, citing the shooting death last December of a Northern California police officer, Cpl. Ronil Singh. Trump said the suspect in Singhs killing could have been kept out with border security, with the wall, with whatever the hell it takes. Paulo Virgen Mendoza, suspected of being in the country illegally, has pleaded not guilty in the case. Trump also made an apparent reference to the case of actor Jussie Smollett, saying that "those who file false police reports should face full legal consequences." The Empire actor was charged with felony disorderly conduct and accused of making a false police report after claiming he was attacked by two masked men who shouted slurs at him and put a noose around his neck. The Cook County states attorneys office abruptly dropped the charges in March. The White House did not comment on whether Trump was specifically citing the Smollett case. The 38th annual memorial service honored 228 peace officers who died in the line of duty last year. Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this article, which also contains information from staff writer Julie Shaw. Artist's rendering of office building proposed by developer Parkway at a former car-rental lot it owns at 20th and Arch Streets. Read more A Center City community group has signaled its consent for a 15-story office tower at 20th and Arch Streets, opening a path for what could be the first new corporate headquarters building to rise in Philadelphias core since work on the Comcast Center began 14 years ago. The Logan Square Neighborhood Association voted Tuesday to green-light Parkway Corp.'s plan for about 400,000 square feet of offices and ground-floor retail at a former Avis rental car lot, which the Philadelphia-based developer has owned since 2014. The proposal would require City Council legislation to relax a height limit that applies to the site because of its proximity to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and to tweak the citys system of awarding bonuses that permit greater density. Brian Berson, Parkways senior vice president for real estate and development, said in a presentation to the community group that the legislation was needed to assure the corporate tenant eyeing the site that the plan would be able to progress. He did not identify the tenant, who he said would sign an initial 20-year lease. Council President Darrell L. Clarke, whose district includes the development site, had indicated to Parkway that he would introduce that legislation if the community group backed the proposal, Parkway president Robert Zuritsky said in an interview Tuesday. Clarke spokesperson Jane Roh said in an email Wednesday that the Council president will be prepared to work with the property owners toward a final development proposal that makes sense for the area and provides a net benefit to the city," providing that support from near neighbors is verified. The plan also would require the relocation of a historically protected gas station building from the early 20th century at the site. Zuritsky said Parkway is working with the Philadelphia Historical Commission to find a new home for the terra-cotta tile-roofed Spanish Colonial-style structure. New office projects have been rare in Center City, where market rents are typically considered too low to justify the cost of new construction. Parkway is seeking $5 million in state redevelopment funds to help jump-start another office tower proposal, at a property nearby on Market Street. Zuritsky said during the community meeting that the prospective tenant for the Arch Street parcel also is considering sites outside the state, as well as a Philadelphia site that has been designated a Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ), which can qualify companies for city and state tax breaks. One such site with that designation is the West Philadelphia tract where the Schuylkill Yards development is underway. Zuritsky conceded that it may be costlier for Parkways prospective tenant to locate on Arch Street than it would be for it to lease space in a KOZ, where it might be able to afford higher rents because its tax payments would be lower. But he said the prospective tenant wants to be in Philadelphias central business district, which is enjoying a growing cachet among other businesses and potential recruitment candidates. This is a validation of the city being strong enough so that someone is willing to pay the high cost for new construction as well as not get incredible tax breaks, he said. Bill Luff, who leads commercial property consultancy CRE Visions in Philadelphia, said Parkway has the advantage of having bought the development site when Center City land costs were lower than they are now, which makes the project less expensive. And because the tenant would be the buildings sole occupant, it can decide which features and amenities it wants, said Luff, who has no involvement in the proposal. Parkway representatives said during their Tuesday presentation that the company has had a presence in the Philadelphia community for many years and that its move would involve personnel from outside the city. That description matches insurance giant Chubb Ltd., which is known to be searching for new office space, according to a person familiar with the companys real-estate requirements but unauthorized to discuss it publicly. Luff said Chubb, which is based in Zurich but maintains executive offices in Philadelphia, New York, and Whitehouse Station, N.J., is a logical tenant." Chubb spokesperson Eric R. Samansky said in an email that the company is always looking at options to meet our needs [but has] nothing to report. In Philadelphia, the insurer occupies a historic building that it owns at 436 Walnut St., in addition to space that it leases at the near-neighboring former Penn Mutual Tower. Philadelphia is also home to Chubbs oldest active subsidiary, Insurance Company of North America, which had been a unit of insurer ACE Ltd. when that company acquired Chubb in 2016 and assumed its name. In 2016, a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker was dedicated to INA, as the 227-year-old firm is known, outside Chubbs main Walnut Street building. John Laprocido of architecture firm L2P, which is designing the proposed tower at 20th and Arch Streets, said during Tuesdays presentation that the buildings prospective tenant is considering a ground-floor museum to illustrate its history if it selects the site. An architectural rendering of the building portrays a boxy glass tower with reddish-brown panels on parts of its lower stories that echo neighboring brick structures. Luff said such austerity may be just what a company such as Chubb wants in a new headquarters. Theyre in a very competitive business, the insurance business, he said. Imaging could be important to them that theyre not building the Taj Mahal. MONTREAL, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Maya Gold & Silver Inc. (Maya or the Corporation) (TSX: MYA) released its financial results for the three month period ended March 31, 2019. Maya operates in the Kingdom of Morocco where it owns the Zgounder Silver mine (Ag), have just completed a preliminary economic assessment to advance the Boumadine polymetallic (Au, Ag, Zn, Pb, Ge) project and brought into the development phase its Azegour project (W, Mo, Cu, Co, U). FIRST QUARTER 2019 FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS The Corporation converted to a US dollar reporting currency starting January 1, 2019. reporting currency starting January 1, 2019. The Corporation reached commercial production at its Zgounder mine as of January 1, 2019. This results in the Corporation reporting operations on a commercial production basis, recognizing revenue from silver sales and cost of sales in net income for an amount of $2,067,397 and $1,510,863 respectively for the three-month period ended March 31, 2019, resulting in a gross margin of $556,534. Prior to the first quarter of 2019 and the declaring of commercial production, exploration and evaluation expenditures were capitalized to mining asset under development, net of net proceeds from sales of silver. Declaration of the commercial production also triggered the transfer of costs from mining assets under development into the appropriate asset classes of property, plant and equipment and the commencement of depreciation, which amounted to $264,535 for the first quarter of 2019. For the three-month period ended March 31, 2019, cash flow from operating activities was $2,652,083 compared to a use ( outflow ) of $104,643 for the first quarter of 2018. The change in cash flow can be attributed to reporting on a commercial production basis. During the first quarter of 2019, the Corporation also paid $1,040,850 towards the repayment of the balance of purchase price payable. As at March 31, 2019, cash amounted to $17,118,023. Net income of $304,745, during the three-month period ended March 31, 2019 compared to a net loss of $413,380 for the same period of 2018 Comprehensive income for the three-month period ended March 31, 2019 of $1,061,225 compared to a comprehensive loss of $477,218 for the same period of 2018 First quarter revenue from silver sales of $2,067,397 compared to $nil for the same quarter last year due to the commercial production of the Zgounder mine reached as of January 1, 2019. Cash of $17,118,023 as at March 31, 2019 compared to $19,000,163 as at December 31, 2018 Working capital of $15,022,287 compared to a working capital of $16,578,011 as at December 31, 2018 Cash inflow from operating activities were $2,652,083 for the first quarter of 2019 compared to a use (outflow) of $104,643 for the same period of 2018. First quarter 2019 financial results Financial results presented in this press release are taken from the Companys Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) and unaudited consolidated financial statements for the three-month period ended March 31, 2019, which have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board. The MD&A and the unaudited consolidated financial statements can be found at www.sedar.com and www.mayagoldsilver.com. Unless specified otherwise, all amounts in this press release are in United States dollars and all capitalized terms have the meaning ascribed thereto in our MD&A. Operation Quarter ended March 31, 2019 (unaudited) March 31, 2018 (unaudited) % Variation Material Processed (tons) 28,239 8,770 322.00 Average Grade (g/t Ag) 219.80 327.52 (32.89 ) Mill Recovery (%) 65.28 75.34 (13.35 ) Silver Ingots (kg) 3,392.91 2,164.13 56.78 Silver ounces produced (oz) 109,084 69,578 56.78 Sales of silver (oz) 100,544 61,547 63.36 Sales of silver ($) 2,067,397 1,653,263 25.05 Cost of sales (excluding interest) ($) (1,510,863 ) (2,007,386 ) (24.73 ) Cash flow generated from the activities at the mine (excluding interest and amortization) (1) 821,069 (354,123 ) (331.86 ) (1) Cash flow generated from the activities at the mine is non-International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) performance measures, and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. The Corporation believes that, in addition to conventional measures prepared in accordance with IFRS, the Corporation and certain investors use this information to evaluate the Corporation's performance. Accordingly, it is intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. The difference in silver production for the three-month period ending on March 31, 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 is mainly due to the fact that the Corporation started reporting on a basis of commercial production on January 1, 2019. In 2018, the Corporation was in the installation process of the mill and faced unprecedented amount of snowfall during that period. The region experienced unusual weather including snow and extreme cold making conditions at the mine extremely challenging. The decrease in average grade (g/t Ag) is due to the start of the gravity-flotation process in the three-month period ended March 31, 2019 which allows the mine to process material that represent a lower grade (Preparation works) than it was possible before that date (direct cyanidation). Management has implemented multiple cost cutting and productivity improvement measures (such as the connection to the National power grid, introduction of the floatation cells, and the increase of the daily tonnage capacity, etc) to improve its operational and financial performances and further actions are being planned; and initiated both short and long term actions to reduce costs. Various The Corporation approved and received approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) to implement a normal course issuer bid program to acquire subject to the TSE conditions for such programs up to 5,567,799 shares of the Corporation during to 12 month period to April 30, 2020. Mr Bruno Dumais ceased to be the Chief Financial Officer of the Corporation on April 5, 2019. The Corporation is in the process of recruiting a new Chief Financial Officer. The Corporation is analyzing the potential sale of the floatation silver concentrate directly to refiners to allow gain in silver recovery and abandon the use of cyanide at Zgounder silver mine. ABOUT MAYA Maya Gold & Silver Inc. is a publicly-traded Canadian company focused on the operation, exploration and development of gold and silver deposits in Morocco. Maya is currently operating mining and milling operations at its Zgounder Mine, an 85%-15% split ownership between its subsidiary, ZMSM, and the ONHYM of the Kingdom of Morocco. Its portfolio also contains the Boumadine polymetallic deposit located in the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Eastern Morocco. The property is a joint venture with ONHYM whereby Maya retains an 85% ownership. Mayas portfolio also includes the Amizmiz and Azegour properties, both being 100% owned, with gold, tungsten, molybdenum and copper deposits covering over 100 square kilometres in a historical mining district. Forward-looking statements This news release contains statements about future events or future performance and reflects managements current expectations and assumptions. These are forward-looking because we have used what we know and expect today to make a statement about the future. Forward-looking statements usually include words such as may, intend, plan, expect, anticipate, and believe or other similar words. We believe the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable. However, actual events and results could be substantially different because of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business or events that happen after the date of this news release. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. As a general policy, we do not update forward-looking statements except as required by securities laws and regulations. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in the Corporations filings with SEDAR. On behalf of the Board: JOHANNESBURG (AP) Desmond Tutu, South Africas Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon, an uncompromising foe of apartheid and a modern-day activist for racial justice and LGBT rights, died Sunday at 90. South Africans, world leaders and people around the globe mourned the death of the man viewed as the country's moral conscience. Written by Lana Law Updated Jul 26, 2021 We may earn a commission from affiliate links ( ) Many of the best hotels in Panama City are located in the modern El Cangrejo, Marbella, and Bella Vista areas in downtown. Hotels downtown are central to all the best restaurants and shopping malls the city has to offer, and are generally set in high-rises. Many of them have elevated outdoor pools, either midway up the hotel or on the rooftop. You can also find luxury properties and charming boutique hotels in Casco Viejo, commonly known as the Old Town, which is the city's main tourist area. The best hotels in Casco Viejo are set in historical buildings that have been wonderfully restored. Here, you have the added advantage of being able to walk to some of the major tourist attractions. If it's your first time to the city and the budget allows, base yourself here for the most authentic Panamanian experience. If you are just in Panama for a quick stopover and are looking for a luxurious place to rest for a night or two, comfortable major chain hotels are a short taxi ride away from the main terminal. Another major attraction in Panama City is the nearby Panama Canal. If you want to find a hotel in a peaceful neighborhood and watch ships coming and going, it's good idea to find a hotel in the Amador area. This area is also home to the Frank Gehry-designed Biomuseo. If you are looking for a beach resort, this option is just a short distance to the west of the city at Playa Bonita. You can also find a jungle retreat 30 minutes away. Note: Some businesses may be temporarily closed due to recent global health and safety issues. 2.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is preparing to subpoena Trumps lawyers for obstructing the Russia investigation. Adam Schiff is coming for Trumps lawyers CNN reported: The House Intelligence Committee is investigating whether attorneys representing President Donald Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization misled the committee or obstructed its Russia investigation in the preparation of Michael Cohens false 2017 statement to Congress, according to letters obtained by CNN. . In a followup sent this month, Schiff set a deadline for the end of last week for the attorneys to cooperate. Schiff is prepared to issue a subpoena if the attorneys wont cooperate, a senior committee official said. Schiff rejected the notion that the material would be covered by attorney-client privilege, while arguing that Cohen submitted a statement that was coordinated, reviewed, shaped and edited by the attorneys. Schiff said that Cohens statement had false materials and omission of fact with the intended effect of impeding the investigation. Schiff is interested in Michael Cohens lie to Congress Rep. Schiff is attempting to unravel the role that Trumps lawyers played in drafting Michael Cohens false statement to Congress. Trumps lawyer, Jay Sekulow, has admitted that changes were made to Cohens statement. The question is who made those changes and did the attorneys do so knowing that they would be obstructing justice? Behind the complaining about Schiff, Trumps lawyers are doing something else. They are hiding. The lawyers dont want to face the Intelligence Committee because doing so would open them up to questions about how testimony was crafted to mislead the Congress. Adam Schiff is following every thread in the presidents web of Russia deception with the intent of delivering the American people the full truth on the Trump/Russia relationship, and the threat that it represents to national security. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 2.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Maine is poised to become the next state to enact legislation that would give its Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. In a vote on Tuesday, the states Senate voted by a slim 19-16 margin to approve the measure. According to Bangor Daily News, the legislation is now headed to Maines House, where it is likely to pass. As The Hill noted, If passed by the state House and signed by Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), the state would become the latest to join National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is an agreement among a number of states to give their electoral college votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote. The Bangor Daily News reported, If it becomes law, Maine would join 15 other jurisdictions in an interstate compact aimed at electing presidents by popular vote. Its time to end the Electoral College Five presidents have been elected without having won the popular vote. Two of those instances happened since 2000. That includes Donald Trump, of course, who lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton by roughly 3 million votes in 2016 which, as The New York Times noted, is a wider margin than 10 winning candidates enjoyed and the biggest deficit for an incoming president since the 19th century. In other words, the Electoral College is increasingly outdated. Most folks recognize that the candidate who wins the most votes whether on a local, state or national level should win the race. Luckily, more than a dozen states have recognized that its time to end this arcane way of choosing the most powerful leader in the world. On Tuesday, Maine sent signals that it could be the 15th. So far, the 14 states (and Washington D.C.) that have adopted legislation to award their Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner make up a total of 189 electors shy of the 270 needed for the compact to take effect. But the good news is that similar legislation is pending in a handful of other states meaning a growing number of state governments are coming to the realization that its time to end the Electoral College system. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Judge Andrew Napolitano warned Donald Trump Jr. that if he followed Lindsey Grahams legal advice, he would end up in prison. Napolitano said, Im personally very fond of Senator Graham. Ive known him since he was one of the prosecutors in the Clinton impeachment. But I never heard of a senator saying disobey a valid lawful subpoena issued by the chairman of another Senate committee. The subpoena, just like the one to Bill Barr, is presumed valid. If you cant or dont want to comply with it, youve got to challenge it in court. You cant just sit on it, and you cant not show. Somebody will show up with handcuffs. Video: The Decline Of Lindsey Graham Continues Sen. Graham was never respected. He spent years being known as John McCains mini-me, but since the death of McCain, Graham has gone full-on Trump delusional. Lindsey Graham is advising the son of the President to defy a legal subpoena. This advice isnt just bad. It is the kind of stupid that gets people locked up. Later in the day, Don Jr. reached a deal to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, but if the presidents son has second thoughts and decides to bail, he had better not follow the advice of Lindsey Graham, because what the South Carolina senator told him to do is a one-way ticket to jail. 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 As Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff prepares to subpoena Donald Trumps lawyers for obstructing the Russia investigation, Rachel Maddow pointed out that the presidents children could be at increased risk. According to the MSNBC host, one of Ivanka Trumps lawyers Abbe Lowell allegedly told former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to lie about Ivanka Trumps involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow deal. If as Cohen alleges, Abbe Lowell was involved in telling Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, specifically about the involvement of Ivanka Trump in that scheme, I mean, that feels like the sort of thing that could trip 50 tripwires all at once, Maddow said. Video: A new House investigation could spell trouble for one of Trumps children, according to Rachel Maddow. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/r9uyJ47Huc PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 15, 2019 Maddow said: I think it has long been assumed that the president might have a kind of tripwire when it comes to investigations, legal liability, getting too close to his adult children. I mean, in this case, according to reporting from Vanity Fair and The New York Times, one of the allegations at issue here for which theres apparently some sort of documentary trail, is the allegation that lawyer Abbe Lowell specifically told Cohen that he should tell Congress Ivanka Trump had essentially no knowledge of Trump tower Moscow. According to Michael Cohen, that wasnt true. According to Cohen, Ivanka Trump was regularly briefed on Trump Tower Moscow. Well, if as Cohen alleges, Abbe Lowell was involved in telling Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, specifically about the involvement of Ivanka Trump in that scheme, I mean, that feels like the sort of thing that could trip 50 tripwires all at once, right? Thats sensitive on a lot of different levels. But that is apparently now what the House Intelligence Committee is chasing down and we are being told to expect that that may be in the form of subpoenas soon. Increased Dem focus on obstruction could send Trump over the edge The Mueller investigation may be over, but Democrats have taken the baton from the special counsel and they appear to be sprinting with it. In this instance, as they dig further into the obstruction issue, it could spell trouble for one of Trumps children and send this president completely over the edge. Not only would it further implicate the president and his lawyers in an obstruction scheme, but it would show that Trumps daughter was far more involved in a potential deal with Russia than was previously known. As Rachel Maddow pointed out on Tuesday, it could set off a series of tripwires none of which are likely to end well for Donald Trump. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first two female Muslims elected to Congress in 2018, says the hate campaign being waged against her and Rep. Rashida Tlaib will not silence them. During an interview with MSNBCs Chris Hayes, Rep. Omar said the people she represents in Minnesota are seeing right through the smears and know that she is fighting for them and thats all that matters to her. When I am in the district, what people know me as is this fierce fighter for their progressive values, she said. Im quite content with that in knowing that theyre happy that Im representing them and fighting for them every single day. Video: As Republicans ratchet up their attacks on Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, @IlhanMN says she will not be silenced. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/X5urTknnRp PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 15, 2019 Rep. Ilhan Omar said: So when I am in the district, what people know me as is this fierce fighter for their progressive values, someone who understands that we cant only fight for individual progress. We have to fight for collective progress. They know that I am out here fighting to free them from the shackles of student debt, that Im out here trying to make sure that every single person has an opportunity to be housed, that there is no mother or father going to sleep crying because they dont know where the next meal is going to come to feed their families, and everybody knows that I am a fighter for a more just and sustainable society. And thats what people already know me as. I think everything else that you might hear in the headlines that feeds into a particular narrative that people want to fuel to silence my voice and to minimize the kind of work that I want to do in driving for a more just world is not something that the people that send me and entrusted their votes to send me to Washington to represent them know me as. And Im quite content with that in knowing that theyre happy that Im representing them and fighting for them every single day. Rep. Omar is unfazed by the right-wing hysteria Its no surprise that the party who spent eight years attacking Barack Obama as a secret Muslim is now having a complete meltdown that two real Muslim women were elected to Congress last November. Since the two women got to Washington, they have become something of an obsession for GOP lawmakers and right-wing pundits including the man-child pundit living in the White House. As PoliticusUSAs Jason Easley wrote in March, Rep. Ilhan Omar has been receiving death threats as a result of the hysteria and slime being ginned up by the president and his right-wing media soldiers. But these attacks arent merit-based. It has nothing to do with the issues. Instead, this is simply a hate campaign meant to silence and marginalize the first two female Muslims in Congress. Newsflash for the GOP: Its not working. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter 657 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The House Armed Services Committee has introduced a bill that would stop Trump from taking money away from military construction to pay for his wall. Democrats move to cap the amount that Trump can repurpose for his wall Via The House Armed Services Committee Democrats: House Armed Services Committee Democrats led by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), HASC Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.), and HASC Readiness Subcommittee Chair John Garamendi (D-Calif.) introduced a bill that will limit the Department of Defenses authority to repurpose funds that were designated for military construction. The bill would cap national emergency military construction authority at $250 million per emergency and tighten the ability to waive other provisions of law in carrying out the projects. The bill would only allow money that cannot be spent for its intended purpose to be used for an emergency, would require additional information in a congressional notification, and delay the start of construction until after a waiting period following the notification going to Congress. Committee chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said, Ive said it before, in no uncertain terms, the Trump Administrations repeated efforts to divert previously appropriated funds from the Department of Defense to finance his misguided border wall is an affront to military readiness. While Congress has for years granted the Department the flexibility to carry out military construction projects that support troops responding to a national emergency, such as after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Presidents threat to use military construction funding to build portions of the border wall would be an inappropriate use of that authority. The legislation introduced today will ensure the use of this emergency military construction authority is transparent, within a reasonable cost range, and most importantly, will only draw from sources of funding that do not hamper existing construction projects or military readiness. In short, this bill will provide the American people an understanding of how their tax dollars are being used in times of national emergency while safeguarding military readiness. Democrats havent forgotten about Trumps national emergency Democrats havent forgotten about Trumps national emergency, and they are taking steps to try to pass legislation that will cut off his theft from essential military construction programs to build his wall. Democrats arent going to let Trump take from the troops to build his wall. The national emergency fund repurposing will be headed to court, but the House is going to wait for a judges ruling before they take action to stop the illegal movement of appropriated funds. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook All employees in Entra ASA have received an offer to purchase shares for up to NOK 150,000 at a 20 % discount in accordance with the authorisation given on the general meeting on 26 April 2019. The offer price is NOK 102 per share and is calculated as the dividend adjusted volume weighted average share price in the period from 26 March to 25 April 2019 minus a 20 % discount. The lock-up period for the shares is two years. 101 employees have ordered and been allocated a total of 92,123 shares in the shares saving scheme. Below is an overview of orders/allocation of shares to primary insiders as well as their holdings post allocation. Primary insider Role Share Shares post allocated allocation Anders Olstad CFO 1 471 44 267 Sonja Horn EVP Property Management 1 471 25 220 Hallgeir strem CLO 1 471 15 290 Tone Kristin Omsted Head of IR 1 471 12 855 Erling Nedkvitne Board member, employee representative 1 471 10 855 Torstein Haland Head of Controlling 1 471 9 215 Ase Lunde EVP Digital and Business Development 1 471 4 373 Per Ola Ulseth EVP Property Development 1 471 2 074 Entra ASA will purchase the shares for allocation under the share savings scheme in accordance with the authorisation given on the general meeting on 26 April 2019. The share purchase will start on 16 May 2019 and will continue until 30 June 2019 at the latest. The shares will be purchased in the market with price and the number of shares acquired by the company reported in accordance with the applicable regulations. For further queries please contact: Tone Omsted, Head of Investor Relations, tel: +47 982 28 510, email: tom@entra.no This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. 3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said that impeachment might be unavoidable because Trump has committed crimes while in office. Nadler: Trump has committed crimes while in office Transcript of Nadlers comments about Trumps crimes during an interview with CNBC: John Harwood: There was a poll that was done recently in which a solid majority of Americans said they believed that before he was president, President Trump committed crimes. Is that relevant? Jerry Nadler: The president can be impeached only if two things, only for misuse of presidential power while president or for cheating in the election that gave him the presidency. Other than that, if he did something terrible before he was president, he robbed the bank, thats not impeachable. Its a crime, but its not impeachable. John Harwood: Do you believe hes committed crimes while in office? Jerry Nadler: Yes I do. Mueller lays out very strong evidence of a number of obstructions of justice. Those are crimes. Yes, of course he did. Video: The House has a decision to make on criminal Trump After gathering the evidence and building a case, Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Nadler are going to need to make a decision on impeachment. Trump is a criminal. The most straightforward course for the country would be if the voters voted the criminal out of office. House Democrats do have the luxury of keeping impeachment on the table and letting the voters have their say first in 2020. A rush to impeachment is precisely what Trump wants. A better strategy is to put the criminal and his crimes on the ballot. Voters already know that Trump is a dishonest criminal, but there is a compelling argument to be made about what the criminal is doing to the cost of the things we buy with his trade war, access to healthcare, the pay of workers, and the tone of the nation. The president is a criminal, and Democrats have to decide how to get rid of him. 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 By a margin of 56%-19%, a new poll shows that voters across the political spectrum want special counsel Robert Mueller to testify. Voters want to hear from Robert Mueller According to the new Politico/Morning Consult poll, 56% of voters think Mueller should testify before Congress, compared with 19% who dont think he should testify. 79% of Dems and 51% of independents say he should testify, compared to 37% of GOP voters who say the same. Independents want Mueller to testify 51%-19%, and Republicans want Mueller to testify 37%-36%. Democrats Are Confident That Mueller Will Testify The negotiations to get an agreement on Robert Muellers testimony have Democrats confident that the Special Counsel will be able to testify within the next couple of weeks. The hang-up to some degree is that Mueller is still technically the special counsel and under the purview of the Department of Justice, which is within the Executive Branch. The Trump administration will have less ability to stop Mueller from testifying once he becomes a private citizen again. Democrats are going get Mueller to testify. The Special Counsels testimony will vital to the investigation because only Mueller can clear up some of the false information that has been spread by AG Barr and Trump while filling in details that are missing in the public version of his report. Trumps Mueller problem is not going away Trump thought that he could put out his version of Muellers findings and sweep the report under the rug. His plan didnt work with Congress and didnt fool the American people. The longer the White House delays the Mueller testimony, the worse the situation becomes for the president. Trumps Mueller problem is getting worse by the day, and while it may not be the top 2020 election issue, it is a lingering black cloud that reminds voters of why this president has got to go. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Kalyn Oyer is a Charleston native who covers arts & entertainment and food & bev for The Post and Courier. She's a music festival & concert photographer and used to write about music for the Charleston City Paper, among other publications. South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace discusses being sexually assaulted by a friend at age 16. Mace advocated for exceptions for rape and incest to the proposed six-week abortion ban. Brad Nettles/Staff Assistant Columbia bureau chief Adcox returned to The Post and Courier in October 2017 after 12 years covering the Statehouse for The Associated Press. She previously covered education for The P&C. She has also worked for The AP in Albany, N.Y., and for The Herald in Rock Hill. Mikaela Porter joined The Post and Courier in April 2019 and writes about the city of Charleston. Previously, Mikaela reported on breaking news, local government, school issues and community happenings for The Hartford Courant in Hartford, Conn. GRAND ISLAND, Neb., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amur Equipment Finance, Inc. (AmurEF) is excited to announce that it has been ranked fifth in Monitors 2018 rankings of the Top Private Independent equipment finance and leasing companies in the US, which represents a gain of nine spots since 2016. AmurEF achieved year-over-year originations growth of 66.7 percent in 2018, far exceeding the 17.2 percent average growth rate for the Top 25 Independents peer group. And AmurEF continues to experience solid originations growth in 2019, having recently concluded its second best month in company history in April. We are very proud of our accomplishments in 2018 and believe our Monitor ranking reflects the gains weve made, said Mostafiz ShahMohammed, AmurEFs Chief Executive Officer. AmurEFs robust growth is the result of recent investments in its platform and processes, continued development of key partnerships and its unwavering commitment to the superior service and flexibility that AmurEFs customers, vendors, and brokers have come to expect. As we continue to focus on our most valuable resource, our employees, we believe AmurEF remains well positioned for growth and stability across all economic cycles, ShahMohammed continued. To support its objectives, AmurEF is actively recruiting talented equipment leasing professionals to fill a variety of positions across the country, including at its headquarters in Grand Island, Nebraska, where AmurEF is renovating a new headquarters facility to accommodate future growth. For further information about open positions at AmurEF, visit https://www.amuref.com/careers . About Amur Equipment Finance, Inc. Amur Equipment Finance (AmurEF) is a nationally ranked top five independent equipment finance provider, dedicated to ensuring that its customers and employees around the nation are equipped to grow and succeed. As a 2018 certified Great Place To Work company, AmurEF offers customized capital financing programs that draw on its uniquely expansive expertise in the worlds most essential industries from transportation and technology to manufacturing and medicine to support its network of over 15,000 vendors and other partners. AmurEF offers a variety of financing and leasing solutions with funding ranging from as little as $10K to over $2MM. For more information, visit amuref.com . Media Contact: Coastal Community Foundation is moving into the historic Sick Officer's Quarters of the Charleston Naval Hospital building on the old Navy base. The Coastal Community Foundation will soon take residence of a restored office building in the Naval Hospital Historic District in North Charleston. With a seven-figure gift from Frank and Kristi Haygood, the foundation was able to purchase the $2.7 million property at 1691 Turnbull Avenue. Jessica Holdman is a business reporter for The Post & Courier covering Columbia. Prior to moving to South Carolina, she reported on business in North Dakota for The Bismarck Tribune and has previously written for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. This sea wall built on Folly Beach, which was removed by regulators, is an example of a "wing wall" that will now be allowed by a new state bill. The bill also includes a special exception for homeowners in DeBourdieu Colony to re-build a sea wall. Staff/File 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. PORTLAND, Ore. It was early morning in an operating theater at Providence Hospital in Portland, Ore. A middle-aged woman lay on the operating table, wrapped in blankets. Surgeons were about to cut out a cancerous growth in her stomach. But first, an anesthesiologist Dr. Brian Chesebro put her under by placing a mask over her face. "Now Im breathing for her with this mask," he said. "And Im delivering sevoflurane to her through this breathing circuit." Sevoflurane is one of the most commonly used anesthesiology gases. The other big one is desflurane. There are others too, like nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. ADVERTISEMENT Whichever gas a patient gets is inhaled, but only about 5 percent is metabolized. The rest is exhaled. And to make sure the gas doesnt knock out anyone else in the operating room, its sucked into a ventilation system. And then? Its vented up and out through the roof, to mingle with other greenhouse gases. Being a good steward The two frequently used gases are fairly similar medically; sevoflurane needs to be more carefully monitored and meted out in some patients, but thats not difficult, Chesebro said. Generally, unless theres a reason in a particular case to use one over the other, anesthesiologists simply tend to pick one of the two gases and stick with it. Few understand that one desflurane is much worse for the environment. And that bothered Chesebro. He grew up on a ranch in Montana that focused on sustainability. "Part of growing up on a ranch is taking care of the land and being a good steward," he said. Now he lives in the city with his three kids and has gradually started to worry about their environmental future. ADVERTISEMENT "When I look around and I see the stewardship on display today, its discouraging," he said. "I got depressed for a while, and so I hit the pause button on myself and said, Well, whats the very best that I can do?" Receptive audience He spent hours of his own time researching anesthesiology gases. And he learned desflurane is 20 times more powerful than sevoflurane in trapping heat in the Earths atmosphere. It also lasts for 14 years in the atmosphere, whereas sevoflurane breaks down in just one year. Opening a big, black notebook filled with diagrams and tiny writing, he showed how he computed the amount of each gas the doctors in his group practice used. Then he shared their carbon footprint with them. "All Im doing is showing them their data," Chesebro said. "Its not really combative. Its demonstrative." One of the doctors he shared his analysis with was Dr. Michael Hartmeyer, who works at the Oregon Anesthesiology Group with Chesebro. "I wish I had known earlier," Hartmeyer said. "I would have changed my practice a long time ago." ADVERTISEMENT Hartmeyer said he was stunned when Chesebro explained that his use of desflurane was the greenhouse gas equivalent of driving a fleet of 12 Hummers for the duration of each surgical procedure. Its "only" half a Hummer if he uses sevoflurane. Hartmeyer noted that outside the operating room he drives a Prius, a hybrid electric car. "You try to be good," he said. "You take shorter showers or (dont) leave lights on, or whatever else. But you know theres always more that we could probably do. But this was, far and away, a relatively easy thing that I could do that made a huge impact." Easy switch cuts costs The anesthesiology carts that get brought into operating theaters tend to have a row of gases to choose from. Hartmeyer was able to switch pretty much overnight. Other anesthesiologists made the switch, too. And it didnt hurt that sevoflurane is considerably cheaper. Hartmeyers change saved his hospital $13,000 a year. When Chesebro shared his findings with the anesthesia departments at all eight Providence Health hospitals in Oregon, they prioritized the use of sevoflurane. They now save about $500,000 a year. Providences chief executive, Lisa Vance, said the hospital system didnt change its use of the gas because of the money. It changed because the World Health Organization now says climate change is the No. 1 public health issue of the 21st century and because of Chesebro. Vance said Chesebro teared up in front of 2,000 people when talking about the gas, his children and the Lorax character created by Dr. Seuss. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothings going to get better its not," said Vance, quoting the book "The Lorax." Why wouldnt you do it? Dr. Jodi Sherman, an associate professor of anesthesiology at Yale School of Medicine, called Chesebros efforts remarkable and important. She said several hospitals around the country have tried to make this shift, but with mixed results. Some just gave anesthesiologists the information and not much changed. Other hospitals took desflurane away, but that left many anesthesiologists feeling disrespected and angry. Chesebro succeeded, she said, because he chose to persuade his colleagues using data. He showed doctors their choice of gas plotted against their greenhouse impact. And it helped that he showed them over and over, so doctors could compare their progress to their peers. "Providing ongoing reports to providers is the best way for this movement to catch on and grow," she said. It can reinforce over time, she added, not just what their carbon footprint is, but also what progress theyre making. Sherman said efforts such as Chesebros are sorely needed because the U.S. health sector is responsible for about 10 percent of the nations greenhouse gases. "We clinicians are very much focused on taking care of the patient in front of us," she said. "We tend to not think about whats happening to the community health, public health because were so focused on the patient in front of us." In an emailed statement, one of the largest manufacturers of both the anesthesia gases Baxter International said its important to provide a range of options for patients. The company also said inhaled anesthetics have a climate impact of 0.01 percent of fossil fuels. "The overall impact of anesthetic agents on global warming is low, relative to other societal contributors, especially when you consider the critical role these products have in performing safe surgical procedures," the statement reads. Its a fair point, Chesebro said, but he has a counterargument. "Well, if its there, its bad. And if I can reduce my lifes footprint by a factor of six why wouldnt you do it?" The surgery Chesebro was involved in that morning at Providence was a success. Chesebro estimates that by using sevoflurane on his patient, the amount of greenhouse gases produced was the same as in a 40-mile drive across the Portland region. If hed used desflurane instead, he said, it would have been like driving the more than 1,200 miles from Seattle to San Diego. Now Chesebros hospital bosses are hoping other doctors will follow his lead, research their own pet peeve and maybe solve a problem no ones thinking about. NEW YORK The cocktail bar was shutting down, and guests were being encouraged to commence the elegant trek to dinner through the majestic halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Joan Collins had just swept in, channeling her famous "Dynasty" character, Alexis, in a tiered gown of fluffy white feathers and gobs of blinding diamonds. And Alexis wanted a glass of wine. "Im having a great time," Collins said of her first Met Gala. "Id be even better if I had a drink." The sartorial theme of this years gala was "camp" not summer camp, but the aesthetic of camp and its influence on fashion, as explored in the museums new exhibit, "Camp: Notes on Fashion." It wasnt an easy theme to grasp; the instructions for guests were to dress with "studied triviality." But while the results varied hugely from Katy Perry dressing as an elaborate candlelit chandelier (and later, a cheeseburger) to Kanye West wearing a simple black jacket that cost about $40 there were indeed some slam-dunk "camp" moments, and one was Collins. ADVERTISEMENT "Im a Met Ball virgin," she said, "so I thought I would come as my character, Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan, and embrace it," she said. "Everybody ALWAYS said she was camp." Going Gaga But even Collins, in her glistening diamond tiara, could not out-camp perhaps the champion camp-er of all time, Lady Gaga. The pop star and actress, a co-chair of the gala, put on a virtual burlesque show on the red carpet, slowly shedding a series of three outfits until she was left vamping in black lingerie. Celine Dion was a different kind of show girl, dressed in a supremely crafted creation by Oscar de la Rentas Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, inspired by the 1941 movie "Ziegfeld Girl" starring Judy Garland (a camp heroine, of course.) Inside, Dion explored the exhibit along with her designers, and confessed that "even now, I honestly dont really understand what camp is." No matter: Garcia and Kim had done their research, resulting in a Vegas showgirl ensemble made of countless strands of silver-gold glass beads that took many thousands of man hours to construct, paired with a spiky feathered headpiece. "Im just honored that they wanted me to be a part of this whole process," Dion said. After walking the red carpet actually, a pink-carpeted staircase guests entered the Mets vast Great Hall, where they were greeted by an imposing centerpiece of pink roses, topped by pink flamingoes. Some toured the exhibit, while others headed straight to the museums airy Petrie Court to sip cocktails and munch on crispy sea bass hors doeuvres, bits of foie gras, or mini-BLT towers. ADVERTISEMENT Exaggerated version Model Ashley Graham, attending her third Met Gala, laughingly confessed that she heard this years theme and thought: "Girl Scouts!" But she liked what she learned about camp. "Its extra," she said. "Exaggerated happily and proudly." That was the spirit, she said, of her outfit, a short blazer dress by Dapper Dan for Gucci, with bright green eyeliner, sparkly leggings, and a Judith Leiber purse in the shape of a huge, golden retro cellphone. "Its the exaggerated version of myself," she said of the outfit. "Big, bold, but still you." Laverne Cox had no trouble understanding the camp theme; in college at Marymount Manhattan, shed been "obsessed with Susan Sontag," the author of the 58-point essay, "Notes on Camp," on which the Met exhibit is built. In fact, Cox, a star of "Orange is the New Black" and the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy, was able to reel off competing definitions of camp. "Its of course artificial, but also parody," said Cox, wearing a striking sculptural gown by Christian Siriano, along with turquoise hair. "Its a comment on culture. Also, theres high camp vs. low camp. And theres an invisible wink of camp." She pondered whether Garland and daughter Liza Minnelli were the same type of campness. Being extra ADVERTISEMENT Billy Porter, too, had done some thinking about camp. The "Pose" actor solidified his growing reputation as a red-carpet star with a dramatic entrance as an Egyptian sun deity on a litter carried by six shirtless men. His golden ensemble were talking gold on the head and the face, too, as well as huge golden wings was designed by the Blonds. "The kids today call it being extra," Porter said inside, of the camp aesthetic. "Its about taking a thing and exploding it to the biggest degree. It has in the past been used as a pejorative, but this evening reclaims it." Porter was also carrying a purse with a written message that demanded, using an expletive, to be paid fairly. "It means," he said with a grin, "that you cant pay me scale no more! Get the prices right." Attending his first gala was Max Hollein, who took over as the museums director last year. Hollein said that since work on the exhibit began, he and museum colleagues have been finding the camp in familiar works all over the museum. Rochesters Charter Commission decided Tuesday it needs more information before discussing a request by Rochester City Council President Randy Staver. In a Jan. 24 letter to Commission Chairman Fran Bradley, Staver requested the commission consider reviewing three existing charter boards the Park Board, the Public Utilities Board and the Library Board. "Please note that I am not making this request on behalf of the City Council," Staver wrote in the letter. "I am only raising a question in my role as a council member, and the commission may choose to handle these items as they see fit." Each of the three charter boards has a level of responsibilities not seen among the citys 18 other volunteer boards and commissions. While the City Council approves budget amounts for the departments the boards oversee, each board has decision-making powers regarding how the funds are spent. Charter Commission member Fred Suhler said each board was put in place for a reason. ADVERTISEMENT "There are historical reasons why these three boards are somewhat separate and somewhat independent," said Suhler, who is in his sixth term on the Charter Commission. He noted the Park Board helps ease the City Councils workload and the Public Utilities Board typically requires members with specific knowledge related to Rochester Public Utility needs. Staver, who is a former Charter Commission member, said the goal of his letter was to spark discussion of whether the historic purpose for the boards remains in play. "In raising these questions, I want to stress that I am not implying in any way that the current oversight as provided by the charter boards is an issue," he wrote. "I have a great deal of respect for the individuals sitting on the boards and the work they undertake." Ultimately, the Charter Commission does not have the power to change the status of the charter boards. It, however, could vote to recommend a change to the citys charter, which governs aspects of city operations, including the existence of the charter boards. Such a change would require unanimous City Council approval or an affirming public referendum. Its a change at least one Rochester resident wants to see made. Paula Hardin raised questions during Tuesdays meeting about the power of one of the three charter boards. "Please vote to revoke the special status of the Library Board from having sole authority, ipso facto by the library director, to the detriment to the fate of the jewel of the city, which is the Rochester Public Library," said Hardin, who voiced concerns regarding the temporary removal of handicap parking spaces in front of the library when street and sewer construction started earlier this month near the city facility. Charter Commission members questioned whether the street-side concerns were related to a library decision or under the direction of Public Works, which answers more directly to the City Council. ADVERTISEMENT They noted it was among the reasons for postponing a discussion regarding Stavers letter. "We need a good deal more information," Charter Commission member Ray Schmitz said. Suhler and Rochester Deputy City Attorney Dave Goslee said theyll gather background on the three charter boards for discussion during the next commission meeting. The next Charter Commission meeting is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. July 9 in room 320 of City Hall. Dublin, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Genomics Market by Product and Service (Systems & Software, Consumables, Services), Technology (Sequencing, Microarray, PCR), Application (Diagnostic Application, and Precision Medicine), End User (Research Institute) - Global Forecast to 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global genomics market is projected to reach USD 35.7 billion by 2024 from USD 18.9 billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 13.5%. Genomics is a discipline in genetics that applies recombinant DNA, sequencing methods, and bioinformatics to sequence, assemble and analyze the function and structure of genomes. The ability to sequence DNA has opened an array of applications in research fields such as personalized medicine, cancer research, drug discovery, and agricultural and animal sciences. Recent sequencing technologies in the field of genomics have resulted in decreased cost and faster methods of DNA sequencing. Factors such as the rising government funding and growth in the number of genomics projects, decreasing sequencing costs, growing application areas of genomics, and the entry of new players and start-ups in the genomics field are driving the growth of the genomics market during the forecast period. North America accounted for the largest share of the genomics market in 2018. The large share of North America is attributed to the increasing research funding and government initiatives for promoting precision medicine and the use of GM crops in the US. The Asia Pacific market, on the other hand, is expected to register the highest CAGR of 14.8% during the forecast period. Increasing government focus on improving healthcare infrastructure, increasing awareness regarding the benefits of genomics, and growing research activity in gene therapy are some of the key factors driving market growth in the region. Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (US), Illumina, Inc. (US), QIAGEN N.V. (Netherlands), and Agilent Technologies, Inc. (US) dominated the genomics market in 2018. Players mainly focused on product launches and inorganic strategies such as collaborations, acquisitions, and agreements in the market for optimal growth from 2015 to 2018. Other players in the genomics market include Eurofins Scientific (Germany), BGI (China), GE Healthcare (US), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (US), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland), and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (UK). Market Dynamics Drivers Rising Government Funding and Growth in the Number of Genomics Projects Decreasing Sequencing Costs Growing Application Areas of Genomics Entry of New Players and Start-Ups in the Genomics Market Restraints High Cost of Genomic Equipment Opportunities Use of Genomics in Specialized/Personalized Medicine Challenges Dearth of Trained Professionals Secure Storage of Large Volumes of Sequenced Data Companies Mentioned Agilent Technologies BGI Bio-Rad Laboratories Danaher Corporation Eppendorf Eurofins Scientific F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ge Healthcare Illumina, Inc. Oxford Nanopore Technologies Qiagen Thermo Fisher Scientific For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/fdkdn6 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Rochester Mayor Kim Norton encouraged participation as she bought this years first Rochesterfest button. "Its a chance to highlight our community and have fun doing it," she said during the Rochesterfest kickoff event Tuesday. This years Rochesterfest events will be June 22-30 at Soldiers Field Park and a variety of other area venues. Here are a few things to know about the buttons that went on sale Tuesday: 1 The designer initially questioned this years theme. ADVERTISEMENT "I really dont associate a magical time with Rochester a medical time, maybe," Will Khammanh said. However, he said he embraced the Disney-related theme chosen by Rochesterfest Chairwoman Kristine Ihrke and was able to add a bit of personal interest to the design that evidently attracted attention in the public vote. "Growing up, the corn tower was part of my childhood, so I wanted to bring it in," Khammanh said, noting the design contest was held at a time many people worried about the fate of the iconic water tower. 2 More than 1,000 votes were cast online. Khammanhs winning design was one of 55 submissions received this year. Rochesterfest board members picked their top 5 submissions and posted them online in March for a public vote, which drew more than 1,000 participants. Brent Ackerman, Rochesterfest director, said the final button design received overwhelming support. 3 Buttons can be bought at more than 35 area retailers, as well as through local charities. ADVERTISEMENT The $5 buttons will be available at the Rochesterfest information booth in Soldiers Field Park starting June 22, but those wanting them early can find them at retailers throughout the city. Proceeds from sales support annual Rochesterfest events. They are also available through various nonprofit organizations, which receive a portion of the proceeds from their sales. 4 Buttons can pay for themselves. By wearing buttons during Rochesterfest, owners are eligible for a variety of bargains, from $1 off beer during the events weekday happy hours and a free book at the Rochesterfest book sale at the public library, as well as assorted discounts at businesses throughout the city. A list of offered discounts , as well as locations to purchase buttons, is available at rochesterfest.com. 5 Former Mayor Ardell Brede will wear a button as grand marshal of the Rochesterfest parade. Brede continued his tradition of buying several buttons during the kickoff event, where it was announced that he will be this years grand marshal of the June 29 parade. It wont be Bredes first time in the grand marshal vehicle. In 2017, he agreed to ride with former city administrator Stevan Kvenvold when he was named grand marshal. ADVERTISEMENT Since 2008, a legal question over whether the government could or should license some 1,200 electronic gaming devices has been weighed. Read more TORONTO, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Enthusiast Gaming Holdings Inc. (TSXV: EGLX) (OTCQB: EGHIF), (Enthusiast or the Company), the largest publicly traded video game media and esports company in North America, will be attending the 20th Annual B. Riley FBR Institutional Investor Conference on May 22 - 23, 2019 at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles. Eric Bernofsky, COO, and SVP Finance of Enthusiast will be presenting the Company at 9:00am on May 23, 2019. The Company will also be available for one-on-one meetings throughout the conference. To schedule a meeting, please contact Julia Becker, Head of Investor Relations & Marketing at jbecker@enthusiastgaming.com. About Enthusiast Gaming Founded in 2014, Enthusiast Gaming is the largest vertically integrated video game company and has the fastest-growing online community of video gamers. Through the Companys unique acquisition strategy, it has a platform of over 80 owned and affiliated websites and currently reaches over 75 million monthly visitors with its unique and curated content and over 50 million YouTube visitors. Enthusiast also owns and operates Canadas largest gaming expo, Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo, EGLX, ( eglx.ca ) with approximately 55,000 people attending in 2018. For more information on the Company, visit www.enthusiastgaming.com . CONTACT INFORMATION: Investor Relations: Julia Becker Head of Investor Relations & Marketing jbecker@enthusiastgaming.com (604) 785.0850 This news release contains certain statements that may constitute forward-looking information under applicable securities laws. All statements, other than those of historical fact, which address activities, events, outcomes, results, developments, performance or achievements that Enthusiast anticipates or expects may or will occur in the future (in whole or in part) should be considered forward-looking information. Such information may involve, but is not limited to, comments with respect to strategies, expectations, planned operations and future actions of the Company. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or statements formed in the future tense or indicating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" (or other variations of the forgoing) be taken, occur, be achieved, or come to pass. Forward-looking information is based on currently available competitive, financial and economic data and operating plans, strategies or beliefs as of the date of this news release, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Enthusiast to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors may be based on information currently available to Enthusiast, including information obtained from third-party industry analysts and other third-party sources, and are based on management's current expectations or beliefs regarding future growth, results of operations, future capital (including the amount, nature and sources of funding thereof) and expenditures. Any and all forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The securities of the Corporation have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirement. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. I normally dont suggest that Power Line readers vote for a Democrat. If I have ever done so, Ive purged it from my memory. However, voting for a Democrat is something that readers who are registered to vote in Arlington County, Virginia should consider. The race in question is the Democratic primary contest for Commonwealths Attorney. The Democrat worthy of support is the incumbent, Theo Stamos. The primary is open so that any registered voter can participate regardless of party affiliation. The date of the election is June 11. Heres the background. Stamos is opposed by Parisa Tafti, a criminal defense lawyer. Tafti has received more than $50,000 worth of contributions from a PAC funded by George Soros. Thats quite a sum for a local race like this one. One of Taftis main lines of attack on Stamos is that she refused to prosecute a case of police brutality stemming from a shooting by an officer in 2015. The officer in question required more than 60 stitches to close the wound on his face after he was attacked by a man with a metal bar. The Arlington County Police Department, the Arlington Police Beneficiary Association, and the Arlington Coalition of Police have demanded that Tafti apologize for her claim of police brutality. I understand that she has changed her rhetoric and now talks of police accountability. The Democratic establishment in Arlington isnt upset with Stamos because of the bogus police brutality issue. Her real sin, as I understand it, is that she backed an independent candidate and longtime good friend for the Arlington County Board. This breach of party discipline must be punished, even if it means electing a lefty candidate who wanted to prosecute a police officer who was brutally attacked with a metal bar. One more important point in Stamos favor: Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe is against her. She opposed McAuliffes felon rights proposal when McAuliffe was governor. Now, its payback time. The June 11 primary will effectively decide who the Commonwealths attorney will be. Im told that Republicans havent won a race in Arlington County in decades. However, voting for Stamos wont preclude one from voting for the Republican candidate in November. It will simply represent an attempt prevent a Soros-funded, anti-police leftist from defeating a competent and fairly sensible prosecutor. Congresswoman Rashida Talib has been in the news as a result of a Yahoo News podcast in which she participated. The podcast, titled Skullduggery, is an anti-Trump hatefest. This episode began with the hosts discussing the desirability of impeaching President Trump. Then they welcomed Tlaib as a guest, and talked about impeachment some more. (Tlaib is an enthusiastic advocate.) Next they turned to foreign policy, specifically the Middle East. This is where the interview turned controversial. Numerous Republicans, including President Trump, have denounced Tlaibs comments, some because they interpreted them as anti-Semitic. The majority view, however, is the one expressed by Paul, who termed Tlaibs musings on the Middle East not anti-Semitic but blatantly false. At risk of being wrongone disagrees with Paul at ones perilmy view of Tlaibs comments is exactly the opposite. I dont think she made the historical blunder with which she has been charged, the absurd view that Arabs welcomed Jews to the region to give them a haven following the Holocaust. But I do think that what she said is consistent with a deep anti-Semitism. To get more insight into the Tlaib controversy, I performed a sacrificeI listened to the entire podcast, and transcribed the relevant portion. Part of the problem with interpreting Tlaibs statements is that she is not very coherent. She portrays herself as a sort of flower child, which is why the podcast hosts titled this episode From Rashida With Love. What follows is the transcript, with my observations interspersed. I have punctuated Tlaibs stream of consciousness as best I could. Q.: You are the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, and you are organizing a trip to the West Bank during the Summer recess. First of all, how many members do you have who have agreed to go, and what do you want to show them? Your grandmother lives in the West Bank. Tlaib: Yeah. Humpty Dumpty Institute is organizing the trip. I am going to be on the trip. I am eager to be part of the trip and being able to engage Palestinians, what I call community members without titles. I am hoping that we engage also Israelis, again not government officials, not appointees, but actual people that live day to day with increasing inequality Q.: You wouldnt meet with any Israeli government officials? Tlaib: Palestinian or Israeli, I think we want to actually look at the human impact. When I think about a town hall, you know, you dont get government officials, you want to talk to the people. And thats what Im hoping, this trip is a massive town hall. Where we talk to a woman who is working on integration of schools and I want to talk to the other organization literally is about entrepreneurship but between Israelis and Palestinians. I grew up in a city that is, you know, the most beautiful black city in the country, in the city of Detroit, and in every corner is a reminder of the Civil Rights movement. Tlaib was born in 1976 and grew up in the post-Civil Rights era. She turned 16 during the Clinton administration. I saw what oppression and inequality looks like. I saw how separate and equal worked. And so for me, I want my colleagues to see a side that they can relate to, that they can see that this is not about choosing sides but choosing values. So with that, then you might actually be able to look at this in a lens that is really, truly fair. Tlaibs recurrent theme is that the situation in Israel parallels the pre-Civil Rights era in the U.S. Tlaib says that Israel is a separate but equal society like that which prevailed in some parts of the U.S. prior to the 1960s. I would add that anyone who talks about looking at things through a lens is far gone in leftist jargon. The comments that became controversial follow. Q.: So Congresswoman, you created something of a stir by coming out in favor of a one-state solution for Israel and Palestine, and I think you may be the only Democrat who has publicly supported a one-state solution. So what is your vision for a one-state solution that meets both Palestinian and Israeli Jewish national aspirations? Tlaib: Absolutely. And let me tell you, I mean for me, just a few, I think two weeks ago or so, we celebrated, or took a moment I think in our country to remember the Holocaust. And theres, you know, kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, the human dignity, their existence in many ways had been wiped out on some peoples passport. I mean just, all of it, was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews post-the Holocaust, post the tragedy of horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right? In many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right? And it was forced on them. And so when I think about one state, I think about the fact that, why cant we do it in a better way, whereand I dont want people to do it in the name of Judaism, just like I dont want people to use Islam in that way. It has to be done in a way of values around equality and around the fact that you shouldnt oppress others so you can feel free and safe. Why cant we all be free and safe together? Tlaibs account of the founding of Israel is wrong insofar as it begins with the Holocaust. Zionism long preceded Hitler. But it is common, and not unreasonable, to focus on the post-World War II global consensus that the Jews should have a homeland. As I read her rather weird comments, she loves the fact that her ancestors provided a safe haven for Jews, but she isnt saying they did it on purpose. Rather, she acknowledges in one of her clearer sentences that it was forced on them. So I dont think Tlaib is guilty of the historical fantasy with which some have charged her. But look what follows: the question was about the fact that Tlaib favors a one-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. What she presents as a kumbaya momentwhy cant we all be free and safe together?is actually a rejection of the concept of a Jewish state of Israel. She wants one state, and that state wont exist in the name of Judaism. Which raises obvious questions, one of which one of the podcast hosts asks. Q.: But a one-state solution with the right of return, I mean just the math suggests that Jews would become a minority in that state. Tlaib: But Dan, it isnt up to us to decide what it looks like, right? Just like when I have my African-American teachers taught me about neighborhoods they couldnt live in, taught me about places they couldnt work. Its important to understand that separate but equal didnt work here, right? And we have to allow the self-determination to happen there. But for me, thats the lens I bring to. But Im not a leader there. Now we are back to separate but equal! The self-determination that Tlaib refers to is evidently the self-determination that Arabs will exercise when, following a right of return and with the votes of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians added to those of Israeli Arabs and returnees, Arabs now decisively outnumber Jews and Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish state. The podcast hosts arent brave enough to go there, but they do push back a little. Q.: But isnt it giving up to say, were just going to, the idea of a two-state solution with two independent states that are sovereign and independent and free, arent you Tlaib: I didnt give it up. Netanyahu and his party gave it up. The Israeli government gave it up. Actually, Netanyahu and his party continue to favor a two-state arrangement. This is where Tlaibs vicious hatred of Prime Minister Netanyahu begins to show through. Q.: Its not worth fighting for anymore? Tlaib: Its not for me to decide. Q.: But just to be clear Tlaib: If Netanyahu got up yestertomorrow morning and decides you know what, Im going to take down the walls, Im not gonna expand settlements, enough is enough, I really want to push toward a two-state solution, he has every power, every power to do that. And then people like myself and others who truly believe in that. But uprooting people all over again to say that thats gonna happenbecause you understand when you look at the landscape and just map it out, it is almost absolutely impossible with how he has proceeded to divide, how he has proceeded to dissect and segregate communities, that it is impossible for me to see a two-state solution without more people being hurt. I cant explain Tlaibs use of the word dissect. Q.: The Palestinian Authority itself still, at least rhetorically, supports a two-state solution, Hamas does not. How do you distinguish your position from Hamas? Tlaib: I dont come from a place of violence. I come from a place of love and equality and justice. You know, this is, for many of these organizations this is about power struggle. But thats why its important in this trip that we talk to real people who are living it every day. Not people in power that obviously want to continue to fight. They may feel in their own right that its justified. You hear them and you can see the sincerity from those that have supported the kind of approach that Netanyahu has taken against Palestinians and vice versa. But you know, I can hear this kind of tension, and the thing is, I am one person that grew up in a black community, that saw what inequality and oppression looks like. And to me, thats how I was raised. And now Im a Palestinian-American Congress member, and youre telling me to wipe that out, and change it, and look at it from a different lens, and how can I do that? How can I say to my grandmother in her face that she doesnt deserve human dignity, that she is less than, because she is not of Jewish faith? Lets pause here. Who, exactly, has said to Tlaibs grandmother in her face that she doesnt deserve human dignity, that she is less than, because she is not of the Jewish faith? The only answer I can come up with is Jews in general, and Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular. And she was born a different ethnicity, a different faith, whatever it is that people want to label her as, and I keep saying to people, how is that not wrong? How is it that were not saying to ourselves, when are we gonna create a place thats safe for everybody, the state of Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories? I just really think its important for people to understand that I cant completely dissect, or take that lens off, and look at the two lines, and look at the different color license plates, and the fact that Palestinians cant get on the same bus as Israelis, its ridiculous. This is hard to interpret. Tlaib seems to think it is an injustice, like separate but equal in the pre-Civil Rights, Democrat-controlled South, that the West Bank and Israel are separate and, in many ways, different. The reasons for those differences are not hard to discern, but Tlaibs advocacy of a one-state solution seems intended to bring the blessings of Israeli citizenship to Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. Only, perhaps, without the Jewish Israelis. But Tlaib doesnt say anything this clearly. Q.: There are extremists on both sides who also are in favor of a one-state solution, which would be expelling the Arabs or expelling the Jews. Arent you playing with fire by supporting the one-state solution? Tlaib: No, Im coming from a place of love, for equality and justice. I truly am. I want a safe haven for Jews. Who doesnt want to be safe? I am humbled by the fact that it was my ancestors that had to suffer for that to happen. But I will not turn my back and allow others to hijack it and say its an extremist approach, because theyre coming from a place of whatever it is, of division, inequality. You know, if you look at Netanyahu Here foreign and domestic policy come together in Tlaibs catalog of hates. he is the first person to come out and support President Trumps wall. Thats not the kind of leadership, when I look at people pushing back and saying what about this, until I actually see people moving toward that, moving toward desegregating, moving towards like this type of oppression and making people feel less than, then maybe they would have some sort of credibility with somebody like myself that grew up in Detroit, where we can smell it from far away, that no, you dont want to look at my grandmother in the eye, Netanyahu, and say, you are equal to me, you are as human as I am to you, and yes, you deserve to die with human dignity. I dont think Rashida Tlaib has any illusions about what happened in the Middle East in the 1940s. Im sure her grandmother could have explained it to her. Despite her self-description as a flower child devoted to love, Tlaibs hatreds shine through. She obviously hates Benjamin Netanyahu, who represents the Jewish majority in Israel. She wants to bring about a single state of Arabs and Jews that encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, along with countless Arabs from surrounding countries who claim a right of return. The obvious intent behind that policy preference is to destroy Israel as a Jewish state. Tlaib doesnt deny this, but assures us that she comes from a place of love. That cant negate the fact that if her policy preferences were effectuated, the Jewish State of Israel would cease to exist. And, of course, her bete noir, Benjamin Netanyahu, would be long gone, if not murdered along with his fellow Israeli Jews. That is why I think Rashida Tlaib is not as ignorant of history as some have suggested, while at the same time, is more hostile to Jews than others have claimed. There is one Jewish-majority country in the world, and Tlaib wants it to be submerged by an Islamic majority assembled from nearby territories. You can judge for yourself whether that constitutes anti-Semitism. PAUL ADDS: As always, Johns analysis is excellent. That he finds Tlaib saying she takes comfort in her ancestors having their property taken against their will and in their indifference (at best) to the fate of Holocaust survivors is Tlaibs fault, not Johns. Im not convinced this is what Tlaib was trying to say, but its a fair construction of her jumble of words. This much is clear, though. Tlaib wasnt saying she takes comfort from the Holocaust. Her most severe critics were wrong to accuse her of that. In this post, I discussed Donald Trump Jr.s refusal to appear for second time before the Senate Intelligence Committee. I argued that he should testify. Now, following the issuance of a subpoena, Trump Jr. has agreed to testify. Under a deal reached with the Committee, he will testify for up to four hours and questions will be limited to six broad categories, not ten as the Committee contemplated. Its a reasonable deal. Having already questioned Trump Jr., the Committee shouldnt need more than four more hours. Nor, since this is follow-up questioning, is it likely that questioning needs to cover more than six broad topics. One of the topics included in the list of six is the June 2016 meeting Trump Jr. held with that Russian lawyer who claimed to be peddling dirt on Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. denies that his father knew about the meeting. However, Michael Cohen, who was Trumps lawyer at the time, says Trump Jr. informed his father about it in advance. Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, reportedly has said hes not inclined to pursue a perjury case against Trump Jr. regarding his testimony about the June 2016 meeting. I assume he will ask if Trump Jr. is sticking to his story in light of Cohens statements. I assume Trump Jr. will say he is, and that will be the end of it. But Burr is right to want to ask. If my assumptions are correct, this will remain a case of Trump Jr.s word against Cohens. Cohen is serving time for lying to Congress, among other things. Although I argued that Trump Jr. should testify again before Burrs committee, I agree with the decision of the Trump team not to cooperate with the House, which is indulging in nearly two dozen investigations. Whats the difference? Burr is proceeding in good faith as he tries to wrap up his investigation into the important issue of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race. The House, by contrast, is indulging in a politically motivated campaign to harass the president and his family. In addition, Burr is willing to work with witnesses like Trump Jr. to develop reasonable parameters for their testimony. The House committee chairmen insist uncompromisingly on unreasonable conditions. Their intent, it seems, is to induce non-compliance in order to find potential witnesses in contempt. House Democrats are acting without any semblance of good faith. The White House should continue to stiff them. Bloomberg reports: A senior Labor Department official with outsize control of agency operations is leaving after a White House investigation into complaints about mistreating staff and misleading Trump administration personnel, sources with direct knowledge of the probe told Bloomberg Law. That aide is Nick Geale, Alex Acostas chief of staff. Bloombergs sources declined to identify who made the final decision to demand Geales ouster. However, Bloomberg notes that Mick Mulvaney, President Trumps chief of staff, discussed the Geale situation with Acosta during a recent meeting. And Bloomberg makes it clear that removing Geale was not Acostas decision. Geale is known to have abused DOL staff and Im sure that didnt sit well. However, I believe the main reason for his sacking is the bit about misleading White House personnel. As I wrote here: Im told that at White House meetings on the status of various regulatory reform issues, the Acosta DOL, via the Secretarys chief of staff, told officials that regulations desired by the administration regs involving regular rates of pay and joint employment hadnt been formulated due to lack of capacity (among other excuses). In other words, the Department lacked the staff necessary to write these regs given the other obligations of staff members. But Im told that White House officials discovered this was not true. They learned that the DOL staffers at issue actually had little work to do because Acosta nixed the writing of serious regulations, apparently on the grounds that they would be unpopular with congressional Democrats and liberal interest groups. This definitely did not sit well: Dismay over Acostas phony justifications and continued inaction caused representatives of Vice President Pence and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow to become involved. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Neomi Raos shop, also grew concerned. So did Mick Mulvaney. His predecessor, Gen. John Kelly, has many fine qualities, but interest in DOL regulations was not among them. Mulvaney is different. He laid down the law, and the regulations in question were finally drafted. But disgust over Acostas inaction and deception remains. (Emphasis added) Geale was never likely to survive the perception that he deceived the White House. Nor does it help that the DOL has been sluggish in finalizing a rule that would privatize some of the agencys apprenticeship training, as it was instructed to do by a 2017 order from President Donald Trump. This, I understand, is a pet project of Ivanka Trump. But at all times, Geale has been acting (or refusing to act) on behalf of his boss, Alex Acosta. As a source close to the president told Axios (in an understatement): [Acosta] tends to be fairly fearful of taking hardline positions. He tends to be solicitous of the unions. . . . Its not clear to me that Nick is the only problem. You take your cues from the top. (Emphasis added) It was Acosta, I believe, who did not want to write the regulations the White House demanded and who was looking for excuses not to write them. His disinclination to write these regs was part of his general approach to the job do very little to reverse the policies of the Obama/Perez Labor Department so as not alienate unions and leftists. In this, at least, Acosta has been successful. The question, though, is how Acosta survived the insubordination and deception that reportedly led to Geales dismissal. The question is all the more acute given revelations that Acosta, as a federal prosecutor, gave the deal of a lifetime to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and violated federal law in the process. Ive heard that Mulvaney has urged that Acosta be ousted. If so, the only plausible explanation for Acostas retention is that Trump wants him to remain. Why? Thats the question that has me scratching my head. PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-16 00:43:39 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 892 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / AZARGA METALS CORP. ("Azarga Metals" or the "Company") (TSX-V:AZR) following the Company's annual and general shareholder meeting held May 14, 2019 the Company is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Hopley as the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer and the appointment of Dr.Alexander Yakubchuk as the Company's Vice President, Exploration.Chairman, Alex Molyneux commented, "Having recently completed the US$3 million investment transaction with Baker Steel Resources Trust, I'm very excited that we are now putting in place a uniquely qualified leadership team to maximise the results from the next phase of exploration at our Unkur Copper-Silver Project." Michael Hopley is the longest serving director of the Company.He has over 35 years of international experience as a geologist and exploration manager for resource companies in the precious metals and base metal sector.For the past 20 years he has managed a number of publicly traded junior resource companies and held a number of executive and board positions with companies conducting exploration in various parts of the world.Mr.Hopley was most recently President & CEO of Sunridge Gold Corp.which concluded a successful major exploration and development program on the copper-zinc-gold Asmara Project, Eritrea culminating in the sale of the Asmara Project to a large Chinese company in 2016. Dr.Alexander Yakubchuk brings more than 30 years of operational and executive experience gained in the Former Soviet Union (FSU), including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Australia, Mongolia, China, Canada, and several European countries.He is currently the Exploration Director of Orsu Metals Corp.(TSX-V:OSU) , the holder of the Sergeevskoe gold project in the same area of Russia as the Company's Unkur Project.During 2003-07 he held the position of Exploration Manager for Europe and FSU for Gold Fields.Dr Yakubchuk has previously worked with and consulted companies such as BHP-Billiton, Norilsk Nickel, Goldcorp, Rio Tinto, World Bank and Inco and lectured as an Associate Professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Mr.Hopley and Dr.Yakubchuk have accelerated the planning of the Company's next phase of exploration at Unkur, which is anticipated to include the largest drilling campaign yet performed on the project.The next phase exploration program will be funded via proceeds from the Baker Steel Resources Trust Investment Transaction (see news releases of 14 February 2019, 29 March 2019, 10 April 2019 and 15 April 2019).Azarga Metals expects a significant increase in the mineralized envelope on completion of the second phase of exploration.A further announcement regarding detailed plans for the program and the commencement of drilling will be made once detailed arrangements are finalised.***Qualified PersonAzarga Metals' President and CEO Michael Hopley, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the exploration information disclosure contained in this Press Release.About Azarga Metals Corp.Azarga Metals is a mineral exploration and development company that owns 100% of the Unkur Copper-Silver Project in the Zabaikalsky administrative region in eastern Russia.Unkur is a copper-silver discovery of global significance.On completion of a first phase physical exploration program in 2016-2018, the Company reported an NI43-101 Inferred Resource of 62 million tonnes at 0.53% copper and 38.6g/t silver for the project (see news release 15 October 2018).The Resource remains open in both directions along strike and down-dip.AZARGA METALS CORP."Michael Hopley"Michael Hopley, President and Chief Executive OfficerFor further information please contact: Doris Meyer, at +1 604 536-2711 ext 6, visit www.azargametals.com , or follow us on Twitter @ AzargaMetals.The address of the head office of Azarga Metals is Unit 1 - 15782 Marine Drive, White Rock, BC V4B 1E6, British Columbia, Canada.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.Cautionary Statement:This news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on the Corporation's current expectations and estimates.Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "suggest", "indicate" and other similar words or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur.Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results implied or expressed in such forward-looking statements.Such factors include, among others: the actual results of current planned exploration activities; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans to continue to be refined; possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates; accidents, labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing; and fluctuations in metal prices.There may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended.Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Corporation disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.SOURCE: AZARGA METALS CORP. SILVERDALE, WA, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- CGrowth Capital, Inc. (OTC Pink: CGRA) (the "Company"), an alternative asset management and emerging growth markets company, is pleased to announce that the Company will begin expansion plans of its Washington facility upon securing the funding to reach its maximum capacity. The Company continues to make great progress towards its CBD business launch as it works on its online website: http://www.NutriLifeNow.com. And the Company has picked up its push towards an uplisting. "We have all agreed to take the first steps of expanding our producing Washington facility to meet the demand for quality product, increase our revenue base, and position us for potential mergers and acquisitions in the industry," stated Bill Wright, CEO of CGrowth Capital. "We have also strategized and picked back up the task of uplisting the Company to a fully reporting company on the OTCQB. Mr. Wright will also appear on the "Mick Bazsuly Show" this Friday, May 17th, at 3pm EST on 1470 AM and 95.3 FM South Florida and worldwide on AMP2.TV and http://www.wwnnradio.com. The LIVE interview will cover upcoming plans for the Company and the industry as a whole. The show will be archived on YouTube under the Mick Bazsuly Show after the live broadcast. About CGrowth Capital, Inc.: CGrowth Capital, Inc. The Company continues to serve as an alternative asset management company for businesses and assets focused on all aspects of mining, minerals, exploration, commercial real estate, and emerging markets. The processing of metal ore mining, mineral and specialty rock extraction, as well as oil and gas production, are multi-billion dollar market opportunities which is capitalized on through processing, sales, contracting and licensing of assets. CGrowth Capitals services and solutions are designed to assist land owners with monetizing undervalued assets by bringing commodities such as gold, silver, oil and gas, and dolomite to market. CGrowth Capital will focus on acquiring land assets, while also providing partners and affiliates with management services, capital, contract management and logistical services necessary for the successful execution of operations. Through wholly owned subsidiaries, the Company has begun to strategically leverage real estate assets for maximum value within newly developing industries currently underway in Washington State and across the United States. For more information and updates about CGrowth Capital, visit their website or Facebook pages: http://www.CGrowthCapital.com https://www.facebook.com/CGrowthCapital https://twitter.com/CGRAOTC Investor Inquiries: CGrowth Capital, Inc. 360-536-4500 Safe Harbor Statements about the Company's future expectations and all other statements in this press release other than historical facts, are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors created thereby. The above information contains information relating to the Company that is based on the beliefs of the Company and/or its management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company or its management. When used in this document, the words "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plans," "projects," and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company or its management, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current view of the Company regarding future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the risks and uncertainties noted. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated, expected, intended or projected. In each instance, forward-looking information should be considered in light of the accompanying meaningful cautionary statements herein. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to, successful performance of internal plans, the impact of competitive services and pricing and general economic risks and uncertainties. The Company disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-14 22:46:34 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 910 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 ROSEMONT, IL / ACCESSWIRE / May 14, 2019 / Over 1,400 food safety professionals representing the leading foodservice and retail establishments, manufacturers and processors, distributors, regulators, and academicians gathered last week for The 21st Annual Food Safety Summit, in Rosemont, IL. This leading industry event, designed to meet the educational and informational needs of the entire food industry, also attracted a virtual audience of more than 400 food safety professionals, and 135 exhibiting companies. During the four-day event, food safety professionals participated in interactive sessions, heard from industry and government leaders, found new innovations and solutions on the show floor and networked at several events."As Mike Taylor stated in his keynote address, we should not have to wait for another food safety crisis to implement modern practices to prevent foodborne illness, and that was a big focus of this annual gathering of industry and government professionals," said Scott Wolters, Chief Event Officers for BNP Media, Producers of the Food Safety Summit. "We thank our Educational Advisory Board, our exhibitors, attendees, speakers, and press, who came out to share, network and learn about the solutions they need to help keep America's food supply safe." Highlight of the Summit, included:The event kicked off on Monday, May 6th with eight successful certificate/certification programs including Preventive Control for Human Food, Foreign Supplier Verification, Professional Food Safety Auditor Training, Seafood HACCP, HACCP Training, Certified in Comprehensive Food Safety, Produce Safety and IA Conducting Vulnerability Assessments. In addition, the North Central Association of Food and Drug Officials held their annual meeting.Michael Taylor, former Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and current board co-chair of STOP Foodborne Illness discussed the alignment of government and industry during his keynote presentation which was broadcast live from the event to a virtual audience of more than 400 industry professionals and is available on-demand on the event website at thislink.There were two prestigious industry awards presented during the Summit. Congratulations to Joe Corby, Senior Advisor of AFDO, for receiving the NSF Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence from Robert Prevendar, Global Managing Director, NSF International. Preceding the Town Hall, the 2019 Sani Awards were presented. The Leadership in Food Safety Award was given to Cindy Jiang of McDonalds; The Exceptional Food Safety Education and/or Training Program Implementation Award was given to The Cheesecake Factory; and the Outstanding Food Safety Program Innovation Award was given to Al Baroudi from the Cheesecake Factory.The expo hall featured three new areas, including the Community Hub, sponsored by Purell, which was designed for attendees to meet with subject matter experts from the Summit speaker faculty; the Tech Tent, where standing room only crowds listened about the latest software and hardware available for food safety professionals to use; and the Learning Lounge where expert's moderated discussion about several very important topics, including food allergens, cannabis, testing and sampling, certificate courses, paperless solution and management commitment.The education program began with a dynamic opening session where industry leaders Shawn Stevens, Esq., Food Industry Counsel; James Marsden, Nectarteck; Angie Ames, Kwik Trip; Lone Jespersen, Cultivate Food Safety; Oscar Garrison, United Egg Producers; and Robert McNaney, Padilla shared their experiences on preparing for, managing and surviving a high profile food safety crisis.Over 200 people attended the Partners with a Common Purpose (PwCP) afternoon workshop and heard from industry and government speakers including Dionne Crawford, McDonalds, Eric Moore, Testo, Laurie Farmer, FDA, Natalie Adam, GA Dept. of Ag., Mick Miklos, National Restaurant Association , Randy Treadwell, Washington State Dept. of Ag., Tara Paster, Paster Training, Joe Corby, AFDO and Steve Mandernach, AFDO.The sprawling exhibit hall featured more than 135 vendors showcasing products and services including Platinum Sponsor Sani Professional, Gold Sponsor Purell, Bronze Sponsor Alchemy and Solution Stage Sponsors bioMerieux, Lubriplate, FoodLogiQ, TraQtion, NSF, Eurofins, ClorDiSys Systems, Rubber Export Promotion Council, Compliance Cops, Siemens, Rentokil Steritech, FoodChain ID and Mettler Toledo.During the 8th Annual Town Hall AFDO's Steve Mandernach, CDC's Dr. Robert Tauxe, USDA's Paul Keicker, and FDA's Frank Yiannas gave an overview of progress that has been made over the past year and then took questions from the audience.The Town Hall was moderated by Gary Ades, President of G&L Consulting and Chairman of the Summit's Educational Advisory Board.The Summit concluded with a dynamic interactive panel discussion on what is keeping food safety professional up and night. Joan Menke-Schaenzer, Van Drunen Farms/FutureCeuticals moderated the panel which includedShawn Stevens, Food Industry Council, LLC; Thuy Vu, Hammer EnterprisesIntegrated Solutions, LLC; Steven Mandernach, AFDO; Donna Schaffner, RutgersUniversity; Will Daniels, IEH, Inc.; and Dane Bernard, Bold Bear Food Safety.Plans are already being made for the22nd Annual Food SafetySummit which will again be held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL from Monday, May 4 through Thursday, May 7, 2020. For more information, on sponsorship or exhibiting opportunities contact Kim Hansen at hansenk@ bnpmedia.com . For 2020 event information and updates visit www.foodsafetysummit.com and for year-round food safety news, updates and insights covering all food-processing segments visit www.foodsafetystrategies.com . Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.TheFood Safety Summit is produced by BNP Media ( www.bnpmedia.com) , one ofthe country's leading business-to-business media companies serving industryprofessionals across 60+ industries through magazines, custom media,e-newsletters, webinars, events and market research.For further information, Contact:Amy Riemer, Media Relations Contact978-475-4441 (office) or 978-502-4895 (cell)amy@ riemercommunications.com SOURCE: Food Safety Summit PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-15 04:46:44 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 753 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Attorney Bob Cornish, an industry expert in the digital asset space and member of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, has been retained by Monarch Blockchain Corporation as its Counsel for legal and corporate matters.RENO, USA / ACCESSWIRE / May 14, 2019 / Monarch Blockchain Corporation welcomes crypto advocate attorney Bob Cornish as its outside counsel. Bob, who is Of Counsel at national Law firm Wilson Elser, has 25 years of experience in the financial services and broker-dealer space. He brings a wealth of knowledge of digital assets and laws surrounding them. He worked with the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition to add 13 laws to make Wyoming a welcoming state for crypto and blockchain technology and has been an ambassador to those blockchain companies seeking to establish a presence in the United States.Monarch Blockchain Corporation has announced that Bob Cornish will be taking over as its lead outside counsel. Mr. Cornish is a good fit for Monarch because they both are helping blockchain technologies become more accessible and useful in the space. Robert is a leading attorney in the digital assets space.Wyoming wanted to become a place to encourage growth in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. These laws were designed to benefit businesses and individuals. Some of the legislation was designed to help the challenge of banking with cryptocurrency. Wyoming created a state-chartered depository to provide basic banking to blockchain and other businesses that are required to have 100% reserves. These banks are for business depositors only and will have optional FDIC insurance. Wyoming hopes these laws will not only bring in US-based businesses but global businesses as well.With all of Mr. Cornish's experience in the digital assets space, he has been asked to speak at events in the blockchain and crypto industries. He was a panelist at Blockchain Unbound in Puerto Rico, Money Conference 2018 in Dublin and other events in the US, Asia and Europe.Robert also has a significant amount of experience in litigation, arbitration, regulatory and compliance matters for broker-dealers, investment advisors, institutional investors, commodity firms, accountants, hedge funds and family offices. He is a member of the EB5 Securities Roundtable, which is an informal, independent group of EB-5 Securities Attorneys that got together to facilitate best practices. He has been recognized as one of the top 15 Corporate and Securities Attorneys in the EB-5 space by his peers in EB5 Investors Magazine 2016 and 2017, as well as a thought leader. Bob has also served as chief legal ad compliance officer for prominent investment firms.Being a Chairperson-trained arbitrator for FINRA, NFA and the London Court of International Arbitration and a Rule 31 Mediator for the Tennessee Supreme Court will also benefit Monarch Blockchain Corporation it is focused on compliance and in the midst of its Token Generation Event concluding on June 30, 2019. More information can be found on the Monarch Website.With thanks to Wilson Elser, Monarch Blockchain Corporation is grateful to have Bob Cornish on board and is excited to have him assist with the expansion and improvement of its products and services while ensuring regulatory compliance.Robert Beadles, President of Monarch Blockchain Corporation, "Navigating the regulatory waters in crypto can be challenging. Adding the preeminent attorney in SEC Compliance and blockchain as Monarch's lead legal counsel shows we take our responsibility seriously. We are here to deliver amazing tech and value while doing everything in our power to be compliant. We're honored to welcome Robert to the family!"Monarch Blockchain Corporation currently has one of the best Universal Decentralized Wallets to offer the market. Currently, The Monarch Wallet supports over 1900 cryptocurrencies and can be downloaded for free from the Monarch website, the Google Play or iOS app stores. The Monarch mobile wallet has attractive features such as having a fiat gateway that allows qualified customers to utilize their bank or credit cards to purchase Bitcoin and/or Ethereum, to earning up to 7.1% APR with various cryptocurrencies. All users can also use the ERC20 Token to ERC20 Token Decentralized Exchange (DEX) directly from within the Monarch Decentralized Cryptocurrency Wallet. Top it all off with the app being updated on a regular basis, a portfolio tracker, updated news, market data, all while users own their keys and seed. The Monarch Wallet truly is the one app to rule them all.To stay up-to-date with all things Monarch, be sure to join their Telegram Community Channel of over 28,000 members here: https://t.me/MonarchTokenContact Info:Name: William LinceOrganization: Monarch Blockchain CorporationAddress: 401 Ryland St. STE 200-A, Reno, Nevada 89502, United StatesWebsite: https://monarchtoken.io/ SOURCE: Monarch Blockchain Corporation FactMR PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-15 12:25:16 Press Information Fact.MR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 Abhishek Marketing Manager 16111593 email http://www.factmr.com # 617 Words 11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852Marketing Manager16111593 This is Fact.MRs latest report on lubricant antioxidants market that unveils the unique facts about the market explained in terms of quantitative and qualitative information. The market report contains the detailed explanation on growth of the lubricant antioxidants market and its market dynamics to justify the claims made by analysts in the Fact.MR study.Get a Free Sample Copy of Current Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=3466 In BriefLubricant antioxidants market revenues grew at a CAGR of 2.4% during 2013-2017. Global demand for non-depleting lubricant antioxidants that improve the long-term performance of lubricants and greases continued to surge during this period, creating challenges for manufacturers.Lubricant antioxidants market revenues reached US$ 1.6 billion in 2018 on back of growing focus on improving the efficiency and expanding the lifespan of lubricants.The lubricant antioxidants market is set to witness 3% y-o-y in 2019 over 2018. The long-term outlook on the market is also bullish, with our estimates suggesting a CAGR of 3.6% between 2018 and 2028.East Asia is likely to remain the leading market for lubricant antioxidants, as leading chemical companies and lubricant manufacturers continue to invest heavily in China to capitalize on increasing industrial growth in the country.Middle East & Africa (MEA) is expected to emerge as a high-growth market for lubricant antioxidants during the assessment period, with our estimates suggesting a CAGR of 4.8% through 2028.What are the Key Growth Drivers of Lubricant Antioxidants Market?Imposition of emission control regulations and high fuel economy standards has led to higher demand from the automotive industry.Lubricant antioxidants play an important role in improving the durability and lifespan of engines by forming a protective layers upon engine parts. As focus on preventive maintenance grows, demand for lubricant antioxidants and other materials has witnessed a steady surge.The fortunes of lubricant antioxidants industry are dependent on broader developments in lubricant production in recent years, global lubricant production has remained steady, creating sizeable opportunities for lubricant antioxidants industry.Browse Complete Market Report with TOC Here @ https://www.factmr.com/report/3466/lubricant-antioxidants-market Automotive Industry Drives Demand for Primary Lubricant AntioxidantsGrowing emphasis on the importance of antioxidants in lubricants, especially in automotive lubricants, has been contributing to the steadily increasing applications of both primary and secondary variants. However, primary antioxidants for lubricants, which are also known as radical scavengers, continue to remain sought-after, especially in the automotive industry.Increasing use of primary antioxidants, such as aminic and phenolic antioxidants, in lubricants is mainly attributed to their improved performance characteristics, such as greater oxidation control and higher additive treat rates than secondary antioxidants. Primary antioxidants also play an important role in modern automotive lubricants as tightening fuel efficiency regulations and high standards have created a need for improving the performance of lubricants against oxidation.Thereby, as primary lubricant antioxidants offer multifold greater performance and oxidation control than secondary antioxidants, an upsurge in demand for aminic and phenolic antioxidants is likely to persist in the coming future.Lubricant Antioxidants Market Competitive LandscapeLeading players in the lubricant antioxidants market include BASF SE, Lubrizol, Chevron Oronite Company (Chevron), Afton Chemical, Infineum (ExxonMobil), Songwon Industrial Group, ENI, Evonik, LANXESS, Jinzhou Kangtai Lubricant Additives, Wuxi South Petroleum Additive, SI Group (acquired by SK Capital), ADEKA Corporation, and OXIRIS Chemicals S. A.For any query get easily connect with an Analyst @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=3466 About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market insights 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. PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-15 06:01:03 Popular Japanese Cosmetic Brands, Including Bifesta, Barrier Repair, GATSBY, and LUCIDO, to be Available Mandom to Open Flagship Store on Tmall Global on May 16 Mandom Corporation Japan E-commerce DIV. ec@mandom.com Mandom Corporation Japan (Headquarters: Osaka / President Executive Officer and Director: Motonobu Nishimura) will open the Mandom Flagship Store on Tmall Global, the Internet Shopping Website, on May 16, 2019. Mandom includes several cosmetic brand lines, including GATSBY, LUCIDO, Bifesta, Barrier Repair, and LUCIDO-L, used for haircare, hair styling, hair coloring, skincare, bodycare, and other day-to-day personal grooming and fashion needs. Mandom also has business divisions in eleven Asian countries and regions, including Japan. NOTE: Mandoms official name in Chinese is , not . We will open a Mandom Overseas Flagship Store on Tmall Global to allow customers in China to more easily purchase reliable, safe, and high-quality products. For sale on that Mandom Flagship Store will be 32 items from four of our major brands. [Official Flagship Store Account URLs] Mandom Overseas Flagship Store at Tmall Global: https://mandomglobal.tmall.hk Official Bifesta Weibo Account: https://weibo.com/u/5204961983 Official Barrier Repair Weibo Account: https://weibo.com/u/2416017680 Official GATSBY Weibo Account: https://weibo.com/u/2641840504 [Series Available at Mandom Overseas Flagship Store] Bifesta A facial foam and cleansing brand for beautiful skin. The Bifesta brand is particularly popular for its cleansing lotion series, with the highest(*) market share for that category in Japan. Eye makeup remover (1 item) Cleansing lotion (4 items) Cleansing sheet (4 items) Foaming whip (4 items) A facial foam and cleansing brand for beautiful skin. The Bifesta brand is particularly popular for its cleansing lotion series, with the highest(*) market share for that category in Japan. Barrier Repair A skincare brand that focuses on the skins ability to serve as a barrier, promoting healthier skin from the inside out. An expanding line of facial masks to choose for various skin concerns and skin condition you want to be. Facial mask (5 items) Oil-in facial mask (3 items) A skincare brand that focuses on the skins ability to serve as a barrier, promoting healthier skin from the inside out. An expanding line of facial masks to choose for various skin concerns and skin condition you want to be. GATSBY A mens cosmetic brand, expanding not only within Japan but throughout Asia as a whole, offering younger men a constant connection to fashion trends. The extremely popular facial wash series has the highest(*) market share for the facial wash tube category in Japan. Facial wash (6 items) Facial paper (2 items) A mens cosmetic brand, expanding not only within Japan but throughout Asia as a whole, offering younger men a constant connection to fashion trends. The extremely popular facial wash series has the highest(*) market share for the facial wash tube category in Japan. LUCIDO A mens cosmetic brand for adult men who are serious about their good looks and personal grooming. This line includes high-quality products, developed through long years of research into adult skin and hair. Skincare series (3 items) A mens cosmetic brand for adult men who are serious about their good looks and personal grooming. This line includes high-quality products, developed through long years of research into adult skin and hair. * Based on Mandom market data from April of 2018 to March of 2019 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514005 Mandom Corporation Japan will open the Mandom Flagship Store on Tmall Global, the Internet Shopping Website, on May 16. PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-15 21:36:18 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 555 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Another new investment in the renewable energy sector has been confirmed for the state of Texas. Standing as one of the nation's largest contributors and developers of the projects that fuel alternative energy, Texas will be the home to Clearway Energy Group's Mesquite Star. Expected to be a 419-megawatt wind farm that will reside in Fischer and Nolan counties, the project that is already underway will house over 100 wind turbines and is expected to generate power for commercial operations as early as 2020.With the project set to be one of the 40 wind farms in Texas, the lone star state has a well established infrastructure of alternative energy sources that help fuel the growing industry. Currently generating a substantial amount of the state's energy supply through sustainable sources, the power that was produced through renewable sources has been recorded to make up nearly 18% of all consumed energy as early as 2017.Through projects like Mesquite Star, Texas owns nearly a quarter of the nation's installed generating capacity for wind energy and has increasingly become the national leader in this renewable power market. This focus on creating new sources of energy is catching on in other areas as well. As new industry revenue stream and job creation is stimulated from these alternative energy projects, Texas' residents and businesses are welcoming the trend.One area of focus is how energy from renewable sources is impacting the housing industry. Property developers are seeing this as a way to attract residents and also save money in the long term. "Incorporating energy efficiency into all of our rental communities has helped our properties and residents save money, live better while also putting environmental consciousness as part of our firm's priorities. As of 2017 all Western Rim properties include energy star rated appliances and solar powered technologies that help us do our part in maintaining a cleaner living environment and lifestyle for our residents and the surrounding communities." shares Marcus Hiles, Texas based entrepreneur and CEO of Western Rim Properties.However there is a reason why alternative energy projects are hard to get off the ground. In the case of Clearway Energy Group's Mesquite Star, this large undertaking required bringing in partners on a local, state and national scale. Having a strong backing is critical for all alternative energy projects that are part of an industry in its infancy where significant funding is necessary to get the project going. As an industry leader with a strong network of customers and revenue contract counter-parties, Clearway Energy Group has the backing of leading institutions such as Ecolab Inc., Brown University, Cisco Systems, Inc. This has allowed the sustainable energy corporation to drive new projects ahead while supporting sustainability and clean energy goals of some of today's biggest organizations.Expected to be the largest renewable energy facility in Texas' Adams County, the wind farm will produce enough renewable energy to power over 35k homes in the area. This will support Texas' position as a leading provider in the alternative energy industry and will continue to represent the model of a once oil and gas driven energy player that now has turned to more sustainable, cost-effective alternatives to drive the state's economy, long term.Houzz: https://www.houzz.com/pro/marcushiles/marcus-hiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcus.hiles/ SOURCE: Marcus Hiles PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-15 13:01:40 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 618 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2019 / Sphinx Resources Ltd.("Sphinx" or the "Corporation") (TSX-V: SFX) is pleased to announce that the Honourable Lawrence Cannon has been appointed to the Corporation's Board of Directors as an independent director. Mr.Cannon was born in Quebec and has a long history of public service at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.He was the Canadian Ambassador to the French Republic from 2012 to 2017.He was an influential member of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, serving from 2008 to 2011 as Minister of Foreign Affairs.From 2006 to 2008, he was Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and Minister responsible for Quebec in the Government of Canada.In the Quebec government, between 1985 and 1994, Mr.Cannon was Minister of Communications, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of External Trade and Technological Development and also Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism.From 1971 to 1976, he was the executive assistant to Premier Robert Bourassa.At the municipal level, he was Municipal Councillor for the City of Gatineau from 2001 to 2005 and for the City of Cap-Rouge from 1979 to 1985.In early October 2011, he was appointed Chair and Senior Member of the Gowlings Government Affairs Group in Ottawa.He also served on the Board of Directors of the Oceanic Iron Ore Corporation.Mr.Cannon resigned from both these positions when he was appointed Ambassador of Canada to France.From 1994 to 2001, he was Vice President of Government Affairs with Unitel, consultant for Groupe Cannon & Associates. Mr.Cannon holds an M.B.A.from the Universite Laval (Quebec City) and a Bachelor's Degree from Loyola College in Montreal."We are privileged and honoured to welcome Lawrence to the Sphinx Board.Lawrence has tremendous experience in the business and political world and made significant contributions to local communities.He will help Sphinx's team to realize the next stage of growth", said Mr.John Hick, Chairman of the Board.Kerry E.Sparkes has resigned from the Board in order to pursue other opportunities."I want to express our Board's deep appreciation for the opportunity to work with Kerry and benefit from his talent and dedication.We are thankful for his involvement and tremendous contributions since the beginning of the Corporation and wish him success in his new ventures", said Mr.Normand Champigny, director of the Corporation.About SphinxSphinx is a mineral exploration company that focuses its activities in southwestern Quebec in search of deposits of base metals (zinc, copper, lead) and precious metals (palladium, platinum, gold and silver).Sphinx is particularly active in the MRC Pontiac where its President and Chief Executive Officer resides.It has a strong local shareholding that contributes towards social acceptability.For further information, please consult Sphinx's website or contact:Jeremie RyanPresident and Chief Executive Officer819.664.2632info@ sphinxresources.ca Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and activities to vary materially from targeted results and planning.Such risks and uncertainties include those described in Sphinx's periodic reports including the annual report or in the filings made by Sphinx from time to time with securities regulatory authorities.All forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release.Sphinx does not undertake to update any such forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.SOURCE:Sphinx Resources Ltd. As per a recent report launches by TRENDS MARKET RESEARCH the Ultrasonic Probe Covers Market for Keyless Entry System Market is set to surface a valuation of US$ xx MN by 2025 PR-Inside.com: 2019-05-15 11:48:11 Press Information Trends Market Research One Vincent Square, Westminster, London SW1P 2PN, UK Phone: +44-161-850-8625 Ethan Analytics 1618508625 email https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com # 591 Words One Vincent Square, Westminster, London SW1P 2PN, UKPhone: +44-161-850-8625Analytics1618508625 Ultrasonic probe covers are the sterile covers which provide imaging solutions. They are applied on the transducer that is used for scanning and diagnosis. They are used to provide distortion-free images for use in applications such as urology, radiology, cardiology, gynaecology, neurosurgery, etc. They are largely used by radiologist on transducers to carry out ultrasound procedures and image organs including stomach, intestinal walls, pancreas, gall bladder etc. Ultrasonic probe covers are made of high quality natural rubber. They are generally lubricated with water based lubricant and act as hygienic protection for patient during ultrasonic examination. Furthermore, they are reliable and convenient to use. Increasing awareness regarding health has led to considerable increase in full body checkups per year.Get More Information About Ultrasonic Probe Covers Market- https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/3049 Furthermore, endocavity examinations across the world have also significantly rose. Ultrasonic probe covers largely serve as a viral barrier for transrectal and transvaginal ultrasound procedures. Thus, rising endocavity examinations are directly driving ultrasonic probe covers market. Furthermore, mandatory government regulations regarding single-use disposable probe covers is another major factor facilitating the growth of the market. For e.g. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposes use of new probe cover for a probe for each patient.The association also recommends every new cover to be highly disinfected.Ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented on the basis of type, sterility, product type, material, application, and region. On the basis of type, the ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented into linear, curvilinear and phased array. On the basis of sterility, the ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented into sterile and non-sterile. On the basis of product type, the ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented into latex-free. On the basis of material, the ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented into rubber, polyethylene, polyurethane, and others. On the basis of application, the ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented into urology, radiology, cardiology, gynaecology, neurosurgery,and others.Request For Table of Contents- https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/requesttoc/3049 On the basis of region, the ultrasonic probe covers market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and South America. Amongst all, North America is expected to be the most lucrative ultrasonic probe cover market owing to high personal hygiene awareness, favorable government initiatives, and increasing investment for healthcare equipment in the region.The major players operating in ultrasound probe covers market are CIVCO Medical Solutions Co., Inc., Cone Instruments Inc., Vermed (Nissha Medical Technologies), Fairmont Medical Ltd, GE Healthcare Ltd., Parker Laboratories Inc., Protek Medical Products Ltd, PDC Healthcare Inc., Ecolab Ltd, and MedXL Ltd among others.Report Description: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/ultrasonic-probe-covers-market View More: RETAIL & CONSUMER GOODSAbout Us:Trends Market Research is one of the leading digital services provider and a result-oriented company based in U.K.. We are a team of enthusiastic-driven individuals with top notch skills in SEO , Market research. Trends Market Research is a one stop shop to all your business needs. We help you thrive and succeed. We provide research solution.Our digital and enterprise research assurance solutions are ideal for Automotive & Transportation, Electronics & Semiconductor, Chemicals & Materials, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals & Medical Devices, Food & Beverage and Industrial Automation as well as all type of other leading industries verticals . We offer a vast line of in-depth study of industry trends including customized & client oriented specific requirement.Contact Us:One Vincent SquareWestminster, London SW1P 2PNUnited KingdomEmail: sales@ trendsmarketresearch.com Website: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com Tension is rising in Gagarawa Local Government Area of Jigawa State as residents alleged constant arrest and police brutality following their protest of alleged seizure of their farmlands. Muazu Jibrin, a resident, said they live in constant fear of arrest and intimidation by the state authorities after they rejected and protested against the seizure of their farmlands. The state government years ago allocated 12,000 hectares to a Chinese firm, Lee Group of Companies, for a sugarcane plantation. The allocated land extends across four local government areas in the state. The pilot stage of the plantation has started at Garin Ciroma community in Gagarawa LGA. The community is the host of the main project of the plantation, and many Chinese and Nigerian workers are already on site. The state government had to call in the police recently after the communities allegedly chased away the Chinese nationals from their farmlands. The locals alleged that the police arrested many villagers in the incident. The communities had rejected monetary compensation by the state government and vowed to continue to farm their lands. When PREMIUM TIMES correspondent visited Garin Ciroma, he saw dozens of armed mobile police officers stationed at the sugarcane plantation. Saadu Audu is one of the residents detained by the police for four days over the unrest in the area. We were invited by the Gagarawa DPO who told us that he was directed to take us to police headquarters in Dutse. We were detained for four days and later released on bail. Our crime is that we sent away a Chinese working on our farmland, he said. Mr Saadu Audu Isa Ardo, another resident, told PREMIUM TIMES that the state government deployed five truckloads of mobile police operatives to their settlement in Tudun Fulani. We were asked to vacate the area without monetary compensation. I am 55 years old. Even my grandfather was born here, we settled here for more than a century ago and this is the only place we have been farming and rearing cows. We were told to leave because they want to plant sugarcane. They showed us where to go and settle, but they did not give us money for compensation. Government officials are also collecting money from us before we can build a hut in the area we have been taken to, Mr Ardo said. The police spokesperson in Jigawa, Audu Jinjiri, declined to respond to the allegations. He said the issue had been politicised. The states police commissioner, Bala Senchi, was on an official assignment outside the state at the time of this report. Why were against the project Residents Rabiu Musa, a 58-year-old resident of Garin Ciroma, spoke on behalf of other residents. He said the project was conceived by a former governor, Sule Lamido. Mr Lamido was governor of the state between 2007 and 2015. He said the whole community rejected the project because it focussed only on sugarcane plantation, while the residents have grown a variety of food crops over the years as their means of livelihood. Mr Rabiu Musa The incumbent governor, Mohammad Badaru, and the members representing Gagarawa and Gumel, and Maigatari federal constituencies, Sule Tankar-kar and Sani Zorro respectively, while on electioneering campaigns in 2015 told us that the entire project was a fraud against the locals. They said seizing our farmlands amounted to seizing the lives of the locals. This is one of the reasons why Badaru and Zorro were supported in the area. More importantly, we believed and trusted the governor because of his experience and he appeared to be a gentleman because of the beard he wears. However, he was the first to swallow his words, siding with the Chinese people to our own detriment. Now it is only Mr Zorro who stood by his words, over time, fighting alongside the deprived, Mr Musa said. He said the state government had earlier told the affected communities that the company would channel potable water from Hantsu community in Miga Local Government Area to serve the water need of all the communities. However, the company has dug multiple wells serving only the sugarcane plantation, neglecting the communities around, Mr Musa said. Also, they said the project is similar to that of Kadawa irrigation valley in Kano. We later learnt that it is a blatant lie. Because in that of Kano, those who complained about the project are the farmers whose farmlands were affected by the water channel. No farmland was seized and there was the sincerity of purpose because the then government wanted to economically empower the farmers. The system in Jigawa is a capitalist capital expansion. They completely seized our farmland and they want us to work on the plantation to produce sugarcane and to be sold to them at a price to be determined by them. Were going to hold the horns while they milk the economic cow. Advertisements We cannot be slaves on our own land. Muazu Jibrin, a resident of Dan-Nani community, is also affected by the project. He said the people working on the pilot stage of the plantation, work from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and are paid N600. Many people are running away because they learnt that they wanted to use them as cheap labour. Auwalu Garin-Ciroma, a motorcyclist, said the entire project is meant to exploit the residents. The compensation is inadequate I knew people who were given N10,000 each as compensation. When they complained, they told them that their farmland has no multiple tree plantation. Other residents are against the project because of the poor monetary compensation. They are paying N30,000 per hectare of land. That is why many are fighting against the project and we are ready to fight to the last drop of our blood unless justice is done. Only a few people accepted the compensation and the same people are dubiously deceiving the government by collecting multiple compensation using other peoples land number, disguising as the real owners of the farmlands, the motorcyclist said. Government Reacts Earlier, the states deputy governor, Ibrahim Hassan, told reporters that the government had gone beyond the provisions of the Land Use Act just to help the people. He said, under the Act, the governor can take the land and give it to the company in overriding public interest. Mr Hassaan admitted that the Act encourages compensation for original owners of seized farmlands, but said the governor could not be sued if he only pays stipends to such owners. If a (piece of) land is worth N100 million and the governor decided to give N10,000, no one can question him and no one can sue him, Mr Hassan said. The compensation policy is not about money; it is for livelihood guarantee. If you give a peasant farmer N1 million compensation, you will create more problem for him because somebody that has never had N5,000 in his lifetime and you give him that amount of money, he will lose up to 90 per cent of the money to fraudsters or he is going to mismanage it, the deputy governor said. The deputy governor also spoke on the revolt of the locals over the plantation project. There are 12 villages in the heart of the 12,000 hectares of the Sugarcane plantation. Lee Group once complained about the revolt from the locals, possibly to set ablaze the sugarcane farm in an act of sabotage. But we told them to engage the villagers to work on the plantation. With this, no one will think of destroying the sugarcane farm because they are the direct beneficiaries of the activity going on there. Theres no danger that they will put fire on the farm. The project has a turnover of over N100billion per annum. The investor is doing the state a favour by coming to invest in the state. Gagarawa is sandy soil area. It is the only part of Jigawa that doesnt practice two seasons agriculture, Mr Hassan said. The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday adjourned proceedings till June 10 on a contempt charge against the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and its Director-General, Alex Okoh. On April 10, the Court in Abuja had issued BPE and Mr Okoh a formal notice to appear before it on Monday, May 13. Both were ordered to come and show why they should not be committed to prison for their alleged serial defiance of the July 6, 2012 order of the Supreme Court on the ownership crisis of the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON). The court said it was in the interest of justice for it to exercise the powers for committal in order to enforce the full obedience and compliance with the binding orders of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. BPE DG continues to defy the court At the resumed sitting of the court on Monday, Mr Okoh ignored the court order and stayed away. Counsel to BPE, Oluwasegun Umar, said he was also appearing for Mr Okoh. But, counsel to BFIGroup, Patrick Ikwueto, a senior advocate of Nigeria, protested the nonappearance of Mr Okoh personally in court to defend the charge against him. Mr Ikwueto said since the application was against Mr Okoh in his personal capacity, as a lawyer he should know appearance in person to answer to his charge is mandatory. He urged the court to compel Mr Okoh to appear in person on the next adjourned date. His refusal to honour the court summons, Mr Ikwueto said, showed a continued pattern of defiance and disobedience to the rule of law by BPE over the ALSCON matter. Consequently, Justice Anuli Chikere ruled that Mr Okoh must appear before the court in person on the adjourned date of June 10 or risked being ruled against in his absence. Background to the story In 2004, BPE cancelled, in controversial circumstances, the declaration by the National Council on Privatisation of a Nigerian-American consortium, BFI Group, as the preferred bidder for ALSCON. In 2006, BPE handed over the ownership of the $3.2 billion plant to UC RUSAL, which was previously disqualified during the bid, by NCP, for violating the bid guidelines. BFIG contested the cancellation at the Federal High Court in Abuja. After over six years of legal battle, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous judgment on July 6, 2012, nullified the BPEs decision. The apex court gave an order of specific performance for the enforcement of the subsisting contract between BFIG and BPE over ALSCON sale. Specifically, the Supreme Court ordered BPE to immediately retrieve ALSCON from UC RUSAL and prepare to hand over to BFIG by issuing a mutually agreed share purchase agreement (SPA) approved at the end of negotiations in 2004. More than seven months after the judgment, and the refusal of BPE to enforce its order, BFIG in 2013 filed a petition at the Appeal Court for the enforcement of the Supreme Court order. The application was granted. In 2014, BPE, in defiance of the Supreme Courts order, filed an application at the Court of Appeal against the decision of the Federal High Court in Abuja. Appeal Court reaffirms Supreme Court ruling After a prolonged hearing, the Appeal Court presided by Justice Abdul Aboki on January 11 this year, reaffirmed the sanctity of the Supreme Court ruling and demanded immediate compliance by BPE. The appeal court in its judgment set aside the ruling of the Federal High Court in suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/901/2013 filed by BPE. The high court had ruled that BFIG had no binding agreement over ALSCON sale. But in setting aside the judgment, the Appeal Court reaffirmed the sanctity of the July 2012 Supreme Court judgment and again ordered its full enforcement by BPE. Advertisements The Supreme Court had confirmed the existence of a binding contract between BPE and BFIG for the sale of ALSCON. Also, the Supreme Court ordered BPE to accept the payment of 10 per cent of the bid price from BFIG. It equally issued a perpetual injunction restraining the privatisation agency, privies, management or others from inviting further bids for the sale of ALSCON in violation of its subsisting contract with BFIG. In addition, the court restrained BPE from selling, transferring or handing over ALSCON to any person in violation of its contract with BFIG. On January 14, BFIG wrote to BPE to draw its attention to the consequential orders of the appeal court. It got no response from BPE. On January 25, BFIG wrote again to BPE to request for a clean copy of the SPA for execution in compliance with the subsisting judgment/orders of the Supreme Court as reinforced by the Appeal Court. Still, no response came from BPE. BPE Ignores Appeal Court order Regardless, BPE DG also ignored the order and went ahead to announce almost a month later on February 2 of ongoing consultations by BPE to resolve critical issues (including gas supply and price) for the reopening of the plant, to enable the core investor, UC RUSAL/Dayson Holdings operate profitably. On February 4, BPE finally sent a response to BFIG, accompanied by a reproduced 16-page SPA. Counsel to BFIG said the SPA was not accompanied with any of the 17 annexures acknowledged as key parts of the SPA. The annexures include a financial statement of ALSCON for the year ended December 31, 2004; ALSCON Post-Acquisition Plan; List of Liabilities of ALSCON; List of Facilities of ALSCON; List of land Plots of ALSCON; List of Compensation Scheme of Employees of ALSCON, and List of Employee Benefit of ALSCON. The others include: List of Intellectual Property of ALSCON; List of Material Contracts of ALSCON; List of Banks of ALSCON; List of Government Authorities of ALSCON of ALSCON; Exhibit No. 1: Natural Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement; Exhibit 3: Federal Republic of Nigeria Officials Gazette, and Exhibit 4: Power of Attorney. In the letter, BFIG said Mr Okoh was categorical about BPEs refusal to provide BFIG with the complete SPA containing the annexures, which formed part of the mutually negotiated and agreed SPA in July 2004. On February 27, BFIG said it executed and delivered to BPE for counter-signature the mutually agreed SPA (Exhibit BPE 1) with all annexures as provided by BPE in 2004 and reproduced in 2012 pursuant to Supreme Court judgment on July 6, 2012. On March 4, BFIG counsel, Mr Ikwueto, said BPE executed the SPA, but removed ALL of the annexures, and returned an incomplete document to BFIG. On March 5, he said BFIG again wrote to BPE to demand the execution of the SPA, along with the agreed Annexures in 2004 and reproduced by BPE on October 16, 2012, after the Supreme Court order. No further response came from BPE, whose DG, Mr Okoh, dared BFIG to go ahead with its threat to commence contempt proceedings against him and the privatisation agency. On March 11, Mr Ikwueto said Mr Okoh asked BFIG to comply with the orders of the court by depositing the agreed $41 million. He said the BPE DG said deliberations on the annexures should be deferred till both parties (BPE and BFIG) have complied with and executed the judgments of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. If the Bureau does not receive an executed copy of the mutual agreed Share Purchase Agreement, and payment of the agreed sum of $41 million, representing 10 per cent of the bid price within 15 working days, the Bureau will consider itself as being no longer bound by the agreement, Mr Okoh said. He said BPE would equally consider itself not contractually bound to BFIG if the balance of $369 million is not paid within 90 calendar days of the payment of $41million. In its motion on notice, BFIG urged the court to enforce its order as doing otherwise will allow BPE and Mr Okoh continue in the scheme to unlawfully retain/hand over ALSCON to Dayson/UC RUSAL in patent disregard of the orders of specific performance and injunction decreed by the Supreme Court in July 2012. On March 27, BFIG, wrote to BPE DG, Mr Okoh, through its lawyer, Patrick Ikwueto, to serve notice threatening to issue Forms 48 and 49 to activate committal proceedings against him and the BPE. Under the Civil Process Act, Cap. 551, Laws of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the Judgment Enforcement Rules, Form 48 contains a copy of the court order to be served on the respondent for compliance. Where the respondent fails to comply, Form 49 is issued for committal for contempt. On April 2, BFIG actually commenced the contempt proceedings against Mr Okoh, after serving him the Form 48. Both the DG and BPE ignored the court proceedings. On April 10, the Federal High Court in Abuja issued Form 49, a formal legal notice to BPE and Mr Okoh, threatening to commit them to prison for their continued disobedience of the directive of the Appeal Court and the order of the Supreme Court in respect of the ownership crisis in ALSCON. BPE lied against PREMIUM TIMES When PREMIUM TIMES received the court notice served BPE and Mr Okoh, it contacted both Mr Okoh and the spokesperson of BPE, Amina Tukur-Othman, on Sunday, April 14. Apart telephone calls to both officials, text messages were sent to their known telephone lines as well as emails to their official and personal emails. Mr Okoh did not answer calls to his telephone. He did not respond to the text message and emails. But, Mrs Tukur-Othman responded to the text message and promised to revert the following day when she is in the office. PREMIUM TIMES delayed publication of the report till April 20 for BPEs response. Yet, six days after the publication, BPE circulated a statement accusing PREMIUM TIMES of not reaching out to hear their side of the story. Some men in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said their reasons for delay in proposing marriages despite a long courtship with their partners stem from high bride price, traditions, pressure and influences. Some of the residents who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja said the delay had further increased the number of unmarried ladies, emotional pains, immoral behavior, single parenthood and pregnancy outside marriage. Emmanuel Chime, a businessman in Apo, said the expenses incurred during marriages as demanded by some cultures, delayed marriage proposal, especially for low income earners. You will see a matured man or woman still single, not because they do not want to get married, but because of the finances involved for bride price and other traditional marriage rites. One doesnt have to spend years saving up for marriage alone when there are other things to think and plan for, such as building a house, starting a business, education, and others, he said. Similarly, Sunday Aboki, said some alien traditions as practiced in some cultures encouraged young couples to engage in immoral acts. I never got married either in the traditional or religious way because of some traditional practices which forced me and my wife to cohabit and have children without going through the normal process of acquiring a wife, he said. Mr Aboki stressed the need for traditional leaders of every society to caution the people on appropriate demands for marriage rites to encourage inter marriages for low income earners to get married. When some rules are properly explained and made clear, it will encourage marriage for people from different cultural background, he said. Joy Micheal, a business woman said the high bride price demanded by some cultures had broken or ended relationship between engaged couples. I was engaged to be married but some outrageous demands by my extended family as part of marriage rites caused a lot of problems for my ex-fiance and his people, she said. Miss Micheal said her former fiance and his people felt frustrated by the demands, which affected their relationship and they had to suspend their marriage plans and later called it off. On his own part, Olu Adegoke, a civil servant in the FCT said marriage between a couple should be an avenue for both families to start a relationship that would last forever, not an avenue for making money through unnecessary demands. Marriage should be seen as an avenue for both families to start a relationship that will last forever, rather than an opportunity to make money. No matter how much a dowry or bride price cost, it can never pay for the amount spent in bringing up the proposed wife. So rather than some cultures making it difficult for their children to get married, they should instead look at it from another angle, that they are starting a new relationship with another family and they will all benefit from the union, he said. Mr Adegoke recounted that some requirement for marriage rites between some couples had left both extended family in a sour relationship that might even affect the marriage. Similarly, a marriage Counselor, Naomi Danjuma, stressed the need for every culture to be concerned about inculcating good moral acts, upholding the cultural values of its people, as well as encourage inter-marriages between people of diverse cultures rather than enforcing stringent laws and customs. Though, some of these marriage rites are very important and some people even face the consequences of engaging in marriage without the proper cultural rites, there is need for us to also encourage that some of these laws that prevent marriages should be looked into and an alternative be used to encourage marriage between people of diverse cultures, she added. Mrs Danjuma said inter-marriage between people of various cultures would strengthen the relationship of the people, promote, peace and unity, and address some of the security challenges prevalent in the society. (NAN) NEODESHA, Kan., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AgEagle Aerial Systems, Inc. (NYSE American: UAVS), an industry leading provider of advanced drone imagery-based data collection and analytics solutions for the sustainable agriculture and precision farming markets, will hold a conference call on Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 11:00 A.M. Eastern time to provide a corporate update and discuss recent operational highlights. AgEagle CEO Barrett Mooney and CFO Nicole Fernandez-McGovern will host the conference call. Investors and analysts are encouraged to submit questions they would like management to address during the discussion via email to UAVS@gatewayir.com by Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 30, 2019 Time: 11:00 a.m. Eastern time (10:00 a.m. Central time) Toll-free dial-in number: 877-473-2646 International dial-in number: 702-374-0792 Conference ID: 6648979 Please call the conference telephone number 5-10 minutes prior to the start time. An operator will register your name and organization. If you have any difficulty connecting with the conference call, please contact Gateway Investor Relations at 949-574-3860. The conference call will be broadcast live and available for replay here . A telephonic replay of the conference call will also be available after 1:30 p.m. Eastern time on the same day through June 6, 2019. Toll-free replay number: 855-859-2056 International replay number: 404-537-3406 Replay ID: 6648979 About AgEagle Aerial Systems, Inc. Founded in 2010 and based in Neodesha, Kansas, AgEagle was created to pioneer, innovate and advance aerial imaging data collection and analytics technologies capable of addressing the impending food and environmental sustainability crises that threaten our planet. The Companys daily efforts are focused on delivering the metrics, tools and strategies necessary to define and implement intelligent sustainability and precision farming solutions that solve important problems. More specifically, AgEagle designs, produces, distributes and supports technologically-advanced small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) that collect valuable information for farmers by flying over large fields of corn, soybeans, wheat and other types of crops. These UAVs collect thousands of ultra-high-resolution images using sophisticated near-infrared sensors, or cameras, which are ultimately utilized to enhance yield and identify sustainability opportunities for farmers and agribusinesses, alike. For more information, please visit www.ageagle.com . Contacts: Gateway Investor Relations Cody Slach Sean Mansouri P: 949-574-3860 Iran has officially stopped some commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, following an order from its national security council, the ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday. Recently, Iran notified China, France, Germany, Russia, and the UK of its decision to halt some commitments under the nuclear deal, a year after the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed sanctions. Under the nuclear deal, Tehran was allowed to produce low-enriched uranium with a 300-kg limit and produce heavy water with a stock capped around 130 tonnes. Tehran could ship the excess amounts out of the country for storage or sale. The official said Iran has no limit from now for production of enriched uranium and heavy water. Report says Irans initial moves do not appear to violate the nuclear deal yet. However, Iran has warned that unless the world powers protect Irans economy from U.S. sanctions within 60 days, Iran would start enriching uranium at higher level. The European Union and the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain said they were still committed to the deal but would not accept ultimatums from Tehran. The deal also caps the level of purity to which Iran can enrich uranium at 3.67 per cent, far below the 90 per cent of weapons grade. It is also well below the 20 per cent level to which Iran enriched uranium before the deal. Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday said that Tehran does not seek war with the U.S., in spite of mounting tensions between the two arch-enemies over Iranian nuclear capabilities and its missile programme. Khamenei also said Tehran would not negotiate with the U.S. on another nuclear deal. (Reuters/NAN) Sudans military and opposition leaders have agreed to a three-year transition period to a civilian government, local media reported on Wednesday. The agreement, which will see the main opposition grouping, Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF), get two-thirds of the seats on the interim transitional council, is expected to be signed on Wednesday. We pledge to fully complete the agreement about the transitional period in less than 24 hours, a military negotiator, Yasser al-Atta told journalists. Mr Al-Atta said the remaining third of seats would go to other political parties. However, the two sides are yet to agree to the formation of a sovereign council, the highest level of power, which would rule the country until elections. There is still disagreement over the percentage the military and the civilian sides would take on that body. Anti-government demonstrations began in Sudan in 2018 with protesters calling for long-time leader Omar al-Bashir to go. The military stepped in April, launching a coup and arresting him. However, protesters say the new military rulers are a continuation of al-Bashirs former regime and have clamoured for more concessions and a transition to a civilian government. (dpa/NAN) The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday issued a Certificate of Return for the House of Representatives seat in Sumaila/Takai Federal Constituency of Kano to Shamsuddeen Dambazau, son of the Minister of Interior Abdulrahman Dambazau. The certificate had earlier been issued to Kawu Sumaila, a former senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Assembly matters. The Federal High Court in Kano on April 18 disqualified Mr Sumaila as the duly elected lawmaker on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Mr Dambazau approached the court challenging the nomination of Mr Kawu-Sumaila as APC flagbearer on the ground that the former presidential aide never participated in the House of Representatives primary election. Issuing the Certificate of Return on Monday, INEC National Commissioner, Amina Zakari, said the issuance of the certificate is on the order of the court. INEC is a law-abiding organisation and respects the rule of law hence the issuance of the certificate to Alhaji Muhammad Shamsuddeen, Mrs Zakari said. Mr Sumaila could not be reached on whether or not he had appealed the court ruling. He did not pick or return calls made to his phone nor reply a text message sent to him. The Controversy Mr Dambazau had sued INEC, APC and Mr Sumaila challenging the nomination of the latter as the candidate of APC. He told the court through his counsel, Nuraini Jimoh, that Mr Sumaila contested for the Kano South senatorial seat and lost to Kabiru Gaya. Mr Sumaila had indeed contested the Kano South senatorial ticket of the APC. He lost to a serving senator, Kabiru Gaya. Later, the state chapter of APC compensated him with House of Representatives ticket of the Sumaila/Takai federal constituency which is also within the Kano South senatorial district. The APC eventually won the legislative election. In its April ruling, the judge ruled that the action of the APC was illegal as the ex-presidential aide did not participate in the APC primary for the House of Representatives. The judge, Lewis Allagoa, ordered INEC to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Mr Sumaila. The federal government has no business allocating money to the local governments directly as such funds should be given to the states to determine how it would be disbursed, a top Lagos State official has said. Tunji Bello, the Secretary to the Lagos State Government (SSG), said this on Monday while receiving Senior Executive Course participants of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS) in his Ikeja office. Its not the business of federal governments to dabble into the affairs of the local governments, the SSG said. He was responding to a question by a NIPSS course participant on a recent plan by the federal government to allot funds to LGAs to cater for the Primary Health Centres. The NIPPS delegation is in the state for a study tour of its health sector. The visit is coordinated by NIPSS in collaboration with the Development Research and Project Centre (DRPC) through PACFAH@Scale. The federation is between the federal and the states that is why the constitution must be amended to reflect that the federal and state should determine allocations. The money should be shared between federal and the state, Mr Bello said. Conundrum Mr Bellos comment is coming few days after PREMIUM TIMES reported that Nigerias 36 states and the federal capital territory, have in the last 12 years pocketed over N15 trillion federal allocation meant for local governments areas. Although that amount was allocated to the 774 LGAs in the country, there is no public information on what portion each local government received, the data analysed by Dataphyte showed. Based on analysis of the 12-year data, 13 out of the 20 top local governments receiving the funds are from Lagos alone. Mr Bellos Monday comment is also coming a week after the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) issued a guideline stopping states from tampering with local government allocations. Effective from June 1, the NFIU said the guideline will end the abuse of section 162 (6) (8) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. The section provided for State Joint Local Government Account into which shall be paid allocations to the local government councils of the state from the federation account and from the government of the state. The issue of joint account of states and LGAs has been the bedrock of the debate over local government financial autonomy. The practice allows state governments to receive monthly allocations from the federal government for onward disbursement to local governments. Local government administrators have long complained that the practice was undemocratic and also prone to abuse by governors. Not FGs business However, Mr Bello said local governments are tied to the states and therefore states should decide how they (LGAs) should spend their money. Give the state the money, let them do whatever they want to do with it. If they want to create 100 or even 1000 LGAs, its their business. Federal should not jump the state and start dealing with LGAs directly. It is not right. That is one of the problems of Nigeria today The official hinged his argument on true federalism, citing practices in countries such as Germany and the U.S. He said the federal government is carrying some responsibilities it should have left for the states. Many Nigerians have faulted the countrys federal system because power is mostly rested at the centre. This has resulted in calls for restructuring. Advertisements Mr Bello maintained that every state should tap its own resources and now pay dues to the federal government. We have several agencies that are not useful, while some which are supposed to be left for the states are overburdened. In agriculture, states like Kebbi and Katsina are not making the kind of money it should be making because of our kind of system, the SSG noted. Insecurity, Unemployment Mr Bello also said it is better for states to manage all affairs within its territory than for you to sit down in Abuja and say how the police commissioner should run a station in Ajah in Lagos. Thats why we have security problems in Nigeria. Even the issue of policemen should be managed by the states. The Nigerian Army is overburdened already and the police cannot manage the security of Nigeria anymore because they are overstretched. We have enough unemployment in the country. Do you know the kind of employment Katsina, Benue and Kebbi can generate, the number of people we can employ in Lagos if states are allowed to fully manage its resources? Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Mr Bellos views are similar to that of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who has called for state police and that states be allowed to administer their local governments the way they deem fit. The view, however, differs from that of President Muhammadu Buhari who has stated his opposition to state policing and wants total autonomy for local governments. The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit has restated its warning to banks to ensure that local government funds are not tampered with. The agency reiterated its position that the 1st June effective date of the guidelines to all financial institutions and public officials on the local government funds stands. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the agency on May 6 warned banks to ensure that state governments do not tamper with local government funds. The amount standing to the credit of local government councils of a state shall be distributed among the local government councils of that state and not for the other purposes. As far as the NFIU is concerned, the responsibility of the account as a collection account is fully reinstated, the agency had stated. Although revenues for states and local governments are clearly distinguished when distributed in Abuja, most states currently operate joint accounts with their local governments. However, many state governments take full control of the accounts and only give what they like to the local governments. The abuse of the local government funds has been mentioned as one of the major sources of corruption in states. A PREMIUM TIMES report showed how state governments took control of N15.5 trillion allocated to local governments in 12 years. The NFIUs actions are believed to be geared towards curtailing that corruption. In its statement on Wednesday, signed by its spokesperson, Ahmed Dikko, the agency said it maintains its understanding of the 1999 constitution that no debit is allowed on any local government funds unless and until the funds are credited to and reach the bank accounts of a local government in any state of the federation. The provision of the cumulative cash withdrawal not exceeding N500,000 per day is also firmly in place effective 1st June 2019. We observed isolated comments to the contrary in the past few days which in our assessment only amounted to wilful misinterpretation of the 1999 constitution and therefore, of no consequences to the operations of the entire financial system, it said. The agency repeated its threat to sanction any violations of its directive. The provision of the guidelines to the financial institutions was also on account of legitimate powers provided by the NFIU Act 2018 and any violations of the said guidelines will be sanctioned appropriately, Mr Dikko said. For about an hour and 30 minutes on Wednesday, Nigerian senators debated ways to prevent a poverty-triggered revolution in the country. The debate followed a motion by Chukwuka Utazi (Enugu-PDP). Mr Utazi titled his motion: Bridging the gap between the haves and the have-not in Nigeria to nip in the bud the seeds of a looming violent revolution. He traced the issues of kidnapping, armed banditry, insurgency, ritual killings and others bedevilling the country to the menace of poverty ravaging all regions. The Senate recognises that what we are witnessing today is a culmination of long years of neglect of the welfare and future of younger generations and unwillingness by both the government and the elites to plan for the future, or read the signs of upheaval, he said. Today, the chicken has returned home to roost: the downtrodden are revolting. Hitherto docile beggars have risen in arms forcing those with powers of patronage to beg for safety. The elites are being attacked. We have in our hands a dictatorship of the beggars, fuelled by drugs and poverty, he said. What we are witnessing is not a spike that will go away. It is the incipient seeds of a revolution and we need to concertedly handle it with care, he added. The submissions In most of the submissions, the lawmakers agreed that the growing insecurity in the country stems from poverty and the wide gap between the rich and the poor. Blaming the current situation on the elite, Shehu Sani (Kaduna-PRP) said the motion was a wake-up call for the privileged class to look at the state of the nation and to know that their survival is hinged on their ability and capacity to make the ordinary man comfortable. What has sparked up revolutions in countries like the Soviet Union? What has sparked up revolution in countries that have established governments that are people-oriented? It is the failure of the elite to address those very fundamental issues. He advised that government social programmes should be emphasised to address these issues. But he also warned that the problems will persist so far as the social system (exists) that entrenches institutionalised master-servant relationship. The Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan (Yobe, APC), praised the government for its social intervention programmes but emphasised that more needs to be done. Its not only about creating jobs but also about creating a very clement economic environment for the citizens, he added. Ahmed Babba-Kaita (Katsina-APC) said the Senate needs to do more to address the situation, while for Mohammed Sabo, a return to agriculture is the best way to solve unemployment issue. Ben Murray-Bruce (Bayelsa, PDP) was more radical in his approach at solving the problem. He proposed a population control policy that will see to the reduction of the countrys population. We are faced with a revolution that is here. We are not talking about a revolution that is coming, the revolution is here, he said charging his colleagues. The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu (Enugu, PDP), said the country should focus on getting accurate population statistics so as to make proper planning. Before we get to the issue of employment, everybody needs to make contribution for the wellbeing of all, he said. When we have the statistics of unemployed, we need to place them on salary and I suggest what could help is the minimum wage. So that well have a fund that provides enough money to go round Nigerians that do not have enough money. Everyone who is working will have to contribute and once you start working you also have to contribute. The opposition Deputy Majority Leader, Ibn Na Allah, countered Mr Utazis position on revolution. He said there is no correlation between poverty and revolution. Yes, we accept the fact that there is armed banditry. Yes, we accept the fact that there is kidnapping. But the issue is this: can we derive a valid analogy that the combination of these criminalities upsetting the lives of law-abiding citizens of this country be said to be the path to revolution? Mr NaAllah (Kebbi, APC) said. I say no to that. It can never be the situation. What we have is a collective deficiency of patriotism. We became leaders who are above the law and we expect the followers to be above (below) the law. It will be wrong for this Senate to, on record, accept the fact that criminals possess the capacity to do revolution in this country. I am not part of that, sir. We are not the only poor state. I dont know why people will align our situation to poverty. We have other countries around us that we know are poorer than our citizens and yet, there is law and order in those countries. Advertisements Shortly after, Emmanuel Bwacha (Taraba, PDP) said the greed of the rich would push the poor to revolt. The unfortunate thing that will hasten the revolution is that a poor man is very helpless, he said. Even if you create opportunities for employment, the elites will first choose their wards. What about those who dont have anybody? Those are the categories of people that will come together, go and take drugs so that they have courage to face death. Resolutions The lawmakers adopted four resolutions as the basis for actions to mitigate the issue of unemployment. They agreed to: urge the Federal Government of Nigeria to declare an emergency on unemployment in Nigeria, create more pro-poor social safety nets, dedicate 20 per cent of recovered loots to fund same, and take other urgent measures to stimulate production and other economic activities to engage young citizens of the country. They also enjoined the Federal Government to increase the budgets for education by allocating and effectively implementing 26 per cent of their yearly budget to education, beginning from the next budget cycle in 2020. They enjoined the states to do same. In two additional prayers, the lawmakers urged the federal government to adopt a policy of one factory per local government and set up an unemployment support fund as proposed by Mr Ekweremadu. The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, noted that maintaining law and order should remain key responsibility for the government. There is need for us to separate maintenance of law and order from the issue of poverty, said Mr Saraki (Kwara, PDP). It (poverty) cannot be an excuse. No matter how bad it is, we must be able to maintain law and order. It is important that we as parliament give all the necessary support to security agencies, all government policy on security to see that we maintain law and order. Nigerias information minister, Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday attacked the main opposition party, PDP, and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Mr Mohammed claimed that the dead-end opposition being played by Mr Abubakar and the PDP could be toxic for the nations democracy, if left unchecked. Mr Mohammeds claim is contained in the text of a press conference he reportedly delivered. The text was sent to PREMIUM TIMES by Mr Mohammeds office. Never in the history of politics in Nigeria has an opposition party and its presidential candidate exhibited the kind of desperate tactics being deployed by the duo of the PDP and its flag-bearer, especially since President Muhammadu Buhari overwhelmingly defeated Atiku to win the 2019 presidential election, Mr Mohammed said. The minister claimed that the PDP and Mr Abubakar were trying to sabotage the federal government. Either by themselves or via their proxies, the PDP and its presidential candidate are doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari Administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable, especially through their public utterances and their poorly-thought-out press releases before and after the 2019 general elections. Unless they quickly retrace their steps, they may, sooner than later, overreach themselves, he said. Mr Abubakar came second in the February presidential election. He is currently challenging Mr Buharis victory at the election tribunal. On Wednesday, his lawyers asked the President of the Court of Appeal, Zainab Bulkachuwa, to step down as a member of the tribunal because of her relationship with an APC stalwart. Mrs Bulkachuwas husband won a senatorial election in Bauchi on the APC platform. Mr Mohammed in his text appeared to allude to this move by Mr Abubakar and the PDP as undermining the judiciary. Also, in recent times, the PDP has taken its desperation to a new low by attacking the judiciary, an action many see as indicating a reversal of the partys hitherto self-assured stance that it has a solid case against the election of the President, he said. The PDP and Mr Abuabakar were yet to reply to Mr Mohammed as at the time of this report. Read the full text of Mr Mohammeds claims below. PDPs Brand of Opposition Politics Poses Great Threat to Nigerias Democracy. Being the text of a press conference addressed by the Hon Minister ofI nformation and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at the State House, Abuja, on Wednesday, May 15th 2019 The Federal Government has strongly decried the increasingly unpatriotic and desperate opposition politics being played by the PDP and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, warning that such dead-end opposition could be toxic for the nations democracy, if left unchecked. Never in the history of politics in Nigeria has an opposition party and its presidential candidate exhibited the kind of desperate tactics being deployed by the duo of the PDP and its flag-bearer, especially since President Muhammadu Buhari overwhelmingly defeated Atiku to win the 2019 presidential election. Either by themselves or via their proxies, the PDP and its presidential candidate are doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari Administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable, especially through their public utterances and their poorly-thought-out press releases before and after the 2019 general elections. Unless they quickly retrace their steps, they may, sooner than later, overreach themselves. For those who may be quick to accuse the government of crying wolf, the pre-election statement credited to the former Vice President, that unless Nigerians vote out the APC Administration, killings by herdsmen will continue and ultimately spark a series of ethno-religious crises that will be irreversible, is looking more like a Freudian slip than anything else. Also, in recent times, the PDP has taken its desperation to a new low by attacking the judiciary, an action many see as indicating a reversal of the partys hitherto self-assured stance that it has a solid case against the election of the President. And either by coincidence or orchestration, a faceless group emerges from nowhere calling for an overthrow of a democratically-elected government, a totally egregious act of treason. It beggars belief that a candidate who prides himself as a democrat can so allow desperation to becloud his sense of propriety to such a extent that he will be associating with anti-democratic forces or making inflammatory statements. For acclaimed democrats, there are acceptable channels of seeking redress after an election defeat. Even President Buhari himself went to court three times to challenge election results. What is not acceptable is to either resort to self help after an election defeat, or to embark on a journey of subterfuge and sabotage while also mounting a legal challenge or pretending to do so. Worst still, painting the judiciary bad for whatever reason is anti-democratic and unconscionable, Alhaji Mohammed said. Advertisements We want to urge the main opposition party to stop beating the drums of war concentrate on the legal challenge by its candidate against the election of President Buhari if indeed they have any faith in the countrys judiciary, and desist from unnecessarily overheating the polity. A former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, has described the federal governments accusation that he is a saboteur as false. He described the information minister, Lai Mohammed, as a liar. Mr Abubakar was reacting to an earlier statement by Mr Mohammed that the former vice president and his party, PDP, were plotting to sabotage the Buhari administration. Either by themselves or via their proxies, the PDP and its presidential candidate are doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari Administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable, especially through their public utterances and their poorly-thought-out press releases before and after the 2019 general elections, Mr Mohammed said. In his response, Mr Abubakar said: It is not surprising that such a despicable lie is emanating from Mr. Lai Mohammed, President Buharis aptly named Minister of Information. Mr Abubakar also described Mr Buhari as a dictator. He accused the president of plotting to implicate the opposition in phantom plots. We want to know why the desperation on the part of the Muhammadu Buhari government to rope in the Peoples Democratic Party and its Presidential candidate in phantom plots? Mr Abubakar said in a statement by his spokesperson, Paul Ibe. Read Mr Abubakars full response below. My attention has been drawn to accusations by the Muhammadu Buhari led administration against the candidate of the Presidential Peoples Democratic Party in the 2019 elections and former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, alleging that he has made treasonable statements. It is not surprising that such a despicable lie is emanating from Mr. Lai Mohammed, President Buharis aptly named Minister of Information. Lai Mohammed is so associated with lies that even Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said, on Monday, May 13, 2019, as follows: People like Lai Mohammed, Abba Kyari, Adamu Adamu they are usually very well behaved during the Ramadan. But Im not even sure that that is true anymore. When we have a situation where even those who employed him know that Lai Mohammed is a liar, who will even lie during the holy month of Ramadan, then why should Nigerians be surprised at this latest lie? Mr Lai Mohammed is only being clever by half when he says It beggars belief that a candidate who prides himself as a democrat can so allow desperation to becloud his sense of propriety to such an extent that he will be associating with anti-democratic forces or making inflammatory statements. Atiku Abubakar is a man of peace and a thoroughbred democrat. It is preposterous that those who threatened to soak the dog and the baboon in blood are now audacious enough to point the finger at lifelong democrats. Truly, if the farmer does not raise the alarm on time, the thief will accuse him of being a thief. How can a man who wined and dined with Nigerias most brutal dictator, how can a man who overthrew a democratically elected President and held a grudge against him even in death (as evidenced by the empty condolence register he left in Sokoto, last year) accuse a man who has never been as much as associated with such tendencies, of being an anti-democrat? We want to know why the desperation on the part of the Muhammadu Buhari government to rope in the Peoples Democratic Party and its Presidential candidate in phantom plots? Obviously, President Buhari wants to replay the Phantom plot saga of his now deceased mentor, who threw former President Olusegun Obasanjo in jail after falsely accusing him of treason in order to perpetuate himself in power. Could it be that they are now aware that the electoral fraud they perpetrated during the last Presidential election is about to be exposed beyond a shadow of a doubt? If anybody is beating the drums of war, it is precisely those who have issued statements threatening Nigerians and foreigners alike with body bags. For the avoidance of doubt, let me inform the minister of disinformation that Atiku Abubakar resisted the Abacha dictatorship, of which President Muhammadu Buhari was a prominent member, and it is his resistance and the sacrifice of his co-travellers, like chief MKO Abiola and Alex Ekwueme, amongst others, that gave rise to the democracy that the current government is now trampling on. Mr. Lai Mohammed is advised to face the cesspool of corruption that has been exposed in his ministry by the investigative website, Premium Times, which revealed that Mr. Mohammeds fingers may be stickier than sticky glue. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have been charged to be accountable and transparent, through regular audit of their accounts and self-regulation, when playing advocacy roles in the health sector. They were urged to be keen on generating data and using such to advocate to government for better accountability that will strengthen the primary health system. This was the highpoint of the study tour of the Senior Executive Course participants of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS) in Niger State. They were in the state throughout last week to study its health sector, especially the Primary Health System. The visit is coordinated by NIPSS in collaboration with the Development Research and Project Centre (DRPC) through PACFAH@Scale. To round off the tour, DRPC organised an interactive session between the NIPSS delegation and CSOs monitoring funding and government interventions in Niger States health sector. Oladimeji Solomon, the programme officer for Sustainable Health Promotion and Development, explained how his organisation does budget tracking especially in the area of Nutrition. He also said his organisation centred its advocacy on charging the state assembly to release funds for health promptly. Self-regulation Majority of the questions the NIPSS delegation asked the CSOs centred on self-regulation. They asked the CSOs to give accounts of how they fund their programmes as well as regulate and sanction erring members. There was a slight drama when a NIPSS delegate said CSOs present themselves as beggars by often depending on foreign grants. The comment was countered by Stephen Adeoye, the Co-chair primary health care advocacy team (NGO). We leverage on our expertise that is how we partner with international CSOs. Everything is not money and there are things we decipher when we track and monitor programmes in the health system, Mr Adeoye said. Please, CSOs are not beggars. We have left that level. Mr Adeoye also explained how CSOs in Niger regulate their activities especially with regard to public health. We now synergise our effort. Before, we dont have a board but now we do. Every quarter, we come back to report to the umbrella body. We try to synergise to avoid duplications. We now have personal audits of the CSOs working in Niger. The CSOs report back to the health platform, every quarter you report to the umbrella body on what you are doing. He said the government now respects us because they know what we are doing in terms of monitoring health delivery systems in Niger. So far, so good we did need assessment. We went to PHCs and asked them what are your challenges? Most of them said its capacity and facility. The NIPSS team lead, Nasirudeen Usman, urged the CSOs to maintain a transparent track record so that they can effectively monitor government activities in the public health system. Way Forward The way forward is for us to put our house in order and be disciplined, Mr Adeoye told PREMIUM TIMES after the interactive session. Development partners are wiser now. They tell you what they want you to do, if you do it well they will come and do screening and maybe increase your grants but if you are not able to do it, they will push you aside. Mr Adeoye explained how CSOs in Niger sanction erring members. Advertisements If a CSO is found wanting, we call them to the umbrella body. We dont just sanction them, we call them to defend themselves and if they are found wanting they are suspended or blacklisted depending on the degree of the offence. The NIPSS delegation is currently in Lagos for a continuation of their study tour. Security agencies on Wednesday mounted an unusual tight security at the venue of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja. The tribunal is to hear the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar. They are challenging the election and return of President Muhammadu Buhari by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as winner of the general election held on February 23. The PDP had, last week, raised an objection over the President of the Court of Appeal, Zainab Bulkachuwa, presiding over the petition. On Wednesday morning, the police blocked all major roads leading to the Court of Appeal and, in effect, caused heavy traffic in the central district of Abuja. It is not certain what precipitated the very tight security that made the police block all roads leading to the Court. When this reporter asked one of the security officers, he said the blockade is to avoid any disruption from supporters of the parties involved in the Presidential Election Tribunal. DENVER, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fentress Architects is excited to announce the jury for the 2018/2019 Fentress Global Challenge (FGC), which recognizes the most innovative and creative student designs for an Airport of the Future. The panel of eight esteemed jurors are experts from the world of architecture, aviation, space, and education. The jury will evaluate the top designs and select the three final winners. This years jury includes: Curtis Fentress, FAIA, RIBA, Founder and Principal in Charge of Design of Fentress Architects Thomas Pellegrin, Head of Consulting Asia & Middle East, IATA Christine Negroni, Air safety specialist, journalist, and author of The Crash Detectives Dr. Charles Waldeheim, Professor at the Harvard University School of Design and Director of the universitys Office of Urbanization Ken Gidlow, Technical Advisor, FAA at the NASA Johnson Space Center Dr. David Alexander, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the Rice Space Institute Bryant L. Francis, C.M., Director of Aviation at the Port of Oakland Khaled Naja, Executive Vice President of Airport Development and Planning, Dallas Forth Worth International Airport Upon the release of the shortlist on July 1, 2019, jury members will assess each shortlisted design based on creative approach, response to site, sustainability, and functionality. On July 17th, the jury will meet to determine the First-Place winner, who will receive US$10,000 in prize money along with the opportunity to accompany Curtis Fentress to a prestigious architectural event where the winner(s) will receive their award. Three additional winners will receive smaller cash prizes. Sponsored and administered by Fentress Architects since 2011, the FGCs goal is to engage students worldwide in the exploration of future design possibilities in public architecture. The theme, consistent with Fentress expertise in airport design and aviation, is envisioning an Airport of the Future. Participants are encouraged to re-imagine an airport terminal building in the year 2075, focusing on local context, technological trends, project innovation and passenger experience. These ideas can be displayed in photographs, diagrams, renderings, animations, collages, or other visualizations. The competition is open to graduate and undergraduate students currently pursuing architecture or engineering degrees and recent graduates (within the last four years) that have a degree in those subjects as well. Participants can register for the competition and submit their visionary Airport of the Future designs until May 31, 2019 at 11:00PM GMT. About the Jury: Curtis Fentress, FAIA, RIBA Curtis Fentress, FAIA, RIBA, is the Founder and Principal in Charge of Design of Fentress Architects. Known worldwide for his iconic airport designs, Fentress airports are recognized for design excellence and an outstanding passenger experience. In 2011 he founded the Fentress Global Challenge to promote the advancement of innovative design in public architecture. He has designed $42 billion of architectural projects worldwide, visited by over 650 million people annually. Christine Negroni Christine Negroni is the author of the Penguin bestseller, The Crash Detectives . She is an air safety specialist and journalist who is considered a thought-leader in the aviation industry. Her work appears in The New York Times, Air & Space, ABC News and Vox among others. Her previous book, Deadly Departure was New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She writes the blog Flying Lessons at christinenegroni.com . Thomas Pellegrin Thomas Pellegrin brings 20 years of management consulting experience in operational strategy across the aerospace and aviation value chains. He has advised airlines, airports, civil aviation authorities, and MROs on a range of strategic and operational topics. Pellegrin currently leads the International Air Transport Associations (IATAs) team in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Bryant L. Francis, C.M. Bryant L. Francis is the Director of Aviation at the Port of Oakland, where he leads a staff of more than 250 people responsible for the operation of Oakland International Airport. Francis is a 23-year veteran in aviation management. Before joining the Port of Oakland in early 2016, he served as the Airport Director in Long Beach, CA and Director of Airports in Shreveport, LA. Dr. Charles Waldeheim Dr. Charles Waldheim is an architect and urbanist whose research examines the relationships between landscape, ecology, and contemporary urbanism. He has written and edited numerous books on these subjects, which have been published internationally. Waldheim is the John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design where he directs the schools Office for Urbanization. Ken Gidlow Ken Gidlow is an Aerospace Engineer/Technical Advisor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Houston Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). He coordinates FAA Licensing with the NASA Commercial Resupply Services contracts for SpaceX, Northrup Grumman and Sierra Nevada Corp delivering cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). Dr. David Alexander Dr. David Alexander is the Director and Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice Space Institute, where his primary areas of research are solar physics exoplanetary physics and earth remote sensing. Prior to joining Rice in 2003, he was a Staff Physicist at Lockheed Martin working on the development of advanced space missions for solar physics. Khaled Naja Mr. Naja serves as Executive Vice President for the Infrastructure and Development Division of Dallas Forth Worth International Airport. In this position, Mr. Naja oversees the planning, design, code, construction, commercial development, energy, transportation and asset management. His professional career includes serving as Vice President in the Aviation Division for Parsons Corporation and as Chief Operating Officer of the Chicago Department of Aviation. To learn more about the Fentress Global Challenge Jury, please visit: http://fentressglobalchallenge.com/jury To download the 2017/2018 winners renderings: https://we.tl/t-5Ry5DuQ9Sw To learn more about the Fentress Global Challenge and to register, please visit https://fentressglobalchallenge.com About Fentress Architects Fentress Architects is a global design firm that passionately pursues the creation of sustainable and iconic architecture. Together with its clients, Fentress creates inspired design to improve the human environment. Founded by Curtis Fentress in 1980, the firm has designed $42 billion of architectural projects worldwide, visited by more than 650 million people each year. Fentress is a dynamic learning organization, driven to grow its ability to design, innovate, and exceed client expectations. The firm has been honored with more than 500 distinctions for design excellence and innovation. Connect with Fentress on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , LinkedIn , or at www.fentressarchitects.com . For more information, please contact: Cassidy Humphrey Fentress Architects Office: 303.282.6192 Cell: 949.606.3116 humphrey@fentressarchitects.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/579af6b7-96ee-41ce-bdbf-483cc7098f7e The Presidential Election Tribunal has stood down to have a closed door meeting in the inner chamber with all counsels involved. The meeting was as a result of the request made by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, through their counsel, Levi Ozoukwu, to move an application but sought to meet with the judges in private. All respondents did not object to the request of the petitioner. Following this, the Chairman of the Tribunal and President of the Court of Appeal, Zainab Bulkachuwa, granted audience to the petitioner. The meeting is currently ongoing. The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has said 280,751 drivers licences are unclaimed nationwide as at May 10. The Public Education Officer of the FRSC, Bisi Kazeem, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday. He said out of the number, the Federal Capital Territory has 30,831 licences yet to be claimed by their owners. Lagos State records the highest number of unclaimed licences with a total of 75,511 while Jigawa has the lowest with only 218 unclaimed licences in the state, he said. Mr Kazeem said the commission had processed a total of 227,148 licences in the first quarter of this year. He identified the nonchalant attitude by motorists and a lack of patience to wait for the processing of such licences to be carried out by the FRSC as reasons for the large number of unclaimed licences. The spokesperson said in tackling the problem, the commission has been sending bulk SMS to applicants and that the company was also publishing details of processed licences on its social media platforms. The corps marshal is going to the next joint tax board meeting to sensitise states on the need to find means to dispatch licences to applicants, Mr Kazeem said. (NAN) President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday presided over the meeting of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was being attended by his vice, Yemi Osinbajo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, and the Head of Service, Wilfred Ita-Oyo. Others at the council meeting included the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari; National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, a retired Major-General; cabinet ministers; and some presidential aides. NAN reliably gathered that the meeting may continue till Thursday so as to enable the cabinet members treat all the pending memos as the council would hold its valedictory session on May 22. The Wednesday meeting had so far treated memos from the Ministry of Budget and National Planning; Office of the Head of Service; and Ecological Fund Office as at the time of filing this report. Mr Buhari had, last Wednesday, May 8, presided over the longest meeting of the Federal Executive Council in the history of his administration. The meeting, which was scheduled to deliberate on no fewer than 25 memos from Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), lasted for about 11 hours. (NAN) President Muhammadu Buhari is set to travel to Saudi Arabia Thursday. A statement by his spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said Mr Buhari is travelling at the request of the Saudi king to perform an Islamic function called Umrah. President Muhammadu Buhari has accepted the invitation of King Salman Bin Abdulaziz, the ruler of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to perform the Umrah (lesser pilgrimage) in the Kingdom. To this effect, the President, accompanied by close personal aides, will embark on the journey on Thursday, 16th May. He is expected back in the country on Tuesday, 21st May. Umrah is an optional but recommended pilgrimage to Makkah that can be made at any time of the year, Me Shehu said. Mr Buhari recently returned to Nigeria after about ten days of a private visit to the UK. The purpose of the visit was not disclosed. Nigerians have been advised to install carbon monoxide detectors in their vehicles, houses, offices, and factories to avoid inhaling harmful air. The admonition was part of the resolutions of a motion sponsored by Gbolahan Dada (Ogun-APC). Mr Dada bemoaned the growing number of deaths traceable to carbon monoxide. The Senate is disturbed that in Nigeria, it is certain that we recorded a high fatality figure of carbon monoxide poisoning during the period in question, if adequate records are kept by the authorities, said Mr Dada. For instance, it was reported in ThisDay newspaper edition of 6 September 2018 that a family of six in Igboetche community, Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State, lost their lives to generator fumes (a component of carbon monoxide poisoning). He described carbon monoxide as a silent killer, adding that the country does not have a platform for creating awareness among citizens. The lawmaker expressed concern that if nothing is done by this hallowed Chambers, innocent Nigerians will continue to be exposed to avoidable health hazards likely to terminate their lives untimely. Adopting his two prayers, the Senate urged all Nigerians to use and install carbon monoxide detectors (alarms) in their motor vehicles, houses, dwelling places, offices, workshops and factories for preservation of their lives from hazardous effect of carbon monoxide. In the second prayer, the lawmakers urged the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Federal Ministry of Information, Federal Ministry of Labour etc to create awareness through Radio, Television, Newspapers and mass media etc among Nigerians, workers and employers on the need to use and install carbon monoxide detectors (alarms) in motor vehicles, houses, dwelling places, offices, workshops and factories for preservation of lives and good health of Nigerians. The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has commended the Nigerian government for extending relief items to the people of Zimbabwe recently affected by the tropical disaster cyclone Idai. Mr Mnangagwa made the commendation when he received the federal government delegation led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, on Wednesday at the State House in Harare. We are happy that the leadership of Nigeria has realised that their brothers and sisters here in Zimbabwe visited by cyclone Idai need assistance. They brought lots of medicines and other materials to be given to people who have suffered the devastation. And in my own view, this is a demonstration to the people of Zimbabwe a friendship and support from Nigeria which was a front line state during the struggle for apartheid. The bond between us is demonstrated by this support and assistance. So, to the people of Nigeria, I say the people of Zimbabwe are extremely happy and grateful for the support they have given to us. Most of us in my generation were trained in Nigeria, and that is why we are now independent and Nigeria and Zimbabwe have come a long way. Mr Mnangagwa congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari on his victory in the recently concluded Presidential election. I am happy that my brother and colleague has won election for the second term as leader of Nigeria. Earlier, Mr Onyeama expressed gratitude to the President of Zimbabwe for the warm reception accorded the Nigerian delegation. The minister said Mr Buhari directed him to deliver relief items comprising medicines and medical equipment to the government of Zimbabwe hit by cyclone Idai. We are very humble to be received by His Excellency, I came to deliver on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari the sympathy of the Nigerian people. The gesture is a manifestation of fraternity and solidarity between our two countries and our people and I must say that we are overwhelmed by the warm reception by his Excellency. We are very humbled to be received by his Excellency and I consider Zimbabwe really my other home. (NAN) The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday re-arraigned a Judge of the Federal High Court, Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Godwin Obla, over alleged money laundering charges. EFCC charged Mrs Ofili-Ajumogobia and Mr Obla on 18 counts bordering on conspiracy, unlawful enrichment, retention of crime proceeds and money laundering. The defendants are standing trial before Justice Rilwan Aikawa. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to all counts of the charge. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the defendants were first charged before an Ikeja Division of the High Court, which was struck out the charge on jurisdictional grounds. Consequent upon the dismissal of the charge, the prosecution preferred same charges against the defendants, before the Federal High Court. While Mrs Ofili-Ajumogobia took her plea to the charge on April 18, the second defendant (Mr Obla) was absent from court. Mrs Ajumogobia had pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was granted a bail of N10 million with two sureties in like sum. The court had, consequently, ordered Mr Oblas appearance in court to answer to the charges. On Wednesday, Mr Obla showed up in court and was re-arraigned alongside Mrs Ajumogobia. They each denied complicity in the criminal charge marked FHC/L/139C/19. Messrs Robert Clarke, SAN, and Ferdinard Orbih, SAN, announced appearance for the first and second defendants respectively. After their pleas, the Prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo, urged the court to give a trial date, while the defendants be remanded in custody. But defence counsel, (Orbih) informed the court of a bail application filed on behalf of Mr Obla since April 24, adding that same had been served on prosecution. In response, Mr Oyedepo described the bail application as strange on the grounds that the charge had not even been served on the defendant before his bail application was filed. According to prosecution, the charge was only served on Mr Obla in court this morning and so he could not have filed an application for bail while the charge had not been served on him. Responding, Mr Orbih informed the court that he got wind of the proceedings on the pages of newspapers, following which he approached the court to get a copy of the charge even before receiving same from prosecution. He told the court that the defendant was desirous of attending court and defending the allegations against him rather than evading. He urged the court to hear and allow the bail. In his decision, Justice Aikawa also granted Mr Obla a bail of N10 million with two sureties in like sum, who must be landed property owners in Lagos, or grade level 16 in the Federal Civil Service. The court adjourned the case until May 23 for trial. EFCC alleged that the duo conspired on May 21, 2014 to indirectly conceal different sums of money in the Diamond Bank account of Nigel & Colive Ltd, a company alleged to be operated by Mrs Ajumogobia. They were alleged to have conspired to retain in same account, the sum of N500 million, which they both reasonably ought to have known formed part of proceeds of unlawful acts of unlawful enrichment. Advertisements For instance, Mrs Ajumogobia was alleged to have on different dates in 2014, retained sums of monies like: N5 million; $150,000; $20,000; $30,000; $50,000, and $55,000 in the Diamond Bank account of Nigel and Colive. The EFCC also accused Mrs Ajumogobia of indirectly concealing N12 million in the same account, and making false statement to the EFCC that the money was payment for sale of a landed property. The alleged offences contravene the provisions of Sections 15 (2) (a) and 18 (a) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011. (NAN) Whats our population control policy? Does anybody care how many children we have? Does anybody care how many we ought to have? How many children make up an economy functional, nobody cares. So, we all talk about issues to avoid what is truly important, population control policy. Those were the words of Ben Murray-Bruce as he addressed his colleagues at the Senate plenary on Wednesday. Mr Murray-Bruce was contributing to a motion calling for the creation of jobs to avoid a violent revolution by poor Nigerians. The mover of the motion, Chukwuka Utazi (Enugu-PDP), said the myriads of security problems facing the country today are as a result of poverty. He warned that the poor will soon revolt against the rich if a drastic measure is not taken. Contributing, Mr Murray-Bruce said Nigeria needs to spend more on education apart from population control. We dont need to be as draconian as China where they have the one-child policy. But the one-child policy in China stabilised the Chinese economy. Muslims and Christians will criticise me for my position but unless the government have a population control policy; one, we cannot solve the problem. Two, we must spend more money on education, he said. The lawmakers submission is informed by current statistics from the United Nations Population Fund. The agency late April said that Nigerias population has risen to 201 million people. Mr Murray-Bruce warned the rich against providing security for only themselves, thinking they are safe. As the second solution, he maintained that standard education must be provided for the poor. He made an analogy of how overpopulation is contributing to Nigerias woes. We think having babies is equivalent to wealth, success, development. This is counter-productive. Here we are today, we are having babies, we are not educating our children, we are not giving them jobs. They have no future and because they have no future, they carry guns and knives, point it at you and take you out because they see you in a beautiful car. He said the surge in population is not a problem of only the north but a phenomenon that cuts across the country. For him, the feared revolution is already here. We are faced with a revolution that is here. We are not talking about a revolution that is coming, the revolution is here, he concluded. Transparency International says 66 per cent of the money Nigerian governments allocate to education is stolen by corrupt officials. The international organisation stated this in a new report titled: Corruption in Education Systems in West Africa. The group presented the report at its sub-regional meeting on Wednesday in Abuja as part of the policy papers on land corruption and corruption in education systems in West Africa. The event, which brought together Transparency International chapters from 10 West African countries, was to review progress on the implementation of the policy papers. According to the report, corruption is commonplace in education systems across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This affects education access, quality, inclusion and learning outcomes with devastating consequences, not only for national economic growth but also for the life chances of children, their families and communities, the report said. The report highlighted Resource misallocation, corrupt procurement, exchange of sex for grades, examination malpractices, fake qualifications, teacher absenteeism, and corrupt recruitment practices as the various corruption risks and challenges facing education systems in all the countries. Recommendations To resolve the issues of violations of fundamental human right through corrupt practices in the education sector, TI made some recommendations. It said the anti-corruption legal and regulatory instruments that have already been adopted by the community and at the national level need to be enforced. This should include more proactive enforcement of CCJ (Criminal Court of Justice) judgments at the national level and strengthening of political will in support of the CCJ. On the misallocation of public funds, TI said it will support member states to invest in improving finance and accounts systems to strengthen management and audit to improve accountability at national and district levels. The group recommended new innovations to address teachers recruitment. It said it will lobby member states to conduct integrity assessments as well as public expenditure tracking surveys in the field of education. It said it will also support member states to produce transparent public education data. WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, Mont., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sandfire Resources America, Inc. (Sandfire America or the Company) is pleased to announce that the 60-day comment period for the Companys Black Butte Copper Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has now closed. The Draft EIS was prepared by an independent third-party environmental expert for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MT DEQ). The comment period included three public meetings in Great Falls, Livingston and White Sulphur Springs, Montana as well as two webinars. A link to the Draft EIS can be found on our website, www.sandfireamerica.com , along with a link to our community presentation, which provides a detailed overview of the Project. The next step in the MT DEQs process will be to respond to public comments and issue a final EIS. The MT DEQ can then issue a Record of Decision (ROD) that approves the application as submitted, approves the application with modifications, or denies the application if it does not meet the laws of the State of Montana. This could potentially occur as early as the September Quarter of 2019. Commenting on the completion of the Draft EIS public comment period, Rob Scargill, CEO and VP Project Development, said: Public participation is a key element in making sure that a project of this importance, both economically and environmentally, is implemented to the highest caliber. We would like to thank those who took the time to comment on both sides of the issue, making this a robust process. We now look forward to the DEQs review of comments, followed by completion of the permitting process in the summer. The preparation of a Feasibility Study (FS) for Black Butte Copper Project is progressing with the recent finalization of the process flow sheets, reagents regime and geology wireframes for the Johnny Lee Upper and Lower Copper Zones. The Black Butte Copper Project is a proposed to be a showcase underground mine, designed and engineered to provide economic opportunity to Central Montana while fully protecting Sheep Creek and Smith River Watershed. Contact Information: Sandfire Resources America Inc. Nancy Schlepp, VP of Communications Mobile: 406-224-8180 Office: 406-547-3466 Email: nschlepp@sandfireamerica.com CAUTIONARY NOTE Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Certain disclosures in this document constitute forward looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the completion of the Feasibility Study, permitting timelines and the Companys plans for advancing the Black Butte Copper Project and expected outcomes. In making these forward-looking statements, the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that the Company believes are reasonable, including that the Company will receive required regulatory approvals, that the Company will continue to be able to access sufficient funding to execute its plans, and that the results of exploration and development activities will be consistent with managements expectations. However, the forward-looking statements in this document are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors, including factors relating to the Companys operation as a mineral exploration and development company and the Black Butte Copper Project, that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements, including that results of exploration and development activities will not be consistent with managements expectations, delays in obtaining or inability to obtain required government or other regulatory approvals or financing, failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, the risk of accidents, labor disputes, inclement or hazardous weather conditions, unusual or unexpected geological conditions, ground control problems, earthquakes, flooding and all of the other risks generally associated with the development of mining facilities. 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. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and 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 required by law. 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. It was an easy ride for the Governor of Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, as he appeared for screening for his reappointment before the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions. President Muhammadu Buhari last week re-nominated Mr Emefiele to head the apex bank for another term of four years. Senate screening is one of the constitutional requirements for appointment as CBN boss. However, as opposed to the usual serious environment characterised by questioning and other drills, the two parties had it all smooth. The CBN governor set the ball rolling. He bemoaned the situation where Nigerians disrespect policies of the bank. It is difficult but we will do our best, he began. The road ahead is still very tough. I use this opportunity to appeal, we have to learn to respect the policies of the country. Nigeria has good and workable policies but implementation has been neglected because we see sabotaged activities. CBN will ensure that those who seek to undermine the policies of Nigeria will be brought to book. Pray for us because the road ahead is rough. He also commented on the government policy on agriculture and exchange rate. On Agriculture, the credit should go to the President. It was what he said Eat what we produce that birthed the Anchor Borrowers Programme. We have started looking at palm oil. The price of a barrel of palm oil is more than a barrel of crude oil. We will grow that market again. After palm oil, we will focus on cocoa in the South West. After his speech, it was time for questions but instead of quizzing the CBN boss, the senators only praised him. At intervals, they threw banters at him. None of the lawmakers asked him a question. It started with Rafiu Ibrahim (Kwara-PDP) who prayed for Mr Emefiele after praising him. I do not have any question for the Governor. I will just want to mention that now that your team is fully constituted, the nation is expecting better performance. I am overwhelmed. I wish you well and pray for you. May God continue to guide you. Now, we know the reason why there are some videos on social media because in Nigeria, once you are a good person, some people will always try to bring you down. We will expeditiously take a report to the chamber for consideration. You can take a bow. In a light-hearted manner, Peter Nwabaoshi cautioned his colleagues against questioning the CBN boss. Mr Nwaoboshi represents Delta South District where Mr Emefiele hails from. Before you start firing missiles, I want to tell you that I am here and you should not fire too much missiles. He is my constituent in whom I am well pleased, he said. Other lawmakers who spoke aligned with other speakers in praising and praying for Mr Emefiele. The committee is expected to submit their report to the whole house in the coming days. An estimated 29,723 Nigerian immigrants living in the United States overstayed their U.S. non-immigrant tourism/business (B1/B2) visas between October 1, 2017, and September 30, 2018, the US Department of Homeland Security has said. In its new report, titled: The fiscal Year 2018 Entry/Exit Overstay Report it said these immigrants, who entered the United States legally, refused to leave the country after their visas expired. The report also shows the numbers and rate of expected departures of foreigners, who arrived in the United States as non-immigrants through the air or sea port of entry (POE). The reports, however, exempted travellers from Canada and Mexico as they mostly enter the United States by land. According to the report, 195,785 Nigerians that were given visas into the US were expected to leave within the above window. Of this number, Nigeria had 15.18 per cent rate of overstay and a Suspected In-Country Overstay rate of 14.81 per cent. The report also showed that Nigeria has no departure record for 29,004 immigrants; while only 719 travellers left the country after their visas expired. Djibouti, a small Africa country, has the highest rate of visa overstay immigrants at 180; with 403 expected departures. The numbers translate to 44.67 per cent and a Suspected In-Country Overstay rate of 43.92 per cent. The Trump angle The deportation of illegal immigrants and the consistent demand for building an all concrete wall along the Mexican/U.S. border has been one of President Donald Trumps exertions. We will triple the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Anyone who enters the U.S. illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. The report reveals that the ICE deported 256,000 illegal immigrants, under the President Trump administration, but this was lower than the 2012 peak of 410,000 under the Obama administration. President Trump, on April 11, ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security to provide solutions to solve the surge of illegal immigrant overstay, The Washington Post reported. According to the report, Mr Trump said attention would be given to countries that overstay abuse their business and tourist visas above 10 per cent, on the Department of Homeland Securitys 2018 report. President Trump added that sanctions to curb the menace of illegal overstay could include suspending or limiting visas for those countries who hold travel and business visas. Also, limits to the duration of admission will be implemented by the Department of Homeland Security; and additional documentary requirements. On Tuesday, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria announced new visa application procedures for Nigerian citizens ostensibly as a move to tackle the issue of visa overstay in the U.S. Two months after a social media strategist was outed as an alleged cocaine trafficker who absconded from trial in a federal court in Lagos, the security agencies are yet to act. Olufunke Phillips, who worked as a digital manager for the Lagos State governor-elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was arrested and charged in 2007 for alleged possession of 3.14 kilogrammes of cocaine. She was among 26 others who were arraigned before various judges for illegal possession of banned narcotics between 2007 and 2009. After they were granted bail during the trial, they all absconded and were declared wanted by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). Last March, a Nigerian journalist, Ruona Meyer, exposed Ms Phillips (real names: Philip Esther Olufunke) as one of the fugitives charged with cocaine possession. Ms Meyer, who holds dual Nigerian-German citizenship, was accusing Ms Phillips of intellectual property theft after they parted ways as business partners. In the run-up to the governorship election in Lagos State, Ms Phillips, who has maintained an active social media presence for years, campaigned vigorously for Mr Sanwo-Olu. At the time, her social media handles described her as Digital Strategist/Social & Political Commentator|Social/Digital Manager, Babajide Sanwo-Olu Campaign. But after she was exposed as a fugitive, she removed all traces of a connection with the governor-elect. And, afterwards, disappeared from social media. She re-surfaced weeks later and continued her usual activities. Bala Elkana, the Lagos State police spokesperson, did not respond to phone calls or text message enquiries since Tuesday. But Jonah Achema, the NDLEA spokesperson, asked for a written request for information, addressed to the chairman, on why the agency had failed to act on Ms Phillips. While responding to a Freedom of Information request by PREMIUM TIMES in April, the NDLEA admitted that Ms Phillips was among the suspects who were granted bail and subsequently absconded from their criminal trial. The NDLEA added that although it had successfully re-arrested, prosecuted and convicted some of the fugitives, Ms Phillips was not among those that have been tracked as at this date. Olufunke Phillips, the digital manager of Lagos State Governor-elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu The agency declined to provide further information, stating that the FOI Act exempts the disclosure of information or records required for law enforcement and investigation activities. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha has assured Nigerian workers of President Buharis commitment to improve their welfare. Speaking on Tuesday while inaugurating a committee that will negotiate adjustment in salaries for federal workers, the SGF said the commitment was due to President Buharis recognition of the role of workers in driving growth. Read full text of the speech below: It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this very important event which is the inauguration of the Committee to negotiate the consequential adjustment in salaries arising from the approved new National Minimum Wage. 2.Let me begin by conveying, the goodwill message of Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who has, from his first day in office in 2015 expressed deep interest in the welfare of workers and believes that if the Government is to succeed in its fight against corruption, the Nigerian workers must be adequately remunerated. 3.It is in fulfilment of Mr. Presidents commitment to issues concerning the welfare of Nigerian workers that he inaugurated the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage on 27th November, 2017. The President at the inauguration of that Committee acknowledged that the Nigerian Worker, like his counterparts all over the world, remain vital to the growth and development of modern nations and underscored the need to ensure a fair and decent living wage for workers, anchored on the principle of social justice and equity. 4.The Tripartite Committee no doubt was painstaking in its assignment. Members met with various Stakeholders and interest groups, visited every part of the Country, holistically considered the state of the economy and finally came up with its recommendation of N30,000.00 (Thirty Thousand Naira) only as the new National Minimum Wage. To further demonstrate Mr. Presidents unwavering commitments to the welfare of all Nigerian workers, he signed into law, the new National Minimum Wage bill which recommended N30,000.00. It must therefore be acknowledged that the outcome of the Tripartite Committees assignment is part of the reasons for this gathering today. 5.The President, out of a sense of fiscal responsibility and in seeking to use the budget as a tool for economic development, considered it necessary to appoint a Presidential Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) to advise on revenue optimization and a seamless implementation of the new wage and its consequential cost. I must add that Mr. President emphasized to that technical advisory committee to evolve ways of sustaining the new minimum wage in a manner that would guarantee all existing jobs. The Committee had also completed its assignment and submitted its report. 6.It is important to reiterate the Presidents remarks at the signing of the new National Minimum Wage Act, 2019 that the signing of the Act would pave way for the constitution of another Committee to negotiate the issue of relativity/consequential adjustment arising from the new National Minimum Wage of N30,000.00 (Thirty Thousand Naira) only, with the relevant Labour Unions. The purpose of this gathering is therefore to achieve that objective. 7.Government has carefully appointed members of the Committee under the Chairmanship of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as Alternate Chair. Other members from the side of government include: (i) Honourable Ministers of Labour & Employment, (ii) Honourable Minister of Finance, (iii) Honourable Minister of Budget & National Planning, (iv) Honourable Minister of Health, (v) Honourable Minister of Education, (vi) Honourable Attorney General of the Federation & Minister of Justice (vii) Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, (viii) Secretary, Federal Judicial Service Commission (ix) Secretary, National Assembly Service Commission, (x) Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes & Wages Commission who is to serve as Member/Secretary. 8.On the side of the Trade Unions, ten representatives have been nominated by the Joint National Public Service Negotiation Council as members of the Committee. 9.The primary mandate of the Committee will be to negotiate the consequential adjustment in salaries arising from the new national minimum wage. I have no doubt in my mind that you have abundant literature, reports and other materials to help this assignment. The duration of the assignment is Four (4) clear weeks from this inauguration. Advertisements 10.It is expected that the Committee will work assiduously to complete the assignment. I, urge the Committee to amicably consider the issue of relativity and consequential adjustment with thoroughness, bearing in mind the welfare of the nations workforce vis-a-vis the current economic reality. 11.On this note, Chairman and Members, I hereby formally inaugurate the Committee to negotiate the consequential adjustment in salaries arising from the new National Minimum Wage. 12. I thank you for your kind attention. *An address by Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation at the inauguration of the Committee to Negotiate the Consequential Adjustment in Salaries arising from the New National Minimum Wage held on Tuesday, 14th May, 2019 at the SGF Conference Room, Shehu Shagari Complex, Abuja. The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) says its Operation DIRAN MIKIYA Air Task Force (ATF) in collaboration with troops of the 271 Detachment have killed 12 bandits in Kamuku forest, Birnin Gwari, Kaduna. According to NAF, the task force also facilitated the release of 15 kidnapped victims. Ibikunle Daramola, NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja. The NAF recently inaugurated a 271 detachment in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna State, as part of efforts to tackle security challenges in the country. Mr Daramola said the establishment of the 271 Nigerian Air Force (NAF) detachments in Birnin Gwari was yielding steady dividends. According to him, air strikes conducted by the ATF in consonance with troops of the detachment, have resulted in the neutralisation of 12 bandits and release of 15 kidnapped victims. The air strikes conducted on the heels of intelligence reports indicated that the bandits were camped within the Kamuku Forest area, straddling both Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State and Sabuwa Local Government Area of Katsina State. The air strikes made the bandits to flee the location in disarray thereby, enabling the kidnapped victims to escape, with some finding their way to Nacibi, and others to Gobirawa and Dogon Muazu in Birnin Gwari LGA, he said. The spokesman assured Nigerians that NAF would continue to work with surface forces and other security agencies to sustain its operations to flush bandits out of the North-west. (NAN) A Kano High Court presided over by Nasiru Saminu has ordered Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi ll, to maintain status quo in respect of the interim order issued against the governor on May 10. Mr Saminu ordered all the parties in the suit to maintain the status quo, pending the hearing of motion on notice stressing that the appointment and installations were illegal. The court also ruled that the order issued on May 10, restraining the Kano State Government from creating four new emirates in the state, subsists, pending the determination of the motion. NAN reports that the court had through the ex-parte application by the applicant, Rabiu Gwarzo. restrained Mr Ganduje and all other respondents in the case from appointing or recognising any purported emir under the Kano State Emirs Appointment and Disposition Amendment Law 2019, pending the hearing of motion on notice. Earlier, counsel to the applicant, Abubakar Mahmud, informed the court that the respondents have not complied with the court order earlier issued. He explained that the appointment and presentation of staff of office to the four new emirs were made on May 13 and May 14 after they were restrained on May 10. Mr Mahmud said obeying court orders is the duty and obligations upon all respondents. However in his response, counsel to Mr Ganduje, the Commissioner For Justice, Ibrahim Mukthar, said the purported appointment and recognition of four new emirates were completed actions by the governor and all the respondents. He argued that the processes of amending the emirs appointment law, gazetting it and assenting to it were all done before the restraining order was issued against the respondents. The commissioner also argued that the court lacked the legal power to reverse any completed action. (NAN) The UK Department for International Development (DFID) said it spent N4 billion in supporting 52,393 pregnant women in Zamfara State through its Child Development Grand Programme (CDGP) from 2014 to date. Tanko Muhammad, the State Team Leader of the CDGP in Zamfara, made the disclosure in Gusau on Wednesday. He spoke at a Roundtable Discussion with members of the Academia, Media and Civil Society Organisations organised by the Save the Children International, an International NGO, which held at Jaiz Hotel in Gusau. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the CDGP is a DFID-funded project implemented in Jigawa and Zamfara states in Northern Nigeria by the Save the Children International. The programme is aimed at supporting pregnant women with cash of N4,000 monthly each, to take care of their babies for a period of two years. The main target of the CDGP programme was to ensure effective child care, growth and development. Mr Tanko said that 52,393 pregnant women across 527 communities from the two local government areas of Anka and Tsafe of the state had so far benefited from the programme, which started in 2014. In the Anka LGA, we supported 19,534 women activities in the 194 communities, while in Tsafe LGA 32,319 women across the 333 communities benefited from programme, he said. Mr Tanko commended the chairmen of Tsafe and Anka LGAs for supporting social protection activities in their areas. He said the programme was aimed at supporting pregnant women and nursing mothers, especially those in rural communities to take care of their babies considering the level of poverty at grassroots. Also, the Communication, Mobilisation and Advocacy Officer of the Programme, Nura Muhammad, said the meeting was to review various programmes and to discuss with stakeholders on ways of ensuring the sustainability of the programme in the state. Mr Muhammad said the programme has been engaging NGOs and other major stakeholders to ensure that the state government signed and implemented the Social Protection Policy for the benefit of vulnerable groups in the state. He commended the support and commitment given to the programme by the media and civil society organisations in the state. Earlier, the State Chairman Steering Committee of the CDGP, Kabiru Muhammad, decried low commitments in the engagement of development partners in the state. Mr Muhammad, who is the Permanent Secretary, Zamfara State Ministry of Budget and Economy Planning, had said: The state has 16 DFID support programmes. But, sadly as I am speaking now, we only have four DFID projects currently running in this state. He commended the Save the Child for organising the meeting, saying that the Social Protection Programme is a collective responsibility and therefore, all stakeholders must meet time to time to review issues affecting it. (NAN) The Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) says the Speaker of the Bayelsa House of Assembly, Kombowei Benson, and four other serving and former staff of the assembly will be arraigned in the court on May 22. Ibraheem Al-Hassan, the tribunals Head, Press & Public Relations, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists on Tuesday in Abuja. Those to be charged alongside the speaker are a former clerk of the assembly, Aaron Timiye, and a former accountant, Thomas Tamaraodubo. Others are Owudogu Edward, the serving clerk of the assembly and Koroye Stephen, serving accountant of the assembly. Mr Al-Hassan said the alleged offences bordered on gross misconduct and abuse of office. Chairman Code of Conduct Tribunal Justice Danladi Y. Umar, has approved May 22 for the commencement of trial against serving speaker and four others. The offences are alleged abused of office against Benson, the Speaker Bayelsa state House of Assembly. This was contained in a correspondent from Code of Conduct Bureau, addressed to Chairman Code of Conduct Tribunal to commence trial, dated April 30, jointly signed by the operatives of Code of Conduct Bureau: Musa Usman and Fatima Ahmed, he said. The charge was brought to the tribunal pursuant to Section 24 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act. According to the charge, the alleged actions of the defendants are contrary to paragraph 9 of the fifth schedule, part 1 of the 1999. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the offences are punishable under paragraph 18 (1) and (2) of the same constitution, and Sections 13 and 23 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act CAP C15 LFN 2004. (NAN) Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Ibadan Zone, on Tuesday, arrested three men in Ibadan, over alleged involvement in internet-related offences. The commissions spokesman, Tony Orilade, made this known in a statement in Ibadan. According to Mr Orilade, the suspects, Dayo Oginni, Okikiola Alabi and Jonas Okwuwe, were nabbed at a location within Fortune Estate, in Ologuneru-Olonde area of Ibadan. The arrest of the suspects followed a petition from Oginnis neighbour, who raised suspicion over his reckless and flamboyant lifestyle without any known reasonable source of income. Upon the receipt of the petition that led to discreet investigation, operatives of the commission carried out an early morning operation to arrest of the three suspects, he said. Mr Orilade further stated that the suspects had separately revealed that Mr Oginni was a part-time Ordinary National Diploma student at The Polytechnic, Ibadan. He also said that revelations from the suspects showed that Mr Okwuwe, Mr Oginnis friend claimed to be a Computer Science graduate from Auchi Polytechnic in Edo. The spokesman said that the third suspect, Mr Okikiola, an in-law to Mr Oginni, claimed to hold a Higher National Diploma in Accounting from The Polytechnic, Ibadan. He listed items recovered from the suspects as laptops, an iPhone and other brands of mobile phones. Mr Orilade said that the suspects would be charged to court as soon as investigation was concluded on the matter. (NAN) A driver, Abraham Joseph, 35, who was accused of sexually assaulting his two stepdaughters, on Wednesday appeared before an Ikeja Chief Magistrates Court in Lagos. Mr Joseph, who resides at No 34, Alhaji Alimi Street, Bariga in Lagos, is charged with sexual assault. The Prosecution Counsel, Christopher John, told the court that the defendant committed the offence on May 5, at noon, in his residence. Mr John alleged that the defendant, who is the victims step-father, sexually assaulted the girls, aged 9 and 12. He said the case was reported to the police by the girls mother. The offence, he said, contravened the provisions of Section 261 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015. He, however, pleaded not guilty. The chief magistrate, P.E. Nwaka, admitted the defendant to bail in the sum of N200, 000 with two sureties in like sum, and adjourned the case until June 13. (NAN) DALLAS, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- Alternet Systems, Inc. (USOTC: ALYI) (ALYI) today confirmed a management restructuring and expansion to be announced by the end of next week. The management restructuring and expansion is intended to contribute to the companys growing sales opportunities, technology innovations and merger and acquisition developments. The company signed $2 million dollars in orders in the first quarter of 2019 for its ReVolt Electric Motorcycles and has a $20 million order under development in conjunction with a project to open an African assembly plant. ALYI also has a number of alternative energy storage related technologies under development. Furthermore, ALYI has a robust merger and acquisition (M&A) pipeline. The company plans to soon release the results of its first quarter 2019 operations followed by a management brief further detailing the first quarter results. Look for the management brief coming by the end of next week. The management brief will elaborate more on the planned management restructuring and expansion. The following week of May 27th, ALYI plans to release the final plan on the management restructuring and expansion. ALYI is focused on offering varied, environmentally sustainable, energy storage solutions for targeted markets, including consumer electric vehicles and military applications. The first product category is lithium battery-powered motorcycles, to be followed by motorbikes. ALYI also has an ongoing hemp energy storage initiative leading its current efforts to introduce an alternative to lithium batteries. Research Report Speculative Buy Rating And $0.09 Target PPS Goldman Small Cap Research has recently issued a research report update on the Company. The report confirms a 'speculative-buy' rating with a target price-per-share of $0.09. The report provides an in-depth overview and analysis of Alternet's new strategy, new orders, and upcoming milestones. To view the report, along with disclosures and disclaimers, visit https://www.alternetsystemsinc.com/research-update or http://www.GoldmanResearch.com. Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur. For more information, please visit: http://www.alternetsystemsinc.com Alternet Systems, Inc. Contact: Randell Torno info@lithiumip.com +1-800-713-0297 The Oyo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has fixed May 20 to rule on an application by Adebayo Adelabu, APC governorship candidate, to recount ballot papers used in the election. News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Adelabu and his party are challenging the declaration by INEC, of Seyi Makinde, the PDP governorship candidate, winner of the March 9 election in Oyo state. The tribunal chaired by Justice Sirajo Muhammed fixed the date after listening to the submissions of the petitioner and the respondents. Ruling on the application is fixed for Monday, May 20, he said. Earlier, counsel to Mr Adelabu and APC, Titus Asaolu (SAN), had sought for an order of the tribunal to recount the ballot papers used in the governorship election. Mr Asaolu urged the tribunal to direct that the recounting be done in the presence of the representatives of the petitioner, respondents and the tribunal Secretary. He urged the tribunal to grant his application. But counsels to Mr Makinde and the PDP, Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) and Nathaniel Oke (SAN), opposed the application and urged the court to dismiss it, adding that it was not worth being granted. Counsel to INEC, Akinolu Kehinde, also opposed the application, saying that the business of counting of ballot papers started and stopped at the polling unit and was not that of the tribunal. (NAN) An Ondo State High Court has refused to grant the prayers of a substituted candidate to be declared the lawful winner of the House of Assembly seat for Okitipupa Constituency II. James Ololade-Gbegudu won the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries for the seat held on October 5, last year but the party replaced him before the general election with Sina Akinwunmi. Mr Akinwunmi went on to win the March 9 election and Mr Ololade-Gbegudu asked the court to retrieve the seat for him. The court agreed that the defendant, Mr Akinwunmi, was not the validly nominated APC candidate but refused to declare the plaintiff the winner. The court said Mr Ololade-Gbegudu won the primaries, but could not be declared as the rightful candidate of the party in the election since it was within the partys powers to present the names of candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The defendants in the suit included the APC Ondo State Chairman, Ade Adetimehin, the partys State Secretary, Sina Alaye; INEC, and the lawmaker-elect, Mr Akinwunmi. Mr Ololade-Gbegudu had approached the court to seek an order to compel the party and INEC to recognise him as the authentic APC candidate for the constituency and not Mr Akinwunmi, having won the partys primary. Delivering his judgment, which lasted more than two hours, Justice Olabode Adegbehingbe held that all evidence laid before the court by officials of the APC, including the primary election result sheet adduced by counsel to the plaintiff, Femi Emodamori, showed Mr Ololade-Gbegudu won the APC assembly ticket. He said in spite of that, he could not grant other reliefs of the plaintiff that the certificate of return earlier issued to Mr Akinwunmi be withdrawn and issues to him. He said the court could not force the APC to recognise the plaintiff as its authentic candidate for the poll. The court held that it was found that the primary election result sheet submitted by the lawmaker-elect was a forged one and is not reliable, invalid and irrelevant. The judge said section 87 (4) of the Electoral Act (as amended) did not mandate the party to forward names of Direct Primary election winners to INEC, adding that the party might choose not to forward such names as its candidates. He further said the court could not apply Section 87(3) of the Act which only deals with indirect primary, noting that there was no authority to be cited on the aspect of winners of partys direct primary whose names were not sent to INEC. The judge also dismissed the objection of the defendants that Mr Gbegudus case was filed out of time and was status-barred, noting that the suit was brought on December 22, 2018, within the 14 days allowed by the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Commenting on the verdict, counsel to the plaintiff, Mr Emmanuel, said his client would appeal the judgment. He noted that the court affirmed his client as the winner of the primary election of October 5, 2018, witnessed by INEC officials. Counsel to INEC, Bukola Durojaye, and that of APC, Tajudeen Oyerinde, expressed satisfaction with the judgment. Lagos, Nigerias most populous city, is among the few states in the country on the verge of kick-starting its state-run health insurance scheme to drive Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The Lagos State government said it is, however, in no rush to fully roll out the scheme which it said was made mandatory for all residents. This they said was to avoid drawbacks that contributed to the failure of similar initiatives in the country. Government officials and health experts provided updates on the scheme and explained various steps being taken to ensure it will be sustained once it is fully implemented. They spoke during a series of engagements with some Senior Executive Course participants of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS) between Monday and Tuesday. The NIPPS delegation is in the state for a study tour of its health sector. The visit is coordinated by NIPSS in collaboration with the Development Research and Project Centre (DRPC) through PACFAH@Scale. Long road On Monday, Adetokumbo Fabamwo, the Chief Medical Director, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, gave a lecture on Stakeholders Perception on Universal Healthcare Delivery and Funding in Lagos State. He broke down the successes and failures of various initiatives the state adopted to fund healthcare since the inception of the fourth republic in 1999. We started with the free health scheme launched in the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 1999, he said. He said the free-health scheme was supposed to provide care for three categories of citizens: Children under 12; elderly over 60 years; state public servants; pregnant women and the destitute. Mr Fawambo, a professor, however, said the scheme failed because actual beneficiaries could not be authenticated. He also said lack of sustainable funding and poor universal applicability made the scheme to collapse. The medical doctor further explained how the state in 2007 launched the Community Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHIS) to substitute the free healthcare scheme. Mr Fawambo said the CBHIS was unable to cover the state as it was targeted predominantly at the informal sector workers and offered a package of prepaid healthcare services for enrolled members of the community. Mandatory State Health Insurance With the unsuccessful stint of previous schemes, the Lagos State House of Assembly in 2015 passed the state health insurance scheme bill. Last year, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode signed it into law. Bayo Aderiye, the chairman, Health Service Commission, in his presentation, said the government resolved to make the scheme compulsory for all residents to avoid the mistake made in the uptake of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which was made optional. NIPSS delegation at an interactive session with official of Lagos state government at the office of the Secretary to the state Governor. The NHIS was created 14 years ago to reduce out-of-pocket spending on health services but the scheme has been stifled by a leadership crisis, corruption, legal, political and technical encumbrances. Today, only about five per cent of Nigerians are covered. It is believed that the major limitation to any progress is the state of the Act establishing the scheme, which made insurance optional. Mr Aderiye said all residents must have Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA) cards to benefit from this scheme. He said the uptake of the scheme will mark the end of free healthcare for every segment of the population in the state, since the law envisages that no resident will be left behind by the time full implementation starts. Model Earlier, Mr Fawambo, CMD Lagos University Teaching hospital, detailed how the scheme will be run. According to him, enrolment is categorised into family and single units. In family enrolment, the beneficiary is expected to pay a premium of N40,000 yearly per family of six while a single enrollee will pay N8,500. The professor said government subsidised the premium for public servants in the formal sector. Advertisements For family premium, civil servants will pay 25 per cent or N10, 000 while government pays 75 per cent or N30, 000. Meanwhile, Obioma Obikeze, a consultant for DRPC, expressed concern over the payment arrangement for civil servants. He said if the 25 per cent premium for civil servant cuts across all level of workers, those at the lower level will be disadvantaged. lagos state permanent secretary, Adesina Odeyemi recieving the NIPSS delegation on Monday. If people at grade level 1 pay same premium with permanent secretaries, the aim of equity of distribution which is the fundamental prerogative of UHC is defeated, he said. Mr Fawambo, however, maintained that the 25 per cent (N10,000) premium cut across all grade levels in the service. I dont think N10,000 will be too much for any worker in Lagos to pay every year for health. Backstory Health insurance has been globally recognised as the fastest route for any country to achieve Universal Health Coverage. With health insurance, it is believed that out-of-pocket expenditure for health, which has placed many families in severe financial dearth will be relegated. Experts say 70 per cent of Nigerians pay out-of-pocket for health even though the country launched its health insurance scheme, NHIS, since 2005. The NHIS has been a cesspool of fraud, corruption, and controversies. While millions of Nigerians remain uncovered, the few enrolled under the scheme are complaining of inadequate service delivery. With the failure of the NHIS to deliver, the quest for state health insurance intensified. Just like Lagos, many other states have begun implementation of their SHIS. Adetokumbo Fabamwo, the Chief Medical Director, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital recieving honorary award from NIPSS after an interactive session. They include Delta, Bauchi, Kaduna, Sokoto, Abia and Anambra. Others are Bayelsa, Niger, Kwara, Kano and Imo. But as it is with NHIS currently dogged with multiple challenges experts believe health insurance in states will not also work if proper implementation plan is not put in place. PREMIUM TIMES reported last December that the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) directed all doctors not to participate in any State Health Insurance until there is meaningful engagement between the government and stakeholders. Legislative intervention This, among others, has led to calls for a repeal of the NHIS Act and the enactment of a new one. With a new act, practitioners in the health sector believe how the SHIS should function will be clearly stated. NIPSS delegation in a meeting with the SSG. Titled National Health Insurance Act (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill 2019, a new bill to invalidate some aspects of the old law (2004) has been initiated. The bill passed third reading at the Senate about a month ago. It now needs presidential assent to fully become law. Policy makers and health experts are of the view that it will take another rigorous legislative process if President Muhammadu Buhari does not assent, on or before midnight of May 29. SHIS: Optimism in Lagos Despite these concerns, stakeholders in Lagos are optimistic that by the time the state begins full implementation of its health insurance scheme next month, it will effectively change the landscape of health insurance in the country and become the benchmark for Universal Health Coverage. According to Jide Idris, the state commissioner for health, about 34 per cent or 120, 000 residents have been enrolled. He said the government is currently creating awareness and capturing people into the scheme. All other funding schemes will collapse into the state health insurance once its launched, he noted. Meanwhile, the NIPSS delegation presented honorary awards to various state actors they engaged so far in their tour of Lagos, one of the fastest growing cities in the world. The Lagos State University (LASU) announced, during its 23rd convocation ceremony Wednesday, that 57 graduands bagged first class degrees, the highest ever in the institutions 36 years of existence. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, the vice-chancellor, said diplomas, first degrees, postgraduate diplomas, and other higher degrees across faculties and disciplines would be awarded during the ceremony. We will also be rewarding the effort, brilliance and outstanding performance of some of our graduands who have excelled in their various disciplines by giving them prizes and awards, said Mr Fagbohun, a professor of Environmental Law. With particular reference to First Degree graduands, we will be graduating 57 first class students. Never in the history of the Lagos State University have we had it so good. This convocation is unique in the sense that two graduands, Ridwan Ola-Gbadamosi from the Faculty of Engineering and Nneka Enumah of the Faculty of Science graduating with a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.88 to emerge as overall best graduating students. Mr Fagbohun said in the Faculty of Arts, Faith Uzuegbu and Adenike Abati, both of the Department of English, emerged the best graduating students in their faculty with a CGPA of 4.41. We also have a tie in the Faculty of Social Sciences where Abosede Onifade and Omowunmi Kassim both of the Department of Sociology graduated with a CGPA of 4.78 to emerge the best graduating students in their faculty. A total of 10,523 graduands qualified for the First Degree certificate, Mr Fagbohun said. In his valedictory speech, Mr Ola-Gbadamosi, one of the overall best graduating students, implored the government to provide qualitative education in a conducive learning environment. Engineering is my profession and because I love the profession passionately, I implore the government to provide continuous funding to ensure our workshops and laboratories measure up in standard to what obtains in advanced climes, he said. I also implore it to provide funds to support students industrial and technical visits on a weekly basis while also creating an environment that would attract more of foreign investors and collaborators in the field of Engineering. This would ensure the country to have the right manpower to drive its industries and in the long run improve the gross domestic product capacity of the country while reducing unemployment simultaneously. LOWER TOWNSHIP Just before officials broke ceremonial ground at the Cape May Airport for the first of three buildings that will make up an innovation hub for tech businesses, Cape May County Freeholder Will Morey got on his phone and said the men were one shovel shy. Materializing from the horizon, a six-propeller drone towing a gold shovel flew to the men across a field that will, in the next few years, house the next two buildings of the tech village. For UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) integration into the national airspace system, this is an ideal place to develop, test and also have close proximity, said Morey, citing dense air traffic in the northeast air corridor and the uncluttered air space directly above Cape May. Atlantic County receives $100,000 for its planned aviation maintenance academy Atlantic County was awarded a $100,000 state grant to help create its planned aviation and t WILDWOOD The city will commemorate its new POW Chair of Honor at 3 p.m. Thursday at City Hall. The chair honors the 82,000 unaccounted-for soldiers since World War II. Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. partnered with Vietnam veteran and POW-MIA National Chair of Honor representative Patrick J. Hughes in curating the project. We are honored to have the chair as a permanent reminder of the bravery and gallantry of our American soldiers who fought for the liberty and freedoms that at the time we take for granted, Troiano said. The chair will remain in the meeting room on a platform behind velvet ropes joined by the American, POW-MIA, Killed in Action, New Jersey and Wildwood flags. Salena Ledonne MAYS LANDING The Pennsylvania man charged in the 2014 murder of an Egg Harbor Township woman was remanded to jail after a detention hearing Tuesday. Timothy P. Wright, 39, of Chambersburg, who was arrested and charged last month with strangling 25-year-old Joyce Vanderhoff, was detained after a hearing before Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Bernard E. DeLury Jr., court records show. Wright was arrested by officers from the Chambersburg Police Department April 26 and was extradited to New Jersey on May 8. He is being held in the Atlantic County jail. Pa. man charged in 2014 murder of EHT woman extradited to NJ MAYS LANDING A Pennsylvania man charged in the 2014 murder of a 25-year-old Egg Harbor Tow Vanderhoffs naked body was found on the side of the road in Hamilton Township at 9:51 a.m. Feb. 14, 2014, after police responded to a report of a body spotted by a passing motorist on Weymouth Road, Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner said in a news release announcing Wrights arrest. The investigation was a cooperative effort among the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office Major Crimes Unit, Hamilton Township police and Chambersburg police. Vanderhoffs death was ruled to be a homicide,. NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premier High School - North Little Rock, a ResponsiveEd school, is opening its doors in the fall of 2019 and enrollment is now open for 9-12 graders at the new campus as well as at Premier High School - Little Rock. The two free-tuition campuses will each be home to more than 100 high schoolers looking to go back to school after dropping out, to recover credits or who are hoping to graduate early. Were excited to open a second campus in Central Arkansas that will be convenient for our students in North Little Rock who are looking to graduate, says Premier High School - North Little Rock Director Damon Teas. This is a place for students who, for one reason or another, are not meeting their full potential at a traditional high school and need a smaller, more relaxed and flexible environment that gives them more control of their school day. The new Premier High School - North Little Rock campus is located at 115 E. 24th Street. Students and parents are encouraged to come by the Little Rock location at 1621 Dr. Martin Luther King Drive at Arkansas Baptist University to apply for the fall semester in person or fill out an application online at premierhighschool.com/apply. The public is invited to attend the upcoming parent-interest meeting scheduled for May 20, 2019, at 6 p.m. at the Laman Library Lecture Hall at 2801 Orange Street in North Little Rock. For more information, please call 501-263-1701. Since 1999, Premier High Schools have been providing hope for students looking for an alternative to a traditional direct-teach educational environment. Comprised of 37 campuses within the ResponsiveEd public charter system, this unique school model is designed for credit recovery and early graduation for students who thrive in smaller, independent learning environments that emphasize the use of technology and one-on-one teacher interactions. Stay Connected: Facebook: www.facebook.com/PremierHighSchools Twitter: www.twitter.com/PremierHigh LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/responsiveed Instagram: www.instagram.com/responsiveeducation Attachment Following pressure from environmentalists, Gov. Phil Murphy has replaced the Pinelands Commission chairman who voted in favor of two South Jersey pipelines in 2017. Chairman Sean Earlen is being switched out with former Pemberton Township councilman Richard Prickett on the 15-member board tasked with protecting New Jerseys 1.1 million-acre natural reserve. Richards experience serving on the commission, coupled with his extensive background in environmental science, make him an exceptional individual to serve in this critical leadership position, Murphy said in a statement. Earlen could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Clear-cut approved around Bass River fire tower PEMBERTON TOWNSHIP A controversial Department of Environmental Protection project to clear His replacement comes after groups called on Murphy to appoint new Pinelands commissioners whom they consider more environmentally friendly. A petition with 5,000 signatures was delivered to the governor last year. Earlen was the commissions Burlington County representative before being appointed chairman by then-Gov. Chris Christie in 2016. As chairman, he approved two controversial pipelines. Roman, Anthony George, - of Egg Harbor Township, passed away on Friday, May 10th, 2019, Anthony Roman, loving husband, father, and friend, passed away peacefully at age 92. Tony was born to Joseph Roman and Jennifer Roman in Cherry City, a suburb of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania on September 23rd, 1926. Tony served with distinction in the United States Navy during the Second World War. He enlisted on his 18th birthday in 1944 and was honorably discharged in 1946. Upon returning home Tony moved to Northeast Philadelphia and later Levittown, Pennsylvania where he began a fulfilling career with the United States Postal Service which lasted 32 years. He married the love of his life, Rose Marie Harry, in 1961. Their unconditional love was, and continues to be an inspiration to all who knew them. Tony and Rose Marie raised two beautiful children, Maria and Joseph, who carry on his legacy of kindness and generosity. Tony's greatest joy after retiring to New Jersey with Rose Marie was attending daily mass with their loving community at the Church of St. Katharine Drexel. His faith and devotion to God brought strength and guidance throughout his life. Tony's passion for music was a constant source of joy. He happily recounted memories of seeing big band leaders and crooners in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and beyond. Tony was a gentle soul, and will be remembered for his kindness, warmth, and generosity towards everyone he met. He was a wonderful storyteller, a tremendous friend, and an impeccable role model throughout his life. Tony is survived by his wife Rose Marie, his two children, Joseph Roman, Maria Wallace (Roman) and her husband Joseph Wallace Jr, as well as his grandson Joseph Wallace III. A Gathering with the family will be held Saturday, May 18, 2019, from 10am til 11am at the Church of St. Katharine Drexel. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Church of St. Katharine Drexel, 6075 West Jersey Avenue Egg Harbor Township, NJ 08234. Arrangements entrusted to and condolences may be left for the family at adams-perfect.com Major fire fought early holiday morning Easter Sunday is a family day. Activities such as church services, Easter egg hunts and special breakfasts are shared with loved ones. On that day the brave and dedicated members of the Sea Isle City, Strathmere, Ocean View, Seaville and Avalon fire departments set aside their Sunday plans to fight a major fire in Sea Isle City. These amazing women and men, with support from the Sea Isle Police Department, responded very early Sunday morning to save lives and property. I was one of the homeowners whose home was saved and will always be grateful to these special people. The news is saturated with stories of crime, political backbiting and disappointment. We need to share some good news. It is time we recognize that there are good people in our communities and they are the volunteers who serve as firefighters. They give their valuable time to us without asking for recognition, only for our support. Who among us would rise at 5 a.m. on Easter, leave their families and run to help strangers? Charles S. Rice Sea Isle City Trump a bulwark against social Democrats rule French English Press release Mixed Shareholders' Meeting of May 15, 2019 Paris La Defense, May 15, 2019 - Nexans Mixed Shareholders' Meeting, held on May 15, 2019 in Paris La Defense, at Coeur Defense Conference Centre, approved all the 29 resolutions proposed to the shareholders by the Board of Directors. The detailed results of the vote will be available in the following days online on www.nexans.com/2019asm. Shareholders approved in particular resolutions related to the renewal of the term in office as members of the Board of Directors of Hubert Porte, independent director, and the appointments as directors of Jean Mouton, independent director, Oscar Hasbun Martinez, director proposed by the shareholder Invexans Limited (UK), and Bpifrance Participations, represented by Anne-Sophie Herelle, for a four-year term. The shareholders approved the payment of a dividend of 0.30 euro per share, to be paid on May 21, 2019 (ex-dividend date: May 17, 2019). The replay of the General Meeting with an English translation will be available soon on Nexans' website at www.nexans.com. Following the Shareholders' Meeting, the Board of Directors met and appointed Jean Mouton as Chairman. It also decided on the following changes in the composition of the Board committees: Audit, Accounts and Risk Committee: Kathleen Wantz-O'Rourke (Chairwoman), Hubert Porte and Francisco Perez Mackenna; Appointments, Compensation and Corporate Governance Committee: Anne Lebel, lead independent director (Chairwoman), Bpifrance Participations represented by Anne-Sophie Herelle, Fanny Letier, Colette Lewiner and Francesco Perez Mackenna; Strategy and Sustainable Development Committee: Oscar Hasbun Martinez (Chairman), Bpifrance Participations represented by Anne-Sophie Herelle, Marc Grynberg, Colette Lewiner and Francisco Perez Mackenna. The composition of the Transformation Committee remains unchanged. Financial calendar July 24, 2019: 2019 First Half Results November 7, 2019: Third quarter 2019 financial information About Nexans Nexans brings energy to life through an extensive range of advanced cabling systems, solutions and innovative services. For over 120 years, Nexans has been providing customers with cutting-edge cabling infrastructure for power and data transmission. Today, beyond cables, the Group advises customers and designs solutions and services that maximize performance and efficiency of their projects in four main business areas: Building & Territories (including utilities, emobility), High Voltage & Projects (covering offshore wind farms, submarine interconnections, land high voltage), Telecom & Data (covering data transmission, telecom networks, hyperscale data centers, LAN), and Industry & Solutions (including renewables, transportation, Oil & Gas, automation, and others). Corporate Social Responsibility is a guiding principle of Nexans' business activities and internal practices. In 2013, Nexans became the first cable player to create a Foundation supporting sustainable initiatives bringing access to energy to disadvantaged communities worldwide. The Group's commitment to developing ethical, sustainable and high-quality cables also drives its active involvement within leading industry associations, including Europacable, NEMA, ICF or CIGRE to mention a few. Nexans employs nearly 27,000 people and has an industrial footprint in 34 countries and commercial activities worldwide. In 2018, the Group generated 6.5 billion euros in sales. Nexans is listed on Euronext Paris, compartment A. For more information, please visit: www.nexans.com Additional information: 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. On 15.05.2019, the board of directors of Flakk Composites AS resolved to propose to its shareholders meeting that Flakk Composites AS shall demerger certain assets to two entities to be incorporated as part of the demerger, included in which are 25 000 000 shares in Hexagon Composites ASA. Flakk Composites AS is wholly owned by Flakk Gruppen AS, a company owned 98.7% by Knut Flakk, chairman of the board of Hexagon Composites ASA. Flakk Composites AS will change its name to Flakk Rollon AS as part of the demerger. After, and subject to, completion of the demerger Flakk Rollon AS will hold 4 340 504 shares (2,37%) of the total number of shares in Hexagon Composites ASA, whilst Flakk Composites AS (acquiring entity 1, to be established) and KF Finans AS (acquiring entity 2, to be established), which will be incorporated as wholly owned subsidiaries of Flakk Gruppen AS, will hold 20 000 000 shares (10,91%) and 5 000 000 shares (2,73%), respectively, of the total number of shares in Hexagon Composites ASA. The total holding of Knut Flakk and his close associates, including Flakk Rollon AS, Flakk Composites AS and KF Finans AS, remains unchanged in Hexagon Composites ASA. The demerger is expected to take place at the start of Q3 2019. For more information: Flakk Gruppen AS, by Knut Flakk Telephone: +4799746000 | knut.flakk@flakk.no This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Thanks to the excellent human talent this country has to offer, and its contributions to companies' operating efficiency, the Shingo Institute has awarded three multinational companies based in Costa Rica with the highest recognition for operational excellence, the Shingo awards. The companies are: Boston Scientific Coyol (2019 Prize category), Hologic Surgical Products (2019 Silver category), and Bridgestone BATO Shared Services Center (2018 Silver category). The Shingo Award for Operational Excellence is granted by the Shingo Institute, part of the Jon M. Huntsman Business School at Utah State University, in recognition of the world's best manufacturing practices. This year in 2019, only four companies worldwide have managed to win an award in the Prize category, with two in the Silver category. In 2018, only two companies made it to the Silver category, which highlights excellence at the country level for executing high added value processes. Dyala Jimenez, the Minister of Foreign Trade, was delighted at the news, and remarked, "Companies in the life sciences sector have found a home in Costa Rica, where the high degree of specialization of our professionals has been a key element for their development. Costa Rican human talent is increasingly prepared to confront changing demands in the market and the environment where global business is taking shape, and this recognition is a clear example of this. The award to the companies Boston Scientific, Hologic Surgical Products and Bridgestone BATO Shared Services Center is also for their people. Great work is always recognized, and we thank you for putting Costa Rica on top. My very warmest congratulations!" The Managing Director at the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), Jorge Sequeira, said: "These prizes reflect the efficiency and productivity characteristic of Costa Rican culture. From 1999 to 2017, life sciences companies operating in the country have seen productivity growth per employee of 63%; whereas for the services sector, from 2005 al 2017, productivity has grown 100%, all of this measured by the value of exports per employee, according to CINDE data in 2018. We congratulate these companies for their commitment to excellence and their contributions to Costa Rica." Luis Javier Serrano, Vice President for Operations at Boston Scientific, Coyol plant, said, "This recognition is a real achievement for all of our employees. The passion, commitment and daily use of systems and tools for continuous improvement have created for us this magnificent culture of operational excellence. I have been a witness to these results, and the change that is generated when a team decides to embark upon this journey. Today we're celebrating what we once dreamed, which is what we have been working on for all these years." Senior Operations Director at Hologic Surgical Products, Nilo Caravaca, commented, "We set out on our path to operational excellence (LEAN) 10 years ago, and over the past four years we've been implementing the Shingo Operational Excellence model, in tandem with our Gallup Q12. We've chosen this model because we want excellent and sustainable results that we can compare with the operations and services of the best organizations in the world." Marshall Kelly, VP at Bridgestone Shared Services Center, noted that: "This is a very important success in our progress towards our strategic goals. It's a journey that began three years ago. We are proud to be the first Shared Services Center in Costa Rica to have won the Shingo Silver Medallion, a prize for operational excellence." The results achieved by these companies corroborate Costa Rica's standing in various international rankings of efficiency and innovation. For example: Costa Rica took first place in Latin America for efficiency and innovation according to World Intellectual Property Organization 2018. About CINDE The Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE) is a private, non-profit organization that for 37 years has been committed to the development and sustainable social progress of Costa Rica by attracting direct foreign investment in manufacturing and services industries of high added value that create quality employment, knowledge transfer and productive linkages. CINDE also collaborates in strengthening the Costa Rican business climate to foster the growth of activities of value for the country, improvement in the preparation of local talent, creation of jobs and greater opportunities for the population in the country's various communities. For more press information Fabiola Dominguez, CINDE fdominguez@cinde.org Related Links http://www.cinde.org SOURCE Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Monster Energy hailed a decision by a Dutch Court that imposed a European Union-wide ban on the sale and promotion of BANG energy drinks on the grounds that BANG's advertising misleads and deceives consumers. This case was brought by Monster Energy's European subsidiary. The Court also emphasized that so-called "Super Creatine," which BANG claims is in its U.S. drinks, is not permitted in the E.U. because Super Creatine is not authorized for use in foods. This follows action by the United Kingdom's Food Standard Agency declaring that "Super Creatine" is an unlawful food ingredient. WUXI, China, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation has come to a successful end. The forum issued the "Going Green" initiative, which applies the idea of sustainable development to the all aspects and processes of construction of the Belt and Road Initiative. The general manager of ZOZEN Mr. Zhang Guoping indicated that ZOZEN would continue to insist on technological innovation in conjunction with green development and achieve a win-win cooperation with overseas enterprises. The Belt and Road Initiative includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st century Maritime Silk Road, the core is taking the infrastructure construction as main line to strengthen all-dimensional connectivity. Nowadays, over 150 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation documents with China, including Russian-speaking countries like Russia, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and others. This offers the opportunity for ZOZEN to expand in the Russian-speaking market. Russian-speaking countries such as Russia and Turkmenistan are abundant in natural gas resources, which means there is a high demand for gas-fired boilers from enterprises in these regions. Benefiting from the Belt and Road Initiative, ZOZEN gas-fired steam boilers and hot water boilers are widely preferred due to advantages such as high efficiency and low emission. Visits to ZOZEN's Russian website has seen a steady increase - a traffic increase of 30% and a significant increase in the number of product enquires. ZOZEN is willing to provide free boiler solution for customers and sincerely welcome customers' to visit the ZOZEN manufacturing base in China. In the future, ZOZEN will continue to cultivate a professional technical team for Russian-speaking countries, provide highly efficient boilers and perfect after-sales service for more enterprises. About ZOZEN The annual production scale of Wuxi ZOZEN Boilers Co., Ltd. has exceeded 2,000 sets and 25,000 tons per hour since its establishment in 1988; ZOZEN has obtained PRC Grade A Manufacture License of Special Equipment, PRC Grade BRManufacture License of Special Equipment, ASME "S" (Power Boilers) and "U" (Pressure Vessels) stamps and passed ISO9001:2000. ZOZEN has specifically researched and developed condensing gas-fired steam boilers, hot water boilers for the Russian-speaking market, thermal fluid heaters and coal-fired boilers, which are widely preferred by the nonferrous metals, food, chemical industry. For more information, please visit: http://ru.zozen.com Related Links https://ru.zozen.com SOURCE ZOZEN Gevilan's wireless hair dryer is the perfect choice for people who want mobility and flexibility when using a hair dryer. The dryer provides an extremely gentle, healthy, heat-styling experience wherever and whenever you need to dry your hair. From the bathroom to the living room, with Gevilan you have complete freedom to dry your hair on the move. The wireless hair dryer, Gevilan's first hair product, is less damaging to hair than any existing hair dryer on the market. It uses a focused airflow to keep the temperature at a steady 140F (60C) for precise styling, preventing extreme-heat damage. The hair dryer also features a small motor, designed to crank out a powerful airflow, producing a high-pressure, high-velocity jet of air that dramatically shortens styling time. Gevilan wireless hair dryer works with a high concentration of anion, which makes your hair shiny, locks in moisture, and penetrates into the protective layer covering each hair. With a built-in negative ion transmitter, it simulates natural drying, helping to reduce frizz and improve definition. Along with its seamless violet body and brilliant crystal highlights from Swarovski, the Gevilan wireless hair dryer comes with the usual styling attachments, from a smoothing nozzle to a diffuser. "We challenged our engineers to understand the science of hair and develop our version of a hair dryer," the Project Manager from Gevilan said. "We engineered a nozzle that dries hair gently, using a smooth, wide airflow and allowing you to dry and style at the same time." About GEVILAN GEVILAN is a professional, personal-care brand from Delaware, USA. Based on its extensive research in the field of biotechnology and regenerative medicine, GEVILAN provides practical, exquisite, and fashionable instruments related to hair care, body care, skin care, and oral care for people around the world. SOURCE GEVILAN LAGUNA HILLS, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- International award-winning Architecture Design Collaborative is out and about at national conventions serving architecture and design this month. Representatives are to attend Hospitality Design Expo - the leading hospitality design trade show, ICSC RECon, and PCBC. "Industry events like these are a great way to bring together developers, real estate professionals, architects and designers to develop a conversation embracing the future trends. They offer opportunities to collaborate with the best in the country, explore solutions, and share ideas. Aside from these experiences, the shows are a great opportunity to meet up with friends and clients in one location to catch up on their activities," says Craig Chinn President of ADC. The firm's Retail team look forward to ICSC RECon, the largest convention for the retail real estate industry, on May 19-22 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they will engage in educational sessions, networking, and view the latest industry innovation. The three-day show will bring a series of workshops, talks, and exhibitions. As the shopping mall industry has gained momentum and is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, this year's program is focused on exploring new ideas about evolving shopping centers into communities, engaging millennials, and integrating new technologies. ADC's Residential team will attend PCBC, the largest annual homebuilding trade show in the Western United States on May 30-31 in San Francisco, California. It will be two full days of inspiring ideas and provocative perspectives on design and what lies ahead for the homebuilding industry. The conversation this year includes topics from the latest tech, designing for authenticity, to the impacts of Driverless Cars. "Apart from spending quality time with clients and hopefully making new ones, I am looking forward to hearing more about new Multi-Family Trends and getting a pulse check on the economy," says Chris Weimholt. ADC have increased their reach in design, expanded their national portfolio in the retail and residential specialties, and become recognized as emerging experts in these fields. The Retail and Residential teams aim to stay in front of trends and engage in dynamic industry conversations that increase knowledge in their architectural practice. About Architecture Design Collaborative ADC's philosophy of diverse design and collaborative nature has led to national and international recognition. Servicing clients nationwide offering multi-disciplinary architectural, planning and interior design services, ADC specializes in mixed-use, residential, retail, and commercial projects. Contact: Craig Chinn, AIA [email protected] www.adcollaborative.com SOURCE Architecture Design Collaborative Related Links http://adcollaborative.com The rise in the graying population and minimal side effects associated with the treatment are some of the factors boosting the market for Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment. Market Size USD 15.60 Billion in 2018, Market Growth - CAGR of 2.4%, Market Trends Increase in awareness regarding mental health. NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market is forecast to reach USD18.90 Billion by 2026, according to a new report by Reports and Data. There has been a continued rise in the rate of depression and anxiety in the global healthcare scenario. Such a rise in the incidence rate of depression and anxiety has resulted in focusing on the global healthcare scenario and reducing the incidence rate of such a mental healthcare condition. In the year 2018, more than 300 million individuals of all ages were suffering from depression in the global scenario. There have been 800,000 incidents of suicides in the same year, the reasons behind which have been primarily depression and anxiety disorders. Such a rise in the incidence rate of depression and anxiety is one of the major factors driving the global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market. Request free sample of this research report at: https://www.reportsanddata.com/sample-enquiry-form/1405 Globally, incidences of depression and mental health are continuously increasing in the elderly population. This population is prone to mental health issues like dementia, phobia and anxiety disorders. Hence, the increase in the graying population is also contributing to the rising demand for antidepressants and therapies to treat the mental health condition during the forecast period. In the year 2018, the global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market was dominated by North America. This region can be forecasted to continue this domination throughout the forecast period. The reason North America dominates the market is mainly because of the rising incidence rate of anxiety disorders and depression in a particular region. Other mentionable reasons for North America to dominate the market are supportive government policies and a higher rate of awareness, which also contribute to the growth of the market in this region. The Asia Pacific region also shows a significant presence in the global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market and is forecasted to follow North America in terms of the market share. High prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the APAC region is one of the significant reasons for market growth in this region. Further key findings from the report suggest The rising rate of occurrence of depression and anxiety is one of the contributing factors for the high consumption rate of anti-depressants. This rise in the occurrence rate of anxiety and depression is one of the major driving factors for the global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market, contributing to market growth. In the segment Drug class, the highest market share was held by antidepressants in the year 2018, followed by antidepressants. Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs) dominated the markets in the year 2018 with a market share of 28%. To identify the key trends in the industry, click on the link below: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/anxiety-disorder-and-depression-treatment-market Rises in the occurrence rate of anxiety and depression along with incidents of suicide and terminal depression signs across different age groups are expected to fuel up the global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market. As a result of such incidents of suicide, there has been a rise in demand for therapies. In the year 2018, Cognitive Behavior Therapy [CBT] dominated the market with a market share of 30%. During the forecast period, CBT is forecasted to hold a market share of 31% by 2026. Key participants include Johnson & Johnson, Inc., Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline plc., Lundbeck A/S, Inc., Sanofi- Aventis, Merck & Company, AstraZeneca PLC., Forest Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company among others. Segments covered in the report: For the purpose of this report, Reports and Data have segmented the global Anxiety Disorder and Depression Treatment Market based on Drug class, Therapies, Devices, Application, End-users, and Region: Drug class Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2016-2026) Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) Antidepressant Drugs Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCAs) Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs) Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) Benzodiazepines Atypical Antipsychotics Anticonvulsants Beta-Blockers Others Therapies Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2016-2026) Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) Psychotherapy Deep Brain Stimulation Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) Devices Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2016-2026) Cranial electrotherapy stimulator Fisher-Wallace stimulator market Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2016-2026) Phobia Major Depressive Disorder Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Post-traumatic stress disorder Others End-users Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2016-2026) Hospitals Mental healthcare centers NGOs Asylums Order Now: https://www.reportsanddata.com/checkout-form/1405 Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2016-2026) North America U.S. Europe UK France Asia Pacific China India Japan MEA Latin America Brazil Browse more reports of Pharmaceutical category at: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report/category/pharmaceutical About Reports and Data Reports and Data is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. Our solutions purely focus on your purpose to locate, target and analyze consumer behavior shifts across demographics, across industries and help clients make a smarter business decision. We offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a multiple industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Power, and Energy. We consistently update our research offerings to ensure our clients are aware about the latest trends existent in the market. Reports and Data has a strong base of experienced analysts from varied areas of expertise. Contact Us: John Watson Head of Business Development Reports And Data | Web: www.reportsanddata.com Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052 WASHINGTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2019/Beaba-Recalls-Baby-Food-Steam-Cooker-Blenders-Due-to-Laceration-Hazard Recall Summary Name of Product: Babycook Neo steam cooker/blenders Hazard: The glass bowl can break, posing a laceration hazard. Remedy: Replace Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled Babycook Neo and contact Beaba for a free replacement bowl. Consumer Contact: Beaba toll-free at 855-602-3222 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, by email at [email protected] or online at www.BeabaUSA.com/recall and submit a request. Recall Details Units: About 5,000 (in addition, about 650 were sold in Canada) Description: This recall involves the Beaba Babycook Neo Midnight and Cloud baby food makers. The Babycook Neo is A/C powered and steams and blends food. It measures about 9 inches wide and 9 inches high with a detachable glass bowl. The Midnight is dark blue with a white handled glass bowl with the reference number 912645 on the bottom. The Cloud is white with a gray handled glass bowl with the reference number 912646 on the bottom. Incidents/Injuries: Beaba has received about 300 reports of the glass bowl shattering, including three incidents of minor injuries. Sold At: BeabaUsa.com, Buy Buy Baby, Williams Sonoma, Indigo, Albee Baby, Bed Bath & Beyond, West Coast Kids, Nini and Loli, Liapela, Albee Baby, Baby's Planet, Baby Square, Bed Bath & Beyond, Crocodile Baby Store, Lil Baby Sprouts, Macrobaby, Mini Jake, Mon Beau Bebe, Mum and Mini, Pizzazzz Kidz, Snuggle Bugz, Sprout San Francisco, Traveling Tikes, and USA Baby & Child, and other children's stores nationwide, and online at the listed stores from July 2018 through February 2019 for between $200 and $250. Importer: Beaba USA, of New York, N.Y. Manufacturer: Beaba SAS, of France Manufactured in: France In Conjunction With: Canada Health Canada's press release is available at: https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2019/69904r-eng.php Footer This recall was conducted voluntarily by the company under CPSC's Fast Track Recall process. Fast Track recalls are initiated by firms, who commit to work with CPSC to quickly announce the recall and remedy to protect consumers. About U.S. CPSC: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 40 years. Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the Commission. For more lifesaving information, follow us on Facebook, Instagram @USCPSC and Twitter @USCPSC or sign up to receive our e-mail alerts. To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC's Hotline at 800-638-2772 or teletypewriter at 301-595-7054 for the hearing impaired. CPSC Consumer Information Hotline Contact us at this toll-free number if you have questions about a recall: 800-638-2772 (TTY 301-595-7054) Times: 8 a.m. 5:30 p.m. ET; Messages can be left anytime Call to get product safety and other agency information and to report unsafe products. Media Contact Please use the phone numbers below for all media requests. Phone: 301-504-7908 Spanish: 301-504-7800 Recall Number: 19-122 SOURCE U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Related Links http://www.cpsc.gov BOSTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BHE, an innovative healthcare analytics company, today announced a $78 million minority growth investment led by Silversmith Capital Partners ("Silversmith") and Leerink Transformation Partners ("LTP"). The new funding will accelerate the development and market expansion of BHE's flagship Instant Health Data (IHD) platform, the market-leading real-world evidence (RWE) analytics solution currently being used by over two dozen major life science and research organizations. "We couldn't be more thrilled to partner with the Silversmith and LTP teams," said Joseph Menzin, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of BHE. "This new investment will allow us to double down and expand the use of our IHD platform by life science companies, as well as tap new market segments such as payers, provider organizations, and employer groups, who continue to move toward value-based care." The use of RWE has grown rapidly within life sciences companies over the last several years, supported by the proliferation of large datasets, new computing technologies, and interest by both payers and regulatory agencies in understanding the impact of medical treatments in actual practice rather than solely in randomized clinical trials. "We are only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of the overall importance of RWE," said Jordan Menzin, Chief Technology Officer of BHE. "We are excited for this partnership, which will enable us to invest in significant product innovations necessary to serve the growing market need. Importantly, new advances in data science can be leveraged to improve our ability to predict how patients may benefit from access to new treatment approaches." Jeff Crisan, Managing Partner of Silversmith, will be joining the Board of Directors of BHE. "We have been consistently impressed by Joseph and Jordan's deep domain and product expertise," said Crisan. "They are talented founders who have quickly grown BHE into an industry leader. Both Silversmith and LTP are excited to be their first institutional investors, and we are looking forward to supporting the Company as the business continues to scale." "Joseph and Jordan are industry thought-leaders who have built an impressive team at BHE," said Jared Kesselheim, MD, Managing Partner of LTP, who also will be joining the BHE Board of Directors. "They are deeply attuned to the needs of their customer base, and as a result have been able to deliver solutions that most directly address key pain points and drive the highest ROI." BHE's flagship platform, IHD, has driven the Company's rapid growth since its initial release six years ago. The IHD platform supports rapid analysis of over 20 disparate real-world data sets, including claims, laboratory results, electronic medical records, hospital and integrated data sources. Drawing on a respected team of outcomes researchers, epidemiologists, physicians, statisticians and software engineers, IHD has become the standard analytical tool for life science companies and other research organizations looking to leverage real-world data assets to conduct a wide range of analyses for clinical and commercial use cases. IHD is known for its speed and flexibility, and has enabled its users to complete complex analyses, that previously would have taken weeks or months, in a matter of days or even hours. Ropes & Gray LLP served as legal counsel to Silversmith and LTP, while Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP served as legal counsel to BHE. About BHE Boston Health Economics (BHE) is an innovative healthcare analytics company with over two decades of experience providing novel solutions to better understand the clinical outcomes and value of various patient care strategies. BHE is transforming the way analysts from diverse disciplines answer critical questions and make insightful predictions from large, complex databases using the market-leading Instant Health Data (IHD) platform. IHD is a fast, flexible and intuitive SaaS platform that empowers teams within life science companies, health plans and provider groups to implement deep analytics with little-to-no programming required. For more information, visit www.bhei.com. About Silversmith Capital Partners Founded in 2015, Silversmith Capital Partners is a Boston-based growth equity firm with $1.1 billion of capital under management. Silversmith's mission is to partner with and support the best entrepreneurs in growing, profitable technology and healthcare companies. The firm seeks to invest $15 million to $75 million per company. Representative investments include ActiveCampaign, Centauri Health Solutions, Digital Map Products, Impact, LifeStance Health, Nordic Consulting Partners and MediQuant. The founders have over four decades of collective investing experience and have served on the boards of numerous successful growth companies including Ability Network, Dealer.com, Liazon, Liberty Dialysis, MedHOK, Net Health, Passport Health, SurveyMonkey and Yapstone. For more information, visit www.silversmithcapital.com. About Leerink Transformation Partners LTP invests in privately-held innovative companies in the healthcare information technology and services sectors. The firm was founded in 2016 by Todd Cozzens and Jared Kesselheim, MD. LTP applies the decades of operational, clinical and investing experience and extensive industry contacts of its managing partners and team members as well as its affiliation with SVB Leerink, the largest healthcare-focused investment bank, to help founders and CEOs build valuable businesses. Visit the website at www.LTPequity.com to learn more. SOURCE BHE Related Links https://www.bhei.com LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of Memorial Day, Brentwood Home is launching exclusive, deep discounts on California-inspired products. Customers can save $400 on the new Cedar Natural Luxe mattress made with 100% GOLS Organic certified latex, 100% natural wool from New Zealand and 100% GOTS Organic certified cotton using the code CEDAR400 on BrentwoodHome.com. The Cedar Natural Luxe has a premium innerspring support unit with five zones, hand-tufting, and a premium Euro-top design for a medium to moderately plush experience. Brentwood Home is also offering $175 off their handcrafted Crystal Cove and Oceano mattresses using the code WAVES175. Additionally, customers can take 20% off their best-selling Crystal Cove Yoga Collection using the code YOGA20 and 20% off the Runyon and Griffith pet beds using the code PETBED20. All offers are valid through June 3, 2019 and cannot be combined with other offers. All Brentwood Home products are designed and handcrafted in Southern California and come with free shipping, a one-year trial period and a 25-year limited warranty. Since 1987, Brentwood Home has been handcrafting the finest luxury mattresses, pillows and bedding thoughtfully made with non-toxic materials and natural elements in their Los Angeles factory. As designers, makers and artisans, they thrive on articulating the details that others ignore. Yet it is their "California ethos" that truly defines them; compelling them to craft beautiful sleep products that also promote healthy lifestyles and greater wellbeing. If you would like more information, please contact Brooke Jones at [email protected]. SOURCE Brentwood Home Related Links https://www.brentwoodhome.com NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Captain D's, the nation's leading fast casual seafood restaurant, announced today the reopening of its corporate-owned location in Gallatin, Tennessee. Located at 309 E. Main St., the Gallatin Captain D's had been serving the community since September 1975 until the restaurant was destroyed in a fire in March 2018. Today, the restaurant re-opens in the same location and has been completely rebuilt, featuring Captain D's new 2,400 square-foot prototype with indoor seating for 62. Due to the size of the new restaurant prototype, the Gallatin Captain D's reopening has created 15 new jobs in the local community, with the rebuilt restaurant employing 40 people versus 25 people previously. "Captain D's has proudly served the Gallatin community for more than 40 years and the residents here have always been supportive of our brand. Following the fire, we were eager to rebuild and take an active role in the community once again," said Brad Reed, chief development officer for Captain D's. "We're thrilled to reopen this restaurant and look forward to serving the people of Gallatin for many more years to come." Captain D's currently has 73 restaurants open and operating throughout its home state of Tennessee. The compounding success the brand has experienced over the past several years has fueled a surge in franchise and corporate development, with more than 20 new restaurants in the pipeline slated to open before the end of the year. Additionally, the fast casual seafood leader has opened more than a dozen new locations within in the last year and signed numerous franchise development agreements for new restaurants in states like Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Michigan and Oklahoma. "As we ramp up our expansion efforts to grow Captain D's in newer regions and states, our Tennessee heritage remains very important to us and we're proud to continue solidifying our foundation here with new restaurants like Gallatin and building relationships within the communities we serve," added Reed. Coupled with its ongoing menu innovation, Captain D's credits its new restaurant beach design with contributing to the brand's ongoing strong performance. To date, nearly 80 percent of all restaurants have been reimaged to the brand's new vibrant, coastal design. With these efforts, Captain D's has remained true to what it does best serving high-quality seafood with warm hospitality at an affordable price in a welcoming atmosphere. With more than 530 restaurants in 22 states, Captain D's is the fast-casual seafood leader and number one seafood franchise in America ranked by average unit volume. The company is currently seeking multi-unit operators to join in the brand's rapid expansion. For more information about franchise opportunities, visit http://www.captaindsfranchising.com or call 800-314-4819. ABOUT CAPTAIN D'S Headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., Captain D's has more than 530 restaurants in 22 states. Captain D's is the nation's leading fast casual seafood restaurant and was named the #1 seafood chain in the QSR 50, ranked by AUV. Founded in 1969, Captain D's has been offering its customers high-quality seafood at reasonable prices in a welcoming atmosphere for 50 years. Captain D's serves a wide variety of seafood that includes freshly prepared entrees and the company's signature batter dipped fish. The restaurants also offer premium-quality, grilled items such as shrimp, Tilapia and Salmon, as well as hushpuppies, desserts and freshly brewed, Southern-style sweet tea, a Captain D's favorite. For more information, please visit www.captainds.com. Contact: Caitlin Willard Fish Consulting 954-893-9150 [email protected] SOURCE Captain D's Related Links http://www.captainds.com FORT WORTH, Texas, May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Civitas Senior Living, the second-largest Texas-based senior living operator, has purchased a building in Fort Worth's Upper West Side to serve as its permanent corporate headquarters. Currently, the company leases a suite in the 777 Main building in Downtown Fort Worth. Civitas' new headquarters will be located at Lexington Place (930 West First Street). The purchase was completed in early March of this year. Civitas will occupy approximately 15,000 square feet of the third and fourth floors while maintaining tenants for the first two. According to Founder and CEO of Civitas Wayne Powell, the company has been looking for a permanent location for a while. "Civitas Senior Living has grown quickly and substantially over the past couple of years," he said. "Now is the perfect time to put down roots and define ourselves within a more permanent space." In seven short years, Civitas Senior Living has grown from a small company with five founders and one senior living community to the the second-largest Texas-based senior living operator. Civitas now employs more than 2,000 employees and has more than 60 communities across seven states, with 40 of those already operational and the other 21 in development. The new location will serve as a permanent headquarters for Civitas' 72 corporate employees. Civitas partly owes its rapid growth to its location in the heart of Fort Worth, recently named the sixth-fastest growing large city in the U.S. by WalletHub. "Fort Worth excels at recruiting and retaining companies," said Cooper Vittitow, President of Civitas Senior Living. "By keeping our headquarters here, we will continue to be able to recruit the kind of talented, passionate workforce we need as well as take advantage of the business-friendly environment that has helped us grow." Civitas looked at a variety of places around Tarrant and Johnson Counties, including Euless, Burleson, and Alvarado. Ultimately, Fort Worth was still the perfect place for Civitas to call home. "As a company, we had to put our specific building needs for a permanent headquarters first, which led to a search all over the Greater Fort Worth area just to find the right space," Vittitow said. "However, we are a proud Fort Worth company, and we have loved the central location and convenience that 777 Main has provided. We were thrilled to find the perfect building right up the street." "We couldn't be more excited and proud to be Fort Worth's newest business retention success story, and we look forward to contributing even more to this great city," Powell said. The company is scheduled to open its new headquarters this fall. The architect studio for the project is 97w of Fort Worth. About Civitas Senior Living, LLC Civitas Senior Living is a senior living owner/operator, property management, and consulting company based in Fort Worth that specializes in the development, acquisition, and operational management of senior housing properties. These properties include assisted living and memory care residences and independent senior living facilities. Civitas is known for its signature Passion Program, which ensures a high-quality, comprehensive continuum of care through a unique integration of all the factors that affect community management. For more information about Civitas, please visit www.CivitasSeniorLiving.com , or call (817) 386-8888. Media Contact: Cody Cotten Civitas Senior Living [email protected] (817) 386-8888 SOURCE Civitas Senior Living Related Links http://www.CivitasSeniorLiving.com ARLINGTON, Va. and HAMBURG, Germany, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CoreMedia, developer of the content management and experience orchestration platform, CoreMedia Content Cloud, today announced the appointment of Brent Murray as Director, North America Sales. Murray brings over 20 years of experience in IT solutions across consulting, solution architecture, delivery, sales and go-to-market strategy. Murray will be responsible for driving CoreMedia's business development efforts within the broader IBM eCommerce and marketing communities. Murray joins Jim Stirewalt, former IBM Vice President and current CoreMedia US General Manager, as well as IBM Distinguished Engineer Bob Balfe, now CoreMedia's Vice President of Solution Architects, Americas. During his time at IBM, Murray was tasked with building a sales organization and developing go-to-market strategies for the company's SaaS-based solutions. He has deep expertise in the areas of eCommerce, content management, and customer engagement solutions leveraging microservices, SaaS, hybrid cloud, emerging analytics and AI technologies. He also has deep experience in growing and expanding software businesses across new geographies, new markets, and consumption models. "There's no one I would trust more to lead our outreach efforts into the IBM community than Brent," said Jim Stirewalt, General Manager, North America. "His deep experience in eCommerce, content management, and customer experience solutions as well as the history and development of the IBM software business makes him distinctly qualified to understand the challenges and opportunities facing IBM WebSphere Commerce customers today." Among his responsibilities at CoreMedia, Murray will help lead a partnership with top services partner, Zilker Technology, to demonstrate to customers that the CoreMedia platform provides the perfect foundation for orchestrating all their brand assets and facilitating next-generation customer experiences. Companies seeking more information can visit the CoreMedia-Zilker landing page: https://l.coremedia.com/sowhatnow "This is a unique opportunity to work with a truly game-changing company at a critical time of transformation for our industry," said Murray. "IBM eCommerce and marketing customers are experience a lot of changes, but CoreMedia and its partners have the skills and technologies to help them thrive and get the most value out of the investments. I'm honored to be part of the CoreMedia team." Resources LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bcmurray0/ "So, What Now?" IBM Campaign page: https://l.coremedia.com/sowhatnow About CoreMedia CoreMedia is the strategic content management and experience orchestration engine behind today's most iconic online brands. Leading global B2C companies (Deckers, Luxottica, PVH Corp, Finnair, T-Mobile) and B2B firms (Continental, Claas, Emerson, DMG-Mori) create world-class digital experiences powered by CoreMedia. A company of visionaries, trusted advisors, and passionate experts, CoreMedia takes brands to the next level of digital experiences. We're all about dialogue, so let's talk. For more information or to set up a demo, visit www.coremedia.com or follow us on Twitter @contentcloud. Contact: Doug Heise, VP Marketing Phone: +1 415-794-0964 Email: [email protected] SOURCE CoreMedia Related Links http://www.coremedia.com ATLANTA, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Forbes Travel Guide released its Verified List for 2019's World's Best Hotel Rooms. The best-of list highlights 41 properties spanning 17 countries. The Verified Lists are compiled from detailed data gathered by the company's incognito inspectors, who stay at the properties and evaluate them on up to 900 standards for the guide's annual Star Ratings, which were announced in February. The World's Best Hotel Rooms list features properties with rooms and bathrooms that are not only beautiful, but exceptionally comfortable, functional and elegantly appointed with special touches such as high-quality linens, an array of luxurious bath amenities and well-designed technology. The 41 winners achieved perfect scores on guest room and bathroom standards related to elements of luxury and guest comfort and convenience. They also met core standards for cleanliness and maintenance. Elements of luxury standards reflect detailed attention to the level of sumptuous comfort, along with luxurious choices and conveniences provided to the guest. Some examples include: The room is supplied with a variety of high-quality amenities and/or technology appropriate to the destination Exceptional attention to the interior design is evident, which may include interesting or notable pieces of artwork, excellent fabrics/upholstery on furniture, high-quality window treatments, etc. The bathroom amenities are exceptionally luxurious Guest comfort and convenience standards encompass a guest's physical comfort and surroundings. Considerations include: The guest room is well-soundproofed The bedroom offers a comfortable place to relax, such as when watching television or dining, separate from the bed and desk areas The grooming areas are generously spacious so that two persons could easily shower and dress in comfort "Forbes Travel Guide's Verified List for the World's Best Rooms of course showcases the most beautiful accommodations, but it goes beyond how the rooms look," said Filip Boyen, Forbes Travel Guide CEO. "Every hotel on this list was thoroughly tested and proved to be supremely comfortable, quiet and outfitted with superior amenities and technology. Travelers will find these hotel rooms provide the best all-around luxury experience. We congratulate everyone associated with these wonderful hotels and resorts." Among the recognized hotels, United States led the pack with 12 (Belmond El Encanto, Santa Barbara; Bernardus Lodge & Spa, Carmel Valley; Casa Palmero, Pebble Beach; Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills; Montage Beverly Hills; Nobu Ryokan Malibu; Park Hyatt New York; Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa, Rancho Santa Fe; The Peninsula Beverly Hills; The Peninsula Chicago; The Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park; The St. Regis Aspen Resort). Placing second and third for most entries on the list are China, which claims six (Encore Macau; Four Seasons Hotel Guangzhou; Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong; Rosewood Beijing; The Peninsula Beijing; Wynn Macau), followed by France, with four (Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel; Hotel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel; Mandarin Oriental, Paris; The Ritz Paris). Independent hotels made a strong showing with 10 winners, including Palace Hotel Tokyo; The Alpina Gstaad and The Chedi Andermatt in the Swiss Alps; The Fullerton Bay Hotel Singapore; and The Resort at Pedregal. To see the complete list of Forbes Travel Guide's World's Best Hotel Rooms, click here. ABOUT FORBES TRAVEL GUIDE Forbes Travel Guide is the only global rating system for luxury hotels, restaurants and spas. Our anonymous professional inspectors evaluate based on up to 900 objective standards, with an emphasis on exceptional service, to help discerning travelers select the world's best luxury experiences. The only way to get a Five-Star, Four-Star or Recommended rating is by earning it through our independent inspection process. For our full award winners list, daily travel stories and more information about Forbes Travel Guide, visit forbestravelguide.com. Connect with Forbes Travel Guide: Instagram: www.instagram.com/ForbesTravelGuide Twitter: www.twitter.com/ForbesInspector Facebook: www.facebook.com/ForbesTravelGuide PRESS CONTACTS: SOURCE Forbes Travel Guide Related Links https://www.forbestravelguide.com OKLAHOMA CITY, May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Higginbotham today announced a deal with Willis Towers Watson, the global advisory, broking and solutions company, which sees Higginbotham acquire an Oklahoma City group of insurance professionals led by broker Richard Ross. Higginbotham is a private firm ranked as one of the nation's largest independent insurance brokers with offices in three states. The Willis Towers Watson transaction expands Higginbotham's capacity to serve Oklahoma City businesses and individuals with property/casualty insurance, risk management and employee benefits. Higginbotham is a regional firm headquartered in Texas that is bringing its single source solution for insurance and financial services to new markets outside the state by partnering with brokers having strong local reputations. The firm has expanded into more than 20 markets in and out of Texas since 2009 when it began its partner growth strategy. It established its Oklahoma City practice in 2017 when local brokers Gray Holden and Chris Lavigne joined the firm. Holden and Lavigne said in a joint statement, "We started Higginbotham's first out-of-state venture, and the growth that our office has achieved is evidence that Higginbotham's single source service model is a widely-needed solution among mid-sized companies. The added expertise and resources that this group brings will keep our momentum going." Higginbotham named Richard Ross a managing director. He and existing staff will move to Higginbotham's office at 3535 NW 58th Street. About Higginbotham Higginbotham is a single source for insurance and financial services that brokers business insurance, employee benefits, retirement plans, executive benefits, life insurance and home/auto insurance from more than 250 regional and national carriers. It supplements coverage with in-house risk management and benefit plan administration services. The firm was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than 30 additional offices statewide and in Oklahoma and Georgia serving domestic and international customers. Higginbotham ranks by revenue as the nation's 27th largest independent insurance brokerage firm, making it the largest Texas-based broker (Business Insurance, July 2018). Visit www.higginbotham.net for more information. SOURCE Higginbotham Related Links http://higginbotham.net CHICAGO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- The Hilco Global Scholarship Program called "Hilco Scholars," is now open for applications. The program has been developed in collaboration with the City Colleges of Chicago Foundation who will manage scholarship, and along with Hilco leadership, will make the final selection of the scholarship recipients. Qualified candidates who attend or are planning to attend one of the City Colleges of Chicago can start the application process by visiting the scholarship website at www.ccc.edu/hilco. The application process runs now through August 1, 2019, and the scholarship will be awarded prior to start of the Fall 2019 semester. The scholarship will be awarded to two students living in the Little Village neighborhood who are pursuing a degree in a skilled trade program at one of the seven City Colleges of Chicago. It will be awarded per academic year and is renewable for up to two years, provided that the students continue to remain in good academic standing and meet eligibility criteria. The scholarship award can be used for education-related expenses including tuition, fees, books, and equipment needed to complete the degree program. In addition to the scholarship, Hilco Global also is providing an opportunity for the students to receive an internship with the organization. About Hilco Scholars Program: The Hilco Scholars program will be available to students for the Fall 2019 semester. Candidates must reside in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood (60608 or 60623 zip codes) Little Village neighborhood (60608 or 60623 zip codes) Candidates must reside in the City of Chicago and be eligible for in-district tuition rates. and be eligible for in-district tuition rates. Candidates must be interested in pursuing an associate's degree in a skilled trades area of their choice at any of the seven colleges including manufacturing and engineering; construction management; transportation, distribution, and logistics; and information technology. Candidates must be high school graduates or have received their GED. Please visit the Hilco Scholars landing page at www.ccc.edu/hilco for more information and to start the application process. About Hilco Global : Hilco Global (www.hilcoglobal.com) is a privately held diversified financial services company and the world's preeminent authority on maximizing the value of assets for both healthy and distressed companies. Hilco Global operates as a holding company comprised of over twenty specialized business units that work to help companies understand the value of their assets and then monetize that value. Hilco Global has a 30-year track record of acting as an advisor, agent, investor and/or principal in any transaction. Hilco Global works to deliver the best possible result by aligning interests with clients and providing them strategic insight, advice, and, in many instances, the capital required to complete the deal. Hilco Global is based in Northbrook, Illinois and has 600 professionals operating on five continents. Media Contact: Gary C. Epstein Executive Vice President CMO Hilco Global [email protected] 847 418 2712 Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/460195/Hilco_Global_Logo.jpg SOURCE Hilco Global Related Links http://www.hilcoglobal.com NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IronGate Capital Advisors announced today that it has appointed David Hartford, senior advisor to Calibrium AG, to its senior advisory board. "We are pleased to welcome David as the newest member of our highly respected senior advisory board," said Hon. Tidal McCoy, chairman of IronGate Capital Advisors. "David's unique expertise in private equity and technology investment will be a strong complement to the backgrounds and experience of our existing senior advisory board members. We look forward to the valuable contributions David's perspective will bring and are honored he has joined our mission." "IronGate's focus on early-stage investment in dual-use technologies for both commercial and national security applications is both timely and vital," said Hartford. "IronGate's unique management team is distinctively suited to pursue profit and patriotism simultaneously. I am proud to be supporting them in an advisory capacity." IronGate's other senior advisory board members consist of Jack Devine, former director of operations, CIA, and president of the Arkin Group; John Higginbotham, chairman and CEO of Blue Ridge Networks; Steve Sargeant, major general USAF (Ret.) and CEO of an aerospace and defense company; and Jack Thomas Tomarchio, former deputy director of intelligence, DHS, and principal of Agoge Group. About David Hartford David Hartford was a founding partner of Calibrium AG (formerly known as Aeris Capital) and now is senior advisor to the firm. Calibrium manages funds for the family office of a successful European entrepreneur, as well as for his foundation, one of the largest in Germany. In addition to his role at Calibrium, David serves on a number of boards of directors in support of early-stage technology companies. David has over 40 years of experience in the U.S. and Europe as a private equity investor, venture capitalist and entrepreneur. During his career, he has also undertaken a number of direct C-suite roles and been a practicing securities attorney. David began his career as a systems specialist with Rockwell International. David has been a frequent speaker and contributor at conferences in Europe, Asia and the United States on a number of private equity and technology topics. He is a mentor at the Haas Graduate School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been an adjunct professor for New Venture Finance at Cal State University, East Bay's MBA program, and in Moscow at the Academy for the National Economy. David received his BS from the University of Pittsburgh, his JD from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed the Advanced Executive Program "Competing in a Global Environment" at The Anderson School at UCLA. About IronGate Capital Advisors IronGate Capital Advisors seeks to invest in the highest-performing private investments in the advance technology arena, with a specific focus on innovations in aerospace, defense & intelligence and national security that have dual-use applications in the commercial economy. For more information about IronGate Capital Advisors, visit www.IronGateGlobal.com. Media Contact: Media Relations Phone: 646.817.6366 Email: [email protected] Related Images irongate-capital-advisors.png IronGate Capital Advisors Company logo Related Links IronGate Capital Advisors SOURCE IronGate Capital Advisors Related Links http://www.IronGateGlobal.com BROSSARD, Quebec, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DIAGNOS Inc. (DIAGNOS, the Corporation or we) (TSX Venture: ADK), (OTCQB: DGNOD), a leader in early detection of critical health issues through the use of its FLAIRE platform based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), is pleased to announce that it has completed the redemption of the outstanding 10% secured convertible debentures and part (85%) of the outstanding unsecured convertible notes (together, the Convertible Debt) by issuing 18,651,547 common shares of the Corporation (each, a Share) at the deemed price of $0.35 per Share, in payment of the principal amount of the Convertible Debt of $5,790,000 and the unpaid and accrued interest of $738,047, for an aggregate amount of $6,528,047. The intention of the Corporation to proceed with the redemption of the Convertible debt was previously disclosed in the press release dated April 30, 2019. Certain insiders of the Corporation are holders of Convertible Debt who have received Shares as part of the redemption. These Share issuances are considered related party transactions within the meaning of Regulation 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (Regulation 61-101). One director, Georges Hebert, along with a related person, received an aggregate of 700,579 Shares, and now holds 2.62% of the outstanding Shares and Gestion Maurice Pinsonnault Inc. received 605,257 Shares, and now holds 7.87% of the outstanding Shares. However, these transactions are exempt from the formal valuation requirement and the minority approval requirement prescribed in Regulation 61-101, as the fair market value of these transactions does not exceed 25% of DIAGNOS market capitalization, in accordance with Sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(a). Shares issued hereunder are subject to a statutory four-month hold period ending September 16, 2019 and the transaction remains subject to the final approval of the TSXV and other regulatory approvals, as may be applicable. All monies quoted in this press release shall be stated and paid in lawful money of Canada and are rounded down to the nearest dollar. About DIAGNOS DIAGNOS is a publicly-traded Canadian corporation with a mission of early detection of critical health issues through the use of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool CARA (Computer Assisted Retina Analysis). CARA is a tele-ophthalmology platform that integrates with existing equipment (hardware and software) and processes at the point of care. CARAs Artificial Intelligence image enhancement algorithms make standard retinal images sharper, clearer and easier to read. CARA is accessible securely over the internet, and is compatible with all recognized image formats and brands of fundus cameras, and is EMR compatible. CARA is a cost-effective tool for screening large numbers of patients in real-time. CARA complies with local regulations, is FDA cleared for commercialization in the United States of America, is Health Canada licensed for commercialization in Canada and is CE marking compliant in Europe. Additional information is available at www.diagnos.com and www.sedar.com. For further information, please contact: Mr. Andre Larente, President DIAGNOS Inc. Tel: 450-678-8882 ext. 224 alarente@diagnos.ca The TSXV has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. The TSXV does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward Looking Information and Cautionary Statements Except for statements of historical facts, this news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as plan, expect, project, intend, believe, anticipate, estimate and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions may occur. Although Diagnos believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements, such as the timeline for the completion of the transactions and that the Corporation will receive all required regulatory approval, are reasonable, there can be no assurance that all or any of these expectations will prove to be correct. Securityholders are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of performance and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to, the risk that the Debenture Redemption and Note Redemption will not be successfully completed for any reason and the risk that, if completed, the Corporation may not realize the anticipated benefits of these transactions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Corporation undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. PITTSBURGH, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- An administrative law judge ordered a new union vote at a Kumho Tire factory in Macon, Ga., after finding that company officials violated workers' rights during the first election in October 2017. The first vote resulted in a narrow loss for the workers, who were seeking to join the United Steelworkers (USW) union. Following that vote, the USW filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of illegal conduct in its effort to suppress the union. In his ruling, Administrative Law Judge Arthur J. Amchan wrote that the company's illegal conduct was "pervasive" and that it warranted not only a new election, but the "extraordinary" remedy of requiring company officials to read a notice to all of its employees outlining the specific ways in which they violated the workers' rights. Kumho's violations, Amchan said, included illegally interrogating employees, threatening to fire union supporters, threatening plant closure, and creating an impression of surveillance, among other threats to workers. "This ruling is a major victory, not just for the brave Kumho Tire workers and not just for union members, but for all workers who want to improve their lives through organizing," said Daniel Flippo, director of the USW's District 9, which includes Georgia and six other southern states, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands. "The USW is committed to fighting for all workers' rights." The USW recently used the Kumho election as a case study during a meeting with members of the Congressional Blue Collar Caucus in advocating for passage of the PRO Act (H.R. 2474), a labor law reform bill that would increase protections for workers who engage in union organizing and other collective action in their workplaces, and also would increase penalties on employers who violate workers' rights. The USW has been working with the AFL-CIO and other unions to build support for the bill. "Workers are routinely threatened with plant closure, job displacement, or economic harm," USW International President Leo W. Gerard wrote in a letter in support of the legislation. "Now is the time for Congress to act and provide millions of America's workers the tools they need to secure a better future for themselves and their families." The USW represents 850,000 workers in North America employed in many industries that include metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining and the service and public sectors. For more information: www.usw.org. SOURCE United Steelworkers (USW) Related Links http://www.usw.org BRUSSELS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- INNOGRID-- LF Energy, a Linux Foundation initiative developing and sustaining open source technology innovation in the energy and electricity sectors, is rapidly growing its community with additional founding Premier member, Faraday Grid, joining RTE. New General members include IBM, OSISoft, and Recurve; while Elering AS, Energinet, Energy Foundation, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Fraunhofer IEE, FIWARE Foundation, Iowa State University, Monash University, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), North Carolina State University FREEDM Center, Project Haystack, Stanford University, TenneT, The Energy Coalition, University of Kassel, and Washington State University join European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) and Vanderbilt University as new Associate members. In addition, three new projects, Energy Market Methods Consortium (EM2), OpenEEmeter, and Open Energy Data Initiative are now hosted by LF Energy. OpenEEmeter is an open-source engine focused on quantifying changes in energy consumption and providing standards for enabling behind-the-meter flexibility in building as a grid resource. The project is contributed by Recurve, formerly Open Energy Efficiency. The Energy Market Methods Consortium (EM2) is designing standards to quantify energy flexibility at both the meter and the grid, and for ensuring customer privacy when using smart meter data. This is also contributed by Recurve, formerly Open Energy Efficiency. The Open Energy Data Initiative, which focuses on building open data connections to high-value federal datasets to better enable analysis and computation, contributed by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). LF Energy is a growing community supported by the world's leading utilities, system operators, system integrators, technology vendors, academic institutions, and end-user organizations to accelerate the global energy industry transition to achieve efficient, sustainable, and distributed power systems. "LF Energy is working with global energy providers to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments to transform centralized grids into distributed systems by leveraging open source and open standards," said Shuli Goodman, Executive Director of LF Energy. "It's incredibly exciting to see momentum and support for LF Energy grow so quickly. A robust ecosystem of projects, developers and members joining and contributing to LF Energy will be instrumental in achieving a secure, flexible, and sustainable grid." Several LF Energy founding members, including Elering, Energinet, ENTSO-E, Faraday Grid, TenneT and RTE, came together in Brussels at InnoGrid2020+ May 13-14 to exhibit and introduce new projects that expand the initiative beyond operators and the control room. Goodman also presented closing remarks on day one, and Faraday Grid participated in the "Time to Market" panel on May 14. Background on New LF Energy Projects LF Energy provides open frameworks and reference architectures that bring complementary projects to one central home to create collaborative solutions that are compatible and support the entire power systems ecosystem from generation and aggregation to transmission, distribution, and demand response and flexibility services. Energy Market Methods Consortium (EM2): Energy Market Methods Consortium is developing standardized methods, linked to open source code, to enable demand flexibility as a resource, supporting energy programs and distributed energy resources (DER) markets. EM2 includes three working groups: CalTRACK to standardize measurements of meter-based changes in consumption; GRID to provide methods for relative impacts to load shape for claimable savings and forecasting net grid impacts; and SEAT, which leverages differential privacy to enable a range of data-driven policy and market-based use cases using AMI data. This project was contributed by a diverse group of stakeholders that includes utilities, regulators, evaluators, software companies, and load shape aggregators, through a multi-year process that was led by Recurve, formerly Open Energy Efficiency. Energy Market Methods Consortium is developing standardized methods, linked to open source code, to enable demand flexibility as a resource, supporting energy programs and distributed energy resources (DER) markets. EM2 includes three working groups: CalTRACK to standardize measurements of meter-based changes in consumption; GRID to provide methods for relative impacts to load shape for claimable savings and forecasting net grid impacts; and SEAT, which leverages differential privacy to enable a range of data-driven policy and market-based use cases using AMI data. This project was contributed by a diverse group of stakeholders that includes utilities, regulators, evaluators, software companies, and load shape aggregators, through a multi-year process that was led by Recurve, formerly Open Energy Efficiency. OpenEEmeter: The OpenEEmeter project is an open source engine that quantifies monthly, daily, and hourly changes in energy consumption, from behind-the-meter building interventions, to define consistent transactional units for distributed energy resources, ensure transparency, and provide a quantifiable standard for an ecosystem that enables markets for behind-the-meter flexibility as a resource. OpenEEmeter implements the methods created by the CalTRACK working group in EM2. This project was contributed by Recurve, formerly Open Energy Efficiency. The OpenEEmeter project is an open source engine that quantifies monthly, daily, and hourly changes in energy consumption, from behind-the-meter building interventions, to define consistent transactional units for distributed energy resources, ensure transparency, and provide a quantifiable standard for an ecosystem that enables markets for behind-the-meter flexibility as a resource. OpenEEmeter implements the methods created by the CalTRACK working group in EM2. This project was contributed by Recurve, formerly Open Energy Efficiency. Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI): The mission of OEDI is to improve and automate access to high-value energy (and related) datasets to make data actionable and discoverable by researchers and industry to accelerate analysis and advance innovation. OEDI will provide governance oversight of technical contributions, curate multiple datasets and data lakes, and develop and support machine learning and artificial intelligence based on datasets. The initial contribution comes from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Existing LF Energy projects include OperatorFabric, PowSyBl, and RIAPS. OperatorFabric is a modular, extensible, industrial-strength and field-tested platform for use in electricity, water, and other utility operations. It features Let's Coordinate, a multi-system technical and organizational module based on OperatorFabric, that streamlines organizational and technical communications between operators in power systems. is a modular, extensible, industrial-strength and field-tested platform for use in electricity, water, and other utility operations. It features Let's Coordinate, a multi-system technical and organizational module based on OperatorFabric, that streamlines organizational and technical communications between operators in power systems. PowSyBl provides the code building blocks for the simulations and analyses of power systems, for horizons from real-time operation to investment planning provides the code building blocks for the simulations and analyses of power systems, for horizons from real-time operation to investment planning RIAPS: The Resilient Information Architecture Platform for Smart Grid (RIAPS) provides core infrastructure and services for building effective, secure and powerful distributed Smart Grid applications, such as monitoring and control, data collection and analytics, energy management, microgrid control, and protection applications. Because of the breadth of the energy sector, LF Energy will also add more projects in the future from across the entire electricity and power systems lifecycle to enable and facilitate the acceleration of the energy transition. With members across 10 countries, LF Energy anticipates new initiatives to include a digital substation project that will disaggregate and virtualize the substation bus utilizing open source and commodity x86 hardware to drive costs down and capacity for data consumption. A second predictive maintenance project will utilize IoT and drone technology to build AI and machine learning algorithms using sensors, geospatial images, and harmonic listening. Additionally, Powernet and Visdom, two Stanford open source projects, are already engaging with LF Energy. Supporting Quotes from Founding LF Energy Members "With accelerating change in the energy sector, keeping costs under control is a real challenge," said Georg Rute, Digitalisation Manager at Elering. "We welcome the initiative to open source our basic IT infrastructure, thus helping reduce costs for all grid operators and bring down barriers in integrating our energy systems." "Decarbonization and digitalization of the energy system calls for radical changes to our IT ecosystem," said Henrik Lang Petersen, CIO at Energinet. "Increased collaboration across borders and sectors is needed. For these reasons, Energinet has joined LF Energy in an ambition to foster new partnerships and further advance the socio-economic value of our IT investments." "It is no surprise that LF Energy has been developing so fast," said Nicolas Richet, Chief Information Officer and Secretary of the Digital committee at ENTSO-E. "It allows for the collaborative development of building blocks that will support the cutting-edge innovations needed for customers worldwide to enjoy a reliable and sustainable power supply. ENTSO-E Members are already applying this collaborative approach in their shared IT developments. This is why ENTSO-E is supporting LF Energy and looks forward to stakeholders across the power system to join." "To realise reliable, affordable, and decarbonised energy systems and drive continued prosperity, we must look beyond the historical technology approaches," said Matthew Williams, Faraday Grid Founder, Director and CTO. "We need speed of innovation, which requires that we adopt new processes and practices, with open collaboration at the heart of this. Faraday Grid is proud to be a founding member of LF Energy to enable prosperous and sustainable energy systems globally." "LF Energy brings the collaborative benefits of open source software and data to the energy industry. We are thrilled to be a founding member and are committed to building a healthy and extensive global ecosystem," said Neil Gerber, Director, IBM's Energy, Environment & Utilities Industry. "This will dramatically improve system interoperability and enable advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence. This is necessary to address the world's need to rapidly evolve the electrical grid infrastructure, while enhancing transparency and innovation." "Monash University is developing a digital platform, Smart Energy City, to provide crucial infrastructure supporting our $135 million commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2030," said Ken Sloan, Monash Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President Enterprise. "The platform will enable research and deployment to create a transactive energy market as a living laboratory for academics, students and industry. The LF Energy partnership vastly accelerates our access and connectivity to global technology leaders and developers." "NREL aims to build a network of data users and contributors for our platform, while at the same time making open energy data more useful, usable, and accessible for researchers and analysts," said Debbie Brodt-Giles, Data, Analytics, Tools, and Applications (DATA) Group Manager at NREL. "By its very nature, power spans many boundaries political, enterprise, economic, social and cultural. As we face rising concerns around global warming and grid disturbances from more frequent severe weather events, we need to leverage technology from renewable energy to advanced grid control not to thrive, but just to survive. OSIsoft is thrilled to support LF Energy as a vehicle to drive collaboration and cooperative software and systems that are desperately needed to meet these challenges," said Richard Beeson, CTO of OSIsoft. "OSIsoft is fortunate to serve 75% of the world's top energy companies. Our technology helps them manage their operations data for better situational awareness and renewable integration. We are committed to working with the broader ecosystem in helping our collective customers, their stakeholders and the communities and people they serve in adapting and continuing on this journey." "We finally found our people," said Matt Golden, CEO of Recurve (formerly OpenEE), who recently contributed their open source project, the OpenEEmeter, and the CalTRACK method process to LF Energy. "LF Energy is the perfect home for this important consensus building effort. Clearly LFE understands open source and how to help make projects succeed. However, what sets LFE apart is their vision for how open source can drive innovation and the software ecosystem needed to achieve a distributed clean energy grid." "In the smart grid, all players take part," said Loek Bakker, Head of Information Management Office, TenneT. "TenneT believes that this open market demands open software, which is why we have joined the LF Energy initiative." LF Energy provides the leadership, infrastructure, training, legal support, and community outreach needed to nurture an open source ecosystem to pave the way for alternative paths to energy efficiency and savings, the integration of renewables, and electric mobility, powered by open source. Energy sector engineers and developers across hybrid clouds, containers, and microservices, are encouraged to learn more and to join the LF Energy community in deploying, testing, and improving open source software to rapidly digitize the grid. About the Linux Foundation Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org. The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of the Linux Foundation, please visit our trademark usage page at https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage/. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Media Contact: Emily Olin [email protected] SOURCE The Linux Foundation Related Links http://www.linuxfoundation.org CARLSBAD, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Growing scientific evidence supports liquid biopsy as a valuable tool for monitoring treatment response in patients with cancer. A new retrospective clinical research study showing comparable results between liquid and tissue biopsy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) demonstrates the clinical utility of liquid biopsy for monitoring patients' response to treatment. Data from the study will be presented at the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) Joint Conference on Liquid Biopsies in Bergamo, Italy from May 15-17. Researchers from the University Hospital Basel, the University of Porto and the Hospital of Sao Joao looked at matched tissue and liquid biopsies from 159 NSCLC patients. Among 94 of the patients who had concurrent next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis at diagnosis, 88 percent presented the same clinically relevant mutations in tissue and plasma samples. While concordance was extremely high when liquid biopsy was conducted immediately after the initial tissue biopsy, the researchers observed it dropped to 72 percent when plasma NGS analysis was performed at later stages. The researchers believe the divergence results from genetic drift caused by the development of new mutations during treatment. "It can take several weeks to months to observe visible signs of relapse when you're monitoring for disease progression using radiological scan. In contrast, multiple studies have highlighted that liquid biopsy can identify genetic markers associated with resistance to treatment even before clinical signs manifest," said co-author Luca Quagliata, PhD, global head of medical affairs for clinical NGS and oncology, Thermo Fisher Scientific. "Following that direction, our results show that liquid biopsy NGS can provide early insights on tumor progression, thus offering a powerful tool for non-invasive longitudinal cancer monitoring to guide the care team on the best course of treatment moving forward." In addition, the researchers detected clinically relevant mutations including EGFR, ALK and BRAF mutations that were not present in the initial tissue biopsy in 29 of the plasma samples (equal to 45 percent of tested patients). Overall, they detected variants of known clinical impact in nine different target genes, supporting the value of broader molecular analysis through NGS to increase the detection of relevant mutations. "Liquid biopsy testing can better recapitulate the heterogeneity of cancer and this is particularly relevant in patients with multiple metastatic localizations," said Nicola Normanno, MD, director of cell biology and biotherapy at INT-Fondazione, Pascale, Naples who is not associated with the study. "We use liquid biopsy testing to monitor response to therapy in our daily clinical practice. By using this approach, we provide more personalized therapies to patients treated with targeted agents. This study is yet another valuable example highlighting the potential of using liquid biopsy in routine practice." While previous studies have compared tissue sample to liquid biopsy results, this is the first study presenting tissue and liquid biopsy data from NGS analysis conducted in-house rather than from analysis conducted at centralized testing facilities. Plasma and tissue samples were analyzed using Thermo Fisher Scientific's Oncomine Solutions. For more information on Thermo Fisher's targeted NGS assays for cancer research, please visit the company's website or visit the company's booth #9 at EACR. About Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $24 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We help our customers accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics, deliver medicines to market and increase laboratory productivity. Through our premier brands Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services we offer an unmatched combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and comprehensive support. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com. Media Contacts Mauricio Minotta Director, Public Relations +1 760 929 2456 [email protected] Jen Heady Greenough Brand Storytellers +1 617 275 6547 [email protected] SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific Related Links http://www.thermofisher.com The screening system is jointly developed by Ping An Technology and US-based Optovue, Inc. It is the first artificial intelligence (AI) imaging and screening system in the world that seamlessly integrates an OCT retinal imaging device and AI lesion detection software. The clinical trial was conducted at three well-known research institutions, the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, Shanghai First People's Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University. Intelligent OCT facilitates disease detection accuracy and speed OCT is a high-resolution, non-contact and non-invasive diagnostic technique that renders an in vivo cross-sectional view of the retina. As with most diagnostic tests, patient cooperation is a necessity. Moreover, OCT relies on the operator to correctly align the device on the patient's eye for a proper retinal examination. The intelligent OCT retinal disease screening system developed by Ping An Technology focuses on the integration of an OCT retinal examination device with AI-powered screening software and applies the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) technique in the model training process. Based on the in-depth technology of Ping An, the intelligent OCT retinal screening system conducts learning and analysis of hundreds of thousands of OCT data. The clinical trial was initiated in December 2018 at the above three research institutions and involved 784 study subjects. From the start of an OCT examination to a patient scan code used to generate an intelligent screening report, the entire process can be completed in three minutes. The findings suggested that the accuracy of tests on the samples by the system in image quality assessment, lesion detection, and referral urgency assessment were 99.2%, 98.6%, and 96.7% respectively, compared to the ground truth established by experts. Regarding the published research findings, Professor Sun Xinghuai from the Eye & ENT Hospital of Fudan University, who is the designated Chairman of the Chinese Ophthalmological Society (COS) of Chinese Medical Association (CMA), said screening is one of the major parts of eye healthcare because a large number of eye diseases, especially disorders of the optic nerve on the retinal, can be "detected and treated earlier" by means of screening with favorable prognosis. This is why it is very important to improve the capability of primary medical institutions for screening fundus diseases. This research presented a highly accurate evaluation of the intelligent OCT fundus screening system developed by Ping An, which covers the quality of image acquisition, lesion detection and urgency, suggesting that AI will be extremely helpful to primary medical institutions in the future. [1] Retinal diseases are associated with progressive damage or degeneration of the eye macular, being the area in the center of the retina linked to eyesight or vision. The first-ever multi-center prospective research on AI-assisted ophthalmic medical products A technical team from Ping An Technology and ophthalmologists from the three aforementioned research institutions jointly designed a rigorous diagnostic test research method to evaluate the performance of the system. An industry-leading multi-center, prospective research approach was adopted for this study. Unlike previous retrospective research methods commonly used in the industry, the prospective multi-center study was conducted with an emphasis towards using samples that were smaller and more efficient, and in strict compliance with medical ethics codes, to make breakthroughs with evidence-based performance for the intelligent OCT retinal disease screening system. Xie Guotong, Chief Medical Scientist of Ping An Group, said: "This is the first time in the industry at home and abroad that multi-center prospective research on AI-assisted ophthalmic medical products has been conducted. The team of expert ophthalmologists led by the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University, high-quality ophthalmic data and scientific research methods provided vital medical support for the accuracy and safety of ophthalmic AI models. With the strong healthcare ecosystem of Ping An Group, primary medical institutions will be empowered with high-quality ophthalmic AI models to assist in carrying out diagnosis and treatment at different levels." In recent years, Ping An has continued to advance the "finance + technology" and "finance + ecosystem" strategies, leveraging the leading AI technology and building a strong medical repository to establish a healthcare ecosystem. Based on AI technology, Ping An Technology integrates end-to-end disease whole-process solution matrixes in the fields of intelligent medical quality control, intelligent disease prediction, intelligent triage navigation, intelligent medical imaging and screening, intelligent paramedical diagnosis and treatment. The intelligent paramedical diagnosis and treatment model has covered 1000+ common diseases and it is expected that around 800 million potential patients will benefit from it. About Ping An Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An") is a world-leading technology-powered personal financial services group. With 184 million retail customers and 538 million Internet users, Ping An is one of the largest financial services companies in the world. Ping An has two over-arching strategies 'pan financial assets' and 'pan healthcare', which focus on the provision of financial and healthcare services through our integrated financial services platform and our five ecosystems in financial services, healthcare, auto services, real estate services and Smart City services. Our 'finance + technology' and 'finance ecosystems' strategies aim to provide customers and internet users with innovative and simple products and services. As China's first joint stock insurance company, Ping An Group is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate reporting and corporate governance. The company is listed on the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Ping An ranked 10th in Forbes' 2018 Global 2000, and it ranked 29th in Fortune Magazine's 2018 Global 500 Leading Companies. Ping An also ranked 43rd in 2018 WPP Millward Brown's BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands. For more information, please visit www.pingan.cn About Ping An Technology Ping An Technology is the core technology arm of Ping An Group, using AI, cloud and other cutting-edge technologies to develop and operate mission-critical platforms and services that support financial services, medical health, automotive services, real estate services, and smart cities. With "Cloud Infinity" as its value proposition, Ping An Technology is actively practicing the corporate philosophy of "Professionalism makes life simpler", and is determined to become a global leading "AI+Cloud" company. For enquiries, please contact: Gareth Hewett @ +852 68822027 or [email protected] SOURCE Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. Related Links http://www.pingan.cn NEW BRITAIN, Conn., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK) today announced it will expand its U.S. manufacturing footprint with a new CRAFTSMAN manufacturing plant in Fort Worth, TX. The groundbreaking for the 425,000-square-foot facility will take place in summer 2019, and the plant is expected to be completed in late 2020. The new plant in Fort Worth will manufacture a wide range of CRAFTSMAN mechanics tools, including sockets, ratchets, wrenches and general sets. The plant will also leverage some of the most advanced manufacturing technologies available to optimize productivity and sustainability, including pre-flattening steel technologies to improve material yield by almost 25 percent, as well as water and energy management technologies to reduce resource consumption. The Fort Worth plant will employ approximately 500 full-time employees to support the facility. "When we purchased CRAFTSMAN in 2017 we were determined to revitalize this iconic U.S. brand and bring back its American manufacturing heritage," said Stanley Black & Decker President and CEO Jim Loree. "From the launch of CRAFTSMAN's refreshed brand identity last year to our announcement of the first new manufacturing facility in many years, we're demonstrating our continued commitment to grow the brand and bring even more production of these great products back to the United States." Stanley Black & Decker purchased CRAFTSMAN in 2017 and the following year, CRAFTSMAN launched a refreshed brand identity in August 2018, unveiling more than 1,200 new products. The brand is now on pace for an accelerated growth trajectory to reach $1 billion in incremental revenues by 2021. "This new plant will also be the latest in our network of manufacturing facilities one that uses state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies and demonstrates our commitment to becoming one of the world's leaders in advanced manufacturing," Loree continued. Stanley Black & Decker currently operates approximately 30 manufacturing facilities in the United States, with more than 100 manufacturing facilities globally. The company has five locations that have started implementing advanced Industry 4.0 technologies across their facilities, from manufacturing execution systems (MES), to 3-D printing, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Last month, Stanley Black & Decker also opened a new 23,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence, called "Manufactory 4.0", in Hartford, Conn. The facility is the focal point of the company's global Industry 4.0 "smart factory" initiative, housing a team of approximately 50 Industry 4.0 experts focused on accelerating the company's adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies and building upskilling programs to help prepare the company's workforce for today's digital-led manufacturing environment. For more information about CRAFTSMAN and its U.S. manufacturing footprint, visit www.CRAFTSMAN.com/whereitsmade. About CRAFTSMAN: CRAFTSMAN is an American icon that homeowners, home builders, auto enthusiasts and master mechanics have trusted since 1927 and today's CRAFTSMAN continues that legacy. With a focus on reliable, high-performance tools, storage and equipment, CRAFTSMAN has revived its long-established pride in superior quality. Now it's easier than ever to get the tools trusted for generations at more places than ever. For more information visit www.craftsman.com or follow CRAFTSMAN on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. About Stanley Black & Decker: Stanley Black & Decker is a $14 billion revenue, purpose-driven industrial organization. Stanley Black & Decker has 61,000 employees in more than 60 countries and operates the world's largest tools and storage business, the world's second-largest commercial electronic security services company, a leading engineered fastening business as well as Oil & Gas and Infrastructure businesses. The company's iconic brands include Black & Decker, Bostitch, CRAFTSMAN, DEWALT, FACOM, Irwin, Lenox, Porter Cable and Stanley. Stanley Black & Decker is a company for the makers and innovators, the craftsmen and the caregivers, and those doing the hard work to make the world a better place. Learn more at www.stanleyblackanddecker.com. SOURCE Stanley Black & Decker Related Links http://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com ARLINGTON, Va., May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bloomberg Law today announced that it released a wide-ranging survey on the state of legal operations and legal technology at the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) Institute, which begins today in Las Vegas. Among the most noteworthy findings, less than one-quarter of survey respondents indicate that they are using legal technology with artificial intelligence or machine learning, and while over half replied no to the question the remaining quarter responded that they are not sure which may indicate a gap in either knowledge or underuse of the technology. An overview of survey findings is available at http://onb-law.com/eh3030oIxyU. The survey was conducted in April and features responses from nearly 500 practitioners representing a mix of law firms and corporate legal departments across the United States. Topics covered include legal process and operations, legal technology adoption, and legal technology spending. "This survey provides a wealth of valuable data regarding attorneys' perspectives on the operational processes and technology that can help make legal departments and law firms more efficient," says Molly Huie, team lead for data analysis and surveys at Bloomberg Law. "This foundational research is part of our expanded focus on legal operations, which now includes a new In Focus page within the platform providing analysis, news and insights, and practical guidance." Additional survey findings include: Nearly nine in ten respondents report having a legal operations function, with equity partners at law firms and general counsel at corporate legal offices being the titles most frequently cited as directing that function. The legal operations function often has multiple responsibilities within a department, including records and vendor management, training, and procurement. Expectations are high for using new legal technology 87% say that as clients, they expect their outside counsel to use appropriate legal technology to be more efficient. However, fewer than one half agree they are well prepared in general to respond to demands for increasing technology use. An executive summary of the survey results is being offered to CLOC attendees. Access to the full results and analysis is available to subscribers of Bloomberg Law. As with all enhancements to Bloomberg Law content and analysis, this survey is available to Bloomberg Law subscribers at no additional cost. About Bloomberg Law Bloomberg Law helps legal professionals provide world-class counsel with access to actionable legal intelligence in a business context. Bloomberg Law delivers a unique combination of practical guidance, comprehensive primary and secondary source material, trusted and exclusive content, news, time-saving practice tools, market data and business intelligence. For more information, visit https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/. SOURCE Bloomberg Law Related Links https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/ The congress will be open to professional visitors for the first two days and open to the general public for the last two, according to the municipal government. Positioned as a high-level, mainstream, international and unique event, the congress has invited over 300 international guests from 40 countries and regions including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan, who will attend the congress' two main forums and 16 sideline ones. Five competitions will be held during the WIC, including the World Intelligence Underwater Robot Challenge, the World Intelligence Driving Challenge, the China (Tianjin) Industrial App Innovation & Application Competition 2019 and the China Hualu Cup Open Data Innovation and Application Competition. Participants can also enjoy intelligent activities such as robot interaction, smart city experience scenes and self-driving car test rides during conferences, exhibitions, and contests. Image Attachments Links: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=335922 SOURCE Tianjin Municipal Government The 39,000 square-foot North American Aftermarket Distribution Center offers three times the capacity of the current location, and provides dedicated aftermarket resources and shipping flexibility. It is located at 2000 S. Sylvania Avenue, Sturtevant, Wisconsin, adjacent to the I-94 Corridor between Milwaukee and Chicago and is just six miles west of the Global Manufacturing Headquarters in Racine. The state-of-the-art facility has increased capacity and storage racking, uses advanced equipment including a Vertical Lift Module (VLM) for small components and applies lean strategies to create exceptional value for Twin Disc customers. "The North American Aftermarket Distribution Center will be a much-needed hub for stocking and shipping all of our spare parts," said Jorge Colorado, director, aftersales & service of Twin Disc. "This added distribution space will improve and streamline our aftersales operations and provide a greater customer experience by increasing our efficiency." Opening on May 14, 2019, with operations running at peak performance by June 3, 2019, the North American Aftermarket Distribution Center will allow Twin Disc to meet growing distribution and aftermarket demand. More information about the company can be found at www.twindisc.com. About Twin Disc Twin Disc, Inc. designs, manufactures and sells marine and heavy-duty, off-highway power transmission equipment. Products offered include: marine transmissions, surface drives, propellers and boat management systems, as well as power-shift transmissions, hydraulic torque converters, power take-offs, industrial clutches and control systems. The Company sells its products to customers primarily in the pleasure craft, commercial and military marine markets, as well as in the energy and natural resources, government and industrial markets. The Company's worldwide sales to both domestic and foreign customers are transacted through a direct sales force and a distributor network. For more information, please visit www.twindisc.com . Media Contact: Heather Ripley Ripley PR 865-977-1973 [email protected] SOURCE Twin Disc, Inc. Related Links http://www.twindisc.com DUBLIN, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "UK Banking Reputation Report " report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The banking industry still suffers from reputational damage as a legacy of past (and some on-going) scandals. Consumers generally have a less positive view of the industry than they have of individual bank brands and the individual banks they use. In terms of their view of the banking industry, consumers split into three groups: Promoters: they have a positive attitude towards banks. Detractors: they are the opposite of the Promoters. They have a negative attitude towards the banking industry (although around one-third trust the banks they personally use). Ambivalent: they hold mixed views towards the banking industry. They respect banks, more than they like them or see them as working in their own or societies best interests. Similarly, in terms of their attitudes to the banks they use, consumers divide into three camps: Strongly Pro-Brand - consumers who associate positive words and phrases with their main bank and who would strongly recommend their bank to friends and relatives. Pro-Brand - like the above but less positive towards the brands they use but still overall having good feelings towards their main bank. Anti-Brand - consumers who associate more negative words and phrases with their main bank and who would not make a recommendation to friends and family. The brands from the big four banks (except for HSBC) tend to have more Anti-Brand customers relative to Pro-Brand customers than is the case for their smaller bank counterparts. The brands which have out-performed the banking market in the sense of having relatively more Pro-brand customers than banks as a whole, tend to be brands which have established a unique position for themselves in the market. Each of these brands has a market positioning which sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill bank brand. These brands are either building societies (Nationwide), former mutual/building societies (Santander), ethical banks (Co-operative) or online specialists (First Direct). The brands which have under-performed the banking market include the core brands of Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Barclays. 42 banking brands are covered in the survey. Consumer positive views of either the industry or individual banks are based on an unemotional assessment of the banking services provided, principally an assessment of the current account and/or online banking system. Consumers do not have warm and cosy feeling towards individual banks or the industry, they remain somewhat detached from both, even those consumers who tend to look favourably on the industry or individual bank. Consumers respect banks and industry more than they like either. Examples of other key findings to come from this research, based on interviews with 1,031 nationally representative consumers are: 77% of consumers think banks are economically essential and 55% think the industry offers high quality products and services Only 28% of consumers think the industry has high ethical standards and only 35% think it cares what people like them think of it 46% of consumers feel that high pay and bonuses to bank staff have worsened their view of the banking industry 46% of consumers feel mis-selling of financial products has worsened their view of the banking industry 70% of consumers trust staff working in bank branches, while only 31% trust senior management and 19% investment bankers 56% of consumers feel that senior management should face criminal charges in serious wrong doing cases and 52% feel they should lose their jobs/positions without financial compensation. Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary The whole is worth less than the sum of its parts Three views of the banking industry And three attitudes of the banks used Banks must work harder appealing to older, less affluent consumers, especially men. Individual banks and the industry are respected more than they are liked Damaging society results in the biggest reputational hit to the industry So, taking actions and measure to prevent social damage will improve the industry's reputation As will improving customer service and accessibility As will stopping closures of bank branches, which reduces consumer trust Act now or face the consequences The core brands from the big four banks need the most work 2. Introduction Report coverage 3. Is The Banking Industry Bona Fides? Key findings Introduction Banks still have a reputational problem You can respect a bank without liking it Three types of consumer Even Detractors value the economic role of banks and even Promoters think banks pay excessive bonuses Detractors more likely to be mature males 4. What Drives Perceptions of The Banking Industry? Key findings Bonuses and product mis-selling the key negatives for consumers Consumers show varying sensitivity to banking problems Public information vs Personal Information News over the past year has entrenched positions further Perceptions are driven from the top 5. What Can Improve The Public Perceptions of Banks? Key findings Fear the Group attribution error, or why all banks are in this together Banks need to take the appropriate actions to keep their customers close and assured Preventive actions will change perceptions Further work to be done More regulation: do-it-yourself and forced-to-do-it Are fines the answer? Controlling senior management 6. Perceptions of Banking Brands Key findings The industry suffers from negative Gestalt Detractors dislike the label bank 7. Perceptions of Banks Used Key findings Introduction Good news for banks - your customers give you high ratings Three Types of Consumer What customers really value is a well-functioning online/current account service Brand associations and industry associations are not necessarily the same Banks must work harder appealing to older, less affluent consumers, especially men 8. Drivers of Perceptions of The Banks You Use Key findings Acceptability, Competence and Products Lack of emotional connection Behaviour, service and ease of access the keys to positive feelings 9. How Do The Main Bank Brands Compare? Key findings The core brands of the Big Four Banks are not looked on as favourably as smaller brands Anti-establishment brands attract those disaffected by the industry Companies Mentioned Adam & Company AIB (Allied Irish Bank) Al Rayan Bank Aldermore Bank Bank of Ireland Bank of Scotland Barclays Citibank Clydesdale Bank Co-operative Bank Coutts Coventry Building Society Cumberland Building Society Danske Bank Drummonds Bank First Direct Halifax Handelsbanken Holt's HSBC Leeds Building Society Lloyds Banking Group M&S Bank Metro Bank Nationwide NatWest Nottingham Building Society Post Office Prudential Royal Bank of Scotland Sainsbury's Bank Santander Skipton Building Society Smile Tesco bank TSB Ulster Bank Virgin Money Weatherbys Bank Williams & Glyn Yorkshire Bank Yorkshire Building Society For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/olw8il Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com HELENA, Mont., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- There's something magical about dinosaurs. We love them as kids, then have the opportunity to revisit the imagination and spirit of adventure these prehistoric giants evoke with our own children. In Montana, you can look up with the same childhood awe at the towering skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex and try to picture it roaming the land millions of years ago. You can dig for fossil treasures and laugh as you forget about dirtying your clothes, because it's all part of the adventure. As the school year ends and summer travel begins, you'll find Montana's family-friendly offerings like the Montana Dinosaur Trail hold a variety of adventures that are ideal for kids and kids-at-heart. From Big Mike, the Nations T. rex, to the fossil-rich badlands of Makoshika State Park, the Montana Dinosaur Trail is an adventure for the whole family. Meet Big Mike, the Nations T. rex, at the Museum of the Rockies. (Photo Courtesy: Visit Montana/Museum of the Rockies). Dig into Montanas prehistoric past. (Photo Courtesy: Visit Montana) Walk where the dinosaurs did along the Montana Dinosaur Trail. (Photo Courtesy: Visit Montana) Find fossils and adventure in Montanas badlands. (Photo Courtesy: Visit Montana) Experience some of the worlds greatest prehistoric treasures in Montana. (Photo Courtesy: Visit Montana/Depot Museum) Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8535951-montana-dinosaur-trail/ Winding its way through the state, the Montana Dinosaur Trail takes travelers back in time to 14 locations to learn about Montana's prehistoric residents. While the trail starts along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front and ends in Southeast Montana, dinosaur enthusiasts can explore the sites in any preferred order. As an added bonus, many of the stops on the trail are home to fossils and artifacts that were unearthed right here in Big Sky Country. The trail's Prehistoric Passport makes it easy to visit them all just like the dinosaurs did. If you love dinosaurs, a day at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman is a must during your Montana adventure. It's one of the world's finest research and history museums, as well as a Smithsonian affiliate. Ideal for multi-generational visitors, the museum takes you back in time with an impressive fossil collection, permanent exhibits and planetarium shows, as well as a chance to view two of Big Sky Country's most famous dinosaursBig Mike the T. Rex and Big Al, a nearly complete Allosaurus. Big Mike is one of the most complete T. rex skeletons in the world. His 15-foot bronze cast stands watch over the museum, greeting you upon arrival. While he'll make his debut this summer over 1,900 miles away as the Nation's T. rex, Big Mike has been a prehistoric treasure in Big Sky Country for over 30 years. A local family discovered the fossil in eastern Montana in 1988, catching the attention of a Hollywood film team who used the excavation to help produce Jurassic Park. The skeleton, which traveled from Montana to Washington, D.C. in 2014, will finally be unveiled at the Smithsonian on June 8, 2019 as the centerpiece of their new Fossil Hall. A four-hour drive north from Bozeman will take you through limestone bluffs carved by the Missouri River and sweeping valleys of farm land to an area known as the Rocky Mountain Front. Nestled here in the shadow of towering mountain peaks, you'll find the small communities of Bynum and Choteau, both of which are prime destinations on the Montana Dinosaur Trail. With a population of 31, Bynum is a small town - even by Montana standards - with a big dinosaur scene. The Two Medicine Dinosaur Center is home to impressive fossils, including remains of a recently discovered dinosaur species, but what truly sets them apart is their dig program. Varying from half-day to five-day dig programs, attendees work alongside paleontologists to unearth a piece of Montana's rich dinosaur history for themselves. This area is also home to Egg Mountain, which became an important site in Montana's dinosaur history after a Bynum local, Marion Brandvold, found the remains of juvenile dinosaurs. After showing her discovery to Jack Horner, a well-known paleontologist, Horner and his team unearthed 14 dinosaur nests. The original dinosaur fossils found by Brandvold can be seen on display at the Old Trail Museum in Choteau. Continue along the trail through Central Montana for more locally discovered prehistoric treasures. The Upper Musselshell Museum in Harlowton features "Ava," an Avaceratops skeleton that was the first of its kind, as well as American Indian artifacts from ancient bison kill sites. The Depot Museum in Rudyard is home to the "Oldest Sorehead," a fully jointed fossil of a Gryposaurus found nearby. Chinook's Blaine County Museum houses numerous prehistoric discoveries unearthed in the Judith River Formation, a fossil hotbed deposited in this region 75 to 80 million years ago. As you follow the Montana Dinosaur Trail east, you'll find five additional locations among the sweeping plains, river coulees and badland formations. The Fort Peck Interpretive Center and Museum features a full-size cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil named Peck's Rex that was unearthed near Fort Peck Lake in 1997. It remains one of the most complete fossils discovered in the world. One of the most compelling communities on the Montana Dinosaur Trail is Glendive, with stops at Frontier Gateway Museum and Makoshika State Park. Today, Montana's largest state park is home to hiking trails, stunning badland views and a chance to see fossilized remains of several prehistoric species, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. There's also plenty of exciting events for all ages along the Montana Dinosaur Trail. Experience the 7th Annual Dino Shindig this summer at the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka. This family-friendly event attracts attendees from all over the world for fun activities and hands-on fossil digs. For an adult spin on dinosaurs, the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum and Field Station in Malta is hosting the Wine & Dino event with food, wine and live music. Find more dinosaur adventures and ways to explore Montana's history at WWW.VISITMT.COM. About The Montana Office of Tourism and Business Development (MOTBD) MOTBD markets Montana's spectacular unspoiled nature, vibrant and charming small towns, breathtaking experiences, relaxing hospitality and competitive business climate to promote the state as a place to visit and do business. For more information, go to VISITMT.COM . SOURCE Montana Office of Tourism and Business Development Related Links http://www.visitmt.com REGINA, Saskatchewan, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Information Services Corporation (TSX:ISV) (ISC or the Company) today announced the voting results from its annual general meeting of shareholders (the Meeting) held on May 15, 2019 in Regina, Saskatchewan. A total of 12,751,200 Class A Limited Voting Shares were represented at the Meeting, being 72.86 per cent of the Company's issued and outstanding Class A Limited Voting Shares. Shareholders voted in favour of all matters brought before the Meeting, including the appointment of Deloitte LLP as auditor for the ensuing year and the election of its Board of Directors. Director Voting The following three members of the Board were appointed by the Lieutenant Governor In Council of the Province of Saskatchewan in lieu of Crown Investments Corporation of Saskatchewan (CIC) voting its shares on any resolution to elect directors, as provided for in The Information Services Corporation Act: Joel Teal, Tom Christiansen and Doug Emsley. Detailed results of the ballot vote for the election of the remaining seven directors are provided in the table below: Nominee Votes For % Votes For Withheld % Votes Withheld Karyn Brooks 7,304,691 99.88 8,652 0.12 Tony Guglielmin 7,305,541 99.89 7,802 0.11 Scott Musgrave 7,305,201 99.89 8,142 0.11 Iraj Pourian 7,295,851 99.76 17,492 0.24 Laurie Powers 7,211,416 98.61 101,927 1.39 Heather Ross 7,298,841 99.80 14,502 0.20 Dion E. Tchorzewski 7,305,201 99.89 8,142 0.11 The Company has filed a report of the results of matters voted on at the Meeting on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . About ISC Headquartered in Canada, ISC is the leading provider of registry and information management services for public data and records. Throughout our history we have delivered value to our clients by providing solutions to manage, secure and administer information through our Registry Operations, Services and Technology Solutions segments. ISC is focused on sustaining its core business while pursuing new growth opportunities. The Class A Shares of ISC trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ISV. Investor Contact Jonathan Hackshaw Director, Investor Relations & Capital Markets Information Services Corporation Toll Free: 1-855-341-8363 in North America or 1-306-798-1137 investor.relations@isc.ca NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Whoopi Goldberg, in partnership with The Powell Companies Real, LLC, announced the launch of her first fashion brand, DUBGEE. Two years ago, Goldberg took her first vacation in 20 years. She went to Greece and could not find anything in her size. It made her feel bad about herself and her body, and she thought about how many other women must feel the same way. When she returned from that trip, she set out to expand upon that idea, using colors, shapes and patterns that pushed her own style boundaries, leading to the birth of DUBGEE. "This line sprang from the idea that you should not be afraid of or feel bad about what is in your closet," said Whoopi Goldberg, Founder of DUBGEE. "Our clothes are designed for everyone, regardless of your shape or size, we've got you. DUBGEE is quality, comfortable clothing that is as elegant as it is timeless, whether you are taking your first vacation in years, going to work or just living your life. It's clothing you can feel good about and look great in." Founded, inspired and designed by Goldberg, the premiere DUBGEE collection includes 41 styles, including tops, bottoms, tunics, dresses and loungewear that are meant to be worn, layered and lived in, with a creative edge and everyday ease in mind. Sizes range from extra small to 3X, with prices ranging from $89 to $390. The collection is available for purchase online and in-store at Neiman Marcus, Ashley Stewart, Amazon and Le Tote, exclusive subscription retailer. To learn more about Whoopi's new fashion collection, visit DUBGEE.com, and follow @dubgeebywhoopi on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. About DUBGEE Inspired, designed and created by Whoopi Goldberg, DUBGEE is a national fashion brand in partnership with The Powell Companies Real, LLC. Encouraging all people to be confident in their real selves, DUBGEE empowers individuals by providing stylish, comfortable and aspirational clothing that fits every lifestyle and is steeped in rich American culture. They are available for purchase online and in-store at Amazon, Ashley Stewart, Neiman Marcus and Le Tote retailers. About The Powell Companies Real, LLC. The Powell Companies Real, LLC is a diversified designer, manufacturer and distributor of a broad range of apparel and accessories in both the North American and international markets. Principals of TPCR have been involved for decades in the launch of private label and celebrity brands. Current brands include DUBGEE by Whoopi, Alessandra Belle, Legionwear, Whitney Morgan, and numerous private label brands. TPCR partners with factories throughout the world, including China, Vietnam and India, enabling TPCR to source the finest products globally. SOURCE DUBGEE Related Links http://www.DUBGEE.com VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly 185 Th Tons of 1,6-Hexanediol was consumed by the end of 2018, globally. As indicated by a recent research study of Research Report Insights (RRI), the global consumption rate of 1,6-Hexanediol will observe a healthy 5% Y-o-Y growth in 2019 and ahead primarily driven by sustained demand from building and construction, and automotive industries. While both the aforementioned industries continue to register the collective share of over half of the overall consumed 1,6-Hexanediol, thriving demand for coatings, adhesives, and polymeric materials from consumer goods and medical devices industries will be a major highlight boosting market revenues in the forthcoming years. Get PDF Brochure for Research Insights at: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=94 Application in Manufacturing of Acrylates & Polymer Resins Remains Noteworthy The demand for polyester resin is significantly increased due to its substantial use in building panels, concrete forming pans, household structures, and in the building & construction sector for roofing. Further, polyester resins, which are widely used in the manufacturing of kayaks, powerboats, sailboats, and a number of automobile parts, which remains a significant booster for the demand for 1,6 Hexanediol in the global market. The 1,6 Hexanediol market is primarily driven by the rise in the demand for acrylates, and plasticizers among the manufacturing industries, which is prevailing 1,6 Hexanediol market throughout the forecast period. Increase in demand for 1,6 Hexanediol for variety of application is being noticed worldwide and is expected to grow further during the forecast period, 2019-2027. The 1,6 Hexanediol market is moderately driven by the automotive industry and consumer goods, which in turn helps to increase the sales of 1,6 Hexanediol across the globe. Request a TOC of Report: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/connectus/sample?flag=D&rep_id=94 Moreover, steady consumption by manufacturers of adhesives, softening agents, lacquers, acrylics, and several other consumer products will translate into modest growth in the revenues of 1,6-Hexanediol market. Application of the chemical in manufacturing of acrylates will be particularly notable. China to Remain at the Vanguard of Global Market Growth Several companies engaged in the production and distribution of 1,6-Hexanediol are strategically planning to amplify their 1,6-Hexanediol production footprint across emerging regional markets. APEJ, envisaged to remain in the forefront of the global market, will account for over 2/5th of the global consumption volume in 2019, according to the report. MEA and Latin America regions are slated to present multiple incremental opportunities for 1,6-Hexanediol manufacturers owing to increasing business footprint of key manufacturing companies in these regions. According to RRI's analysis, China, owing to the cost benefit and strong presence of manufacturers implementing innovative manufacturing technologies, will be the leading market for 1,6-Hexanediol. Request For Full Report Access: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/checkout/94/S Bio-based Innovations to Remain in the Focal Point for Manufacturers In an effort to achieve a surge in the overall sales of 1,6-Hexanediol, several manufacturing companies are strategizing on manufacturing plant expansion and R&D of bio-compatible variants of 1,6-Hexanediol. Rennovia Inc., one of the leading bio-chemicals producers, announced the commencement of the new plant (2017) exclusively for processing bio-based 1,6 Hexanediol. The company believes that the recent hike in raw material prices and multiple environmental concerns regarding conventional 1,6 Hexanediol production processes and end products have reinforced the need for bio-based variants. This, according to RRI study, will be among the trendsetters and direct a mass shift to bio-based 1,6 Hexanediol processing practices, across the 1,6 Hexanediol industry. More recently, in 2018, BASF announced that plan for a massive increase in the 1,6 Hexanediol production capacity, i.e. by almost 50% of the current, at its Ludwigshafen site. While the company aspires the new facility to start post 2021, the estimated total 1,6 Hexanediol production capacity of 70 Kilo Tons is expected to serve fast-growing Asian markets as well as European, which has been providing a significantly strong customer base. Leading chemical companies such as BASF and UBE industries are also increasing their production footprint of 1,6-Hexanediol across various countries such as Germany, Thailand, and the US owing to availability of better infrastructure, and manufacturing facilities. Browse Research Release at @ https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/94/1-6-hexanediol-market Further, the high demand for various grades of polyurethane indirectly impacts the demand for 1,6-Hexanediol. The manufacturers are also capitalizing on emerging applications of 1,6-Hexanediol such as epoxy resins system, alkalyd resins, and UV curable resins. Currently, some companies are prominently manufacturing 1,6-Hexanediol for synthetic lubricants, laminations, and textile industry. This study examines global 1,6-Hexanediol market between 2019 and 2027. More insights on the same can be availed. Browse More: chemicals-materials Reports Popular Research Reports by RRI: Textile stabilizers Market: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/71/textile-stabilizers-market Foam stabilizer Market: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/72/foam-stabilizer-market LED Skincare Gadgets Market: https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/77/led-skincare-gadgets-market Research Report Insights Overview Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends. Our research services cover global as well as regional emerging markets such as BRICS, GCC, and ASEAN. Our offerings cover a broad spectrum of verticals which include Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Materials, Energy, Technology, Automotive, and Retail. The operating model of RRI blends cross-disciplinary research experience to deploy insightful, in-depth, and actionable research. Contact Mr. Abhishek Budholiya Research Report Insights Suite 9884 27 Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin 2, Ireland Phone: +353-1-6111-593 Email: [email protected] Website: https://www.researchreportinsights.com SOURCE Research Report Insights NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 26FIVE Global Lab Inc. ("26FIVE"), a growth management consulting firm and its creative labs worldwide, was awarded both Platinum and Gold Hermes Creative Awards for its work for iBASIS, the leading communications solutions provider enabling operators and digital players worldwide, recently acquired by the Tofane Group. 26FIVE Global Lab Inc. The Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (www.amcpros.com). The organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, digital, media, production and freelance professionals. 26FIVE was recognized for wins in the following categories: Platinum for the new iBASIS Digital Overall and Gold for Company Branding. Early 2019, iBASIS' acquisition by French group Tofane Global propelled the company rebrand and its relaunch across the industry. The transaction catapulted iBASIS' position from ninth- to third-largest global operator, delivering a new model in driving digital transformation across the telecom industry. iBASIS selected 26FIVE late 2018 for the brand transformation project after the firm successfully completed an earlier brand consolidation project for Tofane, unifying its September 2018 acquisition of Altice Europe N.V., international voice carrier business in France, Portugal and the Dominican Republic. Celine Gregoire, VP marketing, iBASIS, comments, "We had a tight time frame and an extremely complex mandate to bring the new iBASIS to life, liaising globally across newly acquired companies, aligning all entities under the new brand and crafting a position that is compelling to operators and digital players. The new brand experience is a bridge to unify all our stakeholders under the promise to 'Be There First' in achieving the journey to digital transformation." "iBASIS is one of those outstanding projects where you know the results will go beyond creativity and experience but will have a true impact of the business and its industry. We are thrilled the new iBASIS brand and digital experience was recognized by our peers," says Trevor Lewis, 26FIVE digital lead. Leading the project for 26FIVE were Trevor Lewis as digital lead, Austin Lee and Marco Velasquez as creative leads, Stephanie Liu and Claire Butkus Rogers as content leads and Sophie Ann Terrisse as brand transformation advisor. Over the years, the firm has worked with notable tech companies, such as Equinix, Medidata, Tata Communications, Vodafone and Veon, to support them through their growth agenda. About 26FIVE Global Lab Inc. 26FIVE is a brand growth consulting firm powered by its creative and tech labs in India, Europe and Asia. The firm put brands at the heart of driving high returns, both on revenue and on responsibility. Independent and global, 26FIVE partners with VCs, start-ups and F100 seeking reinvention, business acceleration and transformation. Founded in 2016 through the integration of firms cumulating 35 years of expertise across technology and marketing, 26FIVE is headquartered in New York City. Media Contact Melissa Coffman [email protected] +1 202-251-1793 Related Images image1.jpg image2.jpg SOURCE 26FIVE Global Lab Inc. COLOGNE, Germany, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 4Stop ("FourStop GmbH") a leading global KYB, KYC, compliance and fraud prevention provider announces today its successful completion of a German-based $2.5 Million Series A Round Investment from Ventech (the leading pan-European VC fund investing in early-stage tech-driven start-ups). FourStop GmbH The syndication of the investment from Ventech and due-diligence process was performed by renowned leading international attorneys and audit companies based out of Germany. Following, 4Stop's business, team, and current technology solutions received high standards of performance excellence. (For more information please contact [email protected]). Ingo Ernst, CEO of 4Stop states: "This is another major milestone for 4Stop, one that we are all very proud of achieving and a true endorsement of our business and technology potential. We are very excited to take this opportunity to expand our business, team and our KYB, KYC and anti-fraud technology solutions. Allowing us to further facilitate modern, leading-edge risk-based management, from a single API solution." The global growth of online transactional engagement paired with its increasing fraud rates, identity thefts and continuous evolution of the regulatory requirement landscape makes it imperative for businesses operating online to ensure they implement a solution that future-proofs their compliance and fraud defense. A need for simplistic, all-encompassing risk management solutions is proving pertinence and supports 4Stop's technology development, market value proposition and strategy. 4Stop dramatically saves businesses time and money underwriting merchants, managing their anti-fraud processes and eliminates the need to integrate multiple 3rd party KYC data sources. "We provide businesses with near real-time KYB, thousands of global data points, hundreds of KYC data sources and leading-edge, smart anti-fraud technology, all from a single API integration. Ensuring the most efficient, optimal data experience and future-proofed risk management processes are obtained. Bringing confidence to every merchant onboarded through to their customers and associated transactions, empowering and accelerating business performance," states Ernst. 4Stop's technology has received "Best Financial Transaction Security Platform" by Fintech Breakthrough Award earlier in 2019 and has received "Best Risk Management Solution Provider" in 2017 and 2018. Additionally, 4Stop's value proposition has already been implemented by global payment and crypto leaders including Mifinity, Paymentz, Paysend, Gatehub and Draglet. "We believe 4Stop has only begun to realize its great potential and is well on its way to turning the burden of compliance into a driver of business operations excellence in the payment & Fintech industry; Ventech is thrilled to partner with 4Stop in their next chapter. We look forward to leveraging our broad and strong investment expertise and 20+ years of experience internationalizing of early-stage companies," explains Ventech Principal Stephan Wirries. For business inquiries please contact [email protected] For marketing inquiries, please contact [email protected] ABOUT VENTECH Ventech, Europe's leading pan-European venture capital firm, invests in high-growth European startups with activities in the digital economy (Enterprise Software, Deep Technology, Marketplaces, Media) through its local offices in Paris, Munich and Helsinki. In China, Ventech's Shanghai-based team manages a dedicated regional fund to invest across Asia and offer scaling and internationalisation support in Asia for European portfolio companies. With more than 900M raised since 1998, Ventech has invested in over 150 companies in Europe, China, Russia and in the US. Key active and past investments include successful high growth companies such as Believe, Curse (acquired by Amazon), Freespee, Ogury, Picanova, Speexx, StickyADS.tv (acquired by Comcast), Botify, Webedia,, Vestiaire Collective and Withings (acquired by Nokia). For more information, www.ventechvc.com Related Images ventech-invests-into-4stop.jpg Ventech Invests Into 4Stop Related Links 4Stop Ventech SOURCE FourStop GmbH Related Links https://4stop.com And four additional students were each awarded $25,000 scholarships: Melia Hawley '20, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law '20, Dedman School of Law Stephanie Luhring '20, University of St. Thomas School of Law '20, School of Law Mackenzie Allan '21, Washington University School of Law '21, School of Law Elena Menagias '21, Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center AccessLex Institute has awarded over $300,000 in MAX scholarships since the program launched in fall 2017. Lindsay Stetson, Assistant Dean for Financial Aid at Michigan, said, "We are delighted to be able to offer the MAX program to our students. Financial literacy is a vital life skill, and it is rarely taught as part of a formal educational setting. We so appreciate having this wonderful tool to share with our students as they prepare for their professional and financial lives." Designed exclusively for law students, MAX is a comprehensive personal finance curriculum that combines in-person workshops, online programming and one-on-one counseling with fully accredited financial counselors to drive the knowledge gain and behavior change that is essential for students to make sound financial decisions. MAX is available free of charge to nonprofit and State-affiliated ABA-approved law schools and their students. To help incentivize workshop participation and lesson completion, students who participate in MAX are entered into drawings by completing online lessons and attending the program's webinars and workshops. "The critical financial education that MAX provides is the program's most valuable prize and subsequently makes winners of each and every user," said Cynthia Cassity, Senior Vice President for Education and Strategic Engagement at AccessLex. Scholarship winner Melia Hawley concurred, saying, "The MAX program opens doors for law students, not only with their scholarships, but with the empowerment of financial knowledge. The lessons provided by the MAX program gave me a sense of security in knowing that I can create a financial plan to pay off my debt and achieve my dreams. Not only has this scholarship impacted my next year, MAX has impacted my overall financial future!" $25,000 winner Stephanie Luhring expressed, "I really like that MAX starts the conversation with law students before we take on three more years of student debt, and that the workshops and online activities are accepting of our personal approaches to finances." And Lisa Brabbit, Senior Assistant Dean for External Relations and Programs at St. Thomas, added, "AccessLex is committed to empowering the next generation of lawyers with professional tools, knowledge and competencies that center on financial responsibility. We are thrilled that Stephanie is the beneficiary of their commitment and vision." Currently, MAX is available at over 140 law schools nationwide and serves more than 11,000 first-year and second-year law students. Beginning fall 2019, the program and additional scholarship opportunities will expand to third-year law students. Learn more. About AccessLex Institute AccessLex Institute is a nonprofit organization committed to helping talented, purpose-driven students find their path from aspiring lawyer to fulfilled professional. In partnership with its nearly 200 Member law schools, improving access and positively influencing legal education have been at the heart of the Company's mission since 1983. AccessLex Institute has offices in West Chester, PA, and Washington, D.C., with a team of accredited financial education counselors based throughout the United States. Learn more at AccessLex.org. For more information, please contact Amy Dardinger, 574.286.5629, [email protected]. SOURCE AccessLex Institute Related Links https://www.accesslex.org/ In the United States, the Foton 30 is available on GBC.com, Amazon and through select office dealers. The Foton 30 will be rolled out globally over the next few months, launching in the following markets: Japan May 24 Canada June 1 Singapore June 1 Australia July 1 Europe September 1 "As we were developing the Foton 30 we recognized the consumer pain point and difficulty with laminating numerous pieces through pouch lamination and looked to solve it in an innovative and economical way," shares Boris Elisman, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of ACCO Brands Corporation. "The Foton 30 is a product that I believe will revolutionize the industry. It's a product that really stands for what our company does at its best: pioneer and resolve market-wide problems through cutting-edge creativity and affordability." With the Foton, the user does not need to wait for the machine to warm up, as the fully automated system will do all the feeding, laminating and trimming for standard size papers. Drop up to 30 documents in the tray, press run and save over 30 minutes of highly valued user time previously spent loading, feeding or repositioning. This easy-to-use laminator provides benefits like automated deskew, which gives perfect positioning and borders every time. Foton 30's internal sensors auto-detect film thickness and provide perfect cuts with no waste or manual trimming. Even cartridge loading is as easy as simply dropping the cartridge into the machine. No film threading required. Early testing and evaluations from customers have been overwhelmingly positive: "I generally avoid lamination jobs like the plague because laminating has the most lead time and the most human involvement. Every sheet needs to be monitored at all times, so a 30-sheet job can take at least an hour because of the tinkering and human element involved," shares Jack Christmann, a site manager for Zebra Technologies for RICHO who oversees copying, printing and laminating. "My experience with the Foton 30 was the first time that I embraced laminating jobs. The machine was very intuitive, very easy to use, and well-designed. In my industry time savers are extremely valuable, and when a new piece of equipment comes around like the Foton 30, it's a very valuable asset to have in your arsenal." "I need a laminator to be consistent and reliable. Laminating can be frustrating when it grabs more than one sheet at a time, jams, or it doesn't cut properly. I'm looking for something to be fast and accurate," shares Randi Downs, a Corporate Administrative Assistant at Century Tile who laminates on a daily basis. "With the Foton 30, I can walk away and have no problems. I can also run the Foton 30 all day long. In fact, I finished my first job with the Foton 30 in one day, when it would normally take me three days with other lamination machines. It's an amazing machine that's small in size, fast and accurate. I think it's perfect." GBC knows, whether you're an office manager, administrator, mailroom or facilities manager, or teacher, your equipment needs to work fast, the first time and every time. Each Foton 30 comes with a two-year or 5,000-cycle warranty, plus an additional 60-day risk-free trial in the U.S. market. Product Details: No pouch Auto-feeds up to 30 letter sheets at a time Auto-detects film thickness Drop documents in tray, press run and walk away Three modes of operation to allow for any paper thickness or shape Deskew system for perfect positioning and borders Sensor provides a perfect cut every time Simple and foolproof cartridge loading with auto-threading Safety auto shutoff Foton 30 MSRP: US $839.99 ; JPY 140,000 ; CA $1,099 ; AUS $1,599 ; 789.00 ; ; CA ; AUS ; 789.00 Drop-in cartridge MSRP: US $49.99 - $81.99 ; JPY 9980 ; CA $70 - $110 ; AUS $99 - $125 ; 68.49 - ; ; CA - ; AUS - ; 68.49 For more information: www.gbc.com/Foton About GBC The GBC (General Binding Corporation) story began in 1947 when founder, William N. Lane, and two business partners helped Chicago printers find a faster, more reliable way to bind and laminate. GBC introduced the first electric, desktop mechanical binding punch in 1961 then the tabletop laminator in 1966. After merging with ACCO Brands in 2005, GBC became part of the world's largest supplier of branded office products. We make solutions for the place your business is todayand more importantly, where it's going tomorrow. About ACCO Brands ACCO Brands Corporation (NYSE: ACCO) is one of the world's largest designers, marketers and manufacturers of branded academic, consumer and business products. Our widely recognized brands include Artline, AT-A-GLANCE, Derwent, Esselte, Five Star, GBC, Hilroy, Kensington, Leitz, Mead, Quartet, Rapid, Rexel, Swingline, Tilibra, Wilson Jones and many others. Our products are sold in more than 100 countries around the world. More information about ACCO Brands, the Home of Great Brands Built by Great People, can be found at www.accobrands.com. SOURCE ACCO Brands Corporation Related Links http://www.accobrands.com National knowledge levels show opportunity for growth While most adults score an A+ on familiarity with frequently used terms, such as plaque and gingivitis, there appears to be room for improvement in basic knowledge of other dental terms. One-third of Americans are not familiar with periodontal disease one area they could brush up on. This very common condition, also known as gum disease, is typically preventable with proper oral care. According to the national survey, 2 in 5 adults (40%) are not sure what the term sealant means. This common dental treatment helps to protect teeth from cavities, also known as caries, by keeping food and bacteria out. "Sealants are simple, painless protection against cavities. Consider sealants as soon as your child's permanent molar teeth come in," said Dr. Joe Dill, DDS, MBA, Delta Dental Plans Association's vice president of dental science and network strategy. "Although dental sealants tend to last for years, they should be regularly checked by your dentist for wear." Helping to prevent oral health problems, before they occur, is at the heart of many of Delta Dental's community benefits efforts. In 2017, more than 4.2 million individuals were served by the Delta Dental companies' dental prevention initiatives, including community water fluoridation, school sealant programs, and screenings. Dental distress preventing proper oral care About 70 million Americans, or nearly one-third of adults (31%) surveyed, admit to postponing a trip to the dentist because of being afraid of a dental procedure. "Our oral health has implications for a lifetime and receiving the proper dental care can influence overall health," Dr. Dill said. "Be sure to ask questions when obtaining a dental health diagnosis or treatment plan recommendation. Your dentist can explain terms that may be unfamiliar to you, which may be helpful as you make important oral health care decisions." For an easy-to-navigate resource on dental terminology, go to the Glossary of Dental Terms on www.deltadental.com. About the survey The Adult's Oral Health & Well-Being Survey was conducted between December 31, 2018, and January 13, 2019, among 1,100 nationally representative Americans ages 18+. The margin of error is +/- 3%. Follow us on Twitter @DeltaDental and Facebook: Delta Dental Plans Association About Delta Dental Plans Association Delta Dental Plans Association, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, is the not-for-profit national association of the 39 independent Delta Dental companies. Through these companies, Delta Dental is the nation's largest provider of dental insurance, covering more than 78 million Americans, and offering the country's largest dental network with approximately 156,000 participating dentists. In 2017, Delta Dental companies provided more than $61 million in direct and in-kind community outreach support to improve the oral health of adults, children and infants in local communities across the country. For more information, visit: deltadental.com . SOURCE Delta Dental Plans Association Related Links http://www.deltadental.com NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- American Jewish Committee (AJC) is stunned by the attack on Poland's Ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski, and grateful that he was not physically harmed. Israeli police have detained a 65-year-old man who verbally assaulted and spat on the ambassador near the embassy in Tel Aviv. "Violence against a diplomat is totally unacceptable. The assault on Ambassador Magierowski is outrageous, but must not be allowed to inflame the bilateral relationship," said AJC CEO David Harris. "Continued dialogue between Israeli and Polish leaders is key to addressing any and all disagreements, and reinforcing the longstanding, strong, and mutually beneficial Israel-Poland relationship." Harris expressed relief that Ambassador Magierowski is safe, and praised Israeli authorities for quickly apprehending the assailant. Israeli Judge Alana Masarwa'a said at the arraignment "that an assault and spitting at a diplomatic personage is contemptible and makes the [assailant] an embarrassment to the rest of Israel's citizens." AJC, the leading global Jewish advocacy organization, has for decades been a leader in advancing Polish-Jewish dialogue and deepening Polish-Israeli ties. The AJC Central Europe office, established in 2017, is based in Warsaw. SOURCE American Jewish Committee Related Links http://www.ajc.org DUBLIN, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), a leading global pharmaceutical company, today announced it will showcase data during the upcoming American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, May 18 May 22, 2019. Data being presented include research on VRAYLAR (cariprazine) that investigates its use for the treatment of depressive episodes associated with bipolar I disorder (bipolar depression) in adult patients. "We are looking forward to sharing data at APA this year that further support the value of VRAYLAR, which now has 10 positive pivotal trials across bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia," said David Nicholson, Chief Research & Development Officer at Allergan. "We are particularly encouraged by the data related to bipolar depression. The potential to treat the full spectrum of bipolar I symptoms, specifically, manic, mixed and depressive episodes, with a single agent, presents an opportunity to streamline treatment decisions for this complicated disorder." Cariprazine data for bipolar I disorder and cognition symptoms in schizophrenia will be featured in two posters at APA, which will be presented by two leading psychiatry experts, Stephen M. Stahl and Roger S. McIntyre. The titles of the poster presentations are as follows all noted in local Pacific Time (PT): Tuesday, May 21, 2019 Cariprazine Efficacy in Patients With Bipolar Depression and Concurrent Manic Symptoms: Post Hoc Analysis of 3 Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Studies (#P8-080). Presented by Stephen M. Stahl ( 2:00 p.m. 4:00 p.m. PT , Moscone South, Exhibition Level, Room 3-4). ( , Moscone South, Exhibition Level, Room 3-4). Effects of Cariprazine on Attentional Processes in Patients With Schizophrenia: Post Hoc Analysis From a Randomized, Controlled Phase III Study (#P7-043). Presented by Roger S. McIntyre ( 10:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. PT , Moscone South, Exhibition Level, Room 3-4). Cariprazine was approved by the FDA in September 2015 and is marketed as VRAYLAR in the U.S. for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder in adults and the treatment of schizophrenia in adults. More than 500,000 prescriptions have been written by more than 20,000 prescribers who have treated more than 100,000 patients with VRAYLAR. About VRAYLAR (cariprazine) VRAYLAR is an oral, once daily atypical antipsychotic approved for the acute treatment of adult patients with manic or mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder, with a recommended dose range of 3 to 6 mg/day, and for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults, with a recommended dose range of 1.5 to 6 mg/day. While the mechanism of action of VRAYLAR is unknown, the efficacy of VRAYLAR could be mediated through a combination of partial agonist activity at central dopamine D and serotonin 5-HT 1A receptors and antagonist activity at serotonin 5-HT 2A receptors. Pharmacodynamic studies with cariprazine have shown that it acts as a partial agonist with high binding affinity at dopamine D 3 , dopamine D 2 , and serotonin 5-HT 1A receptors. Cariprazine demonstrated up to ~8-fold greater in vitro affinity for dopamine D 3 vs D 2 receptors. Cariprazine also acts as an antagonist at serotonin 5-HT 2B and 5-HT 2A receptors with high and moderate binding affinity, respectively as well as it binds to the histamine H 1 receptors. Cariprazine shows lower binding affinity to the serotonin 5-HT 2C and 1A - adrenergic receptors and has no appreciable affinity for cholinergic muscarinic receptors. The clinical significance of these in vitro data is unknown. VRAYLAR was discovered and co-developed by Gedeon Richter Plc and is licensed by Allergan, in the U.S. and Canada. For more than a decade both companies have conducted over 20 clinical trials enrolling thousands of patients worldwide to evaluate the efficacy and safety of cariprazine for people living with a broad range of mental health illnesses. Visit www.vraylar.com for more information. INDICATION AND USAGE VRAYLAR (cariprazine) is indicated in adults for the treatment of schizophrenia and for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar I disorder. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION WARNING: INCREASED MORTALITY IN ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH DEMENTIA-RELATED PSYCHOSIS Elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis treated with antipsychotic drugs are at an increased risk of death. VRAYLAR is not approved for treatment of patients with dementia-related psychosis. Contraindication: VRAYLAR is contraindicated in patients with known hypersensitivity. Reactions have included rash, pruritus, urticaria, and events suggestive of angioedema. Cerebrovascular Adverse Reactions, Including Stroke: In clinical trials with antipsychotic drugs, elderly subjects with dementia had a higher incidence of cerebrovascular adverse reactions, including fatalities vs placebo. VRAYLAR is not approved for the treatment of patients with dementia-related psychosis. Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome (NMS): NMS, a potentially fatal symptom complex, has been reported with antipsychotic drugs. NMS may cause hyperpyrexia, muscle rigidity, delirium, and autonomic instability. Additional signs may include elevated creatine phosphokinase, myoglobinuria (rhabdomyolysis), and acute renal failure. Manage with immediate discontinuation, intensive symptomatic treatment, and monitoring. Tardive Dyskinesia (TD): Risk of developing TD (a syndrome of potentially irreversible, involuntary, dyskinetic movements) and the likelihood it will become irreversible may increase with the duration of treatment and the cumulative dose. The syndrome can develop after a relatively brief treatment period, even at low doses, or after treatment discontinuation. If signs and symptoms of TD appear, drug discontinuation should be considered. Late-Occurring Adverse Reactions: Adverse events may first appear several weeks after initiation of VRAYLAR, probably because plasma levels of cariprazine and its major metabolites accumulate over time. As a result, the incidence of adverse reactions in short-term trials may not reflect the rates after longer term exposures. Monitor for adverse reactions, including extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) or akathisia, and patient response for several weeks after starting VRAYLAR and after each dosage increase. Consider reducing the dose or discontinuing the drug. Metabolic Changes: Atypical antipsychotics have caused metabolic changes, such as: Hyperglycemia and Diabetes Mellitus: Hyperglycemia, in some cases associated with ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar coma, or death, has been reported in patients treated with atypical antipsychotics. Assess fasting glucose before or soon after initiation of treatment, and monitor periodically during long-term treatment. Hyperglycemia, in some cases associated with ketoacidosis, hyperosmolar coma, or death, has been reported in patients treated with atypical antipsychotics. Assess fasting glucose before or soon after initiation of treatment, and monitor periodically during long-term treatment. Dyslipidemia: Atypical antipsychotics cause adverse alterations in lipids. Before or soon after starting an antipsychotic, obtain baseline fasting lipid profile and monitor periodically during treatment. Atypical antipsychotics cause adverse alterations in lipids. Before or soon after starting an antipsychotic, obtain baseline fasting lipid profile and monitor periodically during treatment. Weight Gain: Weight gain has been observed with VRAYLAR. Monitor weight at baseline and frequently thereafter. Leukopenia, Neutropenia, and Agranulocytosis: Leukopenia/neutropenia have been reported with antipsychotics, including VRAYLAR. Agranulocytosis (including fatal cases) has been reported with other antipsychotics. Monitor complete blood count in patients with pre-existing low white blood cell count (WBC)/absolute neutrophil count or history of drug-induced leukopenia/neutropenia. Discontinue VRAYLAR at the first sign of a clinically significant decline in WBC and in severely neutropenic patients. Orthostatic Hypotension and Syncope: Atypical antipsychotics cause orthostatic hypotension and syncope, with the greatest risk during initial titration and with dose increases. Monitor orthostatic vital signs in patients predisposed to hypotension and in those with cardiovascular/cerebrovascular diseases. Falls: VRAYLAR may cause somnolence, postural hypotension, motor and sensory instability, which may lead to falls and, consequently, fractures, or other injuries. For patients with diseases, conditions, or medications that could exacerbate these effects, complete fall risk assessments when initiating antipsychotics and recurrently for patients on long-term therapy. Seizures: Use VRAYLAR with caution in patients with history of seizures or with conditions that lower the seizure threshold. Potential for Cognitive and Motor Impairment: Somnolence was reported with VRAYLAR. Caution patients about performing activities requiring mental alertness (eg, operating hazardous machinery or a motor vehicle). Body Temperature Dysregulation: Use VRAYLAR with caution in patients who may experience conditions that increase body temperature (eg, strenuous exercise, extreme heat, dehydration, or concomitant anticholinergics). Dysphagia: Esophageal dysmotility and aspiration have been associated with antipsychotics. Antipsychotic drugs, including VRAYLAR, should be used cautiously in patients at risk for aspiration. Drug Interactions: Strong CYP3A4 inhibitors increase VRAYLAR concentrations, so VRAYLAR dose reduction is recommended. Concomitant use with CYP3A4 inducers is not recommended. Adverse Reactions: In clinical trials, the most common adverse reactions (5% and at least twice the rate of placebo) are listed below: Schizophrenia: The incidences within the recommended dose range (VRAYLAR 1.5 3 mg/day and 4.5 6 mg/day vs placebo) were: EPS (15%, 19% vs 8%) and akathisia (9%, 13% vs 4%) Bipolar mania: The incidences within the recommended dose range (VRAYLAR 3 6 mg/day vs placebo) were: EPS (26% vs 12%), akathisia (20% vs 5%), dyspepsia (7% vs 4%), vomiting (10% vs 4%), somnolence (7% vs 4%), and restlessness (7% vs 2%) Please also see full Prescribing Information, including Boxed Warning. About Allergan plc Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a global pharmaceutical leader focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical and regenerative medicine products for patients around the world. Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products primarily focused on four key therapeutic areas including medical aesthetics, eye care, central nervous system and gastroenterology. As part of its approach to delivering innovation for better patient care, Allergan has built one of the broadest pharmaceutical and device research and development pipelines in the industry. With colleagues and commercial operations located in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day. For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com. Forward-Looking Statement Statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective on existing trends and information as of the date of this release. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; the impact of uncertainty around timing of generic entry related to key products, including RESTASIS, on our financial results; risks associated with divestitures, acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; risks related to impairments; uncertainty associated with financial projections, projected cost reductions, projected debt reduction, projected synergies, restructurings, increased costs, and adverse tax consequences; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018 and Allergan's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2019. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. CONTACTS: Allergan: Investors: Manisha Narasimhan, PhD (862) 261-7162 Media: Amy Rose (862) 289-3072 Julie Ciardiello (732) 429-4909 SOURCE Allergan plc Related Links www.allergan.com SHANGHAI, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- For the second consecutive year, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China. China (AMEC) today announced that it has landed among the top-ranked worldwide semiconductor equipment companies that participated in the 2019 Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) conducted annually by leading US market research firm, VLSIresearch. The CSS, which began in 1988, is the only survey of its kind that lets customers in all regions provide anonymous feedback on their overall experience with worldwide suppliers of semiconductor equipment and subsystems. For the second year in a row, AMEC is the only China-based company to be recognized in the list of winners that includes companies from the US, Europe and Asia. In THE BEST Suppliers of Fab Equipment survey category, AMEC was ranked third, with customers awarding high ratings for the company's commitment and dedication to partnering. AMEC was also ranked second in two additional categories: the 10 BEST Focused Suppliers of Chip Making Equipment, and THE BEST Suppliers of Fab Equipment to Specialty Chip Makers. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to assist leading semiconductor manufacturers in achieving their innovation, production and profit goals with advanced technologies, high performing tools and friendly service," said AMEC's CEO, Dr. Gerald Z. Yin. "Through our shared relationships and collective efforts, new industry sectors are being created and value is being generated across the IC and LED supply chains, and beyond. We're honored to be acknowledged by customers again this year. Maintaining product competitiveness and high customer satisfaction levels is a strategic imperative for AMEC and we will continue to invest in the people, technology, and infrastructure to satisfy customers' needs." "AMEC exceeded a 9.0 rating for the first time this year and is one of just three WFE suppliers to receive five stars in the 2019 survey," said Risto Puhakka, President of VLSIresearch. "As a young company, their strong ratings show how quickly they established a world-class service infrastructure to support their global etch and MOCVD customers. The team's commitment to partnering was cited as a strength, illustrating the importance of deep customer-supplier collaborations as success-drivers for leading semiconductor and LED manufacturers." Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China (AMEC) AMEC is China's leading provider of process technologies, tools and expertise that help global manufacturers of semiconductors and LEDs achieve their innovation, production and profit goals. The company's etch tools enable chipmakers to build devices for diverse applications at nodes as low as 5nm, while its MOCVD systems lead the market for the production of Blue LEDs. More than 1100 AMEC process units, comprising both product lines, have been installed at 40 leading customer fabs across Asia and Europe. AMEC is headquartered in Shanghai with operations in Nanchang and Xiamen, and regional subsidiaries in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States. About VLSIresearch VLSIresearch is an award-winning provider of market research and economic analysis on the technical, business, and economic aspects of the semiconductor supply chain. Providing intelligence for faster and better decision making, seasoned executives in high technology, government, and finance rely on VLSIresearch's insights to guide them to the right decisions. The formula is simple: Better intelligence leads to better decisions which deliver better results. Founded in 1976, VLSIresearch is the leading technology research and advisory company focused on semiconductor related manufacturing. SOURCE Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China Related Links http://www.amec-inc.com/ English French Press release May 15, 2019 Combined shareholders meeting of May 15, 2019: all resolutions were adopted The combined shareholders meeting (ordinary and extraordinary), chaired by Dominique Cerutti, Chairman and CEO of Altran, was convened today at the Companys head office in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The quorum was established at 63.66%. All the resolutions submitted to the General Meeting were adopted, among which: the approval of the statutory and consolidated financial statements for the financial year ended on December 31, 2018 the allocation of a dividend of 0.24 euro per share that will be paid on July 1 st , 2019 , 2019 the renewal of the term of office of Dominique Cerutti as Director the renewal of the term of office of Nathalie Rachou as Director the appointment of Diane de Saint Victor as Director the approval of the principles and criteria governing the setting, apportionment and attribution of the elements constituting the total compensation and various benefits attributable to the Chairman and CEO and the Senior Executive Vice President Europe and Delegate Director for 2019 financial year the approval of the elements constituting the total compensation and various benefits due or paid to Dominique Cerutti, Chairman and CEO, and Cyril Roger, Senior Executive Vice President Europe and Delegate Director, in respect of the financial year ended December 31, 2018 the renewal of delegations of authority and/or financial authorizations granted to the Board of Directors The presentation made during the General Meeting and the results of the vote of the resolutions submitted to the General Meeting will be available on the Company's website (www.altran.com) under Finance/General Meetings. During its meeting following the Shareholders Meeting, the Board of Directors, on the recommendation of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, has renewed Mr. Dominique Cerutti as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the duration of his term of office as Director and has decided to split the Nomination and Remuneration Committee in order to create a Remuneration Committee composed of Diane de Saint Victor (Chairman), Nathalie Rachou and Gilles Rigal (members) and a Nomination Committee composed of Martha Heitzmann-Crawford (Chairman) and Nathalie Rachou, Renuka Uppaluri and Gilles Rigal (members). The Audit Committee is then composed of the following members: Nathalie Rachou (Chairman), Jaya Vaidhyanathan, Diane de Saint Victor and Martha Heitzmann-Crawford (members). The Investments and Acquisitions Committee is then composed of the following members: Dominique Cerutti (Chairman), Renuka Uppaluri, Jaya Vaidhyanathan, Christian Bret and Gilles Rigal (members). About Altran Altran ranks as the undisputed global leader in Engineering and R&D services (ER&D). The company offers clients an unmatched value proposition to address their transformation and innovation needs. Altran works alongside its clients, from initial concept through industrialization, to invent the products and services of tomorrow. For over 35 years, the company has provided expertise in Automotive, Aeronautics, Space, Defense & Naval, Rail, Infra & Transport, Energy, Industrial & Consumer, Life Sciences, Communications, Semiconductor & Electronics, Software & Internet, Finance & Public Sector. The Aricent acquisition extends this leadership to semiconductor, digital experience and design innovation. Altran generated revenues of 2.9 billion in 2018, with some 47,000 employees in more than 30 countries. Contact Stephanie Bia Group Senior Vice-President Communications & Investor Relations Tel: + 33 (0)1 46 41 72 01 stephanie.bia@altran.com Attachment VANCOUVER, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. (ASM: TSX/NYSE American, GV6: FSE, "Avino" or "the Company") today sadly announces the passing of long time director Michael Baybak; he was 77 years old. Mr. Baybak enjoyed a diverse, successful career in publishing, public relations and financial communications. A graduate of Columbia University and a student at Yale Law School, he was renowned for an unrelenting work ethic in a career that spanned over 40 years. Having worked for over three decades in the natural resource sector, his work had broad impact in the junior mining industry. Mr. Baybak joined Avino's board in June 1990 and played an important role in the Company's growth and development during the 30 years since. Born on December 14, 1941 in Merefa, Ukraine, his family immigrated to the United States by way of Ellis Island in 1948. Mr. Baybak was a fierce champion for liberty, he wrote for Freedom Magazine and was a Board Member of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights. Mr. Baybak is survived by his wife of nearly 40 years, 5 children and 3 grandchildren. We were so fortunate to have had Michael serve as a Director on Avino's board for so many years. He was a great supporter of Avino, and his time and efforts were greatly appreciated. Over his long tenure on the Board, Mike was always there to attend meetings and provide input; he will be greatly missed by our Board of Directors and Avino's Management team. Mike's knowledge and wisdom were important to us, and we know that Avino's Board and the Company were important to Mike. Avino will be missing a great guy. Our thoughts are with Michael's family during this difficult time. Gary Robertson Chairman, Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. Michael could always be counted on to bring a positive outlook even during challenging times. His steadfast optimism and jovial demeanor were contagious and I'm grateful for the mentorship that he bestowed upon me over the years. He will be dearly missed. David Wolfin President & CEO, Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. On Behalf of the Board "David Wolfin" ______________________________ David Wolfin, President & CEO Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. Neither the TSX nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. Related Links http://www.avino.com/ SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- It is estimated that the Global Bamboo Fiber Market would develop at a substantial CAGR of 5% by 2022. It is a rejuvenated cellulosic fiber manufactured using bamboo it undergoes multi-phase decolorizing and alkaline hydrolysis. Additional chemical procedures produce the fibers of bamboo. It is described by its soft texture, exceptional porousness, decent hygroscopy, simplicity in terms of straightening, coloring, and marvelous result of coloration. It is softer than cotton. Bamboo yarns possess the property of an excessive elasticity. It requires a smaller amount dyestuff as compared to cotton. Bamboo yarn engrosses the dyestuffs quickly and display the superior colors. The Bamboo Fiber market on the source of type of Product shows the Manufacture, Profits, Price, Market stake, and Development percentage of respective category. The market is divided into Natural Bamboo Fiber, Bamboo Viscose, Bamboo Carbon Fiber, Bamboo Pulp Fiber, and others. By the source of the type of Applications, the statement concentrates on the position and viewpoint for foremost uses. It takes into consideration the intake in terms of sales, market stake, and development percentage of Bamboo Fiber for respective use, including Articles of Daily Use, Paper Towels, Health Care Products, Clothing , Protective material for foodstuff , Gauze mask, Absorbent pads, Sanitary towel, Surgical clothes, Bandage, Nurses wears, Mask , Bath-suits, Wall Paper, Curtain, and others. Download PDF to know more details about "Bamboo Fiber Market" Report 2022. The Bamboo Fiber market on the source of Area is done with respect to Trades in terms of intake, Profits, Market stake, and Development percentage for the duration of the prediction. The area wise division spans North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. The statement revises Trades in terms of intake of Bamboo Fiber in the market. It concentrates on the topmost companies operating in these regions. Some of the important companies operating in the field are Shandong Silver Hawk, Hebei Jigao Chemical Fiber, Sanyou Group. Additional notable companies operating in the Bamboo Fiber Market are RIBECO, Pacific Brands, My Pillow, American Textile Company, Tempur-Pedic, Pacific Coast, Wendre, Hollander, CFF GmbH & Co. KG, TIC Gums, America Hoy Technology, Swicofil, International Fiber Corporation, Bambro Textile Co., Bo Group, Advantage Fibers, Litrax, Shanghai Tenbro Bamboo Textile, Chengdu grace Fiber Co., Wild Fibers, Suzhou Lifei Textile Co., and Liahren. The global market for bamboo fiber will grow at a CAGR of 5% by 2022, according to a new report published by Radiant Insights. The report segments the market and forecasts its size, by volume and value, on the basis of product (bamboo viscose, natural bamboo fiber, etc.), and by geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, MEA and South America). The report covers forecast and analysis for the bamboo fiber market on a global and regional level. The study provides historic data of 2012-2016 along with a forecast from 2017 to 2022 based on both output/volume and revenue. The study then describes the drivers and restraints for the bamboo fiber market along with the impact they have on the demand over the forecast period. Additionally, the report includes the study of opportunities available in the bamboo fiber market on a global level. The report has been prepared based on the synthesis, analysis, and interpretation of information about the global bamboo fiber market collected from specialized sources. The competitive landscape section of the report provides a clear insight into the market share analysis of key industry players. Company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, new project launched, recent development analysis are the parameters included in the profile. Access 114 page research report with TOC on "Bamboo Fiber Market" available with Radiant Insights, Inc. @ https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-bamboo-fiber-market-outlook-2017-2022 Demand for this market rises from the bamboo viscose and natural bamboo fiber. All the segments have been analyzed based on present and future trends and the market is estimated from 2017 to 2022. Relevantly, the report and company profiles specify the key drivers that are impacting the demand in global bamboo fiber market. Key Product Types Bamboo Viscose Natural Bamboo Fiber Key Regions North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa and South America Key Vendors Hebei Jigao Sanyou Group Shandong Silver Hawk request free sample to get a complete list of companies Key Questions Answered in this Report What will the market size be in 2022? What are the key factors driving the global bamboo fiber market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key players in the bamboo fiber market? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key players? Browse reports of similar category available with Radiant Insights, Inc.: About Radiant Insights, Inc.: At Radiant Insights, we work with the aim to reach the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Our representatives strive to understand diverse client requirements and cater to the same with the most innovative and functional solutions. Contact: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist Radiant Insights, Inc. Phone: +1-415-349-0054 Toll Free: 1-888-928-9744 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.radiantinsights.com/ SOURCE Radiant Insights, Inc. ST. LOUIS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bayer is donating salad bars to four schools in the Rosedale Union School District of Bakersfield, California as a strategy to increase children's access and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. The announcement was made during an assembly at Patriot Elementary School, which received a salad bar last year and has experienced success with students selecting fresh produce from the salad bar during their breakfast and lunch service. Students at Patriot Elementary School tried three different kinds of carrots as part of a salad bar dedication event sponsored by Bayer in coordination with the United Fresh Start Foundation. The four schools in the Rosedale Union School District receiving new salad bars include: Almondale Elementary School American Elementary School Independence Elementary School Rosedale North Elementary School "After implementing a salad bar at one of our schools, and seeing how well the students responded, we look forward to this opportunity to bring salad bars to additional schools in our district," said Dr. John Mendiburu, Superintendent, Rosedale Union School District. "Our students enjoy being able to self-select fruits and vegetables from the salad bar. Anything that encourages our students to make healthy choices is a plus. And since we're located in a community surrounded by agriculture, it was nice to connect with our local businesses and discuss ways to incorporate locally grown produce on our menu." As part of the announcement, Bayer arranged a local grower from Grimmway Farms to speak to the audience of more than 50 fourth- and fifth-grade students about how and where carrots are grown, as well as coordinated a carrot variety taste test in which students were able to try several varieties of Grimmway carrots and vote on their favorite. "Bayer is committed to supporting initiatives that provide children with access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and with kids eating a majority of their daily calories at school, the salad bar makes it easy for them to choose something that's healthy and fresh," said Jennifer Maloney, food chain and sustainability manager, Bayer. "This partnership is also meaningful because with today's salad bar announcement, we're able to collaborate with one of our grower partners and support healthier choices for children in one of our nation's most prolific agricultural communities." To coordinate the salad bar contributions, Bayer worked with the United Fresh Start Foundation, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the United Fresh Produce Association. As part of the foundation's partnership in the national Salad Bars to Schools initiative, they are working with the produce industry, non-profits and allied businesses to support salad bars to schools across the United States. To-date, Salad Bars to Schools has helped facilitate the donation of salad bars to more than 5,500 schools, benefitting 3 million children in all 50 states. The Bayer salad bar investment supports the national initiative. The first salad bar donated to the Rosedale Union School District was made possible by the Kern County Chapter of California Women for Agriculture, also in partnership with United Fresh Start Foundation. Current research indicates that the use of salad bars in schools promotes healthy food choices in school-aged children. With access to a salad bar, students are encouraged to try new items and are empowered to make their own healthy choices now, and in the future. The Salad Bars to Schools initiative aims to help school districts meet USDA school lunch nutrition standards, which require offering students a wide variety of colorful vegetable choices each week, and which promote a healthier lifestyle for students nationwide. The Bayer commitment to sustainability and agricultural education begins with the people it serves every day. This commitment extends to fighting food insecurity and encouraging healthier food choices for a happier and well-educated community. For additional information and background on Bayer and its other programs, please visit www.bayercropscience.us/our-commitment/bayer-initiatives. Bayer is committed to bringing new technology and solutions for agriculture and non-agricultural uses. For questions concerning the availability and use of products, contact a local Bayer representative, or visit Crop Science, a division of Bayer, online at www.cropscience.bayer.us. Visit the Bayer Connect - Social Hub for social media, recent news, blog posts, videos and more from Crop Science, a division of Bayer. About Bayer Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to benefit people by supporting efforts to overcome the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development, and the Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2018, the Group employed around 117,000 people and had sales of 39.6 billion euros. Capital expenditures amounted to 2.6 billion euros, R&D expenses to 5.2 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.us. About the United Fresh Start Foundation The United Fresh Start Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization focused exclusively on increasing children's access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Affiliated with the United Fresh Produce Association, the Foundation is committed to helping today's kids achieve the public health goal to make half their plate fruits and vegetables in order to live longer and healthier lives. The Foundation works to create an environment in which kids have easy access to high-quality, great-tasting and affordable fresh fruits and vegetables, whenever and wherever they are choosing snacks or a meal. More information at: www.unitedfreshstart.org. About Salad Bar to Schools Salad Bars to Schools is a public health campaign to increase salad bars in schools across the country so that every child has the choice of healthy fruits and vegetables every day at school. Salad Bars to Schools was first established to support former First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" initiative to end childhood obesity in a generation. The United Fresh Start Foundation is a founding partner of the initiative. For more information: www.saladbars2schools.org. Contact : Bayer Media Hotline, 1-862-404-5118, or Carolyn Nagle Bayer U.S. Tel: (862) 404-5955 Email: [email protected] Elizabeth Smith Rhea + Kaiser Tel: 630-955-2601 Email: [email protected] Andrew Marshall Director, Foodservice & Foundation Partnerships United Fresh Produce Association (202) 303-3407 [email protected] Find more information at www.cropscience.bayer.us. Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments. 2019 Bayer CropScience LP, 800 North Lindbergh Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63167. Always read and follow label instructions. Bayer and the Bayer Cross are registered trademarks of Bayer. Not all products are registered in all states. For additional product information please call toll-free 1-866-99-BAYER (1-866-992-2937) or visit our website at www.CropScience.Bayer.us SOURCE Bayer Related Links http://www.bayer.us WASHINGTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- San Miguel Equities, LLC ("San Miguel"), a borrower and customer of the Bank of New York Mellon ("BNY Mellon"), has filed a formal complaint with the nation's top banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC"). Please see the recent story in the American Banker for more on this case: https://www.americanbanker.com/news/did-bny-mellon-violate-code-of-conduct-in-dealings-with-a-community-bank. San Miguel alleges in its OCC complaint that BNY Mellon engaged in dishonorable and bad faith conduct towards San Miguel after BNY Mellon agreed to loan San Miguel $7 million in 2013 (San Miguel ended up only drawing $5.5 million from this loan agreement): "[I]n 2016, San Miguel went to a second bank, [First Foundation Bank, "FFB"], to refinance and pay off BNY Mellon for the remainder of the loan, making FFB its new lender. After BNY Mellon committed to FFB to immediately release and transfer the collateral upon receipt of its payoff of the remainder of the loan, FFB transferred $5.5 million (the amount remaining on the loan) to pay off the loan, in reliance on BNY Mellon's promise to keep up its end of the bargain by transferring the collateral. However, rather than sending San Miguel's collateral to FFB as agreed, BNY Mellon instead kept the $5.5 million payoff from FFB, withheld the collateral, and refused to respond to any inquiries from FFB or San Miguel for several weeks." San Miguel alleges BNY Mellon had a secret side deal that caused San Miguel to be liable for millions of dollars for failure to post the promised collateral for the new loan: "It was later discovered that during those weeks BNY Mellon was making a secret deal with a third-party (that was suing San Miguel and BNY Mellon) to be dismissed from that lawsuit in exchange for an agreement to transfer San Miguel's collateral to a BNY Mellon bank account under the control of the court (called an interpleader account) where the third-party was suing." BNY Mellon put its own interests first and secretly prejudiced its customer-borrower, San Miguel alleges, in direct violation of good faith rules and anti-conflict of interest OCC regulations, found at 12 C.F.R. 7.4008 and 12 C.F.R. 9.12. According to San Miguel's OCC complaint, BNY Mellon could have sent the money back to the new bank and avoided liability for its borrower-customer, San Miguel. But no allegedly BNY Mellon instead chose to keep the money sent to pay off San Miguel's loan and renege on its promise to transfer San Miguel's bond portfolio that served as collateral for the new bank's loan. "We allege that this kind of secretive behavior by BNY Mellon is contrary to the OCC's good faith and anti-conflict of interest obligations under existing regulations," attorney for San Miguel Lanny Davis said. First Foundation Bank, of Irvine, California, has also filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against BNY Mellon, alleging the same bad faith behavior contrary to law and banking standards. Scott Kavanaugh, CEO of FFB, issued the following statement in support of San Miguel's OCC complaint: "First Foundation Bank concurs with the complaint that San Miguel Equities, LLC has filed against BNY Mellon, N.A. with the OCC. Refusing to release San Miguel's collateral after BNY received a full payoff of its loans, and doing so because BNY wanted to use San Miguel's collateral for self-gain, violates the most fundamental duties that a reputable bank and financial advisor owes to its clients. It also violates the code of conduct that must exist between financial institutions in a world where refinancing and other multi-million dollar transactions are done on a daily basis via wire transfers and other electronic means. Without that code of conduct, the lending industry would be in disarray." San Miguel's OCC complaint asks for an investigation into BNY Mellon as well as OCC sanctions and other regulatory penalties if justified. The complaint also asks the OCC to refer the matter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission if appropriate. Last December, San Miguel also filed a civil action for theft and breach of contract and duty and substantial damages against BNY in California Superior Court, and that case is still ongoing. Sall Spencer Callas & Krueger, a Laguna Beach, California-based law firm is leading the California litigation for San Miguel. Lanny Davis of Davis Goldberg & Galper PLLC is also counsel of record. Contact: Eleanor McManus [email protected] (202) 899-3846 office (202) 460-1451 cell SOURCE San Miguel Equities, LLC WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bunge Limited (NYSE: BG), a leader in agriculture, food and ingredients, today participated in the 2019 BMO Farm to Market Conference in New York City. Bunge Chief Executive Officer Gregory A. Heckman spoke with investors about the company's strategic priorities and its recently announced global operating model and business leadership structure. Mr. Heckman also announced that Robert Wagner will join the Company on June 17 as Chief Risk Officer. Mr. Wagner was most recently Chief Risk Officer at Tricon International Ltd. Earlier, he worked in senior risk management positions at COFCO Agri, and with Mr. Heckman at Gavilon and ConAgra. "Robert will be a valuable addition to Bunge," Mr. Heckman said. "He is a seasoned leader with deep experience. He will work with our commercial teams to successfully navigate the complex environments we encounter." About Bunge Limited Bunge (www.bunge.com,NYSE: BG) is a world leader in sourcing, processing and supplying oilseed and grain products and ingredients. Founded in 1818, Bunge's expansive network feeds and fuels a growing world, creating sustainable products and opportunities for more than 70,000 farmers and the consumers they serve in over 60 countries. The company is headquartered in New York and has 31,000 employees worldwide who stand behind more than 360 port terminals, oilseed processing plants, grain silos, and food and ingredient production and packaging facilities around the world. Website Information We routinely post important information for investors on our website, www.bunge.com , in the "Investors" section. We may use this website as a means of disclosing material, non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Accordingly, investors should monitor the Investors section of our website, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls, presentations and webcasts. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our website is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this document. Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains both historical and forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather reflect our current expectations and projections about our future results, performance, prospects and opportunities. We have tried to identify these forward-looking statements by using words including "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "continue" and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. The following important factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements: the outcome and effects of our Board's strategic review; our ability to attract and retain executive management and key personnel; industry conditions, including fluctuations in supply, demand and prices for agricultural commodities and other raw materials and products used in our business; fluctuations in energy and freight costs and competitive developments in our industries; the effects of weather conditions and the outbreak of crop and animal disease on our business; global and regional agricultural, economic, financial and commodities market, political, social and health conditions; the outcome of pending regulatory and legal proceedings; our ability to complete, integrate and benefit from acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and strategic alliances; our ability to achieve the efficiencies, savings and other benefits anticipated from our cost reduction, margin improvement and other business optimization initiatives; changes in government policies, laws and regulations affecting our business, including agricultural and trade policies, tax regulations and biofuels legislation; and other factors affecting our business generally. The forward-looking statements included in this release are made only as of the date of this release, and except as otherwise required by federal securities law, we do not have any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. SOURCE Bunge Limited Related Links http://www.bunge.com The bites will be available in select grocers nationwide beginning in May with a suggested retail price of $3.99-4.99 per 12-count package. Light and tangy, the soda cake bites offer real crisp lemon-lime flavor in a moist cake form. The new 7UP cake bites are convenient as the perfect on-the-go dessert or snack for summer BBQ's, reunions and celebrations. "Our partnership with 7UP assures consumers get the precise flavor they would expect from this household soda brand," said Brian Owens, chief executive officer of Cafe Valley. "Our soda cake lines have been a big hit, so adding the convenience of a bite-size form makes it all the more appealing for today's busy, on-the-go consumer." Cafe Valley 7UP Cake Bites are in response to the growing demand for Cafe Valley's signature, ready-to eat products and the increased interest in a diverse variety of uniquely flavored baked goods. About Cafe Valley Bakery Since 1987, Cafe Valley Bakery has been producing high-quality bakery products for in-store bakeries, club stores, food service and convenience stores throughout the world. Their products include croissants, muffins, Bundt cakes, ring cakes, loaf cakes, turnovers and cafe bites. With facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, and Marion, Indiana, Cafe Valley products are available to mass retailers throughout the United States. The company is committed to an extensive food safety program and has donated significant time, money and gifts to communities across the United States. Visit www.cafevalley.com to learn more. Contact: Brenda Duong [email protected] Lambert & Co. 517-827-1117 SOURCE Cafe Valley Related Links http://www.cafevalley.com RICHMOND, Va., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Capital Square 1031, a leading real estate investment and management firm specializing in Delaware statutory trust (DST) offerings, announced today that the firm has expanded its sales team with the additions of Regional Vice President Matthew Johnson, who will support the North Central and Northeast territory, and Regional Vice President Steven Hill, who will support the Southeast territory. "Capital Square 1031 is pleased to welcome Matt and Steven, who will leverage their in-depth knowledge of alternative investments to better serve broker-dealers and advisors seeking DST investments for their clients," said Louis Rogers, founder and chief executive officer of Capital Square 1031. "They bring a wealth of relationships and alternative investment experience that will help Capital Square 1031 serve more investors across the nation." Johnson and Hill will provide sales and marketing support for broker-dealers, registered representatives and registered investment advisors within their territories. "The expansion of our sales team allows Capital Square to better serve its broker-dealer and advisor partners across the country," said Margo Steahly, national sales director of Capital Square 1031. "Capital Square has surpassed $1 billion in assets under management and with the expanded sales team, a large number of new investors will have the opportunity to invest in high-quality real estate across the nation." Prior to joining Capital Square, Johnson served as a regional sales director for AEI Capital Corporation, an alternative investment sponsor that focuses on 1031 exchange solutions and limited partnerships. At AEI Capital, he was responsible for overseeing sales and marketing activities in the Midwest and Eastern territories. Additionally, he was a financial advisor with Ameriprise Financial. Johnson graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College with a bachelor's degree in Financial Economics and holds FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses. Hill previously served as regional vice president in the Southeast territory with S.C. Distributors, where he was a part of the institutional group working with fiduciaries across 18 states. During his five-year tenure with S.C. Distributors, Hill raised approximately $200 million for alternative investments. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from Pennsylvania State University and holds FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses. About Capital Square 1031 Capital Square 1031 is a national real estate investment and management company that sponsors investment-grade real estate exchange programs that qualify for tax deferral under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. The company acquires multifamily properties for substantial growth possibility, necessary medical properties for the potential for stable income, and other real estate investments that have the potential to provide exceptional risk-adjusted returns. Capital Square provides a range of services, including due diligence, acquisition, loan sourcing, property management/asset management, and disposition, for a growing number of high net-worth investors, private equity firms, family offices and institutional investors. Since inception, the firm has sponsored 58 DST programs and has completed more than $1.2 billion in transaction volume. To learn more, visit www.CapitalSquare1031.com. Disclaimer: Investing in real estate involves significant risk and is suitable only for investors who have adequate financial means, desire a relatively long-term investment, who will not need immediate liquidity from their investment and can afford to lose their entire investment. There are various risks associated with owning, financing, operating, and leasing commercial properties. If the tenant does not renew or extend the lease, or terminates or defaults on the lease, the operating results of the Property could be adversely affected by the loss of revenue and Beneficial Owners could lose the benefits of Section 1031. Other risks include potential environmental conditions at the property, changes in economic conditions, changes in the investment climate for real estate investments, new competition, changes in the demand from competing properties, changes in local market conditions, changes in lease-up periods, changes in real estate tax rates and other operating expenses. There can be material tax consequences and prospective investors should consult their own tax advisors to evaluate the tax consequences of a DST interest. This is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy a DST interest. Offers are made solely pursuant to the Confidential Private Placement Memorandum. Securities offered through WealthForge Securities, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. Capital Square 1031 and WealthForge Securities are not affiliated. Contact: Lauren Burgos Spotlight Marketing Communications 949.427.1399 [email protected] SOURCE Capital Square 1031 Related Links http://www.CapitalSquare1031.com MONTREAL, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ), a longterm institutional investor, through its investment platform with DP World, announced the acquisition of a 45% interest in DP World Chile, which operates terminals in Puerto Central and Puerto Lirquen. Located in San Antonio and Gran Concepcion, the terminals serve Chile's main consumption and industrial centres. The transaction will be executed at the same price as DP World's acquisition of the asset in April 2019. Two years ago, CDPQ partnered with DP World to create a US$3.7-billion platform to invest in ports and terminals globally. DP World holds 55% of the platform and CDPQ holds the remaining 45%. The two new assets in Chile join a portfolio of ports, which includes terminals in Vancouver and Prince Rupert in Canada, that are already owned by the platform. "This is our first infrastructure acquisition in Chile and our first Latin American ports. It marks an important step in the growth of our platform with DP World and aligns well with its geographic diversification objective", stated Emmanuel Jaclot, Executive Vice-President and Head of Infrastructure at CDPQ. "We are delighted to continue working alongside DP World, a strategic partner for CDPQ that has a long track record in the port business and provides us with access to high-quality investment opportunities." Background In April 2019, DP World acquired 99.2% of the issued share capital of Puertos y Logistica S.A. ("DP World Chile") via a tender offer process. The DP World group's investment in DP World Chile now forms part of its platform with CDPQ and therefore CDPQ indirectly holds 44.64% of DP World Chile. ABOUT CAISSE DE DEPOT ET PLACEMENT DU QUEBEC Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ) is a long-term institutional investor that manages funds primarily for public and parapublic pension and insurance plans. As at December 31, 2018, it held CA$309.5 billion in net assets. As one of Canada's leading institutional fund managers, CDPQ invests globally in major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt. For more information, visit cdpq.com, follow us on Twitter @LaCDPQ or consult our Facebook or LinkedIn pages. ABOUT DP WORLD DP World is a leading enabler of global trade and an integral part of the supply chain. We operate multiple yet related businesses from marine and inland terminals, maritime services, logistics and ancillary services, to technology-driven trade solutions. Our portfolio of 78 operating marine and inland terminals is supported by more than 50 related businesses in over 40 countries across six continents, with a significant presence in both high-growth and mature markets. We aim to be essential to the bright future of global trade, ensuring that everything we do contributes positively and sustainably to both the economy and society. Our dedicated team of more than 46,000 employees from 120 countries cultivates long-standing relationships with governments, shipping lines, importers and exporters, communities, and many other important constituents of the global supply chain, providing quality value-added services today and tomorrow. Container handling is the company's core business and generates more than 50% of its revenue. In 2018, DP World handled 71.4 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) across our portfolio. With its committed pipeline of developments and expansions, the current gross capacity of 91.2 million TEU is expected to rise in line with market demand. By thinking ahead, foreseeing change and innovating, DP World aims to create the most productive, efficient and safe trade solutions globally. SOURCE Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec Related Links https://www.cdpq.com/ BEIJING, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- China Distance Education Holdings Limited (NYSE: DL) ("CDEL", or the "Company"), a leading provider of online education and value-added services for professionals and corporate clients in China, today announced unaudited financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2019 ended March 31, 2019. Second Quarter Fiscal 2019 Financial and Operational Highlights Net revenue increased by 30.3% to $38.8 million from $29.7 million in the prior year period . from in the prior year period Total course enrollments were 642,000, an increase of 8.9 % from the second quarter of fiscal 2018. % from the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Cash receipts from online course registration were $57.0 million , a 29.8% increase from the second quarter of fiscal 2018. , a 29.8% increase from the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Gross profit increased by 39.9% to $15.5 million from $11.1 million in the prior year period. from in the prior year period. Non-GAAP [1] gross profit increased by 39.6% to $15.5 million from $11.1 million in the prior year period. gross profit increased by 39.6% to from in the prior year period. Gross margin was 39.9%, compared with 37.2% in the prior year period. Non-GAAP [1] gross margin was 39.9%, compared with 37.3% in the prior year period. gross margin was 39.9%, compared with 37.3% in the prior year period. Operating loss was $4.1 million , compared with $2.9 million in the prior year period. , compared with in the prior year period. Non-GAAP [1] operating loss was $3.6 million , compared with $2.4 million in the prior year period. operating loss was , compared with in the prior year period. Net loss was $3.9 million , compared with net loss of $3.3 million in the prior year period. , compared with net loss of in the prior year period. Non-GAAP [1] net loss was $3.4 million , compared with non-GAAP [1] net loss of $2.7 million in the prior year period. net loss was , compared with non-GAAP net loss of in the prior year period. Basic and diluted net loss per American Depositary Share ("ADS") were $0.116 , compared with basic and diluted net loss per ADS of $0.098 for the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Each ADS represents four ordinary shares. , compared with basic and diluted net loss per ADS of for the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Each ADS represents four ordinary shares. Basic and diluted non-GAAP [1] net loss per ADS were $0.101 , compared with basic and diluted non-GAAP [1] net loss per ADS of $0.082 for the second quarter of fiscal 2018. net loss per ADS were , compared with basic and diluted non-GAAP net loss per ADS of for the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Cash flow from operations increased by 128.8% to $16.5 million from $7.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. from in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. CDEL's controlled company Beijing Zhengbao Yucai Education Technology Company Limited completed its voluntary delisting from the New Third Board, the over-the-counter stock exchange in China , on April 22, 2019 . , on . On May 15, 2019 , CDEL decided to acquire an additional 9% equity interest in Beijing Ruida Chengtai Education Technology Co., Ltd. ("Beijing Ruida"), a company engaged in exam preparation services for participants in China's Legal Professional Qualification Examination, for a total consideration of RMB38.3 million ( $5.6 million ), bringing the Company's total equity interest in Beijing Ruida from 51% in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 to 60%. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2019. Mr. Zhengdong Zhu, Chairman and CEO of CDEL, said, "In the second quarter of fiscal 2019, revenue grew 30.3% year-over-year, exceeding the high end of our guidance range, primarily driven by the strong growth of our accounting vertical together with a significant increase in revenue from the sale of learning simulation software. Revenue from the legal vertical generated by Beijing Ruida also contributed to the growth. Total enrollment growth was 8.9% year-over-year in the second quarter, primarily due to the substantial enrollment growth in accounting and engineering & construction (E&C) continuing education courses. Cash receipts from online course registration grew 29.8% year-over-year in the second quarter, reflecting the continued popularity of our longer duration premium and elite classes." Mr. Zhu concluded, "We are pleased with our second quarter revenue performance as well as the strong momentum of cash receipts growth during the first half of fiscal year 2019. We attribute our performance to our robust lifelong learning ecosystem, well-diversified business model, reputable brand, and a firm commitment to helping our students achieve superior learning outcomes. Recently, the Company decided to increase its equity interest in Beijing Ruida to 60%, from 51% in the second quarter fiscal 2019, based on Ruida's high-quality legal education courseware and considerable growth potential. This strategic investment decision reflects our dedication to further enhancing the Company's comprehensive lifelong learning ecosystem. Looking ahead, we will remain focused on delivering best-of-breed courseware and value-added services to our students at different stages of their careers, and strive to be the premier education partner for our students throughout their lifelong learning journey." Mr. Mark Marostica, Co-Chief Financial Officer of CDEL, said, "Similar to the second quarters of fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2017, we recorded an operating loss in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, as it is typically the lowest revenue quarter of our fiscal year due to seasonality. In addition, the operating loss of the second quarter fiscal 2019 was more pronounced due to our acquisition of Beijing Ruida in July 2018, as Beijing Ruida has quarterly revenue seasonality similar to CDEL's core business, and the operating results of Beijing Ruida include $1.7 million amortization expenses of intangibles arising from the acquisition of Beijing Ruida." Mr. Marostica, continued, "Despite the first half of fiscal year 2019 operating loss, we believe we will see year-over-year improvement in our operating margins in fiscal year 2019 as a result of our expectation of healthy revenue growth in the fiscal year, together with the implementation of certain expense control measures. As we head into our second half of fiscal year 2019, we are focused on continuing to balance growth with a strong emphasis on profitability and expense controls." CEO Share Purchase Plan As announced on June 25, 2018 by the Company, Mr. Zhengdong Zhu, Chairman and CEO of CDEL, had informed the Company of his intention to use his personal funds to purchase the Company's shares for an amount up to a maximum of $25 million within one year. As of May 15, 2019, Mr. Zhu had bought a total of approximately $11.1 million of the Company's ordinary shares and ADSs pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan in accordance with Rule 10b-18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Second Quarter Fiscal 2019 Financial Results Net Revenue. Total net revenue increased by 30.3% to $38.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $29.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Net revenue from online education services, books and reference materials, and other sources contributed 71.9%, 14.0% and 14.1%, respectively, of total net revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2019. Online education services. Net revenue from online education services increased by 19.2% to $27.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $23.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018, mainly due to revenue growth from the accounting vertical. Revenues from courses of Intermediate and Advance Level Accounting Professional Qualifications Exams ("APQE"), and CPA Qualification Exam grew strongly in the second quarter of fiscal 2019. This increase was partially offset by the decrease in revenue from Elementary APQE courses. Books and reference materials. Net revenue from books and reference materials increased by 288.3% to $5.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $1.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018, mainly due to book sale revenue from the Legal Professional Qualification Examination contributed by Beijing Ruida. Book sale revenue from our core accounting professional exams also contributed to the growth. Others. Net revenue from other sources increased by 10.5% to $5.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $5.0 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018, primarily due to a significant increase in revenue from the sale of learning simulation software. This increase was partially offset by the decrease in revenue from the "Tax School Program" which we disposed in the first quarter of fiscal 2019. Cost of Sales. Cost of sales increased by 24.6% to $23.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $18.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Non-GAAP[1] cost of sales increased by 24.8% to $23.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $18.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. The increase was mainly due to the increase in cost of purchase related to the sale of learning simulation software, cost of books and reference materials, and expenses associated with Beijing Ruida, including amortization expenses of intangibles arising from its acquisition of $1.7 million. This increase was partially offset by the decrease in salaries and related expenses. Gross Profit and Gross Margin. Gross profit was $15.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, up 39.9% from $11.1 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] gross profit was $15.5 million, increasing by 39.6% from $11.1 million in the prior year period. Gross margin was 39.9% in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, compared with 37.2% in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Non-GAAP[1] gross margin was 39.9% in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, compared with 37.3% in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Operating Expenses. Total operating expenses increased by 44.5% to $20.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, from $14.1 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] total operating expenses increased by 46.4% to $19.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, from $13.6 million in the prior year period. Selling expenses. Selling expenses increased by 65.5% to $13.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $8.3 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] selling expenses increased by 65.9% to $13.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $8.3 million in the prior year period. The increase was primarily driven by the increase in salaries and related expenses, higher commissions to agents, higher advertising and promotional expenses, expenses associated with Beijing Ruida, and other miscellaneous selling expenses. General and administrative expenses. General and administrative expenses increased by 14.1% to $6.6 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $5.8 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] general and administrative expenses increased by 15.5% to $6.1 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $5.3 million in the prior year period. The increase was mainly due to the increase in salaries and related expenses, and expenses associated with Beijing Ruida. Income Tax Benefit. Income tax benefit decreased by 6.7% to $1.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $1.4 million in the prior year period, primarily due to a lower estimated effective tax rate applied in fiscal year 2019, compared with the prior year period. Net Loss. As a result of the foregoing, net loss was $3.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, compared with net loss of $3.3 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] net loss was $3.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, compared with non-GAAP[1] net loss of $2.7 million in the prior year period. Operating Cash Flow. Net operating cash inflow increased by 128.8% to $16.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019 from $7.2 million in the prior year period. The operating cash inflow was mainly attributable to the increase in deferred revenue generated from our professional education services segment. The operating cash inflow was partially offset by the increase in accounts receivable, prepayments and other current assets, and the decrease in accrued expenses and other liabilities, income tax payable, deferred tax liabilities, and amount due to a related party. Cash and Cash Equivalents, Restricted Cash and Short-term Investments. Cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments as of March 31, 2019 increased by 17.7% to $130.1 million from $110.5 million as of December 31, 2018, mainly due to the operating cash inflow generated in the second quarter of fiscal 2019, which was partially offset by the capital expenditure of $1.7 million. First Six Months of Fiscal 2019 Financial Results Net Revenue. Total net revenue increased by 24.0% to $81.4 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $65.6 million in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Net revenue from online education services, books and reference materials, and other sources contributed 65.0%, 14.5% and 20.5%, respectively, of total net revenues for the first six months of fiscal 2019. Online education services. Net revenue from online education services increased by 15.5% to $52.9 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $45.8 million in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Books and reference materials. Net revenue from books and reference materials increased by 213.3% to $11.8 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $3.8 million in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Others. Net revenue from other sources increased by 3.9% to $16.7 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $16.0 million in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Cost of Sales. Cost of sales increased by 31.9% to $48.9 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $37.1 million in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Non-GAAP[1] cost of sales increased by 32.1% to $48.9 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $37.0 million in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Gross Profit and Gross Margin. Gross profit was $32.5 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019, up 13.8% from $28.6 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] gross profit was $32.5 million, increasing by 13.6% from $28.6 million in the prior year period. Gross margin was 39.9% in the first six months of fiscal 2019, compared with 43.5% in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Non-GAAP[1] gross margin was 40.0% in the first six months of fiscal 2019, compared with 43.6% in the first six months of fiscal 2018. Operating Expenses. Total operating expenses increased by 45.9% to $41.2 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $28.2 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] total operating expenses increased by 47.6% to $40.2 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $27.2 million in the prior year period. Selling expenses. Selling expenses increased by 62.0% to $28.3 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $17.5 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] selling expenses increased by 62.3% to $28.3 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $17.4 million in the prior year period. General and administrative expenses. General and administrative expenses increased by 19.9% to $12.9 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $10.8 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] general and administrative expenses increased by 21.5% to $11.9 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $9.8 million in the prior year period. Gain on Deconsolidation of a Subsidiary. Gain on deconsolidation of a subsidiary of $6.9 million related to the gain on disposal of 60% equity interest, and fair value change of remaining 40% equity interest, in Champion Tax Advisory or "Tax School Program." Income Tax Benefit. Income tax benefit decreased by 49.6% to $0.4 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $0.8 million in the prior year period. Net Loss. As a result of the foregoing, net loss was $2.0 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019, compared with $3.2 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP[1] net loss was $1.0 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019, compared with non-GAAP[1] net loss of $2.1 million in the prior year period. Operating Cash Flow. Net operating cash inflow increased by 91.0% to $41.3 million in the first six months of fiscal 2019 from $21.6 million in the prior year period. Outlook For the third quarter of fiscal 2019, the Company expects to generate total net revenue in the range of $61.6 million to $64.0 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 30% to 35%. For fiscal year 2019, the Company expects to generate total net revenues in the range of $210.0 million to $218.3 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 26% to 31%. The Company's prior fiscal 2019 full-year total net revenue guidance range was $208.3 million to $216.7 million. The above guidance reflects the Company's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change. Conference Call Management will hold a conference call at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, May 16, 2019 (8:00 p.m. Beijing Time on Thursday, May 16, 2019) to discuss financial results and answer questions from investors and analysts. Listeners may access the call by dialing: US Toll Free: +1-866-519-4004 International: +65-6713-5090 Mainland China: 400-620-8038 Hong Kong: +852-3018-6771 United Kingdom: +44-203-6214-779 Passcode: CDEL or DL A telephone replay will be available two hours after the call until May 23, 2019 by dialing: US Toll Free: +1-855-452-5696 International: +61-2-8199-0299 Mainland China: 400-632-2162 Hong Kong: 800-963-117 United Kingdom: 0808-234-0072 Replay Passcode: 2589101 Additionally, a live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available at http://ir.cdeledu.com. About China Distance Education Holdings Limited China Distance Education Holdings Limited is a leading provider of online education and value-added services for professionals and corporate clients in China. The courses offered by the Company through its websites are designed to help professionals seeking to obtain and maintain professional licenses and to enhance their job skills through our professional development courses in China in the areas of accounting, healthcare, engineering & construction, legal and other industries. The Company also offers online test preparation courses for self-taught learners pursuing higher education diplomas or degrees, practical accounting training courses for college students and working professionals, as well as third-party developed online courses. In addition, the Company provides business services to corporate clients, including but not limited to tax advisory and accounting outsourcing services. For further information, please visit http://ir.cdeledu.com. Safe Harbor Statement This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "may," "should," "potential," "continue," "expect," "predict," "anticipate," "future," "intend," "plan," "believe," "is/are likely to," "estimate" and similar statements. Among other things, the outlook for the third quarter and full fiscal year 2019 and quotations from management in this announcement, as well as the Company's strategic and operational plans (in particular, the anticipated benefits of strategic growth initiatives, including the promotion of the Company's lifelong learning ecosystem, as well as cost control and year-over-year improvement of operating margins) contain forward-looking statements. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic and annual reports to the SEC, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: our goals and growth strategies; future prospects and market acceptance of our courses and other products and services; our future business development and results of operations; projected revenues, profits, earnings and other estimated financial information; projected enrollment numbers; our plans to expand and enhance our courses and other products and services; competition in the education and test preparation markets; and Chinese laws, regulations and policies, including those applicable to the Internet, Internet content providers, the education and telecommunications industries, mergers and acquisitions, taxation and foreign exchange. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the Company's annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed or furnished with the SEC. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. Statement Regarding Unaudited Financial Information The unaudited financial information set forth in this press release is preliminary and subject to adjustments. Adjustments to the financial statements may be identified when audit work is performed for the year-end audit, which could result in significant differences from this preliminary unaudited financial information. Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures To supplement the Company's consolidated financial results presented in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, the Company uses the following measures defined as non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP net income, operating income, gross profit, cost of sales, selling expenses, general and administrative expenses, net income margin, operating margin, gross profit margin, and basic and diluted earnings per ADS and per share. The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned "Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures" set forth at the end of this release. The Company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding its performance by excluding share-based compensation expenses. However, non-GAAP financial measures may not be indicative of the Company's operating performance from a cash perspective. The Company believes that both management and investors benefit from these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing its performance and when planning and forecasting future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management's internal comparisons to the Company's historical performance and liquidity. The Company computes its non-GAAP financial measures using the same consistent method from quarter to quarter. The Company believes these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors in allowing for greater transparency with respect to supplemental information used by management in its financial and operational decision making. A limitation of excluding share-based compensation expenses from the above-mentioned line items and presenting these non-GAAP measures is that such items may continue to be for the foreseeable future a significant recurring expense in our business. Management compensates for this limitation by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from each non-GAAP measure. The accompanying table at the end of this release provides more detail on the reconciliations between GAAP financial measures that are most directly comparable to non-GAAP financial measures. Contacts: China Distance Education Holdings Limited Investor Relations Department Tel: +86-10-8231-9999 ext. 1826 Email: [email protected] The Piacente Group | Investor Relations Brandi Piacente Tel: +1 212-481-2050 Email: [email protected] [1] For more information about the non-GAAP financial measures contained in this press release, please see "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" below. (Financial Tables on Following Pages) China Distance Education Holdings Limited Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (in thousands of US Dollars, except number of shares and per share data) September 30, 2018 March 31, 2019 Assets: Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents 30,826 62,708 Restricted cash 51,736 48,090 Short term investments 17,073 19,270 Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of US$1,513 and US$1,342 as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018,respectively 7,280 6,475 Inventories 2,782 4,339 Prepayment and other current assets 17,054 23,617 Deferred cost 1,125 1,455 Total current assets 127,876 165,954 Non-current assets: Property, plant and equipment, net 27,972 40,368 Goodwill 79,516 81,287 Long term investments 33,837 37,537 Other intangible assets, net 39,500 36,519 Deposit for purchase of non-current assets 8,126 3,007 Deferred tax assets 5,711 4,912 Other non-current assets 6,387 10,979 Total non-current assets 201,049 214,609 Total assets 328,925 380,563 Liabilities and equity: Current liabilities: Bank borrowings 50,975 51,843 Accrued expenses and other liabilities (including accrued expenses and other liabilities of the consolidated VIE without recourse to China Distance Education Holdings Limited of US$30,378 and US$34,993 as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018,respectively) 42,141 36,152 Amount due to a related party - 798 Income tax payable (including income tax payable of the consolidated VIE without recourse to China Distance Education Holdings Limited of US$5,425 and US$$4,847 as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018, respectively) 9,293 6,069 Deferred revenue - current portion (including deferred revenue of the consolidated VIE without recourse to China Distance Education Holdings Limited of US$102,131 and US$77,299 as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018, respectively) 78,194 103,022 Refundable fees - current portion (including refundable fees of the consolidated VIE without recourse to China Distance Education Holdings Limited of US$1,036 and US$13,837 as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018, respectively) 13,837 1,036 Total current liabilities 194,440 198,920 Non-current liabilities: Deferred revenue - non-current portion (including deferred revenue of the consolidated VIE without recourse to China Distance Education Holdings Limited of US$34,624 and nil as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018, respectively) - 34,624 Refundable fees - non-current portion (including refundable fees of the consolidated VIE without recourse to China Distance Education Holdings Limited of US$2,249 and nil as of March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018, respectively) - 2,249 Deferred tax liabilities 12,693 12,062 Long-term bank borrowing 12,027 6,348 Total non-current liabilities 24,720 55,283 Total liabilities 219,160 254,203 Equity: Ordinary shares (par value of US$0.0001 per share; 500,000,000 shares authorized; 134,230,689 and 133,275,521 shares issued and outstanding at March 31, 2019 and September 30, 2018, respectively) 13 13 Additional paid-in capital 21,557 22,591 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (7,013) (619) Retained Earnings 29,717 37,452 Total China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholder's equity 44,274 59,437 Noncontrolling interest 65,491 66,923 Total equity 109,765 126,360 Total liabilities and equity 328,925 380,563 China Distance Education Holdings Limited Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statements Of Operations (in thousands of US dollars, except number of shares, per share and per ADS data) Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 Sales, net of business tax, value-added tax and related surcharges: Online education services 23,396 27,878 Books and reference materials 1,391 5,401 Others 4,961 5,482 - Sale of learning simulation software 739 1,962 - Business start-up training services 642 692 - Others 3,580 2,828 Total net revenues 29,748 38,761 Cost of sales Cost of services and others (17,550) (19,453) Cost of tangible goods sold (1,130) (3,826) Total cost of sales (18,680) (23,279) Gross profit 11,068 15,482 Operating expenses Selling expenses (8,341) (13,801) General and administrative expenses (5,766) (6,581) Total operating expenses (14,107) (20,382) Other operating income 128 842 Operating loss (2,911) (4,058) Interest income 667 524 Interest expense (869) (796) Exchange loss (3,109) (2,177) Loss before income taxes (6,222) (6,507) Income tax benefit 1,431 1,335 Loss from equity method investment (16) (642) Net loss (4,807) (5,814) Net loss attributable to noncontrolling interest 1,542 1,939 Net loss attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited (3,265) (3,875) Net loss per share: Net loss attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders Basic (0.025) (0.029) Diluted (0.025) (0.029) Net loss per ADS: Net loss attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders Basic (0.098) (0.116) Diluted (0.098) (0.116) Weighted average shares used in calculating net loss per share: Basic 132,411,344 133,009,706 Diluted 132,411,344 133,009,706 China Distance Education Holdings Limited Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statements Of Operations (in thousands of US dollars, except number of shares, per share and per ADS data) Six Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 Sales, net of business tax, value-added tax and related surcharges: Online education services 45,829 52,921 Books and reference materials 3,768 11,806 Others 16,029 16,657 - Sale of learning simulation software 6,899 6,965 - Business start-up training services 2,048 1,372 - Others 7,082 8,320 Total net revenues 65,626 81,384 Cost of sales Cost of services and others (33,888) (41,626) Cost of tangible goods sold (3,172) (7,262) Total cost of sales (37,060) (48,888) Gross profit 28,566 32,496 Operating expenses Selling expenses (17,463) (28,285) General and administrative expenses (10,762) (12,907) Total operating expenses (28,225) (41,192) Other operating income 1,857 2,465 Operating income/(loss) 2,198 (6,231) Interest income 1,123 1,188 Interest expense (1,616) (1,590) Gain from deconsolidation of a subsidiary - 6,869 Exchange loss (5,008) (2,101) Loss before income taxes (3,303) (1,865) Income tax benefit 760 383 Loss from equity method investment (45) (363) Net loss (2,588) (1,845) Net income attributable to noncontrolling interest (583) (117) Net loss attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited (3,171) (1,962) Net loss per share: Net loss attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders Basic (0.024) (0.015) Diluted (0.024) (0.015) Net loss per ADS: Net loss attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders Basic (0.096) (0.059) Diluted (0.096) (0.059) Weighted average shares used in calculating net loss per share: Basic 132,035,108 132,901,311 Diluted 132,035,108 132,901,311 China Distance Education Holdings Limited Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures (In thousands of US Dollars, except number of shares, per share and per ADS data) Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 (Unaudited) (Unaudited) Cost of sales 18,680 23,279 Share-based compensation expense in cost of sales 26 - Non-GAAP cost of sales 18,654 23,279 Selling expenses 8,341 13,801 Share-based compensation expense in selling expenses 20 - Non-GAAP selling expenses 8,321 13,801 General and administrative expenses 5,766 6,581 Share-based compensation expense in general and administrative expenses 508 506 Non-GAAP general and administrative expenses 5,258 6,075 Gross profit 11,068 15,482 Share-based compensation expenses 26 - Non-GAAP gross profit 11,094 15,482 Gross profit margin 37.2% 39.9% Non-GAAP gross profit margin 37.3% 39.9% Operating loss (2,911) (4,058) Share-based compensation expenses 554 506 Non-GAAP operating loss (2,357) (3,552) Operating margin (9.8%) (10.5%) Non-GAAP operating margin (7.9%) (9.2%) Net loss (3,265) (3,875) Share-based compensation expense 554 506 Non-GAAP net loss (2,711) (3,369) Net loss margin (11.0%) (10.0%) Non-GAAP net loss margin (9.1%) (8.7%) Net loss per share -- basic (0.025) (0.029) Net loss per share -- diluted (0.025) (0.029) Non-GAAP net loss per share -- basic (0.020) (0.025) Non-GAAP net loss per share -- diluted (0.020) (0.025) Net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- basic (note 1) (0.098) (0.116) Net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- diluted (note 1) (0.098) (0.116) Non-GAAP net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- basic (note 1) (0.082) (0.101) Non-GAAP net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- diluted (note 1) (0.082) (0.101) Weighted average shares used in calculating basic net loss per share 132,411,344 133,009,706 Weighted average shares used in calculating diluted net loss per share 132,411,344 133,009,706 Weighted average shares used in calculating basic non-GAAP net loss per share 132,411,344 133,009,706 Weighted average shares used in calculating diluted non-GAAP net loss per share 132,411,344 133,009,706 China Distance Education Holdings Limited Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures (In thousands of US Dollars, except number of shares, per share and per ADS data) Six Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 (Unaudited) (Unaudited) Cost of sales 37,060 48,888 Share-based compensation expense in cost of sales 71 23 Non-GAAP cost of sales 36,989 48,865 Selling expenses 17,463 28,285 Share-based compensation expense in selling expenses 40 10 Non-GAAP selling expenses 17,423 28,275 General and administrative expenses 10,762 12,907 Share-based compensation expense in general and administrative expenses 945 979 Non-GAAP general and administrative expenses 9,817 11,928 Gross profit 28,566 32,496 Share-based compensation expenses 71 23 Non-GAAP gross profit 28,637 32,519 Gross profit margin 43.5% 39.9% Non-GAAP gross profit margin 43.6% 40.0% Operating income/(loss) 2,198 (6,231) Share-based compensation expenses 1,056 1,012 Non-GAAP operating income/(loss) 3,254 (5,219) Operating margin 3.3% (7.7%) Non-GAAP operating margin 5.0% (6.4%) Net loss (3,171) (1,962) Share-based compensation expense 1,056 1,012 Non-GAAP net loss (2,115) (950) Net loss margin (4.8%) (2.4%) Non-GAAP net loss margin (3.2%) (1.2%) Net loss per share -- basic (0.024) (0.015) Net loss per share -- diluted (0.024) (0.015) Non-GAAP net loss per share -- basic (0.016) (0.007) Non-GAAP net loss per share -- diluted (0.016) (0.007) Net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- basic (note 1) (0.096) (0.059) Net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- diluted (note 1) (0.096) (0.059) Non-GAAP net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- basic (note 1) (0.064) (0.029) Non-GAAP net loss per ADS attributable to China Distance Education Holdings Limited shareholders -- diluted (note 1) (0.064) (0.029) Weighted average shares used in calculating basic net loss per share 132,035,108 132,901,311 Weighted average shares used in calculating diluted net loss per share 132,035,108 132,901,311 Weighted average shares used in calculating basic non-GAAP net loss per share 132,035,108 132,901,311 Weighted average shares used in calculating diluted non-GAAP net loss per share 132,035,108 132,901,311 Note 1: Each ADS represents four ordinary shares. SOURCE China Distance Education Holdings Ltd. HAIKOU, China, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- China Pharma Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: CPHI) ("China Pharma," the "Company" or "We"), an NYSE American-listed corporation with a fully-integrated specialty pharmaceuticals subsidiary based in China, today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019. First Quarter Highlights Revenue decreased 19.0% to $2.9 million in the first quarter 2019 from $3.6 million in the same period of 2018; in the first quarter 2019 from in the same period of 2018; Gross margin was 22.4% in the first quarter 2019, compared to 29.1% in the same period of 2018; Loss from operations was $0.3 million in the first quarter 2019 compared to $0.1 million in the same period of 2018, a deterioration of $0.2 million ; in the first quarter 2019 compared to in the same period of 2018, a deterioration of ; Net loss was $0.4 million in the first quarter 2019 compared to $0.3 million in the same period of 2018. Loss per common share was both $0.01 per basic and diluted share in the first quarter 2019 and 2018, respectively. In a statement from Ms. Zhilin Li, China Pharma's Chairman and CEO, "We experienced certain market fluctuations in the first quarter of 2019, which has negatively impacted our revenue in this period. Management will continue to vigorously promote sales through active participation in recent provincial market openings to solicit new drug tender offers and allow China Pharma to expand its presence in these markets." Ms. Li continued, "In addition, we continued experiencing sustained pressure from the more stringent requirements of drug registration standards, consistency evaluations, and the challenging environment in our industry in this period. We will continue to actively adapt to state policy guidance and further evaluate market conditions for our current existing products, pipeline products, and competition in the market, in order to optimize our development strategy." First Quarter Results Revenue decreased by 19.0% to $2.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019, as compared to $3.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2018. This decrease was mainly due to market fluctuations. Gross profit for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was $0.7 million, as compared to $1.1 million during the same period in 2018. Our gross profit margin in the three months ended March 31, 2019 was 22.4% as compared to 29.1% during the same period in 2018. The decrease in our gross profit margin was mainly due to the decrease in revenue and the increased ratio of fixed cost to revenue. Our selling expenses for the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018 were $0.5 million and $0.7 million, respectively. Selling expenses accounted for 16.3% of the total revenue in the three months ended March 31, 2019, as compared to 18.8% during the same period in 2018. Because of adjustments in our sales practices, due to healthcare reform policies, we had reduced number of personnel and expenses to efficiently support our sales and the collection of accounts receivable. Our general and administrative expenses for the three months ended March 31, 2019 were $0.4 million, which represented a decrease of $0.1 million, as compared to $0.5 million for the same period in 2018. General and administrative expenses accounted for 14.6% and 13.6% of our total revenues in the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Net loss for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was $0.4 million, as compared to $0.3 million for the same period a year ago. The increase in net loss was mainly the result of decreased revenue, whereas the expenditures did not decrease in proportion to revenue, which was due to fixed costs. For the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, loss per basic and diluted common share was both $0.01. Financial Condition As of March 31, 2019, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $1.0 million compared to $1.2 million as of December 31, 2018. As of March 31, 2019, our net accounts receivable was $0.8 million, compared to $0.9 million as of December 31, 2018. For the three months ended March 31, 2019, cash flow from operating activities was $0.1 million, as compared to $0.5 million for the same period in 2018. Conference Call The Company will hold a conference call at 8:30 am E.T. on May 15, 2019 to discuss the results of the first quarter 2019. Listeners may access the call by dialing 1-866-519-4004 or 65-671-350-90 for international callers, Conference ID # 2397008. A replay of the call will be accessible through May 23, 2019 by dialing 1-855-452-5696 or 61-281-990-299 for international callers, Conference ID # 2397008. About China Pharma Holdings, Inc. China Pharma Holdings, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets a diversified portfolio of products, focused on conditions with high incidence and high mortality rates in China, including cardiovascular, CNS, infectious, and digestive diseases. The Company's cost-effective, high-margin business model is driven by market demand and supported by new GMP-certified product lines covering the major dosage forms. In addition, the Company has a broad and expanding nationwide distribution network across all major cities and provinces in China. The Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Hainan Helpson Medical & Biotechnology Co., Ltd., is located in Haikou City, Hainan Province. For more information about China Pharma Holdings, Inc., please visit www.chinapharmaholdings.com. The Company routinely posts important information on its website. Safe Harbor Statement Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements set forth above that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties may include, but are not limited to: the achievability of financial guidance; success of new product development; unanticipated changes in product demand; increased competition; downturns in the Chinese economy; uncompetitive levels of research and development; and other information detailed from time to time in the Company's filings and future filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements made herein speak only as of the date of this press release and the Company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the Company's expectations, except as required by applicable law or regulation. - FINANCIAL TABLES FOLLOW - CHINA PHARMA HOLDINGS, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited) March 31, December 31, 2019 2018 ASSETS Current Assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 961,277 $ 1,186,587 Restricted cash 976,622 1,273,940 Banker's acceptances 51,424 20,579 Trade accounts receivable, less allowance for doubtful accounts of $18,295,892 and $17,815,075, respectively 845,401 916,931 Other receivables, less allowance for doubtful accounts of $7,187 and $34,884, respectively 225,010 170,098 Advances to suppliers 108,454 47 Inventory 4,934,248 5,054,975 Prepaid expenses 118,701 123,759 Total Current Assets 8,221,137 8,746,916 Advances for purchases of intangible assets 17,490,101 17,069,587 Property and equipment, net 19,067,032 19,294,379 Operating lease right of use asset 212,587 - Intangible assets, net 250,266 266,443 TOTAL ASSETS $ 45,241,123 $ 45,377,325 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current Liabilities: Trade accounts payable $ 1,093,182 $ 1,060,934 Accrued expenses 117,241 310,804 Other payables 2,838,847 3,065,508 Advances from customers 526,247 525,647 Other payables - related parties 1,518,756 1,633,263 Operating lease liability, current portion 91,597 - Current portion of construction loan facility 2,086,092 2,181,360 Bankers' acceptance notes payable 976,622 1,273,940 Total Current Liabilities 9,248,584 10,051,456 Non-current Liabilities: Construction loan facility 4,470,197 4,362,720 Operating lease liability, net of current portion 122,229 - Deferred tax liability 783,204 764,374 Total Liabilities 14,624,214 15,178,550 Commitments and Contingencies (Note 13) Stockholders' Equity: Preferred stock, $0.001 par value; 5,000,000 shares authorized; no shares issued or outstanding - - Common stock, $0.001 par value; 95,000,000 shares authorized; 43,579,557 shares and 43,579,557 shares outstanding, respectively 43,580 43,580 Additional paid-in capital 23,590,204 23,590,204 Accumulated deficit (5,688,089) (5,270,358) Accumulated other comprehensive income 12,671,214 11,835,349 Total Stockholders' Equity 30,616,909 30,198,775 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY $ 45,241,123 $ 45,377,325 CHINA PHARMA HOLDINGS, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS AND COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS) (Unaudited) For the Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Revenue $ 2,929,273 $ 3,615,684 Cost of revenue 2,272,743 2,561,984 Gross profit 656,530 1,053,700 Operating expenses: Selling expenses 478,691 678,330 General and administrative expenses 428,817 492,010 Research and development expenses 69,918 22,213 Bad debt expense 13,312 1,834 Total operating expenses 990,738 1,194,387 Loss from operations (334,208) (140,687) Other income (expense): Interest income 3,257 2,294 Interest expense (86,780) (129,102) Net other expense (83,523) (126,808) Loss before income taxes (417,731) (267,495) Income tax expense - (25,985) Net loss (417,731) (293,480) Other comprehensive income - foreign currency translation adjustment 835,865 1,674,076 Comprehensive income (loss) $ 418,134 $ 1,380,596 Loss per share: Basic and diluted $ (0.01) $ (0.01) Weighted average shares outstanding 43,579,557 43,579,557 CHINA PHARMA HOLDINGS, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited) For the Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Cash Flows from Operating Activities: Net loss $ (417,731) $ (293,480) Depreciation and amortization 795,483 861,430 Bad debt expense 13,312 1,834 Deferred income taxes - 25,985 Non cash lease expense 1,233 - Changes in assets and liabilities: Trade accounts and other receivables (145,935) (266,479) Advances to suppliers (107,839) (237,165) Inventory 389,589 427,741 Trade accounts payable 6,079 196,434 Accrued taxes payable (51,879) (163,335) Other payables and accrued expenses (387,569) (52,823) Advances from customers (12,285) 20,709 Prepaid expenses 8,065 2,888 Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities 90,523 523,739 Cash Flows from Investing Activities: Purchases of property and equipment (73,866) (3,627) Net Cash Used in Investing Activities (73,866) (3,627) Cash Flows from Financing Activities: Payments of construction term loan (148,227) (157,316) Payments of related party payables (119,561) - Net Cash Used in Financing Activities (267,788) (157,316) Effect of Exchange Rate Changes on Cash 25,821 75,025 Net (Decrease) Increase in Cash and Cash Equivalents (225,310) 437,821 Cash and Cash Equivalents at Beginning of Period 1,186,587 2,030,214 Cash and Cash Equivalents at End of Period $ 961,277 $ 2,468,035 Supplemental Cash Flow Information: Cash paid for income taxes $ - $ - Cash paid for interest $ 80,693 $ 125,716 Supplemental Noncash Investing and Financing Activities: Issuance of banker's acceptances $ 55,603 $ 443,748 Accounts receivable collected with banker's acceptances 175,793 133,053 Inventory purchased with banker's acceptances 145,614 148,924 Right-of-use assets obtained in exchange for operating lease obligations 236,055 - SOURCE China Pharma Holdings, Inc. Related Links http://www.chinapharmaholdings.com ARLINGTON, VA, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Representing the U.S. fragrance industry, Farah K. Ahmed, President & CEO of Fragrance Creators Association, testified today before the United States Trade Representative (USTR), urging the Administration not to apply any tariff or trade restrictions on essential oils and concentrates of essential oils classified in HTS heading 3301. While supporting the Administrations goal of promoting U.S. manufacturing, Fragrance Creators asserts that the tariffs will negatively impact American businesses and consumers while providing no additional benefit to the U.S. economy. Essential oils and concentrates of essential oils deliver wellness benefits for millions of Americans. The fragrance industrys use of these ingredients promotes biodiversity and enhances the lives of farmers in the U.S. and around the world. "Levying tariff and trade restrictions on essential oils, particularly those that are sourced from plants that cannot be grown in the U.S., would in no way advance our economy, said Ahmed. "In fact, restrictions on these products will lead to higher costs for U.S. producers (many of which are small businesses), retailers, and every person in every community in the nationall without any accompanying benefit to U.S. industry... In addition, hundreds of thousands of American jobs are dependent on scented products, which require these essential oil inputs, and could be jeopardized." Fragrance Creators is committed to proactively engaging with USTR to demonstrate that tariff-related cost increases compromise the competitiveness of American manufacturers, threaten downstream retail jobs and businesses, and undercut the Administrations stated goals by putting U.S. manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage against other global manufacturers. Ahmeds testimony coincided with Fragrance Creators federal fly-in, also held today, Wednesday, May 15th, where members of the association spoke with legislators and their staff on key issues of importance to the industry, including cosmetics reform, implementation of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, as well as the impact of Chinese and E.U. tariffs and trade policy on fragrance businesses. ### Fragrance Creators Association is the principal trade association representing the fragrance industry. The organizations member companies create and manufacture fragrances and scents for home care, personal care, home design, fine fragrance, and industrial and institutional products. Fragrance Creators also represents companies that market finished products containing fragrance as well as those that supply fragrance ingredients, including natural extracts and other raw materials that are used in perfumery and fragrance mixtures. Fragrance Creators produces Fragrance Notes, the publication of record for the fragrance industry, available in print and online at fragrancenotes.org. Learn more about Fragrance Creators at fragrancecreators.org. WELLINGTON, Fla., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Spearhead, a premier wealth management and administration solutions provider to ultra-high net worth investors, family offices, and private placement markets, is pleased to announce that in May 2019 Chris Fineburg joined Spearhead's team as Managing Director, Strategic Relationships. "Spearhead's continued growth has allowed us to attract top talent, such as Chris, in the Wealth Management space. We believe that Chris's deep relationships and knowledge will prove to be a vital asset to Spearhead's clients," remarked Todd Walters, Managing Member & Co-Founder. He further commented, "We are very fortunate to work with Chris, as he has a unique skill set that will help to further-advance the interests of our clients, not only in our core services, but also in new directions through strategic partnerships and new offerings." Jarrett Bostwick, General Counsel & Co-Founder, commented "Chris' client-first approach to Wealth Management aligns with Spearhead's deeply-held core values. We are fortunate that Chris is joining, not only for his knowledge and skills, but also because we believe he is a man of integrity who will always look first to the best interests of Spearhead's clients and industry partners both current and future." Prior to joining Spearhead, Mr. Fineburg was employed by Greycourt & Co. for twelve years, serving as an advisor on $1.4 billion of discretionary and non-discretionary assets in both US and non-US domiciles. Mr. Fineburg specialized in working with structurally complex ultra-high net worth families. Mr. Fineburg served as a member of the investment committee as well as on Greycourt's short-medium term tactical investment team, identifying absolute and relative value opportunities across the investment spectrum. Prior to joining Greycourt in 2007, Mr. Fineburg was a Principal of Calibrated Asset Management, focused on developing and researching tax efficient, quantitative equity market neutral strategies. Before pursuing his MBA, Chris worked for Delaware Investments as an Assistant Vice President with responsibility for institutional relationships in the Northeast and Midwest as well as managing their retirement plan desk. Chris began his career in Florida working for a family office with expertise in distressed company and portfolio acquisitions in the mortgage space. About Spearhead Spearhead is a privately held financial services firm exclusively focused on providing premier wealth management and administration solutions to ultra-high net worth investors, family offices, and private placement markets. The firm strives to provide long-term value to clients on an after income and estate tax basis by combining balance sheet risk management techniques with investment strategies. Spearhead has offices in Florida and Massachusetts. All Securities are offered through Spearhead Capital, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory Services are offered through Spearhead Capital Advisors, LLC. Consulting and Administration services are offered through Spearhead Innovative Solutions, LLC and its subsidiaries. CONTACT: David Reynolds, (561) 801-7302, [email protected] SOURCE Spearhead FELTON, California, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global coffee machine market is expected to witness strong growth in the upcoming years. A coffee machine is a one-stop solution for several brewing processes and is preferred in commercial complexes and workplaces as it saves time. Factors driving the market include consistency in terms of brewing results and easy usage. The working class forms one of the most prominent end-user segments, giving the market a significant boost. In recent years, it has been observed that consumption of coffee is directly proportional to the number of working hours. Moreover, it has been noted that the youth prefer coffee over any other hot beverage. However, growing awareness about the side effects of caffeine has driven a significant number of consumers to opt for healthier beverages such as green or herbal tea. This is likely to act as a restraint to coffee consumption, thereby impacting the installation of coffee machines. The coffee machine market is segmented based on type, application, sales channel, and geography. Commonly available types of coffee machines include capsule, steam, drip, and others. By application, the market is bifurcated into commercial and household. Distribution sales and direct sales are the two main sales channel in the market. Get Sample PDF and read more details about the "Coffee Machine Market "Report 2028. By geography, the coffee machine market is divided into North America (Mexico, Canada, and U.S.), Asia Pacific (Australia, India, Korea, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia), Latin America (Chile, Columbia, Argentina, and Brazil), MEA (Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa), and Europe (Spain, Russia, Italy, France, U.K., and Germany). Brazil is the largest producer of coffee across the globe. North America follows suit, led by Mexico. Asia Pacific comes in third, with Vietnam and Indonesia being prominent producers and India being a major exporter. North America is the torchbearer with respect to coffee machines, thanks to significant demand stemming from Silicon Valley. Europe comes second, followed by Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest pace due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, especially in developing economies like India and China. The latest trend catching up is that of smart coffee makers. They are connected through Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth and can be monitored through smartphones. Features such as scheduling options and temperature control, beverage varieties such as strong brew to iced, and integration with voice assistants like Alexa and Google are some of the key benefits of these smart devices. Players contributing to the coffee machine market include Jarden, Morphy Richards, Electrolux, Hamilton Beach, Bosch, Delonghi, Nestle Nespresso, Panasonic, Fashion, Schaerer, and Tsann Kuen. Organic growth strategies have worked in favor of these companies, with innovation being the driving force. For instance, Electrolux's PrecisionBrew Air Heated Model uses Encapsulair and Java-tate technology, the first of its kind, which helps retain the beverage's flavor. Browse research report with TOC on "Global Coffee Machine Market" at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/coffee-machine-market Market Segment: Leading players of Coffee Machine including: Keurig Green Mountain Panasonic Nestle Nespresso Jarden Delonghi Electrolux Melitta Morphy Richards Philips Hamilton Beach Illy Bosch Krups Jura La Cimbali Zojirushi Schaerer Tsann Kuen Fashion Bear Market split by Type, can be divided into: Drip Coffee Machine Steam Coffee Machine Capsule Coffee Machine Other Coffee Machine Market split by Application, can be divided into: Household Commercial Market split by Sales Channel, can be divided into: Direct Sales Distribution Sales Market segment by Region/Country including: North America ( United States , Canada and Mexico ) ( , and ) Europe ( Germany , UK, France , Italy , Russia and Spain etc.) ( , UK, , , and etc.) Asia-Pacific ( China , Japan , Korea, India , Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) ( , , Korea, , and etc.) South America Brazil , Argentina , Colombia and Chile etc.) , , and etc.) Middle East & Africa ( South Africa , Egypt , Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.) Browse reports of similar category available with Million Insights: About Million Insights: Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive. Contact: Ryan Manuel Research Support Specialist, USA Million Insights Phone: +1-408-610-2300 Toll Free: 1-866-831-4085 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.millioninsights.com/ Blog: http://www.millioninsights.blogspot.com/ SOURCE Million Insights COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Incorporated in 1985, Demotech became the first to review and rate independent regional and specialty insurers in 1989. The May 2019 issue of The Demotech Difference celebrates this landmark achievement as a thirty-year anniversary edition. How did Demotech become the first to accomplish this? Anita L. Champ, retired, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, who coordinated Fannie Mae's due diligences on Demotech, recollects that despite being asked multiple times to develop a process for reviewing these carriers, A. M. Best declined to do so. In response to one of her requests, representatives of A. M. Best advised her that it was "impossible" to develop such a review and analysis process. Ms. Champ's recollection is on page 22 of the May 2019 issue. The online version of TDD is here: http://www.demotech.com/pdfs/demotech_difference/flexpaper/2019_Spring/index.html#page=1 In addition to a celebration in print, Demotech appeared on Worldwide Business with kathy ireland. The segment aired as sponsored content on Bloomberg and Fox Business Network. It is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEGPbSnQDHw. Or, you can search YouTube using "Kathy Ireland Demotech." According to Joe Petrelli, President and co-founder, Demotech currently reviews and rates more than 400 insurance companies writing virtually every line of insurance in every state, as well as Puerto Rico and several U.S. possessions. Kathy Ireland summarized Demotech's role accurately when she stated that Demotech "identifies hundreds of financially stable insurance company options that might have otherwise been overlooked." About Demotech, Inc. Demotech, Inc. is a financial analysis firm specializing in evaluating the financial stability of regional and specialty insurers. Since 1985, Demotech has served the insurance industry by assigning accurate, reliable and proven Financial Stability Ratings (FSRs) for Property & Casualty insurers and Title underwriters. FSRs are a leading indicator of financial stability, providing an objective baseline of the future solvency of an insurer. Demotech's philosophy is to review and evaluate insurers based on their area of focus and execution of their business model rather than solely on financial size. Visit www.demotech.com for more information or to attend ILEAD 2019, www.ileadinsurance.com. About Demotech's I LEAD Conference 2019: Facets of Leadership Demotech presents I LEAD Conference on August 18 20, 2019 at the Hilton Columbus at Easton. I LEAD is the premier conference for C-Suite insurance leaders. Demotech's program features exceptional speakers presenting facets of leadership of vital concern to carriers who will lead the industry. The conference, formerly known as the Super Regional P/C Insurer Conference, has sold out for the past two years. Service providers: There is no vendor registration. To attend, you must be a sponsor. For information on sponsorship, call Victoria Dimond, 614/526-2172, or [email protected]. Visit www.ileadinsurance.com for event details. SOURCE Demotech, Inc. Related Links http://www.demotech.com Dhana began the four-month study in June 2018, surveying over 5,000 people across 97 countries, positioning Dhana as the medium between the consumer and the brand within the fashion industry's niche conversation on sustainability. The report discloses a clear need for more transparency as 97% of consumers want more brand transparency. When shopping almost half of consumers want to know about the ethical aspect, 41% want to know the environmental, and the remaining 16% want to know the location of production. In assessing marketing influencers like price, style, brand name, and trends in conjunction with whether consumers perceive value alignment with brands they shop with, Dhana found the consumer's interest in wanting transparency when shopping was relatively the same. Most interesting was the distinction in types of transparency be it price transparency having to do with tracing where money is spent within the supply chain, effects on health when wearing the garment, cultural addressing company ethics and values, and the material ranging from sourcing methods to textile production. Today, the report highlights the needs of conscious consumers who are expecting brands to remedy the environmental and social issues of the fashion industry. Dhana brings this report forward to unfold the various aspects brands can transform, innovate and share in order to hold themselves accountable and appeal to consumers at large. To invite brands to introspectively assess their own values and practices, make changes to benefit the people and planet, and to create informative shopping environments (online or in-person) to allow consumers to make informed shopping decisions reflective of their fundamental values. Amongst individuals, this report is a catalyst to expand the conversation around transparency - to inquire more from brands, exercise their resources to learn more about the production of fashion and to seek out brands that offer transparency. Going forward, the potential for this alignment will launch a new opportunity for conversation to happen whereby with every piece of clothing the consumer will be able to extend their impact in the fashion industry and ability to connect with the worker and environment. "Today Dhana as a brand is committed to making a positive impact on social and environmental causes by launching initiatives to satisfy the needs of the conscious consumer. Responsible for more than profits, we stand with the people and on behalf of our planet because every day we wear something that has the power to connect us with humans and nature," explains Shamini Dhana, founder and CEO, Dhana Inc. "It is my hope that the WearOurValues Report 2019 will bring greater alignment between brand and customer values. We inherently know that what we value, we naturally respect, make time for and protect. So in the same vein, when brands value all the people behind our clothes and the impact the supply chain processes and material have on the environment, then we will see greater transparency in the fashion and apparel industry." To view and download the WearOurValues Report 2019 click here. About Dhana Inc: Dhana Inc. is a sustainable fashion brand for youth, committed to a circular model which is restorative and regenerative for the long term. Created by artists and inspired by nature, Dhana apparel reflects the lifestyle of the trend-setters, socially conscious, and environmentally savvy. Designed for babies, kids, and teenagers, Dhana's clothing is made with organic cotton, recycled textiles, innovative fibers using sustainable and fair trade principles. Dhana was founded in 2008 by Shamini Dhana and is a Certified B Corporation, Fairtrade Certified Brand, and is the only youth brand to receive the CO Leadership Awards 2019 for sustainable business. SOURCE Dhana Inc. Related Links http://www.dhana.com LONDON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Dominica is once again the subject of a report affirming that its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme does not threaten global tax collection or reporting. According to a highly respected member of the United Kingdom's Queen's Counsel, obtaining Dominica's citizenship "does not, in and of itself, afford an individual the status of tax resident." Last week, Balraj Bhatia QC issued a formal legal opinion on the relation between Dominica's Programme and global taxation, following an analysis of Dominica's tax laws and Programme. He also examined two reports issued by leading tax advisory groups Ernst and Young (EY) and Smith and Williamson, both of which found that the country's CBI Programme "does not present a risk" to global tax revenues or to CRS reporting. In completing his review, Bhatia states that "the conclusions of the EY and Smith and Williamson reports are sound." Dominican's Programme Is Not a Gateway for Tax Evasion A misconstruction of Dominica's CBI Programme, and those of other nations, is that economic citizenship automatically provides an individual with tax residency. This has led some intergovernmental organisations, such as the European Commission, to unfairly criticise such programmes for posing a risk to proper taxation, despite the Commission themselves recognising that, "the use of these schemes does not equate to tax evasion." Bhatia clarifies this issue and, in agreement with EY and Smith and Williamson, finds that, in Dominica, "the concepts of citizenship and tax residency are entirely separate and distinct." This is significant because successful applicants under Dominica's CBI Programme "obtain citizenship only" and can therefore not use the Programme to become Dominican tax residents at the expense of the tax revenues of other countries. The reports of EY and Smith and Williamson make similar observations, the latter concluding that, "citizenship by investment does not present a risk to facilitating tax evasion, as citizenship alone is insufficient to secure tax residency." No Risk Posed to CRS Reporting CRS reporting is another area where inaccurate understanding has generated critique of Dominica's Programme. Yet, per Mr Bhatia's opinion, CRS reporting also is in fact, "based on tax residence rather than citizenship," meaning the Programme is not open to abuse by individuals wishing to circumvent CRS. This again directly counters criticism by entities who "erroneously associate CBI with tax residency." CBI Brings Great Benefit to Local Citizens For almost three decades, in return for the "stability, freedom, and a better lifestyle" that come with Dominican citizenship, applicants to the island's CBI Programme have provided "much needed investment" to this small Caribbean nation. Dominica in turn utilises investor funds to the benefit of its citizens, such as building hundreds of climate-resilient homes for residents, developing a geothermal plant to provide clean energy, and creating job opportunities in key sectors including ecotourism and construction. Dominica itself operates strict vetting procedures, including the employment of regional and international due diligence specialists to conduct checks on applicants. To reduce Dominica's CBI Programme "to no more than [an] elaborate tax evasion scheme," says Bhatia, "is unjustified." In light of this, Bhatia concludes that it is unnecessary to deprive individuals of the opportunity to seek Dominican citizenship through CBI or Dominica of vital funds for national development. The full opinion and reports by EY and Smith and Williamson can be accessed here. Contact: [email protected] SOURCE CS Global Partners DALLAS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ashford Inc. (NYSE American: AINC) and Premier Project Management ("Premier" or the "Company") announced today that Donald R. Kelly has been appointed Co-Chief Executive Officer, effective May 15, 2019. Kelly will work alongside Mark Matz, who is being promoted from Co-President and Chief Operating Officer to Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer, to drive growth both within Premier's current business lines and to execute on new growth initiatives. Kelly is an accomplished executive and industry veteran with deep commercial and operational expertise. He joins Premier after having served as the Chief Commercial Officer of Onyx CenterSource, a leading provider of B2B payment processing and recovery solutions for hotels and agencies. Kelly has held several senior leadership roles throughout his career, including with Cvent Inc., a publicly-held software-as-a-service company that specializes in meeting management technology, Hilton Worldwide, Accor/Sofitel Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Destination Hotels and Resorts, and Hyatt Resorts Hawaii. He holds a B.S. in Hotel and Restaurant Management from the University of Houston. "Don is a seasoned executive whose demonstrated industry expertise will help drive Premier's next phase of growth" commented Monty J. Bennett, Ashford's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "His track record of driving revenue improvements and optimizing operations will allow Premier to capitalize on the significant growth opportunities that lie ahead." "I am honored to be joining Premier's management team, working closely with Mark Matz," added Kelly. "Premier is a leader in renovating, converting, developing and repositioning hotels, with best-in-class, turnkey project management services, and I look forward to leading its current growth initiatives as well as identifying and executing on future business opportunities." About Premier Project Management Premier Project Management provides comprehensive and cost-effective design, development, architecture, procurement, and project management services to the hospitality industry. It provides project oversight, coordination, planning, and execution of renovation, capital expenditure or ground-up development projects. Its operations are responsible for managing and implementing substantially all capital improvements at hotels owned by Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE: AHT) and Braemar Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: BHR). Additionally, it has extensive experience working with many of the major hotel brands in the areas of renovating, converting, developing and repositioning hotels. Ashford Inc. owns a 100% interest in Premier, and provides global asset management, investment management and related services to the real estate and hospitality sectors. Follow Chairman and CEO Monty Bennett on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MBennettAshford or @MBennettAshford. Ashford has created an Ashford App for the hospitality REIT investor community. The Ashford App is available for free download at Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store by searching "Ashford." SOURCE Ashford Inc. Related Links http://ashfordinc.com IRVINE, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW), the global leader in patient-focused innovations for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring, today announced that the Every Heartbeat Matters signature charitable initiative is on schedule to meet its goal of impacting the global burden of heart valve disease. The initiative, which involves the education, screening and treatment of 1.5 million underserved people by 2020, is supported by grants from Edwards Lifesciences Foundation, donations of Edwards heart valve technologies, volunteer support and the dedicated work of 60 non-profit partners. "Since the Every Heartbeat Matters initiative began five years ago, we have made substantial progress in building a global community that is addressing the burden of heart valve disease for underserved people," said Amanda Fowler, executive director, Edwards Lifesciences Foundation. "This year, we plan to continue growing our giving focused on Every Heartbeat Matters and deepening our partners' impact with the engagement of our talented and dedicated employees around the world." Originally estimated to reach 1 million underserved people by 2020, the Every Heartbeat Matters community exceeded the goal early, and, in September 2018, raised it to 1.5 million people. By 2020, the company and Edwards Lifesciences Foundation expect to invest approximately $30 million in this initiative. "The Every Heartbeat Matters initiative brings together passionate and innovative people to share bright ideas and create partnerships to solve critical issues facing underserved populations at risk of heart valve disease," said Jose Tomas Perez, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Dominican Republic, Washington, D.C. "In the Dominican Republic, where the burden of heart valve disease is especially high, both the financial and non-financial support of Every Heartbeat Matters helps to care for those suffering from this life-threatening condition." Since Every Heartbeat Matters launched in 2014: 60 non-profit partners joined the initiative The initiative has reached underserved people in more than 40 countries Approximately 1.2 million underserved people have been impacted by public health education More than 24,000 clinicians have received education to elevate care for underserved patients More than 110,000 underserved people have been screened for heart valve disease with approximately 6 percent of the population diagnosed and referred for charitable care Most significantly, almost 7,000 underserved people received life-saving heart valve treatment Request for Proposals Edwards Lifesciences Foundation is accepting requests for funding from non-profit organizations to partner on programs for its Every Heartbeat Matters initiative or those that strengthen the communities in which Edwards' employees live and work. The foundation's 2019 grant cycle is open May 13 to June 28, and grant applications and other information, including a complete listing of all grants issued, are available at edwards.com/corporategiving . Visit the Edwards Lifesciences YouTube channel to learn more about the impact of global giving and the journey of several patients, who were supported by Edwards employees and received transformative care. About Edwards Lifesciences and Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Edwards Lifesciences, based in Irvine, Calif., is the global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, as well as critical care and surgical monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company collaborates with the world's leading clinicians and researchers to address unmet healthcare needs, working to improve patient outcomes and enhance lives. For more information, visit www.edwards.com and follow us on Twitter @EdwardsLifesci. In 2004, the company established what is now Edwards Lifesciences Foundation. The foundation focuses on supporting underserved heart valve and critically ill patients, as well as strengthening the communities in which Edwards employees live and work. Since its inception, the foundation has gifted more than $60 million to non-profit organizations. Additional information can be found at Edwards.com/CorporateGiving. This news release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements by Mr. Perez and Ms. Fowler and expectations regarding the timing and scope of the initiative's impact. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by management of the company and are believed to be reasonable, though they are inherently uncertain and difficult to predict. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of the statement. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements based on a number of factors, including but not limited to, unanticipated delays or changes to the Every Heartbeat Matters initiatives. These and other additional factors are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. These filings, along with important safety information about our products, may be found at www.edwards.com. Edwards, Edwards Lifesciences, the stylized E logo and Every Heartbeat Matters are trademarks of Edwards Lifesciences Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. SOURCE Edwards Lifesciences Corporation Related Links http://www.edwards.com SAO PAULO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- EMBRAER S.A. (NYSE: ERJ; B3: EMBR3) releases its First Quarter 2019 Earnings Results. HIGHLIGHTS Embraer delivered 11 commercial jets and 11 executive jets (8 light / 3 large) in 1Q19; The Company's firm order backlog at the end of 1Q19 was US$ 16 billion considering all deliveries as well as firm orders obtained during the period; considering all deliveries as well as firm orders obtained during the period; EBIT and EBITDA in 1Q19 were US$ (15.2) million and US$ 30.9 million , respectively, yielding EBIT margin of -1.8% and EBITDA margin of 3.8%. This compares to EBIT of US$ (5.3) million (-0.6% EBIT margin) and EBITDA of US$ 57.8 million (6.0% EBITDA margin) in 1Q18; and , respectively, yielding EBIT margin of -1.8% and EBITDA margin of 3.8%. This compares to EBIT of (-0.6% EBIT margin) and EBITDA of (6.0% EBITDA margin) in 1Q18; 1Q19 Net loss attributable to Embraer shareholders and Loss per ADS were US$ (42.5) million and US$ (0.23) , respectively. Adjusted net loss (excluding deferred income tax and social contribution) for 1Q19 was US$ (61.8) million , with Adjusted loss per ADS of US$ (0.34) . Embraer reported adjusted net loss in 1Q18 of US$ (60.5) million , for an adjusted loss per ADS of US$ (0.33) in the quarter; and , respectively. Adjusted net loss (excluding deferred income tax and social contribution) for 1Q19 was , with Adjusted loss per ADS of . Embraer reported adjusted net loss in 1Q18 of , for an adjusted loss per ADS of in the quarter; Embraer reported Free cash flow of US$ (665.3) million in 1Q19, compared to free cash flow of US$ (435.2) million reported in 1Q18. The Company finished the quarter with total cash of US$ 2,483.4 million and total debt of US$ 3,587.1 million , yielding a net debt position of US$ 1,103.7 million versus net debt of US$ 439.9 million at the end of 2018; in 1Q19, compared to free cash flow of reported in 1Q18. The Company finished the quarter with total cash of and total debt of , yielding a net debt position of versus net debt of at the end of 2018; The Company's shareholders approved the proposed strategic partnership between Boeing and Embraer during an Extraordinary General Shareholders' Meeting on February 26, 2019 . At the meeting, 96.8% of all valid votes were in favor of the transaction, with participation of roughly 67% of all outstanding shares; . At the meeting, 96.8% of all valid votes were in favor of the transaction, with participation of roughly 67% of all outstanding shares; The closing of the transaction between Boeing and Embraer remains subject to obtaining regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions, expected by the end of 2019; The Company reaffirms all aspects of its 2019 financial and deliveries guidance. MAIN FINANCIAL INDICATORS in millions of U.S. dollars, except % and earnings per share data IFRS 1Q18 4Q18 1Q19 Revenue 960.3 1,697.6 823.3 EBIT (5.3) 6.6 (15.2) EBIT margin % -0.6% 0.4% -1.8% Adjusted EBIT (5.3) 67.9 (15.2) Adjusted EBIT margin % -0.6% 4.0% -1.8% EBITDA 57.8 72.2 30.9 EBITDA margin % 6.0% 4.3% 3.8% Adjusted EBITDA 57.8 133.5 30.9 Adjusted EBITDA margin % 6.0% 7.9% 3.8% Adjusted net income (Loss) (60.5) 23.2 (61.8) Adjusted earnings (losses) per share - ADS basic (0.3300) 0.1264 (0.3360) Net income (loss) attributable to Embraer Shareholders (37.0) 2.8 (42.5) Earnings (losses) per share - ADS basic (US$) (0.2020) 0.0154 (0.2311) Adjusted free cash flow (435.2) 426.2 (665.3) Net debt (762.7) (439.9) (1,103.7) For additional information, please check the full document on our website ri.embraer.com.br INVESTOR RELATIONS Eduardo Couto, Chris Thornsberry, Caio Pinez, Nadia Santos, Paulo Ferreira and Viviane Pinheiro. (+55 12) 3927 1000 [email protected] CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION Embraer will host a conference call to present its 1Q19 Results on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 10:30 AM (SP) / 9:30 AM (NY). The conference call will also be broadcast live over the web at ri.embraer.com.br Conference ID: EMBRAER Telephones USA / Canada: (Toll-free) +1 (844) 204-8942 / (Dial-in) +1 (412) 717-9627 Telephones U.K.: (Toll-free) 0-808-111-0152 / (Dial-in) +44 20 7442-5660 Telephones Brazil: +55 (11) 3193-1001 / +55 (11) 2820-4001 SOURCE Embraer S.A. Related Links http://ri.embraer.com.br MADRID, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --Working with IBM, Endesa, the largest Spanish energy power company, has transformed its call center into an AI contact center to help deliver quick and personalized customer service. Using IBM (NYSE: IBM) Watson Assistant, Endesa built a virtual assistant to enable clients to get immediate answers to their inquiries, and empowering call center agents to focus on more complex requests and selling products and services. As customers of utilities providers expect quick, personalized and convenient services, the top priority for contact center executives is to improve the customer experience. In this context, early adopters of artificial intelligence (AI) technology report improved customer service as a top outcome as reported in the IBM study "The cognitive advantage global market report". Since the launch of its Watson assistant in July 2018, Endesa's overall client satisfaction has increased 4.5%. As more of its customers use it, the system learns more about their needs and questions that are most frequently asked and will continue to improve the customer experience over time. Through their phones, customers can ask the assistant to handle transactional requests like providing bill duplicates, changing bank account information or paying a bill. Hosted on the IBM Cloud and integrated with Endesa's back-office processes, the assistant is designed to easily scale both in functionality and customer reach. Currently managing 40,000 customer calls per month, it is anticipated to soon handle 90,000 calls monthly and plans to add additional transactions like changing the contracted power, modifying the contract holder and even the supplier. Endesas contact center manages around 10 million calls a year with human agents. Many of these calls are routine requests which can be delegated to a virtual assistant, that is capable of responding appropriately to tone-of-voice, enabling live agents to focus on more complex tasks and selling. "We found that our live agents are asked with the same routine, non-complex questions 40% of their time. Our assistant built on IBM Watson gives customers 24/7 access to resolve these issues and more importantly, it allows our human agents to focus on the questions that require more in-depth problem solving -improving our service to customers significantly," says Endesa Innovation, Technology and Partners Director, Jorge Honorio Dominguez. "As energy companies spur innovation and accelerate digital transformation journeys, there is incredible potential to use AI for these important projects. They need an AI platform that is ready to scale, provides industry-specific capabilities and can quickly and easily be embedded into an organization's business process. With IBM Watson, Endesa is embracing AI to provide a superior experience to their customers," says IBM Global Business Services Utilities Cognitive Leader, Anselmo Trillo. About Endesa https://www.endesa.com/ About IBM Watson & Artificial Intelligence A world leader in AI for business, IBM and its Watson solutions have been deployed in thousands of engagements with clients across 20 industries and 80 countries. Additionally, IBM Research is a world leader in the science of AI. In 2018, IBM secured over 1600 AI-related patents. And, IBM recently revealed its leading- edge Project Debater, created by IBM Research scientists. Media contact: Patricia Nunez Canal IBM Spain External Communications [email protected] Tel.: + 34 91 3977782 SOURCE IBM Related Links http://www.ibm.com BOCA RATON, Fla., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Securities Arbitration Law Firm of Klayman & Toskes, P.A. (K&T), www.nasd-law.com , announced today that it filed a claim against Merrill Lynch on behalf of a former UPS (NYSE:UPS) employee for losses sustained from unsuitable covered call writing strategies for concentrated UPS stock positions. According to the claim, the Claimant worked with UPS for 39 years. He accumulated more than 33,000 shares through the UPS Employee Stock Purchase Program and the Manager Incentive Program. He invested his shares with Merrill Lynch, who recommended a call writing strategy, to earn present income. The strategy was improperly implemented, and it lead to the Claimant losing thousands of his shares. The Claimants specific investment objective was not to lose his shares, which he was assured he would not. More importantly, the Claimant was earning much needed quarterly dividends, which he relies upon in his retirement. The strike prices that the call options were sold at were far too low given market conditions, and the firm failed to buy them back. These recommendations led to the Claimant losing thousands of his shares as well as a significant portion of his much-needed dividend payments. The sole purpose of this release is to investigate the sales practices of Merrill Lynch for FINRA sales practice violations including: unsuitable recommendations , misrepresentation and omissions of material facts , and failure to supervise . Current and former UPS employees who held accounts at Merrill Lynch, and have information relating to the manner in which the firm handled their concentrated, leveraged portfolios, are encouraged to contact the attorneys of Klayman & Toskes, P.A., at (888) 997-9956, or visit our firms website at www.nasd-law.com. About Klayman & Toskes, P.A. K&T is a leading national securities law firm which practices exclusively in the field of securities arbitration and litigation on behalf of retail and institutional investors throughout the world in large and complex securities matters. The firm represents high net-worth, ultra-high net-worth, and institutional investors, such as non-profit organizations, unions, public pension funds, and multi-employer pension funds. K&T has office locations in California, Florida, New York, and Puerto Rico. Destination: http://nasd-law.com/notice-to-ups-employees-with-merrill-lynch-accounts-klayman-toskes-p-a-files-finra-arbitration-claim-for-500000-against-merrill-lynch-on-behalf-of-former-ups-employee-who-sustained-losses-from/ HUNTINGTON, W.Va, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Energy Services of America (the "Company" or "Energy Services") (OTC QB: ESOA), parent company of C.J. Hughes Construction Company ("C.J. Hughes") and Nitro Construction Services, Inc. ("Nitro"), announced the filing of the Company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2019. Energy Services earned revenues of $47.0 million and $96.1 million for the three and six months ended March 31, 2019, respectively. Net loss available to common shareholders was $1.2 million and $648,000 for the three and six months ended March 31, 2019, respectively. The Company had adjusted EBITDA of $(381,000) ($(0.03) per share) and $1.7 million ($0.12 per share) for the three and six months ended March 31, 2019, respectively. The backlog at March 31, 2019 was $48.0 million; however, the backlog does not include $15.0 million in projects awarded subsequent to March 31, 2019. Below is a comparison of the Company's operating results for the three and six months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018: Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Six Months Ended Six Months Ended March 31, March 31, March 31, March 31, 2019 2018 2019 2018 Revenue $ 46,955,444 $ 23,093,033 $ 96,069,583 $ 55,640,636 Cost of revenues 46,364,050 22,036,935 91,643,344 52,609,084 Gross profit 591,394 1,056,098 4,426,239 3,031,552 Selling and administrative expenses 2,012,282 1,956,356 4,768,673 3,965,447 Loss from operations (1,420,888) (900,258) (342,434) (933,895) Other income (expense) Interest income 16,501 61 58,023 132,342 Other nonoperating expense (20,581) (47,023) (53,576) (102,147) Interest expense (209,125) (243,708) (413,474) (539,552) Gain on sale of equipment 111,817 19,670 137,569 388,375 (101,388) (271,000) (271,458) (120,982) Loss before income taxes (1,522,276) (1,171,258) (613,892) (1,054,877) Income tax benefit (397,818) (223,683) (120,818) (255,802) Net loss (1,124,458) (947,575) (493,074) (799,075) Dividends on preferred stock 77,250 77,250 154,500 154,500 Net loss available to common shareholders $ (1,201,708) $ (1,024,825) $ (647,574) $ (953,575) Weighted average shares outstanding-basic 14,060,456 14,239,836 14,102,117 14,239,836 Weighted average shares-diluted 14,060,456 14,239,836 14,102,117 14,239,836 Loss per share available to common shareholders $ (0.085) $ (0.072) $ (0.046) $ (0.067) Loss per share-diluted available to common shareholders $ (0.085) $ (0.072) $ (0.046) $ (0.067) Revenues increased by $40.5 million or 72.7% to $96.1 million for the six months ended March 31, 2019 from $55.6 million for the same period in 2018. The increase was primarily attributable to a $41.9 million revenue increase in petroleum and gas work and a $1.8 million revenue increase in water and sewer projects and other ancillary services, partially offset by a $3.3 million revenue decrease in electrical and mechanical services. Douglas Reynolds, President, commented on the announcement. "The first six months of fiscal year 2019 have been a challenge for Energy Services. We have worked through the winter and early spring on a significant pipeline project in northern West Virginia that has experienced various delays and slowed production. This accounts for the increased revenue compared to fiscal year 2018; however, the delays and weather-related production issues have severely limited the expected profit on this project." Reynolds continued, "While the first six months of fiscal year 2019 have been mostly spent working on projects that were in backlog at September 30, 2018, we have been successful in securing and starting $15.0 million in new projects during the third quarter of fiscal year 2019." Please refer to the table below that reconciles adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA per share with net loss available to common shareholders: Three Months Ended Three Months Ended Six Months Ended Six Months Ended March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 March 31, 2019 March 31, 2018 Unaudited Unaudited Unaudited Unaudited Net loss available to common shareholders $ (1,201,708) $ (1,024,825) $ (647,574) $ (953,575) Add: Income tax benefit (397,818) (223,683) (120,818) (255,802) Add: Dividends on preferred stock 77,250 77,250 154,500 154,500 Add: Interest expense 209,125 243,708 413,474 539,552 Less: Non-operating expense (income) (107,737) 27,292 (142,016) (418,570) Add: Depreciation expense 1,040,222 1,064,658 2,062,589 2,114,346 Adjusted EBITDA $ (380,666) $ 164,400 $ 1,720,155 $ 1,180,451 Common shares outstanding 14,060,456 14,239,836 14,102,117 14,239,836 Adjusted EBITDA per common share $ (0.03) $ 0.01 $ 0.12 $ 0.08 Certain statements contained in the release, including without limitation statements including the words "believes," "anticipates," "intends," "expects" or words of similar import, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements of the Company expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, general economic and business conditions, changes in business strategy or development plans and other factors referenced in this release. Given these uncertainties, prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any obligation to update any such factors or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect future events or developments. SOURCE Energy Services of America Corporation DUBLIN, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Europe School Furniture Market: Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2019-2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Europe school furniture market reached a value of US$ 1.26 Billion in 2018 School furniture represents a catalyst in transforming classrooms from static physical spaces into dynamic learning environments. School furniture should be designed in a way which is not only considered productive for human use but also beneficial for physical and mental health. Good furniture has a positive impact on both the student's health and their classroom development. The development of portable technologies and mobile furniture also allows institutions with a flexible learning space. Moreover, in school environment, ergonomics is important for student's interaction within the classroom. Inadequate school furniture can bring about negative consequences, leading to health issues due to pain and discomfort caused by the traditional furniture. With ergonomic furniture, students have a better posture, are more concentrated during classes and obtain better results. Various other factors such as increased focus on aesthetics, rising focus on environment friendly furniture, rising number of schools, changing teaching methods, rising use of advanced materials, etc. are also expected to have a positive impact on the market. Looking forward, the publisher expects the market to reach a value of US$ 1.74 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of around 6% during the next five years. Key Questions Answered in This Report: How has the Europe school furniture market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years? school furniture market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years? What is the breakup of Europe school furniture market based on the product type? school furniture market based on the product type? What is the breakup of Europe school furniture market based on the material? school furniture market based on the material? What is the breakup of Europe school furniture market based on the distribution channel? school furniture market based on the distribution channel? What is the breakup of Europe school furniture market based on the country? school furniture market based on the country? What are the various stages in the value chain of the Europe school furniture market? school furniture market? What are the key driving factors and challenges in the Europe school furniture market? school furniture market? What is the structure of the Europe school furniture market and who are the key players? school furniture market and who are the key players? What is the degree of competition in the Europe school furniture market? Key Topics Covered: 1 Preface 2 Scope & Methodology 2.1 Objectives of the Study 2.2 Stakeholders 2.3 Data Sources 2.4 Market Estimation 2.5 Forecasting Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Introduction 4.1 Overview 4.2 Key Industry Trends 5 Europe School Furniture Market 5.1 Market Overview 5.2 Market Performance 5.3 Market Breakup by Product 5.4 Market Breakup by Material 5.5 Market Breakup by Distribution Channel 5.6 Market Breakup by Country 5.7 Market Forecast 5.8 SWOT Analysis 5.9 Value Chain Analysis 5.9.1 Overview 5.9.2 Raw Material Procurement 5.9.3 Manufacturing 5.9.4 Marketing 5.9.5 Distribution 5.9.6 End-Use 5.10 Porters Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Breakup by Product 6.1 Desks & Chairs 6.2 Storage 6.3 Lab Equipment 6.4 Others 7 Market Breakup by Material 7.1 Wood 7.2 Metal 7.3 Plastic 7.4 Others 8 Market Breakup by Distribution Channel 8.1 Offline 8.2 Online 9 Market Breakup by Country 10 Europe School Furniture Market: Codes and Standards 11 Competitive Landscape 11.1 Market Structure 11.2 Key Players For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/atz6rb Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com HEMEL HEMPSTED, England and BOSTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- EUSA Pharma (EUSA), a global biopharmaceutical company focused on oncology and rare disease, today announced the strengthening of its senior leadership team with the appointments of Carsten Thiel as President Europe and Darrel P. Cohen as Head of Clinical Development. Both Dr Thiel and Dr Cohen bring extensive senior level pharmaceutical company experience to these newly-created roles, and will lead EUSA's growing commercial infrastructure in Europe and worldwide late-stage clinical development activities respectively. Carsten Thiel PhD brings 27 years' commercial experience to EUSA gained in a variety of international roles in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently he was CEO of US-based gene therapy specialist Abeona Therapeutics Inc. This followed a number of years as Chief Commercial Officer at rare disease leader Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc., where he previously led the company's EMEA, Asia Pacific and Australasia organizations. Prior to this he was the Head of Europe at Amgen, which followed a period leading the company's European oncology franchise. He started his career in the pharmaceutical industry at Hoffmann La-Roche and holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Darrel P. Cohen MD, PhD is a hematologist / oncologist with 20 years' clinical development experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He joins EUSA from Pfizer's global oncology organization where he was Vice President, Clinical Development Leader, having previously led clinical development for multiple successful oncology products, including XALKORI and SUTENT. Prior to this he was a Director of Clinical Research at Sanofi-Aventis Oncology and an Associate Director of Clinical Research at Pharmacia Oncology. He was previously a Hematology / Oncology Fellow, then Associate in Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC having gained his MD and PhD in Microbiology from the Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA. Lee Morley, EUSA Pharma's Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are delighted to welcome Carsten and Darrel to EUSA. Both bring significant experience, vision and proven executional skills to the Company, which will prove invaluable as we continue the rapid expansion in Europe, Emerging Markets and the United States. With the ongoing commercial roll out of FOTIVDA in Europe and QARZIBA and SYLVANT globally, and the ramping up of development activities targeting a number of additional indications for SYLVANT and QARZIBA, we look forward to our new colleagues contributing to EUSA's ongoing success." Carsten Thiel, EUSA Pharma's President Europe, said, "EUSA Pharma has made great progress building a strong oncology and rare disease business in just a few years, and I am honored to lead the expansion of its commercialization activities in Europe. The Company has brought together a compelling portfolio, and I am excited at the prospect of helping EUSA achieve its ambitious plans for these specialist products." Darrel P. Cohen, EUSA Pharma's Head of Clinical Development, said, "As an oncologist I have followed EUSA's rapid development into a fully-fledged oncology and rare disease business, and I welcome this opportunity to contribute to the Company's ongoing success as it expands its clinical development activities. Since acquiring the global rights to SYLVANT at the start of the year the Company has the opportunity to significantly extend its use, in addition to further developing QARZIBA, and I look forward to leading EUSA's drive to make its innovative products available to as many patients as possible." About EUSA Pharma Founded in March 2015, EUSA Pharma is a world-class biopharmaceutical company focused on oncology and rare disease. The company has extensive commercial operations in the United States and Europe, alongside a direct presence in select other markets across the globe. EUSA Pharma is led by an experienced management team with a strong record of building successful pharmaceutical companies, and is supported by significant funding raised from leading life science investor EW Healthcare Partners. For more information please visit www.eusapharma.com. Contacts Lee Morley Chief Executive EUSA Pharma Tel: +44 (0)330-5001140 Rob Budge RJB Communications Tel: +44 (0)1865-760969 Mobile: +44 (0)7710-741241 SOURCE EUSA Pharma Related Links https://www.eusapharma.com/ NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lightricks , developers of award-winning apps designed to bring creativity to everyone, announced today the company is making the next generation of its celebrated app, Facetune2, available to Android users on May 15, 2019. The new availability on the Android Platform will empower every smartphone user to achieve their professional-grade photo-editing goals from the palm of their hand, further fulfilling the company's mission to democratize creativity. Facetune2 is powered by the latest image-processing technologies available, including advanced AI, machine learning, and face recognition, which will provide Android customers with first-class photo editing tools for seamless user experiences and results. In addition to both brand new and upgraded original features, Facetune2 is available as a free app with the ability to subscribe for added capabilities. "At Lightricks, we are committed to making fun and powerful creative tools accessible for everyone and are thrilled today to announce the highly anticipated launch of Facetune2 for Android," says Zeev Farbman, Lightricks CEO. "The rapid growth we've experienced since Facetune2 for iOS was launched in 2016 has been incredible. We're excited to see where this next step takes us." The announcement follows Facetune's success, where the original ranked as the #1 paid app in 130+ countries, was Apple's most downloaded paid app in 2017 and in 2018 was deemed Google Play's best app of 2014. Facetune2, available on iPhone only until today, has over 60 million downloads and over 1 million subscribers on iOS alone. The app is also acclaimed within the influencer community, and celebrity subscribers include Khloe Kardashian and Leah Remini, who describe it as "life-changing." Together, Lightricks' six app offerings boast over 110 million downloads. Device requirements: Available for Android Lollipop devices with Open GL 3.1 and higher Pricing and Availability: Purchase and Download (Android) Purchase and Download (iOS) Press Kit available on the Official Facetune Website Social Media: Facebook: Lightricks https://www.facebook.com/Lightricks/ | Facetune2 https://www.facebook.com/facetune2/ Twitter: Lightricks https://twitter.com/lightricks | Facetune2 https://twitter.com/facetuneapp Instagram: Lightricks https://www.instagram.com/lightricks/ | Facetune2 https://www.instagram.com/facetuneapp/ YouTube: Lightricks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKWhLS9QMr1oNthZL1fZB4A | Facetune2 https://www.youtube.com/user/Facetuneapp/ LinkedIn: Lightricks https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightricks About Lightricks: Lightricks is the creator of popular, award-winning image and video editing apps. Since the company hit the ground running with its flagship product Facetune, which has become a household term in countries around the world, Lightricks has now built an arsenal of powerful creativity apps used by millions. Based in Israel with an R&D office in London, Lightricks ended 2018 with over $50 million in revenues. The company received its second round of funding this year, totaling $60 million, and is in a period of rapid growth, expanding its offices and planning to double its team to 300 people by the end of 2019. Lightricks is bringing content creation to mobile on all fronts: content creation tools for aspiring artists, for small businesses owners who tell their stories online with photo and video, and for social media enthusiasts looking to build their personal brand. For more information, visit www.lightricks.com. Media Contact: Nicole Lorenti Relativity Ventures [email protected] +1(203) 273 5975 SOURCE Lightricks Related Links http://www.lightricks.com ROCKLAND, Mass. and NEW YORK, May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BAVENCIO is the first anti-PD-L1 in combination with INLYTA approved by FDA for first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) Phase III study showed combination significantly lowered risk of disease progression or death by 31% and extended progression-free survival by 5.4 months for patients with advanced RCC compared with sunitinib Combination approved based on Phase III data in an overall population that included patients regardless of PD-L1 expression and across favorable, intermediate and poor prognostic groups Additional regulatory reviews for BAVENCIO plus INLYTA in advanced RCC are underway worldwide, including in the European Union and Japan EMD Serono, the biopharmaceutical business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany in the US and Canada, and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved BAVENCIO (avelumab) in combination with INLYTA (axitinib) for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). This is the first FDA approval for an anti-PD-L1 therapy as part of a combination regimen for patients with advanced RCC. The approval of BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA was based on positive results from the Phase III JAVELIN Renal 101 study (NCT02684006), in which the combination significantly improved median progression-free survival (PFS) compared with sunitinib by more than five months in the intent-to-treat (ITT) patient population (HR: 0.69 [95% CI: 0.560.84]; 2-sided p-value=0.0002; median PFS for BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA: 13.8 months [95% CI: 11.1-NE]; sunitinib: 8.4 months [95% CI: 6.9-11.1]). The ITT population included patients regardless of PD-L1 expression and across IMDC (International Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma Database) prognostic risk groups (favorable 21%, intermediate 62% and poor 16%).1 "As we look to continue to improve outcomes for people with advanced RCC, new treatment approaches have the potential to benefit patients," said Robert J. Motzer, M.D., Jack and Dorothy Byrne Chair in Clinical Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, US, and principal investigator for JAVELIN Renal 101. "With today's FDA approval of avelumab in combination with axitinib, we can now offer patients with advanced RCC a first-line treatment option that combines a PD-L1 immunotherapy with a well-known VEGFR TKI to provide a significant reduction in the risk of disease progression or death and doubling of the response rate compared with sunitinib." RCC is a type of cancer where PD-L1 expression may contribute to inhibition of the immune response against the tumor.2 It is also a highly vascular tumor, in which vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays a key role.3 "A kidney cancer diagnosis is life-changing for both patients and their loved ones, and having a treatment strategy for their disease quickly becomes a priority," said Dena Battle, President, KCCure. "The approval of new treatments such as BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA gives patients with advanced RCC much-needed options." There is a significant unmet need for first-line treatments that delay progression and have an acceptable safety profile. Approximately 20% to 30% of patients are first diagnosed with RCC at the advanced stage, and 30% of patients treated for an earlier stage go on to develop metastases.4,5 About half of patients living with advanced RCC do not go on to receive additional treatment after first-line therapy,6,7 for reasons that may include poor performance status or adverse events from their initial treatment.6,8,9 "Today's approval of BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA builds on Pfizer's long heritage in bringing innovation to the RCC community with the hopes of making a significant and meaningful impact on the lives of patients," said Andy Schmeltz, Global President, Pfizer Oncology. "For more than 12 years, Pfizer has led the field in its commitment to developing new treatments for patients with advanced kidney cancer." "With today's FDA approval of BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA, we feel privileged that we can offer patients with first-line advanced renal cell carcinoma a new treatment option," said Rehan Verjee, President, EMD Serono, and Global Head of Innovative Medicine Franchises, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. In JAVELIN Renal 101, the objective response rate (ORR) was doubled in the ITT population with BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA versus sunitinib (51.4% [95% CI: 46.6-56.1] vs. 25.7% [95% CI: 21.7-30.0]). With a median overall survival (OS) follow-up of 19 months, data for the trial's other primary endpoint of OS were immature, with 27% of deaths in the ITT population, and the trial is continuing as planned. The most common adverse reactions (20%) were diarrhea, fatigue, hypertension, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, mucositis, palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia, dysphonia, decreased appetite, hypothyroidism, rash, hepatotoxicity, cough, dyspnea, abdominal pain and headache. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 35% of patients receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA. The incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) was higher with BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA versus sunitinib.1 Findings from the study have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine.10 The European Medicines Agency (EMA) validated the Type II variation application for BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA in advanced RCC in March 2019, and a supplemental application for BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA in unresectable or metastatic RCC was submitted in Japan in January 2019. The alliance is committed to providing patient access and reimbursement support through its CoverOne program to patients who have been prescribed BAVENCIO. This program provides a spectrum of patient access and reimbursement support services intended to help US patients prescribed BAVENCIO receive appropriate access. CoverOne may be reached by phone at 844-8COVER1 (844-826-8371) or online at www.CoverOne.com. Pfizer is committed to ensuring that patients who are prescribed INLYTA have access to this innovative therapy. Patients in the US have access to Pfizer Oncology Together, which offers personalized support and financial assistance resources to help patients access their prescribed Pfizer Oncology medications. For more information, please call 1-877-744-5675 or visit PfizerOncologyTogether.com. In an effort to streamline the patient enrollment process, EMD Serono and Pfizer have partnered to create a single enrollment form for the BAVENCIO and INLYTA combination for patients with advanced RCC that can be processed through both CoverOne and Pfizer Oncology Together. Each program will independently conduct the access and reimbursement activities for the product for which it is responsible. About Renal Cell Carcinoma In 2019, an estimated 73,820 new cases of kidney cancer will be diagnosed in the US, and approximately 14,770 people will die from the disease.11 RCC is the most common form of kidney cancer, accounting for about 2% to 3% of all cancers in adults.12,13 Approximately 20% to 30% of patients with kidney cancer are first diagnosed at the advanced stage.4 The five-year survival rate for patients with metastatic RCC is approximately 12%.14 About the JAVELIN Renal 101 study The Phase III JAVELIN Renal 101 study is a randomized (1:1), multicenter, open-label study of BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA in 886 patients with untreated advanced RCC regardless of tumor PD-L1 expression [intent-to-treat (ITT) population]. Patients with autoimmune disease or conditions requiring systemic immunosuppression were excluded. The major efficacy outcome measures were PFS as assessed by a Blinded Independent Central Review (BICR) using RECIST v1.1 and OS in patients with PD-L1-positive tumors using a clinical trial assay (PD-L1 expression level 1%). If PFS was statistically significant in patients with PD-L1-positive tumors, it was then tested in the ITT population. The hazard ratio for PFS in patients with PD-L1-positive tumors was HR 0.61 (95% CI: 0.48, 0.79). PFS and OS in the ITT population, overall response and safety are included as secondary endpoints. The study is continuing for OS. About the JAVELIN Clinical Development Program The clinical development program for avelumab, known as JAVELIN, involves at least 30 clinical programs and about 10,000 patients evaluated across more than 15 different tumor types. In addition to RCC, these tumor types include gastric/gastro-esophageal junction cancer, head and neck cancer, Merkel cell carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and urothelial carcinoma. About BAVENCIO (avelumab) BAVENCIO is a human anti-programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) antibody. BAVENCIO has been shown in preclinical models to engage both the adaptive and innate immune functions. By blocking the interaction of PD-L1 with PD-1 receptors, BAVENCIO has been shown to release the suppression of the T cell-mediated antitumor immune response in preclinical models.15-17 BAVENCIO has also been shown to induce NK cell-mediated direct tumor cell lysis via antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) in vitro.17-19 In November 2014, EMD Serono and Pfizer announced a strategic alliance to co-develop and co-commercialize BAVENCIO. BAVENCIO Approved Indication in the US BAVENCIO (avelumab) in combination with INLYTA (axitinib) is indicated in the US for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). BAVENCIO Important Safety Information from the US FDA-Approved Label BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated pneumonitis, including fatal cases. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of pneumonitis, and evaluate suspected cases with radiographic imaging. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater pneumonitis. Withhold BAVENCIO for moderate (Grade 2) and permanently discontinue for severe (Grade 3), life-threatening (Grade 4), or recurrent moderate (Grade 2) pneumonitis. Pneumonitis occurred in 1.2% of patients, including one (0.1%) patient with Grade 5, one (0.1%) with Grade 4, and five (0.3%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO can cause hepatotoxicity and immune-mediated hepatitis, including fatal cases. Monitor patients for abnormal liver tests prior to and periodically during treatment. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater hepatitis. Withhold BAVENCIO for moderate (Grade 2) immune-mediated hepatitis until resolution and permanently discontinue for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) immune-mediated hepatitis. Immune-mediated hepatitis occurred with BAVENCIO as a single agent in 0.9% of patients, including two (0.1%) patients with Grade 5, and 11 (0.6%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA can cause hepatotoxicity with higher than expected frequencies of Grade 3 and 4 alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) elevation. Consider more frequent monitoring of liver enzymes as compared to when the drugs are used as monotherapy. Withhold BAVENCIO and INLYTA for moderate (Grade 2) hepatotoxicity and permanently discontinue the combination for severe or life-threatening (Grade 3 or 4) hepatotoxicity. Administer corticosteroids as needed. In patients treated with BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA, Grades 3 and 4 increased ALT and AST occurred in 9% and 7% of patients, respectively, and immune-mediated hepatitis occurred in 7% of patients, including 4.9% with Grade 3 or 4. BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated colitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of colitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater colitis. Withhold BAVENCIO until resolution for moderate or severe (Grade 2 or 3) colitis until resolution. Permanently discontinue for life-threatening (Grade 4) or recurrent (Grade 3) colitis upon reinitiation of BAVENCIO. Immune-mediated colitis occurred in 1.5% of patients, including seven (0.4%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated endocrinopathies, including adrenal insufficiency, thyroid disorders, and type 1 diabetes mellitus. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of adrenal insufficiency during and after treatment, and administer corticosteroids as appropriate. Withhold BAVENCIO for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) adrenal insufficiency. Adrenal insufficiency was reported in 0.5% of patients, including one (0.1%) with Grade 3. Thyroid disorders can occur at any time during treatment. Monitor patients for changes in thyroid function at the start of treatment, periodically during treatment, and as indicated based on clinical evaluation. Manage hypothyroidism with hormone replacement therapy and hyperthyroidism with medical management. Withhold BAVENCIO for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) thyroid disorders. Thyroid disorders, including hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and thyroiditis, were reported in 6% of patients, including three (0.2%) with Grade 3. Type 1 diabetes mellitus including diabetic ketoacidosis: Monitor patients for hyperglycemia or other signs and symptoms of diabetes. Withhold BAVENCIO and administer antihyperglycemics or insulin in patients with severe or life-threatening (Grade 3) hyperglycemia, and resume treatment when metabolic control is achieved. Type 1 diabetes mellitus without an alternative etiology occurred in 0.1% of patients, including two cases of Grade 3 hyperglycemia. BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated nephritis and renal dysfunction. Monitor patients for elevated serum creatinine prior to and periodically during treatment. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater nephritis. Withhold BAVENCIO for moderate (Grade 2) or severe (Grade 3) nephritis until resolution to Grade 1 or lower. Permanently discontinue BAVENCIO for life-threatening (Grade 4) nephritis. Immune-mediated nephritis occurred in 0.1% of patients. BAVENCIO can result in other severe and fatal immune-mediated adverse reactions involving any organ system during treatment or after treatment discontinuation. For suspected immune-mediated adverse reactions, evaluate to confirm or rule out an immune-mediated adverse reaction and to exclude other causes. Depending on the severity of the adverse reaction, withhold or permanently discontinue BAVENCIO, administer high-dose corticosteroids, and initiate hormone replacement therapy, if appropriate. Resume BAVENCIO when the immune-mediated adverse reaction remains at Grade 1 or lower following a corticosteroid taper. Permanently discontinue BAVENCIO for any severe (Grade 3) immune-mediated adverse reaction that recurs and for any life-threatening (Grade 4) immune-mediated adverse reaction. The following clinically significant immune-mediated adverse reactions occurred in less than 1% of 1738 patients treated with BAVENCIO as a single agent or in 489 patients who received BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA: myocarditis including fatal cases, pancreatitis including fatal cases, myositis, psoriasis, arthritis, exfoliative dermatitis, erythema multiforme, pemphigoid, hypopituitarism, uveitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and systemic inflammatory response. BAVENCIO can cause severe or life-threatening infusion-related reactions. Premedicate patients with an antihistamine and acetaminophen prior to the first 4 infusions and for subsequent infusions based upon clinical judgment and presence/severity of prior infusion reactions. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infusion-related reactions, including pyrexia, chills, flushing, hypotension, dyspnea, wheezing, back pain, abdominal pain, and urticaria. Interrupt or slow the rate of infusion for mild (Grade 1) or moderate (Grade 2) infusion-related reactions. Permanently discontinue BAVENCIO for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) infusion-related reactions. Infusion-related reactions occurred in 25% of patients, including three (0.2%) patients with Grade 4 and nine (0.5%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA can cause major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) including severe and fatal events. Consider baseline and periodic evaluations of left ventricular ejection fraction. Monitor for signs and symptoms of cardiovascular events. Optimize management of cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, or dyslipidemia. Discontinue BAVENCIO and INLYTA for Grade 3-4 cardiovascular events. MACE occurred in 7% of patients with advanced RCC treated with BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA compared to 3.4% treated with sunitinib. These events included death due to cardiac events (1.4%), Grade 3-4 myocardial infarction (2.8%), and Grade 3-4 congestive heart failure (1.8%). BAVENCIO can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Advise patients of the potential risk to a fetus including the risk of fetal death. Advise females of childbearing potential to use effective contraception during treatment with BAVENCIO and for at least 1 month after the last dose of BAVENCIO. It is not known whether BAVENCIO is excreted in human milk. Advise a lactating woman not to breastfeed during treatment and for at least 1 month after the last dose of BAVENCIO due to the potential for serious adverse reactions in breastfed infants. Please see full US Prescribing Information and Medication Guide available at http://www.BAVENCIO.com. INLYTA Important Safety Information from the US FDA-Approved Label Hypertension including hypertensive crisis has been observed with INLYTA. Blood pressure should be well controlled prior to initiating INLYTA. Monitor for hypertension and treat as needed. For persistent hypertension, despite use of antihypertensive medications, reduce the dose. Discontinue INLYTA if hypertension is severe and persistent despite use of antihypertensive therapy and dose reduction of INLYTA, and discontinuation should be considered if there is evidence of hypertensive crisis. Arterial and venous thrombotic events have been observed with INLYTA and can be fatal. Use with caution in patients who are at increased risk or who have a history of these events. Hemorrhagic events, including fatal events, have been reported with INLYTA. INLYTA has not been studied in patients with evidence of untreated brain metastasis or recent active gastrointestinal bleeding and should not be used in those patients. If any bleeding requires medical intervention, temporarily interrupt the INLYTA dose. Cardiac failure has been observed with INLYTA and can be fatal. Monitor for signs or symptoms of cardiac failure throughout treatment with INLYTA. Management of cardiac failure may require permanent discontinuation of INLYTA. Gastrointestinal perforation and fistula, including death, have occurred with INLYTA. Use with caution in patients at risk for gastrointestinal perforation or fistula. Monitor for symptoms of gastrointestinal perforation or fistula periodically throughout treatment. Hypothyroidism requiring thyroid hormone replacement has been reported with INLYTA. Monitor thyroid function before initiation of, and periodically throughout, treatment. No formal studies of the effect of INLYTA on wound healing have been conducted. Stop INLYTA at least 24 hours prior to scheduled surgery. Reversible Posterior Leukoencephalopathy Syndrome (RPLS) has been observed with INLYTA. If signs or symptoms occur, permanently discontinue treatment. Proteinuria has been observed with INLYTA. Monitor for proteinuria before initiation of, and periodically throughout, treatment with INLYTA. For moderate to severe proteinuria, reduce the dose or temporarily interrupt treatment. Liver enzyme elevation has been observed during treatment with INLYTA. Monitor ALT, AST, and bilirubin before initiation of, and periodically throughout, treatment. For patients with moderate hepatic impairment, the starting dose should be decreased. INLYTA has not been studied in patients with severe hepatic impairment. INLYTA can cause fetal harm. Advise patients of the potential risk to the fetus and to use effective contraception during treatment. Avoid strong CYP3A4/5 inhibitors. If unavoidable, reduce the dose. Grapefruit or grapefruit juice may also increase INLYTA plasma concentrations and should be avoided. Avoid strong CYP3A4/5 inducers and, if possible, avoid moderate CYP3A4/5 inducers. For more information and full Prescribing Information, visit www.INLYTA.com. ADVERSE REACTIONS (BAVENCIO + INLYTA) Fatal adverse reactions occurred in 1.8% of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA. These included sudden cardiac death (1.2%), stroke (0.2%), myocarditis (0.2%), and necrotizing pancreatitis (0.2%). The most common adverse reactions (all grades, 20%) in patients with advanced RCC receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA (vs sunitinib) were diarrhea (62% vs 48%), fatigue (53% vs 54%), hypertension (50% vs 36%), musculoskeletal pain (40% vs 33%), nausea (34% vs 39%), mucositis (34% vs 35%), palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia (33% vs 34%), dysphonia (31% vs 3.2%), decreased appetite (26% vs 29%), hypothyroidism (25% vs 14%), rash (25% vs 16%), hepatotoxicity (24% vs 18%), cough (23% vs 19%), dyspnea (23% vs 16%), abdominal pain (22% vs 19%), and headache (21% vs 16%). Selected laboratory abnormalities (all grades, 20%) worsening from baseline in patients with advanced RCC receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA (vs sunitinib) were blood triglycerides increased (71% vs 48%), blood creatinine increased (62% vs 68%), blood cholesterol increased (57% vs 22%), alanine aminotransferase increased (ALT) (50% vs 46%), aspartate aminotransferase increased (AST) (47% vs 57%), blood sodium decreased (38% vs 37%), lipase increased (37% vs 25%), blood potassium increased (35% vs 28%), platelet count decreased (27% vs 80%), blood bilirubin increased (21% vs 23%), and hemoglobin decreased (21% vs 65%). About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany-Pfizer Alliance Immuno-oncology is a top priority for Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and Pfizer. The global strategic alliance between Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and Pfizer enables the companies to benefit from each other's strengths and capabilities and further explore the therapeutic potential of BAVENCIO, an anti-PD-L1 antibody initially discovered and developed by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The immuno-oncology alliance is jointly developing and commercializing BAVENCIO. The alliance is focused on developing high-priority international clinical programs to investigate BAVENCIO as a monotherapy as well as combination regimens, and is striving to find new ways to treat cancer. All Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, press releases are distributed by e-mail at the same time they become available on the EMD Group Website. In case you are a resident of the USA or Canada please go to www.emdgroup.com/subscribe to register again for your online subscription of this service as our newly introduced geo-targeting requires new links in the email. You may later change your selection or discontinue this service. About EMD Serono, Inc. EMD Serono - the biopharmaceutical business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in the U.S. and Canada - is engaged in the discovery, research and development of medicines for patients with difficult to treat diseases. The business is committed to transforming lives by developing and delivering meaningful solutions that help address the therapeutic and support needs of individual patients. Building on a proven legacy and deep expertise in neurology, fertility and endocrinology, EMD Serono is developing potential new oncology and immuno-oncology medicines while continuing to explore potential therapeutic options for diseases such as psoriasis, lupus and MS. Today, the business has approximately 1,300 employees around the country with commercial, clinical and research operations based in the company's home state of Massachusetts. www.emdserono.com. About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and performance materials. Around 52,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people's lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices the company is everywhere. In 2018, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of 14.8 billion in 66 countries. The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark "Merck" internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Performance Materials. Since its founding 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company's technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Pfizer Inc.: Working together for a healthier world At Pfizer, we apply science and our global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. We strive to set the standard for quality, safety and value in the discovery, development and manufacture of health care products. Our global portfolio includes medicines and vaccines as well as many of the world's best-known consumer health care products. Every day, Pfizer colleagues work across developed and emerging markets to advance wellness, prevention, treatments and cures that challenge the most feared diseases of our time. Consistent with our responsibility as one of the world's premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, we collaborate with health care providers, governments and local communities to support and expand access to reliable, affordable health care around the world. For more than 150 years, we have worked to make a difference for all who rely on us. We routinely post information that may be important to investors on our website at www.pfizer.com. In addition, to learn more, please visit us on www.pfizer.com and follow us on Twitter at @Pfizer and @Pfizer_News, LinkedIn, YouTube and like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Pfizer. Pfizer Disclosure Notice The information contained in this release is as of May 14, 2019. Pfizer assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this release as the result of new information or future events or developments. This release contains forward-looking information about BAVENCIO (avelumab), including a new indication approved in the U.S. for BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA (axitinib) for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, the alliance between Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Pfizer involving BAVENCIO and clinical development plans, including their potential benefits, that involves substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Risks and uncertainties include, among other things, uncertainties regarding the commercial success of BAVENCIO and INLYTA; the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including the ability to meet anticipated clinical endpoints, commencement and/or completion dates for our clinical trials, regulatory submission dates, regulatory approval dates and/or launch dates, as well as the possibility of unfavorable new clinical data and further analyses of existing clinical data and uncertainties regarding whether the other primary endpoint of JAVELIN Renal 101 will be met; risks associated with interim data; the risk that clinical trial data are subject to differing interpretations and assessments by regulatory authorities; whether regulatory authorities will be satisfied with the design of and results from our clinical studies; whether and when any drug applications may be filed for BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA in any other jurisdictions or in any jurisdictions for any other potential indications for BAVENCIO or combination therapies; whether and when the pending applications in the European Union and Japan for BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA may be approved and whether and when regulatory authorities in any jurisdictions where any other applications are pending or may be submitted for BAVENCIO or combination therapies, including BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA may approve any such applications, which will depend on myriad factors, including making a determination as to whether the product's benefits outweigh its known risks and determination of the product's efficacy, and, if approved, whether they will be commercially successful; decisions by regulatory authorities impacting labeling, manufacturing processes, safety and/or other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of BAVENCIO or combination therapies, including BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA; and competitive developments. A further description of risks and uncertainties can be found in Pfizer's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, and in its subsequent reports on Form 10-Q, including in the sections thereof captioned "Risk Factors" and "Forward-Looking Information and Factors That May Affect Future Results", as well as in its subsequent reports on Form 8-K, all of which are filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov and www.pfizer.com. References BAVENCIO Prescribing Information. Rockland, MA : EMD Serono Inc.; 2019. Weinstock M and McDermott D. Targeting PD-1/PD-L1 in the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Therapeutic Advances in Urology. 2015;7(6):365-377. Roskoski R Jr. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and VEGF receptor inhibitors in the treatment of renal cell carcinomas. Pharmacological Research. 2017;120:116-132. Ljungberg B, Campbell S and Cho H. The Epidemiology of renal cell carcinoma. European Urology. 2011;60:615-621. Klatte T, Rossi SH, Stewart GD. Prognostic factors and prognostic models for renal cell carcinoma: a literature review. World Journal of Urology. 2018;36(12):1943-1952. Eggers H, Ivanyi P, Hornig M and Grunwald V. Predictive Factors for Second-Line Therapy in Metastatic Renal cell Carcinoma: A Retrospective Analysis. Journal of Kidney Cancer and VHL. 2017;4(1):8-15. Motzer R, et al. Nivolumab plus Ipilimumab versus Sunitinib in Advanced Renal-Cell Carcinoma. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2018;378:1277-1290. Eichelberg C, et al. SWITCH: A Randomised, Sequential, Open-label Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Sorafenib-sunitinib Versus Sunitinib-sorafenib in the Treatment of Metastatic Renal Cell Cancer. European Urology. 2015;68:837-847. Motzer R, et al. Phase II Randomized Trial Comparing Sequential First-Line Everolimus and Second-Line Sunitinib Versus First-Line Sunitinib and Second-Line Everolimus in Patients With Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2014;32:2765-2772. Motzer R, et al. Avelumab plus Axitinib versus Sunitinib for Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2019;380:1103-1115. American Cancer Society: Key Statistics about Kidney Cancer. Available from: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/kidney-cancer/about/key-statistics.html. Accessed May 2019 . American Cancer Society: What is Kidney Cancer? Available from: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/kidney-cancer/about/what-is-kidney-cancer.html. Accessed May 2019 . Ljungberg B, et al. European Association of Urology Guidelines on Renal Cell Carcinoma: The 2019 Update. European Urology. 2019 Feb. National Cancer Institute: SEER Cancer Stat Fact Sheets: Kidney and Renal Pelvis. Available from: https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/kidrp.html. Accessed May 2019 . Dolan DE, Gupta S. PD-1 pathway inhibitors: changing the landscape of cancer immunotherapy. Cancer Control. 2014;21(3):231-237. Dahan R, Sega E, Engelhardt J, Selby M, Korman AJ, Ravetch JV. FcRs modulate the anti-tumor activity of antibodies targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis. Cancer Cell. 2015;28(3):285-295. Boyerinas B, Jochems C, Fantini M, et al. Antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity activity of a novel anti-PD-L1 antibody avelumab (MSB0010718C) on human tumor cells. Cancer Immunology Research. 2015;3(10):1148-1157. Kohrt HE, Houot R, Marabelle A, et al. Combination strategies to enhance antitumor ADCC. Immunotherapy. 2012;4(5):511-527. Hamilton G, Rath B. Avelumab: combining immune checkpoint inhibition and antibody-dependent cytotoxicity. Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy. 2017;17(4):515-523. Your Contacts EMD Serono Inc. Media Noelle Piscitelli +1 781 427 4351 Investor Relations +49 6151 72 3321 Pfizer Inc., New York, USA Media Jessica Smith +1 212 733 6213 Investor Relations Ryan Crowe +1 212 733 8160 SOURCE EMD Serono Related Links https://www.emdserono.com NEW YORK and CHICAGO and SILICON VALLEY, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Finix Solutions and CoinRoutes, today announced a strategic partnership whereby both partners are jointly marketing their innovative products as extensions to their platforms. Finix Solutions is a leading provider of blockchain platform for Wealth Administration and Digital Asset Custody. CoinRoutes is a leading provider of consolidated data, smart order routing & algorithmic trading for crypto investors. The partnership will commence with Finix's deployment of CoinRoutes' Smart Order Routing (SOR) platform to provide Finix clients with immediate and intelligent electronic access to over 40 crypto-asset trading exchanges. CoinRoutes will include Finix product suite as extensions for institutional clients needing cost-effective digital assets trading, administration and custody. Finix will market CoinRoutes' Digital-Asset SOR that delivers smart routing to achieve the best aggregate price across all selected crypto exchanges immediately. The platform provides aggressive and passive algorithmic strategies allowing clients to trade while retaining complete control over their exchange keys and wallets. The algorithmic trading suite is informed by the full order books of all crypto exchanges and includes: SmartPost to intelligently capitalize on exchange economics Scheduled algorithms to ensure trading is completed within a time period Time Weighted Average Price algorithms to trade uniformly throughout a period All trading can be subdivided into individual users or strategies. Trading strategies can be assigned limits which are enforced throughout. Margin trading, including allocation of available loans to traders/strategies is supported. Aleks Buterman, CEO at Finix commented, "The partnership with CointRoutes to deliver Crypto SOR is another step in deploying intelligent solutions that simplify cryptocurrency trading for our global clients. Our partnership with CoinRoutes allows brokers/dealers, traders, and enterprise treasury management to leverage sophisticated SOR and algorithmic strategies to achieve best execution." CoinRoutes will market Finix Blockchain platform for Digital Asset Custody. Built on Distributed Ledger Technology, the Finix Platform enables everyone investors, advisors, broker dealers, exchanges, and fund custodians to interact, transact and administer securely and in a near-real time mode. Finix has already delivered its platform to chartered custodians that administer billions of dollars in alternative assets. David Weisberger, Co-Founder and CEO at CoinRoutes commented, "We are very pleased to be working with Finix to deliver efficient electronic access to crypto-asset exchanges and to provide digital asset custody solution that's frictionless, secure and cost effective. As Finix is a trusted leader in the FinTech space, we are excited with our joint capabilities in providing innovative solutions that continues to transform the industry." About Finix Finix sets the standard in Alternative Asset Investment and Administration, built on Distributed Ledger Technology. The Finix Platform provides intelligent workflow and automation for all activities surrounding alternative asset transactions, custody, administration, and reporting, significantly reducing the high costs and errors that result from existing complex processes. www.finixsolutions.com. Twitter and Telegram @Finixdlt About CoinRoutes CoinRoutes is a leading provider of Algorithmic trading strategies and market data for crypto/digital assets. CoinRoutes software provides consolidated Market Data & Algorithmic Trading. CoinRoutes sources thousands of price levels of order book data from over 40 crypto exchanges, for hundreds of pairs. Traders are empowered by CoinRoutes' real-time, fee-inclusive trading benchmarks (CoinRoutes RealPricetm) and our patent pending filtered Consolidated Best Bid and Offer (CBBO). The CoinRoutes system is a game theory aware, customizable algorithmic suite with real-time notifications, user and strategy level permissions and consolidated APIs, enabling clients to maximize performance while minimizing market impact and trading costs. www.CoinRoutes.com Media Contact: Quinn Tran President [email protected] 650 219 5659 Telegram: @FinixDLT Michael A. Holstein Chief Revenue Officer [email protected] (415) 302-8237 Telegram @mike2113 SOURCE Finix Solutions Related Links http://www.finixsolutions.com PPGNY will operate 28 health centers providing approximately 200,000 patient visits annually. It will include half of New York State's counties, covering 65% of the state's population. Laura McQuade, currently President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City, will assume leadership of PPGNY, and Karen Seltzer, Board Chair of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County, will become Board Chair of PPGNY. "As the new Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, with more resources, greater reach, and renewed purpose, we will deliver more on our mission than ever before," said Laura McQuade, current President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City. "We know that we are stronger together. By joining forces and centering our patients, we can serve our communities more effectively, efficiently, and strategically and have a stronger voice in advocacy. Together, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will transform and invigorate how we work to increase access to sexual and reproductive health services and programs across much of this great state. We're going from great to Greater!" "As Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, we will have greater strength, greater resources for innovation, and greater power to protect the health and rights of our patients." - Karen Seltzer, current Board Chair of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County "With the changing landscape of the health care industry, we're taking a proactive approach to better serve the people in our communities. We know that by combining our resources, we will emerge stronger. Indeed, as Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, we will be able to serve more people across more communities with the comprehensive reproductive health care and sexuality education they both need and deserve." - JoAnn D. Smith, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County "With our combined resources and 28 health centers, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will have the ability to truly reach more patients and provide them with expert, high-quality care. This is a powerful opportunity to expand and reinvigorate our fight to ensure the rights of all people of all ages, races, ethnicities, physical and mental dis/ability, incomes, religions, national origins, immigration status, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions to determine their own lives and futures with the care they need to live fully, with hope and dignity."- Ruth-Ellen Blodgett, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Mid-Hudson Valley "As Planned Parenthood of Greater New York we will have a stronger foundation to grow our services, education and advocacy work. With a deep commitment to our patients and a shared mission and vision the opportunity for us to join together toward serving more New Yorkers is both logical and exciting for us. There is a critical need for our services and care, we look forward to PPGNY's work to further the mission and access to care in our communities." - Alicia Kenaley, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes "Leveraging our strengths by joining together to form Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will not only improve our patient experience, but it also allows for expansion and growth that will be technologically innovative by connecting patients to health care in a modern way. By reallocating and streamlining resources, we will be better positioned to reach areas and communities that need our services most." - Kim Atkins, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Mohawk Hudson This is a powerful step for Planned Parenthood to continue to fight to protect people's right to determine their own futures with the health care they need to live fully. This larger Planned Parenthood affiliate in New York will be able to leverage the advantages of a consolidated health care system including standardized operations and uniform electronic medical records, increased bargaining power with payors such as insurance companies, streamlined administration, and shared expertise in specialized health care services. It will also provide an opportunity to improve access to the full range of sexual and reproductive health care services statewide. This will mean the ability to expand telehealth services to deliver more convenient care to current patients and importantly, to improve access to underserved communities, including in rural areas of the state. Since 1916, Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC) has been an advocate for and provider of sexual and reproductive health services and education for New Yorkers. Providing more than 100,000 patient visits annually, PPNYC's health care centers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island offer sexual and reproductive health services, including gynecological care, birth control, cancer screening, pregnancy testing, abortion, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, HIV prevention, testing and counseling, transgender hormone therapy and vasectomy. Through a threefold mission of clinical services, education, and advocacy, PPNYC brings better health and more fulfilling lives to each new generation of New Yorkers. As a voice for reproductive freedom, PPNYC supports legislation and policies to ensure that all New Yorkers will have access to the full range of reproductive health care services and information. Contact: Jacquelyn Marrero, [email protected], 212-274-7337 SOURCE Planned Parenthood of New York City BOSTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ginkgo Bioworks , the organism company, today announced it acquired the genome mining platform from Warp Drive Bio, a subsidiary of REVOLUTION Medicines, Inc. With the acquisition, Ginkgo will integrate Warp Drive Bio's genome mining team, technology, and database into its already vast codebase and premier platform for biological engineering. This pairing of the two teams and the merging of biological information and technical capabilities brings unprecedented power to the search for new antibiotics, as well as other pharmaceutical applications. Warp Drive Bio's genome mining platform enables access to valuable natural products that have previously gone undiscovered due to historical technology limitations. The company's proprietary genomic search engine combs databases of microbial genomes to reveal those "hidden" natural products that cannot be detected under normal laboratory conditions. The platform is predicated on high-resolution genomic sequencing to identify, analyze and evaluate over 100 classes of potential antibiotics to develop novel medicines. Warp Drive Bio's genomic database includes more than 135,000 bacterial strains with the potential to encode more than four million biosynthetic gene clusters to be used in the development of novel antibiotics. "Biodiversity is immense and rich with potential for finding new solutions to problems burdening society," said Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks. "Bringing Warp Drive Bio's deep expertise in genomics-based natural products discovery to Ginkgo's codebase is the key to unlocking new products, like novel antibiotics that can help combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant diseases. We are thrilled to welcome the Warp Drive genome mining team to Ginkgo to continue their important work and embark on this pivotal journey together." Antibiotic resistance is a growing worldwide problem, endangering thousands of people across the globe and threatening modern medicine. Post-acquisition, Ginkgo Bioworks will accelerate a path toward uncovering a new class of antibiotics that could reverse the current trajectory in antibiotics. This acquisition complements Ginkgo's existing efforts a partnership with Synlogic to develop living medicines and the opening of Bioworks4 to engineer mammalian cells to expand the reach of synthetic biology in pharmaceutical applications. As part of the deal, Warp Drive Bio's genome mining team will move to Ginkgo's headquarters in Boston's Seaport District, along with the Warp Drive genomic sequence collection and bioinformatics software. The genome mining platform will supplement Ginkgo's state of the art sequencing capabilities, extensive biological codebase, bioinformatics and machine learning tools for gene discovery and strain engineering expertise for active pharmaceutical ingredient production. REVOLUTION Medicines acquired Warp Drive Bio in October 2018, and retains all rights to its non-genome mining programs, including inhibitors of multiple RAS mutants that drive various forms of cancer. "Following our acquisition of Warp Drive Bio, we have worked diligently to divest the company's genome mining technology, antibiotic research portfolio, and related personnel to a team best positioned to maximize the value of those assets we have found that partner in Ginkgo Bioworks," said Mark A. Goldsmith, M.D., Ph.D, president and CEO of REVOLUTION Medicines. "This transaction with Ginkgo allowed our team to maintain a laser focus on discovery and development of novel small molecule therapeutics designed to precisely inhibit the activity of frontier targets within the notorious oncogenic RAS pathway." About Ginkgo Bioworks Headquartered in Boston, Ginkgo Bioworks uses the most advanced technology on the planet biology to grow products instead of manufacturing them. The company's technology platform is bringing biotechnology into consumer goods markets, enabling fragrance, cosmetic, nutrition, food, agriculture and pharmaceuticals to make better products. For more information, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com. About REVOLUTION Medicines The mission of REVOLUTION Medicines is to discover and develop new drugs directed toward frontier oncology targets for cancer patients. Frontier targets include proteins that drive the growth and survival of cancer but carry atypical structural or regulatory features requiring unconventional drug discovery strategies. The company brings together deep talent in cancer biology and small molecule drug discovery supported by advanced chemical synthesis, computational and assay technologies to master these targets. Seasoned translational and development scientists help to fulfill the company's commitment to precision oncology. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the birthplace of biotechnology, REVOLUTION Medicines is a private company financed by top-tier investors. REVOLUTION Medicines: Translating frontier oncology targets to outsmart cancer Media Contact Jordyn Lee [email protected] 347-382-9732 SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks Related Links https://www.ginkgobioworks.com DUBLIN, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Bioremediation: Global Markets and Technologies to 2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The in-situ bioremediation type is segmented as phytoremediation, bioventing, bioleaching, bioslurping, biostimulation and bioaugmentation. The ex-situ bioremediation type is segmented as composting, controlled solid-phase treatment and slurry-phase biological treatment. Biodegradation is a cost-effective natural process that is useful for the treatment of organic wastes. The extent of biodegradation is greatly dependent upon the initial concentrations and toxicity of the contaminants, the properties of the contaminated soil, their biodegradability and the specific treatment system selected. In biodegradation treatment, the targeted contaminants are semi-volatile and nonhalogenated volatile organics and fuels. The benefits of bioremediation, however, are limited to sites with highly chlorinated organics and high concentrations of metals, as they may be harmful to the microorganisms. The application of bioremediation technology in the water bodies sector held the largest market share in 2017, and it is expected to remain the market leader throughout the forecast period. The ever-increasing use of bioremediation techniques for treating sewage, lakes, rivers and streams, ponds and aqua culture is anticipated to create huge growth opportunities for the market inthe coming years. In recent years, however, the rise in the agriculture industries has augmented the growth of hazardous pollutants in the environment, and thus the application of bioremediation methods in the agricultural sector is expected to be the fastest-growing segment. The Report Includes: Analyses of global market trends with data from 2017 and 2018, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2023 An assessment of opportunities and innovation-driven bioremediation market highlights, as well as the major regions and countries involved in such developments Examination of key trends related to the types of bioremediation and applications that shape and influence the bioremediation industry Coverage of significant bioremediation patents and their allotments in each category across the U.S., Japan and European region and European region Information about increasing awareness related to environmental safety and global warming as a driving force to the bioremediation industry Competitive landscape for key players in the bioremediation market, their growth strategies and revenue details Detailed company profiles of major leaders, including BioRemedy Pty. Ltd., DryLet LLC, Envirogen Technologies Inc., Bioremediation Consulting Inc., and MicroGen Biotech Ltd. Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights Chapter 3 Market and Technology Background Market Definition and the Evolution of Bioremediation Technology Definition Future Outlook and Expectations Significant New Product Launches Market Dynamics Drivers Restraints Key Developments in the Field of Bioremediation New Techniques for the Decontamination of Polluted Soils Deployment of Fungi to Lower the Toxicity Left from the Aftermath of the Fires in North Bay, Calif. Geosyntec's Cost-Effective Bioremediation Solution for the Groundwater Contamination Bioremediation of Hydrocarbon Contaminated Soil at Kuujjuaq Airport, Canada Quotes by Key Opinion Leaders Chapter 4 Market Breakdown by Type In situ Bioremediation Phytoremediation Bioventing Bioleaching Bioslurping Biostimulation Bioaugmentation Ex situ Bioremediation Composting Controlled Solid-Phase Treatment Slurry-Phase Biological Treatment Chapter 5 Market Breakdown by Application Water Bodies Mining Petrochemicals and Other Chemicals Agriculture Natural Calamity-Affected Areas Service Stations and Shipyards Others Chapter 6 Market Breakdown by Region North America Europe Asia-Pacific Rest of the World Chapter 7 Competitive Analysis Analysis of Market Opportunities Rising Number of Industrial Sectors Emerging Technologies in Bioremediation Market Share Analysis Chapter 8 Patent Review and New Developments Patent Review by Year and Country Important Bioremediation Patents Chapter 9 Company Profiles ABB Environmental Services Inc. Altogen Labs Ameret Llc Bioactive Services Inc. Bioremediation Consulting Inc. Bioremediation Services Inc. Bioremedy Pty. Ltd. Carus Corp. Drylet Llc Eco Blue Bioremediation Canada EG&G Inc. Envirogen Technologies Inc. Fiton Group Geovation Engineering P.C. Ivey International Inc. JRW Bioremediation Llc Kankyo Cleantech Llp Lambda Bioremediation Systems Inc. Makona Hardware And Industrial (Pty.) Ltd. Microgen Biotech Ltd. Oil Spill Eater International Corp. Probiosphere Inc. QM Environmental International B.V. Renovagen Ltd. RNAS Remediation Products Sustainable Bioremediation And Phytoremediation Operations Sevenson Environmental Services Inc. Shandong Sukahan Bio-Technology Co. Ltd. Trident Environmental Llc Verde Environmental Group For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/gn6b1m Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com TEL AVIV, Israel, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- GreenSpense, maker of the world's first gas-free, high-pressure continuous dispensing solution, announced today that it been selected to receive funding from the EU's highly-selective Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase II programme. Horizon 2020 is an 80 billion funding program managed by the European Commission and dedicated to transforming research and innovation into market-leading products. GreenSpense received the funding to further develop and commercialize its Eco-Drive product. Based on breakthroughs in elastomer technology and materials engineering, Eco-Drive enables aerosol-like continuous dispensing, without the need for gas or pressurized metal canisters. Dispensers based on Eco-Drive deliver the familiar consumer experience of aerosols, within safer, less expensive and more environmentally friendly packaging, with a lower CO 2 footprint. Also, for the first time, brands using Eco-Drive are free to implement innovative, differentiated package designs for their spray, gel and foam products, using low-cost, recyclable materials, such as plastic, cardboard and glass. "We are pleased that the Horizon 2020 programme recognized the revolutionary potential of our Eco-Drive product, and our focus on sustainability, brand differentiation and consumer satisfaction," said Gadi Har-shai, CEO of GreenSpense. "With this boost, we are more certain than ever that every household, office, hospital and factory in the western world will soon be using products based on our safer and more ecological dispensing technology." A few select European brands are presently running pilots for the production and marketing of their products, packaged within Eco-Drive. GreenSpense is accepting requests from other brands interested in small-quantity pilots using their own dispensed products. About GreenSpense GreenSpense was launched in 2012 with the vision of harnessing the latest elastomer technologies to create a high-pressure, continuous-dispensing solution that entirely does away with pressurized gases and propellants. After years of multi-discipline research and development, GreenSpense's unique Eco-Drive product now provides high-pressure, propellant-free continuous dispensing of spray, lotion, gel and foam products. Eco-Drive delivers the familiar aerosol dispensing experience, without the need for pressurized gas or metal canisters. Due to use of recyclable and bio-degradable packaging materials, Eco-Drive dispensers have a significantly lower environmental footprint than that of conventional aerosols. GreenSpense is backed by a consortium of private and venture capital investors. Learn more here. About Horizon 2020 Horizon 2020 is the largest EU Research and Innovation programme ever, with nearly 80 billion of funding available over seven years (2014 to 2020), in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. The programme promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market. Learn more here. Media Contact Amir Biran Chief Marketing Officer [email protected] SOURCE GreenSpense LTD English French MONTREAL, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) announced today that it has reached a tentative agreement with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference covering approximately 180 rail traffic controllers in Canada. With this tentative agreement covering our rail traffic controllers, we are pleased to conclude another negotiation furthering long-term labour stability, said JJ Ruest, president and chief executive officer of CN. We are committed to working together with our railroaders and their representatives in a mutually beneficial manner. Details of this tentative agreement are being withheld pending ratification which is expected by the beginning of June. About CN CN is a true backbone of the economy, transporting more than C$250 billion worth of goods annually for a wide range of business sectors, ranging from resource products to manufactured products to consumer goods, across a rail network of approximately 20,000 route-miles spanning Canada and mid-America. CN Canadian National Railway Company, along with its operating railway subsidiaries serves the cities and ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America. For more information about CN, visit the Companys website at www.cn.ca . ATLANTA, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A new class action lawsuit out of Georgia alleges that Mercedes Benz USA, LLC and Daimler AG knowingly sold hundreds of thousands of Mercedes E-Series with a defective wood trim that becomes discolored and fades when exposed to sunlight. The suit claims Mercedes knew about problems with the walnut wood trim as early as 2009 but instead of addressing the defects, allegedly told dealerships to hide the problem. Attorneys from Heninger Garrison Davis, LLC's class action group filed the class action complaint on behalf of Plaintiff Teri Callen. Callen purchased a 2014 Mercedes-Benz E350 with 11,000 miles that came with a Mercedes certified pre-owned warranty as well as the remaining standard warranty. The car was equipped with the burl walnut wood trim and a mechanic first pointed out the fading to Callen in November of 2018. The burl walnut wood trim was located on the center console, each door, and the dashboard and had become faded, discolored and cloudy in appearance. When Callen contacted the Mercedes dealer, she was allegedly told that the pre-owned warranty did not cover the trim. Callen says that Mercedes refused to replace the walnut trim in her Mercedes even though they had issued multiple technical service bulletins describing the identical problem with the burl walnut wood trim. Plaintiff further alleges that dealers charge between $3000 to $5000 to replace the wood trim. In 2010, Mercedes issued the first technical service bulletin L168.10-P-505 to dealers that addressed the discoloration and fading of the burl wood trim. The bulletin warned dealers and technicians about the wood trim fading from "inadequate UV (ultra violet) ray protection." The suit also alleges that rather than replacing the trim, Mercedes instructed technicians to remove the the SRS (airbag) label as well as any other label or protection material from the wood panel to an area on the instrument panel or lower control panel so that the fading would be less obvious. Several subsequent versions of the second Technical Service Bulletins were issued by Mercedes and stated all 2010-2016 E-Series vehicles were affected with the fading and discoloration issues of the burl walnut trim. Plaintiff Callen says Mercedes refused to replace the walnut trim even though the automaker issued technical service bulletins about identical fading and discoloration problems. The Mercedes burl walnut wood trim lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division - Teri Callen, et al., v. Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC. Heninger Garrison Davis, LLC, is a national law firm and our attorneys defend valuable rights for our clients. To determine if you should file suit, consult one of our qualified lawyers as soon as possible to understand your options. We do not charge any fees upfront. In fact, we will only charge attorney's fees if we obtain a financial settlement for you. If you do not win, we get nothing. Call us today for your free case evaluation: Attorney Jim McDonough - (404) 996-0869 [email protected]. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. SOURCE Heninger Garrison Davis, LLC Related Links https://hgdlawfirm.com The project seeks to address multiple challenges related to the expansion of EVs, including the repurposing of used EV batteries, the expected impact of EV demand and renewable energy on the nation's utility operators and the integration of EV batteries as a storage solution for the electric grid. The increasing volume of EVs has the potential to strain the power grid, including spikes in demand during early evening hours when drivers plug in their EVs after work. Storing additional power in used EV batteries can help utilities meet demand by using renewable energy resources. "Together with AEP, we are exploring opportunities to use the 2nd life battery to improve energy security, reduce CO 2 and prepare for broad scale electrification of the transportation ecosystem," said Ryan Harty, manager of Connected and Environmental Business, American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "Neither automakers nor utilities can address these complex technical, policy and business issues alone." Honda will provide used Fit EV batteries to AEP, which will study integrating the batteries into the utility's electricity grid. "AEP is focused on building a smarter, cleaner energy grid and putting in place new technologies that will benefit our customers. We are excited about the possibilities of this collaboration as we work to create the energy system for the future," said Ram Sastry, AEP's vice president of Innovation and Technology. AEP and Honda will jointly gain knowledge and expertise from the pilot project that will help both companies to develop technology and standards for future vehicle grid integration, as well as new business models to improve the value of EVs. The Honda Fit EV launched in 2012 with a fuel economy of 118 MPGe. The lease-only vehicle gained a loyal following among passionate EV customers. Although replaced by the Honda Clarity family of electrified vehicles, including the Clarity Electric, the Fit EV's durable battery will continue to support Honda's efforts to reduce CO 2 emissions through its 2nd life in the vehicle grid integration project. Honda has set a voluntary goal to reduce CO 2 emissions from its vehicles and operations by 50 percent by 2050 compared to the year 2000, and toward this goal has announced plans to electrify two-thirds of its fleet by 2030. In addition to producing zero emission vehicles, the company is developing vehicle grid integration solutions, including the beta Honda SmartCharge TM program, which incentivizes Honda EV customers to charge their vehicles when more renewable energy resources are online. At CES 2019, Honda introduced its prototype Wireless Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) bi-directional energy management system that has the potential to reduce CO 2 and create new value for Honda customers. About Honda Based on its vision of "Blue Skies for Our Children," Honda is working to advance technologies that address society's environmental and energy concerns. In North America, the Honda Electrification Initiative will see Honda's electrified powertrain technologies applied to an expanding portfolio of cars and light trucks in the years ahead. Honda's electrified vehicle lineup today includes the Clarity series of vehicles, featuring fuel cell, battery electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains, along with the new Accord Hybrid and Honda Insight. Honda is focused on reducing the environmental impact of its products throughout their life cycle, including reducing waste, emissions and further improving the energy efficiency of producing, distributing and selling Honda and Acura products in North America. This includes a 93 percent reduction in waste sent to landfills from Honda plants in North America. Seeking to further minimize its carbon footprint, Honda is actively deploying renewable energy throughout its operations, including wind and solar. Through its "green purchasing" and "green dealer" initiatives, the company also is committed to promoting more environmentally responsible business practices with its more than 650 original equipment suppliers and 1,300 retail dealer partners. About AEP American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions to our customers. AEP's approximately 18,000 employees operate and maintain the nation's largest electricity transmission system and more than 219,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.4 million regulated customers in 11 states. AEP also is one of the nation's largest electricity producers with more than 32,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including more than 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy. AEP's family of companies includes utilities AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana, east Texas and the Texas Panhandle). AEP also owns AEP Energy, AEP Energy Partners, AEP OnSite Partners, and AEP Renewables, which provide innovative competitive energy solutions nationwide. For more information, visit aep.com. SOURCE Honda "We see a lot of appetite out there from players in more established financial markets when it comes to digital assets, but many are still uncomfortable jumping into unregulated trading environments," said Jeff Adams, Senior Sales Manager for Huobi Global. "We also see an unfilled need for services aimed at those looking to make large volume transactions. Huobi OTC Desk is a big step forward to filling both of those needs." Adams announced the launch during a Huobi breakfast meet up in New York City. The addition of Huobi OTC Desk advances Huobi's evolution as a full-service market facilitator in digital asset trading. OTC has long been one of the key trading activities in the traditional finance world, and now it is an integral part of Huobi's trading solutions for professional, institutional, and high net worth clients. Huobi's DLT license was among the first batch of licenses awarded by Gibraltar, which is the first jurisdiction to introduce a purpose-built DLT regulatory framework. What are Huobi OTC Desk's key advantages? Trading on exchanges can be complex for high volume transactions and users may not know their final execution price before a trade actually takes place. When trading on Huobi OTC Desk, however, users are provided with a real time quotation which also effectively serves as their execution price. Competitive pricing and excellent liquidity for large volume transactions. Huobi OTC Desk users gain access to dedicated support teams. Huobi OTC Desk is not intended for users in the United States. How is Huobi OTC Desk different than Huobi Global's retail OTC service? Through Huobi Global's retail OTC service, users trade with other users, whereas Huobi OTC Desk is a service provided by Huobi Gibraltar with a license under Gibraltar's DLT regulatory framework. To learn more or to apply for a Huobi OTC Desk account, users can email [email protected] About Huobi: Consisting of ten upstream and downstream enterprises, Huobi Group is the world's leading blockchain company. Established in 2013, Huobi Group's accumulative turnover exceeds $1 trillion. It proudly provides safe, secure, and convenient cryptocurrency trading and asset management services to millions of users in 130+ countries. Find out more at www.hbg.com For media enquiries please contact: Jiayi Li, [email protected], +65-92295769 SOURCE Huobi Group Related Links http://www.hbg.com MEDFORD, Mass., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- INVO Bioscience, Inc. (OTCQB: IVOB), a medical device company which was granted FDA clearance for its Intravaginal Culture System, INVOcell, today announced financial results for the first quarter of 2019, ended March 31, 2019. Financial Results and Recent Highlights: Revenue for Q1 2019 increased 82% to $189,432 compared to $104,140 for the comparable quarter in 2018; compared to for the comparable quarter in 2018; On January 14, 2019 the Company closed an exclusive U.S. licensing agreement with Ferring International Center S.A. the parent Company of Ferring Pharmaceuticals U.S. to commercialize the INVOcell system for use in the treatment of infertility. the Company closed an exclusive U.S. licensing agreement with Ferring International Center S.A. the parent Company of Ferring Pharmaceuticals U.S. to commercialize the INVOcell system for use in the treatment of infertility. As part of the U.S. licensing agreement the Company received a $5 million one-time milestone payment, with the ability to receive an additional $3 million upon obtaining a label enhancement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; one-time milestone payment, with the ability to receive an additional upon obtaining a label enhancement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; During the quarter the Company appointed Michael J. Campbell as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Business Development to head up the Company's planned commercialization efforts internationally, as well as oversee the launch of the INVO clinic strategy in the United States ; as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Business Development to head up the Company's planned commercialization efforts internationally, as well as oversee the launch of the INVO clinic strategy in ; Q2 2019 revenue expected to increase significantly due to initial commercial scale shipments made to Ferring during April of approximately $275,000 with further shipments anticipated. This product order, coupled with the prorated proportion of the licensing agreement should result in second quarter revenues to be more than $450,000 . Management Discussion Katie Karloff, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of INVO Bioscience, commented, "We expect 2019 to be a pivotal year in the history of INVO Bioscience. We are building the foundation of the business with three main pillars. The first pillar is our exclusive U.S. partnership with Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a leader in the reproductive health industry. Ferring will provide the necessary sales and marketing resources to more fully develop the market in the United States. There are countless couples not able to receive reproductive treatments today, and Ferring can be instrumental in addressing the unmet needs of this cohort. Ferring has the industry experience, relationships and the marketing capabilities to successfully embed the INVOcell in clinics throughout the country. We look forward to their market expansion for many years." "The other two pillars marketing the INVOcell internationally and establishing a series of INVO clinical labs throughout the U.S. is beginning to take shape. During the quarter we hired Michael J. Campbell as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Business Development to commercialize the INVOcell internationally, and to execute on the development of our INVO clinic lab model in the United States. In a career that spans more than 30 years, Mike has substantial medical device sales, marketing, as well as international business development leadership experience with Fortune 500 and start-up companies alike, including Cooper Surgical and Boston Scientific. Mike has hit the ground running in approaching his contacts in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and is beginning to gain traction." Ms. Karloff concluded, "We are well positioned to execute on our business plan. We have the product, the people and the strategic partnership with Ferring to move our company forward in the coming years." Financial Results Revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2019, was $189,432 compared to $104,140 for the same three-month period in 2018, an increase of $85,292 or 82%. The increase was the result of recognizing 3.6% of the Ferring seven year U.S. exclusive licensing & distribution fee that was recorded as deferred revenue in January 2019 upon the execution of the agreement. From a device sales standpoint, the first quarter represented a transition period to the Ferring licensing and distribution agreement. The Company shipped minimal product during the quarter as INVO and Ferring worked to develop packaging and other key commercialization tasks. Subsequent to the first quarter end, the Company shipped initial orders of approximately $275,000 in April with further shipments anticipated. This product order, coupled with the prorated proportion of the licensing agreement should result in second quarter revenues to be more than $450,000. The gross margin reported for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 was 94% or $178,454 compared to 86% or $89,716 for the three months ended March 31, 2018. Selling, general and administrative expenses for the three months ended March 31, 2019 were $527,565 as compared to $229,999 for the three months ended March 31, 2018, an increase of $297,566 or 129%. The increase in SG&A during the first quarter of 2019 compared to the first quarter of 2018 was the result of increased staff, along with initial site development work for INVO clinical labs, and increased U.S. and international travel related to our efforts to develop additional partnerships. During the three-month period ended March 31, 2019 the Company incurred $109,459 in interest expense, an increase of $105,019 compared to $4,440 in the three-month period ended March 31, 2018. The primary reason for the increase in 2019 was the amortization of discount on the 2018 Convertible Notes Payable in the amount of $93,237 along with $13,982 of interest for the same notes. In the first three months of 2019 the Company had $2,240 of note payable interest compared to note payable interest of $4,440 the first quarter of 2018. The Company reported a net loss of $458,570, or $(0.00) per basic and diluted share for the three months ended March 31, 2019, compared to a net loss of $144,723, or $(0.00) per basic and diluted share for the three months ended March 31, 2018. About INVO Bioscience We are a medical device company focused on creating simplified, lower cost treatments for patients diagnosed with infertility. Our solution, the INVO Procedure, is a disruptive new technology. The INVO Procedure is a revolutionary in vivo method of vaginal incubation that offers patients a more natural and intimate experience. Our lead product, the INVOcell, is a patented medical device used in infertility treatment and is considered an Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). The INVOcell is the first Intravaginal Culture (IVC) system in the world used for the natural in vivo incubation of eggs and sperm during fertilization and early embryo development, as an alternative to traditional In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Our mission is to increase access to care and expand fertility treatment across the globe with a goal to lower the cost of care and increase availability of care. For more information, please visit http://invobioscience.com/ Safe Harbor Statement This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Company invokes the protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategies, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, as well as statements that include words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include those set forth in our filings at www.sec.gov. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For more information, please contact: INVO Bioscience Kathleen Karloff, CEO 978-878-9505 ext. 504 [email protected] Investors Lytham Partners, LLC Robert Blum 602-889-9700 [email protected] Financial Tables to Follow INVO BIOSCIENCE, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS March 31, December 31, 2019 2018 ASSETS (unaudited) Current assets Cash $ 3,057,466 $ 212,243 Accounts receivable net 74,717 225,899 Inventory, net 51,685 43,513 Prepaid expense and other current assets 226,696 249,454 Total current assets 3,410,564 731,109 Property and equipment, net 81,709 34,446 Other Assets: Capitalized patents, net 10,958 11,792 Total other assets 10,958 11,792 Total assets $ 3,503,231 $ 777,347 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' DEFICIENCY Current liabilities Accounts payable and accrued liabilities, including related parties $ 588,354 $ 571,828 Accrued compensation 932,661 2,515,256 Deferred revenue 4,840,323 18,895 Note payable - 131,722 Note payable - related party 35,000 97,743 Convertible notes, net of discount 196,883 157,039 Convertible notes, related party - net of discount 12,480 9,087 Total current liabilities 6,605,701 3,501,570 Note payable - long term - - Total liabilities 6,605,701 3,501,570 Commitments and contingencies - - Stockholder's deficiency Preferred Stock, $.0001 par value; 100,000,000 shares authorized; No shares issued and outstanding as of March 31, 2019 and December 31 2018, respectively - - Common Stock, $.0001 par value; 200,000,000 shares authorized; 154,621,112 and 154,292,497 issued and outstanding as of March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively 15,461 15,429 Additional paid-in capital 19,061,861 18,981,570 Accumulated deficit (22,179,792) (21,721,222) Total stockholder's deficiency (3,102,470) (2,724,223) Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 3,503,231 $ 777,347 INVO BIOSCIENCE, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (unaudited) For the For the Three Months Three Months Ended Ended March 31, March 31, 2019 2018 Revenue $ 189,432 $ 104,140 Cost of Goods Sold 10,978 14,424 Gross Margin 178,454 89,716 Selling, general and administrative expenses 527,565 229,999 Total operating expenses 527,565 229,999 Loss from operations (349,111) (140,283) Other (income) expense: Interest expense 109,459 4,440 Total other (income) expenses 109,459 4,440 Loss before income taxes (458,570) (144,723) Provisions for income taxes - - Net Loss $ (458,570) $ (144,723) Basic net loss per weighted average shares of common stock $ (0.00) $ (0.00) Diluted net loss per weighted average shares of common stock $ (0.00) $ (0.00) Basic weighted average number of shares of common stock 154,102,856 143,340,969 Diluted weighted average number of shares of common stock 154,102,856 143,340,969 INVO BIOSCIENCE, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (unaudited) For the For the Three Months Three Months Ended Ended March 31, March 31, 2019 2018 Cash flows from operating activities: Net loss $ (458,570) $ (144,723) Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities: Non-cash stock compensation issued for services 26,600 181,664 Depreciation and amortization 1,971 1,134 Amortization of discount on notes payable 93,237 - Changes in assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable 151,182 (24,160) Inventories (8,172) 3,939 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 22,758 (12,523) Deferred revenue 4,821,428 - Accounts payable and accrued expenses 20,249 (124,884) Accrued compensation (1,582,595) 82,200 Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities 3,088,088 (37,353) Cash from investing activities: Payments to acquire property, plant and equipment (48,400) - Net cash used in investing activities (48,400) - Cash from financing activities: Cash paid for related party notes payable (62,743) - Cash paid for notes payable (131,722) - Proceeds from the sale of common stock - 47,000 Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities (194,465) 47,000 Increase in cash and cash equivalents 2,845,223 9,647 Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 212,243 25,759 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 3,057,466 $ 35,406 Supplemental disclosure of cash flow information: Cash paid during the period for: Interest $ 9,879 $ - Taxes $ 912 $ 912 Common stock issued for conversion of notes payable $ 53,723 $ - SOURCE INVO Bioscience, Inc. Related Links http://invobioscience.com TSX: JAG TORONTO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSX: JAG) today announced financial and operating results for the three months ("Q1 2019") and ended March 31, 2019. Detailed financial results for Q1 2019 are available on www.sedar.com and on the Company's website www.jaguarmining.com. All figures are in US dollars, unless otherwise expressed. Q1 2019 Operating Summary Consolidated gold production of 16,365 ounces (160,600 tonnes milled, average grade of 3.59 g/t) declined 13% compared to 18,865 in Q1 2018 Pilar mine gold production declined 7% to 8,840 ounces compared to 9,553 ounces in Q1 2018 Turmalina mine gold production declined 11% to 7,525 ounces compared to 8,442 ounce in Q1 2018 Primary development increased 9% to 1,161 m Sustaining capital expenditures of $7.1 million invested in mining equipment and development Q1 2019 Financial Results Summary Gross profit of $3.2 million includes impact of a 5% decrease in operating expenses year-over-year includes impact of a 5% decrease in operating expenses year-over-year Consolidated Cash operating costs ("COC") increased 9% to $870 per ounce. Lower gold production was partially offset by lower operating expenditures. per ounce. Lower gold production was partially offset by lower operating expenditures. Consolidated all-in sustaining costs ("AISC") increased 11% to $1,428 per ounce per ounce Operating cash flow of $2.5 million ; adjusted EBITDA of $3.6 million ; adjusted EBITDA of Net loss of $1.8 million , or net loss per share of $0.01 , or net loss per share of Completed a secured bridge facility ("Facility") for $7.85 million with Auramet which expires on July 15 , 2019. with Auramet which expires on , 2019. Cash balance of approximately $7.9 million as of March 31, 2019 compared to a cash balance of $6.3 million at December 31, 2018 "First quarter results reflect lower production levels from both Turmalina and Pilar. Operational delays related to slot raises, geotechnical issues and lack of flexibility at Turmalina resulted in lower tonnes milled of 65,000kt. We continue to focus on executing a turnaround plan at Turmalina that will address operational challenges faced during the quarter. "With new production panels in Orebody A and Orebody C-SE planned to start in late 2019, we expect to see increasing production and mining flexibility along with increasing developed reserves. Exploration success in the Orebody C-Central will provide a third production area in 2020 that will increase production capability. Geotechnical issues will be managed with systematic stope sequencing, paste fill, and stope designs that match geotechnical conditions. Mine working hours increased due to implementing a four shift per day schedule in February 2019 at Turmalina and May 2019 in Pilar." "At Pilar, production during the first quarter declined on lower realized grade of 3.34 g/t as a result of excess dilution in a large stope, while Caete metallurgical recovery also declined due to leach agitation and gravity circuit controls. Leach agitators were replaced in February 2019 as well as other operational improvements. Recovery increased to 88% in February and March compared to 84% in January. The CIP agitators are planned to be replaced in May and June 2019 which should further increase recovery." "Looking ahead, our focus remains on turning around operations at Turmalina to return to historical levels of 15 kozs per quarter over 2 years. While we are making progress, we still have work to do. Development progress over the next 3 quarters is key. As we continue to execute, we also expect our cost-per-ounce performance to improve moving forward." Q1 2019 Financial Results ($ thousands, except where indicated) For the three months ended March 31, 2019 2018 Financial Data Revenue $ 21,416 $ 25,228 Operating costs 14,630 15,399 Depreciation 3,610 4,885 Gross profit 3,176 4,944 Net loss (1,839) (1,781) Per share ("EPS") (0.01) (0.01) EBITDA1 2,653 4,154 Adjusted EBITDA1,2 3,577 5,573 Adjusted EBITDA per share1 0.01 0.02 Cash operating costs (per ounce sold)1 870 800 All-in sustaining costs (per ounce sold)1 1,428 1,289 Average realized gold price (per ounce) 1,273 1,311 Cash generated from operating activities 2,523 4,979 Free cash flow1 (4,563) (1,688) Free cash flow (per ounce sold)1 (271) (88) Sustaining capital expenditures1 7,086 6,667 Non-sustaining capital expenditures1 189 493 Total capital expenditures 7,275 7,160 1 |Average realized gold price, sustaining and non-sustaining capital expenditures, cash operating costs and all-in sustaining costs, adjusted operating cash flow, free cash flow, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA per share, and gross profit (excluding depreciation) are non-IFRS financial performance measures with no standard definition under IFRS. Refer to the Non-IFRS Financial Performance Measures section of the MD&A. 2|Adjusted EBITDA excludes non-cash items such as impairment and write downs. For more details refer to the Non-IFRS Performance Measures section of the MD&A. Q1 2019 Operating Results Quarterly Summary Q1 2019 Q1 2018 Turmalina Pilar Roca Grande Total Turmalina Pilar Roca Grande Total Tonnes milled (t) 65,410 95,193 - 160,603 81,145 80,728 11,924 173,797 Average head grade (g/t) 3.96 3.34 - 3.59 3.57 4.13 2.55 3.76 Recovery % 89.6% 86.4% - 87.7% 90.6% 89.2% 89.2% 89.9% Gold ounces Produced (oz) 7,525 8,840 - 16,365 8,442 9,553 870 18,865 Sold (oz) 8,006 8,815 - 16,821 8,414 9,929 894 19,237 Cash Operating Costs ("COC") 868 871 - 870 749 805 1,230 800 Development Primary (m) 573 588 - 1,161 648 421 - 1,069 Secondary (m) 321 310 - 631 91 356 - 447 Definition, infill, and exploration drilling (m) 4,290 2,342 - 6,632 5,545 3,197 697 9,439 Cash Position, Working Capital & Corporate As at March 31, 2019 , the Company had a cash position of $7.9 million , compared to $6.3 million as at December 31, 2018 . The March 31, 2019 , cash balance excludes a $2 million restricted cash deposit held with Auramet, and also $0.5 million margin deposit to Banco Votorantim S.A. , the Company had a cash position of , compared to as at . The , cash balance excludes a restricted cash deposit held with Auramet, and also margin deposit to Banco Votorantim S.A. As at March 31, 2019 , working capital was negative $8.3 million , compared to negative $2.4 million as at December 31, 2018 , which includes $6.6 million ( December 31, 2018 - $7.3 million ) in loans from Brazilian banks, which mature every six months and are expected to be rolled forward. , working capital was negative , compared to negative as at , which includes ( - ) in loans from Brazilian banks, which mature every six months and are expected to be rolled forward. On March 15, 2019 , the Company entered into a senior secured loan facility ("Auramet loan facility") agreement with Auramet International LLC for $7.85 million to fund working capital. The Auramet loan facility was provided by security agreements comprising the Company's and MSOL's present and future assets, the shares of MSOL, and a loan guarantee by MSOL. As per the agreement, interest shall be prepaid and non-reimbursable in the amount of $350,000 , and principal is due at maturity on July 15, 2019 . , the Company entered into a senior secured loan facility ("Auramet loan facility") agreement with Auramet International LLC for to fund working capital. The Auramet loan facility was provided by security agreements comprising the Company's and MSOL's present and future assets, the shares of MSOL, and a loan guarantee by MSOL. As per the agreement, interest shall be prepaid and non-reimbursable in the amount of , and principal is due at maturity on . The Company has also retained an external executive recruitment firm to search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer. The hiring process is in an advance stage and the Company expects to finalize the position in Q2 2019. Qualified Persons Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Jonathan Victor Hill, BSc (Hons) (Economic Geology - UCT), Senior Expert Advisor Geology and Exploration to the Jaguar Mining Management Committee, who is also an employee of Jaguar Mining Inc., and is a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The Iron Quadrangle The Iron Quadrangle has been an area of mineral exploration dating back to the 16th century. The discovery in 16991701 of gold contaminated with iron and platinum-group metals in the southeastern corner of the Iron Quadrangle gave rise to the name of the town Ouro Preto (Black Gold). The Iron Quadrangle contains world-class multi-million-ounce gold deposits such as Morro Velho, Cuiaba, and Sao Bento. Jaguar holds the second largest gold land position in the Iron Quadrangle with just over 25,000 hectares. About Jaguar Mining Inc. Jaguar Mining Inc. is a Canadian-listed junior gold mining, development, and exploration company operating in Brazil with three gold mining complexes and a large land package with significant upside exploration potential from mineral claims covering an area of approximately 64,000 hectares. The Company's principal operating assets are located in the Iron Quadrangle, a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais and include the Turmalina Gold Mine Complex and Caete Mining Complex (Pilar and Roca Grande Mines, and Caete Plant). The Company also owns the Paciencia Gold Mine Complex, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012 and the Roca Grande Mine which has been on care and maintenance since April 2018. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.jaguarmining.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. All of the forward-looking information made in this news release is qualified by the cautionary statements below and those made in our other filings with the securities regulators in Canada. Forward-looking information contained in forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "are expected," "is forecast," "is targeted," "approximately," "plans," "anticipates," "projects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "believe" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "would," "might," or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, may be considered to be or include forward-looking information. This news release contains forward-looking information regarding, among other things, expected sales, production statistics, ore grades, tonnes milled, recovery rates, cash operating costs, definition/delineation drilling, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, costs and timing of the development of projects and new deposits, success of exploration, development and mining activities, currency fluctuations, capital requirements, project studies, mine life extensions, restarting suspended or disrupted operations, continuous improvement initiatives, and resolution of pending litigation. The Company has made numerous assumptions with respect to forward-looking information contained herein, including, among other things, assumptions about the estimated timeline for the development of its mineral properties; the supply and demand for, and the level and volatility of the price of, gold; the accuracy of reserve and resource estimates and the assumptions on which the reserve and resource estimates are based; the receipt of necessary permits; market competition; ongoing relations with employees and impacted communities; political and legal developments in any jurisdiction in which the Company operates being consistent with its current expectations including, without limitation, the impact of any potential power rationing, tailings facility regulation, exploration and mine operating licenses and permits being obtained an renewed and/or there being adverse amendments to mining or other laws in Brazil and any changes to general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking information involves a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including among others: the risk of Jaguar not meeting the forecast plans regarding its operations and financial performance; uncertainties with respect to the price of gold, labour disruptions, mechanical failures, increase in costs, environmental compliance and change in environmental legislation and regulation, weather delays and increased costs or production delays due to natural disasters, power disruptions, procurement and delivery of parts and supplies to the operations; uncertainties inherent to capital markets in general (including the sometimes volatile valuation of securities and an uncertain ability to raise new capital) and other risks inherent to the gold exploration, development and production industry, which, if incorrect, may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company and described herein. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of gold exploration, development, mining and production, including environmental hazards, tailings dam failures, industrial accidents and workplace safety problems, unusual or unexpected geological formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding, chemical spills, procurement fraud and gold bullion thefts and losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance, or the inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks). Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking information made in this news release, see the Company's most recent Annual Information Form and Management's Discussion and Analysis, as well as other public disclosure documents that can be accessed under the issuer profile of "Jaguar Mining Inc." on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking information set forth herein reflects the Company's reasonable expectations as at the date of this news release and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Non-IFRS Measures This news release provides certain financial measures that do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Readers are cautioned to review the below stated footnotes where the Company expanded on its use of non-IFRS measures. Cash operating costs and cash operating cost per ounce are non-IFRS measures. In the gold mining industry, cash operating costs and cash operating costs per ounce are common performance measures but do not have any standardized meaning. Cash operating costs are derived from amounts included in the Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss) and include mine-site operating costs such as mining, processing and administration, as well as royalty expenses, but exclude depreciation, depletion, share-based payment expenses, and reclamation costs. Cash operating costs per ounce are based on ounces produced and are calculated by dividing cash operating costs by commercial gold ounces produced; US$ cash operating costs per ounce produced are derived from the cash operating costs per ounce produced translated using the average Brazilian Central Bank R$/US$ exchange rate. The Company discloses cash operating costs and cash operating costs per ounce, as it believes those measures provide valuable assistance to investors and analysts in evaluating the Company's operational performance and ability to generate cash flow. The most directly comparable measure prepared in accordance with IFRS is total production costs. A reconciliation of cash operating costs per ounce to total production costs for the most recent reporting period, the quarter ended March 31, 2019 , is set out in the Company's first quarter 2019 Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. All-in sustaining cost is a non-IFRS measure. This measure is intended to assist readers in evaluating the total costs of producing gold from current operations. While there is no standardized meaning across the industry for this measure, except for non-cash items the Company's definition conforms to the all-in sustaining cost definition as set out by the World Gold Council in its guidance note dated June 27, 2013 . The Company defines all-in sustaining cost as the sum of production costs, sustaining capital (capital required to maintain current operations at existing levels), corporate general and administrative expenses, and in-mine exploration expenses. All-in sustaining cost excludes growth capital, reclamation cost accretion related to current operations, interest and other financing costs, and taxes. A reconciliation of all-in sustaining cost to total production costs for the most recent reporting period, the quarter ended March 31, 2019 , is set out in the Company's first quarter 2019 MD&A filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. SOURCE Jaguar Mining Inc. Related Links http://www.jaguarmining.com RARITAN, N.J., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced today the latest research from its robust oncology portfolio and pipeline to be presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago from May 31 to June 4. More than 30 company-sponsored abstracts have been accepted, supporting the data from clinical development programs investigating innovative treatments for prostate cancer, hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. Notably, data presentations for ERLEADA (apalutamide), DARZALEX (daratumumab) and IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib) have been selected for the Best of ASCO 2019 Meetings, which highlight cutting-edge science and reflect leading research in oncology. "As we continue to advance our portfolio and pipeline, we are pleased to present important new findings for ERLEADA in metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, and for DARZALEX in the treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma and as a subcutaneous formulation," said Peter Lebowitz, M.D., Ph.D., Global Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology, Janssen Research & Development, LLC. "The ASCO Annual Meeting represents an important venue to present the very latest from our research and development programs, and showcase our commitment to improve the lives of patients who have been diagnosed with cancer through breakthrough science and innovative medicines." Highlights of the data from Janssen's diverse oncology portfolio and pipeline include: ERLEADA Results in the Treatment of Metastatic Castration-Sensitive Prostate Cancer Results from the Phase 3 TITAN trial evaluating ERLEADA in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in the treatment of patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC) will be featured in an oral presentation (Abstract #5006). On April 29, Janssen announced the submission of a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) seeking approval of ERLEADA for the treatment of patients with mCSPC, based upon findings from TITAN, which met its dual primary endpoints, overall survival (OS) and radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS). The sNDA is being reviewed by the FDA through the Real-Time Oncology Review (RTOR) program. DARZALEX Findings in the Treatment of Newly Diagnosed and Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma, Including Pivotal Subcutaneous Formulation Data Data from two Phase 3 studies of DARZALEX will be presented during an oral session. Results from the Phase 3 CASSIOPEIA study evaluating DARZALEX in combination with bortezomib, thalidomide and dexamethasone for newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma who are transplant eligible will be presented (Abstract #8003). These data supported recent regulatory filings in the U.S. and European Union seeking to expand the current indication for DARZALEX in the frontline setting. Findings from the Phase 3 COLUMBA study will be presented (Abstract #8005) evaluating the subcutaneous formulation in the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. IMBRUVICA Long-Term Data in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Follow-up results from the Phase 3 RESONATE (PCYC-1112) study evaluating IMBRUVICA monotherapy in adult patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL) will be presented (Abstract #7510). The final analysis with six years of follow-up continues to support long-term disease control and tolerability with IMBRUVICA in the treatment of CLL/SLL. IMBRUVICA, a Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, is jointly developed and commercialized by Janssen Biotech, Inc. and Pharmacyclics LLC, an AbbVie company. Data for the Investigational Bispecific JNJ-61186372 in the Treatment of Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer An oral presentation (Abstract #9009) will feature updated Phase 1 safety and efficacy results evaluating JNJ-61186372, a fully-humanized bispecific antibody targeting both the EGFR and MET tyrosine receptor kinases, in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). JNJ-61186372 is currently being developed for the treatment of patients with EGFR-mutated NSCLC. Select company-sponsored abstracts follow below. In addition, abstracts for ZYTIGA (abiraterone acetate), VELCADE (bortezomib) and YONDELIS (trabectedin) will also be presented and can be found through the ASCO abstract database here. Abstract No. Title Date/Time ERLEADA (apalutamide) Oral Presentation Abstract #5006 First results from TITAN: A phase 3 double-blind, randomized study of apalutamide versus placebo in patients with mCSPC receiving ADT Friday, May 31 4:45 4:57 p.m. CT Poster Presentations Abstract #5023 Efficacy of apalutamide plus ongoing ADT in patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC) and baseline comorbidities Saturday, June 1 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT Abstract #5024 Age-related efficacy and safety of apalutamide plus ongoing (ADT) in subgroups of patients with nmCRPC: Post hoc analysis of SPARTAN Saturday, June 1 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT Abstract #5025 Predictors of falls and fractures in patients with nmCRPC treated with apalutamide plus ongoing ADT Saturday, June 1 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT Abstract # TPS5100 PROTEUS: A randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled, phase 3 trial of apalutamide plus ADT versus placebo plus ADT prior to radical prostatectomy in patients with localized high-risk or locally advanced prostate cancer Saturday, June 1 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT DARZALEX (daratumumab) Oral Presentations Abstract #8003 Phase 3 Randomized Study of Daratumumab + Bortezomib/Thalidomide/ Dexamethasone (D-VTd) Vs VTd in Transplant- eligible Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma: CASSIOPEIA Part 1 Results Sunday, June 2 10:45 10:57 a.m. CT Abstract #8005 Efficacy and Safety of the Randomized, Open- Label, Non-inferiority, Phase 3 Study of Subcutaneous Versus Intravenous Daratumumab Administration in Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma: COLUMBA Sunday, June 2 11:09 11:21 a.m. CT Poster Discussions Abstract #8017 Efficacy of Daratumumab + VTd in Transplant- eligible Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma Based on Minimal Residual Disease Status: Analysis of the CASSIOPEIA Trial Monday, June 3 Poster Display: 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Poster Discussion: 1:15 2:15 p.m. CT Abstract #8016 Faster and sustained improvement in health- related quality of life for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients ineligible for transplant treated with daratumumab, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (D-Rd) vs Rd alone: MAIA Monday, June 3 Poster Display: 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Poster Discussion: 1:15 2:15 p.m. CT Poster Presentations Abstract #8042 Stem Cell Yield and Transplantation Results from Transplant-eligible Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma Patients Receiving Daratumumab + VTd in the Phase 3 CASSIOPEIA Study Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Abstract #8035 Impact of Age on Efficacy and Safety of Daratumumab in Combination with Lenalidomide and Dexamethasone (D-Rd) in Patients with Transplant-ineligible Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma: MAIA Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Abstract #8038 Efficacy and Safety of Daratumumab, Lenalidomide, and Dexamethasone (D-Rd) in Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma: Updated Subgroup Analysis of POLLUX Based on Cytogenetic Risk Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Abstract #8040 Efficacy and Safety of Daratumumab, Bortezomib, and Dexamethasone (D-Vd) in Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma Based on Cytogenetic Risk: Updated Subgroup Analysis of CASTOR Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Abstract # TPS8055 Bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (VRd) daratumumab in patients with transplant- eligible newly diagnosed multiple myeloma: a multicenter, randomized, Phase 3 study (PERSEUS) Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Abstract #TPS8056 Bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (VRd) daratumumab in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma for whom transplant is not planned as initial therapy: a multicenter, randomized, phase 3 study (CEPHEUS) Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT IMBRUVICA* (ibrutinib) Poster Discussions Abstract #7510 Final Analysis From RESONATE: 6-Year Follow-up in Patients with Previously Treated CLL/SLL on Ibrutinib Monday, June 3 Poster Display: 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Poster Discussion: 11:30 a.m. 1:00 p.m. CT Abstract #8018 Patient-Reported Outcomes with Ibrutinib- Rituximab in Waldenstrom Macroglobulinemia: Results From iNNOVATE Monday, June 3 Poster Display: 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Poster Discussion: 1:15 2:45 p.m. CT BALVERSA (erdafitinib) Poster Presentations Abstract #4117 Updated Results of a Ph2a Study to Evaluate the Clinical Efficacy and Safety of Erdafitinib in Asian Advanced Cholangiocarcinoma Patients with FGFR alterations Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT Abstract #4542 FGFR-altered, advanced urothelial carcinoma (UC) and response to chemotherapy prior to receiving erdafitinib Monday, June 3 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT Abstract #4543 Erdafitinib in high-risk patients with advanced UC Monday, June 3 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT Niraparib Poster Presentations Abstract #TPS5087 A Phase 1b-2 Study of Niraparib Combination Therapies for the Treatment of Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC) (NCT03431350) QUEST Saturday, June 1 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT Abstract #5066 Plasma DNA repair deficient status associates with clinical outcome of mCRPC patients (pts) treated with abiraterone acetate plus prednisone/dexamethasone (+P/D) Saturday, June 1 1:15 4:15 p.m. CT JNJ-64457107 Poster Presentation Abstract #2527 A phase I study to assess safety, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of JNJ- 64457107, a CD40 agonistic monoclonal antibody, in patients with advanced solid tumors Saturday, June 1 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT JNJ-61186372 Oral Presentation Abstract #9009 JNJ-61186372, an EGFR-cMet bispecific antibody, in EGFR-driven advanced NSCLC Friday, May 31 1:12 1:24 p.m. CT XARELTO (rivaroxaban) Poster Discussion Abstract #4016 Rivaroxaban thromboprophylaxis in ambulatory patients with pancreatic cancer: Results from a prespecified subgroup analysis of the CASSINI study Monday, June 3 8:00 11:00 a.m. CT *Abstracts were submitted by IMBRUVICA co-developer partner, Pharmacyclics, an AbbVie company. About ERLEADA (apalutamide) ERLEADA (apalutamide) is an androgen receptor (AR) inhibitor indicated for the treatment of patients with nmCRPC. It became the first treatment to receive FDA approval for this disease state on February 14, 2018.1 The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Prostate Cancer include apalutamide as a treatment option for patients with non-metastatic (M0) CRPC with a category 1 recommendation for those with a PSA doubling time 10 months*.2 Additionally, the American Urological Association (AUA) Guidelines for Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) were updated to include apalutamide (ERLEADA) with continued ADT as a treatment option that clinicians should offer to patients with asymptomatic nmCRPC. It is included as one of the options clinicians should offer to patients with nmCRPC who are at high-risk for developing metastatic disease (Standard; Evidence Level Grade A)**.3 *Referenced with permission from the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Prostate Cancer V.2.2019. National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Accessed April 23, 2019. To view the most recent and complete version of the NCCN Guidelines, go online to NCCN.org. NCCN makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever regarding their content, use, or application, and disclaims any responsibility for their application or use in any way. **Standard: Directive statement that an action should (benefits outweigh risks/burdens) or should not (risks/burdens outweigh benefits) be taken based on Grade A or B evidence. **Evidence Level: A designation indicating the certainty of the results as high, moderate, or low (A, B, or C, respectively) based on AUA nomenclature and methodology. About DARZALEX (daratumumab) DARZALEX (daratumumab), the first CD38-directed antibody approved anywhere in the world, is the only CD38-directed antibody approved to treat multiple myeloma.4 CD38 is a surface protein that is present in high numbers on multiple myeloma cells, regardless of the stage of disease.5 DARZALEX binds to CD38 and inhibits tumor cell growth causing myeloma cell death.4 DARZALEX may also have an effect on normal cells.4 DARZALEX is being evaluated in a comprehensive clinical development program across a range of treatment settings in multiple myeloma, such as in frontline and relapsed settings.6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 Additional studies are ongoing or planned to assess its potential in other malignant and pre-malignant hematologic diseases in which CD38 is expressed, such as smoldering myeloma.14,15 In the U.S., DARZALEX received initial FDA approval in November 2015 as a monotherapy for patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least three prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor (PI) and an immunomodulatory agent, or who are double refractory to a PI and an immunomodulatory agent.16 DARZALEX received additional approvals in November 2016 in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone, or bortezomib and dexamethasone, for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior therapy.17 In June 2017, DARZALEX received approval in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies, including lenalidomide and a PI.18 In May 2018, DARZALEX received approval in combination with bortezomib, melphalan and prednisone for the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are ineligible for ASCT, making it the first monoclonal antibody approved for newly diagnosed patients with this disease.19 In August 2012, Janssen Biotech, Inc. entered into a global license and development agreement with Genmab A/S, which granted Janssen an exclusive license to develop, manufacture and commercialize DARZALEX.20 For the full U.S. Prescribing Information, please visit www.DARZALEX.com. About IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib) IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib) is a once-daily oral medicine that works differently than chemotherapy as it blocks the Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) protein. The BTK protein sends important signals that tell B cells to mature and produce antibodies. BTK signaling is needed by specific cancer cells to multiply and spread.21,22 By blocking BTK, IMBRUVICA may help move abnormal B cells out of their nourishing environments in the lymph nodes, bone marrow, and other organs.23 IMBRUVICA is approved in more than 95 countries, and, to date, has been used to treat more than 140,000 patients worldwide across approved indications. It was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November 2013, and today is indicated in six disease areas, including five hematologic cancers chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with or without 17p deletion (del17p), small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) with or without del17p, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia (WM), previously-treated patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL)*, previously-treated patients with marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) who require systemic therapy and have received at least one prior anti-CD20-based therapy*, and previously-treated patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) after failure of one or more lines of systemic therapy.24 IMBRUVICA is the first and only FDA-approved medicine in WM, MZL* and cGVHD. IMBRUVICA has been granted four Breakthrough Therapy Designations by the FDA, and it was one of the first medicines to receive U.S. approval through the Breakthrough Therapy Designation. * Accelerated approval was granted for MCL and MZL based on overall response rate. Continued approval for MCL and MZL may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trials. IMBRUVICA is a comprehensively studied molecule in the oncology industry. The robust clinical oncology development program includes more than 150 active clinical trials studying IMBRUVICA alone and in combination with other medicines in several blood cancers and other serious diseases. For more information, visit www.IMBRUVICA.com. About BALVERSA (erdafitinib) BALVERSA (erdafitinib) is a once-daily, oral fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) kinase inhibitor indicated for the treatment of adults with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC) that has susceptible FGFR3 or FGFR2 genetic alterations and who have progressed during or following at least one line of prior platinum-containing chemotherapy, including within 12 months of neoadjuvant or adjuvant platinum-containing chemotherapy.25 This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on tumor response rate. Select patients for therapy based on an FDA-approved companion diagnostic for BALVERSA. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trials.25 The pivotal multicenter, open-label Phase 2 BLC2001 (NCT02365597) clinical trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of BALVERSA for the treatment of adults with locally advanced or mUC that had progressed on or after at least one line of prior chemotherapy and whose tumors have certain FGFR alterations.25 In 2008, Janssen entered into an exclusive worldwide license and collaboration agreement with Astex Pharmaceuticals to develop and commercialize BALVERSA. BALVERSA is commercially available through the single-source specialty pharmacy provider US Bioservices. For more information about BALVERSA, visit www.BALVERSA.com. About niraparib Niraparib is an orally-administered selective poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor that is currently being studied for the treatment of patients with prostate cancer by Janssen. In April 2016, Janssen entered a worldwide (except Japan) collaboration and license agreement with TESARO, Inc., for exclusive rights to niraparib in prostate cancer. In the U.S., niraparib is indicated for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in a complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy.26 Niraparib is currently marketed by TESARO, an oncology-focused business within GSK, devoted to providing transformative therapies to people facing cancer. Please refer to the full Prescribing Information available at http://www.tesarobio.com/en/products/zejula-niraparib. WHAT IS XARELTO (rivaroxaban)?27 XARELTO (rivaroxaban) is a prescription medicine used to: reduce the risk of stroke and blood clots in people who have a medical condition called atrial fibrillation that is not caused by a heart valve problem. With atrial fibrillation, part of the heart does not beat the way it should. This can lead to the formation of blood clots, which can travel to the brain, causing a stroke, or to other parts of the body treat blood clots in the veins of your legs (deep vein thrombosis or DVT) or lungs (pulmonary embolism or PE) reduce the risk of blood clots happening again in people who continue to be at risk for DVT or PE after receiving treatment for blood clots for at least 6 months help prevent a blood clot in the legs and lungs of people who have just had hip or knee replacement surgery XARELTO is also used with low dose aspirin to: reduce the reduce the risk of serious heart problems, heart attack and stroke in patients with coronary artery disease (a condition where the blood supply to the heart is reduced or blocked) or peripheral arterial disease (a condition where the blood flow to the legs is reduced) It is not known if XARELTO is safe and effective in children. ERLEADA IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION1 CONTRAINDICATIONS Pregnancy ERLEADA (apalutamide) can cause fetal harm and potential loss of pregnancy. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Falls and Fractures In a randomized study (SPARTAN), falls and fractures occurred in 16% and 12% of patients treated with ERLEADA compared to 9% and 7% treated with placebo, respectively. Falls were not associated with loss of consciousness or seizure. Evaluate patients for fracture and fall risk. Monitor and manage patients at risk for fractures according to established treatment guidelines and consider use of bone targeted agents. Seizure In a randomized study (SPARTAN), 2 patients (0.2%) treated with ERLEADA experienced a seizure. Permanently discontinue ERLEADA in patients who develop a seizure during treatment. It is unknown whether anti-epileptic medications will prevent seizures with ERLEADA. Advise patients of the risk of developing a seizure while receiving ERLEADA and of engaging in any activity where sudden loss of consciousness could cause harm to themselves or others. ADVERSE REACTIONS Adverse Reactions The most common adverse reactions (10%) were fatigue, hypertension, rash, diarrhea, nausea, weight decreased, arthralgia, fall, hot flush, decreased appetite, fracture, and peripheral edema. Laboratory Abnormalities All Grades (Grade 3-4) Hematology anemia ERLEADA 70% (0.4%), placebo 64% (0.5%); leukopenia ERLEADA 47% (0.3%), placebo 29% (0%); lymphopenia ERLEADA 41% (2%), placebo 21% (2%) 70% (0.4%), placebo 64% (0.5%); leukopenia ERLEADA 47% (0.3%), placebo 29% (0%); lymphopenia ERLEADA 41% (2%), placebo 21% (2%) Chemistry hypercholesterolemia ERLEADA 76% (0.1%), placebo 46% (0%); hyperglycemia ERLEADA 70% (2%), placebo 59% (1%); hypertriglyceridemia ERLEADA 67% (2%), placebo 49% (0.8%); hyperkalemia ERLEADA 32% (2%), placebo 22% (0.5%) Rash Rash was most commonly described as macular or maculo-papular. Adverse reactions were 24% with ERLEADA versus 6% with placebo. Grade 3 rashes (defined as covering > 30% body surface area [BSA]) were reported with ERLEADA treatment (5%) versus placebo (0.3%). The onset of rash occurred at a median of 82 days. Rash resolved in 81% of patients within a median of 60 days (range: 2 to 709 days) from onset of rash. Four percent of patients treated with ERLEADA received systemic corticosteroids. Rash recurred in approximately half of patients who were re-challenged with ERLEADA. Hypothyroidism was reported for 8% of patients treated with ERLEADA and 2% of patients treated with placebo based on assessments of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) every 4 months. Elevated TSH occurred in 25% of patients treated with ERLEADA and 7% of patients treated with placebo. The median onset was day 113. There were no Grade 3 or 4 adverse reactions. Thyroid replacement therapy, when clinically indicated, should be initiated or dose-adjusted. DRUG INTERACTIONS Effect of Other Drugs on ERLEADA Co-administration of a strong CYP2C8 or CYP3A4 inhibitor is predicted to increase the steady-state exposure of the active moieties. No initial dose adjustment is necessary; however, reduce the ERLEADA dose based on tolerability [see Dosage and Administration (2.2)]. Effect of ERLEADA on Other Drugs ERLEADA is a strong inducer of CYP3A4 and CYP2C19, and a weak inducer of CYP2C9 in humans. Concomitant use of ERLEADA with medications that are primarily metabolized by CYP3A4, CYP2C19, or CYP2C9 can result in lower exposure to these medications. Substitution for these medications is recommended when possible or evaluate for loss of activity if medication is continued. Concomitant administration of ERLEADA with medications that are substrates of UDP-glucuronosyl transferase (UGT) can result in decreased exposure. Use caution if substrates of UGT must be co-administered with ERLEADA and evaluate for loss of activity. P-gp, BCRP or OATP1B1 substrates Apalutamide is a weak inducer of P-glycoprotein (P- gp), breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP), and organic anion transporting polypeptide 1B1 (OATP1B1) clinically. Concomitant use of ERLEADA with medications that are substrates of P-gp, BCRP, or OATP1B1 can result in lower exposure of these medications. Use caution if substrates of P-gp, BCRP or OATP1B1 must be co-administered with ERLEADA and evaluate for loss of activity if medication is continued. Please see the full Prescribing Information for ERLEADA. DARZALEX (daratumumab) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION4 CONTRAINDICATIONS DARZALEX is contraindicated in patients with a history of severe hypersensitivity (e.g., anaphylactic reactions) to daratumumab or any of the components of the formulation. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Infusion Reactions DARZALEX can cause severe and/or serious infusion reactions, including anaphylactic reactions. In clinical trials, approximately half of all patients experienced an infusion reaction. Most infusion reactions occurred during the first infusion and were grade 1-2. Infusion reactions can also occur with subsequent infusions. Nearly all reactions occurred during infusion or within 4 hours of completing an infusion. Prior to the introduction of post-infusion medication in clinical trials, infusion reactions occurred up to 48 hours after infusion. Severe reactions have occurred, including bronchospasm, hypoxia, dyspnea, hypertension, laryngeal edema and pulmonary edema. Signs and symptoms may include respiratory symptoms, such as nasal congestion, cough, throat irritation, as well as chills, vomiting and nausea. Less common symptoms were wheezing, allergic rhinitis, pyrexia, chest discomfort, pruritus, and hypotension. Pre-medicate patients with antihistamines, antipyretics, and corticosteroids. Frequently monitor patients during the entire infusion. Interrupt infusion for reactions of any severity and institute medical management as needed. Permanently discontinue therapy if an anaphylactic reaction or life-threatening (Grade 4) reaction occurs and institute appropriate emergency care. For patients with Grade 1, 2, or 3 reactions, reduce the infusion rate when re-starting the infusion. To reduce the risk of delayed infusion reactions, administer oral corticosteroids to all patients following DARZALEX infusions. Patients with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease may require additional post-infusion medications to manage respiratory complications. Consider prescribing short- and long-acting bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Interference with Serological Testing Daratumumab binds to CD38 on red blood cells (RBCs) and results in a positive Indirect Antiglobulin Test (Indirect Coombs test). Daratumumab-mediated positive indirect antiglobulin test may persist for up to 6 months after the last daratumumab infusion. Daratumumab bound to RBCs masks detection of antibodies to minor antigens in the patient's serum. The determination of a patient's ABO and Rh blood type are not impacted. Notify blood transfusion centers of this interference with serological testing and inform blood banks that a patient has received DARZALEX. Type and screen patients prior to starting DARZALEX. Neutropenia DARZALEX may increase neutropenia induced by background therapy. Monitor complete blood cell counts periodically during treatment according to manufacturer's prescribing information for background therapies. Monitor patients with neutropenia for signs of infection. DARZALEX dose delay may be required to allow recovery of neutrophils. No dose reduction of DARZALEX is recommended. Consider supportive care with growth factors. Thrombocytopenia DARZALEX may increase thrombocytopenia induced by background therapy. Monitor complete blood cell counts periodically during treatment according to manufacturer's prescribing information for background therapies. DARZALEX dose delay may be required to allow recovery of platelets. No dose reduction of DARZALEX is recommended. Consider supportive care with transfusions. Interference with Determination of Complete Response Daratumumab is a human IgG kappa monoclonal antibody that can be detected on both the serum protein electrophoresis (SPE) and immunofixation (IFE) assays used for the clinical monitoring of endogenous M-protein. This interference can impact the determination of complete response and of disease progression in some patients with IgG kappa myeloma protein. Adverse Reactions The most frequently reported adverse reactions (incidence 20%) in clinical trials were: infusion reactions, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, muscle spasms, arthralgia, back pain, pyrexia, chills, dizziness, insomnia, cough, dyspnea, peripheral edema, peripheral sensory neuropathy and upper respiratory tract infection. In patients who received DARZALEX in combination with bortezomib, melphalan, and prednisone (DVMP), the most frequently reported adverse reactions (incidence 20%) were: upper respiratory tract infection (48%), infusion reactions (28%), and peripheral edema (21%). Serious adverse reactions (2% compared to the VMP arm) were pneumonia (11%), upper respiratory tract infection (5%), and pulmonary edema (2%). Treatment-emergent Grade 3-4 hematology laboratory abnormalities 20% were lymphopenia (58%), neutropenia (44%), and thrombocytopenia (38%). In patients who received DARZALEX in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone, the most frequently reported adverse reactions (incidence 20%) were: upper respiratory tract infection (65%), infusion reactions (48%), diarrhea (43%), fatigue (35%), cough (30%), muscle spasms (26%), nausea (24%), dyspnea (21%) and pyrexia (20%). The overall incidence of serious adverse reactions was 49%. Serious adverse reactions (2% compared to Rd) were pneumonia (12%), upper respiratory tract infection (7%), influenza (3%), and pyrexia (3%). Treatment-emergent Grade 3-4 hematology laboratory abnormalities 20% were neutropenia (53%) and lymphopenia (52%). In patients who received DARZALEX in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone, the most frequently reported adverse reactions (incidence 20%) were: peripheral sensory neuropathy (47%), infusion reactions (45%), upper respiratory tract infection (44%), diarrhea (32%), cough (27%), peripheral edema (22%), and dyspnea (21%). The overall incidence of serious adverse reactions was 42%. Serious adverse reactions (2% compared to Vd) were upper respiratory tract infection (5%), diarrhea (2%) and atrial fibrillation (2%). Treatment-emergent Grade 3-4 hematology laboratory abnormalities 20% were lymphopenia (48%) and thrombocytopenia (47%). In patients who received DARZALEX in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone, the most frequent adverse reactions (>20%) were fatigue (50%), infusion reactions (50%), upper respiratory tract infection (50%), cough (43%), diarrhea (38%), constipation (33%), dyspnea (33%), nausea (30%), muscle spasms (26%), back pain (25%), pyrexia (25%), insomnia (23%), arthralgia (22%), dizziness (21%), and vomiting (21%). The overall incidence of serious adverse reactions was 49%. Serious adverse reactions reported in 5% patients included pneumonia (7%). Treatment-emergent hematology Grade 3-4 laboratory abnormalities 20% were anemia (30%), neutropenia (82%), and lymphopenia (71%). In patients who received DARZALEX as monotherapy, the most frequently reported adverse reactions (incidence 20%) were: infusion reactions (48%), fatigue (39%), nausea (27%), back pain (23%), pyrexia (21%), cough (21%), and upper respiratory tract infection (20%). The overall incidence of serious adverse reactions was 33%. The most frequent serious adverse reactions were pneumonia (6%), general physical health deterioration (3%), and pyrexia (3%). Treatment-emergent Grade 3-4 hematology laboratory abnormalities 20% were lymphopenia (40%) and neutropenia (20%). DRUG INTERACTIONS Effect of Other Drugs on Daratumumab: The coadministration of lenalidomide, pomalidomide or bortezomib with DARZALEX did not affect the pharmacokinetics of daratumumab. Effect of Daratumumab on Other Drugs: The coadministration of DARZALEX with bortezomib or pomalidomide did not affect the pharmacokinetics of bortezomib or pomalidomide. Please see the full Prescribing Information for DARZALEX. IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION24 WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Hemorrhage: Fatal bleeding events have occurred in patients treated with IMBRUVICA. Grade 3 or higher bleeding events (intracranial hemorrhage [including subdural hematoma], gastrointestinal bleeding, hematuria, and post procedural hemorrhage) have occurred in 3% of patients, with fatalities occurring in 0.3% of 1,124 patients exposed to IMBRUVICA in clinical trials. Bleeding events of any grade, including bruising and petechiae, occurred in 44% of patients treated with IMBRUVICA. The mechanism for the bleeding events is not well understood. IMBRUVICA may increase the risk of hemorrhage in patients receiving antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapies and patients should be monitored for signs of bleeding. Consider the benefit-risk of withholding IMBRUVICA for at least 3 to 7 days pre- and post-surgery depending upon the type of surgery and the risk of bleeding. Infections: Fatal and non-fatal infections (including bacterial, viral, or fungal) have occurred with IMBRUVICA therapy. Grade 3 or greater infections occurred in 24% of 1,124 patients exposed to IMBRUVICA in clinical trials. Cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) and Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP) have occurred in patients treated with IMBRUVICA. Consider prophylaxis according to standard of care in patients who are at increased risk for opportunistic infections. Monitor and evaluate patients for fever and infections and treat appropriately. Cytopenias: Treatment-emergent Grade 3 or 4 cytopenias including neutropenia (23%), thrombocytopenia (8%), and anemia (3%) based on laboratory measurements occurred in patients with Bcell malignancies treated with single agent IMBRUVICA. Monitor complete blood counts monthly. Cardiac Arrhythmias: Fatal and serious cardiac arrhythmias have occurred with IMBRUVICA therapy. Grade 3 or greater ventricular tachyarrhythmias occurred in 0.2% of patients, and Grade 3 or greater atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter occurred in 4% of 1,124 patients exposed to IMBRUVICA in clinical trials. These events have occurred particularly in patients with cardiac risk factors, hypertension, acute infections, and a previous history of cardiac arrhythmias. Periodically monitor patients clinically for cardiac arrhythmias. Obtain an ECG for patients who develop arrhythmic symptoms (e.g., palpitations, lightheadedness, syncope, chest pain) or new onset dyspnea. Manage cardiac arrhythmias appropriately, and if it persists, consider the risks and benefits of IMBRUVICA treatment and follow dose modification guidelines. Hypertension: Hypertension of any grade occurred in 12% of 1,124 patients treated with IMBRUVICA in clinical trials. Grade 3 or greater hypertension occurred in 5% of patients with a median time to onset of 5.9 months (range, 0.03 to 24 months). Monitor blood pressure in patients treated with IMBRUVICA and initiate or adjust anti-hypertensive medication throughout treatment with IMBRUVICA as appropriate. Second Primary Malignancies: Other malignancies (10%) including non-skin carcinomas (4%) have occurred in 1,124 patients treated with IMBRUVICA in clinical trials. The most frequent second primary malignancy was non-melanoma skin cancer (6%). Tumor Lysis Syndrome: Tumor lysis syndrome has been infrequently reported with IMBRUVICA therapy. Assess the baseline risk (e.g., high tumor burden) and take appropriate precautions. Monitor patients closely and treat as appropriate. Embryo-Fetal Toxicity: Based on findings in animals, IMBRUVICA can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Advise women to avoid becoming pregnant while taking IMBRUVICA and for 1 month after cessation of therapy. If this drug is used during pregnancy or if the patient becomes pregnant while taking this drug, the patient should be apprised of the potential hazard to a fetus. Advise men to avoid fathering a child during the same time period. ADVERSE REACTIONS B-cell malignancies: The most common adverse reactions (20%) in patients with B-cell malignancies (MCL, CLL/SLL, WM and MZL) were thrombocytopenia (58%)*, diarrhea (41%), anemia (38%)*, neutropenia (35%)*, musculoskeletal pain (32%), rash (32%), bruising (31%), nausea (26%), fatigue (26%), hemorrhage (24%), and pyrexia (20%). The most common Grade 3 or 4 adverse reactions (5%) in patients with B-cell malignancies (MCL, CLL/SLL, WM and MZL) were neutropenia (18%)*, thrombocytopenia (16%)*, and pneumonia (14%). Approximately 7% (CLL/SLL), 14% (MCL), 14% (WM) and 10% (MZL) of patients had a dose reduction due to adverse reactions. Approximately 4-10% (CLL/SLL), 9% (MCL), and 7% (WM [5%] and MZL [13%]) of patients discontinued due to adverse reactions. cGVHD: The most common adverse reactions (20%) in patients with cGVHD were fatigue (57%), bruising (40%), diarrhea (36%), thrombocytopenia (33%)*, muscle spasms (29%), stomatitis (29%), nausea (26%), hemorrhage (26%), anemia (24%)*, and pneumonia (21%). The most common Grade 3 or higher adverse reactions (5%) reported in patients with cGVHD were pneumonia (14%), fatigue (12%), diarrhea (10%), neutropenia (10%)*, sepsis (10%), hypokalemia (7%), headache (5%), musculoskeletal pain (5%), and pyrexia (5%). Twenty-four percent of patients receiving IMBRUVICA in the cGVHD trial discontinued treatment due to adverse reactions. Adverse reactions leading to dose reduction occurred in 26% of patients. *Treatment-emergent decreases (all grades) were based on laboratory measurements. DRUG INTERACTIONS CYP3A Inhibitors: Modify IMBRUVICA dose as described in USPI sections 2.4 and 7.1. CYP3A Inducers: Avoid coadministration with strong CYP3A inducers. SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Hepatic Impairment (based on Child-Pugh criteria): Avoid use of IMBRUVICA in patients with severe baseline hepatic impairment. In patients with mild or moderate impairment, reduce IMBRUVICA dose. Please click here for full Prescribing Information. BALVERSA (erdafitinib) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION25 Ocular Disorders - BALVERSA can cause ocular disorders, including central serous retinopathy/retinal pigment epithelial detachment (CSR/RPED) resulting in visual field defect. CSR/RPED was reported in 25% of patients treated with BALVERSA, with a median time to first onset of 50 days. Grade 3 CSR/RPED, involving central field of vision, was reported in 3% of patients. CSR/RPED resolved in 13% of patients and was ongoing in 13% of patients at the study cutoff. CSR/RPED led to dose interruptions and reductions in 9% and 14% of patients, respectively and 3% of patients discontinued BALVERSA. Dry eye symptoms occurred in 28% of patients during treatment with BALVERSA and were Grade 3 in 6% of patients. All patients should receive dry eye prophylaxis with ocular demulcents as needed. Perform monthly ophthalmological examinations during the first 4 months of treatment and every 3 months afterwards, and urgently at any time for visual symptoms. Ophthalmological examination should include assessment of visual acuity, slit lamp examination, fundoscopy, and optical coherence tomography. Withhold BALVERSA when CSR occurs and permanently discontinue if it does not resolve within 4 weeks or if Grade 4 in severity. For ocular adverse reactions, follow the dose modification guidelines [see Dosage and Administration (2.3)]. Hyperphosphatemia - Increases in phosphate levels are a pharmacodynamic effect of BALVERSA [see Pharmacodynamics (12.2)]. Hyperphosphatemia was reported as adverse reaction in 76% of patients treated with BALVERSA. The median onset time for any grade event of hyperphosphatemia was 20 days (range: 8-116) after initiating BALVERSA. Thirty-two percent of patients received phosphate binders during treatment with BALVERSA. Monitor for hyperphosphatemia and follow the dose modification guidelines when required [see Dosage and Administration (2.2, 2.3)]. Embryo-fetal Toxicity - Based on the mechanism of action and findings in animal reproduction studies, BALVERSA can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. In a rat embryo-fetal toxicity study, erdafitinib was embryotoxic and teratogenic at exposures less than the human exposures at all doses studied. Advise pregnant women of the potential risk to the fetus. Advise female patients of reproductive potential to use effective contraception prior to and during treatment, and for one month after the last dose. Advise male patients with female partners of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with BALVERSA and for one month after the last dose [see Use in Specific Populations (8.1, 8.3) and Clinical Pharmacology (12.1)]. Most common adverse reactions including laboratory abnormalities > 20% were: Phosphate increased (76%), stomatitis (56%), fatigue (54%), creatinine increased (52%), diarrhea (47%), dry mouth (45%), onycholysis (41%), alanine aminotransferase increased (41%), alkaline phosphatase increased (41%), sodium decreased (40%), decreased appetite (38%), albumin decreased (37%), dysgeusia (37%), hemoglobin decreased (35%), dry skin (34%), aspartate aminotransferase increased (30%), magnesium decreased (30%), dry eye (28%), alopecia (26%), palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome (26%), constipation (28%), phosphate decreased (24%), abdominal pain (23%), calcium increased (22%), nausea (21%), and musculoskeletal pain (20%). The most common Grade 3 or greater adverse reactions (>1%) were stomatitis (9%), nail dystrophy*, palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome (6%), paronychia (3%), nail disorder*, keratitis, onycholysis* (10%), and hyperphosphatemia. *Included within onycholysis. ^Included within dry eye. An adverse reaction with a fatal outcome in 1% of patients was acute myocardial infarction. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 41% of patients, including eye disorders (10%). Permanent discontinuation due to an adverse reaction occurred in 13% of patients. The most frequent reasons for permanent discontinuation included eye disorders (6%). Dosage interruptions occurred in 68% of patients. The most frequent adverse reactions requiring dosage interruption included hyperphosphatemia (24%), stomatitis (17%), eye disorders (17%), and palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome (8%). Dose reductions occurred in 53% of patients. The most frequent adverse reactions for dose reductions included eye disorders (23%), stomatitis (15%), hyperphosphatemia (7%), palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome (7%), paronychia (7%), and nail dystrophy (6%). Drug Interactions Strong CYP2C9 or CYP3A4 Inhibitors: Consider alternative agents or monitor closely for adverse reactions. (7.1) Strong CYP2C9 or CYP3A4 inducers: Avoid concomitant use with BALVERSA. (7.1) Moderate CYP2C9 or CYP3A4 inducers: Increase BALVERSA dose up to 9 mg. (7.1) Serum phosphate level-altering agents: Avoid concomitant use with agents that can alter serum phosphate levels before the initial dose modification period. (2.3, 7.1) CYP3A4 substrates: Avoid concomitant use with sensitive CYP3A4 substrates with narrow therapeutic indices. (7.2) OCT2 substrates: Consider alternative agents or consider reducing the dose of OCT2 substrates based on tolerability. (7.2) P-gp substrates: Separate BALVERSA administration by at least 6 hours before or after administration of P-gp substrates with narrow therapeutic indices. (7.2) Please click here for full prescribing information. XARELTO (rivaroxaban) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION28 WARNING: (A) PREMATURE DISCONTINUATION OF XARELTO INCREASES THE RISK OF THROMBOTIC EVENTS, (B) SPINAL/EPIDURAL HEMATOMA A. Premature discontinuation of XARELTO increases the risk of thrombotic events Premature discontinuation of any oral anticoagulant, including XARELTO, increases the risk of thrombotic events. If anticoagulation with XARELTO is discontinued for a reason other than pathological bleeding or completion of a course of therapy, consider coverage with another anticoagulant. B. Spinal/epidural hematoma Epidural or spinal hematomas have occurred in patients treated with XARELTO who are receiving neuraxial anesthesia or undergoing spinal puncture. These hematomas may result in long-term or permanent paralysis. Consider these risks when scheduling patients for spinal procedures. Factors that can increase the risk of developing epidural or spinal hematomas in these patients include: s Use of indwelling epidural catheters s Concomitant use of other drugs that affect hemostasis, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), platelet inhibitors, other anticoagulants, see Drug Interactions s A history of traumatic or repeated epidural or spinal punctures s A history of spinal deformity or spinal surgery s Optimal timing between the administration of XARELTO and neuraxial procedures is not known Monitor patients frequently for signs and symptoms of neurological impairment. If neurological compromise is noted, urgent treatment is necessary. Consider the benefits and risks before neuraxial intervention in patients anticoagulated or to be anticoagulated for thromboprophylaxis. CONTRAINDICATIONS Active pathological bleeding Severe hypersensitivity reaction to XARELTO (e.g., anaphylactic reactions) WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Increased Risk of Thrombotic Events after Premature Discontinuation: Premature discontinuation of any oral anticoagulant, including XARELTO , in the absence of adequate alternative anticoagulation increases the risk of thrombotic events. An increased rate of stroke was observed during the transition from XARELTO to warfarin in clinical trials in atrial fibrillation patients. If XARELTO is discontinued for a reason other than pathological bleeding or completion of a course of therapy, consider coverage with another anticoagulant. Premature discontinuation of any oral anticoagulant, including XARELTO , in the absence of adequate alternative anticoagulation increases the risk of thrombotic events. An increased rate of stroke was observed during the transition from XARELTO to warfarin in clinical trials in atrial fibrillation patients. If XARELTO is discontinued for a reason other than pathological bleeding or completion of a course of therapy, consider coverage with another anticoagulant. Risk of Bleeding: XARELTO increases the risk of bleeding and can cause serious or fatal bleeding. Promptly evaluate any signs or symptoms of blood loss and consider the need for blood replacement. Discontinue in patients with active pathological hemorrhage. XARELTO increases the risk of bleeding and can cause serious or fatal bleeding. Promptly evaluate any signs or symptoms of blood loss and consider the need for blood replacement. Discontinue in patients with active pathological hemorrhage. An agent to reverse the anti-factor Xa activity of rivaroxaban is available. Because of high plasma protein binding, rivaroxaban is not dialyzable. Concomitant use of other drugs that impair hemostasis increases risk of bleeding. These include aspirin, P2Y 12 platelet inhibitors, dual antiplatelet therapy, other antithrombotic agents, fibrinolytic therapy, NSAIDs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). platelet inhibitors, dual antiplatelet therapy, other antithrombotic agents, fibrinolytic therapy, NSAIDs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). Spinal/Epidural Anesthesia or Puncture: When neuraxial anesthesia (spinal/epidural anesthesia) or spinal puncture is employed, patients treated with anticoagulant agents for prevention of thromboembolic complications are at risk of developing an epidural or spinal hematoma, which can result in long-term or permanent paralysis. To reduce the potential risk of bleeding associated with concurrent use of XARELTO and epidural or spinal anesthesia/analgesia or spinal puncture, consider the pharmacokinetic profile of XARELTO . Placement or removal of an epidural catheter or lumbar puncture is best performed when the anticoagulant effect of XARELTO is low; however, the exact timing to reach a sufficiently low anticoagulant effect in each patient is not known. An indwelling epidural or intrathecal catheter should not be removed before at least 2 half-lives have elapsed (ie, 18 hours in young patients aged 20 to 45 years and 26 hours in elderly patients aged 60 to 76 years), after the last administration of XARELTO . The next dose should not be administered earlier than 6 hours after the removal of the catheter. If traumatic puncture occurs, delay the administration of XARELTO for 24 hours. Monitor frequently to detect signs or symptoms of neurological impairment, such as midline back pain, sensory and motor deficits (numbness, tingling, or weakness in lower limbs), or bowel and/or bladder dysfunction. Instruct patients to immediately report any of the above signs or symptoms. If signs or symptoms of spinal hematoma are suspected, initiate urgent diagnosis and treatment including consideration for spinal cord decompression even though such treatment may not prevent or reverse neurological sequelae. When neuraxial anesthesia (spinal/epidural anesthesia) or spinal puncture is employed, patients treated with anticoagulant agents for prevention of thromboembolic complications are at risk of developing an epidural or spinal hematoma, which can result in long-term or permanent paralysis. To reduce the potential risk of bleeding associated with concurrent use of XARELTO and epidural or spinal anesthesia/analgesia or spinal puncture, consider the pharmacokinetic profile of XARELTO . Placement or removal of an epidural catheter or lumbar puncture is best performed when the anticoagulant effect of XARELTO is low; however, the exact timing to reach a sufficiently low anticoagulant effect in each patient is not known. An indwelling epidural or intrathecal catheter should not be removed before at least 2 half-lives have elapsed (ie, 18 hours in young patients aged 20 to 45 years and 26 hours in elderly patients aged 60 to 76 years), after the last administration of XARELTO . The next dose should not be administered earlier than 6 hours after the removal of the catheter. If traumatic puncture occurs, delay the administration of XARELTO for 24 hours. Monitor frequently to detect signs or symptoms of neurological impairment, such as midline back pain, sensory and motor deficits (numbness, tingling, or weakness in lower limbs), or bowel and/or bladder dysfunction. Instruct patients to immediately report any of the above signs or symptoms. If signs or symptoms of spinal hematoma are suspected, initiate urgent diagnosis and treatment including consideration for spinal cord decompression even though such treatment may not prevent or reverse neurological sequelae. Use in Patients with Renal Impairment: Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation: Periodically assess renal function as clinically indicated (ie, more frequently in situations in which renal function may decline) and adjust therapy accordingly. Consider dose adjustment or discontinuation in patients who develop acute renal failure while on XARELTO . Clinical efficacy and safety studies with XARELTO did not enroll patients with CrCl 30 mL/min or end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on dialysis. Periodically assess renal function as clinically indicated (ie, more frequently in situations in which renal function may decline) and adjust therapy accordingly. Consider dose adjustment or discontinuation in patients who develop acute renal failure while on XARELTO . Clinical efficacy and safety studies with XARELTO did not enroll patients with CrCl 30 mL/min or end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on dialysis. Treatment of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), Pulmonary Embolism (PE), and Reduction in the Risk of Recurrence of DVT and of PE: Avoid the use of XARELTO in patients with CrCl <30 mL/min due to an expected increase in rivaroxaban exposure and pharmacodynamics effects in this patient population. Avoid the use of XARELTO in patients with CrCl <30 mL/min due to an expected increase in rivaroxaban exposure and pharmacodynamics effects in this patient population. Prophylaxis of Deep Vein Thrombosis Following Hip or Knee Replacement Surgery: Avoid the use of XARELTO in patients with CrCl <30 mL/min due to an expected increase in rivaroxaban exposure and pharmacodynamics effects in this patient population. Observe closely and promptly evaluate signs or symptoms of blood loss in patients with CrCl 30 to 50 mL/min. Patients who develop acute renal failure while on XARELTO should discontinue treatment. Avoid the use of XARELTO in patients with CrCl <30 mL/min due to an expected increase in rivaroxaban exposure and pharmacodynamics effects in this patient population. Observe closely and promptly evaluate signs or symptoms of blood loss in patients with CrCl 30 to 50 mL/min. Patients who develop acute renal failure while on XARELTO should discontinue treatment. Reduction of Risk of Major Cardiovascular Events in Patients with Chronic CAD or PAD: For patients with CrCl <15 mL/min, no data are available, and limited data are available for patients with a CrCl of 15-30 mL/min. In patients with CrCl 30 mL/min, a dose of 2.5 mg XARELTO twice daily is expected to give an exposure similar to that in patients with moderate renal impairment, whose efficacy and safety outcomes were similar to those with preserved renal function. Clinical efficacy and safety studies with XARELTO did not enroll patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on dialysis. For patients with CrCl <15 mL/min, no data are available, and limited data are available for patients with a CrCl of 15-30 mL/min. In patients with CrCl 30 mL/min, a dose of 2.5 mg XARELTO twice daily is expected to give an exposure similar to that in patients with moderate renal impairment, whose efficacy and safety outcomes were similar to those with preserved renal function. Clinical efficacy and safety studies with XARELTO did not enroll patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on dialysis. Use in Patients with Hepatic Impairment: No clinical data are available for patients with severe hepatic impairment. Avoid use in patients with moderate (Child-Pugh B) and severe (Child-Pugh C) hepatic impairment or with any hepatic disease associated with coagulopathy, since drug exposure and bleeding risk may be increased. No clinical data are available for patients with severe hepatic impairment. Avoid use in patients with moderate (Child-Pugh B) and severe (Child-Pugh C) hepatic impairment or with any hepatic disease associated with coagulopathy, since drug exposure and bleeding risk may be increased. Use with P-gp and Strong CYP3A Inhibitors or Inducers: Avoid concomitant use of XARELTO with known combined P-gp and strong CYP3A inhibitors or inducers. Avoid concomitant use of XARELTO with known combined P-gp and strong CYP3A inhibitors or inducers. Risk of Pregnancy-Related Hemorrhage: In pregnant women, XARELTO should be used only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the mother and fetus. XARELTO dosing in pregnancy has not been studied. The anticoagulant effect of XARELTO cannot be monitored with standard laboratory testing. Promptly evaluate signs or symptoms suggesting blood loss (e.g., a drop in hemoglobin and/or hematocrit, hypotension, or fetal distress). In pregnant women, XARELTO should be used only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the mother and fetus. XARELTO dosing in pregnancy has not been studied. The anticoagulant effect of XARELTO cannot be monitored with standard laboratory testing. Promptly evaluate signs or symptoms suggesting blood loss (e.g., a drop in hemoglobin and/or hematocrit, hypotension, or fetal distress). Patients with Prosthetic Heart Valves: Safety and efficacy of XARELTO have not been studied in patients with prosthetic heart valves. Use of XARELTO is not recommended in these patients. Safety and efficacy of XARELTO have not been studied in patients with prosthetic heart valves. Use of XARELTO is not recommended in these patients. Acute PE in Hemodynamically Unstable Patients/Patients Who Require Thrombolysis or Pulmonary Embolectomy: Initiation of XARELTO is not recommended acutely as an alternative to unfractionated heparin in patients with pulmonary embolism who present with hemodynamic instability or who may receive thrombolysis or pulmonary embolectomy. DRUG INTERACTIONS Combined P-gp and strong CYP3A inhibitors increase exposure to rivaroxaban and may increase risk of bleeding. Combined P-gp and strong CYP3A inducers decrease exposure to rivaroxaban and may increase risk of thromboembolic events. XARELTO should not be used in patients with CrCl 15 to <80 mL/min who are receiving concomitant combined P-gp and moderate CYP3A inhibitors (eg, erythromycin) unless the potential benefit justifies the potential risk. should not be used in patients with CrCl 15 to <80 mL/min who are receiving concomitant combined P-gp and moderate CYP3A inhibitors (eg, erythromycin) unless the potential benefit justifies the potential risk. Coadministration of enoxaparin, warfarin, aspirin, clopidogrel, and chronic NSAID use may increase risk of bleeding. Avoid concurrent use of XARELTO with other anticoagulants due to increased bleeding risk, unless benefit outweighs risk. Promptly evaluate signs or symptoms of blood loss if patients are treated concomitantly with aspirin, other platelet aggregation inhibitors, or NSAIDs. USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Pregnancy: The limited available data on XARELTO in pregnant women are insufficient to inform a drug-associated risk of adverse developmental outcomes. Use XARELTO with caution in pregnant patients because of the potential for pregnancy-related hemorrhage and/or emergent delivery. The anticoagulant effect of XARELTO cannot be reliably monitored with standard laboratory testing. Consider the benefits and risks of XARELTO for the mother and possible risks to the fetus when prescribing to a pregnant woman. The limited available data on XARELTO in pregnant women are insufficient to inform a drug-associated risk of adverse developmental outcomes. Use XARELTO with caution in pregnant patients because of the potential for pregnancy-related hemorrhage and/or emergent delivery. The anticoagulant effect of XARELTO cannot be reliably monitored with standard laboratory testing. Consider the benefits and risks of XARELTO for the mother and possible risks to the fetus when prescribing to a pregnant woman. Fetal/Neonatal adverse reactions: Based on the pharmacologic activity of Factor Xa inhibitors and the potential to cross the placenta, bleeding may occur at any site in the fetus and/or neonate. Based on the pharmacologic activity of Factor Xa inhibitors and the potential to cross the placenta, bleeding may occur at any site in the fetus and/or neonate. Labor or delivery: The risk of bleeding should be balanced with the risk of thrombotic events when considering use in this setting. The risk of bleeding should be balanced with the risk of thrombotic events when considering use in this setting. There are no adequate or well-controlled studies of XARELTO in pregnant women, and dosing for pregnant women has not been established. Post-marketing experience is currently insufficient to determine a rivaroxaban-associated risk for major birth defects or miscarriage. in pregnant women, and dosing for pregnant women has not been established. Post-marketing experience is currently insufficient to determine a rivaroxaban-associated risk for major birth defects or miscarriage. Lactation: Rivaroxaban has been detected in human milk. There are insufficient data to determine the effects of rivaroxaban on the breastfed child or on milk production. Consider the developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding along with the mother's clinical need for XARELTO and any potential adverse effects on the breastfed infant from XARELTO or from the underlying maternal condition. Rivaroxaban has been detected in human milk. There are insufficient data to determine the effects of rivaroxaban on the breastfed child or on milk production. Consider the developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding along with the mother's clinical need for XARELTO and any potential adverse effects on the breastfed infant from XARELTO or from the underlying maternal condition. Females and Males of Reproductive Potential: Females of reproductive potential requiring anticoagulation should discuss pregnancy planning with their physician. Females of reproductive potential requiring anticoagulation should discuss pregnancy planning with their physician. Pediatric Use: Safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients have not been established. OVERDOSAGE Overdose of XARELTO may lead to hemorrhage. Discontinue XARELTO and initiate appropriate therapy if bleeding complications associated with overdosage occur. An agent to reverse the anti-factor Xa activity of rivaroxaban is available. ADVERSE REACTIONS IN CLINICAL STUDIES Most common adverse reactions with XARELTO were bleeding complications. Please click here for full Prescribing Information, including Boxed WARNINGS. About the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson At Janssen, we're creating a future where disease is a thing of the past. We're the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, working tirelessly to make that future a reality for patients everywhere by fighting sickness with science, improving access with ingenuity, and healing hopelessness with heart. We focus on areas of medicine where we can make the biggest difference: Cardiovascular & Metabolism, Immunology, Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, Neuroscience, Oncology, and Pulmonary Hypertension. Learn more at www.janssen.com. Follow us at www.twitter.com/JanssenGlobal and www.twitter.com/JanssenUS. Janssen Research & Development, LLC is one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding ERLEADA, DARZALEX, IMBRUVICA and JNJ-372. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, any of the other Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies and/or Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: challenges and uncertainties inherent in product research and development, including the uncertainty of clinical success and of obtaining regulatory approvals; uncertainty of commercial success; manufacturing difficulties and delays; competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges to patents; product efficacy or safety concerns resulting in product recalls or regulatory action; changes in behavior and spending patterns of purchasers of health care products and services; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson & Johnson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2018, including in the sections captioned "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Item 1A. Risk Factors," and in the company's most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and the company's subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.gov, www.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. None of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies nor Johnson & Johnson undertakes to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments. 1 ERLEADA U.S. Prescribing Information, February 2018. 2 NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Prostate Cancer V.4.2018. National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Updated March 12, 2018. 3 American Urological Association. Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer Guidelines. http://www.auanet.org/guidelines/castration-resistant-prostate-cancer-(2013-amended-2018). Accessed May 2019. 4 DARZALEX U.S. Prescribing Information, June 2018. 5 Fedele G et al. CD38 Ligation in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Myeloma Patients Induces Release of Protumorigenic IL-6 and Impaired Secretion of IFN Cytokines and Proliferation. Mediators Inflamm. 2013;564687. 6 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. A Study Comparing Daratumumab, Lenalidomide, and Dexamethasone With Lenalidomide and Dexamethasone in Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma. In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02076009?term=mmy3003&rank=1 Identifier: NCT02136134. 7 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. Addition of Daratumumab to Combination of Bortezomib and Dexamethasone in Participants With Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma. In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02136134?term=mmy3004&rank=1 Identifier: NCT02076009. 8 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. A Study to Evaluate Daratumumab in Transplant Eligible Participants With Previously Untreated Multiple Myeloma (Cassiopeia). In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02541383?term=mmy3006&rank=2 NLM Identifier: NCT02541383. 9 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. A Study of Combination of Daratumumab and Velcade (Bortezomib) Melphalan-Prednisone (DVMP) Compared to Velcade Melphalan-Prednisone (VMP) in Participants With Previously Untreated Multiple Myeloma In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02195479?term=mmy3007&rank=1 Identifier: NCT02195479. 10 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. Study Comparing Daratumumab, Lenalidomide, and Dexamethasone With Lenalidomide and Dexamethasone in Participants With Previously Untreated Multiple Myeloma. In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02252172?term=mmy3008&rank=1 Identifier: NCT02252172. 11 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. A Study of VELCADE (Bortezomib) Melphalan-Prednisone (VMP) Compared to Daratumumab in Combination With VMP (D-VMP), in Participants With Previously Untreated Multiple Myeloma Who Are Ineligible for High-Dose Therapy (Asia Pacific Region). In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03217812?term=MMY3011&rank=1 Identifier: NCT03217812. 12 European Myeloma Network. Compare Progression Free Survival Btw Daratumumab/Pomalidomide/Dexamethasone vs Pomalidomide/Dexamethasone (EMN14). In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24] Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03180736?term=MMY3013&rank=2 Identifier: NCT03180736 13 Amgen. Study of Carfilzomib, Daratumumab and Dexamethasone for Patients With Relapsed and/or Refractory Multiple Myeloma. (CANDOR). In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 July 24] Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03158688?term=NCT03158688&rank=1 Identifier: NCT03158688. 14 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. A Study to Evaluate 3 Dose Schedules of Daratumumab in Participants With Smoldering Multiple Myeloma In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 March 19]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02316106?term=smm2001&rank=1 Identifier: NCT02316106. 15 Janssen Research & Development, LLC. An Efficacy and Safety Proof of Concept Study of Daratumumab in Relapsed/Refractory Mantle Cell Lymphoma, Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma, and Follicular Lymphoma In: ClinicalTrials.gov [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). 2000-[cited 2018 March 19]. Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02413489?term=lym2001&rank=1 Identifier: NCT02413489 16 Janssen Biotech, Inc. "DARZALEX (daratumumab) Approved by U.S. FDA: First Human Anti-CD38 Monoclonal Antibody Available for the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma." Issued November 16, 2015. 17 Janssen Biotech, Inc. "DARZALEX (daratumumab) Approved by U.S. FDA in Combination with Two Standard of Care Regimens for the Treatment of Patients with Multiple Myeloma Who Have Received At Least One Prior Therapy." Issued November 21, 2016. 18 Janssen Biotech, Inc. "DARZALEX (daratumumab) Approved by the U.S. FDA in Combination with Pomalidomide and Dexamethasone for Patients with Multiple Myeloma Who Have Received At Least Two Prior Therapies." Issued June 16, 2017. 19 Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. "Janssen Announces DARZALEX (daratumumab) U.S. FDA Approval for Newly Diagnosed Patients with Multiple Myeloma who are Transplant Ineligible." Issued May 7, 2018. 20 Janssen Biotech, Inc. "Janssen Biotech Announces Global License and Development Agreement for Investigational Anti-Cancer Agent Daratumumab." Issued August 30, 2012. 21 Genetics Home Reference. Isolated growth hormone deficiency. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/isolated-growth-hormone-deficiency. Accessed May 2019. 22 Turetsky, et al. Single cell imaging of Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase using an irreversible inhibitor. Scientific Reports. volume 4, Article number: 4782 (2014). 23 de Rooij MF, Kuil A, Geest CR, et al. The clinically active BTK inhibitor PCI-32765 targets B-cell receptor- and chemokine-controlled adhesion and migration in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Blood. 2012;119(11):2590-2594. 24 IMBRUVICA U.S. Prescribing Information, January 2019. 25 BALVERSA US Prescribing Information, April 2019. 26 Niraparib U.S. Prescribing Information. 27 XARELTO U.S. Prescribing Information. Media Inquiries: Suzanne Frost Phone: 1-416-317-0304 Satu Glawe Phone: +49 172 294 6264 Investor Relations: Christopher DelOrefice Phone: 1-732-524-2955 Lesley Fishman Phone: 1-732-524-3922 U.S. Medical Inquiries: 1-800-526-7736 SOURCE Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson Related Links http://www.jnj.com DALLAS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The honorable Judge Amos L. Mazzant, III of The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division signed an order on May 9, 2019, dismissing all claims in a case filed by Performance Pulsation Control, Inc. (PPC) against multiple defendants, including Sigma Drilling Technologies, LLC. No defendant paid any money or other consideration in settlement of any claim. Performance Pulsation Control, Inc. initially filed a State action in Collin County on June 29, 2016. The federal lawsuit was filed a year later on June 27, 2017. On March 11, 2019, Judge Mazzant dismissed several claims against the Defendants and entirely dismissed Sigma's distributor from the case on summary judgment. With 385 filings on the Court's docket and trial scheduled to begin on May 20, 2019, PPC's owner, John Rogers, wrote a letter to Judge Mazzant requesting permission to dismiss the case, citing religion as the impetus. "Far be it from me to question a man's faith, but a cynical man might interpret a press release trumpeting one's own generosity as a little self-serving. I am reminded of Proverbs: Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips. (Proverbs 27:2, NIV) "We believe that the lack of any evidence against our clients and the permanent injunction entered against Mr. Rogers in a theft of proprietary information case coming to light might have had something to do with the timing. (Cause No. 96-8418-J in the 191st Judicial District Court of Dallas County, Texas). We are happy to have won the case, but disappointed that we will not be able to expose the allegations for what they were in open court. That said, we are happy to turn the other cheek and wish PPC luck in their future endeavors," said attorney Greg Ziegler of Dallas-based Macdonald Devin P.C. Sigma Drilling Technologies engineers, designs, and manufactures advanced pulsation control equipment for the 21st century oil and gas exploration market. With multiple patents and trademarks filed with the USPTO, Sigma has become known for their advanced systems of pulsation dampeners and suction stabilizers, including the renowned Charge Free Conversion Kit and the Acoustic Assassin. The case is Performance Pulsation Control, Inc. v Sigma Drilling Technologies, LLC, Intrepid Consulting, LLC, Justin Manley, Alison Manley, William Garfield, and Pamela Goehring-Garfield CASE NO. 4:17cv450 Filled in the US Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division. For more information, visit http://www.sigmadrillingtech.com Contact: Razonia McClellan, 432.352.7477, [email protected] SOURCE Sigma Drilling Technologies, LLC Related Links http://www.sigmadrillingtech.com LOS ALTOS, Calif., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- kea, a developer of a proprietary Voice AI platform, has closed a seed round of funding to help scale its Voice AI phone order platform for franchises and Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs). The company is aiming to bring its current 20-30% per store profit improvement from hundreds of locations to thousands. "Despite popular belief, most food orders at franchises are still taken by phone," said Adam Ahmad, kea Founder and CEO. "But employees often can't manage in-store service while taking phone orders, so the phone rings and rings and the result is lost revenue and poor customer service. At many franchises, 40% of all revenue is coming from phone orders. When you combine this with ongoing margin pressure and employee dissatisfaction, the need for kea's platform becomes quite clear." Profit margins at QSRs have been dropping steadily over the past several years1. This is primarily due to rising labor costs, missed revenue opportunities, and frustrated customers hanging up and taking their business to a competitor. But the news isn't all bad. According to the National Restaurant Association, more people are now eating food from outside the home rather than preparing it themselves. To take advantage of this trend, franchises must retool their businesses to stay competitive. Voice AI from kea fulfills unlimited phone orders simultaneously and enables significant meal bundling opportunities. It uses this data to learn what types of drinks and snacks are most common with specific orders, then makes suggestions based on customer needs. The ability to consistently learn and improve the customer experience for each individual restaurant can quickly and positively impact revenue. "We work with thousands of the highest volume franchise locations to improve customer experience and the quality of life for their employees," said Michael Flanagan, VP of Innovation at NuSutus, which provides innovative communications solutions to leading franchises around the world. "Rising personnel and real estate costs are putting an unprecedented squeeze on restaurant owners. kea provides a critical advantage by enabling these owners to capture revenue through a personalized consumer experience. We believe kea is a game changer." Investors have taken notice in the form of a $2.8 million seed round. kea will use the funds to scale its proprietary Voice AI platform and expand its franchise and QSR customer base. Participating investors include Streamlined Ventures, Xfund, DEEPCORE, notable Silicon Valley Angels Raj Kapoor, Dustin Dolginow and Tyler Willis, and restaurant industry entrepreneurs Tony Lam and Craig Flom. "Tech startups often develop intriguing technologies that don't solve preexisting business problems," said Adam Marchick, Angel Investor and kea Advisor. "kea addresses very real revenue concerns and has the potential to quickly and positively impact the $825 billion restaurant industry." Additional Information kea is founded by industry entrepreneurs Adam Ahmad and Arjun Vasan. Read Adam's blog post, "The kea Story," for more industry perspective and to learn more about why they joined forces to launch kea. 1YCharts "Restaurant Brands International Profit Margin (Quarterly)" About kea kea's mission is to save the franchise restaurant industry. Its proprietary Voice AI platform provides franchises and Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs) with an automated, intelligent phone ordering system that can take unlimited orders simultaneously, and learn which types of drinks and snacks are most common with each order. This combats shrinking profit margins due to increased labor costs, and boosts revenue through upsell opportunities and repeat customers. For more info, visit kea.ai. SOURCE kea Related Links http://kea.ai GEORGETOWN, Mass., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- KutTech Land Clearing & Mowing has paired up with SENNEBOGEN, the leading material handler manufacturer in North America, to provide training & demonstrations of the new revolutionary SENNEBOGEN 718E tree-handler - a nimble machine able to safely dismantle a tree in minutes, instead of hours. The SENNEBOGEN 718E tree-handler is able to dismantle and stack acres of trees in only days, all while protecting the operator and not exposing other tree workers to the typical dangers involved in tree removal. KutTech also offers their own SENNEBOGEN 718E services to other tree service providers that need extra help on their projects. This is often the case when there are emergency storm jobs or when companies simply need more manpower to complete a larger contract in time, but aren't ready to invest in their own machine. Instead, they outsource to KutTech. "Had Rob help us out on a large project. He was able to get almost 500 trees down, stacked and ready to be chipped in less than 5 days. The SENNEBOGEN is a beast" Greg D. The SENNEBOGEN 718E tree-handler is able to dismantle and stack acres of trees in only days, all while protecting the operator and not exposing other tree workers to the typical dangers involved in tree removal. Built for the urban environment, the 718 tree handler is able to easily navigate around buildings, utility lines, roads, and sensitive wetland areas to safely trim or dismantle trees posing a threat to people or property. About KutTech Land Clearing & Mowing: KutTech, LLC is New England's premier SENNEBOGEN service provider. Its founder, Robert Frost, a third-generation tree and land clearer, has become known as one of the world's most skilled SENNEBOGEN 718E material handlers. He has invested his entire career in operating this type of equipment, primarily in the tree industry. His unmatched skill operating its machines has led SENNEBOGEN, LLC to often turn to him for demonstrations, training and exhibitions. The SENNEBOGEN 718E has revolutionized certain aspects of tree removal and maintenance as well as movement of material on construction sites and situations that require rapid handling of cargo and inventory in an efficient manner. Please contact Rob today to discuss how KutTech, LLC can help you with your tree and material handling needs. He is available and ready to mobilize throughout the United States and Canada. Contact: Robert Frost KutTech Land Clearing & Mowing 978.609.3632 [email protected] SOURCE KutTech "We will work on the Pension reform, and its approval will instantly benefit some sectors such as infrastructure. We also need to deal with the tax issue, with a more simple and clear tax system", stated Maia. According to Alcolumbre, when there are such important presences in an event, the trust for investments which enable the sustainable economic growth in Brazil is regained. "The Pension Reform has been the most urgent matter to deal with. It is important not only to the State but also to all the population because it will allow a more effective social program execution there is: job creation", warned the President of the Federal Senate. According to Toffoli, legal security is essential for foreign capital contributions in Brazil. "While the American Supreme Court receives an average of 10 thousand lawsuits and deliberates 100 of them, the STF's First and Second Panels and the Plenary deliberate 14 thousand". Echoing Maia and Alcolumbre, Toffoli still stated: "Brazil needs to have more of a civil society, more market and liberalism, and that was what people demonstrated when they voted". "We must have a sharing view, without any fiscal wars between the states", said Joao Doria. The governor highlighted the efforts made to maintain the GM plant in the state and after that decision, the company has committed to invest US$ 10 billion within the next years in order to create about 2 thousand jobs. According to Meirelles, Sao Paulo has a pro-market agenda, with investment opportunities via privatizations, concessions or private-public partnerships (PPPs). For Zema, during his term, "he will privatize as much as possible", with the help of the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais. "We want our state to be less hostile to the ones who have been investing here, making it easier for the entrepreneur and the worker", he said. CAOA, COSAN, GOCIL, FS, JHSF, NELSON WILIANS ADVOGADOS, TOUCH ID and VITACON are sponsors of LIDE Brazilian Investment Forum, which has the support of CT GROUP, GM, KIA MOTORS, UHG, WALD and WHIRLPOOL. CDN COMUNICACAO, FORMAG'S, RCE DIGITAL and TRACK are official providers. PR NEWSWIRE, RADIOS BAND, RADIO JOVEM PAN, REVISTA LIDE and TV LIDE are media partners. Contact: Milton Rizzato 55 (11) 3643-2752/ [email protected] SOURCE LIDE Related Links http://www.lideglobal.com OTTAWA, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) welcomes supporters and fitness enthusiasts alike to join a day full of physical activity on the front lawn of the Supreme Court of Canada to advocate the importance of physical exercise. National Health and Fitness Day (NHFD) is a day dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle. The government passed Bill S-211 in December 2014, an Act establishing the first Saturday in June each year as NHFD. The day has been planned to include fitness activities for all ages and abilities and the physical activity sessions will be guided by certified fitness professionals. FIC has partnered with Goodlife Fitness, YMCA, canfitpro, Ottawa Police Services, Ottawa Professional Fire Fighters Association, and many more organizations, to provide physical activity programming from 9:00am to 2:00pm, with family, children, and youth programing (9:00am to 10:00am), adult programing (10:00am to 11:00am), seniors programing (11:00am to 12:00pm) and synergistic programming for all (12:00pm to 2:00pm). There will be group exercise classes and friendly fitness competitions throughout the day. The purpose of the day is to bring awareness to the benefits of physical activity, especially since 80 per cent of Canadians do not meet the minimum exercise recommendation of 150 minutes per week and struggle to form healthy habits. Physical activity and exercise are proven effective to prevent and treat chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive development, and much more. This event strives to bring together the community and promote the importance of preventative health measures for all demographics. This is a wonderful event for fitness professionals to showcase the benefits of exercise in a time where physical participation rates have dropped. We hope to encourage enough people to consider taking initiatives to create a public health benefit, said Scott Wildeman, President, FIC. Along with the event at the Supreme Court of Canada, hundreds of participating fitness clubs across Canada will waive their drop-in fees and open their doors for free admissions on June 1, 2019. Individuals may also download the NHFD App through Trainer+, which provides specialized workouts for the day. Its great to have a designated day where the Canadian fitness industry can come together to celebrate something we all believe in the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, added Trisha Sarker, Executive Director, FIC. The Ottawa event at the Supreme Court of Canada will be attended by the public, fitness professionals, career professionals, and Ministers of Parliament. As Senator and Champion of National Health and Fitness Day, I am thrilled to invite those in the Ottawa area to join us at the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as encourage all Canadians across the country to get physically active on June 1, said Senator Marty Deacon. For up-to-date notifications about the NHFD event in Ottawa on June 1, follow FIC on Twitter and Instagram @ficdn and Facebook @FitnessIndustryCanada. About Fitness Industry Council of Canada Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) represents the voice of the fitness industry in Canada. Representing over 5,000 facilities with over 4 million members, FIC pursues a legislative agenda of getting more Canadians, more active, more often. Contact Information Scott Wildeman, President Fitness Industry Council of Canada 13543 St. Albert Trail, Second Floor, Edmonton, AB, T5L 5E7 (403) 807 - 8020 swildeman@ficdn.ca www.ficdn.ca or DULUTH, Minn., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Common Sense CX, the industry's leading customer experience summit will be hosted June 3-5, 2019, at The Drake Hotel in Chicago, is proud to welcome Luminoso, an award-winning customer insights AI firm, and customer data & insights platform Topbox as lead event sponsors. The exclusive event will bring together senior CX executives from top companies like MasterCard, Comcast and MetLife for two days of immersive panel discussions, roundtables, war stories and networking opportunities. Common Sense CX by BuyerForesight "It's easy for customer experience events to become about platitudes and theories, rather than real-life examples and common sense practices," says Jeff Foley, VP of Marketing at Luminoso. "By bringing together these CX practitioners to share what's really happening, we expect everyone to walk away from these two days with their heads full of ideas to try back at the office." The private, invitation-only event for 60 of the industry's most innovative Customer Experience leaders from companies, such as Sonos, Petco and Wells Fargo, is currently sold out for attendees; however, limited sponsorship opportunities are still available. "Topbox is evangelizing the value of conversation analytics as the most insightful data for understanding the customer experience," states Jonathan Moore, Director of Marketing at Topbox. "Many CX leaders aren't aware this is an option, so CSCX19 is an opportunity for us to get quality facetime with CX visionaries and practitioners and spread the word." Full-event and networking sponsorship opportunities are currently available for companies interested in sharing expertise and delivering solutions in Customer Analytics and Insights, Customer Experience Management and Process Improvement, Customer Feedback (VOC/NPS/Surveys) and Journey Mapping, AI/ML-Driven Automation, and Speech and Text Analytics. Primary sponsorship opportunities include: Sessions designed to promote conversation between sponsors and attendees Scheduled meetings with prospects Detailed Buyer Profiles delivered one week before event PR Outreach on your speaker's behalf Additional networking sponsors for the event include CX analytics platform 4xperience and digital technology company Content Bloom. Sponsors can look forward to the following perks: Sponsors can invite peer evangelists Buyer- and sponsor-led sessions Buyer-driven content themes where sponsors share their expertise in solving problems, not selling solutions "CSCX19 is an executive peer group meeting designed specifically for senior leaders charting their companies' customer experience strategy," explains Mitch Speers, co-founder of BuyerForesight, the event organizer of Common Sense CX. "We've designed our sponsor packages to include the ability to engage attendees in all sessions." For more information about Common Sense CX and available sponsorships, visit www.cscx19.com or email Mitch Speers at [email protected]. Common Sense CX is a BuyerForesight Event. About BuyerForesight Events BuyerForesight (a Step2 Strategy company) finds new qualified opportunities for companies and the sales intelligence to close them. Since 2014 we've helped 140 companies build over $450 million in sales pipeline. BuyerForesight Events are the smart alternatives to traditional conferences. We carefully research each prospective attendee before extending an invitation to attend. We cover conference fees, travel and lodging for qualified attendees. Our goal is to arrive at a mix of outstanding leaders and innovators who will learn from each other as much as from the experts on hand. Our attendees are actively looking for innovative solutions to their challenges, and BuyerForesight Events are a time-efficient way for them to see those solutions up close and personal. For more information, visit https://www.buyerforesight.com/events/. Media Contact Pola Hallquist Apothecary Communications [email protected] 1-866-213-9210 x801 SOURCE BuyerForesight Related Links https://www.buyerforesight.com A 15% Rental Income Guarantee (over 24 months) Priced from $119,000 to $699,000 to Financing options A turn-key resort rental management program Located only 75 meters to world class Caribbean beach (with dedicated pathway) The Cliff Condos offer several floorplans in Studios, 1 & 2 bedroom models. Located 75 meters from the beachfront and offering stunning views. Condo owners will enjoy a long list of amenities and activities at this island resort in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Ricardo Severini, Vice President of Sales at Red Frog Beach said: "These condos are upscale with tremendous views and include a rental guarantee. The offer is an excellent deal for investors and those that want a place to vacation and retire to in the future." Red Frog Beach attracts buyers and vacation guests from around the world because of its unique Caribbean location, 30 miles from Costa Rica in the hurricane-free islands of Bocas del Toro. The resort offers an incredible setting of pristine beaches, lush tropical forest, wildlife, and resort amenities such as restaurants, spa, island tours and a world-class beach club and pool. Panama has continued to attract international attention as it has been labeled as one of the top places to retire because of its natural beauty, weather, government tax incentives, dollarized economy, residency/retirement incentive programs, safety and political stability. Real Estate at Red Frog Beach Ownership opportunities at the Red Frog Beach Island Resort Community include a variety of properties from $119,000 to $2.5M: Private Villas, The NEW Cliff Condos, Blue Pearl Island Suites, Island Lots, Jungle Lodges, Residence Club Units and Marina Slips. There has never been a better time to purchase. Red Frog Beach is one of the top selling vacation real estate projects in Panama working with a large network international brokers and has offices in Panama, U.S., London and China. Red Frog Beach Island Resort Contact: www.redfrogproperty.com U.S. (281) 892-1344 Panama (507) 833-7753 [email protected] SOURCE Red Frog Beach Island Resort Community Related Links http://www.redfrogproperty.com LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Mathnasium Learning Center's Sue Kwon has been named a 2019 Rock Star Franchise Owner by the franchisee satisfaction research firm, Franchise Business Review. Kwon was selected from over 27,000 franchisees from more than 300 brands that participated in FBR's research over the past 18 months. Mathnasium consistently scores high in franchisee satisfaction. "We chose individuals who exemplify the qualities that make the franchising model work: a strong work ethic, leadership, and a real commitment to their business and community," said Michelle Rowan, president & COO of Franchise Business Review. "As a certified Texas educator, I always knew that there should be something that could be done to teach students mathematics more effectively," said Kwon. "In 2006, when I met Mathnasium's Chief Instructional Officer Larry Martinek, I knew immediately that I could make a difference in my community." Kwon opened her first Mathnasium Learning Center later that year in Cinco Ranch, Texas, where it became a Houston powerhouse. In 2016, she opened a second center, Mathnasium of Fulshear, to meet growing demand for Mathnasium's unique educational approach. "I am honored to be part of the math education of thousands of children in my community. I truly believe that Mathnasium changed not only my life, but the lives of our students and even our instructors," said Kwon. "I continue to learn from parents, instructors, other franchisees, and the global Mathnasium family every day." "We congratulate Sue on being an FBR Rock Star," said Mathnasium CEO Peter Markovitz. "She has built an extraordinary business and she is changing the lives of so many children in her community." FBR's Franchisee Satisfaction Reports indicate overwhelming franchisee support for the Mathnasium company and brand, which consistently ranks in the top 50 of surveyed franchises. About Mathnasium Mathnasium is North America's leading, math-only supplemental education franchise. Its mission: to provide children with the strong math foundation they need to succeed in school and in life. The proprietary Mathnasium Method teaches children of all skill levels in ways that make sense to them. Franchising since 2003, Mathnasium now has over 1,000 learning centers worldwide and was ranked No. 3 in Forbes "Best Franchises in America" in 2018. Contact: Joanne Helperin Marketing Communications Manager 323.271.0851 [email protected] SOURCE Mathnasium DARMSTADT, Germany, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Not intended for UK-based media ASCO Abstract # Bintrafusp alfa (bifunctional fusion protein): TPS9114; Tepotinib (MET kinase inhibitor): 9005; Discovery: 2567; ERBITUX (cetuximab): 3580; BAVENCIO (avelumab): 9569; 101; 4552; 4072 New biomarker analyses for BAVENCIO* (avelumab) in combination with axitinib in first-line renal cell carcinoma (RCC) Data presented across several modalities and mechanisms showcase the scientific innovation and diversity of the company's pipeline, which includes bintrafusp alfa (M7824) and tepotinib Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, today announced that data across several modalities and mechanisms targeting difficult-to-treat cancers will be presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, May 31June 4, Chicago, IL, US. New data will be presented for BAVENCIO* (avelumab) and ERBITUX (cetuximab), including rational combinations with chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other targeted agents to try to identify new ways to improve patient outcomes. This includes an oral presentation of data defining biomarkers that differentiate therapy-specific outcomes in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and who have been treated first-line with BAVENCIO (avelumab) in combination with axitinib. Abstracts also showcase the scientific innovation and diversity of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's pipeline, with results from a number of high-priority clinical development programs, including tepotinib, bintrafusp alfa (M7824) and the company's comprehensive DNA Damage Response (DDR) portfolio. "At this year's ASCO meeting we continue to demonstrate the breadth and depth of our oncology and immuno-oncology portfolio. We will present examples of the latest precision medicine and biomarker research and some of the most exciting mechanisms being investigated today, including tepotinib and our first-in-class bifunctional fusion protein immunotherapy, bintrafusp alfa," said Luciano Rossetti, Global Head of Research & Development for the Biopharma business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. "Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's oncology pipeline has significant promise in the near term through our late-stage priority programs, and our early pipeline includes several potentially groundbreaking modalities. We look forward to sharing the latest science with the global oncology community." For BAVENCIO (avelumab), Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, will share data from five studies across tumor types including Merkel cell carcinoma, RCC, hepatocellular carcinoma and urothelial carcinoma. This includes an oral presentation of biomarker analyses of baseline tumor samples from the Phase III JAVELIN Renal 101 trial in previously untreated patients with advanced RCC. The trial indicated that PD-L1 expression (1% immune cells) was associated with the longest progression-free survival (PFS) in the avelumab plus axitinib arm and the shortest PFS in the sunitinib arm (HR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.49, 0.81). An analysis of relevant gene expression signatures (GES) indicated that in the avelumab plus axitinib arm, PFS was enhanced in immune GESpositive patients vs those in the negative group (HR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.46, 0.86; 2-sided p=0.004), and vs those in an independent dataset (JAVELIN Renal 100; Choueiri, Lancet Oncol, 2018) (HR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.20, 1.05; 2-sided p=0.064). The combination demonstrated a safety and tolerability profile consistent with the known safety profiles of each drug alone. The most common adverse reactions (20%) were diarrhea, fatigue, hypertension, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, mucositis, palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia, dysphonia, decreased appetite, hypothyroidism, rash, hepatotoxicity, cough, dyspnea, abdominal pain, and headache. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 35% of patients receiving BAVENCIO (avelumab) in combination with axitinib. The incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) was higher with BAVENCIO (avelumab) in combination with axitinib vs sunitinib. ERBITUX (cetuximab) data from a retrospective analysis of overall survival (OS) by subsequent therapy in patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer from the Phase III EPIC study will be presented, to evaluate the effect of post-study therapies (with ERBITUX, without ERBITUX, or no subsequent therapy) on OS. A number of the molecules to be featured were discovered in-house at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. This includes tepotinib, an oral MET inhibitor designed to inhibit the oncogenic MET receptor signaling caused by MET (gene) alterations, and bintrafusp alfa, a bifunctional fusion protein designed to simultaneously target two immuno-suppressive pathways. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's partnership with GSK to jointly develop and commercialize bintrafusp alfa, announced in February 2019, is part of the company's strategic approach to oncology R&D. Together, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and GSK aim to rapidly and efficiently progress this molecule, which represents a potential step change in the treatment of cancer. For tepotinib, promising updated results from the ongoing Phase II VISION study in 85 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with MET exon 14 skipping mutations (identified by liquid biopsy [LBx] or tumor biopsy [TBx]) will be shared. Results show an overall response rate (ORR) of 51.4% for LBx patients (independent review committee [IRC]-assessed) or 63.9% (investigator-assessed). The ORR for TBx patients was 41.5% (IRC-assessed) or 58.5% (investigator-assessed). Median duration of response was 9.8 (IRC-assessed) or 17.1 months (investigator-assessed) for LBx patients and 12.4 (IRC-assessed) or 14.3 months (investigator-assessed) for TBx patients. Any grade treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) reported by 10% of 69 patients evaluable for safety were peripheral edema (47.8%), diarrhea (18.8%), nausea (15.9%) and asthenia (10.1%). No Grade 4 or 5 TRAEs were observed. TRAEs led to permanent discontinuation in two (2.9%) patients (one interstitial lung disease, one diarrhea and nausea). These data continue to mature, and an updated data cut from the VISION study will be given as an oral presentation at the ASCO meeting on Monday, June 3. For bintrafusp alfa, a trial-in-progress poster will be shared on the open-label study of bintrafusp alfa vs pembrolizumab as a first-line treatment in patients with PD-L1-expressing advanced NSCLC. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany takes a personalized approach to R&D, and precision medicine has long been a priority. Abstracts being presented at ASCO also include biomarker research programs that aim to help identify the patients most likely to benefit from specific treatments so they can achieve the best possible medical outcomes. *The combination of BAVENCIO and axitinib is approved for the first-line treatment of advanced RCC only in the United States. There is no guarantee that avelumab in combination with axitinib will be approved for RCC by any other health authority worldwide. Tepotinib is the recommended International Nonproprietary Name (INN) for the MET kinase inhibitor (MSC2156119J). Tepotinib is currently under clinical investigation and not approved for any use anywhere in the world. Bintrafusp alfa is the proposed International Nonproprietary Name (INN) for the bifunctional immunotherapy M7824. Bintrafusp alfa is currently under clinical investigation and not approved for any use anywhere in the world. Notes to Editors Key Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany-supported abstracts slated for presentation are listed below. In addition, a number of investigator-sponsored studies have been accepted (not listed). Title Lead Author Abstract # Presentation Date / Time (CDT) Location BAVENCIO (avelumab) Oral Session Biomarker analyses from JAVELIN Renal 101: avelumab + axitinib (A+Ax) vs sunitinib (S) in advanced renal cell carcinoma (aRCC) T.K. Choueiri 101 Sat, Jun 1, 8:00 AM 9:30 AM (8:12 AM 8:24 AM lecture time) Hall D1 Poster Sessions 5-factor prognostic model for survival of patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma receiving 3 different post-platinum PD-L1 inhibitors G. Sonpavde 4552 Mon, Jun 3, 1:15 PM 4:15 PM Hall A First-line avelumab + axitinib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma: results from a phase 1b trial (VEGF Liver 100) M. Kudo 4072 Mon, Jun 3, 8:00 AM 11:00 AM Hall A Integrative molecular analysis of metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma to identify predictive biomarkers of response to avelumab S. Georges 9569 Mon, Jun 3, 1:15 PM 4:15 PM Hall A Bintrafusp Alfa Poster Session Randomized open-label study of M7824 vs pembrolizumab as first- line (1L) treatment in patients with PD-L1 expressing advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) L. Paz-Ares TPS9114 Sun, Jun 2, 8:00 AM 11:00 AM Hall A Discovery Poster Session Understanding contribution and independence of multiple biomarkers for predicting response to atezolizumab P.K. Shah 2567 Sat, Jun 1, 8:00 AM 11:00 AM Hall A ERBITUX (cetuximab) Poster Session Retrospective Analysis of Overall Survival (OS) by Subsequent Therapy in Patients With RAS-Wild- type (wt) Metastatic Colorectal Cancer (mCRC) Receiving Cetuximab Irinotecan A. Sobrero 3580 Mon, Jun 3, 8:00 AM 11:00 AM Hall A Tepotinib Oral Session Phase II study of tepotinib in NSCLC patients with METex14 mutations P.K. Paik 9005 Mon, Jun 3, 8:00 AM 11:00 AM (9:24 AM 9:36 AM lecture time) Hall B1 About Tepotinib Tepotinib, discovered in-house at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, is an investigational oral MET inhibitor that is designed to inhibit the oncogenic MET receptor signaling caused by MET (gene) alterations, including both MET exon 14 skipping mutations and MET amplifications, or MET protein overexpression. It has been designed to have a highly selective mechanism of action, with the potential to improve outcomes in aggressive tumors that have a poor prognosis and harbor these specific alterations. Tepotinib is currently being investigated in NSCLC and Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, is actively assessing the potential of investigating tepotinib in combination with novel therapies and other tumor indications. About Bintrafusp Alfa (M7824) Bintrafusp alfa is an investigational bifunctional immunotherapy that is designed to combine a TGF- trap with the anti-PD-L1 mechanism in one fusion protein. Bintrafusp alfa is designed to combine co-localized blocking of the two immuno-suppressive pathways targeting both pathways aims to control tumor growth by potentially restoring and enhancing anti-tumor responses. Bintrafusp alfa is currently in Phase I studies for solid tumors, as well as a randomized Phase II trial to investigate bintrafusp alfa compared with pembrolizumab as a first-line treatment in patients with PD-L1 expressing advanced NSCLC. The multicenter, randomized, open-label, controlled study is evaluating the safety and efficacy of bintrafusp alfa versus pembrolizumab as a monotherapy treatment. To date, nearly 700 patients have been treated with bintrafusp alfa across more than 10 tumor types in Phase I studies. Encouraging data from the ongoing Phase I studies indicates bintrafusp alfa's potential safety and clinical anti-tumor activity across multiple types of difficult-to-treat cancers, including advanced NSCLC, human papillomavirus-associated cancers, biliary tract cancer and gastric cancer. In addition, in pre-clinical studies bintrafusp alfa demonstrated superior anti-tumor activity, compared with anti-PD-L1 alone or with anti-PD-L1 and TGF- trap when co-administered. In total, eight high-priority immuno-oncology clinical development studies are ongoing or expected to commence in 2019, including studies in non-small cell lung and biliary tract cancers. About BAVENCIO (avelumab) BAVENCIO is a human anti-programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) antibody. BAVENCIO has been shown in preclinical models to engage both the adaptive and innate immune functions. By blocking the interaction of PD-L1 with PD-1 receptors, BAVENCIO has been shown to release the suppression of the T cell-mediated antitumor immune response in preclinical models.1-3 BAVENCIO has also been shown to induce NK cell-mediated direct tumor cell lysis via antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) in vitro.3-5 In November 2014, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Pfizer announced a strategic alliance to co-develop and co-commercialize BAVENCIO. BAVENCIO Approved Indications in the US BAVENCIO (avelumab) in combination with INLYTA (axitinib) is indicated in the US for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In the US, the FDA granted accelerated approval for BAVENCIO for the treatment of (i) adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma (mMCC) and (ii) patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC) who have disease progression during or following platinum-containing chemotherapy, or have disease progression within 12 months of neoadjuvant or adjuvant treatment with platinum-containing chemotherapy. These indications are approved under accelerated approval based on tumor response rate and duration of response. Continued approval for these indications may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trials. Avelumab is currently approved for patients with MCC in more than 45 countries globally, with the majority of these approvals in a broad indication that is not limited to a specific line of treatment. BAVENCIO Important Safety Information from the US FDA-Approved Label BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated pneumonitis, including fatal cases. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of pneumonitis, and evaluate suspected cases with radiographic imaging. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater pneumonitis. Withhold BAVENCIO for moderate (Grade 2) and permanently discontinue for severe (Grade 3), life-threatening (Grade 4), or recurrent moderate (Grade 2) pneumonitis. Pneumonitis occurred in 1.2% of patients, including one (0.1%) patient with Grade 5, one (0.1%) with Grade 4, and five (0.3%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO can cause hepatotoxicity and immune-mediated hepatitis, including fatal cases. Monitor patients for abnormal liver tests prior to and periodically during treatment. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater hepatitis. Withhold BAVENCIO for moderate (Grade 2) immune-mediated hepatitis until resolution and permanently discontinue for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) immune-mediated hepatitis. Immune-mediated hepatitis occurred with BAVENCIO as a single agent in 0.9% of patients, including two (0.1%) patients with Grade 5, and 11 (0.6%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA can cause hepatotoxicity with higher than expected frequencies of Grade 3 and 4 alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) elevation. Consider more frequent monitoring of liver enzymes as compared to when the drugs are used as monotherapy. Withhold BAVENCIO and INLYTA for moderate (Grade 2) hepatotoxicity and permanently discontinue the combination for severe or life-threatening (Grade 3 or 4) hepatotoxicity. Administer corticosteroids as needed. In patients treated with BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA, Grades 3 and 4 increased ALT and AST occurred in 9% and 7% of patients, respectively, and immune-mediated hepatitis occurred in 7% of patients, including 4.9% with Grade 3 or 4. Immune-mediated hepatitis was reported in 7% of patients including 4.9% with Grade 3 or 4 immune-mediated hepatitis. Hepatotoxicity led to permanent discontinuation in 6.5% and immune-mediated hepatitis led to permanent discontinuation of either BAVENCIO or axitinib in 5.3% of patients. BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated colitis. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of colitis. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater colitis. Withhold BAVENCIO until resolution for moderate or severe (Grade 2 or 3) colitis until resolution. Permanently discontinue for life-threatening (Grade 4) or recurrent (Grade 3) colitis upon reinitiation of BAVENCIO. Immune-mediated colitis occurred in 1.5% of patients, including seven (0.4%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated endocrinopathies, including adrenal insufficiency, thyroid disorders, and type 1 diabetes mellitus. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of adrenal insufficiency during and after treatment, and administer corticosteroids as appropriate. Withhold BAVENCIO for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) adrenal insufficiency. Adrenal insufficiency was reported in 0.5% of patients, including one (0.1%) with Grade 3. Thyroid disorders can occur at any time during treatment. Monitor patients for changes in thyroid function at the start of treatment, periodically during treatment, and as indicated based on clinical evaluation. Manage hypothyroidism with hormone replacement therapy and hyperthyroidism with medical management. Withhold BAVENCIO for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) thyroid disorders. Thyroid disorders, including hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and thyroiditis, were reported in 6% of patients, including three (0.2%) with Grade 3. Type 1 diabetes mellitus including diabetic ketoacidosis: Monitor patients for hyperglycemia or other signs and symptoms of diabetes. Withhold BAVENCIO and administer antihyperglycemics or insulin in patients with severe or life-threatening (Grade 3) hyperglycemia, and resume treatment when metabolic control is achieved. Type 1 diabetes mellitus without an alternative etiology occurred in 0.1% of patients, including two cases of Grade 3 hyperglycemia. BAVENCIO can cause immune-mediated nephritis and renal dysfunction. Monitor patients for elevated serum creatinine prior to and periodically during treatment. Administer corticosteroids for Grade 2 or greater nephritis. Withhold BAVENCIO for moderate (Grade 2) or severe (Grade 3) nephritis until resolution to Grade 1 or lower. Permanently discontinue BAVENCIO for life-threatening (Grade 4) nephritis. Immune-mediated nephritis occurred in 0.1% of patients. BAVENCIO can result in other severe and fatal immune-mediated adverse reactions involving any organ system during treatment or after treatment discontinuation. For suspected immune-mediated adverse reactions, evaluate to confirm or rule out an immune-mediated adverse reaction and to exclude other causes. Depending on the severity of the adverse reaction, withhold or permanently discontinue BAVENCIO, administer high-dose corticosteroids, and initiate hormone replacement therapy, if appropriate. Resume BAVENCIO when the immune-mediated adverse reaction remains at Grade 1 or lower following a corticosteroid taper. Permanently discontinue BAVENCIO for any severe (Grade 3) immune-mediated adverse reaction that recurs and for any life-threatening (Grade 4) immune-mediated adverse reaction. The following clinically significant immune-mediated adverse reactions occurred in less than 1% of 1738 patients treated with BAVENCIO as a single agent or in 489 patients who received BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA: myocarditis including fatal cases, pancreatitis including fatal cases, myositis, psoriasis, arthritis, exfoliative dermatitis, erythema multiforme, pemphigoid, hypopituitarism, uveitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and systemic inflammatory response. BAVENCIO can cause severe or life-threatening infusion-related reactions. Premedicate patients with an antihistamine and acetaminophen prior to the first 4 infusions and for subsequent infusions based upon clinical judgment and presence/severity of prior infusion reactions. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of infusion-related reactions, including pyrexia, chills, flushing, hypotension, dyspnea, wheezing, back pain, abdominal pain, and urticaria. Interrupt or slow the rate of infusion for mild (Grade 1) or moderate (Grade 2) infusion-related reactions. Permanently discontinue BAVENCIO for severe (Grade 3) or life-threatening (Grade 4) infusion-related reactions. Infusion-related reactions occurred in 25% of patients, including three (0.2%) patients with Grade 4 and nine (0.5%) with Grade 3. BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA can cause major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) including severe and fatal events. Consider baseline and periodic evaluations of left ventricular ejection fraction. Monitor for signs and symptoms of cardiovascular events. Optimize management of cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, or dyslipidemia. Discontinue BAVENCIO and INLYTA for Grade 3-4 cardiovascular events. MACE occurred in 7% of patients with advanced RCC treated with BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA compared to 3.4% treated with sunitinib. These events included death due to cardiac events (1.4%), Grade 3-4 myocardial infarction (2.8%), and Grade 3-4 congestive heart failure (1.8%). BAVENCIO can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. Advise patients of the potential risk to a fetus including the risk of fetal death. Advise females of childbearing potential to use effective contraception during treatment with BAVENCIO and for at least 1 month after the last dose of BAVENCIO. It is not known whether BAVENCIO is excreted in human milk. Advise a lactating woman not to breastfeed during treatment and for at least 1 month after the last dose of BAVENCIO due to the potential for serious adverse reactions in breastfed infants. Clinical chemistry and hematology laboratory values abnormalities have been reported with BAVENCIO and also BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA including but not limited to grade 3-4 lymphopenia, anemia, elevated cholesterol and liver enzymes. Please see full US Prescribing Information and Medication Guide available at http://www.BAVENCIO.com. INLYTA Important Safety Information from the US FDA-Approved Label Hypertension including hypertensive crisis has been observed with INLYTA. Blood pressure should be well controlled prior to initiating INLYTA. Monitor for hypertension and treat as needed. For persistent hypertension, despite use of antihypertensive medications, reduce the dose. Discontinue INLYTA if hypertension is severe and persistent despite use of antihypertensive therapy and dose reduction of INLYTA, and discontinuation should be considered if there is evidence of hypertensive crisis. Arterial and venous thrombotic events have been observed with INLYTA and can be fatal. Use with caution in patients who are at increased risk or who have a history of these events. Hemorrhagic events, including fatal events, have been reported with INLYTA. INLYTA has not been studied in patients with evidence of untreated brain metastasis or recent active gastrointestinal bleeding and should not be used in those patients. If any bleeding requires medical intervention, temporarily interrupt the INLYTA dose. Cardiac failure has been observed with INLYTA and can be fatal. Monitor for signs or symptoms of cardiac failure throughout treatment with INLYTA. Management of cardiac failure may require permanent discontinuation of INLYTA. Gastrointestinal perforation and fistula, including death, have occurred with INLYTA. Use with caution in patients at risk for gastrointestinal perforation or fistula. Monitor for symptoms of gastrointestinal perforation or fistula periodically throughout treatment. Hypothyroidism requiring thyroid hormone replacement has been reported with INLYTA. Monitor thyroid function before initiation of, and periodically throughout, treatment. No formal studies of the effect of INLYTA on wound healing have been conducted. Stop INLYTA at least 24 hours prior to scheduled surgery. Reversible Posterior Leukoencephalopathy Syndrome (RPLS) has been observed with INLYTA. If signs or symptoms occur, permanently discontinue treatment. Proteinuria has been observed with INLYTA. Monitor for proteinuria before initiation of, and periodically throughout, treatment with INLYTA. For moderate to severe proteinuria, reduce the dose or temporarily interrupt treatment. Liver enzyme elevation has been observed during treatment with INLYTA. Monitor ALT, AST, and bilirubin before initiation of, and periodically throughout, treatment. For patients with moderate hepatic impairment, the starting dose should be decreased. INLYTA has not been studied in patients with severe hepatic impairment. INLYTA can cause fetal harm. Advise patients of the potential risk to the fetus and to use effective contraception during treatment. Avoid strong CYP3A4/5 inhibitors. If unavoidable, reduce the dose. Grapefruit or grapefruit juice may also increase INLYTA plasma concentrations and should be avoided. Avoid strong CYP3A4/5 inducers and, if possible, avoid moderate CYP3A4/5 inducers. For more information and full Prescribing Information, visit www.INLYTA.com. ADVERSE REACTIONS (BAVENCIO + INLYTA) Fatal adverse reactions occurred in 1.8% of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA. These included sudden cardiac death (1.2%), stroke (0.2%), myocarditis (0.2%), and necrotizing pancreatitis (0.2%). The most common adverse reactions (all grades, 20%) in patients with advanced RCC receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA (vs sunitinib) were diarrhea (62% vs 48%), fatigue (53% vs 54%), hypertension (50% vs 36%), musculoskeletal pain (40% vs 33%), nausea (34% vs 39%), mucositis (34% vs 35%), palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia (33% vs 34%), dysphonia (31% vs 3.2%), decreased appetite (26% vs 29%), hypothyroidism (25% vs 14%), rash (25% vs 16%), hepatotoxicity (24% vs 18%), cough (23% vs 19%), dyspnea (23% vs 16%), abdominal pain (22% vs 19%), and headache (21% vs 16%). Selected laboratory abnormalities (all grades, 20%) worsening from baseline in patients with advanced RCC receiving BAVENCIO in combination with INLYTA (vs sunitinib) were blood triglycerides increased (71% vs 48%), blood creatinine increased (62% vs 68%), blood cholesterol increased (57% vs 22%), alanine aminotransferase increased (ALT) (50% vs 46%), aspartate aminotransferase increased (AST) (47% vs 57%), blood sodium decreased (38% vs 37%), lipase increased (37% vs 25%), blood potassium increased (35% vs 28%), platelet count decreased (27% vs 80%), blood bilirubin increased (21% vs 23%), and hemoglobin decreased (21% vs 65%). About Erbitux (cetuximab) Erbitux is a IgG1 monoclonal antibody targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). As a monoclonal antibody, the mode of action of Erbitux is distinct from standard non-selective chemotherapy treatments in that it specifically targets and binds to the EGFR. This binding inhibits the activation of the receptor and the subsequent signal-transduction pathway, which results in reducing both the invasion of normal tissues by tumor cells and the spread of tumors to new sites. It is also believed to inhibit the ability of tumor cells to repair the damage caused by chemotherapy and radiotherapy and to inhibit the formation of new blood vessels inside tumors, which appears to lead to an overall suppression of tumor growth. Based on in vitro evidence, Erbitux also targets cytotoxic immune effector cells towards EGFR expressing tumor cells (antibody dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, ADCC). Very commonly reported side effects with Erbitux include acne-like skin rash, mild to moderate infusion-related reactions and hypomagnesemia. Erbitux has already obtained market authorization in 114 countries world-wide for the treatment of RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer and for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, licensed the right to market Erbitux, a registered trademark of ImClone LLC, outside the U.S. and Canada from ImClone LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company, in 1998. References 1. Dolan DE, et al. Cancer Control 2014;21:2317. 2. Dahan R, et al. Cancer Cell 2015;28:28595. 3. Boyerinas B, et al. Cancer Immunol Res 2015;3:114857. 4. Kohrt HE, et al. Immunotherapy 2012;4:51127. 5. Hamilton G, et al. Expert Opin Biol Ther 2017;17:51523. All Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, press releases are distributed by e-mail at the same time they become available on the EMD Group Website. In case you are a resident of the USA or Canada please go to www.emdgroup.com/subscribe to register for your online subscription of this service as our geo-targeting requires new links in the email. You may later change your selection or discontinue this service. About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and performance materials. Around 52,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people's lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices the company is everywhere. In 2018, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of 14.8 billion in 66 countries. The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark "Merck" internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Performance Materials. Since its founding 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company's technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Your Contact [email protected] Phone: +1-978-821-5345 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/384917/merck_kgaa_Logo.jpg SOURCE Merck KGaA NEW YORK, May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Materne, a French company with a century of know-how in the fruit industry started with the creation of the applesauce and puree factory in the north of France. Its American affiliate, Materne North America provides quality, healthy fruit and yogurt snacks on the go since April of 2008 when GoGo squeeZ commenced being sold in the United States. It was sold over one million pouches by November of that year. With over thirty four illustrious years of experience in the field of manufacturing, Michel Larroche has served in his current capacity as CEO of Materne North America for the past ten years. Throughout his career, Mr. Larroche has attained extensive expertise in business expansion internationally, helping to change the mindset to more healthy choices. While pursuing his educational endeavors, Mr. Larroche attended Agro Paris Tech in France where he earned his Ph.D. in Biology, Genetics, and Agronomy. To further enhance his professional development, Mr. Larroche is an esteemed member of several prominent organizations including the Food Association of France and several private leadership organizations catering to the food manufacturing industry. Charitable to various organizations, Mr. Larroche volunteers at his children's school locally and contributes to entrepreneur groups in Asia. For more information, please visit www.gogosqueez.com Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected] SOURCE Continental Who's Who Related Links http://www.continentalwhoswho.com LANSING, Mich., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Michigan Chamber of Commerce today issued the following statement in response to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's nationwide search for outside legal counsel to pursue lawsuits against companies that manufacture opioid medications and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). "Attorney General Nessel's call for assistance from law firms around the country that specialize in pursuing cases against opioid and PFAS distributors and manufacturers reminds us all that extra caution must be taken when selecting firms and attorneys to represent the state on a contingency fee basis," said Jim Holcomb, Executive Vice President & General Counsel for the Michigan Chamber. "Unknown to the general public, attorneys operating under a contingency fee contract receive most of the settlement to pay for inflated legal fees, thus leaving incentives for them to pursue even larger settlements and more severe court decisions," noted Holcomb. "In order to avoid this, we urge the Attorney General to follow the best practices that have been codified in 22 other states, ensuring that the arrangement is in the public interest, transparent and open to competitive bidding and includes reasonable limitations on fees that private counsel may recover." "Using Transparency in Private Attorney Contracting (TiPAC) legislation as a model, any contract the Attorney General's office enters into should provide for common sense transparency and accountability through legislative oversight," said Wendy Block, Vice President of Business Advocacy for the Michigan Chamber. "Doing so will ensure that any cases pursued by Attorney General Nessel's office are in the best interest of the taxpayers of Michigan and that any attorneys representing the state are doing so first and foremost for the public good." The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is a statewide business organization representing over 5,800 employers, trade associations and local chambers of commerce who employ over one million Michigan residents. The Michigan Chamber represents businesses of every size and type in all 83 counties of the state. The Michigan Chamber was established in 1959 to be an advocate for Michigan's job providers in the legislative, political and legal process. SOURCE Michigan Chamber of Commerce Related Links http://www.michamber.com WASHINGTON, May 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, at the National Association of Realtors' Regulatory Issues Forum, newly-appointed Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria spoke to hundreds of Realtors and industry leaders regarding his vision for the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Tuesday's forum also presented an opportunity for NAR to highlight its housing finance reform plan, which proposes a utility model to ensure a reliable and affordable source of mortgage capital for Americans going forward. Bethany McLean, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of "Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants," moderated Tuesday's event. NAR Members and Regulatory Issues Forum Chairman and Vice-Chairman Kurt Thompson and Dean Dawson were also on hand to open and close the panel. McLean led Tuesday's discussion with Director Calabria, diving deeper into the former NAR economist's priorities in his new role at the helm of the FHFA. "One of the things I'm going to be trying to do across the board is [determine how we] level the playing field to where all large financial institutions have similar capital," Director Calabria told the group at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. "[That will ensure] the GSEs have a good business model because they have good management and good execution not because they have lower standards than everyone else and so we have that capital there to protect the taxpayer. At the end of the day, I think that can be done in a way that really does not adversely impact the consumer." Perhaps most notably to many of the Realtors in attendance Tuesday, the director said loan limits will remain untouched during his tenure at FHFA. He also assured the audience that work to preserve the 30-year mortgage remains critical. "The process of setting loan limits is very mechanical," he said. "It's in statute Congress decided. That's not my decision, so loan limits are not going to change from what's in statute." Still, conversations surrounding the prospects, principles and policies of the GSE reform drove Tuesday's discussion, as they will likely drive much of Director Calabria's 5-year term atop the FHFA. Specifically, McLean pressed on his approach to orchestrating an end to Fannie and Freddie's conservatorship. "I would not feel comfortable having [the GSEs] exit conservatorship until I'm comfortable knowing that we never go back to the old days, pre-crisis, and that we have a Fannie and Freddie that are responsible, good corporate citizens that don't have the arrogance we saw before the crisis," he said. Although unity surrounding any specific policy changes has yet to emerge in Washington, Realtors have in hand, a ready-made, pragmatic and workable plan for housing finance reform. "Because of the GSEs, homebuyers in Springfield, Missouri and Springfield, Massachusetts have equal access to a mortgage and pay nearly identical rates," NAR President John Smaby said. "That's why Realtors have worked so hard to develop a plan that keeps our housing finance system solvent, and why we'll be able to help aspiring homeowners for decades to come." NAR's plan would transition Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into private, shareholder-owned utilities that would continue to purchase, guarantee and securitize single-family and multifamily mortgage loans. "By retaining an emphasis on private capital, our model protects taxpayers, consumers and the U.S. economy," Smaby continued. "Most importantly, as utilities, Fannie's and Freddie's foremost priority would be to serve the public mission instituted by Congress to support stability, liquidity and access in the mortgage market." The Realtors' proposal drew praise at Tuesday's forum. "NAR's plan for GSE Reform is the smartest we've heard to date," McLean, who also authored "The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron," told the crowd at Marriott Wardman Park. As Congress and the FHFA each plan their own path toward GSE reform, Calabria and McLean highlighted some of the issues that require cooperation between the administration and legislators on Capitol Hill. "I really would like to see Congress act," Calabria added. "There are a number of things that I can do and will do, but the overall problem is about the model. I can get the GSEs out of conservatorship, I can make sure they're better capitalized and better regulated, but essentially the model is the model. If there is going to be a change in the model, Congress has to do that." The National Association of Realtors is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries SOURCE National Association of Realtors Related Links http://www.realtor.org NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Belong.Life, the world's largest interactive social network for cancer patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals, announced today that the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is including three abstracts in its 2019 Congress Abstract book based on data aggregated from the " Belong Beating Cancer Together" patient powered network (PPN) application. The research demonstrates that incorporating Belong.Life data into clinical practices could improve patient outcomes by providing insight into the prevalence of taxane-induced neuropathy in breast cancer patients, and the emotional and financial side effects of traditional therapies. "The future of cancer treatment lies in PPNs that can assist both patients and physicians with real-time data to inform treatment journeys," said Eliran Malki, CEO and co-founder of Belong.Life. "Capturing user-generated data from an anonymous database of over 150,000 patients and caregivers, we have identified the need for further exploration of the gap between controlled clinical studies and real-world evidence." The free Belong.Life platform offers anonymous access to chat with medical professionals, support from a vast social network of patients, a platform to house their treatment documentation and access to a robust clinical trial matching service. Research for the abstracts was aggregated from real-world data generated on the app and analyzed by leading data scientists and oncologists. Abstract e18248: Unveiling the real-world outcomes of breast cancer (BC) patients with taxanes-induced neuropathy using a digital patient-powered network (PPN) Key Findings: A direct correlation between the prevalence of taxanes-induced neuropathy to two commonly used BC drugs; Paclitaxel and Docetaxel. The data showed that the instances of taxanes-induced neuropathy was significantly higher than reported in published studies on both drugs. Authors: Prof. Raanan Berger, researcher and member of Belong's advisory committee. Abstract e18060: Real world data (RWD) and Patients Reported Outcomes (PRO) in Breast Cancer (BC): physical, emotional side effects (S/E), financial toxicity (FT) and complementary usage (CM) Key Findings: Defined several emotional and financial burdens induced by cancer therapies, including incidences of depression and anxiety. In addition, patients reported use of different complementary treatment methods to ease their cancer therapy journey. Author: Dr. Daniel Vorobiof, Belong CMD Abstract e18092: Creating the real-world medical record: using digital patient-generated data to create an updated picture of patients outcomes Key Findings: Data collected by a patient powered network created a comparable clinical description to standard medical documents and could be used to improve the cost-efficiency of healthcare systems. Authors: Dr. Maytal Benita, Belong CEO Eliran Malki, Belong CTO Irad Deutsch "The possibility of doing research through a worldwide social network like Belong is truly exciting," said Dr. Daniel Vorobiof, Chief Medical Director of Belong. "The real world data provided by the patients in an anonymous, free and quick way, allows us to understand how a patient actually experiences recovery." Company and study representatives including Eliran Malki, Dr. Daniel Vorobiof, Dr. Raanan Berger, and Irad Deutsch will attend the conference that will take place in Chicago, Illinois, from May 31 to June 4. About Belong.Life Founded in 2015 by noted entrepreneurs Eliran Malki, Irad Deutsch and Ohad Rubin after each lost relatives to cancer, Belong is a free patient navigation app that allows cancer patients and their support network to explore and better manage their treatment journey while improving their quality of life. The Belong global community gains access to a proprietary big data platform and machine learning technology that enables people to connect, receive and share clinical information anonymously and to privately discuss urgent issues related to their condition. Today, Belong is the world's largest digital cancer patient platform and has partnerships with the American Cancer Society, Colorectal Cancer Canada, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and others. The company also conducts international research, collaborates with leading universities, attends and contributes clinical research to the annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) as well as other organizations. You can find more information about Belong.Life by visiting the website, https://belong.life/ and by following the company on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Media Contact: Ellie Hanson Finn Partners for Belong 929-222-8006 [email protected] SOURCE Belong.Life SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- North Island Credit Union has announced the recipients of its Spring 2019 Teacher Grants assisting educators in funding innovative learning opportunities for their students in San Diego County. Recipients will each receive $500 to use towards their class projects. The Spring 2019 North Island Credit Union San Diego County Teacher Grant recipients include: Diana Celle , Holmes Elementary, San Diego , Holmes Elementary, Janet Deal , Naranca Elementary, El Cajon , Naranca Elementary, Stephanie Gonzalez , El Camino High School, Oceanside , El Camino High School, Oceanside Raquel Luna , Kempton Literacy Academy, Spring Valley , Kempton Literacy Academy, Laurie McBride , Ramona Community Campus, Ramona , Ramona Community Campus, Ramona Jacqueline Riley , Martin Luther King Middle School , Oceanside , , Oceanside Jillian Ryan , Mission Hills High School, San Marcos , Mission Hills High School, Sue Simone , America's Finest Charter School , San Diego , America's , Alison Talle , Mount Carmel High School, San Diego , Mount Carmel High School, Denise Tayco , Pershing Middle School, San Diego "North Island Credit Union is committed to supporting our local educators and students, and we can't think of a better way to make a different in our community than helping teachers provide exciting learning opportunities in their classrooms," said California Credit Union President/CEO Steve O'Connell. "We hope these grants will help our teachers bring learning to life for their students in creative and innovative ways." Credit Union grants were used to help fund a wide variety of programs illustrating the creativity and commitment teachers bring to their classrooms and communities, including using solar energy for cooking, STEAM lab materials, service learning programs, model rocket kits, community farm-to-table projects, multi-cultural dance, composting projects, and many more. North Island Credit Union encourages local educators to follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @northislandcu for more opportunities for education-focused programs and support initiatives throughout the year. Since the creation of the program in 2012, the credit union has awarded $95,000 in teacher grants to benefit students throughout San Diego and Los Angeles. Up to 20 grants totaling $10,000 are awarded bi-annually in the spring and fall. Any full-time classroom teacher in San Diego County can apply for a grant for a program that has clearly defined learning objectives tied to students' academic needs, displays creativity in education, and targets a significant number of students. Visit northisland.ccu.com for more information. About North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union California Credit Union is a federally insured, state chartered credit union founded in 1933 that serves public or private school employees, community members and businesses across California. With more than 165,000 members and assets of $3 billion, California Credit Union has 24 branches throughout Los Angeles and San Diego counties. The credit union operates in San Diego County as North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union. California Credit Union offers a full suite of consumer, business and investment products and services, including comprehensive consumer checking and loan options, personalized financial planning, business banking, and leading-edge online and mobile banking. Please visit northisland.ccu.com for more information or follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @northislandcu. SOURCE North Island Credit Union Related Links http://northisland.ccu.com DENVER, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- For Denver locals with an appreciation for great food and drink, Pearl Wine Company and Culture Meat and Cheese are likely two very familiar names. Between them, they've racked up a generous handful of awards and industry recognition, earning their spots as beloved favorites of critics and Denver dwellers alike. Each has been highly successful in its own right, but now, Pearl Wine Company is collaborating with Culture Meat and Cheese to give guests unparalleled access to some of the best flavors in the city. Culture Logo Although both businesses made fairly recent debuts Pearl Wine Company in 2015 and Culture Meat and Cheese in 2016 it's easy to see that they've made quite the impression in just a few years. Dustin Chiappetta of Pearl Wine Company and Justin Brunson of Culture Meat and Cheese, Old Major, Masterpiece Deli, Royal Rooster and River Bear American Meats are both well-known in the Denver area food and wine community, each leading their respective businesses to receive titles including Reader's Choice Best Bottle Shop (5280 Magazine, 2016 and 2017), Top 50 New Restaurants in the Nation (Bon Appetit 2013), and more. With a growing foundation of loyal patrons and impressed critics, both Chiappetta and Brunson recognized that together, their expertise, talent, and passion could be the catalyst to create something the Platt Park area has always needed a place to shop for and learn about gourmet meats and cheeses, fine wines, beers, and spirits. Neighborhood foodies have long lamented the absence of a true gourmet cheese shop in Platt Park and the surrounding areas, with many electing to make the trek to the Denver Central Market to purchase from Culture and other well-known providers. But now, Pearl Wine Company has brought a slice of Culture to the neighborhood, stocking a selection of the company's cured meats and artisan cheese. According to Pearl Wine Company owner Dustin Chiappetta, the choice to add offerings from Culture Meat and Cheese to the shop was an easy one to make: The idea of adding Culture [Meat and Cheese] to Pearl Wine Company was the perfect fit the perfect pairing Justin and I have been friends for years; we are both extremely passionate about each of our own concepts. About a month ago I went to meet Justin and learn about his new company, River Bear American Meats. The quality was off the charts! We knew we had to do something together and saw an opportunity to collaborate. To create a truly unique experience. Together, we thought we could do something special. With both Pearl Wine Company and Culture Meat and Cheese sharing a similarly passionate dedication to unparalleled flavor, time-honored tradition, and the customer-focused experience, it's clear that this partnership is a match made in food and wine heaven. Explore the extensive selection of fine beer, wine, and spirits at Pearl Wine Company, now joined by a delicious variety of gourmet fares from Culture Meat and Cheese, the location will also be a hub to purchase Justin's newest project River Bear American Meats featuring the only locally owned and cured Bacon in Denver. Pearl Wine Company is open Sunday through Thursdays from 11am-9pm, Fridays and Saturdays from 11am-10pm, offering weekly tastings from 4-7pm on Wednesdays (wine), Fridays (beer), and Saturdays (spirits). About Pearl Wine Company Founded by Dustin Chiappetta in 2015, Pearl Wine Company was sparked by a passion for wine and its ability to convey the story, history, and culture of its makers. With more than 16 years of industry experience, Chiappetta has created a full-service beer, wine, and spirit bottle shop in the heart of Denver's Platt Park neighborhood, establishing Pearl Wine Company as a pillar of the local community. Pearl Wine Company's dedication to carefully curated quality has not gone unrecognized by the Denver food and wine community, which has honored the bottle shop with several awards. For more information, please contact Dustin Chiappetta at [email protected] or visit http://pearlwinecompany.com/. Contact Dustin Chiappetta (303) 282-5103 [email protected] http://pearlwinecompany.com/ https://culturemeatandcheese.com SOURCE Pearl Wine Company Related Links http://pearlwinecompany.com Boston, Mass., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IDG Communications , Inc. the worlds leading tech media, data, and marketing services company is proud to announce that the CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld and Network World editorial teams earned a total of 13 National Azbee awards of Excellence, including CIO.coms distinction of Website of the Year Top 10. The awards were presented by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE), which honors the best in business-to-business journalism (click to tweet). For decades we have focused on the needs of enterprise tech professionals and answered them with insightful, solutions-oriented content, Eric Knorr, B2B Editor-in-Chief, IDG Communications, Inc. This recognition is a true honor and testament to the outstanding efforts of our talented editorial teams. Our journalists are committed to creating the most credible, trusted and relevant content in the market, and it is exciting to see our commitment to quality being recognized by these prestigious awards. These awards span a variety of journalistic disciplines, from Web Article Design to Social Media Presence to Online E-Zine content, all of which would not be possible without the high quality and diverse talent of IDGs editorial teams. This honor comes in addition to the team winning 33 Regional Azbee Awards across the five brands in April. IDG Communications U.S. President Charles Lee echoed Knorrs sentiments, saying these awards are proof that investing in the right editorial talent for our brands drives results like this. Our commitment to quality journalism has translated into not only a total of 46 awards, but recognition for the cutting-edge content that attracts and engages the highest quality audience of tech buyers across the enterprise IT buying team spectrum. 2019 National ASBPE Azbee Award Recap CIO Computerworld CSO Video Tutorial What an Apple phishing attack looks like (Silver) InfoWorld Network World 2019 Regional ASBPE Azbee Award Recap CIO Computerworld CSO InfoWorld Network World About IDG Communications, Inc. IDG Communications connects the world of tech buyers with insights, intent and engagement. We are the worlds largest media, data and marketing services company that activates and engages the most influential technology buyers. Our premium brands, including CIO, Computerworld, CSO, PCWorld and Macworld, engage a quality audience of the most powerful technology buyers providing essential guidance on the evolving technology landscape. Our global data intelligence platform activates purchasing intent, powering our clients success. IDG Marketing Services creates custom content with marketing impact across video, mobile, social and digital. We execute complex campaigns that fulfill marketers global ambitions seamlessly with consistency that delivers quality results. Follow IDG on Twitter @IDGWorld Follow IDG on LinkedIn Like IDG on Facebook Attachment NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area. You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network it's easy and free. Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform EXPERT ALERTS Cruelty at the Border Documentation Is the Key to Proving Medical Malpractice IPBES Global Assessment Summary MEDIA JOBS OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES Takeaways From Cision's 10th Annual State of the Media Report Content Formatting: How to Structure Text to Keep Readers Engaged Blog Profiles: Camping Blogs ------------------------------------------------------------------ EXPERT ALERTS: Cruelty at the Border Mark Bello CEO, General Counsel Lawsuit Financial, Inc. "The main reason people migrate to America is in search of a better life for themselves and their families. Early U.S. history allowed for near-universal entry as long as an immigrant did not have a criminal record and that created the melting pot we enjoy today. However, in recent years, we hear tragic story after story in which migrants are denied the opportunity to lawfully and peaceably petition for asylum. Immigrants who have traveled hundreds of miles to our borders, running from abuse in their homeland, have sadly run into the same abuse here in America, in the land of the free." Bello is an attorney, civil justice advocate, and award-winning author of the Zachary Blake legal thriller series. He draws upon 42 years of courtroom experience, a passion for justice, and his creative writing style to pen captivating novels for his readers and hard-hitting commentaries on controversies in the news. Bello was one of the first attorneys to sue the Catholic Church over sexual abuse by clergy, an experience that inspired his debut novel, "Betrayal of Faith." Through his "ripped from the headlines" novels, he takes readers deep into the courtroom fights to protect our most precious rights, and gives us a front row glimpse into what victims face when standing up for justice. His fourth novel, "Betrayal in Black," is scheduled for release in 2019. Bello is CEO and General Counsel for Lawsuit Financial, Inc., a national provider of lawsuit funding, and a leading expert on financing litigation. A native of Detroit, he earned his law degree from Western Michigan University's Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Oakland University in Rochester. In his books, articles, and blogs, Bello calls out abuses of power as he empowers readers, the media, and ordinary citizens to fight for their rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. Bello and his spouse, Tobye, have four children and eight grandchildren. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling and spending time with his family. Online Press Kit: www.markbello.onlinepresskit247.com Website: www.markmbello.com Contact: Anita Jakab Kovacs, [email protected] Documentation Is the Key to Proving Medical Malpractice Carl Knickerbocker Lawyer, Counsel, Consultant The Law Office of Carl Knickerbocker, P.C. "While it's a horrible thing to have to think about, if you're seeing the writing on the wall and you know that your loved one is in decline because of what a doctor has or hasn't done, you have to insist on as much as possible being documented. When it comes to medical malpractice cases, what is actually in the medical records is huge. It's incredibly important for those records to actually write down what the doctors say they're going to write down. If there's any doctor who says, 'Yeah, I think so and so. I should've done this or I should've done that or this was missed or that was done wrong,' insist on that being actually documented or written down. Don't just trust the doctor will do it. Make sure the doctor actually does it." Knickerbocker fights for justice for people suffering catastrophic injuries in the Austin, Texas area. Nicknamed "The Boar" for his tenacious courtroom manner, Knickerbocker is a compassionate and powerful advocate for accident victims facing evasive insurance companies. A native of Georgetown, Texas, where he practices law, Knickerbocker graduated from Georgetown High School and earned a bachelor's degree in family ministry from Lubbock Christian University. He went on to earn a master's degree in English from Texas Tech University and his Juris Doctorate from Texas Tech School of Law. His practice is focused on personal injury claims for people catastrophically injured in accidents (including trucking and motor vehicle accidents), wrongful death, animal bites, brain injury, falls, and premises liability. Unlike most personal injury lawyers, who may charge up to 40 percent of any settlements they earn for clients, Knickerbocker charges a fixed percentage that allows clients to keep more of their potential settlements. Handling each case personally, Knickerbocker has represented hundreds of clients in personal injury claims in Texas, successfully maximizing their claims. His numerous awards include Top 40 Under 40 (2016-2018); 10 Best Attorneys and 10 Best Law Firms Texas (2016-2018) and Avvo Superb (2018). He even has his own YouTube Channel. Knickerbocker and his family live in Georgetown where he enjoys reading, yoga, meditation, exercise, healthy eating, and weekend travel. He tutors and helps homeschool his kids, and is working on a Ph.D. in creative writing. Online Press Kit: https://carlknickerbocker.onlinepresskit247.com Website: www.gettheboar.com Contact: Klaudia Simon, [email protected] IPBES Global Assessment Summary Timothy Krantz Professor, Environmental Studies University of Redlands Krantz says the IPBES Global Assessment Summary tells the bigger story of what he knows from his research in California: "Each plant and animal has its own story of the causes of its decline -- from bald eagles (eggshell thinning from DDT) to mountain yellow-legged frogs (fire, drought, and water diversions) to the unarmored three-spined stickleback (drought, water diversions, development) and an entirely new species of sage that was just bulldozed for a 'fire break' almost to extinction last week before I could even name it." Website: www.redlands.edu Contact: Jennifer Dobbs, [email protected] **************** MEDIA JOBS: Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://www.cisionjobs.com/jobs/united-states/ ***************** OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES: Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line at [email protected] TAKEAWAYS FROM CISION'S 10TH ANNUAL STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT. Cision's 2019 State of the Media Report is here! For its 10th annual report, Cision surveyed nearly 2,000 media professionals from 10 countries to get a sense of what media professionals felt was most important to their jobs. Which factors were causing big changes? Which factors might cause more in the future? What's the most important thing happening right now? And how were all of these things different -- and the same -- around the world? Here are a few interesting takeaways: https://prn.to/3049C13 CONTENT FORMATTING: HOW TO STRUCTURE TEXT TO KEEP READERS ENGAGED. You've done it. A reader has clicked a link to your article or blog post and is on the page. But how do you keep them reading and engaging with the content? Readers have short attention spans, so creating a visually appealing, easy-to-read piece of content will play a part in its success. Once you've done the work of crafting a strong headline and writing a compelling article, don't forget about optimizing your text structure to keep a reader's attention: https://prn.to/2UICWGu BLOG PROFILES: CAMPING BLOGS. Each week, PR Newswire's Audience Relations team selects an industry/subject and profiles a handful of sites that do a good job with promoting and contributing to the conversation. This week, they look at camping blogs: https://prn.to/2w4Fwgd **************** PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire. To contact ProfNet: [email protected] or 800-776-3638, ext. 1 SOURCE ProfNet Related Links http://www.profnet.com NEW YORK, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Dimension Data, the USD 8 billion global technology integrator and managed services provider for hybrid IT, has revealed exclusive findings from its Executive Guide to NTT Security's 2019 Global Threat Intelligence Report concerning the cybersecurity maturity of organizations across a number of markets and sectors. Globally, the average cybersecurity maturity rating stands at a worrying 1.45 out of 5 a score determined by an organization's holistic approach to cybersecurity from a process, metrics, and strategic perspective. Companies in the Americas region lagged behind all other regions with an average maturity score of 1.21 out of 5. This comes during a time when security vulnerabilities have also surged to a record high (up 12.5% from 2017). The finance (1.71) and technology (1.66) sectors boast the highest maturity ratings and are continuing to ramp up their security posture, most likely prompted by their unenviable positions as the most commonly targeted industries, each accounting for 17% of all attacks recorded in 2018. Scouring trillions of logs and billions of attacks, the research also revealed the most common attack types, with web attacks the most prevalent threat, doubling in frequency since 2017 and accounting for 32% of all attacks detected last year. Reconnaissance (16%) was the next most common hostile activity, closely followed by service-specific attacks (13%) and brute-force attacks (12%). "We're speedily seeing a much-needed increase in awareness across each sector when it comes to security, privacy, and risk," said Joshua Knight, VP and General Manager, Cybersecurity at Dimension Data Americas. "That awareness is happening at the C-suite and board level, leading to an encouraging climb in cybermaturity across the security landscape. However, I would like to see the Americas climb above the current security benchmark as a leader on the world scale." "Organizations looking to improve their security benchmark score should take a holistic governance and technology approach while improving their security posture across cybersecurity; governance, risk, and compliance (GRC); and identity access management (IAM). Organizations should also prepare for their digital transformation future by placing appropriate focus on threat intelligence to monitor known threats and analyze emerging ones, operational technology (OT), the internet of things (IoT), and cloud. This blended approach will ensure organizational success as companies move into a more mature future." Other highlights from the research include: Globally, 35% of attacks originate from IP addresses within the U.S. and China , followed by EMEA and APAC. , followed by EMEA and APAC. Cryptojacking represents a significant amount of hostile activity, at times accounting for more detections than all other malware combined, hitting the technology and education sectors hardest. Credential theft is up as attackers target cloud credentials, with tech companies (36%), telcos (18%), and business and professional services (14%) significantly impacted by this. Click here to download Dimension Data Executive Guide to the NTT Security 2019 Global Threat Intelligence Report. About Dimension Data Founded in 1983, Dimension Data is a USD 8 billion global leader in designing, optimizing, and managing today's evolving technology environments. This enables its clients to leverage data in a digital age, turn it into information, and extract insights. Headquartered in Johannesburg, Dimension Data employs 28,000 people across 47 countries. The company brings together the world's best technology provided by market leaders and niche innovators with the service support that clients need for their businesses from consulting, technical, and support services to a fully-managed service. Dimension Data is a proud member of the NTT Group. Visit us at http://www2.dimensiondata.com Contact Evan Jordan Senior Public Relations Manager, Dimension Data (704) 943-9345 SOURCE Dimension Data Related Links https://www.dimensiondata.com RBI presents growth plans to investors in New York City 40,000 restaurants will make RBI one of the largest restaurant companies in the world Highlights substantial runway for future sales growth in home markets and around the world Coffee, burger and chicken QSR markets expected to grow 5-6% per year for the next 5 years Strength of global master franchise network expected to drive long-term expansion Compelling financial model designed to generate strong growth and shareholder returns TORONTO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Restaurant Brands International Inc. (TSX/NYSE: QSR, TSX: QSP) ("RBI") today is hosting its first investor day in New York City to outline growth plans for Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes, including plans to grow from approximately 26,000 restaurants to more than 40,000 restaurants globally over the next 8-10 years. This will make Restaurant Brands International one of the largest restaurant companies in the world. RBI is well-positioned to take advantage of compelling long-term growth in the global quick service restaurant (QSR) market, with the 5-year outlook for growth in the global burger market expected to be 5% annually and growth in the global coffee and chicken markets expected to be 6% annually. Over the past few years, RBI has built a master franchise network in global markets to drive significant growth in its restaurant brands, resulting in the expansion of its restaurant base from approximately 12,000 in 2010 to nearly 26,000 today, growing system-wide sales from ~$15 billion to over ~$32 billion in the same time period. Jose Cil, Chief Executive Officer of Restaurant Brands International Inc. ("RBI") commented, "RBI is fundamentally a growth company, with three amazing, iconic brands that we believe have a very long runway for growth - both at home and around the world. We have a proven history of generating very strong returns for our shareholders and today we are excited to share more insight than we ever have before to support our belief that all three brands have substantial growth ahead." A live audio webcast will be available on the company's investor relations website ( http://investor.rbi.com ) starting at 9:00AM ET, and will be available for 30 days following the event. About Restaurant Brands International Inc. Restaurant Brands International Inc. ("RBI") is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant companies with ~$32 billion in system-wide sales and ~26,000 restaurants in over 100 countries and U.S. territories. RBI owns three of the world's most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands TIM HORTONS, BURGER KING, and POPEYES. These independently operated brands have been serving their respective guests, franchisees and communities for over 45 years. To learn more about RBI, please visit the company's website at www.rbi.com. About TIM HORTONS Tim Hortons is one of North America's largest restaurant chains operating in the quick service segment. Founded as a single location in Canada in 1964, Tim Hortons appeals to a broad range of guest tastes, with a menu that includes premium coffee, hot and cold specialty drinks (including lattes, cappuccinos and espresso shots), specialty teas and fruit smoothies, fresh baked goods, grilled Panini and classic sandwiches, wraps, soups, prepared foods and other food products. Tim Hortons has more than 4,800 system wide restaurants located in Canada, the United States and around the world. To learn more about the TIM HORTONS brand, please visit the TIM HORTONS brand website at www.timhortons.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. About BURGER KING Founded in 1954, the BURGER KING brand is the second largest fast food hamburger chain in the world. The original HOME OF THE WHOPPER, the BURGER KING system operates ~18,000 locations in more than 100 countries and U.S. territories. Almost 100 percent of BURGER KING restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees, many of them family-owned operations that have been in business for decades. To learn more about the BURGER KING brand, please visit the BURGER KING brand website at www.bk.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. About POPEYES Founded in New Orleans in 1972, POPEYES has more than 45 years of history and culinary tradition. POPEYES distinguishes itself with a unique New Orleans style menu featuring spicy chicken, chicken tenders, fried shrimp, and other regional items. The chain's passion for its Louisiana heritage and flavorful authentic food has allowed POPEYES to become one of the world's largest chicken quick service restaurants with over 3,100 restaurants in the U.S. and around the world. To learn more about the POPEYES brand, please visit the POPEYES brand website at www.popeyes.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains certain forward-looking statements and information, which reflect management's current beliefs and expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof, including our expectations and beliefs regarding (1) restaurant growth and expansion opportunities for RBI's three brands, including our intent to have 40,000 restaurants in the next 8-10 years, (2) RBI's ability to create value for its shareholders, (3) RBI's franchisees and strategic relationships, (4) competition in its markets and (5) growth in the QSR markets RBI serves. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from RBI's expectations and beliefs are detailed in filings of RBI with the Securities and Exchange Commission and applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities, such as its annual and quarterly reports and include the following risks: risk related to RBI's ability to successfully implement its domestic and international growth strategy and risks related to its international operations; risks related to RBI's ability to compete domestically and internationally in an intensely competitive industry; global economic or other business conditions that may affect the desire or ability of our customers to purchase our products; RBI's relationship with, and the success of, its franchisees and risks related to its fully franchised business model; and the effectiveness of RBI's marketing and advertising programs and franchisee support of these programs. System-wide sales are driven by sales at franchised restaurants, as approximately 100% of current restaurants are franchised. RBI does not record franchise sales as revenues; however, franchise revenues include royalties based on a percentage of franchise sales. SOURCE Restaurant Brands International Inc. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- RoomKeyPMS has published a detailed listing of its 100+ system interfaces and integrations offerings, which fulfill all hotelier needs, including accounting, revenue and reputation management, and front desk and guest management. Available immediately, some of the more popular interfaces and integrations include: Direct Connects to the following third parties: Booking.com : By integrating directly with Booking.com, RoomKeyPMS ensures details about a reservation made on this platform are immediately shared with the hotel, saving hoteliers time, avoiding guest information lapses and allowing hotels to connect with a major segment of travellers. Similarly, hoteliers can easily and automatically send updates about rates, availability and reservation restrictions to this prominent OTA. This direct integration avoids any third party involvement, thereby eliminating commission and processing fees. : By integrating directly with Booking.com, RoomKeyPMS ensures details about a reservation made on this platform are immediately shared with the hotel, saving hoteliers time, avoiding guest information lapses and allowing hotels to connect with a major segment of travellers. Similarly, hoteliers can easily and automatically send updates about rates, availability and reservation restrictions to this prominent OTA. This direct integration avoids any third party involvement, thereby eliminating commission and processing fees. Expedia : The Expedia integration makes it simple and seamless for hotels to leverage a leading OTA. It's no longer necessary to update rates and inventory manually, and hotels avoid the commissions and processing fees charged by third parties. This ensures that OTAs are always an opportunity and never an obstacle. : The Expedia integration makes it simple and seamless for hotels to leverage a leading OTA. It's no longer necessary to update rates and inventory manually, and hotels avoid the commissions and processing fees charged by third parties. This ensures that OTAs are always an opportunity and never an obstacle. Pixel Tracking : Web analytics are a useful resource that can help to inform you about your property's website traffic. Through tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Events, Sojern, Wanderlust and Cybba, you can gather valuable data about the users who are visiting your website. These integrations give you the ability to track the location and demographics of visitors to your site in real time, which link they may have clicked on to get to your site, and any conversion information. All of this data can help you to better understand your website visitors, make proactive changes and drive better sales. : Web analytics are a useful resource that can help to inform you about your property's website traffic. Through tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Events, Sojern, Wanderlust and Cybba, you can gather valuable data about the users who are visiting your website. These integrations give you the ability to track the location and demographics of visitors to your site in real time, which link they may have clicked on to get to your site, and any conversion information. All of this data can help you to better understand your website visitors, make proactive changes and drive better sales. Cendyn Guestfolio CRM: Understand guests like never before with a 360-degree view into their behaviours and interests through Cendyn's Guestfolio CRM, then use those insights to engage with the right message at the right time through the right channel. Cendyn Guestfolio collects data from RoomKeyPMS via a one-way interface on our API portal If you need specifics on the data being pulled from the PMS, please contact Cendyn Guestfolio directly. RoomKeyPMS leverages several methods for connectivity including: serial or IP connections, single and bi-directional API adapters, direct import functions, and connections to third-party industry integration applications. RoomKeyPMS' approach is unique in allowing hoteliers the ability to add the integrations and interfaces specific to their property while constantly improving the customer experience. Tim Major, Executive Vice President and General Manager - RoomKeyPMS, comments, "The hotel ecosystem requires and deserves a diverse range of interfaces. This has driven us to continue to invest millions of dollars into building connections from marketing to operational interfaces that are manageable directly from the PMS. We were one of the first PMS companies to interface to Expedia and to have an open API that allows 3rd party vendors or hotels to directly draw or push information into our cloud based PMS system. We are passionate about an open standardized interface platform and will continue to build out our marketplace and provide thought leadership on the best solutions available." These available 100+ RoomKeyPMS integrations and interfaces benefit hoteliers, property owners and managers and their customers by: Enabling them to connect to a range of tools and more easily manage their properties through one integrated system Improving operational efficiency and reducing staff errors by automating manual tasks between two systems Improving the guest experience before, during and after their stay Increasing agility and scalability, allowing for faster, more frequent deployments to meet customer needs regardless of the experience touchpoint To learn more about the available interfaces and integrations available through RoomKeyPMS, visit their website at https://roomkeypms.com/interfaces-integrations/ . To see what RoomKeyPMS' current hotel partners are saying, visit https://roomkeypms.com/client-stories/ or download their newest hotel resources at https://roomkeypms.com/resources/ . About RoomKeyPMS RoomKeyPMS provides a property management system (PMS) that gives independent hotels an advantage by making it easier and more affordable to provide the best guest experiences, increase revenue and reduce costs. With over 70,000 managed rooms across the US and Canada, RoomKeyPMS has proven themselves as a trusted hotel industry partner for almost 20 years. In addition to delivering a reliable, well-connected PMS, RoomKeyPMS pride themselves on superior customer servicetheir locally-based support team is made up of former hoteliers with a 92% satisfaction rating. RoomKeyPMS is developed by NSight Inc, a hospitality software provider serving a wide variety of industry clients around the world. For more information, please see our website at www.roomkeypms.com SOURCE RoomKeyPMS Related Links https://roomkeypms.com SkyTab combines state-of-the-art hardware with simple and intuitive software to deliver an exceptional pay-at-the-table experience for restaurants and their guests. Its user-friendly payment interface supports EMV chip cards, NFC, mobile payments and traditional swiped card transactions. SkyTab also includes the ability to split checks, add tips and offers guests their choice of an e-receipt or a paper receipt via the integrated printer. By eliminating the need for servers to walk back and forth to a stationary POS system, SkyTab improves operational efficiency so that restaurants are able to serve more customers and turn tables faster. Waitstaff can also re-order menu items from the device, making it quick and easy to order another round of drinks or add a second appetizer. Full order-at-the-table functionality will be available soon through an upcoming software update. In addition to payment acceptance, SkyTab also delivers unique functionality that adds enhanced value for Shift4's customers. Restaurant patrons will be prompted to rate their service at the end of the transaction. If the rating is below a predetermined threshold, a text message alert will be immediately sent to management. This allows the business to address unhappy guests and resolve their concerns before they leave, preventing negative online reviews. SkyTab's e-receipt capabilities also provide business intelligence advantages, allowing the restaurant to automatically populate their customer database and personalize future email marketing and loyalty campaigns. SkyTab also integrates with Shift4's Lighthouse Business Management System, the company's back-end POS management and reporting portal. Lighthouse includes management tools for social media, customer engagement, loyalty and online reputation. Merchants can link their social media profiles to schedule posts, track the performance of their content and manage all their social media accounts in one place. Customer engagement tools enable businesses to set up welcome emails, promotional offers and more using built-in tools to improve customer loyalty. Businesses can also view ratings and reviews from multiple online review platforms and easily respond to customers to improve their online reputation. Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman states, "Although pay-at-the-table is standard practice throughout the rest of the world, it has struggled to gain any sort of widespread adoption in the U.S. The efficiency and security benefits are undeniable, but the high cost of these devices has hindered adoption. SkyTab is the U.S. payment industry's first pay-at-the-table solution at a price point that makes it really compelling for restaurants. With the added customer engagement features and ordering functionality that we have incorporated into SkyTab, we are confident that these devices will become ubiquitous throughout the foodservice industry." SkyTab will debut at the upcoming National Restaurant Association Show, May 18-21, in Chicago, Ill. Attendees can get a live demo of SkyTab in booth #6654 (Harbortouch), #5857 (Future POS), #7275 (Restaurant Manager) and #7050 (POSitouch). For more information on SkyTab, visit skytab.com. About Shift4 Payments Shift4 Payments is the leader in secure payment processing solutions. The company's groundbreaking technologies help power the top software providers in numerous verticals, including hospitality, retail, F&B, e-commerce, lodging, gaming, and many more. Shift4's family of software brands includes Harbortouch, Restaurant Manager, POSitouch, and Future POS with additional integrations to 300+ POS/PMS systems across every industry. With an expansive global footprint that includes eight offices across the U.S. and Europe and over 8,000 sales partners, the company securely processes more than a billion transactions annually for nearly 200,000 businesses, representing over $100 billion in payments each year. To learn more, visit shift4.com. Media Contact Nate Hirshberg AVP, Marketing Shift4 Payments 888.276.2108 x1107 [email protected] SOURCE Shift4 Payments Related Links http://www.shift4.com BOSTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society for Participatory Medicine , the preeminent organization in promoting true partnerships between patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals, is pleased to welcome Burt Rosen as president along with the addition of Helene D. Clayton-Jeter, OD, and Amber Soucy, MSN, RN, to its board of directors. Their involvement with the society will help advance the movement of participatory medicine, in which patients, caregivers and health professionals actively collaborate and encourage one another as full partners in healthcare in order to improve outcomes, reduce medical errors, increase patient satisfaction and reduce the cost of care. "As a practicing physician, I routinely see the benefits of collaboration between patients and their health care professionals, and research shows that engaged patients have better outcomes along with reduced costs," said Dr. Danny Sands, a co-founder and board co-chair of the Society for Participatory Medicine. "The Society serves as a catalyst for positive change in healthcare, joining people with vastly different backgrounds to advance a common vision. We are pleased to welcome Burt, Helene and Amber, who all bring diverse, relevant experiences that will drive our mission forward." Currently Executive Vice President of Client Partnerships at Ansira, a marketing technology and services firm focused on improving customer interactions, Burt Rosen has significant marketing experience across multiple industries. Previously, he oversaw all marketing for HealthSparq , focusing on placing people at the center of healthcare and launching supporting efforts such as "What's the Fix?" Rosen will help drive the conversation, advance participatory medicine and establish collaborations across the healthcare spectrum. "We all know that the healthcare system is fundamentally broken and completely messed up. It isn't person-friendly and dealing with the system is a miserable experience. I joined SPM to partner with a group of like-minded people who want to drive change," said Burt Rosen, president of the Society for Participatory Medicine. "By bringing together and driving conversations between patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals, we believe we can truly make a difference and change the world. With all that is going on in the industry right now, 2019 is a pivotal year for change, a true inflection point for the industry." Helene D. Clayton-Jeter, OD , and Amber Soucy, MSN, RN , each joined the board with a shared commitment to promote participatory medicine and patient empowerment. Dr. Clayton-Jeter is an innovative health industry executive and advocate who advances the missions of public and private healthcare organizations. She is a widely recognized thought leader and award-winner, delivering high-impact presentations on disease, health equity, health prevention, health promotion/community wellness, and trained staff in critical healthcare advocacy-related issues. Soucy has been serving as the society's social media lead, promoting the value of participatory medicine through her network. She is a Registered Nurse at Boston Medical Center, a Clinical Instructor/Adjunct Faculty for Laboure College and assists in homecare. "I see examples of communication disconnect in care delivery way too often in my profession and so much room for positive change, prompting my involvement with the Society for Participatory Medicine," said Amber Soucy, MSN, RN, social media lead and board member of the Society for Participatory Medicine. "As a board member, I will promote the goals of the society and aim to bring in even more members that share a similar vision to repair a bent system. I'm excited to be a part of this initiative, bringing specific attention to improving the patient experience, so each person can have the care they need." About the Society for Participatory Medicine Created by a passionate group of professionals, caregivers and patients with a vision to start a movement to transform the culture of healthcare, The Society for Participatory Medicine (SPM) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization devoted to promoting the concept of participatory medicine, a movement in which activated empowered patients engage as drivers of their health, and in which providers encourage and collaborate with them as full partners in their care. SPM does this by stimulating dialogue, influencing policy, advocating research, and educating patients, health care professionals, and others. SPM members include stakeholders from across the health care continuum. Please visit SPM via Twitter , Facebook and at participatorymedicine.org for more information. Media Contact: Heather Caouette RAE Communications for the Society for Participatory Medicine 508-579-3894 [email protected] SOURCE The Society for Participatory Medicine Related Links http://participatorymedicine.org NOVI, Mich., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stoneridge, Inc. (NYSE: SRI) today announced that Robert Krakowiak, chief financial officer, and Matthew Horvath, director of corporate development and investor relations, will participate in the 20th Annual B. Riley FBR Institutional Investor Conference with a Company presentation at 1:30 p.m. PDT on Thursday, May 23, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. Details on how to join the presentation via webcast and the presentation materials will be posted to the "Investors/Webcasts & Presentations" section of the Company's website (www.stoneridge.com) the evening prior to the presentation, on Wednesday, May 22. About Stoneridge, Inc. Stoneridge, Inc., headquartered in Novi, Michigan, is an independent designer and manufacturer of highly engineered electrical and electronic components, modules and systems principally for the automotive, commercial vehicle, motorcycle, agricultural and off-highway vehicle markets. Additional information about Stoneridge can be found at Stoneridge.com. SOURCE Stoneridge, Inc. Related Links http://www.stoneridge.com SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Studio SWEAT, the San Diego-based fitness studio, as well as its online service Studio SWEAT onDemand (SSoD), are proud to announce the return of their hit charity event, SWEAT Gives Back, on May 18, 2019 - May 19, 2019. This year, the 24-hour Spin ride is titled Pedals 4 Paws, and all proceeds will go to Paws'itive Teams, an organization that trains and places service, therapy and facility dogs. Last year's success allowed Paws'itive Teams to pair a service dog, Monty with a local teen, Isaac Coulapides. This year, they're raising $10,000 to train and place Duncan, a black Labrador retriever puppy, with another San Diegan in need. "We saw the profound impact of placing Monty with Isaac, who has truly made a difference in his life. We want to continue our quest for good, and truly pay it forward!" says Cat Kom, founder and head trainer at Studio SWEAT and SSoD. Participants are encouraged to donate online, get sponsored by family and friends, and Spin with SSoD trainers. Participants who can't make it are invited to ride along to the livestream on their website. Participants should RSVP on the Facebook event page, or add their names to a trainer schedule. Livestreamers can visit the site on their preferred time and day. About Studio SWEAT Studio SWEAT is a fitness studio located in San Diego, CA. The studio has specialized group trainings and classes that combines fat-torching cardio with body sculpting exercises to improve strength and get FIT. Studio SWEAT offers World Famous Specialty Spin Classes, TRX Trainings and Bootcamps, where participants are given a boutique studio experience. They also offer Personal Training services with their top industry training team. For more information visit http://www.studiosweat.com/. About Studio SWEAT onDemand For those not in San Diego, Studio SWEAT onDemand is a way to get those fat-torching Spinning, TRX, HIIT, Yoga and other amazing full body workouts on any device. And, the best part is that you're working out with real people, not actors or fitness models. Whether you're in San Diego or Spain, our body-sculpting classes have new releases all the time, and can be done where ever and whenever. For more information visit https://www.studiosweatondemand.com/. Media Contact: Adriana Ruggiero [email protected] (858) 946-0246 SOURCE Studio SWEAT Related Links http://www.studiosweat.com SymphonyAI is building a group of leading companies that use artificial intelligence to transform business enterprises across several markets, including the industrial, retail, consumer, healthcare, financial services, and media sectors. At the core of this is SymphonyAI's artificial intelligence platform, eurekaAI, which drives actionable insights by applying machine learning to large datasets, and on which SymphonyAI has already been developing applications focused on industrial predictive maintenance and process optimization. Over the past decade, Azima Global has built a suite of cloud-based machine diagnostic and analytic solutions, supported by a team of deep domain experts, that together deliver highly accurate and timely visibility into the condition of industrial assets at scale. The company has been providing these solutions to leading companies in the oil & gas, chemicals, food manufacturing and other industries. In joining the SymphonyAI Group of companies, Azima Global, renamed Symphony AzimaAI, will develop industry-pioneering products that (i) leverage one of the largest dynamic mechanical fault mode datasets and (ii) combine automated machine condition diagnostic data and plant-level process data, to deliver enterprise-level AI-driven predictive asset health and performance management solutions. Customers will realize both strategic and economic value through reduction in unplanned downtime, maintenance and capital expenditures, and improvements in machine reliability and throughput. These next-generation solutions represent a new paradigm in industrial IoT and will redefine performance benchmarks in a market segment that has been stalled by the limitations of traditional ERP and CMMS systems. "Azima has spent over a decade building an industry-leading position in the delivery of effective and scalable machine health diagnostics," said Burt Hurlock, CEO of Azima Global. "It was only a matter of time before we merged with a leading AI platform to develop integrated predictive maintenance and process optimization solutions. We are excited about the incremental value we can now deliver to both our existing and prospective customers." "SymphonyAI has built industry-leading AI-driven companies in sectors such as retail and life sciences, and we have also been actively developing AI-driven solutions for the industrial sector," said Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman of SymphonyAI Group. "The acquisition of Azima brings over a decade of deep condition monitoring experience and comprehensive equipment data that, in combination with our AI capabilities, will allow us to deliver cutting edge industry-leading solutions that will meaningfully increase the value proposition delivered to customers. We are very excited to have the Azima team join our group of companies, and we look forward to a successful journey ahead at Symphony AzimaAI." "We are actively looking to grow Symphony AzimaAI through both organic growth as well as strategic add-on acquisitions," said Pradyut Shah, Investment Partner at SymphonyAI Group. "We are actively seeking to acquire companies that expand the depth and breadth of our solutions, both from a product capabilities and equipment coverage standpoint, as well as from an industry coverage and geographic expansion standpoint. We look forward to working with the Symphony AzimaAI team to execute on our comprehensive global vision for the company." Oppenheimer & Co. advised Azima Global on the transaction. About Symphony AzimaAI Symphony AzimaAI provides machine condition monitoring, diagnostic and analytic solutions that maximize industrial productivity on a global scale. The company combines accurate data, advanced analytics, and the judgment of a deep bench of experts to deliver value-added solutions that reduce unplanned equipment downtime and maintenance. Symphony AzimaAI is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with locations and experts across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.azimadli.com. About SymphonyAI Group SymphonyAI Group's mission is to transform the business enterprise through artificial intelligence-driven solutions. The firm is harnessing the power of a $1 billion investment and the capabilities of over 100 entrepreneurs, operators and AI technologists, all under the leadership of one of Silicon Valley's most successful entrepreneurs, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, to build systems of actionable intelligence across the enterprise. The firm incubates, builds, transforms, and invests in companies that make the business enterprise grow faster and perform better through AI. SymphonyAI is headquartered in Los Altos, California. For more information, please visit www.symphonyai.com. Media Contact: Jason Williams [email protected] SOURCE SymphonyAI Related Links https://www.symphonyai.com MINNEAPOLIS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, nearly 80 warehouse employees went on strike at 5 a.m. at seven Murphy Warehouse Company locations across the Twin City region to protest unfair labor practices. The primary issue centers on the employee healthcare benefits. The company's current contract proposal nearly triples employee healthcare costs even though the overall cost for the health plan went down more than 4 percent this year. "This is corporate greed at its worst. The costs went down and they are still demanding our members agree to triple their out of pocket? It's outrageous," said Tom Erickson, Teamsters Local Union 120 President. Murphy Warehouse Company provides logistics services to companies like Anderson Windows, Dakota Growers, United Sugars as well as many other accounts. Twenty-year employee Jason Cadalbert feels the offer and the conduct of Murphy management during negotiations has been offensive. "We've always been a family here, but this time around they are choosing to spend tons of money on multiple attorneys and consultants, instead of just giving a fair offer to us," Cadalbert said. "We aren't greedy, but we need to be able to take care of our families. I just don't know why they are doing this to us." When asked by union bargaining committee why they are demanding to nearly triple employee healthcare costs if the overall cost went down, the company responded by stating that it is a "pet peeve" of owner Richard Murphy Jr. that employees have great health coverage. Employees will continue to picket at all seven Murphy Warehouse sites around the Twin Cities metro region including the company's main office located at 701 24th Ave SE in Minneapolis. Teamsters Local 120 proudly represents over 12,500 members in the States of Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota. We serve members in a variety of industries, from freight, airline, warehousing, and foodservice in the private sector, to police officers and city workers in the public sector. Our Local Union negotiates industry-leading contracts, and defends our members' rights every day. Contact: Tom Erickson, (651) 343-1723 [email protected] SOURCE Teamsters Local 120 PORTLAND, Ore., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BlueVolt has implemented its e-Learning platform for WernerCo a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of consumer and professional products for climbing, fall protection and storage to educate its distributors about selecting and safely using the Greenville, Pa., companys products. According to WernerCo, the company sells approximately 85 percent of the ladders bought annually in North America. We began investing in online training as early as 2009. The early online educational efforts didnt meet our learners where the work was, said EJ Fromer, Marketing and eLearning Content manager for WernerCo. With our new e-Learning platform, learners can be on any device anywhere, including an airplane, and take training. Weve developed 25 courses across the companys global brands, including instruction in English and Spanish. Having worked with nearly 15 learning management systems, even open-source ones, in previous roles, Fromer says hes learned that training learners who arent employees requires a system that is: mobile-responsive, data compliant, and equipped with a user interface that trainers can easily modify. When it comes to ladder safety, usually a persons knowledge is variable if they have any formal training at all, which is why WernerCo offers a course called Ladder Safety 101. Since launching Ladder Safety 101 with its e-Learning platform via www.mywernerco.com , WernerCo has seen nearly 30,000 people finish the course. The lesson includes videos showing how to select and set up a ladder, and how to select the correct height the optimal staging ratio for an extension ladder, for example, is 4:1 (i.e., for every four feet in ladder height, the ladder must be one foot away from vertical). While a WernerCo course about pump-jack safety might tally merely 1,000 course completions, the course can still be a success. Pump jacks are simply a smaller percentage of the companys total product offering. WernerCo also evaluates training in terms of how learners react, what they learned, which behaviors theyve changed and what benefits the company is deriving. Training is a tool for selling to our channels, which vary in their interest and buying patterns, said Fromer. Online training can be an integral part of a companys strategy for product marketing, too. Douglas Gastich, president of BlueVolt, added, If, for example, WernerCo launches a new fall-protection product, they can use our platform to send and track an online training module to distributors ahead of the launch. Distributors are prepared with the product benefits and can share what theyve learned with contractors, so WernerCo makes a sale. DETROIT, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Tenneco Inc. (NYSE: TEN) announced at its annual stockholders' meeting today that the company's stockholders have elected SungHwan Cho, Thomas C. Freyman, Denise Gray, Brian J. Kesseler, Dennis J. Letham, James S. Metcalf, Roger B. Porter, David B. Price, Jr., Gregg M. Sherrill, Jane L. Warner and Roger J. Wood to the company's board of directors. The directors have been elected to serve a term expiring at the 2020 annual meeting of stockholders. In addition, stockholders ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent auditors for 2019 and, in an advisory vote, approved the company's executive compensation. The company also announced that its board of directors has suspended its quarterly dividend beginning in the second quarter of 2019, consistent with the company's capital allocation priorities, including reducing leverage. Post spin-off, the boards of directors of each independent company will determine the capital allocation priorities that are best suited to their respective businesses. About Tenneco Headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, Tenneco is one of the world's leading designers, manufacturers and marketers of Aftermarket, Ride Performance, Clean Air and Powertrain products and technology solutions for diversified markets, including light vehicle, commercial truck, off-highway, industrial and the aftermarket, with 2018 revenues of $11.8 billion and approximately 81,000 employees worldwide. On October 1, 2018, Tenneco completed the acquisition of Federal-Mogul, a leading global supplier to original equipment manufacturers and the aftermarket. Additionally, the company expects to separate its businesses to form two new, independent companies, an Aftermarket and Ride Performance company as well as a new Powertrain Technology company. About DRiV - the future Aftermarket and Ride Performance Company Following the expected separation of Tenneco to form two new, independent companies, an Aftermarket and Ride Performance company (DRiV) as well as a new Powertrain Technology company, DRiV will be one of the largest global multi-line, multi-brand aftermarket companies, and one of the largest global OE ride performance and braking companies. DRiV's principal product brands will feature Monroe, Ohlins, Walker, Clevite Elastomers, MOOG, Fel-Pro, Wagner, Ferodo, Champion and others. DRiV would have 2018 pro-forma revenues of $6.4 billion, with 54% of those revenues from aftermarket and 46% from original equipment customers. About the new Tenneco - the future Powertrain Technology company Following Tenneco's expected separation to form two new, independent companies, an Aftermarket and Ride Performance company (DRiV), as well as a new Powertrain Technology company, the new Tenneco will be one of the world's largest pure-play powertrain companies serving OE markets worldwide with engineered solutions addressing fuel economy, power output, and criteria pollution requirements for gasoline, diesel and electrified powertrains. The new Tenneco would have 2018 pro-forma revenues of $11.4 billion, serving light vehicle, commercial truck, off-highway and industrial markets. SOURCE Tenneco Inc. Related Links http://www.tenneco.com DEN HAAG, Netherlands, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadband Forum continues to expand its world-class agenda for the Ultra-fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar (UFBB BASe) taking place June 25-27, 2019 in Den Haag, Netherlands. A conference uniquely constructed by technology innovators for technology leaders, UFBB BASe has emerged as THE must-attend event for broadband professionals seeking a conference with the technical depth and real-world insights to bring actionable innovations back to their respective companies. Architected to provide a holistic view of the broadband ecosystem and the cutting-edge technologies which are driving it, UFBB BASe's newly announced keynote speakers include Light Reading Editor-in-Chief Ray LeMaistre and access network legend and ASSIA CEO John Cioffi. The former will host a fireside chat on 'What Happens to Traditional Telecom in a 5G World?', while the latter will delve into 'Ergodic Spectrum Management (ESM)' in delivering an optimized Wi-Fi experience. They will be joined by Openreach Head of Access Research Trevor Linney, who will speak on 'How We Are Preparing for the Future of Broadband' and Orange VP of Wireline Networks and Infrastructure Christian Gacon who will present on 'Leveraging BBF Certification Process for Operational Excellence'. Newly announced sponsors Huawei, EXFO, F-Secure, and Netcomm will also add deep expertise and insight to the event, with leaders from each company speaking to "hot" topics ranging from virtualization and network security to best practices in real-world access deployment and the digital home, while Patrick Rausch, Strategic Project Manager POST Luxembourg, and Christian Macherel and Andreas Thony, of Swisscom AG, will speak on 'How AI Helps Troubleshooting POST Luxembourg's Copper Network' and 'XGS-PON: The 10G Fiber Deployment for Swisscom', respectively. Meanwhile, Dr. Andreas Gladisch, Vice President Convergent Networks at Deutsche Telekom will discuss 'How Wireless Can Broadband Access Be?' and experts from TNO will explore 'PON Traffic Analysis Insights from the Real World'. Visionary speakers such as Cartesian VP Michael Dargue, Nokia's xDSL Technology Strategist Paul Spruyt, and Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh will provide rich additional insights. Complementing our newly announced sponsors, Actelis Networks, AVM, Calix, Devolo, Domos, Go!Foton, InCoax, MoCA Access, and Nokia will also provide visionary perspectives, deep technology expertise, and exhibits and demonstrations to event attendees. "The latest speaker, topic, and sponsor additions will further broaden the scope of what promises to be an incredibly insightful Ultra-fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar, providing extra opportunities to learn how companies and organizations are preparing for the future of broadband," said Bernd Hesse, BASe Chair at Broadband Forum. "Attendees will hear from executives about various topics and challenges within today's broadband landscape and how innovators are utilizing next-generation technologies to shape the future of broadband and develop advanced networks." The carefully curated topics at the event, which builds upon the former TNO-led Ultra-fast Broadband Seminar and Broadband Forum's BASe series, will examine the hottest topics and challenges in broadband today; the sessions will focus on how operators plan to leverage the latest advancements in carrier grade Wi-Fi, the future of the Connected Home, as well how cloud-based services and new 5G technologies can build a technologically-advantageous network to create an operational model which can deliver valued services with agility. "When it comes to network innovation and overall market success, the tough questions such as 'why' are we doing this and 'how' do we get there need to be answered," said Hesse. "The UFBB BASe seminar aims to do exactly this, by diving in deep and exploring the cutting-edge technologies and best practices which will drive the broadband ecosystem. Delivered by technology innovators, the event is not to be missed by technology leaders who want to learn from the best, as well as share their expertise and help to shape the future of broadband." Register now for this not-to-be-missed event, here. More information about UFBB BASe and its speakers can be found here. To find out more about Broadband Forum, please visit: https://www.broadband-forum.org/. About Broadband Forum Broadband Forum is the communications industry's leading organization focused on accelerating broadband innovation, standards, and ecosystem development. Our members' passion delivering on the promise of broadband by enabling smarter and faster broadband networks and a thriving broadband ecosystem. A non-profit industry organization composed of the industry's leading broadband operators, vendors, and thought leaders, our work to date has been the foundation for broadband's global proliferation and innovation. For example, the Forum's flagship TR-069 CPE WAN Management Protocol has nearly 1 billion installations worldwide. Broadband Forum working groups collaborate to define best practices for global networks, enable new revenue-generating service and content delivery, establish technology migration strategies, and engineer critical device, service & development management tools in the home and business IP networking infrastructure. We develop multi-service broadband packet networking specifications addressing architecture, device and service management, software data models, interoperability and certification in the broadband market. Our free technical reports and white papers can be found at https://www.broadband-forum.org/. Follow us on Twitter @Broadband_Forum and LinkedIn. For more information about the Broadband Forum, please go to https://www.broadband-forum.org or follow @Broadband_Forum on Twitter. For further information please contact Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 7899 914168 or [email protected] or Jayne Brooks on +44 (0) 1636 704 888 or [email protected] SOURCE Broadband Forum Related Links http://www.broadband-forum.org WASHINGTON, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In just one week, U.S. News & World Report, publisher of Best Colleges , Best Jobs and Best States , will host the eighth annual U.S. News STEM Solutions Presents: Workforce of Tomorrow forum on May 22, 2019, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Leaders from government, education, industry, nonprofits and other sectors will come together to share ideas and best practices for developing a workforce with the skills needed for a shifting jobs landscape. This year's event will feature a range of talks, panel discussions, fireside chats and other presentations examining the future of work, improving diversity and inclusion, spurring education innovation and building strong policies and partnerships. Confirmed speakers include: Byron G. Auguste , Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, [email protected] , Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Angela Baker , Director, Corporate Responsibility, Qualcomm , Director, Corporate Responsibility, Deb Bubb , HR Vice President and Chief Leadership, Learning and Inclusion Officer, IBM , HR Vice President and Chief Leadership, Learning and Inclusion Officer, Martin Dahinden , Ambassador of Switzerland to the United States , Rosanna Durruthy , Head of Global Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, LinkedIn , Head of Global Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, Molly Elgin-Cossart , Director, Rework America Task Force, Markle Foundation , Director, Rework America Task Force, Julie Gehrki , Vice President, Philanthropy, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation , Vice President, Philanthropy, Eric J. Gertler , Executive Chairman, U.S. News & World Report , Executive Chairman, Lindsay H. Kurrle , Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor , Commissioner, Jack Markell , Governor of Delaware (2009-2017); Chairman, National Advisory Council , Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative , Governor of (2009-2017); Chairman, National Advisory Council Michael P. Morris , Chief Executive Officer, Topcoder; Global Head of Crowdsourcing, Wipro , Chief Executive Officer, Global Head of Crowdsourcing, Eloy Ortiz Oakley , Chancellor, California Community Colleges , Chancellor, James E. Rzepkowski , Acting Secretary, Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation , Acting Secretary, Allen Shaheen , Executive Vice President, North American Regional Delivery Centers, Cognizant "This year's Workforce of Tomorrow forum will bring together top thought leaders to share their expertise on crucial developments in today's and tomorrow's workforce," said Brian Kelly, Editor and Chief Content Officer of U.S. News. "We'll hear from the front lines of innovation in government, nonprofits, education and more about the opportunities and solutions for addressing the nation's skills gaps." To register or learn more about the conference, please visit USNewsSTEMsolutions.com , and connect with U.S. News Workforce of Tomorrow on Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn . Seating is limited, so those interested in attending should register before spots fill up. Media interested in attending should contact Enxhi Myslymi at [email protected] . About U.S. News Workforce of Tomorrow The U.S. News STEM Solutions Presents: Workforce of Tomorrow conference brings together leaders from industry, education, government and other sectors to showcase promising practices and proven solutions that are making a difference in solving the nation's skills gaps. Produced by U.S. News & World Report, Workforce of Tomorrow is the latest evolution of the U.S. News STEM Solutions National Leadership Conference. The eighth annual summit will take place on May 22, 2019 in Washington, D.C. For more details and updates, please visit USNewsSTEMsolutions.com . About U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report is the global leader in quality rankings that empower people to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives. A digital news and information company focused on Education, Health, Money, Travel, Cars and Civic, USNews.com provides consumer advice, rankings and analysis to serve people making complex decisions throughout all stages of life. More than 40 million people visit USNews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C. SOURCE U.S. News & World Report Related Links http://www.usnews.com SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Viracta Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that it will present new clinical data during a poster session at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting to be held May 31 to June 4, 2019 in Chicago, IL. Viracta researchers and study investigators will present updated results from the ongoing Phase 1b/2 clinical trial of nanatinostat in combination with the antiviral valganciclovir for the treatment of EBV-associated lymphomas. Presentation Details: Title: A phase Ib/II study of oral nanatinostat (N) and valganciclovir (VG) in subjects with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated lymphomas. (Abstract # 7551) A phase Ib/II study of oral nanatinostat (N) and valganciclovir (VG) in subjects with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated lymphomas. (Abstract # 7551) Presenter: Pierluigi Porcu , MD, Thomas Jefferson University , MD, Poster Session: Hematologic MalignanciesLymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Hematologic MalignanciesLymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Date/Time: June 3, 2019 , 8:00 AM 11:00 AM Viracta's abstract is available online at https://iplanner.asco.org/am2019/#/ About Nanatinostat Nanatinostat (VRx-3996) is a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor that is being investigated in a range of clinical indications. Nanatinostat is selective for Class 1 HDACs, including isoforms targeted in Viracta's Kick & Kill therapeutic approach. Viracta is investigating nanatinostat in a Phase 1b/2 clinical study in combination with an antiviral valganciclovir for the treatment of EBV-associated cancers. Both drugs are taken orally and can be given on an out-patient basis. Recently, the nanatinostat plus valganciclovir combination therapy received Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) from the U. S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for three sub-types of EBV-associated cancers: post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD), plasmablastic lymphoma, and angioimmunoblastic T cell lymphoma. About EBV-Associated Cancers Approximately 95% of the world's adult population is infected with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV). Infections are commonly asymptomatic or associated with mononucleosis. Following infection, the virus remains latent in a small subset of lymphatic cells for the duration of the patients' life. Cells containing latent virus are increasingly susceptible to malignant transformation. Patients who are immunocompromised are at an increased risk of developing EBV lymphomas. In addition, EBV is also associated with a variety of solid tumors, including nasopharyngeal carcinoma and gastric cancer. About The Kick & Kill Platform Viracta's Kick & Kill therapeutic platform is designed to create a pipeline of novel therapies to treat viral-associated cancers and other serious diseases. The "Kick" activates genes that have been epigenetically suppressed by a virus or cancer. The "Kill" activates a therapeutic that will selectively and directly kill virus-harboring cells or activate suppressed immune response genes. The approach holds the potential for development in combination with other immunotherapies. About Viracta Therapeutics, Inc. Viracta is a clinical-stage drug development company focused on advancing novel epigenetic therapeutics derived from its proprietary Kick & Kill therapeutic approach to benefit patients with viral-associated cancers and other serious diseases. Viracta has entered into partnerships with Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. to bring treatments for EBV-associated cancers to China, and with NantKwest, Inc. to utilize nanatinostat in combination with their clinical-stage Natural Killer (NK) cell immunotherapy. Viracta plans to enter into additional geographic and combination therapy partnerships. For additional information please visit www.viracta.com. Investor and Media Contact: Amy Conrad Juniper Point [email protected] 858-366-3243 SOURCE Viracta Therapeutics, Inc. LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Wag!, the on-demand dog walking and sitting app, has teamed up with Adopt-a-Pet.com, North America's largest non-profit pet adoption platform, to help more shelter dogs find their forever homes. This new partnership will share the benefits of pet adoption with more pet parents and potential pet parents, as well as educate families about resources, like Wag!, that take away barriers to pet adoption and allow more people to experience the joy of having a dog. Wag! will provide Adopt-a-Pet.com users easy access to vetted, local pet care providers for a variety of services, including walking, sitting, boarding, and daycare, to help keep newly adopted furry family members healthy and happy in their forever homes. Members of the Wag! community will also be able to search Adopt-a-Pet.com's database of adoptable pets from more than 18,000 animal shelters and rescues nationwide. "My two rescues opened my eyes to the importance of pet adoption," said Olivia Munn, actress and Wag! creative strategist. "I love how this collaboration will give increased visibility to amazing, adoptable dogs across the country. Anyone who's thinking of adding a dog or cat to their family should consider a rescue they have so much to give." "We see a natural relationship between our two organizations," said Wag! CEO, Hilary Schneider. "Our purpose is creating joy for dogs and those who love them. Adopt-a-Pet.com is focused on getting millions of homeless pets across the country into their forever homes. By working together, we'll not only reach more people looking to adopt a new pet but also help make having a dog easier and more convenient for the adopting family." "We know that one of the biggest barriers to pet adoption for so many great, would-be pet owners is juggling a busy schedule while still providing the best in care for a new pet. Access to on-demand services like the ones provided by Wag! can help pet parents rest easy that their pets are receiving one-on-one attention and care, so a busy schedule doesn't have to prevent a good family from adopting a great pet," says David Meyer, Adopt-a-Pet.com CEO and co-founder. For more information on dog care and to learn more about Wag!, visit www.wagwalking.com . For more information on pet adoption or to find your new best friend, visit www.adoptapet.com . About Wag! Wag! created on-demand dog walking in 2015 and is now available in 43 states and 110 cities. The mobile app gives pet parents more flexibility to manage everyday life and instant access to experienced and trustworthy dog walkers, boarding hosts, and sitters in their communities. Wag! services are insured and bonded, and every pet care provider has passed a thorough vetting process before being approved to work on the platform. Wag! donates a portion of walk proceeds to GreaterGood.org's Rescue Bank and through this program has provided more than 8 million meals to shelter dogs in the United States. About Adopt-a-Pet.com Adopt-a-Pet.com is North America's largest non-profit pet adoption website, helping over 18,000 animal shelters, humane societies, SPCAs, pet rescue groups, and pet adoption agencies advertise their purebred and mixed breed pets for free to millions of adopters each month. Sponsored by companies including Purina, the Petco Foundation, and Bayer Animal Health LLC, Adopt-a-Pet.com helps homeless dogs, cats, and even rabbits and other animals go from alone to adopted. SOURCE Wag! Related Links http://www.wagwalking.com Government delegations from 30 of the world's most well-known tea plantations are attending the expo, including: The delegation from Zhejiang province : Zhejiang is a world-renowned green tea plantation, known as "the land of fish and rice, the home of silk and tea". It has taken a multi-format development path through an organic combination of the industry itself, the economy that the industry has created, the ecosystem that supports the industry and the tea culture that has made the industry such a bulwark within China's greater economy. In 2018, the province boasted 2,000 square kilometers of tea under cultivation, the output value of which had reached 20.6 billion yuan resulting in a market turnover of 22.2 billion yuan , ranking Zhejiang among the top provinces and regions across the country. Most notably, the export volume and value of green tea accounted for half of the country's total. province is a world-renowned green tea plantation, known as "the land of fish and rice, the home of silk and tea". It has taken a multi-format development path through an organic combination of the industry itself, the economy that the industry has created, the ecosystem that supports the industry and the tea culture that has made the industry such a bulwark within China's greater economy. In 2018, the province boasted 2,000 square kilometers of tea under cultivation, the output value of which had reached resulting in a market turnover of , ranking among the top provinces and regions across the country. Most notably, the export volume and value of green tea accounted for half of the country's total. The delegation from Anhui province : From the four famous historic teas -- Huangshan Maofeng Green Tea, Taiping Houkui Green Tea, Keemun Black Tea and Lu'an Melon Seed Tea -- to the national gift brand Yuexi Cuilan , the Anhui delegation includes representatives from five major tea producing cities including Anqing, Chizhou, Huangshan, Lu'an and Xuancheng as well as from 56 popular tea brands and 31 brands known by the region where they are grown, giving the audience an opportunity to learn about and experience the unique flavor of authentic Hui tea, a tea known for its high quality, original ecology and local tea culture. province From the four famous historic teas -- Huangshan Maofeng Green Tea, Taiping Houkui Green Tea, and Lu'an Melon Seed Tea -- to the national gift brand , the delegation representatives from five major tea producing cities including Anqing, Chizhou, Huangshan, Lu'an and Xuancheng as well as from 56 popular tea brands and 31 brands known by the region where they are grown, giving the audience an opportunity to learn about and experience the unique flavor of authentic Hui tea, a tea known for its high quality, original ecology and local tea culture. The delegation from Shandong province : Shandong is the largest tea plantation in northern China and is also a successful example of an initiative to cultivate some of the types of tea that are normally only grown in the southern part of the country. Known in tea circles for producing excellent teas at latitudes well north of where tea is usually grown, the province plans to highlight its achievements in terms of the size of its industry, the name recognition of its brands, the development of green, eco-friendly tea plantations, its future development goals and its 40 kinds of famous tea. province is the largest tea plantation in northern China and is also a successful example of an initiative to cultivate some of the types of tea that are normally only grown in the southern part of the country. Known in tea circles for producing excellent teas at latitudes well north of where tea is usually grown, the province plans to highlight its achievements in terms of the size of its industry, the name recognition of its brands, the development of green, eco-friendly tea plantations, its future development goals and its 40 kinds of famous tea. In addition, delegations from Chongqing , Fujian , Guangdong , Guangxi , Guizhou , Hainan , Hebei , Hubei , Hunan , Jiangsu , Jiangxi , Ningxia, Shaanxi , Shanxi , Sichuan and Yunnan are attending, as well as groups representing Tibet's Himalayan Holy Tea, Fuding White Tea , China State Farm and Hefeng, creating an extensive and diversified roster of exhibitors for the global tea event. The most authoritative and largest tea event In late 2018, the China International Tea Expo received certification from the Union of International Fairs (UFI), making the expo an internationally-recognized professional event and drawing more exhibitors and buyers. This year's expo has attracted more than 1,500 exhibitors and features 3,125 booths, including 2,793 for tea, coffee and derivatives and 332 for sectors that service the tea growers including packaging, processing equipment, technology, and marketing. The number of booths is 2.6 times that of the first expo and 18 percent higher than that of the second, demonstrating the increasing interest across the industry in participating in the event. The expo has attracted 3,098 domestic and 193 overseas buyers, far exceeding expectations and making it the largest tea event in China. This year's expo is also hosting a series of major themed events, including the Meeting of China-CEEC Ministers of Agriculture & the China-CEEC Agro-Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum, "Tea Talk by West Lake"-The International Summit Forum on China's Tea Industry, the Tea Industry T20 Summit, the International Tea and Coffee Dialogue, the Forum on Building Tea Brands in Poverty-Stricken Areas, the International Seminar of Tea Institute Directors, the Conference on Tourism Development in Tea Growing Regions and the Forum on Contemporary Chinese Tea Culture. The expo has invited 144 special guests from international organizations in 25 countries including 66 guests from 18 countries and regions who are attending the China-CEEC Meeting, among them 3 ministers, 8 vice ministers and 5 ambassadors, while the remaining 78 guests from seven countries and regions who are attending the expo include 1 minister and 3 vice ministers. Additionally, major tea producing provinces and tea companies are launching a series of brand promotion events. Hangzhou, the host city, plans to organize a series of themed seminars focused on tea culture, tea as a hobby and the tea tourism experience. Organizer: Shenzhen HJC Industrial Group Since the first China International Tea Expo, Shenzhen HJC Industrial Group has been playing an important role as the organizer. With the increasing authority, scale and influence of the expo every year, HJC has been a witness to the event's growth. Shenzhen HJC Industrial Group is a world-class integrated tea service provider, a resource system covering the global tea industry chain. HJC has established long-term cooperative relationships with more than 500 industry media, 1,200 senior tea experts, industry associations and research institutes, and more than 8,700 cooperative enterprises, and mastered an industry database including 186,000 tea distributors and 3.26 million tea players. HJC Industrial Group has maintained close ties with tea associations and institutions in 18 countries including the United States, Britain, Japan, South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. HJC Global Tea Fair China (Shenzhen) has been successfully held for the past ten years. Held twice a year, it has developed into the world's largest tea fair. Global Tea Fair is also equipped with an online distribution platform (Teayork Hub) and an offline tea culture mall. Media contact: Company name: Shenzhen HJC Industrial Group Address: Bao'an District of Shenzhen, Bao'an Stadium Email: [email protected] Phone: (+86) 181 2616 5003 Website: https://www.globalteafair.com SOURCE Shenzhen HJC Industrial Group Related Links http://https://www.globalteafair.com DALLAS, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Worldwide Express , a leading provider of third-party logistics (3PL) services, recently honored eight freight carrier partners for providing exemplary service and partnership over the past year. The awards were presented at the company's 2019 Annual Conference in Hollywood, FL. Worldwide Express works with a network of 65+ best-in-class Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) carriers to service more than 92,000 small to mid-size businesses. These trusted partners move more than 2.8 million LTL shipments each year, allowing Worldwide Express to match its customers' needs with the carrier that best fits their individual requirements. For their support to the Worldwide Express system, and based on their service quality and performance, customer service, claims resolution and overall commitment to partnership, Worldwide Express recognized the following: National Carrier of the Year: R+L Carriers Regional Carrier of the Year Southeast: AAA Cooper Transportation Regional Carrier of the Year Northeast: Pitt Ohio Regional Carrier of the Year Midwest: Holland Regional Carrier of the Year South Central: Central Freight Lines, Inc. Regional Carrier of the Year West Coast: Reddaway Asset-light Carrier of the Year: Daylight Transport Special Recognition: Estes "These carriers went above and beyond to service our customers, and we could not be more appreciative of their effort," said Executive Vice President Mike Grayson. "The 3PL/carrier relationship is unique in so many ways and finding partners that can work together for the benefit of the customer is imperative. We congratulate all these carriers on their selection by our team of sales professionals and customer service representatives." Worldwide Express began with and operates on the idea that growing companies should have access to the same shipping discounts and personalized service generally reserved for only very large enterprises. The Worldwide Express service model is based on providing customers with in-person consultation, advising and helping to anticipate potential roadblocks, answer questions and identify operational efficiencies. Worldwide Express' goal is to be their clients' managed transportation provider, no matter the package size or destination. About Worldwide Express Worldwide Express is a full-service, non-asset-based logistics provider offering access to industry-leading small package, truckload, and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping solutions around the world. Worldwide Express and its affiliates service more than 92,000 customers nationwide, with a combined annual systemwide revenue exceeding $1.6 billion, and ranking as the second-largest privately held freight brokerage company in the country. To learn more about Worldwide Express, please visit www.wwex.com . SOURCE Worldwide Express Related Links http://www.wwex.com HONESDALE, Pa., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A group of yogis at the Himalayan Institute in rural Pennsylvania, in response to the negativity and division in today's geopolitical and environmental climate, is embarking on an ambitious missionusing the inner calm and peace cultivated by meditation to spread peace around the world. The goal of the project, called Year Long Meditation, is to connect thousands of people across the globe to meditate for a combined 1,000,008 hours, with a shared intention of changing the course of human history. To assist participants in their efforts, the nonprofit is providing a free meditation tracking app, guided meditations, and learning resources from their 40-year archives of faculty classes and lecturesas well as an array of inspiring in-person meditation retreats and intensives at their Honesdale, PA headquarters. Join the Practice. Change the World. "We must, as individuals, sit down, meditate, be quiet, and find peace and happiness within," says Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD, Spiritual Head of the Himalayan Institute, "so that we can bring that peace and happiness out into the external world, so that the external world doesn't become a prisonwe are more disconnected from ourselves and our loved ones than ever before." The time certainly appears to be right for a more mindful approach: according to a 2012 survey by the National Institutes of Health, 8% of American adults used meditation for health and well-being (and 9.5% were doing yoga). By using technology and sending a positive, encouraging message, the Himalayan Institute hopes to unite those meditating already and attract more people to the practice. The shared intention of creating a better world lies at the heart of their vision. According to the yoga tradition, time and space become irrelevant when people work with a common focusso that people sitting down to meditate thousands of miles away and months apart still share in the benefit (and contribute to the goal) of a group practice, whether they are meditating for hours a day or can just spare a few minutes. "There's something amazing in the alchemy of group practicethat shows group practice is far greater than the sum of its parts," says Ishan Tigunait, Executive Director of the Himalayan Institute, in describing the unique multiplicative effect brought about by people meditating in community. Whether participants choose to join Year Long Meditation in person or meditate from home around the world, the practice kicks off on July 16, 2019. Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/330123092/debc29fdb1 To learn more about the vision of Year Long Meditation and to join the practice, visit: www.yearlongmeditation.org About the Himalayan Institute: Founded by Swami Rama in 1969, the Himalayan Institute is a leader in the field of yoga, meditation, spirituality, and holistic healtha non-profit international organization dedicated to serving humanity through educational, spiritual, and humanitarian programs. The Himalayan Institute and its varied activities and programs exemplify the spiritual heritage of mankind that unites East and West, spirituality and science, ancient wisdom and modern technology. www.himalayaninstitute.org Press/Media Contact: Aaron Luburich Phone: (570) 647-4254 E-mail: [email protected] Related Images year-long-meditation.jpg Year Long Meditation Join the Practice. Change the World. year-long-meditation.jpg Year Long Meditation Free meditation tracking tool so you can join from anywhere in the world. year-long-meditation.jpg Year Long Meditation Free meditation tracking tool so you can join from anywhere in the world. Related Links Year Long Meditation Himalayan Institute Related Video https://vimeo.com/330123092/debc29fdb1 SOURCE Himalayan Institute Related Links http://www.himalayaninstitute.org SOMERSET, N.J., May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Your Hearing Network (YHN) today announced Empower, the inaugural hearing industry conference focused on clinical, technology and business development solutions. The conference, scheduled for Sept. 12 - 14, will be held at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida. The Empower Conference is designed to provide attendees with an unprecedented opportunity to learn, engage and stay current in the hearing health industry. Attendees will benefit from access to industry information, an opportunity to see competing technology in a single forum, absorb critical business management information and learn about clinical advances. The Empower Conference will allow hearing health practitioners to choose from nearly 100 different sessions to meet their needs, ranging in topics from Tele-Audiology to Artificial Intelligence in Hearing Tech and from Competing Effectively as a Private Practice to Medicare Advantage's Impact. "Your Hearing Network is committed to connecting independent practice owners with the resources they need to help people hear well," said Scott Klein, YHN President. "We listened to independent practice owners, and through our network, we discovered there was a desire for a new format. Traditional industry events have a single focus, this conference brings together technology innovations, clinical advances and business development expertise, in a shift from specialized meetings to a broader approach." In addition to motivational and business-focused keynotes, nearly 100 sessions, and an Expo featuring over 50 vendors, the professionals at the Disney Institute will be creating a pre-conference workshop specifically for Empower. They will be presenting an exclusive, limited availability program focused on fostering customer excellence and leadership in hearing healthcare practices. To learn more about Empower, visit https://empower-2019.com/ About Your Hearing Network Your Hearing Network (YHN) is a national network quickly approaching 6,500 members who share a common missionto protect the integrity of patient care. Your Hearing Network members are highly skilled, credentialed and elevated as the hearing care providers of choice in their respective markets. As one of the fastest growing healthcare networks in the country, Your Hearing Network leverages the power of its national scale, industry expertise and strategic partnerships on behalf of members to negotiate preferred market access to innovative products and services that patients deserve. Visit us online at www.yourhearingnetwork.com. Media Contact: Jerry DeRosa Vice President, Marketing Phone: 267.626.7500 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Your Hearing Network Related Links http://www.yourhearingnetwork.com Parcel Volume Grew 41.6% to 2.3 Billion, Market Share Expanded to 18.6% Adjusted Net Income Increased 27.6% to Reach RMB966.4 Million SHANGHAI, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE: ZTO) ("ZTO" or the "Company"), a leading and fast-growing express delivery company in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019[1]. The Company beat consensus by generating parcel volume growth of 41.6%, 19.1 percentage points faster than market average, while delivering 22.3% net income growth and 27.6% adjusted net income growth. Market share in terms of parcel volume expanded to 18.6% during the first quarter of 2019. First Quarter 2019 Financial Highlights Revenues were RMB4,574.0 million ( US$681.6 million ), an increase of 29.0% from RMB3,544.4 million in the same period of 2018. ( ), an increase of 29.0% from in the same period of 2018. Gross profit was RMB1,259.6 million ( US$187.7 million ), an increase of 22.0% from RMB1,032.1 million in the same period of 2018. ( ), an increase of 22.0% from in the same period of 2018. Net income was RMB681.6 million ( US$101.6 million ), an increase of 22.3% from RMB557.5 million in the same period of 2018. ( ), an increase of 22.3% from in the same period of 2018. Adjusted EBITDA [2] was RMB1,441.0 million ( US$214.7 million ), an increase of 31.1% from RMB1,099.1 million in the same period of 2018. was ( ), an increase of 31.1% from in the same period of 2018. Adjusted net income [3] was RMB966.4 million ( US$144.0 million ), an increase of 27.6% from RMB757.2 million in the same period of 2018. was ( ), an increase of 27.6% from in the same period of 2018. Basic and diluted earnings per American depositary share ("ADS" [4] ) were RMB0.87 (US$0.13) , an increase of 11.5% from RMB0.78 in the same period of 2018. ) were , an increase of 11.5% from in the same period of 2018. Net cash provided by operating activities was RMB633.3 million ( US$94.4million ), compared with RMB214.2 million in the same period of 2018. Operational Highlights for First Quarter 2019 Parcel volume was 2,264 million, an increase of 41.6% from 1,599 million in the same period of 2018. Number of pickup/delivery outlets was approximately 29,800 as of March 31, 2019 . . Number of direct network partners was approximately 4,500 as of March 31, 2019 . . Number of line-haul vehicles was over 5,700 as of March 31, 2019 , which included over 4,850 self-owned vehicles and over 850 vehicles owned and operated by Tonglu Tongze Logistics Ltd., a transportation operator that works exclusively for ZTO. , which included over 4,850 self-owned vehicles and over 850 vehicles owned and operated by Tonglu Tongze Logistics Ltd., a transportation operator that works exclusively for ZTO. Number of self-owned trucks increased to around 4,850 as of March 31, 2019 from 4,500 as of December 31, 2018 . Among the self-owned trucks, over 3,000 were high capacity 15-17-meter-long models as of March 31, 2019 , compared to over 2,800 as of December 31, 2018 . from 4,500 as of . Among the self-owned trucks, over 3,000 were high capacity 15-17-meter-long models as of , compared to over 2,800 as of . Number of line-haul routes between sorting hubs was over 2,200 as of March 31, 2019 . . Number of sorting hubs was 87 as of March 31, 2019 , among which 78 are operated by the Company and 9 by the Company's network partners. [1] An investor relations presentation accompanies this earnings release and can be found at ir.zto.com. [2] Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure, which is defined as net income before depreciation, amortization, interest expenses and income tax expenses, and further adjusted to exclude the shared-based compensation expense and non-recurring items such as the gain on disposal of equity investees and subsidiary which management aims to better represent the underlying business operations. [3] Adjusted net income is a non-GAAP financial measure, which is defined as net income before share-based compensation expense and non-recurring items such as gain on disposal of equity investees and subsidiary in which management aims to better represent the underlying business operations. [4] One ADS represents one Class A ordinary share. Mr. Meisong Lai, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ZTO, commented "ZTO strengthened its leadership position in the Chinese express delivery industry with market share in terms of parcel volume expanding 2.5 percentage points to 18.6% during the first quarter of 2019." Mr. Lai added, "Our newly implemented volume-incentive metrics were effective in providing confidence and meaningful support to our network partners who faced intensifying competitions in regions with concentrated originating e-commerce volume as well as in those previously less penetrated markets. Our continued efforts to standardize pickup and delivery fees are paving the way to increase couriers' wages and enhance profitability of our network partners. With years of continued investments in shared-success culture and operational infrastructure, ZTO is able to deliver consistent and strong operating performances on both volume and earnings. The road ahead can be both challenging and promising. By focusing on being the best we can, ZTO strives to seize opportunities in the Chinese express delivery industry to achieve strong market presence and solid earnings, creating sustainable value to our investors." Ms. Huiping Yan, Chief Financial Officer of ZTO, added, "With key performance matrix well aligned with daily operating measures, ZTO exceeded expectations for both parcel volume growth and adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2019. Competition-led decline on ASP was partially offset by continued cost productivity gain for our core express delivery business resulting in a 22.6% gross profit gain on a 31.8% revenue increase. Together with a stable corporate cost structure and healthy yield on cash deposits, adjusted net income hiked 27.6% to reach RMB 966.4 million. adjusted EBITDA margin remained stable at 31.5% compared to 31.0% last year." First Quarter 2019 Financial Results Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 RMB % RMB US$ % (in thousands, except percentages) Express delivery services 3,086,997 87.1 4,059,372 604,865 88.7 Freight forwarding services 293,275 8.3 289,314 43,109 6.3 Sale of accessories 150,843 4.3 208,838 31,118 4.6 Others 13,289 0.3 16,506 2,460 0.4 Total revenues 3,544,404 100.0 4,574,030 681,552 100.0 Revenues were RMB4,574.0 million (US$681.6 million), an increase of 29.0% from RMB3,544.4 million in the same period of 2018. Revenue from express delivery services increased by 31.5% compared to the same period of 2018, mainly driven by a 41.6% increase in parcel volume and partially offset by a 7.0% decrease in unit price per parcel resulted mainly from incremental volume incentives in response to competition. Revenue from freight forwarding services decreased 1.4% when compared to the same period of 2018. The increase in revenue from sales of accessories was in-line with the increase in the sale of thermal paper used for the printing of digital waybills. Other revenues are composed of new service offerings such as financing and advertising services. Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 % of % of RMB revenues RMB US$ revenues (in thousands, except percentages) Line-haul transportation cost 1,183,638 33.4 1,594,007 237,515 34.8 Sorting hub cost 686,437 19.4 891,069 132,773 19.5 Freight forwarding cost 283,670 8.0 283,115 42,185 6.2 Cost of accessories sold 88,717 2.5 119,686 17,834 2.6 Other costs 269,816 7.6 426,562 63,560 9.4 Total cost of revenues 2,512,278 70.9 3,314,439 493,867 72.5 Total cost of revenues was RMB3,314.4 million (US$493.9 million), an increase of 31.9% from RMB2,512.3 million in the same period last year. Line haul transportation cost was RMB1,594.0 million ( US$237.5 million ), an increase of 34.7% from RMB1,183.6 million in the same period last year. The increased use of cost-effective self-owned trucks and more efficient high-capacity trailer trucks enhanced transportation cost leverage on scale. Total transportation cost of self-owned trucks accounted for 59.8% of the total truck transportation cost for the quarter, compared to 53.4% in the same period last year. was ( ), an increase of 34.7% from in the same period last year. The increased use of cost-effective self-owned trucks and more efficient high-capacity trailer trucks enhanced transportation cost leverage on scale. Total transportation cost of self-owned trucks accounted for 59.8% of the total truck transportation cost for the quarter, compared to 53.4% in the same period last year. Sorting hub operating cost was RMB891.1 million ( US$132.8 million ), an increase of 29.8% or RMB204.1 ( US$30.4 million ) from RMB686.4 million in the same period last year. Of this increase (i) RMB126.6 million ( US$18.9 million ) was associated with sorting hub labor costs. The average headcount of sorting hub workers increased by 16.7% which was significantly less than the related 41.6% increase in parcel volume demonstrating effective cost productivity gain and (ii) RMB42.7 million ( US$6.4 million ) came from depreciation costs associated with the newly installed automated sorting equipment. As of March 31, 2019 , 130 sets of automated sorting equipment have been put into use, compared to 59 sets as of March 31, 2018 . was ( ), an increase of 29.8% or ( ) from in the same period last year. Of this increase (i) ( ) was associated with sorting hub labor costs. The average headcount of sorting hub workers increased by 16.7% which was significantly less than the related 41.6% increase in parcel volume demonstrating effective cost productivity gain and (ii) ( ) came from depreciation costs associated with the newly installed automated sorting equipment. As of , 130 sets of automated sorting equipment have been put into use, compared to 59 sets as of . Cost of accessories was RMB119.7 million ( US$17.8 million ), an increase of 34.9% from RMB88.7 million in the same period last year. The increase was in line with the increase in the sale of accessories for thermal paper. was ( ), an increase of 34.9% from in the same period last year. The increase was in line with the increase in the sale of accessories for thermal paper. Other costs were RMB426.6 million ( US$63.6 million ), an increase of RMB156.7 million ( US$23.3 million ) compared to the same period last year, as a net result of (i) an increase of RMB120.8 million ( US$18.0 million ) in dispatching costs associated with serving enterprise customers, (ii) an increase of RMB57.8 million ( US$8.6 million ) in expenses related to IT and technology development and (iii) a decrease of RMB 10.0 million ( US$1.5 million ) in tax surcharges. Gross Profit was RMB1,259.6 million (US$187.7million), an increase of 22.0% from RMB1,032.1 million in the same period last year. Gross margin decreased to 27.5% from 29.1% in the same period last year. The decrease in gross margin was a net result of parcel volume growth and continued cost productivity gain offset by competition-led unit price decline and an increase in lower-margin large enterprise customers businesses. Total Operating Expenses were RMB499.7 million (US$74.5 million), compared to RMB333.7 million in the same period last year. Selling, general and administrative expenses were RMB557.8 million ( US$83.1 million ), compared to RMB415.6 million in the same period last year. The increase was mainly due to (i) an increase in share-based compensation expenses from RMB199.7 million in the first quarter of 2018 to RMB284.3 ( US$42.4 million ) in the first quarter of 2019 and (ii) an increase of RMB59.6 million ( US$8.9 million ) in salaries and accrued bonuses. As a percentage of revenue, selling, general and administrative expenses accounted for 12.2%, compared to 11.7% during the same period last year. were ( ), compared to in the same period last year. The increase was mainly due to (i) an increase in share-based compensation expenses from in the first quarter of 2018 to ( ) in the first quarter of 2019 and (ii) an increase of ( ) in salaries and accrued bonuses. As a percentage of revenue, selling, general and administrative expenses accounted for 12.2%, compared to 11.7% during the same period last year. Other operating income, net was RMB58.1 million ( US$8.7 million ) for the quarter. Other operating income mainly consisted of government subsidies of RMB48.9 million ( US$7.3 million ) received in the first quarter of 2019. Income from operations was RMB759.9 million (US$113.2 million), an increase of 8.8% from RMB698.4 million for the same period last year. Operating margin decreased to 16.6% from 19.7% in the same period last year, mainly driven by a 1.6 percentage point decrease in gross margin and the impact from share-based compensation expenses of 0.6 percentage points. Interest income was RMB146.5 million (US$21.8 million), compared with RMB60.3 million in the same period in 2018, primarily due to an increase in the amount of cash and interest-bearing bank deposits. Interest expense was zero compared with RMB0.8 million in the same period in 2018. There was no borrowing during the first quarter of 2019. Foreign currency exchange loss, before tax was RMB26.0 million (US$3.9 million) in the first quarter of 2019, resulted from the depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Chinese renminbi in the first quarter of 2019. Income tax expenses were RMB191.9 million (US$28.6 million) and the effective income tax rate was 21.8% for the first quarter of 2019 taking into consideration the non-tax-deductible share-based compensation expenses recorded in the first quarter. Net income was RMB681.6 million (US$101.6 million), an increase of 22.3% from RMB557.5 million in the same period last year. Basic and diluted earnings per ADS were RMB0.87 (US$0.13), compared with basic and diluted earnings per ADS of RMB0.78 in the same period last year. Adjusted net income was RMB966.4 million (US$144.0 million), compared with adjusted net income of RMB757.2 million during the same quarter last year. EBITDA was RMB1,156.2 million (US$172.3 million), compared with RMB899.4 million in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA was RMB1,441.0 million (US$214.7 million), compared to RMB1,099.1 million in the same period last year. Net cash provided by operating activities was RMB633.3 million (US$94.4 million), compared with RMB214.2 million in the same period last year, mainly attributable to growth in net income. Business Outlook Based on the current market conditions and current operations, the Company maintains its previous annual guidance: parcel volume for 2019 is expected to be in the range of 11.51 billion to 11.93 billion , representing a 35% to 40% increase year over year, and the Company's adjusted net income is expected to be in the range of RMB4.8 billion to RMB5.2 billion, representing a 14.3% to 23.8% increase from the same period of 2018. The Company will no longer provide quarterly estimates going forward. Above estimates represent management's current and preliminary view, which are subject to change. Company Share Purchase On November 15, 2018, the Company announced a new share repurchase program whereby ZTO was authorized to repurchase its own Class A ordinary shares in the form of ADSs with an aggregate value of up to US$500 million during an 18-month period thereafter. The Company expects to fund the repurchase out of its existing cash balance. As of March 31, 2019, the Company has purchased an aggregate of 1,743,563 ADSs at an average purchase price of US$15.85, including repurchase commissions. The Company believes that the share repurchase program represents ZTO's confidence in the overall market opportunities as well as ZTO's solid operating fundamentals and financial strength for sustained profitable growth and value creation for its shareholders. Exchange Rate This announcement contains translation of certain Renminbi amounts into U.S. dollars at specified rates solely for the convenience of readers. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Renminbi to U.S. dollars were made at the exchange rate of RMB6.7112 to US$1.00, the noon buying rate on March 29, 2019 as set forth in the H.10 statistical release of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Systems. Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures The Company uses adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income, each a non-GAAP financial measure, in evaluating ZTO's operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. Reconciliations of the Company's non-GAAP financial measures to its U.S. GAAP financial measures are shown in tables at the end of this earnings release, which provide more details about the non-GAAP financial measures. The Company believes that adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income help identify underlying trends in ZTO's business that could otherwise be distorted by the effect of the expenses and gains that the Company includes in income from operations and net income. The Company believes that adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income provide useful information about its operating results, enhance the overall understanding of its past performance and future prospects and allow for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by ZTO's management in its financial and operational decision-making. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income should not be considered in isolation or construed as an alternative to net income or any other measure of performance or as an indicator of the Company's operating performance. Investors are encouraged to review the historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income presented here may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. Other companies may calculate similarly titled measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures to ZTO's data. ZTO encourages investors and others to review the Company's financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure. Conference Call Information ZTO's management team will host an earnings conference call at 9:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 (9:00 AM Beijing Time on May 16, 2019). Dial-in details for the earnings conference call are as follows: United States: 1-888-317-6003 Hong Kong: 852-5808-1995 China: 4001-206-115 International: 1-412-317-6061 Passcode: 5764429 Please dial in 15 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin and provide the passcode to join the call. A replay of the conference call may be accessed by phone at the following numbers until May 23, 2019: United States: 1-877-344-7529 International: 1-412-317-0088 Passcode: 10130430 Additionally, a live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available at http://zto.investorroom.com. About ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE: ZTO) ("ZTO" or the "Company") is a leading and fast-growing express delivery company in China. ZTO provides express delivery service as well as other value-added logistics services through its extensive and reliable nationwide network coverage in China. ZTO operates a highly scalable network partner model, which the Company believes is best suited to support the significant growth of e-commerce in China. The Company leverages its network partners to provide pickup and last-mile delivery services, while controlling the mission-critical line-haul transportation and sorting network within the express delivery service value chain. For more information, please visit http://zto.investorroom.com. Safe Harbor Statement This news release contains "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the Company's unaudited results for the first quarter of 2019, ZTO management quotes and the Company's financial outlook. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts but instead represent only the Company's belief regarding expected results and events, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of its control. The Company's actual results and other circumstances may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and events indicated in these forward-looking statements. The financial results to which this news release is related are preliminary, unaudited and subject to audit adjustment. In addition, the Company may not meet its financial outlook included in this news release and may be unable to grow its business in the manner planned. The Company may also modify its strategy for growth. In addition, there are other risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ from what it currently anticipates, including those relating to the development of the e-commerce industry in China, its significant reliance on the Alibaba ecosystem, risks associated with its network partners and their employees and personnel, intense competition which could adversely affect the Company's results of operations and market share, any service disruption of the Company's sorting hubs or the outlets operated by its network partners or its technology system. For additional information on these and other important factors that could adversely affect the Company's business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects, please see its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of the press release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this release, except as required by law. Such information speaks only as of the date of this release. UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA Summary of Unaudited Consolidated Comprehensive Income Data: Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 RMB RMB US$ (in thousands, except for share and per share data) Revenues 3,544,404 4,574,030 681,552 Cost of revenues (2,512,278) (3,314,439) (493,867) Gross profit 1,032,126 1,259,591 187,685 Operating income (expenses): Selling, general and administrative (415,626) (557,778) (83,112) Other operating income, net 81,907 58,102 8,657 Total operating expenses (333,719) (499,676) (74,455) Income from operations 698,407 759,915 113,230 Other income (expenses): Interest income 60,321 146,471 21,825 Interest expense (773) Loss on disposal of equity investees and subsidiary (529) (79) Foreign currency exchange gain/(loss), before tax (36,752) (25,954) (3,867) Income before income tax, and share of loss in equity method investments 721,203 879,903 131,109 Income tax expense (154,280) (191,858) (28,588) Share of gain/(loss) in equity method investments (9,468) (6,398) (953) Net income 557,455 681,647 101,568 Net loss (income) attributable to noncontrolling interests (696) (932) (139) Net income attributable to ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. 556,759 680,715 101,429 Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders 556,759 680,715 101,429 Net earnings per share/ADS attributable to ordinary shareholders Basic 0.78 0.87 0.13 Diluted 0.78 0.87 0.13 Weighted average shares used in calculating net earnings per ordinary share/ADS Basic 710,715,557 786,032,440 786,032,440 Diluted 711,321,353 786,212,265 786,212,265 Other comprehensive income, net of tax of nil: Foreign currency translation adjustment (266,504) (344,228) (51,292) Comprehensive income 290,951 337,419 50,276 Comprehensive loss (income) attributable to noncontrolling interests (696) (932) (139) Comprehensive income attributable to ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. 290,255 336,487 50,137 Unaudited Consolidated Balance Sheets Data: As of December 31, 2018 March 31, 2019 RMB RMB US$ (in thousands, except for share and per share data) ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents 4,622,554 6,092,247 907,773 Restricted cash 400 100 15 Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of RMB13,996 and RMB14,218 at December 31, 2018 and March 31, 2019, respectively 596,995 517,709 77,141 Financing receivables, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of RMB4,139 and RMB4,439 at December 31, 2018 and March 31, 2019, respectively 517,983 581,574 86,657 Short-term investment 13,599,852 11,287,282 1,681,857 Inventories 43,813 30,801 4,589 Advances to suppliers 337,874 276,392 41,184 Prepayments and other current assets 1,507,996 1,463,499 218,068 Amounts due from related parties 6,600 25,197 3,754 Total current assets 21,234,067 20,274,801 3,021,038 Investments in equity investees 2,207,410 2,185,992 325,723 Property and equipment, net 9,035,704 9,232,496 1,375,685 Land use rights, net 1,969,176 2,171,076 323,500 Intangible assets, net 54,227 52,677 7,849 Right-of-use assets[5] 840,507 125,239 Goodwill 4,241,541 4,241,541 632,009 Deferred tax assets 318,063 410,073 61,103 Other non-current assets 622,669 724,468 107,951 TOTAL ASSETS 39,682,857 40,133,631 5,980,097 LIABILITIES AND EQUITY Current liabilities Accounts payable 1,311,807 1,032,482 153,845 Advances from customers 436,710 559,446 83,360 Income tax payable 405,683 191,553 28,542 Amounts due to related parties 132,216 63,247 9,424 Lease liabilities[5] 249,884 37,234 Acquisition consideration payable 19,581 22,942 3,418 Dividends payable 1,699 1,270,753 189,348 Other current liabilities 2,833,769 2,317,253 345,280 Total current liabilities 5,141,465 5,707,560 850,451 Lease liabilities[5] 550,248 81,990 Deferred tax liabilities 157,940 156,705 23,350 Acquisition consideration payable 22,942 - - Other non-current liabilities 90,961 88,787 13,230 TOTAL LIABILITIES 5,413,308 6,503,300 969,021 [5] In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), which requires lessees to recognize a right-of-use asset and lease liability on their balance sheet for all leases. The Group adopted this ASU on January 1, 2019 using the modified retrospective approach and will not restate comparative periods. As of December 31, 2018 March 31, 2019 RMB RMB US$ Shareholders' equity Ordinary shares (US$0.0001 par value; 10,000,000,000 shares authorized, 811,267,551 shares issued and 785,463,859 shares outstanding as of December 31, 2018; 809,523,988 shares issued and 787,920,337 shares outstanding as of March 31, 2019) 523 522 78 Additional paid-in capital 24,137,681 22,864,321 3,406,890 Treasury shares, at cost (1,545,077) (1,263,253) (188,231) Retained earnings 11,052,395 11,733,110 1,748,288 Accumulated other comprehensive (loss) income 571,716 227,488 33,897 ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. shareholders' equity 34,217,238 33,562,188 5,000,922 Noncontrolling interests 52,311 68,143 10,154 Total Equity 34,269,549 33,630,331 5,011,076 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY 39,682,857 40,133,631 5,980,097 Summary of Unaudited Consolidated Cash Flow Data: Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 RMB RMB US$ (in thousands) Net cash provided by operating activities 214,173 633,270 94,359 Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities[6] (1,597,557) 895,365 133,414 Net cash used in financing activities (805,117) (14,009) (2,087) Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash (89,542) (45,233) (6,740) Net increase/(decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash (2,278,043) 1,469,393 218,946 Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of period 5,773,734 4,622,954 688,842 Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of period 3,495,691 6,092,347 907,788 [6] The amount of cash used in investing activities mainly includes purchases of the fixed term bank deposits with an original maturity of three months to one year. For the first quarter of 2019 the amounts of net cashflow in for receiving the short-term investment are approximately RMB2,030 million (US$302.5 million), and the amounts of net cashflow out for purchasing the short-term investment are approximately RMB503.4 million in the same period last year. Reconciliations of GAAP and Non-GAAP Results Three Months Ended March 31, 2018 2019 RMB RMB US$ (in thousands, except for share and per share data) Net income 557,455 681,647 101,568 Add: Share-based compensation expense 199,744 284,264 42,357 Loss on disposal of equity investees and subsidiary, net of income taxes 529 79 Adjusted net income 757,199 966,440 144,004 Net income 557,455 681,647 101,568 Add: Depreciation 176,197 271,423 40,443 Amortization 10,670 11,293 1,683 Interest expenses 773 Income tax expenses 154,280 191,858 28,588 EBITDA 899,375 1,156,221 172,282 Add: Share-based compensation expense 199,744 284,264 42,357 Loss on disposal of equity investees and subsidiary, before income taxes 529 79 Adjusted EBITDA 1,099,119 1,441,014 214,718 For investor and media inquiries, please contact: ZTO Investor Relations Department E-mail: [email protected] Christensen In China Mr. Christian Arnell Phone: +86-10-5900-1548 E-mail: [email protected] In US Mr. Tip Fleming Phone: +1-917-412-3333 Email: [email protected] SOURCE ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. Guilderland Center, New York, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Guilderland Central School District announces their brand-new 3.0 megawatt (MW) solar farm today on Becker Road in Altamont, New York. The Districts third and largest solar project, a 22-acre ground-mounted site built by ForeFront Power, is expected to produce 3.3 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of clean electricity annually. The District is offsetting 58 percent of their annual energy consumption and reducing operating expenses by an estimated $4.5 million over a 20-year period. The project is part of the Districts ambitious initiatives around reducing operational costs from the existing grid. Guilderland Central is also one of the pioneering school districts in the state with sustainability initiatives, looking to reduce their carbon footprint while also improving student quality of life. An Innovative Off-Site Solar Framework Guilderland Centrals solar farm utilizes an innovative framework known as Remote Net Metering (RNM) to achieve the economies of scale that is not typically possible at an individual school location. RNM allows Guilderland Central and other public entities to go off-site and still benefit from net metering, whereby solar power generated in excess is sold back to the electrical grid. Located just five miles from the campuses that it supplies, the District is seeing maximized savings from this program. In 2017, New Yorks RNM program was replaced with Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER), a program which compensates projects based on when and where they provide electricity to the grid. For Guilderland Central, getting grandfathered under RNM was a huge priority and motivating factor for building more solar and working with the ForeFront Power team. We were approached by several companies and [ForeFront Power] was simply good to work with, said Clifford Nooney, Energy Manager and Director of Facilities at Guilderland Central School District. After reviewing the responses during our RFP process, they were clearly the best option for us. The ForeFront Power team was able to act quickly under the RNM program and then construct the project in under two months following interconnection approval. Guilderland Central is now a leader in renewable energy adoption in New York and our team really enjoyed working with them on this unique project, said Co-CEO of ForeFront Power Paul Walker. This unique solar solution really allows organizations like Guilderland Central to scale their impact quickly. Double the Savings ForeFront Power, a California-based solar and storage developer, led the financing and development of the Guilderland Central project. With a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) from ForeFront Power in place, the District is projected to save an estimated $4.5 million over a 20-year period. Money isnt all thats being saved as the clean solar electricity from the new solar farm will effectively cut Guilderlands electrical carbon footprint by approximately 58% as well. Impacting Future Generations For Guilderland Centrals faculty, the solar impact goes beyond savings. Students across the District are gaining a whole new perspective on where their energy comes from thanks to the new ability to take field trips to the solar farm and access live production monitoring via kiosks on campus. For teachers, the science behind solar fits well within the schools existing curriculum program, with science classes now having a portion dedicated to examining how energy is generated from the sun. For the District, its a win-win situation. I would recommend that schools pursue solar. While Im a firm believer of saving our planet, solar is a good thing for the community and a good thing for taxpayers to be able to save money, said Nooney. Solar also presents a good educational opportunity for our young people. They are the ones that are going to deal with our repercussions for generations to come. The schools also receive free lesson plans from Schools Power, a leading national education organization that provides schools and colleges with standards-based renewable energy curriculum packages. ForeFront Power and Schools Power announced their partnership in July 2017. For more information about ForeFront Power and solar for schools like Guilderland Central School District, visit k12.forefrontpower.com. About Guilderland Central School District The Guilderland Central School District, which is located adjacent to the city of Albany, encompasses most of the town of Guilderland and part of the towns of Knox, New Scotland and Bethlehem. Spread over approximately 60 square miles, the district offers all types of neighborhood living, from older, traditional homes to suburban housing developments to farms. Guilderland has five elementary schools including Altamont, Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush and Westmere Farnsworth Middle School and Guilderland High School. About ForeFront Power ForeFront Power is a leading provider of solar energy and battery storage solutions for public sector, utility, business, and residential customers across the United States and Mexico. Our team has delivered over 800 MW of wholesale, virtual, and behind-the-meter projects during the past decade. ForeFront Powers proven development expertise, off-balance sheet financing, and best in class asset management enable us to provide our customers with the highest quality solar and storage products, helping to reduce expenses and achieve sustainability targets with clean, affordable energy. Headquartered in San Francisco, ForeFront Power has offices in New York and Mexico City. Attachment Kolkata, May 15 : A Trinamool Congress delegation will meet the Election Commission on Wednesday in the wake of vandalism in college and destruction of Bengali polymath Vidyasagar's bust during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow, according to party officials. "Trinamool Parliamentary team comprising @derekobrienmp, @Sukhendusekhar, Manish Gupta, Nadimul Haque seeks meeting with EC on May 15 in aftermath of attack on Bengal's heritage after Shah roadshow in Kolkata. BJP outsider ruffians resort to arson & break Vidyasagar's bust," All India Trinamool Congress tweeted. Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had condemned the attack and mentioned that an inquiry will be done. "It is a very unfortunate incident and an entire college was vandalised. A bust of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar was broken. I have kept broken parts of the bust where the original statue was there. I have never seen such political violence in Kolkata," Banerjee said after visiting the college. New Delhi, May 15 : Twice over the course of the ongoing all-encompassing multi-disciplinary Chanda Kochhar-Videocon Industries probe has chairman Venugopal Dhoot accepted complicity in the dirty deal. Dhoot reported to the CBI vide letter dated 25.4.2018 that "With reference to the captioned preliminary enquiry, I hereby submit that in my capacity as CMD of Videocon Industries, I have been entrusted with substantial powers of management inter alia including the authority to make investments/extend loans, advances etc, accordingly, Rs 64 crore given by the company to Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd is within the powers entrusted upon me." This was disclosed by Dhoot during the inspection of Videocon during his statement under oath and through letter dated 15/11/2018. On 12.6.2018 a missive sent by VIL to SEBI states: "This was a decision in terms of authority as the matter is very old, we are checking whether there was any contract to this effect. Further in the next para, it is stated that no approval of audit committee was taken on the date of advance as there was omission on the part of Venugopal Dhoot to disclose the interest in the entity." Slam dunk and an airtight case where the investigators have probable cause and clear collusion between Videocon's Dhoot and Kochhars. The probe agencies have compiled the exact manner of flow of funds and the present status thereof in Videocon Group. Here is the anatomy of the collusive fraud: Videocon Iindustries Ltd (VIL) paid Rs 64 crores purportedly as "advance" to Supreme on 8/09/2009. VIL then assigned this advance/receivable from Supreme to its Group company IRCL on 05/07/2011. Indian Refrigerator Company Ltd (IRCL) it turn assigned it to another group company, Real Cleantech Pvt Ltd (RCLP) on 05/08/2011. The Present status of RCPL is "Struck off" in RoC Records as ROC struck this company under Section 248 being defaulting in fining AR and BS after 2014 even though the amount is still payable by Supreme to VIL Group. In lieu of this Advance, Supreme Energy allotted OCDs worth Rs. 64 Crores to RCPL on 05.10.2011. RCPL allotted 0% OCDs to IRCL on 31/03/2012. RCPL and IRCL are both VIL Group Companies and still continue to be same, except the fact that RCLP is now struck off. In view of RCLP being Struck Off Company, this receivable by RCPL/VIL Group from Supreme (or Kochhar Group of Companies) is highly nonexistent/doubtful. It is clear that Videocon Group had no serious intention to recover the funds. Further, the flow of Rs 64 crore received from VIL by Supreme and further flow in Kochhar group is as under: Supreme Received Rs 64 crore from VIL on 08/09/2009 shown as unsecured loan as per BS as at 31.03.2010. On the same day, on 08/09/2009, Supreme transferred this amount to NuPower Renewables purportedly for subscription for allotment of Zero Coupon Fully Convertible debentures. NuPower allotted such debentures to Supreme on 25.03.2010. Such Debentures were converted to Equity on 19.03.2016 at a premium of Rs 1,156.50 per share to Supreme and allotted 548,650 equity shares aggregating to Rs 64 core. The premium was on the basis of a valuation report by PWC which is already under examination by Income Tax Department (details may be examined during inspection of NuPower). NuPower is in the business of Wind Power using such funds coupled with bank loans and from other entities too. The said wind power assets of NuPower were later hived off into three parts by way of Slump Sale to NuPower Wind Farms Limited (Under inspection) and Echanda Urja Private Limited (under inspection) and the third portion remains with NuPower. How Companies/corporate structures have changed hands and considerations involved: Supreme was a company belonging to V.N. Dhoot as all the shares were held by Dhoot and his associates at the time of "advance" of Rs 64 crore of funds by VIL to Supreme. Dhoot transferred all his equity held in Supreme to Mahesh Punglia (his consultant CA) on 2.11.2010 at par (9990 equity shares of Rs 10 each at par) while Rs 64 crore was still receivable by VIL from Supreme and at present which is still receivable by RCPL (Videocon group Company) In the meantime, Dhoot floated another company NuPower jointly with a Company, Pacific Capital Services Private Limited (a company owned by the relatives of Deepak Kochhar) as 50:50 venture. NuPower became subsidiary of Supreme as result of sale of all 50% of his shares by Dhoot to Supreme at Par (24996 shares of Rs 10 each totaling to Rs 2,49,960) and Pacific sold to Supreme of its 22500 equity Shares of Rs 10 totaling to Rs 225000 at par). Rest of the shares held by pacific were sold to Deepak Kochhar at par. Later, on 12.03.2012, NuPower further allotted 1897000 equity shares of Rs 10 each to Deepak Kochhar as managing trustee of Pinnacle Trust and 100000 equity shares of Rs 10 each Sunil Bhuta on conversion of warrants. Consequently, NuPower ceased to be subsidiary of Supreme and 97.66 % were held by Deepak Kochhar and his associates and only 2.32% with Supreme. Puglia sold his entire share holding of 9990 equity of Rs 10 each in Supreme (which he had got at par from Dhoot to Deepak Kochhar in his capacity as the managing Trustee of Pinnacle Energy Trust on 29.09.2012 at par totaling to about Rs 10 lakh. On the same date, the remaining 10 shares held by Vasant Kakade (an associate of Dhoot) were transferred to Prem Rajani (an associate of Kochhar]. At this stage Dhoot, even indirectly, exited from the ownership of Supreme and it became a hundred percent company of Deepak Kochhar (through his trust) at par face value of Rs 10 per share even though at this stage also a sum of Rs 64 crore was due from Supreme to RCLP (Group company of Videocon). Thus, Deepak Kochhar owned and controlled both Supreme and NuPower even though at this stage also a sum of Rs 64 crore was due from Supreme to RCLP (Group Company of Videocon now struck off). Later, sums of about Rs 325 crore have flown in NuPower from Essar Group/Firstland Holding Limited between 2010 to 2012. NuPower acquired Wind Powers from Shriram Group and also constructed its own wind power business by consolidated funds in its kitty (sum total of funds from Videocon, Firstland, DH Renewable, bank loans etc). Later, this company under inspection namely NuPower Wind Farm Limited was incorporated by Deepak Kochhar. The Wind Power Business of NuPower was sold by slump sale to the company under inspection and another part to NuPower Wind farms and third undertaking remains with NuPower. (To be continued) New Delhi, May 15 : A high polling percentage in Delhi's Muslim-dominated areas on May 12 has turned out to be a worrying cause for the three major political parties -- Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- which were locked in a triangular contest in the Lok Sabha elections. The Muslim community, which plays a decisive role in three of the seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, turned out in a good number on voting day, especially in the areas they dominate. In Chandni Chowk, North East Delhi and East Delhi parliamentary constituencies, Muslims are a sizeable population. The votes of the Muslim community consolidating in favour of a single party (AAP or Congress) would be bad news for all three parties but a split in this support base will benefit the BJP, say political analysts. On Sunday, Delhi registered an overall turnout of 60.5 per cent while the constituencies with a sizeable population of Muslims saw an impressive voting percentage. Despite the scorching heat and roza (fasting) during the holy month of Ramzan, Ballimaran reported 68.3 per cent polling while Shaku Basti, Matia Mahal and Seelampur recorded 68.7 per cent, 66.9 per cent and 66.5per cent respectively. In the absence of community-wise break-up of votes, it cannot be said for certain what percentage of these numbers comprises Muslims in these areas. However, as these figures represent the vote in Muslim-dominated areas, it can be assumed that Muslims constitute the majority of the vote. Trilokpuri polled 65.4 per cent, Mustafabad 65.2 per cent, Babarpur 62.1 per cent and Chandni Chowk 59.4 per cent. Okhla was one of the exceptions, recording a much lower 54.8 per cent turnout. Besides, the other minority-dominated areas such as Mustafabad and Babarpur recorded 65.22 per cent and 62.14 per cent polling respectively. Delhi recorded a voting percentage of 60.34 per cent in the Lok Sabha 2019 elections, five per cent less than the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014, Ballimaran clocked 67.17 per cent while Matia Mahal recorded 66.81 per cent. Okhla and Seelampur recorded 58.21 per cent and 68.11 per cent polling, respectively. According to experts, much of the Muslim vote is likely to go to either Congress or AAP and any split in it may cause worry for them as it actually helps BJP. IANS spoke to many of the Muslim voters and found that Muslims in many areas have favoured Congress over APP in the elections. "People were angry with the Centre and they expressed their anger by coming out in large number on the day of voting. They knew that the elections were national and voting AAP would only benefit the ruling party," Anjum Jafri, a jounalist told IANS. Asked about possibility of division in Muslim votes, he said: "If there is 50:50 split, it can be called a division but the situation is different. The ratio is 85:15," he said. Naeem Ansari, a resident of Jafarabad area of North East Delhi claimed that there were many locals in his area, who were devoted AAP voters but they were of the view that supporting Congress would be better for the Lok Sabha polls. "This election was not for a corporator or MLA but for an MP. As the fight was with the BJP, they chose to go with 'big' among the AAP and the Congress," Ansari said. Congress too claimed that 80 per cent of Muslim votes had gone in its favour as people saw it as a best choice against the BJP, which had created a fear psychosis among members of the community. Delhi Congress working president and former Delhi minister Haroon Yusuf said voters in these areas are most affected by policies of the BJP government and they came out to vote in large numbers. "Rahul Gandhi (Congress President) tried to give a message by continuously challenging Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) that he can fight for their cause, be it Muslims or Dalits. So, I can say 80 per cent of them have come out to support the Congress," he told IANS. During campaigning in Muslim-dominated areas, the two parties appealed to voters to vote "wisely" as any spilt in their votes would benefit the BJP. The BJP claimed that regardless of whether or not the Muslim vote was split, the party would benefit. Delhi BJP spokesperson Pravin Shankar Kapoor told IANS: "If the Muslim vote polarises, there would be a definite polarisation among Hindus which would benefit us. It is evident who benefits in case of division in their votes." However, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan, who is seeking re-election from Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituency, told IANS that he does not believe parties would necessarily benefit if high polling takes place in either Hindu-dominated or Muslim dominated ones. "I never did politics in the name of Hindus or Muslims. If you ask how many Muslims are there in my constituency, I would not be able to give you the figure. But I am confident that many of the Muslims will vote for me," he said. London, May 15 : UK MPs will vote on a Brexit bill again in early June whether or not the government of Prime Minister Theresa May and the opposition Labour Party have reached a deal, a Downing Street spokesperson has said. The spokesperson said on Tuesday night that a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill that would pave the way for Brexit was "imperative" if the UK was to leave the European Union (EU) before the MPs' summer recess, reports the BBC. However, this would not amount to a fourth so-called meaningful vote on the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement itself. UK needs to pass a law to implement the withdrawal agreement - the part of May's Brexit deal which will take the country out of the EU - in UK law. This is a requirement under the terms of previous Brexit legislation passed last year. The legislation would make the citizens' rights part of the agreement directly enforceable in UK courts, and set their relationship with the EU's Court of Justice. Attempts to find a cross-party compromise began after May's Brexit deal was rejected three times by MPs. The development comes after May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn met on Tuesday evening to discuss the ongoing talks, which the Downing Street gas described as "both useful and constructive", the BBC said. May had made clear the government's "determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU", it added. Meawnhile, a Labour spokesman said Corbyn had "raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments, following statements by Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers seeking to replace the Prime Minister". He also said that Corbyn had called for "further movement" from the government and that the Prime Minister's team had agreed to bring back "further proposals tomorrow (Wednesday)". The UK had been due to leave the European Union on March 29, but the deadline was pushed to October 31 after Parliament was unable to agree a way forward. San Francisco, May 15 : Accelerating efforts to generate larger revenues, Google has announced it will allow ads to reflect on the homepage of its mobile app from later this year. The ads would be displayed on the "Discover" section of the homepage in a news feed layout and would be algorithmically personalised. "Rolling out to all advertisers globally later this year, Discovery ads are a new way to reach people across Google properties in the moments when they're open to discovering your products and services," Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce, Google wrote in a blog-post on Tuesday. The search-engine giant also plans to then place ads with up to eight pictures in its search results as part of its "Gallery ads" feature. "By combining search intent with a more interactive visual format, gallery ads make it easier for you to communicate what your brand has to offer. We've found that, on average, ad groups including one or more gallery ad have up to 25 per cent more interactions-paid clicks or swipes-at the absolute top of the mobile Search results page," Raghavan said. Ads would also appear on the homepage of Google Shopping, which users would be able to personalise and filter based on features they care about and brands they love. Google's announcements come amid reported concerns among investors in Alphabet, Google's parent company, that companies like Amazon and Instagram are drawing a disproportionate number of online shoppers toward their platforms and away from Google, web portal The Hill reported. Abu Dhabi, May 15 : An Alitalia New Delhi-Milan flight made an emergency landing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following the death of an Indian man onboard the flight, Indian Embassy officials said here. The victim Kailash Chandra Saini, 52, from Rajasthan, was accompanied by his 26-year-old son Heera Lal, reports the Khaleej Times. "The flight made an emergency landing (at the Abu Dhabi International Airport) on Monday night. The body was taken to Mafraq Hospital. The formalities have been completed. The death certificate was issued today (Tuesday). The body will be repatriated on an Etihad flight, hopefully by Wednesday morning," Embassy counsellor M. Rajamurugan said on Tuesday. New Delhi, May 15 : BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday accused Trinamool Congress "goons" of vandalising the statue of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during his roadshow in Kolkata the previous day. Addressing the media at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters, Shah said: "Six phases of the elections have been completed throughout the country but incidents of violence are happening only in West Bengal. "(Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee is alleging that the BJP is spreading violence in the state. She is contesting on only 42 seat but the BJP is contesting across the country. No incident of violence have been reported from anywhere except Bengal. This means Trinamool is responsible for the violence." He said three attacks took place during his roadshow but the state police remained mere spectators. He also accused Banerjee of conspiring to vandalise Vidyasagar's statue in an effort gain sympathy. "The gate of the college was closed and the BJP workers were outside. Trinamool goons were pelting stones from inside. This was a conspiracy and drama by Mamata Banerjee to gain sympathy. Vandalising a statue for vote bank makes it clear that the Trinamool Congress is losing badly in this election. "All these proves that Trinamool Congress goons vandalised the statue," he said. Shah also claimed that he survived on Tuesday because of the CRPF's presence in Kolkata. "It would have been difficult for me to come out unharmed if the CRPF was not there," he said showing photographs. New Delhi, May 15 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the West Bengal government over the delay in the release of BJP Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma from jail despite its order for her "immediate release". On Tuesday, the apex court granted bail to Sharma, who was arrested on May 10 for a meme on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, adding that she should apologize in writing upon her release for posting the morphed picture of the Trinamool Congress supremo. Sharma's counsel and senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul informed the court on Wednesday that she was not freed on Tuesday as jail authorities wanted certified copies of the court's order. He said Sharma was finally released at 9.40 a.m. on Wednesday. A vacation bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna still wanted to know why Sharma was not released immediately after the apex court's order. The bench told the government counsel that if Sharma had not been released, the court would have issued contempt. The top court observed that the arrest was prime facie arbitrary. Kaul also informed the bench that the police had prepared a closure report in the matter but it did not bring it on record during the court the proceedings on Tuesday. The court said it will take up the apology issue in July. The Bharatiya Janata Party leader was accused of sharing on social media a photo of Banerjee photoshopped on a picture of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra from last week's MET Gala event in New York City. Mumbai, May 15 : Ahead of the release of his film "India's Most Wanted", actor Arjun Kapoor on Wednesday requested people to pay tribute to the unsung heroes of the country. Arjun took to Instagram and uploaded a video message, appealing to citizens to take out time to thank the "unsung heroes", who protect the country. He said: "I launched the 'Vande Mataram' song yesterday and I realised 'Vande Matram' means a salute to motherland. I started thinking we don't salute the people who actually protect the motherland. We don't take out time to remember them and to be kind and grateful to them. "Away from everything else, our film is about unsung heroes and we never got a day to celebrate them. We always waited for the perfect opportunity and perfect day. So, today I am requesting you all to take out 10 seconds from your time and thank those unsung brave people for their services. Jai Hind." The 33-year-old actor also tagged Anil Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon in his post, asking them to continue this "salute and tag their friends and family to take it forward." Directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, "India's Most Wanted" is based on true events and is about five men who saved the lives of billions of people by hunting down a terrorist. It is slated to release on May 24. Washington, May 15 : A New Jersey-based website is under fire for publishing a photoshopped image of a Sikh Mayor that depicts him as an Arab dictator, the media reported. The website, "Hudson Mile Square View", ran an image of Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla that resembled the lead character played by British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in the comedy film "The Dictator", the American Bazaar reported on Tuesday. The photo was part of a story titled, "Ravi Bhalla goes to the mattresses... for his tax increase". It accused Bhalla of "summoning all the powers" of his office to "reinstitute a tax increase" that was not approved by the city council. According to the website, Bhalla had proposed a 3 per cent tax increase but the council slashed it to 1 per cent. The story said now "the pushback from the Mayor's office to take back the tax reduction is underway". Sikh activists denounced the image as racist. Community speaker and activist Simran Jeet Singh tweeted on Tuesday: "Ravi Bhalla is the first-ever turbaned Sikh elected as Mayor in US history. "He's endured immense racist abuse, from flyers calling him a terrorist to death threats against him and his family. Now, someone is photoshopping Ravi to depict him as a despot. This is racist and wrong." Later on Tuesday night, the website said that the image was submitted by a reader. However, the Mile Square View had used a similar photo of Bhalla last August, the American Bazaar said. The site has a history of using photoshopped images of the Mayor. In February 2017, it posted a photo of Bhalla with a "Pinocchio" nose. Hudson Mile Square View, which calls itself "Hoboken's biggest website covering government, politics and corruption", has been critical of Bhalla right from the beginning of his mayoral term in 2017. Soon after his election, flyers calling him a terrorist were circulated in the city. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Helio Resource Corp (Helio or the Company; TSX-V: HRC) is pleased to announce that, subject to TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) approval, it has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) on May 14, 2019, with Palamina Corp (TSX-V : PA) to acquire the Gaban gold project and the Tinka Iron Oxide Copper Gold project, both located in Peru. In conjunction with the acquisition, Helio plans to raise between $600,000 and $800,000 through a non-brokered private placement financing to cover the first phase of exploration on the properties and to cover initial working capital (together, with the other matters referenced herein, the Transaction). This is an arms length transaction and no finders fee is payable. Private Placement Terms The proposed financing will consist of up to 10,000,000 Units priced at 6c per Unit, whereby each Unit is comprised of one (1) common share of the Company and one half (1/2) warrant, whereby one full warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share of the Company for 10c per common share at any time within 12 months of closing the financing. Project Acquisition Terms This acquisition of the Gaban and Tinka projects is subject to, in addition to other items, the Company raising a minimum of $600,000. Subject to successful completion of a 30-day due diligence period, and receipt of TSXV approval, Helio will issue to Palamina a total of 10 million common shares of the Company as follows: 5 Million shares immediately upon receipt of TSXV approval for the Transaction; and shares immediately upon receipt of TSXV approval for the Transaction; and The balance of 5 million shares is to be issued within 24 months of TSXV approval of the Transaction, either through disinterested shareholder approval for such issuance or via the issuance of no greater that 19.9% of any future share issuance made by the Company. Palamina will retain a 2% Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalty on each property. Helio will have the right to purchase 50% of each royalty by making a cash payment of $1,000,000 to Palamina at any time prior to the commencement of commercial production. All shares issued will be subject to a 4 month plus one day hold period from the date of issuance. Helio will make an Advance Royalty Payment (ARP) of $25,000 to Palamina on the first and second anniversaries of closing the Transaction. The ARP will double every two years until such time that Helio has either completed a total of 5,000m of drilling or has abandoned the properties. Upon closing of the Transaction, Palamina has the right to nominate one Director to the Board of Helio and can nominate a second Director to stand for election at Helios next annual general meeting. The Gaban Project The Gaban Gold Project covers an area of 17,400 hectares, and surrounds the town of San Gaban in the Puno orogenic gold belt. San Gaban, sitting at an elevation of 550m above sea level, is served by excellent infrastructure and is a 4 hour drive via the Trans-oceanic highway to the Puerto Maldonado airport. A nearby 206MW hydro-electric dam provides power to the town. Palamina staked Gaban to locate the bedrock source of alluvial gold being exploited along the Yanamayo river, which lies wholly within the Gaban project area. At least 10 sets of alluvial mineworkings are known to be exist within the project area. Palamina conducted a stream sediment sampling programme over the Gaban property, collecting a total of 75 samples. Twenty one samples returned assays above detection (5 ppb). Of the 21 samples showing a gold presence, eleven originate from a 5km-long section of the Yanamayo River catchment basin, with assays ranging from 5ppb to 4,891ppb Au (median value of 117ppb Au). In addition, in 2018 Palamina completed a heli-borne magnetic / radiometric survey over the property to identify the possible structural controls for bedrock hosted gold mineralisation. See Palaminas news release of October 29, 2018 on their website at www.palamina.com/news . Palamina has spent approximately US$500,000 to date on the project. The Tinka IOCG Project The Tinka IOCG Project is an early stage exploration target that covers an area of 1,800 hectares. It is located 45 km southeast of the town of Ica (population 280,000) at an elevation of 2,000m, and is 300km southeast of Lima along the Pan-American highway. Shares for Debt Settlement The Company has reached agreement with certain creditors including insiders to settle a total of $90,000 in debts by way of issuance of 1,500,000 common shares of the Company at a deemed price of 6c per share. The shares will be issued, subject to TSXV approval, upon closing of the Transaction. Tanzania (SMP Gold Project) Update The Company continues to work with the Ministry of Mines in Tanzania to find a sensible solution to the Retention Licence issue. Helios SMP project comprises 8 Prospecting Licenses (PLs), 4 Retention Licences (RLs), and one licence under application (see here ). The four Retention Licences are RL 0009 (Saza), RL 0010 (Gap), RL 0011 (Kwaheri), and RL 0012 (Illunga). Under the Tanzanian Mining Act, 2010, Retention Licences were issued to projects where a mineral resource had been identified, but the projects could not be developed to mine status by reason of technical constraints, or other economic factors which are temporary in nature. Changes made in 2017 to the Mining Act (2010) resulted in the Retention Licence classification being abolished and ownership transferred to the Government of Tanzania. The Company has been assured verbally by government officials that the Tanzanian government is not expropriating the ground covered by the Retention Licences and wants to work with the Retention Licence holders to ensure that projects are advanced to the point where a mining licence can be applied for. The Tanzanian government has formed a Mining Commission which will make recommendations for the way forward with regards to the ground covered by Retention Licences. After consultation with ministers from the Ministry of Minerals, Helio has applied for the ground covered by the Retention Licences to be re-issued as Prospecting licences to allow the project to be advanced. However, the Commission has yet to make any recommendations. The SMP Gold Project covers a 200km2 area in the Lupa Goldfields, SW Tanzania and is adjacent to the New Luika Gold Mine, operated by Shanta Gold Limited, an AIM-listed company. On March 26, 2015, Helio released a mineral resource estimate for the SMP Gold Project, comprising an Indicated Resource of 7.5 MT grading 2.4 g/t Au for 590,000 oz Au contained, and an Inferred Resource of 0.56 Mt at 2.5 g/t Au containing 45,000 oz Au. The Indicated Resource is broken down into 5.9 Mt grading 1.8 g/t Au for 332,000 oz inside a pit constrained shell at US$1,400/oz gold price and 1.6 Mt grading 4.9 g/t for 258,000 ounces underground. A NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Mineral Resource Estimate can be viewed here - click here for full details . Mr. Richard Williams, M.Sc. (MinEx), P.Geo, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has supervised the preparation, compilation and review of the geological and technical contents of this press release. Enquiries: Helio Resource Corp Richard Williams (CEO) +1 604 210 8753 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. Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Such forward-looking information is identified by words such as anticipated, "estimates", "intends", "expected", "believes", "may", "will", wants to and include, without limitation, statements regarding the Government of Tanzanias future actions or their undisclosed past actions, the Company's Retention Licences, plan of business operations (including plans for progressing assets), estimates regarding mineral resources, projections regarding mineralization and projected expenditures. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, actions of the Government of Tanzania, or other governments, metal prices, risks inherent in the mining industry, financing risks, labour risks, uncertainty of mineral resource estimates, equipment and supply risks, title disputes, regulatory risks and environmental concerns. Most of these factors are outside the control of the Company. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Ranchi, May 15 : Maoists set ablaze four vehicles involved in road construction work in Jharkhand's Chatra district early on Wednesday, according to police. The Maoists raided a camp office of a road construction company situated at Pathel village. They threatened the labourers there and drove them, before setting on fire the four vehicles parked outside. The denial of levy is said to be the reason for the arson. This year more than 20 vehicles have been torched by the Maoists in different parts of the state. Mumbai, May 15 : Reliance Foundation Chairperson Nita Ambani on Wednesday offered thanksgiving prayers at the famed Siddhi Vinayak Temple here. She also carried the IPL Trophy to the temple, three days after it was won by her team Mumbai Indians last weekend, beating Chennai Super kings in the IPL grand finale. Hundreds of people lined up for a glimpse of Nita Ambani and the IPL trophy near the famous temple dedicated to Lord Ganesha. The Mukesh Ambani family always invokes the blessings of Lord Ganesha on all auspicious occasions. Colombo, May 15 : Sri Lanka has no requirement to bring in the US Army or armies of other countries in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said. His comments came as the country witnessed a spate of attacks on Muslim-owned homes and shops as well as mosques following the April 21 killings by Islamist militants on three churches, three luxury hotels and two other locations which claimed over 250 lives. The carnage was blamed by the Sri Lankan government on local Islamist group National Thowheed Jamath which is believed to have ties with the Islamic State (IS) terror group. The IS claimed the attacks. "We have no need to bring in the armies of the US or any other country. However, when taking measures against an international terror outfit, US intelligence agencies have vast experience and so do intelligence agencies of England, Europe and Australia," Samaraweera was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror on Wednesday. He said only the intelligence expertise of foreign countries was sought to contain the terror situation in the country. The Minister also claimed that security had been restored in the country. "If we love the country, we should allow students to go to schools and get back to our day to day life to restore normalcy. Not only Sri Lanka, even developed countries such as the US, the UK, New Zealand, France and Germany have faced international terror threats." Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Air Force spokesman Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne said that helicopters would be deployed day and night to assist in controlling illegal assemblies and acts of violence in the country. "We have already taken measures to obtain aerial photographic evidence of those involved in such (violent) activities and to direct such evidence for legal action against lawbreakers," he said, adding that helicopters would also be used to airlift troops for rapid response. San Francisco, May 15 : As part of $7.25 million worth of a lawsuit settlement, Google has agreed to pay up to $500 to the owners of faulty Pixel and Pixel XL devices that were manufactured before January 4, 2017. The proposed settlement has grouped owners of the 2016 Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL phones into four categories to determine the level of compensation to which they are entitled. "The highest payout is due to be owed to anyone who returned a Pixel with a defective microphone, only to receive another defective device from the manufacturer. These claimants could be paid up to $500 in the settlement. Any owners who had just a single defective device could get up to $350, while anyone who had to pay an insurance deductible could have its value repaid. Even Pixel owners who experienced no issues with their phones at all could get up to $20 from this settlement," The Verge reported on Tuesday. The search-engine giant first admitted that there was an issue with some of the phones back in March 2017 when it said that less than 1 per cent of Pixel phones had a "hairline crack in the solder connection on the audio codec" which was causing issues with calling and the phone's voice assistant functionality. Less than a year later, the company was slammed with a lawsuit by angry owners against Google's decision of continuously selling the phones despite knowing about the issues, the report added. The court's final hearing on the settlement approval in the Pixel case is due to take place on June 5. Earlier in April, the search-engine giant agreed to settle a lawsuit relating to Nexus 6P devices, which suffered from a bug that could trap them in a boot-looping issue. As part of that lawsuit, Google and Huawei agreed to a $9.75 million settlement and the final decision on that lawsuit is due to be made after a hearing on October 10. New Delhi, May 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi's re-election bid was likely to have hinged on subjects he has tried to showcase during his tenure -- ease of doing business, cutting red tape and the big heave-ho that was delivered to the Indian economy. The term used to describe him early into his prime ministership was "Disruptor". Nationalism was meant to be the muscular padding that kept the vote bank safe. But, General Election 2019 will be known for the virulent abuse-fest that it has become. Each epithet appears to get a momentum all on its own. On May 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at Congress President Rahul Gandhi's father Rajiv Gandhi and said the former PM's life ended as "corrupt no 1". "Your father was termed 'Mr Clean' by his courtiers, but his life ended as 'Bhrashtachari No 1' (corrupt number 1)," he said. That remark drew the battlelines, with forces arraigned on either side -- those who felt insulting a former Prime Minister who had been assassinated was reprehensible and others who felt that being assassinated or martyred did not mean Rajiv Gandhi could not be criticised for his record in government. For the record, the Prime Minister has raised the matter again. Modi is no stranger to personal attacks on him and this election has been no different. As he accused the Bahujan Samaj Party's Mayawati of shedding crocodile tears over the Alwar rape case, the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister countered it by asking, "How can he respect others' sisters and wives when he has left his own wife for political gains? It is my special appeal to women of this country not to vote a person like this. PM Modi, in this election, kept changing his caste according to the situation." Mayawati continued: "In BJP, married women leaders get scared when they see their husbands around PM Modi. They fear that this Modi will separate them from their husbands," she said at the press conference in Lucknow. That very day, the BJP and the Trinamool Congress traded insults in West Bengal. At an election rally, BJP President Amit Shah said about Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, "We will restore the glory of Bengal. Mamata Banerjee has turned 'sonar' (golden) Bangla into 'kangal' (pauper) Bangla. She is only interested in protecting infiltrators to secure her vote bank. But her vote bank won't be able to save her from imminent defeat." Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien retaliated with the words "puke-worthy" and low life in a tweet, "That puke-worthy Shah had the audacity to use the term 'Kangal Bangla' today at a rally. The people of Bengal will give him and Modi a fitting reply in Phase 7. That #LowLife insults Bengal." BJP members say that Congress should be blamed for lowering the discourse. They point in this connection to the 'Chowkidar chor hai' slogan coined by Rahul Gandhi. The sharp personal attack on Rajiv Gandhi, political observers believe, has been triggered by this very remark. The Prime Minister and BJP members have consistently targeted the former Prime Minister on corruption and for allegedly using the INS Viraat to host friends on a holiday trip. For their part, some indefatigable Modi baiters in the Congress have shown no signs of backing down. One of them is the former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar who justified the offensive 'Neech Aadmi' remark against the Prime Minister -- he was suspended by the Congress for two years following that remark -- in two opinion pieces. That was preceded by Sam Pitroda's "Hua to hua" remark on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In response, head of BJP's IT cell Amit Malviya tweeted: "Upset that Sam Pitroda was getting all the attention, the irrepressible Mani Shankar Aiyar pulls Pitroda's foot out of his mouth and puts it in his..." Faridkot/Ludhiana, May 15 : Taking the SAD-BJP combine head-on over the sacrilege issue, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday warned of strong action against the culprits behind the Bargari and other cases of desecration of the holy scriptures. Recalling his earlier visit to the region, which was rocked by a spate of sacrilege incidents and the 2015 Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing incidents, Gandhi said those who insulted religious scriptures did not deserve any mercy. Two people were killed and many others injured in Behbal Kalan village on October 15, 2015, when police resorted to unprovoked firing on hundreds of people protesting the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Bargari village in Faridkot days ago. Addressing rallies, along with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, in support of the Congress candidate Mohammad Sadique from Faridkot and Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana, Gandhi lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for insulting Punjab, and the rest of India, by claiming that no development was done in 70 years and the nation was sleeping till he came to power. "Where were you when the Punjab farmers were driving the Green Revolution?" he asked Modi, lashing out at the Prime Minister for believing that he alone could run the country. It is the people of India who are running the country with their blood and sweat, he said, asserting that the Congress believed in taking every Indian, irrespective of caste, region, community, along for the development of the nation. While reiterating employment generation and farmer welfare as the key priorities of the Congress, the Congress President reached out to the people in Ludhiana with the promise to put all the party's strength into reviving small and medium businesses. India cannot challenge China without 'Made in Ludhiana', which has to be an integral part of 'Make in India', he said, adding that without reviving small and medium businesses even employment generation could not be successful. Listing NYAY, a separate farmers' budget, and promise of employment for youth as the major planks of the Congress manifesto, Gandhi said the Modi government had not only failed the people on all counts but had stolen money from the people to fill the pockets of a handful of rich industrialists. Questioning what had happened to Modi's promise of 'achche din', he said after five years Modi was not talking of any subject on which he had come to power, including jobs, Rs 15 lakh in individual bank accounts, doubling of farm income and corruption. From making fun of Manmohan Singh and his progressive economic policies, Modi had ended up becoming the butt of India's joke in five years, having cheated the nation with his brazen lies and open deception. Modi had ruined the nation's economy, which NYAY would revive, said Gandhi. Modi's fear was showing in his pre-written media interviews with prepared answers to planned questions, said Gandhi, ridiculing the Prime Minister over his 'personal' interview, in which he spoke only of irrelevant things like how he eats mangoes and how he fits his clothes into the suitcase. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, in his address, asked the people to decide if they wanted the current Prime Minister, who thinks like the Akalis and tries to destroy the nation's secular fabric by trying to polarise the people, or someone who respects all religions and considers all Indians as one. The Chief Minister lashed out at the Akalis for destroying Punjab's economy, which his government was trying to revive with the limited resources available to them. Despite the fiscal crunch, his government had launched the farm loan waiver scheme, becoming the only state to give up to Rs 2 lakh under it. He reiterated his demand for in toto implementation of the M.S. Swaminathan Committee report to make agriculture remunerative for farmers. Kolkata, May 15 : As the Lok Sabha battle in West Bengal reaches the home stretch, Bengal Renaissance figure Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar has now become a poll issue following the vandalism of his statue during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow here. The desecration of the polymath's bust has caused severe resentment among a huge section of the Bengal society, where he is revered for his contribution to women's education, widow remarriage and various other social and educational reforms. With nine remaining constituencies in Bengal set to go to polls in the seventh and final phase on Sunday, all major parties are going all out to make capital out of the incident that occurred during clash between activists of the ruling party's student wing, the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party. It all started with the TMCP members of Calcutta University positioning themselves outside its College Street gate to show black flags to Shah, who was leading a road show from Shahid Minar to Swami Vievekananda's house onn north Kolkata's Simla Street. As the rallyists came close to the university, they tried to prevent the students from showing black flags to Shah by putting up giant cut-outs to block their view. Music was also played at a very high level so that the students' slogans against Shah ('Gali gali me shor hain, Amit Shah chor hai') became inaudible. The TMCP activists alleged that water bottles, stones and bricks were pelted at them, resulting in a number of them getting injured. On the other hand, the BJP alleged that rallyists were attacked with stones and bricks, a version seconded by no other than Shah himself. The clashes broke out after the rally passed the area, with the two groups fighting pitched battles with bricks, stones, iron rods and sticks. The violence also spread to the nearby Vidyasagar College where also a large group of TMCP members had camped to protest against the road show. Motorbikes were set ablaze, and the clashing groups flung chairs and guard rails on each other. While the students alleged that BJP members vandalised the college, and also shattered Vidyasagar's bust, the BJP pointed fingers at Trinamool. Addressing media in Delhi on Wednesday, Shah claimed there were three attacks targeting his road show, but the state police remained mere spectators. He also accused Banerjee of conspiring to vandalise Vidyasagar's statue in an effort to gain sympathy. "The gate of the college was closed and the BJP workers were outside. Trinamool goons were pelting stones from inside. This was a conspiracy and drama by Mamata Banerjee to gain sympathy," he said, showing video clips and photos purportedly taken in the aftermath of the trouble to claim that the bust was unharmed till then. In an angry outburst after the incident, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee blamed the BJP for trying to destroy Bengal's heritage. "We are ashamed that Vidysagar's bust was vandalised. Do they (BJP) know who Vidyasagar was? I will not spare anyone if Bengal's heritage is destroyed," she said. She first directed state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee to rush to the spot, and later went there herself. Chatterjee also cited a video to buttress his point that the BJP members had broken open the gate. "Can they show that anyone is throwing stones from inside the gates? Just see the dresses the people are wearing in this video, everything will be clear." Banerjee, accusing the BJP of bringing "miscreants" from other states for the road show, also announced an inquiry into the matter, while city Police Commissioner Rajesh Kumar said around 100 people had been rounded up. On Banerjee's instruction, all Trinamool leaders made Vidyasagar's image their profile picture on all social media platforms - WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook. Trinamool leaders and intellectuals also brought out a protest march in north Kolkata, while the party took out protest rallies in Hooghly, Howrah, Bankura and West Burdwan districts. Not to be left behind, the Left Front held a rally led by CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and Left Front Chairman Biman Bose from Vidyasagar Uddyan in central Kolkata's College Square to Azad Hind Bag near Hedua. The Congress condemned the incident and said no party with a minimum sense of democracy could have caused such an incident. "Those who vandalised Vidyasagar's bust, can't be called political workers. This is yet another prove that the political culture of Bengal has been destroyed," said state Congress chief Somen Mitra. Defending his party, BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said: "The disturbance was the result of instigation." However, a political analyst said the matter would have little impact on the final phase of polls. "The political parties are making it an issue. But I think it will have a little impact on the voters. It might have impacted the intellectuals but Bengalis are rational and they will think logically before casting their votes," analyst Bimal Shankar Nanda told IANS. San Francisco, May 15 : IT and performance management company Riverbed on Wednesday announced "SaaS Accelerator", a new solution that claims to improve the performance of leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps by up to 10 times. When "SaaS Accelerator" is combined with "End User Experience Monitoring" (part of Riverbed's Digital Experience Management offering), organizations can directly measure and monitor in real time the performance of SaaS-based enterprise applications by up to 10 times, the company said in a statement. "Companies today are in varying stages of digital transformation, even within their own businesses. Riverbed's new release is targeted to address specific challenges organizations are facing in their digital journeys and in assuring cloud and SaaS performance," said Dante Malagrino, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Infrastructure Business Unit. By 2020, companies will move as much as 80 per cent of their applications into Cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) environment. However, firms are falling short of delivering on this promise with 73 per cent reporting that they are experiencing poor SaaS performance on a monthly basis and 90 per cent indicating that this performance degradation impacts their business. The "SaaS Accelerator" solution can dramatically improve user experience and business outcomes by eliminating performance gaps and disruptions that interfere with an employee's ability to stay connected, satisfied and productive. Riverbed also announced enhancements to its SD-WAN solutions (SteelConnect and SteelHead SD), which provide unified orchestration and connectivity across the entire distributed enterprise network with embedded security, optimization and visibility. Indore, May 15 : A tribal woman, in her early 30s, is fighting for her life in the Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital here after an unusual surgery to remove an object forced into her uterus by her husband over a year ago. Her husband, Prakash alias Rama Bhil, was arrested on Monday by the Chandan Nagar police on her complaint. A team of gynaecologists, urologists and anaesthetists led by Dr Sumit Shukla and Dr Sonia Moses performed a gruelling five-hour surgery on Monday to remove the woman's badly-bruised uterus after the plastic grip of the motorcycle handle was extricated. The woman, who has suffered excessive blood loss due to injuries to her urinary bladder, small intestine and uterus, has been kept under intensive care. Doctors say her condition, after keeping her under observation for three days, will prompt the next course of treatment. The infection would have spread to other parts of body if the surgery was delayed any further, the hospital authorities said. Police Inspector Rahul Sharma said the woman had visited the hospital in January when an x-ray had shown the object in her body, but she avoided treatment and left. Once the pain became unbearable again, she approached a woman constable to narrate her ordeal. The constable first admitted her to the hospital and then arrested her husband. The woman had tried to lodge a complaint with the police earlier too, but was turned away without hearing. According to police, Prakash had acted in a drunken rage when she had questioned him over his relationship with another woman. The couple have four children, including three girls, but they have been left to fend for themselves in the absence of both parents. Taki : , May 15 (IANS) Accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of orchestrating the attack on BJP President Amit Shah during his roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that attempts were being made to terrorise and intimidate the saffron party activists. Addressing an election rally here in the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency, Modi said the attack on Shah's roadshow in College Street came days after Banerjee vowed to take revenge against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "Mamata 'didi' had publicly announced two days ago that she will take revenge inch by inch against the BJP. Within 24 hours of her announcement, she orchestrated the attack on BJP President Amit Shah during his roadshow. There were attempts to terrorise and intimidate the BJP supporters," he alleged. Modi also said that Banerjee was scared by the BJP wave in West Bengal. "The whole country saw the images in Kolkata yesterday. Today the whole nation is discussing about it. The BJP wave in Bengal has scared 'didi'. The country and the whole world can see the level she has descended to," Modi said, referring to the clashes between the members of the Trinamool Congress' student wing and saffron party activists during Shah's roadshow. Alleging that Banerjee's Bengal was an example of misrule, Modi said the people of the state have decided to free themselves from the "autocratic rule of didi" in the coming days. Members of the BJP and the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) got involved in violent clashes during Shah's roadshow in the College Street area on Tuesday after TMCP activists showed black flags to Shah and shouted slogans against him from outside the Calcutta University campus. The violence also spread to the nearby Vidyasagar College, where a large group of TMCP members had camped to protest against Shah's roadshow. A bust of 19th century social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was seen lying shattered, with the TMCP activists blaming the BJP, while the saffron party functionaries pointed fingers at the Trinamool. Modi also said that a section of students of the Calcutta University have started to reveal "the dirty politics" of Banerjee and her party leaders who were behind Tuesday's clashes which left a number of persons injured on both sides. HOUSTON, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Targa Resources Partners LP (Targa Resources Partners or the Partnership) (NYSE: NGLS PR A) announced its monthly distribution on the Partnerships 9.00% Series A Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units ("Series A Preferred Units") for May 2019. Targa Resources Partners LP announced today that the board of directors of its general partner has declared a monthly cash distribution of 18.75 per Series A Preferred Unit, or $2.25 per Series A Preferred Unit on an annualized basis, for May 2019. This cash distribution will be paid June 17, 2019 on all outstanding Series A Preferred Units to holders of record as of the close of business on May 31, 2019. About Targa Resources Partners LP Targa Resources Partners LP is a Delaware limited partnership formed in October 2006 by its parent, Targa Resources Corp. (TRC or the Company), to own, operate, acquire and develop a diversified portfolio of complementary midstream energy assets. On February 17, 2016 TRC completed the acquisition of all outstanding common units of the Partnership. Targa Resources Corp. is a leading provider of midstream services and is one of the largest independent midstream energy companies in North America. Targa owns, operates, acquires, and develops a diversified portfolio of complementary midstream energy assets. The Company is primarily engaged in the business of: gathering, compressing, treating, processing, transporting and selling natural gas; storing, fractionating, treating, transporting, and selling natural gas liquids (NGL(s)) and NGL products, including services to LPG exporters; gathering, storing, terminaling, and selling crude oil; and storing, terminaling, and selling refined petroleum products. The principal executive offices of Targa Resources Partners LP are located at 811 Louisiana, Suite 2100, Houston, TX 77002 and their telephone number is 713-584-1000. For more information, please visit our website at www.targaresources.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this release that address activities, events or developments that the Partnership expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to a number of uncertainties, factors and risks, many of which are outside the Partnerships control, which could cause results to differ materially from those expected by management of the Partnership. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, weather, political, economic and market conditions, including a decline in the price and market demand for natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil, the timing and success of business development efforts; and other uncertainties. These and other applicable uncertainties, factors and risks are described more fully in the Partnership's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Partnership does not undertake an obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This release is intended to be a qualified notice under Treasury Regulation Section 1.1446-4(b). Brokers and nominees should treat one hundred percent (100.0%) of Targa Resources Partners LPs distributions to foreign investors as being attributable to income that is effectively connected with a United States trade or business. Accordingly, Targa Resources Partners LPs distributions to foreign investors are subject to federal income tax withholding at the highest applicable effective tax rate. Contact the Company's investor relations department by email at InvestorRelations@targaresources.com or by phone at (713) 584-1133. Sanjay Lad Senior Director, Finance & Investor Relations Jennifer Kneale Chief Financial Officer Taki : , May 15 (IANS) Hitting out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the arrest of state BJP youth wing leader for posting a meme on her, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked Banerjee to paint the "worst possible picture" of him, assuring that he will not lodge an FIR against her. Accusing Banerjee of arrogance and intolerance, Modi said the Trinamool Congress supremo has taken Bengal back to the "era of emergency" and has waged war not against the BJP but the people of the state. "Why so much anger over just one picture? Didi, you call yourself an artist, a painter. I have heard that your pictures are sold in crores of rupees in the name of Narada and Saradha. "Today, I want to tell you something in order to cool down your anger. Paint the worst possible picture of me and present it to me after May 23 when I take oath as the Prime Minister again. I will accept it with love and keep that with me throughout my life. I will not lodge an FIR against you," he said evoking massive cheers from the crowd. Yuva Morcha leader Priyanka Sharma was accused of sharing on social media a photo of the Trinamool Congress supremo photo-shopped on a picture of Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra from last week's MET Gala event in New York City. She was arrested on May 10 on a complaint by a Trinamool Congress leader under Section 500 (Defamation) of the Indian Penal Code and under other provisions of the Information Technology Act. Referring to an incident few years back, when the Trinamool Congress supremo walked out of a television interview and tagged two female college students as "Maoists" after they asked her certain questions about her party leaders, Modi said Banerjee's arrogance was not new. He said the situation in Bengal is such that the BJP leaders are not allowed to address rallies there, voters are being stopped from casting votes, BJP candidates are being attacked, and people chanting the name of Lord Ram are thrown into jail. "Even Netaji Subhas chandra Bose's grand nephew is not spared by your goons," Modi said referring to Chandra Kumar Bose, BJP's Lok Sabha candidate from the South Kolkata seat. "Didi, where are you taking Bengal? I remember that something like this had happened during the election held after the Emergency in the country. You have taking Bengal back to the era of emergency. Your oppression is not limited to the BJP activists alone. You have started a war against the people. Bengal will teach you a lesson by silently voting for the lotus (BJP)," he alleged. Accusing Banerjee of only thinking about her vote bank and not about Bengal's development, he said: "She hopes that her extortionist gangs and infiltrator gangs will keep on thieving like this. But her dream is about to end. "When the BJP government will come back to power on May 23, we will identify all the infiltrators and take actions against the miscreants here." Washington, May 15 : The US State Department on Wednesday ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees from Iraq amid increasing tensions with Iran and warned American citizens not to travel to the country, citing a "high risk for violence and kidnapping". The announcement comes on the heels of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's unannounced trip to Iraq where he said he spoke to officials about the country's ability to protect Americans. The action also represents the latest manoeuvering by the Donald Trump administration in the Middle East, where the Pentagon has positioned a carrier strike group and a bomber task force, CNN reported. The department said in a statement that employees working in the US Embassy in Baghdad and the US Consulate in Erbil were instructed to leave Iraq and that "normal visa services will be temporarily suspended at both posts". According to the statement, American Citizens Services employees who were working in the Embassy in Baghdad "will continue to provide consular services to US citizens in Basra". The department said the sudden changes came due to the US government's "ability to provide routine and emergency services to US citizens in Iraq is extremely limited" and that as a result, the threat of "terrorism, kidnapping and armed conflict" aimed at Americans in the country was too great a risk. It added that Americans "should not travel through Iraq to Syria to engage in armed conflict" as they may face similar threats there and face "legal risks" from both Washington and Damascus. The orders from the State Department come a day after US Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said that the Pentagon has increased the threat risk for US troops in Iraq and Syria. There is a tense situation in the Middle East after President Trump decided not to re-issue the sanctions waivers for major importers to continue buying Iran's oil when they expired in early May. Patna, May 15 : Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said that neither the BJP nor the NDA it leads will be able to form a government after the Lok Sabha elections. On the other hand, a non-BJP, non-NDA government would be formed, he told the media. Azad said that Narendra Modi would not become the Prime Minister for a second time. "The elections are in the last phase. I can say that neither a BJP nor a NDA government will be formed. It is my assessment after visiting all over the country," he said. The former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister said the BJP would be reduced to 125 seats in the Lok Sabha but he refused to say how many the Congress was likely to win. Without naming Congress President Rahul Gandhi, he said it would be better that after the elections a consensus should emerge that the government should be led by a Congress leader. New Delhi, May 15 : India's merchandise exports inched up 0.64 per cent, on a year-on-year basis in April, to $26.07 billion from $25.91 billion reported for the corresponding month of last year, official data showed on Wednesday. As per the data furnished by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, petroleum products, electronic goods, organic and inorganic chemicals and drugs and pharmaceuticals showed high export growth during the month under review. However, non-petroleum and non-gems and jewellery exports in April fell by 1.31 per cent to $19.54 billion from $19.80 billion. On the other hand, imports grew by 4.48 per cent to $41.40 billion, from $39.63 billion reported for the corresponding month of 2018. Oil imports in April were $11.38 billion, which was 9.26 per cent higher in dollar terms, compared to $10.41 billion in April 2018," the ministry said. "Non-oil imports in April 2019 were estimated at $30.02 billion which was 2.78 per cent higher in dollar terms, compared to $29.21 billion in April 2018." On an overall basis, India's exports including merchandise and services in April are estimated to have grown by 1.34 per cent to $44.06 billion over April 2018. "Overall imports in April is estimated to be $52.83 billion, exhibiting a positive growth of 4.53 per cent over April 2018," the ministry said. Chennai, May 15 : City-based Murugappa Group plans to invest about Rs 1,250 crore this fiscal towards expansion of its facilities in a bid to log double digit growth, top company officials said on Wednesday. Murugappa Group President and CFO Sridharan Rangarajan said the company will invest about Rs 1,250 crore in expansion. Of this, Rs 200 crore will be towards Information Technology (IT) in group companies Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company Ltd and Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company Limited. "Last year, we invested Rs 753 crore in expansion of some of our facilities," Rangarajan said. The group plans to start a housing finance company after obtaining the required regulatory permissions for it. Group company Carborundum Universal Ltd has already acquired lithium ion battery technology from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The idea is to understand the technology and look at supplying materials to the makers of such batteries, said Executive Chairman M.M. Murugappan. The diversified industrial group reported a profit of Rs 79 crore in 2018-19 compared to Rs 28 crore a year ago, on the back of its businesses like nutraceuticals and the sale of its biomass business, Murugappan told reporters here. He said group company E.I.D.Parry (India) Limited had mothballed two sugar mills in Tamil Nadu following a sugarcane shortage due to drought and shut a sugar mill in Puducherry due to some legal complications. E.I.D.Parry now has two sugar mills functioning in Tamil Nadu, three in Karnataka and one in Andhra Pradesh. "Economic uncertainty is a combination of several factors. We hope the situation improves soon. We don't have any plans to exit the sugar business," said Murugappan. New Delhi, May 15 : In an unprecedented decision, the Election Commission on Wednesday ordered that campaigning for the final round of the Lok Sabha polls on Sunday will halt in West Bengal at 10 p.m. on Thursday. The campaigning would have originally ended at 5 p.m. on Friday -- as it would do in the rest of the country which will see voting on Sunday. The announcement follows violence in Kolkata during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow on Tuesday. New Delhi, May 15 : Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur has become the first judge from the Indian apex court to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Fiji's non-resident panel for a period of three years. Speaking to IANS, Lokur said: "I have been invited by the Chief Justice of the Fiji Supreme Court to be a part of the apex court there. I found the offer very interesting and accepted it." Lokur confirmed that he will be the first judge from the Supreme Court of India to be appointed at the Fiji Supreme Court. A large number of people of Indian origin live in Fiji. While Lokur had received the offer letter from the Chief Justice of Fiji on December 31, 2018, the day he retired from the Supreme Court, he has now decided to accept the offer and will join in his new role on August 15. He has not been to Fiji before. Emphasising that his experience in the Supreme Court would certainly be a value-addition in his new role, Lokur said: "I will learn about their justice delivery system." The Supreme Court of Fiji has two sessions in a year, split across four weeks. Lokur said: "I am certainly excited to work with the judges of other countries. I hope this comes across as a great opportunity to contribute towards the jurisprudence of Fiji; with my experience in the Indian judiciary, I would certainly want to strengthen their justice delivery system." Lokur also said that he was a part of the Mediation Committee of the Supreme Court of India since 2005, an initiative which led to the settlement of around 2 lakh cases. When asked, if given a chance would he utilise his mediation skills in Fiji, he answered in the affirmative. Lokur was appointed as a Supreme Court judge on June 4, 2012. He was first appointed as an Additional Judge of the Delhi High Court in February 1999. In July the same year, he became a permanent judge. Later, he became the Chief Justice of Guwahati High Court and then Andhra Pradesh High Court before being elevated to the Supreme Court. Lokur had made a mark for himself during his tenure on the Social Justice bench of the Supreme Court where he conducted hearing of several important cases related to farmers, migrant labours and construction workers, who often struggle for justice. Colombo, May 15 : The Sri Lanka military on Wednesday said the situation in the country was now "totally under control" and 78 people were arrested after anti-Muslim clashes this week in several areas that left one person dead and dozens of shops and mosques destroyed. A military official said a high security contingency remained on the ground in the North-Western Province and Gampaha district on the outskirts of Colombo which were affected by the unrest on Monday, but there were no incidents of violence on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, a curfew was re-imposed in the North Western Province and Gampaha district till 4 a.m. Thursday to prevent further tensions. The nationwide curfew that was in force since Monday night was lifted on Wednesday morning, the Daily Mirror reported. Police spokesperson S.P. Ruwan Gunasekara said the 78 suspects were detained and remanded in connection with violence in the North-Western Province during which a Muslim man was stabbed to death while over 500 rioters torched Muslim-owned shops, homes and vandalized mosques on Monday. These people were arrested from Kurunegala, Kuliyapitiya, Nikaweratiya and Chilaw areas. Gunasekara said investigations were ongoing to apprehend more suspects. "The police are inspecting the video clips... We hope to arrest all the perpetrators soon." Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, meanwhile, on Wednesday urged all members of political parties to maintain law and order and not to aggravate the already sensitive situation in the Buddhist-majority country. "The responsibility of protecting all citizens and maintaining law and order by us as leaders is the need of the hour," he tweeted. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also asked the Ministers not to comment on the investigations into the horrific Easter suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State which left over 250 people dead and hundreds wounded. "What we require now is not to reveal everything related to the investigations to the media and try scoring points but ensure the investigations are completed swiftly." The government has assured the safety of all communities and warned of stern action against anyone spreading hate. Air Force spokesman Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne said that helicopters would be deployed day and night to assist in controlling illegal assemblies and acts of violence in the country. "We have already taken measures to obtain aerial photographic evidence of those involved in such (violent) activities and to direct such evidence for legal action against lawbreakers," he said, adding that helicopters would also be used to airlift troops for rapid response. Tensions have been running high in Sri Lanka since the Easter Sunday bombers targeted three churches, three luxury hotels and two other locations. Bengaluru, May 15 : Global financial services firm Morgan Stanley Infrastructure's Indian arm on Wednesday announced Rs 145 crore investment in HealthMaP Diagnostics Ltd, a subsidiary of Manipal Health Enterprise Ltd, to expand its chain of diagnostic imaging centres across the country. "The initial investment is Rs 100 crore in HealthMaP, a public-private partnership initiative for diagnostic imaging in Indian healthcare," Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure said in a statement here. In view of shortage of affordable diagnostic imaging services, the four-year-old HealthMap is partnering with state-run hospitals across the country and has concessions to operate 37 centres across states like Haryana and Jharkhand. "Our business is a 'shop-in-shop' model in which we own and operate the diagnostic imaging units inside the hospitals on long-term contracts," it said, adding it proposes to expand its footprint to 75 centres over the next three years. "As millions of citizens are pushed into poverty because of healthcare emergencies and costs, early diagnostic imaging can help them avoid them but the cost of the tests are a deterrent," it said, adding it seeks to make diagnostic imaging available to the common man at an affordable cost. "With universal healthcare scheme Ayushman Bharat, HealthMap plans to partner with private hospitals to set up facilities for diagnostics and treatment of cardiac ailments or cancer and increase access for patients in the under-served states," Manipal Health Enterprises Managing Director Dilip Jose said in the statement. Backed by investors like Temasek and TPG, Manipal Health Enterprises provides healthcare services through 11 multi-specialty hospitals in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Rajasthan and Goa. "We are partnering with the Manipal group at an inflection point in the affordable healthcare revolution in the sub-continent, which has the world's largest universal healthcare coverage programme," Morgan Stanley Managing Director Raja Parthasarathy said. "The public-private partnership is a huge opportunity in healthcare to deliver the best diagnostic at affordable cost to the masses," said HealthMaP Chief Executive Niraj Arora in the statement. Hapur, May 15 : Shyampur Jatt village in Hapur that came into limelight after a woman alleged that she was sold by her father for Rs 10,000 and was raped multiple times by the villagers, had no criminal case recorded against any one in the last two years, police said. The village is located on the Hapur bypass about 23 km east from the Hapur district headquarters. A senior police officer of Hapur district requesting anonymity told IANS, "The law and order situation in the village is very satisfactory. There have been no cases registered against any people of the Shyampur Jatt village in the last two years," he said. He said minor issues were sorted out by the gram panchayat. His remarks come only three days after the Uttar Pradesh Police registered a case of rape against 16 people from the village following the 28-year-old woman's complaint that she had been raped by 14 people. The rape case also names two women of the village. The woman is now in hospital with 35 per cent burns after she allegedly tried to immolate herself. Rajan Sirohi, Gram Pradhan of Shyampur Jatt, said the people the woman had named in the FIR are between 18 and 55 years of age. "If any such thing had happened in the village, it would have been impossible to hide. So, yesterday we have requested the ADG (Additional Director General of Police) in Meerut to take action after verifying the allegations and collecting evidence," Sirohi said. He said the villagers were also summoned by the police on Tuesday evening by Yesh Veer Singh, Superintendent of Police, Hapur. "We have presented our side of the story to the police, we want a fair probe so that no innocent is arrested," Sirohi said. The senior police officer said there were discrepancies in the woman's complaint. "First, she has said in her complaint that she was married at the age of 14. However, her father says she was married at the age of 19. He has also provided her Aadhaar card which says she was born in 1991. "Then in the second marriage affidavit, she has mentioned that her first husband died in a road accident, but he deposed before us yesterday (Tuesday)," he said. The officer also pointed out that the police were not informed immediately after she had attempted immolation on April 28. "The police came to know about the incident only after the hospital informed the Moradabad police through a memo record," he said, adding that these things were complicating the case. Regarding her burn injuries, the officer said a team from the Hapur police had been sent to Moradabad to get details in the case. "A police team, led by senior officers, have visited the house where the woman was staying in Moradabad to find out about how she got the burn injuries. The officers have also spoken to her neighbours. So the details will be out soon," he said. The woman's first husband said on Wednesday that he had deposed before the police on Tuesday. He said when he was married to the woman, the girl's family had accused him of dowry harassment. "They filed a police complaint in 2011. We gave our statement to the then Circle Officer, who dismissed the matter after the case was found to be untrue," he said. The Uttar Pradesh Police registered an FIR on May 12 but no arrests have been made in the case as yet. (Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in) TORONTO, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc. (CSSC) announces that it acquired 92,600 trust units (Units) of Crius Energy Trust (the Issuer) on May 14, 2019 at a price of CDN$8.70 per Unit, representing an aggregate price of CDN$805,620, which represents approximately 0.16% of the issued and outstanding Units of the Issuer. Immediately before the acquisition, CSSC held 6,734,300 Units, which represent approximately 11.90% of the issued and outstanding Units of the Issuer. Immediately following the acquisition, CSSC held 6,826,900 Units of the Issuer, which represent approximately 12.06% of the issued and outstanding Units of the Issuer and as of the date of this media release, CSSC has ownership and control of 6,840,100 Units of the Issuer, which represent approximately 12.08% of the issued and outstanding Units of the Issuer. CSSC acquired the Units through the Toronto Stock Exchange for hedging and other investment purposes in the normal course of its business and not with the purpose of influencing the control or direction of the Issuer. CSSC holds the Units as principal and is the sole beneficial owner of the Units. Additionally, the decision on whether/how to vote the Units is made solely by CSSC (i.e., there is no influence from, nor any solicitation of the voting preferences of, third parties). CSSC may in the future, subject to market conditions, make additional investments in or dispositions of the Issuers securities for hedging and other investment purposes. However, CSSC does not intend to acquire 20% or more of the outstanding securities of the Issuer. This news release is issued by CSSC pursuant to the requirements of National Instrument 62103 The Early Warning System and Related TakeOver Bid and Insider Reporting Issues. Further details regarding the acquisition of the Units described above and a copy of the early warning report filed under applicable Canadian securities laws in connection with the acquisition are available on the Issuers profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or to obtain a copy of the early warning report filed in conjunction with this news release, please contact Karina Byrne. Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc. 1 First Canadian Place Suite 2900, P.O. Box 301 Toronto, Ontario Canada M5X 1C9 Press Contact Karina Byrne, Credit Suisse AG, telephone +1 212 538 8361, karina.byrne@credit-suisse.com Credit Suisse AG Credit Suisse AG is one of the world's leading financial services providers and is part of the Credit Suisse group of companies (referred to here as 'Credit Suisse'). Our strategy builds on Credit Suisse's core strengths: its position as a leading wealth manager, its specialist investment banking capabilities and its strong presence in our home market of Switzerland. We seek to follow a balanced approach to wealth management, aiming to capitalize on both the large pool of wealth within mature markets as well as the significant growth in wealth in Asia Pacific and other emerging markets, while also serving key developed markets with an emphasis on Switzerland. Credit Suisse employs approximately 46,200 people. The registered shares (CSGN) of Credit Suisse AG's parent company, Credit Suisse Group AG, are listed in Switzerland and, in the form of American Depositary Shares (CS), in New York. Further information about Credit Suisse can be found at www.credit-suisse.com. Copyright 2019, CREDIT SUISSE GROUP AG and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Kibber: A photograph of a snow leopard clicked by wildlife photographer Saurabh Desai has gone viral on social media after many netizens found it hard to spot the animal on a rocky mountain covered with patches of now. Image Source: IANS News Kibber: A photograph of a snow leopard clicked by wildlife photographer Saurabh Desai has gone viral on social media after many netizens found it hard to spot the animal on a rocky mountain covered with patches of now. Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, May 15 : A photograph of a snow leopard clicked by wildlife photographer Saurabh Desai has gone viral on social media after many netizens found it hard to spot the animal on a rocky mountain with patches of snow. Desai, who clicked the photograph during his visit to the Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, shared the image on his Instagram account with the caption "Art of camouflage. The image soon went viral, garnering over 14,000 likes. Many netizens found it difficult to spot the camouflaged big cat and challenged their friends to do the same. "Man. I have been staring at it for a while. What the hell is it," wrote one Instagram user, while another user said: "Was taken aback when I noticed those eyes! Inspired!" Desai visited the Kibber village, believed to be the highest motorable village in the world, and caught a glimpse of the snow leopard at a place 8 km from the village. Also called the 'Ghost of the Mountain', snow leopards in Himachal Pradesh are usually found at an altitude between 9,800 feet and 17,000 feet in high and rugged terrains. Their habitat ranges from the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary in Lahaul and Spiti to Pangi in Chamba district and Lippa Asrang in the tribal Kinnaur district. Diamond Harbour : , May 15 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew cum Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek, accusing them of running the "bua-bhatija model of governance" and turning "Ganatantra" (democracy) into "Gundatantra" (hooliganism). Addressing a public rally in Diamond Harbour, where Abhishek Banerjee is contesting as a Trinamool Congress candidate, he said that the 'Bhatija's' has no chance of winning as people here are looking for a change. "In West Bengal, your vote will decide if the decades-old politics of bloodshed in the state will stop or not. You will have to decide if you want to save democracy. In the 'Bua-Bhatija model of governance', people of Bengal are living in utter fear except the infiltrators, cow smugglers, women traffickers, syndicates, extortionists, chit fund leaders, coal and sand mafias. These people are immune to the fear. "The way the aunt and nephew gang has demeaned Bengal, there is rebellion against it. Due to frustration, Didi is openly talking about taking revenge inch by inch. This is not the time to seek revenge, it is time for a change in Bengal. All your desires will stay unfulfilled and the change will come. Trust me this time, Didi's nephew chances are zero," he said. Modi also accused Banerjee, the sitting MP from Diamond Harbour of constructing his office by illegally occupying the road. "I have also been told that as per Trinamool's traditions, nephew's office is also constructed by illegally occupying the road. Didi, you have earned so much, the party has accumulated money through extortion, then why did your nephew illegally take the land kept for the road," he asked. Answering his own question, he said: "One cannot do away with the habit of looting." Attacking the Chief Minister Banerjee, Modi said she has doubled the negativity in her by taking the bad points of the erstwhile Left government. Referring to the incident of violence and vandalism during BJP President Amit Shah's rally in Kolkata on Tuesday, he said "the daughters and youth of Bengal" resisted the "balls of fire" hurled at Shah and fellow BJP activists by the Trinamool Congress. New Delhi, May 15 : A four-member Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation of Rajya Sabha MPs on Wednesday handed over to the Election Commission (EC) some video clippings of the violence that occurred during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata on Tuesday in which a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised at the college named after the social reformer. The delegation, comprising Derek O'Brien, Manish Gupta, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy and Nadimul Haque, also requested the Commission to take necessary steps over the incident which it claimed was orchestrated by supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "What happened yesterday was very bad. Outsiders were brought in. They did not accept the democratic protest carried out peacefully by the students with black placards in Kolkata... They jumped over the gate and vandalised Vidyasagar's statue. There are credible video footages to show that," O'Brien told the media after visiting the EC. The Trinamool leader further said that it was the saddest moment ever for his party which has been in existence for the last 20 years. "The greatness of Vidyasagar as an educationist, social reformer and a great human being is known not only in Bengal, but everywhere in India. Today we are not only angry, but also disappointed. Everyone in the state learn Bengali alphabets by studying the 'Bornoporichoy', which was the creation of the great man." He said that Amit Shah's press conference on Wednesday once again proved that he was a "liar". "The video footage we showed to the Election Commission today has evidence. Proof number one is that everybody who jumped the gate in the Vidyasagar College belonged to the BJP, which could be made out from the colour of their clothes. "The second proof is that they were caught on camera breaking the statue. Do not believe what I am saying, believe what you see in the videos we presented before the Election Commission," O'Brien said. He also mocked Shah for saying in an election rally 10 days ago that Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was born in Birbhum in West Bengal. "He (Shah) did not know that Tagore was born in Jorasanko in Kolkata." Slamming the BJP President for saying Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had turned 'sonar' (golden) Bangla into 'kangal' (pauper) Bangla, O'Brien said: "We live in the hope that the people of Bengal will see through (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and Shah. They are trying to use the same trick they used in Gujarat everywhere." Referring to Modi calling Mamata Banerjee a "speed breaker", the Trinamool leader said: "For once I agreed with Modi. Mamata Banerjee is a speed breaker. She was a speed breaker for him in 2014, when despite sweeping all over the country, the BJP stumbled in West Bengal. Mr Modi, you are right. She is again a speed breaker for you this time." Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston Jaipur, May 15 : The Rajasthan government is reportedly planning to remove all references about demonetisation, as well as editing the profile of RSS icon Vinayak Savarkar, from textbooks of the state board to be published for the academic session 2019-2020. The changes are understood to have been recommended by two review committees of educationists set by the Congress government in February this year to review changes made by the previous BJP regime. State Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara, while not specifically confirming the changes, told IANS that "demonetisation introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought in no benefit to the nation". "It was the most unsuccessful experiment; this is what my perception is. Now whether it should be accommodated or not in syllabus, in which form it should be presented or if it should be modified is the concern of a committee we have formed to review the current syllabus," he said. On the other hand, his predecessor Vasudev Devnani said that there is no need to remove such chapters on one's own perception. "In fact, they can make students aware about its pros and cons. But why remove anything substantial which has happened in the nation," he asked. "Congress, since years, have been politicising education. They have never added stories of freedom fighters, but have removed chapters on Subhas Chandra Bose and many others. They have been crediting one family for country's independence which is wrong," he added. Devnani also questioned the suggested removal of pictures from "'jauhar' (ritual mass self-immolation), which forms the part of valour stories of Rajput women". "Now the minister doesn't know the difference between sati and jauhar which is surprising," he said. On the other hand, Surendra Saharan of the state Rajasthan Senior Teachers Association lamented that Rajasthan is the only state in the entire country where the syllabus gets changed after every five years with a change in the government. "In my last 15 years of working, I have seen Vedic Maths being introduced by the BJP government and the Congress government removing it. Same is the case with history and other subjects. The students go confused with this frequent change of syllabus and similar is the plight of teachers." New Delhi, May 15 : Delhi Police arrested two persons allegedly involved in many cases of kidnapping, murder and arms smuggling. One of the accused is also a life convict and had jumped parole in 2009, the police said on Wednesday. The accused, identified as Sandeep Ahlawat alias Kokal (36) and Varun alias Nishu (30) were arrested on Monday night after the Special cell of the police received a tip-off about the two reaching at Najafgarh-Dhansa road in west Delhi to meet their associate. The two accused are said to be close aides of gangster Sandeep alias Dhillu who had escaped custody a year ago, the police said. "Both the accused are instrumental in Dhillu's escape and were continuously in touch with him. However, Ahlawat who had also jumped parole in 2009, was changing his location. He was traced in Jaipur," said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Cell, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav. "We had reliable information that the two were planning to eliminate members of their rival gang," Yadav added. Both the accused were also part of a kidnapping gang that had held a youth from Vikaspuri captive in a farmhouse. A ransom of Rs 5 crore was demanded by the kidnappers. However, the Crime Branch got a tip-off about this kidnapping and conducted a raid at the farmhouse during which one of the accused was shot dead by a police team while 10 others were arrested. Ahlawat was later granted bail by a Delhi court in 2004, but in 2009, he was convicted of life imprisonment in the case but he managed to slip away from the court. After he escaped, Ahlawat kept on changing his hideouts, the officer said. The team has recovered a semi-automatic pistol with five cartridges, a countrymade pistol with two live cartridges and a car in which they were traveling when they were arrested. Kolkata, May 16 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the Election Commission's decisions to curtail election campaigning and remove two senior officers have been taken on the direction of the BJP, its President Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She also claimed that RSS people have been inducted into the Election Commission. Mamata wondered if the directives were due to the "threat" issued to the poll panel by Shah during a media meet in New Delhi on Wednesday morning. Addressing a media meet here, the Chief Minister said: "Some emergency situation has arisen due to some directions of the Election Commission. I don't consider these as EC's decision. These have been taken as per the direction of the BJP, Modi and Amit Shah." "In the morning, Shah held a press conference in Delhi, where he threatened the Election Commission. "Is this a fallout of that?" she asked. Banerjee said Bengal was being targeted as Modi knew that she was challenging him. "I am challenging him, talking against him, we are countering him on every point. Modi is afraid of Bengal, afraid of me." Banerjee said she had remained mum despite so many incidents that occurred during the election proess. "With due respect, I tell the Election Commission that so many incidents have happened, I did not utter a single word." She also accused Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain of making all arrangements for Shah's road show. "He had given a letter. It is with Kolkata police. I also have a copy". Taking umbrage against the EC relieving her favourite police officer and presently ADG CID Rajeev Kumar from the post and asking him to report to the Union Home Ministry in Delhi, she asked: "Why are they so cut up with Rajeev Kumar? Is it because he has been intercepting hawala money?" "How can EC send somebody to central deputation? This is the state's prerogative. IPS and IAS officers are under the state government. How can they interfere like this? EC is doing whatever the BJP is telling it to do. Never in my life have I seen such an Election Commission." Banerjee declared she would not be silenced, and said the decision taken under section 324 of the Representation of the People Act to curtail the campaign period was not legal as there was no law and order problem in her state. Banerjee questioned why the EC did not show cause Shah, "who orchestrated the May 14 violence". She alleged the directives were issued to deflect people's attention as a big sentiment had developed in Bengal over the vandalisation of Vidyasagar's bust. "The decision is unconstitutional, unprincipled, unethical, and smacks of political bias," she said. Two shopping centres, one near Sydney one in Geelong, have hit the market. Corio Central (pictured above and top) in Geelong is anchored by Woolworths and Coles, as well as a Kmart DDS. The 31,503 square metre centre is located 8 kilometres north of the Geelong CBD. Additional tenants include six mini-majors, 82 specialty stores and kiosks, 16 offices and 1 pad site. Lennox Village (below) is in Emu Plains, approximately 50 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD. The 10,065 square metre centre shopping centre is tenanted by a Woolworths supermarket, an ALDI, a Dan Murphys, 30 specialties stores, a kiosks, one office and five pad sites. Simon Rooney, JLLs Head of Retail Investments Australasia, said this section of the market was strong. Major convenience-based shopping centres continue to generate strong interest from investors, given their exposure to more resilient retail categories such as grocery, F&B and retail services, Rooney said. Buyers see relative value in retail assets given the widening spread to other asset classes and attractive income returns available for quality neighbourhood and sub-regional centres. Investors are opportunistically making tactical retail acquisitions to take advantage of the pricing disparity between sectors and individual assets. Transaction activity was highest in the $50 million-$150 million bracket in 2018, having increased 74%, on top of 47% growth already recorded in 2017, JLL said. Investors are targeting high-yielding neighbourhood and small and mid-sized sub-regional centres, such as Corio Central, with a major focus on retail services as well as F&B, said Rooney. F&B has consistently been the fastest growing retail category over the last five, 10 and 20 years, which underpins solid leasing demand. "...We used the Neota platform to develop applications to make these answers more widely and cost-effectively accessible for our clients, no matter what their size. We are hoping to disrupt the industry with a new kind of service." - Nicholas Bartzen, Co-Founder of DecSpeak Neota Logic, creators of the worlds leading no code AI automation platform, announced today that Altus Legal (Illinois) and Goodman Holmgren (Arizona) have launched a suite of Neota applications offering legal services to condominium and homeowner association boards and property managers that will form the basis of their new venture, DecSpeak. DecSpeak is a new way of providing 24/7 legal services to community association boards and property managers. Some of DecSpeaks applications are currently available to boards and property managers free of charge, while others are available to Altus Legal Clients for a low monthly subscription. The applications now live and available on the Altus Legal website are: Budget Meeting Data Calculator - Assists boards and property managers of Illinois condo associations calculate the dates for sending out budget drafts and meeting notices. Board Email Discussion Advisor - Assists users to decipher whether an e-mail discussion among board members violates any laws. Violation Letter Drafting Tool - Assists users to create violation notices, fully compliant with Illinois law. Ombudsperson Complaint Policy Drafting Tool - Assists users to create the complaint resolution policies required by the Illinois Condominium and Common Interest Community Ombudsperson Act. The Act Advisor - Answers 200+ frequent questions based on Illinois Condominium Property Act. Nicholas Bartzen, Co-Founder of DecSpeak commented, We found that the same questions would keep coming up from community associations regarding their state statute and governing documents. We used the Neota platform to develop applications to make these answers more widely and cost-effectively accessible for our clients, no matter what their size. We are hoping to disrupt the industry with a new kind of service. Kim Massana, CEO at Neota Logic commented, Its great to work with DecSpeak as they find innovative ways to serve their clients by transforming their legal services. Were also pleased they made great use of the Neota Alumni group, our community of students and graduates who have worked in Neota and are available for our customers to use to help build applications. About Neota Logic The companys no code AI automation platform allows professionals to rapidly automate their services. Neota customers and their clients enjoy the benefits of digital technology extending the reach of the professional, improved efficiency, client satisfaction and new business opportunities. Neota is the only platform capable of automating all aspects of professional services including intelligent fact-gathering, expert decision-making, end-to-end processes and document lifecycle management. With a global presence, Neota offers its software and professional services to clients from its offices in New York, London and Melbourne. Press Contact Rebecca Tear tear@neotalogic.com Ambassador creates and manages customized content integration programs that connect students with course materials, driving down costs and improving outcomes. "To be successful, a digital content program requires planning and implementation of new processes, not to mention accessible data and support," said Steven M. Blicht, CEO of Ambassador. As institutions supplement print textbooks with digital course materials, they are not only giving students a choice, but also enhancing course quality. Yet the inclusion of digital is not always easy. Educators attending the 2019 CECU Convention will learn how to design a digital strategy that simplifies the management and delivery of course materials, plus streamlines publisher relationships and processes. "Overwhelmed by the Digital Surge? There's an Easier Way to Manage Course Materials" will be led by seasoned CECU presenter Bruce Schneider, Vice President of Business Engineering at Ambassador. Attendees should mark their calendars for Tuesday, June 4th at 11:00am central time. "To be successful, a digital content program requires planning and implementation of new processes, not to mention accessible data and support," said Steven M. Blicht, CEO of Ambassador. "From simplifying the opt-out process for inclusive access programs, to taking the guesswork out of digital content costs, obtaining content from multiple sources, preventing duplicate purchases, and measuring outcomes, it's not unusual for schools to feel overwhelmed by all of the details. Ambassador has done this enough times that we know what works, streamlining everything for students, schools, digital content platforms and publishers." Those details include the management of inclusive access programs, publisher direct content, access codes, print-on-demand, license verification, and financial controls. Sharing its experience powering digital programs of all sizes and scopes, Ambassador's session will review the ins and outs of an effective course materials program. Ambassador manages the entire digital content roll-out process. Assisting in the selection of digital content platforms and digital materials, working with publishers to secure access, and managing licenses and opt out processes, plus maintaining related print course materials programs, Ambassador handles it all. Additionally, the company's technology tracks and translates all course materials metrics, ensuring schools don't overpay and publishers receive accurate payment. The CECU Annual Convention is the largest gathering for leaders in postsecondary career education across America. Coming together June 2nd through June 5th at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, attendees have the opportunity to listen, learn and engage with thought leaders in the field. About Ambassador Ambassador creates and manages customized content integration programs that connect students with course materials in the most meaningful and effective way, driving down costs and improving outcomes. Integrated with leading SIS, LMS and Digital Content Platforms, we simplify the adoption, management and delivery of textbooks, eBooks, digital resources, custom content, OER, access codes, online testing, supplies, kits, devices and more. We provide an exceptional student experience, lower your operational and financial risk, and deliver key intelligence to measure and enhance programs. For more information, please visit http://www.ambassadored.com. Claudius Moore, a seasoned technology executive, joins American Family Care (AFC) as the healthcare networks new Vice President of Information Technology. Over the last 15 years, Moore has mastered a method to leverage technology to drive revenue and lower costs for healthcare systems, while also creating a high-quality, efficient experience for patients. Moore will lead AFCs information technology division, providing support and maintenance of existing systems while developing new technology solutions for the entire healthcare network. American Family Care is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, with more than 200 clinics across the nation in more than 25 states. Were thrilled to have Claudius on board as our Vice President of Information Technology, said D. Bruce Irwin, M.D., CEO and founder of American Family Care. His extensive knowledge of technology management and his background in healthcare make for a great addition to our team. We are excited to see how he will continue to help AFC medical providers stay ahead of the competition in providing quality, affordable and accessible healthcare. Moore has a dual masters degree in information technology management and business administration from University of Maryland and a bachelors degree in public administration from the University of Sierra Leone. In addition, he holds a graduate certificate in computer information science from Catholic University of America and he is a Microsoft certified system administrator (MCSA). Im honored to join American Family Care. I look forward to guiding the company through the many twists and turns of technology to produce optimal results for the business. That translates into more efficient and accessible care for our patients nationwide, said Claudius Moore, Vice President of Information Technology at AFC. My passion for medicine goes back to my first hospital job as an orderly, when I escorted heart patients to surgery. They shared their fears about their operations with me and I comforted them, realizing healthcare was my passion. Moore worked his way up through the ranks of the hospital. Within a few months, he became a registrar, then shifted to the billing department, then to health information management, all while he was studying computer and information science. My early hospital experience showed me how technology can frustrate patients. Theyre giving their information to a provider and suddenly the computer screen goes black because of some kink in the system, and then they must start over, he explains. Ive worked through the years to eliminate patient frustration. Ive identified methods and technology that provide open and easy access to healthcare, while also enabling medical staff to treat patients effectively and efficiently, Moore explains. Previously, Moore served as Chief Information Officer of South Bend Clinic, in South Bend, Indiana, a regional hospital system, Vice President of Information Services at Physician Hospital System in Mishawaka, Indiana and Director of Information and Revenue Systems at Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC. The role of information technology in healthcare is always evolving, Moore says. At AFC, we are constantly working to make it easy for patients to get access to care. Not only to make an appointment through our website, but to log in and see results, medications and insight about their care. We are providing more than urgent care. We are engaging with the patient and sharing vital details. The goal is to help them maintain a healthy lifestyle. All AFC clinics are designed, equipped and staffed to provide accessible primary care, urgent care and minor emergency treatment. Each clinic features a high-tech approach, including digital x-rays, on-site lab testing, state-of-the-art diagnostics and electronic medical records. The clinics are staffed by kind, caring and compassionate healthcare professionals. About American Family Care: Founded by Dr. Bruce Irwin with a single location in 1982, American Family Care has pioneered the concept of convenient, patient-centric healthcare. Today, with more than 200 clinics and 600 in-network physicians caring for nearly 3 million patients a year, AFC is the nations leading provider of urgent care, accessible primary care, and occupational medicine. Ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S., AFCs stated mission is to provide the best healthcare possible, in a kind and caring environment, while respecting the rights of all patients, in an economical manner, at times and locations convenient to the patient. For more information, visit http://www.AmericanFamilyCare.com. DENVER, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glowpoint, Inc. (NYSE American: GLOW ) (Glowpoint or the Company), a managed service provider of video collaboration and network applications, today announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019. First Quarter Financial Results: Cash of $1.6 million, working capital of $2.3 million and no debt as of March 31, 2019. Revenue of $2.6 million, net loss of $0.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA (AEBITDA) of negative $0.1 million. AEBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure. See Non-GAAP Financial Information below for additional information regarding this non-GAAP financial measure, and GAAP to Non-GAAP Reconciliation later in this release for a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to net loss. Stockholders equity of $6.2 million as of March 31, 2019. Recent Highlights: As previously announced, in April 2019 the Company regained full compliance with the NYSE Americans continued listing standards. As previously announced, in April 2019 the Company and SharedLabs, Inc. mutually agreed to the terminate the previously announced Merger Agreement. SharedLabs has agreed to work with the Company in good faith to reach a resolution with respect to the Companys rights in connection with the termination of the Merger Agreement, including the payment by SharedLabs of fees and expenses in connection therewith. To the extent it is necessary, the Company expects to utilize available legal remedies in order to pursue the payment by SharedLabs of any such amounts. We are pleased to have recently regained full compliance with the NYSE Americans continued listing standards. We maintain a clean balance sheet with $1.6 million in cash and no debt as of March 31, 2019. We remain focused on implementing certain infrastructure cost reductions in our efforts to improve adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow. We are encouraged by recent capital markets activity and heightened market awareness in both video and unified communications and intend to use our expertise, along with an excellent reputation for delivering managed services to the Enterprise, to explore potential opportunities for growth in this sector. We are actively exploring potential merger and acquisition and/or business development initiatives and are confident that we can leverage our strong reputation with our large enterprise customers, our investments in R&D during the past two years and our existing intellectual property to increase shareholder value, said Peter Holst, President and CEO of Glowpoint. Glowpoints results from operations and financial condition are more fully discussed in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2019 on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC). Investors are encouraged to carefully review the Companys Form 10-Q for a complete analysis of its results from operations and financial condition. About Glowpoint Glowpoint, Inc. (NYSE American: GLOW) is a managed service provider of video collaboration and network applications. Our services are designed to provide a comprehensive suite of automated and concierge applications to simplify the user experience and expedite the adoption of video as the primary means of collaboration. Our customers include Fortune 1000 companies, along with small and medium sized enterprises in a variety of industries. To learn more please visit www.glowpoint.com . Non-GAAP Financial Information Adjusted EBITDA (AEBITDA), a non-GAAP financial measure, is defined as net loss before depreciation and amortization, income tax expense, stock-based compensation, impairment charges, merger expenses and interest and other expense, net. AEBITDA is not intended to replace operating loss, net loss, cash flow or other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Rather, AEBITDA is an important measure used by management to assess the operating performance of the Company and is used in determining achievement of performance-based stock awards. AEBITDA as defined here may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies due to differences in accounting policies. Therefore, AEBITDA should be considered in conjunction with net loss and other performance measures prepared in accordance with GAAP, such as operating loss or cash flow provided by (used in) operating activities, and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for GAAP measures, such as net loss, operating loss or any other GAAP measure of liquidity or financial performance. A reconciliation of AEBITDA to net loss is shown in the attached schedules. Forward looking and cautionary statements This press release and any oral statements made regarding the subject of this release contain forward-looking statements as defined under Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and are made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, that address activities that Glowpoint assumes, plans, expects, believes, intends, projects, estimates or anticipates (and other similar expressions) will, should or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Glowpoints actual results may differ materially from its expectations, estimates and projections, and consequently you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, forward-looking statements contained in this press release include statements regarding the Companys financial performance, the effect of the termination of the Merger Agreement, the pursuit by Glowpoint for the payment of damages by SharedLabs as a result thereof, the Companys future compliance with the NYSE Americans continued listing standards, and opportunities for the Companys future growth. The forward-looking statements are based on managements current belief, based on currently available information, as to the outcome and timing of future events, and involve factors, risks, and uncertainties that may cause actual results in future periods to differ materially from such statements. A list and description of these and other risk factors can be found in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ending December 31, 2018 and in other filings made by the Company with the SEC from time to time, including the Companys Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2019. Any of these factors could cause Glowpoints actual results and plans to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, Glowpoint can give no assurance that its future results will be as estimated. Glowpoint does not intend to, and disclaims any obligation to, correct, update or revise any information contained herein. INVESTOR CONTACT: Investor Relations Glowpoint, Inc. +1 303-640-3840 investorrelations@glowpoint.com www.glowpoint.com GLOWPOINT, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (In thousands, except par value, stated value and shares) March 31, 2019 (unaudited) December 31, 2018 ASSETS Current assets: Cash $ 1,589 $ 2,007 Accounts receivable, net 1,442 1,371 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 619 547 Total current assets 3,650 3,925 Property and equipment, net 610 728 Goodwill 2,795 2,795 Intangibles, net 467 499 Other assets 89 15 Total assets $ 7,611 $ 7,962 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 207 $ 222 Accrued expenses and other liabilities 1,159 910 Total current liabilities 1,366 1,132 Stockholders equity: Preferred stock, Series A-2, convertible; $.0001 par value; $7,500 stated value; 7,500 shares authorized, 32 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $323 and $308 at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively Preferred stock, Series B, convertible; $.0001 par value; $1,000 stated value; 2,800 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $0 at March 31, 2019 and 75 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $75 at December 31, 2018 Preferred stock, Series C, convertible; $.0001 par value; $1,000 stated value; 1,750 shares authorized, 475 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $475 at March 31, 2019 and 525 shares issued and outstanding and liquidation preference of $525 at December 31, 2018 Common stock, $.0001 par value; 150,000,000 shares authorized; 5,173,900 shares issued and 5,040,500 outstanding at March 31, 2019 and 5,113,700 issued and 4,981,200 outstanding at December 31, 2018 5 5 Treasury stock, 133,400 and 132,500 shares at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively (497 ) (496 ) Additional paid-in capital 185,008 184,994 Accumulated deficit (178,271 ) (177,673 ) Total stockholders equity 6,245 6,830 Total liabilities and stockholders equity $ 7,611 $ 7,962 GLOWPOINT, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS and GAAP to Non-GAAP Reconciliation (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited) Three Months Ended March 31, 2019 2018 Revenue $ 2,594 $ 3,474 Operating expenses: Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization) 1,675 2,147 Research and development 213 250 Sales and marketing 33 177 General and administrative 1,112 898 Impairment charges 650 Depreciation and amortization 159 232 Total operating expenses 3,192 4,354 Loss from operations (598 ) (880 ) Interest and other expense, net (405 ) Net loss (598 ) (1,285 ) Preferred stock dividends 15 3 Net loss attributable to common stockholders $ (613 ) $ (1,288 ) Net loss attributable to common stockholders per share: Basic and diluted net loss per share $ (0.12 ) $ (0.28 ) GAAP to Non-GAAP Reconciliation: Net loss $ (598 ) $ (1,285 ) Depreciation and amortization 159 232 Interest and other expense, net 405 Income tax expense EBITDA (439 ) (648 ) Stock-based compensation 29 50 Merger expenses 261 Impairment charges 650 Adjusted EBITDA $ (149 ) $ 52 GLOWPOINT, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited and in thousands) Tom Grape, founder, chairman and CEO of Benchmark receives Mass-ALA Lifetime Achievement Award Tom has been instrumental in founding, shaping and growing the assisted living industry in Massachusetts and nationwide, enriching the lives of seniors and creating an overwhelmingly positive economic impact." -Brian Doherty, president and CEO, Mass-ALA Benchmark, a human connection company and leading provider of senior living services in the Northeast, today announced that its founder, chairman and CEO, Tom Grape, has received the Massachusetts Assisted Living Associations (Mass-ALA) inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Grape was honored for his pioneering efforts over the last 30 years, which have led to the establishment and growth of the assisted living industry in Massachusetts and nationally. More than 500 individuals from the senior living industry attended yesterdays Mass-ALA annual Excellence Awards event where Grape was honored. Brian Doherty, president and CEO of Mass-ALA, presented the award. We are proud to present the inaugural Mass-ALA Lifetime Achievement Award to Tom Grape, says Doherty. Tom has been instrumental in founding, shaping and growing the assisted living industry in Massachusetts and nationwide, enriching the lives of seniors and creating an overwhelmingly positive economic impact. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential executives in the industry today. Out of the many senior living leaders in Massachusetts, I am honored that Mass-ALA considered me for this award, says Grape. Making it possible for seniors to age well and stay connected to what matters most in their lives, as well as ensuring our associates are taken care of and experience fulfillment and purpose, is my lifes work. Whats rewarding for me is seeing first-hand the deep connections that exist between our associates, residents and their family members, and I am honored to receive this award. Grape was a founding board member in 1990 and has also served as a board chairman and multi-year board member of the Assisted Living Federation of American (ALFA), now Argentum. Also in 1990, he was founding chairman of the Massachusetts chapter of ALFA, now known as Mass-ALA. In 1993, he and others helped write, with then Secretary of Health and Human Services and now Governor Charlie Baker, the legislation that passed in 1995 creating the assisted living category in Massachusetts. Grape was also a founding board member of the Connecticut Assisted Living Association (CALA). In 1997, Grape founded Benchmark, one of the Northeasts largest senior living providers with 58 open communities and four under construction. Throughout Benchmarks 22-year history, he has conceived and introduced a number of industry firsts, significantly improving the aging experience and reducing isolation for seniors. More recently, in 2017, he was tapped by Gov. Baker to serve on the first Governors Council to Address Aging in Massachusetts. Today, Grape serves as a thought-leader through writing, speaking at conferences nationwide, serving on boards of key industry organizations and identifying innovative solutions helping seniors age well. He serves on the executive board of the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) and has been a member of both the owner/operator advisory groups and strategic planning committee for the National Investment Center (NIC) for Seniors Housing & Care. He also participates in the Massachusetts Healthcare Collaborative, a convening group of health care leaders from across government, educational institutions, industry and public organizations. Outside the industry, Grape has served as chair of the board of trustees for his alma mater, Ithaca College, where he is now chair emeritus. Formerly vice board chair of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, he also served on the vestry and as chair of the building committee for Bostons renowned Trinity Church. About Benchmark Based in Waltham, Mass., Benchmark is a leading provider of senior housing in the Northeast with 6,400 associates, 58 communities and $3 billion in company value. Founded in 1997 by Tom Grape, Benchmark offers independent living, assisted living, Alzheimers care and continuing care retirement communities in eight states. The Great Place to Work Institute certified Benchmark in 2019 for the second consecutive year as a Great Place to Work. Additionally, the company was selected by FORTUNE magazine for its inaugural 2018 Best Workplaces for Aging Services list, taking the number 16 spot on the list of top 40 aging services companies and ranking number three among companies with more than 40 communities. Benchmark is one of only six companies named to The Boston Globe Top Places to Work list every year of the 11 years it has been published. Click here for more information. BizTek People, Inc. (BTPI) is pleased to announce the acquisition of InSite Search Services (InSite), a leader in Fintech, Technology and Quantitative recruiting services and BlackRock Professional Services, LLC (BRPS), a leader in providing hourly and daily technology resources to varied industries. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. InSite was named to Hunt Scanlon Top 50 Executive Search Firms in Finance in 2016 and responsible for over 800 placements in Fintech. Servicing companies in the Finance and Technology arena, the company also has a unique niche in providing Quantitative Developers, Data Scientists and Risk Managers. InSite Search is headquartered in Westport, Connecticut. For more information about InSite Search, please visit http://www.insitesearch.com. BRPS has specialized in placing Software Developers, Architects, Business and QA Analysts, Project Managers and ERP Specialists in several client projects over the past several years. BRPS is headquartered in Westport, Connecticut. For more information about BRPS, please visit http://www.blackrockps.com. BTPI is a nationwide business technology consulting firm, specializing in providing permanent and contract IT and business resources to augment existing staff of clients. The company is known for its holistic principles, integrating business, technology, and people, as well as supporting local charities. BTPI has offices in New York City and Portland, Oregon. For more information about BTPI, please visit http://www.biztekpeople.com. Crus Bourgeois du Medoc Cup The Crus Bourgeois du Medoc (http://www.crubourgeois.com), one of the oldest and most prestigious classifications in Bordeaux, are pleased to announce the twelve finalists, and overall winner of the 9th edition of Crus Bourgeois du Medoc Cup for the 2016 Official Selection. Hosted annually in conjunction with French publication, le Point magazine, this years Crus Bourgeois du Medoc Cup was held at the Matmut Atlantique Stadium in Bordeaux, with the winner and laureates announced on May 14 at Vinexpo Bordeaux. Over 166 of the Left Banks top Cru Bourgeois classified chateaux participated in the hotly contested cup, with smaller, upstart producers pitted against the more established and renowned chateaux as part of a match play-style competition over multiple rounds of tasting. In total, twelve chateaux were selected during the competition to move on to the final round of judging for the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc Cup, and they included: Chateau Cambon la Pelouse, AOC Haut-Medoc Chateau Campillot, AOC Medoc Chateau Cap Leon Veyrin, AOC Listrac-Medoc Chateau le Crock, AOC Saint-Estephe Chateau la Fortune, AOC Margaux Chateau Lestage Simon, AOC Haut-Medoc Chateau Maurac, AOC Haut-Medoc Chateau Moulin de Blanchon, AOC Haut-Medoc Chateau Reverdi, AOC Listrac-Medoc Chateau Ricaudet, AOC Medoc Chateau La Roque de By, AOC Medoc Chateau les Tuileries, AOC Medoc Following the final round of judging, The patron of the Cup, Veronique Rivest (Best Sommelier of Canada in 2006 and 2016, Best Sommelier of the Americas in 2012) along with other notable wine journalist from around the world, awarded the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc Cup to Jean-Pierre Marie of the Haut-Medoc Producer Chateau Cambon la Pelouse for their 2016 vintage offering. Since 2013, the number of Crus Bourgeois du Medoc distributed in the U.S. has grown from 130 to 200. Today, nearly 70% of the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc are available on the U.S. market and in most fine wine stores throughout the country. Each bottle is authenticated with a QR code sticker that guarantees the quality of the wines that are bottled and enables Cru Bourgeois wines to be easily identified. About the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc The Crus Bourgeois du Medoc (http://www.crus-bourgeois.com) form the largest family of Bordeaux crus from some of the most prestigious appellations of the Left Bank. This family brings together vineyards with widely differing profiles and terroirs that satisfy a drastic set of requirements. Thanks to its yearly blind selection process, the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc guarantee consumers a standard of quality for every bottle that proudly bears the "Cru Bourgeois" label. This funding and research demonstrates government commitment to addressing challenges associated with aging, chronic conditions, and caring for people where they want to be at home. Today, Catalyst Healthcare Ltd. (Catalyst), announced funding from the Industry Innovation Partnership Program (I2P2) run by the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI) to test interactive medication dispensing device, spencer (https://www.meetspencertoday.com/). spencer is designed to help people who are taking multiple medications to take the right doses at the right times. The matching program funding, from CABHI and Catalyst, will support two studies one in Alberta and one in Ontario. The studies involve researchers from Alberta Health Services, the University of Alberta, and the University of Waterloo who are looking at the potential benefits of a medication dispensing system to support medication adherence for individuals living at home with chronic conditions. The aim is to shift from providing care in hospitals to more community-based care that is closer to home, with multi-stakeholder collaboration that involves the healthcare system, communities and technology partners coming together to optimize seniors health, well-being and independence. Catalyst spokesperson, Kasumi Oda, says, This funding being made available through CABHI reinforces government commitment to addressing challenges associated with aging, chronic conditions, and caring for people where they want to be at home. The current situation is unsustainable. We need to find lower cost ways to support people who choose to age at home. Medication non-adherence is when people dont take their medications as prescribed. Its a widespread problem with serious effects. Worldwide, between 25% and 50% of patients do not take their medications as recommended. In the USA, sub-optimal adherence has been associated with 125,000 deaths, 10% of hospitalizations, and costs up to US$289 billion annually. (The new landscape of medication adherence improvement: where population health science meets precision medicine, Patient Preference and Adherence, July 2018: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6049050/) Not taking drugs as they were prescribed - at the wrong time, or in the wrong doses, skipping or combining doses - can lead to lower quality of life and life-threatening effects. When not treated properly, many chronic conditions can lead to serious complications such as strokes, heart attacks, and kidney failure. This decreases patients quality of life and increases the burden on the healthcare system. Applied research is necessary to find out what helps people take their medications properly. These studies on spencer track subjects for 6 months. Half the subjects in the trial will use spencer and half will continue to take their medications as they do now. The researchers will see if using spencer makes a difference to medication adherence, along with patient experience to determine its future sustainability. The spencer device is about the size of a toaster and it contains a cartridge of pre-sorted medications. It reminds patients to take their medications with audio and visual alerts. It also allows for communication between the patient and their caregiving team. It connects the patient with their doctor and a specially trained pharmacist, who can ask about potential side effects on spencers screen with interactive text or by video consultation. Caregivers can connect to spencer with an app, which notifies them if their loved one dispenses a dose late or misses one altogether. When spencer is running low on medications the connected pharmacy delivers a re-fill to the patients home, saving a trip to the pharmacy. To understand how to help people live healthier lives, its important to gather scientific evidence. Taking medications as prescribed will help the chronically ill, the elderly, and other at-risk individuals to stay at home longer, live more independently, and enjoy their quality of life. Catalyst Healthcare is an award-winning technology company with offices in Canada and the United States thats dedicated to improving medication adherence and reducing the costs associated with non-adherence to health systems. Catalyst provides a pharmacy model that improves healthcare delivery and patient care at a scale that reduces system-wide costs. Through Catalyst's medication adherence ecosystem, a suite of connected technologies that gather, share and correlate data in real-time, pharmacists can better serve their patients and play a key role in population health. Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP is proud to announce that the firm again has been ranked among the top law firms in intellectual property law by Chambers USA, a leading legal ranking guide. In addition, the firms Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware IP attorneys Martin G. Belisario, Ronald L. Panitch and Clark A. Jablon have been ranked individually for their prowess in IP law. Chambers and Partners produces referral guides to leading lawyers around the world. Chambers research teams evaluate law firms and individual lawyers on qualities including technical legal ability, professional conduct, client service, commercial astuteness, diligence, commitment and other qualities most valued by the client. Input is sought from both peers and clients. Chambers describes Panitch Schwarze as an experienced IP boutique known for its wide-ranging capabilities in domestic and cross-border patent and trademark matters. Also regularly called upon for its expertise in copyright and domain name issues. Acts for clients in a wide range of industries including chemicals, consumer brands, electronics, life sciences and software. Chambers commentary on the individually ranked attorneys includes: Martin Belisario routinely handles IP and technology matters related to mechanical engineering and medical devices. He handles a range of matters, including patent infringement lawsuits, trademark issues and technology licensing. Sources describe him as a solid patent lawyer. Clark Jablon is a registered patent attorney with considerable experience in all facets of patent prosecution. He offers particular expertise in the fields of computing and electronics. Ronald Panitch is a brilliant lawyer, say market commentators. He has considerable experience in advising on patent prosecutions, licensing and trademark registration. To learn more, click here to visit the firms profile on the Chambers USA website. About Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP is a boutique intellectual property law firm with offices in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware. The firms IP law practitioners provide strategic litigation, licensing and counseling service relating to patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, domain names and internet issues domestically and internationally. The firms long-standing relationships with a network of associates worldwide enable its attorneys and advisors to provide clients with global intellectual property advice and protection. "We were looking for a state-of-the-art facility with existing global interconnections and reliable services. phoenixNAP delivered just that," said Andrew Edison, VP Wholesale, at Colt. phoenixNAP, a global IT services provider offering security-focused cloud infrastructure, dedicated servers, colocation, and specialized Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) technology solutions, today announced the expansion of carrier connectivity with Colt, a global provider of on-demand, high bandwidth network and communication solutions. As the connectivity hub in Phoenix, Arizona, and the only AWS Direct Connect location in the region, phoenixNAP is a strategic data center location for Colt to improve access to its extensive Colt IQ Network. Connecting over 850+ data centers with over 27,500 on net buildings, the Colt IQ Network enables organizations to set up cloud environments with maximized reach. Colt is also recognized as an innovator in the fields of software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). As a globally established network carrier, Colt continually expands its footprint to ensure maximum service availability, resilience, and diversity while enabling local access for its customers. phoenixNAPs global data center network provides Colt with direct access to major national and international gateways. We are thrilled to welcome Colt to our flagship data center in Phoenix, said Ian McClarty, president at phoenixNAP. As a recognized industry leader with global infrastructure and proven reliability, Colt complements our current carrier infrastructure and further enables us to ensure fast, reliable, and secure services across the globe, allowing us to keep delivering on our promise of providing customers with resilient and affordable connectivity options across multiple continents. Colt is a significant addition to phoenixNAPs carrier-neutral data center in Phoenix, as it will provide its customers with more diversified connectivity options. Following the growing demand for customized carrier options and better global interconnectivity, phoenixNAP continually adds new carrier options and data center locations to ensure excellent connectivity. Organizations looking to set up a global IT infrastructure, adopt reliable cloud solutions or use managed IT services can leverage a wide breath of data center solutions available from phoenixNAP. Offered on an opex-based model, phoenixNAPs solutions enable unhindered growth and easily scalable IT operations with unmatched reliability. The collaboration with phoenixNAP was a result of our strategic decision to improve the availability of services to customers in the region, said Andrew Edison, VP Wholesale, at Colt. Since Colt launched in the US in June of last year, we have focused on increasing our presence in this important market. As part of this, we were looking for a state-of-the-art facility with existing global interconnections and reliable services. phoenixNAP delivered just that, and we are excited about our future collaboration. phoenixNAP is a Premier Service Provider in the VMware Cloud Provider Program and a Platinum Veeam Cloud & Service Provider partner. phoenixNAP is also a PCI DSS Validated Service Provider and its flagship facility is SOC Type 1 and SOC Type 2 audited. About phoenixNAP phoenixNAP is a global IT services provider with a focus on cybersecurity and compliance-readiness, whose progressive Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions are delivered from strategic edge locations worldwide. Its cloud, dedicated servers, hardware leasing, and colocation options are built to meet always evolving IT businesses requirements. Providing comprehensive disaster recovery solutions, DDoS-protected global network, hybrid IT deployments with software and hardware-based security, phoenixNAP fully supports its clients business continuity planning. Offering scalable and resilient opex solutions with expert staff to assist, phoenixNAP supports growth and innovation in businesses of any size enabling their digital transformation. About Colt Colt aims to be the leader in enabling customers digital transformation through agile and on-demand, high bandwidth solutions. The Colt IQ Network connects 850+ data centres across Europe, Asia and North Americas largest business hubs, with over 27,500 on net buildings and growing. Colt has built its reputation on putting customers first. Customers include data intensive organisations spanning over 213 cities in more than 30 countries. Colt is a recognised innovator and pioneer in Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV). Privately owned, Colt is one of the most financially sound companies in its industry and able to provide the best customer experience at a competitive price. For more information, please visit http://www.colt.net. Firms that incorporate business intelligence as part of a prudent process better serve clients, differentiate themselves competitively and are able to proactively address threats and opportunities as they arise. The role business intelligence (BI) plays in wealth management is increasingly crucial, and now a new white paper from independent research and consulting firm Beacon Strategies, LLC details what it is and how its being specifically applied. Follow the RulesBusiness Intelligence in Wealth Management is a comprehensive look at how business intelligence can aid advisors in uncovering hidden biases in how investment decisions are made, guard against compliance violations in the advice delivered and elevate the user experience beyond whats traditionally been seen. Importantlyand especially in an age of increasing regulation and the accompanying need for greater fiduciary awarenessthe paper explains how the proper implementation and utilization of business intelligence can also reinforce standards to serve and protect the best interests of the investor. More specifically, business intelligence: Equips advisors and firms with automated guardrails to adhere to regulatory best-interest checks like NY DFS Reg 187 and SEC Reg BI. Its also critically important when the advisor either outright ignores, or at the very least fails to adequately consider, the clients complete financial situation when making recommendations. Because its transparent, business intelligence increases awareness of share class recommendations, breakpoints and investment costs. Asset and product alerts can be generated and sent to investors, advisors and compliance officers when investment performance deviates from situational risk tolerances. By identifying and adding certain variables, business intelligence supports orphaned and smaller accounts that are either ignored or under-serviced. Firms that incorporate business intelligence as part of a prudent process better serve clients, differentiate themselves competitively and are able to proactively address threats and opportunities as they arise, said Chip Kispert, principal with Beacon Strategies. For more information or to receive a copy of the white paper, go to https://beaconstrategiesllc.com/whitepapers/business-intelligence-in-wealth-management/ The care and support of individuals on the autism spectrum and their families through counseling and family therapy is critically important" -Shari Tarver-Behring There are only a handful of therapists in Los Angeles who work with individuals with autism. California State University, Northridge is partnering with The Ed Asner Family Center to change that. Officials with CSUNs Mitchell Family Counseling Clinic and Family Focus Resource Center will be working closely with the staff at The Ed Asner Family Center to train therapists who have the skills to work with individuals on the autism spectrum and their families. The care and support of individuals on the autism spectrum and their families through counseling and family therapy is critically important, said Shari Tarver-Behring, interim dean of CSUNs Michael D. Eisner College of Education, home to the Mitchell Family Counseling Clinic and the Family Focus Resource Center. The partnership between CSUN and The Ed Asner Family Center will bring CSUNs student and faculty expertise together with The Ed Asner Family Centers supportive environment to create a wonderful service for our community. We are grateful to the Asners for their leadership and look forward to advancing our work together. Navah Paskowitz-Asner and her husband Matt Asner, co-founders of The Ed Asner Family Center, also celebrated the partnership, noting the impact it will have in the community. Based on our own experiences as parents of children with special needs, we know how difficult and cost prohibitive it is to find quality mental health serves with people who are trained to work with individuals with autism, said Paskowitz-Asner, COO of the Asner Family Center. Our partnership with CSUN begins to fulfill a desperate need in our community. Asner, president and CEO of the Asner Family Center, agreed. Our goal, when we were envisioning The Ed Asner Family Center, was to create a place of excellence for families to thrive in, Asner said. This exciting partnership with CSUN is a huge step in the mission of realizing that vision. The Ed Anser Family Center, named for Matt Asners father, award-winning actor Ed Asner, launched in 2018 and is located at 7915 Lindley, Reseda, CA 91335. It offers arts and vocational enrichment and health and wellness, including meditation and mindfulness, to individuals with special needs and their families. They also offer low and no-cost mental health services. Under the partnership, CSUNs Mitchell Family Counseling Clinic will supervise and train therapists to work with individuals, couples, families and groups at The Ed Asner Family Center. Specifically, the therapists will be trained in how to work with individuals on the autism spectrum. Assisting in the training will be Sarita Freedman, a recognized psychologist in the field and author of a book on college students with autism. The Mitchell Family Counseling Clinic is a community service site for the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling in the Michael D. Eisner College of Education at California State University, Northridge. It provides a clinical training and research site for graduate level students in the colleges counseling programs, while also providing much-needed counseling services to members of the community on a sliding-scale fee basis. CSUNs Family Focus Resource Center also is providing support for the project. For more than a decade, the Family Focus Resource Center has provided parent-to-parent support, education and information to parents and caregivers of children with special needs and the professionals who serve them. The Ed Asner Family Center is a one-stop for those with special needs and their families seeking wholeness in all attitudes of life. The Center will act as an oasis of balance and thought, of interaction and education. Most importantly, The Center will give children and adults of all levels of ability a chance at dignity, confidence, and self-respect. The Ed Asner Family Center caters to the needs of the differently abled child -including autism, Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy (CP) and developmental delays - and enrolls the complete family to help them meet the unique challenges they face with grace. For more information, contact Kayleigh Millet kayleigh(at)edasnerfamilycenter.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edasnerfamilycenter/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/edasnercenter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edasnerfamilycenter/ Cybereason, creators of the leading Cyber Defense Platform, today announced it was named Next Gen Cybersecurity Company of the Year by Cyber Defense Magazine. The companys award-winning Cyber Defense Platform was also recognized as the best Best Endpoint Detection and Response Product. Cybereason continues to disrupt the global cybersecurity industry and is winning new customers at a more rapid pace than its competitors. Today, many of the worlds largest companies in the manufacturing, healthcare, retail, pharmaceutical, banking and oil/gas industries rely on Cybereason to protect them from data theft. These latest awards further validate Cybereasons growth and visibility. Additional 2019 accolades include: Cybereason outperformed every company that participated in the MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations. The companys Cyber Defense Platform demonstrated best-in-class automated threat detection, including total coverage across all MITRE ATT&CK phases, the most real-time alerts, and the highest correlation of malicious activity. 2019 CRN Security 100 - Endpoint security 2019 Cybersecurity Excellence Award for endpoint security 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customers Choice for EDR 2019 SC Awards UK Finalist- Best Endpoint Security Product 2019 Cybersecurity Company of the Year- CDM Infosec Awards 2019 Best EDR Product- CDM Infosec Awards 2019 Artificial Intelligence Innovator- IDC 2019 SC Medias 30th Anniversary- Visionary Award- Sam Curry, chief security officer About Cybereason Cybereason, creators of the leading Cyber Defense Platform, gives the advantage back to the defender through a completely new approach to cybersecurity. Cybereason offers endpoint detection and response (EDR), next-generation antivirus (NGAV), and active monitoring services, powered by its cross-machine correlation engine. The Cybereason suite of products provides unmatched visibility, increases analyst efficiency and effectiveness, and reduces security risk. Cybereason is privately held, has raised $189 million from top-tier VCs, and is headquartered in Boston, with offices in London, Sydney, Tel Aviv and Tokyo. Learn more: https://www.cybereason.com/ Follow us: Blog | Twitter | Facebook Media Contact: Bill Keeler Senior Director, Global Public Relations Cybereason bill.keeler(at)cybereason.com (929) 259-3261 Ensurem Solutions provides comprehensive solutions for insurance companies looking to connect with the modern public. Ensurem Solutions gives us the opportunity to help transform the insurance industry from the inside out. Ensurem, LLC, an innovative technology and digital marketing platform dedicated to simplifying the process of buying insurance, announced today the launch of the Ensurem Solutions division, a new venture focused on creating comprehensive solutions for insurance companies looking to connect with the modern public. Ensurem Solutions is the next step in the evolution of Ensurem as it adds business-to-business transactions to its company portfolio. The new Ensurem Solutions division utilizes three areas of Ensurems existing expertise: product development, digital distribution and secure administration. With Ensurems guidance and insight, insurance companies can implement effective and technology-efficient systems to create products that resonate with the modern consumer. Ensurem Solutions gives us the opportunity to help transform the insurance industry from the inside out. Were passing on everything weve learned to companies looking to succeed in todays technology-centric consumer market, stated David Rich, CEO and founder of Ensurem. Our team is composed of knowledgeable individuals with backgrounds in insurance, technology, creative development, marketing and sales. This allows us to help companies not only develop great products but to also assist them in creating a corporate digital persona that truly connects with todays consumers. Ensurem Solutions offers a variety of services to help insurance companies better serve the modern buying public, including product development, digital marketing, branding, consumer-centric frontends and secure, backend administration. Custom programs will be designed for each companys unique needs, and all services are available a-la-carte. We are confident in the products we are currently providing customers in our digital marketplace. Now were ready to deploy what weve learned with insurance companies looking to grow and expand in an ever-evolving digital landscape, remarked John Clifford, CFO and COO of Ensurem. This is the next step in the evolution of Ensurem. To learn more, please visit http://www.ensuremsolutions.com. Additional information about Ensurem can be found at http://www.ensurem.com. About Ensurem, LLC Ensurem, LLC was launched in January 2016 with a two-fold mission of Awaring America about the value of life insurance and supplemental health products and providing a simplified buying process. Based in Tampa Bay, Florida, the company provides insurance products to consumers and technology to insurance companies nationwide through its online platform. Ensurem offers several features to help customers live Life Optimized, including direct-to-consumer products as well as a library of product guides and resources. Guernsey, Channel Islands, May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In connection with AP Alternative Assets, L.P.s (AAA; Euronext Amsterdam: AAA) equity investment in Athene Holding Ltd. (Athene; NYSE: ATH), AAA informs its investors that Athene has released its unaudited statutory financial statements for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 for its main operating entities in Iowa, Delaware and Bermuda on its website at ir.athene.com. For additional information regarding Athene, please visit www.athene.com. About AP Alternative Assets AP Alternative Assets was established by Apollo Global Management, LLC and its subsidiaries (Apollo) and is a closed-end limited partnership established under the laws of Guernsey. Apollo is a leading global alternative investment manager with 28 years of experience investing across the capital structure of leveraged companies. AAA is managed by Apollo Alternative Assets, L.P. For more information about AP Alternative Assets, please visit www.apolloalternativeassets.com. Contact Gary Stein (New York) +1 (212) 822 0467 This announcement does not constitute or form part of an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction. This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances. Such statements are based on currently available operating, financial and competitive information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the historical experience and expressed or implied expectations of AAA. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and AAA does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law. Attachment Agile Testing Days USA is Coming to Chicago from June 2327, 2019! The organizing team has created both a diverse program of speakers and sessions and built one of the most diverse, collaborative, and energetic communities in the worlda safe place to share ideas and evolve professional and personal skills. Trendig Technology Services from Berlin, Germany and TechWell Corporation, the industry leader in software development conferences, collaborate to bring Agile Testing Days USA to Chicago. Agile Testing Days USA is a five day conference from June 2327, 2019 at the Palmer House Hilton in the heart of downtown Chicago, Illinois. From its beginnings as a software testing conference in 2009, the ATDs are now one of the worlds leading Agile software conferences. The US version was hosted last year in Boston for the first time and moved to the Windy City for the second edition. Agile Testing Days USA is best known for its rich 6-track program and inclusive and open minded atmosphere. An essential destination for global tech professionals, the conference features track sessions, keynotes, showcases, social evening events and a great variety of networking opportunities. The Agile Testing Days USA conference covers topics ranging from emerging technical needs in Agile and testing to topics that fall outside of or beyond testinglike diversity, mentoring, and mental health. The organizing team has created both a diverse program of speakers and sessions and built one of the most diverse, collaborative, and energetic communities in the worlda safe place to share ideas and evolve professional and personal skills, said Jose Diaz, CEO of trendig. This special atmosphere is what makes the conference unique and sets us apart from being just another tech conference. For more information and to access to program and registration details please visit https://agiletestingdays.us. About Trendig Technology Services: Trendig is a technology services company, founded in 1998 as Diaz and Hilterscheid Unternehmensberatung GmbH, which produces three magazines, seven conference series, and provides top-notch training and consultancy around the world. For more information, visit https://trendig.com. About Techwell Corporation: TechWell through its conferences, training, consulting, community websites, and online resourceshelps people and organizations develop and deliver great software. For more information, visit https://www.techwell.com/. Comparing car insurance quotes online will help you find an affordable policy that is worth your money said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Getting insurance quotes has a tremendous value. The market is highly competitive, making it easier for customers to get really affordable plans, without compromising on quality. Websites like http://compare-autoinsurance.org/ allow customers to get multiple quotes at once and discover the best rates in the area. Find out more and get free quotes from http://compare-autoinsurance.org/how-many-quotes-should-you-get-before-comparing-prices/ But how many quotes are necessary for a fair comparison? The answer is strictly related to the way a customer gets his quotes. Typically, the answer would be around 10 quotes. This gives sufficient options for comparison. It is recommended to get quotes from both the top insurers in the United States, but also from some local companies. Smaller, local companies can also provide top-notch services. If a person gets quotes directly from providers, it would take them about 5-10 minutes to fill in a form and wait for answers. We are talking about extended forms, not submit forms with 3-4 questions. For ten quotes, it may take that person almost two hours. This is why most people usually stop at 5 quotes using this method. It can be a pretty boring and exhausting activity to keep adding the same info all over again on a new website. However, the alternative will provide a high number of quotes in the shortest time available. Using brokerage websites will help getting 5-10 quotes on a single page, with a single search run. After getting a reasonable number of quotes, at least 5, then the customer should start comparing policies. Always make a top of highest rated companies and try to get quotes from them. Check which brokerage website has better connections with reputable carriers. Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. For more information, please visit http://compare-autoinsurance.org/ Gail Dawson, a retired mother of two grown sons, has completed her book Transcendent Light: a deeply personal memoir of a unique faith journey. The author writes about her lifelong battle between good and evil. Ms. Dawson came into the world in 1950 in Bastrop, Louisiana. Early on in her life, while growing up in small-town Texas, Brother Standley informed Gails parents that their daughter was special and has received Gods calling. Gail began performing seances during her adolescence that tore her away from her faith. Ms. Dawson shares an experience from her twenties that provided her with deliverance and brought her back to God. She writes about relying on her faith in God while raising a family and to guide her through her walk in life. This work may appeal to readers who enjoy the spiritual and the paranormal. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Gail Dawsons book is a compelling story for readers with an interest in the intersection between Christianity and the occult. Readers who wish to experience this engrossing work can purchase Transcendent Light at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not overwhelmed with logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of accomplished authors and publishing professionals allows writers to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Convenience retailers with compelling foodservice programs are a growing threat to quick service restaurants, says Frank Beard, convenience store trends analyst at GasBuddy. Fast food restaurants have been the go-to for a quick bite for decades. And as Americans get busier, gas station convenience stores have stepped up to provide exceptional, speedy foodservice, creating new competition in the market to contend with long-time restaurateurs. Foodservice now makes up nearly 23% of sales at convenience stores nationwide, growing three percent in the past 5 years.* GasBuddy, the only smartphone app connecting drivers with their Perfect Pit Stop, examines how, why and where convenience store foodservice is gaining on quick service restaurants (QSRs). The study found that 56% of Americans purchase meals at least once per month at gas station convenience stores, with younger Americans purchasing food at convenience stores more frequently. Twenty-five percent of those aged 30-44 purchase food 5 or more times per month, while 20% of those aged 18-29 purchase food at convenience stores 3-4 times per month. A significant portion of 18-29 year olds purchase more meals from convenience stores than they did three years ago (43%), and 75% of Americans believe convenience store foodservice has improved in the past 5 years. Convenience retailers with compelling foodservice programs are a growing threat to quick service restaurants, says Frank Beard, convenience store trends analyst at GasBuddy. Data show that people choose convenience stores over fast food locations because of the convenience of an all-in-one stop for fuel and food, followed by a preference for the taste of the food at c-stores. Couple this with leading convenience brands like Wawa and QuikTrip rapidly expanding across the country, and fast food brands will be forced to find innovative ways to catch up. Increased Dollar Spend & Consumer Preference Frequent visits to purchase meals at convenience stores come with increased dollar spend. The study found that 1 in 4 Americans spend $6-10 per week on convenience store foodservice, with nearly 20 percent of Americans aged 18-29 spending $10-15 per week. The most-preferred meals from convenience stores and QSRs include sandwiches or wraps (1), fresh salad (2), pizza (3), burgers and fries (4) and fried chicken (5). Convenience brands are well-positioned to cater to consumers tastes because they arent pigeon-holed into one type of cuisine, says Beard. Our study found that younger Americans prefer more variety, particularly with newer menu items like burritos and pizzas. As for the time it takes to receive their food, nearly one third of consumers are only willing to wait 5 minutes for their meal. When asked about what they dont like about fast food establishments, consumers cited unhealthy options as the top concern (1), followed by the quality of the food (2), restaurant cleanliness (3), and limited food and drink options (4). Additional insights can be found by contacting advertisement(at)gasbuddy.com and by attending the National Restaurant Association Conference in Chicago on May 19, 2019 where GasBuddys convenience store trends analyst, Frank Beard, will be speaking about this topic. Methodology Results based on 550 responses from a GasBuddy survey issued on April 24, 2019. About GasBuddy GasBuddy is a company that connects drivers with their Perfect Pit Stop. As the leading source for crowdsourced, real-time fuel prices at more than 150,000 gas station convenience stores in the U.S., Canada and Australia, millions of drivers use the GasBuddy app and website every day to find gas station convenience stores based on fuel prices, location and ratings/reviews. GasBuddys first-of-its-kind fuel savings program, Pay with GasBuddy, has saved Americans more than $6 million at the pumps since its launch in 2017. The companys business solutions suite, GasBuddy Business Pages, provides Fuel Marketers and Retailers their best opportunity to maintain their station information, manage their brand, and promote to their target consumer audience. For more information, visit http://www.gasbuddy.com. *NACS State of the Industry Data, 2018, NACS Industry data 2014 I started my business in 1985 using my dads recipe for BBQ sauce. Right from the start, I was told to stick with what I know because I would never make it in the food business. Those words inspired me to prove them wrong. What do California Pizza Kitchen, Gelsons, TGI Fridays, Cheesecake Factory, and the Los Angeles Unified Schools all have in common? They all use or have used BBQ sauces made by Gayle's Sweet 'N' Sassy Foods, which is celebrating 35 years in business. I started my business in 1985, said founder Gayle Gannes Rosenthal, using my dads recipe for BBQ sauce. Right from the start, I was told to stick with what I know because I would never make it in the food business. Those words inspired me to prove them wrong. Today, Gayle sells on Amazon. After taking our products out of retail stores years ago, we heard from panicked customers that they couldnt find our BBQ sauces. Recognizing the growth of Amazon, selling our products there seemed like a natural fit, noted Gayle. In addition to Amazon, Gayles Sweet N Sassy Foods has become a staple in homes, restaurants, stores, and schools. LA Unified School District requested Gayles BBQ sauce because it was a healthy choice for children. It is fat free, trans fat free, gluten free, cholesterol free and has no saturated fats, preservatives or extenders, and still tastes delicious. Gayle, who was a struggling actor, would go on auditions with her headshots, resume and a Tupperware of her dads BBQ sauce from his restaurant in South Central Los Angeles. I was hired to work on a McDonalds commercial and one of the actors mentioned he was tired of eating the burgers, which is when I suggested that I bring my dads BBQ sauce to change things up, stated Gayle. The director heard how great the BBQ sauce was and asked Gayle to cater the wrap party. I catered the party with chicken, ribs and, of course, the BBQ sauce. The production people said that the curly blond--that was me--was okay, but they wanted to know where to buy the sauce, added Gayle. Gayle told her father she wanted to market the BBQ sauce and so she learned the magic of making it. We were ahead of the times, Gayle stated. I thought it would be great to put our sauces in plastic bottles so they wouldnt break while barbecuing outside. Gayle then contacted the buyer at Gelsons, who initially told her no, pointing out that unless she knew the business, she would never have a chance of getting on the shelves, but Gayle persevered, and Gelsons buyer agreed to meet with her. Right then and there, he ordered one case per store, Gayle said. In the mid-80s, California-style pizza, like Spagos, was an emerging phenomenon. In a Fortune magazine article by Dinah Eng, California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) co-founder Rick Rosenfield was quoted as saying, Our idea was to bring Spago to the masses. The pizza cook from Spago consulted for us, and he created the original CPK menu, with things like rabbit sausage, radicchio, pine nut, grape-leaf pizza. None of it sold. Added co-founder Larry Flax, What did sell was the barbecue chicken pizza. CPK used Gayles Sweet N Sassy BBQ sauce on their BBQ chicken pizzas. Thirty-five years ago, our BBQ sauce, Gayle stated, started the BBQ Chicken Pizza and BBQ Chicken Salad craze at California Pizza Kitchen, and it is still their top-selling items on the menu. Happily, we continue to supply CPK with our delicious BBQ sauce. Our barbecue sauce is great on sandwiches, tacos, kabobs, salads, pizzas, and even as a dip. We expertly crafted our Gayles Sweet N Sassy BBQ sauces using only the best ingredients, Gayle concluded. Its still the No. 1 sauce across the U.S. and is also sold to countries including United Arab Emirates, Japan and many others. Gayles Sweet N Sassy now produces 13 products in addition to the BBQ sauces and all are sold on Amazon, including Gayle's Sweet 'N' Sassy Butter Pecan Syrup, Bread and Butter Pickles, Honey Horseradish Dijon Mustard, Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing, among others. In addition to having distributors throughout the country, restaurants can also order Gayles in the 4 x 1 gallons on Amazon. About Gayles Sweet N Sassy Foods Gayle's Sweet 'N' Sassy Foods is headquartered at 269 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 472, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. For more information, call 310-246-1792 (Office), 310-246-1794 (Fax), email info(at)gaylesbbq(dot)com, or visit http://gaylesbbq.com/. For media inquiries, please call the press department at the NALA at 805-650-6121, ext. 361. George Brosky, a ninety-one-year-old retired Navy Commander and hospital administrator has completed his book How a Teen Built and Flew His Own Airplane: a true story about the authors remarkable late brothers, who grew to achieve great things, with Stan ultimately graduating with an advanced degree in physics and working on the development of the first nuclear submarine, and John retiring with the rank of General in the US Air Force and then rising to become a Pennsylvania Superior Court judge. This is a true-life story of the two brothers, ages thirteen and ten, who persuaded the other six members in their clubhouse to build a Piper Cub airplane. A Popular Mechanics magazine that month ran a centerfold of workable drawings. They all agreed to help with a loud, Lets do it! Each phase of construction was detailed, including all obstacles that seemed insurmountable. Stans leadership abilities were most notable and inspiring. But the plane was built and was flown, and it ended happily with a humorous ending. The Wright brothers plane flew for eighteen seconds. The Brosky brothers plane flew for 3 seconds. Both have gone down in history as pioneers in aviation history and as such were honored at an annual meeting of pilots of Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. The author was an honored guest in attendance. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, George Broskys book is an inspiring true story celebrating the industrious and pioneering spirit of two young boys who grew to become great men. Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase How a Teen Built and Flew His Own Airplane at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not overwhelmed with logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of accomplished authors and publishing professionals allows writers to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Jakes America: a moving romance about dreams colliding with reality, is the creation of published author Glen Daniels, a writer with a gleam of hope in his eye. Daniels writes, This is the story of Jake, a disgruntled Vietnam vet who isnt happy with the course the nation is taking, so he decides to give up his lavish lifestyle and escape to a simpler life. The question is, can he do it? Then, there is Lydia, a widowed mother of two who is running from a life of pain and remorse toward a life she doesnt even know exists. The two collide in remote Montana. Differences aside, are they good for each other? Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Glen Danielss new book is a touching and often thoughtful narrative that explores how two souls with unsettling pasts can hope to forge a way to a better tomorrow by facing reality, taking risks, and giving in to love they find unexpectedly on the way. View a synopsis of Jakes America on YouTube. Consumers can purchase Jakes America at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Jakes America, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Test drive a new Nissan SUV this month at Glendale Nissan! Summer has finally arrived. The perfect time to get out of the house after a long and cold winter and take a fun vacation or road trip. However, after years of driving the same vehicle, it might not be the most reliable or safe option for a special trip. In order to get out and enjoy some fun in the sun, Glendale Nissan, a dealership serving the Glendale Heights and Chicago areas, is hosting the Nissan Summer of SUVs event. Just in time for Memorial Day, the Nissan Summer of SUVs event will last the entire month of May, as drivers will be able to get great lease deals on some of the newest and most exciting Nissan SUVs. These include offers on vehicles such as the 2019 Nissan Rogue S, as well as the 2019 Nissan Murano S AWD model. The Rogue S will be available for lease for just $189 per month for 36 months with $3,999 due at signing, while the Murano S AWD will be available for lease for $239 per month for 36 months with $3,499 due at signing. While it is an SUV event, other popular Nissan models such as the Sentra and Altima will also have their own exciting deals. Of course, car shoppers like to learn as much as they can about a vehicle before signing any papers. Thats why Glendale Nissan makes it easy for drivers to test drive their favorite vehicles, research Nissan models on their blog, as well as offer ways to calculate monthly payments and trade towards a new purchase. Glendale Nissan is a full-service dealership in Glendale Heights that specializes in both new and used Nissan vehicles. Those interested in shopping the Nissan Summer of SUVs event can visit the dealership this month for more information. Car shoppers can also get a hold of the dealership at http://www.glendalenissan.com or by dialing 630-469-6100. This partnership is about delivering value for alumni who want career development and networking opportunities from their alma mater and for fundraisers who seek to build relationships in pursuit of a better world, said Brent Grinna, Founder and CEO of EverTrue. Graduway and EverTrue, two leading advancement software providers, have announced a strategic partnership that will help colleges and independent schools offer meaningful alumni experiences that lead to more fundraising opportunities. A new integration between the two platforms will bring both sides of the advancement shop alumni and parent relations and development closer together than ever before. As alumni relations and career services programs add value to the graduate experience through Graduways mentorship and networking platform, interactions from alumni will become valuable leads for fundraisers who use EverTrue to measure engagement and discover new prospects. By bringing together Graduway, the leading platform for alumni networks, and EverTrue, the leading advancement automation software platform, were empowering schools to leverage their networks to more strategically meet their organizations fundraising goals, said Daniel Cohen, Graduways Founder and CEO. Our two companies are replicating the closer alignment we are seeing between alumni relations and development departments who are working more collaboratively than ever before. This partnership is about delivering value for alumni who want career development and networking opportunities from their alma mater and for fundraisers who seek to build relationships in pursuit of a better world, said Brent Grinna, Founder and CEO of EverTrue. Over the last several years, Graduway has established clear market leadership in the alumni engagement and mentoring categories. By partnering with Graduway, alumni will have more opportunities for meaningful connections, which will ultimately lead to stronger engagement and increase fundraising potential. As part of this agreement, EverTrues Alumni Community customers will automatically become customers of Graduways integrated directory and mentorship platform. These organizations can also add Graduways customizable discussion groups, job boards and event management tools. "This new partnership signifies great benefits for the development and alumni relations industry, said James Stofan, Vice President for Alumni Relations at the Tulane University Alumni Association, a leading alumni association which is a customer of both platforms. We've already seen how meaningful engagement leads to deeper connections with alumni. Now via Graduways partnership with EverTrue, we will have even greater visibility into the reach of our mentoring and networking programs and clearly demonstrate how adding value to our alumni experience translates to more support for Tulane worldwide." As the first step in this agreement, EverTrue and Graduway will introduce a new integration that allows EverTrue users to qualify active users of the Graduway platform as prospective donors and volunteers across the giving funnel. By combining this activity with insights from EverTrues more than 80 search filters which include other forms of engagement, giving history, and capacity scores, fundraisers will connect with new potential donors and alumni relations teams will better quantify their efforts. Mutual customers can also use these insights to identify the best potential ambassadors and career mentors, driving more meaningful engagement and adding value to the programs supported by Graduways leading alumni networking platform. About Graduway Headquartered in the U.K. with operations in the U.S. and Israel, Graduway is trusted by 1,000+ educational institutions and non profits to power their alumni relations and digital career communities, including UCLA, Johns Hopkins and the University of Oxford. Founded in 2009 by Daniel Cohen, author of Alumni Therapy and The Mentoring Revolution, Graduway exclusively hosts the Graduway Leaders Summit as a key gathering of leaders and executives from Alumni Relations, Career Services and Advancement. Visit Graduway at http://www.graduway.com About EverTrue EverTrue is the leading advancement automation platform that gives advancement teams a comprehensive view of every donor by connecting their data to a hub of social and demographic information sources. Today more than half of the top 100 colleges use EverTrues modern, mobile-first platform to engage alumni, fundraise, discover prospects, manage gift officer portfolios, and coordinate volunteer programs. EverTrue is headquartered in Boston, MA and is backed by University Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures. Visit EverTrue at http://www.evertrue.com. Everyone wants to grow their careers, but according to a new survey report released today by Kimble Applications, American workers enthusiastically want to help grow the organization theyre working for as well. According to Kimbles Business Growth Report, 85 percent of U.S. full-time employees care about the growth of the organization that they work for, and most employees (86 percent) believe that they will grow more professionally if the organization that theyre working for is also growing. Whats more, 66 percent of U.S. employees say that the growth and success of their employer directly contributes to their personal happiness. In fact, more than two-thirds (69 percent) of U.S. full time employees would rather work longer hours at a growing organization than 9-5 at a stagnant organization. This is something that business leaders should be very attentive to, especially as more than a quarter of employees (27 percent) have quit a job because they felt that the organization wasnt growing fast enough. In fact, one out of five U.S. employees (21 percent) would move anywhere if it meant working for an exciting, growing organization. And while more than half of full time employees would be more apt to accept a job offer if they felt that the work was more meaningful than their current position, 86 percent of employees agree that if the work theyre doing is meaningful to them, theyre more willing do whatever it takes to help their organization grow. In todays startup heavy ecosystem, its no surprise that US employees want to work for growing companies, but the findings from our survey should make stagnant organizations incredibly worried, said Mark Robinson, co-founder of Kimble Applications. What we know is that employees are eager to help their organizations grow and want to feel like theyre directly contributing to the success of a company. If an organization doesnt recognize these efforts and communicate corporate growth appropriately, they may experience high employee turnover and in turn, stunt its own growth. Additional stats from Kimbles Business Growth Report include: Most employees (80 percent) know that the work they do on a daily basis directly impacts the growth of their organization When it comes to company growth, US employees believe that the organizations leadership (38 percent) and employee productivity (32 percent) are the biggest contributors Most employees are influenced by communication; 45 percent said that they would feel more invested in their organizations growth if leadership was sharing updates more often while 42 percent said they might be if the right information was being shared Overall, career growth potential is the number one reason people would stay at a growing organization vs. taking a new position at a more established organization Only 22 percent of U.S. employees would NOT relocate for a job with an exciting, growing organization More than half (53 percent) of U.S. full time employees define meaningful work as work thats a passion of theirs, followed by making the world a better place (35.5 percent) While 35 percent of respondents said to get paid was the primary reason they do the work that they do, 26 percent said it was to advance their personal career, 19 percent said it was to feel fulfilled, and 17 percent said it was to help their organization grow For additional data and takeaways, the full Business Growth Report can be downloaded here. Survey Methodology The findings are based on a survey conducted through Pollfish on March 19th, 2019 of 1,000 full-time employees in the United States, ages 18 and over. About Kimble Applications Kimble Applications helps professional service organizations run their project-based businesses better. Global leaders in consulting, software and hi-tech such as NTT Data, TCS, Sage and Canon use Kimble to optimize resource utilization, profitability and business scalability. Kimble is the only leading software vendor that focuses exclusively on professional services automation (PSA), putting all its energy into innovating features and easy-to-use functionality that improve team collaboration and efficiency around the key services processes. Built to work seamlessly with CRM, Kimble drives a forward-looking focus and more timely decision making with intelligent insights and guidance. Kimble was recently named to the Financial Times list of Europes Fastest Growing Companies. For more information on Kimble Applications, please visit http://www.kimbleapps.com. NEW ORLEANS, May 15, 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 July 15, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Revlon, Inc. (NYSE: REV), if they purchased the Companys securities between March 12, 2015 and March 28, 2019, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. What You May Do If you purchased Revlon securities and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-rev/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by July 15, 2019 . About the Lawsuit Revlon and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On March 18, 2019, the Company disclosed that would not timely file its 2018 10-K due to a material weakness related to its enterprise resource planning system. Then, on March 28, 2019, post-market, Revlon filed its 10-K detailing that manufacturing problems caused by system disruptions resulted in it being unable to fulfill product shipments representing approximately $64 million of net sales during 2018 as well as incurring $53.6M in charges. On this news, the price of Revlons shares dropped. The case is Lachman v. Revlon, Inc. et al., 19cv2859. 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: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Hedge funds extended their run of positive returns to four straight months in April, returning 1.21% for the month, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop Solutions. By comparison, the S&P 500 Total Return Index rose 2.85% in April. For the-year-to date through the end of April hedge funds returned 6.86% while the S&P was up 19.32%. Several factors buoyed investor sentiment in April, including U.S. first quarter growth exceeding expectations and strong U.S. consumer spending and March jobs reports, said Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge. Hopeful signs in the U.S.-China trade dispute as President Trump directed negotiators to reach a solution bolstered equity markets, while reports that Chinese economic growth held steady in the first quarter gave a further boost to investor confidence." The Technology Index set the pace in April with a 3.70% return, with the Emerging Markets Eastern European Equities Index close behind at 3.54%. The Equity Long Bias Index returned 3.15% for the month while the Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index posted a 3.11% return. Healthy first quarter economic growth in Poland and solid consumer spending and employment gains in Romania were among the factors adding strength to Eastern European funds, added Waksman. Other fund sectors in positive territory in April included the Emerging Markets Other Index, up 1.73%, the Emerging Markets MENA index with a 1.68% return and the European Equities Index, up 1.59%. April saw only a handful of hedge fund sectors in the red. They included the Healthcare & Biotechnology Index, down 2.63%, the Equity Market Neutral Index, off 0.72%, and the Emerging Markets Asia Index, down 0.09%. For the year-to-date through April, the Technology Index led the pack with a 12.68% return. Also in double digits for the year-to-date was the Healthcare & Biotechnology Index, returning 11.51% through April. The Equity Long Bias Index reflected the years strong equity market performance with an 11.84% year-to-date return, while the Emerging Markets Eastern European Equities Index returned 10.98% and the Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index returned 10.07%. For a complete table of BarclayHedge Hedge Fund and Sub-Index results for April, as well as historical returns, click here. About Backstop Solutions Backstops mission is to help the institutional investment industry use time to its fullest potential. We develop technology to simplify and streamline otherwise time-consuming tasks and processes, enabling our clients to quickly and easily access, share, and manage the knowledge thats critical to their day-to-day business success. Backstop provides its industry-leading cloud-based productivity suite to investment consultants, pensions, funds of funds, family offices, endowments, foundations, private equity, hedge funds, and real estate investment firms. BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop, currently maintains data on more than 6,900 hedge funds, funds of funds, and CTAs. The BarclayHedge Indices are utilized by institutional investors, brokerage firms, and private banks worldwide as performance benchmarks for the hedge fund and managed futures industries. Iflexion, a global provider of software development services, has announced today the release of their industry research titled Machine Learning in Finance: 7 Applications and Their Global Footprint. The research identifies and reviews the prominent AI applications across credit markets, trading, and wealth management. The underlying theme of the report can be summarized in one word: automation. AI is reshaping the global financial market, changing the way companies manage credit risks, conduct trading activities, and provide wealth management advice. In credit risk management, this paper highlights automation capabilities that AI and machine learning can bring to specific areas, such as underwriting tasks. The report goes on to emphasize the ongoing push for automation in the industry, and briefly covers AI use cases in lead scoring, collections and reserving. The authors of this report also single out some of the cutting-edge applications of AI in trading, including the use of reinforcement learning for intelligent trading automation. The report also touches on AI implications for analyzing unstructured public data to generate insights, which shows the potential to transform trading forecasts. In the final part, the research provides a deep look into the state of AI in wealth management where the technology is helping wealth advisors and managers to improve personalization and revenue-generating potential of their investment products. The report also explores the undergoing metamorphosis in wealth management that will see less demand for human advisors and more reliance on AI and data-driven risk assessment. This is the latest addition to Iflexions research series that explores how nascent technologies, including AI, machine learning, computer vision and others, are transforming business operations globally. About Iflexion Iflexion is a custom software development company based in Denver, CO. With 850+ specialists on board, Iflexion delivers software solutions that address various business needs and foster enterprise processes. With a strong focus on web and mobile development, the company has accomplished more than 1,500 projects in 30+ countries. Iflexion keeps in step with ever-changing tech trends and extends their offering with top-demanded services and technologies. AR/VR app development, AI consulting and development, image analysis, blockchain development make part of Iflexions competencies. SafeGuard OES, 24hr Student Resources We need to know that there is a critical connection between school safety and student wellness. In the wake of yet another school shooting in Colorado, just less than 9 miles from Columbine, the debate over whether progressive changes still need to be made to school emergency management has been reignited. Differing viewpoints can be found in every school district and school administrators are not the only ones weighing in on the topic. The only thing that our kids should need to fear in school is calculus, said one parent. When children are dropped off at school in the morning, the expectation is that the school is doing everything in its power to keep their children safe. But every school is bound by its own safety and emergency preparedness policies. Teachers are trained and required to follow those policies. But who is writing them? It isnt uncommon in school districts to find safety and emergency management positions filled by certificated staff with no real public safety or emergency management training. When one considers that on any given weekday, more than one-fifth of the US population can be found in schools, it stands to reason that we ought to have qualified staff leading our school safety efforts. Schools are arguably the safest place for a child to be during an emergency incident. That is of course if the school is well trained in emergency response procedures. In the State of California for example, where school employees are mandated to serve as Disaster Service Workers (DSW) during a local or state emergency, new laws are helping to at least lead districts in the right direction. California Assembly Bill 1747 requires that schools conduct annual active shooter drills. The activities conducted in those drills however, differ from district to district. California Assembly Bill 3205 requires that any new school construction or upgrade include classroom doors that allow teachers to lock the door from the inside as part of their training. These new laws are helping to develop preventative defense measures that will hopefully save lives during an active shooting. Some safety experts believe that districts need to better prepare their schools by going beyond just conducting the conventional and mandatory lockdown drill. Without reliving tragic events, we need to consider the fact that teachers havent always been able to lock their classroom doors in time, said Mike Jacobs, Founder and CEO of SafeGuard School Systems, Inc. Jacobs, who majors in emergency management and who has worked in public schools for nearly 20 years, founded his company based in Palo Alto, CA shortly after the Sandy Hook incident in 2012. He recalls the incident hitting very close to home for him as his first child had just started kindergarten. Its important to teach students and staff about the things that can be done if a shooter actually gains access into their classrooms, libraries, multi-purpose rooms, etc. Its not hard to throw off the focus of even a trained gunman if there are 30 books flying in his/her direction. By creating a dynamic environment, and by taking away a gunmans focus, we can save lives. Safety experts say that the more confusion we can eliminate in a school shooting, the less people are going to get hurt. Its for that reason that SafeGuard School Systems developed SafeGuard OES, a mobile application that can be downloaded onto any smart phone or mobile device. It bridges the gap of communication from the classroom to first responders and is able to communicate conditions as well as specific locations. Were arming teachers with the ability to communicate effectively with first responders, because no one knows the condition of a classroom better than the teachers who are in them, said Jacobs. The application does not rely solely upon GPS, as its able to triangulate the specific location of its users when notifications are sent. It is designed to perform effectively, even if used inside buildings with little to no cellular signal. Schools have changed their views on how electronic security systems should work. They're no longer viewed as forensic tools that provide evidence after something has happened, but as security systems to help detect and mitigate problems as they occur. Video surveillance and security systems that can reduce the possibility, or that provide quicker response times to incidents as they are occurring have an advantage over those that cannot, said Jacobs. More focus is now being placed on video surveillance. Whats next however, are integrated and protected systems that proactively harden a school site and provide information to first responders in real-time. Jacobs decided to take it even further by integrating 24hr-counseling resources into the SafeGuard OES student interface. The best way to mitigate an emergency is by preventing it from happening altogether. We need to know that there is a critical connection between school safety and student wellness. I sincerely hope that we can help stop these school shootings before they happen, but if we can't, I feel good knowing that we've at least provided a truly effective means of communication for teachers and law enforcement during that emergency. SafeGuard OES is more than just an app, it's a well-designed tool that can improve any emergency management program, said Jacobs. His company is hoping that by providing the mental wellness help that some of our students need, tragedies like another UNC-Charlotte or Highlands Ranch, CO shooting can be avoided. John Adair Carroll, a, has completed his book Solving Major Problems through the Formation of a One-World Government: a thought-provoking thesis examining the failures of the status quo around the world and the implications for the future. This book attempts to address the major world problems of today with suggested solutions. Discussed are the many problems our society deals with on a daily basis, such as water shortages, natural disasters, public violence, financial institutions, and the family unit as a whole. Through these ideas, many possibilities are brought forth for the reader to ponder. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, John Adair Carrolls book offers a number of disastrous scenarios that can occur in the not-too-distant future and some groundbreaking ideas for preventing them. Readers who wish to experience this provocative work can purchase Solving Major Problems through the Formation of a One-World Government at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not overwhelmed with logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of accomplished authors and publishing professionals allows writers to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Jensen Precast today announced the appointment of Kurt Jensen as Managing Director of Jensen Enterprises Inc. An accomplished leader in the precast concrete industry, Jensen brings more than three decades of experience to the executive level position as the privately held company continues to expand into new markets. Jensen Precast is one of the largest independently owned precast concrete producers in the United States, with manufacturing facilities in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Oregon. Jensen grew up in the industry learning about the benefits of precast concrete for infrastructure developments from his father, Donald Jensen, who founded Jensen Precast in 1968. Joining the family enterprise in 1987, he became involved in every aspect of the companys business operations. Most recently, Jensen served as General Manager of the precast manufacturing facility in Sparks, Nevada. Previously, he performed as General Manager of the companys Las Vegas, Nevada, facility; Chief Operations Officer of the corporation; and Vice President of Asset Management for the properties, fleet, and equipment of Jensen Enterprises. Kurt has a wealth of business knowledge and operational experience to offer as we continue to grow our business and develop new ways to meet customer expectations, said Donald Jensen, Founder and CEO of Jensen Precast. We look forward to his contributions for increasing efficiency and excellence at our facilities, on our job sites, and with our customers. A native Nevadan, Jensen was raised in the Reno-Tahoe area and is a second generation owner-shareholder of Jensen Precast. He regularly volunteers and raises funds for local charities, including the Boys and Girls Club of Truckee Meadows in Reno. I look forward to taking on this new role as Jensen Precast expands business opportunities to meet new and existing customer demands, said Jensen. I am excited to advance our future and our industry. About Jensen Precast Jensen Precast designs, engineers, and manufactures precast concrete products for the growing infrastructure needs of communities, businesses, and government agencies throughout the Western United States. Celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2018, Jensen Precast employs more than 900 skilled workers who provide services to the nations leading construction and engineering businesses. Visit jensenprecast.com for locations, products, quotes, and contact information for expert consultation. To arrange interviews with Jensen Precast executives, engineers, and product experts, please contact Nicholas Drake at (775) 352-5275 or ndrake(at)jensenprecast.com. By expanding our electronic data management expertise in 2019 to include Medrio EDC, we can shorten system setup time, expedite data reporting and attract more clinical trial sponsors that prefer using Medrio. says Chermaen Lindberg, Co-founder and Partner at L3 Healthcare. L3 Clinical Trials, the Clinical Research Organization (CRO) division of L3 Healthcare (L3), announces the company is now a certified designer of the Medrio EDC Software. L3 Clinical Trials provides comprehensive and specialized CRO services for start-up and mid-size in vitro diagnostic (IVD) and medical device companies. As a certified Medrio EDC designer, L3 Clinical Trials can now offer electronic data capture (EDC) and software customization to clinical trial sponsors using Medrio EDC, a leading EDC platform. The use of EDC platforms is becoming increasingly popular as it enables sponsors and other members of the clinical trial team to have secure, remote access to data. Our prior EDC certification helped us successfully complete our IVD clinical trials in 2018 that rapidly resulted in FDA 510k clearances, says Chermaen Lindberg, Co-founder and Partner at L3 Healthcare. By expanding our electronic data management expertise in 2019 to include Medrio EDC, we can shorten system setup time, expedite data reporting and attract more clinical trial sponsors that prefer using Medrio. Supporting our CRO partners with industry leading eClinical solutions to drive speed, efficiency and quality is an integral part of Medrios mission, says Steve Geffon, Chief Revenue Officer at Medrio. And we congratulate L3 Clinical Trials on their certification. L3 is also pleased to announce that Jane Edwards, VP of Clinical Research, has recently obtained her Regulatory Affairs Certification through the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS). Effective EDC design is essential for clean data capture and streamlining trial reporting, says Jane Edwards, CCRA, RAC. Our certification as a Medrio EDC software designer and additional regulatory certification helps enhance L3 Clinical Trial services and options for our sponsors. About L3 Healthcare L3 Healthcare, founded by IVD and medical device professionals, provides pre- and post-market expertise and resources dedicated to assisting organizations with generating clinical evidence, establishing clinical value and increasing market adoption in the global marketplace. L3 Clinical Trials, a division of L3 Healthcare, focuses its services on devising and executing clinical trials through streamlined processes, staff, technology, and its vast key opinion leader and research network in the biotech and life science industries. The L3 Clinical Trials team understands the importance of strategically approaching clinical trials and go-to market projects in environments with limited funds and resources, and seamlessly fills in the gaps where needed to achieve the desired goals. L3 specializes in IVD and medical devices in a wide range of disease states and global markets that help provide value and a distinct edge for its client sponsors. For more information, visit https://www.l3healthcare.com/services/ivd-cro/ About Medrio Medrio is the leading provider of eClinical technology for early-phase pharma, device, and diagnostics clinical trials. Founded in 2005, the company's cloud-based EDC, eSource, eConsent, and ePRO solutions deliver fast, flexible, and easy-to-use tools for the collection and management of clinical data and patient reported outcome responses. Study sponsors and contract research organizations have used Medrio extensively in clinical trials across a wide array of therapeutic areas, with notable success in oncology, infectious disease, and more. Medrio has extensive experience in all study phases and leads the market in early-phase trials. The company serves over 500 customers globally, with headquarters in San Francisco and offices in numerous domestic and international locations. For more information, please visit http://www.medrio.com. Rebecca Huss, a leading voice in animal law, is joining Best Friends Animal Society. We at Best Friends knew of Huss accomplishments prior to the Bad Newz Kennels case, but we learned her true heart through her work advocating for those dogs and her success in helping to prove that dogs rescued from dog fighting did deserve a chance at life. Best Friends Animal Society, a leading national animal welfare organization, announced that Rebecca Huss, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Law at Valparaiso University Law School, will be joining Best Friends as general counsel. Huss gained national prominence in 2007 when she was appointed by the District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia as the guardian/special master of the dogs seized during the Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting case. We at Best Friends knew of Huss accomplishments prior to the Bad Newz Kennels case, but we learned her true heart through her work advocating for those dogs and her success in helping to prove that dogs rescued from dog fighting did deserve a chance at life, said Julie Castle, CEO, Best Friends Animal Society. It has become commonplace now for dogs seized from these situations to be assessed and rehabilitated, so it is easy to forget that prior to this case dogs like these were summarily killed. Huss was instrumental in this groundbreaking precedent. Huss will come on board in July 2019. She will play a key role in advising management and the Board of Directors on all legal matters, work with management to ensure Best Friends has policies and practices that will protect the organizations assets and reputation, while also supporting the success of Best Friends programs. Huss has been honored for her leadership in animal law including the 2019 Excellence in Animal Law award from the Animal Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools and the 2011 Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award from the Animal Law Committee of the American Bar Associations Tort, Trial & Insurance Practice Section. Her focus in research and writing is on the changing nature of the relationship between humans and their companion animals and whether the law adequately reflects the importance of that relationship as well as analyzing issues relating to service and assistance animals. Huss has also taught at the University of Iowa College of Law, Notre Dame Law School, Stetson University College of Law and Lewis & Clark Law School. In addition to Animal Law, Professor Huss teaches Non Profit Organizations, Professional Responsibility, Business Associations and other business law courses. About Best Friends Animal Society Best Friends Animal Society is a leading national animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters. In addition to running lifesaving programs in partnership with more than 2,500 animal welfare groups across the country, Best Friends has regional centers in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Salt Lake City, and operates the nation's largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals. Founded in 1984, Best Friends is a pioneer in the no-kill movement and has helped reduce the number of animals killed in shelters nationwide from 17 million per year to about 800,000. That means there are still nearly 2,200 dogs and cats killed every day in shelters, just because they dont have safe places to call home. We are determined to bring the country to no-kill by the year 2025. Working collaboratively with shelters, rescue groups, other organizations and you, we will end the killing and Save Them All. For more information, visit bestfriends.org. To become a fan of Best Friends on Facebook, go to Facebook.com/bestfriendsanimalsociety. Follow Best Friends on Twitter (@BestFriends) and Instagram (@BestFriendsAnimalSociety). Triton is the industrys first ultra-high-capacity tri-drive air suspensions are engineered to be used in multi-axle configurations for heavy-haul and off-highway applications. Using our new Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspensions, OEMs will now have higher-capacity equipment to offer, giving them access to off-highway mining, quarry and logging markets they may not currently serve. Bill Ott Link Mfg., Ltd., the leader in specialty-engineered suspensions, announced that it has delivered the first set of its new Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspensions. The industrys first ultra-high-capacity tri-drive air suspensions are engineered to be used in multi-axle configurations for heavy-haul and off-highway applications. Designed for traditional production line installation, Tritons brawny 105K carrying capacity gives OEMs a viable and efficient path to broaden their product offerings by increasing the load-bearing capabilities of existing vehicle platforms. Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspensions are engineered for application flexibility and can be combined to provide a variety of vehicle carrying capacities, including 35K single-drive, 70K dual-drive and industry-leading 105K tri-drive configurations. Regardless of disposition, Triton Air Suspensions are designed to seamlessly integrate with most major heavy-haul axle makes and models. Using our new Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspensions, OEMs will now have higher-capacity equipment to offer, giving them access to off-highway mining, quarry and logging markets they may not currently serve, said Bill Ott, vice president of engineering for Link Manufacturing. Our line of Air Link Suspensions have been 100 percent off-highway-rated for 25 years, giving us decades of practical engineering experience in that market space. The Triton Air Suspension is the byproduct of that experience. Ott explained that the Tritons heavy-duty mounting system was another innovation born of the companys off-highway experience. He noted that through voice-of-the-customer feedback, many of the problems associated with other tri-drives have been engineered out of the Triton, making its traditional installation fast and simple. The Triton mounting system features extra-wide weight-bearing brackets that provide yaw stability, delivering predictable and well-balanced handling. Ride quality is also enhanced by Tritons high-mounted air springs and under-slung spring saddles, which allow plus or minus 4 inches of articulation, minimizing roll. Links experience in designing rugged military suspensions has also contributed to the development of the Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspension, said Neil Mardell, manager defense programs and heavy vocational products for Link. Tritons ability to articulate, providing maximum traction over the most punishing terrain, is partly the result of its highly advanced, military-grade beam design. Triton is also equipped with both longitudinal and lateral control rods that ensure proper axle tracking and alignment. Trailing beams are interconnected by a torsion bar, further improving ride stability. Unique dual-height control valves help the suspension maintain optimum ride height independent of load levels, and all units are fitted with heavy-duty shock absorbers. Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspensions are engineered to maximize durability, while minimizing maintenance requirements. Polyurethane bushings provide longer service life and eliminate lubrication requirements. Polyurethane is also far more resilient than natural rubber bushings and resistant to petroleum distillates and other common contaminants. All Triton suspensions are treated with Links exclusive Link-KOAT migratory self-healing metal treatment. Link-KOAT provides unparalleled corrosion resistance and rust protection, even when surfaces are exposed to excessive abrasion, harsh chemicals and other severe-duty environmental factors. For the end user, this suspension will improve the laden and unladen ride quality for the driver and the lifespan of the vehicle it serves, Mardell said. With Triton, users will enjoy the load-bearing capacity and roll stability of traditional steel spring suspensions, without the bone-jarring ride. Drivers will also be able to traverse uneven off-highway topography much more swiftly, which means more loads hauled in each work cycle, Ott added. To access high-resolution images of Triton Tri-Drive Air Suspension, please visit: https://www.linkmfg.com/triton-suspension-photos/ END - About Link Mfg., Ltd. Link develops and manufactures a variety of suspension systems specially engineered to address the unique needs of commercial vehicles and equipment. Link is driven to outperform as the worldwide leader in heavy-duty truck cab air suspensions marketed under the brand name Cabmate. U.S.-based Link Manufacturing is an ISO 14001: 2015 (EMS) certified company whose primary products include cab, chassis and auxiliary suspensions. Canadian-based Link Suspensions of Canada is an ISO 9001 certified company whose primary products include heavy vocational and off-highway chassis suspensions. Link also makes specialty products such as tire pressure equalization systems, ramps and other products designed to enhance the productivity of commercial vehicles. For more information, visit https://www.linkmfg.com. Link, Air Link and Link-KOAT are registered trademarks of Link Mfg., Ltd. Triton is a trademark of Link Mfg., Ltd. Toyota Summer Starts Here Sales Event The next promotion and sales events affecting Toyota dealerships nationwide is the currently ongoing Summer Starts Here event running from May 2019 to June 2019. During this sales event drivers can get limited-time specials on brand-new 2019 and 2020 Toyota models from the nearest Toyota dealership in their area. For drivers in Los Angeles County, more specifically the southwest section near the city of Manhattan Beach, California, the best location to access Summer Starts Here savings is at the Manhattan Beach Toyota dealership. Current models offered within the fold of the Summer Starts Here savings event at the Manhattan Beach Toyota dealership include but are not limited to the 2019 Toyota Prius Prime hybrid, the 2019 Toyota RAV4 SUV, and the 2020 Toyota Corolla standard sedan and Hybrid models. The 2019 Toyota Prius Prime hybrid can be leased at $285 per month for 36 months. The 2019 Toyota RAV4 SUV can be leased at $269 per month for 36 months. The 2019 Toyota Camry midsize sedan can be leased at $225 per month for 36 months. The all-new 2020 Toyota Corolla compact sedan can be leased at $185 per month for 36 months, while the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid can be leased at $239 per month for 36 months. Many additional 2019 and 2020 Toyota models have specials as part of Summer Starts Here savings. To explore additional savings and models taking part in the Summer Starts Here sales event, drivers would do well to browse the online inventory of the Manhattan Beach Toyota dealership. To address further questions and concerns, interested parties can contact the dealership staff. The Manhattan Beach Toyota sales team can be reached at 855-995-7001. Additional means of communication include email, online messaging, and a visit to the dealership location. The Manhattan Beach Toyota dealership is located at 1500 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Manhattan Beach, California 90266. Each industry uses CAM in precise ways that allow CAM to offer each industry specific benefits. MecSoft Corporation has released an informative infographic entitled The Benefits of CAM in Different Industries that offers about how CAM is beneficial to a variety of industries. With this infographic, MecSoft Corporation delivers insights into how CAM (Computer-aided manufacturing) is used in different industries such as aerospace, automotive, education, jewelry, mold and die, music, production, prototyping, robotic milling, and woodworking. Each industry uses CAM in precise ways that allow CAM to offer each industry specific benefits. Examples of these include: In the aerospace industry, CAM allows the production of higher precision components, maintaining manufacturing tolerance, weight reduction, and faster production lead times In the music industry, the benefits of using CAM are increased artistry, repeatability for sound and quality, inlay production, and scrolling removal Within the prototyping industry, CAM is beneficial because it enables creation of artistic designs and multi-sided shapes In education, the utilization of CAM promotes STEM learning and the creation of a new generation of CNC savvy designers About MecSoft Corporation Headquartered in Irvine, California, MecSoft Corporation is a worldwide leader in providing Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software solutions for the small to mid-market segments. These solutions include products VisualCAD/CAM, RhinoCAM, VisualCAM for SOLIDWORKS, AlibreCAM and VisualCAMc for Onshape. These software products deliver powerful, easy-to-use and affordable solutions for users in the custom manufacturing, rapid prototyping, rapid tooling, mold making, aerospace, automotive, tool & die, woodworking, and education industries. For the latest news and information, visit mecsoft.com or call (949) 654-8163. RADNOR, Pa., May 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP reminds BrightView Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BV) (BrightView) investors that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against BrightView on behalf of those who purchased or otherwise acquired BrightView common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the initial public offering completed on or around July 2, 2018 (the IPO). Important Deadline Reminder: Investors who purchased BrightView securities pursuant and/or traceable to the IPO may, no later than June 14, 2019 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information or to learn how to participate in this litigation please visit www.ktmc.com/brightview-bv-securities-class-action . According to the complaint, BrightView provides commercial landscaping services in the United States, operating through two segments: Maintenance Services and Development Services. On July 2, 2018, BrightView completed its IPO. The shares sold in the offering were registered pursuant to BrightViews Registration Statement on a Form S-1 (the Registration Statement), which was declared effective by the SEC on June 27, 2018. BrightView additionally filed its final prospectus dated June 27, 2018 on a Form 424B4 with the SEC on June 29, 2018 (the Prospectus). The Registration Statement and Prospectus are collectively referred to as the Offering Documents. The complaint alleges that, on August 8, 2018, after market-close, BrightView issued a press release announcing its financial and operating results for the third quarter of 2018. Despite reporting strong third quarter results and record revenues, BrightView reported that [r]evenues from the Development Services segment declined 5.7% compared to the prior year due to winding down production on certain large projects that reached substantial completion during the quarter, coupled with the timing of commencing work on new projects. Then, on August 9, 2018, BrightView filed its quarterly report for the same period with the SEC, reiterating the results previously announced in its earlier press release. Therein, BrightView disclosed that its Maintenance Services revenue was negatively impacted by its Managed Exit strategy. The Managed Exit strategy was BrightViews purported corporate strategy to allow certain underperforming contracts to expire upon maturity or renegotiate the contracts to provide BrightView with more favorable terms. Following this news, BrightViews common stock price fell $2.30 per share, or over 10%, to close at $19.90 per share on August 9, 2018. On February 7, 2019, BrightView issued a press release announcing its financial and operating results for the first quarter 2019. The press release attributed BrightViews disappointing financial and operating results to, inter alia, its strategic Managed Exit initiative and other operating conditions. Additionally, in its quarterly report filed with the SEC that same day, BrightView advised investors that the underperforming contracts part of the Managed Exit strategy accounted for a year-over-year quarterly decline of $10.8 million in landscape services revenues. Following this news, BrightViews common stock price declined $1.51 per share, or over 10%, to close at $13.23 per share on February 7, 2019, representing a decline of nearly 40% from the IPO price. The complaint alleges that the defendants made materially false and misleading statements in the Offering Documents and/or failed to disclose that: (i) a material portion of BrightViews contracts were underperforming and/or represented undesirable costs to BrightView; (ii) as a result of the foregoing, BrightView would implement a Managed Exit strategy to end its low margin and non-profitable contracts with customers; (iii) this Managed Exit strategy would negatively impact BrightViews future revenue throughout 2018, and would continue to do so well into fiscal year 2019; and (iv) as a result, the Offering Documents were materially false and/or misleading and failed to state information required to be stated therein. If you wish to discuss this securities fraud class action lawsuit or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests with respect to this litigation, please contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check (James Maro, Jr., Esq. or Adrienne Bell, Esq.) at (888) 2997706 (toll free) or (610) 6677706, or via e-mail at info@ktmc.com . BrightView investors may, no later than June 14, 2019 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class members claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, please visit www.ktmc.com . Media.net, a contextual advertising and publisher solutions company, emerging as a leader in programmatic, today announced it has selected White Ops pre-bid prevention product, MediaGuard, to provide advertisers with the highest level of fraud protection. Media.net is providing the most comprehensive implementation of MediaGuard across programmatic display, native and video to safeguard marketers and publishers from the impacts of fraud. By leveraging MediaGuard, Media.net will now assure demand-side platforms (DSPs) the highest standards of clean traffic bought across all regions and creative formats available on the exchange while providing proactive fraud prevention for its publisher network. Media.net is committed to eliminating fraud, said Vaibhav Arya, Media.net CEO. Having built significant proprietary tech and processes to combat fraud, Media.net is now going a step further by partnering with the market leader in fraud prevention. White Ops is helping us to fulfill our promise to programmatic marketers: Our exchange is the most efficient and direct path to inventory to minimize waste and maximize your working media. White Ops MediaGuard pre-bid prevention API is a machine-learning algorithm that learns and adapts in real-time from White Ops advanced bot detection techniques to accurately predict and block bot driven ad requests before a buyer has the opportunity to bid on them. This upstream elimination of fraudulent ad requests result is better performance for advertisers and yield for publishers. According to the 2019 Bot Baseline report, released by White Ops and the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), projected losses to ad fraud is down 11 percent in two years. However, every year, cybercrime becomes more advanced and because of that, ad fraud persists in new, creative forms. Protecting against tactics that mimic human behavior, fake premium publisher inventory and evade traditional detection techniques requires a comprehensive, dynamic and adaptive prevention solution. "As cybercrime evolves in response to the selection pressure of fraud detection, we need to take a proactive role in securing the advertising ecosystem," said Gene Fay, COO of White Ops. "By implementing MediaGuard pre-bid fraud prevention, Media.net is demonstrating its dedication to a cleaner ecosystem." About Media.net Media.net has one of the most comprehensive portfolios of advertising technology in the industry across search, native, display, mobile, local, products and video. Its platform and products are licensed by some of the largest publishers, ad networks and other ad tech companies worldwide who recognize Media.net as a leader in building tech that supports publishers, advertisers and end users. Media.net is one of the top five largest ad tech companies worldwide with more than a thousand employees in key operation centers across North America, Europe and Asia. Media.nets U.S. HQ is based in New York, and Global HQ in Dubai. For more on Media.net, visit http://www.media.net. About White Ops White Ops is a cybersecurity company that protects the Internet from malicious bot activity. Globally, software-as-a-service from White Ops determines the validity of nearly 100 billion transactions per day on behalf of over 200 customers. Our proactive adaptation, Internet-scale, and multi-layered methodology have made us the platform of choice for some of the largest and most forward-thinking platforms and brands. For more information, visit http://www.whiteops.com. Media Contacts: Andy Morris Code Morris for Media.net andy.morris(at)codemorris.com 917-710-1802 White Ops Sarah Acker Senior Director, Marketing sa(at)whiteops.com Alexandra Evans PAN Communications for White Ops Phone: 212.385.9773 whiteops(at)pancomm.com Massachusetts ranks first again for total medical device exports by percentage (23 percent) of total state exports with a value of $6.13B. Nearly one in four exports from Massachusetts is a medical device, making the state number one in the nation in share of exports of medical devices as a percentage of total exports, ahead of California, Illinois, Minnesota and Florida, according to the just-released State of the Massachusetts MedTech Industry Report. In 2018, 23 percent of all Massachusetts exports were medical devices, a 7.7 percent increase over the previous year. The report, conducted by Grant Thornton LLP, a leading professional-services firm, will be presented today by Pat Shafer, Managing Director Compliance Risk, Health Care & Life Sciences Industry, at the MassMEDIC MedTech Town Hall in conjunction with BIOMEDevice Boston at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Its great to see the Massachusetts MedTech Industrys gains year over year. MassMEDIC will continue to partner with our member companies to ensure ongoing success and growth of one of the states most vital industries. To that end, we are launching a Working Group today that will further evaluate the reports findings in order to identify gaps as well as areas for growth, so that we can develop partnerships, initiatives and programs that will enable the Mass MedTech ecosystem to continue growing and contributing to the states future economic success, said Brian Johnson, President of MassMEDIC. Key Findings in the Massachusetts MedTech Industry Report: Exports: Nearly one in four exports in Massachusetts is a medical device. This is the fourth year in a row that Massachusetts ranks first for total medical device exports by percentage (23 percent) of total state exports with a value of $6.13B. Talent recruitment: Massachusetts ranks highest in wages for medtech, as compared to California, Minnesota, Florida and Texas. In 2018,the average Massachusetts medtech wage was $121,909. PMAs/510(k)s: When adjusting for state GDP, Massachusetts leads California with twice as many PMAs. Although nationally 510(k) clearances are trending downward, again when adjusted for state GDP, Massachusetts leads by a large margin. Venture Capital Investment: Biotech continues to get the lions share of VC funding. Massachusetts and California VC funding is virtually equal, when adjusted for GDP. NIH Funding in the State: Massachusetts hospitals received $2.89 Billion in NIH funding in 2018. Our research confirms Massachusetts longstanding position as a leader in the medical device industry, Shafer said. Massachusetts success has been the envy of many however, some of the metrics are leveling off. Its important for the state to think about potential disruptors and how to stimulate the next wave of medical device innovation to ensure Massachusetts remains an industry leader. About MassMEDIC: The Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, an organization of more than 300 manufacturers, suppliers, research institutions, and academic health centers, promotes the unique interests of the Bay States growing and vibrant medical device sector. Through a variety of programs, informational seminars, advocacy campaigns and other projects, MassMEDIC provides medical device manufacturers and suppliers with information on industry trends and regulatory policies and creates forums that allow members to exchange ideas and information on issues affecting the industry. For more information on MassMEDIC, visit our web site at http://www.massmedic.com. RF awareness is important in today's workplace. This new course offers a targeted RF training option that is perfect for personnel working in occupations that arent necessarily tied to the wireless and tower industries. A new safety training resource to protect Radio Frequency (RF) exposed workers beyond the cellular industry has been introduced by LBA University, Inc. (LBAU). LBAU is the leading edge safety training unit of LBA Group, Inc. This new RF Awareness certification course addresses the specific issues of occupational segments where RF exposure safety risks have not been recognized as a significant issue in the past. The new General Occupations RF Safety Awareness online course is available at: https://www.lbagroup.com/lbauniversity/course/rf-safety-training/ using LBAs convenient, 24/7 online ordering option and intuitive Learning Management System. The RF Safety Awareness General Occupations certification course is designed for industrial workers, medical workers, first responders, maintenance personnel, construction workers, HVAC technicians and many other trades where potential RF exposure hazards are growing. These hazards may come from expanding cellular and 5G systems, industrial or medical facilities. The LBAU General Occupations RF Safety Awareness course educates workers with an awareness of the hazards that exist within diverse environments. The course also outlines the steps that may be taken to reduce these known risks. This course highlights FCC guidelines, OSHA regulations, industry standards, and parameters set forth by various agencies as it relates to RF energy and human exposure. On successful completion of testing, a certificate is issued. LBAU has trained thousands of workers on RF Safety and compliance related education with multilingual offerings, and international training. This new course offers a targeted RF training option that is perfect for personnel working in occupations that arent necessarily tied to the wireless and tower industries, LBAU Training Coordinator, Kiara Walbrook said. For more information on the new General Occupations RF Safety Awareness RF1004 course and all corporate safety training options offered by LBAU, visit https://www.lbagroup.com/lbauniversity/course-catalog/ or contact Kiara Walbrook at 252-757-0279, kiara.walbrook(at)lbagroup.com. About LBA Group, Inc. LBA Group, Inc. has over 50 years of experience in providing technology and risk management for industrial and telecommunications infrastructure assets in the radio frequency and electromagnetic spaces. LBA is a multiple INC5000 awardee, CVMSDC-certified, and is a North Carolina Top 50 Hispanic minority-owned small business. The group is comprised of LBA Technology, Inc., a leading source and integrator of radio frequency systems, lightning protection, and EMC equipment for broadcast, industrial, and government users worldwide; the professional technical consultancy Lawrence Behr Associates, Inc.; and LBA University, Inc. providing online professional training. Through all of its business units, LBA provides an RF Safety One Stop option for comprehensive RF Safety industry training, PPE, audits, and remediation. The companies are based in Greenville, N.C., USA. Keep up with whats going on at LBA by following the company on Facebook and LinkedIn. Newline IP Series The announcement is further proof that the company continues to respond to market needs and innovate in the field of collaborative technology. Newline Interactive, a leading provider of quality interactive touch displays and collaboration solutions, announced today the release of three new interactive touch displays. The announcement is further proof that the company continues to respond to market needs and innovate in the field of collaborative technology. The new models include: IP Series this exciting new hardware development includes advanced features such as capacitive touch with palm rejection and is better optimized for security in the modern workspace. With an optional 4K modular camera, Linux-based operating system and object recognition, the IP series is the future of interactive touch displays. NT Series with native wireless casting and a built-in file viewer for easy cloud drive access, this non-touch series takes the traditional LED display to a whole new level. The NT Series gives schools and businesses additional integrated tools that aid in collaboration without the need for touch. Z5 the new Z5 series is perfectly suited for todays huddle spaces. Biometric fingerprint recognition gives an added layer of security, and the Smart OS, USB Type-C connection and remote display management capabilities give this model an edge above the rest. We are thrilled to debut our three future-ready models to our customers, clients, partners, media and visitors at Infocomm 2019, said Founder and President Chris Bradford. We feel that these offerings will firmly position us as a company who listens to what our customers want, and quickly take action to meet their needs. Newline Interactive has produced several iterations of interactive touch displays since the companys inception. Each series builds upon ever-changing technological advancements to continually provide solutions for the current market. Additionally, the companys strategic plan has resulted in double-digit growth, year after year. Newline will showcase the new models, in addition to their existing line of best-in-class interactive panels in booth #4073 at Infocomm 2019, the largest AV technology conference and trade show in the US. The event will be held June 12 14 in Orlando, Florida. About Newline Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Newline Interactive is a leading supplier of interactive touch screens and innovative software that increases productivity and enables collaboration. Newline Interactive develops products that help organizations in a wide range of vertical markets including financial services, education, healthcare, law enforcement, manufacturing, municipalities, and legal services. With our recent funding round, Novi gains the traction to transition from proving our value proposition with early adopters to firmly establishing Novi as the category technology leader. Novi Labs (Novi), the leading developer of AI-driven unconventional well planning software, announces the closing of its Series A funding round led by Cottonwood Venture Partners (CVP) of Houston and Bill Wood Ventures of Austin, in which it raised a total of $7 million. The funding round follows extensive customer growth and field-testing of Novis well planning technology, which enables oil & gas companies to optimize economic returns for new wells using artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. The Austin-based startup plans to deploy its recently raised funds to scale its technology and team to meet growing demand by shale producers. Scott Sherwood, a proven senior software executive, has been named as Novis new CEO to position the company for the next stage of growth. Novi is the clear leader in leveraging machine learning to optimize unconventional oil and gas development, said Jeremy Arendt, Managing Partner of CVP. We are excited to increase our investment in Novi and we welcome Scott to the team, who has already proven critical to the companys scalability. Novi pioneered the industrys first well planning software platform focused on analyzing the economic returns of unconventional shale wells. The cloud-based technology combines AI-driven predictive analytics with multiple well design inputs, capital costs, and commodity price assumptions to model the financial performance of a well over time, enabling shale producers to optimally allocate capital and mitigate risks for development projects. Austin has evolved into an important hub for oil and gas innovation and I am excited about the opportunity to empower top innovators like Novi with the resources, talent, and support needed to thrive in this industry, commented Bill Wood. To keep pace with increasing demand, Novi will deploy recently raised funds to add additional resources at its Austin headquarters, including product development, sales and customer care staff. The company also plans to invest significantly in the next generation of its well planning technology to ensure Novis capabilities continually align with the evolving needs of its customers. With our recent funding round, Novi gains the traction to transition from proving our value proposition with early adopters to firmly establishing Novi as the category technology leader, said Scott Sherwood, CEO of Novi. We are truly grateful for the vote of confidence and funding from Cottonwood Venture Partners and Bill Wood Ventures for fueling Novis continued success and accelerating the adoption of Novis cost-optimizing technology at such a crucial time in our industry. Scott Sherwood joins Novi as CEO to manage the growth of Novis customer base and team. Sherwood brings more than 20 years of executive management and sales expertise to Novi from across the high tech and software industries. Prior to Novi, he was CEO of Packet Design (acquired by Fortune 1,000 company Ciena). Earlier in his career, Sherwood was Senior Vice President of worldwide sales at NetQoS, where he spearheaded the acquisition of Global 2000 customers, including half of the Fortune 50, resulting in 31 consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth. Sherwood also led successful sales initiatives for Cache IQ and ScienceLogic. Sherwood is preceded by Novi Founder, Jon Ludwig, who has moved into a new role as Novis President. As President, Ludwig will focus on expanding Novis technology and customer growth. A warm welcome to Scott, who joins Novi at a critical inflection point where his skillset and experience will be of utmost value in growing the company to the next level, commented Ludwig. As demand for Novis products continues to takeoff, the deployment of new capital funding and Scotts expertise in scaling-up will bring the benefits of AI-driven well planning to the industry on a large scale, he concluded. About Novi Labs Novi is the leading developer of artificial intelligence driven business applications that help the oil & gas industry optimize the economic value of drilling programs. Leveraging cutting-edge data science, Novi delivers intuitive analytics that give oil& gas leaders pressured with complex decisions the actionable insight they need to optimize capital allocation and well design. Novi was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Austin, TX. For more information, please visit https://www.novilabs.com About Cottonwood Venture Partners Cottonwood Venture Partners (CVP) is a growth equity investment firm partnering with technology companies that provide digital solutions for the energy industry. CVP invests in technology companies that have achieved early customer adoption and require capital to accelerate growth. CVP leverages its expertise and relationships in energy and technology to help drive growth at its portfolio companies. For more information, please visit https://www.cottonwoodvp.com Sharon Kleyne, Founder of Bio Logic Aqua Research Date aired: May 6th, 2019 Guest: Steven Rotter, M.D., Internal Medicine, Oregon & Nancy Yonally Coleman, Corporate trainer and Health Management Consultant, Grants Pass, Oregon https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/114874/opioid-crisis The opioid crisis in America and globally was the subject of intense discussion recently on Sharon Kleynes internationally syndicated weekly talk radio program The Sharon Kleyne Hour Water Life Science/Natures Pharma, The Power of Water & Your Health sponsored by Natures Mist Face of the Water on VoiceAmerica. Joining Kleyne for an urgent conversation on opioid addiction and what to do about it was Steven Rotter, M.D. and Nancy Yonally Coleman of Grants Pass, Oregon. This is a huge crisis subject on which Water Life Science founder Kleyne has focused for years. Kleyne and Dr. Anita Chen Marshall, who earned a dual doctorate in Pharmacy and Oriental Medicine, discussed addiction on the talk radio program in the summer of 2018. Seeking addiction and disease cures, Marshall says, My patients are well versed about water and if they are not, I quickly get them up to speed! Marshall cautioned against pollutants in the foods we eat. Water can help flush them out of the body, she said. Kleyne added her belief that research will eventually prove that all addiction is rooted in sugar and glucose addictions. One leads to the other, said Kleyne. Im convinced that research will prove this one day. Another opioid and addiction research talk radio guest, Dr. Michelle Lau, President of the American Alliance of Acupuncture in Sacramento, California, pointed out that 60,000 people in the U.S. died last year from an overdose of pain medication. Lu promotes traditional Chinese medicine, which teaches that there are many channels in the body related to the different organs. Engaging in proactive health means following your body channels. In Chinese medicine, a pain indicates a blockage. Acupuncture is a safer, more effective way of dealing with that blockage than masking the pain with an opiate derivative. Kleyne and Lau believe that insurance companies should be encouraged to pay for traditional Chinese medicine procedures, thus rewarding patients who demonstrate proactive health care. Digital marketing will make it easier for patients to learn more about their own bodies and health, thus leading to a healthier, safer and saner world. Lau organized a world forum on Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture in Washington, D.C. this March, inviting top practitioners, insurance executives and lawmakers from around the world. Together, proclaimed Lau, we can change the world! During the most recent talk radio program, Kleyne observed that we are polluting earths atmosphere. Earths atmosphere is our life, said Kleyne, who added that earths oceans are becoming garbage dumps. Kleyne declared, Addiction is over-evaporation of body water loss. Im alarmed by the word remission, Kleyne continued. I want better education generally and physicians to be better educated about addiction. They must discover how to save more lives of people who are addicted. This is a crisis that must be resolved for the benefit of humanity. John Gemmill, CEO of the Clean Ocean Foundation in Australia, agreed. Gemmills Clean Ocean Foundation spearheads clean-up and educational initiatives that are raising awareness about water pollution and cleaning up vast segments of the oceans. The ocean is having a lot of problems and is crying to us, said Water Life Science innovator Kleyne. Kleyne and Gemmill agreed that earths survival depends on cleaning up the worlds oceans. In addition to assigning blame and stopping addictive behavior, there is also the care required to try to save hundreds of thousands of opioid sufferers. Rotter, an M.D. with a background in internal medicine has thirty-plus years of dealing with addiction and opioid abuse and Coleman, a corporate trainer and health management consultant, has more than forty years of experience dealing with addiction and opioid abuse. Both are involved with Grace Roots: Pathways to Wellness in Grants Pass, Oregon, which has helped treat thousands in their struggles against addiction and opioid abuse. Around 1990, said Rotter, there was a change in culture in the U.S. that came from the American Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical industry. That change conditioned patients to leave behind over-the-counter pain medications like Advil and Aleeve for more powerful and addictive pain medications. Today, Coleman champions a multifaceted approach to winning the battle against opioid abuse. To have any success at all, said Coleman, there must be ownership of the problem at every levellocally, regionally, nationally, internationally. We are working together with law enforcement, politicians, schools, doctors, parents, and clergy to find solutions. Yet, Coleman continued, there are no simple answers. It does take a village. Rotter cited ongoing progress, announcing a relatively new treatment center in Grants Pass that has treated 700 patients in two years. Coleman added that a new program for pregnant women is being developed as well as a program focusing on newborn children with drug-addicted parents. Rotter, Coleman and Kleyne noted the importance of ongoing funding in the fight against addiction and opioid abuse. Rotter and Coleman said that government and private sources are providing grants and other support. Kleyne urged them to approach insurance companies that she believes would be willing to contribute. And let us not forget again, warned Kleyne, that life on this planet depends on water. Water is the Breath of Life that will sustain humanity through eternity. Kleyne also stressed that insurance companies must give humanitarian support to the fight against opioid addiction. If you would like to listen to the talk radio program featuring the conversation between Steven Rotter, M.D., Nancy Yonally Coleman and Power of Water talk radio host and Water Life Science lifestyle and dry eye educator Sharon Kleyne as they discuss addiction, proactive health, water and the opioid epidemic and what can be done about it, follow this link: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/114874/opioid-crisis TribalVision is proud to announce that it has been recognized as one of the Top 25 Massachusetts Digital Marketing Agencies and a Top Massachusetts Web Design Company on DesignRushs B2B marketplace that connects brands with agencies. DesignRush features top full-service agencies, web design companies, digital marketing firms & top technology companies. After a comprehensive review, DesignRush has accredited the firm as being one of the top 25 Massachusetts web design companies and marketing agencies on its marketplace consisting of thousands of marketing firms across multiple sub-specialties. In hearing the news, TribalVision Managing Partner Chris Ciunci stated, We are honored to be named a top Massachusetts marketing agency and credit the award, in part, to the dedicated team at TribalVision. The level of expertise and true commitment to excellence has become a consistent thread woven through every project at TribalVision. We feel that our unique outsourced marketing business model brings an objective perspective and fresh approach to web design and marketing that results in beautiful yet affordable web design outcomes and effective marketing strategies. About TribalVision As an outsourced marketing department for hire, TribalVisions mission is to help organizations grow. This is achieved by combining intelligent strategy with tactical execution in a hands-on, results-driven manner. TribalVision utilizes its clients marketing budgets as efficiently and intelligently as possible ensuring that each dollar spent maximizes awareness and generates new business. TribalVisions unique marketing model is designed to fully align interests with client outcomes guaranteeing an objective, client-first partnership. This is demonstrated in the firms fee-based compensation structure, roll up your sleeves mindset, metrics-driven approach, and role as a trusted marketing resource tasked to help navigate organizations to higher grounds. To learn more, visit http://www.TribalVision.com. About DesignRush DesignRush.com is a B2B marketplace connecting clients with agencies. From branding to web design to marketing and beyond, DesignRush helps companies access thousands of agencies across all marketing specialties. To learn more, visit http://www.DesignRush.com. Combined, we will be better able to execute on our mission to bring home workers safe, and together we will have a stronger offering to solve safety and compliance challenges for our customers. - Colby Lane, CEO PEC Safety and Veriforce, recognized leaders in delivering safety and compliance solutions to industrial markets, today announced that they have merged to create a new organization with a unified mission of reducing risk in hazardous work environments to help bring workers home safely each day. The combined company has the industrys largest interconnected safety and compliance network comprised of 350 hiring clients, 25,000 contractor companies, 11,000 accredited safety trainers and authorized evaluators, 400 industry-standard training courses, and 1.5 million individual workers and will provide the most comprehensive and integrated risk management solution available. PEC and Veriforce pioneered new standards in worker safety and competency, blazing new trails by blending modern technology and deep domain expertise to drive related operational effectiveness and efficiency. With more than four decades of leadership in developing solutions that assure safety standards and worker competency and qualification requirements are attained, the combined company is well-positioned to lead the rapidly growing, $14 billion market for supply chain risk management solutions. Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm focused on software and technology-enabled services, acquired PEC Safety in December 2018 and helped deepen PECs core capabilities, expand into other verticals and broaden PECs software and content offerings. PEC and Veriforces 350 combined hiring clients include leading companies across industry verticals including oil and gas, renewable energy, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, chemicals, construction, utilities, aggregates, environment services and transportation. These enterprises depend on PEC and Veriforce for assurance that their contractors and onsite workers are qualified and operate safely. What makes this merger uniquely impactful is that were bringing together two industry powerhouses that address risk at both the company and individual levels, said Colby Lane, CEO of PEC. Combined, we will be better able to execute on our mission to bring home workers safe, and together we will have a stronger offering to solve safety and compliance challenges for our customers. This is a merger of two companies that are relentlessly focused on solving industry challenges in unique and innovative ways, stated Louie Werderich, the newly appointed Vice Chairman of the combined company, who previously served as CEO of Veriforce. Weve developed the leading single-source compliance solution with employee-level verification that enables new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness. Its this approach that empowers our clients to outperform industry benchmarks for safety and compliance statistics consistently. The new company is led by CEO Colby Lane with Louie Werderich assuming the role of Vice Chairman. Co-headquarters for the combined organization remain in Mandeville, LA. and Houston, Texas. Greenridge Investment Partners, an Austin-based private equity firm, originally invested in Veriforce in 2014 and will remain a shareholder in the combined company. About PEC Safety PEC Safety is an industry leading, risk-management company that provides a technology-enabled contractor management service for reporting and measuring contractor risk, safety and compliance information to owner clients (operators). Over 125 owner clients manage over 15,000 contractors in PEC's total contractor management solution. PEC also develops and offers standardized safety learning programs for workers in high-risk industries. Over 2 million workers have been trained with PEC programs by a network of 3000+ PEC Authorized Instructors. About Veriforce Veriforce is relied upon by leading organizations for the key solutions required to enhance safety for their workforce and the communities they serve. Veriforce solutions combine VeriSource, its integrated software to manage Operator Qualification, Drug & Alcohol, Safety, and Certificate of Insurance Tracking programs, with value-added audit and consulting services and complementary training offerings. Using Veriforce solutions, organizations are able to centralize and streamline critical compliance processes, more efficiently manage their contractor workforce, more effectively mitigate regulatory and supply chain risk, as well as drive ongoing improvement to safety. Headquartered in the greater Houston area, Veriforce serves as a trusted partner to over 225 top companies and their network of more than 11,000 contractors, suppliers, and vendors. About Thoma Bravo Thoma Bravo is a leading private equity firm focused on the software and technology-enabled services sectors. With a series of funds representing more than $30 billion in capital commitments, Thoma Bravo partners with a companys management team to implement operating best practices, invest in growth initiatives and make accretive acquisitions intended to accelerate revenue and earnings, with the goal of increasing the value of the business. Representative past and present portfolio companies include industry leaders such as ABC Financial, Blue Coat Systems, Deltek, Digital Insight, Frontline Education, Global Healthcare Exchange, Hyland Software, Imprivata, iPipeline, PowerPlan, Qlik, Riverbed, SailPoint, SolarWinds, SonicWall, Sparta Systems, TravelClick and Veracode. The firm has offices in San Francisco and Chicago. For more information, visit thomabravo.com. Andrew Hoffman, Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, will serve as academic director for the new Leading Veterinary Entrepreneurship program. I wanted to develop an executive program with the Wharton School that would give veterinarians the tools to drive improvements in public health, environmental sustainability, and more importantly, human and animal well-being. Entrepreneurship, innovation and new business ventures championed by schools of business and engineering across the country for the past two decades have a new advocate. Veterinary schools. Yes, veterinary schools. And a new educational program is further evidence of the veterinary professions rising influence in a world characterized by globalization, population growth and rapid technological change. The School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Vet) has just announced the latest addition to their growing continuing education portfolio. Taking place on June 3rd through June 6th at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the Wharton School, Leading Veterinary Entrepreneurs is an executive program for veterinary clinicians, scientists, technologists, academic leaders, and innovators, looking to explore the underpinnings of effective entrepreneurship. As the world becomes more complex, so too does the role of veterinarians. They are uniquely positioned to ask questions with implications for animal, human and environmental health, says Andrew Hoffman, Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine. And an entrepreneurial mindset is really critical, really central, to tackling challenges such as food and water security, sustainable farming, climate change, and the advancement of animal welfare. Veterinarians will continue to provide health care to animals. That need will never go away. But the knowledge and expertise of the veterinarian is increasingly relevant to numerous sectors human health, social services, environmental science, and social justice for example driven by a need to view complex societal issues through a wider lens emblematic of the One Health ethos. Even in the more traditional sense, industry disruptors are developing and delivering new models of veterinary care and human-animal interactions. The business models of corporate practices, coupled with consumer preference, are driving change and opportunity within the profession. And a younger generation of veterinarians, tech-fluent and socially responsible, are taking notice. Im hearing a collective recognition from students, alumni, and my own colleagues, regarding the role veterinarians can play in the health of communities, both local and global, says Hoffman, who also serves as the programs academic director. I wanted to develop an executive program with the Wharton School that would give veterinarians the tools to drive improvements in public health, environmental sustainability, and more importantly, human and animal well-being. The veterinary profession has a long-standing history of entrepreneurship through private practice ownership. I want to take that same spirit, that curiosity, the ideas, and translate it to a much larger scale, through both social and commercial entrepreneurship. Leading Veterinary Entrepreneurship combines the expertise of Penn Vet and the Wharton School to provide a dynamic educational experience in leading innovation in commercial and societal contexts. Led by James Thompson, PhD, co-author of The Social Entrepreneurs Playbook and adjunct associate professor in Whartons Management Department, participants will understand the importance of opportunity identification, testing, assessment, resource allocation, as well as the leadership competencies required to foster a culture of entrepreneurship. Other Wharton professors teaching in the program include Lawton R. Burns and Mauro Guillen. Entrepreneur Alan Cook, founder and chief executive officer of pet products company Brilliant Pet, will be participating in a panel discussion addressing veterinary trends and opportunity identification. We have an awesome responsibility in tackling some of the worlds most challenging issues, adds Hoffman. This program offers an unprecedented opportunity to bring together a diverse group from the front lines of veterinary science and public health to create truly viable, and sustainable solutions. To learn more about the Leading Veterinary Entrepreneurship program, go to https://Execed.wharton.upenn.edu/for-individuals/all-programs/leading-veterinary-entrepreneurship/. About Penn Vet Ranked among the top ten veterinary schools worldwide, the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) is a global leader in veterinary education, research, and clinical care. Founded in 1884, Penn Vet is the first veterinary school developed in association with a medical school. The school is a proud member of the One Health initiative, linking human, animal, and environmental health. Penn Vet serves a diverse population of animals at its two campuses, which include extensive diagnostic and research laboratories. Ryan Hospital in Philadelphia provides care for dogs, cats, and other domestic/companion animals, handling nearly 35,300 patient visits a year. New Bolton Center, Penn Vets large-animal hospital on nearly 700 acres in rural Kennett Square, PA, cares for horses and livestock/farm animals. The hospital handles nearly 5,300 patient visits a year, while the Field Service treats more than 38,000 patients at local farms. In addition, New Bolton Centers campus includes a swine center, working dairy, and poultry unit that provide valuable research for the agriculture industry. For more information, visit http://www.vet.upenn.edu. About the Wharton School Founded in 1881 as the worlds first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is shaping the future of business by incubating ideas, driving insights, and creating leaders who change the world. With a faculty of more than 235 renowned professors, Wharton has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students. Each year 18,000 professionals from around the world advance their careers through Wharton Executive Educations individual, company-customized, and online programs. More than 98,000 Wharton alumni form a powerful global network of leaders who transform business every day. For more information, visit http://www.wharton.upenn.edu. The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi The book drive competition is a fitting extension of the Phi Kappa Phi mission, said Society Executive Director Dr. Mary Todd. We are pleased to recognize these chapters whose book drives have enabled access to resources and opportunities that promote lifelong learning. The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phithe nations oldest and most selective all-discipline collegiate honor societytoday announced the winners of its annual book drive competition. The competition, held between February 1 and April 30, saw participation from 18 Phi Kappa Phi chapters across the country with a total of more than 10,000 donated books and $461 in monetary donations. Established in 2014, Phi Kappa Phi created the event as a way to promote literacy in the communities and campuses served by its chapters. The winning chapters whose drives collected the most donations were: Western Illinois University Texas A&M University - Kingsville The book drive competition is a fitting extension of the Phi Kappa Phi mission, said Society Executive Director Dr. Mary Todd. We are pleased to recognize these chapters whose book drives have enabled access to resources and opportunities that promote lifelong learning. The winning chapters will be eligible to receive either a Little Free Library to be placed at a location of their choice or a waived registration fee to attend the upcoming Student Leadership Summit in summer 2019. The Little Free Library is a freestanding box where anyone can donate and borrow books in an effort to promote literacy throughout communitiesa prize that fits well with the Societys love of learning and literacy. Other Phi Kappa Phi chapters that hosted a book drive as part of the competition include Arkansas State University; Bloomsburg University; Caldwell University; California State University, Sacramento; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Florida Institute of Technology; Georgia Southern University; Ithaca College, Louisiana State University; Methodist University; Nicholls State University; Texas A&M University Commerce; Texas Woman's University; University of North Carolina at Charlotte; University of Maryland University College; and University of South Alabama. Since its creation, Phi Kappa Phis annual book drive competition has donated more than 55,000 books to organizations both locally and abroad. Organizations that have received donated books as part of the competition include schools, libraries, hospitals, correctional centers, tutoring and mentoring programs, shelters and more. To learn more about Phi Kappa Phi, visit http://www.PhiKappaPhi.org. About Phi Kappa Phi Founded in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation's oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Phi Kappa Phi inducts approximately 30,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni annually. The Society has chapters on more than 300 select colleges and universities in North America and the Philippines. Membership is by invitation only to the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students and 7.5 percent of juniors. Faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction also qualify. The Society's mission is "To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others." For more information, visit http://www.phikappaphi.org. Description GIS 15 May, 2019: The Early Digital Learning Programme (EDLP) is fully implemented in all primary schools for Grades 1, 2 and 3, and this ensures that youth get equal exposure to technology so as to avoid the digital divide. The programme also enables youngsters to be more engaged in their learning process, as demonstrated by their enthusiasm and interest during classes, as well as by the ease with which they use their digital tablets. The Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun, made this statement, this morning, following a site visit at Sir Veerasamy Ringadoo Government School, in Sodnac, in the context of the implementation of the EDLP. The High Commissioner of India to Mauritius, Mr Tanmaya Lal, and other senior officials of the Ministry were also present. In her statement, Minister Dookun-Luchoomun highlighted that the ELDP, a joint collaborative venture between Mauritius and India, is meant to develop a new culture of learning by introducing new pedagogies relevant to the digital era and technological world in which our children are called upon to develop. The main objective of the programme, she said, is to develop digital literacy right at the beginning of the schooling life of the children, adding that early exposure to the digital tool, as from Grade 1, effectively enhances and transforms the learning experience of pupils and improve pupils learning outcomes in a timely manner. She pointed out that, as at date, more than 1 500 educators have been trained and that training of staff will be pursued and sustained. The training sessions were organised for Educators of Grades 1, 2 and 3, Headmasters, Deputy Head Masters and Inspectors, she said. The Ministry, she added, further aims at implementing the EDLP in higher Grades as well. It is recalled that under Phases I and II, the EDLP Project for Grades 1, 2 and 3 has been developed with the collaboration of the Mauritius Institute of Education, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, and Educational Consultants India Limited. The programme aims at aligning the integration of ICT into teaching and learning of pupils in the primary education subsector through the use of adapted tablets. These tablets encompass digital pedagogical contents such as videos and e-books; interactive animations; hands-on activities; and drawing and creativity tools. The EDLP is expected to promote an early culture of IT use and practice as well as improve learning outcomes in ways appropriate to pupils developmental level. RedAwning escalates regional support to property managers on Maui with new regional market manager RedAwning Property Managers in Maui are already outstripping their competitors... what better time than now to escalate our regional support efforts for property managers? RedAwning.com, the worlds largest network of vacation properties has released its first white paper exploring tourism and accommodation trends on Maui over the past few years. The report highlights that the growing demand for alternative accommodations on the island is gaining traction on that of traditional accommodations such as hotels. To support the growing opportunity for Property Managers on the island, RedAwning has recently relocated its Market Director of Hawaiian Islands, Brandon Sacks, who will now be operating out of Maui indefinitely. Sacks has worked closely with hotel and property management companies as an educator, presenter, and strategist for years, and has been a part of RedAwnings Market Management team for 2 years. His formal relocation commences the companys efforts to serve property managers on Maui more directly to ensure faster, more strategic planning and support, and the best results in the industry. RedAwning Property Managers in Maui are already outstripping their competitors and tourism generated revenue continues to rise. What better time than now to escalate our regional support efforts for property managers?, said RedAwnings Vice President of Market Management, Dustin Warr. According to the report published by RedAwning, Maui saw almost 3 million visitors and over $5 billion in tourism-generated revenue in 2018, with a 5% average growth rate YOY. In 2019, the average daily number of visitors on Maui rose to 67,078 with daily expenditure reaching $15M/day. The full report is available to download, here. Property managers can find out about RedAwnings Complete Distribution, Marketing and Reservation Services for vacation properties on their website at: http://www.redawninggroup.com About RedAwning RedAwning is the worlds largest chain of vacation properties offering a comprehensive layer of solutions and support with every stay, including 24/7 guest and property manager support services, complete marketing, distribution, and reservation management solutions, digital solutions incorporating Google-integrated ads, a mobile app for property managers and guests, and a full range of additional technology and service innovations. With over 100,000 unique properties in over 10,000 destinations, RedAwning has served over 550,000 travelers to date, and continues to expand on being the broadest single point of access to the largest network in the world for alternative lodging. RedAwning is the leading supplier of vacation rentals to every major online travel booking website including Booking.com, Expedia, HomeAway/VRBO, Flipkey/TripAdvisor, and Airbnb. RedAwning also operates a number of exclusive vacation property booking websites, including Perfect Places, VaycayHero, TravelPro Rentals, and RedAwning.com. RedAwning has been a leading innovator in the vacation rental industry since 2010, with a mission to redefine the customer journey for guests, hosts and managers and to drive new approaches that make the booking experience more consistent, easier, safer and better for all. The company is profitable, rapidly growing, and backed by Silversmith Capital Partners. Since 2017, RedAwning has expanded its reach and services by acquiring Vaycayhero.com, PerfectPlaces.com, TravelProRentals.com, Leavetown Vacations, Jetstream by Leavetown and Blizzard Internet Marketing. To browse the RedAwning Collection, please visit http://www.redawning.com To learn more about RedAwnings Complete Distribution, Marketing and Reservation Services for vacation properties visit http://www.redawninggroup.com We updated our Health Check offering to cover Office 365 applications such as PowerApps and Flow, that a lot of organizations seem to start looking into right now. Rencore, the provider of award-winning software solutions essential to the SharePoint and Office 365 space, today released a new version of its free tool SharePoint Applications Health Check. The new version includes support for Microsoft Flow and Microsoft PowerApps. It also provides more details on the resulting health status, showing which types of issues have been discovered and where. The Rencore Health Check is available to download for free. Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint are utilized globally to meet business needs, and either through development or the business user, the platforms functionality can be extended to increase work efficiency. Maintaining a healthy platform while supporting this growth is essential to maximizing the benefits of SharePoint and Office 365. Rencores free Health Check provides organizations with a quick status on the health of their collaboration environments. The Rencore Health Check App analyzes Office 365 and SharePoint environments and discovers all instances where applications, scripts, code or configurations introduce vulnerabilities to an organization. In the latest version, the Rencore Health Check adds support for Microsoft PowerApps and Microsoft Flow, adding a layer of control for the two popular Office 365 applications. The second major update to the tool is an extended reporting capability: after running the tool, it calculates the overall health status and provides detailed insight into the types and now also the locations of a limited number of vulnerabilities. "After launching the SharePoint Applications Health Check App earlier this year, we received valuable feedback on what is great about the tool, but also what can be improved even further," said Matthias Einig, co-founder and CEO at Rencore. "Based on this feedback, we updated our Health Check offering to cover Office 365 applications such as PowerApps and Flow, that a lot of organizations seem to start looking into right now. Furthermore, we increased the value Health Check holds for its users by providing them not only with the types but also with the locations of discovered vulnerabilities. Rencore will be presenting the new Health Check tool at booth #304 at SharePoint Conference North America in Las Vegas from May 21st to May 23rd and at booth #1 at European Collaboration Summit in Wiesbaden, Germany from May 27th to May 29th. The Rencore Health Check application can be downloaded here for free: https://go.rencore.com/download-sharepoint-application-health-check The impact of the Share Class Initiative has been notablewe saw a record number of actions with Investment Advisor/Investment Company allegations and lower-than-average monetary settlements. - Stephen Choi, Law Professor at the NYU School of Law, Director of the Pollack Center for Law & Business U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions against public companies and their subsidiaries remained at near-record levels through the first half of the 2019 fiscal year, which ended March 31. According to a report released today by the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business and Cornerstone Research, enforcement actions reached these levels despite the federal government shutdown that led to a one-month period during which the SEC suspended non-emergency enforcement operations. Enforcement activity was largely fueled by the SECs Share Class Selection Disclosure Initiative (Share Class Initiative), in which investment advisors self-reported inadequate disclosures concerning the sale of mutual fund shares. The report, SEC Enforcement Activity: Public Companies and SubsidiariesMidyear FY 2019 Update, analyzes data from the Securities Enforcement Empirical Database (SEED). Filings Continuing a resurgence in activity that began in the second half of FY 2018, the SEC filed 52 enforcement actions against public companies and their subsidiaries in the first half of FY 2019. Of these, 25 were related to the Share Class Initiative. The 52 new actions filed in the first half of FY 2019 was comparable to the 55 actions filed in the second half of FY 2018, but represented a 225% increase over the 16 actions filed during the same period of the prior fiscal year. Allegations The report found that 52% of public company and subsidiary actions in the first half of FY 2019 involved Investment Advisor/Investment Company allegations, by far the highest percentage for that category in any half-year tracked by SEED, which covers data since FY 2010. This increase was driven by self-reporting as part of the SECs Share Class Initiative. Enforcement Venue The SEC filed every public company and subsidiary action in the first half of FY 2019 as an administrative proceeding, up from 85% in the second half of FY 2018. This was the only time in any half-year tracked by SEED that all actions were filed as administrative proceedings and none were filed as civil actions. Settlements In the first half of FY 2019, 88% of public company and subsidiary defendants cooperated with the SEC, the highest percentage in any half-year tracked by SEED. Though all of the defendants involved in the Share Class Initiative cooperated by self-reporting, cooperation by the other public company and subsidiary defendants was also high (79%) relative to the FY 2010FY 2018 average of 51%. Monetary settlements in public company and subsidiary actions totaled $742 million in the first half of FY 2019, down 24% from the half-year average of total monetary settlements over the prior three fiscal years. Of the $742 million, $75 million (10%) stemmed from Share Class Initiative settlements. Author Commentary Stephen Choi, the Murray and Kathleen Bring Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law and Director of the Pollack Center for Law & Business: The impact of the Share Class Initiative has been notablewe saw a record number of actions with Investment Advisor/Investment Company allegations and lower-than-average monetary settlements. Monetary settlements averaged $15 million for 1H FY 2019, and only $3 million for Share Class Initiative settlements, compared to the historical average settlement of $29 million per action during FY 2010FY 2018. Sara Gilley, Cornerstone Research Vice President: None of the 25 monetary settlements for actions brought under the Share Class Initiative included civil penalties, consistent with the SECs stated incentive to recommend no civil penalties for self-reporting. In comparison, 88% of the other 26 monetary settlements in 1H FY 2019 included civil penalties. David Marcus, Cornerstone Research Senior Vice President and head of the firms finance practice: In March 2019, a record 30 new public company and subsidiary actions were filed, 25 of which were under the Share Class Initiative. This is the largest monthly total in the fiscal years covered by SEED. We will continue to monitor the impact of the initiative. About the SECs Share Class Selection Disclosure Initiative The Share Class Selection Disclosure Initiative is intended to identify and promptly remedy situations in which an investment advisor failed to make required disclosures relating to its selection of mutual fund share classes that paid the advisor (as a dually registered broker-dealer) or its related entities or individuals a fee pursuant to Rule 12b-1 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (12b-1 fee) when a lower-cost share class for the same fund was available to clients. About the Securities Enforcement Empirical Database (SEED) The Securities Enforcement Empirical Database (SEED) tracks and records information for SEC enforcement actions filed against public companies and their subsidiaries. SEED also includes information on individuals who are named defendants in these actions. Created by the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business in collaboration with Cornerstone Research, SEED facilitates the analysis and reporting of SEC enforcement actions through regular updates of new filings and settlement information for ongoing enforcement actions. About the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business Established in 1997, the NYU Pollack Center for Law & Business is a joint venture of the NYU School of Law and the Stern School of Business. Its mission is to enrich the teaching curriculum at both schools in areas where law and business intersect; to facilitate professional interaction and academic research by faculty who share an interest in the structure, regulation, and function of the market economy; and to contribute to the public welfare by supporting scholarship that assists governmental and private policymakers in their pursuit of enhanced business productivity. About Cornerstone Research Cornerstone Research provides economic and financial consulting and expert testimony in all phases of complex litigation and regulatory proceedings. The firm works with an extensive network of prominent faculty and industry practitioners to identify the best-qualified expert for each assignment. Cornerstone Research has earned a reputation for consistent high quality and effectiveness by delivering rigorous, state-of-the-art analysis for 30 years. The firm has 700 staff and offices in Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Washington. See Cornerstone Researchs website for more information about the firms capabilities in economic and financial consulting and expert testimony. http://www.cornerstone.com Twitter: @Cornerstone_Res 1970 Ford Mustang The Buy Here Pay Here dealership of Skook Auto Sales primarily stocks pre-owned vehicles with relatively recent model years that are reliable and affordable. However, a special and limited selection of stock within the Skook Auto Sales inventory includes several classic models. These authentic and well-kept vintage models are available for purchase to any interested drivers and collectors in the area. Current classic models stocked in the Skook Auto Sales inventory come from the historic lines of the Chevrolet and Ford brands. There is a 1948 Ford F1 pickup truck with a Red exterior color, a 1962 Chevrolet Impala coupe with a Mint exterior color, a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle coupe with a Mint exterior color, a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with a Calypso Coral exterior color, and a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle convertible with a Red exterior color. All five of these classic models have recently been added to the stock of Skook Auto Sales at the start of May 2019. Within the dealerships online inventory, additional information on each vintage vehicle can be found including a models engine and transmission, as well as a selection of vehicle images. However, mileage statistics are unavailable on some models due to a vehicles age and pricing is not listed online. Details on each model can be requested by contacting the staff of Skook Auto Sales. Drivers looking for an authentic, vintage vehicle model from one of these all-American brands can browse our selection here at Skook Auto Sales. Other drivers looking to shop for a pre-owned model can consider the rest of our inventory. A Buy Here Pay Here dealership, Skook Auto Sales specializes in helping drivers finance a vehicle, even in the case of bad credit or no credit. Drivers and shoppers in the Schuylkill County area looking to take advantage of any service at Skook Auto Sales should first contact the dealerships staff. Team members can be reached by phone at the number 570-910-2254. Further means of communication include email, online messaging, and visits to the dealership location. The Skook Auto Sales dealership is located at 312 Centre Ave., Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania 17972. Says Slone Partners President Tara Kochis-Stach, Dr. Wenstrups decades-long experience in oncology leadership and clinical work will add substantial value to Epic Sciences in developing exciting new diagnostic tests that advance the mission of precision medicine. Slone Partners, North Americas leading executive search firm for life sciences and diagnostics companies, announces the placement of Richard Wenstrup, M.D., at Epic Sciences, Inc. as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Wenstrup leads clinical development, regulatory and medical affairs strategies, and is responsible for advancing the company's clinical research and product development pipeline. Based at the companys headquarters in San Diego, California, he reports directly to CEO Lloyd Sanders. Epic Sciences develops novel diagnostics to improve and personalize the treatment and management of cancer with a mission to extend patient lives. The companys goal is to offer greater clarity for doctors to make correct decisions for patients at pivotal points in treating that cancer, and to rapidly pivot away from therapies that are no longer clinically effective. Currently working with 65 top pharmaceutical partners and 45 academic cancer hospitals, including the National Cancer Institute, Epic Sciences technology is being used in over 200 clinical trials and has tested over 80,000 patient samples. Utilizing this rare-cell detection engine technology, the company has the worlds leading pipeline of personalized, predictive and proven tests to guide therapy selection across the most impactful drug classes in oncology. For example, Epic Sciences has partnered with Genomic Health to commercialize the first predictive liquid biopsy test for prostate cancer. The company is building a strong pipeline of additional tests for other cancer indications. Dr. Wenstrup has 25 years of clinical leadership experience in oncology, genetics and pharmacogenomics. Previously, he served as Chief Medical Officer for Oxford Immunotec, Inc., where he oversaw research and development, product development, regulatory, and medical & clinical affairs. From 2006-2017, Dr. Wenstrup served as Chief Medical Officer for Myriad Genetics, Inc. where he built and led the clinical and medical affairs team to support a multi-fold increase in revenue during his tenure. He was actively involved in the company's product development, M&A and in-licensing activities. As an entrepreneur, Dr. Wenstrup was the founding director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and co-founder of Assurex Health, Inc., now a subsidiary of Myriad Genetics, Inc. Before joining industry, he served as a tenured Professor of Pediatrics in Human Genetics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and as a tenured Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned his medical degree. Says Slone Partners President Tara Kochis-Stach, Dr. Wenstrups decades-long experience in oncology leadership and clinical work will add substantial value to Epic Sciences in developing exciting new diagnostic tests that advance the mission of precision medicine. ABOUT SLONE PARTNERS Slone Partners delivers the leaders who build amazing scientific healthcare organizations People Are Our Science. Since 2000, Slone Partners specializes in delivering world-class C-suite leadership, executive, and upper management talent to the most promising and established life sciences, diagnostics, precision medicine, CRO, and laboratory services companies. With coast-to-coast presence in the most active healthcare industry hubs of Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Research Triangle Park NC, and Washington DC, Slone Partners uniquely and precisely provides an array of executive search and advisory services to innovative scientific healthcare companies. To learn more about Slone Partners value proposition and processes, visit http://www.slonepartners.com or call 888.784.3422. ABOUT EPIC SCIENCES Epic Sciences, Inc. is developing novel diagnostics to personalize and advance the treatment and management of cancer. Epic Sciences' mission is to enable the rapid and non-invasive detection of genetic and molecular changes in cancer throughout a patient's journey. The company was founded on a powerful platform to identify and characterize rare cells, including circulating tumor cells. Epic Sciences No Cell Left Behind technology helps match patients to therapies and monitor for drug resistance, so that the best treatment path can be chosen at every clinical decision point. Epic Sciences has partnered with Genomic Health to commercialize the Oncotype DX AR-V7 Nucleus Detect test, which helps with therapeutic decisions between taxane chemotherapy or androgen-directed therapeutics in metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. Today, Epic Sciences partners with leading pharmaceutical companies and major cancer centers around the world. Epic Sciences' goal is to increase the success rate of cancer drugs in clinical trials and improve patient outcomes by providing physicians real-time information to guide treatment choices. Epic Sciences is headquartered in San Diego. Further information is available on the Company's website http://www.epicsciences.com. This is a unique partnership which will allow Southbridge Credit Union the opportunity to meet the individual and ever-changing needs of our customer base. ZRent is proud to announce Southbridge Credit Union (SCU) as the first credit union to join its expanding network. Through the partnership with ZRent, SCU will be able to provide a free, convenient online rent collection solution to both existing and prospective landlords and property managers. Southbridge Credit Union always strives to meet the needs of our commercial and business clients, said Jordan Hoy, Senior Vice President of Commercial Lending & Services. ZRent is a great innovative solution which will provide landlords with an efficient digital cash management tool to automate and take the hassle out of the rent collection process. Not to mention the time that it will save them! We also want to attract new relationships to increase our core deposits. This is a unique partnership which will allow Southbridge Credit Union the opportunity to meet the individual and ever-changing needs of our customer base. We are thrilled to welcome Southbridge Credit Union into the growing ZRent network. We are excited to introduce their customers to the many benefits of ZRent, said Jay Tuli, Founder of ZRent and Executive Vice President of Retail Banking at Leader Bank. We know that both the Credit Union and their customers will find a great value in ZRents automatic rent collection and property management features. ZRent works by automatically deducting rent payments from the tenants account and depositing them directly into the landlords account. Tenants can set and forget their monthly payments, and landlords will no longer have the hassle of collecting checks and making a trip to their financial institution. ZRent also provides peace of mind for landlords, who will now receive consolidated payments for each unit on a reliable monthly schedule. ZRent is free of charge for any customers that have accounts with one of the participating institutions, which currently include Southbridge Credit Union, Marquette Bank, Needham Bank, Opportunity Bank of Montana, Seneca Savings, South Shore Bank, Stoneham Bank, and Leader Bank. For more information on ZRent, visit http://www.zrent.net, email zrent@zrent.net, or call 781-641-8691 About Southbridge Credit Union Southbridge Credit Union (http://www.southbridgecu.com) is a not-for-profit, membership-owned financial institution. Known for its strong consumer-orientation, SCU is organized to serve our community. The state-chartered SCU was incorporated in 1938, and is a community credit union with both federal and private deposit insurance. They operate under the supervision of the Massachusetts Banking Commissioner. Participating institutions in the credit union movement, as it is often termed, pay competitive rates of interest on savings and loan products. About ZRent ZRent (http://www.zrent.net) was launched in 2015 as a cash management tool that allows for the electronic collection and processing of rent payments. ZRents goal is to provide a convenient solution that will make the rent collection process a seamless and set and forget experience for both landlords and tenants. As an independent division of Leader Bank, ZRent is available to other financial institutions as a cash management tool for property owners and condo associations. Financial institutions that partner with ZRent will be able to offer the product to their customers completely free of charge. Patrick Harvie inspects water source heat pump for Queens Quay Decarbonising how we heat our homes and buildings is an absolute must-do if were to play our part in tackling the climate emergency but its also a huge opportunity. Star Renewable Energy welcomed local politician Patrick Harvie to the site last week to view its recently completed twin water source heat pump to be used at the 250m Queens Quay regeneration project. Due to be installed in September, this is one of the UKs most exciting and pioneering energy projects, delivered by Vital Energi. With recent plans for regeneration in the Clydebank area, and planned development for new houses and businesses, it was decided by the West Dunbartonshire Council that this would be the ideal time to install a district heating system. This low carbon, low emission solution, is a great alternative for heating buildings and excellent forward planning by the Council, as it was recently announced that gas boilers will be banned in new homes from 2025. The industrial district heat pump will also significantly contribute to the target of reducing CO2 emissions by 25% over the next seven years. Dave Pearson, Star Renewable Energy Director, said, This is Scotlands first large scale water source heat pump scheme, set to provide district heating for homes, business and public buildings such as the Town Hall, West Scotland College and Clydebank Library. It was excellent to welcome Patrick Harvie to view our Glasgow manufacturing facility and receive his support for these ground-breaking renewable heat projects. The heat from these units will be over 60% lower carbon than burning gas and 100% less local NOx. The 5.2 MW heat pumps take water from the River Clyde and use it to deliver heating and hot water as part of a district heating system which is three times more efficient than gas boilers. The technology uses ammonia, a natural refrigerant, offering zero global warming potential and zero ozone depletion. Patrick Harvie, Green MSP for Glasgow, said: Decarbonising how we heat our homes and buildings is an absolute must-do if were to play our part in tackling the climate emergency but its also a huge opportunity. Thats why were calling for massive public investment in a jobs-rich Green New Deal, which will mean rethinking how our economy works so its fairer and more sustainable. Delivering this ambition which has support across the political spectrum would mean rapidly scaling up the use of proven technology used by companies like Star Renewables so we can end our reliance on fossil fuels. Not only is this renewable source of energy more efficient, it also offers a lower price point than fossil fuels with an ability to consume off-peak electricity and store the heat generated. The initial cost of installing the equipment has been supported by West Dunbartonshire Council and the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Program (LCITP). The heat pump will also receive the Renewable Heat Incentive once operational. Mr Pearson added, In Scotland we are incredibly lucky to have rivers, lochs and coastlines which can be utilised as a renewable source of energy and heat. The Clyde catchment area is a 4000 square km solar collector utilising gravity and rainfall to deliver this source energy directly into the cities where heat is needed most. We hope that this ambitious project will pave the way for many more water source heat pumps as part of a national and international reaction to climate change. The Queens Quay regeneration development includes 1,400 new homes. These residents will be some of the first to benefit from this lower cost, low carbon heat, by the end of the year Find out more about the first large-scale water source heat pump scheme of its kind in Scotland by visiting stand C28 in the energy efficiency and heat zone at All Energy 2019 on 15th & 16th June. To find out more about Star Renewable Energy visit http://www.neatpumps.com About Star Renewable Energy Star Renewable Energy is the innovative business enterprise of leading UK heating and cooling specialist, Star Refrigeration. SRE was set up to support the decarbonisation of the heating sector by delivering large heat pump systems for district heating and industrial processes. SRE large scale heat pumps (Neatpumps) extract heat from rivers, lakes, sea water, mineshafts, aquifers, air, ground or even industrial waste stream. The Neatpump have sufficient capacity to supply large buildings and entire cities with both district heating and cooling at lower cost and less carbon emissions. When using renewable electricity, Neatpumps generate heating and colling at zero GWP. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate announced yesterday that Stephanie Foster Webb has been named as a first quarter 2019 recipient of two awards with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices: 2nd Place in the State of Georgia for total GCI, and 2nd Place in the State of Georgia for Residential Units. They have also announced that Erin Vaughn is the first quarter recipient of two awards: 1st Place in the State of Georgia for total GCI, and 1st Place in the State of Georgia for Residential Units. Both Erin and Stephanie were recognized at companys May Sales meeting by Pat Hodnett Cooper, President and Broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate. My goodness. The dynamic duo has done it again. Stephanie and Erin work so hard for their clients. They know what it takes to get the job done and they show up and they do it every day. Its just so special to see this mother-daughter team realize success year after year. These awards recognize their success as individuals in the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network, but, its clear to see that they truly work as a team, as they are in the number 1 and number 2 spots for these network awards, shared Missy Neu, Vice President of Business Development. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate, which is independently owned and operated, became a member of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brokerage network, operated by HSF Affiliates LLC, in 2017. Since that time, the company and several of its Realtors have earned a host of honors and awards. About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate Hodnett Cooper Real Estate is a family-owned and operated company with four offices throughout the Golden Isles offering a full range of real estate services including real estate sales, residential rentals, property management and commercial sales. The brokerage is the premier real estate company in southeast coastal Georgia with a professional and diverse team of agents. Visit http://www.BHHSHodnettCooper.com. About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, based in Irvine, CA, is a brand-new real estate brokerage network built for a new era in residential real estate. The network, among the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings to the real estate market a definitive mark of trust, integrity, stability and longevity. About HSF Affiliates LLC Irvine, CA-based HSF Affiliates LLC operates Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Prudential Real Estate and Real Living Real Estate franchise networks. The company is a joint venture of which HomeServices of America, Inc., the nations second-largest, full-service residential brokerage firm, is a majority owner. HomeServices of America is an affiliate of world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Contact: Catherine Maybank (912) 638-5450 catherine(at)hcrega(dot)com The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities announced today two new impact directors who are joining its team as issue experts on health and well-being and education. Michelle Hinton joins the Alliance as director of population health and well-being. Kelly Martin has been named director of educational success. We are so pleased to have two such well-respected, collaborative, and results-oriented individuals to add to our team of issue experts across the practice and policy areas of health wellbeing and education, noted Alliance CEO and president Susan N. Dreyfus. This is an historic time in our country with opportunities to achieve bigger results by making significant, positive changes in practice and policy through health and education reform. Americas community-based human services organizations, including those represented in the Alliances network, are integral to achieving these results and demonstrating the very best of our sector. I am confident that Michelle and Kelly, working in partnership with our network members, other partners and with Ilana Levinson, our senior director of government relations, will make an important impact in improving the health, education, and well-being of all Americans. In so doing, our goal is to ensure that all Americans can achieve their fullest potential which is critical to strong, vibrant and equitable America. Michelle Hinton brings more than 20 years of executive leadership, change management, fund development, and public health experience to this new role. Formerly the executive director and CEO of the United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee (UNCOM) Hinton has extensive experience collaborating with corporate, nonprofit, health care, and foundation entities. Prior to UNCOM, Hinton served as the director of regional corporate relations for the American Cancer Society. Additionally, she served as the senior director of community engagement for the Wisconsin Region, where she was responsible for overall strategic direction, income, and mission goals for the organization. Hinton has held other leadership positions at Aurora Health Care Foundation and the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee. Hinton holds a bachelors in business management and communications and a masters in business administration. Prior to stepping into this position, Kelly Martin was a research analyst at the Alliance. In this role she led research and evaluation projects both internally and across our strategic action network. Since joining the Alliance in 2016, she has become deeply embedded in both the Advancing Equity and Educational Success impact areas through metrics coordination, content development, and facilitation of learning opportunities. Martin is an experienced convener and facilitatorshe has led hundreds of social sector leaders through design sessions and learning opportunities, and she has a background in professional development and quality improvement systems in education spaces. Prior to joining the Alliance in 2016, Martin was a researcher in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. In this role, she partnered with various education stakeholders, including social service providers, school district administrators, policy-makers, funders, community members, educators, to infuse the theory, research, and best practices of developmental psychology into local, statewide, and national collaborations. Martin was also an adjunct instructor during her years at the University of Pittsburgh, teaching a graduate-level course in developmental psychology in the School of Education. She holds a master's in applied developmental psychology. As part of their new positions, Hinton and Martin will join a redesigned public policy team led by Levinson to focus on a range of policy priorities in their relevant areas related to the Alliances Blueprint for Strong Families and Communities and its 2019-2020 Federal Public Policy Agenda. Additional members of the Alliances new team of impact directors include: Rehana Absar, director of impact for organizational excellence; Teri Covington, director of the Within Our Reach Office focusing on building a more prevention-focused and effective child welfare system in America; Undraye Howard, senior director of equity, diversity, inclusion and engagement; Jennifer Jones, director of the Change in Mind Institute, focusing on applying brain research to organizational practice and public policy; Hope Liu, director of organizational learning; and, Emily Merritt, director of intergenerational initiatives. About the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities is a strategic action network of thousands of committed social sector leaders who through their excellence, distinction, and influence are working to achieve a healthy and equitable society. We aggregate the very best sector knowledge and serve as an incubator for learning and innovation to generate new solutions to the toughest problems. We accelerate change through dynamic leadership development and collective actions to ensure policies and systems provide equal access and opportunity for all people in our nation to reach their fullest potential through improvements in health and well-being, educational success, economic opportunity, and safety and security. Go to http://www.alliance1.org for more information. Were thrilled to be joined by these prominent DOE speakers for the RadWaste Summit, said Nancy Berlin, Program Director, ExchangeMonitor Forums. 2019 is shaping up to be an interesting time for the radioactive waste community, and its more imperative than ever for industry leaders to connect. The 2019 RadWaste Summit will explore the theme Shifting Priorities for U.S. Radioactive Waste Management at the 13th annual Summit this September in Henderson, NV. As the radioactive waste industry continues to dynamically change, its imperative for industry leaders to come together and discuss challenges and solutions to the management and disposition of radioactive waste. Anne Marie White, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, United States Department of Energy (DOE), has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for the 2019 RadWaste Summit, taking place September 3-5, 2019 in Henderson, NV. Tamara L. Miles, Federal Procurement Director at the DOE, has also been confirmed as a speaker. As Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management at the U.S. DOE, Anne Marie White provides strategic executive leadership and oversight for the cleanup of contaminated nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing sites across the United States to support the Department of Energys mission for addressing environmental and nuclear challenges. Tamara L. Miles, who has nearly 20 years of contracting experience, oversees the acquisition and management of multi-million dollar environmental clean-up contracts nationwide. She now serves as the Federal Procurement Director at the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center. In addition to hearing from Ms. White and Ms. Miles, attendees will be part of the following discussions: Program Perspectives from the Office of Environmental Management New Procurement Initiatives and its Benefit for All Stakeholders Budget and Legislative Outlook Nuclear Regulatory Commission Updates State/Local Level Involvement and Community Outreach DOE EMs Mercury Challenge for Decontamination and Decommissioning at Oak Ridge Consolidated Interim Storage Office of Nuclear Energy update for current waste work Tribal Strategies and Opportunities in Radioactive Waste Management Recent Developments in High-Level Waste Transportation Savannah River Site case study: Workforce Training/Retention/Recruitment and more! Were thrilled to be joined by these prominent DOE speakers, Ms. White and Ms. Miles, as speakers for the 2019 RadWaste Summit, said Nancy Berlin, Program Director, ExchangeMonitor Forums. 2019 is already shaping up to be an interesting time for the radioactive waste community, and its more imperative than ever for industry leaders to connect on how to move forward. Im looking forward to some great discussions this September as sparked by our speakers. Of the course of three days, more than 350 industry and government attendees will come together to discuss the challenges and solutions to the management and disposition of radioactive waste. Its the must-attend event for waste managers, program managers, environmental specialists, the c-suite, scientists and more to network, get high-level updates and connect on business opportunities. The 2019 RadWaste Summit will take place September 3-5 at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Henderson, NV. Attendees from the following organizations have already secured their spot: Bragg Nuclear Group, Camfil, Fluor, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Huntington Ingalls Industries, the National Nuclear Security Administration, VNS Federal Services, Veolia Nuclear Solutions, TechSource, Transco Products Inc., and more. Register before May 24 at the early bird rate to save up to $400 off the regular rate! To learn more and to register, visit http://www.radwastesummit.com. About ExchangeMonitor, a division of Access Intelligence, LLC ExchangeMonitor Publications & Forums publishes professional newsletters and creates, manages and sponsors forums, colloquiums and workshops to facilitate an exchange of views and information on critical programs and policies. Areas of focus include: the Department of Energys Office of Environmental Management and the cleanup of the nuclear legacy of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War; the National Nuclear Security Administrative and the current U.S. nuclear weapons complex; and the commercial radioactive waste industry. Description GIS - 15 May, 2019: Government is determined to reducing unemployment rate in Mauritius and facilitate access to gainful employment as well as empowering job seekers with requisite competence and skills on the job market. Government is determined to reducing unemployment rate in Mauritius and facilitate access to gainful employment as well as empowering job seekers with requisite competence and skills on the job market. T his statement was made by the Minister of Labour, Industrial Relations, Employment and Training, Mr Soodesh Callichurn, yesterday at the opening of a two-day workshop held in Port-Louis which aims at presenting new range of services for both jobseekers and employers. The Minister highlighted that it is essential to guide and orient jobseekers who are confronted to the changing needs of the job market so as to make them employable over a longer period. The workshop, he said, is in line with the restructuring of the Public Employment Service for better support and accompaniment of job seekers. Several training programs, he emphasised, are being conducted to equip the unemployed with necessary knowledge and skills for increased job opportunities adding that employment agencies play a major role in communicating information about the demand and supply of the job market. To this end, these agencies are being redesigned for improved range of services and support to facilitate access to employment, he pointed out. Speaking about the National Employment Act 2017, he underlined that it provides for the creation of a National Employment Department empowered to collect and analyse data on any employment related matter in order to respond to the dynamic needs of the labour market. Minister Callichurn added that the labour market information on the demand and supply of skills to local employers, job seekers and training institutions is crucial for manpower planning and forecasting. The National Employment Department, he said, will complement Governments actions to further combat unemployment and cater to the needs of both employers and job seekers. He pointed out that the workshop will provide a platform for sharing information relevant to the current situation of the job market and address challenges regarding employment generation and skills development so as to respond to the labour market needs. Some 50 participants including employers and job seekers are attending the workshop which is being held by the Ministry in collaboration with the Agence Francaise de Developpement and Pole emploi of France. This years event was outstanding with new thought leadership, awesome attendees, and a host of great activities, where everybody had a chance to connect and learn from each other. Tompkins International announces the 2020 Annual Supply Chain Leadership Forum will be held in Pinehurst, North Carolina from May 4-6, 2020 at The Carolina Hotel. The purpose of the Supply Chain Leadership Forum is to bring supply chain executives together from a wide range of industries to connect, share, and learn. The topics of discussion relate to supply chain, business strategies, and operations. Supply chain executives from all major industries are in attendance, including retail, consumer products, 3PL, pharmaceutical, and select service providers. The 2019 event included Siemens hosting a live demonstration of original equipment manufacturer digitalization tools, including a multi-carrier system with fine motion control and delta pickers, along with digital twin and virtual commissioning on individual screens. Peter Millar hosted an exclusive tour of their newest distribution center. Some of the equipment that was seen on the tour included multi-level pick module, garment on hanger, high density deck rack storage, drive roller, narrow belt sorters, scanners, work platforms, and spiral chutes. Chris Sultemeier, former Head of Logistics for Walmart, was another great addition to this years Forum. Sultemeier discussed his 28-year career at the worlds largest retailer, providing a lot of insight on operations both domestically and internationally. Another highlight of every Supply Chain Leadership Forum is the keynote given by Jim Tompkins, CEO of Tompkins International and MonarchFx. This year, Tompkins addressed how organizations can succeed and flourish in these uncertain times, explaining the disruption cycle, the level of organizational chaos, and how the volatility of global economies is forcing organizations to deal with an unprecedented level of uncertainty. Unfortunately, many organizations are not comfortable dealing with uncertainty. Therefore, organizations continue to develop strategies, structures, and solutions according to a theoretical view of the Steady State. The reality is the Steady State is an obsolete concept that vanished at the beginning of the digital revolution. Tompkins explained new ways to think about and develop anti-brittle strategies, structures, and solutions, helping organizations evolve today. He further discussed how to achieve success, profitability, and growth under todays supply chain conditions. Tompkins stated, The key to success is to be flexible, modular, portable, agile, and available on demand while operating efficiently over a wide range of requirements; organizations must have anti-brittle solutions. This years event was outstanding with new thought leadership, awesome attendees, and a host of great activities, where everybody had a chance to connect and learn from each other. I believe next years event will be even better with new speakers and events being added to the line-up, says Jim Tompkins. About Tompkins International Tompkins International is a supply chain consulting and implementation firm that maximizes supply chain performance and value creation. It enables clients to be more profitable and valuable, while also becoming more agile, flexible, and adaptive to the marketplace. Tompkins collaborates with client teams to develop improved operations strategies, supply chain planning, and execution across all the Mega Processes of supply chains (PLAN-BUY-MAKE-MOVE-DISTRIBUTE-SELL). Tompkins is headquartered in Raleigh, NC and has offices throughout North America and in Europe and Asia. For more information visit: http://www.tompkinsinc.com. About MonarchFx MonarchFx, a Tompkins International company, is an alliance of leading logistics service providers, supply chain technology providers, and partners, managed by experienced executives, that provides world-class logistics and fulfillment solutions through an innovative logistics ecosystem. It serves retailers, brands, and other sellers with multiple fulfillment channels, providing speed, quality, and efficiency, operating with distributed logistics centers for nationwide coverage, allowing for same-day delivery. It is high-service, facilitated by advanced robotics, analytics, and artificial intelligence methods for inventory allocation. For more information visit: http://www.monarchfxgo.com. Fault detection and catching issues before they occur is clearly a valuable tool for all energy managers. The embedded smart intelligence features and fault detection capabilities are impressive. Transformative Wave, a leading innovator in HVAC energy efficiency and building automation solutions based in Kent, Washington, has won the 2019 Energy Manager Today Product of the Year Award for its eIQ Platform. This is the second Transformative Wave product to win the award. In 2016, Energy Manager Today named Transformative Waves CATALYST technology as a recipient of the same award. Transformative Wave received the award during an awards gala at the Annual Environmental Leader & Energy Manager Conference being held in Denver. The awards are touted as the industrys most elite product, project, and executive recognition programs. Transformative Waves eIQ Platform provides enterprise-level real-time monitoring for up-do-date visibility into energy usage along with comprehensive diagnostics, fault detection, and energy savings reports. The platform integrates with existing building management systems and can be remotely accessed for monitoring and control of building assets. The Energy Manager Today Awards program, in its seventh year, recognizes excellence in products and services that provide companies with significant energy management benefits, or in projects implemented by companies that improved energy management and increase the bottom line. Scores were determined by a panel of independent judges, who had glowing reviews of the eIQ Platform. One judge wrote, Providing both fault detection and diagnosis for rapid response as well as M&V of energy savings, this system would seem to enable good energy management and support continuous commissioning. Another judge noted the value of the eIQ Platform. Fault detection and catching issues before they occur is clearly a valuable tool for all energy managers. The embedded smart intelligence features and fault detection capabilities are impressive, the judge asserted. A final judge summed up the eIQ Platform: Additional energy use intelligence and fault detection capabilities should make this a candidate for recognition. The product is very useful in managing energy and maintenance costs, the judge declared. Danny Miller, president of Transformative Wave, said: The judges recognition of the enabling power of the eIQ Platform to assist energy managers and facility operators is very gratifying. Our product development team is to be congratulated for their innovation, vision, and implementation of what we believe is a world-class building automation, fault detection, diagnostic, and reporting solution that delivers practical value to our clients,. The eIQ Platform is just one of the ways we deliver value-added solutions to our customers, oftentimes in conjunction with the hard energy savings we generate with our award-winning CATALYST advanced rooftop-unit control (ARC) technology, and we are grateful for this recognition of our efforts. About Transformative Wave Transformative Wave is a leading energy efficiency innovator in HVAC retrofit and building automation solutions, developing and bringing to market a growing line of game-changing technologies that are transforming the commercial building energy landscape. For more information or to request a demo of any of our revolutionary products, including Cobalt, the CATALYST, and eIQ Platform, visit http://www.transformativewave.com. White Mountain Footwear is thrilled to announce the launch of its new website: WhiteMountainShoes.com. The updated site aims to make it even easier for new and existing customers to get instant access to exquisite footwear designs for discerning women. White Mountain recognizes the tremendous importance of the direct-to-consumer channel, said Jim Anderson, Chief Operating Officer at White Mountain Footwear. We have made, and will continue to make, significant investments in our people, technology and warehouse operations to bring the best possible shopping experience to our consumers. The team at White Mountain has been working tirelessly to make a number of user-experience improvements to the site, including faster loading speeds, advanced product filtering and a streamlined checkout experience on desktops, tablets and phones, all so customers can find precisely what they need within a few clicks or taps. In addition, White Mountain has added the ability to shop across all four of its popular womens footwear brands at once. Shoppers can also find exclusive products, like the Heritage Collection, which features all-leather styles inspired by customer feedback and their go-to favorite shoes. These significant updates reflect the companys overall mission of providing the best possible experience to customers. Weve built a loyal following by focusing on quality in our products, shopping experience and customer service, said Amy Atwood, Director of eCommerce at White Mountain Footwear. Our new site is meant to meet and exceed customers growing demands, both today and well into the future, too. Check out White Mountains new website at WhiteMountainShoes.com for more information and to discover an impressive collection of stylish womens sandals, boots, flats, heels and more. Shoppers can always find a full assortment of products, colors and sizes, generous shipping, return and product warranty policies, and exceptional customer service from their fabulous, homegrown customer service team. About the Company Founded in 1979, White Mountain Footwears mission is to provide stylish, quality womens footwear at a great value. Each shoe style is crafted with high-quality materials and the tried-and-trusted techniques that come with four decades of experience in the industry. White Mountain Footwear currently owns and operates four womens shoe brands: White Mountain, Cliffs by White Mountain, Rialto and Seven Dials. It is recommended to read every phrase of the car insurance contract before signing it. You should know exactly for what you are insured, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Autoinsurancequotesave.com has released a new blog post that informs the clients why they should pay attention to the car insurance contract before sealing the deal. For more info and free quotes, visit http://www.autoinsurancequotesave.com/why-should-you-carefully-read-the-car-insurance-contract/ Car insurance is required in order to legally drive across the United States. After buying the minimum required by each state (except New Hampshire), drivers can add extra coverage. However, do not be hasty and sign the contract before carefully reading it. Even if this may look complicated and time-consuming, it will prevent unpleasant surprises. Pay attention to the Declarations section of the contract. This section can cover one or more pages and it is one of the most important parts of the contract. Here the driver will find listed the item or items that are covered by the contract. This section also provides details about expiration date and coverage limits. The Named Insured is the section where the policyholder will have to write his address, phone number, email address and other related details. Furthermore, there is a section dedicated to the insured vehicle or vehicles, where multiple details must also be added. This is where car owners can add one or more additional drivers. Carefully look for coverage exclusions. They specify what events will not be covered under the current policy. For example, collision coverage will not cover the insured if the car is vandalized or stolen. Using a personal car for commercial purposes is also a common exclusion. Autoinsurancequotesave.com is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. For more information, please visit http://www.autoinsurancequotesave.com. Womens Excellence is pleased to announce the opening of a new Midwifery office in Clarkston, Michigan. The team of Midwives at Womens Excellence specialize in prenatal care and a variety of womens health services. The new office is located at 5701 Bow Pointe Drive, Suite 380 Clarkston, MI 48346. The main Clarkston office for Womens Excellence is in Suite 350. The desire for midwifery care has grown tremendously and we are proud to offer a large team of midwives and midwifery-exclusive offices to women in our community! Dr. Jonathan Zaidan, MD, FACOG, President of Women's Excellence Womens Excellence in Midwifery of Clarkston offers a personalized approach to pregnancy with one-on-one care. Women's Excellence also services women who are seeking a holistic approach to the natural process of birth. In addition to prenatal care, the midwives at Womens Excellence see patients for postpartum care preconception counseling family planning birth control services breastfeeding education prenatal genetic testing gynecologic concerns and infections annual gynecologic exams breast exams other female concerns The Midwives at Womens Excellence are fully supported by a team of physicians. Both teams work collectively to oversee the needs and wishes of the patient. Most childbirths at Womens Excellence are managed by a Midwife team member, but if a patient requires significant medical attention, a Womens Excellence physician is readily available. The collaboration between midwives and physicians gives patients the comprehensive care they deserve. Midwifery care is a special service for women. We value an attentive, personalized approach to childbirth and womens health, and we strive to meet all the wishes of our patients. In fact, even some of our very own Midwives have had their prenatal care and childbirth managed by other Womens Excellence Midwives! This is a true testament to our dedication to patient care and service. Dr. Jonathan Zaidan For more information 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. During offline hours, all chats sent will be messaged directly to a Womens Excellence team member. Offline messages will receive a response within 24 hours. Messages received during the weekend will be answered the next business week. Appointments can also be made at (248) 256-4018. 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. World Renowned Recruitment Leader, James Caan CBE, Partners with Top USA Franchise Company, FPC Worldwide James Caan CBE, said, "In my experience of working in the sector globally, there are few opportunities that offer the exclusive benefits that an FPC Franchise provides: The chance to build your own business and team from anywhere in the world with daily support and training from FPC." James Caan CBE, British business icon, executive-search-industry thought leader, and global philanthropist, has joined forces with FPC Worldwide, one of the leading recruiting firms and franchise companies in the United States. Jamess strategic alliance with FPC will help expand their footprint in the U.S. and open new markets internationally. Caan is widely regarded as one of the UKs most successful entrepreneurs, having funded, built and sold many recruitment firms that now generate more than a billion dollars in revenue combined. He assisted the British government in establishing Start-Up Loans that created more than 28,000 new businesses in three years, which led to him being awarded a Commander of the British Empire title. James has also appeared as a main panel investor on the BBCs popular Dragons Den, the UK version of Shark Tank. With 3.3 million followers James is well recognized as the #2 influencer on LinkedIn in the UK. Commenting on the alliance, James Caan CBE, said, In my experience of working in the sector globally, there are few opportunities that offer the exclusive benefits that an FPC Franchise provides: The chance to build your own business and team from anywhere in the world with daily support and training from FPC. You get direct access to knowledge from their wider community network, as well as the professional freedom to be autonomous and achieve a true work-life balance, with the potential to generate significant income. The level of support they provide to franchisees is fantastic and Im looking forward to introducing the FPC story to new markets. FPC Worldwide was founded in 1959 and began opening franchise locations 14 years later. With over 60 successful franchise businesses throughout the USA, they have the benefit of a seasoned leadership team with over 150 years of experience, and a people-first philosophy. Named by Forbes as one of the Top 50 Executive Recruitment Firms in America, FPC has also been listed among the Top 50 in Franchisee Satisfaction by Franchise Business Review. One of the reasons for FPCs longstanding success is the leadership of CEO Ron Herzog and President Jeff Herzog, who work tirelessly to ensure the continued profitability and growth for each of their franchisees. On the affiliation with James, Ron, said With the alliance firmly in place, were excited about what the future brings for our growth. We expect to increase the number of franchise locations by 15% this year alone, with a five-year projection of doubling the size of the business. Outlining FPCs approach, Ron went on to say, We have worked as a team for decades to build mutual trust between ourselves and the FPC franchise owners. Weve evolved with the times through technology, and were proud weve never lost the high-touch human support, which is crucial to building our successful culture. Jeff wholeheartedly agrees that the human element is a key driver of success for the company. He said, FPC owners have a real zest to share job assignments and ideas. For us, its simply all about the people, which are the words we live by. On most days, Ron and I, along with our support team, are in touch with every franchise owner. The partnership between James Caan and FPC was orchestrated by Doug Bugie, leader of FPC franchising, who has sold and opened more than 800 executive search franchises globally. James and Doug have worked together in the past to build a global executive recruitment franchise in more than 30 countries, which was sold to a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. For information on starting on your path to entrepreneurship as an FPC franchise owner, contact Doug Bugie at dbugie@fpcworldwide.com or (+1) 212-302-1141. Media Contact: Samirat Rivers FPC National srivers@FPCNational.com http://www.fpcfranchise.com (+1) 212-302-1141 Kahuas program management solutions will help us to improve communication with our clients, streamline operations and ultimately deliver the best possible outcomes for our clients. WSP Canada, a leading management and technical consultancy for the property sector, has selected Kahua as its Real Estate Development program management and collaboration technology platform. Under the agreement, WSPs Canadian Buildings Project Management business unit will standardize around Kahua to manage programs and projects with The Kahua Network. WSP Buildings Project Management is a solution-driven advisor and development manager for clients across a broad range of industry segments. They deliver innovative, integrated solutions to complex problems, leadership in project delivery and a focus on value-driven results. The agreement with Kahua reflects a commitment to investment in new technology that provides a flexible and efficient way to manage complex projects across a diverse client base. Kahua provides the worlds premiere collaborative network for real estate and construction program and project management. The Kahua Network, delivered as an Application Platform as a Service, will connect WSP with its clients and supply chains, allowing applications, business processes and information to be shared across organizations to more effectively manage the entire lifecycle of their capital assets. WSP was looking for an agile and forward-thinking system to meet our clients needs now and well into the future, said Roger Puttock, National VP of Project Management at WSP. High-performing project management teams need tools that support collaboration, accuracy and a constant focus on achieving results, and that is why Kahua is part of our strategy. Kahuas program management solutions will help us to improve communication with our clients, streamline operations and ultimately deliver the best possible outcomes for our clients. WSP has long been recognized as one of the premier global consulting firms in our industry and they are consistently on the forefront of innovation, said Scott Unger, CEO of Kahua. We are pleased that they have chosen Kahua to help them set the standard in client experience by improving communication and operational efficiency. The Kahua Network will help support WSP in their mission to challenge the status quo and help societies thrive. About Kahua Kahua is changing the way that capital projects are delivered and managed. The Kahua Network is the worlds leading collaborative network for real estate and construction project management. Kahuas collaborative project management solutions improve communication and performance throughout the entire lifecycle of your capital assets. Delivered as a secure, scalable Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS), the Kahua Network enables users to easily share data, documents and workflows across all applications and projects. Kahua supports leading mobile devices and tablets, integrates with third-party applications and numerous accounting systems, and enables customers and certified development partners to quickly modify existing applications or build custom applications that operate on The Kahua Network. To learn more, visit http://www.kahua.com. About WSP As one of the world's leading professional services firms, WSP provides engineering and design services to clients in the Transportation & Infrastructure, Property & Buildings, Environment, Power & Energy, Resources and Industry sectors, as well as offering strategic advisory services. Our experts include engineers, advisors, technicians, scientists, architects, planners, surveyors and environmental specialists, as well as other design, program and construction management professionals. With approximately 48,000 talented people globally, we are uniquely positioned to deliver successful and sustainable projects, wherever our clients need us. For more information, visit wsp.com. Street Noise Books, a new independent publishing house specializing in graphic memoir and illustrated nonfiction for young adults, will publish its first list in January 2020. Street Noise Books founder and publisher Liz Frances told PW the new publisher will launch with six books with plans to publish six to eight books annually. Frances is a 15-year publishing veteran who has worked as an art director and book designer, most recently at Scholastic. She said her list will focus on books that reflect a radical, feminist, queer, and inclusive social vision. Frances said she was motivated to launch Street Noise Books by the 2016 presidential election and inspired by the growth of the graphic novel category. I was really moved by a lot of graphic novel works over the last few years, she said, specifically pointing to David Smalls Stitches. The new companys tag line, she said, will be to produce books that are unapologetic, authentic, and politically relevant. I am launching Street Noise Books to create a means from which truth can be told, a place to share our stories, to foster community, she said. Frances is self-financing Street Noise Books, she said, in order to maintain our independence and integrity and not have to justify the books to a committee. Street Noise Books makes use of freelance editors and designers. Frances said she is in talks with distributors. Among the books on the first list are Im a Wild Seed: Memories of Oppressed Queerness by Sharon Lee De La Cruz, a graphic memoir about the meaning of being queer by a woman of color; and Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Som, which will explore gender and sexuality, love and memory by a transgender artist. SNB will also release Stupid Black Girl: Essays from an American African Living in New York by Aisha Redux with art by Brianna McCarthy, a collection of narrative essays. The initial list of titles did not come through agents and Frances is working with authors to develop the list. She found Aisha Redux on Instagram and first saw the work of De La Cruz when she was working at Scholastic and contacted her about forthcoming work. Frances is also planning to publish an as yet untitled work by Native American cartoonist Jim Terry, which she discovered via Indigenous Comic Con, the Native American pop culture festival. Frances called graphic works a way to humanize social issues. Its harder to stereotype people when you know something about them. A second visit by Heliponix startup to the African continent strives to develop new agricultural processes, self-reliance for countries. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Cameroon, a West African country in the Congo region, has long relied on foreign aid to feed its citizens due to the extreme desert climate in some areas and a continued influx in refugees and orphaned children from neighboring nations. Through support from the Mandela Washington Fellowship, Scott Massey, a Purdue University graduate and founder of Heliponix, recently completed a workshop to provide Cameroon residents and farmers with practical advice and resources to develop low-cost hydroponic farms to increase the production of agricultural products and encourage entrepreneurship to advance self-reliance while using local materials. Masseys company makes the GroPod, an innovative appliance that fits under a kitchen counter and grows produce year-round. Organizations providing food for some of the most at risk groups in Cameroon are reliant on nonprofits, which can make it difficult for them to always have a consistent source of quality food , Massey said. We built hydroponic farms at certain locations to allow them to grow their own food, have some degree of independence from foreign aid, and overcome the extreme desert climate that often makes it difficult to grow crops. Massey credited the Mandela Washington Fellowship, which seeks to promote business development and civic engagement through the academic and entrepreneurial empowerment of African people, with the advancement of his contributions to the area and other programs to help the country feed its population while fostering independence. The program provides young entrepreneurs and leaders with the chance to travel to the United States for a short period of time for an opportunity to develop their skills and learn from mentors in American colleges and universities. Massey, a graduate of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute in Mechanical Engineering Technology with a Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, was accepted into the program in 2017 and was later granted the status of American Professional, which made him eligible for the Reciprocal Exchange Grants. That led to his recent three-week trip to Cameroon. During that trip, modular farms also were built at farm build at the University of Ngaoundere with the purpose of teaching students how to build and maintain the farms. Massey adapted the GroPod device in these modular farms using the same concept but taking into consideration the availability of different resources. A video about his work is available here. There are some concepts from the GroPod that we have incorporated into these designs, but it was important that we design the device with local materials so that they would be able to build it and replicate it themselves, Massey said. He also lectured at the University of Yaounde, teaching students about hydroponic technologies and basic entrepreneurial skills. Through these lectures, Massey was able to share his experiences as an entrepreneur and offer advice that could help guide students in their own entrepreneurial ventures. Masseys lectures also focused on teaching the students how to pitch their ideas, an ability he said is essential to attract investors and grow a company. For any entrepreneur, the art of pitching is vital. As an entrepreneur, it is important to be able to properly articulate what the problem is that you are solving, what makes your solution unique, and what the opportunity is behind the solution. Having this clear articulate story-telling ability is what we were trying to help the students achieve, and thats something that the Purdue Foundry does very well. Going through their program was a tremendous help for me and I am sharing this knowledge where I can, Massey said. Massey said taking part in programs at the Purdue Foundry, an entrepreneurship and commercialization accelerator in Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship at Purdue, was essential in helping get his company off the ground. This was Masseys second trip to Africa through the Mandela Washington Fellowships Reciprocal Exchange Grant, which gives recipients the opportunity to travel to different sub-Saharan countries in the continent. In 2018, Massey traveled to Togo, where he assisted in developing sustainable agriculture methods. About Purdue Foundry The Purdue Foundry is an entrepreneurship and commercialization accelerator in Discovery Parks Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship whose professionals help Purdue innovators create startups. Managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, the Purdue Foundry was co-named a top recipient at the 2016 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Designation and Awards Program by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities for its work in entrepreneurship. For more information about funding an investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. Writer: Zeina Kayyali, zmkayyali@prf.org Purdue Research Foundation contact: Tom Coyne, 765-588-1044, tjcoyne@prf.org Source: Scott Massey, scott@heliponix.com Description GIS - 15 May, 2019: A four-day training programme in Leadership in Health Care, Customer Service and Effective Communication kickstarted, today, in the Conference room of Dr A. G. Jeetoo Hospital in Port Louis in presence of the Minister of Health and Quality of Life, Dr Anwar Husnoo, the Minister of Civil Service and Administrative Reforms, Mr Eddy Boissezon, and the Director General of the Civil Service College, Mauritius ( CSCM), Professor Ramesh Durbarry. This training, which is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life and the CSCM, aims at enhancing the professional and ethical behavior of hospital staff as well as improve management skills of health care personnel. Other objectives are: to enhance health care service and to positively change behaviours in the hospital which are in line with the Ministrys vision; to promote team spirit and organisational excellence to improve service delivery, and to develop leadership skills across different levels of the hierarchy. In his keynote address, Minister Husnoo reiterated Governments intent to continue to provide quality health care by investing massively in the latest medical technology and appropriate modern infrastructure. According to him, along with these facilities, it is essential to have a competent staff. The public healthcare sector is equipped with a pool of highly skilled and well-trained staff who are required to provide efficient services, he emphasised. As regards the issue of complaints from patients regarding customer service by hospital staff, he underlined that his Ministry is striving to improve the quality of health services to the population adding that health care personnel have the duty to cater to the needs of patients in a dedicated way. He pointed out that he is aware of the difficulties faced by patients and reassured the population that initiatives are being taken to provide a better quality of care to patients through innovation, new infrastructures as well as massive investments in the health care sector across Mauritius. Dr Husnoo dwelt on the importance of effective communication between health care personnel and towards patients. In this constantly changing health environment, he said, training and capacity-building programmes of health care personnel are fundamental to enhance the health sector as they play a key role in delivering quality health services where dissemination of good customer service remain indispensable. Minister Husnoo appealed to the hospital staff to perform their duties efficiently as care providers to patients. In this respect, he emphasised that it is essential to equip them with core leadership values such as leadership, customer service and good communication skills. Speaking about upcoming projects in the health sector, Dr Husnoo announced that they will cater to the needs of patients. They include: a new Cancer Centre; a new Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) hospital; and a new Eye Hospital. For his part, Minister Boissezon underlined that Government is leaving no stone unturned to invest in human capital and improve performance in the public sector. The training, he highlighted, will help the hospital staff with the fundamental principles of communication and customer service. The workforce of the health sector should be empowered through proper training and education in order to overcome the emerging challenges, he further stated. Mr Boissezon underscored that during the training, participants will be provided technical skills on how to effectively communicate with customers and among employees and management as well as how to empower the health care personnel in understanding the importance of customer service excellence and to act accordingly. Participants will also be called upon to devise a personal action plan to enhance customer service, he added. The Director General of the CSCM, Professor Ramesh Durbarry,for his part, highlighted that the training will enhance the competencies of hospital staff for service excellence through effective communication and leadership. The CSCM, he emphasised, works closely with qualified and experienced resource persons to offer quality training courses to staff from Ministries/Departments, hence improving productivity in the public service. Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK MainStreamings technology is designed to enable broadcasters to stream live and on-demand and compete with major providers, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu. The solution has already been deployed with broadcasters such as Sky Italia which uses the service to stream premium live, linear and on-demand content, enabling it to offer consumers access to their favourite content over broadband connections.The new funding round led by Indaco Venture Partners SGR, together with Sony Innovation Fund and existing investor United Ventures brings the total raised by the company to over $10 million. MainStreaming says it will use the funds to enhance its position in its two core markets, broadcast and online gaming, and enable its customers to meet the ever-growing demand for streaming and seamless gaming interactivity over the internet.We are excited by the technology and the team at MainStreaming, said Alvise Bonivento, co-founder and investment director of Indaco Venture Partners. Our goal is to provide the tools it needs to compete at an international level, leading the disruption and digital transformation of traditional markets.Sony's participation through its venture capital arm in this funding round, represents its first investment in an Italian company. It says that the distribution of content with high-reliability and no quality loss is pivotal to offering the best experience to its customer base. Were excited to join the MainStreaming family, and we have great confidence in the MainStreaming team and technology, added Gen Tsuchikawa, chief investment officer of Sony Innovation Fund . It was the obvious choice in a world where consumer expectations around video quality and interactivity are of critical importance. Accelerating its growth phase, film and television data analytics and digital asset-management platform provider Looper Insights has made a number of appointments to its management board and senior executive team. Launched in April 2019, the company develops proprietary technology for the TV and film industry allowing IP owners to see, manage and optimise their titles, enabling the management of availability, pricing, packaging and placement in each market and across each store.The company has now appointed a chief technical officer (CTO), two business-development executives for North and Latin America and a new board advisor.New CTO Alex Heeton (pictured) joins Looper Insights from DC Thomson Publishing, where he served as head of software for Beano Studios, which was established to revitalise the iconic childrens brand. With a focus on technology and product design, Heeton specialises in helping early-stage companies to achieve product/market fit and profitability.Eric Stein has been retained to lead business development efforts in the US and Canada, with Tony Kelly taking a similar role in Latin America. Stein is the founder of consulting firm Impact Global Media, which specialises in managing and optimising media marketplace transition. Digital and pay-TV veteran Kelly founded and served as executive chairman of Digital Media Distribution Limited (DMD), which distributes independent world-cinema films to Latin Americas major cable and IPTV platforms.Stuart Simms has joined the Looper team as an advisor to the board. An experienced CEO and board-level executive, Simms specialises in turn-arounds and launching new high-growth divisions and global ventures for companies including Rakuten, Microsoft and Rackspace. John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to investigate how Trump-Russia allegations emerged and spread within federal law enforcement, has already been looking into whether the FBIs former top lawyer, James Baker, illegally leaked to reporters. John Durham in 2006. In fact, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut appears to have begun that work more than seven months ago, to judge from an underreported transcript of an October congressional interview with Baker. The Baker interview, at which Durham was not present, suggests that the prosecutor nevertheless has some people very worried. Baker testified about the Trump-Russia affair on Oct. 3 before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In that session, the former FBI general counsel admitted that versions and variations of Christopher Steeles dossier were being turned in to the bureau from the strangest of places. Baker said he had even heard about it from David Corn, Washington bureau chief of left-leaning Mother Jones, who wrote one of the first pieces on the dossier, in October 2016. But in one of those company-town connections that happen frequently in Washington, Baker said he was not just a contact or source for Corn; they were also old pals. James Baker, ex-FBI general counsel, at a Brookings Institution event last week. Tell me about your relationship with David Corn, said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. David is a friend of mine, Baker said. Tell me about that. A close friend? Long-time friend? Long-time friend. Jordan asked, When did you first meet Mr. Corn? I don't specifically remember, Baker testified. A long time ago, though. Years ago? Years and years and years ago, yeah, Baker allowed. Our kids carpooled together. We carpooled with them when our kids were little. So one of the most divisive scandals in Washington history was facilitated by an unexpected friendship, an odd couple brought together by a shared interest in getting their kids dropped off at school. David Corn: Baker friend. The congressman from Ohio wanted to know more about the Baker-Corn relationship: Prior to the election of Presidential election of 2016, Jordan asked, how many times did you talk with David Corn in the weeks and months prior to election day? I don't remember, Baker said, providing an answer that suggests it was more than a few. Is it fair to say you did talk with Corn, Jordan asked? Yes, I did, but I just don't remember how many [times]. So did you talk to Mr. Corn about anything that the FBI was working on, Jordan asked, specifically the now infamous Steele dossier? Jim Jordan: Baker interrogator. Suddenly, Bakers lawyer, Dan Levin, jumped in: One second, he said before he and his client had a conversation off the record. When the microphones were back on, Levin declared he would not let [Baker] answer these questions right now. You may or may not know, he's been the subject of a leak investigation which is still a criminal leak investigation that's still active at the Justice Department. And so Levin concluded, Im sorry. I'm cutting off any discussion about conversations with reporters. North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows wanted to make clear what Bakers lawyer was claiming: You're saying he's under criminal investigation? That's why you're not letting him answer? Yes. Levin and the lawmakers sparred a bit over whether Baker was invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, and the congressmen finally got around to asking who was leading this criminal probe: There is an ongoing investigation by whom? Jordan said. The Justice Department, Levin responded. I mean, is the inspector general looking at this or is this No, said Levin, it's Mr. John Durham, a prosecutor. The specter of Durham haunts the rest of the interview. Baker cant talk about what he told his old friend David Corn in their conversations about the dossier because it would put Baker in legal jeopardy. Time and again, when Baker was asked questions about reporters even hypothetical questions about FBI policy regarding contacts with the press, Levin said, I'm not going to allow him to answer that question or I am not going let him answer any questions about leaks. I don't want him talking about conversations he's had with reporters because I don't know what the questions are and I don't know what the answers are right now, Levin said. Given that there is an ongoing investigation of him for leaks which the Department has not closed, I'm not comfortable letting him answer questions. Durhams inquiry was serious enough to limit significantly what Baker was willing to talk about with lawmakers. That Bakers lawyer advised him not to talk about leaks is, of course, not proof that Baker leaked. "Baker's lawyer was obviously being prudent and saying his client could not talk about anything related to any leaks of any kind," David Corn tells RealClearInvestigations. Corn emphasizes that the "Durham inquiry did not involve Russia or the Steele memos; it had nothing to do with me or my limited interaction with Baker." And one former federal official who said he has been interviewed by Durham in connection with the Baker probe, Robert Litt, has written that the inquiry has nothing to do with the Steele dossier. Contacted by RealClearInvestigations, Levin said, Mr. Baker did not make an unauthorized disclosure of classified information and we are confident the investigation will conclude that. People who come up with better, cheaper, or completely novel products or services raise the standard of living for all of us. Blockchain technology is one example, and its already impacting a variety of industries including finance, data security, and real estate. While these current applications of blockchain are great, it has the potential to do much more as long as its not smothered by government regulation. Blockchain is essentially a public ledger that safely and securely records transactions. Many well-known cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, rely on blockchain technology, but the technology itself has a variety of potential uses. Some people see blockchain as a way to facilitate investments in alternative assets, such as rare paintings, while others believe it can transform the construction industry by making it easier to keep track of materials and permits. Bitcoin gets most of the press because of its popularity as an alternative currency, but blockchains cryptocurrency applications extend beyond bitcoin. This is evident in the more recent development of utility tokens such as XRP , ivy, and JP Morgans JPM Coin, which are designed to help people and financial institutions transfer money across international borders faster, more safely, and at lower cost. A well-functioning financial system is important for economic growth, so products that make it easier to move resources to where theyre needed most help us all. The key to realizing the potential of blockchain technology is making sure people are free to experiment with it. Right now, cryptocurrencies that rely on blockchain are under heavy scrutiny from regulators and the actions regulators take will have a big impact on how such currencies develop. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to regulate certain cryptocurrencies as securities like stocks and bonds in part as a response to the increasing popularity of initial coin offerings (ICOs). As tech policy expert Andrea OSullivan has explained, the idea behind ICOs is straightforward: Developers who have an idea for a new or improved cryptocurrency solicit funds from investors to make the idea a reality. In exchange for dollars, investors get a claim on future cryptocurrency which they can sell or hold and first access to the platform. ICOs sound fine in theory, but in practice many have turned out poorly due to fraud or mismanagement. As a result, some regulation is inevitable and appropriate, but the SEC must be careful not to regulate the next generation of useful cryptocurrencies out of existence. Regulation of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain applications should focus on real, widespread problems. ICOs have issues, but classifying cryptocurrencies as securities is not the only way to address those issues. Alternative forms of regulation should be considered. Wyoming has set up a regulatory structure for cryptocurrencies that encourages experimentation and federal and other state regulators can use it as a guide. In fact, presidential hopeful Andrew Yang recently hinted he would do just that if elected. America is not the only country dealing with cryptocurrency issues, either. Entrepreneurs in China, Singapore, and many other places are also experimenting with cryptocurrencies. Regulations that restrict innovation in one country incentivize entrepreneurs to take their ideas, products, and services to more accepting locales, an idea referred to as innovation arbitrage. If America wants to be the leader in cryptocurrencies and other blockchain applications, we need simple regulations that solve tangible problems, not sweeping regulations based on good intentions or hypothetical worse-case scenarios that ultimately squash innovation. In general, cryptocurrencies should be given room to grow free of government regulations designed for an older, slower-paced industrial age. Right now, it appears that established cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether wont be regulated as securities due to their decentralized design. This is good news for holders of these currencies, since a securities classification would create significant compliance and reporting headaches. The situation surrounding other cryptocurrencies is less clear and the uncertainty is harming innovation. This needs to be resolved, but as with any industry regulators must be careful not to inadvertently smother progress in the process. Adam A. Millsap, PhD is the assistant director of the L. Charles Hilton Jr. Center at Florida State University and an affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Description GIS - 15 May, 2019: Mauritius is a model to be replicated for Comoros for the development of long term economic and social goals. Both countries will collaborate to further consolidate bilateral and regional ties while at the same reinforcing cooperation in the fields of health, education and blue economy. The Special Envoy of the President of Comoros, Mr. Mahmoud Soilih, made this statement, today, following a courtesy call on the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, at the New Treasury Building in Port Louis. He spoke of the longstanding relationship between the Comoros and Mauritius and reiterated that both countries should work towards achieving mutual benefits and further consolidate the existing relations while charting the way forward. Mauritius, he said, is providing assistance and support to the people of Comoros with regard to health services and education and training facilities, which according to him, plays a key role in ensuring future development of the island. Mr. Mahmoud Soilih invited the Prime Minister to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the re- elected President of Comoros, Mr Azali Assoumani, which is scheduled on 26 May 2019. Too often, the past is mistaken as a guide for the future, rather than as lesson from which to avoid making the same mistakes. Take the relationship between China and Russia as an example. Back in the days of the Cold War, before the Wests short-sighted conceptions about the End of History, the two Communist powers famously fell out. That experience has led to a widespread consensus in the West that the modern-day ties between Beijing and Moscow remains an uneasy alignment, with an assumption of a near-irrational mistrust between Russia and China. But this amounts to an attempt to apply 20th century answers to 21th century questions. Instead, the Sino-Russian partnership has benefited after learning the lessons of the past. This strategic partnership between China and Russia is now complex and robust, creating a blueprint for how major powers can cooperate while simultaneously pursuing individual and mutual interests. This has followed a natural progression influenced by the experience at the Cold War and its aftermath. Several key documents underpin the relationship and are illustrative of a long term strategic goal, namely the 2001 Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation and the earlier 1997 Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order. Too often judgements about the decisions of Russian and Chinese politicians are clouded by stereotypes of the primordial distrust that supposedly influences them, leading to a belief that pragmatic tolerance of one another is the best the two nations could aspire to. What is ignored or misunderstood is that Russia and China have a keen understanding of globalisation and the developmental needs of the vast multicultural and multiethnic Eurasian landmass that together they hope to integrate. This was on display in a speech at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing last month, when Russian President Vladimir Putin noted to a range of international guests that they must find a way to respond to a fragmented global political, economic and technological landscape. He also referenced a level of Sino-Russian integration that goes well beyond pragmatism, with Russia looking to assimilate its Eurasian projects with the Belt and Road initiative and to integrate integration frameworks This builds on the Agreement on trade and economic cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union and the [Peoples Republic of China], which comes into force this year. What this demonstrates is the leadership of Russia and China understand stability wont exist unless it is mutual, and that only good relations can provide this outcome. Barring a rapid and unexpected change in leadership, we are unlikely to see a repeat of the 19501960 tensions between Russia and China. It also helps that Chinas Xi Jinping and Putin are close friends, actively working together on major issues. This may sound unusual, but it has played a role in strengthening cooperation, particularly in the area of energy diplomacy. Despite this, a formal alliance is not on the cards, and nor should it be seen as a test of the relationship. Russian and Chinese policy-makers routinely reiterate that a strategic partnership is what they aspire to maintain. An alliance would be costly, unnecessarily complicated, and ultimately force the parties to become overly-involved in each others individual interests. In the face of a clear aversion to the limiting features of an alliance, it seems puzzling that so much analysis and commentary continues to focus on the inability of these two powers to enter one. There is no desire for an alliance, and indeed, the practical alternative is clearly stated in the Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation: The contracting parties shall energetically promote the consolidation of stability of the surrounding areas of the two countries, create an atmosphere of mutual understanding, trust and cooperation, and promote efforts aimed at setting up a multi-lateral co-ordination mechanism This should provide important context for understanding events such as joint military exercises, including last years Vostok 2018. This exercise was not indicative of a shift towards a new era in Sino-Russian relations, but rather an adherence to previously stated aims again, as can be seen by drawing on the treaty: When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats. In this case, the perceived threat is the encroachment of NATO and other US-led forces into Eurasia. The level of collaboration between Russia and China witnessed in each new exercise and summit should be seen as a signals that the assumption of profound mutual distrust between these nations is outdated. What is instead occurring is the confident application of the 1997 declaration on a multipolar world: profound changes in international relations have taken place at the end of the 20th century. The Cold War is over A positive trend towards a multipolar world is gaining momentum. Put another way, the reality is that China and Russia see their partnership as united by strategic, long-term interests and designed to withstand short-term turbulence. The alignment is focused on seeking equal footing with all other States and on changing what is seen to be an unfair and subsequently failing world order. The mechanisms for enacting this change have been in motion and accelerating for some time, and to continue to wilfully misunderstand and underrate them would be a historic mistake. Reprinted with permission from the Lowy Interpreter. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Depending on the day, and depending on who you ask, this is Ambassador John Boltons moment of ultimate triumphor its the national security advisors moment of final overreach. Two sources familiar with the matter tell me President Donald Trumps rumbustious National Security Council chief is headed for the exits, having flown too close to the sun on his regime change efforts for Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Hearing that Trump wants him out, a former senior administration official told me. But is he? For Bolton, its full steam ahead: reportedly commissioning a prospective Pentagon plan for an enormous deployment to the region in the event of an Iranian attack. And for his part, the president has poured cold water on talk of a Bolton ouster. He has strong views on things but that's okay. I actually temper John, which is pretty amazing, Trump told reporters last week, in a nod to his own turbulent reputation. I'm the one that tempers him. That's okay. I have different sides. I have John Bolton and other people that are a little more dovish than him. I like John, Trump made sure to say. But the presidents assurances havent quelled rampant speculation in the nations capitaland other capitalsthat theres now daylight between Trump and Bolton, and that it is the national security advisor who is driving the administrations global confrontationsparticularly, on Iran. The squabble goes further: a State Department official and a former senior administration official both report that Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are fighting all the time. A former senior State Department official still close with Foggy Bottom paints a picture of a Pompeo enthusiastic about isolating the regime in Tehran, but fearful of an actual war that might engulf much of the Middle East. The situation grows more acute by the day. The United States in recent days has deployed new warships to the Persian Gulf, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been implicated in an attack on Saudi oil tankers. One State Department official told me that though Pompeo is a conservative and a partisan, hes also been defensive of his departments turf, and is keen to be reasonably well-liked among career officials. Bolton, by contrast, loathes State: hes an arsonist, this official mused. With regards to Iran, these perceived cleavages are now being exploited by those outside the administration who seek a course correction: namely, Iran and the architects of the JCPOA. We dont believe that President Trump wants confrontation, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told Face the Nation two weekends ago. But we know that there are people who are pushing for it. Ambassador Bolton has said that we need to use the Trump presidency to deal with Iran. In the Los Angeles Times, former Obama administration hands Colin Kahl and Jon B. Wolfsthal goad Trump further: Its John Boltons world. Trump is just living in it. Coming from the other end, Douglas Macgregor, a Bolton rival and would-be successor, writes in SpectatorUSA: John Bolton is the problem Trumps national security adviser is getting dangerous...particularly to the presidents ideals Will such a pressure campaign work? Two things are certain: the president is no fan of usurpations, even perceived, of his authorityand that cuts both ways. But also, so long as Bolton is in government, he'll continue to breathe fire. reprinted with permission from The National Interest. Curt Mills is the foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest, where he covers the State Department, National Security Council and the Trump Presidency. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Description GIS - 15 May, 2019: Singapore will assist the Mauritius Police Force in terms of capacity building, through a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries. Singapore will assist the Mauritius Police Force in terms of capacity building, through a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries. This statement was made today by the Non Resident High Commissioner of Singapore to Mauritius, Mr Rangareddy Jayachandran, following a courtesy call on the Minister Mentor, Minister of Defence and Minister for Rodrigues, Sir Anerood Jugnauth, at the Treasury Building in Port Louis. He added that the training of policemen was raised during the visit of Minister Mentor in April 2018 to Singapore. Mr Jayachandran highlighted that discussions with the Minister Mentor were very productive and fruitful and focused on several issues including the Metro Express project and reinforcement of security. He recalled that several projects are being implemented in Mauritius under the Government to Government agreement between the two countries namely in the fields of security and infrastructure. The Non Resident High Commissioner of Singapore to Mauritius further pointed out that several areas of cooperation which can be implemented in the future were discussed namely the ocean economy and the Chagos Archipelago issue. Mr Rangareddy Jayachandran has been Singapore's Non Resident High Commissioner to the Republic of Mauritius since 2008. He has over 35 years' experience in capital raising, strategic planning, and business development. The bar gets its name from a cocktail invented in Malaysia in 1978. Photo: Melissa Hom There may be no drink that sums up New Yorks current bar scene better than the Jungle Bird, a delicate, tropical cocktail that combines molasses-heavy rum with Campari, lime juice, simple syrup, and pineapple juice. Its fun, its easy drinking, and its essentially a tropical Negroni. Krissy Harris, the owner of upcoming bar Jungle Bird, is obsessed with the drink, which originated at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur in 1978, disappeared for a while, and has been making an unexpected comeback for the past few years. It was invented by a bartender, Jeffrey Ong, who didnt even drink, Harris says. Strangely enough, he added Campari. Usually, rum cocktail drinks dont have a bitter agent like Campari. Ongs invention, as well as the flavors of Southeast Asia, where Harris has traveled extensively, are the inspiration behind the Gramercy Tavern vets new endeavor. Located on Eighth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets, classy, laid-back Jungle Bird, which opens on May 21, is made for long summer nights. Patrons will find nearly a dozen tabletops with teal chairs and light-brown leather banquettes plus two corner booths for larger gatherings, both of which sit beneath a mural of nude figures by L.A.-based painter Jessalyn Brooks. On the opposite side, stools sidle up to a dark-green bar with white countertops, home to two brass peacock kegs that will pour Harriss take on the Jungle Bird: small-batch pineapple rum from Puerto Rico, no simple syrup, and Contratto Aperitif, a liqueur thats not so different from Aperol. The final product is clearer and more to the point taste-wise than the original recipe. The drink will be available by the glass or punch bowl. What did people used to do in the 50s? Harris asks aloud. They had punch bowls. Everybody was drinking and it was this social event. The main bar area at Jungle Bird. Photo: Melissa Hom The influence of 1950s party culture also makes an appearance in the names of the drinks, which are all based on jazz songs from the era. The gin-based No Other Love features elderflower, rose, aquafaba, and lemon and tastes like a bouquet in drink form, while the aptly named Easy Living, combining papaya, honey, sparkling wine, Aperol, and lime, may very well be the Aperol-spritz update weve been searching for. I know the classics, Harris says. But for me, the fun about it and the whole passion of it is to create something thats bigger than the parts you put into it. Harris also wants her cocktails to play nicely with the bars food menu, which relies heavily on the flavors and ingredients of Southeast Asian cuisine. Ive been to Cambodia, Bali, Bangkok, Singapore, and Malaysia, she says. So I love Thai basil, cilantro, any kind of hot pepper, and all those warm, tropical flavors. Clockwise from top left: Green-papaya salad; Smoke Gets In Your Eyes cocktail; pork-and-herb dumplings; the Easy Living cocktail. Melissa Hom. Clockwise from top left: Green-papaya salad; Smoke Gets In Your Eyes cocktail; pork-and-herb dumplings; the Easy Living cocktail. Melissa Hom. Guests will find dishes like green-papaya salad, turmeric chicken salad, pork-and-herb dumplings with nac cham dipping sauce, lotus chips, and three kinds of banh mi, including a vegan version. Everything downstairs will also be available to parties that rent the bars private-events room on the second floor, where Harris imagines drag-queen movie nights and corporate get-togethers. There are so many cocktail bars in this city, and I really wanted a place that was warm, inviting, and bright, Harris says. The reason Im in this business is that I love bringing people together. Jungle Birds second-floor private-events space. Photo: Melissa Hom Jungle Bird, 174 Eighth Ave., at 19th St.; no phone Influencers will drop a brand new album Just The Cross on May 17. The 13 track live collection's aligns with the name of their viral single which is nearing a million streams worldwide. Born out of experiences in both Haiti and the U.S., " (just the cross)" was two years in the making and has been uplifted by popular Spotify Playlists "WorshipNow" and "Christian Mix", as well as significant placements on Apple Music's biggest Christian & Gospel playlists including "Praise & Worship" and "Breaking Christian." Q: Thank you so much for doing this interview with us. Tell us about Influencers Church --- do you guys have campuses in both the US and Australia? Thank you for having us! We sure do, we have 6 campuses in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia and since moving to Atlanta, GA in 2012 we've planted 4 campuses stateside. Q: Who makes up Influencers Worship? Influencers Worship is made up of a collective tribe of musicians, worship leaders and songwriters from Influencers Church across our campuses in Australia and the USA! Q: There are countless worship bands out there, what do you think is unique about your style of worship music? Danae: So far all of our songs have come from collaboration within our own team, and while there's nothing wrong with bringing in outside writers, our songs are intentionally written for our church and by our Church. Being spread out across the world also means we have a super diverse team from all walks of life and we love that everyone brings their own experiences and perspectives to the table when we come together - it feels like family and looks like heaven! Q: I have read the songs on your new album were born in many different places, including Haiti. Tell us more about where some of these songs were written. Chloe: Our songs have been written in so many different places! The great part about having a writing team that is spread out across the world means that many of our songs carry interesting stories as to where and when the conception took place! Mark: We actually first started discussing the concept for our single (just the cross) under a tree in Haiti while our camera batteries were cooling! It was a very hot day and we clearly weren't prepared, but God used that moment to spark a conversation that led to the song being written. Chloe: "Father's Love" is another song that came about in a foreign location. Mark first had the inspiration for the message of the song while he was driving to one of our Atlanta campuses to speak one Sunday morning but it was left as a chorus for over a year. It ended up being just a few weeks before our Live Recording when we decided to complete the song for the album! Mark and I were on our way to Mexico at the time, sitting in different rows on the plane, so Mark set our goal that by the end of the flight we would have completed the lyrics to the song. The aim was to record a demo ASAP and send to the rest of the team back in Atlanta to start practicing for the Recording. Because the heart of the song had been in us for so long, we just had to actually put pen to paper. When we landed in Mexico, we recorded the demo and Father's Love was born. The bridge of "Further" was also written in Mexico! We were on a family trip to unwind and refuel before our 2017 Conference and were in the middle of writing "Further", which was the heart of what God was speaking to our leaders about and consequently the theme of our Conference... Remembering these stories makes me think we should take more trips to Mexico! Haha! Q: Writing your own music, how do you narrow down the songs for your new album? Chloe: As a Church, our heart is to write songs that unite our congregations and become anthems that they gather around. Our goal is for our songs to open up people's hearts to God and help to foster open atmospheres where people can meet with God. Because we write with a clear objective, it is helpful in narrowing down songs selections for albums. If Mark and our senior leaders believe a song is in line with this vision, then we want it on our album for our people to sing. Q: Your song "+ (just the cross)" is slowly become a worship staple in many churches. How did the song come about? Mark: The journey of writing (just the cross) started in Haiti and ended in a cabin in Clayton, North GA! Our camera batteries were overheating and we stopped to take a break under the shade of a tree on a Summer's day in Haiti. I began to talk to the team about the concept of the song. Our driver took us that week to visit a burial site in Haiti where mass destruction had left the ground absolutely barren apart from a singular metal structure: a cross standing upon a hill overlooking the land. We hung a flag that had the name of Jesus painted on it over that cross (that photo was actually our imaginations single cover, before the single had been written) and knew it was a significant moment for us as a team. Fast forward a couple of years to a writing retreat in Clayton, North GA, and we took a quick break from our writing to drive down to Walmart and re-stock. As night fell, we looked up to the mountain-side and a brilliantly lit cross was glowing, almost suspended in mid-air. We couldn't believe the parallel between this cross and the Haiti experience and again we began talking about this song concept of the cross being enough. We could clearly sense God's hand upon this song and it felt like we were discovering it as we were writing it; like it had already been written! The writing process was so grace-filled; it was finished in a matter of hours there on that retreat. Sometimes we try and add extra to the Gospel and extra to this and that, but really the raw true real message of the gospel is simple - that God so loved the world that He sent His son to die on a cross for you and I that whoever believe in him shall not perish without eternal life - that what this song is about. It's the core of the victory message - just the cross, it's enough. Q: What is the story behind your new single "Believe Again"? Danae: Believe Again is a song that has actually taken a 9 year journey from the first chorus draft to release, which is crazy to think about! I wrote the chorus in my final year of High School in Australia during a pretty tough season of life. Final exam pressure collided with a family breakdown and I found myself writing out these declarative words about God being in control and on the throne, because I knew that's what I needed to sing at the time. I actually finished that song, titled it 'I know' and moved on, but when I was writing in 2017 I felt like that original chorus fit really well with this new song and I began to work on that with my friend Misha Kopeikin. The Believe Again title and inspiration for the bridge came through a dream I had one night, and it began to shape as a song for people to sing in seasons of discouragement or disappointment. Not every song has this long of an incubation process (thankfully ha), but this one is pretty close to my heart and the backstory will always remind me to never throw away song sections, no matter how old they are! Q: How do you wish these songs would impact God's church and beyond? Mark: If you listen closely you can hear thousands of prayers we recorded all throughout the album process. It sounds like rain at times. Our hope for this album is that as people hear these songs, whether in church or in their car, the prayers of thousands would be like rain to a weary soul. That it would be more than just music; it would be healing and a powerful encounter with Jesus. Connect with Influencers: instagram.com/influencersworship youtube.com/channel/UC5sUvCwFfk4bft3nOjBI2Nw facebook.com/influencerswrshp twitter.com/influencerswshp Tags : Influencers influencers worship Influencers (just the cross) influencers interview influencers worship interview just the cross Influencers new single Porterville, CA (93257) Today Sun and clouds mixed. High 51F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will give way to cloudy skies and rain overnight. Low 41F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Kayla and Sarah Rudolph in Porterville on May 13. Both will attend the University of Arizona next fall. Acquisitions are done to synergise with existing offerings of firms; to strengthen or enter new areas, platforms or geography; find new customers for its products; keep parts of the acquired organisation, perhaps the digital in the case of Mindtree, and to sell others to increase its own value. Never is it to grow the acquired organisation more than itself, says Pankaj Chandra. From raag Malkauns to Guernica, from the splendor of moon-landing to the first gush of water in Aswan dam - all have been constructed to evoke a sense of uniqueness, unusual human achievement, and beauty that heighten our inner sensibilities. Organisations are somewhat like that - lifeblood for many, saviour for others, but above all termed beautiful or ugly based on how they conduct themselves and evoke the inner sensibilities of employees, customers and shareholders. As a former independent director of Mindtree, the value of the beauty of its organisational culture, which is in the eye of the beholder, is not amiss. Organisations, like musicians, become the persona of the raag that they are singing. Manufacturing has its own beauty, its own sound of music on the shop-floor but is very different from that of an airport or a retail store selling only designer perfume. So are the mindsets, hearts of people, and characteristics of organisations that inhabit the deep corners of their different customer organisations. It helps them deliver accurately. That makes Mindtree and L&T fundamentally very different. One is amazed as to how can such a capable organisation like L&T not see this dichotomy. Its argument is that Mindtree could be kept as a separate entity. Wanting to keep Mindtree separate is an implicit recognition of Mindtrees cultural uniqueness and a prayer to the winds of time by L&T. Innovative organisations safeguard matchless cultures, instead. Acquisitions are done to synergise with existing offerings of firms; to strengthen or enter new areas, platforms or geography; find new customers for its products; keep parts of the acquired organisation, perhaps the digital in the case of Mindtree, and to sell others to increase its own value. Never is it to grow the acquired organisation more than itself - well sometimes it does happen when one wants to shed ones own organisational cloak and take on the persona of the other! Most organisations that have been forcefully acquired in the last few decades - be it Mannesmann or RJR Nabisco or AOL etc, dont exist anymore. So why would Mindtree? One salient by-product of unique cultures is that they allow you to build unique capabilities. Mindtree gave India the Aadhaar engine and unique intellectual property-driven solutions like Bluetooth stacks. The list is long. And therefore, the outcomes from organisations in the same sector are dissimilar despite having similar strategies. Mindtree has regularly won customers against better equipped, larger organisations because of its leaderships complementary perspective like the coming together of blue, black and white to make Guernica (where else would you find all founders sitting as one in a single, relatively small, open office), its culture of seamless invigoration, and its can-do attitude. The value of curiosity, courage and responsibility is ingrained in the culture from the day a young graduate enters Mindtree Kalinga, Mindtrees Global Learning Centre that takes pioneering immersive learning to the next level. All this allowed for introspection, transparency and innovation and hence building of a fearless environment. That you had to care for the other - whether your customers customer or your team member - was a natural outcome of this competitive yet empathetic culture. L&T should study this and ensure that this culture jives with its own. Else, this is a disaster in making for all. The loss of Mindtree would be a loss for the Indian IT industry for sure. It could mean the end of an institution especially when the leadership and the organisation do not want it. Innovation is generally the first casualty in such situations. Such acquisitions lead to changing of the board and the leadership team including driving down the acquirers vision. The big question would be who stays as most capabilities in service organisations lie in people and their processes. And will customers move if key characteristics of the delivery organisation - especially its cultural capacity - changes? One has not talked about the operations aspects of such an acquisition that will require aligning of Mindtree systems, processes, client delivery, billing, travel norms, HR practices, financial representation etc to L&Ts way of functioning. The best-case scenario is that it would take four to five years for such an acquisition to become somewhat integrated. Who has patience in these days to listen to Rashid Khan s soul touching alap khayal, Tu hai malik mera, in raag Malkauns? The Mindtree story is closely tied with the role of V G Siddhartha, its largest single shareholder in the past, who patiently supported the culture and the pathways chosen by Mindtree. But a mystery remains: then why did he not sell back his shares to Mindtree or other friendly investors? What were the compulsions? Only he would know. And that makes L&Ts attempt to take over even more difficult for Mindtree to accept. At the end, it is about choosing a way of life. Pankaj Chandra is vice-chancellor of Ahmedabad University and former director of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Views are personal. Photograph: Courtesy, Business Standard The spyware gained access to a person's phone even if the attacker's WhatsApp call wasn't answered. The calls also often disappeared from call logs, and affected Android, iPhone and Tizen-based phones. A system flaw in the calling function of WhatsApp let attackers install an Israeli software that allowed them access to mobile devices of the users, Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The malicious software, or spyware, was developed by the secretive Israeli company NSO Group, said the financial daily. The software installed itself in a user's mobile phone by calling the target through WhatsApp. The spyware gained access to a person's phone even if the attacker's WhatsApp call wasn't answered. The calls also often disappeared from call logs, and affected Android, iPhone and Tizen-based phones. We believe a select number of users were targeted through this vulnerability by an advanced cyber actor. "The attack has all the hallmarks of a private company reportedly that works with governments to deliver spyware that takes over the functions of mobile phone operating systems, WhatsApp said in an e-mail response. It is working with US law enforcement to help them conduct an investigation. These are highly sophisticated attacks. We are early in our investigation and we dont have numbers to share though this is a relatively small amount of people, WhatsApp added in its response. The NSO Group has been at the centre of a controversy surrounding the use of its Pegasus software for spying on journalists, human rights activists and other persons of interest to governments. NSO Group claims it helps governments fight terrorism and crime, but it has failed to rebut mounting evidence linking its products to attacks on human rights defenders... NSO Group has repeatedly denied, but not credibly addressed, the accounts that its Pegasus spyware platform has been misused to target human rights defenders, human rights NGO Amnesty International said in a post on its website on Monday. Amnesty is part of a legal action initiated in Israel against the Israeli Ministry of Defence, demanding that it revoke the export license of NSO Group, whose products have allegedly been used to spy on people. The Pegasus software enables near-complete control over a person's phone, and can enable access to its location, e-mail, passwords, call records, microphone and camera even when they are not seemingly on, and also activities on common apps on the phones. WhatsApp said it identified and promptly fixed the vulnerability, and late last week, made changes to its infrastructure to deny the ability for this attack to take place. WhatsApp encourages people to upgrade to the latest version, as well as keep their mobile operating system up to date, to protect against potential targeted exploits designed to compromise information stored on mobile devices, a WhatsApp spokesperson stated in an e-mail. "We are constantly working alongside industry partners to provide the latest security enhancements to help protect our users," a WhatsApp spokesperson stated in an e-mail. India is one of Facebook-owned WhatsApps largest markets, with over 200 million users, and has been on the government's scanner leading up to the ongoing general election. We have also provided information to US law enforcement to help them conduct an investigation. "These are highly sophisticated attacks. We are early in our investigation and we dont have numbers to share though this is a relatively small amount of people, WhatsApp added in its response. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters The fears arise from Facebooks handling of user data and potential privacy violations, more specifically the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Several experts believe that strict oversight coupled with hiving off Facebook into smaller companies may be the only solution to ensure that the country's data is not misused. The idea that has been voiced by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes in a recent editorial in The New York Times has found many takers in India. According to officials in the IT ministry, after the general elections, there should be discussions on how having smaller companies of the social media giant could help in better oversight. We have time and again felt that we are blinded by the social media giant. "The company needs to work more closely with the government and should let us know what is happening to the data. This could be one of the way we can ensure that this happens, said senior official in the IT ministry. In the past one year, the Election Commission of India, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Ministry of Law and Justice, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), as well as Niti Aayog, have had as many as 30 meetings with Facebook. A chunk of the meetings have been around ensuring that the social media giants does not influence elections in anyway. Multiple warnings have been given to Facebook and others such as Twitter over how elections should not be manipulated, and if it happens, there would be severe consequences. The fears arise from Facebooks handling of user data and potential privacy violations, more specifically the Cambridge Analytica scandal. US regulators are under pressure to unwind Facebooks acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, create space for more competition, and enact new privacy legislation that restricts what data Facebook can collect in the United States. From an Indian regulatory's perspective, such a move would help in better regulatory management and any legislative measures restricting data collection would have indirect impact in India as well and, can be used to support similar measures here. "In the US, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently investigating Facebooks handling of user data and potential privacy violations. "The FTC has been investigating Facebook for more than a year now and looking into whether Facebooks actions in the Cambridge Analytica scandal constitute a violation of a consent decree it reached with the FTC in 2011, said Salman Waris, managing partner at TechLegis Advocates & Solicitors. He added that according to estimates, it is expected that FTC would impose a fine of $ 3 billion to $ 5 billion but proponents of unwinding Facebook claim the FTC fines are a bargain and argue that the commission should take further action, including imposing long-term limits on Facebooks collection and use of personal data and levying accountability measures and penalties for Facebook executives. However, Waris added that government needs to ensure that the social media giant is following the rules to the letter. New rules or unwinding Facebook may not really have a lasting impact unless there is real government oversight of such entities. In case of a situation where the US regulators actually decide to unwind Facebooks acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the three entities would technically be dealing user data as third parties and in that sense would no longer be able freely share user data with each other, added Waris. Experts believe the corporate structure of Facebook is in the US, so corporate accountability is not in India. However, it should not be the case as India is one of its largest growing markets. From 2016, there has been an integration between Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. "The company says WhatsApp is free but Facebook is encashing or monetising this data. "Since proper data protection laws are lacking in India, the questions remain whether the three will have the same accountability and how integrated Indians' data is within the Facebook network, said Virag Gupta, Supreme Court advocate. Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters 'The impact of merely innocent clouding on radar waves is not expected to be significant on air defence radars of either country to affect operational profiles in modern day context.' 'Where clouding will definitely play a role is in obtaining Battle Damage Assessment, as indeed does appear to have been the case over Balakot. Hazy or cloudy conditions during night time especially, is likely to have affected the aerial visibility required to obtain a clear "look through" to the target area,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd), India's former air adviser in Pakistan. 1 Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election barb about the role played by prevalent clouding in prosecuting the Balakot air strike , albeit a left-handed one of a "lay man", may yet play out electorally in his favour. There is no gainsaying the criticality of weather in an operational scenario, the worst case of course being thundery or stormy conditions over or en route to the target area. Having personally experienced a default entry into a thunderous cumulonimbus cloud eons ago during an MiG 21 ferry over Ranchi, let me assure you that it can be quite unnerving. The turbulent updrafts and downdrafts in the vicinity of a Cb cloud, especially over the Gangetic plains during monsoons, are definitely not what the doctor ordered for a fighter plane! In an operational scenario such as Balakot, however, it would be a NO-GO situation. Be that as it may, the impact of merely innocent clouding on radar waves is not expected to be significant on air defence radars of either country to affect operational profiles in modern day context. Clutter factors of such radars of course depend on their "transmitting power" and operating "frequencies". Yes, a certain amount of "clutter" would obtain under conditions of clouding, which could technically be exploited to conceal the approach of a strike force. I very much doubt if this was a planning consideration for the IAF battle staff! The purported delayed air defence reaction of the PAF would have been on account of IAF's "decoy" tactics and other diversionary ruses. Mere clouding also would not impact the weapon delivery itself of the Crystal Maze or Spice 2000 category, unless certain flying inaccuracies in achieving planned delivery parameters creep in on account of air turbulence and the like. Lessons from how a dust storm created a virtual fiasco during Operation Eagle Claw in the Iran hostage crisis in April 1980, needs to be remembered. If an experienced and competent US military could make such phenomenal planning blunders, any air element could. 2 Where clouding will definitely play a role is in obtaining Battle Damage Assessment, as indeed does appear to have been the case over Balakot. Hazy or cloudy conditions during night time especially, is likely to have affected the aerial visibility required to obtain a clear "look through" to the target area. The same would be the case for satellite and UAV imageries, unless other spectra such as infra red or synthetic aperture (SAR), which are in any event hard to come by. In simple terms, clouding over Balakot on the early morning of February 26, 2019, would have precluded the obtaining of meaningful BDA via satellite or UAVs given their spectral limitations. 3 If the prevailing weather were indeed not of a quality that permitted successful prosecution of the mission, the planners would of course have rescheduled the time over target. But striking on the thirteenth day after Pulwama may also have been one of the political signaling considerations. The PM's statement itself need not trigger undue concern among cognoscenti about his "interfering" in a military operation. Modern technology enables higher formations to virtually "look through" on to tactical aerial operations. Recall how President Barack Obama and his senior functionaries observed the Bin Laden special ops over Abbottabad from the Situation Room. The PM and his minions are reported to have had a ringside of the Uri surgical strike. This could be a desirable requirement for various reasons, political or military, and is part of modern C4I2 configuration. It is not meant to "intrude" into the realm of operational or tactical execution by higher functionaries in the military chain. There are reports of our own NSA having been at the Air HQ during the Balakot strike. That I presume was deemed a requirement on account of the strategic criticality of the mission. Traditionally, of course, in a classic doctrinal sense, the job of an air commander at the strategic or operational level of an air war, is to air task his lower practitioners to undertake a particular mission to achieve a particular aim or objective. In other words, he states WHAT needs to be done and the executor decides on the HOWs -- which is not the tasker's problem. Indeed, trying to overindulge in the air operation by micromanaging the goings-on by a higher level functionary, is fraught with danger and may ultimately lead to a collapse of the different levels of war on to each other. 4 Balakot was a one off affair, perhaps designed to be one, given the prevailing circumstances. Clearly, there are several lessons in planning and execution that we need to learn for posterity. In the peculiar ambient situation of nuclear thresholds and "drawing room" wars, the IAF has to rejig and rethink its contemporary aerial doctrines to achieve objectives in such set piece political scenarios. Another important planning consideration is to cater for a "red team", to critique planning aspects for such critical missions. 'The Godse controversy may have helped Kamal Haasan reach out to a larger audience, both inside the state and outside, coming as it does when the main campaign for elections 19 is over and only those in the four assembly bypoll constituencies are drudging along,' says N Sathiya Moorthy. In the normal course, it might have remained confined to newspaper reports and TV coverage nearer home in southern Tamil Nadu. If nothing else, the state was already getting tired of the high-octane campaign for the April 16 Lok Sabha polls and also by-elections in 18 of 22 assembly constituencies. Only the politically alive and active may have even cared more for the poll results, which many in the state strongly feel is fixed by the cash-for-votes campaign of the near-unique TN kind. With the result, when actor-politician Kamal Haasan declared that independent India's first terrorist (theeviravaadhi) was a Hindu, his name is Nathuram Godse... there it starts, with reference to Gandhijis assassin, it found its place only in the inside pages of local newspapers, both Tamil and English. Yet, a day later, when Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi joined issue with Kamal Haasan, the latter might have got a larger audience, this time north of the Vindhyas, where again multi-phase polling spread over weeks and months has enough matter otherwise to fill newspaper pages and TV news space. 'Dear Kamal Sir, you are a great artist. Just like art has no religion, terror has no religion either! You can say Godse was a terrorist, why would you specify 'Hindu'? Is it because you were in a Muslim- dominated area looking for votes?' Oberoi tweeted. 'Please Sir, from a much smaller artist to a great one, let's not divide this country, we are one,' he added. Kamal Haasan was campaigning for one of the four assembly by-elections scheduled for May 19, in Aravakurichi which has a substantial Muslim population where started his Godse reference with the prelude, 'I am not saying this because this is a Muslim-dominated area, but I am saying this before a statue of Gandhi.' Needless to say, Tamil Nadu BJP promptly joined issue with Kamal Haasan, with state party president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan strongly condemning the actor-politicians reference to Hindu extremism in his poll campaign. He is triggering communal violence in a place where there are a lot of minorities. The Election Commission must take stringent action against Kamal Haasan for his speech, she tweeted in Tamil. The party also followed up Tamilisais comments with a request for EC to ban Kamal Haasan from campaigning in the four by-poll constituencies. In doing so, the state BJP was possibly taking a leaf out of a similar EC ban on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Opposition BSP boss Mayawati, though for lesser terms, citing their communal campaign speeches. This is not the first time that Kamal Haasan, born a Hindu-Brahmin, has courted controversy of the kind. Long before entering direct politics, he had repeatedly identified himself with Dravidian social ideology, which in some TN homes translates as being anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. He had also declared the late DMK chief M Karunanidhi as his leader. More recently, after launching his political party, in preparations for Elections 2018, he began making pointed reference to Hindu extremism in November last. Promptly, BJP and RSS leaders in the state began condemning him publicly. Pro-Hindutva social media also dragged him over the coals. Yet, its the Godse controversy that may have helped Kamal Haasan reach out to a larger audience, both inside the state and outside, coming as it does when the main campaign for elections 19 is over and only those in the four assembly bypoll constituencies are drudging along. It is also here that Vivek Oberoi may have become Kamal Haasans unpaid mouthpiece in the North. Despite the negative publicity that it might have entailed over the short-term, the Godse comment may have some positive politico-electoral gains for Kamal Haasan and his MNM, especially in the light of an increasing minorities perception that the traditional DMK supporter of their identity and cause may be halting and unsure about its own future approach to issues of religion and religious concerns in public life. Barring the DMK poll manifesto, party speakers, especially party boss M K Stalin, made little or no reference to the all-consuming minorities issues under the Modi regime in his campaign speeches across the state than in specific localities where Muslim/Christian population was substantial. It became an electoral necessary for Stalin and the DMK now under him, especially when he has the politico-electoral need to push the party to the middle-path, which process had deliberately been set in motion by late father Karunanidhi. It was Karunanidhis considered and calculated decision to align and identify with the post-Ayodhya BJP under prime minister Vajpayee in the victorious Elections-1999 that re-wrote the partys social script for the future. The DMKs electoral discomfiture became known in the post-Jaya by-elections for her R K Nagar assembly constituency in the suburbs of capital Chennai. In the aftermath of PM Modis sudden decision to visit a relatively stable Karunanidhi at his home, and Stalins decision to cut short his overseas holiday by a couple of days to receive the former, sent out a contradictory signal to the substantial minorities population in the area. The result was that the DMK that had lost to incumbent CM and the states most charismatic leader by a relatively lower margin of 40,000 votes and respectably so, was pushed to the third place in the by-election, with its candidate losing his security deposit. T T V Dhinakaran, the controversial AIADMK rebel, now heading the breakaway AMMK, romped home victorious, by a massive majority of 75,000 votes, the latter made possible by the non-traditional minorities votes, otherwise the DMK preserve. With talk of a post-poll re-merger of the AIADMK on the one hand, and some AMMK leaders publicly declaring their support for the Opposition DMK to unseat Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami \through a no-trust motion in the coming weeks and months, the MNM seems now hopeful of keeping the party alive until after the assembly polls, otherwise due only in 2021. This owes to the minorities perception that a re-united AIADMK cannot afford to disown its soft Hindutva politics and policies, which Jayalalithaa had evolved without being actually aligning with the BJP. The DMKs pre-results confusion in Stalin meeting with Telanganas TRS Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao \on Monday has bugged local Congressmen enough. Like the Left parties, the Congressmen see TRS and Rao \as BJPs B-Team. Raos current efforts to form a national-level third front post-poll, according to some, was aimed either at making himself the prime minister, for son K T Rama Rao to take over the state reins from him -- or, to take them all to the BJP camp, with or without Modi leading them. There is also a feeling in some DMK circles that KCR was also taking his regional one-upmanship campaign against incumbent Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to the national level, for a possible fight to the finish. Indications, according to them, was that Naidu may lose his job in Andhra Pradesh to YSR Congress leader Jaganmohan Reddy in the current elections, and may be fashioning himself to take the place of late Marxist veteran, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who fashioned the regional alliance with Congress support, post-poll 96, for H D Deve Gowda to become PM, however short the term. From a purely TN perspective, the Stalin-KCR meeting is indicative of the beginning of a parting of ways for the Congress, whose president Rahul Gandhi the DMK boss was the first to anoint in public. To the DMK cadres in the four assembly constituencies, where the triangular by-poll fight is becoming tough with the AIADMK and the AMMK forming the other two angles, any demoralisation of the Congress supporters, could spell discomfort, or even doom, for party candidates. Even otherwise, a possible re-orientation of minorities electoral thinking vis-a-vis Kamal Haasan and MNM could well mean that they could take the centre-stage of alliance politics ahead of the state assembly polls whenever held. A lot will depend on the results of elections 19, especially for the 22 assembly by-poll seats, which are decisive for the EPS governments continuance and stable tenancy, depending on where the DMK especially stands post-poll in the state and the Congress ally at the national-level. And on all this might also depend, forgotten prospective politician-actor Rajinikanths promised entry into electoral politics! N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is Director, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. 'Everything changed in October 2015, when two children Vaibhav and Divya were charred to death at Sunpade in NCR Town Faridabad, when Rajput strongmen torched their household.' 'This was the beginning of disenchantment of Dalits with the BJP. Since then, every incidence of atrocity and government inaction against the perpetrators, has strengthened this.' Photograph: ANI. Ashok Bharti, chairman, All India Ambedkar Mahasabha; and principal advisor, National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations, talks to Aditi Phadnis on the growing Dalit disenchantment with the ruling party and where does the future of Dalit leadership lie. Are you seeing evidence of Dalit disenchantment with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and when did it begin? Certainly, Dalit disenchantment with the BJP is widespread. This disenchantment is not localised or limited to a few states or regions. It is nationwide; and has continuously been growing for last few years. In 2014, Dalits voted in large numbers in favour of the BJP. Like others, they also accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pitch for developmental transformation of government and governance. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) resolve, "one well, one temple, and one crematorium" to end the exclusion of Dalits was significant. But everything changed in October 2015, when two children Vaibhav (three) and Divya (nine-month old) were charred to death at Sunpade in NCR Town Faridabad, when Rajput strongmen torched their household. Instead of condemning the act of his caste men, one Rajput minister in the government made derogatory comments about Dalits. Dalits demanded action against the minister, but no one cared. This was the beginning of disenchantment of Dalits with the BJP. Since then, every incidence of atrocity and government inaction against the perpetrators, has strengthened this. Apart from this, the government's actions or lack of action on critical interests of Dalits such as reservation, reservation in promotion, judicial pronouncements due to poor defence by the government resulting in dilution of constitutional rights or well-being of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has also contributed to this disenchantment. PM has repeatedly invoked Dr Ambedkar as a source of his inspiration. He has washed the feet of scavengers at Kumbh Mela. His ministers are eating in Dalit homes, making common cause with them. The BJP has changed many candidates in reserved constituencies. Has all this had some effect? There is no doubt that the PM has repeatedly invoked Dr Ambedkar and much more than any other PM in the country. He has publically admitted his humble background and has attributed his election as PM to the Constitution and Dr Ambedkar. There is no doubt that his government has constructed Dr Ambedkar memorials, which saw no progress in many previous regimes. In our country, where two-cup system, one for Dalits and other for the non-Dalits, still exists in large parts of the country, one requires huge courage to wash the feet of scavengers publically. Even if it was for the optics, washing the feet of the scavengers by none less than the India's executive head is historic. This signifies that the Dalits are coming of "age" where no one could undermine their political worth; and the scale is now tilting from upper caste to the so-called lower castes. The ministers eating in Dalit homes, making common causes with them is the continuation of what the PM has been directing. But, follow-up on these acts of reverence, washing feet or having common meal with the Dalits by robust policy framework, ensuring equal dignity, development and justice to the Dalits, remains largely ignored. It would have been much better had the government strengthened the mechanism, machinery, budgetary allocations to ensure Dalits their constitutional rights as enshrined in the Constitution. Members of Parliament who were elected on the reserved seats, could have lobbied for a "fair deal" for the Dalits in the government. They could have also alerted the PM or the government on the dissatisfaction of the community, but they failed to do so and it was natural in the design of selection of the candidates for the reserved seats. In present political electoral systems, parties choose candidates from among its members and not the leaders of the community. In my opinion, it is all linked to Dalit disenchantment. What is the evidence that the political compact between Dalits and Yadavs is also a social compact? In 1993, the Bahujan Samaj Party-Samajwadi Party (BSP-SP) representing Dalits and Yadavs (OBCs) were joined by others and they formed the government. Currently, the SP-BSP-RLD (Rasthriya Lok Dal) in Uttar Pradesh and Rashtriya Janata Dal-Rashtriya Lok Samta Party-Hindustani Awam Morcha-Vikassheel Insan Party (RJD-RLSP-HAM-VIP) in Bihar are the political compact leading socially marginalised communities. But, in order to understand this as a social compact, one must ponder over the caste and varna dynamics of the Indian society. In the varna system, Yadavs or the OBCs are part of the shudra varna and touchable. But Dalits are not the shudra; are outside the varna; and are untouchable. One must look at the individual Caste/Tribe Census of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Castes, which simply indicates that in most of the states, five-six castes/tribes out of 30 to 100 state specific castes/tribes form the 85 to 95 per cent of the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes. Usually, one or two state specific caste/tribes dominate the population of these communities in all the states. Same is true for the Other Backward Castes in most of the states. Therefore, once political compact between the Dalits and Yadavs (or OBCs) is in place, this enhances proximity and their social interaction significantly. Both, the Dalits and the OBCs, have faced or continue to face exclusion, humiliation and domination from the same varna groups. Therefore, as soon as they join in political compact, social leadership gets active for social compact. In Hindi heartland, specifically in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, mobilisation of Dalits and Yadavs is much larger than any other OBCs. Incidentally, in both the states, Yadavs are the most numerous OBCs and Dalits have significantly large population. How do you see the future of India's Dalit mobilisation? Its leadership? I see India's Dalit mobilising more and more. They have learnt that social contract signed between Hindu leaders, including India's business interests led by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Ambedkar as Poona Pact in 1932, has been made redundant. Commitment of the State, which is reflected in policy framework, its representation in court cases, budget allocations for the socio-economic development, representation of Dalits in top bureaucracy, judiciary and outsourcing etc, is declining. A large reservoir of talent, creativity and innovations, Dalits are constrained by their leadership, be it their own, regional or national political parties. But, they are innovating and a new Dalit leadership could be seen at the horizon. They are leading national platforms like National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations, All India Confederation of SC/ST Employees Associations, Rashtriya Dalit Mahasabha, National Campaign for Dalit Rights, Rashtriya Dalit Mahila Andolan, All India Mahila Adhikar Andolan etc. They have a robust system of Dalit-bahujan youtube channel, which is growing day by day. All these may be in infancy, but are indicative of the future leadership. This leadership is not limited to reservation or atrocities on Dalits, but has a larger development canvas. What do you think the nature of the opposition will be in the next five years? The nature of opposition in the next five years would be creative disruption. This would compel the conscience of this country to re-invent its national project of Dalit empowerment. This opposition will inspire Dalit leadership to mobilise for distributive justice. We will not tolerate any effort to dilute or limit the fundamental freedoms and the idea of equality, liberty, justice and fraternity. We will leave nothing at our disposal to oppose anything that curtails our constitutional rights and the duties of the state towards the weak and the needy. Lastly, being a huge success story of human advancement, Dalits would like to upscale our success. Hardly having any assets, land, industry or wealth, but Dalits have immensely contributed in creating and sustaining all of these in India. At a time, when India's success inspires people globally, our opposition would aim at limiting this success to only those having a class or the caste. After all, we also have a dream. The BJP is banking on development. The opposition is raking up caste identities and the dangers of hyper-nationalism. But whoever wins, one thing is clear: Eastern UP is headed for a massive, grassroots transformation. Aditi Phadnis reports from Gorakhpur. IMAGE: Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan, BJP candidate for Gorakhpur, is hopeful of getting the support of Nishad community. Photograph: Kind courtesy @ravikishann/Twitter No one is able to explain convincingly why a busy Gorakhpur hospital should be named the TimeNear Hospital. Maybe its owners have a sense of gallows humour. But the name holds ominous portents: Not just for its patients but for the hospital itself. TimeNear will soon have rivals. The only branch of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Uttar Pradesh -- in Gorakhpur -- is coming up at supersonic speed. Its OPD services are already open. Construction contracts have been signed and work is on apace after the state government ruthlessly cut through all the land acquisition issues for the centrally funded project under discussion since 2012. Growth points Busy developing central UP and the Awadh region, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav paid little attention to the eastern part of the state, which is arguably the most neglected, most backward pocket of Uttar Pradesh. Gorakhpur and its adjoining areas -- Ghosi, Maharajgunj and Sant Kabir Nagar -- are best-known for Japanese encephalitis (brain fever), which used to routinely claim thousands of lives every year in the rainy season. In 2017, more than 30 children in the state-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College died because the state government forgot to pay the dues of oxygen suppliers: And the chief minister was elected from Gorakhpur! But the city is fast on the way to becoming the second capital of UP. State-of-the-art medical facilities will be available at minimal cost and infrastructure will rival that of Lucknow. Gorakhpur got its first four-star hotel just two months ago, when the Radisson Blu was inaugurated. "Gorakhpur has emerged as an important city from the point of governance," Raj Rana, chief executive officer, South Asia, Carlson Rezidor, told reporters when it opened. Lotus Trans Travel Pvt Ltd has plans for a five-star hotel and international convention centre in Gorakhpur, investing Rs 135 crore. There is talk of a Holiday Inn, even a JW Marriott Hotel opening in the city which is surrounded by Buddhist pilgrimage spots -- Srawasti, Kushinagar and, in neighbouring Nepal, just a few hour's drive, Lumbini. Work has started on a four-lane road to link Gorakhpur with the Poorvanchal Expressway (Ghazipur to Lucknow). Land acquisition in this part of the state is complicated and costly: Eastern UP has over 84 per cent of land holdings below one hectare (110,000 square feet) and agricultural fertility is high so negotiations with individual farmers can be protracted and extensive. But lately, the number of small farmers turned crorepatis in the region is increasing. Political changes The fast pace of change has inevitably had its impact on politics in the area. For several decades, Gorakhpur -- and eastern UP generally -- has revelled in being the Opposition, luxuriating in its victimhood. After prodigal son Vir Bahadur Singh became chief minister from the Congress in the 1980s and died young, eastern UP and Gorakhpur became peripheral to UP's development and political discourse. But L K Advani's rath yatra and the demolition of the Babri Masjid propelled the Gorakhnath Math to centre stage in the politics of the region with first Mahant Avaidyanath and later his political heir, Adityanath, establishing their own suzerainty over the region -- with their own militia, systems and brand of justice. When Yogi Adityanath became chief minister in 2017, quit his Lok Sabha seat of Gorakhpur, causing a by-election, and the Samajwadi Party candidate won the seat in 2018 (the Bahujan Samaj Party did not give a candidate), it was an unprecedented defeat, the first for the BJP in 27 years. Adityanath has won five general elections in a row from Gorakhpur, the last three times with over 50 per cent of the vote. So how did this happen? Many factors were at play. Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and UP unit president Mahendra Nath Pandey informed, rather than consulted, Adityanath about his replacement: Not a candidate from the Gorakhnath Math but a long-time BJP leader and Adityanath rival, Upendranath Shukla, a candidate of Union minister of state for finance, Shivpratap Shukla. The way Adityanath supporters saw it, it was a move designed to cut the Math down to size. This in itself provides a clue about the nature of politics in this part of UP. Role of caste But there was another factor: The role of the opposition in mobilising the most important caste group in this area, the boatmen or Nishads. All along the Ganga in UP, the Mallah and Nishad castes have extensive political clout. The community accounts for 14-17 per cent of UP's population and can influence 25-30 Lok Sabha seats. For several years, these castes have run a campaign to be counted as Scheduled Caste. The government's decision to recognise them as such in 2016 is now facing a challenge in the Allahabad high court. In 2014, the Nishads voted for Narendra Modi. In 2016, they formed their own party, the Nishad Party. In 2018, they sided with the SP candidate, winning the Gorakhpur by-election, causing Yogi Adityanath to involuntarily exclaim it was an unprecedented defeat ('Apratyashit parajaya'). Now, a section of the Nishads has returned to the BJP. Some assurances and guarantees have reportedly changed hands and the winner of the by-election, Pravin Nishad, has jumped from the SP to the BJP. He has promised his community's support to the BJP candidate, Bhojpuri film actor Ravi Kishan: Once again, not a nominee of the Math. The SP has put up a rival Nishad: Ram Bhuwal Nishad, who has been a two-term fisheries minister in the state government. The BJP is banking on development. The opposition is raking up caste identities and the dangers of hyper nationalism. But whoever wins, one thing is clear: Eastern UP is headed for a massive, grassroots transformation. Last updated on: May 15, 2019 19:44 IST A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah's roadshow took a violent turn, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a march on Wednesday to protest against the clashes that took place, including vandalisation of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's bust. With the political temperature soaring in the state, Banerjee and her TMC supporters held a 7 kilometre-long march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar in north Kolkata. Banerjee, clad in her trademark white saree, greeted hundreds of people who thronged the streets during the march which took place amidst heightened security. WATCH: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee holds a march from Beliaghata to Shyambazar On Tuesday, clashes broke out after miscreants threw sticks at Shah's convoy. The incident took place on College Street when TMC supporters allegedly began sloganeering. Furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the Calcutta University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem. During the clashes, Vidyasagar's bust was allegedly vandalised by BJP workers at Vidyasagar College. While the BJP accused the Banerjee government of "murdering democracy", the TMC claimed that the saffron party instigated the violence. Since the Lok Sabha elections began on April 10, both BJP and TMC have been at loggerheads in West Bengal. Workers of two parties have repeatedly clashed with each other on polling days. Voting for nine seats in the state will be held in the seventh and final phase of the general elections on May 19. Counting of votes will take place on May 23. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday favoured the restoration of "full-scope relations" with the United States during a meeting with the US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Sochi. The Russian leader's comments come as the United States announced its intent to withdraw from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing breaches by Russia as the reason behind the decision. The US is slated to withdraw from the accord by August this year, warning that the treaty will terminate if "Russia does not return to full and verifiable compliance" with it, according to an official statement. During the meeting with Pompeo, Putin outlined his recent phone conversation with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, left the impression that the US wanted to restore relations as well. "As you know, a few days ago I had the pleasure to talk to the US president over the phone, I had an impression that the president was in favor of restoring the Russia-US ties, contacts, jointly resolving the issues of common interest," Sputnik quoted Putin as saying. "On our part, we have repeatedly said that we would also like to restore the full-scope relations," he added. Pompeo, on the other hand, said that the two countries would hold more extensive conversations on arms control in the "weeks ahead." "We'll have a more extensive set of conversations both on arms control and an opportunity to discuss all broad strategic security issues between our two countries in the weeks ahead," Pompeo said. "As for its extension, what we agreed to do is gather teams that will begin to work not only on New START... and its potential extension but on a broader range of arms control issues," the US official also said. This comes as US suspended its obligations under the INF treaty, which aimed to curb the arms race between the US and Russia. Moscow, in retaliation, mirrored Washington's move immediately. The Russian leader also welcomed the probe undertaken by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential elections in the United States. He said that Mueller conducted an "objective" investigation, which proved no Russian interference in Trump's 2016 Presidential campaign. "We should give (Mueller) credit. In general, he conducted an objective probe and confirmed the absence of any traces and collusion between Russia and the current administration, which we initially characterised as complete nonsense: there was no interference on our part in the elections in the United States at the state level, and could not be," Putin stated. Before meeting with Putin, Pompeo held talks with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Lavrov welcomed talks between the Presidents of the two nations during the upcoming G20 summit, the idea of which was floated by Trump. "We heard statements by president Trump that he expects to hold a meeting with President Putin, including during the G20 Summit in Osaka. If we receive an official invitation we will respond positively. We talked about that today with Mike Pompeo," he said. The Russian minister also said that he handed Pompeo an "unofficial memorandum of sorts" which lists "factual proof" of US interference in Russia's domestic affairs. The two sides also spoke on other issues, like North Korea and Venezuela during the meeting. The two officials also held a joint presser, during which Lavrov said that Russia-US tensions have a negative impact on the "global situation." "Russia is interested in normalizing bilateral dialogue with the US and we are convinced that it is quite possible to conduct this dialogue on the basis of mutual respect and consideration of each other's interests," Lavrov said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that the Mamata Banerjee government is out to destroy everything in West Bengal and people's conviction and courage will evict the 'torturous rule'. The entire nation had seen (on TV) how the roadshow of Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah was attacked by the Trinamool Congress goons and is anxiously watching the outcome of the poll results in West Bengal, he said. Shah's roadshow in Kolkata was attacked on Tuesday after Banerjee had asserted that TMC will take revenge against BJP, Modi claimed. "Didi's (Mamata) goons carrying guns and bombs are bent upon destruction ... Her government is out to destroy everything in the state. People's conviction and courage will evict the torturous rule", he told a poll rally at Taki on the Indo-Bangla border in North 24 Parganas district. "Didi is frightened by the rise of BJP in West Bengal. The people of the state had given respect to here by making her the chief minister. But power-drunk Mamata Banerjee is throttling democracy", Modi said. Keeping up his attack on Banerjee, Modi said, "You have looted peoples' money in the chit fund scam and when they sought explanations you abused them". "Democracy has given you the chief minister's chair and you are killing it. The entire country is watching your misdeeds.... Didi should not be kept in power. In the last four to five years she has shown her colours". He held Banerjee responsible for destroying the state's culture of 'Bhadra Lok'. The people of Bengal have made up their mind to end the Banerjee's 'despotic rule' he said. NOTE: This story was updated at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 15. Costco is beloved by customers for its low prices, wide selection of products and generous return policy. But it's also a pretty good place to work, especially if you rise to the rank of store manager. Less than a week after Walmart revealed how much it paid its U.S. store managers, Readers Digest dug up Glassdoor figures on Costco salaries for comparison. They showed that general managers of the big-box chain make on average $106,000 a year, with top earners clearing $180,000. Not bad, right? But Costco reached out to us Wednesday to inform us that those figures were grossly underreported by Glassdoor. Patrick Callans, Costco executive vice president, administration, said the actual annual salary of a general manager was $138,000. But that's just a fraction of the compensation package for the position. "Adding bonus and stock-based compensation, a Costco GM can earn approximately triple that amount," Callans wrote in an email. MORE: The search for the Bay Area's cheapest alcohol Walmart earlier reported its store managers earn $175,000 salary annually on average. Meanwhile, the average Walmart worker makes $14.46 per hour, or about $25,000 a year for 34-hour weeks, which is considered full-time at Walmart. That's not enough to stay above the poverty line for a family of four. At Costco, the average hourly employee pay is $22.50. --- Read Mike Moffitt's latest stories and send him news tips at moffitt@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. KENT A Romanian national involved in a Kent home invasion more than a decade ago was sentenced Wednesday to serve 10 years in prison for his role in the incident. Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu, 41, a Romanian national, was sentenced to 121 months in prison for his participation in a 2007 home invasion, according to the state Department of Justice. Court documents indicate the home invasion happened just before midnight on April 15, 2007. That night, Nicolescu, Emanuel Nicolescu (the two are not related) and Michael N. Kennedy entered a South Kent home, wearing masks and brandishing knives and firearms, the DOJ said. The intruders bound and blindfolded two adult victims and injected each with a substance the intruders claimed was a deadly virus, the DOJ said. The intruders ordered the victims to pay $8.5 million or else they would be left to die from the lethal injection. The victims were not in a position to meet the intruders demands, the DOJ said, so the intruders drugged the two residents with a sleeping aid and fled in a Jeep Cherokee belonging to the homeowners. The stolen Jeep was found abandoned the next morning at a Home Depot in New Rochelle, N.Y. A few days later April 21, 2007 an accordion case washed ashore in Jamaica Bay. Inside the case were a stun gun, a 12-inch knife, a black plastic Airsoft gun, a crowbar, syringes, sleeping pills, latex gloves and a laminated telephone card with the address of the Kent victims. As to the accordion case, investigators learned that Kennedys father was a professional accordion player, and witnesses later identified the knife in the accordion case as a gift given to Emanuel Nicolescu by his father-in-law, the DOJ said. In 2010, a Connecticut State Police investigator made the connection that matched a partial Pennsylvania license plate which had been seen by a witness near the victims estate on the night of the crime to a car owned by Kennedy. The DOJ said the investigator found that Kennedy had previously shared an address with Emmanuel Nicolescu, who had been employed by the victim. The investigator found the data for the cell tower near the New Rochelle Home Depot had a call by a phone registered to Emmanuel Nicolescu, just minutes after the Jeep was abandoned, the DOJ said. Soon after, investigators from state police and the FBI got Emmanuel Nicolescus DNA and found it was a partial match to a sample from the Jeeps steering wheel. The investigation showed that Emanuel Nicolescu and Kennedy worked with Alexandru Nicolescu and Stefan Alexandru Barabas to commit the crime, the DOJ said. The four men planned the home invasion, which included the research and purchase of implements necessary for the crime, such as two-way radios, stun guns and imitation pistols, the agency said. That night, the DOJ said, Kennedy drove Emanuel Nicolescu, Alexandru Nicolescu and Barabas to an area near the Kent home and picked them up the next morning in New Rochelle after they abandoned the Jeep. On April 16, 2007, a day after the home invasion, Alexandru Nicolescu fled the United States. He has been detained since Nov. 14, 2013, when he was arrested in the United Kingdom, where he had been living. On Nov. 25, 2014, he was extradited to the U.S. On Jan. 8, 2016, he pleaded guilty to one count of attempted extortion and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion. Emanuel Nicolescu was arrested on Jan. 23, 2011, in Illinois. On March 22, 2012, a jury found him guilty of attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, and possession of a stolen vehicle. On Aug. 17, 2012, he was sentenced to 240 months in prison. Kennedy, also known as Nicolae Helerea, voluntarily returned to the U.S. from Romania. Kennedy pleaded guilty to one count of attempted extortion and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion on Nov. 5, 2012. On May 4, 2016, he was sentenced to 48 months in prison. Barabas was charged in connection with the case and is currently being sought. The FBI is offering a reward up to $10,000 for information leading to his arrest. THOMASTON Charlotte Hungerford Hospital (CHH) Primary Care of Thomaston has added Ear, Nose & Throat, Cardiology, Podiatry, and Pulmonary Service office hours at its office, located 76 Watertown Road, Thomaston. We are excited to expand our healthcare offerings in the greater Thomaston area. said Joan Palmer, Administrative Director of the CHH Multi-Specialty Group. In the past year, the office has welcomed general practitioner Dr. Roger El-Hachem and APRNs Thayer Clark and Siena Giordano, joining Site Director Dr. Kenrick Hom and APRN Melanie Mollica. New services and providers include: Otolaryngologist Dr. Ari Namon of CHH Ear, Nose & Throat offers office consultations and follow-up addressing adult and pediatric care for ear infections and hearing loss, sleep apnea and snoring, and sinus disorders with endoscopic surgery. He also treats nasal obstruction and treatment, and perform tonsil, adenoid, and thyroid surgery, as well as skin cancer, and head and neck tumor surgery. Cardiologist Ofer Sagiv, M.D., F.A.C.C., R.P.V.I, of Torringtons CHH Cardiovascular Associates offers office consultations and follow-up including diagnostic Echocardiography, EKG, Nuclear and Regular Stress testing, Peripheral Artery Scanning, and laboratory testing. Pulmonologist Yin Fei Hung, MD, of CHH Pulmonary and Critical Care offers office consultations and follow-up providing state-of-the-art clinical evaluations, diagnosis, and treatment for patients with diseases related to lungs and breathing. Podiatrists Dennis D Onofrio, DPM, FACFAS, and Benish Ali, DPM of the CHH Foot Center offer office hours and follow-up providing effective, timely diagnosis of foot related medical issues. CHH Primary care Thomaston accepts most major insurances with office hours Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. For appointments call 860-880-8091. Forbes, Torringford schools holding wellness fair TORRINGTON Forbes and Torringford Elementary schools will host a Joint Health and Wellness Festival on Friday, 5:30 -7:30 p.m. in the gym and cafeteria at Torringford. There will be businesses and health organizations from in and around the Torrington area. The goal is to invite the community to a free informational event that will support healthy living. There will be demonstrations, hands on activities that will engage and inform young and old alike, ways to improve their health and provide information that can be shared will all family members. Both schools are involved in this event by hosting a booth, giving a demonstration, decorating for the event and having a Wellness Week theme leading up to the event. Forbes and Torringfords Joint Wellness Committee are hosting this event.Contact Janice Harrington at Forbes school or Erin Considine at Torringford Elementary, for additional information about the event at jharrington@torrington.org or EConsidine@torrington.org. H.O.R.S.E. to hold spring open house WASHINGTON H.O.R.S.E. of Connecticut will hold its annual Spring Open House on Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. with a rain date of Sunday, May 19. Hourly tours, pony rides, a bake sale, jewelry and bag sale and volunteer opportunities will be available. A tack sale offers saddles, bridles, blankets, boots, helmets, grooming equipment and new and used equine clothing. Horses are available for sponsorship, lease or adoption. H.O.R.S.E. of Connecticut is a non-profit, 501(c)3 rescue organization located at 43 Wilbur Road, Washington, CT. For more information or to make a tax deductible donation, go to www.horseofct.org or call 860-868-1960 TVFD holding Bake Sale & Bands fundraiser TORRINGTON Torringford Volunteer Fire Department, in collaboration with Noelke Gallery will hold a Bake Sale and Bands fundraiser, Saturday at 6 p.m. Noelke Gallery is located at 15 Water St.; www.noelkegallery.com Bands include Say Love, Kenny Storrs from Lone Piper, and Old Bones. The bake sale will have pies, treats and cookies shaped like fire trucks. John Noelke, owner of Noelke Gallery, along with Ian Matthew and friends, held a fundraiser December, collecting food and clothing for the soup kitchen and Torrington High School students. He has decided to do it again for the fire department. Facing budget cuts, the volunteer fire departments are asking the people of Torrington and surrounding towns to come in and visit, supporting a good cause. Winsted police to host mock car crash WINSTED The Winchester Police Department and Winsted Fire Department are hosting a mock car crash at Gilbert School, 200 Williams Ave. Winsted. The crash is intended to make junior and senior students aware of the potential repercussions of drinking and driving. This proactive program is developed to get students to think about making safe and responsible decisions before getting behind the wheel. The mock car crash will be held Friday at 1 p.m. The Gilbert School recruited the assistance of teacher Joseph Brady to create the special effects of injuries incurred in the crash to show lifelike reality that DUI car crashes can result in serious injuries or death. Police officials thanked the Winsted Fire Department, Winsted Ambulance and the Gilbert School for their hard work, as well as Stewarts Auto Parts in Barkhamste for donating and delivering two cars, and Shea Montano Funeral home for their involvement. NYU Tandon & Global Public Health researcher receives Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Exploration Rumi Chunara, assistant professor of computer science and engineering and global public health at New York University, has won a Grand Challenges Explorations grant--an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Chunara will pursue an innovative global health and development research project focused on smart immunization targeting in Pakistan using artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile tools. Grand Challenges Explorations grants support innovative thinkers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. Chunara's project is one of approximately 50 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 22 grants announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, out of more than 1,500 submissions. To receive funding, Chunara and other Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated a bold idea in one of seven critical global heath and development topic areas. Focusing on innovations to drive performance in immunization, Chunara's project will use AI and mobile technology for the first province-wide smart targeting of childhood immunization efforts. Vaccination coverage in many low and middle-income countries is poor due to a variety of factors, including limited resources, residents living in rural areas, and a lack of public awareness and knowledge about vaccination. Recognizing the promise that mobile tools hold for improving vaccination coverage, Chunara's collaborators in Pakistan--led by Umar Saif, UNESCO Chair for Information and Communication Technology for Development--equipped roughly 3,800 outreach and clinic-based vaccinators with a smartphone application called e-vaccs to help health authorities track vaccination progress across Pakistan's Punjab province. The Grand Challenges Explorations grant takes the project to the next level: incorporating machine learning and prediction algorithms in conjunction with an understanding of the existing vaccination process. Chunara and her colleagues will develop algorithms to prioritize resources and better target efforts of the smartphone-equipped vaccinators. Using data on disease incidence, the researchers will predict and provide feedback on where the best places and times are to deliver vaccinations to minimize disease incidence while accounting for environmental and social variables such as climate and population density. Based on data and feedback from the vaccinators to date, the efforts will also aim to identify locations where further attention is necessary, and how best to reach them--for instance, locations where vaccinators are being deployed but vaccination coverage is not improving at an expected rate, or marginalized populations that currently aren't getting vaccinations. "Our hypothesis is that using AI for smart targeting of our smartphone-equipped vaccinators will result in lower vaccine preventable disease incidence. As community health workers are present in most low and middle income countries, there may be a pathway to scale this both in Pakistan and other countries that use community health workers," said Chunara, who is also a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. ### About Grand Challenges Explorations Grand Challenges Explorations is a US$100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, over 1420 projects in more than 65 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants. The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required. Initial grants of US$100,000 are awarded two times per year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million. About NYU's Tandon School of Engineering The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, the country's largest private research university, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. About NYU College of Global Public Health At the NYU College of Global Public Health (NYU GPH), we are preparing the next generation of public health pioneers with the critical thinking skills, acumen, and entrepreneurial approaches necessary to reinvent the public health paradigm. Devoted to employing a nontraditional, inter-disciplinary model, NYU GPH aims to improve health worldwide through a unique blend of global public health studies, research and practice. The College is located in the heart of New York City and extends to NYU's global network on six continents. Innovation is at the core of our ambitious approach, thinking and teaching. For more, visit: http://publichealth. nyu. edu/ This story has been published on: 2019-05-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The ruling Chinese Communist Party's Hong Kong liaison office on threw its weight publicly behind plans to change the city's extradition laws to enable renditions of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China. Beijing's Central Government Liaison Office said in a statement that Hong Kong people should reject "rumors and man-made fears" about planned amendments to the city's Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, claiming that critics of the proposals have "an ulterior motive." Last month, thousands of people took to the streets in protest at the law, which will allow the Hong Kong government to grant extradition requests on a case-by-case basis with no meaningful judicial oversight, to countries with which it lacks an extradition treaty. The most likely jurisdiction to use the proposed provision is mainland China, which currently has no extradition treaty with Hong Kong. Democratic Party founder Martin Lee, who is currently in the U.S. to raise concern over the erosion of Hong Kong's rights and freedoms under Chinese rule, said the changes to the law could have implications for anyone traveling to the city, as well as those who live there. "All it needs is an affidavit from somebody in China to say that whoever it is they want to punish has committed a criminal offense many years ago ... and then that person can be transferred," Lee told a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) in Washington on . "Once you're in China, you are liable to make confessions before a television camera," he said. "No American resident in Hong Kong is safe once this bill is passed." Lee was part of the second Hong Kong delegation to visit Washington since the beginning of the year. However, Beijing's representative in Hong Kong, Wang Zhimin, said in the statement on the Central Liaison Office website that the proposed changes to the law were "urgent." "The meeting ... expressed the belief that the broader Hong Kong public will be capable of resisting rumor-mongering and fear-mongering by those with ulterior motives, and grasp the truth in all its facets," the statement said. 'Send to China' law Since the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997, mainland authorities have handed over 260 criminal suspects to Hong Kong, while none have been surrendered in return, it said. The proposed amendments have been dubbed the "send to China" law, which sounds very similar in Cantonese to the words "final send-off," meaning a funeral. Pro-democracy politicians have used protests and filibustering to try to delay its passage through the city's Legislative Council (LegCo), amid a bitter procedural row among lawmakers, a judicial review application and street protests. Hong Kong current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the usually pro-China business community is also concerned that officials could extradite them to face charges in mainland China, a tactic often used to target investors who have angered powerful vested interests in local government. "The 'send-to-China' amendments are one thing, but there's another set of rules on criminal judicial mutual assistance, which I call the confiscation rules," Sang said. "It means that the Hong Kong police can seize your property as part of criminal proceedings in a mainland Chinese court," he said, citing reports and media speculation that Executive Council member Jeffrey Lam had recently sold some property to avoid just such a risk. "It doesn't matter what phrases he parrots in order to satisfy the demands of those in power," Sang said. "His actions tell you all you need to know." The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the administration of Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam to withdraw the proposals, saying it could expose journalists to criminal trials in mainland Chinese courts. "Judicial independence and freedom of the press have underpinned Hong Kong's economic success for decades," CPJ Asia program coordinator Steven Butler said in a statement. "The proposed extradition bill threatens to undermine both by introducing the standards of China's highly politicized judicial system to the territory," he said. 'How safe are you in Hong Kong?' Germany-based freelance journalist Shi Ming agreed. "Hong Kong's economic lifeblood stems from the fact that it is line with international standards," Shi told RFA. "If it is cut off from that, then it will become a dead port." "Under the extradition law ... they won't only arrest Chinese nationals if they go to Hong Kong," he said. "If you could be extradited as a fugitive, then how safe are you in Hong Kong?" The Hong Kong government claims that adequate safeguards are built into the legislation to prevent China from using the law for political purposes, as extradition to China would take place only after judicial review and a recommendation from Hong Kong's chief executive. But lawyers told the CPJ that the "judicial review" is a mere procedural step during which judges would not examine the underlying evidence, and that the chief executive is subject to political pressure from the Chinese government, the group said. Chris Yeung, chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), said the amendments would have a chilling effect on the media in the once-freewheeling city. While the law is not explicitly aimed at journalists, it "will become a kind of political weapon, a tool that [the mainland government] can use when necessary, and you never know when they will find it necessary," the CPJ quoted Yeung as saying. China is the world's second worst jailer of journalists, with at least 47 journalists in prison for their work on Dec. 1, 2018, according to the CPJ. Earlier this month, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that the amended law could increase Hong Kong's political vulnerability and further erode the city's promised autonomy. The report found that the bill would remove independent legislative oversight in the extradition process and undermine strong legal protections guaranteed in Hong Kong, leaving the city and its residents exposed to Beijings "weak legal system and politically motivated charges." It said renditions under the proposed amendments could create "serious risks" to U.S. national security and economic interests. Reported by Ng Yik-tung, Fok Leung-kiu and Tam Siu-yin for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Lawmakers in Washington have tabled legislation in Congress that would tighten restrictions around study or research visas for Chinese nationals with ties to the military. The new rules proposed by a group of Republicans would prohibit anyone employed or sponsored by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) from receiving student or research visas to the United States. The bill, sponsored by Republicans Senators Chuck Grassley, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, and Josh Hawley, would mandate the drawing up of a list of PLA-linked institutions, and the adding of their employees to a visa blacklist. A companion bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Mike Gallagher, Reuters reported. The move comes amid heightened concern in the U.S. that China and other foreign governments are exploiting U.S.-funded research to acquire intellectual property. However, U.S. and university officials have warned against a third "Red Scare" harking back to the McCarthyist purges of the 1950s. U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said Chinese infiltration of the United States has been going on for a long time. "China has been engaging in infiltration in the United States, and exporting its model of dictatorship for a long time now," Teng told RFA. "The United States and other countries have only recently noticed that the Chinese military in particular has made use of opportunities offered by Sino-U.S. exchanges to send students, scholars, and researchers to the United States, where they gather intelligence and steal secrets," he said. "This is actually a really serious problem, and the U.S. hasn't been taking it seriously enough," Teng said. He said the moves came after a number of U.S. academics and journalists had been denied visas for China, or forced to leave the country, and could be seen as a form of retaliation. National security concerns Chinese political commentator Chen Daoyin said recent concerns over China as a threat to U.S. national security is a major factor driving the bill. "While the United States still leads or plays a guiding role in the high-tech sector ... China is also at the forefront of certain fields," he said. "It is inevitable that some damage has been done as a result of greater levels of exchange and integration." "These are national security considerations, and there may be some trade-offs to be made," Chen said. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the concerns over national security are "unfounded." "For some time, certain departments and organizations in the United States have been harboring unfounded doubts about the motives of Chinese scholars, students and science and technology personnel in the United States," Geng said. "[They have been] unreasonably restricting, harassing and setting up various obstacles in the way of normal ... exchanges between the two countries." Geng said the U.S. should not "politicize or unreasonably restrict" bilateral exchanges. "We hope that the relevant parties in the U.S. will treat the exchanges between the two sides objectively and fairly, and stop restricting Chinese scholars, students and other personnel from going to the United States," he said. Scientists fired Last month, a top cancer research center in Texas said it is taking steps to fire three scientists amid concerns that the Chinese government is trying to steal U.S. scientific research, U.S. media reported. The MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, took the action after receiving e-mails last year from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) outlining conflicts of interests or unreported foreign income linked to five of its faculty members, the Houston Chronicle reported in an article jointly produced with Science Magazine. The center said it had begun the process of terminating the contracts of three researchers for fear of losing NIH funding, the paper reported. However, Chinese and Chinese-American communities have hit out at the investigations, saying that they involve racial profiling. Reported by Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. A North Korean soldier stands next to a watchtower on the banks of the Yalu river near Sinuiju, April 14, 2017. Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday urged China not to forcibly deport seven North Koreans currently in detention in Liaoning province, saying that if repatriated, the seven would face threats to their life or freedom. The remarks were made in a statement by the New York-based NGO that said China should grant asylum to the group, which includes a 10-year-old girl, and allow them to travel safely to a third country. China should not send these seven people back to North Korea where they face torture, sexual violence, forced labor, and other horrors, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Beijing should immediately allow them to travel to a third country. The seven were arrested on April 28 while hiding out just outside Shenyang in Liaoning Province. North Koreans who escape the isolated state typically face harsh punishments if they are sent back. Penalties including incarceration are not reserved for the defectors themselves; often their family members are also punished. According to HRW China is legally bound to help the seven, as it is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and the 1984 Convention against Torture. Those statutes require that signatories agree not to forcibly repatriate those who would be persecuted or tortured if returned. The statement highlighted previous incidents of forced repatriation from China in which the returnees were sent to prison camps for leaving the country, which is a criminal offense in North Korea. The NGO said that a former senior official in the North Korean state security service who had been assigned to deal with North Koreans who were forcibly returned from China told HRW that every returnee was tortured for information regarding their network of contacts outside of North Korea. The prospect of what awaits forced returnees has even caused some detained North Koreans in China to commit suicide once they learn their fate. North Koreans who leave their country are caught in a horrendous cycle of physical and psychological violence, and I received information that some take their own lives when they find out that they are scheduled for repatriation, said Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea in 2017. But according to HRW, Beijing honors a 1986 bilateral border pact with Pyongyang that calls North Korean refugees caught in China economic migrants and mandates their repatriation. China should end its complicity with North Korean rights violations by ending the practice of forcing back fleeing North Koreans, Robertson said in the HRW statement. China should protect these seven North Koreans, both complying with its international obligations and sending Pyongyang a message that it wont ignore North Koreas abuses, he added. Additional Reporting by RFAs Korean Service. In this Tuesday, July 24, 2018, photo, villagers take refuge on a rooftop above flood waters from a collapsed dam in Attapeu province in southeastern Laos. Poor construction methods, with soil used in place of concrete, are now being blamed for a fatal hydropower dam collapse last year in Laos in what has been called the countrys worst flooding in decades. The disaster occurred on July 23, 2018 when a saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project collapsed following heavy rains, inundating 12 villages and killing at least 40 people in Champassak and Attapeu provinces, leaving many more missing. A report sent to the Lao government in March, but still not released to the public, reveals that construction of the saddle dam was substandard, a PNPC official told RFAs Lao Service this week. It was built with soil, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. That was the cause of the collapse. It couldnt handle that massive amount of water. A new saddle dam, saddle dam D, is now under construction at a location a little more than a kilometer away from the dam that failed, the official said, adding that the new 400-meter-long structure will be built with concrete and anchored at a depth of at least 10 meters into the ground. The team investigating the cause of the July 2018 disaster has recommended that all other saddle dams at the hydropower site also be built with concrete, he said. Talks with South Korea Also speaking to RFA, Singphet Bounsavattiphanhvice chairman of the Lao government inspection agencyconfirmed that the government had received the report and its recommendations in March. But they cannot publish it right now because they are in the process of negotiating with the South Korean government about what information should or should not be released to the public, he said. PNPC is a consortium formed by a local Lao company and South Koreas SK Engineering & Construction, and Korean involvement in the project had earlier prompted Seoul to send relief teams to Laos to help mitigate the effects of the disaster. The Lao government is expected to officially publish the investigations results when talks with South Korea are concluded, Singphet said. All findings of the report should be released as quickly as possible, though, Premrudee Daoruong of the Thailand-based NGO Laos Dam Investigation Monitor said, also speaking to RFA. This is so the public can verify the information and raise questions, she said, adding, This information shouldnt be known only to the Lao and South Korean governments. In the wake of the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy disaster, Laos has stepped up scrutiny of an ambitious hydropower dam building program under which it aims to serve as the battery of Asia and sell hydropower to its more industrialized neighbors China, Thailand and others. Reported and translated by Max Avary for RFAs Lao Service. Written in English by Richard Finney. Nearly 20 people were injured Wednesday after police in central Myanmars Mandalay region fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd protesting construction at a coal-powered cement plant that is operated as part of a joint venture between a local firm and a Chinese partner. Residents of Kyaukse districts Patheingyi township began their protest against the Alpha Cement Plant near Aungthabyae village on Tuesday evening, demanding compensation for land they say they lost when an 18-foot-wide road was built as part of the project, and urging authorities to address an influx of hundreds of Chinese employees who are working at the site. Moe Lin, the assistant chief of Aungthabyae village, told RFAs Myanmar Service that protesters had blocked vehicles owned by factory operator Myanmar Conch Cement Co. Ltd. from passing through the village, and early on Wednesday morning, police moved to forcibly disperse the crowd. They started the crackdown around 4:30 a.m., Moe Line said, adding that police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters, and he had been shot in the arm. Seventeen people were injured. One man was shot seven times and left in critical condition. Injured protesters were being treated at the village clinic, he said. During the confrontation, police arrested a resident of Aungthabyae named Min Naing, Moe Lin said, adding that after villagers demanded authorities release him within one hour, police arrested another villager and a reporter for Channel Mandalay TV named Nanda, who was livestreaming the protest on Facebook. Yan Myo, one of the injured protesters, told RFA that he and others had been shot because we staged a protest against the company. We were retreating [as the police moved forward] and heard them say, Shoot straight at that guy, and shortly after, I was hit in the chest, he said. A resident of Aungthabyae named Myint Khaing said some of the protesters set four vehicles and part of the factory property on fire. They said they would set things on fire if the police didnt release Min Naing, but the cars were already torched when we got there, he said. Some bad elements exploited the situation, he added. A heavy police presence had restored calm to the area near the plant by Wednesday evening, but villagers were continuing to demand that the project be scrapped and those facing charges be released. Calls to Nyunt Lin, chief administrator of Patheingyi township, went unanswered on Wednesday. Police Commander Brigadier Win Bo of the No. 3 Police Division, who oversees police in the area, told RFA that an investigation is being made into the protest incident, but suggested that police had followed procedure with their response. Actions were taken in an orderly mannerpolice cant act outside the law, and we follow procedures and orders when we respond to incidents to ensure things dont get out of hand, he said. [The officers] were given proper instructions. We dont know whether they fired or notthe incident just occurred and negotiations with protesters are ongoing. Legal action will be taken against those in custody and anyone involved in arson, Win Bo added. Controversial project The project to upgrade Kyaukses No. 33 Cement Plant from 400 tons to 5,000 tons per day of cement production capacity was granted to the Myanmar Conch Cement Co. Ltd.a joint venture between Myanmars Myint Investment Group and Chinas Anhui Conch Cementin 2015, during the administration of former President Thein Sein. Construction began at the site in December 2017 and Myanmar Conch Cement renamed it the Alpha Cement Plant. Three farmers were jailed about 10 months ago following earlier protests over road upgrades for the plant, while a fourtha farmer in his 70sis on bail awaiting trial. At least 17 villagers have been charged with violating Myanmars Peaceful Assembly Law since the project began, despite having obtained prior permission to hold protests. In addition to frustrations over loss of land, Myint Khaing said, residents are worried about their safety after some 500 Chinese nationals were sent to Aungthabyae village to work at the cement plant site, beginning around four months ago. The [Burmese] workers initially came from Myint Investment but then were joined by Chinese workers to become Myanmar Conch employees, he said. About 500 Chinese now work at the plant near our village. I dont know if they are here legally or not. Some cant speak Burmese and we are worried because they are constantly spending time in the village. Villagers have called on local authorities to meet to discuss the concerns of local stakeholders, but have received no response. RFA was unable to reach plant officials for comment on Wednesday. Reported by Nayrein Kyaw and Khaymani Win. Translated by Nandar Chann. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Scott Busby, deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Department of State, recently spoke with RFAs Uyghur Service about persecution under Chinese rule in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where authorities have held an estimated 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities accused of harboring strong religious views and politically incorrect ideas in a network of political re-education camps since April 2017. During an interview with Mamatjan Juma at the State Department in Washington, Busby discussed inconsistencies in the way China has represented the camp system, what the U.S. has done to raise awareness of the situation in the XUAR, and why other countries have failed to speak out against or even defended Chinas policies in the region. He also pledged continued U.S. support for the Uyghurs, saying that Washington will exert pressure on China for as long as people are being detained in the camps because of their ethnic background, and religious and cultural traditions. RFA: What kind of concrete action has been taken to close [the camps] or release the detainees from the camps in China? Busby: One of the things weve spent a lot of time on is trying to get the word out about whats happening in Xinjiang. We have been sharing information with many other governments around the world, weve been doing public events talking about Xinjiang. We hostedalong with several other governmentsa side event in Geneva, Switzerland on the margins of the U.N. Human Rights Council specifically devoted to the issue of the abuses taking place in Xinjiang Secretary Pompeo, as you know, has met with several Uyghur individuals to hear about their experiences or the experience of their loved ones in the camps. So we have been focused, primarily to date, on getting the word out about the situation in Xinjiang, and I think the world now knows how horrible the situation is. There are other measures that were considering, but I cant get into the details of the internal deliberations of the U.S. government at this point. Your browser does not support HTML5 video. RFA: The definition of these facilitiessome international human rights organizations and some observers are saying that these are concentration camps. Some researchers would say that these are internment camps. And Chinese is saying that these are vocational training centers. So in your view, what kind of facilities are they? Busby: Clearly, they are not vocational training centers, as China says they are. There are many, many highly educated people in these camps, highly accomplished people in these camps, and that belies Chinas own description of the camps. I dont really want to get into what we should call them, but I will say we know that over a million people are in these camps, they are held there against their will, some of them are subject to torture, some of them are subject to cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment. We know that some people have died in the camps. So, clearly, whats happening in the camps is horrific. And I should point out that, unfortunately, whats occurring in Xinjiang is consistent with the history of what the Chinese Communist Party has done since it has taken power. The Chinese Communist Party has shown extreme hostility towards all religion since it took power, and that continues to be of great concern to us. Your browser does not support HTML5 video. RFA: Has the United States sought access to those facilitiesnot the [Chinese government] organized [tours], but [independently] to see for themselves what is happening there? Busby: We have asked for access on a number of occasions. While some of our diplomats have been able to travel to Xinjiang, we have not been given access to the facilities We have also asked that China provide access to U.N. officials and to other like-minded governments, like our own, to have access to the camps, but so far that hasnt been possible. RFA: In your testimony, you said that there are 800,000 to two million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities detained in the camps. Has there been any change in this estimate, which you mentioned last November? Busby: Our current best estimate is that there are at least one million people in the camps full time. There are a number of additional people who are required to go to some of these camps or to go to other facilities for a portion of their day. But our understanding, currently, is that there are at least one million people in the camps, and possibly more. Your browser does not support HTML5 video. Challenging China RFA: Why is China getting away with such horrendous abuses? If over one million people of a certain ethnicity were detained in other countries, there would have been very strong criticism around the world. Busby: Many other countries havent spoken out and, in some cases, have actually defended the existence of these camps. We think this is a reflection of the power, unfortunately, that China exerts over other countries by virtue of the assistance that China is providing, by virtue of business relationships that China has. So I think a lot of countries are afraid of speaking the truth about what is going on in Xinjiang. RFA: When is this [mass incarceration] going to stop? Busby: Its hard to know. As I said, there have been a few people who have been released from the camps. In a few cases, people have been allowed to leave the country, so there are some cases in which weve succeeded, I think, in helping them to get out of detention. And we will continue to press the Chinese on the individual cases of the family members of the RFA journalists and on other individual cases where were aware that relatives of people here in the United States are being held in the camps. RFA: If a trade agreement between the United States and China is signed, will the U.S. government continue to push the Chinese to close the camps and release all the detainees? Busby: We will continue to raise this issue so long as there are people being unjustly held in these camps, so long as the camps exist, and so long as people are being mistreated in the way they are being mistreated. You saw that when Secretary Pompeo spoke upon the release of our human rights reports. We will continue to report on these issues in the human rights reports, and well continue to raise them with China at every opportunity. RFA: Some are saying that China is carrying out ethnic cleansing or cultural genocide. Some even say that China is committing crimes against humanity. In your own view, how do you define what China is doing to the Uyghur people? Busby: China appears to be intent on robbing the Uyghur people of their ethnicity, of their religion, and thats a horrible, horrible thing. And unfortunately its consistent with some of the things the Chinese Communist Party has done since it took power in 1949, and we will continue to raise the alarm about these horrible actions theyve taken. Your browser does not support HTML5 video. RFA: Uyghur people see the United States as a beacon of hope and they believe the United States is the only country that can help them in this dire situation What kind of message do you have for the Uyghur people? Busby: The United States government and the United States people will continue to stand by the Uyghur people. Were very, very concerned about whats happening to Uyghur right now, and we will continue to raise our concerns publicly and privately. We will do all that we can to demonstrate our support for the Uyghur people. Reported by Mamatjan Juma for RFAs Uyghur Service. A Vietnamese activist and RFA blogger serving a seven-year prison term for his role in protesting a chemical waste spill on Vietnams coast three years ago has been physically assaulted in prison and placed in solitary confinement, a fellow prisoner says. Nguyen Van Hoa, now held at An Diem Prison in south-central Vietnams Quang Nam province, was throttled by a prison guard, Hoang Nguyenyounger brother of political prisoner Hoang Van Binhtold RFAs Vietnamese Service on Tuesday. Citing a phone conversation with his brother, now serving a 14-year sentence at An Diem, Nguyen said that Hoa had been choked and beaten some days ago, and was now confined in isolation. Nguyen said he had informed Hoas sister about the assault, and this morning she came to the prison but could not meet with him since he is being punished with solitary confinement for ten days, he said. Hoa, 24, was jailed by the Peoples Court of Ha Tinh in Nghe An province on Nov. 27, 2017 after filming protests outside the Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group steel plant, whose spill in 2016 killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless in four central provinces. Hoa, who had blogged and produced videos for RFA, was arrested on Jan. 11, 2017 for abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state under Article 258 of the Penal Code, but the charges against him were later upgraded to the more severe conducting propaganda against the state under Article 88. Blocked from meetings Former political prisoners and other activists have meanwhile been blocked from meetings with U.S. diplomats in advance of a planned U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue scheduled for later this week, sources said. Hua Phi, head of an independent branch of the Cao Dai church in the central highlands province of Lam Dong, said that police in the provinces Duc Trong district had placed him under surveillance and barricaded his home to prevent him from traveling to Ho Chi Minh City, also called Saigon, to meet on May 13 with the U.S. diplomatic mission in the city. The police brought heavy furniture such as beds, chairs, and tables to block the door to my house, Phi said, adding that he has assigned other members of his church to attend the meetings in Saigon, which will run for four days. Vietnams government officially recognizes the Cao Dai faith, which combines elements of many religions, but imposes harsh controls on dissenting groups who do not follow the state-sanctioned branches. Former political prisoner Le Cong Dinh was also blocked from a meeting requested by U.S. delegation members this week, with state security agents forbidding him from leaving his residence, Dinh wrote on his Facebook page. Convicted in 2010 of involvement in a plot to overthrow the government," Dinha prominent attorney who had defended bloggers and other free-expression advocatesserved three years of a five-year prison sentence before being released on probation. Vietnam now holds an estimated 128 prisoners of conscience, according to a May 13, 2019 report by rights group Amnesty International. The Vietnamese authorities portray individuals who are peacefully exercising their human rights as criminals, Amnesty International (AI) said in its report, Prisoners of Conscience in Vietnam. However, it is the government that flagrantly contravenes international human rights law and its own constitution, AI said. Nguyen Kim Binh of Vietnam Human Rights Network said in December that the one-party communist state is currently detaining more than 200 political prisoners. Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Richard Finney. The U.S. State Department voiced strong concern Tuesday over reports that Vietnamese democracy advocates have been prevented from meeting with members of a U.S. delegation ahead of a human rights dialogue later this week. These very issuesgreater respect for fundamental freedoms and human rightsare at the core of our dialogue with the Government of Vietnam, a State Department spokesman told RFAs Vietnamese Service in an email. We call on the Government of Vietnam to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedoms of association and expression, the State Department said. Contact between Vietnamese human rights advocates and U.S. diplomats is frequently blocked by authorities in the run-up to the annual dialogue, with dissidents kept under strict surveillance, followed by police, or confined to their homes, sources say. Hua Phi, head of an independent branch of the Cao Dai church in the central highlands province of Lam Dong, told RFA this week that police in the provinces Duc Trong district had barricaded his home to prevent him from traveling to Ho Chi Minh City, also called Saigon, to meet on May 13 with the U.S. diplomatic mission in the city. The police brought heavy furniture such as beds, chairs, and tables to block the door to my house, Phi said, adding that he has assigned other members of his church to attend the meetings in his place. In November 2018, angered that Phi had escaped police surveillance in order to meet with U.S. diplomats in Saigon on another occasion, district police set fire to the store room of his coffee plantation, burning all his tools, Phi told RFA in an earlier report. Former political prisoner Le Cong Dinh was meanwhile also blocked from a meeting requested by U.S. delegation members this week, with state security agents forbidding him from leaving his residence, Dinh wrote on his Facebook page. Convicted in 2010 of involvement in a plot to overthrow the government," Dinha prominent attorney who had defended bloggers and other free-expression advocatesserved three years of a five-year prison sentence before being released on probation. Assaulted, confined Speaking to RFA, Nguyen Thi Hue, the sister of jailed Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Van Hoa, meanwhile confirmed that her brother is now confined in isolation following a confrontation in which he was physically assaulted by a prison guard. Hoa, now held at An Diem Prison in south-central Vietnams Quang Nam province, was choked and beaten in the incident, Hoang Nguyenyounger brother of another prisoner Hoang Van Binhtold RFA on Tuesday. After she was informed of the attack, Hue went immediately to An Diem Prison and applied for permission to visit, she said.But the guard in charge called me and said I was not allowed to meet with Hoa because he was being punished. We now have to wait for Hoa to call home before we can verify that what the guard told us is true, she said. Hoa, who had blogged and produced videos for RFA, was jailed for seven years by the Peoples Court of Ha Tinh in Nghe An province on Nov. 27, 2017 after filming protests outside the Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group steel plant, whose spill in 2016 killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless in four central provinces. He was arrested on Jan. 11, 2017 for abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state under Article 258 of the Penal Code, but the charges against him were later upgraded to the more severe conducting propaganda against the state under Article 88. Prisoners of conscience Vietnam now holds an estimated 128 prisoners of conscience, according to a May 13, 2019 report by rights group Amnesty International. The Vietnamese authorities portray individuals who are peacefully exercising their human rights as criminals, Amnesty International (AI) said in its report, Prisoners of Conscience in Vietnam. However, it is the government that flagrantly contravenes international human rights law and its own constitution, AI said. Nguyen Kim Binh of Vietnam Human Rights Network said in December that the one-party communist state is currently detaining more than 200 political prisoners. Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Richard Finney. As verbal sparring, economic pressure, and military jockeying intensify between Tehran and Washington, Iranians are closely following the standoff and appear increasingly alarmed at the prospect of a conflict with the United States. Even conservative authorities and frequently combative media in the Shi'a-majority country of around 81 million people look to be treading cautiously. The reformist Seda magazine was reportedly shut down by Iran's hard-line Judiciary after it ran a photo of U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf next to a headline describing the situation as At The Crossroads Between War And Peace. Conservatives had accused Seda of parroting the voice of hawks in U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. Since a U.S. aircraft-carrier battle group was conspicuously ordered into the region last week to "deter" against any attacks against "American interests" in the Persian Gulf region, U.S. officials on May 15 ordered "nonessential government employees" out of nearby Iraq and issued a fresh travel warning to citizens, citing "terrorism, kidnapping, and armed conflict." Iran has responded defiantly but has also echoed Washington's public assurances that it is not seeking "war" between the two longtime foes. Iranian officials have publicly dismissed the U.S. military moves in the region as "psychological warfare" while insisting they are militarily prepared to deter any aggression. Iran is estimated to have more than 500,000 active military personnel and 250,000 more reserve forces. But experts suggest its main deterrents lie in its cyberoperations, its arsenal of short- and long-range ballistic missiles, its threats to choke off a strategic conduit for oil shipments between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and its possible return to disputed nuclear activities that critics suggest are aimed at a bomb-making capacity. Many Iranians use anti-filtering and other tools to evade the regime's heavy censorship and access Persian-language broadcasts and social media based outside the country, and some of them have spoken out to oppose any drumbeat of war. The result is an accumulation of reminders of the devastation of Iran's past conflicts -- particularly the 1980-88 war with Iraq and its many hundreds of thousands of Iranian "martyrs" -- and warnings about the destruction of a new war for a country already hobbled by U.S. trade and economic sanctions. "Do you agree with a military attack against the Islamic republic?" one Netherlands-based Iranian activist asked on Twitter, hinting at the chasm that sometimes divides Iranians inside the country from diaspora Iranians eager for outside help to displace the clerical leadership that came to power in 1979. "Even asking [such a question] is wrong," responded another via Twitter, adding that "any change should be made by the people themselves." "Do you even know the consequences of war? You know that innocent people are killed and Iran is destroyed!!!" Many Iranians still have vivid memories of the 1980-88 war with Iraq that destroyed cities and left hundreds of thousands dead on both sides. Some posted images of death and destruction -- some of them graphic -- to warn of a conflict. Others recalled soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq War by posting photos of headstones alongside the hashtag #no_to_war and #NoWarWithIran in Persian and English. "Tomorrow's generation will never forgive the hawks and warmongers of today," Tehran-based journalist Masud Bastany wrote alongside a photo of a child injured during the war with Iraq and a graphic urging "No war with Iran." "Four years ago, we celebrated the nuclear deal, hoping for a better future," a mother of two wrote on Facebook from the Iranian capital. "But now we're suffering under sanctions and rising prices while worrying about another war." She added: "I don't want my children to experience a war." In the northeastern Iranian city of Neyshabur on May 10, Iranian Culture Minister Mohammad Bathaei reportedly suggested that millions of Iranians students were ready to die for their country. "We now have 14 million students who, if necessary, are ready to sacrifice themselves," Bathaei was quoted as saying. The comment led to criticism, including condemnation by the Tehran-based Society for the Protection of Children, which said that officials should not presume to speak for millions of young people. During the war with Iraq, Iran sent thousands of child soldiers as volunteers to the front lines, including to heavily mined areas. More recently, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has recruited Afghan immigrant children as young as 14 to fight in Syria. There were reports of attacks on four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, with unnamed U.S. officials saying that Iran is a suspect without publicly offering any evidence. Iran recently announced that it was scaling down on some of its commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal that was abandoned last year by the Trump administration. But Trump has dismissed as "fake news" a May 13 report by The New York Times suggesting that the White House was reviewing plans to possibly deploy up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East if Iran attacked U.S. forces or accelerated work on its nuclear program. BAKU -- A court in Azerbaijan has sentenced an arsonist to life in prison for starting a fire at a state-run drug rehabilitation clinic that killed 25 people in March 2018. The Baku Court for Serious Crimes on May 15 convicted and sentenced Mahammad Mammadov on the charges of intentionally starting the fire. The 65-year-old Mammadov was a patient at the center and was being treated for alcoholism. The court found that Mammadov started the fire in an attempt to commit suicide, but survived. However, the fire quickly spread through the building while other patients were locked in their sleeping quarters. Two former officials of the center were found guilty of negligence and violating fire safety regulations. They were sentenced to prison terms of three-and-a-half years and four years. A third former official received a suspended sentence. The fire gutted a single-story wooden building at the Republican Narcological Dispensary in Baku's Xatay district, where medicated patients had been locked inside for the night. MINSK -- Belarusian authorities have released from custody an Iranian man who has converted to Orthodox Christianity and is wanted by Tehran for alleged murder. However, the Department for Citizenship and Migration ruled on May 14 that Mehrdad Jamshidian must leave Belarus within three months. Jamshidian has lived in Belarus since 1993. He has spent nearly a year in detention awaiting deportation to Iran on grounds that he had violated Belarus's migration laws. However, a court on May 14 canceled the department's order for Jamshidian to be deported to Iran where he could face the death penalty on charges of apostasy because of his renunciation of Islam to become a Christian. The UN Committee on Human Rights said in 2017 that Jamshidian would be at risk of torture and the death penalty, with no guarantee of a fair trial, if he were transferred into Iranian custody. The Minsk-based rights group Human Constanta says Jamshidian does not have the resources to move his family to another country because he is currently unemployed. Jamshidian's family says he suffered a heart attack while in custody and that his Belarusian wife, with whom he has three children, does not work because she is recovering from cancer surgery. The couple's two daughters are employed, but their wages are not enough to relocate the family to another country in such a short period of time, Human Constanta says. Jamshidian's Iranian passport expired in 2016 and he did not apply for a new one out of fear of being punished by the authorities in Iran. Belarus rejected multiple requests from Jamshidian for political asylum and protection since 2013. Without a new passport, he has been unable to apply for legal residence in Belarus since 2016. Jamshidian converted to Christianity in 2002 while living in Belarus, a fact that apparently only became known to Iranian authorities years later. The renunciation of Islam is a crime punishable by death in Iran. Tehran has insisted Jamshidian faces no repercussions due to his religion. On April 29, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom listed Iran among 16 "countries of particular concern" for engaging in or tolerating "systemic, ongoing, egregious violations" of religious freedom. Others on that list include Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Burma, China, North Korea, and Syria. The U.S. State Department gave the designation to Iran in November 2018. Jamshidian was placed on Interpol's wanted list in 2012 at Tehran's request for allegedly murdering his mother and brother during a visit to Iran. Jamshidian says he was in Belarus at the time of the murders. He also claims his relatives do not consider him a suspect. He was arrested twice in Belarus on the Interpol warrant, in 2012 and 2013. But Belarus rejected Iran's requests for his extradition because of what they said was insufficient evidence presented by the Iranian authorities. Nevertheless, Belarusian authorities in late 2013 ordered Jamshidian's deportation. That resulted in his being detained twice for long periods of time between 2013 and 2016 before he was eventually released due to extenuating circumstances. BRUSSELS -- The European Commission has adopted a new Central Asia strategy with the aim of creating what it calls "a stronger, modern, and nonexclusive partnership" with former Soviet republics in Central Asia that are "willing and able" to improve relations. The 16-page document spells out the general themes of what the European Commission wants to achieve in the coming years with the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The strategy, which lacks details on concrete policies, updates a similar strategy paper from 2007. It states that "while respecting the aspirations and interests of each of its Central Asian partners, as well as maintaining the need to differentiate between specific country situations, the EU will seek to deepen its engagement with those Central Asian countries willing and able to intensify relations." The Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (EPCAs) that Brussels signed with Kazakhstan at the end of 2015 will remain "a cornerstone" of Brussels' engagement in the region, the document says. Brussels is currently negotiating similar agreements with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The strategy document also says the EU "will work to address structural constraints on intraregional trade and investment, support remaining Central Asian states' accession to the World Trade Organization, and promote sustainable connectivity." Support for human rights and civil society is also covered in the strategy document. It pledges that "the EU will continue to promote respect for human rights in compliance with international standards, with a focus on freedom of expression (including media pluralism), freedom of association, women's rights, children's rights, the rights of minorities and fight against discrimination, and prevention and eradication of torture." It says the EU "will promote an enabling legal and political environment for civil society that allows human rights defenders, journalists and independent trade unionists and employers' organizations to operate freely and safely. It will encourage dialogue and cooperation between civil society and administrations at all levels." One concrete pledge in this area is to set up a dedicated dialogue on labor standards, business, and human rights and to "make expertise available to the countries wishing to make the necessary changes to their legislation and administrative systems and to strengthen their independent oversight institutions." Other issues covered by the strategy document include the goal of organizing more high-level visits to the region and to assess the possibility of building a Trans-Caspian Pipeline beneath the Caspian Sea that links Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels Ten countries, including Belarus and Serbia, have qualified for the final of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, the annual europop songfest that draws tens of millions of viewers from around the globe. Performers from 17 countries took part in the first semifinal on May 14 with Australia, Iceland, Greece, Belarus, Serbia, Cyprus, Estonia, Czech Republic, San Marino, and Slovenia qualifying for the finals. Contestants from Montenegro, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Georgia, Portugal, and Belgium crashed out. The second semifinal on May 16 will vault another 10 countries to the final round, which will be held on May 18 in Tel Aviv. Five core European countries and host nation Israel bypass the semifinal rounds, so a total of 26 acts will compete to be crowned Europe's best pop act in the 64th year of the annual extravaganza. Eurovision was first held in 1956 with the aim of uniting Europe after World War II. Today it has a combined global audience of around 200 million people and has even launched the careers for a few of its winners, most notably ABBA and Celine Dion. Viewers and professional juries in all 41 participating countries will pick the winner, with the televoting and juries each representing 50 percent of the outcome. No country can vote for its own contestant. Based on reporting by AP and Eurovision.tv BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan's former health minister, Dinara Sagynbaeva, has been detained for questioning about the early release from prison in 2013 of one of Kyrgyzstan's most notorious crime bosses, Aziz Batukaev. In a May 15 statement, the Interior Ministry said Sagynbaeva "was placed in pretrial detention" on suspicion in involvement in Batukaev's "illegal early release." Sagynbaeva served as health minister when Batukaev was granted his early release after being diagnosed with leukemia in 2013. His diagnosis was later found to have been falsified. According to the Interior Ministry, several other unnamed former Kyrgyz government officials have also been detained in the case. Batukaev's release in April 2013 caused a scandal that led to the resignation of then-Deputy Prime Minister Shamil Atakhanov and the firing of the country's ombudsman. Batukaev, an ethnic Chechen, was sentenced in 2006 to nearly 17 years in prison for his involvement in several serious crimes -- including the murders of a Kyrgyz lawmaker and an Interior Ministry official. After his release, Batukaev immediately left for Chechnya. KABUL -- The Afghan election authorities have announced the final results of the country's parliamentary polls in Kabul, seven months after the vote was held. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said late on May 14 that in Kabul Province, 24 men and nine women had won seats in the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament, the Wolesi Jirga. Ajmal Rahmani, a businessman, is leading the winners' list with more than 11,000 votes, according to the IEC. Voters in Afghanistan cast their ballots on October 20 last year to choose their representatives in the parliament's lower chamber. The polls were held after months of delay. The preliminary election results in Kabul were announced in January by the IEC, whose members were later fired and replaced for allegedly abusing their authority. The electoral officials were heavily criticized following the delayed parliamentary polls, which also were marred by inefficiencies that included absent electoral staff and missing voting materials. The May 14 announcement comes ahead of the country's presidential election now planned for September 28. The vote has been postponed twice to give the authorities more time to organize the ballot and fix the problems that occurred during the October elections. The presidential election was initially scheduled for April 20, then delayed until July 20. Britains Prime Minister Theresa May has said she is "deeply concerned" about the jailing in Iran of a British Council employee on espionage charges. "It's utterly shocking," May told parliament on May 15, saying the woman was working for a legitimate organization that was trying to promote better relations between countries. Iran's judiciary announced on May 13 that an unnamed Iranian woman who was in charge of the British Councils Iran desk had been convicted of spying and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The British Council later said it "sadly seems likely" that the woman was one of its Iranian employees, Aras Amiri, who was arrested in March 2018 while visiting her elderly grandmother in her home country. "We firmly refute the accusation levied against her," Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Britain's overseas cultural agency, said in a statement on May 14. Devane said Amiri had been "employed for five years in London to help greater appreciation of Iranian culture in Britain, for instance supporting translations of Iranian books into English." May told lawmakers that British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was "taking this issue up, the government will press the case and the concerns that have been raised." In 2009, Iran closed the British Council offices in Tehran in response to the launch in London of the BBC's Persian service. Based on reporting by Reuters The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged authorities in Iran to lift the suspension of the reformist weekly magazine Seda and stop harassing critical media outlets. "Iranian authorities must allow Seda to resume its operation immediately and cease any more attempts to censor the media," the New York-based media-freedom watchdog said in a statement on May 14, three days after an Iranian court ordered the indefinite suspension of the magazine. The Culture and Media Court did not fully explain its decision, but the hard-line daily Kayhan published an article criticizing Seda for echoing the "voice of [U.S. President Donald] Trump through the mouths of reformists," according to CPJ. The court ruling came after Seda published an article calling for "high-level engagement" between the United States and Iran, local media reported. The reports said the magazine's cover featured a U.S. aircraft-carrier fleet with the title "at the crossroads between war and peace." "Public and open debate about matters of security and foreign relations is of vital importance for the Iranian public," said CPJ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator Sherif Mansour. Seda's suspension comes amid growing tensions between the United States and Iran. Earlier this month, Washington announced the deployment of an aircraft-carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf to counter what officials called "clear indications" of Iranian threats to the interests of the United States or its allies in the region. Eight journalists were found to be imprisoned in Iran in direct relation to their work at the time of the CPJ's December 2018 prison census. BISHKEK -- The chairman of Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security (UKMK), Idris Kadyrkulov, has resigned under pressure amid widespread allegations of corruption. Kyrgyzstan's presidential press service said on May 15 that President Sooronbai Jeenbekov accepted Kadyrkulov resignation. Earlier in the day, Kadyrkulov said in a statement that he'd decided to resign to end rumors alleging that he was "interested in a certain result of investigations launched into purchase of blank biometric passports" from a foreign country by Kyrgyzstan's State Registration Service (MKK). In early February, the MKK announced that a Lithuanian company, Garsu Pasaulis, had won a tender on printing blank biometric passports for Kyrgyzstan. But in April, the results of the tender were canceled and the UKMK launched an investigation into alleged irregularities that bolstered the Lithuanian firm's bid. The MKK's chairwoman, Alina Shaikova, was fired and her two deputies were arrested in mid-April in the wake of the probe. Doubts about Kadyrkulov's objectivity in the ongoing investigation were sparked this week when Shaikova announced this week that Kadyrkulov had organized her meeting in December with representatives of a European company involved in printing state documents. On May 14, the UKMK confirmed that Kadyrkulov had organized the December meeting. But it said the gathering had nothing to do with the investigation into the passport scandal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he may meet U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a Group of 20 (G20) summit next month in Japan. Trump said on May 13 that he planned to meet Putin at the summit. Putin, speaking on May 15 at a joint news conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, said Russia was fully ready for normalizing relations with Washington as soon as domestic U.S. political conditions permit that. "We are open [to normalizing relations] but it is not about us, its about our American partners. As soon as they become ready for this, as soon as their internal political situation changes in a way that it is conducive for cooperation, we are ready," Putin said. "I hope that the conditions for the revival of Moscow-Washington ties will be created gradually, especially after the [U.S. special counsel Robert] Mueller report that confirmed that there was no collusion and Russia had never meddled in the [U.S.] election." Putin told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on May 14 that he hoped to "fully restore" ties between Moscow and Washington, and he thought that Trump genuinely wanted to do the same. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov later said Putin would be open to a new meeting with Trump if a formal proposal was made, but that Moscow had not yet received any formal request from the United States. Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and TASS Russia's embassy has protested the arrest of a Russian software developer who was extradited from Georgia and charged by U.S. authorities with trying to obtain user manuals and instructional materials for F-15 fighters jets. The Washington embassy issued its complaint on May 15 as Oleg Tishchenko pleaded not guilty to smuggling and conspiracy charges in a Utah federal court, according to news reports. Court documents showed that Tishchenko was charged in a sealed federal indictment issued in June 2016. Documents say Tishchenko posted messages in a Russian video game forum in 2011, saying he was looking for help in acquiring manuals for U.S. fighter jets. An unnamed Texas man shipped the manuals to him, according to court records. News reports said the Texas man was also indicted, but later had charges against him dropped. Court records also said Tishchenko wanted the manuals to help improve the designs he was making for the computer company he worked for, which makes flight simulators, among other things. Tishchenko later allegedly obtained manuals for other fighter jets, which he then sold on eBay to purchasers in "Cyprus, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, and Taiwan." In March 2019, Tishchenko traveled to Georgia to attend a dance festival. There, Georgian authorities arrested him and extradited him to the United States. In a message posted to Twitter, the Russian Embassy in Washington said it was unhappy with the arrest. "We are closely monitoring the situation with the arrest of Russian citizen O. M. Tishchenko, extradited from Georgia. There are clear signs that U.S. security agencies" framed him, the embassy said. A federal judge in Salt Lake City, Utah, set a August 19 trial date. With reporting by the Ogden Standard-Examiner WASHINGTON -- U.S. senators clashed with two top arms control officials over the fate of several major treaties with Russia, as President Donald Trump's administration has suspended compliance with one and is undecided about a second. The May 15 hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the question of arms control, and roiling relations between Moscow and Washington, among other issues. Senators pressed Andrea Thompson, the undersecretary of state for arms control, on whether Trump would seek to extend the New START treaty when it expires in 2021. She testified along with David Trachtenberg, one of the Defense Department's main arms control officials. The treaty, which put a ceiling on the number of ballistic missiles, warheads, and launchers possessed by the two nations, can be extended for five years if the two sides agree. "The administration has not made any decision on a potential extension of New START," she said. Robert Menendez, the ranking Senate Democrat on the committee, said he supported extending the agreement, but was visibly angry when Thompson appeared reluctant to answer if it was in the U.S. interest. "Im not asking Russia about our national defense. Im asking you," he said. Thompson also said that the U.S. administration had not made a final decision about whether to withdraw entirely from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. In February, the administration announced it was suspending compliance with the 1987 agreement, and had begun research into ground-launched weapons that would potentially violate the treaty. That would halt if, she said, Russia stopped its violations of the treaty. Moscow has denied those assertions. "This research and development is designed to be reversible, should Russia return to full and verifiable compliance before August 2," she said in prepared remarks. Meanwhile, in the Black Sea city of Sochi, Putin told reporters that Moscow was open to talks on extending New START. "Our fundamental New START treaty expires in 2021 and we have to decide if we want to prolong it or not. If [we want to] prolong it, it is necessary to start full-scale talks now," he said. Republican and Democratic senators have sponsored a bill to provide U.S. visas for Afghans who worked for American forces during the war in their country and whose lives are at risk due to that work. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen sponsored the May 15 bill with Republicans Thom Tillis, Roger Wicker and Cory Gardner and Democrats Jack Reed, Richard Blumenthal and Tim Kaine. The bill would provide 4,000 Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for the remainder of the federal fiscal year ending on September 30, and also try to identify reasons that have prevented Afghans from getting SIVs under previously passed legislation. Supporters of the measure said Washington must offer safe haven to Afghans who worked for U.S. forces in order to ensure local support. President Donald Trump's administration has cut by 60 percent the number of U.S. visas provided to Afghans who risked their lives assisting American forces, National Public Radio reported on May 1. Some 1,650 SIVs were approved last year, down from more than 4,000 in fiscal year 2017. Army General Austin Miller, commander of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, sent a letter to Shaheen backing the bill, calling the SIV program critical to success in Afghanistan. Based on reporting by Reuters and NPR YEKATERINBURG, Russia -- Thousands of demonstrators faced off with riot police in a third night of protests over a proposal to build a new Russian Orthodox church on the site of a popular park. The May 15 demonstrations in Yekaterinburg have focused on the planned church, which activists say would occupy one of the few remaining green spaces in the city, Russia's fourth largest. It's the latest example of public protests in Russia sparked not by Kremlin politics but by outrage over local municipal initiatives. Protesters chanted "Shame! Shame!" and "This is our city!" as they confronted helmeted riot police. Earlier, police and workers replaced chain-link fences surrounding the main part of the park with taller and more solid temporary walls. The mood has ranged from festive to tense over the past two days. Protesters have repeatedly pulled down the fencing, and at one point, threw parts of it into a nearby pond. There was no official estimate of the crowd, though it appeared at least 2,000 people had gathered after dark on May 15. Yelena Shmarova, an IT technician and Yekaterinburg native, told RFE/RL that she considered herself religious, but was against the proposed church, saying the city has enough already. She also said people dont trust the city government. "There are three green spaces in the city center and theyre taking one away," she said. RFE/RL's Russian Service said at least two dozen people have been detained since the demonstrations first erupted on May 13. Three people have hospitalized with minor injuries after scuffles with police. The actions were sparked by city authorities giving permission for church officials to build a replica of a cathedral that had been demolished in 1930 by Soviet leaders. Orthodox Church leaders say they need new churches to replace those destroyed during the communist era. Local activists have rejected the plan, saying there are many other places where a new church can be located. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the protesters on May 15 for what he called "unauthorized gatherings" as well as for pulling down fencing. Alongside hundreds opposed to the new church, a number of Orthodox activists also turned out, headed by Father Maksim Menyailo. One of them was Kirill Bubnov, a 19-year-old seminary student who said he supported the proposal to rebuild this particular church. He said the fears of the protesters, that there wouldn't be any green space, were misplaced. "There will be a wonderful square here, no one is taking it away," he told RFE/RL. On the first day of protests, demonstrators toppled the fence but were confronted by security guards hired by Russia's largest copper-producing company, which has offered financial support for the project. They were also confronted by several mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters apparently linked to the copper firm who were brought in to protect the site. Among the fighters was Ivan Shtyrkov, nicknamed the Ural Hulk -- a professional MMA fighter. In recent months, there have been number of national protests that have focused on issues like Kremlin-backed reforms to the pension system, and legislation to increase state control over the Internet. But there have also been public protests that have focused on localized issues. Residents of a Moscow region town last year had a series of violent clashes with police over a proposed new landfill for trash and garbage from Moscow itself. A similar protest was staged near the northern city of Arkhangelsk in February, where residents fought another proposal to have Moscow garbage transported to a local landfill. Yekaterinburg has also shown a streak of political independence in the past. Yevgeny Roizman resigned as city mayor in 2018 in protest at changes to the city charter that abolished the direct election of the mayor. With reporting by Current Time, RFE/RL's Russian Service, AP, AFP, and the BBC Overall, he said, more cases come up from what inspectors find on their own, rather than what people call in. Henrico officials said the penalty amount has remained untouched for nearly half a century and will bring the rates in line with that of other localities. Richmond, Norfolk and the counties of Hanover, Prince William and Albemarle each charge a maximum of $1,000 for initial zoning violations, according to Henrico officials. The change is part of a larger initiative to rehabilitate and improve the housing stock and commercial buildings in aging neighborhoods, with a particular focus on the Highland Springs neighborhood and Laburnum Avenue corridor in the countys east end. It was all discussed within the realm of us needing to improve properties, said Deputy County Manager Randy Silber. Those two areas are keeping our staff busy. We do code compliance countywide, but those are two focus areas. The idea for amending the zoning penalty ordinance was discussed in a county work session in January where other housing and zoning policies were weighed. A man was found shot to death on a South Richmond road Wednesday morning, police said. About 11:20 a.m., Richmond police received a report of a person shot in the 1100 block of Floral Avenue, which is near McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Arriving officers found the body of a man in the road. No other details were immediately available. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective M. Godwin at (804) 646-5533 or Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000. You can also contact Crime Stoppers by going to www.7801000.com or using the P3 Tips app for smartphones. All Crime Stoppers methods are anonymous. The occasionally baffling dialect spoken by Outer Banks natives along the North Carolina coast has made a list of The Top 50 Sexiest Accents in the country. Travel site Big 7 Travel says it compiled the list by asking its 1.5 million-member social audience about the sexiest and least sexy accents travelers have encountered. Hoi Toider, the accent spoken by a small amount of Outer Banks natives, came in at No. 35. Its an unusual brogue that sounds a bit Australian, a bit Irish and also a bit British, explained Big 7 Travel. The sexiest accent in the United States is a Texas drawl (Southern accent with a twist), said the site, while the least sexy is a Long Island, N.Y., accent. Two other Carolinas accents also made the list: The charming Appalachian accent spoken in parts of far western North Carolina was No. 40, and the Charleston, S.C., accent was No. 27. Typical of older Southern U.S. English, the Charleston accent is lyrical and low, but is likely dying out in younger generations, Big 7 says. Old Charleston charmers will say hoose instead of house and stey-it for state. A Stafford County fourth-grader recently was recognized as a hero by emergency responders for not only saving his mothers life, but also his younger brothers several days later. The first incident happened April 9, when Jennifer Payne of Stafford County met her two sons Jackson, 9, and Zachary, 6 at the bus stop to walk them home. It was not the normal routine for the mother, who had been resting at home because of a lifelong medical condition. Since birth, she has had a rare congenital heart disease. I knew that things were going downhill, and I had been taking it easy hoping to get in with a specialist at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, but I went up to the bus stop anyway, instead of having my neighbor get the kids, Payne said. I was having chest pains on the way back home from the bus. Payne told Jackson: You have to help get Mommy home, somethings not right. Jackson got his mother safely into the house, but on her way upstairs to lie down, she experienced massive chest pains and collapsed on the stairway, losing consciousness. And how do we know that? Because he himself filmed it. This wasnt caught on film by an anti-abortion activist or passerby. Sims filmed it all on purpose. Then, having done these things, having behaved this way and presumably, viewed this film, he released it with great fanfare, regaled himself for what he had done and asked people to send money to, in essence, support their shared views, values and cause. We must reflect on this. This is the extreme left acting out in public in exactly the manner they ascribe to conservatives: confrontational, intimidating, with police tactics, berating women, threatening the First Amendment. This stunning behavior premeditated, confrontational, abusive of the power of office, targeted toward women, contrived to gain political benefit occurred and has not been criticized by anyone on the left. No elected Democrat has come out and condemned Sims publicly. Think about that. This is not about anti-abortion and pro-abortion. This is about behavior that is so out of step, so out of line, so shocking to most of America but is allowed to occur without a word of disapproval from half the country. Dr. Thomas Holmes, a practicing surgeon who had perfected his method of embalming in the 1850s, approached President Lincoln after Ellsworths death and offered to embalm Ellsworths body for free. Lincoln acquiesced, and thousands of people flocked to view Ellsworths body lying in state in the East Room of the White House. The body remained there for several days, then was taken to New York City, where thousands more lined the streets to view the funeral cortege of this popular and well-connected man, the first Union casualty of the Civil War. Embalming the fallen dead took off; people clamored for the embalming and the return of their sons for burial at home, even if it meant severe financial hardship. Holmes alone reportedly embalmed 4,000 men over the course of the war at $100 per body. Opportunists, seeking to cash in, quickly set themselves up in business. Embalmings took place on the battlefield under makeshift tents, performed by nonprofessionals with little or no knowledge of anatomy, and results varied widely. Business was so good that the War Department was eventually forced to issue General Order 39, which stated that only properly certified embalmers could offer their services. The beginning of mortuary service as a profession had begun. The death of Abraham Lincoln State announces police security takeover of Solidaridad Playa del Carmen, Q.R. In a three-minute press conference, the governor of Quintana Roo announced the states take-over of security for the municipality of Solidaridad. State governor Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez made the announcement Tuesday that they have made the decision to assume control of the Solidaridad / Playa del Carmen police force. During his brief message, he said the decision came due to the inability of authorities to work as a team. He also warned that those who fail to comply with the instructions of the Secretary of State Security, Alberto Capella, will assume the consequences. Jesus Alberto Capella Ibarra and Governor Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez During his message, Governor Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez said I have made the decision to assume the command of the Public Safety and Municipal Transit of Solidaridad. This measure comes into force as of today May 14, 2019 with the intention of restoring public order and ensuring the safety of people. This centralized command has had results in other municipalities in favor of the security of our people and has significantly reduced the levels of corruption and collusion of authorities with criminal groups. I reiterate that we will continue working in a coordinated manner with the federal government to restore tranquility to the families of Quintana Roo. The centralized command and the National Guard are joined by a common focus which is the prevention of crime in Quintana Roo. This centralized approach is accented by measures already in place, aimed at fighting crime through the efficient use of technology such as cameras in colonies, principal streets and in security arches at the entrance and exit of roads along with police equipment, better salaries and the integration of the C5. This is all based on a strategy that includes everyone to work in unity. This decision, in favor of the families of Quintana Roo, will surely generate resistance among those interested in maintaining the current state of affairs in order to maintain a personal image due to the inability to work as a team. The preventive and transit police of the municipality of Solidaridad will comply with the orders and instructions transmitted to it through the secretary of public security of the state, since the beginning of this government, we have been clear that to fight crime we need to provide more and better opportunities to people. I reaffirm my governments commitment to act rigorously within the law and to continue our frontal struggle against the impunity and corruption that are the source of insecurity and violence. I am convinced that we will soon recover the peace and tranquility of our state, thank you very much. After the speech, the Secretary of Public Security of Quintana Roo, Jesus Alberto Capella Ibarra arrived at the municipal police headquarters of Solidaridad on Arco Vial to take control of the command and ensure police carry out their routines, which are now under the control of the state commissioner. Members of the Mexican navy were also onsite at the Playa del Carmen headquarters to ensure a peaceful transition. Mayor of Playa del Carmen, Laura Beristain Navarrete Shortly after the governors speech, the mayor of Playa del Carmen (municipal president of Solidaridad), Laura Beristain Navarrete, said that the decree issued by the state government to take charge of the municipal police is a coup detat against the autonomy of Solidaridad and an unconstitutional act. We are not going to allow the interests of a few to usurp constitutional functions sowing terror and pretending to assume functions that do not correspond to them, she said citing a violation of Article 115 of the Constitution which says that the command of the municipal preventive police belongs to the municipal president. Facts matter in fictionalized films about famous writers, but only as much as that word fictionalized can comfortably allow. In the cliche-prone realm of the biopic, its hard enough to make writers (or anybody else) talk, act and feel like plausibly authentic, dramatically viable human beings, pulled inward by their imaginations, pulled outward by love, or cataclysm. Good the recent Colette, for example is rare enough. Great Bennett Millers Capote is infinitely rarer. With a faint plop, Tolkien lands in the marshy middle ground of disappointment. Without seeing it, the J.R.R. Tolkien estate denounced the film about the Lord of the Rings creators early years as something they did not approve of, authorize or participate in. Therefore, the estates representatives said in a harrumph of a statement, the heirs do not endorse it or its content in any way. (The estates recent $250 million deal with Amazon, granting the rights to a Lord of the Rings prequel series, was a different story.) Preceded in 1937 by The Hobbit, Tolkiens Rings trilogy remains the benchmark for a brand of world-building high fantasy we see playing out, in its outlandish, brutal-underbelly extremes, in the farewell season of Game of Thrones. As an origin story, Tolkien has plenty going for it. Its freewheeling version of how John Ronald Reuel Tolkien found love early, with his fellow orphan Edith Bratt, and endured the horrors of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, offers ready-made drama. Nicholas Hoult portrays Tolkien, a Catholic; Lily Collins is Bratt, whose Protestant upbringing didnt go down well with Tolkiens guardian, Father Frances Morgan (Colm Meaney in a role more pinched than his disdainful expressions). Morgan blamed Bratt for distracting Tolkien from his studies, and after failing an Oxford entrance exam, disqualifying him from a scholarship, the priest forbade Tolkien from any contact with Bratt until he was 21. He had his friends, though. A fellowship of like-minded writers and idealists was forged when Tolkien, poet Geoffrey Bache Smith (Anthony Boyle) and two others joined forces while attending school in gray, grimy Birmingham. Screenwriters David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford imagine young Tolkien in 1916, at the Somme under fire, suffering from trench fever and envisioning massive, swirling dragons in the smoke and carnage. These are dragons from Tolkiens own literary future. Much of Tolkien is strictly boys club Neverland, as Tolkien and his male comrades debate their latest attempts at literary greatness. Well change the world, one says, through the power of art! Tolkien did just that, but Finnish director Dome Karukoski struggles to find a rhythm amid the welter of flashbacks. C.S. Lewis said it: Tolkien lived inside language, either English or the Elvish embroidery of his own devising . The movie seems peculiarly reticent about this crucial side of the writers personality. Too often, Tolkien lumbers up to its big moments, such as the preposterous climax involving the title character scrambling around the western front, calling out his schoolmates name. Fact or fiction isnt the issue. Either way it plays like hokum. For fans of Roanoke indie-rock export Eternal Summers, Nicole Yuns sweetly haunting voice is unmistakable. For her debut solo project, the sound is more like a me fronted Lemonheads, Yun said in advance publicity info. She celebrates the cassette release of Paper Suit in a Friday show at The Spot on Kirk. Eternal Summers remains together but has reduced its touring time in recent years. Yun, armed with a bag of influences including Jeff Buckley, Sean Lennon and Stone Roses, used some of the downtime for trips to New York City and Philadelphia to record Paper Suit, which gets a June 7 national release on vinyl via Eternal Summers former label, Kanine Records. Among her studio collaborators were drummer/engineer Julian Fader (Ava Luna), guitarist Doug Gillard (Guided by Voices) and multi-instrumentalist/engineer Rob Garcia (ex-Bleeding Rainbow). The record, featuring eight songs that clock in at more than 28 minutes combined, rolls by like a dream, with saxophone and acoustic piano, instruments rarely if ever heard on an Eternal Summers album, deployed in strategic spots. At The Spot, Yun will front a trio with Shane Johnson on bass and Jordan McLamb on drums. In an email conversation, she wrote that she plans to tour a little here and there this summer with it. Meanwhile, Eternal Summers is holding to its own reduced touring schedule, she wrote. Her band co-founder, Daniel Cundiff, is fronting his own project, The Concerns, which in April released its debut album, County Blue. There will be more solo stuff for sure, Yun wrote of her future direction, but I see the projects as parallel and ES is still working on new stuff. 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. Ive been around many domesticated animals all my life. A few dogs I owned seemed smarter than some people I knew. But no prior pet comes close to the insightful intelligence of my indoors feral cat, Baby. She is keenly aware if my emotional state gets off-kilter and quickly responds with her head rubbing along my leg, bringing her favorite toy for us to play with or meowing loudly at me. These and other seemingly diversionary tactics are too timely in their display to be merely random animal behavior. If I ask Baby to do something, she will do it, eventually, in her time span, not mine. I think when Baby acts on her awareness of me yelling or feeling sad or otherwise not up to par, she is exhibiting an instinctual need to communicate her concern for me. More importantly, these attempts at trying to calm me down work. The other day while reading the newspaper, I started ranting over some political commentary. Baby started meowing loudly, nearly getting in my face to do so. I couldnt help but laugh at this comical display of Babys attention, for she was reminding me of what H.L. Mencken once said about newspapers being a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. T. Michael Maher, a reader in Roanoke County Roanoke police are searching for a second suspect in a Sunday shooting downtown. Tyriek Jordan, 30, of Patterson, New Jersey, is wanted on one count of malicious wounding, police spokeswoman Caitlyn Cline said Wednesday. Police had previously arrested Javoun Shamire Jordan, 29, in the shooting. He is charged with malicious wounding. He turned himself into police on Tuesday and was being held at the Roanoke City Jail, Cline said. Police are asking the publics help to locate Tyriek Jordan. Cline said she couldnt reveal more information when asked if the suspects are related and how exactly both were believed to have been involved. Anyone with information can contact 344-8500 or via text at 274637 beginning with the phrase RoanokePD. 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. Patrick Henry High Principal Kathy Duncan is leaving the position to return to her previous job with the school system. The move prompted some family members of Roanoke students to address the Roanoke School Board on Tuesday on the topic of personnel changes. Duncan notified parents and guardians of her decision through a letter dated May 9. It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that I have chosen to leave the position of principal at Patrick Henry High School, Duncan wrote. I have not come to this decision easily, as I love the students, teachers and staff at PH. Beginning July 1, Duncan will begin serving as principal of the Roanoke Technical Education Center and director of career and technical education roles she held from 2009 to 2018. Eric Lear is currently serving the posts on an interim basis. Duncan wrote that the move was necessary because her 91-year-old mother has an illness and her condition continues to deteriorate. This progression will require more attention. It breaks my heart, but I must put my family first, Duncan wrote. Serving as principal at Patrick Henry has been a highlight of her 20-year career, Duncan wrote, adding shes thrilled shell be able to continue to serve and mentor the students of Patrick Henry. Duncan was first an interim principal for Patrick Henry beginning in March 2018 following former Principal Joe Jablonskis move to central office. The Roanoke School Board named Duncan as the permanent hire two months later. Angie Covington, a parent of Roanoke students, told the board she wishes Duncan the best and is glad she was allowed to return to her previous position. But Covington said she has concerns about leadership moving forward, and asked if public meetings would be held to gather community input on the next hire. Covington and another parent, Sarah Hamm, said theyd support Jablonski returning to the position. Parent Melinda Froelicher and Leslie Eaken, a grandmother and aunt of Roanoke students, told the board theyre worried about the effect staff and administrative turnover can have on students. The school board followed its policy of not responding to comments from the speakers during the meeting. After the board approved the personnel list, Superintendent Rita Bishop announced the hiring of four new administrators. Bradley Jenkins was named principal at Woodrow Wilson Middle School. Jenkins is an assistant principal for Patrick Henry High School and was previously an administrator at William Fleming High School. Jonathan Rosser, an assistant principal at Hurt Park Elementary, will serve as assistant principal for Lucy Addison Middle School. Johnay Lee, a special education coordinator, will also serve as an assistant principal at Lucy Addison Middle School. Elizabeth Garst, will move from teacher to assistant principal at Forest Park Academy. The changes will take effect July 1. BLACKSBURG Sarah Hogan and Kirstin Wolf fight a lot. Theyve gotten physical multiple times a day almost every day this year. The pair trade kicks, punches and have been known to slash at each other with knives. But, the two are great friends. In fact, the Virginia Tech performing arts students share a bond theyll carry with them for the rest of their lives: theyre partners in stage combat. Theres no thought, in stage combat acting, Wolf said. It helps to just get out of your body and have a sense of release, which helps you be a better actor in all ways. Hogan and Wolf are part of a group of Virginia Tech students that are now certified in stage combat for knife and hand-to-hand combat by the Society of American Fight Directors after recently passing a rigorously judged acting exam. Its an important certification for aspiring actors. The Tech students have been trained by Cara Rawlings, a movement, acting and stage combat professor in the universitys School of Performing Arts. Rawlings choreographed and helped students perform 11 fights in the recent stage combat exam adjudicated by fight master Scot Mann. It is exceptional that all of them passed, Rawlings said. Thats not a given at all. Rawlings, who has taught the class since 2008, has never had a student fail the stage combat exam. Shes one of just 162 Society of American Fight Directors certified teachers, according to the organizations site. This type of acting requires special attention to movement and safety. Students need to treat weapons as if theyre real and take special care not to injure themselves and their partners. The training is tough, Rawlings students said. It needs constant honing until students have committed it to muscle memory. Hogan and Wolf estimated theyd practiced their choreographed knife fight from the play Living Dead in Denmark hundreds of times. You want to get to the point where you can lose control and just do the fight, Hogan said. Their classmates Jessica Jordan and Jackson Tindall described a similar process as they prepped their fight scene, a mugging-turned-knife-fight from the play Eyes for Consuela. The pair rarely had free time as they practiced their combat scene. By the time they performed it in their final class of the semester last week, they had the action down. They also had created the belief that they were really hurting each other. As they shouted during the fight, their classmates cringed. And when Jordan delivered a stab to Tindall the room was filled with nervous anticipation. You want the audience to be terrified that youll hurt someone, Jordan said. You want people to feel uncomfortable. And you want to engage in combat with people who youre friends with, Tindall said. I feel most comfortable when I have my friends fighting with me, he said. I trust Jess enough to know if we mess something up she wont hurt me. Chemistry is key. Actors need to aim for lots of emotion in stage combat, Rawlings said. Fights are what happen in performance when dialogue simply wont do. Stage combat is performing in extreme circumstances, Rawlings said. Characters fight when they can no longer talk. Actors need to practice with things that are high stakes to improve. Passing their tests was stressful, the students said. They spent a Saturday afternoon engaged in combat and had gone through multiple dress rehearsals in advance. A full day that starts in the early morning and ends late at night is normal for performing arts students, they said. But the lengthy training brings out the best in actors, Wolf said. The graduating senior and aspiring actor credited her stage combat training with improving her acting abilities across the board. Its unlocked things in me, Wolf said. As a performer I can just fight and scream. Its really fun to be someone else. LEXINGTON Annika Tice woke up to see the stark buildings of the Virginia Military Institute. She was a senior at Chatham Hall in Pittsylvania County and was supposed to be on a college visit to next-door Washington and Lee University, but the bus driver took a wrong turn. The students on the bus started yelling they were in the wrong place and the driver turned toward Washington and Lees campus. But for the rest of the tour, Tice wondered about the tall tan-colored barracks she first woke up to see outside her window. She went home to Java in Pittsylvania County that day and told her mother she wanted to learn more about VMI. The two later returned and walked around the nearly empty post just before Thanksgiving break. When they got back in the car, her mother turned to her crying and said, Youre going to go here, I just feel it. Tice said she doesnt know how her mother knew, but she was right. On Thursday, Tice is graduating from VMI with majors in English and French, and she was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant on Wednesday. Tice, 22, had a storied career at the institute she was the first woman elected to VMIs honor court and was the first female cadet in the schools history to receive a Fulbright award. In October, she heads to the Ivory Coast to teach English and develop curriculum with the U.S. Embassy. Tice matriculated into VMI four years ago after attending the all-girls school, Chatham Hall. She was one of just a few dozen women on campus. The first year, known as the rat line, is notoriously difficult for new cadets. Tice said it was one of the hardest things shes ever been through, but it set her up for success later. After that first year, I think you realize theres really nothing you cant do, Tice said. And everything in the next three years doesnt seem anything close to what you had to endure. During her second year, Tices class elected her to the honor court, which is a group of students who enforce and educate their peers about the honor code: A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. She was the first female cadet to be elected to the position since women were admitted to the institute in 1997. Tice first served as an assistant prosecutor, where she determined whether students broke the honor code and the consequences. Having a job like that requires a lot of humility, Tice said. It can be draining because these are my peers, I know almost everyone, and youre forced to make some tough decisions. She eventually worked her way to vice president of education this year, which focuses on teaching cadets the value of the honor code. Her friend and fellow graduate, Nathan Mumford, said Tice made a huge difference on VMIs honor court by educating not just cadets, but the larger community about what it means to be a student at the institute. She started working with the public relations office to make sure the honor code is a part of the schools message to the larger community and to high school students who learn about VMI. She really took a step forward in advancing how our system is seen by the court, Mumford said. Shes taken it on herself to make sure that everybody from the person that first walks into that barracks to the person graduating understands how the honor system works. After graduation, Tice will defer her commission into the Army to teach English on the Ivory Coast with a Fulbright award. Tice is the sixth VMI cadet and the first female cadet ever to receive a Fulbright. The last cadet to receive a Fulbright award was in 2001. Tice said she applied for the award to push herself further and get an international experience before starting her career in the Army. She said she has always wanted to teach and the Ivory Coast fit perfectly with that goal and her study of French. While there, Tice will help develop curriculum for adults learning English and will also be developing cultural programs through the U.S. Embassy that focus on U.S. culture, business and entrepreneurship. She will leave for Africa in October and return the following July. Then, she will go to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, for officers training. After finishing, 2nd Lt. Tice will report to her first duty station and serve in the Adjutant Generals Corps. I think a lot of the pressures that we get from college is that you choose your major and thats your specialization, Tice said. But I feel like with life you can do anything you really want. You dont have to stick on one pathway and we should really keep our minds open. Thats what Im trying my best to do and what I think carried me through here. 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. INDEPENDENCE About 75 percent of the people in Grayson County lack access to quality broadband. Even for some connected to broadband, their internet speed is so slow that people in the rural county jokingly describe it as advanced dial-up. The county set a goal three years ago to provide broadband access to all of its residents who want it. Soon, that ambitious goal one that rural communities all over the country are struggling to achieve will become a reality. Grayson County is going to go from being one of the least-connected counties in the commonwealth of Virginia to having significant high-speed broadband access, said Del. Israel OQuinn, R-Washington, who also represents Grayson County. Gov. Ralph Northam signed legislation in March that will allow Virginias two largest electric utilities Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Co. to provide the broadband infrastructure. The legislation from OQuinn goes into effect in July, when a three-year pilot program will begin, with Grayson County the first locality to participate. Northam identified expanding broadband coverage to all Virginians within a decade as one of his priorities as governor. His administration, including his chief broadband officer, worked closely on the legislation. I dont want any part of Virginia to be disconnected, Northam said. I want everyone in our great commonwealth, no matter who you are or where youre from, to have access to opportunity. And in the 21st century, broadband is a requirement for opportunity. Northam visited the town of Independence on Wednesday for a ceremonial signing of the bill and praised the Southwest Virginia lawmakers for their creative thinking to address rural issues. One of the things I have always recognized coming from rural Virginia is we always hear, Well Im from rural Virginia, but what we need to focus on is for people to say, I live in rural Virginia, that is where I raise my family and work and enjoy the quality of life we have. So we all need to work together to lift rural Virginia, Northam said. About 10% of Virginians dont have access to high-speed internet. I wont allow rural Virginia to be left behind in the 21st century, Northam said. Its easier for internet providers to make a profit in urban areas, where customers are concentrated. But in rural areas, where terrain can pose a challenge and residents are spread out, it costs more to provide high-speed internet. OQuinn proposed House Bill 2691 as a way to help rural areas. Appalachian Power and Dominion are in the process of modernizing as part of the Grid Transformation and Security Act of 2018. They are laying fiber-optic cable across Virginia to bring broadband to electric substations. Through this pilot project, the electric utilities will expand middle mile broadband coverage, which is the infrastructure that connects the networks and core routers on the internet to local service providers. They will add extra fiber to rural substations in addition to the fiber theyre already installing. The electric utilities wont be providing high-speed internet into residents homes . They will lease the extra broadband capacity to internet providers, which will provide the last mile to connect to businesses and residences. Grayson County will use GigaBeam Networks in Bluefield as its internet provider for the project. Appalachian Power will serve as the electric utility. The pilot project is open to all of Virginia, but its focused on rural areas that are unserved or underserved by broadband. To participate in the program, electric utilities must apply to the State Corporation Commission, which regulates Virginias utilities, specifying the service locality and internet provider. The legislation allows each utility to spend up to $60 million annually on the pilot program. The companies can recover that money from their ratepayers. Chris Beam, president of Appalachian Power, said revenue the electric utilities will generate from leasing the fiber likely will result in lower electric bills over time. He estimated ratepayers could end up saving about $150 million over the next three years. Its a very clever solution to a problem thats been around for a long time, Beam said. Officials in South Carolina and West Virginia already have reached out to discuss how to replicate a similar program in their states. For once were going to be state and national leaders, and others are going to be looking to Grayson County for what we did here, rather than us being an afterthought and trying to catch up with what everyone else is doing, said Bill Shepley, Grayson Countys administrator. This new effort addresses a crucial piece of the puzzle that Southwest Virginia lawmakers are working on to improve the region. Were way past the point where broadband is a simple luxury, OQuinn said. Its as much a necessity these days as electricity. The region is trying to attract businesses to the area, but deals go bust because of a lack of high-speed internet. State Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell, and Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, got legislation signed into law this past session that would eliminate a barrier allowing Virginians to use telemedicine on a national basis. This is helpful to people in the Southwest region, where theres a shortage of doctors and people cant afford to pay for doctor visits. But a quality internet connection is important for this service to be effective. With no internet at home, children have to seek other locations to do their homework. People move out of the region in search of a better quality of living. As legislators, a lot of times we find ourselves in the position of working on aspirational bills. We hope that what we pass will one day help someone somewhere with something. Youre really kind of making your best faith effort to make something good happen one day down the road, OQuinn said. This piece of legislation is different. Its going to have a major impact on broadband access. 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. CHRISTIANSBURG This week the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors discussed giving itself a pay raise for the first time in more than a decade. Board Vice Chairwoman April DeMotts initiated the discussion at Mondays regular meeting by listing off supervisor pay from comparable localities in Virginia. Hanover County, with 107,357 residents, pays its supervisors $27,061 a year, and its chairman makes $29,061, according to DeMotts. Albemarle County, which has a population of 108,639, pays supervisors $16,590 and its chairman $18,390, she said. Its interesting how these salaries all over the place, DeMotts said. But really I wanted to open the floor for conversation, to see if this is something we were interested in moving forward. She didnt propose a specific increase for Montgomery County, and the board took no vote on the matter. Supervisors are expected to discuss the raises again at their May 28 meeting, according to county spokeswoman Jennifer Harris. Montgomery County supervisors last approved a raise for themselves in January 2006, when their annual salary rose by $2,000 to the current $11,000. The chairman and vice chairwoman, respectively receive additional supplements of $1,800 and $1,200. While they said that money is not their reason for serving, some supervisors argued that higher compensation is reasonable. Chris Tuck, who has served on the board since 2012, said the salary bump wouldnt affect him because hes not seeking re-election. He, however, said he understands the demands placed on supervisors. Tuck said stepping down as chairman, a position he held from 2016 until earlier this year, has freed up a lot of his time. He said as chairman he was required to attend more than 50 annual meetings, in addition to the bi-monthly supervisor meetings. Thats a lot of work and a lot of travel time, Tuck said. Many of those meetings are held on weekdays, he added, which means you have to take time off from work. But others were not convinced. Supervisor Steve Fijalkowski acknowledged that his job does require a lot of time, but the first-term official voiced doubt on raises. At this point and maybe its my rookie status I really dont feel like I see a need for a large increase, he said. County attorney Marty McMahon told the board it has two options for raising its salaries: Vote on a one-time dollar amount or approve a percentage increase up to a maximum of 5%. One-time, set-dollar raises can only be passed in election years, such as 2019, McMahon said. If supervisors approve a dollar increase this year, it would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. The board may approve percentage raises in any year, according to McMahon. Percent increases are not automatic and must be approved annually. 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. Four sculptures have been selected from 18 entries in the City of Radfords second outdoor sculpture competition. The exhibits theme, Locomotion: Art for All Seasons, centers around the importance of the river and rails to the citys development, and features artists from three states, including two from the New River Valley. Our 2016 exhibit at the Mary Draper Ingles Cultural Heritage Park in the west end proved so successful that we felt encouraged to place sculptures in other parts of the city, said Deborah Cooney, Radford tourism director. According to a national survey by the Americans for the Arts organization, 70 percent of Americans believe that the arts improve the image and identity of their communities. Cooney noted that towns and cities across the country are creating public art programs as part of their economic development strategies. Its a win-win situation when our cultural landscape not only inspires us but also contributes to the bottom line, she added. Winning submissions for the new exhibit include Rail by River by Radford artist Nikki Pynn; Hyperbolic Wind by South Carolina sculptor Bob Doster; Blue Planet by East Carolina University professor Hanna Jubran; and Waiting for the Train of Thought by Charlie Brouwer, retired Radford University professor and Floyd County resident. Two of the sculptures have been installed in highly visible locations on Tyler Avenue near Radford Universitys off-campus art museum and the entrance leading to the admissions office. The other two are located along the Main Street commercial district at Carsons Courtyard near the Radford Theatre and on the street in front of Glencoe Mansion, Museum & Gallery and the Radford Visitors Center. Jurors were Dr. Steve Arbury, director of the Radford University Art Museum system; and Susan Lockwood, local resident and award-winning photographer. The sculptures, made possible in part by a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, will be on loan until early 2020. For more information, email info@visitradford.com. Submitted by Deb Cooney Submitted by Deb Cooney July 4, 1931 May 10, 2019 John Ross DuBose, 87, of Roanoke, Va., went to be with his Lord on Friday, May 10, 2019. He was born on July 4, 1931, in Roanoke County to Dr. Roger H. DuBose and Lucy T. Ross DuBose. Ross was in the United States Navy as a young man and when he returned to civilian life, he got a job with the Commonwealth of Virginia as an ABC Investigator. Ross retired from that position. He was preceded in death by the love of his life, his wife, Nancy, to whom he was married to for 52 years; his parents; brother; stepson and stepdaughter. Ross is survived by two stepdaughters, Bonnie Wade (Ronnie) and Lynn Knight; six grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. He was a kind and loving man who will be missed by family and friends. We would like to thank all the wonderful nurses and doctors at the VA Medical Center for such good home care. Ross loved you all. A special thanks to his mail lady for being such a good friend to him; he really enjoyed your visits. His neighbors and friends were wonderful to him, checking on him, taking him food and most of all just stopping in to say hello. That would make his day. We can't thank you enough for your kindness. A private family service was requested by Mr. DuBose. Online condolences may be made at www.oakeys.com. By Jim Heatwole Heatwole is a retired banker who recently returned to Roanoke after 35 years working in Roanoke, Richmond and Charlotte. He is a 1972 graduate of Washington & Lee University. I read Alex Christensens recent commentary announcing his intention to ask our alma mater, Washington & Lee University, to drop Robert E. Lees name from the schools name in 2020 on the 150 year anniversary of Lees death and replace it with the word Libertas. (W&L should change its name, April 24 commentary.) His plan struck me as so superb and high-minded it left me breathless. What better way to part company with the gentleman who was the most consequential president in the schools history while serving only five years than to drop his name on the anniversary we would normally celebrate his accomplishments. In just five years Lee reorganized a failed college, revamped the curriculum, increased student enrollment and raised an endowment that secured its future forever. But enough of praise, we must change with the progressive times. I have a couple of suggestions for Mr. Christensen to really make his name change recommendation a sure winner with the universitys enlightened elite. On the day the name changes to Washington and Libertas all national alumni association chapters should hold simultaneous parties to introduce the new name. The common party theme could be Adios Marse Robert! In this way the university can get the greatest possible publicity bang for its buck. The second suggestion I have has to do with the schools motto, Non Incautus Futuri, meaning not unmindful of the future. This motto was actually the motto of the Lee family and adopted by the University after his death. Whoops! Thats gotta go too! I suggest Mr. Christensen change the university motto to complement his suggested name change. I recommend the new motto should be Non Incautus Futuri Politicus. With apologies to all Latin majors I loosely translate this to mean Not unmindful of Future Political Correctness. This new motto accomplishes two goals. It eliminates that last pesky vestige of Lee and at the same time announces to the world that the new Washington and Libertas University will in the future change any long standing traditions or values to conform to future popular political thinking. This should make Mr. Christensen the talk of all the Progressive salons. I offer these suggestions gratis and feel they will admirably complement his sublime plan to change the universitys name. By Robert Strong Strong is the Wilson Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University and is currently completing a book on the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Find more at strong.academic.wlu.edu. Impeachment is the burning question of the day, or at least its getting warmer in the midst of the kindling that Robert Muellers report has spread across the nations capital. Talk of removing Trump from the presidency inevitably leads to reflections about the last time we went down the impeachment road and ended up leaving Bill Clinton in the White House. In the late 1990s, there was a healthy economy, just as there is today. The public was disappointed by Clintons personal behavior but did not want him kicked out of office. In our own time, a majority of Americans hate the tweets and cringe whenever Trump is being Trump, but do not favor impeachment and removal. For both Trump and Clinton, the political dynamics are the same the House of Representatives in the hands of the opposition party, and a Senate with enough acquittal votes to stop any impeachment process that is not bipartisan. Are we gearing up for a rerun of the drama that consumed the nation in Bill Clintons second term? Maybe, but lets not rush to the conclusion that the two cases are identical. The facts in the Starr report supported an accusation that Bill Clinton obstructed justice. He and Monica Lewinsky agreed to deny their affair in the depositions that were being taken in connection with the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. The presidents personal assistant retrieved gifts he had given to Monica so they couldnt be used as evidence of the relationship. Clinton posed rhetorical questions to his secretary Betty Currie: We [Monica and the president] were never really alone, right? That sounded like witness tampering. The evidence for obstruction of justice in the Mueller report is more voluminous and more compelling than the evidence that Starr collected. Any reasonable reader of the report will see that Donald Trump tried to shut down, control and falsely discredit the Mueller investigation. Clintons obstructive acts did not involve abuse of presidential powers to end the Jones suit or the Starr investigation. Clinton complained about both, but didnt fight an attorney general, fire an FBI director, or instruct his subordinates to knowingly tell lies. Clinton, himself, told a whopper: I did not have sexual relations with that woman... Later he gave tortured testimony in which he tried to be both truthful, and deceptive, within the parameters of a convoluted legal definition of sexual relations. Clinton knew it was wrong to lie under oath and tried not to. He failed and faced a second impeachment count for perjury. Trump was never put under oath. His lawyers worried about a perjury trap, but any substantive conversation with Trump would be likely to involve perjury. Trump is congenitally unable to tell the truth. He tells big and small lies all the time, about everything. When he gets caught, as the Mueller report clearly catches him, he tells more lies. Clintons lying was said to be slick. Trumps lying is sick. And someday it will have consequences. That could happen in a formal impeachment process that tested the discipline of a White House staff and president who, thus far, have shown very little. A Trump impeachment might follow a different path for another reason. Starrs report was so detailed, and so lurid, that there was nothing new or interesting that could be learned by Congress or revealed in an impeachment trial. Muellers work is balanced, bland and blacked out on a number of pages. Hearings that flesh out the Mueller report could be lively more like Nixons impeachment than Clintons with dramatic testimony and new evidence in the final stages of the process. Public opinion could turn. Moreover, Trump has outstanding investigations in multiple jurisdictions and journalists digging in a motherlode of shady dealings that hit a new vein nearly every week. An impeachment process against Trump could produce surprises. There is one more difference between the two cases. Neither Clinton nor Trump obstructed justice in order to hide an underlying crime. Clinton was hiding marital infidelity, and everyone understood why. Trumps motives are harder to explain. If there was no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, why was Trump so afraid of the Mueller investigation? Why did he think it would end his presidency? And why, after Mueller cleared him on the most important charge, does Trump continue to rail against the angry Democrats who found him innocent of colluding with a foreign adversary? Trumps biggest problem in all the impeachment talk may not involve debates about whether or not he obstructed justice. Its the danger that he will inadvertently revive and reinvigorate investigations of his truly strange behavior regarding everything involving Russia. A CUFFED detainee who kicked a police officer who was driving him along the M18 to custody causing the driver to lose control of the car has been warned he could be jailed. Brady Stoner (23), of Nelson Road, Maltby, kicked a police officer in the head from the back seat of a police car in September, Sheffield Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday. The assault caused the officer to lose control of the car and he had to pull into the hard shoulder to get assistance, Michelle Smith, prosecuting, told the court. She said Stoner had been cuffed and was sitting in the back of the car at the time. He was transported to custody in a van, said Ms Smith. At the custody suite, he further assaulted a PC Gillies by emptying his nostrils on to his leg and waist area. He also failed to give a breath test when required. Ms Smith said four incomplete breath samples were taken from Stoner. He refused to provide further samples, she said. Stoner refused to comment when he was interviewed by the police. He pleaded guilty to two charges of assaulting a police constable in the execution of his duty and one offence of failing to provide a specimen. District Judge Mr Paul Healey said: He [Stoner] is in real risk of an immediate prison sentence. An assault on any police officer is serious but kicking them in the head, while someones driving a police car on the motorway, is very serious. All options are going to have to be kept open. Stoner was given an interim disqualification from driving and was released on unconditional bail. He is next due to appear at Sheffield Magistrates Court on June 4. Jewelers of America announced postponement of 2022 GEM Awards Jewelers of America (JA), the national trade association for businesses serving the fine jewelry marketplace, and the GEM Awards Committee have announced the 20th annual GEM Awards, originally scheduled for Friday, January 14, 2022, have been... BlueRock Diamonds restricts operations at Kareevlei due to COVID-19 The management of BlueRock Diamonds decided to restrict operations at Kareevlei until the 3rd of January 2022 due to an outbreak of COVID-19 infections among personnel, the company said in an update announced on Wednesday. The MF Belgium sold diamonds and precious stones for 1.2 million euros More than 1.2 million euros were collected at an auction of diamonds and precious stones organized by FineShop, the center for the sale of movable property of the Belgian Ministry of Finance. UAE Economy Ministry tells gold refineries in country to prove gold is responsibly sourced The United Arab Emirates Economy Ministry has asked all gold refineries across the country to carry out audits that prove bullion deliveries are responsibly sourced, as per a report in Bloomberg Quint. Six Catholic dioceses across California, including Los Angeles and Orange, said Tuesday that they had joined together to create a compensation program that would be available to victims of clergy sexual abuse as an alternative to suing the church. Diocese officials said the fund would be open to all clergy sex abuse victims, including people living in the country illegally and those who are barred from filing lawsuits because the abuse occurred long ago and is beyond the statute of limitations. We have been providing pastoral care and financial support for victim-survivors here in the archdiocese for many years, Los Angeles Diocese Archbishop Jose Gomez wrote in a letter to members of the diocese. We will continue to do so. But we also understand that some victim-survivors are reluctant to come to the church for assistance. Our hope with this new program is to give these people a chance to seek redress and healing through an independent program. Advertisement In addition to Los Angeles and Orange, other dioceses taking part in the program are San Bernardino, San Diego, Fresno and Sacramento collectively covering more than 10 million Catholics, or about 80% of the states Catholics. Church officials said the compensation program would provide a non-adversarial process that protects victims privacy, unlike lawsuits. Victim-survivors do not need to have a lawyer to participate and there are no fees for participating, church officials said in a statement. Settlements for fully completed claims can be paid within 90 days. Diocese officials also noted that the church itself would have no control over the program, which will be independently administered by mediators Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, who run similar programs in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Colorado. The California program will be overseen by a board that includes former Gov. Gray Davis and Maria Contreras-Sweet, former administrator of the U.S. Small Business Assn. Details of the process for filing claims will be announced later. A website for the program is still under development. SNAP, an organization that advocates on behalf of victims of clergy sex abuse, issued a statement critical of the gesture, suggesting victims should carefully examine their rights. We believe that the best way to expose wrongdoing and enforce accountability is for crimes to be made public and for punishment and compensation to be meted out by courts, not the institutions that allowed the wrongdoing to happen in the first place, SNAP said. Survivors deserve a chance to have their day in court and shed light on their abuse, and that can only happen when statutes of limitations are reformed, civil windows are opened and bishops are held accountable in courts of law. Catholic officials and parents in Sri Lanka are hopeful that church-run schools will begin to reopen soon for the first time since last months devastating Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels. All of the island nations schools were set to reopen the day after the bombings following a two-week break, but they remained closed after the attacks, which killed more than 250 people and injured hundreds more. Government schools reopened last week, but many children stayed home, fearing another attack. Catholic schools, however, have stayed shut out worried that other Catholic properties could be targeted in further attacks. In a memo to Catholic institutions earlier this month, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, said he had information from a trusted foreign source that a famous church and a lay institution were to be attacked. The church confirmed that the memo, which first appeared on social media, was authentic. Advertisement On Sunday, the Catholic Church held the first regular Sunday Mass since the April 21 coordinated suicide bombings, amid tight security. Sunday services had been canceled the two previous weekends apprehensive of more attacks, leaving the faithful to hear Mass via live TV transmission from Ranjiths residence. Later Sunday, Ranjith gave Sri Lankas Catholic school administrators permission to reopen on an individual basis in coordination with local security officials. Rangika Perera, a teacher in a Catholic school where her daughter also studies, said reopening the schools and churches was the best way to demonstrate that Sri Lankas Catholics hadnt been defeated by terrorism. They want to deprive us in every way and we should not help them succeed by our fear, she said. The Rev. Ivan Perera, the priest in charge of Sri Lankas Catholic schools, said that Catholic school administrators have sent study packs to children by email with exercises on a variety of subjects, but that the toll has been more than academic. Priests and nuns working as counselors said Catholic school students are very traumatized and are very disturbed, a lot of fear in them, according to the Rev. Perera. It will take quite a bit of time for them to get back to normal attitudes. Its very unfortunate that at this age children should be so traumatized and be full of fear, he said, adding that when schools reopen, administrators will offer students psychological and spiritual help. The Easter attacks which were carried out by radicalized local Muslims and claimed by the Islamic State group targeted three churches: Sri Lankas famous St. Anthonys Shrine in Colombo, the capital; St. Sebastians Church in the seaside, majority-Catholic town of Negombo, outside Colombo; and the protestant Zion Church on Sri Lankas east coast. Three luxury hotels in Colombo the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury were also attacked. There are currently about 40 schools run by Sri Lankas Catholic Church, which owned hundreds of schools by the time the Buddhist-majority island gained independence from Britain in 1948. In the 1960s, the state nationalized hundreds of Catholic schools amid a post-independence wave of Sinhala Buddhist revivalism. According to the Rev. Perera, an estimated 10 to 15 Catholic school students died in the blasts, including eight girls from the same convent school in Negombo. The United Nations childrens fund said 45 children were killed in the six near-simultaneous suicide attacks, including tourists. Though Sri Lankan adults lived through at least part of the brutal, decades-long civil war that ended in 2009, in which rebels from Sri Lankas ethnic Tamil minority violently clashed with government forces, younger generations had never experienced bomb attacks or armed soldiers standing guard on street corners. For the past 10 years, there werent any of these things, said Anushka Wijeyeratne, a mother whose two children, ages 5 and 9, attend Catholic school. Everything is new to them the checkpoints and other things are absolutely new to them. As parents we have to go back to basics and rethink, we will have to worry about security. According to conservative U.N. estimates, some 100,000 people were killed in Sri Lankas civil war. Minority Catholics were not spared from the violence, but they were not targeted for their religious beliefs. Since the war ended, Sri Lanka experienced only a handful of small-scale incidents of communal violence before the Easter attacks. Cardinal Ranjith has been an outspoken critic of the government for failing to act upon near-specific intelligence from Sri Lankas neighbor India that provided details of the plot and the militants who were to be involved. Parents say they trust the churchs leadership more than the governments when it comes to the safety of their children. The government has failed and we dont have confidence in the government in that aspect, said Wijeyeratne. But, she added, How long are we going to sustain this sense of fear? Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. British Prime Minister Theresa May will try again next month to secure Parliaments backing for a Brexit deal so that the U.K. can leave the European Union this summer, Mays office said Tuesday. Downing Street said May intends to ask lawmakers to vote on a withdrawal agreement bill starting the week of June 3. Parliament has three times rejected the divorce deal May and the EU struck late last year, laying out the terms of Britains departure from the bloc. Brexit, long set for March 29, has been delayed until Oct. 31 while Britains politicians try to break the deadlock. Mays office said in a statement that if lawmakers passed the bill, the U.K. could still leave the EU before the summer Parliamentary recess, which is likely to start in late July. Advertisement But it is far from clear how the government plans to persuade a majority of lawmakers to back Mays EU divorce terms, since few legislators on either side of the Brexit divide seem prepared to change their positions. And approving the bill, which implements the terms of Britains departure, does not remove the need for Parliament to separately ratify the thrice-rejected EU withdrawal deal. The government calculates that if a majority of lawmakers can be persuaded to approve the legislation on Brexit terms, they will then back the deal as well. Ministers also hope that the process of debating and potentially amending the bill will help lawmakers reach a form of Brexit a majority can support. But that looks like a longshot. Mays Conservative government has held weeks of talks with the opposition Labour Party in an attempt to reach a compromise on some of the major sticking points, but so far without signs of much progress. The two sides do not agree on how close an economic relationship the U.K. should have with the EU after Brexit. Both May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are under strong pressure from their party members not to make concessions to their rivals. However, neither side wants to be the one to pull the plug on negotiations. May and Corbyn met for face-to-face talks Tuesday. Downing Street said the meeting was useful and constructive. Their representatives are set to continue the talks Wednesday. But Labour sounded pessimistic about the chances of a breakthrough. The party said in a statement Tuesday night that Corbyn expressed concerns to May about the prime ministers ability to deliver on any compromise agreement. Labour said Corbyn raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments. The party fears any promises from May could be undone by her successor. The prime minister is under immense pressure from Conservative lawmakers to quit because she failed to lead Britain out of the EU on schedule. May has said she will resign once a Brexit deal is approved and make way for a new leader to guide the U.K. through the next stage talks with the EU on future relations. Many Conservative lawmakers are pressing her to be more specific and to name a date for her departure. ___ Follow APs full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Polands prime minister on Wednesday condemned what he described as a xenophobic act of aggression on the countrys ambassador to Israel, who was spat at and verbally abused on a Tel Aviv street at a time of rising tensions between the two nations. Israeli officials expressed shock at the assault on Marek Magierowski on Tuesday afternoon and were investigating the incident. Israeli police said they had detained and released a 65-year-old man suspected of approaching the ambassador, who was sitting in his car in front of the Polish Embassy, and spitting at him. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the suspect remained under house arrest until Thursday and is not permitted to be in the area of the Polish Embassy for 30 days. The incident comes amid a bitter standoff between Poland and Israel over how to remember the Holocaust and over demands that Poland pay reparations for former Jewish properties that were seized by Nazi Germany during World War II and later nationalized by Polands communist regime. Advertisement Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari was summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw on Wednesday over the incident. Michal Dworczyk, the head of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieckis office, said the Polish government expects the perpetrator to be punished. Morawiecki expressed his concern at what he described as a racist attack. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated, Morawiecki said. The New York-based American Jewish Committee said it was stunned by the attack. Violence against a diplomat is totally unacceptable, CEO David Harris said, calling the attack outrageous. Harris stressed the role of dialogue as a way of addressing any disagreements and reinforcing the longstanding, strong, and mutually beneficial Israel-Poland relationship. The U.S. ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, tweeted her support for Magierowski, condemned the attack and expressed an expectation that the assailant would be brought to justice. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said the assault was being investigated and that we will update our Polish friends on what is found. Israel expresses its full sympathy with the Polish ambassador and shock at the attack, Nahshon said. This is a top priority to us, as we are fully committed to diplomats safety and security. Ties between the two countries became strained in January 2018 when Poland passed a law that criminalized blaming the Polish nation for the crimes of Nazi Germany during World War II. Polands conservative nationalist government described it as an effort to end linguistic formulations, such as Polish death camps, to refer to the death camps that Germans operated on occupied Polish territory during the war. However, many people in Israel felt it was an attempt by the Polish government to repress debate and scholarship looking at the cases of those Poles who helped the Nazis in killing Jews during the occupation, and even after the war ended. The law was softened but bad feelings have continued to simmer, with tensions coming to the surface from time to time. Earlier this week, the Polish government canceled a visit by an Israeli delegation, saying the Israeli government made last-minute changes that suggested it would focus on the issue of the restitution of former Jewish property. The Polish government insists that the matter is closed and that because it lost so much in the war it will pay nothing. ____ Heller reported from Jerusalem. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The U.S. on Wednesday ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands both suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region over still-unspecified threats that the Trump administration says are linked to Iran. Recent days have seen allegations of sabotage targeting oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a drone attack by Yemens Iranian-allied Houthi rebels, and the dispatch of U.S. warships and bombers to the region. At the root of this appears to be President Donald Trumps decision a year ago to pull the U.S. from Irans nuclear deal with world powers, embarking on a maximalist sanctions campaign against Tehran. In response, Irans supreme leader issued a veiled threat Tuesday, saying it wouldnt be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. The movement of diplomatic personnel is often done in times of conflict, but what is driving the decisions from the White House remains unclear. A high-ranking British general said there was no new threat from Iran or its regional proxies, something immediately rebutted by the U.S. militarys Central Command, which said its troops were on high alert, without elaborating. Advertisement Last week, U.S. officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. An alert on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said all nonessential, nonemergency U.S. government staff were ordered to leave Iraq right away under State Department orders. That includes those working at the U.S. Consulate in Irbil. The U.S. Consulate in Basra has been closed since September following a rocket attack blamed on Iranian-backed militias. The U.S. in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. Germanys military said it was suspending training of Iraqi soldiers due to the tensions, although there was no specific threat to its own troops in Iraq. Defense Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said Germany was orienting itself toward our partner countries though there are no concrete warnings of attacks against German targets. German Chancellor Angela Merkels spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer expressed concern over the tensions and said it welcomes any measure that is aimed at a peaceful solution. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said the German government has not reduced its embassy staff in Iraq or Iran. In the Netherlands, state broadcaster NOS said its 50-person military mission in Iraq was halted until further orders, quoting a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying he couldnt elaborate on the threats. It said the Dutch forces primarily train Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State militants. The remarks about Irans nuclear program by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came Tuesday night in Tehran at an iftar, the traditional dinner Muslims have when breaking their daily fast during Ramadan. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment on July 7 if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. Achieving 20% enrichment is the most difficult part, Khamenei said, according to the newspaper. The next steps are easier than this step. It was a telling remark from the supreme leader Iran is not known to have enriched beyond 20% previously and its unclear how far Tehran is willing to go in this process. Khamenei has final say on all matters of state in Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif, speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, said Iran was committed to an international nuclear deal but the escalating U.S. sanctions were unacceptable. On Tuesday, Yemens Iran-aligned Houthi rebels launched a coordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, Tehrans biggest rival in the region. It was the latest incident to shake global energy markets, as authorities allege oil tankers anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were targeted by sabotage. Benchmark Brent crude rose to $72 a barrel in trading Wednesday, an increase of over 1%. Yemens Houthi rebels, who are at war with Saudi Arabia and are believed by the West to receive weapons from Iran, said they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations. That included two pumping stations along its critical East-West Pipeline, which can carry nearly 5 million barrels of crude a day to the Red Sea. Anwar Gargash, the minister of foreign affairs for the United Arab Emirates, told reporters in Dubai that the Saudi-led coalition will retaliate hard for attacks on civilian targets, without elaborating. Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said it temporarily shut down the pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramcos oil and gas supplies were unaffected. An image from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that The Associated Press examined Wednesday shows Saudi Aramcos Pumping Station No. 8 outside of the town of al-Duadmi, 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of the kingdoms capital, Riyadh. The photo, taken after the attack, shows two black marks near where the East-West Pipeline passes by the facility marks that werent in images from Monday. The facility otherwise appeared intact, corroborating in part Saudi Arabias earlier comments. The website TankerTrackers.com, whose analysts monitor oil sales on the seas, first reported about the black marks. Details remain unclear around alleged acts of sabotage to four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, off the coast of the UAEs port of Fujairah. Satellite images seen by the AP from Colorado-based Maxar Technologies showed no visible damage to the vessels, and Gulf officials have refused to say who might be responsible. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from an unknown object, its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images of the Norwegian ship, which the company said was not in any danger of sinking, showed damage similar to what the firm described. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, has said the other three showed damage as well. Gargash said an investigation into the alleged ship sabotage would be completed in the coming days, with assistance from American and French investigators. He declined to directly blame Iran for the attack, though he repeatedly criticized Iran. We have been bullied by Iran, he said. We have seen aggressive Iranian action in the region. He added that U.S. sanctions had bit deeply into Iran and that a political solution was necessary. Asked what could be done to encourage one, Gargash quipped: I know they have President Trumps phone number. ___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Angela Charlton in Paris, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Sudans ruling generals and opposition leaders behind the protests that drove President Omar al-Bashir from power last month said Wednesday they have made significant progress in negotiations and have agreed on the length of the countrys transition period. The two sides, which have been at odds over the transfer of power to civilian rule and the extent of the militarys role in it, said the transition would last three years. The military ousted al-Bashir on April 11, after nearly four months of mass protests against his 30-year rule. But the demonstrators remained on the streets, demanding the military hand over power to civilian rule and have since been holding negotiations with the military council. Advertisement Activists said clashes flared up Wednesday between protesters and forces from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who attempted to remove barricades in a main street in Khartoum. The Sudanese Professionals Association said the RFS used batons and whips to disperse protesters. It said at least nine people were wounded. The Sudan Doctors Committee, which is part of SPA, said Wednesday night that at least 14 people, all of them young people, were wounded in the clashes, including seven from gunshots. Ahmed Rabie, a spokesman for the SPA, told AP that talks were suspended late Wednesday by the military council. He said the council has called for the removal of barricades and opening of the roads in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. The agreement announced Wednesday marks a significant step toward resolving the standoff between the military and the protesters and could help the Sudanese return to some sort of normalcy. In a joint press conference Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Yasser al-Atta, a member of the military council, said the two sides agreed to a three-year transition period. The priority for the first six months will be to get the various armed rebel groups across the country to agree to peace talks, he said. The protesters are represented by the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, a coalition of opposition groups led by the Sudanese Professionals Association, a union umbrella that has spearheaded the protests against al-Bashir since December. Al-Atta said the two sides also agreed on the makeup of a 300-member, all-civilian transitional legislative body. He said two thirds of this interim parliament will be made up of representatives of the protesters while the remaining third will be made up of parties that were not part of al-Bashirs regime. Whats now left on the negotiating table is the makeup of the sovereign council, a deal al-Atta said he hoped would be reached by the next day. Within less than 24 hours, there will be a complete deal, and the Sudanese people will celebrate of achieving the goals of their peaceful revolution, he said. The negotiations were disrupted by clashes with protesters on Monday that killed at least five people, including an army officer, and wounded more than 200. The violence erupted when some security forces, apparently loyal to al-Bashir, attacked the protesters sit-ins overnight, including the one in Khartoum outside the military headquarters. Madani Abbas, a negotiator for the protesters, said the military council would investigate the attacks. For his part, al-Bashir remains jailed in Khartoum and was charged this week with involvement in the killing of protesters and incitement to kill protesters during the uprising against his rule. The military has said it would not extradite him to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court has charged him with war crimes and genocide linked to the Darfur conflict in the 2000s. ___ Magdy reported from Cairo. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Tensions between the United States and Iran have soared in recent weeks, with Washington dispatching warships and bombers to the Persian Gulf, and Tehran threatening to resume higher uranium enrichment. The tensions come a year after President Donald Trump withdrew from Irans 2015 nuclear accord with world powers and restored crippling sanctions. A timeline of recent events: May 5: John Bolton, the White House national security adviser and a longtime Iran hawk, announces the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings, without providing details. He vows unrelenting force in response to any attack. ___ Advertisement May 8: Iran threatens to enrich its uranium stockpile closer to weapons-grade levels starting July 7 if world powers fail to negotiate new terms for its nuclear deal. The U.S. responds by imposing sanctions on Irans metals industry. ___ May 9: The European Union urges Iran to respect the nuclear deal and says it plans to continue trading with the country despite U.S. sanctions. Trump says he would like Irans leaders to call me. ___ May 10: The U.S. says it will move a Patriot missile battery into the Middle East to counter threats from Iran. ___ May 12: The United Arab Emirates says four commercial ships off its eastern coast were subjected to sabotage operations, just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets air false reports of explosions at a nearby Emirati port. ___ May 13: European foreign ministers urge the United States and Iran to show restraint, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo briefs his counterparts on the alleged threats from Iran. Trump warns that if Tehran does anything in the form of an attack they will suffer greatly. ___ May 14: Yemens Iran-aligned Houthi rebels launch a drone attack on Saudi Arabia, striking a major oil pipeline and taking it out of service. The New York Times reports the White House is reviewing military plans that could result in sending 120,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks American forces or steps up work on nuclear weapons. Trump says its fake news, but that he would absolutely be willing to send troops if necessary. Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says no one is seeking war, but that it wouldnt be difficult for Iran to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. A senior military officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group says theres been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. In a rare public rebuttal, U.S. Central Command says his remarks run counter to the identified credible threats. ___ May 15: The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad orders all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq immediately. The Netherlands and Germany say they are suspending their training of Iraqi forces. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. A husband arrested in Arizona on suspicion of concealing his wifes dead body was seen earlier on security video moving a womans naked body to his vehicle outside a Texas hotel, police said Tuesday. Previous footage showed the couple from Sand Springs, Oklahoma, walking into their room at the El Paso hotel on Sunday evening. The next morning, 70-year-old Rodney Puckett is seen using a luggage cart to move the body of 74-year-old Linda Puckett, said Sgt. Kristie Barnette, a police spokeswoman in Eloy, where Rodney Puckett was later arrested. Puckett told investigators he found his wife unresponsive on Monday and put her body in their vehicle before continuing an unplanned trip to California. Advertisement The cause of death hasnt been determined, but Barnette noted that Linda Puckett had signs of blunt-force trauma on her body. Its unclear why Rodney Puckett moved the body, she said. Its not known whether he has an attorney who could comment. Authorities in Arizona were alerted about Puckett after a drive-thru worker at a restaurant in Eloy, 64 miles (103 kilometers) southeast of downtown Phoenix, reported seeing a naked woman inside Pucketts vehicle. A detective responded and found Linda Pucketts body in the front seat, with her head on the floorboard and her feet near the headrest. Rodney Puckett was wearing only underwear. El Paso police spokesman Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said authorities there didnt receive any earlier reports of suspicious activity involving the couple. He declined to comment further. The couple was undergoing a divorce to end their nearly eight-year marriage and had filed restraining orders against each other earlier this year in Oklahoma, court records state. A lawyer representing Linda Puckett in the divorce said in the documents that she and her husband were incompatible. Jonathan Sutton, an attorney in Tulsa who represented Rodney Puckett in the divorce, declined to comment about the arrest in Arizona. Joseph Harris, who represented Linda Puckett in the divorce, didnt immediately return a call seeking comment. ___ Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. 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. As more rain falls on a warming planet, a new computer model shows that it may not take a downpour to cause widespread disruption of road networks. The model combined data on road networks with the hills and valleys of topography to reveal "tipping points" at which even small localized increases in rain cause widespread road outages. The findings, which were tested using data from the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Houston area, were published today in Nature Communications. "To prepare for climate change, we have to know where flooding leads to the biggest disruptions in transportation routes. Network science typically points to the biggest interactions, or the most heavily traveled routes. That's not what we see here," said Jianxi Gao, an assistant professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and lead author of the study. "A little bit of flood-induced damage can cause abrupt widespread failures." Gao, a network scientist, worked with environmental scientists at Beijing Normal University and a physicist at Boston University to reconcile traditional network science models that predict how specific disruptions impact a road network with environmental science models that predict how topography influences flooding. Traditional network science predicts continuous levels of damage, in which case knocking out minor roads or intersections would cause only minor damage to the network. But because of how water flows over land, adding topographical information yields a more accurate prediction. In Florida, an increase from 30mm to 35mm of rainfall knocked out 50 percent of the road network. And in New York, Gao found that runoff greater than 45mm isolated the northeastern part of the state from the interior of the United States. In the Hunan province of China, an increase from 25mm to 30mm of rainfall knocked out 42 percent of the provincial road network. In the Sichuan province, an increase from 95mm to 100mm in rainfall knock out 48.7 percent of the provincial road network. And overall, and an increase from 160mm to 165mm of rainfall knocked out 17.3 percent of road network in China and abruptly isolated the western part of mainland China. The researchers validated their model by comparing predicted results with observed road outages in Houston and South East Texas caused by Hurricane Harvey. Their model predicted 90.6 percent of reported road closures and 94.1 percent of reported flooded streets. "We cracked the data. Hurricane Harvey caused some of the most extensive road outages in U.S. history, and our model predicted that damage," Gao said. "Adding 3D information causes more unusual failure patterns than we expected, but now we have developed the mathematical equations to predict those patterns." Gao was joined in the research by Weiping Wang and Saini Yang of Beijing Normal University, and H. Eugene Stanley of Boston University. At Rensselaer, the research was funded by the Office of Naval Research, and a grant from the Knowledge and Innovation Program at Rensselaer. A research team of Dr. Tomoaki Mashimo, Associate Prof. of Department of Mechanical Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology, and Dr. Fumiya Iida, a reader in robotics of the department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, has successfully developed a leech-shaped robot, "LEeCH," which can climb vertical wall. LEeCH -- Longitudinally Extensible Continuum-robot -- inspired by Hirudinea, with a flexible body, made of a material used for shower hose, and two suction cups, is capable of elongate and bend its body without any constraints; just like a leech. Thanks to its flexible body structure and the suction cups, the robot has successfully climbed a vertical wall and even reached to the other side of the wall. The study was published in Soft Robotics, an American scientific journal, on March 27 2019. Wall climbing robots have a wide range of potential application, including building inspection and maintenance, and search and rescue tasks at disaster sites. Climbing straight up vertical walls is fairly easy to accomplish, however, in reality, the robot may have to navigate over obstacles on the wall such as steps and transition to walls with different directions. The hardest task is to reach the other side of the wall. A robot capable of climbing up to the top of the wall has to face extreme difficulty in traversing the summit over to the other side. The team has developed a robot inspired by land leeches, which are excellent climbers in nature. The land leeches, usually found in forests or mountains, can move around complex terrain and walls using two suction cups on both ends of bodies and soft extensible bodies. Their bodies are so light and soft that they are not subject to great damage from a fall from height. The team designed a new motion mechanism using tube structure of shower hose to mimic the advantageous properties of leeches, namely, lightweight, flexible and extensible. The flexible tube with a metal plate with S shaped profile spirally wound has been used in general households. A gear engages with the helical groove on the surface of the tube. The flexible tube moves back and forth by the rotational motion. The robot has a body composed of three flexible tubes that are connected in parallel. The body can bend or elongate by controlling the length of each flexible tube fed by the gear. The robot successfully achieved upward/downward climbing and horizontal transition on a vertical wall. By combining these two transitions, the robot is capable of moving freely on a two-dimensional wall surface. The robot's flexible body with large deformation enabled it to transition from one side of a vertical wall to the other side. This is the world's first achievement in developing soft and flexible robot that is capable of free movement on a wall. The person in charge of the development and the lead author of the study, Ayato Kanada, Doctoral Programs student, says "I came up with the idea in the bathroom of my house. The shower hose went wild as if it had a life when I inadvertently turned on the faucet at maximum. Then an idea occurred to me that if I could manipulate a hose, I might be able to make a robot with dynamic movement of living creature." Making the most of the hollow structure of the shower hose, the team is considering the possibility of changing stiffness of the tube by pouring fluid into the cavity. Robot with flexible body structure is not only highly adaptable to environment, but also highly secure against collision. It has a potential application to labor in proximity to humans. This work was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellow (No. 17J04776), the United Kingdom's Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) DTP under Award 1476475 and RG92738, and Mathworks Ltd RG90950 378. Ayato Kanada, the first author, was supported by the Program for Leading Graduate Schools conducted by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Mice exposed to the Zika virus during later stages of gestation present behaviors reminiscent of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, according to a study of genetically diverse animals. The findings, published in JNeurosci, suggest children exposed to the virus during the 2015-16 epidemic may harbor increased risk for developmental disorders. Microcephaly -- a smaller than normal head -- is the most well-known and visible consequence of Zika virus exposure. Recent research, however, has found brain and behavior abnormalities in Zika-exposed infants without microcephaly. Abigail Snyder-Keller and colleagues at the New York State Department of Health and the University of Albany School of Public Health examined these more subtle disruptions in male and female mice of four distinct genetic backgrounds. The public health researchers exposed mice to the virus during a period analogous to the third trimester in humans and report different effects depending on the sex and strain of the mouse. This research provides a first step toward studying the full range of possible outcomes in individuals exposed to the Zika virus in the womb. FLORENCE, S.C. In just over two years, Haley Andersen will have earned a marketing degree from Francis Marion University and started her own award-winning business. Whats more, shes one of two 20-year-olds graduating this fall, the youngest in the class. This isnt the typical timeline for a college graduate, but Andersons story is hardly typical. COLUMBIA, S.C. Two Florence County law enforcement officers killed in an Oct. 3 ambush in western Florence County were among nine officers inducted on May 1 into the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame. Six of the officers lost their lives serving in 2018 while three were from decades ago, discovered last year through research. Florence police Sgt. Terrence Carraway died Oct. 3 of injuries he suffered when he and three other city officers went into the county to back up a group of deputies from the Florence County Sheriff's Office who had come under fire while trying to serve a search warrant at a home in the Vintage Place subdivision. Florence County Sheriff's Office investigator Farrah Turner died Oct. 22 of injuries suffered in the same attack. The Hall of Fame is part of the SC Department of Public Safety and was established by a legislative act in 1974. By that act, its purpose was defined as a memorial to law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty and in recognition of the selfless dedication of all law enforcement officers in the day-to-day performance of their duties. COLUMBIA, S.C. Students from seven schools in Florence, Darlington and Marion counties took home awards from statewide competition on April 11 in the 14th annual Jobs for Americas Graduates-South Carolina (JAG-SC) Career Development Conference, which drew more than 500 students from 22 schools. The 2019 Executive Directors Award for demonstrating achievement and commitment through JAG went to South Florence High Schools NiRay Nelson, Timmonsville High Schools Deasia Woods, Darlington High Schools Stephanie Witherspoon, Marion High Schools Terek Reaves and Creek Bridge High Schools Miracle Rowell. Wilson High Schools TyRee Matthews took first place in public speaking. A first-place award in Theme Poster went to Creek Bridge High Schools Kierra Crawford for her original poem on The JAG Advantage. The South Florence High School team received second place for its Career Association Chapter display for its visual depiction of the 2019 conference theme of The JAG Advantage as well as third place in the Career Association Chapter Manual category for its visual record of the schools local JAG activities. MARION, S.C. Mullins High School senior Kiersten Ceirra and Dymond Warren, a Johnakin Middle School student, were the essay winners in the Daughters of the American Revolutions awards program. The Blue Savannah-Swamp Fox Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, through the DAR Good Citizens award program, annually honors seniors in high school who embody the qualities of dependability, service, leadership and patriotism. Additionally, the chapter offers eighth-grade students the opportunity to participate in an American History essay contest. An outstanding senior is selected by the faculty of each high school in Marion County to receive the DAR Good Citizens award for that school, and a county winner is determined. The 2019 winner in Marion County is Kiersten White, the daughter of Gwendolyn White. Whites winning essay was on Our American Heritage and Our Responsibility for Preserving It. Writing the essay itself is a challenge because the subject is not given to the student ahead of time. The student must write the essay in the presence of a faculty member in a limited time period, using no reference materials; therefore, he or she must rely on general knowledge and ability to communicate in writing. FLORENCE, S.C. -- The Florence Police Department announced on May 2 that the Sgt. Terrence Carraway Memorial Scholarship has been established to honor the veteran law enforcement officer who was killed in an ambush in Vintage Place subdivision Oct. 3. Carraway and three other city officers were responding to back up a group of Florence County sheriff's deputies who were attempting to serve a search warrant at a residence when they came under fire from that residence. Florence County sheriff's investigator Farrah Turner was wounded in the attack and died of her injuries Oct. 22. "The scholarship was established in January of 2019 to honor the life of Sergeant Carraway and continue his passion for the advancement of youth in the Florence and Darlington communities," Lt. Mike Brandt wrote in a media advisory. The needs-based scholarship will be awarded annually to one recipient from either Florence or Darlington county public schools. The recipient must be a citizen or a legal resident of the United States. DARLINGTON, S.C. Another great tradition will return to Darlington Raceway for the first time since 2015, as the track will partner with the South Carolina Blood Services Region of the American Red Cross to host a blood drive from 2 to 7 p.m. Tuesday. From 2005-2015, the track hosted an annual blood drive that experienced tremendous success by collecting thousands of units of blood. Each donated unit can potentially save the lives of up to three recipients. This is a community event we hosted for 10 years, and we are pleased to bring it back in 2019, Darlington Raceway President Kerry Tharp said. Its an important initiative for our track, and the American Red Cross is a tremendous community partner. We hope donors will come out and donate blood to support this event. Blood donations help patients who undergo surgeries, have chronic illness, traumatic injuries or cancer treatment. By rolling up a sleeve, you can help a loved one or neighbor in the South Carolina community and beyond. For each donation, fans will receive the following: >> A behind-the-scenes look at the Lady in Black, including access to the Walk of Champions Its been a joy to work with Hillary and witness her tremendous personal growth here at CofC, Koerner said. She has been a model student in her constant search for and embrace of new challenges and possibilities for growth, such as when she spent the summer after her sophomore year on our summer internship in Germany program in Berlin and Munich, or when she performed in German to a live audience of 150 people in the final project of my Deutschland 1968 course. When she has not been traveling or studying, McLaurin has stayed busy with part-time jobs and volunteer work. For the past four years, she has volunteered to teach English to non-native speakers at St. Matthews Lutheran on King Street. To earn extra money, she has also worked part-time on the Colleges IT Helpdesk since 2018, providing technical support to students, faculty and staff. McLaurin is still weighing what she wants to do after she returns from Germany in 2020. Shes thinking about graduate school, possibly an MBA, or perhaps getting involved with a technology incubator program. Google runs one in Berlin, she said. As I briefly covered, Google announced tons of new ad features yesterday - two of the more controversial ones within the SEO community are the discover ads that show up on the Google mobile home page and the gallery ads that make some of the search ads on the search results page massive. Let me show you the new features that upset some. (1) Discover ads on Google mobile's home page. It is not enough that the Google mobile home page is no longer just a search box, they added a discover feed - like a news portal would have. Now Google is going to be slipping in ads into that feed, like you'd see on Instagram. (2) Google can show up to 8 large images in the top search ads, which would push down the organic listings even more. Here is what it might look like: Here are some of the complaints from the SEO community around this: And organic gets shoved further down on mobile. https://t.co/0EuixW2G3P Joe Youngblood (@YoungbloodJoe) May 14, 2019 Anyone remember how Google became the homepage for so many browsers? As I recall, a big reason was it wasn't "filled with ads like Yahoo" https://t.co/HmOqI2sVrP pic.twitter.com/rQ4zMtfC8i Rand Fishkin (@randfish) May 14, 2019 Unbelievable, yet believable. Itamar Blauer (@ItamarBlauer) May 14, 2019 Ads above the fold? I thought Google was against poor quality page layouts. Dan Bochichio (@thedan1984) May 15, 2019 Evolution from scrappy search engine to ad-supported search engine, and now to an ad search engine backfilled with our answers and natural results from scraping us en masse. s/// (@deckarts) May 14, 2019 Can't put 5 ads on the top, they've squeezed that dry. They can't make it any harder to distinguish ads from organic. So the serp is probably close to peak optimization. Now it's like where else can we go that has a ton of inventory w few ads. Mobile/chrome/youtube/maps/gmail Wil Reynolds (@wilreynolds) May 15, 2019 The complaints go on and on and on. I have no emotions - so don't ask me my opinion - I just report the chatter. :) Forum discussion at Twitter. The San Francisco police officers who raided freelance journalist Bryan Carmodys home last week thought they had everything they needed: a judicial search warrant, and evidence suggesting Carmody had obtained a leaked police report on the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi and sold it to local television stations. What the officers lacked, apparently, was an appreciation of Californias shield law, which allows journalists to withhold their sources and unpublished information and protects them from search warrants. Journalists have to be able to perform their work without fear of being compelled to explain to the state or show the state how they went about their business, said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a free-speech and media support group based in San Rafael. They have to be free from state compulsion to give them their sources of information. Thats the gist of the shield law, enacted by legislators or court rulings in nearly every state. Californias is among the strongest and one of the oldest, passed by lawmakers in 1935 and written into the state Constitution in 1980 by more than 70 percent of the voters a majority virtually unimaginable in the current era of widespread public suspicion and daily White House vilification of the fake news media. A free press protects our basic liberties by serving as the watchdogs of our nation, advocates of the 1980 measure said in the ballot pamphlet. Nationally, by contrast, Congress has not enacted a shield law, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment right of a free press does not protect journalists refusal to disclose their sources. In 2006, a federal judge in San Francisco sent blogger Josh Wolf to jail for 7 months for contempt of court for refusing to turn over videos he had taken of a 2005 protest that included an alleged attempt to set a police car on fire. It was the longest confinement ever for a journalist in such a case. The state law gives protections to journalists that ordinary citizens lack: the right to refuse to disclose the source of their information and to withhold information they have obtained but have not published or submitted for publication. The law also bars enforcement against journalists of search warrants, which police can obtain from judges based on probable cause that a crime has been committed. Instead, officers must get a subpoena to summon the journalist to court, where a judge can decide if the information is protected by the shield law and its almost always protected, unless the journalist broke the law to get it. The laws definition of journalist is not precise. An Alameda County Superior Court recently extended shield protections to an animal-rights blogger, ruling that he was engaged in newsgathering activities for his own periodical publication. But the courts have not yet determined the full scope of protections for do-it-yourself publishers. More Information Text of the California Shield Law, state Evidence Code Section 1070: (a) A publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service, or any person who has been so connected or employed, cannot be adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative, administrative body, or any other body having the power to issue subpoenas, for refusing to disclose, in any proceeding as defined in Section 901, the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for publication in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public. (b) Nor can a radio or television news reporter or other person connected with or employed by a radio or television station, or any person who has been so connected or employed, be so adjudged in contempt for refusing to disclose the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for news or news commentary purposes on radio or television, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public. (c) As used in this section, "unpublished information" includes information not disseminated to the public by the person from whom disclosure is sought, whether or not related information has been disseminated and includes, but is not limited to, all notes, outtakes, photographs, tapes or other data of whatever sort not itself disseminated to the public through a medium of communication, whether or not published information based upon or related to such material has been disseminated. See More Collapse In this new age with citizen journalists, everybody having a cell phone and posting information on current events, the line gets very blurred, said James Wagstaffe, a San Francisco attorney who specializes in First Amendment issues and teaches journalism at San Francisco State University. By his standards, Wagstaffe said, journalists are writers who are vetted, they fact-check, they have accountability. But Snyder said its clear that freelancers like Carmody are covered. Carmody obtained a report on Adachis death from an unnamed police source and sold the rights to three San Francisco TV stations. Hes made his living that way for 30 years. Carmody is in the business of selling stories to news outlets. Thats what freelancers do, how they put food on the table, Snyder said. You dont have to be on salary to a news organization to be entitled to the privileges of the shield law. Investigating the leak, police obtained search warrants from Superior Court Judges Victor Hwang and Gail Dekreon to search Carmodys home and business. They showed up at his home with a warrant Friday, and after he refused to reveal his source, they returned with a sledgehammer. 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. Carmody said officers wrecked some of his equipment and effectively sidelined him from his work for months. According to records obtained by The Chronicle, police seized more than 60 items, including computers, cameras and cell phones. But their court affidavit that obtained the warrants remains sealed, and police havent said publicly whether they told the judges of Carmodys media connections. Two sources familiar with the warrants told The Chronicle that police made it known to the judges that Carmody was a media stringer. The judges havent commented. The search was part of a criminal investigation into the illegal release of the confidential Adachi police report and subsequent sale to members of the media, the Police Department said in a statement. This action represents a step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of confidential police material. Michael Rains, a Pleasant Hill attorney who has represented police in numerous cases, said the San Francisco officers appear to have proceeded carefully. Police did the right thing by applying to a judge, Rains said. The only way I can think the judge could have issued a search warrant is if the affidavit said we had strict controls on disclosure of this report, that it was not to be released to any member of the public or the media. ... Without knowing what was in the affidavit, its impossible to know. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Evan Sernoffsky contributed to this report. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko A mystery unfolding at City College of San Francisco could, when solved, leave a nursing instructor $360,591 richer, while forcing an engineering teacher to pay a cool $144,464 to the college out of pocket. Hundreds of full-time faculty members are caught up in the tangled puzzle of who owes what to whom at City College, with the problem getting worse or better depending on which side of the ledger they fall on. More than $11 million of public funding is in play as the college struggles to close a $32 million budget gap with course cuts and employee buyouts. The financial uncertainty at City College is tied to years of declining enrollment that began in 2012, after accreditors found weaknesses in management and fiscal controls, and threatened to shut the college down. The college emerged bruised but intact in 2017 after five rocky years of trying to remain accredited. When The Chronicle asked how faculty could owe or be owed so much money, the college issued a statement indicating that its numbers could be wrong: Corrective steps have been identified and shared to adjust balances that do not reflect accurate workload accumulations, it said. The cliff-hanger started with an internal audit presented to the trustees in January that revealed City College had been paying faculty for work they did not do. In essence, faculty employees did not teach or taught less than required for a full-time faculty, but were paid their full salary, according to the audit that examined school finances for the fiscal year that ended June 30. The auditors blamed a lack of monitoring and oversight. The Chronicle asked City College for the public records showing the details behind the audit, which included no numbers. College officials sent a spreadsheet listing all 566 full-time faculty members. The document showed that 178 faculty members had been paid $5.4 million beyond what they had worked. It also showed that 231 other faculty members had worked more than required in some cases, apparently racking up double and triple the required hours yet were not paid for the time. That amounted to $5.7 million. Yet faculty members contacted by The Chronicle said they knew nothing about owing or being owed money by the college. The colleges spreadsheet showed the smallest amount owed was $37, to a math instructor. But others were owed thousands of dollars, including more than $100,000 each to 10 employees: a biology teacher, a sociology teacher and eight nursing instructors. Id love to have my money so I can retire, said a stunned Mary Brown, 72, when a Chronicle reporter described the possible windfall. Brown teaches licensed vocational nursing and may be owed more than $360,000 at least three times her annual salary and the most owed to any instructor. Brown said she had had no idea. Sometimes I come in at 8 a.m., and I dont get out until 9 p.m., said Brown, who doesnt punch a clock. If Im due the money, I should get paid. City College lets full-time faculty bank extra time worked that they can take off later. Its called load banking, and college officials said its common on many campuses. But the auditors identified a problem with how City College keeps track of all that time. The (college) district has spent funds for faculty employees, but did not receive the services from the employee, the audit said, noting that many employees received their full salary without having an adequate balance in their load banking account. Chancellor Mark Rocha, who was hired in 2017, months after City College emerged from its accreditation crisis, said he was troubled by the audits findings. My concern is that we have the controls in place to manage that operation more effectively. Something clearly the college has not had, he said. To fix the load banking system, Rocha said, well have to put in a controller position to implement the auditors recommendations: ensuring that faculty use only the paid leave they have accrued, and that when faculty owe time to the college, they promptly teach those extra classes. Its a lot of people trying to coordinate, so that makes it tricky, said Tom Boegel, the senior vice chancellor who oversees the system. He said the system relies on five groups: faculty, department chairs, deans, data-entry workers and human resources people. We are deep in the throes of working on this and making changes in our processes. The auditor said the college has improved its process by now requiring faculty to sign off on time worked and time banked. The auditor also said department chairs will adjust future faculty assignments to address large positive or negative balances. Yet questions remain. The records show the $5.4 million in payouts to faculty who didnt earn the money ranged from $49 to a physical education teacher, to more than $100,000 each to a counselor, two librarians and a trio of instructors. One of them is engineering instructor Soneji Hitesh, who is listed as having been paid $144,464 for work he didnt do more than any other faculty member. But Hitesh said the college has made a whopping mistake. I was on a leave of absence for a couple of years, he said. My hunch is that the audit didnt catch that. This is a total surprise to me, and I believe its an error. But if I really do owe that, Id like to figure out why. And if that was really the case, Id pay it back. But I dont believe thats the case. Another instructor said he took two semester-long sabbaticals in 2015 and 2016. And a librarian, who hadnt taken a leave, said she was simply mystified about why the college says she owes more than $138,000 in work time. Both called the claims a mistake. All employees contacted by The Chronicle said no one from the college had talked to them about the problem. 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. Colleges expect that their load-banking system will typically be slightly out of alignment, with some faculty owing time and the college owing some back pay. City Colleges contract with faculty allows for fluctuations of up to 20 percent in either direction, and gives the college three semesters to zero out each balance. But faculty union leaders said they were stunned at how far out of balance the problem was. Im flabbergasted at those numbers, said Wynd Kaufmyn, vice president of the faculty union. I do think its on the district to make sure that faculty pay back what they owe, but they havent done it. And theres nothing in our contract that says faculty have to pay back the balance if they retire owing time. The district has to eat that. College officials did not respond to repeated requests about how they would treat faculty who had left the school owing time. Meanwhile, the college is cutting administrative jobs and slashing 242 of the colleges 2,432 classes to reduce a $31.7 million budget deficit this fiscal year, and a projected $8.5 million deficit for 2019-20. In the licensed vocational nursing department, Brown and fellow instructor Procerpina Gee each said they never know if their paychecks match the time they worked. The department chair gives us a form with the hours, and I just sign it automatically because I trust her, Gee said. Theres no way for me to know if its correct. Told by The Chronicle that college records say she is owed an additional $208,612, Gee shrugged. Im not sure whether it makes me happy, she said. Because it means that somethings not right. Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov Caltrain, in the midst of electrifying its trains, building safer crossings and trying to reach the Transbay Transit Center, is now contemplating a 2020 sales tax measure to help pay for those projects along with more frequent, faster and longer trains. The tax would be in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. A recent poll of likely voters suggests that most would support the measure a sales tax of either 1/4 or 1/8 of a percent. But thats not not quite enough to surpass the two-thirds supermajority required for passage. According to the poll of 1,416 likely voters in the three Caltrain counties, 63% would support a measure to boost the sales tax for 30 years to finish converting the commuter rail line to run on electricity instead of diesel fuel and to increase its frequency and capacity. The tax would raise $100 million to $200 million a year. Results of the survey, conducted by EMC Research of Oakland, were presented to the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board at its May 2 meeting. The poll has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points. While the results show strong support for a Caltrain sales tax, the backing would have to grow quite a bit for the tax to pass. Political consultants like to see numbers in excess of 67 percent, knowing that support often slips as opponents mount campaigns and election day nears. But Caltrain backers still have time to persuade voters. Theyre almost there, but getting to that two-thirds is going to take some work and the Caltrain folks are going to have to make some decisions about what they want to do, said Ruth Bernstein of EMC Research. They have to decide if its the right environment. The poll found the strongest support for a measure in San Mateo County, where 68% said they would back the measure. San Francisco was close behind with 67% support followed by Santa Clara County with 61% saying they would vote yes. Democrats were strong supporters, with 74 percent favoring the potential tax compared to 30 percent of Republicans. Not surprisingly, Caltrain riders were big backers with 72 percent saying theyd favor the tax. Legislation proposed by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, allows the three counties to jointly put a sales tax measure for Caltrain on the ballot. Unlike other Bay Area transit agencies, Caltrain lacks a designated source of funds such as a sales tax or property tax. Instead, it relies heavily on farebox revenues and yearly contributions from transportation agencies in the three counties. The notion of a tax to fund the increasingly popular commuter rail service has been discussed for years. Pollsters found that likely voters were pushed toward stronger support by the promise of a detailed expenditure plan and traffic relief on Highway 101, Interstate 280 and along El Camino Real. They also liked the prospect of reduced air pollution and faster and more frequent travel times on the rail line. Dan Lieberman, a Caltrain spokesman, said projects envisioned for the tax money include building passing tracks, buying more electric rail cars and extending boarding platforms to allow longer and more frequent trains. It could also help pay to eliminate street-level rail crossings, extend Caltrain to the Transbay Transit Center and possibly restore the Dumbarton Bridge for Caltrain service. After potential voters were told of the benefits of the tax, the poll found, support increased to 66 percent. 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. Carl Guardino, executive director of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said his organization has done several polls of its own and found somewhat higher support for a sales tax as high as 72 percent. We remain completely committed to seeing Caltrain securing a permanent dedicated revenue stream, and building toward a business plan that will take them to 240,000 weekday passenger trips, he said. Caltrain now carries more than 65,000 commuters each weekday, a total thats expected to rise to 110,000 after the railroad is electrified and trains start running faster. That would take about 160,000 daily car trips off of Peninsula highways, Guardino said. Thats transformational, he said. Caltrains board has not yet decided if it will try to put the measure before voters, and whether that would be on the March or November ballot in 2020. The board would also need to set the tax rate at either 1/8 of a percent or 1/4 of a percent. The poll found that the amount did not make a significant difference in support. Before the measure can be put to a vote, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, the transportation agency and the board of supervisors in each of the three counties would need to vote to place it on the ballot. Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan Hardware bug Intel has revealed another hardware security flaw that could affect millions of machines around the world. The chipmaker said Tuesday theres no evidence of anyone exploiting the bug, which is embedded in the architecture of computer hardware. Intel says it could let attackers see leaked data, but its difficult to exploit outside of a laboratory. The Santa Clara company said that it has already addressed the problem in its newest chips after working for months with business partners and independent researchers. Its the latest revelation of a hard-to-fix vulnerability affecting the processors that run smartphones and personal computers. Island hopping Southwest Airlines has started flying between Honolulu on Oahu and Kona on the Big Island, with plans to add more interisland service. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the airline began the new service Sunday and will add four daily flights to Hilo on Hawaii Island late this year or early 2020. The Kona service adds 1,800 daily interisland seats. Southwest began flying to Honolulu from Oakland in March, and has since added Maui flights. It now offers service to both those destinations from San Jose, and officials say they are gearing up for flights to the islands from Sacramento and San Diego. Number of the day $123 million Thats how much Nextdoor, the social network for neighborhoods, raised in a round of funding led by Menlo Parks Riverwood Capital, with participation from Benchmark and Kleiner Perkins, both also in Menlo Park, and Tiger Global Management of New York. VentureBeat reports that this takes Nextdoors total raised to more than $400 million since its inception and gives it a valuation of $2.1 billion around $600 million more than its previous reported valuation in late 2017. Founded in San Francisco in 2010, Nextdoor has expanded to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Australia. The company says that 236,000 neighborhoods globally connect through its service. To Chris Chin, owner of the Gone With the Smoke vapor shop in San Francisco, the citys proposed legislation to ban the sale of e-cigarettes would mark an end to his nearly six-year run in the Tenderloin neighborhood. Theyre going to absolutely put me out of business, 100%, said Chin, who in recent weeks has delayed restocking many of his products in case the legislation passes. Id have to change product, go to something totally different, like clothing, perfume, makeup, I have no idea, Chin said. Thats what Im going to have to figure out, what Im going to do next. If I dont, Im screwed because Im on the hook for another year and a half on my lease. Id have to scramble to find a sublease. Chin is one of about 730 San Francisco tobacco retailers whose business would take a hit or be snuffed out entirely by the proposed ban on e-cigarettes, which City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisor Shamann Walton are spearheading as an attempt to curb youth vaping. The ban, which includes online sales to San Francisco addresses, would last until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducts a review to ensure the safety of e-cigarettes. Walton said he has encouraged vape-only stores to consider selling other products. It is unclear how much in annual tax revenue would be lost if a vape ban were to be implemented in San Francisco. The city does not collect taxes from the sale of tobacco products, according to the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector. Tobacco retailers pay sales tax to the state but the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration does not break out sales tax revenue by product type. Ted Egan, the citys chief economist, said his office reviewed the legislation and found it would not have a material impact on the San Francisco economy because the money spent on vaping products would continue to be spent in the city on other nicotine products like cigarettes. E-cigarettes havent been around forever, Walton said. A lot of these stores were thriving before e-cigarettes. If we work together, theyll continue to thrive. But its more important to keep our young people safe. Youth vaping has grown significantly over the past few years, worrying public health experts because teens whose brains are still developing are being exposed to nicotine, a highly addictive substance. About 3.6 million high school and middle school students vape regularly a major spike from 280,000 in 2011, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey. The long-term health effects of e-cigarettes are unknown because they have not been studied long enough, or in large enough groups of people, to draw definitive conclusions. Researchers believe vaping benefits adult cigarette smokers trying to quit, who report less coughing and wheezing after switching to vaping, while potentially harming others, like kids who wouldnt have started smoking if not for the fruit- and candy-flavored vapor. Were not prepared to sacrifice another generation of children to nicotine addiction for a product that, by law, should not be on the market, said John Cote, a spokesman for Herrera. If companies want to sell e-cigarettes in San Francisco, they should apply to the FDA for review. ... If the FDA hasnt reviewed it and determined it to be safe for public health, it shouldnt be sold in San Francisco. Less than 14% of San Francisco high school students who vape got their e-cigarette products in a store; the remaining 86% got it from friends and classmates or on the internet, according to a survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Walton said the aim is not to target small businesses, but rather to cut off the entire e-cigarette supply in the city, including those from big-box retailers and Internet sales. Because many of the citys tobacco retailers are minority- or immigrant-owned, the proposed ban would disproportionately hurt local merchants of color, said Miriam Zouzounis of the Arab American Grocers Association, which represents about 400 businesses in the Bay Area. Zouzounis is also a member of the San Francisco Small Business Commission, which recently recommended the Board of Supervisors vote against the measure unless it includes an amendment that would exempt brick-and-mortar retailers. Most licensed tobacco retailers in San Francisco are owned by Arab, African, South Asian or Asian store owners, according to data provided by the grocers association to the small business commission. Even those that sell a variety of goods besides vaping products, like corner markets, estimate they would lose tens of thousands of dollars each month if they could no longer sell e-cigarettes. Many stores including Chins had already been seeing a slowdown in business since the city banned the sale of flavored tobacco products like the fruit- and candy-flavored nicotine pods made by Juul. The flavored tobacco ban, which was passed in 2018 and took effect in January, was similarly enacted to try to deter teens from vaping. A spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Health said the department will be tracking whether the flavor ban affects youth tobacco use, she said. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes San Franciscos flavor ban has already appeared to pull some business away from the citys retailers and shifted it to surrounding cities like Oakland and Daly City. Chins store has seen annual revenue drop 20% from about $500,000 to $400,000, since the flavor ban. At the same time, customer demand at vape shops in Daly City is picking up, said Amjad Hannoneh, CEO of the Royale Group, a Pleasanton company that manufactures and distributes e-cigarettes globally, including to about 70 stores in the Bay Area. In the months before San Franciscos flavor ban went into effect, Hannoneh saw a major drop-off in purchase orders of vape products from San Francisco stores, while Daly City stores increased their orders 20% to 30%. Hannoneh opposes San Franciscos proposed vape ban, saying adults who buy the products legally should have the freedom to do so just like with other addictive substances, such as alcohol or coffee. Chin said many of his customers are adult former cigarette smokers who say switching to e-cigarettes has helped them breathe more easily. Most, he said, are in their late 20s or early 30s. Occasionally, he will turn away an under-21 customer from out of town who doesnt realize the legal age to buy tobacco in California is 21, not 18, as it is in many states. Some San Franciscans who vape, like Matt Gram one of Chins regular customers feel city officials are imposing a double standard by cracking down on e-cigarettes but not regular cigarettes or alcohol. Gram, 38, said if San Francisco bans the sale of e-cigarettes, he would BART to Daly City and buy in bulk there. I think its ridiculous, he said. Let adults choose for themselves. Let people who are 21 buy the products. If youre going to ban (e-cigarette) flavors, then ban flavored alcohol in bars. ... Id say to the city: How dare you try to tell me what I can and cant buy online? Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho Welcome back to Tech Chronicle. I bet you have a great story about why you havent subscribed yet, but Im not buying it. Selling the future Im writing about Uber again, but its the story of the moment. And with public shareholders money now at risk, its more important than ever. Uber took a hit on Monday, its first full day as a publicly traded stock, with shares dropping 11 percent, wiping out $7 billion in value. True, the markets on the whole were down, but it was a grisly performance. Richard Drew / Associated Press CEO Dara Khosrowshahi attempted to rally the troops with a memo Monday, a copy of which CNBC obtained. I was struck by one line in particular: There are many versions of our future that are highly profitable and valuable, and there are of course some that are less so. This is Silicon Valleys theory of investing in a nutshell. The past doesnt matter. The present doesnt matter. All that matters is the future. As the markets recovered Tuesday, so did Uber stock, rising nearly 8 percent. Perhaps Wall Street agrees with Khosrowshahis storytelling. Youve probably heard the disclaimer that past performance is no guarantee of future results. When it comes to valuing tech stocks, not only is it no guarantee, its no relation. Im reminded of what Cnet founder Halsey Minor said in 1997, shortly after his company announced seemingly subpar quarterly results: We announced that our revenues were lower, our losses were higher, and our stock went up $3. The Internet is its own phenomenon. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Khosrowshahi is in essence asking the market to return to that dot-com bubble way of thinking: Dont pay attention to Ubers staggering losses, just think about a future where Uber controls a huge chunk of transportation, where self-driving cars swarm the street and self-flying ones take to the skies. At this rate, I might as well ask you to buy shares of RTLT on the premise that Ramona the Love Terrier could one day disrupt the global canine reward supply chain. Khosrowshahi has a big incentive to persuade investors to buy into this Choose Your Own Adventure way of thinking: He has a $100 million bonus riding on Uber trading at a value above $120 billion for 90 consecutive days, almost double its current market cap of $67 billion. Venture capitalists already invest this way, betting on companies in the hopes that they turn out to be huge winners. But theres one key difference from the 1990s, when day traders placed huge bets on tiny internet startups: Private-market investors now capture most of the gains from such speculation. By the time highly valued private companies like Uber to go public, theres little room for them to deliver gangbuster returns to public-market investors. Its a tough story to sell. Owen Thomas, othomas@sfchronicle.com Stat of the week Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Sign Up for the Newsletter Want to get the latest on Silicon Valley in your inbox? Subscribe to Tech Chronicle. See More Collapse One out of every 11,600 San Franciscans is a billionaire, Teddy Schleifer reports in Recode. Coming up Cisco reports earnings Wednesday, Nvidia Thursday. Both will be worth watching to see whether executives talk about the effect of tariffs on the tech sector. What Im reading Cyrus Farivar and David Ingram report on how California is preparing to enforce its new privacy law. (NBC News) Trisha Thadani looks at San Franciscos newly passed ban on city use of facial recognition software. (San Francisco Chronicle) Caroline ODonovan reveals how a memo threatening leakers is rattling Google employees. (Buzzfeed News) Tech Chronicle is a thrice-weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicle The raid of a San Francisco journalists home, conducted by city police officers trying to figure out which of their colleagues slipped him a report on the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi, has prompted condemnation from First Amendment advocates. But city leaders have been largely ambivalent, silent or supportive of the police search, despite Californias shield law that protects journalists who decline to identify confidential sources. In a city where liberal politics are the mainstream, some leaders appear to be caught between their feelings over a leak they believe smeared the progressive champion Adachi hours after his death and typically left-facing values like freedom of the press and the limits of police power, some observers say. The silence from the people youd normally expect to scream and yell about attacking a journalist is deafening, said political consultant David Latterman. Do they just want to go after the people who sullied Jeff Adachis reputation? You cant do this to a journalist. Either you support journalistic freedom, or you dont. San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer a member of the boards progressive faction, who called a special hearing in April over the leak and castigated police officials initially justified Fridays no-knock raid on the home of Bryan Carmody. The freelance videographer had obtained a police report on Adachis Feb. 22 death from an unnamed source and sold it to three Bay Area television stations. I think he was getting this information to make a profit from it, Fewer told the San Francisco Examiner. If he were obtaining this information to write a story, it still is illegal to obtain a police report unless it has been officially released. Fewer was mistaken. Obtaining police reports and other government documents, even if they have not been made public, is standard practice for journalists and is not illegal. On Tuesday, Fewer walked back her statement, saying, The truth is, Im not a legal expert. Given the current political climate at the national level, I understand that freedom of the press is a sensitive issue and why there were concerns about my statement. Fewer, though, did not say she had been wrong or apologize. She said, I do have strong feelings about the morality of Carmodys actions, including the sale of a leaked police report that was meant to damage the reputation of Jeff Adachi after his death, which has caused great harm to his loved ones. Fewer is not the only progressive city politician who has seemed to take a pro-police stance on the raid. Adachis replacement, Public Defender Mano Raju, released a statement Friday that appeared to approve of the departments actions, saying, I am pleased that Chief (Bill) Scott and others are keeping their word and working to get to the bottom of it. On Monday, though, he offered a clarification, saying, I have no information regarding the justifications for the search conducted by police. Nothing about this statement should be interpreted as condoning specific police tactics in this matter. John Hamasaki, one of three more progressive members of the city Police Commission, questioned Carmodys role in passing on the leaked report. This wasnt news gathering, this was a hit job by someone in the department, he said in an interview Tuesday, before adding, Im completely open to being wrong here. If the theory is that this is a move to shake down a witness to give up a source, that would be appalling. Differing from some other city leaders, Supervisor Hillary Ronen who had called on police to investigate the leak called the raid bizarre and said she was very concerned by the actions of the Police Department. Ive been very vocal how disgusted I was of someones conduct in the Police Department and wanted it investigated, but that didnt mean targeting a journalist, she said. Why arent they looking inside the department? If we force any journalist to give up sources then we are weakening the free press. Carmody, known in newsroom parlance as a stringer, said Tuesday that he sold the report to television stations as he does with all of his work. I have never met or knew Jeff Adachi, he said. Its not personal, and its not political. The raid was condemned by the First Amendment Coalition and the Society of Professional Journalists, along with newspaper editorial boards around the country. Though Carmody is not employed by a major news organization, First Amendment advocates say the states shield law applies to him. Some City Hall observers are asking whether the response among some local politicians would be the same if the leaked report didnt concern Adachi, a crusader for police reform and accountability. Jon Golinger, a lawyer and political activist, said that although some progressive officials appear to be backing the police raid, The vast majority of liberal-minded folks are horrified. Even if (Carmody) was doing something that was on the edge or even flat-out gross, you can denounce this person without empowering police to silence the press or others. Mayor London Breed issued a statement Tuesday that did not directly support or condemn the raid, but advocated for a legal and appropriate investigation into the leak. 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 San Francisco Police Department is in the process of conducting an investigation into how confidential information was released from within the Department, she wrote. As part of this investigation, the Department went through the appropriate legal process to request a search warrant, which was approved by two judges. I believe that someone from within the Department needs to be held accountable for the release of this information, and the Police need to continue that internal investigation using legal and appropriate means. Adachi died at a hospital after collapsing in a Telegraph Hill apartment. Hours later, several news organizations published stories that included details from the leaked report, including that Adachi was with a woman who wasnt his wife. The Chronicle also obtained a copy of the report but did not get it from Carmody or pay for it. A public autopsy report later showed Adachi died from complications of cocaine and alcohol use along with heart disease. How police justified searching Carmodys home, car and office before seizing computers and phones is not known. A spokesman for the department said only that it was investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report. The criminal division of the departments Internal Affairs Bureau obtained search warrants through two Superior Court judges, but filed probable-cause affidavits under seal. To be targeted with a warrant, Carmody had to be the subject of a criminal investigation, experts said. Two sources familiar with the warrants told The Chronicle that police indicated to the judges, Victor Hwang and Gail Dekreon, that Carmody was a media stringer. The judges have not commented. SFPD provides all known facts and information in support of a search warrant application, said David Stevenson, a department spokesman. Department members followed all search warrant protocols during service to ensure the safety of the public. Carmodys attorney, Tom Burke, wrote a letter to Chief Scott demanding his clients property back by noon Tuesday or we will have no choice but to seek relief from the court. Burke said his demand was not met. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky A huge French dining complex is coming to Union Square. One65, a six-floor mecca for French-inspired cooking, is opening four interconnected restaurants over the next few weeks, from a bakery below to a high-end restaurant above. The first, One65 Patisserie and Boutique, opened Thursday. At the helm of the entire One65 project is Claude Le Tohic, a chef known for his work at Joel Robuchon at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas during a time when the restaurant was among the worlds three-Michelin-star elite. Spread across roughly 3,000 square feet on the first floor of 165 OFarrell St., the patisserie combines a bakery, a grab-and-go snack space and a breakfast and lunch spot. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Mirroring the style of traditional French patisseries, One65s iteration has a counter area stretching the length of the room to a series of windows overlooking the central baking area. Everything on the patisserie menu is made in-house, with French pastries as the focus. Breads are also available, along with daily soups and a plat du jour (dish of the day). Other house-made items include 24 different chocolate confections and ice cream flavors like pistachio and mango. Casual breakfast and lunch service is also available. Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Designed by San Francisco-based D-Scheme Studio, the same folks behind Alexanders Steakhouse and Hotel Epik, the room leans heavily on a black-and-white color scheme, with white marble countertops, white wood paneling and black tile floors. Theres seating for 25. Recessed lighting from above slowly changes from blue to red to green, each shade mirroring a color of the macarons sold in the patisserie. Jessica Christian / The Chronicle The second chapter of One65 will be One65 Bistro and Grill, expected to open in the coming weeks. It will be located mainly on the third floor with additional seating on the second. The restaurant will be managed by One65 chef de cuisine Jennifer Dewasha and, like the patisserie, will cater partly to the weekday breakfast crowd as well as serving lunch, dinner and weekend brunch. Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Like the patisserie, white walls abound in the bistro. One of the more eye-catching elements of the room is the wallpaper. Every inch is covered in cartoon pictures of peoples faces, meant to represent the diversity of the restaurant staff. Once the building is completely functional, the total number of staff will number around 150, according to the One65 team. Leather seats near the windows facing OFarrell Street soak in the only natural light available in the room. On the opposite end is an open kitchen space with a charcoal oven imported from Spain. As for the food, seasonal fare, minimally prepared to allow the ingredients to shine, will serve as the foundation for the menu. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. Elements at One65, a bar and lounge on the fourth floor, will open following the bistro. With its black surfaces, charcoal walls and mood lighting, the lounge space exists in stark aesthetic contrast to the downstairs bistro. For the lounges eventual crowd of regulars, whiskey lockers will be up for grabs across from the bar area. Adjacent to them is a wine cellar and a communal table for folks to sample whiskeys and wines. The layout is a bit cavernous, stretching from the well-lit street-facing side back past the dark-colored walls to the main bar area. Jessica Christian / The Chronicle The final chapter at One65 will be O by Claude Le Tohic, a fine-dining restaurant that will be operated by Le Tohic himself. Though the French-influenced menu is still coming together, the restaurant is built around highlighting elements fire, water and earth. Seats are shades of blue and red. Artwork from photographer and artist Christian Andrade, some of which is actually built into the walls, features abstract images of flames and more subtle designs of tree roots. The spirit of Le Tohics restaurant space continues on the sixth floor, where the main kitchen is located; food will be sent to the dining room below via a dumbwaiter. Near the kitchen will be a series of private dining rooms, including Le Tohics chefs table with seating for up to eight guests. 165 OFarrell St.; One65 Patisserie and Boutique is open from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, with the other restaurants planned to open in the coming weeks. One65sf.com. Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips Shaun Anderson isnt wasting any time filling up his trophy case in his major-league debut. The Giants 24-year-old right-hander got two souvenirs in the first two innings of Wednesdays game against Toronto. The ball used to strikeout Torontos Rowdy Tellez was kept as a memento of Andersons first big-league out, and an inning later, he surprisingly got his first hit. Anderson lined a ball over the head of right fielder Billy McKinney for a second-inning double. Recognizing the situation, Toronto third baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. tossed the ball into the Giants dugout for safe keeping. Anderson singled in his next at-bat during the fourth inning. Theres no truth to the rumor that Anderson was immediately inserted as the cleanup hitter for the Giants upcoming trip to Arizona. WASHINGTON A federal judge suggested Tuesday he is skeptical of President Trumps efforts to block Congress from obtaining some of his financial records. Judge Amit Mehta spent about an hour and a half holding a hearing on Trumps effort to keep financial records from Congress. Mehta did not rule during the hearing whether the Houses subpoena of Trump financial records is a valid exercise of legislative power, but he said he would do so promptly. The lawsuit before Mehta comes amid a widespread effort by the White House and the presidents attorneys to refuse to cooperate with congressional requests for information and records. And it is the first of what is likely to be many related to Trumps stonewalling. House Democrats have said court battles are inevitable as they have made dozens of requests for documents and witnesses that the White House and others in the administration have rebuffed. Trump, his business and family have also filed a lawsuit in New York against Deutsche Bank and Capital One in an attempt to block subpoenas from the House Financial Services and intelligence panels seeking their banking and financial records. A hearing in that case is set for May 22. While Trump jump-started those court fights, Democrats are expected to eventually file some of their own lawsuits against the administration. Democrats also have issued subpoenas for six years of Trumps tax documents and given Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig a deadline of this coming Friday to deliver them. In the case before Mehta, Trump and his business organization sued the House oversight committee in April in an attempt to block a subpoena issued to Mazars USA, an accountant for the president and Trump Organization. Trumps lawyers argued the subpoena has no legitimate legislative purpose and accused Democrats of harassing Trump and wielding their new majority in Congress to try to stain the presidents standing. But House lawyers told the judge that the Constitution gives Congress broad powers to investigate and that it doesnt need to tie an investigation it is undertaking to a specific piece of legislation it is considering. Mehta, who was nominated to his position by President Barack Obama, suggested during the hearing that Congress has wide latitude to investigate. He told Trump lawyer William Consovoy that there isnt a case since 1880 where the Supreme Court or an appeals court found that Congress overstepped its boundaries in issuing a subpoena. Consovoy, Trumps lawyer, indicated near the end of the hearing that his client would appeal if the judge ruled against him. Jessica Gresko is an Associated Press writer. Ive spent more time this week thinking about Bryan Carmody than I would like. Carmody is a freelance video journalist who obtained a confidential police report about the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi and sold it to some television stations. On Friday, police raided his home in a move that has made him an immediate, if less-than-ideal, poster child for press freedoms in San Francisco. This case also has upended city politics for the bizarre way it has allied the public defenders office and the Police Department against The Media. And it has once again put on terrifying display how little respect many politicians, police and government employees have for an independent media that they cannot and should not control. If you believe only the far right relishes bashing the press to distract from core issues, let me introduce you to San Francisco City Hall. So many issues have been conflated in the public discussion over whether it was appropriate for the Police Department to search Carmodys house and seize documents, computers and other items an action that they laughably justify as necessary to root out the leak in their own department. Cmon now. This case should have become a textbook example of police overreach and a lack of basic understanding about civics, but instead local politicians are distracting the public with a strange argument about whether Carmody should be considered a journalist never mind that he had been issued a hard-to-obtain SFPD press pass. Its one thing for politicians to ignore the raids frightening implications by saying independent journalists dont deserve the protection of state laws that allow us to conceal sources identities. Ive almost come to expect that our local politicians and officials will attempt to discredit the media in order to get what they want in this case, the identity of the leaker. What makes this case even more alarming is how the public defenders office has behaved. On Monday, the offices Twitter account posted This guy is as much a reporter as I am Beyonce, too. As much as I would like to compare the new public defender, Manohar Raju, to Queen Bey, Ill refrain if only because plenty of other elected leaders have made similar arguments. (On Tuesday afternoon the departments designated spokeswoman, Katy St. Clair, said she had deleted the tweet because she had meant to send it from her personal account.) Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, whose husband is a retired police officer, took that logic to a worrisome next step, telling the San Francisco Examiner it was illegal for Carmody to sell the material for a story because it hadnt been officially released by the cops. She walked back those statements on Tuesday, saying she isnt a legal expert. Im sorry to inform the supervisor that if the nations media waited for material to be officially released, virtually no government scandal or misdeed would ever be exposed. If it was illegal to report on unreleased information, nearly all of us at The Chronicle would be in jail. I wonder if she would have the same opinion of the confidential documents that have been leaked about the Trump administration? The civics lesson here seems simple to me. The government cannot abridge the freedom of the press to publish accurate information. Instead, it seems some people want to argue with whether Carmody should have sold the information a significantly different issue and one that has everything to do with what is ethical journalism and nothing to do with the law. Elected leaders must carefully distinguish the two, since confusing them threatens the very foundation of our countrys democracy. I operate under the people-who-live-in-glass-houses principle when it comes to criticizing other media. Most of the time everyone is trying to do the best with the resources they have. But Ill be honest: I have some pretty low opinions of how the police report sold by Carmody was used by some other outlets. After Adachis death, some members of the Police Department and other longtime critics of the public defenders office delighted in rehashing some tired old rumors and spinning creative new ones about their longtime foe. With the help of the leaked police report, some of those unproven rumors were heavily implied by some television reports. Photos of an unmade bed and a liquor bottle in the apartment where Adachi died were aired on TV and spread on social media. Id like to tell you that it is unusual for someones political opponents to try to get the media to report on rumors with either no basis in fact or no public relevance. Its not. Even with the most seemingly simple stories, we may have several or dozens of conversations about what to report, how to do it in a responsible way, and whether it is something the public needs to know. We both collect and curate the news, which means we make judgments about what should be presented and how it should be presented. What should we do with media that sometimes fall short of producing the most upstanding journalism? Stop watching it. Dont click on it. Write to the editors. Expect better. But dont excuse armed officers busting into reporters homes. The Chronicle obtained the same report that Carmody had. We didnt pay for it, and we didnt get it from him. Possibly we had the same source, but maybe not. We have significantly more reporters than any other local news outlet, so we have more sources, too. It makes sense that we could have obtained a report that was more difficult for smaller newsrooms to get on their own. And yet my house wasnt the one where police brought a sledgehammer to force their way through the front door. Not this time. If you side with those who believe this raid is justified, for whatever reason, you open the door to officials being allowed to decide what news they like and what they dont, which journalists they like and which ones they do not. That will not end well for anyone. Audrey Cooper is The San Francisco Chronicles editor in chief. She co-hosts the newsroom podcast, Fifth and Mission, with Metro Editor Demian Bulwa. Email: acooper@sfchronicle.com On Tuesday, Alabama lawmakers voted to ban nearly all abortions in the state, with felony penalties for doctors who perform them that range as high as 99 years. Kay Ivey, Alabamas anti-abortion Republican governor, signed the bill on Wednesday. I want to commend the bill sponsors ... for their strong leadership on this important issue, Ivey said in a statement issued after the signing. Ivey signed the bill, although she acknowledged that it will be challenged in court immediately. Indeed, both Ivey and the backers of this bill seem to welcome the challenge. This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection, said Terri Collins, the Alabama state representative who sponsored the bill. I have prayed my way through this bill. This is the way we get where we want to get eventually. The Alabama abortion bill may be the most restrictive in the nation, but its far from the only one affecting womens right to make their own choices about reproductive health and economic freedom. Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia and Mississippi have all passed bills this year that would ban abortions after six weeks, which is before many women know they are pregnant. In April, North Dakota became the 12th state in the Union to enact a ban on dilation and evacuation abortions, the most common procedure to end a pregnancy during the second trimester. The U.S. Supreme Court will have lots of cases to choose from when it inevitably weighs again the constitutionality of abortion for the first time since 1976. For decades, the endgame for anti-abortion forces has been to get another wide-ranging abortion case before a Supreme Court with a conservative-leaning majority. The expectation is that such a body will give them a different answer on Roe vs. Wade. In states where these forces hold sway, theres been a stampede to enact strict laws to limit womens access to abortion ever since President Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The expectation is that, now that a majority of the courts justices line up against abortion, they will rule to repeal Roe vs. Wade as the law of the land. Alabamas new law sets up a dramatic legal battle on one of Americas most contested social issues, just in time for the 2020 presidential campaign. Many Democratic presidential candidates were quick to condemn the Alabama bill. The leading women candidates, including U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, were by far the most forceful. (Meanwhile, President Trump was uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter about the law the day after it passed.) The Democratic presidential candidates are wise to recognize this law as an important moment in the campaign. Female voters were a major reason the U.S. House of Representatives turned over to Democratic control in the 2018 elections. According to Pew Research, about 60% of American women favor legal abortion. As women go, so goes the nation a solid 64% of Americans polled by Gallup in July 2018 said they preferred to see Roe vs. Wade remain the law of the land. Thats because a solid majority of Americans would prefer to allow this life-changing decision to remain with the parties affected women and their doctors. Passing draconian legislation to chip away at their rights, like this Alabama bill, is a shame for the nation. 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. Pope Francis new rules on sexual abuse have been called revolutionary, groundbreaking and exhaustive. But will the popes mandates, issued on May 9, actually bring about the reforms that Catholics so desperately want? Alessandra Tarantino / Associated Press On paper, the pope scored a home run. Not only is every priest and member of a religious order required to report abuse or the cover-up of abuse, the pope includes misconduct toward minors and also harms to any adult considered vulnerable to clerical intimidation. That category includes seminarians, nuns and those with mental or physical disabilities. All dioceses also will have to develop a public and easily accessible system for victims to submit complaints. Those who report misconduct cannot be retaliated against, and abuse victims cannot be silenced. But heres where the rule breaks down: The Vatican puts the responsibility for investigation of abuse in the hands of the bishops, the very people who have done such a terrible job over the past century. Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, put it this way: [K]eeping it all within the church has been the problem all along, and this is just really continuing that. It is because of the bishops failures, and the laitys suspicions, that state attorneys general have stepped in to exact more accountability. In California, home to more than 10 million Catholics, Attorney General Xavier Becerra is now auditing legal compliance with abuse reporting by the states 12 dioceses. Six dioceses, including San Francisco and San Jose, will also have to submit their records of abuse allegations to the state. Last year, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests pressed the attorney general to step in, and even convene a grand jury to investigate, doubting that the states bishops had released all the names of credibly accused priests. SNAP has reason to be suspicious. As recently as January, a priest working in Oakland parishes was placed on leave after being accused of sexually abusing a minor. A few weeks later, he disappeared, fleeing to another country. Survivor advocates are asking whether the diocese delayed reporting the allegations to local law enforcement. Heres the problem: Law enforcement can punish abuse, but the church is in the best position to prevent abuse by responding swiftly and decisively to abuse complaints. Andrew Medichini / Associated Press The popes new rules do not ensure that will happen. The system the pope envisions largely remains a closed loop, and it depends on the good character and good intentions of senior clerics, men who grew up in an institution that was much better at covering up abuse than addressing it. No lay people are required to participate in these investigations, and it is up to the bishop to determine whether the accusations are credible. Andrew Medichini/Associated Press An investigation is supposed to end within 90 days, but it can be extended. A priest accused of abuse is presumed innocent, and offered the chance to defend himself. But how will that presumption protect potential new victims as the investigation proceeds? And what if the bishop is implicated? Bring in the archbishop to investigate! And what happens when the archbishop a bishop with authority over other bishops is himself corrupt? Defrocked Australian Cardinal George Pell, now in the pokey for his sexual abuse of two choirboys, was named archbishop of the diocese of Sydney in 2001. Presumably the Vatican would investigate, but how long would it take, and who would be brave enough to submit the first allegation against such a powerful cleric? Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarricks sexual exploitation of young seminarians had reportedly been known for years, and yet that didnt interfere with his advancement in a 50-year clerical career. Indeed, McCarrick supported the U.S. Conference of Bishops zero-tolerance policy, adopted in 2002, which pledged to permanently remove any priest found to have abused a minor. We need to accept these norms and move on, McCarrick told reporters. His past only caught up with him in 2018. The rules will be evaluated after three years, so presumably, if they dont work, or if enough Catholics find them wanting, they could be revised. Last fall, American bishops were about to vote on a proposal to implement a code of conduct for bishops on sexual abuse matters, and to create an independent panel, composed of lay people, to evaluate bishops accused of wrongdoing. Pope Francis asked the U.S. prelates not to move forward on their own, without the rest of the church. His own rules clearly reject that stronger option. New rules, no matter how sweeping, cannot erase the culture of silence that the church has fostered for so long. Indeed, the only bishop who ever has been swiftly punished by the Vatican for his conduct related to sex abuse was Detroit auxiliary bishop Thomas Gumbleton. His crime? He was a victim, molested by a priest when he was a boy. He disclosed what happened to him in testimony urging Ohio lawmakers to extend the statute of limitations for abuse crimes. Within days, Gumbleton was told he had broken an obscure canon law: a bishop must not publicly disagree with other bishops. Ohio bishops opposed the law Gumbleton endorsed. He did not mind the forced retirement as bishop, but having to leave his parish broke his heart. Celia Wexler is the author of Catholic Women Confront Their Church: Stories of Hurt and Hope (Rowman & Littlefield). Donald Trump is causing a constitutional crisis with his blanket refusal to respond to any subpoenas. So what happens now? An impeachment inquiry in the House wont send him packing before election day 2020 because Senate Republicans wont convict him. So the practical political question is whether a House impeachment inquiry helps send him packing after election day. That seems unlikely. Probably no more than a relative handful of Americans are still unsure of how theyll vote on Nov. 3, 2020. An impeachment is unlikely to reveal so many more revolting details about Trump that these swing voters would be swayed to vote against him, and their votes wouldnt make much of a difference anyway. Besides, the inquiry probably wouldnt reveal much thats not already known, because House subpoenas will get tangled up in the courts for the remainder of Trumps term (even though courts give more deference to subpoenas in an impeachment inquiry). Worse yet is the chance that an impeachment inquiry plays into Trumps hands by convincing some wavering voters that Democrats and the deep state are out to get Trump, thereby giving him more votes than hed otherwise get. Does this mean House Democrats should avoid taking the political risk of impeaching Trump? Not at all. Another question needs to be considered not just the practical political effect on the 2020 election, but something more important over the long run. It is whether an action designed to enforce our Constitution is important for its own sake even if it goes nowhere, even if its unpopular with many voters, even if its politically risky. Every child in America is supposed to learn about the Constitutions basic principles of separation of powers, and checks and balances. But these days, every child and every adult in America is learning from Donald Trump that these principles are bunk. By issuing a blanket refusal to respond to any congressional subpoena, Trump is saying Congress has no constitutional authority to oversee the executive branch. Hes telling America that Congress is a subordinate branch of government rather than a co-equal branch. Forget separation of powers. By spending money on his wall that Congress explicitly refused to authorize, Trump is saying that Congress no longer has any constitutional authority over spending. Goodbye, checks and balances. By unilaterally shuttering the government in order to get his way, Trump is saying he has the constitutional right not to execute the laws whenever it suits him. Farewell, Congress. By directing the attorney general, the Justice Department, the FBI and the secretary of the Treasury to act in his own personal interest rather than in the interests of the American people, Trump is saying that a president can run the government on his own. Adios, Constitution. By unilaterally threatening to cut off trade with the second-largest economy in the world, Trump is saying he has sole authority to endanger the entire American economy. (Make no mistake: If he goes through with his threat, the U.S. economy will go into a tailspin.) By doing whatever he could to stop an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including firing the head of the FBI, Trump has told America its OK for a president to obstruct justice. Goodbye, law. The core purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to prevent tyranny. Thats why the framers of the Constitution distributed power among the president, Congress and the judiciary. Thats why each of the three branches was designed to limit the powers of the other two. Sarah Silbiger / New York Times In other words, the framers anticipated the possibility of a Donald Trump. The framers also put in mechanisms to enforce the Constitution against a president who tries to usurp the powers of the other branches of government. Article I, Section 2 gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment. Article I, Section 3 gives the Senate the sole power to try all impeachments. Trump surely appears to be usurping the powers of the other branches. Under these circumstances, the Constitution mandates that the House undertake an impeachment inquiry and present evidence to the Senate. This may not be the practical political thing to do. But it is the right thing to do. 2019 By Robert Reich Robert Reichs latest book is The Common Good, and his newest documentary is Saving Capitalism. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters. Mayor London Breed reprimanded some San Francisco supervisors Tuesday for their vote to delay legislation that would force extremely mentally ill people into treatment. Breed addressed the Board of Supervisors during her monthly appearance at its regular Tuesday meeting. Her comments came a day after the Rules Committee postponed a vote on whether to make use of state law SB1045, which would give San Francisco the ability to set up a five-year pilot program to hold people involuntarily who are considered a danger to themselves or others. This is one solution to the challenges that you all know we are dealing with every single day, said Breed, visibly upset, her voice grew louder and more tense. And after six months we get opposition and additional delays. Enough already. At Mondays committee meeting, Supervisors Hillary Ronen, Gordon Mar and Shamann Walton questioned whether the city had enough resources to take on the extra responsibility of the state law, despite estimates that the program would apply to only a handful of people. We have to make changes now, Breed said. And, supervisors, Im asking you today to please take action. No more delays. Trisha Thadani Income is relative: Supervisor Vallie Brown was booed at her first major debate in the race for District Five supervisor Monday after a conversation about Navigation Centers suddenly derailed into attacks on personal wealth. After her opponent Dean Preston said he would like to see more public housing, the current supervisor said it was a great idea but questioned how the city would pay for it. When she suggested the wealthy must pay a greater share for such programs, Preston took the comment personally. When you make a comment about the wealthy and point in my direction, I need to respond, he said. Let me say that both the appointed incumbent and I live comfortably in homes that we both own in the district. Brown shot back. Yes, I own a condo, she said. But do I live paycheck to paycheck? Absolutely. And I bet you a lot of people that have places live paycheck to paycheck also. That comment prompted a roaring boo from the audience, which was packed with supporters of both Preston and Brown. San Francisco supervisors are among the best paid in the country, at about $120,000 a year. After the debate, Brown said her point was that even people who make comfortable salaries like herself also struggle to live in pricey San Francisco. I get that people make less than me, and Im sensitive to that, she said. But this city is too expensive and the wealth gap is getting larger, and we have to have those discussions. Monday nights debate at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club was the first face-off between the candidates for the District Five seat. A third candidate, Ryan Solomon, a bartender, was also present. Preston, who brands himself a Democratic Socialist, made a number of bold statements during the debate such as saying the city should increase the $500 million proposed housing bond to $1 billion. He also criticized the current leadership for not yet opening a Navigation Center in the district. Brown, who was appointed to the seat by former District Five Supervisor London Breed when she became mayor in July, agreed the city needs to be more bold in addressing its homelessness and housing crisis but said it also needs to be realistic, too. She evoked snaps from the audience a sign of approval when she talked about how she is actively looking to bring a Navigation Center into the district, and recently passed legislation that would create the citys first vehicular Navigation Center. These are hard discussions and we need to protect the most vulnerable, she said. Im much more boots on the ground, and I always have been. Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfcityinsider @TrishaThadani Sometimes when Jessica Samples cracks the living room window of her Hayes Valley apartment on a sunny day, her air quality monitor jumps to orange or red. That means unhealthy air is swirling outside. A likely culprit? The Brazilian steak house across the street. For years, smoke has been billowing from vents on the roof of Espetus, a restaurant that specializes in meat slow-cooked over an open flame. Residents of 55 Page St., a 128-unit apartment building built in 2008, say the smoke has been causing them headaches literally as a pungent smell of cooked meat and charcoal penetrates their homes. The city issued Espetus a Notice of Violation nearly a year ago for violating its conditional use permit that says the restaurant must control noise and odors so as not to present a nuisance to nearby residents and businesses. Meanwhile, records show that more than 244 smoke and odor complaints were filed with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District between 2009 and 2018. Espetus has been open at 1686 Market St. since 2003 without penalty. It is deeply frustrating, said Samples, who lives in a below-market-rate unit with her husband and two children. Ill be sitting on the couch and see it (the air quality monitor) start to climb, look over, see the restaurant is puffing, and then shut the windows. Her neighbors also complain about not having access to fresh air, especially on the weekends when the restaurant is busiest. Another resident, a cancer survivor, says the smoke aggravates his lung and heart issues. A group of residents hired lawyer Steven Hammond, to advise them as they deal with the city and restaurant. Inside Radu Patrichis apartment on a recent Friday morning, before the restaurant hit its lunch rush, a sharp smell of smoke lingered in the air. And this is a good day, he said. Its frustrating that they (the city and restaurant) havent moved quicker when there is a clear violation. Now Playing: A compilation of videos from residents at 55 Page St. show smoke billowing from Espetus between January 2016 and November 2018. The restaurant added new equipment this year to try and mitigate the smoke, but the problem persists. Video: Radu Patrichi The restaurants landlord, the Mosser Co., will appear before the Board of Appeals Wednesday over a Notice of Violation it received in July. But the warnings from the city originally began in March 2018 with a Notice of Complaint. Then in May 2018, the Planning Department told Espetus to take corrective actions within 15 days. Within 11 days, the department agreed to give the restaurant an extension until it had a thorough evaluation conducted by ventilation consultants. Espetus was then issued a Notice of Violation after a ventilation consultant said in an email to the Planning Department that the restaurants equipment was near or at the end of its useful service life. Espetus general manager, Thays Klein, said the ventilation system hasnt been changed since the restaurant opened in 2004. She said she does not know how old it was when they moved in. She admits the system needs an upgrade, and said the restaurant spent about $2,000 this year installing new equipment to try and mitigate the smell. Still, the problem continues. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle The restaurant appealed the Notice of Violation at an August hearing. The Planning Department denied the appeal and told the restaurant it had 15 days to fix the problem or face fines of up to $250 a day. The restaurant filed another appeal in October, but that hearing date has been delayed three times, and Espetus has never had to pay fines because it appealed the violation and was making a good faith effort to fix the issue, according to the Planning Department. The department said the restaurant is working to fix the problem, but it will still have to pay $5,416 in administrative fees. Espetus may be subject to more fines if the board upholds the Notice of Violation at Wednesdays meeting and establishes a deadline for compliance. District Supervisor Vallie Brown said she is sympathetic to the plight of small businesses in pricey San Francisco, but when it comes to the smoke impacting nearby residents, enough is enough. You cant pollute peoples apartment because of your business. Thats ridiculous, Brown said. That is an environmental issue. And if they are going to have a restaurant where they are going to smoke like that, they should have realized they would need to put extra precautions in. Klein said the restaurant and the landlord are doing everything they can to solve the problem, and it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix it. The restaurant is already struggling financially, she said, as business has declined and the rent has more than tripled since 2003. I understand the problem is real, Klein said. But all Im trying to say is that its not an easy fix. And were not a big enough operation to take on that cost. Next door to the restaurant, Andy Gillis sat inside the Green Arcade bookstore, where the door was wide open. When asked if the smell bothered him, he just shrugged. Sometimes its bothersome, but its not bad, said Gillis, who works at the bookstore. Scott Chaffin, at Jonathan Rachman Design next door to Espetus, said he can often see the smoke coming from the restaurant and notices the smell. But he, too, said it doesnt really bother him. Some days its like a haze, almost like you see a fire, he said. I can see it and smell it, but it doesnt bother me. But I could understand why it bothers others. Steven Deming, manager of Zuni Cafe on Market Street, was even more indifferent. Its never been an issue, he said. Its small stuff as far as Im concerned. But its much bigger stuff for those who live with it. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle On the roof of 55 Page St., the smoky meat smell is either barely noticeable or overwhelming depending on the direction of the wind. A number of residents said the smoke often makes the roof and their balconies unusable. My partner is a senior, and cancer and pneumonia survivor, who currently is experiencing lung and heart issues, which the smoke aggravates, resident Anthony Newland wrote in an email. I am also a senior, an asthmatic, and the smoke has aggravated that condition. Samples said her family spent more than $4,000 buying air filters to mitigate the smell, and about $1,000 a year maintaining them. It is unjust, said Samples, who works for a nonprofit. I am basically cleaning up their mess with a high percentage of my low income. Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani On my first visit to Paris two years ago, I met up with an American expat friend for dinner at Bouillon Pigalle. We ordered a few items, from little plates of salad to a big steak to be shared, but the thing that struck me was the unabashed and exemplary use of butter, especially compound butter. The meal began with bright pink radishes that you dipped into a spiced-infused butter and some salt before taking a bite. It was an elegant and refreshing way to begin a meal that later included the steak served with a greenish, herb-infused compound butter. New measures by federal regulators could help thwart some of the billions of robocalls received in the U.S. The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that it will vote in June on whether to let wireless carriers block spam calls by default, which should mean that more spam calls are blocked. Right now, customers have to take the extra step of requesting tools from their carriers or downloading apps from other companies to help them weed out most unwanted calls. The rising volume of calls in the past few years, driven by how cheap and easy it is for scammers to call millions of people, as well as weak enforcement, has created pressure on Congress, regulators and phone companies to act. The volume of calls has risen to roughly 5 billion per month, according to call-blocker YouMail, from 2.7 billion in November 2017. Thats when the government gave carriers explicit, although narrow, permission to block certain types of calls. Many robocalls are not scam calls, but calls from debt collectors and telemarketers selling insurance, cruises and the like. Its not clear whether carriers would automatically block those calls, too, said Margot Saunders, senior counsel for the National Consumer Law Center and an expert on robocalls. Under the proposed rules, the agency wont require carriers to provide such services or mandate that the tools offered are free. Today, some of these apps cost extra money; others are free. We certainly are encouraging companies to offer this for free, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. He said he anticipates that companies wont charge extra because it would cost less than the headache of dealing with robocalls and customer complaints about them today. He raised the threat of regulatory action if the companies do not take the steps necessary to protect consumers. The agency also said Wednesday its making clear that carriers can let customers come up with lists of numbers that they will permit to call them. That means customers could tell phone companies that any number not on their list be automatically blocked. There is no doubt that this can only help, that its a good thing. My questions go to how much it helps, Saunders said, referring to whether people would be protected from unwanted debt-collector and telemarketing calls as well as scams. Phone-industry group USTelecom said Pais proposal is big and bold and would help stop unwanted calls from reaching consumers. There are also bills in Congress addressing the robocall problem. A widely supported bipartisan Senate bill would require carriers to verify that a number popping up on your caller ID is real. A big problem with robocalls is that many are made to look like theyre coming from a number that matches your area code and the next three digits of your number, so you think its a neighbor and are more likely to pick up. The industry is working on this long-in-the-works system, but its been a slow process. Pai has threatened regulatory action if its not done this year. Tali Arbel is an Associated Press writer. While the pink gorillas and Oompa Loompa costumes are streaking by you, it feels like the Bay to Breakers race is very of the moment. It's easy to forget the race's historical roots. The semi-official San Francisco holiday actually dates back to 1912, making it older than Fremont, Pacifica and a bunch of other local bergs. The race started "six years after the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, as a morale booster and to promote the planned upcoming 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco," according to race organizers. Bay to Breakers is often called the longest consecutively run footrace in the world, covering 7.46 miles (12k) from Howard Street near the bay, through Golden Gate Park, to the breakers at Ocean Beach. But, as anyone who has ever witnessed horde of revelers approach the Panhandle knows, the event often feels more like a Mardi Gras parade than a punishing endurance challenge. In 2015, there were at least 11 arrests at the Panhandle as police moved to herd people away from the area following the race. We were curious to see when the costume tradition entered in to the century-old spectacle, so we started digging around in the Chronicle archives for evidence of the first furry footracers. We found evidence of the race dating back to the late 1970s, but we turned to the race organizers, Wasserman Media Group, to get their official answer. "It's actually up for a bit of debate," said Chris Holmes of Wasserman. "I think it grew out of the running craze of the late 70s and early 80s. I think this was just the next step in that movement." But who was the first to ever wear a costume? "From what we have found, the first person to have dressed up was in 1940s. There was a gentleman who dressed up as a comic book character: Captain Kidd," said Holmes. That character was based on a real pirate from the late 1600s. So apparently "pirate" is the most old-school Bay to Breakers costume possible. There's no evidence of spandex racers through the 50s and 60s, but, photos from our archives above show, Gumby was ready to break out in a full sprint by the 1980s. Since then, the costumes have continued evolving. "I'm impressed every year with the level of intricacy," said Holmes, who explained his company was inspired to take over the event in 2013 because of the unique relationship between the city and the race. "We wanted something that had deep roots within the city that could only be done in one place in the world," said Holmes. "San Francisco is a very welcoming town...it's really an extension of the personality of the city...I think it goes beyond partying. The event has always had a festival feel to it." Bay to Breakers stands apart from other races in so many ways. It's a 12K race that isn't even best-known for running. The course starts near the Embarcadero and goes west through the city to Ocean Beach (hence the name Bay to Breakers), but many participants don't even register for an official bib, let alone make it close to the finish line. They're in it for the experience, not the exercise. If you want to participate in the quintessential San Francisco race, but don't feel like breaking much of a sweat, here's what you can expect: Costumes Hands-down, the best part of Bay to Breakers is the costumes. They're clever, timely and often "only in S.F." Check out our previous coverage for some inspiration. Nudity For some people, their favorite costume is their birthday suit. Technically, nudity isn't allowed on the course but you'll start to notice the layers coming off as you make your way through the city. It is a San Francisco event, after all. However, cops have the right to pull you aside and cite you for baring it all. But they'll might be nice and just tell you to put your clothes back on. Booze Another thing that's not allowed during Bay to Breakers yet proliferates: alcohol. Some people sneak a flask under their tutus, others start early with mimosas and screwdrivers sipped from stoops along the race route. But party at your own risk; the Bay to Breakers official site says "all alcohol and other illicit substances will be removed from the race course immediately. The person with the item will be ejected from the event and is subject to arrest." Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle Tortillas One uniquely Bay to Breakers tradition is the tortilla toss at the starting line. No one really knows why it started, and despite past efforts by the city to put an end to it, hundreds of tortillas still go flying into the air at the start of the race. The Chronicle reported in 2018 it took about half an hour to sweep the discarded tortillas away and take them to be composted. Centipedes For those who like a little camaraderie (or accountability), you can run the race as part of a centipede, a group of 13 or more runners joined by a bungee cord. Bay to Breakers gives out awards to the fastest centipede groups, but you'll see some folks just doing it for fun, too. Salmon Before the race starts, a pack of salmon collect on the top of Hayes Hill near Alamo Square. When the activities begin, they run part of the race, but in the wrong direction. Keep your eyes peeled for salmon swimming upstream and give them a high-five as they wiggle their way through the crowds. Douglas Zimmerman A major Hayes Hill drop-off The hardest part of the race comes pretty early in the course, at the 2-mile point, as Hayes Street climbs up in altitude from Hayes Valley to the Painted Ladies. The uphill climb goes on for two-thirds of a mile, and this is where the pack starts to thin out. Half-hearted joggers slow down to a walk and lots more line up for a Porta Potty break. A warm, fuzzy feeling and new appreciation for San Francisco As you look around at your fellow San Franciscans, whether they're cheering on the earnest runners or walking along dressed up as BART cars and ballerinas, you're reminded of one of the greatest things about living here: the community. I've covered the race for a few years and I always leave with a huge smile on my face, as cheesy as that sounds. Getting around Figuring out transportation options to get to and from the race is usually a mess, but we're here to help. Be aware that a number of Muni buses will be rerouted around the race course and its related street closures. Muni will also provide post-race buses to get participants back downtown, meeting runners at 47th Avenue and Fulton Street. (Normal Muni rates will apply.) BART will add some early-morning trains to its service in order to accommodate the early race start, beginning with trains leaving about 5:40 a.m. onward to meet the 8 a.m. start (head here to see details). Golden Gate Ferry will also help get runners to the race with a special 6:45 a.m. ferry ride from Larkspur to San Francisco. Bay to Breakers takes place on Sunday, May 19. For all of the standard information on registration, road closures and the like, check out their website. READ MORE ABOUT BAY TO BREAKERS FROM SFGATE: 30% chance of rain for Sunday's Bay to Breakers Bridges, basketballers and bubbly: The wackiest Bay Area-themed Bay to Breakers costumes People who live on Bay to Breakers route share horror stories, tips and how they cope Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at alix.martichoux@sfgate.com. ANCHORAGE, Alaska Two sightseeing planes carrying cruise ship passengers in Alaska collided at about the 3,300-foot level before they crashed, the National Transportation Safety Board announced after a team arrived from Washington, D.C., to investigate the crash. The two planes collided in midair Monday, and the Coast Guard raised the death toll to six on Tuesday after finding the bodies of two people who had been missing. Five of the dead were passengers and the sixth was the pilot of one of the planes. Federal investigators said the larger plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3 with 10 passengers and its pilot, had descended from 3,800 feet and collided with a smaller de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, carrying four passengers from the same cruise ship, the Royal Princess, and the pilot. The federal investigation into the cause of the crash could take months, but a preliminary report is expected to be released within two weeks, said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the NTSB. Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens said Tuesday evening that his agency and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad found the two bodies of those who were missing near the crash site of the smaller plane involved in the collision, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver. The planes came down about a mile and a half apart, with some of the debris falling on land near George Inlet, about 8 miles from the cruise ship port of Ketchikan. The Beaver, the smaller plane, appears to have broken apart in midair, according to Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said the planes tail and section of the fuselage were 900 feet from the aircrafts floats, which landed near shore. The smaller plane was partially submerged in the shore of George Inlet after the single-engine plane overturned and hit some trees before crashing, according to Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens. The larger Otter landed in water and sank, he said. One passenger on the larger plane died, as did two passengers and the pilot on the smaller plane, Princess Cruises said in a statement. Alaska State Troopers in a statement late Tuesday identified the passengers who died as 46-year-old Louis Botha of San Diego; 56-year-old Simon Brodie from Temple, New South Wales, Australia; 62-year-old Cassandra Webb from St. Louis; 39-year-old Ryan Wilk from Utah; and 37-year-old Elsa Wilk of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Also killed was the pilot of one of the planes, 46-year-old Randy Sullivan of Ketchikan. Rachel DOro and Mark Thiessen are Associated Press writers. SACRAMENTO Six Roman Catholic dioceses in California are creating a program to compensate people who were sexually abused by priests as children, in return for them promising not to sue. The program announced Tuesday includes the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the dioceses of Fresno, Orange, Sacramento, San Bernardino and San Diego. Together, they cover 36 counties and some 10 million Catholics, or about 80% of the states Catholics. The compensation program is part of our effort to own and atone for the Churchs failure to protect children and young people abused by Catholic priests, Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto said in a statement. The diocese expects the program to begin before the end of summer, spokesman Kevin Eckery told the Sacramento Bee. The compensation program will cover abuse committed by priests in the six dioceses but not victims of other diocesan employees, such as schoolteachers, or clergy from other dioceses or religious orders. Those who accept compensation agree not to file lawsuits over abuse. They also cant have previously resolved a lawsuit over the same allegations. However, the program is open to those who are barred from suing by statutes of limitations because the abuse occurred too long ago. It also will be open to anyone whether or not they are in the country legally. The program will be independently administered by Washington, D.C., attorneys Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros and an oversight board that includes former California Gov. Gray Davis and Maria Contreras-Sweet, former administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, according to a statement from Feinbergs firm. Over the past two decades, California dioceses have paid nearly $1.5 billion in settlements to thousands of abuse victims. It was unclear how much abuse survivors could receive under the compensation program. Until we have a sense of how many victims come forward and what the range of damages is, we just dont have dollar figures, Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman for the attorneys, told the Bee. However, she said Feinberg and Biros have run similar programs for dioceses in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Colorado and the programs in New York and Pennsylvania have paid out a total of $250 million. SACRAMENTO Six Roman Catholic dioceses in California are creating a program to compensate people who were sexually abused by priests as children, in return for them promising not to sue. The program announced Tuesday includes the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the dioceses of Fresno, Orange, Sacramento, San Bernardino and San Diego. Together, they cover 36 counties and some 10 million Catholics, or about 80% of the states Catholics. The compensation program is part of our effort to own and atone for the Churchs failure to protect children and young people abused by Catholic priests, Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto said in a statement. The diocese expects the program to begin before the end of summer, spokesman Kevin Eckery told the Sacramento Bee . The compensation program will cover abuse committed by priests in the six dioceses but not victims of other diocesan employees, such as schoolteachers, or clergy from other dioceses or religious orders. Those who accept compensation agree not to file lawsuits over abuse. They also cant have previously resolved a lawsuit over the same allegations. However, the program is open to those who are barred from suing by statutes of limitations because the abuse occurred too long ago. It also will be open to anyone whether or not they are in the country legally. The program will be independently administered by Washington, D.C., attorneys Kenneth R. Feinberg and Camille S. Biros and an oversight board that includes former California Gov. Gray Davis and Maria Contreras-Sweet, former administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, according to a statement from Feinbergs firm. Over the past two decades, California dioceses have paid nearly $1.5 billion in settlements to thousands of abuse victims. It was unclear how much abuse survivors could receive under the compensation program. Until we have a sense of how many victims come forward and what the range of damages is, we just dont have dollar figures, Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman for the attorneys, told the Bee. However, she said Feinberg and Biros have run similar programs for dioceses in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Colorado and the programs in New York and Pennsylvania have paid out a total of $250 million. Claims can be submitted through a website that is still being developed. The group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, urged victims to use the justice system. We believe that the best way to expose wrongdoing and enforce accountability is for crimes to be made public and for punishment and compensation to be meted out by courts, not the institutions that allowed the wrongdoing to happen in the first place, the group said in a statement. Tickets for his July 23 rd date are still on sale as of writing, and can be purchased at Lippu.fi . THE BRITISH POP STAR ED SHEERAN has broken a national record in Finland, with the original date for his July Helsinki concert selling out all 60,000 tickets in under 20 minutes. An extra Helsinki date was announced immediately after the first one was sold out. The four-time Grammy award winner, famous for platinum-selling tracks such as The A-Team and Thinking Out Loud, will be playing in Helsinki on July 23 & July 24 as part of his two-year Divide Tour. The July 23 concert was added after concert organisers learned of the unprecedented demand for tickets. Sheeran will be playing both dates at Helsinkis Malmi Airport, one of the few times in history where the second-busiest airport in Finland will be used for a large-scale event. Hell be joined by supporting acts Zara Larsson and James Bay, both bestselling artists in their own right. Previous records for the most popular music events in Finlands history include one held by the Rolling Stones for their 1995 concert at Helsinkis Olympiastadion, which sold 52,000 tickets in just over 24 hours. The Helsinki leg of U2s 360 Degrees Tour in 2010 previously held the record for the fastest-selling concert in Finnish history, selling over 50,000 tickets in less than two hours. With the addition of an extra tour date, Ed Sheerans performances will constitute the largest music event in Finnish history, with an estimated 120,000 people attending over two days. For comparison, Helsinkis Flow Festival garnered a record 75,000 attendees over three days in 2018. Sheeran has long enjoyed immense popularity in Finland, with his multi-platinum 2017 track Shape of You holding the top spot for the most streamed song on Spotify globally since its release. He is also the second-most popular Spotify artist after Canadian rapper Drake, with billions of streams under his belt. Tickets for his July 23rd date are still on sale as of writing, and can be purchased at Lippu.fi. Adam Oliver Smith HT (@HelsinkiTimes) Image: Ed Sheeran Instagram Etla on Tuesday pointed out that the impact of immigrant-owned businesses on economic growth is nevertheless not as significant as one could hope for, as many of the jobs they create are low-paid and low-productivity jobs. BUSINESSES owned by immigrants are creating relatively more jobs than businesses owned by native-born Finns, finds a study by the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (Etla). Their contribution to economic and productivity growth is limited also for the simple reason that they account only for about a few per cent of all enterprises and one per cent of labour in the business sector in Finland. The average size of an immigrant-owned business was 4.4 employees and the average annual wage cost per employee 36,000 euros in 2016. Immigrant-owned businesses, however, have a significant role as providers of employment to certain groups of people, acknowledges Etla. Mika Maliranta, the research director at Etla, on Tuesday stated in a press release that overall immigrant-owned businesses have had a negative impact on productivity growth in Finland. They have created relatively many new low-productivity jobs, which has slowed down the productivity growth of the national economy. You should bear in mind, however, that the impact is very limited because immigrant-owned businesses only account for a few per cent of businesses and one per cent of labour in the business sector, he commented. The research data dates back to 2016 and comprises almost 90,000 businesses, including almost 4,000 owned by people of immigrant backgrounds. Etla also reported that the average wage was over 20 per cent lower in immigrant-owned businesses than in those owned by native-born Finns. Although wages in immigrant-owned businesses have been climbing at a faster-than-average clip in recent years, the wage difference has widened further rather than shrinking. The reason for the growing wage differences is that immigrants businesses are constantly creating new low-paid jobs either due to the founding of new businesses or old businesses increasing their headcount, explained Maliranta. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi RICHMOND (BCN) A 56-year-old man fatally shot in front of his Richmond home Tuesday evening has been identified as Miguel Ramirez, according to the Contra Costa County coroner's office. Police responded to a ShotSpotter gunshot detection system activation in the 1600 block of Chanslor Avenue around 5:05 p.m. and found Ramirez suffering from at least one gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police spokesman Lt. Matt Stonebraker said that as of Wednesday morning, there were no details available to release about a suspect or motive. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. OAKLAND (BCN) An Oakland fire captain said on Tuesday that Ghost Ship warehouse master tenant Derick Almena told him in September 2014 that no one was living at the structure in Oakland's Fruitvale district where 36 people perished in a fire in 2016. Testifying in the trial of Almena, 49, and Ghost Ship creative director Max Harris, 29, who face 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the Dec. 2, 2016 blaze, Oakland Fire Capt. George Freelen said he and three colleagues visited the building at 1309 31st Ave. in late September 2014, a few days after there'd been a couch fire outside the warehouse. Freelen, who heads a fire station that's only about a block away from the warehouse, said the visit wasn't a formal inspection but he wanted to visit the warehouse because "I wanted to see what was inside" and Almena gave him permission to enter the building. Freelen said the building had "a lot of materials," such as pianos, organs, a recreational vehicle, a trailer and "a lot of different wood products." Freelen said he was concerned about what he described as a "medium to high" fire load at the warehouse, explaining that fire load refers to the potential for fire from various materials inside a structure. The fire captain said when he asked Almena if anyone was living at the warehouse Almena said no one was and said the building was being used as an art collective. Freelen also said he didn't see any fire suppression materials at warehouse, such as sprinklers and fire alarms. Alameda County prosecutors allege that Almena and Harris are criminally liable for the fire because there was no time and no way for the people at the party to escape since the warehouse didn't have important safeguards, such as fire extinguishers, smoke alarms and exit signs. Prosecutors also say Almena and Harris violated the terms of the warehouse's lease by turning it into a living space where up to 25 people stayed and hosting underground music parties there. Freelen said it wasn't clear to him what type of occupancy the building was zoned for so he filed a report with Oakland fire inspectors asking for clarification but he never heard back from them. Freelen said if he'd known people were living at the warehouse, "A whole different set of coding would have applied and I would have called my battalion chief immediately and told him that people were living in an unsafe environment and it should be corrected immediately." In a combative cross-examination, Harris's lawyer Curtis Briggs asked Freelen why he never went back to the warehouse after his visit in September 2014 if he was concerned about potential safety problems there. Freelen said he didn't go back because he was confident that the Oakland Fire Department's OneStep database system would contain his information about his concerns and would resolve the building's occupancy status. Almena's lawyer Tony Serra alleged that Freelen's claim that he filed a report requesting clarification about the warehouse's occupancy status "was never ascertained by anyone, anywhere" but prosecutor Autrey James objected to Serra's allegation and Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson sustained his objection. 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 Santa Rosa man died Tuesday when an all-terrain vehicle rolled over and landed on him at a vineyard in unincorporated Sonoma County south of Santa Rosa, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. The man's daughter called the sheriff's office around 8 p.m. She said she went to look for her 62-year-old father when he didn't come home from work and found him dead under the ATV in the 4500 block of Grange Road. The man was inspecting irrigation lines with the ATV on private property and was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Crum said. The sheriff's office is working to confirm the man's identity and cause of death. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating the workplace death, Crum 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. A pedestrian fatally struck by a Golden Gate Transit bus in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood on Saturday evening has been identified by the medical examiner's office as 65-year-old Mark Swink. Swink, a San Francisco resident, died in the collision reported around 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the intersection of Golden Gate Avenue and Hyde Street. The death was the 10th involving a bicyclist or pedestrian in San Francisco in 2019 and the sixth in just over a month, according to the advocacy group Walk San Francisco, which held a vigil Monday evening at the site of Swink's death. A man fatally stabbed in San Francisco's Bayview District on Sunday evening has been identified by the city's medical examiner's office as 42-year-old Bruno Niedzielski. The stabbing was reported at 7:47 p.m. in the 1100 block of Gilman Avenue. Niedzielski was taken to a hospital but died there, police said. Officers arrested 41-year-old Salvador Chavez on suspicion of killing Niedzielski. Chavez remains in San Francisco County Jail under no bail, according to jail records. Police have not released more details about what led to the stabbing. A 23-year-old woman was injured in a drive-by shooting in San Francisco's Bayview District on Monday night, police said. The shooting was reported at 8:06 p.m. in the first block of Osceola Lane, located near Hilltop Park. The woman was stopped at a stop sign when a vehicle with two people in it pulled alongside hers and at least one person inside it opened fire, according to police. The suspects fled toward La Salle Avenue after the shooting and the woman was treated at a hospital for injuries that are not considered life-threatening, police said. A San Mateo attorney pleaded not guilty Monday to misdemeanor charges of boating under the influence of alcohol for a collision last October in Marina Lagoon that seriously injured a teenage boy in a kayak, prosecutors said. The family of 15-year-old Francesco Adamo is angry at the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office, saying Stephen Chiari, 49, should have been charged with felonies for the Oct. 28 collision that left Adamo with life-threatening injuries to his skull, lungs, spine, chest and brain. Chiari was not present at the arraignment in South San Francisco on Monday but his defense attorney entered the plea on his behalf, prosecutors said. Adamo's family joined attorney Christopher Dolan for a news conference Friday to announce a civil lawsuit being filed against Chiari and to criticize prosecutors for only charging him with misdemeanors. All lanes of the westbound Interstate Highway 580 connector ramp to westbound Interstate Highway 80 and the Bay Bridge in Oakland have reopened Tuesday morning after a big-rig caught fire and caused a big traffic backup, according to the California Highway Patrol. The big-rig carrying cooking oil was first reported to be on fire at 5:16 a.m. in the far right lane of the ramp, CHP officials said. The far left lane reopened as of shortly after 7 a.m. and all lanes reopened by shortly after 9 a.m., according to the CHP. The 10th dead whale to wash onto Bay Area beaches this year was found in Pacifica on Tuesday morning. The Pacifica Police Department was notified of a whale carcass at Shelter Cove around 9:30 a.m. but did not send its officers to investigate because it was "quite a hike," Capt. Chris Clements said. Instead, they advised the Marin Headlands-based Marine Mammal Center to journey to Shelter Cove to analyze the remains of the whale. Center officials were not immediately available to comment on the latest case. The city of East Palo Alto has launched a program to provide people living in recreational vehicles with space to park overnight along with restrooms, showers and laundry services in response to the Bay Area's housing crisis. According to the city manager's office, the increase of RVs in the city due to a lack of affordable housing options presented health and safety concerns that prompted the design of the pilot program. The site, located at 1798 Bay Road, will accommodate 16 RVs throughout the night. The RVs are then asked to vacate during the day. A ceremony is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday to mark the opening of the site. Mayor Lisa Gauthier and other city officials and community members are expected to attend. A 25-year-old Michigan man pleaded guilty in federal court in San Jose Monday to a so-called "empty box" refund scheme that defrauded Cupertino-based Apple Inc. of $1 million. Van-Seyla Mork, a Kalamazoo resident, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Edward Davila to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. Davila will sentence him on Oct. 21. According to prosecution documents, Mork advertised an "Apple Refund Service" online between 2015 and 2018, offering people who bought Apple products a full refund. Mork would then submit fraudulent refund requests to Apple, falsely claiming the customers received only an empty box. He took a 10 percent commission on the refunds. 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. BERKELEY (BCN) The University of California Police Department is still searching for a man who photographed people in a campus restroom in March. Police said a camera found in a restroom stall on the fourth floor of Moffitt Library was reported to them on March 15. They discovered that pictures of five people had been taken that day and 13 people had been photographed in the same location on Oct. 15-18, 2018. Police do not know if the suspect is a UC Berkeley student or otherwise affiliated with the university. Anyone with information about the case can contact UC police at (510) 642-6074 during business hours or (510) 642-6760 at all other times. 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. Cal Fire announced Wednesday that it has determined the disastrous Camp Fire in Butte County in November was caused by PG&E electrical transmission lines in the area of Pulga in the Sierra foothills in eastern Butte County. The deadliest and most destructive fire in California history quickly spread southwest through Butte County in dry and windy conditions, killing 85 people and burning 153,336 acres. Nearly the entire city of Paradise was destroyed and smoke from the blaze covered the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California. PG&E said in February that it expected that an equipment failure on a high-voltage transmission power near Pulga would be found to be the probable cause. Cal Fire said its investigation determined there was a second ignition site near the intersection of Concow and Rim roads. The fire at that site was consumed by the original fire, the agency 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. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office has identified a man who was found dead under an all-terrain vehicle Tuesday night south of Santa Rosa as Luis Gonzalez Valencia, 62, of Santa Rosa. Valencia was found dead under the ATV in a vineyard in the 4500 block of Grange Road in unincorporated Sonoma County by his daughter, who went to look for him when he did not come home from work. Sheriff's deputies responded to her call around 8 p.m., Sgt. Spencer Crum said. Valencia was inspecting irrigation lines with the ATV on private property and was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, Crum said. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating the workplace death, Crum 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. Sammy Hagar and other popular musicians will play Wednesday night in San Francisco to raise money to cure pediatric cancer, concert organizers said. Hagar and others such as Joe Satriani, Rick Springfield and Nancy Wilson of Heart will play in the sixth annual Acoustic-4-A-Cure concert at 8 p.m. at The Fillmore. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $157 plus applicable charges. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a landmark ordinance, banning city departments from using facial recognition technology and calling for oversight for city departments that wish to use surveillance technology. The ordinance would require that city departments seeking to acquire surveillance technology with city funds to submit a policy plan to supervisors as well as a surveillance impact report. For departments that already use it, those departments would be required to submit a surveillance technology policy ordinance, outlining the use of the technology. In addition, the city's controller would be required to audit the use of the technology on a yearly basis and produce a report for supervisors. Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who introduced the ordinance, said, "This is not really the top secret surveillance ordinance, it's really an ordinance that is about having accountability around surveillance technology. And with the narrow exception of the facial recognition technology, this is actually not designed to stop the use of any technologies that we currently employ or may use in the future." Instead, he said, the ordinance is simply to "ensure the safe and responsible use of surveillance technology," by city departments. The University of California Police Department is still searching for a man who photographed people in a campus restroom in March. Police said a camera found in a restroom stall on the fourth floor of Moffitt Library was reported to them on March 15. They discovered that pictures of five people had been taken that day and 13 people had been photographed in the same location on Oct. 15-18, 2018. Police do not know if the suspect is a UC Berkeley student or otherwise affiliated with the university. A man allegedly caught on camera dragging a woman and her young daughter down a flight of stairs last week during a purse-snatch robbery in San Jose has a history of targeting Asian women, according to police. Officers responded to the 1500 block of Towers Lane around noon last Monday and canvassed the area. Investigators found security camera footage and spotted a Lexus that may have been used to flee the scene. Based on evidence collected, and similarities to other robberies in the area, they identified Pablo Cabrera as a suspect and arrested him Saturday on suspicion of robbery and violating the terms of his parole. In each of these cases, Cabrero allegedly targeted Asian women with expensive looking handbags. He would approach from behind, grab the purse and run to a vehicle, according to police. A man was shot to death early Tuesday evening in Richmond, police said. Officers responded at 5:05 p.m. to gunfire in the 1600 block of Chanslor Avenue that activated a ShotSpotter system, police spokesman Lt. Matt Stonebraker said. Officers found a man there suffering from at least one bullet wound. The man was pronounced dead where police found him. Stonebraker said police have no information on suspects or what happened before the shooting. One person died Tuesday night in a crash on an all-terrain vehicle on private property in unincorporated Sonoma County, according to the California Highway Patrol. The crash was reported at 8:34 p.m. in the 4500 block of Grange Road. Wednesday will be breezy, with rain likely in the morning, then rain in the afternoon. Highs will be in the mid 50s to lower 60s. South winds will be 10 to 20 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph in the afternoon. Wednesday night will be breezy, with showers and a slight chance of thunderstorms. Lows will be in the lower 50s. Southwest winds will be 20 to 30 mph, with gusts of up to 45 mph in the evening. Thursday will be breezy, with showers in the morning and a slight chance of thunderstorms. Showers are likely in the afternoon. Highs will be in the 50s. Southwest winds will be 10 to 20 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph in the afternoon. 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. Cal Fire announced Wednesday that it has determined the disastrous Camp Fire in Butte County in November was caused by PG&E electrical transmission lines in the area of Pulga in the Sierra foothills in eastern Butte County. The deadliest and most destructive fire in California history quickly spread southwest through Butte County in dry and windy conditions, killing 85 people and burning 153,336 acres. Nearly the entire city of Paradise was destroyed and smoke from the blaze covered the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California. PG&E said in February that it expected that an equipment failure on a high-voltage transmission power near Pulga would be found to be the probable cause. Cal Fire said its investigation determined there was a second ignition site near the intersection of Concow and Rim roads. The fire at that site was consumed by the original fire, the agency said. A Caltrain struck and killed a woman near the Capitol station in South San Jose on Wednesday morning, according to the transit agency. The collision occurred around 7:40 a.m. involving northbound train No. 227, which runs from Gilroy to San Francisco, Caltrain spokeswoman Tasha Bartholomew said. The woman, whose name hasn't been released, was trespassing on the tracks near the station at 3400 Monterey Highway, according to Bartholomew. The train had 304 people on board, with no injuries reported. All trains initially were stopped in the area, with bus shuttles taking riders past the scene. The shuttles were canceled and the train resumed service as of shortly after 9 a.m., Bartholomew said. Two people died in separate shootings Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning in Oakland, according to police. A man was killed in a shooting reported at 11:41 p.m. Tuesday in the 700 block of 29th Street, police said. Another shooting was then reported around 3:05 a.m. Wednesday in the 1700 block of East 17th Street near San Antonio Park. Officers arrived to find a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. No arrest has been made in either homicide, police said. The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office has identified a man who was found dead under an all-terrain vehicle Tuesday night south of Santa Rosa as Luis Gonzalez Valencia, 62, of Santa Rosa. Valencia was found dead under the ATV in a vineyard in the 4500 block of Grange Road in unincorporated Sonoma County by his daughter, who went to look for him when he did not come home from work. Sheriff's deputies responded to her call around 8 p.m., Sgt. Spencer Crum said. Valencia was inspecting irrigation lines with the ATV on private property and was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, Crum said. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating the workplace death, Crum said. A 56-year-old man fatally shot in front of his Richmond home Tuesday evening has been identified as Miguel Ramirez, according to the Contra Costa County coroner's office. Police responded to a ShotSpotter gunshot detection system activation in the 1600 block of Chanslor Avenue around 5:05 p.m. and found Ramirez suffering from at least one gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police spokesman Lt. Matt Stonebraker said that as of Wednesday morning, there were no details available to release about a suspect or motive. A bicyclist was struck and killed by a vehicle Wednesday afternoon on an eastbound state Highway 24 off-ramp in Oakland, according to preliminary information from the California Highway Patrol. The collision was first reported at 3:19 p.m. on the off-ramp to Martin Luther King Jr. Way from eastbound Highway 24. An Oakland fire battalion chief said Wednesday that she knew immediately after she arrived at the Ghost Ship warehouse after 11 p.m. on Dec. 2, 2016, that the fire that was burning there was a major event. Testifying in the trial of Ghost Ship warehouse master tenant Derick Almena, 49, and Ghost Ship creative director Max Harris, 29, Heather Mozdean, whose crew was the first to arrive at the scene, said, "There was enough smoke and volume and velocity to know that I had a significant fire." Almena and Harris face 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the fire at the warehouse at 1309 31st Ave., one count for each of the 36 people who were killed in the blaze. About a dozen family members of the victims who were in court on Wednesday morning quietly sobbed when Alameda County prosecutors played a 15-minute video of helmet camera footage of the blaze taken by firefighter paramedic Brian Hicks, who was on Mozdean's four-person crew. A San Jose woman charged in the death of a 17-year-old Fremont boy on state Highway 17 early Saturday was arraigned Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court. Ashley Marie Oliver, 28, has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and felony DUI causing injury in the crash that killed Armando Canales and injured four other victims. Oliver appeared in court in San Jose in a wheelchair after being hospitalized for major injuries from the crash and did not enter a plea. A San Bruno Fire Department secretary was arrested Tuesday for allegedly propositioning a teenage boy for a sexual act at Peninsula High School last week, police said. Gary Carson, 68, allegedly passed a note to the 16-year-old victim on Friday at the school at 300 Piedmont Ave., according to police. Police received a report of the incident on Monday and a subsequent investigation identified Carson as the suspect. He was arrested and booked into San Mateo County Jail on Tuesday on suspicion of communicating with a minor with the intent to commit a felony, police said. Carson has been placed on paid administrative leave from his position with the Fire Department, according to police. He was off-duty at the time of the alleged proposition. As the California wildfire season prepares to heat up, firefighters with the San Francisco Fire Department will be heading to New York City next week to take part in a first-of-its-kind national fire safety summit, fire officials announced Tuesday. The summit, with multiple agencies across the nation participating, will be hosted by the New York City Fire Department and the UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute at the fire department's Randall's Island training center from May 20-22. The program aims to allow fire service leaders and instructors to learn new research and tactics and incorporate that into their department's training programs. Sebastopol police arrested a woman Tuesday on suspicion of assaulting her 5-year-old daughter. Officers responded to a report from the woman's sister around 5:45 p.m. about a possible impaired driver at state Highway 116 and Berry Lane. The caller said her sister might have struck her daughter in the face while she was under the influence of a drug at a residence before fleeing in a vehicle, police said. The suspect returned to her Berry Lane residence with her daughter as police searched for her vehicle. Police then arrived and contacted 39-year-old Melody Eleni Loukas of Sebastopol and her daughter in Loukas' vehicle. The girl's face was red and swollen, had dark bruises around her eyes and red marks around her neck. Loukas admitted choking her daughter until she passed out and did not give a motive for the assault, police said. The girl is expected to survive her injuries. Federal prosecutors in San Francisco announced Wednesday that 13 people have been indicted on charges of operating an East Bay drug ring that allegedly sold cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine. Nine defendants are charged in the grand jury indictment with conspiring to sell the four drugs. Seven of those defendants and six others face additional charges of possessing or distributing drugs and/or conspiring to distribute methamphetamine. Prosecutors said in court documents that the investigation began in 2017 when undercover agents allegedly bought cocaine and heroin from defendant Jeffrey McCoy, 46, of Pittsburg, at locations including Pittsburg and Antioch. Court-approved wiretaps then allegedly led to defendant Lorenzo Lee, 66, of Antioch, an alleged supplier, and to others accused of selling the drugs. Prosecutors said five of the defendants were arrested on April 30 in connection with an earlier criminal complaint in the case. A Petaluma school district superintendent has been selected as interim superintendent of the Dixie School District in San Rafael. Marin County Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke said Wednesday that Rebecca Rosales will provide interim superintendent services for the 2019-2020 school year. Rosales was superintendent/principal of the 850-student Waugh Elementary School District in Petaluma. She submitted her resignation in May. Dixie Elementary School District Superintendent Jason Yamashiro announced in March he was resigning effective June 30 to pursue other interests. Yamashiro was superintendent in the district for two years. The Dixie School District Board of Trustees voted last month to change the district's name, which many residents equated with slavery and the Confederacy. The district's Board of Trustees is appointing an advisory committee to solicit a new name for the district. 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. Undoubtedly one of Jamaica's most authentic roots reggae reggae touring band, EarthKry gears up for their USA Summer 2019 tour. The latter comes on the heels of the self-contained band receiving some respite after concluding their highly successful tour as special guest of twice GRAMMY nominated California based J Boog. Armed with the saying "Veni Vidi Vici ( I came, I saw, I conquered.) EarthKry did just that and gained a legion of new fans thanks to reggae star J Boog. Unquestionably one of THE hardest working band in the industry, EarthKrys members Keyboardist Phillip Mcfarlane, Vocalist/Guitarist Aldayne Haughtron, Drummer Kieron Cunningham and Bassist Kamardo Blake, joined J Boog on his winter continental "ROSE PETALS WINTER TOUR". From California to Utah, Ohio to Colorado and many more cities, the band has received critical acclaimed reviews for their omni stage presence reminiscing of their iconic influences such as of The Wailers, Peter Tosh, Jacob Miller, Black Uhuru and Steel Pulse. As the band touched the continental various stages, and delivered their first notes, they captured and mesmerized their eclectic audiences. Feeding from the nightly euphoric vibes, EarthKry fueled authentic roots to the patrons who sang along and danced to the sweet sounds of Reggae. From loyal and new fans to reggae music lovers, EarthKrys powerful universal social commentaries resonated and left a memory that is sure to last. Just as the bands legacy The aforementioned is what the band strives for this new summer 2019 journey. On June 6th, 2019 in Duck, North Carolina, EarthKry will embark on their musical odyssey. Speaking on the tour ahead, keyboardist Phillip Mcfarlane stated " New music on this tour, we will start to introduce our fans to some teasers from our next album. We have been touring non stop but have managed to work on some new music. I know fans have been highly anticipated it, and no worries it is coming. We just want to make sure that it's quality and true to who we are" " This summer just like any other, you can expect the same energy, same authentic vibes and new arrangements. If you have never been to our show, come out and experience some authentic roots, rock and reggae. If you have been, then come back and get some more vibes, since music feeds our soul, come and get full " - added guitarist/vocalist band member Aldayne Haughton EARTHKRY USA SUMMER 2019 June 6 - Tap Shack, Duck, NC June 7 - New York Pizza Pub, Nags Head, #NC June 8 - Reel Cafe, Wilmington, NC June 9 - Gaffer's, Ocracoke, NC June 10 - Gaffer's, Ocracoke,, NC June 12 - Turners High Moon, Avon, NC June 14 - The Inn, Long Beach, NY June 21 - Wild Hare, Chicago, IL June 22 - Vegetable Buddies, South Bend, IN June 26 - Fountain Square, Cincinnati, OH June 29 - IceHouse Hall, Minneapolis, MN June 30 - The Mound, Davenport, LA July 5 - Last Concert Cafe, Houston, TX July 6 - Flamingo Cantina, Austin, TX July 7 - Cottonwood, TX July 11 - The royal, Salt Lake City, UT July 13 - Cervantes, Denver, CO July 19 - Boxcar, Santa Fe, NM July 20 - Reggae on the Grass, CO July 26 - Harbor Bar Reggae Fest, Hager City, WI July 28 - Surfside, Salisbury, MA July 31 - La Fabrica, Cambridge, MA Aug 1 - KC's Music Ally, VA Aug 2 - Tropicalia, DC Aug 3 - Knickerbocker, Westeryly, RI Aug 4 - Warehouse on Watts, Philadelphia, PA Aug 10 - Green Woods Roots & Culture Revival, ME More dates to be announced The technology used in exercise and lifestyle apps may hold the key to answering that most difficult of challenges - getting people to change their passwords and better protect their online privacy and data. Over the last five years the cost of cyberattacks is reported to have risen by 67%, with the majority of these data breaches being traced back to human error. It is anticipated that 75% of UK companies plan to address human factors in cyberattacks in the next three years in an attempt to mitigate this. Taking inspiration from exercise and fitness apps that successfully nudge people to make behavioural change, researchers from the University of Bath and Goldsmiths, University of London are investigating whether a simple device that plugs in to a PC and signals when action is needed with gentle sound, lights or vibration could make the difference. People routinely put off, ignore or forget cyber security measures such as changing passwords, updating privacy settings and locking computer screens. And traditional cyber security training is failing to galvanise people to act on straightforward security measures. Dr Emily Collins, Research Associate at the University of Bath's School of Management, said: "Humans are the weak link in cyber security. We know that people feel overloaded with data breaches reported in the news and overwhelmed about what they should be doing to protect themselves. Many of us know we're not on top of security, but translating that nagging worry into positive action just isn't happening. It's leaving us all open to serious security threats." The researchers hope the project, with funding from the Home Office via the National Cyber Security Programme, will help to build better habits through a subtle desktop reminder designed to gently nudge people into action without it becoming an annoyance or distraction. "Work-based training on cyber security is generally very conventional, often just delivered as a one-off when people join an organisation. There's scope to learn from health psychology to pinpoint what motivates people to take action to protect their cyber security. Our project recognises that people can respond to a gentle, well-timed nudge and is investigating the most effective way of doing that," Dr Collins said. The project, entitled Encouraging cyber security behaviour through gentle interventions: Can ambient displays support users in making more secure decisions? will use Adafruit Circuit Playgrounds, which can be programmed to detect when people leave their desks for example and remind them to lock their screen through a sequence of lights, sounds or vibrations. The research team will create a working prototype with open-source code to be available to businesses later in the year. It could be tailored for home use in the future. Dr Sarah Wiseman, lecturer in computer science at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: "The Adafruit Circuit Playgrounds are a fantastic opportunity to do some rapid prototyping with participants. The inbuilt functionality on the boards means that you don't need much experience with electronics to take a conacept from idea to reality." The research team, including Dr Joanne Hinds, Research Associate at Bath, is inviting people to take part in a creative element of the study by drawing their cyber security concerns and solutions. The findings will help the team to develop more innovative, creative ways to tackle cyber security problems. @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Houston police identified the driver who was hospitalized after violently crashing during a high-speed pursuit as an Indiana man with an outstanding warrant from that state. Donald Robert Yates, 54, allegedly stole an early model Lexus SUV from the parking lot of a Home Depot on the Gulf Freeway in Gulfgate around 3 p.m., Houston Police Department spokesperson Kese Smith said. The car's owner, Amil Mikahiel, told Chron.com that he called 911 to report the theft and helped officers track the SUV through a GPS system he had installed. Just in time for the 2020 election, state-level Republicans have decided to stop being cautious and force the Supreme Court to decide whether to uphold Roe v. Wade. After the passage of a series of state laws meant to make abortions almost impossible to obtain while leaving in place a microscopic fig leaf of legality, the Alabama legislature has gone all the way, The Washington Post reported May 14: "Alabama lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban virtually all abortions in the state - including for victims of rape and incest - sending the strictest law in the nation to the state's Republican governor, who is expected to sign it. "The measure permits abortion only when necessary to save a mother's life, an unyielding standard that runs afoul of federal court rulings. Those who backed the new law said they don't expect it to take effect, instead intending its passage to be part of a broader strategy by antiabortion activists to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide. " 'This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection,' Alabama state Rep. Terri Collins (R), the sponsor of the bill, said after the vote Tuesday night. 'I have prayed my way through this bill. This is the way we get where we want to get eventually.' " There are many aspects to this story, but for the moment I want to focus on what it says about the two parties, how they conceive of public opinion, and what constraints they believe it imposes on them. To begin, one must understand that while we often talk about abortion as though the issue is defined by a line running down the center of the American electorate, liberals on one side and conservatives on the other, that's not remotely true. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Americans rejects the Republican position on abortion. That position is that Roe ought to be overturned and abortion made illegal. Let me quote to you from the 2016 GOP platform, which is consistent with the position the party has held for decades: "we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to children before birth." If an embryo is a person under the Fourteenth Amendment whose right to life "cannot be infringed," that would mean that no exceptions to an abortion ban would be permitted - not for rape or incest, and not to protect the health or even the life of the woman carrying that embryo (or later in the pregnancy, that fetus). Now it's true that many, perhaps most elected Republicans do not actually take the extreme stance laid out in their party's platform. But what almost all of them agree on is that Roe should be overturned. That is a distinctly minority opinion. Support for Roe in polls usually runs between 60 and 65 percent, with a few polls showing even greater support. Take out the people who don't give an answer, and at most it's about 30 percent of Americans who support the Republican position on this issue. Despite our lengthy arguments about abortion, the shape of public opinion has been remarkably stable over the years. So how have Republicans responded? While there was a majority on the Supreme Court in favor of upholding Roe, they focused on chipping away at abortion rights and finding ways to make obtaining abortions as difficult and humiliating as possible, especially for poor women. These included TRAP laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers) imposing ludicrous requirements on abortion clinics; waiting periods to make obtaining abortions inconvenient; and things like forced ultrasounds and laws requiring doctors to lie to their patients about the supposed effects of having an abortion. But the reason Republicans didn't do what Alabama just did was simple. They weren't waiting for public opinion to come around. They were waiting until they had an anti-abortion majority on the Supreme Court. Which, since Brett Kavanaugh joined the court seven months ago, they now do. We should note here that like every other Republican-appointed justice on the Supreme Court did before him, Kavanaugh pretended during his confirmation process that he would vote to uphold Roe, so deep and profound was his respect for precedent. Precisely nobody, with the exception of the impossibly gullible Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, actually believed that. There is some chance that once the Mississippi law or one of the "heartbeat bills" passed in other states reaches the court, they will decline to overturn Roe. The only way that would happen is if Chief Justice John Roberts decides that once again the GOP must be saved from itself, because the political fallout of overturning the decision would be disastrous. But the rest of the party doesn't much care. Their attitude comes down to this: We know the public isn't with us on this. But it's what we want. Now we finally have the chance, so we're going to take it. We'll deal with the political consequences later. That is essentially what the Republican Party says on all the things it would like to do. They know that cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations isn't popular, but it's what they want, so they do it. They know that the public doesn't want to see environmental regulations gutted, but it's what they want, so they do it. Every once in a while the potential danger of a particular action is overwhelming enough to get them to pull back (like with their longtime dream of privatizing Medicare), but for the most part they just do what they want. And when the next election rolls around, they find other issues on which they can focus the public's attention. It doesn't always work (see the 2018 election, for example), but what's important is that when they have power, they use it. And Democrats? Never in a thousand years would Democrats pursue a hugely high-profile policy change supported by only 30 percent of the public. It's hard to get them to act vigorously on policies that have clear majority support, because they're always terrified that they'll offend somebody. Fortunately for them, most of their policy agenda is overwhelmingly popular. But imagine what would happen if Democrats had the same attitude the Republicans have, one defined by moral certitude and ambition, not by fear. Who knows what they could accomplish. _ _ _ Waldman is an opinion writer for The Washington Post's Plum Line blog. In their last 29 games without Kevin Durant but with Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors are a staggering 28-1. Very few people believe that the Warriors are actually "better off" without Durant, but Curry's recent brilliance in Durant's absence is difficult to overlook. In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday night, Curry lit up the Portland Trail Blazers for 36 points after connecting on nine of 15 three-point attempts, tying his career high for three-pointers in a playoff game. GAME RECAP: Curry, Warriors take Game 1 of Western Conference Finals Without Durant last week, Curry exploded for 31 points in the second half of the Warriors' Game 6 win over the Houston Rockets, knocking James Harden, Chris Paul and company out of the playoffs for the second-straight season. Curry's stellar play minus Durant has a number of Warriors fans and members of the media hailing the return of the "old Steph," who won two MVP awards before the arrival of Durant in 2016. "Come on folks. Give the brotha his props," Fox Sports' Chris Broussard tweeted. "It's good to have Old Steph back!" "Low key never gonna forgive KD for taking Fun Steph away from us for 3 years," tweeted a Warriors fan. ALSO: Kevin Durant says he's headed to New Orleans? Not exactly. Curry's struggles this postseason prior to Game 6 vs. Houston have been well-documented, but after his performance against Portland on Tuesday, it's hard to dispute the fact that the "old Steph" does indeed appear to be back regardless of whether Durant's absence has anything to do with it. Click through the slideshow above to see fan reactions to Curry's Game 1 performance against the Trail Blazers. 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. PRAGUE The European Parliament is expected to be a different legislature after next weeks election and leading Czech conservative lawmaker Jan Zahradil is hoping that voters embrace the idea of a scaled-back European Union. Zahradil is a moderate critic of the bloc, not a firebrand like French euroskeptic Marine Le Pen, and he is campaigning for a more flexible EU. Id call it a multispeed European Union with more space for the national governments and parliaments, Zahradil said in an interview. We want the European Union to simply do less and to do it better. Zahradil is leader of the group known as the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, which is the third largest in the European Parliament. His group is unlikely to win the ballot in the May 23-26 elections. But he wants to contribute to reforming the EU and attract those critical of its policies with a promise of a more pliable and downsized Europe in the future. The majority held by the center-right European Peoples Party and the center-left Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament is expected to evaporate. And Zahradil is hoping that European conservatives will fill the void after decades in opposition. Zahradil said his main objection to the EU is a permanent effort to transfer the solving of all problems (from the national) to the European level, even though its not effective. The European Commission, together with the European Parliament, uses every opportunity to gain more powers, to create an impression that we cant do without the EU. In many cases, it doesnt work. Zahradil is a European Parliament member for the conservative Civic Democratic Party. He is also his groups candidate to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, the EUs executive arm. He wants to replace the current EU mantra of one size fits all with a looser model of European integration. Zahradil said that in the multispeed Europe, it would be possible for the member states to unite their policies according to their wishes and needs. For example, if Germany and France agree to harmonize their taxes, thats fine but they should not force the others to join them, he said. The group also wants the currencies in the countries outside the eurozone to become official EU tender alongside the euro, and doesnt want a majority vote in the EU to replace the unanimous vote in foreign affair issues because it would only further increase tensions and divide the European Union rather than unite it. In the European Parliament elections, the conservatives are aiming for more than the 76 seats they currently have in the 751-seat EU legislature. Speaking about potential coalition possibilities, Zahradil said his group has a similar approach to the economy as the European Peoples Party, the biggest political group in the European Parliament or the liberals, known as ALDE. Karel Janicek is an Associated Press writer. KATHMANDU, Nepal Sherpa climber Kami Rita scaled Mount Everest on Wednesday for a 23rd time, breaking his own record for the most successful ascents of the worlds highest peak. Rita reached the summit with other climbers Wednesday morning and all of them were reported to be safe, said Gyanendra Shrestha, a Nepalese government official at the mountains base camp. Ritas two closest peers have climbed the 29,035-foot peak 21 times each, but both of them have retired from mountain climbing. It is my profession, but at the same time I am setting new world record for Nepal, too, Rita said last month before heading to the mountain. Rita, 49, first scaled Everest in 1994 and has been making the trip nearly every year since, one of many Sherpa guides whose expertise and skills are vital to the safety and success of the hundreds of climbers who head to Nepal each year seeking to stand on top of the world. His father was among the first Sherpa guides employed to help climbers reach the summit, and Rita followed in his footsteps and then some. In addition to his nearly two dozen summits of Everest, Rita has scaled several other peaks that are among the worlds highest, including K-2, Cho-Oyu, Manaslu and Lhotse. Rita was at Everests base camp in 2015 when an avalanche swept through, killing 19 people. After that tragedy, he came under intense family pressure to quit mountaineering altogether, but in the end decided against it. I know Mount Everest very well, having climbed it 22 times, but at the same time I know I may or may not come back, he said last month. I am like a soldier who leaves behind their wives, children and family to battle for the pride of the country. Rita has been an advocate for other Sherpa guides, who he said do not get the recognition they are due. He said that before climbers reach the summit to take their photographs announcing their success, there are months of hard work done by Sherpas. The Sherpas are the ones who take care of setting up the camps, carrying the loads on their backs, cooking food and carrying oxygen tanks. Perhaps most important, it is Sherpas who each year fix ropes and ladders over crevasses and ice falls that make things safer for the hundreds of climbers who will follow them. However, when these climbers reach the summit, only their names are highlighted and nothing mentioned about the hard work done by the Sherpas, Rita said last month. Sherpa tribespeople were mostly yak herders and traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides and porters. Binaj Gurubacharya is an Associated Press writer. BAGHDAD The U.S. on Wednesday ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands both suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region over still-unspecified threats that the Trump administration says are linked to Iran. Recent days have seen allegations of sabotage targeting oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a drone attack by Yemens Iranian-allied Houthi rebels, and the dispatch of U.S. warships and bombers to the region. At the root of this appears to be President Trumps decision a year ago to pull the U.S. from Irans nuclear deal with world powers, embarking on a maximalist sanctions campaign against Tehran. In response, Irans supreme leader issued a veiled threat Tuesday, saying it wouldnt be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. The movement of diplomatic personnel is often done in times of conflict, but what is driving the decisions from the White House remains unclear. A high-ranking British general said there was no new threat from Iran or its regional proxies, something immediately rebutted by the U.S. militarys Central Command, which said its troops were on high alert, without elaborating. Last week, U.S. officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. An alert on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said all nonessential, nonemergency U.S. government staff were ordered to leave Iraq right away under State Department orders. That includes those working at the U.S. Consulate in Irbil. The U.S. in recent days has ordered theAbraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment on July 7 if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. Jon Gambrell and Philip Issa are Associated Press writers. PARIS Livestreaming terrorist attacks. Using social media to spread deadly ideas. Manipulating banned videos to keep sharing them online. World leaders and tech bosses met Wednesday in Paris to find ways to stop all this. They worked all day on the Christchurch Appeal, named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in a March attack on mosques. The attacker streamed the killing live on Facebook, which announced tougher livestreaming policies on the eve of the meetings to limit our services from being used to cause harm or spread hate. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern welcomed Facebooks pledge to restrict some users from Facebook Live and invest in research to stay ahead of users attempts to avoid detection. She said she herself inadvertently saw the Christchurch attackers video when it played automatically in her Facebook feed. There is a lot more work to do, but I am pleased Facebook has taken additional steps today ... and look forward to a long-term collaboration to make social media safer, she said in a statement. Facebook said its tightening up the rules for its livestreaming service with a one strike policy applied to a broader range of offenses. Any activity on Facebook that violates the social networks most serious policies, such as sharing a terrorist groups statement without providing context, will result in the user immediately being blocked from Facebook Live for as long as 30 days. Previously, the company took down posts that breached its community standards but only blocked users after repeated offenses. The tougher restrictions will be gradually extended to other areas of the platform, starting with preventing users from creating Facebook ads. Facebook said its also investing $7.5 million in new research partnerships to improve image and video analysis technology aimed at finding content manipulated through editing to avoid detection by its automated systems a problem the company encountered following the Christchurch shooting. Sylvie Corbet and Masha MacPherson are Associated Press writers. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites and ad networks. Such third party cookies may track your use on Sharedots sites for better rendering. Our partners use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on Sharedots website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Learn more This is the astonishing moment a huge whale shark swam among boats in a harbour. The whale shark, estimated to be four-metres-long, was seen swimming closely to the coast at Bo Thonglang Bay in Prachuap Khiri Khan, southern Thailand on May 8. Local Kuntida Kongkaew was walking along the beach when she saw the wild whale shark swimming around the fishing boat dock in the afternoon. Kuntida, who filmed the creature from a harbour area, said that it was her first time to witness the big fish coming very close to the residential area. She said: ''Ive seen whale sharks before but Ive never seen it this close. I was very surprised that it didnt disappear when more people came to watch him.'' The harmless shark was seen swimming for about an hour before it slowly went back to the ocean in the Gulf of Thailand. The woman also said that there were many rare creatures living in the Bo Thonglang Bay but they often hide under the deep ocean. Kuntida added: ''The beach is very quiet here, so big and small fishes like to swim here to get away from the busy tourist beaches. ''The appearance of the whale shark also shows that the ocean is healthy and the animals arent encountered by human beings.'' Locals were baffled when a mystery 'drunk' man plunged through their roof. The shirtless Thai native had been running across the three-metre-high roofs in a village Pattaya, Thailand on May 13. Residents in the Banglamung subdistrict heard loud stomps from their iron rooftops before they walked out and saw the stranger jumping foolishly across the gaps. They told him to get down but the man, who appeared to be drunk, was not listening and still climbing between the houses. When he tried to run across the top of a garage at the Daraphan Apartment, the iron sheet collapsed, causing the man to fell off to the marble table. Sawang Boriboon rescue service and Pattaya police were called to the scene. The unidentified victim was given first aid at the scene before being taken to Banglamung Hospital. When being asked about his identity, the man did not answer properly but only went mumbling in random words. Residents told the police that they also did not know the man or what he was doing on the roof. A local said: ''We never saw him before and he didnt look familiar. I guess he was drunk walking from somewhere and ended up climbing on top of our houses.'' The man was taken for questioning at the police station and was held in custody at the police station while they waited for him to sober up. Page Content The wife of a county sheriff, who worked as a jailer and dispatcher at the sheriff's office, did not have a valid legal claim when the county fired her after her husband resigned during a sexual harassment investigation, a federal appeals court held. The plaintiff began working for the sheriff's office of Decatur County, Iowa (DCSO) in November 1996 as a jailer and dispatcher. A new sheriff was elected and started working for the DCSO in March 1998. In January 2008, the plaintiff married the sheriff and continued working for the sheriff's office. The office had no policy against them working together as a married couple. In November 2015, the DCSO received a complaint from a female dispatcher who alleged that the sheriff had sexually harassed her. An investigation followed and uncovered additional allegations of harassment. The county hired a former criminal prosecutor to prepare a petition to remove the sheriff, which was supported by affidavits from six DCSO employees. When the prosecutor presented the sheriff with the petition for removal, the sheriff immediately resigned. That same day, the prosecutor advised the new acting sheriff that he should consider placing the sheriff's wife on administrative leave. The prosecutor was concerned that problems might arise if the plaintiff was allowed to remain working around employees whom her husband had harassed and who had signed affidavits in support of her husband's removal from office. The acting sheriff agreed and placed the plaintiff on indefinite administrative leave. Shortly thereafter, the acting sheriff officially discharged her. On June 6, 2016, the plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, alleging retaliation under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She alleged that Decatur County and the acting sheriff, in his individual and official capacity, violated her First Amendment right to intimate association by firing her simply because she was married to the former sheriff. The acting sheriff and Decatur County moved for summary judgment arguing that the acting sheriff was entitled to qualified immunity and that Decatur County was not liable for his actions. [SHRM members-only toolkit: Involuntary Termination of Employment in the United States] The district court denied their motion, finding that the acting sheriff was not entitled to qualified immunity because the plaintiff's marriage was a motivating factor in his decision to fire the plaintiff and that Decatur County could be subject to municipal liability because the acting sheriff's decision to fire the plaintiff might have amounted to an unconstitutional custom, practice or policy of the county. The defendants appealed the decision to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On appeal, the 8th Circuit considered a prior decision in which it rejected a claim by a male police officer who was fired because his wife and daughter had plotted to frame the chief of police. In that case, the court recognized that the right to intimate association protects the formation and preservation of highly personal relationships such as marriage. But the right is violated only when the government directly and substantially interferes with the right to enter and maintain a marital relationship. To substantially interfere with the right to marry, a state action must significantly discourage a marriage, make a marriage practically impossible or act with the goal of poisoning a marriage. The court concluded that the decision to terminate a police officer on the basis of his wife's conduct did not violate his First Amendment rights. Based on that case law, the 8th Circuit decided that the plaintiff's termination did not amount to a constitutional violation. The fact that the plaintiff's marriage was a motivating factor in the decision to fire her did not mean that the firing directly and substantially interfered with their marriage. Rather, the plaintiff's discharge only had a collateral effect on the plaintiff and her family decisions. The 8th Circuit thus reversed the district court's decision on summary judgment and entered final judgment in favor of the defendants. Muir v. Decatur County, 8th Cir., No. 18-1057 (March 8, 2019). Professional Pointer: Companies employing married or related workers must carefully avoid adverse treatment of one for the protected conduct of another, as it may constitute retaliation. But retaliation generally does not apply to employer actions to limit the employment or influence of a spouse or relative of an employee found to have engaged in workplace misconduct. Jeffrey Rhodes is an attorney with Doumar Martin in Arlington, Va. Page Content An employer violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it fired a worker for sleeping during the night shift two days before a union election without considering the merits of the termination. Instead, the employer was trying to strengthen its grounds for firing other employees who were leading a union organization campaign but also sleeping during the same shift, a federal appeals court decided. Novato Health Care Center operated a skilled-nursing facility in California that cared for about 170 patients. In September 2015, the National Union of Healthcare Workers filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to represent a unit of Novato employees. On Oct. 6, 2019, four employees, who were among those leading the organizing effort, worked the night shift together at Station Four, one of four nursing stations at the facility. During that same shift another employee, whose union sentiments remain unknown, worked at a separate nursing station, Station One. A supervisor testified that when she arrived at the facility she witnessed all five employees sleeping for at least 15 to 20 minutes and took a photograph of two of the sleeping employees at Station Four. The two employees whose picture was taken acknowledged sleeping but only during their 10-minute break, which the company permitted. The two other employees at Station Four denied sleeping, and the employee at Station One did not testify. The next morning, the supervisor sent the facility administrator the photograph and informed him that the five employees had been asleep for 15 to 20 minutes. The facility administrator suspended all five employees and initiated an investigation. Novato's outside counsel provided input regarding disciplinary options. Specifically, in an e-mail to the facility administrator, the attorney recommended firing all five employees. Although counsel recognized that the employee at Station One was "a bit of a different story" because her charge nurse appeared to have tolerated her sleeping, he still recommended her discharge. Counsel explained in his e-mail, "Giving her lesser discipline, in this situation, sends the wrong message to the NLRB or a judge looking at this. It is possible that the NLRB or judge could view her situation as being less serious than the others, but I would rather have you take that risk, than the risk that letting her remain employed somehow dilutes our arguments with the other four." Two days before the scheduled election, the facility administrator fired all five employees for sleeping on duty. The union eventually won the election. [SHRM members-only toolkit: Complying with U.S. Labor Relations Laws in Nonunion Settings] The union charged Novato with committing a number of unfair labor practices, including the firing of the employees two days before the election. Concluding that anti-union sentiment was a motivating factor and finding that the supervisor's testimony was simply implausible, an NLRB administrative law judge found that the company had violated the NLRA by suspending and firing the five workers. Novato appealed to the D.C. Circuit, disputing the NLRB's determination that it fired the Station One employee in violation of the NLRA. The company emphasized the "total lack of evidence" that she did not sleep or that she was a union supporter. Although the Station One employee's union views were unknown, the NLRB concluded that Novato fired her along with the Station Four employees "for fear of diluting its argument against the other discriminatees" and to "cover its unlawful suspension and termination of the other four employees." The NLRB has held that an employer's discharge of neutral employees to facilitate discriminatory conduct against a targeted union-supporting employee violates the act. The D.C. Circuit found substantial evidence to support the NLRB's conclusion that Novato fired the Station One employee to provide cover for the discriminatory conduct toward the four union supporters. The court referenced counsel's statement in the e-mail to the facility administrator that the Station One employee was "a bit of a different story." Nevertheless, the court observed, the facility administrator followed the attorney's advice. Finding no basis for reversing the NLRB's decision, the D.C. Circuit affirmed that Novato violated the NLRA by using the Station One worker as a "pawn in an unlawful design." Novato Healthcare Center v. NLRB, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1221 (March 5, 2019). Professional Pointer: The NLRB will set aside an election if an employer engages in objectionable conduct that may have affected the outcome. Common examples of objectionable conduct include threatening, interrogating or spying on pro-union employees, or promising benefits to workers if they reject the union. Roger S. Achille is an attorney and a professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I. BANGALORE: IIT graduates, all with high-flying jobs, sacrificed it all to get into food ventures, which is part of the growing $48 billion service businesses in India. Across the Indian start-up sector, there is a rising group of IITians launching food ventures through experimenting with different ideas. Here is a list of 5 start-ups, as compiled by The Economic Times. #1.Chaayos Two IITians ,Nitin Saluja, an IIT Bombay graduate & Raghav Verma, an IIT Delhi graduate quit their high-flying jobs in the US and started tea cafe chain 'Chaayos,' in November 2012. Chaayos is a new tea-selling brand that thrived from the idea of experimenting with tea. Dedicated to their motto, Experiments with Chai, Chaayos provides fresh and gourmet, customizable tea to their customers that will charm every tea lover that walks through their doors. They specialize in traditional desi-chai to Kangra tea aam-papad, harimirch-chai, and Gods Chai. Apart from tea, they also feature a variety of other drinks like shakes, icy drinks, authentic beverages like Modinagar Shikanji & Homemade Chaach, and Keema Pav. Currently, there are five cafes with the similar theme in Gurgaon and Noida. READ MORE: Ratan Tata May Invest In e-Tailer Snapdeal? Microsoft Ventures Announces First Set Of Think Next Initiatives In As STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Empire Outlets -- New York Citys first outlet mall, located on the St. George waterfront -- will mark its grand opening Wednesday evening. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at 7 p.m., followed by a private party for about 600 VIP guests, according to Joseph Ferrara, principal of BFC Partners and the Outlets developer. Come Thursday, the site will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. While the project -- estimated to cost $304 million and infused with $47 million in state subsidies -- has been hindered with a series of opening delays, developers say the retail center is currently 80 percent leased. When finished, the site will feature more than 100 designer outlet retailers and a 1,250-space parking garage. We couldnt be more excited to deliver this world-class space for the people of Staten Island," Ferrara told the Advance. On Wednesday evening, there will be mobile food units open to the public, including Food Networks darling personality and Eltingvilles own Dom Tesoriero with his Mac Truck; Waffle de Lys; Abeetz Wood-Fired Pizza; Cousins Maine Lobster, and German Christmas Market, a tricked-out truck with a Frohe Weihnachten theme and bratwursts. Cocktails will be available for purchase during the evening. Roving fashion shows are planned, as are street performances and live music. Permanent food vendors will begin to open in July with initial tenants Shake Shack, Wasabi Steak & Sushi, Mammoons and MRKTPL, an artisanal food hall. While that section of the Outlets is being completed, there will be a battery of gourmet mobile food units in place for the thousands of shoppers anticipated to pass daily through the complex. In a separate promotion for the opening, Empire Outlets is giving away a $1,500 shopping spree for those who register online. Empire Outlets will open in phases between now and the summer, according to the developers. While the parking lot will be open Thursday for shoppers, it will not be open for the ribbon-cutting event. In addition, the grand staircase that leads up to the St. George Ferry Terminal will open Thursday. STORES OPENING IN MAY According to Empire Outlets, the following stores will open in May: Walgreens Lids Nike Old Navy Gap Banana Republic Samsonite H&M GNC Francescas Guess Jockey Columbia Sporting Goods Brooks Brothers US Polo Assn True Religion Starbucks Wetzels MORE STORIES ABOUT EMPIRE OUTLETS OPENING STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The menu designers at McDonalds have retrofitted four international eats for American fast food consumption. Starting June 5, four new items will headline at Staten Island restaurants. We are bringing some of our most popular global menu items to participating restaurants nationwide, noted a press release from the Chicago-headquartered company. We know our U.S. customers are curious about McDonalds international menu items. Because we are always innovating our menu, we are thrilled to leverage our global scale and offer popular flavors from around the world next month, said Linda VanGosen, McDonalds Vice President of Menu Innovation. This is a sandwich with fresh mozz and chicken. (Courtesy of Mc Donald's) Coming to a borough where fresh mozzarella is a mainstay of pork stores and markets is the Tomato Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich, a nod to its popularity in Canada. For this, grilled or crispy-fried chicken stars on a toasted artisan bun with tomato & herb sauce, creamy mozzarella cheese, slivered onions, fresh lettuce and sliced Roma tomatoes. Cheese in this sauce, says Mc Donald's, is real Cheddar. (Courtesy of Mc Donald's) That could be paired with another novelty, this one from Australia, Cheesy Bacon Fries promising McDs distinct spuds paired with cheddar sauce and bits of applewood smoked bacon. And of course theres a burger in the lineup -- the Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger. With a quarter pound of freshly griddled beef comes slices of Applewood smoked bacon, Gouda cheese, smoky McBacon Sauce" and onions on a sesame seed bun. The burger weighs four ounces before cooking.(Courtesy of Mc Donald's) Staten Islanders with a sweet tooth might seek out the Stroopwafel McFlurry of The Netherlands. This concoction folds vanilla soft serve ice cream with caramel-waffle cookie bits in a caramel swirl. The bits themselves are a novelty as they are made from Dutch Daelmans Stroopwafel, a round, caramel-filled cookie that fits over a coffee cup developed by Hermanus Daelmans around 1909. Soft serve ice cream is woven with cookies and caramel. There are eight McDonalds on Staten Island with the Grant City location currently out of commission as it undergoes renovations. The 40-year old eatery will soon see digital menus, self-order kiosks and reserved parking spaces for mobile-pay customers who pre-order. The company said it would reopen in September. We are committed to creating everyday feel-good moments for customers no matter what McDonalds restaurant they walk into anywhere in the world," said Van Gosen. As Mc Donalds points out, No passport required. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The year of the Wu continues. Wu-Tang Clan has announced that on Friday it will release an EP featuring music inspired by its new Showtime docuseries, Of Mics and Men. The four-part TV series, detailing the formation of the legendary hip-hop group as told by its surviving members, premiered last Friday with new episodes scheduled to debut over the next three Fridays. The EP will drop the same day as the second episode. Here is how the network describes the docuseries, which made its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival: Of Mics and Men looks back on the groups career, combining intimate and reflective interviews from each of the nine living members with never-before-seen archival footage and performances. Their ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit brought them together to overcome the poverty, violence and oppression of their New York neighborhoods. But it was music and their shared lyrical genius that allowed them to form the most recognized musical movement in the world, all while walking the tightrope that links business with brotherhood. The EP is just the latest in a string of news about the Wu-Tang Clan. In addition to the docuseries, the group has been busy filming around Staten Island for an upcoming Hulu series, Wu-Tang: An American Saga," about the clans formation and rise to become one of the unlikeliest American success stories. And earlier this month, the group was honored for its commitment to the community with the dedication of the Wu-Tang Clan District in the Park Hill section of Clifton. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD seeks the publics help to locate a 14-year-old girl who went missing from Fort Wadsworth. Xochitl Flores-Mendez was last seen on Friday at about 7:45 a.m. leaving her home on the 1400 block of Bay Street, according to a statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. She was reported missing on Tuesday. Police described her as Hispanic, standing about 50 tall and weighing 180 pounds. She has brown eyes and black hair. She was seen wearing blue jeans and a gray sweat shirt. The NYPD provided the media with this photo of Xochitl. People with information are encouraged to contact the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 (TIPS) or for Spanish, 1-888-577-4782 (PISTA). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A former NYPD official from Staten Island is part of a lawsuit alleging he and three other former top brass were forced out in an effort to protect higher-ups. In the lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan federal court, former Inspector Peter DeBlasio and Deputy Chiefs Andrew Capul, David Colon and Staten Islander Eric Rodriguez claim the NYPD forced them to retire in 2016 after they were linked to a bribery scandal. The suit, which seeks for the four men to be reinstated and receive damages determined at trial, claims the men were forced out in an effort to protect higher-ups by creating the appearance that the department was addressing corruption. The four men were mentioned in court testimony, but never formally charged in relation to the bribery scandal linked to Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, donors to Mayor Bill de Blasios campaign. A trial exposed that the two men provided officers with meals, gifts and vacations in exchange for official favors. Reichberg was sentenced Monday to four years behind bars. Rechnitz, who has not yet been sentenced, previously reached an agreement with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. The lawsuit cites the acquittal of Reichbergs co-defendant James Grant, another former NYPD officer, who was accused. Following the trial, a juror told reporters that the panel felt the departments higher-ups, including former Chief of Department Philip Banks, shouldve been charged. We agreed they shouldve been here, said juror No. 12, Ives Bonilla of the Bronx. They were the dirty cops. In the lawsuit filed Monday, the plaintiffs claim they retired under duress, in order to avoid demotion and termination. Capul alleged in an interview with the New York Daily News that the department did not tell the men what they allegedly did wrong. At the end of the day, you always need sacrificial lambs,'' he said. "But we dont know why. Why us? That job we love so much they took it away from us. We want someone to step up and tell us why. The lawsuit, which names the city, former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, and former NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Lawrence Byrne, says that in 2018 an arbitrator agreed with the plaintiffs, that their retirements were given under duress, and that the department deprived them of due process. Because the allegations led to the highest-ranking NYPD officials, and perhaps directly to the mayor, who the NYPD was trying to protect, the NYPD believed it needed to take immediate action, at least for public relations purposes, the lawsuit says. A spokesperson for the New York City Law Department said the department will review the lawsuit, and respond accordingly. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Staten Island will be home to a first-of-its-kind government body meant to address issues facing male adolescents. In a statement released recently, Borough President James Oddo announced the creation of the Borough Hall Council on Boys and Men meant to address what he refers to as the nations boy crisis. This is the crossroads and the culmination of what has been 27 years of work in both our Council team and in our Borough Hall team," Oddo said in the statement. If you look at the common denominator throughout that work, it has been about young people." Lower reading rates, a shorter life expectancy, and higher rates of suicide among males in the United States are some of the reasons Oddo said he saw the need to establish the council. Oddo announced the move to establish the council with Dr. Warren Farrell, who is part of a nationwide effort to establish a White House version of the council. Farrell previously served as a board member for the National Organization of Women, and as an adviser to the White House Council on Girls and Women, which was formed in 2009, according to the release. As part of the boroughs efforts to get a similar council established for boys and men, Oddo and City Councilman Joseph Borelli penned a letter to Lynne Patton, the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development official overseeing New York and New Jersey, seeking her support, according to the media release. Members of the council have not yet been selected, but the media release said Oddo and co-chair Sen. Diane Savino are searching for people who want to take part in the council. Oddo and Farrell expressed optimism that the formation of the council would benefit all members of society. The sooner we get to identifying and working on the ways to help our young boys, they will grow into men who help other young boys who will grow into men who do not abuse women, but into men who lift women, Oddo said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The American Red Cross is offering a $5 Amazon gift card to blood donors to help combat the blood shortage. From now until June 10, people who donate blood or platelets will receive the gift card via email. Those who donate from May 24-28 will also receive a T-shirt. The Red Cross said in a news release that it has a critical need for type O blood donations, and is urging individuals to give blood to ensure a sufficient blood supply. Currently, there are just six units of type O blood available for every 100,000 people, but the Red Cross said at least two times that amount is needed every day. Type O blood is the most needed blood type in the hospital, but the Red Cross is currently facing a shortage of this important blood type across the country, said Dr. Pampee Young, chief medical officer for Red Cross Biomedical Services. Type O negative is the universal blood type and is what emergency room personnel reach for in the most serious situations when there is not time to determine a patients blood type; and type O positive blood can be transfused to any positive blood type patient and is also critical in trauma situations. While type O is critically needed, platelet and blood donors of all types are urged to donate. According to the Red Cross, a blood donation takes about an hour form start to finish, but the actual donation itself only takes about 8-10 minutes. Donation appointments are encouraged to reduce possible wait times. In most states, individuals who are 17 years old (16 with parental consent where allowed by state law), weight at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible to donate. In New York, a 16-year-old individual can donate blood with parental consent. You can find out if youre eligible to donate by going here. Donors are encouraged to schedule a blood donation appointment by using the Blood Donor App, by visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 1-800-REDCROSS. FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. As uninformed legislators in Albany appear to be tripping over each other in a mad dash to push through so-called progressive criminal justice reforms, it will be the victims of crime, law enforcement, and the innocent people of New York left suffering the consequences of these irresponsible and soft-on-crime policies. The package of criminal-justice reforms included in the $175.5 billion state budget that was passed in April makes it clear that Albany does not care about public safety or the rights of crime victims several aspects will impede law enforcements ability to protect crime victims, while other parts will result in the release of hundreds of major drug defendants who can no longer be held on bail. The serious lack of compassion shown toward victims of crime is highlighted most in the parts of discovery reform. Several troubling provisions are included in the new statute, such as that every witness to a crime and every victim of a crime will now have their name and contact information disclosed to the defense, and can also be interviewed by the defense. Additionally, the defense may now move for a court order to access a crime scene or other premises, including a victim or witnesses home. Its hard to imagine a victim of a crime willing to move forward with the prosecution of a criminal case while at the same time being forced to comply with these ridiculous measures. Not only do these provisions threaten the safety of victims and witnesses, significantly more time, resources, and, most importantly, funding will be required to ensure their safety throughout the criminal justice process something Albany has not yet committed to district attorneys offices, leaving it up to us to figure out how best to comply with our obligations under the new law. At the same time, bail-reform measures passed by legislators will eliminate cash bail for most felony drug offenses, as well as for second-degree burglary and second-degree robbery. These provisions will only serve to hinder prosecutions at a time when counties across the state, including Staten Island, are still fighting a deadly opioid crisis. We are being flooded by a tsunami-like wave of so called progressive criminal justice reforms fueled by hyperactive legislators trying to out-bid each other to claim the crown of Chief Social Reform Agent. Unfortunately, left in the wake of this destructive tide are the victims of crime and their loved ones, public safety and the incredible gains we have made in keeping crime low, and the very fabric of this resurgent city. The latest example of this lunacy comes in the form of a proposed elder reform bill, which, if passed, would grant parole eligibility to all inmates ages 55 and up who have been in prison at least 15 years. To be blunt, this proposal is a slap in the face to every family that has suffered the loss of a loved one to crime they should not be made to relive that trauma when a defendant facing a life sentence for murder is suddenly up for parole due to this idiotic legislation. In a recent Staten Island case, defendant Michael Sykes was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison without parole for murdering his girlfriend and her two young children inside a hotel room. He also badly injured a third child, who miraculously survived his rampage. Now a healthy five-year-old girl, why should this child have to grow up living in fear that her mothers killer will one day walk free? I truly fear what will happen to this city when many of these criminal-justice reforms go into effect January 1, 2020, and I implore Albany to take the recommendations made by myself, the District Attorneys Association of New York, Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan and others into consideration before that time comes. I urge all New Yorkers to contact their local legislators and Governor Cuomo to rethink and amend what they have done. If not, this wave will sweep us back to the dark ages of criminality of the 70s and 80s, and give the wild gangs, violent thugs, death-dealing pushers and violators of women and children the keys to the city. To put it simply, our legislators are burnishing their uber-liberal credentials to further their political careers on the backs of our police and the citizens they are sworn to protect. It is indeed idiotic and outrageous. (Michael E. McMahon is the Richmond County district attorney.) 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! Sexual harassment is "alarmingly commonplace" in the legal profession and Australia has among the highest reported rates of bullying and harassment in the world, according to a landmark survey of 7000 lawyers in more than 100 countries. Almost 30 per cent of Australian lawyers who responded to the International Bar Association (IBA) survey, released on Wednesday, reported that they had been sexually harassed in the workplace, compared with 21.8 per cent in the United Kingdom and 32.6 per cent in the United States. The global average was 22 per cent. Australian lawyers reported high levels of bullying and sexual harassment in the workplace, an International Bar Association report found. Credit:James Davies More than 60 per cent of Australian respondents reported that they had been bullied at work, compared with 51 per cent in the UK, 50.3 per cent in the US and 43 per cent globally. Women lawyers in Australia reported higher rates of harassment and bullying than their male peers, at 47 per cent (compared with 13 per cent of men) and 73 per cent (50 per cent of men) respectively. Australia has increased the real resources available to schools by more than $2 billion in a decade, but we spent the extra money on the schools that needed it least. New Grattan Institute analysis shows that, once wage growth is taken into account, private schools got more than 80 per cent of the extra funding, even though they educate fewer than 20 per cent of Australias most disadvantaged students. Public schools - and particularly disadvantaged pubic schools - have been left behind by government funding. Credit:File photo/Quentin Jones The Commonwealth walked the talk: about half of its extra funding went to public schools. But the Commonwealths billions were undone by the states, whose funding to public schools shrunk after taking account of teacher wages. Meanwhile, private schools got big funding boosts despite increasingly educating the haves, while public schools increasingly taught the have-nots. The division between state and federal governments' school funding responsibilities has hampered fair funding across private and public sectors and should be scrapped, says the head of the Gonski Institute for Education, Adrian Piccoli. Under the school funding formula, the Commonwealth contributes 80 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard for private schools, and the state government is responsible for the remaining 20 per cent. Proportions are reversed for public schools. Professor Piccoli, a former NSW education minister, said the split - formalised in 2017 - was arbitrary. "There's no logic behind it," he said. "It advantages the sectors that have the funder with the greatest capacity to raise revenue." Government school funding responsibilities need an overhaul, says Gonski Institute director Adrian Piccoli. Credit:Quentin Jones His comments come after the Herald revealed on Wednesday that government funding boosts to private schools outstripped increases to public schools in the 10 years to 2017, despite national consensus on needs-based funding. The young, naked models are still there, some posed solo, others in combination in the large-format prints. So too are the mysteriously lush and dark landscapes from locations around Italy and juxtaposed against the human forms. Photographer Bill Henson's first solo show in Sydney in seven years couldn't belong to any other artist. "The central things that interest me for better or worse don't change," says the 64-year-old. "I think people don't change. I'm just following my nose." In fact, says Henson, his fascination with making images of young bodies has become even more intense than in 2008 the year his work famously became the centre of national censorship controversy. Labor leader Bill Shorten has left the door open to offering former foreign minister Julie Bishop a job if Labor wins government. In a pitch to West Australian voters at a business breakfast on Wednesday, Mr Shorten praised the high-profile Perth Liberal, saying he thought of her "very highly". Labor leader Bill Shorten has praised former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Asked if she would be offered the position of ambassador to the United States when it becomes vacant next year, Mr Shorten first acknowledged Ms Bishop had said she wants to work in the private sector. He then added: "I'll certainly be talking to her. I know that her and Penny [Wong] have a very good working relationship ... I will always rate her very highly." "I'm not going to put a name against a label because we haven't even won. But I'm saying to you quite unreservedly here, I've got a lot of respect for her. Chloe and I know her well. She's a good person and we can't waste talent." Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised the core members of his team will remain the same if he is re-elected on Saturday but will delay announcing who will take on portfolios such as jobs and Indigenous Affairs until after the election. Campaigning in the marginal Victorian seat of Corangamite on Wednesday, Mr Morrison said Josh Frydenberg would remain as treasurer while Marise Payne, Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann would also stay in their portfolios of foreign affairs, home affairs and finance. Peter Dutton's Home Affairs portfolio is key for the Coalition, but Scott Morrison will not name a replacement for the jobs or Indigenous affairs portfolios until after Saturday's election. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Mr Morrison challenged Labor leader Bill Shorten to name his home affairs minister, an issue that has been dogging Mr Shorten for several months. The PM said home affairs, defence, treasury, finance and foreign affairs were "the critical portfolios that sit at the central agencies of government". Migrants who settle in regional Australia are moving to the cities in increasing numbers despite government policies encouraging them to put down roots in rural areas. More than 60 per cent of migrants from specific countries moved on from some regions over a five-year period, a study by demographers at the Australian National University has found. Ezekia Nitanga, 19, left, with his brother. Their family relocated to the New England region after failing to settle in Sydney. Their analysis of 35 years of census data indicated that the Australian-born population was also migrating out of the bush, but the trend was more pronounced among Chinese and Indian-born immigrants and this appeared to be increasing. "What we found was that the big capital cities - Sydney, Melbourne and Perth and to a certain extent Hobart - were quite good at keeping people but the places everywhere else lost people on average," ANU demographer Bernard Baffour said. I can assure you, Israel Folau, that many LGBTIQ Australians have already been through hell. And many, including me, have come out the other side. But many others are yet to emerge because it's been absolute hell growing up in this country, enduring the insults, abuse and hatred you preach. So I commend Rugby Australia for not tolerating your claims on social media that homosexuals and others in the LGBTIQ community will go to hell unless we repent. A hellish episode for many LGBTIQ people ... Israel Folau. Credit:AAP It wasn't the first time wed been subjected to your rants. I doubt you've given much thought to the harm you've done, particularly to young members of the LGBTIQ community. Weve endured such attacks for generations and many of us have succumbed through shocking rates of mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, self-harm and suicide. Often these tragedies are a direct result of these toxic comments. To be torpedoed and sunk once by the Japanese and taken POW is unfortunate. For it to happen twice might be considered careless. On February 28, 1942, off Java, the cruiser HMAS Perth met an overwhelming Japanese naval presence during World War II. Captain Hector Waller gave the order to abandon ship after the second torpedo impact. The fourth finished her off. Frank McGovern, the last survivor of HMAS Perth, photographed at his home in 2012. Credit:Kate Geraghty "The last they saw of her was a battle ensign flying at her mainmast, lit by the Japanese searchlights - a splash of red, white and blue in the night," Mike Carlton writes in Cruiser, the definitive work on the ship. It fought to the last, with the loss of 353 crew. The 328 men who survived were taken prisoner by the Japanese and worked on the hell of the Burma-Siam railway. Only 218 returned to Australia. It is a project that has been in the works for more than 30 years: a new civic space for the global city of Australia Town Hall Square. Before my time as Lord Mayor, the City of Sydney began buying properties opposite Town Hall, with a vision for a peoples square, a place for residents, workers and visitors to meet, to be entertained, to protest, or to just enjoy the sunlight. An artist's impression of the proposed Town Hall Square, for which the City of Sydney has been slowly acquiring properties. Credit:City of Sydney This vision will be realised over the next 10 years, and will transform the CBD, building the civic heart of the city. Think of Federation Square in Melbourne, or the great piazzas of Italy. My office overlooks what will be Town Hall Square. As light rail construction clears, people have enthusiastically reclaimed the area. Far out... nothing is easy. What about crayons? I wonder if we can escalate that issue, one adviser from the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women wrote. Loading Dave, do you think the DG [director-general] would call the Police Commissioner and say listen mate if we assess the kids as safe, we think they should be allowed a pen? I am being serious." The government also decided Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four were not appropriate reading materials for young people in watchhouses. Public Guardian Natalie Siegel-Brown said she had been urging the government for months to at the very least bus the children out to a youth detention centre during the day so they could access education, fresh air and psychological services. Ms Siegel-Brown took the recommendation to a meeting convened by the Premiers office in February which was attended by the Police Commissioner, the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, the Child Commissioner and the director of Child Safety, Youth and Women. Nothing happened. I have visited the Brisbane watchhouse and seen with my own eyes children who are cold, who are hungry, who havent accessed any real outdoor air for two weeks or more, and who have little or no access to education, Ms Siegel-Brown said. Some are being held in these conditions for weeks at a time. Remember, these are children as young as 10 or 11. Almost none have been convicted of a crime they are simply on remand. Many of them have no place to be bailed." Ms Siegel-Brown told the ABC's Four Corners that the children were being "held like caged animals in concrete pens". Child Safety Minister Di Farmer told the Parliament on Tuesday that the Labor government was "committed to changing the life trajectories of the young people in our justice system". Credit:AAP Image/ Dave Hunt "Education packs" have been handed out at the watchhouse from November, which include Sudoku puzzles and Where's Wally? books. Maths worksheets were originally included, but the department decided to stop providing those because they required "too much one-on-one assistance and too much explanation". The "shocking" treatment of children in Queenslands watchhouses was thrust into the spotlight by Amnesty International, which obtained the internal department documents under Right to Information laws. Amnesty International Australia Indigenous rights advocate Joel Clark said children housed in ordinary youth detention were protected under the Youth Justice Act, which stipulates they must have certain access to education. Children in the watchhouse were not granted those same protections, he said. Any time spent in the watchhouse is only further harming them, further traumatising them and further criminalising them. Taking them out of the education system for any amount of time is obviously going to be doing them more harm," Mr Clark told Brisbane Times. They need to have access to education to be able to set them up in the best way possible to put back into the community." Mr Clark said Amnesty first raised concerns about children being held in watchhouses with Child Safety Minister Di Farmer in June 2018. Further letters were sent in November and December 2018. Ms Farmer told the Parliament on Tuesday the Labor government was "committed to changing the life trajectories of the young people in our justice system". "Addressing issues of our youth justice system will not be a quick fix," she said. "Our $320 million youth justice investment package will see an additional 48 beds come online by 2020, in addition to a range of initiatives aimed at reducing the number of young people entering the youth justice system in the first place." Despite some of the children being as young as 10, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said during question time on Tuesday: "I re-emphasise that the best way to break the youth justice cycle is for young people to get a job. That is what it is about." Queensland's death toll from the flu stands at 25, with the peak yet to hit. Health authorities have again urged people to get a flu vaccination with the state on track to surpass the 43 deaths recorded in 2018. The elderly and the young are most at risk with the flu, but doctors warn even fit and healthy people could end up in hospital fighting for their lives. Credit:ninevms Doctors say the statistics indicate a horror flu season ahead and people must protect themselves. "We are seeing a lot more cases of flu this year, around three and a half times more than we would expect to see at this time of year," Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said. Supporters of a Tamil asylum-seeker family plan to corner federal Immigration Minister David Coleman in the dying days of the election campaign in a desperate final bid to keep them in Australia. Nadesalingam and Priya with their two children. Credit:Tamil Refugee Council Family friend Angela Fredericks is among those who will travel from the tiny town of Biloela, in central Queensland - where the family had been living before their bridging visa expired in 2018 - to the minister's marginal Sydney electorate to ask for him to intervene. "We're really fearful they could be deported any moment ... so we're just praying that if we're in his seat of Banks and we create enough buzz, he can't ignore us," Ms Fredericks told AAP on Wednesday. The family - Priya, her husband, Nadesalingam, and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa - is facing imminent deportation after the High Court on Tuesday denied their final legal bid to stay in Australia. If it is true that this is the best country in the world as we have heard repeatedly in this election season then one might expect that a significant part of the picture would be that the nation's children enjoyed access to an education that gave them every opportunity to succeed. Measuring ourselves against truly global standards in this area has made such claims ring hollow. Looking over the shoulders of Kazakhstan and Slovenia when it comes to academic achievement was enough for then-education minister Simon Birmingham to declare he was "embarrassed for Australia", but not to concede that funding might be an issue. "The conversation should be about how we will use record funding far more effectively in the future to get better outcomes for our children," he argued. Loading Now a look at the past decade in education funding by the Grattan Institute has busted the myth that we are big spenders when it comes to schools and questioned our use of existing money. The first review of education funding by David Gonski under the Gillard government may have called for a needs-based approach, but it is clear that money is not following need and has not done so under successive Labor and Coalition governments. The Grattan Institute's Peter Goss has insisted that we need a global perspective on outcomes and the funding that goes toward achieving them: "No OECD country consistently out-performs Australia in international tests, and has greater equity, and also spends less." A state Liberal MP has renewed calls for a police shop front in the Fountain Gate shopping centre following a brawl between dozens of teenage girls on Tuesday night in a nearby park that left two young women in hospital with stab wounds. Police said the fight between about 30 young women of African appearance appeared to have been pre-arranged and may have been sparked over a trivial matter. One girl, 17, was taken to The Alfred hospital in a stable condition with a serious stab wound to her lower body. She remained there on Wednesday night. About 30 youths were involved in the brawl at a Narre Warren reserve on Tuesday night. Credit:7 News Two other girls, aged 16 and 17, took themselves to hospital. The 16-year-old was treated for stab wounds to her back and arm and was taken to a childrens hospital for further treatment. She remains there in a stable condition. The 17-year-old was treated for lacerations to her hand before being discharged. The much-anticipated extension to the $11 billion Metro Tunnel has been overlooked by both the Coalition and Labor in their slew of multibillion-dollar transport promises. Victoria's peak motoring body is calling on the major parties to consider funding plans for a second underground rail tunnel, Melbourne Metro 2, just days ahead of the federal election. The RACV says the rail tunnel linking Clifton Hill and Newport via Fishermans Bend is a "top priority" project, but has been completely overlooked. Melbourne Metro 2 would link Clifton Hill and Newport via Fishermans Bend. Credit:Mal Fairclough The Coalition and Labor have promised to fund fast rail from Melbourne to Geelong and the suburban rail loop respectively, while both have committed $5 billion for the airport rail. But neither has put money towards Metro 2. Five men have been arrested after police seized 59 kilograms of methamphetamine in Perth last week. The seized drugs the equivalent of 590,000 'hits' have a street value of about $59 million. The 59 kilograms of drugs seized by police. Credit:WA Police Several of the arrested men are from the eastern states, and police will allege all five were part of a crime syndicate that was intending to distribute massive amount of drugs in WA. Detectives from the Organised Crime Squad made the arrests as part of Operation Trident Coyote. The big parties will claim a strong crossbench leads to instability but how much stability have the major parties provided in the past decade? - Andrew Waites, Mosman My one hope is whoever wins on Saturday does so with a modest working majority and just gets on with governing well. - Adrian Connelly, Springwood I would like to offer my congratulations to Labor and the Greens for being able to mistakenly convince a large portion of the electorate that climate change is virtually the only issue for this election. For Millennials, I can understand this, as it is the flavour of the month. But as a retiree, I am flabbergasted it has made inroads into Baby Boomers as well. I appeal to these people to open your eyes, and remember franking credits, negative gearing and superannuation changes will affect you directly. The environment is important, but keep it in perspective. - Jeff Cook, West Pennant Hills The big disconnect in this election is voters are thinking further ahead than politicians focused on the election cycle. There are many uncertainties about the future but we can be certain that in five years climate change will be worse and driving rapid environmental and economic change globally. Politicians need to realise their current promises are just the first bids in a race that is going to get harder for decades to come. - Greg Reid, Mount Burrell Many people are looking forward to Saturday so they can indulge in a "democracy sausage". I first voted in 1969, so I have seen my share of polling stations. Never once - whether at a federal or state election, referendum or council election - have I ever been offered a "democracy sausage", or a "republican rissole" or an "election egg and bacon roll". Nothing. Never seen so much as a barbecue hot plate. Why are some electors being pandered to like this (the fed end of town?), while others are left to go hungry in this prosperous country? - Richard Mason, Newtown School funding reveals harsh lesson in inequality Between 2007-08 and 2016-17, state and federal funding grew 22 per cent, while public funding for non-government schools grew 46 per cent ("Private schools soak up funding", May 15). Private schools have a magnificent library, a 50 metre swimming pool and state-of-the-art theatre, while the public school across the road can't fit all its students in the school hall for a weekly K-6 assembly. As for having both students and parents in the hall for an end-of-year assembly; impossible. Most schools have a rollerdoor at the back of the hall and the older students and parents spill outside in all types of weather. But a public school education is still a wonderful experience despite the lack of funding. - Helen Simpson, Curl Curl The outrageous difference between private and Catholic, and public school funding is a national disgrace. But just as importantly, it is a reflection of how our nation has become self-seeking over the past several decades. We are now a "me, me, me" society, takers not givers, which has been consciously nurtured by our political class. And how many politicians send their children to private and Catholic schools? Win, win. Sadly, whether we ever return to the Australian fair go is in the hands of the same politicians. - Bert Candy, Glenvale QLD "Private schools soak up funding"; well, knock me down. I confidently predict that you'll be writing similar headlines in 10 years. - Stephen Saunders, O'Connor ACT With the growing disparity between the resourcing of state and private schools, many parents choose to enrol their child in a private religious school in the hope of getting their child a "better education". Who can blame them? Although such parents may get more tax dollars directed at their child, they may also be required to waive their right to choose what their child is taught, particularly regarding religious beliefs. - Geoff Black, Caves Beach It would be worthwhile for parents who educate their children in public schools, to note how the Morrison government views their child's education. Public school funding is a non-priority and their child's education is of secondary importance. So much for the premise that this government is a government for all. - John Cotterill, Kingsford Let's just keep giving to the big end of town from the very beginning shall we? The divisions then are very clear and not easily breached. Or maybe a little piece of the cake could be spared for the public schools yet. - Janice Creenaune, Austinmer Baffling stance shows Abbott must go In attempting to undermine the credibility of Zali Steggall, Warringah MP Tony Abbott makes the astounding statement that "Labor has a much better climate change policy than the Coalition" and, therefore, Steggall, whose priority is climate change, cannot be trusted when she claims to favour the Coalition ("Ring tones: Abbott goes mobile in Warringah", May 15). I wish him a speedy recovery from the gunshot wound to his foot. - Cliff Jahnsen, Bowral Abbott's pitch to voters illustrates why he has to go. Apart from the usual platitudes of "if you want your taxes kept low, if you want to keep your community safe, you've gotta vote Liberal", his main message is about the Beaches Link tunnel which is primarily a state issue. He fails to understand that we expect our federal government to deal with the big issues, in particular climate change, about which he has done nothing and he hopes will go away. - Peter Nash, Fairlight Leave Tony Abbott alone you TV-watching, iPhone-addicted, flat-white-coffee drinking, comfortable-armchair critics. Get up, go out and don't sit down again all day until dinner time, then see what you think about Abbott's efforts. - Mary Julian, Glebe No, Edward Loong (Letters, May 15), the toddler with Abbott wasn't bored (or scared, for that matter), because he knew he was in "safe hands". - Carolyn Wills, Cremorne PM turns loan ranger PM Morrison's lone announcement regarding assistance to new home buyers without reference to his cabinet reflects his inability to be a team player ("First home scheme: warnings on debt", May 15). He appears to be content to bulldoze his way over the horizon leaving his colleagues bereft of any opportunity to jump on his bandwagon. - Howard Spicer, Bondi Beach Shame on Labor "jumping on the train" to support this last-minute Coalition policy announcement. Note also that the Coalition plan is to dump these obviously more risky mortgage contracts onto the second tier banks. The top end wins again. - Austin Driscoll, Forresters Beach Faith in politics Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's latest attack on Prime Minister Scott Morrison over his religious interpretation of gays, clearly demonstrates he is unfit to occupy the PM's office ("Hell and hot water for leaders on gay rights", May 15). - Brad Crosling, Wahroonga When asked about Israel Folau and whether he also believed that gays go to hell, Morrison said "I don't mix my religion with politics or my faith with politics". However, when he became PM, his first priority was not the economy, climate change, education or health, it was religious freedom. Even though his electorate voted overwhelmingly in favour of same sex marriage, Morrison abstained from the final vote on the floor of Parliament. Morrison has shown that, despite what he says, to a large extent his political decisions are guided and influenced by his religious ideals. - Peter Martina, Warrnambool The media have no right to question the religious beliefs of our leaders and whether gay people will go to hell. Let us not forget that the last Parliament had a conscience vote on whether to allow same sex marriage in our society. Parliament did the right thing and the matter is closed. Leave our leaders alone on this issue. Politics and religion do not mix. - Michael Blissenden, Dural Maybe it's time to determine this matter or who is destined for hell through our traditional Australian fallback process: a royal commission. - Barry Lamb, Heidelberg West VIC When will Christian schools be prepared to offer the same religious freedoms they are demanding for their employees ("Parents urged to vote for religious freedom", May 15)? As an experienced teacher of mathematics, I notice that their job advertisements often place more emphasis on the religious affiliation of prospective applicants than on their teaching qualifications. - Jennifer Killen, St Peters Perhaps what is fair is freedom of religious expression leavened with the Christian principle of doing no harm to others. - Des Mulcahy, Berrara Big task for Stokes Welcome back to the vexed planning portfolio Minister Rob Stokes. I welcome a review of the millionaire "spot-rezoning" factory (''Stokes targets developers' rezoning tactics'', May 15). There needs to be complete attitudinal overhaul at planning, however, where ordinary citizens and communities are not seen as NIMBYs, but rather as an important resource, and the primary stakeholders, in planning. Local knowledge is vital for identifying development opportunities and potential disasters. The system has not worked well, as it has resulted in an era of ethically challenged developer-led planning. - Marie Healy, Hurlstone Park The cost to the community resulting from spot rezoning is enormous in terms of social disruption and financial cost. It is to be hoped the minister is given the freedom to carry out his plans in Parliament. The sooner the better for us all. - Chris Hornsby, Bayview Trump too dangerous The world has had plenty of time to understand the psychology of US President Donald Trump, and his need to provoke action from the leadership of Iran who have complied with the nuclear deal so far, despite the US sanctions and abandonment of the agreement ("Talk of war only makes it harder to contain Iran", May 15). As intelligence and media investigations in the US place him under greater jeopardy day by day, there is no limit to what he will instigate to distract. This is highly dangerous because although he personally is a coward, the hawks like John Bolton may be driving the show. The foreign minister after the election must be clear that the US does not have our support. - Louise Whelan, Chatswood Bus was just the ticket What will a couple of oldies do when the very convenient service ends next week ("End of the line for on-demand bus trials", May 15)? We have used this service over the time it has been trialled and found it excellent, from our door to Manly wharf, and local districts. I feel sure we will not be the only people disappointed to see this service cancelled. - Moire Berman, Manly Same old stories I'm surprised John Howard and Paul Keating believe voters still care about what they have to say ("Shock of the old as legends show how it should be won", May 15). - Norm Neill, Darlinghurst Paul Keating might be looking a little older, and his verbal darts are blunter these days, but he can still wear a suit better than any other politician. - James Mahoney, McKellar ACT Red flag for yellow Perhaps creatives in advertising agencies should be cautious when contemplating the use of Clive Palmer yellow as an attention grabber for the products and services they promote (Letters, May 15). It could take a long time for it to lose its questionable associations. - Ross Chambers, Springwood Tracks of my years Hopefully, the reason no one gave up their seat for your correspondent was because she appeared younger and more sprightly than other 83-year-olds (Letters, May 15). - Richard Tainsh, Potts Point Long-term financial sustainability remains a major and growing risk for many Queensland councils, auditor-general Brendan Worrall has warned, as the sector deals with a $5.4 billion debt. The Queensland Audit Office examined the books of 76 of Queensland's 77 councils for 2017-18, warning the five-year average operating surplus ratio continued to deteriorate. The Queensland Audit Office has examined the books of the state's councils for 2017-18. Credit:Tanya Lake The sector was still spending more than it earned. "Breaking even or making a small surplus over the long term is important for financial sustainability," the Queensland Audit Office report, tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, revealed. And he has drawn close to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a bid to win respectability abroad, even as he instigated a series of anti-Semitic political campaigns in Hungary in an attempt to appeal to bigots at home. "It's a very contradictory picture," said Paul Hanebrink, an associate professor at Rutgers University who has studied the history of Hungarian anti-Semitism. "On the one hand, he can hold up a very good relationship with Israel. And yet on the other hand, there are these very clear instances of anti-Semitic tropes circulating in Hungary from the government and people close to the government." It is possible to see both sides of this paradox within five blocks of central Budapest, in a stroll from Rumbach Street to Szabadsag Square. Both sites have new government-funded building projects. On Rumbach Street, there is a renovated synagogue, one of several Jewish sites the Orban government has helped to build or restore. Orban has courted anti-Semitic fears. A billboard from a campaign of the Hungarian government showing EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Hungarian-American Jewish financier George Soros. Credit:AP At Szabadsag Square stands a stone memorial whose motifs implicitly play down Hungarian complicity in the Holocaust. It shows an eagle a symbol of Nazi Germany attacking a prostrate angel representing Hungary, a juxtaposition implying that Hungarian officials were victims of Nazi aggression, rather than partners in Nazi atrocities. Orban's government has sometimes acknowledged Hungarian complicity, most notably in 2013. But the monument shows how it has also glossed over the role of Hungarian authorities in the Holocaust and in prewar acts of anti-Semitism. Other examples are the attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of Admiral Miklos Horthy, the ruler of Hungary from 1920 to 1944, and other figures of that era. Many Hungarians have a pessimistic view of their country's contemporary history, having seen defeat in two world wars, occupation by Russian and German troops, and the extensive loss of land and population during the 20th century. Orban, a staunch nationalist, has sought to paint a more glorious picture and has concentrated on polishing the reputation of Horthy's interwar government, which kept Hungary largely independent of foreign influence but instigated some of the most egregious anti-Jewish laws outside Nazi Germany. Loading "The argument is that, 'Yes, well, they might have been anti-Semitic, but that was kind of incidental,'" said Gabor Gyori, an expert on Hungarian anti-Semitism at Policy Solutions, a Budapest-based research group. "'Look at all the things they did for Hungary.'" Orban has described Horthy as an "exceptional statesman." His government also founded and funded a new research organization, Veritas, to research alternative interpretations of Horthy's rule. Its status is now protected in the Hungarian Constitution. The group's director, Sandor Szakaly, has said the Horthy regime was legally justified in deporting 18,000 Hungarian Jews in 1941 who were later massacred in Ukraine. Under Orban, anti-Semitic authors from the Horthy era have been added to the national curriculum, and the constitution has been rewritten to imply that the Horthy government was not responsible for its actions during the final 14 months of World War II, a period during which the vast majority of Hungarian Jews were deported and murdered. Loading Orban's unfinished Holocaust museum has set off its own uproar. The museum, known as the House of Fates, has been criticized by officials at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, for failing to involve the Hungarian Jewish community in its planning. "Particularly missing is the role played by Hungarians in the persecution of their Jewish neighbours," the director of the Yad Vashem libraries, Robert Rozett, wrote about the original plans for the museum. "The museum concept clearly avoids addressing the role and responsibility of Miklos Horthy and other Hungarian leaders of that era." In response to the backlash, the government turned over ownership of the museum to a pro-Orban Jewish group: a small chapter of Chabad, a global network of Hasidic Jews who came to Hungary after the fall of Communism. Chabad denies any accusations that the museum plans have whitewashed history. "I would never take part in something like that," said Rabbi Slomo Koves, the leader of Chabad's Hungarian affiliate. "Our plan is to show a full and authentic picture." But some see Chabad's involvement as an effort to sideline the majority of Hungarian Jews, who are mostly secular and considered broadly critical of Orban's government. Hungarian officials "want Jewish organisations that give them cover," said Gyori, the anti-Semitism expert. "Chabad can embody the Jews in the way Fidesz want them to be," Gyori added. "They're very traditional and conservative in outlook, and they have no desires to change Hungary." Orban's critics acknowledge that his approach to Judaism has a certain political logic. He supports the Israeli prime minister because the two politicians share a wariness of Islam and cosmopolitan liberalism. He rehabilitates historical anti-Semites and instigates anti-Semitic political campaigns because he wants to retain the support of the more extreme parts of his right-wing base. "I'm convinced that the prime minister himself is not an anti-Semite," said Rabbi Robert Frolich of Budapest's Great Synagogue, the largest Jewish temple in Europe. "But our government uses the code language of anti-Semitism and racism to maximise their voter numbers," Frolich added. New York: Alabama's state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would outlaw nearly all abortions, as part of a multistate effort to have the US Supreme Court reconsider a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. State Senator Clyde Chambliss debates the abortion bill in the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery. Credit:AP The bill, which makes exceptions only to safeguard the health of the mother, was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives. It will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign it but generally is a strong opponent of abortion. The Alabama Senate is made up of 35 seats, 27 senators are Republican, and all are white men. Twenty-five of them voted to pass the bill, the Guardian reported. Democratic state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison, one of a handfull of female senators, called the Republicans hypocritical for advocating small government that ought to stay out of private matters but "now you want in my womb; I want you out." New York: When Amnesty International USA started looking for a new headquarters in New York City, the human rights group settled on office space in a modest skyscraper in lower Manhattan known as Wall Street Plaza. The ultimate parent company: China's state-owned shipping company, COSCO, and Orient Overseas (International). Credit:AP But just as the organisation was about to sign a lease last week, the building's owner said that its new parent company, a giant shipping conglomerate owned by the Chinese government, decided to veto the offer. The company, Cosco Shipping, did not want the US chapter of Amnesty International, which has produced scathing reports highlighting human rights abuses in China, as a tenant, according to the group. Amnesty International USA said it was told the organisation was "not the best tenant" for a building owned by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, in a turnabout that suggests the reach of the Communist Party during a time of intense economic dispute with the United States, and its ability to exert power in the United States. Washington: US President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week barring US companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with China's Huawei, three US officials familiar with the plan told Reuters. An employee walks past a logo in the reception area of the Huawei Cyber Security Transparency Centre in Brussels, Belgium. Credit:Bloomberg The order, which will not name specific countries or companies, has been under consideration for more than a year but has repeatedly been delayed, the sources said, asking not to be named because the preparations remain confidential. It could be delayed again, they said. The executive order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. The order will direct the Commerce Department, working with other government agencies, to draw up a plan for enforcement, the sources said. New York: US President Donald Trump has been praised by China hawks in Congress for declaring a national emergency on telecommunications and blacklisting Chinese telco giant Huawei from buying equipment from US companies. On Wednesday, local time, Trump opened up a new front in his economic battle with the rival superpower by signing an executive order aimed at preventing threats against information and technology services in the US by foreign companies. US President Donald Trump. Credit:Bloomberg The move follows in the footsteps of Australia, which last year became the first country in the world to officially ban Huawei from any role in its 5G networks. Trump's executive order grants US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross the authority to ban the import of equipment or services from companies with close ties to foreign governments that could use their equipment to monitor or disrupt US telecommunications or other infrastructure. Honorable Mr Knops, We took note of your recent press media communications that you don't see the BES-islands, Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius in the future as autonomous self-governing islands. Reason given that they are too small. I would like to remind you that Bonaire is a nation and according to UN General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of December 14, 1960; - that inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as pretext for delaying our fundamental inalienable right to self-governance Further on you declared that your undemocratic intervention, coup d'etat, overthrowing the legitimate democratic elected government in Sint Eustatius in February 2018, had a disciplinary effect on the Bonaire government, as your recent visit to Bonaire, the government spoke much more friendly. This is evident as the leaders of government of Bonaire, both commissioners Mr Tjin-Asjoe and Mrs Den Heijer, with their subservient vision, publicly voiced, that we cannot eat bread with autonomy. Firstly we recognize and respect your right of expression so you may have an personal opinion on our current illegal state-structure. However we herewith want to bring to your attention that neither you nor your government and your Bonaire friendly local government possess no legal rights nor power to deny the peoples of Bonaire and the other BES-islands, principally Sint Eustatius right to self-determination and self-governance. Both islands in their respective referendum of 2014 and 2015 rejected this illegal imposed colonial status and both island parliaments as representation of their peoples ratified these as legal democratic decisions of the peoples. Instead of assisting our islands in enhancing their autonomy, your government, a member of the UN Security Council, has limited the development towards more autonomy and now declares that we will never regain back our autonomy. This constitutes a grave violation of the Charter of the Kingdom based on the agreements signed with the United Nations Organization in 1954. Your government continued irresponsible and undemocratic decisions and actions have caused a setback in the governing of the islands which has led to a re-colonization that violates the Charter of the United Nations especially article 73 chapter XI and article 103 chapter XVI, and resolutions 742, 747, 945, 1514 and 1541, all which address the sacred rights of the Peoples of Bonaire and Sint Eustatius. Our mutual colonial history, which you voiced to me personally that you don't know and don't care off, is a very dark one, with your government legalizing crimes and inhumanity, your laws to piracy, smuggling(drugs), slave-trading, making you the worlds history cruelest colonizers. We may have expected you with time to have grown out of this horrific barbaric culture, to civilize, but your recent declarations exposed your truth again, that nothing changed throughout the centuries, and you have put a suit over the plunderer of the defenseless Bonaire peoples. Our response is by quoting Ghandi: that throughout history the way of truth has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible, but in the end , they always fall. We the peoples of Bonaire maintain our hopes high that we shall overcome and you shall respect, protect and comply with our inherited and acquired rights. We possess the same rights as you, to be as free and as equal and as human as yourself and all European-Dutch citizens of the Kingdom. We urge the international community to be awarw of this illegal colonial status where our peoples find themselves in. Zinc and lithium in the focus of investors Posted by Publisher Internet Electromobility, autonomous driving and digital networking are topics that the automotive industry is researching and developing. This is accompanied by the demand for certain raw materials. On average, the demand for lithium increases by 20 percent annually. Demand is outstripping supply. The importance of electromobility is growing, as is China. Tax cuts and an expansion of credit policy, as well as infrastructure projects, will boost the Chinese economy.???? In addition, environmental requirements are becoming stricter and sustainability is required. One of the companies with lithium in the soil is Infinity Lithium https://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298931. The company owns 75 percent of the San Jose lithium project in Spain, which can produce lithium hydroxide of battery quality at low production costs. The long-term goal is to supply the European lithium-ion battery industry. The next step for Infinity Lithium is the completion of a pre-feasibility study. In the case of zinc, another important raw material for the automotive industry, the prevailing strong supply deficit should do zinc companies good. In China, the largest zinc-producing country, there were mine closures and new environmental laws. Even though various new zinc projects will be launched in the near future, zinc should remain a raw material in high demand. Zinc companies include Zinc One. Zinc One https://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298889 ?owns two zinc projects in Peru, the Bongara project, which produced earlier, and the Charlotte-Bongara project. Both were acquired by the Company in June 2017 and both projects are characterized by high grade non-sulfide zinc mineralization at or near surface. In accordance with ?34 WpHG, I would like to point out that partners, authors and employees can hold shares in the companies mentioned in each case and therefore there is a possible conflict of interest. Only the German version of these messages applies. Disclaimer: The information provided does not constitute any form of recommendation or advice. We expressly point out the risks involved in securities trading. No liability can be assumed for damages resulting from the use of this blog. I would like to point out that shares and in particular warrant investments are generally associated with risk. The total loss of the invested capital cannot be excluded. All information and sources are carefully researched. However, no guarantee is given for the correctness of all contents. I expressly reserve the right to make a mistake, in particular with regard to figures and exchange rates, despite the utmost care. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable but does not claim to be accurate or complete. Due to court rulings the contents of linked external sites are also to answer for (so among other things district court Hamburg, in the judgement of 12.05.1998 312 O 85/98), as long as no explicit dissociation from these takes place. Despite careful control of the contents, I do not assume any liability for the contents of linked external sites. The respective operators are solely responsible for their content. The disclaimer of Swiss Resource Capital AG also applies: https://www.resource-capital.ch/en/disclaimer/ European Mammography Workstations Market 2019 Analysis, Key Players, Size, Growth Rate and Forecast Factors such as the rising burden of breast cancer, increasing market availability of multimodality diagnostic platforms, and the increasing patient awareness about the clinical benefits associated with the early diagnosis of breast conditions are driving the growth of the market The multimodality mammography workstations segment accounted for the largest share of the European mammography workstations market, by modality, in 2018 On the basis of modality, the European mammography workstations market is segmented into mammography (X-ray) workstations and multimodality mammography workstations. In 2018, the multimodality mammography workstations segment accounted for the larger share of the European mammography workstations market. This can be attributed to the increasingly supportive government initiatives/regulations in Europe, increasing awareness about the diagnostic efficacy of contrast-enhanced digital mammography, growing market availability of integrated mammography solutions, techno-commercial advantages associated with multimodality mammography workstations, and the rising prevalence of breast cancer. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=101392240 Browse in-depth TOC on ?European Mammography Workstations Market? 33 ? Tables 34 ? Figures 113 ? Pages The breast care centers segment is expected to register the highest growth rate in the European mammography workstations market, by end user, during the forecast period On the basis of end users, the European mammography workstations market is segmented into hospitals, surgical clinics, & diagnostic imaging centers; breast care centers; and researchers & academia. The breast care centers segment is projected to witness the highest growth rate in the European mammography workstations market during the forecast period. This can be attributed to the increased utilization of multimodal diagnostic imaging (such as PET-CT, MRI, ultrasound, and mammography) in advanced breast cancer diagnosis, rising number of breast screening programs across major European countries, increasing number of training & awareness programs to sensitize healthcare professionals about the advantages of multimodality mammography workstations, and the growing number of public-private breast care centers across key European countries. Germany dominates the European mammography workstations market Germany accounted for the largest share of the European mammography workstations market in 2018. The large share of Germany is primarily attributed to the better reimbursement scenario in the country as compared to other European countries, wider acceptance of multimodality mammography workstations among major end users (such as hospitals, surgical clinics, and breast care centers), and the rising patient demand for improved cancer screening. Recent Developments- In February 2019, Fujifilm (Japan) launched ASPIRE Bellus II. In January 2018, Agfa-Gevaert NV (Belgium) signed a contract with the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (UK) in order to implement enterprise imaging for radiology platform. In May 2017, Siemens AG (Germany) and Fraunhofer MEVIS (Germany) entered into a partnership for developing artificial intelligence software systems to facilitate diagnosis and therapy decisions in order to support physicians to define the best possible treatment approach. General Electric (US), Siemens (Germany), FUJIFILM Corporation (Japan), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), Hologic Inc. (US), Carestream Health (US), EIZO Corporation (Japan), Agfa-Gevaert Group (Belgium), Barco (Belgium), Konica Minolta, Inc. (Japan), Benetec Advanced Medical Systems (Belgium), PLANMED OY (Finland), Sectra AB (Sweden), Aycan Medical Systems, LLC. (US), and Esaote SPA (Italy) are the major players in the European mammography workstations market. 2021s most popular expert panel roundtable discussions Topics that dominated our websites Expert Panel Roundtable articles in 2021 included the effects of COVID-19, the benefits of mobile access, the upcoming potential of deep learning, and the future of access control cards. Our websites Expert Panel Roundtable discussions in 2021 reflected some of the most timely and important topics in the industry. The very most clicked-on Expert Panel Roundtable discussion in 2021 considered the positive and negative effects of COVID-19. The second most popular was trends in perimeter security technology. Smart video solutions Here is a roundup of the Top 10 Expert Panel Roundtable discussions posted in 2021, along with a sound bite from each discussion and links back to the full articles. Thanks to everyone who contributed to Expert Panel Roundtable in 2021 (including the quotable panelists named and linked below). The pandemic has impacted security in many ways, some we are just now realising" What are the positive and negative effects of COVID-19 to security? The pandemic has impacted security in many ways, some we are just now realising. On the negative side, integrators were limited in their ability to access customer locations, posing significant challenges to supporting customers. Innovation was also halted in many sectors such as AI and edge computing in healthcare. However, the pandemic increased awareness regarding the need for smart solutions that can aid in these types of crises. Smart video solutions have been identified repeatedly in the media as a potential pathway to better customer experience and increased safety. Alexander Harlass. Reducing false alarms What are the latest trends in perimeter security technology? Whats really important in perimeter security is the minimisation of false alarms, not simply the potential detection of what might be an unauthorised person or object. In light of that, many systems now include alarm validation that can confirm an alarm event using a camera. The utilisation of AI-based technologies can further validate the accuracy of the alarm, making it as accurate and precise as possible. I anticipate seeing more cross-technological integrations to reduce false alarms, so that personnel in an alarm center spend as little time as possible in validating an alarm. Leo Levit. What will be the biggest security trends in 2021? 2021 will see artificial intelligence (AI) become more mainstream. There will be increased deployment in edge devices, including cameras, thermographic cameras, radar and LIDAR sensors, entry point readers, etc. Additional algorithms will be developed, greatly expanding the use and function as video surveillance transitions from a forensic tool to real-time analytics. This increases the value of these systems and helps create ROI cases for their deployment. Tim Brooks. Access control solutions Investments in tools and platforms to drive digital interactions have accelerated" What will be the security industrys biggest challenge in 2021? The security industry is traditional in the sense that it relies heavily on face-to-face interaction to do business with customers and partners alike. COVID-19 has put a hold on in-person meetings, trade shows, etc., and this trend is likely to extend throughout 2021. Virtually recreating these personal touchpoints, while cultivating and strengthening internal and external relationships, will continue to be both a challenge and opportunity for the security industry. Investments in tools and platforms to drive digital interactions have accelerated. Robert Moore. What are the challenges and benefits of mobile access control? Mobile access control solutions are an exciting innovation in a market where the day-to-day user experience hasnt changed much in the last 20 years. One area that has clear benefits and challenges is in improving the user experience. On one hand, physical credentials are expensive and a hassle to administer; however, they work reliably, quickly, and predictably. Mobile credentials are convenient in that everyone already has a smartphone, and you dont have to admin or carry cards; however, when youre actually standing at the door they need to work as well or better than physical credentials, or the benefits are lost. Brian Lohse. Attacking critical infrastructure What are the security challenges of protecting critical infrastructure? It seems so often we hear about a new threat or cyber-attack in the news. Because of the rapid growth in technology over the last few years, cybercriminals are getting bolder and discovering new ways to attack critical infrastructure. One of the biggest challenges boils down to the capabilities of the operating security system and whether the organisation is aware of the current risks they face. Because there are so many points of entry for cybercriminals to target within critical infrastructure, it is vital that the security solution be prepared for attacks at every level. Charles (Chuck) OLeary. They are more aware when they make physical contact with doors and interfaces" Which security technologies will be useful in a post-pandemic world? People have become more sensitised to crowds and personal space. They are more aware when they make physical contact with doors and interfaces. As the pandemic subsides, these habits will likely remain for a majority of people." "Utilising AI-based cameras to accurately monitor the number of people in a room or in a queue will enable staff to take action to improve the customer experience. For example, AI-based analytics can quickly notify security or operations when people are waiting at a door and initiate 2-way audio for touchless access. Aaron Saks. Central monitoring station What is the potential of deep learning in physical security and surveillance? Deep learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, enables networks to train themselves to perform speech, voice, and image recognition tasks." In video surveillance, these networks learn to make predictions through highly repetitive exposure" "In video surveillance, these networks learn to make predictions through highly repetitive exposure to images of humans and vehicles from a camera feed. That ability is ideal for use with drones patrolling perimeters seeking anomalies or in software that significantly reduces the number of false alarms reported to central monitoring station operators. Through use, the software continues improving its accuracy. Brian Baker. Valuable audit trail How soon will access control cards become extinct and why? Access control cards will go the way of the dinosaur, but they still have some life left in them. For the short term, they have plenty of utility in minimum security use cases and leave a valuable audit trail. But for companies that are more technology-centric, particularly those with high value assets, were seeing demand for next-generation access control, which includes increased integration with video surveillance systems and professional monitoring services. Sean Foley. Which security markets are embracing touchless and contactless systems? Touchless technology is not a new trend, but contactless systems and transactions have surged since the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after the pandemic is over, it is likely public perception of what is hygienic and acceptable in public spaces will have changed. [We are] seeing an uptick in touchless access control systems in the education and flexible office space markets. Brooke Grigsby. Georgetown, SC (29440) Today A few passing clouds. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable. Backdropped by the blackness of space and the thin line of Earth's atmosphere, the space shuttle Atlantis' cargo bay, robotic arm, tail and orbital maneuvering system (OMS) pods are caught in this snapshot by an STS-125 astronaut on May 20, 2009 during a Hubble Space Telescope overhaul. This story was updated at 9:15 a.m. EDT. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Stormy weather in Florida prevented the shuttle Atlantis from an on-time landing Friday, forcing its seven-astronaut crew to spend at least one more day in orbit following their successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis astronauts had hoped to return home at about 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, but rainy weather thwarted that plan and a second attempted landing. The shuttle will try again early Saturday at 9:16 a.m. EDT (1316 GMT). Low clouds, nearby thunderstorms and lightning were to blame, Mission Control said. They were part of a storm system that stretched from Florida's eastern coast out to the Bahamas. "We're going to formally wave off for the day," Mission Control radioed the Atlantis crew. "The weather at KSC is really moist and unstable." The weather forecast was so bleak it was pointless to continue, NASA said. The call came early enough that the astronauts had not yet donned their bulky orange pressure suits or closed Atlantis' cargo bay doors. "We know you looked at it hard, we appreciate you making the call early," shuttle commander Scott Altman replied. The Atlantis crew is completing an 11-day mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope for the fifth and final time. The astronauts are the last humans ever to touch or see Hubble up close since NASA plans to retire its three space shuttles - the only vehicles currently capable of hauling the telescope's spare parts and repair crews - next year. Set to land aboard Atlantis with Altman are pilot Greg H. Johnson and mission specialists Michael Good, Megan McArthur, John Grunsfeld, Michael Massimino and Andrew Feustel. They are returning home after adding $220 million worth of new instruments to Hubble, swapping out old batteries, gyroscopes and other gear, as well as repairing two long-broken instruments that were never designed to be fixed in space. The shuttle's four spacewalkers worked in two-man teams to steam through five exhausting spacewalks in as many days to upgrade the iconic observatory, which is now more powerful than ever. The overhaul is expected to add between five and 10 years onto Hubble's already long-lived legacy. Atlantis astronauts also attached a docking ring on the telescope to prepare for its ultimate death. It will allow a robotic spacecraft to latch onto Hubble sometime after 2020 and steer it down to a watery grave in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. NASA will try for a Florida landing again on Saturday, but it will also call up a backup runway at the Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. The weather in California is favorable for the next three days. John Madura, chief of the Kennedy Space Center weather office, said Atlantis has only has a "slightly better" chance of landing in Florida tomorrow or Sunday. Rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue, but the air will be more stable, he said. Atlantis can stay aloft as late as Monday before the oxygen supply would run out, mission managers said. NASA prefers to land space shuttles in Florida because it is the home port and launch site for the fleet. It saves $1.8 million in transport costs and a week of time associated with ferrying a shuttle from the California landing site to the Kennedy Space Center atop a modified 747 jumbo jet carrier craft. "We don't want to go there," Madura said. "It's a long flight back." NASA initially canceled the Hubble repair mission in 2004, a year after the Columbia disaster, because of its added risk since the flight put the Atlantis crew in higher orbit with more space junk and beyond reach of the International Space Station if their ship was damaged. The agency kept a second shuttle Endeavour ready to fly a rescue mission to retrieve the Atlantis astronauts, if required. No rescue was needed and Endeavour stood down from rescue status on Thursday so shuttle workers can prime it for a June launch to the space station. The Hubble flight launched on May 11 and cost about $1.1 billion. To date, about $10 billion has been invested in Hubble since its inception and 1990 launch. SPACE.com is providing continuous coverage of NASA's last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope with senior editor Tariq Malik in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and reporter Clara Moskowitz in New York. Click here for mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed. In prolific fantasy and science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky's " Children of Time " (Tor, 2015), the distant descendants of humanity confront a familiar but deeply alien presence on a terraformed planet. In the sequel, " Children of Ruin " (Orbit, 2019), out May 14, a team investigates a planet even more alien and intelligences even stranger even farther from home. Both novels are fascinating, as they put the narrative focus on nonhuman intelligences while depicting the ecosystems and technologies that have sprouted from those strange perspectives. Space.com talked to Tchaikovsky about the new novel, writing alien minds and alien technology, and his take on how to prepare for meeting extraterrestrials. This interview contains mild spoilers for the premises of "Children of Time" and "Children of Ruin." If you don't want to read this interview, we still highly recommend reading the books! Related: How Would We Talk to Aliens? Space.com: Did you expect to write a sequel to "Children of Time"? Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of "Children of Time" and "Children of Ruin." (Image credit: Orbit) Adrian Tchaikovsky: It was very much a stand-alone book when it first came out, but one of the things I've kind of learned to do is you never write anything you can't do a sequel to, should the opportunity arise. And anyone who's read the first book will know in the very final chapter, there's a definite hook that might lead somewhere. And so, obviously, the book then did fairly well, and at the same time, I started to get ideas for what a potential sequel could be. Those two things came together, and I've always a good couple of years after the book had come out, I had enough material, enough good ideas, to try to do a sequel worthy of the original. Space.com: Going into the book, what ideas were you most excited to explore? Tchaikovsky: For me, [book development happened] in the same way that the nonhuman civilization that's a major feature of the first book was very much the thing that came first, and the book then coalesced around that. The other the scientific experiments, which also sort of turn into narrative experiments in the book, were very much what I was excited to do, and to expand the sorts of viewpoints I was writing from. Although a lot of people seem to be very happy with the Portiian [spider] viewpoints from "Children of Time," I really had to stretch my brain to get my head around the other nonhuman perspectives. I'd kind of say I've gone a bit above and beyond in terms of finding unusual nonhuman protagonists. Space.com: And at least one of the species in this book is inspired by another Earth species. Tchaikovsky: A lot of people will know, obviously, "Children of Time" involved spiders. And in the same way, there's an octopus species that has a rather different path set out for it in "Children of Ruin" that goes very differently and is considerably less human than the Portiid spiders from the first book. Space.com: Both of these books show the weird technology that would grow out of a nonhuman consciousness. Can you talk about that? Tchaikovsky: You see much more of the development of the spider tech in "Children of Time," because it's done entirely independently of any kind of human technology. Because they're living in the same kind of universe, they're running into the same kind of problems that we do and that our ancestors have, but they think differently, and so their solutions to those problems are very different. They actually get into space without ever really inventing fire or the wheel, which I was particularly proud of. There are certain ideas that are very, very intuitive to them that are not to humans, and vice versa. With the octopi, it's a bit different. I won't go into huge amounts of detail, but they have a rather different starting point to the spiders. A lot of the things that they have to work with in technologies are simply because they are aquatic creatures. And being an aquatic, spacefaring creature has a lot of serious physics ramifications and issues you have to get over. To which end, I think I had, at one point, about nine physicists advising me on precisely how various parts of the book and the spaceflight would actually work. Space.com: Did any really interesting or surprising ideas come up talking with scientists? Tchaikovsky: Yeah, especially on the evolution front. I actually ended up working with the Natural History Museum in London on the spider evolution, the relevant department there. And just going down and chatting with them about the logistical problems of large arthropods. The sort of things they'd bring up just in passing about other things they've done actually ended up giving me huge slices of extra plot I could throw in and solutions to other problems I didn't even realize I necessarily had. And similarly, with the octopi because, unfortunately, I didn't know anyone whose time I could impose on in the same way, but I did find an enormously useful book called " Other Minds " [by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Farrar, Strouss and Giroux, 2016)], which was talking about octopus cognition. And that was enormously useful in just giving me the grounding of how do they think. They're enormously intelligent animals, without [outside intervention] uplifting them in any way. What are their perspectives, and what would their viewpoint on the world be? I was enormously proud one of the spider researchers whose work on jumping spiders inspired "Children of Time" connected with me on Twitter recently and was tacitly approving of what I'd done with her research. I would be tentatively interested in hearing from an octopus researcher to see how close to the mark they feel I've got. Related: Spider May Have Survived Months in Space Space.com: It was really interesting to see how you described that cognition from the inside, because it was so much more of a leap than the spiders in the previous book. Was it challenging to make that understandable? Tchaikovsky: I think it's possibly the hardest thing that I've ever done as a writer. There's always this kind of, almost a gravitational pull towards anthropomorphizing things and making them more human, because that's innately more comprehensible and it's easier to write. And it's walking that line, where you're writing something that is comprehensible to your readers but at the same time isn't simply slapping a mask on a human viewpoint. Hopefully, I've managed. Of course, it's very hard to tell, because you know what you want to say, but it's not necessarily clear whether that's coming over. Space.com: Did you have any science fiction inspirations for that? Tchaikovsky: One of the big inspirations, one of the things that gave me the courage to write it was a book [" What Does A Martian Look Like " (Wiley, 2002)]. It's not strictly science fiction it's speculative evolution, by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. ... They're the same guys who did the science of the Discworld books. They've been scientific advisors on a number of sci-fi books going all the way back to Anne McCaffrey. And they wrote a book basically talking about what sort of assumptions you should and shouldn't make when designing and developing an alien. Even though with the octopi we're not dealing with things that are strictly alien because they're Earth-derived, it was an enormously useful book of thought experiments. That really, really helped me. Space.com: Both of these books take place in the far future, after humanity's mostly destroyed . What do you like about that setting? Tchaikovsky: It allowed me to have my cake and eat it with the human part of the narrative. Obviously, there's a big danger when you're writing about the future that it can look suspiciously like the present. There's a lot of sci-fi stories there's a lot of 1950s-style stories especially where the protagonist gets back from a hard day's work at the time machine factory and his wife has got his dinner on the table, and he lives in a 1950s house in the suburbs. And the fact that there's been this enormous invention has changed literally nothing. When you think even, just, say, 40 years ago, there's so much going on now that our parents would not have been able to imagine. But because I had a situation where I just crashed human society into the stone age, then had it work its way back with the assistance of finding records and relics of the previous human culture, it meant I could have a far-future setting which was simultaneously not a million miles removed from our own. In fact, the fact that it is almost slavishly following the pattern set down by the previous failed cycle of human society is a major feature in parts of the book. It gave me carte blanche to pick and choose what parts of current humanity I had [in the book's human population] without it feeling false to have them set far into the future. Related: 'Astounding' Chronicles 4 Titans of Science Fiction's Golden Age Space.com: Do you think humans can prepare to meet aliens by considering the alien minds here on Earth? Tchaikovsky: I'd like to say yes, but the problem is, of course ... There are two competing schools of thought on this, one of which is, compared to anything on Earth, be it a shark or a spider or anything like that, aliens would be much more alien than that. And given how bad we are, frankly, at dealing with animal intelligence, up to and including periods of basically denying that animal intelligence is even a thing, that doesn't bode terribly well. It's entirely possible that we'd run into alien intelligence and fail to recognize it as intelligence or possibly even as life. The other [school of thought], which I also kind of play with in the books, is the idea that because we are living in the same universe, and because physics is a constant and potentially mathematics is a constant although I'm aware that's not an entirely undisputed bit of philosophical point but even a very, very alien alien could come to the point where it's going to share context with us, purely because it's in a position to study the universe and it's the same universe. And, obviously, we've never met any aliens and the only life we know is on Earth, so we have a sample set of one. It's very hard to know how things might go. But certainly, the more we could expand our point of view, given that one of the major problems we have within humanity is individual sections of humanity being unable to empathize or deal with other sections of humanity, let alone things not human at all. The more we can expand our point of view, one feels, the better. Space.com: Do you have any plans for future entries in this series? Tchaikovsky: Yeah, there is a potential third book that is I've been working with this series in particular. I have blocks of ideas, and they all slowly coalesce until I feel I have enough to make a whole book out of. And so I feel I've got, say, about two-thirds of a potential third book just slowly boiling away on the back burner. You never know. This interview was edited for length. You can buy "Children of Ruin" on Amazon.com. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., U.S. Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan, and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Office David L. Norquist provide testimony on the fiscal 2020 Department of Defense budget before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. WASHINGTON The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new space organizations proposed by the Pentagon would require thousands of additional personnel and cost several billion dollars more than what DoD has projected. In a new report released on May 8, CBO lays out personnel requirements and cost estimates for several proposed space organizations. The most controversial, an independent military branch for space, would add up to $1.3 billion a year in additional costs a number far higher than the $500 million a year projected by DoD. A new military service, a combatant command and a Space Development Agency collectively would increase DoD's cost by up to $1.9 billion annually. The CBO report was prepared at the request of the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, the report makes no recommendations," CBO Director Keith Hall wrote. Related: What Is the U.S. Space Force? CBO calculated the cost of five different organizations: a Space Force as a separate military department, a Space Force placed under the Air Force (what DoD has proposed), a combatant command, a Space Development Agency and a space policy directorate. The Trump administration in the Pentagon's budget request for fiscal year 2020 seeks funding for three of those five options: a Space Force, U.S. Space Command and a Space Development Agency. If these organizations, once fully established, were about the same size as the ones that CBO examined in this report, the administration's proposal would require 5,700 to 9,700 new positions, increase DoD's annual costs by $1.1 billion to $1.9 billion, and incur onetime costs of $1.8 billion to $4.7 billion. Related: Trump Signs Directive to Create a Military Space Force CBO's numbers align closer to the $13 billion five-year cost estimate for a Space Force and a Space Command put forth by Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson in September in a memo. Her numbers were dismissed by Pentagon officials and Space Force proponents on Capitol Hill who claimed they were overinflated. During a hearing on Wednesday of the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan stood by his previous statements that the Space Force would cost no more than $2 billion over five years. That number, "in my view, is overstated," Shanahan told lawmakers. CBO analysts agree with a number of lawmakers who questioned DoD's proposal for lacking specifics about the scope and size of the Space Force, which makes it difficult to figure out the long term costs. "The administration has provided few details about what the three organizations that it has proposed would look like or how large they would be," says the report. For 2020, the initial year of creating those organizations, DoD has requested $306 million and 827 positions, and it has also stated that it plans to have the new organizations fully running within five years. According to CBO, a new service within the Department of the Air Force would require 4,100 to 6,800 personnel and increase annual costs by $820 million to $1.3 billion. DoD has proposed a Space Force of about 15,000 people. CBO says additional personnel likely would be needed for overhead and management functions that are typically required to run a military service. CBO estimated that about 23,000 full-time positions within DoD are dedicated to space activities or support those who do, excluding space activities in the intelligence agencies. Currently, 93 percent of those positions are in the Department of the Air Force. Some current positions in DoD would be transferred to a new space organization and thus would not increase DoD's total costs but nonetheless congressional analysts believe additional people will be needed to staff three new organizations. CBO's analysis does not account for any new capabilities; it includes only the cost of new administrative structures. It assumes that positions transferred from existing services to a new organization would not be filled again by the existing services. If they were, costs would increase. Also, CBO's estimates of the additional costs of establishing a space organization focus on overhead and management costs and do not include the cost of adding new capabilities. "In that sense, CBO's estimates probably represent the lower end of the range of possible costs," the report says. Defense and budget analyst Todd Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is mentioned in the report as a contributor. But Harrison on Twitter blasted the CBO report for adding costs for personnel that might not be needed. "It assumes a larger overhead/management structure, adding 4,100 to 6,800 new personnel," Harrison tweeted. Harrison developed his own estimate last fall in a rebuttal to Wilson's memo. "CBO arrived at the higher number of new personnel in part because it assumed that no Air Force base operations, command, logistics, and medical personnel currently support space forces and therefore would not transfer to the new service," Harrison said. "Congress needs to make sure the Air Force and other services actually transfer all of the space-related support and headquarters personnel to the new service. Otherwise, new people will need to be hired to do the jobs of the people that don't transfer over, and that will jack up the cost." SpaceX founder Elon Musk hot off the second successful flight of his gigantic Falcon Heavy rocket in April is one of the recipients of a prize for science communication. Musk will receive the 2019 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, with the prize being awarded about a year after Hawking the famous scientist and cosmologist best known for his work on black holes and the structure of the universe died at age 76 . Musk's medal will be presented by rock star astrophysicist Brian May, who also is a guitarist for Queen. Musk originally founded SpaceX with the vision of bringing humans to Mars , which he is still working on doing through various Martian rocket architecture plans. He has aggressively pursued reusable rockets and spacecraft to lower the costs of spaceflight and an eventual Mars mission. Related: How Elon Musk Plans to Build a Million-Person Martian City Today, his company's self-landing Falcon 9 rockets regularly bring spacecraft to the International Space Station and satellites into space. His Falcon Heavy rocket, which can lift even more mass to space than the Falcon 9, has successfully completed two flights . SpaceX is now working on a human-rated version of its spacecraft, called Dragon , which could carry NASA astronauts to space as early as this year. However, Musk has gotten in trouble occasionally for his communications work. For example, he fell under scrutiny (and paid a fine) after the Security and Exchange Commission examined tweets about another of his companies, Tesla . Musk also appeared to smoke weed on comedian Joe Rogan's podcast in September 2018, an action that, according to the Washington Post, prompted a NASA safety review of SpaceX as well as Boeing the two companies scheduled to carry NASA astronauts into orbit. According to a new statement , other recipients of this year's prize include: Brian Eno, a founding member of glam band Roxy Music and a prolific record producer. He also speaks frequently about science in the media. "Apollo 11," a recent documentary by Todd Douglas Miller that contains rarely seen footage about the first moon landing mission 50 years ago this year. Musk and the other recipients will receive their medals in a ceremony on June 24 at the Starmus V science communications festival in Zurich. Science television personality Bill Nye will host the event. Attendees will include Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, and six other Apollo astronauts, according to the statement. Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . Insert heading A major repair to the Hubble Space Telescope 10 years ago this week is still helping us uncover the history of the universe. However, as described in a new video from NASA, the 2009 launch of space shuttle mission STS-125 to the famed observatory almost never happened. Space shuttle Atlantis, the video explains, sent two new instruments in orbit for Hubble, and tools to repair two more instruments on the telescope. The upgrade allowed Hubble to better peer at the youngest stars and galaxies, and to learn how galaxies formed. On top of the successful repair, NASA got a public relations boost when astronaut Mike Massimino sent the first tweet from space . A view of the Hubble Space Telescope through the window of the shuttle Atlantis, which brought astronauts on a repair mission in 2009. (Image credit: NASA) Yet six years before, this mission was canceled. NASA reviewed all of its mission plans after the space shuttle Columbia broke up during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. The agency had planned a final repair mission for Hubble after four successful astronaut visits but NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe decided it was too risky to go ahead. NASA officials were considering sending robots to do the repairs instead, according to a statement from the agency. Related: The Best Hubble Space Telescope Images of All Time! Robots or humans? However, Hubble which launched in 1990 needed help quickly to continue observations. Three of its aging six gyroscopes (which are used to point the telescope precisely at space targets) didn't function any more. A spectrograph failed completely in 2004. At one point, Hubble was unable to do any science for a month, according to the statement. NASA worked diligently on plans to send robots to Hubble in an effort led by Frank Cepollina, who at the time was associate director for NASA's Satellite Servicing Capabilities Project. Amid public protest and scientific concern , however, NASA changed its mind on Oct. 31, 2006, when new administrator Michael Griffin (after reviewing the situation carefully with senior agency officials) said a space shuttle mission could be conducted. NASA took several extra safety precautions to reduce the risk to the STS-125 crew, including having a backup space shuttle and crew ready to launch if a problem befell the orbiting astronauts. Cepollina's team continued to work on repair procedures, this time for astronauts. During their work, a second instrument the Advanced Camera for Surveys also failed. Past missions generally instructed astronauts to replace failed equipment, but technology had advanced a lot since the 1990s. The group decided that tools had progressed far enough in development so that astronauts could do tricky repairs on this expensive instrument (worth hundreds of millions of dollars), rather than replacing it. Launch was set for October 2008 until yet another Hubble failure messed up those plans. The telescope's Science Instrument Control and Data Handling unit experienced an anomaly. This was a serious issue, because this unit is responsible for formatting scientific data that Hubble collects, and also for managing the science instruments. NASA delayed the launch and found a spare unit inside a simulator at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Testing it for flight took six months. Once engineers knew the unit was safe to go to space, STS-125 had a new launch date. The astronauts launched safely on the space shuttle Atlantis on May 11, 2009. Screw stripping The repair job wasn't easy. In a recent quote in the NASA statement, Massimino remembered a moment when he was taking out handrail screws on top of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument panel. STIS needed a new power supply, and Massimino had it ready. However, while three screws came out with no issues, the fourth stripped underneath his drill. "I saw what I had done and my heart just sank," Massimino said. "I quickly did the deduction ... if that screw doesn't come off, the handrail doesn't come off, and then 111 screws don't come off the panel. That means the power supply doesn't come out; a new one doesn't go back in, and STIS doesn't come back to life. We'll never find out if there's life in the universe, and everyone's going to blame me." NASA ground control and the orbiting astronauts troubleshooted the sticky screw for 4 hours, including using different drill bits to loosen it. When nothing worked, NASA instructed Massimino to rip the handle off while being careful not to let any of the jagged edges puncture his suit. Massimino carefully pulled at the handle, and to everyone's relief, it came off with no further issue. The historic repair means that the telescope is still going strong today, after an incredible 29 years in space. (In October 2018, Hubble experienced a major gyroscope issue, but it resumed operations ; the telescope also had camera glitches in 2019 .) Its many achievements include helping to show that the universe's expansion is accelerating; doing reconnaissance shots for the New Horizons mission before the spacecraft's Jan. 1, 2019, flyby of the distant object MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule ; and examining areas with dark matter a mysterious substance that makes up most of the universe's mass, but whose composition isn't pinned down yet. "We still have full redundancy in all of the spacecraft's critical systems," Larry Dunham, Hubble's chief systems engineer at NASA's Goddard, said in the statement. "It's just unbelievable that we're still going today." Glassy view An X-ray study has proven that tiny glassy particles in the sand on Japans Motoujina Peninsula came from the fallout of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Retired geologist Mario Wannier, who was studying tiny marine life spotted the unexpected in samples of sand from the beach there and hopes his discovery will raise awareness in the scientific community and beyond. Wannier was comparing biological debris from different beaches with a view to assessing the local environmental health of marine ecosystems. He had been examining tiny sand particles under the microscope when he noticed some odd, glassy spheres, and other particles that were more akin to the debris left by a meteor impact rather than the pounding of the waves. The surprise finding had a perhaps obvious, the unimaginably devastating effect of the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima towards the end of World War II. Destroyer of worlds "I had seen hundreds of beach samples from Southeast Asia, and I can immediately distinguish mineral grains from the particles created by animals or plants, so thats very easy, Wannier explains. In the Motoujina sands, collected by colleague, Marc de Urreiztieta, Wannier saw the familiar traces of single-celled shelled organisms, foraminifera, but among this debris were countless extraneous particles. "They are generally aerodynamic, glassy, rounded," says Wannier and reminded him of the debris known to be present in geological samples from the K-T boundary which marked a mass extinction event thought to have been caused by a massive meteorite impact 66 million years ago. However, some of the glassy particles Wannier examined were unlike those from meteor impact. Indeed, some of the particles had a rubber-like composition and were coated with multiple layers of glass or silica. Some of the particles are wholly iron or steel, and so presumably came from building materials. Moreover, the particles are both diverse and unique with up to a couple of dozen grams of such particles in every kilogram of sand sampled. The researchers estimate that in a single square kilometre to a depth of 10 centimetres there could be up to 3000 tonnes of these particles. Wannier sorted around 10000 of the particles into six different groups depending on their physical traits. The consistently high concentrations of this strange assortment of particles in beach sands collected up to 10 kilometres from the city of Hiroshima raised the obvious question as to whether they had been generated by the atomic blast on the morning of 6th August 1945. The bomb instantly killed more than 70000 with radiation effects afterwards bringing the total number of deaths to around 166000 by the end of the year. X-ray microdiffraction To get more detailed information about the particles than is possible with microscopic observation, the team recruited Rudy Wenk and his team who used Berkeley Labs Advanced Light Source to conduct X-ray microdiffraction experiments. The data revealed the presence of the minerals anorthite and mullite in some of the particles. The data also showed that the particles had to have formed at a temperature of at least 1800 degrees Celsius because of the characteristics of these two minerals taken together. It is worth noting that melt debris from the Trinity test site in New Mexico where the first nuclear explosion was triggered is very different, mainly because the debris is purely geological rather than the remnants of a devastated city and its buildings and roads. Related Links Anthropocene 2019, online: "Fallout melt debris and aerodynamically-shaped glasses in beach sands of Hiroshima Bay, Japan" Article by David Bradley Read more about David and our other columnists >>> The views represented in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. Follow us on Twitter! Author(s) David Bradley Youve got data lots of it. Problem solvers are always looking for new solutions, systems, apps and processes to drive organisations forward. The result? More data points and complexity. The chaos can seem overwhelming, but its teeming with opportunity. Theres a whole universe of hidden gems in company data. Join me on a trip, as I explore a day or two of how Splunk touches my life. Are you ready to embrace your chaos? 06:00 Wake up and get into your ASICS runners which uses Splunk for security supporting the CSIRT and SOC, with fraud detection, SIEM and threat analysis. 06:15 Check you mail on your Vodafone phone, that uses Splunk AIOps for proactive services. 07:00 Before heading out, you check the weather in Melbourne and Tokyo on Yahoo, which uses Splunk for analytics on big data. 07:05 Head to the airport in your BMW car. BMW uses Splunk AI machine learning to drive innovation. 08:00 After passing through security, you Shazam a song thats playing. Shazam Uses Splunk to make mobile app data sing. 08:30 While in the lounge you use the time to pay your LUMO energy bill. LUMO uses Splunk to optimise its SCADA system. 08:35 See a friend who is on his way to Dubai. Couldn't resist telling him about the baggage system and the Golden Bathroom, and the many other IoT uses at Dubai Airports. 09:00 Take off to Japan on an Airbus that uses machine data for security investigation. 11:00 You can't sleep on the flight so you use the onboard wifi to book your next family holiday, a Carnival Cruise with a shore excursion to the Gold Coast. &amp;nbsp; 11:15 Proceed to online checkout via WorldPay who use machine data to ensure the quality of service of its payments network. 20:30 Arrive in Tokyo, a colleague meets you at the airport in his Porsche. Porsche uses machine data for application performance monitoring and for connected car projects. 21:00 Check into your Hyatt hotel, which reduced MTTR and increases dev time to innovate. 21:30 Turn your PC on and get an alert that your Symantec AV needs updating. Symantec uses Splunk for its security investigation platform. 21:45 You are about to settle on a house next week so you make sure the funds have been transferred into you PEXA account, using Splunk to provide automation and operational visibility. 22:50 Youve got a few things to buy tomorrow, you also check if you have enough money in your Japan Net Bank account a customer that uses Splunk for cybersecurity intelligence. 22:00 Finish your presentations for the next day using Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe secures and monitors its cloud services using Splunk. Next Morning: 08:00 You realise you havent taken out enough money for the day so you go to a Seven Bank ATM, who uses Splunk to fight financial crimes with real-time correlation. 10:00 Make your way to your first meeting at Yokogawa Electric, a leader in distributed control (DCS) and plant facility-related systems, who uses Splunk for real-time end-to-end DevOps visibility. 12:00 Your next client meeting is with a large fashion retailer. 12:30 Meeting goes well and the client just needs to raise a JIRA ticket and update Confluence to expand their Splunk instance. Atlassian has adopted an analytics-driven approach to improve security. 1:00 Walk past a 7-Eleven for a quick bite and a treat, before your meeting with a large manufacturer to discuss optimizing yield, stopping bottlenecks and preventing downtime. 14:00 Catch a Mercedes Benz taxi to the airport. Splunk drives the connected car analytics. 17:00 On your way to the airport you receive an SMS from your GP, blood tests are in, you may want to skip that treat you bought earlier. That SMS your received was sent by SMSGlobal who uses Splunk to optimize compliance management and predict customers' needs and the Medical Centre uses Cerner, one of the world's largest healthcare software IT companies. 20:00 Board a flight back to Melbourne. 20:30 Catch up on your Uni assignment for your MBA with University of South Australia. 22:00 Get some sleep. And Again, Another Morning: 07:30 Arrive back at Melbourne. On your way home, get new tyres fitted to your BMW. Continental Tyres use data from IoT on the production line. 11:00 Task one done you fire up your favourite game Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft who ensures its game services are working properly using machine data. 12:00 Feeling peckish, order a Dominos Pizza and a coke after a very busy couple of days as you sit on the deck watching your Bosch Robotic lawn mower tackling that next weekend task, the overgrown backyard lawn. AIOps, Predictive IT, DevOps, security intelligence, business analytics, customer experience across multiple industriesall by embracing the chaos and turning data into answers using Splunk. If you want to find out more, check out our State of Dark Data report which gives you a great place to start. Get ready to embrace your data chaos. WASHINGTON Attorney General William Barrs decision to select John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, for the task of examining the origins of the Russia investigation should not come as a big surprise Durham was already investigating FBI media leaks in the probe of Moscows involvement in U.S. elections. But Barrs decision to have Durham investigate the investigators has thrust Connecticuts U.S. attorney deeper into a political firestorm. President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have long called for an investigation of the presidents perceived political enemies and the surveillance of Trump associates. But law enforcement officials, especially at the FBI, insist the surveillance was lawful, while Democrats say the administration is trying to invalidate the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller. It certainly is a potential high-risk, low-reward job, said Bill Nettles, former U.S. attorney for South Carolina, of Durhams new appointment. This whole issue has become highly partisan and thats always treacherous waters. Nettles said it would be difficult for Durham to turn down Barrs request to lead the investigation. If the attorney general asks you to do something, you do it, Nettles said. You either do it or you quit. Durham has remained mum on his work for the Trump administration. Were not confirming, denying, or commenting at all on this, Durham spokesman Thomas Carson said. But in January, a letter from House Republicans seeking more information about his findings revealed Durham had been investigating members of the FBI, especially former FBI general counsel James Baker, who has been accused of leaking information in 2016 to a Mother Jones reporter about the existence of a disputed Steele Dossier, alleging ties between Trump and the Kremlin. Mother Jones broke the story about the dossier, a series of memos compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele on supposed contacts between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign. Steele was hired by the research firm Fusion GPS, which had also worked for a firm representing Hillary Clintons presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, so the president and his Republican allies called it a fake dossier that was politically motivated. Trump and his GOP allies also assert the dossier was the genesis of Muellers Russia probe. Mueller was appointed after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey. His report, following an 18-month investigation, reaffirmed the FBI based its probe of the Trump campaign on legitimate factors, including revelations that a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, told a foreign diplomat he was informed that the Russians had stolen Democratic emails. Nevertheless, according to a source familiar with the issue, Barr recently assigned Durham to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was lawful and appropriate. Barr has told members of Congress he believes spying did occur on the Trump campaign in 2016. And on Tuesday, Trump told reporters he didnt understand FBI Director Christopher Wrays ridiculous answer that the FBI didnt spy when looking into then-candidate Trumps ties to Russia during the 2016 election. During testimony before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Wray said spying is not the term I would use. I believe that the FBI is engaged in investigative activity, and part of investigative activity includes surveillance, Wray said. Durham, who was appointed U.S. attorney by Trump, has a long and impressive resume and has been tasked by both Democratic and Republican administrations to handle sensitive investigations. Durham has served in the U.S. attorneys office since 1989, holding a number of positions, including acting U.S. attorney. Before that, he served on the Justice Departments Boston Strike Force on Organized Crime, where he led the prosecutions of several mob bosses, including James Whitey Bulger. In 2009, he was tapped by Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate alleged torture and killing of terror suspects by CIA interrogators and contractors. After a three-year investigation, Durham decided not to bring criminal charges against those involved. Durham also helped prosecute former Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, who was charged with accepting $107,000 in gifts from people doing business with the state, and not paying taxes. Richard Rossman, executive director of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys, said Durham has been well regarded over the years, and appointed to investigate very sensitive investigations by both Republican and Democratic administration. Generally, hes got a fine reputation, said Rossman, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Barbara McQuade, also a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said Durhams investigation of FBI corruption in the Whitey Bulger case earned him a very good reputation, that may have appealed to Barr. Some Republicans, however, wanted the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel, who would have broader powers and more independence, to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. The cannabis wave that is washing over the U.S. is finally starting to eschew one of the most egregious stereotypes that the plant is just for men. We know this to be untrue by merely looking at the facts. In 2018 the total number of female cannabis consumers grew by 92 percent. Women currently make up 38 percent of cannabis users, but that is expected to increase to 50 percent by 2022. The reason why women are turning to cannabis isnt a big mystery. Like most other cannabis users, women are seeking relief from pain and anxiety and looking for new ways to relax. Im delighted that more women are joining the cannabis ranks, but Im also aware that our industry needs to do a much better job of marketing to female users. Related: We Have a Problem: The Cannabis Industry Is Losing Women Leaders Research shows that women are still wary of being judged about their cannabis use. They share concerns of being labeled as a hippies or stoners. They are also still reluctant to set foot in legal stores. Over a quarter of female cannabis users still get their cannabis for free from friends or family. We can help erase this social stigma by addressing the needs of women throughout the industry -- from product formulation to marketing to the retail experience. We cant demolish overnight these social stigmas that have built up for decades, but women will feel safer discussing cannabis once they see other women doing so. Influential celebrities who are talking about the drug including Whoopi Goldberg, Sarah Silverman, Rihanna and Martha Stewart, are leading the way in providing this social proof. Product manufacturers should also be aware that having more brands by women for women will get women on the shop floor, as will aligning with brands that women are comfortable with, such as Barneys, Sephora and Ulta. Related: Whoopi Goldberg Launches Medical Marijuana Startup to Ease Menstrual Cramp Pain Its not just about emboldening women to approach the cannabis counter. Value is also a key concern for women: nearly a third of them say price is the most important factor when choosing a dispensary. The cannabis industry will thus need to embrace competitive pricing strategies that offer customers real value for their dollar. But getting women through the door of the dispensary is just the first step; companies also need to nail the retail environment and experience. Dispensaries should be created from the ground up to appeal to a cross section of consumers, which means taking into account the needs of women, seniors and new users. Scientific research shows that men are generally utilitarian shoppers -- theyre shopping to get something done, whereas women are more hedonic -- they will shop for the sheer pleasure of it. Hence the need for education. Women will want to know as much about the brand and lifestyle attached to a product as they will about the potency. Women arent using the stores only as a utilitarian transaction point for flower, pre-rolls, concentrate, edibles and topicals, but as a forum where they browse, ask questions and learn about cannabis. But packaging needs to be about more than just aesthetics. Dont be tempted by a pink and shrink strategy. Its patronizing and there are alternatives. Bridget Brennan, one of the worlds leading authorities on marketing to women, puts it best: When a product is offered in only one color, and that color is pink, it sends the message, we haven't put any thought into this at all. Related: How This Cannabis Brand Designed a Modern Product With Nostalgic Packaging Dispensaries should also give some serious thought to the employees behind the cash register and walking the shop floor. Nikki Furrer explains in her book, A Woman's Guide to Cannabis, how a sexagenarian with hip pain visibly relaxed when she came to Furrers dispensary and saw a 40-year-old woman in yoga pants and glasses. Furrer says she spent an hour talking with the woman about dosing and different ways to consume cannabis, eventually sending her home with a lollipop and some cream for her hip. The customer reported back that the cannabis helped her sleep through the night. I love this anecdote because it hammers home the two key ideas marketers need to remember about all cannabis users (females included): personalization and education. Women want to buy and use cannabis on their own terms. They want to shop in safe, comfortable spaces where they can immerse themselves in the complex and nuanced world of cannabis. Retailers who dont give the necessary attention and understanding to reaching this important demographic will surely be left behind in the green rush. Related: 2 Quick Steps to Getting Started as an Amazon Seller 4 Common Assumptions About Online Reputation Management That Are Totally Wrong Mary Jane: How the Cannabis Industry Can Win Women Over Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Republican Sen. Mitt Romney broke with President Donald Trump and the rest of his party Tuesday to oppose the confirmation of a federal judge who had referred to former president Barack Obama as an "un-American impostor." Romney, of Utah, was the only voting senator to break ranks on a party-line vote to seat Michael Truncale on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In a brief interview after the vote, Romney mentioned 2011 comments Truncale made to a women's group in Beaumont, Texas, in which he spoke about Obama. "There were some things that he said about President Obama that were disparaging, and as a Republican presidential nominee, I felt I just couldn't go along with that for a judge," Romney said Tuesday. Romney ran against Obama as the GOP presidential nominee in 2012. The Senate approved Truncale on a 49-to-46 vote, making him the 113th Trump-nominated judge to win confirmation. Liberal groups such as the Alliance for Justice and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights raised sharp concerns about Truncale's nomination, citing past public statements he had made on a wide range of issues. More News Beaumont attorney confirmed for federal judgeship In written responses to questions from Judiciary Committee senators submitted last year, Truncale explained the "impostor" comments by saying that it was "possible . . . that I was merely expressing frustration by what I perceived as a lack of overt patriotism on behalf of President Obama." He also made a broader effort to excuse his past statements by saying he had been speaking "in my capacities as a candidate for the United States Congress or as a political commentator." "As a judicial nominee, it would be inappropriate for me to offer comments on any political matters," Truncale told the panel. "I can commit to you and the committee, however, that as a United States District Court judge, I would put all of my personal political views aside and fulfill my duty to 'administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties incumbent upon me.'" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke briefly on behalf of Truncale's confirmation Monday, saying he has a "distinguished reputation in law" and noting that an American Bar Association review panel found him well-qualified for the bench. At a meeting with journalists in New York last month, Iran's top diplomat presented a mnemonic for what he saw afflicting his nation. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif decried the "four Bs," a group of men who, in Zarif's view, were perfidiously steering the United States toward war with Iran. These were Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, United Arab Emirates crown prince and de facto ruler Mohamed bin Zayed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and White House national security adviser John Bolton. The first two, Sunni Arab royals, see Iran as a regional nemesis; the latter two have made no secret of their hostility to diplomacy with Tehran and their desire, instead, for regime change there. Zarif stressed that he believed that these four men were at odds with President Donald Trump, a leader averse to military entanglements in the Middle East and somebody who, left to his own devices, would happily cut a new deal with the Islamic republic rather than try to squeeze it into submission. But if the Iranian foreign minister genuinely thought Trump would tack a different direction a few weeks ago, he may think otherwise now. On Monday, the New York Times reported that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan last week presented an updated military plan that included the possible deployment of 120,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East, which could theoretically form the logistical springboard for a ground invasion of Iran. Shanahan did so on the apparent request of Bolton, who not long before issued a video of himself announcing the arrival of a U.S. carrier group in the region in response to supposed new threats from Iran and its militant proxies in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. "The high-level review of the Pentagon's plans was presented during a meeting about broader Iran policy," noted the Times. "It was held days after what the Trump administration described, without evidence, as new intelligence indicating that Iran was mobilizing proxy groups in Iraq and Syria to attack American forces." The following day, Trump scoffed at the report but didn't deny that he would entertain such a commitment. "It's fake news, OK?" he told reporters. "Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops" than the 120,000 figure floated by the Times. As my colleague Adam Taylor wrote, American military planners are well aware of the colossal risks of conflict with Iran. But that doesn't mean American political leadership will steer the country away from a confrontational course. As with Venezuela and North Korea, Trump appears to have let Bolton take the lead on Iran, with potentially dangerous consequences. The Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign on the Iranian regime seeks to choke off Iran's oil exports and coerce the regime to change its policies in the region. (Experts warn that sanctions are only galvanizing nationalist sentiment among Iranians.) In response, after a year of reckoning with the United States' reimposed sanctions, the Iranian government resumed a number of its nuclear activities previously curtailed by the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers - an agreement that Trump, spurred by Bolton, opted to reject. Tensions spiked after alleged attacks over the weekend on four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, which an anonymous U.S. official linked to Iran. On Tuesday, Saudi authorities said that armed drones flown by Iranian-backed Yemeni rebels hit two pumping stations on a major Saudi oil pipeline. Iranian officials denied culpability for the tanker attacks and claimed that they were being wrongly framed for sabotage. The Trump administration has long pointed to the "destabilizing" behavior of Iran and its militant allies in the region; analysts now fear that the guardrails that once kept a dangerous escalation at bay have fallen to the wayside. "The sense of foreboding is tangible, the threats from both sides are no longer rhetorical," wrote the New Yorker's Robin Wright. "Before the nuclear-deal negotiations began, in 2013, Washington was consumed with hyped talk of the United States or its allies bombing Iran. If the nuclear deal formally dies, talk of military confrontation may again fill both capitals-even if neither country wants it." In an interview with CNN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, suggested that the talk of new U.S. troop deployments to the Middle East was "psychological warfare" and then echoed Zarif's talking point. "Nobody is going to have benefit from such a conflict in our region, except for a few, some people in Washington and some countries in our neighborhood," Ravanchi said. For now, the Trump administration insists that it doesn't want a fight. "We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on the sidelines of meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday. "We have also made clear to the Iranians that if American interests are attacked we will most certainly respond in the appropriate fashion." But the White House's moves have clearly irked allies in Europe and elsewhere, if not the "four Bs" identified by Zarif. On Monday, Pompeo unsuccessfully crashed a gathering of European foreign ministers, hoping to gin up a united front on Iran. He came away with little to show for it. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief, cautioned that rather than "maximum pressure" on Iran, "the most responsible attitude to take should be that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side." On Tuesday, Spanish authorities announced that they were withdrawing a frigate from a U.S.-led naval group in the Persian Gulf because Madrid wanted no part in an explicitly anti-Iran mission. "The U.S. government has taken a decision outside of the framework of what had been agreed with the Spanish navy," acting defense minister Margarita Robles told reporters in Brussels. On the same day, a leading British military officer in the anti-Islamic State coalition said there was "no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria," according to the Guardian, seemingly contradicting the recent messaging from American civilian and military officials. For some analysts, the lessons of the 2003 invasion of Iraq - which saw Bolton and other U.S. officials twist intelligence to justify war - have gone unheeded. "I really cannot believe that we failed to learn anything from the first decade of this century," Elise Jordan, a former official in the George W. Bush White House, said during an appearance on MSNBC. "And we are actually considering escalating with Iran in a war that would further destabilize the region and unleash God knows what in terms of chaos in a very troubled region already." A Kansas hospital employee is accused of leaking a patients personal information to a suspected rapist, leading him to rape her a second time. Atchison Hospital says patient confidentiality and protecting personal information is a top priority. They blame a former employee whose actions they call deeply disturbing. The Missouri woman was sexually assaulted in May 2017. She went to Atchison Hospital for an evaluation and to have a rape kit processed. She told them who attacked her, but was adamant hospital staff not tell anyone. However, according to a lawsuit filed against Atchison Hospital and one of its former employees, an X-ray tech at the hospital contacted the womans assailant to tell him she had accused him of sexual assault. The woman says that led to him relentlessly harassing her through text messages, social media and phone calls, as well stalking her in public and her at her house. The lawsuit also says the X-ray tech harassed and hounded her as well. According to KQ2, the woman claimed she was sexually assaulted again by the same man in November. The suit blames Atchison Hospital for not securing patient medical information. The hospitals CEO wrote a letter to the patient, apologizing for any concern or difficulty the incident caused her. Although the hospital fired the X-ray tech, the suit says Atchison Hospital gave her positive reviews so she could quickly get a new job at Saint Lukes Cushing Hospital in Leavenworth. Saint Lukes said it was unaware of the reason for the employees termination at Atchison before the lawsuit was filed. The X-ray tech has since been put on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. Atchison Hospital representatives said they reviewed the situation to see what could be done differently in the future. The hospital said it immediately implemented changes to internal controls including even stricter accessibility requirements to its Health Information Management department. Patient confidentiality at Atchison Hospital and our ability to protect personal information is a top priority of ours." This appeared in Wednesday's Washington Post. - - - British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt concisely described the two big dangers embedded in the growing tensions between the United States and Iran. There is, he said Monday, "the risk of a conflict happening by accident, with an escalation that is unintended really on either side but ends with some kind of conflict." And there is also the possibility that Iran will be put "back on the path to renuclearization." What he didn't say was this: Both those dangers result directly from the Trump administration's escalation of pressure on the Iranian regime in recent months - a policy with no evident end goal and thus no plausible positive outcome. President Donald Trump and his top aides insist they are not seeking war, but the measures they have adopted in the past month - including an attempt to shut down all Iranian exports of oil,as well as steel, copper and other products - appear to have brought them perilously close to it. Facing an economic crisis, the Islamic republic has predictably responded by threatening to resume high-level enrichment of uranium - the most dangerous activity stopped by the nuclear deal that Trump unwisely scrapped. According to U.S. officials, Tehran also may be preparing strikes against U.S. forces in the Middle East or against commercial and military ships in the Persian Gulf. Attacks on four oil tankers near the mouth of the gulf on Sunday have not yet been attributed to Iran; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday they were still being investigated. If Tehran is deemed responsible, Trump will come under pressure to deliver on threats of "a bad problem for Iran if something happens," as he put it Monday. The Pentagon has dispatched additional forces to the region, and the New York Times reported that plans have been drawn up to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops. The Times also reported on U.S. intelligence that Iran may be seeking to provoke Trump into a military action. If so, it's not hard to see why. The United States is poorly prepared for another conflict in the region; it has the support of none of its NATO allies, not even - as Hunt made clear - Britain. The use of force probably would not stop Iran from resuming its nuclear program or force a change of regime, short of a full-scale military invasion. That would find scant support from Americans, and for good reason: Until Trump began his escalation, Iran was observing the nuclear deal and did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. Trump says he's interested in negotiating with the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but it's not clear his top aides agree with him; they have laid out a series of demands they know Tehran will not meet. Pompeo conceded the other day that the U.S. strategy was unlikely to coerce Iranian leaders into concessions, but suggested that "what can change is, the people can change the government." But the United States has been waiting in vain for a popular revolution in Tehran for decades. As we pointed out previously, Trump is in danger of being cornered into choosing between a counterproductive use of force and allowing Iran to cross red lines. The way out is to return to diplomacy, in concert with European allies. The president should curb his hawkish aides and take that course before it is too late. President Donald Trump's Iran policy suffers from three main flaws: No discernible policy, no confidence in Trump and no trust in his advisers. Let's start with the non-policy. John McLaughlin, a former acting director and deputy director of the CIA, explains why pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal was ill-conceived: "Why give up the leverage we gained by having essentially all of Europe and two rivals, China and Russia, generally aligned with us when it comes to Iran? To be sure, you could argue that the nuclear deal is not perfect and that a better one is possible, but now we are stuck trying to do it on our own and using tools - sanctions - that will spark resentment among our former partners in the deal. . . . So we are now pretty much on our own." One might also add that all this is totally inconsistent with the president's desired pullout from Syria - which signaled that the administration is not committed to a presence in the Middle East nor does it mind handing Iran and Russia a major geopolitical victory. Adding to the incoherence, the White House has complained about Iran's missile program, support for terrorists and regional aggression. Every one of these could have been addressed while remaining in the nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - and we would have had the help of allies doing it. But, of course, pulling out of the JCPOA was never a policy; it was a campaign promise born of Trump and his base's resentment of President Barack Obama. McLaughlin also points out that our isolation from allies actually aggravates another problem: Trump, on his own, is incapable of making a deal - North Korea? China? Congress? - leaving only the option of more sanctions (which are unlikely to compel the mullahs to shift course and return to the table), or the military option if he is intent on forcing Iran to capitulate. While Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., irresponsibly suggests that war with Iran would all be over with a couple of missile strikes, saner and more informed sources know this is blather. "Iran's military is, of course, not on par with that of the U.S., but it has spent decades thinking about how to use itself asymmetrically against a U.S. force to maximum advantage," McLaughlin writes. "We could expect serious naval combat in the Persian Gulf, well-rehearsed efforts to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, multiple missile attacks on U.S. bases, facilities and allies - and strikes far afield, possibly inside the U.S., by Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah. It would be costly, bloody and hard to end." Aside from lacking a policy, Trump is utterly unequipped to conduct high-stakes negotiations or to credibly wield even the threat of force. The administration leaked some routine military planning likely to try to convey military toughness, but it has abandoned Syria, wants to bug out of Afghanistan and Trump continues to rail about overseas bases and commitments. How credible is any military threat? We're going to conduct this war with not a single ally?) Coupled with Trump's infatuation with strongmen and his penchant for repeating their propaganda to ingratiate himself with practiced liars, our foes neither respect nor fear him. And, worst of all, if he truly does want to convey a real intention to use force, no one may believe him. That bring us to his advisers, who sure have sounded anxious to pick a fight that is only winnable through regime change. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech laying down markers that Iran would never meet (thereby implying only regime change would satisfy him); now, however, he claims the United States doesn't want war. National security adviser John Bolton, who by the president's own admission (!) is overly fond of military action and insufficiently concerned with its unintended consequences, seems to be spreading the notion that Iran is planning to fire on U.S. ships. Before you can say "Gulf of Tonkin," one can imagine a contrived excuse for engaging in military action. Call me a cynic, but I simply don't believe anything that comes out of the mouths of a president who has lied more than 10,000 times and senior advisers who constantly lie on his behalf (Pompeo had been telling us what a success the North Korea talks were, before it became obvious - even to Republicans - that we had accomplished nothing.) The gang that insisted we had no way to tie Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth. We have an acting defense secretary with no military or strategic experience (and who is utterly subservient to the president), an uber-aggressive national security adviser and a secretary of state who lacks credibility with allies and with foes. To make matters worse, none seem capable of telling the president "no." (Incidentally, this puts extreme pressure on Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel to refuse efforts to puff up intelligence and to come to Congress and/or the American people if the president attempts to falsify or exaggerate intelligence. It's ironic in the extreme that the same intelligence community that Trump slanders will be called upon to justify use of force. Trump might consider stopping the smears.) Do you trust these people with the use of force or even to threaten to use force, risking precipitous action on Iran's part? I have no idea, frankly, what the administration thinks is attainable with regard to Iran's nuclear program and how serious Trump is about the use of force. I have no idea whether Trump is prepared to start sanctioning our allies who continue to abide by the JCPOA (we have more than enough trade sanctions and conflicts). Does Trump think a war would help his reelection efforts? He thinks a trade war will. And I have no idea whether Bolton or Pompeo can credibly speak for Trump. (Strike that: I'm fairly certainly they cannot.) What can be done to avoid a calamitous overreaction or a blunder leading us into war? Congress should be crystal clear that hostilities against Iran would amount to a declaration of war, something only Congress can authorize. Since there is no human speed bump in the administration to either slow or stop rash action, Congress must insist on its constitutional role. It must be prepared to use its power of the purse to deny expenditures for Iran hostilities - absent consultation with Congress and approval for use of force. The Senate must require that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan, who has been nominated to fill the post on a permanent basis, commit during his confirmation hearing to robust briefings on Iran and to insist upon congressional authorization for use of force. Does this all amount to an unfortunate and unusual restriction on executive authority that could impair future presidents? You bet, but the present risk of an ill-conceived war makes that unavoidable. The administration's perpetual state of chaos, a dishonest and ignorant commander in chief and the absence of trustworthy and competent Cabinet members can rightly be cited as the gravest threats to a peaceful and satisfactory resolution of the Iran problem. T he prospect of a stock market float of Asda will have gone down well with store managers at last nights town hall bunfight. Anythings better than being owned by a parent company 4000 miles away which clearly wants to get shot of you. Whether any UK investors will want to buy the shares is another matter. Shorn of the ability to merge with another player, stuck in an industry inevitably moving to the digital leaders for which read Tesco and, one day, Amazon its hard to make any long term investment case for buying into Asda. By all accounts, it had been trying to find a buyer long before Sainsburys came along, to no avail. If no private equity or trade buyers wanted it back then, why would stock market investors want it now? Folks around the market say bankers would have to price an IPO so cheaply that the board back in Bentonville would balk. It is inconceivable Walmart doesnt know this. Which is probably why its executives sprinkled caveats aplenty in their IPO tosh-talk. Including the admission that the path to a float would take years. A cynic might say they were using the bogus prospect of a float to buy time while they work out what theyre really going to do with their troublesome British child. Not the most transparent way to deal with unsettled employees. London Capital & Finance latest After years of doing little to prevent the virus spread of unregulated bond funds, the collapse of London Capital & Finance has finally provoked the regulator to do something. Y ou might think its the sort of thing that could happen in Alabama but not here. You might think that the vote yesterday by the senate in the US state to ban abortion in almost all circumstances is just the sort of cruel and primitive decision you could expect from a place that has long been a centre of the culture wars over civil rights. You might be horrified that if legislation is signed into law by the state governor, doctors could be prosecuted and sentenced to up to 99 years in prison, even in cases of rape or incest an attack on womens rights which could trigger a new Supreme Court challenge with implications for the whole United States. But youd probably still take comfort from the fact that the United Kingdom has moved on from all of this. After all, were not like Alabama. Except that in a part of our country, we are. Abortion, at least for now, remains legal in Alabama but has never been legal in Northern Ireland. There, performing an abortion risks prosecution and at least in theory a life sentence, unless it can be shown that there is a serious long-term risk to the mother. Women who want abortions need to travel to Britain and pay with the possibility of some public funding. Its the only place in the EU, apart from Malta, where the law is so backward. Last year the people of Ireland voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to change the law in the south and polls show that three-quarters of people in the north want the law to change too. The Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley says she wants reform as well. So why hasnt it happened? Theres one simple answer: the Democratic Unionist Party is against it. Thats the same party, of course, whose 10 MPs have held a malign grip on our politics since the Government threw away its majority in the 2017 general election. Devolution in Northern Ireland is suspended, meaning the province is run directly by British ministers who sit in our UK Parliament and who could, if they choose, bring about reform. But of course they wont dare to while the DUP stands against it and barters its support day by day in return for the Prime Ministers survival. If the Government wont act, Parliament should. Abortion is not a devolved matter and the House of Commons could, perfectly constitutionally, vote to change the law. We might look at the news from Alabama and shudder. But before we do, we should look at what happens in our own country and realise that we are not always so different. Right to axe Kyle show ITV faced up to the inevitable today and axed The Jeremy Kyle Show. Good. The series was exploitative and aggressive. It made our society look worse than it is and it made fools out of those who appeared on it. It couldnt last after news broke that a 63-year-old man, Steve Dymond, may have died by suicide after being filmed failing a lie-detector test during a recording of the daytime show. Jeremy Kyle may appear on the channel again but the format will be different. Still, the popularity of the show says something about ourselves, as well as the nature of television. You might think its tone is part of the past but YouGov polling shows it was more popular with young millennials than older viewers and liked more by women than men. We are right to express sorrow at what happened to Mr Dymond. But we ought to ask, too, why shows such as this are popular in the first place. TODO: define component type apester Lego mania hits London People have been queuing around the block, apparently, to buy the latest kind of Lego. Its another win for the Danish toymaker, whose success has been stacking up for 70 years. The latest range is based on the Netflix series Stranger Things. It also costs 179. Thats a lot of money for a toy. T he words crunch vote have been pummelled into overuse by the Brexit crisis. All the same, it is hard to imagine a better way to describe the challenge now facing Theresa May, as she finally introduces her Withdrawal Agreement Bill into the Commons on June 4 or 5. This is no mere meaningful vote, still less the flimsy indicative variety that has brought the deadlock not an inch closer to resolution. This is legislation; the real thing. Defeat on the Bills second reading would be a hammer-blow to the Prime Minister, and, by growing consensus within her party, one she would struggle to survive. On which basis, the Tories are already well advanced with their unofficial leadership contest, the main contenders jostling indecorously for position as they await an official race that most of them assume will take place over the summer, before the partys conference opens in Manchester. With bleak symmetry, the days that have been pencilled in for the withdrawal Bills introduction coincide with Donald Trumps state visit. Even as May kowtows to the Right-wing populist President demeaning the true spirit of the UK-US special relationship as she does so she will be fighting for her political life. Tragedy and farce will jostle for primacy. The timing of the vote reflects both desperation and calculation. Barring a last-minute rush of cross-party affection, the Labour-Tory talks on Brexit are doomed to fail. May cannot deliver the permanent customs union that Jeremy Corbyn demands. The Labour leader would struggle to get any deal past his backbenchers, many of whom believe that any deal should be subject to a confirmatory public vote. Matthew d'Ancona Nonetheless, the PMs strategists argue, context is all. They assume Nigel Farage will lead the Brexit Party to a famous success in the European elections on May 23. Against this backdrop (they argue) the minds of MPs will be focused as never before, and the pressure to get a deal over the line somehow, anyhow will be overwhelming. But this is to misjudge the likely political fallout of next weeks elections. True, Farages party is riding high in the opinion polls. But it does not follow that its prospective success would automatically scare Tory hardliners and Labour MPs who represent Leave-voting seats into backing the PMs new compromise. It is precisely and explicitly this compromise that Farage is seeking to thwart. Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the European Research Group, has already condemned Mays latest proposed compromise as an attempt by the political establishment to avoid Brexit, to have a pretend Brexit. Few of the 50 to 70 MPs in his caucus would interpret a surge for Farage as an instruction by the electorate to deliver a soft Brexit: quite the opposite. More to the point, many other Tory MPs who might previously have been drawn to a plan based on some sort of customs arrangement with the EU will now be spooked by the Brexit Partys rise into backing away from such a deal. What Farage has built is not a traditional party but a single-issue campaign and blacklisting organisation, driven entirely by a cult of personality. Like it or not, he is driving the political agenda right now. And his purpose is quite explicit: to drive May from office, play kingmaker to a hard Brexiteer prime minister, and maximise his own power base. For Tory MPs already catatonic with exhaustion and political shell shock the prospect of these votes in early June presents a further dilemma. Assuming that May does not get her Bill through the Commons, how and when do they dispatch her? "Farages purpose is explicit: drive May from office, play kingmaker to a hard Brexit PM and boost his power base" The official leadership rules as presently configured prevent another party confidence vote before December. Those rules could, in extremis, be changed, especially if the extraordinary general meeting of the National Conservative Convention on June 15 passes a (non-binding) resolution calling for Mays departure. Yet one should never forget that this Prime Minister is one of the greatest literalists of the post-war era. She does not do nuance, code or subtext. In March, she told her party that she knew there is a desire for a new approach and new leadership in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations, and I wont stand in the way of that. But this was absolutely not, as some immediately deduced, the hoisting of a white flag. It was an unambiguous promise to go when this phase of the Brexit process is over and, if May gets her way, not before. The present deadline for departure from the EU is October 31. Having lost her battle to prevent European elections being held, May is absolutely determined to be remembered as the PM who, having suffered every indignity that could be visited upon someone in her office, still implemented the result of the 2016 referendum. So: disregard all talk in the days ahead of the men in the grey suits or irresistible political logic. Time and again, May has shown that she is unembarrassable, that she scorns the traditional etiquette of political honour. More like Arnold Schwarzeneggers Terminator, she absolutely will not stop, ever until somebody actually removes her operating chip. A university student has uncovered the reason why a new type of solar panel can produce electricity at a cheaper price than fossil fuels, helping to pave the way for clean energy. Tom Fiducia, a PhD research student at Loughborough University, has been studying new solar panels made from a semiconducting material called cadmium telluride (CdTe), rather than the traditional silicon. Fiducia found that when an element called selenium is added to the CdTe, it is more efficient because the electrons (subatomic particles that carry electricity) which are generated when sunlight hits the solar panel, are less likely to be trapped and lost, increasing the amount of power extracted. His findings have been published in Nature Energy journal, alongside scientists from Durham, Oxford and Colorado State Universities. He hopes the findings will lead to improved solar panels and increased use across the globe: Now that the selenium-induced efficiency improvement is better understood, it may be possible to use this knowledge to increase the efficiency of cadmium telluride solar panels even further. For instance, this could be by simply increasing the amount of selenium in the devices or altering its distributions within the cell. If efficiency can be increased, this would further decrease electricity prices and have a direct positive impact on regions that adopt the technology. Professor Michael Walls, the academic overseeing Toms PhD research, said: Now we know how the selenium improves the solar cell efficiency, it should be possible to improve the power output still further. I ts that time of year again. Students across the UK in their final year of university will be looking to the future and whatever life after graduation brings. Once you finish your studies, the world is truly your oyster. True, you may have a mountain of debt but whether starting your first full-time job or going onto further study, what you do have plenty of is options. For those looking to kick start their career or are looking for a new challenge, there are a whole host of graduate schemes out there that will support your professional development as you climb up the career ladder. Here, weve compiled a list of the top graduate schemes in the UK, as voted for by students: 1. PWC Salary: competitive The multinational professional service company has a far-reaching network of graduate opportunities, including in legal, tax, technology and consulting. According to their website, their graduate schemes offer opportunities to grow as individual, to build lasting relationships and make an impact in a place where people, quality and value mean everything. Find out more here. What people say Lots of young, like-minded driven professionals Great Culture with Senior Management who genuinely want to affect change current employee via Glass Door. 2. Civil Service Fast Stream Salary: 25,000-28,000 Fancy yourself as a world-changer? The Civil Service fast stream is looking for people from all backgrounds to become our future senior leaders. The Civil Service run a variety of graduate schemes in areas such as health, finance, social research and more. Find out more here. What people say Great experience, with lots of development opportunities. Really interesting work. 3. Aldi Starting salary: 44,000 Aldis graduate area manager program has become renowned for being really hard work, but youll be sure to reap the benefits. As well as impressive salary package (which, by the way, includes an Audi A4), youll receive on-the-job training and support whilst youre on your way to becoming a fully-fledged area manager. Find out more here. What people say Possibility of inventing your own ideas and making it reality. Supportive management and employees. current employee via Glass Door. 4. Teach First Starting salary: Competitive Teach Firsts graduate scheme is all about making a difference, with the focus on helping children discover their potential, and gain incomparable experiences and transferable skills that will launch your career. Youll earn a salary whilst you train and gain a Postgraduate Diploma in Education and Leadership. Find out more here. What people say Vibrant office, youthful, dynamic, energetic. Fun place to work. Very good agile working policy. current employee via Glass Door. 5. Google Starting salary: Competitive From the technical to the creative, Google offers graduate jobs in everything from engineering to sales and marketing. And, you can be sure Google will live up to its name as a funemployer, with office perks including free food, pinball machines and nap rooms. Find out more here. What people say Awesome perks and great opportunities to learn current employee via Glass Door. 6. Deloitte Starting salary: Competitive A graduate program with Deloitte is not just about hands-on experience, but building a long lasting career. Its a permanent job that gives you a market-leading salary, benefits and endless opportunities for learning, development and progression, their website statement reads. Their diverse program includes opportunities in financial advisory, real estate and technology. Find out more here. What people say Great firm, great graduate scheme, vibrant atmosphere, rewards success current employee via Glass Door. 7. NHS Starting salary: 23,000 With the NHSs Graduate Management Training Scheme, youll be working to help build a more efficient, professional and successful health care service. You can choose to specialise in one of six areas: finance management, general management, health analysis, health informatics, human resources or policy and strategy. Find out more here. What people say Fantastic support network, as well as developmental opportunities. The scheme opens up a lot of doors and gives good opportunities post scheme. Also get to do interesting things that you wouldnt otherwise get a chance to do as a manager, such as have a day out in the ambulances or in surgery. current employee via Glass Door. 8. KPMG Starting salary: Competitive KPMG in the UK is part of a global network of firms that offers Audit, Tax, Consulting and Deal Advisory Services. As well as being given the opportunity to specialise in all of the above, prospective graduates can expect to receive a whole host of benefits including financial support and lunch allowance. Find out more here. What people say KPMG invest heavily in training their graduates and school leavers, equipping them with the skills and leadership required to perform at higher grades current employee via Glass Door. 9. EY Starting salary: Competitive EY are after people who want to foster a career, not just secure a job. They offer specialised programmes in areas such as consulting, tax, technology, transactions and more. As well as getting paid, youll receive a professional qualification and the opportunity to work in locations all over the world. Find out more here. What people say Able to specialise with financial services firms from career inception which allows exposure to global financial brands. People are generally flexible and happy to support you in pursuing interests. current employee via Glass Door. 10. GSK Starting salary: Competitive GSK have a huge range of opportunities available for graduates, including their Future Leaders programme, which aims to foster the new generation of scientists, engineers and more. If youre enthusiastic, committed to making a difference and have a strong interest in healthcare, then wed love to hear from you, their website reads. Find out more here. What people say Large company, global focus, ability to learn new skillsets and abilities, opportunities to learn about different departments current employee via Glass Door. 11. BBC Starting salary: 20,800 One of the few media-centric graduate programmess on the list, the BBC offer traineeships in production, technology, business and journalism. Graduates can be given a variety of placements in different teams over the course of two years. Find out more here. What people say Amazing opportunity to work across all the different departments at the BBC current employee via Glass Door. Graduate Designers-in pictures 1 /14 Graduate Designers-in pictures The Talent of Tomorrow designs worn by influencers L-R Rachael Sealy, Rashpal Amrit, Victoria Magrath, Mercedes Benson, Chloe Street, Suleman Kudus and Jade Pearl Erika Astrid Megan Grinham Norwich University of The Arts Final outfit worn by influencer/journalist Chloe Street Jacket and Trouser Erika Astrid Margaret Sam Kingston University Final outfit worn by professional model Joseph Erika Astrid Lisa Gerstendfeld Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts Final outfit worn by professional model Kayoung Bardot Top and Printed Flares Erika Astrid Katherine Jane Watts University of Portsmouth Final outfit worn by influencer Suleman Erika Astrid Jogaile Zairyte University of Portsmouth Final outfit worn by professional model Kayoung Erika Astrid Jogaile Zairyte University of Portsmouth Final outfit worn by professional model Kayoung Oversized coat and Trousers, Margaret Sam Kingston University Final outfit worn by professional model Joseph Outerwear, Shirt and Trousers Erika Astrid Jasmine Farmer Nottingham Trent University Final outfit worn by Influencer Victoria Magrath Trousers and an Oversized Jumper Erika Astrid Demi Hardy Southampton Solent University Final outfit worn by Influencer Jade Pearl Oversized padded jacket, wide jeans and inner showerproof jacket Erika Astrid Charley Parr University of Central Lancashire Final outfit worn by professional model Joseph Knitted two-piece Erika Astrid Brian Mc Lysaught Edinburgh College of Art Final outfit worn by professional model Joseph Wooden turtleneck and trousers Erika Astrid Agnese Balsamini Academia Costume & Moda Final outfit worn by professional model Kayoung Voluminous blouse and see-through skirt Erika Astrid Brian Mc Lysaught Edinburgh College of Art Final outfit worn by professional model Joseph Wooden turtleneck and trousers, Agnese Balsamini Academia Costume & Moda Final outfit worn by professional model Kayoung Voluminous blouse and see-through skirt Erika Astrid Billie Rose Hart University of East London Group outfit worn by Mercedes Benson Tailored Two Piece Teal Suit Erika Astrid 12. Unilever Starting salary: 32,000 Unilever offers a 3-year Future Leaders Programme which aims to prepare grads for business leadership roles across areas of customer development, human resources, financial management and more. Unilever said: Its challenging, make no mistake. But were looking to make managers of you in three years. You will drive your career and some of the worlds most-loved brands into the future. Find out more here. What people say Chance to work in lots of different departments with great brands current employee via Glass Door. 13. Lidl Starting salary: 36,000-44,000 Lidls Graduate Management program is an intense 2-year learning curve giving you the best possible exposure to the key areas of the business along with a range of opportunities to develop your soft skills and leadership style. In the first 12 months, youll gain experience across key areas of the business including sales, logistics and supply chain. In year two, youll be given the option to choose a specialised area of development. Find out more here. What people say Get an insight into all aspects of the company. Learn a lot from the people around you and helpful staff. Immediately given responsibility with projects and different roles current employee via Glass Door. 14. J.P Morgan Starting Salary: Competitive Graduate opportunities are offered in the form of internships across areas including technology, banking, markets and asset management. Youll gain hands-on experience while making an impact on our customers and clients, the company says. Find out more here. What people say Open working culture where questions and new ways of working are encouraged. Management were supportive of development opportunities current employee via Glass Door. 15. Rolls-Royce Starting salary: 28,500 Like J.P Morgan, most applicants score a place on their graduate program by first completing an internship. Rolls-Royce offer programmes in a wide range of business areas, including Engineering, Customer Services & Services Management, Human Resources and Procurement. Find out more here. What people say Really good technical environment, structured graduate program, exciting projects, a lot to learn and develop, get to choose the areas you want to work in current employee via Glass Door. 16. Accenture Starting salary: Competitive Accenture has a wide range of graduate programs on offer to suit a variety of interests, including consulting, analytics, technology architecture and human resources. The scheme will be based at one of Accentures main offices in Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Newcastle. Find out more here. What people say Great holiday benefits and great opportunities for progression- current employee via Glass Door. 17. HSBC Starting salary: Competitive HSBC offers a range of graduate programs, as well as internships and apprenticeships, to kick start your career in global banking. The company said it is looking for applicants who are motivated, curious, courageous, collaborative and dedicated. Find out more here. What people say Training is good. Very international. Business spread is incredibly wide, so you will have the chance to be exposed to all sorts of tasks. On the technology side, there are excellent engineers. Good work life balance - current employee via Glass Door. 18. Goldman Sachs Starting salary: Competitive Goldman Sachs Exploratory Programs consist of technical and soft skills training and networking with mentors to build your career. They also offer internships to give applicants an opportunity to learn about the finance industry from the best in the business. Find out more here. What people say Diverse environment with a very good set of skills current employee via Glass Door. 19. Barclays Starting salary: Competitive Barclays two-year graduate program allows applicants to rotate around different areas of the business, including Banking, Compliance and Finance. Barclays promises applicants will be challenged every step of the way but will gain the training and support to explore where your talent belongs. Find out more here. What people say Solid grad scheme with lots of choice to rotate around the business. They even pay for additional qualifications. Great culture and working environment current employee via Glass Door. 20. Jaguar Land Rover Starting salary: 29,000 As well as their flagship program in Engineering and Technology, Jaguar Land Rover offer programmes in corporate, design and manufacturing. Successful applicants will also receive a generous benefit package, including a 2,000 bonus and privilege car purchase scheme. Find out more here. What people say N ear the surfers paradise of Bude in North Cornwall, youll find our Cool Stay of the Week. With a glass lodge facade and beach house interiors, this home is the perfect place to escape for a chic coastal getaway. The wrap-around terrace offers all-day sun, while the private hot tub is best used at night with a sprawling view of the starry sky above. The open plan living, dining and kitchen area are complemented by the light flooding in from the floor to ceiling windows. With three bedrooms, the house sleeps up to six guests in one double and two twin rooms. The master room has its own balcony and an ensuite complete with a freestanding bath tub. The home is part of Burn Coastal retreat, which boasts 45 acres of grounds to explore, a pool with a sauna, Jacuzzi and therapy room, a games room and childrens play area. Theres also a restaurant and bar on site for when you dont feel like cooking. Nearby, youll find Bude and the popular surfing spot, Summerleaze Beach. Crooklets Beach is 10 minutes away and offers an opportunity to explore rockpools, while Padstow is the place to visit if youre after some delicious Cornish pasties. Cost: From 700 - 3250 a week A family GP who groped a series of women and girls over 20 years because he believed he had an unchallengeable position in the community is now facing jail. Dr Alan Tutin, 70, targeted his victims during one-on-one consultations, asking them to strip off for intimate examinations when they complained of minor ailments. He molested a 12-year-old girl who had gone to him with symptoms of a cold, he demanded a woman strip for a breast examination when she had a wart on her foot, and preyed on two teenage girls who wanted contraception. One victim in her twenties likened him to TVs Benny Hill as he squeezed her breasts as though he was feeling a couple of melons after asking her to remove her shirt. The Old Bailey heard he tried to unbutton the blouse of one victim while telling her: Go and stand over there and take all your clothes off. I like Chinese women. He gave no explanation as to why he was doing this, said prosecutor Sally ONeill QC. She said the completely inappropriate examinations, at Tutins Merrow Park surgery in Guildford, Surrey, stretched from the early Eighties to 2003. Ms ONeill said the abuse was for his own personal sexual gratification and said he might have felt himself to be untouchable and unchallengeable at the time because of his position both in the practice and in society. The claims of sexual misconduct began to emerge in the late Nineties, and Tutin was put on trial in 2000 at the Old Bailey on claims he had indecently assaulted three women, a teenage girl and a young boy. He was cleared of molesting the boy and the other charges were dropped, and a subsequent General Medical Council inquiry cleared him to return to work. He carried out one attack in 2003, after being exonerated by the GMC, and at a later tribunal admitted he had looked at pornography at work between 2004 and 2006 and called sex chat lines from the surgery. Tutin was finally struck off in 2009 after a new GMC inquiry found him guilty of a string of inappropriate approaches to women, including telling one woman he needed to rub her breasts to see if she was pregnant. Another was told to strip to her underwear for an eye test. Surrey Police reopened their criminal investigation into Tutin in 2013, sending out thousands of letters to former patients in search of possible victims. Tutin denied all the charges against him and was convicted following a trial of 15 counts of indecent assault just before Christmas last year. He was cleared of seven counts of indecent assault and one of sexual assault by penetration, and faced a retrial for another three charges of indecent assault. The convictions can now be reported for the first time after a second jury cleared Tutin of the remaining charges. Judge Nigel Peters QC lifted reporting restrictions as he remanded Tutin in custody until a sentencing hearing on Friday. T he man accused of lying about a Westminster VIP paedophile ring set up a fake email address to back up story with a non-existent victim named Fred, a court heard. Carl Beech, known by the pseudonym "Nick", went on the run to Sweden when his extremely damaging allegations were proved to be false, Newcastle Crown Court was told. The 51-year-old father from Gloucester is on trial accuse of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud. Beech told the Metropolitan Police that a friend had been with him when some of the alleged abuse happened in the 1970s, jurors heard. Westminster paedophile accuser Carl Beech being interviewed by the Metropolitan Police / Crown Prosecution Service/PA Wire Beech offered to be a go-between with the witness, whom police named "Fred", and forwarded emails from detectives who wanted to interview him in 2015, the prosecution said. But subsequent inquiries by Northumbria Police found Beech had created an encrypted email account for Fred. Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said: "Carl Beech purported to be speaking with another person, Fred, and ultimately Fred went on to contact, through email, the Metropolitan Police. A photo of Carl Beech, as a child, shown to the jury during his trial at Newcastle Crown Court. / PA "Or so it seemed. When investigations were completed by officers - again using international co-operation - they went to the email provider. "It was an encrypted email account. The encryption on the email address for which Fred was corresponding had not been set up by Fred. "The person behind the encrypted email account was Carl Beech." Carl Beech, 51, pictured in a swimming pool. / Crown Prosecution Service/PA Beech, 51, from Gloucester, denies 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud. He came forward to tell first Wiltshire Police then the Metropolitan force that he had been abused as a child in the 1970s by a group of powerful men, including former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath, the head of the Army and the chiefs of MI5 and MI6. He also claimed this paedophile ring, which he said included the ex-MP Harvey Proctor, had murdered three boys. T he North Circular has reopened after a large warehouse fire caused severe rush-hour disruption. The westbound lanes reopened earlier this morning. One of the three eastbound lanes has also now opened. The road, the A406, was closed during rush hour between Neasden and the Staples Corner flyover following the blaze at a commercial building. Transport for London (TfL) said the M1 had also been closed southbound at the interchange. Neasden fire - In pictures 1 /14 Neasden fire - In pictures Parts of the North Circular were closed as firefighters battled the flames MPS Barnet Smoke could still be seen rising from the building this morning Jeremy Selwyn A large warehouse fire on the A406 in north London. T London Fire Brigade/PA The London Fire Brigade said 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters were tackling the blaze at a commercial building on the North Circular in Neasden London Fire Brigade/PA Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Jeremy Selwyn Drivers had been urged to avoid the area and take alternative routes. A TfL spokesperson said: "Two of three lanes on the A406 remain closed eastbound from Neasden Lane North following an earlier fire at an abandoned warehouse near staples corner. "The A406 westbound remains fully re-opened." (London Fire Brigade/PA ) / London Fire Brigade/PA London Fire Brigade said 70 firefighters and 10 engines were called to scene of the blaze at 2.40am on Wednesday. Dramatic pictures showed flames tearing through the building as smoke billowed into the night sky. LFB said the whole building was damaged by fire. It added that 17 people were evacuated from nearby properties. The fire was brought under control by 6.30am. Parts of the North Circular were closed as firefighters battled the flames / MPS Barnet Station Manager Robbie Robertson, who was at the scene, said: "Firefighters worked extremely hard overnight to prevent the fire spreading to an adjacent building. "The fire is under control however, fire crews continue to deal with pockets of fire inside the warehouse. "Seventeen people were evacuated from neighbouring properties as a precaution and we'd ask residents to keep their doors and windows closed." Smoke could still be seen rising from the building this morning / Jeremy Selwyn Police were also on the scene. Scotland Yard tweeted: "We're assisting @LondonFire at a warehouse fire on the A406 in Neasden. Road closures likely to severely affect North Circ Rd, Staples Corner and other key routes into morning rush hour. Drivers should avoid the area." LFB also tweeted: "Ten fire engines & around 70 firefighters are tackling a blaze in a commercial building on North Circular Road in #Neasden. Half of the first floor is alight." T heresa May has insisted her Withdrawal Agreement Bill "delivers Brexit" after senior ministers admitted it will be dead if MPs reject it a fourth time. The government will bring Mrs Mays much-maligned deal back to the Commons next month, having already suffered three humiliating defeats this year. And in a desperate plea for MPs to finally back the deal, Mrs May today said after an international summit in Paris: "What this bill does is delivers on Brexit. "When MPs come to look at this bill, when they come to vote on this legislation, I'm sure that they will be thinking of the duty that we have to ensure that we deliver on the vote of the British people. Theresa May, pictured in Paris on Wednesday evening, said: 'What this bill does is delivers on Brexit' / Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images "This is the bill that delivers Brexit." It came after Mrs Mays own Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, admitted to the Lords EU Committee: "I think if the House of Commons does not approve the bill, then the [Michel] Barnier deal is dead in that form." Nicola Sturgeon: Brexit deal doesn't have any chance of getting through in next vote Number 10 said efforts were continuing to find a "sustainable" majority for the deal, with discussions involving DUP and Labour MPs. Cross-party talks with Jeremy Corbyns party have so far not come anywhere near finding a compromise. In an attempt to get Tory hardliners on board, Mr Barclay and international trade secretary Liam Fox warned Eurosceptics that the possibility of Brexit not happening at all would increase if the bill was defeated. TODO: define component type apester It would leave just two options when the October 31 deadline looms: a no-deal Brexit, which has previously been rejected by MPs, or the revocation of Article 50, cancelling the entire process. Another defeat next month would be a potentially fatal blow to the Prime Minister's already fragile authority. The Standard today reported how Mrs May was served a 24-hour deadline by senior Tory MPs to clarify when she will leave office, or risk being forced out by a rebellion of MPs and activists. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has said he does not believe MPs would accept the Government entering into a permanent customs union after Brexit. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I don't think Parliament would actually accept the concept of a permanent customs union for a whole range of reasons that I've set out - and I don't think it would be acceptable inside the Conservative Party. "Of course we do have a temporary customs union inside the implementation period, that is already accepted, but one of the reasons that we embarked on this particular process was so that we would be out of these arrangements by the time we got to the next general election." Dr Fox said the Government would do "everything possible" to avoid a no-deal border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and "uphold the Good Friday Agreement". "In a no-deal scenario, the UK Government is committed to entering into discussions urgently with both the European Commission and the Irish governments to agree a long term." C hange UK's lead candidate in Scotland for the European elections has quit and urged voters to back the Liberal Democrats. David Macdonald, an independent councillor from East Renfrewshire, said he was ending his campaign because he did not want to split the remain vote. He added that he made his decision after a "great deal of reflection on the political landscape we are facing in Scotland at present". It comes just days before the elections, which are being held next week, on May 23. In a statement, he said: "I have come to the point where I have realised I must do what is best for the future of this country before anything else. "If things continue as they are the remain vote will split in Scotland and put at risk the representation that supporters of remaining in the European Union so collectively desire. "For that reason I have decided to end my candidacy for ChangeUK effective immediately and I am now calling for those in favour of remaining in the European Union, including all supporters of ChangeUK in Scotland, to do what is best for our collective voice in Europe and to support the Scottish Liberal Democrats in the upcoming European election, to better ensure that they gain representation to secure a seat in these European elections." Chuka Umunna, Change UK's spokesman who was formerly a Labour MP, said it was "obviously disappointing" Mr Macdonald had quit. Mr Umunna said he had "let down" his fellow candidates. He added: "But we are focusing all our efforts on adding to the Remain vote in the UK and challenging the pro-Brexit Tory, Brexit and Labour parties, which is why our leader challenged Nigel Farage to a live TV debate this week. "In the past 24 hours Labour's former head of campaigns for the north of England has come out for Change UK, as have many former Labour voters. "Winning voters over from the main parties and growing the Remain vote across the UK will continue to be our focus."# Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie welcomed the decision, made after postal votes for the European elections have already been sent out. Mr Rennie said: "I am grateful for the step David has taken. "I know it is not easy making this decision, it was difficult, and he has been considering it for quite some time. In A north London gastro-pub, Britains newest political party is gathered over glasses of wine to discuss the European elections. Theres vegan fish and chips on the menu of the Old Dairy in trendy Stroud Green. Around the room conversation is flowing as 20 or so volunteers and three election candidates talk enthusiastically. They are almost all disgruntled ex-Labour stalwarts looking for a new future that has Europe at its heart. Welcome to Change UK, the party co-founded by Chuka Umunna which hopes the May 23 elections will provide a breakthrough moment. The mainstream has become stranded in the wilderness, said first-time MEP candidate Nora Mulready, who quit Labour after 20 years in January last year. Carole Tongue, a former Labour MEP and deputy leader of the European Labour Party, said she jumped ship six weeks ago because Jeremy Corbyn has obliterated any pro-European sentiment Labour had. Youre looking at a woman who worked to ensure that Labour was a pro-EU party from 1984 to 1999, she said. Spirits are high. They are clear what they stand for. But will the public embrace this bid to break the mould? One poll yesterday had the party as low as one per cent, and analyst Peter Kellner asks in a blog: Has Change UK blown it? Wimbledon, an area that voted 62 per cent Remain, could be fertile ground for Change UK. Staff at Creams British Luxury cafe said they knew about the party but were divided on whether it would get their vote. James Hall, 20, from Ireland, said voting for a united Europe is a priority, adding: I will look more into Change UK. Colleague Shaun Bushby, 21, said: Its healthier for politics to have two new parties on the scene, the Brexit Party and Change UK. If Change UK does well at the EU election it will be interesting to see what their agenda is. But lawyer Sarah Prickett, 32, said: I will probably vote but I dont know who for. I dont feel very enthusiastic. She did not know much about Change UK but her friend Nicky Tibbs, 30, a teacher, interrupted: Thats Chukas party. Im not especially interested in it. David Kugler, 27, who was born in Hungary but has British citizenship, said: I was thinking more of Labour. Sue Page, who works at pet store Creature Company, voted Leave in 2016 and may not vote next week because she has no faith anyone will listen. Im in two minds, she said. A lot of people dont know what it will achieve. She too admitted she did not really know about Change UK. Polls suggest the party is losing ground to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Gavin Esler, the former BBC presenter, is one of the big guns that Change UK hopes will wake up the voters. I was born in a council house and I know the Nigels, Borises and Rees-Moggs werent, said Esler, who grew up in Glasgow and is frustrated that Brexiteers like Nigel Farage pose as real people against a Remain elite. The Leave troll factory has been attacking us, but they wouldnt if we werent relevant. They wouldnt be trying to strangle us at birth. By Kate Proctor T housands of Virgin Mobile customers will receive compensation after the UK network suffered major service disruption. The nationwide connection outage left customers unable to make calls or go online on Tuesday. Virgin Mobile said the disruption was due to a technical issue. In a statement, Virgin Media said the issue had been resolved and apologised for the disruption and inconvenience some of our Virgin Mobile customers have experienced. It added: "We will be compensating our customers for the loss of service and will let them know the details shortly." Customers responded by asking how Virgin planned to let its customers know the details of compensation. Via text? Phone call? Email..?, tweeted one user. The operator replied that it was sorry for any disappointment with the service, but gave no further information on how customers would be compensated. Virgin Media told the Standard the problems only affected its mobile phone services, and there were no issues with its broadband, TV and home phones. Service outage tracking website Is The Service Down said complaints about the issue on social media began at 8.20am, with comments surging shortly after 11am and into the afternoon. T he fiance of a British Council employee sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran today issued an emotional plea for her release. Iranian national Aras Amiri, 33, was jailed in Tehran this week after being accused of spying by officials. The former Kingston University student, who has lived in London for more than a decade and worked on projects intended to showcase the Iranian art scene, was arrested while visiting her grandmother in March last year. Her fiance, who has asked not to be named, remains at the couples home in north London and today begged for Ms Amiri to be allowed to return. He told the Standard: I am simply just waiting for Aras to be released so we can get on with our lives. We love each other so much. Her cousin, Dr Mohsen Omrani, 39, a Canada-based medical researcher, rejected the accusations and claimed Iran was using Ms Amiri as a bargaining chip in the latest escalation of tensions with the West. Dr Omrani said Ms Amiri, who had studied philosophy of art, was a cultural ambassador who organised artistic exchanges between Britain and Iran. He added: All of her exhibitions had permission from the ministry of culture in Iran. They featured Iranian artists, Iranian painters, photographers and music. Essentially the Iranian government is suspicious of the British Council having these kind of activities. He said her parents were devastated by her jailing and had spent the last year campaigning for her release after she had been arrested. Aras would never do anything to harm Iran or its national security and wouldnt do anything outside cultural activities. We just want her to be released, he added. The husband of charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe , currently serving a five-year prison term in Iran for alleged spying, joined the condemnation over Ms Amiris sentence. Richard Ratcliffe said: It is outrageous. The UK needs to step up and protect citizens. Nazanin and others are being held as bargaining chips. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told MPs he hoped to meet Ms Amiris family later this week, adding: Were very, very concerned about whats happened. Tulip Siddiq and Catherine West, the constituency MPs of the women, have written a joint letter to Mr Hunt urging him to challenge Iran over its hostage diplomacy. The MPs wrote: Their cases are a sharp reminder of Irans sustained policy to target and abuse the rights of innocents for their links to the UK. M ickey Mouse and Donald Duck will feature on a set of road signs for a new safety campaign. Margaret Calvert OBE, who designed the British road signage system, has adapted the signs to feature famous Disney characters, including Minnie Mouse. The initiative, with Disney Junior and road safety organisation Brake, is to help parents and teachers educate children on the rules of the road. The signs are designed for classrooms and safety manuals and will not appear on roads. The special signs are being released to inspire schools and nurseries to make their own road safety messages / Disney Junior - Mickey and the Roadster Racers The campaign follows research revealing that four in five parents are concerned about the speed of cars around their children, with over a third saying it has become too dangerous to walk kids to school. More than a third of parents (35 per cent) are worried that their children dont know the basics of Stop, Look, Listen and Think, while almost every parent questioned said they want their children to have a better understanding of road safety from a young age. As well as the signs and guides to help make kids more road-safe, Disney Junior UK has also released a new Parenting Hacks podcast to help parents educate their children on the importance of road safety featuring presenter and mum-of-two Helen Skelton, parenting expert Sue Atkins and Dave Nichols, Community Engagement Manager at Brake. The designer adapted the signs to launch a campaign to help parents and teachers educate kids on vital rules of the road / Disney Junior - Mickey and the Roadster Racers Margaret Calvert OBE said: The Mickey and the Roadster Racers inspired designs are a fun take on my original children crossing signs, which I hope will help teach young children important lessons of the road. It was an enjoyable challenge collaborating with Disney Junior and Brake on an important subject, and by using such recognisable characters I hope they help to capture the attention of children, and parents too. Dave Nichols, Community Engagement Manager, Brake comments: Our vision is a world where all children can enjoy safe and healthy journeys, which is why were always working to improve the safety and welfare of children on UK roads. Teaming up with Disney Junior and Mickey and the Roadster Racers is a fantastic way to help young children and those who care for them raise awareness about being safe on our roads. A labama lawmakers have passed a bill banning almost all abortions, including those in incest and rape cases. The most restrictive anti-abortion measure in the US would leave doctors facing 10 years behind bars for attempting the procedure and up to 99 years in prison for actually terminating a pregnancy. The 25 to 6 vote by the Alabama Senate comes amid a wave of bills in Republican states across the US. Emboldened by the Trump administration, the goal is to challenge the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling that legalised abortion in America. Under the Alabama bill, the only exception would be when the mothers life is at serious risk, for an ectopic pregnancy and if the unborn child has a lethal anomaly. Democrats re-introduced an amendment to exempt rape and incest victims, but the motion was voted down by 11-21. The southern states House of Representatives has already passed the bill by 74 votes to 3 and now the Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who is a pro-life supporter, has six days to sign it into law. The abortion ban led to an outcry from womens groups and pro-choice advocates. Staci Fox, of Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates, called the vote a dark day for women in Alabama and across this country. Even the authors of this bill know that it is blatantly unconstitutional and wouldnt stand up in court. She said Alabama politicians would forever live in infamy for this vote and we will make sure that every woman knows who to hold accountable. If it becomes law as expected, the bill is expected to be challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union . Alabama lawmaker Terri Collins, a Republican sponsor of the law, said: Our bill says that baby in the womb is a person. Another Alabama Republican, Senator Clyde Chambliss, added that the reason for the law change is so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe versus Wade. Eric Johnston, head of the Alabama Pro-life Coalition who helped draft the legislation, defended the decision to reject the amendment to exempt victims of rape and incest. Regardless of how the conception takes place, the product is a child, and so were saying that that unborn child is a person entitled to protection of law, he told CNN. So if, be it a rape or incest conception, then it would be impossible to ask a judge which of these is protected by law and which is not. Legislation has been introduced to restrict abortion in 16 US states this year. Georgia recently passed the so-called Heartbeat Bill that bars abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected at around six weeks. The Alabama bill goes one step further, banning abortions at any time. Under the law, a woman who has an abortion would not be criminally liable. At the signing ceremony (Photo: baodautu.vn) In the plan discussed on May 13th, the Vietnam - Japan Techno Park is placed at the Hanoi Southern Supporting Industrial Park (HANSSIP), and identified as a location for Japanese and Vietnamese businesses to produce supporting industrial products using high technologies. In particular, capable Vietnamese businesses will be supported to join Japanese businesses global production chain. According to Mr Nguyen Hoang, Deputy President of the Vietnam Association for Supporting Industries, CEO and President of N&G Group, the Vietnam - Japan Techno Park will facilitate the development of Japanese and Vietnamese small- and medium-sized businesses in supporting industries. N&G Group is the investor of HANSSIP which has an area of 640 hectares and expects to be expanded to 2,000 hectares. Onaga Company, established in 1978 in Japan, is oriented to become a technological group. Its main products are spare parts for airplanes, aviation engines, construction machines and power generators. On the same day, it announced the establishment of a representative office in Vietnam./. T he brother of a man who stabbed a cafe owner to death in Melbourne last year has pleaded guilty to planning a separate terror attack in the citys main square. Ali Khalif Shire Ali was due to face trial after being accused of trying to obtain a gun for an attack in Federation Square in late 2017, according to an indictment released to the media. He pleaded guilty in the Victoria state supreme court today, according to a transcript of the hearing that was made public. An order banning the media from reporting that the 22-year-old was the brother of Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, who died in another attack last year, was lifted. Hassan Khalif Shire Ali set fire to a pick-up truck loaded with gas cylinders in Bourke Street and stabbed three people, killing 74-year-old Sisto Malaspina, during the evening rush hour on November 9. Ali was shot by police and later died. Militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, without providing evidence. A sentencing hearing for his younger brother is scheduled for August 23. From March 31 to April 6, 2017, Ali Khalif Shire Ali made inquiries about getting a gun for an attack on people in the city of Melbourne, specifically at Federation Square, at the end of the year in 2017, the indictment said. F acebook is tightening its livestreaming rules in the wake of the Christchurch mosque massacres. This comes ahead of a meeting of world leaders aimed at addressing the issue of online violence following the shootings, which were broadcast on Facebook. The social media giant said in a statement it was introducing a "one-strike" policy for use of Facebook Live, temporarily restricting access for people who have faced disciplinary action for breaking the company's most serious rules anywhere on its site. First time offenders will be suspended from using Live for set periods of time and Facebook is also broadening the range of offences that will qualify for one-strike suspensions. The site is to put new restrictions in place / REUTERS New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the change addressed a key component of an initiative, named the "Christchurch Call", which she is spearheading to halt the spread of violence online. "Facebook's decision to put limits on live streaming is a good first step to restrict the application being used as a tool for terrorists, and shows the Christchurch Call is being acted on," she said in an email from her spokesman. Facebook did not specify which offences were eligible for the one-strike policy. Jacinda Ardern welcomed the new restrictions / AFP/Getty Images Nor did it state how long suspensions would last but a spokeswoman said it would not have been possible for the shooter to use Live on his account under the new rules. The company said it plans to extend the restrictions to other areas over coming weeks. It is beginning with preventing the same people from creating ads on Facebook. Three universities will also be given funding by Facebook on techniques to detect manipulated media, which its systems struggled to spot in the aftermath of the attack. Ms Ardern welcomed the research and said edited or manipulated videos of the March 15 mosque shootings had been slow to be removed which resulted in many, including herself, seeing it played in Facebook feeds. Facebook has said it removed 1.5 million videos globally containing footage of the attack in the first 24 hours after it occurred. S tan Lees former business manager of has been charged with elder abuse against the late Marvel Comics mogul. Keya Morgan, 43, was charged with theft, embezzlement, forgery or fraud against an elder adult, and false imprisonment of an elder adult as well as the misdemeanour count alleging elder abuse. A warrant has been issued for Morgan's arrest. His lawyer has said Morgan is not guilty. Stan Lee - In pictures 1 /53 Stan Lee - In pictures Stan Lee (L) poses with Spider-Man during the Spider-Man 40th Birthday celebration at Universal Studios on August 13, 2002 Getty Writer Stan Lee (L) and actor Chris Hemsworth arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" Getty Images Stan Lee with Avengers actress Scarlett Johansson Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock Writer/producer Stan Lee arrives at the premiere of Marvel Studios' "The Avengers" at the El Capitan Theatre on April 11, 2012 in Hollywood, California. Getty Images Writer Stan Lee arrives at the premiere of Walt Disney Pictures' "Iron Man 3" at the El Capitan Theatre on April 24, 2013 in Hollywood, California Getty Images Writer Stan Lee (L) and actor Chris Hemsworth arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" Getty Images Author Stan Lee (L) and actress Jaimie Alexander arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" held at the El Capitan Theatre on May 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images Actor Tom Hiddleston (L) and author Stan Lee arrive at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' and Marvel's "Thor" held at the El Capitan Theatre on May 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images Stan Lee, comic-book writer, editor, film executive producer, and publisher. Getty Images Comic book writer Stan Lee (L) and actor Chadwick Boseman attend the world premiere of Marvel Studios Black Panther AFP/Getty Images Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Trial of The Incredible Hulk (1989) Stan Lee cameo appearance in X Men (2000) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man (2002) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Daredevil (2003) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Hulk (2003) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man (2004) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Fantastic Four (2005) Stan Lee cameo appearance in X Men: The Last Stand (2006) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man 3 (2007) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Hulk (2008) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Iron Man 2 (2010) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Thor (2011) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Avengers (2012) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Iron Man 3 (2013) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Thor: The Dark World (2013) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Stan Lee cameo appearance in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Ant-Man (2015) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Deadpool (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Captain America: Civil War (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in X Men: Apocalypse (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Dr. Strange (2016) Stan Lee cameo appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Spider-Man creator Stan Lee at the premiere of the Sony film 'Spider-Man 2' on June 22, 2004 at the Mann Village Theater, in Westwood, California Getty Images Lee's daughter last year filed a request for a restraining order against Morgan, which alleged he was manipulating the mentally declining Lee. He also prevented him from seeing family and friends and tried to take control of his money and business affairs, it was alleged. The charges revealed on Tuesday date to June, when Morgan was working closely with Lee, who died in November. Fans leave tributes at Stan Lee's Walk of Fame star Morgan's lawyer, Alex Kessel, said: "He has never abused or taken advantage of Mr Lee in any way. We expect him to be completely exonerated of all charges." In June, lawyers for the 95-year-old Lee and his daughter Joan C Lee were granted a restraining order against Morgan. They also revealed that police were investigating Morgan for elder abuse. Lee, co-creator of such characters as Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, was for decades the face of Marvel Comics. D onald Trump has declared a national emergency to protect the US against foreign adversaries taking advantage of computer network vulnerabilities. The president signed an executive order which effectively bars US firms from using foreign telecoms that are believed to pose a security risk to the country. Mr Trump did not name specific countries or companies as he issued the order but experts suggested it is mainly directed at Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. The company has long been seen as a front for spying by the Chinese military or security services but it denies these allegations. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai applauded Mr Trump's executive order, saying it would safeguard the US communications supply chain. "Given the threats presented by certain foreign companies' equipment and services, this is a significant step toward securing America's networks," he said. The Trump administration has been trying with only some success to persuade allied nations not to use Huawei equipment. Last year, Trump signed a bill that barred the US government from using equipment from Huawei and China's ZTE Corp. The US, which is embroiled in an escalating trade war with China, also has sounded warnings about Huawei's efforts to expand into Europe. Officials are worried that China could use Huawei gear to gain access to private, commercial or other information that could compromise NATO and allied intelligence operations. Early this year, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Huawei, a top company executive and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets, misled banks about its business and violated US sanctions. The sweeping indictments accuse the company of using extreme efforts to steal trade secrets from American businesses - including trying to take a piece of a robot from a T-Mobile lab. The executive charged is Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December. The US is seeking to extradite her. A man inspecting what is believed to be wreckage at the crash site of an Ethiopia Airlines aircraft near Bishoftu, a town some 60 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 crashed six minutes after an early-morning takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, killing all 149 passengers and eight crew on board, Ethiopian Airlines said as world leaders offered condolences to distraught next-of-kin. People holding passports from 32 countries and the UN were on board the plane which ploughed into a field just 60 kilometres (37 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa, the carrier's CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told journalists in the capital, lamenting this "very sad and tragic day." AFP/Getty Images Honoring their service The project held personal meeting for her as Mrs. Beltrones brother served in Vietnam. She noted even the servicemens hometowns did not welcome them back from what had become a very unpopular war. Lee Beltrone said her brother never spoke of his experience. The war just tore the country apart and many of the men just kept the fact of their service to themselves with very little talk of it, Lee Beltrone said. There was so much anti-war feeling, it was something people wanted to forget. Art Beltrone served in the U.S. Marines Reserves during Vietnam and was lucky to not get called overseas, but that possibility was very real. He married his bride in 1965 and the two honeymooned in Puerto Rico. Beltrone remembered watching a news broadcast of President Lyndon Johnson while there informing the nation he would not activate reserve troops to Vietnam. There was a little bit of guilt on my part, he said. I wanted to recognize those people who did go. It was a way of honoring their service though I had no idea what the reaction would be. Jenny Ma, senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and its lead counsel on the case, said Tuesday, There is overwhelming evidence that medical professionals other than physicians can safely and effectively provide abortion care. We will be presenting this evidence at trial next week. Hudsons ruling on May 6 was hailed by the Center for Reproductive Rights as a landmark. The center said the ruling was the first federal court decision to strike down a law prohibiting advanced practice clinicians from providing first-trimester abortion care.The May 6 ruling would allow nurse practitioners and physicians assistants to provide first-trimester abortions in the state. The center contends that physician-only laws in 34 states have no medical basis and are designed to restrict abortion access by mandating that only physicians can provide abortion care. Olivia Gans Turner, president of Virginia Society for Human Life, welcomed Tuesdays order and said Hudsons earlier ruling went beyond what was allowed by the Supreme Courts previous decisions. Area law enforcement and the public will gather together Thursday to honor law enforcement officers. The Scottsbluff Police Department will host a law enforcement memorial ceremony on Thursday, May 16, at 11 a.m. at the lawn east of the Scottsbluff Public Safety building. The lawn is accessible along Avenue A in the 1800 block. Police Chief Kevin Spencer said it is the third year that the Scottsbluff Police Department has hosted the ceremonies, which are being held during National Police Week. Police Week became a designated observance under President John F. Kennedys administration in 1962, with the designation of May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day. Recently, the Scottsbluff City Council approved a proclamation recognizing this weeks observance of National Police Week. Spencer noted that ceremonies will be held throughout the United States and the state to honor fallen law enforcement on Peace Officers Memorial Day, which will formally be observed on Wednesday. Earlier this week, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced that all U.S. and Nebraska flags are to be flown at half-staff Wednesday. The White House also issued a proclamation on May 10. SCOTTSBLUFF A 21-year-old woman has been transported to Regional West Medical Center after she suffered injuries in a collision that occurred Tuesday morning. The two-car collision occurred around 6:44 a.m. at the intersection of Highway 71 and 42nd Street. Nebraska State Trooper Brandon Buhlke said 63-year-old Eugene Martin was traveling north on Highway 71 in a black Hyundai Elantra when his vehicle collided with Emily Harms, who was traveling westbound on in a light green Saturn Aura XE. Harms allegedly ran the stop sign on 42nd Street, resulting in a t-bone collision. "The passenger of the car was transported by Valley. She was trapped in there because it pinched her door shut on the drivers side, so they were pretty cautious about getting her across there," said Buhlke. Martin was not transported for any injuries. A rural Scotts Bluff County man is accused of sexually assaulting a young girl. According to Scotts Bluff County Court records, Jimmy R. Darnell, 70, has been charged with first-degree sexual assault on a child less than 12 years of age, a Class IB felony; and sexual assault of a child, third degree, Class IIIA felony. A complaint alleges that the assaults occurred during a period of time from October 2011 through October 2012. Court documents show that Darnell had been cited and ordered to appear for arraignment on May 24, but that Darnell has waived his right to a preliminary hearing in the case. According to a search warrant obtained in September 2018, authorities received a child abuse intake from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services involving a girl disclosing she had been sexually assaulted. Authorities interviewed the girl at CAPStone in June 2018, in which the girl alleged that Darnell would pull down her pajamas and underwear and sexually assault her. She told investigators she was 5 or 6 years old at the time and that the alleged assaults occurred at Darnells residence in Scotts Bluff County. Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe A Hickory man was recently served outstanding warrants for drug trafficking and failure to appear in court. Ryan Hope Hughes, 37, was charged Thursday with felony selling/delivering a Schedule I controlled substance, selling/delivering a Schedule II controlled substance, possession with intent to manufacture/sell/distribute a Schedule I controlled substance, possession with intent to manufacture/sell/distribute a Schedule II controlled substance and misdemeanor failure to appear. He received a $50,000 bond. Capt. Bill Hamby with the Iredell County Sheriffs Office said Hughes was identified as a suspect in an earlier drug roundup. Warrants state that Hughes sold .014 ounces of heroin and .017 ounces of methamphetamine to undercover officers in late February. The warrants state that Hughes failed to appear in court May 2 for misdemeanor simple possession of a Schedule III controlled substance. State records show that he has a criminal history involving larceny, post-release revocation, speeding to elude arrest and DWI. A Newton woman had a lucky Mothers Day after scratching off a $200,000 lottery ticket. Datina Rowland was at the Walmart on Northwest Boulevard in Newton when she decided to buy a few lottery tickets, according to a release from the North Carolina Education Lottery. She scratched the first two tickets. The first one revealed a prize or $4. The second had no prize. It was with the third ticket, which she had purchased for $5, that she found the $200,000 prize. I was sitting in the car and I couldnt believe it was real, Rowland said via the release. It still doesnt feel real. After calling her parents to let them know, Rowland went to her daughters house. The win left the two women in tears, according to the release. You know, we all try so hard, Rowland said via the release. We all struggle. Were just working our butts off to survive. It was such a nice surprise for Mothers Day to have a win like this. Rowland has claimed the prize, which comes to $141,501 after taxes, according to the release. A residence close to downtown was destroyed in a house fire late Monday night, Statesville Fire Chief Spencer Lee said. Around 10:14 p.m. on Monday, SFD Engine 14 arrived to a fully involved fire at a home at the intersection of Newton Avenue and South Elm Street, Lee said. He said that the blaze was controlled within 20 minutes of the response. Lee added that the home appeared to be vacant at the time of the fire and that no one was injured. David Moton, an area resident, said that he saw six fire trucks, an ambulance and EMS workers at the scene. It went up quick, he recalled. This little corner was all lit up for a couple hours last night. Iredell County tax records listed the value of the home at $20,170. Lee said that the fire is currently under investigation. The People's Movement Party (PMP) is against any decrease in the European Union's financial resources for the common agricultural policy, the project of establishing an EU army being not credible, PMP honorary chair Traian Basescu said on Wednesday in Brasov. "It is the concept of Emmanuel Macron, who proposes the establishment of a European army that would allow to break with the USA from a military point of view. (...) We are against such a concept for many reasons: the first and most important is agriculture. It is the common agricultural policy that guarantees EU's meeting the food needs of the nearly 500 million citizens (...) at an acceptable price. That is why we are against any reduction in resources for the common agricultural policy, in other words the subsidies for agriculture. The second reason - we do not see credible a EU army for a simple reason: the military resources of the European states are engaged in the NATO planning system, because 22 EU member states are also NATO members, including some big powers: the United Kingdom is still in the EU, France, Italy, Germany," Basescu said. The former head of state stressed that "you cannot practically destroy NATO by withdrawing the resources of the European countries made available to the Alliance" and that Romania's participation in it is "the safest way to guarantee our security." The PMP leader stressed that "NATO has so far not raised any question mark about the viability of the Alliance and its capacity to guarantee peace in Europe." "The idea with the European army is an error, even with Mr Macron's statements that it will be a complementary army. Of course, many things are complementary in this world, but an army that defends the EU and has nuclear deterrence can only be an army that is integrated into NATO, in NATO with the USA as the leader of the organization," the PMP leader said. On the other hand, Basescu reiterated the idea of the establishment of an EU Border Police as a solution to the problem of migration, "a Border Police equipped with staff and means, sufficient naval means to oversee the borders and to protect them". PMP honorary chair Traian Basescu was in Brasov on Wednesday to meet with the party members in the county, an occasion to present the PMP's action plan for the European Parliament. Minister Les stated that the development of the Strategic Partnership with the US is still an important objective of Romania's Government, "proving to be essential in order to efficiently respond to the threats generated by the regional and international security context," a National Defence Ministry (MApN) release informs. "Taking into account that 2019 is the third consecutive year when the Defence budget benefits of 2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, the National Defence Minister voiced hope that, this way, new cooperation opportunities will open, and the US investments will increase and expand in the Romanian defence industry. Moreover, Minister Les commended the AMRO initiative regarding the organisation of the second Romania -US Forum dedicated to defence, after the one which took place last year, that was also attended by the Republic of Moldova," the quoted source mentions.Another topic included on the agenda of talks was the industrial cooperation at the EU level, Minister Les arguing that it would be important for the US companies to get involved as much as possible in the construction of the new European industrial defense architecture, the MApN release showed. Councilors Anthony Simonelli, Melissa Mazzeo, and Kevin Morandi were three of the four councilors who filed the petition calling for a working group. The fourth, not pictured, was Christopher Connell. Pittsfield Councilors Seek New Funding Source For 'At Home' Program PITTSFIELD, Mass. The four city councilors who killed the mayor's home improvement program are seeking a resurrection. Councilors Christopher Connell, Melissa Mazzeo, Kevin Morandi, and Anthony Simonelli filed a joint petition calling on the mayor to organize a working group to find a different funding source. They had voted against the program that eyed to use $250,000 of the General Electric Economic Development Fund to help residents make exterior repairs to their homes. "If this is so important, and we feel it is and the administration feels it is, then we will make it happen," Morandi said. "If this is so valuable, we can find money to make it happen." Their fellow councilors agreed, sending the petition on to Mayor Linda Tyer with a 9-1 vote, and with only Councilor Peter White voting no and President Peter Marchetti abstaining from the debate. Homeowners who earn less than 120 percent of the area's median income would be eligible to tap into zero-interest loans from the city to do exterior repairs such as siding, foundation work, or decks. The loans would be repaid when the home is sold. The eligibility requirements included that they be a two- or single-family homes and be owner occupied. The goal was to help long-term residents and included a requirement that the homeowner lives in the home for five years or else pay back the loan at 3 percent. Additionally, the program was specifically geared toward giving greater emphasis on the poorest areas of the city -- the West Side and Morningside neighborhoods. Homes in those two areas would be eligible for up to 20 percent of the increased appraised value whereas the rest of the city would only be eligible for 10 percent. The total loan maximum was $25,000 in all areas while 60 percent of the entire pool of money was targeted to those two neighborhoods. The overall goal is to improve the aging housing stock in the area, a need that nobody on the council has denied but yet remain divided over the details. The four councilors had consistently opposed the mayor's proposals throughout the duration of her administration and have been highly critical of this plan. However, the common sticking point in this debate was the funding source. The mayor favored the GE Economic Development Fund as the most equitable source since it wouldn't be taxpayer money benefiting only a segment of the population. She argued that it would be an economic development component by addressing challenges employers have with finding quality housing for workers, something recently cited by 1Berkshire as being a "cross cutting issue" hindering economic growth in the area. But the City Council's rules provide guidelines on the disbursement from the fund that General Electric left the city as part of the consent decree when it departed years ago. The four councilors cited the program as not matching those guidelines, such as creating one job per $35,000 disbursed. The councilors feel that fund should be reserved for more direct economic development benefits. So they are asking the mayor to put together a working group to identify other options. The mayor and some of the proponents on the City Council cited one of three exceptions to that $35,000 figure that reads "an overriding public benefit resulting from the project" and argued under that provision the home renovation project does qualify. Nonetheless, the four councilors were steadfast in their belief that the funding should come from somewhere else but the mayor said the administration had looked at various options and the auditor advised against them. "I just don't think sending this to the mayor and putting the working group together is going to find more money or funding sources that wasn't there when our Community Development Department and administration put this together," Councilor Peter White said. White suggested the councilors take it upon themselves to propose a different type of funding. The four councilors do not make a quorum and therefore can discuss ideas among themselves and bring it to the administration as an option. Similarly, Councilor Earl Persip said the City Council should have served as that group by working toward a solution. "The council is the study group. We had opportunities. It got brought to us, we gave suggestions back to the administration, they changed some things," Persip said. The City Council had three shots at it already -- it first sent the proposal to the Community and Economic Development Committee, debated it at the full council before sending it back to the mayor for re-tooling, and then debated it again before it failed to get the supermajority needed for passage. The mayor compromised on some aspects of the petition the councilors had troubles with but not with the major issue of the funding. Connell suggested the marijuana tax, the federal Community Development Block Grant, or finding ways to fund other aspects of government, such as building sidewalks, and using money in the budget for this program. Mazzeo suggested holding off on allocations to stabilization and using that money. Morandi suggest private donations be sought. "We can come up with other options other than using this fund," Connell said. Mazzeo said a working group could not only find a different funding source but also that the program could possibly be even further tweaked and expanded, saying that $250,000 is not enough to make a real impact. "Let's figure out how to fund this type of initiative, as much as we can," she said. "Two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars is really not going to do anything." In this election year, the move can certainly be seen as a way to shift blame of the program ultimately stalling to the administration. Opponents phrased statements questioning the mayor's commitment to her proposal, essentially putting Tyer in the position of being at fault should she not create a working group. White noted that the conversation seemed to cast the administration as not doing enough and he disagreed. Simonelli, however, isn't running for re-election and said there is no other way forward at this point. The mayor had said during the previous debate that she didn't intend to bring the program back to the council for a third time. "The At Home program is dead. Now this is a way. And as some of my colleagues have said, nobody that night was against the program, we were against the source of funding. That is where the sticking point came," Simonelli said. "The program is dead so if you want to vote down sending this to the mayor, it is a done deal. The program will not be resurrected. This is a way to see if we can bring it back." Ongoing Coverage: In Brussels on Tuesday, Romania's Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu attended a high-level conference of the European Union's Eastern Partnership that marked its 10th anniversary. According to a press statement released by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), the event - organised by the European Commission and the European External Action Service under the aegis of the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union - was designed as a convention for discussing the merits and the main achievements of the partnership in the 10 years of its existence and for launching a wide-ranging debate on the possibilities for further developing this important platform for co-operation between the EU and its Eastern partners. The event was attended by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, senior officials from the six partner countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), European commissioners and diplomatic, academic and civil society leaders. In his speech at the opening of the conference, Melescanu underscored the importance of the Eastern Partnership to strengthening the European Union's relations with its eastern neighbours, while pointing out the most relevant developments in this context and the partnership's benefits to the EU and the partner states alike. In relation to the main objectives of the Romanian presidency of the EU Council, Melescanu mentioned the implementation of concrete objectives included in the partnership agenda for 2020, focusing on connectivity in the digital, energy and transport sectors, promoting the benefits to the citizens and enhancing public and political support for this initiative. He emphasised that the 10th anniversary of the partnership "represents a maturing common effort that provides a solid framework for co-operation and supports the processes of modernisation and transformation in the eastern neighbourhood." Melescanu also referred to the need to broaden the debate on post-2020 prospects for the partnership, voicing support for a comprehensive and in-depth reflection process that would determine the common future strategic agenda that would motivate the partners to continue their efforts, to build closer ties with the EU, as well as capitalising on the opportunities offered that benefit the citizens. The Eastern Partnership is a top priority for the Romanian EU Council Presidency as part of the EU foreign policy agenda amidst the 10th anniversary of the initiative in May 2019. In this respect, the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council has taken the lead in supporting the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission (DGNEAR): promoting the concrete agenda of the Eastern Partnership for the 2020 horizon, focusing on connectivity issues; increasing the visibility of the initiative by organising public events (over 20 in the first half of 2019); initiating an in-depth reflection on the future of the partnership. These directions were presented by Minister Teodor Melescanu at an informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers (Gymnich) in Bucharest, January 31 - February 1, 2019. Holding large anniversary events in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday was an objective supported by the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union as an important step in promoting the objectives of the partnership. AGERPRES President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday sent Prime Minister Viorica Dancila the letters on PM's picks for justice minister, minister for Romanians abroad and minister of European funds - Eugen Nicolicea, Liviu-Tit Brailoiu and Oana Florea, respectively - indicating that the three do not have the expertise required to manage these areas, according to Agerpres "As regards the submitted documentation, considering the fulfillment of the legal conditions as well as the criteria for the suitability of the proposed candidate, as established by the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, I appreciate that the recommended person does not have the necessary expertise to manage the complex field of justice. I am therefore rejecting the nomination of Mr Eugen Nicolicea as justice minister. (...) As regards the submitted documentation, considering the fulfillment of the legal conditions as well as the criteria for the suitability of the proposed candidate, as established by the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, I appreciate that the recommended person does not have the necessary expertise to manage the complex field of the relationship with Romanians abroad. I am therefore rejecting the nomination of Mr Tit-Liviu Brailoiu as minister for the Romanians abroad. (...) As regards the submitted documentation, considering the fulfillment of the legal conditions as well as the criteria for the suitability of the proposed candidate, as established by the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, I appreciate that the recommended person does not have the necessary expertise to manage the complex field of European funds. I am therefore rejecting the nomination of Mrs Oana-Consuela Florea as minister of European Funds," Iohannis said in his letters to Dancila. Iohannis said on Wednesday that he had sent the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in writing his rejection of the party's picks for the ministers of justice, European funds and Romanians abroad. Dancila said on Wednesday that he had tried to get an answer from Iohannis regarding the reasons behind the rejection of her three ministerial picks, but she failed to discuss with him as she had hoped last week, and asked Iohannis for a response President Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that he had sent the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in writing his rejection of the party's picks for the ministers of justice, European funds and Romanians abroad. "Before the holy Easter holiday, PSD came to me with a proposal for the reshuffling of the incumbent government, not to improve governance; the camps within PSD are at daggers drawn and came up with three proposals: Nicolicea, Florea and Brailoiu and I told them that I disagree with this reshuffle because it does not bring anything new, or good ... (...) Today I gave PSD my refusal in writing, as well, to understand better that I do not agree with the reshuffle," Iohannis said at Cotroceni Palace. AGERPRES Labour Minister Marius Budai said on Wednesday in Braila that the value of the pension point will increase as of September 1, from 1,100 to 1,265, regardless of whether or not the new pension law will enter into force at that date, according to Agerpres. "From a law with over 180 articles, the Constitutional Court asked for clarifications on three paragraphs, it did not declare them unconstitutional. We respect the decisions of the Constitutional Court and, in the shortest time, we will reformulate those paragraphs and resubmit the law to the president for promulgation. Regardless of whether or not this new pension law enters into force as of 1 September, the value of the pension point will be increased from 1,100 to 1,265 as provided for in OUG 114, which some colleagues want repealed, so they do not want the raise of pensions, but we will do it, we will not listen to them and we will do it in September," Budai said. In March, the Constitutional Court of Romania declared unconstitutional two articles in the Pensions Law, after the National Liberal Party (PNL) and Save Romania Union (USR) attacked several provisions of this normative act. According to the CCR decision, was declared unconstitutional Article 25 (1) which refers to those who must pay the social security contribution: "Taxpayers to the public pension system are those who owe and pay, as appropriate, the social security contribution, according to the Tax Code." Article 63 has also been declared unconstitutional in the Pensions Law which stipulates that "the disability pension is due to persons who cumulatively fulfill the following conditions: a) they have not reached the standard retirement age stipulated in Annex 5, b) they have achieved, at the date of the claim for disability pension, the minimum contribution period of 15 years." Chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Ludovic Orban told a press conference in Targoviste that the May 26 referendum "is vital" because it gives Romanians the possibility to ban through their vote amnesty and pardoning, according to Agerpres. "The felons around Dragnea are quaking in their boots for fear of the referendum initiated by the President and they are trying by every possible means to prevent the Romanians to turn out and vote 'Yes' at this referendum. (...) This referendum is vital for a healthy evolution of the Romanian society, because it allows the Romanians to ban, by a massive turnout, amnesty and pardoning. And by voting 'Yes' for banning amnesty and pardon, send everybody engaged in public life or who want to get involved in public life the message that if they steal they will be punished," the PNL leader said. Orban also spoke about the second referendum question. "The second question is also very important because through their vote the Romanian citizens can forbid the systematic aggression against justice, justice independence, against the Romanians' fundamental rights and freedoms and against the Romanians' free access to justice, by emergency ordinances issued by the PSD-ALDE government," the Liberal leader said. Ludovic Orban explained that if the referendum quorum is not met, there is a risk that the politicians understand that they are given free hand to steal. "If the necessary referendum quorum is not met, there is a major risk that anyone doing politics in Romania understands that he is given free hand to steal in Romania. All our sociological surveys and all the meetings we had with the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Romanians show that the overwhelming proportion of the citizens regard corruption as a threat to the proper functioning of the Romanian economy and society, and they clearly support the banning of the amnesty and pardoning of corruption deeds," Orban said. PNL Chairman Ludovic Orban met with party members and sympathizers in Dambovita County and delivered a press conference at the PNL headquarters in Dambovita. Liviu Dragnea, PSD chairman, asks the Palestinian ambassador to return to the statements made after the meeting they had on Monday. The PSD leader claims he did not say that Romania will not move his embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I also read the Palestinian ambassador's statements following the meeting I had yesterday. Under no circumstances reflects discussions held yesterday. I have clearly stated what I have said and publicly many times: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has finalized the analysis of a possible relocation of the Romanian Embassy in the State of Israel. Subsequently, the document was submitted for approval to the institutions with responsibilities in the field of foreign policy and national security. Taking into account the latest developments in the Middle East Peace Process, the analysis is in a continuous process of updating. However, given that a consensual solution is desirable at institutional level, any decision will have to be based both on constitutional provisions and on compliance with international law. I have today asked the Palestinian Embassy through my cabinet to return urgently to the ones presented publicly because they have nothing to do with what has been discussed, "said Liviu Dragnea at the request of STIRIPESURSE.RO. The Palestinian Embassy announced Monday after meeting Ambassador Fuad Kokaly and PSD leader Liviu Dragnea that Liviu Dragnea's decision is that the Romanian government will not move Romania's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. "The Embassy of the State of Palestine welcomes Liviu Dragnea's decision that the Romanian government will not move Romania's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem," the Palestinian Embassy said in a press release. The new performance model is the central element of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform and its most innovative feature, said Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Petre Daea, who chaired the works of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting, held in Brussels, according to Agerpres. "The new performance model is the central element of the CAP reform and its most innovative feature. These paradigm shifts will allow Member States to have a stronger say in their national policy making but they will also have greater responsibility. The advancement of our discussions on this issue will help us to define the Council's position on the entire reform package," Petre Daea said, according to a press release from the relevant ministry. The Agriculture and Fisheries Council on Tuesday held an exchange of views within the public session on the new performance model of the post-2020 CAP reform package, based on a document from the Presidency. The ministers focused their addresses on reporting milestones and performance assessments, as well as the possibility of establishing unit amounts for interventions other than surface and animal-based. "Last week, in Sibiu, our leaders reaffirmed the importance of a unitary approach to climate change. Although the primary objective of agriculture is to ensure food security for Europe, agriculture and forestry can contribute to meeting the ambitious EU environmental goals. Today [Tuesday, ed.n.] we have discussed about the way we can encourage and prepare our farmers to face this challenge," said the Romanian Minister of Agriculture. According to the MADR, the Council was informed and views were exchanged on agricultural issues in the Commission's presentation "A clean planet for all: a long-term European strategic vision for a prosperous, modern, competitive and climate-neutral economy." Ministers focused in particular on priority actions to be taken at European and national levels in the field of agriculture and forestry to help achieve the objectives of the Paris agreement by 2050. The Commission has informed the Council on the performance of EU agricultural trade. In particular, it reported the latest developments in its diplomatic initiative to promote European agricultural products in the world, as well as trade negotiations that have been concluded or are under way and have an impact on European agriculture. These include: Mercosur, Australia and New Zealand. "The ministers were also informed about: the regulation on the future European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, the follow-up of the European Court of Justice ruling on GMOs, the situation in the fruit sector," the MADR press release further shows. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said on Wednesday that the European Union's 8.1 million euro for calamity damage in Romania is for the North-East Region and expressed hope that a second installment will be sent, given that the government has requested more money. "It is very important that this solidarity fund has been approved. As you know, we had floods last year, we had drought, we had calamities and the Romanian Government made this request on the basis of the documents submitted by the territorial-administrative units. First of all, I appreciate the fact that the administrative-territorial units have done their duty and have requested funds to mend the effects of the calamities in their localities," Dancila said on a visit to Prahova County. She added that the government has already allocated money from the reserve fund following these calamities. "I considered that we cannot wait for very long, people need immediate help, they need the support of the Government. (...)We are glad of these 8.1 million euro," Premier Dancila added. AGERPRES Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said on Wednesday that it is inappropriate for the first Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans to send a new letter to Romania two weeks before the elections to the European Parliament, according to Agerpres. "I have not yet answered Mr Frans Timmermans, but to me there is disappointment. It is for the first time - and in nine years that I was a MEP in Brussels I saw many European commissions - but I find it politicking, and, given that we are two weeks ahead of the European elections, I find it inappropriate for him to send such a letter to the Romanian Government. I will explain why I made this statement. The Romanian government has not made any decision on justice yet, so the Romanian government cannot be rebuked for having made a decision on what it is being reproached of in the letter. Secondly, the Romanian Parliament is the law-making body; it is elected by the citizens' vote, it is the right of the Romanian Parliament to legislate and legislating is what it has done; asking the government to step in for laws Parliament has made is impossible because we know that we have to have the separation of powers. We are the executive power, we cannot intervene for the legislation made by Parliament," Dancila said on a visit to Prahova County. She added that she finds the threat with Article 7 a dangerous thing. "He is talking about lifting the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). Yes, I know that if Article 7 gets activated, there can be no CVM, but in his letter Mr Frans Timmermans is also talking about a mechanism that will apply to Romania. We have had no prior talks about such mechanism in the European Parliament; I guess that the group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) has come up with a proposal, a precise criteria-based mechanism that applies to all member states. We were just talking about double standard and we see that it is trying to be applied again. I will answer Mr Vice-President Timmermans and I will ask that my country and Romanians in this country be treated fairly and respected as other EU citizens. I find his to be an unfair approach. The Co-operation and Verification Mechanism only applies to Romania and Bulgaria. Let us not forget that Croatia joined the EU after Romania, but there is no such mechanism for it. In order for us to have a strong and united Europe that we all want, because we are pro-European, we have to make citizens from all the member states and Romania confident that they are treated fairly and equally," said Dancila. The European Commission confirmed on Monday that Timmermans sent a new letter to Romania voicing concern about the recent developments in the rule of law in Romania. The letter is addressed to President Klaus Iohannis, Senate Chairman Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea, and Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday stated that the Social Democratic Party (PSD) is concerned with Liviu Dragnea's problems and not with Romania's problems or that of the Romanians, adding that things can be changed through vote, according to Agerpres. "PSD gave us the worst governing since the Revolution - zero motorways, zero hospitals, only promises, and nothing in terms of achievements, with one exception - for when it comes to the modifications on the Laws of Justice, the modifications of the Criminal Codes they worked a lot, but bad. So, a rhetorical questions pops up: why did they work for such a long time and so intensely on subjugating justice, on bending down the justice laws? The answer is well known and very clear: to help Dragnea escape justice, this is what for the PSD worked for two years and a half. Because, of course, for PSD, the wellbeing of Dragnea is more important than the wellbeing of Romania and the Romanians and, since Dragnea and others have problems with the justice, Europe no longer speaks with them and, then, because Dragnea is no longer discussing anything with Europe, PSD has the impression that Romania shouldn't be close to the European Union anymore. PSD is concerned with Dragnea's problems and not with Romania's problems or that of the Romanians," said the head of state, at the Cotroceni Palace. He urged Romanians to go to vote. "Two subjects appear in so far in my speech: Justice, which is under the PSD attack, and the bad governance, the bad governance that is trying, through emergency ordinances, to create the impression that it is working for the Romanians. In reality, this avalanche of emergency ordinances wants to cover for the lack of solutions. PSD has no solutions for Romanians. This are the exact two topics that I proposed for Romanians to vote at the referendum, the referendum of May 26, which takes places at the same time with the elections to the European Parliament. The first topic: Justice. I expect Romanians to say that they do not agree with corrupt politicians, in answering to the first question, in the sense that yes, they agree to ban such politicians...We agree to ban corruption is what I wanted to say but, unfortunately, we cannot go that far and then, let's just say: yes, we agree to forbid amnesty for corruption. The second matter, the second question that is: we agree to forbid such emergency ordinances in the justice field and the area of criminal offenses. For we have the special opportunity of deciding Romania's future on May 26, when we also have the elections to the European Parliament and the referendum; both, my dears, are about Romania's future, about Romania's European future. And in a democracy, the state of affairs in politics can be changed through vote. Do vote on May 26!," said Iohannis. The giant tarp inside the public safety building, seen during a tour last year, will be retired soon now that the city's been given the go-ahead to replace the roof. State Board Grants Waiver for North Adams Public Safety Building NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The city has been given approval by the state to move ahead with replacing the roof on the public safety building. The City Council last November had authorized borrowing $351,000 to put a new roof on the deteriorating 63-year-old structure on American Legion Drive. The project, however, had been put on hold by the state's Architectural Access Board because the building is in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Last week, the AAB granted the city a waiver on the condition it make plans to deal with accessibility issues. "We've been granted the appeal of the variance, in order to move on," Administrative Officer Michael Canales told the council on Tuesday. "We have reached out to the contractor who is, even though it's outside the 60 days that they were required to hold their prices, has agreed to honor it." He said the city is getting bonding and contracts in place so the work can start. The city had been under a U.S. Department of Justice decree to bring its structures and byways into compliance with the ADA after a complaint was made about the lack of access to the police station. An agreement was reached in 2012 and the city spent $1,259,598.95 over five years to bring it into compliance with the federal law. The outlier has been the public safety building that prompted the initial complaint. The structure needs a significant overhaul and city officials have been leaning toward a new building should a suitable site and funding become available. But that's years away. In the meantime, the building that houses the police and fire stations has continued to deteriorate and blue tarps have become ubiquitous inside the structure to keep rain off personnel and equipment. It had been hoped that work could begin in January but the waiver was required from the AAB because the cost of the work triggered compliance. The cost of replacing the roof was over the benchmark 30 percent of the assessed value of the building; Canales later said it was close to 70 percent. The request for a variance with full relief of the building, since plans were to replace it, went before the AAB in late February and denied but a hearing was held on May 6, and the board granted the variance. The waiver came with conditions that the city put forth a plan for accommodations within 90 days and keep the state board apprised of its progress. "That was one of the things they are going to hold us to moving this process forward," Canales answered to councilors' questions. "It's making the programs accessible, which could be anything from permitting done here at City Hall instead of over there, such as for smoke detector and other things like that. ... "They don't want us 10 years from now coming back and asking for another variance on a building we've done nothing to." The Social Democratic Party (PSD, major at rule, ed.n) claims that President Klaus Iohannis is trying "falsely" to induce the idea that there are two kinds of Romanians: some who would support and some who would not support the anti-corruption fight, adding that the head of state cannot tell the difference between the success of the Romanians and his electoral interest. "Iohannis cannot tell the difference between the success of the Romanians and his electoral interest. The very day the INS [National Institute of Statistics, ed.n.] officially announces that Romania has the second-largest economic growth in Europe, of 5pct, Iohannis claims that the PSD government wouldn't have done anything well. President Iohannis also forgets or ignores the fact that PSD has publicly expressed its support for the referendum. He is falsely trying to induce the idea that there are two kinds of Romanians: some who would support and some who would not support the anti-corruption fight. In fact, all Romanians agree with the anti-corruption fight, as long as fundamental human rights are respected," reads a PSD release issued on Wednesday. According to the Social-Democrats, "the real news of the day is that Romania manages to achieve an economic growth three times higher than the European Union's average." President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday argued that PSD is concerned with Liviu Dragnea (PSD leader, ed.n.)'s problems, not with Romania or Romanians, adding that things can be changed by vote. "The PSD is concerned about Dragnea's problems, not the problems of Romania or of Romanians," the head of state said. AGERPRES Chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said on Tuesday in Ploiesti that the National Liberal Party (PNL) representatives seem to have made a "political creed" of denigrating Romania in the European Parliament, damaging the country, the citizens and Romania's image abroad. "I see too much and too often all kinds of pessimistic voices that instead of accepting and enjoying and being proud of Romania's achievements speak only in negative terms, something which I dislike very much.I simply look at other countries and I see how the representatives of the political environment speak in praising terms about their own country, just as the simple citizens. They are proud to be French or Italian or or from the Scandinavian countries, each one has their pride and I would like to see this attitude that we could call, if you like, patriotic, without the risk of falling in desuetude. I would like to see this attitude among as many Romanians as possible, but especially those who represent our interests and should defend our interests in institutions, especially European ones, I refer to the European Parliament and the others in the institutional framework of the European Union (...) The voices of the PNL MPs (...) in recent years, seem to have made a political creed for themselves to denigrate Romania in the European Parliament, hurling to the left and to the right, as in Romania, invectives, accusations, carrying out all sorts of diversions and misinformation that sure harm the country and eventually Romania's image and, last but not least, the citizens," Calin Popescu-Tariceanu stated. He added that "the problem can be solved if we send quality people" in the future European Parliament. "When I say quality people I mean first and foremost people who have character, people with a patriotic feeling, people who have experience, people who realize that they are degrading themselves in such a way, compromise themselves, debase themselves in the eyes of others. None should imagine they will be appreciated for this kind of performance. On the contrary, they will show them a lot of contempt," the ALDE leader said. Tariceanu made these statements in the context of the visit carried out on Tuesday at three industrial sites in Prahova County, namely British American Tobacco, Cameron International Corporation and the Gusto cheese puffs factory. "I am for the second time in Prahova County for the electoral campaign and as usual I have started this trip today with a visit to three industrial sites (...) We talked to both the management of the companies and the employees and, surely, these meetings make it possible for me to get the pulse of the economy much better than just reading the figures, which may sometimes be very cold. In all three companies, I noticed a very positive evolution of the results both in terms of turnover, profit, investment and job creation. (...) I have also talked to them about their development plans that I have greatly enjoyed. So the economy goes well not only in statistics, the economy goes well in reality, they all had an optimistic approach to the future of their companies and to the Romanian economy," Calin Popescu-Tariceanu went on to say. The European Commission remains committed to a global approach to education, said European Commissioner Tibor Navracsics on Wednesday at the 7th ASEM Education Ministers' Meeting / ASEMME7, highlighting the enhanced cooperation between Asia and Europe in the field, according to Agerpres. The Europe-Asia Conference is a fundamental forum for the EU, which allows for an informal dialogue and the exchange of good practice. The priorities of the meeting for education are deeply linked to the overall evolution of education in Europe. We see enhanced cooperation between Asia and Europe in this field and I am proud to have played my part in doing so in my tenure as Commissioner. I have promoted a wide range of opportunities created by EU funding instruments such as ERASMUS + and Horizon 2020, said Tibor Navracsics. These programs, according to the European Commissioner, support cooperation between the two continents and encourage bi-directional mobility for students, researchers and academic staff. These direct contacts between people are crucial: they help promote intercultural dialogue and develop intercultural awareness. The students we support do not only discover another country, they experience different cultures, make new friends and learn about others and themselves. For this reason, we have put these actions at the centre of our international relations strategies, such as the EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy, endorsed by the European Council just a few months ago. Known as 'Connecting Europe and Asia - Building Blocks for an EU strategy', this policy document further emphasizes the importance of connectivity and mobility between students, academics and researchers, said Tibor Navracsics. The international projects Erasmus + support all 17 sustainable development goals and nine of the ten top academic disciplines covered by Erasmus mobility partnerships with developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are directly aligned to a sustainable development objective. Tibor Navracsics recalled that in May 2018 he proposed the doubling of the budget for the future Erasmus program after 2020. I am pleased that the future Erasmus program will be even more international - the same applies to the next generation of Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions. The EU is working to ensure that both programs become more inclusive and more prospective, added Navracsics. The topic of the event organized by the Ministry of National Education, in the context of Romania's exercising the Presidency of the EU Council, is "Connecting education, inclusion and excellence in support of Sustainable Development Goals". The statue of two children reading will be installed at the North Adams Public Library this summer. The image comes from the Design Toscano catalog here. North Adams Council Accepts Library Gift, OKs Arts Commission Ordinance NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The City Council accepted a bronze statue as a gift to the North Adams Public Library in memory of Judith Ann "Jody" LaFortune Gottwald. MaryAnn Abuisi, Gottwald's sister and former city clerk, said she had been considering for some time how to give something back the city. "I've given 28 years in my service, my dad was a firefighter from 1941 to 1969," she told the council. "And my sister had such an avid love for the public library." Abuisi had already approached Library Director Mindy Hackner, who recently retired, and the library trustees, who have accepted the gift. "My sister passed away suddenly on March 2 this year. And she was a librarian by profession and had been for 22 years," Abuisi said. "But she actually started reading when she was 4 years old. ... she was a very avid reader. They say that by the time she reach sixth grade, she had read every book on the second floor. So they gave her permission to go down to the first floor, which was the adult section." Gottwald's career began at the library as a page in high school and she went on to earn a master's degree and work as a librarian at colleges in Maryland and Indiana, finishing her career at the University of Indiana at South Bend after 22 years. The bronze statue by Design Toscano is called "Read to Me" and is of a boy and a girl sitting on a bench with a book. Abuisi said she had seen the statue in Naples, Fla., about a decade ago and loved it. The statue has already been purchased and is in her garage. "I just hope everybody will love it," she said. "To me it's appropriate and it would give children probably the incentive to read and put down the iPads." The council accepted the gift of $2,560.51 from Abuisi and her husband, Anthony. The couple will work through the Public Arts Commission on getting it installed on the library grounds. Councilors Eric Buddington and Marie T. Harpin thanked the Abuisis for the gift. "It's a beautiful statue and so appropriate for the library and how it fits in with your family and your sister," Harpin said. "And it's just a lovely gesture. So thank you very much." The council finally approved new language first introduced in December re-authorizing the Public Arts Commission. The ordinance was re-written at the request of Mayor Thomas Bernard who argued that the language did not follow the charter in terms of the approval and signing of contracts. The ordinance has been rewritten several times, beginning with its establishment and a year later in giving the commission more authority. Bernard's requested language was also simplified over several months of meetings of the General Government Comittee. This latest ordinance change caused an outcry in the arts community that felt it would give the mayor too much power and prompted the dramatic resignation of the commission's chairman and founding member. The final language gives the commission some greater input than Bernard's initial wording by requiring the mayor to present in writing to the commission any decision to reject a contract. However, that only refers to contracts of $2,000 or more (based on value) and the commission recently approved an art project without contract because of its temporary and minimal impact. The applications will now be submitted through the Community Development Office, reviewed within 90 days by the PAC and, upon approval, sent to the mayor's office for sign off. The PAC will also advise the administration on the design of municipal structures or private structures protruding on public ways. "The Public Arts Commission met a couple weeks ago and we like the current language of the ordinance," said commission member Bryan Sapienza. "We hope that council sees the same tonight and passes it." Councilor Jason LaForest said there was concern expressed by the most recent commission chairman on the panel having "care and custody" of public art. It had been noted several times over the months-long debate on language that the commission had no assigned administrative support or liaisons like other city boards to support its mission. The panel had struggled in developing applications, processes and contracts largely on its own. "The city has some incumbency to support this commission that it has created," LaForest reminded the council. In other business: A recommendation by the Traffic Commission to raise the prices on permitted parking at the Center Street and St. Anthony municipal parking lots was referred to the Finance Committee. Councilors questioned the reasoning behind the price hike other than they had not been raised in a decade. The committee plans to review all public safety and service fees in the coming months. The council approved a transfer from the Parking Meter Reserve Account to purchase a 2019 Ford Super Duty F-350 4WD utility vehicle and accessories for the Fire Department to replace a 25-year-old military surplus truck for $52,663.70. Fire Chief Stephen Meranti said the current vehicle has rotten floors and can't go into reverse. The new vehicle will be used for hauling equipment and firefighters and other duties and will also be used by the Police Department as needed. Canales said the older vehicle will be grouped in a list of equipment and items to be declared surplus by the council and sold if possible. The council approved secondhand licenses for Mary Ann George for MaryAnn-tiques Gifts, located at 615 Ashland St., and for James Montepare for Empire Antiques at 63 Main St. and at 432 State Road. Council President Keith Bona abstained from all the votes because of having a similar business and because one of Montepare's locations is also his. Councilors Rebbecca Cohen, Benjamin Lamb and Wayne Wilkinson were absent. LADUE A state audit is planned for St. Louis County and its economic development agency in the fallout from former County Executive Steve Stengers federal guilty plea on corruption charges. Democratic Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway said at a news conference Wednesday that she accepted a request from the County Council seeking the independent review. Galloways Public Corruption and Fraud Division also will examine the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership and the associated development agencies it staffs, such as the St. Louis County Port Authority. The groups former chief, Stenger appointee Sheila Sweeney, pleaded guilty to a federal charge related to Stengers scheme. In a statement, Partnership Chairman Karlos Ramirez said the organization has already made changes to improve transparency and that with our new leadership, we welcome the opportunity to work with State Auditor Nicole Galloway. Stenger, a Democrat, was indicted April 29 on three counts for directing county contracts to campaign donors. He resigned that day and pleaded guilty four days later. He faces sentencing in August. GODFREY The chairman of the Lewis and Clark Community College board of trustees withstood calls Tuesday from his fellow board members, activists, former students and faculty to resign over Facebook posts they said were Islamophobic and xenophobic. A board motion at a meeting Tuesday attended by about 200 people to formally call on Chairman David Heyen to resign failed by a 4-3 vote. The board does not have the power to remove a member but can request they step down. The motion followed calls last week by the Missouri chapter of American-Islamic Relations and other groups for Hayen, of Dorchester, to resign. Heyen, who joined the colleges board of trustees in 2017 and was elected chairman last month, had shared Facebook posts on his personal page they said were anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant. According to snapshots of Heyens Facebook page taken by CAIR, Heyen shared items including two posts that said Anyone notice that there is no terrorism in Iceland or Japan? Weird coincidence, there are no Muslims there either and blamed unvaccinated illegal alien kids in the public schools for spreading diseases including measles and smallpox. CLAYTON The family of an off-duty firefighter killed in a crash in St. Louis County last month is suing the driver police say caused the fatal crash while speeding away from a traffic stop. Brett Korves wife, son and unborn child are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed May 8 in St. Louis County Circuit Court against Nicholas A. Washington, who remained jailed on a charge of second-degree murder. Police say Washington, 21, fled a police stop about 5:50 a.m. on April 4 in his Chevrolet Camaro and struck Korves, an on-call firefighter for the Swansea Fire Department, at Page Avenue and North Warson Road. Korves was trying to make a left turn when his Chevrolet Cruze was hit. St. Louis County police said Washington was heading east on Page at more than 100 mph when he slammed into Korves. Several of Wines' "associates" were riding in the car, Rea said, and that vehicle led Shaw to the intersection of Miami and Iowa streets, where Wines and Johnzell M. Moorehead Jr. shot him, Rea said. Shaw was able to drive himself to safety, prosecutors said. After the hearing, Shaw declined to comment, other than to say, "Glad to be alive." Moorehead, of the 3600 block of Gravois Avenue, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of assaulting an officer, discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, being a felon in possession of a firearm, being a felon in possession of ammunition and intimidating a witness. Prosecutors say that in addition to the Shaw shooting, he tried to intimidate a witness in a series of letters from jail. "A case such as this provides an important reminder of the threats awaiting dedicated members of law enforcement every day. FBI Special Federal Officer Shaw is the paramount example of a courageous officer dedicated to his work and, more importantly, this community. This was an ambush, plain and simple. It was unconscionable, and this type of conduct will never go unchecked by the Department of Justice," said Rea in a prepared statement. Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. One IDF Soldiers Journey from Gaza to Israel The Fellowship | May 15, 2019 IDF Staff Sergeant A The Advocates and Allies of the Jewish people who we regularly tell you about each week often fall into the category of Righteous Gentiles non-Jews who showed bravery, selflessness, and love for the Jewish people during the Holocaust. But every so often, we find an inspiring story from today. Such is the case of Staff Sergeant A, whose story is told by Ynet News Korin Elbaz Alush the story of a Muslim born to Gazan parents who moved to Israel and whose son converted to Judaism and now bravely defends his holy homeland: He was born to Muslim parents who relocated from the Gaza Strip to Israel some 30 years ago, and in two weeks time on Independence Day he is going to be a recipient of a special citation of excellence from the head of his division. Ironically, the family lives in Sderot, a city that has for years been suffering from rocket attacks fired by Gaza militants. The 21-year-old Staff Sergeant A., is a career soldier in the Technology and Logistics Division and is currently preparing for an officers course he is about to start. His parents moved to Israel when the borders were still open. They managed to successfully assimilate and build new lives over the border where they became parents to two sons, one of whom is Sergeant A. The two boys decided to convert to Judaism and later enlist in Israel Defense Forces. He began his service supervising military workshops and was later appointed as the head of the planning and development division. In the last few months, before deciding to sign-up for the officers course, he served as operations officer of his platoon. I didnt think Id be able to achieve that, its a dream come true, Sergeant A., said about receiving the citation of excellence. Since I became a career soldier, Ive worked insane hours and tried to do my best. Im happy that its been appreciated because they told me theyre giving me the citation for my hard work Stand for Israel by supporting the men and women of the IDF who work so hard to keep the Holy Land safe. The three men then put Jones body in the trunk of his car, took the car to East St. Louis, and set it on fire, Mantovani said. Police at the time said that Jones was fatally shot twice in the abdomen. Officials announced that they were trying to find Johnson but didnt name him as a suspect. Reasonover tried to destroy the evidence of the crime, giving the gun away and bleaching his clothes and shoes before throwing them away, Mantovani said. Reasonover threw unspent .45-caliber cartridges in a storm drain, where police would later find them, the prosecutor said. As part of the plea deal, Reasonover agreed to plead guilty to a drug dealing conspiracy charge and a charge of conspiracy to possess a firearm with a death resulting, and both sides agreed to recommend 20 years in prison at his sentencing in August. Johnson, 48, pleaded guilty Monday to the same charges. Patton, also 48, has pleaded not guilty. "On behalf of the board and the entire Vianney family, we are thankful for Mikes faith, leadership and service for these 13 years. In his 37 years as a Catholic Marianist educator Mike has certainly had a positive impact on thousands of students and the entire Vianney community. We are blessed that Mike will remain involved with Vianney in an advisory capacity," said David Woods, board chairman, in a statement. Republican Sens. Bob Onder of Lake Saint Louis and Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring, both of whom represent St. Charles County, railed against Parsons call for what they termed a slush fund that could allow as much as $116 million to be spent on business expansion. Those funds have been plagued with inefficiencies, with mismanagement, Onder said in an interview. And with these slush funds, theres always the allegation of pay-to-play corruption. The House attempted to intervene in the spat Monday by passing a slimmed-down version of the package to the Senate. The maneuver failed to sway Parson or Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, who said GM opposes the House version because it contains a provision requiring them to retain 90 percent of the jobs at the plant. Parson said the state traditionally has targeted an 88 percent retention rate, but a final number would be left to negotiations between GM and his administration. I think youll find in the final contract that thats going to be taken care of, Parson said. CLAYTON Former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger was working in September to arrange a bribe payment in connection to the redevelopment of Jamestown Mall, the Post-Dispatch has learned. Less clear from available records was who was offering the bribe and for whom it was intended. But several days later, a recording taken by federal agents inside Stengers house seemed to capture the county executive informing his chief of staff that a County Council members vote had been secured. The scheme partially came to light in an FBI agents application on March 20 for a search warrant to seize Stengers phone. A federal judge ordered the search warrant unsealed on May 7, but names of some individuals were blacked out in the public release. The Post-Dispatch reported on the situation the next day without publishing the names of the project or the individuals. Community of Choice, some residents concede, stings given findings in 2015 by the U.S. Justice Department that the municipality chose to use tickets, court fines and fees to support its budget and the police department unfairly targeted African Americans. Unrein said the city needs a new brand that can better reflect our diversity, but it will be up to the Maryland Heights-based Avant Marketing Group to come up with a menu of options for the City Council to choose from. He said the initial goal was to unveil a new brand during a July 4 party celebrating the citys 125th birthday. Its now being pushed back, possibly to early August, which may coincide with the fifth anniversary of Browns death on Aug. 9. Mark Vogel, senior partner at Avant, said its too early to say what the brand options will be. We dont want to make any assumptions about a community, he said. We want to listen to the voice of the residents and community leaders in developing the brand positioning. It should be their voice. Open Observatory also found that China's broad censorship of Wikipedia is more sophisticated than its earlier screens. The new block uses two censorship techniques that make it harder for users to slip through. The platform was English only when it launched in 2001, according to its Wikipedia entry, but now features articles in more than 300 languages. The English edition represents less than 15% of the site's more than 40 million articles. In 2013, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales told the Wall Street Journal that the site would never comply with the Chinese government's request to censor information. Beijing also bans Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest and thousands of other domain names. China's unilateral ban follows a similar one in Turkey, which blocked Wikipedia in 2017 and has had intermittent bans on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp. Turkish authorities said the ban went into effect after Wikipedia would not remove content that accused Turkey of giving support to terrorist groups, according to The Verge. The multi-language ban is still in effect. A Particularly Happy Anniversary Stand for Israel | May 15, 2019 Embed from Getty Images esterday, the people of Israel celebrated one year since their great friends in the United States moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, Israels eternal capital. JNS Ruthie Blum writes that the move has been a loud and clear message of change to Israels allies and enemies alike: Although the move could be viewed as merely the fulfillment of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which also recognized Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, it was received by supporters and opponents alike with amazement. In the first place, three previous administrationsthose of U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obamahad opted to invoke and repeatedly renew the laws six-month waiver of application on national security grounds. In June 2017, a few months after he assumed office, U.S. President Donald Trump also signed a six-month waiver, which he renewed after recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital in December. In February 2018, however, he announced that the embassy, finally, would be moved. That he kept this promise was shocking in and of itself, particularly to Israelis, who had grown accustomed to eight long years of a hostile Obama White House. Secondly, the timing of the embassy inauguration ceremony, which coincided with Israels 70th birthday, was of great significance. It was the Trump administrations way of illustrating its unapologetic pro-Israel stance. Third, the event was unique in the sense that it was undertaken without fear of world warnings about constituting an obstacle to peace or of threats of violence from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza. Trump, the new sheriff in town, was conveying a loud and clear message that a seismic shift had hit the Middle East. Enemies of freedom and democracy be damned Im not from Missouri; the citizens of your state should make the laws that are best for you. But I know a few graduates of Missouri high schools who lost a big opportunity last week when the Legislature first adopted and then, a couple of days later, took back in-state tuition for those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. I think Missouri as well as the Dreamers would be better off if you gave them the chance to go to college not by giving them state money, not scholarships, but in-state tuition. The measure hasnt been signed by Gov. Mike Parson. I hope hell persuade the Legislature to change it. Many U.S. citizens are uneasy about current levels of immigration. They dont want to offer anything to recent border crossers; they dont like it when immigrants arrive in the country illegally and then commit crimes; and they dont approve when immigrants arrive here illegally and then ask for federal benefits. None of these is the case with DACA recipients. They arrived in the country before June of 2007. Theyve never been convicted of a serious crime; if they are convicted, they lose DACA status. And DACA does not give them access to Pell or federal college grants or to loans of any kind. Ever hear the phrase throwing good money after bad? Thats what Missouri lawmakers are considering doing with the proposal to revive the states low-income housing tax credit program. With little time remaining in this years legislative session, and with so many policy priorities outstanding, its easy to wonder why time is being devoted to a program that has been shown to be a bad investment for Missouri taxpayers. Are lawmakers really trying to help low-income Missourians find affordable housing, or are they simply underwriting the interests of the states well-connected real estate developers? Proponents of the tax credit program often cite the claim that there are an estimated 100,000 people on waiting lists for low-income housing as a rationale for reviving the program that was halted in 2017. I agree that affordable housing for low-income Missourians is important, but I disagree that the low-income housing tax credit program is an effective way to address the problem. Missouri already receives over $160 million per year from the federal government for the same housing projects. Regarding Jennifer Boxs guest column, Share your story so others will have a choice (May 10): My condolences to Box and to the other people listed on the deaths of their children. I hope that in time you will find healing. Much could be said about this op-ed piece, but I offer two points. First, Box objects that victims of a violent crime a crime against their body and their consent would have no recourse in Missouri to end a pregnancy resulting from rape. The irony, however, is that the victims of abortion have no recourse anywhere. The children cannot fly to another state to find protection; they are at the mercy, or lack thereof, of those responsible for caring for them. (OFallon, IL) National Hospital Week is being celebrated nationwide May 12-18. HSHS St. Elizabeths Hospital is taking this opportunity to recognize the health care professionals who work hard every day to provide high-quality, compassionate care to area patients and their families. The nation's largest health care event, National Hospital Week dates back to 1921 when it was suggested by a magazine editor who hoped a community-wide celebration would alleviate public fears about hospitals. The celebration, launched in Chicago, succeeded in promoting trust and goodwill among members of the public and eventually spread to facilities across the country. Human Resources Director Jason Snow shared, National Hospital Week is an opportunity to recognize all of our dedicated health professionals. We are extremely proud of our team of colleagues and we recognize the important role they play in providing excellent care to our patients and our communities. SME '19: Red5 Pros Chris Allen Talks WebRTC and Ultra-Low- Latency Streaming at Scale Learn more about WebRTC at Streaming Media's next event. Read the complete transcript of this interview: Tim Siglin: Welcome to Streaming Media East, 2019. I'm Tim Siglin, contributing editor with Streaming Media Magazine and the founding executive director of the not-for-profit, Help Me! Stream. This is the very first live stream we're doing from the show, and today I've got with me Chris Allen, CEO and technical co-founder at Red5 Pro. Tell me a little bit about what you do at Red5 Pro. Chris Allen: We enable developers to build live-streaming experiences that, you know, do one-to-many and really, really low latency, under 500 milliseconds at huge scale. Tim Siglin: Nice. And what is, define huge scale because, you know, in the RTMP days, huge scale was, well in the early days it was like a couple hundred, and you had to figure out. What for you guys is what a large scale-- Chris Allen: So, millions of concurrent viewers at the same stream. Tim Siglin: And what's the, sort of, secret sauce with Red5 to do that? Because obviously we've got a number of plays where you got P2P, you've got peer-assisted, you've got large CDNs that allow scale. How do you all, sort of, get to the millions of viewers simultaneously? Chris Allen: We leverage cloud networks or CDNs who have this new edge compute capability to spin up and spin down virtual instances to add to a cluster. And then the edges in this architecture actually allow subscribers to connect to it and then the video is delivered over WebRTC. So we're leveraging UDP and really fast throughput, which is basically what WebRTC is built for, is built for video chat. So we're leveraging that to kind of find server architecture, which allows us to scale this out. Tim Siglin: Now I'm curious from a tactical standpoint, I've heard a number of people talk about spending up instances when they do live to meet scale, and one of the things that I've heard consistently is you have to keep, you can't necessarily keep cold loops, you sort of have to keep the instances warm, so they rapidly come up. Is that something you all find as well? Or is there acceptable lag time in the spin-up of the instances. Chris Allen: Yeah, its a great question and it's not necessarily one that's easy to solve. Um, it basically, what we do. We have this thing called the Stream Manager, which is kind of like a branch of the operations monitoring all the other nodes and the traffic and how much load is being put on them. You can set thresholds in the stream manager to like, say when you hit half the capacity on a server node, its going to spin up a new one. So you actually have access capacity. That's the usual way that we'll deal with it. We also have a scheduling APR so if you know you're going to have a celebrity live event type thing, it'll spin up the instances to be available at that particular time. Tim Siglin: Okay. So to a certain extent it's almost like you're doing like what we would do with business rules and network switches and routers back in the old days where you'd say when a certain capacity is reached, make sure we have additional capacity. Chris Allen: That's exactly right. And it's just using virtual instances to do that. Tim Siglin: Okay. And do you find any, any limitations with the reach of some of these cloud based solutions that you sit on in terms of countries or geographic regions? Chris Allen: Honestly, well, I mean this is a really interesting question too. No, because they do have pretty large reach, I mean Amazon and Google Cloud, they pretty much expand the world. That said, even when they don't, I mean we've done tests we, like, have an AWS instance of our server sitting in Australia, and we're in Boston and then doing a round trip test with it and its still getting latencies of under 500 milliseconds. Tim Siglin: Hmm, interesting. And then how do you do, sort of, quality review experience measurement from that standpoint at scale 'cause WebRTC as you said was geared more towards video chat by directional, um and it seems like the models of real-time user measurement are more towards HLS chunking or segmentation. Chris Allen: Sure, and where you can put a cache in and buffer the stuff and in our case we don't have a buffer. We're delivering the packets as soon as they arrive so, there's certainly a trade-off, you know, when you're in really bad network conditions like this conference, for example. Tim Siglin: Right. Isn't it ironic? At a streaming conference, and you get network intermittency issues. Chris Allen: That's right, it, you're going to have some, you know, issues, but that said, we've got the ability to do ABR, so we have adaptive day rates so you can generate multiple streams, and then a client is requesting a different bitrate, and this is actually built into the WebRTC protocol. Usually its a, its just telling the other browser here to like, hey, lower your bandwidth so that I can keep up. In this case our ad server is going to deliver the closest thing to what you're asking for. Tim Siglin: Interesting. So is that a negotiation between the end user and the edge server? Chris Allen: That's right. The other, in our architecture, the edge server is really the other peer. So if you think about it, in a peer-to-peer WebRTC terms, its making a peer connection to that edge server and then they're negotiating back and forth what it should do, and delivering the stream to that client. Tim Siglin: So, I'm not going to name a company name but there was a solution a couple years ago that was RTMP which was the flow protocol, and if I remember correctly the way that would work is essentially would pierce the firewall of say, a corporate environment with a single stream, and then if a second unicast stream came in it would say, "Oh, there are multiple requests within this firewall, let's turn on peer-assisted or peer-to-peer on the network itself." How do you all handle models where there are multiple requests from within say, a single corporate enitity or behind a firewall? Chris Allen: Okay, so that's a complex question, and requires a complex answer. Tim Siglin: You're a technical guy, so I'm asking you complex questions. Chris Allen: Actually all of this is built into the WebRTC specs. It's called ICE negotiation, and there's sub-protocols STUN and TURN, which actually do the NAT punch-through to be able to get the UDP traffic through it and in the case that it can't get through the firewall, then it uses TURN which is this relay, or a tunneling. So it'll tunnel through another server, so a kind of client/server model. Tim Siglin: That's a good, brief explanation of STUN and TURN, and I hadn't really thought about it before, tunneling versus.... but then, once it's into the firewall, through the firewall. If you want to replicate out to multiple people within that firewall, or is it just basic... Chris Allen: We just do straight-up edge to the client and we're not doing, like, what Peer5 or Streamroot are doing. That's often a common confusion with our product verus those guys. They're actually using peers to actually help distribute the stream. They're actually solving a different problem, which is how do you take the load off of the server infrastructure? Tim Siglin: Which is origin? Chris Allen: In our case, we're solving the latency problems. Second, the peer connections we're actually going to lose latency by doing that. And they're delivering chunks over the data channel, I mean, this stuff can get very deep, and very... Tim Siglin: Yeah, unless you turn on network multicasting and then the network administrator is going to shut you down anyway. Chris Allen: They hate that. Tim Siglin: Awesome. What sessions are you doing in the show? Chris Allen: So, I have a session tomorrow at 10.30, I'm talking about the real-time latency, its scale, and you know, the kind of new use cases that are emerging through that. Tim Siglin: Chris, thank you very much for your time. Chris Allen: Yeah, and thank you, Tim. Tim Siglin: And we'll be right back. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Related Articles Companies and Suppliers Mentioned Israels Info War as Important as Military War Stand for Israel | May 14, 2019 IDF destroys a secret Hezbollah bunker While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stand guard against any and all threats to Israel, their actions involve much more than just direct warfare. Writing at the Algemeiner, the ever-informative Yaakov Lappin tells us that just as effective as actual strikes is Israels campaign to disseminate information about her terrorist enemies activities to the world via the media, as well as warning said enemies that their activities are well-known and wont be tolerated: In recent months, the Israeli defense establishment has made increasing use of information campaigns, or exposure through the media of enemy activity that has been detected by Israeli intelligence. This modus operandi has developed into an alternative to kinetic strikes. Information campaigns, which involve the revelation through the media of enemy activity, allow military decision-makers to utilize sensitive intelligence to disrupt enemy build-up processes and attack plans without the associated risk of escalation that comes with armed strikes. Information campaigns tell the enemy that their activities have been exposed, and warns them to cease them if they wish to avoid military strikes. It also applies pressure on international actors, such as states from which non-state actors operate, and global power actors that are keen to avoid armed conflict in their areas of influence. As such, information campaigns have become a key part of Israels War Between Wars the low-profile IDF campaign against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and others in the northern and southern arenas. The War Between Wars has twin goals: to disrupt enemy force build-up, and to make enemy decision-makers feel vulnerable to Israels intelligence capabilities. This boosts Israeli deterrence and pushes back the prospect of the outbreak of a new full-scale war The third season of the ANZ Premiership has taken off, and the community netball season has started, ANZ is asking Bay of Plenty netballers what difference having them on their team would make. ANZ knows that all successful teams have an x-factor, an element that gives them the edge. It could be mental toughness, a world-class impact player or the very best facilities, so thats why they are calling for applications from aspiring netballers and fans in the Bay of Plenty and asking what their netball dreams look like. Whether thats in the form of a leg-up with new equipment gear, maybe youve got netball facilities that have seen better days and could use a spruce up, or you think your school teams need that extra edge with coaching from the best players from the ANZ Premiership, then tell ANZ what difference having them on your team could make. In 2018, ANZ Premiership players surprised a primary school team with a pre-game training session and plenty of high-performance sports gear; a young netballer with aspirations to be a sports journalist had the chance to be the official ANZ Junior Sports Reporter and interview the Silver Ferns squad at the official media announcement; and netball legend Irene Van Dyk, along with a mental strength coach, visited a struggling goal shoot to give her the confidence and resilience to be the very best she could be. ANZ Head of Sponsorship Sue McGregor says ANZ has given more than $700,000 to help teams and players all over the country achieve their netball dreams. We are proud to support Kiwi netballers at every level, from the grassroots players right up to the elite athletes in the ANZ Premiership. We know that having the support of someone on your team, backing you all the way can make a massive difference in achieving your netball goals. Applications to get ANZ on your team are now open to apply, visit anzcourtside.co.nz We encourage Kiwis to tell us how having ANZ on your team will make a difference this season, says Sue. The price of food is a heavily debated topic, and many believe some products on New Zealand supermarket shelves are far too expensive. With the price of avocados skyrocketing in the last week, SunLive went down to Mount Maunganuis Main Beach to ask members of the public whether or not they believe food in New Zealand is overpriced. One of the main products classified as overpriced is meat. When you go to Australia, it just seems a lot cheaper. We have so many meet sources here, so you think it would be a lot cheaper to purchase. Eggs too have increased in price. Statistics New Zealand released a statement on Tuesday saying the price of eggs reached a record high of $4.43 a dozen in April 2019. Statistics New Zealand also say the price of chocolate and ice cream increased in April. One resident believes food is not overpriced, as we have a high standard of food products here in New Zealand. Generally the quality of food is quite high, so I think overall you are paying a good price for what you are eating. It also goes back to seasonality, obviously if its out of season then its probably more expensive than you would be willing to pay. Other residents also touched on the price of unhealthy sugary foods in comparison to healthy foods. Its cheaper to go and buy a coke than to buy milk, isnt it. Its often the healthy food is also the dearest, healthy stuff should be the cheapest. Does your community group have a project in mind but needs extra funding to get it over the line? Western Bay of Plenty District Councils community matching fund closes on 29 May. The $140,000 fund is eligible for groups able to match Councils cash grant be it in volunteer hours, cash or similar matching criteria. There are two parts to the fund a general fund for social, recreational and cultural initiatives, which has a pool of $100,000 and the environmental fund for projects benefiting the natural environment which has a pool of $40,000. Over the years the money has been a key to many groups across the Western Bay getting their projects off the ground. The Pioneers Wetland in Katikati is one such project made possible with the initial funding of $19,000 from the matching fund. The project is in its early stages and is turning Councils stormwater pond into a native wetland oasis behind the Talisman Hotel, bordering Talisman Drive and Beach Road. It features a boardwalk, native plantings and is overlooked by The Pioneers sculpture created in 2008 by artists Mark Hill to commemorate the towns original Irish settlers. Initial planting around the pond in previous years was done by Katikati College students through Wild About New Zealand and weed eradication was done by work teams from the Department of Corrections. Wetland project coordinator Anne Henry says the matching fund was the start of what is now a collaborative community project supported by the Uretara Estuary Managers, Katikati Open Air Art, Katikati Taiao, the Community Board and Councils utilities department. The project has attracted further funding from the Tauranga Energy Consumers Trust (TECT) $36,000; Lion Foundation $5000 and Open Air Art $2000. A Give-a-little page has been launched for the balance. If you would like to help heres the link: Https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/pioneers-wetland-boardwalk If your group is wanting to get a project up and running but cash is short, the community matching fund is a great way to start. Application forms are available on Councils website until 29 May 2019. For all information on the Community Matching Fund 2019 visit: https://www.westernbay.govt.nz/our-council/grants-and-funding/Pages/default.aspx Tauranga City Council is asking people who have had their cat attacked by dogs to contact them as soon as possible. This call comes after Labour list MP Angie Warren-Clark meet with Tauranga Mayor Greg Brownless on Monday morning to discuss reports of roaming dogs being responsible for the deaths of at least 11 family cats. Nicole Tetenburg, who tragically lost her cat to one of the roaming dogs, also attended the meeting to give her perspective on the issue. I am pleased to hear from Mayor Brownless that Tauranga Council will be stepping up patrols by animal control services in the Maungatapu area until the roaming dogs are found, says Angie Warren-Clark. With animal control services being stepped up, I would now urge all residents to keep an eye out for roaming dogs. If any are seen call Tauranga Council as soon as possible. Tauranga animal control also have a dog catching cage which can be placed in the community. To best aid in identification of the dog, Tauranga Council have asked that if your cat is attacked by a dog, contact Tauranga Council as soon as possible to arrange for swabs for DNA comparison. Tauranga City Council Animal Services have given the following advice: Residents on St Pauls Drive in Brookfield, Tauranga will experience a water shutdown on Friday, May 17 from 9am until 2pm. Tauranga City Council approved contractor Pemberton Civil is isolating the water supply in the area. Staff may need to enter properties on St Pauls Drive to flush water from an outside tap to prevent dirty water entering the property. The shutdown times stated are expected to be accurate. However sometimes circumstances beyond our control (equipment failure or other unforeseen circumstances) can cause the shutdown to extend beyond the times stated. We apologise should this occur, says a council spokesperson. If you or a member of your household depend on water for critical medical support that requires a continuation of water supply - please ensure you make alternative arrangements for the times stated above. If you have any queries regarding this shutdown, please do not hesitate to contact any of the phone numbers below: Pemberton office: (07) 850 1042 Tauranga City Council call centre: (07) 577 7000 CHADRON-- More than 500 students were honored by Chadron State College for excellence this past semester. Chadron State College announced that 270 students met requirements for the Spring 2019 Presidents List by earning a 4.0 cumulative grade point average on a 4.0 scale. Students must be enrolled in at least 12 credit hours of coursework during the semester to qualify. Area students named to the Presidents List include: Jessica Kler of Chappell, Jourdan Langley of Dalton, Madison Langley of Dalton, Justin Mohr of Dix, Hollie Clark of Potter, Emma Alexander of Sidney, and Joseph Tal... The PM affirmed that Norway is a reliable partner of Vietnam, with bilateral relations growing over the years. After the visit to Vietnam by the Norwegian PM in 2015, the two countries have implemented many effective cooperation activities in a range of fields, he said. The newly-accredited Ambassador Lochen said she hoped the Vietnam-Norway relations will develop with even greater strengths during her working tenure in Vietnam. The bilateral ties have been based on trade and investment activities, she said, adding that the two countries share common viewpoints in sustainable development, education, and cooperation in marine and ocean economy, including the issue of plastic waste. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and Norwegian Ambassador to Vietnam Grete Lochen (Photo: VNA) PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc emphasised the great potential in bilateral cooperation, citing that Norways current investment in Vietnam only stands at 41 projects worth USD41 million. He asked the Norwegian ambassador to coordinate with Vietnamese relevant agencies to promote the bilateral trade and investment partnership. The PM hoped the two countries will step up all-level delegation exchanges, especially at the high level, to create a premise for stronger cooperation between businesses. He suggested that the ambassador organize activities to help enterprises meet and study business investment cooperation opportunities, focusing on the fields of Norways strengths such as shipbuilding, mineral, oil and gas, wind power, wood processing, information communication, science-technology, and environment. The PM called on Norwegian firms to cooperate with Vietnamese partners in trade and bring Vietnamese farm produce to the Northern European country. He asked Norway to urge the EU to soon ratify the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), saying this is a great opportunity for cooperation between the two countries and especially for businesses. The PM proposed that Norway have measures to support the effective implementation of this agreement for mutual benefits. Besides economic cooperation, Vietnam is interested in promoting cultural exchanges and tourism, he said. He urged the two countries to boost cooperation in education and training, especially between universities. The Norwegian ambassador said the two countries could enhance collaboration in sea-based economy and aquaculture. She said Norwegian businesses are keen to collaborate with Vietnamese firms in energy, solar power, oil and gas, and hoped that relevant Vietnamese agencies will create the best conditions for bilateral cooperation in the aforementioned spheres. PM Phuc affirmed that the Vietnamese Government will create all possible conditions for Norwegian businesses to invest in Vietnam./. MANLIUS, NY - Ten months after opening, Murphys Law Manlius has closed. The Irish-themed restaurant opened in July on the first floor of Madison Row, a mixed-use building at 7660 Highbridge Road in the village of Manlius. The restaurant employed about 40 people. The restaurant announced the closing on its Facebook page Monday. "It is with heavy hearts that we at Murphys Law Manlius must announce that our lease has been bought out . We are grateful and appreciative to have gotten to meet some many of the fantastic people in this community . We will be re locating in the future to a location yet to be determined . We will be closing at the end of business today so stop by and have a drink and one last round of CHEERS with all of us here at the PUB,'' the post said. John Diamantopoulos, a partner in the Manlius restaurant, told Syracuse.com | The Post Standard someone else is going to lease the space. He said he cant comment further at this point or reveal who the new tenant is. When the location opened, Diamantopoulos said the site was chosen because his son works for Caliber, the real estate company representing the building. He also said at the time it was a good fit for the area. The remainder of the building is home to apartments and a real estate company. Kinney Drugs moved out of the building in January 2018. The Rochester-based eatery operates two other Murphys Law pubs in the Rochester area and one in Canandaigua. A new trailer for The Dead Dont Die drops F-bombs in Upstate New York. Writer-director Jim Jarmusch has released a restricted red-band trailer for the new R-rated zombie comedy starring Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny as small-town cops battling the walking dead. In one scene, Drivers character asks Murray if they need to warn residents about the dangers of the flesh-eating undead. ...We passed by Farmer Millers place a little while ago. Do we need to inform him? Driver asks. F--- Farmer Miller, Murray responds. The greatest zombie cast ever disassembled also includes Selena Gomez, Danny Glover, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, RZA, Carol Kane, Austin Butler, and Tom Waits. New clips include Swinton slaying zombies with a samurai sword, Driver struggling to kill Kane by hacking at her head with a machete and more bloody violence. Well, thats unfortunate, Gomez says in another clip. Note: Video contains explicit content not suitable for younger audiences. The Dead Dont Die was filmed on location in the Hudson Valley region last year. Murray, Driver and Sevigny were seen wearing police officer uniforms on set in Kingston and Fleischmanns, N.Y. Murray previously played with the zom-com genre in the 2009 film Zombieland," and is rumored to be making in appearance in the upcoming sequel, Zombieland 2, with his Ghostbusters co-star Dan Aykroyd. The Dead Dont Die, is Murrays third movie with Jarmusch after Broken Flowers and Coffee & Cigarettes. Murray told Philly.com last year that Daniel Craig is also in the cast. Its unclear if Craig, best known for playing James Bond in Spectre and other 007 films, still has a role. The Dead Dont Die will be released in theaters on June 14. Laurent Rejto, director of the Hudson Valley Film Commission, told the Poughkeepsie Journal in 2018 that The Dead Dont Die" was on track to provide an even greater economic boost to the region than John Krasinskis A Quiet Place, which was filmed in Little Falls, Pawling, and Beacon in 2017. Krasinski is returning to direct the sequel, expected to film in Upstate New York again (thanks in part to New York State Film Tax Credits) with his wife Emily Blunt. Syracuse, NY -- A 26-year-old woman, who has already spent five years in prison after fatal crash as a teenager, could be headed back to prison after flipping her car in front of the former Rosies Pub. Chelsea Kuss, of Syracuse, was indicted Wednesday on felony drunken driving charges, punishable by up to 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison. Shes accused of taking the car -- without permission from its owner -- on a 2:30 a.m. drive when she flipped the 2010 Kia on its side April 17 along West Genesee Street. Shesalso charged with driving without a license -- taken away after her earlier conviction -- and driving a car as a DWI convict without an interlock ignition device. Kuss was sent to jail on $50,000 bail after her arrest April 23. She has since apparently made bail. In 2010, Kuss tearfully apologized after driving drunk -- hyped up on Four Loko, a caffeinated malt beverage -- in a high-speed crash along Route 31 on the way back from Sylvan Beach. Killed was her high school classmate, Victoria Deverso. New York State Police investigate a fatal two car collision on Route 31 near Lucas Road, east of Bridgeport, in 2010. Mike Greenlar / The Post Standard. Victoria Deverso was killed. Mike GreenlarMike Greenlar The underage Kuss had a blood-alcohol content of 0.13 at the time of the 2010 crash. She had reportedly told others she was a good drunk driver before taking the wheel of the SUV. Going more than 80 mph, Kuss crashed head-on into a minivan driven by a 38-year-old Bridgeport woman. Deverso, who was Kusss passenger, was killed, while the other driver suffered life-threatening injuries. Kuss was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison. She was released in 2016 at the age of 23. A teacher accused of having sexual contact with a teen may have victimized others, according to the New York State Police. Police say Lindsey M. Halstead, 29, of East Bloomfield, was arrested Tuesday on charges she had sexual contact with a 16-year-old in the Town of Seneca Falls. She was a former physical education teacher in the Waterloo Central School District for about four years. Troopers did not say when the specified incident happened or if the teen was Halsteads student. Halstead taught in the Waterloo district from September 2014 to Feb. 2, 2018, according to a statement issued by Waterloo Superintendent Terri Bavis. Halstead resigned Feb. 2, 2018. After resigning, she worked as a long-term substitute teacher for Midlakes Schools (Phelps-Clifton Springs Central School District) until she was fired, troopers said. Halstead worked there from Feb. 5, 2018 until April 26, according to a statement from Phelps-Clifton Springs Central School District superintendent Matthew Sickles. Earlier this year, New York state adopted a ban on police agencies releasing mug shots. State police immediately stopped releasing mug shots. State police said at the time their policy allows them to release mug shots when it serves a law enforcement purpose." A state police spokesman Tuesday contacted by Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard said Halsteads mug shot was released because police think it may lead them to more victims. Halstead was charged Tuesday with two counts of sexual misconduct and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors. She is being held in the Seneca County Jail, pending her arraignment. Troopers are still investigating the case and ask that anyone with information call 315-539-3530. UPDATE: Woodstock 50 organizers won a partial court ruling on Wednesday, saying Dentsu did not have the right to cancel the event. Will Woodstock 50 go on? Its in a judges hands now. The 2019 Woodstock festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of the original 1969 concert is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 16-18 at Watkins Glen International. All performers -- including Jay-Z, Santana, Miley Cyrus, The Killers, Chance the Rapper, John Fogerty, Janelle Monae, Dead & Company, Halsey, and Imagine Dragons -- have been paid in advance, but the event was thrown into upheaval last month when investor Dentsu Aegis Network dropped out and canceled the three-day event. Woodstock co-founder and Woodstock 50 organizer Michael Lang has sued Dentsu, a Japanese conglomerate, to try and force them to continue funding the Watkins Glen event. Lang filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court of the State of New York demanding Dentsus investment arm, Amplifi Live, return $17.8 million to the festivals bank account and stop attempting to allegedly sabotage the event. Langs lawyer, former Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz, said Monday in Manhattan court that Woodstock 50 is broke and needs the money within days to stage the festival less than 100 days from now. The Poughkeepsie Journal reports DJ Martin of Amplfi Live admitted under questioning from Kasowitz Tuesday that Dentsu did not have the right to unilaterally cancel Woodstock 50. State Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said he would issue a ruling late Wednesday or early Thursday, according to the Journal. Woodstock 50 has faced a number of issues behind the scenes, mainly over the capacity of Watkins Glen. Lang originally pushed for 150,000, but it was cut in half to 75,000. A Dentsu rep said in court Monday that music festival production company Superfly, which has also dropped out of Woodstock 50, blamed snow for delaying the planning process at Watkins Glen and warned capacity may be as low as 61,000. More than 600,000 came to the site in the Finger Lakes for Summer Jam in 1973, but officials expressed concerns over the cancellation of Phishs Curveball festival at the same site last year due to health concerns and a lack of drinking water. According to Billboard, court filings Tuesday revealed a New York State Police state trooper also complained to Superfly that Troop E had been told the festivals capacity was 65,000, but Lang claimed it would be closer to 126,000 during a town hall meeting in Watkins Glen. Major Eric L. Laughton also expressed concerns about a proposed kidstock section encouraging children to attend and worried a proposed pedestrian bridge would collapse. Dentsu also accused Lang of incompetence and breach of contract by continuing to push for a higher capacity and booking more artists without permission. Woodstock 50 also had to delay its lineup announcement to March after initially promising details in January. Tickets -- $450 for three-day passes -- were supposed to go on sale April 22, but still arent available due to a late application for a mass gathering permit from the state Department of Health. Spin reports the ticket price was higher than originally expected -- $369 for three-day passes -- because the capacity was reduced. No prices were ever officially announced, but Dentsu was reportedly upset that Lang mentioned a $450 price in an interview with Bloomberg last month. If Lang wins in court and Dentsu is forced to continue as a financial backer, then Woodstock 50 will likely go on. All artists were paid in advance by Dentsu for a total of more than $30 million. Similar organization issues plagued the first Woodstock festival, held Aug. 15-18, 1969, at Max Yasgurs dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y., weeks after a previous site fell through. More than 400,000 people still came to see legendary performances by Richie Havens, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Joe Cocker, the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The iconic concert was revisited in 1994 with a modern lineup of artists like Nine Inch Nails, Sheryl Crow, Metallica, Cypress Hill and Red Hot Chili Peppers in Saugerties, but Woodstock 99 -- held at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y. -- was marred by riots, fires and allegations of sexual assault. Lang helped organize both anniversary events. The original Woodstock site is planning its own anniversary celebration on the same weekend. The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts will host Arlo Guthrie and a screening of the Woodstock documentary on the field Thursday, Aug. 15; Ringo Starr, Guthrie, and The Edgar Winter Band on the pavilion stage Friday, Aug. 16; Santana with the Doobie Brothers on Saturday, Aug. 17; and John Fogerty on Sunday, Aug. 18. Guthrie, Winter, Santana and Fogerty all performed at the original Woodstock festival. By Carolyn Davis, Senior Page at Central Library May is a month to celebrate the history, culture and traditions of Asian-Pacific Americans, Haitian Americans and Jewish Americans. Did you know that Haiti became independent in 1804 and is the oldest black republic in the entire world? Did you also know that Hungarian-American Jewish investor and philanthropist George Soros gave more than $8 billion dollars to causes related to human rights, public health and education? Learn more by reading these selections. Go to your local Onondaga County Public Library or log on to www.onlib.org to get these titles. The Future is Asian by Parag Khanna The Future is Asian by Parag Khanna The 19th century was Europeanized, the 20th century was Americanized, now the 21st century is Asianized. Read about how Asia is asserting its global interests which will influence America as well. Growth is happening in societies from India to the Philippines. Territorial disputes are being replaced with integration. You will learn that no part of life is resistant from Asianization. From investments and trade to Hollywood films, this book provides an interesting look into the future. How to be a Bawse by Lilly Singh How to be a Bawse by Lilly Singh This #1 New York Times bestseller by the YouTuber isnt filled with a lot of fluff and hopeful thoughts. Lilly Singh tells you all the meaningful lessons that shes learned. There are no shortcuts or secrets, success is essentially a lot of hard work and hustle. She covers career choices, relationships and more. A sampling of her advice: Be nice to people something you should be doing daily; scheduling inspiration she knows we cannot be motivated all the time; be the dumbest challenge yourself and seek out people who know much more than you do. A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez This is a compassionate memoir about the poet and novelist when she traveled to Hispaniola. She met a young migrant worker named Piti in 2001 when she went to a coffee farm. Their friendship began and she promised him she would return to Haiti when he got married. In 2009, Piti called to invite her to his wedding, she almost did not go, but her friendship with him had her return there. She shares how she felt seeing the country again, so close to her own that it felt like a sister she never entirely knew. She went again when he called after the 2010 earthquake. Those trips forced her to confront some of the darkest things about a country she thought she knew. Avengers of the New World by Laurent Dubois Avengers of the New World by Laurent Dubois This is about the one and only successful slave revolution in the most profitable colony on Saint-Domingue. Thousands of slaves fought against their masters. A few years later, those slaves forced the French administrators of that colony to liberate them. This had an impact in America on slave and master relations, especially in The South. Several battles later a victory over the French gave birth to Haiti and the permanent elimination of slavery. Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jane Sherron De Hart Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jane Sherron De Hart With her permission, the author shares a large part of RBGs public and private life in this complete biography with interviews of her, her husband, children, friends and acquaintances. Discover how her experiences helped shape her love for justice and support for gender equality. This book discusses her enduring beliefs, tikkun olam, Hebrew for repair the world when she was a girl growing up at the time of the Holocaust, and her mother who influenced her to become independent. CICERO, NY- A popular Cicero beach on Oneida Lake will not be open for public swimming this summer due to a lack of lifeguards, Cicero town officials have announced. The public swim area at Joseph F. William Memorial Park & Beach almost closed in 2017 for the same reason, but was able to open that summer and last summer as well, according to parks department officials. This year, however, the town has been unable to find any supervisory lifeguards to manage the beach operation. Jody Rogers, Cicero parks and recreation supervisor, said they needed two supervisory lifeguards and two other lifeguards to add to the four they had - but couldnt find anyone. Rogers said they advertised everywhere, and had to let the other four lifeguards go to find other summer jobs. The park will be open for people who want to reserve a picnic shelter, fish from the floating dock, sit on the beach or use a kayak or canoe. The Cicero town park, which is commonly called William's Beach, is located at 7003 Lakeshore Road. The county Health Department gas banned swimming in the water several times due to high levels of bacteria and dense algae blooms containing blue-green algae. The town closed the beach in 2015 due to the closures and the cost of running the public swim area. The beach opened in 2016, but has continually struggled with a lack of lifeguards. Rogers said shes been told there is a shortage of qualified lifeguards everywhere. SYRACUSE, N.Y. - It was around 5:30 a.m. on Sept. 27 of last year and Zack Yost stood outside his pizzeria and cried like a child as smoke billowed from the roof and firefighters worked to put out the fire that ultimately closed his business for nearly eight months. Now, with a whole new kitchen and rehabbed dining room, Champs Pizzeria and Fish Fry is ready to reopen. The shop will open for business this Friday, May 17the culmination of months of work and creeping doubts Yost faced daily about whether Champs was even worth salvaging. Yost had opened Champs in December 2017 on West Genesee Street in the foothills of Syracuses Tipp Hill neighborhood. Business came quickly and the shop grew busier each month during the 10-plus months it was open. But the fire put an end to all of that. Its been a nightmare, Yost said. I wouldnt wish that on anybody." A mural on the wall of Champ's Pizzeria and Fish Fry symbolizes the Tipp Hill area's Irish heritage.Jacob Pucci Yost said fire investigators told him the blaze was likely sparked by a greasy rag inside a mesh bag that spontaneously combusted that early morning. Yost was grateful that firefighters were able to contain the fire to the kitchen, but that meant that the kitchen had to be demolished and all the equipment replaced, a task not unlike the three months of work it took when first opening to convert the kitchen from a Chinese restaurant to a pizza shop. Yost talked with his mother about the future of Champs, about whether it would be better to reopen in a different location or to just cut his losses altogethera thought Yost said ran through his mind every day. Ultimately, he decided the pizza shops spot on the edge of Tipp Hill was too good to lose. He credited Joseph Wright, of Prestige Construction in Onondaga, with making the second incarnation of Champs possible. He basically lifted the rock off my shoulders. Yost said. He answered my prayer. For his fellow restaurant owners, Yost has two pieces of advice: Make sure you have insurance and to keep all your cleaning rags in closed, metal containers. Im just glad its over. The menu at Champ's Pizzeria and Fish Fry.Jacob Pucci Champs Pizzeria & Fish Fry is located at 1711 W. Genesee St. The shop is open for dine-in, take-out and delivery Mondays to Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Fridays, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturdays, from noon to 11 p.m. and Sundays, from noon to 9 p.m. Jacob Pucci finds the best in food, dining and culture across Central New York. Contact him at (315) 282-8611, or by email at jpucci@syracuse.com. Subscribers only: Join a group text with Jacob Pucci to get news and updates on the restaurants and cuisines of Central New York. SIGN UP HERE ALBANY New York is offering congressional Democrats a peek at President Trumps taxes, but they may not bother to take a look. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal said hes not interested in the New York Dems legislation that would allow his committee along with the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation to see the presidents state tax returns from the state Taxation and Finance Department. Under the legislation, which passed the state Senate last week and is now being considered in the Assembly, the state would be able to share the returns as long as there is a specific and legitimate legislative purpose. Neal (D-Mass.), however, cautioned that his intention is to examine annual audits conducted by the IRS on the president and vice president, thus avoiding Trumps criticism that Dems are just trying to dig for dirt in his tax documents. This wouldnt matter for our purposes, Neal spokesman Daniel Rubin told Bloomberg News. The committee is investigating the mandatory presidential audit program at the IRS to determine whether or not the program needs to be codified into federal law. Neal issued a subpoena to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig for six years of Trumps personal and business tax returns setting the stage for a lengthy court battle. Mnuchin has so far refused to provide the documents to Congress, claiming lawmakers dont have a legitimate purpose to see them. Dems claim they want to vet an IRS policy of automatically auditing every president and are seeking Trumps personal returns and business tax documents from 2013 through 2018. House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan, Brooklyn) has backed the New York bill, saying last month that it would would make the work of a federal committee a little easier. Assembly members discussed the bill Monday night behind closed doors, along with a second Trump-targeted piece of legislation that would allow local and state prosecutors in New York to bring charges against those who have been pardoned by the president. Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said his chamber has the votes for the so-called double jeopardy bill and is working toward the tax legislation. We conferenced the bill. It appears we have enough support to pass double jeopardy, so it will be on the agenda next week, Heastie said. -- By Denis Slattery, New York Daily News ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Hundreds of parents and vaccine skeptics have called on New York lawmakers not to narrow existing exemptions to the state childhood immunization rules. The group stood in the rain outside the state Capitol Tuesday urging lawmakers to protect a state law that permits people not to vaccinate their children for religious reasons. They say that parents are best suited to make medical decisions for their children even if the vaccines are recommended by public health experts. Some lawmakers have proposed eliminating the religious exemption amid an ongoing measles outbreak. Most of the cases seen in New York are among unvaccinated people in Orthodox Jewish communities. Measles was once common in the U.S. but gradually became rare after vaccination campaigns that started in the 1960s. Madison VanDenburg, the American Idol season 17 finalist from Upstate New York, is back home, and gearing up for the big finish. VanDenburg returned to Shaker High School in the North Colonie Central School District to attend a pep rally with her classmates, and they had a very special welcome prepared for her. Take a look in the video below, courtesy of North Colonie Central School District: Madison is back in the Capital Region to film the Hometown Heroes segment of an upcoming Idol episode. The Times Union reported that fans waited 90 minutes in the cold and rain to see her perform at The Crossings in Colonie. When Madison arrived at the pep rally, her classmates lined up and sang Imagine Dragons On Top of the World. When I was here two months ago, I dont even know how many people knew I liked to sing," she told the Times Union. VanDenburg, Alejandro Aranda and Laine Hardy will compete in the finale next Sunday. Professional oddsmakers have picked VanDenburg to win it all. VanDenberg has previously drawn comparisons to Kelly Clarkson, the original American Idol winner, with her powerful voice on tunes like Speechless (Dan + Shay), How Far Ill Go" (from Moana), Already Gone (Clarkson), All I Ask (Adele), Piece of My Heart (Janis Joplin) and Whos Lovin You (The Jackson 5). Syracuse, N.Y. -- Oswego County has declared a state of emergency as Lake Ontario continues to rise and threaten to flood homes and businesses along the shore. Legislature Chairman James Weatherup said in a news release that the emergency declaration allows the county and local agencies to take whatever steps necessary to protect life and property, public infrastructure, and provide such emergency assistance deemed necessary. Weatherup also ordered boaters to observe a no wake zone within 1,000 feet of shore of the lake and tributaries, including the Oswego Harbor, the Port of Oswego, Mexico Point, Port Ontario, South Sandy Pond and North Sandy Pond. All motorized boats must operate at an idle speed, the release said. Several other counties have declared states of emergency, including Cayuga, Monroe and Wayne. Similar orders are in place on the Canadian side of the lake. You Can Farm farm demonstration event as part of NEFERTITI project Host farmer Karol Kissane addressing students on his farm today for the NEFERTITI You Can Farm demo event The purpose of this interactive event was to promote dairy farming as a positive career, demonstrate different pathways to becoming a dairy farmer and to increase overall knowledge of dairy farming. Today, 15th May 2019 a farm walk was held on the farm of Karol Kissane, Ballylongford, Co.Kerry for fifth year Agricultural Science students from schools from the surrounding catchment area. This event was organised as part of the demonstration campaign for the NEFERTITI project. Teagasc in association with IASTA (Irish Agricultural Science Teachers Association) hosted this You Can Farm event with over 130 students attending. The purpose of this interactive event was to promote dairy farming as a positive career, demonstrate different pathways to becoming a dairy farmer and to increase overall knowledge of dairy farming. The event stations/demonstrations included; 1) Karols farm story, 2) Feeding the dairy cow, 3) Breeding the dairy cow, 4) Milking procedure/Where the milk goes and 5) Available courses/Careers in Dairying. Students also had the opportunity to get involved in some of the demonstrations that were being displayed. Speakers included Teagasc advisors and researchers, Kerry staff, Dairymaster staff, Doreen Corridan of Munster Bovine, Pallaskenry Ag College education staff and local dairy farmers. Karol Kissane, host farmer of todays event believes that, Farming is a really exciting career to be involved in. With challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and the question of how to feed 9 billion people by 2050, we now more than ever need the brightest and best engaged in finding solutions. This is why I want to share my story and hopefully inspire others to consider farming as a worthwhile and fulfilling career choice. Redmond McEvoy, NEFETRITI project advisor with Teagasc stated, There are many reasons to become a dairy farmer. You are your own boss and there is the potential to achieve a great income from dairy farms across Ireland. Dairy farming offers an outdoor, healthy lifestyle and there are multiple opportunities out there on dairy farms at the moment. George Dennis, chairman of IASTA said, This event is a great opportunity for students due to sit the leaving certificate in 2020, to visit a progressive dairy farmer in their school catchment area. It is also beneficial for the students to gain practical experience to help them with completing their Agricultural Science practical project. This event also allows students to find out about job opportunities such as relief milking which some are interested in as well as the careers available in the Agri Industry. Karols Teagasc advisor Claire McAuliffe said, Todays event was an excellent opportunity to showcase a farmer who is implementing new technologies on farm to potential young farmers. Karol Kissane is operating an efficient dairy farm and is more than willing to share his farming experiences with a younger generation. It was encouraging to see so many young people interested in the day to day running of a dairy farm. The event was organized under Horizon 2020 NEFERTITI project within Network 10 Farm Attractiveness: You Can Farm. The Project Networking European Farms to Enhance Cross Fertilisation and Innovation Uptake Through demonstration (NEFERTITI) is a unique Network (selected under Programme Horizon 2020) comprising 32 partners and coordinated by ACTA, the head of Network of the French Agricultural Technical Institutes. The project duration is 4 years and it will finish to on the 31st December 2021. The overall objective of NEFERTITI is to establish an EU-wide highly connected network of well-specified demonstration and pilot farms designed to enhance knowledge exchanges, cross fertilisation among actors and efficient innovation uptake in the farming sector through peer-to-peer demonstration of techniques to be organised by themes. 10 interactive thematic networks are being created, bringing together 45 regional clusters (hubs) of demo-farmers and actors involved (advisors, NGOs, industry, education, researchers and policy makers) in 17 countries. Additional information could be found on the project website: www.nefertiti-h2020.eu keshavarora BHPian Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: NOIDA Posts: 49 Thanked: 178 Times re: Ontario, New York & Italy: Cars, food and road trips! Some scenery along the way to Rome The next day we set out sight seeing. One thing about Rome is that there is beauty and history everywhere, it is so difficult to keep absorb it within 2-3 days. There is sights and buildings around every corner which are exquisite! The Colosseum. One of the new 7 wonders of the world. Piazza Venezia. During a brief period, it was a Papal building and then, from 1564 to 1797 it was seat for the delegation of the Most Serene Republic in the Papal States. Over the Fascism years, from 1929, it became official seat for the Head of Government and Benito Mussolini used to look out the balcony to give his speeches. Piazza di Spagna. Placed at the feet of the scenographic steps of Trinita dei Monti, one of Rome's most famous images worldwide. In the center of the square is placed the Barcaccia (Ugly Boat) by Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, built to remember the overflowing of the Tiber River in 1598. Piazza Navona. With the Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini, the majestic Palazzo Pamphilj and the splendid Chuch of San'Agnese in Agone, the square represents the true quintessence of Roman Barroque. The day after we reached Rome, after we finished our sightseeing, we drove to the airport to return the Fiat 500. The car had been an excellent companion for the trip. The AMT was my only grouse with it, but it was fun, efficient, small for the city centers and quintessentially Italian! A snapshot of our time with the Fiat 500 We walked around before dinner and were mesmerized by Piazza San Pietro. Rome at night The next day was again meant for sightseeing in Rome. The Trevi Fountain. It is the largest Baraque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. Coin throwing is a tradition and it is estimated that 3000 euros are thrown in the fountain everyday. The money is used to subsidize a supermarket for the needy. The Pantheon. It is former Roman Temple and now a Church. It is one of the best-preserved of all Ancient Roman buildings, in large part because it has been in continuous use throughout its history and, since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been in use as a church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" The next day was 27th September ie world tourism day, due to which entry into the Vatican and Sistine Chapel was made free. We were fearing that this would mean massive crowds and that the line to get in would be impossibly long. However upon reaching St. Peters Square, we saw a huge crowd had gathered to see the Pope. This also meant that the line to get into the Vatican museum wasn't as long as we had imagined. The Vatican museum is extraordinary in it's history and beauty. Even though my knowledge of history, specially of this part of the world is limited, the museum is still spell binding. The view from the courtyard Containing over 1,000 ancient sculptures, the Museo Chiaramonti is important not only because of the striking portrait busts and statues youll find here, but also because this gallery represents many of these sculptures return home. Having been seized by Napoleon and taken to France in the late 1700s, it wasnt until several decades later that these pieces were recovered and brought back to be displayed in this gallery. The Pine Cone Courtyard is named after the or the nearly 13-foot high pinecone sitting at one end. The giant pinecone is made of bronze and dates to the 1st century BCE. The Pine Cone represent fertility. The other famous installation is unusual gold sphere found opposite it known as Sfera con Sfera, or Sphere within a Sphere. Looking slightly out of place surrounded by its much older counterparts, Sfera con Sfera is actually just one piece of a series by Arnaldo Pomodoro found in many locations around the world. The Octagonal Courtyard housed within the Pio-Clementine museum houses some of the best examples of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures found anywhere in the world. The museum is named for the two popes who oversaw its foundation in the late 1700's: Clement XIV and Pius VI. From Left to Right 1) Dating to 40 BC depicting Laocoon and his sons being killed by sea serpents during the Trojan War, an event which ultimately led to the founding of Rome. 2) Apollo Belvedere, is famous for representing what the Romans once considered to be the perfect male form. 3) Belvedere Torso. Legend has it that Pope Julius II requested that Michelangelo complete the statue fragment with arms, legs and a face. He respectfully declined, stating that it was too beautiful to be altered, and instead used it as the inspiration for several of the figures in the Sistine Chapel. 4) The elegant statue of the River God. The Statue of the Nile god. The Sala Rotonda is modelled after the Pantheon, right down to oculus in the ceiling, and to the decorative rosettes in each of the little niches in the dome. It is smaller in scale than the pantheon but still impressive. The floor is also not to be missed, It is made up of tiny, intricately designed mosaics from around the 2nd century and is simply stunning. The hall houses a 40 foot dia porphyry basin in the center of the room. Porphyry is a purple colored igneous rock which was only available in 1 mine in ancient Egypt. The rock is full of large pieces of crystal and is extremely hard, and difficult to cut, and unbelievable heavy. In ancient Rome, Purple was the color of royalty, so emperors were obsessed with it. The hall and the surrounding rooms have many sculptures carved from this rock. However he most impressive in the bath basin, which was carved out of a single rock, which was brought in from Egypt. The Hall of the Chariot. Featuring statues and other sculptures depicting scenes from athletic games and competitions. The two-horse chariot in the center of the room is the most noteworthy piece in here, but youll also find a copy of the famous Discobolus out on display. Gregorian Egyptian Museum. Mummies are the main attraction here. The Gallery of Maps. The gallery has highly decorative ceiling and 40 geographical frescoes depicting Italy and its provinces lining the walls. The Gallery of Tapestries. Here you have tapestries woven in Brussels by Pieter van Aelsts School, from the 1500's. They made the tapestries based on drawings by Raphaels pupils. Each tapestry took years to make. They were finely woven by the best weavers of the day out of wool but also silk, and gold and silver thread. The Resurrection of Christ. In this tapestry, Jesus' eyes move with you as you move from left to right. A tapestry depicting the Last Supper. The Papal Apartments, so named because the popes once used this area as private residences, today the Papal Apartments are where youll find a large collection of rooms featuring some of the most famous frescoes in the Vatican Museums. The most well-known of these rooms are the Raphael Rooms, painted by Raphael and his school in the early 1500s. The most famous piece here is the School of Athens by Raphael Disputation of the Sacrament by Raphael The Proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Francesco Podesti. The Battle of Vienna, polish painter, Jan Matejko, is a huge, imposing oil canvass that stands 9m by 4.5m. It recounts the ending of the Turkish siege of Vienna by the Catholic army led by the Polish King. The Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel really ornate ceilings. It is difficult not to gawk at them. The Sistine Chapel hardly needs an introduction, It houses some of the most important art works in the world, nine scenes from the book of Genesis painted onto the ceiling by none other than Michelangelo himself. The most iconic of these scenes is the Creation of Adam. The walls also have the Last Judgement by Michelangelo. The next day we flew back home. Of all the vacations I have taken, this is the one I miss the most. After an amazing day at Tavullia, we set out for Rome. We decided to avoid the motorways and instead used the country roads wherever possible, to drive through the breathtaking scenery. We reached our airbnb in Rome quite late, for which the owner charged us some 20 Euro penalty and told us it was mentioned in the description and was as per the airbnb policySome scenery along the way to RomeThe next day we set out sight seeing. One thing about Rome is that there is beauty and history everywhere, it is so difficult to keep absorb it within 2-3 days. There is sights and buildings around every corner which are exquisite!The Colosseum. One of the new 7 wonders of the world.Piazza Venezia. During a brief period, it was a Papal building and then, from 1564 to 1797 it was seat for the delegation of the Most Serene Republic in the Papal States. Over the Fascism years, from 1929, it became official seat for the Head of Government and Benito Mussolini used to look out the balcony to give his speeches.Piazza di Spagna. Placed at the feet of the scenographic steps of Trinita dei Monti, one of Rome's most famous images worldwide. In the center of the square is placed the Barcaccia (Ugly Boat) by Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, built to remember the overflowing of the Tiber River in 1598.Piazza Navona. With the Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini, the majestic Palazzo Pamphilj and the splendid Chuch of San'Agnese in Agone, the square represents the true quintessence of Roman Barroque.The day after we reached Rome, after we finished our sightseeing, we drove to the airport to return the Fiat 500. The car had been an excellent companion for the trip. The AMT was my only grouse with it, but it was fun, efficient, small for the city centers and quintessentially Italian!A snapshot of our time with the Fiat 500We walked around before dinner and were mesmerized by Piazza San Pietro.Rome at nightThe next day was again meant for sightseeing in Rome.The Trevi Fountain. It is the largest Baraque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. Coin throwing is a tradition and it is estimated that 3000 euros are thrown in the fountain everyday. The money is used to subsidize a supermarket for the needy.The Pantheon. It is former Roman Temple and now a Church.It is one of the best-preserved of all Ancient Roman buildings, in large part because it has been in continuous use throughout its history and, since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been in use as a church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs"The next day was 27th September ie world tourism day, due to which entry into the Vatican and Sistine Chapel was made free. We were fearing that this would mean massive crowds and that the line to get in would be impossibly long. However upon reaching St. Peters Square, we saw a huge crowd had gathered to see the Pope.This also meant that the line to get into the Vatican museum wasn't as long as we had imagined. The Vatican museum is extraordinary in it's history and beauty. Even though my knowledge of history, specially of this part of the world is limited, the museum is still spell binding.The view from the courtyardContaining over 1,000 ancient sculptures, the Museo Chiaramonti is important not only because of the striking portrait busts and statues youll find here, but also because this gallery represents many of these sculptures return home. Having been seized by Napoleon and taken to France in the late 1700s, it wasnt until several decades later that these pieces were recovered and brought back to be displayed in this gallery.The Pine Cone Courtyard is named after the or the nearly 13-foot high pinecone sitting at one end. The giant pinecone is made of bronze and dates to the 1st century BCE. The Pine Cone represent fertility. The other famous installation is unusual gold sphere found opposite it known as Sfera con Sfera, or Sphere within a Sphere. Looking slightly out of place surrounded by its much older counterparts, Sfera con Sfera is actually just one piece of a series by Arnaldo Pomodoro found in many locations around the world.The Octagonal Courtyard housed within the Pio-Clementine museum houses some of the best examples of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures found anywhere in the world. The museum is named for the two popes who oversaw its foundation in the late 1700's: Clement XIV and Pius VI.From Left to Right1) Dating to 40 BC depicting Laocoon and his sons being killed by sea serpents during the Trojan War, an event which ultimately led to the founding of Rome.2) Apollo Belvedere, is famous for representing what the Romans once considered to be the perfect male form.3) Belvedere Torso. Legend has it that Pope Julius II requested that Michelangelo complete the statue fragment with arms, legs and a face. He respectfully declined, stating that it was too beautiful to be altered, and instead used it as the inspiration for several of the figures in the Sistine Chapel.4) The elegant statue of the River God.The Statue of the Nile god.The Sala Rotonda is modelled after the Pantheon, right down to oculus in the ceiling, and to the decorative rosettes in each of the little niches in the dome. It is smaller in scale than the pantheon but still impressive.The floor is also not to be missed, It is made up of tiny, intricately designed mosaics from around the 2nd century and is simply stunning.The hall houses a 40 foot dia porphyry basin in the center of the room. Porphyry is a purple colored igneous rock which was only available in 1 mine in ancient Egypt. The rock is full of large pieces of crystal and is extremely hard, and difficult to cut, and unbelievable heavy. In ancient Rome, Purple was the color of royalty, so emperors were obsessed with it. The hall and the surrounding rooms have many sculptures carved from this rock. However he most impressive in the bath basin, which was carved out of a single rock, which was brought in from Egypt.The Hall of the Chariot. Featuring statues and other sculptures depicting scenes from athletic games and competitions. The two-horse chariot in the center of the room is the most noteworthy piece in here, but youll also find a copy of the famous Discobolus out on display.Gregorian Egyptian Museum. Mummies are the main attraction here.The Gallery of Maps. The gallery has highly decorative ceiling and 40 geographical frescoes depicting Italy and its provinces lining the walls.The Gallery of Tapestries. Here you have tapestries woven in Brussels by Pieter van Aelsts School, from the 1500's. They made the tapestries based on drawings by Raphaels pupils.Each tapestry took years to make. They were finely woven by the best weavers of the day out of wool but also silk, and gold and silver thread.The Resurrection of Christ. In this tapestry, Jesus' eyes move with you as you move from left to right.A tapestry depicting the Last Supper.The Papal Apartments, so named because the popes once used this area as private residences, today the Papal Apartments are where youll find a large collection of rooms featuring some of the most famous frescoes in the Vatican Museums. The most well-known of these rooms are the Raphael Rooms, painted by Raphael and his school in the early 1500s.The most famous piece here is the School of Athens by RaphaelDisputation of the Sacrament by RaphaelThe Proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception byFrancesco Podesti.The Battle of Vienna, polish painter, Jan Matejko, is a huge, imposing oil canvass that stands 9m by 4.5m. It recounts the ending of the Turkish siege of Vienna by the Catholic army led by the Polish King.The Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel really ornate ceilings. It is difficult not to gawk at them.The Sistine Chapel hardly needs an introduction, It houses some of the most important art works in the world, nine scenes from the book of Genesis painted onto the ceiling by none other than Michelangelo himself. The most iconic of these scenes is the Creation of Adam. The walls also have the Last Judgement by Michelangelo.The next day we flew back home. Of all the vacations I have taken, this is the one I miss the most. Reach key decision makers with sales-ready leads that shorten your sales process. Move the needle by delivering funnel qualified leads to your sales team. Learn more There should be no argument that we live in a diverse world, and that the technology industry doesnt reflect that diversity. The lack of diversity in employees makes it very difficult for companies, both in and out of the tech market, to address their increasingly diverse customer base effectively, whether buyers or end users. This has resulted in books like Technically Wrong, which point to why companies cant bring out products that women love. They dont understand women let alone the other aspects of what generally, and especially specifically, make each of us different. What brought this to mind was a Cisco briefing last week and a slide that spoke to a broader definition of diversity, beyond sex and color. It said, Cisco is committed to full spectrum diversity, inclusive of gender, age, race, ethnicity, orientation, ability, nationality, religion, veteran status, background, culture, experience, strengths, and perspectives. Ill address diversity in its broad sense this week and why it is critical we get this right. Ill close with my product of the week: Movies Anywhere, a tool that bridges your movie streaming sources. The Diversity Mess Generally, I tend to break down the diversity landscape into two camps: the liberal camp that wants diversity but doesnt want to spend the time either to understand the problem or truly correct it; and the conservative group that is threatened by anything that breaks convention. Because I tend to believe that if you dont want to do something well you should leave it alone, I tend to favor the conservative camp, but I would like a third choice: diversifying properly by focusing on the causes of the problem, not the optics. For instance, soon after the development of a technology that would help students pick careers they would be most successful in, it was killed due to discrimination. The reasoning was that too many of the targeted students were attended colleges, and colleges didnt have enough diversity. Thus, pulling from a pool of employees that wasnt diverse would result in solutions that werent diverse either. Rather than focusing on fixing education to create a more diverse pool of potential employees to pull from, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) was created to enforce diversity, which inadvertently damaged the quality of the workforce. The damage occurred because diversity trumped competency, even though that was not the intent. The result was that it not only failed to fix the problems, but also led to impressions that employees who were hired to increase diversity underperformed. The effort ended up fighting itself. This is what I mean by focusing on the optics of a problem making the workforce look more diverse without focusing on the problem itself. There was, and continues to be, a shortage of candidates from diverse backgrounds with the appropriate training for many job openings. Fixing the Problem Four companies stand out: Dell, Cisco, HP and IBM. These four large firms each have very different approaches to focusing on this problem. Dell puts a massive amount of effort on women in technology, and the most powerful woman at Dell, Karen Quintos, has been spearheading this effort along with the companys female Entrepreneur in Residence. A D V E R T I S E M E N T Cisco has taken a broad spectrum approach with its training programs and internal grass roots efforts to increase diversity broadly and to redefine its efforts broadly on a variety of differences. HP, which still employees one of the strongest HR managers in the industry, Harvard-trained Tracy Keogh, has run broad inclusive marketing campaigns to attract and nurture diverse employees. IBM has been incredibly aggressive, not only in recruiting women and veterans, in particular, but in training them and even in locating and placing women who dropped out of the tech market to have children and want their careers back. It is interesting to note that there isnt a lot of overlap between these different company efforts, suggesting that any one company likely could undertake all of them. Id argue that most are necessary to address the diversity problem fully. Redefining Diversity Part of what really caught my eye on the Cisco slide was how broad it is. It steps outside of race and gender to include military service, religion, sexual orientation, background, and a variety of other differences. Really, diversity is all about differences, and we are all different from each other. These differences allow us to see things from a variety of perspectives; make us better able to talk to, influence (and sell to) a diverse customer base; and help us gain understanding of views we dont share. Given that we tend to avoid people who are not like us, increasing diversity should reduce that pool, and our interaction skill and acceptance of those different from us should improve. In short, us simply becomes a more inclusive term, reducing the need and motivation to act out against people different from us. Wrapping Up While diversity remains a problem in industry, and particularly in the technology market, companies like Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM appear to be fighting it hard. Even these firms could learn from each other and fight harder. We need diversity to make better matches between our companies and the people who buy their products and services, so we all can become far more tolerant and accepting of diversity than we currently are. Diversity represents the future of the human race. We all should become involved more actively, or look for another planet to migrate to, because if we dont become more diverse, we are even more likely to destroy this one. A D V E R T I S E M E N T My current favorite laptops are the HP Spectre Folio and the Lenovo Yoga 630 always connected PC. These both stand out on lightness with the HP far more comfortable to carry (it is covered with leather) and the Lenovo with much longer battery life (it is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform). Both products have been great for most things I use a laptop for, but not for watching movies without an Internet connection, like on a plane. Most of the movies I own were purchased from Amazon, but Amazon doesnt allow you to download them to watch on your PC later. Instead, it focuses on iOS and Android. Now what many folks dont know is that Microsoft often gets early access to movies, but playing those movies on the TV is problematic unless you have an Xbox. For instance, I picked up the just released Justice League vs. The Fatal Five video on the Microsoft store before Amazon or Netflix had it, but getting it onto my TV was problematic. Well Movies Anywhere fixed this. You can buy movies from this service, but its real claim to fame is that it links services together. If you bought movies from Google Play, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Xfinity, Microsoft, Fandango or iTunes, you can bridge all of these services and get your movies from any of them. Both Microsoft and Vudu allow downloading on a PC. Suddenly I can watch any of the movies I purchased from any of the services on any of them. This means that finally, I can download and watch my movies on the laptop screen, and use my Kindle Fire tablet for just reading, if I want to, or even read on my phone or PC and leave the tablet at home. The service is backed by Disney, which means you should be able to trust it and it likely will get great Disney Content over time, on top of the other advantages. Because Movies Anywhere fixed my annoying inability to watch downloaded movies on my laptop, it is my product of the week. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network. Folding displays are all the rage in the smartphone industry as of late. Huawei, Samsung, and other smaller phone makers have jumped on the bandwagon with their pricey -- but interesting -- flagship takes on the concept. Samsung's Galaxy Fold, in particular, has been received relatively well by reviewers in spite of a few build quality and screen issues. Now, it seems the idea of a folding display is extending beyond the world of smartphones, and into the realm of full computers. Lenovo, the company behind some of the PC world's strangest products -- like the Yoga Book C930 with an electronic ink keyboard -- is entering the foldable screen arena with the ThinkPad X1. Announced at the company's Accelerate conference, the ThinkPad X1 will be the world's "first foldable PC," featuring an all-screen design that bends seamlessly at the center. Lenovo claims this design allows for quite a bit of versatility. You can wake up in the morning, "fold it into a book," and browse social media. Alternatively, stand it up in the kitchen to catch up on the news while you cook breakfast or have coffee, or simply plug it into your office computer for an extra monitor. Lenovo says the ThinkPad X1 won't be a typical tablet-laptop hybrid. It will feature a mechanical keyboard, a 13.3" 2K OLED display, and an included pen for doodling, note-taking, or digital art. We don't know anything about the X1's hardware specifications or pricing yet, but Lenovo says it will arrive sometime in 2020. What just happened? Disney has been working to fully acquire popular video streaming service Hulu for some time now. According to reports, that process will finally be complete soon - Comcast has agreed to sell its "ownership stake" in Hulu to Disney sometime after 2024. The precise amount of money that will eventually be changing hands is unknown, but it will reportedly be a minimum of $5.8 billion. Though the sale itself won't occur for quite a while, CNN claims Disney will take "full operational control" of Hulu immediately. This decision may come as a surprise to some, given Disney's plans to create its own streaming service (Disney+), but CEO Bob Iger says the move enables the company to "completely integrate" Hulu into its streaming plans in the future. In the end, Iger is hoping to offer a "greater value" and an "even more compelling" experience to customers following this deal. Unfortunately, we have no idea what that means from a practical, user-oriented standpoint. Perhaps Hulu will remain a place for Disney to give viewers more original (and mature) franchises and content like The Handmaid's Tale, whereas Disney+ could house the company's feature films and original spin-offs of existing franchises (such as Star Wars). Regardless, that's speculation on our part, so we'll simply have to wait and see what Disney has up its sleeve. What just happened? On Tuesday, legislators in San Francisco voted to ban the use of facial recognition by government agencies, making it the first US city to do so. This plan will forbid local agencies such as the city's transport authority and law enforcement to make use of the technology. The proposal, called the Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance, was lead by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who regarded it as "an ordinance about having accountability around surveillance technology." The development marks a stark contrast to the swift deployment of this key technology by law enforcement agencies nationwide. "This is not an anti-technology policy," said Aaron, acknowledging that many tools used by law enforcement are vital for the city's security but facial recognition technology is "uniquely dangerous and oppressive." The ordinance will require city agencies to get board approval prior to buying and the use of any new surveillance technology, while also setting up audits for existing surveillance equipment used in cases such as body cameras and ShotSpotter. Civil rights and privacy advocates like the ACLU and those in favor of this move have pushed the notion that facial recognition technology is unreliable and can be misused for mass surveillance, infringe on people's privacy and liberty, and possibly lead to more false arrests, while opponents of the bill claim it will create hurdles in fighting crime and put people's safety at risk. Once the new rule goes into effect, expected in about a month's time, the city's 53 departments would be banned from using this technology. "We all support good policing but none of us want to live in a police state," remarked Aaron Peskin. The bill does not forbid residents and businesses in the city from using this technology for private use like home surveillance systems. "I think San Francisco has a responsibility to speak up on things that are affecting the entire globe, that are happening in our front yard." The city's airport and seaport also remain unaffected by this bill as they are run by federal, not local, agencies. Trust is hard to earn, but scientists may gain it more easily, thanks to social media. A new study discovers that Instagram and selfies are good tools for science masters to capture the public's hearts. "Social media channels, like Instagram, provide an exciting opportunity for scientists to improve their public image," says Becky Carmichael, coauthor and LSU Communication across the Curriculum science coordinator. Several scientists use social media to present their discoveries and research outcomes to a larger audience. Truly, "social media scientists" are on the rise. The big question, however, is do people really trust the science genuises that show up in their feeds? The answer may rely on how these scientists project themselves. The new study suggests that those who actually post selfies emanate a sense of trust and help flip the common public notion that scientists are competent but cold. Competence Vs Warmth Trust is a big word hard to build yet easy to destroy. As per Susan Fiske, social psychologist from Princeton University, trust is dependent on two perceived characteristics: competence and warmth. Competence is perceived by having the belief that a certain social group is intelligent and has what it takes to attain their goals. Warmth is perceived by believing that a group is friendly, honest, selfless, and has benevolent objectives. Putting competence and warmth perceptions together identify group stereotypes, such as those of scientists. Both competence and warmth are essential in determining trust and action, but warmth turns out to be of higher importance. In a 2014 study, Fiske demonstrated that Americans see scientists as competent, but moderately warm only. The researchers of the new study is appalled by the idea that with social media being able to unite scientists and nonscientists, the competence and warmth perception on scientists is not a huge challenge at all. Social Media To Change Stereotypes Fiske said the team wondered if people will change their perception of scientists being competent but not warm, if they see actual faces, and glimpses of daily laboratory work. The team started a project named ScientistsWhoSelfie, based on the hashtag that they introduced to raise awareness about the project. The concept was to show the participants photos published in one of four "Scientists of Instagram" accounts. Images include a scientific environment or a piece of apparatus, such as a microscope, a bioreactor on a laboratory bench, or a plant project in a greenhouse without humans, but with captions connecting the photos to either male or female scientists' name; a smiling male scientist selfie in the same scientific location; and a smiling female scientist selfie, also in the same scientific place. The participants were then asked about their perception on the scientists in the images, and scientists in general. Selfies Convey Warmth Recruited participants totalled to 1,620. Participants who saw smiling scientist selfies think the scientists in the photo and in general are warmer compared to those who only viewed the control images, which is the scientific setup without a person. The perception of being warmer was specifically attributed to female scientists. There was also a slight increase in competence perception among females compared to males. Paige Jarreau, lead author and LifeOmic's director of social media and science communication says the reason for the study findings may be attributed to the fact that people saw the scientists as every day, normal people, and not personalities belonging to a stereotypical elite group of geniuses. In the future, researchers should look into how various kinds of selfies are seen by a larger audience, and how scientists can establish relationships with them. Overall, Lance Porter, director of the LSU Social Media Analysis & Creation Lab, says the team believes that scientists who use social media to relate more to the public are helping to promote clarity of science, public trust, and science interest. The study is published in the journal PLOS One. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A California jury awarded a couple over $2 billion in a case against the company Monsanto, whose popular weed killer Roundup allegedly caused their cancer. Long-term exposure to the herbicide Roundup reportedly led to Alva and Alberta Pilliod contracting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which led to them filing a lawsuit against Monsanto in 2017. Jury Reaches Landmark Verdict This verdict consists of a whopping $2 billion in punitive damages and another $55 million in compensatory damages, which adds up to the largest verdict in the United States yet against the company in the legal fight over the controversial chemical. According to Reuters, this amount is likely to be reduced, particularly the punitive damages as U.S. Supreme Court rulings limit the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages to just 9:1. The Pilliods have been using Roundup on their property for over 30 years, until they were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011 and 2015. The lawsuit alleges that although Monsanto has been aware of their product's cancer risks, the company failed to provide a sufficient warning to consumers. Additionally, there are allegations over the company's attempts to influence researchers and regulators to receive favorable reviews and assessments. One of the plaintiffs' lawyers Michael Miller said in a statement that there were plenty of evidence presented to the jury "showing Monsanto's manipulation of science, the media, and regulatory agencies to forward their own agenda." Both Alva and Alberta are currently in remission, but the trial has been expedited in the face of the possibility of a relapse or a reduced life expectancy from the disease. Bayer Responds To Verdict Monsanto's parent company, Bayer, released a statement after the jury's decision, expressing their disappointment on the verdict and future plans of appeals. In the statement, Bayer officials maintained that Roundup key ingredient glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic, according to health experts and regulators worldwide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently released a review concluding that currently registered uses of glyphosate have no risks for public health, they pointed out. "In contrast, plaintiffs in this case presented the jury with cherry-picked findings from a tiny fraction of the volume of studies available," the statement continued, adding that the plaintiffs did not adjust for exposure to other pesticides nor showed statistically significant results. Instead, Bayer said that the Pilliods already have a history with illnesses and possess risk factors for the disease. It's not the first time that Bayer has faced heat over glyphosate with the company dealing with over 13,400 lawsuits in the United States for Roundup's alleged cancer risk. There have been a lot of lawsuits that came after a 2015 report from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer tagged glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans." Bayer calls the IARC findings an outlier among health regulators worldwide. The Pilliod case is the third of previous jury verdicts against Bayer regarding this chemical in the United States. Both previous ones have also been in California, but the next trial in the glyphosate litigation is set in Missouri in August 2019. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. After being rumored and leaked to death, the OnePlus 7 Pro is finally official. It's OnePlus' most expensive phone to date, which is no small to thing to say for a company that's shot to popularity precisely because of its cheap, flagship-level handsets. It's up to fans whether they decide to warm to this new price point, but to be fair, OnePlus did add a handful of things to qualify its phone as a flagship beast. OnePlus 7 Pro Specs Firstly, there's a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 underneath powering it all, currently the industry's most powerful mobile chip to date, the same one powering Samsung's, Huawei's, and LG's modern devices. Perhaps the most significant, though not surprising, change is the display. OnePlus has decided to trash the OnePlus 6T's notch and output a nearly bezel-less look that curves a bit on the sides. Like the Asus ROG Phone and Razer's beastly gaming handset, the screen supports a 90Hz refresh rate, which, as CEO Carl Pei said previously, must be seen to be believed, as it doesn't sound impressive on paper. OnePlus is a bit iffy on the official measurement, but says the screen is around 6.5 to 6.7 inches. It also supports HDR10 and HDR10+, but not Dolby Vision, oddly. Other Features There's also fast charging on this phone. OnePlus calls it Warp Charge, and it's able to juice up the phone to 50 percent in as little as 20 minutes. On the back is a triple camera system, one standard, one ultra-wide, and one telephoto. On the back, there's no selfie camera to be seen; that's because it's hidden via a motorized popup hit the selfie mode and it sprouts and then retracts after use. At $669, this device is, as previously mentioned, OnePlus' most expensive flagship to date. Compared to Apple's and Samsung's $1,000+ phones, it's not too damning a price point but considering this doesn't have an official waterproofing certificate, it's not difficult to imagine others balking. OnePlus does claim that applying for a certification is too expensive and dropped the phone into a bucket of water as a marketing tactic instead. There's no fingerprint scanner to be seen because it's underneath the display, and OnePlus claims it's twice as large this time compared to the OnePlus 6T. OnePlus 7 Pro Price And Release Date Those who really want to go all the way 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of UFS 3.0 storage would have to shell out $749 for a spec'd out OnePlus 7 Pro, which is still cheaper than most other handsets in the market right now. T-Mobile is the exclusive carrier of the phone in the United States and will be selling the mid-tier model for $699. Alternatively, customers can get unlocked versions directly from OnePlus' website, and they'll be compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Three configurations will be available: a 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage model for $669, an 8 GB and 256GB version for $699, and a beastly 12 GB and 256 GB model for $749. Customers can pick between a glossy black finish, a matte blue color, and later, a gold-toned variant. The phone becomes available May 21. Should You Buy It? It's tricky. On one hand, this phone is probably only a slight upgrade from the OnePlus 6T. On the other hand, the "slight" changes here are pretty noteworthy. Of course, a person can live without a 90 Hz screen, and they can probably do without the UFS 3.0 storage or triple-camera array. For now, people with 2018 and maybe even 2017 phones should stick to their current daily driver. But for new owners, this is a bang for one's buck. The lack of an official waterproofing certification is a bummer, sure, and there's no headphone jack, which is a bit frustrating. But at $669, there's a wellspring of features here, some only found on $1,000+ devices. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Google is going to pay some users up to $500 as part of a class-action lawsuit settlement involving faulty Google Pixel devices. In their lawsuit, owners of the original Pixel claimed that the company knowingly sold handsets with faulty microphones. Approval is still pending, but Google could pay up to the aforementioned amount to certain Pixel owners, with the overall settlement totaling to $7.25 million. In 2017, there were a number of reports about original Pixel and Pixel XL units experiencing microphone failures, which some affected owners guessed could be because of a hairline crack in the microphone's solder. Google issued a return merchandise authorization, or RMA, to affected customers, but the problem continued even on replacement units. Shortly thereafter, the lawsuit in question was launched. Who's Eligible For The Compensation? There are a number of requirements to get a piece of that settlement money, and even then there's no guarantee that the full $500 would be paid. In any case, eligible candidates include: Any U.S. Pixel or Pixel XL owner who bought a phone manufactured before Jan. 4, 2017. Joins the settlement by July 9, 2019, or 60 days from the May 10 notice. Able to provide proof of purchase or was contacted directly by the Settlement Administration about the lawsuit. How Much Will Google Pay You? The entire $7.25 million settlement fund will be divided to pay for administrative costs, attorney fees, service awards to the four class representatives at $5,000 each and finally, Pixel users. Affected users will be categorized into four segments, and each has a different compensation grant. $500 for those who experienced the defect in more than one device, including the original phone and the faulty RMA replacement. $350 for those who experienced the defect in one phone only. Up to $20 for those who didn't experience the effect on their Pixel device but would like to be included in the lawsuit. The full amount if the person paid their insurance company a deductible, in addition to the categories already mentioned. How To Be A Claimant The settlement has yet to receive ratification by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, but since both parties seem to have agreed, as Android Police notes, it'll likely be approved. Attorneys are set to publish forms that need to be filled up post-approval. Potential claimants can visit this website to sign up, although it appears to be down as of this writing. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A new veterans memorial in Broussard will pay tribute to a local soldier who lost his life while serving for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. The Sgt. Patrick Williamson Memorial will be constructed at the center of an existing roundabout at the intersection of South Bernard Road and West Fairfield Drive in Broussard. The memorial will feature three plaques with his name, a granite American flag with a hand-sculpted rope, and five bronze emblems for each branch of the military the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. "We're very honored to be able to memorialize a fallen soldier from Broussard whose parents still live here," said Mayor Ray Bourque. "We're interested in beautifying Broussard, and this kind of project takes that to another level. It's not just beautiful, but it's deeply meaningful to our community." The council approved funding for the $140,000 project in April and unveiled the memorial's design during Tuesday's council meeting. The project is expected to be completed in about a year. "We are so deeply grateful to the city council for doing this," said Patrick's mom, Sybil Williamson. "Patrick was a very proud soldier, and I think he'd be very proud to have this happening in his name." Sgt. Patrick Williamson died in October 2009 at the age of 24 when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in the Arghandab Valley of Afghanistan. His parents still remember answering their door almost a decade ago to find two soldiers who delivered the news no parent wants to hear. "It started with 'We regret to inform you,'" said Patrick's dad, Leon "Buddy" Williamson. "And then it was just an unreal experience. It was an out-of-body thing, like something you'd see in a movie or something. It was the worst day of my life." Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Patrick Williamson attended St. Cecilia School and St. Thomas More High School before studying mechanical engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His parents said he dreamed of joining the military from the age of 10. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in August 2006 and deployed to Afghanistan in July 2009. "Patrick was really very proud to serve," Buddy Williamson said. "It was his life's calling." The Broussard City Council has also discussed constructing a veterans park on city-owned property near the roundabout where the memorial will be constructed. But for now, the Sgt. Patrick Williamson Memorial is the only project that's been approved. "When you go through it, just give him a wink and a nod," Buddy Williamson said. "And just kind of give a word of thanks to the guys in uniform now." HACKBERRY President Donald Trump praised workers at a southwestern Louisiana liquefied natural gas plant Tuesday, saying their work was fueling a new "American ... revolution" that would deliver clean energy to people across the world. In his second trip to Louisiana this year, Trump toured Sempra Energy's Cameron Liquefied Natural Gas Export Facility before traveling to New Orleans for a fundraiser. In a 47-minute address under a sunny, spring sky, he promoted American energy independence and infrastructure, the economy and two recent executive orders aimed at helping the oil and gas industry by easing restrictions on energy infrastructure and promoting fossil fuel development. Today we celebrate the amazing workers at Sempra LNG," the president said. "From right here in Hackberry, Louisiana, you are bringing clean, natural gas to countries all over the globe. The skilled and talented 7,000 workers here at this facility are helping lead the American energy revolution." Trump added that once the $10 billion facility is fully operational, it will produce 15 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year, enough to meet 25 percent of the European Unions needs in 2018. Currently, only one of the three structures where the LNG is processed are operational. According to the United States Department of Energy, the U.S. exports LNG to 35 countries on five continents. Liquefied natural gas is natural gas that has been condensed to a liquid state at minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit. Its reduced volume makes it easier to transport. Sempra Energy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Martin said the new LNG facility here allows American energy to access new markets in Asia and Europe, improve the economic security of America and its allies and bring a cleaner fuel source to the world. At the end of the day, this celebration is also about Americas energy renaissance. In its simplest form, think of the LNG facility behind me as a gateway to a more exciting future for American energy, Martin said. +2 Wacky Trump socks worn by Lt. Gov. Nungesser makes president chuckle after Louisiana arrival Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser had a surprise for President Trump as he make his second Louisiana trip of the year Tuesday to highlight th Sempra Energy announced last month that the Hackberry export terminal Phase One of the Cameron LNG project had begun feeding natural gas to the first liquefaction unit ahead of ramping up production. The Cameron Parish site is expected to create 10,000 construction jobs as the build-out continues, then hundreds of permanent jobs once it is completed. Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Port Barre, said the opening of the facility and support of the states energy industry through dredging of shipping channels are proof of Trumps openness to help economic growth in Louisiana. This is reflective of the presidents commitment to American jobs on American soil and American economic prosperity, Higgins said. Theres an LNG boom in the entire world and the epicenter of that is right here and the president recognizes that and has helped us. Also in attendance were Sens. John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, Reps. Mike Johnson, Ralph Abraham and Garret Graves, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, Attorney General Jeff Landry, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Energy Commissioner for the EU Maros Sefcovic. While much of Trump's speech was about plants like Sempra's having a major role in American energy independence, Trump also took jabs at the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates and the proposed Green New Deal targeting climate change. He said if the Green New Deal passed, "everybody in this room gets fired." He also pledged that, if re-elected, he wanted to find a way to build a new Interstate 10 bridge at Lake Charles, eliminating a bottleneck on the cross-country highway. "If we win this election, we're giving you a brand new I-10 bridge," he said. "We're gonna have it all set, ready to go Day One, right after the election." Following his stop in Hackberry, President Trump boarded Air Force One and traveled to New Orleans for a private campaign fundraiser. Trump had last visited Louisiana in January, when he addressed the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual gathering in New Orleans. He has remained politically popular among Louisiana voters, 58 percent of whom voted for him in the 2016 election. Tuesday's trip was his third to the state since taking office. As Trump traveled through southwestern Louisiana, several motorcycle escort officers crashed but the president's motorcade itself was not involved. The Secret Service says four officers were involved, and three of them were taken to a hospital to be treated for minor injuries. Lake Charles police and the White House said in separate statements that three officers were involved. Lake Charles police say two Calcasieu Parish sheriff's deputies and a Sulphur police officer crashed on Interstate 210 eastbound over Broad Street in Lake Charles. Secret Service spokesman Mason Brayman says in an emailed statement that a Westlake police officer also was involved. City and State Police are investigating. Stephenson Technologies Corp., a Baton Rouge cybersecurity research non-profit, was hired to better understand the malware attacks on several Two Baton Rouge men were sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Wednesday for possessing guns as convicted felons, U.S. Attorney Brandon Fremin said. Timmy Scott, 24, and Kadeem Burden, 23, were found guilty earlier this year on federal gun charges stemming from a 2017 shooting on Iroquois Street involving a 9 mm pistol and a stolen semi-automatic pistol, authorities have said. Two Baton Rouge men convicted on federal gun charges Two Baton Rouge men with prior convictions were found guilty on federal gun charges stemming from a 2017 shooting on Iroquois Street, U.S. Att The Oct. 2, 2017, shooting near the intersection of Iroquois and Plank Road was witnessed by a Baton Rouge police officer who saw Scott and Burden get out of a sport utility vehicle and fire their weapons at another vehicle that was hit by 18 bullets, an arrest report states. Cheryl Patterson spoke from a wheelchair inside a Baton Rouge courtroom Wednesday and said she lost her independence and her best friend last May when a drug-impaired Springfield man smashed his pickup head-on into their car on Siegen Lane, severely injuring Patterson and killing her 82-year-old mother. But before state District Judge Fred Crifasi sentenced Blake Starkey, 52, to 20 years in prison, Patterson also said she has forgiven Starkey and will continue to pray for him. He has to live with this every day also," she said. "I hope that my mamas death will make an impact on the other driver so his life would be changed for the good." Starkey, who pleaded guilty last month to vehicular homicide in the death of Carolyn Ozment and to the first-degree vehicular negligent injuring of Patterson, also spoke Wednesday with Patterson just a few feet away. He apologized to her family while acknowledging that an apology isnt enough. I caused a horrible tragedy, and it haunts me every day and night, he said. +3 Springfield man pleads guilty in 2018 Siegen Lane crash that killed 82-year-old Tennessee woman A Livingston Parish man who had cocaine and other drugs in his system when he crashed his truck head-on into a car on Siegen Lane in Baton Rou Starkey had cocaine and other drugs in his system on May 23 when he drove erratically across three lanes of traffic on Siegen and smashed his 2011 Dodge Ram pickup into Patterson's 2015 Chevrolet Cruze, which was stopped in the center turn lane near Cloverland Avenue, authorities said. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Ozment, of Dyersburg, Tennessee, was killed. She had just taken her seat belt off, Patterson said, but coroners officials told the family she would not have survived the crash even if she had been restrained. Patterson, who was properly restrained, suffered a broken arm, a crushed elbow and foot, broken pelvis, a cracked vertebrae in her neck, and many cuts and bruises. Shes had five surgeries in the last year, will be in physical therapy for another year, and will walk with a permanent limp and have to use a cane. Patterson, of Arlington, Texas, said she lost her independence, and her daughters lost their grandmother and nearly their mother. Now they have to take care of me," she said. "They have husbands, small children, jobs they have to take care of and now a disabled mother. It has affected their lives and their families lives. The stress has been incredible for everyone. All of this being said, the emotional pain of losing my mother has been much worse. She was my best friend. She had lived with me for seven years, and I was her caretaker. I saw her beat cancer twice and many other health issues. She was a strong woman and a fighter in life. I miss her every minute of every day. Crifasi said Starkey must serve the first three years of his prison term without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. Starkey had a suspended driver's license and no proof of insurance at the time of the crash, and had a prior DWI and an arrest on reckless driving and hit and run from 2004, according to State Police. He also had several prior drug arrests, police said. After more than a decade of trying, Louisiana's public high school graduation rate exceeds 80 percent, state education officials announced Wednesday. The rate is 81.4% for the Class of 2018, up from 78.2% for the Class of 2017. While still low by national standards 84.6% last year the latest figures mean the state finally reached a target spelled out in a 2009 state law. Despite missing mandated mark, Louisiana leaders say graduation rates are 'moving in the right direction' After nearly a decade of trying, Louisiana's public high school graduation rate has yet to hit 80 percent despite a state law that mandated do That measure, sponsored by then state Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa and then state Rep. John Bel Edwards, said the graduation rate should reach 80 percent starting with the Class of 2014. At that time the rate was 66.6 percent. However, there was no enforcement mechanism spelled out in the legislation, and class after class continued to miss the target for a wide range of reasons, including decades of low public school achievement. The announcement, which is typically done with a press release from the state Department of Education, was made on the south steps of the State Capitol. It included state Superintendent of Education John White, Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed, four members of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, state Board of Regents Chairman Marty Chabert and a handful of state lawmakers. "Today is a banner day and I am delighted to be a part of it," Reed said. Said White, "The positive results announced today reflect many years of relentless focus in our schools, and more progress is on the horizon." In a telephone interview, Nevers praised the announcement. "It has been a long time coming," he said. "That is a huge accomplishment." 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 State officials said Louisiana's rate gain outpaced the nation since 2012 9.1 percentage points compared to 4.6 percentage points nationally. Also, the graduation rate for black students in the state exceeded the national average for the first time over 78% compared to 77.8% percent in the 2017 national figures. The state rate for black students last year was 72.9%. Officials said students earning a college or career credential rose from 47.5% percent last year to 50.4% in 2018. That includes students who earn college-level coursework or industry-based credentials. "It is not enough in today's world to simply earn a high school diploma," White said. House Education Committee Chairwoman Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette, said, "The achievement today shows what is possible when we set high goals." Officials also said the number of students who qualify for TOPS Taylor Opportunity Program for Students totals 21,280 students, up 31% since 2012. TOPS pays for most college tuition for students who qualify. State officials said the latest results stem from hard work by students and educators alike. "There are a lot of people behind those percentages," said Holly Boffy, a member of BESE who lives in Youngsville. The state's current target is for Louisiana to graduate 90 percent of its public high school graduates in four years by 2025. District graduation results include Ascension, 87.5%; East Baton Rouge, 72.4%; Lafayette, 76.6%; Livingston, 87.4%; Orleans, 77.8%; St. Bernard, 94.7%; St. Tammany, 83.5%; West Baton Rouge, 82.6%; West Feliciana, 91.1%; Zachary, 93.1%; Central, 85.2% and Baker, 73%. The graduation rate for Iberville Parish has risen from 59.9% in 2012 to 93.7% in 2018, tops in growth statewide during that period. WASHINGTON Its taken nearly a year and a half, but Wendy Vitter should know by the end of Thursday whether she has a lifetime seat on the federal bench. And the cards appear to be strongly in Vitters favor, despite pushback from Senate Democrats who have spent the past week denouncing the former Orleans Parish assistant district attorney as a right-wing extremist. The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday afternoon on President Donald Trumps nomination of Vitter, the wife of former Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter, to a New Orleans-based U.S. District Court vacancy. Her nomination was briefly derailed last year, and the process had to restart in January when the new congressional term began. Vitter, 58, has the backing of both of Louisianas Republican U.S. senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, who have lauded her qualifications through the process. +4 Wendy Vitter, Donald Washington and James David Cain all clear Senate committee WASHINGTON Three Louisianans tapped by President Donald Trump for federal judicial posts cleared a key U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, le Wendy Vitter is extremely qualified and I look forward to voting for her, Cassidy said Wednesday after several of his Democratic colleagues raised questions on the Senate floor about Vitters positions on abortion and school segregation. Its a shame the liberal left is using fabricated political smears to suppress the voice of a strong conservative woman." Vitter, who has been general counsel to the Archdiocese of New Orleans since 2012, has a long history of anti-abortion activism that has become a sticking point for some Democrats and left-leaning groups during her judicial vetting. Here is the roll call vote on advancing Wendy Vitter's judicial nomination: https://t.co/D3V5tZPRJaNo Democrats voted in favor.Collins was only Republican who voted against.Didn't vote: Booker (D-NJ), Cruz (R-TX), Hirono (D-HI), Warren (D-MA). #lasen #lagov https://t.co/Wg6TFSo8tn Elizabeth Crisp (@elizabethcrisp) May 16, 2019 Senate Democrats this week have taken turns speaking out against the nomination, pointing to her anti-abortion record, as well as her refusal in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to say whether the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling ending racial segregation in schools was "correctly decided." The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up In New Orleans, more quietly settled, decades-old Catholic Church sex abuse cases surface More cases have surfaced involving quietly settled, decades-old sexual abuse claims against the Catholic Church in New Orleans, naming a pair Her supporters have noted nominees often avoid such declarations on Supreme Court decisions. But that hasnt quieted her critics. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer included Vitter on his list Wednesday of examples of nominees who are hard-right ideologues who will do damage to this country for generations. She once promoted the idea that contraceptives cause cancer and claimed that Planned Parenthood kills 150,000 women annually, said Schumer, D-New York. She also refused to acknowledge that Brown v. Board was correctly decided, saying instead the decision was correct with the benefit of hindsight, whatever that means. +3 Wendy Vitter gets Senate committee sign-off for federal judgeship despite strong objections WASHINGTON Wendy Vitters nomination for a New Orleans federal court judgeship cleared a Senate committee Thursday, overcoming vociferous De We understand the president and Republicans will want conservatives, but hard-right, narrow ideologues who show no understanding or sympathy for people who don't look like them or pray like them or marry like them? Schumer continued. It's not hard. If you need the benefit of hindsight to understand that Brown v. Board of Education, which brought an end to school segregation and led to the end of American apartheid was correctly decided, you shouldn't be a federal judge. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, also took aim Wednesday at Vitters nomination, calling it yet another step extreme politicians are taking to undermine women's rights and access to health care. Democrats have seized upon Vitter's failure to disclose on a Judiciary Committee questionnaire past public remarks at anti-abortion events and at least one political campaign ad appearance. Nominees are expected to provide extensive information about past public statements when filling out the questionnaires. Vitter omitted a 2013 panel she led for Louisiana Right to Life dubbed "Abortion Hurts Women" and a speech she gave at a 2013 protest at the site of a proposed Planned Parenthood clinic in Uptown New Orleans. Someone like Wendy Vitter cannot be trusted with a lifetime seat on a federal bench, Murray said. State Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington, on left, discussed on Tuesday, May 14, 2019, his House Bill 283 that would require schools to install cameras in special education classrooms upon a parents request. HB283 advanced to the full House for consideration. A state Senate panel Tuesday rejected what a business group called the most important bill of the session after senators complained that despite its hype the legislation wouldnt lower auto insurance rates as promised. The 4-1 vote to defer the Omnibus Premium Reduction Act of 2019 by the Senate Judiciary A Committee effectively ends this sessions effort by the business community and insurance companies to change how Louisiana courts handle lawsuits stemming from car wrecks in a way they say could lead to lowering Louisianas high auto insurance premiums. Opponents counter that the four technical changes sought in House Bill 372 would keep injured people from having their day in court. Were not shocked, said state Rep. Kirk Talbot, the River Ridge Republican who sponsored the measure. The final vote came a week after a parliamentary maneuver sent the measure to the Legislative Fiscal Office an additional hurdle that supporters claimed would sidetrack a bill that the powerful Louisiana Association of Business & Industry called most important bill of the legislative session that ends June 6. +2 Chance to lower auto insurance rates? Measures run into hard time in Louisiana Senate committee Tuesday was tort reform day at the State Capitol and a Senate committee rejected two bills then sidelined a third. The House approved HB372 April 23 on a 69-30 vote one shy of a veto-proof majority. Talbot sought changes to legal procedures that he said would provide incentives for parties in car wreck cases to settle their disputes rather than go to court. Louisiana has more bodily court cases than most states and reducing that number would lower litigation costs for insurance companies, which eventually could translate into lower premiums, he said. The price of the average auto insurance policy in Louisiana, $2,298 per year, is $841 more than national average and second only to Michigan as the most expensive in the nation. The Legislative Fiscal Office, however, found that the changes sought in HB372 likely would add 57 to 87 civil jury trials to already clogged court dockets statewide at a cost of about $16,590 each. The Louisiana Supreme Court reported that juries in state courts tried 173 civil cases to verdict in 2017. The courts would spend up to $1.4 million more, though an exact prediction couldnt be determined because just how many trials would be held is nebulous, the Fiscal Office stated. Beyond what the fiscal note calculated, state Sen. Ryan Gatti, R-Bossier City, pointed out that insurance actuaries working for a task force looking into why Louisiana auto rates are so high, chaired by Talbot issued an analysis that could not definitively state if costs would be lower. There was much uncertainty on whether average jury awards would actually be less than average bench awards. The Actuarial Subcommittee found little credible experience readily available, in either Louisiana or other states, to quantify the potential savings due to a change in the jury trial threshold, the actuaries wrote. Louisiana High Auto Rates Task Force Report Louisiana High Auto Rates Task Force Report 021919 State Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, said the public perception of the legislation is that the changes would reduce auto insurance rates. Its just not going to do that, Luneau said. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up HB372 proposed extending from one year to two the deadline for filing a lawsuit; lowering the amount of damages sought to qualify for having the dispute decided by a jury instead of a judge, called jury trial threshold, from $50,000 to $5,000; limit recovery for injuries to what the party personally paid; and keep from the jury the existence of the defendants auto insurance policy and the name of the insurer. This is a wish list for the insurance industry, Luneau said. Were limiting ourselves about what we can do and who we can sue. This bill is a great bill, said Republican Sen. Jack Donahue, a Mandeville contractor who is the only non-lawyer on the Senate panel. If we can just slow the growth, I think that would be a win. Talbot said he never argued that his legislation would lower auto insurance rates, though some supporters did, but would lower costs by bringing Louisianas civil litigation system more in line with other states. Louisiana has the highest jury threshold in the country and is one of only a handful states with one-year deadline to file a lawsuit, and few reveal to jurors the existence of an insurance company backing a defendant accused of causing the accident. Were such outliers in these areas, Talbot said. Though the effort is dead for this legislative session, Talbot predicted that high auto insurance rates will be an issue in the governors race. Something has to be done. We cant continue going this way, Talbot said. We are in crisis with the high cost of insurance. Voting against changing the states judicial system (4): Sens. Luneau, Gatti, Wesley Bishop, D-New Orleans, and John Milkovich, D-Keithville. Voting for HB372 (1): Sen. Donahue. As a mother of three boys who all spent time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit after being born too soon, I can attest that the lack of paid Addressing a predominantly teenage audience at Benjamin Franklin High School, gun control advocate David Hogg spoke on Tuesday afternoon about the importance of youth-driven movements, voting and fighting against injustice. Hogg was hosted by March For Our Lives Ben Franklin, a student activist club led by Louise Olivier and Olivia Keefe, both of whom will graduate from the school later this month. They also were joined by co-host Elliott Canty, a recent graduate of Brother Martin High School and co-founder of the local chapter of the nationwide movement. The Franklin group is advised by English teacher Greg Swanson. Hogg, who turned 19 last month, is one of several outspoken survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida last year. Fourteen of his fellow students and three faculty members were killed by a former student who had legally obtained an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle despite a history of violent behavior. Hogg, then a senior, and several peers mobilized to form Never Again MSD, a political action committee advocating for gun control and led March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C. Their efforts galvanized young people to lead and participate in similar marches, not just in the United States but around the world including New Orleans. +2 New Orleans students march against gun violence in a March for Our Lives through French Quarter New Orleans-area students, their teachers, parents and others calling for stronger gun control measures and an end to gun violence rallied thr Hogg is accustomed to the spotlight, but at his request the audience at Franklin was limited to about 60 attendees, which made the event more a conversation rather than a speech. The activists are unified by a belief that there is no option at this point other than to push for change while living in an era marked by excessive gun violence in schools. (According to a recent New York Times article, at least eight shootings have occurred on high school or college campuses in 2019 so far.) Hogg said, We are fighting for our survival and we need to unite for our survival. After the Parkland shooting, Canty felt compelled to get involved with policy. This is something that affected all of us, he said. Our goal is to get sensible gun laws passed in our area. He acknowledged that in New Orleans it will be a major challenge to pass stricter gun control, due to Louisianas preemption of firearms laws (except local laws passed before 1985). These prohibit local governments from implementing their own solutions to gun violence. The student activists have demonstrated an ability to act quickly. Keefe noted that the New Orleans March For Our Lives rally on March 24, 2018, was organized with a sense of urgency (they collaborated with Moms Demand Action, another activist group). When Louise and I first started, we had about two months, a Twitter handle and no idea how to organize a protest, she said. The New Orleans Advocate reported that more than 6,000 people marched that day. When Hogg was introduced, he asked, Who here has been affected by gun violence or gun suicide? Most of the attendees raised their hands. What were living through today is bullshit, he said. But, he added, we have a chance to change this. Young people control the state of Louisiana. Young people are the largest voting bloc. He also highlighted the importance of absentee voting for students who will be attending college out of state. Hogg touched upon familiar talking points, linking a number of complicated factors to gun violence, including inadequate mental health care and elected officials whom he perceives as corrupt and out-of-touch with his generation particularly politicians backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which he denounces. After every school shooting, when we look to the NRA, what their solution is lets go down the list: single point of entry, to limit the people coming into the school. They want metal detectorsThey want bulletproof windows, bulletproof doors. They want chairs and tables bolted to the ground And on top of that they want barbed wire around the schools with armed teachers and armed guards, he said. You know what I just described to you? Prison. 'Sad thing to talk about': Bulletproof backpacks nears final Louisiana legislative approval Bulletproof backpacks would be legal in public schools under a bill that breezed through the Legislature, nearing final approval Tuesday. He added, Arming teachers is a terrible idea. Florida just passed legislation allowing it; he warned that it could pass in Louisiana, too. Hogg reiterated the importance of voting: Scaring politicians is fun. Politicians are terrified of you. When asked how to reduce the NRAs power, Hogg called for criticism of policymakers who accept its funding. Make their money toxic. We have to talk about the NRAs money and make it toxic for anyone who takes it. He encouraged the audience to research power structures in place, take journalism classes and consider one day running for office. Educate yourselves, and use that as a weapon, he said. After the event, organizers reminded their peers to visit the voter registration table near the entrance. Olivier whose younger sister Julie will follow in her footsteps in a leadership role next year had told the gathering earlier that afternoon that at 17, shes not old enough to vote yet. But she delivered a powerful message: We can make this country safer, but we need to do the work. On the same day the Alabama legislature passed a restrictive bill that would almost entirely outlaw abortion in that state, a House committee in Baton Rouge easily passed a bill that would ban abortions in Louisiana once a fetal heartbeat is detected. There were no objections to the bill which would outlaw abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy before many women discover they are pregnant from the House Health and Welfare Committee, which comprises nine Republicans and seven Democrats. State Sen. John Milkovich, who has said he supports outlawing abortion, said his bill was supported by undisputed scientific fact, that a person is formed the instant the 23 chromosomes of the father unite with the 23 chromosomes of the mother. The bill does not include exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother, which Amy Irvin, New Orleans Abortion Fund executive director, called a horribly cruel admission. In her testimony against the bill, she recalled a Senate committee meeting where lawmakers originally passed an amendment that would have carved out exceptions for rape and incest but repealed it, once Benjamin Clapper, executive director of Louisiana Right to Life (LARTL), said the group opposed it. I ask this committee: Who is this legislative body representing the people who fund your reelection campaign or the women of this state? Irvin said. New Orleans abortion rights activists plan Wednesday protest in the Central Business District In a response to the abortion restrictions speeding through the Louisiana Legislature and state legislatures around the country abortion r Jennifer McCoy returned to the State Capitol to testify again for Milkovichs bill. Last month, her appearance attracted attention when it was discovered she served 30 months in prison for conspiracy to commit arson at two Virginia abortion clinics. McCoy, who was then 24, was convicted of unsuccessfully attempting to set fire to the clinics within a three-month period in the 1990s. The other side Googled my name and then came up with all these things, McCoy said, saying that while she did plead guilty to conspiracy and serve time in prison, that the laws used were later overturned and deemed unconstitutional. McCoy proceeded to say that while in prison, she was in frequent contact with Mother Teresa and that the two worked together to help convince an inmate not to have an abortion, linking with her to a family looking to adopt. If theres any questions about that, the attack on my character, thats all I can say to answer that back, McCoy said. Louisiana Senate passes bill that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected The Senate passed 31-5 today a bill that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, around the sixth week of pregnancy before In a 2016 interview, McCoy told Vice she absolutely did not regret the attempted fires. In the committee, she did not comment on her reported connections to Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who provided abortions, a decade ago. The bill now heads to the House floor, where it is expected to pass. From there, it would go to the governors desk to be signed into law. At the attorney generals suggestion, the bill contains a component tying it to a similar law Mississippi passed in March. The law would only go into effect if the Fifth Court of Appeals upheld the law. Proceedings are expected to begin in the Mississippis federal Southern District Court this month and are estimated to cost the state more than $1 million. The United States is the only industrialized nation without a paid family leave policy, and a new report by the Louisiana Budget Project (LBP) urges Louisiana lawmakers to take action on a state level to change that outlining several different policy options. "This report provides many different options for a paid leave program in Louisiana, and we welcome the debate on how this could happen," LBP Executive Director Jan Moller said. "What we should not be debating is whether this should happen. Too much evidence exists that shows that this would be beneficial to the people of our state." The report recommends any potential paid family leave program in the state is available to all workers, employs a progressive wage replacement model to ensure sufficient benefits to low-wage workers, offers job protections and includes caregiving and personal disability. Paid leave for Louisiana families a step closer to reality, but bumpy road ahead; see next steps A Louisiana Senate panel easily advanced legislation that would create paid leave for employees to care for family members or after a child is born. The LPB also proposes defining family broadly with consideration of modern family structures and using a state-administered insurance model paid for by employer and employees Passed in 1993, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) gives employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborns or ill family members but only for those who have been employed for at least a year and work for a company with at least 50 employees. And studies show that many workers who are eligible for unpaid leave do not take it because they cant afford to go that long without a paycheck. According to the report, thats the case for an estimated 35 percent of working adults in the state. Additionally, more than 676,000 of Louisiana workers are not eligible to earn a single paid sick day, the report said. Support for a national policy is strong. A 2018 poll by consulting firm GBA Strategies found that 82 percent of Louisiana residents support a national paid family and medical leave policy. The publishing of the report comes at a time when lawmakers at both the federal and state levels are considering paid family leave options. However, proposals vary widely when it comes down to how the leave is funded. State Sen. JP Morrell, D-New Orleans, would have both employers and employees pay a portion of their salary into a paid family leave pool, creating a statewide pool from which to administer the leave of up to 12 weeks. Employees would pay less than half of one percent of their salary, with the company pitching in a similar contribution. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, announced last month that he was working on a bipartisan paid family leave plan with U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, but details on the policy have not yet been released. In February, Cassidy met with Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and senior advisor, to discuss the issue. Pull Quote A 2018 poll by consulting firm GBA Strategies found that 82 percent of Louisiana residents support a national paid family and medical leave policy. Traditionally, Republican-backed plans have involved drawing from existing social insurance programs such as Social Security to pay for family leave. Currently, only five states California, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Washington along with Washington D.C. have paid family-leave programs. The Algiers Development District board of commissioners said Tuesday it has started talks with two companies about redeveloping 20 acres on its 200-acre Federal City site, the former naval base that has a history of failed efforts with private developers. The board said it had entered into exclusive negotiations with two property groups B-T+MSG and the Finch Group about their proposals to build a mixed-use commercial and housing development, a project that will cost "well over $100 million," according to state Sen. Troy Carter, the board's chairman. B-T+MSG is a consortium comprising two Shreveport-based builders Wayne Brown of Brown Builders Inc. and Edward Taylor of Fairfield Property Management together with Metro Services Group, the New Orleans waste management and redevelopment company run by Jimmie Woods. The Finch Group is based in Boca Raton, Florida, and specializes in government-assisted and affordable housing, hospitality and commercial property developments. The Algiers Development District board in January asked for project proposals from prospective developers. The move revived development plans that had been stalled following a lengthy legal dispute with a previous master developer, Vista Louisiana LLC. "The problem we had in the past, under previous leadership, was that the process netted us someone that unfortunately didnt have finances strong enough to do the job," Carter said. "We wanted to make sure that didn't happen again." The site was turned over to the district authority more than a decade ago when the Navy base was shuttered. The state provided a $150 million grant to kick-start redevelopment. Federal City is still home to 2,000 Marines at the Marine Corps Forces Reserve Headquarters, as well as the New Orleans Police Departments 4th District headquarters and the New Orleans Military & Maritime Academy charter school. According to Carter, officials hope that those entities will form the basis for the development of a "law enforcement hub" in the district. The FBI, NOPD, Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control and others have expressed interest in moving offices there, he said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up There has been success also with medical and educational tenants, with LSU's Health Fitness Center located on the site. This Friday, Delgado Community College will break ground on a 35,000-square-foot "Center of Excellence" facility that has been partly funded by a $13 million grant from the state. But the private development component has proved troublesome. Vista was the second master developer on the project. The first, HRI/EEC, bowed out in 2014. The site had originally been envisioned as a much more ambitious development covering more than 60 acres. When Carter took over as chairman of the ADD in 2016, he sought to sever the relationship with Vista due to what he said was a lack of transparency and inadequate finances. That led to a prolonged court case in which Vista countered that it hadn't been made aware in advance of lead and asbestos on the site and demanded compensation. The case was settled out of court last year. Details of the scaled-back 20-acre development are still to be hammered out, but a riverside hotel, possibly converting one of the 14 buildings on the site categorized as historic, as well as retail and housing including a component of affordable housing were part of the winning presentations made to the board and its architectural, finance and development committees last month. The Finch Group, which started in Boston in the 1980s, impressed board members with its history of developments in Cleveland, where it turned around a notoriously distressed housing project, Longwood Apartments, into a fully rehabilitated residential development called Arbor Park Villas. It also renovated historic buildings there around the University Circle area. As in Cleveland, Finch has partnered with local construction firms for its Federal City bid. New Orleans is "a city where we want to develop the same sort of reputation we did in Cleveland," said Blake Bendett, an executive vice president at Finch. In a statement, the ADD board said it wants to move ahead quickly on finalizing plans for the 20 acres. "The promise of Federal City has been a delayed one, but I'm so pleased to announce that delay has shortened," said Carter. HOSPITAL AWARD: St. Tammany Parish Hospital has received the Louisiana Department of Public Health's Gift Shining Star, a quality improvement initiative and hospital designation program through the Office of Public Health Bureau of Family Health. Birthing facilities that achieve standards of performance are eligible for either Gift or Gift Shining Star designation. The Shining Star is the highest designation within The Gift program. RECORDS ONLINE: The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services has launched its new online Public Records Center, a centralized and more efficient system for the public to request and receive public records from the department. The new portal gives users the opportunity to submit public records requests, track their requests and view released records in one centralized and user-friendly location. Visit www.dcfs.la.gov. CUDDLE BUDDIES: Carmen Fouquet will lead a Cuddle Buddies learning and support group for parents and playtime for babies 7-15 months old, from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursday, May 16, at the St. Tammany Parish Hospital Parenting Center, 1505 N. Florida St., Suite B, Covington. Participation is free for Parenting Center members; the membership fee is $125 a year. For information, visit www.stph.org/ParentingCenter. LAMAZE CLASS: Lakeview Regional Medical Center will host a class for expectant parents at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays through May 23, in the Magnolia Room, 95 Judge Tanner Blvd., Covington. Participants will learn options for childbirth including Lamaze, breathing and relaxation techniques, medicated and natural deliveries, and a unit tour will be given in a four-class series. Bring a blanket and 1-2 pillows for learning the breathing and relaxation techniques. The class is limited to 20 participants. For information or to register, see www.lakeviewregional.com or call (985) 867-3900. SAFE SITTER; A two-day safe sitter program for teenagers will be offered from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. May 30-31; at the St. Tammany Parish Hospital Parenting Center, 1505 N. Florida St., Suite B, Covington. Topics will include CPR, safety, choking rescue, online safety, child care, life and business skills along with behavior management. The class fee of $95 is nonrefundable. For information, visit www.stph.org/ParentingCenter. LA LECHE: The La Leche League of St. Tammany, which supports mothers who are breastfeeding or considering breastfeeding, will meet from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. June 7, at the St. Tammany Parish Hospital Parenting Center, 1505 N. Florida St., Suite B, Covington. For information, visit www.stph.org/ParentingCenter. SAFETALK: Courses will be offered at 9 a.m. June 1, at 427 N. Theard St., Covington, by the St. Tammany Outreach for the Prevention of Suicide. The morning course teaches recognition of those with thoughts of suicide and to connect them to intervention resources. Cost is $35. This program has been approved for 2.5 general continuing education contact hours and may be applied toward the requirements for license renewal. For more information and registration, visit www.stops-la.com or call (985) 237-5506. SUICIDE INTERVENTION: St. Tammany Outreach for the Prevention of Suicide will hold Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, a two-day suicide first-aid interactive workshop, on June 20-21 at 427 N. Theard St., Covington. Cost is $50. The class provides 14 general continuing education units through the Louisiana State Board of Social Workers Examiners. For more information and to register, visit www.stops-la.com or call (985) 237-5506. ONGOING St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up BETTER BREATHERS CLUB: The Better Breathers Club, a program of the American Lung Association, meets from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month in the Magnolia Room of Lakeview Regional Medical Center, 95 Judge Tanner Blvd., Covington. The club is meant for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as their caregivers. To register, visit lakeviewregional.com or call (985) 867-3900. CAREGIVERS WORKSHOP: The Council on Aging St. Tammany Parish caregiver support programs allow those caring for people with Alzheimer's, dementia or other age-related illnesses to share struggles and successes, guided by gerontologist Matt Estrade. The free Caregiver Support and Education group meetings are at 6 p.m. Tuesdays at the Covington Senior Center, 19404 N. 10th St., and at the Slidell Senior Center, 610 Cousin St. For information, call (985) 892-0377. CHILD SAFETY SEAT INSPECTIONS: The St. Tammany Parenting Center has appointments for free inspections of child safety seats. Call (985) 898-4435. Inspections are held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays at the Louisiana State Police Troop L headquarters, 2600 N. Causeway Blvd., Mandeville. Walk-ins are accepted, but appointments are appreciated. For information on the State Police program, call (985) 893-6250 or email greg.marchand@la.gov. GAMBLERS ANONYMOUS: Gamblers Anonymous meets several times a week throughout the New Orleans area. Gamblers Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experiences, strength and hope with one another to solve their common problem and help others to recover from a gambling problem. For information, call (855) 222-5542 or visit gamblersanonymous.org. SAIL AND TAI CHI: Council on Aging St. Tammany is registering seniors 60 and older for free exercise classes at the Covington Active Aging Center, 19404 N. 10th St. Stay Active and Independent for Life is a strength, balance, endurance, flexibility and fitness class for older adults and will be offered at 8 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tai Chi, according to wellness coordinator Nick Pichon, is a "Chinese practice that is moderate and nonstrenuous in nature, with classes at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. For information, call Pichon at COAST, (985) 892-0377. YOGA FOR CANCER PATIENTS: Patricia Hart conducts free yoga classes for cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Mondays on the second floor of the Slidell Memorial Hospital Wellness Pavilion, 501 Robert Blvd., Slidell. Wear loose clothing; mats are available for use. Registration and a medical release are required. For information, call Hart at (985) 707-4961. NEW BABY SUPPORT GROUP: A support group for parents with babies from birth to 6 months meets from 11:15 a.m. to noon Thursdays at the St. Tammany Parish Hospital Parenting Center, 1505 N. Florida St., Suite B, Covington. For information, visit www.stph.org/ParentingCenter. CHILDBIRTH CLASS: Lakeview Regional Medical Center will host a class on preparing for childbirth at 6 p.m. May 20 in the Magnolia Room, 95 Judge Tanner Blvd., Covington. For information and to register, call (985) 867-3900 or visit www.lakeviewregional.com. Israel newspaper publishes terms of deal of century By MEMO May 14, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The main points of US President Donald Trumps much-derided plan for the Middle East, the so-called deal of the century, were leaked by a Hebrew-language news outlet in Israel yesterday. Israel Hayom published the main points of the deal from a leaked document circulated by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The US has said it will reveal its deal after the Muslim month of fasting comes to an end in early June. The main points of the agreement put together by Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner who has extensive interests in Israel and its settlements and proposed by the US administration are as follows: A tripartite agreement will be signed between Israel, the PLO and Hamas, and a Palestinian state will be established that will be called New Palestine and will be established in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with the exception of the settlements. Israel would release Palestinian prisoners gradually over the course of three years under the deal. The settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, would form part of Israel. Jerusalem will not be divided but is to be shared by Israel and the New Palestine with Israel maintaining general control. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter Palestinians living in Jerusalem would be citizens of the Palestinian state but Israel would remain in charge of the municipality and therefore the land. The newly formed Palestinian state would pay taxes to the Israeli municipality in order to be in charge of education in the city for Palestinians. The status quo at the holy sites will remain and Jewish Israelis will not be allowed to buy Palestinian houses and vice versa. Egypt will offer the new Palestinian state land to build an airport, factories and for agriculture which will service the Gaza Strip. Palestinians will not be permitted to live on this land. A highway would be built to connect the Gaza Strip to the West Bank 30 metres above Israel. Funding for the project will mainly come from China, which will pay 50 per cent of the cost, with South Korea, Australia, Canada, the US and EU each paying a ten per cent each. Deal sponsors The US, EU and Gulf states would fund and sponsor the deal for five years to establish the state of New Palestine, the leak claims. This would be at a cost of $6 billion a year; the majority of which -70 per cent would be paid by Gulf states, with the US contributing 20 per cent and the EU ten per cent. New Palestine would not be allowed to form an army but could maintain a police force. Instead, a defence agreement will be signed between Israel and the New Palestine in which Israel would defend the new state from any foreign attacks. Upon signing the agreement, Hamas will hand over all its weapons to Egypt. The movements leaders would be compensated and paid salaries by Arab states while a government is established. Elections are expected to be held within one year of the establishment of the New Palestine state. All borders between the Gaza Strip and Egypt and Israel would remain open to people and goods and Palestinians would be able to use Israeli air and seaports. New Palestine will have two crossings into Jordan, these will be under the control of the New Palestine authorities. The Jordan Valley will remain in Israels hands and a four-lane toll road will be built through it. If Hamas or any Palestinian bodies refuse this deal, the US will cancel all of its financial support to the Palestinians and pressure other countries to do the same. If, on the other hand, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signs the deal but Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not agree to it, a war would be waged on the Gaza Strip with the full backing of the US. However, if Israel refuses the deal the US would cease its financial support. The US currently pays $3.8 billion a year to support Israel. " - LEADERSHIP LIST: Several St. Tammany area students at LSU have been named to the Class of 2019 for Leadership LSU, an annual program for juniors, seniors and graduate students to develop and apply leadership skills in their final semesters. Area students include: Covington: Braelyn Leggett, junior, political science Mandeville: Rachel Campbell, senior, political communication; Rebecca Perrette, junior, English with a concentration in creative writing; Nathan Watson, senior, textiles, apparel and merchandising with a concentration in apparel design Slidell: Kelsey Galatas, graduate student, masters of arts program in communication disorders LSU HONORS: Raven Frost Creech, of Mandeville, a senior political science major, was recently presented the Legacy Award at the Love Purple Live Gold Awards. Also, three Mandeville residents were honored with the Tom W. Dutton Scholarship for commitment to their community. Those honored were Rachel Campbell, a senior political communications major; Kailey Teachout, a senior biological sciences major; and Madison Liggio, a senior early childhood education major. MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE: Mark Soileau, of Mandeville, recently received the Henry Bellamann Memorial Award, given for the most outstanding work in one of the creative arts music, art, or creative writing, at the Clinton, Mississippi, school. SLU HONOREES: Students from St. Tammany Parish were honored recently at Southeastern Louisiana University's College of Science and Technology honors convocation. Honored were Shreya Bhatt, of Mandeville, Outstanding Graduating Senior Award in Chemistry; Christian Ennis, of Mandeville, Outstanding Graduating Senior Award in Mathematics; and Trenton Alford, of Folsom, Outstanding Graduating Senior Award in Industrial Technology. Australians will pay more for groceries and other products and the nation's takeovers regime needs to be reconsidered, competition tsar Rod Sims has warned, after a "stunning" Federal Court decision over a vital transport terminal sale. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) tried to block the sale of Auirzon's Acacia Ridge intermodal terminal near Brisbane to fellow freight operator Pacific National, arguing it would give Pacific National an effective monopoly on rail freight into north Queensland. The federal court has waved through the terminal sale. Credit:Robert Rough The terminal is a vital part of Australias transport infrastructure as it is where rail freight can be transferred between NSW's standard rail gauge and Queensland's narrow gauge network, or moved off or onto trucks. But Justice Jonathan Beach on Wednesday said the ACCC failed to convince him that the proposed deal breached competition law. US technology behemoths Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Twitter will join forces as part of an unprecedented push against the sharing of terrorist content in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre. In a nine-point agreement released overnight, the first of its kind, the competing multi-billion dollar businesses pledge to reconsider livestreaming safeguards and to work together to develop tools to improve the detection of extremist violent content. The move comes amid intensifying global pressure on the companies to be more accountable for stopping violent content on their platforms after Facebook's live technology was used to share footage of the New Zealand terror attack in February. A joint statement from the companies, released to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, said the horrifying nature of the attacks in New Zealand meant it was "right that we come together, resolute in our commitment to ensure we are doing all we can to fight the hatred and extremism that lead to terrorist violence". After a lengthy search for an acquisition, Australian gold miner St Barbara has branched out into North America, snapping up Canada's Atlantic Gold for $768 million as it looks to diversify and make the company "stronger for longer". Atlantic Gold owns the new Touquoy open pit gold mine in Nova Scotia, and has three others in development in a jurisdiction that St Barbara says is both prospective and favourable. St Barbara chief executive officer Bob Vassie says the company has "paid a fair price for a great asset". Credit:Wayne Taylor Touquoy, which produced its first commercial gold in early 2018, has an existing mine life of 12 years with substantial reserves and resources. "We believe we've paid a fair price for a great asset," St Barbara chief executive Bob Vassie said during a call with analysts and investors on Wednesday. Australians will soon know which bank or super fund is the worst to deal with when there are complaints under new rules proposed by the corporate regulator. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Wednesday began consulting with the financial services sector on new standards governing how banks, insurers, superannuation fund and other providers of financial services such as credit issuers handle customer complaints. ASIC deputy chair Karen Chester says there was "room for much improvement" in the handling of customer complaints. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The proposals are expected to receive significant resistance from the banking and superannuation sector with many industry experts expected to be concerned about the public rankings of which bank or super fund is the best at handling disputes. Under the proposed rules, consumers will be able to look up data from June 2021 that compares how quickly financial institutions resolve disputes. Tom Zhou runs a $US500 million ($722 million) hedge fund and has degrees in civil engineering, economics and finance. Mum and dad investors drive more than 80 per cent of trades in the Chinese sharemarket. Credit:AP Like other quantitative trading whizzes attempting to make sense of China's $US6.6 trillion ($9.5 trillion) stock market, Zhou spends much of his time trying to think like a novice investor. As quants adapt their models to a Chinese market where mom-and-pop investors drive more than 80 per cent of trades, they're coming up with clever ways to predict where the nation's so-called dumb money is headed. Getting it right isn't easy in a country with the world's highest stock-market volatility and price swings that often appear to defy logic. To anticipate how China's 147 million retail investors will behave, quants are combing through social-media posts and using artificial intelligence to predict when popular technical indicators will spur waves of buying and selling. They're buying troves of data from the likes of Tencent Holdings to gauge investor sentiment, and weeding out factors that work well in the West but fail to outperform in China. This is a far cry from the usual intimate scale of Leigh's cinema. Still, nothing could be more like him than to show a world-shaking historical event from the perspective of a seemingly unimportant character and to turn this character's stumbling, bandy-legged gait into a spectacle in itself. Mike Leigh's remarkable new film kicks off with a bang: nothing less than a glimpse of the battle of Waterloo. While cannons blast away, the camera singles out a young English bugler, Joseph (David Moorst) in the midst of the noise and smoke, unsure how to proceed or where to turn. Peterloo is the third Leigh film set in 19th-century England, a foreign country where he nonetheless feels at home: the previous two were Topsy-Turvy, about the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, and Mr Turner, about the painter of the title. Once again, Leigh's subject is drawn from history: the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which government militias charged on a crowd of Manchester workers who had peacefully assembled to demand an extension of voting rights. Given Leigh's politics, Peterloo might be expected to proceed on straightforward agitprop lines which to some degree is what happens, especially in the wilfully caricatured scenes that show members of the ruling class gleefully sneering at those beneath. Yet this is not the kind of film that might have been made on the same subject by a conventional social realist such as Ken Loach, who is sometimes lumped with Leigh on the assumption they're equally stout champions of the British people. Leigh's storytelling is peculiarly his own. It's humanist and anti-humanist at once, in a mode that might be called grotesque realism. A squint, a speech impediment, an oddly rigid stance: such physical traits serve to define his characters from the moment we meet them, betraying a history of suffering on the one hand or self-indulgence on the other. When you hear Anne Listers story, you can only wonder why you havent heard it before. Lister became the mistress of Shibden Hall, a country estate near Halifax in Yorkshire, in 1826. She was prodigiously self-educated, a tough business woman who made the estate pay by exploiting coal reserves and quarrying stone, and a fearless traveller who was eventually to die of a tick bite on the Georgian steppes. All this is documented in her diaries, which were marvellously vivid and much more extensive than those of Samuel Pepys: five million words, about a sixth in a code of Listers own devising, have survived. Possibly it is that very vividness that has kept her in decent obscurity, however, since she wrote in great detail about her many love affairs with other women, including the woman she called her wife: Ann Walker, the sheltered heiress who, despite her own conservatism and persistent anxiety, found Lister so irresistible that she defied convention to set up house with her. It is typical Yorkshire weather simultaneous rain, sun and a tearing wind - when I visit Shibden Hall during the filming of Gentleman Jack, a new television drama about Lister written and directed by Sally Wainwright. Wainwrights credits include Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax and Scott and Bailey; her name is not usually associated with period drama. Shibden Hall, however, was part of my personal culture, she says. She grew up in Halifax. As a child she used to be brought to the grounds for a day in the fresh air. The museum guides were very vague when talking about Anne Lister, which suggested there was a secret lurking in there somewhere. I became aware of this woman who was transgressing, but I didnt know how. Suranne Jones plays Anne Lister in Sally Wainwright's period drama Gentleman Jack. Credit:Fox Showcase When she eventually read an account of Listers life, she immediately wanted to write about her too. Her appetite for life was inspiring, her eccentricities such as the skirted adaptations of mens suits she wore, always in black as a permanent lamentation for one of the women who got away rich material for a dramatist. That was 20 years ago; somewhat incredibly, it took that long to sell the idea. Not that Wainwright sees that as a negative now. Ive wanted to write about her for so long I feel everything Ive done has been a rehearsal for this. Shibden Hall was donated to the council in the 1930s after the last Lister to live there a Cambridge scholar who, years before, was the first to decode some of his forebears writings after he found volumes of the diary hidden in the woodwork - went bankrupt. It was not a grand estate at the point where Lister took it over, but she had ideas of tremendous grandeur. Angela Clare, the collections manager for the county museums, points out the gatehouse, the grand staircase, the new wing and the towers at either end of the original house she had built using Ann Walkers money - in an effort to make it seem more of a manor. She even dug an artificial lake. Wainwright picks up her story in 1832, when Lister was 41. She came home from Paris, licking her wounds after splitting up with a lover who decided to marry a man, looking for distraction in a market town that must have felt hopelessly provincial and isolated before the rail era. The diaries record how other real people saw her. When she was younger, she was abused, says Wainwright. People shouted at her in the street: does your cock stand? So I think by the time she was the age she is in Gentleman Jack, shed built a real shell around herself to protect against that. The way she walked, you just knew not to mess with her. Wim Snape and Suranne Jones. Credit:Fox Showcase The story is told with a defiant disregard for the conventions of period drama; Suranne Jones, radiating androgynous energy, often turns from her period setting to address the camera directly, as if she had chosen to dish us the dirt rather than confining it to a diary. The way Sally writes period is like youve never seen it before, says Jones. Its fresh; its edgy; it dares to be funny. It feels like real people. Both Lister and Walker are difficult women, often unlikeable; when we first meet Ann Walker, she is a neurasthenic wreck. It is patently clear that when Lister starts courting her, she is mostly interested in her money. She only went over there in the first place because she was this rich bit of local totty and she was bored. But I love that, protests Sophie Rundle, who plays Walker. Were not trying to romanticise it in some big, sweeping period drama. And I think Anne Lister was taken aback by the reality of her feelings for her and how genuine they were. It was a rebound thing, but thats often when these things happen, isnt it: when youre a bit exposed and vulnerable? In the battle for ratings whats left for Australias commercial television networks after the last few years of reality television excess? Weve had cooking shows where both the food and the contestant comments were tasteless, while romance competitions and marriage quests have become so malignant that even cancer cells are offended. In an era of staged kisses, sabotage scoring, and drink throwing, the bottom of the barrel is scraped clean. Mr Black is a nicely dry local take on the Father of the Bride plot. Credit: The most radical response belongs to Network Ten, which this month has debuted a pair of scripted local series that reveal a strange and conflicted place called Australia. While Mr Black and Five Bedrooms are respectively a succinctly farcical comedy and a communal drama with a hefty haul of pathos, their attitudes and even antics reflect the country we actually live in, instead of a giant Instagram follow button. Thats hugely refreshing. Created by Adam Zwar (Wilfred, Squinters), Mr Black revolves around the rivalry between two very different men who recognise each other as the type of person they normally dismiss. Peter Black (Stephen Curry) is a hardnosed ageing former sports journalist and editor whose daughter, Angela (Sophie Wright), is living with Fin Cruickshank (Nick Russell), an advertising creative who sleeps in a "The Future is Female" t-shirt. Why dont you bugger off and let my daughter find a real man, declares Peter to Fin, with their rivalry made formal by the former, whose ossifying spinal joints necessitate a mobility scooter or walking stick, moving in with the intention of moving on the latter. Theres sniping, petty tricks, and one-upmanship as the traditional baby boomer and the progressive millennial feud for the unimpressed Angelas future. Conservative group Advance Australia has backed down in a legal dispute with independent MP Julia Banks after she threatened to sue for defamation over its claim she was a bully. Ms Banks gained the victory after Advance Australia assured her it would stop making the claim and halt the distribution of a leaflet urging people to reject her campaign for the Victorian electorate of Flinders. The Advance Australia brochure cites untested claims that Julia Banks bullied a young female colleague in her office before she entered Parliament. The stoush comes amid other disputes over dirty tactics, with independent candidate Rob Oakeshott declaring the mud bucket had been opened in the final days of the election campaign. Ms Banks, who quit the Liberals after warning against bullying in the party during the leadership spill that brought down Malcolm Turnbull, hired lawyers from Corrs Chambers Westgarth to take on Advance Australia after it distributed the leaflet this week. The Deal of the Century condemns Palestinians to endless Apartheid By Jeremy Wildeman and Emile Badarin May 14, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Leaked plan to end the Israel-Palestine conflict by the Trump administration will entrench the occupation and perpetuate the economic exploitation of Palestinians. Leaked details of the Trump administrations Deal of the Century (the Deal) show that it offers neither an end to Israeli rule nor its policies of colonisation in Palestine. What it does do is entrench and codify existing Israeli practices, while demanding that the Palestinians finally submit to domination by the Israeli state, or face the wrath of Israeli and American power should they resist. Central to the Deal is a discursive repackaging, a rewording, of the status quo meant to legitimise Israels colonial practices on Palestinian territory. This includes, above-all-else, legitimising the radical demographic transformations - forced population transfers and settlement building - carried out by the Israeli state since 1967; an ongoing process of dispossession that dates back to the Nakba (Catastrophe) in 1948. Thus, the US plan is expected first-and-foremost to recognise Israeli annexation of the settlements in Area C of the West Bank. Following US recognition in March of Israels annexation of the Golan Heights, this seems to be a foregone conclusion. Area C represents a little over 60 percent of the land originally intended for a Palestinian state by the Oslo Process in the West Bank, without which the entire Oslo Process is rendered unrealistic. So, officially recognising settlements that have long been considered illegal under international law would condemn Palestinians to live in discontiguous Bantustans (overcrowded towns and cities): cut off from each other and the outside world, labourers and traders abused in between, stuck in perpetuity under oppressive Israeli rule. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter The Economics of Dehumanisation Nor do the economic parts of the plan bode well for the Palestinians. As with Israels colonial practices, the Deal implies more of the same suffocating economics of capture and decline. This is because it treads down the same US policy path that dates back to the 1970s. That policy calls on Palestinians to surrender their political aspirations and individual rights, and to accede to living under Israeli rule, no matter how intolerable, all in exchange for some financial inducements offered by international donors. It is the same destructive logic that infused the Development for Peace funding underneath the failed Oslo Peace Process since 1993, and which now permeates the Deal of the Century. In reality the bantustans Palestinians currently live in are only viable because of the donors. Their funding provides the minimum stimulus necessary to maintain a tolerable level of services and employment, while Israel denies Palestinians their right to free movement to work, to trade and to develop their own economy. Further, donors do this in such a way as to relieve Israel of the costs of providing services and maintaining security control over the Palestinian territory. This not only makes Israeli colonial practices feasible financially, but at a profit from the captive Palestinian economy, with large trade surpluses and upwards of 78 percent of donor aid trickling back to Israel. This is on top of the very generous aid and charity funding Israel has been receiving for decades from its Western allies. Beyond that, the Deal dehumanises Palestinians. It reduces them to mere economic units without national political rights or individual aspirations, lacking any right to self-determination or means to escape Israeli domination. On the other hand, the Deal considers only Israelis to have nonmaterial rights such as national and political aspirations, self-determination, military power and a sovereign claim over the entirety of historic Palestine. It is important to note that the bulk of the funding (70 percent) for this proposal is expected to come from oil-producing countries - Israels new Gulf allies - who are described as the main beneficiaries of the Deal. The rest of the costs would be split between the US (20 percent) and the EU (10 percent). This would amount to $30 billion over five years, with further development projects coming from Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea. These are all countries that have proven consistently willing to fund the Oslo Peace Process, even when it clearly failed and began to do harm. Perpetual Colonialism without Moral, Political or Economic Responsibility So, the Deal will not only allow Israel to maintain its ongoing colonial practices, but to continue to take profit from the exploitation of the Palestinians without any of the moral, political or economic responsibilities required by a government towards a conquered population. Further, the plan reinforces the notion of population transfer, which is illegal under international law. It calls for instance for the removal of unwanted Palestinians out of their rich agricultural communities to develop the inhospitable Sinai desert, paying the Egyptians for the right to do this on temporarily leased land. Meanwhile, industrial zones rumoured to be built in border regions will promise yet further exploitative employment in deplorable conditions, providing Israel with cheap products in its ongoing development. The added insult to injury is that Palestinians will be required to pay Israel for providing protection from external aggression, when it is Israels military and its settlers that are the aggressors. This is colonial exploitation, pure and simple. There appear to be many more bitter pills the Palestinians will be expected to swallow. In an effort to push the Palestinians to surrender through despair, the US, the self-proclaimed honest broker, has taken stringent measures to dry the sources of their political and economic support. Besides cutting all funds given to the Palestinians, the US is exerting systematic pressure on a number of UN organisations that dare express political and legal support to the Palestinians. This indicates that the Trump Administration is ready for an escalation to make Palestinian conditions worse, even threatening to inflict harm on their leaders, should they reject the Deal. The New Palestine Meanwhile, maintaining the idea that there will be someday some form of Palestinian state (a New Palestine) will continue to be sustained by the US. This is because it is a useful tool for Israel and most Western governments to cover up the ugly truths of settler colonial and apartheid practices in Palestine, and to not hold it responsible for violations of international law. The Deal of the Century prescribes a dystopian future for an already unstable Middle East. It seeks to legitimise and fund the current stage in Israeli expropriation and colonisation of Palestinian territory, in an ongoing process that dates back decades to 1948. So the New Palestine would be just one more step forward in an ongoing process, which has no clear endpoint. It stands in stark contrast with a true peace based on justice, humanity, equality and dignity for all peoples, Israeli or Palestinian alike. Dr Jeremy Wildeman is a visiting fellow at the University of Bath, studying international relations and the politics of the Middle East, with a specialisation in Palestinian development, institution building and Western relations with the region. He has also spent nearly two decades supporting youth and community development in the Balkans and Middle East. Emile Badarin is a postdoctoral research fellow at the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Chair, College of Europe, Natolin. He holds a PhD in Middle East politics. His research cuts across the fields of international relations and foreign policy, with the Middle East and EU as areas of study. This article was originally published by "TRT World " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made a last-minute pitch to Chinese voters, swooping into Sydney's Chinatown in a bid to shore up support for three candidates whose futures could hinge on the influential community. Flanked by Immigration Minister David Coleman, Bennelong MP John Alexander and the Liberal Party's candidate for the crucial seat of Reid Fiona Martin, Mr Morrison pitched a message of unity after years of diplomatic tension between Australia and the Chinese Communist Party last year culminated in Parliament passing laws to ban foreign donations and crackdown on foreign interference in domestic politics. Scott Morrison campaigns in Sydney's Chinatown on Wednesday night. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Mr Morrison appealed to the aspirations of Chinese families, tying in the Coalitions central election theme of economic growth through business investment and perseverance. "I know of no community who is more passionate about what they want to leave to their children," the Prime Minister said. On Anzac Day this year he said he had lost count of the number of Turks he had shot. It is possible that the two men's memories were playing tricks. It is just as likely that they had tired of the same questions and were changing their answers in protest. Mr Campbell grew tired of pointing out in his last years that his brief time at Gallipoli was a very small part of his rich life. He had helped build the first Parliament House in Canberra in 1927, graduated in economics after he turned 50 and fathered the last of his nine children at 69. He sailed in six Sydney-Hobart yacht races, was president of the Launceston Trades Hall Council, campaigned with Lady Jessie Street for peace and contributed to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Yet everyone wanted to talk to him about Gallipoli, so he tried to remember, uncomplainingly. Mr Longmore's great-granddaughter, 16-year-old Carly Longmore, made the point at his funeral service in Melbourne: "Roy Longmore was the very essence of modesty, humanity, sacrifice, survival and courage. "It is unbelievable to think that Roy has lived in three different centuries and had to live with 87 years of graphic memories of those bloody battles of war. Eighty-seven years of waking up every morning and continuing life as normal, 87 years of being nothing less than a hero, 87 years of never once complaining of it." Len Hall was another. One of the first Australians to enlist for World War I, his service number was 52 and he was only 16 years and five months old. His regiment needed a bugler and young Len could play. So Major Clive Nicholas, of the 10th Light Horse, put the boy's age up. Len sailed off to war, after handing an emu plume from his hat to a girl he scarcely knew on the wharf. Hall put his bugle aside and was a machine-gunner during the mad charge on the Turkish trenches at the Nek, with the job of firing over the heads of the running Australians. Alec Campbell in uniform during World War I. Men of the 10th followed two waves of 8th Light Horse, who were annihilated. "Boys, you have 10 minutes to live," the 10th's commanding officer said. At the end of the day, 375 of the 600 attackers were casualties. Historian C.E.W. Bean wrote: "The West Australians assumed that death was certain, and each in the secret places of his mind debated how he would go to it. Mate, having said goodbye to mate ... went forward to meet death instantly, running as straight and swiftly as they could at the Turkish rifles. With that regiment went the flower of the youth of Western Australia ..." Len Hall survived to fight with the 3rd Machine Gun Squadron at Tel el Saba, near the famous charge at Beersheba, to meet Lawrence of Arabia, and was with the Australians who beat Lawrence into Damascus. In 1919, a young woman stopped him in the street, introduced herself as Eunice Lydiate, and said: "Excuse me, may I give you back your plume?" Len and Eunice married in 1921, had two children and were together until her death at the end of 1995. He had nursed her for 15 years before she entered a nursing home with Alzheimer's disease. He visited her three times a week, a three-hour trip by public transport, never asking anyone for a lift. "She didn't recognise anyone else to talk to," he said. "But she talked to me." He phoned from Perth when he was 99, saying he wanted to meet a nephew in Sydney and asking if there were any hotels in this city. I arranged the meeting and offered a home for his four-day stay. He travelled on the Indian Pacific train and arrived at Central carrying his old Globite case. The tiny figure standing on the platform looked both vulnerable and indestructible. He stayed up, talking, until about midnight every night, our dog at his feet. He spoke not so much about war and dying as about peace and living. He stopped living at 101. John Masefield said of the Anzacs: "They were the finest body of young men ever brought together in modern times." About 85 years later, the first thing people noticed about Alec, Roy, Ted, Len and the other old men of Gallipoli was their gentleness, and the contrast between this quality and the violent streak in their past. The next thing was their accepting nature. They rarely asked for anything. They accepted their lot in life, just as they had at Gallipoli. Some of the 50,000 Australians and 18,000 New Zealanders had enlisted out of dutiful patriotism, some out of an innocent sense of adventure, some to escape boredom or poverty. Some, in their last years, criticised the politicians who sent them to war and one or two of the commanders, but most admired the old Turkish foe. They felt bitterness to nobody, knowing there was no point. They were fatalists who strove against the oppression of death, historian Bill Gammage says. They had survived Gallipoli and the grimmer fields of France. They survived the Depression. Their marriages were long and, by most accounts, happy. They scoffed at the notion they were heroes, although a few remembered the words of General Sir Ian Hamilton, the British commander: "Before the war, who had ever heard of Anzac? Hereafter, who will ever forget it?" The people of Australia bade Ted Matthews farewell at a state funeral in 1997, making him grander in death than he claimed to be in life. The nation's flags were lowered to half-mast in his honour; the nation's leaders bowed before his coffin. The governor-general, Sir William Deane, called Mr Matthews "the quintessential Australian". The Prime Minister, John Howard, said that December 9, the day Mr Matthews died, should be marked "as the day Australia grew old enough to sometimes forget what happened that Anzac Day [1915] but determined enough to always remember". Like most of the others, Mr Matthews talked little about war until pressed in his declining years. Then he criticised war and those who made it. John Howard said: "To those of us who lead nations, let us recall that it was Matthews who said: `Politicians make up the wars. They don't go to them."' Mr Matthews would also say he was not one of the real heroes. He was a signaller, and the infantry had the worst of it. What is more, those who fought in France suffered much more than the men of Gallipoli. Yet, Sir William said, "he was there at Gallipoli, without respite, for the whole duration of the stalemate: through the heat, and the flies, and the stench of death, and disease, and attack, and counter-attack, and the cold as winter drew on. And the bonds which transcended and transcend individual mortality were forged between those men and the soul of our nation." Sir William said Mr Matthews's death marked "a final break in a living thread that united us Australians with the complete Anzac epic". The same sentiments are now being expressed on Alec Campbell's death. Manning Clark said the Anzac experience was "something too deep for words". Jack Buntine would have been puzzled by the grand words used to describe it. His mother died when he was nine and his drunkard father sold him to a German couple in Victoria who wanted his child labour. The woman beat him, so he knocked her out, fled to the bush and joined the 8th Light Horse. "The family was split up to billy-o," he said. "I was very pleased to go to Gallipoli." So, too, was Tom Epps, from Adelaide. He joined partly to travel. "I was brainless," he said, "but I'm not sorry I went. It taught me how stupid the politicians and military can be. They were boneheads." Fred Kelly's younger brother, Jim, dragged Fred into the army. Fred was 18, Jim 16. Their father drew the line when another brother, 14-year-old Mick, also tried to enlist. Fred went from Gallipoli to fight on the Somme. He said much later in his Sydney home: "Gallipoli, as far as I was concerned, was a picnic." Roy Kyle, who went from Victoria at 17, recalled: "The country was mad with patriotism. I couldn't get there quickly enough to kill a German ... The feeling of nationhood began with Gallipoli, but I don't take any pride in the medals at all. "I was a silly boy and should have had my bottom smacked for joining up at that age." Harry Newhouse, from Sydney, landed at Gallipoli on April 26, to learn a few days later that his brother, George, had been killed. "Not only did my brother get killed and a lot of our men, but 86,000 Turks were killed. What was it for? I don't know. It should never have been." General Hamilton, watching the Anzac landings, had said: "God, one would think, cannot see them at all or he would put a stop to this sort of panorama, and yet it would be a pity if he missed it; for these fellows have been worth the making ... They fight for love all the way from the Southern Cross for love of the Old Country and of liberty." Walter Parker believed that God guided lives during war and peace. His daughter, Gwen Charlesworth of Melbourne, came to terms with his death long before it happened and before his face was among surviving Anzacs on postage stamps. "He has been a good father," she said. "Our lives have been comfortable, happy and home-making, like the lives of so many Australians." Cedric Drysdale Stapylton-Smith, of Christchurch, New Zealand, survived Gallipoli and the Somme and was still smoking and drinking at 104 years. "My whole life has been pretty fortunate," he said, "not a dog's life." He recited the Lord's Prayer every night, praying that young people would have a less troubled world than his. Albert White had never been interviewed about his war until 1995, when he was 100 and living alone in Brisbane. "Gallipoli was a bastard of a place," he said. "I never understood what we were fighting for. All I could think of was that I never wanted to go back to the bloody place." He added: "What I do today is forgotten tomorrow. That's how my life has been, really." Albert White was wrong there. Charles Bean said of the Anzacs: "Their story rises, as it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men and for Alec's 73 offspring, a veritable army Alec Campbell is survived by his wife, nine children, 30 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. A state funeral is expected to be held for him in Hobart, although he was never one for too much fuss. When he was told he was the last Gallipoli veteran, he replied: "Oh well, that won't last forever." Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cole, who has died aged 103, was the last survivor of the 80 US airmen known as the Doolittle Raiders, who carried out the first air attack against the Japanese mainland in the Second World War. Two weeks after the devastating attack against Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and a series of reverses in the Pacific, President Franklin D Roosevelt tasked his military chiefs to find a way to strike Japan as soon as possible to boost public morale. An audacious proposal to launch several twin-engined B-25 Mitchell bombers from an aircraft carrier was proposed and, after a series of trials, the idea was accepted. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle was detailed to plan and lead the raid and he chose Cole to be his co-pilot. Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, Co-Pilot to James Doolittle during the Doolittle Raid. Credit:USAF Sixteen Mitchells, modified to carry extra fuel, were loaded onto the aircraft carrier Hornet in San Francisco before it sailed towards Japan. On the morning of April 18, 1942, a Japanese picket boat sighted the naval task force when it was 650 miles off the coast. The plan had been to launch the bombers at a range of 450 miles but Doolittle decided to take off immediately. The mother of a teenage boy who spent three weeks in a Queensland watchhouse for stealing chocolate bars and deodorant has begged the Premier to move juveniles from maximum security facilities. But Annastacia Palaszczuk said she had nowhere to move them, so children as young as 10 would remain in the watchhouses. A mother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said her son was traumatised after spending three weeks in a maximum security watchhouse. Credit:Lydia Lynch According to the state's Public Guardian, there were children in watchhouses "who havent accessed any real outdoor air for two weeks or more, and who have little or no access to education". The mother, whose name cannot be used for legal reasons, told Brisbane Times her 14-year-old son was withdrawn and despondent after spending almost a month locked inside a police watchhouse. If it is true that this is the best country in the world - as we have heard repeatedly in this election season - then one might expect that a significant part of the picture would be that the nation's children enjoyed access to an education that gave them every opportunity to succeed. If it is true that this is the best country in the world then one might expect that the nation's children enjoyed access to a very good education. Credit:Martin Hunter Measuring ourselves against truly global standards in this area has made such claims ring hollow. Looking over the shoulders of Kazakhstan and Slovenia when it comes to academic achievement was enough for then education minister Simon Birmingham to declare he was "embarrassed for Australia", but not to concede that funding might be an issue. "The conversation should be about how we will use record funding far more effectively in the future to get better outcomes for our children," he argued. Now a look by the Grattan Institute at the past decade in education funding has busted the myth that we are big spenders when it comes to schools and questioned our use of existing money. The first review of education funding by David Gonski under the Gillard government may have called for a needs-based approach, but it is clear that money is not following need and has not done so under successive Labor and Coalition governments. In The Age on Wednesday, the Grattan Institute's Peter Goss insisted that we need a global perspective on outcomes and the funding that goes towards achieving them: "No OECD country consistently out-performs Australia in international tests, and has greater equity, and also spends less." Two people have been charged after police busted an alleged drug lab stocked with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of what are believed to MDMA, cannabis, steroids and prescription drugs. Police arrested the pair at a Bayswater business centre and then searched an address on Scoresby Road in Boronia about 2.20pm on Wednesday. Police say they found drugs and a large amount of cash in what they allege is a clandestine lab. Investigators also believe the operation was integral to a well-organised and complex steroid trafficking ring. A 28-year-old Boronia woman was charged with drug trafficking and possession and was bailed to appear in the Ringwood Magistrates Court on October 3. A 29-year-old Boronia man was charged with drug manufacturing, trafficking and possession and was remanded to appear in the same court on Thursday. Students disadvantaged by computer glitches plaguing NAPLAN Online may have to resit the test, with state curriculum authorities set to hold crisis talks to discuss the validity of this year's results. It's estimated up to 10 per cent of Victorian schools taking part in NAPLAN Online were impacted by connectivity issues that made it difficult for students to finish the assessment. In Western Australia, one-third of students undertaking the online test could not properly complete it due to the widespread glitches. The disconnection message that flashed up on students' screens while they were sitting NAPLAN on Tuesday. Credit:Twitter Some students lost their work, while others lost up to 15 minutes of the 45 minutes allocated for the writing task. An award-winning jazz musician who worked at a prestigious Victorian high school has admitted sending 150 sexually inappropriate messages to a schoolgirl in just one day. Former Nossal High School director of music James Mustafa sent the flurry of texts to a 16-year-old VCE music student on May 30 last year. James Mustafa fronts court after pleading guilty to being sexually inappropriate with a child in his care. Credit:Joe Armao He asked the Year 11 student about her sexuality and sexual practices and encouraged her to sext back. The case raises serious questions about an apparent loophole in Victorias teaching regulations. A man is fighting for life after a home behind a shop in Melbourne's north went up in flames in a suspicious fire. The blaze in Glenroy started about 9.45pm on Wednesday at a house connected to a store in Widford Street. Firefighters were called to a house connected to the Widford Street shop in Glenroy about 9.45pm. Credit:7 News A man who lives at the property was found unconscious outside with severe burns. Firefighters provided him first aid and oxygen until Ambulance Victoria officers arrived. By Basma Qaddour May 14, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - (ST) -The Australian political economist and author Professor, Tim Anderson, has emphasized that the Zionist entity is afraid of the unrelenting Palestinian resistance, of Syrias looming victory and of an enhanced Axis of Resistance facing the occupied parts of Lebanon and Syria. Tel Aviv has looked to Trump for reassurance, but the US leaders gestures over Jerusalem and the occupied Golan have no force in international law, the professor told the Syria Times e-newspaper He went on to say: Given that Washington (whether under Bush, Obama or Trump) has done nothing to restrain the extended colonization and attempted ethnic cleansing on the West Bank, it is hard to imagine that The Kushner Plan (given a name which sounds like a TV game show) could do much more than throw some money around; all the more humiliating that this seems likely to be Arab (Saudi) money and perhaps a little Arab (Egyptian) land. The professor believes that all the recent statements from the Trump regime (on Jerusalem, on the occupied Syrian Golan and on some new yet-to-be-explained promises over Palestine) run in parallel to the violent expeditions by the Netanyahu regime. Asked about the purpose of the Zionist entitys recent intensive strikes on Gaza strip in the occupied Palestine, prof. Anderson said: The Zionists seem to believe, as do most fascist regimes, that an extremely vicious response to what they regard as the slightest provocation will act to terrorize the population and so repress all forms of resistance. While there are constant acts of resistance within occupied Palestine, the series of Israeli massacres in Gaza have demonstrated extreme and disproportional brutality. Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get our FREE Daily Newsletter Ruthless Reprisal He underlined that civilian casualties amongst Palestinians are, by all accounts, the great majority of Israels victims. The United Nations reported that at least 1,483 (67%) of the 2,205 Palestinians killed in Israels 2014 attack on Gaza were civilians, while only 4 (6%) of the 71 Israelis killed were civilians. (https://web.archive.org/web/20150725191044/http://www.ochaopt.org/content.aspx?id=1010361). So, contrary to much of the western media hype, the Palestinian resistance uses far more targeted violence compared to that of the Zionist forces. Notice though that the Zionist kill ratio in 2014 was more than 30 to one, the professor clarified. He referred to the fact that the Netanyahu regime since then has enhanced its policy of ruthless reprisal. In March the Zionist intelligence site Debka reported (https://www.debka.com/new-upscaled-idf-reprisals-for-palestinian-balloon-terror-from-gaza/) that a new IDF policy had gone into force for hitting back at all manifestations of Palestinian terror. This has resulted in immediate attacks even though there were no Israeli casualties. The same site noted multiple small acts of resistance, and that thousands of convicted terrorists in Israeli jails [were] restive over cutbacks in their privileges. Prof. Anderson added that the increase in Palestinian resistances military capacity, with Gaza rockets reaching Tel Aviv for the first time, in March 2019, might help explain the relatively short punitive assault on Gaza in May. The Israeli regime has been notoriously insensitive to the killing of Palestinians, but remains highly sensitive to casualties on its own side, he affirmed, explaining why the UN had not held an emergency meeting to discuss the Israeli aggression on Gaza. As everyone knows, three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have launched multiple wars against the peoples of the region, precisely to divide the resistance to Zionism and imperialism, seeking to embed a controlling role for the Zionist colony in Palestine. Fortunately, in recent years, Russia and to a lesser extent China, have begun to exert a counter-veiling force. However this simply renders the Security Council ineffective. Elsewhere in the UN there are some useful initiatives, for example the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures. This is, of course, mainly aimed at US economic aggression. Such initiatives can help mobilise peoples against the economic and propaganda arms of todays hybrid wars. The multiple 21st century wars Moreover, the professor doubts that Washington is stupid enough to go to war with Iran, despite the threats. Declaring economic war on half the world will not help, in the medium term. The Americans have not failed to notice that their game plan in Syria has failed badly; they just have great trouble admitting it, he said, pointing out that both Tel Aviv and Washington fear the rising influence of the largest independent state in the region, and they fear Irans deeper integration with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Their great fear is what they call an Iranian land bridge from Tehran to Beirut. Of course, such economic, transport, communicational and cultural integration would be of enormous benefit to the peoples of the region, helping lift them out of an under-development enforced by fragmentation and neocolonial division. But this is the last thing Tel Aviv and Washington want, Prof. Anderson asserted. He concluded by saying: The wars against Iraq and Syria must be defeated and consolidated by a united front across the region. That would be the definitive answer to the multiple 21st century wars launched by Washington against the peoples of the region. Internal cohesion of the resistance within Palestine is also essential. Only then can sufficient pressure be brought to bear on the Zionist entity to democratize what has become an apartheid state. It is worth mentioning that Dr. Tim Anderson is Director of the Center for Counter Hegemonic Studies in Sydney. He worked and taught at several Australian Universities for more than 30 years. Related links: http://www.syriatimes.sy/index.php/editorials/opinion/40461-prof-tim-anderson-to-st-britain-s-move-against-hezbollah-appeases-us-assists-netanyahu-and-the-zionist-lobby http://syriatimes.sy/index.php/editorials/opinion/39328-sydney-university-tries-to-restrict-prof-tim-anderson-s-criticism-of-war-propaganda-against-syria-iraq-and-palestine This article was originally published by "Syria Times " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here Three penis designs at TW Blake Park, Preston, seemingly done in one continuous motion. Credit:Google Earth Mysterious penis-shaped symbols have appeared on sports parks in Melbourne's north-east, primitive in design but following a technique similar to their more lauded predecessor, the crop circle. Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: Google Earth currently displays the penis designs on three parks in Preston and Thornbury, near Northland Shopping Centre, each with more than one attempt, of diverse sizes. The area's mayor says the designs will require a "complex, costly and time-consuming" repair process. He was a keen photographer and he loved nature, interests he shared with Rosemary Shirima, who he married in 2015. Simon combined his love of the natural world and photography in recent years to produce a field guide to moths in Tanzania. His book, Butterflies and Moths of Kiranyi, Arusha and Monduli Tanzania, contains 353 pages of beautiful photos of moths and butterflies in areas around Arusha. Some had never before been identified; many had not previously been recorded in Tanzania. He worked closely on this with moth experts in Belgium to identify and to notate the photographed individuals. Simon was unable in his life to bring the book to completion and publication. One of his greatest legacies is the creation of the Wildlife Management Area bordering Tarangire National Park. In 1975, there were about 2000 rhinos in the Tarangire ecosystem, a large area of land in northern Tanzania that has only a small portion gazetted as a national park. Due to poaching, farming and illegal mining, by 1985 all the rhinos were gone. The north-eastern part of the Tarangire ecosystem bordering the national park is an important migratory route for the large herds of elephants which inhabit Tarangire National Park. While on safari in the area, Simon had noticed both professional and local hunters waiting on the border of the national park for the elephants to pass during their annual migration. In 1993, he had an idea to start a community wildlife project to protect the elephants of Tarangire. Simon knew if nothing was done, elephants in this area would suffer the same fate as the rhinos. He approached the local Masaai villages with a proposal to stop hunting and farming in the area and give the land back to the wildlife. In 1995, a joint venture was entered with the villages. Simon proposed two solutions: stop farming in the area, in an attempt to restore the habitat and for the village to set up their own wildlife conservation area to stop poaching and hunting. This would then allow the elephant population to stabilise and eventually increase. This idea if achieved would be the first project of its type in Tanzania. And, the Tarangire Conservation Area was formed. Over the next 12 months, further villages were approached and more land was protected. In the end a total of 580 square kilometres of land was in the Tarangire Conservation Area bordering Tarangire National Park and given back to the wildlife and the elephants' migratory route was protected. In April 2013, Simon's dream became a reality and the Tarangire Conservation Area was declared a Village Wildlife Management Area, one of only 38 in Tanzania. The development of the Wildlife Management Area was a dream of Simon's which came to fruition but not without cost. He received death threats from hunters, deals were reneged on and thousands of dollars were spent on buying back farms and hunting land. In 2005, a lodge jointly owned by his safari company and the local villagers, was deliberately burnt down by a hunter and one of Simon's workers died. But this did not deter him, and the lodge was rebuilt. Since its inception in 1996, the conservation area has the fastest-recorded population growth of African elephants. The conservation area is a major reason why the Tarangire National Park ecosystem's elephant population has risen from 2800 in the early 1990s to nearly 4800 presently and resulting in annual revenue of more than $US400,000 for local communities as well as empowering these same communities. The local communities received significant benefit from this partnership, including payment of school fees and transport for students to go to secondary school, police stations, houses for teachers and doctors, dispensaries, village offices, school rooms, rehabilitated dams and water infrastructure. In the future when you take your children or grandchildren to Tarangire National Park and see large herds of elephants in the Silasi swamp, or are charged by a big bull elephant which refuses to give way or see a mother elephant gently use her trunk to help her baby over a steep mound, you can thank Simon King. In November 2016, Simon was recognised for his efforts, receiving a silver award in the World Responsible Tourism Awards at the World Travel Market in London in the category, best contribution to conservation. Simon returned to Australia in late 2017 to convalesce from an emergency brain surgery in Tanzania. Rosemary lives in Tanzania in the village where she and Simon had planned their future. Four toilet blocks, all alike in dignity, in marginal electorates of Australia, where we lay our scene. Scene 1 takes place in the outer-south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Pakenham, where a recent online review of the local Rotary Park has exclaimed: "Barbecue area without toilets. Shocking!" So shocking, indeed, that the injustice has not escaped the attention of Liberal MP Jason Wood, who is seeking to hold his federal seat of La Trobe on a slim margin of 3.2 per cent. Every Saturday morning, 190 runners from the Pakenham park-run run though the park and don't have access to proper facilities, Mr Wood decried on his Facebook page, before announcing a re-elected Morrison government would divert $180,000 of federal funds to build essential toilet amenities at the popular park. Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping has told Asian leaders that anyone who thinks their civilisation is superior and will replace others is stupid, in comments widely viewed as a swipe at the United States. A senior US official stunned American allies this month by describing the country's rivalry with China as the first time we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian. Kiron Skinner, director of policy planning at the State Department, said that unlike the Cold War with Russia, rivalry with China was a fight with a really different civilisation. If someone thinks their own race and civilisation is superior and insists on remoulding or replacing other civilisations, it would be a stupid idea and disastrous act, Xi told the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations. Washington: Alabama's new law restricting abortion in nearly every circumstance has moved one of the most polarising issues in American politics to the centre of the 2020 presidential campaign. The state's legislation - the toughest of several anti-abortion measures that have passed recently - prompted an outcry from Democratic presidential candidates, who warned that conservatives were laying the groundwork to undermine the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The legislation makes performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison for the provider. The White House, meanwhile, didn't comment on the Alabama bill, signed into law on Wednesday by Republican Governor Kay Ivey, as President Donald Trump tries to balance his conservative base against the potential of antagonising women who are already sceptical of his presidency. EPA combined City/Hwy fuel economy improves by two MPG on most models New standard Hyundai SmartSense safety features Hyundai announces 2020 Elantra pricing FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., May 14, 2019 The 2020 Hyundai Elantra, with a new Intelligent Variable Transmission (IVT), improved fuel economy and standard Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist (FCA), once again is the standard in the compact sedan segment. Pricing throughout the lineup delivers consumers a compelling choice, starting at $18,950 for the Elantra SE. The 2020 Elantra arrives in dealer showrooms this spring. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety data shows that Automatic Emergency Braking and Forward Collision Warning, which are both integrated into Elantras standard Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist, are associated with a 50-percent reduction in rear-end collisions. In addition, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 94 percent of serious vehicle crashes involve human error, which is why advanced safety technologies like Elantras standard Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) have the potential to save lives. New standard features Intelligent Variable Transmission Dual Automatic Temperature Control 3.5-inch mono TFT cluster display Efficient Positive Temperature Coefficient Electric Heater (2.0L engine only) Engine Idle Stop & Go on Eco model Dual Shell Horn Hyundai SmartSense features Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist Lane Keeping Assist Driver Attention Warning Fuel Economy Improvement Trim Engine Transmission 2020 Combined MPG 2019 Combined MPG SE 2.0L IVT 35 (+2) 33 SEL 2.0L IVT 34 (+2) 32 Value Edition 2.0L IVT 34 (+2) 32 Limited 2.0L IVT 34 (+2) 32 2020 Elantra Pricing Model Engine Transmission MSRP SE 2.0L Atkinson Cycle 4-cylinder IVT $18,950 SEL 2.0L Atkinson Cycle 4-cylinder IVT $19,700 Value 2.0L Atkinson Cycle 4-cylinder IVT $20,600 Eco 1.4L Turbo GDI 4-cylinder 7-speed Dual Clutch $21,250 Sport 1.6L Turbo GDI 4-cylinder 7-speed Dual Clutch $22,800 Limited 2.0L Atkinson Cycle 4-cylinder IVT $23,800 Freight charges for the 2020MY Elantra are $920 and are not included in the chart above. SE manual transmission and Sport manual transmission discontinued Intelligent Variable Transmission (IVT) Hyundais new IVT provides superior efficiency and simulates gear shifts from an automatic transmission that customers like. This transmission performs continuous shifts by modulating pressure of the transmissions pulley, depending on driving conditions and driver inputs. It utilizes a wide ratio pulley system, which provides a broader ratio of operation when compared with its competitors. This allows for improved fuel economy at higher gear ratios and improved performance at lower ratios. As opposed to a more common push belt, the IVT takes advantage of a chain belt, a worlds first in the compact car segment. A chain improves fuel efficiency by an additional 1.2% when compared with conventional belt systems. Hyundais new Shift Control Strategy used by the IVT improves linearity between driver inputs, vehicle behavior and acceleration. Shift response is enhanced, allowing it to closely replicate automatic transmission step shifts. Hyundai SmartSense The 2020 Elantra offers a new array of standard advanced safety technologies. FCA uses the cars front-facing camera to help detect an imminent collision and avoid impact or minimize damage by braking LKA helps prevent accidental lane departure by sensing road markings, automatically steering the car if necessary. Driver Attention Warning system monitors a spectrum of driver-related characteristics to help detect driver fatigue. SmartSense features already included on the Elantra Limited with Ultimate Package include: Smart Cruise Control (SCC) makes highway and long distance driving more comfortable. Using a radar sensor mounted on the lower front grille, the SCC system maintains a set distance from the vehicle ahead in varied traffic conditions by automatically adjusting vehicle speed as needed. Safe Exit Assist that may sound an alert when a vehicle approaches from behind, letting passengers know it may not be safe to open the door to exit the vehicle. Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist with Pedestrian Detection is a technology that utilizes both the front forward-facing radar and camera through sensor fusion to help detect a vehicle or pedestrian, and warn the driver of a potential collision. If the driver does not react to avoid the impact, the system may apply emergency braking in certain circumstances. Additional SmartSense Safety features include: Blind-Spot Collision Warning with Rear Cross-Traffic Alert and Lane Change Assist (available all trims except SE) Interior Features Standard: 5-inch color audio system Standard: Bluetooth and steering wheel audio controls Blue Link Connected Car System with three years of complimentary Blue Link services applied to Value Edition Qi wireless charging applied to Limited trim level Available AVN 5.0 with faster processor, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and HERE HD Traffic 8-inch Multimedia Navigation System offered with higher level trims Infinity premium audio with 8 speakers including a center channel and subwoofer applied to Limited trim level Drive Mode Select applied standard Standard: Rearview camera with dynamic guidelines Engine Performance The Elantra features two engine options that focus on fuel efficiency and a third engine option in the Elantra Sport model. The SE, SEL, Value Edition and Limited offer the 2.0L MPI Atkinson Cycle engine with 147 horsepower @ 6,200 RPM and Eco offers the 1.4L Turbo-GDI with 128 horsepower @ 5,500 RPM. The Eco model achieves an EPA estimated 36 mpgcombined fuel economy rating thanks to a 7-speed dual clutch transmission. Elantra Sport The Elantra Sport trim features a 201 horsepower 1.6L Turbo-GDI engine and a 7-speed dual clutch transmission, a sporty interior and revised trim headliner, advanced technology and connectivity, paddle shifters, sport front seats with leather, flat-bottom, leather-wrapped steering wheel, a sport instrument cluster and door trim garnish. The Elantra Sport features multi-link independent rear suspension which improves the dynamic performance and allows for greater flexibility in tuning. HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA Hyundai Motor America is focused on delivering an outstanding customer experience grounded in design leadership, engineering excellence and exceptional value in every vehicle we sell. Hyundais technology-rich product lineup of cars, SUVs and alternative-powered electric and fuel cell vehicles is backed by Hyundai Assuranceour promise to deliver peace of mind to our customers. Hyundai vehicles are sold and serviced through more than 830 dealerships nationwide, with the majority sold in the U.S. built at U.S. manufacturing facilities, including Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama. Hyundai Motor America is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, and is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and Chairman of the National Council (Upper House) of Bhutan Tashi Dorji (Photo: VNA) He said the two countries have a lot of historical, cultural, and religious similarities, so they are able to cooperate and share experience in national building and development. The PM congratulated Bhutan on the achievements it has gained over the years. Despite its small population, Bhutan prides itself on having one of the highest happiness indexes in the world, he said. Chairman Tashi Dorji highly appreciated Vietnams organisation of the United Nations Day of Vesak 2019 celebration. He said Bhutan has set up diplomatic relations with 36 countries in the world, including Vietnam. The two sides share many similarities in landscape, religion, and people, which are favourable conditions for developing the bilateral ties, he added. Bhutan is working closely with Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs to set up a bilateral consultation mechanism between the two foreign ministries, he said. He added that Bhutan is also pushing ahead with agricultural reform and mechanisation, hoping to collaborate with Vietnam in agriculture, including importing farming machines from Vietnam and learning from the countrys experience in developing agriculture. Dorji suggested increasing all-level delegation exchanges between the two sides and noted that the number of Vietnamese tourists to Bhutan is increasing. PM Phuc hailed the opinions of the Bhutan chairman and asked him to pay attention to promoting several activities, such as high-level delegations and people-to-people exchanges. He urged the two sides to soon sign a visa exemption agreement for diplomatic and official passport holders, and another on bilateral consultation mechanism between the two foreign ministries to help promote cooperation in various fields. As bilateral trade remains modest, the PM suggested the two countries enhance cooperation in fields of Bhutans interest, such as machinery and components for agriculture and manufacturing, as well as wooden furniture. He recommended that the two sides boost their tourism partnership by conducting direct charter flights to tap into their cultural similarities, especially Buddhism. The PM hoped Bhutan will continue to create the optimal conditions for Vietnamese citizens to live and work there. Vietnam is willing to share experience in the field of agriculture with Bhutan, he affirmed. He also called on Bhutan to continue supporting and cooperating closely with Vietnam to ensure consensus at international and regional organisations which both are members to./. Rachel Thompson, a London widow, has finally won a court case against Apple, forcing the Cupertino giant to open up her late husbands account and give her 10-year-old daughter access to photos of her deceased father. The case has been going on since 2015. Mrs Thompsons husband took his own life in July of 2015 when his daughter was just 6 years old. Due to this unfortunate event, the girl did not remember his father well so her mother asked the American company to unlock the account of her former husband, to no avail. Apple is known for very strict privacy regarding access to accounts of other people, as proven by the 2016 FBI vs. Apple case. Unfortunately, the company has such a strict policy that it can also affect people very negatively in the end. Mrs Thompson went to court after unsuccessful attempts to retrieve the photos in a civil way, but the case has dragged on for almost four years. Now, Central London County Court has ruled in favour of the widow, forcing Apple to release 4,500 photos and 900 videos from Mr Thompsons private Apple account. This case is truly one of its kind as UK law forbids access to deceaseds online accounts. Mrs Thompson commented on the matter: Videos are really nice because its amazing how quickly you forget what somebody sounds like. Now, after the ruling, Mrs Thompson and her daughter Matilda will be able to enjoy memories of their family member after having fought for it for many years. What are your thoughts? Did the court rule fairly or should the account have been kept locked away? Let us know in the comments below. [via The Times The iPhone XS Max was launched back in September. And the easy bet is that Apple will launch newer, improved iPhones later this year. But for now, while other companies launch their own 2019 flagships, the iPhone XS is the handset to compare against. PCMag put together a nice signal strength test today, following the launch of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Speed is the main takeaway from OnePluss new smartphone, and that goes to network connectivity as well. The OnePlus 7 Pro has a Qualcomm X24 modem inside the hood, offering up to 1.2Gb/s max theoretical speed courtesy of 5-carrier aggregation. The Samsung Galaxy S10 offers the same chip inside (but supports faster 2Gb/s max theoretical speeds by way of 7-carrier aggregation). Meanwhile, the iPhone XS Max supports 5-carrier aggregation and a max theoretical speed of 1Gb/s with the Intel XMM7560 modem. So, now that we have that laid out, we can look at the comparisons put together by the publication. With good signal quality, the test shows that between the handsets there isnt a clear front-runner. Meaning, each of the smartphones (which also includes the LG V40) perform about the same. With a good signal, you can see the phones duking it out, with the LG V40 coming in the lead. The Samsung Galaxy S10, interestingly, has noticeably poorer speeds with a decent to middling signalworse than the OnePlus 7 Pro, which has the same X24 modem, but also behind last years V40. Things get a bit shaky for the iPhone XS Max when the test moves to poor signal. This is where the iPhone XS Max saw the slowest speeds. It was handily outperformed by the OnePlus 7 Pro and the Galaxy S10. With a poor signal, which is really where you need help, the OnePlus 7 Pro pulls ahead. You dont see the LG V40 line on this chart because its mostly twinned with the OnePlus 7. You can also see how the iPhone XS Max is noticeably slower than the other phones when things get bad. Signal strength has been a point of contention for Apple for many years, and it probably will remain that way into the new iPhones in 2019. Apple is expected to stick with Intel for LTE modems this year. However, looking beyond that, Apple and Qualcomm will team up and future 5G iPhones will boast Qualcomm chips under the hood. [via PCMag Irma Vazquez said her passion for education began when she was a student in Bryan schools, and she wants to have a similar impact on her own students. I had great teachers, and they really helped me be like, Man I want to be like them, she said. I guess they were like my role models, and I feel honored to be working alongside them now. A 2008 Bryan High School graduate, Vazquez is completing her third year teaching in the first grade bilingual classroom at Fannin Elementary School. She said her background allows her to have a deeper connection with her students and their parents. I know sometimes parents, they work many jobs because they came here to America so they could provide a better life for their child, and so I do know that sometimes parents work mostly all day and they dont have time to do homework or read with then, so I guess all that is built into the way I teach, she said. Vazquezs dad, who moved to Bryan from Mexico, was her inspiration to go back to school after starting a family shortly after enrolling at Blinn College. Olson said that 1985 was the worst year of his time in the CIA, which immediately followed a 10-year golden age for the agency, he said. He shared about four people who ranged from convicted to accused spies: Edward Lee Eddie Howard, a disgruntled former CIA officer who was working for the KGB; Aldrich Rick Ames, who is still in prison after he sold names of more than a dozen American agents in the Russian system; Sgt. Clayton Lonetree, who was convicted in 1987 and became the first Marine to be convicted of spying against the United States; and accused spy Felix Bloch. Bloch, Olson said, never really paid the price for his treason. Bloch lived a triple life, according to Olson: He held a State Department job for more than 30 years and carried on friendships with many in the international intelligence community, including the Olsons. Olson described him next as a sexual pervert and third as a spy for the KGB. Bloch now lives comfortably in Austria, Olson said, because the government could not gather enough evidence to charge him with a crime. Researchers with Texas A&Ms Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs stood before more than 300 elected officials, scientists, nonprofit representatives and business leaders in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to present a 56-page study on pandemics that featured recommendations for the abatement of mass disease. The paper, compiled as a result of Scowcrofts Fourth Annual Pandemic Policy Summit hosted in College Station this past fall, provides numerous points for leaders and influencers across the world to consider. Tuesday marked the third annual Pandemic & Biosecurity Forum that Texas A&M and the Scowcroft Institute have hosted at the National Press Club in the nations capitol. According to Gerald Parker, associate dean for Global One Health at A&Ms College of Veterinary Medicine and director of Scowcrofts Pandemic & Biosecurity Program, the event was hosted amidst a critical public health climate. He pointed out the recent influx of Ebola diagnoses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the rise in measles cases across the United States. We have made a lot of progress in terms of pandemic preparedness, but we remain dangerously vulnerable, both the United states and the international community, Parker said. Olin had a passion for working with his hands. He was a master craftsman and designed and built countless kites, model airplanes and dollhouses for his children. It seemed as if there was nothing he did not know how to fix, whether it was meticulously repairing a piece of handcrafted doll furniture or rebuilding the engine of a Camaro. Olin was an Eagle Scout and spent years enjoying passing on the Scouting tradition. He, along with Sue, served as a Cub Scout and Webelo Den Leader for his son. After retirement, Olin spent many years as a merit badge counselor with his grandson's troop, Boy Scout Troop 1222 mentoring numerous scouts in College Station. He was proud to pass on his Eagle Scout medal to his only grandson in 2017. At 9:20 a.m. on May 14, police responded to a call from Saint Cyprian Children's Center at 6223 Cedar Avenue in Cobbs Creek for reports of a boy acting out of character. They found crack on him. (Google Maps) 5-Year-Old Brings 22 Bags of Crack Cocaine to Preschool in Philadelphia: Reports A 5-year-old brought 22 bags of crack cocaine to his preschool in Philadelphia on May 14, alarming staff, according to reports. Police said an investigation is underway as to how the child obtained the drugs. Authorities said they are investigating the boys father, who is a 27-year-old from Darby, 6ABC reported. An investigation is underway after a 5-year-old boy brought nearly two dozen packs of crack cocaine to a Philadelphia day care Tuesday morning, police said. @Laurenjmayk has the story: https://t.co/uRtYxeZHug pic.twitter.com/Ppd8Nm9hZj NBC10 Philadelphia (@NBCPhiladelphia) May 14, 2019 At 9:20 a.m. on May 14, police responded to a call from Saint Cyprian Childrens Center at 6223 Cedar Avenue in Cobbs Creek for reports of a boy acting strangely. Officials were told he was hiding something in his pocket. The boy was found to have a clear plastic bag containing 22 purple zip lock bags of crack cocaine in the pocket, the report said. The person who gave him the crack told him to keep the drugs hidden, the boy allegedly told a teacher, 6ABC reported. NBC Philadelphia reported that it was allegedly the boys father who told the child to keep the bag in his pocket and not take it out. The drugs werent given to any other children. I feel like its just the parents fault, a father of a child at the daycare center told the NBC affiliate He added, Weve got to do better with raising our kids. We have to be more responsible about what were doing in our own homes instead of worrying about whats going on outside of them. No arrests have been made in the case. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia released a statement about the matter, saying its staff are working with police. The aide reported the matter to an administrator, who immediately called 911. Police responded to the call and determined the substance in the bag to be crack-cocaine. Law enforcement secured the bag and removed it from the premises. Staff and administration from the Childrens Center have cooperated fully with police during the course of their investigative work throughout the day and will continue to do so, the statement read, according to the Philly Voice. It added: Information regarding this matter was communicated to all families served by the Childrens Center earlier today. We are grateful to the Philadelphia Police Department for their swift response and their ongoing partnership with us in maintaining safe environments for the children and young people entrusted to the care of the Church and her various ministries. The identities of the boy and his father were not disclosed. Other details about the case are not clear. Parrot Warns Crack Dealers In Brazil, police last month was taken into police custody after it apparently warned his drug-dealing owner when police were about to raid, according to The Independent newspaper. He must have been trained for that, a police officer involved in the operation told the outlet. As soon as police got close, he began shouting. The parrot was placed in a cage in a police station. So far it hasnt made a sound, a local journalist said. The parrot was later taken to the Teresina Zoo. Its owner had been busted before for drug trafficking, and her husband was arrested during the drug raid after police found crack cocaine at his home. Drug addiction is a serious problem that affects people from all walks of life, but help is available at all hours of the day. Drug abuse hotlines are an excellent place for people with questions about addiction and potential treatment. Drug treatment advisors are available 24 hours per day, seven days a week by calling 1-888-744-0069 or by visiting Drugabuse.com. Paris Jackson before attending the Versace presentation in New York, on Dec. 2, 2018. (Allison Joyce/Reuters, File Photo) Actor Who Allegedly Attacked Paris Jackson Dies After Jumping Off Bridge: Reports An actor who allegedly choked model Paris Jackson and accused several actors and directors of pedophilia died after reportedly jumping off a bridge. Isaac Kappy jumped to his death on May 13 in Bellmont, Arizona, reported TMZ. The Arizona Department of Public Safety confirmed his death. Kappy allegedly forced himself off a road bridge onto Interstate 40 where he was hit by a Ford truck, said officials, reported the Arizona Daily Sun. We dont know why Mr. Kappy took his own life, DPS spokesman Bart Graves wrote in an email to the news outlet. Several people attempted to restrain him from jumping but failed to do so. Kappy then jumped off the bridge to his death, TMZ reported. No one else was injured in the incident. Kappy left an Instagram post: Beware the man has nothing to lose, for he has nothing to protect. See the light in others This lesson has come too late for me, but perhaps it can inspire you. I will be using the remainder of my time on earth to atone for my transgressions, and to seek the light within, in others and myself, he wrote. Everything you need to know about Isaac Kappy, the actor who threatened Paris Jackson and Seth Green https://t.co/FgWhcygJT5 pic.twitter.com/DGIVNIgzeZ Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) August 1, 2018 In August 2018, he allegedly choked Jackson during a party and continued to send text messages to her, reported the Daily Mail. He appeared in Terminator Salvation, Thor, and Beerfest. 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. Suicide Hotlines In Australia, the suicide prevention telephone hotline at Lifeline is 13 11 14. You can also visit the Lifeline website at lifeline.org.au. Youth can contact the Kids Helpline by phoning 1800 551 800 or visiting headspace.org.au/yarn-safe If you are in an emergency in the U.S. or Canada, please call 911. You can phone the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1 800 273 8255. Youth can call the Kids Help Phone on 1800 668 6868. If you are in an emergency in India, call Befrienders India National Association at +91 33 2474 4704. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signs a bill that virtually outlaws abortion in the state on May 15, 2019. (Hal Yeager/Alabama Governor's Office via AP) Alabama Governor Signs Bill Designed to Overturn Roe v. Wade, Enable State-Level Abortion Restrictions The governor of Alabama has signed a bill designed to lead to a new Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that hamstrung states ability to restrict abortion. The bill passed the state Senate on May 14 and was signed into law one day later by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey. It outlaws all abortions except in cases when the pregnancy puts the prospective mothers life is at risk. While it doesnt penalize a woman for undergoing an abortion, it makes it a felony to perform it, imposing penalties of 10 to 99 years in prison. Alabama Democrats, and even some Republicans, criticized the bill for being too strict. But state Rep. Terri Collins, the Republican who introduced the bill, suggested it was intentionally uncompromising so as to increase the chance that it would result in a challenge to Roe v. Wade. Collins and others are banking on pro-abortion entities to challenge the law in courts until the case is eventually picked up by the Supreme Court, where the laws legal reasoning could strike at the core legal argument behind Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade The landmark 1973 decision established that it is part of a womans right to privacy to undergo abortion (pdf). It ruled that states cant regulate abortion in the first trimester, when the decision must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant womans attending physician. After the first trimester, states can only regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. States can only ban abortion after viability, meaning potentially able to live outside the mothers womb, albeit with artificial aid. Even there, however, abortion must be allowed where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Lower courts have subsequently ruled that even a risk to the mental health of the woman provides sufficient grounds for aborting a viable baby. Roes Story The Roe v. Wade decision was based on the case of Norma McCorvey, a 21-year-old drug addict living on the streets when she fell pregnant in 1969 with her third child. McCorvey had already given up one child for adoption. At the time, McCorvey said she had been raped and was thus eligible for a legal abortion in Texas, but her request was refused because she couldnt provide a police report proving that she had reported the rape. She was approached by Linda Coffee, a lawyer who wanted to challenge abortion restrictions and was looking for a pregnant woman she could introduce as the plaintiff for her case. McCorvey became that woman, entering the lawsuit anonymously as Jane Roe. Together with another lawyer, Sarah Weddington, who ultimately argued the case before the Supreme Court, Coffee got the 72 decision saying that a woman has a right to abortion free of interference by the state. Decades later, McCorvey admitted that she made up the rape story. She said that at the time, she didnt want to go through the pain of giving up another baby for adoption, so she opted for abortion instead. But because the case took years to resolve, she ended up having the baby and putting it up for adoption. In her 2005 congressional testimony (pdf), she said, I am glad today that that child is alive and that I did not elect to abort. McCorvey said that after spending years working at abortion clinics, she realized that abortion is wrong, not only because it kills the unborn, but because it traumatizes the women who undergo it. Participating in the murder of your own child will eat away at your conscience forever if you do not take steps to cleanse your conscience, she said. Nearly 56 million babies were aborted between 1973 and 2014, estimated from the yearly average based on data collected by the Guttmacher Institute. McCorvey said she felt partially responsible by letting her story be used in the lawsuit. Personhood The Alabama law takes aim at the core issue of whether an unborn child can be considered a person, as discussed in Roe v. Wade. In the Supreme Courts 1973 decision, the justices acknowledged that if this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellants case, of course, collapses, for the fetuss right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment. The court sided against Texas in this argument, stating that neither the Constitution, nor Texass own statutes, suggested that an unborn child should be treated as a person. The Alabama law (pdf) defines a person as a human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability. The law appears designed to make the argument that, this time, the state is serious about treating the unborn as human beings who should be granted legal protection. The lawmakers even rejected an amendment that would allow abortion in instances of rape and incest, in what seems to be an attempt not to undermine the personhood reasoning. Ive answered many emails from people who have poured out their hearts with real stories, Collins told AL.com. My goal with this bill is not to hurt them in any way. My goal with this bill, and I think all of our goals, is to have Roe v. Wade turned over, and that decision be sent back to the states so that we can come up with our laws that address and include amendments and things that address those issues. Governors in Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio have already signed into law bills that prohibit abortion later than about six weeks into pregnancy. Other Republican-led states have similar bills on the way. The Alabama one, however, appears to be the strictest. The American Civil Liberties Union has pledged to challenge the Alabama law in court. Supreme Court The current wave of anti-abortion legislation came after Trump appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018, tilting the bench to five conservative-leaning justices versus four liberal-leaning ones. Trump already appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017. Its not clear whether the conservative-leaning justices will be persuaded to reconsider Roe v. Wade. If they strike it down, its not clear how theyd choose to redraw the lines on abortion restrictions. Several states with Democrat-controlled legislatures have proceeded to preemptively relax their abortion restrictions. New York has passed a law allowing abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy for any reason. A similar bill was introduced in Virginia. A child born at 24 weeks already has more than a 50 percent chance of surviving if provided hospital care, a 2015 study found. Deregulating abortion appears to clash with the beliefs of most Americans. The number of voluntarily reported abortions has been decreasing for years. And while about 1 in 9 abortions happens in the second trimester or later, according to the Guttmacher Institute, only 28 percent of Americans think abortion should generally be legal at that stage, according to Gallup. If anything, Americans appear to have shifted away from supporting abortion. A Feb. 1217 Marist Poll found that 47 percent of Americans identified as pro-life, meaning generally anti-abortion, while 47 percent identified as pro-choice, meaning generally pro-abortion. Just a month prior, the poll showed pro-choice identification prevailing 55 to 38 percent. Sen. Clyde Chambliss speaks as debate on HB314 is held in the senate chamber in the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday May 14, 2019. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via AP) Alabama Passes Bill That Bans Nearly All Abortions The Alabama State Senate passed a bill Tuesday, May 14, to make abortion and attempted abortion a felony offense for the abortion providerexcept in cases where abortion is needed to prevent a serious health risk to the mother. The woman who receives an abortion will not be criminally liable. According to the bill (pdf), those who successfully perform an abortion would be charged with a class A felony and face a punishment of 10-99 years in prison. Those who attempt to perform an abortion would be charged with a class C felony and face 1-10 years in prison. The Republican-led Senate voted to pass the legislationHouse Bill 314, or The Alabama Human Life Protection Actin a 25 to 6 vote. Republicans hold 27 of 35 Senate seats. The bill passed after four-and-a-half hours of debate, according to AL.com. No Democrats voted for the bill. On the day, Democrats had unsuccessfully pushed for an amendment that would create exceptions for instances of rape and incest. The amendment was voted down 21-11. Four Republicans voted for the rape and incest exception. The bill now heads to Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, who has not confirmed whether she will sign the bill into law. The governor intends to withhold comment until she has had a chance to thoroughly review the final version of the bill that passed, deputy press secretary Lori Jhons said in a statement after the vote. If the bill becomes law, it would take effect in six months. Critics have promised a swift lawsuit. Randall Marshall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alabama, said a complaint is being drafted. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood will file a lawsuit to stop this unconstitutional ban and protect every womans right to make her own choice about her healthcare, her body, and her future, the ACLU of Alabama said in a statement after the vote. The state of Alabama ought to be ashamed of herself. You ought to be ashamed. Go look in the mirror, Sen. Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) said, according to the Associated Press. Women in this state didnt deserve this. This is all about political grandstanding. But Sen. Clyde Chambliss (R-Prattville), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said that all unborn children deserve protection, AL.com reported. Human life has rights, and when someone takes those rights, thats when we as government have to step in, Chambliss said according to the Guardian. When God creates that life, that miracle of life inside the womans womb, its not our place as humans to extinguish that life. Thats what I believe. Challenging Roe v. Wade Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur) sponsored the bill and introduced it about six weeks ago. She said that the goal was to pass the bill in a form that would be able to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in the strongest way. The Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 made it legal to have an abortion nationwide by prohibiting states from banning abortions prior to when the fetus is deemed viable, that is, potentially able to live outside its mothers womb. In Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court said that if unborn children are persons, then they have the right to life. The decision concluded that unborn children are not persons, and acknowledged that the case to prohibit states from banning abortions would collapse if the fetus is a person, because then its right to life would then be guaranteed by the Constitution. According to AL.com, Collins said that if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states could then later decide what exceptions to allow. Collins said that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, she would support a rape and incest exception. Ive answered many emails from people who have poured out their hearts with real stories that were true, Collins told AL.com. My goal with this bill is not to hurt them in any way. My goal with this bill, and I think all of our goals, is to have Roe vs. Wade turned over, and that decision be sent back to the states so that we can come up with our laws that address and include amendments and things that address those issues. Roe v. Wade has ended the lives of millions of children, Chambliss said in a statement, AP reported. While we cannot undo the damage that decades of legal precedence under Roe have caused, this bill has the opportunity to save the lives of millions of unborn children. After the bill passed, Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth expressed his support. With liberal states approving radical late-term and post-birth abortions, Roe must be challenged, and I am proud that Alabama is leading the way, Ainsworth wrote on Twitter. Alabamas state motto is We Dare Defend Our Rights, and today we have taken a strong step toward defending the rights of the unborn. With liberal states approving radical late-term and post-birth abortions, Roe must be challenged, and I am proud that Alabama is leading the way. pic.twitter.com/9femod4YTG Will Ainsworth (@willainsworthAL) May 15, 2019 Chambliss was asked about the legal costs the state would incur if the bill becomes law and is challenged in court. Life is a gift of our Creator and we must do everything that we can to protect life, he responded, AL.com reported. And if it is a couple of million dollars, that is a small, small price for those lives. During the 2018 midterms in Alabama, 59 percent of voters had expressed support for a policy amendment to make it clear that citizens do not have a right to abortion and their states are not obliged to fund abortions. That amendment was approved. On May 7, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed into law a Heartbeat Bill that prohibits abortions after a heartbeat is detected in an embryo, which is about six weeks into a pregnancy. In doing so, Kemp became the fourth governor in the country to sign such a bill within the past year, joining the governors of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio. Iowa enacted a similar bill last year. The Associated Press contributed to this report And So It Begins Commentary On May 11, Rod Rosenstein left the Department of Justice after a distinguished 29-year career. On May 13, it became public that Attorney General William Barr has tasked U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham to look into the origins of the investigations into the Trump campaign. This means Durham will receive the evidence that the teams working under DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber have been collecting for more than a year and a half. So despite what you may be hearing from some media commentators, Durham wont be starting an investigation from scratch with nothing. While some continue to insist that nothing was happening until 10 minutes ago when Barr arrived, the truth is quite different. Investigations into the Spygate plotters and leakers, such as former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI general counsel James Baker, and many others were already started long ago. Durham is going to be the immediate beneficiary of all that hard work. His appointment by Barr means that a lot of things that have been kept out of sight are going to start coming out. Remembering Hubers Role A lot of media commentary Ive seen during the past two days completely misses the point about why then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions tapped Huber and a team of prosecutors to assist Horowitz in his Spygate investigations. It was back on March 29, 2018, that Sessions wrote a letter to lawmakers chairing the various Senate and House committees that he had appointed Huber to work in tandem with Horowitzs office. That letter was written by Sessions in response to a letter he received from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.), and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), in which they demanded the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the origins of the TrumpRussia collusion hoax. In that letter, Sessions stated the following: As noted in Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyds November 13, 2017, letter to the House Committee on the Judiciary, I already have directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues raised by the Committee. Sessions then wrote, Specifically, I asked United States Attorney John W. Huber to lead this effort. So an unknown number of senior federal prosecutors were placed under Hubers leadership, forming a team. To do what, exactly? Sessions spells that out as he continues: Mr. Huber is conducting his work from outside the Washington D.C. Area and in cooperation with the Inspector General. The additional matters raised in your March 6, 2018, letter fall within the scope of his mandate, and I am confident that Mr. Hubers review will include a full, complete, and objective evaluation of these matters in a manner that is consistent with the law and the facts. I receive regular updates from Mr. Huber and upon the conclusion of his review, will receive his recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel. So this special team of senior federal prosecutors that Huber was tapped to lead is doing its work far outside of Washington, which is a big reason that the usual Washington leak-culture suspects in Congress and in the news media have been unable to leak details from it. As the inspector general for the DOJ, Horowitz has limited authority outside of the department. He has no ability to pursue people who are no longer there, such as former DOJ and FBI employees who were fired or who saw the handwriting on the wall and quickly resigned and left starting in early 2017. That might have put them outside of Horowitzs reach, but not Hubers. While Horowitz could dig deeply into the activities of those who were involved in the TrumpRussia related investigations inside the DOJ and at the FBI during the 2016 election and beyond, he had extremely limited ability when it came to investigating other federal departments and agencies such as the CIA or the State Department, both of whom had officials there play key roles in this scandal. It must also be remembered that several nongovernment entities played crucial roles in Spygate, including private contractors such as Fusion GPS. While Horowitz couldnt subpoena any witnesses or records outside of the DOJ, Huber could, which is exactly why Sessions formed this team of senior prosecutors and then put Huber in charge of it. While many assume an investigation being run out of the DOJ should wrap up in just a few months, thats often not the case. Some investigations can take years. Those involved in the Spygate plot to spy on a presidential campaign and then attempted to orchestrate a coup against an incoming presidential administration got to take their best shot at Trump first. Comey got the special counsel he wanted to be appointed, and for two years, they were led to believe they had Trump on the ropes. Now the plotters are the ones who are going to be investigated. Theyd better gird their loins. Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and author of Nobody Asked For My Opinion But Here It Is Anyway! He can be reached on Twitter at @drawandstrike. Lately, news outlets have been screaming about a court case regarding Apples App Store. If youre not familiar with the matter, Apple has been accused of creating a monopoly with the App Store by blocking any third-party stores or apps from being installed on iOS devices, as well as charging a 30% tax on everything sold on iOS devices using apps, something companies like Spotify have been very vocal about. The court case has been going on since 2011, but it finally seems like it may reach a conclusion, and lets just say that Apple is in a lot of trouble. We saw Google being hit with an anti-trust case by the EU commission a few weeks ago, due to them forcing Android phone manufacturers to sideload Google Apps on their devices if they wanted access to the Google Play Store, which manufacturers obviously did. Now, when you first set up an Android phone in the European Union, you will be greeted with a screen asking you what browser youd like to install and what other apps youd personally prefer to use due to Google losing the case. Apples problem Now, Apple is in an even worse situation as there are virtually no alternatives to the Safari browser. Apple has been preventing engines other than their own WebKit from being published on the App Store. Every browser you see on iOS is just a glorified WebView powered by Apples Safari. If you were wondering, thats the reason Firefox for iOS doesnt support extensions; because it isnt really Firefox. Why is it so much worse for Apple than it is for Google then? Because Google at least let people change the apps and didnt block competing browser engines from the market, which Apple is doing. Its something the court may pay attention to and fine Apple even heavier if the outcome of the case ends up being negative for the Cupertino giant. Android setup screen with third-party apps to pick and choose from In regards to other apps, none of the stock iOS apps made by Apple can be replaced with alternatives properly. Sure, you can always install Outlook, but when you click email addresses in other apps, they will instead open up Apple Mail. Even if you uninstall some of Apples apps, you wont be greeted with your preferred app. Instead, a prompt asking you to go and re-download Apples own app will show up. Apple simply does not provide an option to change the default preferences for apps as every other operating system has for the past 30 years. What about security? So why is this court case a good thing? And why should you want Apple to lose, even if youre a die-hard fruit fan? Its because of freedom. You as an end-user will only gain from opening up iOS. If youre thinking of bringing up security as an argument, dont. Because it isnt one. Security in iOS wouldnt change in the slightest. It would be just as robust and solid as it has always been. Apple just doesnt want you to know that. Regular users will simply stick with the App Store and not download apps from outside sources, just like it has always been on Android. Almost every case of big security scandals surrounding the Android ecosystem has been about infected apps on the Play Store, not users downloading apps from outside of it. This would likely be the case with iOS as well. What does this mean? Outlook third-party apps support, via @ManinderSV If Apple loses this case, they will have to open up iOS to allow you to change the default apps to your actual preferred apps, but not only that. Browsers like Kiwi Browser and Firefox could finally implement Chromium and Gecko engines respectively and allow users to install extensions on their mobile browsers. Doesnt that sound beautiful? iOS has always been hindered by not letting users use their devices as they want. Apple users, while often having higher quality apps, they suffered in terms of features as workarounds were needed to fit Apples requirements. Spotify is a perfect example, a party very vocal about the issue. Subscription to Spotify via the App Store was phased out in 2015 due to costs of operation which were caused by Apples 30% cut. This forced Apple customers to have to subscribe via the website, something unfavoured by people paying via the phone bill payment feature in the App Store. Another example is Outlook having to manually add support for opening links in third-party apps, such as Google Maps, Waze, Microsoft Edge, Chrome and more. Its not officially supported, but if developers are willing to co-operate, or if their APIs are opened up, other developers can try to circumvent Apples restrictions. In a perfect world, this default app screen wouldnt exist inside Outlook itself, it would exist inside of iOS settings system-wide. And we are close to that timeline where its actually possible. The death of jailbreaking? While it may be a huge blow towards Apples tightly-controlled ecosystem, they could also benefit from losing the case. Of course, they would rather not, but if they do, fewer people will have a reason to jailbreak their devices, letting Apple have more control over the end-user experience for those people, just like Apple always wanted. A move like this would make jailbreaking mostly obsolete as a lot of the jailbreaking features users want would end up being available as simple apps where possible. While I dont see the core jailbreaking community fading away anytime soon, a lot of casual jailbreakers would turn their backs on the community, especially if iOS 13 is as big of an upgrade as we expect it to be. Most jailbreakers only want some simple and minor changes to the OS, like a less intrusive volume HUD or changing the default mail app. Apple losing the case in addition to iOS 13 would be a dream come true for a lot of people, including myself. People might assume that just because Apple would be forced to open up iOS that would mean everything would suddenly turn into Android. No, it wont. Apple still wont allow custom themes, likely wont allow changing the homescreen at all (but thats up for debate depending on what the court order says), overlays wont be possible, so no Facebook Messanger bubbles like on Android, and much more will stay just the way you like it. It would still be iOS, just a little bit more friendly. Think of it as your workplace switching from a standard uniform to letting you wear your regular clothes. Bottom line Apple losing the court case benefits developers by letting them sell products via the App Store platform without having to charge an additional 30%, something that has been pushed onto users in the past. In addition to that, Apple would be forced to open up iOS for third-party apps that have been blocked from the App Store, like Steam Link and numerous apps from smaller developers that havent had their voices heard. This is phenomenal for end-users as it allows for a more competitive market on the iOS platform leading to not only more customisation but also more robust products from different companies as none would have the advantage of owning the platform. In short, Spotify will get better, so will Apple Music, you will be able to install Steam Link and [email protected] will open up in Gmail or Outlook, not Apple Mail. Thats a good thing. Another Ex-Danske Bank Executive Charged in Money Laundering Scandal COPENHAGENDanish prosecutors have filed preliminary charges against former Danske Bank executive Lars Morch as part of their investigation into the banks involvement in one of the worlds biggest money-laundering scandals. The move, confirmed by Morch on his LinkedIn profile, takes the total number of former Danske managers facing preliminary charges in the case to nine, people with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters. Morch, responsible for business banking including the Baltic operations of Denmarks biggest bank from 2012 until he resigned in April last year, did not detail the preliminary charges, and his lawyer declined to give further comment. The prosecutors also declined to comment. Two sources familiar with the matter said others facing preliminary charges were accused of breaching Danish money laundering laws. The case relates to some 200 billion euros ($225 billion) of suspicious transactions that passed through Danske Banks Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015. Former Danske chief executive Thomas Borgen, who stepped down last October when the scale of the scandal became clear in an internal report, was also among the people charged, newspaper Berlingske reported last week, citing his lawyer. Borgens lawyer did not reply to emails and phone calls seeking comment. Former chief financial officer Henrik Ramlau-Hansen has also been charged, he said in an email on May 14, confirming a newspaper report from May 13. Ramlau-Hansen was finance director from 2001 to 2015. He then chaired the Danish financial regulator from 2016 until he stepped down in May last year as he did not think he should play any further role in the discussion of Danskes handling of the case. Danskes former Group General Counsel Flemming Pristed, who resigned in October last year, was charged as well, his lawyer Jens Christensen told Reuters. Copenhagen-based lawyer Arvid Andersen confirmed that one of his clients had been charged in the case too, but said he had asked for a publication ban of his clients name. Denmarks state prosecutor filed preliminary charges against Danske Bank in November for alleged violations of the countrys anti-money laundering act in relation to its Estonian branch. The prosecutor said at the time he would clarify whether individuals could be held responsible. By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen Beijing Begins to Regulate Supply and Prices of Grains, Cooking Oil as Trade War Escalates Beijing issued an emergency control plan to regulate the supply and prices of grains and cooking oil on May 13. The timing comes amid increased trade tensions with the United States, as well as recent news that natural disasters have led to a drop in domestic grain production. The citys Commission of Development and Reform claimed that the plan would ensure Beijings grain and oil supply and prices are within the normal range, according to a May 13 report by the state-run Beijing News. But the regulations hint at anxieties over food security. The commission said it would monitor fluctuations in the average wholesale price of major grain products, such as japonica rice (the most commonly consumed rice variety in China) and enriched flour, as well as cooking oils such as soybean oil. Each product will be assigned an alarm indicator level: safe, moderately dangerous, or severely dangerous, based on the degree of their price fluctuations. For products that hit the moderately dangerous level, authorities will check national stockpiles, enhance market supervision, and seek out price forecasts. For those that hit the severely dangerous level, authorities will begin to put stockpiles in the national granaries onto the market, identify new sources for purchasing, and interfere with market pricing. For food security, the Chinese regime has implemented a system of grain reserves. State-run food companies fill warehouses with grain purchased from local farmers, and prices are kept low with subsidies from the central government. The report quoted an official at the Commission as saying that the plan takes into account a long-term outlook, when China is facing complex domestic and international environments. The latter is a hint at the current trade dispute with the United States. Qin Peng, a U.S.-based Chinese commentator on financial issues, told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on May 13 that Beijings new regulations are very likely related to the escalation of U.S.-China trade frictions. Beijing authorities targeted japonica rice, enriched flour, and soybean oil. For the raw material used to make the latter twoChina heavily relies on imports from the United States. Qin believes prices for enriched flour and soybean oil could go up dramatically as the trade war intensifies. The U.S. administration on May 10 imposed a tariff increase on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, raising duties to 25 percent from 10 percent. In retaliation, Beijing announced on the evening of May 13 that it would boost tariffs, ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent, on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. The new tariff rates include 25 percent tariffs on a range of cooking oils such as soybean, peanut, olive, sunflower, and coconut oils. However, staple food products, such as fresh pork, soybeans, wheat, and sorghum, are noticeably absent from the new tariff list. Facing insufficient domestic grain production due to droughts and a spreading crop disease, Beijing appears to have left U.S. imports of staple crops off the new tariff list to avoid a food crisis. Chinese authorities recently confirmed that a destructive pest called fall armyworm has already plagued many parts of China. Fall armyworm has no natural predators in China and can cause significant damage to crops such as corn, rice, wheat, sorghum, barley, sugarcane, soybeans, and peanuts. All these factors have put great pressure on Chinas food supply. And with trade negotiations having ended in Washington last week with no reached agreement, U.S. imports are an uncertain future. Qin believes that based on Beijings habitual behavior of aggressive retaliation, the authorities could further escalate tariffs or even enact an embargo on U.S. agricultural importsleading to further price increases for grains and cooking oils in China. The widespread outbreak of African swine fever in China, which has led to scores of pig deaths, has already caused a sharp increase in pork prices. In April, Chinas CPI rose by 2.5 percent year-on-year, the highest level since November 2018, according to the latest data from Chinas National Bureau of Statistics. Pork prices rose by 14.4 percent. Epoch Times commentator He Jian pointed out that Chinas neighbors in the South China Sea region are another source for agricultural imports. However, due to Chinas aggressive actions to assert its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, its relations with those countries are rocky. If the diplomatic situation there worsens, it may also affect food prices, He said. He noted that Beijings recent regulations to curb rising prices could be an attempt to prevent unhappy consumers from challenging the authorities rule. Martin Lee speaks during the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing in Washington on May 15, 2019.(Screenshot/YouTube) Hong Kong Activists Urge US Assistance in Fighting Extradition Bill Hong Kong pro-democracy activists urged U.S. officials during a congressional hearing on May 15 to help fight an extradition bill that would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China. During the hearing held by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), the Hongkongers expressed their concern about the Hong Kong governments plans to amend its extradition laws in as soon as two weeks, amid the citys diminishing autonomy since it was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Because the majority of Hong Kongs unicameral legislature, the Legislative Council (LegCo), is pro-Beijing, the amendments are expected to be approved. U.S. Congress members and the witnesses discussed how the proposed extradition bill may hurt not only Hong Kongs free speech, rule of law, and democracy, but also Hong Kongs economy and every aspect of society. Because the Chinese regime goes by rule by law, not rule of law, anyone who angers Beijing could be at risk of criminal prosecution, said Martin Lee, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former lawmaker. That includes 85,000 American expats currently living in Hong Kong. U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), the CECC chairman, concluded: Todays testimonies are incredibly powerful. I think you have made clearly the urgency of the situation. Current Situation Four Hongkongers gave testimonies during the hearing, including Nathan Law, one of the leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy protests known as the Umbrella Movement. He said the Hong Kong court jailing him and other leaders of the Umbrella Movement in 2018 was an example of the citys deterioration of civil rights. Also, Law was disqualified from his elected seat in the LegCo in 2017, which would have made him the youngest lawmaker in Hong Kongs history. He was disqualified over the manner in which he took his oath to public office, a ruling made possible after the Chinese regime intervened in issuing a new interpretation of the citys constitution. Several other pro-democracy lawmakers were also disqualified under similar circumstances. Law said: I, myself, am the felicitous example [of human rights encroachment]. Mak Yin Ting, a journalist and former chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, remarked on the declining press freedoms in the city, noting that Hong Kongs ranking on Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index in 1997 was around 20th, but this year, the city slipped to 73rd. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) asked whether Hong Kong reporters are afraid of the Chinese regime, to which Mak responded: In the survey we conducted earlier this year, 22 percent of [Hong Kong] journalists are under pressure from supervisors when theyre reporting on the Hong Kong independence issue to not cover such topics. In recent years, some voices in Hong Kong have called for formal independence from mainland China: a taboo topic for Beijing. Mak added that many Hong Kong media self-censor, in fear of repercussions if they criticize Beijing. She feared the situation would get worse if the extradition bill is passedas journalists and editors will be even more scared to anger the Beijing government. Concerns About Extradition Bill Regarding the new extradition measures, U.S. Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-N.Y.) asked the witnesses how they thought the U.S. government could help. The witnesses said they hoped the Congress could send a working team to Hong Kong as soon as possible to talk to the current pro-Beijing chief executive, Carrie Lam. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) remarked on the importance of U.S. support for such efforts: Its in everybodys interests that Hong Kong remains a free and prosperous bridge between China and West If the United States and the international community does not defend the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong citizens now, theres little hope that freedom can take a root in mainland China in the future. McGovern added: We are on the side of the people of Hong Kong. We are on your side. We are certainly taking your suggestion seriously and will do the necessary follow-up. Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Alexander Downer is pictured at Number 11 Downing Street in London on Jan. 24, 2017. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Australian Diplomat at Center of Russia Hoax Also Has China, Clinton Foundation Links Former Australian High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer is famous for telling the FBI about something he heard in 2016 in a London pub from a young campaign aide to then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Less well-known is Downers connection to Chinese intelligence and to the Clinton Foundation. Smartphone maker Huawei appointed Downer to its board of directors in 2011. He defended the firm, despite years of U.S. intelligence warnings that its a tool of Chinese intelligence. Worries about Huaweis role in Chinese spying in the United States are so great that President Donald Trump will sign an executive order this week banning the use of the firms telecommunications equipment by U.S. companies. Trumps order results from a February 2018 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in which the leaders of the top six U.S. agencies with counterintelligence duties warned that Huawei is a tool of Chinese spymasters. Were deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that dont share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks, FBI Director Chris Wray told the committee. That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure, Wray said. It provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage. Joining Wray in the warning were the chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Concerns about Huawei arent new, as seen in a 2012 report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which strongly encouraged U.S. firms not to use Huawei equipment or that of another Chinese company, ZTE, because Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems. The report, which represented a devastating blow to Huaweis prospects for gaining U.S. market share, noted that opportunities to tamper with telecommunications components and systems are present throughout product development, and vertically integrated industry giants like Huawei and ZTE provide a wealth of opportunities for Chinese intelligence agencies to insert malicious hardware or software implants into critical telecommunications components and systems. The report further detailed more than a dozen critical ways in which Huawei representatives failed to cooperate with the committees investigation. Such concerns didnt, however, prevent Downer from being a prominent defender of Huawei in the period prior to and following the Australian governments decision to bar the use of the Chinese firms telecom equipment. The Australian said then that Downer seems full of zeal to defend Huawei. Downer opposed transmitting a message that somehow we are paranoid about Chinese investment, and he noted that Australia then bought an estimated $120 billion worth of telecommunications equipment from Chinese firms. We would be foolish to close ourselves off from that technology, Downer said, according to IT News. A strong relationship with China and a mature relationship with China will guarantee we have access to that technology as it evolves. There are of course risks involved with the emergence of any new, great power [but] there are enormous risks involved if we endeavor to bypass China, to turn our backs on China. Downer utterly rejected criticism of Huawei, saying in another 2012 interview that this sort of whole concept of Huawei being involved in cyber warfare, presumably that would just be based on the fact that the company comes from China. This is just completely absurd. Downer left the Huawei board in 2014, according to the companys Washington spokesman. Papadopoulos Meeting Downer became Australias ambassador to the UK in 2014 and was serving in that role when he met in 2016 with Trump aide George Papadopoulos, who allegedly told him Russians had incriminating information about Trumps presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was Downers tip to the FBI about that conversation that ultimately led to special counsel Robert Muellers two-year investigation that concluded no American colluded with Russians to influence the 2016 election. Papadopoulos denies Downers description of their conversation and claimed that the Australian was helping elements of the U.S. government in developing the false Russia collusion allegation against Trump. For his part, Downer strenuously denies having any such role, claiming he was too high-ranking in the diplomatic community for such activities. In addition to serving in London as Australian ambassador, Downer was also associated with a British spy firm, London-based Hakluyt & Co., serving on its board of directors from 2008 to 2014. Downer was also an ally of Clinton, helping, as then-minister of foreign affairs, to direct a $25 million grant to the Clinton Foundation in 2006 for AIDS/HIV services. Bhutanese Conjoined Twins Return Home After Surgery in Australia Conjoined twins who received lifesaving surgery in Australia have returned home to Bhutan this month, according to reports. Nima and Dawa Pelden, along with mother Bhumchu, arrived in Bhutan several weeks ago, CNN reported, citing the Children First Foundation (CFF), which funded their medical treatment. Bhutan is a landlocked country in South Asia located near China and India. To all the Australians near and far who sent me their love and support, you all gave me hope and put smile on my face while going through some terrible times, Bhumchu stated via the CFF. I just want to say, you guys are awesome. Bhutans first conjoined twins to be evaluated before separation surgery https://t.co/Sn8dophuLA pic.twitter.com/IobdGnQHwi NDTV (@ndtv) October 4, 2018 Its a big day for these cuties! Nima and Dawa, the conjoined twins from Bhutan, are set to undergo separation surgery at the @RCHMelbourne in about an hour. We spoke with doctors recently: https://t.co/xHshDtjoF8 pic.twitter.com/bHr16FL1nD 3AW Melbourne (@3AW693) November 8, 2018 According to reports, Dawa and Nima were born joined at the stomach and grew facing one another and were not able to move on their own. The procedure took just six fours and included some 25 surgeons, nurses, and other medical staff, according to the report. Dr. Joe Crameri, head of pediatric surgery at Melbourne Royal Childrens Hospital, said it was a joy and relief to separate the twins. After being separated in a life-changing surgery in Melbourne, twins Nima and Dawa have returned home to Bhutan where they were reunited with their friends and family. #9Today pic.twitter.com/7H6PbhZk3N The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) March 7, 2019 There is nothing better in any operation than to be able to go to the parents and say, weve been able to look after your child, CNN quoted him as saying. I feel confident that they will be able to recover from this and go forward. An official with the CFF that the two are much the same as when they were together. Weve got one thats very much more outgoing and one thats very placid, Fox News reported. Nima is the outgoing and Dawa is the more placid, the official, Debbie Pickering, stated. They are just developing into beautiful little girls. They are delightful in every way, she added. We try and have them a little bit apart, nurse Kellie Smith told CNN. But they manage to sort of bum shuffle back together and have their legs intertwined always. 14-month-old conjoined twins Nima and Dawa underwent a successful separation procedure at Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. https://t.co/BMy9eD6TV8 Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) November 9, 2018 The twins were born via C-section in 2017 and are said to be Bhutans first conjoined twins. My life in Australia was (comfortable) because of the lovely treatment you all provided to me, Bhumchu stated. To each and every Bhutanese in Australia who contributed for the future of my kids, I will ever remain grateful for such generosity. Thank you one and all. Researchers think that conjoined twins develop from a single egg in the mothers womb that fails to separate as it divides. The success of surgery depends on where the twins are joined and how many and which organs are shared, as well as the experience and skill of the surgical team, according to the Mayo Clinic. Conjoined twins used to be called Siamese twins and were named after famous conjoined twins Eng and Chang Bunker, who were born in Siam (Thailand) in 1811. They never separated and lived to 63. The two fathered 21 children together. A United Airlines Boeing 737 is parked outside the new Boeing 737 Delivery Center in Seattle, Wash., on Oct. 19, 2015. (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images) Boeing Deliveries Hammered by 737 MAX Groundings Boeing Co. handed over 24 percent fewer jet airplanes in the first four months of 2019 compared with the same period a year earlier as the grounding of its top-selling 737 MAX aircraft halted deliveries for a second month. As expected, the company took no new orders in April for the narrowbody jets as it continues to work on a software fix for the planes anti-stall system MCAS. Deliveries of the aircraft were stopped in early March, a few days after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed, killing all 157 people on board, in the second fatal accident involving the 737 MAX in just five months. Last month Boeing abandoned its 2019 financial outlook, halted share buybacks and said lowered production of the fastest-selling 737 MAX jets in the wake of the groundings had cost it at least $1 billion. Boeing recognizes full payment for planes when they are handed over to customers, and the formal grounding of the 737 MAX in almost all global airspace has completely halted deliveries. At the end of March, Boeing had 91 net orders, but the companys leasing and lending services unit Boeing Capital moved four of its 737 MAX delivery slots to a lessor. That led to the company recording 87 net orders through April across its aircraft lineup, a reduction of four on a net basis. Boeing had also removed 206 planes from its order backlog last month due to the near-collapse of Indias Jet Airways. As a result, its net orders for the first four months slid into negative territory, with a total of minus 119 net orders after cancellations, despite a slew of new wide-body sales. The adjustment has pushed the worlds largest planemaker behind European rival Airbus SE in the race for business this year as both companies grapple with cancellations that outweigh new orders. Airbus last week said it had won 67 gross orders through April this year, but 125 cancellations left it with a negative net order of 58 aircraft. Airbus delivered 232 aircraft in the first four months of 2019, up from 172 planes a year earlier. Boeings total deliveries fell to 172 planes in the same period, compared with 228 jets in 2018. Investors and analysts closely watch the number of planes Boeing turns over to airlines and leasing firms for cues on the companys cash flow and revenues. Boeing shares were up 2 percentin line with the broader market, a day after fears of renewed trade tensions between the United States and China led to a drastic sell-off. By Ankit Ajmera and Rachit Vats Researchers look out from the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as the sun sets over sea ice in the Victoria Strait along the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) Canadas Lacklustre Arctic Development Invites Chinas Ambition NEWS ANALYSIS Canadas Arctic sovereignty was just challenged by the United States, and it also received overtures from China, but an expert says that while international attention on the Arctic is not new, it underscores Canadas lack of success in the region. Ken Coates, a University of Saskatchewan public policy professor and native of Yukon, says international interest in the Arctic piques from time to time and thats when Canada reacts. But normally, Canada isnt sufficiently focused on Arctic issues and isnt terribly credible as an Arctic nation on a global scale. He also nixes the narrative that there is tremendous interest in the Arctic. The symbolic importance of the Arctic is often greater than its practical significance, said Coates, the Macdonald-Laurier Institutes senior fellow in Aboriginal and Northern Canadian issues, in an interview. One reality is that the development of Inuit lands by Canada remains stuck in low gear while international attention may be becoming increasingly tempting for Indigenous peoples. Sovereignty claims over the Northwest Passage, potentially a key shipping route, continue to be in dispute, and the Canadian government and the Inuit are not backing down. An example of the episodic interest came with the Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Finland in early May, followed by Chinas first hosting of the Arctic Circle forum with 500 participants from 30 nations in Shanghai. When U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated the Trump administrations dispute of Canadian claims in his speech to the Arctic Council, he also expressed his wariness of Chinese expansion goals. Pompeo is putting these things more stridently than were used to, Coates said. Hes being more blunt, but that is a good characteristic of the Trump administration overall. China holds observer status at the Arctic Council and is being warmly welcomed by the likes of Iceland and Sweden. Liberal MP Andrew Leslie was part of a delegation in Shanghai on May 10 and conveyed a message that Canada is ready to partner with China on Arctic issues. Leslies approach sparked a response from David Mulroney, former Canadian ambassador to China, who said Beijing will almost certainly behave in the Arctic as aggressively as it does in the South China Sea. Mulroney said via Twitter that a stance like Leslies is irresponsible and fails to consider Canadian interests appropriately. Were too busy teeing up the flattery-and-apology tours, confirming China in its outrageous behaviour, he tweeted. Chinas controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive global infrastructure project across much of Asia and Europe, envisions an Arctic componentthe Polar Silk Roadwhich Wang Hong from Chinas State Oceanic Administration said can improve quality of life in Arctic communities. Chinas BRI experience of debt-trap diplomacy in places like Sri Lanka could suggest otherwise. And Chinas poor environmental record is not lost on Pompeo. Chinese activity, which has caused environmental destruction in other regions, continues to concern us in the Arctic, he said in Finland. Canada Falling Behind The resource-rich Arctic faces monumental development challenges. Canada has spent hundreds of millions of dollarsa small fraction of that of larger nationsbut has little to show for it. You have decades worth of work to bring it close to international standards of regional infrastructure, said Coates. High-speed internet is lacking in parts of Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, whereas Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, gets it from St. Johns, Newfoundland. Also, over 100,000 dwellings need to be built in the northern regions. Canadas investment in the region is minimal, as is its presence. The Inuit have been used, in a practical sense, to exercise Canadas sovereignty. But Coates says the Inuit stand on their own, do a good job of protecting their interests, and are very involved in the Arctic Council. All of the residents of the Arctic are very concerned about being pawns in peoples games, he says. They dont want to be a tool in a larger conflict. Coates adds that the Inuit generally have been very economically motivated and see other regions of the North growing faster than they are as those countries make greater investments in the region. The Inuit vision for Inuit Nunangat includes cooperation with international partners, said Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada president Monica Ell-Kanayuk in a press release. Such cooperation is based on an Inuit-driven approach to development, which is founded on shared Inuit-Canadian sovereignty. Military Conflict Unlikely Even with focus from Russia, the United States, and China, Coates and others dont expect military conflict over the Arctic. We sort of count on other folks to cancel each other out, he said, noting that the Americans are trying to fend off the Russians and Chinese in the region. He makes it clear that Ottawa postures as well; however, hes concerned Canada is seen as a less credible partner in the process. In his book Chinas Arctic Ambitions and What They Mean for Canada, history professor Whitney Lackenbauer says the United States is unlikely to threaten Canadas territorial integrity or sovereignty. While he argues for collaboration with the East Asian countries in the Arctic, he writes that China has emerged as a kind of threat du jour, wherein the Arctic coastal states pledge to respect international law and downplay the idea of conflict among each other. It is explicitly stated in the 1996 Ottawa Declaration on the establishment of the Arctic Council that the council should not deal with military security matters. Geopolitical differences in the Arctic have always been resolved peacefully. Indigenous peoples living in the Arctic are integral to its international institutions and decision-making that has achieved this, said Ell-Kanayuk. Coates says the Arctic is a lonely, desolate place and the Northwest Passage looks better on a map than it does on the ocean. Its actually a very dangerous place to go across, he said. The notion of climate change making the Northwest Passage more accessible is overblown, he added. But for the worlds powers, being involved scientifically in the region is vitally important, and hence monitoring climate change attracts the likes of the Chinese, Japanese, and others. What military buildup has done in Alaska and Norway is help create communities, and with that comes better infrastructure. Canada is lagging in this respect, says Coates. The losers in all this are the Inuit, who dont get the opportunities that they should have. Follow Rahul on Twitter @RV_ETBiz Actor Tim Conway and Actress Carol Burnett in the audience at the 2005 TV Land Awards at Barker Hangar on March 13, 2005 in Santa Monica, California. (Vince Bucci/Getty Images) Carol Burnett Heartbroken After Co-Star Tim Conway Dies at 85 Actress and comedian Carol Burnett paid tribute to her co-star comedian Tim Conway who passed away on May 14 at age 85. In a statement obtained by Fox News, Burnett said she was heartbroken about the news. He was one in a million, not only as a brilliant comedian but as a loving human being. I cherish the times we had together both on the screen and off. Hell be in my heart forever, she said. Conway, star of The Carol Burnett Show, passed away in Los Angeles, according to a representative. A representative told Variety said the cause of Conways death was water on the brain. He was known for improvising his sketches on the show. He won a Golden Globe Award for the series in 1976, along with Emmy Awards in 1973, 1977, and 1978. Conways daughter Kelly Conway also remembered her father in a statement to Fox News. The love he gave us, and the laughter he gave the world will never be replaced, but will be remembered forever, Conway said. He is at peace now but I will miss him every second of every day until we meet again in heaven. We knew he would have to leave us someday, but that day came too soon. I want to thank everyone for their prayers, love and support over the past year or so, she added. Many other celebrities were in mourning and also paid tribute to the star on social media. The amount of joy Tim Conway brought my family as a child was immeasurable. The man was pure comedy. Riotously funny. I finally got to see him work when he guest starred on The Larry Sanders show and he was all I dreamed he would be. As kind as he was funny. He will be missed, filmmaker and comedian Judd Apatow wrote. The amount of joy Tim Conway brought my family as a child was immeasurable. The man was pure comedy. Riotously funny. I finally got to see him work when he guest starred on The Larry Sanders show and he was all I dreamed he would be. As kind as he was funny. He will be missed. https://t.co/69NkVC6TwZ Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) May 14, 2019 Similarly, actor and comedian Wayne Brady wrote: So sad right now about #timconway. Rarely do you get to meet and then work w a childhood idol. We even did a #dorf sketch! God Bless you sir. So sad right now about #timconway. Rarely do you get to meet and then work w a childhood idol. We even did a #dorf sketch! God Bless you sir. https://t.co/x7i0DIfxUm Wayne Brady (@WayneBrady) May 14, 2019 Comedian Christopher Titus also remembered Conway through his post. The first time I can remember laughing so hard I couldnt breathe was watching Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett show. Every character infused with a lovable crazy that broke me week after week. Timing, commitment and roll on the floor funny. Love Tim Conway, comic genius, RIP, Titus wrote. The first time I can remember laughing so hard I couldnt breathe was watching Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett show. Every character infused with a lovable crazy that broke me week after week. Timing, commitment and roll on the floor funny. Love Tim Conway, comic genius, RIP. Christopher Titus (@TitusNation) May 14, 2019 Actor Ian James Corlett wrote about the time he had an opportunity to work with Conway. So saddened to hear of the passing of the incomparable # TimConway. I had the privilege of working with him on # WhatsWithAndy. He played my grandfather. He was such a pro. So kind, Corlett wrote. So saddened to hear of the passing of the incomparable #TimConway. I had the privilege of working with him on #WhatsWithAndy. He played my grandfather. He was such a pro. So kind. So https://t.co/ynkN4PIvt8 Ian James Corlett (@IanJames007) May 14, 2019 Author John Scalzi also posted a tribute to the comedian. This makes me sad. I was a big fan of his when I was a little kid. And my own kid got to know him through SpongeBob Squarepants. Delighting generations is a pretty good legacy for any entertainer. RIP, Tim Conway, Scalzi said. This makes me sad. I was a big fan of his when I was a little kid. And my own kid got to know him through SpongeBob Squarepants. Delighting generations is a pretty good legacy for any entertainer. RIP, Tim Conway.https://t.co/syRyLVY4tl John Scalzi (@scalzi) May 14, 2019 Conways later work included lending his voice to a character on SpongeBob SquarePants as well as a character on The Simpsons. The Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report. Child Dies After Being Left in Hot Car as Father Visited Friend in Arizona A western Arizona man was jailed after his toddler daughter died in a hot car, according to reports. The suspect reportedly was smoking marijuana and playing video games while the girl was in the hot vehicle. Ty Martin, 23, left his 18-month-old daughter in a car for about 45 minutes to an hour while he visited a friend, 23-year-old Noah Grabowski, said Lake Havasu City police, as reported by the Arizona Republic. Officers responded to a call about an unresponsive child before starting CPR, said police. The girl was taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival, the Republic reported. Martin was arrested on charges of manslaughter, and Grabowski was arrested on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana, and cultivation of marijuana. This incident is tragic for everyone involved and completely avoidable, Lake Havasu City police officials told the paper. The Mohave Valley Daily News reported that Martin said he was smoking marijuana and playing video games with Grabowski while the child was in the car. Officials noted that its never acceptable to leave a child inside an unattended vehicle regardless of whether it is running or not. The Lake Havasu City Police Department would like to remind everyone that it is never acceptable to leave a child unattended inside of a motor vehicle. Inside temperatures can spike rapidly, even with the air conditioner running. Also, an unattended child inside of a vehicle, running or not, could be subjected to a host of other dangers, said police. Temperatures in Lake Havasu reached 86 degrees on Saturday when the girl died. Studies have shown that a cars internal temperature can quickly reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit when the temperature is in the mid-80s. Other details about the case were not released by officials. Other Incidents A 4-year-old trapped in a hot car helped rescue seven toddlers between the ages of 2 and 4 in Maryland after dialing 911. Authorities with the Charles County Sheriffs Office were then called to a parking lot in Waldorf, finding the children sweaty and scared, officials noted. The toddler wasnt named, WJLA reported. The car was unlocked, but the windows were rolled up. Charles County Sheriffs Office is currently investigating after authorities say seven toddlers from ages 2 to 4 years old were left in a hot car in a parking lot of the St. Charles Towne Center in Waldorf. https://t.co/Z4gjFmepZD ABC 7 News WJLA (@ABC7News) May 10, 2019 Sheriffs officials said there was only a single car seat in the vehicle, WJLA reported. The suspect in the case is a mother of two of the children involved in the case. The mother allegedly told the children not to leave the vehicle, it was reported. Officers said they arent sure how long the children were in the vehicle. The mother came outside as authorities were on the scene about 10 minutes later, Southern Maryland News Net reported, adding that she is 37. According to reports on May 7, a toddler died after being left in a car in New Jersey. A fathers decision tragically ended up costing him his young sons life. Kristopher Taylor of Apple Valley is expected back in court later this week after he was charged with manslaughter for leaving his 4-year-old son in a hot car for hours. pic.twitter.com/qdw2wD7MD2 Ashley Zilka (@ashleyzilka) May 7, 2019 Lakewood Township police said they are investigating the death of the nearly 2-year-old girl, NBC New York reported, which added that the girl died at around 2 p.m. local time. Mayor Meir Lichtenstein said warm temperatures contributed to this girls death. It seems like wonderful parents. They have one other child that is approximately 4 1/2 years old that is also a girl, and they are very saddened, Lakewood Mayor Meir Lichtenstein told CBS New York. I was actually at the hospital and I saw the parents. Theyre extremely saddened by what happened. And, in Minnesota, a father was arrested after leaving a 4-year-old in a hot car while he worked. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech during the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2019 in Boao, southern China's Hainan Province on March 28, 2019. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) Chinese Premiers Speech Hints at Severity of Countrys Unemployment When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang recently spoke at a national conference on entrepreneurship and job creation, his comments made it clear that unemployment is at the top of the Chinese regimes agenda. Speaking in Beijing on May 13, Li spoke of the all-time high in the number of new college graduates this year, which is sure to put pressure on the job market, according to a report by Chinese state-run media Xinhua. What stood out in Lis remarks was his tacit admission of Chinas economic woes, when he stated that there are multiple factors affecting the stability of the job market this year, without any elaborating further. To address this complicated and grim situation in the job market, Li said its the responsibility of regional governments, for they must stay away from the bottom threshold of large-scale unemployment. Li asked regional authorities to take charge of their own unemployment issues. For provinces where mostly laborers from other areas come to work there, they must do all they can to keep unemployed people in their region, and stop the out-of-towners from returning to their hometowns en masse, Li said. Meanwhile, authorities in provinces where laborers mostly leave to go work elsewhereusually poor provinces like central Chinas Gansu Province, where residents leave for work in the big citiesmust assist those who have returned back to their hometowns in securing jobs or starting their own businesses locally, Li said. Lis remarks reflect a struggling Chinese economy, which could be further weighed down after trade tensions escalated recently: after U.S. President Donald Trump increased tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent, China retaliated by slapping higher tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods. His words indicate that mass unemployment is a concern for the Chinese regime. While China regularly releases official unemployment figures, analysts consider the data unreliable. Figures sometimes remain unchanged despite other economic indicators showing ups and downs in the Chinese economy. Most of the time, Beijing underreports unemployment, with the goal of ensuring social stability: preventing the public from panicking over the true state of the economy. Downturn Recent economic data suggest that the worlds second-largest economy is sluggish. According to Reuters, Chinas retail sales rose 7.2 percent in April from a year earlier, the slowest pace since May 2003, according to data from Chinas National Bureau of Statistics. The data suggested that consumers were beginning to cut back spending on everyday products such as personal care and cosmetics, while continuing to shun more expensive items such as cars. Weak retail sales partially stemmed from a deterioration in employment and declining income of the middle-and-low income groups, said Nie Wen, an economist at the Shanghai-based Hwabao Trust. Growth in industrial output slowed more than expected to 5.4 percent in April year-on-year, pulling back from a four-and-a-half-year high of 8.5 percent in March, which some analysts had suspected was boosted by seasonal and temporary factors. Motor vehicle production dropped nearly 16 percent as demand weakened, with sedan output slumping 18.8 percent, the steepest decline since September 2015. Recent industry data showed auto sales fell 14.6 percent in April, the 10th consecutive month of decline. Fixed-asset investment growth also slowed, to 6.1 percent in the first four months of this year, dashing expectations for a slight rise. Economists at Citi estimate the recent U.S. tariff increase could cut 50 basis points off Chinas GDP growth, reduce exports by 2.7 percent, and cost the country another 2.1 million jobs. The Chinese manufacturing job market will likely take another hit in coming months, as Hong Kong and Taiwan businesses begin to pull some of their production out of China to avoid the added costs of U.S. tariffs. Social Instability Chinese commentator Wen Xiaogang, in an interview with the Chinese-language Epoch Times, explained that Lis remarks show how Beijing is fearful of what is to come, as U.S. tariffs put more pressure on the economycompanies closing down because of fewer orders and foreign companies moving factories away from Chinaall of which could lead to massive layoffs and high unemployment. Many migrant workers working in Chinas manufacturing hubs could soon find themselves without a job. Wen said that if the workers remain unemployed for an extended period of time, it could lead to social unrestwhich could undermine the Chinese Communist Partys rule. Thus, the Party is making tackling unemployment a priority, he said. Ms. Wang, a businesswoman in southern Chinas Guangdong Province, recently spoke to Radio Free Asia (RFA) about the many companies in the Pearl River region shutting down. She explained that companies likely cant afford to pay the 25 percent tariff because their normal profit is only 15 percent. Premier Li Keqiang is pushing the responsibility [of the central government] to different local authorities, Wang said. She added that the underlying meaning behind Lis words is that regional authorities shouldnt cause any trouble for the central government. Reuters contributed to this report. U.S. Coast Guard crew searches for survivors from downed aircraft in the vicinity of George Inlet near Ketchikan, Alaska on May 13, 2019. (Ryan Sinkey/U.S. Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters) Coast Guard: 2 More Bodies Found After Alaska Planes Crash ANCHORAGE, AlaskaThe bodies of two more people have been found after small sightseeing planes crashed in Alaska, the Coast Guard says. Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens said six people have died in the collision Monday afternoon, May 13, near Ketchikan, a popular destination for cruise ships in Alaska. Dykens said his agency and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad found the two bodies near the crash site of the smaller plane involved in the collision, a single-engine de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver. Ten people, all Americans, were injured, with three of them released from a hospital Tuesday. The missing passengers were from Canada and Australia, Princess Cruises said. The Royal Princess, which can carry up to 3,600 people, was among four city-sized cruise ships in the tiny coastal community on Monday. During port stops, visitors can shop in tourist stores or take part in several excursions, such as visiting an Alaska Native village, tour the backcountry, or visit a raptor center. Another popular trip is flightseeing in Misty Fjords National Monument. Visitors marvel at the lakes, snowcapped peaks and glacier valleys in the wilderness area. Trips cost about $260 each. The larger plane, a de Havilland Otter DHC-3 with 10 passengers and the pilot, was returning from Misty Fjords when it collided with a smaller sightseeing plane, a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver carrying four passengers from the same cruise ship and a pilot. The cause of the crash in relatively good weather, high overcast skies with light southeast winds were not known. The crash occurred about 8 miles from Ketchikan, near George Inlet. The planes came down about a mile and a half apart with some of the debris field on land. The Otter, operated by Taquan Air, was initially traveling at an altitude of about 3,800 feet, according to Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, whose investigators arrived in Ketchikan Tuesday afternoon. He said the Otter had descended to an altitude of around 3,300 feet when it collided with the Beaver as both headed to Ketchikan. The smaller plane was partially submerged in the shore of George Inlet after the single-engine plane overturned and hit some trees before crashing, according to Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens. The larger Otter landed in water and sank, he said. Three of the four who died were among the five people aboard the Beaver, according to Coast Guard Lt. Brian Dykens. Princess Cruises in its release said two passengers and the pilot were among those killed in this plane. Canadian officials said Tuesday that one of its citizens was among the dead. Global Affairs Canada expressed condolences but did not identify the person because of privacy reasons. The smaller plane, which operated independently and not as an official excursion flight booked through the cruise ship, was owned by Mountain Air Service of Ketchikan, which didnt immediately return a call Tuesday. The Beaver appears to have broken apart in midair, according to Jerry Kiffer, duty incident commander of the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad. He said the planes tail and section of the fuselage were 900 feet from the aircrafts floats, which landed near shore. After the crash, the 10 injured people were initially taken to a hospital in Ketchikan. Four patients were later transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, suffering various broken bones, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Three survivors were released from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in Ketchikan on Tuesday. Hospital spokeswoman Marty West says the remaining three are in fair condition. Last summer, all 11 on board another Taquan Air flight survived when the 72-year-old pilot confused snow on a mountain with a body of water and crashed on a rocky mountainside on Prince of Wales Island near the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula. A pilot and eight cruise ship passengers died June 25, 2015, when a de Havilland DHC-4 Otter operated by Promech Air Inc. crashed into mountainous terrain about 24 miles from Ketchikan, also as it was returning from Misty Fjords. The NTSB later determined that pilot error, the companys culture and lack of a formal safety program were among the causes of that crash. Taquan Air purchased the assets of Promech a year after the crash, and currently employs three pilots who worked for Promech, a company spokeswoman said. The Royal Princess left Vancouver, British Columbia, on May 11 and was scheduled to arrive in Anchorage on Saturday. We are extending our full support to the investigating authorities as well as the traveling companions of the guests involved, the company said in a statement. By Rachel Doro and Mark Thiessen Coca Cola Heir Detained With $1.3 Million in Cannabis, 5,000 Plants Abroad Personal Jet Heir to the Coca Cola fortune, Alkiviades Alki David, was arrested at the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts with cannabis worth $1.3 million, 5,000 plants, an unknown number of seeds, and other cannabis-related products on May 9. He was arrested along with his business partner and billionaire, Chase Ergen. The duo was traveling with actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers on a private jet, according to Daily Mail. David, 50, is a Greek billionaire with a net worth of $2.8 billion. Hes a member of the Leventis family and a major stakeholder in the Leventis-David Group which owns Coca-Cola Hellenic bottling plants in 28 countries. Jonathan Rhys Meyers mother-in-law and wife were cavity searched. We left the airport after the search but were then arrested after trying to leave the island a few days later, David told Daily Mail. The Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force said David was detained by the Anti-Narcotics Unit at the RLB International Airport on three warrants. David was charged for Possession with Intent to Supply, Possession of Controlled Drugs and Importation of a Controlled Drug into the Federation. This was in relation to an investigation launched on May 7, 2019 into the circumstances surrounding material suspected to be cannabis on a private aircraft, said a release by the police on Facebook. David appeared at the Basseterre Magistrate Court on May 10 and was released on a cash bail of $30,000. He had to submit all his travel documents and was ordered to report to Frigate Bay Police Station daily. He is expected to next appear at the Basseterre Magistrate Court on Tuesday. Fox News reports that the cannabis was meant for a new legal business in the region. David told St. Kitts and Nevis Observer, a local media that he had a handshake deal with four farmers on St. Kitts who were cultivating 500 acres of land together. Ergen was arrested after a few days for possession of drugs David said were medicinal ketamine and were his medication. He called Ergens arrest a set up. This was his medication for bipolar. He was talking to Prime Minister Harris when he was suddenly arrested. He is going into his second night behind bars, said David. EXCLUSIVE: Greek Coca Cola heir Alki David is arrested with fellow billionaire business partner after landing in St Kitts on a private jet with actor pal Jonathan Rhys Meyers and $1.3 mil via https://t.co/hmFBXIwBfS https://t.co/fGOvmpXjpE JGreen Images (@JGreenImages) May 14, 2019 Media reports say that David and Ergens legal team have arrived from the United Kingdom and they will be filing lawsuits against PM Harris and the government this week. St. Kitts Lawyer Dr. Henry Browne said that in general the possession of cannabis seeds is legal but the growing of plants is illegal. The mere possession of marijuana seeds is not a crime, said Dr. Browne. What is a crime is to have the seeds and to come to an agreement to plant the seeds. Planting the seeds for the purpose of cultivation is a crime. It is also illegal to conspire to plant or cultivate marijuana. Having agreed to take a step towards cultivation of marijuana, you have created an offense, he said. Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris office issued a press statement which didnt mention any specific names but said: Non-nationals would not be permitted to secure advantages over nationals as we set about to build out a marijuana industry. According to the local media, the statement added that the government has not granted any license to anyone to import plants or seeds into the Federation and that [the] administration has not had any conversation with any foreigner about setting up businesses to trade in cannabis. Dog Hater Places Pins Around Trees in New York An unidentified suspect is believed to have placed hundreds of thumbtacks in the grass around trees in New York, causing injuries to dogs. Its terrible really. Its hard to believe someone would do this, dog owner Cody Butler told The Daily News. He added that whoever booby-trapped the tree beds in the Queens neighborhood should be punished. Theyre knowingly putting at risk the lives of loved animals for no reason, Butler told the publication. Police found the thumbtacks hidden in the mulch of three tree beds in the vicinity of a new apartment building along 23rd Street in Astoria, according to ILoveMyDogSoMuch. The publication surmised that the reason whoever put the sharp objects there was hoping to deter dogs. The pins have allegedly injured at least one dog, ABC13 reported, and police have launched an investigation. Neighbors furious after man places pins around tree to deter dogs https://t.co/TCrsPiRMxR pic.twitter.com/90tz6JJHFE ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) May 15, 2019 An area resident identified only as Caitlin told ABC13 this was not the first time she had come across dangerous objects embedded in the tree beds. It was about a month ago, we put her in this bed right there to go to the bathroom as usual, said dog owner Caitlin. And she was sniffing around in it and I looked at her face, and it was covered in blood. She told the publication she suspected glass had been placed there with the intent of causing injury. I noticed it was a piece of glass, and then went back to it and found more large shards of glass in it, Caitlin said. Like sharp dagger pieces of glass. As yet, police have no suspects, the Daily News reported. The allegedly booby-trapped tree beds are located across the street from a new dog park. Tree Beds Off Limits to Dogs According to urban tree pit care guidelines published by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, tree beds are off limits to dogs. Keep dogs and dog waste (both liquid and solid) out of the tree pit. The waste will overwhelm a tree, burning its trunk, and throwing the soil nutrients out of balance. The department says trees in the city struggle to thrive in an inhospitable environment. A city tree must battle many urban hazards dailyfrom air pollution and bicycles to dogs and people. In addition to above ground threats, tree roots also must contend with tough belowground conditions. A tree pit or lawn strip provides limited space for these forest giants and this soil is a trees only source of nutrients. The Parks & Recreation authority says because of these factors, it is essential to create as nurturing a tree pit as possible. The department encourages using fences to discourage canines from accessing tree pits. Consider installing tree guards. Strong metal guards around the edge of the pit protect the soil by discouraging pedestrians and dogs from walking through the pit. The guidelines say some measures that limit accesssuch as tree gratesare inadvisable. Do not place tree guards close to the tree. Do not build solid walls; these encourage people to add soil to the tree pit (see above guideline). We do not recommend tree grates, the metal grating that sits flush with the sidewalk. Trash accumulates beneath the grates and trees that outgrow a grate can be fatally girdled or strangled. The department offers no specific guidance on the use of embedded objects to discourage intrusion into tree pits. Its unclear what laws may have been broken by placing the pins in the mulch. Dog Swallows Food Laced With Pins The incident in Queens recalls the case of a golden retriever named Murphy who last year swallowed a piece of discarded food laced with 10 pins. The dogs owner Terence Doherty told ABC7 that he realized his dog had swallowed the pins when the dog defecated. Earlier, Doherty noticed the dog had pins in its mouth after eating the laced food at an upper Manhattan park. He said he believed someone had intentionally booby-trapped the food to hurt an animal. It was just shocking to look down and see. It was like evil, Doherty told the outlet. I have to believe it was an evil person that was behind it all. He took the dog to the vet and an X-ray revealed eight pins in its stomach. Surgery was required to remove them. The dog is believed to have made a full recovery. Communist supporters mark Martyrs Day in Tirana, Albania with communist symbols and photos of communist dictator Enver Hoxha on May 5, 2019. (Antonio Cakshiri) Families of Victims of Communist Albania Call for Decommunization Victims outraged by display of regime symbols in public TIRANA, AlbaniaThe lives of Arta Lleshi and her family were marked by tragedy in 1954, decades before she was born. That year, her grandfather, Nuri Plaka, was killed in the mountains of Albania along with his fellow group of U.S.-backed Albanian dissidents who were trying to overthrow the communist regime. Her grandmother and father were taken to camps surrounded by barbed wire fencing, and were labeled enemies of the people throughout their lives in communist Albania. Lleshi said she grew up and lived with a constant feeling of fear until the collapse of communism in Albania in 1991. Today, Lleshi and those who share a past similar to her arent afraid of persecution by the state anymore. However, she and others like her are disappointed that no proper decommunization process took place in the country, as was the case in Germany, where the country underwent a denazification process after the fall of Hitlers regime. As a result, in todays Albania, communist symbols can be waved and displayed freely without any consequence. Although the Albanian communist system under the dictator Enver Hoxha and his successors was deemed as one of the harshest in Eastern Europe, the country is one of the few from the bloc to fail to impose a ban on the display of communist symbols. Several initiatives to do so over the years have been unsuccessful. Today, with the wide use of social media, the display of the communist symbols has become even more prevalent. We are facing more and more the display of communist symbols on the internet. I feel deeply disappointed that my country never fully applied transitional justice in order to ease our pain, Lleshi said. Data from the Institute for the Studies of Communist Crimes shows that during the 45-year reign of the communist regime, more than 7,000 Albanians were executed or lost their lives in camps and political prisons. Some other 4,000including Lleshis grandfatherare considered still missing, with the families and institutions still searching for their remains. Another 34,000 were imprisoned for political reasons, and 59,000 were transferred to internment camps. We still have people on social media platforms or television saying that communism was the right regime for the country. It seems that brainwashing from the 3040 years of communist propaganda is still working, Lleshi said. Display of Communist Symbols On May 5, Lleshi and other family members of victims of communism were in for a further disappointment as a group of communist supporters held demonstrations with communist symbols and pictures of Hoxha to mark Martyrs Day. Bar a few media outlets protesting the demonstration, the incident came to pass without being condemned by any state institution. Desada Metaj, a Tirana-based journalist and the creator of People Define the Times, a documentary on communist oppression and its legacy in Albania, considers this reality a part of the countrys overall failure to implement a proper process of decommunization. The lack of transparency over the files of the communist secret police; the politicization of the use of formerly prosecuted people; and the fact that financial compensation is seen as the only restitution for past crimes are some of the reasons why we dont condemn communist symbols, Metaj said. She believes that in a socially and culturally chaotic country like Albania of today, voices that call for the condemnation of the communist symbols are easily ignored. Tolerance and Dignity After the collapse of communism, although many had suffered persecution by the state, there was not a single case of the oppressed taking revenge against the oppressors. However, the display of tolerance and dignity have not been reciprocated, Lleshi believes. It is really difficult to show restraint and tolerance when you watch symbols of communism and pictures of the dictator everywhere, including on public television channels that we fund with our taxes, Lleshi said. Florida Deputies Arrest Man For Slapping Girlfriend With a Cheeseburger Deputies in Florida say they have arrested a man for slapping his girlfriend with a cheeseburger. 30-year year Kyle Jamison Jones wanted it his way, wrote Martin County Sheriffs Office in a statement on Facebook on May 14. When he didnt get it, things between him and his girlfriend escalated. Joness live-in girlfriend, who is not named in the report, said that he had abruptly woken her up by slapping her in the face with a cheeseburger, according to the sheriffs office. Jones then allegedly pulled her hair and kicked her down the stairs. When deputies arrived, the victim was visibly upset and covered with particles of the food item. Jones admitted only to a verbal dispute, according to deputies, and refused to say anything about becoming physical. Jones was charged with battery and taken to the Martin County Jail. There are currently no details available on his bail. Under Florida state law, The offense of battery is defined as when a person: 1. Actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other; or 2. Intentionally causes bodily harm to another person. The crime of battery in the state of Florida carries a penalty of up to one year in jail or 12 months probation and a $1,000 fine. A String of Food Attacks Earlier this year, Florida deputies in Pasco County had been left confounded by a string of domestic food attack cases, reported Patch, with cookies, frozen pork chops, and pizzas being weaponized in the heat of the moment. Deputies say the reason could be simply that many arguments start in the kitchen, where food items are at hand. A Florida man was arrested on Jan. 3 when he allegedly attacked his father by throwing pizza at him after learning his father helped deliver him at birth, according to reports. Police arrived at Robert Houstons home in Holiday, Florida, discovering a slice of pizza on a chair along with tomato sauce and cheese splattered inside the residence, WFLA reported. The mans father told officials that he was coming home from walking his dogs when his son picked up the pizza from a delivery man. Then Houston held his father down, yelled at him, and shoved the pizza in his face, according to police, WTSP reported. Deputies arrested a woman in Spring Hill on Jan. 29 after her husband accused her of throwing a pan of food at him, before she used it to hit him in the face five or six times, according to Patch. The side of his face was left swollen and bruised, according to deputies. A few days later another Pasco County woman was accused by her boyfriend of throwing a frozen pork chop at him during an argument, causing a half-inch cut. Statistically, women are more likely to be on the receiving end of domestic violence than men. One in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men. According to NCADV, intimate partner violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crimes. Women aged between 18 and 24 are most likely to be abused by an intimate partner. Members of the prosecution in the NXIVM case arrive with documents at Brooklyn Federal Court for day one of the trial of Keith Raniere, founder of NXIVM on May 7, 2019. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images) Former Member Recalls Telling Slave to Leave NXIVM After Learning of Secret Society NEW YORKA filmmaker and former board member of NXIVM recounted in a Brooklyn federal court the moment he started to question everything behind the organization he was a member of for 12 years. At one point in his testimony, he became emotional as he spoke about a conversation he had with a slave just days before he resigned. Born in South Africa, Mark Vicente, who joined NXIVM in 2005, said the walls around him started tumbling down after he heard about DOS, a secret society within NXIVM that leader Keith Raniere founded in 2015. Raniere styled himself as the grandmaster of DOS, while its members were all his sexual slaves. DOS, an acronym for the Latin phrase dominus obsequious sororium, which loosely translates as master over the slave women, employed a pyramid structure involving levels of slaves headed by masters; slaves were then expected to recruit their own slaves, thus becoming masters themselves. Raniere was the highest master of DOS and made other membersall womenhave sex with him. Jurors also witnessed for the first time nude photos that DOS members were forced to send to Raniere as collateral, including photos of their brands. The brand was a symbol incorporating Ranieres initials and burned onto the skin with a cauterizing pen, during a process that took 20 to 30 minutes, according to court documents. Vicente, once a devoted member of NXIVM, a purported self-help group, said he was promoted 12 times during his time in the organization. But as he heard more and more details surrounding Ranierewhom he referred to as supreme leader in one instance during his testimonyhe started to question the group. My perspective on Keith Raniere changed. What if he is the exact opposite? What if he was, in fact, evil? Vicente testified under oath on May 15. Vicente said that in April 2017, he approached Raniere about some of the things he had heard involving women. He said Ranieres responses made him feel more disturbed. You are attached to morality. Theres limitations to these things, Raniere told him, Vicente recalled. The former board member said he then started questioning why the leader was trying to make him give up morality. Vicente was also the co-founder of one of NXIVMs subgroups, an all-male society dubbed the Society of Protectors. At that point, my instinct was screaming, Somethings wrong,' Vicente said. Later, Vicente said he spoke to Sarah, another NXIVM member who was identified by her first name only, to tell her he was planning to resign. He said he told Sarah about the things he had heard, at which point she became very quiet. Sarah told him about the existence of DOS and that she was a member of it. Vicente said it was the first time he had heard of the master-slave society. Sarah said she wanted to leave but was trapped and that the group had too much on me. She was referring to the collateral members had to submit, including naked photos of themselves and fake damning letters against their family members, to ensure that they kept the groups activities secret. Vicente learned from Sarah that shed had to recruit more slaves and that she was a master herself. Sarah told him her own master was Lauren Salzman, the daughter of Nancy Salzman, who was the president of NXIVM. During his testimony, Vicente became tearful as he recalled urging Sarah to leave the group. You must get out, he told her. Sarah was too afraid of her collateral being released. Vicente pleaded with her to make peace with it and insisted it was better to leave DOS. Vicente said he sent his letters of resignation via email sometime in May 2017. He avoided mentioning DOS in the emails and said he would be focusing on his filmmaking career. Vicente later asked a DOS member to give him collateral documents so he could turn them over to authorities. He came in contact with the FBI at the end of May 2017. Raniere, 58, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on seven criminal counts, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, and racketeering. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating waves to the crowd during the Labor Campaign Launch in Brisbane, Australia, on May 5, 2019. The federal election will be held on May 18, 2019. (Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images) Former PM Paul Keatings Comments Draw Responses About Chinese Regimes Influence in Australia In a conversation with reporters after a Labor Party election campaign launch on May 5, former prime minister Paul Keating called Australias security agencies nutters and said that the appropriate action should be to clean them out. He also said that China is a great state. The comments were in response to follow up questions related to improving Australias relationship with China. Keatings comments triggered a wave of condemnation with some voices speaking in defense of Australias security agencies, and others raising their concerns over the Chinese regimes efforts to influence Australiaa topic widely reported about in Australian media in recent years. Chinese Regimes Interference in Australia Liberal Party Senator Jim Molan, a former major general in the Australian Army, told The Epoch Times that he was very angry to hear Keatings comments. What I was annoyed about was that he attacked the security agencies, Molan, who once served as the chief of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, said. They have no political leanings to left or right. They are beautifully apolitical. You go to them with a problem and they will look at it. I know about our security organisations very well, Molan said. I worked with intelligence for last 20-30 years and as a member of Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security we receive briefings from them. They are rational and logical and dont go too far. Senator Duncan Spender of the Liberal Democratic Party expressed concerns over how Keating appeared to have overlooked all the oppressive activities of the Chinese regime in proclaiming it a great state. Its very concerning that we get [Keating] saying that China is a great state without any mention of how China is also at the same time an abhorrent state that is doing terrible things to its people, Spender told The Epoch Times. Spender had issued a media release and video in response to Keatings great state comments. In the release, the senator also voiced his concerns about the Chinese Communist Partys (CCPs) oppressive activities China, as well as its various activities to influence Australia. Spender had written in the release that the CCP threatens trade whenever Australians mention their oppression. Molan told the Epoch Times that Australia should remember it cannot be influenced. We are an independent sovereign country, Molan said. I have no objection trading with China but that doesnt mean they influence our politics. Doesnt mean they get away with what they do in South China Sea or anything else. Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra and author of Silent Invasion: Chinas Influence In Australia, wrote in The Daily Telegraph on May 5: For well over a decade, Beijing has been working hard at winning over powerful members of Australias political, business and university elites. They have agencies whose sole task is to do just that, and they are very good at it. Journalist Neil Mitchell of 3AW noted that Keating is a consultant to the China Development Bank. Theres a conflict here youve got to understand, Mitchell said on May 6. The China Development Banka state-owned bank, so youve got a bank owned by a communist regime[Keating]s on the international advisory board and is saying this. What Did Keating Say? An ABC reporter initially asked Keating on May 5, Would an incoming Labor government have to do something to heal relations with China? Is there healing to be done? the reporter later asked. Keating responded: I think theres healing to be done but I think a Labor government would make a huge shift. Just merely making the point that Chinas entitled to be there rather than being some illegitimate state that has to be strategically watched. Nobody is questioning its legitimacy to be there but isnt it the more nefarious actions of the Chinese government that has our security agencies another reporter responded, before Keating interjected: Look, when the security agencies are running foreign policy, the nutters are in charge, the nutters are in charge at the top. You clean them out. I mean, once that Garnaut guy came back from China and Turnbull gave him the ticket to go and hop into the security agencies, theyve all gone berko ever since, Keating continued. Keating appeared to be referring to an influential, classified report that John Garnaut had helped to write for the Australia Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) regarding Chinese interference in Australia. Garnaut is a journalist who was an adviser to former PM Malcolm Turnbull. When youve got the ASIO chief knocking on MPs doors, you know somethings wrong, Keating told ABC reporters on May 5. It is unclear what specific incident Keating was referring to. In April 2019, ASIO head Duncan Lewis said that foreign interference threats in Australia remain at an unprecedented level, although he did not specify a country. Lewiss comments came ahead of an ABC Four Corners episode that showed the extent of CCP-backed political activity in Australia. In February, Lewis had rejected allegations from three large Chinese newspapers that ASIO was targeting the Chinese community, after the Department of Home Affairs stripped Huang Xiangmo, a billionaire, of his permanent residency while he was overseas. Lewis had in his briefings specifically emphasized that Huang was a person of interest to Australias security agencies due to his connections to the CCP. So you think they [the spy chiefs] should be cleaned out of ASIO, ASIS, the lot? a reporter asked Keating on May 5. Oh yeah. Theyve lost their strategic bearings, these organizations, Keating responded. Whatever you think, China is a great state, its always been a great state, and now has the second-largest economy, soon the largest economy in the world, Keating said. If we have a foreign policy that does not take that into account, we are fools. Responses From Major Parties The coalition, currently led by current Prime Minister Scott Morrison, said that Keatings comments were appalling, incredibly reckless, and completely outrageous. For what the Labor Party calls a Labor legend to go out there and attack the credibility of our security agencies that have been saving lives in this country, I think is disappointing, Morrison told reporters on May 6, AAP reported. After Keatings comments, opposition Labor Party leader Bill Shorten clarified that he did not agree. On that particular view, I dont agree with [Keating], Shorten said, according to AAP. Paul Keating is an elder statesman of Australian politics, hes never been shy of saying what he thinks, Shorten said, according to the ABC. [The Labor Party has] worked very well with the national security agencies. They know that and we know that. And of course we will continue that. Peter Jennings, executive director of the government-established Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank (ASPI), told the ABC: I think what [Keating] said was blatantly incorrect The Australian intelligence community, more than most parts of government, has a very clear understanding of what China is doing. Making Sense of Keatings Comments Hamilton, shared in an opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph his understanding of what may have been behind Keatings comments. Hamilton described Huang Xiangmo as the Chinese property developer who donated shedloads of money to the NSW Labor party, and how Huang has now been denied entry to Australia because ASIO suspects him of being too close to the Chinese Communist Party. Hamilton also noted that a close confidant of Huang Xiangmo, Ernest Wong, had been removed from a winnable position on the Labor Party Upper House ticket for the 2019 New South Wales state election. Bill Shorten is feeling the heat over his lunch with Chinese Communist Party-linked Huang Xiangmo https://t.co/MAefkkWK6D The Australian (@australian) April 9, 2019 The hard men of the NSW Right [in the Labor Party] blame ASIO and they are fuming, Hamilton wrote, referring to when the Labor party was forced to demote Wong to an unwinnable position. Thats what Keating meant when he attacked ASIO for knocking on MPs doors, Hamilton wrote. Wong is known to be opposed to Australias new foreign interference laws that were passed in 2018. Earlier, in December 2017, then-PM Malcolm Turnbull said that such laws were required to combat the rapidly escalating threat of foreign interference, and referred to disturbing reports about Chinese influence as justification for the laws. Financial Donations In 2015, ASIO warned the countrys three main political parties about CCP interference in Australian politics through considerable financial donations. Huang paid AU$55,000 ($39,150) to the fundraising arm of the Labor Party in 2015, in order to have lunch with Bill Shorten, leader of the Labor Party, amid a heated political debate on a trade deal with China, the ABC reported at the time. Hamilton wrote on May 6: It was Sam Dastyaris association with Huang Xiangmo that led to Sams disgrace and exit from the Senate. In November 2017, media reports emerged on the dealings between Huang and a former Australian Labor Party (ALP) senator, Sam Dastyari, after tapes of an infamous conference were obtained by the ABC. In 2016, then-Labor senator Dastyari hosted a press conference with Huang for local Chinese-language media and spoke in favor of the Chinese regimes military expansion in the South China Sea. Dastyaris remarks contradicted the Labor Partys stance, which supported the United Statess critique of the CCPs aggression in the region. The ABC later revealed that Huangs company paid for Dastyaris legal bills in 2014. According to Fairfax, two weeks prior to the 2016 federal election, Huang attempted to use a AU$400,000 ($284,440) donation to the Labor Party as leverage to influence the partys policy on China. Dastyari resigned in January 2018 after repeated allegations of his close ties with Beijing, including a Fairfax report that Dastyari warned Huang that his phone was probably being tapped by spy agencies, including those of the U.S. government during a secret meeting. Interfere Into Silence Spender told The Epoch Times that the CCPs interference efforts have succeeded in subduing Australians into silence. The interference comes not in terms of individual statements about China like Paul Keatings statement, he told The Epoch Times. Through their various tentacles, the CCP has convinced the major parties [in Australia] that, in order to maintain a lucrative trade relationship, it is better not to talk about anything that the CCP is doing over in China, or even beyond China, Spender said. The worst form of interference is the silence Ive been thinking the interference is the silence, and I think that silence is quite deadly, he added. Australian politicians need to be free and feel free to understand whats going on and to be able to speak on what the Chinese Communist Party is doing, Spender said. Not just simply for the sake of the people subject to the Chinese Communist Party, but also for our own sake. Vice-Admiral Mark Norman arrives for his first court appearance on charges of breach of trust in Ottawa on April 10, 2018. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press) Mark Norman Gets House of Commons Apology for Impact of Failed Prosecution OTTAWAThe House of Commons is apologizing to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman for what he had to endure while facing criminal breach-of-trust charges. Conservative MP Lisa Raitt got unanimous consent for the statement of regret shortly after question period today. Norman was the second-in-command of the Canadian military when he was charged in 2018 in connection with the alleged leak of secrets to a Quebec shipyard. The case against him collapsed a week ago when prosecutors said theyd received new information from the defense that put Normans actions in a new light. The military is trying to find a place for him again since his job as vice-chief of the defense staff was filled while he was suspended from duty. With Raitts motion, the House of Commons recognized Normans years of loyal service to Canada. The motion goes on to express regret for the personal and professional hardships he endured as a result of his failed prosecution and apologize to him and his family for what they experienced during their legal conflict with the government. VIDEO: Watch the moment the House passes Conservative MP Lisa Raitts motion calling for the Commons to apologize to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. pic.twitter.com/ThFKbAbBgy CBC Politics (@CBCPolitics) May 14, 2019 MPs all agreed to slide the motion into the Commons regular business after question period and approved it on a quick voice vote. A helicopter flies over Brooklyn, New York City on July 1, 2017. (Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images) Helicopter Crashes Into New Yorks Hudson River, Injuries Reported A helicopter pilot was rescued after crashing into the Hudson River in New York City. Fire department officials said that he was pulled from the Hudson River on May 15. He crashed in the water close to where the Lincoln Tunnel arrives into Manhattan, CNN reported. The pilot was the only person on board, officials said. He is expected to survive. UPDATE: FDNY now says 2 people injured in Hudson River helicopter landing: the pilot and a heliport worker injured by debris https://t.co/tzJm2B41FX pic.twitter.com/89cbGD3Byi 1010 WINS (@1010WINS) May 15, 2019 Local station 1010 Wins reported that a heliport worker was injured by debris in the incident. Footage shows the helicopter spinning out of control before it plunges into the famed river. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: Relieved to report there were no deaths or serious injuries after a helicopter incident on the Hudson river. Thank you to our first responders for your quick action. Please stay clear of 34th St and 12th Ave on the West Side so emergency response teams can complete their work. He got sideways with it it was the craziest thing Ive ever seen. Eyewitness Ashton Byrd captured video footage of a helicopter crashing into New Yorks Hudson River. Per #FDNY, the pilot is on land, and was the only person on board. pic.twitter.com/WqIDuBfA5T CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) May 15, 2019 Thankfully this pilot is alive and well after this Hudson River Helicopter crash. The wind is so strong out here in NYC today. pic.twitter.com/ipfHam9XlU Andrew Jerell Jones (@sluggahjells) May 15, 2019 The New York City Police Departments Counterterrorism agency urged people to avoid the area. HappeningNow: @NYPDnews & @FDNY are currently on scene at the helicopter crash on the Hudson River. The pilot is safely out of the water and the helicopter is secure at this time. Please avoid the area. pic.twitter.com/1prZj28WlO NYPDCounterterrorism (@NYPDCT) May 15, 2019 #NYPD Harbor secures a helicopter that fell into the Hudson River moments after taking off from the W 30th Street heliport. The pilot was uninjured and safely removed to land by a nearby passenger ferry. pic.twitter.com/3SZtpByEe7 NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) May 15, 2019 There are currently 2 non-life-threatening injuries reported on scene of a helicopter crash into the Hudson River the pilot and one heliport worker injured by debris. #FDNY operations continue. pic.twitter.com/Z1hA2PBKMC FDNY (@FDNY) May 15, 2019 President Donald Trump arrives to a "Make America Great Again" rally at Aaron Bessant Amphitheater in Panama City Beach, Florida on May 8, 2019. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) In Appreciation of Trumps Work 3 Florida Radio Stations to Air His Speeches Every Hour, Every Day Until 2020 Elections Three radio stations in Florida have said they will broadcast President Trumps speeches every hour every day until the 2020 elections to appreciate his work in the area. The announcement came two days after Trump announced $448 million in new disaster relief funding for the hurricane-devastated area on May 8. The first broadcast will begin on Friday. In the wake of the terrible storm, this extraordinary community pulled together and showed the world your unbreakable spirit, Trump told supporters while announcing the funding at the Make America Great Again (MAGA) rally in Panama City. Today, Im doing the most allowed by law to support the people of Florida. Because of the severity of the stormCategory 5we will have the federal government pay for 90 percent of the cost in many circumstances. The President said there would be no delays to the funding. No games, no gimmicks, no delays. We are just doing itYoure getting your money one way or the other, he said. A Florida-based media company that had suffered devastating losses during Hurricane Michael and had to rebuild its stations came forward with the broadcast plan. The stations will air two-minute soundbites from his speeches every hoursometimes even twice during the hourevery day, reported the Orlando Sentinel. Gulf Coast Media, Inc. senior management acknowledged that broadcasting the Presidents speeches may not be consistent with conventional commercial FM radio, but we have taken this approach to show the communitys sincere appreciation for President Donald Trumps work in Panama City and Bay County, said a statement by the Gulf Coast Media, that operates three FM signals in Floridas Panhandle. Gulf Coast Media, recently purchased Classic Rock WRBA-FM 95.9, Country WKNK-FM Hank FM and Adult Hits WASJ-FM BOB FM, whose signals cover Bay County. Hurricane Michael damaged the stations https://t.co/IVkWZwGNti Trump #Winning in 2020 (@CliffWilkin) May 15, 2019 The media said three stationsBOB-FM (105.1, WASJ), HANK-FM (103.5, WKNK), and Classic Rock (95.9, WRBA)will broadcast the speeches. This past week President Donald Trump arrived in Panama City Beach and stood before hurricane-ravaged residents to tell them that he would do everything he legally could to get more money to help the people of Panama City, said the Gulf Coast Media. It said people outside Florida get the impression Floridians are used to the hurricane destruction and ignore the losses suffered there, adding that they were encouraged by the presidents speech in Panama City Beach on Wednesday. People have forgotten about us and the community is so thankful that President Donald Trump made it crystal clear that he was here to help us, the outlet said. The President had held Democrat obstruction responsible for the termination of recovery work in the region. Trump had opposed hurricane aid for Puerto Rico and the Democrats had in return blocked some assistance to regions including the Florida Panhandle, reported the Fox News. The United States had given $91 billion to Puerto Rico to recover from hurricane Maria, which hit in 2017. The most money weve ever given to anybody. Weve never given $91 billion to a state. We gave Puerto Rico $91 billion and they dont like me, Trump said. A spokesman for Gulf Coast Media, Samuel Rogatinsky, told The Wrap that the people are really thankful for the promises of assistance and the media is getting positive reactions from listeners. The community really embraces Donald Trump and we are giving them what they want, Rogatinsky said. We have taken this approach to show the communitys sincere appreciation for President Donald Trumps work, Gulf Coast Media says https://t.co/Gg8jvCxtWQ via @TheWrap pauladrake (@pauladrake) May 10, 2019 If requested by other presidential candidates, Gulf Coast Media would be needed to offer equal time to them to adhere to the Federal Communications Commissions equal time guidelines. If anybody requests it, it wont be an issue, Rogatinsky said. If Bernie Sanders wants equal time then were going to comply with the law. A vendor sells apples in Berlin, Germany, in a file photo. The European Court of Justice has ruled that all employers must set up a system to record hours worked by staff. (Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images) Industry Leaders Concerned European Courts Mandating of Time Clock Adding Red Tape to Modern Workforce Employers concerned that 'more red tape' decreases competitiveness BRUSSELSEuropes top court has ordered companies across the continent to start logging every hour their employees work in a crackdown on overtime and flexible working that has dismayed business leaders. The European Court of Justice ruled that all employers must set up an objective, reliable, and accessible system for recording hours worked by staff following a legal challenge from a Spanish trade union. Judges sitting in Strasbourg, France, said that without such a process, its impossible for businesses to objectively and reliably determine whether they are in compliance with the EUs stringent labor laws. The ruling won plaudits from trade unions and employers rights groups that said it was a crucial step toward enforcing rules already in place to protect workers from being exploited. However, their judgment was met with immediate concern from conservative politicians and industry leaders who warned it will add more red tape for small- and medium-sized companies and stifle Europes competitiveness. The influential Confederation of German Employers Associations, representing business owners in the EUs largest economy, described the move as an economic step backward. We employers are against a universal reintroduction of the time clock in the 21st century. You cannot react to the demands of labor world 4.0 with a work time recording system 1.0, the group said in a statement. The ruling fuels fear that Europes competitiveness is being dented by overly rigorous labor laws at a time when it is embroiled in economic battles with both the United States and China. Daniel Dalton, a British conservative politician who sits on the EU Parliaments internal market committee, warned the judgment could put European companies at a disadvantage compared to more nimble global rivals. This is another example of unnecessary EU red tape that completely misunderstands the modern economy, Dalton said. It underlines why [British] people voted to leave [the EU]. Its regulation that both British businesses and British workers could do without. The British Chamber of Commerce, which represents tens of thousands of businesses across the UK, warned that the new rules could penalize staff members who want to work flexible hours or base themselves at home for several days a week. The modern workplace relies on greater flexibility between employees and employers, and therefore implementing this ruling into UK law will require extensive consultation with business, said chamber director of policy Mike Spicer. The changing nature of the UK workforce, with increased home and remote working and flexibility, means that direct supervision is often challenging, and relies on a degree of trust between employee and employer. If this is to avoid being eroded, it is vital that the government commits to engaging with business communities to see how this can work in practice. The court said it will be up to national authorities across the EUs 28 member states to decide exactly how they comply with the ruling having regard, as necessary, to the particular characteristics of each sector of activity concerned. Jeremy Kyle poses at the British Soap Awards 2008 at BBC Television Centre in London, England, on May 3, 2008. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Jeremy Kyle Show Permanently Axed, Broadcaster ITV Announces The Jeremy Kyle Show has been taken off the air permanently after a guest on the show died of apparent suicide. British television station ITVs chief executive Carolyn McCall was cited by the BBC as saying the decision was a result of the gravity of recent events. ITV initially suspended the show indefinitely. Now, according to ITVs announcement, that suspension is permanent. The television station issued the following statement, as cited by the BBC: Given the gravity of recent events we have decided to end production of The Jeremy Kyle Show. The Jeremy Kyle Show has had a loyal audience and has been made by a dedicated production team for 14 years, but now is the right time for the show to end. Everyone at ITVs thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends of Steve Dymond. The previously announced review of the episode of the show is under way and will continue. ITV will continue to work with Jeremy Kyle on other projects. Death of Steve Dymond The man found dead after appearing on The Jeremy Kyle Show is Steve Dymond, 63, who died in a suspected suicide, according to the Daily Mail, citing the deceased mans landlady. Dymond died following a lie detector test that he took on The Jeremy Kyle Show, which the Daily Mail reported had left the man humiliated and traumatized. The lie detector test suggested Dymond had been unfaithful to his fiancee, Jane Callaghan, who later broke up with him. According to The Sun, Dymond died of a drug overdose. Tomorrows front page: Jeremy Kyle Show guest died of a drug overdose after failing lie detector test that exposed cheating https://t.co/q7LYbsRBrP pic.twitter.com/32GFTXKVGK The Sun (@TheSun) May 13, 2019 Callaghan told The Sun: I know we split up a week ago but we were together for two years. He was still my fiance. I still loved him. We got engaged Christmas Day 2017. He was crying, the love was real. He was the most generous and loving person. He was quietly struggling, and we didnt know at the time. He cheated on me, I know he did. I cant forgive but I just want him to be alive. Callaghan told The Sun Dymond had been struggling with depression. Before his death, Dymond texted Callaghan to say he could not face life without her, according to The Sun, writing: I cant live without you. I just wanted to come and see you. I just wanted to say sorry before I go. My life is not worth living without you. The BBC reported Hampshire Police confirmed Dymonds death on May 9 following a recording of the show. His landlady, identified only by her first name, Shelley, found his body. He was traumatized, Shelley told the Daily Mail. Steve said it got quite nasty on the show. Four days later he was dead. I really believe it was the show that tipped him over the edge. Shelley added, He was just a mess and he was just humiliated. Initial Suspension Following news of Dymonds death, ITV initially indefinitely suspended The Jeremy Kyle Show, according to a statement. The British broadcaster also stated it would not air the episode in which Dymond took part. Everyone at ITV and The Jeremy Kyle Show is shocked and saddened at the news of the death of a participant in the show a week after the recording of the episode they featured in and our thoughts are with their family and friends, a spokesperson said in the statement. ITV will not screen the episode in which they featured, the spokesperson added. The show has aired on ITV since 2005 and is known for its heated discussions between guests who often insult each other about personal and family conflicts in front of studio audiences. The Jeremy Kyle Show taken off air and suspended indefinitely after death of guest who appeared on the show https://t.co/hofO0LFNuM pic.twitter.com/raaAC3r5uX ITV News (@itvnews) May 13, 2019 According to the BBC, The Jeremy Kyle Show is the most popular show on ITVs daytime schedule, with an average of one million viewers and a 22 percent audience share. NTD reporter Tiffany Meier contributed to this report. World Falun Dafa Day Parade in New York will be streamed live on May 16. Live From New YorkCelebrating Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance Join us in New York on May 16, 2019, for a grand celebration of humanity, hope, and freedom. At the 20th annual World Falun Dafa Day parade in New York City, expect stunning costumes, exhilarating performances, and oriental music as over 8,000 people display their traditional cultures from around the world, accompanied by the signature Celestial Marching Band. We will take you to the busiest streets in the heart of NYC, from Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to Grand Central, Bryant Park, and Times Square, with the final stop being the Chinese consulate. Dont miss this unforgettable event that will inspire and uplift people all over the world. Or join us online with your friends and family for the official live broadcast! Live Broadcast Schedule 5/16, 11:00 a.m.1:30 p.m. (EST) 5/16, 8:00 a.m.10:30 a.m. (PST) 5/16, 3:00 p.m.5:30 p.m. (GMT) 5/16, 11:00 p.m.1:30 a.m. (CST) Share this event page and help spread the message of hope and freedom for all humanity, far and wide. This years parade kicks off a weeklong celebration, marking the 27th anniversary of Falun Dafa being taught in public. It gives voice to the ongoing plight of millions of practitioners currently being subjected to brutal and unjust persecution in China. Falun Dafaalso known as Falun Gongis a spiritual meditation practice that teaches the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Hundreds of millions of people around the world have learned the spiritual practice since it was first introduced to the public in 1992. Part of NTDs mission is to bring out the truth of the CCPs brutal eradication campaign and its coverup against the peaceful practice. The broadcast will be streaming live from our Facebook pages: NTD Television The Epoch Times NTD Life NTD News Epoch Times Trending World The Epoch Times NY La Gran Epoca NTD Australia The Epoch Times UK The Epoch Times Australia YouTube Channel: NTDTV Falun Dafa Information Center Websites: The Epoch Times NTD A raccoon is seen in its enclosure at the Schwarze Berge wildlife park in Hamburg, northern Germany, on Feb. 28, 2013. (Sven Hoppe/AFP/Getty Images) Man Faces Backlash for Shouting at Stowaway Raccoon to Get Off His Boat An attorney from Florida is facing criticism for allegedly shouting at a stowaway raccoon to get off his boat leading the critter to its presumed death, an incident that was captured on video. Thomas Cope from Clearwater admitted in a statement to WFTS that he was taking a video and apologized. I apologize for my actions on the boat earlier this week. I sincerely wish there was some way I could have safely returned to shore to release the raccoon, Cope said. Cope said he discovered the fully-grown male raccoon that had been hiding on his boat for several hours. The animal did not reveal itself until they were a good distance offshore. The animal was running around the boat hissing and growling, making it impossible for me or my friend to drive the boat, Cope said in the statement, according to WFTS. Knowing raccoons can be rabid and unpredictable, the only realistic option we could think of in that moment was to get the raccoon off the boat, he added. In the video circulated on social media, a man can be heard shouting at the raccoon to get off the boat. Were just going to have to push him off, he says. The animal scurries to the edge of the boat and appears to fall off. The man then points the camera toward the water and films the raccoon paddling in the water. The video caught the attention of officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWS) who have launched an investigation, reported WFTS. The FWC was alerted to a video by a tip from the public on May 8 which is circulating on social media sites, showing a group of individuals with a raccoon on their vessel. The FWC takes this very seriously and is currently investigating this incident, the commission said in a statement to the website. There have been mixed reactions about whether what Cope allegedly did was right. Pretty amazing that a supposedly educated man can be so stupid. All you had to do was contain him and go back to shore. I am sure that would have caused you to miss too much time being an [expletive]! one social media user said. I dont like raccoons either but you just dont do that, another said. Other people defended the attorney, saying that the raccoon could be carrying rabies. I would have done the same thing. Raccoons carry rabies. Like if most if you had rats roaming freely through your homes. Why not let the little fellows rome freely! one person said. The people who are acting morally superior are clueless when it comes to raccoons. Raccoons carry rabies and are NOT nice. Im sure if there was a way to get the raccoon safely off the boat, they would have done so. But it was too late for that, another person wrote. According to The Humane Society of the United States, raccoons are a primary carrier of the disease rabies but the possibility of dying from a raccoon strain of rabies is low. After a raccoon is infected by the virus, it takes about one to three days before it dies. There are treatments for humans who are bitten by a rabid raccoon. The organization has provided tips on the types of behavior of a rabid raccoon, including: Staggering gait An animal seemingly oblivious to noise or nearby movement Erratic wandering Discharge from eyes or mouth Wet and matted hair on face Repeated high-pitch vocalization Self-mutilation People are recommended to call police or animal control if they observe these signs in a raccoon. Man Who Tossed Boy From Mall of America Balcony Could Get 19 Years in Prison The man who threw a 5-year-old from the third-floor balcony of Mall of America on April 12 plead guilty. 24-year-old Emmanuel Aranda pleaded guilty in the case and will be sentenced on June 4, according to NY Post. The 5-year-old, identified as Landen Hoffman, was seriously injured in the incident. Earlier, officials said that Aranda told them that he went to the mall and was looking for someone to kill when he threw the child, who was with his mother and others. In his courtroom appearance, Aranda only gave yes and no answers when he was questioned. BREAKING Emmanuel Aranda pleads guilty to attempted murder in the Mall of America attack on a 5 year old boy Said he knew throwing the child over a 3rd floor balcony could kill him@KSTP Alex Jokich (@AlexJokichTV) May 14, 2019 According to KTSP, Aranda said that he was aware that throwing the boy, who he didnt know, over the balcony could kill him. Landens mother said Aranda came very close to them and without warning he picked up the victim and threw him off the third-floor balcony, the complaint said, reported the Star-Tribune. Two weeks ago, Landens family issued a statement, saying that he is alert and conscious and no longer in critical condition, the newspaper reported. Their focus was on additional surgeries, healing, rehabilitation, and eventually a return home, which we hope will happen by June, they said. In a statement on May 13, the family stated that Landen continues to heal and they asked for continued prayers and privacy. Arandas mom Becky Aranda said her son has mental health issues and should not be in jail, but he refused to see family to challenge case pic.twitter.com/klKpgHZ57i Chao Xiong (@ChaoStrib) May 14, 2019 Police arrested Aranda moments after the attack as he waited to board a light-rail train at the mall, and said he quickly admitted to the attack. He had two past convictions for assaults at the mall, both in 2015, and had been banned from the property at one point. Court records showed that Aranda had been ordered to undergo psychological evaluation or treatment after those assaults, and his attorney Paul Sellers said Aranda had been in mental health court. Meanwhile, Arandas mother, Becky Aranda, went to the May 14 hearing, saying her son has had mental health problems since he was a child, the Star-Tribune reported. He doesnt need to be in jail, she said. Hes really sick. Becky Aranda said her family was really shocked by the attack, and we had no idea that his illness would drive him to doing this. The mother said she is keeping Landen in our prayers. Our heart goes out to them. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A Flirty Note Caught Woman Off Guard, Then She Saw the Familiar Phone Number The content is not available due to expiration. Massive 15-foot Shark Tracked for Months on Its Journey From Canada Is About to Reach New Milestone A 15-foot, 2,137-pound great white shark named Luna that started its journey from the Canadian coast in October 2018 is about to reach a new milestone. It is heading toward the southern tip of Florida from where itll move to the northeast of the country to give birth. Luna has been tracked for months by OCEARCH, a nonprofit that tags and tracks sharks. She was last pinged off Carolinas coast near Charleston, 80-100 miles off the coast on May 9. A ping happens when a great white sharks dorsal fin breaks over the surface of the water and transmits a signal alerting its presence to a satellite which sends its geolocation to the tracking system, according to the OCEARCH. Luna is joined by three other sharks in North Carolinas Outer Banks, and together they will feast on the coasts abundant life before moving for their maternity time, reported the Daily Mail. Two of the biggest sharks we are tracking right now pinged in today to let us know they are both off the coast of South Carolina. Fifteen-foot Luna is out over the Charleston Bump while 12 9 white shark Caroline is much closer to shore off Edisto Beach, said a release by OCEARCH on their Facebook page. Great White sharks travel long distances sometimes thousands of miles in search of seasonal bounty and for giving birth. Tagging Sharks Sharks are tagged for scientific research. According to OCEARCH, each shark is provided with three different types of tagsSmart Position and Temperature (SPOT) tag, a Pop-off Archival Satellite Tag (PSAT), and an acoustic tag. Each device collects data differently and combined they provide a much more complete understanding of the sharks movements, OCEARCH said in a press release. SPOT tags are mounted on the dorsal fin and they transmit the geolocation of the shark whenever the giant pings over the surface. Its battery operated and each battery lasts for over five years. Acoustic tags that last for about 10 years are surgically implanted in the abdomen and they communicate a sharks presence to receivers at the bottom of the sea up and down the coastline. PSAT tags record depth, temperature, and light levels (used for geolocation) and store the data to memory. The tags do not transmit any information while on the shark. They are instead programmed to detach from the shark six months to a year after attachment, float to the surface and transmit the data to us via satellite, said the release. How Do Sharks Become Mothers? Sharks are fish that hatch from eggs. Depending upon how and where they lay their eggs, there are two types of shark mothers. White sharks are Viviparous sharks and their eggs hatch inside the uterus and the pups mature inside before they are given birth. The process of growth inside the uterus differs from species to species. Dr. Gisele Montano, a reproductive research associate at SeaWorld, told OCEARCH that it is not easy for sharks to become mothers and the shark mothers devote a lot of energy to raising their eggs as the gestation period can last for many months. Add on top of that the violent process of copulating in the first place and ultimately mother sharks have a huge toll taken on their bodies. For this reason, Dr. Montano says many sharks cycle every other year (dusky sharks cycle every 3 years) in order to allow their bodies to recover, OCEARCH said in a post on its website. The second type of shark mothers are oviparous. They lay eggs once they are ready but they dont stick around to take care of them. The eggs have tendrils that attach to structures on the bottom of the seafloor such as coral, sponge or rocks that provide protection to the eggs. Once the baby shark inside the egg is developed, it hatches ready to defend itself with no mother to protect it, explained OCEARCH. Meth-Addicted Georgia Couple Found Guilty of Murdering 2-Week-Old Daughter A meth-addicted Georgia couple who phoned 911 to report their 2-week-old daughter had disappeared as they slept have been found guilty of her murder. The body of Caliyah McNabb was found in a Nike drawstring bag under a log not far from the familys mobile home in Covington, Georgia, in October 2017. According to the coroners report, she died of blunt force trauma. On May 14, a jury took just one hour to find her parents, Christopher McNabb and Cortney Marie Bell, guilty of murder, according to local reports. McNabb was sentenced to life without parole, plus 10 years on eight counts, according to the district attorney. Bell was sentenced to 30 years on three counts, and will serve the first 15 in confinement. Prosecutors argued that Bells negligence contributed to the death of her 15-day-old daughter, reported Fox Atlanta, although they accepted she didnt physically contribute to her murder. The defense for both parents had argued that there was no direct evidence linking them to the death. However, prosecutors convinced the jury of their assertion that strong circumstantial evidence indicated Caliyahs parents were the only possible culprits in her death. The court heard that McNabb and Bell kept a filthy home, used drugs, and had a violent relationship, according to AJC. That child was doomed the moment they left that hospital, District Attorney Lalya H. Zon said in a closing statement, according to AJC. They took pure innocence and brought that child into a life of hell. Casting McNabb as a negligent father and violent partner with a short fuse, the prosecution said that he had snapped when his daughter was crying, killing her. This case illustrates how methamphetamine abuse breaks apart families, endangers lives, and destroys communities, said the Newton County District Attorney in a statement. The murder of baby Caliyah was appalling and detestable. The punishment in this case was the maximum sentence that McNabb could receive and it was justly deserved. McNabb was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, murder in the second degree, aggravated battery, cruelty to children in the first degree, cruelty to children in the second degree, and concealing the death of another. Bell was found guilty of second-degree murder, second-degree child cruelty, and contributing to the dependency of a minor. McNabb maintained his innocence to the last. I would never do this. Im innocent, McNabb said after sentencing, reported 11Alive. I just dont understand how you find somebody guilty of doing something to a 15-day-old baby, because there was no evidence whatsoever that proved anything about me putting my hands on my kids. Ive never done that. I never would. According to Fox Atlanta, Bell broke down during her sentencing and said, Yall know I didnt do this. But the judge countered saying that her using drugs flies in the face of what any mother would do. A 911 call released by authorities reveals the moment that Bell called to report Caliyah missing on Oct 7. She said she had been asleep since 5 a.m. after feeding the child but when she woke up the baby was gone. Okay, you said you were sleep and woke up and she was gone? the 911 operator asked. Yes. My my 2-year-old came and woke me up. I was sleeping on the couch, she said. Caliyahs body was found the following day in the wooded area behind the trailer park where the family lived, near Highway 36. After an intense search by NCSO deputies, McNabb was arrested on Oct. 8 at a Highway 36 gas station. Jurors were taken to the home and the location where the body was found during the trial, reported Fox Atlanta. Lavonia Fortner helps her father-in-law, John E. Fortner, search for memorabilia his wife collected, in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach, Fla., on Oct. 13, 2018. (Gerald Herbert/AP) Mexico Beach, Florida, Still Ruined as Hurricane Season Approaches Mexico Beach, Florida, is still practically ruined months after Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm, wrecked the city last year. Hurricane season is officially starting on June 1 and runs until November. So many old Florida homes, been here for 60 years and you know, those are gone, said Al Cathey, the mayor of Mexico Beach, Fox News reported. Children, they dont forget those sounds, and those sights of the roof being ripped off their house or the things tearing up it was like being in a war for 15 minutes, noted Panama City Beach Mayor Mike Thomas. The powerful storm, which had 155 mph winds, created a huge debris field across northern Florida. There was more debris hauled off in this storm than in any other the landscape has completely changed. It shows things that youve never seen before, Thomas told Fox. Highlighting the scope of the destruction wrought by the storm, Cathey said that there were 2,700 living units in Mexico Beach. Now, there are only about 500, and some are just shells of homes, he said. Cathey, meanwhile, said that less than 400 people live in the city. This warehouse were in was nothing more than a material warehouse, he added. Somehow, it hung together during the storm. Cathey said that Mexico Beach residents arent worried about future storms because theyve already suffered mass devastation. When you are up to your eyes in alligators, you dont worry if another one gets in the pond, he said. We sort of tease, like a little joke out of it, being hurricane season: What, more damage, what have we got to worry about? What else can happen to us? Fox noted that more than 45,000 structures were damaged and 1,500 were destroyed in Bay County. Some 7,800 residents are still homeless. Panama City Beach City Manager Mario Gisbert told the news outlet that work is being done to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season. If we take power from overhead to underground, well be stronger for the next storm. If we have better stormwater capabilities, well be stronger for the next storm. If we replace buildings with buildings that are designed for 150-mile-an-hour winds, well be stronger, Gisbert said. Forecast? AccuWeather released its forecast for the 2019 hurricane season, predicting 12 to 14 named storms. Of those storms, five to seven are forecast to become hurricanes and two to four are forecast to become major hurricanes, AccuWeather said. Looking at recent weather patterns, 2019 could be similar to 1969 when Hurricane Camille pummeled the Gulf coastline. It made landfall in Waveland, Mississippi, and left widespread damage in several coastal areas, including Mobile, Alabama, AccuWeather reported. It became one of only three Category 5 hurricanes on record to impact the U.S, the report said. With this years 2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast, were introducing a new kind of risk map. https://t.co/Sgcqj9OWmS (1/3) pic.twitter.com/9RzKA0b0fX AccuWeather (@accuweather) April 3, 2019 AccuWeather hurricane forecaster Dan Kottlowski, however, gave a warning to people living along the coast. He stated, Now is the time to start planning. Of those people who were impacted by Florence and Michael last year, the ones who did not have plans in place had the most difficulty in dealing with the storm when it was occurring and during the recovery. This year, we think that there will be a few less tropical storms and lower numbers in hurricanes, but again, the old saying is it only takes one, he explained. Missing Toddler Kenneth Howard Found Alive in Kentucky, Say Officials A 22-month-old boy was found alive days after he disappeared from his eastern Kentucky home, according to officials. Kenneth Howard was found near a 50-foot cliff along Raccoon Road in the Hueysville area, Magoffin Rescue Squad Director Carter Conley told WSAZ. The Magoffin County Sheriffs Office said on May 15 that it is happy to confirm the reports that Kenneth Howard has been FOUND !!! According to Captain Carter Conley of the Magoffin Co Rescue Squad, he is alive, he is being attended by medics for dehydration, but is in remarkably good condition. Thanks to all who prayed, searched and helped in any way!! This is the best news ever !!! a Facebook post from the office read. Rescue crews heard crying and saw Kenneth. They used a basket to get to the boy, it was reported. Sweet Kentucky Toddler Vanished on Sunday, and Dad Says He May Have Been Abducted https://t.co/i9q22WR8LE People (@people) May 15, 2019 Kenneth was located about 1,755 feet from home on an old mines property. Family members said that he may have walked out of the back door of the home, the report said. Police said that other than some dehydration, the boy is fine. A helicopter was dispatched to fly him to a trauma center. Trooper William Petry of the state police told People magazine that the childs father told officials that he was in the front yard with the child, who then went behind the house. When he went behind the house, Kenneth was gone. Its just like he disappeared. No sign, no nothing, his father, Elden Howard, was quoted by WKYT as saying. Thats the reason [Ive] started to think, if we cant find him, somebodys picked him up. Elden also offered a $5,000 reward for the boy. I would just like to see him come home safe, he told WYMT. I guess its adrenaline. I cant rest, cant eat. Ive ate one bologna sandwich since Sunday. Shes in pretty bad shape too, shed tore all to pieces. Its just not knowing what to do. Weve searched everywhere we can think of theyve had dog teams in here, nothings showing up, he said of his wife. Missing Children There were 464,324 missing children reported in the FBIs National Crime Information Center in 2017, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Under federal law, when a child is reported missing to law enforcement they must be entered into the database. In 2016, there were 465,676 entries. This number represents reports of missing children. That means if a child runs away multiple times in a year, each instance would be entered into NCIC separately and counted in the yearly total. Likewise, if an entry is withdrawn and amended or updated, that would also be reflected in the total, the center noted. In 2017, the center said it assisted officers and families with the cases of more than 27,000 missing children. In those cases, 91 percent were endangered runaways, and 5 percent were family abductions. About one in seven children reported missing to the center in 2017 were likely victims of child sex trafficking. A visit to Valencia, a port city on the eastern coast of Spain, would not be complete without enjoying a pan of paella. The hearty rice dish, filled with ingredients ranging from assorted seafood to chicken, meat, and vegetables, was born in the region of Valencia, which shares the name of its capital city. For locals, gathering on weekends and holidays to share a paella is an afternoon tradition that can stretch into the early evening hours. The dish is always served family-style and usually enjoyed with a dark cherry red wine made from the local Bobal grape. Dessert might be a flan de naranja, a traditional Spanish custard that incorporates Valencia oranges into the caramel sauce; or bunyols, sugary donut holes, another local specialty. Humble Origins Though recognized as a traditional Spanish dish, paella also has roots in North Africa. Servants working for aristocrats would take home leftover scraps from banquets and cook them with rice in a large pan over an open flame to feed their families. The name paella may have been derived from the Arabic word baqiyah, meaning leftovers; a more phonetic association may come from patera, the Arabic word for pan. The shallow, round, two-handled pan used to cook the dish is called la paella. When the Moors, a nomadic group from North Africa, invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 A.D., they brought their culture and customs with them. This included ingredients essential to making paella such as rice and saffron, as well as coriander, cumin, and artichokes. The Spanish word for rice, arroz, stems from Arabic, as does the word for saffron, azafran. Valencia, being a major port city, was where many migrants entered and settled. Rice fields were planted, and the grain is still an important industry for the region. Paella was also considered a lunchtime dish for rice field laborers because it was cheap to make, nutritious, and filling. Cooks would forage local field ingredients, such as green beans, peas, and snails, to add to the rice and simmer it all in a stock of onions, garlic, and chopped vegetablescalled sofritoover an open flame. When available, small chunks of cooked rabbit, duck, and chicken were added. Saffron, used for seasoning, turned the rice a golden color and added a sweet, musky flavor. True paella de Valencia is still made this way. Seafood paella came later, thanks to Valencias location on the Mediterranean Sea, and usually includes shrimp, mussels, clams, and slices of calamari with lemon wedges placed on top of the rice. Local residents I dined with in Spain simply called these varieties with fish a seafood rice dish, saving the word paella for the authentic Valencian version. The vegetables used depend on whats in season and available. On a recent trip to Valencia, an artichoke paella I tasted during artichoke season was one of the most memorable versions I enjoyed. Rules of the Pan One of the biggest tests for the perfect paella is the socarrat (pronounced soh-ku-rraht), the savory, caramelized rice crust that forms at the bottom of the pan. Scraping out the socarrat is like eating the crunchy-moist crust of a fresh-baked pie, or the crisped edges of a chewy brownie. Digging into a paella pan and not finding any socarrat feels like missing out on the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. Though it sounds simple, there is a technique to making paella correctly. I turned to a paella master for tips. Lolo Manso is the owner of Socarrat Paella Bar, with three locations in New York City. Socarrat offers many versions of paella as well as its culinary cousin, fideua, which is made with vermicelli noodles instead of rice. Manso said his restaurant has probably served more than a million paellas since opening 10 years ago. To make paella, you need a paella pan, a round, shallow dish with two handles that make it easy to carry from stove to table. Manso explained that paella is intended to be a thin layer of rice, not a deep-dish casserole, one reason the pan is shallow. The flat bottom helps the rice to cook evenly and makes it easier to balance over an open flame, which is how field workers prepared the dish. On Rice and Saffron Manso stressed the importance of cooking the rice properly: You must have the right proportion of rice to cooking broth: one-half cup rice to two cups water. The most commonly used paella rice is short-grained rice called bomba, which absorbs more of the liquid and flavors used in cooking while remaining firm. Bomba rice cooks uniformly, puffs up without becoming soggy, and doesnt stick to the pan, which is ideal for scraping out the socarrat. An alternative to bomba rice is the Spanish variety called Calasparra, which is named after the village close to where the rice is harvested. If neither is available, Manso suggested using another short-grain rice, like arborio, which is used to make risotto in Italy. Aside from the sofrito of chopped garlic, onions, tomatoes, and a touch of salt and pepper, the main seasoning for paella is saffron, which adds a buttery golden hue and a musky flavor to the rice. Its also expensive; high-quality saffron can cost $50 an ounce. Thats because the spice is labor-intensive to harvest. Saffron comes from the stigma of the saffron crocus flower, which has a short blooming period of two weeks. Each crocus only produces three deep red, threadlike strands, which must be hand-harvested to protect the delicate stigma. Color, aroma, and taste indicate quality saffron. The dried stigma should have a deep red stem with lighter orange-yellow tips, rather than being solid red. The aroma and flavor should be slightly earthy, with light floral essences. When immersed in water, saffron will retain its deep golden color and essence. If the water tastes bitter or turns a reddish color, this may indicate dye was used to boost the color, a sign of lesser quality saffron. Most of the worlds saffronabout 90 percentcomes from Iran, but Spain is also a producer. Thats why tourists snap up small packets of saffron at local markets in Spain to bring back to the United States as gifts for friends who cook. Cooking Tips Paella is a simple one-dish recipe: rice cooked in a savory broth with meat and vegetables over a stove, stirring to achieve the right consistency. Manso recommended adding seafood, such as peeled shrimp and chunks of fish, after the other ingredients have been prepared to avoid overcooking the fish. A tip is to place the seafood on top of the cooked rice and heat the dish in an oven until the fish is cooked. The dry oven will also help the socarrat form. Simple indeed, but I found achieving the right crispness for the socarrat a little challenging. Manso said it takes practice and suggested, If the socarrat has not formed in the oven, place the pan over a stovetop for a few minutes so the bottom of the pan heats without overcooking the rest of the dish, but be careful not to burn the rice. Another tip to achieve a deeper shade of gold is to first steep the saffron in warm water or stock for 1520 minutes to release the color, and then add this tea to the rice. While Socarrat offers six different types of paella, including a savory seafood version made with arroz negro (rice tinted with black squid ink) piled with shrimp, calamari, scallops, and chunks of white fish, Manso underscored that traditional paella is very simple: Theres a thin layer of rice and just a few pieces of the fish or chicken. Paella may be a simple dish of the working people, but digging into a pan and scooping up the socarrat with your friends can be a very decadent experience. Simple Paella for Two Serves 2 For the sofrito: 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/4 cup chopped fresh tomatoes 1/4 cup chopped raw onion 1 clove garlic, chopped Salt and pepper, to taste For the paella: 1/2 cup chopped green beans, fava beans, or peas (see Note) 6 ounces chopped chicken 1 cup bomba rice (also known as paella rice or Valencia rice) 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth (for seafood paella, use seafood broth) 2 pinches of saffron, steeped in warm water or stock for 1520 minutes 1012 medium shrimp, peeled 1012 mussels or small clams, in shell Salt and pepper, to taste One lemon, quartered lengthwise Make the sofrito: In a 24-inch round paella pan (measures 12 inches on the bottom), combine olive oil, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Saute over low to medium heat until mixture reaches a smooth consistency. Continue simmering over low heat for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Add vegetables and chopped chicken and any other meat into the pan of sofrito and saute until cooked. Remove from pan, leaving most of the sofrito behind, and set aside. Add rice, broth, and saffron to heated pan. Stir lightly at first with a fork to incorporate flavors, and then let simmer for 8 minutes over medium heat without stirring to allow the rice to settle in the pan and absorb the liquid. Reduce heat and continue cooking rice to absorb the broth. When broth is almost completely gone, place seafood on top of rice mixture. Place pan with seafood on top in preheated oven. Let cook for 57 minutes until seafood is cooked, but not overcooked. Remove dish from oven. Add cooked meat and vegetables. If crust has not formed on sides of the pan, place briefly over a heated stove-top burner over low heat and cook for 56 minutes, slowly rotating the pan until the rice caramelizes and forms a crust on the bottom and sides of the pan. The crust should be light brown but not burned. Test with a fork. Remove pan from heat and let the dish sit for 35 minutes to enhance the flavors. Top with sliced lemon wedges and serve family-style. Note: Use whatever vegetables are in season. Other vegetables could include 1/2 cup halved artichoke hearts or 1/2 cup chopped piquillo peppers. If using more than one kind, you may want to reduce amounts to 1/3 cup each. To Drink: A succulent medium-body red wine, such as the local Bobal from the Utiel-Requena region, where Valencia is located. Recipe adapted from Lolo Manso, Socarrat Paella Bar. A longtime wine and food industry professional, Melanie Young hosts The Connected Table LIVE! (iHeart), a weekly radio show and podcast featuring conversations with global thought leaders in wine, food, and hospitality. Twitter @connectedtable A police officer stands guard at the site of the New Years Eve stampede in Shanghai, on Jan. 3, 2015. Shanghai authorities have tightened censorship over the incident by blocking online criticism, summoning internet users, and suppressing the press. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images) Political Correctness Is a Tool for Socialist Censorship and Thought Control News Analysis In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, part of the dystopian government that George Orwell imagined was its use of the language of Newspeak, a simplification of the English language to serve the needs of the state. Newspeak altered thoughts, so that people were rendered incapable of thinking outside Party lines. We now see this same principle at play in political correctness, in which concepts behind words are being altered to fit political narratives, and people are censoring their thoughts to not violate the artificial morals of the state. The effects of political correctness can be found most clearly where the concept originates: under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as Mao Zedong created the concept in 1967 to control public dissent at the start of the Cultural Revolution. The idea was simple: support the regimes policies and you are politically correct. Oppose them, and you can be targeted and destroyed. In its details, the CCPs use of political correctness is different from the way its used in the United States and Europe, yet underneath it has the same purpose. Under the Chinese regime, its used as an artificial moral system to guard the policies of the CCP. In the United States, its used as an artificial moral system to guard socialist policies. Under the CCPs film censorship laws, for example, the standards are made intentionally vague so that filmmakers attempt to over-censor, in order to please authorities. Using this system, people need to consider what the regime would consider immoral, and attempt to pre-censor themselves to appease its politically correct censors. Variety recently reported as an example the Chinese film Last Sunrise, about which CCP censors said it showed too much of the darkness of humanity. To appease the regime, the filmmakers went overboard. The director, Ren Wen, said: The problem is theyre not specific, so we just had to cut whatever we thought they might find too dark or violent. Of course, while making a film less dark and violent could be a good thing, in the context of communist political correctness, this has other purposes. Soviet defector and former propagandist Yuri Bezmenov explained in his book, Love Letter to America, that when a communist regime is trying to subvert a country, it attacks all of the nations moral and cultural foundations. These attacks take various forms, but include promotions of drug use, grassroots movements, and all forms of vices. Yet, when the regimes take power, they will move to forbid the systems of destabilization. Bezmenov wrote that when a socialist regime is formed, it then needs to establish stability and create a new morality. At that point, Bezmenov explained, there will be No more grass roots movements. No more criticism of the State. The Press will obediently censor itself. In other words, during the stages of destroying morals and destabilizing society, political correctness is used to guard the systems of cultural decay. When the regime takes full power, however, it will use political correctness to guard its hold on power. In the context of the CCP, its stage of wanting people to sense the darkness of humanity, has come to a closeat least when its related to the Chinese people. Instead, it wants people to feel happy with 12-hours a day, 6-day work weeks, and the environment of mass censorship and surveillance. Theyre living the dystopian reality that Orwell envisioned, but with a shiny polish that theyre told to feel happy about. Thoughts that drift into thinking that life may be better with another political system would be dangerous to the state, and so the regime forbids imagery that could invoke such thoughts. Meanwhile, the CCP has no problem portraying the darkness of humanity when it serves its interestssuch as portraying life before the communist regime took power. As Chinese people began to have a fascination with Chinas 5,000 years of history, the CCP took things a step further and banned portrayals of China before the CCP took power. When the show Yanxi Palace, about life in imperial China, became the countrys most-watched drama, the communist regime saw public interest in the culture it destroyed as a threat to its power. In January, state media declared that the show, and other imperial dramas, were having negative impacts, and they were banned soon after. The CCP has portrayed traditional Chinese historywhich was heavily based in values of filial piety, propriety, and reverence for the divineas being something dark and evil. Any portrayal of the true values and culture is seen as a threat to the state. John Marzulli, public information officer for the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Eastern District of New York, pushes a cart full of court documents on the U.S. v. Keith Raniere case at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on May 7, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Prosecutors Ask to Introduce Box of NXIVM Files on Enemies NEW YORKAfter former NXIVM President Nancy Salzman was arrested in 2018, federal agents acting on a search warrant uncovered a plastic box in her basement filled with financial documents allegedly concerning the enemies of the organization. The box of documents, prosecutors argued on May 14, should be shown to the jury. The debate came after Judge Nicholas Garaufis, on the morning of May 14, adjourned the ongoing trial until May 15 because a juror was ill and couldnt make it to court. Former NXIVM member Mark Vicente, the second witness in the trial, has not yet been cross-examined by the defense. Vicente once served on the groups executive board. After jurors left the room located at the federal court in Brooklyn, Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza told Garaufis the prosecution wants to introduce the evidence she says demonstrates a covert mission to gather financial information on NXIVM enemies. She described the box as a financial dossier on enemies, including numerous reporters, federal judges, politicians, political operatives, and NXIVMs own lawyers. Penza said the prosecution hopes to introduce the box of evidence in the upcoming testimony of a federal agent, the third witness to testify in the trial of Keith Raniere, the founder and grandmaster of the purported self-help organization. Raniere sat at the top of every pyramid scheme under the expansive umbrella organization and is also accused of having sexual slaves as part of an internal secret society called DOS. The box of financial documents additionally included alleged bank account details of the enemies of NXIVM and about a half million dollars worth of cash. Penza told the judge that she also wanted to add chains of emails from two women in NXIVM. Vicente previously testified that NXIVM often filed lawsuits against enemies of the organization, including former members who spoke out against them. He said Clare Bronfman, an heiress of the Seagram beverage company and an acting CFO of sorts in NXIVM, headed such lawsuits. Vicente told the court during testimony on May 13 that he himself was afraid of being sued by NXIVM. But Marc Agnifilo, Ranieres lead attorney, objected to the prosecutions request, calling all the documents hearsay. Agnifilo told the judge that the documents were created by Kristin Keeffe, a former member of NXIVM, and claimed it had nothing to do with Raniere. Agnifilo also claimed that Penza wanted to introduce the dump truck of evidence because the prosecution didnt want Keeffe to testify as a witness. This is not the kind of evidence that you can dump in front of the jury, Agnifilo told the judge. Agnifilo said that the bank records in question were fake and all stemmed from an investigative company called CanaProbe. In response, Penza called Agnifilos arguments completely irrelevant. She said the information, whether real or fake, show the strategies used within NXIVM against its enemies. Mr. Agnifilo is the one afraid of Kristin Keeffe, because the defendant tortured her, Penza said. Thats why he hasnt spoken to her. The other five co-defendants in the U.S. vs. Raniere et al. case, which includes Nancy Salzman, have all pleaded guilty; some pleas came after prosecutors added child exploitation charges against Raniere based on evidence he had sex with a 15-year-old girl. City Supervisor Aaron Peskin speaks before a vote on a surveillance technology ordinance that he sponsored, in San Francisco, Calif., on May 14, 2019. (Jeffrey Dastin/Reuters) San Francisco Votes to Ban City Use of Facial Recognition Technology SAN FRANCISCOSan Francisco officials on Tuesday, May 14, voted 8 to 1 to ban the purchase and use of facial recognition technology by city personnel, in a move to regulate tools that local Silicon Valley companies helped develop. The ordinance, which also would require city departments to submit surveillance technology policies for public vetting, can become final after a second vote next week by the same officials, the citys Board of Supervisors. The action puts San Francisco at the forefront of increasing discontent in the United States over facial recognition, which government agencies have used for years and now has become more powerful with the rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies. We have a fundamental duty to safeguard the public from potential abuses, Aaron Peskin, the city supervisor who championed the ban, said before the boards vote. Peskin said the ordinance was not an anti-technology policy. It allows continued use of surveillance tools like security cameras; the district attorney or sheriff can make an appeal to use certain restricted technology in exceptional circumstances as well. Rather, Peskin said, the aim is to protect marginalized groups that could be harmed by the technology. For instance, Amazon.com Inc has come under scrutiny since last year for selling an image analysis and ID service to law enforcement. Researchers have said this service struggles to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin, prompting fears of unjust arrests. Amazon has defended its work and said all users must follow the law. Civil rights groups and companies including Microsoft Corp, which markets a facial recognition service, have called for regulation of the technology in recent months. This has added momentum to the effort in San Francisco and to a parallel ban reportedly in the works in nearby Oakland. A draft text of the San Francisco ordinance. While communities at the heart of the technology industry are moving to limit facial recognition, police elsewhere have increased their use, primarily to spot potential suspects in known offender databases after a crime has occurred. U.S. customs agents are vetting foreign travelers at airports with facial recognition, and other federal agencies use the technology too. Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, said concerns that the U.S. government would use face identification for mass surveillance like China has, were overblown. The non-profit includes technology industry representatives on its board. San Franciscos ban on facial recognition will make it frozen in time with outdated technology, he said. By Jeffrey Dastin A military drone replica is displayed in front of the White House during a protest against drone strikes on January 12, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) Saudi Arabia Says Its Oil Pipeline Was Attacked by Drones DUBAI, United Arab EmiratesAn oil pipeline that runs across Saudi Arabia was hit by drones May 14 west of its capital of Riyadh, the Saudi energy minister said, shortly after rebels in Yemen claimed they carried out coordinated drone strikes against the kingdom. The attacks followed reports of sabotage against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on May 12, with tensions rising between the U.S. and Iran. Oil prices rose May 14, with benchmark Brent crude trading over $71 a barrel, up more than $1 on the day. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih Al-Falih vowed that production and export of Saudi oil would not be interrupted. In a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, he called the pipeline attack cowardly, saying that recent acts of sabotage against the kingdoms vital installations were targeting not only Saudi Arabia, but also the safety of the worlds energy supply and global economy. Yemens Houthi rebels said they launched seven drones against vital installations in Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen to the north. Saudi Arabia has been at war with the pro-Iran Houthis and their allies in Yemen since March 2015. The two oil pumping stations targeted in Saudi Arabia are over 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Yemens northern border with the kingdom. It wasnt immediately known where the Houthis launched the drones. The attacks demonstrated the increased risks in a region vital to global energy supplies amid heightened tensions following the Trump administrations withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and the subsequent reimposition of U.S. sanctions to cripple the Iranian economy. Iran has since said it would begin enriching uranium at higher levels by July 7 if world powers failed to negotiate new terms for the deal. Al-Falih said the drone attacks reaffirm the need of the international community to confront the activities of groups like the Houthis, whom he accused of being backed by Iran, Saudi Arabias regional rival. He said the drones had targeted petroleum pumping stations supplying a pipeline running from its oil-rich Eastern Province to the Yanbu Port on the Red Sea. Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said that as a precaution, it temporarily shut down the East-West Pipeline and contained the fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramcos oil and gas supplies have not been affected by the attack. Saudi Arabia said the two petroleum pumping stations that were struck by drones are located in the greater region of Riyadh, home to the landlocked capital. The stations, targeted around the same time May 14, are located in al-Duadmi and Afif, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Riyadh city and 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Riyadh city, respectively. Saudi Arabia built its pipeline in the 1980s amid fears that the Iran-Iraq war would cut off shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) pipeline is actually two pipes that have a total capacity of 4.8 million barrels of crude oil a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The four oil tankers that were targeted May 12 off the coast of the UAEs port of Fujairah were allegedly damaged in what Gulf officials described as sabotage, although satellite images obtained May 14 by the AP showed no visible damage to the vessels. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from an unknown object, its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images May 13 of the Norwegian-flagged Andrea Victory, which the company said was not in any danger of sinking, showed damage similar to what the firm described. Details of the alleged sabotage to two Saudi, one Norwegian and one Emirati oil tanker remain unclear, and Gulf officials have refused to say who they suspected was responsible. Satellite images provided to the AP by Colorado-based Maxar Technologies showed a boom surrounding the Emirati oil tanker A. Michel, indicating the possibility of an oil leak. The other three showed no visible damage from above. A U.S. official in Washington told the AP that a U.S. military teams initial assessment indicated Iran or Iranian allies used explosives to blow holes in the ships. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and thus spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. has recently warned ships that Iran or its proxies could be targeting maritime traffic in the region. Washington has deployed an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter threats from Tehran. United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq called on all concerned parties to exercise restraint for the sake of regional peace, including by ensuring maritime security. On May 14, Spain temporarily pulled one of its frigates that was part of a U.S.-led combat fleet from near the Persian Gulf because of the mounting tensions. The Ministry of Defense said the Mendez Nunez, with 215 sailors aboard, will not cross the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf with the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Spanish frigate was the only non-U.S. vessel in the fleet. The drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities reflect how the Houthis have expanded their capabilities during the four-year war. The rebels have targeted Riyadh with missiles and used drones to disrupt air traffic at Saudi airports near the Yemen border. The Houthis also have flown into the radar arrays of Saudi Arabias Patriot missile batteries, according to the research group Conflict Armament Research, disabling them and allowing the rebels to fire ballistic missiles into the kingdom unchallenged. Iran has been accused by the U.S. and the U.N. of supplying ballistic missile technology and arms to the Houthis, which Tehran denies. Such drones remain difficult to shoot down with either light or heavy weapons. Iraqi forces learned this from driving out the Islamic State terrorist group from northern Iraq, where the extremists would load drones with grenades or simple explosives to target their forces. The U.S. supports Saudi Arabia and its allies in the war against the Houthis, despite criticism that Saudi-led coalition airstrikes have killed civilians. By Aya Batrawy & Jon Gambrell Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.), at a news conference proposing legislation to address the crisis at the southern border at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on May 15, 2019. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Sen. Graham Introduces Immigration Bill to Fix Legal Loopholes WASHINGTONLegislation being introduced into the Senate is aimed to close the legal loopholes that allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to enter and stay in the United States without a valid asylum claim. Sen. Lindsey Grahams (R-S.C.) bill, titled Secure and Protect Act of 2019, outlines four main fixes. The first is that asylum must be claimed in either the individuals home country or in Mexico. That will prevent illegal immigrants from gaining access to the United States unless their claim is approved. Under the current system, if an adult brings a child illegally into the United States and claims asylum, there is a 98 percent chance they will stay indefinitely. In some areas, where the Border Patrol is overwhelmed, fewer than 10 percent of illegal aliens claim asylum, but are still released after 48 to 72 hours. The bill also provides a fix to the Flores Settlement Agreement, which was expanded by a judge in 2015 and has, in part, contributed to the surge in family units since then. In 2015, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California said no minor can be held in detention longer than 20 days. Previously, that rule only applied to unaccompanied minors, not those who were part of family units. The result is that families are released within a few days. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen estimated that 1 million illegal immigrants will be apprehended this fiscal year. The largest increase of illegal border crossers are family units. More than half of the 460,000 Border Patrol apprehensions so far this fiscal year are individuals within family unitsa 400 percent increase over the same time period in fiscal 2018. Grahams bill would increase the time in detention to 100 days, which would allow for the adjudication of an asylum case, and a quick deportation if status is not granted. Im trying to turn the faucet off. These loopholes are creating a humanitarian crisis, Graham said in a press conference on May 15. If we do nothing, whats it going to look like next year? In conjunction, Graham wants an additional 500 immigration judges hired to help adjudicate the cases and clear the almost 900,000-case backlog that exists. Lastly, the bill aims to even out the disparity in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), under which currently a minor from Mexico or Canada (a contiguous country) may be quickly returned to that country if they are not a victim of trafficking; minors from any other (noncontiguous) country cannot be returned. If you think this is a Trump-created problem, you really just hate Trump. Because this problem has been long in the making before Trump got here, Graham said. He said he will hold a hearing to discuss the bill and then a markup session. He expects Democrats to add amendments to the bill, including for more aid to Central American countries and some type of amnesty for a population of illegal immigrants in the United States, probably Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. He intimated he was open to adding both. To any Republican who doesnt want to find a solution, then you own the problem, he said. The Democratic Party has marginalized this issuethey have told you this is not a problem, [that] Trump created this problem. When President Trump made his State of the Union speech, every Democrat said This is just Trump hysteria, Trump demagoguery. To my Democratic colleagues, your credibility on this issue is pretty low right now. You need to understand that you were wrong. This was a real problem. In February 2018, four immigration-related bills failed in the Senate, while another two failed in the House during the summer. Trump has maintained that he will sign a reasonable bill that closes the border security loopholes and moves toward a merit-based immigration system. Senate Republicans met with Vice President Mike Pence and White House adviser Jared Kushner on May 14 to discuss Trumps immigration priorities. South Carolina Police Find Body of Missing 16-Year-Old Boy Police in South Carolina have announced that a missing 16-year-old boy has been found dead. Officials with the Greer Police Department said on Wednesday, May 15, that the body of Logan James had been found, according to Fox Carolina. The boys disappearance was announced by police on social media on Tuesday, along with a request for the publics help in locating the vulnerable teen. Police cited in the report said the teens death likely occurred around 11 p.m. Tuesday after being struck by a train. Officials cited by WSPA said the boy had made threats of self-harm. Jamess friends contacted the police around 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday after receiving a final message from him on social media. The Greer Police Departments thoughts and prayers are with the family of Logan James, Lt. Patrick Fortenberry said, according to WSPA. Police said they continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the teens death. Suicide Prevention According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. If you or someone you know is showing signs that they might be considering suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 800-273-TALK or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org. Texts can also be sent to The Crisis Text Line at 741741. The best way to help a loved one who seems at risk of suicide is to help them seek out professional help. According to the American Psychiatric Association, there are many psychiatric symptoms indicating a risk of suicide. Below are 5 general indicators to be aware of, as reported by The Epoch Times Catherine Bolton: 1. Self-Harming Behavior One of the clearest warning signs that someone is battling with suicidal thoughts is evidence of self-harm. This may not always come in a clear form. Visible cutting is usually an easy-to-spot sign of self-harm, but its not always done as a cry for help. For some, actions like cutting or other forms of physical self-abuse are done in an attempt to distract from mental anguish by replacing it with a manageable, more distracting form of physical pain. If a loved one is trying to transfer their pain from their brains to their bodies, they may fear judgment more than the risk that self-harm can causeand in those cases, the self-harm is often hidden. Keep an eye out for anything that seems physically amiss. If a loved one starts to cover their body with sweaters and long pants, particularly if it seems out of character or season, or they seem to be concealing something, it may be time to have a talk about whats causing the changes. 2. Anti-Social Attitudes Suicidal thoughts and a decision to die may not mean that a loved one has stopped caring about others, but that doesnt mean that they wont withdraw from their families and friends as they contemplate the end of their lives. Depression can cause a myriad of mental distortions. As one author wrote, even the periods of time when the fog lifted made it difficult to tell whether their depressed state or uplifting state was their true reality; they never knew whether their depression was their mind lying to them or their cheerful periods were all just a ruse. When a loved one is planning to commit suicide, they often stop spending time with others. That may be due to the exhaustion caused by their depression, but could also be their way of trying to ease the heartbreak that they know their death will cause others. Suicide, as described by patients with depression, isnt wanting to dierather, its not wanting to be alive anymore. So when someone starts to pull away, try to reach out and keep them engaged. Dont let them forget about their will to live. 3. Violent Mood Swings The chemical imbalances in the brain that cause severe depression and suicidal behavior can cause more than just feelings of hopelessness. In some cases, they can also cause periods of mania, so keep an eye out for extreme highs and lows. Most people associate depression with only anti-social attitudes and sad, withdrawn behavior, but manic-depressive disorders can be just as harmful to an individuals mental stateand can often cause suicidal thoughts and behaviors when a loved one is experiencing a period of severe lows after experiencing great highs. If a loved one seems to be acting out of characterspending a lot of money, taking risks you wouldnt normally expect from them, or bouncing between ideas aggressivelyand then going through periods of withdrawal in between, dont simply assume theyre acting quirky. They could be dealing with manic depression, or they could simply be trying their best to pull themselves out of the depression by aggressively seeking out joy. The chemical imbalances that cause these behaviors arent something a loved one can overcome on their own, and theyll need your help to identify the problem and seek professional help before they harm themselves. 4. Impulsive Actions Be wary of impulsive choices when a loved one isnt prone to those kinds of behaviors. There can be multiple reasons that a suicidal loved one starts to act impulsively. Sometimes, it is related to a manic episode, which is always a red flag. Other times, though, it can be caused by the absence of fear that a suicidal individual experiences. They may want to spend their money before they die, or give someone a gift. They may want to experience things that they had always been too afraid to, or they may be desperately seeking out a way to feel happy again. Whether a loved one is no longer afraid of consequences or trying to find their way out of the darkness, always keep an eye out for behaviors that appear to be out of the ordinary. If a meticulous planner starts to fly by the seat of their pants, it may be time to sit them down and talk. 5. Reckless Decision-Making If a loved one starts to drink a lot, take illegal drugs, or participate in other reckless or impulsive behaviors, keep in mind that this can be just as obvious a warning sign of suicidal thoughts as a mopey teenager or locked bedroom door. There can be other factors that cause someone to behave recklessly, but theres rarely a good reason behind this kind of change. Even if a loved one isnt contemplating suicide, theyll almost certainly benefit from hearing from you if theyre engaging in dangerous, reckless behaviors like this. Disclaimer: The above information about suicide prevention is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Epoch Times reporter Catherine Bolton contributed to this article. Teen Found Guilty of Beheading Classmate and Cutting Off His Hands out of Jealousy A teenager in Massachusetts accused of beheading his classmate and cutting off his hands out of jealousy in 2016 was found guilty in court on May 14. The announced ruling in the first-degree murder trial of Mathew Borges, 18, stated that the teen killed Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino, 16, with deliberate premeditation with extreme atrocity and cruelty, reported WCVB. The prosecution presented 100 pieces of evidence and many witnesses over the eight-day trial. Viloria-Paulinos family broke down when the verdict was read. Borges was tried as an adult, and his attorney earlier asked the judge to dismiss the case due to lack of evidence, but the judge said no. First-degree murder verdicts in Massachusetts automatically mean a life sentence. Teen found guilty of first-degree murder in beheading of classmate https://t.co/DGk6OxcMKa pic.twitter.com/z9F0oRlKk0 WCVB-TV Boston (@WCVB) May 14, 2019 What Happened That Day? Borges was 15 years old when he killed Viloria-Paulino in Nov. 2016, because he was jealous his girlfriend spent time with him. Both of them were sophomores at Lawrence High School at the time of the crime, and Borges broke up with his girlfriend on Aug. 31, 2016, after accusing her of sleeping with Viloria-Paulino, according to the Boston Herald. The defendant was tough on the outside but insecure on the inside, Assistant District Attorney Jay Gubitose told the jury of nine women and seven men during one of the trial hearings on April 29. Lawrence teen beheaded schoolmate out of jealousy, DA says https://t.co/sOFVExXdE2 Josh Mankiewicz (@JoshMankiewicz) May 2, 2019 He was jealous when he caught her sitting with Viloria-Paulino in the school cafeteria one day then and started screaming at her. The prosecutors told the jury that Borges sent a message to his former girlfriend 24 hours before committing the crime. The message said: The next time you see me, look at my eyes because thats the last time theyll be like that. Theyll be dead. In one of his messages to her earlier, Borges had said, I think of killing someone and I smirk Its all I think about every day. Viloria-Paulino went missing on Nov. 18, 2016, and his beheaded body with severed hands was found by a dog walker at the Lawrence riverfront on Dec. 1. His head was found later by a state trooper in a bag nearby. Medical examiners found 76 wounds on his decapitated body upon autopsy, according to WCVB. With so much trauma inflicted to the teenager, the examiner couldnt determine if Viloria-Paulino was dead or alive when the head was removed. Prosecutors said the victims house was burglarized by Borges and some of his friends and a surveillance video showed both the victim and the offender leaving the house together towards the direction of the river. Four figures go around (Viloria-Paulinos) house and come back with duffel bags, Gubitose said. The defendant told them he stabbed him to death and cut his head and hands off so he couldnt be identified, Gubitose told the jury. Mathew Borges was convicted Tuesday of the first-degree murder of Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino. The jury deliberated for a little under nine hours to reach its verdict. https://t.co/GJyDNvJDpg The Eagle-Tribune (@EagleTrib) May 14, 2019 No one from Borges family attended the trial, and he didnt react when the sentence was read on Tuesday. We are disappointed. But he had a fair trial, said defense attorney Edward Hayden, according to Eagle Tribune. Viloria-Paulino family declined to comment, and after the trial was over, they walked away from the courthouse and down the street with their arms around each other. While no verdict would ever erase the pain and suffering that the Paulino family has experienced since their unspeakable, senseless loss, I hope todays verdict will give them some sense of closure and comfort as they continue to mourn Lees tragic death, Lawrence Police Chief Roy Vasque told Eagle Tribune. Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera said the sentence was justice for the victims family. I hope Lee can rest in peace and that his family will find closure, he said. Nothing can bring Lee Paulino back to his family, who obviously love and miss him very much. It is my hope that this verdict gives them some comfort and peace, Blodgett said in a statement, according to media reports. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks to media about the Mueller report at the Capitol in Washington on March 25, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Trump Jr. Has Testified Enough, Should Ignore Subpoena or Refuse to Answer, Graham Says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that if he were Donald Trump Jr..s lawyer, he wouldnt let him testify to Congress again since hes already testified extensively and because the additional inquiries presented by the Democrats are based on the testimony of a worthless witnessMichael Cohen, President Donald Trumps former lawyer. If I were his lawyer, I wouldnt put him back into this circus, Graham told reporters on May 14. Sen. Lindsey Graham: If I were [Donald Trump Jr.s] lawyer I wouldnt put him back into this circus. Hes been to the committee, two or three different committee. Hes testified under oath. pic.twitter.com/3IY4NbyvB1 The Hill (@thehill) May 14, 2019 The presidents eldest son also could come for the questioning, but refuse to answer, pleading the Fifth Amendments constitutional right against self-incrimination, Graham said a day earlier. You just show up and plead the Fifth and its over with, he told reporters, The Washington Post reported. Subpoena The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Trump Jr. on May 8, Axios reported. The idea came from the Democratic minority, led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and was accepted by committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in an effort to maintain bipartisanship, Graham indicated in a May 12 Fox News interview. Richard Burr is a very good friend. Hes trying hard to be bipartisan, Graham said. Trump Jr. already testified behind closed doors before the House and Senate Intelligence committees in December 2017, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2017some 27 hours altogether, a source close to Trump Jr. told The Hill. When he originally agreed to testify in front of the Senate Intel Committee in 2017, there was an agreement between Don and the Committee that he would only have to come in and testify a single time, as long as he was willing to stay for as long as theyd like, which Don did, the source said. Don continues to cooperate by producing documents and is willing to answer written questions, but no lawyer would ever agree to allow their client to participate in what is an obvious PR stunt from a so-called Republican senator too cowardly to stand up to his boss Mark Warner and the rest of the resistance Democrats on the committee. Cohen Testimony The renewed interest in Trump Jr. came after Cohens testimony in February. Trump Jr. previously told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was peripherally aware of a Cohen-coordinated project in 2015-2016 to have a Trump Tower built in Moscow. The project was abandoned months before the election and theres no indication that it was illegal. Cohen testified that he briefed Trump Jr. on the project about 10 times. But Michael Cohen is a worthless witness, Graham argued. Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress and after his February testimony, Republican lawmakers said he should be referred for further prosecution for lying to them seven more times. He reported to prison on May 6 to serve a three-year sentence. Trump Jr. at first agreed to answer more questions, but reconsidered after special counsel Robert Mueller concluded his 2-year investigation that didnt establish that Trump colluded with Russian interference with the 2016 election, unidentified sources told The Associated Press. If I were Donald Trump Jr.s lawyer I would tell him, You dont need to go back into this environment anymore, youve been there for hours and hours and hours and nothing being alleged here changes the outcome of the Mueller investigation. I would call it a day, Graham told Fox News. Trump commented on the subpoena to his son on May 14. Its really a tough situation because my son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100 percent OK, he told reporters. And now they want him to testify again. I dont know why. I have no idea why. But it seems very unfair to me. President Trump: My son spent, I guess, over 20 hours testifying about something that Mueller said was 100% okay. And now they want him to testify again. I dont know why, I have no idea why but it seems very unfair to me. https://t.co/dqfvO8ZB2X pic.twitter.com/YmIgHmgi0X The Hill (@thehill) May 14, 2019 President Donald Trump walks to speak to the media prior to departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 14, 2019. Trump was traveling to Louisiana to speak about energy, infrastructure and economic growth and to attend a fundraiser. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Trumps Motorcade Involved in Road Accident, 3 Officers Injured Three police officers who were escorting President Donald Trumps motorcade were injured in a road accident on Tuesday, May 14, in Louisiana. Today, three motorcycle officers from local law enforcement were injured in an accident while traveling with the Presidents motorcade, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. All three are being treated for injuries at a nearby hospital and are in stable condition. The crash involved four motorcycle police officers and occurred at 1:30 p.m. on Interstate 10, the Secret Service said, according to USA Today. The motorcade had left Chennault International Airport in Lake Charles, and the accident occurred moments before Trumps motorcade crossed a bridge spanning the lake, according to Reuters. President Trump, who was in an armored limousine, was not injured. Trumps motorcade slowed down as it passed the site of the accident. Pool journalist Meridith McGraw reported seeing two officers standing and being tended to with very bloodied arms as we drove by. Here in the press pool on the way to Hackberry with President Trumps motorcade. As reported to the pool, the motorcade slowed because two police bikes appeared to have crashed. I saw 2 officers standing & being tended to with very bloodied arms as we drove by. Asked for update. Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) May 14, 2019 Jennifer Jacobs, White House reporter for Bloomberg News, was following the motorcade. She posted a message to Twitter saying: 3 officers down on Interstate 10 near Lake Charles one in grassy ditch, sitting up. One flat on his back on highway shoulder, bleeding. A third standing up, bleeding from his arm. I saw 3 officers down on Interstate 10 near Lake Charles as Trump motorcade headed to Hackberry. One in grassy ditch, sitting up. One flat on his back on highway shoulder, bleeding. A third standing up, bleeding from his arm. Our whole side of highway was closed to traffic. pic.twitter.com/LAFvIlmwww Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 14, 2019 Breaking: Trumps vehicle is fine, but some officers who are part of his motorcade crashed. We could see at least a couple officers on ground and injured. pic.twitter.com/d1bJ5WO4az Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 14, 2019 The three officers involved are two deputies from Calcasieu Parish Sheriffs Office and an officer from the Sulphur Police Department, according to WAFB. The law enforcement official we saw on his back on the ground from the motorcade crash in Louisiana is in surgery for serious injuries to his arm, and lost some teeth, an officer here at the Sempra plant told me. pic.twitter.com/fyC22E86tB Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 14, 2019 Reuters reported that the motorcycle escorts stopped to deal with the accident and some of them returned later to the motorcade. Trump continued to travel to Cameron LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) Export Facility in Hackberrya $10 billion export terminal that began producing liquefied natural gas for export on Tuesday. Around 2:30 p.m., Trump delivered a speech on energy, infrastructure, and economic growth at an event held at the facility. Reuters contributed to this report. A TSA agent checks a passengers documents on a security screening line at LaGuardia Airport in the Queens borough of New York City on Jan. 25, 2019. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) TSA to Send Security Staff to US-Mexico Border WASHINGTONThe Trump administration plans to redirect Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff to the southern border to assist with immigration duties and migrant flows, the TSA said on May 15. A TSA spokesman said the agency was looking for volunteers to support efforts at the U.S. border with Mexico, where the government is grappling with record numbers of illegal aliens. TSA, like all DHS components, is supporting the DHS effort to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border. TSA is in the process of soliciting volunteers to support this effort while minimizing operational impact, TSA spokesman James Gregory said in a statement. The TSA border assignment will last at least 45 days and comes at the start of the busy summer travel season, which a U.S. official acknowledged carried some risk, according to CNN, which first reported the plan, citing an internal email it obtained. TSA staff will include 175 law enforcement officials, including air marshals, and as many as 400 security staff drawn from six U.S. cities but will not include airport screeners, CNN said, citing two additional unnamed sources. The six cities were not immediately identified. TSA law enforcement officials sent to the border will receive legal training and assist the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) department as immigration officers, the report said. Gil Kerlikowske, who led the CBP during the Obama administration, compared the plan to earlier moves by the Trump administration to redeploy hundreds of officers at ports of entry to assist Border Patrol agents with migrants crossing the border illegally. All of these things have kind of been stopgap measures, he said. They have alleviated some of the problem but not stopped the problem. The decision comes as the airline and travel industry urge lawmakers to approve funding for more CBP officers, warning of excessive wait times for traveling and shipping as officers have been shifted to the border. The Department of Interior has also doubled the number of officers it is sending for three-week stints to the border, from 22 to 47, The Hill reported on May 15, citing an internal memorandum. Alex Hinson, an Interior Department spokesman, said the agency continues to support our federal partners in the effort to end the crisis at the southern border, but declined to give further information. The government reported earlier in May that border officers had apprehended nearly 99,000 people crossing the border with Mexico in April, the highest figure since 2007. More than two-thirds of those apprehended were children or people traveling as families. Unaccompanied illegal alien minors are released after spending 20 days in detention. Roughly 98 percent of the children who cross into the United States illegally end up staying in the country, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on May 15. Likewise, family units that cross into the United States illegally are also released after 20 days. In the past five months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released 160,000 illegal alien family members into the United States. Graham introduced a bill on May 15 that would mandate that illegal alien minors be transported back to their countries. The bill would also extend the detention window for family units to 120 days. By David Shepardson Pro-Brexit demonstrators hold Union Jack flags as they protest outside the Houses of Parliament on Nov. 23, 2016 in London, England. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images) UK PM May to Bring Brexit Deal Back to Lawmakers in Early June LONDONBritish Prime Minister Theresa May will bring her thrice defeated Brexit deal back to parliament for lawmakers to consider again in the week beginning June 3, a Downing Street spokesman said on May 14. Details of the legislative timetable were released after May met opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to discuss the impasse in seven week-long cross-party talks on leaving the European Union. At the meeting May made clear the governments determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU, said the Downing Street spokesman. The week of June 3 corresponds with a state visit to Britain by U.S. President Donald Trump. But at the talks with May, Corbyn expressed concern over her ability to deliver on any compromise agreement, said a Labour Party spokesman. In particular he raised doubts over the credibility of government commitments, following statements by Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers seeking to replace the prime minister, the spokesman said, adding that there was a need for further movement from the government. May, who secured the Conservative Party leadership and the premiership in the chaos that followed Britains 2016 vote to leave the EU, has promised to step down if lawmakers back the Brexit deal she struck with Brussels. But the prime minister has lost heavily in three attempts to get it through parliament. And some of her own lawmakers want her to name a date for her departure. Earlier on May 14, the British government agreed it was imperative to ratify Britains exit from the European Union before the summer break, setting out the clearest deadline so far for the embattled plan and the prime ministers possible departure. No Agreement Nearly three years after the United Kingdom voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, there is still no agreement among politicians about when, how or even if the divorce will take place. Britain had been due to leave the EU on March 29, but May was unable to get her divorce deal ratified by parliament. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said EU leaders did not want an extension beyond the new deadline of Oct. 31, when the legal default is to leave with or without a deal. To try to break the deadlock in parliament, May turned to Labour, led by Corbyn, a veteran socialist, but the talks have so far failed to find an agreement. May has been urged by senior members of her own party to abandon the talks. Senior ministers agreed at a cabinet meeting on May 14, however, to press ahead with the talks, Mays spokesman said. Ministers involved in the negotiations set out details of the compromises which the government was prepared to consider in order to consider an agreement which would allow the UK to leave the EU with a deal as soon as possible, the spokesman said. However, it was agreed that it is imperative to bring forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in time for it to receive royal assent by the summer parliamentary recess. Parliament usually breaks for the summer in the second half of July, although the exact date has not yet been set. It must approve the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in order to ratify Britains exit from the bloc. May has said she will step down once the first phase of Brexit is complete. It would be followed by negotiations on a new trade deal with the EU. Split the Party Thirteen of Mays former cabinet colleagues as well as Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative lawmakers, wrote to May on May 14to ask her not to agree to Labours demand for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU. You would have lost the loyal middle of the Conservative Party, split our party and with likely nothing to show for it, the letter said. We urge you to think again. No leader can bind his or her successor so the deal would likely be at best temporary, at worst illusory, said the letter, whose signatories included Gavin Williamson, who was sacked as defense minister this month, and former foreign minister Boris Johnson. After a series of missteps in trying to deliver Brexit, the Conservative Party has slumped to fifth place ahead of the May 23 European Parliament election, while Nigel Farages Brexit Party is in the lead, a YouGov opinion poll for The Times newspaper showed on May 13. The Conservatives and the Labour Party were also given a drubbing in local council elections this month. The collapse in support is raising pressure on May to set a date to step down. May, who has repeatedly ruled out signing up to a permanent customs union, has said that if the talks with Labour fail parliament could be asked to vote on a range of Brexit options. Corbyn, too, came under pressure to clarify his stance at a meeting with Labour lawmakers on May 13, with both backers of a second Brexit referendum and others who want a deal to leave arguing their case, sources told Reuters. U.S. investment bank JP Morgan said on May 14 it was difficult to see May surviving beyond the end of June. Britains chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins was due in Brussels for what Mays spokesman said was a routine visit. By Guy Faulconbridge & Elizabeth Piper Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a briefing on Iran at the State Department in Washington on April 8, 2019. (Reuters/Yuri Gripas) US Pulls Some Government Employees From Iraq BAGHDAD, IraqWashington ordered the departure of non-emergency government employees from Iraq on Wednesday, May 15, after repeated U.S. expressions of concern about threats from Iranian-backed forces. The U.S. State Department has ordered the pullout of the employees from both the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil, the embassy said in a statement. Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended, it said, recommending those affected depart as soon as possible. It was unclear how many staff would leave. The department said the sudden changes were because the U.S. governments ability to provide routine and emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq is extremely limited and that as a result, the threat of terrorism, kidnapping, and armed conflict aimed at Americans in the country was too great a risk. It added that American Citizens Services employees who were working in the embassy in Baghdad will continue to provide consular services to U.S. citizens in Basrah. On Tuesday, the U.S. military reaffirmed concerns about possible imminent threats from Iran to its troops in Iraq, although a senior British commander cast doubt on that and Tehran has called it psychological warfare. President Donald Trumps administration has stepped up sanctions pressure by ending waivers for some countries to purchase Iranian oilpart of efforts to roll back the Islamic Republics expanding regional clout. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday he was getting indications from talks with both the United States and Iran that things will end well despite the rhetoric. Washington has sent additional military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles in a show of force against what U.S. officials have said is a threat to its troops and interests in the region. U.S. Central Command, in coordination with Operation Inherent Resolve, has increased the force posture level for all service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria. As a result, OIR is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq, U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday. A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has said Tehran would retaliate against any aggressive U.S. moves. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the decision to withdraw non-emergency staff was based on a security assessment, but would not give details on how many personnel were leaving. Ensuring the safety of U.S. government personnel and citizens is our highest priority and we are confident in the Iraqi security services (ability) to protect us, he said. But this threat is serious and we want to reduce the risk of harm. Cable News Network contributed to this article. Tesla Model S being charged at a car dealership in Shanghai on March 17, 2015. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images) US Senate Moves Forward on Plan to Develop Electric Vehicle Supply Chain U.S. lawmakers on May 14 moved closer to developing a national electric vehicle supply chain policy, with senators voicing bipartisan support for legislation designed to parry Chinas dominance in metals production and battery manufacturing. The Senates Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the American Mineral Security Act, which would help streamline regulation and permitting requirements for the development of mines for lithium, graphite and other EV minerals. The pending legislation would require a tally of metal reserves in the United States and seek to streamline permitting for the EV sector, an area where China already leads by a wide margin. The bipartisan legislation, which seeks in part to codify a late 2017 executive order on U.S. mineral development by President Donald Trump, was sponsored by U.S. senators Lisa Murkowski, Joe Manchin, and others. We are not doing ourselves any favors when we dont know what we have in our inventory, Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said at the hearing, which was webcast. I suspect we have more than we even think we do. China has a huge head start, said Gavin Montgomery, a battery and mining analyst at the Wood Mackenzie consultancy. Theyve just been at this a lot longer than the rest of the world. Trump Administration officials from the Interior and Energy departments voiced support for the pending legislation. We are committed to producing domestically sourced minerals, Joe Balash, assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department, said at the hearing. Just how much cobalt and other minerals used to make EVs are actually in the United States is anyones guess, as the nation has conducted little by way of a national survey. Current estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey rely on corporate annual reports, historical data from the U.S. Bureau of Mines and other sources, according to USGS spokesman Alex Demas. Finding out the mineral composition of a particular region requires sending staff into the field to take rock samples, a timely and expensive endeavor. Murkowskis legislation would require a nationwide reserve analysis for all minerals used to make EVs. USGS data show, for example, that the United States has 35,000 tonnes of lithium in reserve, a figure that the agency and industry executives see as conservative. Albemarle Corp operates the only U.S. lithium mine, a facility with the capacity to produce about 6,000 tonnes annually. According to current USGS data, that means that one mine could deplete U.S. reserves within six years. Several lithium projects are under development across the nation, including those from ioneer Ltd., Lithium Americas Corp., and Piedmont Lithium Ltd. Each aims to produce at least 20,000 tonnes of lithium per year, according to corporate presentations. Jon Evans, president of Lithium Americas, told the hearing that the federal government should offer loan guarantees for U.S. mining and processing projects. Federal loan guarantees would confirm the governments commitment to the development of a critical minerals supply chain, said Evans. Beyond physical reserves, concerns about the lack of U.S. processing facilities are also cause for worry. China controls about 85 percent of the globes cobalt sulfate processing, according to WoodMac data. Cobalt sulfate is the version of the metal used in lithium-ion batteries. eCobalt Solutions Inc. aims to produce 1,500 tonnes per year of cobalt once its Idaho project opens, though that is enough of the metal to make only about 300,000 EVs. The fact that China maintains a near monopoly on the critical minerals needed for our defense system makes no sense at all, said Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. The Committee has not yet set a date to vote on the legislation. The United States does have some processing capability. Albemarle and rival Livent Corp. process some lithium domestically. Syrah Resources Ltd. mines graphite in Mozambique and ships it to Louisiana for processing for use in making battery parts. The United States is also reliant on China for rare earth processing, a group of 17 elements used to make electric vehicles and consumer electronics. All we seek is a level playing field to compete as a low-cost producer so we can help establish an EV supply chain in the United States, said James Litinsky, co-chairman of MP Materials. But those facilities tend to be the exception and investors so far have been wary of funding new U.S. projects in part due to Chinas dominance, with concerns that any investment would be difficult to recoup. Ultimately, these projects have to stack up economically, even if U.S. politicians make it easier to get permitting, said WoodMacs Montgomery. By Ernest Scheyder Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson attends a panel discussion after the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) conference in Beijing on Jan. 31, 2019. (Thomas Peter/AFP/Getty Images) US Undecided About Extending Nuclear Arms Control Treaty With Russia The United States has not made a decision about extending a key nuclear arms pact with Russia, a senior Trump administration arms control official told lawmakers on May 15. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which came into effect in 2011, is set to expire in February 2021. The treaty capped the number of missiles, bombers, warheads, and launchers the two nations can possess. To be direct: The administration has not made any decision on a potential extension of New START, State Department Undersecretary Andrea Thompson told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Forces Committee. While some might argue that there is an urgent need to extend right now, we must be careful to assess all of the complexities and changes in the evolving security environment since the Treaty was signed in 2010. Thompson told lawmakers that while the United States and Russia are in compliance with New START, U.S. officials are concerned because Russia is undertaking a complete modernization of its nuclear forces. In March 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled five new nuclear-capable weapons systems, including a cruise missile, an underwater drone with intercontinental range, an air-launched ballistic missile, a supersonic glider missile, and a heavy intercontinental ballistic missile. Thompson added that the internal discussions are also taking into consideration the new global security environment. When the treaty was negotiated, we were in a more benign security environment, where relations between the great powers were less tense and mistrustful, Thompson said. However, in the intervening years, the security environment deteriorated significantly, and increased uncertainty and risk pervades, she added, specifically pointing to Russias invasion and annexation of eastern Ukraine. U.S. officials discussions about New START are shaped by Russias stained record of violating arms treaties and commitments. In 2018, the United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia after accusing Moscow of violating the treaty. The United States also considers Russia to be in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. Thompson also noted that China is rapidly modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal, while both Russia and the United States are restricted by the treaty. According to official figures, Chinas nuclear forces are much smaller than those of the United States and Russia, but the communist regime hasnt been transparent about the scope and scale of its nuclear program. The United States has tried to raise mechanisms with the Chinese to discuss these issues but our efforts have so far been rebuffed, Thompson said. China currently benefits from having the two largest nuclear powers restrained, while it can pursue competition on its own terms. That status quo is unacceptable. David Trachtenberg, the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense, confirmed Thompsons assertion, telling lawmakers that the re-emergence of long-term strategic competition poses the greatest risk to the security of the United States. While Washington has slashed its nuclear arsenal by 85 percent, China and Russia are vigorously pursuing new types of nuclear-capable weapons systems. Unfortunately, Russia and China have chosen a different path and have increased the role of nuclear weapons in their strategies and actively increased the size and sophistication of their nuclear forces, Trachtenberg said. In his first call with Putin in February 2017, President Donald Trump said that New START was a bad deal for the United States, according to Reuters. The president was likely referring to the fact that the treaty required the United States to reduce the number of nuclear warheads, while allowing Russia to catch up to the capped amount of 1,550 warheads. Concerns about China also played into Trumps decision to exit the INF treaty. While Washington and Moscow banned intermediate-range ground-launched missiles, Beijing developed a battery of such weapons. When Trump announced his intent to exit the INF, he said he hoped to eventually negotiate a treaty that includes China. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who is in favor of extending New START, pressed Thompson on whether doing so is currently in the best interest of the United States. Too soon to tell, Senator, Thompson replied. Were in an interagency process. The treaty, as it stands, is postured for today. Next 5 to 10 years, I cant say. If New START expires, could Russia target the United States with hundreds or perhaps even thousands of additional nuclear warheads? Menendez asked. Thats a good question for Russia, Senator, Thompson replied. No, its a good question for you, Menendez shot back. You know this disdain that the State Department has when they come here? I dont appreciate it. Im not asking Russia about our national defense, Menendez yelled. Im asking you. Thompson ultimately declined to answer because the question was hypothetical. Thompson and Trachtenberg spoke to lawmakers about New START one day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin in Russia to discuss arms control, among other topics. Putin told Pompeo he hoped for improved relations with the United States. Pompeo relayed Trumps interest in mending ties. Survivor Drew Pescaro walks for the first time since the University of North Carolina Charlotte shooting at a hospital in North Carolina on May 13, 2019. (Drew Pescaro/Twitter) Victim Drew Pescaro Walks for the First Time Since UNC Charlotte Shooting A teenager who survived a deadly shooting at a North Carolina university is making a recovery, a video released on May 13 shows. University of North Carolina (UNC) Charlotte student Drew Pescaro, 19, was one of the six wounded when a gunman opened fire and killed two people in a class at the Charlotte campus on April 30. Nearly two weeks after the deadly attack, Pescaro uploaded a video of himself to social media as he took his first steps in hospital. Took my first steps without a walker today so I felt the need to share it with everyone #CharlotteStrong #DrewStrong, he wrote on Twitter. Update: Day 13 Took my first steps without a walker today so I felt the need to share it with everyone #CharlotteStrong #DrewStrong pic.twitter.com/yZIUe04Ncl Drew Pescaro (@DrewP617) May 13, 2019 The 21-second video of the teen wearing a hospital gown and making his way through a hallway has been watched more than 60,400 times and attracted nearly 3,700 likes and 481 retweets. There are no specific details on exactly how Pescaro was wounded and only that he has undergone at least two surgical procedures based on his Twitter activity. Drew has asked me to update everyone of his current condition. Yesterday, he had a second surgery and is back to recovery. We will be in the hospital for a bit longer, Pescaros family wrote on Twitter on May 7. Thank you to everyone for the continued support. Leaders from the social fraternity Alpha Tau Omega | Lambda Delta (ATOLD) said they were saddened by Pescaros injury. We can confirm that Brother Drew Pescaro of the Lambda Delta Chapter of Alpha Tau Omega has been injured in relation to the active shooter situation that unfolded earlier today at UNC Charlottes main campus, ATOLD President Daniel Peccerilli, Vice President Josh Welland, and Health and Safety Officer Timothy Robinson wrote on Twitter on April 30. He is currently under medical supervision at CMC and we will advise further updates as they come. Thank you all for keeping him in your thoughts and prayers. A statement from the President, Vice President and Health & Safety Officer in regards to todays events. pic.twitter.com/FCdG8D6jrf Alpha Tau Omega | Lambda Delta (@ATO_UNCC) May 1, 2019 Police investigating the shooting are still trying to confirm the motive behind the tragedy that claimed the lives of UNC Students Ellis Parlier, 19, of Midland and Riley Howell, 21, of Waynesville. Those who survived include Pescaro of Apex, Sean Dehart, 20, also of Apex, Emily Houpt, 23, of Charlotte, and Rami Alramadhan, 20, of Saudi Arabia. Pescaro has received his fair share of love from his family members. I cant say enough about my Mom who has been supporting me through this whole process, he wrote on Twitter on May 12. So much time has been devoted towards getting me better and she has been at the head of all of it. I love her very much. I cant say enough about my Mom who has been supporting me through this whole process. So much time has been devoted towards getting me better and she has been at the head of all of it. I love her very much Drew Pescaro (@DrewP617) May 12, 2019 Representatives from the Charlotte Hornets and Carolina Panthers players Chris Hogan and D.J. Moore have also taken time out of their busy schedules to come and wish Pescaro a speedy recovery. The entire Carolina Panthers team and staff have been amazing in supporting Drew through his recovery process, Drews Twitter account stated on May 8. Thank you, Chriswe loved you as a Patriot and cant wait to see you as a Panther. The entire Carolina Panthers team and staff have been AMAZING in supporting Drew through his recovery process. Thank you, Chris- we loved you as a Patriot and cant wait to see you as a Panther pic.twitter.com/RdBNvUyq4g Drew Pescaro (@DrewP617) May 8, 2019 Im back social media. This is Drew running it from now on. Update: Still in the hospital and recovering but feeling much better. Thank you for all of your support! #CharlotteStrong pic.twitter.com/sIlaAkbGWt Drew Pescaro (@DrewP617) May 11, 2019 FILE - In this June 14, 2015, file photo, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir attends a photo session at the African Union summit in Johannesburg. South Africa has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court following a dispute over the visit by al-Bashir, who is wanted by the tribunal for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. (AP Photo/Shiraaz Mohamed, File) Violence Overshadows Sudans Transition Push KHARTOUMSudans opposition alliance blamed military rulers on May 14 for renewed street violence complicating efforts to negotiate a handover to civilian power after last months overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir. At least four people died and dozens were injured during protests on May 13 as the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) said they had reached a partial agreement for transition. Gunfire rang out in the capital into the night after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)whose head is deputy of the military councilhad patrolled the streets using tear gas and guns to disrupt demonstrations. The protesters, who want to keep pressure on the military for a swift handover, were back on May 14, blocking roads and bridges with bricks and rocks, images on social media showed. The bullets that were fired yesterday were Rapid Support Forces bullets and we hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday, Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the DFCF, told a news conference. While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party. Ongoing Protests May 13 fatalities were the first in protests for several weeks after months of demonstrations led to Bashirs fall. The victims included a military police officer and three demonstrators, state TV said. An opposition-linked doctors committee revised its death toll from six to four, citing a mix-up in counting the bodies of victims. The TMC, which took over after ousting the long-ruling Bashir last month, blamed the violence on saboteurs unhappy with the transition accord. There are groups ambushing the revolution who were disturbed by the results reached today and are working to abort any agreement, it said in a statement late on May 13. The opposition and TMC were meeting again on May 14 to discuss two sticking points: the military-civilian balance of power in transitional bodies, and the time frame for elections. Talks would wrap up on May 15, Youssef said. The United States backed the opposition alliance in pinning the blame for May 13 chaos on the military for trying to remove roadblocks set up by protesters. The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force, including the unnecessary use of tear gas, led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day that the TMC was unable to control, said the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. One hospital in Khartoum said it received more than 60 wounded on May 13 as well as three dead bodies. Some arrived with gunshot wounds in the shoulder, chest and other body parts, Amar Abu Bakr, executive director of the Moalem Medical City Hospital, told Reuters. There are also a number of wounds resulting from sharp objects, and others from beatings by sticks. Raed Mubarak, a protester who was wounded, said a shooter was about 20 meters (22 yards) away when he took aim. He shot at my chest he meant to kill me, not to scare or terrorize, he said. By Nadine Awadalla Walmart Fights Back Against Amazon With One-Day Shipping in Some US Markets WASHINGTONWalmart Inc. is stepping up its battle with Amazon.com Inc. by offering one-day delivery without a shipping fee, weeks after Amazon announced a similar offera move that will intensify the race to deliver orders to shoppers faster. On April 25, Amazon said it plans to deliver packages to members of its loyalty club Prime in just one day and expects to spend $800 million toward the shipping goal in the second quarter alone. Walmarts offer applies to fewer products. As many as 220,000 items, which are the most frequently purchased, ranging from laundry detergent to toys and electronics will qualify for one-day shipping. The orders have to be worth at least $35 to qualify. The Walmart deal will be available to online shoppers in Phoenix and Las Vegas and then expand to Southern California in the coming days, the head of its U.S. e-commerce service, Marc Lore, told Reuters in an interview. The service will be rolled out gradually, with a plan to reach approximately 75% of the U.S. population this year, which includes 40 of the top 50 U.S. metro areas, Lore said. One-day shipping marks the latest salvo in a fight between two retailers that have consistently tried to outdo each other in everything from online order delivery to grabbing a bigger share of the online grocery market. Walmart started offering same-day pickup in its stores in 2011 and caught up with Amazons two-day free shipping two years ago by offering it without a membership fee. It has made progress in closing the gap with its e-commerce rival by rolling out services such as curbside grocery pickup and same-day grocery deliveryoptions that have quickly become popular with shoppers. Amazon, on the other hand, has hastened to reproduce the assets of brick-and-mortar rivals such as Walmart and has a mixed record with those projects. It is now racing to open shops with top-selling items ranging from books to cell phones; rolling out same-day curbside grocery pickup and gearing up to accept returns at all U.S. Kohls Corp department stores. We have been working on this since I have gotten herewe have been building out the infrastructure for the last few years to support this, said Lore, who joined the retailer in 2016 when it acquired his company, Jet.com. The vast majority of the order volume for such a service comes from the first couple of hundred thousand products, he said. The move will cost Walmart less as orders will be delivered from warehouses closer to the customer and arrive in a single box instead of multiple packages, Lore said. It is counter-intuitive but the way we have structured our network, we will see improved profitability as a result of lower shipping cost, he said. Walmart sends out boxes from multiple warehouses around the country under its two-day shipping program, but with one-day shipping, it is stocking inventory in the closest single warehouse to the shopper, Lore said. In a note on May 13, investment bank UBS anticipated a move to one-day shipping from brick-and-mortar retailers and estimated the price tag. The bottom line is that these costs are pretty manageable, the note says. Walmart will put down $215 million of incremental investment. The U.S. business could see a drag on operating margins of 5 basis points on an annualized basis and 3 basis points for Walmart overall over a similar period if they follow Amazons one-day shipping offer, the note says. What US Should Do About Chinese Regimes All-Out War on Religion: Gary Bauer, USCIRF Commissioner In this episode of American Thought Leaders, Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek sits down with Gary Bauer, a commissioner with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, to talk about Chinas war on religions. Bauer, who is also the president of the American Values think tank and held several positions in the Reagan administration, discusses just how bad the situation is in China and what can be done about it. He also talks about how the regime in Beijing manages to get many democratic governments to turn a blind eye to religious persecution. Jan Jekielek: So youre a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom? Gary Bauer: Yes. Mr. Jekielek: A lot of work needs to be done in this area, clearly. You just published an annual report. And Cathy, from our China team, a few days back interviewed you about this. Mr. Bauer: Right. Mr. Jekielek: I thought it was a fascinating interview, and I want to go a little more in depth, especially on the China piece. So you actually mentioned that China stands apart from all the other egregious violators of religious freedom. Youd think North Korea is this place thats, obviously, very extreme in this areathat would be the one that stands apart. Why does China stand apart, in your mind? Mr. Bauer: Sadly, when we look around the world, were looking at a gallery of rogues, right? Unfortunately, persecution of human beingsbecause of how they seek God and how they want to worship Godappears to be sadly growing in the 21st century, which is not what most of us would have expected or hoped for. But when I say that I would put China in a separate category, all by itself, the reason I contend thats the case is that North Korea, as bad as it isand its one big prison campNorth Korea is not extending its influence around the world. People arent looking to North Korea for signs of what the future is going to be like. Its seen as a backward regime that routinely violates human rights. China, in contrast, is a rising power. Its economy has grown in the last several decades. Its clearly building a military that, I think, is for more than defensive purposes. Its neighbors are getting very nervous. And it throws its weight around as it makes deals in the Third World with various countries and extends its influence. So here we have a country that, in many ways, has declared war on all religions, and is deeply troubled when any of its citizens are worshiping God. That power, with all of the influence it has, is having a greater and greater role on the world scene. I think thats a troubling combination. Mr. Jekielek: So what are some of the most egregious manifestations of this that you came across in the report? Can you chronicle a few of those for us? Mr. Bauer: Theres a lot we outline in the report about what China has been doing. Of course, for years, it was persecuting whats called the house churchesthese unregistered, unlicensed churches, where people meet in their homes or apartments secretly, will sometimes baptize their children in rivers at night so that theyre not seen. For a long time, registered churches were given more leeway, but now theyve been coming under pressure. And theres been pastors arrested from those churches, if they would not agree to bring into their churches this new facial recognition technology and so forth. So thats been a growing problem. And then most notably and most disturbingly is the efforts by the Chinese government to reeducate Chinese Uyghurs. Its difficult to get accurate information, but there have been enough reports that have come out that indicates that perhaps millions of, certainly over a million, Chinese Uyghurs have been put into what looked like reeducation camps, in order to mold them into something that the Chinese government can be more comfortable tolerating. Mr. Jekielek: Right. So I want to talk a bit more about the Uyghurs, but I want to go back to Christianity for a moment. What about this deal that the Vatican has signed with the Chinese Communist Party? How is that playing out for them? Mr. Bauer: You know, its hard to know all the details, but many of us raised an eyebrow when we saw the Vatican make that deal. Every religious group historically, particularly under persecution, will come up with ways to make a separate peace, hoping that they wind up being treated better. I am afraid history is not kind in this regard. When you end up feeding the wolf somebody else, or thinking you can pet it and things will be better for you, it often ends up being the exact opposite. So I dont want to be a harsh critic of the Vatican on this point. I understand what was motivating them, but I think all these various religious groups whether its evangelicals or Catholics or Muslims, Buddhists, the Falun Gong, etc. I think they would all be much better off to try to work together, because together and all defending their right to seek God and worship as they see fit, I think theyll be stronger than letting the Chinese government pick them off or peel them off one at a time. Mr. Jekielek: The report actually mentioned that the persecution of Catholics has increased since the signing of this. Mr. Bauer: Yes. Mr. Jekielek: That kind of exemplifies your point. Mr. Bauer: Well, it does make my point. And as I said, the Chinese government appears to be at war with all religionswith any Chinese citizen seeking God, trying to find meaning in life, what is life all about, or worshiping as they see fit. And I dont think making separate deals is going to lessen that persecution. In fact, I think its going to make it less likely that those representing the people being persecuted will feel strong enough or open enough to criticize the Chinese government for what theyre doing, because it might upset the deal thats been made. Mr. Jekielek: I see. So lets move over to over a million Uyghurs being held in is it fair to call them concentration camps? Mr. Bauer: They certainly have been called concentration camps. People can argue about the specific word that one ought to use. But what we know for certain is that theyre there against their will. They havent been accused of any crime. Weve gotten multiple reports of beatings and other types of intimidation, and we know that the whole community is living in fear. So if not at the level of the kind of concentration camps we saw [with] the Nazis during World War II, its certainly something very seriousvery much a violation of international standards of human rights and religious libertyand something that every country in the world that respects human rights and religious liberty ought to be very critical about and very outspoken about. Mr. Jekielek: Its astounding the role that modern surveillance technology is playing in this: shaping behavior and controlling through fear. Can you speak a little bit to that? Mr. Bauer: Technology is often hailed as something that will automatically make the world a better place, and we all love the convenience of cell phones and being able to go onto our computer and find things in a few moments that might have taken days of research before all this technology became available. But technology by itself is morally neutral. It depends on whose hands the technology is in. So the same technology that might help a country or society identify a potential terrorist in an airport by facial recognition can be used by a government thats suppressing its people to identify those that worship God or belong to groups or faiths that that government feels threatened by. The Chinese seem all too often to be using their technological prowesswhich often is stolen, by the way, from Western countries that are doing business in Chinato oppress their people, and its something that I hope American technology companies need to be more cognizant of. Mr. Jekielek: So this whole technological scheme thats been set up in Xinjiang to control the populationthere is a great Jamestown report on this, actually, that this was built on experiments as to how to control the Falun Gong practitioners in China, which in the late 90s, I believe was something like 70 million to 100 million people throughout the country. There was this huge campaign mobilized against them. You recently appeared at the 20th year [commemoration] of the April 25 appeal of Falun Gong practitioners. Can you talk a little bit about what that is or the significance of that event? Mr. Bauer: Well, the Falun Gong have been an interest of mine for a long time. During the era of Tiananmen Square and some of the turmoil in China at that time, I was heading a public policy group called the Family Research Council. And we decided to make the issue of most-favored-nation trade status with China as an issue that we were going to get involved in. It didnt please all my donors because some of them were successful businessmen and hoped to make a big profit selling things to the Chinese. But, nonetheless, I felt like this was an issue that, as a Christian-oriented group, we needed to be involved in. Not because the Falun Gong are Christianstheyre notbut because any time a government starts persecuting a group like that, it ultimately and inevitably spreads then to the persecution of other groups. So, over the years, Ive written about the Falun Gong and have spoken up on their behalf a number of times, and will continue to do that. Mr. Jekielek: Fantastic. So one of the things that you actually mentioned was this issue of organ harvesting, which is an issue thats very important to The Epoch Times. We broke that story in 2006. Mr. Bauer: Congratulations. Mr. Jekielek: When I first heard about it, I thought it was a conspiracy theory. It took a bunch of research for us to realize: Wow, this is horribly, horribly real. Can you speak about that a little bit and the implication for prisoners of conscience being used in this horrible process? Mr. Bauer: Well, its a terrible development. As you said, it almost sounds like something out of a bad science fiction movie. It certainly doesnt sound like something you would expect early in the 21st century where, presumably, were not living in an age of barbarism. Its also another symptom of what I think happens in China all too often, which is the lack of respect for the dignity and autonomy of each human being. Now, in my own case, Im an evangelical Christian, and my faith teaches that every human being is made in the image of God. And because were made in the image of God, each human being, regardless of the color of their skin or how much money they have in the bank or any other extraneous thingwhether its a newborn with Down syndrome or whether its a 90-year-old with senilitythat, nonetheless, each human being, being made in the image of God, has dignity and value and worth. Its hard to imagine a greater violation of that human dignity than harvesting the organs of political prisoners and others that have run afoul of the Chinese communist government. So, again, I would hope that every nation in the world that respects human rights would find their voice on this sort of issue and not look at what China may invest in your country orif youre a businessman in the United States, not sit there worried about whether you might report profits that are down 3 or 4 percent because you insulted some communist Chinese government official. People need to speak up about these issues, and this is a particularly horrifying development to see in China. Mr. Jekielek: When Kathy interviewed you, actually, you mentionedor maybe this was a little bit earlierthat you may have an opportunity to speak with the president about these matters. Did you have a chance to bring that up? Mr. Bauer: Well, I have to be careful, because of what the rules are [about disclosing] personal conversations. But I was an early supporter of President [Donald] Trump, and Im a longtime personal friend of Vice President [Mike] Pence. And because of that, Im over at the White House quite a bit on a host of issues, and I regularly get an opportunity to speak about these issues to the highest levels of our government. And I promise Ill continue to take advantage of that to bring up these issues. USCIRF will be briefing the vice president soon on a host of issues related to our annual report, and one of the issues I will be talking about, specifically, are the things that are happening in China right now. Mr. Jekielek: Thats excellent to hear. One of the things that weve been covering at The Epoch Timesand I was speaking about this at an event at the Hoover Institution yesterdayis the incredible or horrible effectiveness that the Chinese Communist Partys United Front Work [Department], essentially, the propaganda or disinformation about how everythings great in China. We only need to think about investment. If we just think about the economics, the religious freedom sidethatll all get worked out. The democracy side will get all worked out. And even today, we have a million people, essentially, in concentration camps. We have house Christians, Catholics, Falun Gong practitioners, and others being persecuted for their faith. Somehow, this isnt in the collective zeitgeist of the public, certainly, but perhaps even policymakers. How does that work? Mr. Bauer: Well, one of the arguments that we had over the whole issue of trade with China 30 years ago was the argument that many made, that trade with China would end up changing China, that there would be something magical about a quasi-capitalism being permitted in China that would result in political reforms. Many of us on the other side of the debate argued that it was much more likely that trade with China would change the United States. And thats exactly whats happened. As more and more American companies rely on China for profit growth, it has turned good American capitalists into apologists for the Chinese communist government. And I dont know whether its more depressing or more outrageous. So I made it a point in our press conference introducing our annual report, to single out American businesses from being in bed with Chinese communists. I often wonder what Putin in Russia or the old-line communists in Russia think, looking at all the progress Chinas been able to make. Mr. Jekielek: Progress. Right. Mr. Bauer: And keeping down the criticism from people in the United States that ought to be very critical. I suspect, though, the old Russian communists are probably kicking themselves that they didnt think more about how important increasing trade with us would have been. Because the more they could have done that, the more likely we would have been to lessen our criticism of their violation of human rights during that era. Mr. Jekielek: OK. [Is there] anything else you would like to share about the reports or the commission? Mr. Bauer: Well, you know, over the years I discovered when we were working on a number of issues similar to these, for example, the treatment of Soviet Jews during the Cold War. I had a number of years in the Reagan administration, and we made it a point of bringing up the names of individual Jews being held in prison camps in Russia, and we found out later that when we would bring up their names, their treatment would improve. So I dont know whether our conversation will somehow ever make it in to China under this communist rule. I suspect, in the world we live in, it may very well do that. So I would just say to anybody that happens to see this report in China and is suffering because of how they worship God, or is suffering because theyve dared to speak out in criticism of the policies of their government: There are people around the world that care about you, that love you, that will continue to speak out for you no matter what the Chinese government does. Dont lose heart. I believe history will show that freedom wins in the final analysis, and better days are ahead. Mr. Jekielek: Thats fantastic. And its people, but also the U.S. government, right? Mr. Bauer: Absolutely. Its very important that our government continue to stand for the basic values of the American founding, among which is the freedom of religion, and the fact that our liberty does not come from government. It doesnt come from the American government. It certainly doesnt come from the Chinese government. Our liberty comes from the God that created us. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. American Thought Leaders is a new Epoch Times show available on Facebook and YouTube. Woman Sentenced to 15 Years for Springing Boyfriend From Arizona Jail by Posing as Deputy A woman who sprang her boyfriend from an Arizona jail by posing as a sheriffs deputy will spend the next 15 years behind bars. Maxine Feldstein, 30, was sentenced after pleading guilty to forgery, third-degree escape, and second-degree criminal impersonation. According to the Northwest Arkansas Gazette, Feldstein managed to free her boyfriend from a Washington County jail with nothing but a phone call and a follow-up email to which she attached an authentic-looking form. The couple were arrested on July 14, 2018, according to the Gazette, and were held at the Washington County Detention Center. Feldstein made her bond the following day, after being charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. But her boyfriend, Nicholas Lowe, remained in jail, on hold from Ventura County Sheriffs Office in California for false impersonation. But Lowe had a plan. During a jail visit, Lowe persuaded Feldstein to pose as a deputy from Ventura, according to court documents cited by KFSM. Identifying herself as Deputy Kershaw with the Ventura County Sheriffs Office, Feldstein called the jail July 27, persuading the on-duty deputy that Lowe was to be released as Ventura County jail was overcrowded. Feldstein claimed to have sent a fax with an official release form. When the deputy said he had not received the fax, she sent him an authentic-looking form via email, releasing Ventura Countys hold, according to the affidavit cited by KFSM. The plan workeduntil the couple were both captured less than three weeks later in Fayetteville and found themselves once again in a county jail. They were both charged over the escapebut Feldstein bore the brunt of the charges. In February Lowe pleaded guilty to third-degree escape, according to local reports. He was sentenced to one year in jail, minus time served, plus a five-year suspended sentence. Washington County deputies realized they had been duped two days after Lowes escape, when bone fide Ventura County deputies called to say they were coming to pick up Lowe. According to court documents, via the Gazette, deputies reviewed video footage of a visit between the couple and saw Lowe explaining his plan to her, telling her what to say. Lowe told her to say that Ventura County was having issues with overcrowding and all low-priority extraditions have been suspended, according to the affidavit, reported KEN5. A spokeswoman for the Washington County Sheriffs Office told the Gazette at the time that they were considering the best way to make sure this does not happen again. There is a procedure to ensure requests are legitimate, and that hasnt changed, said the spokesperson. Fewer Escapes According to analysis from three national databases over an 11-year period, about 3 percent of all inmates escape from prison at some time while serving their sentence. Every year, around 1.4 percent of the correctional population escapes, according the 2005 study (pdf) for the University of New York. However, the vast majority of escapes88 percentwere from low-security level prisons. Among escapees from the more secure prisons, more than 92 percent are captured and returned to prison within a year of escaping, according to the report. The report notes that escape rates have dropped with the rising incarceration rate in recent decadesa decline that still continues, according to more recent reports. The decline is attributed to improved security of new prisons, the gradual aging of the correctional population, and a drop in the number of property offenders whose skills on breaking into buildings easily convert to the skills for breaking out. Woman Takes Anger Out on Elderly Custodian in Elevator A 63-year-old female custodian was kicked several times by a younger woman after an argument erupted between the two inside an elevator. The incident, which occurred on May 11 at a housing complex in Changsha City, Hunan Province in China, was recorded by security cameras in the elevator. The footage revealed the two women arguing, then fighting over a waste bin that had tipped over, according to the Chinese media outlet The Beijing News. The argument led to the younger woman physically attacking the custodian. The custodian, surnamed Zheng, was not reported to have any injuries. The younger woman, who is a resident in the housing complex, justified her behavior by saying that she was in a bad mood, according to the major Chinese online news outlet Passion News. Her name was not given in the report. A settlement between the two women was arranged by the property management, and the local police is investigating the incident, according to The Beijing News. Elevator Issues Zheng was working downward from the 16th floor, removing waste at each level, as she moved toward the first floor. She still had several more floors to go to. Footage from the security cameras show the young woman in a blue shirt getting in the elevator with Zheng. She insisted on going up, but the elevator was going down. Zheng suggested to the woman to use another elevator because there were three others that were available. But the woman insisted on using the same elevator because she was in a bad mood, according to Passion News. Then the confrontation between the two escalated. It must have smelled inside, Zhengs son told The Beijing News. The first time she pushed the can out, it tipped over and garbage spilled [all over the floor]. The short clip from The Beijing News shows the two women initially fighting over a small green garbage can that had tipped over. After the can was pulled all the way back into the elevator, the young woman makes an aggressive move. After struggling for a moment, the woman throws a purple bottle at Zheng, splashing liquid in the elevator. Zheng retaliates by picking up a cardboard box from the floor and throwing it at the woman, which she quickly deflects and responds with a kick to Zhengs abdomen. Zheng reaches for another box on the floor, but the woman lifts her right leg and kicks Zhengs arm. The custodian brushes it off, and receives another kick from the woman. Only the brief conflict is shown. No injuries were reported. The Beijing News reported that the dispute between the two women was later resolved with a settlement arranged by the property management, and the local police opened up an investigation. Zimbabwes Rural Communities Standing Up to Chinese Mining Companies MUTARE, ZimbabweZimbabwes rural communities are beginning to stand up to Chinese companies operating in the country, as evidenced by recent demonstrations against plans for a mining project in the Domboshava area, north of the capital Harare. Villagers in Domboshava have been sending petitions to the government and holding protests against the quarry mine proposed by China Aihua Jianye, saying the project would negatively affect more than 20,000 people, as well as clinics, schools, heritage sites, and graveyards in the area. Mining activities by Chinese companies in various parts of the country have had serious impacts on the local environment, but those affected have largely suffered in silence. The residents of Domboshava are the first to hold demonstrations in the hopes of stopping a Chinese mining project. At their most recent demonstration on May 6, some held signs saying, Leave our Domboshava alone. Go back to your Beijing. China Aihua Jianye maintains the $5 million mining project would generate 500 jobs, but locals are skeptical. They also say the fallout from the project would damage tourism to the region. Luke Tamborinyoka, a resident of Domboshava and a senior member of the opposition political party Movement for Democratic Change, told The Epoch Times that investment in the area by the Chinese company wont benefit the local peoplesimilar to the situation in many parts of the country. We have seen in other areas that investment by the Chinese does not benefit people in areas they are operating in. The Chinese investors bring their own labor and they bring their own equipment, he said. News emerged in April that China Aihua Jianye had sought to evict about 20,000 people in Domboshava after it was granted mining rights. If mining were supposed to benefit the country, why would over 20,000 people be displaced to pave way for foreign investors who will take the minerals and the profits outside the country? said Tapuwa Obren Nhachi, a research coordinator with the Center for Natural Resource Governance. Nhachi said his organization, an investigative NGO that stands up for communities that are affected by destructive mining operations, wants to know how the Chinese got access to mine at Zimbiru Mountain in the Domboshava area. Who gave them the license to mine and in exchange for what? he said. Nhachi said the Domboshava issue is similar to the Marange debacle in Manicaland, where people were forced to relocate and make way for Chinese company Anjin Investment and other companies to conduct diamond mining operations. But in 2016, former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe forced them out due to accusations of rampant looting of diamonds. Now, however, Anjin Investments is returning to the Marange area, and villagers are planning to hold demonstrations against the company, following the example of those in Domboshava. Our constitution is clear on fundamental rights that the citizens have, and these include environmental and cultural rights. Taking this into account, the community has the right to say no to destructive and unsustainable development and that right should be respected by those who are in authority, Nhachi said Last year, Zimbabwean legislator Prosper Mutseyami told The Epoch Times that Chinese companies enjoy protection from the government, as China is currently the biggest investor in the country. Mutseyami, a chief whip for Movement for Democratic Change, alleged that Zimbabwe is afraid to upset China, which is among the few countries that currently support the Zimbabwean government. Cultural Shrines Violated The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), an NGO that promotes the rights of marginalized and vulnerable communities in natural resource-rich areas, has been working with affected communities in Shurugwi, Zvishavane, Marange, Mutoko, and Gwanda, among others. A report by ZELA released in March reveals that the organization has trained and equipped community monitors and paralegals to regularly document violations and complaints on environmental, economic, social, and cultural rights (EESCRs) in Zimbabwe. Some of the companies that are foremost in violation of EESCRs are Chinese mining companies, the report says. In some parts of Zimbabwe, ZELA said, Chinese companies have violated local cultural shrines. Mountains in Chiadzwa [Marange area] are considered sacred and cultural shrines, but company officials of Chinese descent built their temple on top of one of the mountains, says the report. In other parts of Zimbabwe, where the graves of peoples ancestors are considered sacred, ZELA reported that the Chinese companies violated the graves by exhuming the bodies and exposing them without carrying out the necessary cultural rights and at one point they left skeletons scattered all over, which is a taboo in Zimbabwe. Mountains in the Domboshava area are revered by local people as heritage sites, but fears abound that the quarry project could destroy the caves and rock paintings in the area, thereby having a negative impact on tourism. However, Percy Mudzidzwa, a lead consultant for Geoglobal Environmental Solutions, a mining consultancy company handling the Domboshava project for China Aihua Jianye, said in an interview that the project would not cause damage because the company has proposed to have a fence erected around the graves. He said the project, which should be up and running by the end of August, will benefit local people through employment creation and servicing of roads. We propose that there be a community trust that we will make contributions to find the different needs in the community with time, he said. But Nhachi said what happened in Marange has shown that forced relocations will take place as long as the settlements are a threat to the companys profits. Promises of development and community-centered investments are only entry rhetoric by these companies to dupe their way into the community, he said. What should be respected in this case by Geoglobal Environmental Solutions and the government of Zimbabwe is the refusal by the Domboshava community for such development. No amount of money can buy the lives and livelihoods of people. In an effort to bring some sanity to the mining sector in Zimbabwe, ZELA recently petitioned Parliament to implore the executive to uphold the constitution by ensuring that mining sector investments are in compliance with the provisions of the countrys constitution and international obligations and standards. While commonly presented as a sector providing development opportunities for the national government and local communities, mining activities in Zimbabwe have repeatedly triggered a myriad of problems such as livelihood shifts, displacements from ancestral lands, and insidious social, cultural, environmental, and economic changes, reads part of the petition. By CASEY FABRIS FERRUM Rather than lie on a beach or road trip with friends, Mark Kellam spent most of his fall and spring breaks rehabbing houses damaged by natural disasters. During his time at Ferrum College, Kellam made six disaster recovery mission trips and served as the student leader on four of them. The trips have taken him to locations in Virginia, but also as far as Texas and Florida. I just like being useful, Kellam said. The trips taught Kellam valuable lessons, from how to use a nail gun to the power of the Ferrum College motto of not self, but others. They are lessons that Kellam, 21, is taking with him into the real world, as he graduated Saturday from Ferrum College with a degree in environmental science. Ferrum met all the criteria Kellam set in his college search: a respected environmental science program, small student body and a rural setting ideal for a lover of the outdoors. Plus, he was offered a spot in the honors program, along with a scholarship. When Kellam arrived at Ferrum, he was disappointed to learn the college didnt send its students on mission trips during school breaks. Kellam started going on mission trips in middle school, through his church. But during Kellams sophomore year, the college organized a disaster recovery trip. As soon as he got the email, Kellam replied sign me up. Hes just an absolute natural when it comes to his passion for disaster recovery work, said Jan Nicholson Angle, who as dean of the chapel oversees the spiritual life office that sponsors the trips. It wasnt long before Kellam was tapped to be a student leader of the trips, a role in which he served as the bridge in between the students and the faculty and staff who are running it. That meant everything from running meetings, to corralling student paperwork, to making sure students stayed hydrated on the job. Kellam was skilled at keeping the group on task, ensuring they accomplished as much as possible during their trips and helped families to establish their new normal, Nicholson Angle said. The best part of the trips, Kellam said, was connecting with the people whose homes the group was rebuilding and hearing their stories. The students not only repaired homes, but also spirits. Ive seen quite a few people on the site of their homes being fixed up tear up and give hugs, he said. Its just really special. Organizing the trips could be stressful, Kellam said, but he is stubbornly determined. Kellam offered an example: During his sophomore year, he set a goal of walking 1,000 miles in one semester. He started small, logging about 3 to 5 miles a day, but realized hed have to do quite a bit more to reach his goal. Rather than cast it aside it was a goal Kellam created for himself after all, an effort at personal growth he started walking more, averaging 11 miles a day and even more as the semesters end drew near. Kellam hit the 1,000 mile mark on reading day, just before exams started. Between those walks and various mapping projects Kellam did on campus given an interest in the field of GIS, or geographic information systems, he got to know Ferrums grounds well. I know pretty much every inch of this campus, Kellam said. Kellam plans to pursue a career in GIS, a field hes interested in because it uses technology and also would allow him to get outside every now and then. This past semester, Kellam spent a few hours a week working with Franklin Countys GIS department. Delia Heck, a professor of environmental science, said Kellam excelled in her GIS course. A project of his even inspired her to redesign the assignment for future courses. For several years the college has had an internship agreement with both Franklin County GIS and utility company American Electric Power, Heck said, but students must be truly stellar to be recommended for them. Most arent ready to slide into those positions after just one GIS class, she said, and sometimes the slots go unfilled. But Kellam was interested to learn more, and did several practicums in which he built on what hed learned in Hecks class. When he came to her asking about independent research, she helped set him up with the internship. He sought that out, Heck said. Hes very driven and hungry to learn. Kellam was the rare student who was ready for the opportunity, where Heck said he learned how to use drones in mapping, skills he applied when an EF3 tornado recently came through Franklin County. He was just the kind of student that comes along every once in a while that you wish you could keep, Heck said. But he needs to go on. Kellam is set to begin a 10-week internship at the county government center. He starts May 20, which is also Kellams birthday. This year hell be celebrating not just another year on the books, but his entrance into adulthood. From STAFF REPORTS Approximately 211 Ferrum College graduates walked the commencement stage Saturday, May 11, at Hart International Plaza on campus to receive their diplomas. The commencement exercises began at 10 a.m. and included award presentations under threatening skies that eventually gave way to a light spring rain. The keynote speaker was Rev. Bruce Hitchcock, advocate for inclusion and district superintendent of The United Methodist Churchs Ohio Valley District, who roots his work in service not only to Ohio but to the local Appalachia region, as well. Provost Aime Sposato opened the commencement ceremony to welcome the crowd of family, friends, faculty, and staff on hand to celebrate the graduates achievements. Commencements are often thought of as bittersweet endings, Sposato noted. But as the word commence means, we are truly celebrating beginnings on our campus today. This is your moment to shine. Following the invocation given by Dean of the Chapel Jan Nicholson Angle, Ferrum College President David Johns greeted the crowd and instructed the graduates to thank their friends and families for their love and support, as great achievement requires a group effort. Johns then reminded the students of Mothers Day, stating, Your mother will always be smarter than you. Johns closed with a reminiscent tone: Amazing things happen here at Ferrum College each and every day sometimes in big and splashy ways, but very often, in small and incremental ways. And, before you know it, we gather together in this place to celebrate the transformation of lives that has taken place. Ferrum College Board of Trustees member Suzanne Smith 98 and Alumni Association Vice President Twyla Tatum 04 each gave their greetings on behalf of their respective boards. Five distinguished faculty members, who will retire after 154 years of combined service to the College, were recognized: Dr. Faye Angel, Dr. William Dub Osborne, Dr. Bob Pohlad, Professor Susan Spataro, Dr. Carolyn Thomas, and Dr. Demetri Tsanacas. The presentation of awards followed. Associate Professor of Biology, Katie Goff, received the Exemplary Faculty Award, which recognizes a full-time faculty member at Ferrum College who exemplifies excellence and commitment to teaching. Goff, who was recently honored at the colleges employee recognition lunch for 10 years of service to the institution, is beloved by her students and passionate for the campus community. Along with her commitment to guiding students on their career pathways, she is the dedicated advisor for Minds-N-Medicine, a club that supports students experiences as early career health professionals. Three graduates received the Senior Academic Excellence Award: Leya Deickman, of Fayetteville, NC; Koby McMahon, of Annapolis, Md; and Joshua Wright of Stuart. The award is based on grades earned in all college courses by a full-time student, including those taken at Ferrum, as well as those received in transfer from other colleges or universities. All three seniors maintained a 4.0 GPA. Deickman earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology; McMahon received a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice; and Wright received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. Leya Deickman also received the Arthur S. Owens Leadership Award, which is presented annually to the senior chosen by the faculty who best exemplifies the qualities leadership, initiative, honor and outstanding character. Recipients of this award must also hold an excellent academic record, have participated in extra-curricular activities, and shown creative initiative in making Ferrum College a better place to study, work, and live. Following the awards presentations, Rev. Hitchcock addressed the graduates. Life is yours, he said. There is nothing that can hold you back. You were educated for a purpose. Hitchcock closed with a charge to the graduates: You are going to change the future; we depend on you. Ferrum, get busy living! Student Government Association President Lawrence Baranski of Williamsburg, Va., then introduced Senior Class President Andrew Meadows of Chatham. After presenting the senior class gift to President Johns, Meadows introduced Deickman as the senior class speaker. After thanking the class of 2019 for the honor of being asked to speak, Deickman referenced her extraordinarily busy schedule as a full-time student, full-time mother to her four-year-old son, residence hall advisor, and athlete, among other activities. She explained that she was able to do it all with the support of this graduating class. Whether we do it intentionally or not, we all contribute to the success of others by simply supporting them in both small and large ways, Deickman said. She closed with advice: While this moment will pass us by, just as all of the experiences of college, let us be mindful of those who surround us in support and who have led us to this very day. Be willing to accept help when it is offered so you can be successfuland always be willing to give help, so you can be that support for someone else. After the conferring and awarding of degrees by Johns and Sposato, a celebratory picnic lunch was held under tents on Franklin Hall quad for all in attendance. The weekend events also included a traditional Baccalaureate service on Friday evening in Vaughn Chapel followed by a candlelight ceremony at Hart International Plaza symbolizing the light of knowledge that the new graduates will carry forth into the world. The 17th annual Veterans Memorial Day observance will be held at Franklin County History Museum Saturday, June 8, beginning at 10 a.m. The guest speaker will be John Cahoon, second vice president of Fincastle Resolutions Chapter Sons of the American Revolution. Representatives of various heritage organizations and local government will also take part in the program. An honor guard will be provided by members of the 57th VA Infantry Co. B, from New York, with the help of Sons of Confederate Veterans camps including the 57th VA Fire-Eaters. The event recognizes the sacrifices of local military personnel who lost life and limb in wars and conflicts since the American Revolution. Following the program, Co. B will open its living history encampment to visitors until 4:30 p.m. The re-enactors will demonstrate their weapons and camp equipment and speak one on one with interested people. The event is free to the public. The History Museum is next door to Franklin Memorial Hospital at 460 South Main Street in Rocky Mount. For more information, contact event sponsor, Franklin County Historical Society at 483-1890. Gov. Ralph Northam is not yet one-third of the way through his term, which means its high time that we start talking about who the next governor might be. Virginia politics, with its one-and-done rule for governors, is like that. Lets talk about the 2021 governors race over a cup of Starbucks coffee. That choice for our hot bean juice is important, as youll come to see. First, though, lets review the political landscape. This being Virginia, we need to spend a lot of time talking about our past before we get to our future. Virginia has had one of the narrowest paths to the governors mansion of any state in the union. For a long time, that route ran through the apple orchards of U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. When the Byrd Machine dominated state politics, Byrds blessing was pretty much tantamount to election. Virginias modern political history did not begin until 1969 when Linwood Holton a Republican lawyer from Roanoke shattered the states one-party rule. Since then, weve had 13 governors. Of those, nine had previously served as either lieutenant governor or attorney general. That surest way to get elected governor is to first get elected to one of those two offices. Of the four exceptions, one was George Allen, who was a former congressman and before that a state legislator, so was very much part of the states political ecosystem. That leaves just three others who came from a nontraditional background Holton, Mark Warner and Terry McAuliffe. None of them had held elected office before being elected governor, although all three had been involved in politics in other ways. Virginia hasnt had a true outsider as governor since Westmoreland Davis, a lawyer, farmer and magazine publisher from Loudoun County, won over a divided establishment field in 1917. Under normal circumstances, the Democratic nomination in 2021 would have been a showdown between the lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, and the attorney general, Mark Herring. Weve seen that happen many times before when one party has held all the top offices. Those normal circumstances ended in February, when Herring (like Northam) admitted to wearing blackface in his youth and Fairfax was accused by two women of sexual assault. Herring might survive; polls show voters see pretty forgiving of what might delicately be called a youthful indiscretion. Herring was, after all, 19 at the time and has a political record that might be more properly judged on. Fairfax appears in greater political jeopardy perhaps legal jeopardy, as well. In any case, there are now lots of other Democrats who have let it be known they might want to seek the governorship as well, starting with Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and perhaps including state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond. Theres even talk that McAuliffe might try to imitate Mills Godwin and come back for a second term now that hes not running for president. The point being: The states political paradigm has been disrupted. The Democratic nomination for 2021 may be more wide open than originally thought. To be continued... DARIEN William Pickering Jones III wanted to become a lawyer to help people. In the fall of 2018, William, who was attending Fordham Law School, encountered a stranger suffering an overdose in the park adjacent to the school. Knowing what to do, he tried to take action by asking the schools security staff for Narcan, the common name for naxalone, a medication used in overdose emergencies. The security guards didnt have it. However, William was able to call the police and give them the critical information needed to save the persons life. The experience led him to initiate efforts for Narcan training for Fordham Law students and staff. The story, in a letter received from one of Williams classmates, sat within a seemingly endless pile of letters, cards and remembrances on his parents kitchen table on a cold morning in February. The same kitchen table at which Williams mother, Elizabeth Higgins Jones Betsy shared her last conversation with her only son on Dec. 25. Though he fought hard to beat it, William lost his battle with addiction on Christmas Day. He was 27. Despite his driving need and efforts to help others including saving someones life the one person he couldnt save was himself. He fought valiantly every day, Betsy said. While at Fordham, William, along with the same classmate who wrote the letter, Lura Chamberlain, founded the Drug Policy Reform Group. Its stated purpose is to foster intellectual discussion, build community relationships, and support meaningful policy reform around legal and sociopolitical issues relating to the supply and demand of illegal, addictive, and/or consciousness-altering substances: treatment options for substance users; and harm reduction efforts on an individual, community, and national scale. I dont know many people who would rush to a strangers aid without hesitation, and even fewer who can say theyve saved a life, Chamberlain wrote in her letter, but William was one of them. She added that the Narcan training that William started will continue to be pursued by the Drug Policy Reform Group in Williams memory, both because of its crucial relationship to the groups objectives and because it represents the kind of simple, non-discriminating compassion for others that William embodied so well. The Jones family is a private one. That is what makes talking to me about William difficult for Betsy. But his passionate need to help to change the world is what is encouraging her. That privacy meant that almost all of Betsys and her husband Bills friends and family were not aware of Williams struggle with addiction. As a consequence, many were shocked when William died in December. The reason that the Jones family kept Williams struggle private was because of the very stigma they are now speaking out against. They kept it quiet to protect William, so that any negative connotations would not follow him as he moved forward with his life; so that he would not be defined by it, his mother said. However, Betsy said her family wanted to make it clear that William had died from a drug overdose by adding to his obituary that memorial donations were to be made to Shatterproof because as Betsy says, addiction is a disease, like any other it does not discriminate. Shatterproof is a national non-profit organization based in Connecticut that is dedicated to helping families deal with their addicted loved ones. CEO Gary Mendell lost his son Brian to addiction. Betsy pointed out the ease and frequency with which physicians have prescribed opioids. She and her husband, believe that some of us are simply biologically predisposed to becoming quickly addicted to opioids. She said that when she was prescribed opioids, they made her sick to her stomach. When William was prescribed them, it was the beginning of his struggle. Background William and his three younger sisters, Julia, Catherine and Elizabeth, grew up in a lovely home in the Tokeneke section of Darien. William was aware of what he had, in terms of family, education, and economic stability, and also aware of what others didnt and wanted to help. In his personal statement, he describes recovering from a major concussion, he said, while playing lacrosse for McGill University. William took a medical leave from McGill after the concussion caused him to struggle academically and socially. Upon his return, he joined a McGill research project that studied worldwide population regarding how social determinants, such as race, income, and health care, impact children born with neuro-disabilities specifically, how those factors impact the path of the childs life. I was not a bad person before all this. I grew up privileged, white, well-educated, with supportive friends and a loving family. A nice, relatively normal childhood. But I was blind. I was sheltered. Things came easily to me. It was not until I had something major taken away that I truly knew how lucky Id been. I could now empathize, not just sympathize, he wrote. This caused William to reflect on his blessings and give him passionate purpose. He began volunteering for the Yerwood Center in Stamford, which provides after school tutoring to local elementary school students, many of whom are poor and minorities. And it was then that he decided he wanted to be a lawyer. A public health crisis According to Shatterproof, in 2017, 70,237 Americans died from drug overdoses. On average, drug overdoses now kill 192 Americans per day. Darien resident Holly Jespersen, who serves as Shatterproofs senior communications manager, says one of the organizations main goals is to remove the stigma and shame of addic tion. Part of the reason for the rise in addiction and overdoses, Jespersen says, is because those who suffer from dependence on opioids, when unable to access prescribed meds, are buying them on the street. Often, these street opioids are laced with fentanyl, which Jespersen says is a deadly combination literally. The Center for Disease Control affirms that this is the worst drug overdose epidemic in [U.S.] history. And the problem has grown so severe that, in 2014, the CDC added prescription drug overdose prevention to its list of the top five public health challenges. Three Illnesses and deaths related to substance use disorders are at epidemic levels right now, and its quickly getting worse. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in 2017, there were 955 overdose deaths involving opioids in Connecticut a rate of 27.7 deaths per 100,000 people, which is twofold higher than the national rate of 14.6 deaths per 100,000 people. The greatest increase in opioid deaths was see in cases involving synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl): a rise from 79 deaths in 2016 to 686 in 2017. Deaths involving heroin also increased from 98 deaths in 2012 to 450 in 2016 but saw a decrease in 2017 to 425 deaths. Prescription opioids were involved in 273 deaths in 2017, a more than fourfold increase from 60 in 2012. In October 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. Darien First Selectman Jayme Stevenson has made fighting opioid addiction one of her priorities. While running for lieutenant governor last spring and summer, she offered that if elected she would make it a priority to have that office take leadership of the crisis. Hearst Connecticut Media recently reported a growing list of defendants in the torrent of litigation against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma extends beyond the firms owners. While the eight members of the Sackler family figure most prominently among the accused, Connecticuts expanded lawsuit filed recently and a similar complaint from Massachusetts highlight the crucial role of four current and former executives in carrying out the alleged fraudulent marketing of the firms opioids. Purdue has denied Connecticuts and Massachusetts allegations, as well as those in the lawsuits filed by more than 1,000 other states and cities. Supervised injection facilities Last fall, William wrote a legal paper about the legal obstacles to creating supervised injection facilities in the United States. They are a place where intravenous users of opioids can inject in the presence of medical professionals who can administer lifesaving treatment if needed. SIFs represent a promising public health intervention with the potential to make a real impact on the opioid epidemic, William Jones, paper on legal obstacles for supervised injection facilities in the United States for Health Law & Biomedical Ethics. Though acknowledging that some communities are concerned about increases in drug-related crime or substance misuse if these are put in place, William wrote that international evidence shows the opposite its true. As far as the tested United States legality of SIFs, William wrote that first, one courageous city or state will need to open the first SIF. Until then, the ultimate legality remains unclear. At the back of his paper, William dedicated it to all our loved ones lost to this terrible epidemic, and quoted Robert Frosts poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, which concludes, Then leaf subsides to leaf; so Eden sank to grief; so dawn goes down to day; Nothing gold can stay. Reflecting Betsy Jones says the Jones family all has strong opinions and debates could be lively. In these moments, William explained his passionate viewpoint to help others. He taught us something, he made us better, she said. Matthew Diller, dean of Fordham Law School, who spoke at the memorial service at Fordham Law School, attended by nearly 500 called William a natural leader and said that in one of his first conversations with William, he spoke of his motivation to get into law. The memorial service was held before a panel discussion on supervised injection sites that was planned by William and the Drug Policy Reform Group. He spoke about his hopes to help others, and said he believed that by helping one person at a time, he could make the world a better place, Diller said. Betsy also spoke at the Fordham Law School service. Many of you knew William growing up and many of you knew him here as a Fordham Law student you knew him here as Will. What many of you did not know, and sadly all know now, is that William struggled with and lost his battle to addiction. What many of you still do not know is how hard William fought. William told me that he fought every day against his addiction, his enemy, she said. What is extraordinary to us his family, was to learn that William, while working hard at law school, working hard to help those less fortunate through the initiatives he was passionate about, at the same time he was doing all of that, he was fighting his own battle, Betsy said. Vera T. Bullock, the assistant dean of Fordham Law School, gave a eulogy at Williams Darien funeral in December, attended by nearly 800. In it, Bullock, with whom William had a close relationship, said she had shared with him that she had lost her son to a drug overdose. She told William that what she missed most were her sons hugs. After that, without fail, William made a point of stopping by my office several times a week. He would come in and simply say time for a hug, Bullock said. That simple gesture sums up to me Williams philosophy of life. He always left a conversation, a situation and now the world a better place, she said. Bullock also said when times were stressful they would talk about the things they were grateful for and gave an example. William said that he was grateful for a strong turnout for the Rally for Lifesaving Treatment in Prisons & Jails that he organized or that the model of a Rikers solitary confinement cell that he had helped to build on the 3rd floor had interested people in the conditions of the incarcerated. Boy did he help me put my life in perspective, she said. If there was anyone who could understand Williams journey, it was his close friend growing up in Darien, who bravely fought cancer for over 10 years. This courageous young man was an inspiration to William and to everyone who knew him. A quote from a letter to his friend from William after they hadnt seen each for quite some time was on the back of the program at Williams funeral. Our paths may have diverged, but I feel as though we were also running parallel. We were never as far apart as our perceptions may have suggested. And now that these paths have converged, I doubt they will ever diverge again. If they do, the gap is in our minds. Sadly, his dear friend passed away in March, two months after William. Betsy, Bill, Julia, Catherine and Elizabeth are devastated. Betsy and her family find comfort believing that they did everything they could for William but she also said: The tragedy in all of this is that William was such a good person who was trying to do good. He owned his mistakes. Sometimes, a mothers love isnt enough William received all the love, all the support and all the best medical and psychological care that we as a family could possibly give - and William was so grateful for it, his family said. He told us over and over how grateful he was of us standing by him. William wanted to beat it his addiction but sadly his addiction beat him, they said. He didnt want this, Betsy added.. As Betsy recalled her last conversation with William at that same kitchen table gesturing to where he sat that night she said that she was grateful that they had the chance to share that moment. Nothing was left unsaid, she said. In her speech at Fordham Law, Betsy spoke of that last conversation adding that he made me a better person. William made all of us better - because he made us all aware. We are so proud of William - so proud of his humanity. On Christmas Eve, just before William died, I had the chance to say what I wanted to say, what I needed to say, she said. I am so proud of you, William. Look how far you have come. I love you so much, she told him. I love you too, Mom Im so proud of you, he responded. Fordham Law Schools Public Interest Resource Center named William P. Jones, III Public Interest 2L Student of the Year in recognition of his volunteer work, his leadership, and inspiration to others to become involved in public service. Moving mountains Barns burnt down now I can see the moon. haiku by Mizuta Masahide, a favorite haiku of Williams. Betsy Jones and her family hope by sharing Williams story, it will carry on his passionate commitment to help others and continuing his fervent hope to make a change. As Betsy said in an email to The Darien Times, The time for drug policy reform and early intervention is now. All of us must become educated in order to dispel the shame and disgrace that surrounds our addicted loved ones and their families. Williams law school statement underlines this sentiment in his realistic optimism for the future, if we all pitch in. It was his belief that even the most unsurmountable such as conquering the pain, the epic loss, and the stigma of opioid addiction could be done as a united effort of humanity. Instead of moving a mountain, I am trying to move a pebble I care about if we all move our pebbles, we can move mountains, William Jones, in his law school admissions personal statement The Jones family hopes that by telling Williams story, they can help at least one person avoid what happened to their wonderful son and bring awareness about this terrible epidemic. They thank the Darien Police Department and Darien Post-53 for their quick response on Christmas morning and for their gentle respect and kindness. The Jones family would also like to thank their friends, family and the Darien community for their love and support. WESTPORT He said he was looking at donuts, but when police searched a school maintenance workers phone, they found videos not of food but a Staples High student, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Westport News. Paul Telep, a 52-year-old Stratford resident, turned himself in to Westport police on May 7 on stalking charges, stemming from an incident in which a school resource officer spotted him allegedly recording a female student with his work cellphone in the cafeteria. The plumber has been on paid leave without prejudice since April 2 while the school conducts a personnel investigation, Human Resources Director John Bayers said. According to the report, officer Ed Wooldridge went to the kitchen on April 2 to purchase a beverage when he observed Telep standing near the baked goods, with a jacket hanging over his left arm and holding a phone in his hand. The phone was pointed in the direction of two female students, Wooldridge wrote. As Wooldridge got closer to the cashier station, Telep appeared startled and immediately brought his phone down and began walking toward the exit, the report says. Wooldridge informed head custodian Horace Lewis of his observations, and then confronted Telep in Lewis office, asking if he had been recording the girls. Telep allegedly responded, I may have, I was checking my phone. Wooldridge and maintenance workers union Vice President Calvin Terpsta later met with Telep in Principal James DAmicos office. DAmico asked Telep again if he was recording students, to which Telep responded, I wouldnt say I was recording students, but I use it for work, the report says. When questioned about what he was doing in the kitchen that day, Telep reportedly said, Looking at donuts. DAmico then confiscated Teleps work phone, as it was property of the Board of Education, and additional police were notified. An initial search of the phone by Westport detectives found no photographs or videos of the student; however, a forensic search revealed Telep had deleted seven videos, police said. The videos, filmed over the course of about a month, all featured the same female student in the cafeteria. In one recording, Telep gets up from the table and walks towards the female student while recording her. As Telep gets closer, the camera stays on the female student the entire time, the affidavit says. Another captures the incident observed by the school resource officer, in which the video is focused on the same student. In that recording, there is also another female student who walks up to Telep and he is heard saying oh donuts. The video then shows this affiant (Wooldridge) walking toward Telep and then Telep starts walking out of the kitchen area and stops recording. Sgt. Jill Ruggiero and Wooldridge subsequently interviewed several of Teleps co-workers, who allegedly said they had never seen him recording while on their coffee breaks in the Staples cafeteria. They were also asked if they (had) ever seen Telep with two phones and only one co-worker stated they observed him with two phones, according to the report. The student and her mother were notified of the findings, and the student was apparently unaware she had been recorded. On April 11, the girls mother contacted Wooldridge, saying she was concerned for her daughters safety and would possibly be filing a restraining order against Telep, the affidavit says. After several failed attempts to schedule an interview with Telep at police headquarters, an arrest warrant application was submitted and signed on May 3. Telep turned himself in at police headquarters the following Tuesday and was charged with third-degree stalking. He was released after posting $50,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Norwalk on May 16. Though the alleged videotaping occurred at Staples, Bayers said Telep is not exclusively employed at the high school and could be assigned to different schools on different days. However, no districtwide notice was sent to parents following the incident. I believe they handled it appropriately, BOE Chairman Mark Mathias said. PTA Council Co-President Carolyn Caney did not respond to request for comment. lteixeira@ctpost.com Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at a banquet in honor of guests who are in Beijing to attend the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC), May 14, 2019. Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan hosted the banquet in Beijing on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan hosted a banquet Tuesday evening in honor of guests who are in Beijing for the upcoming Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC). When delivering a speech at the banquet in the Great Hall of the People, Xi said the CDAC is held in line with the general trend of cooperation and development in Asia and the expectations of people of all countries for exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. The conference, to kick off on Wednesday, will serve as an exchange and mutual learning platform for the common development of various civilizations, Xi said. Noting that Asia is a major birthplace of human civilization, Xi said Asian civilizations have exchanged amid openness, grown together thanks to inclusiveness, and developed through innovation, to become splendid on the world stage. China adheres to the protection and inheritance of its fine traditional culture, promotes exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations, and contributes to the progress of human civilization, he added. 2 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] WILTON Larcenies were once again the majority of crimes in town during 2018, according to the police departments annual report. There were 135 larcenies last year, compared to 125 in 2017, 50 in 2016, and 57 the year before. Overall, there were 263 offenses classified as crime against property according to the preliminary data for 2018, slightly up from 254 in 2017 and 156 in 2016. There were 38 narcotic or drug-related crimes, up from 20 the year before. There were also three weapons violations, no cases of prostitution and one case of porn or obscene material, for a total of 42 crimes against society. This was an increase from the 23 in 2017. These were among the 15,674 calls for service logged by the police department in 2018, a 3.7-percent decrease from 16,276 in 2017. This was also the first decrease in calls since 2014. According to the report, the main driver of the overall decrease is due to a decrease in traffic stops from 2017. Motor vehicle investigations made up 36 percent of the calls received, according to the report. A bulk of the calls were for an assortment of other services, such as vehicle lockouts, at 39 percent. Criminal investigations and emergency medical service made up seven percent of calls. Alarms made up the remainder at 11 percent. Arrests In 2018, the department was involved in 187 incidents that resulted in arrests. Twenty-three of the arrests were for drug-related charges, according to the report. In addition, a total of 62 infractions for possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana and/or paraphernalia were issued. Domestic incidents In 2018, there were 82 domestic incidents, of which 35 were cases of family violence. This was down from the 100 domestic incidents in 2017. The bulk of the violent cases were incidents involving intimate partner relationships, at 25, according to the report. There were 14 cases of spousal incidents. There were four parent/child incidents, with three arrests accounted for. There were also five cases involving siblings. Of the cases of violence, there were five cases of assault, five of threatening, and five violations of a protective order. Motor vehicles In 2018, police made 4,308 traffic stops, 1,007 of which were the result of strategic enforcement, related to citizen complaints, in areas of frequent crashes, and grants related to distracted driving, seat belt enforcement, and DUI. This total was down from 5,224 stops in 2017. Police made 42 arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. This continues a downward trend since the five-year high of 67 in 2015. Of the 4,308 traffic stops made, the vast majority of motorists were white males 2,273. White motorists accounted for 83.19 percent of the stops, blacks 11.26 percent, Indians, 2.88 percent, and Asians 2.67 percent. Force Officers used force in nine incidents, a 10-percent decrease from the previous year when there were 10. Seven of the incidents involved male subjects ranging in age from 14 to 68. Seven of the subjects were white, one was black, and one was was Indian. Two incidents when force was used involved a police pointing a gun at a subject, down from four in 2017. In two incidents, the subject was in possession of or had recently used an instrument as a weapon. This included a box cutter and a vehicle. dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com NORWALK Lisa Brinton, who is running as an independent candidate for mayor, announced this week that she had completed her masters degree in public administration and policy. Brinton officially graduated from American University on Saturday, May 11. She said she was inspired to go back to school after her oldest son enrolled at George Washington University. This masters degree will complement my decade-long service in Norwalk, which to date has been primarily focused on the interdependent relationship between public education expenses and land use revenues, she said. Brinton said that her studies, along with her past career of over three decades in corporate life, will help her as a candidate and potentially the next mayor. My diverse private and public sector background uniquely positions me to tackle inefficiencies at City Hall, as well as pave a new way for Norwalk, based on national best practices of cities looking to attract small business and balanced growth, directed at increasing median household income and property values, she said. Brinton is running against Mayor Harry Rilling, a Democrat. Rilling highlighted the team of professionals he put together as a part of the citys reorganization earlier this month and said he believed his work over the past five years showed his dedication to making Norwalk the best city to live, work and play. I think weve done a really good job in the city over the past five plus years, he said. Im proud of these achievements and Im proud of the team weve assembled. Darnell Crosland, a former Democrat, changed his party affliation in April to Republican and said he was planning to run for mayor. As of Wednesday afternoon, Crosland had not yet filed his paperwork to run with the Town Clerk. kelly.kultys@hearstmediact.com Norwalks Memorial Ceremony on Wednesday morning honored officers from Norwalk and surrounding towns who gave their lives serving their communities, as well as retired officers who were lost during the past year. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation designating May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week surrounding May 15 as Police Week. More than 50,000 law enforcement officers from around the world converge on Washington, D.C., to participate in a number of events which honor those that have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. NORWALK Beginning next year, students at Brien McMahon High School will have access to a marine studies course and an academic, career-related pathway as part of the nascent Marine Science Academy at Brien McMahon High School. The Marine Science Academy will be one of many pathways the district has implemented, and will continue to implement, to allow a student to pick a course of study that matches his or her interests and get hands-on experience applicable to the real world. It will be offered under the larger umbrella of a International Baccalaureate career-related program the district is pursuing with similar goals in mind of merging academic subjects with students personal interests, encourage critical thinking and instill self-confidence through experience. It all comes down to giving our kids those experiences, those opportunities to explore the fields of study that they have interest in, said Tom Seuch, science department chair at McMahon, during a presentation on career-related pathways and an update on the Maritime Science Academy to the Board of Education this week. The new course of study would provide four career-pathway cores including personal and professional skills, service learning, language development and a reflective capstone project (also in development) enhanced by IB Diploma Program courses relevant to each students career-related studies. Other pathways include are health care, engineering, biomedical science and computer science, among others. The Marine Science Academy would be just the latest addition. In summer 2018, a steering committee for the development of the academy was assembled to create a sequence of courses, opportunities for field research, college and career exposure, community outreach and explorative and certificate-based internships. Sites like the the Maritime Aquarium, the Connecticut Maritime Association-Educational Foundation and SUNY Maritime were visited to conduct research. More recently, a group of Norwalk Public School staff was appointed to develop the curriculum, expand the existing half-semester Marine Sciences course already offered and begin the IB Career Pathway Certification Program. The district is on track for accreditation in August 2020. In the meantime, Seuch said the district is in the process of rolling out the newly developed Marine Studies course. A first cohort of 50 students has signed up. Its not marine biology its more than that, Seuch said. Its the industry, its the marine industry, its the transportation industry, the shipping industry. The headquarters of most global shipping industries are less than 10 miles from this building right now. The new course will focus on local habitat field work, trips and experiences and community engagement. Through the maritime pathway, Seuch said the goal is also to establish stronger connections to schools like SUNY Maritime, Massachusetts Maritime Academy and Maine Maritime Academy. According to Seuch, only five students have applied to those three institutions combined and only two have matriculated. Weve got to make that partnership stronger ... If you leave SUNY Maritime with a bachelors degree, 100 percent job placement, and you are the sixth highest paid salary for an undergraduate degree, Seuch said. That beats MIT, that beats Yale, that beats Harvard, that beats RIT. So these kids needs to have those opportunities. The development was funded in part by a $51,000 startup grant from the Per and Astrid Heidenreich Foundation and will hopefully be sustained long term, according to Superintendent of Schools Steven. J. Adamowski, with the extra $1,000 per pupil the district will receive for students at the Marine Science Academy by making it open to students district-wide. I think in total, when you look at our program of study, when it comes back to you for further revision next year, I think we have some just wonderful choices for students, Adamowski said. And we should, were a diverse city and we need a lot of choice to maintain the diversity we have. justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586 There is a rising tide of anti-Semitism in the world, a scourge that is spreading in the Middle East, in Europe and even here in the United States. In recent months, Jewish communities in Pittsburgh and the San Diego area have been victimized by deadly shootings at synagogues. Monitors say that the frequency of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States is near a four-decade high. Anti-Semitic statements have been heard lately from members of Congress, and an anti-Semitic cartoon was published recently by a major newspaper. A particularly troubling aspect of this anti-Semitic trend is that the ugly Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS - a political and economic attack on Israel's right to exist - continues to gain steam. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle have a responsibility to confront this ugliness head-on. State and local leaders across the nation are stepping up and taking action to ensure that the taxpayers they represent are not made unwilling participants in the BDS movement. In the House and Senate here in Washington, we have worked together to champion bipartisan legislation that would prevent the federal government from obstructing those state and local efforts. It is past time for the legislation to become law. The BDS movement seeks to compel individuals, private corporations and even entire countries to refuse to invest in or do business with Israeli firms. At its root, it is an effort to weaponize grievance politics and attack Israel's sovereignty under the guise of defending the Palestinian cause. BDS's real aim is to exclude, isolate and delegitimize Israel. It undermines direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority by placing all the blame on the Jewish state. And it echoes a long, dark history of anti-Semitic boycotts visited upon the Jewish people since well before the establishment of the modern state of Israel. The leaders of the BDS movement are not shy about their true motives. They do not believe the state of Israel should exist. Omar Barghouti, one of the movement's co-founders, proclaimed in 2013 that "no Palestinian - rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian - will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine." The anti-Semitic bigotry masquerading as principled activism clashes with core principles that Americans have held dear since the nation's founding. As early as 1790, in a letter to a Hebrew congregation in Rhode Island, President George Washington famously insisted that the government must give "bigotry no sanction." Surely this common-sense, universal principle must still apply today - to all men and women of all races, religions and abilities. And surely, if the principle tells us anything, it tells us that state and local governments should not be obliged to finance anti-Semitic bigotry with taxpayer dollars. Across the country, more than two dozen statesand local governments have moved to fight BDS's bigotry by boycotting the boycotters. The governments want to make sure that individuals and companies with whom they do business will not use the taxpayer money they receive to publicly engage in boycotting the state of Israel, Israeli firms or others doing business with the Jewish state. Accordingly, a bipartisan group of members of Congress committed to confronting anti-Semitism has brought forward legislation that would ensure that the federal government doesn't hinder these local determinations by making it clear they don't infringe on the federal government's authority over foreign policy. Clarity is needed because BDS supporters are using this argument to fight the anti-boycott laws in court. Both of us are committed champions of the First Amendment and recognize that any state and local action would need to carefully balance individuals' freedom of speech and expression with the public's right not to be co-opted into bankrolling an anti-Semitic boycott. This legislation ensures this important process cannot be short-circuited by BDS proponents citing federal supremacy over foreign policies. In February, the Senate made bipartisan legislation on Middle East-focused defense and security matters a top priority of the new Congress. The legislation included this kind of counter-BDS provision - legislation that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had himself co-sponsored only months before. The package passed the Senate with 77 votes. That was three months ago. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has let the legislation languish on her desk. House Republicans, recognizing that Congress should not remain silent on this subject, are employing a rare procedural tool to attempt to force an up-or-down vote on the measure. If 21 Democrats sign on - fewer than the number of Senate Democrats who supported the bill - it will get the vote it deserves. Last week, people in Israel and around the world celebrated the anniversary of the modern state's founding in 1948. Israel needs not just rhetorical support for its existence but also real legislation that combats those who seek to delegitimize it. The Senate stands against the toxic BDS movement. The House must do the same. - - - McConnell, R-Ky., is the Senate majority leader. McCarthy of California is the House Republican leader. Hall County will be purchasing two new compact track loaders after a vote of the Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning. The board voted 7-0 to approve a base bid from Murphy Tractor and Equipment for $60,900 per machine. An earlier vote to approve a base bid of $57,931 for a new 2019 Bobcat T740 model from Central Nebraska Bobcat failed on a 4-3 vote, with Supervisors Karen Bredthauer, Pam Lancaster and Gary Quandt voting to accept that bid. The approved compact track loader is a used 2019 John Deere 331G model with more than 10 hours of use. Supervisor Jane Richardson clarified that the base bid from Murphy includes air-conditioned and heated seats, hydraulic self-leveling and ride control, and a top window. The bid from Central Nebraska Bobcat charged extra for hydraulic self-leveling and ride control. Public Works Director Steve Riehle said before the first vote that Central Nebraska Bobcat was close to meeting the (bid) specifications but was a little low on horsepower and pounds per square inch (PSI). Police/Sheriff Anyone with information about any crime in the state may call the Grand Island-Hall County Crime Stoppers, (308) 381-8822. Callers will remain anonymous. A reward of up to $1,000 will be paid after law enforcement agencies have determined the seriousness of the crime and the usefulness of the information. Inmate custody status can be obtained by calling the VINE hotline at (877) NE 4 VINE or by visiting www.vinelink.com. Information is available 24 hours a day. If you see a crime happening, call the Grand Island-Hall County Emergency Center 911. Grand Island Police The following felonies were reported: Anthony Sanchez reported that he was assaulted by a co-worker while working at U.S. Foods, 3636 W. Stolley Park Road. Aarons Rent to Own, 1804 N. Diers, reported a possible fraud, which may have occurred between Sept. 2 and Friday. Jeremy Horinek reported a burglary to his residence, at 1710 N. Broadwell, on Friday. EDWARDSVILLE The Edwardsville High School Interact Club recently hosted its annual Letters of Hope event to benefit the African Vision of Hope (AVOH) organization. Students gathered during sixth hour to enjoy refreshments, play trivia and write letters of hope and inspiration to students of the African Vision of Hope schools in Zambia. The letters will be hand delivered to the students by the organization and the event successfully raised $1,500 to provide a second meal program for the students in Zambia. Letters of Hope is an event that we have been doing for eight years now, Interact Club sponsor Nicole Pontious said. We work with the African Vision of Hope program and we write letters to the students in Zambian schools offering them hope and inspiration. Its kind of our way of personally connecting with those students across the world. The COO of the African Vision of Hope, Judi Bertels, brings the letters to the students at the AVOH schools, and often times they write letters to send back with her. She tells us how there are times where shell go there and shell actually have a student approach her who has this letter from three years ago folded up in his pocket, you can tell that hes folded it and unfolded, read it a hundred times. The kids get really excited, theyre so amazed that these random kids at Edwardsville High School in the United States raised money for them and wrote them letters, Pontious said. Additionally, the club worked with the National Art Honor Society to design three, one-of-a-kind inspirational mirrors. These mirrors will be placed in three of the AVOH schools to encourage students to strive for academic success. The EHS Interact Club is a youth organization of the Edwardsville Rotary Club. The club promotes the Service Above Self motto through fundraising efforts and community involvement throughout the school year. Open to all students, the club encourages high school students to strive to make their school, community, and world a better place. To date, the EHS Interact Club has donated over $5,000 to the African Vision of Hope schools. The African Vision of Hope is an organization working to help children and families who are living in poverty. For more information on AVOH, visit africanvisionofhope.org. On a recent Sunday afternoon I found myself standing in the rain, peering anxiously into an unlit storefront that seemed wholly out of place with its otherwise industrial surroundings. Id brought myself, and the assorted luggage, to Brooklyns Gowanus neighborhood on the last day of an NYC trip to seek out Crowley Vintage, arriving at noon sharp to coincide with the weekend-only shops hours. After 10 minutes passed without any change in its opening status, a stranger standing in the doorway of a bar across the street waved me over take shelter from the rain. Youre waiting for Sean, arent you? a bartender asked. I got the sense that lost-looking guys in Barbour jackets standing outside 546 3rd Avenue wasnt an uncommon sight. Sean Crowley arrived soon enough, and graciously ushered me into his small shop, stocked with enough vintage clothing, prints, militaria, and Anglophilic miscellany of all kinds to fill a store 10 times its size. Crowley, a Massachusetts native whos worked under Ralph Lauren and the late great Bobby Garnett of Bobbys from Boston, has created a space that seriously blurs museum and vintage store. I found myself gingerly slipping into (always too small) rowing blazers from actual rowing teams and crimson mess dress jackets, all the while giving Crowley looks meant to convey can I really try this on? Theres much more to Crowley Vintage than artifacts from the Pax Britannica. Mixed among racks of Savile Row suits are early Ralph Lauren tweeds, and those diving for vintage Brooks Brothers shirts will surface with more than a few pearls. After 90 minutes of intensive browsing and conversation with the amiable Crowley, I settled on a leather cigar case (one of many on display) stamped with the Great Seal of the Realm and a 1985 copy of G. Bruce Boyers Elegance pulled from a stack of menswear titles. For those unable to hoof it to Gowanus, Crowley Vintage also exists as a pop-up shop within the freshly re-opened Rowing Blazers shop at 161 Grand Street. You can also follow the Crowleys Instagram page, where new finds are regularly uploaded. ERIC TWARDZIK Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Alpha Amirrachman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 When an information and communications technology (ICT) company approached a big private organization in Indonesia to offer the use of an online learning application for the organizations thousands of schools and connect them throughout the country, some of the board members of the organization expressed curiosity about where the company would store the immense data of the schools. As the company said the data would be digitally stored in the cloud, the board members flatly rejected the idea, as they feared the data, which includes personal data of teachers, students and even parents, could be misused. They said they would like the big data of their schools to be stored on a server located in the organizations compound. 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 Inforial (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia Thu, May 16, 2019 00:01 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873821edf 4 Inforial Free A typical vacation in Southeast Asia is identical to a summer break on tropical beaches, a lot of sunbathing and cold beers in the heat. The case is a little different with Vietnam, which may come as a surprise to some, but certain regions in Vietnam specifically in the northern area go through the four seasons in a year: winter, spring, summer and fall. Those seeking some fresh air to escape the heat and humidity in Southeast Asia, head to Hanoi or Sapa for a chilled winter break. Winter in Vietnam starts in mid-December and lasts until late March. Here is a list of activities to try during your trip: 1. Eat pho from a street vendor Vietnamese street food is considered one of the best in Southeast Asia. Pho, Vietnamese rice noodle soup usually with chicken or beef, is being sold everywhere, from high-end restaurants to street vendors. On your first night, savor some pho on the street. The noodle soup, with a thick beef or chicken broth and its distinct taste of fresh Thai basil with lime squeezed on top is perfect for a cold winters night. 2. Take a stroll in Hanois Old Quarter Old Quarter, Hanoi (./.) The Old Quarter in Hanoi is a beautiful gem in the city. French colonial buildings, colored in bright paint, with little cafes lining up on the street make this a picturesque spot for Instagram. 3. Drink Vietnamese coffee Vietnamese coffee (./.) Unless youve tried the famous Vietnamese coffee, youre no coffee connoisseur. Drive around the city on your scooter and take a break for some reading or blogging with Vietnamese coffee in hand. This drink can be served hot or cold, the bitterness of black coffee mixed with the sweetness of the condensed milk makes a taste that cant be beaten. Since not all cafes in Vietnam come with an English menu, grab your pen and write down this list for your next coffee stop: Ca phe sua a: Iced coffee with condensed milk Ca phe en a: Iced black coffee Ca phe sua nong: Hot coffee with condensed milk Ca phe en nong: Hot black coffee 4. Visit Hoan Kim Lake Hoan Kim Lake in Hanois Old Quarter is the center of attention. The lake, right in the middle of the Old Quarter, is a tranquil oasis among from the hustle and bustle of the city. The calm water and peaceful beauty create a wonderful contrast to Hanois crowded and chaotic streets. The tower in the middle of the lake is known as Turtle Tower, which was built in commemoration of Vietnamese warrior Le Loi, who led Vietnams independence movement in the 1400s. Hoan Kim Lake is the most popular tourist spot in Hanoi, and the locals favorite for a slow jog and weekend picnic. On New Years Eve, people gather around the lake and set off fireworks. 5. Go on a day trip to Ha Long Bay Everyone has heard of Ha Long Bay, which in Vietnamese means descending dragon bay. It is one of those places you have to see with your own eyes because photos dont do justice. Thousands of limestone islands standing tall against the blue sky as far as the eye can see. Ha Long is packed with tourists every day. You can reach the bay using a shared van in a few hours. Just ask your hotel and they will give you a tour that will take you through all the way to your cruise. You can pick your ride: a regular wooden boat or a luxury cruise ship. Ha Long in winter is more than beautiful, the misty fog over the water rising into the sky as your ship goes past is magical. 6. Jump on the sleeper train to Sapa Sapa, in Vietnams beautiful countryside, can be reached from Hanoi using the sleeper train in about eight hours. There are many different options for trains to take to Sapa from Hanoi, costing from US$40 to $100, depending on your flexibility. For this trip, make sure to pack some socks and ear plugs for a comfortable nights sleep. However, dont expect to sleep like on a business class flight because the journey can be bumpy at times. Those are the few activities that can be done during winter in Vietnam. For a quick trip, it is best to spend at least three days in Hanoi. Flights to Hanoi from Jakarta via Singapore or Kuala Lumpur are available daily. Plan your trip on Traveloka Book your year-end holiday now to get some of the best deals on the Traveloka website or mobile app. By using the Traveloka website or mobile app, you can easily book a flight, pick your seat, add extra baggage, book an airport lounge and buy baggage wrap service. To stay connected with your loved ones back home, check out some of Travelokas international data plans and purchase a suitable roaming package or rent a Wi-Fi modem if youre traveling in a group. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fiachra Gibbons and Aurelie Mayembo (Agence France-Presse) Cannes, France Wed, May 15, 2019 11:08 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87380439b 2 Entertainment Cannes-Film-Festival,film,film-festival,actor,Camila-Morrone,Robert-Eggers,Waad-al-Kateab,Jessica-Hausner,Mati-Diop Free With the Cannes film festival's main competition bursting with big-name stars and directors like Quentin Tarantino and Terrence Malick, we pick five rising talents to watch out for at this year's festival: Camila Morrone Up to now she may be best known as Leonardo DiCaprio's impossibly glamorous girlfriend, but the Argentinian model is about to make a name for herself as an actress to be reckoned with. Her stand-out performance as a daughter of a opioid-addicted Iraq veteran in Mickey and the Bear brings real depth to the US indie film, which is showing in the festival's ACID section. Morrone, 21, has not picked her acting talent -- nor her looks -- up off the ground. Both her parents were models and her mother Lucia Sola is a television star in Buenos Aires, although the 43-year-old is probably best known as Al Pacino's erstwhile partner. The pair are no longer together -- the 75-year-old Pacino having taken up with a younger actress last year. Morrone had regarded him as her "stepfather" during their nine years her mother and Pacino were together. The two will be reunited on the Cannes red carpet with Pacino starring in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Robert Eggers His debut film The Witch is regarded as a modern horror classic, and the famously obsessive young US director seems to have made no compromises for his second, The Lighthouse, which is premiering in the Directors' Fortnight. Conditions on the set were so harsh, according to Robert Pattinson, who heads the cast alongside Willem Dafoe, that it was the "closest I've come to punching a director", the actor admitted. An exhausted Pattinson described how he remonstrated with Eggers after he had to do one take five times on a freezing Nova Scotia beach. "I feel like you're just spraying a fire hose in my face," he told the director. "And he was like, 'I was spraying a fire hose in your face.' It was like some kind of torture," said Pattinson. The pair are still firm friends, however, with the star sworn to silence on the plot of the historical black-and-white horror "set in the world of old sea-faring myths". Read also: Films in the running for Cannes' top prize Waad al-Kateab The Syrian documentary maker faced an uphill struggle bringing her film to Cannes. For Sama records five years of al-Kateab's own life as an aspiring journalist in her beseiged hometown of Aleppo, marrying one of the last doctors in the city and giving birth to her daughter, to whom the film is dedicated. The documentary is a kind of letter to the little girl, explaining how she was born into the conflict and what happened to her home. Al-Kateab, who now lives in London, won an Emmy award in 2017 for her films from inside Aleppo for Britain's Channel 4 News, which are believed to be the most watched of any reports from the war. Her shocking footage of the struggle to save babies and children in the city's final hospital -- in which she ended up living -- brought home the horror inflicted on civilians. Jessica Hausner The Austrian director who wrote Michael Haneke's Funny Games is the running for the Palme d'Or with her first film in English, Little Joe. This science-based chiller with Ben Whishaw, Emily Beecham and Kerry Fox about a genetically engineered plant which affects every living creature it comes into contact with could well be her break-out film. After making her Cannes debut with Lovely Rita way back in 2001, Hausner, now 46, has slowly built a glowing reputation with a handful of films such as Hotel, Amour Fou and Lourdes, which picked up four prizes at Venice in 2009. Mati Diop The only African in the race for Cannes' top prize, actress-turned-director Diop comes from Senegalese film royalty. She is the niece of Djibril Diop Mambety, the pioneering maker of Touki Bouki, a 1973 film premiered at Cannes which went on to inspire Beyonce and Jay-Z. The pop power couple referenced the movie, in the form of the bull-horn handlebars of its heroes' motorbike, in the poster for their 2014 tour "On The Run II". French-born Diop, 36, the daughter of musician Wasis Diop, has already make a documentary about her uncle's ground-breaking story about a couple who try to ride their bike all the way to France. Her film, Atlantics, is also about a group who decide to leave Senegal for a better life in Europe. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Mariam Harutyunyan (Agence France-Presse) Yerevan, Armenia Wed, May 15, 2019 10:09 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8738019fc 2 Science & Tech Armenia,robots,teen,technology,Education,computer Free In a sleek classroom in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, one of the poorest post-Soviet republics, 14-year-old Nazeli Ter-Petrosyan peers at the screen of her Apple Mac. During a computer programming course offered at the high-tech Tumo school, Ter-Petrosyan and her classmates learn how to digitize medieval texts. "I'm developing a program to enable artificial intelligence to read old manuscripts," said the teen. Her computer screen features a page from a 15th century Bible held at Armenia's famed repository of ancient writings, the Matenadaran. Armenia, which is known for its rich history and troubled past, has grappled with poverty, unemployment and a brain drain since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. But despite a stagnant economy, Armenia's tech sector has been booming over the past decade, boosting hopes that one day the resource-poor country can become a global IT powerhouse. Tumo is a cutting edge, after-school learning center, where around 7,000 Armenians aged 12 to 18, from all walks of life, study for free. Packed with hundreds of computers with industry standard software, 3D printers, video cameras and an animation studio, Tumo gives youngsters an opportunity to study web design, robotics, animation, music, digital media and more. The project has been so successful that there is already a Tumo school in Paris and plans for others in Europe and the United States are under way. In one of the center's workshops, students are buzzing with excitement as they learn how to build robots from Lego kits and program them to perform tasks like collecting rubbish or making a salad. "We are working on projects that we will be able to later use in our everyday life," said Davit Harutyunyan, 14, as he showed off a half-assembled robot. Read also: Amazon's 'collaborative' robots offer peek into the future One third in poverty The South Caucasus country of three million people boasts a vibrant startup scene and its tech workers have been a driving force behind a wave of peaceful protests that ousted the old elite from power in 2018. Tumo aims to raise the next generation of tech professionals and play a role in creating a knowledge-based economy in a country where 30 percent of the population live in poverty. "We've got very ambitious plans," chief development officer Pegor Papazian told AFP. "We want to become one of the world's most competitive labor markets," added Papazian, who holds a master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. The non-profit center was founded in 2011 by Sam and Sylva Simonian, a US-based couple who are part of the influential Armenian diaspora formed largely as a result of World War I massacres by the Ottoman forces. The school occupies two floors of a six-story pink tufa stone building, located on the outskirts of Yerevan in the shadow of Mount Ararat which stands just across the border in Turkey. The Simonians provided the initial investment of $60 million to set up the project but it is now largely self-sustaining, with the center renting out several floors to tech companies. The school's gleaming facade and huge windows contrast with dilapidated Soviet-era residential buildings nearby. Inside the futuristic, open-plan premises, mobile computer workstations allow students to move around freely. "In Armenia what Tumo offers is extraordinary," Julian Sefton-Green, a professor of new media education at Deakin University, in the Australian city of Melbourne, told AFP in emailed comments. Tumo offers "a particular vision of a techno future," said Sefton-Green, who visited the school and studied its educational model. Read also: Indonesian students win gold, silver medals at robotics competition in Malaysia From Merkel to Kanye West On average, students spend two to three years at the center. They create their own learning plans and are assisted by instructors, many of whom come from companies such as Google and Pixar. There are no grades and, at the end of their studies, students receive digital portfolios showcasing their work. Tumo has established three satellites across the country and Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh. Plans are under way to open more than 20 centers over the next 10 years. Papazian said the staff had been struck by the poverty in which some of their students live. "We are helping them discover a new world," he added. The authorities have embraced the initiative and it has become a ritual for foreign dignitaries and other top guests to visit the school. Grammy-award winning rapper Kanye West, whose wife Kim Kardashian is of Armenian descent, toured the premises in 2015. Last year, the school also earned rave reviews from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "This Tumo is not for Armenia only. It's international. It's a philosophy," she said in August during the first visit to Armenia by a German chancellor. In some ways, the Tumo project could be viewed as being ahead of its time for Armenia, which still lacks the rule of law and a stable economy, among other things. Sefton-Green said that only time would tell if the pioneering school would help reshape the country. "Unless there is structural economic response to the kind of investment Tumo has offered, it is possible that benefits will not be felt," he said. "However the country itself is in a good place to be able to rise to these kinds of challenges." Topics : Armenia robots teen technology Education computer Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 10:30 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873802b39 1 Science & Tech Facebook,Rudiantara,Communications-and-Information-Ministry,compliance,public-policy,tech-companies,technology Free Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara has criticized Facebook for not complying with government requests to block hoax content on the platform. Facebook can tell you, We are in compliance with the government. I can tell you how much content we requested to be taken down and how much of it they took down. Facebook is the worst," Rudiantara said in a House of Representatives Commission I working meeting in Jakarta on Monday as quoted by the Cabinet secretary. The ministers remark is a response to House Commission I member Evita Nursanti, who said Facebook management would comply with requests to block negative content including hoaxes. In her statement, Evita said, "In the meeting with Facebook's management, they said that they follow the government. If the government wants something to be shut down, they shut it down." Read also: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram down for users globally According to Rudiantara, the Communications and Information Ministry had an argument with Facebook upon sending a request to block certain content. What Facebook told members of Commission I is different from the reality, Rudiantara said, adding that the ministry was ready to share data that indicated Facebook did not comply with its requests. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Google comply with what percentage of [requests]? We have all the records, he said. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Michael Taylor (Reuters) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Wed, May 15, 2019 16:05 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873811ffe 2 Entertainment George-Clooney,LGBT,Brunei-Darussalam,united-states,Indonesia,Malaysia Free Oscar-winning actor George Clooney was criticized by LGBT+ activists on Tuesday after he called a boycott of luxury hotels owned by Brunei a "warning shot" to Indonesia and Malaysia should they consider introducing similar anti-gay laws. Clooney in late March led calls for a boycott of nine hotels owned by Brunei because of plans by the small Southeast Asian country to impose the death penalty - including by stoning - for gay sex or adultery as it rolled out further Islamic laws. Following a global outcry, the sultan of the oil-rich state last week said the death penalty would not be imposed. Appearing on US talk show, Ellen, the Ocean's Eleven actor discussed the boycott and economic pressure that followed after the announcement of the new laws and the U-turn. "It's not fixed yet ... but it's a huge step forward after this giant leap backwards," Clooney last Friday told the show's host Ellen DeGeneres, who also publicly backed the boycott. "It sends a warning shot over to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia - who are also considering these laws - that the business people, the big banks, those guys are going to say 'don't even get into that business'." But Clooney's remarks sparked an online backlash as critics and regional LGBT+ activists pointed out major differences between Brunei and its Islamic neighbors. Read also: Actor George Clooney calls for boycott of Brunei-owned hotels "I call on George Clooney and Hollywood to listen and work together with local activists and human rights defenders on the ground," Numan Afifi, president of the LGBT+ advocacy PELANGI Campaign in Malaysia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Local activists have been putting their lives at risk on the ground working, for years," Afifi said. "His statement, while well-meaning, might also be counterproductive for our case." Representatives of Clooney did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. Socially conservative attitudes prevail across Asia where Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore ban sexual relationships between men, and Indonesia - the world's largest Muslim-majority country - has seen an increase in raids targeting LGBT+ people recently. Dede Oetomo, one of Indonesia's most prominent LGBT+ activists and founder of LGBT+ rights group GAYa NUSANTARA, also questioned Clooney's comments. "Malaysia and Indonesia are larger entities and have some democratic processes that although not perfect, they work," Oetomo said. "Pressure from within is more possible in both countries, though it is frustratingly slow and protracted." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sarah White (Reuters) Cannes, France Wed, May 15, 2019 13:04 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87380982b 2 Entertainment Cannes-Film-Festival,film-festival,France,Jim-Jarmusch,Tilda-Swinton,Selena-Gomez,film Free With a glamorous cast of flesh-eating undead including Iggy Pop, US filmmaker Jim Jarmusch kicked off Cannes' cinema showcase on Tuesday with an acerbic swipe at American society - though the zombie romp lacked the bite some critics had hoped for. The comedy marked the opening salvo of the Cannes Film Festival, where it will compete for the top Palme D'Or prize alongside the latest offerings from Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar as well as a clutch of movies by newcomer, young directors. Set in a non-descript small town where the inhabitants start succumbing to a zombie apocalypse, The Dead Don't Die takes aim at climate change deniers, US politics and a materialistic, smartphone-addicted world all at once. Bill Murray, a long-time collaborator of the Broken Flowers filmmaker, Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny star as cops fighting off the growing army of undead, with pop star Selena Gomez and actress Tilda Swinton also among the stellar line-up. A darling of U.S. art house filmmaking and a Cannes veteran, Jarmusch nonetheless came up against the French festival's tough crowd, drawing a mixed bag of reviews with some lamenting a sluggish pace despite some spot-on jokes. Laden with witty film references - including nods to George Romero's cult 1968 zombie-fest Night Of The Living Dead - the film plays with the artifice of movie-making, with self-aware moments where actors discuss its plotline. Some critics took issue with the more self-indulgent moments, however. "Jarmusch's movie is in danger of succumbing to a zombie-ism of its own: a narcotic torpor of self-aware coolness," the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote, describing the film as a "droll if directionless riff." Others said Jarmusch had done little to refresh a much-exploited genre, even if gags like Iggy Pop's coffee-guzzling zombie and a horde of undead stalking the streets in search of a Wi-Fi connection raised chuckles. "The problem with the opening film at Cannes is that you expect something really special," Marta Balaga, a critic at movie news agency Cineuropa, told Reuters. "People were laughing at moments and people wanted to love it." Read also: Cannes rocks! Tsunami of pop stars make film festival splash Taking aim at Trump's America With the undead clawing their way out of their graves when excess fracking causes the world to turn off kilter, The Dead Don't Die needles climate change deniers, but also takes a swipe at an apathetic society unable to get its act together. Its well-meaning cops display little by way of a game-plan throughout to combat the increasingly hairy zombie invasion. In more pointed moments, it takes direct aim at U.S. President Donald Trump. Steve Buscemi - playing an inhabitant of fictional Centerville determined to keep trespassers at bay - dons a "Keep America White Again" cap, echoing Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign motto. The film takes its place in a 72nd Cannes movie selection described by festival organizers as both "political and romantic". Earlier on Tuesday, Cannes jury president Alejando Gonzalez Inarritu of Mexico - the first Latin American film director to head up the panel - criticised Trump's plans for a Mexican border wall, describing it as "dangerous" and "cruel". "These guys are ruling with rage and anger and lies and writing fiction and making people believe those are really things and facts," Inarritu told a news conference, referring to Trump's immigration policies. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Rita Widiadana (The Jakarta Post) Ubud, Bali Wed, May 15, 2019 American cook James Beard once said, Food is our common ground, a universal experience. This saying was true when the artsy village of Ubud in Gianyar, Bali, recently hosted a vibrant culinary event in the fifth Ubud Food Festival. This years theme was Spice Up the World. Far from the noisy post-election bustle of the capital Jakarta, the three-day festival in tranquil Ubud brought together world-class and up-and-coming chefs, culinary legends, food writers and bloggers, restaurateurs, bold and creative entrepreneurs, scientists, celebrities and foodies. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 10:17 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87380287d 1 National tolerance,Ramadan-2019,bandung,Diversity Free A lecturer from Maranatha Christian University in Bandung, West Java, became a viral sensation after a picture of him giving snacks to his Muslim students blew up on the internet. The lecturer, Rusli Ginting, teaches a management compensation class on Friday from 5 p.m to 7.30 p.m. The picture was uploaded by one of his students, Andi Triwahyudi, 22, on Facebook and garnered over 7,900 shares from other netizens. I was attending his class at the time, Andi said as quoted by kompas.com on Monday. According to Andi, Rusli stopped his lecture when he heard the sound of azan (call to prayer) and told his Muslim students who were fasting to break their fast. Andi said Rusli gave his students a 30 minute break and went to the lecturers room and returned with boxes of chocolate bread and tea. He told us that he just wanted to share, especially with the fasting students, Andi said. He added that the class still ended at 7:30 p.m despite the 30-minute break. Andi also said many students looked up to Rusli because of his friendly personality. Mr. Rusli has a leadership spirit, which I admire him for, he said. (dpk) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sausan Atika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 14:31 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87380e019 1 City Kampung-Bandan,fire-incidents,jakarta,anies-baswedan,City-administration,Rusun Free Following a fire that destroyed three neighborhood units (RTs) in Kampung Bandan, Pademangan, North Jakarta, on Saturday, Governor Anies Baswedan said the city administration will build a Rusun (low-cost apartment) for the affected residents. The land where the fire that burned down houses of more than 400 families and displaced over 3,000 was owned by state-owned railway operator PT KAI. When visiting the location on Sunday, Anies said the administration would invite KAI to talk about follow-up measures, including the temporary relocation of the victims to a wide plot of land owned by the firm. Anies claimed after a meeting with KAI on Tuesday that the firm had approved the administration's proposal to discuss the potential development of a Rusun. The Rusun was deemed a long-term measure in handling the impact of the incident. The long-term measures are regarding resettlement. The land [where the fire occurred] is a 1-hectare plot of land owned by PT KAI. [The administration and KAI] have agreed there will be a housing [complex] built there, Anies told a press briefing at City Hall on Tuesday. The housing may be used by residents affected [by the fire], he added. The [land] size is 1.08 ha. For a long-term solution, we will build a Rusun. But the Rusun will be built on the location [where their houses used to be], he said. Anies said the administration would further discuss the matter with KAI. The governor also claimed that the idea would benefit KAI as the land utilization was clear as well as who would build and use the apartment. Anies added that the short-term solution was to make sure the basic needs of the affected residents were met, such as shelter, health services, food provision and school materials for students. The shelter will be made available during the construction of the apartment. While the construction is ongoing temporary shelters will be provided. The [Jakarta] Housing and Settlement Agency will prepare the shelter, he said. City-owned developer company Sarana Jaya has been assigned to communicate with KAI as it was in charge of the apartments construction. City-owned developer Sarana Jaya president director Yoory C. Pinontoan said discussions had only just begun and the firm had yet to reveal any cooperation plan. It is an agreement that needs further discussion. We have been assigned to communicate with KAI, he said. KAIs corporate deputy director of nonrailway assets Zuhril Alim said the meeting with the administration on Tuesday morning focused on the handling of the affected residents. Technical matters are being discussed internally by the administration, he said. He declined to comment further or give confirmation on KAI's approval regarding the construction of the Rusun. Speaking on a different occasion, Jakarta Housing and Settlement Agency head Kelik Indriyanto said the Jakarta Spatial Planning Agency was assessing the land where the fire occurred. The assessment is expected to be completed two days after the data is collected. We will build the temporary shelter, he said, citing the governor's argument that the current shelter was inadequate for living in. Kelik said the administration would cooperate with KAI, however, the model still needed to be discussed. North Jakarta Mayor Syamsudin Lologau said the temporary shelter would accommodate 230 families comprising 1,012 people who are listed as Jakarta residents. Having lost their homes in the fire, Kampung Bandan residents expressed hope that the administration would build semipermanent housing for them. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 10:51 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87380368e 4 Business DarminNasution,rupiah-depreciation,trade-war,comments Free Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasustion was not worried about the rupiah's depreciation, arguing that the currency's weakening was reasonable because of external negative sentiments. He cited the heating trade war between the United States and China as the main cause of the rupiah's depreciation. The international situation is not conducive and that always affects emerging countries. It is like what happened last year. It depends on Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, Darmin said in Jakarta on Tuesday as reported by kontan.co.id. He said Indonesia's need for US dollars had increased in April and May because of dividend payouts by corporations. The Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR) recorded a weakening rupiah in the last five days -- Rp 14,444 per US dollar on Tuesday, Rp 14,362 on Monday, Rp 13,347 last Friday, Rp 14,338 last Thursday and Rp 14,305 last Wednesday. Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) senior economist Enny Sri Hartati, however, said the weakening was not only because of external factors but because of poor domestic economic data. She even believed that the rupiah's weakening was triggered by market players pessimism on the possible trade deficit in April. In April, the trade balance very likely will be a deficit because imports will increase ahead of Idul Fitri, Enny said. The other negative domestic sentiment was the US$200 million decline in foreign exchange reserves to $124.3 billion in April, she added. Darmin agreed with Enny about the possible trade deficit in April but believed it would not happen in May. It seems that our trade balance will be in deficit in April, but in May our oil and gas imports will be different because [state-owned energy holding company] Pertamina will be able to fulfill the domestic needs in Solar-branded diesel and avtur, Darmin said. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 17:02 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873814ee1 1 National TerroristSuspect,Central-Java,Densus-88 Free The National Polices Densus 88 antiterror squad arrested three suspected terrorists in Sukoharjo and Sragen, Central Java, on Tuesday. The three suspects, identified as A, IH, and AMF, are allegedly connected to terrorist network members previously arrested in West Java and East Java. Terrorist suspect A, 25, was arrested in Gumpang subdistrict, Kartasura, Sukoharjo. Gumpang neighborhood head Nur Alim said A was not a resident there but came from Magelang, Central Java. He made a living by selling traditional drinks and running an eatery next to his house. Sukoharjo Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Iwan Saktiadi confirmed the arrests. After A was arrested, we were asked to back up security because Densus 88 team was going to search the place, Iwan said. The other two suspected terrorists identified as IH and AMF were arrested in Sragen. IH was from Karanganyar, Central Java, while AMF hailed from Tasikmalaya, West Java. There were arrests on [Tuesday] morning, Gemolong Police chief Adj. Comr. I Ketut Putra said Wednesday. Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Rycko A. Dahniel said Densus 88 had arrested eight suspected terrorists in Sragen, Sukoharjo, Magelang, Grobogan, and Semarang. All of them were newcomers, not residents in the respective arrest locations, said Rycko. He called on people to be cautious of newcomers in their respective neighborhoods. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Wed, May 15, 2019 08:38 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8737f9314 2 World #CatholicChurch,#MurderCase,gunmen,killing,Catholic,parade,Burkina-Faso Free Gunmen killed four Catholics in a religious procession in northern Burkina Faso a day after a priest and five parishioners were murdered at mass, church officials said Tuesday. The parade with a statue of the Virgin Mary was moving through the town of Ouahigouya on Monday when "a group of terrorists intercepted the procession, killing four worshippers and burning the statue," said a spokesman for the Ouagadougou Cathedral. According to the Burkina Faso news agency AIB, the assailants stopped the procession. "They let the minors go, executed four adults, and destroyed the statue," it quoted a local person as saying. Paul Ouedraogo, president of the Episcopal Conference of Burkina Faso and Niger, told a meeting of bishops in the capital Ouagadougou the attack had claimed four lives. The killings came a day after a group of 20-30 armed men, according to witnesses, burst into the Catholic church in Dablo, also in the Nord Region of Burkina Faso, shooting dead five parishioners and their priest. The attackers set fire to the church, several shops and a small cafe before heading to the health centre, which they looted, burning the chief nurse's vehicle. Two days earlier, French special forces had freed four foreign hostages in Burkina Faso during an overnight raid that cost the lives of two soldiers. "This concerns all of us whatever our religion or ethnicity," said President Roch Marc Christian Kabore. "Stick together" Kabore urged his compatriots to "stick together," warning such attacks threatened to undermine religious coexistence in a country where some two thirds of the population are Muslim to one third Christian. "Burkina Faso is confronted by a difficult situation," said Kabore. "These terrorists have remodelled their modus operandi. First, by creating inter-communcal conflicts and today inter-religious conflicts as Christians have been killed for their faith, for merely practising their religion. "Burkina has always been reputed as being a tolerant country. We must work to safeguard this richness passed down to us by our ancestors," said Kabore, a Catholic. Two weeks ago, there was a similar attack against a Protestant church in Silgadji, also in the north, when gunmen on motorbikes killed a pastor and five worshippers. Burkina has suffered from increasingly frequent and deadly attacks attributed to a number of jihadist groups, including the Ansarul Islam group, the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. The raids began in 2015 in the north before targeting the capital Ouagadougou and other regions, notably in the east. Nearly 400 people have been killed since 2015 -- mainly in hit-and-run raids -- according to an AFP tally. Jihadist groups target Christian clerics as well as Muslim ones they do not consider sufficiently radical in a country where traditionally both religions have co-existed peaceably. Last month, jihadists attacked a village school in Maitaougou, in the eastern province of Koulpelogo, killing five teachers and a municipal worker. Former colonial ruler France has deployed 4,500 troops in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad in a mission codenamed Barkhane to help local forces flush out jihadists. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Rini Soemarno has seen the light at the end of the tunnel for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project after witnessing the completion of one of the projects most arduous tasks: the Walini Tunnel. Following the completion of the tunnel, the minister was upbeat the China-funded project could be completed by 2021. Rini expressed optimism during the inauguration of the 608-meter tunnel in Bandung, West Java, making it the first tunnel out of 13 others to be completed along the 142-kilometer railway route. 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 Sausan Atika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 19:19 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87381de7a 1 City Jakarta-administration,BPK,BPK-recommendation,financial-audit,financial-authority,City-Hall,budget-allocation,budget-disbursement Free The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) gave on Wednesday an unqualified opinion for Jakartas 2018 financial report, meaning the city administration has achieved the highest audit grade two years in a row. An unqualified opinion reflects an auditors judgement that a financial statement is fairly and appropriately presented. Based on the BPKs audit of the Jakarta administrations 2018 financial report, including the implementation of the administrations plans, an unqualified opinion was granted, BPK deputy head Bahrullah Akbar said during a plenary meeting at City Hall. The announcement was met with cheers from administration officials in the plenary room, who help posters expressing gratitude and appreciation to officials for maintaining the highest audit grade. Nevertheless, Bahrullah said the audit agency still found several problems in the financial report. One problem was an unfinished asset inventory, while the audit also identified that Jakarta Smart Card Plus (KJP) and Jakarta Excellent Student Card (KJMU) funds had yet to be distributed. Bahrullah said the BPK gave the administration 60 days after receiving the full audit report to follow up on the agencys recommendations. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya, Apriadi Gunawan, Yulia Savitri (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Medan/Palembang Wed, May 15 2019 Long day: General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Arief Budiman (left) along with member Hasyim Asyari lead a plenary meeting on the vote counting process on Tuesday at the poll bodys office in Jakarta. The KPU is currently wrapping up the counting process for the presidential and legislative elections.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan) With only a week to go before the national deadline on May 22, disputes still cloud the vote-tabulation process in half of the provinces in the country. KPU commissioner Hasyim Asyari said several of the most populated provinces had completed tabulation at provincial level, such as Central Java and East Java, but there were still other provinces that had yet to complete the process, such as Papua and Jakarta. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 12:27 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873808833 4 Business plastic,imports,policy,Susi-Pudjiastuti,criticism Free Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti has criticized the government policy to import plastics, arguing that other countries including China, the largest plastic consumer, had prohibited plastic imports. She added neighboring countries like Thailand and Malaysia had done the same thing. But Indonesia welcomes plastic imports, Susi said during a discussion in Jakarta on Tuesday as quoted by tempo.co. She explained that only 40 percent of plastics could be recycled while the remaining 60 percent was dumped. She called on the government to stop plastic imports because it was not in line with policy introduced in international fora, including the United Nations. She highlighted that through Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, the government had promised to reduce plastic waste by 70 percent in 2025. Susi added that Indonesia was the world's second largest producer of plastic waste that mostly ended up in the sea. Research conducted by the Jambeck Research Group in 2015 showed that Indonesia contributed 3.22 million tons of plastic waste to the sea, while China was estimated to contribute 8.82 million tons. The minister said if the policy to reduce the use of plastic, particularly single-use plastic, did not work, in 2030 Indonesia would see more plastic in the sea than fish. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Devina Heriyanto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 11:51 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8738083b6 1 National climate-change,environment,#environment,survey,hoax,Indonesia,YouGov Free A survey has revealed that 18 percent of Indonesians do not believe human activity causes climate change, while another 6 percent believe that the climate is not changing at all. Indonesia has the highest percentage of climate change deniers among 23 countries surveyed in a study conducted from Feb. 28 to March 26 by global public opinion and data company YouGov. A quarter of Indonesians said humans were mainly responsible for climate change, while 29 percent believed other factors also played a role. Another 21 percent of respondents answered by saying they did not know. Eight percent of Indonesians said human-driven global warming was a hoax and part of a conspiracy theory. Saudi Arabia is second after Indonesia with 16 percent of people who do not believe that humans contribute to climate change, followed by the United States (13 percent), South Africa (11 percent), Mexico (10 percent) and Egypt (10 percent). However, Indonesians consider it important to buy locally made products instead of imported goods (87 percent), as well as ethical or eco-friendly products (92 percent). In comparison, Italy, which had 48 percent of respondents say that humans were mainly responsible for climate change, had fewer people say it was important to buy local products (80 percent) and ethical or eco-friendly products (79 percent). The Guardian, which exclusively published the YouGov data, noted that "a clear majority of people around the world think climate change is happening and that it is all or partly down to human actions". (swd) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 11:10 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8738044e6 1 City road-accident,pregnant,woman,death,South-Jakarta Free A car hit a 7-month pregnant woman and her husband when they were taking a morning walk on Saturday. Tike Febriani Pratiwi was killed after being dragged by the car while her husband Sarifudin and the driver suffered injuries. South Jakarta Police traffic corps chief Comr. Lilik Sumardi confirmed the incident on Wednesday, saying that the couple were hit by the driver identified only as TF, 41, who was driving a Honda Brio in front of SD 19 state elementary school in Kebayoran Lama. At 5:30 a.m. [on Saturday], the couple were taking a morning walk and suddenly hit by a car from behind. The husband bounced to the right while the wife was dragged by the car, he said as quoted by kompas.com. Both victims were rushed to Kebayoran Lama Regional Hospital. Tika was declared dead on arrival while the husband suffered bleeding to the head. "Tika died along with the fetus she was carrying. The driver suffered minor injuries and he is still in shock," he said. The driver has been named a suspect. The police suspected TF lost control of his car. (das) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Asip Hasani (The Jakarta Post) Blitar Wed, May 15, 2019 18:03 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87381a201 1 National thief,theft,prison,recidivist,Blitar,East-Java Free Andri Supriyatno, a 32-year-old man from Blitar, East Java, was arrested recently for allegedly stealing a motorcycle last April in Tegalrejo village. However, the arrest was only his latest brush with the law as he had been handed down prison sentences in various theft cases since he was 12 years old. Blitar Polices crime unit division head, Adj. Comr. Sodik Efendi, said Andri was a repeat offender who had been jailed 12 times for prior thefts. The suspect has admitted to the police that he has been arrested and jailed 12 times. He was arrested for the first time when he was 12 years old for stealing a bicycle in 1999. He served a six-month sentence in a juvenile correctional facility for the crime, he said on Monday. Sodik went on to say that Andri was arrested again soon after he was released from juvenile detention for stealing another bicycle. Andri then spent another six months in juvenile detention for the theft, he said. Theft suspects are typically sentenced to up to one-and-a-half years in prison, while underage offenders only serve half of the sentence. according to Sodik. He said Andri was later arrested again and served a jail sentence, this time as an adult, for stealing a pocket camera. [Andri] can only recall his crimes up until the fourth case, which was another bicycle theft. He forgot about the rest of his criminal record, except the one preceding his latest arrest in which he stole a mobile phone, Sodik said, adding that Andri had just been released in February for the previous crime. He said the police had been trying to complete Andris criminal record, especially the cases that the suspect had largely forgotten about. He added that the court would likely sentence Andri to four years in prison for his latest crime, as well as past offenses that had gone unnoticed by the police. Based on the suspects repeat offenses since his youth in 1999, including the most recent arrest, he will have spent a total of 19 years and 7 months of his lifetime in prison, according to Sodik. Head of Andris home village in Mronjo, Blitar, Ngalim Santoso, said the recidivist rarely interacted with others in the village. Andri spent most of his childhood at his grandfathers house in Garum district after his mother abandoned him, he said. (rfa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jon Afrizal (The Jakarta Post) Jambi Wed, May 15 2019 In Tungkal I village of West Tanjungjabung, Jambi, climate change is real. Located in the eastern part of Sumatra, the village faces the South China Sea and has suffered massive abrasion that is expected to swallow its shores by hundreds of meters annually. Residents, who are mostly coconut farmers and fishermen, have tried to protect their village by planting mangroves on the seashore. The mangroves have to be maintained. Otherwise, the seawater will continue to erode our village, Ahmadi, 65, told The Jakarta Post recently. 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 Stephen Kalin and Rania El Gamal (Reuters) Dubai/ Riyadh Wed, May 15, 2019 10:10 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873802403 2 World #SaudiArabia,#Iran,oil,facility,attack,threat,Iraq,US,Gulf-crisis Free Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on Tuesday, two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates, and the US military said it was braced for "possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq" from Iran-backed forces. The attacks took place against a backdrop of US-Iranian tension following Washington's decision this month to try to cut Iran's oil exports to zero and to beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats. Tuesday's attacks on the pumping stations more than 200 miles (320 km) west of Riyadh and Sunday's on four tankers off Fujairah emirate have raised concerns that the United States and Iran might inching toward military conflict. However, US President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that US officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran. "It's fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that," Trump told reporters. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there would not be war with the United States despite mounting tensions over Iranian nuclear capabilities, its missile program and its support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. "There won't be any war. The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance," he said in comments carried by Iran's state TV. He repeated that Tehran would not negotiate with Washington over Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with major powers. The US military cited possible imminent threats to its troops in Iraq and said they were now on high alert. The US was responding to comments from a British deputy commander of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State remnants in Iraq and Syria who said there had been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia. The comments "run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from US and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region," said Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman at the US military's Central Command. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal a year ago and has sharply increased economic sanctions on Iran. Under the accord negotiated by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, Iran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, in return for sanctions relief. NO HARD EVIDENCE The Trump administration's sanctions are designed to choke off Iran's oil exports in an effort to force Iran to accept more stringent limits on its nuclear and missile programs as well as to rein in its support for proxy forces in the region. US national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have sabotaged the tankers near the UAE rather than Iranian forces themselves, a US official familiar with the latest US assessments said. The official said possible perpetrators might include Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran-backed Shi'ite militias based in Iraq, but Washington had no hard evidence. On Monday, a US official said Iran was a leading candidate for the tanker sabotage but the United States did not have conclusive proof. Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that "extremist individuals" in the US government were pursuing dangerous policies. A senior European diplomat voiced skepticism that Trump's "maximum pressure" strategy would force Iran to capitulate. "Iran is not falling to its knees," said the diplomat on condition of anonymity, saying Iran could resume its nuclear work and leave Washington with no option but military action. "Does Trump want to go to war with Iran especially during an election campaign year?" he asked. Democratic Party candidates are already campaigning ahead of the November 2020 US election aiming to stop Republican Trump being re-elected. HOUTHI TV CLAIMS DRONE ATTACK Houthi-run Masirah TV earlier said the group had carried out drone attacks on "vital" Saudi installations in response to "continued aggression and blockade" on Yemen. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis for four years in Yemen to try to restore the internationally recognised government in a conflict widely seen as a Saudi-Iran proxy war. The Houthis have hit Saudi cities with drones and missiles, but two Saudi sources told Reuters this was the first time a facility of the state-run Aramco had been attacked by drones. Aramco said it had temporarily shut down the East-West pipeline, known as Petroline, to evaluate its condition. The pipeline mainly transports crude from the kingdom's eastern fields to the port of Yanbu, which lies north of Bab al-Mandeb. The energy minister of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, said the latest attacks caused a fire, now contained, and minor damage at one pump station, but did not disrupt oil output or exports of crude and petroleum products. Oil prices rose on news of the attack on the Saudi pumping stations. Brent futures gained $1.01, or 1.4 percent, to settle at $71.24 a barrel. Saudi Arabia's cabinet said the "terrorist attack" against two Saudi oil tankers near the UAE reflected poorly on regional and international security, Saudi Press agency reported. It quoted the cabinet as saying it was the international community's shared responsibility "to preserve maritime safety and oil tankers security in anticipation of any effects on energy markets, and the danger of that on world economy." The UAE has not blamed anyone for what it called sabotage on the vessels. The UAE said the other tankers hit were a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker near Fujairah, one of the world's largest bunkering hubs just outside the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of global oil consumption passes through the strait from Middle East crude producers to much of the world. A UAE official told Reuters the UAE was working with local and international partners from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Norway and France - which has a naval base in Abu Dhabi - to "fully investigate the incident and to identify the people or entities responsible." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 16:43 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa873813207 4 Business sleeping-pods,soekarno-hatta-airport,Terminal-3 Free State-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II (AP II) has announced that it will provide sleeping pods at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport's Terminal 3, which serves international flights. Soekarno-Hatta International Airport spokesman Febri Toga Simpatupang said the provision of sleeping pods was aimed at meeting the needs of travelers, particularly millennials, at the airport in Tangerang, Banten. About 60 percent of passengers at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport are millennials. We understand their needs, Febri said on Tuesday in Jakarta as reported by kompas.com. Millennials prefer to rest in locations that are close [to where they arrive] that have affordable prices and modern designs. He said the airport management would install sleeping pods in crowded areas, such as boarding lounges, and in areas close to capsule hotels and airport hotels. The sleeping pods will have various features, including a sofa that can be turned into a bed, LED lamp and a folding table, and have a modern capsule design. The sleeping pods are currently on display at Terminal 3 and airport personnel are conducting a survey to determine airport users' interest in the pods. No date has been announced for when the pods will be made available for use. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Darmansjah Djumala (The Jakarta Post) Vienna Thu, May 16 2019 Suicide bombings shook Sri Lanka on April 21, just over a month after white supremacy terrorist Brenton Tarrant opened fire on Muslims who were performing Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15. The Sri Lankan government accused the local radical Islamic group National Thowheeth Jamaath (National Tauhid Jamaah/NTJ) of perpetrating the bombings, but later Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the terror. At first glance, the carnage in Sri Lanka and New Zealand appears to be simply violent acts of hatred between two parties. It turns out not to be that simple. The cruel and barbaric terrorist attack in New Zealand, which was then avenged by no-less-brutal acts of terror in Sri Lanka, has unfurled a new challenge to the discourse on global terrorism. 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 Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, May 16 2019 Indonesia and Germany have signed an agreement on technical cooperation focused on effective governance, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and the protection of the environment and biodiversity. Valued at almost 37 million euro (US$41.4 million) in grant funding, the agreement is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in four new projects involving various Indonesian government agencies. It was signed on Wednesday by the Indonesian Finance Ministrys director general for financing and risk management, Luky Alfirman, and German Ambassador to Indonesia Peter Schoof at the ministrys compound in Jakarta. 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 Rita Widiadana (The Jakarta Post) Ubud, Bali Thu, May 16 2019 Iconic: Nyonya Nuptial Nosh is the stuff of legends. The array of dishes originates from the descendants of early Chinese migrants in Penang, Malacca, Singapore and Indonesia. (Ubud Food Festival/Anggara Mahendra) Home to more than 300 ethnic groups across 17,000 islands, Indonesia, with its rich culinary diversity, is a paradise like no other for food lovers. American cook James Beard once said, Food is our common ground, a universal experience. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Phnom Penh, Cambodia Wed, May 15, 2019 15:33 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8738118ca 2 SE Asia #cambodia,#women,surrogacy,release,bail,babies Free Eleven women allegedly paid to be surrogate mothers have been released on bail after agreeing to keep the babies, Cambodia's trafficking czar said Wednesday, as the poor Southeast Asian nation seeks to regulate the womb-for-hire trade. The women were charged in November with human trafficking and acting as intermediaries for surrogacy agents after they were discovered in a raid on a house in the capital Phnom Penh. They have been in custody since the raid, with some giving birth behind bars. Cambodia issued a snap ban on commercial surrogacy in 2016 after neighbouring Thailand pulled the plug on the trade the previous year -- putting an abrupt end to a thriving industry for hopeful parents, many from Australia and the US. An Australian nurse who ran a surrogacy clinic was jailed for 18 months, and quietly released last year after the term was served. But demand for commercial surrogacy remains high after China eased its one-child policy and shadow markets in Cambodia continue to offer the service. According to an agency, desperate couples -- mostly from China -- are willing to pay between $40,000 to $100,000 to surrogacy agents to find a Cambodian woman who can carry their child in her womb. The 11 women arrested in November refused to tell authorities who they were carrying the babies for, according to Chou Bun Eng, vice-president of the National Anti-Human Trafficking Committee. "They were released on bail last month after they promised not to give up their babies," she told AFP. But the charges against them stand and the women could be prosecuted at any time if "they sell the babies", she said, adding that a draft surrogacy law is still under discussion, and could see the trade formally outlawed. Rights groups have criticised authorities for coercing women to raise babies who bear no biological ties to them in order to avoid jail time. But Chou Bun Eng said Cambodian law means they must take care of the babies. "They are the mother of the children," she added. Surrogates are typically from poor communities and receive a fraction of the sum paid to agents -- typically between $10,0000 to $15,000 to carry a child to term. Sam Everingham, founder of Families Through Surrogacy, an Australian non-profit, said the case of the 11 women is "tragic", with the surrogates and intended parents being the victims. "The young infants are simply collateral damage," he told AFP. "The real felons here are the surrogacy agents and agencies who convinced naive surrogates and intended parents" to act in an environment where the practice is unlawful. In December, 32 Cambodian women paid to carry babies for Chinese clients were also released on bail after agreeing to keep the children. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kathryn Curzon (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, May 15, 2019 13:24 956 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa87380ab88 3 Destinations bali,outdoor-activities,snorkeling,mola-mola-fish,Alor-Regency,nusa-penida,nusa-lembongan,Menjangan,island-hopping,#travel Free From swimming with ocean giants and diving alongside ancient lava flows to cultural visits and mangrove tours, the Lesser Sunda Islands have it all. Its time to pack your bags and discover this diverse Indonesian destination as the dry season begins. Read also: 8 reasons to visit Lombok and the Gili Islands 1. Experience Balis wild side at West Bali National Park Sitting at the northwestern tip of Bali, West Bali National Park is a fascinating conservation area. With diverse habitats including rainforests, mangroves, scrub, beaches and beautiful coral reefs, there's plenty to discover. Its a great place to immerse yourself in nature, taking a guided hike through part of the park or exploring the marine environment. Dont miss Menjangan Island while youre there. This idyllic island is known for world-class snorkeling with pretty clownfish, angelfish and huge clams. Its also a great place to try wall diving in waters with visibility of more than 50 meters. 2. Take your pick of Balis best temples Bali is known for the diverse and numerous temples dotted throughout the island, often with stunning backdrops. Tanah Lot Temple is one of Balis best-known temples, famed for its unique setting perched atop a rocky outcrop. Visit at sunset for the perfect photo opportunity as you gaze out over a peaceful ocean. Another eye-catching temple, Uluwatu Temple is a must-see. Sitting on top of a steep cliff that plunges 70 meters down to sea level, it is a breath-taking temple to visit and photograph, any time of day. 3. Dive a 125-meter-long shipwreck in Tulamben Bay The wreck of the USAT Liberty is truly impressive, covered in hard and soft corals and surrounded by huge shoals of fish. Launched during the final year of World War I, this huge vessel was sunk by the Japanese in World War II and it rests in the calm waters just off Tulamben Bay, which is ideal for wreck diving. Sitting on a sandy slope at 8 to 30 meters, shes an easy wreck for all experience levels to discover. Dont miss your chance to find out why divers come from around the world to dive her. 4. Marvel at the iconic rice terraces of Tegallalang Its impossible not to be impressed by the steep and perfectly designed rice terraces of Tegallalang, Bali. Winding across the hillside, the curving terraces descend to the bottom of the valley in every shade of green imaginable. Take a guided rice terrace tour to learn all about the fascinating history and farming of this special area. 5. Meet the monkeys of Ubuds Sacred Monkey Forest The Ubud Monkey Forest is an important spiritual destination and conservation center where you can explore a stunning forest and watch the antics of over 700 wild monkeys. Walk the forest and youll discover some of the 186 tree species found there. The forest is also home to three temples, 100 sculptures and the striking, much-photographed Dragon Bridge. Just make sure you follow the "Monkey Forest Guidelines" so the monkeys dont make off with your belongings. 6. Feast your eyes on Ubuds Art Market The Ubud Art Market is a riot of color, its stalls packed with silk scarves, woven bags, hats and numerous other handmade goods. Centered amid art villages, its ideal for picking up lovingly crafted Balinese souvenirs to take home. 7. Swim with sunfish, manta rays around Nusa Penida Have you heard of sunfish? These strange-looking fish, the heaviest bony fish in the world, weigh up to 1,000 kg and span over 3 meters! Nusa Penida's Crystal Bay is the place to swim with them. Go diving in Crystal Bay from July to October and youll have a great chance of swimming alongside sunfish. Be sure to also visit Manta Point while youre there. Its a great place for snorkeling and diving with these majestic ocean giants. The best way to reach both sites is by Nusa Penida liveaboard diving. 8. Discover Nusa Penidas hidden beach paradise If youre looking for a picture-perfect beach without the crowds, dont miss Kelingking Beach on Nusa Penida. This stunning white sand beach is nestled in the curve of steep cliffs and surrounded by clear blue waters. When youve had your fill of admiring the beach from the easily accessible viewpoint, put on your shoes and hike 400 meters down the cliffside. Its worth the effort to feel the sand between your toes. While youre there, why not take a dip in the water before tackling the steep climb back up? 9. Venture into mangrove magic on Nusa Lembongan Perhaps youve not spent much time thinking about mangroves, but thats about to change. These crucial forests provide an essential nesting and breeding habitat for thousands of species, protect coastlines from erosion, support community livelihoods and more. In short, theyre epic. Dont miss out on your chance to fall in love with the humble mangrove. You can enjoy a scenic tour through mangrove-lined waterways with a guide, or rent a kayak and go solo on Nusa Lembongan. Take your snorkeling kit and you can check out the vibrant marine life tucked away under the trees, or drift over reefs teeming with life. 10. Gain some perspective at Mt. Kelimutu, Flores Its hard to describe the three differently colored crater lakes in Kelimutu National Park on Flores; theyre that eye-popping bright. However you describe them, they stand out a mile against the stark volcanic landscape. Hike up to the lakes and you wont be able to take your eyes or camera off them. One of the most beautiful sights on Flores, Mount Kelimutu and its lakes are not to be missed. 11. Explore Alors ancient underwater lava flows Go scuba diving around Alor Island and you can explore the underwater lava flows and rich black sands, busy with life. The ancient lava flows are caked with corals and the sand is full of weird and wonderful critters youve likely never heard of. Visit the Sharks Galore dive site to swim among the harmless grey reef sharks that patrol the reef, plus the smaller whitetip reef sharks and fast-moving schools of tuna. If you want to try your hand at finding tiny critters, Biangabang Beach is your paradise. The area is full of hot springs and volcanic sand, perfect for diving. Got time for one more adventure? Go night diving at Alor and youll see the ocean come to life in a completely different way, lit up by the beam of your flashlight. *** Kathryn Curzon compiled this article from pieces written by the divers and writers of LiveAboard.com. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Image Credit: Emanuelle Centi Stead explains how the recording process for this single differed from the bands previous releases. He describes that work in the studio was a hell of a lot smoother this time around. Jonah qualifies this were learning more to know what we want. He adds that determining this is usually a democratic process, which can be difficult in a band of four where 50/50 splits are common. He and drummer Euan Lyons are often at musical odds, but this can help because good ideas come out of the scrap and theres usually a scrap. Its clear that the quartets influences diverge significantly, as a simple icebreaker about what the pair have been listening to reveals. Whereas Jonah mentions the jazz of Ezra Collective and the Cuban sounds of Buena Vista Social Club, Morgan speaks of a recent passion for spoken word: For our final projects we can do whatever we want, so Im doing a kind of acoustic-y folky spoken word type thing. A lot of its on the more [] not really pop punk. Theres a band called La Dispute [] their early stuff is rooted in emo. Im kind of more into the lyrics, for the dissertation. The Motion Poets are bringing fellow Edinburgh self-described spooky psych band Choka through to Glasgow with them on the 16th for the single launch. Jonah also mentions Chrystal, a Glaswegian garage punk act, as ones to look out for on the Scottish scene. He also speaks about his work behind the sound desk for Jimi Get Your Funk Ons new single My Soul. We get to talking about differences between the music scenes of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Jonah dismisses the idea that it is any easier to secure venues in the Scottish capital. He says: It took us a few gigs to get through to Glasgow [] but we knew a promoter in Glasgow, so that helped [] I cant really comment. Theyre different [] I think Glasgows got more of an interest in live music. There is very much like an indie kids rock scene in Glasgow. Its like a breed of people.This seems to partly explain why the band has chosen to stray from their home city for the launch: We know more people, says Jonah. Morgan interjects: Its just more vibrant, music scene wise. Jonah adds that because Euan and Struan [Nelson, lead guitarist] are from Glasgow, our audience pull is actually bigger in Glasgow than it is here.The new single, Speak No Evil, is a stand-alone release, but an EP is on the horizon in the near future - although the band is reticent to speculate on when that might come out. Lyrically the track explores themes of feeling at odds with a relationship [] the relationship will head for that if you dont speak [...] Often talking about the really difficult things, like maybe its not working out, can help to iron things out. Speak New Evil sounds bigger than previous singles from The Motion Poets. Morgan says the band is embracing the electronic side of things more. He adds, youll see us introducing a trigger pad [for samples] into the live set. Specific musical touchstones include a mutual appreciation of Canadian band Suuns, who uniquely incorporate elements from minimalist techno into noisy art rock. Jonah cites a particular admiration for French electronica group Justice, and all members of The Motion Poets draw inspiration from Foals. Yannis Philipakkis seems to be responsible for the fact that guitarist Struan never turns his delay pedal off. More than 200 Phuket prisoners released by royal pardon PHUKET: More than 200 prisoners were released from Phuket Provincial Prison this morning (May 15) after receiving a royal pardon from His Majesty in honour of his Royal Coronation. By Waranya Prompinpiras Wednesday 15 May 2019, 03:39PM Phuket Vice Governor Supoj Rotreuang Na Nongkhai, who presided over the release ceremony this morning, speaks to the press as Phuket Provincial Prison Commissioner Soontorn Dechraksa (rear, centre) looks on. Photo: Waranya Prompinpiras Pardoned prisoners make their way through a gate on their way to outside the prison walls. Photo: Waranya Prompinpiras A guard opens one of the gates to freedom for the pardoned prisoners. Photo: Waranya Prompinpiras Relatives waited expectantly out side the prison gate to welcome their loved ones beyond the prison walls. In total, 216 inmates, 177 men and 39 women, were granted their freedom this morning, Phuket Provincial Prison Commissioner Soontorn Dechraksa explained to The Phuket News. All 216 were serving sentences for small cases, he said. They were all also serving their first jail sentences. None of the prisoners released were serving sentences for drugs or serious cases, he added. Only one foreigner, a Turkish citizen, was among the 216 inmates freed, Mr Soontorn confirmed. He had been in prison for many months. He was jailed under the Immigration Act because he lived in Thailand long past his permitted time, he added, declining to name the Turkish inmate. However, although now no longer behind bars, the Turkish man today will be handed over to officers at Phuket City Police Station, Mr Soontorn said. Then police will coordinate with Phuket Immigration to proceed with the steps to have him deported, he explained. Mr Soontorn noted that of the 2331 inmates still incarcerated at Phuket Prison are 227 foreigners, specifically 214 men and 13 women. Most of them have been imprisoned under Immigration Act, or for burglary or narcotics, he said. Of those, 181 (174 men and seven women) are Myanmar nationals. However, Mr Soontorn confirmed that five Russians and four Brits also spend days behind bars in Phuket. More prisoners will be released in the coming 120 days, in accordance with the royal decree issued in the Royal Gazette on May 3, Mr Soontorn added. The decree outlined the criteria and conditions for those eligible for a royal pardon or reduced sentence. According to the decree, the royal pardons were being granted on the occasion of His Majesty the Kings coronation to help inmates reintegrate with society as good citizens. Offenders who have been performing public services, those who are already out on probation and inmates with a year or less remaining on their sentence will be released, reported the Bangkok Post earlier this month. Also included are people with serious disabilities and illnesses, such as terminal cancer and HIV/Aids. (See story here.) However, Mr Soontorn this morning said that at this stage he could not confirm how many more prisoners in Phuket will be released. Phuket Vice Governor Supoj Rotreuang Na Nongkhai, who presided over the release ceremony this morning, said, I congratulate everyone [on their release] and I ask everyone to keep in mind that this grace from our King gives everyone the chance to start a new life. I wish everyone here continues with good behaviour, and applies the knowledge gained from training during your jail terms, to change your lives and [previous] occupations in order to provide for yourself and your family, Mr Supoj said. Mr Soontorn also commented on the current state of overcrowding at Phuket Prison, and confirmed that only last week he had 500 inmates transferred to other prisons in the South to alleviate the crowded conditions. We had more than 3,000 prisoners, but last week I moved about 500 prisoners to other prisons to reduce congestion in the prison, he said. Inmates were transferred from Phuket to other detention facilities, such as Phang Nga Provincial Prison and Takua Pa District Prison both in Phang Nga province, as well as Ranong Provincial Prison, Chaiya District Prison in Surat Thani province and Pak Phanang District Prison in Nakhon Sri Thammarat. Regarding new Phuket Provincial Prison under construction in Baan Bangjo, Srisoonthorn, Thalang, Mr Soontorn said, I expect the construction will be completed by the end of this year. Construction has now progressed to 70% complete. Once the new prison is completed, it can hold 4,000-5,000 prisoners, he said. Unlike the existing prison, when finished the new prison is complete and open it will be able receive prisoners who have to serve sentences of up to 30 years. At present, the existing prison only holds prisoners sentenced to a maximum of 15 years, Mr Soontorn explained to The Phuket News in october last year. In addition, there will be different zones holding different categories of prisoners. But details about these zones will be planned later, he added. (See story here.) Phuket Town underground cable works to finish early PHUKET: The project to bury power and communication cables along parts of Phang Nga Rd and Rassada Rd will be completed well ahead of the projected October deadline, the chief of the Phuket office of the Public Works and Town Planning & Country Planning Department (DPT-Phuket) has announced. construction By The Phuket News Wednesday 15 May 2019, 06:51PM The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The news was delivered during an inspection today (May 15). Photo: PR Dept The works to install the cables underground along Rassada Rd will be completed before the end of August, and the works along Phang Nga Rd will be completed by the end of next month, DPT-Phuket Chief Tawee Homhuan confirmed today (May 15). Mr Tawee delivered the news during an inspection of the works today led by Phuket Vice Governor Prakob Wongmaneeroong. Mr Tawee explained that all the power cables needed along have already been installed underground. We now just need to finish installing all the communications underground before switching the system over, he said. Works along the 577 metres of Phang Nga Rd is about 60% complete, Mr Tawee explained. Once this section is compete, work will continue on completing the project along the contracted 375m of Rassada Rd, he added. Last month, when the incomplete works left abandoned left the road surfaces in dangerous condition (see stories here and here), the works were expected to take until October to be finished. Phuket City Mayor Somjai Suwansupana on Apr 11 released a public statement to explain that SCG 1995 Co Ltd was hired to carry out the work under a budget of B166 million. Under the contract, the work began on July 25, 2017 and was to be finished by July 20 last year, she added. (See story here.) Senators seen as PM puppets BANGKOK: At least 160 or two-thirds of the 250 newly appointed senators are close associates of the regime with military or police backgrounds, sparking criticism that the Upper House is a tool to extend the regimes rule, which critics say would renew political conflict and create a fresh impasse. politicscorruption By Bangkok Post Wednesday 15 May 2019, 08:57AM This 2018 photo shows the senator selection process at Impact Muang Thong Thani in Nonthaburi province. Over 2,700 candidates were shortlisted to 200 for the junta to handpick to 50. Photo: Bangkok Post The opinions were voiced on Tuesday (May 14) at a seminar titled A way out for Thailand and the peoples desirable new government by a support group for relatives of victims of the 1992 Black May violence at the October 14 Memorial on Ratchadamnoen Klang Avenue. The Royal Gazette on Tuesday published an announcement on the royally approved list of 250 senators, including 101 generals from both the army and the police force. Under the current constitution, the 250 senators appointed by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) will serve during a so-called five-year transitional period after the March 24 election. During this period, the regime-appointed Senate will be allowed to join the House of Representatives to vote for a prime minister from prime ministerial candidate lists submitted by parties. Former finance minister Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala said the fact that the constitution allows senators to join MPs in voting for a prime minister is unusual and undemocratic. It is like an exchange of favours. The prospects for the country of finding a way out of problems are not so bright, Mr Thirachai said. He added that the number of senators and MPs from the alliance led by the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) would be enough to keep Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in power. However, with a marginal majority in the House, the new government will be plagued with instability and it is only a matter of time before problems erupt, Mr Thirachai said. The PPRP-led alliance is expected to garner 253 of 500 House seats to form a coalition government. As as result, the new government will have to draw cobra MPs to join it. This means reforms have made no progress after five years of the regime being in power, Mr Thirachai said, adding the senators should vote for a prime minister independently of those who appointed them. The term cobra, or ngu hao in Thai, refers to renegade politicians who jump ship and vote in favour of the opposing side. Yutthaporn Isarachai, a political scientist from Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, said the chances of the country finding a way out of its current problems seem limited now it has become clear who the appointed senators are. A desirable government must have legitimacy and gain acceptance from the public. Even though the new government has not yet been formed, doubt has already been cast on how long it will survive, he said. Pichian Amnartworaprasert, a former member of the 2007 charter-drafting assembly, said it was not legitimate for the senators to join MPs in choosing a prime minister, adding the constitution must be amended to solve the political deadlock this creates. Thammasat University vice-rector Prinya Thaewanarumitkul said Gen Prayut was not a good choice to serve as prime minister during this transitional period because the PPRP-led alliance, which supports his candidacy, lacks a decisive majority. Gen Prayut would become embroiled in more political conflict when he returns, Mr Prinya said. Future Forward Party secretary-general Piyabutr Saengkanokkul said the Upper House will be a tool to extend the regimes time in power. If the 250 senators all vote for Gen Prayut, it would insult the public, he said. The Senate list includes 101 people with military or police ranks such as Gen Preecha Chan-o-cha, Gen Prayuts brother, and Adm Sitthawat Wongsuwon, Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwons brother. Read original story here. BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- China will never surrender to external pressure and has the resolve and capability to defend its legitimate rights and interests, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said here Tuesday. Geng made the remarks at a press briefing in response to questions regarding China-U.S. trade frictions. "China doesn't want a trade war, but we are not afraid of fighting one. If someone brings the war to our doorstep, we will fight to the end," he said. Geng also said China is by no means the party that had pulled back and broken its promise. U.S. President Donald Trump accused China of pulling back on some of the promises when a deal between the two countries was "95 percent" done. The negotiation is the process of discussion, and it is quite normal that the two sides hold different opinions during this process, said Geng, adding that before the negotiation is concluded and an agreement is reached, there is no such saying as "violating promises." He said the two sides reached multiple consensuses on economic and trade issues and released a joint communique in Washington in May last year. However, the U.S. side abandoned those consensuses in just a few days. The two sides also reached consensus on the value of Chinese purchases of U.S. goods last December, but the U.S. side deliberately raised the asking price in subsequent negotiations, said Geng, adding that China is by no means the "backtracking" side. "China has shown the greatest sincerity and kindness during negotiations with the United States," said Geng, expressing the hope that the two countries can meet each other halfway and achieve a mutually beneficial and win-win agreement on the basis of mutual respect, equal treatment and commitment. According to reports on Monday, the United States will hold a public hearing on June 17 on Trump's proposal to put tariffs on another 300 billion U.S. dollars in Chinese goods. Imposing additional tariffs will not solve any problems, whoever starting the trade war will hurt himself as well as others, Geng said. China has become one of the most popular investment destinations for global companies for years in a row since it launched the reform and opening-up drive 40 years ago, he said, adding that companies will choose which countries to invest in or which partners to cooperate with based on their interests and market rules. "China welcomes foreign companies to increase investment in the country, and we will continue our efforts to create a more stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment for foreign investors," he said. China will continue to expand market access, increase imports of goods and service and attach importance to the implementation of opening-up policies, Geng said. [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Rob Zombie's guitarist, John 5 whipped out his phone to play a teaser of an unreleased David Lee Roth song from an album titled 'California Sessions' in an interview. The song was recorded sometime in 2014. The pair had previously worked together between 1998 and 2003 and remained to be longtime friends. We had a collection of music "Heres what would happen Dave would call me and hed be like, 'Come on over and lets write some songs, get some Doritos,'" 5 told Masters of Shred. "And I would always hang out with Dave for years and years and years. So Id just go over and wed just talk about everything, play music and write songs, you know, all the time." 5 continued, "So there was this time where wed write songs early in the morning, and then he would rent out the studio at night. Wed write, write, write and then wed go into the studio. And we did that for a long time. We had a collection of music." You can listen to the song around 22:50 into the video below. The director of the upcoming 'Rocketman' biopic, Dexter Fletcher says he's not concerned over the scene where Elton John performs 'Crocodile Rock' two years before he supposedly wrote the song in real life. The scene shows John (portrayed by Taron Egerton) singing the 1972 track during his American debut appearance in Los Angeles in 1970, floating above his piano in the iconic Troubadour venue. It is one of several fantasy scenes in the musical biopic. Fletcher tells Rolling Stone that he was aware of the slight historical error, defending his decision saying, "But what I care about is capturing the moment cinematically and musically." He describes that the story of 'Rocketman' as recollections of John's career while he was in rehab during the early '90s. "Hes our narrator, and hes telling the story as he recalls it," Fletcher explained. Bridging Finance Inc. is launching what it says is Canadas first fund of funds for alternative credit tapping into the swelling market for private debt in the country. The asset manager is planning to raise about $500 million over the next 12 months, adding to its $1.4 billion in assets under management, chief executive officer David Sharpe said. Sharpe, a status member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, launched a private debt fund last month dedicated to financing Indigenous economic development, which he also plans to expand to $500 million. The fund of funds, which is expected to be launched in June by Bridging and its affiliate Fern Capital Partners, will invest in funds focused on private credit, distressed debt, senior loans, along with public debt such as short-term Treasuries and preferred shares. Longer term, it plans to invest in infrastructure funds. It will cater to clients willing to take baby steps into the private-debt world, said Wilson Tow, a partner at Fern Capital Partners and an expert on doing due diligence on hedge funds. Growing market Toronto-based Bridging is one of several money managers deepening their push into private credit, where businesses bypass the capital markets for finance. Global direct lending funds are raising money at a record-setting pace, collecting $19.4 billion (U.S.) so far this year as investors pile into the market for private credit, according to London-based research firm Preqin. In Canada, private debt under management totalled $10.4 billion (U.S.) at the end of June, and $600 million (U.S.) was raised this year, also according to Preqin. Toronto-based Ninepoint Partners launched a private debt fund last month that will focus on investing in U.S. middle-market companies. Other big players in the sector include Penfund and Northleaf Capital Partners. Sharpes Bridging has already lent $300 million to finance renewable energy, housing, grocery stores and fisheries to Indigenous communities, $30 million of which was done through the new fund. Ive never had a default on an Indigenous loan, said Sharpe in his Toronto office. And demand for direct credit has increased greatly since we started seven years ago. The fund of funds will charge 40 basis points on top of the fees of the underlying funds which range from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent for management and 15 per cent to 20 per cent for performance fees and have monthly liquidity. Regulatory scrutiny For now, Bridgings new vehicle will invest in funds from Algonquin Capital Corp., Lawrence Park Asset Management, 1832 Asset Management , Next Edge Capital Corp., Onex Corp., and Bridging Finance. Bridgings other direct lending funds invest in collateral-based bridging loans, inventory and accounts-receivables financing. Returns hover around 8.5 per cent, according to Sharpe. It charges an average of 12 per cent in its loans. The firm has 36 people and plans to grow to 40 by year-end. The growth in private debt has drawn attention from regulators. A report from the Federal Reserve and other supervisory agencies in January pointed out the increased participation of non-bank firms in direct lending in the U.S., pushing more risk out of the banking system and into the shadow banking world, beyond their purview. In Canada, while the shadow banking sector has grown steadily since the global financial crisis in 2008, the overall financial system has expanded even faster, keeping risks under control, the Bank of Canada said in a report published in March. The central bank estimated the sector at close to $1.5 trillion at the end of 2017, up about 30 per cent from the end of 2015. Weeks after the first fatal crash of the 737 Max, pilots from American Airlines pressed Boeing executives to work urgently on a fix. In a closed-door meeting, they even argued that Boeing should push the authorities to take an emergency measure that would very likely result in the grounding of the Max. The Boeing executives resisted. They did not want to rush out a fix, and said they expected pilots to be able to handle problems. Mike Sinnett, a vice president at Boeing, acknowledged that the manufacturer was assessing potential design flaws with the plane, including new anti-stall software. But he balked at taking a more aggressive approach, saying it was not yet clear that the new system was to blame for the Lion Air crash, which killed 189 people. No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane, Sinnett said, according to a recording of the Nov. 27 meeting reviewed by the New York Times. Less than four months later, an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing all 157 people on board. The flawed anti-stall system played a role in both disasters. Boeing is facing intense scrutiny for the design and certification of the Max, as well as for its response to the two crashes. There are multiple investigations into the development of the Max. And in recent days, unions representing pilots from American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have received federal grand jury subpoenas for any documents related to Boeings communications about the jet, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Read more: Boeing tries to win back trust with 737 Max, but many remain skeptical Boeings CEO faces turbulent future Boeing didnt tell FAA, airlines that cockpit alert wasnt working The Federal Aviation Administration is also under fire for its role in approving the Max, and its decision to wait for days after the second crash to ground the plane. At a Wednesday congressional hearing, lawmakers will grill federal regulators about how the Max was certified. Boeing declined to comment on the November meeting. We are focused on working with pilots, airlines and global regulators to certify the updates on the Max and provide additional training and education to safely return the planes to flight, the company said in a statement. American Airlines said in a statement that it was confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the Max, will lead to recertification of the aircraft soon. The hour-long November meeting, inside a windowless conference room at the Fort Worth headquarters of the American Airlines pilots union, was confrontational at times. At the table was Sinnett, along with Craig Bomben, a top Boeing test pilot, and one of the companys senior lobbyists, John Moloney. They faced several union leaders, many of them angry at the company. Michael Michaelis, an American pilot, argued that Boeing should push the FAA to issue what is known as an emergency airworthiness directive. The FAA had already issued one directive after the Lion Air crash, instructing airlines to revise their flight manuals to include information on how to respond to a malfunction of the anti-stall system known as MCAS. But Michaelis pushed Boeing to consider calling for an additional one to update the software. Such a procedure would have required Boeing and airlines in the United States to take immediate action to ensure the safety of the Max, and would have likely taken the jet out of service temporarily. My question to you, as Boeing, is why wouldnt you say this is the smartest thing to do? Michaelis said. Say were going to do everything we can to protect that travelling public in accordance with what our pilots unions are telling us. Sinnett did not budge, saying that it remained unclear that the new software, which automatically pushes the planes nose down, was responsible for the Lion Air crash. He added that he felt confident that pilots had adequate training to deal with a problem, especially now that pilots who were not initially informed about the new system were aware of it. Youve got to understand that our commitment to safety is as great as yours, Sinnett said in the meeting. The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one. The pilots expressed frustration that Boeing did not inform them about the new software on the plane until after the Lion Air crash. These guys didnt even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else, said Michaelis, the unions head of safety. Another American pilot, Todd Wissing, expressed frustration that no mention of the system had been included in the training manual for the 737 Max. I would think that there would be a priority of putting explanations of things that could kill you, Wissing said. The Boeing executives, Sinnett and Bomben, explained that the company did not believe that pilots needed to know about the software, because they were already trained to deal with scenarios like the one on the doomed Lion Air flight. All pilots are expected to know how to take control of an aircraft when the planes tail begins moving in an uncontrolled way because of a malfunction, nudging the aircraft toward the ground. The assumption is that the flight crews have been trained, Sinnett said in the meeting. He added later: Rightly or wrongly, that was the design criteria and thats how the airplane was certified with the system and pilot working together. When the pilots pressed Boeing to consider encouraging the FAA to issue an emergency airworthiness directive, Sinnett made the case against moving too quickly. We dont want to rush and do a crappy job of fixing the right things and we also dont want to fix the wrong things, Sinnett said, later adding, For flight-critical software, I dont think you want us to rush, rush it faster. Sinnett acknowledged that the company was looking into potential mistakes in the design of the jet. One of the questions will be, is our design assumption wrong? Sinnett said. Were going through that whole thought process of, were our assumptions really even valid when we did this? But he remained steadfast that pilots should know how to handle a malfunction of the new software on the plane, given their existing training. As the meeting was concluding, Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the union, asked the Boeing executives whether they were still confident in the Max. Do you feel comfortable that the situation is under control today, before any software fix is implemented? he asked. Sinnett replied immediately: Absolutely. Read more about: Scott de Bruins Wagyu cattle ranch and China might be 4,500 miles apart, but the Australian beef producer has seldom been better connected to his biggest market. Orders for de Bruins luxuriously fatty steaks from Chinese customers, which include the Nest in Shanghais historic Puxi district and Beijings Park Hyatt, jumped 50% in May from the year before, he said. Sales have been buoyed by the outbreak of African swine fever in the worlds biggest hog-growing country that started last year. Its pushed up pork prices and boosted demand for alternative meats. Its our fastest growing market, without a doubt, said de Bruin, whose 3,050-hectare (7,500-acre) Mayura station at Millicent in South Australia, raises some 8,500 full-blood Wagyu cattle. While Chinas pig supplies tumble in the wake of the contagious swine epidemic, its imports of pork, beef, seafood, poultry and sheep meat from suppliers from Brazil to New Zealand are booming. Beef imports eclipsed 1 million metric tons last year, making China the worlds largest market; it was already the worlds top destination for mutton and lamb. The disease, which isnt known to harm humans, is predicted to slash Chinas pig supply by 20-30% this year and lead to pig-meat shortages. African swine fever will be the biggest influence on global meat markets possibly for the next few years, if not possibly the decade, Tim Ryan, a Singapore-based market analyst with trade group Meat & Livestock Australia, said in a phone interview. I dont think theres going to be enough meat around the world available to actually fill the gap. Pork imports which mostly come from the European Union, Canada and Brazil may surge 40% to 1.7 million tons this year, before increasing to 2.1 million tons in 2020, the China Daily newspaper reported last month, citing a report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Beijing. Brazils pork exports to China may climb 61% to 250,000 tons this year, Adolfo Fontes, an analyst at Rabobank, said this month. Supplies Slashed The reduction this year in Chinas hog supplies may exceed 30%, Jack C. Bendheim, chairman and chief executive officer of Teaneck, New Jersey-based Phibro Animal Health Corp., told analysts on a May 7 earnings call. I have made multiple trips to China over the last few months in order to better understand the impact of African swine fever, Bendheim said. The impact on the worldwide protein markets of the loss of 200 million-plus pigs in China is just beginning to be understood. The drop in meat supply is the largest in recent memory, Gregory A. Heckman, CEO of Bunge Ltd., a White Plains, New York-based agricultural trading house, told analysts on its earnings call earlier this month. The decline is equal to the entire U.S. swine herd and the full impact of this disease remains to be seen. Imported pork and poultry will be the most popular substitutes for locally produced pig meat, said Don Mackay, chairman of the Red Meat Advisory Council, an Australian industry group, and a former CEO of rancher Australian Agricultural Co. The cost of premium Australian beef, which may be five or six times as expensive as pork, will limit its demand in China, Meat & Livestock Australias Tim Ryan said. Retail prices for beef averaged 65.14 yuan a kilogram last year, according to Chinas Agricultural and Rural Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau. That compares with 19.19 yuan/kg for chicken, 22.47 yuan/kg for pork and sheepmeat at 62.34 yuan/kg. Sales of Australian beef to China jumped 66% to 72,460 tons in the first four months of 2019, while Brazilian shipments have risen 14% to 95,700 tons. Chinas total imports have increased an average of almost 90% a year since 2009, driven by rising demand from middle-class consumers, and have accelerated since the first cases of African swine fever were reported last August. Its huge, said David Blackmore, who produces Wagyu beef in Australias Victoria state for upscale restaurants in Australia, China and 13 other overseas countries. We aint seen nothing yet from a world point of view. Wagyu is the Japanese beef breed renowned for producing ultra-high levels of intramuscular fat, or marbling. Japan has been banned from exporting beef to China since 2001, when the first Japanese case of mad cow disease was detected. China has emerged as a major buyer of lower-quality cuts of Australian beef, including forequarters and trimmings. Blackmore recently doubled the price for lesser cuts and still cant keep up with demand, he said. Australias cattle supplies arent likely to increase any time soon, Blackmore said, especially after recent rainfall in the south spurred pasture growth. Thats helped push prices on the benchmark Eastern Young Cattle Indicator up more than 20% from their low in March. Read more about: Is Tim Hortons ready to take on the world? Plans revealed this week by the coffee shops Toronto-based parent Restaurant Brands International Inc. suggest it is, with RBI announcing on Wednesday that it will grow its global restaurant footprint to 40,000 from 26,000 including a previously-announced 1,500 new Tim Hortons outlets in China alone. The expansion, which would take place over eight to 10 years, would mean growing all three of its brands Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons to make RBI one of the largest restaurant chains in the world. Restaurant Brands has been on an expansion tear since 2010, with the number of outlets increasing from 12,000 in 2010 to its current 26,000 tally, and sales growing to $32 billion from $15 billion over the same period. Tim Hortons, Canadas largest quick service restaurant service chain, had a total of 4,846 restaurants in 14 countries at the end of 2018 with about 4,300 in Canada, creating what NPD Group industry analyst Robert Carter called unequalled market penetration. There were 2,823 Tim Hortons outlets in Canada in 2017. Tim Hortons, which previously announced plans to expand in Spain, Mexico, Great Britain and the Philippines, opened its first restaurant in China in February and has added at least two more since, RBI chief executive Jose Cil said on an earnings call last month. The expansion plans present a growth opportunity for the company, although we believe there is significant uncertainty about whether the international rollout of the Tim Hortons brand will ultimately be successful, BMO Capital Markets analyst Peter Sklar wrote in a report. We remain concerned about its potential for success given RBIs challenged expansion into the U.S. in the past. The coffee chain is not well known outside Canada compared to Burger King, which adds to the uncertainty, he said. Read more: Tim Hortons parent defends strategy as sales growth cools Restaurant Brands plans to grow to more than 40K restaurants in the coming years Tim Hortons opens first Chinese location, offering salted egg yolk timbit But Carter of NPD Group said the move will add value, since the chain has room to grow in emerging markets such as China and Africa. He suggested that much of the expansion could be in the form of twinning for example, a Tim Hortons outlet could be added to an existing Burger King franchise. Because the Tim Hortons brand has saturated the market in Canada, BDO Canada partner Lyn Little said she expects future growth will mainly occur in international markets. She noted that in addition to the planned Tim Hortons expansion in China, RBI has entered into an agreement in Brazil for the Popeyes brand, where more than 300 restaurants are expected to be opened. Similarly, agreements have been announced for Burger King in the Netherlands, Japan and Taiwan, as well as Tim Hortons in Mexico, Britain and Philippines. She said expansion will add to RBIs bottom line and shareholder value, but she questioned how RBI will manage the growth. Competition with McDonalds and other players such as A&W and Mary Browns has been fierce, she wrote in an email. RBI, through Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes will need to keep a close eye on what is happening in their current markets to ensure the focus on international growth does not result in setbacks domestically. Read more about: For more than a year, Apple Inc. avoided major damage from the U.S. trade war with China, thanks in part to a White House charm offensive by chief executive officer Tim Cook. But the company now faces its first major hit from both sides of the dispute. A new round of tariffs proposed by the U.S. on Monday includes mobile phones, meaning the iPhone, Apples most-important product that is made almost entirely in China, may be encumbered with a 25-per-cent import levy. There are other products on the list that would affect Apple too, such as laptops and tablets. That leaves the company with a difficult choice: Raise prices on already-pricey products and risk missing out on sales, or absorb the extra cost and let profits suffer. Theres a very real risk of higher import costs and/or U.S. consumer demand destruction depending on whether Apple decides to pass along some of the tariff cost, Krish Sankar, an analyst at Cowen Inc., wrote Tuesday in a note to investors. Given that the majority of Apples hardware products that include the iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac systems are assembled and imported from China, the earnings risk could be quite substantial. China retaliated on Monday with plans to increase tariffs on U.S. imports to 25 per cent from 10 per cent. That would apply to components for the iPad and iPhone. So when U.S.-made parts including glass screen covers and facial-recognition sensors are shipped to China for assembly into iPhones and iPads, they will be more expensive, too. The main concern is the iPhone, though. It accounted for 63 per cent of sales in 2018, and serves as a hub for additional revenue from services and related devices like the Apple Watch. The newest iPhones cost $750 to $1,450, so any price increases could take the devices beyond the budgets of more consumers. The heightened trade tensions are a test for Cook and the global supply chain he helped build and run. Last year, the CEO showed political prowess by meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to argue against tariffs. Just more than a year ago, Cook met Trump in the Oval Office. The CEO said he opposed the presidents approach and focused on how cooperation between countries can boost the economy more than nations acting alone. After the meeting, the administration told Cook it would not place tariffs on iPhones, The New York Times reported. Apple also wrote to U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer in September asking him to reconsider tariffs and instead take other measures that would support the U.S. economy and American consumers. Later that month, the White House spared Apples Watch and AirPods. By late 2018, Apples strategy had become less effective. In late November, Trump told the Wall Street Journal he might impose tariffs on mobile phones and laptops, and said consumers could stand a 10-per-cent increase in prices very easily. The day after, Cook toured schools in Idaho with Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and senior adviser. As 2019 began, the real cost of the trade war for Apple began to emerge. The company cut revenue projections and Cook said the Trump administrations trade policies had indirectly hurt consumer demand for iPhones in China. More recently, the company has raised prices when it refreshed products that have already been hit with tariffs. The updated Apple Pencil, launched in October, costs $30 more than the previous version. The faster Mac mini costs $300 more than its predecessor. That suggests the company may take a similar approach with the iPhone. In its September letter to Lighthizer, Apple said tariffs would increase product prices. The 25-per-cent tariff on iPhones would likely apply to the wholesale price of the devices when they are imported from China. Apple doesnt disclose wholesale prices, but research firms often estimate the bill of materials. A $1,249 iPhone XS Max with 256 gigabytes of storage has $453 worth of parts, according to TechInsights. A 25-per-cent levy on that would be $113, raising the purchase price by about 9 per cent. Apples other models, the iPhone XS and the iPhone XR, could face a similar increase, according to estimates. In a recent note to investors, Morgan Stanley estimated that a $999 iPhone XS would cost $160 more. JPMorgan analysts forecast a 14-per-cent price increase. This may only apply to U.S. iPhone sales, limiting the damage. About a third of iPhone revenue comes from the U.S., according to Shannon Cross of Cross Research. That wont address the problem of even more expensive iPhones, though. A series of price increases in recent years has already coincided with declining sales. If Apple passes the whole tariff cost to U.S. consumers, demand could drop by 10 per cent to 40 per cent, Cowens Sankar estimated on Tuesday. That, in turn, may slice earnings per share by 1 per cent to 4 per cent in fiscal 2020, the analyst said. Alternatively, Apple could eat the cost and leave iPhone prices untouched. That would dent earnings per share by 6 per cent to 7 per cent, based on a $450-per-device import cost and annual U.S. unit sales of 40 million, according to Sankar. Still, Apple has experience absorbing extra costs. When currencies swing, the company manages to protect its gross profit margins, Cross noted. Apple could work around the tariff issue as well. Theres a possibility of Apple re-jiggering its supply chain to build more products outside China. Apple is ramping up production in India to avoid local taxes and has done similar work with Foxconn in Brazil. Read more about: WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trumps tariffs were initially seen as a cudgel to force other countries to drop their trade barriers. But they increasingly look like a more permanent tool to shelter U.S. industry, block imports and banish an undesirable trade deficit. More than two years into the Trump administration, the United States has emerged as a nation with the highest tariff rate among developed countries, outranking Canada, Germany and France, as well as China, Russia and Turkey. On Tuesday, the president continued to tout his trade war with China, saying that the 25-per-cent tariffs he imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods would benefit the United States, and that he was looking very strongly at imposing additional levies on nearly every Chinese import. I think its going to turn out extremely well. Were in a very strong position, Trump said in remarks from the White House lawn. Our economy is fantastic; theirs is not so good. Weve gone up trillions and trillions of dollars since the election; theyve gone way down since my election. He called the trade dispute a little squabble and suggested he was in no rush to end his fight, though he held out the possibility an agreement could be reached, saying: They want to make a deal. It could absolutely happen. Stock markets rebounded on Tuesday, after plunging on Monday as China and the United States resumed their tariff war. Additional tariffs could be on the way. Trump faces a Friday deadline to determine whether the United States will proceed with his threat to impose global auto tariffs, a move that has been criticized by car companies and foreign policy-makers. And despite complaints by Republican lawmakers and U.S. companies, Trumps global metal tariffs remain in place on Canada, Mexico, Europe and other allies. The trade barriers are putting the United States, previously a steadfast advocate of global free trade, in an unfamiliar position. The country has the highest overall trade-weighted tariff rate at 4.2 per cent, higher than any of the Group of 7 industrialized nations, according to Torsten Slok, the chief economist of Deutsche Bank Securities. That is more than twice as high as the rate for Canada, Britain, Italy, Germany and France, and higher than most emerging markets, including Russia, Turkey and even China, Slok said. The shift is having consequences for an American economy that is dependent on global trade, including multinational companies such as Boeing, General Motors, Apple, Caterpillar and other businesses that source components from abroad and want access to growing markets overseas. While trade accounts for a smaller percentage of the American economy than in most other countries just 27 per cent in 2017, compared with 38 per cent for China and 87 per cent for Germany, according to World Bank data it is still a critical driver of jobs and economic growth. For now, the U.S. economy remains strong, with rising wages and the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. But with less trade, American jobs up and down the value chain that are seemingly unrelated to importing and exporting goods could suffer, including research and development, retail and marketing products. Douglas Irwin, a trade historian at Dartmouth College, said Trumps tariff battle with China was bringing about a new status quo for the world economy. If we do have this consensus that we want to isolate ourselves from China, thats a big historic shift in U.S. trade policy, Irwin said. Weve moved away from tariffs as a bargaining chip to get a better deal to tariffs as a means to an end to decoupling the economies. Trump and his economic advisers say the administrations trade policy is aiding the U.S. economy, companies and consumers. And despite the tough approach, the administration continues to insist its goal is to strike trade agreements that give American businesses better trade terms overseas. At a briefing last week, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, praised the presidents trade policies for helping economic growth thus far and said the administration supports free and fair reciprocal trade. But if the goal really is freer trade, the administration has never been further from achieving that goal than it is today, said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Theyre heading in the opposite direction, Bown said. Beyond a minor update to the U.S. agreement with South Korea, no other free trade deals have been finalized. Trumps revisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico still await passage in Congress, while trade talks with the European Union and Japan have been troubled from the start, with governments squabbling over the scope of the agreement. The easier explanation, said Michael Strain, the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is to take the president at his word that he is a protectionist. Those are the words theyre using, and those are the actions theyre taking, he said. In remarks this week, Trump said companies that did not want to pay the tariffs could shift production out of China and into the United States or another country that has not been hit with tariffs. While there are signs this shift is happening, it seems to be benefiting countries such as Mexico and Vietnam rather than the United States. It remains to be seen whether the presidents actions will precipitate a broader shift away from global integration that might echo around the world and outlast the Trump administration. Trump came into office fiercely critical of the failure of past administrations and global bodies such as the World Trade Organization for failing to police Chinas unfair trade practices. He withdrew the United States from multilateral efforts like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-country trade deal negotiated by former president Barack Obama, and the Paris climate accord. That shift has created an opening for other countries to step forward as global leaders, including Europe, Japan and China, despite its position as one of the worlds most controversial economic actors. On Tuesday, China submitted its proposals for overhauling the World Trade Organization, including broadening the privileges of developed countries, a status that China claims for itself. Advocates of free trade fear that governments in India, China, South Africa and elsewhere might find Trumps model of protectionism appealing and erect even higher barriers to foreign companies. While the United States and China could still strike a trade deal that would roll back many of their tariffs, that likelihood has appeared to diminish in recent weeks. Progress toward a deal came to a sudden halt this month when China backtracked on certain commitments and Trump threatened to move ahead with higher tariffs. We had a deal that was very close, and then they broke it, he said Tuesday. The two sides continue to disagree over whether the deals provisions must be enshrined in Chinas laws. But they are also arguing over Trumps tariffs, which were intended to prod the Chinese to agree to more favourable trade terms for the United States. China insists those tariffs must come off once a deal is reached, but the Trump administration wants some to remain in place, to ensure China abides by its commitments. In an interview Tuesday on CNBC, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., supported the administrations tactics. Ideally, you wouldnt have tariffs, he said. But the United States already faces all kinds of impediments to gaining access to the Chinese marketplace, including tariffs, subsidization of industries and theft of intellectual property. We already have a series of hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese penalties against the United States, which are threatening our long-term viability, Rubio said. Canada and Mexico have repeatedly pressed the administration to lift its tariffs on steel and aluminum now that negotiations over the NAFTA revision are done. The three countries signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in November, but the pact awaits passage in all three legislatures. The Trump administration still views the tariffs as a source of leverage in case it needs to demand final changes to the deal from Canada and Mexico. But Canadian and Mexican officials as well as many in Congress say the levies are actually an impediment because all three legislatures will refuse to finalize the deal while they are in place. A similar standoff could soon unfold with the EU, which Trump has accused of being a brutal trading partner and being tougher than China. The president, who wants Europe to open its markets to American farmers and companies, has already imposed tariffs on European metals and is threatening to levy a 25-per-cent tax on imports of European cars and car parts if the bloc does not give the United States better trade terms. Europe has absorbed Trumps steel and aluminum tariffs without too much damage. But car tariffs would strike the most important industry in Germany, which has the Continents biggest economy. European officials would regard car tariffs as a breach of a truce they worked out last year with Trump, and they have said they would refuse to negotiate as long as car tariffs were in place. Cecilia Malmstrom, the European commissioner for trade, repeated on Monday that the EU had prepared a list of American products worth $22.5 billion including ketchup, suitcases and tractors that would face immediate retaliatory tariffs. Were prepared for the worst, Malmstrom said in an interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Germany. European officials still hold out hope that Trump will see them as allies and not geopolitical rivals like the Chinese. And he could ultimately delay the decision and extend the Friday deadline for countries that are in trade talks with the United States. But the president shows no signs of backing away from his stance that tariffs have helped the United States. On Tuesday morning, Trump posted on Twitter that tariffs had rebuilt Americas steel industry and were encouraging companies to leave China, making it more competitive for buyers in the United States. China buys MUCH less from us than we buy from them, by almost 500 Billion Dollars, so we are in a fantastic position, Trump tweeted. Make your product at home in the USA and there is no Tariff. Read more about: Tour operator TUI held to its forecast while warning that its battling overcapacity this summer in the Spanish vacation market, as a deadline looms for its grounded fleet of Boeing 737 Max jets. The Hanover, Germany-based company reiterated its expectation for a 2019 drop of 17 per cent in underlying earnings before interest and taxes. But expenses related to the Max grounding will rise by one-third if it cant get the jet airborne by July. That would lead to an Ebita drop of 26 per cent, and TUI needs to know about the Maxs status by the end of this month to make the deadline. Key insights Through the first half of its fiscal year, TUIs seasonal operating loss widened by three quarters to just over 300 million euros ($336 million U.S) as overcapacities in Spain, especially on the popular Canary Islands, depressed profitability. The Max planes accounted for only 5 million euros of that. Brexit uncertainty was another factor it cited. Through May 5, bookings for the most important summer season are down 3 per cent. While average prices are up 1 per cent, margins are so far considerably lower than a year ago. The Max grounding has hit TUI, the planes biggest operator in Europe after Norwegian Air Shuttle, in a second way. Some tourists are avoiding flying altogether, as TUI saw bookings drop 10 per cent in the immediate aftermath of the Ethiopian Airlines crash of March 10, and they still havent fully recovered. Read more: Travel operator TUI issues profit warning over 737 grounding TUI chief executive officer Fritz Joussen took a swing at struggling competitor Thomas Cook Group Plc. TUI will emerge as a stronger, more efficient and more profitable group from the current consolidation of our sector in Europe, he said. We will be among the winners, not among the losers. Market reaction TUI shares gained as much as 3.2 per cent. They were up 2.8 per cent to 827.8 pence at 8:07 a.m. in London. Consecutive profit warnings in February and March had led to drop of 28 per cent this year through Tuesday. Read more about: The Trump administration is nearing a deal with Canada and Mexico to remove U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs as part of discussions about a new trade agreement among the three countries, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday. I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada on removing steel and aluminum tariffs, Mnuchin told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is in active discussions over the issue, he said. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has said he would block ratification of Trumps revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, until the metals tariffs are lifted on the U.S. neighbors. Both Canada and Mexico have imposed their own tariffs on American agricultural exports and other goods in retaliation for the levies. U.S. officials have insisted they will only lift the tariffs if Canada and Mexico accept quotas or other mechanisms that would avoid them becoming a conduit for cheap steel entering the U.S. from other countries including China. Both Canada and Mexico have so far resisted such a plan. Separately, Mnuchin told reporters after the hearing that hes hopeful the U.S. can reach a trade deal with China. I wouldnt say Im confident, Mnuchin added. Read more about: YELLOWKNIFEA search is underway in the Northwest Territories for three people who are overdue on a trip between two remote communities on the north side of Great Slave Lake. RCMP say two men and a woman left Dettah, southeast of Yellowknife, around 10:30 p.m. Monday for what was believed to be a journey to Lutselke on the eastern arm of the lake. They were in a 1990s-era Black Bombardier Scandic two-seater, towing two toboggans. Police say they have equipment appropriate for the trip and at least one person is believed to be an experienced traveller on the land. They were reported overdue just before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and an air search over part of Great Slave Lake was carried out soon after. The air search was to resume Wednesday but Mounties say ice conditions on the lake are too treacherous for ground crews, and theyre advising against individual search attempts due to deteriorating ice conditions. Read more about: OTTAWAAgriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she used a G20 ministers meeting in Japan to press her Chinese counterpart for the evidence behind Beijings bans on Canadian canola. The overture follows last weeks intervention by Canada at a major World Trade Organization meeting to demand China deliver proof that Canadian canola is contaminated. China has stonewalled requests for Canadian experts to examine Chinese evidence that two canola shipments had pests, and there was no sign Wednesday the Canadian food inspectors would receive travel visas from Beijing any time soon. Bibeau made clear Canadas persistent prodding of China and her Chinese counterpart would continue as the uncertainty and strain of declining Sino-Canadian relations was on full display. All of the G20 was about having a rule-based trade order and Im confident that he will relay our conversation to his colleague responsible for customs China, Bibeau said. Chinas rejection of Canadian food products is part of the escalating tension following the RCMPs December arrest in Vancouver of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou. The Chinese telecom giant is at the centre of a mounting political battle, which was on display Wednesday, over whether it will equip Canadas fifth-generation wireless networks. Nine days after Mengs arrest, China imprisoned two Canadians ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor and accused them of violating Chinas national security. Spavor received his seventh consular visit Wednesday, a day after Kovrigs seventh, as both men remain locked in a Chinese prison without formal charges and no access to lawyers. Mengs arrest has outraged Chinas communist leaders. Meanwhile, Huawei denies the U.S. allegations that its new, next generation digital communications equipment is an organ of Chinese-state espionage. President Donald Trump effectively banned Huawei from the U.S. on Wednesday when he signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over what the Commerce Department deemed as threats to the information and communications technology and services supply chain by foreign adversaries. Conservatives mounted more pressure on the Trudeau government Wednesday to follow Trumps lead and ban Huawei from supplying equipment for the Canadas fifth-generation wireless networks. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said the government should have already selected one of Huaweis rivals to be Canadas next 5G provider. They should have made a decision much earlier. Had they done that, they could have taken this off the table, Scheer said after meeting with his caucus. We have two Canadians being held illegally in China. Weve seen actions against Canadian canola exports now moving into pork exports, he added. All along the way, the government of China is escalating the situation and Justin Trudeau has done absolutely nothing about it. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the government will take the time it needs to make an informed decision about which company it will select to serve its 5G needs. It is a huge enabling new technology that has enormous potential, but it also carries with it, depending on the supply chain, some significant risks, he said, and we want to make sure that all of that is factored very carefully into a Canadian decision so we get the advantages of the technology, but we do not in any way comprise national security. Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government will take a measured approach to how we deal with companies in Canada and with our international relations. Read more about: FREDERICTONCanadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques took time from his busy schedule on the International Space Station Wednesday to encourage young students to pursue science telling them they are the future. Hundreds of students from across Canada are gathered in Fredericton this week for the 2019 Canada-Wide Science Fair at the University of New Brunswick. Saint-Jacques spoke to the students via a live video link from the space station orbiting 400 kilometres above earth. Remember, our future is in the hands of young people like you, everybody in the audience, people who want to make a difference. You can make a difference. You are the future, he said. Saint-Jacques announced the winners of the Little Inventors Inventions for space contest. More than 3,000 students entered the contest, but Connor Brown from Acton, Ont., and Amy Claerhout of Beaumont, Alta., both Grade 7 students, were selected the winners. Brown designed different imprints for the bottom of space boots to identify the footprints of different astronauts on the moon or other planets. Most boots have the same zigzag pattern on the bottom of the sole. But with my idea, astronauts can see their designed boot imprint marks on the moon. With my invention we can also tell which imprint belongs to who, Brown told the audience. Saint-Jacques said he thought it was a very creative idea. And you know Canada has joined a group of nations to go back to the moon and well need boots for that. So maybe your invention will have a future. Keep thinking and keep inventing, he said. Amy Claerhout designed a mini Canadarm for the washroom on the space station to keep personal hygiene items such as brushes, tweezers and tooth brushes from floating away. Saint-Jacques said it was an item that would be very useful because the astronauts on the space station have things float away all the time. Claerhout said she was amazed that Saint-Jacques spoke directly to her and knew who she was. Both students said they would like to see their inventions put to use, and will follow their interest in science. About a dozen students from across the country got the opportunity to ask Saint-Jacques questions ranging from What happens to fizzy liquids like soda pop in space? to questions about growing food in space, and how to encourage the next generation of thinkers in Canada. Reni Barlow, executive director of Youth Science Canada said a lot has changed at student science fairs over the years and the ideas from students are more complex than volcanoes made with vinegar and baking soda. Primarily its because they want to help people. They are passionate about a particular question. They want to make the world a better place. They are not afraid to tackle challenging problems and bigger questions and to go out and find the answers and the resources to come up with some pretty amazing projects, he said. Barlow said many of the students are interested in topics like politics and climate change. Students are very tuned in to the global problems and local problems and they want to make a difference, he said. At the start of the brief event with the students, the International Space Station was over the northern Pacific Ocean and was south of Africa by the time it was complete. Saint-Jacques arrived on the space station last December for a six-and-a-half month mission, which has included a space walk. Read more about: EDMONTON A former Edmonton pet store owner who allegedly abandoned hundreds of animals in the business early last year will not face trial. The Crown says it has stayed an abandonment charge against Minchaw Menan Tom of Sherwood Park because the case no longer meets the prosecution standard of a reasonable likelihood of conviction. The charge under the Animal Protection Act was laid after the business in West Edmonton Mall called My Pet shut its doors. The Edmonton Humane Society seized more than 500 small mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians soon after. An investigation was also launched to determine whether the animals suffered any distress. Most of them were adopted a month later. Penalties for a conviction under the abandonment charge could include a $20,000 fine or a lifetime ban from owning a pet. West Edmonton Mall said in a statement issued following the seizure that the shopping mall and the store owner worked together to facilitate the hand-over of animals to the Edmonton Humane Society within hours of the permanent closure of this tenant. The society called the pet store seizure the second largest of its kind in the Edmonton area. The largest involved more than 1,000 rabbits that were taken from a home in the city. Read more about: VANCOUVERDoctors are once again calling out the Medical Council of Canada for using intrusive methods to prevent cheating at its licensing exams. This time, its inspections of religious head coverings. The outcry began last week with a tweet by Hakique Virani, a public health and addictions doctor in Edmonton. Is it true that ... examinees who wear head coverings as an expression of their faith were removed from the exam waiting area one by one today to be inspected for crib notes, @MedCouncilCan? If so, I hope MCC staff also inspect EVERY examinees, you know, pockets, he said in a tweet on May 4. While Virani said he heard about the issue second-hand, others posted that they had witnessed it happening. They didnt check anybodys pockets at my site ... just religious head coverings, began a May 5 tweet attributed to medical resident Kaylynn Purdy. Would-be doctors must pass the medical councils examinations in order to obtain a licence. The recent criticism follows last years #tampongate, a scandal over test-takers having to declare menstrual products far in advance to bring them into the daylong licensing exams. The MCC eventually changed its policy. According to a new statement from the MCC, candidates are notified that a discreet inspection of head coverings will occur for security and identification purposes. With respect to face coverings, the MCC said that our process requires the individual to unveil, in a respectful manner and in a private setting, and show their face to confirm their identity before they start the exam. Kathryn Keyes, director of communications and marketing at the MCC, did not directly answer a question about how they determine which articles of clothing are subject to an inspection. Instead, she said by email that the council is fully committed to equity and diversity and that their policy is that the MCC does not ask candidates to remove clothing or head coverings and that staff do not physically inspect candidates clothing. Keyes also said that the MCC takes all allegations and reports of negative candidate experiences very seriously and investigates all of them. Michelle Cohen, advocacy chair of Canadian Women in Medicine who first brought attention to the #tampongate issue, said it was shocking that the MCC would search religious test-takers that way. The idea someone would be bringing in cheat notes in a practical exam on their person in their religious head covering is offensive, first of all, as an idea and is not at all a justification for that invasion of privacy. She said she was concerned this policy disproportionately targets women ... especially given what weve gone through for people to be allowed to bring in menstrual products. On social media, Purdy drew attention to another potential barrier. She pointed out that, during her test, students had to go up four flights of stairs without the option of an elevator a problem for people who are pregnant, sick or are living with a disability. Hey @MedCouncilCan, can you direct me to where on the website it says we need to be able to climb 4 flights of stairs in order to complete the #MCCQE2? read her tweet on May 4. In an interview, Purdy said she asked whether an elevator was available but was told she was not allowed to speak and needed to follow the group to the test room. They need to stop assuming ability for their exam-takers, and I think that they need to clearly outline what is required to take the exam and if there are accommodations, she said. Purdy said she filed a complaint with the MCC, but it has not yet been resolved. Some of her complaints on Twitter also elicited a response from the MCC, in which they claimed they would make it clear to test-takers what physical effort would be required to access the site." Keyes told Star Vancouver that exams are generally held in hospitals, university facilities or clinic spaces. These spaces typically meet accessibility standards. She added that candidates who need test accommodations are able to request them and that candidates are also provided with information on exam day that includes a link and reminder re: accommodation requests. Clarification - May 17, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear that although Kaylynn Purdys complaint has not yet been resolved, she did received confirmation that her complaint was being looked into. Read more: Opinion | The persistent gaslighting of Muslims about Islamophobia #Tampongate outcry over ban on menstrual items in exams results in policy change There must be a better way: More medical grads expected to be jobless after graduation than ever before Read more about: OTTAWAClose, maybe, but no cigar. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland came and went from Washington on Wednesday, shifting diplomatic gears and jetting to Havana on a day that saw early hope that the end of the Canada-U.S. tariff dispute was close fizzle in a puff of figurative smoke. I think we are close to an understanding with Mexico and Canada, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had said in Congress, prior to Freelands meeting with Trump trade czar Robert Lighthizer. Mnuchin was testifying before the U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee, where he was asked why those two countries continue to face a 25-per-cent duty on steel and 10-per-cent levy on aluminum exports to the United States. Freeland had no new developments to report as she emerged in the morning from the headquarters of the United States Trade Representative. She said she had a good meeting with Lighthizer. And we made the case, as we have been doing for some time, that the best outcome for both Canadians and Americans would be to lift those tariffs and to have free trade between our two countries, Freeland said. Freeland met later with the influential Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley, who had said earlier this week that the tariffs might soon be lifted. After that, she expressed optimism over incremental progress, though she refused to speculate publicly on whether a resolution of Canadas trade dispute with the U.S. is close at hand. One meeting closer to achieving a great outcome, Freeland said. And then: OK, I think we need to leave for Cuba soon. Freeland will be pressing Cubas foreign minister over his countrys steadfast support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Canada and its Western Hemisphere allies in the Lima Group, as well as the U.S., view Maduro as a dictator who has impoverished his people and should relinquish power. My sense is that were making progress but theres obviously more work to be done, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said of the tariff situation in Ottawa Wednesday. Morneau said he brings up the tariffs with Mnuchin every time they talk, including in a telephone call last week and face-to-face meetings last month in Washington at World Bank and G20 finance ministers meetings. Im regularly putting forward the point of view that these tariffs are not only not helpful to the Canadian economy to either the producers or buyers of steel but theyre also damaging to the U.S. economy, Morneau said. President Donald Trump imposed the tariffs during contentious continental trade talks by using a section of U.S. law that allows the president to tax imports on national-security grounds. The three countries negotiators ultimately reached a new deal that the Americans call the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Mnuchin acknowledged to the senators what business leaders in all three countries, as well as U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the political divide, have been saying: that the tariffs must be lifted for the newly negotiated North American free trade deal to be ratified by legislators. I can assure you that Canada and Mexico are the priority, Mnuchin said. The president has instructed us to try to figure out a solution, and this is a very important part of passing USMCA, which is a very important economic agreement for two of our largest trading partners. Freelands visit comes after what she described as a couple of good conversations between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in telephone calls on consecutive days late last week. She, Trudeau and others in the Canadian government have derided the tariffs as absurd, illegal and insulting. Lighthizer planned to meet House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday to discuss the Canada-Mexico tariffs and the broader U.S. tariff war with China. Pelosi and fellow Democrats in the House have raised concerns about ratifying the new trade deal because of concerns over labour rights in Mexico, among other things. Freeland discussed workers rights in her meeting with Lighthizer, and filled him in on her talks on Tuesday in Toronto with two visiting members of the new Mexican government, which is embarking on major labour reforms to meet its obligations under the new trade deal. We discussed ways Canada can support Mexico in this important effort, which is good for workers in Mexico, good for workers across North America, she said. Canada is a real supporter of union rights and were happy to be discussing that important issue with our Mexican colleagues. OTTAWAThe number of asylum-seekers crossing the border irregularly into Canada has slowed compared to early last year. Statistics published by the federal government show Mounties apprehended 3,944 irregular migrants between official border crossings in the first third of this year. Thats a 48-per-cent decline compared to the more than 7,600 irregular border crossers intercepted between January and April 2018. Despite this, Darrell Bricker of the polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs says data shows Canadians are increasingly concerned over immigration levels in Canada, due in large part to the influx of irregular migrants. He and other experts who took part in an immigration summit in Ottawa last week are warning against rising populist sentiments that could harden Canadian attitudes against newcomers. Fen Hampson, executive director of the World Refugee Council, says a key concern is that the public doesnt differentiate between refugees and economic immigrants and that Canadians may not realize Canadas refugee influx is nothing compared to the migrant crises facing other countries. Abbottabad University of Science & Technology Teaching Jobs Latest Abbottabad University of Science and Technology Education Posts Abbottabad 2021 Qualified, medical, health and experienced individuals for the positions of Pharmacy Professor, Economics Professor, English Professor, Zoology Professor, Mathematics Professor, Physics Professor, Chemistry Professor, Information Technology Professor, Pakistan Studies Assistant Professor, Microbiology Assistant Professor, Psychology Assistant Professor, Management Sciences Assistant Professor, Associate Professor required for Abbottabad University of Science & Technology AUST 2019. How to Apply on Abbottabad University of Science and Technology 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. CENTRAL SAANICH, B.C.A man accused of murder at a home in Central Saanich, B.C., where police found signs of a violent struggle is facing two additional charges of aggravated assault. The Central Saanich Police Service says Alan Chapman of Nanaimo appeared in court Wednesday. Police had previously announced a charge of first-degree murder against him and say the additional charges also relate to the incident on a quiet cul-de-sac in the community of Brentwood Bay. Police said they arrested a man Saturday after responding to a report of a disturbance shortly after midnight. They said officers arrived to find one person dead and two severely injured at the home. The Vancouver Island Integrated Crime Unit is leading the investigation and police are asking anyone with information to come forward. Read more about: OTTAWAFederal politicians are condemning a video of an RCMP officer conducting an abhorrent interrogation of an Indigenous teen who reported shed been sexually assaulted. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett calls the interrogation disgusting. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale calls the interrogation techniques shown in the video abhorrent and profoundly outdated, offensive and wrong. And Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he was shocked and horrified by the video, broadcast Tuesday by APTN News. The video, shot in 2012, shows a Kelowna RCMP officer interviewing the Indigenous girl for two hours, including asking if she was turned on ... even a little bit during the alleged assault and questioning how hard she resisted her attacker, against whom no charges were ever laid. The video was released recently as part of a civil suit against British Columbias Ministry of Child and Family Development; the girl was in the care of the B.C. child-welfare system at the time of the alleged assault. I trust I can speak for all members of this House when I say this morning I was shocked and horrified by a recently released recording, broadcast by APTN news, of an RCMP officer questioning a young female indigenous sexual assault victim, Scheer told the House of Commons on Wednesday. Obviously, this line of questioning was appalling and insensitive to the young woman who was coming forward with her story. Goodale agreed that what was revealed in that video was absolutely abhorrent. The apparent attitudes and techniques that were on display in 2012 are profoundly outdated, offensive and wrong, he said. The RCMP and all police forces must work continuously to conduct themselves appropriately. No survivor of sexual assault should ever fear that his or her case will not be taken seriously or that he or she will be revictimized in the process. Bennett called the interrogation totally inappropriate. I dont know where people get that kind of right to revictimize somebody. Its disgusting, she said outside the Commons. Bennett added that training judges in the handling of sexual-assault cases is something that is becoming increasingly important as we go forward. Former interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose introduced a private members bill in 2017 that would require judges to take training courses in sexual-assault law but it has been stalled in the Senate for two years. Read more about: EDMONTONCannabis extraction has caused fires at two Edmonton homes in the last month, police say. Police are urging residents to be vigilant for signs of illegal production in their neighbourhoods after taking down those two operations, and one other that did not result in fire, all in southeast Edmonton. Sgt. Guy Pilon with the Edmonton Police Services Clan Lab Response Team said he is not sure whether there has been a spike in home production since legalization, but said this is the first time he has come across so many extraction labs in such a short time frame. Whether this is a trend or whether this is just an anomaly were catching on to, I dont know. Certainly its bothersome that its happening in residential neighbourhoods and these explosions are very powerful, he said. The labs isolate the psychoactive compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from cannabis to make concentrates in the form of wax, shatter, and oils, which tend to have much higher potencies than dried flower. While cannabis is legal, extracting THC using organic solvents is not. Read more: Edmonton police charge man after raiding unlicensed cannabis store Edmonton retailers hazy on rules around selling illegal CBD even after five-month grace period Medical cannabis grower Tom Neumann takes StarMetro through his process from seed to harvest Proponents say the practice is safe if done properly, but solvents exposed to gas burners, lit cigarettes or sparks can lead to disaster. Pilon said extraction operations use large amounts of butane and propane, often with agents that mask the smell, so leaks are nearly impossible to detect. He said one open can of butane can fill a space more than 200 times its size, so a 16-ounce can has the potential to blow up an entire house. When youve got open solvents or gases, all you need is static electricity to set it off, he said. Pilon said Edmonton police arson detectives went to a home on April 17 that was destroyed by fire the previous day and found butane canisters, a commercial vacuum oven, lights, and fans. On May 6, officers were called to a home for an unrelated sudden death and discovered what they believed to be a large-scale butane extraction operation. Five days later, police were contacted by fire investigators who found a butane oil extraction lab while investigating an explosion and fire at another southeast Edmonton home. Pilon said the cannabis at the homes was purchased on the black market and there was evidence it was being packaged for sale. Police seized various pieces of equipment, including butane cans, a vacuum oven, gel capsules, a large grinder, and a homemade double-boiler. He would not comment on charges as the incidents are under investigation, but said the three operations were not related. Police are asking residents to be vigilant for signs of extraction labs in their neighbourhoods and report any suspicious activity. If youre putting out your garbage and you have a look at your neighbours garbage and hes got 10 or 20 of these (butane) cans in the garbage, that doesnt mean hes a heavy smoker, Pilon said. It is legal to produce THC concentrates through CO2 extraction, as it is considered a non-organic solvent, but that method comes with higher startup costs and can be more challenging. Cannabis concentrates, edibles and topicals will become legal in October, but will still be illegal to produce with organic solvents. Draft regulations released by Health Canada in December propose strict regulations on the amount of THC allowed per package, with edibles and beverages capped at 10 milligrams per container and concentrates and topicals capped at 1,000 mg per package. Sgt. Pat Campeau with the Edmonton Drug and Gang Enforcement Team (EDGE) said he does not think legal edibles will stop people from making them at home. People are seeking that higher-concentrated product. They want to feel the effects quickly, he said. Read more about: Toronto council unanimously asked the province to give the city more time to weigh in on significant changes to the development process, which many members said Wednesday will be to the benefit of developers and to the detriment of their local neighbourhoods. That vote included Premier Doug Fords own nephew, Michael Ford, who did not speak during the debate but who agreed with some staff recommendations that also asked the province to set revenue neutrality as a goal of the proposed legislation or compensate cities for revenue losses. He and the rest of council asked the province amend parts of the newly-proposed rules to allow broader powers to ensure affordable housing and additional time for staff and council to consider development applications. The remainder of the staff recommendations proposing other changes to the provincial housing legislation carried 25-1, with Ford against. The province, by moving to change how funds are collected from developers and returning to the rules of the controversial Ontario Municipal Board to settle disputes, has made it impossible, Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 4 ParkdaleHigh Park) said, to guarantee that the city of Toronto will be as worthwhile to live in 20 years from now as it is today. To developers, he said: If you want a war, a war is what you get. If you want to stand up for Toronto, now is your time. His motion that could see the city place a hold on development in some parts of the city until more information about the bill and its impact is known, passed 22-4. On May 2 the province introduced new legislation, Bill 108 the More Homes, More Choice Act. The goals of the bill, government officials said, include increasing the supply of housing, streamlining the development process and providing more affordable options for Ontario residents. On Tuesday, city staff published a report saying there was limited evidence those central objectives would actually be achieved by the legislation as written and went further to say it actually undermines the citys ability to build livable communities by blending the tools Toronto has to extract benefits like parkland and community facilities from developers. It doesnt benefit residents and it doesnt benefit the needs of the city, affordable housing advocate Councillor Ana Bailao (Ward 9 Davenport) told the Star, saying shes concerned that the legislation as proposed would pool the money from developers into one account and see councillors and neighbourhoods pitted against one another for those resources. This community benefits (charge) would put not only councillors against councillors but most importantly needs against needs. She noted a new community centre that recently opened and a library under construction in her ward may not have been possible under the amended rules. City staff have identified several capital projects including libraries, park improvements and other facilities that are heavily relying on contributions from developers at the current level. The province has not yet specified how the new community benefits charge will work or what cap will be placed on it. The citys chief planner Gregg Lintern told council it would be hard not to conclude the changes will lead to a loss of funding. Lintern also said the legislation, even if it succeeds in creating housing faster, still wont ensure its actually affordable. Bailao said Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark has accepted an invitation to meet and she hopes the citys concerns are heard. This was all done to create more affordability and more homes so what in this legislation ensures that any savings or any more profits the developer will get will be passed on to purchaser or the tenant? Bailao asked. I dont believe theres any line of sight in the legislation that connects reduction in municipal costs . . . to an affordable housing unit, Lintern said. Mayor John Tory said the changes likely amounted to an even bigger financial cutback for the city in the long-term than the earlier debate on budget cuts that leave Toronto looking for more than $177 million in this years budget. He said the province should, at the very least, start with proper consultation on these changes which he said other municipalities are sure to have similar concerns about. I just dont know if anybody will listen, he said. Read more about: Rachel Beveridge sometimes has to drive out of her neighbourhood in order to go for a walk with her 1-year-old daughter, Blaire. Moving to Torontos Stockyards three years ago, Beveridge said she knew there would be the occasional odour in the air, as a result of meat packing companies nearby leaving behind an unavoidable, yet predictable stench. What she didnt know was that other, more toxic-smelling odours would eventually make her fear for her daughters well-being. She says she cant quite figure out what the chemicals are, but she smells them far too frequently and says action needs to be taken in order to regulate what nearby industries are emitting from their premises. You just kind of assume the city is on top of this and that they care for the community, she said. Beveridge says after making several calls to Coun. Frances Nunziatas office and being directed to speak to her MPP as the Ministry of the Environment is responsible for dealing with emissions complaints she and other nearby residents organized a meeting on May 8 to speak to MPP Faisal Hassan about the noxious smells in the area. Nunziata also attended the meeting. Residents at the meeting specified a number of industries that are of concern, but said they became increasingly worried when they found out that two meat packing companies in the area, St. Helens and Ryding-Regency, had applied for the addition of new emissions sources late last year. Stephen Nichols, an environmental consultant for Ryding-Regency, says this does not mean the company is applying for an increase in emissions. Rather, he says, the proposal is to account for potential changes to emissions as Ryding-Regency is changing its operations altogether and putting an Environmental Compliance Approval in place. Share your thoughts Nichols added that the chemical smells may be coming from other nearby industries, but not from Ryding-Regency specifically. In a statement to Toronto.com, St. Helens said it "is committed to meeting the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks standards, regulations and requirements." We need someone to champion our cause, said resident Tanya Connors, who has lived in the area for 12 years and attended the May 8 meeting. Instead, what you are left with is well-intentioned neighbours who work full-time, like myself, trying to rally without any organizing support. Connors, who has twin 10-year-old girls, says she wont let them ride their bikes in certain parts of the neighbourhood, due to her concerns with the odours, adding that her husband, who sometimes works late night shifts, has also smelled certain chemicals in the air when he gets home at night that make his skin itchy and give him an asthmatic reaction. I want to have a neighbourhood that I feel proud my children are raised in and right now I dont, Connors said. I dont want my children to grow up in a place they think is stinky and dirty and not being taken care of. Connors says over the years she has heard a similar story from the city, with regards to helping residents concerned for their health. Shut up and put up, youre lucky you have a house. What do you expect, you moved here. Thats the kind of answers weve gotten time and time again, she said. At the meeting, Hassan said he would advocate for the residents, but could only do so on issues pertaining to the province, which includes air quality testing and ensuring facilities are adhering to ministry standards on emissions. The city currently maintains a ChemTRAC program, designed as a means of public awareness about industry emissions. It requires certain facilities to disclose the use of one or more of the 25 priority substances outlined by Toronto Public Health. If facilities emit substances not included on the priority list, they are exempt from disclosure. Similarly, if they are retail facilities, medical or dental offices, construction and building maintenance sites, food or accommodation businesses, gas stations or other facilities that sell or distribute fuel, and auto repair businesses, they are also exempt. Universal Drum is the only Stockyards facility of concern to residents that is included on the ChemTRAC list. According to the latest data, the steel drum supplier, located on Glen Scarlett Rd., has reported its emissions are above the threshold set by the city. I know a number of the industries on Glen Scarlett have been fined over the years and have been told that they have to meet the Ministry of Environments requirements, and they have, but unfortunately, it continues to happen, Nunziata said at the meeting. We reached out to Ryding-Regency and Universal Drum for comment. They did not respond to us before our publication deadline. St. Helens Meat Packers Limited is committed to meeting the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks standards, regulations and requirements, St. Helens said in a statement to Toronto.com. Lindsay Davidson from the Ministry of the Environment says if the ministry receives a complaint regarding these types of air emissions, staff may conduct tests to determine if the facility is meeting the ministrys air standards. Some facilities are required to monitor their own emissions, because of conditions in their environmental compliance approval or they are registered to a technical standard which requires air emissions monitoring, he added. If a facility is found to be exceeding the emission limits, an environmental officer will assess the specific case to determine the proper response, which often leads to orders or tickets being issued. Correction - May 23, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that incorrectly said St. Helen's and Ryding-Regency had applied for an increase in emissions. In fact, the companies submitted proposals for additional emission sources. Ten years since the first sudden death in the Harrison family home and more than a year after a triple-murder trial, authorities have offered no public explanation for how a father, mother and son died years apart, under suspicious circumstances, before police concluded a killer was targeting them. Peel Regional Police did not treat the 2009 death of Bill Harrison or the 2010 death of Bridget Harrison as homicides until their son, Caleb Harrison, was murdered on Aug. 23, 2013. After a jury returned guilty verdicts in two of the three homicide cases last year, relatives of the Harrison family alleged that police and coroners failed to adequately investigate the first two deaths and called for an independent public inquiry. In response, Peel police chief Jennifer Evans, who has since retired, and Dr. Dirk Huyer, Ontarios chief coroner, launched internal reviews of the death investigations and promised to make their findings public. Instead of an independent inquiry, the family has been forced to accept a mixed bag of internal reviews conducted by the same authorities whose mistakes devastated their family that have dragged out their quest for a full explanation by an additional year and a half, with no end in sight. By the time these isolated reports are released, months, years will have gone by, said Wanda Jamieson, a close family friend who has been working with the Harrisons on the ongoing reviews. And neither the family nor the public will have a fully factual account of what went wrong, why, and what corrective, systemic action is needed in death investigations. This is very frustrating and worrying for us, as there is nothing to prevent something similar from happening to another family. Police, coroners and pathologists completed their internal reviews of the original death investigations months ago, but now say they will not make their reports public while other reviews and investigations are in progress. Read more: Improbable Cause: When a third member of this family died in the same house, police could no longer see it as a coincidence Peel police and no one else probing their own missteps in Harrison family murders A Peel police spokesperson said the force cannot discuss its review because of an ongoing investigation by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, which is probing the conduct of Peel officers and Evans in response to a complaint from the Harrison family. The OIPRD is an independent government agency that reviews public complaints against police and decides whether to investigate. After the OIPRD launched the probe last summer, a spokesperson said it aims to complete investigations within 120 days, but has up to six months under rules of the Police Services Act. Ten months later, it is still not finished. The OIPRD does not comment on individual cases. A spokesperson confirmed the Harrison complaint investigation remains active, but said the agency could say no more due to privacy requirements. The Harrison family has been told that because it is a complex case the OIPRD cannot give a timeline for completion, Jamieson said. Members of the Harrison family have seen a copy of the internal police review but signed a confidentiality agreement as a condition of reviewing the report, Jamieson said. Staff Sgt. Adrian Adore, a spokesperson for Peel police, said that a determination will be made regarding the public release of the report, after the OIPRD investigation is completed Together, the Office of Ontarios Chief Coroner and the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service have finished their own internal review, but that report cant be made public yet either, said Cheryl Mahyr, issues manager for the two agencies. Why? Because it is under review by the Death Investigation Oversight Council, which oversees the work of the provinces coroners and pathologists. The oversight council, created as a result of the Goudge Inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology, is addressing concerns from the family, Mahyr said. John McBeth, the councils senior manager, said the council is engaged with the Harrison family but cannot publicly discuss the report. There are a number of reviews underway that are looking into these cases, including the councils review, McBeth said in a statement. It would be inappropriate for us to make any comment that might influence these reviews. Jamieson said the family is encouraged that the oversight council invited their input, but they remain frustrated by the pace of the justice system, the lack of independence in the police and coroners reviews, and that years have passed without the red flags they have identified in the death investigations being addressed. We strongly believe that until a thorough, independent and public inquiry of the Harrison death investigations is undertaken, no one will have a full understanding of all of the missteps, Jamieson said. All three members of the Harrison family died in their Mississauga home on Pitch Pine Cres. between 2009 and 2013. A 2018 Star investigation documented the failures of Peel police, coroners and pathologists in the first two death probes. Calebs ex-wife, Melissa Merritt, and her common-law spouse, Christopher Fattore, were convicted in January 2018 of first-degree murder in his death. Fattore was also found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Bridget Harrison, while Merritts charge in her former mother-in-laws murder resulted in a hung jury. Fattore alone was tried for the second-degree murder of Bill Harrison, whose 2009 death was deemed natural and not reinvestigated until years later, long after hed been cremated. Fattore was acquitted on that charge. Merritt and Fattore have filed appeals. The convictions followed a three-month criminal trial in which prosecutors argued the Harrisons were murdered at key moments in a bitter custody battle over Merritt and Calebs two children. The trial raised troubling questions about investigative missteps in the first two death investigations. Evans, a longtime Peel cop who became chief in 2012 after four years as deputy chief, was criticized after the trial for delays and silence surrounding the internal review meant to examine what went wrong in the investigations. Her conduct is also being investigated as part of the OIPRD probe. Evans launched the internal review in February 2018, suspended it in March, then reinstated it after a backlash. The chief said the suspension was meant to ensure the review did not interfere with the criminal appeals. At a Peel Police Services Board hearing last June, Bill Harrisons sister expressed concern about the secretive internal review and made an emotional appeal for the board to champion the familys request for an independent and transparent examination. Neither Bill nor Bridgets deaths were thoroughly investigated, and limited evidence was collected, said Elizabeth Gallant. We now want to know: what happened? What went wrong? What needs to be fixed so no other family has to endure what weve been through? Why should we in fact, anyone, including the board put faith in an in-house review conducted by fellow police officers, when the Peel police failed us so badly? Evans later apologized to the Harrison family for leaving relatives with the impression that she had been avoiding dealing with this, and vowed to make the internal review findings public. She retired in January. So far, the Peel Police Services Board has not backed the familys request for an independent review. Executive director Robert Serpe said the board cant comment on the case due to the OIPRD investigation. A police spokesperson declined to grant an interview with interim chief Chris McCord, saying it would be inappropriate for police to comment again, due to the OIPRD investigation. One outcome of the internal reviews into the Harrison family murders that has been made public is a 20-page report by Dr. Michael Pollanen, the provinces chief forensic pathologist. The report on secret homicides or homicides that police and medical death investigators mistakenly identified as accidental or natural was filed as an exhibit last year at the Wettlaufer public inquiry into nursing-home care, which followed the conviction of nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer on eight counts of first-degree murder after she confessed to killing residents in her care. Pollanens report describes 17 case studies of deaths not initially detected as homicides, including the Harrisons and the 1990 case of Tammy Homolka, victim of serial killer Paul Bernardo. Pollanens report concluded that the involvement of forensic pathologists in the death investigations was an important tool to detect homicides that would have otherwise remained hidden, and said further research is needed. SAN DIEGOTwo Hawaiian crows, or alala, have done something momentous in the struggle to save the critically endangered species. They have built a nest. Extinct in the wild for decades, the alala were raised at the Keauhou and Maui Bird Conservation Centers of San Diego Zoo Global, part of its Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program. In partnership with the state of Hawaii and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alala Project has released 21 birds into protected forest areas on the Big Island of Hawaii. The nesting pair live in the Puu Makaala Natural Area Reserve on the Big Island. After all the years of work, the nest is the first tangible sign the Alala Project might be succeeding in its ultimate goal. These birds were raised to have the skills to live in the wild. Their keepers wore costumes and hid their human features to prevent the birds from imprinting on people. They were also taught to avoid a natural enemy, a native Hawaiian hawk called the io, by playing an alala warning cry at the same time as showing them a captive io. But it isnt enough for the captive-raised alala to merely survive. They must also raise their own young. If they survive, theyll reconstitute a truly wild population. A nest isnt an actual bird or even an egg, of course. But its the necessary first step. Researchers, who know each bird by name, saw the promising signs in early April. Two alala, Manaolana and Manaiakalani, were spotted building a nest. The female, Manaiakalani, then began what appeared to be brooding behaviour, sitting on the nest. While its difficult to see exactly whats in the nest from observations on the ground, we do believe that Manaiakalani is likely sitting on eggs and weve observed her male partner, Manaolana, bringing her food regularly, Alison Greggor, of San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, said in a statement. Alala typically lay between three and five eggs, and incubate them for an average of 21 days, said Greggor, a postdoctoral research associate at the institute. If these eggs hatch, the chicks would be the first alala hatched in the wild in two decades. In another promising sign, another pair, Kiaikumokuhalii and Ola, have been observed beginning to build their own nest. However, first-time avian parents usually fail, the zoo says. It often takes multiple tries before birds can successfully raise their chicks. The alala must overcome multiple obstacles, Jackie Gaudioso-Levita, co-ordinator of the Alala Project, said in a statement. There are many stages in the process, before the young fledge; the pair encounters natural and introduced threats, as well as environmental challenges, Gaudioso-Levita said. The team tries to help nesting birds as much as possible without causing disturbance. So while watching from a safe distance, the team intently watches the possible rebirth of a species. The next release of captive-raised alala is planned for later this year. The fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi criticized the U.S. response to his killing on Wednesday, saying that the Trump administration has failed to uphold American values by allowing the Saudi government to avoid meaningful consequences for the crime. Khashoggi had always championed the U.S. as the place you went to challenge the status quo and speak truth to power, Hatice Cengiz said in a meeting Wednesday with Washington Post journalists. Jamal would have been most disappointed of all to see the U.S. response. Cengizs remarks are her strongest statement to date on the Trump administrations muted reaction to a killing that was widely condemned as an attack on press freedoms and a brazen violation of human rights. President Donald Trump has questioned the CIAs conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorized the operation and has resisted imposing any substantial penalty on a long-standing Middle East ally. Cengiz, who is scheduled to testify before a House subcommittee Thursday, also said that the Saudi government has not contacted her to offer compensation or even condolences since Khashoggi was killed in the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul last October. By contrast, the kingdom has given millions of dollars in cash and property to Khashoggis four adult children. Cengiz was the last person to see Khashoggi before he entered the consulate to obtain papers for their planned marriage. He never emerged from the building, where according to U.S. and Turkish authorities he was killed and dismembered by a team of assassins dispatched from Riyadh. She also described an alarming conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Khashoggis death, in which the Turkish leader cautioned about the danger posed by Saudi Arabia under the volatile crown prince. What we are faced with now is not a normal country, not a normal leader, Erdogan said, according to Cengiz. He added that Mohammed is someone who tends to behave erratically. The White House and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are rivals, and Erdogans government reacted with anger to the kingdoms apparent belief that it could kill one of its citizens with impunity on Turkish soil. A Turkish intelligence recording shared with the CIA included audio of a struggle inside the consulate and Khashoggi gasping for air. Turkish surveillance footage also showed Saudi operatives clumsily trying to cover their tracks in Istanbul, and it helped to disprove Saudi claims that Khashoggi had left the consulate unharmed. Saudi officials have denied that Mohammed was involved in or even aware of the operation to kill Khashoggi, insisting that it was carried out by rogue elements of the government. Saudi authorities have announced investigations of 21 people in connection with the killing, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five operatives directly involved. Cengiz said she had met Khashoggi at a conference last year and that the two soon made plans to wed. She said that he sometimes voiced concerns that Saudi Arabia would retaliate for columns he wrote that were critical of the government by seizing his passport or other means but that he did not fear for his safety. She said she accompanied him to the consulate of her own accord that day, and that while he left belongings including a phone with her outside, he did not express any concern that he might be abducted or take any precautions such as leaving her with instructions on whom to call. Cengiz said she had considered relocating to the United States after Khashoggis disappearance but opted to settle in London, where she now lives and is pursuing a doctoral degree, in part because the U.S. is going through a difficult political time. She said that Saudi Arabia has continued to impede the search for answers to lingering questions, including the whereabouts of Khashoggis remains. Based on conversations with Turkish officials, she said, I know for a fact they have not found anything. As a result, she said, she still clings to a small hope that Khashoggi might be alive. If someone came up to me and said he is alive, I would believe it, she said. Read more about: BEIRUTThe State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-emergency U.S. government employees to leave Iraq amid soaring tensions with Iran, which backs proxy forces there. It said in a statement that the announcement affects both the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Baghdad, and a consulate in the northern city of Irbil. Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended, the department said. The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq. The Trump administration has accused Iran of supporting imminent attacks on U.S. personnel in the region, but provided no details or evidence. Instead, it has used a burst of diplomacy and briefings to try to win support for an increasingly aggressive stance against Tehran. Officials have spotlighted recent U.S. decisions to deploy an aircraft carrier, strategic bombers and other military assets to reinforce troops across the Middle East. They have also told reporters that further military action is on the table. But European military allies have questioned whether the threat level against U.S. assets has shifted in recent weeks. Read more: Pompeo crashes Brussels meeting of EU diplomats for Iran talks Pentagon builds deterrent force against possible Iranian attack US moving Patriot missile battery to Mideast to counter Iran We havent seen anything convincing yet, but tensions are definitely rising, said one Western diplomat, who was not authorized to discuss the issue with the press and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Iran has long supported a network of proxy forces across the Middle East, backing militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen as part of a broader struggle for influence. President Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of rolling back that sway, and his national security adviser, John Bolton, is a longtime advocate of boxing Tehran into a corner. Tehran has described growing pressure from Washington as psychological warfare aimed at regime change. Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used his Twitter account Tuesday, to warn against further escalation. We dont seek a war, nor do they, he said. They know a war wouldnt be beneficial for them. Led by Shiite Muslim clerics, Iran commands significant influence among certain political and military quarters in Iraq, backing clerics and politicians, as well as some of the Shiite militias with which the United States was once at open war. More recently, the two have formed part of an uneasy alliance in Iraq in the fight against Daesh (also known as ISIS or Islamic State). The United States has about 5,000 military personnel stationed in Iraq, following years-long battles to defeat the Islamist militants there. With the Daesh caliphate officially defeated, there have been growing calls among Iraqi lawmakers for American troops to depart. There are few indications, however, that such a decision is likely to come down in the near future, and the U.S.-led coalition continues to lead airstrikes and ground operations against Daesh holdouts, particularly north of Baghdad. The State Departments order for the withdrawal of non-emergency personnel from U.S. embassy and consular facilities came days after it warned American citizens not to travel to Iraq. Read more about: BOGOTA - The special tribunal investigating war crimes during Colombias decades-long civil conflict ruled Wednesday that a top rebel peace negotiator should not be extradited to the United States on a drug warrant, a decision certain to fuel renewed debate over a critical component of the fragile peace accord. The nations chief prosecutor, Nestor Martinez, immediately resigned in protest, calling the Special Peace Jurisdictions ruling a slap in the face for Colombias democracy and the many victims of the armed conflict. The evidence is conclusive, indisputable, he said in a terse statement. This destroys international judicial co-operation. Seuxis Hernandez, best known by his alias Jesus Santrich, is a blind rebel ideologue who was jailed in April 2018 on accusations that he conspired to move several tons of cocaine with a wholesale value of $15 million into the U.S. He has been behind bars in Colombia as the tribunal weighed the question of his extradition. At issue is whether the alleged crimes took place before or after the signing of the December 2016 peace accord between the government and the countrys biggest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. Rebels who lay down their weapons and confess to crimes are spared jail time and extradition but arent protected for crimes committed after the signing. An Interpol notice for Santrichs arrest claims he met with cocaine buyers at his residence on Nov. 2, 2017. During that meeting and subsequent negotiations, he and his co-conspirators allegedly discussed plans for a 10-ton shipment to the U.S., boasting they had access to cocaine laboratories and U.S.-registered planes to move the cargo, the notice says. Santrich has repeatedly professed his innocence, saying he was the victim of a scheme to put him behind bars for a crime he didnt commit. In an interview from the La Picota jail with local radio station Caracol, he said the tribunals ruling marked the final blow to a dirty setup orchestrated by the U.S. Department of State and Colombias chief prosecutor. I hope the government and other institutions respect this ruling, Santrich said. Supporters of the accord praised the decision as an important show of the tribunals independence. But the ruling will be another test for Colombias delicate peace process. Skeptics contend the accord offers terms that are far too generous to ex-rebels after a half-century of conflict between leftist guerrillas, the state and paramilitary groups that left at least 250,000 dead, 60,000 missing and millions displaced. President Ivan Duque, who has been pushing to change key aspects of the special peace tribunal, condemned the ruling and said his government would support a move by the attorney generals office to appeal the decision. I have been, am and will continue to be ready to sign the extradition for alias Jesus Santrich and any other drug trafficker, Duque said in a late-night address. Genuine truth, genuine justice, genuine reparation and genuine guarantee of non-repetition to the victims will remain at risk by tolerating criminal recidivism. In explaining the decision, the tribunals magistrates said that the U.S. State Department did not provide the evidence requested and that intercepted audios held up as proof did not clearly indicate Santrich was culpable. Its not possible to evaluate the conduct attributed to Hernandez, nor to determine the precise date committed, the judges said. The tribunal ruled that trying Santrich in Colombia instead of the U.S. is the best way to consolidate a peace that is stable and durable. The judges also stressed that their finding did not constitute a determination of innocence or guilt. The FARC long funded its operations by levelling a war tax on cocaine moving through its territory. Fifty members of its leadership structure were indicted in 2006 in the U.S. on charges of running the worlds largest drug cartel. But the guerrillas always denied direct involvement in the business itself. While the special tribunal is proceeding with cases against former rebels, military officers and other suspects of war crimes, critics have tried to weaken it. None of Duques proposed changes, however, have passed congress. Supporters of the peace deal insist the court should be kept intact or else risk losing the trust of the thousands of rebels who have surrendered arms. Two prominent FARC rebels who had initially participated in the peace process have since failed to appear at their required court dates, contending the government is steadily stripping away the agreement settled on during four years of talks in Havana. On the same day that the tribunal ruled on Santrich, it issued another order reaffirming a recent decision demanding the capture of former FARC leader Hernan Velasquez, better known by his alias El Paisa. Critics like former President Alvaro Uribe quickly blasted the decision on Santrich as another indication that the tribunal is biased toward former rebels. At the pace were going, Colombia will end up asking for forgiveness for FARC narco-terrorists for not having surrendered power to them sooner, Uribe quipped on Twitter. Others in support of the accord, like Jorge Rojas, a mayoral candidate backed by the party of Gustavo Petro, who lost to Duque in the presidential election, said the decision shows the tribunal is functioning despite enormous political pressure. The JEP works, he said, referring to the tribunals acronym. Peace is possible. Colombias chief prosecutor released a handful of audio files that included conversations with Santrichs alleged assistant, but its unclear what additional evidence was gathered that definitively points to his guilt. There was no good choice here, Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, said of the Santrich ruling. If youre going to extradite an ex-guerrilla to the United States, dealing a tremendous blow to the peace process, then the case had better be a slam dunk, he added. This was not a slam dunk. Islamia College Peshawar KPK Teaching Jobs 2019 Latest Islamia College Management Posts Peshawar 2021 Islamia College Peshawar Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan requires the services of highly qualified and well educated individuals for the posts of English Instructor, English Teacher, Teacher Assistant, Computer Teacher. How to Apply on Islamia College 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. QUITO, Ecuador - In a story May 15 about an agreement between Ecuador and the U.S. Agency for International Development, The Associated Press reported erroneously that aid for Venezuelan refugees is part of the USAID agreement. It is not. A corrected version of the story is below: Ecuador agrees to return of USAID as relations warm Ecuador has agreed to the return of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been kicked out of the country four years ago under leftist former President Rafael Correa Ecuador has agreed to the return of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been kicked out of the country four years ago under leftist former President Rafael Correa. Foreign Minister Jose Valencia and U.S. Ambassador Mark Green signed the memorandum of agreement on Wednesday setting terms of the deal. The new partnership is in addition to $30 million Ecuador is receiving as part of a region-wide initiative to help countries cope with migrants fleeing Venezuelas political and economic crisis. Valencia said the special connection with the U.S. is an expression of President Lenin Morenos policies. Moreno has aligned the South American nation more closely with the U.S. since taking office in 2017. Hes been feuding with Correa, who had prickly relations with the U.S. and expelled USAID in 2014. SINGAPORE - A top U.S. admiral said Wednesday the Navy has not stepped up maritime patrols to challenge Chinas sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea but is maintaining a consistent presence in the disputed waters. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, addressing an international security conference in Singapore, sought to reassure regional partners, some of whom have opposing claims in the waters but benefit from good relations with China on other fronts. Ive done the analysis so that I can state with confidence that our level of operations, our presence there, has been consistent over the decades, Richardson said. Theres nothing that has spiked recently. The International Maritime Security Conference was attended by representatives from 33 navies, including 16 navy chiefs. A Chinese delegate was also present. The U.S. Navy manoeuvrs in the South China Sea, so-called freedom of navigation operations, are by design non-provocative, non-escalatory. Theyre just challenging excessive maritime claims in a very consistent basis, Richardson told the conference. China has built military installations on seven man-made islands in the crucial waterways it claims on historical grounds. The other claimants, most notably the Philippines and Vietnam, have protested Chinas behaviour but they also maintain good relations with Beijing. Richardson said routine freedom of navigation operations will proceed with transparency, consistency and predictability. They usually involve a U.S. vessel sailing within an islands coastal waters without prior notification and draw sharp rebukes from China, which claims the South China Sea virtually in its entirety. This is not a zero-sum game. There is tremendous prosperity to be gained out there for all, and so well strive to do so in a way that everyone can grow, Richardson said. Meanwhile, U.S. and Philippine coast guard ships conducted a joint exercise in the South China Sea. Capt. John Driscoll, commanding officer of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf, told reporters during a port call in Manila that two Chinese coast guard ships were spotted in the vicinity of the exercise. China is building naval vessels at a rate outpacing its rivals, including the U.S, and its missile destroyers and nuclear attack submarines are equipped with increasingly lethal weaponry. Its first domestically built aircraft carrier is set to enter service, with more believed to be in the works. Richardson said China appears to be early in the process of constructing and operating aircraft carriers, but the U.S. is watching it very closely. I just have a great deal of respect for how fast things can happen when it comes to China, he said. He also pushed for strengthening partnerships with regional navies through exercises, information sharing and co-operative agreements. TOKYO - A Japanese startup that launched a rocket into space earlier this month plans to provide low-cost rocket services and compete with American rivals such as SpaceX, its founder said Wednesday. Interstellar Technology Inc. founder Takafumi Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia. While Japans government-led space programs have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs. In Japan, space programs have been largely government-funded and they solely focused on developing rockets using the best and newest technologies, which means they are expensive, Horie told reporters in Tokyo. As a private company, we can focus on the minimum level of technology needed to go to space, which is our advantage. We can transport more goods and people to space by slashing costs. Horie said his companys low-cost MOMO-3 rocket is the way to create a competitive space business in Japan. During its May 4 flight, the unmanned MOMO-3 rocket reached 113.4 kilometres (70 miles) in altitude before falling into the Pacific Ocean. The cost to launch the MOMO-3 was about one-tenth of the launch cost of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the countrys space agency, according to Interstellar CEO Takahiro Inagawa. Horie said his company plans to launch its first orbital rocket the ZERO within the next few years and then it would technologically be on par with competitors such as Elon Musks SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos Blue Origin and New Zealand engineer Peter Becks Rocket Lab. The two-stage ZERO would be twice as long and much heavier than the compact MOMO-3, which is about 10 metres (32 feet) long and 50 centimetres (1.5 feet) in diameter and weighs about 1 ton. It would be able to send satellites into orbit or carry payloads for scientific purposes. Development of a low-cost commercial rocket is part of a growing international trend in the space business led by the U.S. and aggressively followed by China and others. At home, Horie could face competition from space subsidiaries of major companies such as Canon and IHI, which have expertise from working with the governments space agency. ___ Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com /mariyamaguchi GAUHATI, India - A grenade lobbed from a motorcycle at a police checkpoint in the heart of a northeastern Indian city injured 10 people on Wednesday in an attack immediately claimed by a separatist leader. The blast happened as police checked vehicles at a barrier in front of a busy shopping mall in Gauhati, the capital of the state of Assam, according to Gauhati Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar. Paresh Baruah, the exiled leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Independent) rebel group, which has been fighting for independence from India for decades, called local TV stations to claim the attack, recordings of which were later broadcast on local TV news. The condition of the injured, including two paramilitary troopers, was not immediately clear. Indias northeast region is home to dozens of separatist groups that accuse the government of exploiting the areas natural resources while doing little for the indigenous people. Explosions caused by rebels are common, though Wednesdays attack was the first such incident in about two years. Assam security forces were already on high alert, Kumar said, after the Islamic State group-claimed co-ordinated suicide bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter that killed more than 250 people, and because of a possible threat from a so-called affiliate of the withered caliphate across the porous border in Bangladesh. ___ This version corrects that claim for the attack was broadcast on local TV news, not announced by Gauhati Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar. PORT DOUGLAS, AUSTRALIAMarine biologists in Australia and the United States are joining forces to resuscitate two of the worlds major coral reef systems along their coastlines. The reefs are threatened by rising ocean temperatures and extreme weather. In their two sunshine states, Queensland and Florida, experts have turned their focus from conservation to restoration at the Great Barrier Reef and Florida Reef, where entire colonies of coral life have been bleached or killed. Biologists working to restore both systems are sharing data and experimenting with forms of coral that appear resilient to warming waters. They have convened three major workshops in Cairns, Townsville and Miami over six months in an effort to expedite their efforts. At least one prominent figure in the Australian biology community, the chief scientist for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, is calling for a structured program between the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council that would formalize a joint effort of the two countries. Theres no question that our methodology for coral restoration developed in America, said Peter Mumby, the chief scientist. Theres a long history of Australians and Americans working together on this, but right now we are collaborating closely with the Americans on techniques theyve developed for propagating coral. While the focus of Australian scientists had been on conservation over many years, two consecutive mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 shook the community into action. Bleaching occurs when coral expel algae in response to an increase in sea temperatures. The algae provide coral with their colour, and so without it the coral are left bone white. In the Florida and wider Caribbean reef systems, bleaching began years earlier than at the Great Barrier Reef, forcing American experts to lead the way on restoration technologies. Experts in both countries say the sheer scale of the Great Barrier Reef roughly the size of Italy, or the length of the U.S. eastern seaboard makes coral engineering a far more challenging task there. The experts warn that techniques being pioneered in the United States might not be directly applicable in Australia. And while the Caribbean system only hosts a handful of coral species making the ecosystem generally less resilient the Great Barrier Reef has over 100 species. But Mumby said coral experts in the Florida Keys contributed valuable insight to a $6 million Australian research project on the biology, ethics and feasibility of large-scale coral restoration efforts. The findings of that research were recently reported to Australias federal government, which will decide how much of $100 million in principle funding to allocate to further coral restoration efforts. Florida-based scientists shared their findings at the Townsville workshop on the genetics of coral under stress, examining what makes for resiliency on a biological level. A 2017 conference in Australia attended by prominent American scientists led to a much closer working relationship between the two countries, according to Tom Moore, the coral reef restoration program manager at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Theres always been great collaboration between NOAA and Australia, but historically, folks in Australia werent working on restoration as much as traditional management, Moore said. Theyre a little bit late to the game, but they come to it very well prepared and resourced and fully engaged. While roughly a third of all corals on the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef system in the world, have bleached or died in the past decade, Moore says that 90-95 per cent of corals on the Florida Reef are already dead. Manual work in a gardening-like way wont cut it on an ecosystem level were working together to figure out an industrial-scale effort, Moore added. Were working on assisted evolution methods to create coral thats more resilient to more hostile oceans, to warmer oceans, and to diseases. At the Agincourt ribbon reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef system off the coast of Port Douglas, healthy and vibrant coral were still visible to tourists. The largest share of Queenslands economy comes from tourism according to state data the reef draws two million visitors a year and brings in $6 billion in tourism dollars. Tourism operators, in both Australia and Florida, have been slow to acknowledge threats to the reef out of fear they will scare away visitors. Were not going to sugar-coat it the reef is under threat, and something needs to be done, said Greg Hoare, a chief marine biologist for Quicksilver, one of Queenslands leading tourism operators. If we suppress the idea that the reef is under threat or imperiled, people will walk away from the day thinking, Wow, that was beautiful, but they wont have that sort of urge to help conserve what they saw for future generations. Hoare said Quicksilver is conducting experiments at its reef sites with the approval of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park focused on rehabilitation, and acknowledged that Australia had only recently shifted its focus to restorative efforts. In one experiment, the team is operating a control site with coral growing along a meshed device at its own rate. At another nearby, in similar temperatures, they are growing coral on mesh housing pulsing with electrical currents that are meant to increase the growth rate threefold. Weve fragmented colonies of corals that have already shown resilience, Hoare continued. Weve isolated areas that have shown resilience and are working to aid the corals in their growth. Across the marine biology community, focus has shifted toward perfecting resiliency efforts that can be scaled up to meet the size and scope of the challenge ahead. Moore says that these assisted evolution methods are the worlds best chance to save these ecosystems, home to one quarter of all marine life. Mumby says that a formalized relationship between the two countries national science foundations would appropriately elevate their strong working ties. Theyve been able to come to the table with a lot more resources, and we will benefit from the work theyre doing, Moore said of the Australians. Reefs of the future are going to be different than today we have to accept that. We wont win the fight everywhere. But well succeed in some places, with help. Read more about: BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that Europe needs to reposition itself in a changing world and is welcoming European powers unity over Iran, a contrast with their deep divisions over the Iraq war 16 years ago. Merkel said in an interview with Germanys daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung released Wednesday that Europe needs forward-looking arguments and stressed that simply pointing to seven decades of peace is no longer enough to justify Europe. Before European Parliament elections May 23-26, she said there is no doubt that Europe needs to reposition itself in a changed world, in which some post-World War II certainties no longer hold. Merkel acknowledged that Europe appears weak in the standoff over Iran because, with the dollars role as a leading global currency, it struggles to counter U.S. sanctions as it tries to salvage the nuclear deal with Tehran. But she said that Europe has also made progress. Germany, France and Britain are taking a different approach from the U.S. on the question of the Iran agreement, she was quoted as saying. For all our other differences, we even have common interests here with Russia and China. That Europe is no longer divided on this important question as it was in the Iraq war is a value in itself, Merkel added. Germany and France opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003, while countries including Britain and Poland supported Washington. However, she added that Europe has a realistic assessment of its capabilities and must strengthen them for the future. She said it is making good progress on defenceco-operation. Asked what effect global challenges from China, Russia and the U.S. are having on Europe, she said that they are making the EU find common positions, which is often difficult but we succeed for instance in policy on Ukraine and Africa. She conceded that our political strength doesnt yet match our economic capabilities. Next weeks EU elections are expected to boost populist parties at the expense of the political centre. Asked how much populism the 28-nation EU can take before it collapses, Merkel said that this is indeed a time when we have to fight for our principles and fundamental values. European leaders will decide how far to let populism go, or whether we ultimately have the will to take on joint responsibility. So far, we have always managed to do so, she added. So as not to endanger Europe, she said, everyone needs to put themselves in others shoes, to be willing to compromise, remain honest and always treat each other carefully. MADRID - Spanish police say they have arrested 11 people suspected of forming part of a human trafficking ring transporting migrants across the Mediterranean Sea in small boats unfit for the open water. Police said Wednesday that the suspects recruited Moroccan adults and minors seeking to reach Europe. Police said the migrants had to each pay 3,500-6,500 euros ($3,922-$7,284) to be packed into a small dingy without any safety measures. Once in Spain, police say, the migrants were taken to safe houses run by the trafficking ring where they were forcibly kept until the payment of another 1,000 euros. After paying, they were given clothes, a mobile phone and a bus ticket to another destination in Spain or Europe. Spain has become the biggest entry point for unauthorized migration to Europe. WARSAW, Poland - Polands prime minister on Wednesday condemned what he described as a xenophobic act of aggression on the countrys ambassador to Israel, who was spat at and verbally abused on a Tel Aviv street at a time of rising tensions between the two nations. Israeli officials expressed shock at the assault on Marek Magierowski on Tuesday afternoon and were investigating the incident. Israeli police said they had detained and released a 65-year-old man suspected of approaching the ambassador, who was sitting in his car in front of the Polish Embassy, and spitting at him. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the suspect remained under house arrest until Thursday and is not permitted to be in the area of the Polish Embassy for 30 days. The incident comes amid a bitter standoff between Poland and Israel over how to remember the Holocaust and over demands that Poland pay reparations for former Jewish properties that were seized by Nazi Germany during World War II and later nationalized by Polands communist regime. Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari was summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw on Wednesday over the incident. Michal Dworczyk, the head of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieckis office, said the Polish government expects the perpetrator to be punished. Morawiecki expressed his concern at what he described as a racist attack. Poland strongly condemns this xenophobic act of aggression. Violence against diplomats or any other citizens should never be tolerated, Morawiecki said. The New York-based American Jewish Committee said it was stunned by the attack. Violence against a diplomat is totally unacceptable, CEO David Harris said, calling the attack outrageous. Harris stressed the role of dialogue as a way of addressing any disagreements and reinforcing the longstanding, strong, and mutually beneficial Israel-Poland relationship. The U.S. ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, tweeted her support for Magierowski, condemned the attack and expressed an expectation that the assailant would be brought to justice. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said the assault was being investigated and that we will update our Polish friends on what is found. Israel expresses its full sympathy with the Polish ambassador and shock at the attack, Nahshon said. This is a top priority to us, as we are fully committed to diplomats safety and security. Ties between the two countries became strained in January 2018 when Poland passed a law that criminalized blaming the Polish nation for the crimes of Nazi Germany during World War II. Polands conservative nationalist government described it as an effort to end linguistic formulations, such as Polish death camps, to refer to the death camps that Germans operated on occupied Polish territory during the war. However, many people in Israel felt it was an attempt by the Polish government to repress debate and scholarship looking at the cases of those Poles who helped the Nazis in killing Jews during the occupation, and even after the war ended. The law was softened but bad feelings have continued to simmer, with tensions coming to the surface from time to time. Earlier this week, the Polish government cancelled a visit by an Israeli delegation, saying the Israeli government made last-minute changes that suggested it would focus on the issue of the restitution of former Jewish property. The Polish government insists that the matter is closed and that because it lost so much in the war it will pay nothing. ____ Heller reported from Jerusalem. BEIRUT - A Lebanese man held in the United Arab Emirates on charges of links to the militant Hezbollah group has been sentenced to life in prison, while five others were ordered released, a relative said Wednesday. Abdulrahman Chouman, 39, was on trial with seven other Lebanese men, all Shiite and long-time residents of the Emirates. They had been in detention for over a year. Most of them worked for the government-owned Emirates Airlines. Chouman trained airline staff and local police on safety, security and anti-terrorism measures. The relative, speaking from Lebanon, said two others were sentenced to 10 years. They included a relative of Chouman. Five others were ordered released. Choumans relative said he has 30 days to appeal the sentence. There was no immediate word from Emirati officials. The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, has joined the United States in slapping sanctions on Hezbollahs senior leadership, part of an effort to crack down on the group, a major ally of Iran. The relative said Chouman, a resident of the Emirates for 15 years, was charged with being one of the leaders of a terrorist cell with links to Lebanons Hezbollah group. Chouman was no longer held in solitary confinement after spending most of his detention period there. The relative said Chouman has been denied access to his lawyer, echoing rights groups complaints that the men had been poorly treated during their detention. New York-based Human Rights Watch had said the trial was marred with violations and irregularities, including brief hearings closed to the public and lack of access to defence lawyers. Hiba Zayadin, a Gulf researcher for HRW, said it was not clear what evidence the UAE authorities had on the men. She said four defendants had no access to defence lawyers throughout the trial. Zayadin said two of the men told the judge during the last hearing before the sentencing that they were tortured and forced to sign confessions while blindfolded. Their claims were not investigated or independently verified, she said. It is appalling that the UAE would sentence a young man to life in prison and two others to 10 years following a trial dogged with allegations of torture and forced confessions, Zayadin said. While it invests considerably in depicting itself as a progressive and tolerant state, the UAEs grossly unfair trials year after year show the countrys true colours. Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil had called on the Emirati authorities to release the eight in a message for the holy month of Ramadan earlier this month. We have all the proofs he is innocent, Choumans relative said. We need justice. BAGHDAD - The U.S. on Wednesday ordered all nonessential government staff to leave Iraq, and Germany and the Netherlands both suspended their military assistance programs in the country in the latest sign of tensions sweeping the Persian Gulf region over still-unspecified threats that the Trump administration says are linked to Iran. Recent days have seen allegations of sabotage targeting oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a drone attack by Yemens Iranian-allied Houthi rebels, and the dispatch of U.S. warships and bombers to the region. At the root of this appears to be President Donald Trumps decision a year ago to pull the U.S. from Irans nuclear deal with world powers, embarking on a maximalist sanctions campaign against Tehran. In response, Irans supreme leader issued a veiled threat Tuesday, saying it wouldnt be difficult for the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. The movement of diplomatic personnel is often done in times of conflict, but what is driving the decisions from the White House remains unclear. A high-ranking British general said there was no new threat from Iran or its regional proxies, something immediately rebutted by the U.S. militarys Central Command, which said its troops were on high alert, without elaborating. Last week, U.S. officials said they had detected signs of Iranian preparations for potential attacks on U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East, but Washington has not spelled out that threat. An alert on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said all nonessential, nonemergency U.S. government staff were ordered to leave Iraq right away under State Department orders. That includes those working at the U.S. Consulate in Irbil. The U.S. Consulate in Basra has been closed since September following a rocket attack blamed on Iranian-backed militias. The U.S. in recent days has ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf region, plus four B-52 bombers. Germanys military said it was suspending training of Iraqi soldiers due to the tensions, although there was no specific threat to its own troops in Iraq. Defence Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said Germany was orienting itself toward our partner countries though there are no concrete warnings of attacks against German targets. German Chancellor Angela Merkels spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer expressed concern over the tensions and said it welcomes any measure that is aimed at a peaceful solution. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said the German government has not reduced its embassy staff in Iraq or Iran. In the Netherlands, state broadcaster NOS said its 50-person military mission in Iraq was halted until further orders, quoting a Defence Ministry spokesman as saying he couldnt elaborate on the threats. It said the Dutch forces primarily train Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State militants. The remarks about Irans nuclear program by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came Tuesday night in Tehran at an iftar, the traditional dinner Muslims have when breaking their daily fast during Ramadan. Tehran is threatening to resume higher enrichment on July 7 if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. Achieving 20% enrichment is the most difficult part, Khamenei said, according to the newspaper. The next steps are easier than this step. It was a telling remark from the supreme leader Iran is not known to have enriched beyond 20% previously and its unclear how far Tehran is willing to go in this process. Khamenei has final say on all matters of state in Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif, speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, said Iran was committed to an international nuclear deal but the escalating U.S. sanctions were unacceptable. On Tuesday, Yemens Iran-aligned Houthi rebels launched a co-ordinated drone attack on a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, Tehrans biggest rival in the region. It was the latest incident to shake global energy markets, as authorities allege oil tankers anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were targeted by sabotage. Benchmark Brent crude rose to $72 a barrel in trading Wednesday, an increase of over 1%. Yemens Houthi rebels, who are at war with Saudi Arabia and are believed by the West to receive weapons from Iran, said they launched seven drones targeting vital Saudi installations. That included two pumping stations along its critical East-West Pipeline, which can carry nearly 5 million barrels of crude a day to the Red Sea. Anwar Gargash, the minister of foreign affairs for the United Arab Emirates, told reporters in Dubai that the Saudi-led coalition will retaliate hard for attacks on civilian targets, without elaborating. Saudi Aramco, the government-controlled oil company, said it temporarily shut down the pipeline and contained a fire, which caused minor damage to one pumping station. It added that Saudi Aramcos oil and gas supplies were unaffected. An image from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that The Associated Press examined Wednesday shows Saudi Aramcos Pumping Station No. 8 outside of the town of al-Duadmi, 330 kilometres (205 miles) west of the kingdoms capital, Riyadh. The photo, taken after the attack, shows two black marks near where the East-West Pipeline passes by the facility marks that werent in images from Monday. The facility otherwise appeared intact, corroborating in part Saudi Arabias earlier comments. The website TankerTrackers.com, whose analysts monitor oil sales on the seas, first reported about the black marks. Details remain unclear around alleged acts of sabotage to four oil tankers, including two belonging to Saudi Arabia, off the coast of the UAEs port of Fujairah. Satellite images seen by the AP from Colorado-based Maxar Technologies showed no visible damage to the vessels, and Gulf officials have refused to say who might be responsible. The MT Andrea Victory, one of the alleged targets, sustained a hole in its hull just above its waterline from an unknown object, its owner Thome Ship Management said in a statement. Images of the Norwegian ship, which the company said was not in any danger of sinking, showed damage similar to what the firm described. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, has said the other three showed damage as well. Gargash said an investigation into the alleged ship sabotage would be completed in the coming days, with assistance from American and French investigators. He declined to directly blame Iran for the attack, though he repeatedly criticized Iran. We have been bullied by Iran, he said. We have seen aggressive Iranian action in the region. He added that U.S. sanctions had bit deeply into Iran and that a political solution was necessary. Asked what could be done to encourage one, Gargash quipped: I know they have President Trumps phone number. ___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Angela Charlton in Paris, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. Lab Supervisor Job 2019 in Islamabad Latest Nestle Pakistan Manufacturing Posts Islamabad 2021 Nestle Waters, part of Nestle Pakistan requires the services of well educated and experienced candidates for the position of Lab Supervisor in Islamabad Pakistan 2019. How to Apply on Nestle Pakistan 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. BEIRUT - The U.S.-backed Syrian forces battling the Islamic State group in eastern Syria say they have launched a campaign to clear a restive Arab village of militant sleeper cells. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces says the campaign launched Wednesday targeted insurgent hideouts in the desert area around Shheil village, arresting 20, and discovering at least two tunnels, ammunition and weapons. The village was one of a number that rose up in protest against the SDFs hold on power in eastern Syrias Arab-dominated Deir el-Zour province. The first fatality in the protests was also in Shheil, threatening to deepen tensions that have challenged the U.S. and its local partners. Since seizing ISs last territory in March, the SDF has been fighting expansive sleeper cells amid rising Arab discontent at Kurdish control. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The latest on developments in the Persian Gulf region and elsewhere in Mideast amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran (all times local): 7 a.m. Irans foreign minister says his country is committed to an international nuclear deal and criticized escalating U.S. sanctions unacceptable as he met with Japanese officials in Tokyo amid rising tensions in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif told his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono that his countrys response to the U.S. actions is within the deal and Irans rights. Iran recently threatened to resume higher enrichment in 60 days if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the level permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. The U.S. pulled out of the deal last year. Kono expressed concern over the rising tension in the Middle East, and urged Zarif to use restraint and keep implementing the nuclear agreement. ___ 2:15 a.m. The governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Norway are formally notifying the United Nations that four commercial ships were targeted and at least three of them damaged in the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday. In a joint statement, the governments say the incident posed a threat to the safety and security of international shipping and maritime navigation. It says no one was injured, but the hulls of at least three of the four ships were damaged. Details about the reported acts of sabotage off the UAEs port of Fujairah remain unclear. The joint statement by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Norway does not say who they suspect was responsible. It says the three countries are working with international partners to investigate. ___ 9:45 p.m. A top UAE diplomat says the coalition will retaliate hard over attacks on civilian targets after the Yemen rebels drone attack on a Saudi pipeline. Anwar Gargash, the UAEs minister of state for foreign affairs, made the comment Wednesday while speaking to journalists in Dubai. Gargash said: We will also retaliate and retaliate hard when we see the Houthis hit civilian targets within Saudi Arabia. However, Gargash also said that the UAE believed a United Nations-brokered agreement on the port city of Hodeida represented the best option for finding a political solution to the yearslong war. Gargash said: Its a window, it may not be wide enough, but it is a window we have to work with. __ 9:35 p.m. A top Emirati diplomat says the UAE is very committed to de-escalation after the alleged sabotage of oil tankers. Anwar Gargash, the UAEs minister of state for foreign affairs, made the comment Wednesday while speaking to journalists in Dubai. Though declining to name a suspect in the alleged sabotage, Gargash says Iranian behaviour is at the centre of regional problems. We have been bullied by Iran, we have seen aggressive Iranian action in the region, he said. ___ 8:50 p.m. Oman says regional and international efforts should be aimed at avoiding jeopardizing the security of the region after four oil tankers were subjected to alleged acts of sabotage earlier this week. Omans Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the Sultanate, located on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, expresses its deep regret and rejection of these irresponsible incidents. Neighbouring United Arab Emirates has so far issued only a vague statement alleging four ships were subjected to sabotage operations on Sunday off the coast of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman. In its statement carried in state-run local media, Oman says it stresses the importance of regional and international efforts to ensure the safety of maritime navigation and the avoidance of any causes that may jeopardize the security and stability of the region. Oman, largely seen as a neutral player in the region, is a U.S. ally that has in the past facilitated negotiations between the United States and Iran. ___ 7:15 p.m. The Czech Defence Ministry says the countrys military is continuing with its training operations in Iraq. The ministry also says it has taken adequate measures due to a worsened security situation. No details were immediately given. The Czech presence in Iraq includes a chemical unit, military police and air force instructors. There are currently 60 Czech service members in Iraq. The ministrys announcement on Wednesday came after the German and Dutch governments suspended training of Iraqi soldiers due to tensions in the region between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-essential government staff to leave Iraq right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. ___ 6:35 p.m. U.S. embassies in Lebanon, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates are warning American citizens of heightened tensions in the region amid escalation with Iran. In advisories issued Wednesday, the embassies advised Americans to maintain a high level of vigilance and keep a low profile. The embassy in the central Asian nation of Turkmenistan, on Irans northeast borders, issued similar warnings. The advisories followed an earlier alert out of Iraq ordering non-essential staff to leave the country. Tensions have been quickly rising between Iran and the United States, which has said last week it detected new and urgent threats from Tehran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans. Two Saudi pumping stations and two of its oil tankers off the coast of the Emirates came under attack this week. ___ 6:30 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he has been urging Irans leadership to stick to the nuclear deal, despite the U.S. withdrawal from it. Putin, who was meeting Austrias president in Russias Sochi, told reporters on Wednesday that the 2015 nuclear accords are coming apart but that he has been advising Iranian leaders to adhere to them no matter what the United States does. The Russian leader said that after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran deal with world powers, Europe cant do anything to save it and that if Iran begins to backtrack on its commitments, everyone will end up blaming it all on Iran. Putin said Russia was glad to help mediate the deal and would be willing to help in the future but he added that Russia is not a rescue squad and cannot fix everything that doesnt depend on us entirely. ___ 6:25 p.m. Germanys foreign minister says European allies made clear to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier this week that they dont consider unilateral maximum pressure against Iran an effective strategy. Heiko Maas addressed German lawmakers on Wednesday, two days after he and his British and French colleagues met Pompeo in Brussels. He reiterated the European argument that dialogue with Iran helps to keep up pressure on concerns about issues that go beyond its nuclear program. He said: We dont think, and we made this very clear to Pompeo on Monday, that a unilateral strategy of maximum pressure really takes us further. Maas added that maximum pressure always carries the risk of an unintended escalation, and what has happened in recent days acts of sabotage against ships or pipelines are indications that these dangers are concrete and real. ___ 5:40 p.m. The Netherlands has suspended its military training mission in Iraq because of a security threat. State broadcaster NOS said Wednesday the 50-person mission is halted until further orders. It quoted a Defence Ministry spokesman as saying he couldnt elaborate on the threats. It said the Dutch forces are primarily training Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State group in the region. The Dutch Defence Ministry did not immediately comment. The announcement came soon after the German government suspended training of Iraqi soldiers due to tensions in the region between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-essential government staff to leave Iraq right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. ___ 4:30 p.m. The German government has expressed concern about the tensions in the Mideast between the U.S. and Iran, warning of a military escalation and saying it supports all measures for a peaceful solution. Chancellor Angela Merkels spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said on Wednesday that, obviously, we are watching the increasing tensions in the region with big concern and welcome any measure that is aimed at a peaceful solution. Demmer added that the government condemns all acts that escalate the situation in the region further. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said despite the tension, the German government has not reduced its staff at the embassies in Iraq and Iran. Earlier Wednesday, Germanys military said it suspended training of Iraqi soldiers due to the tensions, though there was no indication of any specific threat to its own troops in Iraq. ___ 3:35 p.m. The German government says the countrys military has suspended training of Iraqi soldiers due to tensions in the region between the U.S. and Iran but has no indication of any specific threat to its own troops. The announcement came shortly after the U.S. State Department on Wednesday ordered all non-essential government staff to leave Iraq right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. German Defence Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff says that Germany is orienting itself toward our partner countries, which have taken this step. But he stressed that there is no concrete threat and the decision is down to the security situation in general being viewed as more tense. Germany currently has about 160 German soldiers in Iraq as part of the fight against the Islamic State group, about 60 of them at a base north of Baghdad where Iraqi forces are being trained. Flosdorff said that training could in principle resume within days. ___ 2:20 p.m. The Kremlins spokesman says U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo didnt offer President Vladimir Putin any reassurances or ease Moscows concerns over the ongoing crisis between the United States and Iran. Pompeo met with Putin on Tuesday in Russias resort of Sochi where he sought to alleviate some of the concerns about the spiraling tensions but made clear the U.S. would respond to any attacks on American targets. Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that Moscow is concerned over mounting tensions and defended Irans actions as a legitimate response to the U.S. decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran has given European countries a 60-day deadline to negotiate a new nuclear deal Tehran or it would start enriching uranium to higher levels than outlined in the current agreement. This item has been corrected to show that Pompeo and Putin met on Tuesday, not Monday; ___ 12: 15 p.m. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq says the State Department has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away amid escalating tensions with Iran. The alert, published on the embassys website on Wednesday, comes after Washington last week said it had detected new and urgent threats from Iran and its proxy forces in the region targeting Americans and American interests. On Sunday, the embassy advised Americans to avoid travel to Iraq, citing heightened tensions. ___ 10:30 a.m. Irans supreme leader claims that enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels would not be a difficult task for the country the latest threats from Tehran as tensions roil the region amid the unraveling of the nuclear deal. State-owned IRAN daily quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as telling a group of officials during a meeting on Tuesday night that achieving 20 per cent enrichment is the most difficult part. The next steps are easier than this step. Iran recently threatened to resume higher enrichment in 60 days if no new nuclear deal is in place, beyond the 3.67% permitted by the current deal between Tehran and world powers. The Trump administration pulled America out of the deal last year. Iranian officials have said that they could reach 20% enrichment within four days. Though Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, scientists say the time needed to reach the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium is halved once uranium is enriched to around 20%. ___ 10:10 a.m. A satellite image obtained by The Associated Press shows one of the two pumping stations attacked by drones in Saudi Arabia apparently intact. The image from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc. that the AP examined on Wednesday shows Saudi Aramcos Pumping Station No. 8 outside of the town of al-Duadmi. Its 330 kilometres, or 205 miles, west of the capital, Riyadh. The photo, taken Tuesday after the attack claimed by Yemens Houthi rebels, shows two black marks near where Saudi Arabias East-West Pipeline passes by the facility. Those marks werent there in images taken Monday. The facility otherwise appears intact. The attack came as regional tensions flared, just days after what the kingdom called an attack on two of its oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. BEIRUT - A senior U.S. official who has been mediating the maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon met with Lebanese officials Wednesday for a second day, signalling a new push to resolve the matter. Israel and Lebanon both claim some 860 square kilometres (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon hopes to unleash offshore oil and gas production as it grapples with an economic crisis. Washington is mediating between the two countries, which have been officially at war since Israels creation in 1948. Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield met Wednesday with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. He also met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri for a second time on the visit. Satterfield made no comments to the press. Israel and Lebanon also disagree over their land borders. The U.S. had asked the Lebanese for a unified position, signalling that some in the country were ready to separate the two issues. Aoun said he informed Satterfield that Lebanon believes demarcating the maritime and land borders reinforces stability in the area and urged Washington to help while respecting his countrys frontiers and right to explore for oil and gas. Speaking to lawmakers after the meeting, Berri described the meeting as positive and said it would be followed up. He said things are moving in the right direction because of the Lebanese unified position that protects maritime and land borders, according to his remarks published in the state National News Agency. A week before Satterfields visit, Aoun presented the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon with what he called a unified stance regarding the demarcation of the borders between Lebanon and Israel. Berri had told the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon that the government is ready to establish the maritime border and special economic zone with Israel similar to the one used to demarcate the land border between the two countries after Israels withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Lebanon is expected to begin drilling for oil and gas by the end of the year off the coast north of Beirut, and in the block near the disputed area with Israel a year later. A consortium of French Total, Italian Eni and Russian Novatek will handle exploration there. A second round of bidding for exploration was approved last month. An agreement over maritime borders would ensure such exploration remains on track. LITTLETON, Colo. - A student who helped thwart a shooting at a suburban Denver high school says he was still pinning one of the attackers down when he decided to call one of the most important people in his life his mother. Joshua Jones, an 18-year-old senior at STEM School Highlands Ranch, said during a news conference Tuesday he was watching The Princess Bride in his British literature class when a classmate pulled a gun and told everyone to stay still. Jones said he was acting on instinct when he, Kendrick Castillo and Brendan Bialy subdued one of two students who attacked the school south of Denver on May 7. Castillo was killed, and Jones was shot twice in one leg but said he is recovering quickly. There wasnt a whole lot that was going through my mind at the time. Adrenaline and tunnel vision are a crazy thing, said Jones, who described himself as just a normal teenage kid. They make it so that you dont really focus on anything but whats right in front of your face at that moment. He did, however, have the presence of mind to call his mom. She always has been a problem solver for me, he said, adding that she told him not to worry. It was a pretty quick conversation. It was really just something like, Hey, Mom. Theres been a school shooting. Ive been involved. The authorities are on the way. Theyre going to get an ambulance and Im going to go to the hospital. Thats all I got right now for you. The second shooter was captured by an armed security guard. Authorities have said these acts of bravery helped minimize the bloodshed from the attack, which also wounded eight students, all of whom have since been released from the hospital. Were going to hear about very heroic things that have taken place at the school, Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said shortly after the shooting. Devon Erickson, 18, and 16-year-old Alec McKinney, who is listed in court records as Maya, are accused of walking into the school through an entrance without metal detectors and opening fire in two classrooms. Investigators have not offered a motive and declined to say how the students got the handguns that were used in the attack. The two are being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, and prosecutors are expected to reveal Wednesday if they are going to charge McKinney as an adult. Colorado law allows prosecutors to file adult charges of serious felonies against 16- and 17-year-olds without prior approval from a judge. Jones declined to talk about the shooters Tuesday, instead focusing on Castillo and his own physical and emotional recovery. He said he is still in a bit of a funk emotionally ... but physically, Im recovering incredibly well. Im healing fast. I mean, Im a young kid. The shooting happened nearly three weeks after the neighbouring town of Littleton marked the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School attack that killed 13 people. The two schools are separated by about 7 miles (11 kilometres) south of Denver. NORFOLK, Va. - A U.S. Navy SEAL is expected to formally accept a plea deal on Thursday for his role in the 2017 strangulation death of a U.S. Army Green Beret in Africa. Navy SEAL Adam Matthews is one for four U.S. service members charged with murder and related counts in the death of Army Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar, a Texas native. The five men were stationed in the African country of Mali. Charging documents describe a situation in which some of the nations most elite military personnel including two members of the famed SEAL Team Six broke into Melgars bedroom while he was sleeping, bound him with duct tape and put him into a choke hold. A special court martial hearing for Matthews is scheduled for Thursday at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. It could offer new details about what happened that night. Publicly released charging documents have not revealed a specific motive. Matthews attorney, Grover Baxley, said Matthews will plead guilty to hazing, assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Charges of murder and involuntary manslaughter will be dropped, Baxley said. Baxley said that Melgars death was an unforeseen accident that has dramatically impacted the lives of everyone involved. The attorney added that Matthews will take full responsibility for his role in the incident and help the Navy to resolve the case. He looks forward to detailing what happened that night in Mali almost 2 years ago, and hopes that his explanation of events will assist the Melgar family in finding some semblance of closure, Baxley said in a statement. Melgar was a native of Lubbock, Texas. He had deployed to Afghanistan twice before his death in Bamako, Mali, in June 2017, Army officials said. The two Marines charged in the case are listed as being part of Special Operations Command. The SEALs belong to the Navy Special Warfare Development Group. The unit is better known as SEAL Team 6, which participated in the May 2011 raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden at his compound. WASHINGTON - Lawmakers from both parties in Congress demanded more information on the White Houses claims of rising threats in the Middle East, warning President Donald Trump off a dangerous escalation with Iran. The top leaders in Congress the so-called Gang of Eight are to receive a classified briefing from the administration on Thursday. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the White House has resisted a wider presentation for all lawmakers, part of what Democrats say is a pattern of stonewalling. Some Republicans, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, sought out their own briefings as the administration called U.S. personnel home from Iraq and sent military might to the Persian Gulf, claiming unspecified threats linked to Iran. Pelosi said Trump has no business moving toward a Middle East confrontation without approval from Congress. We have to avoid any war with Iran, she told fellow Democrats in a meeting, according to a person in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss comments from the private gathering. On Wednesday, the U.S. ordered all nonessential personnel to leave Iraq, and last week an aircraft carrier group and other resources were shifted to the Persian Gulf region. In public and in private, officials are sticking by the administrations warnings of serious threats from Iranian-backed forces in the region, yet they reject the idea that the U.S. moves are a prelude to war. Trump himself denied a report Tuesday that the administration had reviewed a plan to send 120,000 troops. Still, the actions are exposing skepticism in the U.S. and among foreign allies, a legacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was based on false intelligence. U.S. officials have not publicly provided any evidence to back up claims of an increased Iranian threat. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media during a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in the Oval Office on May 13, 2019 in Washington, DC. Tensions have been rising in the Persian Gulf region over unspecified threats the Trump administration says are linked to Iran. Congress has not authorized war with Iran, and the administration, if it were contemplating military action with Iran, must come to Congress to seek approval, said Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said he had never seen anything like the non-answers coming from the administration. Republicans and even some Democrats who have been briefed said the threats are legitimate. The chairman of Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, said that based on the information he received he supports the administration actions, including the repositioning of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to the Gulf. The threat is real, said Democrat Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But, he said, The administration is doing a dreadful job of consulting with Congress and keeping the vast majority of members of Congress informed about whats happening. And Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said the information hes seen shows by far the single most imminent potential conflict of this significance in his eight years in Congress. He said, The intelligence is unmistakable and clear, and its backed by observable movement on the ground. Still, Romney expressed support for the Senate Democrats request for more information in a classified briefing, and Risch said a broader briefing for senators, perhaps next week, was in the works. Romney said its inconceivable that Trump would start a conflict with Iran. Theres no appetite for going to war in the Middle East, he told reporters. State Department officials said threats in the region were credible and based on intelligence showing Iranian-backed militias had been moving personnel and weaponry as well as stepping up surveillance of U.S. and U.S.-affiliated facilities in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. The officials were not authorized to comment publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity. They pushed back against speculation that the decision to bring nonessential personnel home from Iraq was a prelude to military conflict. There is no U.S. desire for war, said one official, who had returned earlier Wednesday from Europe with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Several Democrats pinned the sudden moves in part on national security adviser John Bolton, known for his hawkish views. Some have suggested Pompeo and Bolton dont see eye-to-eye on the U.S. strategy, and Trump found it necessary to comment on that. There is no infighting whatsoever, he tweeted Wednesday. All sides, views, and policies are covered, and he reserves the decisive and final decision, he said. Im sure that Iran will want to talk soon, he said, without elaboration. Earlier this year, Congress forced Trump into the first veto of his administration over a resolution that passed the House and Senate to halt U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee said, The people inside the administration who are trying to start a war know that if they have this conversation in an open and transparent way, there will be very substantial pushback from both parties and both houses of Congress. Republican Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who is a former CIA officer, said the administrations information on Iran is highly sensitive and by nature cannot be shared with a wide audience. When you get such credible intelligence that leads to major decisions like rerouting aircraft carriers, its important that the way the information is collected is not damaged, Hurd said. You need to protect sources and methods. Pelosi warned that the administration cannot rely on the most recent use-of-force authorization approved by Congress nearly 20 years ago for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have no business declaring a war without the consent of Congress, she said. Since last week, House leaders have been asking for a classified session for lawmakers on the situation with Iran, but Pelosi said the administration indicated it couldnt come together that fast. An administration official said they have no plans for a wider briefing at this point. The bigger problem is, so what if you get a briefing? said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who raised broader questions of Trumps foreign policy. What does my briefing mean if he comes out and tweets something? ___ Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Lee, Padmananda Rama, Laurie Kellman and Zeke J. Miller contributed to this report. WASHINGTON - The acting chief of the Federal Aviation Administration defended his agencys safety certification of the Boeing 737 Max jetliner, the plane involved in two deadly crashes, and the FAAs decision not to ground the jet until other regulators around the world had already done so. During a congressional hearing Wednesday, the FAA official, Daniel Elwell, also stood by the agencys decades-old policy of using employees of aircraft manufacturers like Boeing to conduct inspections on their own companies work. Boeing is updating an automated flight-control system that has been implicated in the two crashes involving the 737 Max. Elwell said he expects Boeing to complete its work in the next week or so, after which the FAA will analyze the software changes and conduct test flights. In the U.S., the 737 Max will return to service only when the FAAs analysis of the facts and technical data indicate that it is safe to do so, Elwell said. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee held a short hearing for President Donald Trumps choice to take over the FAA: Stephen Dickson, a former Delta Air Lines pilot and executive. During the two-hour questioning of Elwell by the House aviation subcommittee, lawmakers pressed him on the FAAs reliance on designated Boeing employees during the planes certification process. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., told Elwell that the public believes you were in bed with those you were supposed to be regulating, and thats why it took so long to ground the planes. The FAA has a credibility problem, declared the subcommittee chairman, Rick Larsen, D-Wash. The 737 Max is Boeings bestselling plane and it is built in his home state of Washington. Larsen said Congress must help make the public feel safe about flying because if they dont fly, airlines dont need to buy airplanes, and then there will be no jobs in aircraft manufacturing. Other lawmakers defended the FAA and Boeing and suggested that the Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air jet off Indonesia and the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max were due at least partly to pilot error. A total of 346 people were killed in the crashes. It bothers me that we continue to tear down our system based on what has happened in two other countries, said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo. Boeing is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Boeing customers Southwest Airlines and American Airlines and their pilot unions have received subpoenas related to that investigation; United Airlines, which also flew the Max until it was grounded in March, declined to comment, although its pilot union confirmed that it too has received a subpoena. Congressional investigations into the FAAs relationship with Boeing are in the early stages. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who heads the full Transportation Committee, said he and Larsen have been frustrated after seeking information from Boeing. Boeing has yet to provide a single document, he said. Weve got to get to the bottom of this. Elwell defended FAAs practice of designating employees of Boeing and other aerospace manufacturers to do some inspection work, saying it takes advantage of industry expertise, and when done right, is indispensable to the health and safety of our system. At a Senate hearing in March, Elwell said it would cost $1.8 billion a year if FAA did all the work done by designees at companies regulated by the agency. On Wednesday, the acting chief defended the FAAs 2017 approval of the Max including its new automated flight-control system that can push the nose of the plane down if a single sensor detects that the plane could be nearing an aerodynamic stall. That system, called MCAS, was triggered on both fatal flights by faulty sensor readings, and pilots were not able to regain control of the planes as they plunged to Earth. Airlines and pilots were not told about MCAS until after the October crash. When I first heard of this, (I) thought that the MCAS should have been more adequately explained in the ops manual and the flight manual, Elwell said. Boeing is changing MCAS to make it less powerful, and to link the system to two sensors instead of one. And it will include more explanation of the system, Elwell said, to make pilots more aware and respond better to an anomaly. American Airlines pilots pressed Boeing in November shortly after the first Max crash to fix the software quickly. We dont want to rush and do a crappy job of fixing things, a Boeing official responded, according to a recording of the meeting. We also dont want to fix the wrong things. The Boeing representative called the Lion Air crash a tragedy, adding, an even worse thing would be another one. He promised a software update in six weeks. The update was still not done when the Ethiopian crash occurred more than three months later. Boeing did not treat the 737 Max 8 situation like the emergency it was, said Daniel Carey, president of the American Airlines pilots union, which has filed public records related to the matter. Carey said his pilots are seeking proper oversight of Boeing, the FAA and airlines including their own. Boeing representatives were not invited to Wednesdays hearing. Nadia Milleron, whose daughter, Samya Stumo, was on the Ethiopian Airlines plane, was in the audience. She said FAA seems to be rushing to approve Boeings fixes to the Max even before the accident investigations are finished something that could take many months. It is possible that these planes should never go back in the air, she said. Milleron, whose family is suing Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines, said travellers hold the final power to ground the plane. The only thing that is going to stop this is the public, Milleron said in an interview. If the public is concerned and if the Boeing 737 Max 8 ... becomes toxic ... thats going to make a change. Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Commerce Committee held a relatively placid hearing for Dickson, the nominee to replace Elwell, FAAs acting administrator since January 2018. Dickson promised that if he is confirmed by the full Senate, he would not hesitate to take enforcement action against companies and FAA would not be captive to the industry it regulates. U.S. aviation has an enviable safety record over the past decade, Dickson said, but the industry is only as good as the last takeoff or landing. ___ Koenig reported from Dallas, Krisher from Detroit. BELLEFONTE, Pa. - A judge is letting another former Penn State fraternity member serve his sentence on home confinement instead of in jail in the 2017 death of a pledge. Former Beta Theta Pi member Luke Visser was resentenced Wednesday to 45 days of home confinement and six months of probation, instead of two months to six months in jail. Centre County Judge Brian Marshall resentenced two other former Beta Theta Pi members last month, changing their jail sentences to home confinement. Visser pleaded guilty to hazing charges surrounding the 2017 death of sophomore engineering major Tim Piazza of New Jersey. Twenty-eight members of the now-shuttered fraternity have faced charges. Most pleaded guilty to hazing- and alcohol-related counts and received probation and community service. The case prompted Pennsylvania to rewrite its anti-hazing law. ATLANTA - Gov. Brian Kemp called for the resignation of Georgias insurance commissioner Wednesday after he was indicted on federal charges of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering that stem from alleged crimes that preceded his election. Kemp, in a letter to fellow Republican Jim Beck, asked him to resign his post as the states Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner. Your indictment severely undermines your ability to fulfil your official obligations to the people of Georgia, Kemp wrote. I ask that you do what is right for our state and step down immediately. Becks attorney, William Bill Thomas, declined to comment on Kemps letter. Thomas has said previously his client is innocent and that he intends to remain in office as he fights the charges. Beck, 57, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the 38-count indictment that accuses him of devising an elaborate fraudulent invoicing scheme to defraud his employer out of more than $2 million over a five-year period just prior to his election in November. At that hearing, a judge imposed a $25,000 bond and said Beck cannot leave the state without permission and banned him from conducting business with his former employer, the Georgia Underwriters Association, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported . The charges relate to Becks time as general manager of operations for the GUA, which was created to provide high-risk property insurance to Georgia homeowners. He was elected by the GUA board of directors and served in that position from January 2012 until he was sworn in as insurance commissioner on Jan. 14 of this year. The indictment says Beck used the money for personal expenses and to fund personal investment, retirement and savings accounts, as well as his statewide election campaign. The indictment also says he used the funds to buy and improve personal rental property and for personal state and federal income taxes. Chris Hacker, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Atlanta, on Tuesday said the investigation began about 10 months ago, before Becks election as insurance commissioner, and was based on a referral from the Georgia inspector general. Evidence established the fact that Beck abused the trust of friends and his employer, GUA, in an elaborate scheme to enrich himself at GUAs expense, Hacker said. According to the Georgia Constitution, whether Beck is suspended from office while under indictment depends on whether the charges are determined to relate to the performance or activities of that office. MADISON, Wis. - A 13-year-old teenager who was held prisoner in a Wisconsin cabin for three months before escaping her abductor is being honoured by state lawmakers as a hometown hero. Jayme Closs appeared with family members and friends to receive her honour in the Assembly chamber on Wednesday. It was the most public appearance to date for Jayme, who escaped her kidnapper in January. Her aunt, Jen Smith, accepted the award and said Jaymes bravery and spirit are inspiring. Jayme stood behind her aunt but did not speak. The FBI also posted pictures on social media of Jayme in the Capitol posing with her award. Jake Patterson has pleaded guilty to kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents on Oct. 15. He faces life in prison when sentenced on May 24. 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BAYTOWN, Texas - In a story May 15 about the shooting of a Houston-area woman by a police officer, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Pamela Turner was shot in the parking lot of an east Houston department store and a rally was held there Wednesday. The demonstration was held in the parking lot of the Baytown apartment complex where Turner was shot. A corrected version of the story is below: Medical examiner: Police shooting of Texas woman a homicide A medical examiner has ruled the fatal shooting of a 44-year-old Houston-area woman by a police officer a homicide A medical examiner has ruled the fatal shooting of a 44-year-old Houston-area woman by a police officer a homicide. Online records show the Harris County Medical Examiners office found Pamela Turners death was caused by multiple gunshot wounds. Baytown police have said one of their officers shot Turner Monday night after she shocked him with his own Taser. On Wednesday, Police Chief Keith Dougherty announced that he had called in the Texas Rangers to conduct the investigation with the Harris County district attorney. He said he was calling in the elite Texas Department of Public Safety investigative unit to assure Pamela Turners family of a thorough, comprehensive investigation of her death. A video of the incident shows Turner and the officer struggling after he tries to arrest her. Something flashes as they grapple on the ground, and the officer is seen withdrawing and firing five shots. The medical examiners finding doesnt indicate a crime was committed. The Baytown Police Department continues with its internal affairs investigation of the actions of the officer, whose identity hasnt been revealed. Meanwhile, a group of demonstrators led by Houston rapper Trae Tha Truth rallied Wednesday in protest against the police shooting. The demonstration unfolded in the parking lot of the Baytown apartment complex where Turner lived and was shot. SAN FRANCISCO - Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. power lines sparked a Northern California blaze that killed 85 people last year, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century, state fire officials said Wednesday. Cal Fire said transmission lines owned and operated by the San Francisco-based utility started the Nov. 8 fire that nearly destroyed the town of Paradise in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The fire wiped out nearly 15,000 homes. Many of those killed were elderly or disabled. The oldest was 99. Investigators determined there were violations of law, Cal Fire deputy director Mike Mohler said. He said he hadnt read the report and didnt know the nature of the violations. Cal Fire did not release its full investigative report, saying it had been forwarded to the Butte County district attorneys office, which is considering criminal charges against the utility. The investigation also identified a second nearby ignition site involving PG&Es electrical distribution lines that had come into contact with vegetation. The second fire was quickly consumed by the initial fire. The disclosures came on the same day the utilitys new chief executive was testifying before a legislative committee in Sacramento. Bill Johnson told the state Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee he had expected the utility would be blamed for the fire. I have made the assumption when I got here that PG&E equipment caused the fire, he said, noting the utility had said that was probable in recent filings. Its a disappointment that this happened. Lets not do it again. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said in a statement that he is still weighing possible criminal charges against the utility, a decision that could take months. He called Cal Fires decision to forward its report to Butte County strictly symbolic. because it has been long known that PG&Es equipment caused the fire. State fire investigators have determined that PG&E caused 18 wildfires in 2017. They referred 12 for possible criminal prosecution. Attorney Mike Danko, who represents 2,000 victims of the fire, said he was encouraged by the fact that Cal Fire sent its latest report to the district attorney, which could mean it has evidence that the utility was negligent on safety issues. We know from our work that PG&E knew its towers in the area were corroded and were at risk of failing, Danko said. The utility, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, said in February it was probable that one of its transmission lines sparked the blaze. PG&E has estimated its total liability from the Paradise fire and 2017 wildfires could top $30 billion. The Paradise fire spread rapidly, burning into the communities of Concow and Magalia and the outskirts of Chico. Authorities said it was like no fire they had seen before. Strong wind gusts blew hot embers a mile or more, creating multiple fires. The tinder dry vegetation and red flag conditions consisting of strong winds, low humidity and warm temperatures promoted this fire and caused extreme rates of spread, Cal fire said in its release. The utility previously acknowledged that the Caribou-Palermo transmission line lost power right before the fire and was later found to be damaged. Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said she was not surprised to hear Pacific Gas & Electric power lines sparked the blaze that decimated her town and she hopes the findings help the citys legal case against the utility. Its nice to have a definite answer, Jones said. Paradise sued PG&E in January seeking damages for the loss of infrastructure, land, property, trees, public and natural resources, and lost taxpayer resources. The suit alleges the blaze started when electrical infrastructure owned, operated and maintained by PG&E failed, causing a spark that ignited the blaze. The suit also alleges that PG&E had planned to de-energize power lines as a precaution against starting a fire but cancelled those plans despite windy conditions. PG&E has proposed a dramatic expansion of planned electrical outages as part of a wildfire mitigation plan submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission in February. It has also proposed to cover overhead wiring, install more fire-resistant power poles and put some power lines underground. The findings Wednesday certainly brings even greater urgency to our need to inspect, repair, have a power safety shut off plan, Johnson told reporters outside the legislative hearing. PG&Es bankruptcy reorganization plan is due by the end of May, but it has requested an extension until November. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Wednesday filing that PG&E shouldnt get an extra six months to reorganize.He said the utilitys request continues to show it lacks an urgent focus on improving safety. Newsom and lawmakers are working on proposals related to utility liability for wildfires that could affect the bankruptcy. ___ Associated Press writers Adam Beam and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, and Paul Elias and Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this story. EAGLE PASS, Texas - New photos capture the dramatic rescue of a 7-year-old boy from Honduras who nearly drowned in the river separating the U.S. and Mexico until Border Patrol agents rescued him. The San Antonio Express-News reported Wednesday on the rescue of four adults and five children who tried to cross the Rio Grande in inflatable childrens pools near Eagle Pass, Texas. The pools capsized. Agents pulled the group out of the water Friday and eventually took them into custody. The river is especially strong between Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico. An adult and three children were recently swept away trying to cross the river nearby; all four are presumed dead. The Border Patrol made 99,000 apprehensions on the southern border just in April. Most were adults and children from Central America expected to seek asylum . SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinoiss child welfare agency has reviewed 1,100 of its ongoing abuse and neglect cases as part of a stepped-up effort to right a department thats facing criticism for failing to prevent the deaths of three children under its watch since January, the governor announced Wednesday. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker made the announcement hours after the release of a separate outside report that found that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services unit responsible for overseeing households in which children are left at home after allegations of abuse or neglect is so intent on keeping children with their parents despite strong evidence of abuse that it has sometimes left those children in grave danger. Prtizker, appearing with the departments new Director Marc D. Smith, told reporters that Illinois will be adopting every recommendation outlined in the report by the University of Chicagos Chapin Hall research centre. I wish I could stand up here and say that theres a quick fix, that we have the magic potion that will instantly undo years of systematic issues, and will suddenly make this all right, Pritzker said. Urgency is required. We have the opportunity right now to make dramatic improvements in how DCFS functions and to commit ourselves every day to improving on this work. The internal review looked at a portion of the departments 13,000 open investigations, not just the Intact Family Services unit. That review is complete and results will be released soon, department spokesman Jassen Strokosch said. Pritzker said that other steps being taken at the agency include creating a crisis intervention team to review every case involving the death of a child with an eye toward improved intervention. Training will be beefed up and policies and procedures revamped, he said. Pritzker is asking lawmakers for a $75 million increase for the department in the upcoming budget year. He wants to hire 126 more caseworkers. The Chapin Hall review, ordered by Pritzker, found a profound failure to communicate within the department; overburdened staffers; staffers so convinced that prosecutors wouldnt agree with requests to remove children from homes that they didnt bother to ask; and cases in which evidence and suspicions of abuse or neglect were brushed aside. The recommendations include making it more difficult to close Intact Family Services cases, improving quality of supervision and streamlining communication. The study began before last months beating death of A.J. Freund, a 5-year-old whose parents are charged with first-degree murder. Nonetheless, issues surrounding his short life and violent death from extensive contact the family had with child welfare workers to a determination that there wasnt credible evidence to support placing the boy in protective custody even though he suggested his mother was responsible for bruises on his body are examined by the researchers. Illinois has been lauded for having one of the lowest foster care entry rates of any state in the U.S. Keeping children with their families is a laudable goal, said Michael Cull, one of the studys authors, but it can be a problem when it becomes an overriding priority. Shifting away from that policy would require finding more foster parents, an effort Smith said is underway with private-sector partners. It in the past has been sporadic, the way we reach out to people, but were going to be very thoughtful in how we do that and were going to tap into peoples expertise to bring people in the door, Smith said. Illinois is not the only state with a child welfare system under fire. In fact, according to the study, the rate of death due to child maltreatment in Illinois in 2016 2.16 per 100,000 children was actually a bit lower than the national figure of 2.36 per 100,000 children. Some 501 children died between 2014 and 2018 while being involved with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services or previously involved with it. In one case, allegations of abuse were determined unfounded because the welts that an investigator had seen on a childs torso were no longer visible when the child was examined at the hospital. That childs mother violated her agreement not to allow her boyfriend near her children. The report does not include the names of the children, but one of the three children whose deaths prompted the study was allegedly killed by his mothers boyfriend. Other problems include cases in which troubled families have extensive contact with the agency but case histories are expunged or purged. And in two recent cases where children died, there was no evidence of ongoing collaboration between investigators and Intact Family Services case managers. ___ This version is corrected to say that the 1,100 cases reviewed by the agency are a portion of the 13,000 total open investigations, to reflect the governors name is J.B. instead of Jay and that the agency is the Department of Children and Family Services, not the Department of Child and Family Services. ___ Chapin Hall report: https://bit.ly/2JlLKRg ___ Babwin reported from Chicago. ___ Follow Political Writer John OConnor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor . EBENSBURG, Pa. - A civil suit says a Pennsylvania pediatric practice knew that one of its physicians was a threat to molest young patients but covered it up. The suit says Laurel Pediatric Associates in Johnstown knew at least two decades ago that Dr. Johnnie Bartos patients were in serious danger, but allowed him to treat and molest children, explaining away parents complaints about his sexual misconduct. Barto was sentenced in March to at least 79 years in prison for sexually assaulting 31 children, most of them patients. Five former patients are seeking unspecified money damages from Barto, Laurel Pediatric and Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center, a hospital where he had privileges. Dozens more victims are expected to sue. Conemaugh calls Bartos conduct reprehensible but notes he wasnt an employee. The hospital denies wrongdoing. MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The Latest on a proposed on Alabamas abortion bill (all times local): 7:50 p.m. Conservative televangelist Pat Robertson says Alabama has gone too far by passing a bill that would make performing an abortion a felony in nearly all cases. Robertson is a longtime abortion opponent, but on Wednesday, as he hosted The 700 Club on the Christian Broadcasting Network, he called the bill extreme and noted that it does not have exceptions for rape or incest. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the measure into law Wednesday evening, although it is expected to be challenged in court. Some Alabama lawmakers are hoping to ignite a legal fight in the hopes of getting the U.S. Supreme Court to gut abortion rights nationwide. Robertson, however, said, My humble view is that this is not the case we want to bring to the Supreme Court because I think this one will lose. ___ 5 p.m. Alabamas governor has signed the most stringent abortion ban in the nation. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the measure Wednesday. The law will make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by 10 to 99 years or life in prison. The bill contains an exception for when the pregnancy creates a serious health risk for the woman, but not an exception for rape or incest. There would be no punishment for the woman receiving the abortion, only for the abortion provider. Critics have promised a swift lawsuit to challenge Alabamas ban if enacted. ___ 12:15 p.m. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is not saying whether she intends to sign a proposed abortion ban into law. Ivey told reporters Wednesday that she will review the legislation approved by lawmakers Tuesday night before announcing her decision. She says potential legal fees should not deter efforts to protect the unborn. The Alabama Legislature has given final approval to the nations most restrictive abortion law in the country, a measure that makes performing abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony. Supporters say they hope to create a court case to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. ___ 11 a.m. Abortion rights advocates are urging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to veto an attempted abortion ban in Alabama and vowed swift legal action to prevent it from taking effect. Staci Fox, of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said they urged Ivey to veto this dangerous bill. She says theyll file a legal challenge against the ban if needed to block it from taking effect. Lawmakers on Tuesday gave final approval to legislation that would make it a felony to perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy. However, even supporters of the bill expect courts to quickly block it from taking effect. State Rep. Terri Collins said the goal is to create a court case to challenge the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. ___ 2:15 a.m. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey will now decide whether to sign legislation that would outlaw almost all abortions in the state as some conservatives seek to ignite legal fights in the hopes of getting the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the landmark 1973 decision that made the procedure legal. The Alabama Legislature on Tuesday gave final approval to the nations most restrictive abortion law in the country, a measure that makes performing abortion a felony at any stage of pregnancy with almost no exceptions. Ivey will now decide whether to sign the bill State senators voted for 25-6. It cleared the House of Representatives earlier 74-3. State Rep. Terri Collins said the goal is to create a court case to challenge the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Sen. Bobby Singleton, who voted against the bill, said the state should be ashamed. JUNEAU, Alaska - The Latest on the Alaska Legislature (all times local): 12:10 a.m. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has called lawmakers into a special session, starting Thursday in Juneau. The proclamation came as the Legislature was adjourning the regular session without resolution on its biggest issues. Dunleavy warned earlier in the day of plans to call a special session when he said it didnt appear that lawmakers would finish their work. Wednesday marked the 121st day of the session, the constitutional limit. The special session agenda includes state operating and capital budgets, crime legislation and a measure on school funding, something legislative leaders have maintained theyve already addressed. A press release from Dunleavy indicated that he expected the budget to include a full dividend payout to residents from the states oil-wealth fund, the Alaska Permanent. Lawmakers have been wrestling with the dividend issue, ___ 5:55 p.m. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy plans to call lawmakers into a special session, saying they did not appear to be on course to finish major unresolved issues by Wednesdays constitutional deadline. Details on the timing and location were expected later. Dunleavy says a change of venue might make a difference and said there has been interest in meeting in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. He said it also could be in Juneau. Senate Finance Committee Co-Chair Bert Stedman says the capital is Juneau and it would be more cost effective to have the special session there. Lawmakers had yet to come to agreement on a crime package or a state spending plan. They also hadnt made a decision on how to handle the dividend paid to residents from the states oil-wealth fund. ___ 11:15 a.m. Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he expects Alaska legislators to approve a full dividend payout to residents this year from the states oil-wealth fund. Dunleavy spoke to reporters Wednesday, the constitutional deadline for lawmakers to finish their work. He said he expects action on the dividend, the budget and a crime package, as well as inclusion of school funding in the budget for the coming year. Otherwise, he says a special session will be needed. Senate President Cathy Giessel says work continued toward trying to reach agreement on a dividend. There are lawmakers who agree with Dunleavy that the statutory calculation should be followed, but others do not think the formula is sustainable. Giessel says she expects the crime package to be resolved Wednesday. ___ 8:35 a.m. The Alaska Legislature faces a Wednesday deadline to complete its work, with agreement on state spending plans and a crime package and a decision on how to handle the dividend paid to residents from the states oil-wealth fund remaining. House and Senate negotiators have nearly reached agreement on a state operating budget that shuns the level of cuts proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. But a decision remains on what to do with the dividend. Lawmakers have not agreed on a dividend amount, and an option thats been raised is to handle that issue separately from the budget. The state capital budget and a sweeping crime package also remain. Lawmakers could extend the session an additional 10 days if needed or a special session could be called. WASHINGTON - The Latest on Democratic presidential candidates and abortion (all times local): 1 p.m. Kamala Harris says she is open to a debate over reforming the Supreme Court. Campaigning in New Hampshire on Wednesday, the Democratic presidential candidate and California senator said shed consider increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court. She said shed also consider term limits and limiting the number of nominees a president can put forward. Her comments come after Alabama approved a ban on nearly all abortions, a move thats part of a larger effort by conservatives to press the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Harris and other Democratic presidential candidates have roundly criticized the measure. ___ 10:45 a.m. Democratic presidential candidates are condemning Alabamas approval of a ban on nearly all abortions, and warning that Republican-controlled legislatures around the country may follow suit. Legal fights are likely ahead over the Alabama measure, if it becomes law, and over abortion restrictions in other conservative states. The Supreme Court, which affirmed womens constitutional right to abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, has added two conservative members under President Donald Trump. On the Alabama measure, Sen. Amy Klobuchar tweeted: This is wrong. This is unconstitutional. Former Texas Rep. Beto ORourke said via Twitter, We will fight these dangerous efforts with everything weve got in legislatures across the country. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told CNN, Its certainly the intention of President Trump and the Republican Party to overturn Roe v. Wade. WASHINGTON - The Latest on the United States and Iran (all times local): 6 p.m. The governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Norway are notifying the United Nations that four commercial ships were targeted and at least three of them were damaged in the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates on May 12. In a written statement, the governments jointly say the incident posed a threat to the safety and security of international shipping and maritime navigation. It says no one was injured, but the hulls of at least three of the four ships were damaged. Details around the alleged acts of sabotage off the coast of the UAEs port of Fujairah remain unclear. The joint statement by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Norway does not say who they suspect was responsible. It says the three countries, working with international partners, are investigating. __ 3:30 p.m. President Donald Trump is disputing reporting that there is infighting among his foreign policy team as his administration ramps up rhetoric and pressure against Iran. Trump tweets, There is no infighting whatsoever. Trumps administration has been warning of unspecified threats from Iran in the wake of new U.S. sanctions over the Islamic Republics nuclear program and other malign behaviour in the Middle East. Some have suggested Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton dont see eye-to-eye on the strategy. Trump says: All sides, views, and policies are covered. Im sure that Iran will want to talk soon. He adds that aides present different opinions but he reserves the decisive and final decision, calling it a very simple process. __ 1:15 p.m. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the U.S. must avoid war with Iran, and she says the White House has no business moving toward a Middle East confrontation without approval from Congress. Pelosis remarks to House Democrats come amid growing concerns in Congress over President Donald Trumps approach to Iran and mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf region over the administrations claims of unspecified threats linked to Iran. Top leaders in Congress are expected to receive a classified briefing from the administration Thursday. Pelosi told her colleagues the U.S. has to avoid any war with Iran, according to a person in the room, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private caucus meeting. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump will travel to South Korea in June for talks on the North Korean nuclear program, three months after a failed summit with North Koreas leader in Vietnam. The White House says Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in conjunction with his trip to Japan for the G-20 summit. The White House says they will continue their close co-ordination on efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea. Trump and Moon will also discuss issues of importance to their two nations. Trumps efforts to bring about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula have stalled since he abruptly pulled out of the February summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The North has since restarted some missile testing. __ This story corrects that the last Trump-Kim summit was in February, not March. WASHINGTONAs the Trump administration draws up war plans against Iran over what it says are threats to U.S. troops and interests, a senior British military official told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he saw no increased risk from Iran or allied militias in Iraq or Syria. A few hours later, the U.S. Central Command issued an unusual rebuke. The remarks from the British official Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, who is also the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh (also known as ISIS or Islamic State) run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region. The rare public dispute highlights a central problem for the Trump administration as it seeks to rally allies and global opinion against Iran. Over the past year, Washington has said Iran is threatening U.S. interests in the Middle East, encouraging aggression by Shiite militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, shipping missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen and allowing its naval forces to behave belligerently in the Persian Gulf. All are concerns that have been levelled against Iranian forces for years. We are aware of their presence clearly and we monitor them along with a whole range of others because of the environment we are in, Ghika said. But he said, No, there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria. Intelligence and military officials in Europe as well as in the United States said that over the past year, most aggressive moves have originated not in Tehran, but in Washington where John Bolton, the national security adviser, has prodded President Donald Trump into backing Iran into a corner. One U.S. official said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was small stuff and did not merit the military planning being driven by Bolton. The official also said the ultimate goal of the yearlong economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States. Since May 2018, the Trump administration has withdrawn from the major powers agreement that curbed Irans nuclear program, reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran, demanded that allies choose between Iranian oil and doing business in the U.S. market, and declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization. And on Tuesday, the State Department appeared on the verge of ordering a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as a heightened security measure, according to people familiar with the plans. The anti-Iran push has proved difficult even among the allies, which remember a similar campaign against Iraq that was led in part by Bolton and was fuelled by false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos efforts this week to recruit European countries to back the administrations steely posture on Iran are being received coolly. Federica Mogherini, the European Unions foreign affairs chief, called for maximum restraint after meeting on Monday in Brussels with Pompeo, a proponent of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Iraqi officials said they were skeptical of the U.S. intelligence that Pompeo presented last week on a surprise trip to Baghdad. Pompeo said the threat was to U.S. facilities and military personnel in Iraq. In September, Trump administration officials blamed Shiite militias with ties to Iran for firing a few rockets into the area near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. Consulate in Basra. There were no injuries, but Pompeo ordered the Basra Consulate closed. Privately, several European officials described Bolton and Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it. While Trump has made no secret of his reluctance to engage in another military conflict in the Middle East, and has ordered U.S. troops home from Syria, his secretary of state and his national security adviser have pushed a maximalist hard-line approach on Iran. Bolton, in particular, has repeatedly called for U.S. military strikes against Tehran. Officials said Trump was aware that Boltons instinctual approach to Iran could lead to war; aides suggested that the presidents own aversion to drawn-out overseas conflicts would be the best hope of putting the brakes on military escalation. A spokesman for Bolton declined to comment. The Trump administration is looking at plans to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack U.S. forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, The New York Times reported. On Tuesday, Trump dismissed that as fake news. We have not planned for that, he told reporters. But he immediately added, If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that. Some of the presidents critics accept that Iran continues to engage in what U.S. officials call malign behaviour, be it in Yemen, Syria or the Palestinian territories. But they blamed the administration for aggravating the standoff with Tehran. This is a crisis that has entirely been manufactured by the Trump administration, said Vali R. Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He pointed to Trumps decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, coupled with the administrations failure to get any other nations to do so. None of the other signatories to the deal were persuaded by the case the U.S. was making, Nasr said. And that is because this administrations policy on Iran, at a fundamental level, does not have credibility. That lack of trust has proved to be a major obstacle in convincing allies that Iranian behaviour in the region warrants military action. And while acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has carefully cultivated a more acquiescent stance to Boltons demands than did his predecessor, Jim Mattis, many military officials and congressional representatives worry about the escalating tensions. Mattis had balked at Boltons request for military options against Iran after the rockets landed on U.S. Embassy grounds in Baghdad. Bolton did the same with President George W. Bush and Iraq, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., an Iraq War veteran, said in a statement last week. As someone sent four times to that misguided war, I have seen the costs of Boltons disastrous foreign policy in a way he never will firsthand, and at the loss of thousands of American lives. One big worry is that the Trump administration has issued the most expansive type of warning to Iran, without drawing specific red lines. That has increased the chance of a military conflict over misinterpretations and miscalculations. In a statement this month, Bolton outlined vague terms of what appeared to be conditions for military engagement, responding to what he said were troubling and escalatory indications and warnings. He said any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. And he warned that the Trump administration was fully prepared to respond to any attack by the Iranian military or a proxy one of the Middle Easts many Shiite militias that are supported by Iran. Those militias often do not operate under direct command-and-control from Iran, and they have varying levels of allegiance to the Iran military. In Yemens civil war, the Houthis are Shiite rebels who oppose a government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Sunni nations. The Houthis ties to Iran are murky. But the Trump administration labels the rebels as Iranian proxies, and Boltons statement left open the possibility that a Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia or the UAE both U.S. allies could set off a U.S. military assault against Iran. The hard-line tactics against Iran could backfire in two ways, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. If the sanctions crush its economy, then Iran could act with less restraint, he said. And if the sanctions do not work well, then some U.S. officials will advocate military action, a move that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are likely to support. There will be people in Washington who will push for limited kinetic action against the Iranian regime to cut it down to size, he said. In statements, Iranian leaders have reacted with both belligerence and diplomatic restraint to a series of U.S. actions that they see as provocative. In a tweet Tuesday, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, ridiculed Bolton and three anti-Iran foreign leaders in the Middle East as a B Team. In interviews in April, I predicted accidents not because Im a genius but because #B_Team is so brazenly following @AmbJohnBoltons script, Zarif said. After all, half of B-Team were co-conspirators in disastrous Iraq War. Read more about: MADISON, Wis. - The Wisconsin Assembly passed a so-called born alive anti-abortion bill Wednesday that President Donald Trump has touted, a move that comes as conservatives across the country push to end the constitutional right to abortion. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has promised to veto the measure, which was one of four anti-abortion bills up for passage in the Republican-controlled Assembly. The GOP-majority Senate would also have to approve the bills before they would head to Evers, but it didnt have a vote scheduled as of Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said he anticipates floor votes in his chamber in June. The moves in Wisconsin come as anti-abortion politicians and activists feel emboldened by the addition of conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. They hope to ignite legal fights and eventually overturn the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. Alabama lawmakers on Tuesday night approved a bill that would ban nearly all abortions. And Missouris Republican-led Senate was taking up a bill Wednesday that would ban abortions after the eighth week of pregnancy, which is similar to so-called fetal heartbeat laws enacted by Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio and Georgia. Its kind of chilling whats happening nationally, including Wisconsin, Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said at a news conference. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and bill sponsor Majority Leader Jim Steineke wouldnt say if they would support a six-week abortion ban like what was approved in Alabama. Hintz called the born alive bill a distraction being pushed by Republicans to change the conversation away from popular items in the governors budget that the GOP opposes, such as Medicaid expansion. Wisconsin already bans abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, except in cases in which the mothers life is in danger. This is well before the generally accepted age of viability, which the Supreme Court said in Roe v. Wade is between 24 weeks and 28 weeks. Wisconsin also has a law passed in 1849 that bans abortions and would take effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. The bill before the Wisconsin Assembly on Wednesday addresses the extremely rare occurrence in which a baby is born alive during a failed abortion attempt. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded just 143 instances nationwide in which live births resulted from at least 9.3 million abortion attempts between 2003 and 2014. There is no comparable data in Wisconsin because state officials dont track it. Wisconsin Right to Life, which supports the bill, said it hasnt heard of any cases in Wisconsin since the Wisconsin State Journal reported in 1982 that two babies survived abortion attempts in Madison and later died. According to the CDC, only 1.3% of abortions take place after 21 weeks, and these often involve either severe fetal anomalies or conditions that endanger the mother. When anomalies are so severe that a newborn would die soon after birth, a family may choose whats known as palliative care or comfort care. This might involve swaddling the newborn in a blanket and allowing the baby to die naturally, without medical intervention. Under the bill, abortion providers would be required to care for babies that survive an abortion. Failure to do so would be a felony punishable by up to six years in prison and a provider convicted of killing such a baby would face life in prison. Doctors insist the bill is a solution in search of a problem. They and other opponents say babies are almost never born alive during failed abortion attempts and in the rare instances when they are, doctors are already ethically and legally bound to try and keep them alive. Evers has said he will veto the bill because current criminal penalties would apply to providers who wont care for or kill abortion survivors. Debate over the bill went on for a little more than half-an-hour on the Assembly floor. Democrats kept veering away from the bill to criticize Republicans for erasing provisions in Evers budget that would have expanded Medicaid coverage to tens of thousands of Wisconsin residents. Rep. Debra Kolste, a Janesville Democrat, said the bill is based on false facts and false premises. Steineke told Democrats the bill wasnt anti-abortion, but about saving the life of a baby after it is born alive unexpectedly. He said the goal was to remove any grey area in the law to make explicit that doctors must do everything possible to save the life of the child. How are you going to explain this when you go back home? he asked Democrats. Youre not willing to specify the exact conditions under which a doctor has to provide care? Good luck. During an April rally in Green Bay, Trump said it was shocking that Evers would veto the bill. Trump has made his support for born alive bills a staple of his rallies, accusing doctors of executing babies who survive a failed abortion. Evers responded by saying it is blasphemy and horrific for Trump to say that doctors in the state want to execute babies. The Assembly also passed three other abortion-related bills. Those measures would cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, prohibit abortions based on the fetus race, sex or defects and require providers to tell women seeking abortions using the drug mifepristone that the process may be reversed after the first dose. ___ Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP SAN FRANCISCO - A cold front expected to dump rain and snow in Northern California starting Wednesday has prompted the closure of a popular road at Yosemite National Park and left outdoor businesses bracing for smaller crowds through the weekend. The first storm heading toward the state from the Gulf of Alaska is expected to bring winter-like conditions, with up to an inch (2.5 centimetres) of rain in some areas of the Sacramento Valley and as much as 2 feet (60 centimetres) of snow in some mountain spots at elevations of about 7,000 feet (2,130 metres). Snow could fall at lower elevations on Thursday, the National Weather Service said. A winter storm warning has been issued from Wednesday night through Friday morning for the southern Sierra Nevada. A second system is expected Saturday. In Yosemite National Park, spokesman Scott Gediman said Glacier Point Road will close at 6 p.m. Wednesday ahead of a series of storms expected to dump at least a foot of snow (30 centimetres) on the highest peaks. The 16-mile (26-kilometre) road, which offers sweeping views of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, will remain closed until the storms pass and the road can be evaluated for hazards. The park will remain open, Gediman said. Visitors are advised to prepare for winter driving conditions for the next several days along El Portal Road (Hwy 140), Big Oak Flat Road (Hwy 120 W) and Wawona Road (Hwy 41), he said. In Sausalito, just across the Golden Gate Bridge, some business owners braced for slower traffic and cancellations because of the wet weather. Galen Licht, who owns Sea Trek Kayak, said the rainy forecast is forcing him to cancel a lot of the companys guided kayaking trips through the San Francisco Bay. Its raining here right now and there is nobody here. We dont have any business, Licht said. He said three groups had cancelled trips booked for Wednesday. He offers full refunds when people cancel due to weather. Licht hopes some people will return Friday, when a break in the stormy weather is expected and visitors can look at herons, pelicans and other wildlife in the bay and take in views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco skyline. A series of winter storms this year drenched California with rain and snow that has left many of its reservoirs almost full, including the newly rebuilt Oroville Dam, which was at 95% capacity Tuesday. California Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said state officials have been monitoring reservoir levels and releasing water throughout the season. The current storm is not expected to create widespread flooding because some snow has already melted, he said. In Butte County, Sheriff Kory Honea took to social media to reassure residents about the ability of Oroville Dam to handle inflow from the upcoming storms. Two years ago, 200,000 people had to evacuate amid fears prompted by heavy rain. I dont believe there is a current imminent threat, Honea said. ___ Associated Press writer Juliet Williams contributed to this story. A recent court decision is a victory for all Canadians who value tolerance and inclusivity and want to live in a country in which those who spread hatred are held to account. A judge of the Ontario Superior Court ruled this week that I was defamed by Kevin Johnston, who used his hate-speech website to describe me and the customers who eat at my restaurants as jihadists who are up to something nefarious. The judge described Johnstons claims as a loathsome example of hate speech at its worst, targeting people solely because of their religion. On the day I received the courts judgment, I couldnt wait for my kids to get home from school. I was so eager to read the decision to them. I have always told my children that its important not only to speak out against bullies and bigots but to stand up to them. When we read the news these days, it can feel as though the bad guys are winning. Im talking in particular about those who hate not only those in Europe and the United States, but also here in Canada. Hate has always been with us. But lately, the people who hate have grown louder and bolder. They have emerged from the dark corners of the internet. They feel safe to announce even to celebrate their intolerance. Any Muslim knows prejudice. As does any Black man or woman. Any Jew. Any Hindu. Any minority. But today, we feel it and experience it more. Sometimes when I get upset, I go to my computer. I go to YouTube. I listen to the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. I like being reminded that there are people whose dreams are not for their own success or achievement but for the betterment of all. The words of King serve as a reminder: It is not enough for any of us to remain silent in our condemnation of bigotry. In the face of hate, silence is like a wink. It says: Im fine with what youre doing. Go ahead and push the boundaries a little bit more. To triumph over hate, we need a steady gaze and a firm spine. Most important, we need to stand up and speak out we all need to stand up and speak out against those who seek to divide and diminish us. Thats why it was so important to me to file this defamation suit and follow it through to completion. No country is perfect in its history. Canada has turned away Jews. It has turned away Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. It has discriminated against Blacks, Asians and others. It has subjected Indigenous children to a system of widespread abuse. These are dark moments of intolerance or indifference. Yet Canada has grown. We have acknowledged and learned from our mistakes. To those living amid violence or persecution, Canada has appeared as a beacon of hope and harmony. We must keep it that way. We must keep Canada warm and welcoming. This is a time of opportunity for our country. A chance to stand up for what is right and what is good. In the face of intolerance, we can come together. In the face of hate, we can love. As other countries close themselves off to the world, we can open our doors wider to welcome new members of the Canadian family. We do not often speak of a Canadian dream. But perhaps we should. The American dream is about the self, the individual. Its about striving for riches and the comforts they bring. Even the symbol of the dream the white picket fence is about separating some people from others. What should be the Canadian dream? It should be a dream for us all, not only for ourselves. It should recognize that Canada works best when its people work and live together in community and respect. When we stand together, in good times and bad. When we speak together, in opposition to hate and those who try to divide us. And when we join together, in building a country where intolerance is pushed to the farthest fringes and shouted down each and every time it raises its voice. There will always be people who hate from their bones. But together we can make them smaller in number, smaller in influence, smaller and smaller until they all but disappear. That is my Canadian dream. And I hope it is yours. OTTAWAThe federal government is still weighing whether Huawei can help build Canadas 5G infrastructure as the U.S. took one step closer to banning the Chinese telecom giant. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Wednesday that the government continues to review all potential suppliers for Canadas next generation of wireless networks from both a technological and national security perspective. Goodale was speaking just before President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk, paving the way for a ban on doing business with Chinas Huawei Technologies. We obviously pay careful attention to what our allies are saying and doing. Some have expressed views, others have not, Goodale said outside the House of Commons. Well take all that into account, but we want to make the very best decision for Canada with respect to the technology and also on national security. Our national security will not be compromised. The U.S. has actively lobbied allies to keep Huawei technology out of American networks, suggesting it could be used to spy for Beijing. Huawei has aggressively and repeatedly denied allegations it poses a national security threat. Read more: Scheer government would ban Huawei from 5G networks Meng Wanzhou says support from Huawei employees beautiful as a spring breeze Extradition proceedings for Huaweis Meng Wanzhou to begin in January Canada has been reviewing Huaweis involvement in the countrys 5G infrastructure 5G refers to the fifth generation of wireless technology, with each generation increasing how fast data can be transferred for months. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has said a government led by him would ban Huawei on national security grounds. I believe there are many security concerns as it relates to Huawei and the development of Canadas 5G. We know the government of China has acknowledged its role in certain cyber-attacks, Scheer told reporters Wednesday. Its up to the government of Canada to protect not just the personal information of Canadians but also the integrity of Canadian institutions. Trumps order would have little impact on the main wireless carriers in the U.S., which do not employ Huawei products in their networks. According to Reuters, only about 25 per cent of smaller U.S. carriers use equipment from Huawei and another Chinese supplier, ZTE. But a move by Trump to officially ban all Huawei products could be another salvo in the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China. A U.S. ban would also put constraints on what Ottawa can do. In an interview with Sky News last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo strongly suggested that the U.S. could limit intelligence sharing with countries that allow Huawei technology in their networks. We dont believe you can have those technologies in your systems and still have a trusted network, Pompeo But the United States, for its part, will only participate in trusted networks. We will only share Americas information with those networks that we are confident arent under the control of China . . . Theres really risk if countries choose that path, that we wont be able to participate in those networks. A breakdown in intelligence sharing with the U.S. would have serious ramifications for Canada, which is a net importer of intelligence in the Five Eyes alliance, and is likely a consideration in the federal governments review of the 5G file. Goodale wouldnt say Wednesday when that review will be released. Bloomberg News, citing unnamed government officials, reported last week that the Liberals could delay a decision until after Octobers federal election. Read more about: Playing chicken, gaslighting, and nasty, foreshadowing tweets Canadas experience with White House trade negotiations may be a distant memory now, but those recollections could prove useful during these days of U.S.-China brinksmanship. As markets oscillate wildly, lurching from tweet to tweet, Canada has been there, done that, and can perhaps take a less panicked view of the trade war thats turning the global economy upside down. Of course, the U.S.-Canada relationship is different than the U. S-China relationship, but we were a dry run for the protectionist president. If there were a handbook on how Donald Trumps White House handles trade negotiations, Canadas experience would be a case study in many tactics. Some of the points the handbook would make: Playing chicken: Trumps team has a penchant for issuing threats to win concessions. In the NAFTA talks, Canada and Mexico negotiated for many months with aluminum and steel tariffs in place, and the threat of auto tariffs hanging over them. With China, Trump has steadily and dramatically increased tariffs on Chinese imports, with more in the offing. Even when the other side hits back, the United States has persisted. For Canada, the biggest threat was Trumps declaration that NAFTA was the worst trade deal ever and that he wanted to tear it up a threat that undermined confidence and investment in Canadas economy for months on end. Such a threat is emptier with China, since China is not as dependent on U.S. trade as Canada is. But the goal of the threats is the same. Trade lawyer Mark Warner points out that Trump informed us all of this approach in his book, The Art of the Deal. He takes extreme positions, forces a compromise and then claims victory of sorts. Thats his style. Read more: Donald Trump says his tariff threats forced tough Canada into NAFTA concessions Canada makes it very clear the Northwest Passage is Canadas after Pompeo questions legitimacy Opinion | Heather Mallick: Donald Trumps tariff love affair dangerous to U.S., world economy Gaslighting: This term describes repeated lying by one person that causes another person to question their own experience of reality. Its psychological manipulation to gain power. Brett House, Scotiabanks deputy chief economist, applies the term to Trumps trade tactics. For Canada, it was the perception of Canada being a dirty player that heavily penalized American farmers and consumers and took the United States for granted. For China, its Trumps repeated suggestions that the mounting tariffs are great for Americans despite mounting signs that U.S. importers are passing along the costs to their buyers. In both cases, Trump aims to keep the American public onside while destabilizing his adversaries. Trump is still gaslighting America, says House. Talking past each other: At the height of the NAFTA talks, Canada had three levels of negotiations at once, argues Laura Dawson, director of the Canada Institute in Washington. There were the nitty-gritty talks, with technocrats who were traditional, meticulous and made sense to the Canadian team. There was the lobbying of the business community, which was pro-free-trade and wanted to have the certainty of a solid agreement. And then there was the White House, which intervened sporadically and unpredictably, trumping sorry for the pun everyone elses talks. China is dealing with a similar dynamic, although in this case, the White House is even more deeply engaged. And that involvement breeds huge amounts of market volatility, since investors are never quite sure where Trump will push the talks. It may very well be that he likes the drama, Dawson says. Managed trade: The best-case result for both Canada and China is arriving at some kind of a managed-trade agreement with the U.S., a statement that rings true for many of the Americans trading partners, says Sarah Goldfeder at Earnscliffe Strategy Group. In Canadas case, concessions on dairy and rules of origin for the auto sector are prime examples of placing limits on the amount of cross-border trade in order to call victory. And Canada agreeing to quotas for steel and aluminum is likely the only way out of that tariff conflict with the U.S. When it comes to China, made-in-China is just as popular as Trumps Buy America agenda. If the two sides are able to reach agreement, managed trade will likely figure prominently, Goldfeder says. We are not going back to open trade. The end: Its not over until its over. No one on any side of these trade negotiations trusts anyone, and wont take anything to the bank until papers are signed by leaders and passed by governments. Canada and Mexico were so close so many times, and yet there is still no new NAFTA being applied. Punitive tariffs on aluminum and steel are still in place. When it comes to China, the U.S. wasnt sure enough about vague commitments on intellectual property to call it a deal. And so the volatility persists as Canadians well know and are learning to take in stride. Read more about: Hundreds of people booed Premier Doug Ford at the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Tuesday night. In contrast to Toronto Mayor John Tory, whose presence at the non-partisan event was cheered, Ford was jeered when he took the stage. Boy ... you know something? I havent heard that much energy in a long time, the premier said gamely. My friends, boy, thats the first time Ive ever had some boos. Hundreds of people booed Premier Doug Ford at the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. In fact, Ford was booed several times at candidate debates during the 2014 mayoral race he lost to Tory, and there was booing last November when he dropped the puck at a Peterborough Petes game. Eyewitnesses told the Star the premier appeared visibly shaken by Tuesdays outburst, which the Conservatives privately blamed on disgruntled teachers in the audience. On Wednesday, the opposition New Democrats pounced on the episode, saying it proves the cuts in last months budget are not popular with Ontario families. It sounds like the folks at the event wish the premier hadnt showed up at all, said MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex). The barbs infuriated Progressive Conservative MPPs in the legislature. I find it ironic coming from the member from Essex. He didnt even bother showing up. At least we showed up, the premier said. The throwing stones at a glass house is pretty staggering, said Ford. I would remind the member from Essex, Ive spent my whole life helping children with special needs through Rotary. For 23 years, I helped through Rotary by going to events and helping children, he said. Thats what its all about. Its not about getting into gutter politics and worrying about if you get a cheer or a boo. Its about being there for the kids. Fords caucus gave him a standing ovation for his response. But there are concerns among Conservatives because the Special Olympics, a global celebration of what people with intellectual disabilities can achieve in athletics, have always been apolitical. Read more: City manager says Toronto homeowners could get second tax bill due to Ford government cuts Fords strategy of hitting municipalities with budget cuts, service downloads is risky politics, expert says Toronto mayor says local MPPs are misleading voters over massive provincial cuts The fact that Tory, who has been in a war of words with Ford over the budgets impact on the city, was hailed at the same event suggests the mayors campaign against Queens Park may be finding some traction. A recent Corbett Communications poll conducted for the Star found the premiers personal popularity is waning just 11 months after he led the Progressive Conservatives to a majority victory in the June 7 election. The survey found 24 per cent approved of the job the premier is doing compared, with 66 per cent who disapprove, while 10 per cent were unsure. Corbett used Maru/Blues Maru Voice Canada online panel to poll 1,836 Ontario voters May 2-3. A sample of that size would have a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said the boos sent a clear signal to the premier. What the families ... did last night was say, Youre doing stuff, youre cutting and youre hurting our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters and were sending you a message: listen, said Fraser. At city hall, Councillor Joe Cressy said the reception should be a wake-up call for Ford. Ive heard of premiers getting booed in the past but never (11) months into their first term, and never with kids from across the province for the Special Olympics, said Cressy (Spadina-Fort York). Across Ontario, in communities of every size and with people of every political background, there is a wave of opposition growing to Ford cuts to public health and public education. Were clearly seeing the deep opposition here, including from kids. With files from David Rider Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie Rob Ferguson is with the Stars Queens Park bureau and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robferguson1 Read more about: VANCOUVERAfter a fatal plane collision in Alaska where at least four people including one Canadian died, experts say flying float planes in remote areas poses unique challenges for pilots. Two sightseeing airplanes collided in mid-air Monday afternoon in Ketchikan, a popular tourist destination in Alaska. Ketchikan is located on the southern tip of Alaska about about 200 kilometres northwest of Prince Rupert, B.C. One of the planes, a single-engine de Havilland Otter DHC-3 operated by Taquan Air, was carrying 10 passengers and a pilot back from Misty Fjords National Monument when it crashed. The other plane was a de Havilland Beaver DHC-2, operated by Mountain Air, carrying four passengers and a pilot. All were passengers on a side trip off the Royal Princess cruise ship that left Vancouver on May 11 and is scheduled to dock in Anchorage on May 18. Arnold Parnaud, who teaches pilot training courses at the Canadian Aviation College located in the Vancouver area, says both the Otter and Beaver plane models are solid and extremely common in the industry. It is not yet clear what caused Mondays accident in Alaska, but Parnaud, who has had his pilots licence for a decade, said flying float planes in rural areas poses significant challenges. Read more: Richmond, B.C., woman among six killed in Alaska float plane crash Rescue workers sift through a lot of wreckage at scene of deadly float plane crash in Alaska Conditions on the water can change without warning and they are not regulated in the same way as runways there could be birds, floating logs or waves at any moment, he said. You are at the mercy of nature, he said. Flying floats is its own niche. Its unique. In addition, pilots in more remote areas like Alaska must rely on other pilots to report their position and intended flight path over the radio. Unlike at major airports, there is no air traffic control to co-ordinate take off and landing times. A lot of awareness really relies on pilots keeping their eye out for traffic. It is not the first time a major plane crash has occurred near Ketchikan, which is known for whale watching, halibut and salmon fishing and other nature tours. The National Transportation Safety Board in the United States said in a 2017 report that there have been four fatal crashes involving air tours from cruise ships in Alaska from 2007 to 2015. In 2015, a de Havilland DHC-3 float plane operated by Promech Air crashed into the mountainside 39 kilometres northeast of Ketchikan. All nine people on board died. The National Transportation Safety Boards 2017 report on the incident recommended better training programs for air tour operators in the area, and noted the need for better awareness of scheduling pressures associated with air tours from cruise ships. It is not clear whether these recommendations have been implemented yet. That 2017 report also referenced a 2007 crash in the same area, involving a DHC-2 airplane operated by Taquan Air Service, now known as Taquan Air. All five people on board died in that crash. Following the 2007 crash, the NTSB recommended that weather surveillance cameras be installed along critical tour routes in southeast Alaska and that ground-based observation of air tour flights be conducted at least once a month to ensure safe flying practices were being followed. The board also recommended that commercial pilots flying in the region be given cue-based training for weather hazards. By 2012, all recommendations had been implemented, according to the NTSB. A chief officer of a major international cruise line, who has worked the Vancouver-Alaska route on and off since 2010, told Star Vancouver that the risks of flying float planes are widely known in the cruise ship tourism industry. All cruise lines use (float planes). Tight schedules and timelines to complete as many tourist flights as possible during short cruise season, flying very difficult terrain, sometimes really pushing weather and visibility limits are all factors that contribute to accidents, said the second-in-command chief officer, who would not provide his name because of a non-disclosure agreement. He has no direct knowledge of Mondays crash. Float planes are notoriously dangerous from an escape point of view. They can sink rapidly and people inside who would otherwise survive with little or minor injury become very quickly disoriented, he added, reflecting views similar to those from the NTSB report. According to Canadas Transportation Safety Board records going back to 2004, there have been 63 incidents where a DHC-2 Beaver aircraft sustained substantial damage, and six cases where the plane was completely destroyed. For the Havilland Otter DHC-3, there were 22 cases where that model suffered substantial damage, and two instances where the aircraft was destroyed. The agency also notes that one in seven fatalities from airplanes that crash into water are due to drowning. In fact, about half of the people who survive the impact of a crash cannot exit the aircraft and end up drowning. Read more about: The first question was why Kenny Burrell, the guitar master who recorded with John Coltrane and Aretha Franklin, and released many of his own albums during Blue Note's golden age, found himself in such a crisis that his wife had to start a GoFundMe campaign. "It saddens and embarrasses me to desperately need and request help, but it is necessary at this point," Katherine Burrell wrote in launching the crowdfunding effort last week. And yet there he was, the 87-year-old jazz legend smiling and holding a guitar above a tale of medical and financial disaster. This, in a world where a washed-up first baseman can make $30 million and a Hollywood star twice that for a single movie. According to his wife, Burrell had an accident two years ago that left him unable to perform. There's also the identity theft that created a tangle of credit and savings issues. "It's so outrageous," said John McLaughlin, the British guitarist famous for his work with Miles Davis and his own Mahavishnu Orchestra. "What happened to humanity?" "It's gut-wrenching," said Don Was, the bassist, producer and president of Blue Note Records since 2012. Both Was and McLaughlin have donated to the campaign, as have many other musicians, including guitarist Pat Metheny. "He's one of the greatest improvising musicians of the past 100 years or so," Metheny said before a show in Maine earlier this week. "It's horrible to think it has come to this." The Detroit native has played on at least 100 records, which is probably a conservative estimate. Burrell made his recording debut with Dizzy Gillespie in 1951, teamed up for a record with Coltrane in 1958 and spent the 1960s doing not only session work - with everyone from Louis Armstrong to James Brown - but also starring on organist Jimmy Smith's smash Blue Note records, including "The Cat" and "Organ Grinder Swing," both of which cracked the Billboard Top 20. "He was a killer," McLaughlin said. "We all imitated Kenny. Who else are you going to imitate? Coltrane never recorded with a guitar and yet he recorded with Kenny." "He's always had this clarity in the way that he plays," Metheny said. "People talk about blues guitar and you kind of have this image in your mind of B.B. King and Son House, and Kenny is connected to that in a very deep way but in a very different kind of way. The cleaner kind of sound. There's not really any string bending going on." Trumpet player Joey DeFrancesco also contributed to the campaign. "I think the biggest thing to speak to is what a wonderful human being he is," DeFrancesco said. "He's always so nice to everybody. A wonderful cat. And as you can see, that's why everybody jumped on the case." By that, he means the 2,831 contributors who responded in the first six days. By Wednesday, the campaign's goal of $100,000 had been surpassed by $50,000. Donors include former Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore, pianist Ahmad Jamal, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, and guitarists Smokey Hormel and Jimmy Vivino, not to mention a slew of fans who have given $10, $15 and $20. "Fans need to understand it's only the rare stars that make enough money that they're set," said Hormel, who has recorded with the likes of Johnny Cash, Beck, Joe Strummer and Jenny Lewis. "Musicians have to work their whole lives. That's just how it is. And somebody like Kenny Burrell, I'm sure on a lot of those records it was just a day rate, session fee, and probably didn't get any residuals." Burrell didn't just play. He's been a music professor at UCLA, establishing the first college course on Duke Ellington there, and he was named an NEA jazz master in 2005. But last week, his wife revealed that the unresolved mess - and Burrell's medical bills - made her fearful that they might be left homeless. Burrell isn't the first musician to seek help through crowdfunding. Drummer Alphonse Mouzon raised $61,000 after he was diagnosed with cancer. (He died in 2016.) And New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, who has cancer, is in the midst of a campaign. Was said that what's happening with Burrell is a larger problem that extends beyond music. He watched it with his own father, who died last year at 93. "I'm not surprised that anybody who is nearly 90 years old has problems surviving," he said. "Whether they're musicians or teachers or flight attendants. So I'm not shocked. Kenny's had an exceptionally bad series of unpredictable events that no retirement plan could really anticipate." Blue Note Records had a special relationship with Burrell, who recorded for the label during his prime (1956-1963) and returned in the 1980s. Even though Burrell is contractually no longer tied to the label, Was said he was working with the family. And Burrell? He returned a pair of phone calls earlier this week but said he didn't want to do any interviews. "I'm doing OK right now," he said. "Listen, let me just say that." NORFOLK, Va. (AP) Sit down at a family-style Mexican restaurant in southeastern Virginia, and chances are you will be served a mysterious white sauce unknown in Mexico. The dipping sauce has no name except white sauce, or salsa blanca, and it was, by all accounts, invented in Hampton Roads. It comes free with your basket of tortilla chips, alongside standard tomato salsa, and it is so popular that old-school Mexican American restaurants can live or die by the quality of their version. If we walk into a Mexican restaurant and they dont serve white sauce, we turn around and leave, said Lee Tolliver, a reporter at The Pilot and a Hampton Roads native. The sauce is a little like ranch dressing, except fuming with garlic and spice. And it is delicious in the way that onion dip is delicious. But if you travel much more than 100 miles from Norfolk, it becomes rare. Aside from a few pockets of the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, its served almost nowhere else in North America except Virginia and northern North Carolina. I used to travel a lot for work, said Theresa Magyar, a Norfolk fan of the sauce. Id ask for white sauce in other parts of the country and theyd look at me like I had two heads! I finally figured out that it was a local wonderful delicacy. Manuel Vasquez serves the white sauce at his restaurant, Costa del Sol, in Windsor. He also served it when he ran a location of local Mexican chain Plaza Azteca in Suffolk. But hed never encountered it before moving to Virginia from New York 15 years ago. We can say this is originally from Virginia. Other states dont have it, Vasquez said. Where it came from? Who started making it? A lot of people, including Mexican people, have that question, too. But we make it. We have to have it, because the people come in and ask for white sauce. They need it. The sauce, as it turns out, is entirely homegrown. In the 1970s in Norfolk, when you went out for Mexican food, you went to El Toro. The restaurant was open in the 60s and became a phenomenon in the 70s, when it was taken over by Willie Jenkins, a large-framed man with dyed red hair and a personality described by former employees as both gruff and generous. He didnt really take any guff. He had a harsh attitude, said Sharon Mason Barish, who pretty much grew up at El Toro when her mother worked there in the 1970s. At the time, the restaurant at 3574 N. Military Highway was the only Mexican restaurant in Hampton Roads, said Dana Smith-Clifton, whose mother was a waitress there for 25 years. Smith-Clifton also took a job there. On Fridays and Saturdays people would be lined up all around the building, Smith-Clifton recalled. When he opened El Toro, he struck a gold mine. They were always busy, I dont care what day of the week, Barish said. Early on, Smith-Clifton said, no one working at the restaurant actually came from Mexico, but it was the only Mexican food many here knew. The restaurant became famous for its enchilada and red sauces, and its simple take on nachos just white cheese and jalapenos melted over halved taco shells. But, especially, El Toro became famous for its white sauce. That signature item began not as a chip dip, but as a salad dressing. We served it in the same cups as the salsa, Smith-Clifton said. Over the course of a decade, the sauce slowly migrated from the lettuce to the tortilla chips. Eventually, she said, they just started serving it as a free salsa alongside the traditional red salsa. Smith-Clifton believes the sauce predates Jenkins time there, to the bars original owners. But Barish said Jenkins called it an old family recipe and kept it like a state secret. My mother worked there seven days a week, Barish said. They never divulged the recipe to her. Barish eventually got the recipe from a family member who worked there. The secret ingredient turned out to be plain-old Miracle Whip salad dressing, mixed with milk, cumin, oregano and crushed red peppers. The Miracle Whip came in big jugs, Smith-Clifton said. We made up spices in bags like newspapers used to come in when it was raining. We made the spices up, then layered in the spices that whole bag went into them jugs then we just stirred and stirred. Then the white sauce had to sit for at least 48 hours. You could eat it right off, but then it wasnt as spicy as it needed to be. When Jenkins sold El Toros original location in 1990, the sauce passed on to Paul Pappy Gibson, a former state magistrate who called the place Pappys Hacienda. El Toro by then had opened two more locations in Virginia Beach and both have closed. But the white sauce lived on in other restaurants in Hampton Roads. The white sauce might have become just a fond memory if it werent for a group of Mexican American restaurateurs who moved to Virginia Beach in 1995. When Miguel Lopez, Jesus Torres and Ruben and Raul Leon opened the first location of local Mexican restaurant chain Plaza Azteca on Holland Road in February 1996, the region still had only a few Mexican restaurants. The partners were experienced restaurateurs, with numerous Mexican restaurants throughout the American south. When they opened here, they found a Virginia Beach dining populace primed to ask for white sauce with their tortilla chips. Plaza Azteca general manager Ronald Martinez said the Azteca white sauce is not based on El Toros, though Miguel Lopez may have tried some other peoples sauces. Lopez brought a distinctly Mexican sensibility and set of ingredients to his sauce, stemming from his roots in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. For Plaza Azteca, white sauce was a way to stand apart from other Mexican restaurants and also a lower-cost alternative to offering queso dip. We experimented with salad dressing, Martinez said. We mixed in jalapenos, milk, crushed peppers, fresh onions. Miguel took two months to get the right balance. Eventually, nobody asked for the red salsa. Everybody asked for the white salsa. The sauces base is a mixture of milk and a plain salad dressing. Unlike El Toro, Plaza Azteca serves its white sauce immediately after its made, with both fresh and canned jalapenos and a secret weapon to punch up the sauces heat and brightness: a little spicy brine from the La Costena jalapeno cans. Azteca also uses fresh garlic, as opposed to the garlic powder used at El Toro. We sometimes make it two times a day, Martinez said. Today, the Plaza Azteca group is a juggernaut, with more than 60 restaurants, most of them in Virginia and others in North Carolina and the mid-Atlantic. Wherever Plaza Azteca went, the sauce followed, leading to small white-sauce pockets in cities outside of Virginia. Even if the sauce didnt start in Mexico, its now served there, Martinez said. Families of the owners, they visited from Jalisco, and they took the sauce back. They dont sell it, but they serve it to their families. They make it for festivals. Part of the reason that white sauce has taken hold in Hampton Roads is that so many of the regions Mexican American restaurateurs got their start working for Plaza Azteca. Nobody has the original recipe. So everyone makes their own versions, said Casa del Sols Vasquez, who said nostalgic former customers have asked him to mail his white sauce to Texas, where it doesnt exist. Some people use onions in their sauce, he said, some dont. Some use milk and water in different mixtures. Some add coriander. Even different Plaza Azteca locations, he said, seem to have developed their own evolutions of the sauce. Smith-Clifton said the white sauce served at El Azteca at 1522 E. Little Creek Road in Norfolk is the closest shes found to El Toros. Ernesto Alonso, who now owns Plaza del Sol in Norfolks Ghent neighborhood, encountered the sauce for the first time when he moved from Chicago to Virginia to partner with the Plaza Azteca group of restaurants. He is proud of the recipe he now serves. Even if we just give it away for free, it has our name on it. We take pride in our white sauce, he said. Its like ranch dressing, but its our ranch. Its like a Mexican version of ranch dressing. MONTGOMERY, Ala. - As a crop duster with a banner saying "Abortion is okay," hummed above the Capitol, circling back and forth around the governor's mansion, a group of women below let out a cheer. "Just another day in Alabama," said Mia Raven, director of People Organizing for Women's Empowerment and Rights (POWER) House. "We knew this would pass and we got ready." Amanda Reyes, who works with an abortion fund, was wearing an "I'm on the pill" T-shirt, complete with instructions printed on the back detailing how to get a medical abortion. She also looked skyward: "Here it comes again! That's just the coolest thing." Hours after the Alabama Senate voted late Tuesday to ban abortions in almost all circumstances - including in cases of rape and incest - women's rights activists and pro-choice advocates said the decision to approve the nation's strictest abortion measure has energized them. Knowing that the bill was designed to challenge Roe v. Wade, they are gearing up for the fight. Surrounded by posters and signs like "This Clinic Stays Open," Raven called the passage of Alabama's restrictive law "totally expected." "And totally blatantly unconstitutional," she said Wednesday outside of Reproductive Health Services, one of three clinics that perform abortions in Alabama. Raven has served as an escort to those seeking abortions here, and a hanger charm dangles from her necklace, displaying the instrument that in the past has been used for abortions that had to be done in secret. ""We are open for women who need abortions. We are fighting. We won't stop." Conservatives and antiabortion activists also were prepared for a battle, celebrating the Alabama vote as a victory for their movement and a step toward a national legal reckoning over abortion. Though not demonstrating in the streets, Alabama's antiabortion base - which recently helped define the state as officially pro-life at the ballot box - took solace in the fact that the state's ban on abortion set a new restrictive standard. "Being a conservative follower of Christ who is pro-life, who believes life begins at conception, this has been what we've been longing for," said Alabama evangelist and minister Scott Dawson, who ran as a GOP candidate for governor in Alabama in 2018. "After years of talk and people campaigning on being pro-life, these Republican senators stood for that in last night's debate." The Senate's approval of the legislation in a party-line 25-6 vote Tuesday night sent it to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey's desk. A Republican who campaigned as an advocate of restrictions on abortion, Ivey has long supported anti-abortion measures in Alabama. Ivey signed the law Wednesday, saying in a statement that the legislation "stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians' deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God." Ivey said she recognizes that the bill might be unenforceable because of Roe v. Wade, and she said "we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions." She said the sponsors of the bill "believe that it is time, once again, for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur." Staci Fox, president of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said the group has vowed to fight the "dangerous abortion ban" at every step and plans to sue the state."We haven't lost a case in Alabama yet and we don't plan to start now," Fox said. "We will see Governor Ivey in court. In the meantime, abortion is still safe, legal, and available in the state of Alabama and we plan to keep it that way." The bill passed after more than four hours of debate. The chamber's small group of Democrats spoke emotionally on the Senate floor, decrying a bill they said would force crime victims who suffer rapes and incest to give birth to babies that are the progeny of their attackers. The GOP-dominated Senate voted down an amendment that would have added exceptions for rape and incest - though four Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the amendment, some of whom had said publicly that they were having trouble with the idea of an absolute ban on abortion. The only exceptions in the bill are in cases when the health of the mother is at risk and if the fetus has a "fatal anomaly" that would cause it to die soon after birth. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Terri Collins, said it is intended to serve as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. The Republican lawmaker said she hopes the bill will establish that personhood begins at conception. Dawson said those who support restrictions on abortion - even in the case of a woman impregnated by rape or incest - believe that the unborn fetus' rights must be taken into account, and that this bill is the first step to get to that goal. Eric Johnston, the chairman and founder of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, has been working to make abortion illegal for decades, and he drafted the current measure, aiming for a Supreme Court that he believes will rule against abortion. "Last year, we decided this is probably the time. The time seems right, and the circumstances seemed right," Johnston said, noting that he believes federal precedent on abortion is "fraudulent and improper. "Now everyone can see the humanity of the child." He said Wednesday that the bill needed to pass in its pure form, with almost no allowed exceptions, or else it wouldn't send the right message. Johnston said he and other anti-abortion activists spent the weekend calling legislators to shore up the vote against an amendment that would have added those exceptions. "If this exception was added to the bill, it would have killed the bill," Johnston said. "Whether you were raped or a victim of incest or get pregnant by consent or accident or even artificial insemination, it's still a person. We could not argue to the court with a straight face that it's a person in one instance but not in another." Though abortion rights advocates were disappointed in the Senate passing the measure, they said that the move galvanized their movement and that they believe it will draw more public support for abortion rights. Raven, the founder of POWER, spent the day Wednesday trying to push the message on social media and to patients that "we are still here and not going anywhere." Her bungalow, POWER House, sits next door to the women's health clinic in Montgomery, housing women overnight who come here from Alabama's rural areas. Volunteers work with the women to help them understand their rights, the services available to them, and to help them, too, become advocates. "And we do it in red-state Alabama," she said, adding that the governor's mansion is just three blocks away. "This is what we have been doing for decades. And we want the women of Alabama to know we are here for them." SPRINGFIELD A group of K-12 education representatives on Tuesday added to the chorus of calls for a statewide capital infrastructure bill that goes beyond road and bridge projects. At a Capitol press event, the group detailed infrastructure needs at school districts across the state. They did not, however, give any suggestions as to how that revenue for capital infrastructure projects could be raised. I think our role is to show that the need exists across the state pretty widespread, and then show the most effective and efficient ways that we could use the money to enhance educational opportunities, said Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. I think our big job is to rely on the General Assembly to determine the revenues to fund a capital bill. In a budget proposal packet distributed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in January, K-12 deferred maintenance needs were estimated at $9.3 billion. The state has not passed a capital projects bill since 2009. Superintendents from Scott-Morgan CUSD 2 in Bluffs and Murphyspboro CUSD 186 also detailed aging facilities and classrooms that cannot accommodate the students in their districts at the news conference. The General Assembly is discussing an infrastructure funding bill which would increase motor fuel taxes and state licensing fees. But the $2.4 billion in estimated revenue generated in that proposal could be used only for roads and bridges due to a lock box amendment passed in 2016. Funding for vertical infrastructure would have to come from other sources. State Rep. Will Davis, a Homewood Democrat, said discussions for revenue are ongoing, although he did not give specifics as to where money would come from. What these folks behind me (superintendents and education representatives) also have to do is advocate, not just for the project itself, because Im sure that our legislators will support the project, Davis said. They also have to encourage their legislators to be open-minded when it comes to the revenue side of this as well because it is going to take some tough votes to get us to where we need to go. Summer concerts are on. Jacksonville Main Street recently announced the lineup for the 2019 Summer Concert Series held each year on the square downtown. New this year, an after party after each weeks concert will be hosted by a downtown bar, Executive Director Judy Tighe said. There will also be a prize for the school with the most students, staff and alumni who check in at the concerts. The school with the most concert attendees at the end of eight weeks will win a rooftop pizza party at The HandleBar. Tighe said the challenge is open to all schools and colleges local or not. The series brought in a variety of music genres, which Tighe said had been really popular in the past. Zydeco and Bluegrass bands are back in the lineup by popular demand. This years concert series will not include opening bands. Tighe said the decision was made in part because the budget for the program was down, but also based on when people arrive for the concerts. The series is going forward despite not getting a major sponsor. With more local sponsorships than ever before and by putting expenses in check, Tighe said Main Street was able to move forward with the series. The organization is still hoping to get the Americas Main Streets contest prize of $25,000, which Tighe said would help pay for any shortfalls this year and go into funding next years concerts. Online voting is open through May 26. Nashville band Def Leprechaun will kick of the series off with Celtic music May 31. An after party will be hosted by The HandleBar. On June 7, The Harmans will bring Bluegrass music to Jacksonville and an after party will be hosted by Kinleys. A returning act from Portland, Oregon, will perform June 14. Dirty Revival was in the concert lineup two years ago, Tighe said. They were soul, R&B, hip-hop and, oh, shes got a wonderful voice, Tighe said. They were just a whole lot of fun. An after party will be hosted by KJBs Pinthouse. Rock band Steepwater Band will perform June 21 with an after party at Dons Place; Kansas City-based blues artist Nick Schnebelen will perform June 28 with an after party at Laheys; and classic rock band CJ Ryder Pastmasters will perform July 19 with an after party at KJBs Pinthouse. Nashville-based country artist and Jacksonville native Gabe Marshall will be returning to the series July 26. Tighe said Marshall performed last year and was popular because of his strong connection to Jacksonville. Marshall now lives in Nashville where he has recording contracts. Hes always very gracious and goes around and says hi to everybody just like hes back home, she said. An after party will be hosted at The HandleBar. The last concert of the series will be Aug. 2, with Zydeco music from Chicago-based Hurricane Gumbo. An after party will be hosted by AmVets Post 100. GLEN CARBON During the village trustee meeting Tuesday, Glen Carbon Mayor Rob Jackstadt reviewed his appointments for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, which were unanimously approved. Stacy Jose will remain as building and zoning administrator. She was hired in February. Now that retired police lieutenant Mark Foley is a new board trustee, Lt. Ned Miller was promoted to take Foleys former role and Sgt. Jeff Blind was promoted to Millers old position. With two new trustees, Jackstadt set who sits on committees, which the village board also unanimously approved. Mary Beth Williams will chair the Building and Development Committee, along with Bob Marcus and Walt Harris. Ben Maliszewski will lead the Finance and Administration Committee, with new trustees Susan Jensen and Mark Foley. Jackstadt said traditionally, the new trustees start by being on this committee, which the mayor feels gives new members the best overview of how the city functions. Walt Harris will chair the Public Safety Committee with Jensen and Foley and Bob Marcus will lead the Public Services Committee with Mary Beth Williams and Ben Maliszewski. Jackstadt will also serve as the Glen Carbon regional sewer commissioner. Harris will be the liaison to the historical and museum commission, Jensen will be the liaison to the Cool Cities Committee and Mark Foley will be the liaison for the Glen Carbon Community Events Committee. The trustee voting order this year is Williams, Maliszewski, Harris, Marcus, Jensen and Foley. In other news, the trustees unanimously approved the following items: Volunteer board/commission/committee assignments for the new fiscal year Change order for Old Troy Road in the amount of $144,468 Two requests to solicit for funds at Meridian and Glen Crossing roads, one from VFW Post 2222 on May 18 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and the other from Partners for Pets on June 8 from 8 to 10 a.m. A rezoning amendment for 11 acres adjacent to Greenspace East Park, along Village Drive from residential multifamily PDP to residential multifamily. A developer wants to put 80 multi-family units in 20 buildings on the site, however, in the early 1970s, a planned development project overlay zone was adopted. Village staff could not locate that specific ordinance to know what restrictions, if any, were applied, so a re-zoning back to the original district was approved Similarly, a 13-acre vacant lot owned by the village on South Station Road was rezoned back to its original zoning, from multifamily residential to agricultural A resolution authorizing the execution of a reciprocal agreement between the village and the Illinois Department of Revenue Proclaiming May as Motorcycle Awareness Month Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at (618) 656-4700, ext. 31 ARLINGTON, Va. - Almost 100 years after Confederate sympathizers named a major Virginia road after the president of their lost cause, Arlington County won approval from a state transportation board to rename Jefferson Davis Highway. The Commonwealth Transportation Board voted unanimously Wednesday morning to allow Arlington to change the name of the road - commonly known as Route 1 - to Richmond Highway by Oct. 1, after lobbying by the county, legislators, business and residential groups and Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat. "What we just heard, through the unanimous vote and the words of the governor, is it's past time," said Christian Dorsey, a Democrat and chair of the County Board. He added later that the street signs would be changed no later than Oct. 1. The county has tried for years to change the road's name, but has been stymied by the General Assembly, which held the power to block requests made by counties, officials believed. But Del. Mark Levine, D-Alexandria, found an exception that allowed the statewide transportation board to act, if requested by the county. Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, agreed in an informal opinion in March, and one month later Arlington made the formal request. Business owners told the board Wednesday that having addresses on Jefferson Davis Highway cost them customers, including the loss of a convention at the hotel where the meeting was held. Other potential tenants have refused to rent space in buildings with a Jefferson Davis address, a Chamber of Commerce executive said. In addition, Google Maps and other online navigational sites, have already started calling the road "Richmond Highway." JBG Smith, the major landlord and developer of Crystal City, and the Crystal City Civic Association also strongly supported the name change. The road runs right through the neighborhood where Amazon plans to settle over the next 10 years, although there was no public statement about the name change from the Seattle-based company. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Stacey Stewart, president of the March of Dimes, which relocated to Arlington late last year, said the highway's name is "divisive and a daily reminder of our nation's dark and shameful history ... a painful and oppressive past." She, like others, said the Confederate president's name does not reflect the region's values. The road was named in 1922, part of an effort by the Daughters of the Confederacy as a "direct and antagonistic response" to the establishment of Lincoln Highway across the northern states, Dorsey said. Davis, a Mississippi congressman before the Southern states seceded in 1861, had no known connection to Northern Virginia. He was accused of treason after the Civil War and was imprisoned but was released without trial. The name was established to "terrorize" African-Americans, Levine said. "Let's not forget that Virginia was the birthplace of slavery," he added. The city of Alexandria, Virginia, renamed its portion of the road in 2018, choosing the monicker Richmond Highway because that's what it is called to the south, in Fairfax County. The Arlington portion of U.S. 1 and Virginia 110 will bear the new name, the transportation board decided. The motion sailed through with only a hint of opposition, when board member Bert Dodson of of Lynchburg asked whether the board would be "overrun" with name change requests. Secretary of Transportation Shannon Valentine, who chairs the board, said that will be dealt with later. GODFREY Aside from a smattering of evident supporters, Lewis and Clark Community Colleges 200-seat Trimpe Building Tuesday night was filled to near-capacity with students, employees and citizens calling for the colleges brand new board chairman, David Heyen, to resign following boiled-over outrage spurred by multiple Facebook posts viewed as anti-Muslim, inaccurate and incendiary. Im David Heyen, he read from a pre-written statement. I am relatively new to the concept of social media. I shared some posts in order to generate conversation about various topics on my personal Facebook page. He continued, This wasnt done in my official capacity as a trustee. This is now being used as a distraction by a small faction of people who are not happy that Ive asked tough questions of the trustees and sought to hold the administration accountable, and provide transparency in the spending of tax dollars. He read that he aimed to help the administration become the best community college in the state, while being fiscally responsible. He said the college has more than $130 million in long-term debt and criticized the salaries paid by the college and alluded to non-bid contracts given to associates of the administration. We refused to be distracted, he said. Prior to the meeting, between 75 and 100 protesters gathered on campus, calling for Heyens resignation over the posts. The colleges communications office last week issued a direct rebuke of the chairmans social media conduct. A statement, in part, read, Lewis and Clark remains committed to modeling our core values of service, respect, responsibility, compassion and integrity. These comments and posts do not represent the culture of Lewis and Clark. The Telegraph has chosen not to publish descriptions of the posts. An actionable item on Tuesday nights agenda called for the board to ask submit an official, yet merely-advisory, call for Heyen to resign. Trustee Dwight Werts, in a read statement, said he feared Heyens rhetoric would sacrifice the future and accreditation of the college. He said that the institution is built on diversity and inclusiveness and said Heyens actions were in direct conflict with Lewis and Clarks mission. If this institution is as important to Mr. Heyen as it is the rest of us, he should resign from this board. Heyen ally and new Trustee Kevin Rust called for due process in the matter, as college officials are conduction their own investigation into Heyens conduct. Also a Heyen ally and the boards new Vice Chairman, Julie Johnson, said she considered the criticism against Heyen a criminality and an attempt to destroy his character. She urged people to speak to those close to Heyen to know who he is as a person. The way this situation has played out really scares me, she said. It makes me wonder who they will try to silence next. The remark attracted laughter and jeers from the crowd. Heyen responded by calling on college security officers to remove those making the disturbance but they made no reaction to the order, and the meeting continued. The measure to compel Heyen to resign failed with the help of Heyen himself who did not recuse himself from the vote, despite the inherent presence conflict, and in-line votes from Johnson, Rust and other board newcomer, Charles Hanfelder. Trustees Robert Watson, Brenda Walker McCain and Dwight Werts, who have served on the board since 1977, 1999 and 2009, perspectively. The same vote parted with the approval of a measure to modify board policies that McCain said would shift personnel power away from President Dale Chapman to the board and its staunch majority. Its against everything we learned in board training, she said. Watson asked for an extension to read the bill, as the board was give 48 hours to give it a look, and it was released on Mothers Day. That motion was denied. Heyen, Johnson, Rust and Hanfelder also voted to allow Heyen to appoint an ad hoc committee to find a new board attorney. Prior to the vote, Werts asked Heyen who he was considering for the assignment. Heyen replied that he couldnt consider the decision if the measure wasnt approved. Immediately after the vote, he appointed Hanfelder and Rust. That move drew immediate protest from Werts, noting that Watson is a long-time attorney with a highly-regarded resume. Hes a former Illinois attorney general. The moves made by the boards majority, including invalidating dozens of signed three-year employment contracts during a special meeting two weeks ago. The board plans to re-examine and possibly renegotiate those contracts, despite the boards legal council warning that it could lead to litigation. as well as Heyens social media conduct, drew criticism and outrage from about 20 who faced the board Tuesday night during public comments. Former LCCC student Andrew Matthews said that he always felt secure at the college, being openly gay. You can imagine my absolute horror when I heard Heyens words of racism and xenophobia, he said. It always felt like a safe place for people to be who they are. He specifically addressed and criticized Trustee Johnsons previous comments about being afraid of mass public criticism, noting minority groups common fear of being subjected to bigotry and intolerance. We deserve better, he said. Meagan McGlasson addressed the board, evoking her experiences teaching English to Muslim students in St. Louis. I just wanted to tell you what youre losing by alienating those students, she said. Youre losing generous, and cooperative, and inspiring students that come to class every day hoping to make their lives better. And youre losing the type of students who support that kind of diversity in the classroom. I can tall you that its the most rewarding work Ive ever done in my life. Addressing Heyen directly, she continued, By staying on the board, youre shooting your students and faculty in the foot. Sasha Bassett, an Alton-area community advocate said she noticed a crucifix pin Heyen is wearing in his official LCCC portrait. He has served as pastor for various churches, according to his online biography. As a Christian, I wondered how youd feel if you were accused of being not fit to serve public office merely on the basis of your religion, as a Christian. Diane McDonough, of LCCCs nursing school pointed out that Heyen has a 2005 criminal conviction in Macoupin County for tax fraud. I wonder how you could fully support the taxpayers when you, yourself, has that record, she said. She also praised the work of the President Dale Chapman and his wife, Vice President of Academic Affairs Linda Chapman. I remember when this was known as Last Chance Community College, she said. That man and that woman changed the reputation. Dawna Egelhoff, learning assessment specialist at the college, pointed out the multiple sums of private gifts and grant money the board had voted to accept earlier in the evening, saying the generosity is a direct result of producing high-quality graduates. My heart hurts tonight, because of the environment that were in. she said, interrupted by applause. Its why we have so many people here. A long-time Jacksonville resident is among those celebrating the work of the Tau Kappa Epsilon Zeta-Pi fraternity chapter at Culver-Stockton College, which has been ranked as the best in the nation. The Canton, Missouri, chapter has been ranked first out of 237 chapters. This is an extremely significant achievement, said John Freitag, formerly of Jacksonville and now of Galena. He is a chairman on the board of advisers for the TKEs. We are going up against colleges that are huge with lots of alumni with lots of dollars. Some schools are recruiting students with as many as 5,000 males on campus, he said. We have limited male opportunities. Something like this takes a whole collaboration of college administrators, alumni and leadership in the fraternity. For a school the size of Culver-Stockton, its a pretty rare accomplishment. Tau Kappa Epsilon is a social college fraternity that was founded in 1899 and has chapters throughout the United States and Canada. The Zeta-Pi chapter at Culver-Stockton College was founded in April 1959. It has 53 active members and 19 new members. The Prytanis (chapter president) is Steven Walker from Palmyra, Missouri, and the chapter adviser is Nathan Sparks of Canton, Missouri. The TKE chapters are divided into four regions and ranked in several categories, such as chapter size, recruitment and dollars raised for St. Jude Childrens Hospital and other philanthropic efforts. Its difficult to raise a lot of money in a small community, but these guys do pumpkin sales, car washes, house painting, yard sales anything to raise money, Freitag said. The TKEs also performed 1,784 hours of service in the community in the past year. They have picked up trash on the highway, helped the elderly with something they might need or do work on someones house, Freitag said. The chapter also is ranked on the number of new members initiated, creation of newsletters, academic success, activity in student government and other organizations on campus, and attendance at regional conferences and forums. The Zeta-Pi chapter finished 31st in the TKE rankings last year and 15th in 2017. Walker gave credit to past presidents Alfred Guidicy and Alec Oren for putting Zeta-Pi in a position to ascend to the No. 1 ranking. There were a lot of stepping stones to this achievement, Walker said. It feels like of surreal, but it also feels nice that were competing against some of these larger chapters. This was a group effort. GLEN CARBON Soft-shell tacos were the primary menu item as St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Glen Carbon held its first taco dinner from 4-7 p.m. on Wednesday. Chicken or ground beef tacos sold for $1.75 each and included one side, a soft drink and brownies for dessert. The event, which also included a craft sale, was a fundraiser for the ECW (Episcopal Church Women) Outreach Programs. Potential uses for the money include building a bridge for a village in the Phillippines where children have to walk in water on their way to school. JERSEYVILLE The pastor of four Jersey County Catholic churches has resigned amid concerns about possible mishandling of parish funds, according to a statement from the Springfield Diocese. A letter from Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Springfield Diocese announcing the resignation was read during weekend Masses at Holy Ghost and St. Francis Xavier Parish in Jerseyville, St. Mary Parish in Fieldon, St. Patrick Parish in Grafton and St. Ambrose Parish in Godfrey in Madison County. The letter said the Rev. Steve Pohlman submitted his resignation after being notified of concerns about possible mishandling of parish funds at his previous assignment at St. Ambrose Parish in Godfrey as well as the parishes to which he was assigned in Jerseyville, Fieldon and Grafton. Concerns have also been raised about his alleged inadequate responses to the pastoral needs of parishioners on some occasions and reported violations of liturgical norms, the letter said. A forensic audit is being conducted over the financial concerns and an inquiry into the pastoral and liturgical concerns is being conducted, according to the diocese. The results of both the forensic audit and the inquiry into the pastoral and liturgical concerns will be shared with the Special Panel on Clergy Misconduct for its review and recommendations. The Special Panel on Clergy Misconduct is advisory to the bishop and is composed of mostly lay people, including former law enforcement officials. Jersey County States Attorney Ben Goetten said his office has not been contacted or consulted in the matter. Paprocki has appointed the Rev. Martin Smith as parochial administrator of the four Jersey County churches. A new pastor has already been chosen, according to the letter. Because it will impact other parish assignments, the new pastor will be announced next weekend, when those announcements are made across the diocese. The change in leadership will take effect July 1, the letter said. In the meantime, other priests will assist Father Smith with celebrating Mass and administering the sacraments, Paprockis letter said. GODFREY About 75 people stood outside the Trimpe Building calling for Lewis and Clark Community College Board Chairman David Heyen to resign, but inside the building, Heyen said he would not. Heyen had come under fire for what was described as Islamophobic and racist postings on his Facebook page. The protest took place before the regular board meeting, which had been moved to the Trimpe Building because of the expected large crowd. One of the action items on the boards agenda was a request that Hayen resigns as chair and from the board. Heyen was named chair of the colleges board April 30 and is allied with three newly-elected members in calling for more fiscal scrutiny and restraint over school finances. People started gathering outside the building at about 5:30 p.m. as security officers watched and ushered people off of the sidewalks. The protest was organized by Umama Khenissi, a community activist from St. Louis. Were all one community when you think about it, she said. Something like this is very concerning, especially in a shared space in a community college where everybodys welcome. You have so many immigrants and minorities that attend this school, it is completely inappropriate and is a poor representation of the school, she said of Heyens actions. I dont think anybody who has those kinds of views should hold any position of power. Participants came from Illinois communities throughout the Metro East, while others came from Missouri. Sandie Pezold came from Staunton to participate. Just the posts by the chairman were so very disturbing, she said. I felt I had to come out and speak against those, and speak for diversity. Bob Pashos, of Godfrey, said the issue was reflective of what is happening with the Trump Administration. Very much a part of the type of hate speech we see out of this current administration, and extremely inappropriate for the president of a board such as this, he said, adding that he thought the actions of the Trump Administration has emboldened racists and bigots. One example among many, he said of the current issues at LCCC. Several LCCC faculty members were in the crowd. Peter Hussey, a professor in the Music Department, came because he wanted to support diversity. The idea that the Facebook posts that appeared on his page included a lot of hatred and bigotry, he said, Not only for the Muslim community, but immigrants, and etcetera. Its not appropriate speech for anyone, he added. When were thinking of someone to represent this college, and to lead this college, it does not in any way represent what this college is about. Many held signs and chanted. Several people spoke, including Faisan Syed, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Missouri. CAIR-Mo had called on Heyen to resign last week after the issue became public. We believe anybody who is in a position of education, especially for a diverse student body, that these types of posts mean they should not be in that position, Syed said. We are calling on him to resign, and if he doesnt want to resign, were asking the board to take action to hold him accountable. This is not a free speech issue, Syed added. We agree, everybody has the right to freedom of speech. You have the right in America to be a bigot or a racist but there are also consequences for your speech. He is in a position of responsibility on this campus. His speech is something that disqualifies him from being in that position, and we believe he should resign and do the honorable thing. Inside, Heyen, who had come into the building with a police escort, declined to discuss the issue before the meeting, saying he had a statement that would be read during the meeting. However, he did say he would not resign. Heyen had issued a statement to local media saying, I am relatively new to the concept of social media. I did share some posts in order to generate conversation about various topics on my personal Facebook page. This wasnt done in my official capacity as an LCCC Trustee. This is now being used as a distraction by a small faction of people who are not happy that I have asked tough questions as a trustee. Outside, Hussey dismissed the arguments that the controversy has been stirred by people who were upset with the change in the boards political make-up. It comes down to those posts on the page, and what it seems to represent, he said. He also noted that Heyens excuse that he wanted to start a conversation was weak because they were put up without preface or comment. Before the meeting LCCC President Dale Chapman was noncommittal. Were here tonight for a regularly scheduled board meeting, he said. There are serious issues on the agenda so we expect public comments and civil discourse. Well have the issues aired tonight and well let the board sort things out. Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447. ST. LOUIS Businesses that move or handle commodities on the Illinois River waterway are being encouraged to start making alternative plans due to the scheduled closure of locks. A two-week closure on the Illinois River is planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as early as August, with closures of 90 to 120 days expected in the summers of 2020 and 2023. Shippers will need to find alternate routes for the millions of tons of commodities that typically move along the Illinois River during those times or concentrate on avoiding the shipping closure windows. One alternative route would be the Mississippi River through the St. Louis metropolitan region. That could increase the commodities moving through its world-class freight network which includes the nations most efficient inland waterway port, minimal rail congestion and quick truck-turns. Six of the eight locks on the Illinois Waterway are scheduled to undergo major infrastructure repairs to sustain a navigable connection between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. The corps has developed plans for the simultaneous closure of multiple locks to provide time for much needed critical repairs and maintenance, while reducing impacts to navigation. Nearly 30 million tons of commodities a year move through the southernmost and busiest lock on the Illinois River the LaGrange Lock and Dam at Versailles. That also is the federal facility in most urgent need for major rehabilitation and repair, as well as the primary driver for the coordinated closure of the entire waterway over all six locks for 90 to 120 days July-October 2020. During the closures, no vessels will be able to pass through the affected locks. An exception may be made at LaGrange and Peoria locks if water levels are high enough to allow the wicket portions of the dams to be lowered for open-pass without using the lock. Summer may offer insights While the bulk of the work will not start until 2020, shippers will get a taste this summer of what to expect in 2020 and 2023 as the Starved Rock Lock & Dam in Ottawa and the Marseilles Lock and Dam in Marseilles have partial closures in June and July, as well as full closures Aug. 16-30. Its vital that industry members are aware of the plans, the timing and any steps they need to take in advance of the closures to help minimize the disruption to their operations or, to potentially be a part of the solution, said Mary Lamie, executive director of the St. Louis Regional Freightway. Shippers already route freight to the St. Louis region where the exceptional freight network means they benefit from lower distribution and logistics expenses and shorter travel times, she said. We should have the capacity to take on more and be a part of the solution for those who will be impacted, if the planning starts early. Mike Toohey, president and CEO of Waterways Council Inc., said what actually happens to commodity movements during the closure is the great unknown. Plan, be flexible, and be ready, he said. Businesses and farmers who need to move raw materials and freight during this period should make arrangements now, officials said, because the rest of the freight industry may need to adapt. A standard barge tow carries the equivalent of 1,070 truckloads or 216 railcars, prompting questions of where the trucks and the drivers will come from, and whether there will there be enough railcars. Alternatively, there is a fear that nothing will move during the shutdown periods by any mode. The economics of shifting cargo flows to alternative modes may not enable goods to be transported at a competitive cost. Transfer and storage capabilities could be challenged to provide the market needs in both the geographies of supply and demand. Accellerated timetables expected Marty Hettel, vice president of government affairs at American Commercial Barge Lines and chairman of the Inland Waterway User Board through May 27, said 90- to 120-day maintenance closures are common on other waterways in the winter, so the industry is used to them and works around them. The challenge, he said, is that such closures on the Illinois Waterway are unprecedented and the potential workarounds unknown. Each year, more than 10 million tons of corn and soybeans transit through the LaGrange Lock bound for export. Other non-agriculture products moved through the Illinois Waterway system locks include chemicals, petroleum products, ethanol, cement, styrene and raw materials for steel mills. Hettel said he believes some shippers will accelerate shipment timetables to move commodities by barge before the closure or wait until after the closure. But those timing shifts will require planning. The industry will need enough barges on hand to store and load in advance so they can be staged above the closure to carry them through and meet demand. Finished product can be loaded on emptied barges and take advantage of floating storage until it can be moved. Some critical commodities, such as ethanol, will have to move by truck or rail to points outside the locks since it cant be stored or put in a pipeline. Hettel said some agriculture product may go on trains to St. Louis to ship down the Mississippi River for export, or go to terminals below the LaGrange Lock. Much will depend on the price for agriculture commodities, he said. Liquid chemical shippers may be most impacted, as those products cannot sit as long in a barge. Hettel said some firms may schedule their own plant maintenance during the same time frame. He anticipates that, in advance of the closure, there will be an increase in production at Missouri cement companies that ship to Chicago. Certainly, we have the capacity on the river. Im not as familiar with rail, said Hettel. The key message is its better to plan for a closure than to deal with an unexpected outage. It gives flexibility to the folks in the St. Louis area to possibly take tonnage that would have moved by barge and accept it at their facilities and potentially ship it by rail instead. Soybean farmers weighing options Scott Sigman, transport and export infrastructure lead for the Illinois Soybean Association, says an average of 16 million tons of soybeans move though the locks annually. Nineteen of the 64 terminals in Illinois that handle soybeans are on the Illinois River, but there are potential alternative routings. There are 40 shuttle rail facilities in Illinois moving west, east and south toward New Orleans. He also points out the containerization option that currently moves about 10 percent of the soybeans by rail to coastal ports, noting it is a great alternative for accessing international markets which do not want to buy as much in bulk. Leveraging the flexibility of different directions and the wide range of modes available, soybean farmers have some options, he said. Some have storage. Some can store everything for a year. But many will have to take their commodities somewhere. The facilities south of LaGrange and in the St. Louis region will be busier than a one-armed paper hanger, he said. They will be a priority destination. But theyll be able to manage that through the pricing mechanism. Because of the sheer volume, Sigman anticipates a surge in advance of the closure, likely backfilling elevators slowly and using them as storage with another smaller surge after the system is reopened. He said he believes the 15-day closure this summer will be a key learning experience to see how the freight system and the industry responds. Questions about the planned lock closures on the Illinois Waterway may be directed to 309-794-5729 or CEMVR-CC@usace.army.mil.